future – Page 4

Wanting more

August 27, 2012 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

I’ve read that when it comes to compensation, benefits, work environment, and time off, college professors have the best job in the United States. And since I spend so much of my workday around them, I can’t argue with that assertion. The ones at the college where I work seem happy, are productive members of their community, and have enough extra time on their hands to string together words no one understands to publish books no one reads.

Still, I was curious. Did these people know they had the fortune and blessing to have the nation’s best job? That all of their hard work had paid off to get them the lifestyle of a lifetime? I wasn’t sure. And to me, it felt like something they should know if they didn’t. So I took a few days and asked around.

Two math, one music, three English, a history, and four philosophy professors later, and I was convinced of two things. One was that they knew exactly how blessed they were to have their particular occupation. The other was that it didn’t matter.

Because while all eleven enjoyed their work and got plenty out of it, in their heart of hearts they would still rather be doing something else.

One math professor expressed a lifelong desire for crab fishing, and the other just wanted to run off to Bora Bora. The history professor admitted that she’d always wanted to open a florist shop. Two of the philosophy professors wanted to be farmers, and the other two missionaries. All three English professors wanted to be famous authors rather than ignored ones. And the music professor? “I’ve always wanted to be a bounty hunter,” all one hundred and twenty pounds of him said. (And it’s okay to laugh at that. Because I did).

Those little confessions didn’t surprise me.

Despite what we say about being happy with where and who we are, deep down we’re never where we should be. No matter how hard we chase after our bliss, it always remains just a few steps ahead. Close enough to see, almost close enough to touch, but not quite. There to both inspire us to keep going and taunt us because we haven’t gone far enough.

Psychologists say this difficulty in finding what makes us happy is inborn. As much a part of us as the desire to love and be loved. I want to disagree with that and say that faith can bring us both happiness and a sense of place in this world, but the truth? I have faith, have a sense of happiness and place, but there are still many times when I look at my happy life and think there’s more out there. More happiness. More better.

Whether this makes me any less of a Christian is something I haven’t figured out yet.

There’s a lot to be said for being content with what you have, a sentiment echoed by people from the Apostle Paul (“I’ve learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am”) to Thoreau (“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone”) to a country song I heard on my way into work this morning (“…I look around at what everyone has, and I forget about all I’ve got…”).

Wise words, all. And true. Yet here I sit, still wanting more anyway. More dreams, more happiness, more peace.

I suppose we’re all stricken with wanderlust. Deep down we’re all explorers who cannot rest until we reach the next horizon, if only to see what’s there and what’s beyond. The ocean we’re all adrift upon is vast, it’s waters deep, and it’s wonders breathtaking. And though we sail onward, ever searching, our spirits whisper this truth:

We are meant to sail upon the waters of another ocean, where the seas are calm and the winds are fair. And that our happiness now is but a shadow of the happiness that awaits.

Love bears all things

August 23, 2012 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

Love has always intrigued me as one of those divine aspects of life that is both fleeting and permanent, fragile and strong. For thousands of years Poets and philosophers have tried to define it, but to no avail. You can’t speak about love and get it just right. You have to see it in action to really know what it is.

Which is why I can appreciate the spectacle of a fine wedding.

I’m sitting in a church pew on a bright Sunday afternoon looking very James Bondish in a suit and tie. Because what I expect to see in the next fifteen minutes or so is not just a marriage ceremony, not just candles and pretty music and maids all in a row, but true love made visible.

The groom stands at the front of the church, hands folded in front of his cummerbund. He is not nervous, this man. There are no pre-wedding jitters or thoughts of a quick escape through the side door. No, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Not marrying this woman never crossed his mind.

The organist launches into a fevered rendition of “Here Comes the Bride,” and the gathered stand and turn to face the opening doors. A beaming bride and her proud father make their way down the aisle.

Hand in hand. Not just out of love, but out of necessity.

The father passes off his princess to her prince, and the two stand facing one another. I’m sure they have spent many moments over the past weeks staring into each other’s eyes, wrestling in their own way with the prospect of this moment. And though they are surrounded by God and a few hundred friends and family, I can tell that to them no one else exists. The world has been shut out and the door barred.

There is just them and nothing else. For now, anyway.

The preacher begins the standard reading of 1 Corinthians 13. I wonder how many times I’ve heard that scripture read. How many times those words have skidded over the surface of my heart but not really plunged to its core.

Love is patient, love is kind…

They’ve known one another for about four years now, this bride and groom. About a year and a half ago over a nice dinner picnic in the park, he pulled out a diamond ring along with the potato salad. Marry me, he asked. Yes! she answered.

