Street Gurus and Truth

My fingers feel their way across a set of ivories. Plans have gone askew, and randomness of life has me seated pensively in the lobby of an assisted living facility wiling away at the keys. Piano is what I do to kill time. Nothing more.
It used to mean something, but aging so indifferently hawks away small things like individualism and reflection for the comforts of a bi-weekly pay-stub and a little security. Because today's best laid plans appear to have been built on foundations of sand, I am forced back to it - Sucked into a vacuum of empty-time, in order to reacquaint with the beauty of a former pastime. Sometimes, when I’m alert, I think that God uses these unexpected circumstances to get my attention. But today I’m just dense,….and I probably haven’t taken enough vitamin D. So I throw out a few careless chords and melodies.

I‘m all alone. Nothing profound could happen.

Unless of course, this is Eugene, Oregon; where stoned out hippees chase vegetables with wide-eyed moans, and roam the streets in droves evocative of their less-peaceful counterparts in Zombie-land.

Last I checked my GPS, I was in said trailer park. And I haven't walked more than a few blocks since.

So as one of these tie-dyed apparitions suddenly peeks around the corner at me, I am startled, but not really surprised. Comic as these things are, the last thing I want is to make eye contact, lest I get another earful about the seventh incarnation of Vishnu or add to the list of painful, pointless political discussions about well: "legalizing weed, man"...

I try to look calm, as if I have not seen, and play on so as not to startle the creature before me. If worse comes to worse, I will use a magic word like ‘organic’ at which all hippies go catatonic, so that I can run away unseen. Maybe I should be embarrassed, but this would be nothing compared to my current daydream, which throbs in my mind like house music,progressing in repetitive loops of the phrase: “double-tap”.

As I continue to play he begins to dance uncomfortably close behind.

"Ughh. Drum-circle guy." I think to myself.

To be sure, his motions couldn't really be described by the word "dancing" at all. In fact they are so primitive, he comes just short of making the chicken dance look on par with Swan Lake.

After another awkward hip thrust, I want to set my eyes on fire and bury them. Instead, I feel the hour spent looking at kick-boxing brochures at the gym will finally pay off, and I let him have a glare that feels like I’m shooting bullets. Its my pituitary gland vs. his medicated, under-used brain and I sarcastically say, "Yesss?!?" To wit I note his size and silly face. He smells thickly of cigarette smoke, and by the look of it I expect he could tell the world a lot about prison romance. Thankfully, he isn't. To wit, its unfortunate conjugal visits don't seem to do much for a person’s hygiene either.
He laughs, and his beer-belly bounces uncomfortably closer beneath a tie-dye shirt I assume he got from an alternative baby-gap.


I’m a nice guy, but I don’t want him to know it. He probably wants my money to buy beer. So I keep my teeth set with hostility as I feign a smile back.

Despite me, the man is uber-jovial. And he immediately starts telling me about his “band days.”

“Incredible,” I think. Just my luck.

It turns out, either I am easily entertained, or his story is truly interesting. As a former musician himself, he was good. Very good. As in, he would have totally gone places with Kurt Cobain if he’d only had some confidence. But, he always put himself down.

I’m a little amused so I have to smirk here.

Then he pats me on the shoulder and congratulates me, “I’m just so stoked for your confidence man.

You know, I was goin’ places too once. But your like young, and your friends party, and your like afraid of rejection and all that #*$!.”

I think he must definitely be high to think I’m going places, but I nod like I’ve seen a wild party break out from one of my Beethoven recitals.

He gazes at the floor and rambles, “I was so scared to really go for anything, but I was really afraid to get my heart broken man! You know? And you protect your heart, and like try not to let anyone get to you when you’re starting out….”

“…but like who is the ‘MAN’ to judge me anyway, right?”

He looks at me as if I must surely be moved by this deep epiphany and sighs. Finally he looks up with renewed passion,

“But, I learned that that’s what it was all about you know? Music is supposed to break your heart! And life is music! Anything that’s beautiful and important will pierce you and break your heart, man. No one ever gets good at anything if they’re afraid to let their heart try!…If their afraid of being heart broken!”

“Do you read Blaise Pascal, too?,” I wonder, but don’t get to ask as he has already ranted off onto another topic.

I’m not sure what warranted this wonderful time of sharing between himself and me, but as he proceeds to tell me how much he enjoys watching car wrecks, I nod half-heartedly and think about the truth of what he’s just said.

Talents can be freaky. The weight of expectations and potential can lead to paralysis. In the Bible you can read about a man so afraid of investing what he is given that he buries it in the ground. (Matt. 25:14-30) Here 'talent' is a monetary word, but the meaning obviously extends to other areas. For myself, fear of failure often leads me to seek satisfaction from lesser things than giving my all. Sometimes I'd rather let my mind go numb with the routine of things than face the challenge of using what I've been given. Yet, I believe each person is given things that remind the world of the Imageo Dei.

In this, we are honored by God and allowed a great dignity. Abilities and gifts may seem like personal possessions but they are really a means by which God self-expresses and shows his love for all humanity.

