Anderson, South Carolina
Once a year my small town puts on a great effort, and a most successful one at that, to create a fine destination event. Anderson has become known as a regional hot-air balloon mecca. 250,000 people will make a pilgrimage to visit us each year. What makes a particular town suitable for annual balloon festivals are several variables –favorable weather, suitable launch facilities, a good road infrastructure for chase vehicles, and a sense of hospitality for the hundreds of thousands of people that show up for such events. Especially important is that the balloonists and their crews feel wanted by the townspeople. Some towns actually don’t want them landing in their pastures, fields, or yards. Here, people will actually let their grass and hay grow up a few days before our annual festival so as to be able to mow smiley faces into it and write ‘Land Here’ below them. We just had eighty-five colorful balloons spend four days drifting over our countryside and dropping in unexpectedly to start parties. Hot air balloons are quite the catalysts for spontaneous happy events.
Most of us that live here have learned to listen carefully for the distinctive sound of a balloon’s propane burner. We are quite willing to drop whatever we are doing and join a party. I can be sitting in my closed-up house and instantly know when a balloon is near by. I also enjoy the happy circumstance of having a commercial balloon pilot living five doors down from me. Many mornings I hear Steve’s burners as I am out riding my bike at first light. Sometimes I call him from my cell phone to see ‘What’s up.’
Each year the last evening of our Labor Day balloon festival is given over to an outdoor sunset concert. We enjoy the distinct sounds of our fine community orchestra. 10,000 happy visitors will convene in our grassed amphitheater to hear a couple hours of inspirational, patriotic, and classical music as they dine. Some will eat out of a fast food paper bag. Others will set up something akin to the elaborate digs of a major tailgating. Either way, all enjoy being in a spontaneous community. I struck a middle ground and brought a Styrofoam cooler and fed a number of good friends around me.
As the sun submerges below the horizon, we listen for the familiar pieces played each year along with the special selections picked for the current year’s theme. This year the theme was Star Wars. All of the kids in Anderson County were in the amphitheater with their light sabers, pretending to be Luke Skywalker. I could only wish my childhood had been seasoned with the joyous and colorful memories that were being created before my eyes.
There is nothing like being surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of happy kids enjoying sunset with their friends and families while watching all their favorite images of science fantasy projected with multicolor lasers onto giant scrim sheets and clouds of theater fog. Perhaps the most important images are those of the reality that comes from shared community as the edge of night reveals the spectral wonders of Zambelli fireworks in the ebony of night.
I went home feeling very much a party of life
Friday, September 5, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Midnight Flight
Anderson, South Carolina
I found myself cast into a huge vortex of life today. Our little town has put on what is known as the Midnight Flight for thirty years. These annual midnight road races are held as a benefit for the youth programs at our local YMCA. At 9, 10, and 11 PM waves of thousands of runners will sweep down a four-lane state highway, chasing down endorphin highs and the satisfaction that comes from satisfying a competitive spirit. The YMCA has become a profoundly important part of my life and simply showing up there to exercise is not enough. I need to give something back. I had never been to one of these road races in the past and agreed this year to help out as a volunteer for this event.
The event has turned into nearly a destination. I showed up about 3 PM in the middle of a sultry southern summer afternoon. I was surprised at how elaborate the preparations were for this and how many hundreds of people were involved in setting up the venues. I had expected a couple of folding tables and half a dozen people I would have already known. There were miles of roads that had been cleared and marked. Midways had been set up with kiosks to dispense everything from Avon ointments to ice cream to $110 running shoes to Dansani water, to bags of saffron rice. I never did figure out what saffron rice has to do with road racing but there it was and I did end up with several bags of it. Bandstands were set up. Timing mats with computers were set up in the roads. Digital clocks were placed. Floodlights and generators were installed in many strategic locations. Water stations were placed along six miles of roads. Thousands of sponsor packets were assembled for the registered runners. Rooms were set up to pass out timing chips to keep track of race times. The olive branch long ago yielded to the T-shirt. We had thousands of these to pass out.
I quickly realized I was going to be a small fish in a much bigger pond. Hundreds of people wearing green tee shirts all seemed to be on specific missions and I soon found one of my own, passing out runner’s bibs, sponsor packets, and safety pins to those people with last names starting with J, K, or L. I did this for four hours. So many volunteers showed up that I yield my slot to someone else so she could feel useful and like she was contributing to this explosion of life that was about to take place.
Then about 7 PM all sorts of things started showing up, as if choreographed to maximize the overall experience and intensity of the event. A magnificent sunset erupted in the western sky. Orange and crimson bands streaked across the sky as the edge of night moved towards us at 1000 miles per hour. In the remaining boundaries of day, eighty-five hot air balloons participating in our regional balloon fest chased the winds and became speckled silhouettes in the spectral layers above us. These giant colorful gumdrops dropped down in convenient open locations and dozens of happy little parties erupted at the scattered landing sites.
Then people started showing up. Lots of people. Thousands of people. Happy people. People embracing health and life. People who show up in hot air balloons, chase vehicles, and runner’s nylon are chasing life and dreams. The atmosphere became expansive and vibrant. A fine band fueled the energy of the venue with strands of old classic songs from three decades. Finally six hours after arriving it was time to get down to business.
Runners ranging in age from 6 years to nearly 90 years showed up to exercise dominion over the state highway into town. Hot noisy roads choked with heavy traffic 24/7 had been transformed into a car-free runner’s heaven. I thought of how glorious it would be to be on my bike on that empty ribbon of asphalt. Thousands of on-lookers and well wishers were sharing happy community and anticipation in the once-a-year span of four hours when the combustion engine yields supremacy to the runner’s shoe and.
Happy laughter and eagerness had the runners crowding the timing mats. I found myself recruited by the race timers to stand in front of a thousand runners and keep them four feet back from the edge of the timing mats. I suddenly had visions of the soccer stadiums in Brazil where hundreds are occasionally crushed in stampedes. No tragedies occurred this night. I was given ample time to get out of the way before the starting gun release all this pent-up energy into the night. Three times, waves of families, friends, lovers, dreamers, and competitors swiftly headed into the darkness of the night just out of reach of the arc lamps illuminating the start and finish lines. Suddenly the road emptied of its human potential.
