The weekend What If?
July 31, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 31 Comments
It’s Saturday, which means I’ve pulled Dr. Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions down off the shelf, closed my eyes, and picked one of his questions to ask you.
Fortunately, my fingers stopped flipping pages at question 210. One of my favorites.
I say that because it touches upon one of humanity’s most common afflictions–regret. That old expression of hindsight being 20/20 is true. We can see much more clearly by turning around than looking ahead. One of the great ironies of life.
There are those among us who buckle under the weight of their bad decisions and horrible mistakes, and those who believe that every choice we’ve made in life, whether good or bad, has helped bring us right where God wants us to be. And then there are people like me who fall somewhere between the two.
So with that in mind, here’s this weekend’s question. Feel free to answer in the comments:
“You are given a chance to return to any previous point in your life and change a decision you made, but you will lose everything that has happened to you since then. Is there a time you would return to? If so, would you like to retain the memory of the life you are giving up even though you could never recapture it?”
The Dance
July 30, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 21 Comments
(Okay, I promise this will be the last repeat for a while. Promise. I’ve almost managed to surface from the mounds of balled-up paper surrounding me, but before my coffee buzz fades and I wind up in a heap in the middle of my bed, I want to say this:
I first wrote this post back in October, but it’s haunted me ever since. Our small town has been rocked with the sudden passing of several people lately, and this was the first thing I thought about with every bit of sad news. Death is often a shock, isn’t it? I wonder why that is considering it’s common knowledge that we can’t bolt the doors of our lives to its entry. But what you’ll read here is good advice, offered to me by a very special little girl who thinks I teach her. I think it’s the other way around.)
Here I am, a man in a most unmanly place, huddled together with four others in the same predicament. We talk sports and trucks and the year’s corn crop and anything else with masculine connotations, if only to take our minds off our surroundings:
A ballet recital.
My six-year-old daughter has been taking ballet lessons for a month now. Tonight is the culmination of all that study and work, and it is an event that requires my presence. Thankfully, other fathers of other six-year-old daughters have been similarly persuaded. I have company.
Within our conversation, I watch my little girl. She twirls and steps and trips and repeats. And she laughs.
(”I love the dance, Daddy,” she has told me often. “I think God loves the dance, too.)
Another twirl and step, but two trips this time. She turns, looks at my wife, and wiggles a finger. Come here, Mommy. The two meet in the middle of the elementary school gym, and I know what’s wrong. I excuse myself from the group and join them.
“My sugar’s messy,” she says. We retreat to the stands for her glucometer. Her reading is 389.
“We should go home,” I say.
“We can’t!” she pleads. “The dance isn’t over.” She looks back to her teacher and classmates. “God wants us all to dance until the dance is done. God loves the dance. He said so.”
Both look to me. It’s my decision, and I offer a reluctant shrug. Who am I to argue with God?
Smiling, she returns to her group. But I remain apart from mine. I am instead alone, lost in this little girl, in her spirit and her joy. She dances in spite of her disease. With her disease.
And her bow is deep at the end.
Our evening over, we are confronted in the parking lot by a sea of red and blue lights across the street. A mangled white car, it’s top shorn, lay upside down in the median. Police, firemen, and rescue personnel scramble in choreographed chaos. A medical helicopter waits, blades churning, an angel of metal and wires, death and life.
My family stands silent.
“God bless the wrecked people,” murmurs my son. We all join him, grasping hands in prayer.
My wife and I exchange a look. Our town is small, the identity of the injured likely an acquaintance. Come from the school, perhaps. Football practice. A child? One of my wife’s students? Regardless, it was someone who was here and is now gone. Breathing and now not.
The suddenness of life presses into me. So fragile is our existence in this world, so easily taken and taken for granted. To love is to risk, and the opening of our hearts invites not only the warmth of joy, but fear’s cold winds.
“How can I live with this fear?” I whisper to God.
Silence.
“How can I bask in your light while standing in this shadow?”
The helicopter blades swoosh.
