A Tale of Two Architects

The Ride of My Life: Conclusion

2006-05-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

If God does indeed exist, is it not fair to assume that the feeling I have described for my daughter here is similar to the feeling He has for us? Wouldn't God be willing to jump in front of a train for us? Did He? Why would his love for us be dependent on our love for Him? Is it?

St. Augustine's Confessions is one of the more influential books of all time, and it begins with a prayer. In Chapter II of Book One Augustine speaks to the presence of God throughout "heaven and earth," and states, in effect, that no container could ever contain him. He is present everywhere, at all times. When I drove to my office from the mall that day, I was not hit with a blinding presence or a bolt of lightning, I merely acknowledged that God is present, here on Earth, and in my life. It was time to stop pushing Him away. The further I drove the more I felt the truth of this acknowledgment, and I became more and more excited. I could feel layers of pride washing away. I could feel a burden lifting from my shoulders, and the relief was palpable.

Finally, I pulled into the parking lot of my office. I looked at the window of my office. I put my head in my arms on the steering wheel of my car and started to sob. My experience was quite similar to the experience described here. I cried uncontrollably for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like a few minutes.

When I lifted my head out of my arms, I was a Christian. God had jumped in front of a train for me, and now I would accept that gift of grace and love Him in return.

On a sunny Alaska day in 1992, a tale of two architects was thus complete.

* * * * *

[One year and ninety-nine posts ago, I started this project with the following statement: "I began adulthood as avowed atheist, and today, 25 years later, I have accepted that God came to this earth in human form to redeem mankind, to offer mankind the gift of salvation. The purpose of this blog is, among other things, to recount the path of these developments, and through an honest recounting, explore issues relating to such a transformation." Having accomplished the expressed purpose of this "tale," this is my last post.

I wish those who have stopped by or followed along the very best, and welcome any thoughts, comments or correspondence at pdspds@gmail.com. May God bless you and your families.]

The Ride of My Life-2

2006-05-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last few days on a family car trip, with my wife and 5-year old daughter.

These kinds of trips allow for the observation of our daughter for extended periods of time. I get to go swimming with her, take walks with her, read books to her, watch her react to new events and stimulus, and see her grow. These trips are like self-imposed signposts that interrupt the continuum of everyday life. I haven't mentioned this before, but my wife and I were married 10 years before our daughter came along, and there was a time when we assumed, alas, that we could not have our own child. Perhaps this makes us appreciate her even more.

This is one way a child teaches the meaning of love: I find that I actually love our child more as each day passes. There must be some limitless quantum of love available to me for her, because every time I think I have "maxed out", a new day comes and she does something more adorable or unique or intriguing (or maybe nothing at all) and I find myself filled with even more love for her than I thought was possible. Perhaps love is a recognition of this evolution of feeling, and a recognition that the word "quantity" does not apply.

Like any worthwhile parent, I would jump in front of a train for this child.

And, like any worthwhile parent, my love for this child is not dependent on her love for me.

The Ride of My Life-1

2006-05-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

After having spent an hour or so in the mall I decided to shut the book and drive to work.

I have mentioned before that C.S. Lewis, one of the foremost defenders of Christianity in the 20th century--certainly in the overall Pantheon of apologists to come from that very first Easter Sunday--once described his coversion to faith in the following way: "In 1929 C.S. Lewis found himself challenged with God’s existence. This important milestone in his conversion journey was reached rather suddenly. As he tells the story, on one occasion during this time he happened to take a bus ride. When he got on the bus he was an atheist. When he came to his stop, he got off the bus believing in God’s existence. Not that Lewis was seeking God. He said he didn’t really want to find him. The revelation about God’s existence was something of a fright to him. He wrote in Surprised by Joy: "Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God.’ To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat." "

In much the same way, God came to me on my ride from a mall on my way to work during an Alaska Spring in April 1992.

I have racked my brain for the precise thought process or "tipping point" on that drive, but must candidly admit that I am at a loss to explain it. I just remember that when I got in my car that morning I was still on the fence, and by the time I got to the parking lot of my office, a fifteen minute drive later, I was not.

God's Presence-3 (cont'd)

2006-05-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up on Saturday morning on a mission to find More Than A Carpenter, and to start dissecting it once again. My wife was in Europe, and, although I had some minor details to attend to at work, I had the entire day to devote to the task at hand. I also had a slight hangover to contend with, as I had been out with a couple of pals far too long the night before.

After breakfast, I went to the fairly meager bookshelves of our apartment for the book, and couldn't find it. The more I looked for the book, the more disappointed I became, so, after a time, I went to local bookstores to buy the book. No luck on the first or second try. Finally, I went to a mall with one of "B. Dalton" types of bookstores in it, and purchased a copy. By that time, I had spent almost two hours looking for the book, and was anxious to at least take a look at the Introduction.

So, there I sat on an uncomfortable bench in the middle of a crowded mall on a busy Saturday morning, ice skaters playfully circling the mall's ice rink, cheesy Muzak tunes playing overhead, shoppers walking to and fro, and I read about the reasons why someone might reasonably believe that Jesus died on the Cross and later rose from the dead.

More Regarding More Than A Carpenter

2006-05-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

A fair summary of More Than A Carpenter can be found here.

The concepts and arguments addressed by McDowell's book are, de facto, updated by a man named Lee Strobel, and resources regarding Strobel and his books can be found here.

God's Presence-3

2006-04-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

It had been almost six years since I had put More Than A Carpenter back in the bookshelf.

In those six years, I had finished law school, moved to Alaska, and almost died surfing, hunting, and mountain climbing. I was a proud atheist, but was never quite been able to shake the idea that "something" cannot come from "nothing." More important, I had met my wife-to-be, who was a Christian, and we had married less than year before at the time I picked that book from the shelf once again. Given the circumstances of my childhood, I saw for the first time what thinking Christians acted like, and, given my father's death some years earlier, I was blessed with a new father figure in my life, my father-in-law.

My new wife was to take a trip to Europe for a few weeks to meet her sister in April of 1992. My work situation was such that I was able to take a few days off, and while she was off in Europe, I had it my head that I was going to "figure out" the whole Christianity thing once and for all.

Whither Atheism?

2006-04-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite readers of this blog sent me an email not so long ago questioning whether I ever really was an atheist, as recounted in these pages. The question was not intended to question my integrity, but more (I think) to explore whether I ever truly left the "fold," so to speak.

In truth, I have never considered this question before, and the reader may have unwittingly or very cleverly asked me to address one of the most intriguing but complicated issues in Christianity, i.e, the issue of grace. Rewinding the events of my "atheist years" in my mind, there is little doubt that I sure felt like an atheist. In fact, during those years, I really didn't think the subject of religion was worthy of any mental effort, let alone the time it would take to reject it. Certainly, I was willing to offer snide remarks and other Inside Baseball remarks dismissive of God, but I really do not think they were a veil for some lingering belief in God.

This view is supported by the fact that, on a specific day in April of 1992, I really did experience the classic "conversion" that nonbelievers throughout the world experience when they accept that God's Son came to earth to restore His relationship with humanity. No, I did not run up and down the aisles of a church or start speaking in tongues; I simply surrendered my pride and gave in to God's grace.

In the next few weeks, I am going to focus on how this happened that day, and try to describe what happened on that day. And then I will completed the purpose set out for this project, and, I hope, will have done so to the glory of God.

Guest Post

2006-04-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you scoring at home, I have a guest post up over at The Gnat's Trumpet.

Family

2006-04-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

My mother's birthday was April 15th, so I flew to Michigan to be with my brother and sisters last weekend. The weather cooperated and Lake Michigan was sparkling. It was a nice time to see what remains of my family, to reminisce, and to get used to our status as orphans.

We celebrated Saturday night by going to dinner at the place we often took my mom, we went bowling, and we capped the evening with a visit to a "dive" bar that might have even given my father some pause. The feel of the evening was easy and pleasant. We shared stories in between lame attempts at strikes, we shared inside jokes, and some very questionable Karaoke was imposed on the audience of the bar--not by me, of course, as they had no Hank Sr. on the playlist.

We almost forgot why we were getting together. I cannot recall having such a time with my own flesh and blood. My mother would have been proud of us, I think. The old man might have been proud too. I have heard all my life that there is no substitute for family. In the last couple of months, I learned what that phrase means.

Caricatures No More-2

2006-04-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

The next blow to my caricature of Christians came when I began to occasionally attend church.

I expected the preachers to be clownish types, attempting to pick my pocket with combination of guilt, bribes or threats of hell. Instead, they generally left me alone. I was impressed by their commitments, but I was most impressed by the persons whom these preachers served.

It has almost become a cultural cliche for some to speak of "Sunday morning" Christians, i.e., those who go to church on Sunday mornings and sit piously smiling at every word the preacher says, and who then run home to yell at their children and kick their dogs. I have never really run into such people in the churches I have attended. Most of the people at met at the time I am discussing, when my faith in atheism was faltering and my caricature of believers was melting, were just decent people. Most such people I meet nowadays can be described this way as well.

Decent people who sometimes had doubts about their faith.

If you ever get a chance to talk to a Rand follower (i.e., an Objectivist), ask him is he has any doubts. My guess is you will hear that he has none. Then ask him how an Objectivist society would finance the world's strongest and most needed military--in an age where mass murderers fly airplanes into skyscrapers-- without taxes, because, you see, Objectivists consider taxes to be immoral. You will hear crickets chirping, or, if you get an answer at all, you hear something akin to a punt to the "legal philosophers," or vague references about a lottery.

Christians punt once in a while too, and I learned that the honest ones sometimes have their doubts. The fact is that everybody punts once in awhile. And everybody should be willing to admit the occasional doubt. That, as I have mentioned before, is part of the drill.

Caricatures No More-1

2006-04-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

One of the sources of comfort for me during my wilderness years was the view that most Christians were idiots. I distinctly remember making fun of them generally, and held a special contempt for their lack of intellectual honesty and curiosity. The Pat Robertsons of the world were a source of glee for me, because I could use them as a template for all believers, and thereby dismiss all issues of faith.

Then I met and started dating the woman who would become my wife. When I first met her, she was finishing her master degree in English Literature. She did not have much interest in arguing matters of faith with me, but she knew Shakespeare, the Romantic poets, and much of literature far better than I did and do. Her life was largely one of intellectual honesty and curiosity. My precious caricature started to wilt just abit.

As I write this, my wife is in the midst of her doctoral dissertation, all while raising the greatest blessing of our lives, our 5 year old daughter.

At about the same time I started dating this woman, I met her father. His educational pedigree was something most would aspire to, but that was the beginning and the more formal part of his commitment to intellectual honesty and curiosity. In his spare time, I learned that he read extensively about philosophy, military strategy, and was a savant about the American Civil War. My caricature took another hit, a hit compounded by what I was learning about the man's daughter.

As I write this, my father-in-law is in the first year of a 10-year reading program involving the Great Works of the Western world. He is 80 years old.

For me, the erosion of this caricature of Christians took some time. By the time I married my wife, the caricature was like an ice sculpture at a wedding reception, at the hour of midnight, its broad features still recognizable, its narrow base precarious, standing in a puddle of water, with little sparkle left.

I was beginning to feel uneasy about this.

"In Remembrance of Me"

2006-04-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

Easter approaches.

To Christians, the meaning of Easter is fundamentally one of triumph, because, as our Apostle's Creed states, "on the third day" Christ rose again. Easter is in many ways thus the linchpin of Christianity.

I have always been especially struck, however, by one particular aspect of Easter Weekend, and that is the end of the Last Supper. More particularly, I have always been struck by the simple phrase which concludes each of the elements of the Last Supper, where Christ states, "do this in remembrance of me." No great theological debates or civil wars are invoked by these words, just the bare injunction "do this in remembrance of me." And, as A.N. Wilson's brilliant book, How Can We Know? demonstrates, this instruction and this hope has animated believers, without interruption, for roughly 2,000 years.

One day, when my faith in atheism was wobbly, like a loose tooth, I went to church with my new wife. That Sunday was a Communion Sunday. As the pastor walked the congregation of probably 200 people through the elements of Communion, he paused, and he looked out on the crowd. He said "Christ died for all of us, but he would have died for any of you. He would have given His life just for you." This was probably the first time I ever paid any attention to the words of the Communion.

Then he looked at me straight in the eye, on the far side of the church in the middle of the crowd, and he said "And all that He really asks in return is 'do this in remembrance of me.'"

Butterflies and Diving Bells- One Year Later

2006-03-31T08:34:00.000-08:00

I wrote this a year ago for my friend Pursuit:

"No pun intended, but I think it is time to give Terry Schiavo a rest. If you can't get your mind off this general topic, however, take this Easter weekend and read The Butterfly and the Diving Bell, by Jean-Dominique Bauby. This is a short little book I try to read about every three years or so.

It is the autobiographical story of a man who, in the prime of his life, collapsed and became fully paralysed with the single exception that he was able to blink his left eyelid. His condition was called "Locked in Syndrome." After a time, he was able to develop a communication system with that eyelid that allowed him to write this beautiful book. Ironically, he died just as the book was published, at the age of 43.

Nothwithstanding his condition, Bauby is alternatively witty, charming, sad, and, most important, appreciative of the small things in life, like the smell of hot dogs grilling in the summer breeze. Ironically, by coming down with "Locked in Syndrome," Bauby sheds some of the locked in syndrome he had become susceptible to in his former life.

We all have our butterflys and we all have our diving bells.

For some, the diving bell around our head is politics, and the butterfly fluttering back and forth is faith. For others, the reverse is true. If you are finding yourself with a sense of locked in syndrome, this book is just what the doctor ordered."

I still think there is more to learn from Bauby's situation than Schiavo's.

Painting With Watercolors-3

2006-03-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Shadows are important element of a watercolor painting. Shadows give a painting a sense of proportion, and a sense of reality. When done well, shadows make a painting look "real". Just as it is difficult to make a painting interesting without light, it is also difficult to make a painting interesting without shadows. You might say shadows are part of the drill.

You probably know where I am going with this, but I will say it anyway: shadows make life interesting as well. Some shadows are darker than others. Some shadows are frustrating, and yes, even God's shadows are frustrating at times. Sometimes, the brighter the light, the darker the shadows.

That too, I am afraid, is part of the drill.

Painting With Watercolors-2

2006-03-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

After completing a sketch, normally, the next step in a watercolor painting is to execute what is called a "wash" of color. One's choice of colors, and how those colors combine with one another, has a significant bearing on the the finally look of the painting.

For instance, in a landscape composition, one would normally create a "finished" look for the sky by combining washes, sometimes waiting for one color to dry and then adding another color over the first, sometimes by allowing two wet colors to combine, and sometimes by combining these two approaches. Clouds tend to look their best when paint is "lifted" from the painting. For example, a most striking cloud can be created by laying a wash of light yellow at the top portion of the sketch and allowing it to dry. After that, a set of blues might then be layered over the yellow. Before before these colors dry, a rag or tissue can be used to dab or "lift" some of the blues off the painting, thus leaving the underlying yellow, with an effect something like this.

What does this have to do with living? If your life has been anything like mine, it is not your experiences in and of themselves that have made you the person you are: it the combination of those experience that make you the you have become. Likewise, a life lived in depth reveals many colors, some of which, athough initially hidden, become interesting, even striking, only when the surface color is lifted.

In this way true art begins from the inside out.

Painting With Watercolors-1

2006-03-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

I have talked about the relevance of watercolor painting to this project before, and now want to expand on this theme abit. I don't claim any great expertise as a watercolorist, but it is a hobby of mine, and I am constantly amazed at how working on a watercolor painting reminds me of life.

As one example of this, I have found that the initial sketch of a painting is crucial to the success of the painting. There is no glory in a working hard on a sketch, but if the dimensions, perspective, or composition of the initial sketch are off the mark, the painter ends up fighting these problems the rest of the painting. Obviously, it is not impossible to end up with a decent painting in spite of a bad sketch, but the process of painting becomes more difficult and the likelihood of failure increases substantially. Other things being equal, the painter should avoid becoming a prisoner of a bad sketch.

What does this have to do with living? A great deal, I think. In life, a person's "sketch" is akin to his temperament, or, perhaps, his childhood experience. These are lines that very rarely can be completely erased from one's life. Especially in the therapeutic era in which we live, "feelings" are considered paramout, and many lives are thus held captive to what turns out to be their temperament, or their childhood experiences.

