The Slippers
May 11, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 26 Comments
No one is happier than I to see spring finally entrench itself into this year. I am not a fan of winter, of cold mornings and colder nights and darkness at four-thirty in the afternoon. Ba. Humbug.
We are in the main course of May now. The robins have returned outside my living room window, the trees in the yard are heavy with leaves, and I’ve cut the grass three times (a magnificent task, by the way. You learn a lot about God by mowing the yard. Another story for another time, though).
But even with sunshine and seventy degrees here in the valley, the tops of the mountains outside my window were clouded in snowfall just a few weeks ago. I was here, winter was there. And as I looked at that cold, angry storm, I knew it also saw me. Snarling, “I can come down there too, you know. I’m not done just yet.”
Which, ironically, was fine. As anxious as I was to put away the snow shovel and bring out my softball bat, I wasn’t so sure I wanted the cold weather to go away. Because even though spring meant birdsong and porch swings and windows-down-radio-up, it also meant I would have to put away my new slippers.
That they had been on my feet daily since Christmas, gently warming my toes and therefore my very heart, is an unlikely thing for me to say. I’ve never been a slipper guy. They’ve always seemed so un-me, so…girly.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
When I unwrapped them last Christmas morning, my wife asked me to just give them a try. “Please,” she said, emphasis included. Not because I wanted them, not even because I thought I needed them. But to, in her words again, “Finally get you to shut up.”
I love my wife.
You see, the floors in our home were cold. Very. The frigid temperatures coupled with an unwavering determination to cut down on the gas bill kept our thermostat at a barely tolerable sixty-eight degrees this year. By November, I was chilly. By December, I was a Popsicle.
It was easy enough to throw on a sweatshirt or a thicker pair of jeans to make things a bit more comfortable, but that did little to improve the condition of my feet. I tried wool socks, which did the trick so long as I stayed on the carpet in the living room. Venture out from there and onto the hardwood floors of the rest of the house, though, and it was like an ice rink in both temperature and friction. I almost broke a leg one Saturday afternoon carrying a bag of carrots into the kitchen. Almost died from hypothermia waiting for someone to help me, too.
Stupid house, I thought to myself. Stupid cold house with its stupid cold floors. Why didn’t we buy a house with a fireplace in it? Or two fireplaces. And radiant heat in the floors. Oh, yeah. That would be nice. Radiant heat…
Those thoughts were translated into words later on to my wife: “I hate living here, and I hate our life.”
She looked at me, puzzled. What in the world had brought this on? she wondered. Has something terrible happened? Has he finally cracked?
“What made you say that?” she asked.
“My feet are cold.”
Which brought about an even more puzzled look.
But it’s like that with us, isn’t it? We all have the unique talent of turning small inconveniences into major problems. And while I spent months believing that the source of my trouble was a drafty house, the truth was that it was something much closer.
The trouble wasn’t the cold floors. Not the weather, either.
The trouble was me.
There is a lot in my little world I pray that God will change. “Give me more and give me better,” I ask Him. I wonder sometimes if He’s not saying the thing to me.
I wonder if rather than making the rain stop, He’d rather just give me an umbrella. Because you have to learn to smile in the rain as much as you do in the sunshine.
Or if rather than making me comfortable, He’d rather leave me uncomfortable. Because that’s when I learn the most.
Or if rather than giving me a nice warm house, He’d rather just give me a pair of slippers.
Because there isn’t much you can change about your circumstances sometimes. But there is plenty you can change about you.
P.S. – katdish over at Hey look, a chicken! has been kind enough to offer me a guest appearance on her blog every Monday. Nice of her, isn’t it? So why don’t you follow me over there, and I’ll tell you how I learned to live in awe again…
Battling the Urps
April 30, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 36 Comments
(This post was first published as a column in the Staunton, Virginia News Leader on April 26, 2009)
I have had the hiccups for two days now. Not kidding.
It started as I was putting the kids to bed. One little hic, followed by another, followed by a double: hic-hic.
To my children, this is the funniest thing they have ever seen. Because these are not the sort of tiny urps you can keep to yourself. No, these are violent, thrashing inhalations that scramble my insides and cause the people around me to stare. And aside from a hour or so here and there of blissful calm, they will not stop.
