Journal Entries

Last Saturday afternoon, my nephew Kevin took me to see the new Pixar movie, WALL-E. In case you don’t have a five-year-old living with you and you haven’t heard about the movie, it’s the story of a small robot left alone on earth to clean up the mess escaping humans left behind. The robot, WALL-E, inadvertently embarks on a space journey that puts him aboard a spaceship containing the humans who fled a polluted earth. As you can imagine, pandemonium ensues.

At one point near the end of the movie, the Captain of the spaceship said to his computer copilot, who was trying to prevent a return to a burned-out and polluted earth because it was not survivable, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”

When I heard that comment, I pulled out one of my 3×5 cards and scribbled in the dark: How often do I choose survival over life?

Only a few days before seeing the movie I was in the county library, upstairs in the magazine section looking, for an article in a past issue of Time Magazine. As I was coming down the stairs to the first floor, I realized how I was tightly gripping the handrail with my right hand and how I was moving slowly down the stairs favoring my left leg. As if I was hobbling down stairs with a broken leg.

The reason I noticed this was because my left leg felt great that day and my knee was happy and flexible and I had no reason to be limping down the stairs. I stopped about halfway down, released the handrail, rebalanced my book bag on my shoulder, and quickly moved down the stairs like a nimble youngster: pop, pop, pop.

Walking out to my pickup it occurred to me that limping had become a habit that lived on longer than my original injury. My muscle memory kept me compensating even when I no longer need it. In fact, the very act of limping was causing additional injury from imbalance and muscle strain.

I wondered, was it possible to live so long in injury that my body might forget how to live without it? Was it possible to forget how good life could be? Was it possible I’d taught myself to actually enjoy limping? After all, it gave me a convenient excuse to explain away poor performances.

I was reading a book of essays titled, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, and she wrote of the time when she was misdiagnosed as having hemochromatosis, a too-much-iron-in-the-blood disease. Later, when she found out she wasn’t sick after all, she was a little sad. “I had myself an explanation for everything that had ever been wrong with me,” she wrote. “I wanted to hold my flaws close but controlled like a balloon tied to my wrist with a string. If anything went wrong, all I had to do was tug at the string and bring my explanation down for others to see. This is who I am and this is why.”

I often think to myself, I’m handling this situation just fine. I’m compensating. I’m getting by. All I have to do is get used to this limp and downgrade my expectations a bit and I’ll be OK. At least I’m surviving.

So it’s like whenever I take my first run in a new pair of running shoes and I’m amazed that they are so light and cushy and comfortable. It fools me every time. I realize for the first time how bad my old shoes had become. Only last week, while running in my old shoes, they just felt like shoes. Who knew they were so broken down?

Living with an injury can be the same as those old shoes. I get so used to it; I forget how good life could be. The injured life, just feels like life.

Not only do I have to fix what’s broken in my body and my life, I have to strengthen what is weak. I have to forget the past and learn a new way of walking. I have to break the limping habit, and choose to live.

When Kevin heard that Monday would be my birthday, and he said, “I hope there will be cake.”

Kevin is our 5-year-old nephew who’s been living with us for the past few months. I suspect some of our lifestyle choices have been confusing to young Kevin.

For example, the fact that he used the phrase “I hope” rather than taking for granted the presence of birthday cake showed his realization and understanding that he has been living with people totally beyond his comprehension. It’s as if he was dumped into a house full of coneheads from France who haven’t yet grasped the most important features of American life. “I hope there will be cake,” he says. In his mind, it would be inconceivable to have a birthday without birthday cake. That is, until now.

I said, “You know, Kevin, I don’t care for cake all that much. I would rather have birthday apple pie.”

“But I was hoping for some birthday cake.”

“But is it my birthday. You can have cake for your birthday … in six months.”

Well, Sunday after church – where he behaved very well and successfully survived big church sitting next to his grouchy uncle – Kevin asked, “Uncle Berry, is this a restaurant day?”

“Yes, we are going with friends to McAlister’s.”

“Is that where I always eat racanoni and cheese?”

“Yes, it is.”

When the server brought our Fiesta Chicken Wraps and Kevin’s macaroni and cheese, Cyndi deftly palmed the package of Teddy Grahams from the tray before Kevin saw it. It was good to know she still has her touch. Kevin asked me, “Uncle Berry, will you open my package of chips?”

