The Dawn Patrol

The Truth in Small Things, Part 14:
Where the Toys Are

My favorite lunch place, an ice-cream cafe called the Frozen Monkey, is always crowded with moms and babies, so it wasn't too surprising the other day when, as I was eating there, I saw a mother wheeling a double carriage containing a pair of twins. Then I did a double-take.

It wasn't that the adorable blonde pair, less than a year old, wore matching blue hooded coveralls—it's ordinary enough for a mom to dress twins alike.

No, what stopped me was that the boys each had the same toys. Two look-alike babes in look-alike outfits with look-alike bright-green frog cushions in their laps and look-alike padded mobiles dangling from the top of each half of their carriage. A mirror image all 'round.

I found that deeply disturbing.

My eyes strayed up to the mom and I read all sorts of undesirable personality traits in her countenance. But here, truth be told, I was using my imagination. She could have been a very nice person who was simply misguided. Probably when she was pregnant with twins, people bought her two of everything. And I imagine when a mother has such adorable sweet peas, it's difficult for her to resist the attention she'll get from making them look as alike as ones in a pod.

Even so, the sight made me think. And I realized that I am so glad that God does not give each of us the same toys.

I'm not talking about the toys that cost money. I'm talking about every kind of stimulation in life and the ability to appreciate them in a unique way.

Irving Berlin wrote:

Got no diamond, got no pearl, still I think I'm a lucky girl—
I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
Got no mansion, got no yacht, still I'm happy with what I got.
I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night

To me, this is a perfectly reasonable reaction to have to heavenly bodies. But the future wife of G.K. Chesterton, the delightfully named Frances Blogg, took a somewhat different view, as Chesterton would relate in his Autobiography:

She told me in the most normal and unpretentious tone that she hated the moon. I talked to the same lady several times afterwards; and found that this was a perfectly honest statement of the fact....She really had an obstinate objection to all those natural forces that seemed to be sterile or aimless; she disliked loud winds that seemed to be going nowhere; she did not much care for the sea, a spectacle of which I was very fond; and by the same instinct she was up against the moon, which she said looked like an imbecile.

If you think this woman utterly detestable, as I did when I first read that passage, I should add that she was, despite her hatred of Luna, a lady of great love, devotion, and faith. One of the things that fascinated Chesterton about her was that she had her own tastes that weren't dictated by fashion or other popular notions. God had given her a completely different set of toys from her soulmate, and Chesterton enjoyed playing with them, even if he felt no desire to own them.

In that same vein, C.S. Lewis, writing in The Screwtape Letters as a devil giving advice on temptation, said, "The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food he really likes in favor of the 'best' people, the 'right' food, the 'important' books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions."

These are the toys that God gives us: the passions that drive us to make everyday choices. And the threat to enjoying these toys comes from addictions.

Addictions, whether they be to material things or to behaviors such as sex, all begin as ordinary passions and descend into compulsive obsessions. Allowing oneself to fall victim to them is like taking the wonderful magic box of exquisite tin soldiers which God has given us, and painting them all the same shade of dull brown. This is what happens when we allow ourselves to focus on a single passion—or no passion at all.

When you come home from work today, think about what a pleasure it is to have that overpriced skim latte, the Weekend section of the New York Times, the precious minutes of daydreaming time during your walk from the train station, the voice of Van Morrison wafting out of your neighborhood pub. God's given you a unique set of toys that enables you to appreciate any and all of these and an infinite variety of other pleasures as only you can. And if none of those things please, there's always the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

* * *
I have a new prayer that I use every time I feel lonely or dissatisfied with my life.

I say, "Dear God, thank you for having something better for me."

Think about it. If you're not satisfied with some aspect of your life, there are two options. Either this is the best that God is going to give you for the rest of your life, or He has something better, however close or far away it may be.

Past experience has shown me that in a great many areas of my life, when I thought that things would never improve, they eventually did, even if it took many years. Rationally speaking, it makes far more sense to me to thank God for what He's eventually going to do, than to constantly berate Him and plead with Him over what He hasn't done.

Actually, I do still berate and plead. But this prayer gives God—and me—a break.

* * *"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to be notified by e-mail when each new installment appears, write DawnEdenSmallThings@hotmail.com .
4:36 AM |

Thursday, April 29, 2004

That's My Bill!

Don't let the headline fool you. This front-page story's from May 23, 1996. I found it while housecleaning tonight [stop the presses!] and did a double-take.

Note that Clinton was "eager to squelch" the issue because it was an election year and he didn't want Dole to take him to task on homosexual marriage. It was obvious in May 1996 that the American public wanted the institution of one-man/one-woman marriage to be preserved. It's obvious today, too, according to polls—but my, how brazen the homosexual-marriage lobby has become in eight short years. For that, I blame popular culture's efforts to normalize homosexuality, as well as the failure of those who uphold traditional marriage to aggressively defend the institution from all the things that threaten it—from divorce and adultery on down.
4:30 AM |

Gal Who Hates to Cook Seeks Fungi

Here's another thing I found while housecleaning: a handwritten recipe from Mom for her famous Baked Stuffed Mushrooms! I must have been planning a party or [gasp] considered cooking for a date.

But just because I don't cook doesn't mean the world should be deprived of Mom's classic recipe. Just looking at it makes me hungry. I could live on these things.

So, here you go. Despite the lowfat ingredients, I can assure you that this hors d'oeuvre is as cool and retro as it gets—a real early-Sixties cocktail-party item. If you use the recipe, please write to me and I will forward all compliments to the chef:

BAKED STUFFED MUSHROOMS A LA MOM
12 large mushrooms

4 T. lowfat margarine

1 tsp. grated onion

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 T. healthy spaghetti sauce

Directions:

1. Wash mushrooms [You gotta love my mom. She knew I was not a cook.]
2. Take stems out of caps.
3. Chop stems
4. Add grated onion.
5. Melt margarine in pan.
6. Brown stems and onion in frying pan.
7. Add other ingredients to pan.
8. Stuff mushroom caps with mixture.
9. Place in microwave-safe dish: glass or heavy plastic. [I love it! Only a mom could have added that qualification of microwave-safe materials. And she was so thoughtful to give me a microwave recipe, so I wouldn't have to use my scary, "Honeymooners"-era gas oven.]
10. Cover with plastic wrap.
11. Vent wrap by piercing once with fork.
12. Microwave on high for 5-6 minutes.

In My Weekend State

For my friends who read The Dawn Patrol without clicking through Gaits of Eden, here's what you missed—a happy picture that a friend snapped of me last night (during my "weekend") at a Mediabistro party.

4:06 AM |

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Groucho Marx Syndrome

Today brought two reminders that I don't always want to be in a club that would have me for a member:

The Page Six cartoon equating John Kerry's campaign with Al Qaeda's plan to kill 80,000 people. (If you're viewing that link after today, look for the April 28 cartoon.) Someone, please, tell the world that not all conservatives think like third-graders.

The listing in the New York Resident's "This Week in New York" e-newsletter for "Blessing of the Bikes":
Fee: $69, includes bike, helmet, licensed guide, and free blessing
Saturday, May 1
Ride through Central Park and Harlem and get our [sic] bike blessed by the Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 8:30 am – 1:30 pm
The time-honored traditions of ship-christening and "Bless This House" placards aside, it's hard to be taken seriously as a Christian when Very Rev.'s are willing to bestow God's blessing on inanimate objects. My only relief is the specification that, while the fee for the event is $69, the blessing is "free." "Very" interesting—and very sad.

3:30 PM |

A 'Fierce' of the Heart

"The prophet is a man who feels fiercely," writes Abraham Joshua Heschel in his classic The Prophets. I thought about that just now as I found these words in Jeremiah 17 (NKJV):

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed;
Save me, and I shall be saved,
For You are my praise.
Indeed they say to me,
"Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it come now!"
As for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd who follows You,
Nor have I desired the woeful day;
You know what came out of my lips;
It was right there before You.
Do not be a terror to me;
You are my hope in the day of doom.

What strikes me about those words is that they're so passionate. We often think of prophets as having been mere mouthpieces of God—not talking back to Him. And if we think of the kinds of requests they made of the Lord, we imagine the prayers as being general petitions for Israel—pretty by-the-book, if you'll pardon the expression. This has a different tone altogether.

This has a tone so intimate, it's what we normally associate with a lover. But no one could trust a human being so deeply as Jeremiah trusts God. His words are intense, they're unrelenting, they're fearful, yet they show he's utterly confident of being accepted. Moreover, one gets the impression that, even if the prophet wasn't certain how God would respond, he was absolutely certain that any response would be the right response.

Ray Pritchard writes in He's God and We're Not that acknowledging and submitting to God's sovereignty always leads to joyful praise. When you pray, do you feel that you're getting precious one-on-One time with the loving Father who holds your entire life—as well as the rest of the world—in His hands? Or do you feel that you're saying a few words to a vague presence who is getting a billion other requests at the same time? If you're not feeling a deep sense of excitement and wonder at being able to communicate directly and intimately with the King of the universe, then you need to stop and think about this great opportunity that prayer affords, which you can have at any time.

A great paradox of God is that if we make ourselves smaller, He will fill us and make us bigger. "He must increase, but I must decrease." Through Him, we can have more spiritual riches than we could ever possibly have on our own.

I need God in my life. I need His wisdom. I need His healing love. I am grateful for the countless prayers of mine that He has answered. More than that, however much I may nag Him about the remaining items on my prayer list, I am grateful beyond measure that He answers prayers in His own time.
5:03 AM |

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 13:
The Last Temptation of Lamont Cranston

My mother had a dream a while back where she was visited by an angelic figure. The lovely and gentle feminine presence, bathed in white, resembled Mom's late mother, but she wasn't a ghost.

As best I can recall of Mom's description, the figure said, "You don't understand, my dear. In Heaven, we do not have feelings."

Mom was hurt at the thought of this. "You have love, don't you?"

"Oh, no, my dear," the angelic figure responded. "Love is not a feeling. Love is a presence."

Whether or not that was a real visitation, I'd say that's a godly message. I find it reassuring to think that souls in heaven are not tossed about by passions the way we are.

But more important than what I think is that the message is backed up by James 1:17: " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

No variableness, neither shadow of turning. Notice how that comes right after "every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."

Think about how we get the sun's light. From our perspective, the sun's light bends according to the hours and the seasons. Within the course of a single day, the shadow on a sundial will turn full circle. Doing a 360—that's what we humans call passionate. The sun's changes may be predictable, but they're radical all the same.

Yet the sun never moves. It's only because we move that its shadows appear to be so capricious.

It's the same with God. He's the same yesterday, and today, and forever. But how we position ourselves in relation to Him can change our whole life.

Are you in a position today where, like a plant on a windowsill at high noon, you're able to receive God's direct sunlight? Or are you approaching God at an angle, letting His light hit you in some places while guarding the rest of yourself jealously in shadow?

Don't be shy. I have my shadows—lots of them. Every time I begrudge someone for making me move my bag from the subway seat next to me so they can sit down, that's a shadow. Every time I congratulate myself on my self-control while being jealous of those who enjoy pleasures that I've forsaken, that's a shadow. (Two, actually.) Every time I say or e-mail something dismissive to someone for no other reason than that they bug me, that's a shadow. And every time I resent someone for not being something that they couldn't possibly be if they tried, that's a shadow.

