Happiness and Cheer

In Defense of Poetry

(This is not a poem). Just yesters, I ran into some friends of mine who asked me if I read the latest Sojourn. "Alan, you write poetry - did any of that stuff make sense to you? I mean, do poems really mean something to the people who write them?" This is not a unique sentiment. In fact, the majority of friend-types I run into say that poetry doesn't make sense. So what's it worth, anyways?   Chances are, if you don't like poetry, you won't even start this unless I make you think it's not a poem.  (It's not).  Plato says poets are liars, but I'll let you take that for what it's worth.  

This is what I'm trying to say:

Poetry is a lot

like coffee - once you acquire the taste

you enjoy it in ways others can't.

It takes some time, sometimes, but once the time is taken

you don't miss it - for what it's worth.  Still, 

at the same time, some people find it

so repulsive, they never want to like the taste.

Why learn to like something you don't already naturally?

That's how I am with coffee, so I

at least understand.

First, they say, try it with sugar

or cream or even honey.  Do 

people drink coffee with honey? I

would start drinking poetry with it.

This is what you read most of the time:

Bitter droplets of afternoon

drip down buttonholed

mugs of lava - where

do we come from said

the bee-keeper's wife, but she knew

his mustardseed skirt was too short 

for the making.  Baking.  

Caking.

I drink mine hot when I drink mine

but I don't drink mine when I do. just

listen. 

That's as much poetry as I'll inflict on you for the time being (remember, this is not a poem).  The most common question I get regards the meaning of poetry.  "Why do people like to use words nobody knows and flowery language no one understands - it's like they're trying to make things confusing?"  

Poetry requires a reader.  Just writing poetry does you no good - that's not the point of it.  If all I wanted to do was tell you something, I wouldn't need to do so with poetry.  I would just tell you.  Or write you.  But what if I had more in mind than telling you?  A good poem, in my books, is one that tells you something, but "tells it slant," as Ms. Dickinson would have it.  This is where some problems come in, of course.  Quite a few contemporary poets have gotten so caught up in the way of telling you something that they forget what it was they were trying to tell you.  Or maybe they didn't care about what they were telling you to begin with.  

Telling it slant is the real trick to poetry, though.  I need to make you understand what I'm telling you, but I need you to do some work to understand it.  That's part of the whole poetry thing.  If you have to do work to figure out something, it becomes more yours and less mine.  (This paragraph is mine). The more it's yours, the more I've done my job.  But if I just tell you, it was never yours to begin with.  Roses are Red will always be plagiarism - yet we always look for "the road less traveled" as if it were our own to take. 

What can I give you, though, to make it your own?  Think of it like a game, where you're the detective and I can give you clues.  What clues, you may ask?  The title, for one, should give you some direction on how to read the poem.  If the poem is called:  "A Fig or Two," you should ask yourself it that means the whole poem is a "fig" or if it represents a fig or it imitates a fig or it is describing a fig or...you get the point.  I can also enjamb lines or use binary oppositions or self-conscious gestures, but if you don't know what any of that means, don't worry.  Poetry is not only for the elite.  I can also use capitalization techniques and line-breaks and puns and dashes and colloquialisms and parentheticals (and the like) to give you direction. 

As a poet, I can't give you the destination, but I'll at least offer some road-signs.

This was not a poem. (That 

was a poem).

       See?

When I Were a Dragon

I realize now

that the poem I gave you

was incomplete.  I forgot to mention 

the cold and the fog 

          you see spackling out your mouth

when it comes down upon

the sky.  Clearly

I meant to include that bit but 

you know how it is you 

get on the train and think

you'll do this and that when you get there

but not here.  

                   Here is only a moment

but moments are all so

        I'm looking 

at it now and remembering.

The uses and misuses of Piglet's friend Pooh

Having named our house after a certain "wise" feathered character in the Hundred Acre Wood, I am obligated to make a statement about our dear friend Pooh.  Over the years, the bear of little brain has lost a great deal of his fur to the mass-market corporate world.  From diaper advertisements to disney sing-a-longs, Pooh has received far more bruises than he did in his days of bump-bumping down the stairs behind young Christopher Robin.  But now the heffalump-hunter has been disgraced in a way I fear to even name.  The story can be found here (click).

It's a silly little phrase at first glance, a harmless, charming, witty little jig: "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood."  And to that I say, Humbug.  Some loon has decided to write the sequel to A.A. Milne's classic story, even after Milne went to so much trouble writing a perfectly fitting ending himself.  It's like joining a game someone else has already won.

If Pooh had his say on the matter, he'd probably mumble something about a "bother" and then go off and forget what he'd bothered about.  Piglet, meantime, would try and be very brave by imagining himself fighting off the hordes of misguided publishers.  Eeyore, of course, would be neither fazed nor surprised.

Perhaps it won't be all that bad, you may say.  And then, you should at least read it first before you say anything about it.  Well, Bubba, I *have* read it - or at least the free excerpt they put online (here) - and it was most disconcerting.  The author strikes me as one of those types that thinks good children's literature must include lots of simple sentences to help the child understand.  Even Dr. Seuss would not be amused.

----

But now to happier things.  First of all, there's Pooh Hour - which clearly falls in the the Proper uses of Piglet's friend Pooh category.  Pooh Hour, as the term is used by some goodly friends of mine (and perhaps the phrase will soon permeate pop-culture), is the term for those times when everything - yes, yes...everything - is delightfully humorous.  If you walk into a room full of normally low-key types who are rolling on top of tables laughing about a bag of pop-corn popping, you're probably witnessing someone's Pooh Hour.  Typically, it hits sometime in the mid-afternoon, or, after a long, stressful day is over, in the wee hours of the night.  If you're lucky (or just plain loony), Pooh Hour strikes the clock every day of the week.  And Rabbit would not approve.

