Conquering The Worm

And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Hamlet
Act 5, Scene 2

It was a dank day for dying on the old Dixie Highway that heads north through the prickly palmetto spears and towering Georgia pines. A malfunction of undetermined origin sent the car sliding though the slick grass sideways into the live oak that stands just before the crossroad. The driver was ejected, thrown rudely through the midday gloom into the unforgiving underbrush. His legs broke upon impact. Flames swallowed up the car, quickly consuming the faded paint and tattered upholstery.

Mosquitos and sand gnats agitated the humid air, tag-teaming the rescue workers and the gawkers, all drawn like moths to the flame, the makeshift funeral pyre. As they stood in an irregular circle around the scene I innocently walked up and stuck my head in the driver’s window. A sweet, earthy smell of mud, burnt flesh and spent fire extinguishers nearly gagged me. The passenger had died, trapped in the car. What I first thought was the charred remains of the front seat was his torso. He was truly cooked. The deltoid muscle on his shoulder looked like a turkey drumstick. The skin had burned away from the top of his skull to reveal an egg-shaped indentation from his striking the windshield. I clearly saw the interstitial cracks between the skull bones that look like irregular stitches. This was not the sepulcher white skull of some anatomy class skeleton. This was the skull of a sentient rational being who until a few moments earlier was alive and breathing, full of dreams and despair. This skull still held a warm brain.

It was then that I realized that our frail forms obey the laws of physics. We’re just flesh, bones, skin and water. We roast and char like any other animal on a spit. Entranced by this stranger’s misfortune, I made myself stand and look, glad that it was he and not I curled there in a fetal ball. Even in death he assumed this basic vertebrate position. I felt a peculiar power from not flinching at the face of death. Conquering the worm, as it were.

They were both Mexicans seeking the proverbial better life in rural South Georgia, working in one of the seafood processing plants, up to their elbows in fish or shrimp all day. Around the passenger’s neck, blackened but still whole, was a silver medal of St. Christopher engraved with a likeness of the venerable saint.

At the scene, everyone was joking. Hot tamale. Crispy critter. Burnt toast. It seems cruel but humor in such a horrific situation is a defense mechanism to men and women for whom death is their stock in trade. Men who have seen decapitation, men hardened by necessity, men who have the job of prying him free from the car.

I later learned that after awhile the physical landscape takes on a much more emotional dimension. You find yourself remembering grisly accident scenes, bloody suicides, domestic disputes and a host of other horrors while riding the county. A mental map covered with skulls and crossbones marking where death and destruction visited themselves upon the unsuspecting. But all that was still to come.

This entry was written as a way of coping with the very first death scene to which I ever responded. It was written as the beginning of a fictionalized account of the event, but all the details are true and accurate. It was brought to mind after I responded last week to the suicide of an 83-year-old man. Alzheimer’s was tightening its inexorable grip and I suppose he wanted to die with at least a modicum of dignity. The suicide took place just down the road from one of the most horrific scenes I have ever witnessed. Several years ago a young boy accidentally shot his even younger friend between the eyes at nearly point blank range (in his bedroom) with a .30-06 hunting rifle. I won't go into any details, but it was one of those days after which you know you'll never be the same.

I apologize for the cheapshot blast from the past. I am in the process writing something more current and relevant (and not so grisly).

Real Live Dragonslayers

Below is a paragraph I wrote that is part of a letter to the editor in the local newspaper. I'll not get into the larger context, but suffice it to say that this is something I have wanted to say to the media for a very, very long time.

"The next time you start to criticize the men and women of law enforcement remember that you sleep and rest secure under the umbrella of their protection. That it is through their sacrifice, through their willingness to literally put their lives on the line every day that you enjoy the safety and security of your home. They are not the stereotypes you imagine. They are men and women who believe enough in public service to go out and try to make the world a better place. And despite the public apathy or even open disdain, despite the media nipping at their heels and doing everything in its power to demean and degrade them, despite the emotional and physical burden it places on them and their families, they still suit up every day to go out to slay the dragons. They are what is best about all of us."

Sacred and Profane

I have thought a lot recently about the intertwining of the sacred and the profane in our lives, about how chaos can coexist with calmness. Of course it is not always as much coexistence as it is a sudden purging of one by the other, or of the wind that bodes no goodness seeking to extinguish the flame of our joy.

Not so long ago I was in my vehicle listening to Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou’s very profound remarks on The Hidden Heart of Man (if you have heard any of Zacahrou’s talks you know just how deep he gets). In the background the seemingly ceaseless chatter of the radio provided a stark contrast. Traffic accidents, domestic disputes, routine violence served as background for, “The Awakening of the Heart by the Mindfulness of Death and the Moment of Death.”

