I've Moved!

Hello dear friends! My blog has moved to a more comfortable home. Here's the new address!

I hope you can stop by for the house warming party!

Much Love,

David

Small Miracles

Today time opened up just enough for a small lull, and I had the opportunity to talk with a friend whose 93 year old grandfather just passed away. We'll call my friend Matthew. Matthew had just arrived back from the three-day funeral proceedings, chock full of rich Catholic tradition in the small town he comes from. Matthew isn't known for being super expressive with his emotions, but I could read in his face all the small ways he was changed. Mostly I saw signs of joy and love, mixed up beautifully with those of loss and grief. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever liked his face more than I did today, sharing this moment with him, listening as he spoke.

The funeral was wonderful, he said, with almost the entire family there. Being the small town that it was and his grandfather a well-liked man, much of the town had come to pay their respects. There was Catholic ritual galore, and the Rosary was recited many times. I asked how he was doing, how his family was doing, and offered my support should he need it. "No," he said, "I got most of it out at the funeral, I think," and I knew he was telling the truth. He felt lucky because the family had left a day before he did, and he got to spend a day with just his grandmother. They took a nap.

As I listened, I realized the speakers in the room were playing an incredible live version of Jeff Buckley's already entrancing take on "Hallelujah." And I thought to myself, how curious. Here I am, in this room of all rooms, on this day of all days, sharing so sweetly with this friend of all friends, hearing this song of all songs.

It smacked of God, friends. It tasted of miracle. A small respite during a busy work day, the sacred in the profane, a holy silence at the heart of a furious and buzzing building. This could all be coincidence, of course, and it is a trait unique (so far as we know) only to humans to superimpose meaning onto otherwise entirely natural phenomena.

But was it? Was it coincidence, that is? I don't know. I can't say for certain. But something in me finds that explanation, the scientific explanation, the numerical explanation so unsatisfying. If the events of our lives, large and small, can be chalked up to enough monkeys jumping on enough typewriters for enough millennia such that a Shakespearean sonnet eventually emerges, well...where does laughter come from? Where do the great, history-altering masterpieces of literature, art, music...where do they come from, truly? What compels us to create, to get out of bed each morning and greet the day, even when tragedy weighs heavy on our hearts and minds? And what allows us to wake up other times with the strangest echoes of joy and anticipation rattling about in our chests?

Sometimes I see it, feel it, flashes of it, in a look, or a spoken word, or a face, or a hug. And I have no name for it, but I can't help but believe in it, but love it, but commit myself to it yet again and ask it to take up residence, in my hands and feet and eyes and lungs and mouth, ask it to fill the hollow parts in me, to mend the broken ones, to soothe my wounds and to kiss my tears. And somehow I am content to have no answers and do only this. Somehow I feel full, and rich, and blessed, and important. Somehow I will see this day through, not knowing at all where it ends or if I will be falling asleep with a broken heart or a well of joy--or maybe both. And this is why I have faith, because, I have no answers yet feel strangely compelled to live this day through anyways. To do anything differently would go against everything inside that makes me me. So I breathe, and close my eyes, or bow my head to pray, or look up towards the sky and wonder at this curious miracle called life. And I am content to wonder.

Greetings!

Hello friends! After a long absence, I've been feeling inspired to write again on this little blog of mine. Given my inclinations towards the epic, I've found myself avoiding blogging unless I have some masterpiece to share, and rarely do I have the energy or time to generate that kind of output. Too much pressure! Too much commitment. However, reading the shorter but more frequent bloggings of my friends, I feel comfortable following suit and experimenting with the aforementioned format myself! And plus, if I ever hope to make anything of my ambitions to be a writer, I'd better start practicing. SO, here is post number one of what will hopefully be a much more active blog-o-sphere. What? Is that even a word?!

Ahem...Me me me me meee...

If grace lives anywhere, it lives in the public transit system. Not owning a car, I spend a respectable amount of time on the bus, riding back and forth between my condo and place of employment. Half the time on the bus I spend fighting back tears, or sometimes giving in entirely, but mostly with my head down, so as not to alarm anyone. It's a good place for thinking, the bus: the hum of the motor, the gentle passing of scenery out the window, and something that is all too rare in our agenda-driven culture of bigger-better-more-faster-now, the opportunity to do nothing and not feel guilty about it. After all there's no sense in stressing. The bus is on a schedule. You know (more or less) when you will be arriving at your destination. There's really no need to worry about a traffic accident because the behemoth that is my bus could pummel any puny sedan or sports car. Hell, it could give a heavy-weight SUV a run for it's money and drive away all but unscathed. And so I am left with...time. The sweet gift of being.

