Brad's Blog

NEW BLOG SITE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:02:00 +0000

I am now posting my blogs at the following link:

STUDIO949.COM

Please click on the link and then bookmark the new site.

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GRILLING RIBS

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:32:00 +0000

"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

My friend, Richard the Sage, has invited us over to dinner at his place. He’ll be grilling his famous ribs. Well, not his ribs. I imagine he’ll be keeping those. But he does have a way with ribs on the grill. I can attest to this personally as last summer Lucy and I had an opportunity to spend an evening at his dinner table feasting on ribs and some tasty but unnecessary side dishes (I say unnecessary because, once you have tasted Richard’s ribs, there is little reason to turn your taste buds to anything else on the table – except for, perhaps, the wine).

My mother is here visiting and so the Sage was kind enough to include her in the invitation. I have bragged to her about his ribs, explaining that she has a true gastronomic festival to look forward to, particularly since she is something of a gastronome herself. I had an email from Richard this afternoon asking me whether my mother has any particular food aversions he should be aware of. (My wife tells me that it is proper to ask such a question anytime you invite someone to dinner as food allergies are all too common these days.) I assured him that she, like everyone in my family, will eat most anything. We Behans are all enthusiastic eaters. We eat freely and we eat often. So far as I can remember, in my entire lifetime I cannot recall anyone in the family ever taking a bite of something, grabbing their throat and keeling over onto the floor.

I even eat sushi. I realize for some people the thought of raw fish is disgusting but I have always contended that most of the revulsion surrounding certain exotic foods is purely psychological and that most anyone could overcome the mental block with the help of a dollop or two of wasabi and a couple dozen hours on the couch of a good therapist. A glass of good sake can also be helpful (presuming there is such a thing as good sake). Perhaps the only food difficult for me to enjoy is the stuff they had the nerve to serve up in some of the London pubs we visited. I had so looked forward to experiencing pub food in England, but after three days of it we’d had enough. This is a nation that serves baked beans with scrambled eggs.

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
- Fran Lebowitz

A few years ago a chef friend of mine prepared a fantastic multi-course meal for Lucy’s birthday. I had surprised her by inviting four or five couples over and having chef Walt show up with enough ingredients to satisfy a small city. During the salad course, Walt brought in plates of greens arranged around a certain fish. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we had all tried it and expressed agreement that it was delicious. Then he went around the table asking everyone to guess what sort of fish we were eating. The fifth or sixth guess nailed it: eel. Smoked eel, actually. At that point a couple of our friends put down their forks and refused to take another bite. They loved it until they found out what it was.

Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Oscar Levant

REALIZATION

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:00:00 +0000

I had another weird dream last night. I woke up in the middle of the night gripped with fear. I realized with striking clarity that... Doom had slipped into the bedroom under cover of darkness and wrapped itself around me while I slept and ever so slowly began to squeeze me like a constricting serpent, a python or a boa. There was no escape. It had me. It spoke evenly, without inflection. It said this to me:

You are doomed.

And, though it was hidden beneath a dark cloak it did not bother to remove, I knew it was telling the truth. There was no escape.

I pulled on a robe and found my way downstairs, Doom following me like a shadow. I clicked on a lamp, plopped into a chair and stared across the room at Oswald Chambers lying on the coffee table. He was next to Tozer and Chesterton.

The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.

Hmm.

Then I really did wake up, still in bed, but seeing light sneaking in through the shutters. Doom was nowhere in sight, but I got up and checked around anyway, just to make sure. I was thinking, I should go climb a mountain...chuck it all for one day, climb on the dirt bike, ride it to where the road ends in a steep canyon, and start walking, one step at a time, to the top. Then I remembered Chesterton on the coffee table:

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

So instead of chucking it all, I made a cappuccino and wandered out into the cool morning air.

A little later, after I had finished a production session in the studio, I was talking with a friend about all the things going on and the things that are no longer going on when it occurred to me that I have not missed doing the radio show even once since that ended last October. In fact, there was/is the sense of a burden being lifted; a burden I was aware of over the past few years but not one I was willing to fully recognize. Most days I still enjoyed doing the show, mostly, but there was also the weight of something that was often an unpleasant reality I could not escape. There was a shallowness to it all that was wearing me down. Driving up from Colorado Springs to Denver last Friday evening I had one of those moments where it was almost as if I were observing myself from an objective distance and, in the observation was the knowledge that I like myself (or at least my life) more now than I have in a long time.

I shouldn’t be writing here on the blog today. I am on a deadline with the book that looms large this week as next week I will be getting very busy with a new project. I can’t really know what it will be like to take on some new work and still being trying to finish the proposal for the agent to shop so I am trying to wrap up the writing by the end of the month.

I have never been good at steering clear of distractions.