It's hard to release our shadows, partly because we're comfortable the way we are—maybe not happy, but comfortable. More than that, we may not trust that God could enlighten our darkness if we asked Him—and the thought of being disappointed by Him deters us from taking the chance. John 3:19-21: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."

Someone like me who believes in God yet holds onto some shadows is acting on the assumption that God has the power to change some areas of our lives, but not others. Now, it's true that we can't rely upon the Lord to answer every specific need in our lives when we need them. But there are certain blessings of His that are always available from God through the Holy Spirit and which He dispenses more readily than we can imagine. Two of them are:

Wisdom. Proverbs 2:6: "For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." James 1:5: " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

Strength. Psalm 18:1: "I will love thee, O LORD, my strength." Ephesians 3:17: "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man."

Yet, even these blessings, which I request in prayer every day, aren't really necessary if you can master God's little shortcut. It's that thing that the angel in Mom's dream mysteriously described as a "presence."

The idea of love as a presence and not a passion is tantalizingly similar to Paul's definition of faith: "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). It gives love a tangibility and a certainty that we normally do not feel in everyday life, save for the moments when we contemplate those dearest to us.

More than that, love as a presence suggests something that's without form and inescapeable—somethingthat could conceivably fill everything. It's the message of 1 John: "love is of God" and "God is love."

Love is God's little shortcut because, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, no other gift is complete without it, and by itself it surpasses all gifts.

If love really is a presence in Heaven, then it's possible to have that presence, unstained by emotional peaks and valleys, here on Earth. For, as Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is within you."

Today when I feel a shadow—which will very probably be the moment I turn off my computer and retire for the night with only a teddy bear for company—I will think about that Presence. And I will ask Him in whom there is no shadow of turning to lift me up from the world's perspective, so I may see clearly how to stay in His direct light.

3:36 AM

Monday, April 26, 2004

Stall in a Day's Work

"Who could have possibly written that puerile headline in today's paper about the 'exploding-toilet' lawsuit? Not moi...!"
3:28 AM |

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Disgusteen

Former fetus, 1970
Today you will hear on the news about a march in Washington that is officially dedicated to "Choice, Justice, Access, Health, Abortion, Global and Family Planning." One of the march's sponsors is Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood does more than offer abortions. It offers sex advice for underage teenagers. Not just pregnancy advice or birth-control advice, but advice on every aspect of sex, given from a celebratory "everybody's doing it" standpoint, as may be seen in the organization's official teen Web site, Teenwire. (Please note: The preceding link and all of the following Teenwire links contain graphic sexual references.)

If you or anyone you know support Planned Parenthood, you should know that their Web site encourages underage teenagers to:

Keep trying to have sex even if they are having problems with intercourse due to nerves

Overcome performance anxiety. The preceding link will take you to the "experts'" solution for a teen who writes, "im 17 years old, and me and my girlfriend really want to have sex on a regular basis. but i tend to get shy about this and find ways to get out of it. i want to have sex but i just get scared i wont perform."

Find "lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender" sex partners online.

Let me repeat that.

If you or someone you know is sending money to Planned Parenthood, that money is going to some adult sitting at a computer, who writes detailed instructions for underage teenagers on how to pick up lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender sex partners online.

I would be offended if they were inviting 14-year-olds to meet heterosexual sex partners online. But the thought of this organization, which claims to be protecting teenagers, instead inviting them to meet sexual predators who may steer them into homosexuality at a time when they are most impressionable, is truly disgusting.

This is especially offensive in light of Planned Parenthood's notorious refusal to aid authorities in arresting the perpetrators of statutory rape. A 2002 study showed that the overwhelming majority of underage pregnant teens and children are impregnated by adults. WorldNetDaily reports that "when a teen-age girl reports to a Planned Parenthood worker that she is pregnant by an adult man, more often than not the organization conspires to conceal the crime involved. Sometimes, the employees actually coach the girls to avoid parental involvement and reporting requirements to law enforcement."

(The WorldNetDaily article also mentions Planned Parenthood's roots in the eugenics movement, which supported and was supported by the Nazi Party. Planned Parenthood's original goal was to decrease the births of "undesirables" and thereby create, as Margaret Sanger boasted, "a race of thoroughbreds." This has been well documented, including in this article about the Rockefellers' longstanding support of Planned Parenthood.)

The Planned Parenthood Teenwire Web site in fact seems positively obsessed with helping underage homosexual teens "hook up" online. A section that is made up to look like a teenage girl's Weblog features an entry in which the blogger's best friend takes pity on a lonely homosexual high-school pal and shows him how to find a boy in a chat room.

If you, like me, do not support Planned Parenthood, here are some words to remember as you watch what is sure to be unavoidable march footage on TV today. From the 139th Psalm:

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother's womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

2:25 AM |

Saturday, April 24, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 12:
If I Fell

Last night, I dreamed I was accosted by a manlike creature who was alternately beautiful and demonic—but mostly demonic. Not the Devil, but a devil, as C.S. Lewis would say. And like any good devil (so to speak), he tried to tempt me by getting me to jump from a high place—as Satan tempted Jesus.

I don't recall being up in a high place—only looking down and seeing nothing but a blur, as though I were so high up that none of the features below could be distinguished. It wasn't so much like looking down at Earth as it was looking down into another dimension that was several levels lower than any earthly surface could be.

Unlike Jesus' temptation, the tempter didn't tell me that angels would prevent my hitting the ground. Instead, he played upon my old fantasy of flying, which was my favorite thing to dream about when I was a kid.

I can tell you exactly what the tempter said to me, because I typed it out as soon as I woke up. It embarrasses me to share it, because it so obviously reflects my love of the language of Victorian-era writers like J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll. But then, deep down, we all think the Devil speaks like George Sanders in The Picture of Dorian Gray, don't we?

My devil said, "You can fall for ever so long—as long as you'd like—and never hit the ground."

In a dream, that's a tremendously appealing proposition. I was seriously tempted, stopping short only because the tempter was so obviously evil.

What I find fascinating about the offer is that, as with all great lies, there's a strong shade of truth in it. It is possible to fall into sin in this life and never hit the ground. Because as long as you're alive, there's always farther to fall.

When addicts, alcoholics, or depressives speak retrospectively of when they "hit bottom," they remember it as a good thing. It felt unbearable at the time, but it was the only way they could realize they needed help.

Look at the most pitiful derelicts on the street—the decrepit, career homeless who turn down help from social-service agencies and instead panhandle day after day for money to buy alcohol and drugs. They look like they've hit bottom, but they haven't. They won't hit bottom unless their entire means of surviving becomes impossible—and maybe not even then. The human spirit, even when warped by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness, retains its ability to say "no"—and "no" for many people is far easier than "yes."

But don't think you or I are so different from those people. We too want to fall without hitting the ground, and we can—through addiction to cigarettes, food, alcohol, sex, or anything that prevents us from hitting the solid rock that's terrifyingly close to the soles of our feet. We may even know that there's a "cornerstone" down there, and we fear falling on it because we know it will break us. Matthew 21:42,44: "Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?...And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

We don't want to hit the ground not because it means physical death, but because it would require a death to self. We would have to face the fact that we cannot live for only ourselves—that our choices affect our eternal life, as well as our ability to achieve God's purpose for us in this life.

I use the word "we" because I did fall on that cornerstone, and was healed from depression. Yet I still need to call God's blessings and promises to remembrance every day, to recall that, even though I live in this world, the wellspring of my life is hidden with Him.

My earliest fantasy of falling is tied in with Alice's fall down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's a long fall, and even though the rabbit hole's dark, Alice has no fear. She simply lets her mind wander ("Do cats eat bats? Do bats eat cats?") and trust that when she returns home, everyone will think her brave for enduring the experience. Suddenly, she thumps down into a pile of sticks and leaves and gets up without a scratch.

Putting aside the fact that there's no book if Alice goes splat, why is she able to fall so gently? I believe there's a real reason here, and it goes to the heart of Carroll's strong Christian faith. She could withstand the fall because she was unencumbered by guile. As G.K. Chesterton noted, "Satan fell by the force of gravity"—or, conversely, "Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly."

That doesn't mean you or I should tempt fate by poking around rabbit holes. But I do believe it's possible to have a lightness of spirit without fearing the ground.

* * *
"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to be notified of subsequent installments via e-mail, write DawnEdenSmallThings -at- hotmail.com .

12:53 AM |

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Love at First Bite

At the age of eight, I was in the "boys are not all yucky and I kind of like some of them" stage. It's a very nice stage to be in, and I recommend it. Much easier to take than the ensuing "obsessed with boys" stage, and far more pleasant than the preceding "boys are yucky" stage.

Unfortunately, eight is a very difficult age at which to care about boys, because it's also an age when one loses teeth. I was at summer camp that year and my smile had a big gap that made any attempts at glamour look ridiculous.

Still, I couldn't stay away from the object of my attraction, an older boy named Jason Brimer. I always liked witty types, and he was unquestionably the camp clown, pulling all sorts of silly stunts and bringing the house down at the talent show with his impressions.

Jason must have known that I liked him, because I followed him around a lot. But beyond that, I knew I couldn't hope for much. He was far too popular to make time for a goofy little squirt like me.

This being the mid-1970s, before the age of lawsuits, I suppose it was inevitable that my bunk should be raided early one morning by a boys' bunk. I awoke on my upper-bunk bed to find the room swarming with boys making noise, throwing things around, and generally causing mayhem. Apparently the camp powers-that-be thought it was adorable childish fun, but the only pleasure I got out of it was the thought of having something else to add to the "Camp Grenada" horror stories that filled my letters to Mom.

(They really were horror stories, too. I remember one letter that simply consisted of "I HATE CAMP"—written in huge letters that took up the entire page. When I later asked Mom what she thought of it, she said she'd shown it to a friend as "a classic." I didn't know what a classic was at that age, but I determined that it must be something horrible.)

So, throughout the raid, I stayed in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, pretending to be oblivious while waiting anxiously for the shouting, shampoo-squirting, and panty-throwing to end.

But I couldn't fool Jason Brimer.

He came up to the edge of my bed, which was just at the level of the top of his head. I quaked a little as he looked up at me. Would he smear toothpaste on my nice bedspread? Or would he destroy me with his wit? I got called names all the time, but an insult from him would really hurt.

He smiled. I started to smile back.

"Hi, toothless," he said. Then he ran away.

Afterwards, one of my bunkmates who had noticed Jason come up to me asked what had transpired. When I told her, she said, "Wow, he must not like you."

"No," I said bravely. "He does like me. He said it because he can't say he likes me."

It is not for nothing that I am a psychologist's daughter.

My hope was borne out mere days later, when Jason professed his fondness for me—though a counselor had a word with him to prevent its going further. But that's not what matters.

What matters is that, for the rest of my life, whenever I find myself slipping back into "boys are yucky" mode, I will remember the sheer joy of that "Hi, toothless." In a moment, in a room full of party people, one man can say two words that create a startling feeling of intimacy. It's happened to me since then. I know it'll happen again.

