Yesterday afternoon they called out Jeremiah’s name, he walked across the platform, shook the hand of the high school principal, received his diploma.
It was noisy enough amid the loud shouts and horns of well wishers that she and I could talk to each other privately in our own little cone of silence.
We looked at each other, and suddenly smiled. We gave each other a high five.
I hesitate to write further because this may be difficult for people to understand. But, this post is good for me to write, to get these ideas down, and so I’m treating this one as a private journal entry which happens to be posted in a public place.
Raising these children has been an awful lot of work. Brenda has been so frustrated, so tired, and this moment, this moment of watching our son, the one with an IQ of 46, walk across this stage is bitter sweet.
We love him. But it has been a task of mixed emotions all along.
Lately Brenda’s frustration has created a tension between us that was (is, always will be) hard for me to understand. But last night it became a little clearer.
Granted, I am a man, and that makes me intrinsically incapable of truly understanding the mind of a woman, any woman. But I try.
I know her longing to bear biological children has weighed heavily on her, and I somewhat understood that her not being able to conceive was somehow different than my not being able to have children because she was not able to conceive.
I knew that there was a resentment in her about all of that, and I knew it was somehow connected to the raising of these children. But, as I said, I’m a man, and thereby incapable of understanding the mind of a woman.
We leaned our heads together and shared about what we had just witnessed. We spoke about how high school had been good for him in providing experiences that will help him ride public transportation, stock shelves in a grocery, keep focussed on a task.
We spoke about how it hurt a little to see the parents around us who beamed their joy for all the world as their children strode confidently, shook hands with the future shining in their eyes, wore ribbons and medals of scholastic achievement, while our son shambled across the stage with a silly vacant smile trying to understand the meaning of what he was doing.
His graduation was more of a mark of passing time than of accomplishment, unless it was our accomplishment. Jeremiah just sort of floated along.
Somewhere out there on the other side of a glowing computer screen someone is thinking that these thoughts seem inappropriate for us, his parents. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn’t all that Christian either. But this has been such a hard task, raising this boy.
I think about Willy, our first child who died 15 years ago, and I wonder what he would have been like today. He would be a freshman. I think he would have been intelligent. I know I would have poured my love of reading and science and theology into him like a deep vessel and watched with such joy as he carried those parts of me with him into his future.
Sigh.
I am grateful for my children, but sometimes I look over the life I have and I wonder about what may have been...
But back to the point... last night. Brenda has been so angry... but that anger seemed to melt last night, and we spoke about Jeremiah’s future.
I told her how I have been preparing him emotionally for weeks about a life outside of our home. How I have been describing the life of being independent (as much as he can be in a group home), and the things he needs to learn next.
And Brenda melted a little.
And I saw a little of her that made things more understandable for this male brain of mine.
I saw how she feels tremendous guilt for her efforts to push Jeremiah onward. How she has felt that she simply couldn’t go on any further with the colossal task of taking care of him. The strain of watching him constantly, as we have worked so hard to do ever since he burned down our church two years ago last Thursday night.
And now that she sees that I agree that he should move from our home there has been a lightening of the tension between us.
I told her that I agreed he should move, but because of reasons that are good for him, not for us. I told her that someday she and I will die and he will be forced to live in a group home then, it is better he learn to do that sooner rather than later. I told her it is our responsibility to help him grasp as much of a normal life as he can handle, and we need to guide him through the steps it takes to set up financial, physical, and emotional security and independence.
I said we should not move him from our home out of anger or resentment of anxiety.
I do have reservations we are pushing this a little quickly, but I also know Brenda can simply not hang on much longer. The way she sees the world, and Jeremiah, is different than the way I do.
This may seem a little callous or hard, that we are looking for relief from raising our children. I don’t think it is. We do need relief. Raising two mentally handicapped children has been a tremendous amount of work. But they need independence, and we will work on tht transition as hard as we have worked raising them all these years.
I reminded her about what happened when I was 18. I had been living with my dad in Huntington Beach, California, attending Marina High School when he split up from his second wife. We moved to Silverado Canyon, about 40 miles away. My brothers and I would get up about 5:30 to ride in the back of a pickup truck of a friend of Dad’s all the way into HB forty miles away. He would drop us off at Beach Blvd. and Edinger Ave., about two miles from our school. We would walk the rest of the way. Then, in April, two months before school was out, I turned 18 and my dad told me to go find some other place to live.
