Swimming

My love is a placid lake
Nestled deep in a mysterious forest.
I love to explore those woods,
To seek solace and delight
On sweaty July afternoons
In the cool refreshment
Of her fathomless depths.

The Magic Kingdom

Three decades later, his voice echoes in my heart:
Weary after a week of 14-hour days teaching algebra
But kind -- always so kind -- talking on the phone
With someone at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

"Good evening!" he says. Somehow the smile
On his sleep-deprived face spills over into his voice.
"Yes, I hope you can help me. I have a son with a dream,"
He continues, and squeezes my hand across the kitchen table.

He clicks his four-color pen to green and says,
"I need to know your rock-bottom admission price."
He writes numbers. His eyes grow wearier.
"I see. And do you offer any kind of family discount?"

The conversation goes on a few more minutes.
His smile remains, though diminished somehow,
And my heart begins to wonder if perhaps
My Mr. Fix-It may not come through this time.

"Well, thank you very much for your time,"
My father says. "You've certainly given me
A lot to think about." He stands with a muffled groan
(Sore from a day on his feet) and gently hangs up.

I am nine and have not known much disappointment,
But I'm also not stupid. My stomach tightens
Against my deepest fear: We can't go.
I ask anyway: "What did they say, Dad?"

My father sits beside me and shows me the neat column of figures.
Travel costs in blue, admission costs in green,
Food and lodging in black, and the grand total in red, underlined twice.
"Wow," I say. "That's a lot of money."

He puts an arm around my shoulder.
"Yes, it is. It would be as much money
As two cars like the one we're driving right now,
Or about two thousand gallons of milk."

He looks down, toward the paper, but stares past it,
As if his careful calculations weren't even there.
"I'm sorry, son. I think it just won't work out this time."
He looks more tired than I can ever remember seeing him.

In that moment, I glimpse the immensity
Of what this man has given me, how deeply he feels
The weight of my wishes and needs.
"It's OK, Dad," I say. "We can have a pretty good time right here."

Photo Credit

NoPAD Chapbook 24: I'll Be ______

One of these days, I'll be dead
And you will live on, I trust,
My lovely ones,

For lovely you are,
And I have loved you fiercely,
Faithfully, sacrificially:

My beautiful bedmate,
My strong young sons,
My delightful daughter.

You'll know I did not love
As well as I had wished, and yet
You'll know I loved the best I could.

When I have gone, as go I must,
May echoes of my imperfect love
Birth joyful melodies in your souls.

Prayer of a Weak Man

Save me, O Lord, from my odious pride,
From the fleshly lusts that encircle me,
From the evils of false piety and resigned apathy.

I need Your strength, for I cannot stand,
Your grace, for I wander astray,
Your life, for the stench of death overwhelms me.

May my mind be fixed on the stuff of heaven,
My heart on Your grace and truth,
My will on building Your earthly domain.

Amen.

Love, Weakness, and Repentance

Note From the Blogger: I found this in my Drafts folder. I started it in April 2009, and just got around to finishing it today. Sorry and you're welcome.

I've always been uneasy about observing church festivals. This is probably because I am not from a very conservative liturgical tradition.  In the churches of my youth, we were "Bible-believing Evangelicals" who followed the doctrine of sola scriptura to the point of iconoclasm (and sometimes anticlericism).

To my ilk, Ash Wednesday had a dangerously Roman feel. We had read Jack Chick's tracts; we knew Catholicism was a slippery slope. One day you're smearing ashes on your forehead, and the next you're sprinkling water on babies and buying  papal indulgences. Who knows how far you'll go once you take that first step toward idolatry?

So I suppose it's strange that I have been practicing intentional self-deprivation since Ash Wednesday. And that I intend to do so until Easter Sunday. Almost sounds like... Lent.

How did I get here from there? What changed my iconoclastic mind about the spiritual value of ancient liturgical traditions? I attribute it to two main elements.

Firstly, as a history major in college, I became enchanted with monks. I loved the idea of a life devoted to purity, piety, and praise. At one point, I briefly considered trying to live my life by the Rule of St. Benedict. While I didn't take the leap, I am still fascinated with the idea that pious practices can help to mold my mind, heart, and life to be more like Christ.