“How must life be lived
(”God wants us to dance until the dance is done,” my daughter had said. “God loves the
dance.”)
in the face of death?”
I look down at my child, safe in the crook of my arm. She rests her head on my shoulder
and sighs. She is safe here, in her father’s arms. We are all safe there.
Yes, God loves the dance. And so should we. We should hear the music in this life, surrender to its rhythms. We should make its cadence our own.
And we should always dance until the dance is done.
In the boat
July 29, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 28 Comments
My kids have become rather avid readers, one of the few positive attributes they’ve inherited from me. And as such, the house seems to be overrun with Dr. Seuss, Jack and Jill, Winnie the Pooh, and an assortment of fairies and princesses. I am now reading and being read to, and that’s fine by me. Because wisdom can come from anywhere, and especially from kids and what they read.
For instance:
One could compare this world to a beautiful stream, big and power enough to almost be called a river but not quite. It winds and flows and no one knows exactly where it begins or ends, just that it does somewhere sometime. It is a grand thing, this stream. Its beauty and wonder can never truly be described, though many have tried.
You and I are on that stream. All of us. And we each have our own boat. They provide us with a place to sit, a roof to give us shelter, and two big, sturdy oars that can take us wherever we wish.
Some people think they have a better boat than others. They think their boat is a little roomier and more fancy. Others take great pains to decorate their boats. They paint and varnish and polish, going to great lengths to ensure their boats are different from everyone else’s. It might seem that is indeed the case, but in truth all of our boats are pretty much the same and we all have everything we need.
Lots of people don’t like the fact that their boat has oars. They say having oars means you have to try. God should have given us sails, they say. So they choose to sit in their boats and wait for God to use the oars for them. These people don’t get very far down the stream. Sure, sometimes the current moves them along a little. But mostly they just turn around and around and never really go anywhere.
Other people use their oars as hard and as often as they can. They never slow down. To them, the whole point of the boat and the stream is to beat everyone else. They have to win the race, even though no one is sure if there is a race or not or, if there is, what constitutes the finish line. So they row and row and row, faster and faster. Then they wonder how those nasty rocks and waterfalls they keep running into can sneak up on them so quickly.
The stream might be beautiful, but there are still plenty of dangers. You have to be careful. Focusing on being the first and the best can make them miss the pleasures of travelling down the stream. They don’t realize that using the oars too much is just as bad as not using them at all. Better is to just go along gently. We’ll all get there eventually. Easy does it. Better for the soul, I think.
Other people are more in touch with the situation. They realized that they are going to have to use the oars if they want to go anywhere, so they do. And things are fine for a while, but then they begin to tire. Using the oars is necessary, they say, but it is also a burden. They, too, forget the fun involved, the pleasures of heading farther and farther down the stream, and their hearts harden. They hate the water and they hate the God who put them there. The smile they might have once had is now a frown, and when their boat passes another’s there are no pleasant greetings or warm welcomes, just anger and resentment.
That isn’t the way God wants us to navigate the stream, either. Sure, it’s hard. But we have to enjoy ourselves. We have to have fun along the way.
Finally, there are the folks who think there is nothing but the stream. They study the stream, analyze the currents, and theorize about how it all came to be. Their eyes are fixed on what is beneath them, but not what is around them. In all of their pontificating and study, they fail to see the Truth.
But that isn’t the way to go, either. Dreams and faith and hope and all the other things no one can see are the most important things when you go down the stream.
I’ve known all of this for a while, and chances are you have, too. But I was never quite sure how to communicate it. Not until the other night. Not until I read:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
I’ve had a rocky ride down that stream sometimes, but I’ve always tried to keep rowing. It’s not easy sometimes, but then again the point seems to be not to make things easier, but better. And all the sights along the way make the trip worthwhile.
I don’t fear reaching the end of the stream, either. By that time I figure my arms will be tired and I will need some rest anyway. So when the time come to put my oars down and get out of my boat, I may just have that wise children’s rhyme put on my tombstone.
