What I Learned Today...

I've been published!!

2009-10-16T00:10:00.006-04:00

Follow me to http://billycoffey.com to read about the long and winding

road I've walked to become an author. And don't forget to

update your RSS!

Moving day

2009-10-15T00:01:00.000-04:00

By my count I've moved four times in my life. I'm not sure if that number is high or low or just right, but it seems good enough for me.

The thing about moving is that takes so much time. Packing and taping and sorting and lugging. And there's the decisions to make--what do I keep and what do I let go? What should I be careful with and what can be tossed around? What's permanent and what's temporary?

The same thing could be said for virtual moving, which is what a few cohorts and I are doing with this blog today.

Beginning Friday, I'll have a new blog with a few extra bells and whistles designed to spread some really fantastic news. So I hope you stop back by tomorrow and meet me here. We'll walk over there together. I might ask you to carry a box or two, though...

What kindergarten homework taught me

2009-10-13T14:19:00.003-04:00

I’ve never been a math guy. Numbers scare me in the same way zombies do; both seem so foreign and lack even a hint of personality. Words can sing. Numbers just stand there mouthing.

The unhealthy relationship I have with plusses and minuses does not apply to homework, however. At least not the kindergarten kind. Because even if 1 + 0 = ? is just as cold and emotionless as ay2 + by + 2a + c = 0, it is a little easier to figure out.

But not to my son, who understands the concept of adding one thing to another one thing and getting two things about as well as I understand how to split the atom. Put all of that together, and you have a recipe for disaster when the two of us sit down to complete his assigned work.

Last night we sat at the kitchen table to tackle the beauty that is addition. Past practice has taught us that both patience and planning is key. Which is why I brought coffee, and he brought Kool-Aid and a Tootsie Pop...

To read the rest of this post (and to find out what I really learned about math), I invite you over to High Calling Blogs for my new column.

When the siren sounds

2009-10-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

Our fair town has all the modern conveniences of any big city. We have a post office, paved roads, working stop lights, and a sign outside the bank that tells us what the temperature is. We also have cell phones, DSL, ATMs, and several institutions whose sole purpose is to deliver artery-clogging fried food as quickly as possible.

We’re contemporary, our little settlement. Not chic, maybe. But not archaic.

Except for when something catches on fire.

The local fire department is sandwiched between The Old Schoolhouse Restaurant and the baseball field. Whether this is by design or chance is unknown to me and not really a matter of consequence. Either way, its location is perfect. The firehouse is smack in the middle of town.

Jutting out from the top of the building is a steel tower with a horn at the top, put there years ago for the simple reason that our firefighters are strictly volunteer. No one here is a fireman as much as a fireman-slash-something. We have firemen/farmers, firemen/business owners, and firemen/retirees. So even though someone is always milling about the firehouse during the day, the majority of our rescue personnel are busy making a living elsewhere. That siren comes in handy.

Since I live and work outside of town I’m not really sure if they use the siren as often as they once did. Cell phones and pagers may have rendered the siren obsolete except for announcing the start of the town parade every July.

When I was a child, though, things were much different. I grew up about three streets down from the siren, close enough to be a weekly witness to its terrors. I never got used to the rising and falling whine that would overcome the birdsong and the rustling leaves. I’d run into the house with my hands over my ears, trembling.

It wasn’t so much the sound that bothered me, it was what the sound meant—trouble. Grave danger (“Is there another kind?” Extra points if you know the movie). It meant lives were in peril.

Though I was too young to adequately process what was going on, hearing that siren was proof of a basic law of life I desperately wanted to avoid accepting. Even though my world was blessed with the usual, the unusual could bare its fangs at any moment. Life could still find you and leave you battered, and there just wasn’t a whole lot anyone could do about it.

That changed the day I rode my bike to 7-11.

One dollar was more than enough compensation for a week’s worth of making my bed and emptying the trash, especially when it bought me three packs of baseball cards. A 1979 Topps Reggie Jackson was what I’d been after all summer, and I was bound and determined to find one.

I jumped the ditch between the road and the parking lot and skidded to a stop near the trash cans outside the store. There stood two farmers, sweaty and smelling from a day’s work in the fields and drowning their sorrows in two bottles of RC Cola.

They nodded and I sir’d them both, and just as they were about to resume their conversation, I heard the low guttural sound of artificial noise.

The siren had begun to go off.

My knees buckled and I froze, unsure of whether to jump on my bike and race home or find comfort in the back aisles of the store. It was a moment of indecision that felt like an eternity.

I looked to the farmers for help, but they had forgotten me.

“Time to go to work,” one said to the other. They both tossed their half-full bottles into the trash, raced to their trucks, and sped off toward the firehouse. Moments later the larger of the town’s fire trucks sped by, siren wailing. One of the farmers was driving. The other hung onto the back, steely-eyed.

It was true, I decided, that there were neither guarantees nor givens in life other than this one simple truth—sooner or later the siren will sound, and it may well be for you.

It will sound the first time your heart is broken or the first time you faith is tested. It will echo when your dreams shatter into a thousand gleaming splinters or your trust crumbles under the unbearable weight of disappointment.

When the shadows of your yesterday match your every step today. When expectations seem too large and strength too small. When the rising sun becomes more a cause for dread than joy.

That’s when the whine will rise and fall. When we are faced with this one choice—whether to flee or stand, run away or toward.

Whether to cry out “Why, God?” or “Time to go to work.”

In praise of the manly man

2009-10-12T01:05:00.000-04:00

I read an article last week that said the Pill is responsible for the decline of the masculine male. The theory is that the hormones ingested dull a woman's natural desire for strong men and replace them with a desire for weaker ones. Weaker in appearance, anyway.

I'm not sure if I buy that or not, but there's no denying the fact that the manly man is now looked down upon by many people. His strength was redefined as arrogance, his silence as apathy, and his stoicism as unhealthy.

The result is that where once women were weak in the knees for Steve McQueen, they're now such for Zac Effron.

Ugh.

Thankfully, there are still plenty of manly men out there. They're not as easy to spot as the flashy pretty boys and hopeless pretenders, but they're around. You just need to know how to spot one.

If you hop on over to Katdish's blog, I'll help you do just that. And when you find one, be sure to give them a punch in the arm and tell him to keep up the good fight...

The letter

2009-10-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

The division of Helen Long’s estate was fairly straightforward. Her two story Cape Cod was to be sold and the proceeds divided between her daughter, Tina, and Mark and Matthew, her two sons. Personal items that held sentimental value were evenly distributed, stocks were liquidated and moved to provide for the grandchildren’s college education, and the vacation home in the Outer Banks was to be shared by everyone as a way to keep the family from drifting apart.

That last bit wouldn’t happen. Not to Helen Long’s family. She had spent too much time and given too much effort in keeping her family together to have them fall apart once she was gone. It was her mission in life, her purpose, and she could think of no better goal to devote her life to fulfilling.