Secondly, in recent years, I have come to believe that it would be a grave error to ignore two millennia of church tradition. I don't believe that tradition has the same weight as scripture. However, that doesn't mean tradition is worthless. To observe the seasons of the liturgical calendar is to join with billions of other saints, both present and departed, in their faith walk.

In my mind, Lent is one of the most beautiful and valuable observances in the church year. Traditionally, Roman Catholics give up meat during Lent.¹ However, common practice today (especially for vegetarians or those who don't eat much meat anyway) is to simply give up something that matters to you. (In case you want to read more, here is an excellent post about Lent, written by a friend of mine who is an Episcopalian priest.)

So, what do I hope to gain from this commitment to self-denial? Here are a couple of lists I made to clarify for myself why I was (and wasn't!) observing Lent:

Observing Lent Will Not:

• Increase God's love for me. Since before the foundation of the world, He has loved me with an immeasurable love. The person of Jesus Christ is the inarguable earnest of that love.²
• Enhance my worthiness. By myself, I am an unholy, rebellious, sinful person who deserves no more chances. Out of His great love, God chose to call me from death into life. He didn't do this because of anything I have done or could do; He did it because He was pleased to do it.³
• Make me more righteous. My righteousness comes from Jesus Christ's substitutionary atonement for my sins on the cross.⁴

I Pray That Observing Lent Will:

• Increase my love for God. As I focus on Him and what He has done for me, may my gratitude and love overflow in response. 
• Remind me of my weakness. When I fail to keep my commitment, either in letter or in spirit (as I have many times during this season), I am reminded of my frailty and need for a savior. With the crowds in Jerusalem, I cry out to Jesus, "Hosanna - Save me now!" How desperately I need His power to pull me out the terrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock. 
• Make me more repentant. I am surrounded by sin. So often, my concept of Christianity is to avoid sin, rather than actively turning away from it and going the other direction. I have not been called from darkness into nothing; I have been called into the glorious light of God's son. I pray that this Lenten season will help me to wholeheartedly reject my sin and fiercely pursue an active, positive righteousness.

So what about you, dear reader? Are you Lenten, or Un-Lenten? Any thoughts to add to mine? I'd love to hear about liturgy's role in your faith walk.


Notes:

¹Why meat? And why is fish OK? If you're going to make people give up things they don't want to give up, why not make them give up alcohol, for instance? I'm glad you asked. As he so often does, St. Thomas Aquinas has an appropriately hilarious answer for you:

[F]asting was instituted by the Church in order to bridle the concupiscences of the flesh, which regard pleasures of touch in connection with food and sex. Wherefore the Church forbade those who fast to partake of those foods which both afford most pleasure to the palate, and besides are a very great incentive to lust. Such are the flesh of animals that take their rest on the earth, and of those that breathe the air and their products, such as milk from those that walk on the earth, and eggs from birds. For, since such like animals are more like man in body, they afford greater pleasure as food, and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust. Hence the Church has bidden those who fast to abstain especially from these foods ...

Three things concur in the act of procreation, namely, heat, vitalspirit, and humor. Wine and other things that heat the body conduce especially to heat: flatulent foods seemingly cooperate in the production of the vitalspirit: but it is chiefly the use of flesh meat which is most productive of nourishment, that conduces to the production of humor. Now the alteration occasioned by heat, and the increase in vitalspirits are of short duration, whereas the substance of the humor remains a long time. Hence those who fast are forbidden the use of flesh meat rather than of wine or vegetables which are flatulent foods.

² See Rom. 5:6-8.

³ See Rom. 3:10-12.

⁴ See II Cor. 5:21.

Real-Life Heroes

These people are very dear friends, and also some of the most heroic Jesus-followers I know.

Check out the first post on their blog: http://schummexplosion.blogspot.com/2013/01/2-411-1-1-1-5-schumm-family.html.

That is all.

What's the Best Way to Be Married?

