Lost Goodbye

September 9, 2010

I lost my mom to Alzheimer's.

That sounds melodramatic, since as I type this, she is sleeping peacefully in a recliner not ten feet from me, occasionally stirring and muttering some gibberish.  She lives still, eating her breakfast, sleeping in her chair, walking with slow, shuffling steps.  But most of what made her who she was is gone now.

I've heard Alzheimer's disease referred to as "The Long Goodbye."  I don't think this is true. There are no final goodbyes with Alzheimer's.  When the disease is first diagnosed, saying goodbye seems ridiculous.  After all, she's still there, right in front of me, almost the same as she always was.  Perhaps she can't find her way home from Bible Study any more, or repeatedly lays the plates on the table no matter how many times you remind her that we are not ready to do that, but she's still Mom.  She adds to conversations and plays cards and swims with her grandkids.  Why would I say goodbye forever to someone whom I will see the next day, and the next week, and the week after that?

As the disease progresses and she needs to be reminded of her grandchildren's names and starts believing that there are several men (all of them named Larry, like my father) living at her house, she remains interested in the lives of friends and family.  Yet as I patiently explain to her (for the fourth time in an hour) that she can't go see her granddaughter's play tonight because it won't open for another two weeks, and even though she pouts like a small child over this, goodbye still seems very far away.

And even as she forgets the names of her sons and daughter, her face still lights up when I greet her as I come through the front door, so that for a moment I can pretend that she is whole and well.  "Well hello!" she cries, her eyes brightening with the joy that comes from seeing someone dearly loved.  The moment passes quickly as confusion clouds her eyes.  Sentences are left half-finished, the thoughts behind them abandon her like a mischievous ghost.

Leaving the house is hard.  She doesn't want me to go. 

"When will you come back?" she asks, almost in tears. 

"Soon," I say. 

"When's that?" she asks. 

"A couple days," I reply. 

"A couple days," she repeats, holding her fingers to her mouth, intertwined, prayer-like.  "A couple days," she says again. "OK." 

Perhaps this is the time for a last goodbye, but goodbye's are hard enough as they are. 

I see her several times a week now.  There are no more gasps of delight as I walk through the door.  No more spark in the eyes.  A few months ago, on good days, she would sometimes ask, puzzlement creasing her brow "Who are you?"  She doesn't even ask anymore.  And when I leave, after giving her a hug and a kiss on the head, she might simply say "Thank you," but more often than not she just gives me a bemused look.  She doesn't say goodbye. 

The opportunity for goodbye has long passed, evaporating before our eyes, without us even realizing that it, like my Mom, was fading away.

Author's note:  Thank you for reading to the end of this post.  Mom is still with us.  I wrote this three years ago and finally worked up the courage to share it. 

Running Fool

The worst three years of my childhood were, by far, the ones spent in junior high.  I believe the Antioch Unified School District has finally recognized this fact, and has taken the bold steps of:

a)      changing the name of from Antioch Junior High School to Antioch Middle School.

b)      changing the school colors from blue and gold to red and black.

c)       changing the mascot from the Wildcats to (judging by the painting on the outside of the school gym) some ferocious-looking bird, possibly the Turkey Vultures.

Regretfully, these changes came too late for me.

The worst hour of each day at junior high school was, by far, the one spent in gym class.  While I was in the cozy cocoon of Turner Elementary School, rumors of junior high P.E. were rampant. 

“I hear that the teachers yell at you!”

“My friend said that you have to change your clothes.“

“That’s nothing!  I hear they make you take showers!...in front of everyone!”

Of course, all of it was true.  But in reality, it was much worse.  For starters, the school-issued shirts and shorts looked like they had belonged to victims of an explosion at a French’s Mustard plant.  The most humiliating part of our gym outfit, however, was an article of clothing that appeared to be a cruel prank played on seventh-grade boys by the garment industry.  It was as if they had run out of cotton at the underwear factory and were now constructing briefs entirely out of elastic bands. 

Most of class time was devoted to playing sports designed specifically to highlight my awkwardness.  Of course, my fellow students helpfully pointed out my shortcomings, shouting encouragingly “Weinert!  You idiot!  You missed the (fill in type of sports-related projectile) again!”  We all knew each others’ names because our dads had written them in three-inch block letter across the chest of our shirts and the butt of our shorts.