1:54 AM |

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down

A few nights ago, I had a dream that a very attractive man was giving me a kiss. Now, these days, I almost never dream anything remotely in the realm of fantasy-fulfillment. My dreams tend to be bland rehashes of the day's events, twisted through a surreal strainer. I ride a lot of trains that go nowhere. If I'm lucky, I remember that I'm dreaming, break into a bakery, and go hog wild. But a kiss from someone who doesn't instantly morph horribly into a family member? No way.

Even stranger was what was going through my mind as I was being kissed. It was exactly what I would have thought had it been real life, but it's been so long since I'd been in such a situation that I'd forgotten my usual reaction.

I thought, "This is the beginning of the end."

The end of fun. It doesn't get any better. From the moment one becomes conscious the delightful shock of the first kiss, it turns into a race for sexual fulfillment—one with a predictable and rather dreary outcome.

Think of how you feel when you're watching a romantic old movie, like "It's a Wonderful Life." The tension builds as the leads' chemistry becomes apparent. Finally, during that Sam Wainwright phone call, it explodes. George grabs Mary's shoulders, shakes her, tells her he doesn't want to get married—and immediately breaks down and kisses her on the lips. It's incredibly exciting—until you realize that the courtship ends there. From then on, it's wedding bells, bank runs, and getting tossed out by an alternate-universe Mr. Martini.

It's been kind of like that in my life—but without the wedding bells and so on. Instead, the first kiss merely marks the end of the excitement and the beginning of a seemingly inexorable process that starts with hope and ends with "respect."

Although I've done my best to escape that morbid merry-go-round in recent years, I have to hold on to the memory in order to remember why I deserve better than a brass ring. To that end, I can understand why so many women get stuck in casual-dating mode. If one is convinced that nothing better awaits one in life than seduction, then one risks pain and discomfort in order to continue the cycle of pleasure.

Yet that "beginning of the end" feeling persists. I imagine it's one of the things that motivates some men to view pornography—the need for constant novelty to distract from the depressingly finite nature of the thrill. And, like pornography, casual dating requires a degree of emotional detachment and objectification of the desired person. Those are qualities one doesn't normally associate with women, which is why the casual-dating cycle is so sick. It takes women away from their natural desire to seek depth and substance, and turns them into superficial hedonists.

The only thing that can take one out of that debilitating cycle is hope of something better. For me, that hope requires faith—"the substance of things not seen." But such faith, by necessity, has to incorporate the hard truth that it's possible I may not get what I earnestly desire—even though in my heart I believe I will.

The real miracle of faith is not that it provides the material things we need, but that it provides the spiritual things that will keep us going until the material things arrive. For me, it provides a perspective that makes me realize, even in my dreams, that what I've experienced of romantic love up to now is only a shadow of what it really is. But more than that, it shows me that loneliness is not a bad thing—not when it's chosen over a life where every conquest holds within it the dull ache of certain defeat.

3:49 AM |

Monday, April 19, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 11:
The Vision Thing

My dad is knowledgeable about many, many things.

Poetry is not one of them.

Yet I can't help but smile this morning as I remember something he said to me when I was 12 and vision problems forced me to get my first prescription eyewear since childhood. It was a time when I was becoming keenly conscious of how boys perceived me, and I wasn't pleased at the thought of looking like a dork.

"Well, you know what they say," he said, trying to be comforting. "Men make passes at girls who wear glasses."

It would be another year or two before I discovered that wasn't exactly what Dorothy Parker wrote. But Dad's version has more love.
2:40 AM |

Sunday, April 18, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 10:
Bridge of Size

Today I am thinking about size.

When I am feeling hurt, lonely, or incapable of achieving what I want to achieve, I try to make myself bigger and more prolific.

It's not enough that there's a "good worker" me. There has to be a "pretty" me. If I'm not kind enough, there has to be a "kind" me. If I'm a wimp, there has to be a "bossy" me. And so on.

Mind you, I don't suffer from multiple-personality disorder. There's a "me" me at the core. But I feel a need to project a persona that fits each situation, so that I can master whatever's required.

Those personas are genuine aspects of me—not phony or put on—but amplified. Bigger. Because I'm terribly conscious that the "real me" isn't big enough to handle all the real-world conflicts and challenges that I face every day.

Here's what I find interesting. When I need to reconcile myself to the world, I make myself bigger. But when God came to dwell with us, He made himself smaller.

I don't just mean that Jesus' form was physically limited. I mean that He became personal. Instead of acting larger than life all the time, addressing people only in general statements meant for all, He walked around to individuals' houses and ate their food. He led the blind, gave them and others His healing touch, and met people where they lived.

You could say that Jesus, as a worker of miracles, couldn't have been that small and personal. But even His miracles were related directly to His ministry. He didn't stop the sun in the sky or cause military battles to be won, and he resisted the Devil's temptation to show off with a swan dive from the Temple. Instead, He helped those who were in His presence, through healing them, feeding them, or keeping them safe from the storm.

More than that, Jesus' miracles were personal in that they were exclusively devoted to helping others. He never made stones into bread for himself—He waited on the Lord for 40 days until the angels ministered to him. And He refused to use His power to overcome any worldly authority—even when His life was at stake.

Jesus could make himself small because He wasn't reconciling himself to the world. He was reconciling the world to himself.

By contrast, I have none of that power. Yet I can follow Jesus' example, becoming smaller without losing my ability to survive in the world, by reconciling myself to Him and trusting that He will elevate me when my smallness is too hard to bear.

Do you see how this works? It seems hard, but He's already done the heavy lifting.

* * *
"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to be notified by e-mail when a new installment appears, write DawnEdenSmallThings -at- hotmail.com .

12:39 AM |

Saturday, April 17, 2004

I would like to call your attention to an utterly charming and slightly enigmatic entry I just discovered by a blogger called The Happy Homemaker. The entry is called "Stuff" and it is the third item down if you follow that link.
12:57 PM |

Light blogging today, as I had to finish a piece of pop-music criticism for my friend Rich Appel's e-zine, Hz So Good. If you'd like to receive a free subscription to the 'zine, which covers pop radio from the '50s through the present, write Rich at audiot.savant@verizon.net .

The latest installment of "The Truth in Small Things" appears below. The series was inspired largely by the essays of G.K. Chesterton, especially one called "A Piece of Chalk."
1:18 AM |

Friday, April 16, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 9:
One Fine Day

You may have seen the movie "Groundhog Day," in which Bill Murray put in a wonderful performance as a weatherman who finds himself stuck reliving the same day over and over. But did you know that the stages that the weatherman go through are based on the stages of dying that were delineated by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross? The screenwriter, Danny Rubin, had Bill Murray's character develop by going through Kübler-Ross's five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

The interesting thing about those stages is that, as Rubin suggested in his story, they can also lead to life.

On many levels, one could say that every day, we wake up to the same world. We're the same person in the morning, for one thing—we can't completely make ourselves over overnight. We wake up to the same family; the same friends overall; and, most times, the same home and job. Even if we can change our personality to some degree, we can't change our past. The most extreme plastic surgery couldn't really change what we see in ourselves when we look in the mirror.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression—I've gone through all those stages in the past. Before I found my current career, I spent years denying that I had chosen a career that couldn't support me. I've suffered from anger—at God and at myself—over not being where I wanted to be in life. Before I had faith, I tried to bargain with God, saying that I'd believe in Him if He did some particular thing to satisfy my wants. And I've suffered from depression—a lonely, isolated depression where I felt as though the rest of the world were progressing and I was stuck every day in the same depressing body, the same depressing personality, the same depressing rut.

Those first four stages progress naturally; one doesn't need any kind of push to get from denial to anger and so on. But that last stage—acceptance—for me required a kickstart. That kickstart was a faith experience—something that made the radio in my head stop waking me up every morning to the same old song.

Except that, in my case, when I woke up to find it was February 3, there was no Andie MacDowell by my side.

Well, actually, I'm relieved she wasn't there—she's not my type. But there was no instant Mr. Right in my life once I was healed from depression. I was on my own.

The word "acceptance" as we use it implies placid submission. But its root comes from the Latin for "to receive." For the act of acceptance to be ongoing, we have to take an active and continual role in it.

What this means is that instead of an ongoing Groundhog Day where our actions have no continual effect, we have the opportunity every day to receive something that is in some way different from what we were offered the day before. Even if it seems the same, it's different because the world has progressed another 360 degrees, and we with it.

This is what the prophet Jeremiah means when he writes that God's mercies are "new every morning."

In my own life, I am beginning to see that acceptance means freedom—not just freedom from depression, but freedom from the myriad of personal barriers that have prevented me from appreciating life's blessings.

I have spent many years of my life lamenting being single. The wisdom of recent years has shown me that, until recently, I was not mature enough to be a godly wife. Likewise, I now see that I haven't let my intended pass me by—I'm certain that I haven't met him yet. Even so, in the past, knowing those things couldn't prevent me from feeling sorry for myself.

But today I had a strange feeling. I realized that, like Bill Murray in the film, I can get up every day confident that the odds are against my meeting my intended. It's not cynicism, but an awareness of being in a situation that I can't control. And I realized that, as in the film, such knowledge is power.

Think about it. If you realized every day that the odds were against your getting something you wanted, you'd have two options. You could give up, resigning yourself to your fate. Or you could conduct your life the way you wanted, enjoying the great relief of no longer having to put so much hope and effort into attaining your goal.

Make no mistake—I still have hope. And I have no desire to use my liberty to become libertine. I just feel this wonderful freedom—freedom from having to go around as this pathetic overage single person who has to look at every conversation with an interesting single man as a possible prelude to a first date. I can speak to men not with bitterness or cynicism, but with utter confidence—treating them with the respect with which I would treat any human being, yet not worrying about the kind of impression I'm making.

Can I really do all this without secretly getting my hopes up that Mr. Right will come along? Of course not! But even if I can get myself to accept a tiny bit of the freedom God gives me in His morning mercies, it will make a significant and very positive change in my life.

The interesting thing about this realization is that it appears mighty similar to the "self-actualization" gospel preached by Oprah and other self-help gurus. I myself tried to practice that in the past. The difference is that the self-actualization proponents try to fill people up by telling them that they are already full. God, by contrast, invites me to make a space in my heart and soul so that He can fill me.

That's something that nobody else can do—turn emptiness into a setting for blessing. He's like a director who can create an entire world starting from a bare and empty stage. I want to see what His imagination can create on mine.

* * *
"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to receive notification by e-mail when each new installment appears, write Dawn EdenSmallThings -at- hotmail.com .
4:57 AM |

Blame Aretha

Last night, at a cocktail party, I came up with an Evelyn Wood version of my recent entry on how some women accept less than they deserve in order to rationalize having casual sex:

"Respect is the new love."
3:50 AM |

Twist of Lime

Watching "The Third Man" last night at the Film Forum, I had a bizarre thought during the climactic final scene, which prevented me from appreciating the film the way the director intended. If you don't mind learning how the film ends (and I assure you, it's worth watching even if you know), read on...

The final scene of that classic 1949 film takes place in the sewers of Vienna. Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles (be still my beating heart), is chased by police through a maze of underground passages, with the sewer gushing throughout. He knows those passages fairly well but not perfectly—he winds up at a dead end.

It occurred to me as I was watching this scene, one of the most admired in cinema, that if this were an American film instead of a British one, and if it were made just a few years later, Harry Lime would have gotten away. He would have gotten away because he would have known the sewers better. And he would have known the sewers better, because he would have been played by Art Carney, in the guise of "The Honeymooners"' Ed Norton.

