Jayber Crow and the Riverside Faux Intellectuals

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time."
~Dr. Ardmire, character in Jayber Crow


Last summer, a teacher friend of mine suggested we start up a book club. But nothing really got going at the time. A couple months later, though, two other teacher friends and I found ourselves in the habit of enjoying a beer while arguing philosophy and politics in his Communist-like apartment (falling apart, old hardwood floors, open rooms, minimal furniture, bathroom door doesn't really shut, etc.) in Riverside. So out of that group birthed a book club, and we invited my other friend and two more teachers to join. From four options, we chose Jayber Crow, which is considered Wendell Berry's best novel. I had not yet read it.

Berry begins the book with the following "notice":

"Persons attempting to find a 'text' in this book will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a 'subtext' in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers."

While I appreciate Berry's humor, our group was guilty as charged. It devolved into what my roommate and I have estimated about 20% therapy, 30% book analysis, and 50% worldview clash arguments. Only three of the six read all 363 pages after life took its course. It frustrated me how cheaply Berry's ideas are dismissed by those who cannot come to grips with responsibility or right and wrong, but I also know that all the arguments in the world will not convince some people.

I heard Professor (Dr.) Jason Peters of Augustana College refer to Berry first as an essayist, second as a poet, and third as a writer of fiction. While that may be true, that is not to say that Berry's essayist fiction does not work (Albert Camus, George Orwell, and others have done a pretty decent job of it). The book was written introspectively in first person by Jayber, a barber in Port William after returning from his prodigal journeys into and out of seminary, college, and "the big city." The story is one that dances back and forth between the real ache of human (Jayber suffers through a life of desiring and loving a woman he cannot have) experience and the hopes that sustain us.

In a world that so cleverly and deceptively cheapens, distorts, and distracts from meaning, beauty, and truth, Berry once again rebutted with Jayber Crow, doing a masterful job of weaving in so many of the themes that have mattered to him during his life and forty years of publishing books to a wide audience.

Rather than clumsily trying to synthesize it all, I will just give you a glimpse of Berry's own words.

On War:
"Anyhow, what I couldn't bring together or reconcile in my mind was the thought of Port William and the thought of war. Port William, I thought, had not caused the war. Port William makes quarrels, and now and again a fight; it does not make a war. It takes power, leadership, graeat talen, perhaps genius, and much money to make a war. In war, as maybe even in politics, Port Wiliiam has to suffer what it didn't make. I have pondered for years and I still can't connect Port Wiliams and war except by death and suffering. No more can I think of Port William and the United States in the same thought. A nation is an idea, and Port William is not. Maybe there is no live connection between a little place and a big idea. I think there is not.

"Did I think that the great organiations of the world could love their enemies? I did not. I didn't think great organzations could love anything. Did I think anybody would live longer by loving his enemies? Did I think those who were going to die could stay alive by loving their emeemies? I did not.

"Was this a good war? I knew it could not be good. Was it avoidable? I don't know."

On Love:
"It surely is far better to be disliked by somebody you don't love than by somebody you do. Even so, I mind. Even so, failing to love somebody is a failure."

On responsibility and the centralized, corporate model:
"For him himself, I sort of felt sorry. But he was not there as himself. He was the man across the desk, the one I had so dreaded to meet again. But this time, I thought, itwas not a desk but a whole building full of sub-assistant-secretaries. He did not speak for himself but for a man behind a desk who spoke for a man behind another desk, who also did not speak for himself."

On Work:
"One of my jobs, after I reached the responsible age of twelve, was to be the barber's assistant. I swept the floor and shined the mirror and kept things in order. And then, because I longed for knowledge, Barber Clark showed me how to care for the equipment. He taught me how to clean and oil the clippers, and how to hone and strop a razor. By little stages, as I got older and taller, he taught me to cut hair and even to give a shave, letteing me practice on him, good and brave man that he was. I got so I was good at it and liked to do it."

On Community:
"I have got to the age now where I can see how short a time we have to be here. And when I think about it, it can seem strange beyond telling that this particular bunch of us should be here on this little patch of ground in this little patch of time, and I can think of the other times and places I might have lived, the other kinds of man I might have been. But there is something else. There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with another and with the place and all the living things."


I hope that was enough of a glimpse for you to go out and read the book. Berry is a modern prophet.

The Fragility of Health

"The changes I noticed were the result of the depressive and manic events in Paris and Providence. I felt different. I had lost faith in my parents, Linda and Edgar, my friends, the medical community, God, the time-space continuum, my memory, my brain, my body, my eyes and ears, my heart, and my soul.