There is probably not a more sacred time than when we pierce the veil on Pascha and join in with the eternal chorus in proclaiming Christ’s victory over death Then we enter into the glory of Bright Week when the whole world resounds with Christ risen. But even then lurks the mundane, the ever-encroaching blackness seeking to convince us we have no hope, that our faith has no firm foundation.

This past weekend I stood by the body of a woman who died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. When I arrived she was lying on the side of the interstate on a backboard, wrapped in a sheet. Helping to put her in the hearse was an insignificant act, but it somehow felt sacred. It was right to help restore dignity to an undignified demise. To the people caught in the miles-long traffic jam, this was an aggravating delay. To us it was, unfortunately, not all that unordinary. To her family and her husband (who was driving the vehicle) it will be a day seared into their memory. A routine trip turned eternal.

Yesterday morning I drove my daughter to a three day learning field trip on one of the barrier islands. It was a wonderful time watching her rise to the challenge of spending three days away from Mom and Dad. I was thinking about how much I absolutely love her and how my love, no matter how intense or deep, is but a shadow of the love our Father has for us. Then upon my return to the office I saw the reports of the killings at Virginia Tech. Most of the victim’s parents had probably had moments like the one I just had. Now the anxiety and uncertainty would be devastating. The profane crashed into the sacred in a most violent way.

But I rejoice that it also works in the opposite direction. Even those who profess little or no faith have moments of sacredness thrust upon them, in the embrace of their child, in acts of unexpected kindness, in rainbows, in the consolation and true forgiveness the Pennsylvania Amish offered to the family of the man who murdered their children.

When the despair seems about to overpower me I remember that we are called to be the salt and the light, to season the world with our example and to bring the light of love and forgiveness to every dark corner of the world and of our hearts. When enveloped by the utter darkness of the deaths of 32 innocent people, we must shine brighter.

We live in a profane world edging closer everyday to being flooded by a tide of apathy, hatred and evil. We are called to stand in the breech. We do not have the right to hold grudges, to seek revenge, to hate those who hate us. With prayer, with love, with almsgiving, with forgiveness we must seek the sacred.

Thinking Blogger?

This blog is the recipient of two (both undeserved) Thinking Blogger Awards, one from From Wittenberg to Athens and All Stops in Between and one from Deb on the run. I read both of these blogs daily and enjoy them immensly. Both Deb and Dixie are thoughtful and kind Orthodox woman who have been tremendously generous with their encouragement and support.

Here are the instructions:1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

My first choice has to be Glory to God for All Things. Well written and well reasoned. We can all learn something from Fr. Freeman’s insightful entries. This is Orthodox blogging at its finest.

My second choice is Wisdom of the Desert for it’s beauty and simplicity. I take a look every day.

My third choice goes to Irenic Thoughts. The author is an Episcopal priest and a personal friend. It is my belief that he is on his way to Orthodoxy, but he won’t admit it.

My fourth choice goes to the ubiquitious ORTHODIXIE. A fine man who clearly loves his family and his faith. And what a sense of humor!

My last and ceratinly not least choices (yes I am fudging a bit) are Dixie and Deb.

I was guided by my own blogging habits when making these selections. These are the blogs I visit most and the ones where I am most likely to leave a comment.

Out Of Control

These are some of the messages I have received on my pager in the past 24 hours:

23:30 10-10 WHOLE BAR FIGHTING CHAIRS AND BROKEN BOTTLES USED

05:53 **** GREEN HAS DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES HAS BEEN SICK 95 YEAR OLD FEMALE

11:29 MULTI VEH 10-50 NB AND SB SHUT DOWN VEH OVERTURNED MULTI ENTRAPMENT

11:38 BOTH HELOS ENROUTE TO 95 NB 16MM ALL LANES NB AND SB SHUT DOWN HAZ MAT GAS LEAK AND ENTRAP

11:47 SOUTHBOUND LANES OPEN 1 PT CARDIAC RED

11:51 ONE PT DOA 95 NB 16 MM PASSENGER EXTRICATED DOA

12:28 VEH HIT A BICYCLIST IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS HEAD INJURY

11:37 REPORTS OF A PLANE DOWN

14:41 PLANE CONFIRMED DOWN, WOODS IN FLAMES ONE PT WITH INJURIES

Translation: At 11:23 last night there was a full blown bar fight. Early this morning a 95-year-old woman passed away of natural causes. At about 11:30 this morning there was a multi-vehicle automobile accident, all lanes of the interstate northbound and southbound were shut down, two people were trapped in a vehicle. At 11:38 two air ambulance helicopters were enroute, the haz-mat team was called because of a diesel leak. The southbound lanes were opened and one patient (a 68-year-old woman) was in full cardiac arrest. One passenger (the woman) was dead on arrival after being extricated from her vehicle. At 12:28 a man riding a bicycle on a busy county road was hit by an automobile and suffered head injuries; the air ambulance was once again called. At 2:37 this afternoon a report came in of an airplane crash near the local airport. The plane did go down in a wooded area very close to several apartment complexes. The subsequent fire was put out, the pilot miraculously walked away. Some days the world seems to spin completely out of control.