Lastly, there's this.  A group of psychologists decided to poke fun at themselves by diagnosing Pooh's friends and Rabbit's many relations with psychological disorders.  The resulting medical review can be found here (click), and the world's greatest chart can be found here (click).  Sometimes things like this can be just the catalyst one needs to be thrown directly into Pooh Hour.  One can only hope for such a fate.

What a Billow be...

When given the choice, I go to the beach about twice every decade.  

Not because I hate the beach, or that I ever leave the beach unsatisfied, but the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the puddled-marshlands, have always proven superior in my experience.  Nonetheless, here I am listening to the crashing waves (a most lovely melody, I readily admit) for the second time this year.  The ocean is unusually packed with jelly-fish this year, so swimming in the ocean isn't quite the charm I remembered it being.  So today, my brother and I opted to build a sandcastle at the edge of doom.  

Why the edge of doom? you may ask, and rightly so.  The edge of doom, I have long believed, is the only place a sandcastle should go - otherwise, there's no point in even building one.  The kings of old didn't build castles just to feel better about themselves or to say, "Hey, ma! look at these white-washed walls!"  No.  They built them for protection from plague-ridden swineherds and over-zealous knights who thought chivalry meant the slaughter of small children.  It is in a similar vein, I reason, that sand castles should be built.  If there's no threat of a jelly-fish hoard pouring over the walls in a splurge of salt-water, there's no need for a castle.  

So Andy and I built ours at the edge of doom, and just as we finished he called it a day and went in.  And there I was by myself, guarding everyone else's towels with a castle under siege.  Fortunately, the castle was holding its own, so I let myself relax. The natural thing to do in such situations is to sit in one of the nifty seats Andy and Haynes dug in the sand earlier that afternoon.  So I did - minding my own business, not causing anyone any grief or trouble - the sun going down on my right and some sand-pipers piping away at my left - when a girl a few years my elder passed by and started loitering in the area, picking up shells every so often - or shall I say acting like picking up shells.

Before I knew it, she asked me if I was comfortable in my little seat.  "Yes," I said casually, "my brother made it and I stole it from him after he left."

"Oh!" she laughed, coming closer to me.  "You mind if I sit down?"

I wish someone other than the girl had seen my face in that moment.  I think it was akin to an old photo my mom took of me seven years ago.  We were in Hawaii for my 9th grade Spring Break and my brothers and I were posed with the coconut-wearing, grass-skirted Luau dancers.  Ben and Andy are very natural - smiling and holding up a pineapple rind or something.  But not Alan.  Horror, sheer horror, holds my face together as I breathe in the shock of the scandalous moment.

And so it was today, as the bikini-clad girl sat by my side on the gulf coast.  Why?  I will never know.  I did, however, manage to maintain semi-control of my shock as I conversed with her about her school, her hometown, and her age (6 years my elder).  Eventually, my parents both walked up from their stroll down the beach and gave me the "what in tarnation?" look.  Andy, meanwhile, looked on quizzically from the balcony, as Ben showed up with Whitney and both of their heads cocked.  

And you wonder why I like the mountains better.

Only the children know what they are looking for...

I'm at the beach again, which means I'm supposed to feel small again.  You know, the vast ocean compared to the small human - you're supposed to feel insignificant at times like these.  Truthfully, though, I don't - at least, not any more than I normally do.

If I ever need to feel insignificant, all I have to do is look out the windows of my house and watch all the cars go by.  Look at all those people, I tell myself.  You don't know any of them and they don't know you.  You have no idea what their stories are - where they're going, or why they're even in the car to begin with.  For all you know, they want to change the world, just like you.  Then again, maybe they're just mindlessly going from one place to the next - like the train-riders in The Little Prince.  "They are asleep in there," said the switchman, "or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."

I was looking at one of my old friends' Facebook pages the other day, and I came across this:  

About me: Honestly, It's not really about me at all.

yep.

What if? Why not? Could it be?

Wondrous wondrous Kate D. (think Edward Tulane and Desperaux) has come out with another glorious tale - full, as always, of light - The Magician's Elephant.  My book recommendation habits, however, will allow me to tell you precious little about what the book is about.  Halbroox Bros. rule number one in picking up a new book - *never* read the back.  Why? because too many a good book was ruined by some overzealous publisher who thought it'd be a grand idea to reveal half the plot on the back cover.  

This is how it usually goes:

Jimmy was always a strange boy.  But one day, his whole world is changed - an even stranger, eight-legged creature shows up on his bedstand to tell him the meaning of life and to set him off on the most exciting adventure of his lifetime.  

So you pick up the book (I'm not really sure why at this point) and start reading...and reading, and reading.  On page 320, the spider finally shows up in what's supposed to be a plot-twist.  FAIL.  All this time you were waiting, expecting the eight-legged wonder to appear and change the boy's life. The book ain't about the spider - it's about Jimmy.  But now that Jimmy's life is a sub-plot and the spider has gained full rights to the climax, you set it down and find a cheese muffin.  And with a plot like that, we can hardly blame you.*  In other words, you limit the amount of times you get moments like these:

Note: I must admit that every now and then, you will, in fact, come across the back of a book that is just vague enough to get you interested without giving away anything you shouldn't know.  So perhaps Halbroox Bros rule number one in picking up a new book is a bit harsh.  Just know that we have had far too many a good book spoiled to remain detached from what we see as the inevitable disillusionment with book-backs.  Of course, there is always hope for a better future...in fact, one of my friends wants to be "one of those people who write blurbs on the backs of books," so we cannot give up on back covers altogether.  

