A WOLF IN SHEEP’S…

As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. – Job

Back when I first began thinking about writing a blog, back before the Afghanistan trip, I sat with my friend, Doug, over lunch discussing my sense that I needed to communicate all that was about to happen in a way I had not quite been able to get my mind around. He listened and, after a thoughtful pause, said this to me: “You need to be completely yourself, honest and open, exploring and examining just as you have always done. If you’re not willing to do that in the blog, it probably won’t accomplish much.”

I have tried to do that. Perhaps to a fault. It started with my observations during the travels and has continued since then. It has been mostly freeing to approach this in that way. But at times it has been a burden as well. How much can I wisely share? Should I even concern myself with that? This is not the radio show, after all. And… When things are dark… What then?

Well?

How honest can one be when feeling the way through what seem like shadows, uncertain how to put it into words? There is the vulnerable aspect to this reality. There is also the side that requires a degree of delicateness out of concern and respect for others. So even as I write these words, unable to pretend things are not as they are, I move forward only because I know I don’t have to finish these thoughts or, if I do finish, I don’t have to post them on the blog. I can simply explore for a bit and then hit the delete key.

The other day I found myself sitting in the back of a courtroom waiting for the judge to come in and confront a man I would have, not that long ago, called a friend. Now I am not sure what he is. What I now know is that I do not (and apparently never did) know this man. He has been slipping through his days on at least two levels, only one that those of us around him could see. He had two faces. Two lives. One was that of a man with great gifts and an amazing heart. A man who was doing more good than most people. The other was shrouded in darkness. No one but him even knew about it. Well, possibly one other person had at least some idea, but it is beyond my ability to even speculate about that.

The hidden man is the man who was brought into the courtroom to stand before the judge. The hidden man is probably going to spend years in prison. The hidden man was the man I saw in court. The hidden life has been dragged into the light and it is not pretty. All of us that know (knew?) him are shocked.

I didn’t even want to come to observe. But when I found out that no one else I knew was planning to attend the hearing, I decided someone should be there. And so I went.

Later that night a friend called me and said he had seen me on television. When the hidden man walked out of the courtroom I was standing off to the side in the hallway wondering whether I should greet him before he was taken away. There was a television camera there to catch him as he was led away. His story is the sort the media like to pursue. The cameraman had connected a bright light to the top of the camera and it came on as the hidden man walked out of a shadow in the doorway and into the flood of light. The camera caught me and another bystander for just an instant. The hidden man looked away.

I can’t imagine he ever meant to start down such a path as this. Now people have been hurt. Lives have been upended.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.” Job said of the Lord, “He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light.”

Now, listen to this… Before all of this, several days before, my wife, Lucy, told me she had had a dream. She often has silly dreams, like we all do. But this dream had really disturbed her. She told me she had dreamed she was in a house, not ours but a place that seemed strangely familiar. She was there taking care of some children. And as she walked down a hallway at night after tucking the youngest of the kids into bed, she saw something black and unclear dart around a corner. She felt suddenly panicked. She realized what she had seen was a wolf. It had gotten into the house somehow and was on the prowl. The rest of the dream involved her trying to protect the children from the wolf, get them out of the house to a safe place. As happens in dreams, she couldn’t get to the children fast enough. She woke up terribly upset.

Good vs. evil. Often we get to coast along through life not thinking much about that battle. But it does rage on all around us every day.

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

WINE, PAIN MEDS AND WRITING COMMANDO

A few things to begin…

- We got Jack out of the hospital into rehab this past weekend.

- My nephew Luke got a job. Two, actually. He was up almost as early as me to get off to work today.

- I was completely out of clean underwear today so I’m writing in my bathrobe while the laundry dries. (I know…more information than you needed.)

I have had trouble keeping up with life the past few weeks (past few years, actually) but with my father-in-law hopefully on the mend Lucy and I may see things get back to something resembling a normal schedule. It is possible, though I’m now giving up several hours per week for some rehab of my own as my shoulder is now so screwed up I have had to start taking some pretty strong pain pills. They help a little. Mostly they just make me want to sleep. I slept 12 hours Friday night. More surprising than that was my sleeping through almost all of the Broncos’ game yesterday afternoon. I woke up in time to see the win and then my wife and I hurried off to a dinner engagement we had committed to attend. We had a great evening.

Coupla things I want to mention before I forget…

First: If you ever come across an Argentinean wine made with the Malbec grape, try it. The dinner last night included a wine tasting to raise funds for an educational project we support. One of the wines being poured was made from Malbec. It is one of the six grape varieties approved for making red wines in the Bordeaux region of France but is apparently best grown in Argentina. In Bordeaux, Malbec is used like a chef would use a spice. It is blended with other wines and it makes up a very small percentage of the blend. If you can find an Argentinean label you may find the purer Malbec.