Post-Pascha Pictures

Taken at about 2:30 am on April 8, 2007

The Son I Am Today

As I worked my way through Lent I experienced a profound change within myself, brought on by the grace of a God who loves me despite myself. If you have read this blog for any length of time you know I had a somewhat troubled childhood and witnessed the death of my father while still a young boy. These experiences molded me into the man I am today, but they also left many parts of my life empty and other parts undeveloped or ill-developed. Unfortunately, one of those parts is my relationship to my mother. She is now 67 years old and has survived a very hard life. While most people her age enjoy the reward of their retirement, she is reduced to a very meager existence.

My recent visit to see her (with my young daughter in tow) brought the disparity of our lives into very sharp focus. We pulled up to her ramshackle doublewide in my 2007 Silverado crew cab pickup. The contrast shamed me as few things have. But it was not just the financial disparity, it was the conviction (this is the profound change I first alluded to) that I have failed to honor my mother. I have withheld my support and my love. I have been willfully blind to her blight.

While pondering my shame on the long ride home I realized that for all these years I had been looking in the wrong place. I had looked to the memory of my father, held him up as the saint he never was, while diminishing the role and value of my mother. Here was the hero I was looking for. Here was the one who had kept me fed and alive (even though sometimes just barely). Here was the one I had not forgiven. My heart is heavy with the weight of my shortcomings, but light with the hope of healing.

I have spoken with Mom several times since returning home and I realized just how much of a story she has to tell. Below is a first attempt at the crafting of an introduction to that story. The previous blog entry is also one of my attempts to work my way through these changes.

As with many men, age and life experience have allowed me a more even handed assessment of my mother. For far too many years I mourned the death of my father who drank himself to death before his 37th birthday. I longed for him, treasured the few fragmented memories I have and most likely imagined him as too much saint and not enough sinner. During much of that time I held a strange brew of feelings for my mother. She was certainly a sinner and indulged herself in her appetites and addictions to a less than healthy degree while my siblings and I went along for the ride, but she did raise five of us in the process and while we endured many abuses and depravations, I have blamed too many of them on her.

The first insight came when I was in therapy and discussing my feelings, or more correctly my lack of feelings, for her. My therapist brought it to my attention that yes, she was in many ways less than perfect, but she had also managed to raise all of us despite an eternally drunk husband, never any money, in the mountains of Virginia in the days before disposable diapers, in a house with no indoor plumbing. I agreed that he was correct and it was proper that I should love my mother if for no other reason than she is a survivor (you will see to what degree as the story unfolds). My heart was still unmoved, held still by years of misunderstanding, physical separation and emotional immaturity.

Let me give you an example. As I reached chronological adulthood I began calling her by her given name instead of Mom. I tried to play it off as light-hearted, a sign that I had grown up, a sign of our equality. It was in reality my resentment, my way of passively stabbing back at her. I would acknowledge her as a woman, but not as my mother and I denied all the good she had done. It was also part of my trying to achieve manhood, trying to define myself as myself, and not as part of her.

I have long believed that names, titles are of the utmost importance and this use of her proper name was a profound psychological shift. I realize now how I would react if my 19-year-old daughter were to address me as William.

The final revelation came recently when I traveled to visit her with my seven-year-old daughter. I was shocked by my mother’s situation and my apathy to it. As some of you already know, she lives on $700 a month in a nearly decrepit, double-wide trailer hanging off the miserable side of a mountain in Virginia. She has survived abuse of nearly every sort imaginable, years of pulverizing poverty, decades of alcoholism, cancer and only she knows what else.

As I pondered just exactly what she had been through, at least to the degree that I could know it, I realized hers is a story that needs to be told. It is a tale of strong fisted resistance to the forces that would break her and it is a story of the human experience writ small, a tale full of death, destruction, and addiction.

