Flawed Thoughts Part 2

As mentioned previously, I view Providence, Serendipity, Karma, Luck, and Coincidence as synonyms. Recently another blogger I follow was thinking and posted on a subject that was similar. Mike Duran's post was a complete thought on a different tack, but parts of what he wrote described some of what was going through my mind while I was in a recent phone conversation. It started out heading towards a topic of particular interest to me that I have posted on before. Namely Third Choice in a Two Sided Argument and the accompanying Flawed Thoughts (Part 1?). This topic is one that I was headed towards early in the summer and thought I'd have covered by now except for my split-personality life has not gone at all as I thought it could.

 My fellow conversant is an old friend I call an Evangelical Catholic. He has been trying since 1987 to get me (and everyone else) to leave our religions and just come back to Catholicism as it was the first. He wrote the first 5 chapters of what I call a Catholic Apologetic that was very deep and steeped in tradition. Like most Catholics he believes in Church and then Scripture (Mike Duran's spot on words). He has recently begun to go back to college and is living with a retired professor who is (I believe an avowed) atheist. This is the often expected religious leaning of college professors, though it is usually of scientific types rather than English scholars.

As an engineer, I am a practicing scientist--engineers put science principles into action. One of the worst people groups to try to minister to and reach are engineers and scientists because we try to prove everything. This is a related flawed thought to the previously mentioned Flawed Thoughts.

A difference between scientists and religious types is that each has their own language, if you will. Each tries to explain the other in their terms. Scientists try to explain and "prove" God, religious types try to just believe (or more often not believe) scientific endeavours. It is like translating a book from Greek to English. In this case science speaking one language while religion speaks the other. At some point there is a word that exists in one language and not the other. At this point the translator has to take what I call poetic license with the word (e.g. agape translated to love and without displaying the true depth of agape). This is the point at which science and religion lose each other. This selection of words is where religion requires us to simply say it is a matter of faith. Science has no equal point. The translation breaks down.

Religion says it's a paradox, live with it; science says it can't be proven so it's false. 

Links to posts: deCompose by Mike Duran First post on the matter Third Choice Second post on the issue Flawed Thoughts

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Secret Service

Last week I had a training session in Spanish Fort, Alabama. Enroute from Southern Mississippi I decided to stop off for breakfast and got the urge for a waffle, so I drove past where I was headed and went to a Waffle House in Daphne. Of course I had a waffle, you don't go to a barbecue joint for a salad (unless it's a bbq salad, yeah we make those) and you don't go to a restaurant with waffle in the name to order a hamburger. Another customer came in complaining about the cold. Another WH standard. I talked with her a bit, then she asked me if I was a minister.

The question caught me off guard, as I like to hope I make a good impression with my Christianity without being a blatant Bible-thumper, but I was fairly sure that wasn't what she was talking about. She asked because she mentioned most people aren't very friendly anymore--except ministers. I laughed and blamed growing up so far into the South you couldn't go further South without getting your feet wet. She also laughed when my waffle arrived and I told her I was a Baptist but say Catholic prayers over my food because they're shorter. After that I put the brief conversation out of my mind until later in the day.

A friend of mine (who will remain nameless as he may or may not read my blog) has been going through an estrangement with his wife. Early on he told me about it and I told him that if he ever wanted to talk about it that he could bring it up. I had lots to say, but I would only offer it if he wanted to broach the subject. Earlier in the week he went to talk with his pastor.

Now, he isn't a very regular church attendee. In fact, I'm not real sure when he last went, but the preacher was still more than willing and happy to talk with him. I am chomping at the bit to talk with him about it, but didn't because of my previous statement. On the same day I had a waffle for breakfast, he commented that of the only 4 people who knew he went I was the only one who had not asked how it went. We didn't go in depth into the talk, though we will later, but we did talk about the fact that I offered to only go into his situation when he wants to but others don't.

Without deliberately trying, I had 2 conversations that reminded me of my latent rather than blatant form of ministering. It was an odd juxtaposition because at the start of the day I heard a radio ad discussing how we need to plant seeds and not worry about watering them. Either they'll take root or they won't. This on top of a conversation the night before with a friend on pretty much the same thing. What we do with our gifts (be they money, talents, or talk) are between us and God, what the person we share them with does with it is between them and God. And that talk, the one that started it all off the night before was with a friend that works for...Waffle House.

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Easter on the Downlow

Sunday is Easter, and a day that many will attend church for their annual appearance. There are so many things to say about that, but others talk about that. For my part, I enjoy embracing something different. Some march to the beat of a different drummer, but I've always skipped to the sound of a separate symphony. My two favorite days to skip out on church are Easter and Christmas. So many people show up that don't show up on normal Sundays that anyone who expects to see you that doesn't (since you're not there) assumes that you were there and there were just so many other people that they didn't see you. A guilt-free day to miss church.

The reality of course is that Easter is my favorite day to be in church because of all the Easter's I've seen I have seen bad weather on Easter, but never a bad morning.

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More on On

My intent in reading On Writing was not to blog my way through it, yet again this morning I have hit upon a nugget that seems so important I can't not write. Lucky for me I know enough of the intricate details of the English language that while most believe that a double negative cancels itself out, it really is used to emphasize the importance of the point. I had believed that while in Maryland I would work on posts that cover a different subject, the non-fiction concept I'm working on and reading on--I imagined blogging through a different book. This morning's show stopper was not only my second nugget, but it was King's second point in the paragraph. He just informed us that the writer's initial perception of a character is as erroneous as the reader's, a matter I discovered about 55,000 words into my work in progress when I discovered my protagonist was someone other than I originally planned. Unfortunately I have the pain of a double protagonist as the first turns into the antagonist of the main protagonist. For those that have read If: An Allegory, it's a trope I've used before, though in If, the second protagonist is changed by both the first protagonist (who's change is early on) and the main antagonist (my Jonah). I used it at the risk of being similar because I simply love the name of my main antagonist, Scarlet Grace. How freaking awesome is that in a story about coming to salvation and God? And yes, I did try to name my 3rd child that but settled on a better name though Scarlet is her middle name.

