A Brief Autobiography (Part One)

I was born in Nashville, in 1980, and given my father’s name. I spent the first five years of my life in Nashville, or so I am told; I really don’t have any memory of it. I have memories of my time spent there, but nothing like a memory of spending five years there. You could string my memories of the time spent there together into a story, and you would only have a few weeks, or perhaps a few months, with which to build a plotline. I remember leaving, but I don’t remember that I was five when I did so. I don’t remember if I might have left before and then came back, like on a vaction or something like that. I do remember when I left and didn’t come back, at least not for a very long time. And I am told that I was five years old when this happened, and since the source of this information is my mother, I take it to be true. We all believe our mothers, they never lie. Or at least we like to think they don’t. And anyway they hold valuable knowledge about important parts of our stories that we know nothing about.

My first memory, the earliest moment of my life that I can remember clearly and without the help of my mother, took place before I left Nashville. Given the content of the memory, however, I feel it wasn’t too long before the exodus. It was snowing and I was out on the porch of my grandmother’s house with my father and my little brother, Justin. It was Christmas time, and I was four years old, and Justin three. My father was visiting us, he no longer lived with us, and he was asking us what we wanted for Christmas. I remember what I got for Christmas that year: an electric (though not remote controlled) police car. My brother, as always, got exactly the same thing. But on this day, my first memory, when my father asked my brother and I what we wanted for Christmas, I remember my exact answer: “I want you to come home.” Justin nodded in agreement. My father’s response was, again exactly, “That is up to your mother.” And I don’t remember anything after that. But that conversation, or piece of conversation, however long it was, maybe 30 seconds, I remember perfectly. I don’t know how long after that it was that we moved, but I do know that we spent the next Christmas in Oklahoma. And I know that my dad never came home. The number of times I saw him after we moved I could probably count on both my hands.

The last of which was the moment he died, two years ago this week.

Oddly enough, I miss him.

A Sunday School Lesson from Star Trek

One advantage of being home is that I am able to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, which used to be my favorite show, and which I cannot watch in Atlanta, because it only comes on Spike, and I don’t get Spike at the Village. The show is just as corny as it was before, which to be honest is part of the draw for me, with the bad acting and bad writing and bad story premises -- but I love it. It makes me laugh, even when it’s not supposed to, and watching it with friends or with my brothers can be an hilarious experience. I don’t mean to dog the show, or say that it’s all a joke. I genuinely like the show and I am a fan of the whole Star Trek universe, which unlike Star Wars, is our own universe -- something of an optimistic projection of humanity, almost utopian. Still, it’s as corny as hell. But it’s also comforting.

Without exception, today’s episode made me laugh -- but unlike most others, it also made me think and actually had some valuable story and meaning to it. The name of the episode is “Darmok”, and it’s plot line is briefly: the Enterprise comes into contact with a new race, who can only communicate through reference people and places, which the crew cannot understand. The aliens kidnap Picard, and beam him as well as their own captain down to the surface of the planet they are orbiting, where Picard and the alien captain learn to be friends, and together they fight a beast on the planet. Great heartwarming story.

What was particularly interesting about this episode was the communication practices of the alien race. While Picard was down on the planet, working with the other guy, he figured out that the alien captain was speaking in metaphor by referring to mytho-historical stories from the alien culture. By engaging him and working with him, Picard was able to learn how to communicate with him. Meanwhile, disconnected from Picard, Data and Troy figure out the same thing -- that the culture speaks by referring to stories -- and then Data makes this astounding statement: “We have no way of knowing what these names and places mean without learning the narratives from which they originate.”

Those of you who know me can imagine my excitement. Data was unable to form communication with the alien race, since all he had was the abstracted names and places. But Picard, in partnership with the alien captain and by engaging with him, was able not only to understand the communication of the alien, but was able to communicate the story of Gilgamesh as well. Only in the context of an ongoing relationship with certain practices, as well as with a directed end or goal, was communication possible. The alien race communicated entirely by metaphorical connection to meaningful narratives of their history -- as such, Data also observed, they have no sense of what we would recognize as self-identity apart from the stories themselves. The episode ended with Picard engaging in a practice that he had learned from the alien captain simply by observing him (think about that for awhile).

Absolutely amazing, and a lesson that the Church can learn from Star Trek, at least this episode. The ultimate and most destructive problem with the Church is that we have abstracted Jesus from the story which gives him meaning, that is, the gospel. Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and Son of God only has meaning, or at least the right meaning, when that meaning comes from the story of Jesus and the kingdom of God. Apart from that story and context, Jesus has no meaning. The problem is that we have abstracted him from the Gospel, and then filled the content of his meaning with other stories and other contexts. When that happens, Jesus becomes a good American, or good Republican or Democrat, or whatever else we try to fill the void with. When the meaning changes, so does the end, or the goal, as do to the practices and ethics of the community. And this is exactly what has happened to the Church, and has been happening for the past 2000 years. We wait for an end that will not come because we are on the wrong path.