The telling is also an act of love and respect for the woman who birthed me, beat me and loved me. This is what I can do. This she deserves. It is true that many times she was not much of a mother, but it’s just as true that many times I have not been much of a son. She is proud of me, it’s time I was proud of her. I do not agree with many things she did or let be done, but (pardon the cliché) it did not kill me and it certainly made me stronger.

Life On The Edge

Her dusty-brown, just short of decrepit double-wide trailer hangs on the side a mountain in a place disingenuously called Brand’s Flats with a hundred or so others. The land is too steep to be of much use so the landlord hacked out notches big enough to hold a home and another trailer park was born. It’s not the location most people would make as their first pick of places to live, but to her it’s home. She often says the only time she’ll ever live anywhere else is when she is too senile to know any better.

Carol’s trailer is the only double-wide, but at 22 is older than most of the others in the neighborhood. Ants often make themselves at home as there are too many holes, small and large, to keep them out. Chemical sprays only slow the inexorable insect tide. Birds roost in the eaves where the boards have either rotted or fallen off.

Carol does not drive, relying on family as a lifeline. Most days are spent with books, or crossword puzzles or crime shows. The Internet is an unexplored mystery and likely to remain so. Most nights she falls asleep on the couch embraced in the television’s soft glow.

Last month her electric bill was $490 while her monthly income is only $700. Nonetheless, the last time I saw her she insisted on making meatloaf and potato salad. Like most Southern women (and perhaps all) she takes great pleasure in nourishing all that grace her doorway.

Carol, at 67, has already survived uterine cancer and she just recently suffered a very nearly fatal blood infection. The good news is the hospital stay scared her enough to quit smoking after more than 40 years, the bad news is she will be on oxygen from now on.

She has also survived a violently abusive, alcoholic father and two abusive, alcoholic husbands. Alcoholism is so commonplace it was expected of her children, and they more than lived up to the expectation. It has been said that her family tree is not a tree, it is a vine. She has wrestled with the demon herself. So far she’s got him pinned.

Despite the poverty, the poor health, the ghosts of abuse and loss that haunt her memory Carol is helping to raise her great-grandchildren. They are the children of her oldest grandson who is in prison, again. The three boys, the youngest is actually no kin but the son of their mother by another man, love her with the abandon and fervor of the young. To them she is love, she is protection, she is Grandma.

To me she is Mom.

Wisdom Of The Desert

Not many blogs have caught and held my attention as easily as this one, Wisdom of the Desert. It is aesthetically and ascetically pleasing and believe it or not the woman who created it is not Orthodox. She is a wonderful woman and clearly puts a lot of time and effort into her daily entries. Take a look, I believe you'll agree.

Making Memories

These photos were taken on our recent trip to Virginia with my seven-year-old daughter to visit with some of our family. She took all the photos except the first two.

Back From Virginia

We made it back safely from Virginia. These photos are from this morning after the Divine Liturgy. The man holding the Blessed Bread is Moses, a true servant of God.

Apology and Clarification

I want to apologize to anyone who found the preceding post too strong or were offended by its content. It was not my intention to offend anyone and I ask your forgiveness. Here in our community, in the middle of Lent, evil of the worst sort reared its ugly head and it was my intention to point out that there are many people in the world (especially children) who are at risk every day. There are also many people who willingly inflict harm on those entrusted to their care. My point was that we should pray for the innocents and do what we can to ease their burden. Again, I apologize and ask your forgiveness if you were offended.

Suffer Not The Little Children

I hate to keep writing about the same topic, but the death of Christopher Michael Barrios Jr. has been very troublesome in our community. Even though we all know it’s undeniably true, we all hate to think that something this dreadful could happen here. It’s shocking to realize just how many active monsters walk among us. Many details of Christopher’s death have not been released.

One comment to my previous post said that I am exposed to evil of the vilest sort. I am exposed to it more than most, but not nearly as much as some other folks I know. The investigators who deal with crimes against children are a special breed. They have to be able to deal with some of the most potently evil people on the planet without sacrificing their own humanity, their own sense of dignity, their compassion. I do not have the stomach or the heart for it.

The story of what happened to little Christopher has only just begun. We will have trials where the particulars of his life and his death will be revealed in full. We will be shocked and we will weep for this child who came face to face with the darkest side of our kind. And those responsible will have their day in court, and they will be exposed for what they are, aberrations, monsters, child killers.