Back on point is King's statement:

Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

 This is not the main point of the anecdote King is sharing in this chapter, but I couldn't go on for dwelling on the matter. I have found myself stopping because it's hard emotionally and imaginatively in my current work. It has been floundering for several months. Some of it has to do with my split-personality life, but most of it is that it has gotten to the point of climax.

Sometimes we get to the point where it's easy to check out. Stop doing what we're doing. Cease traveling down a path and sit in our complacency. When things get hard we can rest on our laurels. This opens the door to the problems that Ted Dekker speaks of in The Slumber of Christianity and taking our Ben Franklin attitude allows us to justify what we want to do in such a way that it can cause us to do exactly what we need to not do.

Perhaps my point is obscure today. Perhaps I'm rushing the writing. It's no less clear to me. Sometimes understanding comes easy. Sometimes we have to work at it. Epiphanies are rare because they're hard. They don't come when you check out emotionally or imaginatively.

P.S. Yesterday I blogged about writing with abandon. Then last night I re-read my post in my own RSS Reader and was shocked by both errata and two separate unclear antecedents. When I speak of not minding if readers get what I'm writing about I refer to the underlying bits, not the actual words. A close second to worrying if people "get" what I'm writing is wanting people to get what I'm writing. In other words, I rushed it and should have proofed it better before I posted. That again is an issue for today, so take this as an apology in advance.

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Search is Over-Now Starts the Real Fun

 Today I returned to the wonderful little slice of heaven called Fenwick Used Books and Music. I don't know the guy's name, but as promised he had a copy of Stephen King's On Writing. In addition I bought Childhood's End by a favorite author Arthur C. Clarke, and The Road to Dune by Frank and Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Then I went to lunch and to do laundry with a guy from my class. In an It's a Small World Way, I met Rob in Maryland, but he lives in Mississippi in the same subdivision my cousin does and we have had a few other similarities appear over the weekend (we went to DC Saturday which will undoubtably be a post soon). An enjoyable day overall, but when I got back to the hotel I started reading On Writing.

As I started reading, it became like a personal Hunger Games to me. No, I haven't read it, but EVERYONE who has (including both my middle child and wife) tells me it's a page turner they couldn't put down. I loved the description of where The Barrens came from, and I now know his brother was the inspiration for the dam scene. I suspect his ear problems were included in The Dark Half, apparently I've read a lot of King. However, I just got to the first show stopping nugget I've found. He's had nuggets, just not the nugget I needed as inspirational seed.

It was:

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right--as right as you can, anyway--it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it. If you're very lucky (this is [King's] idea, not John Gould's, but I believe he would have subscribed to the notion), more will want to do the former than the latter.

Perhaps I have just discovered why so many authors I follow on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs like this book. It speaks to each of us. In different ways, with different words, but it speaks to each of us.

Back in college I went to a Baptist church with a friend. I was not raised Baptist, but the fluky church I went to was composed of mostly former Baptist preachers. On a Wednesday night in a huge auditorium (the Sunday services were televised) the preacher (Fred was his name, I forget his surname, but it was Cottage Hill Baptist Church and if you know the church you know Fred's name) talked on a lesson that absolutely fit me and my situation. I had never met Fred. Not even so much as a handshake after church yet every word from his mouth fit me exactly where I was to a T (and not the Adolus Huxley type T).

I became a Baptist for many reasons, nonetheleast of which was the fact that while it doesn't happen every time, sometimes the preacher speaks only to me. And yes, more often than not, what he speaks to me is not what he intended either with the blatant message or the latent message, but that's a matter for another time.

As a writer of a literary genre I often wonder if anyone "gets" what I'm writing. I will no longer care if people get what I write, why I write, or what I intended with it. I already write for myself, I can now do so with abandon. Whether you get the story to make it your own or just want to criticize is up to you. I need both kinds. Welcome to The Hole at the End of the Bible Belt. Hitch it up, we're going on a ride.

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Dancing on The Line

The rental car I am driving around Maryland has Pennsylvania plates on it. While this makes me look more like a native driver, what it really means is I'm all over The Line here. All four people at my table in class live here, most are from here and they laugh when I remind them that while they are South of The Line, they didn't secede. It was 53-13 against. This morning one said there were parts of the South that didn't realize the war was over. I informed them that I still don't recognize my relatives that fought as aggressors in the War of Northern Aggression. Yep. That's the line I'm talking about. Few realize this, but when they were making it, Mason and Dixon fought amongst themselves. Dixon was more civilized and drank from a glass, but his redneck buddy Mason just wanted to drink straight from the jug. That's why today we have Dixie cups and Mason jars.

I do not like crab. The only thing I like about crabs is playing with the claws and using them for metaphors. But even I couldn't come to the Old Line State and not eat their delicacy. In all my life, growing up on the water, catching seafood, cooking seafood, and eating seafood I have NEVER had crab that tasted as good as the crab I had tonight at the Clarke's Landing Restaurant on the Patuxent River. 

They do have sweet tea here, in some places. I haven't tried it yet. My waitress tonight when I asked if they had it said, "Yes, we have it. Well, maybe not that sweet..."