But the very worst part of each hour of gym class was, by far, the moment the coach would shout out “Alright you prima-donnas!  Take a lap!”  (I should point out that it was several years later that I figured out he was not saying “Pre-Madonnas.”)

Coach Bishop was a wiry old man with a voice that sounded like he began each morning gargling handfuls of pea gravel.  The wrinkles in his face had to be a full inch deep.  He had absolutely no fat on his body, and possibly no bones either.  He was just wads of muscle, all tightly banded together by ligaments and tendons.

That quarter-of-a-mile each day was pure torture.  As I plodded around the track in my white high-top Chuck Taylors (each emblazoned with “WEINERT” on the outside edge for added coolness) my throat burned and my legs felt like lead.  Coach Bishop promised that it would get easier as time went on, but he was lying.  As I would approach the finish line, gasping and sweating, a good twenty yards behind the second-to-last kid, I would long for the day when I had finally served my time in gym class and would never have to run again.

This is why it’s strange that I decided to run a marathon when I was in my mid-thirties.  I took up the challenge about twelve years ago for reasons that would take too long to explain here.  I went online, picked a training schedule, and simply dove right in.   The first week the schedule required that I do a six-mile run on the weekend, twice as long as my previous record.  Even so, with a couple of walking breaks, I actually finished. 

Each week would culminate with a long run.  Eight miles, ten miles, twelve miles.  Every Saturday morning I would set a new personal best for the longest distance I had ever run in one workout.  After passing the thirteen-mile mark, running the entire way, I finally found the courage to announce my plans to my extended family.  By then, there was no turning back.

I noticed small changes as the weeks passed.  I was dropping pounds.  Climbing stairs became easier. But the biggest change was in my attitude.  Once, as I laced up my shoes for my weekend run, my wife Jenny asked how far I was going.  I replied without irony, “Not far.  Only ten miles.” She laughed, and it was at that moment that I realized that I was now officially a runner.

Finally, on a rainy November Saturday morning I staggered into my house after jogging twenty miles…twenty miles!...the equivalent of eighty laps around the Antioch Junior High School track.  Coach Bishop would not have believed it.  It was two weeks before the race.  My next personal record was to be 26.2 miles at the California International Marathon.

The day of the race, I was up before the sun.  Jenny dropped me off near the starting point and returned to the hotel for an hour more of sleep while I wandered amongst the other participants.  There were thousands of them.  I had never seen so many pairs of running shoes in one place.  The sheer number of Porta-Potties alone was staggering.  The chilly air was thick with a sense of excitement and camaraderie and community.

The sun began to rise just as the race started.  An announcer counted down from ten, and then we surged forward with a cheer; walking, then shuffling, then finally settling into a jog as the crowd of runners spread out.  I never listen to an iPod when I run.  I like the quiet; the hiss of car tires across the asphalt, the call of a bird, the gurgling of a creek, the growl of a dog before it sinks its canines into my calf.  Now, the sound of carbon rubber slapping the pavement and the breathing of hundreds of runners around me created its own music.   

The morning sun made the autumn leaves glow and turned the sky azure.  Crowds lined the streets, cheering and rattling cowbells, as if we were Olympic athletes.  Some homeowners had set up stereos outside their houses and were blaring the Theme from Chariots of Fire or Eye of the Tiger.  As we passed through small towns, we were encouraged by high school cheerleading squads and serenaded by marching bands, rock bands, jazz bands, and bluegrass bands.  The first sixteen miles or so peeled away easily, and as I faced the remaining ten, I felt a pang of sadness in my heart, that this whole magical experience was drawing to a close.

But then I began to feel other pangs in less metaphorical parts of my body.  The pain increased with every step and by the eighteenth mile, even the most generous spectator could not call me a runner.  I was a plodder, a staggerer.  People began to pass me.  Not just fit, young people, but people who looked like the only exercise they got was walking from their car to the Krispy Kreme counter.   One couple ran past me, chatting as if I wasn’t there.  “I don’t remember passing so many people last year,” the woman said to her partner.

“That’s because I wasn’t running last year,” I shouted after her.  They laughed, and then quickly disappeared over the horizon.

I was passed by a blind guy.  I swear this is true.  He was being led by a friend.  I refused to be disheartened because it was so cool.