She had done a good job, too. Having your last remaining parent pass away can bring out the worst in families, but this wasn’t the case for the Long family. In the months between the news that Helen’s cancer had spread and her death, she took great pains to ensure everything would go as smoothly as possible.

Funeral arrangements were made. Last minute bills were paid. And though Helen didn’t frequent church nearly as often as her children, her pastor visited often in the last weeks.

In a way, Helen’s passing was to be her crowning achievement. She, not her husband, had kept the family close over the years. There had never been rifts or disputes between the kids, never so much as an argument. Her dying wish was to keep it that way, to give her family something that would allow them to remember their mother’s love. Even in death, Helen would teach them.
And oh, did she teach them.

The funeral services were handled with both precision and ease. There was sadness, much sadness, but there had been ample time for goodbyes. Mark, Matthew, and Tina held their own. Even the grandchildren didn’t cry. The pastor himself said it was one of the most peaceful funerals he’d ever presided over.

When the lawyer called a week later for the reading of Helen’s will, it was only the children who attended. Their spouses and children didn’t feel a need to play referee or look after the best interests of their mates. After all, everything had already been settled. Everything would be fine.
They were right about the former assumption. The latter, not so much. Because while Helen had included her children in all of the planning, she neglected to mention the letter.

The lawyer presented the envelope to them and asked that they verify it had not been tampered with. Tina gave a sideways look to Matthew, who echoed it to Mark.

The lawyer lifted his reading glasses to his eyes and leaned back in his worn leather chair as he carefully slit the envelope open, revealing a single sheet of paper upon which a single paragraph had been written:

Dear Children,

Do not mourn for me because I will not know it. I’m gone. That’s it, just gone. Don’t go fooling yourselves into thinking that I’m sitting on a cloud somewhere with a smile on my face and wings on my back, because I’m not. I’m dead. There’s nothing after this life, so remember what I always told you—all you have is each other.

For the first time since her mother’s death, Tina began to cry.

Helen’s three children sat silent as the lawyer then proceeded to review the contents of the will, all of which didn’t matter before the letter and only mattered less after. Because the money and the trinkets and the vacation house wouldn’t make up for the fact that they would never see their mother again.

All this time, and they never knew. Tina and her brothers all attended church regularly, and they all were certain of their eternal home. They simply took it for granted that Helen was certain, too. After all, she had sat beside them many times in church.

But neither of them had ever bothered to make sure. They never asked that question. And now, suddenly, it was too late.

Two years after her mother’s death, Tina still carries that letter tucked inside a pocket of her purse. She showed it to me last week. The ink was worn and the paper crumpled, as if it had been thrown away and reclaimed time upon time.

“I can’t let it go,” Tina said. “I never will.”

I don’t expect she will. I wouldn’t, either. Tina still carries the burden of never asking her mother if her soul was secure. She holds out hope Helen’s mind was changed in her last minutes of life. That the letter was written in a bout with hopelessness and despair that was lifted in that last breath, and she will see her mother again.

I hope so, too.

Too much rhubarb

2009-10-07T20:00:00.001-04:00

I’ve always been the type of person to show up early for a movie. Fifteen minutes at least, though twenty is preferable. It’s a matter of logistics, really. I need to sit in the back of a movie theater. Not only does it offer the best view, it allows me to see more people than who see me. That’s important. Wild Bill Hickock didn’t take that into account and got shot in the back of the head for his trouble.

The problem is that’s an awful lot of time to sit there in the semi-dark and keep yourself occupied. Conversation is an option of course, though there isn’t much that can be expounded upon in so short a time and in such a hushed environment. And though people watching is a hobby of mine, that’s a bit tricky as well. The dimmed lights offer just enough brightness to not trip over someone but not see exactly who it is you’re not tripping over.

Thankfully, theaters have taken to running advertisements and movie trivia on the screen that are accompanied by a horrible fusion of elevator music and movie scores. I take this as sort of a warm up for the eyes, like stretching before a workout.

I tackle this with the utmost seriousness. Especially the movie trivia. Knowing that the DeLorean in Back to the Future was originally a refrigerator or that the wrestler Peter Parker faces in Spider-Man is real-life wrestler Randy Savage isn’t quite valuable, but it can pass the time before the sneak previews well enough.

Occasionally, though, whomever puts together these little snippets of knowledge manages to sneak something in that really is quite valuable.

Like rhubarb.

Between munches of popcorn and Twizzlers at a matinee the other day, I learned that whenever you watch a scene that includes a large crowd, the extras are often instructed to murmur the word “rhubarb” over and over again, giving the appearance of background conversation.

Why exactly “rhubarb” is used rather than some other word is beyond me and was not explained. Further research has revealed that often other words are used, “peas and carrots” and “watermelons” being among them. I think I understood a little better then. With the image-conscious, diet-crazed environment that is Hollywood, I’m sure there are a lot of hungry people on your average soundstage. Food would always be on your mind, too.

To be honest, I’ve always wondered what all those people in the background were saying. I felt pretty good about myself to finally have the answer to that. It was a tiny burden to lift off my mind, but a burden nonetheless.

But as with many of my unloaded burdens, it was replaced with a new one.

Yesterday I kept track of the people I spoke with and to. I answered over fifty emails, conversed with a dozen people on Twitter, spoke with five people on the phone, and actually had seven conversations with real live people.

That’s seventy-four people. For me, that’s a lot.

I tried to remember exactly what was said and to whom. I should add emphasis on try. Try. The problem was that I couldn’t remember what I had heard or read, nor what I had answered back. I could see the faces of the people I’d spoken to and the gist of what was said, but not exactly.

And that bothered me. It bothered me because I could only conclude that much of my interaction with people yesterday was much more shallow than deep and much less trivial than important. Which led me to ask this one question:

How much rhubarb was in my life?

How many of my words were just chatter, noisy emptiness to fill boredom or an awkward silence?

How many times did I say “How are you?” to someone as a simple greeting and not as an honest question?

How many times did I say I would pray for someone and then let it slip my mind as it disappeared among all the other cares of my day?

Our words carry meaning. They convey more than mere sentiment, but power and intent. Sticks and stones can break our bones, but words can break much more. They can lift up or tear down, make right or make wrong.

Or maybe worst of all, they can just fill the air with rhubarb.

Selling Jesus

2009-10-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

I knew it was a stranger when the doorbell rang. Anyone who was familiar would have either knocked or just walked through the front door. That’s the way it is with country folk. The door’s always open, and you’re always welcome.

Unless, of course, you happen to be selling something. And this guy was selling something.

He was in his twenties and sharply dressed, shuffling his feet as he waited for an answer to his intrusion. He ran a hand through his hair when I appeared, a last ditch effort to make himself look more presentable. To look perfect.