The spectators drifted over to the finish line a few hundred yards away and waited anywhere from 4.5 minutes to 2.0 hours for their favorite athletes to re-emerge from the darkness into the brilliance of victory. Everyone who goes out and does even a short road race in the middle of the night is a winner in my book.
It was 3 AM before the last of the road race infrastructure had been dismantled and the streets re-opened to the combustion engine once again. Some of the YMCA staff had been on site for 22 hours. A lot of tired happy people slept well Friday night.
I went home feeling like I had been caught up in the stream of life. Literally I had.
I found myself cast into a huge vortex of life today. Our little town has put on what is known as the Midnight Flight for thirty years. These annual midnight road races are held as a benefit for the youth programs at our local YMCA. At 9, 10, and 11 PM waves of thousands of runners will sweep down a four-lane state highway, chasing down endorphin highs and the satisfaction that comes from satisfying a competitive spirit. The YMCA has become a profoundly important part of my life and simply showing up there to exercise is not enough. I need to give something back. I had never been to one of these road races in the past and agreed this year to help out as a volunteer for this event.
The event has turned into nearly a destination. I showed up about 3 PM in the middle of a sultry southern summer afternoon. I was surprised at how elaborate the preparations were for this and how many hundreds of people were involved in setting up the venues. I had expected a couple of folding tables and half a dozen people I would have already known. There were miles of roads that had been cleared and marked. Midways had been set up with kiosks to dispense everything from Avon ointments to ice cream to $110 running shoes to Dansani water, to bags of saffron rice. I never did figure out what saffron rice has to do with road racing but there it was and I did end up with several bags of it. Bandstands were set up. Timing mats with computers were set up in the roads. Digital clocks were placed. Floodlights and generators were installed in many strategic locations. Water stations were placed along six miles of roads. Thousands of sponsor packets were assembled for the registered runners. Rooms were set up to pass out timing chips to keep track of race times. The olive branch long ago yielded to the T-shirt. We had thousands of these to pass out.
I quickly realized I was going to be a small fish in a much bigger pond. Hundreds of people wearing green tee shirts all seemed to be on specific missions and I soon found one of my own, passing out runner’s bibs, sponsor packets, and safety pins to those people with last names starting with J, K, or L. I did this for four hours. So many volunteers showed up that I yield my slot to someone else so she could feel useful and like she was contributing to this explosion of life that was about to take place.
Then about 7 PM all sorts of things started showing up, as if choreographed to maximize the overall experience and intensity of the event. A magnificent sunset erupted in the western sky. Orange and crimson bands streaked across the sky as the edge of night moved towards us at 1000 miles per hour. In the remaining boundaries of day, eighty-five hot air balloons participating in our regional balloon fest chased the winds and became speckled silhouettes in the spectral layers above us. These giant colorful gumdrops dropped down in convenient open locations and dozens of happy little parties erupted at the scattered landing sites.
Then people started showing up. Lots of people. Thousands of people. Happy people. People embracing health and life. People who show up in hot air balloons, chase vehicles, and runner’s nylon are chasing life and dreams. The atmosphere became expansive and vibrant. A fine band fueled the energy of the venue with strands of old classic songs from three decades. Finally six hours after arriving it was time to get down to business.
Runners ranging in age from 6 years to nearly 90 years showed up to exercise dominion over the state highway into town. Hot noisy roads choked with heavy traffic 24/7 had been transformed into a car-free runner’s heaven. I thought of how glorious it would be to be on my bike on that empty ribbon of asphalt. Thousands of on-lookers and well wishers were sharing happy community and anticipation in the once-a-year span of four hours when the combustion engine yields supremacy to the runner’s shoe and.
Happy laughter and eagerness had the runners crowding the timing mats. I found myself recruited by the race timers to stand in front of a thousand runners and keep them four feet back from the edge of the timing mats. I suddenly had visions of the soccer stadiums in Brazil where hundreds are occasionally crushed in stampedes. No tragedies occurred this night. I was given ample time to get out of the way before the starting gun release all this pent-up energy into the night. Three times, waves of families, friends, lovers, dreamers, and competitors swiftly headed into the darkness of the night just out of reach of the arc lamps illuminating the start and finish lines. Suddenly the road emptied of its human potential.
The spectators drifted over to the finish line a few hundred yards away and waited anywhere from 4.5 minutes to 2.0 hours for their favorite athletes to re-emerge from the darkness into the brilliance of victory. Everyone who goes out and does even a short road race in the middle of the night is a winner in my book.
It was 3 AM before the last of the road race infrastructure had been dismantled and the streets re-opened to the combustion engine once again. Some of the YMCA staff had been on site for 22 hours. A lot of tired happy people slept well Friday night.
I went home feeling like I had been caught up in the stream of life. Literally I had.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Geography of Miracles
Midtown
Atlanta, Georgia
Can a miracle really be a click away?
With the advent of the Internet, high resolution satellite imaging of the entire world, and with wireless digital communication of all kinds, distance has lost much of its meaning. Gone are the days when it took six months to two years for a letter to be delivered by a ship’s captain to a recipient on the far side of the world. Now it takes but a fraction of a second for a long letter with photos to be sent to a thousand people simultaneously in dozens of countries. The world does seem far smaller than it once did. This week the world felt even smaller to me in a numinous way. Sometimes God works in ways that defy explanation, even by systems network engineers.
For seven years I have been involved in an intercessory prayer project that is found in twenty four countries and as many American states. On Thursday night a large file is e-mailed to me. It contains Christian teachings, answers to prayers, and petitions for new prayer needs. Friday morning after I have edited it, I return it to the sender. On Saturday it is forwarded with photos to people in twenty-four countries. As a result of this prayer network, six hundred children in Kenya are now getting an education that includes safe drinking water, sanitation, solar lighting, and school supplies. Men are gainfully employed cleaning banks and hospitals to augment their meager incomes as ministers. A young gospel singer in South Africa had life saving cancer surgery this week because of this network. A hundred orphans and leprous widows in India eat every day and have clean safe places to live because God is able to send his mercy through this worldwide congregation of intercessors. It goes on this way in twenty-four countries because one person had a vision and reaches out and clicks others a lot, everyday.