But then the old lady passed me.  I couldn’t believe it.   She had to be older than my mom.  She glided past me effortlessly.  She wasn’t even breathing hard.  OK, this can’t happen I thought.  I spurred my legs on, like a jockey cropping a lethargic horse.  I was able to keep pace with her for about a hundred yards, but then she started pulling away.  I soon lost her in the sea of sportswear ahead of me.  The burst of acceleration had taken its toll and my legs began to seize.

Up ahead I saw an aid station and decided to ask for pain reliever.  I shuffled up to a perky-looking middle-aged attendant.

“What do you need?” she asked brightly.

I had been rehearsing what I would say for a quarter mile.  “I would like some pain reliever,” I planned to say.  I said it in my head many times.  “I would like some pain reliever.”  However, as I looked at her, my thoughts felt thick and my mouth seemed like it was disconnected from my brain.  I just stared at her for several seconds.  Concern began to cross her face.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Pain,” I blurted.

If she had injected me with a quart of morphine I would have been happy.  Instead, she offered me a choice.  “Tylenol or Ibuprofen?”

Both words had too many syllables, so I grunted “Advil.”

She dropped the pills into my hand and I lurched down the road once again.  I saw Jenny about three excruciating miles later.  She was a beautiful sight, all bundled up in her hat and gloves.  She had a camera in one hand and a cowbell in the other. 

“I’m not going to make it,” I was about to say.

“You’re going to make it!” she said.  “You only have four-and-a-half miles to go!”  She looked so proud that I didn’t have the heart to give up.  I plodded on.

I counted down the miles as I passed each marker.  Four miles to go.  Three miles to go.  I thought about the first guy who had ever run a marathon.  Some ancient Greek had run 26.2 miles to bring news of the outcome of the battle for which all marathons are named.  Legend has it that he died, seconds after uttering a single word:

“Pain.”

No seriously, he died seconds after uttering the word “Victory” (and seconds before the king responded “Wait…victory for whom?”)

Two miles to go.   I was in the heart of Sacramento now.   The crowds began to swell, urging us all forward.  Police officers and National Guard soldiers held back traffic at the intersections.  I ran past a pub.  Several employees stood outside, offering cups of beer.   I politely refused, saying “I’m underage.”  Maybe it was the medicine.  Maybe it was the cheering crowds.  Maybe it was Jenny’s encouragement.  Whatever it was, I was feeling good enough to make jokes.

Mile 25.  One mile to go.  Don’t forget that last point-two, I said to myself.  It’s a killer.  But I knew I was going to make it.  The pain and fatigue didn’t matter.  My wife, my two little girls, my mom and dad, the finish line…they were all waiting for me.   I rounded a corner and the cheering turned to a roar.

I could see the end.  I could walk the rest of the way if I wanted.  But then I heard him, coming up behind me.  A glance over my shoulder revealed an athletic-looking twenty-something-year-old young man.  Somehow, I had stayed ahead of him for all those miles, but I could tell he was determined to pass the gawky middle-aged guy in front of him.

No way, I thought.  I dug deep and put on a burst of speed I would not have thought possible an hour before.  I swear I heard a girl say “Whoa!” as I sprinted by.  I crossed the finish line.  The young man was still behind me.

My family greeted me, smiling and cheering.  Jenny bravely kissed me, despite the twenty-six miles of sweat that had accumulated on my body.  My daughters held their noses.

Dad was holding a video camera.  “You should have seen it!” he said.  “Some old lady came in five minutes ahead of you!  She set the world record for women over eighty-years-old!”

***

To this date, I have finished eight marathons.  Last weekend I ran my second half-marathon.  In two weeks, God willing, I will have surpassed my goal of running one-thousand miles in a year.  I don’t say these things to brag…

…wait…that’s a lie.  I am bragging.  I’m proud that the kid who could barely run a quarter-mile and was always last grew into someone who has run multiple long-distance races.  I’m glad that I didn’t dwell on what the voices in my head said I could not do.  Instead, I had set and attained what seemed an impossible, unreachable goal.

Sometimes it comes up in conversation that I have a few marathons under my belt.  The people I’m talking with look at me skeptically, like I’m lying, or at best delusional.  Many of them ask “What was your time?”  As tempting as it might be to exaggerate,  I always answer truthfully. 

I tell them that the first time I ever ran a marathon, I was only five minutes slower than a world record.

