The Journey from A to B and the Chance for Greater Love

I think most of us seek to get from A to B in the most efficient, least dangerous, most pain-free, worry-free, pleasant, comfortable way. If it's at all possible for us to get from A to B while enjoying a drink with a small umbrella in it, or while having our feet massaged, or while having someone read aloud passages from Fyodor Dostoevky's The Brothers Karamazov while enjoying a drink with a little umbrella on it and having our feet massaged--then we'll go for it.

But the thing I am noticing again, and again, and again, and again is that around this particular day, when we think of Christ's birth, is that the whole nativity story makes absolutely no sense. Zero sense.

On a scale of sense-making, where zero is the idea of trying to squeeze an oversized lampshade down a red stirrer from Dunkin' Donuts, and ten is try to use a Dunkin' Donuts red stirrer to stir your coffee, the nativity story is a zero.

Forget zero, the nativity story nets a negative number.

But maybe that makes a whole lot of sense. God decides to send the savior of the world to earth, and if we were God, we'd be running the numbers. Immediately, we'd have cost-effectiveness graphs--bam!--and we'd be searching all the crime stats for the absolute safest possible town in the absolute safest possible country in the whole planet. And we'd be choosing the most experienced--and wealthiest--couple to find as his parents. And we'd be sure to load up our savior with heavy does of life insurance, health insurance, fire insurance, home insurance--the whole deal. And we'd hire the best consulting firm to process exactly how to raise that savior, and how to prepare the 'consumer' to meet and greet that savior. And--no doubt!--we'd have a few book deals lined up for the uncles, aunt, parents, and for the savior himself. From the get-go,., we're talking multiple deals, at auction.

But God didn't work that way. Instead, God choose the absolute most culturally dangerous situation--a young, unmarried virgin--to become pregnant. Then, God choose the exact moment before a census, so that Joseph and Mary would have to travel during her pregnancy. And we're not even talking here about a three-hour jaunt to the in-laws. We're talking about a multi-day journey wherein food is in short supply, nights are cold, an old donkey is exhausted. And then--to top it all off--God chose to lead Joseph and Mary to the barnhouse to birth the savior amidst hay (which is really quite pokey, prodding stuff, no matter what anyone says), animal poop, and absolutely no plan.

Bam. There they are: new parents away from home with no help and no money and no place to stay.

In essence, then, God brought Jesus into the world in the precise, most specific, utterly exact opposite way any of us in our sense-making minds would choose to do.

But, if we really think about it, it does kind of make sense in a weird way.

It makes sense, especially, if you think about life before children and life after children.

Sure, the journey to get anywhere before kids looks enticing. That nice, slender, thin line. And then before we know it: B! We made it to B! But the thing about the ridiculous journey to get from A to B after kids is this: by the time we get to B, we're different.

B is the same no matter how we travel, but we're different. All those crazy spikes and drops and whirls and twirls have changed us. And a lot of times, not for the better. I wish I could always journey from A to B and encounter those loops and swoops with great hope, faith, and even love. But I don't. However, I think the latter journey affords us the opportunity that we all are desperately seeking beyond the quick fixes and the cost-effectiveness strategies.

The second journey allows us the space to become what we could become.

Which leads us back to God. If he allowed Mary and Joseph to have that first kind of journey to welcome their son Jesus, I wonder what kind of parents they'd be. My hunch is maybe not as good. Something about the danger of the journey, the lack of safety and insurance and the crazy loops and swoops got them to point B as different people--stronger, more faithful, more loving.

Tonight, on the eve of Christ's birth, I keep thinking about this prayer Mother Teresa used to pray whenever something truly difficult occurred: Lord, help me see this moment as a chance for greater love.

And maybe that one part of what God was thinking when he gave Mary and Joseph that second kind of journey from A to B. The nativity story isn't easy, but maybe that's because God knew that to get them to point B in the fastest, most comfortable, easiest way possible wouldn't prepare them for the great love that was about to be unleashed in and through and for them.

And maybe the same is true for us. On whatever loop or swoop or curl or twirl or whirl we're on in our journey, maybe part of the reason we're on it is to prepare us to be the kind of people we need to be so that when we finally reach point B, we'll actually be ready. We may fall down, exhausted, when we get there, but our arms will be open and we'll be smiling and maybe we'll even look back and see everything we went through as those chances for greater love.

