It wasn't the alarm, he shut it off with a practiced arc of his arm. It wasn't the cold that found its way through the gap between the blanket and the sheet. It wasn't the dim winter light working its way through his eyelids. It was the pull of water.
Robbie pushed the blankets forward, swung his legs over the side of the bed and hesitated there for a moment, let his eyes adjust to the light. The cold, unfiltered through the warmth of wool, crept up his legs, down his arms, across his back. Tendrils of icy bite wormed into nerve endings. He wavered for a moment between making coffee first or heading straight to the shower.
The ideal course of action would be to begin the morning brew before entering the shower - that way, a fresh cup of coffee would be ready for him just as he was making his way out of the bathroom. But mornings, particularly Monday mornings, particularly these recent Monday mornings, are not a time for linear thought or logic. He grabbed a fresh towel and a set of clothes. He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.
It was winter outside, a season particularly suited to death - the barren trees, the ice, the fog, and of course the relentless, endless cold. His father had passed away two weeks ago. He had used up all the bereavement time allowed by his workplace, but most of that time was spent with his mother and siblings and relatives near and far, geographically and personally. He himself had to fly in from Seattle. He wanted to stay at a hotel, but his mother insisted family sleep at the house for as long as they were in town. No one had the heart or the energy to refuse, least of all Robbie.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Postage Stamps
How did the stakes get so high? How is it that two people come together and fall in love? How is it that two people independently decide to give their hears to one another ? What is it within us that draws us to love another, to give up all one can of one's self for the joy of another?
It's one of the only truly beautiful, nearly perfect things in life. Simultaneously intricate and straightforward, easy and hard, strong and fragile, eternal and passing.
Love lifts you up and the higher it takes you, the better the view and the longer the fall. Everyday love asks you to make a choice between staying and soaring ever higher or leaving and cutting your losses because no matter how beautiful the story, no matter how true the mate, no matter how giving, how selfless, how valiant, how kind, ". . .time will have his fancy, tomorrow or today," (Auden).
"I suppose we do the best we can with what time we have together," answers M.
"Well that's rather dark, don't you think?" A asks.
"What else can I say, I mean the guy's got a point.
"What point?"
"That we're all going to die someday, that no matter how good we are to one another, one of us is going to die someday."
"Yeah, but why do we have to think about this now?"
"Well, I think the point is to make sure that we don't waste time, that we appreciate it, that we don't take it for granted."
"Do you think that's what we've been doing?"
"Well, no."
"So what's the point of all of this then?"
It's one of the only truly beautiful, nearly perfect things in life. Simultaneously intricate and straightforward, easy and hard, strong and fragile, eternal and passing.
Love lifts you up and the higher it takes you, the better the view and the longer the fall. Everyday love asks you to make a choice between staying and soaring ever higher or leaving and cutting your losses because no matter how beautiful the story, no matter how true the mate, no matter how giving, how selfless, how valiant, how kind, ". . .time will have his fancy, tomorrow or today," (Auden).
"I suppose we do the best we can with what time we have together," answers M.
"Well that's rather dark, don't you think?" A asks.
"What else can I say, I mean the guy's got a point.
"What point?"
"That we're all going to die someday, that no matter how good we are to one another, one of us is going to die someday."
"Yeah, but why do we have to think about this now?"
"Well, I think the point is to make sure that we don't waste time, that we appreciate it, that we don't take it for granted."
"Do you think that's what we've been doing?"
"Well, no."
"So what's the point of all of this then?"
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Love
How did the stakes get so high? How is it that two people come together and fall in love? How is it that two people independently decide to give their hears to one another ? What is it within us that draws us to love another, to give up all one can of one's self for the joy of another?
It's one of the only truly beautiful, nearly perfect things in life. Simultaneously intricate and straightforward, easy and hard, strong and fragile, eternal and passing.
Love lifts you up and the higher it takes you, the better the view and the longer the fall. Everyday love asks you to make a choice between staying and soaring ever higher or leaving and cutting your losses because no matter how beautiful the story, no matter how true the mate, no matter how giving, how selfless, how valiant, how kind, ". . .time will have his fancy, tomorrow or today," (Auden).
"I suppose we do the best we can with what time we have together," answers M.
"Well that's rather dark, don't you think?" A asks.
"What else can I say, I mean the guy's got a point.
"What point?"
"That we're all going to die someday, that no matter how good we are to one another, one of us is going to die someday."
"Yeah, but why do we have to think about this now?"
"Well, I think the point is to make sure that we don't waste time, that we appreciate it, that we don't take it for granted."
"Do you think that's what we've been doing?"
"Well, no."
"So what's the point of all of this then?"
It's one of the only truly beautiful, nearly perfect things in life. Simultaneously intricate and straightforward, easy and hard, strong and fragile, eternal and passing.
Love lifts you up and the higher it takes you, the better the view and the longer the fall. Everyday love asks you to make a choice between staying and soaring ever higher or leaving and cutting your losses because no matter how beautiful the story, no matter how true the mate, no matter how giving, how selfless, how valiant, how kind, ". . .time will have his fancy, tomorrow or today," (Auden).
"I suppose we do the best we can with what time we have together," answers M.
"Well that's rather dark, don't you think?" A asks.
"What else can I say, I mean the guy's got a point.
"What point?"
"That we're all going to die someday, that no matter how good we are to one another, one of us is going to die someday."
"Yeah, but why do we have to think about this now?"
"Well, I think the point is to make sure that we don't waste time, that we appreciate it, that we don't take it for granted."
"Do you think that's what we've been doing?"
"Well, no."
"So what's the point of all of this then?"
The Identity Thief
John.
He had been at it for so long that he wasn't sure exactly who he was anymore. He had taken on so many identities and had buried himself so deep into them that he ultimately lost track of where it was he had started from. It was an amnesia of sorts. Perhaps there was a finite capacity for his brain to contain identity and he had passed that limit many names ago.
But that's a bit of what theft is. You think you're getting something for free but what you get you purchase with bits of your soul.
He was done with the business. He had made more than enough to keep him from having to work for the rest of his life. He was tired of pretending. He was tired of stuffing the guilt down his gut - the pill got smaller and easier to swallow but he had his fill. He was tired of the fast talk, tired of being on his toes all the time. He just wanted to go back to his . . .
And that was the problem. There was no life to go back to because there was no life to remember. He also suspected that even if he had remembered, a part of him knew it would be a futile effort.
He had been at it for so long that he wasn't sure exactly who he was anymore. He had taken on so many identities and had buried himself so deep into them that he ultimately lost track of where it was he had started from. It was an amnesia of sorts. Perhaps there was a finite capacity for his brain to contain identity and he had passed that limit many names ago.
But that's a bit of what theft is. You think you're getting something for free but what you get you purchase with bits of your soul.
He was done with the business. He had made more than enough to keep him from having to work for the rest of his life. He was tired of pretending. He was tired of stuffing the guilt down his gut - the pill got smaller and easier to swallow but he had his fill. He was tired of the fast talk, tired of being on his toes all the time. He just wanted to go back to his . . .
And that was the problem. There was no life to go back to because there was no life to remember. He also suspected that even if he had remembered, a part of him knew it would be a futile effort.
