Empowerment Is...

After talking late into the night on the phone with Jaques Derrida, one thing became very, very clear to me: "Stand By Me" is an amazing song to sing with your wife while organizing a massive cardboard-box full of papers, letters, drawings by your four-year-old, contracts, scribbled love notes on torn sheets of paper that also contain: grocery lists and various truck sketches.

The thing is: you get to the bottom of that cardboard box. And you've realize that two years of life have afforded tiny moments that contain so much inexplicable joy in their complete normality you would burst if you tried to pretend they were pretzel sticks (in order to stick them in your ears).

When Derrida finally had to go, I did what anyone in my situation would do: I called the towering great, Ms. Harper Lee. She'd know what to make of the tiny moments. She'd know--yes she would--what to make of the fact that the cracks of the past two years have afforded the greatest heights. She'd know--Ms. Lee! Ms. Lee! She would!--what to make of the fact that the absolute highest elation came in the absolute most common moments.

Ms. Lee listened. "Yes," she said, eventually.

Eventually, all things come to that yes, too. Eventually, the cracks that remind us where the boundaries of our dreams belong--well, they open up and if we stand (securely) and look over their edges, we see opportunity rather than dissolution.

It was three in the morning, but those cracks-cum-canyons had gotten me riveted. I knew what I had to do. I picked up the Magic Jack phone which my mother-in-law had so kindly sent our way, overseas, so that Jen and I could make calls back to the states.

Even though I hesitated, the hesitation didn't linger longer than a hesitant moment. Then, the hesitation fled (after hesitating, briefly) and my momentum and determination returned. I pushed the secret digits of the secret number that had been secretly sent to me from a secret, unnamed source.

"Hello?" President Barack Obama intoned.

"It's time," I said, knowing full well that the secret which had covertly connected us in this moment in time would indescribably decipher itself and make the purpose of the Magic Jack phone call clear.

It did.

"Empowerment is finding that the cracks aren't terrifying; they're merely invitations, Lukester," the president said, his voice cracking with that subtle kind of confidence that only comes when you've walked down the canyons of your own life.

Hanging up the phone (non-hesitantly), Jen and I looked at one another. "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher blared, and we sang along. But while we sang along, we also stared into the bottom of that cardboard box. Scattered around us everywhere in the room lay the normal mementos of everyday life for us--To Do Lists with items like Freeze or Use Cabbage and Herbs, and Princesses Tyler had colored in, and letters from friends, and love notes scribbled (yes) on grocery-list halves.

And while we sang, Jen and I silently sent this sentence backwards and forwards between us: empowerment is letting the cracks sometimes pull us apart enough so that we're no longer afraid of the canyons we encounter. 

We tried singing that sentence to the rhythm of "Stand By Me" and "I Got You Babe" but the syllable-count didn't quite match up. The next time I chat with Derrida, Lee, or Obama, I'll get some advice on what to do about that dilemma.

Until then, some deferred wisdom from them--albeit via me--to you: empowerment isn't seeking to evade the cracks of normality that fill life. Empowerment is relishing the normal moments so much that they become the stuff of dreams.

The Long View

It had been over a month since I'd been to the Fulford Bowls Club--a collection of men over 65 who play indoor lawn bowling. (And one 30-year old American.) Life has been pretty hectic lately, with Tyler fighting cold after cold, sleeping through the night a thing of legend and lore, and allergy attacks gathering around me like I'm a never-ending supply of sticky notes for a highly organized person.

So attending the Thursday night bowling just didn't make the list of Must Do in Order to Survive.

But this past Thursday, I attended again.

Ten years ago, I ran the London Marathon with my oldest brother, Christopher. By mile 20, the two of us were Jell-O men, stumbling forward under the weight of gravity and lunacy, in equal parts. Walking into Bowls last Thursday, my legs felt similarly. I wanted to keel over a few times--or at least just bowl from a chair.

But as I looked around, I felt heartened. So many older men welcomed me back. Told me they missed me. We shook hands. Talked about the weather. Talked about the wars they had fought in fifty, sixty years ago. Talked about bowls.

Always about bowls.

Ah, good wood there, mate!

Just ease up to the Jack. Bring it straight round there.

Oh, ay! That's a Yorkshireman's delight right there.