All that to say, this book is grand, and has nothing to do with 8-legged creatures or boys named Jimmy.  And whatever the back cover says, don't read it.  It's Kate DiCamillo, so know it's pure goodness.

What I can tell you is this:  it's full of hope, loss, wonder, and Home.  And already, I've said too much.

Zebra Cakes and the Beginning of Something New...

Wednesday night was fast approaching, and with it the teaching of my next lesson in the Lord's Prayer series.  This time: "Lead us not into temptation."

I had planned on spending the afternoon preparing, and so I made my way home early from work.  I whistled merrily as I got out of my car and strolled towards the house, little knowing how much temptation lurked inside the front door.

First, it was the cutting board from Tuesday's watermelon - sitting in the sink, still tarnished with white seeds and a chuck of rind that never made it to the rubbish bin.  Dang.  I can't prepare for a lesson on leading us not into temptation and just pass by a sink full of my own dirty dishes.  So I washed it.

Next, it was the brownies.  I hadn't eaten any snacks yet, so I ate the first one without a second thought.  No problem.  The next one was a little less justified, but tasty anyways, and if it turned out that I later regretted it, I could just use that as an example for giving into temptation.

My taste buds and stomach fully satisfied, I made it past the kitchen and into the dining room.  

Zebra Cakes.  

They were sitting there on the counter all alone, like some poor orphan who'd been neglected for the greater part of his natural life.  But no.  That would just be shameful - stuffing my face with pure tasty goodness while preparing my heart to talk to the children about God's power to provide a way out in those times of temptation.  "No temptation has befallen you other than that which is common to man."  Zebra Cakes are certainly common to man. So I passed them by.

I sat on the couch to read from the Good Book and quickly found myself tilting towards the horizontal state.  Before long I was on my back, eyes half closed, with Benji's dino pillow secured comfortably behind my neck.  Lead us not..... tem...ta.......t..........

I jumped to my feet.  Just another epic failure of a role-model I was, sleeping on the job.  So I walked around to get the blood flowin' and the mind churnin'.  Things were on the up and up for a while, until...

Zebra Cakes.

This time, I gave right in.  Without a thought to the lesson I was teaching or the book I was reading, I grabbed the box with greedy fingers and turned it upside down.  Shake.  I feared the worst.  Shake.  I dropped my jaw.  Shake.  No Zebra Cakes.  Not even one.

The box was empty all along.

----

Tomorrow I head off to Chicago with Denny on an evangelistic road trip.  It promises to be a most exciting, challenging, and messily glorious adventure.  If anyone's interested in keeping up, we'll be blogging along the way at socraticcup.blogspot.com.  

25 Rolls of Toilet Paper

My good friend Miguel told me a story yesterseve that captures the very essence of messy glory.  It simply must be shared.

----

It started like it always does - some overzealous kid wanting to do some quasi-illegal activity to get the urge out of his system.  At first Miguel was not convinced, but the thought of 40 yards of christmas lights wrapped around Chad's car was enough to secure his involvement.  Within a few hours, the toilet paper was all purchased, the plan was made, and a group of five or six students (plus Michael, the "responsible college intern") were walking down a dark street armed and ready to roll their youth minister's house.

It was not thirty seconds after they stepped foot in the yard that Chad's garage door made a noise like an old electric can opener and began to rise.  The dispersion was as smooth as any could have been rehearsed - the girls took off running down the street, the guys found suitable bushes nearby - only Michael was left in the yard, and the other side of the car seemed a perfect hiding place.

I say "seemed" because a few moments later it became clear that this was not to be the case.  If I'm caught hiding, thought Miguel, I'll give them an awful fright.  So to assure his not being caught, he found his way *under* the car...and waited.

EPIC FAIL.

As the other car made its way out of the garage and up the driveway, the headlights landed directly on our dear friend.  The car stopped.

...

"Yeah, there is a grocery bag in our front yard."  Thank goodness, said the mutterings of Miguel's mind, Amanda called Chad to tell him a mysterious bag was left in the yard - NOT that a mysterious man was hiding under the car.  The one side of the phone conversation he could hear continued.

"Dude, there's 25 rolls of toilet paper in here - unwrapped!. .... Well, I guess that means you don't need to go to the store any more."  Amanda was on her way to Wal-Mart to pick up...need I say it?  Toilet Paper.

"I'd think we were getting rolled, but why would they leave the bag here?  Nobody would be that dumb."  Michael silently nodded under the car, wondering the same.

The next few minutes were something of a blur.  Amanda pulled the car back in the driveway, Chad discovered more mixed messages - a wad of christmas lights, a single strip of paper on a bush - and Michael decided it was time to reveal himself.  All three of them stood in the front yard laughing at themselves and each other until Chad got a chance to ask Michael if anyone else was involved.

"No.  Just me," admitted Michael, just in time for the two other guys to appear from their respective trees and bushes.  More laughter.  

"So this is everyone, then?"  "Yep.  Everyone."  And the three girls walked into the driveway. 

It's such, such a perfect day...

I was in the midst of writing a long story last night when I suddenly drifted out of consciousness.  So in the meantime, this will have to suffice (I'm confident it will...).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo

Something Untraditional (we hope...)

"Well, what'd you do for the Fourth of July this year?"

