A Son’s Wisdom
March 31, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 15 Comments
My son turned six last week. That’s him beside me and us beside the creek that runs beside our house. The nearly identical clothing isn’t intentional, it just sort of happened. If you asked him, he’d say he was just trying to look like his daddy. If you asked me, I’d say I was just trying to look like my son.
We’re buds, he and me. Father and son first, of course. He knows the rules of the house and is expected to follow them. Knows he’s supposed to keep his room clean and take his plate to the kitchen after dinner and that he’s allowed only an hour a day for his Nintendo DS. He doesn’t like those rules sometimes, and sometimes he’ll do his best to challenge me. But it isn’t often and it’s never for long and we’re always good in the end.
Last night after cake and ice cream, we sat on the porch and talked. Even now and though he’s not really aware of it, he’s beginning to understand the Way of Porch Sitting. It’s a lot of rocking and a lot of looking. A lot of saying “Yep” and “Mmm-hmm.” A lot of contented sighing.
Also a lot of conversation. Six-year-olds know more about the world than you might think, and they’re not shy about their opinions.
To read the rest of this post, please follow me to highcallingblogs.com. And feel free to say my son is much smarter than I am. Around here, that’s common knowledge.
What makes us laugh?
March 30, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 16 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
In town on a very warm and very bright Saturday:
My family is parked at a picnic table outside the local ice cream shop, slurping down all manner of frozen treats. The shop is busy. People mill about, eager to partake in a ritual designed much more for spring than winter.
Some are more eager than others. Our eyes settle upon one man in particular who has summoned the courage to order three dips of chocolate ice cream on his cone. He pays and does his best to balance his desert until he can get to the table near us. Halfway there, though, his hand goes left while the ice cream goes right. The entire thing, cone and all, takes a ride down the front of his white shirt.
I snicker, which turns into a chortle, which turns into the sort of involuntary shaking that comes when you can’t help but laugh but don’t want to be seen laughing. My kids laugh, too.
The same very warm and very bright Saturday, but later:
On our way into the grocery store, we’re met by a woman carrying no less than five shopping bags making her way toward the parking lot. She’s trying but not quite able to see where everything is—her car, the traffic, a neighbor who says hello. She doesn’t see the rock in front of her, though. The one she trips over. She tumbles, spewing everything from hamburger to washing detergent.
My kids snicker, which turns into a chortle, which turns into the same sort of involuntary shaking they saw their father succumb to earlier at the ice cream shop.
I, however, don’t laugh. And I tell them they shouldn’t, either. Then I explain the difference between someone having an accident that could hurt them and someone having an accident that could just embarrass them. They stare at me. It’s tough having to explain the subtleties of humor to your children.
I’ve pondered about my children’s laughter since. Not that there is so little of it or even so much, if there is such a thing. No, what I’ve been thinking about is what they laugh at. What they think is funny.
Such a thing seems important to me. I think what makes us laugh says a lot about the sort of people we are.
If that’s true, then I would suppose my children are typical. What makes them laugh? Any sound emanating from any orifice on the human body. Boogers? Funny. Sneezes? Funny. Sneezes that produce boogers? Comedic gold.
But the scene at the grocery store bothered me. Partly because I was afraid I’d put the notion into their heads that such a thing was laughable, but partly because I’ve always been aware of the thin line between what should be funny and what shouldn’t.
The Bible never mentions Christ laughing. It mentions Him crying, of course, but never giggling. And though it may seem strange to say that God can giggle, I’m willing to bet that He can and does. Often. I’m sure Jesus had a great sense of humor. I’m sure He laughed. I think it was a pretty big oversight not to include that in the gospels. Knowing what Jesus found funny would come in handy to parents.
The question of whether we should find cause to laugh in this life is one that I think never needs asking. As dark and dreary and frightening as the world can be at times, there is an equal measure of light and beauty and anticipation. I like to think that no matter what our circumstances or worries may be, there is always plenty to be joyful about if we go looking for it.
A day without laughter is a day lost. It means that in the ongoing struggle between the hope we all seek and the despair the world seems intent upon handing us, the world has won.
That’s what I want my children to know.
But I want them to know this as well—much of the humor they’re privy to is merely hate wrapped in a punch line. It drips meanness. It lifts our spirits but tarnishes our souls. It isn’t nectar, it’s sweet poison.
I’m going to make it a point from now on to watch what I laugh at. To pay attention. To be a better dad.