He had no boxes or bags, no SUV with a vacuum cleaner in the back. Just a book in his hand. A book that he was unknowingly folding in a fist clenched with worried determination.

“Sir,” he said, “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

My initial reaction was to answer yes, I did indeed. That not only did I know Him, we happened to be on good terms. But as we stood there regarding one another, a tiny thought formed deep in my mind and bubbled to the surface.

Here was a young man doing something I could not fathom—knocking on a stranger’s door to talk about Jesus. He had no doubt prepared for this moment. He had prayed and studied and practiced countless times for this one moment. Telling him the truth would get me back to my evening and him back to visiting people who needed him. On the other hand, he might also be a little disappointed.

“Nope,” I said. “And I don’t care to, neither.”

I saw for just an instant the faint beginnings of a smile upon his lips. This was his chance. What he’d been waiting for.

I stepped between him and the giant painting of The Creation of Man on the wall so my fib could be preserved.

“Well sir,” he said, “if you’d give me a few moments, I’d like to convince you that you really should and offer you this Bible and a prayer of thanks as a thank you for your time.”

“Don’t know,” I answered, “I’m pretty busy.”

He didn’t budge.

“Tell you what, though,” I said, “I’ll give you five minutes. You gonna say that dinosaurs aren’t real and that I’m goin’ to hell?”

“No sir,” he said. His smile brightened and his posture loosened. The hard part was over. “I just want to know how you’re feeling.”

“How I’m feeling?” I snorted. “That’s how you people start?”

“Just curious,” he said.

“Well, aside from being a little tired from work and a little aggravated at the bills, I’m doin’ just fine. You?”

“Oh, I’m good,” he said. “Didn’t used to be, though.”“How’d you used to be?”
“Confused,” he said. “Angry. Like there was a hole in me, you know? And no matter how I tried to fill it, it just wouldn’t fit. Know what I mean?”

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t know anything about a hole in me. Sounds kinda sissy.”

“It’s not sissy,” he answered with a shake of his head. “It’s the truth. Everybody’s got a hole in them, and God is the only thing that can fill it. He can give you what you don’t have.”

Those words struck me. God can give me what I don’t have? True. For all of us, in a way. But what He knows we don’t have and what we think we don’t have are two separate things. And in that, I saw my chance. All that young man wanted to do was go to bed tonight thanking God that he had led someone to Christ. I wanted to know how far he’d go to do it.

“Listen to me, buddy,” I said. “My daughter? She’s sick. And my job’s in trouble. Our money’s drying out, the truck’s on its last legs, and our furnace needs replacing. So you tell me giving my life to Christ means He’ll give us health and wealth, I’ll take that Bible and read it cover to cover and you can pray with me all you want.”

He stood silent in front of me. This was it. The moment of truth. And though I couldn’t say for sure, I could imagine what he was thinking.

But I was wrong.
“I can’t promise that,” he said. “Look, I’ve only been a Christian a few years. A lot of things get harder. Sometimes it feels like God’s not even there. Some days you’ll still hurt and worry. But the thing is, it’ll be okay. You’ll still mess up, but He makes it all good. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.”

There. He said it. Not what I wanted to hear, maybe even not what he wanted to say. But he said it.

I realized then that God was smiling upon that man, whether he succeeded or not in sharing Christ with me. As much as God commands our love and faith, He also commands our obedience. Not only to Him, but to the truth about Him.

“I’ll take that Bible,” I said.

And we prayed.

Courses in life

2009-10-05T01:05:00.000-04:00

I suppose it's sort of ironic that even though I work at a college, I never actually attended one. The reasons are many and the story long, so I'll just summarize and say that we were not cut out for one another. Which is maybe a shame. Maybe my road would have had a few less potholes.

Then again, maybe not. I know my fair share of people who have had the advantage of a college education. On the whole they have better jobs and enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle than I do, which is good for them.

But I've also noticed that no matter how much education a person has, problems still abound. No one's smart enough to outsmart life. And no matter how much studying we still won't be prepared for everything.

That's what Emily taught me.

To read about her and what I hope to be the future of college education, follow me on over to katdish's blog. And remember, there are some tests you just can't study for.

The great front yard experiment

2009-10-01T23:30:00.000-04:00

I’d spent every afternoon that week repaying a favor. Peter had helped me install some flooring in my house, so helping him repaint his garage was the least I could do. It was good, honest work. Also a little dull. But we received more than enough entertainment from Peter’s neighbors across the street.

"Transplants from the city," Peter said. "Mister, missus, and six-year-old Mary. Good people. Mary could be a handful, though."

Peter had been known to offer the occasional understatement.

Mary’s father visited us one evening under the guise of interest in our painting. After a few minutes of polite banter, he got down to business. Despite all of their efforts to create a stable and safe play environment for Mary in their fenced-in backyard, she now wanted to begin playing in the front yard.

“Traffic’s bad out there,” Peter said.

“That’s what her mother and I said,” Mary’s father answered. “But she’s a good girl and she knows to stay out of the road.”

Peter and I exchanged a look.

Mary’s father continued: “My wife is busy with her home business during the day. She can’t mind Mary in the front yard like she can in the back. The fence is a good babysitter. But since you guys will be out here painting anyway…”

“We’ll watch her,” Peter answered him. Then, under his breath: “Somebody’s got to.”

The next day, Mary followed her father out the front door as he left for work. He opened the door of his SUV, bent down, and whispered one last don’t-go-into-the-street warning into his daughter’s ear, wiggling a forefinger for emphasis. After a peck on the cheek, he climbed into the vehicle. They exchanged waves as he left.

Mary’s mother poked her head out of the front door while talking into the Bluetooth headset clamped onto her ear. She smiled and went back inside to tend to business.

Mary had reached the edge of the driveway before her mother had shut the door.

Peter and I paused in our painting to stand guard. Mary eyed the pavement. Quick glances at first, then longer stares. She looked down the road to her right, then left, then back toward the house. Then Mary raised her right leg, leaned back slightly, and gently touched the toe of a small, pink shoe onto the dark blue pavement.

She spun on her heels and raced back up the driveway to the safety of her porch. Even from across the road, I could see her panicked breaths.

And her smile.

It was Mary’s first taste of defiant self-assertiveness. And it looked like it tasted just fine.

Two hours later, Peter and I were painting the back side of the garage when there came the sound of brakes meeting rubber meeting pavement, followed by the bellow of a horn. We raced around front to find Mary joyous, jumping up and down and waving to a blue Toyota, the driver of which had her hand to her chest and her mouth wide open, no doubt contemplating both the suddenness of life and the consequences of vehicular manslaughter. Mary’s mother raced out the front door, scooped her daughter up in frantic arms, and whisked her inside.

Thus ended The Great Front Yard Experiment.