"Lithium gave me a functional brain..."
~Lizzie Simon, Detour: My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D


Last year, sometime during the spring of my first year of teaching, my body pretty much forgot how to sleep or digest food. This lasted about ten days. Those two bodily functions are always important, but especially essential in the middle of an intense and stressful first year of teaching. It was scary, and I found no real answers in the medical community, though I did do a bunch of assessments and took various vitamins and other pills either recommended by doctors or friends. I'll never forget going to the Emergency Room on a Thursday, filling out paperwork and getting stomach tests done all night long, and finally being freed the next morning in time to head to school for work. Not quite what I had hoped for. Eventually, with the help of other venues, I also ended up with an ADHD diagnosis, for what it was worth, and a prescription for Stratera (though I have hardly touched the pills, admittedly).

People are sometimes skeptical that I could be something like ADHD because I have always been highly functional. But there is something about "the real world," i.e. life after college that changes the way our bodies react to life. My older brother is going through a year not unlike mine last year and has demonstrated some extreme paranoia. The challenges of real work and responsibility mixed with the relational disconnectedness (in the name of technological connectedness) and the blatant tragedies of this world that are all around on us make insomnia and eating disorders and name your other acronym way too close to the norm.

That all the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical are all quite connected seems like a given to me, but apparently it is not, because exercise and sleep are so often pushed out of schedules--I, too, am guilty at times--casualties of "practicality." And so we have a society of people on anti-depressants, with no real strategies for getting people off them. A family friend went off and subsequently committed suicide a few years back. It is no wonder, really, that people end up addicted to food, drugs, or sex or perhaps even end up homeless. "We all have our vices," a friend recently told me.

Whether my own "diagnosis" was right or wrong, to know my own tendencies (high energy, inability to sit still for long periods of time, taking a while to fall asleep, disorganization, constant multi-tasking, etc.) has been helpful, so that I am able to implement various strategies upfront to help me function well.

Our culture, predictably, may best know the mental illness through what it has seen in the fictional films One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, A Beautiful Mind, and Fight Club. My sister recently gave me Simon's book, which was telling one. Simon was diagnosed in high school, later quitting her job in New York to hit the road doing some unofficial "research" about successful cases of bipolar (or manic) disorder.

What's really scary about clinical depression or ADHD or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia (or again, name your other disorder that we cannot yet establish medically, and so are diagnosed through observation assessments) is that while there are success stories, it often takes a few years of trial and error on ify medications or misdiagnosis.

Simon went out "looking for her herd," and was frustrated when she never really found it. Only in the end of her journey did she actually interview some encouraging bipolar cases. Many struggle their whole lives with something that is actually treatable.

After reading the book, I thought back to my experience at boarding school; several students clearly left because they were struggling with extreme depression, stress, or anxiety, and perhaps even mental illness. I mentioned this to my mom, who confessed that some of our own relatives and close family friends have struggled with some of the same issues. The blinders really do come off after college, I guess.

While it is my conviction that many of these things are real, fine lines divide them. There are not, yet, clear-cut ways of knowing who has what and with what they should be treated, even by people who know much more than I do about this stuff.

As Simon's story shows us, however, the complexities are not justifications to give up trying to get it right.

Splices and Scenes from My Story

"Mr. Schumerth, whatever you do, don't grow out that beard!"
-One of my fourth graders

"We have to force ourselves to create these scenes. We have to get up off the couch and turn the television off, we have to blow up the inner-tubes and head to the river. We have to write the poem and deliver it in person. We have to pull the car off the road and hike to to the top of the hill. We have to put on our suits, we have to dance at weddings. We have to make alters."
~Don Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned while Editing my Life

Yeah to all of my friends, you stick by me again And you say you ride this rusty train 'til it ends.
Yeah 'cause I've been around the world just singing about a girl
Never once did you call me a fool
I hope someday to make it up to you

To my mother to my father to my sister back home,
And you know I want to tell you of those things that I've done
Oh and I've not forgotten, yes and I think about you often
You say you're proud every step of the way
And you know it keeps me going these days
~Joe Purdy, "Brooklyn I'm Callin'"

When I was a sophomore Resident Assistant for Smith Hall at Anderson University, student leadership choose to read Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. The choice was typical of Anderson; every trendy Christian was reading Miller at the time, and he even came to our school and spoke in chapel. I enjoyed his stories, but was annoyed by his potshotting and thought he extrapolated a bit much theologically from pretty small experiences. I appreciated his admittances of his weaknesses though and loved the story of setting up the confession booth at notorious Reed College. Miller was one of my first exposures into a much different kind of Christianity. It wasn't "new" in a historical sense as the McLaren types might like to think, but it was new to me, this whole Christian-with-a-beer-in-his-hand-kind-of-thing.

