Silence is a Room

Silence is a room

furnished by image

and illuminated by experience.

I enter alone

and discover presence.

Language waits outside

as I rest among realities

it is powerless to describe.

Scar Stories

One of my assignments this semester is to analyze a family story that is told regularly and has become a symbolic part of the larger family narrative. I've been thinking of what family story I might choose. I could tell of the time my little sister got a spanking on the way to Disney World for singing the Chili's jingle a zillion and one times (one time too many, apparently). I could tell of how Katie once called me in tears after she had tried to cut Noah's hair, accidentally forgetting to put a guard on the trimmer. (He had to wear a toboggan in his school Christmas program that year.) I could use those, or I could use a story I heard recently in a completely unexpected moment.

I heard the story - or, more specifically, a reference to the story - in a hospital ICU room, my family surrounding my Uncle Ronnie as he lay comatose in the hospital bed. We had just gotten the news. Uncle Ronnie has been battling a rapidly advancing cirrhosis of the liver for several months. He was recently put on the list for a liver transplant, but now this. His mother, brother, sisters, wife, children, and the rest of us now stood around the bed, silent, teary-eyed, afraid. Eyes shifted about from Uncle Ronnie to the floor and back again. After a moment, my aunt Charolette spoke up.

How to Make a Life-Changing Decision in Just Three Years

We're staying.

After three years of discussion, prayer, and more discussion, we're staying where we are. Billy asked me if I thought I had lost the debate. Katie remaining unconvinced of the move, had I reluctantly conceded? I told him I didn't think so. While Katie's feelings weighed heavily in the decision, our choice to stay here rather than to go to seminary is just that, our choice. There are many wonderful reasons to stay put, loving and being loved not the least of those reasons.

My Year in Facebook Status 2010

Train Wrecks and Children

I don't usually keep up with the dramatic lives of celebrities. Left unchecked, I enjoy a train wreck as much as the next guy, but I'm too much of a wreck myself to rubber-neck towards the follies of others. I do confess that I once had a subscription to People magazine as a teenager, but I think it was mostly to find out the latest on Mariah Carey. Confession #2: I once had a huge crush on Mariah Carey.

Forget that. I was in the library recently when I ran across this People magazine headline - Anniston: "I don't need a man to be a mom." My first thought was, "Wow. I guess Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt broke up." I told you that I don't keep up.

How to Love Muslims (A First Step)

If you are a Christian, consider for a moment how you might respond to the following statements:
1) Christians are cannibals; in their worship they eat flesh and drink blood.
2) Christians are atheists; where is the statue of their god?
3) Christians protest funerals of soldiers, holding signs that read "God hates fags."
4) Christians murder abortion doctors.
5) Christians are hypocritical.
6) Christians are judgmental.

A Moment Realized

A moment, the moment it's realized to be
Slow time that passes too quickly to seize,
Strange presence familiar of loved ones and things,
An island awareness amidst the rote sea,
A dream upon waking from deeper a dream,
Reveals what is real by what seems not to be