Every time down the green fake-lawn mat, these older men smiled with joy at the smallest attempt, the closest call, the possible point.

The thrill. Even of indoor lawn bowling.

And I was struck by something my soul was in desperate need of: the long view.

I talked with Ken, one of the men who landed on the beaches at Normandy when he was only 18 years old as a conscript of the British Army. He was paid twelve pence a day. By contrast, American soldiers during World War II were paid the equivalent of four pounds a week. Ken was making 84 pence a week. And he served at the invasion, then for two years in Palestine during terrible battles there. In both places, he was wounded.

Now, Ken smiles with ease. He jokes. He laughs.

Ken has survived. He has taken the long view of life, realizing that we pass through immeasurable difficulty and confusion and fear and sometimes horror, but somehow, we survive. And when we do, we keep on walking the path that falls before our feet.

I talked with Tony, who described how his four-year old daughter (now 39) would wake up screaming night after night after night. For six months. He and his wife had just had another baby, and between the four-year old screaming, the newborn with terrible colic, Tony and his wife had zero sleep. Literally. I watched Tony's face as he recalled the time.

"How did you make it through?" I ask, wanting to glean some kind of wisdom for our own sleep trouble with Tyler of late.

Tony shook his head, looked at me, and smiled. "The thing is, our daughters are beautiful human beings. You just have to love them through the hard stages and remember that you might always know what the hard stages are about, but they pass." Then, Tony smiled and patted me on the back.

The long view.

During the eight o' clock tea break, I talked with Henry, who lives and breathes bowls now, as a seventy-year old man. His face rose and fell like an ocean of glee as he described the five Bowling Clubs of which he is a part. The different match-ups, the visiting teams, what bowls means to him and how it gives him a place to belong.

And I couldn't help but think, here's a seventy-year old man, and he has passion and joy. He looks forward to waking up each day, playing bowls almost every night. He;s not mourning his past, regretting the past 69 years. He's living his 70th.

The long view.

Walking back from St. Oswald's Church Hall at nine o' clock with the wind whipping cold across my ears, hands, all I could think, over and over, was the long view.

I am often so accustomed to contemplating the short view. What is happening now? What if this or that circumstance doesn't work out? What if this hard stage lasts forever?

Such are questions that the vocabulary of the Long View doesn't know or acknowledge.

In bowls, you might have an incredible turn: your ball might land square next to the Jack, lean against it like there's nothing in the world that will take that point away from you. But then another player gets up and knocks your ball completely off the mat. Your point is gone. Lost.

Alternately, you may bowl a ball that is as far away from the Jack as ice from fire. But then another player takes a turn and inadvertently slices your ball, knocks it square next to the Jack. One point.

You never know. The game changes moment by moment. Like life. And you can't play by giving so much power to each turn that you lose the thread of the game.

You can't live by lending so much significance to every circumstance that you lose the narrative of your own arc.

It's what the men at Bowls are teaching me. It's what I am slowly learning to do--slowly learning how to see. The Long View doesn't throw away the moments, nor does it anxiously plan and prepare for the future. Instead, it simply approaches the present with open hands, receives it, but does not allow any present moment to crush or signify the worth of existence. The worth of a life is much more valuable than any one thing, much more authentic than any sound bit, no matter how treacherous or beautiful.

Because what is most miraculous about our lives of it all is this: the story. It's not the sentence that decides our fate, nor the chapter. These are but a part of the narrative. The story as a whole is what matters. The mistakes I have made before, the patterns of fear I may have allowed to beat in unison with my heart--these do not signify the substance of the novel of my life. Nor yours.

The Long View tells us to wait and see. Keep living. Keep going. Keep bowling. The next time down the lawn mat, we may just end up with an incredible bowl, one that we would have missed had we been caught lamenting our last turn.

It

We cut our fingernails,
Peel back the sleep from our eyes.

We pull the stray hairs off,
Watch them fall.

Crooked eyes make for
The straightest disguise:

We wear the face of humanity--
Our imperfect noises, ideas, cries.

In the face of despair,
We turn our tired eyes towards

Light.

However dark our lives,
We rise.

Against all logic,
all fear,
all confusion,
all despair.