…love does not brag and is not arrogant…

That their love was pure and true was unquestioned. God had crafted them as the only two pieces of a beautiful puzzle. It was cliché, yes, but true—they completed one another.

Both knew they didn’t deserve such happiness. But both praised God daily for allowing them to have it. And now that they had found each other, they would be together always.

…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things…

When you’re in love, everything seems possible. There are no sudden bends in the road ahead, no ruts to fall into. There are only clear paths and sunny skies. Whatever darkness your life was under is now bathed in sunny skies.

And it’s true. Everything is possible.

Not just the good. The bad, too.

When the bride began suffering headaches a few months ago, the doctors told her it was likely migraines. Don’t worry, they said. Just the stress of planning a wedding. When they continued despite medication, tests were ordered. Don’t worry, they said. Just a precaution.

She worried anyway. Her fiancée did what any man would do for the woman he loves. He comforted her, held her, and told her everything would be okay. After all, their love was meant to be. He busied her with thoughts of caterers and flowers, but he busied himself with that same worry.

A few days later, they both sat numb as the doctor informed her of the cancer eating away her brain.

…endures all things…

After the tears and the confusion and the silence, the two talked. How could this be? How can God let this happen? What can we do now?

They had no answer to those first two questions, but they knew what to do about the third. They would marry. They would celebrate their lives together as long as they could. Their love would endure.

It must. Because as I watch them staring into one another’s eyes, my attention returns to the words of the preacher. He is finishing his scripture reading, and I whisper to myself the last three words he speaks to them:

“Love never fails…”

Yes.

Here this bride and groom stand, in front of God and two hundred people, testifying to those three words. They are true love made manifest. And we are all witnesses.

And now, so are you.

The future tree

April 19, 2012 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

There is an acorn on my son’s bedside table. Found by the two of us on a Sunday afternoon walk through the backyard.

That acorn is special to him. He now has inside knowledge that he formerly did not. He is privy to the acorn’s secret.

Which is this: There is a tree inside it.

Before, my son didn’t really know the true purpose of an acorn. He once saw a cat narrowly escape a falling acorn and surmised it was the tree’s method of self defense if something got too close for comfort–tree bullets. But then on another occasion he witnessed an acorn falling for no apparent reason at all. He didn’t know what to think then.

So. Seeing as how he had found another one and seeing as how I happened to be there with him at the time:

“Daddy, what do acorns do?”

Well. Acorns are seeds, I told him. And that in the Fall they drop from the trees to the ground. If all goes well and nothing bothers it much, the acorn will grow a root. When the warm weather comes back, a tree starts to grow.

“A tree?” he wondered.

“Yes. Inside the acorn is a tree.”

It was one of those times in my son’s life when validation comes for some of his more fantastical opinions. Are their dragons and fairies and pots of gold at the ends of rainbows? Yes. There had to be. If it’s true that a giant tree lives in a tiny acorn, then those things have to be true as well.

Wonderful!

But: “What do you mean if all goes well and nothing bothers it?”

Without going into the whole biological process (which I really didn’t know), I told him in broad strokes that the acorn needs things in order to turn into a tree. Water, for one. And good soil. Sunshine, too. If it has all of those things, it will grow.

We looked around and found four more acorns scattered across the yard. Those, he said, should stay were they were. But he first one went into his pocket.

I understood. Sometimes we need small examples of larger truths.

Like that acorn, we all have something big inside us. And like that acorn, what lies there must be tended to and cared for in order to grow.

It won’t be easy. That acorn is small. We are, too. And both of us are stuck in a world where there are plenty of things determined to keep us that way.

The game of life

April 12, 2012 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

Work at a college around a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings long enough, and you will begin to ask yourself some questions. “How can anyone wear flip-flops in December?” is one. “They actually call that music?” is another. And then there is the biggie:

“Was I really that stupid when I was their age?”

The answer, of course, is yes. Absolutely.

For instance. When I was twenty, I believed:

That life was simple.

That the future was set in stone.

That love was all I needed.

That there is good and there is bad and there is nothing else.

That faith would make everything better.

That the young had more to offer than the old.

That the new held more promise than the tried and true.

Nineteen years have passed since then. Nineteen very long, very frantic, and at times very painful years. Whichever of the above beliefs were not proven ill-conceived through marriage and children have certainly been proven so through experience. I know better now. Much, much better.

For instance.

I know that life is not simple. It is hard and scary and tiresome, but it is not simple. If you think it is, then you’re not really living it.