I think I may be going insane.
Hiccups is technically known as singultus. “A quick, involuntary inhalation that follows a spasm of the diaphragm and is suddenly checked by closure of the glottis, producing a short, relatively sharp sound.” So says my dictionary.
Caused by “many central and peripheral nervous system disorders, all from injury or irritation to the phrenic and vagus nerves, as well as toxic or metabolic disorders affecting aforementioned systems.” So says Google. And if you can figure out what exactly that means, please let me know.
As far as cures go, it seems medical science is a little lacking. Drugs, of course, are an option. And also something called “digital rectal massage.”
I’m not sure what that means, either. But no…way.
The tried-and-true cures of holding my breath and getting scared haven’t worked, though my son continues to run up to me and shout “BOO DADDY BOO!!”
Undaunted, I am now studying the possible causes of my condition:
Lack of water. No, that can’t be it.
Eating too fast. A possibility, given the hectic nature of a normal day. But as this began in the peace and quiet of home, I don’t buy it.
Being hungry for a while. Another possibility. But as we had dinner just a few hours before this all started, I’d say no.
Laughing vigorously. A very good possibility.
Talking for too long. Me? No.
Overstretching of the neck. Huh?
Not much help there, either.
So here I sit, trying to type, hitting the backspace whenever my body convulses and renders “type” to “tyyype.”
Still, it isn’t all bad. Charles Osborne had the hiccups from 1922 to 1990, a record sixty-eight years. Since I’m competitive by nature, I now have something to shoot for. And I am slowly building a remarkable set of abs.
Besides, I would much rather have this sort of hiccup than the alternative definition: “To experience a temporary decline, setback, interruption, etc.”
Oh, yes. I’ve had plenty of those.
The interesting thing is that the causes of physical hiccups are the very same as the causes of spiritual ones:
Lack of water. Not the liquid kind. The other: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,” Jesus told the woman at the well, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
Eating too fast. And not just eating. We judge and condemn and speak and live too fast as well. How much beauty and joy do we miss in this life because we simply won’t slow down? Too much.
Being hungry for a while. Not a good thing for your body. Worse for your soul. Because if you’re hungry enough, even poison tastes good.
Laughing vigorously. Yes, life should be enjoyed. And yes, it should be fun. But let’s not forget that we’re here to make this world a better place. That takes work, serious work, and a lot of it.
Talking for too long. As my Grandma said, “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you can listen twice as much as you talk.” Our words are precious things of mighty power. Use too many of them, though, and both the preciousness and power wane.
Overstretching of the neck. This one hit me particularly hard. I’m always trying to crane my neck to get a better view, whether it’s to where I’m going or where I’ve been. But it’s more important to pay attention to where you are. The best way to make sure tomorrow will be fine and yesterday won’t matter is to take care of today.
How this will end is anyone’s question. But I know this: I would rather hic like this in my gut forever than hic one moment in my life.
A Little Help
April 5, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 22 Comments
One voice rising above the many in Wal-Mart. Three rows over and two rows down. The dull roar that had just moments before been a sort of white-noise to the crowd was suddenly silent, and an air of unease drifted over the people around me.
“IS THERE ANYONE THERE WHO CAN HELP ME?”
The dozen or so people in the canned vegetable aisle, myself included, are now faced with a choice. What to do? Stay? Quietly move into the opposite direction and thereby be safely removed from whatever trouble may be going on? Or head toward the voice and help?
“PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!!”
Many, most, take that moment to discover they have forgotten one particular item on their list that just so happens to be on the other side of the store. Away from the shouts. They retreat with heads bowed, as if they have just been caught doing something they shouldn’t.
Others, I notice, immediately jump into action and race toward the noise. These are people who seem inherently well-equipped to handle the situation:
An elderly lady with WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDMA stenciled on her sweatshirt and ten boxes of tissues in her shopping cart. Yes. If someone’s in trouble, you need a grandma around.
A twenty-something young woman with a radio clipped to her jeans and an EMT hat pushed down over her eyes. Her face is flushed with adrenaline and her steps are brisk. If these are shouts of pain, she’ll be necessary.