I broke my cousin's left toe.

We were having our usual reunion in the mountains of Tennessee with the Halbrooks side of the family (often dubbed the 'less-than-normal side' - and for understandable reasons).  Friday  brought its usual joys - the special ingredient pancakes (vanilla ice cream this time, which received top marks in every category), monkey tree madness at the river, a rousing game named after an idiom of fruit comparisons, and a restful nightly sabbatical on the top bunk hammock.

Saturday of course was equally enjoyable, but for the one moment of tragedy.  Tradition has it that whenever we set foot on the waters of Honey Creek, a tree of boatlike proportions must be felled or dragged into the water for transportative purposes.  It was during this dragging that Jacob's toe was poorly placed beneath my folly. 

"Alright, we're all going to pick it up on three," I suggested.

"One, two....three!"  We lifted.  It was at this fateful moment that I realized the end of the log I was holding was more than I had bargained for.

"Okay, I'm gonna drop it."  No one-two-three this time.  Just the drop.  And the ligaments that had been merrily holding Jacob's left toe to his left toe bone were merry no longer.

Ben still insists that the blame rests on us all.  A kind brother, and I'd do the same for him...but we all know the truth.  Jacob's toe has every right to pay me back in full.

The Cockroach Whisperer...

Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting on Denny's recliner wondering what to blog about for the night.  After rejecting the first few ideas (due to copyright infringements), I was getting desperate.  Until something extraordinary happened.

Stephen walked into the room and announced, with no inflection of voice, "There's a dinosaur on the ceiling."  Actually, there was a cockroach.  I would have far preferred the dinosaur.  

By this time, Stephen had left the room and returned with his personal "Bug Stop" spray bottle.  Stopping just below the wretched creature, he paused just long enough for Gregor to dislodge himself from the ceiling and *FLY* in a direct line toward my own speechless face.  Fortunately, his flying powers were not developed enough to make it all the way to my face, so he crash-landed just at my feet and scurried under my chair.

I was up faster than a cuckoo at the strike of twelve, curled up on the sofa just opposite.  Stephen, though momentarily frozen, was back in action and appeared completely unconcerned.  Ben lifted up the chair.  Denny looked on in horror.  Stephen stood armed and ready with his spray-bottle.  Gregor decided this was a good time to disappear.

Of course, none of us were all that thrilled about Gregor's latest decision, so Ben banged the chair down and set him running toward the space just below the carpet.  A clear boot-to-the-floor was in order, but no - that would be too easy.  Stephen insisted on the Bug Stop. 

Spray.  Dash.  Spray.  Shuffle.  Spray. Dart.  Spray.  Spray.  Disappear.

Gregor disappeared once more below another couch.  FAIL.

But Stephen again showed no signs of discouragement.  "He's going for the door."  And sure enough, just as we all gave the boy the evil eye, Gregor appeared again on the backside of Denny's sofa.  The spray war continued - with Gregor consistently leading the way *straight* to the door.

Stephen assured us the creature would leave in an honorable manner.  To the surprise of all the other occupants of the house, Gregor waltzed out the front door as soon as it was opened, leaving nothing but his memory behind.

I'm sure this has some sort of application to everyday life, but I will leave you to figure that one out - the story itself is enough for me.

Update from Stephen and his magical spray-bottle:

"I have secured the perimeter."

Hop on Pop

Pa.

A short name, yes.  But contained within those two letters are years of wonderment and glorious fatherdom.  Yes, it is Father's Day, and yes, that gives me every right to tell you how amazing mine is.

When I detached my skis in the middle of some obscure wooded regions of Vail, Colorado, he did not complain.  Nay - he put me on top of his own skis and within the hour, they were found.

When no one knew if we were really going to make it to Hawaii the next year, He got our hopes up.  Ma:  "Rick, don't get their hopes up."  Pa:  "We are GOIN'!"  Ma: (shakes head)  Childrens: (laugh hysterically)

When Halloween rolled around three years ago, he passed as a genuine harley davidson biker.  Only to be beaten by some foe who decided to wear one of those pre-made Roger Rabbit outfits.

When our love for dinosaurs and bones could not be satiated, he took us fossil hunting all over the States - and we've shark teeth in every cupboard to prove it.

When every other family we know calls their parents Mom and Dad, he let us call him Pa.

More on the "gut" and the greasemonkey...

Now, before you think: great - Alan's goes off to England for a few months and comes back believing in the paranormal, let me explain myself.  I know all this talk about visions and demons and the like is uncomfortable.  Especially for people tend toward the intellectual side of Christianity instead of the emotional/experiential side.  But it shouldn't be any more uncomfortable than anything you'd find in the book of Acts - demon possessions, visions, miraculous healings - it's all there.

If all goes as planned, I'll be able to explound to you my thoughts from the past week in an organized, understandable fashion.  Of course, the last time I posted, things did *not* go as planned.  In fact, just after I finished posting, my internet failed and I migrated outside my house where I sometimes get better reception (...I shamelessly steal the signal from my brother's house next door...).  As soon as I got outside, I realized the door behind me was locked, and my Ma was already long asleep.  FAIL.  I still didn't have internet access either, so all I could do was talk to myself while the wireless amoebas decided to start doing their job again.  (...they did...)