I know that the future may well be set in God’s eyes, but it certainly isn’t in mine. What happens tomorrow is most often a direct result of what I do today, which is most often a direct result of what I did yesterday. The choices I make this day, this second, reach further and deeper than I can possibly realize. Every moment is a defining moment. Every moment is a moment of truth.

I know that love is not all I need. I know that without such things as grace and forgiveness and effort love will crumble upon itself. Love is not the all-powerful cure that poets and dreamers have crafted it to be. It must be nurtured and fed and tended to. Love is not a firm rock that can withstand anything. It is a delicate rose that can wither without attention.

I know that there is good and bad. But I also know that there is more, and I need to look no further than my own heart for proof. For there resides the good man I could be, the flawed man that I am, and the man who must choose daily which he will become.

I know that faith alone is feeble, that only when it is polished with action does it truly shine. Too many times I have prayed for things to get better but did nothing to make them so. God may move mountains, but that’s because mountains can’t move themselves.

I know that the vigor and strength of youth may power society, but it’s experience that drives it. Life has rules, and unfortunately they are not given all at once, but bit by bit as we go. That’s why parents and grandparents are so important. They’ve been there. And because they have, they know a lot more than we do. Time changes. The times do not.

And lastly, I know the new may be exciting, may be revolutionary, may even be promising, but I also know they may not be that way for long. The very things that have sustained us in the past are the things that guarantee us a bright future, things like the importance of family and God, things like the virtues of kindness and loyalty and forgiveness. Such things are woven into us. They are the foundation of who we are and who we will become.

That’s what I know now. Will those beliefs change? Maybe. Check back in twenty years and I’ll let you know.

The Age of Man

February 1, 2012 by Billy Coffey 7 Comments

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.

On settling and being settled

January 4, 2012 by Billy Coffey 7 Comments

The thing about Troy Heatwole is that he’s settled. He’ll be the first to tell you that. Not outright, mind you. Troy never says anything outright and never has. He prefers instead to take the long way around to the point he’s trying to make. So instead of simply saying, “I’m settled,” he’ll say something like, “I ain’t as young as I used to be an’ I ain’t as smart, but the world’s quiet.”

And really, who doesn’t long for a quiet world?

Not that life doesn’t pose any challenges. Troy’s like all of us in that he has bills to pay and ends to meet. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say he’s settled. What I’m talking about is that Troy not only knows his place in the world, he’s accepted it with all the happiness and peace one could ask. There is no striving in him, no longing, no unmet expectations. Just a nice, peaceful quiet.

I say this because I want to say that I envy Troy Heatwole. Not so much for what he possesses (which isn’t much aside from a small cabin in the woods, a battered Ford truck, and a coon dog named Bo), but for what he has. There’s a difference between those things. What you possess can be taken from you. What you have can’t. And Troy possesses a settled life. I do not.

But that’s not really what I’m getting at, either. I suppose I’m taking a page out of Troy’s book—I’m taking the long way around to the point I’m trying to make. How else could I bring myself to admit that I’m envious of a man whose life, settled or not and quiet or not, revolves around cleaning and draining septic tanks?

Oh yes, that’s right. Troy’s the septic man.

It isn’t that he loves his job. He does, however, find a purpose in it. Because just as Troy once told me that “Even the Lawd woulda had trouble lovin to do what I do,” he also said that, “Dis here world’s fulla crap, an’ somebody’s gotta clean it all up.” Wise words, those. Kind of makes you think.

I pass Troy on the road often. Our workdays tend to end around the same time and converge at a stoplight just outside of town. He usually gets the green while I’m stuck at the red. He blows by in his big pumper truck, windows down and long stringy hair waving in the breeze. And smiling, always smiling, because Troy has a quiet life and he’s settled.

Me, I’m not.

That’s not a big deal, I guess, assuming you’re not closing in on 40 and you don’t have a family and a mortgage. All of which describes me. If I’m ever going to be settled, this should be the time when I should get started. But I can’t. Even though I’ve been blessed with much, I can’t escape the feeling there’s more out there I should be shooting for. There are other lands to travel and other things to do and other Me’s to be. I want to settle and yet I feel I shouldn’t settle for less than I should.

That, in a nutshell, is why I’m envious of Troy the septic man. He has no need to ponder such things. He’s found his life. He doesn’t have to wander anymore.

But there are times when he passes me at the stoplight after a long day and I see his hair waving and his face smiling and I think differently. I think that maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe we should all be craving to be a little more than what we are. Maybe we should all be wanting to grow a little more each day.

Deep down we all want to be settled, but that may be more a trap than a treasure.

Maybe only as far as we’re unsettled is there any hope for us.

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