A very different kind of Network is to be found in Atlanta, this one also discovered through an Internet link between two of God’s people on the Internet prayer team. Childspring International has special connections in a hundred countries. Children who are born with congenital defects or have experienced catastrophic injuries find their way into this network. It gives these children a real chance at life through the miracle of reconstructive surgery offered to them at no cost. One hundred and fifty children a year come to America to receive extensive treatment and rehabilitation. Airlines, stewardess, hospitals, physicians, and hundreds of volunteers donate their services to bring these miracles to pass for children who have drawn the short straw in life.
An eleven-year-old Bulgarian girl has retino-blastoma and it was only a matter of time before she will have lost all of her eyesight. Attempts at treatment have failed to arrest what is considered a progressive irreversible disease. Some months ago I was asked if I could surf the web and find some kind of facility that might be able to teach Kalina life skills that would enable her to navigate in her growing darkness. I was asked to find one in the southeast United States and if fortunes were really good, perhaps even in Georgia where Childspring has its offices. It is really important to be able to connect host families with these special needs children and a facility here in the southeast would make these logistics much easier. I am in South Carolina so a bit in the dark about what might be in the Atlanta area, if anything. Walgreen’s and CVs build pharmacies on every corner but benefactors don’t put up schools for the visually impaired on every corner, or even in every state. I was not optimistic but kept my thoughts to myself.
Clicking and drilling through the findings Google produced was a bit hopeful. A residential school for the blind turned up in Alabama but it seems that one had to be a resident of the state. Another turned up a couple hundred miles away. Another turned up a thousand miles away and another turned up in Canada. From the web sites it was difficult to determine of these schools could or would provide services to a foreign national and at what cost. Another site turned up after more drilling. The Center for the Visually Impaired turned up on virtual radar. From the web site it was not possible to tell if the Center could help her or would, or at what cost. Further research and contact proved that there would be a good fit for Kalina in this Center. It would also be able to provide Kalina’s services at no cost. There are some incredible benefactors that have made this magnificent program possible. As it turns out this fine facility is located a mere ten blocks from the Childspring offices! I can walk from one office to the other in twenty minutes or less. I started out hoping to find something in the western hemisphere and ended up finding the best possible answer within walking distance. An advertising slogan for the yellow pages says, “Let your fingers do the walking.” In this case the slogan ought to read, “Let your God do the clicking.”
I am in South Carolina and was asked by an agency in another state to find special assistance for a child from Bulgaria. I was asked to see if we could find services in the southeast. She ended up in the neighborhood.
Kalina was able to enter the Center for the Visually Impaired and learn those skills that will be so essential to her having a full and meaningful life. This Center proves to be a premier facility at teaching independence skills to the visually impaired. In fact, this is the primary mission of the facility. Kalina has just lost her remaining vision and she just graduated from this program on Friday, along with fifteen other children who make their life journeys in physical darkness. However, they travel in the brilliance of the love of God and those generous benefactors who made this opportunity possible. I was invited into this sacred space to see the baton of God’s love handed to these children by volunteers and staff that have found a passion that consumes them. Watching this graduation program in the basement of a building in downtown Atlanta was every bit the equal of my awe-inspiring experiences in the great cathedrals of Europe,
If one is uncertain if the world really is a warm friendly place, then one merely needs to visit the Center for the Visually Impaired and watch the volunteer staff work with these children. There really are people in America doing grand things and not getting paid for it with the currency of this realm. They are piling up their treasures in other places.
Atlanta, Georgia
Can a miracle really be a click away?
With the advent of the Internet, high resolution satellite imaging of the entire world, and with wireless digital communication of all kinds, distance has lost much of its meaning. Gone are the days when it took six months to two years for a letter to be delivered by a ship’s captain to a recipient on the far side of the world. Now it takes but a fraction of a second for a long letter with photos to be sent to a thousand people simultaneously in dozens of countries. The world does seem far smaller than it once did. This week the world felt even smaller to me in a numinous way. Sometimes God works in ways that defy explanation, even by systems network engineers.
For seven years I have been involved in an intercessory prayer project that is found in twenty four countries and as many American states. On Thursday night a large file is e-mailed to me. It contains Christian teachings, answers to prayers, and petitions for new prayer needs. Friday morning after I have edited it, I return it to the sender. On Saturday it is forwarded with photos to people in twenty-four countries. As a result of this prayer network, six hundred children in Kenya are now getting an education that includes safe drinking water, sanitation, solar lighting, and school supplies. Men are gainfully employed cleaning banks and hospitals to augment their meager incomes as ministers. A young gospel singer in South Africa had life saving cancer surgery this week because of this network. A hundred orphans and leprous widows in India eat every day and have clean safe places to live because God is able to send his mercy through this worldwide congregation of intercessors. It goes on this way in twenty-four countries because one person had a vision and reaches out and clicks others a lot, everyday.
A very different kind of Network is to be found in Atlanta, this one also discovered through an Internet link between two of God’s people on the Internet prayer team. Childspring International has special connections in a hundred countries. Children who are born with congenital defects or have experienced catastrophic injuries find their way into this network. It gives these children a real chance at life through the miracle of reconstructive surgery offered to them at no cost. One hundred and fifty children a year come to America to receive extensive treatment and rehabilitation. Airlines, stewardess, hospitals, physicians, and hundreds of volunteers donate their services to bring these miracles to pass for children who have drawn the short straw in life.
An eleven-year-old Bulgarian girl has retino-blastoma and it was only a matter of time before she will have lost all of her eyesight. Attempts at treatment have failed to arrest what is considered a progressive irreversible disease. Some months ago I was asked if I could surf the web and find some kind of facility that might be able to teach Kalina life skills that would enable her to navigate in her growing darkness. I was asked to find one in the southeast United States and if fortunes were really good, perhaps even in Georgia where Childspring has its offices. It is really important to be able to connect host families with these special needs children and a facility here in the southeast would make these logistics much easier. I am in South Carolina so a bit in the dark about what might be in the Atlanta area, if anything. Walgreen’s and CVs build pharmacies on every corner but benefactors don’t put up schools for the visually impaired on every corner, or even in every state. I was not optimistic but kept my thoughts to myself.