SLEEP

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:04:00 +0000

Woke up feeling like someone had pounded on my chest all night. I spent the night hacking and coughing so today I’m calling in sick. No one to call, though, since I am... What am I? Entrepreneurially engaged? Creatively caught up? Poorly prepared? Professionally perplexed? In any event, I am my own boss, more or less, so the only one to call in sick to is me and, frankly, I’m too ill to pick up the phone. Besides, I have caller ID. I’d see that it was me. Wouldn’t want to answer the phone only to have to listen to someone complain about how bad they feel.

Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.

**

Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.

NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.

MOTHERS DAY ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 13 May 2008 05:07:00 +0000

It was one of those rare mornings when weather moved in off the mountains while it was still dark, the rain arriving before dawn and thunder rumbling in to wake us before the alarm clock clicked on. That doesn’t happen often. Generally it is the warmth the sun generates in the afternoon hours, heating the air at the lower elevations that then races upward, cooling in the atmosphere over the 14-thousand foot peaks, creating massive, towering cumulous cloud banks that then carry their energy eastward out over the front range and the eastern plains. Springtime and summertime see fairly regular afternoon storm activity, but storms in the early morning almost never materialize.

So this morning was a treat.

Tomorrow morning a golf tourney fundraiser is being held at the course near my home to benefit the Young Life organization. How could I say no? I golf once or twice a year whether I want to or not and the format is a scramble so most of my bad shots won’t effect the score and my rare good shots will be the only ones that follow me into the clubhouse.

Life should be so full of forgiveness.

I just realized there is an amazing metaphor for grace in there.

**

Days later...

Somehow Monday has arrived once again and I have a fairly open calendar meeting-wise but lots to accomplish in the studio. I ground some fresh Kona coffee and had a nice talk with Brandon before getting swept into the current. This quick attempt to post something on the blog is a bit of an unjustifiable diversion from that current.

We took Lucy on a Mother’s Day picnic yesterday, driving up to an overlook I stumbled upon last year just a few thousand feet down the slope from Mt. Evans. I had been wanting to take Lucy and Brandon there. The spot we picked to celebrate her was out on the edge of the world, tucked into a crook in the mountain where a stone wall juts out as a protection against the 300 foot drop off and the wall of granite that backs the spot protected us from any high altitude wind that might have swept down from the peak. The sun was warm and the food was good and the time together was so sweet.

HOPE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:38:00 +0000

I hold a candle in the corner
Swat at the darkness with the light
- Amanda Leggett

Monday morning. My planner and a steaming hot cappuccino in front of me, the forecast calling for mid-70s, and an early shift in attitude toward a focus on the possible. Horizons of the possible, as Andy Crouch would say.

I’ve been listening to a CD project by Amanda Leggett, an artist who sang at the symposium in Austin last month. I love her sound: soulful, bluesy. And her lyrics: powerful poetry that has a transparently honest, raw depth to it. As darkness presses our hearts at night – to miss the morning’s increasing light – from blackened worlds we perceive your light – we see you.

She sings of a secret we barely know that pulls us from the undertow.

I often feel this intense thirst to know more, to understand more; yet even the mere glimpse of understanding of the mystery is enough to sustain me for another day, another week, another year. I was talking with Lucy recently about this feeling of encouragement that is clearly not circumstantial. It is its disconnectedness from worldly circumstances that encourages me more than if I could connect it to actual circumstance, to material offering. It serves to affirm my hope in the promises and the constant character of the one who redeems.

I hold a candle in the corner
Swat at the darkness with the light
I hold it ‘till it gets me warmer
‘Til it corrects my fitful sight
- Amanda Leggett

MAKING A STATEMENT

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:44:00 +0000

"It’s a question of discipline, the little prince told me later on. “When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Ahh...so true.

And here we sit, having washed and dressed and already seen half a day slip away, just me and the Mac, trying to come to terms with the to-do list in time to do the to-dos before the clock strikes 5. Or 6, since part of my task list involves the left-coast time zone and that buys me sixty minutes or possibly ninety depending on when they punch out over there. Never-the-less the clock ticks and tocks incessantly as I ponder the remaining notations in my planner and pause long enough to check the weather on-line to see whether the readings match what seems to be true when I wander out onto the deck and think to myself...whoa, it’s way too nice out here to be in there.

But in here I am, my responsibility gene getting the better of me. Sometimes tending one’s planet requires one to stay indoors. So I do. That’ll make Lucy and the little prince happy. I even managed to get a load of laundry done, something I had not even put on the list.

Springtime in Colorado is not an easy time to spend days indoors, as the landscape is transformed into a beautiful, inviting playground, the warmer temperatures luring us out to play, not work. And while I may be partial to this part of the world, spring manages to transform even the drier, less seasonal areas of the world. Wayne, a blog reader and former listener to the radio show, snapped these pictures in his desert garden just a few days apart.

It has been said that springtime is the land awakening, nature’s way of saying, “let’s party!”