We rise like rain
That bounces off rock:

Too bold too stay,
Too strong to remain.

Made for more than this,
More than superficial bliss,
We rise.

And while we stand,
The crooked of our pain remains,
But the straight of the sun dances
Like it's new again.

Like it's piercing holes in
Despair.

Like the Nothing that we
Worshipped was a sham.


(I wrote this poem while listening to the following song on YouTube over and over, and over and over, and over and over. And again. Hold Us Together by Matt Maher

Firsts

First article publication.

First day at a new job.

First time watching son using the potty (assisted).

First time watching son using the potty (unassisted).

First time trying fish (for whatever reason, with eyeballs intact).

First time getting dizzy after trying fish (eater's eyeballs not so intact).

First time weeping.

First time laughing so hard milk comes out of your nose (even though it's been awhile since you've had milk).

First book publication.

First child.

First sleepness nights without choosing to have a sleepness night to prepare for an exam which you should have studied for throughout the term rather than on the last (sleepness) night.

First letter from a reader.

First kiss.

First kiss representing a lifetime of further kisses from that one, first forever love.

First time becoming clueless about everything you thought you knew but now know that you really (really!) do not.

First time weathering a severe storm and realizing, hey, it's gonna be okay.

First time realizing, No, it's NOT gonna be okay; I was wrong!

First time getting past both previous firsts to a more substantial first that lasts: yes, it is. But it takes time.

First rejection of a book which reveals that the editor thought it was really, really awful.

First rejection of a book which reveals that the editor thought it was really, really strong. (But still didn't buy it.)

First request to see the book again with revisions.

First rejection of re-considered book with revisions.

First time being without our son at two in the afternoon, as he attends his first afternoon session of pre-school in York, England, with five teachers who seem as wise as Yoda and as kind as Mother Teresa, yet still feeling vaguely filled with terror, worry, fear, anxiety that something will happen, and what if something happens and WE'RE NOT THERE TO HELP and what if he cries and cries because he doesn't realize that pre-school is a good thing, where he can shed his overbearing father for a bit and play with other kids on his own, even though he doesn't know that this is a good thing yet but will soon, but maybe not until AFTER many rounds of afternoon pre-school have already passed and what am I supposed to do about that in the meantime?

First time writing a hard-to-follow, nervously crafted, fingernail-biting blog while our son is at pre-school.

[Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.]

First time realizing, it will be okay. Son will be okay. Letting go a little is okay. Life is okay.

Don't Think; Begin!

If you're anything like me, beginnings can be tough.

I am unashamed (okay, I am a little bit ashamed) of my bashfulness when I first knew that I wanted to date Jennifer (and eventually, marry her!). I had been visiting her, and at every turn, I planned romantic moments where I could tell her how deeply I cared for her. I took her to a beautiful lunch where we clinked glasses full of Chardonnay.

Even though the sun streamed through large windows across her face, urging me Come on, buddy, I'm doing my part...Tell her already, won't you? I had trouble getting the words out.

Then, as we walked beside a pond, skipping stones and watching light reflect on the shimmering water, my old pal the sun spoke again, Alright, man, I am really working hard here to give you some major opportunities...Tell her buddy! Yet I still had trouble getting the words out.

Finally, I was able to blurt out a (fairly) non romantic and harried "I like you" -- probably making Jen wonder if I was still in middle school rather than a 22 year-old high school teacher myself.

But I recognize something that I couldn't see before: beginnings are tough. It's hard to really put ourselves out there, say what we feel, what we believe, what we hope for.

I sometimes fall into that pattern where I start thinking a whole heap about ways to begin something, without beginning it. This is a dangerous zone, because thinking is, in fact, a good thing.

It's a great thing. We would save ourselves a whole lot of foot-in-mouth moments if we thought a little before we spoke or acted. But there's a lot in life that doesn't follow the notion of thinking for long, long (way too long!) periods of time before we begin.

Writing is like this. When we sit at our computers, staring at that white screen with it's tiny cursor flashing repeatedly before our very eyes, then we need do only one thing: begin.

We've got to write something--\anything--to get us going. Because writing is like running. You can't stand on the side of the road thinking about how exactly you're going to move your legs, what strides you'll make where, and when exactly you'll turn a corner. (Well, I guess you actually can do this, but you might look fairly odd dressed in your running clothes, standing outside for an hour, then going back inside without sweating.)

