Sometimes, Surviving is a Triumph

The last time I was in England--ten years ago--my oldest brother Christopher and I ran the London Marathon together. Ever since I was in eighth grade, Chris and I would run together: 3.5 miles each time out. The first time Chris brought me along on one of these 3.5 mile runs, I had never gone more than a mile.

What ensued: gasping, lunging, yelling, dizziness, curmudgeon-esque thoughts about life and everything within the entitiy of life, falling-down, thirst, and--eventually--triumph.

Arriving back home after that first 3.5 mile run, triumph didn't see me standing tall, swiftly running with a smile across my face and hope etched on my eyes.

No.

Rather, triumph heard me yelling, "Triumph, you damn difficult, despicable, deploarable, detestable, deceiving demon you!"

(When I get mad, I resort to run-on barrages of language in alliteration. When very mad, assonance, consonance, and anthropomorphism join the party in full force. When very, very mad, I pretend that I am Denzel Washington, and I sternly look the anger-inducing-thing in the face and say with gusto and confidence, It hurts! It hurts! MAKE IT STOP!)

But after that first 3.5 mile run, Chris continued to challenge me to come along, and something inside my soul lunged at the chance.

So I kept going with him. It was my last year of middle school--and up to that point, I'd been chasing girls with various notes saying how much I loved said girls and asking friends to deliver said notes to said girls in the hopes that said girls would return a note my way with a message somewhat akin to what I had written: I want to go out with you.

I'd also been shoplifting.

A lot.

Comic books, baseball cards, anything I could get my hands on.

So when Chris began asking me to run with him, something inside me leapt like the dog that bit my inner thigh when I was in the fourth-grade (ferociously, and with not shred of forethought).

As Chris and I began to run together, my view began to widen. As a deaf man, Chris had battled more than I could imagine, and as he shared his experiences and his philosophy and his faith in God with me, I felt as though someone had just told me that all of the canned corn I had eaten in my entire life wasn't actually the real thing.

No.

There was something called corn-on-the-cob, and on this entity, the little kernels of corn actually stuck to a very long ear (but not like an ear with a flabby, floppy bottom-part that tempts you constantly with Flap me, Dude! Come on, just flap me one time!).

Chris was welcoming me into a life where corn-on-the-cob eating was not only a reality, but it was a great joy. Something bigger, something wider, something more essentially awesome than shoplifting or chasing after girls with a note that held less poetic truth than a Coca-Cola advertisement.

(How dare you change the color of Santa.)

Right about this time--eighth grade--I also began to listen to speeches by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. on cassette tapes. I'd hear these powerful words about changing the status quo, about fighting a bigger, broader, wider fight than I had ever imagined existed.

There was something more dangerous than shoplifting.

There was something more meaningful than going out.

Homi Bhaba, the postcolonial theorist, once said that when we 'other' people, we cast them as distinct, different from us; and this makes it easier to categorize them, oppress them, treat them as less than human. When we stop othering the people we meet and hear about, we start seeing how they are us and we are them, and it radically changes the way we see not only them, but ourselves.

Jesus said it like this: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

And because of the runs with Chris, the speeches by Malcolm and Martin, and this amazing teacher and savior named Jesus Christ, everything inside of me started to shift.

The very definition of Triumph in my life corroded like old iron (which may cause blood poisoning and, whenever piercing the skin, requires a tetanus-shot booster and I hate needles and am terrified of them though I did give blood once while my loving wife stood by and sympathized with me as I felt as though I were hiking Everest.)

I hate old, rusty iron.

And so I began to ditch my Old Triumph, whose definition went something like this: Get what you want. Look out for yourself. Maker it happen. Cross the finish line with a smile, even if it means hurting others or bending love.

But New Triumph started speaking into my ear, saying stuff like, Dude, Love doesn't bend. It's like new iron that will never, ever, ever get rusty. NT, once we were on nicknameable terms, also started to show me that when you're living for what really matters (when you're seeing how you ARE the other, and the other IS you, when you're trying to love your neighbor as yourself, when you keep running even though everything hurts and all you want to do is quit--or take a short-cut on love--) life has a way of getting both easier and harder.