Anyways, I've been doing a good deal of thinking and dialoguing with a friend of mine on the whole unseen/spiritual/gut thing, or whatever you want to call it.  Twas a grand expedition (*almost* as good as Pooh's Expotition to the North Pole), and in the end we came to some satisfying conclusions.  Of course, the best part was the application dance....which looks like this: 

Some conclusions and speculations:

1. All sorts of people do have these experiences.  you can attribute it to some undigested bit of corn if you wish, but plenty of people who would have no reason to make up these sorts of stories just to feel like "special christians" - have these experiences, dreams, "gut knowings" as one of my friends puts it.  Choose to dismiss them all as coincidence, wishful thinking, or lies if you wish - I'm of the camp that believes they really happen (not that ALL the stories are true, of course).  And I wasn't in that camp until I sat down and actually thought about it.

2. They don't happen to everyone.  I know this because they don't happen to me, and never have.  If they are real though, should I want them to happen to me?  Three days ago, I would have said yes:  it's the whole "faith like a child bit" - I should open my mind more to the idea of unseen signs and direction and then God may use that method to reach me.  Now I've changed my mind, though (thanks, trusty dialogue partner).  more on this in a bit...

3. As I mentioned last time, these things seem to happen more often in places like Africa and the Amazon.  It makes sense to me that this is largely because our culture has almost entirely wiped out the concept of the spiritual world.  The influence of the Enlightenment philosophers and the scandal of the Salem Witch Trials didn't help the situation too much.  But this is not the case in Africa or the Amazon - the spiritual world is very much a part of daily reality - and they know it.  Are there more demons in Africa than in America?  I have no idea, but if demons are at all shrewd (which we have every reason to believe [Gen. 3]), they will probably want to go as unnoticed in our materialistic world as they want to go noticed in say, Africa.  In his preface to Screwtape, Lewis says this: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight."

4.  But enough about demons.  Why should I not want to tap into this whole vision / revelation bit, if I believe it really happens?  Why should I not want to have "gut knowings"? In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells the folks he's writing to to "eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy..."  Now we figured this had something to do with the visions and gut knowings and such we've been talking about.  I can't give you the whole conversation, or you'd be reading this post for a few days more than you've already read if for...but here's a snippet -

thetalkingmouse:

So what you're suggesting is that if you aren't the vision type, it might not have anything to do with christian maturity or levels of belief...

but rather there are certain types that God uses visions and such for and others he doesn't.  Just like there are some people God uses to care for the children and others to care for the elderly...

neither is better or worse -but we should be willing at least, even if we aren't the vision types, to accept that certain people ARE.  

Believe them, but not go around looking for visions ourselves.

Oytak:

Yes.  That's what I mean.

I mean, Paul asks himself, "Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?" etc.  And what he really emphasizes are the three Christian cardinal virtures.  Which are vital to Christian maturity.

...Anyway, I suppose the conclusion I'm coming to is that God gives certain gifts to certain people, and it's probably not a good idea to "try harder" to "open our minds" in order to attain a gift that might not be designed for us?

...And I suppose the real test of a gift is whether or not it glorifies Christ; otherwise, there's major reason to doubt its validity.

So we all ought to be striving toward Faith, Hope, and Love, and cultivate the gifts God *does* give us.

And perhaps He just gives more emotional-based people gifts that speak more plainly to them? (aka more abstract gifts?) and to more reasoning-based people gifts that correpsond more to their midns (aka more instructive/expository gifts?)

...And perhaps some "visions" are just one time things.

5. The leg bone's connected to the...knee bone (!)

A good friend of mine is like me, in that she revels in the intellectual power of Christianity - in the nuances of the text, the brilliance of the imagery, the literary and historical genius of God's plan.  Her roommate two years ago, though was one of the types that's always stressing the experiential part of Christianity instead of the intellectual...in the end, she says, it was good for them both.  Strange at times, but good.  

Which means it's time for....

The truth is, we need both sides.  Not just individually, but as a group.  Right now, the "vision" type people mostly flock through charismatic church doors, and the intellects stay seated in their non-handclapping pews.  We need to do something about that - and it starts with people like you (that's right, you) and me either opening up more toward the intellectual side of faith or the emotional one, depending on which side of the spectrum you occupy.

And that can be exciting, really.  It's the thrill that we "intellectual Christians" get when we read a book like Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz.  Something that reminds us, even if only briefly, that spirituality isn't just about theology and whether or not suffering is a by-product of choice or what Bonhoeffer should have done if he was given a direct shot at Hitler.  It's about love, grief, hope, despair - raw emotion.

And I haven't even mentioned what this all has to do with greasemonkeys...

The elusive "gut" and other strange things...

It's storming again here in the 'Ham - which reminds me of a thought I had just the other day that was left as undeveloped as the South Pole.

The subject revolves around seen and unseen forces. The seen forces in this case are the electromagnetic flashes of light my friends' brother saw this weekend when he was struck by lightning (Note: he had a remarkably quick recovery and was laughing about it less than an hour later - which is wondrous indeed). The unseen forces - clearly - are harder to pin down.

When yon friend-of-mine's brother was struck, she suddenly had an empty feeling in her stomach even though she had no idea what had happened. The way she described it to me, she just suddenly knew *something* had happened to her brother. And she was right, as we now know. Strange.

But is it so strange?

A product of a culture that emphasizes the empirical, I've always felt a little odd hearing people's stories about how they had visions or sudden feelings that actually corresponded with reality. A few months ago, I was working with a guy at my internship in London (you remember Dennis and the others? same place.) who told me he was led to work at ECCP and to attend St. Barnabas Church because of a vision he saw. "I had never been there before," he told me, "but when I got there it looked exactly as it had in the dream." It didn't help that right after that, he asked me how I was led to work there. "Uh...well, it was an internship that looked interesting to me and seemed like it fit my talents and such..."