So why am I crying? It's hard to say really, but a writer I'm fond of once wrote that we would be wise to take note of the things that make us cry, because there is something eternal, sacred in them. Sometimes I read on the bus. Sometimes I just sit and watch the world go by. I always listen to music. Today I was reading a book that I'm on my second lap through, Alphabet of Grace by Frederick Buechner. It occupies a strange space between pamphlet and book, but this tiny little work speaks to my soul like no other book I've read and brings me to tears as I sit on the bus, flipping through its digital pages on my iPad.

Buechner is my favorite author, and I've been reading him almost exclusively lately, so much of my musings here will no doubt be inspired by him. Today, he was reflecting on his own experience with writing, using as an example his laborious crafting of a character in one of his novels, an old man. "Could anything be less important than the whereabouts of an imaginary old man in an imaginary wood, and yet my feet have taken me up the stairs to this room where his whereabouts are important. If anything is important, I must believe--for me, now--his whereabouts are important." Buechner struggles to describe what his legs look like as he sits in the grass. "I try five or six different translations, each time saying either too much or too little. Could anything matter less than how I say it? Could anything matter more?" Finally, he gets it. "I have made several unnecessary trips to the bathroom. But I know now how the old man's legs look. They look broken." He concludes, "Now will he know, I wonder, whoever reads this, if anybody does, picking it up maybe forty-five or fifty years from now in a second-hand book store or rummage sale--now will whoever reads this know what is going on inside the old man and outside too (he looks as though his legs have been broken) and will it make any difference to him to know it, whoever he turns out to be? O sweet Christ, does it make any difference to you with whose holy cross I have crossed myself? O Jane McWilliams, does it make any difference to you that his legs look broken? Is that why your trees are angry?"

And today, as I ride the bus to work, this brings me to tears. I wonder to myself, does it matter to anyone anywhere that I am on this bus right now, heading out to live, in the best and only way I know how, in the needs of this day, to make a living and joke around with friends and co-workers and hopefully make a few people's days a little bit better by helping them with their computer problems? Does any of this matter at all?! I feel like screaming it. Yet, along with Buechner, if anything is important, I must believe that somehow--for me, now-- my presence in this day is important.

I look up and see a harmless mad man a few seats in front of me. He's muttering to himself and rubbing his fingers together compulsively, as if trying to conjure up the feel of fabric from his childhood blankie, as if trying to remember what it felt like to feel safe and warm. I wonder to myself, "Is my life any more valuable than this man's? Any less? Does he even know where he is?" And the only answer evoking anything but panic in me is that, really, we are the same. We have to be the same. Insofar as we both carry in us the deep need for love, for caring attention and tenderness, the same capacity for atrocious thoughts and deeds, the same basic anatomy and needs for air, water, food, shelter, sex... I am breathing, beating flesh and so is he. Do I even know where I am?

I get off the bus and wait my turn to walk across a four-lane street. Sometimes I look directly into oncoming traffic and try to catch glimpses of faces...try to distill this mass of humanity into a few faces that I can hold on to, if only for a moment. But then I worry I'm going to cause a traffic accident and look away.

As I reach the other side of the street, I see two twenty-somethings walking towards me on the sidewalk. A boy and a girl. A love story. She is beaming, holding a single red rose between her two hands. From the looks of her solid black dress slacks and matching well-soled shoes, I assume she is getting off from work. And to greet her? A prince with a flower. To make her feel beautiful, and loved, and wanted, and paid attention to. She doesn't know it, but she has never been more beautiful than she is right now, beaming. And I appreciate the guy too, for being so thoughtful. A part of me wants to linger, to stop walking and stare awkwardly until they walk out of site or drive away or do whatever they were going to do, but I keep walking. And somehow I have to believe. I have to believe that this is important, this day I am in, this journey I am making that I have made many times before and will make many times again, the muttering mad man and the girl with the red rose. Somehow I have to believe that this is life, real life, right now. I could fall to my knees and wail joyously...but that might freak some people out. So instead I whisper a prayer in my mind. I can't remember the exact words, but it goes something like this: I see. I am listening. I am paying attention. This wonder, this miracle is not lost on me. I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you.