Author’s note:  Her name is Helen Klein, and as of this writing she still holds that record.  She also holds multiple ultra-distance (50-100+ mile) records.  http://www.runningusa.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=pages.helen-klein

One Week Later

I will never feel better.

I will never restore the broken pieces of my heart.

I cannot stop the tears that spring from my eyes unbidden or the lump that unexpectedly catches my throat.

I cannot stop replaying the images of frightened children fleeing unspeakable horror, frantic parents seeking little faces, miniature coffins sheltering tiny bodies.

I cannot stop imagining the car rides home with the empty child seats, the unopened Christmas gifts under the trees, the names printed on stockings still pinned to fireplaces, the vacant chairs at dinner tables.

I cannot stop picturing the last child, forced to hear the pops, the sobs, the screams, the moans before succumbing to the madman.

I cannot.

I will not.

I refuse…

…because I do not want to forget…

…because I do not want there ever to be another day like December 14, 2012.

Car of Wonder

When I was a young man, my friends Lance and Jeff could identify the make, model and year of a speeding car backlit by the sun from a quarter mile away.  At night.  I, on the other hand, couldn't even tell you the make unless I was close enough to read the nameplate.  Even then, I had to squint.  For awhile there, they tried to teach me to recognize the differences between a '65 Mustang and a '64 Mustang.  I knew this was important, that this knowledge would somehow make me a real man, so I really gave it my best effort.  The problem wasn't that I was incapable of learning the subtle nuances of headlight width and keyhole diameter or whatever.  The problem was I didn't care.

I didn’t care to the point that, when my wife Jenny was pregnant with our first daughter, we drove a sixteen-year-old Toyota Corona station wagon.  The dealer probably listed the color as something poetic, like “goldenrod”, when a more accurate description would have been “phlegm.”  The car would stall at stop signs and overheat in hot weather and would take twenty seconds to reach its top speed of 55 miles per hour.  The interior smelled like someone had burned an old sneaker in the back seat. 

And this was our good car.  Our other car, a sedan, was an eighteen-year-old Toyota Corona.

My dad was the original owner of both cars.  He had given the station wagon to us in exchange for a car which also happened to be a sixteen-year-old Toyota Corona.  The eighteen-year-old sedan had been a college graduation gift.  My dad had seen a chart in his favorite magazine (Consumer Reports) where he learned that Toyota Coronas had the best repair record.  Seeing the column of red dots when other cars were getting white dots, or half-black dots, or (God forbid) black dots, must have warmed his engineer heart, because he ended up buying four Toyota Coronas. 

And they were indeed reliable.  For all the years we had the cars, all we had to replace or repair was the oil, the tires, the wiper blades, the spark plugs, the brake pads, the brake rotors, the fuel filter, the air filter, the hoses, the ceiling head liner, the clutch upper slave cylinder, the clutch lower slave cylinder, the clutch, the alternator, a sun visor, the water pump, the ignition coil, the starter, the distributor, the carburetor, the radiator cap, the radiator, the exhaust manifold gasket, the head gasket, the head, the driver’s seat and the odometer cable.  If I had replaced the seatbelts, I would have been required by law to buy a nameplate that read “Monument Car Parts” because there would have been nothing left on the car that had been manufactured by Toyota.

The cars had amusing quirks that made every trip, no matter how short, an adventure.  For example, after a prolonged session of night driving, we could pop the hood and see the exhaust manifold glowing a molten-metal red in the darkness. I shudder to think about what a car that earned black dots in Consumer Reports would have been like.

That year, I was involved in a summer mission week in Sacramento sponsored by several churches in my area.  I was placed on a team with Karen and Steve, a young couple from England.  I say “young” because they were my age. The first time I really got to spend time with them was the hour-and-a-half drive from my home town of Antioch to the state capital.  In order to impress my foreign guests, I took the good car.

About a half hour into our trip, I noticed that the temperature gauge was rising close to crisis level, so I turned on the heater.  I explained to Karen and Steve that every car’s heater operates like a smaller version of a car’s radiator, and that turning on the heater actually causes the engine to run cooler.

I should explain at this point that the temperature outside the car was 105 degrees.  In England, a cold rain falls twice a year--once for five months and the other time for six.  If the temperature reaches 80 degrees, the newspaper headlines scream “COR, WHAT A SCORCHER!”