We are moving Jeremiah along in a way that is much gentler, much healthier than how my father moved me.
Jeremiah is my son. I will always be his father. I would give him half of my IQ to make it normal if I could. I would give my life to protect his.
Some folks think that adoption is not the same as having a birth child, and they are right. I see a lot of parents as a teacher who have no business being around kids. My kids didn’t just happen to me. I chose them.
I chose them after years and years of prayer and wishing and hoping and planning. I love them.
Jeremiah may be with us for another year or two as we find him a place in the world. But seeking to move him on is not the action of desperation it might seem because of the exhaustion we feel. It is simply the deep breath of the marathoner who see the finish line in sight and takes the courage to continue the climb up Heartbreak Hill.
Does it sound like I am trying to persuade myself?
Perhaps I am.
It is just that today, after being able to speak gently with Brenda about a topic that seemed to be too prickly to handle, I think I see good in this direction we are taking.
I see Jeremiah learning to fit into society in his own unique way.
He spent some of his graduation money on a toy light saber. And he will make foolish choices when he is on his own. But so did I. I made mistakes and he will also. But they will be his mistakes. And I think it is a good thing if he can get into a place where he can make mistakes that are his own.
He may not be the kind of child who made the football team or was a little bit of a math nerd. And he may not get the highest paying jobs. But as he said when we spoke yesterday when I asked him what he would like to do for work: “there are lots of jobs.”
He wasn’t too concerned.
He will fit in somewhere.
I cannot see the world from Brenda’s perspective. And even in this moment of agreement we agree for different reasons.
But in the battlefield that a marriage can sometimes be, an armistice is a blessed event.
Mostly that.
I used to post at least twice a week, and now it is once a week... and truthfully I think I'd call this one skipping it.
I'm too busy to write.
There has been some fun stuff. Isaac and I went to see some World War II bombers at a local airport, which was a good outing for just the two of us. I've been working in my garden. I've been getting a lot of good strokes at work (things have been rough privately, but it has been my best year professionally).
This is our last full week with students. They totter off for the summer a week after Wednesday. So there is a lot to wrap up (not sure if I can do it!).
I have several projects to finish this week (write a report for a Dept. of Ed. Learn and Serve Grant, do a survey and write a report for a Talented & Gifted Digital Storytelling project, create three videos, oversee the production of two other (or is it three?) videos done by students, pull together the elements of a last day of school assembly, serve on an interview committee (Tuesday), up load about twqenty student projects (videos, photos, essays, powerpoints) onto a Virtual Museum site I built, and write the Cultural and Arts Grant by the 22nd.
Jeremiah is graduating on Friday. Brenda is struggling emotionally, Isaac is going in for counseling and testing, and I'm having a bout with insomnia.
But, I'm not twitching and barking yet, so it's all good.
I have been jotting down ideas and writing some roughdrafts of posts... let's see, there's the Father's Day one I started, one about Bubbles, another about the cross, another about service and being a servant, one on the progress of our church rebuilding project (and how it is affecting my home), another one which could almost be considered political, and one about Mark 12 and the nature of God.
We'll see how it all pans out. If I could ask for prayers, I would ask for wisdom, blessings on my marriage, wisdom in the decisions we are making for Jeremiah, and peace in Isaac's heart.
Check in with y'all soon.
As the technology teacher at a middle school folks often assume I am eternally enthusiastic about all things technological.
True, I do have my iPod firmly plugged into my cranium, but I am not typing into my laptop. I’m sketching out my ideas in my Moleskine, a little blank book (but my pen does have a laser pointer!).
Hmmm... I suppose there is more to a pen than one might think. A ball point pen is a technological wonder. The flow of ink, carefully regulated by a precisely engineered ball bearing set in a precisely engineered reservoir is a boon to writers and artists the world over.
The “trick” in using technology is choosing the right tool for the task at hand.
That is a primary goal of my curriculum. I teach my students to think dispassionately about technology and choose the best tools to express themselves.
I tell them that if the only tool they have is a hammer, then every problem starts to look like a nail. They respond with blank stares. This sort of metaphor is a little beyond them.
“Pretend that all your life the only tool you have ever had is a hammer. You use it to pound nails. When the nails are bent you use it to pound them straight. When you need to move something a little bit you tap it with the hammer. When you want to move it a lot you hit it with the hammer, and when you get frustrated you smash it with the hammer.
