To the Gentleman at DFW B10, Nov. 3, 2012

It had been a very long day.  No matter how often I try, getting to DFW from anywhere is easy, but getting from DFW to LBB is impossible.  Flights are always overbooked, and American Eagle seems to be doing quite well.  So after leaving DCA (Washington Reagan) early on Sunday, I ran to make one, then two, then a third short flight from Dallas to Lubbock.  This last one, I was actually booked on and had a seat, so it was delayed, for two hours.

I had heard it before, but kept putting it out of my mind.  It was a repetitive yell, almost a bark, sometimes almost a word, like "WHAATTT!" or something similar.  I just ignored it.  Some crazy, I guess.  They come in all places.  Who knows?  Leave me be.  Now, where was I with that FB update?

Then I saw you, across the gate lounge area.  You?  No, it couldn't be!  You are too normal, too regular.  What could be wrong with you???  But it was clear.  No denying it.  There you were. The typical youngish business traveler, with bags in tow, well groomed, in good shape, normal, quiet.  Boring.  But then, the bark, and again.  Nothing for a second.  Then again.  And again.  People glance, then look away.  People talk.  You stand, courageous.  The void around you grows.

I don't know what it is, but I know you are too normal.  I somehow gain courage to go up and just stand next to you.  Eventually I ask where you are going.  "Lubbock.  Never been there."  Lubbock!  Wow!  Me too?  "What would bring you there?"  "Speaking at the Medical School."  And I know, but ask anyway. "Why?"  "Well, it obvious, isn't it,"  you retort.  "I have Tourette's."  I feel very small, and embarrassed.  You carry on, about how you aren't bothered, how you have lived with it almost all your life.

I don't push it.  I want to know so much.  Does it hurt?  Can you control it?  Does it wear you out?  How do you handle the public scenes?  How do you live with this???

But you are gracious, and kind, and normal.  You are an Assistant Principal at an elementary school.  You are married, with two young children.  You travel about once a month, presumably to tell your story, but you long to be home with family.  You live in the South, and you are a loyal Cardinals fan.  You went to a small Midwest college.  You hope to teach college someday.  You know children, and pressures they face, and you gave me encouragement about my own children, all now grown.  You were gracious.

I watched you, I am sad to say, and people around you, all the way to Lubbock.  In truth, the goodness of the crowds -- mostly silent, mostly non-confrontive -- was reassuring.  No one really knows how to react, or what to say, but no one wants to be rude either.  And perhaps I was the problem; perhaps I should have just ignored you, a normal traveller, as we all so often do to one another in these airport worlds.  But I wanted to be near you, and to say you are not alone, nor an object of derision or focus.  And you were kind, welcoming yet another strange, curious odd one, me. Thank you.

So often we who claim normality assume everyone else is odd or alone or sad.  Sometimes we in our own sincerity may legitimately offer comfort.  But probably more so, we rush in, perhaps certain that our Messiah role to save and comfort and fix everything will be successful, and all will see our good works and we will be rewarded and honored and praised.

But sometimes, if we are lucky, we meet the gentle and courageous authenticity of others perhaps more often identified or labelled as odd or loud or wierd, or uncontrollable.  And, if we are fortunate, we experience a moment of genuine normality, of real life, of tremendous courage, and

Of sheer grace.

Thank you, Mr. Assistant Principal,  God Bless You.

Musings on the Orange Line at 5:30

Musings on the Orange Line at 5:30 p.m.

So I got on the Orange Line at Foggy Bottom, after a very long day visiting LCU Washington internship sites, for the very short, one stop ride to Rosslyn, my standing “home” away from home when I visit the city about five times a year.  I step in a crowded car, and stand by the door, dark blue suit and haggard face in tow, and the door shuts.  A tap on my thigh from the 30ish woman in the seat nearby, and I look down to see her ask if I want her seat.  I quickly nod “no,” but I contemplate a really, really amazing day. 

I’ve been coming to Washington for several years now, and I’ve gotten accustomed to the routine – commuting into the city each morning, depending on the Metro to get me near appointments, and walking – walking, really walking – did I say “walking?” -- walking a lot, all day, to get things done.  I saw five persons today, all over the region, and I experienced everything.  But most of all, I experienced age, and familiarity.  One touring couple asked me for directions.  Asked ME.  A cab driver asked me if I was a veteran, on the way to the V.A. hospital.  Two veterans – one black, one white – asked me what was my service branch.  A third young veteran thought he knew me; he claims to have been born in Lubbock; he is suffering from traumatic brain injury in Iraq. 

I felt, at 5:30 p.m., that I just wanted to go “home.”  No touring the nation’s capital, just getting to rest at the end of the day.

And some younger commuter offered me – the old, D.C. commuter me – her seat.