Interview with Author Peter Adam Salomon

I'm especially delighted today to share the wise words of debut author Peter Adam Salomon, whose thrilling book Henry Franks has just been released from Flux. Peter is an incredibly inspiring guy whose commitment to writing, writers, and words is both heartening and beautiful, so I'm honored to have had the chance to ask him some questions about his book, his writing process, and how he sustains his belief in the power of words.

Can you share the process of writing HENRY FRANKS? How did you progress through the various stages of writing and revision, and what was your timeline like?

When I first started writing HENRY FRANKS, back in 2007, I had a very different book in mind. The original idea focused on the father, and how he was purposely raising a child with false information (ie: if you are taught different words for common objects, it's almost like learning a foreign language: if you believe that 'hair' refers to the stuff growing on your front lawn then that is the word you will use for 'mowing your hair'). As that first draft progressed however I became far more fascinated with the reactions of the son as he began to doubt what his father was teaching him. So I started over, trying to figure out a scenario where a teenager would need to be retaught everything about himself. Due to this switch in focus the book went from Adult Fiction to YA and then to YA Horror as the 'creepy/haunting' factor kept getting ramped up the deeper I delved into the story.

That 'first' draft with HENRY FRANKS as a YA was finished fairly quickly, then I spent almost two years in revision, trying to amp up the creepy and, most specifically, trying to make the ending 'fit' the story. The original had a 70 page flashback into the father's point of view, completely leaving the YA characters and it simply didn't work. By this time, we're talking two plus years of writing and editing. Then, after signing with my wonderful agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, there was another year of revision, including almost another year of revision to weave that flashback into the story properly so that the ending would work before the book sold. At which point there was yet another year of edits to get the book to what is in book stores.

Looking back, of course, it's as if those years just flew right on by! At the time, obviously, it was anything but that. Still, it was worth it. The book works so much better as it is now and I hope the reader appreciates the care that everyone associated with the book has taken on it.

What excites you most about your book being released in September, and what make you the most nervous?
I love the fact that other people will be introduced to Henry and Justine. I adore these characters and am thrilled that more people will get to meet them and, hopefully, fall in love with them as well. By far, what makes me most nervous is the fear that people will not find the book as creepy as it hopefully is. Having the genre 'YA Horror' placed on the book scares me because I definitely do not want to disappoint anyone who might be expecting MORE horror in the book. HENRY FRANKS is (hopefully) a subtle, haunting type of horror, unsettling and creepy. I hope I accomplished something that respects and honors the YA Horror genre and its wonderful fans.

How did you persevere along your writing path through ups and downs to reach this moment in your career?
HENRY FRANKS is my fifth completed manuscript. My second YA. While some of the previous manuscripts aren't 'ready for prime time' and some are 'close' to publishable, it's been a long time working on getting published. It's been my dream for this since I was about twelve and to have it finally come true is surreal and wonderful and worth every moment of the years in between where I wondered if it was worth it. It most definitely was. With that said, it's important for any one who wants to write to keep one thing in mind: just keep writing. No matter what, never stop writing.
Oh, and learn to love revising! Very important!!

What makes you sit back in your chair and smile?

There was just something indescribable about seeing the cover art for the first time. Someone spent a very long time all for my book (yes, that's their job but still...), trying to capture in a single image the heart and soul of something I wrote. It encapsulates something beyond words, the work put into creating the cover and it means something to me that I'm probably not defining very well. So now, every time I see that cover, whether its online or on the book itself I can't help but smile.

And I'd be remiss not to mention here my wife, Anna, and our 3 sons: Andy, Josh and Adin. All of whom have that 'sit back in your chair and smile' affect.


Who in your life impacted and inspired you, and how did they do it?
I have spoken of my grandfather, Andre Bialolenki, at length in various blog postings and it's difficult to condense the impact he had upon me and my writing in just a few short paragraphs. Suffice it to say that I would not be the writer, or the man, I am today without his support, encouragement and talent in my life. He was a spectacular writer who has left an incredible legacy (both personally with the inspiration he has left his family with and professionally with the work he did to put Miami Beach/South Beach on the map). He taught me to never stop writing, supported my writing when no one else believed, and I wish, so dearly wish, that he was here to see this day arrive.   Thanks so much for sharing your journey, Peter! And if you want to find out more about Peter, do check out his website www.peteradamsalomon.com.

