Billy Coffey

storyteller

Useless information

It’s somewhat alarming to think about how many things I forget during the course of a normal day. The exact number eludes me; I forget how many things I’ve forgotten.

There are little things like forgetting where I’ve put my keys and wallet, and also big things like where I’ve put my children. I’ve forgotten appointments, to eat, to set my alarm, and, I noticed today, the fact that the oil needs to be changed in my truck.

The reasons for this may be many or one, depending upon whom I ask. My wife says it’s because I’m too tired, my friends say I’m too busy. Standard excuses for everyone with a short attention span. My mother, however, offered her own reason in her typically loving way:

“Your head’s too full of useless stuff,” she said. “There’s no room for things that matter.”

I thought about that and had to agree that what she said was at least partly right. I wasn’t sure if it were possible to have so much in my head that nothing else could get in, but I did have a lot of seemingly useless stuff stuck in there.

Stuff like the fact that a dragonfly can eat its own weight in thirty minutes. Or that Hollywood was founded by a man who wanted to build a community based on his conservative religious principles. Couvade is a custom in which a father simulates the symptoms of childbirth. Einstein went his entire life without ever wearing a pair of socks. I could go on.

Where I’ve managed to scrape up such tidbits of uselessness is beyond me. So is the manner by which I can remember that John Milton went blind because he read too late at night but not the name of someone I see at work every day.

The fact that I may simply be absent-minded occurred to me. It’s a distinct possibility. I come from a long line of absent-minded people. But that seems like a poor excuse in itself, and I keep thinking about what my mother said to me.

There’s little doubt that we all fill our lives with things that don’t matter, thereby sacrificing some of the things that do. Worry robs our faith, doubt our hope, and discord our love. But is that true for knowledge? Can we know too much for our own good?

Some people think so. I have friends who believe that faith is all they need, that thinking has done nothing but bring the world a whole lot of trouble. Communism, moral relativism, and Keeping up with the Kardashians wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t thought them up and ruined all of our lives. Sometimes I think that’s true, especially with Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Faith is pretty much the most important thing a person can have. I also think having as much knowledge as possible easily breaks the top three. Because despite what everyone says, ignorance is not bliss. It’s more like a prison cell with walls of our own making.

Of all the inborn traits God sees fit to give us, few are exercised less than our curiosity. Spending some time with the nearest child will convince you that we’re all born with a probing mind. But that somehow gets lost as we get older. We all are tempted to reach a point where we just don’t care to know anything else. We already know enough about the world to realize it’s all spiraling downward. Why pile it on?

I get that, I really do. There are plenty of things I would rather not know, things that would keep my life chugging along rather nicely if they weren’t stuck on one giant playback loop in my brain.

But then there’s this to consider—our world really is a wonderful place. Flawed, yes. And a bit ugly in some places. But it’s also amazing and inspiring and so utterly almost-perfect.

The truth? I want to know everything. Even the stupid stuff. After all these years, I’m still curious. I still want to know. Because I’ve found that the more I can know about God’s world and the people who inhabit it, the more I can know about God and me. If that keeps me from checking my mail every once in a while or not realizing the truck’s almost out of gas, then so be it.

I think we would all be a little better off if we cracked a book every once in a while. There’s too much ignorance in this world. Life, like music, must contain several parts equally. There must be melody and beat. And there must be heart and head. That’s how we dance through our days. And God is a musician at heart.

Just ask the common housefly. Whose wings, by the way, hum in the key of F.

A nation at war

image courtesy of photo bucket.com
image courtesy of photo bucket.com
Now comes the growing notion that we are at war, a phrase I’ve heard from more than a few these last days. A war fought not with guns and planes but words and ideas, the territory our hearts rather than battlefields. And though both sides cannot agree on much, there is an accord that this war contains both a “good” and a “bad” and that one is either on one side or the other—in this fight, there can be no spectators.

Nor can there be hesitation. If you disagree with a man’s right to marry a man or a woman’s right to marry a woman, if you do not believe that a Confederate battle flag is something akin to a Klansman’s hood, then your side is already chosen. Silent introspection is tantamount to cowardice, and for these things the punishment is to be thrown in league with the -ics and -ists. We are branded with the very thing that is now looked upon with contempt—a label.

I haven’t figured out why it’s gotten this way, or if “this way” is really just the way it’s always been. I’m still thinking things through. That’s what we should all be doing now. Not picking fights, not turning to the nearest social media platform to scream and blather. Think.

