What young adults say about faith?

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Can't go home again....

Home.  Where is home?  

I have admitted my vagabond ways previously.  I am comfortable most places, but where is home?  Is home the tired cliche, "where the heart is?"  Is home one of the evolving cliches "home is where you hang your hat," "home is where you lay your head," or "home is where your family or friends are."  Maybe you just want to go all theological and say that heaven is my home.  Maybe you want to go all financial, home is what the mortgage covers.  

Home.  Not sure.  But home for me seems to be wherever I am at the moment, and whoever I am with makes up the inhabitants.  It will be where I lay my head, for now. Most of the time it is comfortable, much of the time it is where my heart is, and occasionally, if I have a hat with me, I will hang it there. 

So over the past week I have been at home in Galveston, one of my mortgage homes. I have been in Colorado Springs, a new home for me.  And I have been in Allenspark Co, in a rustic camp setting home.  And later this week I will back track those travels and return to home in North Louisiana.  And not to long after that I will set out again on another small adventure.  

Now my immediate family and pup are in North Louisiana, so don't hear me say that I don't cherish them, i love them dearly, and being from them makes me sad and returning makes me glad.  But that may not be home  

Maybe home is where God sets us down?   And we can never really know how long that is for.  I am prayerful that my openness to home is something that God is up to, and that I can create home wherever God plants me.  

This will be a thin place.,  

Friends don't let friends...

I saw a t-shirt that caught my attention the other day,  and I will insert that I love noticing tshirts and admire the courage that  some people have in wearing them.  Some sport politiical leanings, some advertise (and not always what the wearer intended), some are just nasty, and some say profound things.

So saw a t-shirt in an airport vendor where you could buy coffee and donuts, let's call it Dunkin Donuts.  And I was there for the coffee, which is another conversation entirely.  This t-shirt said "friends don't let friends drink Starbucks."  I will admit that my first thought was, I didn't know this airport had Starbucks (it doesn't), but my next thought was how good it was to have friends.

Many, many years ago in somewhat of a wine induced stupor, my good friends confessed to me that they were not going to introduce me to any of their single male friends in the hope of "fixing me up."  But that they wanted all of their friends to know one another.  I appreciated there candor, and together we plotted out a strategy, which we keep to this day.  The person with the most friends wins!  And we have begun ever since that time collecting and sharing friends.  And what an enriching experience that it has been.

First, it has been a protective strategy.  Each of us have been able to alert the other about people that may not actually have friendship in mind.  I gathered in two work associates that were married to one another, and we really enjoyed the rich conversations and sporting events that we attended.  I introduced my new friends to my old friends, and later that evening receivied the warning "I think you need to be careful, they may not be who they appear to be."  I brushed off the warning, chalking it up to jealousy.  But  oh how right they were.  And when my long time friends met this single woman, and had her join our group, i instantly warned them that there might be something not quite right about her.  and the more time she spent with us the more apparent it became, that was indeed the case.

secondly, and more happily, it has become a strategy of extending myself and my search into a wider world than I could have imagained.  My closest friend invited me to her mediation circle, but warned me that they were all non-Christians or post-Christians and that I wasn't to feel out of place.  I promised to be comfortable.  I took my rosary, and planned on praying while they were sitting mediation.  Well, I pulled out my rosary and three of the women present pulled out theirs!  And after mediation we had a great conversation about the role of women in church and the ordination of women specificallly.

Finally, it has opened my horizons of places to go and see.  Turns out the more friends that you gather the more places they have been and can recommend, or veto.  And while your horizons get larger the world gets smaller.  So no surprise when sitting down at a dinner party, one of the couples introduced is from the small town where my neice goes to college.  And they are close friends with one of her favorite teachers.  And while in Colorado I meet a young woman on faculty at a seminary where a good friend of mine from Iona just graduated.

So while friends may limit the things you can or shouldn't do, like driving drunk or drinking another brand of coffee.  Friends make our life richer in so many ways.

The person with the most friends wins.