“Sure; after you eat ten bites of macaroni and cheese.”

He looked a bit downcast, and asked, “How about four bites?”

“How about eight bites?”

“How about four?”

“You don’t understand negotiating, do you? How about you eat all of it and then I will open your chips?”

“OK, how about eight bites.”

Kevin actually ate his eight bites, even though he first tried to sneak past us by counting individual pieces of macaroni instead of complete bites. Cyndi was on to his tricky ways immediately. I said, “Kevin, Aunt Cyndi is a professional teacher and kid wrangler. You can’t slip something like that past her.”

Much to our surprise he ate all his macaroni and cheese and all his chips. And he was so happy to know there were Teddy Grahams for desert. Then, on our way out of the restaurant as we got our obligatory drink refills for the long ride home, Kevin noticed a plate of giant delicious-looking individually-wrapped chocolate chip cookies. He looked up at Cyndi and said, “I think they have cookies for children who eat all their food.”

Cyndi said, “No, that’s what the Teddy Grahams were for.”

Kevin looked over at me for help and I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Nice try.”

Later that Sunday evening we went to the AXIS worship service at our church. Kevin looks forward to this because they serve flavored sodas with ice and whipped cream (which he calls pudding). He successfully drank all the liquid out of his cup before knocking it over on the floor. I helped him clean it up and threw away the cup, but Kevin kept his bendy straw, which he immediately converted into a handgun. That kept him occupied for awhile until he discovered he could stick the straw in his nose and it would stay there by itself. I was actually proud that he’d made one of the more useful discoveries of a young boy’s life so I let him play with the straw in his nose until I realized he was distracting the college girls sitting behind us. I didn’t want this to turn into an ugly distraction, so I took his straw and stuffed it into my pocket.

Kevin, feeling sad, put his head down on the table next to Aunt Cyndi’s MacBook, on which she was recording the service for her podcast, and went to sleep. He didn’t move again for the next 15 minutes. I think he was dreaming of birthday cake. One can only hope.

I often wonder why the music of our teenaged and young-adult years sticks with us for the rest of our lives. Nothing newer is ever as satisfying. Maybe it’s because we first heard the music when we were full of searching, and the first sounds we heard imprinted on our souls like a mother duck imprints on her ducklings.

I also wonder why every age group thinks their generation invented rock-and-roll, and believes the rock-and-roll played by their generation is the version that will last forever.

Last Sunday night we went to a concert in Dallas that started with a long set by the Doobie Brothers, followed by another long set by Chicago. It was an amazing evening, if for no other reason than to see men in their 50s who still have their chops, who play as well as ever, and appear to enjoy every minute of it.

Now, I know what some of you regular readers are thinking: Enough already about Chicago and all that dated 1970s music. All I can say to that is, “Well, no, it isn’t enough. There’s more.”

Not only does the music of my youth stay with me, some songs in particular left permanently implanted images in my brain. I remember the first time I heard “Jesus Is Just Alright With Me,” by the Doobie Brothers. I was in Hobbs, New Mexico, on a dark and damp Sunday evening in 1973, driving my 1964 Chevy Biscayne to Bellview Baptist Church for the evening service, when I heard the song on my radio. I sat, entranced, in the caliche parking lot until the song ended. I knew the Doobie Brothers, of all people, had not found religion, but I didn’t care about their motives. They were singing the coolest song I had ever heard that had the name “Jesus” in it. I went out that week and bought their Toulouse Street 8-track. I eventually wore it out playing it in my car, but it outlasted three 8-track players.

But Chicago was my music-of-choice when I was in high school and college. I bought every album they made (well, at least the first 14), and I still have them all (even though I don’t have a turntable that will play them). I also bought books called “Sketch Scores” which had all of their songs, including the horn lines, and I spent many nights laying in bed listening to the albums and studying the horns.

I heard “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” by Chicago, on the radio in the summer of 1971, and hearing the brief trombone solo at the end of the song changed my life. Before that week was over I went to Gibson’s Discount Center in Hobbs and bought the Chicago Transit Authority album, their first, recorded and released in 1969. I remember listening to the opening song, “Introduction,” for the first time, with its numerous solos and swinging horn lines and, well, all I can say is, it rearranged the molecules of my life, morphing me into a musician. Just like that.