People think that the strongest reason to take a risk is for their personal ambition. But in this light, I think a much stronger reason presents itself. When given an opportunity for doing good, I do not want to deny anyone a demonstration of God's love and goodness by my acts of cowardice.

Today I am thankful of how truth bedecks itself in the pathetic and the ordinary, hoping we will notice. And I want to expose myself to the more difficult callings of Scripture- the ones that require I do tough things. I can never do tough things if I distance myself from my heart and the desires God has given me.


And for those who want to have out-of-the ordinary experiences daily, I can recommend three places: The Twilight Zone, Bermuda Triangle, and Eugene, Oregon.

“Comfort in your koi”

Goldfish have nasty bowels, but they remain
interesting
animals. Please bear with me. The DNA of a particular species may give it a predetermined biological drive to grow to relatively enormous size. But they seldom do, do they? This is because aside from feeding habits and genetic coding, goldfish seem to be guided by a sixth sense in their maturation and development. They can only grow proportionately to the size of their habitat. And yet their owners are constantly placing them in fish tanks that are too small for them, conditions that nature never intended; habitats that will limit them to subpar growth activity. I wonder if in their tiny fish brains, goldfish ever sense that they were meant to grow much more. I wonder if this frustrates them and that all their little puckering at the glass isn’t their way of cussing us out for this. Or perhaps they are resigned to their fate. Actually, I’m pretty sure goldfish don’t lead dramatic lives. Humans do though, or could if we didn’t let seeing have so much to do with believing.

Metaphorically at least, I hope to be puckering against the glass of my limitations until they get stuck and the hope of something bigger is all I see. I want to grow as nature intended to my full potential, and yet the realities of my habitat are completely adverse to this. My habitat very literally mocks this kind of longing and aside from external assistance this whole charade with myself must end in disappointment. Such is the danger of desire. Of this state of madness wherein humanity finds itself, author James Houston once commented: “Despair is the fate of the desiring soul.” Along these lines Proverbs 13:12 agrees saying, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick….” These are tough wages for maintaining high hopes, eh? It seems we’d might as well just keep small desires if we’re going to keep them, but to do this we have to numb ourselves to the greater treasures of our hearts. Western society provides a plethora of options for those who want to do this and one mustn’t have too much contact with the current expressions of church to see how Christians do. In our youth we experience deeply seated longings but with age we kill them and call it sanctification or end up doing something much worse and trade them in for the mimetic expression of consumer desire. Herein, we stroll the ambient lit corridors of the mall musing on J. Crew, and Anthropologie. Or we mull the glossy pages of Pottery Barn and various retail catalogues actually believing, “Wow. This is cool. Life is finally within my grasp.”

In these small desires we will never be the means by which anything great is ever done. William Wilberforce probably wouldn’t have ended the slave trade in Britain had he been solely absorbed with the color of his leggings or the latest trend in powdered wigs. Unfortunately, Christianity has fallen so far off its rocker that many Christians confuse these material desires with the real ones and muddle this all the more with their skill in manipulating religious garble. A large culture of believers now think it good to work and attain much materially, while regarding it is as ‘spiritual’ to be content with less in the other more important areas of our existence. To those few who dare to mention their hearts are still alive and healthy in the narrative of unfolding dream, we roll our eyes and immediately offer them advice on how they should go to college or get a job. I find myself guilty of this all the time, and all I’m really saying is “Grow up and be mature like me.”

Retrospectively I must laugh, because when I tell someone to “grow up” I don’t really know what I mean. I remember not too long ago someone was showing me their collection of “fruit-of-the-loom cowboy” pictures they had saved should they suddenly need to blackmail me. As you can believe, I was more than a little wierded out that such things existed, but I was well pleased with the shading around my firm two-pac abs and albino pectorals. Anyways, I guess what I’m getting at is that language has meaning, but somehow the meanings get twisted when they come out of my mouth. Therefore, when I say “grow up”- it’s an anomaly. I’m more than likely really saying ‘Please stay in a bubble where I can define you. Don’t scare me with your larger-than-life visions, because you’ll remind me of my own self-accepted limitations.’

C.S. Lewis says this much better than I can. Here he describes our reaction to the pain of meaningful desires so potently,

“I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence.”

This is so sad. We of humanity are something of the incarnation of Desire, but because of impatience and disappointment we choose to kill this or betray it by likening it to childish games and foolishness. How many have resigned themselves to apathy undefined by a meaningful thrust, while others chase their illusions in figure eights winding down to the darkness of addiction?

Jesus lamented aloud that he wondered whether he would really find faith on the earth when he returned (Luke 18:1-8), and I can think of at least one other scripture passage expressing God’s displeasure with small desires. In second Kings 13:10-20 we see King Jehoash crying bitterly as he considered the prospect of losing God’s protection with the coming of Elisha’s death. In the story the dying prophet secures the continued safety of Israel to a few simple symbolic steps in which God would respond proportionately. Jehoash claims he wants this, but then only follows through with these actions half-heartedly. Elisha becomes angry. He condemns the future of Israel for their leader’s small-minded desire and although by means of Elisha’s promise Israel would experience a few small victories over Aram, their enemies would live to oppress them in future generations.