No. We've got to sweat, and with writing, that sometimes means sweating over some fairly awful prose.

I recently began a new novel, and the vision of this book in my head was remarkable. I smiled whenever I thought of the book's premise, givign myself imaginary pats on the back for thinking up such a cool idea.

Then I started writing it.

Part of me almost didn't want to write the thing, because keeping company with Premise was such fun! After all, Premise was a pretty non-demanding buddy. Premise even suggested I grab a bag of chips (or crisps, as I'm learning they're called here in England) and put on a great film clip whjile Tyler naps. Premise often told me, Hey, Man, aren't I enough for you as I am? Why you got to go and try and make me, like, 40,000 words long or something? The relationship we've got now is pretty sweet, right?

Sadly, I had to tell Premise to beat it. It was fun hanging out with him for a while. But I knew I needed to begin.

And so I threw up words and sentences onto my screen and winced as I wrote them. I felt like some very mean-spiritied doctor was continually poking me with a Hepatitis A vaccination, then hiding the needle quickly when I took a sidelong glance.

But I kept writing.

I wrote through my halthing, confused Chapter 1.

Ouch.

Then I started another halting, albeit-less-confused Chapter 2.

Ouch. (But less ouch.)

Finally, I made it to the end of Chapter 2, where I found one line I had written, and I leaned back in my chair and I said out loud, "Thank you, God. Thank you for this line. This one line."

Because, see, that was the line.

The line.

I had written many pages, but most will probably be chucked when all is said and done. But I will keep that line. That one line.

Living, too, is a lot like this. I wonder how often we stop ourselves from doing anything because we're so afraid we're going to get it wrong. We're so afraid that we don't have it just quite right, so we counsel ourselves that it's okay--better, even--to wait it out. Think some more.

The sad part about making little choices like that every day is that it leads to one rather big choice: we never do the thing that makes our hearts beat fast. We have a vision--a dream, a hope, a cool idea--but we don't allow ourselves to just begin it and make mistakes along the way.

Yesterday, as I was doing my morning devotion on the porcelin potty (well, I think ours may actually be a very, very hard plastic-type material that only looks like porcelin...in fact, is anybody's porcelin? If you're still with me, and you know for a facvt that you have a porcelin potty, send me an e-mail at LWReynolds@gmail.com as I'd love to hear about your porcelin potty. If you don't have a porcelin potty, but you have factual knowledge of your potty's substance, e-mail me and let me know what it is), I came across the book of Jonah in the Old Testament.

I said to myself, Hhhmm, I've heard a lot about this Jonah character, but I don't know that I've ever actually read the book in the Bible.

So I read it then and there.

And I was blown away by it. I was blown away by a lot within it--but two things really hit me like something heavy and big (but something that doesn't leave any pain or aftereffects).

Two verses, really, which said, essentially: "God changed his mind."

Whoa! So God had planned on one course for the Ninevites, but their repentence provoked his mercy, and he changed his mind!

Jonah was pretty bummed about this whole God-changing-His-mind-and-having-mercy-thing.

But hey, the point is that if God can even change His mind, then why do we pretend we can't?

Why do we so often walk through our lives telling ourselves that we must get it exactly right on the first try, every time and all the time? That's a pretty high and impossible standard that, essentially, accomplishes one thing only: it prevents us from beginning something that could be really good, really beautiful, really important.

So, since my son Tyler is waking up from his nap, and our local library is calling both our names, I'll end with this question today: What dreams are bouncing around in your heart right now? Have you dreamed of starting a non-profit to help reform schools? Have you dreamed of doing the Peace Corps? Have you dreamed of writing a novel, running a mile in six minutes, or visiting all 50 states? Have you dreamed of living abroad, telling people that you love them, learning to play the gutiar, or writing your own song?

Whatever the dream, begin it.

And don't think too much about it; just start.

You'll find that when you begin, the pace is plodding, and the voices that seek to nag you back into inertia are loud. But keep going. After a while, I promise your heart will start to beat a little faster, and the excitement that leaps around inside that central organ of yours will slowly but surely crowd out the fear, criticism, and worry.

Begin. Now.