For instance:

I do not think anyone has a right to be happy. Live even a tiny amount inside this world and you will discover just how impossible and fleeting such a belief to be. This life was not built for happiness, but for the pursuit of it—for each of us to strike out into our days and search for meaning and beauty and purpose. The pursuit of happiness, yes, that is our right. And does that mean same-sex marriage should be legal? I don’t know. Perhaps. Is same-sex marriage and a homosexual lifestyle a sin? Maybe. But if homosexuality is a sin, that makes them like you and me in every way. Like everyone. It doesn’t matter to which sex you find an attraction, we’re all broken. We’re all the same.

The issue with the Confederate flag is an easier one for me. You see them here, flying from rusting poles in the front yards of the mountain folk or billowing from the beds of muddy 4x4s driven by teenage boys. To be honest, the sight of it has always made me uncomfortable. I know its history, and how in the years following the Civil War it was adopted by those who wished to keep down those who should have always been raised up. But I know this as well—I am a proud Southerner. The region of the country does indeed hold many of our nation’s sins, but it holds much more of its graces. I know good men died on both sides of that great national wound, men of courage, godly men. I will tell you that racism exists here, but no more and no less than in any northern city.

I suppose in all of this, what I would like to know is where the line is now that we cannot cross. It seems to me that’s an important thing to consider, for me and for everyone. Because there has always been a line, hasn’t there? A mark upon the boundary of our society’s forward progress that we gauge as that place where, if trampled upon, we risk losing some special part of ourselves. I’d like someone to tell me where that line now rests. I get nervous when it isn’t there, when no idea of constraint is apparent. Jut this morning I read an article from a respected news source calling for the acceptance of polygamy, a notion that has in the last years begun to take hold. Another article extolled the plight of pedophiliacs who now feel left out of this cultural shift, their reasoning being that they can no less alter the object of their sexual attractions than can homosexuals. I wonder how many who support gay marriage would support the legalization of these as well, and if not, what reasons they would offer. Is polygamy the line now, or will that too be crossed? Is it incest? But how many do you suppose would be in favor of that, assuming both parties to be consenting adults? Is not love the most vaunted of emotions now? Does not love trump all?

And of course things have not stopped with the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds. Chain stores and online retailers have taken up that very mantle, refusing to offer them for sale to private citizens. My own Commonwealth has halted the issue of license plates bearing the seal of Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy. Now there is talk of expanding things further, changing the names of schools and public buildings that bear the names of Lee and Jackson and Stuart and Davis. I’ve even read that some are considering a petition to dismantle the Jefferson monument. Chuckle though you might, what of that other flag bearing stars and bars that has presided over so much bloodshed? What of our country’s own banner to which we stand at parades and ballgames and pledge our allegiance?

Tell me, please: where is the line? Or are we so intent to race forward that we no longer care if there is a line at all? Are the limits of society now -ics and -isms themselves?

I’d like to know. We’re supposed to be at war, you see. And I’m more than a little worried. Because no matter the cause or the combatants and no matter whether the spoils are blood or ideas, the first casualty of any war is always truth.

Getting things wrong

new york daily news photo
new york daily news photo
It should come as no surprise that the events in Charleston last week are still a big topic here in Carolina. As our vacation has largely removed me from the world beyond sun and sand (as by design), I’m not sure if that’s the case elsewhere. I hope it is. Whenever something like this happens—which we can all agree has become far too often of late—the first thing I often hear is something along the lines of, “This country needs to have a honest discussion about race.” While I agree wholeheartedly, I’ve often wondered what an honest discussion would mean. And I guess I’m not the only one, because that conversation has yet to begin.

What’s getting the most attention around here isn’t the act itself, the murders, nor the racism that sparked that act, nor even the now national push to have the Confederate flag removed from all state government buildings and grounds. No, people here seem focused upon the ones who deserve the focus: the victims. Namely, how those victims treated the young man who became the instrument of their deaths. How this young man told the police after his capture that he almost didn’t go through with his plan because of the kindness shown to him by those in the church.

That would be amazing if it were not so sad.

He had an idea in his head, you see. A belief that blacks were less, that blacks were a danger, that blacks were responsible for so much of the evil in the world that they must be erased in order that the rest of us could be saved. That belief had been ingrained over the years by a variety of sources, strengthened and ingrained to the point where it became, to him, fact. And yet reality proved something different. Once he sat down with them, listened to them, heard them pray and speak, once this young man knew their hearts, some part of him understood that what he had come to belief was false. These were not monsters, these were people. People like him.

And yet even that knowledge wasn’t enough to keep him from drawing a weapon and killing nine of them. Belief proved stronger than reality in this case, just as it does in most cases. That’s what people here are grappling with most, and what I’m grappling with as well.

These first few days at the beach have given me an opportunity to do what life in general often denies—the chance to simply sit and think. What I’ve been thinking about lately is this simple question: Have I changed my opinion on anything in the last five years?

I’m not talking about little things, like the brand of coffee I drink or what my favorite television show is or where I shop for groceries. I mean the big things, like how I think about life or God or my place in either, and how I see other people.