I guess I sort of suspended judgement for a while, but made my way pretty quickly to Searching for God Knows What, which seemed to be a bit more philosophical/intellectual/theological, though still birthed out of his own experiences.

Miller has become the male Ann Lamott in some ways; he is to the modern Christian community what Augustin Burroughs and David Sedaris are to the homosexual community. All four names I have mentioned are witty and gifted at finding meaning in the seemingly ordinary, which is why, I suppose, they are all memoirists. Sometimes I think I could write memoirs and that maybe I even have stories to tell.

Because of the success of Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (it was a New York Times bestseller), he rereleased Through Painted Deserts: Finding God on the Open Road, a not-quite On the Road about a road trip with friends. I recall reading it in May after my junior year of college in the Williams' (my roommate's family) backyard and thinking there was a little bit of Romanticism in what I hoped life would be. It became my favorite Miller book, which has happened with every Miller book except Searching for God Knows What, though it is my sister's favorite. She is a smart person and avid reader, so definitely don't discount it. To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing up Without a Father was, in my opinion, the book that set up his latest book, that is to say, it thoroughly explored the various male influences that came to partially fill the void that his father left.

I read Miller's latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing my Life, last weekend on the way to and from Nashville. In the three years between the books being published, he has apparently biked across the country, initiated The Mentoring Project, climbed the Inca Trail in South America, and participated in one of Barack Obama's task forces. In the book, he came full circle in a way by paralleling learning about the elements of story (as one of his books was put to film) with his own story: the characters, the inciting incidents, ambition, scenes, and overcoming conflict. So he told the beautiful story of meeting his father in Indiana, my own state. He also told the painful story of loving and losing, though I will not say more because I hope you read the book.

I have tried, at times, to dismiss Miller as a detached coffee shopper, though I know I, too, do a good bit of coffee shopping (yes, it can be used as a verb if I say it can), and Miller is simply too real, too poignant, and lives too richly to dismiss.

***

So sometimes, for the sake of your own story, you have to up and leave, drive somewhere, whatever. Which is what one of my roommates, Keyairra, and I did this past weekend, up to Nashville. She drove every second of the ten-hour trip (saint that she is), both ways, in her black 2009 Toyota Corolla.

I love roadtrips (except that two hours before you get there, when I go crazy and it seems we're never going to arrive), and had previously traveled--with my before-he-got-married partner-in-crime, Chris Lloyd from Anderson--to Nashville for the fourth of July between our freshman and sophomore years at AU. We went down in part to see his mom and former youth group who was at the Opryland Hotel for the Church of God Convention. We weren't down for paying $100 or whatever it costed to praise God, but we showed up sweaty and dirty in the 100 degree heat and swam in one of the pools--of the shopping mall with a few rooms with beds in it that Opryland really is--while we waited for people to get out of sessions. The larger reason we had come was to hit on girls, admittedly, and there were lots of them there. We planned on staying the night, but ended up deciding (thanks Chris) to drive back that night, the eventual outcome of which was me driving into Anderson as the sun came up with Chris passed out next to me. But that was last time; this time there was just as much to look forward to.

When I think about Tennessee I think about colorful foliage and slightly foggy hills, and my perception did not disappoint. The weather was quite mild, too. We got know several TFA corps members in Nashville. We stayed with Sean, a tall and thin Ohioan Irish Catholic, who is passionate about food and teaches first grade, and his landlord Nancy who works three jobs and dates a guy in Oklahoma. She cooked us bacon and eggs for breakfast, hummed to a blues radio station, and told us how the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ (she claims to be a Mormon but has some attraction to the Seventh Day Adventists).

The reason for our trip was to hear Joe Purdy, the modern Bob Dylan in my opinion, with long, lamenting story songs that so fully express the joys and pains of human experience. The show was in a little bar and grill at Third and Lindsley. The show was great, though we wanted him to play another hour. Perhaps he was turned off by the annoying and drunk Kentuckyian blond who talked loudly through the whole show, sometimes walking up within a few feet of him and speaking to him as he sang.

He offered her a deal that he'd play which ever song she wanted to hear the most if she could first shut up for a whole song, but she couldn't do it.

***

Someday, when I make a school's calendar (which will obviously NEVER happen), it will look like this:

Semester 1: first week of August until the day before Thanksgiving. Labor Day and Veteran's Day off for students and teachers, a planning day off for students halfway through.

Semester 2: January 2 until mid June. Martin Luther King Day and Memorial Day off. One week spring break that coincides with Good Friday and Easter.