Because I have a sneaky feeling that a lot of what makes me laugh would make God cry.
Haven’t had enough of me yet? (Please say no.) Because I’m also starting a new bi-weekly post over at The Master’s Artist today. So please stop by and let me tell you how writing is like finding Easter eggs. Because it is. Really. And even better, you’ll meet some fabulous people while you’re there.
Beautiful
March 29, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
- image courtesy of photobucket.com
My daughter is slowly coming to the realization that looks mean something in this world, and that it’s a very big something, and that she wants to be beautiful. I can’t blame her. I think we all want to be beautiful in some way or another, whether it’s in looks or talent or spirituality.
A Matter of Space
March 26, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 34 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
Whenever I need some good advice, I always go find one of our town’s retired preachers. One of the retired Baptist preachers, to be more precise. Not because of the particular brand of Christianity he espouses, but because of his experience. He’s been around, this preacher. He’s done things and he knows things and he’s more than happy to help me along.
My problem of late hasn’t been spiritual or physical or emotional, but rather a curious bundling of all three that can be summed up in two words: I’m busy. The preacher and I both agreed that was a good thing, what with idle hands being the devil’s handiwork and all. But there’s just the busy and nothing else, and that seemed to be my problem. I’ve been doing so many things I enjoy that I stopped enjoying them. So I sat in his office one afternoon a few days ago and explained it all.
“Make sense?” I asked him.
He stroked his beard and nodded a yes.
“So what do I need?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“I don’t need anything?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I said you need nothing.”
I suppose I should mention that while this particular preacher is both wise and experienced, talking to him at times reminds me of what it would be like to talk to Yoda—beneficial if you can hang in there long enough, but aggravating in the meantime.
“Understand?” he asked me.
I shook my head and said, “Yes.”
“What I’m saying is that God put us here to do His work. That is part of enjoying life. But He also put us here to learn and grow. That is the other part of enjoying life. You’re doing okay on the first. Not so much on the second.”
“Okay,” I said, “so what do I need to do to get better at the second?”
“Nothing.”
I leaned back and tilted my hat up a little more.
“I gotta say this conversation’s starting to tick me off a little,” I told him.
He smiled and said, “Sorry. I know it sounds weird. It’s true, though. What you need is more nothing. To put it another way, you need space.”
“I can’t go off somewhere by myself.”
“I didn’t say you had to,” he said. “I’m not talking about that kind of space, I’m talking about perspective. You’re caught up in thinking that life is something to be attacked.”
“It isn’t?” I asked him.
“No. Life is something to dance with.”
“I don’t dance,” I said.
“Oh, I love to dance,” he said. “I can say that now since I’m retired. You know the Baptists and their fear of dancing.”
I nodded, he continued.
“My wife was the one who taught me. I got the steps down pretty quick. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the space.”
“The space?”
“You need space between yourself and your partner. Get too close, and bad things happen. She said I was smothering her. Life’s the same—you shouldn’t be so close to it all the time. You need to keep it away from you a bit. Just a little, just enough so you can move without getting smothered. So that’s my advice. Think about it.”
I promised I would, and I did. And I realized in the past few days just how right he was. Space matters. A lot.
Up until the 1600s or so, printed words didn’t have a space between them. The only explanation I’ve heard for this was that people didn’t think there needed to be. So while you can now read a sentence just like this, at that time you’dhavetoreadasentencelikethis. That hurt my head just to write. I can imagine how you felt having to read it.
Space matters in other areas, too. The composer Claude Debussy said music was “the space between the notes.”
“Space is the breath of art,” said Frank Lloyd Wright.
I think I’m beginning to understand.
I think we can live life too intently. We can try to smother it and get smothered in the process. A little space solves that, I think. It’s the difference between seeing life as the end of the world and seeing it as the beginning of something greater.
Life’s Great Tragedy
March 24, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 36 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
There are stories I found and stories that have found me. As I sat at the small table outside the local coffee shop, I decided this was a story that found me. And I’m glad it did. I was also glad I was paying enough attention to see it, because it almost passed right by me.
The principal character was your stereotypical little old lady. Seventy-ish. Gray hair and a neatly pressed dress that was the sort of yellow that said Hello Spring! Making her way down the sidewalk in front of me.
The years had not been so kind to her, I noticed. The stoop in her posture gave the appearance that she was about to fall headfirst into the pavement. It was an accident waiting to happen that may have only been averted by the slight limp in her right leg. Yet she managed to not only make her way, but to do so with a smile on her lips and a heartfelt “Good morning!” to anyone in her path.