God is here.

Three little words. God is here. These words fell upon my mind in a moment of anxiety, an instance of twisted panic. I'm thinking of myself more and more as a mystic of late. I am not interested in dogma, rhetoric, rules, propaganda, convention, who's right, who's wrong, or buildings erected with human hands to worship, honor, commemorate, or cage whatever infinitesimal grasp we may have on the transcendent. Even the basic issue of morality is of less and less interest to me. What I am interested in is wonder. If the concept of God is of any use to us at all, I believe it is first and foremost as a source not of fear, or judgment, but of profound awe and wonder. It seems I am not alone in this particular belief. Buechner writes:

"At its heart, I think, religion is mystical. Moses with his flocks in Midian, Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus up to his knees in the waters of Jordan...Religion as institution, as ethics, as dogma, as social action--all of this comes later and in the long run maybe counts for less. Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with the bush going up in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the sky. As for the man in the street, any street, wherever his own religion is a matter of more than custom, it is likely to be because, however dimly, a doorway opened in the air once to him too, a word was spoken, and, however shakily, he responded" (The Alphabet of Grace, pp. 74-75).

More and more, I experience God not in the loud, bombastic, or angular drama that has (somehow) come to be associated with a "religious experience", but as a blushing sense of awe that lives behind my eyes, and kisses every fragile shaft of light that finds its way through my gaze. And that's when I know. God is here. Now. In me. In you. Between us. (S)He is the words you speak that dance in my ears. God is this blessed space, this sacred fellowship, this succulent communion with breath and being. God is in our mouths, in our hands, in our beds, in our books, in our dreams. God is in the shaking laughter and the ruthless tears that wrack my body and leave me limp and trembling on the floor. God is in our grieving and our most terrible secrets. God is here. Now.

And somehow, in some mysterious way, these three little words make every passing moment something new: a cause for joy, a cause for celebration, a cause for the most humbling and disarming sense of wonder we have ever dared to dream of. A "Hello" becomes miracle, an "I love you" the axis of the universe itself, an "I'm sorry" a temple of grace, an "I remember" the rumbling of earth's tempestuous tectonic plates beneath our weary feet. What was once small and insignificant suddenly becomes not only meaningful, but crucial, essential, utterly indispensable, the entire point, the crux of this whole misshapen plot. I fall to my knees and kiss the earth beneath me with gratitude, a smile upon my lips and a burning in my eyes.

As I lay reclined in the dentist's chair, or eat dinner across from a beautiful woman, or smell her perfume for days after she is gone, or watch a movie, or sit quietly on the couch listening to the silence, or read a note from a friend, or lose myself in the making of music, or feel my heart begin to race with anxiousness and fear, I covet this secret. I wrap myself in it like a tender breeze on a warm night. God is here. Oh yes, friends. Believe it. God is here.

We're all narcissists...

We're all narcissists. Let's be honest. We are! Perhaps it's the sheer drive of life itself, the uncompromising will towards survival, reproduction, and propagation of our species that underlies the narcissism in all of us. And, in an "eat or be eaten" type of context, I guess it's a reasonably adaptive characteristic to possess. So for better or for worse, here we are, the way we are...narcissists! What's most interesting to me, however, is not the fact that I see this sort of self-interest as an inherent human quality, but the subtle and completely paradoxical ways it can manifest itself. We tend to think of narcissists as people who think very highly of themselves, people who think, or at least say loudly and often, that they are just about as awesome as it gets. Narcissism has another face though, far more seductive and hypnotic: that of self-loathing. In a society that for the most part frowns upon excessive pride and vanity (with notable exceptions), we tend to recognize the outspoken, excessively self-affirming behaviors that we might also call arrogance, and frown upon them also. We appreciate a reasonable level of self efficacy and confidence, but it's good not to think too highly of oneself. But what about thinking too lowly of oneself? What about the self-deprecating Yin to the overly-confident Yang?