I never caught her eye again before I got off the train.  But I did see her reading material.  Just before I got off the train, I saw her pull out a plastic-covered folder full of information.  It clearly said “7-Eleven” on the first page.  It was a new employee training manual.

I am older, and I am blessed to have been empowered to direct an LCU Washington initiative.  I am very blessed.  And I am here enough to be viewed as an old man who commutes to work.  And I am very, very thankful for a wife, Sharolyn, who has supported this good work for students to excel. 

And, I am humbled again this week.  Courageous, perhaps naïve veterans “think” they know me.  Others, waiting hours to get medicine or see a doctor, assume that I am a veteran, and then when I deny, continue to talk to me with generosity and grace.  Touring couples see a suit and assume I am a Washingtonian.  And, certainly most noble, a sweet, hard-working Washingtonian just trying to get a job offers the old senior her seat.

It is indeed a wonderful world.

When Truth No Longer Matters

After Paul Ryan's speech last night at the RNC, CNN's Wolf Blitzer remarked, "He delivered a powerful speech, Erin, a powerful speech. Although I marked seven or eight points I'm sure the fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute if they want to go forward, I'm sure they will. As far as Mitt Romney's campaign is concerned, Paul Ryan on this night delivered."

He delivered a powerful speech that was full of questionable facts that merit review, but none of it matters.  He delivered.   

Whether Democrat or Republican, the depth of deceit and distortion in order to gain the emotions and support of the people, is truly sad.  Until this year, fact-checking has been an honored and important element in campaign progress.  Now, it seems, fact-checking itself is demonized.  What matters is the production, the rhetoric, and the trivializing of detail.

I long for honesty, lack of arrogance, and respect of sustained investigation into polished production.

slp

We Did (n’t) Build It

“Amazing Grace.”  That’s what the Republican National Convention featured at 7:00 p.m., CST, on Tuesday evening, just before and after speeches about people who built their own businesses “on their own.”  I am awestruck.  Did I miss something?  How is it that these generous pretty people can see so clearly that they have “built it on their own” while welling up tears when singing the tender Christian hymn? 

I know, I know.  The “we didn’t build it” mantra is focused on “less government” and more local, small business control.  I understand.  Small businesses need not to be overly burdened with government restrictions.  There are issues that need to be addressed: support for small business tax breaks, limitations on large corporate tax loopholes / welfare; revisions of outdated health care and retirement programs; renewal of blighted neighborhoods; restrictions on horribly inadequate gun control laws; support for public education for all.

But fundamentally, at the root, we need a reality check.  We did not build it.  None of us.  Whatever It is.  We built it – we worked long and hard, no doubt – with the strengths and talents and family structures and support bases and tax system breaks and educational systems and inheritances and cultures and grossly inordinate blessings and local electricity and water infrastructures – to build it “ourselves.”

I am a successful, quite well off, relatively healthy, large home-owning, health insured family man.  I have large debt, but large resources.  I can get to the doctor tomorrow, if need be.  I can claim some superb tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant.  I have an enviable family, and a superb wife.  I can boast as (occasionally) being an outstanding teacher.  I can quote others who say I write well.

But I did not build it myself.  I am who I am because of my grandfathers John Franklin Ivy and John Patty, frontier farmers and preachers and judges.  I am who I am because of a father, O.C., who worked his b… off day and night drilling for Midland white collar oil.  I am who I am because of a mother who modeled working hard and never accepting second best.  I am who I am because of Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Acreman and a host of other public school teachers who a worked long and longer for us.  And I am who I am because of Les Perrin and Dan Hardin and Leon Crouch and John Fortner and  Doug Brown and Chris Morse and Dan McGee, and any number of other professors whose lives and hearts changed me.

Without my family’s influence, I would not have worked so hard.  Without my schools’ teaching (largely supported by every citizen’s taxes and every teacher’s learning), I would not have learned.  Without my church’s support and admonition and encouragement, I would not have learned faith.  Without my student loans – only possible because of U.S. support – I would not have gotten an education.  Without my network of powerful and successful people, I would not have a job.  Without my city’s taxed based services, I would not have a home, or water, or air conditioning, or the power to write this missive.  Without my friends, and mostly my wife, I would not be aware of how much I – I – did not make it happen on my own.  Without faith, I would not face the fact that I did not build it.  Any “it.”

“It” all depends on grace.  Pure and simple.

 

 

 

On Technology and Silence

How does one prepare for a week of silence and inactivity? What will he do without a laptop, or I-Pad, or even a Blackberry? How many books might hold his attention, denying the reality of the place itself? What ingenious projects might still be accomplished for some practical goal? What will make the week at a Benedictine monastery "worthwhile" for this multitasking professor?