Mary and her father strolled across the road that evening to see how the garage turned out. The four of us sat on the back deck and examined both our work and Mary’s adventure.

“I just don’t understand it,” her father said. “She knows better.”

Mary looked up at her father and smiled, then asked if she could help me clean the brushes.

Curiosity got the best of me while we scrubbed the bristles. “Mary,” I wondered aloud, “why did you go out into the road?”

“I wasn’t supposed to,” she said.

“That’s right. So why did you?”

“Because I wasn’t supposed to,” she said again.

And then I understood. Within each of us resided a hint of rebellion. What made us human wasn’t our ability to know what’s right, it was our tendency to know what’s right and do wrong anyway. Like Mary, we all stood daily at the edge of should and should not, torn between what we know we aren’t supposed to do and the overwhelming desire to do it anyway. Sometimes, we stepped back from that edge. Other times, we stepped forward. Either way, it was our decision. Fate and destiny were no match for the human ability to choose. It’s what made us so special.

It’s also why we tended to make such a mess of things.

Mary, I knew, would learn all of this the same way I did, the same way we all do. She would grow and experience, fail and hurt. She would gather regrets that would haunt her and joys that would sustain her. And when the time came, she would vow that her children would not suffer the same mistakes she had made.

But as we both sat and scrubbed the paint brushes, I could envision some distant tomorrow when Mary would tell her own child not to play in the street. And I could see a few minutes later another small shoe tip-toeing the edge, teetering between should and should not, then gently stepping into the world of the forbidden.

Back in the game

2009-09-30T03:01:00.003-04:00

It was with the High Calling Blogs network that this blog first gained a tiny audience, and it was L.L. Barkat who became my first regular commenter. I owe a lot to both of them. And now that L.L. has asked me to provide a twice-monthly parenting column to the HCB website, I owe her even more.

So to L.L. and the rest of the good folks at High Calling, I offer a humble nod of thanks...

The thing about having two young children is that they cannot understand the importance of a baseball game, especially one being played in September. The playoffs are in sight, the tension is high, and the fans are whipped into a frenzy. All plusses, I might add.

And I will also add that those plusses are totally lost on my children, who still see baseball as a funny game played by men wearing funny pants. This is, as far as I can tell, the only gulf between us.

All of which necessitates certain rules my children must abide by when I am watching a game, namely to leave me alone. Harsh, I know. Also true.

That said:

Last night. Middle of the seventh inning, score tied, runners in scoring position. A crucial point in the game.

“Daddy,” asks my daughter, “can we play Simon Says?”.

“Okay,” I mumble, carefully maneuvering her away from between me and the television.

“You go first!” she shrieks.

“Simon says sit here beside me and watch the ballgame...”

To read the rest of this story, please follow this link to the column on High Calling Blogs. And yes, Simon says.

It's never easy being normal

2009-09-29T00:01:00.002-04:00

Before we get into today's post, I'd like to invite everyone back here tomorrow for my new parenting column on High Calling Blogs. Yes, I am a parent. And yes, my kids teach me much more than I teach them. An example:

“Daddy, are we rich?”

My daughter at the dinner table. Which, since school has started again, is quickly becoming more of a place to discuss Important Things than eat.

If first grade paints a broad stroke of a child’s future life, second grade narrows things a bit. I’m not just talking about things like math and history and spelling. I’m talking about where children fit into the scope of society. My daughter is in a classroom of about sixteen. That means there are fifteen other children who might be her age, but have little else in common with her.

Some have no father at home, and some have no mother. Some are of a different color. Some are from other parts of the state. A few are from other states completely.

Some have accents. Some wear glasses. There are the tall and the short, the big and the small, the smart and the not so much.

There is a mixing of ideas and life experiences, even if those ideas are still relatively undeveloped and those experiences relatively few.

The result of all this mixing and matching is that each of her classmates are spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out not only where they fit in, but why and why not.

One of her friends had a new toy to show the other day. A nice toy. One that my daughter herself had expressed an overwhelming desire to obtain every time the commercial appeared on the television. I told her it was too expensive and it was the sort of thing that fell under Santa’s jurisdiction rather than her father’s. So when she saw what her friend had just gotten at Target, the first notion in her mind was envy. The second was whether that meant her parents had less money than her friend’s.

The boy she saw during recess was quite the opposite. He had no toys. None that he had chosen to sneak into school, anyway. His clothes were worn and a little dirty, and his shoes looked as if they were too small. Like my daughter, his parents didn’t seem rich either. But unlike her, he seemed to have even less.

So: “Daddy, are we rich?”

The thought occurred to me to put a spin on her question. I could use the We’re Rich In The Things That Matter speech. I could say that we had things like love and togetherness, things that make us rich but can’t really be spent at Target.

Or I could use the We’re A Lot Better Off Than Most speech, too. I could say there were a lot of people in a lot of places who didn’t have a house to stay in or good food to eat or even a television to watch. People who would consider us very rich indeed.

But neither of those options seemed right at the time. There are moments when a lesson is in order and moments when the truth begs to suffice. I decided that honesty would be the best policy.

“No,” I told her, “we’re not rich.”

“We’re not?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then are we poor?”
“No.”

She paused with a spoonful of mashed potatoes in her hand. “Then what are we?”

I shrugged. “We’re normal.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

Thus ended our conversation.

Being normal was okay for her. No big deal. She wasn’t rich, which may have been a disappointment. But she wasn’t poor either, which may have made her feel better. She was in the middle. Neither/nor. And that was fine.

I hoped she would always have this opinion of things. I mean that. There were people in the world who wanted so badly to be more than they were that they forgot they were actually pretty good to begin with. And I also knew people who were so convinced that they could do nothing that their lives became little more than self-fulfilled prophecies. I hoped that she would grow up to be different, that she never got so ambitious as to forget her blessings and never so complacent as to forget that she could always both be and do more.

So let her reach for the stars, I say. I think we all should. But it’s always helpful to keep our feet firmly on the ground, too. It’s a precarious position, our normalness. It takes some skill to keep from tipping over one way or the other.

(This post was first published as a column in the Staunton, VA News Leader)

In praise of useless facts

2009-09-28T01:05:00.001-04:00

I would have liked school if it weren't for all the learned I was expected to do. Friends, sports, and girls were the reason I got out of bed and trudged off to the classroom every morning. Math, history, and reading were most definitely not.

By high school I had fully mastered the art of sneaking by and even managed to convince myself that there was something inherently pleasing about a good, solid C average. Knowing a lot isn't important when all you really want is to get by.

That sort of thinking further cemented itself when I accepted Christ. Since faith was all I needed in order to get to heaven, I didn't really have to bother with knowing much. Besides, knowledge was faith's enemy, right? Sometimes you could know just enough to get you confused with what you should believe and shouldn't.