 

Living by the calendar

For the past several days I have been staying with a couple of dear friends in Colorado.  And they are both retired.  I mean seriously retired.  They get up early two days a week; Sunday for church and Monday to put out the trash (no, you can't put it out the night before because of the bears).  And those are also their only measure of time.  The calendar.  So for someone who lives by a watch with alarms, that remind her when to be somewhere and a phone that assists in that duty, living by the calendar has been an experience.  

We made it to all the places that I wanted to visit, and most times we made it dry, surprised by a sudden downpour a time or two.  We ate when we were hungry, and not nearly as often as the clock might have demanded.  The days were just packed, but essentially had no idea what day it was.  

It was a very thin sort of place to be.  Time wasn't in control,  and coming out of a hectic teaching schedule with all sorts of demands, that was a huge change.  And while our movements were purposeful, certainly wouldn't have put us in the wandering category, it was a delight.  It was Sabbath.

There is no one I can blame for my schedule, that all falls to me.  And while I look forward to my own days of retirement and calendar living, I need to remember that God said Sabbath was important.  

That is a thin place that should be here all along.  

Traveling on a certain airline

As you are probably aware, I have done a good bit of flying.  And airlines are not created equal.  And unless you have spent the last ten years under a rock, airlines have changed.  Most now charge you for everything.  To take your luggage with you is a fee.  To have a meal on a flight generally involves a fee.  I know of an airline, haven't flown with them yet, which may charge you a fee based on your weight and the weight of your alleged free carry one.  And I don't really quibble with much of that.  I try to fly as luggage free, and fee free, as I possibly can.  

Ultimately, it comes down to providing a service.  Seriously we pay for them to take us, safely, to the places we want to go, or at least as close as they can get us.  Some of them seem to have forgotten that point.  But they are service providers, and we are receiving their service.  Now I will be the first to admit that people paying for and receiving a service can, on occasion, be as nasty as they can be, and there is no excuse for that.  Stranded in a city because of a weather flight delay, I had received a fistful of neat coupons from the airline, basically everything they could have thought to provide me with I had received.  The woman next to me was not as fortunate, and was given the bare bones.  When she quered my hand full of delight, she asked "why didn't I get all that?"  And I told her,  "maybe if you had been more pleasant, "  She had actually blamed the young person at the desk for the weather.  So okay I get that, but at a company level, my choosing you makes your profits possible.  

Now some get it.  And I will name names,,,  Korean Air.  Now I have only been on four Korean Air flights, but have logged about 50 hours with them.  Yep, that long flight from Dallas to Soeul, that.s a humdinger. Some of there sevice is clearly a part of there culture, but they understood being in the air together and how to make you as comfortable as possible.  But my personal favorite -- Southwest.  Yes, crazy Southwest.  Now I do admit the bus like atmosphere of their waiting areas and their crazy lets line up and get on board.  But under all that craziness, is an absolute desire to serve others.  It is in their corporate DNA.  Employees that do well in their structure are the ones that provide "service with a smile."

How could this possibly be a thin place?  I am coming to an understanding that we are all bascially providing a service, whether it is air travel or teaching, if we contact and connect with others in our daily journey then we are somehow being service providers,.  How am I going to be a person that doesn't hinder the walk of others, but becomes part of their conduit to heaven on earth?

How can I be a thin place?

Traveling music

About to draw these two summer semesters to a close and head off; a little traveling music please.

This has been a stay at home summer. At least so far. A stay at home and spend bucket loads of money. Some on fun stuff – like MacKinnon. Some on necessary stuff – two fully functional toilets. A summer when most of my involvement in anything has been part of preparation for other things.

I have been working on a research project for then end of the summer.

I have been working on some consultation materials, along with a little trip to Dallas, and a side trip to Paris (Texas, not France).

I have been working on a sermon (yes, I get to preach).

I have been working on the arrangements for a major trip next summer (yes, more searching).

I have been working to pay for the major trip next summer.

I have been working on new ideas for the fall, both at school and at church.

