Stuff

Thinking about what to blog, I had decided to share about an event in the lives of my twins. That is until I received an e-mail from a friend.

She has spent the last six days in the hospital with her son. A couple of surgeries later, the problem is still not resolved. After reading through her e-mail that was full of medical jargon that I do not understand, one sentence caught my attention.

A week in the hospital truly gives you a new perspective on life and a new appreciation for all things simple and complex.

She began listing the things she missed that I, for one, have been guilty of not appreciating at times.

Sleeping in her own bed.

Seeing her child healthy and up running around.

Sitting on the couch talking with her daughter.

Eating food that she prepared.

There were several more desires on her list, but what caught my attention was her closing statement. She closed with saying, "it's just stuff." Looking around at the "stuff" in my life, I understand what she was saying. It's not the stuff, it's the people in our lives that make the stuff matter.

Looking at the clutter on the table doesn't bring me the frustration that it has over the last few days. It is a reminder that life is not always neat and tidy, but stuff is happening in and around our home.

Who knows, maybe I will eventually write about my "all-you-can-eat" pancake experience with the twins and two of their friends. After all, it is part of the stuff that makes my family so dear and special to me.

Nature of the Beast

New to the world of blogging, I've struggled to get my hands around two concepts: diary and public domain.

In my mind, a diary has always represented a place where one can write their deepest and most private thoughts. A close and dear friend may be presented with the privilege of peaking into the inner most parts of my being, but that is after they have declared their loyalty for a long time. No where in my definition of a diary does the scrutiny of total strangers enter the picture.

I decided to consult my word document on the definition of "blog." Underlining the word I had typed, my computer informed me that I had made a mistake. Interesting. So, I inquired as to the word my trusted electronic friend suggest I use. Bog, bloc, blot, blob, or blow. Not even close.

Okay, what about "Blogger?" Bolger, Flogger, Logger, or Boggier. Boogier? I don't think so.

My college-age daughter tells me, when in doubt--dictionary.com. This is what I found.

Blog, noun, online dairy. There in lies the problem.

My diary will remain my diary. Pen and paper making contact to convey my private thoughts is still very important to me. And my blog will remain my blog; revealing yet another side of me that emerges when fingers glide across a keyboard.

For now, I will continue to try to understand the nature of blogging and see where it takes me.

486

I was simply known as 486. Initially, after entering the building, passing an entourage of police, and being scrutinized by a medal detecting machine, I was addressed by my first and last name. The address was even accompanied with a smile.

The next time my name was called, my addressed included my first name and the number.

486

My presence was acknowledged with a glance. Like herded sheep, forty of us followed obediently, entered an elevator and headed to the seventh floor. As if watching a movie screen, we all watched the numbers change from one to seven. No words were exchanged.

The waiting began along with the silence. Sounding like a mosquito chorus, the florescent lights buzzed over head.

Someone coughed. Someone else sneezed followed by at least a dozen mumbled “bless you.” Again we were embraced by silence.

“I can tell none of ya’ll want to be here.” The voice rushed from around the corner flooding our silence. Questioning glances were exchanged by a few, but the voice had a captivated audience. Was he talking to us? Most of us probably wondered.

“I expect you to be where I can see you.” With that declaration, we all stood and filed around the corner. No one was in a hurry to be the first one there, especially after seeing the one who addressed us. His voiced matched his appearance; big, black, and no nonsense. Definitely not new to the task he completed, our addressing officer had expected us to respond quicker than we did to his call. He folded his arms as he scanned our interesting ensemble.

“If your name is not Jackson, Smith, Jones, or Brown I will probably butcher it.”
Butcher, did he have to say butcher?
“So when I call your number, line up in front of me.” At that point, all formality was gone. I was just a number. Even a smile was no longer in the equation.

When called, 212 pushed his glasses up on his noise as he approached the officer. “415”

No answer.

“415!”

No answer. Those who stood closest to the cop offered meek explanations for the absence. One brave soul offered to search for one missing in action.
“415, Linda—” the officer looked down at his chart before he addressed her last name.

Silence.

He looked at the officer standing next to him, both exchanged a frustrated look. With a heavy sign he bellowed once again.
“415!” Emerging from around the corner, 415 moved forward with an obvious limp in her right leg.
For a moment, the cop stared at her as if he would address her tardiness, but instead he looked back at his chart.

Eventually I heard it.

“486.”
I took my place.

We were escorted into the courtroom in single file. A heavy set red head sat to my right. Number 128, 125? Because of the location of her number, I couldn’t see the last one. To my right was Mr. Unidentified. I called him Mr. Unidentified because he sat down, slouched, folded his arms, and covered his number in the process.

