Years Best

A few of my favorites, highlighting the artists that I turned to the most. The first is Ben Sollee and his album Learning to Bend. His voice and brilliance on the cello are the perfect match. Every song is good.




Secondly is the Walkmen. Their music brings lots of sound, lots of different, unique sound.



Thirdly, M. Ward. His lyrics have an unfinished quality that makes you believe he threw down on paper exactly what he was feeling in the moment.

Finally, what I predict will continue to be one of the most listened in the new year: Rural Alberta Advantage. A very healthy dose of angst. Never had the angst-ish personality before to get into this as much as I have, but I think I'm long overdue to pick up an edge, and this album definitely helps with that. (No YouTube for them, have to check them on MySpace if you want a listen.)

Sense (Part 3)

"...I have a tape of a Tibetan nun singing a mantra of compassion over and over for an hour, eight words over and over, and every line feels different, feels cared about, and experienced as she is singing. You never once have the sense that she is glancing down at her watch thinking, "Jesus Christ, it's only been fifteen minutes." Forty-five minutes later she is still singing each line distinctly, word by word, until the last word is sung.

Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antitode for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one..."

- Anne Lamont, Bird by Bird

I would say one of the most common responses I have to my clients (particularly the adults) is a feeling that we need to slow down. As if counseling is a race to get as many words out as possible by the end of the session, that as long as the week is purged into the room something may miraculously change. A sprint to the finish. Thing is that instead of a nice energizing run, this kind of sprinting feels more like running with our heads cut off, leaving us both exhausted. And not a good exhausted. An overkill, burnt out exhausted. Instead of a connected session, I end feeling as though I just came out of a manic episode.

How often my work so far has been to kindly interject, and ask for us to slowly step into just one piece of what was just ejected my way.

How can I move us into our senses? What if we said the same eight words over and over? The awkwardness alone with leave us ending up with more connection, more levels of being, of seeing, of hearing, of experiencing each other than the manic states could ever create.

The same eight words, refocusing the attention from content to process. From mindless chatter to actually experiencing and noticing what it means when two people exist simultaneously in the same room. To give space, to give care to each moment, to each expression, each nuanced, delicate expression that speaks of the heart more loudly than any words ever could.

That is not easy work. But it is here I feel that I am actually doing work. Only then do I feel as though I just went on a good run, blood flowing, breathing heavy, endorphins kicking in, connected to my body. It is not easy work, but it is good work. And again, it is kind work. I don't feel as though I just had to run 20 miles in the freezing rain with a t-shirt on. I went on my time, paying attention to my body, what I needed, what I wanted. A good run. Good runs are so good.

So is a good session. It is so good. Existing in such a deep simplicity of the moment with another human being. That is why I am in this work. For those spaces. To have the privilege to be in those spaces. That is a gift. And as Lamont says, I pray I can remove my narcissistic head out of my own ass so I can look up and have the privilege of truly seeing, and truly experiencing that gift.

Sense (continued)

"On a dark afternoon - I was ten or eleven - I was walking on a country road. On my left a patch of curly kale, on my right some yellow Brussel sprouts. I felt a snowflake on my cheek, and from far away in the charcoal-gray sky, I saw the slow approach of a snow storm. I stood still.


Some flakes were now falling around my feet. A few melted as they hit the ground. Others stayed intact. Then I heard the falling of the snow, with the softest hissing sound.

I stood transfixed, listening...and knew what can never be expressed: that the natural is supernatural, and that I am the eye that hears and the ear that sees..."

- Frederick Franck

Sense

I bought a Dialectical Behavior Therapy book online to prepare for upcoming clients at my internship. My school doesn't teach this orientation but the psych hospital does and most of my patients at the agency are not exactly ready for psychoanalysis, nor does the medicaid system allow for the long term psychodynamic psychotherapy I have been learning the past 3 years.

It's mostly exercises, many involving some kind of meditation. I've been trying them out, especially the ones I may be using and teaching the clients. Several come off to be painfully trivial. My mind and body resist such simple tasks, thoughts whining "this is stupid, this is boring, this is so painfully mundane."

I'm supposed to breathe deeply, then touch and describe an object in the room, what it feels like, color, shape, smell. Or simply breathe and listen, picking up every noise in the room. Or simply breathe, just breathe, counting each breath.

It is boring. It is mundane. It is incredibly simple. But why then is it so hard to do? It's so hard. Even counting my breaths. It's painful. I can't do it. I lose focus, mind wandering to anything but the moment.