But sometime between then and now, I discovered that learning wasn't all that bad. I also discovered that I had quite an appetite for it. One could actually say I have quite an appetite for accumulating useless facts.

Aside from maybe being able to win a few dollars on Jeopardy, most of my family and friends think this hobby gets in the way. I think not. So to hear my argument in favor of filling your brain with things you'll never use, head over to Katdish's blog. It's worth the trip just to learn in what key a housefly's wings hum...

Finding your way in the dark

2009-09-25T22:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have days like yesterday, days when fear and despair grip and won’t let go. Dark days, I call them. Days when the black surrounds you to such degree that you begin to choke.

On many of those days, I ponder this question: When you suddenly discover the darkness is all around you, how do you find the light?

The answers to that question have varied over the years, but the one I usually settle upon has always been a restful night’s sleep. The formula was simple—hang on, muddle through, and go to bed. Tomorrow would be better.

It was my intent to follow that often tried but seldom true maxim last night. But then the subconscious part of me that keeps a nightly vigil for bogeymen and the helpless cries of small children with smaller bladders woke me. I opened my eyes and saw nothing.

The power was out.

It was never dark in my house. Not truly dark, anyway. We had lamps and night-lights and shudders and creaks. Even in those hours when late night and early morning become synonymous, there is light and sound and sense.

But not then. Then, there was only the Void.

The husband and father part of me demanded at least a cursory investigation of the cause. My mind ran the gamut of possibilities, from the extreme (fire) to the improbably (lurking serial killer) to the likely (snafu at the power company). But to investigate, I needed to see. And in order to see, I needed a flashlight. Thankfully, I had one. In the closet. On the other side of the couch.

That was when the familiar question again popped into my mind:

When you suddenly discover the darkness is all around you, how do you find the light?

I lay there thinking. I’d never handled the darkness well. Not because of what may lurk there, but because I was incapable of knowing where I was in relation to where I wanted to be. My way was hidden.

The same could be said about the darkness that occasionally crept into my life. And maybe, just maybe, figuring out how to find the light in my closet could help me figure out how to find the light in my life. The same principles must apply. I simply had to decide what to do.

First, this was no time to panic. My daughter, a diabetic, needed her sugar checked in an hour. And my son, a light sleeper and terrified of the dark, would likely be roused by the same silence that woke me. I had responsibilities. People counted on me. Not just there in my darkened home in the middle of the night. Always.

Then I had to get up. This was no time for lying down. I had to reach the decision that I was going to make something happen rather than let something happen. Lying around and fretting about the darkness wouldn’t accomplish anything.

And after getting up, I had to move. Reckless abandon, however, wouldn’t do. That would only result in much noise and a possible broken bone. I had to move, yes. But I had to go slowly. I had to feel my way.

So I did.

As I made my way through the house, I discovered that memory was also I necessary ally when faced with the darkness. I found that I had walked down the hallway to the closet enough times to know how to get there. I knew where the floor creaked and where the door should be. Even in the dark, I knew the way.

Flashlight in hand, I roamed the house to make sure all was indeed well. My children were curled into the arms of slumber, oblivious to the darkness around them. I was happy they were spared from that knowledge, happy that they at least didn’t inherit the opposite trait from their father.

Because sometimes the power went out in my life. Sometimes what was once bright and clear was rendered dim and incomprehensible. “Where’s God?” I wonder.

Faith, like my flashlight, shines brighter in the darkness. And shadows, whether figuratively in my heart or literally in my home, grow with my sense of fear.

How do I find the light? I don’t panic. I get up. I move. And I remember that no matter how dark it is, I don’t have to stay lost.

That no matter how dark it is, I know the way.

The oak tree

2009-09-23T22:00:00.001-04:00

It is a known fact that one of the main reasons why I’m friends with Tommy Fuller is because of what’s in his backyard. I realize this paints me in somewhat of a bad light on the surface. In my defense, though, Tommy is not only aware of this, he’s fine with it. He figures it’s a trade off. One of the main reasons he’s friends with me is because he borrows my golf clubs.

It’s a good deal as far as I’m concerned. Tommy’s a great guy. Even better than that is the fact that he has an open door policy when it comes to his backyard. I can visit any time I like, even if he isn’t there. The kids are welcomed, too. Sometimes we even make an afternoon of it. They can jump on his trampoline, and I can climb his oak tree.

Tommy has one of the biggest back yards in town with THE nicest tree smack in the middle of it. Tall and full, and the limbs are spaced just far enough apart to let through the perfect amount of sunlight. Home to squirrels and robins and friendly bugs. It’s the sort of tree that belongs more in a Disneyland attraction than a redneck’s backyard.

The farm has been in the Fuller family for generations, and it’s one of the oldest in the area. Tommy’s grandfather and father were both raised there, as was he. When his mother passed away ten years ago, he moved in and got control of the property. And when the time comes, Tommy will pass the torch onto one of his sons. In the Fuller family, the circle never ends.

There aren’t many properties around here that carry charm like that anymore. Most of the farmers in town have sold their acres of fields and forest to developers, giving in to the promise of a life of comfort rather than sweat. Tommy won’t bow to that false promise. There will be no subdivisions on his land. Not because his principles are too strong or his faith too unwavering, but because of that tree.

Because it is quite literally a family one.

Look on the back side and you can see the faint outlines of his father’s pledge to his mother back when they were mere boyfriend and girlfriend. BF Loves KT, it says. Tommy says his mother and father would sit beneath that tree often during their courtship, resting in the shade of their love.

And on the other side are the marks Tommy carved to his own bride to be, pledged in wood on the night they became engaged.

In the upper reaches of the oak is a tree house that Tommy built for his boys. Though worn, it’s still in good shape. He sees his future grandchildren playing pirate there.

But the best part? The best part isn’t the tree, It’s the stone plaque beside it.

03 MAY 1901, it says.

According to Tommy, his great grandfather planted that tree himself on a calm spring afternoon. Dug the hole, gently placed the seedling inside, then covered and watered it. And after that he stuck his shovel in the ground and just smiled. Tommy remembers his grandfather saying that it was a strange smile, part sadness and part joy. The sort of smile a dying man wears. Tommy doesn’t know what was wrong with his great grandfather, just that he didn’t have much longer. And he didn’t. If you drove over to the church nearby you would see that the date of his death and the date the tree was planted are less than a month apart.

It’s amazing that something so small and fragile could grow into something so large and strong. But love is like that. Hope, too. That’s what I think about when I sit in that tree.

And I also think about this—on a calm spring afternoon more than a century ago, a dying man’s last act was to plant something he would never be able to see grow. He would never get to rest in its shade or climb its branches. He would never get to enjoy it, but he planted it anyway. Not for himself, but for those who would come afterward.

I like that idea.

