Homelessness: The Wrong Approach

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 with his shopping cart off the premises.

I have little tolerance for bullshit like this. 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 places making sleeping 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 or teachers or others whose life has a degree of integrity that most people lack. Steve Garber, Andrew Sprock, Shane Claiborne, Wendell Berry: those are a few of the names for me. What about you?

Thanks to my pastor for being one who makes a muddled world look a little clearer, and may my own discernment get better with age.

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.

Seriously, Check Them Out...You Won't Regret It

The best two internet discoveries in a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C5Rnb7J3sU

http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=374&sid=218287

A shout-out to two of my roommates, Richard Owens and Mike Rumbaugh, for introducing these to me.

The People of Starbucks Riverside

My second journal observation was even more cliche than the first: Starbucks. Tonight I had a teacher meeting/conversation in Riverside, did some work on the laptop, then topped it off with some writing. Here goes...

***

Most immediately in front of my are two young girls, sipping four-dollar cold coffees in this down economy. They look to be artsy late high schoool or early college girls, both with 70sish haircuts, one a darker brown than the other, leaning perhaps toward black and fitting her Latina face like a puzzle piece. The Latina girl leans back, lounging comfortably in the soft, green chair, hand on her blackberry, listening distantly for the most part, perhaps hoping for a call from someone more interesting. Her friend leans forward, more engaged in and leading the conversation, which spans from Barack Obama to the guy she's interested in to the book she's reading. Her face-sized glasses play the intellectual part.

To my left are two more women, older but not quite "middle-aged." The one who speaks more is tall and thin with reddish-brown hair and a sexy accent. They discuss the finer aspects of middle-class life: travel, cinema, a recent party, and the flavor of coffee they're drinking.

Behind me sits an overweight black woman, silently writing in a blue, college-ruled tablet. Is it possible that she and I could have more in common than our affinity for writing and the bland colors we both wear?

Baristas behind the coffee bar answer questions and take orders cheerfully, smiling like cheerleaders, inspired by the chime of the cash register.

Riverside's colorful crowd makes itself known with the entrance of an entourage led verbally by a woman (35 maybe?) wearing white pants and polka-dotted socks. Her accent sounds Eastern European, and she claims it's her birthday. Her bare, left ring finger reveals her singleness; are the extravagent socks a plea for attention? She orders a tall cappuccino, though I never could grasp Starbucks' sizes. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer small, medium, and large. More toward the small and mediums in this economically-depressed, calorie-inflated society. I am editorializing though--telling rather than showing, if you will--so let me get back to observation.

The sexy tall one to my left has now left, replaced by a studius Asian woman, complete with a small white board, working out math that I never got to in my own schooling. She sports a black sweater and blue jeans fitted perfectly to her just-right figure, though her back is to me.

I notice women before I notice men--crazy how that works--but in line now are several men that again expose Riverside's cultural diversity: a 6'2"ish white man with a shadow of a dark beard and dressed in all black; a short emo guy complete with the tight clothes and 70s glasses; and an older man--50 maybe--wearing old school white socks pulled up past his shins to go along with his tank top, black shorts, and glaring bicep tattoo.

I've heard Starbucks called "The Second Place," and indeed it is to many. I am beginning, though, to feel creepy about entering these people's lives uninvited. And that's all I did, really, is people watching.

I hardly noticed the place.

"What a Difference a Year Makes"

This is the sixth week of school and the first week I have shown any frustration to students. Last year, I was ready to strangle a few at the end of week one. While I still need to correct student behavior or work without showing frustration, I think the difference between last year and this year is a revealing one.

Showing, Not Telling: My Next Writing Project

"It's a holy thing to be a writer."
~Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away: the Practice of Writing Memoir


I've spoken with the tongue of angels
I've held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Oh my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
-U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"


***


I've heard before that the final stage of learning is teaching. As I teach fourth grade writing, I'm seeing some truth in that. Lately, I'm trying to get my students to understand "showing" instead of "telling" in their writing. So instead of endless, boring explanation, I'm trying to get my students to use sensory details and concrete description. As I try to communicate that to them, I realize my own inadequacies as a writer, i.e. that I, too, am often a teller rather than a shower, which is why I've never really thrived writing poetry or fiction. I also use a lot of "to be" verbs and write in the passive voice more than I should. So having recently completed my dream recording project, I am starting a new journaling exercise: observation in random places. I did this once in a college creative writing class, but didn't take it seriously at the time. We'll see where this takes me. My first location--cliche or not--was at the beach. I have been trying to practice the lost art of Sabbath rest this year, and so I often end up at the beach on Sunday afternoon, reading and strolling the water. I also observed and wrote this past Sunday. The result was the following essay.


***


Life is slower here, slow enough for me to hear the "pop...pop..." of a beach game, played by curly, brown-haired teenage boys with paddles smaller than tennis rackets but larger than ping pong paddles. The sounds of the game, though, are dominated by the crashing and roaring of white caps rolling over into the green-blue, mysterious Atlantic like millions of laptops closing in succession.These are the same waters, really, that people in Maine, San Diego, and somewhere in Africa hear, see, and allow to lap up against their ankles. Those places also host the cousins of these black-speckled grains of sand.

People come in and out of view, wading in and out of wetness. My eye follows the occasional woman, her body framed perfectly by the green bikini she bought back in June when summer was young and hopes were high. Her skin is soft and firm and darker than my own Midwestern skin. Her curves burst out of the two-piece that is a few inches short of nakedness. Her hips engulf her tiny waist, revealing the slightest bit of shapely abs. 'Only here in America would anyone view her as anything but God's perfect sculpting,' I think to myself. Perhaps by design, her eyes are hidden by black sunglasses, and she wanders back to her sandy, red-and-white-striped towel, next to the man who is or will be her husband.

I wonder: 'In ten years, will they still love each other? Will they still have sex? Will they still sleep in the same bed? Will they still kiss each other goodbye every morning, as she heads off to her work at the bank, he to a law firm? Will they have children who get in the way of divorce? Do they already have children, back at home with a fifteen-year old girl who doesn't eat much and hates kids but needs the money that babysitting gives her?'

I sit in my Publix-bought, colorful beach chair, on the natural slant of hard sand that has tasted water but now waits, thirsty again. Footprints head in every direction, on their way to lay out in the sun, to swim, to eat lunch at Angie's Subs, to head back to the 2003 truck that Dad is holding onto because of the gas prices. The beach is heavenly, but even this cannot get in the way of the Jags game that is on TV back home.

To the north are sinking, puffy clouds, perhaps following humans and animals into the water. They, too, are thirsty. To the south, the sky is clear, only blue, making the water so much darker, much like our souls after the rain has been released onto us, and we try to live into failure and scars.

A commercial plane flies above, leaving Jacksonville and heading to Miami. Fall is coming; winter is next. Almost time for some to head south. A young child crosses my face with a relative of the surf board. He struggles to glide along a couple inches of water. Teenagers mosey by on beach cruisers--old school bikes everywhere else--in no hurry but hoping to get somewhere.

I am drawn to that.

Meanwhile, the boys straddle somewhere between the beauty of nature and the chaos of humanity, settling for the simple familiarity and order of a game.