I see a lot to agree with in this sermon by an old childhood friend: The Abundant Life of the Church « Gracious Jots

Here is one of my favorite parts:

Let me be very clear. I do think God wants us to be content. I do think God wants us to have enough food to eat so that we do not go to bed hungry.  I do think God wants us to experience healing and wholeness. However, I do not think that the prosperity gospel is actually good news nor do I think it brings contentment, healing, or even wholeness.

There is abundant life found in the life of the church.  And this abundant life can be experienced by each participating member of the church, regardless of financial situation.

This is a message the American church needs very badly. Too often, we conflate plenty with blessing and lack with tribulation. The New Testament, however, teaches that circumstance should never constrain our contentment or our joy.

As much as I appreciate this sermon's main argument, I do have some concerns with its discussion of Ephesians 5:21-33:

This passage is used in weddings all the time and is used to subjugate women to men.  Let’s acknowledge that this passage has been used for more harm than good.

Abundant life does not flow from harmful hierarchy or even patriarchy within relationships. This model essentially argues for the marriage to be about one person’s needs while another just meets all those needs.  This practice is really unhealthy in marriage.

Furthermore, This passage isn’t intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21^st century.   No, this passage is talking about the unity and intimacy between Christ and Christ’s beloved- the church.

This passage on marriage is the author using what he had to work with (an understanding of a 1^st century marriage) to explain how much Christ loves the church, and how the church is supposed to love Christ.

I agree that this passage has been used to justify many ungodly actions. However, that doesn't mean we can completely throw out the model of marriage that it describes.

It is true that this passage is, most importantly, a description of the loving relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. But to say it isn't also God's blueprint for healthy marriages is to miss a significant part of the passage's power.

If willing submission to the authority of another is subjugation, then the Father has been subjugating the Son since before the foundation of the world. Christ has been subjugating His beloved Bride for the past two millennia. Church leaders all over the world subjugate the flocks that their Savior entrusts them to protect and feed.

Would anyone argue that Christ's suffering on the cross was centered on His own needs? Or that God the Father's plan to heal His broken people was a self-centered one? Or that genuinely caring elders in a church weep, pray, and minister to their people out of selfish ambition?

Those examples are within the same model Paul advocates for marriage. In this model, there is danger of marriage being all about one person's needs. That person, however, is the wife. (The one "lower" in the hierarchy is always served by the one "above.")


The sermon claims that this passage "isn't intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21st century."

That's true. It is, however, intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage. Period.

God's standards for life and godliness don't change from age to age, and He says the best way to have a marriage is when a husband loves his wife more than himself and the wife submits to and respects her husband. This doesn't mean life will be perfect -- but it does mean it will be a lot less painful.

I wrote a lot more about inspiration and metaphor and postmodernism, but it seemed like more heat than light, so I deleted it. I think for me, the important thing is that this is how God wants me to live, so I'm going to choose to do it, no matter what others think (or even what I think).

And I guess that's submission, too.

On Potato Salad

One of my Hutch-buddies wrote this post on life, death, and funeral food: Feasting in Life | The Quirky Redhead. This reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago and have been meaning for some time to post here. So, here it (finally) is.

I have been suspicious of potato salad for as long as I can remember.

Nonetheless, I love it: The soft, satisfying chunks of tuber, the gentle bite of pickle juice, the sweet, smooth, tangy mayo, the occasional crunch of onion. Its texture is every bit as wonderful as its taste. It's pleasing to the eyes, too, garnished with careful slices of hard-boiled egg, perfect parsley sprigs, and vivid dashes of paprika.

I remember sitting in the kitchen one sweltering Fourth of July morning, watching my mother drain a pot of steaming, brown-jacketed potatoes ("If you skin them before you boil them, the texture isn't as good," she explained). I remember my small fingers laboring to peel an egg, exasperated by the tiny bits of shell that never seemed to trouble my mother. ("It sometimes helps if you peel it under running water.") I remember cutting the eggs very carefully ("Never toward your hand!"), forming perfect circles of rich, crumbly yellow inside perfect circles of smooth, solid white. I remember teasing the boiled skin off the soft potatoes, using my clean fingernails ("Always wash your hands!") to pinch and pull, trying to remove every last bit of brown.

