As You Can Imagine

I recently found out that I am someone else’s imaginary friend. As you can imagine, this was a bit of a shock to me.

For me, it all began one rainy afternoon, when Charles wasn’t allowed to play outside. This should have been the first sign I suppose. The only children who still want to play outside are the imagining types – the ones prone to thinking up people like me. Any other kid wouldn’t have even noticed it was raining unless it made the power go out. But Charles was a boy of an older kind of cut. He didn’t need much to be entertained, because he brought all the adventure with him wherever he went. Why, with him, I have seen an ordinary doctor’s office become the crow’s nest of the largest and most frightening pirate ship you have ever seen, only to transmogrify into the very desert island our ship had struck, complete with thousands of miles of thick, Caribbean jungle.

One of my fondest memories that we shared was digging for dinosaur bones in the Sahara desert. Past bottle caps and pieces of Solo cups, we dug and dug, bent on finding the bones of the mighty T-Rex. At one point, we stopped and wiped the sweat from our foreheads, parched from the heat and sand. It was just then that our assistant, Mom, came out to the dig site with a glass of ice cold water. Charles was thrilled, but immediately asked why she brought only one, when I had been working just as hard as he had, and was certainly just as thirsty. Mom was usually a meticulously careful person, and not prone to such oversights. But she made quick work, and soon enough, another glass of water (though not as cold as the first, I noticed) was procured.

We sat there, drinking in the rewards of our labor, when, with one last trowel turn, Charles uncovered the greatest find in our professional careers. Our assistant was quickly called to verify the find, which she classified as the bone of a “Stick-a-saurus.” Though neither of us were familiar with this particular classification, she assured us that it was a highly sought after artifact, and that she was sure there was a museum that would be interested in purchasing such a rare bone. In fact, after splitting the commission for the find, we each went home with a hefty twenty-five cents each – a sum that any professional archaeologist would have been proud to have, we were told.

But now, after all these years, it has become clear that I am nothing more than his imaginary friend. And you might think that this would disappoint or upset me. After all, I never existed. I am just the product of the imagination of a child. Some people might be upset if they realized that they don’t exist, but not for me at all.

You see, I was with him through every high seas adventure, every leap over the tallest building, and every fight with every henchman. I always had his back and came through when all hope seemed lost. I was thought of in his moments of greatest joy and greatest pain. There was no grounding severe enough to put us in separate rooms. When there were no other friends around, I was still there.

I was the cohort, the adventurer, and the best friend of someone in need, and this is something that is not true of many people, despite all their “realness.” At the end of the day, I have the greatest honor that can be bestowed on any creature – real or otherwise. I was seen as a hero in the mind of a child. And I wouldn’t trade that for all the Stick-a-sauraus bones in the world.

Excerpts from Sunlight & Shadows

Below are some excerpts from my recently released book, Sunlight & Shadows, now available on Amazon. It features pieces of short stories that are in the book and pieces of some of the poems that are there as well. I hope you enjoy, and as always, shares, comments, reviews, and purchases are always appreciated.


Pine Needle: 

"Somewhere in an office building in the heart of Chicago, there is a pine needle, laying along a narrow, carpeted hallway, occasionally being stepped on by the passersby. In the evening, a janitor named Phil will come along and vacuum it up, as he listens to an audiobook his sister’s husband gave him last Christmas. Phil doesn't know how the pine needle got there, and he will not lose any sleep by not knowing. It doesn't concern him any more than it concerns you.

But it does concern you. Or rather, it ought to. Because stories often have stories behind them – and it’s those quiet, unassuming, unnoticed stories that are always the most interesting, once they are actually known."

Stirring: 

My sadness is a winter animal,

hibernating through the summer heat.

Only stirring when the weather changes,

invigorated from extended sleep.

Only then, in late September,

do I suddenly remember

that a part of me is broken

and doesn't want to go back home.

Remarkable Man:
"Thomas swung his door open and stepped out, and I struggled with the handle again before getting it open and stepping out. Thomas had already grabbed the can and set it down by the pump on my side of the truck. I swiped my card, internally being grateful that they took credit cards at all. We both worked in silence – me filling up the two-gallon can on the ground, and Thomas effortlessly holding up the silent gravity he seemed to carry with him. 

I looked down at his boots, which were old and rugged and caked in dried mud. Then I looked at my brown dress shoes, spotless and clean, and wished I weren't wearing them. Thomas looked rooted into the ground wherever he stood, but I couldn't help but feel dried out and weightless."


Sunlight Intoxication:

"The sky is a great tumbler,

and God is the Bartender of the cosmos.

Each day, He crafts new recipes

to intoxicate the mind of His creation."

Forgotten: 

"Suddenly, the room, the people, and everything around him melted away in one quick instant, and he found he was standing outside, in an open field. Blinking, he looked around, wondering how and why he was suddenly standing here. Just moments before, he was – well – what was he doing? For some reason, he couldn’t quite remember where he had been just been, even though he was sure it was only seconds ago that he was there.  The harder he thought about it, the less he remembered.

