The Earth is not a cold dead place

When I was in kindergarten I learned a couple things:

I learned that Zach was one of the Power Rangers. At first I was skeptical but he said I could ask his mom if I wanted to.

I learned that the best way to express my crush on Jenny Drew was to chase and throw dirt clods at her during recess…unfortunately I also learned that while I was chasing her, she was chasing Zach.

And the last thing I learned was that I needed to stop crying when I skinned my knee. There was a professional size scooter racetrack in our playground—10 feet in the straight-aways, the width of a sidewalk—and every day at recess we men of sport would demonstrate our athletic prowess by racing the two scooters around the track. Much to my disappointment there was not a referee or any type of official supplied by Montessori Kindergarten. This was disappointing because I was not a Power Ranger; in fact, diminutive would have been a compliment. So when we raced, despite my quickness, I would always be pushed to the side or onto the ground. (If you’re not sympathetically crying yet—you should be). I don’t think Zach meant to knock me over every time, but because a brush of wind was all required to displace me, I fell. And when I fell I suffered tragic and debilitating injuries. I think a couple times there may have even been a visible scrape. I would lay on the ground watching Zach on his victory-lap, and then I would cry. I would wail, weep, and sniffle…my crying arsenal was expansive. After a million days of limping to the car in tears, one of my parents suggested that perhaps I could be a little tougher. They pointed out that Batman did not cry when he was scrapped. The Batman comment hit home. I’d been wearing a Batman cape and cowboy boots to school everyday for two years. The next day, or something like that, I scrapped my knee, withheld my tears, and proudly bragged of my toughness to my parents.

Bear with me. (Not “bare with me”, which means (comma or no comma?) “lets all take our clothes off”.)

Recently I started to wish for the days when I cried because of a scratched knee. Not only because everything is better when you’re wearing a cape, but because of the courage I’ve lost. When I was wearing the cape I wasn’t a cynic. Zach was a Power Ranger, my heroes wore capes and were always good, my Dad could throw the football 700 yards, God was the most grandest, most loving-est, giant, and humanity and I had an agreement to be kind to each another.

But you know how it goes. My favorite baseball player had an affair with a Hooters girl-- He was on his honeymoon. Someone lied to me. I lied. The hero who could toss me in the air, the man who led me to the Lord, was secretly molesting children--and is now imprisoned for 2 life sentences and 30 year. My grandpa died. God seemed smaller, or at least apathetic… And these are the “tragedies” of everyone’s life. In fact, these are tame compared to most. I don’t feel particularly picked-on or assailed, but it still sucks. And as these things happened I got “tougher”. I thought that I wasn’t bothered by them--or the end of Santa, my first break-up, the news, and my own selfishness.

And so nothing “hurt”, but it hurt a lot for that to be true. I resented. I didn’t blame the things that are unfortunately true, I related to them. I get it. I’ve lived enough to know that there is no thing, great or terrible, that I’m incapable of. I realized that being in jail does not mean that someone is in more sin than I am. But perhaps I became too aware of sin. Maybe I started to hate more than the sin of my skin. Maybe I started to doubt the goodness of creation. Everything seemed to be attacking everything, and worst of all, I figured I was probably the ring leader. Humanity had broken our agreement and I was being a real baby about it.

But the Earth is not a cold dead place. (I stole that from the title of the album I listening to)

I’ve been traveling for only a couple of weeks, but in that mere time the cowardly scales, the scar tissue, has begun to be removed. I can’t get through a day without a friend, old and new, buying me a meal or a drink. I’ve driven 3,500 miles and humanity has given me shelter every time I’ve needed her to. I stayed in my Dad’s, ex-wife’s beautiful condo for three nights. If that’s not a point for humanity I don’t know what is. I talked with a fisherman who is not only enduring the oil disaster, but finding ways to help others flourish in it. I shared whiskey with friends in Texas while shooting giant guns at beer bottles in a lake. I’ve driven through the hills of northern Alabama, the swamps and marshes of the gulf, and under the big sky of Texas. I can still love people and they can still love me. Is there a greater miracle than the fact that we don’t greet each other with a punch in the gut? I mean we definitely all deserve it. We may not know why the other person deserves it, but we know they do. But we don’t do that. For the most part we sympathize. We hug or shake hands, demonstrating a degree of “Yeah I get it. All of it.”

It takes a lot of bravery to kill the cynicism. It means that I’ll have to believe someone is telling the truth—even when I know they’re lying. It means that I’ll be taken advantage of. It means that I’ll look helpless and foolish. But hopefully it means that I’ll cry more. Hopefully it means that the things as small as the scrapes on my knee: destructive comments, selfishness, attempts at popularity, and manipulation will be felt greatly. I’m not tough and neither are you. Let’s make a deal with humanity that we know she’ll break. Let’s learn from our Father and continue to court a whore. Let’s remember that though she’s lost and self-destructive, there is beauty in her.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)