Because life really is but a dream. And death? Death is simply when we wake up.
Taking a punch
July 27, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 30 Comments
Okay, I’m gonna be upfront about the fact that this is yet another rerun. My apologies. But in my defense, you’re going to have to trust me when I say this is a very busy week. And besides, it’s not like you’re getting second-hand stuff. I love this post.
This first appeared at katdish’s blog. According to her, it garnered the second highest numbers of any post that ever appeared there.
So in case you missed this the first time around, this will be new. If you didn’t, I’m going to trust that you’ll see a little something now that you didn’t see then. And if you’re in the mood for something new, you can mosey on over to Lynn Rush’s blog, where she’s running the second part of her interview with little old me.
The spiritual principles of fruit salad
July 26, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
Most everyone would say their grandmother was the best who ever walked the earth. They would even have plenty of evidence to corroborate their assertion. And that’s fine, really. But they would be wrong, because there has never been a grandmother like mine and never will.
Though she passed on a long-ago October afternoon, it’s the summertime when I miss her most. Those were the lazy days when she would keep me at her home while my parents were at worked, dispensing her Mennonite wisdom in one breath and her Amish discipline in the next.
Of all the people I’ve ever known, she taught me the most about life. Not just to look, but to see. Not just to listen, but to hear. And not just to dream, but to dream big.
She also taught me this: there is a lesson to be learned in everything. From the birds who nested in the willow tree outside her door to the mint she picked to brew my sweet tea to the garden that grew in the backyard.
But the lesson I remember most is the fruit salad.
I got what I deserved that day, no doubt about it. But hey, we all say things sometimes without thinking them through first.
So, what’d I say? And what lesson was in the fruit salad? Hop on over to katdish’s blog, and I’ll tell you. Trust me, you’ll never look at a bowl of Jell-O and fruit the same again…
Weekend what ifs
July 24, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 45 Comments
A good day
July 23, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
Nothing says father/son bonding time quite like throwing stuff into a creek. Rocks, leaves, twigs, dirt, leftover acorns, whatever. There are few restrictions. So long as God made it and people didn’t, it’s considered current fodder.
We’re men, my son and I. And even at his young age, he feels the same male tendencies as his father. Which means that any talk, no matter how serious, must be done under the cover of some activity that will dull the sneaky suspicion that something is being shared.
Men are generally fickle when it comes to sharing. Tools and trucks are one thing. Thoughts and feelings are quite another. The former will be doled out to any and all, but the latter is reserved for only those closest to us. And then only maybe.
My son lifts a rock the size of a softball and heaves it into the water. The resulting splash covered the bottoms of our jeans and most of the wildflowers on the opposite side.
“Nice one,” I say.
With bellies full of dinner and the sun yawning over the mountains, this is the time of day when a certain amount of reflection is in order.
“How’s your day, bud?” I ask.
“I dunno,” he answers, this time dropping a handful of pebbles into the water, giving the sound of a miniature machine gun.
“Didn’t you have a good day?” I ask.
“Dunno,” he says again, now plopping a twig into the current and marveling as it gets marooned in a small whirlpool.
Like I said, thoughts and feelings are not the normal male’s strong suit. Better to throw stuff and make big splashes.
Then, just as I’m about to toss another rock as well, he says, “Daddy, what’s a good day?”
What’s a good day? What kind of a question is that?
Then again, when you’re four years old and enjoying a lazy summer of sleeping in, eating sno-cones, and throwing stuff in the creek, it’s easy to misplace the notion of what makes a good day. Because that’s what every day is.
Grow up, however, and that all changes. There are bad days aplenty. Sure, there are some who say every sunrise is cause for celebration. Every day is a good day. And to them I say bull. I’ve had some truly awful days in my life, and having the knowledge that I was alive to face them did nothing to make things better.
Still, whether a day is good or bad is not just a matter of whim and circumstance. Certain ingredients are necessary. Ingredients we must add in equal portion and in a timely manner that determine whether our days rise or fall.