She would pause in her walk just long enough to offer one of those helloes and to look at the parking meters evenly spaced to her left. The distractions of both people and technology were enough to guarantee added minutes—and quite possibly hours, I considered—to her journey from wherever she came from to wherever she was going. And yet the thought crossed my mind that this was a person unconcerned with neither distance nor time. The destination wouldn’t matter if no enjoyment was had along the way.
She jumped when she came upon the third parking meter and looked around as if some great catastrophe was about to occur. Then she squared up in front of it like an old West gunslinger ready to draw. Instead of a six shooter, out came a coin. Into the meter it went. She waited for the click that guaranteed more time, patted the machine on the side like she would her grandson’s face, and walked on.
Next down the line was a young lady who had walked out of the courthouse not twenty minutes earlier. I had seen the yellow sheet of paper she was carrying and could only assume what was written on it constituted much more bad than good. She slumped against a newspaper box and lit a cigarette, then watched her exhale float up and disappear, no doubt wishing her troubles would do the same. There she had stood ever since, waiting for the miracle of either a better life or a quicker death.
The little old lady paused beside her and spoke. I couldn’t hear what was said and so tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. I had the feeling they were simple words and not profound. A comment about the beautiful day, perhaps, or maybe a short hello.
Regardless, a few moments later the old lady waved and left, continuing her curvy path toward me. The young lady watched her go and finished her smoke.
And then something curious happened.
Just as she stepped on the remains of her cigarette, the young lady smiled. A big, toothy smile. The best sort of smile.
“Good morning, young man,” the old lady said as she passed.
“Good morning, ma’am,” I answered.
She continued on, eyes forward and not back, content to watch what was around her rather than behind. Which was a tragedy, really. Because not only did that nice old lady miss the smile she put on that young girl’s face, she also missed a young man’s reaction when he sprinted out of a nearby shop sure he would find a ticket on the windshield of his car, but confused to find instead plenty of extra time left on his meter.
Yes. Quite a tragedy. Life was full of tragedies, I thought. Like the misfortune of hurrying or the heartbreak of circumstance.
But at that moment I realized what may be the biggest tragedy of all—that we can always see the effect of this world upon us, but rarely the effect of us upon the world.
A Holy Process
March 23, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 31 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
I’ve kept a journal off and on since I was a junior in high school, which is quite a feat for a guy like me. They’re all stacked in an old steamer trunk I keep in the corner of my office, a hodgepodge of spiral notebooks, leather journals, and batches of loose leaf notebook paper bundled with crumbling rubber bands.
I seldom dig through them. Any thoughts of those scribblings being anything that resembles writing fodder would be cast aside by the briefest of glances. In those books are pathetic attempts at poetry and even worse tries at art. There are song lyrics by everyone from Jimmy Buffett to Axl Rose, love letters to forgotten sweethearts, and at least one ticket from many high school dances.
But though I never care to venture in there, I can’t seem to throw any of it away. That seems a little strange when I think about it, since the majority of those pages represent periods in my life that I tried for years to forget or—at the very least—put behind me. Years that I wandered through my days with neither faith nor hope, not living but merely existing.
When I sit here at my table during those small hours of the night, I often glance up from my computer screen to take fleeting look at that trunk. I try to tell myself I do this to make sure the trunk is still there, but that’s not the reason. Not really.
The real reason? Well, the real reason is that I need all of those journals. No matter how painful some of those memories may be, I need to remember where I’ve been before if I’m to be reminded of where I am now. Even if it means carrying my share of regrets.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. That’s what I once told myself. I was supposed to be the man who lived his life with the sort of balls to the wall, take no prisoners sort of mentality that guaranteed a regret-free existence. Didn’t turn out that way. I can look back on my life and find more that I did wrong than I did right.
Erasing my regrets can’t be done, of course. They are like pencil marks that have been rubbed out. Some are light and barely seen, and some are so deep that their impressions remain. Either way, the end result is the same—the blank sheet of my life, the one that was to be filled with beauty and perfection, is now smudged. I can cover those smudges up. I can cover them with lines and words and pictures so that they’re invisible to most who bother to look. But I can still see them, and in the end I suppose that’s all that matters.