Thursday, November 2, 2006
The Lamb Ghost
Legend has it, the lamb escaped from its pen on Halloween night. By all accounts, she should have been sound asleep. Domesticated creatures of habit, slaves to instinct, she should have been asleep. Some say it might have been stray trick-or-treaters that woke her, some say that strange lamb never did sleep a wink, most folks just accepted things as they happened and didn't ask why or how. This story isn't for them.
There's no truth to the matter, of course, none that's knowable to human intelligence. The lamb knows why it was she got up but she's not letting anyone in on it, even if she could have. God knows, but his ways are higher than ours - we wouldn't understand it even if he were to spell it out for us point by point.
But all of that is irrelevant because this story is not about a lamb waking in the middle of the night so let's move on.
This is a story about what happened after she woke up.
What's know is that after waking, trackers were able to trace her steps to the corner of the pen where she squeezed under a gap, made her way across the yard into the wheat field through which she made a path straight to the road. It's likely that she was struck by the Taurus as she was crossing, but there are some who believe she was there on the road, waiting for it - that she picked a spot just past a rise in the road so that she would not be seen from a distance.
Again, the details of her death are of no consequence. She was struck, she died, no one was found liable, and the insurance company repaired the vehicle. This story is about what happened afterwards.
There's no truth to the matter, of course, none that's knowable to human intelligence. The lamb knows why it was she got up but she's not letting anyone in on it, even if she could have. God knows, but his ways are higher than ours - we wouldn't understand it even if he were to spell it out for us point by point.
But all of that is irrelevant because this story is not about a lamb waking in the middle of the night so let's move on.
This is a story about what happened after she woke up.
What's know is that after waking, trackers were able to trace her steps to the corner of the pen where she squeezed under a gap, made her way across the yard into the wheat field through which she made a path straight to the road. It's likely that she was struck by the Taurus as she was crossing, but there are some who believe she was there on the road, waiting for it - that she picked a spot just past a rise in the road so that she would not be seen from a distance.
Again, the details of her death are of no consequence. She was struck, she died, no one was found liable, and the insurance company repaired the vehicle. This story is about what happened afterwards.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
52 Walks Among Us
52 walks among us.
52, of course, is not its name but rather its designation. The phonetic representation of his "name" is inexpressible in Earth nomenclature, but it doesn't mind being addressed as, "52." It keeps things simple and that's in his nature.
Also, for the sake of convenience, 52 is assigned the pronoun, "it," because there are five of what we would call genders on its planet. Two of the five are very similar to our male and female but 52 is neither of these. Please don't ask me to detail the complexities of their sexual interactions - such things are private even on a galactic scale.
52 finds it odd that any sort of fiction that has a creature from outer space as a character is defined as "science fiction", almost by default. It sees this act as myopic and reeks of speciesism. But at the same time, it understands that humans have not had much contact with those from other worlds so it cuts us a great deal of slack - he refuses to label the planet as terra-centric since they have no first-hand knowledge of other inhabited planets. Some of his peers criticize the way that we view the other planets on our solar system as mere objects of exploration (and some predict exploitation as soon as the technology makes it feasible), but 52 chooses to remain charitably agnostic in the matter.
However, 52 does find our mythical fear of non-earthlings, as expressed in our literature and made particularly evident in our cinematic works, strangely symptomatic of our species and views that as an indicator that goes a long way towards explaining human violence on and to our planet.
52 is one of a number (no pun) of visitors from across the universe, most of whom are here for what we would call anthropological studies. Rest assured, none are here for purposes that are other than benign - that is, so long as you don't classify voyeuristic curiosity as malicious.
On a universal scale, many of 52's peers place our planet on the peaceable side of the Universe. We are certainly nowhere near civilizations classified as docile and harmonious, but we are also nowhere near the extreme, violence end of the spectrum. 52 would place us somewhere pretty high up along the ascending portion of the universal bell curve - slightly more peaceful than average, but not by much.
On the other hand, our intellectual standing leaves much to be desired. For all of our (understandable, from 52's point of view) pride in our intellectual achievements, we are shamefully outgunned by the rest of the universe. Using our educational structure for purposes of scale, our planet's academic achievement (adjusted for specie evolution rates and average life-spans) would rank somewhere between fourth and fifth grade. 52 likes to joke that we're in summer school. In contrast, 52's kind might be thought of as being in the second year of graduate school.
52's motivation for being on Earth? Initially, he arrived on a study to document and report on geo-political movements, but these days he hangs around just because he's grown fond of us. He is especially fond of what we've learned to do with salads, particularly in the Pacific Northwest with its fusion-style mixed greens. He enjoys meats as well (oddly, the ratio of species who choose an herbivore diet to an omnivore one is remarkably constant throughout the universe). He doesn't care for bovine-based meat products but he does enjoy wild venison and he is not alone in the opinion that pate de foie gras is one of the great unknown delicacies of the universe.
52, of course, is not its name but rather its designation. The phonetic representation of his "name" is inexpressible in Earth nomenclature, but it doesn't mind being addressed as, "52." It keeps things simple and that's in his nature.
Also, for the sake of convenience, 52 is assigned the pronoun, "it," because there are five of what we would call genders on its planet. Two of the five are very similar to our male and female but 52 is neither of these. Please don't ask me to detail the complexities of their sexual interactions - such things are private even on a galactic scale.
52 finds it odd that any sort of fiction that has a creature from outer space as a character is defined as "science fiction", almost by default. It sees this act as myopic and reeks of speciesism. But at the same time, it understands that humans have not had much contact with those from other worlds so it cuts us a great deal of slack - he refuses to label the planet as terra-centric since they have no first-hand knowledge of other inhabited planets. Some of his peers criticize the way that we view the other planets on our solar system as mere objects of exploration (and some predict exploitation as soon as the technology makes it feasible), but 52 chooses to remain charitably agnostic in the matter.
However, 52 does find our mythical fear of non-earthlings, as expressed in our literature and made particularly evident in our cinematic works, strangely symptomatic of our species and views that as an indicator that goes a long way towards explaining human violence on and to our planet.
52 is one of a number (no pun) of visitors from across the universe, most of whom are here for what we would call anthropological studies. Rest assured, none are here for purposes that are other than benign - that is, so long as you don't classify voyeuristic curiosity as malicious.
On a universal scale, many of 52's peers place our planet on the peaceable side of the Universe. We are certainly nowhere near civilizations classified as docile and harmonious, but we are also nowhere near the extreme, violence end of the spectrum. 52 would place us somewhere pretty high up along the ascending portion of the universal bell curve - slightly more peaceful than average, but not by much.
On the other hand, our intellectual standing leaves much to be desired. For all of our (understandable, from 52's point of view) pride in our intellectual achievements, we are shamefully outgunned by the rest of the universe. Using our educational structure for purposes of scale, our planet's academic achievement (adjusted for specie evolution rates and average life-spans) would rank somewhere between fourth and fifth grade. 52 likes to joke that we're in summer school. In contrast, 52's kind might be thought of as being in the second year of graduate school.
52's motivation for being on Earth? Initially, he arrived on a study to document and report on geo-political movements, but these days he hangs around just because he's grown fond of us. He is especially fond of what we've learned to do with salads, particularly in the Pacific Northwest with its fusion-style mixed greens. He enjoys meats as well (oddly, the ratio of species who choose an herbivore diet to an omnivore one is remarkably constant throughout the universe). He doesn't care for bovine-based meat products but he does enjoy wild venison and he is not alone in the opinion that pate de foie gras is one of the great unknown delicacies of the universe.
