The Haircut

It took me FOREVER to get this video finished (and it still isn’t great), but I think it was worth the effort. This is the result of an in-class contest.

Enjoy!

Maternal Instinct

I witnessed something extraordinary–and yet not.  It was something that I attribute to maternal instinct in its truest sense.  It was an instinctual behavior produced by a material organism.

I was driving on a dirt road, away from one of my favorite places to park my “home”, when I saw a mother bird and what I assume were her three little birds in the road.  They were running away from me in the same direction as I was approaching them.  My four wheels were much faster than their eight legs, so I was gaining ground.  Mother bird then took and abrupt right turn, removing herself from danger.  But the three little birds did not follow.  They were chirping and running, running and chirping, but they didn’t change their course.  I thought to myself, if I were a predator I could eat these little birds easily.  That’s when mother bird returned, barking as she ran toward me.  Then she stopped.  The little birds kept running, but the mother bird just stared me down.  “It ends here,” she seemed to say.  “Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen now, and it’s going to happen to me.”

Luckily for mother bird, I was not a predator.  I had no interest in eating, killing, or ever toying with her progeny.  I was just a homeless guy that was headed off to take a morning shower.  After I stopped the blazer, mother bird flew away, caught up with her little ones, and they all walked off of the road together.  This was not a noble choice made by a discerning matriarch; it was the natural consequence of genetic prescription.  Nevertheless, I was changed.  I thought of my own mother.

Once upon a time, there was an abusive lawyer and his abused son.  When the son spent the night at my house, the lawyer came early in the morning to get him back.  In one corner of the porch stood a three-piece suit, in the other corner, curlers and a nightgown.  Mother bird–although only mother by proxy–looked up into the face of a predator, and stared him.  “It ends here,” she seemed to say.  “Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen now, and it’s going to happen to me.”  The lawyer yielded.  The boy was safe.

At another time, I was in the hospital and I was in extreme amounts of pain because of nerve damage sustained from a major back surgery.  I could hardly talk.  I could actually feel people walking outside of my hospital room, and it hurt.  There was one doctor with particularly poor bedside manor.  He would kick my bed and I would wince in pain.  The first time, mother explained.  The second time, mother reminded.  The third time mother stared him down.  “It ends here,” she seemed to say.  “Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen now, and it’s going to happen to me.”

My inner scientist says that this behavior is strictly instinctual.  Mothers whose genes have constructed this fix action pattern as a response to predatory stimuli produce like-phenotypical offspring that survive and later reproduce.  It’s just textbook natural selection.  At first, my inner theologian resents this idea.  It seems to cheapen the sacrifices made by my mother.  To attribute her heroics to mere animalistic drives seems reprehensible.  But then my inner theologian asks me to compare my animalistic drives to those of my mother.  Left to my instincts, I would be addicted to chemicals and behaviors that would have killed me years ago, and there would dozens of people around to spit on my shallow grave every chance they got.  If Mother’s most base and primal urges are to lay down her life for me, I can only imagine the pinnacle of virtue she is, and has yet to become.  I am sobered to think that I am the beneficiary of natural benevolence.

At the end of the day, I don’t actually believe that humankind was the product of evolutionary development.  I know that my mother was prepared to be a mother long before she was born.  She was trained by scores of capable tutor in this an other vales.  She has overcome some of her own natural tendencies toward selfishness.  The whole me cannot attribute Mother’s virtue to circumstance alone.  She has trained herself into a new instinct.  She reacts maternally even at times when her genetics might prescribe preservation.  This too is sobering.

Call it nature, call it nurture.  I just call it home.

Support Public Education

One hundred years from now it will not matter, what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much I had in the bank, or what my clothes looked like. But the world will be a better place because I was important in the life of a child.

Then again, one hundred years from now, I will be dead. My children will be senior citizens, my grandchildren will be adults, and my great-grandchildren won’t be educated because their forebears couldn’t afford it. My great-grandchildren will starve because they didn’t have a car to drive, a house to live in, money in the bank, or clothes on their backs. I wanted to leave my progeny more, but no one would pay me an adequate wage for being important in the life of all children.

I think I’ll start a private school. Then I will be able to say:

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much I had in the bank, or what my clothes looked like. But part of the world will be a better place because I was important in the life of the children that could afford it.

The Fuzz and God

I don’t like being around law enforcement officers. For a long time I was confused by this discomfort because I consider myself a law abiding citizen. I drive the speed limit, I make complete stops at stop signs, and I yield to pedestrians at cross walks. You are not alone if you feel that you would prefer not to drive with me.

