Billy Coffey

storyteller

Embracing The Mystery

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

A hole.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting for home

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A father seldom thinks things through before asking his children what they want for their birthday. He just says it. He thinks their answer will be an easy one. A new doll, maybe. Or the latest action figure. But what he does not consider is that their answer may be something utterly different and much more difficult than having to run to the store the next day and plop something down in front of a cashier.

I learned all this over the weekend. “What do you want for your birthday?” I asked my daughter. Her reply?

“A sleepover!”

So. My wife and I played host to three six-year-old girls last night. Having such young children sleeping at your house and away from theirs for the first time was something for which I admit I was not prepared. For the screaming and yelling, yes. And the mess, absolutely. I was even prepared for the dent that some tiny body part knocked into the living room wall.

But I was not prepared for Curly Sue. Not one bit.

Susan was her given name. But the dark brown locks of hair that adorned her head demanded a temporary nickname. Curly Sue had never spent more than a few hours away from her parents. The likelihood of her actually staying the entire night was slim. But she was determined. Curly Sue stepped through our front door with a pillow, a sleeping bag, and a knapsack full of toys. She was there to stay.

All went well that evening. Until bedtime, that is. Then things began the sort of downward spiral that can happen when you have a house full of little girls.

It began with goodnight prayers. Girls in a circle, taking turns praying for mommy and daddy and for God to make their stomachs quit hurting from all the popcorn. When it came time for Curly Sue’s contribution, though, there was only silence.

“Do you want to pray, Susan?” asked my wife.

A tiny nod.

“Okay, go ahead.”

More silence. Then, five words: “God, I wanna go home.”

Uh-oh.

Four phone calls to her mother later, and Curly Sue decided to be strong and stick it out. She didn’t want to leave her friends, but she didn’t want to stay, either. Could everyone go with her back to her house? she asked. It wasn’t that she wasn’t having fun. Curly Sue said she was having much fun. She loved our home and having her friends around, and she really loved all the popcorn. And there was so much to do! But as much as she was enjoying herself and her surroundings, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t where she should be.

“It’s just not home,” she told me.

The girls were asleep by eleven. By one, Curly Sue had appeared at our bedside twice. “I wanna go home,” she said. Both times.

Instinct woke me at six thirty when I rolled over and found no one beside me. I got out of bed and walked into the living room in search of my wife. I found her and Curly Sue in the rocking chair by the window, gazing out into the evaporating night.

“Just wait a bit,” my wife was telling her. “The sun’s coming, you just wait and see. And when the sun comes, it’ll be time to go home.”

Curly Sue smiled. Me, too.

Because I, too, am a little visitor in a big place, and I miss home. Oh, it’s wonderful here. Beautiful. I have fun, I’m around people I love, and there’s so much to do.

But it’s just not home. No, my home is somewhere else. Somewhere on the other side of this life. Somewhere perfect.

Like her, I’m torn. I want to go home, but I don’t want to leave anyone here, either. I want everyone to come with me so we can all have fun.

Some days, many days, I like it here. But there are days when the weariness of this world weighs on me. When I long for the day when laughter won’t be so fleeting and hope won’t be so hard to find.

Those are the days when I seem to sit by some unknown window and gaze out, trying to will the darkness to fade and the light to shine.

Because I know that when the Son comes, I can go home.

Snapshots

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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.

Handling The Remote

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

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

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

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

By my daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Who can help me swap earth for heaven.

What’s In A Name

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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

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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.

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