In the Fik of it

People keep talking about balancing work and home life as if were actually even a possibility.  I'm finding in my world, that balance looks more like an Alexander Calder mobile that didn't quite past muster. It hangs askew from the ceiling with a limp and peculiar air about it and I'm not sure if its pathetic for its planning or its execution, in either case - the vision before me is anything but glorious. There's not simply the question of two opposing forces balancing; in fact, the deadly component no one mentions are the dozens of little balancing acts within each topic.  Balancing the politics at work with the actual need to get something accomplished.  Balancing what gets accomplished and who looks to gain what, from it..well, you get the drift; balancing within a balance.  Watching Bethany get off the school bus the other day, I was suddenly overcome with a glimpse of all the poorly balanced items in my life.  For the eternity of one minute, I was full...

A young girl was going to commit suicide today.   I don’t even know her name, barely know where she lives – in fact, Google probably knows more about her than I do.   One thing Google doesn’t know though, it’s that she’s thinking suicide is the answer. I read the urgent note from the pastor; he was asking for prayer on her behalf, and before I even got to the end of the note, I was asking him for an address.   After I asked that critical question I began to pray.   In reflection, my prayers were more focused on NOT getting an address, as I’m neither qualified nor bilingual enough to carry on this level of intervention.   One thing I can do in any language though is to sit and pray with someone.   I was on the verge of leaving work to go sit with a stranger and offer what?   At best, some hope - what sort of fool does this?   Who is willing to risk a good paying job and career with ample responsibility for the sake of a stranger's bad day? ...

This past week I feel like I've been living the storyline from the movie "Lost in Translation" .   While I had assumed the movie to be a fictional encounter of an American abroad in Japan,  I'm now not so sure it was fiction. Many times I found myself laughing - they'd bow, then I'd bow in return only to have them re-bow again so of course, I'd bow back.  This courtship dance seemed to go on for an awkwardly long time  before I'd finally say "enough" and break the sacred cycle. After that little courtship dance we'd settle down to dinner. You know those awkward moments when you sit with strangers and then begin a conversation neutral enough not to offend anyone, yet focused enough that you don't end up " bornering " yourself in a dead conversation with no way out?   Try striking up a conversation when the only thing you can do is mime...  I typically do well in ambiguous situations but for me, with no language skills -...

I’m staring right down the barrel of yet another Michigan winter.    Last winter nearly crushed me both spiritually and physically and this winder will be no less harsh.  Every winter for the last 10 years has been a type of Russian roulette, how lucky will you be?  Will you make it though this one?  Roll the chamber, pull the trigger, see if January comes.  If it does, try it again with February. It’s not the darkness, the grey skies and the cold air and snow that strangle my heart – it’s the endless hours of moderating Bethany in a small house in a small town surrounded by a big world.   It’s the ever-present sound of screaming, hitting, smashing.   It’s the color of a saddened wife, the temperament of a frustrated son and the hopelessly infrequent spurts of laughter and joy. All the “self-actualized” people I meet in life, the ones who speak of balanced diet, meditation, rejuvenation spas, 8 hours of sleep a night, “me time”… they all ...

Her greatest challenge lies ahead of her still.   The cancer, the divorce, the tumors, the death of spouses, the trauma of a daughter – those pains, while tearing at the very fabric of her existence still had a degree of control running in the background.   Now, nearly immobilized in an assisted care facility with limited function to the point of not being able to even ask for help, even the idea of control has been taken from her. Her constant in all those trials has always been her faith in Jesus, her greatest weapon of reason – little more than a relationship with the God of creation.   That relationship bore fruit, much fruit.   She has a direct line with Christ, they talk, and He listens.   He talks, and she hears.   Today however, that relationship seems to have gone cold.   The visible evidence of a loving communication path is not so evident and I have to believe it is still there, running at a frequency that I’m not privileged to; not i...

I replaced the screen in the back door for the 20 th time today.  It seems big fun for Bethany to occasionally take a good swing at it – send her fist through it or at least get it to tear a bit.  She’s learned that if she can’t get through it in one punch, several follow-up visits usually does the trick. She seems to love hearing me say, “dammit, knock it off”, must be music to her ears because she keeps doing it.  If not the back door, then its the screen in her bedroom.  She’ll leave it intact just long enough for you to think your safe, and then around midnight you hear this terrible crashing noise followed by a deep, sinister laugh.  Once she manages to rip it out of the window casing, she tosses it over the top of her half-height, bedroom door and down the stairs.  Again, the deep laugh. I’ve gotten pretty good at repairing them, stitching tears, smoothing bulges, grafting new skin on old screens.  The door itself is over 20 years old ...

I built a bicycle.   Not just any bike, but one modeled after a Dutch “bakfiet” which in the Netherlands is kinda like the station wagon of bicycles.   Its about eight feet long and has a large wooden cradle in front of the person doing the pedaling.   The bike was built so that I could take Bethany for bike rides with her sitting ahead of me rather than behind, stuffed into a Burley that had a weight limit we’d surpassed about two years ago.   Her fascination with spinning things, like bicycle tires, made for a dangerous ride for both of us. The bike is quite an oddity; long and low with the steering located mid-ship.   The proportions, nearly as bizarre as those of a camel and in many ways, not at all unlike the people riding her.   We get two kinds of reaction: big smiles and waves or absolute blank stares, devoid of emotion, context or comprehension.   Bethany’s favorite thing to do while riding is to simply, loudly, scream.   Blood-...