Easier, because you feel this sense of humility, and you start to look at everyone else with this in your mind: You can teach me a lot. You start to see people this way--even kids. Even little kids. Even babies. And old people. And middle-aged people. You look at people and you want to hear their stories, because you know--as John Donne claimed--that the bell is tolling for them and for you. You look at people and you want to hear their stories because you believe it's crucial you do, and you want to honor people for the lives they are living, the battles they're fighting.

(I love what C.S. Lewis once quipped about humility: when you meet a truly humble person, chances are you won't walk away from them thinking, Dude, that guy was like SO totally humble! No, chances are you'll walk away thinking, That guy was really, really interested in my life. [my paraphrase of Lewis, of course; Lewis said pretty much the same thing, though with more beautiful language.])

Life is easier, too, because the expectations change. It's no longer about accomplishment; instead, it's about interaction, relationships, intersections.

But life gets harder, I think, when we trade in Old Triumph for New Triumph. Because NT doesn't promise a lot. NT doesn't promise that you're going to be rich. Doesn't promise loads of success. Doesn't promise an absence of suffering, pain, frustration, and definitely doesn't promise getting what you want all the time.

What New Triumph does promise, I think, is one thing: that you're going to be able to keep going. That you're going to have a deep energy that gets refilled like a bottomless cup of coffee at a great local diner. Just when you think you're finished, spent, despairing, here come the waitress or waiter, steaming pot of coffee in her / his hand, smile on her / his face, asking, Refill?

To which we respond by throwing ourselves on the floor with gratitude and exhaustion.

I love what Psalm 38 of the Old Testament says. Verse ten is pretty much where we end up--all of us--at some point, or at a lot of points: "My heart is pounding within me, my strength is gone, the brightness has left my eyes."

But then, five verses later, the psalmist makes this wildly bold and basically ridiculous claim: "But I will trust in the LORD, and I know that the Lord my God will answer me."

Pretty insane to claim that even though all circumstance and every outward fact points towards collapse, despair, and loss, the writer says, Hey, I'm still trusting. I'm still holding onto my faith. Because I believe that God is going to answer.

Why?

I think it's because this writer can see the waitress / waiter rounding the corner, coming out from behind the counter, pot of coffee hoisted high.

Refuge.

Energy.

The ability to run a few more paces, write a few more words, work another day, kiss your wife's or son's forehead and say, Everything is going to work out fine.

But this kind of thinking and living is New Triumph thinking. It's not going in for the big kill, and it's not playing the lottery, praying on luck. Instead, it's banking on love.

When Chris and I lined up with twenty-odd-thousand other people to run the London Marathon ten years ago, we were smiling. We were happy. We were carefree and sure of ourselves and excited.

By mile 15, I was begging Christ to quit. Stop. We'd done enough.

By mile 17, Chris was begging me to quit. Stop. We'd done enough.

By mile 23, a guy running while carrying a full-size canoe on his shoulder passed us, saying, "Keep going, guys," at which point we felt immeasurably tiny and also partially-in-the-mood-of-yelling-at-the-guy: Hey, try carrying TWO canoes, why don't you pal!?

By mile 25, we were crying, wondering if we'd still be conscious and if not, would somebody please carry us across the finish line because, hey, come on, we'd already run 25 miles.

By mile 26.2, we held hands, ran like two 95-year-old grandmothers across the finish line, and then collapsed on the nearest patch of grass we could find.

It took us about five hours.

We didn't set any records; we couldn't claim any kind of glory--except the glory of averted-spewing--and we couldn't stand.

But it was triumph. It was that New Triumph, where we realized, in some small way, that it's not about the times in which we finish our respective races, nor is it about comparisons to others and how fast or slow they're running. (My brother-in-law, Paul Gant, once shared this beautiful pearl of wisdom with me, that he had read somewhere: Comparison if the thief of joy. Holy-crap-life-changing-idea.)

