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Though there are large gaps in my memory from my school years, I do remember that Mrs. Cole said we would all be happy by now. I remember her saying that and I remember it had been enough for my attention to drift away from the middle of a daydream. It’s seldom that reality is magical enough to trump fantasy, but that did.

Mrs. Cole called it The Age of Man (the name itself would sound magical enough to any seventh-grader), and she said it was nearing. Science and technology had planted seeds, she said. Had planted them for hundreds of years. And those seeds were growing even then, sprouting upwards and strong. And she said we would be the ones to harvest.

We. You and I.

This being the mid-eighties, Mrs. Cole qualified that statement by saying it would all be for naught if the Russkies started lobbing ballistic missiles at us from Moscow. She didn’t think that would happen, which I’m sure prevented more than a couple nightmares that night from the other kids in her class. We’d all pull through, she said. And more, we would all be blessed with a life that was far more glorious and far less painful. Medical advances would ensure that disease was eradicated. Life expectancy would rise past the century mark. Science would solve problems like famine and global warming. Reason would replace ignorance, ushering in a new golden age of peace.

The hungry would be fed.

The naked would be clothed.

We would long for nothing.

And on. And on.

That all sounded pretty good to me. Even now I remember that as one of the best days of school I ever had. I couldn’t wait for The Age of Man.

I suppose we’re still waiting. Almost thirty years later, not much has really changed. Science and technology have done a lot, no doubt about that, though it seems there’s always a catch. The Russkies have been replaced. The hungry are still hungry. The naked are still cold.

But maybe more than any of that, we still long.

I suppose Mrs. Cole has gone to her reward by now. I’m not sure if she puttered along long enough to see that she’d been wrong. A part of me wishes not. I think we should all pass on with hope still in our hearts, whatever hope that may be.

Had I been wise back then—had I known what I know now—I like to think I’d have raised my hand and gotten the chance to speak that day. I would have told Mrs. Cole that science and technology can do a great many things, but the faith we would come to place in them would be a faltering one. I’d tell her that deep down, we’re all drawn to a brighter sort of magic. We will always be more charmed by what could be than what is. Because we are made to long and wonder and ponder the Mystery, and the Mystery is something that no science and no technology can ever really answer.

That’s what I would tell her.

And then I’d say what Mrs. Cole has no doubt discovered for herself—that the whole of earth is still the very least of heaven.

The decorations are still up, but the big day we’ve all been shopping and preparing for has come and gone. My son has amassed a Lego collection that just might rival Lego Land, and my daughter has enough books to last most kids her age until at least early summer. She’ll probably have them read by Valentine’s Day.

Gifts have been given and received, festive meals prepared and enjoyed.

Now what?

Now I’m planning to take advantage of a gift which has become increasingly rare for me–down time. Time to spend building Lego fortresses and holding impromptu book club discussions, but mostly just time to be enjoyed with my family.

I’ll be back with you all next week. Until then, I hope you all had a blessed Christmas. See you soon.

Best,

Billy

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On December 4, 1619, thirty-eight English settlers arrived on the north bank of the James River, approximately twenty miles from the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The group’s charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a “day of thanksgiving” to God. The group’s charter stated, “We ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.” Captain John Woodlief officiated that first service, two years before the Pilgrims at Plymouth got the same idea.

Three years later the local Indians had enough of the English and decided that the only way to get rid of them was to go to war. The result was about a third of the colonial population of Virginia was killed. Tough times settled in—hunger, war, death, cold winters and unbearable summers. The New World that once held the promise of a new life had become a hell.

I’ll be honest and say I didn’t know much of that. I learned in school about the Indian wars and the hardships faced by the settlers, of Pocahontas and John Rolfe and all the rest. But not the thanksgiving part.

And not this part either—even during those dark days of war and hunger and death, the settlers still paused each year to give thanks.