And to my joy, the first song Chicago played Sunday night was “Introduction.” As soon as I heard those first two distinct eighth notes, bump bump, a pickup and beat one, I was carried away, like magic. “Sir, I can name that song in two notes.” “Sir, I can be captured, with two notes.” Like magic.

I must say my favorite part of the concert was the encore, which consisted of six songs, with both bands on stage playing, fourteen musicians at one time, including three drummers. There was a lot of energy.

The combination of the two bands had a lot of texture. Their two styles blended well without much overlap, so each song had an original sound. The Doobies changed the feel and depth of Chicago songs “Free” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” and “25 or 6 to 4,” adding complex rhythms and density of sound. Chicago made “Rockin’ Down the Highway” and “Listen to the Music” swing with fine horn arrangements laid on top of the traditional Doobie Brothers boogie guitars.

Well, we had great seats for the concert. We could see and hear very well. And since the audience was made up mostly of people my age, we got to stay in our seats most of the evening. However, more than once, Cyndi looked longingly to our right where people were standing and dancing the entire night, wishing she could be having fun with them.

But even I had to stand up when the combined bands played “Free.” In a brief instant I became who Cyndi is all the time, someone who has to move their body to experience music. Granted, I was just moving my arms, which hardly qualifies as movement on Cyndi’s scale, but it was heartfelt and sincere. I just wanted to be free!

 “Why do you need to read another book?” was the question someone posed to my friend, John. The expected answer was, “I read a book to learn something,” to which the response would be, “Don’t you know enough already?” And like that.

Well, since John told me about that conversation, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to answer the question for myself. Why do I need to read so many books? Surely I’ve caught by now?

It’s true, I read a lot of books because I want to learn new things, but it’s seldom the actual data that I’m interested in. Most of the time I read because I want to know how the author thinks; I want to engage the author in a conversation. I seldom read a book without using a highlighter to mark my favorite parts, and I often write comments in the margins of my books, either agreeing with the author or disagreeing with the author, or linking something the author said with my own thoughts and observations.

Sometimes I want to import the writer’s thoughts into my own heart and mind. For example, one of my reading goals for 2008 is to read all the Spenser novels written by Robert B. Parker. I want to absorb his sense of time and pace and dialogue, to be a better storyteller in my own writing. I’ve learned the value in immersing myself in a particular author, especially if my goal is to absorb his technique and his voice and his imagination. Several years ago, 1999 to be exact, I read every book and essay by C. S. Lewis that I could get my hands on, in honor of the 100^th anniversary of his birth. It was a lot of deep reading, and none of it was easy. You need a broad swath to catch someone’s heart - reading only one or two books is not enough.

Recently, I’ve come to understand that often I read in order to have something new to share. For me, it isn’t enough to simply journey through life; I need to tell about it. I’m not the solitary man I claim to be, even though I certainly enjoy solitude. I have a need to talk about what I’ve been through. I have to tell my story, and reading brings new stories.

Sometimes I get frustrated because I can’t remember something from a particular book. I remember a few years ago when Cyndi and I remodeled our son’s old bedroom into a library, I was a little embarrassed as I pulled books out of boxes and put them on the shelf … embarrassed that there were so many books I knew I’d read (they had my highlighting and my handwriting all through them) but I had no memory of reading them or what they were about. I asked myself: what is the point in reading if I don’t remember?

Well, sometimes reading is not so much an intellectual process as it is an existential one. To quote Kathleen Norris, one my favorite writers, books are “a way of reading the world and one’s place in it … working the earth of my heart.”

I wrote this in the margin of her book: “I read so many books and listen to songs and sermons on my Nano, hoping the bits and pieces will compost in my subconscious, and come out as intelligent thought when I write and teach.” I do remember more than I realize, even if I don’t always remember the original source.

Here is another thought about reading. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote – “All happenings, great and small, are parables whereby God speaks; the art of life is to get the message.” I like the notion that everything is a message from God, but my favorite part of that quote is the phrase “the art of life.”

I like it because life is not a formula to be solved; it’s not a computer program to run; it’s not a game to be played; it’s not a random set of events to be survived; it’s not chaos (well, maybe on a mathematical level – but even then there is pattern in chaos). Life is art. And there is an art to living.