No one that has ever met me walked away thinking, "Nice guy, but he never opened his mouth." I don't know anyone who has ever told me I didn't say what was on my mind. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that I have not only had conversations with the 4 people at my table but have had talks with one or two people at each of the other five tables too. A few have made a point to come up to me, seeking me out to talk with. Strangest thing I've been told so far is that they love my drawl. Would anyone who knows me and hears me speak regularly say my voice has a drawl? How far north am I in this place?

So what's the point? How does it all tie back to my Hole on the End of the Bible Belt theme? I'm not in "enemy territory" or even over The Line, but I'm not around my own kind. I fit in and look like them. I'm driving on their roads, and eating their food. I sound sort of like them, but just enough different that I get their attention. I'm saying things that interest them enough they want to know more. I'm far from home, singing a different tune than those around me, getting their attention with enough time to plant a seed. I may not water them more than once and the seeds may fall on the rocks or in the thorns, but some of them land in the good soil.

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On a side note, my iPhone's on EDT, my Blackberry's on CDT, my laptop's on CDT, and the laptop I'm using in class is on EDT. The only thing I know for sure about time is not to call my friends in WA because I really have no idea what time it is.

The Frequently's Latest

Last week the city of Huntsville was the luckiest city in the Southeast, heck US, because it was treated to the first official unveiling of The Frequently's latest collaboration, Promises.

 I shrank the size of the embedded video to fit the blog page, but recommend not only viewing full screen, but turning up the volume and listening to the lyrics.

Jones describes the band, Liz describes the song, based on true events. The truest beauty of it is that the subject is not what you could easily infer from watching the video. It works on multiple levels. I cannot tell you how proud that makes me of both Liz and my son from a different father Jones.

It is another hauntingly addictive, powerful song.

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Update: The attempt to play on "brother from another mother" didn't work so well when I just re-read it. Jones is my son from a different father AND mother. The difference is subtle but one my wife will point out as soon as anyone else we know sees it. 

The Process

Occasionally I have a thought rumbling around in my head that just seems to click when it hits. Sometimes it hits before it rumbles around. Yesterday the later happened. I read a blog yesterday by Phil Cooke. The main point that resonated was this:

In bureaucratic organizations, far too many employees think the process is the goal. They think their policies, meetings, and paperwork is their job – when these areas are only tools to get the job done.

One of the things that is prevalent in my job for the federal government is a process. But too often people get bogged down in doing things the way they've always done them. So often they don't know why they're doing it, don't understand how they're doing it, and don't know any other way of doing it. When you suggest something to them they shut down the idea because it can't be right. What you're suggesting is so far different then what they know, you must be wrong.

The reality is that they simply don't know. These tend to be the people you can't explain things to.

This afternoon I found out that one of the goals of a project I'm working on was an arbitrary number not chosen specifically for our site. We can change the number, but it's a process that no one really wants to go through because of the bureaucratic tape. But if we don't we'll end up spending literally millions of dollars doing something to a number that was not really intended to be done. Easy choice here to do the hard thing, but the hardest part will be demonstrating that the paperwork is a process not the end.

Prayers are the same way. We can't allow the prayer of salvation to just lead to church membership and then appoint the new member to a committee. The process is a tool, not the goal. It doesn't matter how many people "get saved", it only matters how many people are saved.

Think about it and get back to me.

A link to the whole blog is here: http://philcooke.com/why-you-hate-meetings/

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Still Searchking

Found a bookstore in California, MD!

Except that it's in Leonardtown. But the bookstore, oh my goodness. This book store was one of those incense smelling havens of old, lost, yellowed, hard to find books. Books upon books, upon books, with books shoved in between, over, and behind books.

I could have spent hours in there. The reality of it was that the store closed about 5 minutes after I entered and the owner was to kind to kick me out. It was a treasure trove of books. I saw many books that I own, owned, or that my father owned including many that we had to throw out after Katrina due to water damage. In one corner I saw several shelves full of original printings of what amounted to all of Balzac's works. They were not in the best of shape, and despite my desire to touch them I didn't. The reverence of the shelf was of the kind that only a true lover of literature and history could sense.

My perusal of the store was only a skimming of about half the facility, and he didn't have the Stephen King book I was looking for (he did have other King books) but he is going to order it for me so I can get it on my return. Sunday. I found a bastion of civility and literature in a sea of tumultuous rocks and am returning on Sunday. Yes, it absolutely matches up with this morning's post. It so well fits the metaphor of yesterday it isn't even funny.

The harder you seek, the more you will find.

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Side note, since California, MD is next to Hollywood, MD, does that mean that Leonardtown was named after the still classified first five parts of Leonard? Bad Bill Cosby joke most won't get.

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Searching for King

Tonight my normal(?) split-personality life is either more stressful or less stressful depending on how you quantify it. I had to fly out Sunday for a training class. If New York City is the town so nice they named it twice, than California, Maryland is the town that doesn't know where it is. Anyway, an author friend emailed me today and mentioned that while reading Stephen King's On Writing, he started thinking about writing a novel. This is big because he is normally a non-fiction writer. It got me thinking, not (just) because I have considered dabbling in non-fiction rather than my comfort zone of fiction, but because while I purchased On Writing, I never got around to reading it.

After class, the only thing I have to do is homework and catch up on work emails (only is an understatement as I just sent another and it's 2200). So I decided to try a new app a classmate recommended called Yelp. I typed in bookstore and Yelp provided several. The closest one was not only within a half mile, but it was in a shopping center I have already driven through three times between my hotel and the class. In great spirits I headed out to search for the bookstore.