According to some, there is no such thing as an unselfish act. But this comes close. And I think that for all the lofty goals the human spirit can strive to accomplish, this is the most noble—that we spend our days in pursuit of something that will outlive us. That we plant seeds destined to bless not only ourselves, but generations.

What's your sign?

2009-09-21T23:30:00.001-04:00

Our sleepy town doesn’t really have a homeless problem. None that I know of, anyway. Those who through choice or circumstance lose their station in life usually have family or friends who are more than willing to offer them a place to stay.

But things are different in the nearby cities, where there are more than a few poor souls who have slipped through the cracks and settled on society’s murky bottom. Forgotten or, even worse, ignored.

You see these people most often perched along the busiest intersections. Their appearance is consistent with their desperation and need—dirty clothes, often a dirtier hat, unshaven and gaunt. And there is always a sign.

VETERAN PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS.

HIV+ NEED MEDICINE.

HUNGRY FAR FROM HOME PLEASE GIVE.

I have friends who refuse to give to such people based upon the skepticism that whatever proceeds these people receive will be used for less than savory activities. They don’t want to be a part of enabling a drug addict to buy more meth or a drunk more liquor. I also have friends who give regardless, believing that their act of mercy, of helping the helpless, is an act God happens to smile brightly upon.

I happen to adopt the latter position and give as often as I can, though I’ll admit there have been more than a few times when I have questioned the validity of their statements.

Still, these signs have always fascinated me. They represent the current state of one person’s life pared down to reveal only the essentials. One story able to fit on a single piece of discarded cardboard. And they are each by necessity crafted to initiate an immediate response. They are not designed to persuade through the intellect or please the eyes. They are meant to be shot as an arrow into the heart.

After running a few errands in the city yesterday, I was on my way home when I saw a man sitting by the guardrail on the opposite side of the road. His flannel shirt hung loosely from his body, sleeves rolled up against the hot sun. The blue work pants that completed the outfit were the sort that provided the maximum amount of wear for the least amount of money. A pair of untied brown tennis shoes shuffled the gravel.

But it was his sign that caught my attention. Three words, and no more. Three words that spoke very much with very little and offered honesty rather than a plea.

DESPERATE AND TIRED, it read.

The rush hour traffic was such that I couldn’t turn around and offer him what I could. I didn’t have much choice but to keep going. As I drove I watched him through the side mirror, hoping someone would stop.

No one did. Some, I suppose, didn’t notice him. Others probably did but then decided not to. One car full of teenagers blew their horn and offered a chorus of middle fingers.

The man never moved. Never shifted his weight or lifted his head. This was not so much an insult as it was the status quo.

Yet I realized that we all were in many ways like that poor man. Like all of the lost souls who roam our streets and barely manage to survive. We’ve all slipped through our own share of cracks at some point.

VETERAN PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS? We’ve all sacrificed, given all we’ve had, only to not get the same returned back to us.

HIV+ NEED MEDICINE? We are all hurting in our own way. Some are afflicted with physical ailments. Others have their ailments on the inside. Many of us have both.

HUNGRY FAR FROM HOME PLEASE GIVE? Within each of us is a hunger, whether to love or be loved, that can only be filled by a God who at this moment is readying a faraway place for us to call home.

And let’s not forget the last. DESPERATE AND TIRED. How many times have we all felt that way?

The difference between us and them have much less to do with our level of comfort and much more to do with our level of honesty.

Because we all carry a sign that tells the story of our lives, pared down to reveal only the essentials. They choose to show the world in a bid for help. We don’t. And for that, they are better.

Things that scare the heck out of me

2009-09-21T01:05:00.000-04:00

My kids are asking when it will be time to pull the Halloween decorations out of the attic and onto the house. It's a strange request given the fact that aside from a few cobwebs and maybe a mouse or two, there are no Halloween decorations up there to bring down.

But maybe there should be.

With all the excitement I bring to holidays like Christmas and July 4, I've been a little lax in the Halloween department. It's a day that sometimes seems to clash with my faith. There's a growing push by Christian leaders to boycott October 31 and treat it as just another day. Witches and ghosts and goblins aren't good for the soul, they say.

Maybe that's true. But I for one have never minded Halloween, if for no other reason than it makes us a little more comfortable talking about something we rarely do--what scares us.

If you'd like to know what scares me, what truly shakes me to the core, then hop on over to Katdish's blog. I've bared my soul. You'll find interesting things, scary things, and things that may even alter your opinion of me. And that's okay with me. After all, we're all afraid of something. It's what we do with that fear that makes the difference.

The weekend What If?

2009-09-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Know what I love? Laughing.

I do it every day, and most days repeatedly. I laugh at myself and my own stupidity. And I laugh at others and their stupidity, too. Because let's face it, people are funny.

There's an old saying that postulates that we must either laugh or cry, and so we might as well laugh. That's true, I think. Our world is such that it begs a reaction--either hope or doubt, love or hate, laughter or tears. And though I'm never one to diminish the power of tears, for me laughter's always won out in the end.

I've often wonder what made Jesus laugh. The Bible never says, though I'm sure He did. Jesus has gotten the bad rap of being a sad, weary God. Though that was certainly the case from time to time, I'm pretty sure He laughed a lot, too. I'm also pretty sure some of the things I find funny He wouldn't.

Which brings us to this weekend's question, courtesy of Dr. Gregory Stock's The Book of Questions. If you'd like, you can leave your answer in the comments.

Ready? Here goes:

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

The REAL crazy people

2009-09-16T23:30:00.000-04:00

The thing about shopping isn’t the money you have to spend. I don’t mind spending money. And it isn’t the crowded streets and the even more crowded stores, both of which I tolerate when I must.

No, the thing about shopping is the crazy people you parade in front of you all day long.

And yet there I stood on a recent Saturday morning in a busy local store, surrounded by crazy people.

Like the woman who wanted to return the underwear she had purchased the week before. The underwear that she had not only worn, but was wearing at that moment. “I have the receipt right here,” she told the woman at the service desk. “I just need to borrow your dressing room.”

Or the twenty-something man who stood for twenty minutes in the checkout line begging the cashier to run his credit card through just once more, as if God would suddenly smile upon him with fifty magical dollars to pay for his beer and smokes.

Or the elderly man who launched into a tirade against the store manager over the hidden consortium of powerful businessmen conspiring to prevent him from finding his favorite brand of peanut butter.

I paced through the store as warily as I could, careful not to touch anyone for fear that I would catch the Loony virus. If I would have had one of those H1N1 masks, I would have put it on. I felt as if Rod Serling would at any moment step in front of me and start speaking of another dimension of sound and sight and mind.

But it was as I left the store when I saw maybe the craziest person of all. Stepping like a tightrope walker on the thin line where the concrete of the storefront met the pavement of the parking lot. Bushy-haired and dirty, hands waving both outward and upward. Shouting.