Which brings me to; we are always headed somewhere. Sometimes it involves great plans; Walking the Camino de Santiago, volunteering on Iona, visiting Holy Island. Sometimes it involves extensive planning; drive to Galveston, spend couple of days with family, fly to Colorado, spend a couple of days with friends, drive to another part of Colorado, present research findings, fly back to Houston, couple of days with other friends, and then drive home. Sometimes it involves the banal; groceries, hardware, gasoline, avoid big stores, use small stores, can I get that done before the other needs done. And in all of that we are on the move, maybe at a glacial pace, maybe much faster.

But the preparation for our journey makes it so much smoother.

Let's make this a thin place.   

Old Boys

There are 170 units in my complex, and even with about 10% of them for sale or rent, there are bunches of people around. And since I tend to wander about early in the morning, particularly during the summer, when I walk and run in the complex, I know a lot about the comings and goings of folks. I know the nurses that work the late evening shift, and those that work the early morning. I know the residents at medical school, and when they change rotations. I know who else teaches school, and is taking it easy during the summer. I know that the retired folks tend not to emerge from their homes until about 9 a.m., and that the younger folks tend to come home very early in the morning.

A couple of my favorite residents are these two old boys. They live next to one another. They are in their later 70's, and are going through their second puberty. Both drive hot vehicles. One is in a Dodge Charger and the other in a massive Dodge RAM pickup. It is so massive that when he has been out late, he can't maneuver it into its narrow parking space. One is Catholic and worships on Saturday afternoon, and then they party afterwards. The other is Baptist and worships on Sunday, and then they party afterwards. One never married and the other is a widower, and they are both on their own. One has a cat, and the other complains about the cat.

They spend the early evenings sitting on the porch in front of their homes, mostly complaining in that generic old boy sort of way about everything. They aren't nosy, but they watch what is going on. They are cordial, but there are only two chairs, no one is invited to join them. They are apparently available, and enjoy the spoils of being two bachelor men far outnumbered by single women.

I think these old boys should be the textbook example of growing old grace-filledly.

They are a thin place.   

Procrastination

I have taken all the personality tests possible.

I can be the most goal directed, driven person you will ever come across. And if you have come across me, you know that is actually an understatement.

So this may come as a bit of a surprise.

I procrastinate. And I am good at it (or bad at it, not sure which way that might go).

And my procrastination seems to lurk in only one area. My writing. And it doesn't matter what form that writing takes. Blog posts. Book authoring. Research preparation. Procrastination! I will pick up almost ANY other tasks, even dreaded, hated, disgusting tasks, before I will sit down to write. I will actually make up work or volunteer for something that I have no business volunteering for, just to procrastinate.

When I wrote for the publishing house, we would gather in Nashville for a writers workshop. Everyone that was working on content would get together and brainstorm over a couple of quarters worth of material, flesh out ideas, essentially “geek-out” on Bible stories for three days, and then head home with our assignments. You would have 13 -14 weeks to prepare your quarter's worth of material, and a quarters worth of material was 13-14 weeks long. Simple math, do a weeks worth of material in a week and have submitted in plenty of time. Right? No! Regardless of how diligent I was, nothing was written in advance of one week prior to deadline. I can tell you that I can churn out one weeks worth of material in 8 hours. I found this disturbing, until I confided in a writer colleague, and she exclaimed that she always put it off until the week prior to the deadline. Then she would lock herself in her office and her husband would throw food into her. Her kids were told under no circumstances to disturb her. Wow.

I share this with you, as a confession. When there are no new posts on the blog, it is because I have been busy procrastinating. Actually that is not 100% accurate. I have been working on a research project that I have to present next week, which I have been procrastinating with about 8 weeks. And as you read this, I am writing this blog post while procrastinating about completing the research project. So this is productivity in lieu of the product that I need to be producing.

Oh it is all so very complicated. The procrastination does allow me to simmer my ideas, hopefully until they are just right. Which is a very lame rationalization. It does create a level of stress that demands response, and I can proudly (shamefully) say that I am still able to pull an all nighter. But it would seem to me to be so much less complicated to follow the beautifully crafted schedule that I create (while procrastinating) to complete writing projects in a timely manner.