The other cheek we’re told we should turn to others is very often the one we refuse to turn to ourselves, just as the burdens we place on ourselves are always greater than the ones the world places on us. It is a battle, this life. One fought not on the battlefields of distant countries, but inside each of us. The world is a mess because we are a mess.
I say all of that so I can say this:
Our lives are not one long and straight line with birth at one end and death at the other. It is instead a line that curves and dips and sometimes even doubles back upon itself in not one birth or death, but many. Some parts of our lives must end so others can begin. We must say goodbye to some so that we may say hello to others.
In the end our lives are a process by which God both guides and prods in order to make us into the people he wishes us to be, people still flawed and still fallen, but with hearts ready to love and a purpose to help cast aside the shadows of this world. It is a long process. Painful at times and at times confounding. But it is a holy process, a hardening of coal into diamonds, and one we must be faithful to.
Because it’s true that God loves us just the way we are, and it is also true that He loves us too much to leave us that way.
(This post is part of the One Word at a Time blog carnival on Faithfulness. To read more entries, please visit Bridget Chumbley)
Lesser Prayers
March 22, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 6 Comments
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If there is anything people need these days more than a stable job and money to pay the bills, it’s prayer. Things are tough out there, tough for just about everyone, and it seems we’re all in need of something.
This is usually made most evident in the period of time just after our Sunday school class at church and just before the worship service begins, when our class huddles together to see for whom and what we should spend our week in prayer over. It’s usually quite a list, filled with troubles spiritual, emotional, and physical. People are hurting, and in more ways than one.
I’ve often wondered if God places a greater amount of importance on some prayers rather than others. Not according to the righteousness of the petitioner maybe, but maybe the depth of the problem. Are some troubles more important and have a greater immediacy for His attention?
One prayer request that was never uttered last Sunday answered that question for me, and the story is over at katdish’s blog today. I invite you over there to read it. Let me know if I’m on to something…
An Answer to What’s Wrong with the World
March 19, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 43 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
Live this life long enough and you’ll realize there are both good days and bad, and there often isn’t much you can do to influence things one way or the other. Some days the world seems at your feet, and others it seems the universe is aligned against you. Such is the pain and the pleasure of living. You never know what’s coming next. Depending upon your circumstances, that can either be something you run toward or cower from.
What’s wrong with the world? we ask.
For several years I took the good day/bad day thing in stride. This world was not unlike an amusement park ride, I thought. There were flat places and loops. Times when you climbed a steep grade with white-knuckle anticipation, and times when you flew down the other side arms raised and screaming with delight. You had to endure the bad in order to enjoy the good. It was all part of the ride.
While I still think that’s true to a certain degree, I’ve also learned I’m not completely powerless when it comes to changing the tone of a bad spell. And lately, I’ve had a bad spell. Lots of work, lots of grumbling. Gray skies both inside and out. But whereas I once would be content to grit my teeth and muddle through, I now take a more proactive stance.
Which I did this morning. It was one small act that required mere seconds to perform, but the benefits have been both big and lasting. I am walking through my day with head held high and a smile upon my face.
I wish I could say my secret to beating the daily blues was spiritually-oriented. It isn’t. It isn’t a little extra prayer or a little extra faith, though I’ve found they are a welcome byproduct. No, my secret is equal parts childlike and childish and very, very effective.
It’s Spongebob boxers.
I found them a few weeks ago in Target. Right size, right price. I had no intention of purchasing them, of course. What self-respecting redneck (not an oxymoron, by the way) would willingly choose to walk around wearing such a thing?
Not me. No way.
So I bought them. Partly because my children dared me to do so, but partly because staring at the silly-looking cartoon character sort of made me feel better. I figured what the heck.
When I wore them the next day I realized two things. One was that I very rarely thought about what sort of underwear I happened to be wearing. As long as something was there, I was fine. But the other was this—I thought about that particular underwear. A lot.
I thought about them while having a very deep conversation with a very smart professor. Thought about them when someone asked me to contribute something to his website. Thought about them when someone else came to me for some advice.
And I remember wondering what in the world those people would think if they knew I was wearing Spongebob underwear.
Silly? Yes. But then again, that was the point.
Because wearing them allowed me to do something I desperately needed, and that was to not take myself or my life too seriously.
I think we all forget that sometimes. The world has grown too serious and too blah. Bad news abounds, everything’s scary, and it’s easy to think our best is behind us. Not true.