To me, that’s amazing. I know there have been more than a couple Thanksgivings in my own life when the mood of our country was so hurt and so soured that the last thing on our minds was to say thanks to God. I think of the Thanksgiving just after 9/11. I think of ones in just the past few years, when recession and job loss made a feeling of appreciation next to impossible. And maybe for you, this year is particularly tough.

Sometimes we don’t want to thank God. Sometimes we’d rather yell or cuss or plead, but never to get down on our knees and count our blessings.

Thing is, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do. Good times, bad times, in-between times, sunshine or rain, laughter or tears, hope or hopelessness.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

That’s what I’m thinking about this Thanksgiving—how it’s so easy to say thank you when times are good and so difficult to say it when times are not. But today, give thanks. Give thanks even if you don’t feel thankful.

But I know this: God has built an oasis of beauty in even the ugliest of times. He has placed a blessing into every harm and pain. He has planted the seeds of joy in every tear.

And that is why we are called to give thanks in all things even if we cannot give thanks for them.

Today is the official pub date for Paper Angels, my second novel published by the good folks at FaithWords. Feel free to mosey on over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore for a copy. And if you’re around Twitter today, come say hi during our Twitter party. We will be using the hash tag #PaperAngels.

There will be book giveaways, trivia, interviews and reviews by @faithwords, @katdish, @amysorrells, @cathylynnl and @gyoung9751.

I’m also giving away three signed copies right here. I’ll take your thoughts through Saturday, at which point three winners will be randomly chosen (and by random, I mean the kids will pull out three names from my cowboy hat). All you have to do is leave a comment below that answers this question—

Who or what has been an angel in your life?

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Some friends of ours moved last week. Traded one set of blue mountains for a set of rocky ones. It’s something they’ve wanted to do for a while (he has family in Colorado, not twenty miles from their new home, and she grew up in nearby Boulder). Their move had less to do with the economy than a simple desire for a change of scenery. I nodded when they told me that, but I didn’t really understand. Who would want to leave rural Virginia?

I’ve known them for about fifteen years now. They’ve been to my home, I’ve been to theirs. We’ve shared meals and Christmas presents and birthday parties for our children. It’s a sad thing that in a world defined by hustle and bustle and there’s-always-something-going-on, few people slow down enough to make good friends. That’s what I’d call them—good friends.

But they’re gone now, a thousand miles westward. They will find new lives, and I will keep my old one.

Their leaving was a bit anti-climactic. That surprised me. I suppose deep down I knew what I had yet to consider, which was that they’d still be around. There’s the phone, of course. E-mail. Facebook and Twitter. Skype. No matter that two mountain ranges and a great big river separated us, they’d still be no more than a few button pushes away.

That’s when I realized how much the world has shrunk. Never mind that our technology has made it possible to cure disease and peer into the deepest reaches of the universe and know within moments what has happened in a tiny spot across the world. It has done something more profound than all of those things together.

It has lifted from us the heavy weight of ever having to say goodbye.

I’ve read stories of families separated during the Great Depression, of parents and children cleaved apart as some remained behind and others struck out for new territories and better hope. They had to say their goodbyes. Many were never heard from again. Can you imagine?

I remember looking around at my classmates during high school graduation and thinking that I’d never see or hear from most of them again. These were friends, many of whom I’d known since third grade. They’d shared my life, I’d shared theirs. Yet as I sat there I knew all of that was slipping away. I knew that to live was not about being born and dying later, it was to endure many births and suffer many deaths, and sometimes that birth and death happens in the same moment.

I was right. Twenty years later, I’ve not seen many of them. But more than one have friended me on Facebook, and from all over the world.

This should make me feel good, I guess. Aside from death, there are no farewells now. There is always “Talk to you soon” or “Shoot me an email” or “DM me.”

But I don’t feel particularly good. I think we’re missing out on something if we never have to say goodbye anymore. I think it robs us of the necessity of truly understanding the impact some people have on our lives, and the impact we have on the lives of others. To have to say goodbye is to know a part of you is leaving or staying, either scattered through the world or planted where you are.