Today's readings, found while in catch-up mode cleaning piles off the desk, startle:

"I would not be surprised, however, if un-anticipated consequences followed from this value-laden race for precocious practical accomplishment. . . . We are already well on the way to being enslaved by gadgets, and America's second- and third-tier institutions of higher learning are being reduced to the level of trade schools for producing technicians to fix those gadgets. Home sapiens and Homo ludens have, in our time, beeen displaced by Homo faber." -- Historian Lewis Pyenson, from a speech given to the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge

"There is no greater serenity of mind than when one can shut the hectic noise and pace of the materialistic outside world, and seek inner peace within oneself." -- Malcolm X, from his Hajj travel diaries, as quoted in the new biography by Manning Marable

Randy and Amy Loughner

To Randy and Amy Loughner,

Days have passed, and the memorials to the fallen have begun, as have tributes to the heroes. What happened last Saturday morning is indeed tragic, unexplainable, sad.

I am a parent of adult children. I hope, I think, I know, I tried to raise them well. Parenting in these days is not easy, nor has it every been, to be sure. But parenting today, while paying bills; protecting marriage; balancing sibling interests; struggling with bosses and memos and committee meetings; trying to find ways for our high schoolers to get to school and home, with insurance and good, old Volvos that will protect; hoping to keep ahead of them and their algebra or history, though they never "have homework;" denying futile flights--to expensive MLB games, or NFL games, or Disney retreats, or vacation cruises, or even Christmas escapes--all of these compete for attention, for dominance,

while our children, our young grown women and men

struggle to make their ways,

focused on screens large and small, tweets and texts and God knows what else, with bedroom doors shut (those without teens will not comprehend)

trying to find their ways.

And then, watching them leave home, and praying -- verbal or not -- each day that they find their way, safely, without too many E.R. visits; wishing we had kept up with their music, their friends, their lives,

never quite sleeping well,

every day wanting to call them home, and see them asleep at midnight in our beds,

but tired,

Just tired.

And tragically hopeful. While ever real about the facts that sometimes happen.

And if they do, feeling then doubt. What did we do wrong? Why us? Why our son/daughter? What if we had done ..... better? Why did no one .....? W...?


To you, Jared's parents, I send my prayers, my thoughts, my hopes. May you know that parents everywhere pause in horror, and thanks, and sadness, and grace, and whatever love they can, for you whom they do not personally know.

I cannot imagine your pain. I am sad, as you are for lost lives, for all.


God be with you.

God, give us all humble grace.

To My Father: On Mining and Baseball, Texas Style

12 October 2010. Mark this day. Two miracles transpired, both of major importance to West Texans. Seeemingly most important, the Texas Rangers clinched the American League semifinal games, sending them to the AL Championship against those arch rival New York Yankees. It is a match made in heaven, or in my childhood living room, where I sat dutifully in my little rocking chair next to my dad, rooting for the Yankees (before there were any Rangers) and where I formed those visions of baseball victories that later led to a real Texas Rangers team that my dad and I would favor. I'll never forget the time we all went to Arlington together, probably in the early 1990s, to watch those Rangers. I think they lost that night, but the glory and glamour of finally being in a big league stadium with my dad -- who can forget such an experience? And then, throughout his "retirement" years, I remember many, many nights sitting in that Desdemona home listening to Ranger baseball with my dad, and always, always, hoping against hope, and ultimately seeing them come close to championship an playoff worlds, but never close enough.

My dad died 12 year ago, but he would be proud of the Rangers tonight. They made it to the ALS championship, and to make it even better, it's against those Yankees. I'm wishing Mickie and Roger could see how their influence on my life continues, even if as the new rivals attempt to take over for the great old models of father and son and baseball.

But my dad was never quite focused on baseball, or anything really, except providing for his family. O.C. Patty was a roughneck, a not-so-distant cousin of a miner, one of those long-suffering and hard-working men who never came home without an ache and never complained at all. My dad, I always take pride in saying, worked on the then deepest oil well ever drilled, some 2-and-a-half miles deep, some time in the early 1970s. A lot of folks will say that Texas Oil is what made former president George W. Bush so famous; I say it was my dad, and his fellow-very-hard-workers.

Anyway, oil field roughnecks and miners are of the same breed -- very, very tough and hard-working family men who care little about their own needs and much about their wives' anc childrens' needs. They come home daily sore and hurting, but sure that they have done well. They cherish the moments outside of the rig, or the mine, but they go back each day, knowing the dangers. And, they occasionally get to see a moment or two of real, pure value, when the whole world stops to honor one, or 33, or their number.

So, as the miners literally arise, I say "Thank You" to each of them, and to my dad, and I wish them all a wonderful family reunion. And some time to recover.

While they watch the Texas Rangers whip the New York Yankees and move on to the World Series.

slp