I didn't find it.

My suspicion is that the store has closed. Any who follow the publishing world understand that this is a rapidly increasing problem. With e-books, Amazon, and other online stores they are becoming dinosaurs. Especially because people enjoy them, enjoy browsing them, finding a good book, then going home to order it online and get it cheaper. For their part, the bookstores have added comfortable chairs, coffee shops, music, discount card clubs, and lots of other amenities to make entering their establishment more enjoyable. They have made it some place you want to come back to even if you still go home and buy online.

Having struck out once, I decided to head for the next closest store. With daylight savings time there is plenty of sun still so it wouldn't be like the comedy of errors I experienced in trying to find the hotel (if not for my wife I might still be lost). I've never had a problem exchanging scales on a map for distance on the ground, but this time it was a lot further than it seemed on the map. However, I finally did discover the store only to find out that it was a magazine and newspaper place, not a bookstore. I headed back to the hotel thinking of how this is a metaphor for the church now.

Many people want to find a church home. They yearn for the comfort, the quiet reverence, the fun parts and the socializing. The more comfortable ones get bigger even if they lose money (until they lose enough). Sometimes they close but leave an indelible mark that says they were there.

Most importantly, sometimes a stranger comes along really needing to find one. And the stranger goes back unfulfilled and wondering: will they find their need or has an opportunity passed like a ship in the night.

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Lemons and Melons and Pears, Oh My!

As a writer of what I consider literary form I am often afraid that my true point may not be as clear as intended. Long ago I told a friend that if what I said can be taken in a different manner then it sounded he can be assured that was exactly the way it was intended to be taken. For a much longer time I resolved myself to the fact that I entertain the heck out of myself by communicating in this dual manner only as often as I can't think of a way to mean three things. This is not necessarily an effective way for an author. While it was a few weeks ago, it was a matter of a few posts ago that I posted on Frequency. While the post concerned blogging, the true subject was quality over quantity and what had me thinking it was the old adage that divorced, separated, and never-been-married single parents use for time with their kids--instead of quantity time, they go for quality time. This also goes for busy parents as well.

The problem is that without quantity, you can't tell when you might get quality time. Like the stupid over-played enhancement commercials (is it really THAT big a problem?) you never can tell when the right moment will happen. However, there are a few, extremely few, times that you can plan a quality moment.

Last night, my two oldest children and I went to see Wicked! on its final night playing in Birmingham. My middle child has turned 13 today, which provided a bit of a boost to the choice of day, but my girls have loved the music for over 2 years. For my part I still am afraid that I am the only straight man to sit through a televised viewing of the Tony Awards because my 2 girls are lovers of music, musicals, drama, and the stage. Before the show my elder child mentioned to the people seated next to us that she knew every word to every song and couldn't wait for it to start. I added that I knew every other word to every third song and I was kind of excited, too.

Perhaps I should be embarrassed (but those that really know me, know I'm not) to admit that "For Good" almost always tears me up. "Popular" is not just a popular song, but one of the best, and "Defying Gravity" ranks up there with "Loathing" in my book. Did my eyes water last night? Yes. Did my girls? Yes. But ever the overachieving Boy Scout I had 2 handkerchiefs. The show was fantastic, but the time with my girls was over the top.

I love being married, but I love being a dad more.

Three tickets to see Wicked!: $230 Parking: $10 A CD, a shirt, and a magnet: $75 A bottle of water and a bucket of popcorn: $9 Being a husband to a great woman and father to 3 girls: Priceless

Having a loving family is priceless, for everything else there's money.

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As an aside, the post name came from a line in the play when Nessarose was asking what was in the punch.

The Paradox

Today I'm sharing an exert from my Jonah allegory, If. In this brief section Major General Mark Aizcer has gone out while the eye of the storm passes over New Ixeveh to rescue two medical workers. If you would like to read the rest of the novella, subscribe to my blog by email and I'll send you a copy.  

The lone Hummer moved carelessly through the deserted streets of New Ixeveh. While the General had only been deployed on peacekeeping missions, those missions had been in war-ravaged towns that looked cleaner than this one did halfway through the storm. His driver skillfully maneuvered the vehicle around, over and through obstacles until a mere twenty-five meters from the building. The General himself gave instructions to stop. The water overtopping the levees had filled the storm sewers and backed up in this spot. Eighty feet separated him from his goal; Our Lady of the Lake was one giant puddle away from the safety of the Hummer. A stop sign was visible halfway across the water, but the windows on the buildings closer in gave the indication of the water being deeper than they could safely ford. They had come all this way and would be stopped just short of the prize.

"Sir?" Specialist White, the driver, started, "I think I see a way to do it. The water‟s deep but where the sign is it‟s almost an island. The winch will reach from there. We can throw it over to them and they can pull themselves along it back to the vehicle."

A daring plan, but a workable one. Going through the water would be the hard part, or so the General thought. "How do you propose to get the winch cable to them? We can‟t very well throw it that far. And what happens if the vehicle stalls out in the water, then there will be four of us stuck out here?"

The driver reached behind the seat, "I have a rope. If we tie it to the winch cable we can throw the rope over, then they can pull the cable. We can try to reach it from here, but I don‟t think the cable‟s that long. If the water gets the vehicle then we‟ll have to think of another plan but we can worry about that when it happens."

The General took two deep breaths as his driver continued fishing out the rope. He had not gotten where he was by taking senseless risks, or by not having a well thought out plan. Everything he had done had backup plans, nothing risky. This plan was shaky from the start, had little chance of success, and the only good thing about it would be if it worked. "I‟m not the least bit happy with it, but what else can we do. Let‟s try it."

