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.
Snapshots
January 22, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
Part of my job entails keeping up with the comings and goings of about one thousand college students. All have arrived at the doorstep of adult responsibility, and all must walk through as best they can. Some glide. Others stumble.
Students are constantly arriving, eager to fill their hungry minds and lavish themselves in newly found freedom. Others have found that those freedoms can lead to all sorts of trouble and so are on their way back home.
The status of these students must be cataloged and recorded and then shared with various departments by way of email. Very businesslike, these emails. Concise and emotionless. But they are to me snapshots of lives in transition.
One such message came across the computer yesterday. The usual fare—student’s name and identification number, and her status. But then there was this:
She will not be returning and is withdrawing.
She failed everything.
As I said, businesslike. Concise and emotionless.
I’ve always had a problem with brevity. I have a habit of explaining a small notion with a lot of words. Which I guess is why that email struck me so hard. Here was three months of a person’s life, ninety days of experiences and feelings, summed up in three words:
She failed everything.
Though I don’t know this person, I can sympathize. I’ve been there. Many times. I know what it’s like to begin something with the best of intentions and an abundance of hope, only to see everything fall apart. I know what it feels like to realize that no matter how hard you try, you just can’t. Can’t win. Can’t succeed. Can’t make it.
I know what it feels like to fail. Everything.
When my kids were born, I wanted to be the perfect father. Always attentive. Never frustrated. Nurturing. Understanding. And I was. At first, anyway. But things like colic and spitting up and poopy diapers can wear on a father. They can make a father a little inattentive, not so nurturing, and very frustrated. So I failed at being the perfect father.
Same goes for being the perfect husband, by the way. I failed even more at that.
And I had the perfect dream, too. What better life is there than that of a writer? But no, that one hasn’t gone as expected. Failure again.
At various times, struggling through each of those things, I’ve done exactly what young girl in the email did. I withdrew. Not from college. From life. I gave up. Surrendered. Why bother, I thought.
But I learned something. I learned there’s sometimes a big difference between what we try to do and what we actually accomplish. That many times we don’t succeed because there’s an equally big difference between what we want and what God wants.
That failure is never the end. It can be, of course. We can withdraw and not return. Or we can learn that it is only when we fail that we truly draw near to God. We can better understand the that our prayers must sometimes be returned to us for revision. Not make me this or give me that, but Thy will be done.
I’ve failed everything. Many times.
Also remade.
I may not have made myself the perfect father, but God has made me a good dad.
I may not have become the perfect husband, but God has shown me how to be a soul mate.
I may not write for money, but I do write for people.
Failure has not been my enemy. Failure has been my salvation.
Our lives have broken places not so we can surrender to life, but so we can surrender to God. And failure will hollow us and leave us empty only so we may be able to hold more joy.
What’s In A Name
January 13, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
Monday’s post about Allison brought a pretty interesting question from my spiritual sis, Jennifer Lee. She equated what I went through with Jacob and his wrestling match with God. Jacob, of course, came through that with a busted hip and a new name—Israel.
So, she asked me, “What’s your name?”
Looking back over that period in my life is something I rarely do nowadays. It seems too distant and too painful. But I think it’s worth it. If life is a journey, then it helps every once in a while to look back and see how far you’ve come. And it helps, too, to see that the God you were ignoring all that time, the God you talked to only before you ate your meals and visited only on Christmas and Easter, was still paying attention to you.
Jennifer’s question lodged itself in my mind and wouldn’t budge, demanding my attention. It’s something I never really thought about but certainly should have. If that really was God I met on that high rock in the mountains (and I do think it was), then I came down someone very different from the person who went up.
You cannot meet God and come away unchanged. Because God is all about changing you. Making you something more than you are. And better than you are.
God didn’t change my name, though. I believe He didn’t think it was necessary. He had already given me the name I needed.
Billy is a simple nickname for William. Not a lot of Billys out there anymore, especially my age. It’s a little old fashioned and dated. Which seems to fit me quite well, thank you.
But William is a middle name. Used for years to hide my first name, which is even more old fashioned and dated.
Homer.
My father’s name. I’ve never gotten around to asking him why he was stuck with that, mostly because it never really mattered. My father was and is the greatest man I’ve ever known. Mention his name to me, and I gather the mental images of someone teaching me not only to fish and hit a baseball, but how to be a man. Homer isn’t his name. Not to me. To me, those pictures are his name.
I, on the other hand, never looked too kindly on my first name.
I always dreaded the first day of school, when the teacher would go over the roll, unsure of what to call anyone.
“Homer Coffey?” the teachers would ask. Always.
My hand would shyly raise, and I would suggest, strongly, that Billy would perhaps be more appropriate. My request would always have competition, though, against the snickers of my classmates. The only thing that quieted them was a whispered threat to beat up anyone who was laughing after school. I was serious, too.
I went through a phase in high school where the name didn’t bother me as much. Homer, after all, was the greatest Greek storyteller who ever lived. It was an honorable name, worthy of distinction. Then Homer Simpson came along and pretty much ended that.
