Billy Coffey

storyteller

Inspirational bacteria

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

Of all the depressing news stories of the past year (and there were quite a few, weren’t there?), one very uplifting story sticks in my mind. The fact that it involves arsenic and bacteria may convince you otherwise, but I assure you it really is inspiring. Really.

It seems as though a group of NASA scientists have trained a species of bacteria to survive without phosphorous. That didn’t seem too wonderful a thing to me, but then I read that phosphorous is one of the six essential building blocks of life. Take that one out, no life. In the span of a few short months, the bacteria replaced the phosphorous in their DNA with arsenic, which is poisonous to cellular life.

I’ll admit I quit reading that article halfway through and went on to something that better suited my tastes—something about football, if memory serves me right. But the story stuck in my mind for some reason, and I kept going back to it. There seemed to be something valuable there, some truth that needed to be pondered. I didn’t know what on earth it could be, especially considering the fact that science and I, while acquaintances, wouldn’t be considered friends.

But even if you know as little as I about biology, you have to admit this is pretty interesting news. A group of people have managed to sustain life when life should have been unsustainable. Amazing! Wonderful!

Then again, this is nothing new to most people. History is littered with periods when life seemed impossible and yet thrived nonetheless, times when hope waned and fear gripped us all. Times like the Dark Ages, when disease was rampant and death was a constant menace. Or that first Thanksgiving, with all those starving and cold Pilgrims.

I would imagine those who lived in my neck of the woods didn’t feel much like living during the Civil War.

Same goes for the depression of the 1930s.

I’ve heard stories from soldiers who fought in World War II, those who struggled through winters in Europe and summers in the South Pacific, who felt sure they would never make it home alive.

I’ve heard the same from veterans of Vietnam.

There are times when life is reduced to its most basic essentials—a choice between pushing on and lying down. And it’s in those times when all seems lost and impossible that we discover just how strong we are.

Time and again and through thousands of years, we’ve found that the sweetness of life cannot truly be tasted in the good times, but in the bad. When its preciousness is most apparent.

Of all the stories I read in 2010, that’s the one I’m carrying with me into 2011. Because for many, this is yet another in a long line of dark times. There’s so much uncertainty, so much fear. Our days seem to totter on the edge of some great abyss, and it seems that the only thing keeping this world on an even keel are prayers and what hope we can muster.

It’s worth mentioning that to some degree, every year is the same. People have always been hungry and still oppressed. Governments have always been corrupt. Earthquakes and hurricanes and floods and blizzards have always been with us. We say our times are especially bad because we’re the ones in them. The truth is that there have always been worse.

So for me, when things seem their worst and my fear seems the strongest, I’m going to remember the tiny bacteria that has managed to survive on poison. I’m going to try to emulate that.

I’m going to walk on, and not lie down.

The tribe

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

I can’t remember the name of the tribe, which is mildly ironic given the nature of their story. And it’s quite a story.It amazes me that regardless of how smart we are and how much we can do, we still know so little about the world.

Only 2 percent of the ocean floor has been explored. Species thought long extinct still turn up every once in a while. And just last year, scientists stumbled upon a valley in New Guinea that had gone untouched by man since the dawn of time. There were plants and insects never seen before. And the animals never bothered hiding or running from the explorers. They didn’t have the experience to tell them humans were a potential threat.

But of course it’s not just plants and animals and hidden valleys that are being discovered. People are, too. And that can lead to all sorts of things.

Take, for instance, the tribe I mentioned above.

They were discovered in 1943 in one of the remotest parts of the Amazon jungle. Contact was carefully arranged. Easy at first, nothing too rash. That seems to be rule number one in those situations–don’t overwhelm the tribe.

It didn’t work. Here’s why.

The difference between these particular people and the others that pop up every few years was that their uniqueness was foundational to their belief system. They’d been so cut off from civilization for so long that they were convinced they were the only humans in the world. No one outside of their small tribe existed. And they liked that idea.

Finding out that not only were there other people in the world, there were billions of them, was too much. The trauma of learning they were not unique was so debilitating that the entire tribe almost died out. Even now, sixty-nine years later, only a few remain.