“Now imagine you have a board you want to use, but it is way too long. You have the board, and you have your hammer. What are you probably going to do?”
Now they start to get it.
“SMASH IT WITH THE HAMMER!!!”
“Now pretend I show you a saw. I show you how to hold it, how to score the wood with it, how to make it cut efficiently. Which tool are you going to use to divide that board?”
“THE SAW!!!”
That is my job, showing them new tools, new skills, exhorting them to think of new ways to express themselves. Would a Keynote presentation be best, or a video? Would a web site be more interactive and informative, or a Macromedia Flash project?
Sometimes the best tool is the simpler one. Sometimes the best tool for a job is a pen or a pencil, not a computer.
A drawing can be done quickly, more efficiently with a pencil than a mouse and keyboard.
Technology can solve a lot of problems, help us, all of us, to escape the dangers which beset us. But it needs to be tempered with wisdom, with ethics. That is the catch. Nearly every advance in science has been accompanied with sorrows.
Technology cannot provide us with a moral compass. Without wisdom, without understanding, the technology we grasp hurts us.
It sounds noble to compare science to Prometheus snatching fire from the gods, but it is perhaps more accurate comparing it to early man setting his hair on fire from a lightning-struck tree.
For example, the internet has the power to democratize the world, but in the meantime it seduces, perverts, our children, our brothers and sisters.
This is true for every technological advantage we have grasped with our clumsy hands.
Humanity has, perhaps, the ethical maturity to handle the technology found within a bicycle, no more.
I think we are all born with a tiny moral compass, like the dime sized one I got in a Cracker Jack box when I was five.
It points north, telling us where we should be heading. But it is easy to make it point wherever we want. All we need do is wave the iron-filled objects of our desires closely to our hearts. The sliver of our personal moral compass will waver, and swing where we would have it, at the ferric baubles we crave.
How do we develop a better, stronger, moral compass?
Step one: Keep our shiny, steely, desires away from our hearts, put them out of reach, filter them away from our lives, lock them away.
Step two: Watch that compass closely. Let it grow large in our sight, lay it frequently on the maps within scripture and prayer that it may dominate our sight, fill our vision so we are not distracted by tchotckes and knick knacks.
We know where it points. Every compass on this spinning glob of dirt which is apart from metal distractions points at the fount of magnetic energy pumping out of the heart, the center, of this world.
The metaphorical, theological fount for our hearts, our souls, is the glorious, loving presence of the Lord God Almighty.
The titanic glory of Earth’s magnetic field is displayed most greatly when it reacts to the storms of space, lighting up the world with brilliant aurora.
So too does the truth of God’s power within our lives shine brilliantly when storms wash over us. Like everyone else in this world my heart aches at the buffeting of sorrows, from within and without.
We are pleased with our accomplishments, with the skills we develop, the tools we accumulate. It is good to have a hammer. It is good to have a saw. It is even better to have a guide for the use of the tools we have.
Mankind tends to glory in new tools, like a man with a $5,000 gift certificate to Home Depot. Unfortunately mankind does not have the wisdom to handle such shiny metallic toys close to its collective heart (I grew up in the age of duck and cover drills).
There is something beautiful within my heart, something that is lovely and serene and glorious which lifts my spirit and sustains me. Within my heart is a lodestone imprinted with the proof of an eternal God. It’s the most precious thing I own.
I'm going to launch into a little ramble here today. Nothing polished, nothing well thought out, just a few thoughts.
I haven't been my usual blogging self. The fact is, I am extremely busy, and am pulled in so many directions.
Last week was another Moon Howlin' Monday with my buddies. We went to a new place, had some great conversations, theology, politics, family, good stuff.
Work is getting faster paced as we slip and slide toward year's end. The kids are getting more distracted and the staff is squeezing in as much as possible. Rock and a hard place scenario.
The challenges continue, and honestly, I am weary of talking about them. There are the legal challenges (green cards & citizenship), psychological (Isaac has been hurting himself, and we suspect he may be slightly autistic), personal (marriage health), physical (my psoriasis is causing me to bleed in several places), and much more. But, as I said, let's move on to another topic.
This weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and for many Americans, an extra day off from work.
But it is more than that. First, more importantly, most importantly, it's a day to honor those who defended, and defend, our freedom. I thank every veteran I meet for their sacrifice and dedication.
For those who sport bumper stickers which read "Support Our Troops" I wonder: "How?"
