The Other Closet

Hurry Up and Wait

2012-01-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

Just what was it that I thought I was doing? There I was, standing in the kitchen, gazing out the window looking across the back yard when suddenly it caught my eye. We had snow for the first time this year and there was quite an accumulation; at least for us in the low lands of the Pacific Northwest. Over the past week’s time we had about eight to ten inches total but today was the first day of the thaw.

To most people what I was seeing, what caught my eye, would be totally insignificant. But to those who know me, I mean really know me, they would understand. They might not, or should I say probably would not agree, but because they know me, they would understand that this is just something I have to do. So what was it that suddenly grabbed my attention and wouldn’t release me? What was so important that I was willing to discount any other plans that I might have had for the day for this? What could I possibly have seen that would cause me to give up unrecoverable time just to be mesmerized by this?

Well… there, across the yard is where the barn is. We call it the barn because both my wife and I work in “the shop” so to call this building the shop would just be too confusing. The barn is actually an aluminum pole building. It has two sections. One section is for auto repair. That’s the part that is taller. Actually almost a two story building and then the other lower section is for wood working. We have a fairly large carport attached to the taller auto section and over the week’s time as the snow was piling up I had to shovel the carport to prevent the possibility of a cave in. The snow around here is really wet and heavy so I just don’t like to take those chances. Time ran out on me the night that I was shoveling so I never got to the lower section roof to shovel it. As I get older I find that the tasks that I used to do quickly and easily take much more time and energy than I expect. Fortunately the snow stopped falling and the melt started, so I never did have to shovel that lower section of roof and it’s because of this that I was now standing, mesmerized by the view.

There on the lower section of barn roof was the piled up snow starting its decent. It had slid enough to overhang the eaves by twelve to fourteen inches and had cracked the surface pack. It was poised to fall at any time. This is something that I just had to witness. I know that may sound silly but I just had to wait and see it break off and tumble to the ground. As I stared at this eighth wonder of the world, I just knew that I couldn’t do anything until that overhang fell. I grabbed a cup of coffee and settled into a spot that gave me an optimum view.

The first ten minutes was nothing. I expected to have to wait. The next thirty were a bit harder to endure. Then I started getting restless. I started asking God to just break it off already. I had waited long enough. Come on God, this is my life I’m wasting here. How long do I have to wait to watch some stupid snow to fall off the roof? I know, you thought that at the very beginning, but now I was getting impatient. I finally gave up and told God that it just wasn’t important and that He wasn’t listening to me anyway. So I determined that I was going to go and knock it down since He wasn’t going to heed my request. I got all dressed to go outside and headed for the door when I realized that I … needed to floss my teeth? Really? The eighth wonder of the world is about to unfold and I need to floss my teeth? Go figure!

So I floss my teeth as quickly as possible and come back out to find… you guessed it, I missed it. The show was over. All that waiting, all that anticipation, gone. Wasted. I got distracted. I lost the focus. So of course I told God that I really didn’t care. That it was stupid anyway. So I marched down to the barn and knocked off the little bit of snow that remained because I was going to be in control. But inside I knew that I just allowed my impatience to get the best of me. I knew I should have just waited. I knew this one was on me.

So what did all this mean? Was there something larger here then snow sliding that God was trying to teach me? I believe that there was. But that only became evident today. So as Paul Harvey so eloquently stated; “Now the rest of the story.”

This morning I got up a little later then normal for a Sunday, and headed downstairs for a cup of coffee. I knew that we were too late to make the early morning church service but for some reason I wasn’t interested in going to the second service either. As I took my coffee and roamed through the house I looked out across the yard and there once again was that ledge of snow hanging precariously at the edge of the roof. This time however there was no crack in it so I knew that it would be some time before this ledge would hasten to the pull of gravity.

As I thought of the events of the previous day, I told my wife Lynn of all that had happened and we had a good laugh over it. I told her that as I sat there yesterday waiting, that I had thought of her, and knowing her personality, accepted the reality that this was something that she would have been incapable of doing. Just the same as with the nights that I stand out in the middle of the yard gazing at stars and not allowing myself to go off to bed before I see one more shooting star or one more satellite go by. She agreed and appreciated that I knew her so well and again we laughed.

And then, it happened. God began to speak to me. I looked out at the ledge of snow again on that roof top and now, there it was, a fresh crack across the top snow pack on the overhanging ledge of snow. I thought to myself; it won’t be long now before it falls and then quickly remembered that those were my thoughts the previous day and I didn’t have the patience to wait. That is when God spoke and said, “Are you willing to wait for My time?” As I pondered the question it occurred to me that there was great relevance here. So I decided to get another cup of coffee and sit for a spell and see if there was anything else He was going to say. As I sat and watched, He brought greater insight to my mind.

He brought to mind the reality that all too often I get impatient and end up working ahead of His timing. As I sat there, a Stellar Jay flew by and perched in a nearby tree. He reminded me that sometimes I get so focused on the outcome that I miss the beauty in the work. A few moments later, a hummingbird flew into view. It stopped at the feeder for a few moments and was gone. Again He reminded me of His creation and His blessing. Then, a red-winged woodpecker flew by. You guessed it, again He spoke and said, “I have created all of these for your good pleasure.” After a few more moments a couple of Crows flew by and I wondered if this was Satan’s way of distracting be from my goal.

After much more waiting, an interesting thing happened. In the middle of the overhang, a large part of the bottom of the ledge broke off and fell to the ground. He again spoke to me and said, “Sometimes when you wait for something it doesn’t all happen at once. It may come in smaller increments.” Just then a beautiful Red-tailed hawk soared by and I was in awe at the diversity of His creation.

Suddenly I noticed that the crack was getting bigger so I decided to go down and look at it first hand. By this time, the weather was getting blustery and rainy. I put on my hat, boots and coat and walked across the yard toward the barn and just then four huge Canadian geese flew by seemingly close enough to reach out and touch. I had to wonder just what it was that He was trying to say with all of these beautiful flying masterpieces that He had blessed me with and then it came to me. He wanted me to see that the waiting doesn’t have to be as painful as I had made it the day before. The waiting can be a blessing if we know and recognize that it’s His plan to wait. I’ts easy to get so focused on the final outcome that we lose sight of the blessings along the way.

So I finally got to roof’s edge and as I inspected it I could hear it creaking and groaning. But I could also hear the sounds of the birds calling to each other in the background. The Stellar Jay squawking to its mate. The Crows just having a time of community and then I recognized another sound. The song of the Robin. Now to me the Robin’s song means a new beginning or new life. When I was growing up, the Robins would leave for the winter and it wasn’t until the spring when the carpet of snow gave way to the new blooms that the Robins would reappear. That’s when He spoke to me again saying, “I will make a new thing for you if you are willing to wait for My time.”

Wow! That was one powerful message. That one really got my attention. With all that has been happening in my life lately I really needed to hear that. So I stood there in the wind and the rain and the cold and I waited. I listened and watched and waited. But while I was waiting, knowing that I had to wait this time, nature started calling. All those cups of coffee that I had enjoyed earlier that morning where starting to talk to my bladder and I knew that I would have to relieve myself soon. So I paced back and forth and called out to God and pleaded with Him to just let this snow ledge fall already because my eyeballs where about to start floating. Nothing! The snow ledge was getting longer, the crack was getting bigger but it just wouldn’t fall. Finally…. I could wait no more. I had to relieve myself. I went back to the house and took care of business never looking back. When I came back out…. You may have guessed it. Or not.

The snow ledge was still there. He hadn’t let it fall. As I walked up to the barn He spoke to me again and this time He said, “Some times when it’s necessary, I will wait for you too.” So as I gathered my thoughts and took my position of waiting once again, not two minutes went by and it happened. As I was starring right at it, the ledge of snow made a clean break and fell to the earth. I smiled and my spirit smiled and I knew that God was very near. I went close and looked at the break line and noticed that there were a few spots that were still hanging on and He said one last thing to me. He said, “Sometimes there will be some reminders of the past but don’t let them control your future.”

So today I missed my church service. But what I got instead was a real life lesson from my Father Himself. Attending church is an important part of our lives and there is much good to gain from it but we need to have discernment enough to be able to know when we just need time alone with the Father.

Don’t let the waiting in life be a burden to you. Enjoy it and look for all the blessing along the way. Who knows, there might be a snow ledge, shooting star, or satellite out there with your name on it.

When you are willing to wait for His perfect timing, the sky is the limit. Happy waiting.

By Geoff Lyons

(Note: This beautiful piece of writing was done by my younger brother and sent to members of our family. When I read it, I knew that it was meant to be shared, and with his permission, I am posting it here. I pray it touches you in the same powerful way that it did me. - Mark)

Lessons From Home

2011-12-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I find myself having difficulty remembering my childhood (actually, most of the time) , but he passing of Mom this past June has given me cause to do some reflection. And while there are many specific memories that I doubt I will ever recall, I have had the chance to think about the legacy that our parents left us. It’s with that in mind that I identify a few of lessons that they imparted to me specifically, but I think all four of their children collectively.

1. The gift of generosity. Mom was probably more guilty of this than dad was, but she loved to give things away. When she was able to financially…and even when she wasn’t, it seemed that she was always buying us something. She did her best to make our Christmas’ and birthdays special. And as we got older, if she had the opportunity, she would often try to send something she may have bought on HSN home with us.

Each one of us kids seem to have that same characteristic, although I think with a greater degree of fiscal responsibility. I am in awe at times of the generosity of Debbie as well as both Frank and Geoff (and of course their spouses – Walt, Clare and Lynn respectively). Whenever given the opportunity, each find a way to take care of a need or a want that they see in others.

2. The gift of hard work. It can never be said that mom or dad was lazy. From as early as I can remember, and throughout their entire lives, both of them spent countless hours trying to make our lives as comfortable as possible. While we had the dairy, they were both invested in making it successful. Dad would work six days a week driving the milk route while mom would process and bottle the milk. And when they weren’t doing “dairy” business, it was working in the fields for dad and running a household of four kids for mom.

When each of us was old enough, we were given a “job” as well. First it was helping dad on the milk route, but as he got bigger and stronger, we moved up to washing the dirty milk bottles. A hard job, but it paid a lot better. We also had our daily chores and opportunities for “seasonal” work like mending fence during spring break and putting in the hay during the summer. When mom and dad sold the dairy business, each of us found jobs as soon as we were old enough to have a social security card and have been gainfully employed since.

3. The love of the water. I really don’t know if when mom and dad bought the dairy in Sandpoint if they were thinking about the fact that it had two creeks running through it or not. And I don’t know if they considered the location of Lake Pend Oreille nearby in their purchase decision. But is has always been apparent that they loved the water. Part of that love may have been instilled by Grandpa Lyons and his love for the water and his lifetime spent building
boats. Both mom and dad spent parts of their early life on Lake Coeur d’Alene with their families. As we were growing, we enjoyed the “big” creek that wound through the farm and the “swimming hole” halfway down the property with the old stump overhanging the bend in the creek that we used as a diving board (and the site of my first, but not last, belly flop). We spent many summer hours molding blue clay we dug from the bottom of the creek bed into a variety of crude pottery items.

When they could, mom and dad would take us into Sandpoint to the City Beach where we improved our swimming skills until we were able to swim out to the docks and feel a bit more grown up. They purchased a ski boat that each of us learned to water ski behind and that Geoff caught his large Kamloops trout during fishing derby week. Later, when Grandpa died, dad inherited the cabin cruiser and even more time was spent on the water. Today, Frank and his wife Clare live full time on the water in their boat. All of us love going to the beach and feeling and smelling the freshness of the surf.

4. The love of the country. I’m sure mom and dad could have chosen to live in town instead of out in the country. I have to admit that during times growing up, I wanted to live in town. That’s where all the action was and it seemed where all of the fun occurred if I listened to the other kids talking at school. But in reflection, I’m so glad we grew up in the country. The farm offered us a place for adventure…and sometimes danger. That was a perfect recipe for kids. And while we didn’t have a lot of neighbor kids who lived close by, it also provided us many opportunities to learn to play and get along (at least most of the time).

Mom and dad also used the country side as their own form of escape I think. It seemed on at least one weekend a month, we would take a “Sunday” drive someplace. It would always be out in the country, never into the city. Dad would drive the old Rambler station wagon up old logging roads or through the back roads all over North Idaho and Eastern Montana. And when the opportunity arose, if there was an old abandoned building along the way, we would pull over to the side of the road and do some exploring.

There are other lessons that we all learned from mom and dad. Some were good and others, not so good. But I believe they did their best. As I look at our family now, I think they would have much to be proud of. Their children love each other with deep compassion and with respect for what we do. Each of us has excelled in our chosen fields of profession. Even though we don’t always agree on everything (which is a good thing), we’ve not allowed rifts in relationships to become chasms that can’t be crossed. While we weren’t raised in a “church” home and religion never seemed to the center of discussion, they both renewed their commitment to Christ in later years. And today, all of us kids love God as well.

I can only thank them for the lessons I learned.

A Rise From Ashes

2011-11-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

He startled me as I walked around the corner at the annual "Coffeefest" trade show in Seattle. I was walking through the trade show with my younger brother Geoff, who owns a coffee shoppe in Bothell, and my sister Deb who had made the trek up from Battleground to experience the latest in caffeine delights. Suddenly out of no where, a large African American man was calling my name and rushing through a throng of people to get to me.

I recognized his smile immediately and moved toward him. A handshake was quickly followed by a hug and we stood there momentarily holding each other. When we separated, he stood back and I felt a deep warmth as his face beemed with a a smile stretching from ear-to-ear.

"You finally did it!", I said. "I am so proud of you.".

I marveled as I looked around at his display area. His booth was surrounded with a throng of people stepping up to sample his home-made organic teas. Three young women were creating the hot beverages for the eagerly waiting crowd and an older gentleman sitting near the back of the booth was putting together sample bags for the trade show participants. My friend stepped away for a moment to hijack a potential customer...mildly chastising them for attempting to pass by his booth without experiencing the best new item at the show.

Moments later he was back, his voiced filled with excitement (and what I could sense as humble pride) as he quickly described the last year of his life. I introduced him to my brother and sister, and when he saw Deb, he stepped back and looked at Deb in wonderment.

"You're the writer", he nearly shouted as he extended his hand as though he were meeting a celebrity. "I love your stories", he added . "Mark gave me the address to your blog. The stories are wonderful!". As I watched my sister, I could see the pleasure of meeting this man expressed throughout her entire being. Like me, she knew some of his story.

I had met this man nearly three years earlier whe we were both in a treatment program together. Like me, he had made a serious mistake that had cost him a promising career as an educator. And like mine, his fall was very public...and painful. During our time in group together, he had experienced the nightmarish life that is common for felons after their release from prison. A few months in a group home. Then finding himself living on the streets, his nights spent in a homeless shelter with other outcasts from our society. A weekend in jail for a miscommunication with his probation officer when he finally found a place to live...but it was in the next county.

As our friendship grew in group, I would usually find myself giving him a ride "home" to the little house where he lived with a group of other men. On on rides in the car we would talk about his desire to start a tea business. He talked about the classes he was talking through the Small Business Administration and I would share resources with him to create a business plan. We would talk about our families...or more accurately, about our ex-wives and the marriages we once had . Stories were shared about our children and the uncertainty of our futures.

Eventually, he graduated from group and I lost track of him. I would ask a few of my other friends from group if they had heard from him, but they too were unaware of what he was doing or where he was. I oftened wondered if he were pursuing his dream, but I also knew that the last five years had shattered the self-confidence of this amazing man.

When he called out to me on that Saturday afternoon in September, he helped to renew a bit of my own self-confidence. He reminded me that none of us are what we "were" when we fell from grace. He helped me to see that it is possible to overcome the barriers that we face that are often created by poor choices that we sometimes make. He restored hope in my life that the dreams that I have for my own business can be reached. And most importantly, he gave me great joy in being able to share in his rise from the ashes to become a successful entrepreneur

The Roller Coaster

2011-10-31T11:53:00.001-07:00

The knot was still there this morning, feeling almost larger than it was on Friday when I got the call. I have been working with Jamie (my probation officer) to get permission to purchase an electronic tablet that my sister Deb and her husband Walt had sent me money for to buy for Angelwings. The money has been sitting in my bank as I did my research to determine what kind of tablet would best fit the needs that I have as an antique dealer. Last Monday, I talked with Jamie and she said she didn’t think there would be any real problem but she would have to run it past her supervisor. She told me that I had her support. And then she told me that I was being taken off of electronic surveillance on my computer. My heart quickened…a small light at the end of the tunnel of these past eight years of incarceration and supervised release.

As I hung up the phone and her words sank in, it helped me to realize that there may actually be an end to this journey that I’ve been on. The man who started is not the same man who is ending it. The “roller coaster” of emotions that my mind and body have gone through over the past 2,810 days has had more twists and turns than the wildest ride at any Six Flags amusement park. Most have them have resembled the emptiness in your bowels that you feel when the car takes the sudden drop or hairpin curve that you didn’t see coming. There have been a few moments of the peace and rest that you feel as the car just slogs along as you come to the end of the tracks.

When I talked with Jamie last Monday, it felt like I was on that final part of the ride when your heart finally stops racing at 120 beats per minute and your stomach starts to settle back into where it belongs. But Friday’s call provided one more twist in the ride. She told me that before I can purchase the iPad, I need to take another polygraph. And then that I could expect to take another before my release from supervision date in August. Finally, I was informed that I’d have to do another “one-on-one” evalution with my treatment counselor. Heart racing…stomach dropping. So much for the smooth ride to the finish.

I’ve tried to reflect over the weekend why I have so much anxiety about the polygraphs. It’s not that I’m not confident in my answers – I don’t need to be afraid that I’ll be lying about anything. I like the man who will be performing the test…we’ve gone down this road together now for a few times. What it really boils down to is trust. As much as I try to trust, there is a deep wound that I haven’t been able to heal that makes it difficult for me to trust. It’s not only people that I have difficulty trusting, in this case it’s also the system. And the problem is compounded for me because what a polygraph actually measures is anxiety. This is a test that the results could never send me to prison (because the results aren’t reliable enough), but they could send me back.

Like that man in the car on the roller coaster, I grip the handrail and let out a scream (silent in this case) as I take this unexpected turn. The adrenaline kicks in and all of the feelings that are associated with that chemical ravage my body. But I stay in the car. I’ll take the test. And I’ll wonder when and where the next unexpected turn is going to come. I can’t trust that there isn’t another one.

Photo from Flickr - by Markku

Transformation

2011-09-07T11:23:00.001-07:00

The aisles of the antique store were crowded and tight together. Often times I would run into a dead-end and have to turn around and find a new path to the next row of potential treasures. I didn’t come to the store often…it’s located on a one-way street in a city about a half an hour away from my home. I only found myself here today because I was killing some time before I went to an antique auction being held in a gallery up the street. I had nothing particular in mind as I wandered. I simply love antiques and like to browse shops any time that I can.

I finally found myself in the back of the store where it appeared the owner simply unloaded stuff through his backdoor, waiting to be sorted and placed on the sales floor. As I looked around, an item caught my attention. It was an old antique armoire/wardrobe that was being used as a janitor’s closet. It wasn’t in really good condition with veneer pealing in a few places and a sagging bottom where cans of paint and cleaning supplies were haphazardly stacked. There was a price tag on it of $300…not a bad price for an older piece, but not a steal either.

I had started to keep my eye out for an old wardrobe about a month earlier when the owner of the antique mall where I have my space told me that he often converted wardrobes into display cases. In fact, he had just sold one that I had my eye on a few days before our conversation. At the time, I didn’t realize that it had at one time been an armoire. So as I looked at this old piece, I made sure that it was structurally sound (which it was) and took a few pictures. The following day, I sent them to my sister Deb for her feedback. As we talked, it seemed that it might be worth making an offer on the wardrobe.

The next day, I placed the call to the owner of the antique store and made him a reasonable offer which he accepted and made arrangement to pick the armoire up. It stood over seven feet tall and was more than six feet wide. My younger brother Geoff used his van and helped me pick it up and move it to his place where we were going to rebuild it into the display case.

For the next three months, I would make regular trips to my brother’s place as we planned to reconstruct the wardrobe. Off came the doors and the end panels that would be replaced with glass. The crown on the top was damaged so we redesigned it and found trim pieces that would give the old piece of furniture a new look. We devised a system of interlocking pieces on the front that would cover the slide rails for the new front doors. Finally, a colored was decided upon and week after week, the new case moved closer to completion.

As I reflect back on the transformation of the old, battered armoire that I found stuffed in the back corner of an antique shop, I realize that the journey that the antique piece took isn’t dissimilar to the transformation that takes place in people…certainly that took place in me. Rebuilding the wardrobe was NOT an easy process and at times it seemed like some invisible force was trying to prevent it from happening. Plans for free mirrors that ultimately didn’t work out. Glass panels for the ends that first broke, and then were cut the wrong size. Difficulty in finding the right kind of replacement hardware and locks. Unforeseen costs that kept adding up. While there was never a thought of giving up on the project, there were times when I wondered what the ultimate outcome would be.

Even as I write these words, my own life is a transformation. Like the antique armoire, at one time my life looked really good. I was successful, in a happy marriage, respected by peers and the community and it seemed that it would always be that way. But after a few bad choices, I found my own life seemingly discarded. Time in prison has a way of making you look at yourself differently and assuming that everyone else does too. Like the old armoire, it seemed that my life was no longer useful for much.

But transformation is an incredible process and sometimes it just takes some time and love for it to occur. There are a lot of people who have invested time and encouragement in me over the past four years. And I know that there is a God who is orchestrating all that is going on in my life. Like the armoire, there is great comfort in knowing that there are no plans for giving up on “this” project. But there is also wonderment on what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

Out of the Darkness

2011-08-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

The sun was shining as we stepped out of the car and walked the brief expanse across the warm, asphalt parking lot. My sister, Deb, and I had spent the morning at the Seattle Gift Show and we had driven across town to check out the permanent showrooms. The trip had taken us on the city streets through the commercial warehouse section of the city that we’d never seen. As we stepped up on the sidewalk, Deb notice the flowering trees and leaned into to it to check out the beautiful, white blossoms. The trees were located on the western side of the building, close to the awning which only provided it with afternoon and late afternoon sun. As a result, the trunks on the trees each had a distinctive bend to them…appearing to reach to the sunlight to the west.

“You know why the trees are leaning to the west, don’t you?” I asked my sister.

“Well yes,” she responded. “Plants always grow toward the light.”

“Actually the light is retarding the growth,” I replied. "The growth is actually taking place on the dark side of the plant. The light is actually preventing the growth."

My comments stopped her in her tracks. I had taken college Botany close to 30 years ago and I remembered performing the experiments in the lab where light was only provided to a plant on one side and we would monitor the growth of the cells. In other experiments, we would measure the growth of plants where they had light 24 hours a day or where we would deny the plants light at all. What we discovered was that plants will grow faster then they don’t have any light at all…for a while anyway. If the light is restricted long enough, the plants will die. I know now my explanation wasn't completely scientifically correct, but it is the dark side that is actually growing taster.

As we drove back to Tacoma later that day, we talked about the light…and darkness…and growth. It is amazing when we think about the interaction that occurs between those three elements. And not only in plants, but in our lives as well.

Like many people, one of my phobias is the fear of the dark. I really think that it is a natural, innate fear in most of us that gets reinforced in a variety of ways throughout our life. For me, I had plenty of opportunities during my childhood to reinforce the fear. His name was Geoff (my little brother.) He seemed to take great pleasure in finding ways to startle…or outright terrify me in the dark on our farm in North Idaho. Eerie old barns and garages and trees gave him all the tools that he needed. Very few people like the dark.

But sometimes the seasons of our life can also be filled with darkness. They are times when we can’t see clearly what’s going on…or where we are headed…or what the future holds. I’ve been there more than once. The three years I spent in prison were one of the darkest times of my life. I saw a lot of men there who were slowly dying. Not in a literal sense, but dying nonetheless. They hadn’t learned the lesson of the plant.

An interesting phenomenon is actually occurring in the plant on the dark side…on the side away from the light. When the light strikes the plant, a hormone is produces that migrates to the cells located in the darkness. And this hormone causes an amazing thing to happen. It causes the plant cells on the dark side to stretch!! As a result, these elongated cells “bend” the plant toward the light (which we interpret as growing toward the light.) I love this lesson of nature because that’s what I need to do when I find myself in a season of darkness.

When we are surrounded by darkness, that’s when we have the opportunity to grow the most. We get stretched in ways we’ve never been torn before and find ourselves facing situations that we don’t have an answer for or an understanding of. The real growth in our lives occurs during the darkest times. It’s when we feel hated and ostracized that we can best learn to love and forgive. It’s when we are poor and have nothing that we learn the real value of giving…even if it means we give the last that we have. It’s when we are sickest that we appreciate what little health that we have remaining…or choose the live out the last days of our lives the best we can. It’s when we see someone that we love dying (or hear of their sudden death) that we examine the true value of every person’s life.

But like the plant, we have to allow the “light” that is there to stir within us the willingness to be stretched. We have to be willing to endure the dark season because it leads us to the light season. A time when our life flourishes and grows stronger. When we can celebrate the lessons and changes that occurred in the darkness. A time that we can let our light shine into the lives of those who find themselves in the dark.

Photo from Bing Images

NUMB3RS

2011-08-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve always loved numbers. I remember as a little boy…laying in bed at night and silently counting as high as I could before I would fall asleep. Not counting sheep, just practicing my numbers. I did the same thing with the multiplication chart. Over and over, I would do them in my head. As the train would pass by on the Great Northern railroad tracks that ran behind our dairy farm in North Idaho, I’d try to count how many cars were in the trains as it whizzed past. Even as we would lay out on the front lawn in our sleeping bags in the summer at night, I’d look into the sky and count as many stars as I could. Counting cars on our Sunday drives provided a nice distraction to the bodies of three siblings squeezed into the backseat of the Rambler station wagon with me.

My wife Paula was always amazed that I could remember phone numbers…and dates. I knew (and still know) the date that we met, the date of our first date, the day I proposed and our wedding anniversary date. Sadly, I also know the date that our divorce was final. The birthdates of our children and our grandchildren and engraved forever in my memory. I guess sometimes, it’s a curse to remember too many numbers.

August is a month full of numbers for me and I have found them swirling in my mind a great deal this past week. It seems each one is associated with a memory…mostly painful. A grandson’s birthday. Release from prison. A date with Paula. Since I’m not getting any younger, I thought I’d put down a list of numbers that seem to have some significance.

6427 - Number of days Paula and I were married
2564 - Days since I last saw my grandson and grand daughter
2552 - Days since I kissed Paula
1463 - Days I've been out of prison
1086 - Days spent in prison
851 - Average number of days between seeing Paula in the past seven years
365 - More days of supervised release
341 - Number of days I've had my antique business
284 - Number of days that I've been selling antiques at the Tacoma Antique Center
260 - Miles round trip my sister Deb drives when she comes to auction with me
137 - Milepost number on I-5 that you take to go to my antique space
43 - Number of antique auctions I've attended in the past year
41 - Number of months I was sentenced to serve in prison
26 - Number of birthdays my grandchildren have had in the past seven years
26 - Number of birthdays I’ve missed for my grandchildren in the past seven years
23 - Hours spent on a bus from Seattle to Bakersfield, California
23 - Date in July of 2004 that my marriage ended
23 - Date in February of 2004 that my life changed forever (can you spell FBI?)
13 - Date in December of 1986 that we were married
13 - Date in August of 1999 that I had my first grandchild
6 - Thickness of a prison mattress…in inches (if you're lucky)
4 - Number of grandchildren
3 - Numbers of siblings that I've renewed a wonderful, loving relationship with
3 - Number of children
1 - Years until I can move freely…anywhere I want to without permission
0 - Number of parents still living

Not all numbers are bad. They are just real. And they serve as reminders to me. There’s one other thing about numbers that I like though…some of them change. Some get bigger, and some get smaller. As I reflect on the list, there are numbers to celebrate...and numbers that I'd like to just let slowly fade from my memory. Maybe....just maybe, time will allow that.

Photo from Bing Images

Resilience

2011-07-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

The footfall on the deck outside the door to the office caught my attention as I sat at my desk putting price tags together for my antique business. I wasn’t expecting it yet…Lee usually doesn’t return from lunch until about 1:30 and the clock was reading just after one. A moment later, the door opened and Luann walked in…visibly shaken. I wasn’t expecting her either. When they had left for lunch an hour earlier I thought that I had heard Lee say he was taking his wife home before coming back to the office.

I glanced up at Luann as she closed the door. She took a couple of steps and stopped. Her hands shook slightly. “My purse was just stolen while we were at Starbucks.” I sat there, looking at her as she took a few more steps and paused. Before I could even comment, she added, “and I had just taken $5,000 out of the bank.” I could hear the pain in her voice as it cracked…and as she turned away, I could tell that she was on the brink of tears.

All I could say was “oh, Luann!!” What other words are there? I could feel my stomach knot up as I watched her walk around the cubicle to her desk. Why did this have to happen? Of all people to be faced with this, Luann should have been on the bottom of the list. Both she and Lee have faced so many changes and obstacles in the past year or two.

Just a few months ago, their home was broken into and robbed. Beyond of the loss of valuables were electronic photos of family that can never be replaced. When I met them almost four years ago, their net worth was in excess of $12 million. Today, they are on the brink of bankruptcy as a result of the real estate market crash. No one is building houses so no one needs the work of our site development business.

Lee and Luann are an amazing couple. Old enough to be my parents, they remain active and vibrant. Even in the midst of all they have lost, Lee maintains one of the most positive attitudes I’ve ever seen in a person. At nearly 77 years old, his mind never stops. He reads voraciously and in his mind he creates constantly. Unafraid of technology, if we had the resources in the business we would have the latest and best that money would buy. And he would be looking to upgrade next week.