Still, Karen and Steve seemed not to mind.  As we winded down delta roads and the sweat dripped off our faces, we chattered away happily.  They were absolutely thrilled to be in America and were eager to point out the subtle differences between our two great countries.  “In England, this car wouldn’t be allowed on the road,” was an observation Steve made more than once.

Despite this, Jenny and I became best of friends with Karen and Steve.  They returned from England several times to stay with us, giving us many more opportunities to have adventures in our little station wagon.  Once, on another 100+ degree day, it overheated and left us stranded on the side of I-680.  This happened only fifteen years ago, so you can understand if it is still too painful to recall in detail here.  Let it suffice to say that the story ends with Steve, Karen, a fragrant guy named Dave, and me, crammed into the cab of Dave’s tow-truck.  I was pressed up against Dave with his stick shift between my knees.  Every time he changed gears I sat up a little straighter.  By the time we reached our destination, Steve was shaking, Karen was in tears, and my voice was an octave higher.

That was the trip that inspired Karen and Steve to compose a song about our vehicle, to the tune of We Three Kings:  The chorus starts:

Car of wonder!

Car of fright!

Car with engine burning bright!

We no longer own either car, and believe it or not, Karen and Steve are still our friends.  They have visited us here and we have gone to England to see them more times than I can count.  They used to kid us a lot about our old cars, until the day when, during a drive through the English countryside, we were stranded by the roadside because the windshield wipers stopped working-- something that would never happen in California.

You've Got to Be Taught

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught.

                                                --Lt. Joe Cable, South Pacific

I learned to be a racist when I was eight years old.

When I was a kid, the Oakland A’s were everything.  I could not remember a time when they weren’t winning the World Series.  I could rattle off the names of every player in every position…Sal Bando, Campy Campaneris, Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Billy North, Dick Green, Gene Tenace.   I don’t think I understood the concept of replay back then, so in my mind Reggie Jackson was always hitting home runs, and Joe Rudi was always robbing them from other players with spectacular leaping catches at the wall.  Always. 

My best friend Vincie and I would play baseball together with a beat-up wooden bat and a tennis ball.  We would be the A’s, competing against an invisible Other Team.  The Other Team didn’t have a name, because in our minds, no other team really mattered.  The A’s would always crush the Other Team with massive moon-shots to left field and brilliant defense.  I can say with all modesty that Vincie and I played dozens, perhaps hundreds of games, and finished our careers undefeated.

The way we saw it, the only other thing happening in the baseball world at that time had to do with some guy named Hank Aaron.  Even though Hank Aaron was not an Athletic (it wasn’t until I was much older that I figured out that the “A” in A’s actually stood for something) Vincie and I were aware of him, because at the start of the season of ’74, Hank Aaron was one home run shy of the all-time record.  The excitement in the country had reached flood stage, overflowed its banks, and inundated every corner of the country before finally trickling through the gutters of Chickie Street where I grew up. 

I remember talking about Hank Aaron with Vincie.  I expected him to mirror the enthusiasm I had observed in my older brothers and their friends, but he didn’t.

“My dad doesn’t want it to happen,” he said.  “He doesn’t want a (black man) to break a white man’s record.”

I don’t know how, but I knew the word he used for “black man” was a very bad word.  Yet here was my best friend throwing it out casually, like a warm-up toss before a baseball game.  It never occurred to me that the record Hank Aaron was about to break had been set by another man.  Babe Ruth was a pudgy guy with a face that looked like a depressed Gerber baby, but the most important fact about him in Vincie’s mind, other than that he could hit home runs, was that he was white.  A lesson had been planted in my young heart, a lesson that said a black man was not worthy of a white man’s record.  That many of our Oakland A’s heroes--heroes we not only admired but often pretended to be--were black, was an irony that was lost on both of us. 

Of course, Hank Aaron paid no attention to Vincie’s dad.  He first tied the record, then, on April 8, 1974, broke it.  I remember watching it happen at my brothers’ friend’s house.  As the ball sailed over the wall and one fan tried to snare the priceless sphere with a fishing net, the room erupted in cheers.  I alone remained silent, conflicted. 

Fortunately for me, and unlike Vincie and Lieutenant Cable, I grew up in a home where seeds like that failed to thrive.  The word Vincie had used was a word I would never hear in my house.  I never heard my father say a disparaging comment about someone simply because of the color of their skin, and I never heard him tell a racist joke. 