Departure Eve

After nearly a month back in the states, we're preparing to head back to England tomorrow on a red-eye flight that will land us in Manchester at the crack of dawn.

And when I say "preparing" what I mean is: gazing at the mountain pile of clothes on the bed, letting Tyler stay up late to dig in the sand with Poppa and whisper secrets with Nanna, taking note of every single American thing we've missed and making sure to savor it (i.e. free refills on drinks at a restaurant, green road signs, the political fix from CNN, the warmth of family, the laughter of summer nights, and watching Tyler reconnect with grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles after two years abroad).

Today, in the car as we left the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory, I started to cry. Not because of my all-consuming passion for potato chips, but because I had been watching our son giggle as my mother-in-law, Susan, ticked his toes. His laughter touched that part of me that spoke of the importance of watching our own children grow up connected to that web of creation that helps them exist in the first place.

And I'm going to miss it.

This isn't to say we aren't looking forward to Lesley Avenue in York, and the dozen of so children that live on our street, the kind neighbors who always seem to have something odd they no longer need and are kind enough to pass it on to the American next door (a bird feeder, a bottle of wine, a T-shirt, a Gruffalo suitcase). And we're looking forward to our last year abroad as a chance to reflect on all we've learned, the obstacles we've been facing, and the way Isaac Newton's claim about knowledge has really rung true for us. Newton once responded to someone who asked what his years of scientific research had taught him. Paraphrased, his reply was: Everything I have come to know is like a single grain of sand on the shore of knowledge.

This time away from England has afforded not only a lovely reprieve as parents (read: our own parents and brothers and sisters have performed countless changing of the clothes with Tyler, explorations and adventures, and bedtime book-reading), but it has also bequeathed us a chance to reflect on what two years abroad with no money has taught us.

And essentially, our grain of sand is this: grace trumps everything. Grace with our son, with with one another, grace for mistakes, grace for misplanned  possibilities, grace for failures, grace for countless imperfections. England has been both beautiful and hard for us, and the synthesis of these necessities of life has been teaching us that what creates sustainability is grace.

As we embark upon the return flight tomorrow, our fourth passenger, we hope, will be grace. And if he allows Tyler to sleep for any percentage of the red-eye, that would be about the most stunning gift in the world about now. But if not, I hope to be able to redeem the way we first arrived in England two years ago: rather than a panic attack, I want to able to look out at the dawning English day and say, with faith, it's all going to be okay.

Boris and the Queen

Last week, Queen Elizabeth visited York for a service at the Minster, and thousands of Yorkers lined the streets to welcome her. Jennifer, Tyler, and I were among the thousands--excited for our first glimpse of the enigmatic, long-standing Queen. Tyler sat atop my shoulders, waving a British flag for which we paid a  pound along near Stonegate street.

As we waited, we talked with people all around us. We met Justin and Allison, a young couple from Oregon who had been in York for seven months so far. Justin is pursuing a PhD at the University in Medieval Studies, and Alison is working part-time as a speech therapist.

We met a lot of small children, all waving flags.

And we met a young woman carrying a collar-less dog named Boris. She smiled as we pet him. "Boris isn't happy that I dragged him all the way to York for Queen." She laughed. We pet Boris--a small, brown-white mix that looked a bit like a Terrier--and laughed too.

After thirty minutes of waiting, enduring an array of questioning from Tyler ("Is she coming now? How about now? When is the Queen coming? Is she here yet? When will I see her? Will she wave to me?"), she arrived. Protected behind a thick layer of glass in the backseat of a shiny black car, she smiled from underneath the brim of her bright blue hat.

She waved at the thousands of us. And she waved, specifically, at Tyler.

Once she passed, the thousands shifted, rearranged, already jockeying for position to catch a second glimpse as the Queen left the Minster and made her way back.

That's when we spotted Boris again. Yet this time, the young woman was nowhere to be seen. And Boris was sniffing around the small grassy area behind the sidewalks. People nearby all called him a stray. They said he'd been there for about twenty minutes, just sniffing around.

I scooped Boris up and looked him in the eyes. It was definitely him. Same dog--his eyes bespeaking the reluctance of this Queen thing, and his collar-less neck proudly displaying his brown-white mix.