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. – Charlesworth

FLIP FLOPS

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:49:00 +0000

I received an email from Margo, a nice woman who reads this blog, telling me (nicely) she couldn’t help but notice I’ve only been writing for this page about once a week lately. It is true. But in my defense, I have been very busy with work that actually pays. Not that getting paid for something necessarily elevates it above other activities one should be attending to but it does help with those annoying little bills that arrive every month. It also helps with the big bills.

The past two days, for instance, found me working in my studio close to 12 hours each day. And I still have more to do. There’s the B&B Show every day. I have a couple of show podcasts still in need of editing before I can put them on the Website. I have some voiceover work waiting for me, and I have some film audio I’m still working on for the morning show. There’s also a project I’m working on in my spare time for my pastor and a script I’m trying to finish.

Excuses, excuses.

So should the blog continue to exist? Where should this fall in the priority list?

I have this mental image of myself. I’m wearing flip flops and a tropical shirt. I’m sitting at a table just inside a doorway off a covered porch. The door is open and outside the fronds of the palm trees lining the porch are swaying to and fro in a gentle breeze blowing off the sea. I’m writing in a notebook but I’m thinking about taking a nap. Or a walk. I move toward neither inclination at a nice slow pace.

It’s just a mental image but it seems to fit more comfortably than 12 hour days in the studio.

Einstein is quoted as saying, “If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

And then there is this, from Bob Dylan: “What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

I think I’ll take a walk.

In my flip flops.

**
(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

CAPTURED MOMENTS

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:22:00 +0000

It has been said a picture is worth a thousand words.

Today we’ll let the pictures do (most of) the talking.

I have captured many moments with this old camera. Examples below.

**

Taken from a bridge spanning the river Maas in The Netherlands

Outside our hotel in Maastricht

Taken just outside my studio window

A meadow high in the Rocky Mountains

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
–Huxley

A great climb

A great day in Central Park

A great dog

A great scene

A great father-in-law

A great wife

Great truth

SECRET ADMIRER?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:40:00 +0000

On the radio show this morning I mentioned something I had read that surprised me. Supposedly, 15% of women in the United States send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. I find that a little hard to believe. Not that there would be anything wrong with doing that. Though I would imagine it could lead to some fabrication.

Imagine you’ve sent yourself a dozen roses at your office. The delivery person comes to drop them off. The other folks at work would have a hard time not noticing the beautiful bouquet. As they pass by your desk they can’t help but be curious so they ask the obvious question, “those are so beautiful...who sent them?”

What do you say then?

I was thinking you’d be tempted to lie. I mean, come on, sending yourself flowers is one thing. Admitting you sent yourself flowers...well, I was thinking that would be a bit embarrassing.

Our producer, Mrs. Grant, came up with a way around the need for prevarication in such circumstances.

CLICK HERE if you’d like her help with that potentially awkward situation.

(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

SURPRISE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:06:00 +0000

Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.
- Czech Proverb

Unbeknownst to me, my wife has been sneaking around. I had no idea. I was stunned. She had never done anything like this before so I was caught completely off guard. I was blindsided, just as she had planned.

She threw me a surprise birthday party.

We walked into a restaurant after church Sunday ostensibly to meet a friend for lunch. Sort of a spur of the moment get together. We walked in and my wife got to the hostess before me and said something I couldn’t hear. The hostess then walked us through the restaurant toward the back where we turned a corner into a private room filled with a few dozen friends all waiting to surprise me. And surprise me they did. I was floored. It was wonderful.

It was a bit crowded in the room so people had to squeeze in to fit around the tables. Still, it was great. I looked around at all the friends and wondered at my good fortune.

Jay Leno once said, “Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren’t bad people; they’re just acquaintances.” I believe everyone gathered for the party would not only drive me to the airport (because, after all, that might only mean they are anxious to get rid of me) but would also pick me up upon my return.

(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 22:21:00 +0000

Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.
- Mason Cooley

My PDA crashed.

If you don’t carry a PDA, perhaps you cannot know the seriousness of my situation. If you do, you no doubt feel my pain.

Once a person inputs all of ones days into the PDA, adds the contact information for every person one has ever known and synchronizes and backs up all that information, there is no turning back. A PDA is only slightly less than a flesh-and-blood life coach. Properly maintained it tells you what steps to take, when to take them, which direction those steps should fall and it provides phone numbers and addresses for all those you might need to call while on the journey. It even grabs all your email for you if you tell it to. It can hold family pictures. It can tell you your flight and hotel confirmation numbers. It can remind you what you need at the grocery store, what books you want from the library, which movies you want to rent... Mine would even talk to me (though I never figured out how to get it to do that). At least it used to do all that. Now it is gone. And for the past couple days I have been clumsily attempting to stay on track without it. It hasn’t been pretty.

The good news is, today (after an appropriate 48 hour mourning period) I went out and bought a new one. The new PDA is at this moment plugged into the wall receiving its initial charge. I have two more hours until I can set it up and get on with my life.

Two hours. I can wait. Really. I can.

I’d twiddle my thumbs but I’m typing.