In Bold Type
Blair sat like a toad with alphabet scales on its back. She belonged to David Lister, best selling author of formula thrillers. Wrought iron black, squat, weighed down as if yearning to return to the metal core of the earth itself, she did not wait, she did not hope. She resigned herself to the fact that she was merely an ornament - as irrelevant as one of Lister's useless subplots. And so, on display on a pedestal in a corner of his study, Blair went about crafting her own stories, etching them subversively in rust. She would begin at the tiny, unprotected chip of bare metal at her base (her Achilles heel, if you will) and she would write in oxidizing red ink up under the protective paint. She would write and she would not stop until she was entirely compromised. She would hold herself together by sheer will and then disintegrate into a heaping mass of glass keys, ink ribbon, rubber platen, and crumbling metal shards.
A machine born of the industrial age, she had no need for sleep or backup or de-fragmenting like the fussy plastic boxes that Lister pecked away at. She was all about hard copies, fixed-width glyphs. She was unmerciful. No backspace key on her keyboard - the mere idea of correction tape was science fiction in her day. Tabs were set by means of brake-stops and pulleys, a system notorious for pinching fingers and jamming if not engaged precisely.
She had no need for electrical power. Her typefaces were propelled through their arcs via an intricate, efficient network of typebars. She was at her best when guided by fingers with will and intent behind them. She had no patience for weak-minded, second-guessing hacks. She desired writers who wrote in straight lines, who strung sentences along like pearls of wisdom, writers who edited in the space between their brain and their fingertips. For writers such as these she was a marvel of engineering, designed to reward swift, sure strokes without jamming - allowing the stream of consciousness to flow uninterrupted. When the words came in quick succession she sounded not like some jittery morse code operator but like steady rain on ceramic tiles punctuated by the sound of the margin bell and the zipper-like whir of the carriage return.
An innovation in her day, her first owner was an insurance firm. She was one out of an order of four hundred. She was put away as a spare, up on the top shelf of a storage closet in the basement. It was dark and dry. The air smelled of carbon paper, metal shelves, and rubber erasers. Two months passed and she was sure she had been forgotten but a week into her third month she was put into service at the desk of a particularly adept temp named Maggie, brought in to help the company prep for its yearly audit.
Maggie had soft hands and a sure touch. Blair especially appreciated her graceful carriage return. The two were making quite a pair until an office indiscretion, initiated by the department manager, got Maggie fired. Violating a cardinal typewriter ethic, Blair tried to advise her user against the affair, but whenever she tried to express herself, Maggie would think she had made a typo. She would swear, under her breath, and rip the sheet out without first releasing the internal guide rollers - a move that was within Blair's design specification, but one that she found painful and rude. She stopped trying to warn Maggie and within a week, Maggie was gone. Blair understood that this was Maggie's fault, that she shouldn't have tried to stop her. She vowed never again to violate the terms of the object-operator relationship.
The desk was cleared by the end of the day but they did not return Blair to the basement. They left her on the empty desk and there she sat listening to the typewriters around her clacking away. She didn't mind at first, glad to be out of the stuffy storage space, but jealousy set in and she soon yearned for attention. She could hear some of the other machines jamming - typebars sticking, piling one on top of another. All the machines on this floor were of the same make and model so she could tell that those machines were misbehaving out of laziness or spite. To be fair, some of the other typewriters had awful users, the kind prone to pounding the keyboard in fits of rage, but Blair felt that (despite her previous slip) their behavior was entirely unprofessional, dangerous even. If the idea got out that their make and model were unreliable, they could be thrown out as a group.
Luckily, the office manager had a budget to stick to. Some of the bothersome machines were sent out for servicing (discipline, in the world of typewriters) and the ones that would not straighten out were retired and replaced. And this is how Blair and Emily were paired.
A machine born of the industrial age, she had no need for sleep or backup or de-fragmenting like the fussy plastic boxes that Lister pecked away at. She was all about hard copies, fixed-width glyphs. She was unmerciful. No backspace key on her keyboard - the mere idea of correction tape was science fiction in her day. Tabs were set by means of brake-stops and pulleys, a system notorious for pinching fingers and jamming if not engaged precisely.
She had no need for electrical power. Her typefaces were propelled through their arcs via an intricate, efficient network of typebars. She was at her best when guided by fingers with will and intent behind them. She had no patience for weak-minded, second-guessing hacks. She desired writers who wrote in straight lines, who strung sentences along like pearls of wisdom, writers who edited in the space between their brain and their fingertips. For writers such as these she was a marvel of engineering, designed to reward swift, sure strokes without jamming - allowing the stream of consciousness to flow uninterrupted. When the words came in quick succession she sounded not like some jittery morse code operator but like steady rain on ceramic tiles punctuated by the sound of the margin bell and the zipper-like whir of the carriage return.
An innovation in her day, her first owner was an insurance firm. She was one out of an order of four hundred. She was put away as a spare, up on the top shelf of a storage closet in the basement. It was dark and dry. The air smelled of carbon paper, metal shelves, and rubber erasers. Two months passed and she was sure she had been forgotten but a week into her third month she was put into service at the desk of a particularly adept temp named Maggie, brought in to help the company prep for its yearly audit.
Maggie had soft hands and a sure touch. Blair especially appreciated her graceful carriage return. The two were making quite a pair until an office indiscretion, initiated by the department manager, got Maggie fired. Violating a cardinal typewriter ethic, Blair tried to advise her user against the affair, but whenever she tried to express herself, Maggie would think she had made a typo. She would swear, under her breath, and rip the sheet out without first releasing the internal guide rollers - a move that was within Blair's design specification, but one that she found painful and rude. She stopped trying to warn Maggie and within a week, Maggie was gone. Blair understood that this was Maggie's fault, that she shouldn't have tried to stop her. She vowed never again to violate the terms of the object-operator relationship.
The desk was cleared by the end of the day but they did not return Blair to the basement. They left her on the empty desk and there she sat listening to the typewriters around her clacking away. She didn't mind at first, glad to be out of the stuffy storage space, but jealousy set in and she soon yearned for attention. She could hear some of the other machines jamming - typebars sticking, piling one on top of another. All the machines on this floor were of the same make and model so she could tell that those machines were misbehaving out of laziness or spite. To be fair, some of the other typewriters had awful users, the kind prone to pounding the keyboard in fits of rage, but Blair felt that (despite her previous slip) their behavior was entirely unprofessional, dangerous even. If the idea got out that their make and model were unreliable, they could be thrown out as a group.
Luckily, the office manager had a budget to stick to. Some of the bothersome machines were sent out for servicing (discipline, in the world of typewriters) and the ones that would not straighten out were retired and replaced. And this is how Blair and Emily were paired.
Ascent
Cold came down and wrapped her arms around his chest. She bore down like an icy anaconda and no amount of shivering would loosen her coil. She found her way into the smallest gaps in his Gore-Tex jacket and bib.
It was a mere two miles to the next base camp but the angle of ascent made for slow going. Sean didn't want to stop though every fiber of his body begged him to. One foot in front of the other. Left foot forward, reposition right trekking pole. Right foot forward, reposition left trekking pole. Left foot forward. . .
The rhythm and the repetition. Mechanical, rote maneuvers. A kind of mindless concentration on the task at hand, but the higher mind asks why, challenges, balks at his sadistic, fascist commitment to marching ever forward.