It is painful. And it is so good. In the midst of the exercise I feel something soften in me. I feel something loosen up, calm, ease. I feel kindness. So much kindness. Kindness that allows for the moment, the moment that allows me to once again be a child. To live again as a child, existing in my senses, in the moment. The child that only knows its body. The child that only knows touch, taste, see, hear, and smell. Its like going back to the fundamentals. Going back. The humble, kind task of going back before going forward.

It's crazy but it's like I can hear this voice speak to me. This voice that slowly, softly speaks, "it's ok... it's ok...it's ok..." It is so soft. It is so strong. It is so kind.

The exercises feel like confession. They feel like repentance. I feel a soft grievance of the years and years spent in a mind/body split, the years spent moving so fast I can't even think. To be talking to someone and be ten steps ahead, to feel like I'm looking from a bird's eye view instead of right across from you. I'm gone. I'm not there.

That is not cool. And that is why doing the mundane, painful exercises that call me to the moment, to the details, to the rhythm of my breath, to the still sounds and calmed eyes that take a moment to stop and look; that is why these exercises feel like repentance. I am confessing my absence from the moment. My years of absence from the moment. My years of absence from myself. My years of absence from you.

These exercises coax me into the mundane. I confess and repent how I have called the mundane unholy. It has always been the fantastic, the perfect worship song at the right time with the amazing insight and revelation where holiness was found. Why can't the holy be in the mundane, in the practical, in the moment? Why can't it be in the simple? Why can't the holy be in the touch, in the smell, in the ability to hear the stillness, to hear the sounds that can only be heard when you really listen?

It feels so kind. So kind. To be in the moment. It is repentance. It is holy.

"Will you stay with me in the moment? In the simple. In the touch. In the look. I miss you there."

Hello Mac, My Name is Michael

So last week I went on a date. With my roommates Mac. It was all part of the process of seeing whether I should make the switch. You know. PC to Mac. As you can see from the pictures, it wasn't even a contest. Look how engaged we were! Laughing, getting serious, and my own personal favorite moment of the night, when I gave her the eye. I didn't even try, it just happened. Caught up in the moment and there we were.

Two days later, my own is on its way in the mail. Haven't been this excited in a looooong time.

Festival

(not the real video, just using it for the song)

I know little about speaking in tongues, but it came up after church the other day. Whether or not I agreed with it, the conversation moved towards what it possibly could be. That is, the times when you feel so deeply moved that waiting for the full articulation of words seems like an inconsequential need to the weight of the moment. Instead what flows is the candid, unfiltered, spontaneously passionate language of the heart. As if the use of words breaks down at this level of being, this depth of existence. They melt away and all we have left is this spirit, pulsing with the purest form of life, of being, of what is true. It is here that spirits communicate. In spirit language.

I was listening to the new Sigur Ros album and came across the song Festival. Then it hit me: this is what speaking in tongues should be. The song was doing exactly what I was talking about a week ago. It got in me. It made me weak. Cutting through the familiar surface of words. I had no defenses for this level of engagement. My lack of understanding of what was being said compelled me to an understanding no words could convey. They would simply stifle, box in, limit this level of beauty. Ineffable beauty.

Lifting, moving, heightening, softening, inflecting sound the only medium that can express what is and what always will be, forever unchanged but always changing so that it may never be chained, love so deep and wide and full that it can only be known in knowing its being. This song captures that being, that Spirit. I should say, it captures it in letting it be what it is and always will be; free.

Gimpy

So, little did I know how much a beating up on the 2nd years in flag football would take its toll on my now 28 year old aging body...

Quarter way through the game, I got my flag pulled/tackled to the ground by two 2nd years, tearing my shorts, a knee slamming into my thigh. Leg throbbing, I slowly got to my feet, hobbled away, tried to shake it off and returned a few possessions later. We went on to slaughter the youngins by 19 points :P

More than a week later I'm still gloating over the win while simultaneously disturbingly humbled by my throbbing, still swollen thigh. I wake up middle of the night with a monumental ache and think, "seriously? no really, seriously? a charley horse hurts this bad?"

I looked online and felt a sense of community and place to grieve the charley horse pain, to post the absurdity of the pain and needed time of recovery. I seriously felt a sense of relief that I was not alone in this experience...this site brought the most satisfaction. I am not alone...

In It

A soldier fighting on the battlefield tells a much better story than one who hears about the details on the news.

