October 5 2023
Murphy woke up at 6:30am. I saw his round silhouette in the doorframe of the kitchen. No pants, no shirt, his underwear riding up everywhere it could up itself.
He’s got heavy feet when he walks, and he doesn’t know that he’s terrible at sneaking into the kitchen to steal a forbidden-without-permission-because-we-cannot-afford-5-gallons-a-week swig of orange juice straight from the carton. (It is frustrating that fruit has sugar. I so want to give them something that is both always delicious *to them* and always good for them. Sorry boys - you can only drink water and iceberg lettuce tears.)
Waits, his older brother, floats instead of walks. He sneaks around about 10% as much as Murph, so when he actually does sneak to get orange juice and I see it from afar I don’t do anything. It’s fun to watch him test the rules.
Murphy doesn’t believe in rules, philosophically, conceptually. He also doesn’t give a kid’s poopie if he has to go in “time-out” or whatever form of discipline I’m test-driving that week. It always feels impossible. I took the classes, read the books, and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Some days I feel like I’m on a good path. Some days I can’t seem to even find the path, and I doubt there is a path. My lizard brain starts swirling like a flushing toilet, and all I can see is failure and futility. It’s so difficult to have belief and to trust, most pointedly when the self-critical voices are yelling at me. I want to numb and fill the void. I used to do it with booze, and currently I do it with ice cream, which makes me gassy and bloated. Cookies, same. I used to do it with ice cream and cookies as well as booze, but I didn’t realize it was all performing the same function. I am an addict and so I don’t go into anything with moderation — I want all of it and I want it now.
The space I’m addressing in my body, the part I want to numb, is scarred over with fear. I’m so scared. I’m a 12 year old boy that doesn’t know what to do, looking around for the adults, only to discover that their eyes are also fear-filled. Alcohol doesn’t heal it, nor does sugar. Little nicotine pouches are better than cigarettes, but both are coping agents that prevent me from caring for the wounds.
Murphy sleep-thuds his little body across the room into my lap. I wrap my arms around him and place my right hand across his entire chest. I love you I love you I love you, I say.
I love you too, dad.
October 2 2023
The wind prays through fabric for me, over me, around me. I don’t know this one says. Doesn’t matter. I could look it up but the mystery is more enticing than the knowledge. I like how prayer does not keep to one form. I like how something or someone can pray on my behalf when I am unable or unwilling. I like it that prayer is not codependent; it happens with us, without us. Sometimes I like the wonder of it and sometimes I hate it, when it feels futile and meaningless. Enough of this, I say. What’s the point.
I like that silence is prayer — so can words and work and walking and a glance and a mountain. I like it that John the Baptizer taught his followers to pray with words and that Jesus was so unconcerned with it that he had to be asked. Would he have even talked about praying with language had he not been questioned? But boy did we ever run with that. “Let us pray” and then someone says words that hold no surprise. Maybe he was hesitant to tell the people the Our Father ‘cause he knew, “Well this will be that now. What a bummer.”
So my boys ask what is prayer? And I say what makes your heart sing? And they say the leaves shaking in the wind. And I say bowing. And they say dancing. And I say an ant carrying a stick. And they say bubble baths. And I say long hugs. And they say tickle fights. And I say silence. And they say shouting. And I say thank yous.
The wind blows through the fabric and around a photo of my boys on my bench. The photo flaps its own prayer.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
September 20 2023
Saturday is the equinox, the threshold of autumn. The leaves are changing color and beginning to let go of their branches, after which they fall to provide cover, protection, and eventual nourishment for ground in the winter months and beyond.
To join with the leaves, here is an offering: a practice for the first two weeks of fall, our own letting go so that something may fall away, potentially nourish something else, and create space for something new.
I wrote this prayer of letting go, vamping off of a prayer from Thomas Keating, which I plan to read and pray every morning for at least the first two weeks of fall.
••••••••
I give up my desire for affection.
I give up my desire for security.
I give up my desire for affirmation.
I give up my desire to get there faster.
I give up my desire to get there.
I give up my desire for acclamation.
I give up my desire for success.
I give up my desire to numb.
I give up my desire for control.
All this space that is now opened up by letting go, I offer it to God as a gift.
••••••••
The invitation is for you to write your own version, using that repeating framework, and offer it out every day for 14 days. If you don’t believe in a god, or you aren’t a prayer person, then maybe you can, like me and my friends in recovery, offer up that energy and space in yourself to any power greater than yourself.
And in regards to recovery, a central tenant is that you are not alone. It is communal work. We believe, we admit, we made a decision, and so on. In this fall practice you are not alone. The trees join in with you, and so do I and others.
This is hard work. Giving up desire for security, for control — awful. But holding onto those desires, a the anxieties they induce, is worse by far.
Who knows what will come to life when we let these things die. Thank you, desire for security, but you are no longer needed. It’s time for something new to be birthed.
September 17 2023
When the dark comes to my door, I want to invite them in and set the table for them. Who knows what they have to say?