From where I sit writing these words into my Mac I can hear the clock on the landing at the top of the stairs ticking. Tick, tick, tick tick tickticktickticktick. Time passes slowly when you’re waiting for your PDA to charge up for the first time. Two more hours and I can plug it into the computer and transfer my life into its memory. Until then, I sit. I wait.

It has been said the hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure. I never have liked that clock. It used to chime every hour on the hour until I opened up the back of it and removed some of its innards. Now it just ticks.

The Irish playwright Dion Boucicault once said, “Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.” Fun guy, Dion. I’ll bet he was the life of the party. Bet he never had a PDA crash on him. In fact, I’m sure of it. He died more than a-hundred years ago. Time finally killed him.

I have so much to do. Can’t wait to get started.

One hour and 58 minutes to go.

**
A long time ago, back when I started doing my first morning radio show and found it difficult to get going so early each day, someone told me a mousetrap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep.

I prefer the subtle electronic chirp of a PDA alarm.

(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

LIGHT SOURCE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 00:02:00 +0000

I had lunch today at a little Greek taverna where a few years ago on a warm summer evening Lucy and I dined on the patio under the stars. It was a great night. Today I took a table just inside the door, directly under a speaker in the ceiling playing preposterously tragic Hellenic ballads. It was late for having lunch so the place was empty except for a swarthy-looking guy behind the bar and a short, friendly, plump woman who brought my menu and waited on me. She was obviously enjoying the music as she turned it up after seating me, smiling from across the room to get my approval of the increased volume. I didn’t mind, though given the tone and drama of the music I half expected the chef to come stumbling out of the kitchen covered in tzatziki sauce, a rotisserie spike sticking out of his chest and a note from his lover clutched in his hand telling him she was running away with the busboy and a plate of spanakopita.

With rotisserie on my mind, I ordered gyros.

I hadn’t eaten Greek since the five hours I spent in Greece in August. That was the trip that found me, between Kuwait and Albania, unexpectedly hiking up the Acropolis. I had dined in Dubai after my “escape” from Afghanistan, caught a two a.m. flight that took me to Athens via Kuwait, and found I had just enough time before my Olympic Air flight to Tirana to do some sightseeing. So I grabbed a taxi, hiked up to the Parthenon, took a bunch of pictures and grabbed an espresso and a plate of dolmathes in the city before heading back to the airport.

After all I had been through the ten days before, upon landing in Athens I almost convinced myself I was too tired to do anything but find a place to lie down in the airport and sleep. Imagine. I could have missed the Parthenon and the dolmathes.

I think it was about halfway up the steep, rocky hillside of the Acropolis that my heart nearly burst open, all the emotion, all the gratitude nearly spilling out and flowing like a river back down the hill. I stopped my ascent long enough to snap some photos of the whitewashed neighborhoods and the city spread out below, stretching all the way to the Mediterranean sea on the horizon. I could just make out a cruise ship floating on that distant blue. The beauty was so brilliant I couldn’t take it all in. After the dust and desolation of the Afghan countryside, the light and warmth of Greece was nearly too much. I had been just 24 hours before in the middle of a war-scarred land. The contrast between dark and light was arresting.

Isn’t it always?

I remember one time years ago flying out of a blizzard in Chicago on a non-stop to Hawaii. I began the day in a dark, cold storm and ended it on a beach watching a golden sun sink into the ocean, leaving the horizon painted with deep orange and red hues.

Climatic redemption in less than 12 hours, the light and warmth pouring down on everything. If only I could carry that with me back home...

Of course, spend enough time face turned toward the sun and you will carry it with you even in the darker places; like the light of the full moon rising into a night sky, its brilliance really only a reflection of the source of light.

(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

A CLOSE SHAVE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:27:00 +0000

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. - Anonymous

I was driving along the freeway heading to a meeting yesterday when I happened to glance over at the guy in the car next to mine. We were both traveling at 60 miles per hour in fairly heavy traffic.

He was shaving.

Not with an electric razor. He was shaving with a blade. He was dry shaving at 60 miles per hour on an eight-lane freeway at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

Coupla thoughts...

First off, if you’ve made it to two o’clock in the afternoon without shaving, why bother? Take the rest of the day off.

Second...dry shaving is, well, tricky even when you are standing in front of your bathroom mirror, let alone when you are driving at freeway speeds in a Jaguar sedan.

Third, where do the whiskers go?

And get this... This morning as I was getting ready for the radio show, I came across a survey that found almost all of us do things we probably shouldn’t do when we drive. My thing is talking on the phone. My car is more of a mobile phone booth than a mode of transportation. I get in the car and generally dial a number even before I pull the shift lever into drive. I get more done behind the wheel than most people do at the office. My wife even bought me a Blue Tooth thingy so I could talk hands free. I haven’t been able to make it work, but I put it in my ear anyway just to look cool.