A cowboy, complete with battered hat, bandanna, and boots. I’m not sure what his purpose is, but everyone knows it’s always good to have a cowboy around when the natives start to get restless.
Also joining the rescue party is a young man in his twenties, dressed in fatigues and carrying a brown beret. His presence is obvious. Soldiers don’t run from trouble, they run toward it.
And then there is me, who follows the motley crew of do-gooders not because I have any necessary talents (I don’t) or because I think I can add anything to this rescue mission (again, I don’t), but because I just want to know what’s going on.
“I NEED HELP!!”
We converge on the voice and find that just about every Wal-Mart employee in the store is doing the same. Some amble with the please-God-what-now? attitude of those used to such occurrences. Others speed walk, anxious to get there but not first. A few, I notice, are nearly sprinting.
The Shouter is standing in the middle of the cookware aisle. Older man, dressed neatly in khakis and a white shirt. His face is red with exertion and his eyes have the crazed and confused tint of desperation. His left hand is raised into the air, begging for recognition. In his right is a skillet.
Everyone stops.
“What’s wrong, sir?” asks one of the employees, breathless from the trip from the other side of the store.
The Shouter looks at the crowd that has gathered around him, elated that someone has heard him. Help is finally here.
Grandma inches her buggy closer. The EMT has her radio ready to summon the ambulance. The cowboy and the soldier move to form a protective perimeter around the aisle. And me? I’m just standing there looking stupid.
Finally, the man speaks: “Can you tell me how much this skillet costs?”
Silence all around.
“Can…what?” the employee asks.
“I need to know how much this skillet costs,” the Shouter repeats, waving the pan in front of her. “There’s not a price on it.”
An almost uniform moan is breathed over him from the people gathered, to which he replies with a slight shrug.
“You mean you were doin’ all that hollerin’ and screamin’ for a price check on a skillet?” the employee asks.
Another shrug. “Yes, ma’am.”
She rips the pan from his hand and says, “Hang on.”
“Thank you, kind lady,” Shouter answers.
The crowd begins to disperse. Grandma is laughing now. She is used to this sort of thing. The EMT, however, is more than a little put out. Her adrenaline supply has emptied, and she’s tired. The cowboy and the soldier, I notice, are still standing guard. Just in case, their postures say.
And me, I’m still standing there looking stupid. But there is a smile on my face. A smile of knowing. Because even though this man has managed to aggravate about thirty people this day, he has my admiration.
It takes a lot for some people to admit they need help, whether it’s help as big as fixing a life or as small as pricing a pan. Pride gets in the way. “I don’t need anyone,” we say. “I can handle it myself.”
Not true, I think. Because no matter how self-reliant we say we are and no matter how strong we believe ourselves to be, we still need each other. We’re not living in a world of Me, no matter what we might think. No, this is a world of Us.
Nightandloveyou
March 26, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
I hear it through a thick blanket of sleep, soft at first then clearer and stronger. Not the sort of noise one fears at night. Not a crack or a thump or a ring from the telephone. But the sort of noise that makes you wonder where it’s coming from and what in the world it means.
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
I grab the remote control and point it in the general direction of the television, thinking that I had dozed off in the middle of whatever I had been watching three hours earlier. I wave it blindly, pushing the ON/OFF button and then smacking the whole thing against my hand because the batteries must be dead. And then I realize that the television isn’t on. The noise, however, still is:
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
My head raises, using what can only be described as the human equivalent to sonar to identify the source.
It’s coming from my son’s bedroom.
I pull back the blankets, schlep into the hallway, and stand at his door. The soft red light from his Lightning McQueen lamp illuminates him in his bed. He is staring at the ceiling with his arms raised and his fingers doing some sort of magical dance.
“Hey,” I say.
He jerks and spins and stares at me with a look of terror. He has been worried of monsters under his bed lately, and ghosts in his closet, and the bad guy from Toy Story. I just may be all three.
“Just me,” I promise.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I am.”
“No, you’re singing.”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“Let’s get some sleep, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”
“Nightandloveyoutoo.”
Back through the hallway, back into bed. I pull the blankets over me and roll to my side. Then, just as I close my eyes:
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
Sigh.
Back out of bed, back into the hallway, back to his door.