You could imagine the jokes. I’ve been referred to by some as “Homer Billy Simpson” for years.
After Jennifer’s question, though, I decided to do a little digging. I wanted to know what my name meant. Not Billy. Not William. Homer.
From the Greek, I found. The word has a double meaning. “Hostage” is one. The other, “promise.”
Yes.
Because that is what I am. A hostage to a promise. A promise from God that no matter what I may do in this life, no matter what wrong turns I make or how badly I stumble, He will be there. A promise that says He will walk with me in the light and carry me in the darkness. And that there is nothing, nothing, that could convince Him to think otherwise.
I am a hostage. Oh, yes. Because there are times when I am too weary to believe, too scared to try, and too beaten to get up again. But just when I am about to stick my head in the mud and sink, I remember that night not so very long ago when a holy hand was extended to me.
“I won’t pick you up,” God told me. “I love you too much for that. But I’ll help you up. Every time. I’ll make sure that you’re life isn’t the one you think you want, but the one you know you want. I’ll make you love this world and not hate it. And I’ll make sure that when the end really does come, people will know you were here.”
The choice, as always, was mine. On that night long ago, I took that hand for the first time.
And I’ve yet to let go.
Allison
January 11, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
I was tagged last week by Sarah and had to come up with six random or weird things about myself. Some were both random and weird (glad to know that I’m not alone in my fear of clowns). My mentioning of the girl whose life I saved drew much more response via comments and emails than I thought it would. A few of you suggested that I expound upon that a little. So I will, with a little background…
I had everything figured out at seventeen. My future was planned, crystal clear and meant to be. I was the starting second baseman on my high school team, had already gotten letters from several colleges and had been scouted by the Milwaukee Brewers.
I was going to play baseball forever. I had to. Because the person who roamed the halls of Stuarts Draft High School and drove his truck around town wasn’t me. Not the real me. No, the real me was the guy on the ball field. It was the only place where I ever really felt I belonged.
School was an irritant. Most high school seniors try to stretch that last year out as far as they can, enjoying every moment. Not me. I wanted out. I had a life to get living.
Not that high school was hard. I had the prototypical jock schedule of classes–Math, History, English Composition, and four study halls. Brutal. Then one day Mrs. Houser, my English Composition teacher, decided that I needed to do something, so she pulled some strings and got me a job: writing a weekly column for the local newspaper. Write about anything, she said. Just make it good.
Oh. Joy.
I obliged, partly because I had to but mostly because Mrs. Houser was my favorite teacher. Every Tuesday evening I would sit down with a pad of paper and watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island, writing during commercials. It was busy work. Something to pass the time. Nothing more.
Then my world fell apart.
We were playing at Fort Defiance High School when someone hit a ground ball to my right. I backhanded it and threw off balance to first base for the out.
And my shoulder exploded.
Four trips to doctors and specialists resulted in a shared consensus: I would never played again.
It’s tough being seventeen and knowing that every dream you ever had was gone. Tough knowing that your entire life lay in front of you, just not the life you wanted. Tough.
Too tough.
So one night I got in my truck, drove into the mountains, and found the highest rock I could so I could jump off.
Almost did it, too. I got to two and a half on my count to three when a voice popped into my head and said, “You’re really not afraid of dying, are you?”
No. Not at all.
Then you’re afraid of living.
Whether that voice was God’s or my own still escapes me. But I sat for a long while on that rock, thinking. Then I got back into my truck, drove home, and wrote my column. Really wrote. About how things sometimes don’t turn out the way they’re supposed to and how sometimes life can be more night than day. And how, in the end, we have to keep on. We just have to. That was the night I learned to strip myself bare on the page, to risk exposing fears and worries and doubts. To quit pretending I was someone I wasn’t. It was the biggest act of courage I think I ever displayed.
Three days later, a letter was sent to the high school with my name on the front. Thank you, it said. “I’m having a really tough time right now, and a few days ago I thought I just couldn’t take anymore. I was going to end it. Then I read your article and, well, I’m still here. So thank you. You rescued me.“
It wasn’t signed, and there was no return address on the envelope. I didn’t know who sent it, but I did know this: God didn’t want me to play baseball. He wanted me to write.
***
At the mall, a month later. I was picking my girlfriend up from work and decided to walk to the bookstore. Approaching me was a teenage girl in jeans and a leather jacket. I nodded as she passed, and then she called my name.
“Allison,” she said. “My name’s Allison. I’m the one who wrote you that letter.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. So I asked her if she was all right, to which she replied that she was, to which I replied that it was nice to meet her. I was so shy, so backward, so unnerved, that I simply nodded again and walked away.
I have had many bad moments in my life. That one? Top three.
I never saw Allison again. I do, however, still spend many a day wishing that I would have. Just one more time. Just to tell her I was sorry for not saying more. To tell her to keep hanging in there and that she’s not alone.
And to tell her that she rescued me, too.
In The Boat
January 6, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 13 Comments
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.
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.
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. 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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