I say this because just a bit ago, I received an email (plus pictures) from my friends. Things are well with them. They’re settling in and getting used to things. They’re happy. And that’s good.

But rather than casually shooting an email back, I think I’ll sit down and take my time. I think I’ll treat it as a farewell, even though it isn’t. I think I’ll tell them just how much I’ll miss them even though it’ll be as if we’re still just down the road from each other.

I figure somewhere deep down, they’ll need that goodbye. I know I do.

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If you would by chance happen to knock at my front door and ask to see where I keep my most prized possessions, I would lead you to my upstairs attic, pull the string on the exposed light bulb, and point to a spot along the far wall just beneath the vent leading outside.

There you would see an old toolbox, battered and rusty from years of use. The chipped green paint and rusted hinges may lead you to believe its contents are inconsequential at least and forgotten at most.

You would be wrong.

What’s inside that toolbox represent my life’s more memorable moments. A gum wrapper, some pine needles, a spent ring from a cap gun, and so on. Like I said, my most prized possessions. Knowing they’re up there makes me feel a little more comfortable being down here.

My mother has something similar, though her toolbox is disguised as a hope chest that sits in the corner of her bedroom closet. Inside you’ll find old report cards, forgotten toys, and pictures. Lots of pictures.

My father opts to store his keepsakes in the top drawer of his dresser, which had for years been strictly off limits to my prying hands until last week, when I summoned the courage to ask permission to rifle through its contents. I found old coins and older knives, one gun, several bundled letters I did not read, one wooden cross, and more old pictures.

I asked around, and most everyone had their own places for such things hidden somewhere out of sight. People have confessed to stashing their tokens of both past and present in socks and safe deposit boxes, cookie jars and coffee cans. One friend even stored his the old fashioned way—under the mattress of his bed.

Each admitted that no one else would be much interested in their private treasures. Again, none of them could be defined as valuable. Not on the surface, anyway. But beneath? Beneath they were priceless. I could tell they were by the hushed tones and soft smile they would offer along with their confession, as if the telling conveyed some holy secret.

Which I suppose is exactly the case. Handling those relics of the things we hold most dear often takes on the appearance of religious ritual. Touching a memory can be a powerful experience. An old photograph may not represent a mere moment in time, but a token that love is something worth holding onto. And a trinket may not be a trinket, but a symbol that faith does indeed move mountains.

We should consider these things holy. We are, after all, the sum of our experiences. We need those reminders lest we blur our today and cloud our tomorrow. We need to know where we’ve come from if we’re to know where we’re going.

One person I asked had things a little more figured out than the rest of us. A full-blooded Sioux, his people have had much experience in placing great meaning on physical objects. When I asked him where he kept his most precious things, he pulled his T shirt down and pulled out a leather necklace. On the end was a small beaded pouch that was fringed at the bottom.

“Here,” he said. “I keep them here.”

I told him about my toolbox, about the hopes chest and dresser drawer and socks and coffee cans. I even told him about my friend the mattress stuffer. He nodded and smiled, then said, “We all have our sacred things. But you keep yours hidden and far away. What good will they do you there? Why not keep them visible and close instead?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He was right. Everyone I had talked to kept their treasures hidden away in the darkness of a chest or drawer. Myself included.

Why? Was it because we felt them too valuable to risk the light of day? Or too fragile to be handled often?

I wasn’t sure. But I began thinking about the things our treasures represent, the love and the faith. And I began thinking that often they, too, go hidden and unused. We tuck them away for fear that they are too valuable or fragile, when they are the very things we should carry close to us every day.

It was my son who approached me the other night after supper and prefaced his request to go play in the creek with, “I know you’re going to say no, but…”

He was right, I did say no. It was getting dark, it was already cold, and he had chores to finish and homework to do. But that preface bothered me a little.

“I know you’re going to say no, but…”

Meaning I must say no to him a lot. A whole lot.