At the London Marathon, New Triumph was about one thing: not giving up. Not stopping. Not saying, Forget it!

And that kind of victory sometimes gets a C or even a C- or even a D (or, even though it pains me to write this as a teacher, yes: even a D-).

It sometimes finishes a marathon in five hours. Or six hours. Or two days.

It sometimes dances around in a circle in the living room while "Come on, Eileen" blares and the people dancing wonder how the money will come in to make rent or buy a new pair of shoes or another jar of instant coffee.

But New Triumph says, essentially: keep going.  It says: sometimes, surviving is a triumph.

Thank You, Whitney

Growing up, my older brother Mike and I shared a room. I slept on the bottom bunk, he on the top. Four years older than me, Mike was always boldly himself. He never bowed to culture, never did something just because peers did it, or because it was supposedly "cool." Instead, Mike did volunteer work with Best Buddies--a program that paired a special education student with a student not in special education; Mike hugged everybody (read: everybody); Mike laughed like the wind; Mike always had time for children.

And Mike loved the music of Whitney Houston.

In our bedroom, Mike and I managed to cover the ceiling and walls with massive posters of three people: Whitney Houston, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. They were the ones we feel asleep looking at, the ones to whom we woke in the morning. They were constant reminders to us of boldness, courage, conviction, and the need to use your voice.

On timeless occasions, I would come inside from basketball practice to hear Whitney roaring from our stereo, "I will always love you" and even over and above Whitney's voice--though the stereo's volume was up to its highest decibel--there was Mike's voice: bold, believing, joyous.

Whitney came to represent something for my brother Mike--and she still does. She came to represent, in Mike's own words, "the importance of being real. Whitney showed us that your life doesn't have to be perfect. You sing with all your heart, and you love with all your heart--and your mistakes can never overpower the gifts you offer others in generosity and love."

And, through Mike, Whitney came to represent the same thing for me.

So it was a shock today when Jennifer came downstairs and told me the news of Whitney's passing. I felt this weird sort of stillness, and I was transported back to eighth grade. Mike and I, laying on our bunk beds, talking about life, and Whitney staring down at us from her perch on our ceiling, flanked by Martin and Malcolm.

As Mike and I talked on the phone today, Mike reminded me that her legacy lives on. "Remember to just sing a few lines of I Will Always Love You to everyone you see today, okay?"

And knowing my brother Mike--the effusive, love-giving, life-sharing person he is--he meant it. And the visions of Mike belting out Whitney's songs on family vacations, on crosswalks in public, and to friends and family are vivid, enduring.

So, from across the pond, I owe Whitney a big thank you. Thanks for meaning so much to my brother Michael and, by extension, to me.

Mike and I on his visit to York, England in 2011

The "It" That "It's" All About

Rather an auspicious title. I know.

The nerve to render language to such a title! After all, our greatest poets claim that "it" simply can't be said. A.E. Housman once quipped, "Poetry is not the thing said, but a way of saying it." Frost told us that poetry is "words that become deeds" -- language that translates into action because we simply do not have more words to express what the "it" of words is, in the first place. Eliot--well, most everybody doesn't have much of a clue as to exactly what Eliot meant, though it's an art in itself to decipher his "it" and to come up with increasingly more ornate and complex language to describe what is already ornate and complex in its original inception.

Whew.

So, then, what is the "it"? What does this mundane blog post really want to claim?

First, let me say I agree with the poets: there are some things in life deeper than language, things that we cannot begin to hold in our hands because they're too inflamed, too deeply real and, more colloquially, devoid of crap.

The things that are devoid of crap don't lend themselves to sitting on some mantle somewhere so we can look at them and remark, Ah! Yes, indeed, the shading there does suggest a bit of nuance.

But another poet made a rather stark and fairly blunt statement of "it." And the "it" this poet articulated has driven the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, John Wesley, William Wilberforce, and others who have radically altered everything about what we previously thought possible.