“Hey, bud,” I say.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Quit singing and go to sleep.”
“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”
I turn to leave, satisfied that my tone of voice has said what my words did not: don’t wake me again.
“Daddy?” he says, more to the shadow I cast against the wall than to me.
“Yeah, bud?”
“Mommy says to sing when you’re scared.”
Uh-oh.
I move into his room and onto his bed. “Mommy’s a smart girl,” I say. “Maybe the smartest.”
“She says singing makes the shadows brighter.”
“It does,” I tell him. But I don’t think she meant to sing a song from a commercial, and I’m fairly sure she didn’t mean to sing in the middle of the night.”
“Do you get scared, Daddy?”
I mull that one over, biding a few precious seconds by rearranging his covers and pillow. This is a murky question, one best considered in the light of day when I’m alert rather than the dark of night when I’m-not-so-much.
I weigh my options. Tell him that I am scared sometimes, and that may make things much worse. Because if Daddy’s scared, then there must really be some bad things out there. Things worse than monsters. Don’t tell him, though, and I risk much worse. I risk lying to my son.
Because I do get scared. A lot.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Sometimes.”
“What do you do when you’re scared?”
“Pray, usually.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s even better than singing.”“Does it make the shadows brighter?”
“Better,” I say. “It makes the shadows go away.”
So we pray that the angels will chase away all the monsters. He speaks of the ones in his room, and I think of the ones in this world. Because I know the truth: the ones in the world are real.
We sit alone in the quiet stillness of his room, two people determined to find peace and rest regardless of the shadows that surround us. “It’s not so dark with a father here,” he observes. With me there beside him, rest comes easier. “Nightandloveyou,” he says, and then is asleep.
Back in my own bed, I stop to consider the shadows in our world. I am aware of many more than my son, and thankfully so. I worry about my family sometimes. I worry what will happen next. Tomorrow used to be a word of hope for people. Things would be better then. But I think that too many would rather cling to the present or even the past now. For a lot of us, tomorrow’s just too scary.
“Nightandloveyou,” I say to my Father, and then am asleep.
Earl’s Beans
March 12, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 16 Comments
The Frisbie family over at Frisbie Family Fun Forever wrote a post the other day about how their family has been thinking a lot about the Depression lately. Not the one now, mind you. Things aren’t that far gone. Not yet, anyway. No, they were talking about the one in the 1930s. Quite possibly the toughest times in our country’s history. They were marveling at the sense of determination and self-reliance that people had to display back then. Not just to get ahead, but to stay alive.
Which got me thinking about a guy down at the gas station named Earl. Not that the gas station is his place of employment, mind you. As Earl’s pushing ninety-six and can’t get around as well as once upon a time, the gas station is just his hangout. It’s the one place in town where he can sit in a booth all day and watch most everyone pass by sooner or later.
Part down historian and part town gossip, he is the self-imposed high mayor and town council, and his booth is his throne. Like Sinatra’s table at Jilly’s, you don’t sit at Earl’s table. Not if you want to stay alive. Earl might be pushing the century mark, but he’s still a pretty tough guy. I’m not sure what he’d do if he caught some unassuming stranger occupying his seat. It’s never happened.
Earl has seen a lot in his ninety-six years: two world wars, four American ones, cars and computers and televisions and telephones. He’s endured the losses of his wife and all five of their children, countless recessions, and one big, nasty Depression.
You might think that all of this would make Earl a little long for this world. That he’d be worn out from all of his years. You’d be wrong, though. There’s no one in this world happier than him. No one.
With all that living, Earl has the advantage of perspective when it comes to the events of these days. He’s seen it all. And since he’s seen it all, there really isn’t much that catches him off guard. Take this current financial mess, for instance.
Me: “How bad’s it going to get, Earl?”
Earl: “Not bad enough that you’ll have to worry.”
Me: “I’m worrying about it now.”
Earl: “Well, you shouldn’t.”
Me: “Why?”
His answer was not framed in financial statistics or a keep-your-chin-up inspirational speech. It was instead four one-syllable words:
“’Cause of the beans.”
The beans, you ask? Yes. Allow me to explain.