And that bothered me to the point where I began keeping track of the ratio of yeahs and nopes I give my kids over the course of a normal day. Finished my research the other night. The results were…well, I’m not really sure yet what the results were. All I have is numbers. Their meaning is still up in the air.

According to my calculations, I tell my kids no about ten times a day. Where that fits on the scale of Excessive Parenting is debatable. Even I’m not quite sure. Considering how much I talk to my children, I suppose ten isn’t an unreasonable number. But when I consider the fact that for most of the day they’re at school and I’m at work, ten sounds like a lot.

In my defense, many of the things my children ask to either have or do are things few parents would allow. Few children should have an elephant as a pet or their own television show or be allowed to dress like thugs and prostitots.

They, of course, do not see the wisdom in my refusals. And I have no doubt I sometimes transform in front of their very eyes from Nice Daddy to Mean Tyrant. Once, my daughter even told me I wasn’t cool.

But stripped down to its most bare essentials, saying no is what parenting is all about. I’ve learned in my nine years of being a father that kids will ask for anything—anything at all—without much thinking involved. Their tiny minds are based on the principle of immediacy. It’s now they think about, and seldom later.

That’s where I come in. As a father with thirty-nine years of experience in later, I can testify to the wisdom found in keeping one’s eyes forward rather than the small amount of space at one’s feet. Life has taught me this one thing: everything leads to something else. Everything has a consequence.

I tried a little show and tell about this with my kids once. We were sitting by a pond. I told them to watch as I tossed a rock into the water, then explained how the things we do are like the ripples that come after the toss. They reverberate.

They didn’t get the lesson, they just wanted to throw some rocks of their own. To them, it was the splash that mattered. The ripples were inconsequential.

I can’t blame them.

I was like that once.

I often still am.

To them, I can be the mean parent who won’t let them have any fun. That’s okay, because God willing one day they’ll be mean parents themselves.

But there’s more to this.

The study of my ten-times-a-day No has made me realize I’m somewhat of a hypocritical father. It’s not always easy to answer my kids in the negative, but I’m comforted by knowing it’s for their benefit. Children need boundaries, and they need to be kept safe. And bottom line, they really don’t know what’s best for them.

That’s why it’s a bit disheartening to realize I act like them when it comes to the things I ask for from God.

He tells me no a lot, too. Probably more than ten times a day.

I once thought that was because He didn’t love me or because I wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t worthy.

I know better now.

The truth is that He does love me, and that both His yes and His no come from that very love. Being good and worthy doesn’t matter much. I know it’s because I need boundaries and to be kept safe. And because bottom line I really don’t know what’s best for me.

And that’s okay.

Because He does.

Last January, satellite pictures of the Amazon rain forest revealed the presence of a hidden community living in three clearings in the Javari Valley, which lies near the Brazil/Peru border. Subsequent flight expeditions over the region confirmed about 200 people lived in the tiny village. Not a big deal, really. Despite notions to the contrary, the Amazon is home to many communities. What set this community apart, however, was that it had never been seen before. Scientists had stumbled upon a tribe of people unknown to the world.

I confess to a geeky side. News stories such as that one rock my world. Imagine that in an age of telescopes that can see into the farthest reaches of the universe and submarines that can reach the very depths of the ocean, there are still entire cultures that have somehow managed to remain hidden in the untrodden places of our fair planet. Cut off from civilization, blissfully ignorant of things like debt ceilings and Charlie Sheen and Jersey Shore. It’s a storyline straight out of Indiana Jones.

It’s enough to make me giddy.

It’s also enough to make me wonder what happiness they must enjoy. Imagine being able to live life unfettered by nasty things like time and career. You rise with the sun, venture into the jungle to either kill or dig up some breakfast, and eat it in a hammock surrounded by your family and friends. Repeat again for lunch and dinner. Maybe weave a basket or have a dance. Watch the kids play with critters and pets. Make sure the fire has plenty of wood. Go check the crops, then maybe visit your buddy who lives in the next hut to shoot the breeze and engage in a bit of gossip. Watch the sun go down. Go to bed. Do it all again the next day.