For the longest time, this was true of me in regards to God. I was too bitter about my childhood to consider the possibility of a loving God "up there." And my linear, left-brained temperament was about as anti-God as it could be.

Happily, however, the sketch is merely the beginning of a painting. And, ideally, the sketch is done with a light pencil, not ink.

Vacation!

2006-03-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

I am actually going on one, the first one in quite some time.

Perhaps some fresh ocean air will knock out some cobwebs and bring me back to this blog the cyber equivalent of "tanned, rested and ready" to resume this Tale.

Take care, and thanks for the comments and well wishes of late. They have been most appreciated.

Influences VII

2006-03-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

My Uncle Bill was a part of the Greatest Generation. He served in World War II, and even spent some time as a guard at the Nuremberg trials. He raised a family, paid his taxes, guided his kids to become healthy and happy adults, and was a good brother to my mother. As my godfather, he would come to our lake about once a year and take me out for a day, sometimes golfing, sometimes fishing, even to a real baseball game one time.

My last words to him were "I love you Uncle Bill," and I hugged him. His last words to me were "I love you too." We both meant it. Our exchange was just last week, after my mother's funeral, after he had struggled from his death bed to come to the funeral, after he had conducted himself with dignity in his wheelchair for the better part of the day, and after he had done what I am sure he considered his duty, no matter the physical cost to himself.

On a single day last week, his behavior captured the essence of his life for 79 years on this earth: he sacrificed, he set an example for others, he showed his love for others, and he did what he had to do. He proved himself again to be a singular brother, uncle, and a man.

Yesterday, my Uncle Bill died.

I am blessed that we talked that one last time. I am blessed he was my Uncle Bill.

Influences VI

2006-03-07T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have not said much about my mother on these pages.

She was a beautiful woman who perservered under difficult circumstances. She gave birth to eight children but lost two of them to early deaths. She lived to see her adult children become productive and healed. She lived long enough to enjoy the doting of those same children, her grandchildren and even her great grandchildren. She possessed the wisdom of the plain-spoken. Her perspective was that of somebody who had been knocked around by life, but glad to have come through on the other side. She became the apple of our eye.

My mother died last week, and my sadness is without bounds.

Memory Lane, Avoided

2006-02-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

While retracing some of the steps described here, I decided to take a drive by the house of my first "real" girlfriend. She lived about 15-20 miles from the lake, and the drive is a pretty one, so I thought it might be fun to swing by and see that area again. I hadn't seen her in just under 30 years, and, out of curiosity, I thought it might be interesting to see if she still lived in the same house I visited as an earnest young Sophomore/Junior in high school.

The odds of Robin living in the same house she did in 1978 may seem astronomical, but we are talking about the country here. The odds are lower than one might think.

In any event, as the drive took me closer to her house, I actually started to get nervous. What if she were out in the yard? She I stop and talk to her? Wouldn't that seem strange to her? I decided I would roll with the punches when I got there.

As I drove by her house, it looked exactly how I remembered it. This increased the odds that she still lived there. But there were no cars in the driveway and it didn't look like anybody was home. I was relieved.

About a quarter mile from her house is a bridge that serves, during summer months, as a canoe dropoff for those who wish to take 1/2 day trips down a beautiful meandering river. As such, there has always been a run-down convenience store at the intersection of the roads near the bridge. The store is the size of a large living room in one of the ubiquitous McMansions that litter the suburbs of modern America. Prominently advertised on the store is the availability of hunting licenses and various fishing paraphanalia, and, of course, the great lubricant of rural America: booze.

I decided to stop in. As I was getting out of my car, a sense of panic hit me. What if she works in the store? Will she be embarrassed to meet an old boyfriend while working in this little dump of a store? These are the kinds of questions/excuses extreme introverts make to avoid uncomfortable social settings, and in case there is much question about it, I am an extreme introvert.

So I went into the store. Nobody was behind the counter. I heard voices, even children's voices, in the back of the store behind the walls where customers are not allowed to tread. Now I was really tempted to abort this mission. Instead, I went to the pop cooler. I looked out of the corner of my eye to see if I recognized anybody, walked to the counter and waited for somebody to come out. I was sure it would be my old girlfriend.

Out popped an Elmer Fudd look-alike: 75 years old, pleasant, a hunting cap on his oversized head. "That'll be $1.09. Thank you very much."As I went to push through the door, I asked him whether Robin or her family still lived up the road. "I really don't know, but I don't think so," he replied.

Good for her, I thought. And good for me too.

She's Gone

2006-02-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

In her heyday, she looked about like the sailboat in the photo. She had been dead and under a tarp for about 25 years, but now she's gone, the victim of a wrecking ball taken to the garage in which she was sitting and rotting. Another unfortunate discovery on my trip home.

[For context, see here, here, and here.]

Country Boy

2006-02-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, I watched with rapt attention the PBS series Country Boys.

Although the series was interesting, I couldn't help but think that it just ain't the "country" if (1) you can walk to town or to school, (2) you are offered four years of college on a silver platter, and/or (3) your family life is violence-free. The stories of the kids profiled in the series were compelling, but not as "country" boys per se. The stories were compelling because they presented different snapshots and outcomes from the tribulations of adolescence in this "therapeutic" but violent beginning of the 21st century. The fact that these tribulations were set against the context of a small Kentucky town was incidental, but not integral, to the series.

Today, I was reminded of the series--and many other things--as I retraced some of the paths from my childhood. I am in Michigan for a few days, and decided to rent a car and drive around the lake I grew up on, including the dirt road my family lived on before we moved to the lake. I took a drive along the path my school bus took me each day, and was surprised by how much farmland that bus traversed. I even decided to take a stroll through my old high school, and was saddened to see that not a single teacher or administrator remains from the late 70's.

The overriding impression I had of this trip down memory lane was how "sophisticated" my old rural haunts have become. On the dirt road of our first home, new houses have sprung up--smack dab, no less, in the middle of one of my father's favorite patches of hunting land. Not ramshackle double-wides, mind you, but nice country homes. I inched down a long driveway of a very nice ranch with barns and vineyards, perched on the edge of some land my father used to own. I noticed a deer stand he had built, now fully weather-worn and of no use to anybody. It was like seeing an accidental footprint of his in some old concrete.

Driving around the lake, I was surprised by the "NO TRESPASSING" signs festooned on about every tenth tree, creating essentially the same effect as the owner might create by standing on his land and giving each passerby the middle finger. We are talking about desolate land whose main resources are jackpines and scrub oaks, not oil or streams filled with specks of gold. Nevertheless, from all appearances, "TRESPASS" has become a major social ill in the last couple of decades. I couldn't help but wonder: are these people trying to be jarring?

During the walking tour of my old high school, the primary effect I could not shake was that these kids are getting way too much "support". Guidance and college brochures abounded. Every flavor of self-esteem claptrap peppered the bulletin boards--Stewart Smalley would have been proud. Most distressing of all, the library I worked in my senior year looked exactly the same, and still contained the card catalogue I helped create, with one minor difference: the library barely contained any books. Like Sartre's cigarette, they have disappeared. Perhaps most surprising of all, I didn't see a single kid who looked stoned (not, of course, that there's anything wrong with that...). I may as well have been in a real high school.

No wonder PBS' Country Boys didn't act like Country Boys--there may be no real Country Boys left. Which led me to think: I am glad I was a Country Boy when being a Country Boy wasn't cool.

What Will Be Your Fallingwater?

2006-02-18T17:28:00.000-08:00

Remember: you've only been given one life.

How Great Thou Art-2

2006-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

Does the concept of God violate the concept that A is A?

Not if God chose to become a human being.

I can say that the most significant intellectual point that occurred to me in my journey to faith was sentence I just stated above. I distinctly remember driving along the sea in Alaska one day thinking about how hypothetically clever it would be of a god to circumvent the Law of Identity problems discussed in my last post by, well, by stepping into history and by becoming a human being.

If God were to became "human," even if only for a short time, then God has to that extent become definable. As such, A is still A, is it not?

How Great Thou Art-1

2006-02-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

One of the most significant philosophical objections to God has always been that God is not definable. One can talk about characteristics of God, but can one really ever define God?

George H. Smith, a famous atheist, has made this objection the centerpiece of his atheism, and for some time, I was in the thrall of this objection as well. Although I cannot find a Smith quote, the thrust of the objection sounds like this: "Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought." *

Does the concept of God violate the Aristotelian "Law of Identity", i.e., the maxim that A is A?

More on this in a future post.

Some February 14 Thoughts

2006-02-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

I grew up in Michigan. I went to a public school, a tiny, rural school. If this post were a syllogism, the inexorable conclusion to draw from these premises would be: in my youth, I learned nothing of note about the U.S. Civil War. At least nothing more significant than "we won" and "Lincoln freed the slaves."

There is some benefit to be derived from limited learning of this kind, however. To cite just one example: for the last 10-15 years, I have been reading about the Civil War (or as my wife's Southern family calls it, the War of Northern Aggression), and the whole thing is so fresh and fascinating. Reading about Abraham Lincoln is fresh and fascinating. Reading about Robert E. Lee is fresh and fascinating.

Most fresh and fascinating of all is the reading of Civil War correspondence. The men and women of that era considered things in depth. They thought and wrote about things, per my Nozick quote in the sidebar, that matter. The most soulful example of this, I think, are the words of Sullivan Ballou to his wife, on the eve of battle, and his death: "But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours - always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by."

Now that is a love letter.

Here is a hat tip to Sullivan Ballou, the writer of the most beautiful Valentine I have ever read.

Why The Title, Why The Anonymity?

2006-02-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

I recently received a query (no pun intended...) from a visitor asking about the reason for the title and other issues related to this blog.

Although my mastery of the dark arts of blogging technology has recently increased from elementary school level to somewhere in junior high, I still haven't quite figured out how to work this template so that it would have a "why this title?" link on it. Any tip in this area would be most appreciated.

That said, I actually wrote a fairly detailed answer to the question raised by the query while guestblogging for Pursuit of Happiness. You can find the essay here, but you will need to scroll down to May 13, 2005 to see the essay. That pretty much explains where I'm coming from, and, in the interest of decorum, I will resist the urge to quote myself. Those who have read alot of Rand will also appreciate that resisting this urge avoids the irony that would be present by my imitating one of Rand's most irritating habits, i.e., her fondness for quoting her own essays as though referring to a secondary source (and thus proving there is more than one way to build nonsense on stilts....)

I am still satisfied with this title, although it probably gives the impression of a level of polarity that has not necessarily been adequately described thus far, and may also give the impression that I too am "A Burnt Out Case." I hope neither the impression or the label are fitting, but can see why they might be possible.

As for remaining anonymous, there is a certain level of freedom that comes with this status. None of my family or friends know I am involved in this project. Moreover, I would prefer that my opponents in the courtroom not be equipped with various portions of my "life story." If the shoe were on the other foot, I know it would help me gain an advantage over an opponent, and you might say I am a lawyer first and a blogger second, at least when it comes to my clients' interests.

Sartre, Cigarettes, and Cartoons

2006-02-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

The brilliant and anonymous Wretchard at The Belmont Club had an interesting post some time ago about recent attempts by the "authorities" to remove the cigarette from the lips of Jean-Paul Sartre. I was reminded of this in the wake of the current controversy over cartoons in the Muslim world.

In the case of Sartre's cigarette, a post-hoc air-brushing of history is attempted, and we are all supposed to pretend he never smoked. The modern sensibilities of the anti-smoking crowds are assuaged, and maybe an inch or two of reality is ceded for the sake a little bit of "peace." Fair enough. Who cares about the existence or nonexistence of Sartre's cigarette, right? You might call these the philosophical equivalent of small potatoes.

The cartoon controversy is a different kind of air-brushing altogether, i.e., a preemptive air-brushing, which is meant to control the kinds of allowable opinions about the Prophet. This preemptive air-brushing, accomplished with force and intimidation, and rendered effective by the engine of political correctness, cedes not an inch or two of reality, but something more like a football field, and it brings us no peace whatsoever. In today's world, believe it or not, cartoons are no longer small potatoes.

Consider this amusing bit of small-scale irony: Sartre's philosophy of existentialism, and one of its logical consequences, postmodernism, ultimately paved the way to the removal of his cherished cigarette. Existentialism air-brushed Sartre himself. Were Sartre alive, he would probably snicker about that.

Consider this bit of less amusing irony: it is also Sartre's Existentialism--and its bastard child we call postmodernism--that has pulled the rug out from under the West. The rug has been pulled so cleanly that the First Amendment is held hostage, philosophically speaking, by a group of silly cartoons.

Next time you hear some CNN or State Department official drone about not offending the sensibilities of those who might not like certain cartoons, tip your hat to the now tobacco-free Jean-Paul Sartre.

He always said life was absurd, and the front pages of our newspapers are proving it.

Super Bowl Sundays

2006-02-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl Sundays are never really about football for me. They always remind me of Alaska.

Super Bowl Sunday always reminds me of the evening before the start of a murder case I tried more than a fifteen years ago. It reminds of being in an airport in late January, waiting for a small "puddle-jumper" plane to take me to an extreme, remote location, in the middle of a deep, freezing winter, to defend a man charged with the grandaddy of all crimes--a man caught with a smoking gun in his hands, a man with his life in my hands.

For a trial lawyer, the night before a trial always presents an opportunity to "take stock" of things. The pressure is on and at full-tilt. Although one has a fair idea of what might happen, trials are ultimately about people, and people have a way of saying things and doing things in trial that cannot be predicted, or scripted. I suspect the pressure of trial lawyering is not unlike the pressure the director of a play feels before opening night, with the minor exception that if the play flops, nobody's life has been ruined.

Super Bowl Sunday always reminds of that night I sat in that airport, waiting for that choppy little plane flight into the heart of Alaska, my heart racing so hard that it hurt, my fear so palpable I could just about taste it. And it reminds me of the temptation I resisted to skip that plane flight. I clearly remember playing out a scenario about calling the judge in the morning and to tell him my car broke down on the way to the airport, or that I would need another month or two to get my schedule in order for a new trial date, etc. Who knows, I remember thinking, it might just lead to a plea agreement in favor my client. What good is a copout without a dose of rationalization, right?

I remember looking around at the people in the airport watching The Big Game, seemingly carefree, drinking beers, smoking and joking. My "stolen homework" fantasy continued to fester. Then my flight was called.

There are times in every person's life--if they have lived a life worth thinking about--when a temptation resisted or a challenge met helps define that life. When the flight was called, I must honestly admit that I hesitated just a moment, but not all that long. I grabbed my client's file and went to the gate.

My steps up the stairs of the airplane that night felt like the steps of a man.

[Other posts related to this trial can be found here and here.]

Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand

2006-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

"If you have never read anything by Ayn Rand, grab Atlas Shrugged. It will grab you like nothing you have ever experienced previously."

True enough, although, as you might guess, I would recommend The Fountainhead first.

Progress?

2006-02-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

My dad and I used to hunt near this lake. This area is not far from where I left his ashes. I know I am supposed to be outraged by the notion of this property being developed, but I am not. I just cannot muster the expected sentiments about such things.

The Presence of God ((2) cont'd)

2006-01-31T14:47:00.000-08:00

[Preceding posts in this area are here, here, and possibly here].

I tried to party with my pals, but my heart wasn't in it. After about an hour, I headed back to my apartment, and picked up the McDowell's book again.

I sat and read through most of the book one more time, and started to feel a sense of struggle in my heart. Every time I turned a page I felt reluctance, primarily because I did not want to think about the consequences of the book. I thought about how calling myself a "Christian" would come off to my friends, and about how much pride I would have to swallow to accept what this little book was saying.

I struggled back and forth for several hours. I stood out on the deck of my apartment and looked out at the nighttime sky. I felt the pull of the arguments in the book. I mulled them over. My body felt physical tension from the thoughts racing through my head. Finally, feeling exhausted, I went to bed, thinking it entirely possible that, on the deck of my apartment one fall evening in law school, I had accepted Christ and become a Christian, of all things.

I woke the next morning refreshed. Writing the previous evening off as a moment of weakness, I resolved to put the arguments of McDowell's little book out of my head.

And that is exactly what I did. For another couple of years.

Watercolors-Revisited.

2006-01-29T11:24:00.000-08:00

I am trying to paint something like this right now, and struggling. I don't want to give the impression that I am some kind of decent artist. I am not. I bring this up to show off some recently learned technological razzle-dazzle, and, more importantly, to raise the point that the challenge of painting with watercolors is similar to the challenge of living life.