(By the way, why do they call it a “blue tooth?” You stick it in your ear. Perhaps if you stuck it in your mouth... Why would you put a tooth of any color in your ear? What’s with the body part moniker? Why not a blue kidney or a blue spleen? “Hey, I hate to be the one to tell you, but you have a spleen stuck in your ear. It’s blue. You might want to remove that.”)

Anyway, the survey I read said seventy-three percent of people talk on the phone when they drive, so I have a lot of company. Sixty-eight percent of people say they eat when they drive. I don’t do that. 19% fix their hair. I don’t have enough hair to fix. There’s no fixing what’s left. And get this... 2% shave. Jaguar guy is not the only one.

So go ahead and shave.

But remember, while it takes around 8,000 bolts to hold together an automobile, it takes just one nut to scatter it all over the road.

(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

WRITER'S BLOCK

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:36:00 +0000

A friend once said this: To overcome writer's block just sit down and pound on the keys.

Q;oidhf nkqfow hwqdf hwefiuopqefufeh poiwdhf fdoo

Well, that didn’t work.

ADDING TO THE BEAUTY

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:12:00 +0000

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses. – Lao Tzu

We too often walk about with our heads so full of the day we miss the beautiful little moments. I do this. Just now while I was working on a story I am writing my son came in and interrupted me in the middle of a thought. I was momentarily annoyed. Until I noticed the red-rimmed eyes. He had been touched so deeply by something he had tears in his eyes and he wanted to share it with me. What else is there than that? A son coming to his father to share his heart.

Hit the brakes. Turn off the engine. Get out of the car. Stop the world. Pay attention.

A few days ago, at the start of the vacation I’m on now I stood on a hillside as the snow was falling on Colorado; big flakes settling silently on the landscape and on my clothing. For a few minutes as the snow fell into my world everything else fell away, all the junk that has been necessarily occupying my mind and distracting my attention. The more snow that fell, the more silent the world became, all the noise being muffled in the blanket of white, swallowed up. And for those moments I was mesmerized, caught up in the beauty.

On this thought train I was reflecting back on what my friend Rick the Scribe wrote in his latest book about lugging his stuff across the parking lot into his office building day after day, eyes on the pavement rather than on the “wild, craggy beauty” of the east slope of the Rocky Mountains just west of where he parks his car. When he takes a moment to listen he hears a voice say, Rick, take your eyes off the asphalt. Look up and into the beauty. Let your eyes rest for a moment on my beauty.

I wrote earlier this year about the idea of finding the art in the everyday, and took that thought a bit further suggesting we look for the artist. Sometimes when we tune in and open our eyes we even get to glimpse the heart of the artist.

A couple days before leaving on this vacation I was following my friend Walt as he maneuvered his car into a parking spot outside a grocery store where he was picking up a few things. In the car with him was his 18-year-old son, Ryan. I pulled my car into the next slot behind him. I switched off the engine and watched Walt get out of his car and walk around to the back where he opened up the trunk. He reached in with both hands and wrestled out Ryan’s wheelchair. I joined him as he unfolded the chair and wheeled it around to the passenger side where Ryan had already shoved open his door and was waiting for his dad to position the chair so that he could slide from the car seat to the chair. I instinctively reached down to help the boy, when Walt held his hand out to stop me saying, “no, Ryan can handle this part.” I watched Ryan use the arm and hand which have good strength and fair motion to pull himself up out of the car and into the chair, his legs dragging into position under him. Then he looked up at me with his great smile I see so often, making it clear he was glad I had joined him and his dad on this outing. I walked alongside as Walt wheeled him into the store.

I have been privileged the past few years of my life to see my friend Walt pour love out on Ryan. He and his wife adopted Ryan as a newborn from Korea and found out a few weeks after receiving the infant that the child had cerebral palsy. It was hard news to hear. It had quickly become clear the adoption agency had not been entirely truthful. Did he have it in him to be the father of a boy with such special needs? Should he even try? Should he send him back? And what future would the infant have if he returned him?

Then, a few nights after finding out the truth, he woke suddenly in the early morning hours. He couldn’t sleep for the burden on his heart and the worry in his mind. It probably wasn’t the first such night since finding out the truth, but on this particular night something came into his mind that would not go away. A verse from the 82nd Psalm. He didn’t even know the verse. Had never heard it or read it before. But there it was, loud and clear in his mind. Defend the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Over the past four years or so that I have known Walt, I have watched him with Ryan, watched his tenderness, his commitment. Over and over again I have thought to myself how clear it is that God Himself brought Ryan to Walt, and gave Walt the heart to be that boy’s father.

Sara Groves wrote a song called “Add to the Beauty." It talks of our opportunity to add to the beauty of God’s creation. She sings…

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces,
calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
Shine with the light
that’s burning up inside

And this is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace, an invitation

**
(To send Brad an email: click on his photo at the top right of this web page and then click “email.”)

LESSONS FROM MAGGIE THE DOG

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:55:00 +0000

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
– Henry Ward Beecher

The other day I met with my friend, Rick the Scribe, for our once-a-month discussion over coffee and told him I was feeling a bit weary lately and was nearly consumed with a strong urge to run away to a remote, tropical beach somewhere for a few months. If I could only slip away to such a spot for awhile… Take long walks on the sand and the occasional invigorating swim in the open sea. Drop onto a cot or beach chair for several naps a day. Slow down. Think. Pray. Read. Watch the tide come in and go out. Listen to the waves.