Can't you imagine? Instead of the famous "Harry Lime Theme" playing on a zither, Lime would dart through the sewer passages to the tune of a scratchy 78 of "The Hucklebuck." Instead of dealing in black-market penicillin, he would have sold Vienna thousands of useless Handy Housewife Helpers.

Oh no.

Now I'm starting to imagine if Orson Welles, barred from playing Harry Lime, had taken over the role of Ralph Kramden—in full "Citizen Kane" mode...

ALICE: But Ralph, people will think—

RALPH: What I tell them to think!

[Audience laughter]
3:33 AM |

Pride Goeth Before...

A fall. That's right. Not my real hair.

I've been feeling dorky lately because I've had to wear my glasses instead of contact lenses for the past week, as I have conjunctivitis. My eye-drop regimen requires me to wear my specs for three days more, so tonight, on an impulse, I decided to buy something fun to make me feel more glamorous: a fall. Probably the only place I'll wind up wearing it is work tomorrow, but even there it'll be nice to jazz up the ol' routine.

There really is something wonderfully retro about this big ol' tail of Dynel or whatever it is, especially combined with the glasses (which are an authentic Twiggy® pair). I feel like Tina Louise playing a librarian in a spy spoof, where Flint or Matt Helm says, "You know, you would be beautiful if you would just take off your glasses..."
2:37 AM |

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Lady and the Swamp

I don't drive, and as a result, although I can get to most of the places I want to go via public transportation, there are still a few things I can't do. There's one fantasy in particular I've held for years, which I've been unable to fulfill due to lack of wheels.

I would really like to visit a swamp. A good, old-fashioned, marshy swamp.

There's something tantalizing and mysterious about them whenever I see them through the window of a NJ Transit commuter train. There's one in Secaucus, a wide expanse of ponds and marsh grass, where, during the spring and summer, a lone white egret holds sway. Another one, in Mount Tabor (a semi-rural area of Morris County), creeps rebelliously all the way up to a paint shop, its water flooding the back of the shop's parking lot.

But my favorite swamp by far is the one that I spy when the train passes through Morris Plains. It's a small area directly behind a condo development, made up of shallow brown ponds; dead long grass that looks like straw; and one majestic, overturned dead tree that forms a kind of lacey proscenium.

Unlike the wetlands with the egret, the Morris Plains swamp doesn't look like a thriving ecosystem. It looks dead and muddy. Which is why I find it fascinating.

Don't imagine that I have any love of dead things. What I like is the sense of balance. Here's this condo development with its ticky-tacky little boxes on the hillside, and below it this gothic monstrosity created by nature. And that work of nature, even dead, looks more mysterious and poetic than the gray clapboard domiciles that turn their backs to it.

It's not only in contrast with civilization that swamps hold fascination. The thought of a gloriously ugly, marshy swamp appeals to me even when contrasted with a beautiful, healthy field or forest. To be sure, in general, I'd rather look at the field or forest. But the vision of the swamp outside the train window is a rare treat, because it defies conventional rules. The wetlands are the aquatic version of Moses' vision of the burning bush: They're always watery, but they never flow anywhere.

But my favorite thing about swamps is that, for all intents and purposes, they're useless.

Oh, I know they may have rare species living in their murky depths, and they feed the frogs with their mosquitos. And I'm glad the Secaucus egret has a marsh to call home. But practically speaking, compared to other nature spots, swamps are difficult to enjoy. You can't walk through them without getting up to your knees in mud, you can't fish comfortably in them, you certainly can't swim in them, and you can't plant things in them. You can only trudge heavily around them, or just gaze at them through the window of a passing train.

You could say that swamps hold such interest for me because I used to live in one—figuratively speaking, of course. I was awash in depression for my entire adult life until four and a half years ago, when I accepted Jesus and received a dramatic healing.

I now see that my depression was, like the swamp, useless. Yet, when I look at people who suffer from depression or have overcome it, and I look at shiny happy people in their ticky-tacky little boxes who seem unable to relate to deep emotional pain, you know what? I identify more with those in the swamp, and my heart goes out to them.

It's not that I want to go back into that particular swamp. That swamp is death. It's the experience of being surrounded by bitter water, and never asking for the living water.

But I do find that. just as the ugly marsh adds a sense of balance to the more beautiful side of nature, an understanding of depression helps me to better appreciate life. And I don't just mean that in the manner of the man who, when asked why he banged his head against the way, said, "Because it feels so good when I stop."

To be depressed—really sad, not just angry, bored, or jaded—is to acknowledge a sense of lack in one's life. It makes one feel empty, vulnerable, and far from salvation. Yet, it's just that emptiness and vulnerability, the proverbial God-shaped vacuum, that the Lord seeks to fill, as David writes in Psalm 34: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."

There are many routes to salvation, and I certainly don't recommend the swamps of depression as the way to go. But if you can survive them, they can give you a valuable sense of brokenness and humility—one that's hard to gain if your eyes are turned only on beautiful fields and forests.

Today, I'm seeing more verdant horizons in my life than ever before. I thank God every day that I no longer live in a swamp. Yet, I still look out the train window to see the dead grass and muddy marshes. And I'm thankful that, even though I no longer live in those swamps, God lets me view them from a safe distance.
2:12 AM |

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 8:
The Lord of the Wings

One of the Bible's most striking metaphors for God is that of a large bird, particularly an eagle, that protects its children with its wings. We see this in Psalm 63, for example: "Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice."

There is something inherently comforting about this image.

One of my earliest memories is of looking forward to saying good night to my dad. He would be lying in bed, reading—wearing the big burgundy velour robe that I loved to borrow—and Mom would bring me over to say good night before she would take me back into my room and tuck me in.

When I approached, Dad would fold his arm that wasn't holding his reading matter and invite me, "Baby Bird," to come under "Papa Bird"'s wing. I buried my head on his chest and for a moment felt completely safe and secure.

It was a beautiful way to end my day. I didn't even mind that I had to go to bed before "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" was over.

It wasn't until years later, when I was a teen, that I learned of the Bible's depicting God in avian terms, and then it was through a "true-life" anecdote in Reader's Digest. The story was about an old lady who was accosted in an alley by two men who tried to mug her. Terrified, she shouted the first words that came into her head, paraphrased from Psalm 91: "He covers me with His feathers! He covers me with His feathers!"

Well, you know how that story ends. One of the would-be muggers said to the other, "She's crazy. Let her go."

The interesting thing about that passage from Psalm 91—"He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust"—is the verse that immediately precedes it: "Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence." It's not just God who is depicted as a bird; it's us.

Think about that image: a bird delivering another bird from the one who would try to ensnare it—and doing so by covering the other bird.

I see in it an image of Jesus, who delivers us from evil and covers our sins with His sacrifice of His own body.

There's also a strange and beautiful paradox in the passage I mentioned earlier from Psalm 63 that states, "in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." Many times in the Hebrew Bible, shadows are associated with death—most famously in the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." Yet, when a shadow is caused by God's protection, it becomes not death, but life itself. Even its darkness turns to light. In the words of the prophet Micah (chapter 7), " Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."

If you suffer from loneliness, as I do despite having wonderful friends and family whom I love; if you are suffering persecution at your job or in other areas of your daily life; if you are ill; or if there is any area of your life where you feel a lack, think about those great wings of God. The Lord is already covering you with those wings, perhaps without your even realizing how much so, and He has delivered you with the sacrifice that He himself provided.

We must remember that not all shadows are evil. Sometimes, when it looks as though our world has darkened, it is not because God has forgotten us. It is because He is protecting us.

***
"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to be notified whenever a new installment appears, send an e-mail to DawnEdenSmallThings -at- hotmail.com .
3:10 AM |

Mac Swift at Vessel of Honour is currently engaged in a good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-'em-out, theological war of wits with Bertrand Russell fan Wes. Mac has some excellent arguments, and I highly recommend reading both his blog entry and the back-and-forth in the comments section.
2:50 AM |

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Today's paper has a headline I wrote about the National Debt Clock's being taken down temporarily: "Debt takes a holiday as 'clock' is removed".
5:33 PM |

UPDATED—Domani or Your Life

On my way home last night, as I passed by a Johnny Rockets—part of the retro-style burger chain—I heard, wafting from the outside speakers, the old Shirelles tune "Will You Love Me Tomorrow."

That Number One hit from 1960 is an amazing song on many levels, from the way in which it perfect encapsulates a young single woman's fear of being used, to the fact that its words were written not by a single woman, but a married man—Gerry Goffin, whose wife, Carole King, wrote the music.

Like many songs from that more innocent era, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" expresses feelings that most people would be too embarrassed to verbalize. There's something painful about the way its vulnerable narrator leaves herself wide open. Yet, even though her asking the song's title question implies a certain amount of courage, it's clear that she's ready to accept a positive answer without questioning it—which is not surprising, given the lyrics' description of how the evening has progressed. By the time one is worrying about how the other person will feel tomorrow, it is usually too late.

For most unattached single women in New York City, and I would imagine much of the rest of the country as well, casual sex is the norm. It's encouraged by all the women's magazines and television shows from "Oprah" on down, as well as films, music, and the culture in general. And while "love" is celebrated, women are told that they should not demand to be loved tomorrow—only respected.

This accepted single-woman lifestyle is more like a drug habit than a dating paradigm. In what can sadly be an endless cycle, single women feel lonely because they are not loved, so they have casual sex with men who do not love them. I too followed that cycle, but when I found my faith four years ago at the age of 31, I knew that it had to end.

As with any habit, getting with the program was a painful process, and staying with it has never been easy. But I gradually found that as I was tempted to start the cycle again, a new thought would emerge to give me pause—an antidote to the pleasure principle. I call it the tomorrow principle.

I first discovered the tomorrow principle late one night, as I was preparing to leave a party. The host was an old acquaintance of mine, someone I'd known for years, though never very well. We'd long had a mild flirtation going, but nothing had come of it because we didn't really have much in common other than physical attraction. So I was caught off guard when he asked me if I'd like to stay the night.

I knew I didn't want to return to the old cycle. But what made me say no was not the force of conviction. It was a terrible vision that flashed through my brain, as real as if it had actually happened.

In that vision, I saw myself and the party host the next morning, at a diner. We were having breakfast. In front of me was my usual poached eggs on dry rye toast, no potatoes, and coffee with skim milk.

It was pathetic.

Just the idea of one more uncomfortable morning-after breakfast, my loveless partner oozing with "respect," was more than I could bear.

The scene also had a grotesque quality. Here I was, so choosy that I insisted on four different specifications on my diner breakfast, and I couldn't hold out for the one man with whom I could share every breakfast for the rest of my life?

So I thanked the host for a lovely party, and I went home. I think I cried. But I don't regret it. And I've lived by the tomorrow principle ever since.

If you have to ask someone if they'll still love you tomorrow, they don't love you tonight.