More on this in a later post.

The Presence of God (2)

2006-01-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

[The first post in this series is here.]*

After my experience in the church described in my first post on this subject, I did indeed manage to avoid churches for some time.

A couple of years later, while in law school, I was home on a Friday or Saturday night, getting ready to go out and meet friends. I had showered and was walking past my bookshelf (such as it was in those days), and noticed a book I head read late in high school. The book was More Than A Carpenter, by Josh McDowell. I had kept this slim volume, for some reason, despite several "purges" of books and other materials that came in the wake of my rejection of "mystical beliefs", as Ayn Rand would put it.

Perhaps because the book had escaped these purges, it caught my eye. I picked it up, gave it a good snicker/shake of the head, and started thumbing through it. It was still early yet, so I decided to sit down and look at it more closely.

Two hours later, I had finished the book. I don't recall everything going through my head at that time, but I do recall thinking to myself what if this is true? I shook the thought and decided to meet my friends. Better late than never.

The evening had just begun, as far as I was concerned. And, as I will recount in my next post, it turned out I was right.

*[The very first post in this series is arguably here .]

The Challenge Of Portrait Painting

2006-01-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Literature scholar Jack Miles in his wonderful book God, A Biography refers to a famous mystic's notion that God eliminates the "successiveness" of men. What the mystic meant by this is that God views we humans as a portrait of ourselves as a whole, not merely the sum of our particular experiences, much like a portrait painter sees his subject.

I have thought of this quite a lot lately, as I have considered the next part of this Tale to tell. I am tempted to "cut to the chase" somewhat, as the world is closing in, and the strains of work, family, and other activities tug at my time and attention. Notwithstanding the statement in my post a short time ago, I am tempted to tell about the day God's presence was so strong, and my continued resistance to His presence so ragged, that I acknowledged Him once and for all. I remember that day well but fear that recounting it may be a letdown, at least for some.

I have mentioned before that I am not much for "practice," and the same disposition has governed my writings in this journal. By and large, I have not plotted the course of these efforts, but relied upon the feel of the moment for what I should write about with each post. By and large, I have left each post as written as a first draft, with subsequent changes made for typos or grammatical problems.

Perhaps because of this, I have found this self-portrait to be very difficult. How can one do justice to the influences from one's past? The regrets from one's past? How can one adequately capture the important decisions of one's life, the forks in the road that were taken, missed, or nearly missed, but that nonetheless lead to the present? How can one make statements about or arguments for God, without diminishing God in the process?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but it is disconcerting to think that, like my resistance to God at one time, my answers to these questions are getting a little ragged as well. In my very first post on this journal, I told you I had a pretty good idea of where this Tale starts, and how it "ends." I was concerned then, and concerned now, about the middle. Well, we are now in the middle of the middle.

With that said, in my next post, I will tell you about the second time I very distinctly felt the presence of God.

"It's Not Pretty, But I Like It."

2006-01-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

Most mornings, I drive my 4-year old daughter to preschool, which is about a five minute jaunt from our house. Jacqulyn has a fair dose of my temperament, and is likely to remain quiet, lost in her own thoughts unless spoken to, and vice-versa.

This morning, we quietly rode along. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw her staring out the window, her mind focused. I was playing Leonard Cohen's "Best of" CD, which, if you know Leonard Cohen's music, is something of an eclectic blend of ballads, ramblings, and sad reminiscences. "How do you like this music?" I asked her, looking for her reaction.

Her response, after a thoughtful pause: "It's not pretty, but I like it."

As they say, from the mouths of babes...

Verdict-A Prequel

2006-01-15T11:49:00.000-08:00

The first case I tried to a jury was a resounding loss.

I was a prosecutor in a large Western state, where hunting was, with fishing, almost the official state religion. I had been in the prosecutor's office about a week when my boss threw a file on my desk one Monday evening.

"Good luck," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"You're trying your first case tomorrow morning. Good luck. You'll need it. I might come over and watch." He suppressed a snicker as he walked out the door.

That evening I poured over the file, prepared questions for jury selection and my witnesses, and tried very hard to act stoic with my fellow prosecutors--many of whom were friends, drinking buddies, and/or fellow hockey players--when they came in to see my trial preparations were going. Around midnight, I went home, and ended up sleeping about 2-3 hours.

The next day I pretended to be a trial lawyer. The day was more or less a blur. I recall distinctly that the case involved a glorified poaching violation and the defendant was fairly sympathetic. I very distinctly recall that as I stood to ask questions of the potential jurors, my voice cracked, my palms were sweaty, and my considerable pride took a beating. I was so rattled by the process that I waived my right to kick any of the potential jurors off the panel with peremptory challenges. The jury thus ended up being six hunting, fishing, gun-toting men who had no interest in convicting some poor schlep for a poaching violation. I could have kicked three of them off the panel, but I was afraid.

The jury was "out" for five minutes. Not guilty. Not just no, but hell no.

I walked back to the office 0-1 as a prosecutor and resolved not to let that happen again--not "losing" again, that is part of the drill if you go to trial--but not to let fear interfere with my being a lawyer.

I went home, shut the shades of my apartment, laid on my bed, and thought for several hours about failure.

[The first part of this series can be found here].

TOTA: The Year In Review

2005-12-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

When painting with watercolors, one finds that a wash of watercolor generally will follow the outlines of a previous wash, especially if the paper is still wet. The painter can usually predict where the colors will go, if the "groove" of a previous wash is already in place. What makes watercolor painting so interesting, though, is that sometimes the paint gets outside the groove. The result is unexpected and, if you are lucky, the most exciting of all.

Which is how I feel about my partial year of blogging on this site. When I started, I sort of thought I knew where things might go, but the paint got away from me in places, resulting in some nice surprises and--continuing with the watercolor theme--some unfortunate mixes of blacks and browns.

One area of surprise is that I would never have guessed, for instance, there would be so many posts about my father, and frankly, I am not sure why this turned out this way. I know the obvious psychobabble-driven reasons why so much of my writing has been about our relationship, but the subtle reasons, well, they presently elude me. I have also been surprised by the overall melancholy feel of many of the posts--this because, at this point in my life, I have every conventional reason to be as "happy" as anybody.

My surprise about this last point was explained somewhat by an email I received just last week, straight out of nowhere. The emailer explained that he had just happened to see my picture on a lawyer website, and, although it had been over thirty years, he wondered if I was the little boy he remembered from a rural lake in Michigan. He ended his email with "Are you Cudge and Marie's son from __________ Lake?" Cudge was my father's nickname, and the email felt like a kick in the stomach. It is one thing to write about one's past with the detached voice of a narrator/author. It is quite another to be reminded that, as a little boy, you actually lived the life you are writing about.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that his conversion from atheism to faith happened on the way to the zoo, more or less. He probably could have ended his story with "The End." Happily for us, he did not. If anybody is wondering whether I am going to tell about my "trip to the zoo," rest assured, I will.

Probably in 2006.

Common Sense- Further Thoughts

2005-12-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

It is inescapably true that most people do not "reason through" most of the decisions they make in their lives. Instead, to the extent they think about their decisions at all, my sense is that most people rely upon their common sense.

But what, at bottom, is the stuff of common sense? For what it's worth, my first post on this topic is here, but Thomas Sowell, in his book A Conflict of Visions says it better than I could ever hope. A summary of the "conflict" among "visions" is as follows:

"Visions rest ultimately on some sense of the nature of man - not simply his existing practices but his ultimate potential and ultimate limitations. Those who see the potentialities of human nature as extending far beyond what is currently manifested have a social vision quite different from those who see human beings as tragically limited creatures whose selfish and dangerous impulses can be contained only by social contrivances which themselves produce unhappy side effects. Running through the tradition of the unconstrained vision is the conviction that foolish or immoral choices explain the evils of the world - and that wiser or more moral and humane social policies are the solution."

By contrast, "the constrained vision sees the evils of the world as deriving from the limited and unhappy choices available, given the inherent moral and intellectual limitations of human beings." *

I commend Sowell's book to anybody who wishes to understand why, for instance, from a cultural perspective, the red states and the blue states in this country are ships passing in the night. It is a function of their respective visions, and more subtly, their view of human nature.

And also their common sense.

Common Sense- An Introduction

2005-12-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

The concept of common sense is uniquely American, or so I have been told, and so I tell juries.

When in front of a jury, I rely heavily on the notion of common sense. Judges routinely provide instructions to juries that reference this term in one form or another. The reference is usually buried in an instruction relating to the jury's role in its decision-making process, and is stated along the lines of: "When deciding who to believe, you are instructed that you are not to set aside your life experiences, your common sense, etc." In courthouses throughout the country on this very day, juries are making important decisions based upon their collective notion of what constitutes common sense--common sense is thus integral to, for instance, dispensing justice. Accordingly, good lawyers make sure juries are equipped with arguments that are consistent with, reinforce, and (ideally) attempt to define this notion.

At this point in this post, blogging protocol tempts me to Google the term common sense, which undoubtedly would lead me to Thomas Paine, perhaps Oliver Wendell Holmes and others, but I am going to resist the temptation to do that.

Instead, and at the risk of missing the boat completely, I want offer what I have learned from juries about this concept. My view is that common sense is a close derivative of a view of human nature, i.e., it closely shadows one's view about what human beings are really like, not how we wish they might be. As one gets older, one learns more of and has more experience with different types of people. This leads, inexorably, to--at the very least--an implicit view of human nature. This, I think, is why the older one gets, the more "common sense" one usually possesses. An accumulation of life experiences with one's fellow human beings leads to a more developed view of human nature, and thus a stronger dose of common sense.

These conclusions are why I generally liker older jurors, especially those who have had a variety of life experiences. And this, ideally, is why bright younger people think they know everything and gradually realize they do not. It is a rare person who latches onto or backs into a worldview in their 20's and then learns nothing worthy of a change to that worldview thereafter.

Why does one's worldview inevitably change with the passage of time? Part of the answer is simply common sense.

God's Presence-1

2005-12-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

The first time I felt God's presence I was, quite by accident, in a church.

At the time, I was a rock-ribbed atheist, and had not been in a church in years. Some college friends had invited me to a major league baseball game, and we were gathering near a church parking lot near campus to make the trek to the ballpark. I arrived early, and, out of curiosity, I walked into the church. There I sat, alone, staring at the simple cross at the front of the sanctuary.

The sanctuary was dead quiet, so quiet I could almost hear the silence. As I sat in the midst of this silence, I was reminded of Bible studies I had attended years earlier, before Ayn Rand had shoved me into the cold and deep end of the pool. I thought of my friends from that era, some of whom I was meeting to go to the baseball game. Very clever of them, I thought. They had us meet at a church parking lot on purpose. I looked out through a window at the church parking lot and noticed that some of the others were arriving.

Somewhere in the middle of these thoughts, I began to feel a "pull" at my mind, and my eyes returned to the cross. This feeling was very distinct, and akin to the the feeling one has when a forgotten name is on the tip of one's tongue. I could have resisted this pull if I had wanted to, but I didn't want to.

Just then one of my pals barged through the church door and broke the silence. "Come on, let's get going or we'll be late." My mind snapped back to reality. I lightly chuckled to myself with a "wasn't that something" look on my face, no doubt.

I was relieved, and made a mental note to avoid churches in the near future.

More On Resemblances

2005-12-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

I was surfing cable television the other night and came across a James Bond rerun. After pausing just a moment, I about fell out of my chair when I saw this person, apparently one of the villains on the show. His resemblance to my father is uncanny--he is truly a dead ringer--especially the "look" in his eyes.

Since I have talked about my father so much on these pages, I thought it appropriate to give an idea of what he looked like.

Deerslayer-5

2005-11-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

The last time I went to my father's deer stand was after his death.

I was a senior in college. For old time's sake, I used the family key to gain entry to the scout reservation, even though I am sure the caretaker would have let me in without a quibble. That day, I had no particular worries about being caught, and thought it fitting to follow tradition one last time.

I parked the truck in our usual place, and walked about a quarter mile along a two-tracked road. The deer stand was largely as I remembered it from 4-5 years earlier, the last time I had hunted there with my father. The stump had decayed, and, because I went there long after the snow had melted and the weather had warmed, the "look" of the bottleneck was different than I remembered. It was more inviting, more pleasant, and the lakes were bluer than they ever looked during deer season. The winds were stronger that day as well. That wouldn't have boded well during season.

I surveyed the field of fire. I took another look at the lakes. I listened for deer. I looked up at the sky and down at the leaves. My heart pounded. I stared at the stump for a very long time and thought of our times in those woods.

And then I squatted down and poured my father's ashes on the base of the stump, careful to block them from the wind. I stared at his ashes and I listened for his distinctive whistle, the whistle he used while hunting, hoping I might hear his ghost in those woods, hoping for one final sign of his presence, and perhaps his approval.

There was to be no whistle.

I tried very hard not to cry, but I failed.

Deerslayer-4

2005-11-23T04:48:00.000-08:00

I referred yesterday to a comic event involving my father's favorite deer stand.

One fall day, when I was probably about 15, we were sneaking onto the boy scout reservation. I don't think we were going to hunt, but merely drive around and check things out. As I have mentioned, my father possessed a coveted key to the gates of the reservation. Our usual method of entry was to park just outside the gate, and I would then take his truck keys and rush to the gate, open it, give him the keys so he could start his truck and drive through, and then we would lock the gate behind us. This whole ordeal took about 90 seconds. I felt like a cat burgler whenever we did this.

On this particular fall day, we had just parked near the gate when the hapless caretaker pulled up behind us, blocking my father's truck between his vehicle and the gate. This diminutive man, like many who have some authority in their limited realms of influence, overplayed his hand, and his authority. He stepped up to my father's window like a state trooper involved in the middle of the crime of the century, demanding to know whether we were attempting to sneak onto the sacred lands of the scout reservation. His contempt for our status as unwashed locals was obvious, and frankly, I had never heard anybody talk to my father that way. I knew there was going to be some fireworks.

My siblings have told me that I have inherited many of my father's traits but, happily, I did not inherit his temper. The hapless caretaker experienced a dose of that temper, and, after being told something to the effect that "he didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground", and that he "would go onto the reservation whenever [he] f**king felt like it," my father lost all control. He pulled his keys out to open the gate.

He jumped out of the truck, stormed to the gate, and began trying to open the padlock. the caretaker looked on in astonishment. My father, however, could not get the padlock to open. He kept trying new keys. His face became red, dark red, and then almost white with embarrassment. I sat in the truck and tried not to laugh. I knew he was trying the keys on the wrong padlock (remember I was usually the one who opened the padlock), but the event was so comical, my shock at seeing my father making an ass of himself was too rich, and the overall event was going to fast for me to interrupt.

Finally, he gave up and got back in the truck, all the while letting loose a thundering stream of obscenities. The caretaker, shocked and embarrassed at what had transpired as well, got in his car and let us out. I tried my best to keep a poker face.

About five minutes later, after his storm had passed, he pulled over to the side of the road and looked at me. He had a dead serious look in his eye. "What in the hell just happened," he asked me. The tension was palpable. "You were trying to open the wrong padlock," I responded, and then, whether out of nervousness or pressure, I put my head on the dashboard of the truck and started laughing. I just couldn't take it anymore. If I hadn't laughed I probably would have puked.

I didn't know what to expect next but I'll be damned if he didn't put his head on the steering wheel and laugh along with me.

Deerslayer-3

2005-11-22T06:34:00.000-08:00

My father's favorite deer stand was squarely in the middle of a massive boy scout reservation, probably ten square miles in dimension, several miles from our lake. Typically, we would have to sneak onto this land to hunt, as it had locked gates. Because the boy scouts had all gone home by November, however, the reservation was usually deserted--deserted, that is, with the exception of a single, hapless caretaker of the property, who would kick us off the land whenever we were found hunting there.

For reasons I cannot recall, it happened that my father had a key to the gates of this choice hunting spot. In my next post, I will describe the comic effect this key had on my father one day. For now, however, it is sufficient to note that most of the other locals knew we hunted the reservation, and they were jealous that we had access to this patch of wilderness. The fact that we had to sneak onto the property and others couldn't get in added to the special quality of my father's favorite deer stand.