What he was shouting was difficult to decipher, though “Why did I do that?!” could be made out quite plainly. I could pick out questions that were both asked and answered and as he seemed to analyze the results of something that had happened concerning someone named Harry.

Many of the customers entering the store altered their gait so as to time their arrival just before or just after he had passed. The ones stuck in no man’s land could not escape his approached and offered a variety of reactions. A few looked away to something, anything, that they could deem very interesting. Others studied their feet. More than a few tensed for a possible confrontation.

One young boy with his father in tow voiced the question we were all wondering.

“Daddy,” he said, “what’s wrong with that man?”

“Don’t look at him,” his father answered, “he’s just crazy.”

Crazy Man walked passed me (“Why did I do that?!”) toward the far end of the parking lot. The rest of us looked after him. Some, like me, were certain he had missed a pill or two that morning. Others, also like me, were wary that he’d decide to return.

I tossed the experience into my mental It Takes All Kinds file and forgot about it, but only for a minute. I couldn’t stop thinking about what that father had said to his son.

“He’s just crazy.”

Maybe.

But then I began to wonder.

How many times had I talked to myself lately? How many times had I paused in my busy day to consider what I was doing and thinking and believing? How many times had I stopped to ask this question:

Why did I do that?!

In a word, none. And it wasn’t because I didn’t have reason enough to do so. I had plenty. My days were filled with irrational acts and suspicious thoughts. Maybe taking the time to ponder the reasons behind the actions would help to fix that. Maybe a little self-examination would go a long way in turning the person I am into the person I should be.

We talk to our spouses and our co-workers, our children and our friends. We talk to strangers and pets and God.

But most of us haven’t heard from ourselves in a very long time.

And maybe, just maybe, that makes us the crazy ones.

Googling me

2009-09-15T00:01:00.000-04:00

My kids have recently become enamored with their height, believing that their upward rather than inward growth gives the best indication of their march toward adulthood. Every person they meet is gauged in terms of how tall they are. Instead of a hug or a handshake, both of my children will stand in front of them and with hand to head make a straight line across to see how much further they have to grow to get even.

I’d call this a phase, but I know it’s not. I’m thirty-seven and still do the same thing.

By my count there are 122 listings for “Coffey” in the phone book beside me, and 123 if you count Coffey’s Garage (and you should, because they do great work). That’s quite a number considering the fact that we’re all crammed into a relatively small part of a relatively small Virginia county. And though I don’t know each of them personally, I’d bump into all of them if I climbed high enough into my family tree.

Two of those Coffeys are prefaced by the first name of “Billy.” One of them is me. The other has over the years become me, too. Just improved.

Because in a lot of ways, the other me has always gone first. First to have a girlfriend, first to graduate. First to get married and have kids.

The other Billy Coffey was always cool and still is. He walks the fine line between being redneck enough to go bear hunting with the guys and refined enough to know that “loading the dishwasher” doesn’t mean getting his wife drunk. There are Coffeys around here who have yet to get that one straight.

I ran into him yesterday at the gas station (which is always somewhat awkward—“Hey, Billy,” “Hey, Billy”) and took the time to catch up while our vehicles were filling up. It was the normal sort of conversation between acquaintances, the kind where much is said but not necessarily told.

Weather? Cool. Wives? Good. Kids? Rowdy. Work? Horrible.

We topped off our tanks and said our goodbyes before driving off in opposite directions. But I couldn’t help but think we were actually going the same way now. He was no longer first in most things. No longer improved, either. We were just two guys living their lives who just happened to have the same name.

It was all a bit anti-climactic. Here I had for years considered this man to be a sort of mirror for my life, a crude barometer by which I measured the quality of my own highs and lows. But I didn’t have that anymore, and that was a problem.

So I did what any sane person would do. I went home and Googled myself.

Turned out there were a lot of me’s out there. The most famous was a Billy Coffey who raced sprint cars. He even had a nickname—The Kid. Billy “The Kid” Coffey. Awesome. I always wanted a nickname, especially one what was cowboy-ish.

There was another Billy Coffey on Facebook. Relaxing in a chair wearing a pair of sunglasses and a ball cap. It was a nice picture and one I could never have taken. I was seldom relaxed.

A Billy Coffey in Florida was appealing a conviction for cocaine distribution. Finally, someone who held a position in life a little lower than mine. But then I found another Billy Coffey who was a preacher in the next county, a fact that rendered the scales a bit uneven again.

And then I found a Billy Coffey who’s sacrifice was enshrined forever on West Panel 2 of the Vietnam Memorial.

That’s when I quit looking. I realized then exactly what I was doing.

It was human nature for us to judge ourselves against others, to stand toe to toe with their talents or looks or status and move a mental hand from the tops of our heads across to them. Regardless of who we are, we all need to see how we measure up. Often, we come up short. Occasionally we can admit we’re not shorter. But it’s rare when we can honestly say we’re taller.

We are all unique. “Wonderfully made,” according to the Bible. Made alike by our capacity to love and dream and hope, yet set apart by our abilities to express them. Which is why comparing ourselves to others will never work.

And also why comparing ourselves to the people we were yesterday always will.

Monsters

2009-09-14T01:05:00.000-04:00

I'm a firm believer that there are far more things that serve to unite us than keep us apart. Constants, I call them. Things like falling in love and falling out; we all do that. Or chasing a dream, no matter how big or small.

And then there's the monster in the bedroom.

Most everyone has had to endure this at some point, either in their childhood or their children's. I'm no different. My monster terrorized me when I was a kid, and now another is terrorizing my son.

My methods for dealing with this are maybe a tad unconventional and maybe a little wrong. That's okay. Because to me, dealing with a monster in the house is a very serious thing with lasting implications. I would even go so far as to say it's been a blessing. I have a lot to teach my son now.

To hear that unconventional method and why it's a blessing, I'll invite you to hop over to Katdish's blog for the story. And I'll also invite you to check your closets carefully tonight. You never know what might be lurking.

Remembering 9/11

2009-09-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

I know this might surprise some people, but once upon a time I hated country music. Not kidding. The old adage about playing a country music song backward and getting your wife, dog, and job back seemed true enough to me, and I liked to listen to music that would give me a lift rather than bring me down.

I kept waiting in the days after 9/11 for someone with a little influence to come forward and put into words everything we were all feeling. No one did. Like us, those who wrote and sang for us were silent and numb.

I was flipping around the television stations one night a few weeks later and settled on the image of a tall man wearing ripped jeans and a cowboy hat walking onto the stage at an awards show. I sat the remote down after the first line and became a country music fan.

In leiu of the respect I have for September 11 and the days afterward, I'm not doing my usual weekend question. Instead, I'm posting that song. I'm sure most of you have heard Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)." I'm also sure you won't mind hearing it again.