Cold was lonely that afternoon. Notoriously moody, habitually clingy, she grabbed hold of Chad the way Calypso clung to her sailors. Ever like the vampire, she understood that her desire, if satiated, would mean the death of her beloved but an obsession like this does not bend to reason, is not bound by empathy.
To prayer then, calling upon the unseen in the midst of all this wilderness. Praying for second wind, for strength, for warmth, for help. Praying against doubt, against fatigue, against the cold.
And then the thoughts, what is prayer? He knows stories of men who've died on this ascent. He's willing to bet that they all prayed for earthly salvation but to what end? And what of the prayers of their friends back at base camp, back at the hotel, back at home? And what of those who do not pray who have made it to the summit? How does God choose between prayers? How does God let pass those who do not pray?
And yes, this is what he needs - questions that occupy the mind, drawing resources away from nerve endings processing new experiences of cold.
Is there a place where prayer is more at home? In a church, certainly, but that is to be expected. Here, prayer looms as large as the sheer cliff faces and at the same time, amid the vast, endless isolation, prayer feels feeble, small, hopelessly irrelevant. Prayer is thought, breath, spirit. The mountain is granite and glacier and shifty, unpredictable snow pack. His ice pick has heft and weight, tangible, hard, usable evidence of its existence. Prayer is metaphysical - beyond the physical. But he would not do this climb without it.
The arsenal that Cold has at her disposal is considerable. They ranged from tiny, spear-like probes to thick, foggy blankets, acres across. She unleashed them down upon his vulnerabilities - a strange sort of seduction. She whispered into his ear through his ear band. She lapped at his neck, ran her fingers down the small of his back. Through a technique not unlike osmosis, she infused herself through his pant legs. She picked her way through the micro-tangles of his wool underpants - tedious work but she was nothing if not patient and persistent.
The ice pack was deep and powdery. His snow shoes did their best to distribute his weight but they were of little use on a gradient as steep as this. The combination of the wide footprint and the slope of the ascent kept his ankle cocked at an odd, painful angle. His calves were burning half from the strain, half from the lack of oxygen. He could feel his toe nails digging into the calloused flesh surrounding them, rubbing them raw.
His left foot hit an unexpectedly slick icy patch. The traction gave way and Chad found himself face-down in the snow. He was cushioned by the loose pack but Cold, ever vigilant, seized upon this opportunity. She sent little soldiers of snow down between the gap between his goggles and his face mask. Ice turned to water and it was a clever device. The first bits soaked into his face mask making it harder to breathe and pressed the cold down upon his cheeks.
It was a mere two miles to the next base camp but the angle of ascent made for slow going. Sean didn't want to stop though every fiber of his body begged him to. One foot in front of the other. Left foot forward, reposition right trekking pole. Right foot forward, reposition left trekking pole. Left foot forward. . .
The rhythm and the repetition. Mechanical, rote maneuvers. A kind of mindless concentration on the task at hand, but the higher mind asks why, challenges, balks at his sadistic, fascist commitment to marching ever forward.
Cold was lonely that afternoon. Notoriously moody, habitually clingy, she grabbed hold of Chad the way Calypso clung to her sailors. Ever like the vampire, she understood that her desire, if satiated, would mean the death of her beloved but an obsession like this does not bend to reason, is not bound by empathy.
To prayer then, calling upon the unseen in the midst of all this wilderness. Praying for second wind, for strength, for warmth, for help. Praying against doubt, against fatigue, against the cold.
And then the thoughts, what is prayer? He knows stories of men who've died on this ascent. He's willing to bet that they all prayed for earthly salvation but to what end? And what of the prayers of their friends back at base camp, back at the hotel, back at home? And what of those who do not pray who have made it to the summit? How does God choose between prayers? How does God let pass those who do not pray?
And yes, this is what he needs - questions that occupy the mind, drawing resources away from nerve endings processing new experiences of cold.
Is there a place where prayer is more at home? In a church, certainly, but that is to be expected. Here, prayer looms as large as the sheer cliff faces and at the same time, amid the vast, endless isolation, prayer feels feeble, small, hopelessly irrelevant. Prayer is thought, breath, spirit. The mountain is granite and glacier and shifty, unpredictable snow pack. His ice pick has heft and weight, tangible, hard, usable evidence of its existence. Prayer is metaphysical - beyond the physical. But he would not do this climb without it.
The arsenal that Cold has at her disposal is considerable. They ranged from tiny, spear-like probes to thick, foggy blankets, acres across. She unleashed them down upon his vulnerabilities - a strange sort of seduction. She whispered into his ear through his ear band. She lapped at his neck, ran her fingers down the small of his back. Through a technique not unlike osmosis, she infused herself through his pant legs. She picked her way through the micro-tangles of his wool underpants - tedious work but she was nothing if not patient and persistent.
The ice pack was deep and powdery. His snow shoes did their best to distribute his weight but they were of little use on a gradient as steep as this. The combination of the wide footprint and the slope of the ascent kept his ankle cocked at an odd, painful angle. His calves were burning half from the strain, half from the lack of oxygen. He could feel his toe nails digging into the calloused flesh surrounding them, rubbing them raw.
His left foot hit an unexpectedly slick icy patch. The traction gave way and Chad found himself face-down in the snow. He was cushioned by the loose pack but Cold, ever vigilant, seized upon this opportunity. She sent little soldiers of snow down between the gap between his goggles and his face mask. Ice turned to water and it was a clever device. The first bits soaked into his face mask making it harder to breathe and pressed the cold down upon his cheeks.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Lepidopterist
What else could he have done? With all the traffic on the street, Gavin wasn't even going the speed limit of 25. He saw the basketball enter the street from the sidewalk, out from an alleyway, and before he could make the connection between ball and boy, the child single-mindedly appeared in the street after the ball. The child didn't even have time to turn and see his SUV before it muscled over him - beating him down like a playground bully. There was only the slightest squeal of tires but it was too late even before his foot bore down on the brake pedal.
Screams and yelling, hands waving and finger pointing followed. There were stares - gazes angry, disbelieving, shocked, and scared. All this energy trained on him, his SUV, and the child, unconscious, trembling in acute shock.
Gavin was a lepidopterist - a scientist who specializes in the study of butterflies, moths and similar insects. He was on his way to a lecture and presentation at a private elementary school. In the back of his SUV was a box containing a dozen monarch butterflies - Danaus plexippus.
These butterflies lay their eggs on the milkweed plant. They feed on this plant and their bodies glean and store bitter chemicals known as cardenolides from its sap. Any given bird will only attempt to eat a monarch caterpillar or butterfly once because even if it can get past the bitter, pungent taste, the endless vomiting that follows will drive home the point that this insect, defenseless as it appears, is not to be reckoned with.
As the din of the crowd grew, Gavin was stunned. What's the protocol in a case like this? As a man of science, he knew that there were ways that things were done - procedures that both maintained order and ensured repeatable, verifiable experimental results - without which science could not go forward. This kind of deterministic certainty crept into every area of his life and while it made for a quiet, peaceful life, it also induced a kind of paralysis in unfamiliar situations, and certainly, this was one of them.