This stand was an old tree stump plopped at the bottleneck between two lakes on the reservation, a swath of land no more than 200 yards wide. On that stump, my father could watch for deer coming through, unwittingly hemmed in by the lakes, and with no choice but to walk or run within rifle range. Whenever we hunted this area, my father would drop me off at one end of the lake, and I would walk purposely and noisily toward the bottleneck, thus flushing any deer near the lake in his direction. Because the leaves crackled as the deer were flushed, he would have plenty of notice of deer coming his way, and, because my father was a former Marine and an excellent shot, coming within range of the stand usually meant a quick death.

He was always exhilarated, almost playful, after a kill, not in a silly, redneck way, but because deer hunting was, I think, one of my father's few areas of satisfaction in life. When he was deer hunting, his storms were miles and miles away.

There is no doubt in my mind that my father was happiest on this earth when he was sitting on that particular tree stump, eyeballing the field of fire created by that particular bottleneck, waiting for the kill, all while hunting, with his son, in the woods of an obscure boy scout reservation, near a rural lake, in the middle of nowhere.

Deerslayer-2

2005-11-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

I hated the notion of deer hunting, but had no choice but to participate. My choices were limited by my age and general unwillingness to confront my father about such things. They were also limited because our family relied upon venison to eat throughout the long Michigan winters.

A bricklayer in Michigan, during the recession hit economies of the 70's, did not get much work in the winters. My father scraped together some "inside" work, such as the building of the occasional stone fireplace, but most of the family's income came from running snowplows to clear driveways, parking lots, and the like. This meant that an icebox full of venison was not only desired, but necessary. With a family our size, this meant that more than one deer would be needed to get through the winter, especially when some variation of venison was served for dinner each and every day of the week. I mention this not to claim that our family suffered, but to emphasize that the avoidance of deer hunting was not an option, at least not under those circumstances.

I am not a vegetarian, nor am I anti-hunting. I was not and am not, however, temperamentally suited to hunting. I hunted only begrudgingly, because that was what was expected, and I managed to keep my ill-formed and adolescent opinions on this subject to myself. I may not be anti-hunting, but I can confirm that I am anti-venison. I haven't tasted venison in roughly 25 years, nor do I ever (willingly) plan to do so.

All of which makes more ironic the fact that the most poignant memories I have of my father involve the thick woods and crackling autumn leaves that blanketed his favorite deer hunting stands--including, it turns out, the very last time we were ever together.

Deerslayer-1

2005-11-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

In the 1970's, where I grew up, deer hunting was perhaps the defining element of our rural culture.

Other forms of hunting were significant, but deer hunting was the first among equals, so to speak. Our middle and high schools closed for the first day of deer season, which, it should be noted, was November 15 of each year. A few weeks prior to Opening Day, the boys at school would begin wearing camouflage jackets to school, sometimes with their licenses attached to the back of them. These were the "colors" of the rural teenager.

If you were male and over the age of 14 in these parts, you were legally entitled to kill a buck after November 15 of each year. If you were male and under the age of 14, and you hadn't yet shot your first deer and loved doing so, well, there was something wrong with you. Or so said the unwritten rules of the rural culture. I despised these unwritten rules, both for their obvious mindlessness but also because the defining element in my world at that time, my father, was a passionate and skilled deerslayer.

He was a passionate and skilled deerslayer because he loved the kill, but also because he had to be.

Verdict

2005-11-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

"Why do I do this for a living?"

It is a ritual of mine, when waiting for a verdict from a jury, to avoid eye contact with the jury when it enters the room after deliberations. Instead, I hold my pen dangling over the verdict form, a pendulum swinging between my client's name and the name of the other party, like a sword pointed at my ego.

Time slows as the jury files in from its deliberations, but the mind cannot help but race: "what will I say to the client if we lose?";"why did I keep juror number 5 on the jury?"; " why was he scowling at me during my closing my remarks?" But the thought that races the fastest is always: "why in the hell do I do this for living?"

A tired mind races faster than a clear mind, and, at the end of a trial, my mind is oatmeal, and tired oatmeal at that.

The judge states majestically, "Madam Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?" The mind slows down just abit, allowing just a glimmer of hope to set in: "she's who I hoped would take charge".

"We have, your honor," she says.

I still cannot bear to look. I instead stare at the sword between my fingers, pointing just a notch toward the name of my client.

The clerk walks over to receive the verdict, and hands it to the judge for his initial review. Now I sneak a look for an important clue-- if the judge reads the verdict quickly, chances are we have won. If he ponders over the form, bad news is on the way. "The clerk will publish the verdict," the judge declares. The clerk proceeds to read the verdict in the firm voice of somebody who knows that his words are the sound of justice, at least in this courtroom, at least for these parties, at least on this day.

I twirl the sword back and forth as the clerk reads the verdict, and I mark the line next to my client's name. I breathe once again and steal a look at the jurors. They are already filing out of the room. They have done their duty. They want to go home. They did not like the plaintiff.

I put down my pen and shake my client's hand. The thought of doing something else for a living retreats to more friendly terrain, toward the back of my mind. There it will regroup, lick its wounds, and wait, perhaps, to fight another day.

Finally, A Word About Architecture

2005-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

For a project with the title of A Tale of Two Architects, it has not escaped me that I have said very little about Ayn Rand or Graham Greene, Roark, or Querry, on these pages.

It appears that I have dwelled mostly on the sundry happenings around a small rural lake, in the middle of nowhere, and the hapless family that lived on that lake. I am intuitively comfortable with this because this is really nothing more than a form of psychological procrastination. My experience with life suggests that there are stories waiting to be told that are still percolating, not ready to see the light of day, and, like a cup of coffee that is poured too soon, my guess is that some of these stories would end up being too bitter, perhaps forced, maybe even lukewarm.

So let's talk about my office move. A couple of years ago, one of my best friends and I started our own lawfirm after having been partners at one of the largest lawfirms in the country. Like Butch and Sundance, we jumped off the cliff together, feet kicking, a "holy shit" look in our eyes, and took the plunge into some deep, cold river water. And, forgive my crudeness, but we all know the effect of cold river water on the male anatomy, do we not? Well, the same is true for starting a new business.

Which brings me to the subject of architecture.

I have always felt an odd reverence for buildings, and, in anticipation of moving my lawfirm into its own unique space, we have spent the better part of a year looking for just the right building to move our fledgling lawfirm to. After many fits and starts, this weekend, we are moving our lawfirm into the top floor of (in my opinion) the most architecturally "significant" building in our fair city. It is a building in which form follows function. It is a building in which nature has been both commanded and obeyed. It is a building which most people will drive by and not notice, but those who know something about architecture will notice, and will appreciate. I feel like it is a building deserving of our lawfirm, and vice-versa.

Some years ago, I spent some money I shouldn't have to buy and frame a number of colored sketches of the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright--his country homes, his unbuilt skyscrapers, even a church he designed. Serving the same purpose as the motivational posters that dot the walls of telemarketing firms, I have always kept these FLW prints in my office, along with the picture of my old sailboat, and a glorious picture of my wife and daughter, each of them reminders to me of things that are important in this life. The reasons for this should be obvious to anybody who has come this far with me on these pages.

Keeping track of such reminders is important. Moving into a building deserving of one's reminders is important as well. Trying to live up to those reminders, however, now that is what makes life exciting, is it not?

On Hibernation

2005-10-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

In the next few weeks, I will be in jury trials in different parts of the country, moving offices for my lawfirm, serving as an arbitrator for the parties to a complex employment law dispute, and otherwise trying to serve properly in the role of father, husband, counselor, and human being.

In other words, I don't plan to post much for awhile. I'll probably see you again in December.

This is a good thing. My writing of late is fairly pedestrian, and there are many others out in this blogsphere thingee who have much more to say at present than I. I am lucky in that I am temperamentally unsuited to begrudge others their talents. This is not a virtue, but more a bare fact. I have never understood those stingy souls who are threatened by the talent or gifts of others. The talents of others keep the cup half full, not half empty.

I have never done a "blogroll" because, well, it seems just a tad presumptuous to assume that anybody cares what I think of other bloggers. That said, if I were you, I would check out the following during this hibernation:

(1) Politics: check out Soxblog. This guy is big-time smart, has integrity, and is a friend of mine. I love his sense of life (in the Randian sense), and I love that he has a bomb thrower mentality, i.e., that he is willing to pimp-slap the Republicans when the situation calls for it--and God knows, they have deserved it lately. There might be other political bloggers out there more worthy of reading, but it is difficult to think of them just now.

(2) Culture: check out Irate Savant and Pursuit of Happiness. Mr. Savant is either the love child of John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly and Florence King, or he is otherwise one of the more interesting persons on the planet. Read him, and you'll know what I mean. Pursuit is a man's man. He knows something about what constitutes good wine, good barbecue, and, I think, a good wage. Pursuit is also a friend of mine, and I need to figure out an excuse to get to Chicago and buy him a drink sometime, and soon.

(3) Personal: check out Minerva, who is nothing if not brave. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in London back before the world became really stupid, and I am half tempted to plan a 15-year anniversary trip back so I can buy Minerva some Indian food in SoHo, which is highly doable because she is going to not only survive her current bout with breast cancer, but kick it in the arse with a steel-toed cowboy boot, and then stomp on it with disdain. My prayers are with her. Give The Gnat's Trumpet a look when you get a chance as well. He is an honest atheist--I nicknamed him, by the way, one of my great talents--something I fancied myself as not so very long ago. The story of his blog is poignant and, at times, sad. I look forward to reading how his tale turns out.

(4) Spiritual: check out Three Bad Fingers and Sand In The Gears. Both of these guys are honest Christian men without being weenies or apologizing for their faith. They are making an impact well beyond what they know, and for those of us with daughters, they are examples of the very best kind. Read, for instance, Tony's story of his daughter Caroline and the world's worries will be put in their proper place.

There you go. That is my idea of a blogroll and my excuse for hibernation. See you in December, or maybe even later.

Judges, Baseball And Temptations

2005-10-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

I have generally been able to withstand the urge to comment on current events, largely because I did not start this project in order to add my voice to the din of the political bloggers.

Most of the noise that emanates from the blogosphere's penumbra is predictable, and predictably shallow. Most of the noise drowns out the notion that reasonable minds can differ on the great issues of our time. Like the morning disc-jockey who tries desperately to push the "envelope" in order to raise ratings, my sense is that most political bloggers are trying merely to raise ratings, or their sitemeter stats. That is not my goal here.

So allow me to give in to temptation this one time.

Allow me this temptation because I love being a lawyer. It is something of a dirty little secret that most of those in the legal profession hate what they do for a living. I am lucky. I am not one of those people. I love my profession. I am passionate about the idea of being a lawyer, and my respect for judges is virtually without limits. Hell, some day, if I get to heaven, I half expect I will address the Good Lord as "Your Honor." That is how much I look up to judges. I have tried cases all around this country, but whenever I step into a courthouse, the butterflies in my stomach are let loose, and, when they do that, I am reminded that it is a privilege to have those butterflies. Not just anyone can be a lawyer, not just anyone gets to appear before a judge, and not just anyone is an officer of the court.

This is a preamble to my disappointment with President Bush's recent nomination to the Supreme Court. It is obvious that this perfectly wonderful lady that President Bush nominated should not have been nominated. She was not the best of the best, nor is she even remotely more qualified than many others who could have been nominated. When juxtaposed against the example of Chief Justice Roberts, for instance, it is almost appalling to think that she was given the honor of the nomination. This was clearly the decision of a man who is tired. The President reminds me of a trial lawyer in the fifth week of an eight week trial, of somebody who blundered by calling the wrong witness, and, affected by his fatigue, has given in to the temptation to settle rather than fight.

Well, I am tired too, Mr. President. I am tired of the notion of merit being sacrificed on the alter of "diversity" or some other more traditional, but equally inexcusable, form of Inside Baseball. I am tired the best being relegated to the sidelines, taken for granted, without regard for the efforts or the sacrifices that are necessary to become "the best." And, frankly, I am tired of you acting tired.

Try this thought experiment: consider what we know from having met Chief Justice Roberts, how he performed at his hearings, how he bore the weight of his credentials. Now take the time to imagine the possibility of Ms. Miers being picked to sit on the Supreme Court instead of Roberts. Imagine the President announcing her as the best qualified candidate for the Court. The thought is absurd. Now hold onto thought and apply it to no less than a dozen others--Judge Luttig, for example-- each available to the President, each in the on-deck circle, each swinging their bats, and each qualified to bat in the World Series.

I think I am most distressed for these individuals--the other John Roberts' of the legal world, each of whom has sacrificed, for a lifetime, to reach the pinnacle of their profession. Many might say something along the lines of "tough luck to them." I don't view it that way. The guardians of our Constitution should be the very best, and it is a shame that these individuals have not been given their chance. They earned it.

Consider this true story: when I played Little League as a boy, our coach always insisted on using his son as the starting pitcher. He was a nice kid of mediocre talent, about 25 pounds overweight--and he routinely got shelled. Was he "qualified" to pitch? I suppose so, but half of the rest of the team was clearly more qualified, and there was no keeping this fact a secret. Even as an eight-year old kid, I felt embarrassed for the coach, embarrassed that he didn't have better sense, and embarrassed that he didn't understand the effect his decisions had on the rest of the team. His decisions demoralized us. Less significant, they put us in a hole, and after awhile, we just got used to losing.

Embarrassment of this kind is the handmaiden of disrespect. Even in Little League, most everybody knows when a call is not made on the merits. Most everybody can sniff out an Inside Baseball move.

Mr. President: perhaps your move wasn't purely Inside Baseball, but this is the Big Leagues, and you are still in the middle of the game, so summon your butterflies, resist the temptation to settle, and quit acting so damned tired.

Influences-V

2005-09-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

She has deep, dark brown eyes, almost too large for her face. To use a Randian term, she has a marvelous "sense of life," and clearly is not afraid of or likely to be afraid of life.

On the soccer field, instead of running after the ball, she skips after the ball. Most of the other girls run after the ball with reckless abandon, in complete disregard for the rules or tactics that (I assume) are germane to the game. Skipping in the general direction of the crowd, she is merrily ensconced in the back half of the ball swarm, occasionally looking my way. Her cheeks get inordinately flushed with her continued exertion, and that is another shared family trait. I consider it a very good sign that she skips rather than runs.

My daughter is an "influence," along the lines of the other influences I have written about, because life (and faith) is more akin to gestalt--and less linear--than we tend to think. I, for one, cannot watch my daughter skip around a soccer field without thinking just a little bit of God, and specifically, the love of God that brought her into this world.

This anecdote is an experience. I admit it is not an argument. But sometimes the accumulation of experiences can gradually turn into an argument, the same way an overburdened helicopter slowly struggles to lift off the ground. As with the helicopter, once airborne, the flight involved becomes surprisingly smooth. The view gets better and better.

My daughter influences me because she she reminds me of this blessing.

Influences-IV

2005-09-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I met a man in an Alpha course at our church, and we became friends.

This man was an obviously successful businessman: silver hair, well-dressed, and with the hard look of somebody who made decisions for a living. He was attending Alpha at the behest of his wife, an obviously kind-hearted soul who clearly loved her husband, for 30+ years running. This man was appropriately skeptical of the course he was taking, and asked hard questions throughout. His questions were not of the kind that some nonbelievers ask, i.e., the kind of questions that are asked as a disguise for one's prejudices, but were instead "thinker's" questions about the role of faith. His intellectual honesty was evident, and appreciated by everybody taking the course.

I was one of the "leaders" of this Alpha course, and because of the temperaments and personalities of the others involved, and the fact that he and I shared a genuine respect for one another's views, it usually fell to me to respond to his questions. For instance, I specifically recall his skepticism about the recovery of my father-in-law, and his query as to why God would intervene then and there, but not for the victims of mudslides, or terrorism, etc. I responded by asserting that it was asking too much of God to have to cure everybody in order to be credited with having cured anybody. I recall that he seemed fairly underwhelmed by this response.

We had some good debates but I was never sure what effect, if any, the course had on him.

His funeral was last Friday. He died of cancer. He was 58.

My wife and I went to the funeral, and, during the course of the pastor's homily, he mentioned that my friend had found faith rather late in life, largely because of his having attended the Alpha course. As a believing Christian this is supposed to make me feel better, and it does, however slightly, but his death was and is still a blow.

I am glad to have known and been influenced by this man.

Progress and Resemblances

2005-09-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Last night, I took our four year old daughter to her first soccer "practice."