If there is anything we all need now, just as much as more faith and more hope, it is more laughter. It is more joy. It is to see life’s challenges and shortcomings and realize they do not exist to hold us back, but to propel us forward. It is to have the courage to see that we can change things. We can make the world better. Not by changing governments or policies, but by changing ourselves.
What’s wrong with the world? Me. And you.
That’s where we should start. And I’ll suggest beginning with changing your underwear.
Rediscovering Wonder
March 17, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 3 Comments
Photo by Kelly Sauer, used with permission
“THERE! THERE IT IS! I SEE IT I SEE IT!”
My daughter points into the night sky from the back deck of our house, leaping from the not-so-sturdy chair and knocking it over.
Then it’s my son’s turn: “I SEE IT ISEEIT!”
Both stand in front of me, eyes wide and jaws slack. Though the heavens above us are awash in sparkling dots and faint wisps of the Milky Way, I’m not paying much attention to the stars. But I am paying attention to the two small people in front of me. I’ve seen my share of falling stars in my life, seen enough that I didn’t think I needed to see any more. What is more beautiful, more compelling, is watching my children watch them.
They’ve heard of falling stars, of course. They are plentiful in their bedtime stories and have shown up in most of their Disney movies. They’ve even drawn them with red and purple crayons on construction paper.
But they’ve never seen one. Not until tonight. Not until just now…
To read the rest of this post, please follow me to highcallingblogs.com. Wonder is an amazing feeling, and one that seems sadly lacking in these times. Age and experience shouldn’t rob us of our sense of awe. If anything, it should inspire more.
The Time We Have Left
March 16, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 19 Comments
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When I was ten, I thought the worst thing about being a kid was that wisdom was slow and intermittent. It stuttered along with my growth—fast at times, then slow, and then not at all for a good long while.
It didn’t bother me, really. Most of the time. But other times it did. Adults knew things. Not just things like how to drive and how to play a guitar, but things like what you should do and how you should live. Things I didn’t know at the time. Not even a little bit.
That, more than anything else, is why I couldn’t wait to grow up. It wasn’t the freedom I wanted, not the thought of never having to go to school and staying up as late as I wanted. It was the fact that I would know things. Important things. Things that mattered.
The great illusion of life is that answers always lay ahead. It’s a promise we speak aloud and believe that by doing so we can speak into truth. Tomorrow or next month or ten years from now, we’ll know. And that’s just not the case. So much of life is wrapped up in questions that will always remain questions. I doubt we’ll ever know exactly why there must be evil in the world or why bad things happen to good people or why the rain must fall on the just. But at certain points we still find a sort of false security in the assumption that age and experience will shed a little light into the dark room of our doubts.
Don’t get me wrong. Time and experience will most certainly help accomplish that. But with me, it often seems that the more I find out about this world the more questions I ask. Which makes me believe that life is nothing but a giant, looping episode of Lost.
And I do know more now at thirty-seven than I did at ten. Much more. I know how to drive. I don’t know how to play a guitar, but I know I could learn to if I really wanted. I know what I should do and how I should live. I also know that knowing what to do and how to live is a lot easier than actually doing it.
Yes, age and experience can bring wisdom. “The silver-haired head is a crown of glory,” the Proverb states. A badge of honor. A symbol that announces to the world that you’ve lived long enough to have a handle on things, however tenuous.
I was thinking about all of this three weeks ago while listening to a father speak of his ten-year-old boy, who’d just returned from another round of chemotherapy. The doctors expected much pain, many side effects, and mixed results. We sat there, his father and I, both awed at wisdom his young son possessed. Wisdom far beyond what I carried around inside of me.
Wisdom that said whatever was happening to his body couldn’t happen to his heart. He could still love and be loved.
Wisdom that said there were things you can control and things you couldn’t, and it was by paying more attention to the things you could that made all the difference in whether your life was good or bad.
Wisdom that said regardless of how you felt or what was happening, there was enough joy and beauty and peace in this world to get you through.
“He’s more right now than I’ll ever be,” his father told me.
That’s true. His son is more than most will ever be. Myself included. Whether that’s because of his disease or in spite of it, I do not know. Maybe both. Maybe neither. But I know this—that boy faces a window to the world that few ever get the opportunity to look through, and he’s taking it all in.
And I know this, too: age and experience may indeed bring the knowledge of truth, but not always. Sometimes wisdom doesn’t come by the time you’ve had. Sometimes it comes by the time you have left.
Today is the second part of my interview with Linda Yezak of AuthorCulture. If you’d like to see more, please click here.
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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