Questions, questions, questions. "Should I back up? What if the child is behind the front wheels? Should I get out? What will this do to my insurance? Can I be held at fault? What about the lecture at the school? Who are all these people? What will I say? Why now? Why me? Why do things always go so wrong? Oh my God, did I just kill a child?"
The questions continue to rattle through his mind and he lets them bounce off of one another. As if by instinct alone, he leaves the engine running, opens the door, gets out of the SUV, and braces himself before bending down to see what he's done. There are already a couple of bystanders looking underneath the chassis. They are calling out to the kid and he takes this to be a good sign until he sees the pool of blood darkening the asphalt.
One of the wonders of the monarch butterfly is its migration pattern. In the fall, these tiny insects make their way from Canada and the northern most of the United States down to the slopes of Sierra Madre Del Sur in southern Mexico - a journey of over three thousand miles. What makes this journey even more miraculous is the fact that the butterflies who migrate north are not the same ones that migrated south the year before. In fact, the entire round trip can encompass up to seven generations, most of whom mate and die along the northern leg of the journey. As the end of summer approaches, a special generation of butterfly is born - one whose life-span is up to eight times longer than that of their grandparents. This is the generation that makes the long haul down south to escape the bitter winter cold.
Of course the big mystery is how this last generation knows the way back to the homeland of their great-great-great-great-grandparents - a place they've never seen before. Gavin likes to believe that butterflies pass the secrets of this journey on to their offspring through song. He imagines the butterflies singing to one another about an odyssey of epic proportions as they fly ever northward. And he pictures the southbound flyers marveling at the way the song that they've had ingrained into them through repetition guides them on their way back to the mountains of Mexico.
Peering under the vehicle, Gavin can see that the boy is still alive but in very bad shape. He has no medical training but he can see signs of trauma everywhere along the boy's misshapen body. Another man runs up to the scene and introduces himself as a doctor - an oncologist, but a doctor nevertheless. He accesses the scene and barks an order to Gavin telling him to back his car up slowly.
He nods and gets back into his SUV. He puts it in reverse and backs right into the car behind him - a subcompact hatchback. Its hood buckles as crumple points in the front end give way. Gavin guns his engine and manhandles the little car back against its will. The woman behind the wheel doesn't sound her horn but she doesn't lay off of her brakes either. Satisfied that he's made enough room for the doctor and child, he parks his SUV halfway on top of the lady's hood.
He's done all that he can. There's nothing left to do but to let the life of this accident play itself out. It's all out of his hands. He shuts off the engine and watches the drama unfold in front of him through the window. Fire trucks, ambulance, police, first responders. Questionings, reports, no accusations, thankfully, but the guilt comes anyway. His cell phone rings. It's the school asking him where he is.
The details of butterfly migration are a mystery. The metamorphosis from larval form (caterpillar) into pupa and finally into butterfly is nothing short of a miracle. Once encased in its chrysalis, a radical, comprehensive transformation takes place. It begins with a process called histolysis which breaks down much of the caterpillar's tissue into a kind of gelatinous soup. Not everything is destroyed. Spared are the internal organs as well as a special set of cells called histoblasts. These cells are instrumental in building new body parts - legs, compound eyes, antenna, and proboscis, to name just a few - through a process called histogenesis. The wings actually begin developing from the first larval stages. Much of the wings' formation occurs within the caterpillar's body, but during metamorphosis, they grow exponentially and adhere themselves to the outer cuticle.
Once this transformation is complete, the (now) butterfly breaks through the chrysalis and emerges wet with crumpled wings. It clings to what's left of the chrysalis as it pumps hemolymph (insect blood) through its body, basically inflating its wings. After about an hour (depending on surrounding temperature and humidity), the wings harden into a rigid structure that enables flight. The horny butterfly takes to the air, eager to migrate and to mate.
Two weeks later, Gavin pays a visit to the boy's house bearing one small gift. His bruises have faded and broken bones are mending behind plaster casts. No hard feelings between any of the parties involved. Gavin sets a small cage on the boy's bureau. He points out the tiny green chrysalis attached to a twig and tells him that if he listens quietly and closely enough, he just might hear traces of the song of migration - a tune three thousand miles long.
Screams and yelling, hands waving and finger pointing followed. There were stares - gazes angry, disbelieving, shocked, and scared. All this energy trained on him, his SUV, and the child, unconscious, trembling in acute shock.
Gavin was a lepidopterist - a scientist who specializes in the study of butterflies, moths and similar insects. He was on his way to a lecture and presentation at a private elementary school. In the back of his SUV was a box containing a dozen monarch butterflies - Danaus plexippus.
These butterflies lay their eggs on the milkweed plant. They feed on this plant and their bodies glean and store bitter chemicals known as cardenolides from its sap. Any given bird will only attempt to eat a monarch caterpillar or butterfly once because even if it can get past the bitter, pungent taste, the endless vomiting that follows will drive home the point that this insect, defenseless as it appears, is not to be reckoned with.
As the din of the crowd grew, Gavin was stunned. What's the protocol in a case like this? As a man of science, he knew that there were ways that things were done - procedures that both maintained order and ensured repeatable, verifiable experimental results - without which science could not go forward. This kind of deterministic certainty crept into every area of his life and while it made for a quiet, peaceful life, it also induced a kind of paralysis in unfamiliar situations, and certainly, this was one of them.
Questions, questions, questions. "Should I back up? What if the child is behind the front wheels? Should I get out? What will this do to my insurance? Can I be held at fault? What about the lecture at the school? Who are all these people? What will I say? Why now? Why me? Why do things always go so wrong? Oh my God, did I just kill a child?"
The questions continue to rattle through his mind and he lets them bounce off of one another. As if by instinct alone, he leaves the engine running, opens the door, gets out of the SUV, and braces himself before bending down to see what he's done. There are already a couple of bystanders looking underneath the chassis. They are calling out to the kid and he takes this to be a good sign until he sees the pool of blood darkening the asphalt.
One of the wonders of the monarch butterfly is its migration pattern. In the fall, these tiny insects make their way from Canada and the northern most of the United States down to the slopes of Sierra Madre Del Sur in southern Mexico - a journey of over three thousand miles. What makes this journey even more miraculous is the fact that the butterflies who migrate north are not the same ones that migrated south the year before. In fact, the entire round trip can encompass up to seven generations, most of whom mate and die along the northern leg of the journey. As the end of summer approaches, a special generation of butterfly is born - one whose life-span is up to eight times longer than that of their grandparents. This is the generation that makes the long haul down south to escape the bitter winter cold.
Of course the big mystery is how this last generation knows the way back to the homeland of their great-great-great-great-grandparents - a place they've never seen before. Gavin likes to believe that butterflies pass the secrets of this journey on to their offspring through song. He imagines the butterflies singing to one another about an odyssey of epic proportions as they fly ever northward. And he pictures the southbound flyers marveling at the way the song that they've had ingrained into them through repetition guides them on their way back to the mountains of Mexico.
Peering under the vehicle, Gavin can see that the boy is still alive but in very bad shape. He has no medical training but he can see signs of trauma everywhere along the boy's misshapen body. Another man runs up to the scene and introduces himself as a doctor - an oncologist, but a doctor nevertheless. He accesses the scene and barks an order to Gavin telling him to back his car up slowly.