This is a tight place, but I am not sure how thin it is

A perfect morning walk

As I have previously noted, my dog and I walk every morning. We have recently adjusted our route, so to make it a mile and a half, and on these July humid mornings, that extra little bit – hurts. It is my exercise and her social time. She takes care of her “business” fairly early on in the walk, so as to not miss any potential exciting bits. Now what passes for routine excitement, actually seems quite mundane to this human. We stop to allow her to sniff almost anything, but of particular interest seems to be the little wispy blooms off a crepe myrtle, which at this point in the summer number in the thousands. And the wispy-ness of the flower means that they blow around easily, so not only does she sniff them, she also chases them. Being a dog, her primary sense organ is her nose, and we do stop to smell many, many things, including the roses, but I do draw the line at picking up anything we have stopped to sniff-- to many strange things in the world.

Typically we walk three laps around the complex, now with the extra bit tacked on. I now track it on this delightful little app, RunKeeper, which is also a walk keeper, and I am amazed at the number of times my dog attempts to convince me that we have already walked enough by prematurely turning into our home. Particularly on painfully hot and humid mornings, even after one lap, she will turn in. And what I find more amazing, is the number of times I follow her, before I realize that the dog may be done, but the technology says there is more to do.

What makes for a perfect puppy walk? Three things. Yellow cat. Journey. Hunting Bunnies.

We hunt bunnies every morning. And since she is on a leash, by hunting I mean staring at them until they run away. She is allowed to chase them, for the length of her 14 foot leash, and then it is done. It is an overwhelmingly delightful morning when one of the bunnies runs in circles, and then she can chase it until I am too dizzy to stand. It is fascinating to watch her with the bunnies. First, is the degree to which she depends upon me to assist her. When I spot a bunny before her, which means it is downwind from her, and I say “there's one,” she actually looks around for the bunny that I see but she doesn't. Second, she is not a member of the hunting group. As a Boxer, the AKC classifies her as a working dog, so when she strikes her hunting stance, sometimes her front paw is raised like a pointer, and other times it is her back paw. Not sure why. But it is entertaining. Third, patience. She has it. I don't. Have stood with her 5 minutes starring at a bunny. Since standing and starring do not burn calories – let's move on.

Some mornings we find Yellow Cat. In our complex all cats are supposed to be indoor cats, and cats are not supposed to be outside. Yellow Cat was abandoned here months ago, and lives in the middle of the complex, supported by all the loving people of the middle of the complex. Those folks feed him, make sure he has water and one has even had a friend who is a Vet Tech come by and take a look at him. He is healthy, neutered, declawed in the front, and now has his current shots. And while they are a willing to care for him, no one is willing to house him. He is very domestic, and really wants to play, particularly with dogs. However, my dog has no experience with cats, and would like to chase him, except Yellow Cat won't run. In fact, Yellow Cat reaches up and pats her face with his declawed paws. This is perplexing for her. So we move on.

And on the best mornings we see Journey. Journey is a younger Boxer that lives in the complex. There are actually two other Boxers in our complex, but Journey is our favorite. And Journey's family must also be at work early in the morning, so they are often out when we are out. The moment we round the corner walking towards Journey's house, my dog begins to sniff the air and scan the horizon for Journey. If I begin to get tugged rapidly down the street, I know that Journey is out. Interestingly, Journey's owner says the same thing happens when he brings her out, Journey begins to scan for us. And when they see one another, they must touch. Now, when two sixty pound dogs decide to touch, there is little you can do about it. When two sixty pound Boxers decide to touch, it is more like a wrestling match. And then it's done. We move on.

A thin place; to be touched by those vastly different than ourselves, to touch those similar to ourselves and to continue seeking what is just beyond our grasp.   

Justice and Peace join hands

Most mornings on the Isle of Iona, Scotland in the Abbey opening worship is held. And each morning worship is opened with a call and response liturgy;

Leader: The world belongs to God

All: The earth and all its people

Leader: How good it is, how wonderful

All: To live together in unity

Leader: Love and faith come together

All: Justice and Peace join hands

Leader: If Christ's disciples keep silent

All: these stones would shout aloud

Leader: Open our lips, O God

All: And our mouths shall proclaim your praise (Iona Worship Book, pg.15)

That phrase has been on my mind most of the week; Justice and peace join hands. It is from the New English translation of the Bible, and can be found in Psalms 85:10-11. Justice and peace join hands. That is not actually the way that we generally consider Justice and Peace, in fact, we probably don't think of them together, and certainly not holding hands. We envision Lady Justice as the blind robed woman with scales, impartially delivering justice. Peace is a dove with an olive branch. People have been screaming this week about “How justice was served” or “how justice was not served,” about the same judicial proceeding.