I suggest we support our troops by fixing the V. A. medical benefits and its care system. I suggest we provide decent death benefits. I suggest we give veterans reasonable tours of duty, especially those who are the "weekend warriors" of the National Guard, who did not enlist to put in years of combat duty.
I'm digressing. I think to honor our vets we need to honor their sacrifice, respect our flag (I always stand and cover my heart when it passes at parades, and I dislike seeing it used as bunting for rallies and car sales). But on to the point.
Memorial Day is also a day for us to honor those who we personally miss. And I failed to do that this weekend. I did not visit Willy's grave this weekend. For the first time in 15 years I did not place flowers on his headstone on Memorial Day.
It's not that we didn't remember. I think it's just that we didn't feel the need. I don't know. It still hurts when I think about it, but... I don't know...
We had Brenda's family over on Saturday. Big Bar B Que. It was fun.
And we did it again on Monday.
And when it was all done, when the BBQr was clean and the house picked up and my garden weeded I fulfilled something I started 16 years ago when I planted a pair of cherry trees the exactly right distance apart.
I went and bought a hammock.
I took out the latest copies of Scientific American and National Geographic, read a little, and drifted off. Ah... now that is planning. Sixteen years in preparing for that nap!
When I woke up it was delicious. I was still drowsy and a breeze was starting to rock the hammock a little. A brilliant blue sky stretched over the branches above me.
I thought a little about Memorial Day. About those who fought in wars, and how those wars led to so much suffering. About our current war, and how much of the world sees the U.S. as a bully, which saddens me.
Every veteran I have ever spoken to about war has said it is an enterprise which should be avoided as much as possible. And, honestly, I have grave misgivings over many of the wars my country has been involved in... Vietnam, Korea, the Mexican American War... and even the war that is easiest to defend, World War II, gives me a little pause. I look at the root causes of it, The Great Depression, the punishments heaped upon Germany after The Great War, the tolerance exhibited by the world, and the U.S. of the rearming of Germany, I wonder if it could have been avoided by other means...
I have avoided talking politics on this blog. And I am doing so now. I'm not ignorant of them. I have not missed voting a single time since I came of age 33 years ago. But when I think about Jesus, what He stood for, how He would act and think and do, I come to this conclusion:
Jesus would not have even registered to vote.
Politics was simply not on His radar. People tried to push it on Him. They wanted him to be a political messiah. They wanted Him to take a stand. And there were big issues for Him. There was the occupation of their country by the Roman Empire. They had a king (Herod) more interested in living in luxury than in ruling his lands. Slavery, women's rights, simple justice, all large issues which many tried to get Him to take a stand upon.
He was focused on a larger issue, a larger kingdom.
So, for those who defend my country, who have stood in harm's way, or left loved ones so they may serve a greater good, I offer this prayer:
Heavenly Father, Bless those who serve You, especially those who are followers of You and are standing in the gap. I pray Lord that the deeds they are asked to do are honorable, and bring hope, and solace, and healing to the world. I pray Lord for wisdom in those who lead. May they be granted discernment and given good advice. May they be reluctant to give directives and orders which lead to suffering, and are eager to see solutions which benefit many. Protect all those who are in harms' way Lord, that there be less sorrow, greater love, more joy. Strengthen the families of those who serve, especially the ones which bear the greatest burdens which come from the conflicts of men. Lord, I pray for my nation, that it may lead the world with compassion and understand and sacrifice, bringing healing to the broken, freedom to the enslaved, and prosperity to the impoverished. And most of all, Lord, I pray that the work of those who represent my country be used by You to bring glory to You, that more will find their way to Your kingdom, see a greater truth than the ones which lead men into conflict. --Amen.
Writing that last post was fun. I enjoy focussing on the positive. But as I wrote in the post before it, life is not full of positives and an optimist is sometimes pressed to keep a smile in place.
No need to go into details here and now, but life is still very challenging. Is there a point to such challenges?
I think so.
When life is difficult, faith in an afterlife is comforting.
Before you read any further it is important you keep one thing in mind: I’m a fool. I think a lot, I read a lot, and I put ideas together in odd ways. The chances that I am right is extremely remote. But if you are willing to take what I say with a sack of epsom salt, read on.
Psychologically beneficial or not, I know the afterlife to be real. In fact, I believe in eternity. (Eternity is not the same as the afterlife.) When I die I will shuffle off this mortal coil, this corporeal trap and spread spiritual wings to soar through perpetuity. It will be a realm different than the one I have known, and different than the one that existed before the Lord created our world, our species.