The "it" the great poet claimed was: love God; love your neighbor. With everything. All you've got.

No insurance policy on this kind of love.

No receipt for return of transaction.

No helmet, life preserver, or bulletproof vest.

No back-up plan.

No allowing logic--which Marx called the "money of the mind"--to trump compassion.

No glance to self-benefit, interest rate on giving, APY.

In essence, the love that Jesus preaches is exactly the love with which he lived. That's why Gandhi viewed him as a model. That's why King believed it could be done on this earth. That's why Mother Teresa could live in the slums and wipe the sores of lepers for her entire adult life.

It wasn't because any of these individuals possessed any greater human capacity than you or I. It was, entirely, because each allowed the relentless, unconditional driving force of love to be more important than self.

Conditional love is everywhere we look.

In the middle and high schools where I taught, conditional love is an ever-present reality: look a certain way, speak a certain way, think a certain way.

But I think we all like to play a game: the game is call Once High School is Over We All Grow Up and Become Mature and Act Better. The truth is, I think we operate with the same kinds of conditional love that we became experts at wielding in our schools.

I recently wrote a book called How to Survive Middle School (Without Becoming an Advertisement or Losing Your Inner Voice), and what struck me as I wrote it was this thought: everything in here could just as well be applied to thirty-year-olds.

But I was writing for my 7th graders. I was writing to address all the fears, insecurities, petty competitions, jealousies, and cravings for unconditional love that they felt. So, something doesn't change in us. Some deep need that we all possess doesn't get fed, and therefore what we have to offer others is always and necessarily conditional.

And that is not what it's all about.

It's hard for us to image what unconditional love even looks like, so trained are we in the arts of acting to gain approval of others and living to prevent disapproval. But unconditional love, perhaps, can best be summed up in this pithy gauge: if you earned it, then it isn't unconditional.

If in any way you earned the praise you're getting, then it isn't unconditional.

If your performance, your words, your actions, your decisions, caused feelings of warmth to seep from other human beings to you, then it isn't unconditional love.

Because as soon as you stop making the [all-star-slam-dunk-rock-this-party-live] movements in your life, so stops the love. And if we really think about it, that's an incredibly depressing and demeaning and degrading way to live: nothing is for certain. We can count on nothing. Nothing remains. Everything is always and necessarily a crapshoot in the cosmic game of love-attempt.

Everything becomes a rolling of the dice to see if our numbers reveal that we'll be able to receive some love this turn around.

And if that's all we ever had as models of the possible on this earth, then that would be all well and good. We could straighten our ties, shift our dresses, and get on with life, heads dirt-bent and ready to work to earn as much love as we could before we kicked the bucket and slowly became the dirt that the next slogger would work until he, too, kicked a similar bucket.

But we've seen something different.

We've glimpsed other possibilities.

We've watched the way Jesus did this thing called life, and as scientists tell us, all you need is one instance where the theory doesn't hold, and the law is broken. It can't be a law anymore. Gravity can't be gravity unless all physical objects obey it.

If a rock just started floating upwards to the sky, then we'd be forced (or, rather, much smarter people with a trail of letters following their names would be forced) to come up with a new law because Gravity's turn would be done.

So, if Jesus broke and breaks the Law of Conditional Love, then it can't really be a law.

Furthermore, if Gandhi can look at the life of Christ and proceed to break the Law of Conditional Love, then it takes another serious knock. When King comes along, followed by Mother Teresa, and a host of others...well, the Law of Conditional (or Marketplace) Love starts to look fairly shabby. It doesn't hold up as a law, a scientific theory, or even a good bet anymore.

So. The "it" then.

Unconditional love. Love that we can't earn. Love that results not because of the work we do, the way we make another feel, or the cha-ching we gather like squirrels.

Few things strike us as strange, as rare, or as dang hard to classify as Unconditional Love. Maybe that's why, when we see it, we innately and suddenly know it to be, indeed, the "it" that "it's" all about.