“What’d you do today?” I ask him.
“Stuff,” he says, crouching down to stare at the minnows.
“Like what?”
“I watched cartoons until mommy said to play, then I played until I tripped over my Buzz Lightyear. That hurt. I cried a little.”
“That’s okay,” I tell him.
“Then mommy said to clean my room, so I did. It was a mess, daddy. And then I helped her snap the beans. Then we ate lunch, and I said the prayer. And then I took a nap. Did that mean I had a good day?”
I think about that while we toss more rocks into the water.
We believe that a day is good as long as it’s filled with more excellence than failure. Lots of sunshine, little rain. But I don’t think so. I think a good day is one that achieves a certain balance, one that allows us to see as big a glimpse of life as we can get in twenty-four hours.
A balance like laughing at cartoons and crying over a stubbed toe. Because seeing the joy in life doesn’t always mean avoiding the pain. Sometimes it means crying first and laughing second.
Or a balance like doing for yourself like cleaning your room, but also doing for others like snapping some beans.
It can be a balance like playing hard and resting easy.
And both acting and praying.
Balance. Yes. That’s what makes a good day. Which I guess places most of the responsibility on our shoulders, because in the end our lives depend much more upon what we do than what is done to us.
He tosses one more rock into the creek and looks at me for approval.
“I think you had a great day,” I say.
A fate worse than death
July 22, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
Funeral homes rank just below hospitals as Worst Places I Want to Visit, and it’s still a pretty close race.
I didn’t like funeral homes because I was afraid of death. I was mournful of the pain the dead left behind. Like the pain felt by the wife left to tend to her family, the children left to mourn their lost innocence, and the parents who were burying their son. Parents who once found comfort in knowing they would pass first through the thin veil between this world and the next, but who were now left with the hard-won knowledge that it’s often the things we most take for granted in life that disappoint us in the end.
Standing in front of the open casket, I pondered who this person was. Son and brother. Soldier. Factory worker. Known to his family as Sweetheart and Dad, Lover and Best Friend. Lived a good life. Was a good man.
“It was so sudden, wasn’t it?” sobbed a stranger beside me.
I nodded to her. She was right. He left for the grocery store and offered a quick “Be back soon” to his family, but what came back was merely the earthen vessel I was looking down upon. One moment here, the next gone.
I moved on to others who represented a small portion of his friends and family, engaging myself in the polite and hushed conversations that funeral homes require. Small talk, mostly. Weather and crops first, which merged into recollections of the deceased second, which moved on to the sadness last.
Each exchange brought a variation of the sobbing woman beside me had said moments before.
“It was so sudden,” she had said.
“He passed so quickly.”
“He died far too young.”
“There was no warning.”
I listened to them all, keeping my answers brief. A Yes to the question of “Horrible, isn’t it?” A nod to “Such a shame.”
A shame, yes. Unfortunate and horrible. But as I looked upon the solemn faces of the gathered, I realized there was far worse shame and misfortune in this life. Far worse horrors.
Should the quickness of a death that must come to us all be cause for added grief? Perhaps. But perhaps it would do us all well to remember that the next moment is never guaranteed. And perhaps it would do us all well to know there is a death worse than what I experienced in that room. One that does not strike with speed, but numbness.
Far worse than the buried dead are those who have perished and yet still walk. Those who have yielded to the crushing weight of the world, who have surrendered their hopes and dreams to the arid winds of despair. Who have seen too much darkness and so surrendered their light, believing it to be too faint to matter.
That life must simply be endured is among the worst of lies. We are not merely to tolerate this world, but overcome it. We are called not to plod on, but to laugh and skip.
This is our duty. Our charge. And to fail is to fail both ourselves and our God. It is to meet the end before our ending. That is the worst death. Not the one that robs the body of its soul, but the heart of its passion.
Carnival world
July 20, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 28 Comments
Nothing cured the torpid state of a small town quite like a carnival, and our small town was no different. It was the event of the summer here, one that is part high school reunion, part gossip convention, and all fun.