"Can I hug Boris?" Tyler raised his arms high. I bent down low.

Tyler gave Boris a massively affectionate hug.

"Can I give Boris a kiss? He might be sad because his Mommy is not here anymore. Where is his Mommy? Why is Boris's Mommy not right here with Boris?"

I answered all of the questions, let Tyler give Boris a kiss, and sat down on the ground. Suddenly, I forgot all about the Queen. Now, it was all about Boris.

"Boris's Mommy! Hello, can the Mommy of Boris hear me?" I started shouting.

"Boris's Mommy! Boris's Mommy!" Tyler began shouting in echo.

People around us began looking with odd eyes and raised brows, then a few smirks, even a couple of laughs.

"Boris's Mommy! Are you here?" Tyler and I continued yelling for her, our voices mixing and mingling and which of us was the child in the family was difficult, I'm sure, to decipher.

We spoke with a police officer named Chris, who took down the details of the woman we'd met (the first time I'd ever given a physical description of  a person to a police officer). Chris was an immediately friendly guy.

"I know you have bigger things to worry about on the Queen's day, of course," I said, a bit apologetic for taking up so much of his time.

"Everything is big, no matter when it happens," was the delightful Chris's reply.

"Can we bring Boris to OUR home?" Tyler asked as he tugged on my coat.

Chris smiled.

We ended up carrying Boris around for the next hour--holding him, hugging him, kissing him, shouting for his Mommy.

We never found her. And in the end, after I let Boris down to pee, he lifted his leg, urinated, and then ran off in the direction of a noise.

The Queen was exiting the Minster. Perhaps Boris wanted to get closer to catch a glimpse; perhaps he had gotten excited, finally, about her time here in York. More likely, though, is the possibility that Boris just wanted to go. he wanted to continue the search for his Mommy on his own.

In the end, we never saw Boris safely home to the arms of that young woman. Chris's face showed his concern. And I'll be honest: it took me most of the day to realize that Boris was going to be okay: some way or another, he was going to find his way into safe arms again.

The Queen made her way back along the street to much fanfare and flashes. I didn't see her face, this time, though I'm sure that enigmatic smile shone brightly from underneath her glowing blue hat. Funny thing, though: the face of a collar-less, reluctant dog was all I could see.

Like all of us, Boris was asked to go to a place he didn't want to go, and in the end, he lost his way. he found safe arms for a while, found some smothering hugs and kisses, and then continued on his journey towards being found again. Like us, Boris will continue searching for his one true home--the arms where he really belongs. Until then, here's to hoping Boris finds more safe arms along the way. And here's to hoping that we find those kinds of arms, too, whether for a minute, an hour, or days and years.

Alternate Mapping

It's one of those things
You can't control:
What tides bring, how sun sings.

Content to settle with clouds,
To leap from pavement,
Or lay in valleys, pool unproud.

You don't want to, anyway.
You know it's not to know,
But to live the unknown
In ways steady and new--
Dancing barefoot on soft grass,
Rain the only room around you.

Gratitude lives a life hidden.
Old habit, really.
But your knuckles at his door,
Then a warm cup of tea:
Better than knowing more,
Stronger than what you see.

The Freedom That Awaits Us

(Note: Ammi-Joan Paquette is my literary agent. She's a fabulous agent AND she is a remarkable, fascinating, stunning writer.)

The odd thing about reading a book in which a teenage girl escapes the Thai prison where she was born and where she has lived her entire life: it’s you.

Even though she speaks Thai, gets stuck in the prison bars when she’s little, finds a gruff mentor in the Warden, and has a veritable treasure trove of secrets concealed from her like good counsel from George W.—it’s still you.

A.J. Paquette’s mesmerizing story of Luchi Ann—a blonde American girl born in Khon Mueang Women’s Prison—is a vivid novel that offers one journey towards an openness that is more real and more filling than all the certainty we’ve ever before known. Nowhere Girl speaks to us in powerful, profound ways. Once Paquette’s protagonist is released from prison at age 13, we read:

Emptiness, that’s all I can see right now. Roads that lead to the mountains, mountains that scrape the sky. It’s all strange and huge and wild. Of course, I have seen it all before, but that wasn’t me; that was a girl with my same name, some creature of mud and bone who had never felt the lick of true freedom on her skin.