The point is, these 'other-worldly' experiences happen every day, apparently just not to me. No - I realize, of course, that they don't happen to a lot of people. But is that because we're just not special, or does that mean that they don't really happen to anyone at all, and it's just in their minds? My experience suggests that neither is the case. In fact, it seems quite possible to me that my doubts about the reality of these strange experiences is precisely what prevents them from ever coming my way.

Hypnosis, I am told by my psychology teacher, works far more effectively for people who go into it believing it works. For the doubters, it rarely has the same power. Does this invalidate hypnosis? I don't think so - because clearly it still works for some. What it suggests is that a correlation exists between belief and experience. And this is nothing new - we've know this from placebo drugs and the like for years. "Correlation does not mean causation," I can hear my teacher saying now. So I will try and not draw anything more out of this phenomenon.

In dealing with issues involving the unseen, I point out two other observations.
1. there seems to be a heck of a lot more demon / angel activity going on in the Bible than anyone I know has ever experienced.
2. every now and then, I'll hear something about missionaries dealing with spiritual forces of good and evil, but it's always in places like Africa or the Amazon.

My question is simple: Why?

The answer, I'm sure, is far more complicated, and I'll be glad to give you my thoughts - another night.

It's that Time Again (!)

A Van for all Seasons...

When she started smoking, we knew her time was short.

Our family mini-van "bit the big one" (as my Pa would say) just yesterday, and I write this in her honor. Sure she had problems with her high beams and was already over 250,000 miles, and sure she would lock the doors everytime you tried to unlock them manually...but it was a family fault we were all used to anyways. Kinda like us being used to the fact that Jenkins always wears his "Where is Pisgah?" shirt in public twice a week.

We went to Gatlinburg this weekend, and all the hills and stop and go traffic were more than she could handle. The thermostat apparently gave out on us and the radiator spat out all of the engine coolant, until finally, as Ma informed us, "she blew a gasket." I don't know what that means in van-terms, but it sounds pretty bad.
In her memory, here are some stories she brought to us:

Some six or seven years ago, it was time for the first-ever Fixed Point student retreat. We packed the foosball table in the back of our mini-van (this is Not a suggested way of using the back 2/3rds of any vehicle) and followed the Taunton's van of similar build. We were well aware of the fact that our particular make of mini-van was keen to give up early on the whole window-rolling-down bit, so when we pulled up next to the Tauntons in a parking lot, we opened the door to talk. What we were not well aware of was the fact that the Tauntons had the same problem with their mini-van....just on the opposite side. So we both stopped, both tried our windows and remembered they didn't roll down, and both opened our doors into each other's.
----
About the time we got the window thing fixed, we took our yearly trip to Vail, Colorado (this was probably five years later). In fact, I think this was just a few months ago...Anyways, it was time to leave and the snow had just decided to dump itself upon all the roads north of the southern state line. Most other families would have counted their losses and waited for the snow to melt enough for easy access to the highway, but no - not us. We had 23 hours more driving before we got home, and we were not about to let a little snowdrift impede our efforts. After several failed attempts to pick up speed and make it up the hill from our condo, we were forced into the most unusual activity: pushing the van up a snow-ridden slope. Five of us lined up at the bumper while Andy pushed the gas ever-so-slightly. "Slower! Slower! NOWW! Go, go goooooooooooooo!" This went on for some dozens of minutes, which included quite a few face plants in the snow and quite a lot of backwards progress. In the end, though, man conquered nature and our trusty van led us to victory once again.
----
Of course, yesterday was not the first time she smoked. Whether it was peer pressure or she was just curious ("just one smoke couldn't hurt me"), she had tried it once already sometime last autumn. This time, she was the beast of burden for our South Dakota/Canada road trip - a trip that would soon be characterized by busted radiators and 12 cups of coffee a day. This was the trip where Mitchell informed us of the genocide of cornstalks, where we met the world's largest pheasant, and where the border patrol man we lovingly named "Sasquatch" did everything he could to prevent us from making it across the Canadian border. This was the trip where our van decided to die as soon as we pulled into Denny's grandparent's driveway, and immediately began oozing green stuff out of the hood. We left it there and took the grandparent's car through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and North Dakota before we found out that our friends at the van repair center were in no hurry to get us home. Well, we did make it home in time, thanks to Denny's awe-inspiring one-liners on the cell phone with car mechanics ("We're only missing one piece to our puzzle, and I think you have it."), and some fancy foot work with the new radiator supplier.
----
All that to say, this van's been good to us, and we're sad to see it go.

VBS Jollities

VBS for Cahaba Park Church just concluded tonight.  And for the two days I was there, 'twas a joyous occasion.

Day One:  One of the kids made two of the greatest VBS comments ever.  This was even more glorious than the time the people at Covenant misspelled "Gentle" and an entire crew of 8 year olds went around thinking they were the "Gentile Giraffes" for the first full day of Bible school.

It was music time and all the children had been called together by the music leader, who was looking for any way she could to get them excited about singing songs they'd never heard before.  

"Alright everyone!  It's music time (!), and we're about to sing...but I see just one thing wrong....what is it??"  She was hinting at the fact that everyone was still sitting down (a non-proper position for VBS songs, for the uninitiated).

Five-and-a-half year-old Jay boldly stepped forward to answer the question.  "We're all sinners!"

Later the same evening, Jay explained to us all that Joeys are baby kangaroos.

"Tell everyone what a Joey is, Jay."

"A Joey is a - a baby kangaroo."  He paused.  "And they're faster than a rabbit!"  Another pause, this time with some thought going into the next comment.  "...but they're Not faster than Jesus!"

