i can't be you

when I check blogs, I am often left with a sense of wonder.

Amazement at the friend who passionately searches out video clips and weaves them as a story of his life.

Amazement at friends who hug trees and then write deep thoughts about it.

Amazement at the friend who seeks to benefit from difficult circumstances in his own life.

Amazement at friends who feel and think deeply.

Amazement that I am looked at with wonder myself.

This last one has really hit me tonight. If you never check out Amsterdam Asp, click on it now, and come back. This can wait. Now if you followed instructions, you will have seen a ridiculous picture of me and a ridiculously kind write-up by my beloved brother Eric. Even though the dominating adjective is "crazy," my eccentricities are also labeled daring, avant garde, and creative. In his words I hear that the linkage between cool and rebel is still alive and well, even if its poster boy, James Dean, no longer walks among us. Now the classic back-and-forth between Eric and me is the longing for what the other possesses. This is human nature. Wouldn't it be great if I could be daring, and yet still be calculating? The fact is, I like Eric's list of attributes a lot more than my own. Sure, when you live in that skin for a few decades, you start to feel like "conservative" equals "stuffy" and "careful" equals "cowardly" (or something along those lines). But from inside my own skin, I don't feel daring, creative, avant garde, etc. I feel flighty, reckless, rebellious (and not in a cool James Dean way), chameleon-like ("Creativity is but judicious imitation."), foolish, and regretful.

So I can't be video guy, or deep thoughts guy, or book-devourer guy, or emo-guy, or brave-face-guy, or any other number of guys I wish I could morph into. I can't be you. And here's the tricky part: I'm finding I can't even be me.

The guy I was, the accumulated attributes that amounted to a hopelessly uncool individual, are breaking me. The patterns and habits and rituals and thoughts and motives and processes are draining the life out of me. Even the new thoughts and the new angles and the expanded horizons and the struggle to embrace "facts" have left only doubt, and brought no peace nor no real enlightenment.

I can't go back. I can't become who I was prior to all these things. I don't really know where to charge forward to, and charging forward has tended to land me in all kinds of trouble. I can only admit that I'm broken, and I need to be healed. I can only admit that I am lost--"lost enough to let myself be led." So I'm living in this desperate attempt (inspired by Frank Laubauch in "Letters by a Modern Mystic") to always be with Jesus. To always think of him and talk to him and listen to him. And believe me, I'm terrible at it. But I'd rather be terrible at that, than attempt to do what I was doing before and continue to be terrible there.

The Winds of Change are Blowing...and It's Mostly Exhaust

Perhaps you were hoping that my summer break from teaching would afford me more time to blog and you might therefore hear from me more often. But alas, that is one change that has yet to occur.

It could be because I'm teaching summer school in the morning, College for Kids in the afternoon, arriving home around 6:15 to eat dinner, go to the pool for an hour or so, and tuck my kids in bed. On rare occasions, like this evening, I had another commitment that didn't allow me to return home until 9:15. While I did not see my own children at all today, I did see hundreds of others...all day long.

But I digress. Changes, changes.

Brennan is now 4. Happy birthday, Wee Bren!!

In conjunction with our sons' birthdays, one present we got them was a dog. This is a fun present, to be sure, but it also helps to teach them responsibility. They are already gleefully picking up poop and feeding the dog, and this comes only after they picked out her name: Lulu. That is the danger of letting the dog be the kids' dog. Silly names. But, actually, I kind of like it.
So those are her pictures up at the top of the post. She is Great Dane/Greyhound. She is a beautiful beast.

All things garage related are breaking: the Trooper just had a fuel pump put in, and now will need a new transmission. That car is straight from the devil. The trusty truck is experiencing some (I hope) minor electrical problems. Even the garage door itself is broken with a snapped torsion spring. As if we were financially destitute enough...

And really, here I need to stop and apologize for the title. I won't go back and change it, because it reflects my poor attitude at the moment, but I must point out (perhaps to myself) that while my title is witty in reflecting the vehicle breakdowns, it does not really point out how good things are. I wish you could have been with me on the car ride home this evening. The summer air smelled so good it made my heart ache. All I needed were some fireflies and I would have thought I was in heaven. I talked with Jesus, as I am wont to do when circumstances seem overwhelming, and we discussed how it's good to have bad times, if for no other reason than that we might talk. Plus, a little tidbit of news which I am getting to, has me very excited....

I will preface this by saying that the offer is not final, but there is a strong likelihood that in the fall, I will be a Charger! That is to say, I will be teaching Art 1 at Central High School in Keller. At the close of our interview the principal said he would recommend me for hire, he has already contacted my references, my current principal (who is graciously letting me go) called to congratulate me...and so it seems I am only waiting on an official offer from HR. I am thrilled to be working with high schoolers again, and doubly thrilled to be working literally 6 minutes from home.

That's a lot of news for one post. I think I'll go lie down.