And, after the mysterious alchemy of mayonnaise and onions, of parsley and pickle juice and paprika, after the mixing and seasoning and stirring and garnishing, comes the glorious eating. 

If anything is more delightful to the palate than potato salad, it must be potato salad that you yourself have had a hand in preparing. It goes into your mouth and, as you chew, attains a miraculous homogeny, a wondrous e pluribus unum of flavor and texture.

So you see how enormously it pains me to suspect potato salad of anything besides being the perfect side dish for any informal dining occasion. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence is simply too great to ignore.

***

Exhibit A: Grandma's potato salad in a green Tupperware bowl sitting on a battered folding table in the cool, dark basement fellowship hall of the Belleville United Methodist Church, Belleville, KS, October 1986.

Great Aunt Marjorie, Grandma’s sister, has just died, and we are celebrating. 

That, at least, is how it seems to my five-year-old mind. I cannot fathom why this death, this ceasing-to-be of a human being, would be cause for rejoicing. But there it is, the delightful potato salad, just like it was at my birthday a week earlier, when Aunt Marjorie wasn't dead in a box upstairs.

Perhaps Aunt Marjorie is hiding in the basement closet that holds the musty old choir robes. Any moment now, she will burst gloriously forth into the fellowship hall, and we'll all know it was just a trick, a magnificent joke that fooled everyone but me. We will see that the life really hasn't ebbed from her wizened old body that smells of peppermint and lavender soap, and we will offer her some of Grandma's delectable potato salad.

I begin to grow uneasy as the festivities die down without event. The joke has become less funny; when will Aunt Marjorie return from the closet to the land of the living? She must be awfully hungry in there. I wonder if I should take her a plate of food.

"Micah, find your jacket. It's time to go." My mother's voice doesn't sound quite normal. She must be tired.

"Mom," I want to ask, "when will Aunt Marjorie stop hiding?" And I almost do ask, but then I am afraid of the answer.

The last bite of potato salad sticks in my throat as I search the basement for my jacket. I sneak a peek into the robe closet. Nothing is there but ancient, faded cloth saturated with smells of armpits and mildew. I decide not to ask for potato salad on my next birthday.

***

Exhibit B: An educational electronic display at the Exploration Place museum, Wichita, KS, June 1996.

The museum display features an electronic screen with a large, colorful drawing of a picnic, complete with a number of cartoonish people. In front of the screen is a bank of buttons, including a big red one labeled "Start." The sign above the screen tells me that I am a detective who must solve the case of the mysterious illness that afflicts the people in the picture.

I am intrigued. I have just finished the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In my mind's eye, I am Sherlock Holmes, wearing an overcoat and deerstalker and smoking a pipeful of rough-cut tobacco (which I took from my Persian slipper before leaving Baker Street this morning). I am ready to come to the aid of the poor, ignorant denizens of the drawing.

I follow the instructions and press the red button. 

A disembodied voice assesses the situation for me: "The Smith family is in trouble! Their day of picnicking and fun in the great outdoors has been ruined by upset stomachs. Some of them feel nauseated and miserable. It's up to you to find out why they're sick. For information that might help, press a button that corresponds to a family member's name. Good luck, detective!"

I have not emerged from my education with Sir Arthur without learning a thing or two about observation. 

Before I go any farther, I take careful stock of the scene. Several happy digital children play Frisbee in a field of pixelated grass. Nothing seems to be wrong with them. 

Nearby, there is a table with some adults sitting at it. Two of them look greenish and uncomfortable. Spread across the table are plates, napkins, and a variety of food: Hot dogs, buns, condiments, chips, vegetables, cole slaw, potato salad, cookies, and canned soft drinks. 

Off to the other side of the picture, an adult and several children lie in the sun on blankets, watching the clouds. One of the children looks as if she will be violently ill in very short order.

My stomach sinks as I begin to suspect the reason for the mysterious illness. The first button I press, next to the name “Betty,” confirms my suspicions. 