Handing the General the rope, White put the vehicle in gear. Before the vehicle moved, he paused. Mark wondered if he had just said a prayer. He started his own as they moved. The Humvee specifications said thirty inches of water was the most it could ford without modifications. Mark had always thought it odd that the military used the metric system, but when it came to important small details, they still thought in terms of inches. This Hummer had no modifications, and a mere ten feet into the puddle, they reached that safe depth. Water began coming in through a hole in the floorboard. Ten more feet.

As water began seeping in through the door seals, Mark yelled, "Dive deep!" White floored it, as water began cresting over the hood. Ten more feet. Then the water receded a bit. Ten more feet and they reached the driest spot in the middle of the puddle. A sandbar of asphalt. Even if they risked driving further, there was no other place to load the vehicle. It was here or nowhere.

They both got out of the truck. White started working on the winch controller while Mark tied a canvas bag onto the rope to give it weight. Inside the half-destroyed building, the two figures they had seen had come to the opening that had once been a wall.

A piece of plywood floated between them on the water. Judging by its speed, there was a strong current between the building and the truck. There would be no swimming between here and there.

White had removed the winch and tied the end to the rope. Mark started trying to throw the rope, unsuccessfully. The two scrub-clad people climbed down from the second story in anticipation of rescue. The rope landed in the water and quickly sank.

He pulled it in and tried again. This time it got almost all the way to the other side, but still missed the mark. After a third failed throw White asked for a chance.

White's first throw went as far as the General's second, but by now the water-soaked rope and bag were both clearly getting too heavy. A gust of wind knocked both of their hats off and they both realized that their time was about to run out. Mark started taking off his belt and his uniform top. "Tie the rope around my waist. I‟ll swim it over." Without a word of protest, White did as he was told. The General could not hear anything except his heart pounding. Fear gripped him, not because of the swift moving water he was about to enter, but he was so far outside his comfort zone that nothing seemed safe anymore.

Slowly he waded in. The water quickly deepened. Before he was ten feet away from the truck, it was already to his waist. It was cold, colder than he thought it should be. This was, after all, summer in Louisiana. As he shuffled through the water, his boot hit something. He raised his foot and went to take another step. Only there was nothing for him to stand on.

He fell in and the current pushed him immediately. He was still not halfway across but now he was swimming for his life. The current pushed him against part of the wall that had fallen down. He clawed at the wall; trying to make forward progress in any possible way.

By now, he could see that there was a man and a woman in the building. They were reaching as far as they could, but there were still twenty more feet to cross. Another part of the wall fell, nearly landing on top of him. He fought as hard as he could to get to them. He took a deep breath and dove underwater. Using both his arms and both his legs, he finally began to make some headway against the current. Then another part of the wall landed in the water near him.

Startled, he swam to the side, away from the wall. Now his exertion was using up his oxygen. He headed toward the surface for another breath as the next piece of wall landed on him.

It was only a couple of bricks, but it forced his breath out of him. His arms flailed and broke the surface of the water, but he still did not have his feet under him. He was unable to reach the surface and get just one more precious breath of air. The next piece of wall trapped his arm. Now even with his feet under him there was no way for Mark to breath. His lungs strained, his eyes felt as if they were going to burst. So close and yet so far. All he had wanted to do was to stay alive and rescue these total strangers. He pushed on the bricks as hard as he could with his other hand. They would not budge.

Another brick landed on him, involuntarily Mark breathed in. Only there was no air for him to suck in. The salty water from the Gulf filled his mouth and entered his lungs. He ceased to be.

Wispy white clouds filled the blue sky. The light was dying. Just out of his line of sight was the dark, decayed building that used to be Our Lady of the Lake. Directly above Mark was a man in surgical scrubs performing CPR. Inhaling deeply he got the urge to vomit. Salty water poured from his lungs through his mouth and nose. Still lying in water, Mark sat up expunging as much water from his lungs as he could.

By the time he could stand, the female doctor had untied the rope from his waist and pulled the winch cable across. The man helped Mark to his feet and then said, "If you have to drown, it is best to do so within the reach of a doctor. Welcome back. Now maybe we can all get out of this mess alive."

Who could resist the urge to have a major generalizer discover the pair of docs that he had to die to truly live?

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Frequency

The frequency of my blogging is intimately connected to what happenings I have going on in my life. Which is to be more expected, that when there is a lot going on I have more to write about or that when there isn't a lot going on I have time to write? The two are mutually exclusive and yet inexorably linked. I created this  blog at a point where I was very secure in my job, I knew what I was doing, what was expected of me, and what would be going on the next day, week, month, etc. Then four months into it things changed. Having revealed that I knew what was going on as well as demonstrating that I knew how to do more, it was clear that I was coasting. That's when challenges appear. I was offered an opportunity to move to a new office where they needed someone to do what I was doing, but also where there was a long-time employee who had been on the verge of retiring for 2 and a half years. This meant that I would have a chance to not only do my job, but to learn parts of his job so that when (if) he retires there would be not only an open position, but someone who knows how to fill that position.

This was not to say that I was sent here to take his job. Not to say that I was sent here so that when he retires his job would be mine. And not to say that I accepted the challenge so that I would get his job.

Of course those were the reasons, but no one could say that. I can't expect anyone to say that, and if anyone did I wouldn't believe them because they can't say that. Clear as mud?