Work was hellish last week. It felt like the battlefield. It felt like blood and sweat, muscles aching, raising my loaded gun at the apparent enemy, wielding my weapons that can do serious damage. My desire scaring me. I wanted to jack some patients right in the face. Engaging at a psych hospital is dangerous. I am dangerous. Yet even more dangerous is the belief that I am not.

That to say, it is good to fight. Goodness. Goodness is bloody, angry, grieving, joyful. Goodness is instead of looking on from miles away, getting close enough to bleed. And no one can tell better stories than one who has the wounds to prove it.

I want to tell better stories. I want them to be less anesthetized. I want them to be more personal and more dangerous. Only then will they be stories of real life. Only then will they play a part in the grandest story of all.

"When you tell the story, the way you were in it, when I can smell your breath in the details, you tell a damn good story."

Music Week

It was Joe Purdy on Monday night at Nectar's. He didn't have his band with him, so it was an acoustic, melancholy performance, similar to the video below. Such transparency in his music, this song probably at the top of that list. He's a great story teller. This is his story of loneliness, which in his telling seems to bring intimacy. Funny how that works...




...followed by a list of performers on Saturday at Bumbershoot. The main performers I caught were Thao, The Walkmen, The Round (with Damien Jurado and others), Band of Horses, and then Beck. I highlight Thao below. Amazing performer, she gets lost in her music on stage. And her new CD is fantastic.

Leaving

"Would you like to invite me in when you are left alone?
Or would you rather be left alone in your aloneness?

The real loss will never be whether or not she leaves.
It is in your refusal to come to me when she does."
- God

So spacious is he...

"He was supreme in the beginning and leading the resurrection parade he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe, people and things, animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross."
The Message - 1 Colossians 18-20









Can our screams return in harmony?
Is there a place for all our rage?

So spacious are You
Even the cacophony will echo in praise

Carolina 08

Some pictures and comments from the 4th spent in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina...

Another overnight flight on the way out, this time in the middle seat. Thank God for the little flaps that came out of the head rest. At 4 in the morning the body gets desperate and is willing to do anything and at that point it was going to be my neighbor's shoulder if not for the head rest.

The river was really low so no tubing this time, but fishin and chillin was good enough. The highlight was Ira, the 7 year old girl who was staying with my sister Beth for 6 weeks. She didn't speak English but more than learned to get by on non-verbal communication and laughing. A great fiery spirit can be translated from any human being to another and that is what she brought us. Every glance her way brought perspective, of life in america, of what life is like in Belarus, of a spirit that knew what it meant to have 6 abscessed teeth (and to have that no longer!), of a spirit that would eat a whole watermelon if we let her, of a spirit that would turn keep-away into tackle football, of a spirit so excited about a digital camera she would capture every angle of every one of our faces (along with the closet, stove, fan...). It was blessed, holy foolishness.

I love the Smoky Mountains. While it's pretty cool to come back home to mountains here in Seattle, I miss the soft, misty fullness the Smokies offer. Like the humidity, they hug you, keep you close. They got me a long time ago, the West didn't have a chance.

Can I Be Known

In the confessional cry
In the repenting proclamation

That I have nothing without you
That I am nothing without you
That I am nothing
Nothing

I am
No
Thing
Without you

I am suddenly opened up
To the fullness
Of everything
The world comes alive
And with new eyes
I see everything

With new eyes
I see the fullness of
Every
Living
Thing

When we meet
Face to face
When you see me
And I do not to look away
And I choose

Nothing

No illusion
No vanity
No comfort
To cover my countenance

When I choose your searching of me

My beginning and end

When I choose
No
Thing
But you

When I choose
You

This world does not diminish
Instead

This world pulses

It breathes
It speaks
It reveals
It proclaims
It glorifies

It lives in the fullness
Of seeing face to face
It lives in the fullness
Of being fully known

“Now we see but a poor reflection in the mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Cor 13:12

The kingdom is here. Our bodies are screaming to be known.

Spirit

"The Spirit is like the wind, it blows as it pleases, it cannot be controlled."

Reading a book for class awhile ago on the Spirit, I was reminded again of its unpredictability, its tremendously passionate way of refusing to be kept locked up and controlled. To those who like control (me) this carries with it a reckless intimidation.

"The future really is unknowable. Otherwise it is a play of the past."

I am a master of prediction. I calculate what will happen. I measure the ins and outs of the day, the conversation, the meals, the places, the sleep. Because I don't want to let go of the past. And because I don't want to let go of it, I don't allow the future. To live not knowing the next move, to live with my hands open instead of in a fist, to live embracing instead of bracing - that is reckless.