As in all forms of art, there is skill involved. And any time skill is involved, there is room for improvement. We can get better at living life, and life can be lived elegantly, regardless of the circumstances.

And so, why do I need to read another book? Because, for me, reading is the art of life, and I want more.

I recently went to see the folks at Seton Medical Outpatient Rehabilitation Center about my gimpy knee. It all started when Cyndi and I were at the Austin Marathon Expo last February and she made me listen to a presentation from the Seton sports medicine team. They described how they used video gait analysis and core strength training and stretching to help injured runners recover and return to successful running. All of the treatments they talked about were the sorts of things that had helped my knee the most, and their featured case studies all sounded just like me. I decided it might be worth following up on and mentioned it to Cyndi, but she was already way ahead of me. She gave me a business card she found laying on a table in the Seton Medical expo booth. Once we got back to Midland, I emailed Drew, the physical therapists whose name was on the card, and asked if he could set up an appointment. And I went, and it was a great visit.

First, I met with Dr. Smith who looked at my shoes, and at my feet, and pushed on secret pressure points known only to CIA interrogators, asking, “Does that hurt?” She kept moving her fingers and pushing until she found the right spots. She made lots of notes about my feet and my knees, and I’m sure I have a lot of work to do. It was fun, actually. I could tell that her main goal was to get me back to running as soon as possible.

After that, I had an appointment with three physical therapists, all at the same time: Drew, Bob, and Gladys. All three of them were holding clipboards and asking questions and making notes and comparing observations. Ordinarily I would’ve felt too exposed and vulnerable standing alone in my running shorts with no shirt while they analyzed all my shortcomings. In fact, in general, I don’t usually enjoy that much hands-on attention. I don’t like to be fussed over or pampered with or tucked in.

But this experience was more than comfortable, it was enjoyable. They pushed on my joints and bent my legs, had me lean right and left, told me raise one leg then the other, twist one way and lean another way, bend my knees, straighten my legs, try to stand up using only one leg, and like that. They spent a lot more time on me than I expected even one therapist to spend, much less three therapists. It must have been a slow day in the clinic, is what I thought. Or they were looking forward to the challenge of fixing me.

They sent me home with two pages of exercises, and the expectations of a follow-up visit in a month. What is more, they were joking about making me their poster-child runner at next year’s Marathon Expo. They said most runners aren’t comfortable standing up in front of a crowd to tell their story. “Well, I don’t have a problem doing that,” I said. “But first, I have to get better.”

I left Austin that day with hope. The therapists and the doctor gave me lots of hope … and not just hope for a sustainable life, but hope for a better future. Not just a pain free existence, but hope for a new and improved and a faster life.

Who knows how all of this will work out? The human body is not as predictable as we’d like, and I know that anything can happen. But still, hope is a mighty thing. Because of the hope the Seton team gave me, I haven’t missed a single day doing my exercises, and I’ve become hyper-conscious to how I run and how my feet land and how my hips move.

One of the things they pointed out to me was how un-symmetrical I was. Apparently I am so unsymmetrical I have muscles that never have to work at all. In fact, they said I have only one butt that works, and my inner abs don’t work, and only one hamstring works as hard as it should. But my quads and outer abs are so strong they’ve learned to overpower those other slacker muscles. I get by using the muscles that work best. Because I am so unbalanced, my pelvis gets out of square and my knees go wobbly and my right foot slaps the pavement too hard, and … well, you get the picture.

So this morning, as I was brushing my teeth, I thought about being unbalanced. I’ve been teaching my guys that we should learn to rely on our strengths and don’t waste all our energy trying to improve weaknesses. But, at least in the case of muscle groups, there is a danger of relying exclusively on our strengths. We can get so good at compensating for our weaknesses that we end up walking with a limp. That’s what happened to me.

Now that I’m approaching my 52^nd birthday (which is only 11 in Celsius), I am hoping that maybe I can finally become a balanced guy. Maybe with a little more therapy.

Once I’d finally hiked down the Permian Reef Trail to the McKittrick Canyon Visitors Center, I weighed my “down” pack at 45 lbs. I then drove to the Guadalupe Park Headquarters to buy two cold Diet Cokes. It was about 1:00 PM on Saturday, and it was good to be off my feet.