Clicking and drilling through the findings Google produced was a bit hopeful. A residential school for the blind turned up in Alabama but it seems that one had to be a resident of the state. Another turned up a couple hundred miles away. Another turned up a thousand miles away and another turned up in Canada. From the web sites it was difficult to determine of these schools could or would provide services to a foreign national and at what cost. Another site turned up after more drilling. The Center for the Visually Impaired turned up on virtual radar. From the web site it was not possible to tell if the Center could help her or would, or at what cost. Further research and contact proved that there would be a good fit for Kalina in this Center. It would also be able to provide Kalina’s services at no cost. There are some incredible benefactors that have made this magnificent program possible. As it turns out this fine facility is located a mere ten blocks from the Childspring offices! I can walk from one office to the other in twenty minutes or less. I started out hoping to find something in the western hemisphere and ended up finding the best possible answer within walking distance. An advertising slogan for the yellow pages says, “Let your fingers do the walking.” In this case the slogan ought to read, “Let your God do the clicking.”
I am in South Carolina and was asked by an agency in another state to find special assistance for a child from Bulgaria. I was asked to see if we could find services in the southeast. She ended up in the neighborhood.
Kalina was able to enter the Center for the Visually Impaired and learn those skills that will be so essential to her having a full and meaningful life. This Center proves to be a premier facility at teaching independence skills to the visually impaired. In fact, this is the primary mission of the facility. Kalina has just lost her remaining vision and she just graduated from this program on Friday, along with fifteen other children who make their life journeys in physical darkness. However, they travel in the brilliance of the love of God and those generous benefactors who made this opportunity possible. I was invited into this sacred space to see the baton of God’s love handed to these children by volunteers and staff that have found a passion that consumes them. Watching this graduation program in the basement of a building in downtown Atlanta was every bit the equal of my awe-inspiring experiences in the great cathedrals of Europe,
If one is uncertain if the world really is a warm friendly place, then one merely needs to visit the Center for the Visually Impaired and watch the volunteer staff work with these children. There really are people in America doing grand things and not getting paid for it with the currency of this realm. They are piling up their treasures in other places.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Observer
Cater’s Lake
Anderson, South Carolina
Unseen, I watched you today; not as voyeur, rather as student. You were building childhood, magic, for that little girl you had with you. I thought of Daniel Quinn’s books on community building. You must have read his books. I saw you doing exactly what he said we should do. Every child deserves the full and complete positive attention of one adult. Your child was getting the full loving consideration of an adult. Another adult, a distance learner across the lake, was giving you his full concentration, learning, wondering what it would have been like to have received this attention himself. Your little girl was getting things that technology could never deliver on. You must have also read the works of Thich Nhat Hahn and Eckhart Tolle as well. You were practicing the art of living in the present, in the now. Suddenly I wasn’t worrying about where I need to be or what I needed to be doing.
At your picnic table you gently placed your daughter on the bench, unfolded a napkin before her, and then set out a meal of childhood delights from a fast food bag. Perhaps one of the fastest ways to build a happy contented child is to occasionally feed them their favorite treats from a white bag while seated on the shores of a duck-filled lake, paying attention. Between bites I saw you stand your little one up on the bench and point out the assorted shore birds to her, perhaps even a butterfly in the early morning rays of sunlight filtering down through the mist. I saw a mother carefully building memories into her life that will stand her in good stead in the distant days of her far-off future when she will need them. Unwittingly, this same mother was building important lessons into the present day of the cloudy life of an observer unseen at another table on the far side of her experience.
Each morning I ride my bike to try and get a healthy start to my day, attempting to find a small updraft that can give me a bit of even lift to my uncertain wings. A small lake near my house is about halfway along my route and often I will sit at one of the picnic tables to meditate. So it was today that from my table a teacher presented herself today on the opposite side of the rippling waters. It is but 8 AM and I have already been well instructed in what matters most. Give away that which we value most greatly and it will come back to us. On the way home one of my favorite neighborhood dogs came out to great me.
Today I learned that the world is a safe and generous place, if I look for it to be.
Anderson, South Carolina
Unseen, I watched you today; not as voyeur, rather as student. You were building childhood, magic, for that little girl you had with you. I thought of Daniel Quinn’s books on community building. You must have read his books. I saw you doing exactly what he said we should do. Every child deserves the full and complete positive attention of one adult. Your child was getting the full loving consideration of an adult. Another adult, a distance learner across the lake, was giving you his full concentration, learning, wondering what it would have been like to have received this attention himself. Your little girl was getting things that technology could never deliver on. You must have also read the works of Thich Nhat Hahn and Eckhart Tolle as well. You were practicing the art of living in the present, in the now. Suddenly I wasn’t worrying about where I need to be or what I needed to be doing.
At your picnic table you gently placed your daughter on the bench, unfolded a napkin before her, and then set out a meal of childhood delights from a fast food bag. Perhaps one of the fastest ways to build a happy contented child is to occasionally feed them their favorite treats from a white bag while seated on the shores of a duck-filled lake, paying attention. Between bites I saw you stand your little one up on the bench and point out the assorted shore birds to her, perhaps even a butterfly in the early morning rays of sunlight filtering down through the mist. I saw a mother carefully building memories into her life that will stand her in good stead in the distant days of her far-off future when she will need them. Unwittingly, this same mother was building important lessons into the present day of the cloudy life of an observer unseen at another table on the far side of her experience.
Each morning I ride my bike to try and get a healthy start to my day, attempting to find a small updraft that can give me a bit of even lift to my uncertain wings. A small lake near my house is about halfway along my route and often I will sit at one of the picnic tables to meditate. So it was today that from my table a teacher presented herself today on the opposite side of the rippling waters. It is but 8 AM and I have already been well instructed in what matters most. Give away that which we value most greatly and it will come back to us. On the way home one of my favorite neighborhood dogs came out to great me.
Today I learned that the world is a safe and generous place, if I look for it to be.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Floral Memories - Birmingham
The Botanical Gardens
Birmingham, Alabama
Memory is an interesting phenomenon. Over time we tend to remember the good things that have happened to us more completely than the bad things, unless these things are truly dreadful and branded into our beings, only to recur as flashbacks or nightmares, sometimes far into the future. Today offered me an interesting, perhaps profoundly healing, experience of selective memory.