Now, I'll admit, there are definitely instances where I finding myself thinking, "Man, I am just AWESOME!!! I bet everyone wishes they were me right now." Hopefully we all have these moments from time to time. Thus far though, I feel these moments occur with relatively "healthy" frequency. What I find myself continually wresting against lies on the other end of this spectrum, punctuated by phrases like:

"I'm not good enough"

"I'm not funny enough"

"I'm not smart enough"

"I'm not cool enough"

"I'm not confident enough"

"I'm not attractive enough"

"I'm not calm enough"

"I'm not talented enough"

"I'm not responsible enough"

etc. etc. etc. blah blah Blah BLah BLAH!!!!!

Now if we take a minute to think about it, what do all these phrases have in common? They all start with the word 'I'. That's right folks, even in the very act of telling ourselves how much we suck and how terribly we have failed and how numerous our shortcomings are, we are doing something quite interesting that easily evades us if we're not mindful. We are effectively saying, "I am so so SO IMPORTANT, which is why my faults merit such tedious and frequent mental scrutiny!" We must be pretty damn important for all our faults to matter so damn much. I am at the center of the universe. It's all--about--me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for thoughtful reflection and self examination. After all, I think we'd all agree that we are most of us trying, however imperfectly, to be the best people we can be. But I believe there is a stark difference, in fact a gaping abyss, between saying, "Here is something in myself I'm not particularly fond of. What can I do to grow?" and simply wallowing in how much we dislike ourselves and here's all the reasons why. At the end of the day, it's simple self-indulgance. Period. It's building ourselves up by breaking ourselves down.

Poor David...he's such a failure. Poor poor David, his life is so hard! If only he were funnier... If only he were more attractive... If only he were more confident... If only he were more charming... If only he were less awkward. Poor, poor, poor David. It's such a burden to the entire freaking universe having David around! He just brings everyone down. If only he could get his act together, the whole world would be a better place. He's just so terribly important. Poor, poor David Bergner.

I'm sorry David, but life is too beautiful and far too brief to waste time like this. And you know what else? You are far too beautiful, and not nearly important enough, to bear this terrible burden of having to be perfect, lest the cosmos collapse back in on themselves, making you responsible for the end of all life as we know it. And let's also remember what this kind of self-indulgent self-loathing does to those around us. It deprives them of that sacred right, that delicious dynamism that defines human life: fighting our own battles, celebrating our own joys, suffering our own defeats. In short, being a person! Because, after all, if everything is always about you, how could anything ever be about anyone else? Can't someone be sad just because they're sad? Or happy just because they're happy? Or be distant just because they're distant, for their own reasons? To assume the kind of epic responsibility that self-loathing mandates, you are in fact doing a disservice not only to yourself, but to your fellow people.

So what, you ask, do I propose as an alternative? I think it's quite simple, really. We need to get over ourselves! I propose a huge party in honor of all humanity everywhere, and everyone is invited! The theme of the party? Our faults, failures, and shortcomings. Our brokenness. Our humanness! This is not a time for mourning, friends. This is a time for the most boisterous of festivities, the most irreverent of spectacles, the most holy of celebrations. This is a party to affirm the peculiar miracle of life. This is a an occasion of being called upon to admit freely at last, that we are not perfect, nor will we ever be. What a relief! It feels so good just to say it, to get it out there in the open. I am not perfect! I can never be perfect! It's not all about me! What a relief....Phew.... Now turn up the music, and let's dance!!!

I have a sneaking suspicion that if we can bring ourselves to this type of openness, this style of honesty, this place of total vulnerability, total surrender, total openness, we might, just might, be opening ourselves up to a richer, realer, and far more blessed life than we could ever have imagined before. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I'm all for experimentation and alternative hypotheses, but my short time on this earth seems to be nudging me strongly, despite fortress-like resistance and stoic stubbornness, in this general direction. What do you think?

Benevolence

There are a lot of things I could and perhaps should be doing right now. There are those moments though when it is indubitably time to set everything else aside -- and write. Tonight is one of those nights. I'd like to start with a video clip from one of my all-time favorite movies: American Beauty. Unfortunately, embedding of this particular clip has been disabled on YouTube, so please click HERE to view it.