In the Headquarters I bought a Guadalupe Mountains T-shirt and talked to the ranger behind the desk about the looming rain clouds outside, and how I got rained on Thursday evening on the trail. He asked where I’d been hiking, so I showed him my route up to Wilderness Ridge and my day-trip into the Lincoln National Forest. He knew the area, and asked if the gate between the two parks was marked or sealed. I said, “No, just an orange homemade turnstile metal gate.”

Two days earlier I’d hiked up the Permian Reef Trail under dark gray rain clouds and occasional sprinkles. I tried to hurry so I could set up camp before the rain started, but my “up” pack weighed 65 pounds and it slowed me down a bit.

Once I finally cleared the ridgeline and entered the pine trees it started raining hard, so I sat on a log under a low pine tree, took off my backpack and dug out my tent’s rain fly for a makeshift shelter. I guess I sat there for 15 to 20 minutes in the rain. There was a lot of thunder right over my head and I knew I was taking a chance with lightning by sitting under a tree (there were burned trees all around), but getting struck by lightning was merely a possibility, while getting soaked by rain was certain.

When it quit raining I crawled out from under my shelter, rolled the rain fly up loosely under my arm (in case it started raining again), shouldered my backpack, and took off down the trail. I found the campsite almost right away and set up my new REI tent in a slight drizzle. I got it set up by 5:00 PM and moved my wet backpack and all my stuff inside before the rain started again. All in all, it was a beautiful afternoon.

I keep coming back to the Guadalupe Mountains because they have a profound effect on me. They aren’t visually breathtaking in the same way as the snow-covered Rocky Mountains in Colorado, but they feed my heart. The very harshness of these desert mountains speaks to me. They seem bold, brave, dependable, robust and courageous … like I hope to be.

Looking out across the desert from up on top of these mountains feels like peering into infinity. The only sounds I could hear were distant airliners flying overhead, the faint rustling of leaves from very
slight breezes, and occasional birds singing. And I could hear my own pen scratching on the paper of my journal.

This was my first time up this trail, and I didn’t know what to expect about the camp site. Wilderness Ridge sounded like a Disney Resort with stylized log cabins where the staff wears coonskin caps and says
things like, “Well, lookee yonder!” But my concerns were unfounded. It was a beautiful place to stay.

At dusk I sat on the cliff edge overlooking McKittrick Canyon, and I could see the visitor center parking lot 2,000′ below. It was completely empty except for my car. Apparently I had this entire portion of the park all to myself. It didn’t feel lonely, however; it felt strong. It felt like ownership.

On Friday I took an 8-mile day-hike through the orange gate into New Mexico, into the Lincoln National Forest. I ate lunch while sitting on a big flat rock overlooking Devil’s Den Canyon. (Why are places like
this always named “Devil’s” Den instead of “God’s” Den?) I was sitting very close to the edge of a 1,000′ cliff, with my feet hanging over the edge, eating a Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar, when it occurred to me
not to fall off since no one would ever find me. I couldn’t imagine this canyon got many visitors at all.

I read from my Daily Bible, from Proverbs, and the author used the phrase “apply your heart to my teachings” twice. I thought about how different that was than saying “apply your mind,” or “apply your
behavior,” to my teachings.

Back at the Park Headquarters, the desk ranger looked up from my trail map, after he asked about the gate, and said, Well, the Lincoln National Forest was closed to all visitors on May 1st due to the high fire risk. I guess they didn’t see you.”

“There can’t be many corners of the Lincoln Forest more remote than where I was.”

“You’re right. And they weren’t watching for hikers coming into the park through an obscure backcountry gate.”

“I certainly wasn’t carrying anything that could start a fire.”

“No?”

“Well, maybe MacGyver could have started a fire with what I was carrying, but I couldn’t.”

One of the cohabitants of our home is a golden Labrador Retriever named Lady. She joined our family in the spring of 1998; we think she was about six years old at the time.

At the time, I was actually on the lookout for a big black Lab who could run with Cyndi and Katie. My theory was that a big black dog would frighten any would-be attackers whether or not he was actually scary. I phoned the City Animal Control and asked them to be on the lookout for a scary-looking, yet sweet and gentle, black Lab. A few days later they phoned me back to tell me about a gentle female golden Lab that had been abandoned and was being cared for by a family until she could be adopted. Close enough.