No taxes to pay or commutes to endure. No 401k to watch as it shrinks into oblivion. And who cares about gas prices when you’ve never even seen a car? No, the busy world you’ve never seen simply passes you by and leaves you alone. No muss, no fuss, just a hammock and the jungle around you.

I’ll be honest, I envy those people. They don’t know how good they have it.

Regardless of how much I long to chuck it all, fly to the Amazon, and apply for admission into the tribe, it won’t happen. The Brazilian government has a strict policy regarding uncontacted tribes. They are not to be bothered.

But just in case I would get that chance, I could see myself trekking down some forgotten jungle path and coming across the tribal chief, who would invite me to his hut for a little food and a lot of talk. And more than likely, he’d look at me and laugh.

“What are you doing here?” he’d ask. “What, you think WE have it good? Really? Tell you what, you try growing all your food in the jungle. Doesn’t always work, you know. And it’s not like you can just run down to the Food Lion for some chips and dip if the animals and the weather take your crops. Which happens, like, ALL the time.

“You can go hunting. Lots of animals in the jungle to eat. Of course, most of them will just as soon eat YOU. Try stepping on a snake or a spider or running across a panther. Tell me how that goes for you. And you better hope you don’t run into anyone from the tribe down the river, because they’ll just as soon kill you as let you pass.

“Can’t go to the hospital, either. We don’t have one here. We have a doctor of course, and he’s a real smart guy, but in the end the only thing he can do is pray to the gods and give you some plants to eat. Plants don’t cure everything, you know. And the gods…well, let’s just say they do their thing and we do ours. We don’t understand them, we just try to keep them happy.

“Sure, you can stay. You’ll probably live a few more years, most of us make it to 50 or so before we’re so worn out that we drop. That’s assuming you don’t get bitten or eaten or killed, though. Actually, why don’t you just run on back home where you belong.”

At which point I probably would.

And I would take with me this lesson: Life is tough. Doesn’t matter who you are or where you are. We’re all looking for something better, we’re all stressed, we’re all struggling for a little hope.

In a world that seems determined to point out our differences, those are similarities we will always share.

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They did.

It began Tuesday at work, which was one of those busy days that happen to us all and leave us searching for tiny shortcuts that will garner us a few precious extra minutes to get everything done. I found one of those shortcuts when I shunned a ramp from the loading dock to the parking lot in favor of the four-foot jump between the two. It worked, though not flawlessly. I’ve been wearing a brace on my knee since last Wednesday.

Speaking of last Wednesday, my mother called that evening to announce she would be retiring in a month. Glad news. I’ve been telling her for years it was time to hang up the nurse’s smock. She’d finally agreed. “I’m sixty-seven,” she told me. “I think it’s time I took a vacation.” But you know what? For some reason, I didn’t take the news well.

Tending to the yard took precedence that weekend. There was the garden to weed and the grass to cut and the flower beds to mulch. Also the swing set to take down. It was a sickly thing, worn by time and weather such that large clumps of rust had accumulated where polished aluminum once shined. If you’ve read Snow Day, you may know the swing set I’m talking about. It was the one in Peter’s backyard. The kids helped me take it down and load it into the back of the truck for the dump. Two kids, one wrench, a screwdriver, and a hammer. Gone.

So there I was Sunday evening, sitting on the back deck with my knee brace, an empty spot where the swing set once stood, and an almost-retired mother. Feeling…down. Way, way down. And I didn’t know why.

I looked out over the backyard. A robin was sitting on the neighbor’s fence telling the neighborhood goodnight. The frogs joined in, telling the robin good morning. The grass still had that fresh-cut smell that I will always believe heaven is filled with. I paused to consider the fact that just a few short months ago I’d sat in that very spot convinced spring would never arrive, that winter would just keep going and never yield.

It did, though. It always does. Year in and year out, forever and ever amen.

I stopped. Thought that again—Year in and year out. Forever and ever. Amen.

And then I knew what had been wrong with me.