The Catch-22 was bad enough, that when lots of things are going on there are lots of things to write about but no time to write or the converse that when nothing is going on there is nothing to write but plenty of time to do it in, but the reality of it is even harder. There's always something to do and I'm usually not in the right place to do it. My young bride is trying to raise two teens and a toddler while balancing the normal housework load, her job, plus repairs, not to mention the constant Mom's Taxi service she runs. I am constantly on the go between home, my other home, my office, my field office, trying to complete some online training needed for certifications I need in order to get up to the next level at work, trying to do what repairs I can at home when I'm there, at my Dad's when I'm there, and still needing to work on both my wife's van and my truck. Is it any wonder the blogging has fallen off in the last six months? Not to me.

Now, I do still have lots to say. I have lots of draft posts, some are even partly typed. When I do get (or force myself to find) time to write I notice an increase in site visits (as expected). I have even been able to do a few things I learned early on in my blogging to attract lots of additional attention to my blog. But the elusiveness of regularity is working against me in building the blog. I want my posts to be spot on powerful pieces of writing and would settle for sporadic. There is a blog I follow that is someone in Africa. Her posts are infrequent, yet when they appear they are powerful reminders. It is a matter of quality posts versus quantity of posts.

Blogging is supposed to be a conversation, a two-way street. I follow one blogger who doesn't allow comments. Another allows comments but neither sorts through the comments to take out the spam nor comments back that I've seen. A blogger I learned a lot from, and continue to learn from has a great mix of commenting, sorting comments, quantity and quality, plus I've found that by commenting on his site it can really drive up traffic to mine. At the risk of running a thought into the ground, or maybe just stretching it out, there is another blogger I have never met but enjoy reading with a good mix of those things that is quite enjoyable to read. Even he has a consistency to his posts that allow for the quality to come out from time to time.

The problem is that flashpan quality is achievable, but not likely. Steady production can achieve quality with quantity, but takes more than we sometimes have to offer. My point today wasn't to talk about blogging. Blogging is the vessel that describes the concept today. I may not have gotten the quality of post I wanted. I may have not gotten the quantity of posts I wanted. As long as I got the point across, this was a successful article.

I welcome comments, not only to this thought, but just to see if anyone's listening. ~

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I Don't Know How She Does It

A few weeks ago someone was flipping the channels on the television and stopped on Biloxi Blues. A movie from 1988 with Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick in it. Having been a decade (or so) since I'd seen it I suggested we stop. The scene was the mess hall scene where Christopher Walken was telling the recruits that they had to eat everything on their plates. Ferris tried to explain that he was an El Malaguena Jew and was in a week of fasting. Christopher said he had an "All Religions Calendar" in his room and that he better never pull that mess again. After the scene switched I began rolling on the floor laughing at the next scene when the platoon is marching through the swamp. Someone asked what el malaguena meant, so we Googled it (what did we do before Google, I mean we never Yahooed it) and discovered that it was a type of music in a very flamenco style. What cracked me up on the swamp march was the incidental music--in traditional el malaguena style.

Not very notable (hence the fact that I waited this long before I posted it), but in the interim I watched Ferris Bueller's wife (to whom I normally refer to as "the ugly chick married to Ferris Bueller) in a movie, perhaps the best Carrie Bradshaw Sarah Jessica Parker movie I have ever seen, I Don't Know How She Does It. In it she has no problems resisting the flirtatious wiles of Remington Steele James Bond Pierce Brosnan. One part left unmentioned in the movie was how he would come to think of her as a possible love interest to begin with, but that is one that I get. Greg Kinnear is the luckiest man in the world, and Pierce is attracted to her because of her ability to simply get things done.

My beautiful young bride is also an overworked taskmaster such as Sarah's character in the movie. Her Facebook Profile mentions that she is a travel guru at running up and down hotel hallways and jumping on hotel room beds. I suspect that's a Facebook standard line, and it doesn't do her justice but it gets you headed in the right direction. She juggles more tasks than I do, is a full-time mother to two teenagers and a toddler, plus works a part-time job, plus is trying to fix up and clean up our house so we can put it on the market, plus every other thing she does. Her ability to do all she does makes her beautiful and desirable to me. Not because I have something I want to get done, and not because I have something I want from her, just because I love her.

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And in her defense, she isn't that ugly, I just don't rank her very highly on the list of good looks. For the record, I'm sure that despite some similarities to her husband, Sarah wouldn't think much of my looks either. And no, Honey, I don't want SJP to cook me a meatloaf.

Clichés

The not so wonderful thing about clichés is that no matter how cliché one is has no effect on its truth. Many clichés are simple or simply stupid sayings. For instance "it's not rocket science." Generally speaking when someone has said that they have no idea of the simplicity of rocket science or the difficult of what they are trying to describe as easy. I often quote an egotistical rock star and call it rocket surgery. Same idiot also said it was "water under the dam." Both are clear signs that he's no rocket surgeon OR scientist. Another oft used cliché is that something is like water off a duck's back. Something that falls harmlessly onto a waterproofed surface without causing damage. Personally, I believe that using that (and other) clichés is just box thinking. I try not to be in the box and think outside the box as often as I can. For my part, I often use the phrase water under a duck's butt. The difference between these two foul amounts of water is that while they often can't be told apart, at times the water under the duck is fouler then that rolling off it's back. Perhaps now you can see the direction I am taking the use of clichés--further adding to their truth while bluntly adding honesty.