Almost right away, he noticed that this field was not empty. Scattered around in no particular order, were large, white, words. They stood about chest high, and looked as though someone had dumped a bag full of charades words and had neglected to pick them up." 

The Beauty of Frost:

"A poet makes you breathe more deeply,

linger longer, speak more sweetly,

wonder wildly, love completely,

pause more often, live less neatly."

Summation of the Gospel

At the end of it all, the Gospel of Christ is this: God will give you what you really want. If you want to be with Him, Christ broke through the power of death and has Satan’s power bound and gagged. You no longer have to be a prisoner to death. He made the way for you to be with Him, where previously, it was barred by sin and the grave.

But if you do not want to be with God, he grants that as well. Many people think it’s cruel that “God would send people to hell.” Let me assure you, God does not send you anywhere, but calls you out of death and into life. God does not send you to hell any more than the sun sends you inside your home. The fact is simply that to be inside your home is to be out of the sun’s rays, and to be outside of God’s presence is to be, in the strictest and undebatable way, in hell.

But you now have the ability to be in the sun’s rays, fully and freely. Many people complain that God is not very loving, because he does not accept us the way we are, but demand that we change into what He wants us to be. The sun must also be unfair then, because when I spend time soaking up its rays, I too am changed. The fact of nature is that the power you spend time with will change you. The things you love will always change you to be more like them – this is why the things you watch and think about and listen to should not be carelessly chosen. Over time, you always become like what you love.

So this is the gospel. We were in a room with no doors – a prison. Outside, the sun was radiant and beautiful, but we could not enjoy it. We became pale and sickly, held against our will. When Christ came, he walked into our prison, and made a door in the wall for us to escape through. Like fools, we say that it is narrow minded to believe there is only one door in the prison. But prisons always only have one door.

So now, we are faced with a choice. Do we choose to stay or do we choose to go? Once outside, you find that there are actual places to go in the world. There are adventures and people and light and love. You will also find that your time in prison has left you sickly and damaged, not fully able to set out. But the first step is to walk out of the prison into the light of day. After time, you will find yourself becoming changed. This is the Christian idea of sanctification – it’s like a spiritual tan – the effect of spending time in God’s rays.

So it is not unfair to say that Jesus is the only way to God. What is unfair is to blame God for you not going anywhere, while you stay inside the prison of your choosing. 

How to Be a Man

I just finished ordering a coffee at Starbucks, and was a little disappointed that the barista did not ask me if I wanted room for cream as she was pouring my dark roast coffee.  I would have said, with a slight air of nonchalance, that I did not want cream in my coffee, but that I drink it black.

This is because take a level of pride in drinking black coffee - it feels more manly.  Like, when someone offers me pre-cut firewood, and I say, "No, I got this" as I swing my ax onto my flannel-covered shoulders and head out into an unmarked forest in the dead of winter.

This creamer thing got me thinking about what else I do, just because it fits into my idea of what a man should look like.  So, here is a list of things that I find in myself that tell me how to be a man.

• Drink black coffee.  You don't have to do it every time, but you should be able to without too much fuss.  
• Be able to drive a manual transmission car without any trouble.  If you learned a long time ago, but haven't done it in a while, it might be time for a refresher course.  If you are being chased by international terrorists, and you jump into that Ferrari to get away, and grind the gears down the runway of an airport, it loses a certain level of cool, and telling that story later on will be tricky.
• Tie your own tie.  This includes bow ties, and half and full Windsor knots.  It's just one of those skills you should know.
• Appreciate old things.  Learn to love old books, old cities, old people, old music, old movies, old boats, or anything else that has figured out how to survive time.  
• Be able to read a book without pictures that aren't novels.  Stories are great, but figure out how to grapple with tough ideas in black and white books.  
• Know how to read and fold a newspaper.  They aren't irrelevant just yet, so maybe don't think of a newspaper as a tablet made out of paper.  The creases are there for a reason.
• Be able to sit and be quiet.  There is no inherent need in the heart of mankind that needs constant entertainment or stimulation.  Learn to just be.  We are human beings, not human doings. 
• Be able to start a fire without too much mess.    

And the most important one on the list - be secure in your own identity even if you don't know how to do any of the things on this list.  

What it really means to be a man is the same thing that it means to be a good human being.  And it boils down to this:

Love God as devotedly as you can, love people deeply and honestly, work as hard as you can, have personal integrity, make your word mean something, never cheat or take a shortcut, don't compromise your soul, love others more than you love yourself, and above all, stop putting creamer in your coffee and learn to read a book.

    

A Person Who Interests Me

This past Christmas and New Years, my wife Caroline and I went to Bogota, Colombia to visit her family down there.  To pass the time on the plane, I brought a recent gift from my sister-in-law, Sally - a book called "643 Things to Write About."  This is a note book, full of 643 prompts, ranging from things like "You are a pirate.  Describe your perfect day" to things like "A tree from the point of view of one of its leaves."  I love this book so much, and had fun writing on the plane.