It was time.

You see, each of my bumps in the road last week—the bum knee, the retirement, the swing set—all had in common the nature of time and our human tendency to freeze it in place.

The truth is I jumped from the loading dock rather than take the ramp because I knew I could do it without even the slightest risk of injury. And how did I know that? Easy. Because I’m still eighteen.

The truth is also that I didn’t take the news of my mother’s retirement well not because she was retiring, but because of why she’s retiring. Because she’s sixty-seven. SIXTY-SEVEN. Which was a lie, because she’s really fifty. If that.

And the truth is also that the swing set that has kept my children tanned and joyful isn’t rusty at all. Because rust implies the weathering of an extended period of time, and that cannot be because my children are not 9 and 7, but 6 and 4.

In the end, that was what made me weary—knowing I was fighting time. And that’s a war I cannot win.

Because I am growing older.

And my mother is, too.

And so are my kids.

Doesn’t matter how much I wish it were otherwise, either. Doesn’t matter how much I don’t want things to change.

I’ve heard that time is a human invention to explain regret and expectation. It doesn’t really exist, not to animals, not to God. Just to us.

Maybe that’s true.

Maybe not.

In the meantime, I’m going to rest my knee and watch my mother enjoy her retirement.

But I’m going to buy a new swing set for the kids.

Some things, I just can’t let go.

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Memorial Day has always been a special time in my life. For a lot of reasons, some of which I’ll admit really don’t have much at all to do with the meaning of the holiday. As a child, that day meant the end of school was near. Hang on just a little while longer, that day told me, because it’s almost over. Thinking like that got me through school. And in a somewhat convoluted and beautiful sort of way, after all those years I find myself working at a college and thinking much the same way.

But of course I understand much more now than I did at eighteen. About life, yes, but also about things like Memorial Day. About what it symbolizes. There are holidays that are the domain of the religious among us, no matter how deep secular society tries to sink their teeth into them. Christmas isn’t about Santa, Easter isn’t about a rabbit, and Thanksgiving isn’t about turkey. There’s something about those days that whispers to us that we should spend some time looking inside ourselves rather than around.

Memorial Day is unique in that it is a secular holiday with almost religious connotations. It’s a day to commemorate values like honor and sacrifice, virtues that for many now seem archaic. It is a day to say thank you to those who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to protect our freedom. Who whisper to us in the darkness that we may lie down and rest, because they stand guard in the breach. I can think of few things more worthy of pausing in the grind of our daily lives.

Nowadays the military is a revered institution, trusted more than our government, our judges, and our financial giants. I believe that’s a good thing. It hasn’t always been that way. There was a time in our history when our soldiers were punished in the court of social opinion for the deeds of our leaders, and in a time when it seems as though we’ve screwed so much up, it’s nice to know we’ve at least righted that. We can vent our rage and frustration with the policymakers all we want, we can call wars illegal or unjustified, but we will support our troops.

That’s what Memorial Day is about.

As I pause today to remember the fallen and the ultimate sacrifice they gave, my thoughts turn to the fallen of other countries as well, whether allies or enemies.

The history of mankind is a dichotomy marked by seemingly impossible advances and abhorrent violence. Our hands have tilled the earth for food to sustain us, and those hands have also soaked that very earth in blood. The depths to which the human spirit can rise are matched only by the depths to which it can descend. We are at once noble and ignoble, at times good and other times evil, and all together broken.

You can tell me otherwise, but I’ll never believe it.

I will honor our brave men and women today. I will think of them, I will thank them, I will pray for them. But I will also fight the urge that sits deep within me to glorify the wars they fight and the blood they spill, however necessary and right and defensible it may be. Because in the end our soldiers protect more than my freedom and my safety, they also protect a truth that burdens them so it will never have to burden any of us, one that has been found on the battlefields of Europe, the jungles of Vietnam, the streets of Baghdad, and the mountains of Afghanistan—a man doesn’t have to die to go to hell. They’ve been there.