The skies of 9/12

2009-09-10T23:00:00.001-04:00

I spent the majority of my day eight years ago today sitting on the edge of my bed in my bathrobe and staring at the television.

I was alone that day; my wife was at work, and I had had planned on enjoying a quiet and uneventful day off. By ten o’clock, though, I knew I’d have neither.

I woke and turned on the television for the morning news, expecting the same old depressing stories of who did what to whom. What I saw instead was difficult to watch and impossible to process.

A plane crashing into a New York City building. And then another.

People hurtling hundreds of stories to the ground, choosing death by gravity rather than fire.

Another airliner crashes in a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone onboard.

And finally, another hits the Pentagon.

Voices of normally stoic newscasters crack with emotion. Facts mix with conjecture and serve only to add to the confusion. One tower of the World Trade Center collapses and then the other, killing scores of police officers, fire fighters, and EMTs.

As the hours pass, all thoughts of malfunction and accident are laid to rest. No, this is an act of intent. Of purpose.

Of war.

And as I sit on the edge of my bed staring as those images are repeated over and over again, a tiny thought manages to claw its way to the front of my mind:

Everything has changed.

I was right. Everything did change that day. Every generation has that moment when innocence is lost, when the veil of security is lifted to reveal the truth about this world—that it is a hard place, full of darkness and hate. For my grandparents, that moment was World War II. For my parents, Vietnam. And for my generation, it was 9/11.

Of all the images that day and the days thereafter, it’s the planes I remember most. Not the ones who served as instruments of death. The other ones.

At some point every day for thirty years I had cocked my neck and looked up to stare at a mechanical something flying overhead. The skies above the Shenandoah Valley serve as a highway for all manner of jets and helicopters. And I’ll be honest. I hated it.

I hated the noise they made and how they got in the way of the clouds. I hated their dirty contrails that streaked across my sunset and sunrise. I always thought things would be a little more peaceful around here without them.

But then that happened.

For three days after that September day, the skies above my home were the sole property of clouds and birds. The government had grounded all air traffic. The skies were both silent and empty, a reflection of what we were all feeling. For seventy-two hours there were no booming jet engines, no swooshing of rotor blades, no contrails that colored the evening sky.

And I missed them.

I missed them because it was proof that life had stopped proceeding as usual. We had been shaken to our very foundation.

As sad as that day eight years ago was, the saddest days came later, when a country that was brought together by a tragic act was torn apart by its equal—the politicization of that act. The righteous indignation that was warranted and even necessary was replaced by the need to blame ourselves and explain our attackers, as if three thousand innocent people could be held at fault and insanity could be explained.

But that’s not what I’m dwelling on right now.

I just walked outside to make sure the sun was still there. It was, along with four airliners, a helicopter, and one single-engine plane. Life is proceeding as usual now, and has for a while. There is a great deal of comfort in that. Too many of us long to break free of the status quo. Sometimes that’s the very thing that brings peace to our lives.

Americans are tough people. The toughest. We can be knocked down, but we’ll get up angry. We can suffer, but our suffering emboldens us. And we can despair, but that cannot kill our hope and our resolve. Our enemies found that out eight years ago.

I think we did, too.

(This column was published in the Staunton News Leader)

Placing Faith

2009-09-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

One of the tenets of redneck folklore is the belief that people die in threes. It’s a tenet so ingrained around here that there is an influx of patients to the doctor’s office whenever a longstanding member of the community passes on. No one knows who will be next, and they don’t want to take any chances.

I’m not sure how much truth there is in that conviction. People might die in twos or fours just as often as threes. But I do know this—light bulbs die in threes. At least in my house.

It began last week with the light in my son’s bedroom, which much have died a quiet and peaceful death sometime in the night. He rose out of bed the next morning, flipped the switch, and…nothing. A few days later it was the light above the kitchen sink, which yelped a pop! when my wife tried to turn it on.

Then last night I came upstairs to my computer and fumbled for the light switch behind the door. Just as I flicked the switch upward, blue and white sparks sprayed from the ceiling fan in a burst of violence that actually managed to shatter the light bulb itself. It was quite impressive.

What brought about this light bulb mass suicide is beyond me. Our home is not old and the wiring was expertly done. I can only surmise that everything has its life cycle. At some point the odds are in favor of more than one sputtering out at the same time.

The blown light bulb is an exercise in both physics and inevitability. The cause is fairly straightforward: a light bulb’s filament does not evaporate evenly, leaving it to develop spots over time that are thinner than others. Since the electrical current heats the filament evenly, the thin spots heat more quickly. The result is a pop! and then darkness.

What struck me as I stood there staring at the bulb was my reaction, which so happened to be the one my son and my wife had, too. Not anger or frustration. Not even disappointment.

Confusion.

Because a light is supposed to turn on when you flip the switch it’s connected to. I had a vast amount of experience to back that assertion. It was one of the few of my life’s givens, so much so that I’d perform the act without giving it a second thought. Flipping a light switch is faith at its purest, the embodiment of if-I-do-this-then-this-will-happen.

It’s easy to take such things for granted, though. I’ve spent my day keeping track of every light I turned on, from the bathroom light when I first got up to the light in my office nearly sixteen hours later. My total thus far? Thirty. I’ve turned thirty lights on today, and none of them has broken.

I’m already taking the light switch for granted again.

So maybe I needed the gentle reminder that all those everyday things I put my faith in are neither permanent nor flawless. Things that go well beyond light bulbs and into the very center of my life. The job I have today may go pop! tomorrow. The savings account to cushion a fall may be pulled from beneath me just before I land. And the very ones I love most may be the very ones who let me down the hardest.

That’s the nature of life, the consequence of living in a world that isn’t quite what it should have been. We’re all searching for something to hold onto, something that will give us a sense of security and knowing, and yet everything we have is like that light bulb—at some time and in some way, they will all fail in an impressive fashion and leave us standing in the darkness. Which is all the more reason to place more trust in God than man.

Our hearts are pocked with the scars of failed faith and broken trust. There’s nothing we can do about that. Disappointment is built into this world. But despite the fact that those light bulbs in our lives will shatter and explode from time to time, we still must flip their switches. We still must believe. That’s what life is. What Love is, too.

What God Wants

2009-09-07T01:05:00.000-04:00

The syringes you see here constitute approximately three days worth of insulin injections for my seven-year-old daughter, who was diagnosed with Type I diabetes three years ago.

If you've been around here for a while, you've likely been party to my frustrations and anxieties over being powerless against the disease that takes a daily toll not only on her, but my entire family. For me, those frustrations and anxieties have upon more than one occasion carried over from the physical world to the spiritual one. For her, that's never really been an issue.

Until the other day. Until she was told by a man of God that she suffered from her disease because she didn't have enough faith for God to rid her of it.

To read about what happened, jump on over to Katdish's blog. It was a tough story to write, but worth the effort.