Making peace with the Saints

I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church, as a Southerner, and an American - which means I grew up with great suspicion and perhaps even fear of the Catholic Church.
Yes, I heard preachers come around saying the AntiChrist would be a Pope, and that Catholics practiced idol worship and this whole "praying to Mary" thing was blasphemy. As a lover of history, I also understood all the evils perpetrated by different Popes and the Catholic church as a political power. And there were issues with Immaculate Conception (Mary being conceived without sin?), needing to go through a priest to get to God, and there was the whole cannibalism thing of the wine and wafer served during communion supernaturally turning into the actual blood and body of Christ once inside your mouth.
A byproduct of that was a complete dismissal, if you will, of Catholic "saints" - particularly since I grew up believing in the Priesthood of all Believers and that all believers are also sanctified, therefore making them, or us, all saints.

Then I married a Catholic. And met some fantastic Catholics who were as "Christian" as I am. And recognized that any organized religion is going to be rife with fallen humans who do things "in the name of Christ" that surely embarrassed Christ (if Christ can be embarrassed; I don't know). The Catholic Church is highly organized and structured and has certainly had its share of fallen human beings placed in positions of authority who abused their power and used the power of the church for selfish gain.

My wife is no longer a practicing Catholic, having joined me in a more Protestant form of worship. Having said that, I also found myself reading a few Catholic theologians and discovering real beauty and certainly significant contributions to everyone's understanding of what it means to be in relationship with God.

That's a long introduction to "My Life with the Saints." No, not my life, although there is some of that; but rather a book by the same title by a Jesuit priest named James Martin.
I stumbled across this book in a Barnes and Noble bookstore quite by accident, if you believe in such accidents, and bought it as a present for MG - a selfish purchase, because I knew I really wanted to read it.  It took several years before I finally got around to reading it (it was first published in 2006), but I did.

And what I was reminded mostly was that it is easy to forget that these people that the Catholic Church venerates as "Saints" were, in the beginning, simply people with an amazing commitment to following God, whose lives reflected something special in that devotion, something I could learn from even as I learn from reading about the lives of Billy Graham and John Calvin and Martin Luther and Chuck Colson and Donald Miller and any number of other believers who have shared their spiritual journey with the public through their books and sermons.
Yes, some of them seemed to be bat crazy. They did things (a teenage girl leading an army against England? Visions in a pig pen in France?) that were hardly normal. Still, once  you get past the craziness (any worse than an Old Testament profit lying naked on his side and cooking food over excrement to make God's point?), you have to admire the determination, the passion, the total surrender to an absolute faith that what they were doing was ordained by God.

I read the Bible. I study, as best I can, the Bible and look to it as "God's Word." But I also know there is great wisdom to be gained by learning how other people have interpreted those Words, seeing the example of the way others have lived their lives of faith, and read the stories of the Martyrs (My  Southern Baptist upbringing encouraged me to read stories of the martyrs - many of the same lives the Catholic Church venerates as Saints; I guess it was OK to call them "martyrs").
Actually, that's not entirely true either. I did grow up hearing references to Saint Paul and Saint John. But then, consistency wasn't always the strong suit of the church I grew up in.

Martin writes at one point, "Some might argue (and some do argue) that all you need is Jesus. And that's true: Jesus is everything, and the Saints understood this more than anyone. But God in his wisdom has also given us these companions of Jesus to accompany us along the way, so why not accept the gift of their friendship and encouragement?"
A theologian whose writing deeply affected my life, C. S. Lewis, once said of the Catholic practice of calling on Saints that, while he didn't do it, if we do accept that Christians live on after death, why would asking a "Saint" to pray for you be any different than asking your neighbor or members of your Sunday School class to pray for you?
And so I found inspiration in Martin's brief stories on people like Joan of Arc, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas Merton, Ignatius of Loyola, Mother Teresa, Peter, Thomas Aquinas, Joseph ... not all of whom have actually been officially declared "saints" but who have made the first step of being "venerated."

I read, for the first time, this prayer from Merton that begins, "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so ...."

I laughed out loud, at times, in reading the words of Pope John XXIII, a very humble and humorous man. He was once asked by a journalist, "How many people work in the Vatican?" To which the Pope replied, "About half of them."
On a visit to the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, he was introduced to the sister (nun) who ran the hospital, and was referred to as Mother Superior.
"Holy Father,'' she said. "I am the Superior of the Holy Spirit."
"You're very lucky," said the Pope. "I'm only the Vicar of Christ."
And during a dinner party in Paris, he was asked, "Aren't you embarrassed, Monseigneur, when there are women present who wear very low-cut dresses? It's often a scandal."
"A scandal? Why no,'' the Pope said. "When there's a woman with a plunging neckline, they don't look at her. They look at the apostolic nuncio to see how he's taking it!"
That humor was the trademark of a very humble man who, after three years of serving as Pope, wrote, "My sense of unworthiness keeps me in good company; it makes me put all my trust in God."

And it shapes the story of Martin and his own spiritual journey that, despite his being a Jesuit priest, is really not that different than any of us who struggle to develop a personal relationship to Christ.
At one point, in his relating to Peter, Martin writes of his own search for humility, "It's not the kind of humility I wanted,'' he tells a friend.
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted the kind of humility that when others saw me they would say, 'Wow, he's so humble! What a great guy! ... I wanted a humility I could be proud of."

At the end, in his conclusion, just when you could be feeling like you could never live with the faith of these people Martin writes about, he says, "Believing that God wants us to be ourselves is liberating. While I'm always called to grow, God asks only that I be myself, no matter what the situation. So when I'm listening to a friend tell me his problems, or hearing someones confession, or standing before a homeless man in the street, I don't have to say, 'What would Peter or Francis or Therese or John XXIII do?' Certainly they are models of Christian action for me. But God has not placed them in this particular situation. God, in his mysterious wisdom, has placed me here, with my talents and skills, as well as my weaknesses and limitations. Therefore a better question is, 'What should I do?"

In other words, the same place that it started for the people we look to as "saints."
I am one.
Now, if I can only consistently live as one.

Where've you been? No where. What've you been up to? Not much.

A good friend called and wondered where I'd been. She said I'd been strangely quiet.
Now, this being the 21st Century, she wasn't wondering where I'd been physically, or that I'd been strangely quiet vocally.
She was wondering from a virtual standpoint - as in, where I had been from a social media standpoint.

So here is a quick summary of June.
I said good-bye to BP.
We sold our house.
MG had another surgery; hip replacement.
I started a new job.
We moved.
And now it's July.