Have I changed my beliefs in any way toward any of those things? Have I altered my thinking, or even tried? Have I even bothered to take a fresh look? Or has every idea and notion I’ve sought out only cemented what I already knew and believed to be true? Those are important questions, because they lead to another, larger question that none of us really want to ask:

“Have I ever been wrong about anything?”

Have I?

Have you?

Have we ever been wrong about who God is? Wrong about politics or social stances or what happens when we shed these mortal coils? Because you know what? I’m inclined to think we have.

None of us are as impartial and logical as we lead ourselves to believe. Often, what we hold as true isn’t arrived at by careful thought and deep pondering, but partisanship and whatever system of ideals we were taught by parents or preachers or professors. That creates a deep unwillingness to refine what positions we hold, and that unwillingness can lead to laziness at least and horrible tragedies at worst.

Whether we hold to the Divine or not, we all worship gods. Chief among them are often our beliefs themselves, graven images built not of wood or stone but of theories and concepts. We follow these with blind obedience, seeing a desire to look at and study them as tantamount to doubt or, worse, an attempt to prove them the paper idols they are. Yet truth—real truth—would never fear questioning, and would indeed always welcome it. That’s why we owe it to ourselves to test our opinions. We are built to seek the truth, wherever it may lead.

When you make a mess

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

How it ended up like this I cannot say. I know I didn’t intend for it to happen. But happen it did. Not all at once—these things never unfold all at once—but slowly, like how spring turns to summer or twilight melts into full dark.

And it’s dark now, oh yes it is. Metaphorically, anyway. It’s just after one in the afternoon on a beautiful Saturday, and in this, at least, I’ve found a blessing. It’s early still. Which means if I get started now, I can get this mess cleaned up by tonight.

It started simply, as most messes do. And also like most messes, I went into it with the absolute best of intentions. And yet what was to be a quick trip upstairs to straighten my office has resulted in an apocalypse of papers and books the likes of which seem almost Biblical. My wife nearly called 911 when she walked in a few minutes ago. My kids dared me to ever tell them to throw away a notebook again. FEMA may have to be summoned.

I don’t know how this happened.

I promise you.

But that’s what we always say when we make a mess, isn’t it? Me, anyway. They’re often the first words out of my mouth—“I don’t know how this happened.” Followed closely by the points I’ve already mentioned:

I don’t know how things got this way.

I never wanted this.

I had the best of intentions.

Of course none of those matter, at least not now. All that counts is the mess. The whys and hows are irrelevant.

The only question is how I’m going to clean it up.

It won’t be easy. Messes never are. It requires digging through the garbage you’ve made for yourself. Cleaning up a mess hurts so much because along the way you always discover those things that should have mattered but were somehow forgotten instead (like the I love you Daddy! card I just found mashed into a novel I never finished reading). It hurts because so much damage has been done that you think things will never really be fixed—the mess will always be there, and things will never be the same again.

And in that moment of absolute remorse, a part of you believes that’s the way it should be. You messed up. You—the one who is old enough and wise enough to know better, the one who’s witnessed friends and family and strangers on the television news make their own messes and said “That’ll never be me.”

You.

Me.

So here I sit, in my mess.

For me, in this moment, it consists of little more than notebooks and papers and half-finished manuscripts and, amazingly enough, a half-eaten box of Fiddle Faddle. For you, things may be much worse.

Trust me when I say that makes no difference. When it comes to a mess, there are no degrees. A mess is a mess. And you and I will get through our messes together. We will fix things.

For me, it’s book by book. For you, perhaps relationship by relationship.

Paper by paper.

I’m sorry by I’m sorry.

Cleaning.

Healing.

Minute by minute.

Day by day.

We will straighten and clean. We will dust off the important things we’ve misplaced and toss out those things we thought we needed but didn’t. We’ll put away and take out.

We will make things sparkle again.

As plain as the nose on my face

Screen Shot 2014-03-17 at 5.56.12 PMHere’s one of those seemingly random and inconsequential facts about the human body: your nose is always in your field of vision. Cross your eyes. See? It’s right there, right where it’s always been, centered as a ridge just below and between. And yet uncross your eyes again, and it’s gone.

I read that seemingly random and inconsequential fact about the human body about a half an hour ago. Now, I can’t stop seeing my nose. Nothing has changed about me or my field of vision. The only thing that’s different is that I know my nose is there now. I’m aware of it, just as I’m now aware that the only reason we never really notice our noses is because our brains basically edit them out.

That last point—that our brains edit out our noses—is maybe what’s bugging me most of all. I can’t let it go.