But aside from his intelligence and creativity, the attribute that I admire most in Lee is his resilience. It seems there is nothing that can keep him down. A strong believer, his faith keeps him going each day. The loss of $5,000 is significant but he knows that he serves a God who provides. Even though we have submitted bids on more than 25 projects this year alone (and come up short on every one), he keeps a positive outlook and simply encourages me to keep looking for new work.

These people are one of God’s blessings to me in the four years since I’ve been out of prison. When no one else would give me a chance to work, they did. In a business that two years ago had a payroll of more than 100 employees a week, today there only two of us. Only Lee and I remain. And I’m here because I was the only one that he wanted to start over with.

There are days that are difficult for me. Days that I wonder if I will ever be able to move completely beyond this season of my life where it seems I am reminded daily of the cost of a poor choice. But I am also reminded daily by this energetic man who holds a big place in my heart that today holds new possibilities. Reminded that even in the midst of all the negative that life can throw at us, we have a greater purpose that we may not see. He reminds me to simply maintain my faith.

As a side note, Luann’s purse was returned…minus the $5,000. All of her personal items, including her driver’s license and credit cards were still there. The sheriff deputy took the report, but told Lee that there is so much of that type of thing happening today that they won’t assign an investigator to follow-up. The case load is simply too great. But even as he gave me the update, I could hear strength in his voice…not defeat at being robbed. The vacation plans for next week are still intact. It just means that they won’t spend as much. Once again, his resilient spirit denies the enemies attempts to discourage him.

The Last Family Portrait

2011-07-06T14:33:00.001-07:00

The warm sun licked my skin as I sat at the patio table scanning through the photographs that had been most recently uploaded onto our family Shutterfly page while sipping an ice cold can of Diet Coke. I’d spent an evening the week before with my older brother Frank helping him to add his pictures from our Mom’s funeral and from a recent golf tournament that we had played in as a family. I also looked again at the pictures my sister Deb had added a couple of weeks ago from our childhood.

There are literally hundreds of pictures that grace our “Den of Lyons” webpage, and while we’ve only had it for a little more than a year, as I peruse the photos I can see the changes that can take place even in a couple of handfuls of months. That’s one of the wonderful things that pictures provide for us…an opportunity to look at things as they were at a particular moment in time. As I took my time under the warm July sun to look at some of our family photos there, two struck me more than any of the others.

The first one had been taken in 1964-65 at the dairy farm in North Idaho where we grew up. I hadn’t seen it for many years until Deb had given me a copy as part of a box of old family photos at Christmas this year. While we all look so pathetically poor in the picture, it is still one of my favorites. The picture shows our family as we were. Four children ages 7 through 13 and mom and dad…and our wiener dog, Clementine.

The picture reveals so much about us I think. Geoff, the youngest with is mischievous grin. Just looking at his face makes you wonder what he just did that he didn’t get caught for…yet. It seems he always did eventually. The torn knees in his jeans and the rolled up legs most likely a hand-me-down. His shirt, unbuttoned half-way down is one that I had probably worn the year before. His hands hanging at his sides, not willing to be held still in a folded gesture.

Frank, the oldest son standing with his hands neatly folding in front, standing tall with his shoulders back…his legs straight. Perhaps an indicator of his future as a doctor in the army. Or maybe just being careful to stand tall as he had undoubtedly been told to do countless times by mom and dad. His shirt buttoned to the top…stained with a variety of “who-knows-what”? His jeans also reveal tears that have yet to be sewn up. A tentative smile reveals a sense of peace and confidence.

Located between my brothers, I notice that I’m standing a little behind them…my body turned slightly askew. Mom is only touching one of us in the picture…me. Are her hands placed there protectively…or for some other reason, I’ll never know. My smile is one of shyness, not really sure what to think of this backyard family photo shoot by the local newspaper. Unlike my brothers, my jeans appear intact and “hole-free” revealing my aversion to getting too rough or dirty, even as a young boy.

Deb stands in the back row, a beautiful smile gracing her face. The smile I’m sure part of the reflection of her status in the “adult” row, standing beside mom. The toes of her bare feet scrunch into the quack grass that we called a lawn…her eyes squinting slightly from a source of sunshine not apparent in the old black and white photo.

Standing in the center is mom in a sleeveless plaid dress, not looking at the camera…apparently trying to avoid eye contact with the photographer. Or perhaps in her mind she believes if she doesn’t acknowledge the camera, it might mean that she really isn’t in this place…that perhaps this life that she is living is only a dream. Her eyes reveal a depth of fatigue that can’t be described. Or is it disdain? Clearly, she doesn’t look happy.

Beside her is dad, standing in his uniform of the day…the white pants and short-sleeved shirt that identify him as the “milkman”. The ever-present pipe protruding from his lip…although this one had a straight stem rather than the bent style that he usually smoked. In his arms sits Clementine, herself a little apprehensive about all that is going on. Ironically, dad too avoids the camera with his eyes and his expression masks any feelings that he may have. Are they pride in what he has accomplished on this dairy or is it covering the dreams that he still holds that are unfulfilled?

Whatever this family portrait reveals, it is what our family was nearly four and half decades ago.

The second photo is actually our “last” family portrait. We never had a formal portrait taken of our family growing up. Only the occasional snapshot that an aunt or uncle may have taken when the six of us were together. Maybe it was because it was dad who usually had a camera and his nature wasn’t to ask for help…even a passing stranger to take a picture of his family all together. Or perhaps because there were very few times that seemed to be worthy of capturing on film as a reminder of where we were, or perhaps of who we were. And certainly, it would have been a cold day in hell before dad would have paid money to have one taken professionally.

But on a cool, misty June day in Newport, Washington we all gathered for one last day together. Forty-five years after that black and white picture in the backyard was taken, a new image was captured. We had come to celebrate and remember the lives of our parents, and to bury their remains together.

Ironically, just as in the photo from our childhood, the four of us kids are all facing the camera and smiling. Deb’s eyes are twinkling as they often to when she reveals her beautiful smile. Frank stands beside her, holding her in a loving and protective grasp. A fedora covering his graying hair. On the opposite side, Geoff stands with his arm around me, his other hand still hanging and his mischievous smile bracketed by his goatee. Slightly behind, my balding head in the shadows, I smile as I feel my hand against Geoff’s back…feeling his presence close beside me.

In this photo, mom and dad don’t have an opportunity to face the camera. But they are there. Mom in a beautiful black, floral urn…a reminder of the beauty of her youth. And dad in a plain, bronze box…in a similar way a reminder of the simplicity of his way of life. We can’t see what expressions they might have shown the camera on this day, but I’m certain that it would be one of pride and joy and a sense of completion. Their family had gathered one last time, caught on film for all eternity.

Black & white photo- Unknown

Color photo by Clare Lyons

A Tale of Two Calls

2011-06-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

As Debbie knelt down and placed two long stem roses…one white and one red, into the rectangular hole on top of the two urns, it was finally over. What had started five years earlier with a phone call while I was in prison was ending in a way that I had never expected.

It was early June in 2006 and I remember the announcement that came across the “yard” as I was walking back from my job assignment in the chapel.

“Patrick Lyons, report to your counselor’s office immediately.”

I didn’t often hear my name broadcast over the PA system and my heart quickened when I heard my name called. I walked into the unit and took a quick right and knocked on the counselor’s door. She looked up and motioned me to sit down.

“Do you have a brother named Geoffrey Lyons”, she asked.

My mind raced as I told her that “yes, I did” and she reached over and picked up the phone and started dialing without saying another word. I sat quietly and watched, wondering what was going on. A moment later she handed me the phone and I listened. After a couple of rings, I heard my younger brother’s voice on the other end.

I asked if everything was OK and he briefly told me that our mom had been moved to hospice and the doctors gave her less than two weeks to live. I was dumbstruck for a moment. I knew that mom was in the nursing home but had no idea that her health had been failing. I asked a few questions as the counselor sat quietly across the desk…watching and listening. He said that he would call when she had passed away and wondered if I would be able to make it home for the funeral. I told him that I would look into it and let him know.

We hung up and I quietly handed the phone back to the counselor. She said that we was very sorry and that if Geoff called back, she would let me know immediately and see what my procedures would be to get a short-term release from prison to go to my mom’s funeral. It became apparent very quickly that I would not receive permission from the prison to go home and in my mind, I accepted the fact that I would never see my mom again.

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months as mom got better. When I was released from prison 14 months later, she was back in the nursing home. The doctors had adjusted her medications and she had regained her strength. When I visited her when I got back, she never did recognize me. She would smile and appreciate the fact that “a nice man” was coming to visit and would smile and giggle when I would give her a kiss good-bye. When I visited with Geoff, he would tell her that “Mark” was her to visit and she would smile and nod, but there was never a glimmer of recognition.

Mom went into hospice again last month. As I was leaving work for lunch two weeks ago today, my phone rang and it was Geoff. I asked how he was doing and he said that he had just received a phone call from the nursing home.

“I got a message from the nursing home to call them. Mom passed away at 5 minutes to twelve today”, he said quietly. I could hear the pain, and a little anger in his voice…not only from the loss but the way that he had received the news. I asked if he was OK and he acknowledged that he was and said that he would get me more information when he could.
My mind was momentarily numb as I continued to drive. It’s not that it wasn’t unexpected…mom hadn’t been well for a long time. We just weren’t expecting it to be so soon and thought that maybe we would have the opportunity to be with her when her time came. Instead, she simply didn’t wake up for lunch one day.

For the next week, Geoff contacted all of the family members and friends’ of mom that he felt would be interested to know of mom’s passing. Plans were made for the service to take place in Newport, Washington where her ashes would be buried near her mom and her brother and with our dad.

Because the funeral would be across the state and out of my “probation territory”, I made contact with my probation officer to get permission to travel. We visited on the phone and she told me that it wouldn’t be a problem and to get her the paperwork. I mailed it off and waited for the permission form to be mailed back. By the Thursday morning before the Saturday funeral, I began to get a little nervous because the permission slip still wasn’t in the mail. I made a call to my probation officer and left her a message with my concern. When I checked the mail again Thursday night and it wasn’t there, I began to wonder if I would end up missing the funeral after all…even though I was no longer in prison.

I placed a phone call, leaving a message and followed that up with an e-mail from my Blackberry asking my probation officer to contact me. My mind started to process what was happening and I considered calling my sister Deb. She had asked me to facilitate the service and travel to the funeral with her. I knew that she, and the family were counting on me and she was planning to pick me up at work on Friday afternoon. A while later, my cell phone rang and I looked at the “caller ID” and saw that it read “unidentified number”. I answered and it was my probation officer on the other end.

“I just got your e-mail. When is the funeral?” she asked. When I told her that it was on Saturday, she apologized and said that she thought it was the following week. She said she would process the request first thing in the morning and asked if she could send it by e-mail when it was completed and I told her that would work great and thanked her as she hung up.

I finally received the permission just before noon on Friday and I put everything in my luggage in the car with the notes that I’d prepared for the service. My sister arrived in the early afternoon and after an overnight stay at Geoff’s, we made the 350 mile trip across the state to mom’s final resting spot.

The rain danced softly on the roof of the canvas tent as each of us said our good-bye to mom. It was a small group…ten of us in all as we sat and listened. An occasional tear would fall from someone’s eyes as stories were related about mom and letters of farewell and love read aloud. After a final song of “I’ll Fly Away”, we removed the Astroturf covered plywood that covered the small hole and Geoff carefully and gently placed the urns holding mom and dad’s ashes into their final resting place. Debbie knelt down and placed two long stem roses…one white and one red, into the rectangular hole on top of the two urns, and it was over.

Photos by Mark Lyons and Deb Shucka

Spreading Our Wings!

2011-06-10T13:56:00.001-07:00

I stood and looked for a moment at the drab, pale yellow walls and tried to visualize in my mind’s eye what this space might look like when we were finished. We’d made the little cut-outs of the furniture we’d be placing so we had a general idea of the layout. And many of the antique items we’d be placing in the various pieces of furniture had already been in the case that I was moving out of. But still, I wasn’t quite certain how it would all turn out.

My sister Deb had driven up to help me this weekend as we were expanding our antique business and moving into an actual space that could hold furniture and other larger antiques that couldn’t fit into the small five foot glass case that I had occupied for the past seven months. We had been keeping our look out for the right pieces of furniture to put in the space and sought out other items that might fit the “look” we were trying to accomplish. My little fifth wheel trailer that I call home had become so full of boxes and small pieces of furniture that I gave up on trying to sit on the couch weeks ago. It was beginning to look like one of those places you see on programs like “Hoarders”.

Soon, the walls were being transformed from a state of depression to a palette of vibrant and lighter pinks. As I walked from the space to go out to my car to get some more supplies, one of the antique mall employees called me over to his desk. “You know…your space is looking a little ‘gurly’”, he said. I smiled a little and told him he just needed to wait until it was finished. As I walked out into the parking lot, for a brief second I once again wondered if it would turn out as we had imagined.

Deb did most of the painting while my brother Frank and his wife Clare brought their trailer over so we could move some furniture down to the mall. Unfortunately, Frank had ‘tweaked’ his back that morning and was in considerable pain. The furniture ended up being a little bit too large for the trailer to transport in one trip so our plans were altered slightly as we placed the first piece of furniture in the space as Deb continued to transform it. As the day ended, the paint was still too tacky to put the finishing touches on the walls…a dark mahogany chair rail that we hoped would add the touch to the space to give it the look we desired.

We knew we were going to have a long day in front of us as we sat in the small restaurant nearby. Deb and I talked about all that we needed to get done this morning to be able to get finished by the time the mall closed tonight. While we thought that we had given ourselves plenty of time to load up all of the antiques and some furniture from my place, we still ended up starting the day about 20 minutes behind schedule.

The walls in the space looked radiant as we carried the tools into the mall. We were soon busy getting ready to cut the chair rail and miter the ends so we could start to move the antiques into the space. I should have know when the miter box I was using didn’t open wide enough to accommodate the chair rail that this part of the project wasn’t going to go smoothly. After two attempts to cut the miter with the saw failed, we decided that this wasn’t going to work. I called my brother Geoff who was coming down to help us to bring along the “right” tools to get the job done. The problem was, it would still be close to an hour before he would get there.

Deb and I looked at each other and she suggested that we at least place the chair rail on the back wall so we could move the first piece of furniture in and start to load it. Our time was too valuable to spend the next hour doing nothing. Pulling out the small coping saw, I tried to “eye-ball” a 45 degree angle and started cutting. Somewhat satisfied with the results, we nailed the rail to the wall and stepped back to check it out. I can’t describe the difference that having the dark, mahogany wood made in the space. The mall employee who had said the space looked “gurly” the day before walked up a few minutes later to check it out. His comment this morning said it all. “It really looks rich”, he said. Deb replied back, “that’s what we were hoping for.” And it was really beginning too.

Patience isn’t one of my greatest attributes (nor is it Deb’s) so we decided to try to hang more of the chair rail so we could keep working. Using the handheld coping saw, I carefully cut the pieces we needed to finish two of the three walls. While the miters weren’t perfect, they were good enough to hang. With each piece of chair rail placed on the wall, the feel of the space continued to be transformed.

I was soon moving the smaller pieces of furniture from the truck to the space and placing them against walls and in corners. It was fun to watch the reaction of the mall employees and other dealers as each piece was brought in. After each item was placed in the space, we could count on one of the workers coming back to see what we had this time. They seemed to be as curious as we were impatient.

A short while later, Geoff arrived and with the right tools and we cut and hung the last pieces of chair rail and the palette was complete. While Geoff and I made one final trip to pick up the rest of the furniture, Deb began to place our treasures in the various display cases and curios. As Geoff and I moved the final pieces of furniture into place, I smiled to myself at how well it all fit into place as Deb and I had envisioned.

The rest of the day was spent unloaded containers and placing them in the cases. Geoff artfully filled the case with the sterling pieces while Deb pointed out where the pictures should be hung and carefully unwrapped the smaller items and placed prices on them. Soon, there were more empty boxes than full ones and the places to put the antiques were filling up.

Before we knew it, the announcement was made that the mall would soon be closing. Fortunately for us, this was a “dealer night” and we would have a little more time to work after dinner. Geoff left to go home as Deb and I visited with other dealers over the chicken dinner the mall was providing and soon lifted our tired bodies out of the chairs to finish our project.

I have to admit…the space didn’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned it. I’ve been in a lot of antique malls and have walked into literally hundreds of dealer spaces. They all seem to have their own feel and identity…and there are some that I’m happy to get out of quickly because they are not inviting.

The space that was created on that Friday and Saturday was something special! We wanted a place that had a Victorian feel to it…a richness that would transform you to another time and place. What we saw as we stood back at the end of the day was a “destination” space. Without question, it is the most beautiful space in the mall. Rich, the mall owner, was visibly pleased as he came back to visit with us as the night ended and told us how much he loved the space.

When I started my antique business, Angelwings Antiques, last August I really didn’t know what it would look like. It just started as a dream. This past weekend, we spread our wings a little bit. Who knows how far this dream will go.

Photos by Deb Shucka and Mark Lyons
A special thank you to Deb who helped to make all this possible!

God Has No Grandkids

2011-04-25T14:50:00.001-07:00

She turned nine years old on Saturday. If I saw her walking across the street, I wouldn’t recognize her nor would she recognize me. The last time I saw her or held her in my arms was she was barely more than a year old. I’ve heard stories about this beautiful little girl, and she’s heard some stories about me as well. And surprisingly, what she has heard about me is pretty good.

For obvious reasons I thought a lot about little (or not so little) Brooke this weekend. Paula, my ex-wife has been in Hawaii for the last week with Brooke and her family and she texted me on Brooke’s birthday to tell me how much fun they were having celebrating her birthday. And while I missed being there, I was okay. I knew that her day was going to be special with her mom and dad, older brother, a favorite uncle and Grandma Paula. She would definitely be surrounded by love.

I work with a pretty incredible man. As Lee came in to work this morning, we took a couple of minute to just visit. He and Luann had celebrated Easter with most of their family at their home and he was sharing some stories. Lee is nearly 77 years old and has experienced a great deal during his walk on this earth. He is a very godly man who loves Jesus with all his heart and he is never hesitant to give a testimony or simply talk about how great life can be when we have Jesus in our hearts. He was telling me that he was visiting with his grand-children about how God created each of us as human with the ability to make decisions. And then he made a statement that penetrated to the innermost part of my heart.

“God doesn’t have any grandkids”, he said.

It is such a simple statement, but it struck me in a particular way because my sister Debbie has been working on a memoir for the last couple of years. When she titled her first draft, she called it “God Has No Daughters.” I didn’t like the title (and actually shared with her why and offered a few “little brother” suggestions for something better) but as I reflect back now, it was the right title for her story. She had never felt loved by God and as a result she didn’t feel like a daughter loved by God.

Debbie and I have spent more hours visiting in the last three years than we had in the previous fifty combined. During that time, she has shared with me her perception of who God is, and was, to her and has helped me to understand why. Debbie gained her understanding and perception of God through our mom and through the experiences she had while in a cult for a number of years. She was having her picture of who God is painted with the brushes of others, and as such she was not seeing God as He truly is.

I love to take pictures and often these days take photos of the antiques that I sell. Sometimes I use my camera on my phone and other times I use my small Nikon camera. Each one takes a different quality of picture. They both look pretty good with the original shot, but when I try to enlarge them something happens. The more picture is enlarged, the farther the pixels are spread apart and pretty soon what seemed to be clear is now indistinguishable. Even with the higher quality Nikon, before long the image is no longer able to reflect the beauty of the original object.

And that’s what God wants with us…with me. He doesn’t want our image of Him filtered through the eyes and experiences of others. He calls us to be His children, not His grandkids. Dad’s discipline more than grandpa’s do. And they withhold more than grandparents do. Dads don’t spoil their kids nearly as much as grandma and grandpa do. Because of His nature, God simply can’t be a grandpa. So we can’t be His grandkids.

But God is a lot different from many dads in one important way. He is able to love us like a grandpa does. He’s never too busy to play with us or to come to our events. He doesn’t judge or try to live His life through us. Actually, He wants just the opposite…for us to live our lives through Him. When we need to talk to Him, we are more important than the game on TV, the golf date with His buddies or work. We don’t have to get straight A’s in school, be the captain of the football team or the head cheerleader for Him to glow with pride in us. And when we fail, He doesn’t ground us for life or tell us how worthless and “good for nothing” we are. He simply helps to pick us back up, show the direction we need to be going and loves us. He loves us the way most grandpas do…but how every dad should.

Photo from Flickr, by riffsyphon1024

"Shout it out loud!"

2011-04-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

My eyes are getting older I guess. I find them burning in the late afternoon much more often that I used to. At night, they itch and burn as I try to relax watching re-runs of “Criminal Minds” on a cable channel. It seems that every couple of pages of a book I’m reading is followed by the rubbing of my eyes. Even as I sit as the computer terminal at work, I find I need to step away a little more often to let my eyes rest so they can stay in focus.

It’s not only my eyes are struggling to stay in focus these days, it’s also the direction of a book I’m trying to write. I had the pleasure of attending a Christian writer’s conference with my sister Deb a few weeks ago and it got my “writer’s juices” flowing again…well, at least trickling a little bit. For the past several months I’ve found my mind pulled in so many different directions that the book has been set on the back burner as I’ve worked to establish a small antique business. Even in the midst of the busyness of my thoughts, my mind continues to go back to the story that I’m destined to write. But it seems that every time I start to focus on the book, I realize that I’m not sure of the story that I want, or need, to tell. What I’ve needed is a clear picture of message that God is intending through my story. I think I’m finally getting closer to what that is.

As we drove back from the conference, Deb and I were discussing what impacted us most about all of the sessions that we had sat through and the speakers we had listened to. For me it was the need to discover what that one absolute truth was in my life that my book could illustrate. Initially I thought about the truth that I serve a God of “second chances.” Certainly my life is a reflection of that as are many stories in the Bible.

But my story is deeper than that and my sister reminded me of a story that I’d shared with her only the day before about the sermon my pastor preached on the Sunday I got on the bus and headed south to a Federal prison in California. He told his congregation that he was going to go visit a friend after church that day who was getting ready to spend the next three years behind bars…in a prison far away from his friends and family. And that he wanted to visit with me and pray with me before I got on that bus. But then he reminded the people sitting in the church pews that morning that although I was going into a “physical” prison, I was so much freer than many of them were because they were living in their own prisons of sin and secrecy and unforgiveness. I knew that place because I had lived there much of my own life. And Debbie was right.

It always amazes me how God reinforces what He would have us do. We’re in the midst of preparing for our Palm Sunday concert at church and one of the songs that the choir will be singing is called “The Very Same Power” and it contains a chorus that has resonated with me this week.

“No more chains, holding me. From now on, I am free…I’m gonna shout it out loud!”

In that one line of the chorus I’m being directed on the direction that my book will take. My life was a prison and I was shackled with chains that nearly destroyed my life. And like many people I’ve found freedom from those chains. Now I am called to “shout it out loud” in pages of a book.

Photo from Flickr

"Very Same Power" lyrics by Free Chapel

One Man's Trash...

2011-03-09T09:53:00.001-08:00

It was a pretty innocuous looking box. There was a set of fairly new silver-plate cream and sugar and one older, well-tarnish creamer. A blue crackle-glass vase, a broken toy boat of some kind, an old metal letter holder and a few other odd items were also lying on top of each other in the box. What had caught my eye in the first place was a bisque figurine of a boy. It wasn’t really the type of piece that I collect, but it seems like I can’t keep them in my case at the Tacoma Antique Center where I take my antiques to sell. I put a “maximum bid” number in my auction catalog and kept moving around the room previewing the rest of the lots that were for sale.

The auction was on a Wednesday and the house wasn’t nearly as packed as it was the night before. On Tuesday’s, this auction house puts their “higher end” items up for auction and that draws a lot attendees…some that actually bid, some that I think just enjoy the activity of an auction. Wednesday night is more of a “box lot” and “primitives” night. As a result, the auctioneer goes at a pretty fast pace. Even the on-line bidders have to be quick with their bids or the hammer has already fallen and he is on the next lot.

I had about 15 or 20 lots highlighted in my catalog for the auction and sat in my regular seat with my bidder’s card ready. I won a number items that came up, and lost a few. That’s what you have to expect at an auction. Even though you would like to, you can’t win them all…unless you have boatloads of money to spend and you’re not buying to resell.

The auctioneer called out “lot 1105” as the next item on the block. It was the box with the figurine so I got my card ready. The assistant pulled out a couple of the items in the box to show the audience. As always, Joe (the auctioneer) made comments about some of the pieces and how “with a little work” some of them might be really valuable. The auctioneer asked for an opening bid of $500, then $100, $50…all the way down to $5 before I raised my bidder’s card. Other’s countered with $10…then $15. I sat there briefly, then raised mine for a $20 bid. “Any more bids”, he asked? “Sold!”, and he was off to the next lot.

For the next hour and half, the auctioneer sold lot after lot of items that someone had accumulated for years. At the end of the night, I’d made nine purchases and I settled my account and got my items boxed up to take home. Over the weekend, I went through the items that I’d purchased, deciding which would go into my space at the antique mall and which I would try to sell on ebay. I got box lot 1105 and started to pull the items out. When I lifted out the figurine, my heart sank because there was a small chip his hand. It looked fresh. It could have happened after I’d previewed the box or I might have missed it. Nevertheless, the “one item” that I’d wanted the box for wasn’t going into my case at the mall.

I pulled the other pieces out of the box and realized they were all “ebay” items so I got them ready to photograph. The crackle-glass vase and a small “peapod” spreader were in really good shape so I took a half dozen pictures of each of them and set them aside. I picked up the toy boat and took a closer look at the axel underneath that was broken. It was a clean break so I got out some glue to try to repair it and while the glue was setting, pulled out the metal letter holder. It was definitely an older piece so I cleaned it up and took photos of it as well.

I picked up the toy boat to check the axel and it glued solid. I gently rolled it across my table top and the heads of the two musicians in the boat raised up and down and the hand of the guitar player moved to “strum” the guitar. The other musician’s arm raised up and down but his hand was broken off and the drum was missing. I figured I could put it on ebay for a few dollars and make a little something back on the $20 I’d spent on all of the items since the figurine wasn’t worth selling.

The following day I went to my office after work to start listing the items. As I always do, I went on-line to try to find something out about the piece so I can give a good description to the potential buyers. I typed “antique toy boat” into the Bing search window and a number of entries popped up. I was directed to a site referring to the type of toy as a “Kobe” toy from Japan. A few more searches caused me to stop for a moment. Some of these toy (even in poor condition) had sold for hundreds of dollars. There was one listed on ebay that day at a “Buy it Now” price of $1000. I searched previous sales and decided to post a starting price of $99.95 (which was about $95 higher than I was thinking on Saturday when I pulled the toy out of the box.)

I’m relatively new at selling items on Ebay, but the next seven days were fun. More than 40 people checked out the toy on the auction site and 15 had tagged it on their “watch” list. Within the first twenty-four hours, someone had bid $200 for it. When the auction ended a week later, my $4 investment had turned into a $325 return. The antique letter holder also sold that day and those two items more than paid for everything that I had purchased at the auction the week before.

That…is the thrill of the auction and the satisfaction of dealing in antiques. You never know exactly what something is going to be worth. Personally, I never would have purchased either of those pieces for myself. But for someone else, they were the treasures they were looking for.

Jesus In The Mosh Pit

2011-03-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

It was an interesting question…one that has been around for a couple of thousand years. I was on my way to work, driving the back streets as I do every morning on my twenty-five minute drive from the little 5th wheel trailer I call home to the office. As I do every morning, I was listening to a local Christian radio station during their morning call-in segment. The discussion topic for the day was “what do you think Heaven will be like?” It was the last call that I heard before I pulled into the parking lot that got my attention and caused me to reflect back on the centuries old question.

The caller responded something like this.

“I think Heaven is going to be like a big worship rock concert with Jesus leading the worship. And during one of His songs, He’s going to jump out into the mosh pit!”

Jesus in the mosh pit…what a concept! For this caller, Jesus was someone who knew how to have fun…at least the caller’s definition of fun. That was her picture of who her Savior is. And it was that thought that led me to my reflection of the question that Christ asks His disciples – “Who do you say that I am?” I love that question probably more than any other question that Jesus asks in the Gospels (and He asks a lot.)

If someone would have asked me that question ten years ago, I would have said the Jesus was my Savior and probably wouldn’t have added much more detail to my answer. The reason is simple…I didn’t really know WHO He was, at least not personally. And my answer would have been right. He is my Savior.

But if you would have asked me that question exactly seven years ago today, my answer would have been different. At that time, I would have been trying to pull myself out of the depression of my arrest, the loss of my wife and family, the reality of unemployment and prison time and a depth of loneliness I’m not sure I’d ever felt before in my life. On that morning, if the question would have been asked, I would have responded that He is my Comforter. Once again, my answer would have been correct.

Over the next several months when I was intentionally spending time with Him as I walked and prayed and wrote in my journal, I met Jesus in a new way. I heard His voice. His presence beside me was real each morning when I would take my walk or climb up on a rock on the hillside overlooking the golf course where I lived. He would ask me questions and I would answer…and when I asked Him, He did the same. My answer during that period would have been that He is my friend. Bingo…correct answer.

He has shown Himself to be all those things and so much more in my life during the past seven years. He’s also my Father…and a loving Mother (with the unique ability to love as only a woman can.) He has been my protector and my source of strength. He has made me laugh…and He has made me cry.

What I’ve discovered during this season of my life is that He is exactly what I need, when I need it! And the reality it, He is all of that to anyone when they need Him. He takes us through every season of our life, whether they be the "good" times in a quiet way...simply there if we need Him. Perhaps doing nothing more that pouring out His blessings on us. And He is also there during the "bad" times when we need Him to give us comfort, peace, strength, courage, relief from pain (both physical and emotional), love or simply His presence.

And when I think about that caller's reponse, I love the fact that if I’m ever at a worship rock concert, He would be in the middle of that mosh pit beside me…having fun as only the God of the Universe could have fun. Now THAT’s a Heaven that I want to spend eternity in!