He drummed his fingers on the arm closest to me. There were other places he would have rather been, and his demeanor expressed his desire quite clearly. Even the judge addressed him several times.

The forty was soon to be six.
“Listen careful; I will call your name and your number.”
One, two, three numbers were called quickly in succession. After glancing downing at a chart, the clerk continued.

“Edwina Perkins, 486.”

I rose from my seat and entered the juror’s box. My day of jury duty was about to get longer. Much longer.

Kick the Bucket

“Simple truth”, “honest truth”, and “raw truth” are terms that are often used without the depth of the meaning of the phrase being embraced. Yet, expecting someone to tell the truth, ties their response closely to the morality issue that is raised. Lying is bad, therefore truth is good. What about an unvoiced truth? A hidden fact or information about a situation that remains unspoken. When one simply chooses to keep truth from another, what should that be called? Hidden truth? Scripture says do not hide your light under a bucket.

The reality of that is if you hide your candle under a bucket, you’re likely to start a fire. Is that not what happens when a believer hides information that is painful? How many fires get set this way?

If your brother offends you, go sulk. Well, there are days when I wish that is what my Bible said, but it doesn’t. If your brother offends you, go to him. Hmm, sounds like I would need to take action. Reaction, not action, is required if truth is under a bucket. What type of reaction is determined by when the offender comes to me; before or after the bucket catches on fire.

In a well known movie, a young military lawyer is questioning a commanding office on the witness stand. As tempers rise, the young attorney yells at the Officer that he wants the truth. Equally loud in volume the Officer shouts back, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Is this the roll model believers are to follow in difficult or conflict situations? Does one become judge and jury in deciding if truth can be received and therefore will place it under a bucket if they deem it cannot?

A forest fire of relationships can burn simply because a few truths were put under a bucket. Allowing the bucket to catch on fire causes the priority of self preservation to become primary to truth. Was the Officer correct? Is the truth more than most of us can handle?

It seems like, more often than not, if a few more believers would kick the bucket and speak with truth and love, there would be a few less fires.

What if...

Have you ever found yourself asking the question, "What if?" So many lives can be changed from those two words. In the 4th grade my teacher read a children's book about toys coming to life after all the children had gone to sleep. From that point on, I made sure I played "nicely" with all of my toys. Think about it, what if they did come to life when I was sound asleep? In my child's mind, an anger toy roaming around while I was resting was not a comforting thought.

Remember Y2K? Everyone prepared for everything to happen and nothing happened. Wouldn't it make a great story if there was more to Y2K than we all considered? What if it was a cover up for something bigger? What would that look like in a story? What if it started out with something like this--

Y2K

The garbage disposal made the same clunking sound it usually did when an object of challenging size was forced down its throat. Katherine looked over at Mike. He snapped the newspaper as he turned the page and held it a little higher to block the accusing look he received. Before Katherine could question Mike about the object he had broken, her eyes caught sight of a small blocked article in the right hand corner of the paper. The only words that Katherine could read from where she was standing were Missing Child.

Quickly wiping her hands on the dish towel, she shoved enough of the towel into her jean pocket to hold it in place and walked over to Mike. He was taken by surprise as she snatched the page that caught her attention.

“Hey, wait a minute, it wasn’t my fault—” Mike had been mentally preparing for his defensive argument when she abruptly removed part of the paper.

After spewing out his best defense, Mike realized his words had fallen on disinterested ears as he saw the scowl on Katherine’s face along with her rapidly moving lips. Usually when she was focused on reading anything she silently moved her lips. Mike told her it gave him the willies, but after 10 years of marriage, she told him to get use to it. He never did and turned his attention back to the headlines he was reading in the local part of the news.

He intentionally pulled the Mariner's baseball cap further down to obstruct his view of his wife's neurotic habit.

“Not another one.” Katherine finally whispered. Mike glanced up to show interest and hoped the object in the garbage disposal had been forgotten until he could move it to the outside trashcan.

“Another what, Kat?”
“Child.”
“Hmm?” Mike slightly rose from his chair to get a better look at the page Katherine was holding.
“Another child, Mikey. Another one is missing.” Reading through the brief article again, Katherine absent-mindedly started to pick at her lip. Mike hated this behavior more than when she silently moved them.

“Kat, stop.” Mike reached up and pulled her hand away from her face and continued to pull her down until she sat on his lap. Now he knew she was really distracted. Usually she protested when he tried to get her to sit on his lap. That went out the door year eight of their marriage.

Removing the baseball cap, Mike encircled his arms around her waist. He could still smell the honeysuckle shampoo she had used that morning. He loved the natural waviness of her dark brown hair and was glad she had keep her hair long after their marriage.

