Billy Coffey

storyteller

Embracing The Mystery

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I’m leaning against a shovel in the backyard, waiting. My two children are crouched in front of me. Serious looks adorn their normally jovial faces. Which is appropriate, given that this is a serious situation. For in front of us is the object of a week’s worth of contemplation, suspense, and puzzlement.

A hole.

Some background: the hole appeared suddenly last Saturday, midway between the oak tree and the creek. The kids took turns trying to figure out exactly what sort of hole it was. Too small for gophers, said my son. And too big for ants, said my daughter. I was brought in for a consultation, but my vote for field mice was quickly shot down. Too boring, they said.

There was a chance, I offered, that the hole had been there all along. That it wasn’t new, but merely overlooked. And that whatever was in there was likely long gone. My son decided to fill the hole, and after much deliberation a consensus was reached. In went handfuls of small rocks and sand.

Upon inspection the next day, the rocks and sand were gone. The hole wasn’t.

This new development sent the children into a mild form of panic, complete with girlish squeals and boyish cries of “Awesome!” Something surely had to be in there. Had to.

In the space of mere moments, the hole in our backyard ceased to be a hole entirely. It was now and utter and complete Mystery.

The tiny but growing minds of my children sprang into action. They tried the scientific approach first. The hole was two inches square (they measured) and eight inches deep (an estimate, given the twig my son shoved into it), at which point it seemed to branch off and run parallel to the yard. Interesting.

Then science gave way to wonder. My son hypothesized that it certainly looked like a dragon hole to him, because he had seen this sort of thing on a cartoon. Then my daughter said that she had recently read a book about fairies, and how fairies lived in the ground sometimes, and how that was just the sort of hole in which a fairy would live. More interesting.

In the end, they put a tiny umbrella over the hole to protect its owner from the elements, along with a piece of cheese as an apology for wrecking its home with rocks and sand.

Mini vigils were instituted. The hole was checked every day before and after school, and a smooth layer of wet sand was placed around it so they could check for tracks. And there were tracks. Indecipherable tracks, but tracks nonetheless. Further proof that something was lurking somewhere. (The piece of cheese, by the way, was left untouched and instead froze into a tiny yellow brick. The apology, it seemed, was not accepted.)

Soon, questions gave rise to concerns. The weatherman said snow was coming. Which, I was informed, was bad for fairies and dragons. Maybe we should take the hole inside and keep it warm, the kids said. A possibility, so long as it really was a fairy hole. We didn’t need any dragons flying around.

What to do?

It was then that I offered my own advice, albeit half-heartedly:

“Let’s just dig up the hole and see what’s in it.”

Naturally, their answer was the exact opposite of what I thought it would be. They agreed.

So, here we stand. At the hole. Ready to put an end to the mystery once and for all. Yet as I raise the shovel for the first dig, I notice that my son is crying. And that the top lip of my normally stoic daughter is quivering.

I smile. What’s wrong? What I wanted to be wrong. What I hoped would be wrong.

They don’t want the mystery to end. Some answers are fine. But all of them? Not so much. Finding out what’s in the hole would end all of the wondering and dreaming. Who wants that?

Life is much more than the finding of facts. It is the wondering of our inherent wonder. This hole is my children’s first sip of the mysterious, and I want them to drink deeply. It will teach them the blessings found in not having to know it all. And that life is not made more frightening by the unknown, just more beautiful.

Handling The Remote

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Sexist I’m not, though I must admit I believe there are a few things men have a firmer handle on than women. Just a few, mind you.

Chief among these is the proper handling of the television remote control. This is most likely due to an almost childlike ignorance concerning its proper function on the part of the female. The remote is not used to simply turn the channel or adjust the volume. It’s purpose is much more intricate–to obtain an overall grasp of station selections, striking an elegant balance between quality viewing and commercial evasion. Or, in more simplistic terms, to channel surf.

My wife has long abandoned any hope of holding the remote control. Not that I do not trust her with it. But watching her use it is painful to me in the way that a composer would be pained by watching a hillbilly use a Stradivarius. It is a skill, the handling of a remote. Something that cannot be taught but must be inborn.