What was Heaven like before we existed? What was it like for the angels before The Fall? What perspective might powers and principalities and dominions and all beings who danced in the eternal radiance of the love of the Triune God have had?
Imagine the scope of their existence!
Our lives are measured in heart beats, the mad scramble of the sun across our skies, the seasonal wobble of gyrating stars. If we are imaginative we can picture longer stretches of time. We can appreciate the dance of galaxies as they rotate four times each billion years. We can deduce the gonging of galactic clusters (B flat, 57 octaves below middle C) as they pulse each 100 thousand years.
How does a being who experiences such a pace of living see the universe? See us?
I would think creating humanity shook things up quite a bit.
Beings which existed before there was physical matter, before there were stars and planets and atoms... beings which contemplated eternity while existing in a realm without the cycles of seasons and epochs... before things swam and crawled and flew, before things consumed and excreted and reproduced... these beings existing in realms of pure beauty and joy would be amazed when suddenly the Lord creates, us.
Mayflies adopted into the eternal family.
Stumbling through The Garden we learned to be selfish, to put ourselves first. These beings must have wondered about this strange new thing, these human beings. Imagine the purity of their lives interrupted by this drama of creatures endowed with an immortal soul within the shell of an animal body, and given mental facilities so they may decide and plan and choose.
I suspect this may have been the reason Lucifer stormed away from those eternal halls. Imagine beings with billions of serene years of experience suddenly faced with the inclusion of creatures that were born!
I can imagine an angelic pride smiting under the offensive concept of rubbing spiritual shoulders with creatures that are nearly animals. I can imagine the indignation of an entity of titanic beauty and grace deeply offended by the proposal that beings which slipped into the universe screaming and squawking be permitted into that august company. I can imagine the argument that we are so inherently corrupt that we could never have a place there.
I can imagine the view that humanity is so tainted that even the Lord God Himself would succumb to sin if He were to inhabit a human body. Why else would Satan think he could tempt our Lord Jesus?
So... why?
Why would God do this? What is the point of all of this, this world where people do selfish things? Hurtful things? A place where people weep and suffer and die... A place of active forces which erupt, and crush, and wash away entire communities.
Could it be that living in such a world, a mortal existence which permits bad choices, allows bad things, lends a dimension to our souls unique to eternity? In short, suffering adds texture to our souls.
What a wonder it must have seemed to all those wondrous beings to see the triune God creep into this realm of sorrow through the body of a young woman and watch Him grow and love and suffer and die! What a wonder it was.
What a wonder it is.
For eternity is not the sort of thing we see it as. We live in a space-time continuum, an experience that forces us to see time as a one dimensional current that drags us all in the direction of entropy.
Eternity existed before the universe, and will continue to do so after our universe is cold cinders drifting into an expanding endless end. Eternity exists outside of time, outside of space.
I am undeserving of living within such a reality. We all are. It is no wonder we are told we cannot see the face of God and live. We are simply not built of such strong stuff. We are not worthy.
When Jesus answered that rich man about how he might earn eternal life, He started by asking him how well he obeyed the commandments.
Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Mark 10:19-20
Don’t we all feel pretty pleased with ourselves when we think about the majority of those commandments? I’ve never murdered, I love God...
But the Lord kept pushing until He got to the place where the rich man’s heart truly rested, his wealth.
I imagine this fellow thought he was pretty special, and that he was doing something extraordinary, offering to follow the Lord, and thereby placing his resources behind Jesus.
Jesus told him to toss it all aside.
That is a tough call, and one Jesus is asking me, asking all of us, to do.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Mark 10:25
I think that living this mortal life toughens us up spiritually. I am not living comfortably in this vale of sorrow. I keep praising my God, loving what is good, but often the sorrows of life, that swinging pendulum, just makes it all a little wearying.
But this life provides me with the spiritual challenges to make my soul strong, wiry. It is good spiritual exercise for me, because though I do not deserve the forgiveness and blessings my Lord grants me, I am heading into eternity with experiences that angels and powers and dominions have not had. I will have character that only sadness and sorrow can bring.
I may not ever be a mighty spiritual being, but I know I am shedding spiritual pounds, leaning up, honoring my creator, accepting His challenges.
How else could this fat man crawl through the eye of that eternal needle?