Eight years ago I experienced a catastrophic life event that has kept me away from Birmingham for nearly a decade. I have been willing to go anywhere on earth except here, despite having more than two decades of very happy experiences living in and visiting Birmingham, with its many good friends. One bad experience wiped out decades of good living.
Today I decided that it was about eight years past the time I should have faced my demons of dark memory. Recently I have been realizing that running from demons of fear only gives them more power. A two hundred and seventy mile journey brought me back to the epicenter of my greatest anxieties. As had been my practice for many years when visiting here, before the incantations of fear kept me away from the Magic City, I made my first stop at the Botanical Gardens. These gardens at one time in the distant past provided me great comfort and refuge when going through a yet more remote life challenge. Twenty years ago when facing the prospect of a terminal illness, these gardens helped me find life anew in a spectacular way. There was no more important place on earth to me than these gardens.
What did I find here today? Life, actually. The infinite happy memories that made these gardens so important to me and gave me life in the remote past may just be able to give it to me once again. Today my experiences in the gardens were devoid of fear, my experience of the city without the panic that once had me trembling with anxiety.
Arriving just after lunchtime I found the gardens to be much better attended than I recalled them to have once been. A hundred or more species of annuals, perennials, woody plants, ornamental trees, and roses reminded me that some things do go on despite fear. The immense array of blooms reminds me that life can be more powerful than death, joy more powerful than fear. A garden really can be a place to have an encounter with God.
A stone table in the wild flower garden reminded me of the epic luncheons I shared with my dear friend Nancy as she traversed a very dark season of her life. We relished this game of who could outdo the other in opulence. I recalled hauling sterling, crystal, and hot chicken cordon blue to that granite table in a backpack while riding my bike.
The swing in the back corner of the rhododendron garden was the site of many a fine meal with a dear friend who was the love of my life for several years. I would arrive after driving five hours, absolutely famished and Jan would have these incredible hot meals packed in her wicker picnic baskets. It is true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I cannot recollect just how many incredible meals I enjoyed here in the gardens. Perhaps, now unleashed, more of these delightful memories will bubble to the surface of my consciousness in the days ahead.
Already another one has surfaced. I had just returned from a month in Vienna with some fine Russian Champagne I had picked up on a weekend journey in Hungary. The Alabama Symphony was set up for a sunset concert on the east lawn in front of the glass houses. I was with a dozen or more good friends and had that bottle of Champagne with me as well as some culinary contributions to a really opulent potluck al fresco. How healing must it be for me to remember a fabulous meal from twenty years ago rather than those dark terrors from eight years ago that drove me from this city?
In the glasshouses today I was reminded of a distant time when I was wandering around the same stone paths, wondering if I would really experience life again, or if terminal disease was my reality. I could recall the classical music being played by one of the gardeners working with the tropical delights, suggesting to me that life really was there to be embraced once again. The neurological death sentence was commuted and I have been since given another twenty-one years of life and the opportunity to see much of the world.
It was here in the main conservatory of the growing houses that I was inspired to write my first book of poetry and perhaps do one of the most important things I have ever done. Thirteen years ago it had been my plan to take a young girl to see the castles of England before her life was truncated by a hideous brain tumor. Alas, she was too ill to make it to the crenellated wonders of England, but she was able to make it with assistance to these gardens and become completely absorbed in the wonders of a roomful of exotic orchids in full bloom. I remember other lovers of these gardens being especially helpful to us that day. Susie looked very ill that day and I suspect those other patrons knew it was an important day for her. Those orchids were to be the last things Susie was to see from life that weren’t part of a hospital room. Today I took photographs of some of those very same orchids. The lighting was just right.
These gardens helped Susie to have a vibrant colorful end to a brutally short life. They helped me to find my way back to abundant and radiant life once before. Perhaps they will be the place from which I emerge from a dark night of the soul, which has cloaked me for three years. Facing the demons of long-entrenched fear in such a bucolic place of color and life can only increase the possibility of this happening.
“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the hearts of men have not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.”
Birmingham, Alabama
Memory is an interesting phenomenon. Over time we tend to remember the good things that have happened to us more completely than the bad things, unless these things are truly dreadful and branded into our beings, only to recur as flashbacks or nightmares, sometimes far into the future. Today offered me an interesting, perhaps profoundly healing, experience of selective memory.
Eight years ago I experienced a catastrophic life event that has kept me away from Birmingham for nearly a decade. I have been willing to go anywhere on earth except here, despite having more than two decades of very happy experiences living in and visiting Birmingham, with its many good friends. One bad experience wiped out decades of good living.
Today I decided that it was about eight years past the time I should have faced my demons of dark memory. Recently I have been realizing that running from demons of fear only gives them more power. A two hundred and seventy mile journey brought me back to the epicenter of my greatest anxieties. As had been my practice for many years when visiting here, before the incantations of fear kept me away from the Magic City, I made my first stop at the Botanical Gardens. These gardens at one time in the distant past provided me great comfort and refuge when going through a yet more remote life challenge. Twenty years ago when facing the prospect of a terminal illness, these gardens helped me find life anew in a spectacular way. There was no more important place on earth to me than these gardens.
What did I find here today? Life, actually. The infinite happy memories that made these gardens so important to me and gave me life in the remote past may just be able to give it to me once again. Today my experiences in the gardens were devoid of fear, my experience of the city without the panic that once had me trembling with anxiety.
Arriving just after lunchtime I found the gardens to be much better attended than I recalled them to have once been. A hundred or more species of annuals, perennials, woody plants, ornamental trees, and roses reminded me that some things do go on despite fear. The immense array of blooms reminds me that life can be more powerful than death, joy more powerful than fear. A garden really can be a place to have an encounter with God.
A stone table in the wild flower garden reminded me of the epic luncheons I shared with my dear friend Nancy as she traversed a very dark season of her life. We relished this game of who could outdo the other in opulence. I recalled hauling sterling, crystal, and hot chicken cordon blue to that granite table in a backpack while riding my bike.