Many times I have wondered why cases involving children seem to bother me so much more than others. I realize that crimes against children shock most of us more than other crimes, and rightly so. But with me it seems to cut very deep and take a long time to heal, even when I have no direct knowledge of anyone involved. I think the answer (at least partially) is because I know and remember on a very deep level how it felt/feels to be a defenseless child. Without going into particulars, my childhood was not without its trauma. Several generations of alcoholism, persistent poverty and lack of parental skills coalesced to make the childhood of myself and my siblings (and many of my cousins and neighbors) a rollercoaster ride though Hell. Don’t get me wrong, my childhood was no worse than some. In fact, compared to other stories I have heard (and have direct knowledge of) it was rather tame. But it was sufficiently cruel to stunt my development, emotionally and physically, to a marked degree.

Sadly, my story and even Christopher’s are not unique. Every day untold numbers of children suffer at the hands of strangers, but many more suffer at the hands of those who are supposed to love and protect them. I know of cases of children being shaken to death, of children put in scalding hot water, of children bashed against walls, of children smothered, of children burned with cigarettes, of men having sex with infants, of infants ejected from cars because no one strapped them in. I also know of a situation where a mother shook her child violently enough to cause major brain trauma. Yet she did nothing for weeks until another family member forced her to take the child to a doctor.

Make no mistake, this is the world we all live in. We have our jobs and our cars and our homes and our families that love us. We are the fortunate ones. So pray. Pray hard for this wicked, wicked world and the children trapped in it.

Humble Pie

Earlier this week my wife and our two daughters went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. It’s one of those places caught in a time warp. A place where all the waitresses call you "Honey" and the kids don’t have to worry so much about being quiet. The sign outside is so old it’s in style again. A place where you can ask for fried chicken gizzards or fried okra and no one will even blink an eye. A place where for about six bucks you get a dinner with beverage and dessert included. A place where you can write a check and they don’t ask for identification. Blue collar cuisine at its finest.

That night it took about half an hour to get our food. It was getting late and we were getting a bit testy about having to wait so long. What I really wanted to do was to go see the owner (she was working as a waitress because they were so shorthanded) and demand our food. I would not be rude, but very straightforward and curt. But my daughters were sitting there. How would I want them to behave if confronted with this situation? Would I want them to be polite? Would I want them to fight the urge to demand better service? Would I want them to be compassionate, to put the event in context, to consider how hard the two waitresses were working to accommodate so many people?

So many times I tend to want to blame others, to make my faults something they caused. But of course my faults are my own. The problem is within me, in my pride, in my unwillingness to put others first. I know that it is important, especially during the Lenten season, to put aside pride, to resist the deadly seduction of anger, to love equally. Even though I am aware of the problem, I tend to let myself get rattled by the smallest things, things that at the time seem enormous, but really mean absolutely nothing. Many times I let negative emotions get in the way and cloud my judgement. I know that I am a much better man, husband and father when I am in control, when I decide how I will react, when calm reason replaces the rage.

So I sat there and tried to look like I was just taking it all in stride. I reminded my daughters that we knew they were shorthanded, that generally the waitresses were very prompt, and that the owner took great pleasure in making vanilla milkshakes for the youngest daughter. I hope my frustration was not too obvious. I hope they saw the man I want to be.

Mission In Valdosta

A few weeks ago my wife, my daughter and I traveled to Valdosta to worship with the folks at Valdosta Orthodox Christian Mission. It’s about a two hour drive so we drove over the day before and spent the night in a hotel.

They meet very early in a room provided by a Presbyterian congregation. Once a month a priest and a reader from St Justin Martyr drive to Valdosta to conduct the Divine Liturgy. Other weeks they have a layman’s service. This particular week the priest and reader were there so there were about a dozen people all together (including us) gathered in a converted Sunday school room. Essentially it is church in a box. Every week they lug their supplies out of a closet then put them all back in when the liturgy ends. Compared to the beauty of a traditional Orthodox church the place was pretty Spartan, but the essentials were all there, with icons of the Theotokos and our Saviour.

Being there stirred up brew of memories, some good, some not so good. Prior to discovering Orthodoxy I was the church council president for an ELCA Lutheran congregation that finally ended its long slide to oblivion. We had been meeting together for about a decade, but due to a variety of circumstances the congregation was never really economically viable. It was nice meeting with a small group of people on a very regular basis and becoming thoroughly entwined in each others lives.

The down side was that we were stagnant. We tried everything, sometimes by mandate of the ELCA and sometimes on our own, but we did not survive. Sadly, the lack of growth caused much anguish to the core group. Many people came and went but there were about a dozen of us who were there from beginning to end. Going though the process of disbanding was like attending a funeral that never ended. We are now scattered to the proverbial four winds with most everyone ending up in a Lutheran or Episcopal congregation.

So the folks in Valdosta have a long row to hoe, but they have the advantage of having a very supportive mission partner at St. Justin Martyr. The winds of adversity will only makes their roots grow deeper.