Earl was twenty years old in 1932 when he married his wife, Anna. Their first child followed shortly, and their second was born not long afterward. Trying to raise a family in the middle of the Depression was about as easy as it sounds. Work was sparse, pay was sporadic, and hope was nonexistent.
But God always provided what Earl’s family needed. They were poor, yes, but they were not destitute. They all had clothes to wear, a roof over their heads, and beans in the cupboard.
Lots of beans. Beans were cheap back then, Earl says. And since they were so affordable, that’s what was incorporated into every meal. Earl’s family lived off beans for years. According to him, everybody’s family did.
Which maybe wasn’t so bad. I like beans. And Earls says he liked them fine, too. But after eating beans for two meals a day for ten years or so, you start to get a little sick of them. You start to hate them. Earl swore that one day his family wouldn’t have to eat beans anymore, and that would be a fine day indeed.
That day did come. World War II brought work again for our country, and the prosperity afterwards ensured that the tough times were over.
People think the Depression was bad, Earl says. That’s true. But they also think there wasn’t any good in it. That’s not true. Families were strengthened. Faith was strengthened. People were strengthened.
According to Earl, tough times make tough people. And those times made maybe the toughest people we’ve ever had. People who saved the world from the Nazis and the Communists, who landed on the Moon and fought for civil rights.
Hurting might be bad for the body, but it’s good for the soul.
And losing what means much can reveal what means more.
Maybe he’s right.
I’ve read where people are predicting riots in this country. Bloody revolutions. Mass crime. The breakdown of society and the extinction of Christianity. Not me. Not Earl, either. We both think that the sort of people made seventy years ago are the same sort that can be made now. People who won’t be broken by life, but made tougher by it.
What We Can
March 8, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
My house is a disaster. Complete and utter. And there is no escaping it. The mess is upstairs and down, inside and out. Courtesy of a perfect storm of cold weather, a Saturday afternoon, and four children who think they’re adults.
Two kids can clutter a house on their own. No assistance is required. But when those two kids are joined by two more kids, this is the result. Toys strewn across floors and furniture. Hand and even foot prints on the walls and doors. Not to mention spilled drinks, dropped food, and a mammoth pile of dirty dishes.
This is why I frown upon play dates. They have a tendency to turn my home into Lord of the Flies.
And now, with my wife gone to take my children’s friends back to where they belong, this mess is all mine.
Where to start is always the toughest question to answer when faced with this sort of situation. Everything seems so overwhelming. How am I supposed to prioritize what needs to be done first and what can wait? Am I supposed to begin with the small or the large? Should I start upstairs and work my way down, or downstairs and work my way up?
I don’t know. It all too confusing. And in my confusion I find myself asking one more question:
What can one person do to fix all of this?
“Nothing,” I mutter, trudging into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. And since I’m there, I figure I might as well start with the dishes. So I fill up the dishwasher then transfer what’s left to the sink, where I begin the process of wash/rinse/dry.
Meanwhile, the television in the living room is broadcasting the day’s news. Bailouts and unemployment. Taxes. Inflation, deflation, and stagflation. War. Even a reference to Revelation.
Such is life in this modern age. Struggling not to overcome, but to simply keep up. Trying to hang on to job and family. Trying to still believe in this world, that we can fix things and make a difference.
I hate the news.
Not because it’s so bad or usually slanted one way or the other. No, I hate the news because it never stops. There’s always something new to worry about and something more that needs fixing.
Not unlike my house, I suppose.
Both have been made a mess by children who thought they were adults, and both need a good straightening up and cleaning.
I know this. And I know that as God has seen fit to put me here, now, then He must expect me to do some of that straightening and cleaning. But again come those questions. Where do I start? Big? Small? What should I do now and what should I wait to do later?
I don’t know. It all seems so overwhelming, this mess. It’s not just the news stories of people losing their jobs and homes. It’s the feelings those stories breed. It’s the sense of despair and resignation that so many seem to be feeling now. If we are to pull ourselves out of this, we need more than governments and stimulus packages. We need hope. Hope that not only can things get better, we are the ones to make it that way.
It’s easy sometimes to think we’re powerless to alter the course of things. Easy to think we’re too small and too puny to make things better. But I don’t think we’re so powerless.