The swing in the back corner of the rhododendron garden was the site of many a fine meal with a dear friend who was the love of my life for several years. I would arrive after driving five hours, absolutely famished and Jan would have these incredible hot meals packed in her wicker picnic baskets. It is true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I cannot recollect just how many incredible meals I enjoyed here in the gardens. Perhaps, now unleashed, more of these delightful memories will bubble to the surface of my consciousness in the days ahead.
Already another one has surfaced. I had just returned from a month in Vienna with some fine Russian Champagne I had picked up on a weekend journey in Hungary. The Alabama Symphony was set up for a sunset concert on the east lawn in front of the glass houses. I was with a dozen or more good friends and had that bottle of Champagne with me as well as some culinary contributions to a really opulent potluck al fresco. How healing must it be for me to remember a fabulous meal from twenty years ago rather than those dark terrors from eight years ago that drove me from this city?
In the glasshouses today I was reminded of a distant time when I was wandering around the same stone paths, wondering if I would really experience life again, or if terminal disease was my reality. I could recall the classical music being played by one of the gardeners working with the tropical delights, suggesting to me that life really was there to be embraced once again. The neurological death sentence was commuted and I have been since given another twenty-one years of life and the opportunity to see much of the world.
It was here in the main conservatory of the growing houses that I was inspired to write my first book of poetry and perhaps do one of the most important things I have ever done. Thirteen years ago it had been my plan to take a young girl to see the castles of England before her life was truncated by a hideous brain tumor. Alas, she was too ill to make it to the crenellated wonders of England, but she was able to make it with assistance to these gardens and become completely absorbed in the wonders of a roomful of exotic orchids in full bloom. I remember other lovers of these gardens being especially helpful to us that day. Susie looked very ill that day and I suspect those other patrons knew it was an important day for her. Those orchids were to be the last things Susie was to see from life that weren’t part of a hospital room. Today I took photographs of some of those very same orchids. The lighting was just right.
These gardens helped Susie to have a vibrant colorful end to a brutally short life. They helped me to find my way back to abundant and radiant life once before. Perhaps they will be the place from which I emerge from a dark night of the soul, which has cloaked me for three years. Facing the demons of long-entrenched fear in such a bucolic place of color and life can only increase the possibility of this happening.
“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the hearts of men have not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.”
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Natural Tunnel, Virginia
Natural Tunnel State Park
Some Place in Virginia off Route 23
I have always found atlases and maps rather intriguing. The idea that even the tiniest dot on a map represents hundreds, if not thousands of interesting lives entrances me. Those little specks on the paper represent an entire world of hopes, dreams, challenges and possibilities to those living in them. Alas, nowadays most of us stay on the Interstates and see nothing but the stainless steel franchise fast food places we just left at home. We never see much of what makes travel a joy. Map Quest and other assorted computer-aided mapping devices always find the fastest most efficient ways to get from A to B, forgetting that point C in between might just be the best place to be. Sometimes it is worth the extra gas to find those little universes hidden away in remote regions, even at $4 a gallon.
While planning my return journey from Kentucky to South Carolina it occurred to me to consider something other than the four-lane super slab for my return. A thin serpentine blue line seemed much more interesting than the straight thick red one I had traversed a few days ago. I also would avoid a lot of tollbooths on assorted turnpikes. Map Quest would never had selected this route. It was too interesting. As it turns out, it was nearly a hundred miles shorter than the Interstate routing and easy to follow. That thin blue line took me from Ashland, Kentucky to Ashville, North Carolina where it became an Interstate leading me into South Carolina via the beautiful southern Appalachian Mountains.
Route 23 ended up taking me through Pikeville where my grandfather had been the town banker a century ago. A hundred years ago the Hatfields and McCoys had their infamous smolder family feuds that gave the town such great notoriety. It also was cause for my ancestors suddenly being driven out of town in the middle of the night. I never did learn what that was all about. I did have opportunity to pay homage to my past and save a hundred miles of driving in the process.
Not far below Pikeville in Virginia is one of those brown roadside signs suggesting a break from driving was in order. I was at Natural Bridge a few days ago so it seemed only natural to see if Natural Tunnel was as interesting. Actually, it was. A drive of three miles took me through one of those small dots on the map – a fine little well kept village where everyone knows everyone – a place I would like to live. Just beyond it was one of Virginia’s state parks containing some of the most intriguing geologic formations I have encountered. Somehow, a mysterious natural process had bored out a tunnel of perhaps a thousand feet through a massive outcropping of limestone. A hundred years ago a railroad put a set of tracks through the tunnel. These tracks are still active, carrying tourists through the Virginia Mountains. The well-maintained hiking trails afforded me an hour of relaxed wandering and picture taking. Like Natural Bridge, this park had a chair lift for those without sufficient stamina to hike to the top of steep canyons or the floors of deep gorges. I am grateful that I have the stamina to easily climb in such places.
I never saw anyone on the trails. A remote state park on a weekday off a thin blue line is not likely to have many visitors. However, at the information office I did encounter a pleasant English couple taking in the scenery. The English are good about traveling on the thin blue lines of life and finding what is interesting. The English call a walk outside a ramble. They are not in a hurry.
I resumed my southern journey along Route 23 as it traversed Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina where I stopped for a late lunch of eggplant parmesan in a newly constructed Italian Bistro outside of Ashville.
I had fine cerulean skies all day as I traverse five states to arrive just in time for a chicken parmesan dinner.
Some Place in Virginia off Route 23
I have always found atlases and maps rather intriguing. The idea that even the tiniest dot on a map represents hundreds, if not thousands of interesting lives entrances me. Those little specks on the paper represent an entire world of hopes, dreams, challenges and possibilities to those living in them. Alas, nowadays most of us stay on the Interstates and see nothing but the stainless steel franchise fast food places we just left at home. We never see much of what makes travel a joy. Map Quest and other assorted computer-aided mapping devices always find the fastest most efficient ways to get from A to B, forgetting that point C in between might just be the best place to be. Sometimes it is worth the extra gas to find those little universes hidden away in remote regions, even at $4 a gallon.
While planning my return journey from Kentucky to South Carolina it occurred to me to consider something other than the four-lane super slab for my return. A thin serpentine blue line seemed much more interesting than the straight thick red one I had traversed a few days ago. I also would avoid a lot of tollbooths on assorted turnpikes. Map Quest would never had selected this route. It was too interesting. As it turns out, it was nearly a hundred miles shorter than the Interstate routing and easy to follow. That thin blue line took me from Ashland, Kentucky to Ashville, North Carolina where it became an Interstate leading me into South Carolina via the beautiful southern Appalachian Mountains.