So basically, six-week summer break and six-week winter break. Seriously, how dumb is it to have five days off for Thanksgiving, then go back to school for thirteen days and then have three weeks off for Christmas. How much gets accomplished during that thirteen days that will be maintained by those students for the next twenty off? What a terrible idea, and then to come back after break and still be finishing up the same nine weeks; don't even get me started...

In my schedule, you pretty much every holiday off in the book for families, and more time to travel, really, but in all, more school for kids and teachers. President Obama gets that need right, though it shouldn't happen until school becomes more meaningful.

***

Notre Dame football is the girl that keeps cheating on me, knowing I'll take her back. Charlie, I've been really patient and defended you and the boys often, but seriously, it's been terrible while it lasted. I'll watch the Stanford game with no confidence that it will end well. How can there be an All-American type player at every offensive skill position and be 6-5 against a mediocre schedule?

My vote for a replacement is Charlie Strong, Defensive Coordinator at Florida, who used to coach at Notre Dame with Urban Meyer and Lou Holtz.

You heard it here first.

***

I wrote this post in several splices in various places, but am finishing it in rural Ohio, near Athens, which is where Ohio University is. My sister, Angela, is living on a communal farm that arranges and participates in work trips with groups and also works with the homeless population. They compost and garden and have chickens, as well as a creek, basketball court, and several cozy building. It is the kind of place at which you want to sit on the porch and read Wendell Berry. It's quiet and serene, but of course my family is loud and brash, and we're taking it by storm, shielding no secrets as always. It's in the upper 30s here, which I'm clearly not used to, and I left my blue Columbia jacket in Tennessee.

I told my family I would help in the kitchen today, which I'm clearly not doing. To friends, family, and enemies, though, near and far: Happy Thanksgiving!

Going Computerless

Every few weeks something traumatic happens. A couple months ago, my wallet was stolen at the Riverside YMCA, and I had to cancel and reorder everything. When my friend Luke was in from Oregon, all the sudden my car wouldn't start as we were about to head to Orlando for a football game. Then, I lost my jump drive, which any teacher knows is cause for panic (thankfully I found it a few days later). Murphey's Law, I suppose.

Most recently, a few days ago, I placed my thumb on my laptop screen and hand on the top to adjust the screen away from my face, as I have done probably a hundred times before. I may have pressed a fraction harder than usual, but it wasn't much. The screen broke, and now faded colors stream everywhere, and nothing from the desktop is discernible. Given that I am now depending on the Duval Public School System IT office, I have conceded that I am computerless for a while. So if I post less in the upcoming weeks than usual, please give me some grace.

Last year, I couldn't have done this--I wasn't proactive enough. But I sort of look forward to giving it a shot this year, at least since I have my jump drive right now! I will be depending, for a while, on my older brother, my classroom computer, the TFA office, and the public library.

Truthfully, I've never owned a computer. My high school issued us laptops, but I went through college borrowing from roommates and spending a lot of time in the library. My first year out of school, I depended on the libraries again. At Institute in Atlanta, people thought I was crazy, but I got all my work done in labs. Last year and this year, I was dependent upon the school-issued laptops, which now won't be an option.

We'll call this the Wendell Berry experiment and see how this goes...

The Wrong Approach to Homelessness

This afternoon--on our glorious midweek day off--I was playing football with a bunch of guys in the park at Riverside when I witnessed a cop come strolling in out of the corner of my eye, sure enough to escort a homeless (and likely mentally ill) man off the premises.

I have little tolerance for bullshit like this. The man wasn't harming anybody by picking useless artifacts up and putting them in his shopping cart. In Philadelphia, it is well-documented that there are more abandoned houses than homeless people. While allowing the homeless in to those houses isn't ever a consideration, still cities sleeping (and apparently being) illegal in public places. If we're going to keep the abandoned houses abandoned then why should it also be illegal for the homeless to hang out in public places? Another favorite tactic in various places is to create an ordinance that in essence makes homelessness illegal and to pick the homeless up in squad cars, drive them to the next district, and drop them off there. How sick is that?

I think it all stems from our shallow obsession with appearances. They're overrated as far as I'm concerned. It's the same thing with neighborhoods that set limits for how high the grass can be in yards. Why do we put up with this from the government, this constant overstepping? Why can we not come to grips with the messiness among us? It's complete denial, really.

If I don't see it (or them), it (or they) don't exist.

Perpetual Summer and Reclaiming Discernment

Earlier this afternoon, I played two hours of beach volley-ball in the sun with five other guys, then washed the sand off with our outdoor shower. A few days ago, in the early evening, I tossed a football around on the beach with my brother and father, who was down from Indiana for a few days. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's almost November. If or when I move back to the Midwest, I'll be the biggest weather wimp up there (a long time removed from my "Coats are overrated" refrain through Indiana winters).