When she shares that she has “seen it all before,” she refers to the television which she is allowed to watch in the prison—the dead colors of recorded life. But seeing life firsthand, along with the terrifying sense of freedom that accompanies Luchi Ann’s view, aptly defines our own existence, too. The bars behind which we often wait, thinking we are held beyond our own power, resemble a kind of pre-existence that we accept. The television occupies us and shows us any color we wish to find. Our lives can be full in prison: there is plenty to eat, stability, organization, clarity.

Once Luchi Ann is released—after her mother’s death—a new emptiness affords a different kind of food, however. So it is with us.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave helps to make the case. Essentially, Plato (really Socrates talking through him) claims that we’re all in prison. We’re trapped there because we grow up seeing the world a certain way, and when some new person or perspective or event comes along to try and dissuade us of our loyalty to what we’ve always known, we freak out. Plato (Socrates) goes so far as to say we attempt to kill whoever’s is trying to break us out of the prison from which we’ve come to view the world, but I’m not sure I’d go that far—perhaps we just go to the mall and buy a latte and a new shirt to forget about the encounter?

Maybe Plato (Socrates) is on to something: the vision we learn to cling to desperately is often the same one that drags us blindly past any kind of authentic freedom. By walking outside and allowing the sky to lick us a bit, we find that a different kind of living waits. The kind that has loads of space, little certainty, but fills us nonetheless.

The kind of living that Paquette's gloriously courageous and admirable Luchi Ann learns to find.

When I was seven years old, I was terrified of vans. Any van came down Alcott Drive, and I would run, screaming wildly, back inside to my mom, claiming that the killers had come to get me. That year of my life, I watched the movie Cobra with my two older brothers. Cobra in brief: Sylvester Stallone plays a cop who must find a group of men who drive a van around town finding people, kidnapping them, then killing them up in the back of the van, then finding more people and killing them as well. In a sense, I had power as a seven year old—I had my fear. When I saw a van, I knew exactly what the people inside were going to do: kidnap me and kill me. So I ran from the vans. My running from the vans gave me a certain ability to order my life—the fear helped to provide some sense of safety.

When we cling to our fear, we feel safe. But this kind of safety is not much different than a kid who hasn’t turned in his homework claiming that the salmon took it upstream. As a thirty year old man, I am no longer afraid of vans. But I am terrified of leaving my three-year old son in the hands of a babysitter. New fears replace the old; new prisons replace the ones we’ve worn out; new visions to which we adhere loyalty rise up in the place of those we’ve outgrown.

What A.J. Paquette reveals so wonderfully in her lyrical novel, Nowhere Girl, is this: they don’t have to. Following the journey of Luchi Ann, we experience that cathartic passage from a familiarity of fear and organization to a foundation of emptiness and freedom. Safety exists, too, where colors are alive—where the sky reaches down to touch us, and we feel it fully for the very first time. Paquette’s remarkable novel shows us the freedom we long for ourselves, and which we too may find if we are willing to courageously leave the prisons we’ve so long inhabited.

Read this book, and be inspired to find your freedom as Luchi Ann finds hers.

The Gruffalo and Pees! (Or, Notes on Getting a Toddler Home While Also Realizing You're Not Realizing The Words That are Actually Coming Out of Your Mouth)

Today, Tyler and I made the trek into the city center to go to the Dinosaur Museum. In reality, its official name is the Yorkshire Museum, which sounds a lot more formal and considerably more dull. So, we've taken to calling it by our own nomenclature.

It was the first day of only slight drizzle which then fading to a Zero Tolerance policy of rain in the late morning. After three days of staying within a five minute radius of home, we had to take the chance and walk the forty-five to the center.

Tyler did puzzles and we watched an endlessly still wolf eating a bunny (poor rabbit--but the little guy is never actually fully eaten, which makes explaining to Tyler, "No, no, the wolf is just high-fiving the bunny with his paw and he's actually smiling, not growling" a lot easier. Once Tyler turns three in a couple of weeks, I may have to add a bit more reality to the scene, but hey, you're only two once. There'll be time enough to learn about wolves and bunnies a bit later, right?). 