I can’t clean my whole house, but I can wash the dishes. I can’t go everywhere and do everything, but I can take care of what’s in front of me and do what I can.
The great secret? If we all do our part, however small it may be, we will find in the end that just because things are tough now doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. And just because we can’t clean up the whole mess doesn’t mean we can’t clean up a little of it.
The Grace of Remembering
March 5, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
It’s called propranolol. A mouthful, to be sure. The reason why so many medicines have require long, unpronounceable names has always eluded me. I once asked my doctor why such a thing was necessary. He said nothing and looked at me like I was stupid. I don’t think he knew why, either.
Propranolol is a beta blocker, used for everything from cardiac arrhythmias to high blood pressure to controlling migraines in children. A wonder drug with fantastic benefits.
A recent study by Dutch scientists has revealed another fantastic benefit, one that has led to a lot of thinking on my part.
Propranolol, it seems, also dulls memory. Dulls it to the point where these same scientists are boldly predicting a time in the very near future when we could rid our minds of bad memories all together.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? To get rid of all those nasty reminders of the bad moments in our lives. It certainly sounds wonderful to me. Much of my daily life is still lived in the past, whether knowingly or not. It’s fingers still grip me. Loosely perhaps, but enough that I still feel them. Feel them in my decisions and reactions and worries.
And I’m sure I’m not alone. I dare say that I’m not the only one who carries around a little excess baggage. So why not lighten that load a little? Why not forget?
I can certainly see the value in such a therapy being used to treat those suffering from some form of post traumatic stress: victims of abuse or soldiers returning from war come to mind. These people are particularly prone to the agonies of bearing what may well be an unbearable weight. Such memories can lead not only to depression and psychosis, but even death.
But what about the rest of us? The ones who are plagued not by horrendous moments, but horrendous decisions? Are our bad memories made less so because they are not as powerful? Because they foster more guilt and regret than terror and numbness?
I’m not so sure.
We are largely the product of our experience, the end result of the countless choices and innumerable decisions. Many of those choices and decisions were good. Many were bad. But both worked together in an intricate and holy dance that has culminated in bringing us to both here and now.
But what if that dance were interrupted? Would we truly be made whole if those bad memories were taken from us, or would we somehow become less than we should?
Would the lessons we’ve learned from our mistakes be dulled along with the memories? And so would we then be doomed to repeat them?
Is there value in the things that haunt us?
That’s the question. One worth pondering, too.
We don’t mind accepting that the good in our lives was ordained by God. I’ve never doubted that my wife, my children, and my job are gifts from heaven. They provide my life with a healthy dose of meaning. They have purpose.
But if the good God has given us is endowed with meaning and purpose, then shouldn’t also the bad? And can we, with our limited vision and understanding, really label something as “good” or “bad” in the first place? How can we know for sure until the end result of our lives is played out and our story is done?
The blessings of my wife and children and job were born of horrible memories of the person I once was. It is because of those bad memories that I realize, finally, how blessed I am now. I love these things not because of the goodness I enjoy now, but because of the bad I suffered through then. Because the bad taught me what mattered. Would I give those memories back? No. Because I think the grace that has been given to me would be lessened in the forgetting. Because forgetting the pain of who I was then would dull the joy in Whose I am now.
We are all scarred by life. No one leaves this world as perfect as we entered it. But it is those very scars that shame us that make us all the more beautiful in God’s eyes. Rather than hide them, He beckons us to give them to Him.
Better than forgetting our memories is surrendering them. Better than pushing them down is lifting them up.
To Stand and Sing
March 3, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 15 Comments
We had a cowboy at church last Sunday. Four rows up and two rows over from me. Tall and slender, wearing faded blue jeans and a crisp, striped shirt. His mustache resembled the sort that one would grow while stranded on a desert island, and his weathered Stetson sat in the chair next to him.
I’d never seen him before, though that didn’t necessarily mean he was a visitor. Our church is a pretty big one, and our congregation is generally in the hundreds. Good in a way, not so good in others.
The service began with the obligatory hymn and prayer, after which the choir took its place and the minister of music took the microphone.