***

On a completely different topic, I would guess that I've easily sat through services at 100 or so churches in my life, most of which have deeply disappointed me for any number of reasons (bad theology, corporate models, disconnection to the poor, pastoral hypocrisy, people who didn't take the Bible or the Gospel seriously, etc.--the critiques are not hard to find). Somewhere along the way, the whisper of God has assured me of two things. One, He has little use for my judgemental self-righteousness. And two, He will--in His timing--lead me to churches where good things are happening, where the Word is being made flesh, at least in some degree.

It happened in college with the Mercy House, part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance movement. Mercy House was a place that preached straight through the Bible--even the uncomfortable parts--and a place where I felt like I could be myself--full of questions as I was and am--but couldn't stay myself, as following Christ demands that we change. I also liked its embracing of art and its intentional placement in a low economic, high minority part of town. But I did not find Mercy House until a few years of church hopping, lots of disappointments, and a short departure from the church altogether.

In D.C., I found a few more churches that were feeding their flocks well: Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC), The Falls Church (TFC) in the Virginia suburbs, and New Community Church (NCC), part of the Church of the Savior movement. What drew me to CHBC was the rich theology that stayed true to historical Christianity and the highly practical teachings to a professional and influential congregation. I got the same feel at TFC. NCC was much different: tiny but the most economically and racially diverse church I've ever been to. It really felt like a family. You will notice that what draws me into or out of a church has little to do with its denomination.

Last year, I visited at least a dozen churches in Jacksonville, most of which, again, disappointed me for a variety of reasons, even after I thought I had done good online research to help make the choices I was making. But just when I was mentally done looking, I was "led" to a church, this time to Westminster Presbyterian in southern Jacksonville. It is a small church--under 100 probably--but a strong and healthy one. The people are friendly and inviting, and good instruction takes place there. I always leave feeling like I've been fed and that Truth is being spoken and lived. The congregation is knowledgeable about the Bible and the Gospel, and seem to be living it out in many ways. Perhaps most important, there is a deep reverence there for God, and how much we need Him to save us from our selfish, sinful ways that always fall short.

This morning the pastor spoke about the purpose of pastors. In his typical probing, articulate, and passionate sermon, one of the things he said that struck me was that one of the purposes of the pastor was to provide some clarity in a muddled world. He said that discernment was the opposite of confusion, which is the state of most people's lives on this earth.

Discernment is such a good word. Many people--in today's finger-to-the-wind culture--wrongly overuse the word "judgement" to refer to decisive people who often go "against the grain" and claim that others should, too, and offer clear reasons why this is so. To be a wise discerner is, of course, not to be perfect or to have all the answers. To discern well is to seek out the best information available--imperfect as it will always be--and to make good decisions. I'm convinced that difficulty or confusion is never a valid excuse not to act or live or make decisions in this world.

Judgement, on the other hand, has more to do with condemning and sentencing; it is not the same. I imagine if we go by the definition of discernment I have suggested and dwell on the word for a few minutes, the names of certain people will pop into your head, and that those people would be people you would like to emulate. For me, the names are those of mentors, teachers, writers, and artists whose lives have a degree of integrity that most people lack. Steve Garber, Andrew Sprock, Shane Claiborne, Wendell Berry, Rafe Esquithe, Josh Garrels, C.S. Lewis: those are a few of the names for me. What about you?

And thanks to my pastor for being one who makes a muddled world look a little clearer, and may my own discernment get better in time.

Male Violence: A Perennial Problem

"We are sad today
And we will be sad for quite a while
We are not moving on
We are embracing our mourning
We are Virginia Tech"
- "We are Virginia Tech" by professor and poet, Nikki Giovanni

"Of all people in the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered."
-Harold Nye in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

"I Remember
When I was a younger man
We were soldiers
Fighting in a foreign land
Now we’re older
And it’s happening again"
~Griffin House, "I Remember (And it's Happening Again)"

***

Though some societies have certainly done better than others at training up boys and men, the problem of male violence is a perennial one, traceable--metaphorically if not historically--back to the story of Cain and Abel, in which Cain slew his brother. The fourth chapter of Genesis is a bit vague as to the circumstances, but apparently God's blessings were more generous on Abel's farming than on Cain's, which--understandably or not--made him angry.

We can look further across history, though, to see that male violence was not limited to Cain and Abel and nor has it been solved since. Indeed, it was a men who killed Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot: all men. It has been mostly men who have raped and pillaged in so many wars, and it was men who orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombing and 9-11. The list goes on and on. Perhaps there have been some (I don't know), but do any female serial killers come to mind?