We humans are such curious animals. Our capacity to think and reason, to weigh facts against one another, to tease apart the details and reveal such splendid subtlety, it boggles the mind. To think that this life, this capacity for thought, this consciousness could emerge over billions of years from utter lifelessness seems all but unfathomable, and if science hadn't revealed such a compelling case for it, I'd certainly be inclined to question such a hypothesis. But here we are, and our story, life's story, is ultimately one of patient perseverance, one of process and not of product, one of journey and not of destination. Think of life literally eking along, embodying what must be the grandest experiment in trial and error this universe has ever seen, as the subtlest of changes over time yield sets of either adaptive or maladaptive characteristics, and ultimately result in survival and propagation of a species, or extinction. Our story is one steeped in majesty, wonder, and the most profound commitment to existence, to being.

This sense of grandeur, however, is quickly usurped by the business of living our modern lives, and often times rightfully so. Were one to sit on the couch all day dreaming of billions of years and the universe's ever expanding nature, it's entirely possible that we wouldn't be of much good to anyone, least of all ourselves. There is a present, practical reality that demands our attention if we wish to live. If we want food and shelter, we need money. If we want money, we need a job. If we want a job, we need an education or marketable skill (and these days a good bit of luck). These are just the basic facts of life, and we have little choice in acknowledging them.

However, I think there is a danger in never taking time to step back and really remind ourselves of the bigger, vaster context in which our lives are operating. After all, we are stardust! Literally! "Every atom of carbon inside our bodies was once inside a star. We are all made from the ashes of dead stars." (Polkinghorne, "Quarks, Chaos & Christianity", p. 40.) It doesn't get much more miraculous than that, and I think it's important every now and again to remind ourselves of our history, by which I mean our macro-history, our meta-history, the history of all histories, the history of life itself. And when we do, an amazing story reveals itself, a story of epic determination and fierce will, a story of profound commitment and sacrifice, and yes, a story of benevolence and grace. By whatever means, we have been given a gift that needn't have been given us. The gift of joy, friendship, pain, love, tragedy, touch, laughter, sex, tears, spontaneity, loss, romance, confusion, anger, thought, ecstasy and on and on and on. It is all a gift. It is the opportunity to compose, or at the very least take part in, a story of our own, chock full of drama and plot twists, humor and heartbreak, cliff-hangers and surprise endings. And our stories inevitably intersect and interact with the stories of those around us. The story of life itself is being spun out before our very eyes, a breathtaking amalgam of our individual and collective stories. What a gift to be given. If this is not the embodiment of benevolence, I don't know what is.

The storyteller's claim, I believe, is that life has meaning--that the things that happen to people happen not just by accident like leaves being blown off a tree by the wind but that there is order and purpose deep down behind them or inside them and that they are leading us not just anywhere but somewhere. The power of stories is that they are telling us that life adds up somehow, that life itself is like a story. And this grips us and fascinates us because of the feeling it gives us that if there is meaning in any life--in Hamlet's, in Mary's, in Christ's--then there is meaning also in our lives. And if this is true, it is of enormous significance in itself, and it makes us listen to the storyteller with great intensity because in this way all his stories are about us and because it is always possible that he may give us some clue as to what the meaning of our lives is.

Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat, pp. 58-60.

Home

For the past week I've had no cell phone reception, no text messaging, no credit card transactions, no facebook status updates, no car, no electronic toothbrush, and minimal internet access. I've never felt more alive. Words cannot describe the feeling of wholeness and peace that now envelops me. I only hope I can retain it.

I am forever changed. I am more myself than I have been in a long time, maybe ever. I feel connected to life, to humanity in a tangible way. I was getting some food during my layover in the Atlanta airport today, and, without even thinking about it, I practically sat down at a table with a complete stranger and started a conversation, as if it were an entirely common thing to do. This is the kind of openness that has grown in me over the last week. I've learned that all we silly humans (or maybe it's just me...) really need to live a joyful life is food, shelter, genuine human connection, and a meaningful goal or three. It is a wonder that we can be so advanced in so many ways and still so poverty stricken with basic matters of the soul, of living a life of wonder, imagination, and significance. I feel so intensely drawn to go on the upcoming clown trip to Costa Rica (not Peru). If I can figure out how to pay for it, I am going to go. This work is just too rich to miss.

It is of course wonderful to be home, and there are many things here I've been missing and looking forward to. My whole view of my current life here in Boulder is suddenly reframed in a strange and beautiful way. I am curious to see how I reorient over the next few days. This concludes coverage of my journey to Gesundheit.