* * *
UPDATE: Charles G. Hill has added to his blog some insightful observations on this topic.
12:51 AM |

Monday, April 12, 2004

In today's edition of the newspaper where I work as a copy editor, I had to write a banner headline in 100-point type for a story on "The Passion of the Christ"'s return to No. 1 at the box office over Easter weekend. Someone had already written "Resurrected" for the headline over the accompanying graphic, and I didn't want to push the "Jesus is Risen" angle. Admittedly, it takes some compromise to make silly puns about a religious subject in any case, but I wanted to avoid mocking the essential tenet of Christian faith.
So what did I write?
AMAZING GROSS
P.S. I also have a headline in the same edition that reads, "B'klyn DMV signs don't point where they auto".
4:04 PM |

The Truth in Small Things, Part 7: Hope on a Rope

For a decade, James Boswell had dreamed of bringing his friend, the great English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, on a tour of the Western Islands of Boswell's native Scotland. But one night in September 1773, after the two men had finally embarked upon their tour, that dream threatened to turn into a nightmare as their ship was caught in a terrible thunderstorm.

While Johnson, blissfully unaware of the danger, relaxed below deck, Boswell paced the boards, terrified of anything happening to him or the already-legendary man of letters, who had placed his trust in his Scottish friend. As Boswell saw that the others on deck were busy, he asked one of them, a nobleman known for his mariner skills, if there were anything he could do.

"He, with a happy readiness, put into my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, and told me to hold it 'til he bade me pull," Boswell wrote in his journal. "If I had considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not have been of the least service; but his object was to keep me out of the way of those who were busy working the vessel, and at the same time to divert my fear, by employing me, and making me think that I was of use. Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my rope."

Reading that passage recently, I was struck by the love in the nobleman's act. Even the deception in it cannot be seen as something wrong or unkind. There really was nothing Boswell, who had no sailing experience, could do but wait out the storm. The nobleman's making him feel useful gave him a better chance of survival than if he had continued to pace the decks, and took his mind off his tremendous fear. And he did survive—the boat and everyone in it made it to a safe harbor.

The story reminds me of the famous "Footprints" piece, which uses the image of footprints in the sand to show that, during the most difficult times, when we cannot see how God is working in our lives, it is then that He is carrying us.

I am a great fan of fairy tales. One of the common gimmicks of fairy tales is a character who has been granted a single supernatural ability, one that appears at first glance to be completely useless. But the reader knows that, one day, that ability—whether it be a knowledge of dog language, or the capacity to swallow the sea—will turn out to be the one thing that character needs to save his life.

I have been given such an ability. No, I can't hold conversations with dogs—not meaningful ones, anyway. However, I do have a supernatural power given me that is so subtle that, to those around me, it appears to be of little use. In fact, too much of the time, I take it for granted. Sometimes I forget that I have it. But one day in the near or distant future, I will look back and realize that this magical ability has enabled me to gain everything I wanted in life.

It's more than an ability, really; it's an obsession. My wonder at it underlies much of my conversation and practically everything I write. If I share with you what it is, you'll see that, even when I appear to be writing about something different, I'm really a one-trick pony. But I'll reveal it to you anyway, because it would be cruel for me to keep this supernatural gift to myself.

I have the ability to get up every morning and, whether it's a workday or the weekend, I can make it through the day without feeling the deep sadness and hopelessness of one who has not achieved all her goals in life.

That's not to say I'm happy all the time or that I don't feel any emptiness. But the weight of time—the fear that I may go for week after week, month after month, year after year for the rest of my life without getting what I want most—has been lifted for me.

You could say that I'm in denial. You could say that if I really considered the fact that my life is missing some of the things that make life livable for others, if I dwelled on that lack, I would be miserable. And you'd be right. For my entire adult life until four and a half years ago, I did dwell on that lack, and I was miserable almost to the point of death.

When God gave me faith, he healed my misery in one day. He also gave me intense joy—but only for a short season. The initial exhilaration quickly dissipated, and I was left with...hope. Compared with how I really wanted to feel, it was only a tiny mustard seed of hope. But it was there, and the difference between that hope and its absence was the difference between darkness and a lantern's light.

Jesus doesn't promise to take away our darkness entirely while we are upon earth. In the parable of the virgins, or bridesmaids, and the bridegroom, He says that we will need to keep our our lamps lit until He comes. It is our job to make sure our lanterns have sufficient oil—the spiritual fuel that we need so that we will be always ready to serve God.

Yet, even there, God meets us halfway. In 1 Kings, God works through Elijah to cause a widow's supply of oil and meal to last through a famine. The woman provided what oil she could, but God gave the increase.

So too, God keeps my lamp burning, by every day providing me with enough hope to go on without falling into despair. He doesn't promise to give me anything more than a lamp unto my feet, showing me only my next step. But I can't help thinking that, while I go about my business every day and wait in hope for His guidance, God, like the nobleman in Boswell's tale, is gently giving me a rope to hold while He carries me through the tempest to the longed-for shore.

* * *"The Truth in Small Things" is a frequent feature on The Dawn Patrol. If you would like to be notified via e-mail each time a new installment of this series appears, write DawnEdenSmallThing -at- hotmail.com.
12:32 AM

Sunday, April 11, 2004

The Love You Save

"What do you mean by 'saved'?"

Someone asked me that the other day. Talking about my spiritual journey, I'd mentioned that my mother "got saved" before I did.

I answered, "On a superficial level, she was saved from searching for meaning—the endless, depressing cycle of trying out one philosophy after another."

Taking a deep breath, I went on, "But on a deeper level, being saved meant she touched eternity. That is, she's at the start of it now. She's begun a journey that will end in her spending eternity with the Lord. Because she's chosen to be with him.

"That's what being saved means to me," I concluded.

The questioner looked at me with a puzzled expression. I think he'd expected me to bring up hellfire and damnation.

The truth is, while I do believe what the Bible says about hell, I don't think of the salvation experience in terms of negatives—e.g. no fire, no brimstone, no damnation, no spitting, no loud radios. Getting saved is not about saying no to the Devil. It's about saying yes to God.

There is a passage in Matthew's gospel about Jesus' resurrection that stops me in my tracks. It tells what happened when the eleven disciples met the resurrected Christ for the first time, "When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted."

Those doubting disciples must have come around, because records show that every one of the disciples followed Jesus' Great Commission in working to "make disciples of all nations." But the idea that anyone, even for a moment, could see the resurrected Christ and not know Him—and that even his own disciples could doubt His presence—is deeply troubling.

The Gospels don't give a reason why certain disciples initially doubted the risen Christ. I think that they simply believed that resurrection was impossible. They were more willing to believe that they were the victims of a hallucination or a hoax, than that Jesus was God's son risen from the dead.

By that token, when the disciples gave up their doubt, it was not because they'd received additional, irrefutable evidence—the physical presence of the risen Christ was already irrefutable. They gave it up because something changed in their hearts and made them realize that "with God all things are possible."

Doubt plays an essential role in our survival. It keeps us from following false gods, and it keeps us from believing everything we see on the cover of the Weekly World News. But when one is confronted with physical evidence, as the disciples were, then the time for doubting is over.

The physical evidence that Christ is risen is all around us. It is in the victory that our soul has over the bondage of sin when we say yes to Jesus. And it is in the fellowship that we share with other believers—fellowship that transcends geography, ethnicity, gender, income, educational level, and all the other things that society uses to divide people.

When Jesus rose, He did not go straight to Heaven. He walked out of His tomb and resumed His work on Earth—but with new life. Likewise, for me, being saved means emerging from confinement into a wide-open space—just as the Israelites of the original Passover were led from their cramped slave quarters to the open land and, in time, into the Promised Land.

God enabled the Israelites to depart from Egypt through their sacrifice of the paschal lamb. ("Paschal" comes from the Hebrew word for Passover, pesach, which is also the Hebrew word for sacrifice.) It was through the blood of the lamb that the Israelites were spared from death and were released from their slavery.

Within a very short time—and wouldn't I love to know if it were three days—the Israelites were once again made aware of God's presence in a physical way, when God Himself led them through the wilderness, by day in a cloud and by night in a pillar of fire, "to give them light."

The word "Easter" comes from the same root as the word "east": sunrise. It is analogous to the light that came into the world through Jesus.

So long as Jesus had only a human body, He could only shed His light on those who were touched by his presence. When God gave Jesus His resurrected body, He had all power given unto Him in Heaven and on Earth, so that He could send His light, in the form of the Holy Spirit's presence, to all who believe.

So I believe that God, through the sacrifice of the Lamb, which is Jesus, saves us, frees us, and enables us to walk by day and night, guided by his light, which was represented by the cloud and the pillar of fire, and is the risen Son.

Before I accepted Jesus, I was offended by people who would call themselves "saved." I thought the term was smug, implying moral superiority.

Now that I am saved, I think of it not in terms of how it differentiates me from others, but how it changed me from who I was. For me, much of "being saved" is about what I have been saved from. Again, at this moment in time, I really don't think about hell and damnation, even though I have no doubt that they are real. One day, when I stare death in the face, I will take comfort in the thought that Jesus' sacrifice has saved me from an eternity without Him.

But right now, I think about what it was like to live without that Light, and what it is like now. And I know that because He lives, my world is opening up, not narrowing, and as it opens up, so does the excitement and possibility of being able to more closely mirror God's boundless love.

God bless you and your loved ones on this Easter and Passover.
3:20 AM |

Saturday, April 10, 2004

A happy Saturday to you. Light blogging today, as my sis stayed with me last night (visiting from the heartland), she got the bedroom, and I didn't want to keep her awake with late-night e-scribbling. More substantial blogging—perhaps a double dose—and e-mail answering in the wee small hours...
3:03 PM |

You Are Invited...

...to listen and be heard at the monthly gathering of...

THE SALONICA!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."—1 Thessalonians 5:21

A salon for people who want to enjoy literate, Christian-friendly discussion and fellowship over Sunday brunch at one of New York City's best-loved Irish pubs.

WHEN: Sunday, April 18, 1 to 3 p.m.

WHERE: O'Lunney's Pub, 151 W. 46th St. (between Broadway and 6th Ave., just off Times Square). Web site: http://www.olunneys.com.

WHO: You, me, and 13 other lively souls with nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon than drink Irish coffee and spout about God and man.

IS THIS A SINGLES EVENT? No. Singles events are no fun. This is fun.

WHAT KIND OF FUN? The kind that comes from meeting fellow intellectual-minded people of faith in the city. People who not only love the Bible, but are passionate about current events, the arts, and literature--and have strong opinions about them. People you rarely see in one place outside of church pews--but discussing things you wouldn't necessarily discuss in church.

Every Salonica starts with a kickoff question that goes to each person around the table. From there we go where the spirit takes us.

This month's kickoff question: Give an example of a couple whom you believe had or has an ideal marriage--or the closest thing to it. It has to be a real couple of the past or present, not fictional, and it has to be the proverbial "one man/one woman." Beyond that, anything goes.

IS THIS CHRISTIANS-ONLY? No. The operative word here is Christian-friendly.

If you go to nearly any other salon in the city, you'll find that, if people are discussing God at all, they're debating first principles. The Salonica is different in that we take off from an assumption of faith. But that also means we're not together for the purpose of evangelizing. The event offers a unique and fun opportunity to enjoy fellowship while exercising your mind--and filling yourself with pub fare.

DOES THAT MEAN I CAN SKIP CHURCH? Sorry, no—only if you, like me, haven't got one. Otherwise, let me know if you have to arrive late due to church or another commitment and I'll save you a seat.

HOW MUCH: No charge to attend, but you are expected to order something to eat or drink, as the pub's being kind enough to reserve us a large table.