But it wasn’t just the things my father didn’t do.  My sister, eight months older than me, was adopted.  My mother and father say they saw her picture--an infant with sad, almond-shaped eyes, her chubby face framed by a black pixie cut--and immediately fell in love.  They knew in an instant that this little girl from a Hong Kong orphanage was their daughter.  When I was a young teen, they told me that extended family protested, asking “isn’t there a white baby you can adopt?” My mom and dad ignored them.

Another lesson came when I was in high school and sang bass in the choir’s barber shop quartet.  I was surprised to learn that my reserved, mechanical engineer dad sang baritone in one when he was a young man.  He said he had even considered joining a national society of barbershop singers, but rejected the idea after he learned they would not allow black people into their organization.  He didn’t say it boastfully.  He didn’t point out that he made this little stand several years before the Civil Rights movement started to gain national attention.  He just said it, because it was true.  These are lessons that were also planted deep in my heart; finding purchase, taking root, and crowding out the one placed there by my best friend in 1974.

While I am grateful to have had parents who would teach me these lessons, I am also uncomfortable with how easily my eight-year-old heart was molded by a friend’s offhand remark.  While racism appalls me now, I must also recognize that I once started on that path, even if I never got too far past the trailhead.  I realize that even now, seeds of arrogance and ignorance and fear are constantly being sown, and I have a responsibility to be vigilant, to weed out evil and lies, and nurture charity and truth.

Bigotry has “got to be carefully taught” as Joe Cable self-loathingly sings.  The good news is that tolerance, respect and compassion can also be taught.  We, as adults, need to pass those lessons down to the next generation.  We need more people like my dad.

I, for one, choose to be one of them.

The Gospel According to Snoopy

Today, I would like to talk to you about religion.

*CLICK*

Did you hear that?  That was the sound of all my readers (both of them), navigating to other pages. 

Nobody likes to talk about religion. 

No, that’s not true.  Really, most people don't mind talking about religion.  It’s just that nobody wants to hear someone else talk about it.

You know the feeling.  There you are, poking at your in-flight meal with a plastic hybrid utensil, trapped in your window seat by a stranger on a plane.  Or maybe you’re talking over lunch with a co-worker.  Suddenly, the subject turns to God.  Your conversation partner becomes animated and enthusiastic, speaking with authority and conviction.  They might be Mormon or Methodist, Assembly of God or Atheist, Jewish or Jehovah’s Witness, Scientologist or…some other belief that starts with “S” that I can’t be bothered to think of right now.  It doesn’t matter.  They are certain that you agree with them, or if you don’t, that you will agree with them by the time the conversation is over.

And you are too polite to interrupt.  Your eyes start to glaze over.  You find yourself nodding and saying “Hmmmm!” and “Really!” while your mind is racing for an exit strategy (I wonder if I can break out the passenger window with this spork?) or ways to change the subject (“My goodness!  I believe I’m choking to death on my falafel! That reminds me of a time when…”)

On the internet, it’s simpler.  If someone posts a remark about religion that you disagree with, you can anonymously "dislike" their comment and then say he or she has the intelligence of %#&* and that everyone who agrees with them, including the poster’s mother, is a *#&@$@.   Then you can chastise them for their intolerance.  At least that's how it works on "Yahoo!"

The problem is that, when it comes to matters of faith, we all believe that we are right.  The corollary is that this makes everyone else wrong, although most of us are too civil to actually come out and say that.  Even when we, in the spirit of tolerance, listen to an opposing viewpoint and say things like “I respect all beliefs” or even “all ways really lead to the same place,” there is another voice deep in our psyche that is whispering “what a chowderhead!” and quietly snickering.

However, in this time in history, we need to be able to talk about faith.  The world is much smaller than it was even ten years ago, and we are being constantly confronted with differing viewpoints.  Avoiding the conversation abandons it to the extremists--the self-righteous Koran-defilers and the puerile amateur movie-makers and the Kalishnikov-toting embassy assailants.  The absence of your voice and mine leads to misunderstanding and demonization and hate, and ultimately, as we have seen too often this last week, to violence and death.  Glazed eyes or insulting jabs are no longer an option.