Every year a few hundred souls gathered for three nights in the parking lot of the Old Schoolhouse Restaurant to ride and play and eat, knowing that much of the proceeds will go to the local fire department.
Ahead of me were the rides. The slide and the Ferris wheel and the swings and a jumble of semi-legit games of carnie skill. Behind me, around the corner, were fire truck hangars filled with hungry people searching for dinner in the form of barbecued chicken.
I was appropriately between the two, straddling the same line at the carnival that I tended to straddle in life, the one between play-and-scream and rest-and-gawk. It was a precarious spot, and I often tried to play both sides. Which is why I was both nodding in agreement with the man beside me who says people really should grow up and licking cotton candy off the corner of my mouth.
To me, the carnival was all about catching up and touching base. There were people I see only at the carnival, mountain folk who somehow summoned the strength to come down from the hills and partake in some revelry. But they never lingered. Town life was too close to city life for their comfort.
To my kids, though, the carnival was all about the rides. And there were plenty of rides. Slides and swings. Tea cups and moonwalks. And the granddaddy of them all, the Ferris wheel. Both my son and my daughter erupted in spasms of glee at the sight, a veritable smorgasbord of hyperactive indulgence.
“Can we ride, Daddy?” they asked.
Yes.
Because if there is anything I knew for sure in this complicated world, it was that a body could learn a lot about living from carnival rides.
For instance.
The swings were first. Rusty and worn from endless turns in the summer heat, but still perfectly tuned for their assigned purpose: to spin people around and around through the air at varying speeds. My kids whizzed and zoomed, waving their tiny arms as they passed. Fun, yes. And also valuable later on. Because sometimes in life they will feel as though they’re going around in circles, but that’s no reason to feel frustrated. You can still laugh and wave.
The tea cups were next, which were in amazing shape considering the fact that I found “Pam Luvs Doug 6/9/68” carved into the engine cover. I wasn’t worried, though. Tea cups don’t spin around in a circle ten feet in the air, they jerk and whirl close to the ground. As I watched physics inch my children closer together with each turn of the gears, I found another future lesson for them to tuck away: when life begins to pull and turn, it’s best to stick close to the ones you love.
Fifteen minutes in the Moon Walk proved yet another point—there is an inherent desire within each of us to soar. To break the bonds of both gravity and common sense and rise just a bit higher than the rest, if only for a moment. And though we are earthbound and destined to spend our share of time in the dirt and mud, those precious few moments in the sky are well worth the effort.
From there we made our way to the slide, a gigantic monstrosity of molded plastic that sat a good two stories off the ground. The line was long and the drop was steep, but both children refused to budge. When they climbed those rickety steps and flew down upon those moldy burlap sacks, they screamed and I smiled. Them because they had overcome their fear to magnificent results. Me because I knew life was made for the bold rather than the timid.
The Ferris wheel was the best ride and therefore reserved for last. The flight down the slide had emboldened them to tackle the even bigger ride to the point where they requested a go with just the two of them minus mom and dad.
And things went fine, too. Until the ride stopped with them perched at the top. Flashes of panicky children and flaying limbs shot through my mind but were disproved by the sight in above me.
Rather than terror, my kids were in awe.
Spellbound by the sight of the crowd below and the mountains ahead. Of robins and blue jays flitting past their heads.
I didn’t have to teach them that lesson. They taught me. That sometimes, many times, life can become a bit dull around the edges. The view below can seem drab and worn.
Which is when you need to look up instead of down. Over instead of around. Because life is not only a matter of attitude. It’s a matter of perspective as well.
——–
Hey folks, Lynn Rush over at Light of Truth was kind enough to interview me about my writing and how I managed to sign with Rachelle Gardner, agent extraordinaire. If you’d like to step over there and read part one, it’s here. Part two will run tomorrow. Be sure to tell Lynn hello. She’s a great writer and a great lady.
The walk
July 19, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 24 Comments
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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