I haven't said much, because each of those items is a story in itself.
First, BP.
I've been asked how I wound up working for BP in the first place. It was either a "God thing" or an amazing coincidence; it depends on your perspective.
In 2010, the buy-outs from the newspapers were getting smaller while salaries were being cut and employees were given unpaid furloughs. I never dreamed I'd ever leave the newspaper business. But if I were ever going to do anything different, I knew it was time.
We - the family - had decided to take a leap of faith move to St. Louis, where MG would go to work for her brothers and I had already lined up freelance jobs staying in sports. A friend in the trucking business offered us a truck to move our stuff, and The Heir and I were getting ready to pack up the house to make the move. However, that friend in the trucking business called and said if we could wait a week, he could get us a bigger truck for the same price.
So on the day I was supposed to be driving to St. Louis, I was free to go to the church parking lot where The Princess and the Young Prince were leaving for a week-long mission trip. While there, a friend whose son was going on the same trip told me BP needed media help on the Coast (the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred April 21st and this was June) and asked if I knew anyone who might be interested. I was - it was the biggest story of the year - but I thought MG had her heart set on St. Louis to be with her family again, so I told my friend to let me think about it.
Later, at home, I mentioned the conversation to MG and she said, "Why don't you do it? It's the biggest story of the  year; you know you'd love to be in the middle of it."
Did I say I had the greatest wife in the world?
So on Monday, I emailed my resume to Ayana McIntosh-Lee, who would end up being the General Manager of BP in Alabama. On Tuesday, we had a phone interview. On Wednesday, I was in Mobile to "check things out,'' not sure if I really wanted to do this or not.
That first day, I met a young named Justin Saia, who would eventually become a great friend. His uncle, Vince, had been a friend for years but I'd never met Justin. We walked into the Incident Command Center in Mobile on the same day, recognized a press center that seemed to have no real plan, and sat down to start organizing how to reach out to local media.
That afternoon, I had taken a query from a member of the media, researched and written an appropriate answer, and said to Ayana, "I'm going to deliver this response to the media. Who do you want me to say said it?"
"You,'' Ayana said. "You're a BP spokesman."
I hadn't even actually accepted the job. What I knew about BP as a company consisted primarily of regular stops at the station near my house for gas and a breakfast of Diet Coke and Dunkin' Sticks (this was during one of my health food crazes).
And just like that, I was an official spokesman for the fifth largest company in the world, an international company based in Great Britain, facing perhaps the largest environmental/industrial disaster in modern history.
Pretty cool, huh?
Eventually, I got to work with a couple of actual, official BP "spokespeople" (Marti Powers and Dawn Patience), who were terrific. They not only organized a true BP Press Office but were tremendously helpful to me, offering encouragement and became great resources. Still, it was pretty much trial by fire. There was no handbook for crafting statements; in the beginning there was no legal review. It was just "hey, how does this sound?' to the team in the press room - Georgia and Justin and either Marti or Dawn - and then deliver the message.
All of us had very different backgrounds, but all those backgrounds offered a different area of expertise that worked. My buddy George, for example, had been an advance man in the White House. He taught me  about planning, organization, and controlling the environment of a press conference or photo opportunity, things I was certainly aware of but never really thought that mucha bout.
And so I made the transition from one side of the notepad to the other. This was graduate school in the real world, working 24/7, sometimes 12 hours a day, through the summer and into the fall.
And I had a blast.
Eventually, BP decided to establish state offices, I was asked to move to Gulfport, Mississippi, as Director of Media and Communications. Again, it was a great team led by Heidi Grether. We did great work. I was allowed to do more than just respond to media, and met some terrific people with BP. It was seven years of experience in three and completed my real-world graduate degree in media relations, crisis communication, community relations, governmental relations, and response.
In the beginning I was dealing with local, national, and even international media. I took media on fly-overs of the well site; to barrier islands; up and down the beaches of Alabama and Mississippi. I worked what was basically a technology fair in the parking lot of Gulf State Park, where inventors came to show off their solutions for the oil spill. I got to be the "national spokesperson" for a project where recovered tar balls were recycled into car parts (I put national spokesperson in quotation marks because, quire frankly, it wasn't like it got a lot of attention. But I did do radio interviews all over the country).
I was part of meetings with govenors, members of congress, and mayors, sitting in on negotiations and updates, hearing their concerns and developing appropriate responses. There were some great moments and some boondoggles, stories that in some cases you just to be there to believe. But by and large I worked with people who were committed to the response, who sincerely wanted nothing more than to do the right thing and to do it well, and felt a real responsibility to the people of the Gulf Coast.
Maybe someday I'll share some of the more specific stories, like the report of a cat being run over by a Sandshark - a beach-cleaning machine that couldn't move faster than 2 mph, which means that cat had to be the slowest cat on the face of the earth; or the bar fight on Dauphin Island that ended with one guy getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and guns being drawn on both sides like an Old West standoff.

Toward the end, interest slowed down. We can argue whether things really returned to normal, but I do believe other than perception, things are very close to pre-spill condition. The federal government, in the form of the United States Coast Guard, recently determined the three states of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi were essentially back to normal, and quite naturally the determination was made that there was no longer a need for a press officer stationed permanently on the Coast.
So I began to look for another job. Fortunately, my resume got a considerable amount of attention from a wide range of companies, attention I'd never have received if not for the experience with BP. Now, I have never trusted my own judgement and have always prayed that God would close every door except the right one. At one time, there were four jobs I thought - no, I knew - I had a really good shot at. In one case, the job was actually created for me!
But one incredible thing after another shut those doors - I'm talking about presidents and CEOs of companies getting fired or forced into early retirement; in fact, on three occasions top executives who wanted to hire me left the company, prompting on HR friend to ask me if I'd stop being his friend.
In the end  it came down to Georgia-Pacific, a job that when I first applied for I didn't really consider but mainly wanted to get on the Georgia-Pacific radar for future opportunities. Then I interviewed and visited the plant in Mississippi and really liked the possibilities. I told MG, "I wish this job were in Birmingham. It would be my first choice."
Then, it became my first choice. My only choice. What I believe is the "right" choice.

The house: we'd tried to sell the house three years ago and had a contract on it, but the contract fell through. Lately, given all that had happened over the past year, we'd talked about whether we should sell. We loved the house; we'd gutted and rebuilt it to MG's specifications. Our kids basically grew up in that house. But after The Accident and with my travel schedule, the house was looking too big.
So one day, out of the blue, we get a call from a real estate agent who had a client who wanted our house. I said, "here's the price, take it as is, take it or leave it." They took it. I'd always heard stories like that and thought them too good to be true.
So we began to move back to the house we'd kept in Cahaba Heights, that we'd been renting out. It has taken a lot of work, and it's not finished, but thankfully we had a place to go. We have been trying to cram 10 years of stuff into a house half the size of the one we left. It's been a sacrifice on the kids. But it's a great house. A great location. We were happy there before and I believe we can be happy there again for as long as we choose to live there.

Surgery: In the midst of all of that, MG had hip replacement. After the accident, when her pelvis was broken on all four sides (if a pelvis can have four sides) and the left hip shattered ("like an egg wrapped in duct tape smashed by a hammer" said the doctor), the hope was the orthopedist had put things back together to get maybe 10 years out of that hip before MG would need a replacement. A replacement hip was never a matter of "if" but ''when,'' and since January it was clear the "when" was "sooner rather than later."
It was disappointing, because in the fall MG was really doing (relatively) well. She was walking and doing physical therapy and even some exercises to strengthen her core. We saw a doctor in St. Louis who still believes she can make MG's drop foot better.
Understand, I'm a pessimist because down deep I'm a hopeless optimist who is terrified that if I give voice  to my optimism I'll jinx it. But the truth is, from the day MG came out of the coma, I believed that in a year she'd be fine.
Then a year came and went, and she was not fine. In fact, her condition had regressed (primarily because of the hip). April was particularly hard for both of us. The reality hit both of us that this might be as good as it was going to get.
But we found a terrific surgeon who was experienced in putting artificial hips into patients with injuries like MG's, into a pelvis loaded with screws and plates. And the blessing was that when it was over, Dr. Moore told us that he hadn't even had to cut into any metal, and there was enough bone left so that if MG should ever need another replacement - if this hip should ever wear out - there was room to do another one.
Did the surgery make things better? You'd have to ask MG. I think the pain in her hip was certainly relieved, but the real problem is her lower back. The doctors have told us that her pelvis was put back together as well as humanly possible, but it wasn't put together the way God created it. All we could do was - as it says at the end of the Count of Monte Cristo - "wait and hope."
And I know we are people of hope.