I want to assure you that I am not hijacking my own search to launch into a political discourse. I worked within the justice system for many years, and I know what effects justice. What I do want to draw attention to is the Thin place of Justice and peace. We can't go back and undo the trial, anymore than we can undo the events that led up to the trial. But we can decide, that as Children of God, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Justice and Peace will join hands. That we will no longer enter into hate filled discussions, but that we will use our voices to bring peace, use our efforts to create equality that leads to justice, use our hands to raise up others rather than oppress, and we can use our minds in creative ways to ensure that opportunities are not missed.

A search for thin places, a search for places where heaven and earth meet, insists upon this.

It is what I am searching for.   

Rainy Days and Mondays

 Here in Sweatsville, last Monday was delightful. Do you remember? It rained. Yeah, early in the morning, best kind. Here is the deep, humid south summer rain comes in only a couple of forms. The dreaded afternoon summer pop up shower. And the frog choking storm.

Yes, in the heat and humidity of the deep south there is a rain storm that we would rather not see. The pop up shower. These little delights, ironically don't make it more comfortable. In fact, they make it worse. They typically aren't part of any weather system, but the combination of humidity and other magical weather thingees, cause rain to literally pop up out of nowhere. And immediately following one of these little showers, the humidity is able to reach above 100%.

The other type the frog choker, is as described, a torrent of rain that occurs so rapidly that frogs would drown. These tend to be part of a weather system, so you can know when they are coming. They tend not to last very long, and if you are truly fortunate they may cool things off for an hour, maybe two. They may be accompanied by violent winds and lightning, so bad things can come with them.

But last Monday it was a little spring shower in the early morning hours. It wasn't violent. It wasn't steamy. I was on my morning run and just kept going, imagining that it was April or October, as opposed to July. It made for a great way to begin the week.   

Clock that is never right

For many years my brother and father worked together.  In a garage.  And in the heat of North Louisiana.  Together they established a practice of taking a lunch break, usually at home, to enjoy the air conditioned environment.  This practice expanded to include watching a soap opera.  So for years they would come home, eat lunch, watch a soap opera and squeeze in a quick nap.  And for those years my mother would send them on their way at the appointed time.

And time passed.  Eventually my father and brother ended up at my house for the same ritual.  Air con'd environment, lunch, soap opera and nap.  But with a new twist.  Because I may or may not have been there during lunch, a small alarm clock was set to go off, reminding them or more to the point awakening them to return to work.  And with the passage of time, and the life of my father, my brother and I continue the practice most days.  My brother will come to my house for lunch, we will eat, and watch a show, the soap opera's demise has limited our viewing, and commonly we will fall into a nap.  Occasionally, I am not there, but my brother still comes to my house to visit with my dog.

But the clock has fallen into disuse.  It is actually a great clock.  Small. Loud. and difficult to change the time.  The alarm time is easily changed, but the time, that is another story.  So here it is in the middle of summer and the time is incorrect.  And it is not even right twice a day!  It is on Central Standard time.  Not Daylight savings time.  I would love to tell you that it is a protest of my distaste of DST, but it is actually because it is so difficult to change the time.  The upside is you can't accidentally change the time, but the downside is that this clock won't be right until November.

So for the next couple of months, there is no time when this clock will be correct.  I haven't moved it from its prominent place on the mantle.  We don't use it to judge when it is time to leave or return to work.  And because it is more functional than artistic, it isn't even ascetic to keep it on the mantle.  It is  a clock with no purpose.  Until later.  And I am willing to wait it out.  

Vacation Bible School

I am a VBS junkie.

I admit it.  Freely.