Photo from Bing Photos

Bounceology

2011-02-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been exposed to several new words that have really spoken to me. The most recent word was “bounceology” and when I first read it, I wasn’t too sure that it was even a word. So I went to my trusty on-line “Webster’s” and it wasn’t there. Then I went to “Urban Dictionary” (because every word that isn’t a word is usually listed there) and I still couldn’t find it. So I just “Bing’d” it and sure enough, there it was. There were a couple of uses for the word…from “hard dancing” to the “the size of the bounce.” It was the last application of the word that spoke so deeply to me.

Most people would agree that the “bigger you are, the harder the fall”. This can refer to simply tripping and landing on the concrete or a fall from a public position. I can relate to both of the applications personally. I’m not a small man and I’ve suffered physical damage to my body by falling on the ground because of the impact of my weight slamming onto a hard surface. The result was a separated shoulder. I’ve also suffered the public humiliation of falling from a very public position when I was arrested and spent three years in prison for making some very poor decisions. In both situations, when I fell I didn’t bounce back up very quickly…or very high.

But the definition of “bounceology” that I came across the other day has helped me to see that it doesn’t have to be that way. That definition says that “the harder you fall, the bigger the bounce”. I’m a former science teacher and I understand that literally, “bounceology” would be defined as “the study of bounce.” If we examine the study of a bounce, it has 4 parts. Falling, impact, expansion and elevation. The implication in the article was that God has implanted in each of us the ability to bounce back from all things. It went on to apply the four parts to a bounce in an interesting way:

Fall – this is falling, not “failing”. This is where panic sets in and we try to control what is going to happen
Impact – the explosion. This part hurts, but hang on, God has something bigger planned
Restoration – your true identity. You have absorbed the impact (learned from it)
Elevation – being uplifted. That which is against you is now for you.

As I read this short narrative, it struck me that the stages being described weren’t too unlike the stages of grief. In the grieving process, you can’t get to “acceptance” until you’ve gone through the previous four stages. And in a like manner, you can’t get to “elevation” until you’ve gone through the pain of the fall. It’s been almost seven years since my “fall” and it was interesting to see where I am in these stages of “bounce”.

I’d like to be able to say that I’ve been elevated. That it is all behind me and everything is “hunky dory”…but it’s not. Life is not easy. Nor is it what I could define as “normal” for most people. I still have great restriction in my life and a multitude of barriers that most people don’t have. There are still elements of society that are still against me as a result of the choices I made that resulted in my fall.

But I can say that I believe I’m in the “restoration” stage. The panic from the fall and the pain of the impact are behind me. The destruction caused by the explosion that rippled through my family has been put back together for the most part. And the result of the impact and the explosion is that it has revealed my true identity. No more masks to hide behind. No more secrets too embarrassing to conceal. I’ve learned from the choices that I’ve made and the end result is that I will be a better person for it. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in this stage or when I’ll achieve “elevation”.

The parallel between the stages of bounce and of grief have hit very close to home for me in the past month. My sister Deb is currently moving through the stages of grief over the death of her daughter just before Christmas. And my brother Frank and his wife are going through the same grief over the death of a son. I’m sure that like me, they would like to be at the point of complete understanding and acceptance of what happened without going through the pain and frustration of the earlier stages. But life doesn’t work that way. We don’t get to the end of the journey without following the path all the way. What I’ve discovered is that sometimes even the most painful journeys can end up transforming us and enlightening us in ways that never could have occurred without the pain.

"Bounceology" from Jentezen Franklin

Image from "Bing" images

Through the Eyes of a Boy - The Scout

2011-01-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

He sat in the back of the bus…the cherished seat. Surrounded by his friends Daryl and Dan…and a few others, his words and laughter would occasionally find their way forward to where I sat about half way back. His brown, curly hair didn’t show the signs of the regular crew cuts that dad would give us in the same way mine did. While the “sidewalls” around my ears seemed accentuate the size, his face was well proportioned. Dressed in a brown, paisley shirt that he and Debbie had picked out and the wide corduroy bell bottoms and wide black belt, he was the epitome of fashion in 1968. My own blue jeans and button-up shirt were nice…they were new this year, but didn’t have the pizzazz that his did.

The bus stopped in front of the old brick building…three stories tall with the flag pole standing proudly out front. There was laughter and pushing as we all rushed to get off the bus. It was the first day of school…and for me, my first day of Junior High. I really had no idea what to expect what I certainly had my reservations. I had always liked school and my early elementary at the Old Farmin School had been filled with wonderful memories. However, the two years at New Farmin had been difficult. My assimilation hadn’t been smooth and the friendships that had been nurtured during my first four grades had all but disappeared. Kids from some of the other elementary schools had joined us during those two years and it seemed I didn’t fit. I didn’t realize until Junior High that part of the reason that fifth and sixth grade were difficult socially is because “he” wasn’t there.

I don’t think that he knew the anxiety that I had about another school. We didn’t have the same kind of relationship that Geoff and I had. He was two years older, while Geoff and I were only thirteen months. Frank had already found himself working away from the farm by the time he reached his freshman year and had begun to “grow up”. While he still occasionally took the time to play with Geoff and me at this point, it wasn’t a regular occurrence. He still shared the same bedroom with us, but he no longer slept in the bunk beds. His bed was set on one side of the bedroom as a single, while Geoff and I had a double bunk.

I watched as he and his friends walked with ease up the front steps in a manner that let you know that they had been here before. This was their school and they were comfortable. The heads of the ninth grade girls turned to watch as he made his way to the front door…a burst of giggles and heads wagging as they watched him disappear. I walked with uncertainty, following the other kids as we made our way inside to find assigned lockers and classrooms. The hallways were crowded and I was greeted with bumps and shoves and the dreaded “Hey Sevy…get out of the way!” as I scurried to the edge of the hallway to accede to their demands with the other seventh graders.

I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but it was early in the school year. It was down on the first floor…on the gym level and one of the ninth graders on the football team with Frank walked by me and gave me a kidney punch. I don’t think I had ever felt anything so painful in my life! Even the spankings and willow switch never felt like this. Tears immediately welled in my eyes as I hunched over…gasping to catch my breath. I tried to straighten up and keep moving, not wanting him to see my pain and my fear. A moment or two later, he saw me and could see that something was amiss.

He walked over and moved me to the side of the hallway and asked what was wrong. At first, I just stood there quietly…trying to hold back the tears and accomplished it with some success. I didn’t want to be a “tattle-tale” and stood there with my eyes on the floor. Again, he asked what happened. I finally told him what had just occurred in the hallway and after some prodding, gave him the name of the kid who had hit me. I could see the anger flash in his eyes as he stood there and listened. It was almost as if I could see his mind saying “this is family, and no one does this to my brother!” I don’t have any idea what Frank did, but the kid never bothered me again. Even when I passed him in the hallways, he seemed to move away from me instead of closer and his eyes would look furtively around…perhaps checking to see if he might be watching.

As I moved through junior high, it seemed that Frank was there for me in one way or another. By the time my eighth grade year ended, he had his own car and was able to drive at night. I was still without my driver’s license and it seemed part of his mom-assigned “job” was to occasionally be a taxi. It was the last day of school before summer vacation and I had been invited to my first “party”…and there would be girls there. While I didn’t have a “date” date, I was going to be meet a girl there and mom and dad had graciously allowed me to go. The only caveat was that Frank would need to pick me up at 10:00 at the end of the party and bring me home. He told mom that it would be no problem and it was all set. He would come by the place of the party and pick me up.

The party ended as planned and parents began to arrive at the large house and pick everyone up. Everyone that is…except me. I waited for a little bit and Holly’s dad asked if I had a ride coming and I assured him that I did. I wasn’t sure where Frank was, but I had complete confidence that he would be there to pick me up. The minutes passed and I began to walk out toward the road at the end of the driveway. This place was set back a few hundred yards and it was possible that Frank had passed it by and I thought it would be easier for him if I got out on the main street. I stood there for a few minutes as I watched for a headlight, confident with the knowledge that behind a set of one of those lights, my brother would be coming for me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Frank had forgotten. He had been out on a date of his own and had gotten all the way home and had gone in to tell mom that he was home. It was only when she asked if I had fun at the party that he realized that I was someplace about ten miles away and not down in the bedroom where I belonged. He told her a quick “yes” and quietly opened the front door and went out to his car. Taking the car out of gear and leaving the lights off, he pushed it to the end of the driveway and let it coast to the bottom of the hill before starting it and waited until he was at the highway before turning on his lights.

I had walked several miles by the time he finally pulled up beside me and told me to jump in. His apology flowed from his lips and came more than once. I wasn’t greeted with a feeling of putting him out or of being an inconvenience. He was genuinely sorry that he had let me know. We talked about the party on the way home and I shared that I had my first “real” kiss. We pulled into the driveway with the lights out and quietly walked to front door. We were somewhat shocked to see mom standing there and she kissed me good night and talked briefly with Frank before he too went to bed.

As I look back on those days, it’s easy to see how often he was there for me. Frank opened many doors for me that I know were closed to him. And it seemed that whatever he did, I wanted to do as well. I followed in his footsteps in football as well as wrestling. The classes that he took, I wanted to take too. He wrote for the school newspaper so I enrolled in the class my sophomore year. It was the only class that we shared in high school. His participation in student leadership encouraged me to try it out as well. I will always be grateful for his presence as a part of my life, for his generosity and for his support.

This is one of a series of stories written for my family - Christmas 2010

Through the Eyes of a Boy - The Daredevil

2011-01-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

The sun was warm as I sat on the front steps, watching the activity in the dust that was taking place on the edge of the driveway before me. The look of concentration on his face was a marvel…his short hair still blond and his back and arms a golden bronze from the many hours spent running around the farm shirtless. Light brown freckles decorated his small, upturned nose. His hands were dirty and covered with grease and oil and he would occasionally use his biceps to wipe the light layer of perspiration from his eyes. The gas fumes from the old coffee can that sat off to the side made my nose and eyes burn as they were carried on the breeze as it moved across the yard.

My little brother was in the process of tearing apart an old carburetor and putting it back together again. Even at age 10, I marveled at his ability to take things apart and always manage to reconstruct them. It didn’t really seem to matter what it was that he wanted to take apart…whether something off an old car or lawnmower, or an old motor off of a worn out washing machine, he always seemed to have a knack for anything mechanical. And while he also occasionally removed the legs or wings off of the grasshoppers he would chase across the lawn to catch, that was one thing he wasn’t able to put back together.

Aside from being mechanically inclined, Geoff had another characteristic that I was envious of even at an early age. He seemed to be completely fearless. Whether it was climbing the log walls in the old barn that stood on the homestead property or climbing up the trees in the wooded lot that was situated near the south end of the farm, he always seemed to climb the fastest…and the highest. There was no hesitation on his part to jump from the branches of one cedar limb to another as we would play out games out in the woods.

Speed was never a deterrent to him as well. As kids, he and I spent countless hours on our bikes. We both had “Stingrays” that were fairly lightweight and were easy for both of us to ride. I can remember the occasions when Geoff would take off on his mike pedaling as hard as he could, generating maximum speed, and then stomp on the pedals to slam on the brakes. He’d shift his weight, almost laying the bike and its side and come to a screeching halt just inches from potential harm. He would set up ramps and jumps to fly over on the bike, trying to gain as much air as possible. If he began to lose balance in the air, or even fail to make the jump and crash on the other end, he was never deterred. He would simply pick up the bike, brush off the dust and gravel…maybe lick the blood off of his bleeding elbow and simply get back on the bike.

Nothing seemed to faze him…even the dark or strange noises. The old barn had become our “fort”…a place where we would often play and sleep in the summers. He and Frank and I had walled off a portion of the upstairs loft in the old barn made it ours. It was strewn with a plethora of toys…mostly guns or swords that we had accumulated over the years or made out scrap pieces of lumber. Hours were spent either defending or attacking the 100 year old building and many choruses of “gotcha” and the predictable “no you didn’t, you missed” echoed across the fields during those summers.

But when we would sleep down there in the summer, it was always late at night when we would finally leave the house for the short walk down the hill to the old barn. Even with the outside light on the pole near the garage, by the time we were half way there, the light was gone and we were walking from shadow to shadow. I would often times feel my heart in my throat and the light sheen of perspiration on my skin by the time we reached the barn. I think Geoff knew that the walk down often scared me. There were times when he would take off a moment or two before me and by the time I turned the corner of garage, he was nowhere in sight. My hope was that he had run down to the barn and I would soon see the light from the loft area come on. But that usually wasn’t the case. Instead, he would find a hiding place and hunch down…waiting for me to pass by. And then with a banshee shriek, he would jump out behind me and cause me to nearly wet myself. The loud yell would be followed by his gentle laugh and he would take off down the hill followed by my screams and seemingly scamper up the wall into the loft and I would soon see the light coming from the doorway.

The night sounds that crept through the old hay loft would still have me on edge by the time I climbed up the ladder and into the “fort”. It might be the sounds of mice scurrying along the walls or the night birdsong…but there were always noises. Old boards have a way of creaking and old hinges make strange noises as they are moved ever so slightly by the evening breeze. Sometimes, there were sounds from below where the old milking parlor once stood that would be carried on the wind up to us. But for Geoff, never a flinch…never a “I wonder what that was?”…never a “Mark, I’m getting a little scared here.” Those were the voices in my mind but not from the mouth of my little brother.

Without the words finding their way to paper, he might never know the influence he had on my life as a young boy. Too often, stories are never told. Feelings never shared. Memories are lost. In my eyes, Geoff was always strong, brave, creative…the sibling who was always willing to go out there a little further than the rest of us. A brother that I feared at times because of his fearlessness…both for his safety as well as mine, and wanted to emulate at the same time.

This is one of a series of stories written for my family - Christmas 2010

Through the Eyes of a Boy - The Giver

2010-12-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

My old, brown Oldsmobile Cutlass was loaded as the warm, August sun beat down on the gravel driveway. It was strangely quiet as I stood there…looking, thinking, wondering. Geoff was still asleep in his room and dad was off somewhere, maybe at work. Mom was in the kitchen or perhaps sitting in on the couch doing a crossword or some other type of puzzle. Frank was married now and had already moved away. Debbie had been out of the house several years and was now living in Portland where she worked. Today was the beginning of a new season in my life…I was going off to college at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

I’m not sure what I was expecting as I stood there, but I’m sure it was more than was taking place. I was leaving home and going somewhere I had never gone before. There had been no college visitation. I had received the scholarship late…during mid-summer and had scrambled to get all of my paperwork in. If it hadn’t been for a couple of kids I’d graduated with, I would have had no idea where to look for a place to live but a couple of friends had given me the name of the dorm they had been accepted to and it still had rooms available when I sent in my application. The truth was, I didn’t even exactly know where the college campus was located. I’d never been there. But after all, Moscow wasn’t “that” big, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to find.

And so, I walked back into the house and told mom I was leaving. She came over and gave me a kiss and watched from the doorway as I got in my car and drove out of the driveway. I don’t know what was going through her mind…I never asked and she never said.

About two hours later, I found myself in Moscow driving down the main street looking right and left for any sign that indicated where the campus might be. I took a left where I should have taken a right and ended up on the outskirts of town in what was definitely NOT a college neighborhood. I turned around and by sheer luck eventually found the campus with the old, turn of the century buildings about an hour later. I drove up and down streets until I finally found the housing complex that I would soon be calling home.

College life wasn’t easy for me. I was attending on a NROTC scholarship which meant that I had to have a military appearance. When I arrived, my hair was thick and long…and was soon laying on the floor of Frank and Deb’s trailer where I got a haircut. This was the mid-seventies and “buzz cuts” were not the style of the day. The Vietnam War had only ended a short while before and there was still great anger and animosity directed at anything military.

The dorm that I moved into had a few friends from high school who spent most of their time in their rooms smoking pot or getting drunk. The drinking I could get away with…after all I’d been drinking quite regularly for the past five years. But for me, I just wasn’t interested in the drug culture. My new associates in the Navy were…well, the kindest word I can probably use is “different”. I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Most of the men that were in the NROTC program would have been called “geeks” or “nerds” in their respective high schools that they came from.

It is because of these strange new surroundings that “they” became so meaningful to me. Each day shortly before we began to make our way to the cafeteria for lunch, the mail came. There was pushing and shoving from the guys as they would look into their mail “cubby” to see if anyone had remembered that they went off to college. I’d been at the University for about three weeks when “they” started to arrive. Usually an envelope with a Portland, OR return address with the familiar handwriting. But on some occasions, there would be a note in my mail box to see the R.A. I knew what that meant…there was a package!

As I sit and write these words today, I can still remember the love and joy I would feel as I received those letters and the “care packages” that would be filled with home baked goodies. It wasn’t because the fresh, chocolate chip cookies were the best I’ve ever eaten (although they may well be), or because I was getting something in the mail that most of the other guys in the dorm wasn’t…it was because receiving these gifts helped me to know that I wasn’t forgotten and that I was loved.

But that’s who my sister is. For as long as I can remember, Debbie (it’s so hard to call her Deb) has been generous to me. I think she was to Frank and Geoff as well, but for some reason it just takes on a special significance to me. I remember the Christmas before I entered college…my senior year in high school, when as a family we didn’t have much money. So we decided not to really do any gifts…or if we did, it would be very small.

I remember her talking to me about an idea for mom and dad – to make a photo album. I loved to take pictures and had accumulated quite a collection of family photos. Debbie suggested that we “go together” on the gift…we would use my photos and she would put together an album that would be from both of us. So she took the box of my pictures and “borrowed” one of my poetry books and off she went.

I really didn’t know what to expect as a final product. If I had been putting it together, it probably would have been pictures symmetrically arranged on each page with perhaps the names of whoever was in the photo. But Debbie has the gift of writing as well as the gift of giving. The “product” of this venture together has become a bit of a legend. One each page were artistically placed photos with a short poem, or a descriptive phrase. Each page was a masterpiece in itself. Resting now in a drawer at Geoff and Lynn’s, we will occasionally pull it out and relive through memories the experiences that are recorded in that album. A gift for mom and dad at the time… but a gift for the family forever.

Growing up, my memories of Debbie are filled with her smiles and her “bigger than life” presence. The first to get a job away from the farm at the optometrist’s office in downtown Sandpoint. The first to go off to college at Whitworth. The first to move away to the “big city”…and always having a place stay if I wanted to visit. The “big sister” who never treated me like a “little brother” in the negative sense of the word. The pride and the angst that come from sitting in a high school classroom and having the teacher say, “You’re Debbie’s brother, right? I’ll expect the same quality of work from you that she gave me.”

Whether she recognizes it or not, Debbie has given me a legacy that I’ve aspired to come close to. Being human, there are some things that aren’t on my “to do” list…but I hope that I will be remembered as someone to gives, and loves as much as she does.

This is one of a series of stories written for my family - Christmas, 2010

The Blink of an Eye

2010-12-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

I could feel my stomach tighten as I read the subject line in the e-mail: “Urgent Prayer Request!” The e-mail was from Jean, my former administrative assistant who is now retired. Each year, she and Twila, a retired high school English teacher/Harley “mama” who used to work for me come over and we spend a wonderful lunch to celebrate my birthday and catch up on everything going on in my old stomping grounds. So as I read those words, so many possibilities leapt to my mind.

“Had Twila’s cancer returned?”

“Had something happened to Rich, the former superintendent we had both worked for and respected so much?”

“Was there a dire need in Jean’s life that she was requesting prayer for?”

I continued to read the short message.

“I just got a text message from Linda Thomas that John Repp is unconscious and has been air lifted to Seattle with bleeding in his brain. I don't know what happened. Please add him to your prayers.”

John was also a retired teacher who had worked for me when I was a high school principal. Sadly, he wasn’t a very good teacher and not very effective in the classroom. A former soldier, he continued to maintain a military bearing with short, cropped hair and a hardened attitude toward performance. As a result, it seemed that we were often times at odds with one another as I would work to try to help him improve and then not have that advice carried over into the classroom. But while John was not the greatest teacher, he had turned out to be an amazing friend.

When I was first arrested, I felt like the most alone person on earth. Paula, my wife was gone…trying to make sense of all that happened and helping our kids cope with all of the changes that were coming as well. I had pretty much removed myself from any relationship with my own family over the past several years and didn’t reach out in that direction for advice or comfort. The majority of the relationships that I had built up over the years were with other educators…and the nature of my offense was also an insult to the profession that I had served. So I pretty much isolated myself, with the exception of continuing to talk with my wife.

Then out of the blue one day, Paula asked if it was “Ok” to give my address to Jean because there were a number of my former colleagues who wanted to write to me. I gave my permission and several days later I received a letter from John. Of everyone who had been on staff at the high school, John was the last one that I would have expected to write me. But he not only wrote me, he comforted me. He shared that I wasn’t alone in my struggles with pornography and sent me a book to read that he had studied in a men’s group at his church. He said that he would like to write a letter to the judge on my behalf to be considered at my trial.

Over the next four years, I saw a soft side of John that I didn’t know existed. While in prison, each month like clockwork I would receive a short note from John. Sometimes he would include a newspaper clipping about the high school or he would keep me updated on how the sports teams were doing. He always asked how I was doing…was I safe? How was the food? Was I getting counseling? He would ask how things at the chapel where I worked were going and how my guitar lessons were progessing. In most of the envelopes that bore his letters or cards, I would find a receipt for twenty or thirty dollars that he had sent to be deposited in my commissary account. While not a large amount in society’s eyes, they were a gift of amazing abundance to me.

When I was released from prison, John continued to correspond with me. Once again, like clockwork I would receive a phone call from John each month. We would talk like old friends and share stories of all that was going on in our lives. For him, stories of his grandkids and his work. For me, updates on trying to find work or sharing the blessings when work finally came. We maintained the connection for over a year and then busyness in both of our lives resulted in the conversations becoming more infrequent.

So when I read the words, my heart sank. I quickly e-mailed Jean back asking for her to keep me updated on John’s condition and prognosis. I paused in my activities at work and said a silent prayer for John and his wife Judy…and their two kids who had been students and passed through the high school during my tenure there. Over the next several days, the news came in. Uncertainty over the cause but perhaps from a fall he had taken at work the previous week. Initial partial paralysis and some loss of eyesight in the first few days…but movement returning as he began to heal. Reminders from Jean of John’s extremely strong faith and his determination to recover.
John’s situation was a stark reminder to me of the fragility of life and our lack of control in it. So much can happen in the blink of an eye. Life as normal one moment, everything turned upside down the next. But it also reminded me that even as unpredictable as life can be, the relationships that we invest in are so important. John had invested in me during my time of need and had build a solid foundation for both of us. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.

Photos from Flickr

Dreams Fulfilled!

2010-11-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

I could feel the exciting building in me all week long. Today was going to be a day of perfection…of the completion of a dream. Actually, more than one dream. And not only a dream of mine, but of others that I love as well.

“Dreams are the seedlings of reality.” (Napoleon Hill)

It seems that dreams have become an important aspect of my life in the past six years. I think that’s pretty common for someone who has lost everything and finds himself in every sense of the word back at square one…or is it negative one? I recall the days in prison when I was surrounded by men who had either given up all hope of ever achieving their dreams, or men who were literally living in a dream world that just didn’t exist. They were making up life one day at a time. The dreams that I had were only vague…but I was always certain that there was going to be a life that was good for me in the future.

When my pastor flew to California to pick me up from prison when I was released, I had no idea what the future might hold for me. There seemed to be more uncertainty in my life than there was during my 1086 days behind the razor wire. I knew that I had temporary housing in a motor home that my former pastor was loaning to me but I had no idea what I might do for employment, or any type of income for that matter. I also knew that I was going back to a family that was fractured and I had removed myself from any kind of close relationship with any of them for the past three years or more.

As the years have passed since that hot August day in 2007, I’ve found myself re-establishing relationships with my sister Deb and my two brothers, Frank and Geoff. I’ve found forgiveness from each of them and have extended my own toward them. My heart has softened and I cherish the moments that I spend visiting or just simply talking. In all honesty, I never would have dreamed four years ago that I would be as close to each of them that I am today.

I was also blessed to get a job with a wonderful Christian man and his wife in the construction industry. The love and support for me they’ve demonstrated is well beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. And while the business is struggling, they continue to help me in any way that that can. I’ve learned much and I know that as long as our little business can survive, I’ll have a place here.

But it seemed that those dreams weren’t enough. There was still something missing…actually a “big” something missing. That is, until Friday.

She arrived just before 11:00 and we greeted each other with a hug and a kiss. She said that she had heard there was an antique business here and wanted to stop and see. Her mouth dropped open and stepped back a little as I pointed to the stacks of containers and boxes that lined the wall. “There it is”, I said. I’m not sure we’re going to get it all down there in one load though.

My sister had driven up to help me set up my case in the antique mall for my new business. I had made the decision several months ago to pursue a dream that had been fermenting for more than twenty years. I love antiques and the adventure of antiquing. And that passion has grown over the past couple of years. So I took the proverbial “first step” and got my business license and leased a space in a local antique mall. Today was going to be the first day of my new venture. Today, a dream was coming to fruition…and I was truly excited. And so was Deb.

But I’ve had another dream as well…and in many ways, a much more important dream. For the last two years, I’ve looked for opportunities to get all four of us siblings together somehow. In the past ten years, there have only been two occasions that we have all been in the same room. At a funeral for my brother Frank’s father-in-law and for a golf tournament earlier this summer. And this wasn’t only “my” dream, my sister has dreamed of a restored family as well.

As she stood in my little office area, looking at the wall of boxes and containers, we talked briefly about what the schedule for the day might look like. There were a lot of things that needed to be done. Not only did we need to set up the case at the antique mall with my pieces, there was also some shopping that we wanted to get done.

Finally I said, “I have a confession to make.” She looked at me with a slightly perplexed look.

“We’re going out to dinner tonight for your birthday.” I could see a smile forming on her lips. “And both of our brothers are joining us.”

I wish that I could have a picture of the reaction that I saw. It was something out of an old black and white movie. The “news” is delivered to a beautiful woman and suddenly, she appears faint and her hand moves to her face and she begins to fan herself from the overwhelming nature of the news. That was Deb’s reaction…and it was priceless!

When I realized that my sister was going to be here on her birthday to help me set up my case, I called both of my brothers and asked if they would like to take Deb out to dinner on her birthday with me because she was going to be here helping me. To my great pleasure, they both agreed. It was at the moment when I got the final confirmation from Geoff that my excitement began to escalate.

A dream was going to be realized…the hope and dream of a reconciled family! Frank and Clare stopped by the antique mall as we were nearing completion and helped us clean up. The joy and happiness that they extended at this beginning of my new business was genuine and filled with a type of wonder. I think they were even a little overwhelmed by the beauty of the antiques that were in my case…and the artful way the Deb had set it up.

We drove to the restaurant and Geoff and Lynn arrived a short while later. The next hours can only be described as magical. Even in my exhaustion, I could see the glow of joy and happiness as an aura around my sister. It seemed like all of us were just comfortable…and happy. There was no tension, no hesitation, no barriers. As dinner was coming to a close, both of my brothers and their wives gave me a tight hug, whispering a "thank you" for making this evening happen. It was a perfect evening. The only thing that would have made it any better would have been if Walt was there…and if I were still married and Paula would have shared the evening as well.

There are certain words or phrases that we all cherish…at least I believe we do. I was blessed to hear them as Deb was getting ready to leave Sunday morning to drive back home. We hugged and kissed and as she got ready to turn and walk to her car, she said “this was the best birthday I have ever had!” The magic in those words is that I believe they are true. It was a day of dreams fulfilled…not only mine, but hers as well.

Photos by Frank Lyons (group photo by the waitress)

Curfew!

2010-11-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

I really wasn’t sure what it might be when it first arrived in the mail. I was a little excited because I had been waiting to hear back from Jamie (my probation officer) for a few weeks concerning appealing the remainder of my supervised release. I had a call into her, but she hadn’t returned my call. I opened the letter as I returned to my call and as I sat back down in the front seat, I began to read.

“As you are probably aware, Halloween is on Sunday, October 31, 2010. In order to reduce the risk…”

I could feel my chest begin to tighten as I read the words. A part of me wanted to simply wad the letter up and throw it away. But another part of me wouldn’t…or simply couldn’t. I numbly drove the short distance down to my little home and walked inside. I randomly tossed the envelope on the tabletop and sat down and reread the letter.

“…of either direct or indirect contact with minor-aged children, you are directed to remain at your residence beginning at 5:30 PM and ending at 11:30 PM, and you shall not answer the door to children.”

This is my fourth Halloween that I’ve celebrated (if that can even be considered the right word) since I was released from prison in August of 2007. Each year, the passing of all of the holidays seems to move me further away from that season of my life. From that time when there was nothing to celebrate, even if the “day” was marked on the calendar. Until today that is. Today I felt like I was back in “that” place…surrounded by the razor wire and double fences. And the sounds of the heavy iron doors and the clicking of the locks.

”You are prohibited from passing out candy and your outdoor lights should remain off in order to discourage children from coming to your door. I may be conducting random home visits during the evening hours in order to ensure compliance. “

I tossed the letter on the floor and sat there quietly, trying to figure out how I felt. It wasn’t really anger. Nor was it bitterness or frustration. There was a bit of sadness…but most of all, I think I simply felt insulted. I had never received a letter like this. I would have thought for my first Halloween out, it would make sense to send a letter like that…just for awareness. But this letter was just a reminder that “we” are all simply lumped together into one group! Each of us must be the same level of danger to our community. What should I expect in the mail tomorrow…a sign to post beside my house with large scarlet letters?

The holiday has passed, and all the kids in the neighborhood are safe (at least from me). I followed the letter of the directive and stayed back in my bedroom watching football and the world series…all of the lights turned out except for the glare of the television. I’m sure I can expect another letter next year…at least it won’t catch me off guard. And I won’t feel like I’m back behind the razor wire and lockdowns. One day…I might truly be free again.