In one Charles Schulz strip, Snoopy sits atop his doghouse, clicking away on his typewriter.  “I hear you’re writing a book about theology,” says Charlie Brown. “I hope you have a good title.”  “I have the perfect title,” thinks Snoopy smugly in response, then types, “Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?”

I think Snoopy is on to something.  We are all so sure that we are right about our beliefs.  After all, that’s why we believe them.  Nobody ever thinks, “This is what I believe.  I know it’s as false as my grandmother’s teeth, but I believe it anyway.”  We believe what we believe because we think it is right, whether it was because of something we read, something a respected teacher said, something we were taught when we were small, or something we experienced that profoundly shaped us. 

But let’s be honest, can any of us really know everything about something as big and mysterious as the notion of God?  And rather than just saying everyone is right in their own way, isn’t it more likely and more honest to say that every single one of us is, at least partly, wrong?

And that includes me.  That’s where I need to start if I’m going to have a productive and respectful conversation with someone about a subject as sensitive as faith.  I’ve discovered that I need to tuck my pride into my back pocket and approach the exchange with the attitude that maybe this other person has something to teach me.  That doesn't mean I will necessarily agree with them or that I will surrender my beliefs for theirs.   It just means that we can both learn from each other if we embrace some humility and attempt to see with each others' eyes, if even for a few moments.

Sad to say, it’s not always been the case with me.  I have been that proselytizer on the airplane or in the restaurant (and if that was you that I was annoying, I now ask your forgiveness).  Conversations turned confrontational and combative, mainly because I felt a need to defend my faith and be right at all costs.

But over the last few years, I’ve had some fascinating and respectful discussions with friends and strangers of several different faiths.  Often, as I’ve offered respect to others, they have returned that respect to me.  I have come to realize that "sharing faith"  is not a one-sided affair, but a dialogue, an exchange of deeply personal convictions accomplished with "gentleness and respect", as the Apostle Peter puts it.  It bears pointing out that Pete also resists the notion that we should aggressively confront others with our ideas about faith.  He seems to be saying, "have your answer ready, but don't give it until somebody asks."*

I remember a discussion with a Muslim professor that shook the foundation of my preconceived notions about Islam.  I have had talks with dear Jewish friends, talks that have opened up breath-taking vistas of my own Christian beliefs.  I have had long conversations with atheist friends that helped me to wrestle with some of my own pig-headedness and hypocrisies.  Then there were the dialogues with a self-described "New-Age pagan" that left me yearning for the same hunger and thirst for truth that she had.  And forgive me if I brag a little bit, but not once, in any of these conversations did the word “chowderhead” even cross my mind.

Once, at a music festival, two lovely Mormon students I worked with, nervous about an imminent performance, breathlessly said to one another “We should pray!”  When I asked if I could join them, they were delighted.  In a quiet hallway, we bowed our heads.  I said nothing, savoring the simplicity and sincerity of their prayers.  It felt no different from hearing students from my own church’s youth group pray.  I knew there were irreconcilable discrepancies between my faith and that of these two young ladies...

...but at that moment, I was more struck with what we held in common.



*You can look it up in 1 Peter 3:15.  

A Thousand Words

AUTHOR'S NOTE: They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Because of rain, I did not have a camera when the following took place, so this will have to do.  At the traditional exchange rate, you're actually getting a little bit of a bargain.  Just take my word for it.

***

July 11, 2012

For two days the clouds had just teased us; playful giants garbed in gauzy lace, crouching on our horizon, dodging or outrunning us as we sped across the salt flats of Utah.  In Salt Lake City they taunted us with a puff of cool breath in our faces as they peered over mountainous hiding places, like they were contemplating a dazzling display of sound and fury.  However, as we put the Great Salt Lake into our rearview mirror and headed into Idaho, they abandoned us, as if a vacationing family of four was beneath their interest.

But as we pulled into Yellowstone, the clouds gathered themselves and pounced, stabbing the ground with fluorescent blades and roaring their pleasure with a deep and throaty chuckle.  A stiff, cold wind hissed in the pines and spattering raindrops chased us into our room in the Old Faithful Inn.

Before we even started to settle in and admire the rustic redwood paneling of our room, we dashed to the window and threw it open to watch the trees kowtow to the wind and listen to the growl of thunder.  From our second story room we could see steam rising from across Upper Geyser Basin as each fountain waited for its turn to impress the park guests, but these geothermal wonders were unable to hold our attention against the gathering storm. 