On the last day of school my freshman year of high school, I had a sleepover party with my best friend Dallin. We rented movies, we bought candy, and we had full intention of staying up all night long. When our boyish euphoria surpassed what we could do inside, we decided that we had to get out of the house. Most boys would have grabbed a few rolls of toilet paper and looked for low hanging oak branches. I can say this empirically because Dallin and I made it our project to ruin the fun of these vandals. Under the cover of darkness, we went house to house cleaning up yards. I was great fun for two reasons. 1) It was helpful to others, but furthermore, 2) we still had to hide from the cops. No police officer would believe our claim that we were cleaning up yards. They would see the TP and the boys and then we would be in trouble.

As we giggled through the neighborhood, we happened upon Nate’s brand new car. Looking back, I recognize that it was a very used car, but it was new to Nate and he loved it, so it was brand new in my eyes. The vandals had done a number to it. Toilet paper was only the beginning. There was shaving cream, Oreos, soap, and marshmallows. These were things that would take off paint if not removed promptly.

We went home and got soapy water, rags, and sponges. We went back to Nate’s car and started washing. The main highway was only a block away, so many headlights threatened to turn and expose us. Each beam of light that cut through the darkness was frightening.

Sure enough, a car turned and headed down the street—at patrolling speed. Dallin was very nervous. He asked me for our next move. I told him to stay cool; I would handle things. We aren’t doing anything wrong, I said to myself. We aren’t doing anything wrong.

I only remember two sentences from that evening; the rest is just feelings. The first sentence I remember is my response to his asking what we were doing. I said, “We are cleaning this car.” I only remember the first sentence because it was still in my short term memory when second sentence was uttered. The second sentence stung. The officer said, “Cleaning it or doing it?”

I remember looking down at my bucket of soapy water. I squeezed the sponge until the shaving cream and water flowed out. The water was warm, but the night air suddenly chilled. Wasn’t it obvious? There were not cans of shaving cream, packages of Oreo cookies, empty rolls of toilet paper, or any implements of vandalism resting at our feet. We had window cleaner, soapy water, buckets, and sponges. We had chosen to use our energies for good, and we had been insulted.

I explained to the officer that Nate was our friend and the car was new. We were afraid of what might happen to it if we didn’t clean it. The officer questioned how we had found the car. His reasoning was that surely the real vandals hadn’t come by and told us about their work. We must have been lurking in the shadows to find the car in the first place. We had to describe our night of service, but the officer didn’t appear impressed—or even convinced. But I didn’t care if he believed me; I was doing the right thing. I continued washing the car.

I can only assume that he got back in the car because there was no evidence to suggest we were the vandals. I assume this because the officer’s parting comments were that we’d better finish up soon, and that he would be coming around again, and that he didn’t want to see us again. He didn’t have the slightest hint of compliment, only of mistrust and brazen authority. It hurt.

That was my first brush with law enforcement. I had hoped that it was a unique experience. Perhaps the officer was having a bad evening. It was the last day of school, and that very fact that Dallin and I had so many yards to clean is evidence to fact that the neighborhood was crawling with vandals. Perhaps the officer was just so used to dealing with vandals that day that his dialogue accidentally slipped into one of reproach. Later experiences in my life, however, show that this experience was not unique.

There have been several occasions where I have been obeying the law and still have been treated rudely. I have tried talking to the officers as one man speaks to another, but that just makes matters worse. They don’t want to talk. They don’t want to reason. They want to catch bad guys. Case after case, I have been shined by a flashlight or a headlight, only to find the person on the other end wanted to convince me that I was a bad person.

I don’t give this explanation to try to demonize police officers. I realize that they have the daunting task of trying to make selfish people behave in unselfish ways. Police are not respected for the selfless work that they perform. I have respect for police officers and I wish they got more respect. Ironically, I often find myself resenting them. I think it is because law enforcement operates of the basis of punishment. They try to catch people doing the wrong thing and then apply an aversive consequence to reduce the likelihood of the wrong thing being repeated. It is because of this modus operandi that I have developed an aversion to certain kinds of light.

Then there is Jesus. I am told that He said, “He that believeth on [me] is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” (John 3:18-20)

For a long time, I had an aversion to God’s light because of the association. I didn’t want God (or any of his deputies) shining light on me and accusing me of being evil. I don’t need their help recognizing that I am a horrible, sinful, carnal, fallen, wicked, devilish man. I spend my time lurking in darkness because the light hurts too much.