He nods and gets back into his SUV. He puts it in reverse and backs right into the car behind him - a subcompact hatchback. Its hood buckles as crumple points in the front end give way. Gavin guns his engine and manhandles the little car back against its will. The woman behind the wheel doesn't sound her horn but she doesn't lay off of her brakes either. Satisfied that he's made enough room for the doctor and child, he parks his SUV halfway on top of the lady's hood.
He's done all that he can. There's nothing left to do but to let the life of this accident play itself out. It's all out of his hands. He shuts off the engine and watches the drama unfold in front of him through the window. Fire trucks, ambulance, police, first responders. Questionings, reports, no accusations, thankfully, but the guilt comes anyway. His cell phone rings. It's the school asking him where he is.
The details of butterfly migration are a mystery. The metamorphosis from larval form (caterpillar) into pupa and finally into butterfly is nothing short of a miracle. Once encased in its chrysalis, a radical, comprehensive transformation takes place. It begins with a process called histolysis which breaks down much of the caterpillar's tissue into a kind of gelatinous soup. Not everything is destroyed. Spared are the internal organs as well as a special set of cells called histoblasts. These cells are instrumental in building new body parts - legs, compound eyes, antenna, and proboscis, to name just a few - through a process called histogenesis. The wings actually begin developing from the first larval stages. Much of the wings' formation occurs within the caterpillar's body, but during metamorphosis, they grow exponentially and adhere themselves to the outer cuticle.
Once this transformation is complete, the (now) butterfly breaks through the chrysalis and emerges wet with crumpled wings. It clings to what's left of the chrysalis as it pumps hemolymph (insect blood) through its body, basically inflating its wings. After about an hour (depending on surrounding temperature and humidity), the wings harden into a rigid structure that enables flight. The horny butterfly takes to the air, eager to migrate and to mate.
Two weeks later, Gavin pays a visit to the boy's house bearing one small gift. His bruises have faded and broken bones are mending behind plaster casts. No hard feelings between any of the parties involved. Gavin sets a small cage on the boy's bureau. He points out the tiny green chrysalis attached to a twig and tells him that if he listens quietly and closely enough, he just might hear traces of the song of migration - a tune three thousand miles long.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Beauty
She remembers the first time he told her she was beautiful. It was on their third date and it was over dinner at the local Spaghetti Factory (all his budget could afford). After sourdough and small talk, halfway through their second glass of the house red, he casually threw it sideways into a conversation about exercise. "You run seven miles everyday? I'll have to tell my friends that's how you stay so fit and beautiful."
He said it with a hearty laugh and she laughed right along, hoping that her exaggerated smile would hide the reddening of her face. And she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Was it a joke, did he mean it, was he being kind or cruel or clueless, was it a casual slip of the tongue? All these possibilities were calculated, weighed one against the other, filtered through an intuitive algorithm. But before the cyphers could sort out the permutations, their waiter returned and it was time to order.
On his part, the utterance was purposeful insomuch as he had meant to throw the line in somehow. He had wanted to speak the words so many times before but he is awkward, insecure, clumsy around women and he didn't want to scare her away by being too forward. And so the bit about telling his friends about her beauty was by design. The reference to friends was his way of inserting one degree of separation between complement and complemented because he wasn't telling her she was beautiful directly, he was telling her what he was going to tell his friends. And the way he saw it, not only was he telling her he thought she was beautiful, he was also telling her that he was telling his friends about her. A two for one deal, if you will.
Dinner progressed swimmingly. Italian, even when inexpensive, always makes a meal something of an event. And though the pasta was boiled beyond al dente and the sauce lacked any sort of refinement, it was more than thirty dollars would have gotten them anywhere else. At the table, the topic of beauty (hers or otherwise) never came up again, but that one line was on both their minds.
The rest of the date went well. Buoyant on the swirl that comes from being lightly dusted by alcohol (they'd finished the bottle between them), they segued effortlessly to window shopping then a movie then cafe cappuccino and finally the walk back to her house.
He said it with a hearty laugh and she laughed right along, hoping that her exaggerated smile would hide the reddening of her face. And she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Was it a joke, did he mean it, was he being kind or cruel or clueless, was it a casual slip of the tongue? All these possibilities were calculated, weighed one against the other, filtered through an intuitive algorithm. But before the cyphers could sort out the permutations, their waiter returned and it was time to order.
On his part, the utterance was purposeful insomuch as he had meant to throw the line in somehow. He had wanted to speak the words so many times before but he is awkward, insecure, clumsy around women and he didn't want to scare her away by being too forward. And so the bit about telling his friends about her beauty was by design. The reference to friends was his way of inserting one degree of separation between complement and complemented because he wasn't telling her she was beautiful directly, he was telling her what he was going to tell his friends. And the way he saw it, not only was he telling her he thought she was beautiful, he was also telling her that he was telling his friends about her. A two for one deal, if you will.
Dinner progressed swimmingly. Italian, even when inexpensive, always makes a meal something of an event. And though the pasta was boiled beyond al dente and the sauce lacked any sort of refinement, it was more than thirty dollars would have gotten them anywhere else. At the table, the topic of beauty (hers or otherwise) never came up again, but that one line was on both their minds.
The rest of the date went well. Buoyant on the swirl that comes from being lightly dusted by alcohol (they'd finished the bottle between them), they segued effortlessly to window shopping then a movie then cafe cappuccino and finally the walk back to her house.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Telescopes
"Give me a topic," he says.
And she replies, "telescopes."
And he spins a tale about a boy named Will who was an assistant to Johannes Kepler. He worked in Master Kepler's lab, part willing slave, part apprentice, all about stars. Glass was everywhere in various states of polish. There were charts, graphs, pages pinned to the walls, spilling over on desks, crumpled on the floor. Will made the mistake once of tiding up, but was quickly put in his place with a few sharp words and a rap to the back of the head by a ruler.
"Don't touch it, don't touch any of them!"
And she replies, "telescopes."
And he spins a tale about a boy named Will who was an assistant to Johannes Kepler. He worked in Master Kepler's lab, part willing slave, part apprentice, all about stars. Glass was everywhere in various states of polish. There were charts, graphs, pages pinned to the walls, spilling over on desks, crumpled on the floor. Will made the mistake once of tiding up, but was quickly put in his place with a few sharp words and a rap to the back of the head by a ruler.
"Don't touch it, don't touch any of them!"
Friday, March 10, 2006
The Fisherman and the Farm
Then there's the story of the fisherman who, unlike Ahab, chose to let the one that got away get away. He pulled up his poles, turned the bow towards shore, and throttled up the engine. Done with years at sea, he decided to try his hand, finally, at farming. As he piloted his boat, he imagined the joy he would see in his wife's eyes when he gave her the news - because she knew as well as he that the sea had been his first love. Until today. He rehearsed the words he would use to tell her, speaking them into the wind. He tried different versions, each simpler and more to the point, until he decided on two simple words. "I'm home."
Just before he pulled past the buoy that marked the entrance to the harbor, not ten feet off his starboard side, the water erupted as if shot out of a cannon and within this column of water, a fish like the one he had been chasing throughout his life. And as in movies, and as in memory, and as it is during those fleeting, pivotal moments in life - time slowed to a crawl, slow enough that he could trace individual trajectories of drops within the cascade. That is, he could have if he was watching the water, but he was not. He was transfixed on the glorious, silver specimen rising up out of the deep, pelagic blue.