Day Two:  The skit for the night was all about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.  Moses was about three years my senior with a beard about 40 years my senior and a hat that refused to stay on his scalp.  But these were minor difficulties compared to the Angel of Death, whose presence was supposed to bring with it all those dark and empty feelings typically associated with Angels of Death. This was working pretty well, actually, what with the hollow sounding music, the grim reaper halloween costume and the snarls coming from the lady's lower jaw....Until.  Sally on row two saw the strange facial resemblance of the dreadful spectre and could not contain herself.  "Mom?!" she was clearly excited at the discovery. "It's my mom!!"

We can only wonder.  Was it really the facial features she noticed, or is Sally just used to this sort of behavior from her ancestors?

What happens when you chat and play Canasta simultaneously...

thetalkingmouse

disgrace

mutesquirrel*

W-wha-?

thetalkingmouse

epic disgrace

mutesquirrel

What? WHAT?

thetalkingmouse

oh, not you

I'm playing canasta

mutesquirrel

Oooh.

Are you failing? 

:[

thetalkingmouse

I just made the most epic failure of a move I've seen since john brown

mutesquirrel

Oh wow. Sad day.

And I had no idea you were around in John Brown's day.

Well, there's always the chance to recover, now isn't there?

thetalkingmouse

if there was, it left me a long time ago

mutesquirrel

Good gracious.

thetalkingmouse

and denny just discarded a six

mutesquirrel

You sound so angsty.

Well, um...boo, Denny?

thetalkingmouse

hahahaha

yes 

I've moved from the state of depression to the state of...   [:0]

mutesquirrel

WOAH.

thetalkingmouse

whatever that means

mutesquirrel

death.

It means...

At least your not to -->   [:#] stage yet.

*you're

I just broke my cardinal grammar pet peave rule.

thetalkingmouse

willi wonka takes every single card I discard

mutesquirrel

I think the world might end.

Um...

Baaad Willi Wonka.

Only I thought it was spelled WIlly Wonka?

thetalkingmouse

mmmmm.....

bad day for us both, I see

mutesquirrel

Uh-huh.

thetalkingmouse

well, that's Willy

this is Willi

mutesquirrel

Oh. Well. Um, hello to Willi, then.

thetalkingmouse

hehehehe

he would say hello, but he doesn't speak to strangers

mutesquirrel

Well, good for him. His Mummy taught him well.

I hope he doesn't take candy from them, either.

thetalkingmouse

he does, actually

mutesquirrel

I see some inconsistent behavior. He ought to go reevaluate his life.

thetalkingmouse

wonka is taking candy from me right now

that's the problem

mutesquirrel

Boo.

This conversation is so ripe with metaphors. It astounds me.

thetalkingmouse

all from a game of canasta too

I *told* you to play more canasta

but no, you wouldn't believe me

mutesquirrel

I wouldn't?

I don't remember refusing to play more canasta...

I just remember some very colorful words exchanged about the game of Presidents.

thetalkingmouse

ha!

well, denisovich just ended the game

fortunately

this also meant the momentary end of my misery

mutesquirrel

Good. It was sounding awfully tragic.

thetalkingmouse

much rejoicing.

mutesquirrel

Quite. I was beginning to worry for all of your sakes. Sounded like a very messed-up crew.

:]

I'm going to Nashville tomorrow!

W-w-woo.

My cousin is graduation; and even though you don't know him from Adam, you should be proud.

thetalkingmouse

Nashville!

spiffiness

mutesquirrel

Quite.

It's one of my favorites.

thetalkingmouse

wait....

your cousin "is graduation"?

mutesquirrel

oops.

thetalkingmouse

talk about metaphors

oh

mutesquirrel

graduating.

Well...

I mean...

thetalkingmouse

I am proud

mutesquirrel

He *could* be graduation himself.

I dunno...

He can be secretive at times

Good. I'll let WIll know.

Actually, I won't.

That would be highly odd.

thetalkingmouse

and I'm also proud of Adam, by way

mutesquirrel

Really? Why so?

Most people tend to thing he really messed things up...

thetalkingmouse

well....he *was* first

man....

don't you know your old testament

mutesquirrel

He didn't have any say in that, though, did he?

thetalkingmouse

just forgotten old texts to you, huh?

he was the only human saying anything, if I recall

mutesquirrel

Yep. Completely left them to the dust bunnies.

Huh?

Humans spoke a lot in the old texts, if I remember correctly.

thetalkingmouse

not when it was just Adam

mutesquirrel

Ohmigosh.

That's just silly.

thetalkingmouse

well...I must be back to another game of canaster

hopefully the result this time will be less tragic

mutesquirrel

And I need sleep for Nashville.

I hope so, too.

thetalkingmouse

thanks for keeping me entertained

mutesquirrel

You can't afford another Epic Fail.

thetalkingmouse

night!

mutesquirrel

Indeed! Night!

*This person's true identity has been blurred so as to prevent lawsuits and other frivolous action...

The Halbrooks Compound Expands (!)

The rumors are true.  While I was away in England, my family launched another campaign against the "good fences make good neighbors" types, and insodoing, increased the Halbrooks boundaries by 46%.  Hailed as our greatest territorial gain in some 30 years, I have attached a diagram to help explain the situation to the uninitiated:

(If that illustration does not explain the entire situation to you at first glance, you may want to have some words with Rand McNally, who labeled this drawing "the achievement of a lifetime").