I still wonder why. I still wonder why things haven't been worse. I still feel incredibly blessed - to still have The Trophy Wife with me, for my kids, to have a home, and to have a job I enjoy. I know so many people who have lost some or all of the above, so why we should be so fortunate ... I can only call it a "God thing."
Let me try to sum up some of what I've learned about God through this: I have known God was not a jack-in-the-box kind of God that just pops up by surprise at appropriate times in my turn-the-handle life. But over the last year, I've discovered what so many Old Testament writers seemed to say: that God is a wild thing, unpredictable, sometimes showing up with a roar and other times in the faintest whisper,
In the book of Jeremiah God says "I will surely save you" (30:10). That doesn't mean He doesn't allow us to get to the brink, or even at times feel like we've gone over the brink. The Children of Israel (to whom God was speaking in Jeremiah) certainly had gone over the brink a number of times. But God was/is faithful.
Albert Einstein was once quoted as saying "I am convinced (God) does not play dice." There is no gamble involved. He will surely save His people.
How?
God knows.
And as frustrating as that may be for me, at the end of the day that's about the best I've got.

Is insanity the insistence on meaning?

Somewhere, I read a line in a book or a poem that goes, "Insanity is the insistence on meaning."
I've don't remember the context of the line, so I can't say what the author meant by it.
But it struck a chord with me - maybe never so much as this week.

Life changes fast. If you've been living a sheltered life and didn't realize that before, certainly you understand it now - from terrorists setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon to an exploding factory that nearly levels an entire town in Texas.

One minute you're about to finish running what you thought would be one of the toughest challenges of your life, and the next you find out just what "tough" really means.

Or maybe you're sitting down to dinner with the family, just another quiet day in rural Texas, when you hear a noise and the ground starts to shake and the walls start to come apart and your world collapses - literally - around you.

The world is a scary place. It is a fact of life that none of us are as safe as we think we are.

You know that. You have your stories. Maybe you know mine.

One year ago  early on the morning of April 21, I saw my wife off to the airport, settled back to watch some TV because I couldn't go back to sleep, and was completely unaware that life, as I had known it, was coming to an end.

I remember watching a policeman walking through my back yard, meeting him as knocked on my bedroom window, hearing him tell me I needed to get to UAB Emergency as quickly as I could because there had been an accident ...

This day, one year later, was supposed to be a magical date for me. Everyone said in a year, everything would be fine.
They were wrong.

A year ago, I was worried about getting my kids summer internships that would be meaningful. MG and I were making plans for vacation, things to do before the next school year started. There were bills to pay and expenses to plan for and sports and friends and family concerns.

It was what we knew as "life."

All those things are still part of our lives.  But we've added new worries: doctors and physical therapists and when to schedule the next surgery; trying to find chairs that MG can be comfortable sitting up in, even if just for a little while; searching for a car that MG might be comfortable in for trips that take longer than 30 minutes; rethinking what to do on vacation, because the long walks where we explored new cities or mountains or beaches are now out of the question.

This is the new 'normal' for us, and yes, it's enough to drive you crazy. I'm considered a pretty emotionally stable person. People who don't know me as well as my wife does say I'm laid back, that I don't get too high or too low.
Yet this last year has been, at times, rather insane. I think of things for us to do and then realize we can't. I say things - "normal" things - to MG like, "what have you been doing?" and then instantly regret it, because what she has been doing is so limited, compared to the old days when that question might have brought forth a hundred different answers because every day could be so different.

Yes, a person can go crazy trying to figure out "why" this happened, or focusing on "what if" because a split second in time would have changed everything, or believing there is good that can come from even the worst circumstances and then worrying about somehow missing the "good" completely because you were focused on the wrong thing.

Meaning? I absolutely believe - know in my very soul - that life has purpose. But my faith is not one of arrogance. Sometimes I think it's born of necessity, because the alternative seems too terrible to face.

 We live in a world of good and evil, and sometimes I think the only thing we can be sure of is that some days we see more of one than the other.
And through this last year - through this last week - we've seen good overcoming evil. We see the people who run to danger to help others; we've seen friends put their own lives on hold to care; we've witnessed people standing up in support of total strangers; we've watched people reach out across great distances because something inside them compels them to bring comfort where they can.

We've seen, I believe, a glimpse of Eden, of life the way we were "meant" to live.
Oh, the pain, the loss, the suffering, the injustice and unfairness doesn't go away. The Scripture I read teaches me that we live in a fallen world and that nature itself is groaning, longing to be restored to the way it was created. And like the very earth we live on, we humans long for perfection too. Weeks like this past one, years like this last one, the glimpses I get of earthly perfection only make me long for that perfect place even more.

So, yes, I'm Homesick for Eden. I yearn to return to that place I've never known. Deep is the need to go back to the Garden, to a place where I'm convinced we were created to live, a place that, deep down, we instinctively know is Home.

Is truth relative to action?

Recently, I was reading a book and came across one of those things that drives me crazy.
A guy was talking about why he was not a Christian, and his reason was "at the end of the day, the Christian church has no coherent answer for earth care. And for that reason I now know I could never be a Christian."

Now, I can accept people choosing not to be a Christian (I do believe in free will, after all). I can respect and accept people whose faith - and it is faith - says there is no God, or there is a God but he doesn't care about how you worship Him, or there is a God but he simply set the world in motion and has better things to do than care about us puny individuals.
I can accept people who believe that I'm wrong in my understanding of God, who believe in Allah or Buddha or whatever they call their deity - or people who take an ' all of the above' approach.
I can even accept people whose faith says there is nothing there.
What I have a hard time accepting is people who decide they don't believe in something simply because they don't see followers of that "something" agreeing with their particular point of view.
Isn't that like saying "I don't believe in math because all the mathematicians I know can't take a joke?"
Or "I don't believe in medicine because I some doctors have killed people?"
Don't get me wrong: I do understand that the behavior of the people who profess to follow a certain 'truth' does indeed affect non-believers. That's why it is a great responsibility to try to live in a way that attracts, not repels people. After all, Peter (in 1 Peter) did write that we're to live a life among non-believers in such a way that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they see your good deeds (Chapter 2, verse 12).

But you can't please everybody. All believers have flaws, whether it's people who call themselves Christians or mathematicians or doctors or followers of Islam or the people who believe in the power of crystals (as opposed to the power of Krystals, which I do happen to believe in).

It seems to me that if something is the truth, then that should be all that matters. If two plus two equals four, then the fact that the person teaching me that may have no sense of humor, wears a plastic pocket protector, and is just disagreeable can't change the essential truth that two plus two does indeed equal four.
If Allah is indeed God, then all the bombs and oppression of women and rejection of human rights in the world can't change that.
And if Christianity is right, then the fact that the church has not taken a strong enough position on - in the above case - the environment to suit some people can't change that.

I wonder if we, as a society or culture, have become so high-maintenance that "truth" has to cater to our most deeply held interests. How did we come to be people who just reject anything that doesn't reflect our own personal interest (from the ecology to on-line gaming) because it doesn't reinforce what I want?

I blame cable TV.
There was a time when you got three channels, plus PBS that always came in a bit fuzzy. You watched what the networks gave you to watch, or you didn't watch at all. And it was amazing how often you learned to like a certain show because there was nothing else on, or you were educated about some topic because that show was the least objectionable on TV at the time.
But then came cable, and suddenly if one network wasn't giving you what you wanted to watch, you could scan 999 channels to find the network that did - even if it was a re-run of an old show.
Then came VCRs and "On Demand." If a new show doesn't appeal to you in the first five or ten minutes, you don't have to give it a chance; you simply find something else to watch during that time slot.