Second: The Malbec was fine with the food, but I would not recommend it unless the Vicoden you are taking for your shoulder pain has worn off completely. Apparently it had not. We were the first to leave.

Slept great again last night.

Today no underwear.

I’m heading over to the torture guy (a.k.a. physical therapist) in a little while. But before leaving I wanted to finish reading my friend Rick the Scribe’s book. I wrote a few posts ago about Rick’s book. He wrote most of it in about a week. You would never know. It is quite good. When it is published and shipped I’ll give the details here on the blog. I especially liked that he mentioned me in the acknowledgements. I look good in print. He might not have done that had he known I occasionally write my blogs sans undies.

Gotta go, but first wanted to share a picture I took while in Spokane a couple weeks ago visiting my son. This is Brandon playing his guitar. He played for me for about an hour one day while I was there. I had forgotten how much I enjoy hearing his music in our home.



(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

HOSPITAL OBSERVATIONS

Health is not valued till sickness comes. – Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654–1734)

This morning I was riding down the elevator in the hospital where my father-in-law has been this past week. Sharing my elevator was a nurse who got on at the second floor. Obstetrics. I had come down from the 5th floor, where the cardiac patients are kept. We were heading for the ground floor, destination…the cafeteria.

She said to me, “I hope they haven’t closed yet.” I told her we still had five minutes. She said, “Oh, do you work here?” I said, no, I don’t, but hang around here long enough and you get to know the rhythms of the place.

My father-in-law, at 84, is struggling with the weight of the years. Her floor deals with the opposite end of life.

I wandered through there a couple days ago, looking through the windows of a room where they keep the premature babies in little see-through plastic cribs under what look like heat lamps. They are tiny, struggling for their shot at life. A beginning.

Last night outside the main entrance I saw a woman sitting on a wooden bench, staring out into the darkness. In her eyes was the weight of her burden, her concern. I have seen her wandering the halls inside. She has someone on the 5th floor, too.

On the other side of the main entrance, about 20 feet to the south, was another woman. She was wearing a hospital gown. She had come outside to smoke a cigarette.

As I walk past her on my way back into the hospital I remember reading somewhere that the broadcast report (on CBS Radio) of the news of Edward R. Murrow’s death from lung cancer was followed by a cigarette commercial.

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

BIGGER THINGS

Take care of the moments and the years will take care
of themselves. – Maria Edgeworth

Sometimes you’re plodding along caught up in the middle of the work week, eyes on the path immediately before you, when all of a sudden something whacks you upside the head or trips you up or blocks your path, causing you to screech to a halt and spin around trying to orient yourself, suddenly aware of the surrounding landscape. Whoa. How’d I get here? Sometimes you don’t even have to leave your house or get out of your car to realize you aren’t going where you thought you were going.

I had been conversing with my friend, Richard the Sage, attempting to solve the problems of the world (safely removed from most of them at the time) while sipping a café mocha at a bookstore/coffee shop. Properly caffeinated I then met up with Lucy as she ran a few errands. That’s when her phone rang. Next thing I knew we were hurrying to a hospital where her father was being treated in the ER.

Heart trouble.

Metaphorically speaking that malady is running at epidemic levels through the human race, but his is the literal sort of heart trouble that lands you in the hospital.

It was midnight before we got home. Then I was up at 5 getting ready for the radio show and am now back at the hospital hanging out with Jack, tubes and electrodes stuck in and to his person, talking when he wants to talk, just sitting quietly across the room when he doesn’t. He is not happy, but he is looking a little better today. That’s a hopeful sign. One of the medical team just stopped in and Jack’s first words were, “when do I get to go home?” He’s no fan of hospitals. Who is? We don’t check in because we want to.

My father died in a hospital not much different from this one eight years ago. Almost exactly eight years ago. The anniversary of his death was 4 days ago. I still miss him. For me the world will never be quite what it was before that day. Yes, it is filled with wonder and beauty and I am more blessed than I’ve a right to be but still, once he left, it changed, became less than it had been.

So we’re spending another day in the hospital. Where else would I be? My wife is here. She would not be anywhere else right now. She could not be. So why would I be?

Every day of our lives we make decisions about what is important. Everything we are, everything we have been, all the things that have happened to us, who we know, how we’ve been wounded, how we’ve been loved, what we believe; all this comes into play when we make our decisions. What will I do with my life today? How will I treat people? Am I reflecting what I believe?

I’m reading a book by Rob Bell in which he wrote these words: “I’m convinced having compassion is a better way to live.” The book is a story of the search for truth. That can look a lot of different ways, but deep down, everyone believes something. We are all believers. He says everyone is pursuing something. Everyone follows somebody. He is trying to follow Christ. He says it is about compassion, peace, truth telling and generosity.

My friend, Richard the Sage, said to me yesterday (in a paraphrase of something Einstein once said), “When you look at yourself, something inside informs you that there are bigger and better things to think about.”


(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)