That is life with the Spirit. The reckless Spirit that moves in unbounded freedom, in imagination run wild.

I think of a dog that gets abused by its keeper. It gets hit enough times, the dog will turn skittish, scared to death at the slightest motion of the owner. It's been taught, and it has learned well, to be wary, to keep an eye out, to watch for any movement, any sign, to always be ready. Don’t let your guard down, or you’re done. Stop for a moment and your ass is beat. Any motion and the dog flinches, ready for the blow. The dog's reality of the world has been shaped by the past. Its future is set. Its future is clinched.

I think of my past, the past that has shaped my reality. The past that has shaped my future. The past that has set my future. That past that has clinched my future. If I continue to live in these paradigms, these realities that appear way too real, my future is set. It will be what it was. What was always will be.

What was always will be. That just sucks. That is so boring. That is like the weather always being the same. Not just the same, but always cloudy. A calm, safe, 50 degree cloudy day over and over. There is no waiting, no hope, no looking forward, just the same. What was always will be. There’s no need to think. There’s no need to wonder. Just the same damn thing.

Unless. Unless there was something that was not bound by any single reality. Unless there was something that named its own reality, a reality that said it could never be owned by any single reality, that it would never be bound by any stifling, dogmatic system to keep it in line, to keep it under wraps, to keep it from being to much of a hassle, to keep things safe. Unless there was something whose very nature held freedom, gave freely, whose very nature was to live into and engage the unknowing. Unless there was something whose very nature did not seek to control power, but to enable, to empower, to bring intimacy instead of exclusion. Unless there was something that did not coerce you into some conformed pattern, but instead joyed in your uniquely spontaneous humanity, that allowed you to express and feel and fail beautifully.

Unless there was something whose very touch upon you stopped you in your tracks. A Spirit that made you take a step back. A Spirit that made you think. Not in the sense of a mind racing a mile a minute, but a mind that could be still, and really think. A mind that said, wait, does it really have to be this way? Why do I live in such fear? Why do these things still have such a hold on me? What am I so afraid of? What if I didn't have to be looking around, waiting to get hit? What if I didn't have to flinch at the slightest motion? What if I could sit? What if I could close my eyes? What if I could still my body? What if I could actually engage the moment, without the static of the past, without the worry of the future?

I believe that when these questions are met with the imagination of the Spirit, the fear and shame that have bound us with their rules are scared shitless. They don't know what to do. They are being engaged by the Spirit that that knows no confining paradigm, that dreams without limits, that is bound by no past.

The ever-present Spirit leading, senses engaged, mind stilled. The only place where true beauty can be known and experienced, where one is still enough to sway in awe of the haunting cadence of life, where the rhythm of the Spirit meets the rhythm of the human story. I believe it is in these moments, in this stillness, where the only sound one can hear is heaven crashing into earth.

Beard Man

Yep, I got a beard. I think it's pretty cool. It just crept up on me, no plan, just took it day by day, and each day said I would give it another. And there ya go.

Not gonna lie though, its starting to drive me nuts. Definitely not used to this much hair on my face. I may break down soon.

But we'll see, I mean I do enjoy it and feel old, a distinguished old, like I know what I'm talking about kind of old, not a beer belly old.

Ok enough beard talk. If I end up working just the stash for a day I will post that look for sure.


....Updates!

Cat

An interesting Cat Power show last night at the Showbox. Interesting holding deeper connotations, with the descriptor used most after the show being 'disturbing.' I agreed, and at the same time I can't help adding the word enchanting to the list of my experiences of this woman. But as for the disturbing consensus...it was obvious we were dealing with a very complex, mysterious woman to say the least. I think what we all wanted the most was for her to just stop moving up on stage, put the mic on the stand, center herself and just play the song the way we know it so well.

Instead, she was all over the place, each intonation in the song met by an erratic movement with her hands, arms, entire body. Some of this was enjoyable, I mean I was happy to see that she was trying, but I think the internal disturbance we all felt was our reaction to this woman who was trying so deeply hard that it hurt. It climaxed near the end of the show when she started apologizing, first about some of the minor sound mishaps, and then just apologizing for no reason. Then saying "fuck I just want to have a good show, that's all I want." Knowing any bit of her story is to know her rocky history with severe stage fright, ending shows early, some due to alcohol, some due to her self-perception that she was simply not playing well enough.