Time continued to slow, winding down like a record player after its plug is pulled. And this fish continued its ascent, up out of the water. It reached the apogee of its arc through the shimmering, salty air, and for one transcendent instant, it hung there as if mounted on his wall by taxidermy. In that moment, the fisherman was transported back to his house, three streets back from the pier. No, it wasn't he that was transported, it was more that his trophy room materialized out on the open sea, framing itself around the fish right at the spot that he'd been reserving for this one last token of the sea.
There was a splash and the sting of salt in his eyes. The boat rocked, caught his sea legs unprepared, and he nearly fell over but muscle memory kicked in and kept him upright. He shook the water from his hair and the fish was gone. He raised his right hand to wipe his eyes. His sleeves were wet, soggy, soaked. With his left hand, he throttled the engine back, all stop.
And though the fish was gone, and though he was still there out at sea, his mind lingered in his trophy room. There was the space in the corner where he had intended to mount his prize. Without it, the room seemed incomplete, empty, wrong somehow. In this space, a need to fill it, to set things right. He could feel the need crescendo, morphing into desire, flooding his heart with bitter want, a livid thirst to complete the room with this one last prize. And then his wife walked in, wrapped her arm around his waist, tilted her head, resting it on his shoulder. And she whispered into his ear.
The propellers spun the sea into a frothy foam. The bow pushed forward through the choppy waters. Thoughts of corn, carrots, leeks, and radishes (all of them organized, row by row) ran through his head.
Just before he pulled past the buoy that marked the entrance to the harbor, not ten feet off his starboard side, the water erupted as if shot out of a cannon and within this column of water, a fish like the one he had been chasing throughout his life. And as in movies, and as in memory, and as it is during those fleeting, pivotal moments in life - time slowed to a crawl, slow enough that he could trace individual trajectories of drops within the cascade. That is, he could have if he was watching the water, but he was not. He was transfixed on the glorious, silver specimen rising up out of the deep, pelagic blue.
Time continued to slow, winding down like a record player after its plug is pulled. And this fish continued its ascent, up out of the water. It reached the apogee of its arc through the shimmering, salty air, and for one transcendent instant, it hung there as if mounted on his wall by taxidermy. In that moment, the fisherman was transported back to his house, three streets back from the pier. No, it wasn't he that was transported, it was more that his trophy room materialized out on the open sea, framing itself around the fish right at the spot that he'd been reserving for this one last token of the sea.
There was a splash and the sting of salt in his eyes. The boat rocked, caught his sea legs unprepared, and he nearly fell over but muscle memory kicked in and kept him upright. He shook the water from his hair and the fish was gone. He raised his right hand to wipe his eyes. His sleeves were wet, soggy, soaked. With his left hand, he throttled the engine back, all stop.
And though the fish was gone, and though he was still there out at sea, his mind lingered in his trophy room. There was the space in the corner where he had intended to mount his prize. Without it, the room seemed incomplete, empty, wrong somehow. In this space, a need to fill it, to set things right. He could feel the need crescendo, morphing into desire, flooding his heart with bitter want, a livid thirst to complete the room with this one last prize. And then his wife walked in, wrapped her arm around his waist, tilted her head, resting it on his shoulder. And she whispered into his ear.
The propellers spun the sea into a frothy foam. The bow pushed forward through the choppy waters. Thoughts of corn, carrots, leeks, and radishes (all of them organized, row by row) ran through his head.
Sunday, January 8, 2006
Consequences
Done with his morning routine (shower, shave, brush, floss) difficult with unfamiliar, borrowed tools, but they got the job done. She, the nurse with the early shift, had gone hours ago leaving him towels and toiletries, travel size and spare. He holds them, used and bundled together in the damp towel, unsure what to do with them. He looks at the tangle of folds on her bed, winces and looks away. He turns and surveys the rest of the room. He checks his watch and sees that there's time enough to make it to work.
They first met at church, of all places - an old, conservative, starchy ordeal. He started going there his senior year in high school and stayed through most of college. She started attending a few years after he started, but then he left there to attend a newer, more contemporary service - one that he thought better suited his younger, more agile faith. He went to this church for five years but hip fades as does the multi-media dazzle. He didn't know if something in this new church had changed or if something inside himself had changed, but it didn't matter because the nexus of spirit and truth that first drew him to this new style of worship wasn't there anymore. And so after he realized that he hadn't had a single experience he would call spiritual in over six months, he returned to the conservative, starchy 11:00 service. He didn't know where else to go, so he went back to the old, the familiar, the comfortable.
And that's where he saw her. Again. And the five years between them had been more than kind to her, they had refined what was fair into something more striking and profound. And most miraculous of all, he could tell by that gleam in her eye that she was more than just happy to see him again. In the time before he switched churches, they would flirt and laugh and tease. But his faith was stronger then and it was this faith that helped him see that his attraction to her was purely physical - that he did not love her beyond what she did to his hormones. And so spiritual mind enforced itself over sinful matter and all was innocent and well.
His faith then was so simple, so sure. God was a rock, a lion, a lamb, and Jesus loved him because the Bible told him so. He looked out at the world and wondered how unbelievers could be so damned evil. But complications arose, the messiness of the world found its way into cracks, fracture points, fissures of his belief system, and when push came to shove, he found his Sunday School lessons woefully inadequate to tackle the hard truths of the world.
That was no matter though. He understood that the world was larger than he was and that God was there watching over him. So long as he felt the presence of God and sensed his direction, he was assured and blissfully content. And then silence fell. The presence and the guidance faded away, dispersed into thin air like the fog at dawn. No matter what he tried, no matter how much he made himself pray and read and sing and fast, nothing tasted anything like the sweet luxurious comfort of the Holy Spirit. And really, what can one do to penetrate the ironclad silence of God?
Back now at his old, familiar church with a more fractured, fragile faith, things were different between the two of them. He sensed it the moment they met again after his years away. It was in the way she hugged a bit too hard, looked his way a bit too long, touched a few too many times. Just as time had distilled her features to the essence of what he had found beautiful about her, so it focused and honed their formerly innocent flirtations into something more serious and intentional.
In part, he had returned for just such affections. He didn't reason it this way at the time but he was seeking from her what he had lost from God. And isn't this what's been done throughout time? God goes up the mountain and his followers down below mold themselves a golden calf to commune with - something tactile, solid, and predictable. Something there. For them a calf, for him a woman after his attention.
He gave himself to her. It was far easier than he could have imagined. Effortless and effervescent, lunch gave way to a walk in the park that wound up in a movie theater which led to dinner and rather than waste their money on dessert, they went to her apartment to finish off the slice of cheesecake in the refrigerator - the slice she ("oops, I forgot") finished off the week before. But better than that was the Amaretto in the cabinet - a sip on the sofa, a sip on the bedside, a sip spilled between the sheets.
Sin is a strange thing. Truth be told, this is exactly where he wanted to be but sin knows he would not have naively followed the steps that led to her door and so sin spun it around, told him he was going back to his old church to find God and perhaps to see her again. Bait and switch executed to perfection. Innocent compromises, little white lies exchanged between want and reason. Justifications, one after another, each more outrageous than the one before. Had he started the day in her bedroom, it would have been a simple thing to forego temptation and to walk away, but their affections had been building since noon, and the law of inertia is inflexible.