I fear that's how we've begun to approach all of life. If we hear something that we don't like, we change the channel to dial in to find whatever "truth" pleases us.
In so doing, we risk not hearing what really is true.
And simply not knowing.

If you don't believe something, make sure it's because you honestly don't believe it to be true, not just because it's not what you want to hear.

A year later: we're just not at the end

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the attention these little blogs got a year ago, while my family was going through what has proven to be a life-changing accident.
My blog started before that, after I left a life of journalism that I never dreamed I'd leave. My oldest brother told me I needed to keep writing, just to stay in the habit, so I did this not for anyone else to read but for me.
Of course, having spent most of my life writing for publication, I did want to be read. Every writer has an ego, and I'm no exception.
Then came the accident. Almost a year ago - April 21, 2012.
It's funny, how things happen. Someone suggested that I do one of those Caring Bridge posts, but - and I hope this doesn't offend anyone - to me that's what you did when things are terminal. I absolutely refused to believe MG would not bounce back and return to normal.
However, I also knew we are both from large families and have been blessed to have many, many friends who are scattered all over the world. I needed a way to communicate with them easily and efficiently. So I took my "Homesick for Eden" blog and turned a large part of it into chronicling "the accident."
The numbers piled up as people found and read this story. We were amazed. I know our story is not unique, and that many of you have gone through much more difficult times and handled those times with more grace and courage than I have. The only way I can explain it is that maybe my telling of our tale connected somehow. I was encouraged by people- men,  in particular - who wrote me encouraging notes and included messages like, "What you are saying is exactly how I felt when we went through our situation, but I didn't know how to say it."

I had hoped that by this time, I'd be able to put the finishing touches on this story. I just knew that, a year later, MG would be back to normal - working again at Christian Service Mission, wearing her high heels, spending days with me at the coast, working in the yard at home, doing all those things she did before April 21 of last year.
On the day of the accident, two of Mountain Brook's finest came by the hospital to see me. They wanted to know how MG was doing before they filed charges against the man that hit her. They honestly believed it would end up being manslaughter, because there was no way they could see MG surviving.
Me? It never occurred to me she would not survive. I remember calling the kids and saying, "Mom was in a wreck. It's bad, but she's going to be OK. Don't feel like you need to come home if you want to stay at school." That was stupid of me, and fortunately my kids understood it was serious and did come home right away to see their Mom and support their Dad who was in denial.
To all of you who came to see MG when she was in the coma, I apologize for sounding like an idiot. I remember walking down the hall with her family and friends and sternly - the only word I can think of - telling them, "When we go in this room, I only want positive conversation. I don't want any crying, I don't want anyone talking about how bad things look. We're going to assume MG can hear what we're saying, and we're going to be happy!"
All of them went along with me. I appreciate that. Some of them took one look at MG and had to step outside to regain their composure, but they all followed my silly demand.
Again, all I can say is that it was how I was able to handle this situation. I refused to believe MG would not be part of my life for many, many years to come.

I don't know if I've ever talked about the week before the accident. It was MG's 50th birthday. She wanted it to be special. I took a week off from work. Her birthday, if I remember, fell on Easter weekend and we (MG, SaraBeth, Grayson and I; Roecker was still a "knob" at The Citadel) went to Memphis to see her Dad. We took SaraBeth back to school in Greenville, SC. We took a day trip to Ashville and toured The Biltmore Estates, with breakfast at the fanciest McDonald's (there was a grand player piano in the dining room!). We went to Charleston and toured the coast, got kicked off a golf course, ate great seafood, had the kids come in to see Roecker's "Recognition Day'' at The Citadel. We had a great week; one of the greatest of many great weeks I have been blessed to share with MG.
It was, I hoped, everything she wanted for her 50th birthday celebration.

A week later, she was trying to get to St. Louis to see her oldest brother be baptized. It was going to be very special for her. She never made it, because on her way to the airport that Saturday morning a guy who'd spent the night before celebrating his brother's birthday and drinking way too much came blowing through a red light in a Chevy Tahoe, hitting the car MG was driving square on the driver's side door.
It only occurs to me as I write this now how two birthday celebrations were so tragically connected.

A year later, our lives have changed so dramatically. So many of our plans now seem like fairy tales from another time and another place.

And yet ...

My life has been so blessed. Charmed, almost. Not that everything has gone the way I wanted, or that everything has gone 'right.' But I've been protected from so much. And I have always known I didn't deserve it, that it was just the Grace of God and perhaps the prayers of my parents over me when I was growing up.
Some of you suggested I put this all in a book. I don't know that it's appropriate, but I did hope this spring, on the one year anniversary, I could put a final chapter on this saga; wrap it up in a nice bow.
I never imagined we'd still be dealing with this, still going through surgeries, trying to figure out how to go forward with new challenges and how to turn them into opportunities.

The simple fact is, this is real life, and most of us know real life doesn't wrap up so neatly.
One of my favorite quotes is from the beginning of the movie, "Brian's Song" (the original). The narrator says, "Ernest Hemingway once said, 'All true stories end in death.' Well, this is a true story."

I guess the point is that we - MG and I - are not at the end of the story yet. She came really close; closer than I care to admit. And there were times when MG wondered out loud why God didn't just "take her home,'' to end her pain and suffering and put her in that place where God wipes away all our tears.
Selfishly, I'm happy the story continues.
I saw a movie recently, one of those Bollywood productions from India, in which one of the central characters had a saying that I really liked. It went something like::
"Everything will work out in the end. And if it doesn't, then you're just not at the end."

I like that.
We're just not at the end.

Familiar territory: back in the waiting room

So here I am, back in a hospital surgery waiting room.

A quick update: almost a year after MG's accident, we're getting ready to head into another series of surgeries. This time, however, it's not so much life or death as it is quality of life.

Old  joke: what's the difference between God and a surgeon?
God knows he's not a surgeon.

Over the last year, we've dealt with a lot of doctors and surgeons. I suppose it's human nature to just assume all doctors know all the same stuff. Yet I know car mechanics know all the same basic stuff, too, and recognize the difference between a good mechanic and a not-so-good mechanic. I strive to find the good ones to work on my car.
The same is true with doctors/surgeons. The same is true with all of our professions. Most of us are competent in what we do. Some of us are better than competent; some are brilliant. Unfortunately, not all human beings are created equal in that sense.
We've been fortunate to have access to some brilliant doctors
 - the trauma surgeon at UAB, Dr. Melton, that saved MG's life, taking care of the multiple internal injuries that included two punctured lungs, a lacerated liver, and ruptured spleen;
- and the trauma orthopedic surgeon who put her pelvis back together, Dr. Lowe, who continues to guide us through the orthopedic recovery issues.
Are they arrogant? Maybe; they certainly have reason to be.
Now we'll find out about this new doctor we're dealing with, Dr. Susan Mackinnon. I have a feeling she's earned her arrogance, too.
I will say this in her favor: she liked my boots.
I mean, how can you not trust a doctor who stops in the middle of an examination of the nerve damage MG has suffered and says to me, "nice boots!'" (brown ostrich made from the skin of the shin, just for the record). She immediately proved to me she's a woman of taste and substance.

When it comes to MG's nerve damage, after a few tests several months apart we were told to accept it as it is, that it's pretty much just the way it's going to be. She has drop foot, very little control. The longer we go without improvement, the worse our odds for seeing any improvement.
That's what we were told, and I was ready to accept it.
Fortunately, MG was not. And during one of her many days of lying flat on her back or nights when she couldn't sleep, she did what anyone in the 21st Century would do: went to the internet.
MG found this doctor in St. Louis, Susan Mackinnon. Her biography says she "is the Sydney M. Jr. and Robert H. Shoenberg Professor and chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. She performed the first nerve transplant in 1988 and is considered a leading expert in the field of peripheral nerve surgery. ... In addition to her work in nerve transplantation, Mackinnon has developed a number of nerve transfer techniques in which healthy nerves are rerouted into areas left paralyzed by damaged ones ..."

