Day 23

We have a new resident in our house. He is completely selfish, enjoys long sleeps, and has a vested interest in puking on things. His greatest ambition seems to be procuring copious amounts of milk from his mother which he requests by thrashing wildly and emitting mongrel-like sounds that would put any normal person in mind of a woodchipper and at least give you pause to think twice about putting his mouth anywhere near a body part onto which he could latch.

Not-So-Great Qualities:

• Loves to excrete urine and feces on things. 
• Doesn't "use his words".
• Cannot watch West Wing with me yet because his eyesight sucks.
• Refuses to apply problem-solving skills to find his pacifier that is literally a millimeter from his mouth (the same mouth out of which he just unceremoniously spit said pacifier)
• Cannot ambulate.

Better Qualities:

• Frequently goes "cross-eyed" when looking around.
• Soft fluffy hair.
• Lightweight.
• Attempts to eat his hands.
• Occasionally smiles.

"Awake"

WTF

Happy Face

Couldn't be less amused.

First Selfie

We're still in the trial period so no guarantees about keeping this thing around as of yet but he's growing on me.

Birthday Month

No. Not my birthday month. If I was born in July I would have been pissed, thank you mother and father for accidentally getting pregnant with me at the appropriate time. July is hot and sticky and muggy and filled with the sounds of A/C condensers humming that makes everything feel like you're living in an airplane cabin during take-off. Unfortunately, both of my parents were not the recipients of well-timed accidents and were born in July; thus July usually meant some kind of celebratory thing outside. Outside in July means heat and sweat and nothing else. And so the universal constant  of fucking with me is again confirmed in scientific terms because the coming baby will also be born in July. That sucks even more because if I was the one with the July birthday I could at least choose a celebration that does not spend the entire day underneath a scorching sun trying to brave the inevitable sunburn and subsequent Lidocaine baths. Now I will be at the mercy of a small person who will not give two shits about another's comfort or wants for at least a decade. And here's the thing, I couldn't be more excited.

Just let me have my moment. I know this excitement will run its course in due time, but right now, all of the anticipation of poop and puke and lack of normal sleep patterns and mind-numbing dearth of energy, I'm having a hard time containing my joy. And it's the first time I've felt like that since we found out we were pregnant some 30 weeks ago. This is not naivety (mostly).

Making Sweet Squeegeeing Love To My Windshield Wipers

My view post wipe with old wipers. That car in
front is actually a mile away. Thanks funhouse
mirror windshield wipers.

Languishing in the world of ineffective windshield wipers was just how everyone lived. The wipers clear your field of vision, forward and backward, and leave behind a well defined film of hastily spread water droplets that routinely make the other cars and buildings and trees around you look like everything exists in a world of funhouse mirrors. This is life driving in rain, this is how it would always be. I never ventured to imagine a world that was different, a world where windshield wipers cleared ALL OF THE WATER. Granted, I've never splurged for the "name brand" expensive wipers, mostly because I'm a cheap bastard and require Kelly to handle all financial transactions over $20 that don't include video games and/or electronics. But here's the thing, a good pair of windshield wipers can literally change your life.

When Kelly called to inform me that she had purchased new windshield wipers and went on to explain she had gotten the fancy "Rain-X Latitude" wipers because they were the only ones available in the size we needed, I harrumphed loudly and made an inappropriate hand gesture in the air. The last time something like this happened she had paid extra money for new tires when the salesman sold her on "snow grooving", which is a complete crock of shit.

(Interlude: I would be remiss to act like Kelly has a history of making poor financial decisions. That's actually my department. By and large the only reason we're able to live is because she is well versed in being organized, responsible and appropriately frugal with our finances. I would gleefully drop $2,000 on a new computer every year if it weren't for her much more enlightened sense of reality.)