But who has the time? There is the work to be done. Always the work.

Rick reminded me of a 3 day retreat he took this past summer to a Benedictine monastery high in a canyon in the mountains near Aspen. You don’t have to be a monk to hang out there. You just call ‘em up, make a reservation, and check in like you would at a hotel. He says it is a beautiful spot, and quiet. (It is a silent monastery, so the only thing you hear most of the day is the occasional breeze singing through the trees.) He suggested it might be easier to swing a two or three-day break there than three months on an island.

Imagine a guy who talks on the radio for a living spending several days in a place where you have to be silent. I’m considering it.

Although there’s probably no need to go to such an extreme.

There is this spot on the carpet in our living room – just below the window that looks out onto the lawn and large evergreen tree on the south side of our home – where the sun shines in during the mid-morning. This time of year, with the sun far south on the horizon, its warm rays break in below the higher branches of the tree, falling onto a place about three feet square on the carpet between the window seat and the coffee table. If you were to be standing in the entryway of our home and happened to glance into that room you might have the urge, on a cold winter morning, to lie down in that space to rest for awhile.

Our dog, Maggie, used to do that. After a long lifetime of blessing our home with her sweet spirit, she passed away a few years ago. I still think of her every time I see the sun warming that spot. No matter what else was going on in the house, if the sun was shining onto that place on the floor she would seek it out and place herself in the middle of it, soaking up its warmth.

In the 16th century Copernicus took up the then controversial position that the Sun itself was the center of the universe. He said one could not deny it when one considered the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole universe. In the face of those who came out in opposition to his certainty he said they should face the facts with both eyes open.

Maggie would usually close her eyes when she was basking in the sun, at peace, content. She wasn’t one to be drawn into a debate about the position of the sun. She would simply go in search of it and when she found it she would curl up in it and she would rest. It was a transcendent thing.

I suppose that is what I am really talking about…seeking the son and finding peace there.

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

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:44:00 +0000

I just finished opening a pile of mail. Lucy usually does the mail thing but I am home this afternoon and had taken a walk up and down the hillsides around our home to get some fresh air and as I arrived back home the mailman was just driving away so I thought to stop and clean out the box. Some bills, of course, along with a bit of junk mail and a few Christmas cards. They have begun to come in larger numbers each day, each day reminding me that we need to get started on ours.

The cards that arrived yesterday were still on the table in the entryway and I put the new arrivals down in the same spot, pausing to look at some of the pictures friends had sent of their families. I noticed, next to some of the cards, a small, attractive little picture frame holding a picture of a nice-looking couple and their two children. I had no idea who they were. This happens sometimes. I will stare at a Christmas card family picture for a good long time doing my best to recognize a face and remember a name but it won’t come to me. Lucy will come in and pick it up and say, “Oh, honey, I can’t believe you don’t remember them. That is Roland and Gertrude Frankentoot and their kids, Conrad and Brenda. Remember, Roland was my college roommate’s sister’s uncle’s father’s cousin from Baltimore. You met them five years ago when we ran into them in the airport in Paris. Surely you remember?”

Umm…yeah. Sure.

But I don’t and she can’t believe it and so when I saw this picture next to all the other cards I was determined to figure it out on my own before she came in and had to tell me. I spent several moments looking at it, even carrying it over to a window where the light was better. I was thinking that whoever sent this had gone to a lot of trouble, mailing it in a little frame and all. It was at this point my wife came in and asked me what I was looking at. I was determined to at least take a guess so I held up the framed picture and said, “Isn’t this that family in Seattle we always hear from at Christmas?” Lucy came over, looked at the picture, and started to laugh. She said, “Honey, that is the picture that came with the frame. I got the frame yesterday and just haven’t had a chance to put one of our pictures in it.” And then I noticed, in tiny little print at the bottom of the photo, the words, “Place Photo Here – © 2006 Hallmark Cards.”

I’m making an appointment with the optometrist.

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

GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:31:00 +0000

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more."  - Dr. Seuss

Today is St. Nicholas Day.

What’s that?

I’m glad you asked.

St. Nicholas Day is the day when (according to tradition) Santa calls his doctor to get his Valium prescription refilled. Hey, you try flying to billions of homes around the world in one night, dragging that bag of toys through airport security. Talk about stress.