As we were driving to the soccer field, and later as I watched her aimlessly chasing a soccer ball around a well manicured field--all the while trying very hard not to look too adoringly at every move she made--I couldn't help but note the irony involved, an irony that says something very interesting about this country, my family, and growing up in this country in the late 20th century. The irony relates to the notion of progress, and resemblances.

We didn't play soccer where I grew up, but we did play Little League baseball. My parents, however, did not come to baseball practices, such as they were. Not a single time. This was no great loss, as I did not want them there. Many were the times that, after practice or a game, I was the last person left at the ballpark, waiting alone in the bleachers for a ride home because my parents failed to get to the field on time. I remember well a feeling of humiliation when the parents of my teammates would look my way, with obvious concern and embarrassment on their faces and ask every possible varient of "are you sure you will be okay?"

Of course I was going to be okay--waiting for them to show up was always the least of my problems. The problems started when they finally did show up, usually well on their way to being drunk, usually in the middle of a fight, and usually unwilling to hide their resentment at having to make the trip. I distinctly remember feeling somewhat sorry for them in these situations: it was all so pathetic and so weak, the way they shirked basic parental responsibilities, the way their lives were controlled by the bottom of a bottle. There is little doubt that, today, they would be jailed for some of their actions. But alas, that was then, and, especially back then, and especially in the sticks, children in families like mine tended to have to fend for themselves.

Why do I bring this up? I bring it up as an example of hope, believe it or not. I bring it up because my experience as a parent just last night gives me a sense of optimism about the human condition, optimism that life is not merely a one-way ratchet, always with a faint click in the wrong direction. No, I did not have a happy childhood in twilight of the 20th century, but my daughter (fingers crossed) is in the midst of a happy childhood at the dawn of the 21st. There will be no empty bleachers for her. There will be no puzzled looks or questions from the parents of her friends. There will be no need for her to assume the responsibility of an adult while living in the body of a seven year old, or a nine year old, or even a twelve year old. Not on my watch.

Returning to irony and the title of these thoughts, let me to add one more detail to this story. On the mantle of our fireplace is a boyhood picture of my father with his family when he was about four years old. The family oozes stern, taciturn, German stock in the photo, which is heightened by its Old World feel. Two feet to the right of that picture is a recent picture of our four year old daughter, the soccer star, with a smile on her face. She is the female identical twin of the little boy down the mantle from her, the four year old who turned out to be her grandfather.

I am often struck by their resemblance to one another, but, more important, and especially after last night, perhaps it is the progress made across the span of these two pictures that is most striking. It seem especially fitting that progress should trump resemblances.

From this perspective, perhaps that "childhood" of mine was worth it after all.

Chasing Regrets-2

2005-09-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

I finished my last post on this subject with the question of whether it makes sense to chase regrets. Instinctively, the answer to this question is undoubtedly: no (with the caveat, I think, that if one were to go through life without the ability to regret anything, then one might be something along the lines of a sociopath).

The question I am broaching is more specific, however. Take my Marine Corps example as context for considering this question. Does it make sense for me, today, to Regret (capital R intended) that I did not get my commission in the Marines? Logically, the answer is no, and here is why: if I had not injured myself in training, and instead had been commissioned, been a JAG officer, perhaps even a career Marine, etc., I would be a significantly different person leading a significantly different life than the person writing this post.

Put a different way, it really does not make sense for PDS-1 (the person I became) to Regret that I am not PDS-2 (the person I would have been) because I am viewing this question through a lens that was created by the life experiences, significant relationships, templates, etc. that developed precisely because I was not a Marine officer over the past 20+ years, and precisely because I turned out to be PDS-1.

No thinking person is without regrets, but that doesn't mean they need to be "Regrets." Regrets are inevitible in life, but chasing them, and turning them into Regrets, is neither necessary or logical. Chasing Regrets is the psychological equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail.

In a future post, I will attempt to show what this topic has to do with my own Tale.

Chasing Regrets-1

2005-09-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

I am not a big fan of regrets. They seem futile, even counterproductive.

When I first began this adventure, I alluded, rather obliquely, to a major regret from my past, and that was when I was injured while in training for the Marines. By way of background, my best friend from high school (who I have discussed here and here) and I joined the Marines in the early 1980's and were put in the Marines' Officer Candidate Program. This program was unique in that one could "join" for a summer of boot camp, and then, if still interested, complete the program a following summer. The "opt out" nature of the program appealed to us both, and I ended up going back for a second summer, and had every intention of becoming a Marine officer in their JAG Corps. This before Marine JAG-types were cool enough to build a TV series around. Two weeks before I was to receive my commission, after 14 weeks of Marine boot camp, and after three years of Reserve duty, I rather severely injured my feet while running in combat boots.

This injury resulted in an honorable discharge, but: no commission, no JAG duties in exotic lands, and, most important, I wasn't really going to be a Marine. I will never forget walking out of the barracks with my "civi" clothes on, my drill instructor nodding at me with just a bit of regret himself, and feeling like an abject failure. Even to this day, during Veterans' Day events and the like, when the "veterans" in the crowd are asked to stand up and be counted, I keep my seat because, frankly--notwithstanding my honorable discharge and my attempt to serve this country--I do not feel I earned the right to be called a Marine, or a veteran.

This is probably the one major regret of my life, and the one I cannot quite shake. My head tells me I should not feel this way, but my heart always has the last say on this particular issue.

But does it make sense to chase this regret? Does it make sense to chase any such regrets?

Racquetball Diaries-IV

2005-09-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

It is perilous to underestimate the role temperament plays in our lives. It is equally perilous to ignore the fact that, sometimes, our characteristic reaction to events or arguments is not necessarily effective.

I see this in my four year old daughter every day, and I see it--introspectively--in my own life as well. It is just very difficult to fight one's temperament. You may be able to buff the edges of your temperament, and you may even be able to sand down the certain rough spots over time, but there are very few people who can radically change this fundamental aspect of personhood, this issue of temperament.

What does this have to do with racquetball?

Nearly everything. Let me give you an example. I play racquetball with a friend on a weekly basis. He can hit the ball about as hard as anybody I have ever met. He loves to hit the ball hard. It makes him feel good. And most of the time, against any number of players, hitting the ball is indeed effective. My friend just loves it when people walk by and stop to see how hard he hits the ball; he loves it when opponents are intimidated by hard he hits the ball; and, more often than not, when he is in a bind, he hits the ball hard. When he hits an ace with his drive serve, you can see him swell up with racquetball pride.

One might say that my friend's racquetball temperament is to hit the ball hard. But this temperament can get him in trouble, and in ways he does not even realize. Yesterday, for instance, we played our normal match and, lo and behold, he was hitting the ball hard as ever, especially on his serve. The problem with an over-reliance on the hard serve, however, is that if that kind of serve is "off" just a touch, it is an extremely easy ball for an opponent to put away. Yesterday, my friend's serve was consistently off just a touch, and therefore (theoretically) easy to put away.

But it would have been a mistake for me to consistently do that. Instead, because I am aware of my friend's temperament, I intentionally allowed my pal to "ace" me about every fourth serve: this because I wanted him keep hitting the ball hard, and, even an ace every fourth serve kept him playing the game ineffectively. Within the narrow confines of the racquetball court, my friend was thus an unwitting prisoner of his temperament. Some day, I assume, he is going to figure out that, although it makes him feel good to hit the ball hard, his temperament is actually causing him to lose important matches.

Obviously, there is no rule against being a prisoner to one's temperament. But here are a couple of questions this important racquetball issue raises: how many people play the game a certain way, and ineffectively at that, because they are unwilling to examine the role of temperament in their lives, and, maybe more important, how many people are hampered in this game because of an unwarranted pride produced by that temperament?

Racquetball Diaries-III

2005-08-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Although it is banal to say so, I cannot help but note that racquetball is a game with rules.

Score 15 points before the other guy, and you win the game; win two out of three games, and you win the match; short serves don't count; long serves don't count; somewhat less well known, three-walled serves don't count either; each player is required to give his opponent enough room for a clear shot, etc. And then there is perhaps the most important rule of all: you must hit the front wall with your shot before your ball hits the floor. This last is the cardinal rule of racquetball, the first among equals, at least as regards the formal rules of the game.

The game of racquetball, however, is rarely decided by the application of these largely technical rules. No, the games that count are most often decided by the rules buried in the human heart, the rules of right and wrong, the rules each of us are born with, and know instinctively.

For instance, at the top level of the game, an "A" player can hit a drive serve as fast as 125 miles per hour. The ball is almost a blur, and in most cases is less than an inch in bounds, or "good." As another example, because the court is fairly narrow, there is, in any given match, any number of chances one has to hit one's opponent with the ball, or to hinder one's opponent from a kill shot. In each of these instances, a player is at the mercy of his opponent, or more precisely, that opponent's sense of fair play.

When down in the match, perhaps with a beer or something more on the line if you lose, it is tempting to call a ball short when it is good. It is tempting to drill somebody in the back of the leg and use a break in the action to catch your breath. The only thing that makes a racquetball game go is that most players do not routinely do this.

Why not, you ask?

Something in their hearts tells them it is just not right to play the game that way.

Racquetball Diaries-II

2005-08-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

There is no denying that racquetball is mostly a game of physics.

The court is square, and built to exacting dimensions. Unlike golf or tennis, for instance, there is no wind or sunshine involved. Racquetballs and racquets are manufactured to a fairly tight set of standards. Sure, some "brand new" balls break quicker than others, but this too is a function of physics, I presume. Even the sweat on one's hands is a function of physics, as is the degree of slippage on the perfectly flat floors. Yes, there are many ways in which racquetball can be called merely a game of physics.

But a racquetball court does not become interesting until a human being steps onto it. That is when physics takes a back seat to consciousness, so to speak.

Something From Nothing-2

2005-08-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

"And so, from nothing, our universe begins." Bill Bryson, A Short History of Time.

Think about the implications of this statement, which, I believe, is a pithy (and orthodox)summary of the materialist worldview. Slow down for a second. Don't reach for your gun just yet--leave your favorite counterargument in its holster; instead, just think about the implications of that statement: from nothing, our universe begins.

Aristotle always assumed that the universe was timeless, that it really had no beginning. Aquinas assumed Aristotle was right, and further considered that if that universe had a beginning, proving the existence of a creator would actually be too easy, because, if something has a beginning, then surely it had to be created.

According to Bryson, however, the creation of the universe took roughly the same amount of time as the making of a baloney sandwich.

There are those who believe that to speak of "miracles" is to speak as a witch-doctor, and yet, these same individuals would never dream of calling Bryson a witch-doctor. I know this because I used to be one of those people, but, deep down, I never could get comfortable with the notion that from nothing, our universe began.

Racquetball Diaries-I

2005-08-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

Back in what can fairly be described as my athletic glory days, I was something of a racquetball player. I traveled around the country to tournaments, won a decent number of trophies, and even competed in a tournament to determine a national champion--although, in a spirit of full disclosure, my presence in the national tournament was short-lived, and, when one reflects on the scores of that rather brisk opening match, er, ill-advised.

This is a self-serving way of stating that I used to spend a great deal of time on racquetball courts, vanquishing opponents and otherwise delighting in this vigorous, competitive, and selfish zero-sum game. One of my favorite taunts of racquetball buddies used to be: "There is no luck or art to racquetball, it's all just physics and effort." I especially liked that statement as it made me sound rather "smart", it confused--temporarily, at least--the occasional opponent, and, let's be honest here, the comment reflected my basic view of the world: life to me was a matter of physics, and a matter of effort. Period. Anybody who said otherwise was weak or was trying to excuse being a loser.

That was roughly 20 years ago.

Over the past six months, I have taken up racquetball again, and it recently occurred to me that it might be useful to explore this question just a bit further: is racquetball merely a matter of physics and effort?

Influences -III

2005-08-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

"Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him from every side."

He was one of the world's reknowned authorities on English literature, on the faculty of Oxford, of Cambridge, and he was a militant atheist. His name: C.S. Lewis. The quote above is his, and most prescient, at least in my case, because one day, for no obvious reason, I decided to read A.N. Wilson's biography of Lewis. In reading about the life of Lewis, I read about the transformation of a man with a soaring intellect, a person who--when he became curious about religious ideas--decided to read the Hebrew scriptures in Greek, and somebody who would then go on to write some of the most compelling defenses of Christianity of the 20th Century.

Lewis described his conversion as akin to "when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware he is now awake." Wilson's biography may not have "awakened" me per se, but reading about Lewis' life, his pursuit of truth, and his intellectual integrity, well, let's just say my slumber was becoming rather fitful.

Trial

2005-08-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

I will be trying a case over the next couple of weeks, and will be unable to post, even I have the time to do so, which I won't. Being in trial is exceedingly draining, and it is just too difficult to focus on anything else when in trial, which is why I have my doubts about continuing in the lawyer game all that much longer.

In case you're interested, I have updated my Hank Williams post below. Nothing new, just less obviously written in haste, I hope. The break from blogging for a couple of weeks might help with that creeping tendency as well.

The Monastery

2005-08-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

Last week, I told you if anything noteworthy came of my stay at the monastery, I would advise you accordingly.

I have nothing along those lines to report, but I will say this: you do have to admire a group of monks who, in the monastery library, have a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, they apparently "Trust, but verify."

Hank Williams Sr.

2005-08-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

I heard a Hank Williams Sr. song on the way to work this morning, and was reminded of the early days, the days of the storms.

Back in the days of my early teens, when my father's storms were at their worst, he would close down the bars at least two nights per week. In an uncanny and cruel twist of fate, I would normally be asleep until just before his pickup would hit our driveway, just in time to hear him drive up to the house, stumble in the door, and start calling my name.

Unfortunately, it fell to me--as opposed to the other 5 kids-- to tend to my father in the middle of the night. This was another, especially cruel, twist of fate, because it meant, among other things, getting him beers, listening to his ramblings and insults, running interference for my mother (assuming she was sober enough to need interference), and, most acute in my memories, playing for him Hank Williams' Greatest Hits on the record player, each Hit sad, each about three minutes long. After a couple of hours, he usually ran out of gas and fell asleep. I would then try to get some sleep before going to school the next morning.

In a very important way, Hank Williams Sr. got me through these middle of the night episodes. You might even say that he got me through my childhood. Hank's voice could not block out the beatings, but, by focusing on his lyrics, his voice could at least block out some of the insults. Most children of abusive parents will tell you that the insults are far worse than the beatings anyway.

I remember coming home one time on a Saturday night. I was about 17 years old. This was a couple of years after my father's storms had begun to subside; it had been some time since I had been awakened in the middle of the night. As I pulled up to our driveway, a Hank Williams Sr. song came on the radio, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," and I sat in the driveway listening, my mind in that other world, feeling lonesome, feeling like crying. The song still puts me in the mood, even though I am not lonesome and have nothing to cry about.

Without my initially knowing it, my father came up behind me, saw me sitting there, and he listened as well, in the gray darkness. When the song was over and as I got out of my truck, I was startled to see him there. I felt like somebody caught with a dirty magazine in his hand. We locked eyes for just a moment. The rush of adrenaline at being startled combined with the mood the song had created almost caused me to punch him, but I kept myself under control. This is the closest I ever came to hitting my father back.

We walked into the house together. Not a word was said, but we never listened to Hank together again.

Here is a belated thank you to Hank Williams Sr., three minutes long and yes, sort of sad.

Something From Nothing-1

2005-08-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

When I was in the firm grasp of atheism, and especially that muscular form of atheism flavored by the writings of Ayn Rand, a nagging thought occasionally dogged me, the way a sore knee might dog a tennis player: perhaps not enough of a problem to keep me up at night, but at least enough of problem to make me worry about my game, or avoid certain kinds of shots.

The thought that dogged me related to the very first premise of Rand's philosophy, and just about every other naturalistic philosophy: Existence exists. To put this in a less Randian sort of way: Something exists. The big Something, of course, is the totality of the Universe, of which we here on Earth are physically a very small part, but I could never quite grasp how Something could come from Nothing. I understood how my smarter Christian friends solved this dilemma: they said God created the Something. Their internal logic was that a supernatural event was required to explain how Something came from Nothing. I never heard much about how the atheistic converse of this could be so, so I merely put the thought out of my mind, the psychological equivalent of avoiding certain shots to the backhand, in order to protect the bad knee.

Then I met and married somebody who believed in God, and the knee got worse and worse.