So here I was, assuming she had been "had" again by some fancy packaging and fancy name of some idiot product that would do nothing but produce the same results of every other wiper blade in existence. Then I took them out of the package. Right away I could tell something was different. The wipers were substantial, they were weighty, they held a solid parabolic curve that put boomerangs to shame. This thing was going to go on my windshield and actually hug the damn glass like a baby chimp clinging to its parent as it flies from branch to branch. I'd never seen a windshield wiper do that before. It was like witnessing your first fireworks display or seeing The Sixth Sense for the first time (spoiler alert: Bruce is dead THE WHOLE MOVIE). Hairs raised on the back of my neck. I could feel my heart beating in my throat as the wipers clicked pleasingly into place. God, they even clicked into their hooks nicely.

Yes this is probably a digitally enhanced picture of
my windshield wipers in action, but this is how good
they actually work. For real.

And yet, with all of these tingly good feelings I couldn't quite bring myself to trust this magnificent piece of machinery. I turned to Kelly and cautiously stated, "I guess we'll see how they hold up when it rains next." But in my heart, I was excited. I went inside to check the 10-day and hoped (dare I hope?) for rain. The result: magic. Pure unadulterated magic. Those fancy ass wipers cleared the whole fucking window, one wipe, in the midst of a torrential downpour that resulted in the flooding of numerous surrounding areas and states-of-emergency declared in several townships. Also our roof decided to spring a leak, but those wipers...MAN! Those wipers fucking worked and they're still working and I swear they'll be working this time next year.

A Great Big Useless Tree

Shortly before Rhys was born I found out my blood type for the first time in my living memory. Being the middle child, my mother and father were never too concerned about remembering "important things" about me so I had to adapt (jk, love ya mom and dad, xoxo). I was having some blood work done and the labs/docs were nice enough to screen it for my blood type as well. Low and behold, O negative blood runs through these selfless veins: Universal donor which, appropriately enough, also means universally screwed because I can only take O negative blood. O negative blood is rare, you see, which is probably a good reason for me to donate blood on a semi-regular basis. I'll honestly start doing that at some point, I swear, but the whole idea kind of freaks me out. I need to get over myself. But I digress.

Sitting in the hospital two days after Rhys came and went, I was a bit restless and found a sense of calm and comfort in recalling my seventh grade science class punnet square lesson and using it to determine the odds of Rhys' blood type and confirm Kelly's actual blood phenotype. The moment still imprints itself in my memory in a startlingly clear way. I frantically asked if anyone had some pen and paper and looked around at the family members in the room as if they all should have had some paper and a pen on them at this given moment. Never mind that everyone else had been walking through the events of Rhys' birth and death with us, just as stunned by what had happened as us, just as inadequate in their understanding as we were. I needed pen and paper and moments later, from where or whom I have no clue, it was in front of me. I drew up the square and divided it into four boxes and went to work. We had found out that Rhys was O positive which meant that Kelly, who is A positive, must have an AO phenotype and not an AA. Kelly giving the AO and me giving the OO meant Rhys and future children have a 50/50 chance of being either AO or OO. That spontaneous decision lead me back to the present and reminded me to sit with my anger and sadness and pain. It pointed me towards a deeply rooted sense of what was, what had happened, and of all the thoughts and feelings that came with it. Put another way, it was a moment of experiencing Tao.

A few months ago Rev. Lillian Daniel's rant about a conversation with a fellow airplane patron made the rounds on my facebook newsfeed and I found myself feeling somewhat self-conscious and worried. In that short post resided my fears and concerns about revealing my spiritual identity to those around me. Stereotyped? Check. Misunderstood? Check. Rejected? Check. I would consider myself "spiritual but not religious". Never mind that this identity is deeply rooted in an ancient tradition and never mind that it places the experience and understanding of one's inner self at the center of spiritual practice; something that seems to run antithetical to her conception of spirituality. And to be fair, on a certain level I think I get what she's saying, laziness is not spirituality and I don't think any self-respecting person would disagree with that, but her post felt a lot like the old adage throwing the baby out with the bath water. And there is a piece of this that felt even more insidious.