My mother was a stay at home mom, who for much of my childhood, couldn't drive.  So she was essentially trapped at home with us during the summer months.  Her solution?  Church, lots and lots of church.  Specifically, Vacation Bible School.  A neighbor, who could drive, but also had a child at home, would take us to whatever VBS my mother directed us to.  It was not unusual for me to attend 5 - 6 VBS at a variety of Christian denominations over the course of the summer.  One summer I actually attended 8 weeks of VBS.  Church of Christ, Assembly of God, Methodist, Baptist.  Did them all.  And this was before the days of canned or boxed VBS sold by publishing houses.  Most churches made their own.

There is not much I remember about all those learning experiences.  Just glimpses.  All the koolaid was watered down and tasteless. All the cookies were those lemon ring cookies that you could slide on your fingers and nimble them down.  The crafts were the best at my home church, we had an artist in residence who led us in making REAL crafts.  The Bible stories were better at the Assembly of God and Baptist churches, than the Methodists.  Seriously, I stumped the VBS leader at the Methodist Church on Bible knowledge.  I was 11.  I can still recite the pledge to the Christian Flag and the Bible.

VBS has changed.  If a child was to attend 8 VBS's this summer, chances are they would attend the same one a couple of times at least.  The music is designed to be electric, loud and rejoicing.  The crafts are typically paper, and after a few months on the fridge door will be tossed aside.  And chances are the Bible story will be taught by a puppet or DVD.  And even with all those changes I still LOVE VBS.  Churches that attempt to maintain this righteous, serious facade, simply can't do that during VBS when they are filled with screaming and jumping children.  The church is never more alive than when filled with excited, active children.  I am convinced it is what God intends a place of worship to be.

While noisy, and sticky, it is a thin place.

Ending a semester

All of life is marked by passages.  Some of them are obvious, some not so much.  We use calendars of varying sorts to track these moments.  Some calendars end in December and begin in January.  Chinese calendars and Jewish calendars are much older than the Julian calendars, and mark time in different ways.  Those of us that follow church calendars know that the passage of time is noted by color changes, and for now we are trapped in the ongoing season of Ordinary Green.  While I live in the world of January to December, and I worship in the Christian calendar, I work on the academic calendar.

The school calendar.  More specifically the semester system.  But if you haven't been to College or University lately, the times they are a changin'.  Yes, there is a Fall, Spring and Summer semester, but within those three semesters lie other measures of time.  Currently it is the summer semester.  At my institution we have three varieties of summer school, long and two short.  Or in the vernacular Sessions A, B and C.  Session A is eight weeks long, encompassing the months of June and July.  Sessions B and C are four weeks long, one occupying June and the other July.  In the fall and spring it is so much more complicated -- we have sessions through A-J.  And they run from 16 weeks, 10 weeks, 8 weeks and 4 weeks.  In the Fall I am scheduled to teach several A's, a couple of B's, a D and a G.  Seriously, can't tell you what I am doing without a chart.

Which means at any point in time during a 16 week period you may be starting or ending a class.  Now starting is not all that difficult, you show up and teach.  Actually the difficult part is remembering to show up -- hence the chart.  The difficult part -- ending the semester.  Ending a semester is never easy.  The easy part is saying farewell to students that you have grown attached to.  Trust me, it may have only been four weeks, but cover an entire college textbook in four weeks and you are attached to those people.  The complicated part is completing all the paperwork.  Documentation can't be put off.  So you may finish a class in early September, mid October or December, but you still have to post grades, complete learning outcomes and complete attendance reports.  Regardless of when you finish.  Ending a semester is never fun.  For my clergy friends, imagine completing your audit 8 - 9 times a year.

And here's the delight.  I have one down, two to go before summer's done.  Then I think I finish semesters in September, October, and December.  I think.

need to get to work on that chart.

Meet MacKinnon

And as with things that pass, there are things that step into those empty places.  Because this is the 21st century and because I work on a great many projects, it was necessary to replace Howard, the dead PC, with a new machine.

And as my niece so nicely put it, "Welcome to the dark side,"  MacKinnon joined the family last week. Yes, MacKinnon is one of those bright and shiny new Apples.