Templates

2005-07-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with changes to my Blogger template because, for whatever reason, I have been unable to find a template that provides a clear background with lettering that does not strain my eyes. A good friend of mine recently advised me that many of his pals could trace the slow degradation of their eyesight to reaching the age of 42. Well, I reached that age about a year ago, and sure enough, my eyesight has been going downhill ever since. Thus the experimentation with templates.

More importantly, I wanted to add my favorite Nozick quote to the title of the humble collection of essays, and this new format accommodates the quote much better than the alternatives. The quote in this new template, below my title, is from The Examined Life, one of Nozick's finest books. This weekend, believe it or not, I plan to go to a monastery and spend the night, perhaps to put my money where my mouth is, at least as regards the quote. If anything noteworthy results, I will try to create a post from it.

The goal of this blog has always been to describe the process by which I changed templates, so perhaps it is appropriate that I have once again, well, changed templates.

My Inheritance-II

2005-07-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

My wife and daughter are far across the country vacationing, and, because of a trial setting that requires my presence at work, I have been without them for a few days. Some of you may recognize that the novelty of living alone wears off fairly soon with the passage of time, yet another indication that life does progress, life refuses to become static, and we are not static as we move through life. This is both interesting and exciting.

I took the afternoon off yesterday to "think" about a case I have going to trial in a few weeks. After 18 years of experience in this area, I have found that trial work requires much in the way of attention to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind must be primed, well in advance, in order to offer the freshness and creativity necessary for a worthwhile effort in the courtroom. There is a lot of rote lawyering going on in courtrooms throughout this land because, in my opinion, of short shrift being given to the subconscious mind. My guess is that the same is true for other occupations and professions.

How do I "prime" my subconscious mind? Often, I do so by building stone flowerbeds, other landscaping concoctions made of brick, and the like. I will take an afternoon to engage in such tasks and sure enough, more often than not, a valuable insight about an upcoming case will pop up. An enterprising mental health professional could mine any number of expensive and therapeutic depths in figuring out why it is that I imitate my father's work, however lamely, in order to maximize my creative capacity in my current profession.

Do I really need a trowel or a hammer in my hand to cross-examine effectively?

Today, I made great progress toward a red brick flowerbed, with a pleasant little waterfall standing watch, like a sentinel, over the flowers. This flowerbed, under some theory no doubt, is a monument to my father and a monument to my professional vanity.

Maybe so, but the fact that I have the skills to build them is a welcome portion of my inheritance as well.

Influences-II

2005-07-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

He is 80 years old, and he still works six days a week. He is a voracious reader and learner. Even today, he is compiling a folder of "foreignisms" that he can use to broaden his vocabulary. He has an MBA from Harvard, but you would have to press him hard to learn that he shared classrooms with Warren Buffet. His knowledge and understanding of the Civil War is only surpassed by his knowledge and understanding of World War II, a war he volunteered to fight, a war that ended before he got his chance.

He very humbly believes in God.

He is the man who stepped into the footsteps of my father. His daughter became my wife.

A few years ago, he collapsed on a business trip and was rushed to the hospital. He was in a city four hours away when this happened, and we (my wife, her mom, and me) piled into a van to drive across our state to see him one last time before he died--or so that is what the doctors told us we would be doing. When we saw him that evening, he was in intensive care, dozens of tubes running in and out of him, some contraption doing his breathing for him. The doctors told us we would be lucky if we made it the night. When it was appropriate for me to do so, I went in to see him alone, to thank him for being my father, my chosen father. I may as well have been talking to a corpse.

A few minutes later, my wife and I offered heartfelt prayers to God to save him. I believe this was the purest prayer I have ever offered to God. Within moments, the doctors came to tell us he was reviving, within hours he was slowly regaining conciousness, and within days, the ICU medical staff was calling him the Miracle Man.

I am not attempting to draw theological conclusions from this--I am simply recounting facts, trying to recount them straight, and trying to indicate the influence of this wonderful man's life.

Influences-I

2005-07-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

He is now a cancer doctor, and he believes in God. He always has.

He is a gentle and a generous spirit. He always has been this way. His work ethic is prodigious, as is his devotion to family. He has street smarts and he has book smarts. When he walks into a room, he exudes a quiet confidence, and others are drawn to him because he is one of those fortunate souls who is clearly without guile. When you talk to him about his worldview, or his belief in God, he is humble, but there is little doubt he is a thinker. The fact that he is a healer--the fact that his occupation is to keep people from dying or relieve their pain as they die--well, that makes him all the more remarkable.

He was nurse long before he was a doctor. He was my best friend long before he was a nurse. None of these labels have changed him. He is the person I alluded to here, the person who convinced me to take college entrance exams, and, as it turned out, we were about the only people from our high school to go to college.

He believes in God. He always has.

An Unexpected Pivot-V

2005-07-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

The next time I saw her was at the wedding, while we were standing in line during the obligatory picture-taking ordeal. We made eye contact from about 30 feet away and I winked at her, quite by impulse. She was startled, and sort of flinched. She looked like somebody had just been hit in the face a tiny splash of warm water. But she did manage a wink back.

We didn't talk during the prewedding or wedding ceremonies, but I tracked her down at the reception. She asked me why I left rehearsal dinner so early, and we made small talk. I told her I knew she was "sort of" seeing somebody in her hometown, and I asked her why she would ever want to settle for anybody that wasn't good enough for her. I told her she should not "settle" for anything in life. She flinched at that one too, as though somebody had just hit her in the face with splash of cold water.

Before she had a chance to respond, I asked her to dance. This incident happened at the punch bowl, which now, in family lore, has come to be known as the "punchbowl incident." After a very pleasant slow dance, we sat and talked some more, but I was growing more and more frustrated at the thought of her leaving the next morning. After awhile, and again quite by impulse, I just decided to go home. I walked up to her as she was sitting, talking with somebody at one of the head tables, and told her I was going home. I told I really had enjoyed meeting her.

I then kissed her on the forehead, and without allowing her to say anything, turned and walked away, across the dance floor, feeling sorry for myself with every step. Just as I reached the edge of the dance floor, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Almost a year later, we were walking down the aisle together again.

An Unexpected Pivot-IV

2005-07-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

I managed to parlay my superficial knowledge of Shelley into a substantive and sustained conversation, and we ended up sitting through the dinner together. We talked about our love of books, my plans to go to graduate school for that elusive PhD in philosophy, and we talked about her hometown, which was about as far away from where I lived as it could possibly be, at least 3,000 miles.

The entire time we talked I was saddened by the fact that I had just met this woman and that she would be leaving town in roughly 36 hours, the morning after the wedding. Nevertheless, I made what, in hindsight, was a tactically sound decision: I wasn't going to slobber all over her; it was clear that she had had enough of that behavior from most of the other schleps she had met, and I wasn't about to jump in that line. We talked for over an hour, had a pleasant time, and that was it, more or less. Although I had the sense that perhaps she too was smitten, I took my chips and went home for the night.

The next day, the day of the wedding, called for a different, more aggressive approach.

An Unexpected Pivot-III

2005-07-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

It turns out that by the time I had actually met the mystery friend I have described above and later married, she had been forewarned to be wary of me, not because I was some kind of womanizer (I was not), but because I was opinionated, atheistic, etc.

I very briefly met her in a crowded restaurant the day before the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but it was not until the rehearsal that I got a good look at her, or that we spent any time with one another. I still can recall jabbering with my fellow groomsmen and seeing her walk into the church that evening. I had the same "holy shit" reaction that, apparently, no small contingent of other men had been having while she was in town. After seeing her go inside the church, I made an excuse to get in the church and get another look at her, while attempting to avoid the appearance of a stalker.

It turned out that we were third in line in the wedding procession, which meant that we walked down the aisle together during the rehearsal. After pulling this maneuver off without any obvious hiccups, we then talked for the first time. We briefly made some small talk about her vacation, her impressions of our town, etc., before we were pulled away to some other component of the rehearsal.

I was smitten, but tried not to show it.

She wasn't and didn't.

The rehearsal dinner was a restaurant across town, and, because the wind was at my back on this particular day, we each arrived at the restaurant well ahead of the rest of the crowd. As we stood outside of the banquet room, my first question to her was what her graduate thesis was about.

Her response: why, Percy Bysshe Shelley, of course.

An Unexpected Pivot-II

2005-07-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, the week after I purchased Intellectuals was fairly crowded, and, for reasons I do not recall, I found myself spending a Thursday afternoon helping my soon-to-be-married pal stain his deck. The following weekend was the date of rehearsal dinner and wedding, so my guess is that we were getting his deck ready for some kind of intervening party.

As we were talking, he mentioned that one of fiance's bridesmaids was a mysterious friend who had flown across the country to be in the wedding. He mentioned that she was a green-eyed stunner, "sort of" single, extremely intelligent, and that she had been in town for almost a month already. Because she was completing graduate school, she was not bound by a job or too many formal responsibilities, and was thus able to take an extended vacation. This sounded too good to be true. He also mentioned, however, that men had basically been throwing themselves at her since she the day she had come to town, and that she would be going home the day after the wedding.

This information was news to me, and for reasons obvious to any heterosexual male who has ever been single, these revelations royally pissed me off. I cross-examined my pal as to why I had not been notified of this mysterious friend, why I was learning about her only within days of her departure, why my romantic entanglements were not a higher priority for him, etc. I received no satifactory response, but I knew the answer anyway: the last two friends of his fiance he had introduced me to more or less thought I was, let us be gentle here, an "opinionated, atheistic prick," so what was to be gained by a dating hat trick on this particular issue?

That was about 15 years ago, almost to the day. Today, the "mysterious friend" I have described above shares a picture, with our daughter, on the wall of my office. She is the wife I cherish, a wife I honestly believe I have never deserved. How this came about will be the subject of the posts that follow.

And, if you've come with me this far, you know, at the very least, that I am no longer an atheist.

An Unexpected Pivot- I

2005-07-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

I have one more (arguable) near death type of experience I could relate at this point, but I think I am going to save the telling of that tale, if at all, for a later post. Let's change topics abit and talk about an pivot that came my way, when I least expected it.

Back in the late 80's, while I was single and a recent graduate of law school, one of my favorite pastimes was to spend Sunday nights browsing at bookstores. Having grown up in rural America, and having gone to a public school that, shall we say, was not a exactly a hotbed of new and exciting ideas, the late 80's was a phase where I was trying to catch up on somce basic learning about ideas and history that most people acquire as a matter of course in their pre-college schooling. This approach led to an eclectic course of self-study, which led to a form of serial book-browsing, which led me to a most interesting book.

One Sunday night, I found myself browsing Paul M. Johnson's Intellectuals, a nice little one volume work that had recently been published, with some fanfare. Intellectuals is an overview of the "great thinkers," and examines the question of why so many of the great thinkers' personal lives failed to match up with their public pronouncements. I had read some of Paul Johnson's other works, and his thesis matched my general view that many of the intellectual "do-gooder" types were misguided, at best, and shysters, at worst. I looked forward to reading the book, but was in trial that following week, was a groomsman in a good friend's wedding later in the week, and was otherwise too busy to read but a single chapter of the book.

The single chapter I read that week regarded a certain Percy Bysshe Shelley, a romantic poet about whom I knew very little. I don't recall why I decided to read the chapter on Shelley, but, in one of those interesting twists of fate that sometimes await if we are paying attention, the purchase of this book--and my quite accidental decision to read the chapter on Shelley--significantly and unexpectedly changed the direction of my life.

Near Death-Part V

2005-07-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

As we got our bearings after waking up, we heard a noise outside the tent. I looked out to see a climber crawling through the snow toward our tent. We helped him into the tent, and it was clear that he was in pretty bad shape. He was either a Swede or a German. His hands were frozen, his face was far too red, and he was disoriented.

Our climbing guide told me to allow him to put his hands on my bare chest, to help him avoid frostbite, and that's what I did. Others in our group packed up our gear to sprint down the mountain before another storm hit. As the German climber's hands started to thaw abit, he looked in my eyes and said, just a little too loudly: "Welcome to Hell." I couldn't disagree with his sentiments.

We took off down the mountain, picking up a couple of other stragglers who had gotten it much worse from the previous night's storm than we had. We made it back down to 14,000 and dropped off the injured and battered at the medical station. We gathered up the rest of our team and kept booking down the mountain, relentlessly trying to get down to base camp before darkness came. It took almost 20 hours, but we descended the roughly 12,000 feet down the mountain, and set up camp at the base camp level of 6,000 feet. The last one hundred yards were uphill, and my steps were about six inches at a time.

The next morning, a small engine airplane came to pick us up. The plane required two trips: four climbers and their gear, per trip. Our group went second. The brief ride required the navigation of a fairly narrow pass, and, with strong winds knocking the plane around pretty good, had I not been completely exhausted and still in a fair degree of shock, it would have rattled me much more than it did. By the time we landed in Talkeetna, Alaska, our fellow climbers had warmed the bar stools at the local saloon and we were, in short order, celebrating our survival.

I had eaten two massive cheeseburgers and knocked back four straight beers when somebody rushed into the saloon to give us the news: the plane that had dropped us off, on its return trip to Denali, had crashed at the pass, apparently thrown onto the mountains by the strong winds. Rescue helicopters were being sent and they could be heard in the distance.

I sat at the bar, put my head on forearms, shut my eyes and thought about the previous three weeks. The whole thing had become overwhelming.

I lifted my head and I ordered another beer.

Near Death-Part IV

2005-06-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

We had spent almost three weeks climbing Mt. McKinley and were at a fork in the mountain, so to speak.

About half of our party decided to stay at the Camp at 14,000 feet, and the other half, including me, decided to make a run for the summit. We would need to camp at about 16,000 feet for one night, and then move up to a camp somewhere around 17,500. The next day, I spent my 28th birthday on a narrow cut of the mountain, above the clouds, enjoying the pleasant feel of the sun, resting up for a swipe at the summit, and feeling like I had the world by the balls.

The next evening, we almost died in a snowstorm just below the summit of Denali. The storm hit without much notice, and we barely had time to get our tents pitched. At one point, the wind blew so hard that it literally picked me up off the ground such that my body was parallel to the ground, and, for an instant, I did the mountaineering equivalent of levitation.

We finally got our tent up, climbed inside, and tried to ride out the storm. Already exhausted by having spent three weeks on the mountain, sunburned from the altitude and exposure, and now shoehorned into a tent, we braced ourselves for each new breath of the storm. After a time, the storm became rhythmic, with winds bearing down on us, pounding the tent, and then letting up, pounding the tent and then letting up, etc. Each time the winds pounded the tent, we would put arms up to guard against the force of the wind, hoping the seams of the tent would hold, and knowing that, if the seams snapped, we would be caught inside with no protection from the storm, 3,000 feet above the nearest medical assistance.

After a couple of hours of this we were emotionally spent, arm-weary, and just plain out of gas. I remember thinking that if I survived this ordeal, I would never step foot on a mountain again. I remember thinking how I really didn't have the world by the balls anymore. I remember thinking how stupid it was to have put myself in this position. I remember thinking what a foolish death this was going to be, and I remember giving in to exhaustion, because I just couldn't hang on any longer.

We awoke a few hours later to learn that the storm had passed, our tent had held, and we were still alive and kicking.

We then proceeded to get the hell off that mountain. And that is when some of the real fun began.

My Inheritance-I

2005-06-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was putting together a workbench for my newly reorganized garage. While laboring in the 100+ degree heat, I noticed, near the very end of the project, that I had put a drawer handle on backwards. I stepped back from the workbench, eyeballed the handle, and was tempted to leave it that way, my mind half-formulating the excuse of "who will notice the difference," or something to that effect.

Just then, I thought of my father, as I often do in contexts such as this. I thought of how, so many times while growing up--whether while finishing concrete or finishing a project--he drilled into my head the importance of doing things the right way. He may have his share of faults, some of which I have already recounted here, but doing things "half-assed" was not one of them. For about 10-12 seconds, my temptation to cut a corner did battle with the lesson of my father, and the lesson won out, at least on this occasion. I wiped away some sweat and spent an extra fifteen minutes taking the handle off and putting it on the right way.

My father died more or less broke, but not without providing his children an inheritance. When I open the drawer of my workbench, I am reminded of a portion of that inheritance.