Sad, isn’t it?

I’ll admit the temptation was there for me to think of that tribe as backward and primitive for thinking such a thing. But then I realized they weren’t. When you get right down to it, their beliefs and the truth they couldn’t carry made them more human than a lot of people I know.

Because we all want to be unique.

We all want to think we’re special, needed by God and man for some purpose that will outlast us. We want to be known and remembered. We all know on a certain level that we will pass this way but once, and so we want whatever time we have in this world to matter.

That’s not a primitive notion. That’s a universal one.

I think at some point we’re all like members of that tribe. We have notions of greatness, of doing at most the impossible and at least the improbable. Of blazing a new trail for others to follow. It’s a fire that burns and propels our lives forward.

I will make a difference, we say. People will know I was here.

But then we have a moment like that tribe had, when we realize there are a lot of other people out there who are more talented and just as hungry. People who seem to catch the breaks we don’t and have the success that eludes us. And that notion that we were different and special fades as we’re pulled into the crowd of humanity and told to take our rightful place among the masses.

It’s tough, hanging on to a dream. Tough having to talk yourself into holding the course rather than turning back. Tough having to summon faith amidst all the doubt.

But I know this:

That tribe was right.

We are all unique.

We are all here for a purpose, and it’s a holy purpose. One that cannot be fulfilled by anyone else and depends upon us.

We are more than flesh and blood. More than DNA and RNA and genes and neurons. And this world is more than air and water and earth. Whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, our hearts are a battleground between the two opposing forces of light and dark.

One side claims we are extraordinary. The other claims we’re common.

It’s up to us to decide the victor.

The second biggest lie

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Being a parent of young children is all about deciding which parts of the world you let in now and which you keep out as long as possible.

For instance.

News? Out. There is no good news. News is meant to depress people. But Sunday morning comics is in. Comics are meant to make you laugh.

Hannah Montana? No. Phineas and Ferb? Yes.

Pro wrestling? Not hardly. But baseball can always provide both quality entertainment and much education.

You get the idea.

This applies to all things spiritual as well. God and Jesus and angels are definitely in, but the darker side of theology goes unmentioned. My kids don’t know what hell is. Or demons. They don’t understand that there are some people in this world who hate their faith and them for having it. The world is a nasty place. I figure part of my job for now is to do all I can to keep that nastiness away. They’ll find out about it all sooner or later.

And maybe sooner.

Our nighttime routine was interrupted yesterday evening by this inquiry from my daughter: “Daddy, who’s Satan?”

The question caught me by surprise. If hell and demons were temporarily off limits, then certainly Satan was, too. Seven-year-olds have fantastic imaginations. Having the thought of a horned and pitchfork-tailed demon rolling around in her mind would make for some long nights.

But what could I tell her? That Satan is the embodiment of evil? That he is darkness so thick that you had to brush it away with a hand? That he is a fallen angel who prowls the earth in search of souls to murder?

No way.

“Daddy?” she said again.

“Um…” I said. “Well, Satan is (someone? something?) bad.”

“The baddest?”

“Yes, the baddest.”

She thought about that and said, “What makes him the baddest?”

“The Bible says he’s a liar,” I told her.

“Daddy, everybody lies,” she retorted. “Even me.”

I decided not to pursue that last little bit of information and instead file it away for later. I really wanted to know what she had lied about.

“But he’s the worst liar ever,” I said.

More thinking. “What’s the worst lie he tells?”

“That God doesn’t love you.”

“I know God loves me, Daddy,” she said.

“That’s good. But maybe one day you’ll start thinking that isn’t true. If that happens, then you just remember that’s just a big, fat lie.”

She nodded and then asked, “What’s the second?”

“The second what?”

“What’s the second biggest lie he tells?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then closed it. What’s the second biggest lie? I had no idea. I’d never really thought about it. To me, there had always been the first and then the rest. Ranking them beyond that seemed a little unnecessary.

But as I sat there and stared into her eyes, I thought about my life and all the lies I had been told. And then I thought about the lies we’ve all been told.

The best falsehoods are the ones that aren’t told to us as much as they are felt by us. One we accept as truth because that’s what the evidence states.