RSVP: If you would like to attend, you must notify me no later than WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, so I can give the pub a head count. Attendance is limited to 15. If you receive this notice late, please contact me anyway, as it's possible someone may drop out, plus I can make sure you'll be among the first notified of the next Salonica. Please RSVP to DawnEdenTheSalonica -at- hotmail.com .

11:45 AM |

Friday, April 9, 2004

The Truth in Small Things, Part 6:
Spoon-Lover Pathology

I recently paged though a biography of a late great movie actor, hoping to learn what was in his mind when he made his classic films. I looked up one of his best-known films in the index, found the page, and was taken aback at what I saw.

The book told nothing of what the actor was thinking when he played the role, or how he felt about the way the film came out, or anything substantial about the making of the film, which critics consider one of the greatest ever made. Instead, it detailed what was going on in the actor's sex life at the time he made the film.

Ordinarily, I shouldn't have been so surprised; writers are notorious for focusing on actors' sex lives to the exclusion of their artistry. What got me was that this was an authorized biography. One would think the actor would have wanted to be remembered for something other than his hopeless pursuit of an actress whom he passionately desired despite her having "a face like a spoon."

But then, when you think about it, how well do any of us understand which of our actions are most important in the grand scheme of things?

On a recent Saturday morning, I volunteered for a charity that delivers lunches to the homebound elderly. One woman I visited was very old and mostly deaf. An illness, perhaps diabetes, had made her unable to walk.

The woman was sitting in a chair—I could see her bruised and useless calves—and she was apologetic about not being able to get up and play hostess. She said she used to volunteer for the same charity that I was helping, and she thanked me profusely for bringing her lunch.

I found myself saying to her, "Thank you for having me here." And though it was hard for her to hear me, I tried to tell her that she didn't have to feel bad about not being able to get up; she was giving me a gift just by her presence.

Really, there's a certain special grace in people who allow others to give to them when they can't give in return. I don't mean users; those are people who can give in return but don't. And I don't mean people who are helpless because of their own choice or bad choices.

I mean the grace in people who are truly helpless, aware of their inability to give back, and still accept the gift that's offered to them. That's a hard thing to do. I personally have a great deal of trouble accepting anything from anyone unless I feel that they're getting something out of it. Not because I don't trust people, but because I don't like the feeling of receiving something that I don't feel I've earned.

It's the same thing with God's grace: The idea of a free gift goes against the human concept that one should never accept something for nothing. The old woman was allowing me to mirror God's grace. The result was that she blessed me far more than I blessed her.

And she did all that, without really "doing" anything. The grace was a quality that she embodied.

That's why the only thing that I think is really important about my life—and the one thing I hope to be remembered for—is that I let God inside me. Not that I believe I can even take credit for that—"God has dealt to every man the measure of faith." But if I let God use me as a vessel of honor," "prepared unto every good work," then any one thing I do will be a worthy summation of my life.

Then again, perhaps I'm just trying to compensate for the fact that I have never pursued anyone who had a face like a kitchen utensil.

12:45 AM |

Thursday, April 8, 2004

Note to my e-mail pals: I'm still catching up after being away from home, so please bear with me.
4:12 AM |

The Truth in Small Things—Part 5: Mad About the Joy

There is a time in almost everyone's childhood when belief in God seems like the most natural thing in the world.

I can remember that time. I was five or six. My parents were divorcing; the daytime cartoons that I loved to watch were pre-empted by something really boring that Mom was watching called Watergate; and the world in general, even to a kid, seemed pretty neurotic. Kids can tell a lot more than grown-ups think they can, and I could tell that people around me were unhappy.

I remember one day looking out the back window of our house, which overlooked a bay, and, as I gazed upon the water, I believed I had it all figured out. There was no reason for people not to be happy. Without knowing the Robert Browning poem, I felt certain that if God were in His heaven—and He was—then all had to be right with the world.

As with all childhood epiphanies, this one lasted just long enough for me to feel it intensely before it faded and I found that—like C.S. Lewis with his youthful joy—try as I might, I could not get it back again.

It would be 25 years before I felt that joy again, and that time it came on a far greater scale, when God broke through my consciousness and ended years of tortured agnosticism. The feeling eventually disappeared as at the first, but the faith remained.

Although I longed desperately for the joy to recur, I resigned myself fairly quickly to the realization that it wasn't under my control. It seemed greedy, at any rate, to harangue God about it when God had, after all, given me faith, which was by far the most important thing. I greatly feared becoming a spiritual thrillseeker—a "joy junkie" who tested my faith by how fast it made my heart beat.

Now, as I examine my faith, I find that—as so often happens if one is not vigilant to maintain a balance—I have gone the other way. I have been so fearful of asking God for more than I need, that I have not taken advantage of the great opportunity He has offered me to ask and receive.

When we are told to "lay aside every weight" to run the race before us, one of those weights is the weight of pragmatism. It's the idea that we should be content with the measure of faith that we believe has been given to us, and not request more—or ask that it should be more vibrant.

I would like nothing more than to be on fire for the Lord. I'd like to be one of those unbearably happy people who appears to be "on something."

I used to be that way, but I couldn't keep it up because daily pressures got to me and my skin wasn't thick enough. Now I need to get it back, and the only way is to pray for God to light that fire again. It's either that, or start a group called "Outwardly Jaded But Really Inwardly Happy People for the Lord." And, truth be told, I wouldn't want to be in that group if they'd have me for a member.

2:54 AM |

Smiles and Soap

Yesterday, my mother and stepfather took me to Chester, N.J., a lovely historic town with a main street that recalls Woodstock, N.Y., or New Hope, Pa.—all dainty little shops offering quaint handmade crafts. It's not the sort of town one visits if one does not like the scent of candles, nor do I advise visiting it if your eye wearies too quickly of the sight of things draped around other things. In an effort to make the entire town look like a giant Victorian garden gate, every available surface has been painstakingly entwined with some sort of organic, vinelike substance, or covered by a wreath, or delicately obscured by some wispy woven veil.

In the midst of this elysium of transparent textiles and fragile fauna, was a little tea shop where my stepfather looked at the tea selection, and, seeing that their menu bizarrely omitted Earl Grey, asked for a cup of Earl Grey. He did this rather ingeniously to buy time so that we wouldn't have to order anything while I slipped off to use the restroom.

It was there in the restroom that I saw something curious—a photocopied piece of paper from the Bernards Township Health Department, which oversees Chester and neighboring towns, containing the message:

EMPLOYEES:
Wouldn't you want the people
preparing your food
to wash their hands?

There was none of the usual "Employees must wash hands." That was it.

What an awakening. Never before in my life had I imagined that "Employees must wash hands" could be construed as an oppressively patriarchal statement. Here was the triumph of relativism.

One can imagine any number of directions where this new passive-aggressive approach to legal signage could go. Fire Department signs in nightclubs that currently read, "Occupancy by more than 150 people is dangerous and unlawful," would instead read, "Would you feel safe with more than 150 people inside your nightclub?" Instead of stop signs, there could be red octagons bearing messages that inquire, in elegant script, "Wouldn't you want cars to stop for you?"

People whose stands on political issues are informed by their belief in the Bible as God's word are often accused of wishing to "legislate morality." But there, in a New Jersey restroom, I was face to face with true legislated morality: the legislation of the moral belief that people should not have to obey the law.

12:00 AM |

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

The Doom Patrol

One of my dearest friends, a married dad, sent me today the URL for a certain magazine article on the Web. I know that his motivation in sending it was simply because he thought it would be of interest to me, as it's an articulate exposition on values that he and I share. Still, I couldn't help releasing a silent sigh (worse than an audible sigh, because it's repressed) when I read the first line of his e-mail:

The URL is for an interesting article that does a nice job of nailing why single women are doomed.

If that succeeded in getting your curiosity up as well, here's the link.
11:35 AM |

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

The Truth in Small Things—Part 4: Rock the Mote

Today's front page of the style section of the newspaper I work for features the cautionary tale of a beautiful woman who is struggling to overcome the effects of an eating disorder that nearly killed her. Sunday's front page of that same section featured a story touting a new "crash diet"—complete with bikini-clad model displaying the diet's apparent effects.

Yes, it's a relativist universe in medialand. Whatever bad a media outlet does with its left hand, it pretends to rectify with its right hand. The editors seem to believe that if they have enough "public interest" stories, they can go home at the end of the day with their integrity intact—even if they've filled up the rest of their publication or show with stories aiming at the lowest common denominator.

But when it comes down to it, we all do that. It's part of the human condition. We do something that's foolish or wrong, and we try to make up for it by changing our ways. The problem is when, as with the media's endless alternation of sleaze and sugar, we allow ourselves to fall into a cycle: Sin and repent. Repeat.

A man I know who is not a believing Christian told me that he got fed up with his Christian best friend. He explained that his friend used to fall into various temptations, becoming an annoyance to those close to him. After a while, he'd repent, begging his friends' forgiveness. Then he'd be fine...until his temptations got the better of him again.

Man, it's Christians like that who ruin it for the rest of us. Here I am, sitting in my apartment, demonstrating the benefits of not falling into perdition, while they're out there having fun—and regretting it in the morning. For them, God's love is always having to say you're sorry.

But the truth is, whatever God may think of people who take liberties with their faith, this is really a "mote and beam" situation. No matter how much I try to resist temptation—whether it be of the fleshly variety or the spiritual kind—I am doomed to fail. It seems my only hope is to repent to God whenever I'm aware of something I've done wrong; ask Him to "cleanse me from secret faults;" and ask Him to keep me from presumptuous [willful] sins."

Yet, for all that, I find that I, like the schizophrenic newspaper, still live in a debit/credit universe as far as my attitude with God is concerned. And sometimes a superficial reading of the Scriptures—which, for me, means quickly scanning a view verses during a commuter-train ride—doesn't help. I open to Isaiah 59:2, for example, and am assaulted with, "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear."

I prayed to know what verse could answer that, and in my mind was directed to Galatians 6:4, in the King James: "But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another." The NIV has "prove his own work" as "test his own actions." One commentary explains that the word used for "test" means "to examine for the purpose of determining true worth."

If I look at my actions as spiritual debits and credits, then my sins do separate me from communicating with God, because I am refusing to speak His language. God knows the score, all right, but He doesn't use a scoreboard. The language He requires is the language of faith, and that faith is expressed in love. "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6).

Circumcision is an outward manifestation of faith, but any manifestation has meaning only if it is rooted from something deep within. Just like the style section, I have a front page. Likewise, what's on Page One has to correspond with what's inside—otherwise, it's false advertising. I need to examine my thoughts and actions and make sure they reflect not just who I believe I am, but the Man I want to be like.
2:26 AM |

Charles G. Hill has very graciously published the second installment of the blind-date series that I'm writing for the e-zine Hz So Good: a Blind Date-style analysis of the Gene Pitney classic "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa." I offered it to Charles because where he lives really is 24 hours from Tulsa.
* * *The best headlines I've written so far this week at the newspaper where I work—

For a story in yesterday paper about how Hollywood films without nudity make more money than those with nudity: "No nudes is good news".