Route 23 ended up taking me through Pikeville where my grandfather had been the town banker a century ago. A hundred years ago the Hatfields and McCoys had their infamous smolder family feuds that gave the town such great notoriety. It also was cause for my ancestors suddenly being driven out of town in the middle of the night. I never did learn what that was all about. I did have opportunity to pay homage to my past and save a hundred miles of driving in the process.
Not far below Pikeville in Virginia is one of those brown roadside signs suggesting a break from driving was in order. I was at Natural Bridge a few days ago so it seemed only natural to see if Natural Tunnel was as interesting. Actually, it was. A drive of three miles took me through one of those small dots on the map – a fine little well kept village where everyone knows everyone – a place I would like to live. Just beyond it was one of Virginia’s state parks containing some of the most intriguing geologic formations I have encountered. Somehow, a mysterious natural process had bored out a tunnel of perhaps a thousand feet through a massive outcropping of limestone. A hundred years ago a railroad put a set of tracks through the tunnel. These tracks are still active, carrying tourists through the Virginia Mountains. The well-maintained hiking trails afforded me an hour of relaxed wandering and picture taking. Like Natural Bridge, this park had a chair lift for those without sufficient stamina to hike to the top of steep canyons or the floors of deep gorges. I am grateful that I have the stamina to easily climb in such places.
I never saw anyone on the trails. A remote state park on a weekday off a thin blue line is not likely to have many visitors. However, at the information office I did encounter a pleasant English couple taking in the scenery. The English are good about traveling on the thin blue lines of life and finding what is interesting. The English call a walk outside a ramble. They are not in a hurry.
I resumed my southern journey along Route 23 as it traversed Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina where I stopped for a late lunch of eggplant parmesan in a newly constructed Italian Bistro outside of Ashville.
I had fine cerulean skies all day as I traverse five states to arrive just in time for a chicken parmesan dinner.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
The Perfect Day, Anderson South Carolina
In the recovery world it is often stated that right action will lead to right thinking and right thinking will lead to right feelings. The implications are that our experience and perceptions of life will often be strongly determined by our feeling states. The reality is that feelings and little else often determine one’s perception of the quality of life. Perhaps this is why depression, anxiety, and other affective disorders are so devastating to those suffering from them. The structure of life can be sublime yet its benefits lost on the victims of affective angst.
The recovery journey teaches its pilgrims to fly by the instruments when life seems shrouded in darkness. Whether one’s nemesis is alcohol or drugs or some other form of all consuming addiction, the solution is identical. One finds through other people and God the help to do the next right thing, to have the next right thought, to live the first of a series of present moments that will turn into a whole day, which will in turn into a whole week, and then a whole year. We build a meaningful future by stringing together a series of meaningful present moments. We often find ourselves challenged to do the next right thing, whether we feel like it or not, trusting that eventually we will feel like it. We then can find ourselves living joyous, happy, and free lives
One of the useful tools to gaining wholeness is to take inventory of one’s day before falling asleep. We look at those things we did during the day and ask ourselves if they made the world friendlier, warmer, and safer to those around us. Did we contribute to community building? Did we give others hope? Did we draw closer to God? Did we give people laughter and joy? Did we do these things with a right attitude? While lying in bed this morning I again thought about what my day was like yesterday. I suddenly realized that it had been an absolutely perfect day, even though it did not feel like it.
The day started with me walking about forty minutes around a small lake in my neighborhood. Carrying a small deck of scripture promise cards, I worked at renewing my mind with promises that speak a very different message than the curses that were pronounced upon me in a troubled alcoholic childhood. The infusion of these promises into my mind along with mild exercise prepared me to do the next right thing.
On Wednesday mornings about a dozen of us gather at Meals on Wheels to cook and pack 650 hot lunches for the invisible and marginalized that are imprisoned by their infirmities and poverty. And so we did yesterday. The forgotten and discarded of an individualistic material culture were reminded that they really do have value and matter in God’s economy.
In much of the world people live at the lowest level of Maslow’s need hierarchy, consumed with the survival needs of shelter and food. These billions of people do not have the time or energy to think about purpose or actualization. As I do about this time every month, I went to a local grocery and made a funds transfer to a small orphanage in India. I then went to the public library and sent a control number via wi-fi e-mail to the orphanage. The hundred or so orphans and leprous widows that live in this small island of safety will eat and be attended to for another month. In the next few days I will get an e-mail containing digital pictures of a mountain of rice and those other things that make life more plausible. It is a profound return on investment for the half hour it takes me to do this each month
For those of us that own our own houses without the encumbrance of mortgages, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that decent housing is a huge issue for many people. In the recovery world of addictions, homelessness and poor shelter are rampant. Many of those trapped in poverty have forgotten how to dream. On Wednesday and Saturdays, and often on other days of the week, a group of us will gather with our tools at one of several sites to build dreams for those who have forgotten how to dream in their struggles for survival. We simply build simple decent houses in the poor parts of town under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity. Yesterday the sheetrock was finished in one of the houses and the vinyl finished on one end of the same house. The kitchen cabinets were planned out for another one of the three houses currently in progress. My part was to be up on an extension ladder installing vinyl siding. A fellow doing community service hours for underage drinking helped me. This took me up until about 2:30 PM.
Recovery is about finding a full meaningful life. It is a means to an end. Life should contain laughter and joy and friendship. Community theaters are good places for this to happen. Each afternoon I make it a point to go to the community theater and build sets for the plays we put on. There is nothing glamorous about working alone in a dark hot auditorium, yet on opening night the payoff is suddenly paid out under the bright Klieg lights. The joy the patrons get over the next several weeks is full compensation for my hot tiring work in the dark. Giving people a respite of good entertainment from their often-challenging lives is part of God’s economy.