A young girl’s voice comes over the speaker: “We’ve been here all afternoon. After having a picnic lunch, Tom, Mike, and Amy went over to toss he Frisbee around. Meanwhile, Mom, Dad, Cindy, and Uncle Bill went for a walk together, and Toby and I decided to watch the clouds with Aunt Cathy. When Mom, Dad, and Cindy got back from the walk, they were hungry, so they had seconds. Uncle Bill stopped to pick wildflowers, but he got back later and joined Mom and Dad at the table while Cindy came over to watch the clouds with us."

Even Dr. Watson couldn't get this case wrong. It's obviously food poisoning. And I have a very good guess about which food is responsible.

Cindy's account leaves little doubt in my mind: " I was sooooo hungry! I don't eat meat, but I really liked the cole slaw, veggies, and potato salad. Ugh! Now I’m going to be sick!"

That narrows it down to three. Even though I don't need any more clues -- sometimes a detective just knows -- I am sure Holmes wouldn't stop until he had eliminated all other possibilities, so I interrogate the other witnesses anyway.

Dad Smith, one of the sufferers, informs me that he "can't stand cabbage," and the green-gilled Mom Smith tells me, "Even though my diet doesn't normally allow it, I splurged a little bit and took some potato salad to go with my hot dog." 

To clinch the matter, Uncle Bill (who is feeling perfectly well) says he wanted potato salad when he got back, but it had all been eaten.

As I press a button to confirm that potato salad is the culprit, something within me protests -- how could such a delightful dish cause so much discomfort? How could something so delicious harbor such danger? Nonetheless, once one has eliminated all other possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the answer.

And it is. The display goes on to inform me that potato salad is the picnic food most prone to feed bacteria and is consequently the most common source of food poisoning at picnics. The screen says that potato salad, if not kept under 40 degrees Fahrenheit, can be contaminated with dangerous Latin words like Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium perfringens. The very sound of them makes me queasy, but I set my jaw and act as if it's not a big deal. Just another case solved.

As I walk away from the exhibit, I wistfully puff my imaginary pipe and wish the cole slaw had been the guilty party.

***

Exhibit C: A stack of green plastic serving bowls beside the dishwashing sink in the back of the kitchen at Kansas Bible Camp in Hutchinson, KS, July 2001.

I have been here at camp all summer. Most of that time, I have been the dishwashing crew chief. I coordinate the cleaning of 150 plates, glasses, forks and spoons per meal, along with 28 pitchers, 14 serving utensils, two water coolers, a dozen pots and pans, sundry cooking implements, and occasionally the monstrous, greasy old grill wedged into the corner between the mop sink and the convection ovens. I also ensure that the kitchen and dining room get mopped and that the groceries get put away where they belong.

This afternoon, I have made the mistake of letting my dish crew go early so they can see the Fourth of July parade in town with the families (including my own) that are camping here this week. I assumed that I would have very few dishes to do, since we ate lunch on paper plates out on the lawn in front of the rambling old camp building. The meal was quite simple: Hamburgers, potato salad, and watermelon, with cookies for dessert. Normally, the only dishes for such a meal are the forks, serving dishes, and utensils, so I reasoned that I would be able to handle the dishes without my crew’s help. Unfortunately, I forgot about the grill.

The grill is my perennial enemy. Each time it is used, I must attack it with my degreaser and scratchy pads to rid it of its greasy, baked-on residue. The process, helpfully outlined on a filthy 3” X 5” card Scotch-taped to the wall behind the grill, is both simple and demanding:

1. Pour water on grill to cool it off
2. Using rubber gloves, spread grill with diluted de-greaser
3. Scrub with grill block; rinse degreaser off
4. Repeat 2 and 3 as needed
5. Wash grill with soap and water; dry with paper towels
6. Apply a coat of Crisco to season grill

The grill is hot this afternoon. As I pour water on it, a burst of steam hisses upward, almost stifling me. 

I sigh, wipe my forehead with a paper towel, and start scrubbing the grill down. I don't bother with the gloves or with diluting the chemicals. The stronger they remain, the sooner I'll be done.

As I finish the grill, the smell of leftover bits of potato salad mingles with the odor of the degreaser to create a new and horrible olfactory sensation. It makes me envision deadly little Latin words swirling around the room, all clad in tiny rubber gloves. 