Those we fall for every time.

It’s easy to lose sight of who we are. Our mistakes and regrets are piled upon one another as a monument to our failure. Stacked high up, blocking the sun. And the Son. It’s hard to see the light when you’re standing in your own shadow.

We carry so much, don’t we? So much knowledge of not only what we’ve done, but what we’re capable of doing. That bad in us is so much easier to see than the good. We dwell upon the depths to which we can plumb but never give thought to the heights to which we can ascend.

There is a holy spark within us all. The thumbprint of the Almighty is stamped upon our hearts. There is a righteous power within us all to rise above where and who we are to become better and more. Too often we limp through our days when we should walk upright, all because we deny the great truth of our existence—we are more than we appear.

“Daddy,” my daughter said again, “what’s the second biggest lie?”

I tucked her beneath the blankets and kissed her forehead.

“That we are all ordinary,” I said.

Waiting for home (Family Favorites Week, Part III)

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A father seldom thinks things through before asking his children what they want for their birthday. He just says it. He thinks their answer will be an easy one. A new doll, maybe. Or the latest action figure. But what he does not consider is that their answer may be something utterly different and much more difficult than having to run to the store the next day and plop something down in front of a cashier.

I learned all this over the weekend. “What do you want for your birthday?” I asked my daughter. Her reply?

“A sleepover!”

So. My wife and I played host to three six-year-old girls last night. Having such young children sleeping at your house and away from theirs for the first time was something for which I admit I was not prepared. For the screaming and yelling, yes. And the mess, absolutely. I was even prepared for the dent that some tiny body part knocked into the living room wall.

But I was not prepared for Curly Sue. Not one bit.

Susan was her given name. But the dark brown locks of hair that adorned her head demanded a temporary nickname. Curly Sue had never spent more than a few hours away from her parents. The likelihood of her actually staying the entire night was slim. But she was determined. Curly Sue stepped through our front door with a pillow, a sleeping bag, and a knapsack full of toys. She was there to stay.

All went well that evening. Until bedtime, that is. Then things began the sort of downward spiral that can happen when you have a house full of little girls.

It started with goodnight prayers. Girls in a circle, taking turns praying for mommy and daddy and for God to make their stomachs quit hurting from all the popcorn. When it came time for Curly Sue’s contribution, though, there was only silence.“Do you want to pray, Susan?” asked my wife.

A tiny nod.

“Okay, go ahead.”

More silence. Then, five words: “God, I wanna go home.”

Uh-oh.

Four phone calls to her mother later, and Curly Sue decided to be strong and stick it out. She didn’t want to leave her friends, but she didn’t want to stay, either. Could everyone go with her back to her house? she asked.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t having fun. Curly Sue said she was having much fun. She loved our home and having her friends around, and she really loved all the popcorn. And there was so much to do! But as much as she was enjoying herself and her surroundings, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t where she should be.

“It’s just not home,” she told me.

The girls were asleep by eleven. By one, Curly Sue had appeared at our bedside twice. “I wanna go home,” she said. Both times.

Instinct woke me at six thirty when I rolled over and found no one beside me. I got out of bed and walked into the living room in search of my wife. I found her and Curly Sue in the rocking chair by the window, gazing out into the evaporating night.

“Just wait a bit,” my wife was telling her. “The sun’s coming, you just wait and see. And when the sun comes, it’ll be time to go home.”

Curly Sue smiled. Me, too.

Because I, too, am a little visitor in a big place, and I miss home.

Oh, it’s wonderful here. Beautiful. I have fun, I’m around people I love, and there’s so much to do.

But it’s just not home. No, my home is somewhere else. Somewhere on the other side of this life. Somewhere perfect.

Like her, I’m torn. I want to go home, but I don’t want to leave anyone here, either. I want everyone to come with me so we can all have fun.Some days, many days, I like it here. But there are days when the weariness of this world weighs on me. When I long for the day when laughter won’t be so fleeting and hope won’t be so hard to find.

Those are the days when I seem to sit by some unknown window and gaze out, trying to will the darkness to fade and the light to shine.

Because I know that when the Son comes, I can go home.