For a story in today's paper about Bob Dylan's shillin' for Victoria's Secret: "Dylan sells out for a thong".
1:50 AM |

Monday, April 5, 2004

The Truth in Small Things—Part 3: Hungry I

I once knew a man who claimed to never be thirsty. Oh, he would drink at intervals during the day, but he insisted that he didn't thirst. He drank because he knew he needed the liquids, and because he liked the sensation and the taste of beverages. That was it.

This man was also an atheist, which bothered me.

It's not just that I was bothered by his not believing in God. I was bothered by the symbolism. It was too corny.

After all, throughout Scripture, water is used as an analogy for spiritual sustenance and salvation: the water that came out of the rock during the Exodus, the references in Ezekiel to living waters coming out of Jerusalem, the water of baptism. The Samaritan woman asks from Jesus the living water which Jesus says will cause her to never thirst again.

For someone to truly never thirst implies that they have no need for that living water. And that was what the man I knew claimed.

As for myself, I'm thirsty all the time. I'm also hungry—I can never understand those people who claim that they "forget to eat." But when I read the Scriptures, I realize that I am not hungry enough.

"He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings. And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation" (Psalm 107:35-36).

What does this tell us?

You could say that it means God feeds the hungry, which He does—the next verses say He gives them fields to plant and that he allows their cattle to increase. But there's another meaning in those verses, one which gives me pause:

There is a condition for living in the city of God. And that condition is hunger.

It doesn't say, "God takes the satisfied people and sets them up so they can stay satisfied." It says, "He maketh the hungry to dwell..."

That hunger is a figurative hunger—the same hunger that Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount, when he blesses "they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matthew 5:6).

When you are hungry, really hungry, it's hard to think about anything else. Likewise, hungering for righteousness means not being able to rest until your hunger is satisfied. As Augustine wrote of God, "Our hearts are restless until we find rest in You."

Today I am going to practice an exercise. Whenever I feel hungry or thirsty, before I fulfill that need, I am going to get in touch with it and try to imagine, just for one moment, how much I really need God for everything in my life. Because "in Him we live and move and have our being," yet "His footsteps are not known." He is so omnipresent that it is possible to go through the day without sensing his presence.

Hunger—real spiritual hunger—is a gift. Cherish it.
3:14 AM |

Season of the Kitsch

John Gallo writes:

Was reading The Dawn Patrol this afternoon and this passage below caught my attention:

"Do you see what's coming here? Shared taste in television isn't really important to friendship. I know that. Neither is shared taste in film. But in this day and age, people bond by sharing their reactions to television shows and films. They believe that these shows, whether they like them or not, are important and worthy topics of discussion. They look forward to a certain film's release and will see it even if the reviews suggest they won't like it, because other people are seeing it. So contemporary film and television are a common language in our culture—a language that I can understand well enough, but have no desire to speak."

This, I think, is a recurring problem for our generation, particularly our age group [mid-30s—Ed.]. I can't even begin to tell you how often this sort of thing aggravates me to no end. There is a great article written in the 1940s from art critic Clement Greenberg who laments that American culture was moving away from art in to "kitsch." I don't think he realized how prophetic he was at the time.

The thing I find most disturbing is how right on the money you are with that passage. Seems that people even measure their intelligence based upon their knowledge of television, movies and music. These things have their place, of course, but in the grand scheme of things, they are hardly a barometer of anyone's IQ (though in some other way, I guess they are).

A couple of years ago, I actually witnessed two lifelong friends have a vicious fight over a movie. One of them loved a particular movie and the other hated it and it nearly came to blows! It was at that point in time that I realized, for myself, that I have become increasingly disconnected with what people deem "important" these days. It's not so much that people "bond" over these things as it is that they use these things as value judgements. Today's so-called "hipsters" (another word I can't stand seeing in print and actually being used) seem to use these things as a measuring stick to determine another person's worth. Half the time the one's doing such judging are usually the most ignorant of what's going on around them anyway. They're merely parrots squawking out what they think they need to say in order to fit in with some social group. Remember the days when "alternative culture" meant thinking for yourself?

1:49 AM |

Sunday, April 4, 2004

Captain Rubicon*

Andrew Careaga, who recently blogged the first chapter of his upcoming book linking punk-rock to Christian values, has also found the connection between the late Captain Kangaroo and Walt Whitman.

*I know Khayaam wasn't Whitman, but I had to get that headline in, as it's my mother's dyslexic name for Keeshan's beloved character, and it cracks me up....Oh, wait, "Rubicon" wasn't Khayaam either. He wrote the "Ruby Yacht." See how much you learn about culture when you don't own a TV for 18 years?
1:49 PM |

The Truth in Small Things—Part 2: Beat the Clock

As I write, the clock is about to spring forward. Now, you know that time doesn't really jump forward. We just push the clock's hands and pretend. It's an agreed-upon reality—a de facto truth, but not de jure.

The time changes are an obvious manifestation of something that is all too easy to forget in daily life. We live in two worlds: the temporal and the eternal.

In the temporal world, we have cares, responsibilities, and deadlines. In the eternal world, only one thing is important. As Charlie Kaufman wrote in his "Adaptation" screenplay, "You are what you love, not what loves you." It's a message straight out of 1 John 4: "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (verse 16).

David, who had a keen sense of real-world pressures, was comforted by remembering the temporal/eternal dichotomy:

Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them,
And they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will have no end. (Psalm 102:25-27)

The analogy of heaven and earth being like a garment suggests that we are enveloped by material reality, to the point where we cannot see that it is something we have put on, so to speak. But this isn't the Matrix. Just as an overcoat is real, the material world is not something we can overcome by pretending it's really there. And even though it is a garment, it was, as David said, placed on us by God, and only He can change it.

Our only weapon against the stifling fabric of reality is knowledge—knowledge that, however we play with the clock, this world is aging. We can age with it, allowing it to eat away at us every day, making us more cynical and battleworn, but very little wiser. Or we can concentrate on what lasts, hoping that, by growing in love, we will become more like the Author of love, who is, as David says, the same—yesterday, and today, and forever.

Did you notice I wrote, "hoping that by growing in love..."?

Sitting on the subway on the way to work, it is hard to feel certain of any reality beyond what can be apprehended by the senses. It is also hard to grow in love, especially when that means caring about anyone outside one's friends or family, or even loving one's enemies. And if you have the same routine day in and day out, as I do, with little face time with friends, the idea of an enriched, more-meaningful existence is hard to grasp.

But I will tell you something I've discovered about hope. All you need is enough of it to get you up in the morning.

This is why so many atheists are able to survive painful or difficult times, even though theoretically, since they have no fear of going to hell, they could just as well kill themselves. Without knowing it, they have just enough of a spark of the divine to keep going. They have hope.

So, a tiny bit of hope can keep one going even if one does not have faith. But if one believes, then that hope, conditioned through pain and hardship, is transformed over time into something better, as Paul writes in Romans 5:3-5: "...we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

It is God's love that works through us, transforming us, when we dare to hope in a reality that both permeates and transcends our day-to-day lives. Try thinking about this on the subway, as you walk to the store, or as you lie in bed. Faith is not limiting. It is liberating.

3:07 AM |

Saturday, April 3, 2004

The Truth in Small Things—Part 1

Welcome to the first installment of "The Truth in Small Things." We can't let the Devil have the details all to himself.

Zeno's Paradox states that it is theoretically impossible to travel any distance, because in order to do so, one must first travel half that distance, and in order to do that, one must travel half the half-distance, and so on, ad infinitum. Because distances can be divided into an infinite number of subsections, one could never traverse all the subsections in order to get where one is going.

But we do traverse distances with every motion we make—despite the "impossibility." Like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, every day we do six impossible things before breakfast.

The reason why Zeno's paradox, while logical, does not hold true is because it takes a nonmaterial concept—infinity—and attempts to apply it to a material goal—running a race. Moreover, in assuming that the nonmaterial concept may be appled to the material goal, it gives the concept substance—which in reality it does not have.

If we attempted to follow Zeno's Paradox with our every move, subdividing every action, we would never progress. The only way we can operate is by a mysterious yet supremely functional combination of conscious and unconscious action. This is why we can walk and chew gum at the same time. (Remember the diagram that Mad magazine made for Gerald Ford, showing him at which point to step and at which point to chew?)

In order for our brain to control our actions, we have certain priorities which are so important to us that they've become unconscious. We learned them at some point, but we don't even think about them now. Don't let neighbors see you without clothes, don't fall down, don't drool, don't drop litter onto the street, don't walk into people. These priorities have to be unconscious to some degree because it would be too much stress to consciously cognitize all the things we do. Trying to do those things only by concentration can and does drive people crazy.

But then we have other, subtler things we do during the course of the day, which we've likewise made unconscious through daily repetition. Things like how much time we spend with those closest to us, what actions we initiate and what actions we leave to others, and what particular expletive we exclaim when our computer screen goes blank. These may not all be priorities, but they require the same kind of mental prioritization.

We risk damaging ourselves psychologically with feelings of helplessness when we lose consciousness of the range of things in our lives that we can and do control, or when we forget that we can alter the priority that those things have for us.

When Christians speak of "liberty" in Christ, part of that liberty comes through a widened understanding of one's own priorities—and the freedom that comes with the realization that one can actually control one's priorities rather than being controlled by them.

Paul writes in Philippians 3:8-11:

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

It is a gift to hunger. It is a gift to thirst. It is a gift to see one pearl of great price and sell everything one owns in order to have it.

Most of all, it is a gift to know what is really important, to long for it with all your heart, and to measure everything else in your life by it. Because then, "being rooted and grounded in love, [you] may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19).

It is God's unconditional love, which for we who are undeserving can itself seem a paradox, that gives us the understanding that enables us to overcome the immobilizing logic of Zeno's Paradox—and any other paradoxes that life throws our way.

1:49 AM |

Friday, April 2, 2004

The Trip to Bountiful

I have a lot of thoughts and fantasies that I never divulge to anyone. For example, for many years now, I've had the fantasy of going away for a few days to some place near or far (preferably far) where nobody knows me—and not telling anyone that I'm going.

Back when I suffered from depression—that is, before I received my faith in October 1999—it was a suicidal fantasy: Go somewhere where nobody knows me, and die. For you old-movie buffs out there, the idea was like a twisted variation of the Alec Guinness film "Last Holiday"—though I had the fantasy before I saw the film. It also had an elephants'-graveyard feel to it; the idea that one should separate from others in order to do something as personal as dying. But mostly, I just wanted to get away from everyone who had any kind of impression of me. It was as though I felt trapped in the persona that I was in others' eyes.

Being healed of the depression thankfully put an end to the morbid part of the fantasy, but I couldn't shake the longing to get away. Yet I discovered during the past year, when I finally had the money and the vacation time to fulfill it, there was a disconnect between my longing to take an unannounced trip and actually doing it. As attractive as it remained to go to a place where no one would know me, the idea of traveling alone seemed, well, lonely. And putting an extra degree of isolation on it by denying myself the opportunity to tell friends and family that I was going somewhere seemed depressing.

Yet the thought still creeps into my head at times like tonight, and I'm beginning to understand why. It has to do with a deep sense of distance that I feel between myself and many people, including some whose company I enjoy and whose friendship I am honored to have.

Although faith differences between myself and many of my friends have exacerbated this distance, it existed long before I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I think I can trace it to my late teen years—which happens to be when I stopped watching television. I have not owned a television set since leaving home at 17.