So Katie and Cyndi and I drove over to visit the dog, and we all fell in love with her at once. I remember standing in the backyard contemplating the value of a black dog verses a golden dog, while Cyndi and Katie were sitting on the concrete porch with (soon-to-be-named) Lady draped across their laps. Apparently, the deal was already done; I was just the last to know.

When we brought Lady home I said, “She looks like an outside dog to me.”

Cyndi said, “Sure, except for at night. She can live inside with us at night … or when it is cold … or any other time we let her in.” I was out of the decision-making loop already.

We learned some things about Lady right away. She didn’t like being in water deeper than her belly, and she showed no interest in playing fetch (two core behaviors for most Labrador Retrievers). She didn’t seem to care much about playing or wrestling. She seldom barked, and never barked inside the house. She never made a mess in the house. She only dug in the backyard to find a cool place to lie down, and even then she was discrete about her digging locations. She never chewed anything she wasn’t supposed to chew. She mostly liked to lay around on the floor and lick the carpet.

And, she loved to run.

I realize that all dogs like to run around the backyard, but that isn’t what I mean. Lady loved to go for 2 miles, or 5 miles, or sometimes 10 or 12 miles. She simply loved it. All you had to do was rattle the leash and she would start leaping in the air. She could tell when anyone in the house was getting dressed to go running, and she would just go ballistic. It was the only time in her life that she showed excitement, and she was completely over-the-top. It was often hard to lace up our running shoes because Lady was right in our face jumping and smiling and … well, being overjoyed. The girl just loved to run.

I have no idea how many miles Lady has run in the past ten years, with Cyndi (mostly), or me and Katie (occasionally), but it must be several thousand. I once offered her a running log to keep track of her miles, but she wasn’t interested.

But time and mileage has taken its toll. In the past couple of years we’ve noticed Lady can’t go the distance like she used to. She is good for a short jog around the school, but that is as far as she can go. She still gets excited when she knows someone is getting dressed to run, and she still wants to go, but she just doesn’t have the legs for it any more. We often have to sneak into the garage to get dressed so she won’t know what we are doing, since we feel guilty leaving her behind.

And there is another change we’ve noticed. Lady wants to be close to us all the time.

She has always been independent and self-contained, and content with minimal attention from us. She was happy to lie on the floor and ignore any humans in the house. I often wondered if she was deaf, since she showed such little response to us apart from running.

But lately she just wants to lie on the floor at our feet all the time. She wants to sleep on the floor of our bedroom right next to one of us, right where we put our feet if we get up at night, making a big target for tripping over in the middle of the night. We have adjusted to her being underfoot, and in fact, we like it. She still doesn’t care much to be petted or rubbed for a long time, but she wants to be close to us. It is sweet and tender to watch her follow us around the house.

The reason Lady is on my mind this week is because of a verse I read from my Daily Bible. Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (NIV)

When I read that verse, I thought first of Lady, who just wants to be in our house lying at our feet, very close. I want to live with God that same way. In The Message, it says, “I’ll study at his feet.” Isn’t that sweet? I want to be just like Lady.

Wednesday morning I was reading from my Daily Bible, from Psalm 81:11-12: “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.” (NIV)

As I was reading, the overhead music in Whataburger was, ironically, a song by The Police: “If you love someone, set them free.” I wondered if Sting was thinking about Psalm 81 when he wrote that lyric.

It reminded me of a psychedelic black-light poster my first college roommate pinned on his closet door: “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.” (I think the line was originally written by Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.) It was a very hip thought to hold in the 1970s. I think it was used mostly by those who wanted an excuse to fly away, rather than those who loved them.

It seems like a compliment to hold those we love with a loose grip, to give them freedom to choose us. And it seems God holds us that way.

Well, there is an apparent contradiction, because we know we are also held firmly in the grip of God. For example, Psalm 37:23-24 says, “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and he delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand.” (NAS)

That verse tells us several things about God, including the fact that we should expect to stumble even as we walk with God, even as he holds our hand. But it also tells us that God has a firm enough grip on us that we will not be hurled headlong. The Message reads, “If he stumbles, he’s not down for long; God has a grip on his hand.”

So God has a firm grip on us to keep us from crashing down and yet a loose grip to let us fly off on our own if we choose. Maybe it isn’t a contradiction. Maybe it’s just grace.