We also built a few Roman towers that resembled those who once lived in York a thousand years ago. We looked at reconstructions of dinosaur skeletons. We learned our weight in dinosaur-scale: Tyler has recently graduated from a microvenator to a domiceiomimus; and I have remained a Velicaraptor. We played a touch-screen dinosaur game where we learned that Rob Owen came up with the actual name dinosaur and that a T Rex has a very, very, very, infinitesimally small brain.

Afterwards, running around in the massive museum gardens, we noted leaves, prickers, thorns, and nettles (alternately called prickers or thorns). We ran back inside for Tyler to do a poop in the immaculately cleaned Dinosaur Museum bathrooms. (One of the many other reasons I love bringing Tyler to the Dinosaur Museum.)

We ate a couple of samosas purchased at 79p a piece, and then meandered our way through the city and back home.

Once we reached the final five minutes--the long sidewalk that leads to Lesley Avenue--Tyler announced that he had to pee. Announcing a pee-need for Tyler is akin to a sportscaster calling a ballgame and announcing a grandslam. It's no small thing. It's something the world needs to know about.

And so we began to run. But Tyler soon noticed a yellow-berry bush. He stopped. He was intrigued. I wanted to salvage the sidewalk (and perhaps a some dignity) and get home to the potty (or at least our backyard).

We had planned to watch the DVD version of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's masterful book The Gruffalo when we got home. (An incredibly kind gift from Tyler's Aunt Megan and Uncle Matt, Cousin Jacob and Cousin Ava in Texas.) We were both thrilled. How can one not love The Gruffalo?

And so it was that I found myself attempting to hurry Tyler along by yelling with glee the following phrase: "Let's get home quick and watch The Gruffalo and do pees!  Come on! The Gurffalo and Pees!"

And even though I am a thirty-year old man, and even though I do have some sense (however small) of decorum, something about the words felt right. Magical. Fun. Us.

We made it home; we peed; we watched The Gruffalo. We smiled.

After Illness

The thing is, there's no way around it. Even though we plan our lives to completely evade it as much as possible, we can't.

No matter how much money we try and insulate ourselves with, bam! It's there like mud after rain.

No matter how many packets of Vitamin C powdery-fizzy goodness we mix into our waters, or how many super-healthy-eating cookbooks and fitness guides we buy with titles like Become a Super Human Android in Five Easy Steps While Eating Only Chocolate Only Through Your Nose, it's there.

It is.

No matter, either, if we stayed inside, never got wet, never touched another human being even. It's still there. We're going to get it.

Illness. Colds. Flu. Diarrhea. Vomiting. The whole gamut.

I started to come to peace with this reality when I began teaching seventh graders. I caught everything they had--and man, they had it all. It seemed every week I was coming home with a new variation on the age-old cold.

Now that I am a home-dad, it seems playgroups and playdates in York, England carry those determined bacteria just as confidently as do public schools in New England.

Tyler has just fought off his third bout with something. Jen and I have stopped trying to label each successive cold. Instead, we've tried to love him through it, help him see that it will pass, put vapor rub under his chin, hold him through the coughing fits, and let him watch as many movies as he wants.

(Meanwhile, we steel ourselves for the undeniable fact: we're next.)

But the thing about realizing that we're all going to get sick is this: after illness comes health. Most mornings, we wake up and start our days. But after illness we wake up and feel like high-fiving the post carrier, doing a flip down the stairs, and eating our bowls of cereal while singing the Hallelujah chorus through every bite--milk spraying, Cheerios flying free.

We get better. Colds leave. Flu hitchhikes out of town. Fevers drop. Coughing stops. Vomiting ceases. Diarrhea slows. It passes.

During my most recent battle with a vomiting-inducing-cold of some strain or other, I sat on the bathroom floor, clutching my stomach with one hand, the toilet with the other. Preparing to retch for the 11th time in two hours (no hyperbole, really).

Tyler was asleep, and Jen was there with me for moral support. (It hadn't yet made the leap to my lovely wife.) I looked up at Jen when there was a break in the vomiting traffic. "I can't do this anymore."  Then I took a breath, and then I vomited again.

Jen's reply was as true as true as true: "Yes, you can babe. It's going to pass. I know it's awful, but it will stop and you'll feel better."

And that's the thing. It stops. The better comes.