In addition, I have practically no interest in contemporary film. I've seen a few new films in the past year that I liked: the last "Lord of the Rings" film, "Big Fish," um...I'm sure there's a third one somewhere. I didn't like "Seabiscuit." Anyway, for the most part, contemporary films have too much sex and violence, and too little subtlety, for me to appreciate them. This again has been the case since before I received my faith. Even when I was living a more fleshly lifestyle (details not available upon request), I had no desire to see sex onscreen. I was interested in stories. I'd see 20 Buster Keaton (and I did) before I'd see one Quentin Tarantino* movie (and I never have).

In my work as a newspaper copy editor, I use all sorts of tricks to stay abreast of the names and stars of television shows. I glance at the TV section of the newspaper every day, I listen to all-news stations on the radio each day, and I get my daily dose of The Drudge Report and other Internet news sites. Through this, it's possible to have a working knowledge of shows such as "Sex and the City" (which I'm aware has run its course), "American Idol," and "The Apprentice." I have a similar working knowledge of contemporary film.

Do you see what's coming here? Shared taste in television isn't really important to friendship. I know that. Neither is shared taste in film. But in this day and age, people bond by sharing their reactions to television shows and films. They believe that these shows, whether they like them or not, are important and worthy topics of discussion. They look forward to a certain film's release and will see it even if the reviews suggest they won't like it, because other people are seeing it. So contemporary film and television are a common language in our culture—a language that I can understand well enough, but have no desire to speak.

The temptation for me here is to be a snob. I just spent the afternoon at New York's Museum of Television & Radio, by myself in a carrel, watching Orson Welles and Sammy Davis Jr. on "The Steve Allen Show," ca. 1956.

Now, granted, the show contained a lot of silliness, as well as endless commercials for Greyhound, Winston, the Polaroid Land Camera, and some window-cleaning liquid. But it's impossible to watch the young Steve Allen and not realize that everything Conan O'Brien's done was done before and done better. It's impossible to watch Sammy Davis Jr. do impressions, sing beautifully, and dance alongside his father and uncle, and not think that the people who qualify as "performers" on today's hit parade have anything going for them other than the one thing Davis didn't have—classic good looks. It's impossible to watch Orson Welles perform Shylock's "Hath not a Jew" monologue from "The Merchant of Venice" and not be left flattened on the floor, gazing up in awe and wonderment at the immensity of his talent—as well as his ability to completely transport you during the space in between cigarette commercials.

Most of all, it's impossible to watch something like that and believe that contemporary television serves any purpose other than to narrow the attention span, dull the mind, and prevent the viewer from thinking for himself.

But for me to take that view about today's television and film assumes that I, in forsaking them, am intellectually superior to those who enjoy and care about both—which is practically everyone. More than that, it assumes that the popular culture, which I enjoy so much with regard to what it produced 35 or more years ago (precisely before I was born), has stopped having any relevance at all simply because it has stopped having relevance for me.

The truth is, I can't make myself feel differently about popular culture. I can only try to change my thinking about those who appreciate it.

I can look to the example of G.K. Chesterton, who would read books that he disagreed with—and even picked up a penny dreadful or three in his time. He respected the idea of literature for entertainment's sake, and he wanted to gain a better understanding of philosophies that differed from his own. (If you're interested in reading more of his thoughts on this, check out this chapter from Heretics) Even if I don't want to follow his example of actually dipping into the most populist elements of popular culture, I can still learn from his respect for those things.

But a sense of respect, while making me a less stuffy person to be around, is not going to make me care about the things that many others care about. It's not going to make me give a fig about "The Simpsons" (though that Ned Flanders guy is kinda cool) or "Dawn of the Dead," or, God help me, The Da Vinci Code. And here is where the real separation begins...

I used to want most of all to have friends who shared my musical interests. I dreamed of surrounding myself with people who adored the Zombies, the Kinks, the Left Banke, and the Millennium. Those were the people whom I would seek out.

I still would and do enjoy being friends with those music fans—and if you're a friend of mine who's reading this, music fan or not, I still want and need your friendship. But I no longer actively seek those people for new friendships.

From now on, my first priority is to form and sustain friendships with other dynamic, creative, and spirit-filled people who love Jesus. That by necessity means people who are voracious readers like myself, whose reading includes not only the Good Book but other good books as well.

I'd like to be around people like that even if they also care about contemporary TV and film—and even if they have guilty pleasures like (yeesh) "Sex and the City"—because there's one important quality that differentiates them from those who care only for those things:

They seek higher ground.

They may not have found it, but they seek it.

Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

This is the meaning of the fantasy of going to a land where nobody has any preconception of me, where nobody has a pop-culture referent to which I have to accede in order to enter their confidence.

I don't believe God is going to force me to surround myself with a lot of boring, dull, and uncreative Christians who have no spark and wouldn't know the Beatles if John Lennon rose from the dead.

I think He is going to send me new friends who are intelligent, literate, and funny—and who may even surprise me once in a while by quoting a Lesley Gore lyric other than "it's my party."

And I believe He is going to do this even if I have to hunt them down one by one.

DawnEdenTheSalonica -at- hotmail.com
__________________________________
*Certain celebrity names do not merit bold type.
1:25 AM |

The Fudge Report

Eric Siegmund's evocative entry on "Signs of Spring in West Texas" inspired me to offer these Signs of Spring in Hoboken:

The number of baby strollers on the main drag, Washington Street, has increased exponentially.

Both of the storefront seasonal soup shops are shut down while they convert to ice-cream shops.

The lilting tones that can only come from the Mr. Softee truck are once again wafting through Hoboken streets.

12:14 AM |

Thursday, April 1, 2004

'Game' Marriage

The following is a sneak preview of part of a column that I am writing for Rich Appel's e-zine about radio, Hz So Good (available for free from Rich at audiot.savant@verizon.net). Rich calls the column "The D.E.B.T.," which I think stands for Dawn Eden Blind Test. He names a recording and I write my thoughts upon listening to it.

For the first D.E.B.T., Rich asked me to riff on Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders' "The Game of Love":

The instantly identifiable bass line begins, sounding remarkably like Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs' "Sugar Shack."

About 10 years ago, I was at some painfully dull event in an art studio where someone had a boom box blasting rap—including a song that sampled the first two bars of "The Game of Love," as a loop. I remember that I really didn't want to be there in the first place. Hearing those bars sampled and knowing that songwriter Clint Ballard Jr. and the Mindbenders were in all likelihood not making a dime from it, I just snapped. I jumped up, pointed to the boom box, and shouted, "Death to Samplers! Death to Samplers!"

I still get angry thinking about it—though I wouldn't really advocate violence.

I started writing professionally about Sixties pop at a very young age—17—and was so obsessed with it that, in a way, it stunted my social development, as would any obsession that separates one from one's own age group. The obsession was so intense that in some ways it was like a drug habit—it caused me to do a lot of nervy things, some of which I can now recall only as a vague blur. For example, I have an odd, almost vestigial memory of looking up Clint Ballard Jr.'s phone number when I was about 23 and calling him.

This would have been around early 1992, as I think I was working on liner notes to a Peter & Gordon CD (which was not released until 2001) and had just discovered their version of Ballard's "She Needs Love." I also adored his "I'm Alive," recorded by the Hollies, and "Got to Get a Hold of Myself," by the Zombies, and I liked his Mindbenders compositions "Just a Little Bit Too Late" and "Game of Love." What I thought was most interesting about him was that every single song I knew by him was great. I'd never come across a song of his that wasn't high-quality. There aren't a lot of songwriters of whom one can say that—even Goffin and King had their clunkers.

It's bizarre to me to think of how I managed to track down Ballard's number, as this was before such information was searchable on the World Wide Web. Perhaps I called BMI for the number of his publishing company and got his home number. I was using professional research methods from a young age—I first learned them at 17 when researching Bob Shannon's book Behind the Hits.

But this is all a shaggy-dog story if you want to know what Ballard said, because I can't remember. All I can recall is that he was in Texas; he seemed to be doing OK so far as his living situation and royalties; he was gracious; and he sounded perfectly sane. Ironically, I remember that his memory was excellent, and he told me stories about every song that I asked about—such as "Got to Get a Hold of Myself," which he said was originally recorded by Dee Dee Warwick. But I didn't tape his comments, because I was just calling him on a lark. How whacked is that?

So those are the thoughts that hit me in the first four bars of "The Game of Love."

Then Wayne Fontana's voice comes in: "The purpose of a man is to love a woman..."

Now there's a lyric worth legislating!

Now that I think about it, this whole gay-marriage debate would be a lot more interesting if the demonstrators at rallies would communicate only in Sixties pop songs. Homosexual couples could sing "Give Us Your Blessing," mayors eager to marry them could sing "I Know a Place," the arrested-but-defiant Unitarian gay-wed ministers in New Paltz could sing "I Fought the Law," distraught citizens wishing to uphold traditional marriage could respond with "Stop in the Name of Love," and President Bush could drown them all out with "When a Man Loves a Woman."

Ah, yes, "the purpose of a man..." I should have asked Ballard if he were Catholic. There's something wonderfully catechismic in that lyric. Actually, no, I take that back—a Web search shows that the question is in fact the first one in the Westminster Catechism, which is Presbyterian:

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.

So Ballard skips man's main purpose and moves on to a secondary one—one to which I can't say I object.

"Come on baby, the time is right"—the song moves into double time, with a Bo Diddley beat. One can imagine how much influence its arrangement had on American garage bands. There's something deliciously dirty about this recording; the band plays with just the right balance of tightness and looseness. No question that this was recorded live in the studio—you can't get this sound nowadays, with each musician isolated in their own padded room.

Listen in particular to the toms. Today, they sound like a kiddie drum kit, but back then, they were unusually assertive for a pop record. There's no question that this song was a killer dancefloor track. In fact, the double-time break makes for a perfect dancefloor tension release—dancers move from doing pony-style side-to-side sways to shaking, twisting, frugging, moptop-swinging madness.

Lastly, note the faux female backing vocals that run almost all through the song. I find them annoying, but they show how much the Mindbenders and their British contemporaries sought to emulate the Tamla Motown sound. Also, they give early evidence of bandmember Eric Stewart's able falsetto, which would come into play during his later work with his 10cc bandmates.

This is not a song that I listen to very often, because I prefer my I-IV-V ("Louie, Louie") chord progressions disguised (a la the Troggs' "Love Is All Around"). But it's important in that it gives the feel of a more innocent time when a stripped-down, four-piece band recording with absolutely no studio trickery—little more than a rock and roll nursery rhyme—could become a Number One hit. In the time it takes today for a band to record a single bass drum track—oh, excuse me, "floor tom"—the Mindbenders would have finished their first album and begun touring behind it.

Then there's the recording's sheer exuberance. You know the Mindbenders weren't toiling away for hours trying to make a heavy artistic statement. Neither were they spending days trying to figure out the necessary number of beats-per-minute so that the song would fit some mathematical hit formula. They just went into a studio, kicked up their Cuban heels, and played their little Mancunian boots off. For them, music really was a "Game of Love." Play on.
2:17 AM |

My review of the new documentary on star-collector Rodney Bingenheimer, "The Mayor of Sunset Strip," is now up on Offoffoff, including several photos.
12:13 AM |

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