Because of dealings with law enforcement, I have felt the cold steel of handcuffs around my wrists, but I’ve never been “booked” or spent any time in “the clink.” I’ve never done anything to warrant such treatment. But God is a much more discerning officer. He sees every J-walk, every piece of litter I don’t pick up, every time I mutter the word Raca under my breath. I have broken His law, and when I am exposed to His light, I am going to get much more than just stern commands and steel bracelets. I’m going to get the chair.

Or so I used to think. Luckily for me, I figured out some difference between God and police officers. The first difference is the modus operandi. God rewards good behavior. I like that.

Of much greater consequence is the difference in attitude toward me. If God had rolled up in His patrol car that fateful night, He would have shined the light on me just as Officer Raca had. The difference would be that God would tell me that I missed a spot. Only in God’s light could I see every fiber of toilet paper and every streak of shaving cream. He would show me my deficiency so that I could improve it.

God gives me an entire lifetime to clean my own car. It is a car that I have driven through all kinds of filth. In my embarrassment, I park the car in the dark and hope that no one notices me trying to wash it off. My rag quickly becomes dark with muck. As God’s light approaches, I am inclined to run away. I don’t want anyone to see the filthiness. But God does not want to punish me. He doesn’t want to scold or demean me. He wants my car to be clean. He uses his light to expose every last imperfection so that each can be removed.

Metaphors aside, I have discovered a valuable truth. That God loves me. At the times when I subject my whole self to condemnation, I feel it the most. I love Him for that. I read in 1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.” I have done nothing to earn God’s love. God does not love me because I am good; God loves me because He is good. I do not earn God’s love, I just have it.

A Writer’s Dilemma

I write to give voice to parts of me that are otherwise silent. These most passionate, private, precious parts ooze and fester within me until they form character of their own. These new creatures take nest in a fanciful world somewhere between wonderland and neverland; encouraging me simultaneously to grow up and be young in rancorous distain of nonchalance. These personifications congregate into factions of ideas, both of those virtuous and maleficent.

Oft times I relegate my locus into their control and find a rhythmic step in which to operate, giving life to the efficiently mundane orthodoxy. My faces implore for my entire abdication, for my giving in to the romance of an ego vacuum in which being is human and doing is subliminal. And just before I embrace the egolessness, I am pulled against. Perhaps by myself or by some force without, I know not, but the pull is curt, and crude, and crass. The phantom of wholeness wrenches my spine, pulling my back across the chasm to is from would be. The ether is squelched into vesicles of imagination and pressed like dead flowers between the pages of dead trees, vainly trying to capture the vibrancy of being into the stunting viscosity of operation. The carcasses are tossed about by fingertips and tongues, exhumed at will and without motive beyond the muse of pain. A lust for intimacy or the numbing of discontent drives the plebian jollity into the bed of death, foolishly fumbling through forces long since lost, but retaining their titillating potency.

The illusion of sustenance drives the reader to a death of his own, a death in which his personal experience is lived for him, despite of him, and without him. Should he escape the whispered wisping whirling of these clever demons, the experience would prove to exhilarating so as to render my blandness unfulfilling. His boredom is my boredom, and together we wish for a better me.

The parts of me that are otherwise silent silence me. I write to give them voice because I too, am in need of plebian jollity. I too lust for intimacy, suffer from numbing discontent. I sustain myself to death in titillating potency. My personal experience is lived for me, despite of me, and without me.

Can I, therefore, stop this cycling serpent? Do I sterilize my tissues into an embrace of nonchalance, giving breath to the efficiently mundane orthodoxy? It seems I must. For others know only what they read in my faces. I should resolve to live anew, to make a new writing. I should write to give voice to the part of me that has been silenced.

And even still I write, not to express me, but to express the face that wears a black ribbon tie and billowy silk, the face with tasseled hair and wine in the eyes. He knows me well and uses his own hand to pen my woes. I’ll never have his courage to waste away at the side of a table, cursing at the pleas that bludgeon his anger. Through this face, I do not find myself, but instead, the contraries from which I shy away. I find the constancy of form that one such as I could never achieve. I write about the completeness of my failures and the horrors of my crimes. I write to find purgation, to find escape from the tempest of my dullness. I write to hide my sheer wastefulness from my own loftiness. I write to describe the inescapable severance of self. Should I fail to write, the inner cavities of my being would be vacant to the nothingness which I would produce. I must write so that I can purge that which builds me.

Though I hate it so, I must write. Though I strangle my only hopes at pleasantness by so doing, I must. It is a life-giving poison, an on-going suicide note, dissonance waiting for resolution. I write to petition myself onto greatness that I will never know. I write in desperation, in hopes that I will write the answers to my unknown questions. I write so that I can read myself, and then having read myself, can realize how little I know of myself.