Photo by liquidnight on Flickr

Grownup Binkies

2010-10-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

When I was six years old, I had to spend the night in the hospital because I was having my tonsils removed. As I reflect back, I remember very little about that event. I’ve been told that I was extremely ill…one doctor had told my mom that I might have leukemia. But apparently most of the medical issues were solved by doing a little cutting in the back of my throat. I’m guessing that my mom must have seen that I was somewhat frightened about the surgery…or perhaps having to stay in the hospital, because she bought me a gift. It was a small stuffed animal…an elephant.

I didn’t have many stuffed animals that I can recall as a small boy. No Teddy bear (that I remember). In fact, the elephant is the only one that I can remember. I kept it for a long time…sleeping with it for years. When we helped my mom organize stuff for our farm auction when she sold the place when I was in my 40’s, the old stuffed elephant was still with my stuff. Faded…and torn it places. It was missing one of its glass eyes, but it was still there. For many years during my childhood, it had served as my “binky”…an object that would provide me with some level of comfort.

Most of us “think” that we outgrow the need for a “binky”, but I think that as adults we simply replace them with something more “grownup”. I’ve thought a bit about that the last couple of days and put together my list of “grownup binkies” that I use. They are listed here in no particular order.

1. Coffee – As much as I hate to admit it, coffee is one of my comforters. While I’m not like many who practically need to hook up a “coffee IV” before they get out of bed in the morning, I definitely look forward to my cup of hot coffee on my way to work each morning. And if I don’t get it for some reason…well, look out. I’m going to be pretty grumpy at work that day.

2. Hot chocolate – I’m sure it goes back to my childhood, but there is just something about a cup of really rich (translate lots of Nestle’s Quick mix) cup of hot chocolate on a cold night…topped with marshmellows, of course. Even now, at age 50 plus, I will pull my largest mug down out of the cupboard on a cold rainy or snowy evening in the winter and put the tea kettle on my stove to make a large cup. It’s not quite as good as the stuff we made with real milk growing up, but it still hits the spot.

3. Neck tickling – Not a joke. I love to have the back of my neck softly tickled. Not the front…that causes panic attacks, but that’s a different story. It almost makes me purr like a kitten when my neck is gently massaged or lightly tickled. I most definitely relax.

4. A blanket just out of the dryer – Ok, this one might be cheating…or a throwback to being a kid. There is just something about the feeling of a blanket that’s just been pulled out of the dryer to cuddle with on the couch. I think it’s the smell of the fabric softener sheet and the warmth that penetrates my entire being. I don’t remember ever having a warm blanket like that growing up…but my kids (and my wife) loved it whenever I pulled one out of my dryer and wrapped them in it.

5. The ocean surf – I’ve always loved the sound of the ocean. There is just something so peaceful about hearing the rhythmic sounds of waves lapping on the beach. It almost transforms me into weightlessness…like a feeling of floating over the ocean like the billowy clouds suspended from the heaven above.

I’m sure there are a number of other “binkies” that I could name here. But as I listed these, it was such a nice reminder that there are many things in my life that give me comfort when I need it. How about you?

Binky photo from Flickr

Hot Chocolate photo from Bing

The Old is Gone!

2010-09-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

It hasn’t been an easy 37 months. So much uncertainty faced me when I walked out the doors of Taft Correctional Institution in August of 2007. Unable to even comprehend what my life was going to be like, at times during my last months of incarceration, I wondered whether I would end up living under a freeway overpass. Or perhaps I would become one of the many panhandlers seeking a hand-out at the top of the off-ramp holding my “Hungry and need food. Anything will help. God bless you” cardboard sign. While it never ended up that badly for me, it hasn’t turned out as I expected either.

At times, it seems like a little sign has floated over the top of me with arrows pointing, saying “ex-felon”. There are some things that I just can’t seem to get past. A few weeks ago I was laying on the couch on a Sunday afternoon after playing a round of golf with some friends when I was interrupted by a rapping on the front door of my home…a fifth wheel trailer. As I opened the door, I was greeted by a deputy sheriff. For a second, my heart seemed to skip a beat. Then he kindly asked me for my name and then ID that could verify it. He was simply doing his job…confirming that I was living where I said I am. A small thing…but certainly not an everyday occurrence for most of us.

As a result of the uncertainty of my life, I’ve been hesitant to move forward as quickly as I probably could. Still facing up to 23 more months of supervision, there are some things that are difficult to arrange. A simple trip out of state…even for a day requires at least two weeks of advance notice to get the proper permission. A trip out of the country is out of the question. Moving into an apartment complex or a condo community isn’t possible because of the restrictions that I still face. For the past three years, I’ve worn the prison issue glasses that I had on when I was released because money is tight, and frankly they still worked.

But the last month has brought a great deal of change in my life. For reasons that I can’t really articulate, I made the decision that “enough is enough”. While I don’t exactly have control over my life, I choose to move forward. A trip to the optometrist resulted in new glasses. Not a significant change in my appearance on the outside, but a gargantuan impact on how I see myself from the inside. They were the last “moniker” that I wore from my incarceration. There are no more visible external reminders of that dark period of my life.

The change didn’t stop there. I love antiques and every opportunity I have, I will visit an antique shop or mall and usually walk out with some little treasure. Many of the items, I give away. I buy them because they are unique and they represent a different time…maybe a better time. About a month ago, my sister Deb suggested (perhaps in jest) that I should get a business license and open a shop, or at least become a dealer. The idea resonated deeply within me and it has turned into a reality. Three weeks ago, I applied for the business license and became a small business owner. Angelwings Antiques was born. Scripture teaches us that in Christ, we are a new creation…that the old is gone and the new has come. Through God’s grace, I’ve become “that” new creation. But now I’ve become a new creation in a different way as well. While I will always be an “ex-felon”, I’ve chosen to become more. I’m a business owner and a construction company manager. I’m a singer in the church choir and a Sunday school teacher. I’m a loving brother, a loving ex-husband and a good friend. That old label is gone…a new label has come.

Photo by Mark

The Middle of the Rainbow

2010-09-13T14:18:00.001-07:00

I remember as a small child how excited I would get whenever I saw a rainbow. It seems that they didn’t appear all that often…when it rained, the clouds wouldn’t allow even a glimmer of sunshine slice through. So it was even more special when that arc of color would splash across the sky, from one horizon to the other. But even then, I would rarely see one that was unbroken by clouds still spotting the sky.

For some reason, the rainbow is a little bit of an enigma. Perhaps, it’s because of the mystical nature of “the pot at the end of the rainbow” that legends are made of. Or maybe it’s because they are one of those things that you can see…but not touch. Even as you get close to it, it is always “just out of reach”. And when it seems like you are actually putting your fingers on it…there is nothing there to feel. But I think it’s a bit magical for a different reason.

As I listened to the radio this morning, a woman called in to share a story about the rainbow…and her life. And as I listened, she could have been talking about my life…or the life of many that I know. She had seen a rainbow in the sky, but like many rainbows the full arc wasn’t visible. She could see where it started and where it ended, but the middle of the rainbow was hidden in the clouds. It seems that the image of the rainbow is where my life is. I know where I started and where I’ve been. And I trust in God’s promises for where I’m going…where my destination is. But that part in the middle…where I seem to be now is as hazy as the clouds hiding it.

But the woman who called in helped to put it in perspective. Even though I can’t see the middle of the rainbow, God can. He knows what’s going to happen behind the clouds. And He knows why it’s happening. He is orchestrating my life...and all that occurs in it, both in front of and behihnd the clouds. My challenge is to simply let it…and trust. For a man with a boy’s heart, that is a difficult challenge indeed.

Photo from Flickr, by Saturn h

Do-Overs?

2010-09-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

I sat there with my arm raised over my head, waving frantically. My face was beet-red and I could feel my eyes start to well with tears. I looked down at my desk again…it wasn’t possible! How could I have gotten an A- on my paper? Mrs. Walters was soon standing beside my desk, leaning down.

“What is it, Mark?” she asked?

“It’s my g-g-g-rade, Mrs. Walters!” I stammered. “It’s not g-g-good enough. Can I have a do-over?”

I thought back to my early school years the other day as I was driving to work. The radio program I was listening to had posed a question to its radio audience. “If you could have a ‘do-over’ in life, what would it be?” The twenty-five minute commute to work on the back roads gave me plenty of time to listen to the various listeners who called in. I was especially struck by the response of one particular listener. In essence, he said that initially there were a lot things he would want to do over…he had made a number of bad choices in his life. But as he thought about it, he decided that every choice (good or bad) that he had made had molded him into the person he was today.

That response has rolled around in my head for the past ten days. I’ve been trying to decide how much I agree with him. For my own part, I’ve made far too many bad choices in my lifetime. Some of them have been extremely costly…leading to prison time, the loss of a marriage and family as well as a career. Others haven’t come at the same cost, but have nonetheless negatively impacted others’ lives. But the other side of the coin, if I follow the listener’s line of thought has led me to an amazing relationship with Christ and a much deeper understanding of who I am. And the ability to accept those truths. So, if I had a chance, would I want a “do-over”?

Mrs. Walters got down on knee level and looked me in the eyes.

“Mark, your work is very good. An A- is still a good grade”, she said.

“B-b-but I knew the right answer”, I cried. “I just accidently turned the number backward. Please, Mrs. Walters…can I have a do over?”

I don’t think she gave me that “do-over” 44 years ago when I sat in the upstairs fourth grade classroom in the Old Farmin Elementary school. And because she didn’t, it probably made me a better student…paying closer attention to details and checking my work before I turned it in. And as I reflect on the other areas of my life, most of them wouldn’t warrant a “do-over” either. The lessons that I’ve learned from the bad decisions have taught me valuable life lessons. But if I had a chance to get one “do-over” in my life, I would take it. The question is…which one?

Photo from Bing Images

Good News/Bad News

2010-08-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

I looked at my Blackberry and felt my heart rate begin to increase slightly. I’d missed a call, which isn’t all that unusually, but this missed call was from Paula, my ex-wife. She doesn’t call that often…I’m usually the one to initiates contact so I was excited that she had called me. I used my trackball to click on “Call Paula” and waited. After a couple of rings, I heard her soft voice as she said “hello” and asked how I was. As I responded, suddenly I lost the connection. I redialed and could hear the short “beep” at the end of the ring that indicated that she was on the phone. She had mentioned that she was waiting for a call, so I waited a few minutes and called back.

Once again, she answered after the first few rings. She apologized for the lost connection and we continued to visit.

“I wanted to be the first to tell you,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to hear this from someone else.”

Suddenly my mind was working. What could it be that she wanted to tell me? Had something happened to mom or dad? That didn’t seem plausible because I don’t think she could hide the pain of that in her voice. Maybe she had met someone. I feel my heart constrict at just the thought of that. Were the kids ok? Finally, as calmly as I could, I asked her what the news was.

“Conrad is getting married,” she said. “I wanted to be the one that told you. I haven’t even told Tina because I just didn’t want it to slip in conversation.”

As I held the phone to my ear, I was filled with a variety of emotions. Conrad is our youngest son (actually my stepson, but I claim him as my own as I do all the kids). When we first got married, he was the only one of the kids who lived with us and was the one that I spent the most time with. While I deeply love each of our kids, my love and relationship with Conrad was a little different because he had lived with us.

“I’m so happy for them,” I replied. “Have the set a date yet?”

A date! Why would I even ask the question? I knew that this was a wedding that I wouldn’t attend. And just the realization of that was heartbreaking. I had been at the marriage of both of our older children…had even worn a tuxedo as a representation of my position as their dad (even as their biological dad did as well). I had been in the hospital for the birth of all four of our grandchildren, sharing in the joy of creation and birth.

But that was all in the past, and choices that I had made changed the future. I hadn’t talked to Conrad, or seen him, since shortly after my arrest. And though I know he loves me, the pain that I caused has left our relationship in limbo. My last image of him was with tears streaming down both of our faces as he hugged me and told me that he loved me. Paula keeps me up-to-date on his life but I’m no longer a part of it.

It’s not that an invitation to the wedding is out of the question. They may invite me. But attending isn’t an option for me. That day is for Conrad and his bride-to-be. My attendance would only take the focus off of them as many of his friends and family would question why I was there. I could never do that.

I’ve discovered that the consequences of my choices and my crime will never be fully paid. I’ve spent my time in prison and “paid my debt to society”. I’ve lost my career and my family. I no longer have the financial resources and wealth that I had once begun to accumulate. But I am changed. My relationship with God is stronger than ever and I’m not the man I once was. My sibling bonds have been restored and I see grace clearly each and every day in my life. But still…there are days when the reminder of my loss is more painful than others. And the realization that sometimes “good news” is “painful news.”

Photo from Flickr

Computer image by Mike Licht, Notions Capital.com

Beyond the Clouds

2010-08-17T16:14:00.001-07:00

Each morning as I carefully descend the three metal steps from my fifth-wheel trailer I call home to go to the car to head for work, I take a glance to the east to look at the mountains. I never know what I might see. The property that my trailer sits on has one of the most magnificent views of Mt. Rainier in the region. Sadly, I have to admit that on most days, the entire mountain range is obscured with cloud cover and not even the foothills are visible. But even with that knowledge, I still take the time to look because I know that “it’s there”.

We sit on the tarmac as the plane loads…filled with excitement for the next week. As usual, the black asphalt glistens from the rain that falls so regularly in the Pacific Northwest. As I look out the window, the sky is gray with the sun invisible…hiding somewhere “up there”. I have flown enough to know that if we fly high enough, we will break above the clouds and be in the light of our nearest star.

I’ve thought about clouds and what’s hidden behind them a lot over the past couple of months. I’m not sure if it’s just my nature…or all of human nature, to look for those things that we believe should be there. Or, seek after those things that we really want, even when it seems that they are too far out of reach. A journey beyond the clouds was culminated this past weekend at my younger brother Geoff, and his wife Lynn's home in Bothell.

I was there for a celebration. Not only me, but also my sister Deb and her husband Walt and about thirty plus friends of my little brother’s. For the past several months, he and his wife have been trying to purchase the property that they have been living on. For the three years that he’s lived there, on many occasions he has commented on how much he loved that place and that it was exactly the kind of place he would like to buy some day. But he knew that it wasn’t going to be this particular place. It was a rental house and large shop building sitting on a little over an acre that was destined to be torn down so that a sub-division could be built.

But then something that has become so familiar in these tumultuous economic times occurred…the developer went bankrupt and the property was turned over to the bank. Six months ago, Geoff was informed that he would need to find another place to live…he was being evicted. Suddenly his life was engulfed by thick, heavy clouds that obscured a vision of the future for him. For a while, he looked for other places to live, all the while continuing to pay the monthly rent on the property. One month stretched into two…then three. I asked him on the phone one night how his search for a new home was coming. “We’re in denial”, was his response. They simply didn’t know where to go or even where to look. When we’re in the clouds, that’s what life is like.

A few months later, a plan started to formulate. A decision was made to make an offer to the bank for the home. They knew that there was no way that they could offer what the developer had initially paid for the property, but they also realized that a lot of property was selling for considerably less than what its market value had been only a few years earlier. After some negotiating, they settled on an “offer” and started to work with the bank for financing. They had qualified for a loan through another lender, but the bank apparently wouldn’t accept that type of loan. As the deadline for the offer neared, the final paperwork was submitted…and it was time to wait. A phone call from the bank and suddenly the clouds pushed back in. Denied. No “ifs, ands or buts”. It was done.

I was with my little brother the day after the notification and you could see the weight of sadness on his face and in his voice. No anger…just the disappointment of not getting to the top of the mountain, of not being able to see around the next bend in the trail. He had an attitude of grace, simply telling me that if this wasn’t the place that God wanted him, then He must have an even better place picked out for him.

A few days later, something amazing happened…the clouds started to clear. He received a phone call from the lender that he had originally qualified through. Interest rates had dropped nearly 3/4th of a point and he would now qualify for the amount of the offer they had made on the house. Calls were made to the bank that held the deed on the house to get the offer extended for another month…something the bank didn’t seem excited to do, but that they did nevertheless. More paperwork filled out and submitted. A bit of stress in the household as Geoff and his wife worked to navigate the purchase with everything seemingly against them.

The final day that the offer was valid for quickly approached and it seemed that the top of the mountain was in sight. A meeting at the bank and the final closing papers were signed. A request for the money to be wired to an escrow account submitted and confirmation that it was received. It was time to put the sunglasses on because it seemed that they had finally ascended beyond the clouds. But….

Then the phone call. “The escrow company has wired the money back. The lender needs proof of seven more months of rental receipts.” It was after three o’clock in the afternoon when the news was received. The lending bank was in Texas, two time zones ahead. The banks were closed. It was a Friday and the offer was only good until midnight on Saturday. Suddenly, the clouds moved back in. A weekend of uncertainty lay ahead.

There is no coincidence in my mind that last Sunday as I stood in the backyard of my brother’s newly purchased home that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Through perseverance and a desire to achieve the goal of purchasing his home, Geoff and Lynn refused to allow the dark clouds to turn them back. While most of the time, the end was never really visible…never really clear, life teaches us (if we look) that there is ALWAYS something beyond the clouds. It may be the snow capped peak of Mt. Rainier. Or perhaps the sun as it reaches down from heaven shining on a jet as it streaks across the sky. Or maybe, it’s a dream realized.

Mt. Rainier photos by Mark

Geoff and Lynn photo by Deb Shucka

Shadows

2010-08-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

My eyes slowly adjusted as the pale morning light struggled to penetrate the dust and grime on the windows of the old milking parlor. I stood there with my hands stuffed into the pockets of my blue jeans…the knees ripped and worn and in need of new patches. I could feel the cold, fall air on my neck as it drifted over the collar of my old, red coat. In the corner where the calves were penned, I could see him down on his knees. I slowly walked forward, not really thinking about whether or not I should be here…after all, it was daddy’s farm and Mike just worked for him. I was startled by the sound of a snap and crunch, followed by a short bleat of the young calf.

“Whatcha doin’, Mike?” I asked as I stood watching, partially obscured in the shadows. I walked toward him as he looked up from the motionless calf laying at his feet.

“I had to put this one out of its misery”, he replied as he looked up with a start. “It was born with his hips twisted and couldn’t move. I think his back was broken.”

“How’d you put it out of its misery? All I heard was a crunchin’ sound.”

“I just broke his neck….that’s the easiest way. And they don’t suffer much that way.”

“You must really be strong to be able to do that.”

“Not really. It’s pretty easy to break the neck of things that small.”

I looked down at the dead animal, its body lying in a limp mass at my feet. Even though it was a newborn, it was still bigger than I was, and its neck was certainly thicker. I turned to leave and told Mike I might see him later on.

“Hey Mark. Would you like to come by my trailer and have some pizza with me some time?” he asked as I reached the concrete steps that led up out of the milking parlor.

“I’ll have to ask Mommy”, I said as I opened the wooden door and stepped out into the sunlight, “but hopefully she’ll let me. We don’t get to eat pizza very much and its one of my favorites.”

It was only a few weeks later that it worked out that I could go to Mike’s and have the pizza for lunch. I was looking forward to getting to be in his trailer and eat one of my favorite foods. I knocked on his door and waited…shuffling my feet with my hands stuffed into my pockets. He opened the door and invited me in and I entered the dimly lit trailer he called home. The space was small and had the smell of a room that was kept closed up. The windows were covered by pull-down blinds and the small kitchen table was covered with papers and books.

“I thought we’d eat over on the couch,” he said as he walked over into the kitchen area. “It will be more comfortable there than at the little table I have.”

I walked over and plopped down on the couch…older, yet it still looked newer than anything we had in our house. I was filled with excitement as only little kids can be as I sat there waiting for lunch. The smell of the basil and marinara sauce on the pizza drifted in from kitchen as Mike opened the oven to take it out, making me realize how hungry I was.

“It will just be a minute to let it cool and then we can eat,” I heard him call out. “Would you like some root beer or do you have to have milk?” he asked.

A choice? I was thrilled that I’d be able to drink something other than the water or milk that it seemed I had to drink at every meal.

“Root beer, please,” I said as I sat on the small couch that was the only piece of real furniture in this small space. In a few minutes, Mike came over with a plate with the pizza and a glass of root beer and sat down beside me. We sat and ate while Mike told stories of his work and asked questions about how I liked living on the farm. After gobbling down two pieces, I was full and started to get up to take my plate and glass into the kitchen.

“I’ll get that for you, Mark” he said as he stood up and took the dishes from my hands. A moment later, he returned and sat back down beside me…closer it seemed than he was before. As he sat and continued to talk, I felt his fingers run through my short crew cut and down along my neck. My body responded with goose bumps as his fingers touched my neck.

“That tickles Mike!!” I said as I leaned away from him.

“Oh, you’re ticklish are you?” he responded as his hands and fingers started to move across my young body. I twisted and squirmed on the couch as he continued to touch me all over, not containing himself to my neck or my arms and chest. My body shuddered as his fingers touched my private area the first time. The touch was electric and I stopped all movement…barely breathing as the sensation coursed through me. His hand stopped and started to rub and stroke me more deliberately.

“Does that feel good?” he asked as his fingers touched me in a way I had never been touched before. I stammered as I replied that it did and just sat there on his sofa. He slowly unbuttoned my pants and slid down the zipper, his fingers sliding inside my underpants. I gasped as I felt his rough fingers touch me. “I bet it would feel really good if you touched me like this too”, he said as he looked at me and continued to caress me. “Would you touch mine for me, Mark?”

My mind raced as I sat there, enjoying the pleasure but feeling and emptiness grow in the pit of my stomach. There seemed to be something wrong but I had no idea what it might be. I nodded that I would do that for him as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. I began to touch his privates with my small fingers and could hear him begin to moan. His hands stopped touching me and I soon felt his hand move up to the back of my neck. I suddenly felt the pressure of his hand pushing my head down toward his lap. As I tried to pull away from him, his fingers tighten their grip on my neck. My face was soon pressing against his groin.

The next several minutes were a blur as he forced me to perform oral sex on him. Tears burned my eyes and streamed down my face as I did what he told me to do…his hand continually on the back of my neck. When it was over, he released his grip and I pulled away…slinking into the corner of the couch.

“I gotta go Mike”, I said as I drug my sleeve across my face to wipe the tears away. He fastened his pants as I stood up to leave. “Just a minute”, he said as he stood up in front of me. He slowly leaned down until his eyes were at my level. Resting his hands on my shoulders with his fingers touching my neck, he stared directly into my eyes.

“This is something you can NEVER tell anyone…ok Mark!” he said. I stood there trembling, feeling his strong hands on my neck. Suddenly my mind saw Mike kneeling over the calf…and the sound of a snap and a crunching sound. It felt as though my heart stopped for a moment and I stood there frozen. “It’s pretty easy to break the neck of things that small” was suddenly screaming in my ears.

“I promise I’ll never tell anyone Mike. I promise, really I do! Ok?!” I spit out as I stood there more afraid than I’d ever been in my life. He stood up and stepped out of my path. I quickly walked to the door and out into the late afternoon air. The shadows were falling as I walked up the hill toward the house. What I didn’t realize then was that the events of the fall afternoon were also the beginning of a perpetually darkening shadow in my own life.

Photos from Flickr

Beyond Frank...

2010-08-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

There is a part of me that can still feel the excitement…we were going on a vacation! And not only was it a vacation, but it was an over-night vacation. Mom and dad talked about it for weeks before we left. We didn’t have many opportunities growing up to get away from the dairy. After all, the cows needed to be milked every day, the milk processed and bottled and then delivered to waiting customers six days a week. Even now as I think back, I’m not sure how we were able to get away for even this short trip.

My mind rushed with the possibilities of what me might discover when dad said that we were going to Frank, Alberta. While I had never heard of that particular part of Canada, when he told us that there had been a major landslide that buried a small mining town at the turn of the 20th century, I fantasized about what we might find as we rummaged through the rocks once we got there. Would there be treasure or other “old” stuff that we might find? What if we found some bones of someone buried alive? That would be “so cool”…if not just a little bit scary for a little boy.

We finally started out on our adventure…the long awaited vacation. As we pulled out of our gravel driveway, the sky was dark with clouds and the threat of rain. We headed north up highway 95 toward the Canadian border. We crossed the border at Porthill and continued the drive toward Frank as we passed through Cranbrook…a not so unfamiliar destination of frequent Sunday drives. I barely noticed the rain as it started to fall, my mind racing with the thought of the explorations that was only a few hours away. As we continued toward Crowsnest Pass, the rain began to fall harder and the cloud cover seemed to thicken as we made our way up over the pass at 4,455 feet.

When we dropped over the top, my face was plastered to the cold, damp window. Surely I’d be able to see the huge mound of dirt and rocks that had buried this once bustling mining town. I was sure that dad would be pulling off the road any time now so we could go out and start to dig for old stuff. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of dad talking to mom.

“Well, there it is,” I heard him say. I turned my head, peering out the window, only to see huge rocks bigger than our car strewn across the country-side. "Surely there was something wrong," I thought. "This can’t be it!" This was supposed to be a landslide, with dirt and little rocks that we could dig through. This was going to be an adventure where we were going to go digging and searching…and exploring. I could feel the burning of the tears as they started to well in my eyes, keeping my face pressed to the cold window so no one else could see.

Finally, I turned away from the window and asked if we were going to get to stop at all and check it out. I could see mom give dad a furtive glance. “It’s pretty wet out there in the rain, but I guess we can stop for a little bit if you kids want to,” he replied. We soon pulled off the side of the road, and pulling on our coats, we got out of the red Rambler station wagon and climbed around on a few rocks. There was no way we were going to be able to explore anything. The boulders we climbed across were too large to even try to budge. Our stop lasted only a few minutes before we were all getting cold and damp from the falling rain.

As I think back on that weekend of my youth, I’m reminded of the power of dreams. As the days dragged leading up to the “big vacation”, I couldn’t wait for the adventure to begin. My mind was filled with images and thoughts of all of the “what-if’s” that we might encounter. It gave me something to think about, something to ponder, something to hope and wish for. It also reminds me that sometimes our dreams are fulfilled in unexpected ways. In this case, there is a little more to the story.

We drove away from huge rocks and sandstone boulders and continued to drive further north into Alberta. Finally, someone asked where we were going.

“Mommy has always wanted to go to Banff and Lake Louise and since we’re this close, we’re going to drive up there,” dad responded.

“How far is it?” I asked.

“About another 200 miles,” he replied as he relit his pipe filled with his Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco. He rolled his window down a crack to allow the sweet fragrance of the smoke to escape as he drove along the Canadian Rockies toward our destination. It was nightfall by the time we reached Banff and found a place to stay. The air was still filled with the dampness of fallen rain. My heart filled with the weight of another disappointment.

The next morning, we were greeted with a cloudless sky as we awoke. The city of Banff wasn’t bustling on this Sunday morning as we searched for a place to eat breakfast, but at least the sun was shining and the air was warm. The food seemed tasteless as we sat in the Canadian restaurant and soon returned to the car to pack up for the drive back home. But before we headed south to return to the North Idaho dairy, dad started the 35 mile drive up to Lake Louise.

“What a waste,” I thought as we drove along the narrow two-lane highway. “We live by a lake. Why can’t we just go home.”

We finally reached the top of the nearly 2,000 foot climb up the mountain to the lake. As we turned a final corner, I felt like the air was knocked out of me! There in front of us was one of the most beautiful lakes I had ever seen with a huge, castle on the shore. This was a completely unexpected treasure that was delivered to us on this trip that had seemed such a disappointment to me.

I’ve discovered that dreams are like that. All too often, I get something built up in my mind about how great it is going to be…only to find that it wasn’t what I expected at all. Instead, something else is revealed during the “dream quest” which turns out to be even better.

I’m reminded of this trip down memory lane as I follow the dream quest of my sister, Deb. A pent-up dream of being a writer for years finally became a reality for her a year ago. Dreams of completing her first book, finding an agent, getting published and sharing her story have been left mostly unfilled. But like our trip to the Canadian Rockies as children, an even greater treasure is being revealed. Healing. Recognition as an amazing writer. The development of friendships and relationships that only occur through the willingness to share and be transparent. And ultimately, a book that will far exceed anything that she could have conceived when she started this journey.

Photo of Frank Landslide - by dimoreien on Bing Photos

Chateau Lake Louise - Bing photos

Chewing the Cud

2010-07-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

She would seem to simply lay there, hour after hour, eating. To my young six-year old mind, it didn’t really seem to make any sense.

“Daddy”, I asked. “Where does Beaulah get all of her food to eat? I didn’t see her get up and get some hay, but she’s still eating. And nobody brought her any new stuff.”

“Oh, she’s just chewing her cud. All cows do that,” he replied.

I walked away, still perplexed. “What was a cud…and why did she keep chewing it,” I asked myself.

It wasn’t for quite a few years before I really gained a clear understanding of what the “cud” was and why the cows on our dairy farm always seemed to be chewing on it. The short story is that cows eat grass and hay that contain materials that they can’t easily digest. As a result, they will swallow the food and then regurgitate the material back up and in the process be able to slowly digest the food.

I’ve thought about this process of “chewing the cud” lately as I’ve been working to write my book. It isn’t coming easily…and part of the reason is that I don’t yet have everything processed in my mind. And it seems that if I try to force it, I’m not discovering the richness of everything that needs to be in the story.

There are some who believe that it is foolish to keep bringing up my past memories. They say that it is better to either simply forget or to only focus on the positive. But I want more than that. I want to know the richness of my entire life…of all of my life experiences. I want to know why I am who I’ve become. I want to be able to share the impact of my life with others who face the same struggles and difficulties that I have…and do. Like the cows of my childhood chewing their cuds to receive the maximum nutrient from their food, I need to wait patiently chewing on my memories…allowing them to be regurgitated. And then chew on them some more...discovering my whole story.

Photos from Flickr

Missing!

2010-07-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

I was somewhere in that magical place between deep sleep and actually awaking…my favorite time of slumber. I could sense that it was nearing time to wake up when I heard the sound. Barking and yapping. The “kids” were awake. As I glanced at the alarm next to the bed I realized that I was planning to get up in a few moments and realized that I wasn’t going to get any more sleep on this Sunday morning. The magical moment was lost…not to be retrieved for at least another day.