No, St. Nicholas Day is the day (according to tradition) kids hang up their stockings. It’s true. I didn’t know that either. We jumped the gun and hung our stockings last week when we decorated the house. Actually, I should have said when my wife decorated the house. I sort of didn’t help Lucy at all this year. But I have an excuse. I was out of town when she got the urge to transform the house from the fall decorations to the Christmas decorations. While she was hanging garland all over the place, I was sitting at Sky Harbor International waiting for a flight. Oh the joy of returning to our home to find it dressed for the season. There is garland over the fireplace mantle. There is garland on the bookshelves. There is garland wrapping the banister and the railing atop the stairs. I expected to find garland stuffed into my sock drawer.

There are already gifts under the tree.

Where do they come from? I haven’t even begun to shop. What is it they say? Christmas is the season when you buy this year’s gifts with next year’s money. It is the time of year we join the rest of civilization in the venerable tradition of trying to find a place to park at the shopping mall without causing anyone else to want to run you over with their car. The mall parking lot is the first place I go to find peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. If Caesar Augustus had had to deal with the sort of traffic we have these days, that census he decreed would have been a total bust. Joseph never would have made it from Nazareth to Bethlehem. He’d still be trying to get out of the parking lot at Costco.

If the Gospel was written today it would read: “Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. This will be a sign to you: You will find half-price sales at the mall, but you won’t be able to park within a mile of the place.”

I kid you not when I say even Santa Claus has trouble handling the stress. I read in the news today that a survey of the members of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas – I swear there really is such an organization – found that many have been complaining about work conditions the past few years. A spokesman for the order said the job is more than just sitting in a chair and letting children crawl all over you. Santas are exposed to germs, they hurt their backs lifting kids, and they get overheated in the red fur suit. Every day more than sixty percent of Santas get sneezed or coughed on ten or more times; 75 percent have children cry on them; 90 percent have kids pull their beard to see if it is real; half have their glasses pulled off. One-third say kids have wet on them. Consider this when you send your kid off to sit on the old boy’s lap: his beard has more bacteria than a bus station mop. He could carry penicillin around in an oil drum and it wouldn’t be enough. Imagine dealing with all that and living in constant fear that someone else is about to soil your underwear.

So… Rather than go to the mall, let’s go somewhere else for a moment.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." - Luke

Over the past bunch of years I have been blessed to experience the story of Christmas every year. And not just this time of year, but throughout the year. But I love this time of year in particular. I was talking with a woman I know who helped decorate the sanctuary in our church for the first Sunday of advent. They did something with the cross that I have never seen before. You always hear, of course, of the baby Jesus being born in a manger. We are familiar with the nativity scene. But she and the others wanted to do something more this year. Rather than just tell of the birth of Christ, they wanted to tell the whole story. But they wanted to do it without words.

When we walked into the church on Sunday morning we saw before the cross a manger, a crown of thorns, and a golden crown. Three powerful symbols suspended in the air in front of the cross. It is a powerful visual telling of the full gospel story. It makes you think.

The scene captured me.

My response was more than just some intellectual comprehension, more than a simple mental registering of what was being said. Because this same story fully captured me 16 years ago, because the person at the center of that story has drawn me into the narrative like nothing and no one else in my life has ever drawn me, the story itself informs and shapes everything else in the world for me. So I stood there still as could be, yet deeply moved. It is through that story that I see everything else. Or at least, it should be.

**

Think I was kidding about there being an Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas? Click here: AORBS

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

LIFE AS A HOUSE

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:47:00 +0000

Restaurant in Terminal 3 – Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix

I debated over ordering anything and decided I was hungry enough to risk airport food. Turns out they serve a good burger here. I practically inhaled it. Should have savored it, as I now have another hour and fifteen minutes before my flight. So with time to kill and nothing shaking here but a USC/UCLA game on the television behind the bar, I decide to see if there is enough battery left in the Mac to get some writing done. So far so good.

One of the servers is giving the bartender a hard time over the game. UCLA scored first and is up right now by 5. I feel I ought to care who wins so I ask someone nearby which team is favored and the answer I get is USC, so I’m rooting for UCLA. I always root for the underdog. I’m sure a psychologist would have some insight into that particular decision on my part but I won’t concern myself with the deeper meaning.

A number of years ago, when Brandon was maybe 4, he and I flew to L.A. to meet with my brother’s family for a couple days at Disneyland. We stayed at the Westwood Marquis, which as it turns out, is not far from the UCLA campus. I had borrowed a bicycle from my brother during our stay. He also loaned me a Burley bicycle trailer….. so one day I packed Brandon into the Burley and we went for a ride that ended up on the campus track complex. We watched the track team working out and soaked up the southern California sun for a few hours (it had rained the day before, clearing the sky of the usual L.A. smog). It was one of those cherished, peaceful respites in the midst of the unrelenting rush of life. I remember lying back on the lawn on the periphery of the track and letting the sun’s rays warm my skin while Brandon charmed some of the college girls nearby. He has always easily managed the social scene.

So I have a connection to UCLA. Another reason to root for the Bruins.