Now, with one eye on the diagram (so wonderfully drawn by the artistic mastermind that lives in the basement), and one eye on this here text, follow me as I explound.  If you only have one eye, I apologize.  You are simply out of luck.

---

It was a cool, dim-lit April afternoon when it all started.  Higgins was frolicking in the backyard with imaginary sheep, Ma was knittin a new rug for the old chimney, Daddy Buck was talking to all of his relatives at the same time from inside Aunt Dee's car somewhere on 280 (via Skype), and Jenkins was raiding the local grocer for a bag of swedish fish.  But where was Pa?  As the old saying goes, "Pa does the fishin' where the wombat does the wishin'"  

And on this day, the saying was true.

With a can of his favorite carbonated fermented milk soft drink (melon flavoured) and a single vertebrae of a Camarasaurus, the neighbors were no match for his fury.  He paced the perimeter, slid through the loose gate, and waltzed into their living room with a maniacal set of facial features.  In less than 24 hours, the neighbors had all but fled the civilized world, and the house - well, the house was Ours.

---

No.  Sadly, that's not how it really happened.  But as the diagram clearly demonstrates, we *did* purchase the house behind ours, and we *did* knock down the fence in between our yards, and we *are* moving in this very weekend.  Only the gray area on the map is unconquered.  When we do take it over (which will only take a matter of time, if things continue as they have), it will become grazing land for all the sheep I ever wanted.  

That way, Higgins will no longer have to frolic among imaginary friends.

The First *Overwhelming* Experience...

That's right.  

I have returned to my goodly home in the states and have already felt the pangs of culture shock down my spinal column.  And of all the places: Moe's.

While Moe's Knows Burritos, Moe's does Not know how to keep a man who's spent the last four months in Europe as comfortable as he'd like.  Here's the deal:  I came back to the states the day before yesterseve and had a glorious reunion with my family, complete with Mexican food from Habeñeros, which I've been craving all this time (prior to that, I scarfed an o-so-tasty milkshake from Chick-fil-a, which I had not craved, but should have).  So far, all was good.  I was still resetting my circadian rhythm and getting used to the fact that I had four wheels I could put to use whenever and wherever, but other than that I was melding back into American culture like horse carrying a bucket with two stones and a bird.

Until.  

I showed up at Latimer House yesterday (not to be confused with Vladimir House) and Benji and I decided to head to Moe's for lunching and munching.  And lunch and munch we did, though I was, as they say, in fear and trembling.  Why?  I will attempt to explain.

When we walked in, I became aware of three things:

1. everyone there was caucasian, except for the one guy who was about to cook Ben's Phil E. ("the only decent thing on the menu," Jenkins informed me)

2. everyone said things like "y'all" and "corn-fritter"

the third revelation was the worst, though...

3.  I suddenly became aware that here, in the heart of Mountain Brook amongst fellow Moe's eaters, I could, at any moment run into any number of people who knew me.

This does not sound like something that should terrify a reasonable child past the age of 4.  However, you must understand.  Being in Europe with twelve other students for four months conditions you to know, on any given moment, where the other twelve are.  So when you go into a cafe with three of them, you know you'll never meet anyone else in that cafe again probably for the rest of your life.  Before long, this sense of invisibility becomes natural, and you never have to walk into a restaurant and look around to see if Jimbo-from-Middle-school had the idea to chaw a corndog at the same time you did.

At Moe's in Birmingham, Alabama, though, this whole unobtrusive stunt is foiled altogether.  Not only could Jimbo be sitting in the corner, some guy who knew you 12 years ago could pop outta nowhere and ask you why you haven't cut your hair in the past month and a half.  So you know, this proposition is enough to make a person with the same personality as Machiavelli cower in the shadows.  

So as soon as I ordered my Joey Bag of Donuts, that's exactly what I did.

Monkey Heads...

haHA!

And now, the joy of modern technology...even though I clearly posted all of the last seven posts today, I can change a few settings and make it look like I've been consistently posting for the past week and a half.  Victory is mine.

Internship Thoughts...

Dennis still has a long way to go, but it does seem that God is doing something powerful in his life.  I certainly hope so.  And he’s not the only one.  In the course of my time at ECCP, I met all sorts of uniquely challenged individuals – some more sociable than others, and some that just frankly disturbed me.  One elderly man told me once “You know what I’m looking for now?” No, what? “A young man that I can settle down with.”  I inched farther away on the couch.  A few weeks later, after I questioned him on this matter, he explained to me that he wasn’t really an old man.  He was an old woman.  That’s right.  I thought Bryan was male the entire time, but apparently his mother had him go through a sex change at the age of 4 without his knowing.  Confused his whole life about his gender, Bryan finally confronted his mother, who told him at age 50 that he wasn’t genetically a male.  You can begin to understand why these people never really felt like they belonged.  My heart goes out to them, and I’m both blessed and honored to have had the opportunity to experience this other aspect of London: the people on the “outskirts.”  I may never see Bryan or Carl or Dennis again, but I know they are in good hands at ECCP, and I can but pray that the gospel will break them and bring them eternal hope.

I don't think it takes much imagination to figure that these sort of people are everywhere.  The people "on the outskirts," I mean.  But more than that.  Perhaps you'll never get a chance to talk to those sort of people - you'll never get a chance to fill a bowl of pasta for a man that's been through drug-therapy twice this year.  Don't think that also means you won't get a chance to share love with people.  Anywhere you are, whether work or school or in the swimming pool on a hot summer day - there's more than likely someone who doesn't feel like they belong.  See to it that, as far as it is in your power, they do.  It will be well worth the effort.