We cannot understand, live, or follow Jesus apart from the gospel, the kingdom of God, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if we fail to do that, then we certainly cannot communicate it to a dark and salt-less world.

Live long and prosper...

Warning: Children at Play

This morning I sat out on the back porch of my mother’s house and watched my three year old niece and two and a half year old nephew hurl their bodies against the side of an inflatable pool. The pool is maybe three feet tall, and the water was probably around 18 inches deep. Thrown against the inflated plastic, their small bodies became projectiles launched back into the water, causing explosions of water and laughter. The children had been left in my care, and I was content to sit back and watch this chaos unfold, as long as they didn’t bounce too hard and fling themselves out of the pool. If they were going to fling themselves out, however, which seemed like just a matter of time, I hoped it would be to the right and onto the grass, as opposed to the left and onto the concrete. But, of course, they tended to launch to the left.

Amanda and Timothy look exactly like their respective fathers -- my youngest brother, Joey, and my middle brother, Justin -- did when they were younger. And as I sat out there watching them play, and watching the dog, Blaze, eat charcoal, I had a sudden flashback of when I was kid playing in the same backyard. My mother’s house used to be my grandmother’s house, which my grandparents bought the year I was born, and which remained the only constant dwelling place in my childhood. My mom inherited it a couple years ago when my grandmother died, and moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma to live there. I think she did this, instead of selling the house, because she knew how important the home had been to the family. In any case, sitting out there this morning I recalled all the hot summers we spent there, and how my brothers and I would play in the backyard just as Amanda and Timothy were doing now.

We never had a three foot inflatable pool -- nothing ever as cool as that -- but we did have a pretty sweet sprinkler, which would launch streams of water into the air, forming an oscillating wall of water. My guess is that we spent half our summer lives running and jumping over that sprinkler and through the water. I remember how hot it would get during the summer here, just like it does now, but somehow with a different flavor to it, and how cool the water would be. We would line up, us three boys, and take turns -- one would run through, then go to the end of the line, then repeat. Eventually, however, my lack of sharing as a virtue would show itself, along with the realization that I was the oldest and therefore entitled to more fun than my brothers, and so I would cut in line. Cutting into a two person line is a blatantly obvious offense that my mother or grandmother would never fail to notice -- and even if they had missed it, Justin’s painful shrieks would have got me busted anyway, which of course were not limited to my water playing injustices. I hated that.

But for the most part, watching Amanda and Timothy playing and splashing around brought back good memories from summers past and provided a brief moment of reflection -- a moment which ended abruptly when the children discovered that they could ride the sides of the pool like a horse on springs, and I had to attend to them. I am grateful for the time I spent with them today, as is almost always case with these two kids.

I spend the majority of my time here, however, with my little seven year old cousin, Ethan, since I am staying with his father, and my good friend, Larry. Ethan is a little lovable punk, who most assuredly reminds me of myself when I was his age. On my end, most of my time with him is spent correcting bad theology, which of course does no good (though you can imagine my excitement when I asked him,“Who is Jesus?” and he responded, “We are Jesus!” I swear, I didn’t teach him that). But for his part, the time is spent in asking me what my name is. Five hundred times a day: “What’s your name?” “What’s your name?” “What’s your name?” It’s the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night -- interrupted only briefly by the discovery of armpit noises sometime last week. He is like a little person, however, now more than he has ever been -- he can even carry a conversation, which still blows my mind. And he provides plenty of entertainment as well -- like yesterday when he informed me, and the rest of those eating at the China King Chinese Buffet, that he was gay. “I’m GAY!” he shouted laughing, and I replied, “Oh Ethan, we won’t even know that for sure until you hit puberty.” He is annoying, gets on my nerves, and is a little punk of a kid -- but I love him to death, I love spending time with him, and I’m sure I will miss him terribly when I leave. All that said, however, I am not designed to live with a seven year old.

And all this to say that my vision has been renewed and reshaped since I've been here at home. I don’t usually spend a lot of time with children -- in fact, none at all since I moved to Atlanta. But here it seems like every minute has been dominated by people less than half my size. It’s annoyed me, challenged me, and ruffled me up a bit. My ordered universe stands no chance against the chaos of a child. But more than anything it has forced me to look at things from another perspective and allowed me to see the world through eyes in my kneecaps -- eyes I had forgotten I ever had.

Children are haptic and happy, chaotic and crying, wrapped in a blanket of vision that sees another kind of order, and to be honest I am not completely sure what to think of them. But I am as certain as I’ve ever been that the Kingdom belongs to such as these.