Not long ago I found some journals I had kept during those years. It had only been a year or so before that L.A. trip that I had both taken a job at the Washington bureau of the Associated Press and then, a month later, quit that very same job to move to Colorado to work at KHOW, the radio station I had listened to growing up. I remember agonizing over the thought of packing up to move across the country. Three weeks after settling in Denver my general manager came into the studio with a copy of Broadcasting magazine in his hand and a mischievous smile on his face. He plopped it down on the desk opened to an article, complete with a picture of me, telling of my having taken a job at the broadcast desk of the AP in Washington D.C. So much for accurate, up-to-the-minute reporting.

**
Lately I have been reflecting on what I have been “building” these past many years. Lucy and I rented “Life as a House” the other night. I highly recommend it. It will have you thinking about how you are spending your years. Are you tending to the important things? Are you building something that is significant? In the film, George (Kevin Kline), gets a wakeup call. Toward the end of the story, as the sun sets, casting golden hues along the edge of a cliff where it drops into the ocean, he says this: “With every crash of every wave, I hear something now. I had never listened before.” His “house” is almost complete, and he says to his son, Sam, “If you were a house, this is where you would want to be built. On rock. Facing the sea. Listening. Listening.”

Jesus talked of the wisdom of building your house on “the rock.” The rains come down and the streams rise and the winds blow and beat against the house, but it will not fall.

It is good to stop sometimes and take inventory, to think about where you have been investing, where and what you have been building. I’m wandering around the construction site a lot lately, trying to better see what is taking shape.

Am I standing on rock? Am I listening?

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

A WOLF IN SHEEP’S…

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:27:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:58:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 21:44:00 +0000

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)

WHO IS THE ARTIST?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad Behan) — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 17:20:00 +0000

Sunday morning, early. Small café not far from my hotel.

I spent the day with my son yesterday, wrapping up our time over a fine dinner near a park along the south bank of the Spokane River in downtown Spokane. This morning I woke up around 6, pulled on a pair of khakis, a wine-colored long-sleeve Eddie Bauer T, wrapped a scarf around my neck and slipped quietly out of the hotel to come here to read for a bit. I avoided the hotel restaurant so I could get out and experience Brandon’s college town a little bit. The breeze blowing the colorful autumn leaves across the sidewalks and streets of the city this morning is quite cool, but more bracing than unwelcome. It was a short walk to the café but I took a little detour that sent me down a walkway along the river where I lingered awhile to take it all in. Fall is definitely in the air.

Yesterday Brandon walked me around the campus to show me where he spends most of his time; where his classes are, where he grabs coffee, where he works out. I had forgotten what a beautiful campus it is. As we drove down the tree-lined street toward the center of the campus a group of girls walking alongside the road waved and called out an enthusiastic greeting. I’m pretty sure they were waving at him, not me. Now a senior, he knows a lot of the students and faculty. This is his world. He’s done well putting together a life here. It is a blessing to be the father of such a fine young man.

When I travel I often bring a book along for the flight. I had picked up a book yesterday that has been getting a lot of publicity. The God Delusion. It was written by the influential scientist, Richard Dawkins. He draws on evolution to attempt to disprove the concept of intelligent design and promote atheism. His prose is full of scorn for people of faith. He says it is the scientist in him that makes him hostile to Christianity. I heard Dawkins interviewed the other day. He said he can’t prove absolutely there is no God, but in his mind, he just can’t imagine it. A lifetime of research has left him believing that a God that could create such an astoundingly beautiful, infinite universe would have to be extremely complex, raising questions over how the creator himself came into existence. How could such a God exist? How would such an entity communicate?

**

Taking in the grassy, forested expanse of the campus yesterday, I found myself again seeing art in the everyday. (Ever see the Banana Republic ad campaign “Find the Art in the Everyday?” Great campaign. Great suggestion.)

On the campus there was this tree, brilliant in its autumn colors, standing in the midst of a forest of evergreens, dropping its leaves. The leaves were falling steadily without pause onto the green lawn. It was like snowfall. At the rate they were falling I could not imagine the tree would make it to day’s end with a single leaf left on a branch. But they just kept falling, raining down, raining down, raining down.

This morning as I walked the sun crested the horizon and the river surface caught the rays as they spread across the scene. The moving water played with the color of the sunrise, carrying it down into an area of rapids where it disappeared into silver as it spilled over and around some boulders. I watched the display, thinking that every moment, every hour, every day, every year, year after year after year, the river is new, ever changing.

The office building where my friend Rick the Scribe does his work is just off a parking lot situated at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. He was telling me that usually when he arrives, loaded up with his briefcase and a crate he carries back and forth from his home office, he trudges across the parking lot with his eyes fixed on the pavement, consumed with the task list in his head. But sometimes, every once in awhile, he hears a voice telling him to stop. Stop. Slow down a sec. Turn around and look toward the west at those mountains rising up toward the heavens. Would you just look at that? Is that spectacular or what?

Look for the art in the everyday. Yes. And more than that, look for the artist.

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