At the same time disturbing does in no way meet my full experience of her. Somehow she was also amazing. She provoked such a deep wonder, enchantment, beauty in bearing so deeply the marks of a woman. A woman so caught up in the struggle, you see it, right there, in her wanting to just have a good show, to not mess up, to sing out of this angelic voice of hers that embodies beauty. In a sense I feel like I get all the spoils, I get the music, the beautiful voice and music and lyrics that comes out of her pains, her longings, what she bears as a woman. I don't doubt that is one of the main reasons I love her music. Her brokenness is tragic, saddening, and at the same time, so alluring, so captivating.

A Good Friday One Year Ago

I quickly rushed to church after work on Friday, mind everywhere, a tense day with some tough kids. I remember coming into the dark room, sitting down by myself near the back. There were less people attending than a usual service but still enough to fill spaces. I was aware of where I was sitting, how I was sitting, who was around me, the plans for the rest of my night.

And then, like hearing the striking beauty of a melody I know so well, I was taken back. I stopped. Not just physically, but mentally. I stopped inside.

A girl took the mic, and began to talk about Jesus. But it was a different way of talking about him than I had ever heard before. She didn't speak about what to learn about him or how to live like him.

She simply spoke of him. She talked about his life. She talked about the things he did. She talked about the people he hung out with. She told stories. She spoke about the life of a man who lived on this planet, who ate and drank and slept on this earth. She talked about the ways he laughed and the ways he got angry and the times he cried. She talked about who he was.

And I suddenly felt like I was at his funeral. I felt like he was just here. She spoke like he was just here. She spoke like she knew him. She spoke like she missed him.

Her voice led me into tears. I missed him. I wanted to be with him. His loss was palpable. His loss was weighty. It permeated the room. And strangely enough his absence soon turned into what felt like his presence, sitting right next to me. The absence turned into a presence of a God who was joining me in my tears.

I remember my mind wanting to switch on and say “easy feelings, not too much now, don’t want to draw too much attention.” And then centering back on her voice. And this time my mind didn’t take over. It was too real. This time shame wouldn’t take away such a time to honor. Damn it not this time. Not when you feel like you have the living God sitting next to you, weeping right there with you. Not weeping for you, but weeping with you.

I didn’t want to be wept for. I didn’t want Jesus to have it all together and have to cry for me from some high place. I wanted him to be here, next to the earth, sitting in a chair, weeping alongside me. And that’s what it felt like. It felt like he was sitting next to me, weeping because he wanted to be with me, because he missed being gone, because he knew something of what it meant to feel alone. He knew something of what it meant to live on this earth. He knew what it meant to die on this earth.

This was a time to honor that death. This was a time to weep together over that death.

This was not a day of despair. Tears are not despair. Numbness is despair. A stone-face is despair. Having it all together is despair. Tears are hope. Tears were not the absence of God that day. They were the presence of a God I was weeping with – a God who had died in order for him to be able to sit and weep right next to me at his funeral.

Everything. No, really. Everything.

I get this feeling every time I'm really excited or laugh really hard or let myself simply feel a lot. It is the feeling of expense, the feeling that I am going to exhaust all of my resources, that if I keep this up I will surely run out, left empty with nothing but regret for the frivolous use of who I am. I fear I will run out of desire.

I have this song I've been listening to. It starts off slow, a woman singing in a soft voice, sounding somewhat timid and modest, and then quiets for a bit, her voice softens even more, the music halts.

And then there is an explosion. She screams out, she belts it. Nothing held back. She is in. All of it. There's no worry about expending energy. There's no questioning about breaking rules or being foolish. Just a woman who is all there. Every bit of her, nowhere but the present moment, set on the emotion, the expression, the desire emanating out of a passion in her that says this is worth it.

I was looking back on my journals. There is one in particular, my favorite writing in the past several years. It was written the day after my world was shaken by my counselor, when everything I was learning in the counseling program, everything that was in my head, all the intellect, finally slapped me in the face and slammed into my heart.

That day, I wrote that I was worth everything. I wrote that this work that I would be doing was worth everything. I wrote this work was worth my life. Worth going all in. Worth not looking back. Worth getting bloody, beat up, ticked off, torn up.

Worth dying for. This work was worth dying for. It was worth a life. And I think I felt that because I finally came head to head on with the reality that I was worth dying for. I was worth every bit, every ounce of someone's life. Every ounce of someone's desire. I was not an inconvenience of someone's time, a nuisance with too many needs. Not someone to be avoided, not someone to be silenced. I was worth being sought after, longed, ached, wept for, pursued with a desire that would never run out. Never. I'm talking never. That's what it felt like. It said don't worry because this desire would not be quenched.

