Dimly Lit

This is not exactly what I meant when I said a little while ago that I felt the call of the wild.

By the way, for those 3 of you that actually look at this blog occasionally, I really do intend to write more. But between sleeplessness, a teenage daughter, a threenage son, and a big pile of work that landed on my desk recently I just haven’t had the time. Maybe later. Potty training (for Max not me) comes first.

Idiotic statements like those that have just come from Pat Robertson are what make me cringe when I’m lumped in with the “Christian Right” here in America. No wonder my co-workers can’t figure me out when I say I’m a conservative Christian - they automatically think that I would support statements like:

We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability

Or this:

We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Or this:

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop

Pat Robertson, please shut up.

Since I’ve been pining for the great outdoors here lately, and since the likelihood of my living there in the near future is slim, I think I will make an attempt at writing my way there. Description has always been difficult for me and yet it is something I appreciate deeply from writers like Annie Dillard and John McPhee. Speaking of Annie Dillard, in her slim book called The Writing Life she discusses the actual lifestyle of many writers. Contrary to popular belief, writers like Dillard spend much of their time holed up in small, enclosed spaces staring at walls and paper. Scenery would be a distraction. Writers tend to dwell in the life of the mind rather than in the reality of their surroundings. Now I’m sure that is not necessarily true of all writers, but as long as I’m not able to head to a small stream with fly rod in hand I may as well journey there in my mind and on paper.

But not now…work calls…dangit.

Melissa came home from the library yesterday and held up Last Child in the Woods. I read the first few pages of the introduction this morning and already I know I’m in trouble. After a few paragraphs I’m ready to put up the “For Sale” sign and start looking for the acreage on which to build our own Not So Big House.

I already spend so much of my time while at work day dreaming of hiking and fishing and just simply being outside it’s often a wonder that I get anything done. Is it just me? Do the people in the surrounding cubes harbor the same dreams of fresh air, stars and wide-open spaces?

I don’t believe, as some seem to, that God only intended for us to live a rural, agrarian lifestyle and to live any other way is somehow a sin. After all the New Jerusalem is described as a shining city. But I do feel like I see more and more every year if not every month that I am wired for the outdoors.

Most of my friends right now are New Urbanites. All of the hip, cool, intelligent people who listen to good music seem to be Urbanites. They have a vision for what God is accomplishing in the city and are committed to living here. And I must admit there is a vibrancy, a life, to the city. I want to be excited about it, and when I spend time around others who are excited about the city I get caught up in it as well. But it never takes long for the old desire for the woods and land to reappear.

Maybe it’s time for me to acknowledge that the hillbilly in me that I spent so much time and effort trying to run away from as a younger man is simply a big part of who I am. Here’s my current dream. Anyone got a spare $5 million dollars they want to throw my way?

I think Max has made up his first “bad” word - goolie. For a while it seemed that it was just a sound he likes to make, then I started to notice that he was using it in pretty specific ways.

Exhibit A: A former neighbor dropped by a few days ago to say hi. Max wasn’t happy about this and told his big sister that he wanted me to make her go away. I decided I’d go up and talk it over with him (by the way, one of the many lessons I’ve learned as a father is that reasoning with toddlers rarely work - but I keep trying). The conversation went something like this (heavily paraphrased):

ME: Max, ____ is a nice lady and we need to be kind to her, even if we’d rather be doing something else right now.
Max: No, I want her to go away.
Me: Why do you want her to go away? She’s a nice lady.
Max: No, she’s not a nice lady, she’s a goolie lady

What the heck is goolie? I don’t know, but as I’ve paid attention since then I’ve noticed that whenever he’s really angry he likes to call things goolie. Where does it come from? It’s so hard not to laugh when he says it.

No, it’s not the Go Go’s song… We’re back from our annual get-together with as many extended members of my dad’s side of the family as can make it to Table Rock lake in southwest Missouri. As usual it was a good time, and hard. Anytime we spend a week under someone elses roof it’s bound to be a little difficult, and with my parents that is no exception - to say the least.

But I’m not going to use this as a venue to gripe about family relationships, at least for today. Instead, I’m just going to focus on the good stuff. My now 13 year old daughter (very hard to believe), Hannah, spent 2 weeks hanging out with both her Nebraskan and Bostonian cousins; and she did it without falling into the trap of saying things are “wicked good”! I’m pretty sure she had a wonderful time, but of course I didn’t see her very much, she was busy doing exactly what she should have been doing - soaking up the sun and enjoying the company of cousins from age 5 to 23.

Max caught his first fish, floated around the lake like he owned it, and discovered my older brothers old rocking horse. He’s pretty enamored with boats now and when he saw a jet ski for the first time his immediate reaction was “WOW! What’s that!?”. He was able to go in a power boat, a sail boat, and a row boat and loved them all, all of which makes his water crazy daddy a very happy man. It was fun for all of us to see him ride the rocking horse my grandfather made for my brother almost 40 years ago. Max is now quite the cowboy and like to torture the dog by trying to lasso him every chance he gets.

All in all it was a very good week. A time for me to be away from the tyranny of the urgent and spend some good time in the quiet beauty of the Ozarks. My biggest problem is that it made me long even more for a place with some land away from the honking horns and bass thumping so loudly it rattles my windows.