Back in the mid-90s I had an opportunity to introduce myself to the FORSCOM Commander (a General most would call 4 star), the Secretary of Defense (a child of the 80s ALWAYS thinks the best name ever for the SOD was William Perry, though this William was nothing like the Fridge), and the NATO Commander. Most would shy away from such an activity as embarrassing, intrusive in their life, etc. but others would say, "He puts his pants on one leg at a time the same as I." Yet another cliché. For the most part I put my pants on one leg at a time, but from time to time I put on my pants both legs at the same time. Even more rarely I put my socks on at the same time, no small feat with no small feet. I do it because I feel it gives me a leg up on anyone I may meet.

Not long after being empowered by putting on my pants with both legs at the same time I decided that I would no longer be calling a spade a spade. Since 1996 I have called spades shovels, because that is what they are.

You may be asking yourself, what does all this have to do with clichés truthfulness. It all comes back around and reminds me of a quote by one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams. "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." The cliché most on my mind today is one that I haven't bastardized: Knowledge is power. No matter how often you use it, the truth of it remains. No matter how much you may wish it to be wrong, the truth comes out. In life, at work, at church, driving down the road, cutting the grass, blogging, knowledge simply is power. Sometimes good power, sometimes not, but always cliché but true.

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The Rain

Typically when I am traveling back and forth I have several activities that occupy my time: talking on the phone (via Bluetooth for safety reasons), listening to Car Talk, a book on CD, a missed sermon from church, or solving the world’s problems. The later, is like yard work, when the motor stops your solution disappears. In addition to two episodes of Car Talk, I listened to two sermons left over from December that I had missed. These two were the grand finale to the expository series we had about Jude. When I tried to listen to them the first time I was unable to concentrate on them because of the recent business meeting. In particular I was a little angry about my motion being tabled. Partly because the motion to table was used incorrectly (Roberts was a Civil Engineer as am I, so I’m more aware of some of the nuances of Roberts’ Rules), but also partly because despite the fact I made a very specific motion it was dismissed as a carte blanche motion and re-referred to the committee that hadn’t been able to take action on the matter (even though I serve on the committee and was tasked by the committee to do something). So my anger in not being able to do what I wanted to do kept me from listening to what I wanted to listen to when I wanted to as well as made me listen to it when I needed to listen to it.

One statement made in the first sermon is so powerful I can see a whole post just on it. That statement was: I have no more right to, or am no more deserving of Grace then Jesus was deserving of becoming sin. Dr. Thweatt said it better, but my paraphrase hits the high points and swings the hammer hard. The first sermon reminded me yet again of Providence and the touch that was leading me home right when I needed to be there. But another affect of them was a desire to call my preacher. I don’t like to call people after nine at night. Even though they tell me it’s okay, even though I’ll gladly answer the phone at all hours of the night, I just don’t like calling people after nine. It was five minutes until nine.

As I pulled up his number I noticed that I was driving near the area where my cell phone signal gets flighty. Cell phones are great when they work, but I dialed anyway. After an unsuccessful attempt, I retried and got the message that I had no cell signal. I prayed. There had to be a reason I felt the urge to call him. I simply gave it to God and said that if He wanted me to call, I’d get through. I retried with the same effect. At which point I began to think, “Maybe I’m calling the wrong number.” So I hit his cell number instead of his home number and a split second before my finger hit the button to dial my antenna went from “Searching” to a single bar.

He was on the road, so he wasn’t at home if I had called, and needed to hear the joy I had for his message. From time to time I have heard him preach and afterwards told him that he had not preached at all that day, as it was this time; he was a conduit for God sharing exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it even though it was a month and a half later when I heard it.

The rain I was driving through at times was heavy, but it again became symbolic to me. He knows where every drop will land today. And He put me on a path where my vehicle intercepted those drops that I needed to intercept. Some of the boulders were large, some small, some I carried around, some I threw up into the air and was surprised when they landed, and some hit me out of the blue. Yet all of them put me where I needed to be.

The Rest of the Story Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

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Along the Long Way Home

I have an app on my iPhone that allows me to see where the nearest Pilot Station is. For those that don’t know, Pilot is the greatest truck stop in the world (or at least the South). They are usually large, clean, well-stocked, and busy with both truckers and non-commercial drivers. The price of their gas is usually cheaper too. Their greatest asset of course has to be that no matter what time of year, you can almost always find Hostess Orange Cupcakes in them. Some of them are practically right out of the oven. If you’ve never had one, try one, they blow away the chocolate ones (plus it’s easier to spell). There are 2 main routes to get from my where I live to where I live in my split-personality life. One is through Tuscaloosa, Meridian and Hattiesburg. The other goes through Montgomery and Mobile. Both have 2 Pilot and numerous Flying J stops on them. The Flying J is an affiliated truck stop that my app also identifies, but to me it’s like Levi’s and Wranglers—same thing only different. On the way down Monday I used my app to see that by milking my mileage and waiting until Meridian I could save 2 cents per gallon over stopping at the Pilot just outside Tuscaloosa. Yes, it’s that important. The fuel light came on 2 miles from the exit but I saved 24 cents on gas.

While crossing the Pascagoula River I decided I could check on the difference between the Theodore and Satsuma Pilots (about 30 miles apart). However, my iPhone had only the Edge network and not the 3G network over the marsh. Those with AT&T Service expect what I’m talking about. My boss’s boss directed me about a month ago to get an aircard so that when I go to the training classes (such as the one in Huntsville) I would still be able to work remotely, as I was planning. Serendipity truly takes me everywhere. To compensate for my lack of signal, I reached in the laptop bag and pulled out my Verizon WiFi Hotspot and cranked it up. Almost immediately I determined that stopping in Theodore saved me 1 cent per gallon on the gas, so I stopped at that station and filled up again. Yes, I did all this at 75 mph.