And now he looks at the tangle of folds on her bed, winces and looks away. He turns and surveys the rest of the room. He checks his watch and sees that there's time enough to make it to work. But he can't. He flips open his cell phone and calls in sick. And for good reason. He feels nauseous, violently ill, deathly. Up until yesterday, he had been faithful to the Lord. He was saving himself for marriage, for one woman forever. He had been steadfast, hard headed, adamant, even arrogant - holding himself above friends with less fortitude than he. But no more.
He drops the towel in the middle of the bathroom floor, turns the lights off, locks the door and rushes out to his car, parked in the street. He fumbles for his keys, drops them, curses. He finds the car key but somehow inserts it awkward and the bundle falls to the ground again. At last in the car he guns the engine and speeds away, barely missing the car parked parallel in front of him.
On the freeway, caught in traffic, he feels something new. Behind the guilt and shame, behind the anger at his careless self, behind the soft, lustful memories of skin, sensation, and the fiery, concussive consummation, there is something else. It's been so long that it takes him a while to recognize it but when he does, he hurls it away, tries to block it out of his mind but as absent as it's been these last few months, it's here now and he knows that God's not going anywhere. And what can one do to avoid the ironclad presence of God?
He surrenders and begs for unholy forgiveness. In this moment he understands what motivates the ascetic, flailing his body, ripping skin from flesh to show the Lord you're sorry because praying it just doesn't seem anywhere near enough. But he has no whips with which to render himself. All he has is prayer and these salty, slimy tears.
Past the traffic, through the streets, up the stairs, he's back home, finally. He's had his time with God and though a part of him wants to still feel guilty, to still feel sorry, the greater part of him knows that what's done is done and that God is still full of that amazing grace made manifest most clearly in his forgiveness. And so he simply gives thanks and praise and wonder and awe. He basks in the favor of God, lost in ineffable bliss until the buzz of his cellphone brings him back. He pulls it out of his pocket and sees her name on the caller ID display. And it's clear to him now, more than ever before, that while forgiveness is free and forever, consequences remain.
They first met at church, of all places - an old, conservative, starchy ordeal. He started going there his senior year in high school and stayed through most of college. She started attending a few years after he started, but then he left there to attend a newer, more contemporary service - one that he thought better suited his younger, more agile faith. He went to this church for five years but hip fades as does the multi-media dazzle. He didn't know if something in this new church had changed or if something inside himself had changed, but it didn't matter because the nexus of spirit and truth that first drew him to this new style of worship wasn't there anymore. And so after he realized that he hadn't had a single experience he would call spiritual in over six months, he returned to the conservative, starchy 11:00 service. He didn't know where else to go, so he went back to the old, the familiar, the comfortable.
And that's where he saw her. Again. And the five years between them had been more than kind to her, they had refined what was fair into something more striking and profound. And most miraculous of all, he could tell by that gleam in her eye that she was more than just happy to see him again. In the time before he switched churches, they would flirt and laugh and tease. But his faith was stronger then and it was this faith that helped him see that his attraction to her was purely physical - that he did not love her beyond what she did to his hormones. And so spiritual mind enforced itself over sinful matter and all was innocent and well.
His faith then was so simple, so sure. God was a rock, a lion, a lamb, and Jesus loved him because the Bible told him so. He looked out at the world and wondered how unbelievers could be so damned evil. But complications arose, the messiness of the world found its way into cracks, fracture points, fissures of his belief system, and when push came to shove, he found his Sunday School lessons woefully inadequate to tackle the hard truths of the world.
That was no matter though. He understood that the world was larger than he was and that God was there watching over him. So long as he felt the presence of God and sensed his direction, he was assured and blissfully content. And then silence fell. The presence and the guidance faded away, dispersed into thin air like the fog at dawn. No matter what he tried, no matter how much he made himself pray and read and sing and fast, nothing tasted anything like the sweet luxurious comfort of the Holy Spirit. And really, what can one do to penetrate the ironclad silence of God?
Back now at his old, familiar church with a more fractured, fragile faith, things were different between the two of them. He sensed it the moment they met again after his years away. It was in the way she hugged a bit too hard, looked his way a bit too long, touched a few too many times. Just as time had distilled her features to the essence of what he had found beautiful about her, so it focused and honed their formerly innocent flirtations into something more serious and intentional.
In part, he had returned for just such affections. He didn't reason it this way at the time but he was seeking from her what he had lost from God. And isn't this what's been done throughout time? God goes up the mountain and his followers down below mold themselves a golden calf to commune with - something tactile, solid, and predictable. Something there. For them a calf, for him a woman after his attention.
He gave himself to her. It was far easier than he could have imagined. Effortless and effervescent, lunch gave way to a walk in the park that wound up in a movie theater which led to dinner and rather than waste their money on dessert, they went to her apartment to finish off the slice of cheesecake in the refrigerator - the slice she ("oops, I forgot") finished off the week before. But better than that was the Amaretto in the cabinet - a sip on the sofa, a sip on the bedside, a sip spilled between the sheets.
Sin is a strange thing. Truth be told, this is exactly where he wanted to be but sin knows he would not have naively followed the steps that led to her door and so sin spun it around, told him he was going back to his old church to find God and perhaps to see her again. Bait and switch executed to perfection. Innocent compromises, little white lies exchanged between want and reason. Justifications, one after another, each more outrageous than the one before. Had he started the day in her bedroom, it would have been a simple thing to forego temptation and to walk away, but their affections had been building since noon, and the law of inertia is inflexible.
And now he looks at the tangle of folds on her bed, winces and looks away. He turns and surveys the rest of the room. He checks his watch and sees that there's time enough to make it to work. But he can't. He flips open his cell phone and calls in sick. And for good reason. He feels nauseous, violently ill, deathly. Up until yesterday, he had been faithful to the Lord. He was saving himself for marriage, for one woman forever. He had been steadfast, hard headed, adamant, even arrogant - holding himself above friends with less fortitude than he. But no more.
He drops the towel in the middle of the bathroom floor, turns the lights off, locks the door and rushes out to his car, parked in the street. He fumbles for his keys, drops them, curses. He finds the car key but somehow inserts it awkward and the bundle falls to the ground again. At last in the car he guns the engine and speeds away, barely missing the car parked parallel in front of him.
On the freeway, caught in traffic, he feels something new. Behind the guilt and shame, behind the anger at his careless self, behind the soft, lustful memories of skin, sensation, and the fiery, concussive consummation, there is something else. It's been so long that it takes him a while to recognize it but when he does, he hurls it away, tries to block it out of his mind but as absent as it's been these last few months, it's here now and he knows that God's not going anywhere. And what can one do to avoid the ironclad presence of God?
He surrenders and begs for unholy forgiveness. In this moment he understands what motivates the ascetic, flailing his body, ripping skin from flesh to show the Lord you're sorry because praying it just doesn't seem anywhere near enough. But he has no whips with which to render himself. All he has is prayer and these salty, slimy tears.
Past the traffic, through the streets, up the stairs, he's back home, finally. He's had his time with God and though a part of him wants to still feel guilty, to still feel sorry, the greater part of him knows that what's done is done and that God is still full of that amazing grace made manifest most clearly in his forgiveness. And so he simply gives thanks and praise and wonder and awe. He basks in the favor of God, lost in ineffable bliss until the buzz of his cellphone brings him back. He pulls it out of his pocket and sees her name on the caller ID display. And it's clear to him now, more than ever before, that while forgiveness is free and forever, consequences remain.