Never the shy, reticent type, MG got in touch with Dr. Mackinnon's clinic at the Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, and they asked to see her medical records. Our Birmingham neurologist was gracious enough to send everything to Dr. Mackinnon's office, and shortly thereafter Dr. Mackinnon's office called and said they wanted to see MG. The appointment was set for April 4.

That brings us to yesterday, April 4. I'm not sure what our expectations were. I know mine were that maybe Dr. Mackinnon would do some tests and say she'd get back to us. As hopeful as MG was about going to see Dr. Mackinnon, once we actually got to St. Louis I could tell she was tempering her hope.
And of course, Dr. Mackinnon breezed in, followed by a few neurosurgeons who have come to learn from her (this is a teaching hospital), including one from Egypt that she referred to simply as "the Egyptian."
Basically, the good doctor looked at MG, did her assessment using her techniques she invented, and said the worst case scenario is they could do a tendon transfer and restore some control of MG's left foot; best case they would unblock the nerve blockage and see if MG couldn't return to some level of normal control.

The amazing thing was how simple the tests were that Dr. Mackinnon did. Maybe I'll go into it later, but let me just say it was so simple yet made so much sense I had to ask Dr. Mackinnon my typical question of doctors like this.
"I don't mean any disrespect, Dr. Mackinnon, but what makes you different? Why haven't we been told about this by doctors in Birmingham or anywhere else?"
Here's where the ego came in.
Dr. Mackinnon was quick to tell me she didn't mean to sound egotistical, but that next month she was getting some award as for being the most innovative surgeon in America for this year; that she had done more research into nerve repair than anyone in the world; she laid out all the government grants from more governments than just the United States to fund her research; told me why patients came to her from all over the world; why the US Government sent injured Special Ops soldiers to her instead of forcing them to use military doctors; why doctors like "the Egyptian'' came to study with her.
The Egyptian looked bemused that she referred to him as "the Egyptian." I don't think he'd been with her long enough that she remembered her name. One of the doctors in training told us he'd only been with her since Monday. (Oh, and when the Egyptian left the room, I looked: he didn't walk like an Egyptian - shout out to The Bangles).

At that point, Dr. Mackinnon said, "I have a opening tomorrow if you're ready to get started."

Let me back up. What Dr. Mackinnon believes is that there is a nerve blockage just below MG's knee. There may be two more further down the leg, but it's apparently a fairly quick and simple procedure to "decompress" the blockage. It's outpatient surgery. And there is a chance that if this point of blockage gets unblocked, the blockages further down the leg may unblock on their own.
She believes this may restore blood flow almost immediately. And that the nerve damage from the knee down to the foot can grow back much more quickly - months, if not weeks.
How quickly will we know? I don't know. In defense of our doctors in Birmingham, they told us nerve repair takes a long time, that nerves grow back at a rate of about a millimeter a day. But Dr. Mackinnon is absolutely confident that her technique can speed that up - not the rate of recovery per day, but by shortening the distance that needs to be repaired, speeding up the overall recovery rate.
She insists she does it all the time, and it works, and she knows more about nerves and nerve damage than anyone in the world.

Months ago, I wrote a blog called "Hell on heels", about MG's love of high heels and the disappointment in never wearing them again. We have never gotten rid of her heels. We put them away, in the closet, but never got rid of them. Our good friend Jerry said we were going to all get together and sit around like grown-ups and MG could put on her heels. She wouldn't be able to walk in them, but she could just sit there wearing them, for old times sake.
And now, maybe ....
I tend toward fatalism. I want good things to happen, and believe they can happen, but if you don't expect them to happen then it's so much better when they do and hurts so much less if they don't (which is probably a lie, because even as much as I tell myself "it won't happen,'' somewhere down deep inside I must believe it can happen or else why all the effort?)

Quick general update: a few weeks ago MG hurt her hip. We thought maybe she re-broke her pelvis, and her physical therapist sent her immediately to the only orthopedist she could find in his office seeing patients that afternoon. He had never seen MG's condition before, but said he thought the arthritis was so severe we're also looking at a hip replacement.
We went back to our trauma orthopod, and after a thorough new MRI, he agrees that maybe we should discuss hip replacement now. In the last few months the arthritis in MG's left hip has increased dramatically, and there is a lack of blood flow to the bone in her hip, causing that bone to die ("avascular necrosis").
 We knew MG would need a hip replacement eventually. Like most people, we thought we'd try to put it off for as long as possible. However, a friend who had a hip replacement at a relatively young age (37, I believe he told me), said he thought about putting it off as long as he could, but then realized, "If I put it off 20 years, how miserable will my life be until then? And I could get hit by a bus before that even happens. So I decided to go for quality of life now, and I'll worry about what happens when I'm 60 if I get there." That made some sense to me.
So now we're set to meet with a hip surgeon (not a really cool, "hip" surgeon who wears Nehru jackets and ascots and drinks martini's while listening to Coltrane; that, would be a "hep" surgeon) next week to evaluate where we are in that process.

Meanwhile, another old joke:
 A doctor dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates and checks him in. After he’s registered, St. Peter says to him, "Look at the time: you must be hungry! Heaven Cafeteria is serving lunch, why don’t you get yourself something to eat?"
The doctor goes to the cafeteria and notices the long line. He immediately cuts in at the front, only to hear loud protests. "I’m a doctor" he says, "I’m a busy man, I don’t have time to wait in line."
The others say, "You’re in heaven now, we’re all the same here, get to the back of the line and wait your turn!"
A few weeks later, waiting patiently on line for lunch, the doctor notices a man come dashing in wearing scrubs and a lab coat, stethoscope around his neck. He butts in at the head of the line and no one utters a peep. "Hey," he says to the guy in front of him, "Who does that guy think he is?"
"Oh, that’s God," says the guy, "He likes to play doctor."

I hope any doctors who read this don't mind.
I know the Great Physician.
But I also know some great physicians here, too.

Be of good cheer?

There is a 'Peanuts' cartoon (Charles Schultz really was a genius) that I think about and use as an illustration often. You've probably seen it.
Snoopy is sitting out by his doghouse, in the snow, obviously freezing. Two of the kids are walking by and see Snoopy. One kid says to the other, "Look at Snoopy over there, freezing in the snow. We should do something about it." So they walk over to Snoopy and the first kid says, "Snoopy, be of good cheer!" And the second echos, "Yes, be of good cheer!" And they walk away.
The final panel is of Snoopy, with his quizzical look in his face, as if to say, "What the heck?" (But in cartoon, he's just got one of those balloons above his head with a big question mark).

As my family and I go through this past year, I've become painfully aware at how hard it is to know what to say to the question, "How is MG?" I appreciate their concern. But I'm torn between wondering if I give the simple, no-thought answer of "she's doing fine" (which isn't entirely true) or giving an honest answer that could be more than they really wanted to know.
Not that MG isn't doing well. But everything is relative. She's walking on her own, she can drive short distances, she's doing physical therapy and we're trying to figure out what 'normal' looks like.
On the other hand, her pain is still almost constant; she can't stand or sit for more than a few hours without needing to lie down; and we're being told the limitations are more than likely permanent.
That means MG will most likely never be 100 percent. This is a woman who loved long walks, who loved to dance, who liked to get up in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep and rearrange the furniture in the house by herself; who was one of the first to show up at someones house in a time of need knowing instinctively how to care for them.
She loves to travel, and when we found out Roecker would be studying abroad in the south of France this semester, our first thought was here was our chance to fly over to see Europe - specifically, MG's dream of seeing Vienna. Her second thought was how there was no practical way she could physically make that trip.