Laughing about this, I began to pray by thanking God that while I am often out of cell phone coverage I am never out of prayer coverage. I have prayed this prayer before as I’m out of cell coverage a lot, even with both an AT&T iPhone and a Verizon Blackberry. This in turn got me thinking that no matter what I do, I am also never outside of His touch, His guidance or His grace. I always fall under the hand of God and I am ever so thankful that I do not.

Being Human, and having the sin nature of Adam often gets me outside the spot He has for me. Using that line to explain human weakness, is a rhetorical technique of using an anathema that makes us feel better because we blame Adam instead of ourselves. But no matter how we explain it, we cannot get outside of His protective hand.

How often do you get a chance to describe your relation with your cell phone providers to your relation with God? For the record, owning 2 Smartphones makes one feel dumb.

The Rest of the Story Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

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A Town in Rhode Island

Last week about this time I experienced a particularly vivid demonstration of the fact that Providence is at constant work in my life. Chief among these acts were a series of completely unrelated and yet inexorably intertwined events that shaped more than just the course of my week. Taken separately they appear to be simply anecdotal events of the kind that a personal blogger would share about. While I tell them separately, they are not simple anecdotal examples but symbolize a greater presence. Rather then inundate you with the complete story in one post I have broken it into several posts, but check back to see how the story unfolds. It is simply amazing (and if I were a better webmaster I would link Simply Amazing to this sentence because like the story, the song will stick with you). Last week, I received a call from my wife who presented an issue that while I couldn't fix by being present made me want to need to be present. Being 300 miles away as my split-personality life has me during the week was not the answer, but it also made it hard to find a reason to be able to leave to be at home. There were some items that I needed to take care of that could only be taken care of in the office. There were several I could do outside the office, but only if I did some other parts in the office first.

Within about a half hour of the call, I received an email that I had been expecting the week before. Had I received it as late at 18 hours earlier I would have forgone the drive to the Mississippi Coast and stayed on the lake because the email instructed me to go to Huntsville the next day. At that point, I had my justification to adjust fires to set up the things I needed to accomplish in order to work remotely, be at home for my family, make a doctor's appointment I had made before my split-personality life began, as well as to attend the Men's Prayer Breakfast at church that I used to faithfully attend every week before going to work for my present employer. While on the way home I got an email that the Building and Grounds Committee at church needed a special called meeting to address the matter of chairs that I have brought up in our Business Meeting for the last 3 years (see also previous post describing my Karmic Christmas Present, bonus munchies points if you get the title). This is a matter that will come back quicker than even I imagined. As I got further down the road, I had a call to set up an appointment dealing with the pending placement of the Byrdhouse onto the market (followed by a second such appointment the next day). In other words, there were a good number of things I needed to be at home for, and now I would be.

The Seredipitous Hand of Providence mixed with Karma again brings me to be exactly where I need to be.

 The Rest of the Story Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Home tends to be a relative term as I have a house (where I stay during the week), a home (where my heart and my girls are), and a home away from home (my vehicle). And for the record, impossible is a synonym for unimaginative and the words Karma, Serendipity, and Providence are interchangeable in my book. They are all symbols of the same touch of God's hand.

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By Jove!

One year in high school, the opener to our halftime show was Jupiter. As a 14 or 15 year old (was it 85 or 86? Help me out here, Edee) I thought this was the dumbest opener ever. What I never expected was that it would grow on me, but grow it did. So much that I have since bought multiple copies of the complete Planets by Gustav Holst. Holst created the 7 movement piece to highlight each of the planets individually. Pluto had not been discovered or accepted as a planet when he worked. There was no "Earth" movement, as he expected to do that with the complete work. The greatest living American Composer (and number 3 on the all time list of Greatest American Composers), John Williams, borrowed freely from The Planets, especially from the first movement, Mars The Bringer of War, for the sinister tones of the Empire. Despite that, my favorite remains the fourth movement, Jupiter The Bringer of Jollity. It represents the prime of life and has an overplayed central melody that makes it truly stick inside your head. A poem that is famous in the British Isles was set to this music. The first verse was played at Charles and Diana's wedding, and the second was played at Diana's funeral.

And there's another Country I've heard of long ago,Most Dear to them that Love her,most Great to them that Know.

We may not count her Armies.We may not see her King.Her Fortress is a faithful Heart;her Pride is Suffering.And Soul by Soul and silently,her shining Bounds increase And her ways are ways of Gentleness and all her paths are Peace!

We may not count her Armies.We may not see her King.Her Fortress is a faithful Heart;her Pride is Suffering.And Soul by Soul and silently,her shining Bounds increase And her ways are ways of Gentleness and all her paths are Peace!

Last week, with the iPod on shuffle, and me in a reflective mood, good old number 4 came on and I realized the importance this song plays now in my life. The greatest bit of importance is that my high school years, especially the time I spent in band, has an incredible soundtrack. I get very reminiscent as I listen to it.

I have written some parts of my work in progress while listening to The Planets. Some of my characters take a spin around Jupiter from time to time to keep up their immortality, a point which is more obvious in the story then the fact that going around Jupiter is an homage to some other forms of humanistic religion. As a science fiction work that uses interstellar and faster than light travel as a metaphor for religions it just seems appropriate even though Holst intended it as a tribute of sorts to astrology. Holst later gave up astrology and later grew to hate the piece which was his more popular.

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For the record I have also listened to Joe Satriani and the second Greatest American composer of all times, Aaron Copland. I mention them because in addition to the Favorite Author Posts, I should probably name the Greatest American Composers as well. Perhaps next year.