Now I am not one for material possessions.  I am actually the antithesis of a possessor of material goods.  And to be truthful, I still look at MacKinnon and think, I could have bought a new sofa for the price of this computer.  But, allow me to rationalize.

I write.  I write a lot.  And the fact that my old PC had actually WORN out (techno-geek said he wasn't sure he had ever seen a PC with that many user hours on it), led me to believe that the most cost efficient purchase was to go with a Mac.  Now with that comes an entire learning curve.  Not only do I now have to learn a new operating system, which was going to occur regardless of the type of computer I purchased.  I have to learn all these new features.  Like Command-somehting is what control-something used to be.  There is a function and control key, however, I haven't quite gotten to their purpose yet.  I am learning that just because something can't be seen doesn't mean that its not open and working.  I am learning that a careless swipe of your fingers takes you to desktop displays that you were not aware existed.  So with all this learning, it has taken a bit to get up to steam, but with all new things there is a time of 'getting to know you."

This is not a thin place, but it can help me reveal them.

Computer death

Howard, my computer died (yes, they have names). Really seriously dead. Wouldn't even turn on.

I wasn't really devoted to that computer. It was purchased in an emergent situation 6 years ago when I sustained an almost direct lightning strike. And yes, I had the correct safety equipment, the strike was so close it blew up my modem and entered the computer. My techno-geek friend said he hadn't ever seen a computer so thoroughly trashed. So it was an emergency purchase of a polite little machine which was running the dreaded V operating system that was on PC's of that time. And it had faked its own death about 18 months ago and had been resuscitated. Having learned my lesson many years ago, I didn't even save documents and materials to my computer. Everything went to an external hard drive which was backed up to another remote drive once a month. So nothing except programs lived on the computers drive.

But still. Even when you are expecting a death, it is hard to deal with. Even when you have planned for it, anticipated it, the mere fact that something you depended on is no longer there, creates an awkward void that has to be handled. So in the short term, I rigged a netbook portable (affectionately named Mike, yes, pretty much everything has a name) to my monitor and worked on those machines. My Ipad (St. Paddy) was also integral to getting me through the transition. But even with that, there was a cavern where the old PC had been. Many things which were quickly dispatched with, were a little more tricky.

That's how it is. Things, and more importantly people, that occupy our lives leave a void. When they are away and when they are gone. Sometimes those empty spaces are great reminders of the joy and pleasure brought to us, and other times those spaces are dark reminders of something, someone who won't be with us any longer.

Both of those places are thin.  

Walking into Fog

Each morning, pretty early, my dog and I go for a walk. This multipurpose walk is for my exercise and her socialization, along with a potty break. For her, not me.

And when I say early, the sun is not up. During the academic year this is because I have early office hours, and have to get our walk in before I go to school. In the summer, this is because it is the only portion of the day I find remotely habitable. But honestly, I like being out in the day before it gets all used up by other folks. I have a friend who says its my job to wake up God. Now theologically I don't buy that, but I like the sentiment.

One of the strange perks of being up and out so early is you can catch unusual sites. It is so quiet during the early morning hours you can hear the rain as it approaches. During an atypical outbreak of summer showers, we got caught in a downpour because I could not figure out what the strange sound was—it was the intermittent rain on the metal awnings of the carport. But even more interesting was walking into the fog.

Because of the showers we had a couple of days in a row, a dense fog advisory was issued. Dangerous for those of you moving about in your vehicles on the way to work, but the beauty of walking early is that the fog was only descending. So which each lap, we go around three times, the fog dropped closer and closer to earth. There was a surreal awareness that if we kept going around, soon we would be walking on faith, not sight. And it does descend on little cat's feet, slyly even though we were watching.

It is a thin place to walk into the fog.  

Back up

Backing up your computer information is a lot like being the person who becomes extraordinarily healthy following a heart attack.  People, who have lost all their information once, commonly become the people who back up their computer.  I have never lost my computer information due to a crash, but the fear of losing my entire dissertation when writing it many years ago, taught me to perform backups.  And it has paid off.  While working for a publishing house several years ago, my computer died.  Well passed resuscitation, much less resurrection, if all my data had been on my computer I would have lost months of work.  As it turned out, it took longer to drive to the store, select, purchase, and set up the new computer than it did to restore my information. 