Crime and Sentencing

2005-06-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

After his conviction, my client's sentencing occurred during the summer. His sentencing hearing was a quite the community event. The hearing lasted the better part of a day, and the judge ruled that he would spend less than half of the years in prison than the maximum sentence called for; in the lawyer game, this was quite a victory for him.

In the "human being" game, however, he was still going to spend at least 40 years behind bars. Of course, his victim would spend the rest of his life being dead, but that is not a perspective that comes easy on the day of sentencing.

After the hearing, he was led away in handcuffs, and a crowd had gathered forming a courthouse version of the "red carpet" lines you see in connection with those asinine Hollywood events. Many of the people involved had known my client since he was a boy. His mother and sisters were in the line, out of control and crying without restraint, knowing that they would not see him again for a very long time.

This courthouse was within 300 yards of the Pacific Ocean. That afternoon, the breezes brought the strong smell of the sea to the courthouse, the smell you catch if you take a charter boat fishing, and the sun seemed especially bright. As the troopers led my handcuffed client from the courthouse to the police van, I heard a mixture of jeers, the high-pitched cries of his family, and the bellowing of sea walruses in the background. He was loaded into the van and, as it began to pull away, his mother and sisters ran alongside it, pounding its side with their helpless hands, eventually falling to the ground, their heads in those helpless hands, their cries and their pain drowning out even the walruses.

After hugging his family and decamping from the courthouse, I went down to the water's edge to see the walruses some fifty feet below, lounging in the sun. I tried to get my breath and my wits back. The walruses didn't seem to care about the drama up above, and I couldn't help but wonder if God cared about the drama down below.

I heard the vague sounds of a plane overhead, the plane carrying my client to the state penitentiary, and I thought about how interesting it is to be alive on this earth.

Crime and Punishment

2005-06-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

Show me a lawyer that has defended a man charged with murder, and I will show you somebody who likely has grave doubts about the death penalty, but not for the reasons you might think.

Although I am a former prosecutor, I have also defended alleged murderers, at trial. One anecdote serves to demonstrate why I am against the death penalty. This particular case I defended played out in one of the most remote regions of the country, and one of the coldest. On about the third day of trial, I awoke from a very little bit of fitful sleep, ate part of a breakfast bar, and prepared (again) my cross-examination of one of the lead investigators in the case. Satisfied that I would be able to score about 3-4 major points on the cross without inflicting any major damage to my client's defense, I set out from my hotel room to make the 3/4 mile trek to the courthouse.

There was about two feet of fresh snow on the ground, and I would guess that wind chill factor on that morning was in the neighborhood of 20 below zero. As I took the uphill slant from my hotel to the courthouse, two full briefcases gripped in frozen hands, ready to puke from the pressure of having a man's life in my clutch as well, I looked to my left to see the prosecutor's caravan pressing toward the courthouse. A freshly painted snowplow forged a path for the caravan to the courthouse: a nice, clean and straight path; a path that whose side-effect was to add more snow to my path; a path, you might say, forged by the brute force of The State.

My opponent the prosecutor was a good man, as was most of his team. He was sitting in the shotgun seat of a pleasingly warm police SUV, two investigators in tow, state-owned audio visual equipment in stowage area. I remember this well because that same audio-visual equipment would deliver the knife through the heart of my client that day, a knife that played his "confession" to the jury. As I put my head down and plowed ahead in my own fashion, I took another glance at the prosecutor.

He smiled wryly my way and nodded ever so slightly, perhaps sensing that he too was in the midst of a metaphor.

Ballet

2005-06-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

I sat in our living room, watching our four year old daughter in her ballet outfit, twirling and "dancing," so excited to be starting her first ballet class the next day.

I studied the look on her face, her exuberance and her innocence, her pride in showing me the dancer's costume that she and Mommy had bought that day, her dark brown eyes lit up at full tilt, her life storm-free, at least for now, and I wondered if this all were a dream.

Happy Father's Day

2005-06-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are able, track down your father and wish him Happy Father's Day, even if you don't feel like doing so, even if the old boy doesn't deserve it. There is power in this kind of conciliatory gesture, and that power is love.

My guess is that most of us who have lost our fathers find this day to be somewhat lonely, even those of us who have children. I don't understand it, but this, I think, is as it should be.

Happy Father's Day to all.

Near Death-Part III

2005-06-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

I was stranded in a tree, in the dark of the night, with flood waters raging beneath me.

I could hear the screams of my neighbors' children, children who had been swept away by those same waters, clinging to a picket fence. Screams were good. This meant that they hadn't lost their grips yet. As I stood perched in the tree, I was also concerned for my wife, who had seen me disappear into the flood waters, but who--because it was pitch black out and because flood waters are louder than you might think--was not aware that I had managed to grab onto a branch of tree, just before losing control of my body and being lost to flood oblivion. At least she was on dry ground.

I would learn the next day, when the 100-year flood was the great news of the day, that those not lucky enough to grab onto a tree branch were literally skinned alive by the flood waters, their bodies treated like the the grisly subjects of some profane science experiment.

Another bullet narrowly dodged, thank God. And by the mere bark of the branch of a tree. At least that was my genuine prayer, as the angry waters receded, the children's screams became merely tired shouts, and the firemen came and rescued us.

An Analogy

2005-06-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

If lawyers were doctors, and the human body were the law, I would be the rough equivalent of a toe surgeon, maybe even a mere "pinky" toe surgeon.

Which is a complicated way of saying that I practice in a very specialized, narrow area of the law: I defend employers against sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits, and, unlike 99% of the rest of the lawyer population, I actually try such cases before juries. (On a side note, if you long for "almost-piss-your-pants-legs-like-jelly" experiences in life, don't sheep hunt in Alaska, go to law school and become a trial lawyer).

I bring this up to point to an interesting parallel between faith and the law. For instance, in the area of sexual harassment, to have an actionable claim, a plaintiff must subjectively believe she was harassed, and the environment about which she complains must be objectively hostile, i.e., the environment must be considered hostile by a "reasonable person." There is a personal component involved, but there is a reasonable component involved.

I believe faith is a combination of these elements as well, but, too often, discussions of "faith" blend these elements, and the result is a mishmash of competing and unhelpful points and counterpoints. Thus far in this blog, and to the slight extent in which I have focused on my personal faith, I have focused on the subjective component of this distinction because, frankly, I am not well educated enough to be a professional apologist for the Christian faith. Others are, however, and there is no point in my treading over that ground on these pages. Suffice it to say that I have found the "arguments" for the Christian faith to be objectively reasonable, even compelling.

Would I have found these same arguments compelling in the absence of the subjective experiences told and not yet told on these pages? I honestly cannot say. We only get to live one life on earth, and, unfortunately, life has to be lived in chronological order, without knowledge of how the plot turns out. None of us are the same person we were a year ago, and none of us will remain the same person we are today one year from now. Our subjective experiences, and (more importantly) their cumulative effect are part and parcel of who are at the only point in time that really matters, i.e., the present.

Would I have found these same arguments compelling in the absence of the subjective experiences told and not yet told on these pages?

Not to be too cute about it, but you might say the jury is still out on this question.

Near Death-Part II

2005-06-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was sheep hunting in the mountains of Alaska about 16-17 years ago. Sheep hunting in Alaska is a thrill, if you like killing animals, but you also need to like mountain climbing. I had about enough killing of animals growing up in rural Michigan, but I wasn't yet tired of mountain climbing, so I found myself on a guided hunting trip, on some jagged 4,000 footers, looking to get some blood on my hands.

Across a valley, I shot "full-curl" dall sheep from about 200 yards, once through the heart. I was in the process of climbing down one mountain to climb the mountain on which the sheep was laying dead, no more than twenty feet from where I shot him. As I was traversing down the mountain, my feet slipped out from under me and I fell straight down the mountain, feet first, for about 3-4 seconds, on a sled of gravel. As I was about to lose control fully, my feet caught a ridge and my entire body stopped at the edge of the ridge. I held on to my rifle but my wide-brimmed Stetson flew off my head, twirling and bouncing down the mountain on the same trajectory as my momentum, a hat without a head or a body.

My legs were jelly, and I nearly pissed my pants, but I managed to climb back to a safe area, where I sat and tried to get my heart to calm down. I looked at the path my hat took down the mountain, relieved that, for some reason, my body had stopped short of that same path.

No distinct voices or feelings on this day, and no warnings or premonitions. Just an odd little brush with the laws of physics and, unfortunately, a damaged, abandoned Stetson.

Near Death-Part I

2005-06-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

I want to leave the lake for a while and talk about something more uplifting, such as the first time I almost died.

I have named this post "Near Death-Part I" because, like the cat we adopted from feline Death Row more than ten years ago, I have found myself in a number of near death scrapes over the years. You might even say I am prone to such scrapes. Such scrapes can be learning experiences, but only if you pay attention.

Those who grow up around water tend to have a healthy respect for water, just like those who grow up around guns tend to have a healthy respect for guns. As you know, I grew up on a lake (there's that lake again...), and learned fairly early on in life to respect deep water and rivers. Which makes more odd the fact that one perfect day almost twenty years ago, on a sandy beach off the shores of Oahu, I found myself surfing for the very first time.

I would like to say that there was a rational reason for me to be "surfing" on a beach deservedly reputed to be one of the most dangerous in Hawaii, one in which persons were routinely rushed to the hospital with nicely suntanned and broken backs, but I can recall no rational reason for this escapade. I was in Hawaii. I had done triathlons in Hawaii, so how hard could surfing be: carpe diem, right? So, there I was, surfing with a buddy, a fellow midwestern travellor likewise unable to find his ass with both hands, at least as regarded the nuances and the dangers of the Pacific Ocean.

My pal had given up after a few tries. I was still working at it, with minor success. I was tired in short order, and starting to get frustrated, so I just rested on the board for a few minutes. I saw a huge wave coming and--this may be the point of the story--a very distinct feeling came over me to look back on my friend, who was on the beach. As I turned around, I could see him screaming and waiving his arms, pointing to the right. I looked in the direction he pointed. And there I saw an outcropping of coral reef, no less than 10-12 feet from my board, looking like giant pinecones the size of volkswagons . I panicked, took another look at the wave bearing down on me, and managed to paddle about three strokes away before the wave hit me. Before it hit me hard.

I might have done a full somersault under water before hitting the tip of the first volkswagon, which nearly impaled me, just above the belly button. I blacked out momentarily and the momentum of the wave gave me one more knock, leaving me prone on the floor of the ocean. I was then in about six feet of water, and managed to stumble to the shoreline, stomach bleeding and stinging from the saltwater, my considerable pride momentarily in tatters, and the real Hawaiins on the beach shaking their heads at me, muttering in disgust.

I had barely missed the worst of the pinecones. If my forehead, rather than my belly button, had hit the reef, I would have been very dead for a very, very long time. If I hadn't had a distinct feeling that I needed to look back at my friend, well... we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, would we?

The philospher Robert Nozick--one of my favorities, we will discuss him often in these pages-- says that what we think of as "faith" is really not "faith in God," but "faith" in our reactions to our deepest experiences, or the signal events from our lives. Applied to the event I have described, the question raised by Nozick's point might be: did I hear a distinct voice, or did I hear (merely) the barely audible shout of my pal on the beach that day? Under the circumstances of that day, this is a significant question, is it not?

As we walked away from the beach that day, at a time in my life in which the notion of distinct feelings of this kind seemed absurd, I was distinctly more rattled by the sudden, unmistakable urge to look back toward my friend than the scrape with death itself. In this sense, the wounds on my stomach and the scars they later became were the beginnings of spiritual wounds, and then spiritual scars.

An Unexpected Delight

2005-06-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Today, as I drove to work, I was reminded of one of those rare, unexpected delights we sometimes encounter in our lives.

A number of years ago, my companion and I were walking on a London street, having spent the afternoon in one its world-famous museums. As we talked, we approached an Anglican Church, and I thought I heard something of interest. "Shh. Listen to that," I said. Somewhere over the ivy walls of the courtyard of the church, somebody was singing something from an opera. We focused our ears. It was clearly a live performance or rehearsal of some kind.

We walked around the courtyard walls, and pushed open a wrought iron gate, its creak the announcement of our arrival. Under a shaded tree, a young lady was practicing something from Puccini's Turandot, one of the broken-hearted arias. Two others were sitting in the courtyard, listening and enjoying, with thankful looks on their faces, undoubtedly similar to ours. As the young lady again caught her stride, she nodded to us with a "go ahead, sit down, you are welcome" type of look. The acoustics of the setting were extrordinary, the sky was clear, the ivy was green, and we sat and listened and enjoyed the performance for probably half an hour.

That is how my brand new wife and I spent a delightful time in London, on the second day of our honeymoon, listening to an unexpected wedding gift.

Johnnie B-A Postscript

2005-06-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

On the things that count, sometimes what we think of as procrastination is simply our subconscious mind telling us to "slow down," that we're not ready for the event just yet. There is a lot that goes on in the back of our heads, some of it we control and some of we don't, some of it we are aware of, some of it we are not.

In any event, it took me a while to screw up my courage to head back to Michigan. I knew my meeting with Johnnie B. had the potential of being fairly traumatic, so I procrastinated, I made some excuses, and I let the whole issue percolate in the back of my head.

About six months after my brother's comments, I went back to Michigan for a weekend, with the ostensible purpose of seeing my family again. On a Saturday morning, I took a ride over to the City Union Mission area to look for Johnnie B. The first pass by, I couldn't pull in the parking lot. Instead, I stalled, driving around the several blocks surrounding the Mission. Nobody fit the bill. I went to the local Quik Mart, where my brother told me Johnnie liked to perch, and eyeballed a homeless man. He clearly thought I was a cop and sauntered away as fast as he could, shooting me a "don't bother" look. I said "Hey Johnnie." No response, still no luck.

I decided to go the Mission itself. The Mission was a well manicured two story building, plopped in the middle of a No Man's Land type of neighborhood. It was an incongruous building, with the same effect on the senses that a nicely set picnic table might have in a garbage dump. I sat in my rented car in the parking lot, scrutinizing the occasional straggler to see if I could recognize Johnnie.

After about twenty minutes, I decided to go in and ask for him. I wasn't sure what to say to him--and, even with closing arguments in front of juries, I have never been a fan of scripts. I knew I was going to figure out a way to thank him, and, after that, I was going to roll with the punches. As I walked in, the place looked and smelled clean. A very pleasant, pious looking young man came to a counter to ask if he could help me. Over his shoulder was a simple frame suspending the verse from the Old Testament, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Trying to sound as casual as possible, I asked, "Do you have somebody by the name of Johnnie B. who stays here?"

He winced and then he sort of smiled. "Johnnie is no longer with us. He passed away about two months ago." Silence, and as my mind raced about what to say next, a twinkle came to his eye. "He was with us for a long time, and then he turned up missing for awhile. Quite a character, Johnnie. I hear he died in his sleep." He might of said something else, but I turned and walked out the door. I didn't trust my voice at that point.

Johnnie told me once to never worry about the things you can't control, and perhaps, just perhaps, I was not yet ready to go back with him to the lake and the end of that dock so very long ago. An interesting life cannot help but be a life with some regrets--I suspect that is part of the bargain. I know it is a bargain I would take every time.

I know I will always regret having failed to take the opportunity to thank my friend Johnnie B., but I suspect he doesn't mind.

Johnnie B-Part Three

2005-06-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

A few years back, I was on a visit home to see the family in Michigan, and, almost in passing, I asked my brother if he had heard of or seen Johnnie B. lately. He looked at me hard, as if to suggest that I was playing with his head by merely asking the question. Once he decided I was serious, he let me know that Johnnie B. had been "a Skid Row bum" for as long as he could remember. "We just drove by his favorite haunt yesterday, that Quik Mart down by the City Union Mission," he said. "You wouldn't even recognize him if you saw him. A real shame."

I made a mental note of this information, shaking my head about how interesting life can be at times. That evening, I went for a ride around the area my brother described. I had no agenda but to simply get a glimpse of him, if possible. No luck.

The next afternoon, I flew home to my most pleasant, adopted hometown in a first class seat. I knew my loving wife and perfect daughter were waiting for me in our idyllic home, a home planted in a neighborhood that sits on the corner (the "poorest" corner, mind you) of one of the wealthiest square miles of housing in the country. I thought long and hard about the irony that I was having a drink I did not need while traveling home to such a setting, while Johnnie B. was living near a City Union Mission, roaming the streets begging for money, hoping to calm his own storms.