Or what about urban gangs? Surely, there are some girls involved, but mostly they are full of young boys who have more faith in violence than they do in families, schools, and the laws of the land.

How many females have you heard about being taken in for domestic violence lately?

So what is it about nature, what is it about our sociology that gets the training of boys and men so drastically wrong? How does it happen over and over again? Christian theology points to the Fall and the entrance of evil as a starting point, but why is it that women seem mostly exempt from this action of killing?

In a book (In Cold Blood) that set the precedent for nonfiction novels, Truman Capote (captured in the film Capote) chronicles the case of two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who killed a random "all-American family" in Holcolmb, Kansas. In writing the book, Capote was given a large degree (if not unfettered) access to Hickock and Smith. The film even suggests that Capote, openly homosexual, may have developed feelings for one of them. Perhaps ironically, one of Capote's best friends was Harper Lee, most notably the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Hickock and Smith planned the murders after hearing about the family from a fellow inmate. Constantly discontent, perhaps the two men were killing as some sort of rebellion or to make a statement, much like Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City after seeing some of the worst politics and humanity had to offer while fighting in the first Gulf War, although thievery was also part of Hickock and Smiths' motive. Smith's family legacy was not a happy one, and may have contributed to his own depravity: his brother shot himself and one of his sisters either fell or jumped out of a window to her death.

A more contemporary journalistic work done by Dave Cullen, titled simply and coldly Columbine, explores the highly noted incident in Littleton, Colorado when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their suburban high school and opened fire after their bombs failed, eventually killing twelve students and one teacher. The students were not friendless, weren't targeting athletes or Christians, and the "Trenchcoat Mafia" story was way overblown by the media. Cullen eventually concludes--based on solid research--that Klebold gave in to peer pressure, while Harris was a psychopath. (Why is it always the males who are deemed psychopaths?) Klebold was apparently a Hitler admirer and loved Oliver Stone's 1994 film, Natural Born Killers.

Perhaps psychopathy is to blame or perhaps it was just insecurity and the mob that drove British Catholic and twentieth century writer Graham Greene's protagonist--Pinky--in Brighton Rock to kill a couple unfortunate "friends" and ultimately himself in a Romeo and Juliet-esque ending, recently having quenched his lifelong abstinence from alcohol and sex.

In Woody Allen's film Cassandra's Dream, two brothers' (Ian and Terry) economic situation and eventually fear leads them to kill for their uncle (another mobster of sorts), and when Terry feels a deep remorse, Ian plans to kill him, which backfires into both of their deaths.

Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, both PhD child psychologists, worked together on a book (which was later the focus of a PBS documentary) called Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys, which went to great lengths exploring the forces that lead men to violence. Some of their conclusions included the withholding of affection for boys, the killing of boys' natural energy in schools, and the sexual conquest pressure for teens, all contributors to a world in which men feel compelled toward violence in order to validate themselves. In his brilliant essay, "The Abolition of Man," C.S. Lewis seems to offer comparative analysis:

"And all the time--such is the tragi-comedy of our situation--we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more "drive," or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

John Eldredge's books, especially Wild at Heart, desperately encourage men to hold on to their wildness, even as it should be channeled in ways other than violence toward others. That was one of the challenges in William Young's The Shack, as Mack--the book's main character--goes through a spiritual journey that results in the painful forgiving of his daughter's male abductor and murderer.

But must we all go through spiritual rebirth to redeem masculinity? That is a question worth exploring. I would like to think that there are macro ways to counter male violence without domesticating men into complete wimps (which is all too often the alternative to violent men), and seems to be, at least in part, what Lewis refers to.

Many well-intentioned conclusions often seem like throwing darts at a dart board and hoping to hit a bulls eye. As the many sources convey, there is no one circumstance or reason, even as the problem repeats itself over and over.

In the end, "the answer" we seek mostly eludes us, though we see glimpses. And so, we keep looking...

SNL Slams Obama

HILARIOUS:

http://video.tvguide.com/saturday+night+live/obama+address/2855122?autoplay=true&partnerid=ovg&rss=news&partnerid=spi&profileid=05

It's about time someone told the truth. The thing is, I don't blame Barack for "his" lack of action. Welcome to the American political system. (Which is why giving all those obnoxious promises was completely dishonest.)

By the way, how's cutting poverty in half going?

All Hail the King: Three Cheers for Fixing the Game Ahead of Time

I was a bit dismayed to see President Barack Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Chalk up another victory for fixing the game and his flowery rhetoric.

As everyone and his mother have noted, nominations took place two weeks into Obama's first presidential term. His selection has been justified based on his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Apparently, he was just that good in his first fourteen days of office.