I could go on and on about the things we may have lost, but we're really not typically negative. And beside, plenty of people live like this, or have it worse.
So we should be thankful.
And we are. Basically.
MG is possibly the most optimistic person I know. It's a great balance for my fear of disappointment that causes me to assume the worst so I won't be crushed when my hopes and dreams are shattered on the sharp rocks of reality.
And through this, we've had some interesting theological conversations. MG doesn't ask "why,'' but rather "how." By that I mean, we know James writes that we should count it all joy when we suffer trials or temptations, because the testing of our faith works toward creating Godly characteristics in our lives. But "how" are we supposed to experience that sense of joy in this situation? What is that supposed to look like, really?

A friend of mine - a strong believer who I have long admired - is in major league baseball. He said the prevalent theology in major league baseball is "name it-claim it;" you know, where if you "name" what it is you want and "claim" it in the name of Christ, and believe strongly enough, you'll have it.
That's understandable for a major league athlete, who has pretty much accomplished everything he has wanted in life anyway - although usually through developing an amazing amount of God-given talent. I know of a prominent player who, while going through a prolonged slump, was told repeatedly by his wife and pastor that he just had to "name it (get out of the slump), claim it (no longer in a slump), believe (that he'd be out of the slump), and God would deliver (him from the slump)."
Maybe. But it might not hurt to spend a little extra time in the batting cage, and reviewing video of his swing to see if anything had changed from when he was really hitting the ball well until now, or study what pitchers were getting him out on to see if he detected a hole in his swing.
But no - "name it, claim it, believe it will happen." And eventually this guy did get through his slump (as most great hitters will do).
I listened to NFL Baltimore Ravens' linebacker Ray Lewis at his pre-Super Bowl interview say his success was due to his relationship with God because "God doesn't use evil people. God wouldn't use me this way if I was evil." I love that Ray Lewis knows his Bible well enough to quote scripture freely and easily, and I absolutely believe that God's Word does not come back void.
Still, that theology sound too much like a friend of mine who, when asked about his relationship with God said - in complete sincerity - "God and I are tight. I'm more successful than I've ever been!"

Really? Then what is wrong with my life? More to the point, what great sin or lack of faith exists in MG's life that she's in the situation she is in?
I read a quote from Eugene Peterson that said, "It is impossible to understand our salvation as a life of untroubled serenity, a life apart from suffering, a life protected from disruption, a charmed life, a life exempt from pain and humiliation and rejection."
And as I read the stories of the heroes of the faith, that life - the life Peterson describes - seems to apply far more often than that of worldly success and a life of comfort and ease.

We pray for healing. But we are also starting to, more and more,  pray for endurance. What if God is indeed calling MG to embrace this disability, and not live in hope of escape? Is that a lack of faith on our part? Or could it be more in line with God's will?
And how do you embrace and live 'victoriously' in the midst of such pain?
We asked the neurologist about her problems focusing and remembering. He said her mind was so busy dealing with the pain and adapting to physical imitations that it had just not figured out how to focus for very long on any thing else.

So again, I come back to - how do we "count it all joy?" What does that look like, in practical, day-to-day terms?
Please understand that by no means do I suggest MG's situation is unique (except to her). I have friends who are facing end-of-life illnesses, and friends who have lived with disability their entire lives, and friends who have suffered emotional loss that lives with them nearly every minute of every day.
We understand that our "joy" is knowing that God is working to do His will in our lives, and every day he's transforming us more into the image of His Son, into perfection, into being the people we were created to be and will be ... in glory.

I have heard all about the "victorious Christian life." Unfortunately, I too often define "victorious" in earthly terms - maybe because that's what I want because it is what I know best.
And I'm reminded that while I'm made in the image of God, that does not make me God.
My friend Andy Byers writes that when he hears "God will never give you more than you can handle,'' we start saying things like "my God would never allow that." And we then define God in our terms, forgetting that "the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the Name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).

I'm now embarrassed at the times I've walked into a hospital room or visited a friend who was going through something - an illness, a death, the loss of a job, whatever - and in all heartfelt sincerity said the kind of things we're programmed to say:
"you really look good, considering ..."
or "It will get better; it just takes time ..."
or "I know it's hard now, but just trust in God ..."
or "Be thankful; it could have been worse ..."
or "There's so much they can do these days, and medicine is improving all the time ..."
or - well, you know. We all desperately want to say something, to bring some comfort to the situation. And we know words are really pointless, but it's all we have.
Often we know what we say is true, and we know the person we're saying it to knows it's true - God does use all things for His glory and our sanctification; and we are victims of living in a fallen world; and things could (almost) always be worse than they are; and time does indeed heal (or at least make things more bearable).
Still, I'm now aware at how often those well-meaning and well-intentioned phrases sometimes just trivializes the reality of the situation.
I've been on both sides, as most of us have. But I can tell you when you're on the receiving end of the support, sometimes the things people say are just, well, infuriating.
I remember once a relative whose baby died, barely a month or two old. We were at the house that night and her pastor came by and tried to comfort with the phrase, "Well, he's in the arms of Jesus now." That's a well-meant phrase and absolutely true and those of us who believe know that's the best place any of us could be; but to my relatives' credit (and I remember this so clearly, all these years later), she said rather loudly and forcefully, "But he should be here, in my arms, where he belongs!"
She was being honest. That was no sign of lack of faith and no intentional insult of a pastor saying what pastors are expected to say; it was just pure heartfelt honesty and truth - babies are supposed to be in their mothers' arms; not the arms of Jesus.
My own parents are, I fully believe, with God, in heaven, free of the cancer that took my mother and the breathing problems that took my father. Our little girl Catherine is in heaven, free of all the handicaps and pain that limited her too-short life here on earth. Yet there are still times when I wish my mother and father could be here for me to talk to, to see their grandchildren; and yes, we still miss Catherine.
The pain remains.

Which brings me back to the question, "How is MG?"
I guess the answer is, transforming. Changing. Constantly. Painfully.
With no lack of faith, no loss of hope.
Earnestly seeking to understand 'joy.'

Never interview for a job on Ash Wednesday

Most of my time these days is spent in New Orleans again, my home-away-from-home. A couple of weeks ago I was attending another of those scientific conferences that I occasionally get to go to as part of this strange new world I find myself in. I listen to scientists and researchers who can look at a collection of letters and signs and proceed to have in-depth discussions about what those letters and signs may or may not mean. I'm amazed at the language of science and research, but reminded that most professions have their own language. I was part of the sports world most of my life, and I know there were phrases we used regularly that confounded and confused others.
This meeting is in the Marriott on Canal, and it reminds me of a story - well, two stories, actually.
It seems the older I get, I can't go anywhere without being reminded of having been there before and something that happened.