Lillian Daniel's conception of spirituality seems to only make space for someone who believes in a very western, very Protestant view of spirituality. I can't help but wonder what she would say to Sat Hon explaining a certain type of Taoist meditation thusly:

When I teach this pathless form of meditation to students: that there is nothing to teach and everything is perfect and in harmony just as they are in this very moment. I am usually met with the following:
"Ughh. But you have taught us nothing," is a common response.
"Exactly," I laugh. While some walk out in a huff.
"Charlatan!" they shout.
A few stay, hoping that perhaps at a later time I will eventually reveal the secret techniques to them. They will also leave empty-handed and full of blame and anger. Only a rare individual or two will awaken to this instantaneous perfection of suchness.
"You lying thief!" they laugh. And perhaps we will then share a cup of Dragon Well tea.

I might be a bit more interested in sharing a cup of coffee but you get the gist. This is not the type of religious or spiritual experience she is holding up as valid. I don't know, maybe Lillian Daniel is reacting to something very different, but her comment about wanting to sit next to someone who experiences the world as she does when the plane goes down strikes me a tad disturbing. As if the only way she would be willing to share something meaningful with someone else is if they shared a fundamental belief in the way she saw and experienced the world. It helped identify what the struggle has been for me when it comes to "outing" myself.

Living and working with so many others that are openly Christian and assume the same about those around them can be a challenge and for a few years now I've existed in this world feeling like an intruder, constantly justifying the words I used and the names I invoked in order to at least maintain some sort of authenticity within myself. I've hid my self from others because I wasn't convinced that being honest about my spiritual path would be received or accepted or even tolerated. I've not been very eager to approach that place. Rhys' birth changed a great deal of this for me and reminded me of a lesson I learned attending church, curiously enough. Much of that lesson is indebted to the love, support, and character of very intelligent and wise women who walked with me through the process of confirmation and, later, ordination. They taught me and showed me that they were interested in me, not because I was Christian or held the same beliefs or recited the correct creeds but precisely because I was me. In a funny way my spiritual life and path wouldn't be possible (or at least much more contentious) if it weren't for my experience as a Christian being formed in a church environment that encouraged questions and respected difference.

So practicing Taoist spirituality isn't something new for me. I've been reading about and enjoying Taoism for years, but sharing that with people? Coming out of the closet, so to speak? That's been difficult. Reading things like Lillian Daniel's post reminds me of the expectations and assumptions we foist on each other, and it worries me. It scares me. All of this is by way of saying that this transition for me has been about seeking an authentic an honest expression of myself in this life that accepts that things happen without explanation or reason. Sure we can learn from them, we can grow and change because of them, but the events of life, for me, are not tied to some greater plan or divine providence or overarching narrative in which good triumphs over evil. Life is what life has always been, a balance of chaos and order. Put differently, life is both joy and sadness, loss and gain, learning and forgetting, nothing more and nothing less. I don't pray and I don't worship. I practice presence and cultivate empathy and compassion.

In the simplest terms possible, I am, and that is enough for me.

Year One

A couple of weeks after we lost Rhys we were driving down Highland Avenue on the way to pick up his ashes from the funeral home. Kelly and I were emotional. We had  a difficult time leaving the hospital knowing that we'd be leaving him behind, that it would be the last time we saw him, and I was worried that at some point in the near future I would forget what he looked like or some important thing that reminded me of him. It was on that drive to pick up his ashes that I realized I could picture his face. I hadn't laid eyes on him for more than a week, but there he was, as clear as the first time I drank in his face. The tears flowed freely in that moment; Joy and sorrow, loss and peace all sitting quite comfortably together.

There was so much about those 4 days in the hospital that were difficult and then these seemingly odd moments of peace absorbing the features of his face and hands and feet. Neither Kelly nor I wanted to leave. Leaving meant we'd never hold him again; it meant saying goodbye to that physical reminder that he was here, that he lived and breathed, that he entered the world and became something. The most touching gesture and gift we received in the days following Rhys' death was from a friend who donated trees to be planted in his honor. That gift spoke to me. It connected to the moments of that day in a way that was devoid of judgment but held a deep recognition of the experience. I didn't want to conceive of what had happened as right or wrong, good or bad. There was nothing wrong with my son, there was nothing bad about his short life. It simply was. That's a hard thing to explain and share with people when they're consumed with wanting to explain those things. Those trees never said that to me. Those trees said that, regardless of the length of his life, Rhys contributed something to the world in some small way and that made all the difference sitting in that hospital room trying to figure out how to summon the courage to leave that place.