Blind spots are things we all no doubt learned at some point in our schooling, but also something that gets misplaced as the years wear on. They are considered meaningless when it comes to real living, like the Pythagorean theorem or the capital of Turkey—trivial things that lose their value in an adult life that revolves around keeping one’s head above water. But I think this particular bit of trivia is very important indeed, if only because it teaches us so much about ourselves. It means that the world we perceive isn’t the world as it is, isn’t even really the Truth at all. It’s just our brain’s best interpretation of Truth.

So now I’m wondering what else I’m missing when I look out into the world. The human mind is a wonderful instrument. It is capable of pondering the mysteries of the universe and solving our most pressing problems. It has built pyramids and skyscrapers. It has mastered fire and agriculture. And yet even that wondrous lump between our ears can’t process everything that is going on around us. It must filter the things we do not need in order to focus upon the things we do. It’s the important stuff that the mind allows us to see. Or at least, what our minds consider as important.

Which has gotten me wondering—what other blind spots do I have? I’m not talking about the ones that affect my brain. I mean the more important ones. Ones that affect my heart. What am I missing not in my world, but in my life? What things are there that I don’t always think are important but really are? How do I spend my time, and how can that time be better spent?

Am I chasing after something that I believe will add to my life but will instead only lessen it?

Are the priorities I’ve set for my life the same priorities God has set for me?

Heavy questions, all. But it’s the hard questions about who we are that require hard answering. After all, it doesn’t bode well for us to move through our lives half blinded. Not just to the world, but to ourselves.

Harriet’s masterpiece

image courtesy of photo bucket.com
image courtesy of photo bucket.com

Sitting beside me as I write this is a robin’s nest. Dislodged by a recent gust of wind, it tumbled from the oak tree in my backyard and was caught in a pillowy blanket of fresh snow, where it was picked up by me.

The finding of the nest did not catch me by surprise. I knew the nest was there and that it would soon not be. I am generally well educated on the goings on of the winged and furred creatures who inhabit my tiny bit of Earth. We coexist well, them and I. Their job as tenants is to remind me of the world I sometimes neglect to consider. My job as caretaker is to feed and water them as best I can. And, as a side benefit, to name them whatever I think is most fitting.

The robin who resided in my oak tree was named Harriet. How I arrived at that particular moniker escapes me and I suppose doesn’t matter. What does matter, however, is that Harriet was my favorite. The rabbits and squirrels and blue jays and cardinals were all fine in their own way, of course. But Harriet was my bud.

She was my security system in the event the neighbor’s cat decided to snoop around for a quick meal. She was the perfect mother to the four robinettes she hatched. And she sang. Every morning and every evening, regardless of weather. Even after the worst of storms, when the rains poured and the thunder cracked and the winds whipped, she sang.

I envied Harriet and her penchant for singing regardless. And when the weather turned cold and she sought her refuge in warmer climates, I missed her too.

And now all I have left is this nest to ponder.

An amazing piece of workmanship, this nest. Bits of string, feathers, dead flowers, twigs, and dried grass woven into a perfect circle, with a smooth layer of dried mud on the inside.

The resulting combination is protective, comfortable, and a wonder to behold. Harriet likely took between two and six days to construct her home and made about a hundred and eighty trips to gather the necessary materials. She may live up to a dozen years and build two dozen nests. I like to think this one was among her finest.

Scientists have taken much interest in this facet of bird behavior. They’ve even come up with a fancy name for it: Caliology, the study of birds’ nests. Artists and poets have found bird nests to be a fertile subject matter. During the 2008 Olympic games, when the Chinese erected the largest steel structure in the world to serve as center stage, it was built in the shape of a bird nest.

Why all this interest? Maybe because of its inherent perfection. You cannot make a better bird nest. The form and function cannot be improved upon. Even more astounding is that Harriet built this nest without any education. Where to build it and with what and how were all pre-programmed into her brain. No experience was necessary. And though my brain protests the possibility, I know that this flawless creation of half craftsmanship and half art is not unique. It is instead replicated exactly in every other robin’s nest in every other tree.

Instinct, the scientists say.

We humans are lacking in the instinct area, at least as far as building things goes. In fact, some sociologists claim that we have no instincts at all. I’m not so sure that’s true. I am sure, however, that things do not come so natural to me. I must learn through an abundance of trials and many errors. My education comes through doing and failing and doing again, whether it be as simple as fixing the sink or as complicated as living my life. Little seems to be pre-programmed into my brain. When it comes to many things, I am blind and deaf and plenty dumb.

I said I envied Harriet for her singing. The truth, though, is that I am tempted to envy much more. How nice it would be to find perfection at the first try. To know beforehand that success is a given.

That I am destined to struggle and stumble and fail sometimes prods me into thinking I am less.

Maybe.

What do you think? Would you rather be a Harriet and get it right every time? Or is there much to be said for trying and failing and trying again?

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