For all of my life I’ve cherished freedom and independence above money or prestige or influence - maybe even above love. I always thought of freedom as a good thing. I always wanted to be in charge of myself, even though I never cared much about being in charge of anything else. I’ve always wanted to do things my own way.

Yet reading form Psalm 81, it appears that when God let his people have their head (The Message says, “So I let go of the reins and told them, ‘Run! Do it your own way!’”), it was a form of punishment, not reward.

The reason I’ve wanted to go my own way was because I thought I knew best. Sure, I’d follow God, since I picked his way from a long list of spiritual options, and I knew best. And if needed, I could take off on my own, because, of course, I knew best. And like that.

But another Psalm that I read, this time on Thursday morning, reminded me that “knowing best” may not mean what I think it means. It may not result in wisdom. My best knowing may be completely wrong. Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.” The beginning of wisdom isn’t my superior intellect, but it’s the fear of the Lord.

In one of our favorite family movies of all time, the Princess Bride, the villain, Vizzini, says, “Finish him, your way.”

Fezzik replied, “Oh good, my way. Thank you Vizzini… what’s my way? “

Vizzini said, “Pick up one of those rocks, get behind a boulder, in a few minutes the man in black will come running around the bend, the minute his head is in view, hit it with the rock.”

And Fezzik replied, “My way’s not very sportsman-like.”

Even Fezzik knew that doing things his own way wasn’t always the best way to do them.

God told his people – if you can’t follow me, go do it your own way, even if your way is not very sportsmanlike, even if your way will end in ruin and destruction.

But what sets God apart from people like us is that he never brushes his hands together saying, “Well, good riddance, they’re finally gone,” but rather offers himself to us and longs for our return. He never says, “I told you so,” but simply welcomes us back.

Sting wrote, “You can’t control an independent heart.” But God can love an independent heart, and hold it loosely and set it free, and love it back with his grace.

That’s very good news for us independent types.

Friday night, Cyndi and I, and our young nephew, Kevin, joined John and Linda at Jim and Judy’s to eat hamburgers and to drool over their new house. It was a great evening of food and conversation, one of those evenings that make you glad you are a grown up. We ate outside on the patio, toured the house and took notes, played with Jim’s horses, and talked through upcoming adult Bible study lesson about Joseph.

After we ate, John and Kevin and I walked with Jim out to the corral to see his three horses. They were very tame; we all spent a lot of time up close with our hands on them, and the horses seemed to enjoy the affection. It was clear that Jim spent a lot of time every day with these horses, riding them and training them and loving them.

John said, “You know, there are so many pursuits people can have to fill up their life and enrich their life. Maybe its horses, or reading, or going to the mountains, or family, or painting, or music.”

I said, “Yeah, too bad that for so many, their pursuit is sitting down to watch TV every night.”

John said, “Why do some people spend so much time and money pursuing a hobby or something they love, but others just settle for the same old thing?”

“Some pursue, some settle. Some people die thirty years before they are buried.”

Later, we talked about watching Jim with his horses, how he put his arms around their neck, had his hands on their head and face and back and belly all the time. It was clear he spent a lot of time doing that, and just as clear the horses loved it. Jim has big thick hands, but they were gentle and loving and tender as he stroked those horses. It was a side of Jim’s personality we had never seen. Cyndi and I have known Jim for 20 years, but realized we hadn’t really known him at all until we saw him with his horses.

I guess we all have a part of our life that most people never see – I’m not even talking about our dark secret parts we try to hide – I’m talking about our pursuits and hobbies that are important to us and help shape us. We may have 20-year friends who enjoy the fruits of our pursuits that show up in our daily life without ever being aware of the pursuits themselves. All these years, I have appreciated Jim without really understanding the impact his hands and horses have on his character. I just enjoyed the results.

I wondered what those pursuits are for me? I would like to think they are reading and writing and running and backpacking and maybe music, but I’m not sure I spend as much time on any of those as Jim spends with his horses. It may be that our heart pursuits are so natural to us we don’t recognize them or appreciate the impact they have on our life and character and personality. Maybe it takes another observer to pick them out?