This was my first Mardi Gras - which has started again in New Orleans, by the way, although it will be interrupted by Super Bowl XLVII or whatever.
And this will be politically incorrect. Let me say it right up front.
I was seeing my first Mardi Gras, in particular my first Fat Tuesday (that blow-out night of all nights before the solemnity of Ash Wednesday, which I think is such a solemn day because everyone is recovering from hangovers as much as because it's the start of Lent).
The friend I was with had a friend who was a student at New Orleans' Tulane University. This guy and a couple of buddies had rented a room at the Marriott overlooking Canal so they had a place to go to when they needed a break from the revelry - and the cold; it was freezing that year - but could still look down on the parades on Canal Street.
By the time my friend and I got up there, the room was packed, and the two guys who'd rented the room were arguing rather loudly.
Now, here is where it gets politically incorrect.
One of the guys was Jewish. The other, Puerto Rican.
As it turns out, the Jewish guy had meant for the room to only be used by a handful of select people, to keep the traffic down. But the Puerto Rican guy had invited everybody he knew, which in this case meant a lot of his fellow Puerto Rican students at Tulane.
The Jewish guy was furious. They argued, as much about the fact that they'd split the cost of the room and if the Puerto Rican was going to have more friends, he should have paid more of the cost of the room.
Finally, the Puerto Rican guy just turned and stormed off.
Trying to be a nice guy and knowing I was a friend of neither, I said to the Jewish guy, "Hey, I can leave. I'm just here with (my friend). I don't want to be a problem."
The Jewish guy said, "No, it's not you. It's that damn Puerto Rican. You invite one and he brings the whole family. Typical."
Stereotype, right?
And of course I looked at my friends on the way out and said, "typical Jew, arguing over how much the room cost."

The second story occurred the next day. Part of the reason I'd gone to New Orleans was to interview with the Times-Picayune. I'd set up this meeting with the sports editor weeks before. I was still in school but finishing soon and wanted to get a jump on a job.
So Wednesday morning, I wake up early despite having been up late the night before dealing with Puerto Rican and Jews and Mardi Gras parades, put on my best suit and drove over to the Times-Pic building.
I go in and ask for the sports editor. The guard looks at me with a rather funny look on his face and says, "Is he expecting you?"
Of course, and I say, and so the guard sends me up to whatever floor the newsroom was on.
I get up there and the newsroom is basically empty. That's not necessarily unusual, of course; news rarely occurs in the newsroom, and if I was editor of a paper I'd want my reporters outside the building, finding news stories.
There is a receptionist, however, who asks if she can help me. I say I'm there to see the sports editor. She says, "Do you have an appointment?" Again, I say yes.
She says to hold on, and makes a call.
"Is (the sports editor) in?" she asks someone.
I don't hear the answer.
"Do you know when he's coming in?"
I don't hear the answer.
She looks up and says, "He's not in, and no one was expecting him. Let me call him at home."
Clearly this isn't going well.
She calls his house, and after what seems like an eternity, she gets him on the phone, explains what is going on, and this fresh-faced college kid is standing in front of her in a nice new suit expecting to talk to the sports editor of the Times-Picayune.
Finally, she hands me the phone.
The voice I hear on the other end is very tired and, if I may say so, sounds very hung-over.
"Ray,'' he says, "Sorry I'm not making it in the office today. You're just graduating from college, right?"
Correct, I say.
"Well," he said in this graveling, just-woke-up voice, "we don't really have anything, but I'll keep your resume on file."
And so I went home with a valuable lesson:
Never go for a job interview in New Orleans on Ash Wednesday.
It's a religious holiday; everyone is preparing for Lent.
Or maybe recovering from Mardi Gras.

Playing god and worrying

The posts are less frequent. It's not that I don't have ideas - I have ideas all the time - but it's that I get one and then think, "Nobody wants to read that." I forget that I started this blog for myself, to finally write what I wanted to write, when I wanted to write it, how I wanted to write it.
Then people started reading ....
Mostly about MG and "the accident." I'll update MG soon for those of you who are kind enough to keep asking. I'm trying to figure out how honest to be, to be honest.

Sometimes I wonder why I pick up certain books to read. Books have always had a huge impact on my life. Like most book-lovers, I have always been able to lose myself - for awhile, at least - in a book, and books always make me think.
And there are certain books that I can read over and over; some I read long ago that I decide to read again to see if the magic still holds.
Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is in that second category.
Written more than 50 years ago, it is considered a classic of American literature, although sometimes I'm not sure why. At times Kerouac's writing makes no sense. It's a rather disjointed series of stories of traveling around America in the late 1940s, and became the voice of what was known as the "beat" generation.
I can't remember the first time I read it, but I know even then I found the writing disjointed, the descriptions at times ridiculous, the characters not always easy to keep straight, and the main character not really likable (something I always think important in a book).
However, I get sucked into the idea of the book.

I have always loved to travel around the United States. My family took these extended road trip vacations when I was a kid, my Dad driving and usually pulling his latest home-built camping creation.
As I got older, I loved long road trips. The summer after I graduated from college, a friend of mine and I were going to drive his Tahoe (or whatever the early Chevy SUV was back in the days before everyone had an SUV) and head to the Rockies, camping along the way. He was a musician, and we were not great friends but good friends and just an odd enough character that I thought would make for a trip unlike any I'd ever experienced before
Then he got a gig he couldn't refuse (he said; maybe he just backed out), and we didn't go. The good news is that I'd saved up enough money to get me through a few months while looking for a job and entering the world's work force.
My wife knows -and fears - the fact that my dream vacation is a road trip to Mount Rushmore, meandering along the way, seeing "America," however that may be defined.
I have been fortunate to have been in a profession that allowed me to travel the country quite a bit, and while a good deal of it required flying, I always drove whenever I could. There is nothing like a rental car, a company credit card, and the open road. (Fun fact: The only true all-terrain vehicle is a rental car with a collision damage waiver).
It's not exactly Kerouac's story of bus rides, hitch-hiking, rail-riding and driving across country on $15, back in the days when $5 worth of gas would get a car from Baltimore to Mobile. But it's not bad. And like Kerouac, I've collected a lot of stories over the years.

But anyway, I came across a passage in Kerouac that jumped out at me.
Kerouac's character is going from San Francisco back to New York, and because Kerouac's  character (Sal) has some money, they got what was called a "travel-bureau car," which, simply put, is where several people go in together and share expenses and driving. Sal and Dean are traveling with three people, including a tourist couple that Dean describes this way: "... They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're  thinking about where they're going to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there - and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betray time with urgency's false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end. ..."
I am a known worrier.
And as Kerouac points out, sometimes I feel my soul isn't really at peace unless I can latch on to a 'worry.' And, again, the vast majority of the time whatever happens happens and whether my worries are founded or not makes no difference: my worrying didn't really affect events.

There's a Biblical principle here, the one about Jesus saying the birds of the air don't worry about what they eat or wear, and whether you can add one day to your life by worrying. I get all that.
But still, I can't help but try to play god, as if my actions will somehow affect the universe I live in.
Those current commercials about being a fan - the holding of the labels of the beer bottle a certain way, for example - resonate with me. If I'm watching a game and something good starts to happen, I freeze. Whatever position I'm in - no matter how awkward or uncomfortable - I hold it. I spent four innings of one of my sons' baseball games half on and half off the bleacher seat, because as I was sliding off something good started happening and I didn't want to alter the karma (which I don't seriously believe in except in sports).
We were watching a recent football game in which the team I was pulling for got off to a big lead. MG got up from her chair to go do something, and the fortunes changed just like that. I blamed her.
Have you ever been driving your car and a warning light comes on or you realize you're almost out of gas, so you turn off everything non-essential - kind of like a jettisoning gear from a sinking ship - and lean forward, 'willing' the car to make it to the next exit?
And those are just the silly things.

I can lie in bed at 3 in the morning, dreaming up all kinds of things that I just know are going wrong all around me but that I can't see and won't see until it's too late.
The Trophy Wife chides me for worrying, and rightfully so. However, I point out that if you worry about everything, then sooner or later you're going to be right, which somehow justifies all those other worries.