Moving on to the dish sink, I decide to clean the serving bowls before doing the silverware.

I don’t especially like camp potato salad. It’s made for 150 people, so it isn’t prepared nearly as lovingly or carefully as my mother always made it. Besides, the cooks here use mustard instead of pickle juice, and that gives it too much kick. I’ve never enjoyed potato salad that bites me back. Nonetheless, it’s better than no potato salad, so I had a generous helping at lunch.

As I start spraying the residue off the bowls before washing them, I begin to wish I hadn’t eaten quite so much potato salad. The heat of the day is lukewarm in comparison with the scalding water that shoots from the sprayer. It doesn’t have a temperature control, since no cold-water pipe goes to that part of the kitchen. 

I suppose whoever plumbed the building decided he didn’t need to run two pipes to the sprayer when the dish crew would just want hot water all the time anyway. He obviously did not foresee how uncomfortable it would be to stand in the kitchen on a July day and feel the steam rising from the sprayer. And I’m certain he didn’t know that the hot water from the sprayer could lift the scent of potato salad from bowls and disperse it into the miserably warm kitchen. 

At times, I am so overcome with the all-permeating odor and heat that I almost gag.

Finally, after hours of battling the hamburger grease on the grill and the potato salad residue on the bowls, my last dish is done, and kitchen’s unpleasant smells have all but dissipated. 

I drain the sinks and glance at the clock above the kitchen doorway: 3:15. Just enough time to jump in the camp’s cool, clear swimming pool before the staff prayer meeting at 4:00. I smile and leave the sweltering kitchen to change into swim trunks. I wonder if the families have gotten back from town yet. I haven’t seen my brothers very much today, and they went to the parade earlier. I hope they’re at the pool – they always make my day better.

As I walk into the poolyard, the first person I see is Sam, my 13-year-old brother. He looks as if he’s fighting back tears.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” I am concerned. Sam is normally easygoing and good-natured. If he is distressed, something is severely wrong.

“Something bad happened to Tim.” 

I notice that his eyes are red.“How bad?” 

I think of all the times Tim has been hurt in his 15 years: he has always been the brother with bandaged arms or legs, the one who cracks his head open on playground basketball courts, the one who constantly tries to tackle guys twice his size when we play football in the park. He is wild and reckless, and I love him for it.

“Real bad.” The tears break through Sam’s defenses, and I pull him into a rough hug to help him recover.

Between pauses to regain his composure, Sam tells me the story. They were canoeing and decided to stop at a little sandbar about a mile upstream. The sand there is bleached white, so we’ve always called it Fiji Island (even though it’s neither an island nor especially Pacific in appearance). 

As Sam and the others were writing their names in the sand with sticks, they heard a splash and noticed Tim was missing. When he looked at the creek, Sam saw a bit of Tim’s swim trunks sticking up from the murky water – an air bubble, he quickly concluded.

Thinking that Tim was playing a joke on them, Sam waded across the creek to where Tim was and picked him up out of the water. Tim seemed dazed.“Are you OK, Tim?” Sam asked.

Tim mumbled something that Sam thought was a “Yes,” so he let him go. Tim dropped back into the creek with an unnatural-sounding splosh. That’s when they knew something was wrong.

Sam ran to the camp building to call 911, then ran back to Fiji Island to await the ambulance’s arrival. When it came, the paramedics determined that Hutchinson’s hospital would probably not be able to keep Tim alive, so they called in a chopper to take him to Wichita. Sam stood and watched it until it had gone, and then, half-dazed, walked alone back to the camp building.

As Sam finishes the story, Mom enters the poolyard. She seems peaceful, but her eyes are red.

Letting Sam go, I turn to her. “Mom, what’s wrong with him? Do they know? Will he be OK?” I can’t ask the questions quickly enough.

“Well,” Mom replies, “the paramedics think it’s his neck. He probably broke it when he dove into the creek. He can’t move anything below his collar bone.” She forced a smile. “I’m sure it’ll be all right; God is in control.”