It would stay when I was too much, when I said something really stupid, when I sung too loud or awkward or just plain weird, when I wanted to hide because no one wanted to talk to me, when I didn't know what to say, when I did something so shameful I wanted to hide for days. It would stay when I just wanted to be a fucking kid and be goofy as hell. It would allow a fucking kid to be what a kid is, which is spontaneous and unpredictable and full of life and quirkiness and desire.

That is the desire I wrote, the desire that said that you are worth everything. A desire where fuck is a holy word because it carries a desire stronger than shame-based rules.

A desire that would lead to the cross, a desire that would not be quenched even by death. Because I was worth it.

It is easy to say that Christ died for me, but much, much harder to carry the weight, to know the full reality that I am really worth it, That just calls me to way too much glory, way too much possibility, way too much hope. Much easier living a life thinking I am worth nothing than living a life holding an immeasurable glory.

Inherent Images of a Scandalous God

“What if there is something inherently delightful about you?”

Something about the time it was said, the right moment with the right expression, me in the right place to hear it – the words carried a weight with them, a punch, a cut piercing through my defenses, past all the filters, the walls, the intellectual rationalization.

Delight is a scandalous word. It is risky. It is near. It is seen, exposed, known. And it can be described in no other way than with the word grace. That moment where the unexpected, what you would never think or believe could or ever would happen, actually coming about.

It feels like a girl who you notice, who just makes you weak. It has nothing to do with what she says, but how she says it. It has nothing to do with what she does, but who she simply is. You delight in her. But you pretty much think there is no way things could happen between you. Or don’t want to hope that much because it hurts too much to hope like that, that someone you delight in so much would actually delight in you. And then, out of nowhere, she comes, and she says that she doesn’t simply think you are a nice guy, or do nice things. She says she is made weak by you. She says that she just can’t seem to control herself, that you make her anxious, you change her breathing, that you move her. Not in something that you do, but in simply who you are. She says that she delights, in you.

That is where you say, “Wait, hold on. This can’t be happening. This is too good to be true. I don't know if I can simply sit in this joy. There has to be a catch. I’m just not that great. I just don’t think I could actually be delighted in, especially by someone who seems just so delightful. Me? Really?”

"Yes, you. What if there is something inherently delightful about you?"

That is a scandalous statement.

Glosoli

I saw this video last year sometime and again during a presentation for my theology class before break. The second time brought me to tears, mostly due to one scene that won't leave.

Near the end, they are about to run and make the jump. Lined up, the boy in front with a girl at his side. He is pounding on the drum, the music rising, moving towards the climax. The rest of the group is behind them. It shows several of their faces. You can tell they are deep in their head. Thinking like crazy. Analyzing, measuring, weighing, options flying in and out. And then back to the boy, and you can see the excitement, the increased clarity and focus, the rhythm, the drum holding desire with each beat, as if providing a steadiness, a security in the face of the rest of their disorganization.

And the moment that won't leave me. The boy starts to run. No, he takes off. No wondering, weighing, measuring. And he doesn't just set the drum down, he throws it. The girl, she doesn't carefully remove her hat, instead she rips it off her head.

Why I think that image won't leave me? I know the questioning of the rest of the group, I know the looks on their faces well. The calculating, the safety measures. And when I'm caught up in my mind, like their questioning, I know that counseling is impossible, that it is way too much, that I need to get out before I get really hurt.

And then that moment. I see him throw the drum. I see her rip the hat off. And then my tears. Tears bringing hope and impossibility face to face. Reason and desire colliding. And desire blowing the hell out of reason. Logic fails.

And then human beings flying.

That is hope.

Back Home

It was hard to leave home. I was there for awhile but definitely could've spent more time with the family. Five nieces and nephews running around the house was a pleasant change from bachelor life in Seattle. A quick summation includes Play Station 3 (which my nephew Jacob said to Matthew, "why is Michael beating you at this game if you own it?"), Nintendo Wii, plenty of movies, a good college friend's wedding in Chicago, a couple nights out on the town (including new years where I vowed not to have anything to drink because of a bad cold, yet was forced into a couple games of beer pong at the end and got schooled off the table - I can't help adding the grossest story of the year so far - my partner was sick and she spit several times into a cup on the side. well, that cup somehow got into play on the next game. ouuuuccchhhh. thank God i lost and didn't learn that the hard way like a friend of mine did...). We also revitalized the game Taboo, did some skiing, had some good talks with the brothers and sister, and of course, hung out with the kids.