I pulled a t-shirt on and went down stairs to find the three of my temporary babies wagging their tails and barking their “we’re so happy you’re up now” greetings looking at me through the gate that keeps them from the run of the house. I reached down, giving each of them a quick love and opened the door so they could go out and do their morning “ritual” in the fenced back yard. As they took off romping and barking across the backyard, I walked to the laundry room for the watering can and went outside to take care of the watering needs of some of the plants I had been left to care for during the week.

As I emptied the last of water into the hanging tomato planters, I noticed that the back yard had grown quiet of both sound and movement. Perhaps the pups had finished their business and gone back inside. After all, it was kind of cool and damp with a light fog still hanging in the early summer morning air. I took a quick look inside and saw that their beds were still empty. I took a quick walk around the side of the house where I knew they liked to occasionally explore and found it empty. As I walked back around the corner of the house, I looked to the back of the yard…and suddenly it felt as if my heart stopped beating!

It wasn’t possible! I had been out here last evening watering plants and letting the dogs out and it wasn’t like this. But there it was…the back gate was open. While the gap between fence and gate was only about 8 inches, it may as well have been the entire fence knocked down. I jogged across the yard in my bare feet, successfully avoiding the “deposits” left by the dogs over the past week. I stepped through the gate entrance and looked both directions. To my dismay, the small park area behind the house was empty.

I made a quick decision and headed to the west…following along the fence line. My head turned to the right and the left as I scanned the park area for signs of the dogs. Suddenly my heart started racing as I saw an opening in the fence along the southern border of the park. I walked over and looked through. I was greeted with the sight of an overgrown field with dried grass and weeds at least waist high. Along the edge of the fence a trail was visible that had been used by some kind of animal. Was it possible that Babe, Buddy and Missy had taken this route only moments before?

Looking down at my bare feet…growing cold and wet in the morning dew-stained grass, I realized that I was not prepared to venture down that path. I turned away from the fence with its missing boards and continued to the far end of the park. Suddenly, I heard the sound of barking dogs! It was the familiar sound of the “yap” that small dogs make. As I turned the corner, across the yard I could barely make out a small black dog and a second small dog with light brown fur.

“Come on Buddy!” I called out.

I was greeted with even louder barking as I started to step into the yard. Without my glasses on it was difficult to see much more than the dark blur of the barking dog. Then I realized that the dog was on a chain…and my heart fell. These weren’t the canine charges left in my care for a week. I turned and started to walk in the opposite direction, calling out for the dogs. As I approached the still open gate, I walked back through the house and out the front door. I walked to the street and scanned in both directions. Still nothing. I hardly noticed the cold and rough pavement on my bare feet as I started walking up the street to the nearest intersection. Once again I called out for Buddy. Then Missy. No barking...and no dogs.

I walked back to the house to put on my shoes and grab my glasses thinking about what was happening. What was I going to tell Paul and Mary? How long should I wait? Was I going to miss church this morning in order to scour every street in this secluded development…knowing that the dogs could be just one street over constantly moving away from me? Or even worse, somewhere in the vacant, overgrown field that I had discovered on the south side of the park.

Grabbing my phone and glasses from the bedside table, I turned and started back down the stairs. As I turned to open the gate back into the kitchen, Babe and Buddy trotted into the kitchen through the sliding glass door that I had left open into the back yard. As each one looked at me, for a moment I could see in their eyes a slight “oops, sorry Mark” look as they walked around the kitchen. Buddy went directly to his bed and laid down. In her normal hyperactive prancing, Babe jumped up against my leg seeking some form of attention.

“Where have you guys been?” I asked, trying to keep any hint of anger out of my voice. “And where is your sister?”

I don’t know if was expecting a “Lassie” moment with one of them running out the door to lead me to Missy or not. If I was, I was gravely disappointed. Instead, the only response I got was Babe running to the far end of the kitchen and Buddy sniffing at his favorite stuffed rabbit toy.

I walked into the backyard looking for signs of the last of the missing dogs. Nothing. I went back out through the still open gate and walked to the fence with the missing boards. It didn’t appear as if anything had been disturbed since I was here a few minutes earlier, so I turned and decided to look up on the east end of the park in the area that was open to the street.

Suddenly, the familiar sight of the gray terrier turned the corner. Her head down following the familiar scent of her siblings, she moved slowly along the edge of the fence.

“Missy!” I called out. As she lifted her head, the small stub of her docked tail began to move back and forth as she began to run toward me. I walked toward the open gate and as she approached she looked up at me as she ran into the backyard. Content that all were accounted for, I reached up and secured the latch on the top of the gate…double checking to be sure it was completely locked.

I opened the door into the house and after a quick stop at the water dish, Missy went in and joined the other two pups. The three looked at me as if it had just been a "normal" morning. I looked at the clock and realized that I still had plenty of time to get ready for church. Looking back at the three little dogs that have found a place in my heart as I care for them every few months, I went to the laundry room and broke off a piece of their favorite treats and brought them back out. Leaning down to give each of the tail-wagging dogs their treat, all I could say was “I’m glad you’re home.”

Photos by Mark

Buddy, Babe (back) and Missy waiting for their treat)

The Treasure!

2010-07-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

The muscles in my forearms were beginning to ache and knot occasionally as walked the final few aisles of the Expo Center. Hanging from each of my hands were recycled department store sacks and plastic grocery store bags containing the “treasures” and “deals” that we had come across during the course of the antique show. The cord handles cut into my fingers as I occasionally switched hands to the ease the discomfort. The day that had begun nearly eight hours earlier was coming to a close. Our only pause during the day had been to grab a coffee as we explored the 1000+ booths to add to our collections. Most of the items that we had on our mental check-list had been handled and examined…and in many cases, purchased and carefully wrapped and packed in our recycled shopping bags.

As we came around a corner, my sister Deb immediately made a bee-line for a booth. Sitting on the back shelf, tucked away with other memorabilia from the last century was a yellow, McCoy vase. She had started her collection a few months earlier, and one of her goals for the day was to add to the expanding assemblage of yellow pottery on her wooden sideboard at home. Earlier, she had come across a bargain, finding a beautiful pitcher in exquisite condition. But this item was special…it had birds on it, and birds are one of her favorite things.

She gently picked the vase up, checking the bottom for a “mark” and then carefully examined it for cracks, chips or other blemishes. It seemed perfect. And then she saw the price…$45. Our eyes met as I could see the wheels in her mind turning. Forty-five dollars was a lot of money for the item, even in the condition that she found it.

A moment later, a woman who appeared to be in her early fifties walked over and asked if we needed any help. Deb had learned well from me throughout the day as I haggled with the different vendors to get the best price possible for an item. I had been an antiquer long enough to know that it was usually expected.

“What’s your best price?” Deb asked, holding the yellow treasure lovingly in her hands.

“I’ve already marked all of my pieces down as far as I can go,” the owner responded. “That’s a beautiful piece. I had it in my home for years and the way it’s tapered really allows for a perfect arrangement of flowers.” In my mind, I thought "of course it's beautiful, lady. That's why my sister wants it", but the I kept my thoughts to myself.

I could see the disappointment on my sister’s face as she looked at the vase one last time, setting it back on the shelf. She thanked the woman and we continued on our way down the bustling aisles.

“If she would have come down five dollars, I would have bought it”, she said. “Why would she mark items down before the show?” I didn’t have a good response for her.

The last several aisles of booths held no more treasures for us, and as we began to walk toward the exit, we once again passed the booth holding the McCoy. My sister slowed and once again walked over and picked up the vase. No, the price hadn’t miraculously gone down in the past 45 minutes. The rest rooms were nearby and I silently hoped that Deb would excuse herself to use them. My plan was to secretly buy her the vase while she was gone. But she was “fine” and we decided to call it a day.

As we walked out into the hot afternoon sun, there were a few rows of outside booths that we hadn’t checked out on our way in.

“Do you want walk through before we leave?" I asked.

“We might as well. You never know what we might find.”

We hadn’t passed more than a half a dozen vendors when Deb’s pace quickened and she veered to the right to one of the many, white-tented booths that lined the hot asphalt. There, on the top shelf was a yellow vase that looked the same as the one she had so carefully examined inside the exhibition hall. Checking the bottom she saw the familiar “McCoy” stamp. Her hands nearly trembled as she turned to me.

“It’s identical to the one inside,” she said, her voice quaking just a little bit.

She turned the vase gently in her hands, checking once again for cracks or chips…and for a price tag. The item was perfect, but there was no tag in sight. She carried the beautiful, yellow vase to the man sitting casually in the corner engaged in conversation with another gentleman.

“I’m sure you’re probably not giving this away today,” Deb said with a laughter in her voice. “This one doesn’t have a price on it.” The man gently took the vase from my sister’s hands and quickly looked it over.

“How does $20 sound?” he asked.

Forgetting all about the “haggling” nature of buying antiques, Deb quickly blurted out, “you don’t know how good that sounds! I’ll take it.”

The man took the vase and began to wrap it carefully in paper as my sister fumbled in her purse looking for the money. As she handed it over and we walked from the booth, we both realized what an incredible treasure we had been given this day. The treasure wasn’t only this “God-gift” of a $25 savings on a vase my sister wanted. The greater treasure was the day we had spent together…enjoying each other’s company. Discovering new antique pieces and learning new things about items we had seen before. And most of all…the treasure of the love between a brother and his sister.

Collection photo by Mark

Bird Vase from www.artpotteryforsale.com

Going Home...2

2010-07-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t sure what I expected as I retreated from mom’s tobacco tainted kiss…the stench of stale cigarette smoke imprisoned in the fabric of the thin, brown sweater she wore. The eyes weren’t red and puffy from crying. No make-up smeared from tears that had leaked from her moderately bulging eyes induced by a thyroid condition. I’m sure that she had shed the last of her tears for dad a long time ago.

She offered me a cup of coffee from the half empty carafe in the Mr. Coffee that sat on the counter-top. I politely declined, telling her that I was fine and walked across to the couch. She poured herself some of the pale, three-time filtered coffee and came over and sat at the other end of the couch. The empty hospital bed with the head-end inclined sat as a silent reminder as the reason why I was here.

“How are you doing, mom?” I asked.

She sat quietly for a moment and then responded that she was doing fine, her gaze out the east-facing window. I didn’t know if she was looking at the now-empty bed, or if she was just lost in her thoughts. I was uncertain what to say at this point. Mom and I have never been ones to have “deep” conversation. Whenever Paula and I would visit, it was usually mom and Paula who would do the talking while I simply sat and enjoyed the stories. For the next several minutes, we just sat there quietly in a silent peace.

I finally asked how it had happened.

“He just stopped breathing. I’m sure he wasn’t in any pain at all”, she replied. “The paramedics said they think that it was probably pneumonia. I guess there will be an autopsy since he died here instead of at the nursing home. The Medical Examiner said they always do that.”

I nodded a few times as she spoke… as my mind wandered. I was still trying to understand how I felt and if my own feelings were a mirror image of my mom’s indifferent description of dad’s death. It seemed more like she was talking about a neighbor or a friend than a man she called “daddy”…her husband for nearly 40 years. I had to assume that the past several years of watching him decline in health and mental capacity had leached the last of her emotions from her being.

“He wanted to be cremated, you know?” she continued. “I’m sure you’ll want to see him first…to say your good-byes. Tomorrow would be a good day for that, if you’d like. They took him to the Moon Funeral Home and I’ll call them to make sure when a good time will be”, she added.

She absently lit another cigarette and took a sip from her now-cold cup of coffee.

“Would you like me to fill that for you…heat it up a little bit?” I asked.

She nodded an affirmation and I took the cup to the kitchen. As I reached for the coffee carafe, I could feel the thin coating of dust and cooking grease on the counter top and coffee maker. On the bar opposite the stove, the counter was nearly invisible under old mail, unread newspapers and other “stuff” that was haphazardly left there. The dish strainer was piled high with dishes that had been washed sometime during the previous days, but never put away. To the left of the sink, the "mulch dish" sat empty and stained...waiting for the next batch of coffee grounds or potatoe peels to fill it. On the stove-top, the ever present cast iron skillet sat on a grate with a layer of congealed bacon grease resting in the bottom. The sight of the skillet caused me to smile inwardly as I remembered the time my aunt Bea had nearly had a heart attack when she went to the kitchen one morning to find a mouse...still alive, in the skillet covered by a lid. Apparently mom or dad had awakened during the night, saw the mouse and trapped...it figuring they could take care of it in the morning.

I took the cup back across to mom and handed it to her. She thanked me and set it on the “hour-glass” stand that stood at the end of the couch…a gift to dad many years before. The “Viking Ship” wall hanging tilted slightly to one side above her behind the couch, a victim of neglect. A thin veil of dust covered the hardwood floors and small bits of firewood and old newspapers cluttered the corner in front of the fireplace. Dad’s sabre, an artifact collected at some point in his early life, hung unceremoniously above the mantle...tarnished and blackened with soot.

As I looked around this house…this place where I had been raised, I felt a sudden need to get out and get some fresh air. I looked across at mom and asked if she needed anything. She shook her head “no” and I told her that I wanted to just go outside and walk around…that I would be back in a little while. She looked up at me and asked if I was alright? I quickly responded that everything was fine, I just wanted to walk around the place for a little bit.

I turned and grabbed my coat and as I walked out the front door, I had to ask myself… “Was I alright?”

Photo from Flickr

The "Gibb's Slap"!

2010-07-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

When it dawned on me, it felt like a legendary “Gibb’s Slap”…that upward slap on the back of the head that the fictional character Jethro Gibbs on NCIS gives to Agent DeNozo whenever he says, or does, something stupid. It was so obvious…yet I have been so utterly blind to it for years. Maybe blind to it my entire life.

A lot has been revealed to me over these past several years as I search for healing and truth is my life. Some of the lessons have been discovered simply in my times of self-reflection and writing. This one, however, has become evident in the life of others…the lives of several people who are very important to me.

I’ve had the opportunity to talk and visit a lot with my sister over the past 35 months, and during our discussions over morning coffee or leisurely visits to antique shops, we’ve both discovered that we can be vulnerable with each other. But even though I’d heard the words a number of time, they just hadn’t penetrated my understanding. A couple of incidents that have occurred in the past several months have taken care of that.

A little over a week ago, I had the pleasure of getting to spend a day with my family…my sister and two brothers. And while that doesn’t sound like an extraordinary event, in the case of my siblings it was. It had been nearly a decade since we had been together for anything other than a funeral. We were brought together to play in a golf tournament. At least, that’s why my brothers and I were there, along with my brother-in-law. My sister, however, was there for a much more important reason.

Whaack!!!

It wasn’t because she probably wanted (or needed) to walk the three and a half miles through soggy grass. And she probably wasn’t all that impressed with the wayward shots or the knuckle-bumping on the good ones. Even though she loves nature and the view of Mr. Rainier walking up the seventh fairway is spectacular, she was there because…well, she was invited. She belonged with us!!

Whaack!!!

Last Friday, as I drove the 55 miles up to my younger brother’s home for the fourth of July holiday, I called my sister-in-law. Again, not a special thing by itself…but Clare’s birthday was the next day and I wanted to wish her a Happy Birthday. When my brother answered the phone, I asked for his wife and then sang her my best rendition of “Happy Birthday” in my “not-so” Frank Sinatra voice. I could hear the joy in her voice as she thanked me for calling and serenading her for her birthday. I hadn’t called to talk to my brother…just her. In my own little way I had helped to feel like she is a part of our family. She belonged! It had only been a few months earlier when I discovered that she (or at least Frank) didn't believe that we had accepted Clare as being a part of our family.

Whaack!!!

WHAACK!!!

I finally got it! The need of belonging and how important it is to us…even to me. I had “learned” all about it during my education coursework. Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. I’d seen how important it was as it played out in the lives of the young people that I had taught and coached over the years. But I had never put my finger on it in my own life…or in the lives of those that I love. I guess I just took it for granted that they always knew they were loved and that they belonged as a part of my life. I was like the man on his wedding night who told his new bride, “I told you during the ceremony that I love you. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

We need more than that. I need more than that. And I need to make sure that those who are important to me know that I want them in my life…that they are important, and that they are loved. And I hope that in the future, I don’t need Agent Gibb’s slapping me in the back of the head to remember.

Head Slap photo from MotivatedPhotos

Maslow photo from Wikipedia

Reunion at the "Greens"

2010-06-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

The ringing of the phone jarred me from wherever it was that my mind had wandered into. The digital clock on the dashboard read 6:18 AM and I thought I knew where everyone was that might be calling me this early. I pulled my cell phone out of its holster and my heart seemed to skip a beat as I read the name displayed there.

“Geoff Lyons”

My mind started racing, thinking of all the possibilities that a call from him might mean…today of all days!

“Did he get lost?”
“Was Lynn’s mom ok?”
“Were they just leaving the house?”
“Did he change his mind about playing today?”

I pushed the green “connect” button on my Blackberry and as calmly as I could said, “hello”.

“You’re late!” came the familiar voice on the other end of the line. I smiled as I visualized the twinkle in his eye as he verbally chastised me for insisting that he leave early to be at the golf course in time just the night before. I explained that we were about three minutes away and then pushed the off button. “He made it”, I thought as I travelled the last two miles to the Tanwax Greens Golf course. And so started an amazing day!!

It didn’t turn out anything like I would have imagined it. In fact, a golf tournament had never even crossed my mind over the past year. Fishing maybe. Or even a Mariner’s baseball game. Perhaps even simply meeting for coffee. But golf….never. The truth is neither of them had even picked up a golf club in nearly a decade. For Geoff, it had been closer to three decades. But nevertheless this is what was bringing us all together.

It had really just started as a blanket invitation on our family website. “Anyone for golf?” the invitation read. I didn’t really get any takers. When my sister read the comment, she thought that her husband Walt might like to come up and play. He loves the game like I do. But it honestly never crossed my mind that my brothers might be interested in playing as well. But over the course of the next three weeks, after using my best marketing skills everyone confirmed that they would play. And now…the day was finally here!

Pulling into the parking lot with Deb and Walt in the car behind me, I parked next to Geoff's little Geo Metro and got out. We greeted each other with warm hugs…and warmer smiles and I wondered for just a second if we would see many more smiles throughout the day. After all, today would be the first time in nearly a decade that the Lyons’ family would all be together for anything other than a recent funeral. Our family had been fractured…no, broken for the past nine years and I knew that I had been a part of the wrecking crew. So today was even more important to me as a day of reconciliation for all of us. I knew deep in my heart that we all desired that…a family that could, and would, outwardly share the love we have for one another. The arena for that to occur just hadn’t been discovered…not until today.

Only a minute later, my older brother Frank arrived in his deep blue Jeep Liberty. As he pulled to a stop, I knew that this would be a defining moment…actually a moment that might define the rest of our family history. His door opened and he walked across the parking lot and each of us received a hug and a smile. As I watched, I was reminded of my ex-wife Paula and the relationship that she has with some of her closest friends. They can be apart and not speak for months and when they meet again, they pick up like there had never been a time of separation. That’s what appeared to be unfolding in front of me. Anyone observing this group of grey-haired men and woman on this early summer morning would never have guessed that this wasn’t a weekly occurrence. Rather, they probably would have assumed this was simply a close family that enjoyed spending time together.

The remainder of the day was magical. At different times, ending up in a group of two or three…congratulating someone on a great shot. Or commiserating over a poor one. Or simply catching up on what was occurring in each of our families. There never seemed to be a stressful moment. No one had a “mask” on so there was no risk that it might slip during the course of the day.

I will be forever grateful for the love that four other people showed on that Saturday in June. A sister who was to travel 150 miles to walk around a golf course just to be with men she loved. Brothers who gave up their only morning to sleep-in to play a game that they had avoided for many years...and leave wives at home who would probably prefer that their husbands were home as well. A brother-in-law who loves his wife enough to be a part of this magical day…and wanted her to share in it as well.

For some, the golf clubs have been put away for the year. Over time, the birdie on the opening hole will be forgotten and the “day-after” soreness will fade away. But for each member of our family, the “day” will remain with us forever.

(Walt, Mark, Deb, Frank & Geoff)

Photos by Deb Shucka

Going Home

2010-06-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

We hadn’t been home very long. Un-emptied suitcases were still laying on the bed. The doors to the red Chevy Berreta still open in the sloped driveway outside. Paula and I were in the kitchen…emptying the ice chest full of goodies that Mom had sent home with us from our 4th of July weekend in Walla Walla. The ringing of the phone jarred me momentarily as Paula handed me cold roast beef and left-over potato salad from the cooler. I looked at Paula to see if she was going to answer and she just continued to work, pulling food from the ice chest. I walked over to the phone hanging on the wall and finally picked it up before it went to voice mail.

The voice on the other end of the line was familiar…a voice I heard about every three or four weeks when I would call. The voice sounded distant, but strong in a controlled way.

“Mark, this is your Mother.”

“Hi Mom. We just got home from Walla Walla. Did you have a nice 4th?” I asked.

There was a short silence on the other end.

“I wanted to call you first since you got angry with me last time when I didn't call when Daddy got really sick. He’s gone. Daddy passed away this morning.”

I just stood there, the cream colored wall phone in my hand. No words. No movement. No…nothing. Paula stopped what she was doing and walked over to me…and looked at me as I just stood there, allowing the words to sink in.

“Mark…did you hear me?” the voice asked.

“Umm…yea, Mom. Are you doing ok? I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

“I’m going to call Debbie and your brothers. Jeff and Lynn are still in Hawaii so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get a hold of them.”

“Oh…ok. I love you Mom” and with that I hung up the phone.

Paula took my hand and asked what was wrong. All I could say was that it was Mom on the phone and that Dad had died that morning. I didn’t know what else to say. There were no tears. No real emotion. I stood there, looking out the window onto the street below...the heat radiating off the black asphalt baking under the early July sun. My mind was grinding…thinking about the man who was my father, now gone.

Memories of the past few years when he had been sick and in the nursing home flashed to my mind. I hadn’t seen him for nearly a year…our last trip to North Idaho the previous fall while he was still in the nursing home. Even then, he appeared so much weaker and smaller than I remembered him. He was unable to speak…just as Grandpa had been when he was in the nursing home so many years before. Mom had taken him home a few months ago because Dad wanted to be at home…and I think Mom must have known that he didn’t have that much time left.

I felt her arms wrap around me, just holding me. She asked if I was “OK” and I said yes. She kissed my neck and then my lips and pulled me to her. We stood there in the kitchen with her head on my shoulder. I’m sure her mind was thinking how strong I was trying to be. She adored her Mom and Dad and if anything ever happened to them, she would be devastated. That’s just the way it’s supposed to be with kids and their parents. But I wasn’t standing there trying to be strong. I was trying to figure out what I should be feeling...because it seemed no feelings were available.

Paula stepped away and told me that she would help me re-pack so I could go up and be with Mom. It’s where she would want to be…need to be, so it made sense to her that that’s where I needed to be as well. I told her I could help her finish putting things away, but she said she would take care of it. I needed to go be with Mom.

We headed to the bedroom and emptied the suitcase and then re-packed it with clean clothes. I grabbed one of my sports jackets from the closet and some slacks, dress shirt and tie. There would be a funeral to go to and I would need to have the right clothes. The suitcase was soon full once again and I carried it and my jacket down and placed it in the car. I grabbed the last of the boxes from the backseat and took them back into the house. Paula handed me a small cooler with a sandwich and Diet Pepsi and kissed me good-bye.

“Are you going to be OK to drive?” she asked. I told her “yes” and that I’d call her when I got there.” Be careful and give Mom my love and tell her how sorry I am” she said and walked me down to the car. She leaned in, giving me one last kiss and I started the car.

The drive north was uneventful…my mind still as much a blur as the reflector poles along the side of the interstate as I sped along. The sun was sliding down the western horizon as I passed through Spokane, still an hour and half from Mom and Dad’s place…Mom’s place now. The pace of the drive slowed down as the highway narrowed to two lanes as I made my way along the familiar route from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint…and then the six miles north to the farm.

The air was starting to cool as I pulled into the gravel driveway, the sun no longer visible behind the mountain that rose up behind the place. The familiar red pick-up was in the garage with Mom’s car beside it. The blue paint on the siding of the house was starting to fade some and the lawn was over-grown, obviously unattended for the past several weeks. As I stepped out of the car, the gravel crunched softly under my feet. I walked slowly to the door, opening it and going in without knocking. As I rounded the corner and stepped into the kitchen, Mom turned and faced me…with the ever-present cigarette poised between her fingers.

"You came so fast. I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow" she said as she started across the hardwood floor toward me, the trail of cigarette smoking trailing behind her.

"If You Want to Steer a Bike, It Has to Be Moving!"

2010-05-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

It seemed so far down to the hard, gravelly ground as I sat there. My heart was pounding and I could feel the small droplets of sweat as they trickled down my back on the warm spring day. This wasn’t the first time I’d been here…in truth, I’d been in this same place most of the morning. But the result always seemed to be the same. As soon as I would try to lift myself up on the pedals, I would fall over. Some of the times, I would catch myself with a foot and keep the bike in an upright position. But all too often, I found myself sprawled on the ground…small bits of gravel imbedded into my raw, bruised hands. Tears would begin to build, but I would quickly wipe the sleeve my old red, hooded sweatshirt across my face to remove any tell-tale signs of the pain I was feeling or the anger that was building in me.

We didn’t have training wheels for our bikes…those were for “wus’s” and “pansies”. We just had to figure out how to make it work. Of course for my little brother Jeff (the family dare-devil), it seemed so easy. After only a few tries, he was off and riding…like a young Indian scout on his first pony. But he had something that I didn’t have…or maybe it would be better said that “I had something that he didn’t”. I was afraid of falling and he wasn’t. He just pushed the bike so it started to move and jumped on and away he went.

Eventually, I learned to ride my bike and spent countless hours and miles on it riding with Jeff. Eventually, I learned the lesson of what you need to do to actually “ride” the bike…to get it to go where you wanted it to instead of ending up on the ground with torn knees in your jeans and raw, bleeding hands. Eventually, I learned at if you want to steer a bike, it has to be moving!

I’m in the process of riding a new kind of bike these days. ..I’m starting my book. And I’m discovering that the lesson learned when I was a little boy on a hard, gravel driveway in North Idaho is still true today. I can’t know where the book is going until I start moving…until I dig into it and start to put the pieces together.

The stories are difficult to read at times…the memories they bring back still too fresh, still too painful. But I know that I need to keep moving, to keep reading…to keep processing. And like that young boy in the tattered old red sweatshirt, success will come. It will all fall into place. The wobbly handlebars will straighten out, the legs will keep moving and the momentum of the story will take over.

In truth, it is already beginning to take shape. The stories are starting to fit together…something that makes sense is beginning to unfold. I can see that there really IS something powerful here to be told. And as I continue to move forward, the pain will diminish, the falls will become less frequent and the story will steer itself as I continue to let it move forward.

Photo from Flickr

Blindsided!

2010-05-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

The tears are slowly wending their way down my cheeks as my fingers move across the keys on my keyboard. My eyes… still stinging as they release their slightly salty liquid, the monitor a bit blurry tonight. The soulful sounds of Coldplay’s “Fix You” is playing through my computer speakers as the “Youtube” video plays on my other monitor…only too appropriate tonight. I’ve spent the past hour reading some of the most painful words I may have ever read. Or the some of the most painful words I’ve ever written!

I haven’t visited these memories for a long time, not since I wrote them more than two years ago. As I prepare to begin my book, I’m taking the time to go back to read what I’ve recorded in my blog since I began this journey in September of 2007. I had NO idea…NO comprehension of the pain in those words. As I reflect I wonder how I was able to put those memories to words then and why I didn’t drown in an ocean of tears. Maybe the drowning is scheduled for tonight?

In my mind’s eye I thought this part of the process would be pretty easy. I’ve printed out all my blog entries and all I needed to do was categorize them into where it seemed they might most appropriately fit into the sections of my upcoming book. I actually looked forward to reading my words. Not for the content, but to see how my writing may have improved, or worsened, over the past thirty months. The concept that the words would break my heart in a way tonight that they didn’t when I composed them never crossed my mind. I have been totally blindsided.

Photo from Flickr

Call Me Naive!

2010-05-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

We had stopped at the infamous Wall Drug earlier in the day and spent an hour or so wandering through the myriad of rooms…looking at the attractions and spending time in the various gift shops. The heavy odor of the rich chocolate fudge was carried on the hot, summer breeze causing my mouth to water. As we wandered through of the gift shops, we saw the head of a strange looking animal hanging on the wall near the cash register.
“What is that?” Paula asked me.

“Oh, that’s a stuffed Jackalope”, I replied. “They’re found only in this part of the country. I'm pretty sure they’re a cross between a Jack Rabbit and an Antelope.”

Paula looked at me with a little bit of trepidation, but it was time to go so we left the shop and got back on the road with Frank and Deb and the kids, starting our drive up the winding state highway that led to Mt. Rushmore. About half way up the incline, Paula leaned forward from the back seat and asked if the Jackalope was a real animal. With straight faces, both Frank and I assured her that they were the genuine thing and Frank told some story about how they were genetically engineered earlier in the 20th Century.

After a couple of minutes, I couldn’t hold my laughter in any longer and found myself giggling hysterically. Paula looked at me, and I knew in that moment that I had gone too far. Paula had trusted me that I would tell her the truth when she asked about that funny looking little animal. She had a trusting spirit, and is what we typically call “naïve” in our culture. As a general rule, being called “naïve” is not a positive trait that we aspire to as adults. It’s OK for kids to be naïve, but as we grow older, we are expected to know better.

I came across an article last week that brought the memory of the Jackalope back to my mind and caused me to re-examine naivete. The focus of the article is a concept called “second naivete” which refers to the point where we gain a more mature insight to the unquestioned beliefs that we had as children. It reminds us that the word is derived from the Latin word for “natural”, describing "one who shows absence of artificiality…or has no hidden agendas or duplicitous motives." In the words of the author, it is “the recognition that the story we continue to discover is far bigger than we know how to tell.” It allows us to “return to the unhindered sincerity of a child.”