Over the past few weeks, however, an insurrection has begun over our family’s remote control. One led not by my wife. Not even by my son.

By my daughter.

It began innocently enough. I walked into the living room one evening and found her on the sofa and the remote on the ottoman. During a commercial break on her favorite cartoon, I decided to see what else was on. When I reached for the remote, however, I found a little hand already upon it. Hers.

The standoff that ensued was both temporary and bloodless, and my Alpha role in the family remained intact. But as these remote control battles increased in frequency, I began to lose a bit of face. The last one, yesterday, ended in a tickle fight that was only broken up with my son whopping me with a pillow.

I’ll be honest here. I really don’t understand the whole remote control thing. I don’t really know what it must be in my hands and no one else’s. I am not a callous snob. I will gladly watch what my family wants. But I must be the one to turn the channel.

True, there is a certain amount of power involved in the remote. Those buttons are alluring. I have a control over the television that is not offered in my life. Possibilities that are difficult at least and impossible at best.

Zoom, for instance. With a push of a button, my remote will enlarge a certain area of my screen and bring greater detail to the larger picture. The ramifications are enormous. I have outwitted both Jethro Gibbs on NCIS and Shawn Spencer on Psych by careful manipulation of that button. I don’t miss anything, even the smallest and most hidden clues. Which is quite unlike my own life, in which I miss too much.

And there is the Swap button. How wonderful that one is, enabling me to instantly trade what I’m watching for something else. Easy on my remote. Harder in my reality.

The Exit button is even more handy, enabling me to quickly escape from a screen I have no idea how I managed to get to. Exit works wonders for me in working with the television. Unfortunately, I rarely have one in life. Most of the time, I must find my own way out of the confusion I get myself into.

I would also like to have Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward buttons in my life, just so I could take a break or try something again or skip over the parts I don’t like.

Play, too, would be a necessary function. I would like more play in my life.

That, I think, is why I’m so passionate about the remote. And if you’re honest, I don’t think you can blame me. Because we all want a little more control over our lives.
I will say, however, that there I have one function in my life that is much better than its counterpart on my remote control: the Guide button. A push of that button and I know how to navigate around on my television. Handy, no doubt.

But handier is the Guide in my life, the One who can navigate me through all of those parts in my life I would like to skip over or redo or exit. The One who can help me zoom in on what needs to be seen.

And Who can help me swap earth for heaven.

Either/Or

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My uncle picked this tomahawk up last summer and gave it to my daughter, a budding Indiana Jones. And when I said he picked it up, I mean it literally. He found it in a cornfield between the South River and the Hershey plant, about six miles from my home.

People a lot smarter than me say there were never any permanent native settlements in this area. The Shenandoah Valley was instead a kind of ancient superhighway that various tribes traveled through on their way from one place to another. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Catawba, and Delaware Indians visited this area at various times, as well as my ancestors, the Cherokee.

The problem was that in a fairly limited amount of space, one tribe was bound to run into another. The results weren’t pretty. For thousands of years, much of our valley was one big battlefield.

Evidence of these tribal wars can be found every spring when the farmers start plowing their fields. There are arrowheads by the millions, flint scalping blades by the thousands, and sometimes, the head of a tomahawk.

I’ve spent many a lost moment with this tomahawk in my hands, asking the unanswerable.

Who made this? When? How did it end up in a cornfield?

Why, I suppose, is a question that that doesn’t need asking. To the Native American male, a tomahawk was his most prized possession. Much like the samurai and his sword, the tomahawk held an almost mythical position. It was the weapon of a warrior. A instrument of death.

But maybe asking why it was made does matter. Maybe that’s the question that matters most.

I never go hiking without a tomahawk. From building a shelter to securing food and water, it can perform tasks that a knife simply cannot. One of the wisest pieces of advice about going into the woods came from my father: “You can take a knife into the mountains and live like a prince. But you can take a tomahawk into the mountains and live like a king.”

My point?