The Old Faithful Geyser is different from any of its brothers.  Its eruptions can be predicted to within fifteen minutes, as opposed to several hours, days, or in some cases, years.  The park rangers told us that Old Faithful used to be even more predictable, but a couple of earthquakes over the last century caused it to mellow a bit, no longer sticking to so strict a timetable.  As the storm intensified outside, a thought germinated inside my mind…what would it be like to watch Old Faithful erupt in the middle of a thunderstorm?  I find ideas like this difficult to ignore and it wasn’t long before the idea blossomed into action.  I pulled on my coat and announced I was going outside. 

“What?!”  My younger daughter Meredith was incredulous.  Anneka, my sixteen-year-old, regarded me warily, as if my sudden bout of insanity might be a disease that could spread if I got too close.  But my wife Jenny seemed to understand, and almost expected it.  “Have fun!” she laughed. 

The raindrops crackled against my hood and stung my legs as I walked the 100 yards or so to the viewing decks.  Normally, the faux-wooden structures are groaning under the weight of hundreds of park guest waiting to view the latest eruption, but in the middle of the storm only a handful of us were foolish enough to be there now.  

The cauldron hissed and steamed and occasionally gurgled up a splash of boiling water.  The eruption could happen in a matter of minutes, or delay as long as a half an hour.  I could sense the rain starting to abate and I feared that what I came to see, this symphony of storm and steam, would fail to materialize.  Sure enough, the wind began to die and the rain slackened even more.  It seemed the thunderheads had tantalized us with the promise of a spectacular display, only to now impishly withdraw the offer.

But it turns out they had other things in mind.  Like a giantess daintily raising her skirt to step over a puddle, the clouds lifted off the horizon, and the setting sun peeked shyly through.  The small knot of people gasped and cooed as a rainbow appeared, as if growing out of the cauldron itself and arcing its way across the sky into the forest where pines waited with outstretched arms to catch it.  Gaining confidence, the setting sun smiled, drenching the forests, the spectators, and the steam in orange as the rainbow's hues deepened.  Unable to contain its own brightness, another rainbow spawned and began hovering over the first protectively.

Meanwhile, the cauldron frothed and bubbled, roaring, hissing, subsiding, as if it had decided to pick up the game of hide-and-seek that the storm had abandoned.  The few of us huddled on the deck cheered, urged, and groaned.  We laughed and joked together, a tiny family brought together by this potential masterpiece-in-process.

Old Faithful sputtered.  "She's teasing us now," said an elderly gentleman in khaki shorts and a Yellowstone sweatshirt.  "I bet the rainbows fade before she blows,"

"It'd be amazing if they didn't though," a young father with a child on his shoulders responded.  We all murmured in agreement.  We held our breath, but the geyser only belched lazily.

I glanced at the sky.  The gap between the sun and clouds had grown, and the storm was skipping gleefully to another part of the park.  It looked like the old man would be right.

But the cauldron gurgled again, spat, and then, suddenly, roared.  It spewed a stream of boiling water high into the sky, right on time.  The geyser threw steam into the arc of the double rainbow, an orange, glowing cloud.

Liking what it saw, the sun threw back its head and laughed, and the rainbow brightened, hardened, and crystallized into a perfect semi-circle of ruby, amber, garnet,  emerald, sapphire, and amethyst.  Even as the geyser reached its zenith, the wind diminished to a breath and the raindrops ceased, the sky flashed one last time and the storm chuckled its approval, crackling lightning down behind the glittering arch.

“Can you believe it?” we all gushed.  “The double rainbow!...wasn’t it amazing?...The sunset!...The geyser!...then the lightning!...”

 It’s times like this I find it easy to believe in God.  He was palpable here, a master artist using every color in his palette and every tool in his workshop, rolling up his sleeves for the sheer joy of creating something beautiful yet ephemeral for the delight of his sons and daughters.

Sometimes you just have to be willing to brave the storm and take a closer look.

***

AUTHOR'S NOTE (AGAIN):  No, I didn't make this up.  If these 1000 words aren't good enough and you really want to see a picture, go to this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83252649@N04/7626482128/sizes/l/in/set-72157630704493958/

I'm the guy in the black coat to the right of the gentleman in the grey shirt.

Thank you to Matthew Gordon and flickr.com