I thought about that as I thought about my relationship with my sister and brothers. For much of my life, I was never willing to be completely honest with any of them. I would just put on my “Mark mask” and go about my business…smiling and nodding. I was who I thought they wanted me to be. I was anything but “natural”. And then things changed. I got into trouble and my attitude to my siblings changed.

I went through a season of extreme self-centeredness where I allowed my childhood love and acceptance for my family to be replaced by a judgmental attitude and a self-imposed exile away from them. Much in the same we do as we move from childhood to adulthood, my perspective of my family was tainted by a critical spirit. Because they didn’t fit my definition of what a “Christian” should be, I turned my back on those relationships. And I found myself justifying my decision by using “selective” portions of Scripture that reinforced my separation.

But thankfully, I’ve come to the place in my life where I enjoy being naïve. Not in the culturally defined sense that would describe me as being simple or credulous. Rather, in the sense that I’ve returned to the “natural” state…the state I was designed for which is to simply love, not judge.

Photo from Wall Drug

A Step Closer

2010-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

It was a surreal feeling…sitting there watching the hands on the clock approach 6:30. I was sipping a cup of coffee (tasting like it had been sitting on the warmer since before the 4:30 group started), but the acrid taste didn’t bother me too much tonight. The aroma of basil and marinara floated on the air from the next room where two flat boxes sat on the counter…a bottle of warm Diet Pepsi, cups and paper plates in the plastic grocery sack beside it. Only about half of the chairs were full tonight, one of them occupied by an unfamiliar face…a late-comer from the earlier group. I smiled to myself as I thought about the fact that next week, even fewer chairs would be filled.

“So, this is your last night…how has it been for you?” the therapist asked.

The words seemed to flow effortlessly as I spoke…sometimes looking at the doctor, other times making eye contact with each of the men around the room.

“I’ve shared with the group before that when I got out of prison, I really didn’t want to come to treatment…and actually didn’t really think that I needed it. But I have to say that this has been a great experience and I’ve met men that I have become friends with and that I trust in ways that I’ve never been able to before.”

The therapist sat there, jotting a few notes on his pad…silently counting the names of those who had signed in. It made me wonder if he was calculating his income for the night or if he was checking to see who was still absent. Looking up he said,

“I think you brought pizza. Why don’t we stop here and eat it before it gets cold and then continue to check in.”

I went into the next room and grabbed the two large pizzas and returned to the therapy room, passing them around to the men. My closest friend in the group, my “coffee buddy”, hadn’t arrived yet. He had called me earlier to tell me that he was running late but that he would be there for the pizza. At this point, it looked like he was going to miss out, or at least have to settle for the cold leftovers.

Settling back into his chair with a large slice of combination pizza and a glass of Diet Coke, the doctor asked me

“Is there any advice that you would give to the group?”

There were a number of comments that passed through my mind that I quickly disregarded.

“I really think the most important thing is just to be willing to be transparent. It has become so apparent to me over these past five years that until I, or any of us, is willing to take a genuine in-depth look at our past and how it led to where we are today…we can never heal.”

“Secondly, and maybe almost as important…make sure you pay the doctor here or you’ll never get out of treatment.”

A round of soft laughter echoed around the room as the men clearly understood what I was saying. The doctor has affirmed a number of times that everyone needed to be caught up to date on their payments before he could release them from group. My “coffee buddy” knew that only too well and was only getting out because of a little help I provided him.

“Well, I just want you to know that you’ve really been a great addition to our group. You’ve provided insightful comments to the other men and I’m sure that you will do well. It looks like you’re going to have some free time now on your Thursday nights”, the therapist added.

“Actually, I’m planning to begin writing my book and Thursday night’s would be a good time to dedicate to that.”

I spent the next several minutes explaining what I wanted my book to be about and as I was finishing, my “coffee buddy” finally arrived. As he grabbed a plate and a couple of slices of pizza, I said

“Hey. I took your advice and went down to Chuckee Cheese’s to try to get the pizza. Man, there must have been 1000 kids running around so I just had to sit there for about 20 minutes waiting. I finally just gave up and went to Pizza Hut instead.”

The room suddenly grew quiet as each one of the men tried to process what they had just heard. Even the therapist stopped his pizza dripping fingers midway to his mouth as he and the other looked at me. The look in the eyes told me what they were thinking.

Chuckee Cheese?
Kids?
Twenty minutes?

I finally couldn’t hold my laughter back any longer.

“I wouldn’t go to Chuckee Cheese even if it was allowed. That pizza is just too nasty for me.”

You could practically hear the sighs of relief as they realized I was only joking. Slices of pizza were soon being once again consumed and the nearly empty bottle of Diet Pepsi was passed around the room once more.

The remainder of the evening was a quick check-in for the other men. It was soon time to go, and as I picked up the trash from our pizza party, I received best wishes from each of the men. I was invited back if was ever in the neighborhood on a Thursday evening (at no cost), and politely said it might happen. As I walked out the door and down the stair, my step seemed a little lighter…my smile a little broader and my future a little closer.

Photo from Flickr

The Question!?!

2010-04-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

We’re just sitting there, around the large round table set in the back of the restaurant. There are only four of us today…a couple of “no-shows” leaving several vacant chairs. The conversation is light as Wally talks about the car he is restoring and Jim shares a few stories of the vacation to the beach he had taken the previous week with his foster kids. And then, out of the blue, Paul looks across the table at me.

“How’s your book coming?”

A wry smile and dancing eyes…he sits there. I suppose he is waiting for a response, but more I think he is looking for my reaction. I gather myself.

”It’s really good. I’m just starting to read a new one that I’ll be teaching in our next Sunday school class.”

And then I started chuckling as he frowned and then laughed with me.

“Probably not the book you were talking about, was it Paul?”, I asked.

At this point, Wally looked around the table, turning to Jim and asked what in the world were we talking about. I explained that Paul was asking me how I was doing on the book that I have been planning to write…for the past three years. And then Paul asked the critical question…

“What’s the book going to be about?”

That is the question that I struggle with! I think my problem is that I have too many books in my brain and I can’t get my mind around the story that I want to tell first. And so I wait. I hesitate. I put off making a decision. Jim suggested that I call my book, “Mark’s Great Procrastination!” but I vetoed that idea. I want so much to write the “right” book that I’m wallowing in a quicksand of indecision. It seems the harder I think about what the book should focus on, the blurrier the picture is for me.

• A book of my arrest and incarceration?
• A story of the childhood abuse and consequences?
• A story of healing and restoration?
• A story of love and grace?
• A “factional” novel?
• A collection of letters between God and myself?

My sister, who is a gifted writer, has suggested that I just begin to write and the story will develop. Paul agrees with her (maybe the big hug at the Christmas concert established a connection with those two). I’m a control freak (I’ve discovered) and I feel like I need to the know destination before I start the journey.

But I know that it’s time. There have been too many signals in the past month for me to continue waiting. There is a purpose for my life and God keeps reminding me that He wants me to tell the story. And I think He’s told me what story He wants me to begin with. I was challenged several weeks ago as I listened to one of our pastors speak to our men’s group. His topic was pornography and how destructive it is (a story I know only too well). He finished his message that morning with a question to the group.

“How many of you would be willing to help, or talk with, someone who is struggling with pornography in their life?”

I raised my hand because I am more than willing to talk to people about what I’ve gone through. But the Spirit is nudging me…no, whacking me along side the head to write the story. And so that’s where I’m going to begin this new adventure. And as I look at my list of potential books, it may include parts of all of them. And I guess that’s OK. This is perhaps a time where I need to place the pen in my hand and let it do the driving. Sometimes, those are the greatest trips of all!

Photo from Flickr

He's Gone

2010-03-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

The mood at the Long Branch was somber and quiet on this Tuesday night. Sam stood behind the tall oak bar absently wiping a shot glass that he had held in his arthritic fingers for the past ten minutes. The upright piano stood quiet in the corner where we would usually find a couple of cowboys leaning against the wall with their arms draping over the shoulder of one of the dance-hall girls. The card tables were quiet as the men quietly exchanged looks, their eyes occasionally drifting to the table in the corner that was occupied by the Marshall…a big man wearing this usual rawhide vest.

The four of them sat quietly, heads down. Miss Kitty’s face looked dark and bruised where she continued to wipe her lace hanky across her eyes to stem the ceaseless tears…dragging the make-up that adorned her eyes with them. Doc’s eyes were red, the dark circles silent reminders of hours of sleep that his old body needed…his hand occasionally rubbing across the stubble of his unshaved face. Chester’s hand kept reaching for the schooner of beer that sat on the table in front of him, only to keep pulling back at the last moment…realizing that this was not the time to enjoy a cold one. The shoulders on Marshall Dillon were slumped as he sat there with his closest friends mourning the loss of his gruff, wiry deputy.

“I’m going to miss him”, was all he could manage to say as he looked around the table.

We got the word this morning. I knew it coming, but it didn’t really dampen the sense of loss that I feel. My little brother’s cat is gone. Even as I write these words, it seems a little silly that there would be an empty spot in my heart of an old cat that lived a long life, loved by the family that God placed around him. After all, he was only a cat. At least that’s what someone who had never met Festus might say.

But Festus was a “special” cat. He had more of a dog’s personality than that of a feline. He was a lover who would look for a pair of feet to cuddle up on as soon as I sat down on the couch. You could count on him to wander into the kitchen at Geoff and Lynn’s as soon as he heard your voice to announce that, “yes, I’m still here and it would be ok if you want to pick me up and hold me…even rub my belly and my ears if you want.” His beautiful face looking into mine as his chest rumbled with a constant chorus of purrs.

I could always count on Festus to come and sit beside my chair at the dinner table, patiently looking up at me…waiting for some kind of offering of “human food”. As I would move my fingers to his mouth, he would wait for me to drop it on the floor, but when I persisted in holding the piece of chicken or pork in my fingertips, he would gently eat from my hand. After swallowing, his eyes would return to mine, waiting for the next delicacy to be offered.

The passing of Festus reminds me how sensitive I am to loss. It brings a dull pain to my heart, nearly wanting me to never risk any kind of relationship that might end. It reminds me of my fear of rejection and abandonment…and a heavy weight immediately settles over me. I don’t know or completely understand the source of that fear, but I recognize it as being real. But I also understand something even more important…relationship and love are worth it! I loved Festus and I’ll miss him, but I would have missed so much more if I had never known him.

The Marshall stands and looks at his friends sitting around the table and throughout the Long Branch Saloon. He reaches for the glass of beer sitting in front of him and waits for the others to join with him.

“This is for you, Festus”, he says as lifts the glass toward the ceiling and then swallows the cold, bitter brew. “You blessed our lives by sharing it with us. Thank you.”

Festus photo by Mark

http://catbirdscout.blogspot.com/2010/03/festus.html

It Makes Me Wonder...?

2010-03-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

The stench of the cigarette smoke roils off of him like the mist off of a crashing wave each morning as he climbed into my car for the past week. He casually tosses the butt over his shoulder as he stoops down and slides into the car, settling into the leather seats. The odor hangs in the air for few moments before being circulated throughout the car…diminishing the assailment on my olfactory senses. I put the car into gear and pull away from the curb and make the remaining 15 minute drive to work.

As I drive, I think about this man sitting next to me. A “gear-head”, I have to believe he would be more comfortable riding with my brother Geoff than with me. Sitting there without putting on his seatbelt, our conversation flows easily. My questions about the health of his dogs, or the turmoil in his community association or about his health. His comments about a ’68 Camaro barely visible under a tarp parked behind an outbuilding that I’ve never noticed before. His political commentary, peppered with colorful language that I haven’t heard since I was in prison. His anger toward law enforcement and their “out to get him” attitude.

There is very little that he doesn’t share. I hear the story of his gunshot wound that nearly killed him…and the bullet that did kill his best friend. The tremors in his voice betraying his anger that the killer walked away scot-free because his friend had made a threatening gesture with a baseball bat. On the damp cold mornings typical of our northwest weather, his ankles throb as a result of the metal pins still embedded there repair the damage received when he was run over by a car. His eyes carry dark circles under them from lack of sleep…the result of stomach problems.

His home is a single wide that he shares with his girlfriend and her daughter and boyfriend. He happily shares his space with six dogs and three cats. The roadway in front of his home is packed with three cars, a boat and pop-up trailer. A 1979 Corvette occupies the small patch of brown grass one might call the front yard. A driver’s license suspended will keep them all there…unused and immobile for the next year.

Among the stories he has shared during our two weeks of car pooling is about his mom…and his sister. With his mother’s health failing, his sister made the decision to place her in a nursing home. Living in California at the time, he was infuriated at his sister’s “callousness and selfishness” and moved up to Tacoma to care for her. He lived with her until her health completely failed and she passed away.

Sadly, more than just his mom died. So did his relationship with his sister. Angered over her apparent selfishness, he cut off all contact with her. Frustrated with her invitations to attend church and the lack of congruency between her life and her words, he’s walked away from any relationship that he may have had with Christ. Now…angry, bitter, scarred, and in failing health himself, he drifts from job to job.

Tony reminds me of so many men that I met in prison. With eyes focused only on the past and the perceived (or actual) injustices that they have endured, they choose to give up on living a life of significance. Instead, they look at every opportunity to blame society and everyone in it for their current situation. The negativism is almost palpable…nearly as infectious as the latest H1N1 flu. And it makes me wonder…

How did I escape all of that? How did I spend three years in prison without ever using profanity? How have I been able to maintain a relatively positive attitude in a situation where I still find myself imprisoned by the choices of my past? How can I freely share my story without the weight of the guilt and shame crushing me until I can no longer breathe? How can I look into the eyes of a woman that I love…whose heart I shattered into an infinite number of pieces through my deceit and betray, and see love reflected back? How…did I escape?

There is no easy answer. It’s not because I was once such a “nice” person…or a “great” person. And it’s not because I have such great self-confidence that I believe I can overcome any situation. The only reasonable answer that comes to my mind is that I’ve learned to accept the fact that I am loved…and worthy of love. Accepting that realization isn’t easy…and it brings with it a certain amount of pain. The pain coming not from being loved, but from comprehending that I’ve ALWAYS been loved and NOT recognizing that it was enough! Understanding that the love of God and of family and friends can get us through even the most difficult seasons of our life.

Waiting, Trusting and Hoping

2010-03-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve purchased seven of these books now, but this is the first one that I’ve actually kept. It seemed that someone else needed my copy more than I did. I had first heard about the book on my way to work almost two years ago…a DJ on a Christian radio station shared a short entry from the devotional and it really touched me. Paula and I had talked about reading the same daily devotional when we were married…but it just never happened. So, I thought now might be a good time to start doing it. I went on-line to Amazon and purchased two copies.

I sent one to Paula and she fell in love with it immediately. I didn’t tell her at the time that I bought one for myself as well. I thought it might bring back too many painful memories of things we never got to do when we were married. A short time later, my pastor’s wife was going through a difficult time so I gave her my devotional because I thought it might lift her spirits and speak to her heart. It did.

So it was back to Amazon to order another copy. While I was waiting for it to arrive, during one of my phone conversations with Paula, she shared how much her best friend loved the devotional I had sent her. So I sent her my copy as soon as it arrived. I ordered two the next time…just in case. As you can probably guess already, they too ended up getting sent back out. One to our daughter and another given to my sister-in-law.

I thought I would be safe to order only one more so it was back on-line to Amazon and finally my own copy arrived. Or so I thought. Paula told me shortly before Christmas that she had given her copy to a young man who worked at the resort where she was previously employed. I could hear the loss in her voice as she talked about the wrestling match she had with God to give her cherished book away…but she did. I knew that I had no choice. I rewrapped my copy and sent it to Paula.

A month ago, I ordered another copy. For now, this one is on my little shelf beside my bed and each morning, I diligently reach for it and read the devotion for the day. It’s a very special book. I’ve read from a lot of devotionals over the years, but this one is different. It seems that no matter who is reading it…it speaks directly to the need they have on that day – or that week. That’s what it did for me this morning.

Today was a day that I have NOT been looking forward to all week. It was my semi-annual polygraph. While it seems foolish that I would worry about this little “lie detector test”, I find myself getting anxious every time I know I have one. I know the reason why…even though it’s not rational. The results could send me back to prison even if they are wrong. I’ve learned that the polygraph will sometimes give a false reading because you start to second guess your answers. I have a friend who failed his polygraph by telling the truth…but then wondering if his definition of a term might be different from some else’s. As he mind worked over the issue in his mind, the needle on the polygraph went crazy and he failed the test.

And therein lies my problem. I don’t trust the test. In the back of my mind I understand that even by telling the truth the machine can decide that I’m being deceitful. All week long, everything seems to roll around in my head…wondering if there was something I may have omitted telling my therapy group. Or perhaps an incidental that I just forgot about. Maybe my interpretation of a rule is different from someone else. And the more I think about it, the more anxious I become. And the more anxious I become, the less I trust the test. It’s an endless circle that nearly paralyzes me when I walk into the room and have the straps wrapped around my chest. The clips are attached to the end of my fingers and the blood pressure cuff pumped up around my arm…nearly cutting off the blood supply. So I sit there – hearing my heart pounding in my head. Trying to breathe through my nose and feeling out of breath. Worrying that my labored breathing is sending a signal to the machine that holds my future in my hand.

And then I remember my devotional from this morning:

“WAITING, TRUSTING AND HOPING are intricately connected, like golden strands interwoven to form a strong chain. Trusting is the central strand, because it is the response from My children that I desire the most. Waiting and hoping embellish the central strand and strengthen the chain that connects you to Me. Waiting for Me to work, with your eyes on Me, is evidence that you really do trust Me. If you mouth the words “I trust You” while anxiously trying to make things go your way, your words ring hollow. Hoping is future-directed, connecting you to your inheritance in heaven. However, the benefits of hope fall fully on you in the present.”

From "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young

The words remind me that there is truly only One that I need to trust…and He is always with me. No matter what, He is in control and I know that He loves me. With that in mind, the outcome of the test seems less important. My breathing becomes more relaxed. The rushing waves of my heartbeat begin to recede in my brain. The multiple thoughts colliding in my mind begin to diminish.

Like so many others who read daily from this little devotional, God sent me the message that I needed today. And I can trust the He will continue to do so each day in the future…and especially on those days that it seems my entire future rests on it.

Book Cover from Amazon

Photo from Flickr

"Reunion"

2010-03-11T15:58:00.000-08:00

It had been almost two and a half years since I had last seen her. And I had actually only seen her once in the past five and a half years. While we had talked almost weekly, I still didn’t know what to expect. Even the possibility that I might see her now wasn’t set in concrete. I knew she was in the area and she had called the day before to ask what time our church services were. But even then, there was no guarantee.

As I stood on the platform with the choir for the first service, I kept my eyes open…scanning the congregation so see if she may have slipped in without my noticing. That had happened once before many years ago. I was still coaching and we really didn’t know each other that well. She had come to a wrestling match and sat in the stands…watching, cheering, waiting. But I didn’t see her until it was all over; until it was almost too late. I’d learned my lesson and always tried to keep a watchful eye for her since whenever I thought there might be even the slightest possibility she would be there.

The first service passed and still, she wasn’t there. I walked from one entry door to the other, like a child on Christmas Even…waiting, watching, hoping. With a watchful eye on the time so I wouldn’t be late to line up for choir for the second service and the other on the entry ways, the minutes ticked away. Three minutes until we were to walk in, so I moved into my position in line…disappointed that perhaps she wouldn’t make it. Standing in conversation with a friend, suddenly I felt someone grab me from behind.

As I turned, it was a friend that I knew she was planning to attend with. My heart grew and began to beat at a more rapid pace. As we exchanged hugs, I peeked over his shoulder…hoping, expecting, wanting to see her. But the hallway was empty. Again, my heart began to sink. Maybe he was here to tell me that it wasn’t going to work…that it was just too hard for her to be there.

Suddenly, he began to look around as well.

“I know there are a couple of beautiful ladies around here somewhere”.

He began to walk toward the far entry and I followed, forgetting for a moment that the choir would begin to walk in for second service in only a minute. I looked to the right and left. Perhaps they were in the ladies room, I thought. And then I saw them…more specifically, I saw her.

I’m not sure if my heart started racing…or if it just stopped beating altogether for the next few moments. I really don’t know how long I stood there…probably seconds, but it seemed much longer. She was exactly as I remembered her. Her long blonde hair still styled as it was the last time I saw her. Adorned in a white jacked with a fur collar, it reminded me of the first time I met her…in a school parking lot at a semi-clandestine meeting. Her make-up perfect, her smile radiant…her demeanor, as hesitant as my own.

My feet began to move again as I slowly walked toward her. My arms opened, welcoming her into a hug…holding her perhaps a moment longer that I should have, but not long enough for the feelings welling up in me. While my inner being screamed at me to give her a tender kiss, I pulled away and told her how good it was to see her and how good she looked. I could see one of the choir lines begin to move and I hastily apologized for having to leave and get in for the service…telling her that I would see her in a little bit.

As we sang our songs and led the congregation in worship, my eyes kept returning to that spot near the left aisle…three seats in, eight rows back. Watching her as she sang and worshiped the Lord. Tears pooling in my eyes as I realized that we weren’t a “couple” any longer and the great treasure that I had lost. It seemed that we were on the platform longer than usual…most likely because I wanted to sit in the empty chair…left aisle, eight rows back, fourth seat in.

Finally, we sang our last number and exited the platform. Gathering my stuff, I entered the back of the sanctuary and found my way to the empty chair beside her. As I sat next to her for the next forty minutes, it seemed like nothing had changed. We were together…side by side, sitting in church. I found it difficult not to reach for her hand…or slide my arm around her holding her close. But I didn’t. Now wasn’t the time. I’m not sure there will ever be the “right” time again.

We spent the remainder of the day together, enjoying lunch (which she insisted on paying for as I slipped her some more money). We visited as though there wasn’t a 30 month gulf between the last time we sat side by side, talking about family, work, God. The time flew by much too quickly and we soon found that it was time for me to leave.

Ours is an unusual relationship. Divorced, yet in love. Separated, yet in touch regularly. Certain that a relationship right now is not what would be good for either of us…or for both of us. I’ve never loved anyone in the same way as I love Paula. I don’t know when we will find ourselves side by side again…if ever, but that one day together will be a day I remember forever.

Photo from Flickr

Remembering the "Wild Things"

2010-03-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

My sister had told me it was a movie that I really needed to watch with my little brother.

“It’s a boy’s movie”, she said.

And she was right. As I sat and watched the DVD, I found myself laughing out loud and remembering my own childhood.

Building snow forts and making an arsenal of snowballs…ready for the next fight.

Sliding on my belly in the snow, believing that I must be invisible and able to sneak up on the enemy with my snowballs at the ready…not thinking about the bright colored snow coat that I was wearing.

Rolling down a hillside…head over tails…and laughing out loud when we got to the bottom.

Designing a “fort” in the dirt with the end of a pointed stick with the mandatory towers and “secret chambers”.

Having fights with dirt clods.

Picking teams between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”.

It was a “boy’s movie.” I don’t have a lot of really great memories of childhood. But watching a young boy in the movie “Where The Wild Things Are” helped me to remember some of the times that I spent with my brothers and sister as a young boy myself.

Times of playing in the freshly turned fields with the furrows of dirt and sod still moist and fragrant with a deep earthy smell. Remembering how angry dad was that we had moved some of those furrows out of their neat, parallel rows to make our forts, sometimes stacking several layers of sod on top of one another to give better protection from the dirt clods that would soon be flying our way.

I remember the times in the woods, climbing the cedar trees as we played hide and seek or cowboys and Indians. Watching my little brother Jeff in amazement as he would scurry up and down the trees more like a monkey than a boy. His apparent lack of fear as he would jump from limb to limb…from tree to tree. Whereas I would begin to shake if I got much higher than two or three limbs up off the ground, he would casually go to the top, even as the tree would begin to bend over under his weight.

“Zulu warfare” played in the wooded area down near the little creek. Each of us with long limbs torn from the nearest tree, our child-like imagination transforming them into carefully crafted “spears”, intent on impaling each other like the warriors on the African continent that gave name to our war games.

Dragging our snow sleds up the hill on the county road on cold winter days after a fresh snow before the gravel trucks came through to ruin the slope with coarse nuggets of rock that would slow our descent. First, the trip down the hill a couple of times with the toboggan to create a layer of packed snow and ice. Then we could begin to have the races on our sleds…each taking a running start and flying down the hill. At times, hand fighting each other and forcing the other off the bank…and on at least one occasion, into the creek below the bridge. After hours of play in the snow, the wet clothes would come off and a cup of hot chocolate would help to restore the heat to our bodies.

Sometimes, we need a reminder of the pleasant memories of our childhood. We need a trigger to refresh the stories of our past. We need to remember that it wasn’t all bad…that there were time of fun and laughter. Right now…I’m smiling as I remember.

Photo from Flickr

"I'll eat you up, I love you so"

2010-03-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Max looks back over his shoulder…scanning the horizon. His little sail boat starts to move away from the shore. The look in his eyes says it all. It’s not complete. Something is missing. And then he sees him…Carol running up over the dunes to the shore. He wades out into the water, but it’s too late to hug Max…or even to say ‘goodbye’. The two look at each other for a moment and then Carol tilts his head back and lets out a “howl”. Max responds with his own “howl” as the two communicate with this bizarre exchange of “wolf calls”.

By now, the tears are streaming down my face. The sobs are uncontrollable as they fight to escape from the deepest parts of my soul. It’s not uncommon for me to cry at movies…especially films involving kids, but this seems different. Usually the tears come because a child is hurt, or lost or sad…or crying themselves. But in this case, Max wants to leave and go back home. The movie ends with his eating his soup, looking at his mom with a smile on his face and happy to be where he is. So why did I find myself reacting like this.

I’ve thought about my reaction a lot since I turned the DVD player off in my little home. And the more I reflected, the more I realized how much like Max I was at one point in my life not too long ago. In the movie “Where The Wild Things Are”, a young boy runs away and finds himself on an island with strange creatures…make believe creatures. And while he is there, he starts his relationship with the inhabitants based on a lie. He says that he is a King. And as he spends more time with these creatures, they begin to develop a relationship…a friendship…perhaps even a level of love for one another.

The two primary characters in the story are “Max” and “Carol”. There is a scene mid-way through the film where Carol scratches a heart with the letter “M” in it indicating his love for this young boy. Near the end of the movie, when Max has realized that he has hurt Carol, he goes to a special place to find that Carol has destroyed a dream world that he had created. He bends down and creates a heart with the letter “C” in it from the twigs and scraps strewn about the ground.

Pondering those two scenes helped to cement in my mind the anguish that I felt about the movie. For a number of years, I had been living the life of a young teen boy. I was searching for something that I had never found in my own youth. Relationships and friendships… I would find them in chat rooms. And while I was there, I would create my own lie about who I was and what I was. No claims to be a king, but it might as well have been that outlandish. In my mind and in my heart, the relationships seemed so real and the feelings that I would develop for the teens on the other end of my chats were genuine. But like the creatures in the movie, they were really only a figment of my imagination.

The last chat relationship that I had prior to my arrest was with a young man named “Chase”. He was 15 years old and in our imaginary relationship, two months older than I was. We spent countless hours together talking and sharing about the things that teenage boys talk about. School. Hobbies. Fears. But there came a day when the friendship ended and I had to re-enter the land of reality. I didn’t get to say good-bye. I didn’t get to explain who I was or what I had done. I don’t know if he cried or screamed or what. I don’t know if he was sad or confused or hurt. It was just over. We didn’t get to “howl” together.

I’m glad that that season of my life is over…that I’ve come to a place where I can be satisfied with genuine relationships. Like Max in the final scene in the movie, I’m happy to be home. But there is also a realization that I left some damage in my wake…that I may have (and probably did) hurt some young people along the way because of my selfishness. And so, as I sit and watch films or hear stories of the separation of friends, I’m sure that I can expect the tears and the sobs to return. But next time, I’ll be ready and understand their source.

Photos from Flickr

Illuminating the Scrim

2010-03-03T08:47:00.001-08:00

There is an amazing type of fabric that is used in the theater world called scrim. This material has the unique property that if light is shined on it from the front, the material is opaque and you can’t see what is behind the curtain. However, if it is lit from behind the curtain, the fabric becomes transparent, revealing a new scene to the spectators in the theater seats.

As I read about this material, it prodded me to think about my own life and what I’ve kept hidden behind the “curtains” for most of my life. And more importantly, why I wasn’t able to see things about my personality, character and experiences that were there. Even those people who knew me the best…my wife, friends and family weren’t able to see me for who I really was.

The analogy of scrim has given me an understanding that I never had before and it is helping me to understand not only who I am, but also who some very important people in my life are. I am discovering that if all you do is look hard from the outside, you’re not going to get to see the whole person. But that’s what we tend to do in our humanness. We look at the “visible” and make a judgment about who or what the person is. If they’re not well-dressed, we may perceive them to be of “below average” intelligence. If they drive an “old beater”, we may decide that they are poor or destitute. If the color of their skin is different from ours or the language they speak is different from ours, we tend to avoid them and treat them as if they were alien not to our country, but to our planet.

The reality is…we are all different and unique. We will never be able to understand who others are, or who we are, until we take the time to readjust the light in their lives. This is often uncomfortable because we don’t always know what is going to be revealed behind the scrim. It feels safer not knowing what the whole story is…what images or memories or failures or experiences might be lurking behind the fabric. So, we tend to keep the light shining so that everything is opaque and invisible.

In my own life, I’m learning to allow the light to move from the front of the curtain to behind it. I have to admit, some of the scenes that are revealed are not pleasant or comfortable. But, I need to know. And as I continue to readjust the light in my own life, I’m discovering that others that I care about can become more comfortable looking behind their curtains as well.