Most of the time she pulled it back in a ponytail, but this morning her hair loosely rested down her back. Gently wrapping a handful of her dark locks in his hand, Mike barely inhaled a complete breath before she wiggled free and stood over the paper she had laid to rest on the table. So much for affection.

Her eyes quickly traveled up to the page identification number. She already knew the page number—two.

Same page, same location nothing was different about the small article most people probably overlooked. That’s where the article always was, page two bottom right hand corner, covering a one inch by two inch blocked off section with the heading Missing Child. The first sentence of the article did not surprise her either.
Ear of birth—the typo glared at her. The “y” was missing in the word year.

“Every time the same typo, Mikey.”

He looked searchingly on the page for the article that disturbed Katherine. Realizing Mike did not see what was obvious to her; Katherine huffed and slammed her finger onto the article.

“It’s right there. It’s in the same place with the same mistake every time. Why don’t you know where to look?”

“Because I don’t look for it every time.” Mike did not try to hide his irritation.

“Look, Kat, I know it’s not easy for you when you see this, but constantly searching the paper for these articles can only hurt you more.”

Throwing the dishcloth over her shoulder, Katherine glared at Mike before she headed back to the sink. Having formulated her thoughts, she turned and said, “I didn’t look for the article. You held up the paper, remember?”

She intentionally flipped the switch on the disposal as she stare angrily at her husband. Without the water to soften the noise, the sound of broken glass in the disposal was unmistakable.

Mike started to open his mouth to argue his defense, but the look on Katherine’s face dared him to deny his guilt.

Shoving the rest of the paper aside, Mike quickly rose and snatched up his Mariner's cap. “I give up” he said as he brushed past her. She waited until she heard the back door slam before she moved away from the sink.

Retrieving the kitchen scissors, Katherine carefully cut out the article on page two.

Opening the desk draw under the flour and sugar canisters on the counter, she pulled the manila envelope from under the scattered tool in the drawer. Briefly, she looked at the content. In the corner of each of the previous articles she had saved, Katherine had written “Y2K.” This was her identifying abbreviation for the missing children.

It was a lot shorter to write Y2K than it was to write “missing ‘y’ in article on page two about missing kids”. She wrote her identifying mark, Y2K, and date on the new article before she placed it in the envelope.

In January of 1999, Katherine did not know how close she was to knowing the truth about all that haunted her.

Incurable Fever

Being home alone with my dad, felt like a death sentence. The sentencing wasn’t because of the relationship, but was due to being out of school. I loved school and I loved learning. No ferocious learner wants to hear, “you’re too sick to go to school.” After offering up my weak arguments in an attempt to change my parents’ decision, I ceased pursuing the issue when they threatened to call the doctor. Doctors meant shots; that was worse than a death sentence. My fate was sealed when Mom drove my brother to school—alone.

Moping from room to room dragging my prison garb of a warn-out blanket, I continued to sigh, sneeze and sniffle. Finally Dad, my warden, had had enough.

“Why don’t you write?” he suggested.
“What?”
“Write a poem.”
“Why?”
“What else are you going to do?”
Touché.

With paper and pencil in hand, I prepared to write my first poem. After staring at a blank page for quite some time, I decided to stare at my Dad. Putting the newspaper down, he broke the silence.

“What now?”
“How do I start?”
“Start what?”
“Writing a poem?”
“You just start.” He indicated the conversation was over when he walked out of the room.

Great. You don’t tell a nine year-old stuck at home who wants to be in school to just start something with no further instructions. Initially, the only thing that started was the sighing again. I stared out of the large picture window and watched the clouds.

Can I write a poem about clouds? I wondered. Scribbling, erasing, and more scribbling, produced a six line attempt at writing my first poem. Dad walked backed into the room and tentatively I asked if he wanted to hear what I had written. He listened as read the short poem that ended with these two lines:

"Maybe yes or maybe no,
I hope the clouds will never go."

The words of encouragement Dad shared are lost in my memory, but they were enough for me to turn over the page to write another poem. Dad placed his hand on my forehead and frowned.

“Fever is rising; we probably should call the doctor.”

That was the first time I experienced the death of inspiration, but only for the moment. The sickness and fever that kept me out of school that day became a memory in the distant past, but I developed a different fever—one for creative writing.

The clouds I saw that day from my parents’ home are gone, but the clouds of desiring to write never left. Writing is a process. There are "maybe yes" seasons in my life for writing and some "maybe no" seasons. The incurable fever my dad started on that fateful day I hope will never leave.

Why don’t you write?

Hmmm, I think I will.