I want to scream, to curse, to blaspheme. How could God allow this to happen? Where was God when my little brother’s vertebrae snapped, crackled, popped like a clichéd breakfast cereal commercial? What God would allow tiny Latin words to terrorize us in the very potato salad we eat? Is this the same God who allowed my dead Aunt Marjorie to go into that wooden box and never, ever come out again?

What are we to that kind of God but a speck, a tiny bit of grease caked onto the very corner of the grill? What are we to Him but flies gathered around a gob of rotting potato salad in a dumpster behind some deli? Does He care about me, that God who created this horrible, ugly little world?

I don’t explode; I withdraw. I nod my head wisely, I say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” I act like my faith isn’t disintegrating. I am still a good little Christian. But something sharper, harsher than mustard begins to eat away at me.

Mom and Dad leave immediately for Wichita to sit anxiously in the waiting room while doctors try to cut, poke, and probe the life back into my little brother. 

Everyone else at camp goes to the chapel for a special prayer meeting. I can imagine what will be said: “Gracious Father, we know You have a purpose for this event.” Or maybe, “Lord, we know You’re just using this to show us Your grace in Tim’s life.” Or even, “Lord, we don’t know why you’re doing this, but we know that You are good.”

I know the people here will pray doctrinally correct prayers, I know that they have good, biblical reasons for telling God what they do, and I suppose I even agree with them intellectually, but if I went to the meeting, I’m afraid I’d shout, “Jesus Christ! What the hell were you thinking?!” 

That prayer is probably not so doctrinally correct, so instead of going, I sit on my bunk in the staff quarters and quietly sob like there’s no tomorrow. (I’m not sure there is.)

***

My family drives to Wichita to visit Tim the next day. We have a cooler full of leftovers from camp for lunch. I am not hungry.The hospital’s parking garage is labyrinthine. I’m glad my older brother Andrew is leading the way; I know I’d just get lost. He doesn’t, though. We find the room just fine. 

On the way, we see a bereaved Mennonite couple crying outside their son’s room. We learn later that he was crushed beneath the body of a half-tame horse he was saddle-breaking. Doctors are crowded around, telling the family how sorry they are. I pretend I do not see them.

My imagination could not have prepared me for what I see in Tim’s room. A metal halo is screwed into his head, he is flat on his back, and his face looks like it belongs on a bloated corpse. He looks nothing like the boy I saw at lunch the day before; I wonder if this is the right room.

Andrew leads the way to the bed, with Sam close behind. I stand back behind Mom and the rest of the kids and wait my turn to talk to my brother, to let him know how glad I am that he has cheated death (for now). 

While I wait, I overhear a thin, nervous doctor whispering to Mom that “the prognosis, quite frankly, is not very promising, although, of course, anything can happen.” Something in me hardens even more, and it is all I can do to avoid smashing his smug, benevolent M.D. face in.

Finally, it is my turn to talk to Tim. I notice that he has not been very talkative so far; crushing several vertebrae and undergoing a couple of life-saving operations probably has that effect on a guy.

“Hey, bro.” I’m not sure what to say to someone so close to death.

“Hey. Did I worry you?” His words are slurred. He tries a laugh that comes out more as a gurgle.

“Nah. We’re used to you getting hurt.” I smile and blink several times. Hard.

“Don’t cry, Micah – it’s merely a flesh wound.” He knows I have a soft spot for Monty Python.

I smile despite myself. “Seriously, you doing OK, Timmy?”

“No offense, Micah,” he begins, his voice thick and soft, “but it seems like you’re having more trouble with this whole thing than I am.”

How can he see right through me when his eyes are swollen almost shut? No use lying to him. “I am having a hard time, bro. It seems so…” I struggle for words. “Unfair, maybe?”

“Listen, Micah.” He suddenly seems a little sharper. “I’ve thought about this. I know I might die. I know there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve had a good life, and I’m thankful for everything I’ve been able to do. If this is the end, I’m fine with that. If I recover completely, I’m fine with that. I accept what God is doing in me, and I keep on going. If I tried to take control myself, I’d just be frustrated, right?” He pauses, breathes hard. “I’m not feeling so good… I’d better take a nap.”