Though the tomahawk can certainly be used as a weapon, it is first and foremost a tool. It’s a thing. And like all things, it can be used for good or for bad. It can improve life or destroy it. It all depends on the user.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the ancient people who once roamed these parts chose to use their tools to destroy life. After all, they were ignorant savages. Right?

But consider what you’re using to read this post. The Internet is quite possibly greatest invention of the last century. It allows people from almost any country to connect with people they would otherwise never meet. To be exposed to other cultures and ideas. To connect. It is a treasure of information and knowledge. Don’t know something? Google it. You’ll have your answer in seconds.

But this wondrous invention that can improve the lives of millions of people has destroyed just as many. There are an estimated twenty million websites devoted exclusively to pornography. You can google how to make a bomb just as easily as how to make a birthday cake. And for every highcallingblogs.com there is a jihadist calling for death and destruction.

Maybe we’re all ignorant savages.

Not much has changed since that unknown person dropped his tomahawk and my uncle picked it up. We’re still taking what was made for good and using it for bad. And I suppose we always will. We may be smarter and more capable than our ancestors, and our children may grow to be smarter and more capable than us, but we all carry around the same fallen nature.

That’s why I get a little leery when I start hearing about how things will get better when this person’s in charge or that country gets fixed or that peace agreement gets signed. I know better.

And I know this, too: each day we are faced with this one choice: what will I do? What will I do with what God has given me? Will I use my mind to think about how I can help others, or will I use it to think about how I can help myself? Will I open my heart and risk loving even more, or will I close it because I’m too frightened of hurt? And will I use my faith as a salve to pour on open wounds, or as a weapon to fester those wounds more?

This ancient tomahawk sitting beside me was likely used to both preserve the life of its owner and take the life of his enemy. Us? We’re not a matter of both, I think. I think we’re either/or. Either serving God or serving ourselves. Either helping others or not.

Either bringing the world a little closer to heaven or a little closer to hell.

In The Boat

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My kids got books for Christmas. For my daughter, chapter books. For my son, nursery rhymes.

Though my daughter is well on her way to fluency in reading, my son is still a little young. I get to read his books to him. One would perhaps think this would be an excruciating experience. After all, how many times can you read about Jack and Jill before you start to throw up a little in your mouth?

But over the years I have learned that wisdom can be found most anywhere. Taking a walk can give you wisdom. The people you’re around every day can give you wisdom. Kids are a fantastic source. And so are the things they read.

All of this reading to my son has put me in a very philosophical mood. It gets you pondering things.

Take life, for instance. You could compare this world to a beautiful stream, big and powerful 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.

We are all there on that stream. All of us. And we each have our own boat. Our boats 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 comfortable. And that’s fine. Others take great pains to decorate their boats. They paint them and varnish them and go to great lengths to make sure 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. They disagree with the notion that you have to work to get where you want to go. God should have given us sails, they say. So in their laziness they moan and complain and never use their oars. 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. They think 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. And many times, just when they get their speed up, they crash into some rocks or tumble down a waterfall.

The stream might be beautiful, but there is still danger around. You have to be careful. But these people are so focused on being the first and the best that they miss the pleasures of traveling down the stream. They don’t realize that using the oars too much is just as bad as not using them at all. You can’t force your oars. Better was to just go along gently. We’ll all get there eventually after all. Easy does it. Better for the soul, I think.

Other people are more in touch with the situation. They realize that they are going to have to use the oars if they want to get anywhere, so they do. Things are fine for a while, but then they begin to tire out. 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. The whole thing becomes work. And it doesn’t seem that they are moving much anyway, no matter how hard they try. The whole boat-and-stream thing is just stupid, they say. 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 wanted us to navigate the stream, either. Sure, it’s hard, but we have to enjoy ourselves. You have to have some 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 what is right in front of them. They travel along with nothing to look forward to. Except, of course, for reaching the end. That isn’t the way to go, either. Dreams and faith and all the other things that no one can see are the most important things when you go down the stream.

I’ve known all of this for a while, 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, 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. So when the time comes to put down my oars and get out of my boat, I may just have that wise children’s song on my tombstone.

Because life really is but a dream. And death? Death is simply when we wake up.