I think it goes back to Eden (doesn't everything?). When Adam sinned, he was cursed with self-awareness. By that, I mean before the apple incident (I know, I know - the Bible never says it was an apple) Adam's sense of self was all tied up in his relationship to God. He walked with God, talked with God on a daily basis. He understood his self-worth from a true God perspective.
Then, when Adam (and Eve) stepped outside the safe boundaries of their relationship with God, they became self-aware - which is how we came to wear clothes. Before sinning, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed because they didn't think of themselves and their own actions; after sinning, they suddenly saw each other as fallen human beings and recognized they'd exposed themselves as naked - physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
So Adam began to worry. What if God doesn't talk to me again? How far does this exile from God extend? I've disobeyed God ... what do I do to regain His favor? Can I regain His favor? What about my wife and kids - I'm responsible for them now, too. I have to play "god" to care for my family.

And so it went, and so it goes.
We've travelled a long road from Eden, and worried every step of the way.
Even as free as Kerouac's character lives, he worries too - about food and money and shelter and caring for the friends he meets along the way.
It's hard not to play 'god.' I'm not very good at it, but still I try.

The Chronicles of Allan

If you watched the Sugar Bowl game between Florida and Louisville, you can understand why my mind started to wander.
Almost every time I watch the Sugar Bowl - particularly if my mind wanders - I think back to a guy I knew in college named Allan.
I won't use his last name out of fairness to him and the hope that he's living a good life somewhere. But anybody in my circle of friends at the University of Georgia back in the day will probably remember him.
I don't see how they couldn't.
If there was ever a classic case of 'two sides to every story,' Allan was it. I'll get to that in a minute.
But in 1976, Georgia, as the Southeastern Conference champion and ranked No. 2, played a No. 1-ranked Pittsburgh team that had Tony Dorsett and was coached by Johnny Majors.
It was a big game, needless to say. Everyone wanted to get in. No one that I knew was able - except Allan.
Here's how he did it:
Allan bought a pair of black pants and had someone sew a red stripe down the outside of either pants leg. Then he went to the UGA book store and bought a University of Georgia RedCoat Marching Band T-shirt.
Then he found an old drum and a pair of drum sticks.
Then, when the Georgia band marched into New Orleans' Super Dome, Allan marched in right behind the band.
Incredible.
But then, Allan had a knack for stuff like this.
If there was a parade through downtown Athens, we almost came to expect Allan to crash it. Either he'd be sitting on the back end of a float, waving and smiling like he belonged; or he'd get his drum and march along behind a band, again waving and smiling like he was supposed to be there. (He never was).
The Allan stories were legendary. There was the time he posted an ad for a roommate at this house he was living in. It was an incredible house in a very nice section of Athens, and Allan wanted next to nothing for rent. Later, we found out why: the house was owned by someone who was apparently out of the country for the year, and Allan had found a way in, taken up residence, and decided he was lonely and wanted a roommate. Fortunately, no one ever took him up on the ad. Eventually the police found out and Allan was, of course, removed.

There is more, but you get the picture. This would be hilarious stuff, like something out of the movie "Catch Me If You Can," if you didn't know the other side of the story.

Allan lived in a fantasy world. It's hard to explain and hard to believe, but Allan created this world for himself, committed to it, and could suck people in (for awhile, anyway). We were college kids, and had no reason to believe this guy who carried around a arm-full of college text books, who wore a name tag with Greek letters that were supposed to be his fraternity, that told us all these stories of his travels was, well, "disturbed."
I was president of a student religious organization on campus where Allan wandered in one day and, for a time, found a home. It made sense, because everyone is welcome in a religious organization, right?
Allan spent a good deal of time at my apartment. My roommates (who had much bigger and kinder hearts than I) would take him him, give him rides, feed him, show him true friendship, while I tolerated Allan, probably because it was the "Christian" thing to do.
The truth started coming out when one of my roommates gave Allan a ride home one weekend. When they got to Allan's house, Allan's mother came out and told my roommate that while she appreciated his effort, Allan wasn't welcome there and he'd have to take Allan somewhere else. She didn't care where.
It turned out that Allan was not a college student; he'd picked up some text books somewhere along the way and carried them around campus to fit in.
He was not in a fraternity, although he did manage to work his way into a frat house and just kind of hang out for awhile, refusing to not come back.
Obviously he was not in the band, but he believed he was. Whenever Allan got "caught,'' it would somehow come back to us. One day, we got a call from the director of the Red Coat band, asking us to "do something" about Allan. Apparently every afternoon when the band was practicing, Allan had his drum and was marching along the top of a small hill overlooking the band's practice field, playing along (more or less) with the band.

I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, so I don't know the workings of the mind here. But Allan was truly the first homeless person I'd ever met, and by homeless I don't mean just that he had no place to live (that I know of), but that he had no place where he belonged. And he had such a need to belong to something (don't we all?) that he convinced himself he was in a fraternity, that he was a college student, that he was in the band, that he was in the parade, that he was an actor, that he was ... Somebody (with a capitol S).

As the depth of Allan's issues became more obvious, we went to the school's mental health clinic. Because Allan wasn't a student, they couldn't see him. However, someone there agreed that Allan needed help, and we made a deal: if Allan would go to his regular appointments at the clinic, he could continue to hang around with us and we'd help him all we could.
Allan chose not to.
And I didn't see much of Allan anymore after that. This was 1977, and we didn't know a lot about mental illness or homelessness or any of the stuff that causes people to be out there, on their own, like Allan.
Later that year, there was a story about him in the Athens' newspaper, about how he was going off somewhere to make a movie and he was going to come back famous.
The next year, I think it was, I got a call from a friend who was the president of the same religious organization at Georgia Tech, asking if I knew Allan because Allan had "transferred' to Georgia Tech and was using our names as a reference with this group at Tech.
I continue to be amazed at how Allan travelled - how he got to New Orleans from Athens, or even to Atlanta to start hanging around Georgia Tech.

The other day, one of my sons asked me if I had any real regrets. I told him not really, but that there were a few, and I told him about one or two.
I didn't tell him about Allan.
Sometimes Allan is a funny story - at least, the parts of breaking into a house and taking on a roommate, or of getting into the Sugar Bowl by dressing up and marching in with the band, or of riding on a float in the parade through downtown Athens.
If Allan had been - for lack of a better word - "sane," then it would have been funny. Imagine the guts and ingenuity it took to do all that.
Instead, of course, it's a tragic story. Allan lived in a world of his own making. He'd been rejected by his parents. And, as I said, this was back in the days when we didn't really understand being homeless. We knew about mental illness, but nobody talked about it. We were just college kids who had friends who got 'mental' smoking dope or dropping acid or taking LSD ... but genuine mental illness? We had no clue.

I will always wonder what we should have done for Allan.
There are things in my life that I'm sorry that I did, that I regret, that I wish I could change, but that don't haunt me. For some reason, Allan does.
I remember how easily I dismissed him. He was a freshman (supposedly) and I was a senior. He was 'different' and I fit in. Later, it was that he was crazy and I was supposedly sane.
But I wonder if there wasn't more. I wonder if Allan didn't represent things I saw in myself that I hoped no one else saw: my insecurities, my wanting to belong, my efforts to 'be somebody' by my own interpretation or even exaggeration of the truth. I wonder if my efforts to 'help' him weren't just as self-serving as my dismissal of him.

My guess is a lot of us are quick to dismiss people who make us uncomfortable because they are 'different.'
Over the years, I've become quite good at that.

I have no idea of what happened to Allan. As much as I doubt it, I hope he found someone that could help him, and he accepted their help, and maybe he's doing OK.
Funny, isn't it? I hope the same thing for myself.
As I said, I guess we really weren't that different after all.