In the months that followed, after Rhys' ashes had found a home in two different urns, Kelly and I fell in to a rhythm of life that revolved around getting out of the house and walking in nature. We'd walk the prairie path West and East and spend time circling the ponds at Madison Meadows. Eventually, once Kelly had recovered sufficiently from her c-section, we returned to the East Branch dog park that we looked forward to traipsing around with a newborn strapped in a Baby Bjorn. There were moments when those forays back in to the world felt timely and needed and others when each step felt like sorrow and every one of those moments were vital. Sometimes my sadness and pain abound, sometimes it's joy and peace, sometimes it's all of those things at once but there has never been a moment in all of this when I've wanted someone to try and take any of these feelings away from me. These are the only things I have of him.

At the beginning of June our restlessness had risen to a peak and our energy turned towards doing. We wanted to create a physical space for our grief and a garden in the backyard seemed as good a way as any other. We pulled up a section of grass, moved the Day Lilies and Arborvitae that were in random places in the yard, and planted a new Hydrangea bush. In the weeks and months to come it would continue to take shape, adding other plants and moving some (apparently Hydrangea don't like full sun...who knew?), setting up a wind chime, placing his memorial paver, and adding a small bird bath made by his grandma. It is, for us, a place where his future siblings will know him, where they will interact with him, a place where they'll be able to add their own choice of plant or tree or bush and be reminded of ways in which all of our lives contribute something to the world around us. My hope is that they're reminded to contribute something positive towards the great balance of life.

In the last moments of writing this I have a pregnant Kelly sitting next to me, a 70 lb snoring dog in a tight ball between us and am preparing to go spend the rest of the day in the dirt of Rhys' garden planting, shaping and remembering a short life that has reminded me to be who I am.

Son and Tao

Oh hai blog. Long time no write. It's only been like a year...or more. No big deal. I don't mean to dismiss your feelings and all but, as you might know, life tends to happen. So anyway, I thought, in an effort to get back into this semi-regular writing thing I'd do more writing. Ha ha, writing thing...do more writing...ehhhh. Let's not make this any more awkward than we need to.

This past year has been a lesson in remembering to be who I am, without pretense or false tense or past tense or future tense. When my son Rhys was born last year it was a stark reminder of the importance of being present. At 23 weeks and 5 days, I was never under any delusions that his life would be anything more than a short abbreviated version of all the hopes and dreams his mother and I had carried with us for the past 6 months.  In the days and weeks and months to come I never figured out how to respond when someone said, "You'll be with him again someday in heaven," or some other similar sentiment. Usually I didn't say anything. Occasionally I'd offer something approximating a smile, the kind that doesn't quite reach the corners of your mouth. Those moments were reminders of feelings I've carried for years and buried, the kind that remind me I've felt like an intruder upon a faith practice and spirituality that hadn't felt honest or authentic for years.

It was an odd experience sitting in theology class in seminary and having to hide aspects of my own spiritual experience because they weren't fitting the mold. Even in seminary, a place where there is ample room for ideas and theological concepts, I never felt safe offering my honest thoughts and feelings . I still remember responses from a professor on a rough draft of a statement of faith that invited me to revise because my conception of god was too distant. The message I got was, "You don't sound very Christian," and the truth was I wasn't. I hadn't been for some time. I'd been spending plenty of time and effort shoehorning certain beliefs into appropriate sounding Christianese out of some misplaced sense of duty to a faith I'd grown up in, a faith that helped shape the person I am today. How do I say goodbye to that? How do I part ways with something that has had a positive and important impact on my life?