Life is also about stewardship of one’s health and the local YMCA has been a grand place for me to exercise for several years. Besides getting exercise with other people who are embracing wellness and community, the Y provides the opportunity to make people feel visible and significant. Our Y has a lot of very elderly patrons and they are often uncertain about being on fitness floors with buff young men who seem to have it all. Simply speaking to them and offering assistance on the use of machines can make their day. I always leave the Y feeling, younger, better, and healthier. Perhaps some others do as well because I made it a point to do the next right thing and show up there one day.
An important part of drawing closer to God is to participate in the life of a church or other religious organization. Sometimes simply showing up for a Wednesday dinner and making a newcomer feel a part of the community is enough. I simply showed up last night and ate a lot of fine fish at our annual fish fry and made two new comers feel like their presence really matters. One of them left the church years ago because she felt invisible. My being there last night was a good thing for both of us.
There must be nothing like the pain experienced by a young mother who loses her kids because she has been drinking and driving her kids around while in black out. I cannot pretend to know this specific pain for myself but when asked by a mother if life can ever get better again, I can emphatically state that there is hope and that it positively can get better if she will own up to her problem with addictions and get help. She was in the right place to start a new journey to wholeness and I was allowed to be standing along her path for a few minutes.
A homeless man on the street needed a ride to the Salvation Army shelter. I took him over there and he felt like he had gotten a bit of a lift in life.
If I keep doing these things each day, perhaps one day I will find I am truly happy, joyous, and free. “All things do work together for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.”
The recovery journey teaches its pilgrims to fly by the instruments when life seems shrouded in darkness. Whether one’s nemesis is alcohol or drugs or some other form of all consuming addiction, the solution is identical. One finds through other people and God the help to do the next right thing, to have the next right thought, to live the first of a series of present moments that will turn into a whole day, which will in turn into a whole week, and then a whole year. We build a meaningful future by stringing together a series of meaningful present moments. We often find ourselves challenged to do the next right thing, whether we feel like it or not, trusting that eventually we will feel like it. We then can find ourselves living joyous, happy, and free lives
One of the useful tools to gaining wholeness is to take inventory of one’s day before falling asleep. We look at those things we did during the day and ask ourselves if they made the world friendlier, warmer, and safer to those around us. Did we contribute to community building? Did we give others hope? Did we draw closer to God? Did we give people laughter and joy? Did we do these things with a right attitude? While lying in bed this morning I again thought about what my day was like yesterday. I suddenly realized that it had been an absolutely perfect day, even though it did not feel like it.
The day started with me walking about forty minutes around a small lake in my neighborhood. Carrying a small deck of scripture promise cards, I worked at renewing my mind with promises that speak a very different message than the curses that were pronounced upon me in a troubled alcoholic childhood. The infusion of these promises into my mind along with mild exercise prepared me to do the next right thing.
On Wednesday mornings about a dozen of us gather at Meals on Wheels to cook and pack 650 hot lunches for the invisible and marginalized that are imprisoned by their infirmities and poverty. And so we did yesterday. The forgotten and discarded of an individualistic material culture were reminded that they really do have value and matter in God’s economy.
In much of the world people live at the lowest level of Maslow’s need hierarchy, consumed with the survival needs of shelter and food. These billions of people do not have the time or energy to think about purpose or actualization. As I do about this time every month, I went to a local grocery and made a funds transfer to a small orphanage in India. I then went to the public library and sent a control number via wi-fi e-mail to the orphanage. The hundred or so orphans and leprous widows that live in this small island of safety will eat and be attended to for another month. In the next few days I will get an e-mail containing digital pictures of a mountain of rice and those other things that make life more plausible. It is a profound return on investment for the half hour it takes me to do this each month
For those of us that own our own houses without the encumbrance of mortgages, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that decent housing is a huge issue for many people. In the recovery world of addictions, homelessness and poor shelter are rampant. Many of those trapped in poverty have forgotten how to dream. On Wednesday and Saturdays, and often on other days of the week, a group of us will gather with our tools at one of several sites to build dreams for those who have forgotten how to dream in their struggles for survival. We simply build simple decent houses in the poor parts of town under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity. Yesterday the sheetrock was finished in one of the houses and the vinyl finished on one end of the same house. The kitchen cabinets were planned out for another one of the three houses currently in progress. My part was to be up on an extension ladder installing vinyl siding. A fellow doing community service hours for underage drinking helped me. This took me up until about 2:30 PM.
Recovery is about finding a full meaningful life. It is a means to an end. Life should contain laughter and joy and friendship. Community theaters are good places for this to happen. Each afternoon I make it a point to go to the community theater and build sets for the plays we put on. There is nothing glamorous about working alone in a dark hot auditorium, yet on opening night the payoff is suddenly paid out under the bright Klieg lights. The joy the patrons get over the next several weeks is full compensation for my hot tiring work in the dark. Giving people a respite of good entertainment from their often-challenging lives is part of God’s economy.
Life is also about stewardship of one’s health and the local YMCA has been a grand place for me to exercise for several years. Besides getting exercise with other people who are embracing wellness and community, the Y provides the opportunity to make people feel visible and significant. Our Y has a lot of very elderly patrons and they are often uncertain about being on fitness floors with buff young men who seem to have it all. Simply speaking to them and offering assistance on the use of machines can make their day. I always leave the Y feeling, younger, better, and healthier. Perhaps some others do as well because I made it a point to do the next right thing and show up there one day.
An important part of drawing closer to God is to participate in the life of a church or other religious organization. Sometimes simply showing up for a Wednesday dinner and making a newcomer feel a part of the community is enough. I simply showed up last night and ate a lot of fine fish at our annual fish fry and made two new comers feel like their presence really matters. One of them left the church years ago because she felt invisible. My being there last night was a good thing for both of us.
There must be nothing like the pain experienced by a young mother who loses her kids because she has been drinking and driving her kids around while in black out. I cannot pretend to know this specific pain for myself but when asked by a mother if life can ever get better again, I can emphatically state that there is hope and that it positively can get better if she will own up to her problem with addictions and get help. She was in the right place to start a new journey to wholeness and I was allowed to be standing along her path for a few minutes.
A homeless man on the street needed a ride to the Salvation Army shelter. I took him over there and he felt like he had gotten a bit of a lift in life.
If I keep doing these things each day, perhaps one day I will find I am truly happy, joyous, and free. “All things do work together for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.”
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