Photo from i.weiss.com

Embracing the Leper

2010-02-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

The policy of the visiting district is “No travel for sex offenders will be approved for recreational purposes.” Therefore, your travel request is denied.

As I sat staring at those words on my Blackberry, trying to comprehend the words on that tiny little screen, I could slowly feel my heart grow heavier in my chest. It didn’t make any sense. I had been told that there would be no problem. I had made plans…airline tickets had been purchased. I had a new set of custom made golf clubs in the trunk of my car. I had been going to the driving range to improve my game so that I wouldn’t be an embarrassment to the men I was going to be playing with. There HAD to be a mistake!!

But, it was no mistake. My request to travel to California on a short golf vacation with friends had been denied. Even my attempts to appeal the denial were turned down. There was nothing more for me to do than to let my friend Paul know what had happened so that he could find someone to take my place on short notice.

I’ve reflected on the words of that brief e-mail that I received from my probation officer a number of times over the past few days and I realize that the heaviness of my heart really doesn’t come from the fact that I don’t get to go on a golf trip. Not that I don’t love to golf… I do. And not that I wasn’t looking forward to this opportunity to travel with friends…because I was. The weight is my chest is caused by a much deeper realization. Two simple words in that e-mail that are completely life altering, because it places me in a class of people that are outcasts.

In Biblical times, there was another class of people that were outcasts from society. In fact, they were so unwanted, that if they came near people, they were required to call out, “Unclean! Unclean!” Members of mainstream society were forbidden to have contact with these people, and if one were so bold as to touch them, they too would find themselves cast out of the community. These people were “lepers” and their condition caused them to be isolated and separated from all of society.

It has taken millennia for leprosy to be more clearly understood and for treatment options to be developed. But even with a greater understanding of the disease, there is still a stigma that will always be attached to those who have the disease. And so it is for me, and literally thousands of others who carry the same “scarlet letters” – “S.O.”

But, I’m learning that the first place that the stigma has to stop is with me. I’ve had to forgive myself for the choices that I made. I’ve had to accept that my moral core is not the person who spent countless hours on the internet in places I didn’t belong. And I’ve had to accept that my future is not what I thought that it would be ten years ago.

There is a story in the Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assisi embracing a leper one day on the road.

He could ride on. There is no reason to stop. As he passes, he can throw down his last coin to the leper. His horse lifts one hoof and paws the dirt. It is time to go on, to go home. As Francesco drops his hand to the reins, his eyes fall upon his own expensive, well-fitting glove, and it dawns on him that this leper is not wearing gloves, which is odd; he and his kind are required to wear them when they leave their hospitals, just as they are required to wear and ring their bells to warn the unwary traveler of their approach. Again Francesco looks down upon the solitary figure of the leper, who has not moved a muscle. His hand is still wrapped around the cord of the bell, his head arrested at an angle. He is like a weather beaten statue, and Francesco has the sense the he has been standing there, in his path, forever.

The leper watches him with interest. His blasted face is bathed in sunlight; the black hole that was his eye has a steely sheen, and a few moist drops on his lips glitter like precious stones. He moves at last, releasing his bell cord and extending his hand slowly, palm up, before him.

This supplicating gesture releases Francesco, for it dictates the counter gesture, which he realizes he longs to make. Without hesitation, he strides across the distance separating him from his obligation, smiling all the while as if stepping out to greet an old and dear friend. He opens his purse, extracts the thin piece of silver inside it, and closes it up again. He is closer now than he has ever been to one of those unfortunate beings, and the old familiar reaction of disgust and nausea rises up, nearly choking him, but he battles it down. He can hear the rasp of the leper's diseased, difficult breath, rattling and wet. The war between Francesco's will and his reluctance overmasters him; he misses a step, recovers, then drops to one knee before the outstretched hand, which is hardly recognizable as a hand but is rather a lumpish, misshapen thing, the fingers so swollen and calloused that they are hardly differentiated, the flesh as hard as an animal's rough paw. Carefully, Francesco places his coin in the open palm, where it glitters, hot and white.

For a moment he tries to form some simple speech, some pleasantry that will restore him to the ordinary world, but even as he struggles, he understands that this world is gone from him now, that there is no turning back; it was only so much smoke, blinding and confusing him, but he has come through it somehow, he has found the source of it, and now, at last, he is standing in the fire. Tenderly he takes the leper's hand, tenderly he brings it to his lips. At once his mouth is flooded with an unearthly sweetness, which pours over his tongue, sweet and hot, burning his throat and bringing sudden tears to his eyes. These tears moisten the corrupted hand he presses to his mouth. His ears are filled with the sound of wind, and he can feel the wind chilling his face, a cold, harsh wind blowing toward him from the future, blowing away everything that has come before this moment, which he has longed for and dreaded, as if he thought he might not live through it. He reaches up, clinging to the leper's tunic, for the wind is so strong, so cold, he fears he cannot stand against it. Behind him, the horse lifts his head from his grazing and lets out a long, impatient whinny, but Francesco does not hear him. He is there in the road, rising to his feet, and the leper assists him, holding him by the shoulders. Then the two men clutch each other, their faces pressed close together, their arms entwined. The sun beats down, the air is hot and still, yet they appear to be caught in a whirlwind. Their clothes whip about, their hair stands on end; they hold on to each other for dear life.

From "Saint Francis Meets a Leper on the Road", by Valerie Martin

That moment transformed Francis’ (Francesco) life. His perception of who, and what a leper was had been changed forever. That’s where I am today. I’ve embraced the leper, for he is me. And I pray daily that our society will embrace “lepers” of every form in the same way. Fortunately for me, God has placed men and women around me who embrace me and love me for the man I am inside. Not the man with the scars of my own form of leprosy…but the man after God’s own heart that I was created to be.

Sculpture by Timothy Schmalz

Photo from Flickr

Coffee Time

2010-02-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

I was jarred by the ringing of my cell phone as I sat watching the end of the golf tournament.

“Hi, it’s me...from group. Are you busy?”

“No. What’s up?”

“Do you want to meet for coffee or something?”

Before I answered, I sat there in stunned silence for a moment. This was a new experience for me. I’m not used to people calling me out of the blue on a Sunday afternoon to go have coffee. It’s not that I was too busy, nor did I have any place else that I needed to be anytime soon. It was just something new.

“Uhhmmm….sure. Where are you now?”

We set a place to meet at a Starbucks midway between where he was and I was and I cleaned up and got in the car for the short drive. As I drove, I wondered what he might want to see me about. He was definitely a man who was dealing with a lot of issues and I was glad that I had been able to help him over the past few weeks.

On Thursday night during our group, he mentioned to us that his unemployment had run out and that the trailer that he had been living in was no longer available. He was living in a “low rent” apartment until he was able to find a new place to live, but he did have a lead on a place. His car is in the shop and he isn’t sure when they will have it fixed for him and he can’t start his job at the golf course until he has transportation. The State was graciously providing him with $15 a month for food stamps, but that would hardly feed anyone for even a few days.

After group, I asked him if he could use a little help and after swallowing his pride, he accepted twenty dollars from me. As we walked down to our cars to leave, we visited for a moment about the lead he had a place to live and I offered to help him with his rent if it worked out and if his family wasn’t able to help him right now. He promised to call if he needed help. True to his word, he called on Friday and came by my work to pick up some money to pay for the initial rent on his room.

I heard from him again the next day. He was calling from a motel where he had found a bed for another night. His cell phone had been disconnected for non-payment and he had no money for food. A quick stop at the bank and I swung by his motel to drop the money off. As he opened the door to his tiny room, the odor of stale cigarette smoke was almost overwhelming. He offered me a cup of coffee, which I kindly refused. We shook hands and as he headed to his car (borrowed from his ex-wife) so he could go pay his cell phone bill, I walked back to my car and went about my day.

As I drove away, I reflected on how blessed I am. I could have found myself in the exact same place he was. Society isn’t kind to those who have served time in prison and in the current economy where jobs are difficult to find…they are even more difficult for a person with a record. But I am fortunate to have a strong support system of family and church which has provided me with a good job, a nice place to live and the love and support needed to make it during this valley of my life.

As we walked into the Starbucks on that Sunday afternoon, I bought us our drinks…a skinny mocha for him, a non-fat latte for me and we found a couple of comfortable chairs in the corner. There was a part of me that was wondering “what next”, but a bigger part of me that was just enjoying some company. For the next two hours, we simply visited. He talked about his family (one of 13 kids of an abusive, alcoholic father). He shared a story of reconciliation with his dad that occurred because of his arrest. We talked about the frustrations that we face as a result of our choices and the mutual commitment that we’re not going to let that lapse in judgment define our entire lives. He told me about the conversation he had with his dad that morning about “his friend” who is helping him right now to just survive and the advise that his dad gave him to accept the friendship. And I told him that he needed to consider me on the bottom of his “payback” list. His first concern when he started to get an income again was to pay off his treatment and make sure he has a roof over his head and food in the cupboard.

Before long, it was time to go; me to church and him to another appointment. I’ve never been one to just take the time to sit with a friend and simply visit. I’m not sure when he will call again, but I have a hunch that it will happen. And when it does, there will be no hesitation on my part. We’ll simply find a place, buy a cup of liquid caffeine, and spend however much time we have to enjoy the company of a friend.

Photo from Flickr

Nudges, Bridges and Miracles!

2010-01-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

I was rounding the curve on one of the back roads on my way home from choir practice when I felt it. A slight nudge. A nearly audible sound…like there was a person next to me in the car. Or perhaps, a voice from the radio speakers that were playing softly in the car.

“You need to make sure Debbie and Geoff know. Frank may not have called them.”

It was that simple...that plain. Not grandiose words or a long, drawn out narrative. Just simple words telling me that I had a job to do.

Only hours before, my brother Frank had called to tell me that we would need to cancel our dinner engagement for Friday night. We had planned to get together so I could deliver some Christmas gifts and catch up some since we hadn’t visited for over a month. He went on to tell me that he needed to cancel because his wife Clare’s dad had died suddenly the day before and the funeral would be on Friday. I quickly extended my condolences and told him that is would be no problem to schedule for another time and asked how he and Clare were doing. He told me that he and Clare's dad had grown close over the past ten years, but he was doing OK. We visited for a few more minutes and I hung up.

At choir practice, the director opened with an invitation for prayer requests. I sat there quietly as member after member shared their requests to the group and the list grew.

“Please pray that I find my cat’s eye medicine. I just bought a new bottle yesterday for $85 and it has disappeared.”

“Peggy’s mother is in the hospital and it doesn’t look good. Let’s pray that God will give her a sense of peace about her mom.”

“Brent lost his job last week and we have a wedding coming up in a couple of months. Brent really needs a job.”

As I sat and listened to the other choir members naming their requests, I felt led to ask for prayer for Frank and Clare.

“My brother Frank’s wife Clare’s father died unexpectedly on Monday night”, I shared. “Could we pray that God would provide comfort and strength for them?”

It was added to the list and after a few more moments, we joined in prayer and lifted up all of the requests to God…agreeing that He would hear and meet our many needs. I had NO clue how God was going to answer my own request.

Our family structure has been fractured for years. In fact, I haven’t been in the same room with both of my brothers and my sister at the same time in over ten years. Actually, I have no idea the last time we were all together. But I do know that it has been the desire of my heart for over a year that we might all be together again. That there might be healing in this family of four. That whatever ever wounds are still open that have created a chasm too wide to bridge would finally find some healing.

And so, as I rounded those curves on a dark, rainy evening, I made a decision to be careless. Even as another silent voice screamed at me, “NO Mark!!! Stay out of this, it’s not your place to get involved!”, I pulled out my Blackberry and started to enter a short e-mail to Debbie and Geoff. Now I know that a convicted felon on probation probably shouldn’t take a chance by breaking the law and sending a text while driving my car, but the sense was so strong that I needed to be doing this. I kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the Blackberry as I crafted the message, glancing down when I dared to make sure that the information was correct and hit the send button.

What happened over the course of the next 48 hours can only be described as a miracle. After various e-mails and phone calls, Debbie and Geoff said that they planned to attend the funeral on Friday. I have to admit, I had a little bit of apprehension about what might happen. Although Frank knew that I would probably be there, I hadn’t told him that I had notified Debbie and Geoff about the funeral and he had no idea that they might be there. I knew that it was going to be a hard day for both Frank and Clare and I didn’t want to be the cause of any more heartache or distractions on the day they were burying a man they both loved.

“Could we pray that God would provide comfort and strength for them?”

As we arrived at the church and entered the sanctuary for the beginning of the service, an astonished Clare came over to greet us. It took only seconds to realize that we had all made the right decision to be there. The hard, clinging hug and the tears streaming down Clare’s cheeks were the first indication. The heartfelt words of appreciation that we were there came next. After a few moments of visiting, we took our seats and awaited the beginning of the service.

Moments later, the bagpipe played the haunting melody of “Amazing Grace” as the casket was wheeled in, attended by six men serving as pall bearers. I almost didn’t see him. Looking older than I had ever seen him, my brother Frank walked with one hand on the casket and his head down alongside the casket. In that moment, I knew that this man he called his “father-in-law” was indeed a special man in his life. Clare wasn’t the only one who had lost a father…Frank had as well.

We spent the next ninety minutes rising and sitting as the full Catholic mass worked its way to completion. Scriptures read of loss and love. Prayers recited for all those groups who this man had represented. A humorous eulogy that left me feeling as though I wished I had known this man. And then it was over. The family gathered and followed the coffin out as it was taken to the Cadillac hearse for his final trip to the cemetery.

As Debbie and Geoff, with his wife Lynn, and I waited for Frank and Clare to return, I wondered what the reaction would be when Frank and Geoff met. Theirs is the most tenuous relationship and up until now, any bridges laid down to restore it had not been crossed. Frank soon walked over and gave me a hug, thanking me for being there. He moved on to Debbie and embraced her as well. I couldn’t help but hold my breath as Geoff stepped slightly forward and Frank pulled him into his arms. I could be wrong, but it seemed that he held him for just a moment longer and perhaps a little tighter than he had Debbie or me.

We stood and visited for nearly an hour. I wished it could have been hours. The tears that would occasionally find themselves appearing in the eyes of my oldest brother may have only been tears of grief over the loss of his father-in-law. But I think they were more. I believe they were tears generated by a sense of love and appreciation for the four of us being there with him and Clare. Tears that come when our hearts are filled to overflowing with emotions that we can’t quite explain. Tears that I found myself fighting back as I watched a little bit of youth restored to the man who appeared so much older only hours before as he walked beside a casket.

“Could we pray that God would provide comfort and strength for them?”

My prayer from only two days earlier was indeed answered! I had seen God’s love provide strength and comfort for my brother and his wife. But I had seen more. I had seen God’s hand in helping to bring healing and restoration to a family that needs it by nudging each of us across a bridge not yet crossed. God is definitely still in the miracle business and he blessed me by being a part of one in my own life. I could have chosen not to ask for prayer. I could have listened to the ‘negative’ voice telling me to mind my own business. We all could have simply been “too busy” to take time to go to a funeral of a man we had never met. But God was working in the lives of a family that He loves and that He desires to see restored.

Bridge photo from Flickr

Family photo by Clare Lyons

Atop the Fifty Foot Platform

2010-01-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

The image has stayed with me for the past week. Nick, perched on the platform fifty feet in the air. Watchful, expectant eyes looking up at him from the crowd below. Waiting. Anticipating. Wondering. Would this man with no arms and no legs actually dive into the small pool of water waiting for him below? The look on his face gives nothing away, but you have to wonder what thoughts must be flooding through his mind at that moment.

The past week has made me feel like the man on that perch. It started when I received an e-mail from my sister to watch a short video that she thought I might find motivating. Little did she realize at the time what the impact of watching a 20 minute video might have on my life. The man in the film was a man I had met in prison…Nick Vujicic. Born without any arms or legs, he spoke to the inmates at Taft Correctional Institution while I was there. He presented a message of hope to men who found themselves in a season of hopelessness.

When I sent my sister a message that I had met this man, she suggested I blog about that experience. As I wrote of that experience I had no idea what would transpire next. The morning after I published my blog, I received a comment from a writer who is assisting Nick in writing a book and he inquired about using my story. After thirty minutes on the phone with the author, I realized that Nick was having a greater impact on my life than I realized when I sat in a prison chapel for an hour and a half as he shared his story.

I am finding that Nick is weaving himself into my life at church as well. I’m currently part of a teaching team for our church choir Sunday school class and we are teaching from a book by Bruce Wilkinson titled, “You Were Born For This”. The book discusses how God purposes to use each of us to perform miracles during out walk on this earth. The title of the book struck me as I prepared my lesson this week as I thought about Nick. Could it be that he was born in his condition for a reason? As I briefly shared Nick’s story with my class, I could see a miracle occurring before my eyes as a sense of recognition to how each of us can be used by God registered in minds of each person in the room…me included.

And so now I find myself on that perch with Nick…looking down at that small pool fifty feet below me. Is it fear within me that is keeping there – unwilling to take the plunge? Is it lack of confidence? Is it the memory of time on the high board as a child…remembering the pain from a miscalculated dive that resulted in me landing flat on my back on the hard water below, and the embarrassment of rising to the surface of the water to the chuckles of others in the pool? Whatever the reason, I’ve found myself frozen on that platform for several years.

It has been my desire to write a book about the choices that I made that put me in prison for three years and how God has worked in my life as a result of that time in the wilderness. I know that I keep receiving nudges to move forward. Just this week, the leader of my men’s group sent me a short text asking “how goes the book?” He said he felt God laid it on his heart to ask me that question. An author, reading my last blog and wanting to include it as part of a bigger story…a coincidence? I don’t believe so. Another nudge perhaps?

Perhaps the nudges this time will lead me to leap into the unknown, willing to begin the journey of putting my story to paper. Like Nick…my story may also encourage others who have spent time wondering if their life had a purpose…if their circumstances are completely hopeless. Through Nick’s testimony and his courage to “take the leap”, I believe I’m ready.

Photos from Flickr

Hope from the Cocoon

2010-01-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

Side show announcer:
“A perversion of nature, a man if you could even call him that, whom God Himself has turned his back upon…I give you – the limbless man!”

(And with that, the announcer draws back the curtain revealing a man with no arms and no legs.)

From the short film, “The Butterfly Circus”

It was April of 2007 and I was getting closer to my release date. I was working at the time in the “Wheels for the World” program – a part of the ministry of Joni Eareckson Tada. The prison didn’t often bring in speakers for the inmates, but since we were reconditioning wheelchairs for the disabled, our entire department was invited to see a guest that would be coming to T.C.I. We really didn’t know much about him…simply that we would be a “motivation”. As you can imagine, there was a certain amount of trepidation about how this person might be able to give hope to men who have been locked away from society, and their lives altered forever.

The presentation was scheduled in the chapel and the 40 of us from "Wheels" slowly walked across the yard and entered the main chapel room. The occupancy sign read “278”, but the room was nearly full and was set up to hold more than the maximum recommended. I found a seat about ¾ of the way back as more inmates continued to enter the room. Many of the men here would take any opportunity that they could to get out of their work assignment for a few hours or out of the housing units and today was no exception judging by the number who continued to file in. Soon, every seat was taken and inmates were lined along the walls, taking up every space available.

As the deputy warden moved to the front of the room, the group slowly quieted and turned their attention to the slender, black woman. She thanked the inmates for attending and informed us that we were about to meet a man who’s story should give each of us hope. While there wasn’t audible snickering, it was obvious that the majority of the men in the room weren’t buying into the warden’s pitch.

I noticed his eyes first. I knew that I’d seen them before, but it took me a moment to recognize him. He is portrayed as an angry man…perched on the stool with the gawkers and curiosity seekers snickering and laughing at his looks. But I knew I had seen those eyes before.

And then we saw him. He was wheeled in by a man we would discover later was his brother in a wheelchair. The man carefully unbuckled him and gently lifted him up onto a wooden table. He adjusted the lapel microphone and went back to his chair against the far wall. Left on the table was a man whose condition was difficult to describe…and a little disconcerting to look at. He was literally no more than a trunk with a head attached. No arms…no legs, only a small ‘flipper-looking" appendage on the lower left part of his torso.

“My name is Nick Vujicic”, he said as he introduced himself. “I’m 24 years old and I want to talk to you today about overcoming circumstances in your lives that may appear hopeless to you.” Needless to say, he had the attention of every inmate and institution employee in the room.

Mr. Mendez:
“But you, cursed from birth - a man, if you can call him that, whom God Himself turned his back upon…”

Will:
“Stop it! Why would you say that?”

Mr. Mendez (leaning down close to Will, looking into his eyes):
“Because you believe it.”

From “The Butterfly Circus”

For the next hour and half, Nick told us his story. Of the disappointment his parents bore when he was born…neither they nor the doctors aware of his disability until he was delivered. He spoke of the countless prayers he and his family prayed that by a miracle from God, his limbs would begin to grow. They never did. He spoke of his struggles to perform even the most mundane of tasks that we take for granted every day. And he told us how through time, he accepted his disability and instead of feeling sorry for himself, made a choice to use his story to give hope to the hopeless.

And then he entertained us and made us laugh with him in a place where laughter is a rare thing. He hopped backwards on the table until he was precariously situated on the edge…demonstrating a degree of balance I have never had. He would waver…appearing to get ready to fall off the table, bringing gasps from the room, and then smile as he righted himself and bounded back to the center of the table. He asked for a volunteer from the audience to “play catch” with. He would do the “throwing” while the inmate was expected to “catch”.

A plastic grapefruit sized ball was set on the table next to Nick and he lined up his single appendage (which closely resembled a dead, featherless chicken carcass) that extended from his left hip region. He would “bounce” the flipper on the table…the sound echoing around the room and then line-up the ball with the inmate who was to catch it. And then he would swing the little foot (or whatever you might choose to call it) and the ball went sailing right into the outstretched hands of the waiting inmate. A chorus of cheers and applause erupted from the men gathered as he smiled to the room and asked if we wanted to see it again. Of course, we all did and for a second time the ball went straight and true.

As the time for the presentation came to a close, Nick gave us an invitation. He told us that at every event where he speaks, he offers anyone who needs a little hope a hug. As I looked around the room, I thought it was going to be a pretty short receiving line for Nick today. After all, these were prison inmates! Men who would rather spend a month in the SHU than be “diss’ed” by another inmate. Men who had murdered…and robbed…and abused innocent people out of selfishness, anger and greed. Men who would never allow another man to see a tear grace his cheek.

But I found myself surprised on this day. One after another, men stood and formed a line. Nick’s brother and several of the corrections officers moved the table forward and Nick balanced himself near the front edge. As each man moved toward him, Nick pressed his neck against the neck and face of the inmate and his shoulders moved forward in as much of a hug as he could manage. Tears streaked the faces of the men as they walked away…seemingly unashamed to have hugged this man and received his love in return.

The crowd gathers around Will after he completes his amazing feat…diving from a 50 foot platform into a shallow pool of water below. Slowly, a young crippled boy on crutches with one leg moves forward to see him. Without saying a word, the young boy smiles sheepishly and moves forward and hugs Will. With a smile and a look of deep compassion in his eyes, Will presses his neck against the crippled boy as a tearful mother simply looks at them both, nodding her head in a grateful acknowledgement of what Will had just done for her son. All she could say was a simple “thank you.”

From “The Butterfly Circus”

As I walked away from the chapel that day, my heart echoed with the words of that mother. “Thank you.” Nick had shown each of us that there really is no obstacle too great that we can’t overcome it. Without question, Nick had done nothing wrong that warranted his being a “limbless” man nor had his parents. They weren’t being punished for some great sin in their life. Instead, God sent this young man with a heart as large as his body to those who were hopeless, and needed encouragement. To those who needed a visible representation that hope is available to anyone who is willing to seek it. To men who on the day realized that their lives could also emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon into a beautiful creation of God.

Photos from Bing

Narratives from "The Butterfly Circus"

Film avaliable at www.thedoorpost.com/hope/film/?film=4dd298f102c77b625cf37a9e7744ac68

An "Alphabet" of Christmas Gifts

2009-12-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

Like most of us, I love Christmas! If anyone ever asks me what my favorite holiday is, that is always my response. The lights, the songs, the decorations, even the snow...they all combine to make me happy. Maybe it's the child in me...or maybe it's because I love to give gifts, but Christmas is simply a wonderful time of the year.

I was thinking the other day about the "first" Christmas...the day that a child was born in a humble manger in a podunk town in the Middle East. Essential in that first Christmas was the presence of gifts.

"They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." (Mt 2:11 NLT)

This passage of Scripture made me reflect on four "key" gifts that are present in the story and an alphabetic relationship to four "other" incredible gifts that God has given the world.

The first gift in the story is actually a "Daughter" (D). While we don't know his name, we know that Mary had a father somewhere. God probably (without doubt, actually) could have brought Christ into the world completely supernaturally, but He chose to use a young women and I think there is great significance to that. God's first daughter was also a gift...to Adam. And down through the ages, fathers have consistently given their daughters as a gift to a young man in marriage. For centuries, a financial price was attached to the bride by the father, thus enhancing the value that he placed on her.

The second gift mentioned comes from one of the wise men..."Gold" (G). We all know that gold is considered to be one of the most valuable objects on earth…and to give it away is certainly a sacrifice. We don’t really know that much about the wise men of the Christmas story. In some translations they are called Magi…in others, Kings. Nevertheless, to give away this precious mineral would be a sacrifice – perhaps even to the point of having to go without.

“Frankincense” (F) was also offered as a gift to the small child…this King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This fragrant resin was used in ancient days for several purposes. It was dried and ground and used as incense by the priests in religious ceremonies. In addition, it had medicinal qualities and has been used to treat digestive ailments.

The final gift presented to the Christ child was “Myrrh” (M) and is actually related to Frankincense. The sap of this plant was infused into oil and was used as an embalming ointment in funerals and cremations. It is believed that the spices that were in the linen wrappings that Nicodemus used to bind Jesus for his burial contained Myrrh.

All of the gifts given to Jesus by the Magi are thought to have spiritual significance. The gold is said to represent virtue, or kingship on earth. Frankincense is a symbol of prayer and of priestship. And myrrh is a representation of death and suffering. However, the gifts have allowed me to extend the passage of scripture and focus on the initial “letter” of each word, and examine four other incredible gifts that God has given the world. As I reflected on these four letters, I was amazed at the correlation of the gifts in the Christmas story…and these gifts as I see them.

It all begins with the letter “D” and the daughter it represents. In my life, the “D” is my sister Debbie. Like many people, she had her “daughterhood” stolen from her. The man that she believed was her father for most of her life was not. The picture of her Heavenly Father that was portrayed to her as little girl was skewed. As a young woman in search of redemption and acceptance from her mother, she was given the message over and over that she was unworthy and that her life choices would prevent her from ever being loved and completely forgiven by God. In discovering who her biological father was, she discovered that she was unwanted.

But fortunately for my sister…and for all of us, we have a God who is so much bigger and better than the one she had learned about. Her willingness to examine her past, explore her wounds, forgive those who wronged her, and share her story with others (notably me) has moved her along the path to healing. It has also allowed me to get to know her and love her at a depth that I had never known before. Without question, God loves His children…all of them!

My little brother Geoff is the “G” in my life. The symbolism of gold makes me chuckle a little because as we were growing up, it seemed he was the “golden child”… the youngest, and the spoiled one. From my perspective at the time, it seemed he got everything he wanted. But unlike gold, he was tarnished like all of us. Growing up in the shadow of three older siblings is not easy and comparisons were easy to make…and difficult to live up to. But Geoff had, and still has, his unique gifts. He can solve problems, create things and bring a perspective to a situation that none of the rest of us can.

But the relationship of the letter “G” with Geoff and the gift of gold to the baby Jesus can also be drawn. When he and Lynn were called to create a ministry through a coffee shop more than five years ago, after prayer and meditation he moved ahead. Over the course of these past years, he has literally given all of his wealth to that ministry. Like the wise man in the Christmas story, his gift has been a sacrifice… but a sacrifice that brings glory to the God he loves.

“F” in my life is represented by my older brother Frank. Two years older than me, he is the one that I spent most of my life looking up to. We have much in common…from our physical appearance to the universities we graduated from. Identical high school football jersey numbers, weight classes wrestled and newspaper positions held mark other similarities. But as the oldest brother, there were certain “unspoken” expectations that he was burdened with that neither Geoff nor I bore. And as the oldest son…a father that he could never seem to please.

As I follow the gifts of the Magi and correlate them to the “alphabet” of my family, I find it no coincidence that Frank is a doctor. Like the gift of frankincense which was used as a healing agent, Frank has dedicated his life to bringing healing to others. And like the gift of the Magi represented by the letter “F”, he is a specialist in digestive medicine. But like the rest of us, he carries wounds and scars from a life lived in “the world”, but through prayer and commitment to God, he has found restoration and reconciliation that is found only in a relationship to his Heavenly Father.

That brings me to the letter “M”. There’s only one of us left…and that’s me, Mark. The middle child, I learned to survive by hiding. My hiding places were my books, or my fantasies or my accomplishments. But rarely did I allow anyone to see who I was or let them know what I might be thinking. Also the bearer of many scars, they too were well concealed from even a discerning eye and eventually even invisible in my own sight.

And there is only one gift left…myrrh. It is interesting that myrrh was used as an ointment when burying the dead. Because of choices that I’ve made in my life, I believed that my life was over…at least any ability to be productive in any way. However, that is part of the miracle of the Christmas story. Jesus came to give all of us (including me) life! It is no coincidence that one of His gifts on that December morning was myrrh. And it was no coincidence that His body was anointed with that precious spice when he was placed in the tomb. And it is no coincidence that my life is not over. His love can, and will, restore all things! It certainly has in my life.

My prayer during this Christmas season is that we all continue to turn to Him and recognize and accept the love that He offers us. Without Him, we are all lost in our wounds and our circumstances…and complete healing is forever out of our reach.