Sometimes the pursuits of our friends or even our spouse may seem expensive or selfish to us, and indeed they can become self-indulgent escapes from responsibility and life. But those pursuits are so fundamental to character and personality we would lose who we are if we forced those them away. Maybe we even get jealous of the time and money our spouse spends on pursuits, and wish it was spent on us instead. But without those pursuits, we’d be left with a hollowed-out lover who has lost interest.

Psalm 37 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I believe this is a two-way proposition. As we pursue God, he will reward us with the desires of our heart. And as we pursue the desires of our heart, we will find God.

I won’t forget watching Jim’s hands on his horses. Thinking about those affectionate hands loving on those horses is a picture of how I want God to take care of me. In fact, I came home Friday night and put my hands on Lady, our running Labrador, out of appreciation. It was the least I could do.

 There was a time in my life when I would have thought it crazy to spend money traveling all the way from Midland to Austin just to see a rock and roll concert. Even if the concert featured one of my favorite groups, I was too stingy to spend the money.

I’m beginning to understand music better, now. Live music is more than listening; it’s engaging, it’s liberating, it’s energizing, it’s a full-body experience. And all music is better live – all of it.

I also understand community better, too. I understand the investment required to nurture friendships and sustain community. You can’t just say you’re friends with someone; you have to go be their friend. You have to do friend-stuff together. You have to feed the friendship if it’s to have any value.

So on Wednesday morning Mark and I left for Austin to join my brother, Carroll, and his friend, Gary, for a Wednesday night concert featuring the rock band, Rush. Carroll mentioned it months ago, and when I asked around for Rush fans, Mark jumped up out of his seat.

To be honest, I only know about Rush from my many late-night conversations with Carroll on the telephone. Rush was his band, his era, his music. For me, going to the concert was more about engaging with Carroll than with the music. Because I’m twelve years older than Carroll, we both grew up essentially as only-children. It’s only in these later years that we’ve found each other as friends, as we’ve raised children and played music and rode bicycles and hiked trails and talked politics. It was a joy and pleasure to enter into this part of his life. Carroll is a phenomenal drummer and a creative spirit, so his musical recommendations carry a lot of weight with me. He doesn’t recommend music that doesn’t swing.

However, the concert Wednesday night was filled with rabid fans who were much more like Carroll in their appreciation of Rush than like me. There was an occasional boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife who tagged along, but the majority was long-time fans. I know this because they knew all the words to all the songs. And if you know anything about Rush, you know there are a lot of words and complicated songs that stretch back to the early 1970s.  I seemed to be one of the only people in the concert arena who didn’t know every word to every song. That is, me, and the young lady who “sat” directly in front of me and danced most of the evening with arms outstretched and hips swaying. She enjoyed the evening much more than her boyfriend, who kept telling her to sit down.

We all ate BBQ at Stubbs before the concert, where Mark proved his chops to the other guys when he mentioned he’d attended five Rush concerts, all before 1993, his first being in the mid-70s. Carroll was pleased that I had brought along a credible fan, not just another tagalong.

It turned out that pork ribs might not have been the best choice for a pre-concert meal, especially when the concert was in a hot arena and we were sitting up high, past the nose-bleed section and well into the high altitude cerebral edema section. Carroll told me he was lucky he recovered soon enough to race back uphill to his seat in time for the drum solo.

Like a lot of concerts featuring bands that have performed for decades, this was a community affair. There were multiple generations represented in the crowd, including many families with children and even grandparents, all banging their heads to the beat together. Concerts made up of loyal fans are fun because of the presence of community. There are certain lyrics you’re supposed to know and changes you’re expected to anticipate if you’re really a member of the community. Everyone was welcome to enjoy the music, but there was a price to pay if you really wanted be part of the group - know the songs.

Being “one of us” is a powerful drug, and we can’t live well without it. More and more, people do not ask, “Is this true?” or “Is this good?” Instead, they ask, “Do I want to be like you?” If the answer is yes, then they’ll trust your recommendations. If the answer is “No, I do NOT want to be like you,” they won’t listen no matter how correct or true or good it may be. People base their evaluations on community rather than on facts or data.

So after the concert was over, as we walked toward where we thought our car was parked, Gary asked, “Hey Berry, when you see Chicago in concert, do you play air trombone?”

“Oh sure, all night long. But I’m one of the only guys doing it; tonight there were 5,000 guys playing air drums all around the arena.”

It’s all about being in community. And, about music.