“Yeah, buddy. Do that.”

“Thanks for visiting me.”

“No, thank you, Tim. You’ve helped me a lot. Feel better, OK?”

“I’m trying.” Another gurgle-laugh.

On the way back to camp, Andrew drives while Mom hands out leftovers. She goes through in reverse age order, asking us all what we want. I come almost last, right before Andrew. “Micah, what would you like?” She offers me sandwiches, chips, day-old lasagna.

“Just potato salad, please,” I reply. “I’m not all that hungry.”

I know it hasn’t been stored below 40 degrees, but I eat it anyway, and despite the mustard’s bite and the unpleasant memory of its steamy odor the day before, it is the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted.

***

The really tricky thing about potato salad is that it should not exist in a world filled with death, disease, and pain. 

The sweet, comforting smoothness of mayo has no place in the presence of heartrending anguish. Soft, substantial chunks of boiled potatoes do not belong in a realm where health can turn so suddenly to sickness, where happiness can dissolve in the blink of an eye. The intermingled flavors of spices and pickle juice and half a dozen other things should not have the ability to delight the taste buds of people whose existences could be eradicated with the next gust of wind, shaking of the ground, or sudden flood. A boy who has eaten so marvelous a side dish as potato salad should not have his strength sapped, his body crippled in a heartbeat.

That is why I am suspicious of the food. It is not merely a delicious blend of flavor or something to help fill out the menu at a picnic or church social. Rather, it is a constant reminder of mortality, of suffering, and of the destruction inherent in our lives. Potato salad promises things it cannot give: peace, pleasure, relaxation, an underlying sense of rightness. It belies the fact that the world around it is nowhere near as perfect as the salad itself is. 

And yet, I'm beginning to suspect that the promise isn't a false one after all.

Perhaps potato salad is more: a reminder of God’s perpetual grace. Or, if you prefer, a reminder of the possibility of goodness somewhere, somehow, through some means. That reminder can seem insignificant in a bleak and frequently hopeless world, but sometimes – if we’re lucky or blessed or have good enough karma, maybe – it is enough to help us through the darkness. It can pull us from despair and enable us to stand back up in the aftermath of reality’s brutal knockout punch. 

And, as we taste the sweetness, tanginess, smoothness, and wholesomeness of potato salad, somehow it may help us learn to accept the tragic miracle of our humanity.

Disneyworld

I have lately been reading a lot of other blogs, to the neglect of my own. One that I frequent pretty often is that of Jonathan Rogers, author of several books. Each week, he has an audience participation assignment. This week's was on Disney: "Let’s talk about Disney. Triumphs, disasters, amusing anecdotes, opinions supported and unsupported. We welcome them all."

Here's what I wrote. After I was done, I decided I would cross-post it here.

My only experience with Disneyworld was related more to the idea of the place than the place itself.

When I was about nine, I somehow got it into my head that I wanted to go to Disneyworld. And, as you know if you have ever been nine, I wanted it more than ANYONE has ever wanted ANYTHING.

(In retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I wanted to go. I don’t like roller coasters, and I’m not especially fond of crowds. I was probably just more susceptible to the magic of advertising at that age.)

The obstacles were as follows:
* We lived in Kansas
* We lived on the salary of an adjunct math instructor
* Mom and dad had seven kids at that time, with number eight on the way

When I told my father about my rather unrealistic desire, he told me we would see if we could make it happen. And that sweet man kept his word. I remember him getting on the phone with Disney to see if they had any discounts our group of nine could take advantage of. I remember him writing down estimates, adding up expenses, researching campgrounds, trying to massage the numbers into something that wouldn’t make us hemorrhage out an entire month’s pay.

He went through a lot of effort trying to fulfill the silly dreams of a little boy. So I knew when he sat down solemnly with me a week later that he had done his best.

“Son,” he said, “sometimes we just can’t get the things we want. When that happens, we just need to appreciate what we have.” He finished by giving me an enormous hug that conveyed more love than a dozen trips to Disneyworld ever could.

So I guess you could say that I have nothing but good memories of Disneyworld.