None of us like to vomit or feel like our heads are exploding or like someone is gleefully sticking their fingers up into our nostrils and poking around trying to find the valve marked MUCUS RELEASE! But we all love the moments when it clears, when we can breathe, eat, laugh, feel what good is, again.

So I'm really only regurgitating here when I write that wisdom is all about--or at least a little about--finding a way to hold onto the it will end! during the it's hurting!

In our illnesses, yes, but also in our work, in our writing, in our relationships, in our wounds, in our confusions. No pain has the power to wield a full attack forever. It stops. Somehow, in some way, it gives up. And what remains are not the trails of bacteria and germs and messy clothes and broken relationships. No. What remains is the way we've grown through the pain. The way we've learned just a little more about love.

Hugging Some Play-Dough Soldiers (Or, Some Notes on Changing the World)

Yesterday, Jen and I boarded a train from York Station to Leeds, Tyler in tow. It would be our fist time out of York as a family in approximately the entirety of our time here: seven months. Life without a car certainly does wonders to a family's desire to stay local. If we can't walk there, chances are we're not going.

But the Leeds trip arose as Jen and a friend were meeting with an organization called The Joanna Project. The organization works with women seeking to leave prostitution. While Jen and her friend met with the founders of the group, Tyler and I, along with another dad and his daughter, walked to the nearby Royal Armouries.

First of all: metal.

Upon entering the museum, we approached a massive hall that was aptly named the Hall of Steel. It was more like a monument to swords, axes, spikes, jousting sticks, and a whole host of other very sharp, pointy objects for which I knew no names.

I soon saw that the Royal Armouries was just a euphemism for Museum of All Kinds of Killing Objects and the History of How Those Killing Objects Have Been Utilized in Various Wars. Even so, the museum had wide open floors made of strong wood, and very few tourists--and it was also free. Thus, it made for an excellent place in which to allow our toddlers to run free.

To run like the wind.

Then fly like really fast running animals.

Then run and fly and run and fly some more. And then run. And then poop and pee and run yet again. And fly again.

If anything, the sight of so much weaponry sent the following notions drumming in my head: for real? This is what a massive portion of humanity's history is about: who fought who, when, and with what weapons?

Amazed by the extent to which we go to kill one another, Tyler performed the only appropriate act that can be performed in a place like this. On the third floor, exploring modern warfare, Tyler walked up to a mannequin soldier and asked me, "What his name, Daddy?"

I responded, "I don't know his name, son. Maybe it is Sam."

"He can talk to me, Daddy?"

"No, he can't talk to you. He's pretend. He's not real."

Tyler looked at the soldier wearing combat gear, a hard look on his camouflaged face, a gun in his hands.

"He not real, Daddy?"

"No, he's pretend...he's made out of play-dough. He's like a play-dough man."

Tyler looked at me, then looked at the soldier. Finally, he asked me, "I can give him one hug?"

"Sure. Of course you can."

Ten minutes later, after Tyler had hugged all of the play-dough soldiers on the floor, we began to make preparations to leave the museum and meet up with Jennifer and her friend. Ironically, a certain synthesis is possible from the two reasons we went to Leeds: both exist because of the demands and desires of men.

Warfare and the abuse and use of women.

I think my two-year old son had it right--that we could some day learn as men to love rather than kill, to love rather than lust. If we can, perhaps my son will one day take his son to a museum holding monuments to peace, not war, and his wife might visit an organization researching how the use and abuse of women was stopped, rather than why it continues.

Maybe such a day will come.

Believe

Francisco X. Stork has written that "Faith is this two-chambered heart of giving up and going on."

He's right. When I read those words (check out his piece here), I had one of those moments where you sit back in your chair, maybe touch your forehead, exhale, and say, Yup, that's it, man. That's what it's all about. That's the deal, right there.

Word.

Faith involves giving up because faith trusts. Believing in something also means that we're able to say, with honesty, "I'm not in total control. It's not all up to me, and it's not about me." That's a tough thing to say. It's tough to admit that we can't always manipulate experiences and people to work together to produce the results we'd prefer.

I learn this lesson anew almost every single day.

When Tyler doesn't want me to change his diaper, or put away a toy, or leave the library (which we never would, if it didn't close...), he listens to what I tell him to do, then gives me a pretty good eye-contact stare-down for a two-year old and replies, "How about..."

What comes after his "how about" is always the exact opposite of what my "how about" was originally all about.