            What if we could back up our lives like our information?  What if we could simply restore at a particular point, skipping over or rewinding, something that was particularly discomforting or annoying?  Actually, many folks with kids have a living, breathing backup, who will recall at the most unfortunate of moments, recently or distant occurring events. 

            Nope.  There is no backup.  We can prepare for what seems inevitable, and we should prepare – but that is no guarantee.  And it doesn’t really matter if you lock yourself up in a room or run uphill during a hailstorm.  There is no back up. 

This is a thin place. 

           

Keeping up to date

My calendar. 

            I may not be someone categorized as an “early adopter.”  I don’t always have the latest technology.  I live in the land of “you try it first, and tell me what doesn’t work.”  And eventually, at least in the second or third wave, I will get the almost latest gadget.  Except for the calendar. I just can’t seem to go electronic with the calendar.  Oh, I have tried.  I have the iPhone calendar and Google calendar and virtually every virtual calendar recommended by the aggregate app recommenders.  But just can’t seem to go there. 

            I must be able to touch my calendar.  I must be able to hold it my grubby mitts and see all seven days of the week or all 28/30/31 days of the month.  And even then that may not be enough.  I have criteria for the paper calendar/planner/organizer/journal which makes finding the “perfect” one nearly impossible.  And when I do it tends to be bigger than a house.  Well, that’s an exaggeration.  But it’s bigger than my purse, and too heavy to ever be stuck into my carry-on for travel.  And this is a beta-calendar, so I am not sure that I will adopt it for next year. 

            And it’s me, I know it is.  I don’t have that demanding of a schedule.  Well, I do, but not outside of the classroom.  And my classroom schedule is so demanding I can’t even put it in my calendar.  It exists on a chart in my office and directs me each day to where I am supposed to be.  So if my principle time demand, teaching, doesn’t even make it onto my calendar what is the deal?  I have gone back and forth between a be-all-do-all version, and multiple smaller individual components.  And this is nothing new – I have been pursuing the perfect calendar thingee for years.

            Confession.  Giving some consideration to creating my own planner/calendar/ organizer/journal. 

            Further confession.  I do have some sense of how long that will take me and I may not want to devote that much time and energy to something that is so timeless that it only lasts a year. 

Summer school

Crazy as it may seem, summer also means summer school.  And since this is a non-traveling summer for me, which also means it’s a teaching summer for me.  Easy to balance, one summer has to pay for the next summer.  And I really like summer school.  No seriously.

            First, the students are special.  And I don’t mean special as in challenged in any way.  These are seriously committed folks.  They are giving up valuable play time or free time to either work on getting ahead or catching up for past mistakes.  This also can mean they are demanding in ways students in the regular semesters never are.  Summer students have deep, probing, insightful questions and they want well structured responses.  Summer students hunt you down to meet with you.  I set aside some time for summer students to drop in and meet me, and HOLY COW they showed up. 

            Second, part of what makes them so special is that there aren’t quite so many of them.  During the regular semesters, I am fairly certain students are trucked in to take classes.  I have so many of them, and in so many different places, I can only keep up with each individual class, not the aggregate of them.  In the summer you have these polite manageable little classes, which you have to spend lots of time with because the time frame is so compressed.    

            Third, you get a real sense of all being in this educational process together.  Students and teachers.  During the regular semesters it has this us vs. them, teacher vs. student, sort of feel, which may be due in part to the oppressive numbers of them, students.  But in the summer the sense is we are all here to get through this together.  We start at A and in half the time, and some cases a quarter of the time, we will end up at Z.  I always tell my students, regardless of the class size or time frame, that I expect them to make an A in the class.  Only during the summer does that ever happen.

            Finally, it helps me define mercenary.  That whole question “what would you do for money?”  Yeah, I teach summer school.  Face to face.  In the classroom.  I commit to getting up, out and in the classroom during the summer.  It is insane.  It is mercenary.