“I know there are a lot of people here who are struggling financially in these times,” she said. “It’s easy to feel as though God has somehow abandoned you, and it’s hard to reach out to someone for help. So as we sing these next few songs, I’d like to ask that anyone who is being burdened by life take a seat and pray. If you’re around someone who sits, take a moment to place a hand upon them. Pray with them and for them. Let them know they’re not alone.”
A few sat. Many more wanted to, I think, but didn’t. Pride can be a stubborn thing, even in church.
The cowboy, I noticed, sat halfway through the first verse. It was a sudden motion, one not done with much reservation, as if the hidden weight of his life refused to let him stand any longer. He was still for a moment, bent over as if something on the back of the chair in front of him demanded his attention.
Then he buried his face in his hands and wept.
Cowboys didn’t cry. I had known that since childhood. There was a poster thumbtacked to my bedroom wall that had the Cowboy Code on it. Cowboys never cry was number four, right after cowboys always eat their supper.
Yet there he was, using his calloused hands to wipe his fragile tears. His mouth moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, as he uttered his prayer. The concerned hands of his neighbors were gently placed on his back one by one as the choir continued to sing.
As the second verse began, the cowboy did something quite unexpected. He stood. Not slowly as if beaten, but purposefully with intent. He straightened his shirt, wiped his tears one more time, and took a deep breath.
And then he sang.
Not merely with lungs and voice, but with faith and hope. He sang words of God’s love and provision, of His undying devotion and saving grace. It was an act of protest against the decaying affect of his circumstances and the doubt they caused.
He sang. And there was prayer in his melody.
We think of courage as a virtue reserved for only a select few. Soldiers who defend us. Policemen who protect us. Firemen who rescue us. And while their actions are indeed courageous, I’d dare say they are no more so than the courage displayed by a cowboy in a church pew.
Because there are times when the simple act of facing the day takes courage. When trials and disappointments pin us down and dare us to resist and we are faced with this choice: submit or overcome.
What will we do when confronted by loss, whether of dreams or jobs or loved ones? When the winters of our lives blow and howl, will we surrender to its rages or seek shelter in warmth of God?
Will we cover our own wounds and let them fester, or will we let Christ bind them?
Will we sit and mourn, or will we stand and sing?
Life’s two sides
February 3, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 23 Comments
Ever have one of those days? The ones when nothing seems to go right, when you start to question the very value of your existence and wonder if there is actually a point to anything?
I had one of those days yesterday.
Confusion is often our constant companion. Our eyesight and the extent of our understanding reach no further than the present moment. It’s hard to see how some things could ever possibly work out for the good. Rather than nice and neat, our lives are tangled and messy. Full of knots.
These were the things preying on my mind when I arrived home this afternoon and found my wife cross stitching.
Cross stitching is an art, I think. No less than painting or composing a poem, it demands much in the way of effort and time, of undoing and redoing. Yet my wife finds it relaxing in a meditative sort of way. The fruits of her labor adorn the walls of our hallway, where past creations have been framed and displayed for the world to see.
She sat patiently, running her needle and thread up and over and down, as I vented the constant frustration that is my life. Then she got up, kissed me on the cheek, and suggested that maybe a cup of coffee was in order.
My depression glued me to the couch. Then I noticed the cross stitch she had sat on the chair.
A teaching career and two children had limited the amount of time my wife could devote to her hobby. It looked to me as if she had lost her touch. Really, really lost it.
Thread lines were arranged in a hodgepodge of clusters and colors that zigged and zagged with no discernible pattern. Knots of various sizes dotted a maze of tangles that seemed to have neither a beginning nor an end. This was a mess. A catastrophe. And just about the ugliest thing I had ever seen in my life.
But just when I began to seriously question my wife’s mental stability, I noticed something. She had placed the cross stitch face down. I was looking at the wrong side.
I took the material in my hand and turned it over. Sure enough, the colors there were blended to form one seamless picture. No tangles. No knots. Just perfect.
That’s when I understood.
There were two sides to life. There was a side we faced, a side that on the surface appeared tangled and confused, where thick knots dotted the landscape and colors zigged and zagged with no apparent purpose.