Those who read my blog might assume that I have some sort of ax to grind with Obama. I don't really, it's more the Obama lovers that I cannot stand. I think the uncritical allegiance to Obama is indicative of a society that perpetuates the fixing of contests.

I recall my own high school, the Culver Academies, whose administration offered a block schedule up for faculty vote twice. It failed both times. The Administration implemented the block schedule anyway and predictably declared it a success evidenced by rising grades (never mind the reality of well-documented grade inflation).

Last year at North Shore K-8 in Jacksonville, our staff voted for whether or not we wished to take on Breakfast in the Classroom. The way it was presented was really fishy, so--in one of two times that I spoke in a faculty meeting all year--I asked for clarification: "If we vote this down, what will happen?" The response: "We will do it anyway." The vote, apparently, was for documentation. I abstained and couldn't care less what the outcome of the vote was.

In how much of our research is the conclusion drawn long before the data is collected and interpreted? To what extent do we really control variables to ensure valid data?

I sometimes wonder how honest my own organization is and would be in the face of poor results. Very little outside quality research has been done on our effectiveness, so we often claim our own research as evidence of our success. You can imagine, we're a little biased. Last year, I was asked to participate in a research project done by TFA that was entitled The Teacher as Leadership (TAL) Rubric Validation Study. TAL is essentially our model for teaching. The title struck me as a little heavy-handed, so I refused to partipate.

What would it take for us as people to really honestly take a look at ourselves and what we are involved with? Why are we so deathly afraid of failure and mistakes? Why do we so often evade responsibility? Let's face it, our mistakes are usually our best teachers. It's not that we should seek failure, it's just that we will inevitably experience it. I've come to peace with that; it's just reality.

As it relates to Obama, is the elitist left even open to the possibility that Obama might end up being a poor president (like, say, the well-intentioned Jimmy Carter?)? Were they open to the possibility that former President George W. Bush did anything positive? Is the conservative right any more open to the possibility that some of Obama's policies might succeed? Looking at the other side in light of this same truism, according to Bush, none of the policies of his Administration failed.

I fear that most minds are made up long before outcomes in and outside of politics. It's part of why I love sports so much--not that they've never been fixed before--but usually one team rises above the other and demonstrates its superiority on a scoreboard. The rest of life is not that simple.

You hear both sides declare their respective successes or failures as it relates to the stimulus package, but is anybody really evaluating fairly? What clear data is even out there? Undoubtedly the same will occur with any healthcare bill that passes will immediately be declared a great victory from the left and a doomsday failure by the right. It's an exhausting, painful, and dishonest pattern.

I really am undecided about Obama. The man is a Harvard Law graduate. He has an attractive wife and precious children. He was a community organizer for a while and was associated with an organization that proved quite corrupt in the last election. He's written a book or two. He attended a church with a contraversial pastor and has refused to release his birth certificate. He spent four years in the Senate, much of which was spent running a campaign for president. He then became the first black president of the United States. He's an inspirational speaker but seems convinced that the government is the best solution to our problems. While his accomplishments are all fine and dandy, what, at this point, has he really achieved either positively or negatively? What has changed in a positive way as a result of his life and work? In other words, he's strong on the hope side, but weak on the change side. If significant nuclear nonproliferation (the actual action, NOT something written and signed on a piece of paper) occurs thanks to his diplomacy, I'll be the first to toot his horn, but how is the world better as a result of the diplomacy he initiated in the first two weeks of office? How much more do Iraq and Afghanistan like us now that Obama is president? Blaming everything on the previous president can only last so long. But he is going to be in the headlines for at least three more years whether we like it or not, so can we at least start evaluating him fairly? From both sides?

Anyone whose eyes and hears are open knows Obama doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Those who selected the winners knew who they wanted from the start. But this event is over. We don't have to continue to fix outcomes before they play out. A little tough honesty could go a long way.

Little League Lessons

Robert Fulghum's book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten has always intrigued me, though not enough to read it. Perhaps some day, I will write the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Little League.

When I hear or think of "little league," three images come to mind. The first is that of a tall, lanky family friend--and coach of a team--flinging a metal, Easton bat across an empty field after a game, lights still on, in the midst of a heated dispute with a former friend whose son had hit a girl on his team for the third time that season. The second was a "Blood is thicker than water" conversation with my father in our blue-green Astro van after my name was found on a travel roster for an all-star team when my older brother's was omitted. Lastly, I recall winning three championships, one each in t-ball, the pitching machine league, and "the majors." Those memories interestingly occur in that order.

Yesterday, I revisited the highly volatile but still hopeful (full, like most things, of evidence for both The Fall and Redemption) world of little league baseball to see one of my fourth grade students play on opening day at San Mateo Park in northeast Jacksonville. His visiting White Sox were dressed in awkward gray pants and black tops, playing the home squad, an orange and black bunch of Orioles. The diamond seemed so tiny to me, complete with the required yellow tubing all around the outfield fence, one hundred and eighty feet down the lines.