Rhys was never able to thrive, he never had the chance to tread water. He required a lot of help-extraordinary help-that couldn't do much about the fact that he just wasn't ready to be on his own in this world. In those hours Kelly and I spent helplessly watching I was reminded of a number of people I've had the privilege of knowing and stories I've heard of others who never got that chance either. Whether because of a culture that fears difference or wounds that festered and never healed those stories are important. By virtue of the fact that we are human beings, those stories mean something. What my son reminded me of in his all too brief 12 hours of life was that everyone has the right to live their life fully, completely, openly and honestly. He reminded me that it's not enough to be tolerant, it's not enough to tread water. He reminded me that, as much as I try to be an advocate for others to be fully, completely and authentically themselves, I've not been much of an advocate for myself to do the same thing. As we prepare to welcome our next child into the world I want to be able to show him that being who you are is important and life-giving. I want her to see that and not just hear that.

So, little one, whoever you are, whoever you become, know that your Taoist father only wants you to be who you are and hopes you never feel like you have to be something you're not. You can thank your big brother for that.

A Christmas Story (Paraphrased and with License)

While it is the case that the majority of Christianity would find my theological beliefs unpalatable and while I'm sure they also leave some people trying to figure out why I call myself Christian, I have always loved the Christmas season.  That might have more to do with family traditions and experiences growing up and my love of all things winter and hot cocoa while it's snowing but I also love a good story.

The wonderful part of the birth stories for me is that we essentially have a family who, for whatever reason, has fudged the cultural expectations of there day a bit. Joseph got Mary pregnant before their "marriage" was officially official.  The sticky wicket in which they found themselves, however, had more to do with political expectations.  Rome was in the middle of making sure they were getting all of there taxes (as empires do) from everyone they "owned" and it was decreed by the provincial governor that every man (along with his family, because, ya know, only men count) was to return to their place of birth in order to be counted and taxed accordingly.  It was a bit of a hooplah and Mary was in her third trimester.  I imagine Traveling with a very pregnant woman is no big deal.  I mean, there's only the threat of early labor, dangerous traveling conditions, potentially life threatening situations; if ever there were such a thing as a cake walk, this would be it.  They didn't really have a choice, so they went.

Thankfully, mercifully, gracefully they arrived in Bethlehem without major incident. I say major because I can imagine there were myriad and justified amounts of discomfort, complaining and anger from everyone involved.  What I mean to say is everyone arrived alive.  But of course, owing perhaps to the slower pace which they were forced to take on account of Mary's very pregnant condition, one of the few places left to stay was somebody's stable.  Soon after Mary went into labor. We have no idea how long or how hard that labor was for Mary (thanks, undoubtedly, to the male writers of the gospels and their keenly honed sense of important details).  From what I can cobble together from the women in my life, that shit ain't easy.  It's absolutely true that said labor involved lots of blood, body fluids, ungodly amounts of pain and a healthy stream of cursing unleashed in Joseph's direction.  Mary probably called him a viper a time or two which in today's parlance translates to something like, "Joseph, you fucking asshole, this is all your fault," (I looked it up).

Anyway, they did it.  Mary gave birth to a very loud baby, wrapped him in some blankets and laid him in a feeding trough as is the customary thing to do...kind of (but not really at all).  As good Jews they took the baby after eight days had passed circumcised him and bestowed upon him the most godly name they could think of, Jesus (or Yeshua or Joshua or something or other; the point is the name is actually quite ordinary).  And later, as is prescribed in the Torah, they presented Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem with a sacrifice honoring their god, their culture and their ancestors.

The point of all of this has nothing to do with Jesus as god's son born to save the world from itself.  That's not really my thing.  The miracle is in the fundamental and ordinary experience of creating and caring for life.  The wildly divergent emotions and expectations and everyday life of people sharing the struggles and joys of bringing a child into their lives.  The miracle is that life happens in some of the most peculiar and ordinary and exceptional ways.  For myself, there's no place for some fabricated fanfare about a virgin birth or a chorus of angels and there's no need for shepherds and wise men paying homage to a new king (although it does make for nice story-telling).  I feel like and think that the point has something more to do with the fact that the birth of and care for any child in any place at any time should be enough to call all us to hope (and act!) for peace and love to reign on Earth.  I think we would do well to pay more attention to those mundane things in life, to remember that ordinary doesn't preclude the experience of the sacred or transcending but that the ordinary is very much the heart of what is sacred and transcendent.