But beneath that jumbled surface, beyond the reach of my eyes, there was another side. The side God sees. Where the tangles were transformed into intricate designs of perfection and colors seamlessly interacted and flowed. Where there was no confusion, no zig or zag, but a complete, flawless piece of art.
We all pray for God to undo our knots. What rational person wouldn’t? But as I turned the cross stitch over and back and over again, I realized that the knots in my life served a purpose I had never considered. They had to be there. Otherwise, a color might have been gone or a pattern may have been incomplete. The tapestry of my life would be missing something valuable. A knot wasn’t just a knot, whether it was in a cross stitch or a life. It was simply where one part of the picture ended so another could begin.
I couldn’t see how it all fit together because on my side and from my vantage point it didn’t. But from God’s vantage point, everything was coming along just fine. And who was I to argue, really? I was merely the material. God was the Weaver. Does the canvas tell the artist how to create? The fabric doesn’t say to the weaver, “Please, no more knots. No more tangles. It will hurt too much. I will look too ugly.”
Besides, when it was all finished, when God’s plan for me was fulfilled and my purpose in life completed, which side of the picture would He frame for the world to see?
Hugging Purpose
February 1, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 23 Comments
(This piece was first published as a column in the Staunton, Virginia News Leader)
My daughter wants to be a writer. Also a Sunday School teacher, a regular teacher, an artist, and a geologist. The latter come and go depending upon the whims of her six-year-old mind. The former, though, has been a constant in her young life. One she has become more passionate about in the last couple of years.
I asked her one morning what exactly she wanted to be a writer of. Fiction? Nonfiction? Poetry? Would she write books or newspaper articles? Would they be secular or religious? The possibilities are many, I told her. Best to narrow things down a bit, even this early in the game.
She shrugged her answer and munched another bite of Cheerios. “Books, I guess,” she said.
“What kind of books?”
“Books for diabetic kids.”
I raised an eyebrow. My daughter continued munching. Then, feeling as though further clarification was needed, said, “God wants me to write books to help kids with diabetes. He told me.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Well,” she explained, “He didn’t tell me tell me. But why else would He have let me get diabetes if He didn’t want me to help kids who had diabetes?”
I managed a weak nod. Such is the faith of children, faith that sees clearly what adulthood often fogs.
My daughter was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes two years ago. Up until that time, I had never truly doubted God. Doubted myself? Yes. Humanity as a whole? Absolutely. But never God. Because He had always been there, always kept things right in my life, and always protected my family.
But when you’re sitting at the end of a hospital bed watching your sick child struggle to find sleep against the beeps of machines and the IV tubes running into her tiny body, you doubt God. You doubt Him a lot.
You wonder how He could allow such a thing to happen to someone so undeserving. How any sort of purpose or meaning could possibly be found in this happening. And you wonder if maybe, just maybe, all those people who say God is figment of our primeval imagination are right. Because if there was a God and if that God really loved us, then he wouldn’t let children suffer like this.
That’s what you think. What I thought, anyway. And though I still went to church and read my Bible and prayed, those thoughts just wouldn’t go away.
The faith that I held in God, faith that had been built and stripped and built better over thirty-six years, was crumbling. But my daughter’s faith, all two years of it, was growing stronger. The anger I held toward God paled in comparison to the love she continued to show towards Him. At nights when I would lie motionless in bed, praying but not, I could still hear her in the next room speaking to God as if He were sitting attentively on the edge of her bed.
“Bless Mommy and Daddy and thanks for the macaroni and cheese,” she would say. Thanks and thanks and more thanks. Never asking, never wanting, because in her mind she had all she needed, diabetes or not.
I pushed God away. She hugged Him closer.
We all have a why in life. Why did this happen? Why does it have to be this way? We all have questions we want answered. It’s just that some want to know because they want an excuse, and others want to know so they can do something. I wanted reasons. She wanted purpose. I suppose that’s why I never got my answer, but she did.
God wants her to write. He wants her to give Him the bad things that have happened and watch as He turns them to good. He doesn’t want her to give up, doesn’t want her to doubt. He wants her to help. Because in the end, that’s why she’s here. Why we’re all here.
To help.
I have no doubt she will do just that. And I have no doubt about this, too: I give my every day to teach my daughter something about this life. But she teaches me more.
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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