I wonder who is missing out or being oppressed because of my lack of faith. With all the hope of Christ we have as children of this covenant of faith, I anticipate that believers should realize that they are doing the world a great disservice by living small. It is so crucial that we open ourselves to desire, embrace it and let it humble us, for any desire that is worthwhile will inevitably do so. I only need recall anytime attraction to the opposite sex made me do something embarrassing to see this. From these shoes and those experiences it seems real humility has very little to do with the nice, polite show we make it out to be. Instead it must be about taking what we have as far as we can and then realizing how short we come up and how much help we really need.

Thankfully, Christianity validates my desire in one other very important way: prayer. And so I pray. I hope you will too.

Diversions

I told my sister that I’d been reading Buddhist texts and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Her facial expression said “What the Hell?” but her mouth said something a lot more Christianeeze. Upon reassuring her that I wasn’t going to become Buddhist or leave Christ she let me out of the headlock, and I got to explain myself. I’ve been questioning my desires a lot lately. The safer ones lead me down pointless rabbit-trails of accumulation. The greater ones are so extreme that they would demand everything, like an all or nothing gamble. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be the best thing to do to suppress all desire, shoving it all down before something harmful comes of it. What is it that makes people climb Mt. Everest? I’ve never heard about the fine cuisine at the top, and there’s definitely never been mention of any hot ladies waiting up there. Ed McMahon is not there offering a million dollars, and yet each year scads of people attempt the peak to become popsicles instead. There is something sinister and irrational about this.

With these thoughts here framed for you, obviously I was not considering becoming a Buddhist. I could no sooner become a Buddhist then I could twist my legs into that terrible pretzel of pain they call the “lotus position”. What do I look like? –A gymnast? (I deeply sympathize with the way first graders must sit “criss-cross applesauce” when at attention for show and tell. It seems a high price to pay just to see someone’s loose tooth, or the hospital pictures 6 year old Johnny brought of his mother’s liposuction……) To top it all off I really, truly suck at haikus. As evidenced from the length of this blog, I’m probably more of a sonnet guy, and I’m pretty sure you have to be good at haikus to be a Buddhist.

ANYWAY, I guess I was just trying to discover whether I sympathized with Mr. Guatama who said that the material objects of our desire are illusory. I can agree with that, sure…. What’s more is that through psychology I am aware of an entire field of study devoted to the research of what I buy and what makes me buy it. I am then promised the absurdities that eating Life Cereal or shaving with a Mach 3 will be the secret to true happiness. No doubt my eating habits could probably teach them a thing or two about nutrition.… ….consider saying “goodbye” to your precious little food pyramids, and hello to my grand Totino’s pizza pyramid.... But with the gigabytes of data stored on human behavior and desire, it’s no wonder that I feel somewhat helpless when I walk into a store. Thus, its obvious that materialism is something of a façade and in that respect the young man who spent 49 days sleeping under a tree was right. Unfortunately, the soul-searching Buddha did not cease his vendetta against aspiration merely with the cessation of material thinking, but further compounded it by saying that ALL desire only leads to suffering and thus ALL desire should be alleviated. If this were true, consider carefully the affect it would have upon your hearts. Would not love itself become a crime?

Following Christ seems to be like walking the tightrope over desire’s extremities. On one side is the fall into hedonism, and on the other asceticism which seems to have been the route of many past believers. Considering the Puritans, or past Catholic saints it seems Christians often ere on the side of stifling desire. After all, it is dangerous. People will gladly put their marriages on the line for a thrill or promotion. Countless conquistadors died in the heat of the jungle searching for the El Dorado. Even so, Christianity in all its history of asceticism has never completely shut the door on desire. Truthfully, I think Christ is the only way desire can find peace. Over the next few blogs I would like to evaluate this for myself. How much can I trust my heart? What does the Bible really say about it?

I do know this:

Desire in all its apparent danger is the foundation for my greatest hopes, for one cannot hope in that which he does not desire, AND according to Hebrews 11:1 the assurance of things hoped for is faith. Thus, it is easy to see that true faith in Christ becomes impossible without first entertaining desire. Maybe the occasional daydream about becoming a famous matador and fighting bulls for charity isn’t such a bad thing after all? I don’t know. Logically i guess it'll take some serious napping under a tree to find out. Stay tuned for more blogs!

xY!!!

Dudes don't have diaries or journals. We're way too masculine and all that, and so we're not allowed. So I like to write ok? Don't bug me. Just read this blog I made. Hopefully you can envision my wild unshaven face and smell the testorone from these e-pages I've written. If not I might have to punch you or something. Anyways, here is my blog that I wanna try to do. It will give you a good example about how someone with a Y chromosome thinks ok?....so no whining if it goes over your head because you don't have one. If you do have a Y chromosome don't be surprised if you end up jealous of mine when you learn yours is lower case and possibly cursive......


P.S. if I could have a diary it would have a big unicorn on the front named "Freddy," and he would guard my hopes and dreams...............