Parents chattered excitedly in the small set of stands, their comments full of pride and nervousness. Daughters played softball on a nearby field, as this game was only one of four or five being played in the same park. Fields were better kept than most I played on, but there are no scoreboards, perhaps intentionally. Cars parked in every direction, nearing a set of railroad tracks. It was too early--9:30 a.m.--for hot dogs, but the concession stands were well-stocked, feeding the unoccupied siblings with sugar and fat.

When the Orioles took the field to start the game, a pitcher that could not have been an inch over four feet tall toed the freshly painted, white rubber. He did, however, throw hard enough to undoubtedly make some of the younger White Sox quiver. The professionally dressed, blue and gray umpires--brave souls that they were--stepped in and signaled that it was time to play.

Play started predictably: with three pitches that were nowhere near the strike zone. But then the little guy found his grove, throwing four straight strikes, including an infield single by the White Sox lead-off hitter. The hit--helped by two throwing errors--turned into a triple. The throwing errors are perennial: aaaahhh, little league.

The second hitter went down looking, while the runner on third tried to engage the pitcher and catcher in a game of "cat-and-mouse," trying to force a throw that might bring him home. They did not bite. Whether or not one can steal home is always one of the more controversial rules of little league, but apparently they could in this league, as the runner took home with a magnificent head-first slide (he'll learn later to slide feet first in that situation) on a past ball a few pitches later.

"That was at his eyes!" one mother rightly yelled after a called strike. While she was correct--the pitch was high--I was quite confident that she has never sweated--as I have, too many times--with umpire equipment on, watching little guys try so hard but throwing ball after ball. Any little league umpire that hopes to finish a game expands the zone in every direction. I do not miss the dilemma. Meanwhile, the clean-up hitter hit a lazy fly ball to right field that turned into a home run after lots of help from the defense.

The defensive struggles remind me of my dad's frustrations as a coach and fan, often driving off in anger while my little sister's team was playing t-ball. "If they're not old enough to play the game right, they shouldn't be playing at all!" he would grumble. Ironically, he coached two of my three championship teams, attributing our success to Providence of the Almighty. I was quite sure it was more due to my brother and my dominance, but I digress.

Two more hitters went down on strikes, and the top half of the first was over: two-nothing Good Guys. Drama was on the horizon, however, as my student--clearly one of the best and most physically mature athletes on the field--trotted out to left field. His facial expression revealed his discontent about the assignment, as did the conversation among his family members. I am not one to look for racism where there is none, but it was hard not to notice that all three players of color on the White Sox were in the outfield to start the game. The league, of course, is mostly white, suburban types, as there is not much baseball left in the inner city.

Later on in their lives, outfield assignments will become less of an insult; indeed many of the best athletes in baseball--Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Ken Griffey Jr.--have been outfielders. But in little league, the positions sometimes compare to purgatory; players wait endlessly for action, earning their way to the Paradise of the lined batter's box. I recall a poem written by my brother's less-than-athletic friend in high school. "Left field, left field, the most boring position in the field," sang the refrain. I thought to myself that the athletes in the outfield will be making their way to the infield as the game goes on if the coach really wants to win, and sure enough, my student moved in to shortstop when a pitching change occured in the first inning.

The bottom half of the inning played out similarly to the top half: full of poor pitching, poor fielding, and little fielding. They were trying though, and their inadequacies revealed an innocence that will later be stolen by all-or-nothing competition.

I leave the park before the bottom of the third begins--it had already been an hour and half after the late start, and the temperature was in the high 80s. A purple Gatorade from the concession stand sustained me for a while, but work and the Notre Dame game called. I lost track of the score. My boy walked and reached base on an error. I wondered if the game would finish and if they will play six or seven innings. Two hour time limits are another controversy waiting to happen in many leagues across the land, one I did not regret missing by leaving early.

I am glad I attended part of the game (even if I now resonate with my dad's frustrations with poor execution by ten-year olds) and hope that the kids at this park will not allow their parents and coaches to ruin the experiences of such a great game, even as Major Leaguers find new ways to cheat. I know that some will be psychologically damaged by their failures and confused by their own parents' belligerence. Some--like I did--will see their parents' friendships affected by such a seemingly small event. But I hope they play the game for a long time and become life-long fans. I hope they live to see the Cubs win a World Series.

Most of all, I hope that the lessons they learn (there will be many), the victories they are a part of, and the friendships they develop will outweigh the bats flung across the field by arguing adults.