I arrived home and I told my wife about the trip. I told her in detail, for the first time, about that morning out on the dock many years ago. I told her about Johnnie B's advice, advice she recognized as one of the oft-repeated mantras of my worldview.

"You need to go find him and thank him for what he did," she said. I knew she was right. So that's what I decided I would some day do.

Johnnie B-Part Two

2005-06-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

"Don't worry about things you can't control."

I was kneeling at the end of our dock, looking through the clear lake water at the muddy surface below. A swarm of sunfish and their ugly cousins, the blue gill, were likely hiding under our dock, and my mind was in a daze. I was probably about twelve years old, and had been crying. The evening before had been rough, with my dad and Johnnie B. out drinking even later than usual, and drinking whiskey at that. Because among the six kids I was my father's pet, I usually bore the brunt of such occasions, a brunt usually administered at about 2:30 in the morning. The worst things tend to happen to children in alcoholic families at about 2:30 in the morning because, you see, that is about half an hour after the bars close.

"Don't worry about things you can't control." Johnnie B. touched my shoulder. He had witnessed my father's actions, one of the first and only times I had been beaten in front of somebody outside the family.

On the lake, Johnnie B. was the closest thing we had to a celebrity. His dad was a lawyer. He had been to college for awhile. He was handsome, he was witty, and at the age of twenty three or twenty four, he too was already an alcoholic. During a short lived phase in which his dad went on the wagon, Johnnie B. stepped into the breach with my father. They would "two track" together, they deer hunted together, and they closed down bars together. They became so close that Johnnie B. even tried to work with my dad for awhile. He tried his hand at "mixing mud," the lowliest of the masonry tasks, the task most akin to being a slave, but he only lasted a week. Too much pressure, too intense, I remember him laughing and saying. It may have been the last job he had.

On this particular morning, he snuck up on me while I wasn't expecting it, and he hit me with a piece of advice before I could get my guard up. His simple advice was so penetrating that, even today, thinking back on that instant, I can remember what the lake smelled like that morning. I wish I had better tools to describe the effect it had on me, but the feeling was something like "well I'll be goddamned, he's right."

After that most significant of mornings, when the storms came again, I was able to weather them with the detachment of a narrator, because I knew there was nothing I could do to change things, short of getting the hell out of that house and away from that lake.

Johnnie B-Part One

2005-06-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

If you've come this far with me, you may be wondering how I got it in my head to become a lawyer. I have often wondered the same thing, believe me. Like many decisions we make in life, the choice of a career is sometimes a combination of luck, false expectations, and momentum. I would say that combination was strongly at work in this instance as well.

My father had any number of faults, some of which I will continue to recount on these pages. He was not, however, willing to accept mediocrity of any kind, and this intensity was manifest in the masonry work that he did. More than a few times, mostly while half in the bag, he would lament to me that "I might only be a stone mason, but I'm the best .... stone mason around"--colorful adjective elements omitted. This boast was true. My father was also a man of very high intelligence, and smart people like to be around this most difficult man. He could, for instance, solve complex mathematical problems in his head, and his memory was remarkable.

Because of his reputation and the way he executed his craft, my father would sometimes be hired by cottage people or their typically more repugnant brethren, the cottage dwellers who became permanent lake residents. Normally, these individuals would have him build a stone fireplace, a brick retaining wall, or perhaps have him pour them a driveway. On such projects, I would help, especially in the summer.

One such customer happened to be a lawyer, and a fellow alcoholic, by the name of John B. John B. too was an ornery German, nose shaped like an old, undersized pear, and eyes, as my dad would say, that looked "like two pissholes in a snowbank." The expressions on his face, to paraphrase Graham Greene, resembled the painful reopening of a wound.

One stone fireplace later, and my father was comfortable around John B. One poured driveway later, and John B. had his respect. One deer season later, and the two had become drinking buddies. As a 10-11 year old, I would sit and listen to my father and John B., while drunk and while sober, while discussing work and while deerhunting, and many times while riding around the wooded roads in John B's cadillac or the old man's pickup. At that time, John B. was the only lawyer I had ever met, and almost certainly the only college graduate as well. John B. was about half as smart as my father, as far as I could tell. Somewhere on one of those rides, I decided if John B. could be a lawyer, so could I. It is a fair guess that if John B. had been a doctor, I may well be a doctor today.

You could say John B. was my inspiration to become a lawyer, but that would only be about half right. I can honestly say that it was his son, Johnnie B.--a second generation, ne'r-do-well rich kid--who did so with a single piece of advice, advice I have carried in my hip pocket over the years in many different contexts, a profound piece of advice I find myself routinely applying, even to this day.

Sailing-A Postscript

2005-06-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

No less than four years after the conversation I recounted with my dad above, he was dead from lung cancer, at the age 52.

Because he was an ornery German, and because he possessed a durable constitution hardened by finishing concrete and laying brick his entire adult life, he was able to fight the disease off for the better part of three years. The doctors said that his ability to withstand the ravages of cancer was something of a miracle.

During the pendancy of his cancer, the old man sort of got used to my being a "college boy." I was putting myself through college out of necessity, only slightly less so from pride. There was no way I would have let him pay any money to help, even if he had money to help, so he was on the sidelines of the game whether he liked it or not. Once he figured out that I wasn't going to be a freshman dropout (something he had done once he "knocked up" my mother with what turned out to be my oldest sister), and once he got over my joining the Marine Corps, we actually became fairly close in his waning days.

On a cold day in December I took a greyhound bus home from college to visit him at the hospital. It was the consensus of the family clan that this stint at the hospital might be his last. Upon seeing him when I walked in, hair fallen out and a mere shadow of the former shadow he had become, it looked like the family was right. After small talk and mostly awkward silences, I was able to tell my father that I had been accepted into one of the top law schools in the country. He was speechless, a combination of exhaustion and, I think, surprise.

It became time to leave. We shook hands. His hands still had the same familiar callouses, callouses from a life of hard work, a life of hard work with one's hands. We hugged. As I was walking out of his room, I heard over my shoulder his pet name for me in a raspy, urgent voice. I turned to see my father smiling at me, thumb pointed upward and toward me in the gesture of "good work, boy." It was a long greyhound ride back to college.

Fittingly, perhaps, what I have described is the final image I have of my father. His funeral was a few days later.

Sailing-Part II

2005-06-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

The boat turned out pretty nice, and I taught myself to sail it that fall. The next couple of summers I managed to plug most of the recurring leaks, dyed the sails a bright yellow, and even gave the boat a charming name. She looked good parked at a buoy at the end of our dock, especially at sunset, but as I got older and busier, I rarely went sailing.

The fall of my senior year of high school I had a decision to make. Because a good friend had essentially drug me with him to the test center, I had taken college entrance exams. None of the other kids in my family had gone to college, my parents had not gone to college, and, with the exception of my friend mentioned above, almost nobody went to college from my high school. Lake urchins were not expected to go to college. In my family, they were expected to work in the family "business." I had received my scores, which were good enough to get into a good university, and it was, to use an apt bit of ruralese, time to figure out where the "bear shits in the buckwheat" if I was going to get applications in on time.

I came home from school one day early to take my sailboat in for the winter. On weekdays, in the fall, the lake was essentially empty. This day was a windy, sunny, deeply clear Michigan day, unusually warm. The waters on the lake were a bright blue, and, on a lark, I decided to take the boat out for a go one more time before docking it. As I took her out, the wind immediately snapped the sails into place and the boat was gliding more sweet than I had ever remembered. Within a couple of minutes, the boat seemed to be barely touching the water.

The prevailing winds took me over to the side of the lake where--at least this is the way I considered it then--the "normal" people vacationed, well up the lake's steep banks, in picturesque cottages. As I took the rounded bend with the winds, my old boat actually pulled up on its side and I hung out over its edge, relying upon the ropes of the sails to keep me from dumping me into the cold water. I looked up at the sky. I looked down at the water just below my head. I looked again at the cottages up the hill. The colors on the lake that day were so rich, so deep, so crisp that I knew I was in the middle of a "moment" that really counted. I decided right there that I was going to college. This meant I would leave the lake behind, probably forever.

Sitting at this keyboard 26+ years later, I still recall my mind's eye making a decision that would change the rest of my life. Instead of being a bricklayer, I would become a lawyer. I am thankful for this memory, this recollection of a corner turned.

That evening, I told my parents that I had taken college exams and was going to college the next fall. My dad was belligerent. He asked me what I planned to do with a college degree. I told him I was going to be a lawyer. He laughed in my face, likely recalling the many times while working with him--he was the bricklayer I worked for during summers and vacations over the preceding 8-10 years--he told me I "would never amount to anything."

I said nothing in response. He wasn't going to ruin this particular day.

I never again stepped foot in the sailboat. To my knowledge, the boat was never was put out on the lake again. Over the years, when I would return home from college, from law school, with friends, with my wife, and now even with my young daughter, I would look in on the boat, lifting its tarp the same way an old friend might identify the dead body of an childhood friend. She still sits there today, steadily decaying and rotting away, not unlike the first time I ever laid eyes on her.

On these occasions, I have been asked about restoring the boat rather than letting her die. My response has always been the same. The boat has already served its purpose on this earth. And for that I am thankful as well.

Sailing- Part I

2005-06-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

I don't want things to get too depressing around here, so let me tell you about one of the most exhilarating of the days I spent on the lake. This will take more than one post, so bear with me.

One October day when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I "happened across" an old sailboat in the garage of one of the cottage people that summered on our lake. Remember when Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs finds that unfortunate dead body in a car in the dark building after her meeting with Lector? My actions, while perhaps not quite as dramatic, were similar in that I had heard rumors of a pretty nifty sailboat just sitting and rotting in this garage, and so I managed to find my way into the garage and check it out.

A fall day in October, when all but the permanent residents of the lake had gone home, presented no difficulties for exploring the nooks and crannies of how normal people lived. I found no dead humans in the garage, but instead a stately, if decrepit, body of a sailboat. She looked like she could be brought back to life, so I made a mental note of it.

At the beginning of the next summer, after the cottage people began descending upon the lake to frolic for three months, I worked up the nerve to ask the owners whether they would sell me the boat. They took apparent sympathy on my status as a lake urchin and gave it to me outright. I spent the rest of the summer, in the evenings and on rare "off" days from working as a bricklayer's helper, rehabbing the sailboat. My dad helped me with the project and actually was fairly pleasant during those phases where his storms and his demons were dormant. When we were done with the sailboat, it looked something like this, although I think my boat was somewhat more stout than the boat in the picture.

If you were to visit any of my fancy lawyer's offices over the past 18 years, the only indication you would see of my former lake urchin status would be a small, somewhat faded picture of my finished and refurbished sailboat, sails tucked and folded, at peace while anchored on calm waters, a burnt orange sunset in the background.

The picture serves as a reminder for me of one of the day I decided to leave the lake behind, a day I will describe in my next post.

Shame

2005-06-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I met a most interesting individual on the racquetball court, of all places.

I belong to a community center that has a posting of racquetballers and phone numbers for other members to call and arrange games. Quite by happenstance, I happened to call a man to play who, I learned afterward, is a "transformational coach." After duly exchanging pleasantries and playing our match, we talked to each other about our respective trades with the odd ease that comes from being physically exhausted. He explained that, as a transformational coach, his role is to identify the role that negativity plays in his client's life, and then give that client the tools to turn that negativity in a positive direction. In a nutshell, his theory is that each of us has embedded in a sense of "shame" from childhood, and that shame motivates the core of our actions as adults.

I listened intently. Were he not moving out of the country soon, theoretically at least, I would be this guy's dream client.

I don't know what it is like to grow up in a normal American clan, but I can assure you that this man is onto something regarding the familial hand I drew. Those of us who have grown up around alcoholics know something about shame, let me tell you. In the Sticks, there really is no such thing as privacy. For instance, if the old man is slumped in a snowy ditch with his head leaned against the steering wheel of his pickup, while your school bus rides by with the other kids looking out the window and pointing, shame becomes part of the air you breathe. Catch a kid from an alcoholic family past a certain age, and you'll likely find someone who knew shame when shame wasn't cool, before it even had a fancy word like "shame."

Rural America in the 1970's did not offer much in the way of "transformational coaches," but it did offer books. Looking back, I probably owe some consulting fees to James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain.

Memorial Day-2005

2005-05-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever boarded an airplane or left the State of Michigan was as a 19-year old college student heading to Quantico, Virginia, to spend a summer as a "voluntary guest" of the United States Marine Corps. I spent nearly four years in the reserves of the Marines and was honorably discharged after being injured while in training. The day I was discharged was the most disappointing of my life.

Today, may we salute and remember those who served and suffered far worse than mere disappointment. It is trite, but it must be said: we should salute and remember those who paid the ultimate price, and we must not forget their sacrifice. Let us also salute and remember the families of the fallen, whose sacrifice was equally great. Spend thirty seconds thinking about this, or stretch it to thirty minutes, but do try to give thanks to those who went before us.

May God bless each of them and their families.

Rural Lake Beginnings

2005-05-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

If a mile-high snowman were tipped backwards and melted in the hot sun, you would a fair outline of the lake I grew up on.

Place a three bedroom house at the very base of the snowman's feet, plop six kids in the house with their quarrelsome and alcoholic parents, point the windows of the house in a Westerly direction overlooking the panorama of the rest of the lake, and you have a sense of where on the lake we lived. Now take your left hand and hold it away from you, looking at the back of your hand. Envision your hand as a map of the State of Michigan, and place the lake I've described at the base of your left pinky finger. Fifteen miles from the nearest small town in any one direction, you now have yourself a Rural Lake.

One doesn't hear much in the way of romanticism about Rural Lakes, outside of, perhaps, a Hemingway short story. This is for good reason. For now, I will mention only a couple of items about life on a such a lake. First, there are two kinds of people that live the Rural Lake existence: the backwoods equivalent of a townie who lives on the lake all year long, and his counterpart, the spoiled "cottage" dwellers, who come to the lake during the summer and actually enjoy being there. Second, growing up at the Eastern base of a Rural Lake in Michigan is a cold existence, even in the summer, when temperatures reach, at best, the mid-70's. While not precisely akin to the moors of Wuthering Heights, there is nevertheless a certain chill one catches when growing up on such a spot. Some would argue that, once caught, that chill never really goes away.

Finally, on my particular Rural Lake, after the summer people were gone and the storms came in full force, a premium, by necessity, was placed on fending for oneself. I am not alluding here to the weather.

An Amplification

2005-05-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

Every blog must have a name, right?

That said, I would hope that the title of this blog is not taken too literally. Just as I didn't have orange hair as a younger man, I have no present plans to visit a village of lepers in Central Africa anytime soon.

In terms of essentials, I was for some time taken with the Randian worldview, which, even today, is I believe among the most compelling philosophical frames of reference out there. Again, I am not a philosopher, but I cannot help but think about life and the world a great deal, and the Randian view of existence does have the capacity to occupy one's thoughts to the point of excluding alternatives. The Randian worldview wears distinct grooves in one's mind in a way that (I assume) approaches that of a religious cult. More on the details of this later.

In terms of essentials, I think Querry struggles with questions of faith that any honest, reasonably intelligent person has to admit they struggle with too. Here, I am not referring to technical issues (e.g. evolution), but something more akin to temperamental issues, the issues that cause Querry to continue to "rub the sore" of his faith. More on the details of this later as well.

As I think about this tale, it seems to make sense to talk a little bit about where and how it all began. That will be the topic of the next few posts.

Introduction

2005-05-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

I am not an architect, but my spiritual life is, in significant ways, A Tale of Two Architects.

My literary heroes have always been Roark and Query, two architects, crafted by two masters of the writing trade, Ayn Rand and Graham Greene. I stake no claim as a literary critic, but I know that these fictional characters, in terms of essentials, resemble my spiritual development as an adult. I began adulthood as avowed atheist, and today, 25 years later, I have accepted that God came to this earth in human form to redeem mankind, to offer mankind the gift of salvation. The purpose of this blog is, among other things, to recount the path of these developments, and through an honest recounting, explore issues relating to such a transformation.

Perhaps there is something of use to you in tracing this arc along with me.

I am not a philosopher, theologian, or professional writer, so you may have to bear with me abit. I know where the "plot" of this blog starts, and I have a decent feel for where it ends, but recounting twists and turns in the middle looks to be a challenge to both the memory and honesty. As the happy crooner might say, however, we'll "burn that bridge when we come to it."