And I see the truth: I can't always get Tyler to think he really wants to do what I want him to do.

Grown-up people with hair on their faces and legs and other various parts are like this, too. We can't always get them to do what we want. So that's where faith comes in. We've got to let them go. Love them, care for them, but we can't control who they are and who they want to be.

But we always give up our dreams when it comes to faith. If we never release our dreams--those visions of who we could be, what great things we could accomplish--they become stagnant and selfish and prideful. When we release our dreams, we often find that they return to us, then whack us upside the head and say, Alright now, while I've been away getting free, what have YOU been up to? Not just sitting there watching television, I hope...or else we are going to have some major words.

When God calls us to something, it's seldom about results. More often, He's calling us to journey somewhere--whether to some new physical place, or some new place inside our hearts. He's calling us to take a journey that involves risks, uncertainty, and a whole lot of hope.

So when we let go of our idea that we control others, and when we loosen our grip on the dreams and visions we imagine ourselves the protagonists of, we actually find the faith that allows us to carry on.

It's in walking that we find the strength of our feet, after all, not in visualizing the journey. Believing can live when it moves.

It's probably fitting that I close this little ramble with a link to Mary Oliver's powerful poem, "The Journey." her words fit well with Stork's in that they both suggest a way of moving through life that allows us to keep faith and use our voices--not to overpower others, but to find out who we really are. I leave you in the capable hands of the great poet herself: Mary Oliver's "The Journey."

Bye, Bye Poopie

Lately, Jennifer and I have been waking up to the melodious sound of Tyler's voice saying, "Bye, bye poopie!"

He stands in his crib at about 7 a.m. and shouts the previous phrase in order to rumble us from our sleep. Jennifer and I slowly regain consciousness and prepare ourselves for the morning diaper change.

Usually, it's a big one.

To be more honest (and more blunt), calling it a "big one" is somewhat of a euphamism. It's more like an explosion, whereby all of the foods that were eaten yesterday have a massive party inside my son's intestines and then push and shove to make their exit from his 35 pound body as fast as they can. There's no British cordiality here--everyone is just rushing for the nearest exit as fast as they possibly can.

And the result is the massive exodus of poop.

Jennifer and I steel ourselves for the task ahead, and meanwhile, Tyler begins saying, "Mommy, Daddy, wake up! Mommy, Daddy, wake up!"

I think about how it must feel. Imagine having a huge, wet load of poopie sticking to your butt and having a diaper press it even further and closer to your skin... Perhpas that's not the sort of think you'd like to visiualize, and I'll admit that it's not in my book of Fun Things to Dwell on while Passing the Time. However, since being a stay-at-home-dad, it's hard not to dwell on such things.

When Jennifer and I finally enter his room, his face lights up, and I can tell he's thinking two things:

1) My Mommy and Daddy are here! They love me!

and

2) Somebody get this poopie diaper off of me now!

The scene will replay itself tomorrow morning, of course. And I'm being honest when I say that although it's not always the easiest way to wake up, it has become the most authentic for me. To think back to waking up to a buzzing alarm when the only thing I had awaiting me was, well, getting myself ready, I feel a surge of life course through me to realize that this tiny little boy is waiting on us to help him get ready, to help him learn about this thing called life, to show him the joys, the pains, the ups and the downs of living.

And I wouldn't trade anything for this journey.

(Even if it does mean a poopie diaper every morning, and a few in the afternoon.)

How Health Arrives

While my wife and I have been married only a short two years, our journey togther has taught us some powerful things. The most important of these may be that emotional and spiritual health seems to arrive only when we are willing to explore our roots. How have we come to be the way we are? What influences in my life have inspired / denigrated / motivated / silenced me and the voice I possess?
How willing we are to investigate where we've come from says a lot about how much we want to grow.
In my class today, my students and I acted out one of my favorite texts, Plato's Allegory of the Cave. It is a beautiful essay which explores how many of us live: so as to hide behind what we have always known to be true, rather than explore the new possibilities of our lives, which may be more true than the comforts we have known for so long.
During a long walk last night, my wife said something I found to be profound and moving, which helped to connect a lot of divergent thoughts I have encountered lately. Her words: "We must be willing to confront what has happened in our past if we want to embrace the opportunities of our present."
I agree!