“And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty”
(2 Cor 6:19 NLT)

Merry Christmas
2009

Photos from Flickr

The Man in the Mirror

2009-12-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

As I stood in front of the polished sheet of stainless steel that served as our mirror, an overwhelming urge to smash my fist into the image staring back at me rose from deep within me. I had seen that face thousands of times before...but today, I hated and despised it. It appeared horrendously ugly to me. Not only the image itself, but all that it represented. I just wanted it gone.

I was reminded of that memory over the weekend as I talked with my sister. She had come to visit and attend a Christmas musical performance at my church and extended her visit by a day so we could spend some time together. And as we always do...we talk.

I'm not certain what prompted the conversational track that we were on, but she made a comment that really caught me off guard. She told me that of all of us kids (there were four of us), that growing up I was the cutest. She went on to say that she has most of the family albums that contain the photographs of our youth and that she goes through them on a regular basis, and sees those images of our childhood looking back at her.

I was a bit shocked by her statement because all throughout my life (at least from around age 10 and beyond), I didn't like my appearance at all. I considered myself the least attractive by far in our family. My sister is a very pretty woman, and always has been. My older brother was well dressed and attractive as a boy with perfect features...bright eyes and curly brown hair. My little brother was the baby of the family...cute with expressive eyes and a button nose. I, on the hand, had big ears that were only magnified by buzz cuts that I regularly wore compliments of dad. Perhaps the constant teasing by my little brother about my ears also served as a powerful reminder of their size.

Even as an adult, there were reminders of the "auditory sails" that were mounted on either side of my head. The comment of "I see you got your ears lowered" meant something to me that others wouldn't consider. For me, it meant my huge ears were even more pronounced. When my niece was a little girl, I remember someone making the comment that she inherited "the Lyons' ears"...and I cringed inside because I heard "your uncle Mark's ears" and understood the burden and pain that it would cause her.

My wife and daughter unconsciously contributed to the pain as well. One evening when we were first married we watched an episode of "The Newlywed Game" and one of the contestants commented that one of his physical features was his "Dumbo ears" (only he pronounced it "Dooombo" which gave all of us a laugh). However, the "Dooombo ears" moniker was attached to me. And while I was able to laugh about it (after all, I was married to a beautiful woman who must have found me somewhat attractive), there was still a little stab of pain when I heard those words.

It wasn't until after I was arrested and had lost everything that I was finally able to see a "clear" reflection of who I was when I stood before a mirror. It was shortly before I was to go to prison and my wife was visiting me at the condo. I had been packing my belongings to put them in storage and was carefully placing all of my suits and dress shirts and ties into the storage boxes. I told her that I wasn't sure why I was packing them away because I didn't know if I would ever have the opportunity to wear them again when I got out. She looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes and said, "you know Mark...you 'made' the clothes, they didn't make you."

As I looked back into the mirror, for the first time that I could remember, the reflection looking back wasn't an ugly man with big ears. In fact, I didn't even notice my ears. A lie that I had held on to from my youth was finally shattered. My perceptions of what made me ugly or attractive were gone in an instant. The "image" that I was created in by God had always been perfect in His eyes and I was now beginning to see beyond the flaws.

Relaxing my clenched fists, I reminded myself that the stainless steel image was not what God saw. Yes, I had made some terrible choices to be in federal prison. Yes, I had caused a great deal of pain and suffering to those that I loved...and those who loved me. And yes, the man in the reflection had aged dramatically in the past year...the stress and strain of life catching up with him. But, the man in the mirror was also a man who was healing. The ugliness wasn't from big ears, or a baby tooth that had never fallen out or the remnants of scars acquired in the process of growing up. The ugliness had been the reminder of the sin in my life...replaced now by the beauty of God within me.

Photo from Flickr

My "Rooster Crow"

2009-11-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

I never know what the trigger might be...but for some reason, they have been going off for the past several weeks. I think it started when I was walking through a local Fred Meyer store recently and noticed a young teenage couple furtively eying the condom display. It was readily apparent that they weren't married and too young to be engaged in sexual activities. Anxiety was written all over them as they would look around to see if anyone might be watching them. For many, the scene might have brought a smile at their attempt to be discreet. For others, perhaps a knowing nod, recalling a similar instance from their own past. For me, it brought an instant rush of guilt and a feeling of "being dirty."

The following week at group, much of our discussion was with a man who was sentenced for a crime similar to mine. The therapist was probing to try to help the man discover why he was on-line looking at the type of pictures that sent him to prison for a year. It was apparent that the man was struggling to explore to the depth necessary to find the answer to that difficult question. But it also caused me to reflect once again on my own path to destruction. Again, the word "guilt" immediately came to my mind.

It continues to amaze me (although I don't know why because I know that everything is in God's control) how God wants to talk to me...and how He does. We are reading a book called "Wild Goose Chase", by Mark Batterson in our men's group right now. The chapter this week dealt with (you guessed it) the "cage of guilt". It was an extremely difficult chapter for me and just reinforced that Someone upstairs is telling me that there are some things that I need to deal with.

As I read the chapter and completed the questions, I came to have a greater understanding of the impact of guilt in my life. The first question asked "what is the 'rooster crow' (a reference to Peter's denial of Christ) that sets off guilty feelings inside of you?" It only took a moment to realize that it was "sex". That's not to say that I don't have great feelings of guilt for my actions that led to my causing great pain and grief to the people that meant the most to me in my life. Or feelings of guilt for the impact I may have had on the lives of countless boys that I would chat with on-line. Or the feelings of guilt for contributing to an industry that destroys so many lives.

What I realized is that for my entire life, anything related to sex instantly brings feelings of guilt and shame. Even as a married man, I was unable to have comfortable conversations with my wife about our sex life or what was pleasing to me...or even pleasurable to her. Sex was dirty...period. I was unable (or unwilling) to initiate sexual intimacy most of the time and left it up to her to somehow extend an invitation. In reflection, none of that seems normal to me.

I've spent some time looking backward...not always a good thing because I don't want to live there (as none of us should), but sometimes necessary to gain understanding and healing. What I see when i reflect is an early childhood filled with abuse that led to a premature sexualization, inappropriate sexual activity at an early age, an unhealthy exposure and attraction to pornography, and a confused sexual identity. All of this coupled with a moral compass that told me everything was wrong. And if it was wrong, then I couldn't talk to anyone about it without being condemned or judged, so the best option was to hide it all in a secret place...a closet.

And so, I did. But the problem with secrets is that even though no one else may know them, you can't escape them if they are your own. You can suppress them (or at least try) as I did for more than 40 years. And you can lie about them (to yourself and others) as I did for more than 40 years. But you can't make them disappear. There is only one way to get rid of a secret that haunts you...that is make it an "unsecret", to share it. And nine years ago, I discovered a medium to do just that.

I had no intention of going into a chat room that night...and certainly no cognitive intention of finding a teenage boy who was gay. But it happened and when it did, I discovered that there were countless other individuals who had similar experiences or feelings/desires or sense of confusion. And...none of them made me feel guilty about what I had been hiding in my closet. It (the chats) was a comfortable place to be. IN fact, it became the place that I wanted to be more than anyplace else. For what may have been the first time in my life, I didn't feel so alone...or so dirty. And so, I would find every opportunity to get on-line and chat. It became a driving force in my life to the exclusion of my marriage and my wife. I found myself wanting relationship with my "chat friends" more than with my own family. And because they were all "cyber relationships", there wasn't the same kind of fear that I felt about losing the "real people" in my life. I could share things without being afraid that the person on the other keyboard would hate me...or even worse, leave me. And even though there was a sense of guilt for being there and chatting with boys, it was a different kind of guilt that I thought I was handling.

I've discovered that I'm not alone. I'm not the only man on this planet that has secrets from his past that haunt him. I'm not the only man on the planet that carries guilt that isn't his to bear. I'm not the only man on the planet that has allowed his past to drastically alter his present...and his future. There are countless men who are in the same place I was nine years ago...searching for something to relieve the pain and confusion. Sadly, too many will either continue to bury and carry guilt by themselves or turn to destructive ways to take it all away.

In reality, the solution is so simple! And actually, albeit in the wrong context, what I was doing nine years ago was on the right track. All any of us need to do is be honest and share. We have to be willing to open the door to that closet and start searching for the things that we started hiding in there years ago. And like most closets that are old and cluttered, it may take time to discover them all. But what we will find are memories that we didn't even know existed. Shame that wasn't ours to bear. Tears that should have been shed instead of being held captive. Guilt that can finally be acquitted. The key is to do it in a healthy, safe and legal way instead of the way I did it.

My journey now is to continue to look into the closet. I know there are experiences that I haven't completely dealt with...perhaps some that I haven't even discovered. Guilt and self-condemnation that haunts me when I'm confronted with the right trigger. But my reflection has helped to bring some clarity to a question that needed to be answered. Why? Why was it so comfortable for me to be in "that" place when I was allowing it to destroy my life? Knowing the answer will help prevent me from going back.

Photo from Flickr

Crossing the Line from "Memory" to "Imagination"

2009-11-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

Today is someone's birthday...well actually, I'm sure that there are literally millions who will use this day to mark the celebration of their birth. But today is a day to celebrate the life of someone who has a very special place in my life. Someone, who through the miraculous grace of God, that I have grown to know and love in a deep and meaningful way over these past several years.

It amazes me at times how some of our greatest treasures are right in front of us but we fail to see them. As I sit here and reflect as I write this (brushing back the tears while the music of "Coldplay" plays in the background), I recognize the brevity and frailty that is this thing that we call life. A friend asked me at breakfast the other morning how I was doing. And as is my usual casual response, I said "everything is good, thanks for asking." But this friend is a bit deeper than that. He challenged me and forced me to think about how things are "really going?"

It didn't take long for the reality of my circumstances to well up inside me. I shared with him that I find myself in a position these days of having all of the material blessings (and more) that I need. Actually, they are overflowing. I'm able to receive the joy that one feels when they can give away more to others than they spend on themselves. But the adage that "money can't buy happiness" is proven out in my life. There is an emptiness in my life that "stuff" can't fill.

And so, I had to share with my friend the lonliness that I oft times feel. The loss of deep and intimate relationship in my life is often times a heavy weight that can't be filled with "stuff" that we can purchase. And that is why I celebrate this day with my sister.

She has done something for me that most people would never be willing to do...for me or for anyone else. Through a slow (and I'm sure painful at times) process, she has slowly revealed her life to me and invited me into relationship. And through her words (written and spoken), I've come to know her in ways that few people ever get to know someone else. And one of the gifts in that is that I have the opportunity to share who she really is with others...including my own family.

Several weeks ago as I visited with my brother and his new wife, for the first time I think he finally started to "get it" about my sister and her writing. We were talking about an incident in her life when she first entered what she discovered later was a cult. Like many of us, she was at a point in her life where she was lost and searching for something with meaning. As a means to separate my sister from her past (and the evils of this world), they had her destroy some of the most meaningful "stuff" in her life. This included an extensive record collection that was in some ways priceless. It was the destruction of these records that was the initial focus of our conversation.

But I had the opportunity to share what Paul Harvey might have called "the rest of the story." Included in the "stuff" that went into the bonfire that evening were the things of her past. Her childhood diaries. Some of her early writing. Awards and recognitions from her childhood. Memorabilia that had been carefully packed and moved from place to place. No one can put a price on those things. And unlike the vinyl records, they can never be replaced. She lost the physical reminders of some of the most meaningful memories of her past.

Memory - "an organism's ability to store, retain and recall information" (Wikipedia)

As I shared that part of her story with my brother, I could see something "click" as he said, "I didn't know any of that." And it opened the door for me to share more of my sister's life with my brother. A part of her life that I never knew as it was occuring. It took him past his memories of one specific incident to see it through a different lens...the eyes that were actually there. I think that he, like I have, crossed a line that day. He moved from a "memory" to an "imagination". From a "recollection" to an "understanding.

Imagination - "the ability to form mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge. The basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling" (Wikipedia)

Over the past two years, I've come to discover what is truly important in this life. It's not the "stuff" we accumulate. It's not the money we have in the bank. It's not even our acccomplishments for which we receive great acclaim. It's all about relationships. A relationship with a God who loves us beyond measure. It's the relationships that we are willing to take the time to invest in. It's the willingness to risk with those that we love. Risk sharing the truth of our lives...of revealing our pain, our failures, our demons.

So...today as I share in the celebration of my sister's birthday, I should be sending her a gift. But instead, I'm thanking her for her gift to me. The gift of love...of truth...of revelation...of her sharing...of her words. Thank you for helping me across the "line".

Happy Birthday!!

I love you!!

Photo from Flickr

The Hardest Question!

2009-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's over!!! As I drove away from his office today, I felt like beating myself up. "Why do I let these kinds of things bother me? Why do I allow myself to get anxious when I know I have nothing to be anxious about?" It was bad enough that I didn't have the answers...but even worse that I found myself asking them in the first place.

I had just spent about 45 minutes with a very likable man. He works in a unique profession...he is a polygrapher. And at this season in my life, I find that I have spend time with him...or others like him, a couple of times each year. Today was somewhat different because I hadn't had a polygraph for nearly 16 months. I realize that that was part of the reason for my anxiety. But as I sat there with all of the wires connected to my fingers...and the blood pressure cuff causing my hand to go numb...and the two straps around my chest that there was something else going on here. And I'm surprised it didn't cause me to fail the test.

One of the questions that the polygrapher always asks (at least this particular one does) is "do you trust me when I tell you that I will not ask you any questions that we have not already gone over?" I remember the first time I sat in the chair with his equipment hooked up to me. When he asked that question, I answered it very honestly. I told him "no". And the truth is, I didn't trust him! I had never had a polygraph before and I didn't know what to expect. For all I knew, it was a trick question to cause me to let my guard down so he could "zap" me and call for the goon squad who I assumed must be in the next room to come haul me away screaming and yelling in handcuffs.

But, he was being honest. He only asked me the questions that he told me he would. So when he asked the questions for the second time, I changed my answer to "yes", I passed the polygraph and I was out the door. It was the same thing when I had my last polygraph.

When he asked me that question today, I answered "yes" because I want to trust him. As I sat there waiting for the next question to be asked, I realized that I don't think that I do trust him. That wasn't the worst thought that penetrated my mind though. It was the realization that I'm not sure that I trust anyone! And I could feel a small something in my heart crumble as that truth sunk in.

I'm not certain why I got that clarity today, but I believe it has to do with my dad. He has been on my mind a great deal recently...and not in a positive way. I find that whenever I think about him or I am asked about him, I get angry...and hurt. Maybe it's because I've found both of my brothers sharing some of their "dad" memories with me...memories that are as painful as my own.

Maybe because there have been reminders lately that have triggered my own tortured memories...or perhaps, lack of memory. I found myself sobbing like a baby just the other night as I watched the end of a movie that I love, "The Greatest Game Ever Played". It's a story about golf...but there is a subplot about the relationship between the son and his father. A father who in his own way neglects his son and tries to prevent him from following his dream. I didn't even clue into that plot until I was wiping my tears away and trying to find their cause. And it hit me...his dad was my dad. Except in the end of this movie, the dad is there...smiling and proud of his son. I never got that.

The test is over. The questions have been asked. And as he unhooked the wires, the man told me I passed and asked for his money. As I walked down the stairs after paying the bill, I reflected on the questions and my anxiety going in...but mostly, I thought about the answer that had just revealed itself to me.

Photo from Flickr

Legacy!

2009-07-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

"This shouldn't be what [he] was all about..."

"I'm tired of people blaming [his father] for what he did to [him], it's what he did FOR [him] that made him what he was in the world..."

"[He} was no saint or no sinner, like people keep saying. He was just a man, a man with God-given...genius."

"I cried for the lost child in him and the stress it placed on this wonderful person."

"Let us not confuse talent with sainthood. Have we forgotten the other side of his notoriety?"

"[he] was...a confused adult who couldn't look at himself in the mirror and did his best to change what looked back."

A lot has happened in the past several weeks that has caused me to reflect on my past...and my future. A number of very famous, or perhaps infamous, people have passed away and the media has been quick to review their lives for all of us to see. One of those was Michael Jackson...the "king of pop".

Growing into adulthood during the 1970's and 80's, Michael Jackson was a constant fixture in pop music...and like many, I liked his music and appreciated his talent. I remembered him from his early years as a member of the Jackson 5 and was, at times, amazed at the gifts of this little boy...and later, this young man. His musical genius was apparent to all of us. And on the outside, he appeared to have it all...money, fame, acclaim, talent. But as we all learned over the next 30 years, on the inside was a severely wounded man.

A week ago, every major television station in this country broadcast the funeral of this man live around the world. I even found myself scanning it occasionally from my computer at work as it was streamed across the Internet on countless websites. As I watched the memorial service and listened to the speakers, I was struck by the way that this man was remembered. And as I read the accounts in the print media, the same thoughts occurred to me. And then, I started to reflect on my own life.

Six years ago as I was starting into a new job, I never could have imagined anything but positive acclaim at the life I have lived. I was a highly visible, highly respected member of a profession and community. I was a beloved husband, father and grandfather. And if I had died at any time prior to February 23, 2004, the things said at my memorial service would have mostly likely been full of the remembrance of my professional accomplishments and cute stories about my role as a father and grandpa.

But all that changed when the FBI walked into my office. The article in the newspapers now painted a different picture who I was...and they were not pretty. When people talked of me over the next several months, there was not only confusion about what I had done, but also a sense of loss...that the person that they thought they knew no longer existed.

One thing that I know about all people...we each leave some type of a legacy. What that legacy says about us can change in a twinkling of an eye, but nonetheless, it's what we will be remembered by. I've come to understand that I could choose to let my legacy be those words that were recorded in the countless media in the days and weeks that followed February, 2004.

But I believe that God has a different legacy in store for me...a story that He wrote for me before time even existed. Some of my life experiences were not good...and should not have been experienced by anyone. And certainly, some of my choices were worse than bad...and should never have been made. But life cannot be undone. I am called to use those experiences and how they shaped me...and God's work in my life to help other people. To share a hope for those who find themselves in a similar closet of darkness that my own life had become.

I found a final comment in the media that spoke of the legacy of Michael Jackson that I hope will never be written of me...

"I wish [he] could have met the real Jesus, not the rule mongering, anti-holiday, party pooper Jesus of The Watchtower. I'm talking about the Jesus of the New Testament...Jesus would have quenched his thirst, healed his hurts and changed the color of his soul, not his skin. ...happiness cannot be bought, it can only be received from the hands of our Creator, our Savior, our friend, Jesus Christ."

Instead, if I were to write my own legacy, it would be this -

Mark was a tortured man for much of his life. He bore scars that were buried beneath the surface that no one else ever saw. And for many years, he refused to treat the wound, choosing instead to keep it covered (even from himself). But then he met the Great Healer at a time in his life when everything seemed to be lost...out of control...and life didn't seem worth living any more. Through the grace of God, Mark received the gift of salvation and restoration. And then, he freely shared that gift with anyone who would receive it, much the same way that Jesus offers that gift to everyone today.

Mark was not a perfect man...far from it, and he would be the first one to admit that. And he finally recognized that he was not alone in the struggles that he faced and that he could not win the battle on his own. After his fall from grace (in society's eyes at least), he spent the rest of his life working to help others win the their battles with the help of God, a warrior who will stand beside you and go before you in the battles of this life. He would not want to be remembered as a hero or a saint. Instead, he would want his legacy to simply be that he was a man who was willing to be used of God...and he was.

Photo from Flickr

The Celebration!

2009-06-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

Chaos seemingly surrounds me as I stand in the dining nook, a cold soda in one hand and a styrofoam plate in the other loaded with the goodies that have been set out on the counter. So many faces…few familiar. Every few minutes, the rumble of noise is magnified as Lou or one of the ladies here releases a roar of laughter.

A man walks over beside me and asks what my relationship is to the Shucka’s. Several possible answers roll around in my mind.

“I’m a former educator and have known both Walt and Debbie for years as a member of that remarkable profession”, was one thought.

“I saw the pretty pink balloons as I was out yard-saleing today and thought I’d see if they had any free cake”, was another quirky possibility.

“I got out of prison recently, and they were both so thoughtful that they invited me in”, was another.

I extended my hand and simply said, “Debbie’s my sister and I’m here to celebrate with her today.”

At times, I felt a little awkward amongst so many strangers, but the fact that we all shared something in common today made each of us a little less “strange”. Many of the people I was meeting finally put a face to a name that Debbie had shared with me over the past 22 months as we’ve visited and gotten to know each other after too many years between us.

I glanced at the clock on my cell phone...wondering…waiting, tempted to make a call, but hesitating. The celebration was already 45 minutes into its scheduled duration. But I knew I needed to relax…after all, I knew they were never early and rarely on time.

I saw the vehicle out of the corner of my eye as it pulled in and parked beside the other 20+ cars in the yard. A few moments later, the door bell rang and I saw Walt go to answer.

“Debbie!”, the voice called out. “Would you come here a minute?”

My sister made her way through the crowd of well-wishers, weaving her way from the laundry room through the kitchen to the front room. Suddenly, the dull roar was pierced by a scream that might have been frightening had I not known the source…and the reason.

As I stepped around the corner into the living room, my sister was in the arms of my little brother…joy clearly radiating from her entire being. Geoff, too, was displaying his joy in knowing that his desire to keep his arrival a secret had been kept. As Debbie released my brother to give his wife Lynn a love, I walked across and embraced my brother…thanking him for being here. He may not have understood, but I did. Today was important to our sister and I was glad that we were here to celebrate.

As I move through this season of my life, I am reminded of the value and importance of family, friends and relationship. Unfortunately… all of our family didn’t make it to this celebration of flight, but I’m glad that I did.

Photo from Flickr

Affirmations

2009-06-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

I finished putting away the DVD and manual and began to walk to the door. As I approached the exit, one of the class members stopped me.

“Class was so good today”, he said. “You should really think about doing this full time.”

“It was so awesome how you were responsive to the Holy Spirit”, his wife added.

The regular teacher of the class was nearby and remarked how much he enjoyed the class this morning and that it could probably be worked out if I wanted to take on this class on a more permanent basis. I thanked them all for their kind comments and left the classroom.

As I walked back across the parking lot to the sanctuary, I reflected on what had just happened. It had been awhile since I actually stood in a classroom full of students…and it felt good. I had led a few Bible studies in prison, but this was different. Here, there was preparation, and well conceived questions. Here, there were men and women who knew the Bible, but were still engage. Here, I was in a “real” classroom, not a room with thick concrete walls that were designed to keep me in.

It continues to amaze me how God brings affirmation into my life in so many ways. I know that He has placed a calling in my life, and I am continuously seeking to determine His will. All of my life has been spent preparing for “something”…but only He fully knows what that is.

He gave me additional affirmation just the other day. At times, the enemy continues to try to undermine who I am…and the voice penetrates. As I sat in prayer the other night, I asked my Father who I was…and His voice brought tears to my eyes that I couldn't’t stop. The answer was simple.

“You are My son!”

As I continue to move through each uncertain day after the next, it is reassuring in my heart that God continues to see me…to hear me…and to love me.

Photo from Flickr

Choosing to be Who I Am...

2009-05-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

I came across a poem the other day that grabbed me in an unexpected way. I found myself crying. The words seem to be words that would have one day in my past smoldered within my own heart.

I am who I choose to be, random and weird.

There are times when I want to fade into my dreams and feel as though I belong.

I see myself in a place where I can always be me, and not be criticized for my actions.

I want to be young forever and not have to worry about life coming to a conclusion

I wish life could be like a VCR, fast forwarding the pain, or rewinding and relishing the moments of happiness.

I am who I choose to be, random and weird.

Awesome Ramsey!

I don't know who "Awesome Ramsey" is, but this person put words to the feelings that I struggled with for so many years. A person who felt on the outside...longing to feel like I belonged in the story. A longing to fit in...a longing to be happy with who I was...who I am. A man who wished he could stay in the happy moments of his past forever and skip over the eons of pain and frustration at failures in his life.

I pretend that I have this amazing power and with it I might one day rule the world.

But power is for the weak minded, so I say.

I see and hear things that I believe no one can ever see or hear.

And yet I cry because I know no one will ever believe me.

When I see the rain fall from the sky, I can imagine and feel my sorrows slowly lifting...

But I am who I choose to be, random and weird.

Awesome Ramsey!

Like most of us, I once believed that within myself, I could fix everything... that I could make everything OK. There was no need to seek help elsewhere... to ask for help was revealing that I had some kind of flaw, some kind of weakness. And in my mind, any form of weakness was unacceptable. So I created a persona of strength that was convincing to all the world. I set myself on a pedestal so high, that to fall would surely mean death. But inside, I knew my own weakness...my own failures...my own inability to "fix" it this time. So I silently wept untold gallons of tears, knowing that no one would be able to believe my story...my demons...my weakness.

I understand life is full of mysterious wonders.

They could be things that you wouldn't even expect to be real.

So I try not to think of the negativity around and focus on the positive aspect of life.

And one could only hope that in the end of the tale, there really is a happy ending.

I am who I choose to be, random and weird

This "Amazing Ramsey" may not have understood when he wrote these words how his story ends...or how any of our stories end. But through his words, it helps me to recognize that all of life is a mystery and we don't need to try to understand it all. Some of it is simply to unreal. My past is my past...I can't undo it...I can't change. But, I can use it and allow it to be used.

Our pastor spoke an incredible sermon this morning about accepting how God has created each of us so uniquely...and how He desires to use that uniqueness to do His work. He closed with a short phrase that spoke deeply to me on a day I needed to hear Him speak directly to me.

"Learn to love you"

When I think about my life, the word "love" is not a word that quickly comes to mind...a life that has been responsible for so much pain and heartache. The words "despise" and "hate" seem to be so much more appropriate. But I have come to learn that God wastes nothing, not even the failures of a man's life...the failures of my life. For Ramsey, he may choose to be random and wierd. Sometimes, I believe I choose to be that same way. But for the always in my life, I am learning to simply choose to be me...the way that God created me, and learn to love who that man is.

Poem by "Amazing Ramsey"

Photo from Flickr

The OTHER Victims

2009-05-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

Something has been on my mind a lot lately that I have been trying to process...sadly, not too well. At my therapy session last week, one of the men shared some of his writing concerning his victims...and the extent of the breadth of pain that he had caused. I've thought often on that myself, and only recently as I visited with a close friend whose husband was involved in on-line pornography, I was once again reminded of the pain that a woman feels when her husband betrays her in that way.

But in the past week, another group of my victims has settled itself in my gray matter, and it won't seem to let go. I know that there were a lot of different victims in the life that I was leading...most notably the young men or boys that were pictured in the pornography that I viewed. I believe I've reconciled myself to that group. I've prayed for them...I've prayed for the destruction of the international pornography industry. I don't know what more I can do, other than never support them in any way again in the future. When I was viewing those materials, I never thought about those individuals or the fact that they were most likely sold into that profession or so drugged that they didn't know what they were doing.

The group haunting my nights these days are the young men that I chatted with. Not all of them. I know that many were just like me...a man pretending to be someone else. A man living a fantasy life...in search of something, but not quite certain what. But some were exactly what they claimed to be. Teenage boys uncertain of their sexuality looking for a friend...a confidante...to share questions and struggles. I sat across the Blue Nowhere from these teens convincing them that I was just as they were...confused, searching, a boy in search of friends. Each night, I continued with my deceit and listened and shared my own inner self with them.

And then suddenly one night, I simply disappeared. To at least two young men, I had become someone important in their lives...at least my cyber-self had. Suddenly, a friend was ripped from their life with no explanation, no good-bye, no closure. The boy in Florida (me) who was trying to lift the spirits of a boy who had recently contemplated suicide because a friend from school that he was attracted to had rebuffed him was no longer there to offer support. I often wonder about that boy...and if he is OK.

I know that I can't find any of them now. I no longer remember their computer names. And I have no way of contacting them. I can't tell them that I was a fraud...and the worst kind of friend. I can't tell them that the most intimate aspects of their lives that they shared with me were shared with a deceiver and a liar.

I hope that they have simply forgotten me...I think. A part of me wants them to remember who I pretended to be...a boy like them who cared for them. And a part of me also simply wants them to forget a betrayal...but I know from my own life experience how difficult that is.

Seeing Pink!

2009-05-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

Even though I knew it was coming, I still wasn’t as prepared as I had hoped to be. Just this morning, he still thought that there were some options…a way out of this situation…a new hope. I could tell as he returned from the attorney’s office that it had not gone well. His shoulders seemed to sag a bit lower and there was no energy in his eyes.

I went in and sat across from him when he returned from lunch. The sign of defeat was etched in his 75 year old face as he realized the dream was over. There were no more options, and I could tell it broke his heart as he sat there with folded hands.

“We’re going to close the doors. We just can’t make it in this economic climate,” he said in a barely audible voice. “I wish that we had another chance…I really thought that we would be able to close this down and open a new LLC. It’s just not going to happen.”

And just like that, my career here was over. The economy had caught up with us and we were out of money. I would soon be joining the millions of other men and women amongst the ranks of the unemployed. I had been here before, but never as a result of a company going out of business. And the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I walked out the office was not a pleasant one.

I have had the opportunity for the past eighteen months to work for an incredible man…and his wife. They gave me a chance when no one else would. I owe them so much more than they have ever given me…which has been substantial. I have been compensated very well in my tenure here and I was given a severance which was more than generous. This has been an experience that I will not easily forget.

As I move forward, I do so with very little anxiety. I have been blessed, not only with a chance, but also with a memory of God’s faithfulness to me. While others may be losing sleep at night, I can rest assured that in some way, God will provide for me. He has in the past…and I am assured that He will in the future. His grace and mercy are the same today and tomorrow as they were in the past.

It is with a little bit of excitement and a lift in my step that I will leave this place for the last time. I don’t know exactly when that will be yet…I have agreed to continue to come in and help Lee as he closes up the business. It gives me an opportunity to stay busy and him some much needed help and support. But when the day comes that I don’t make the 30 minute commute over here each morning, I am excited for what door will have opened and that I will have walked through.