When we arrived, Caroline's Uncle Juampa saw the book and started flipping through it.  Jokingly, he marked the prompt "Choose a person who interests you.  Write about the following person home" and slipped in a note that said "Uncle Juampa!"  Never one to let a challenge go unmet, I decided that before we left, I would do just that.

Not surprisingly, by the end of the trip, he genuinely interested me and I grew very fond of him.  So here is the bit that I wrote on Uncle Juampa - the examples below are experiences we had while we were there.

"Few people have the distinction of being known as a walking experience.  A simple walk with this kind of person will leave you wiser, calmer, and happier than you would have thought possible.  You wonder how this person sees the world, and wonder if it's a nicer world than you've seen.  A walk home with this person would cover classical Greek, Spanish grammar, local geography, and personal poetry.  It is in the nature of this person to bleed the perfect gifts - at just he right moment, generosity strikes and makes you wonder why you don't think of doing the same for other people.  This person is not too proud to talk to a homeless man telling jokes for money, and doesn't care if you are a king - you are a person.  You exist.  And this is enough for Uncle Juampa's time, attention, and love."



Here's the bottom line - Do good, create, have fun, and Life will beg you to dance with it.  Try cooking, try dancing, try learning.  And above all, love tensegrity.

Regeneration

So for those of you who don't know, I'm a big fan of this kooky show called "Doctor Who."  It's a quirky, British, sci-fi show that I won't even attempt to sell you on - you either already love it or hate it.  The only thing you need to know for this post is that when The Doctor (the main character) is close to dying, he regenerates into an entirely new person.  This was probably BBC's way of keeping a show going longer than one actor would sign up for, but it's a fun idea.

Now that it's after the new year, everyone is thinking through resolutions and things they're going to change about themselves because this year is going to be totally different from any other year.  Sarcasm included.

But when I think about myself five, or even ten years ago, I'm not sure I could say I am the same person I was - or rather, I'm not the same version of myself that I was.  Part of that is that ten years ago I was "half-baked" and still figuring out who I wanted to be.  But what if figuring out who you wanted to be was a life-long pursuit?  

I read in a New York Times article that practically every cell in our bodies replaces itself every 7-10 years.  The ones that don't really seem to change are a small amount of cells in your cerebral cortex.  So, if almost all of my body is physically replaced every 7-10 years, it's like I'm regenerating.  It's like I'm constantly regenerating.  

So I'm beginning this year, not thinking of what the old me wants to change, but thinking rather, that I have become someone new this year, and I get to decide what kind of person that is.  I get to try new hobbies to see if this new me likes them.  I get to try memorizing poetry, because maybe this new me can memorize poetry better than the old me. 

But maybe we don't become new people just because our cells replace themselves, and maybe we don't change because it's the new year.  Maybe we change when we actually start behaving like the people we want to be, rather than the people we've grown tired of being.  It might be worth your while to list out the kind of person you wouldn't mind being like, and then do small things every day that this new kind of person might do.  Maybe in the doing, the becoming sneaks up on us.  

Bending and Breaking

While I was living in Orlando in 2009, I attended Summit Church, founded and pastored by a man named Isaac Hunter.  When thinking about people who have had a significant impact on my spiritual life, it's hard to know the full extent, but Isaac Hunter will always be on the list of people who helped my love of God grow deeper.

Last year it was revealed that he had been having an affair with a staff member and his wife had filed domestic abuse charges against him.  He resigned from his position at Summit and decided that the affair was more important than his family, and left them.  On December 21st he committed suicide and his death was covered nationally because his father is a spiritual adviser to President Obama.

This news was very hard on me - partially due to the great love I have always felt towards Isaac, and partially due to the great pain that suicide has already inflicted on my heart over the last two years.  As I think through what integrity means, and the immense pressure those in the public eye must feel, I can't help but think of King David.

David was the King of Israel, and was called a man after God's own heart, despite his own affair with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband.  David had an elastic repentance - he messed up, more than most people, but when he was confronted with his sin, he was quick to admit it and repent.  This put him in great dependence on God and great humility before people.  

I do not care that Isaac Hunter had an affair - that is primarily a sin against God and his wife and family, not against me.  People are constantly failing and being forgiven by a gracious God.  People will always mess up - but what I want, and what I think God wants, is for people to be quick to make right their wrong.  Isaac Hunter chose not to bend, either from pride, blindness, or a small view of God's capacity of forgiveness.  Because he did not bend, be broke - and it his is breaking, not his failure that breaks my heart.  Breaking is not sinning - breaking is not repenting of the sin.

A man's failures do not negate the great good that God accomplished through them in the lives of others.  God is glorified within and often despite my failures.  My sadness is not due to someone I respect failing - that will always happen.  My sadness is due to a man not seeing the redemption possible after such a failure.  God is so much greater than our sin and so much better than our badness.