I haven’t, but I’m trying. It’s easier to run 50 miles in the Appalachians than it is to welcome the dark. You can trust me on this. So maybe my first move in this new way of being is to unlock the door, leave it shut, walk away.
What a wild move.
Then next time I might crack the door and peak out. Beyond the door’s threshold might be the disappointment of a lover, the absence of a mother, the failed project or the loneliness that’s been locked out. I say, “You’re out there for a reason. Stay the hell away. You have no home here.” Then I close the door and bolt it shut.
But — I cracked it open and spoke. I do a dance.
No one or no thing goes away. They stay outside the door, needing no food or water to survive. They feed on me whether or not I let them in, taking my connection as I am at work or with my boys. I can feel its absence. My boys are with me but I am not with them. I am on my dumb phone or busying myself with cleaning so as to not be in the slow time of sitting on the floor with them, legos under my butt. “Can’t right now pal. I have to do this thing I avoided until this moment.”
The dark knocks again. I’ve been listening, and now I am familiar with the sound of its fist against the wood. I know its rhythm. I twist the bolt, crack the door, peer through the opening and see all of them there. This time anger is stands in front of the rest. “It’s you. Hello.” The door stays cracked. I walk away and call my brother in Oregon. We have different mothers but the same one. He answers even when he can’t answer. He’s packing up the car to go to his kid’s soccer game with his wife, his ex-wife, and his cancer. I tell him who is at the door. He says ah yes, I know them too.
He tells me what Rumi told him.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
I tell him that sounds like a bunch of horseshit. How’s that for being human!
Maybe today will be the first day I open the door wide and leave it open, having no fear in me. Do not be afraid, the Christian scriptures say over and over and over and over. Maybe I don’t go as far as to invite them all in and treat them honorably, and that’s fine. I’ll still do my dance.
September 15 2023
I am a thief. I steal grains of sugar from women. A poet I love says that stealing a pound of sugar will put you in hot water, but stealing one grain won’t get you in that much trouble.
I tune in around the feminine, my senses heighten to learn what I don’t know. The smells, patterns, leadership, strengths, nurturance, styles of relating — all of it there for me to take in, a free education. The places where I am strong and knowledgeable all lean toward the masculine, and so the feminine part of me requires more attention and calibration. This is where I steal sugar.
And if you read this as me saying I understand the feminine or the masculine or the divine then I have grossly miscommunicated. I know so very little, almost nothing. The universe is infinite and I have mismatched socks and stains on my shirt.
On the playground at my boys’ school last week I heard a mother ask if anyone had a band-aid. Three women each quickly produced one, at the ready. I felt in my pockets like a dummy, as if I had one, like a guy reaching for his wallet at dinner hoping the other person would say, “No, no. I got it this time.”
Band-aids are more symbols of healing than anything else. I know this. When one of my boys has a scrape or scratch that isn’t bleeding, they want a band-aid regardless because it gives them a sense of being taken care of, that there is a healer who can help. A band-aid can go on the forehead of a child after a nightmare and they feel calmed.
The feminine is so good at this care. Healing feels feminine to me. To nurture, hold, care for — I listen and look for all of these moves in places like the school playground to further develop the feminine in me.
So now, the place in my wallet that used to hold cash in the times before I had kids now holds two band-aids, ready for any physical or emotional wounding. Thank you, divine feminine of the playground. I saw your nature and put those grains of sugar in my wallet.
As the poet said,
“‘You’re a thief,’ the judge said.
‘Let’s see your hands.’
I showed my calloused hands in court.
My sentence was a thousand years of joy.”
September 12 2023
Almost a year and a half ago I found this painting at a second hand store. In that season I was in it — deep in the underground, where it is wet and dark. You can’t dig up out of those times. You can’t force it or will it or save yourself. You can most certainly dig yourself deeper with drink and drug, but thank God I did not dig down any further. I’d hit that bedrock a couple years prior. I could play that tape forward and see the future if I medicated in those ways, and I said no thank you very much. Not today.
A brother, a soul friend, told me, “Maybe you should stay right where you are. Just sit on the path of these emotions. Don’t go forward or backward or carve a new trail. Be in what you’re in.
I told him, “Jeffrey you are my worst best friend. No one likes you. And you’re ugly.”
Of course his counsel proved to be good, which is still infuriating.
When I saw the painting at the thrift shop, Ugly Jeffrey’s words were floating around me. I bought it and have looked at it almost every day since then.
I was in a storm, but I wasn’t sinking. Most days I was the old man at the wheel — beaten down by the sea, scarred and scared. And some days, fewer but still there, I was the young guy with the dumb smile, experiencing a modicum of hope, afraid of nothing. I’d have a sense that it was all ok even though it felt awful. I reminded myself that I’m not in control, that there are plays within plays that I cannot see. If I was to survive the storm, it wouldn’t be because I could control the weather. I can, however, choose my clothing.
September 11 2013
There are three boys living in my house. One is 8, one is 5, and one is 12 — the 12 year old is the one living in me. The 12 year old has lots of good ideas; most of them don’t work. He often shows up in the heightened moments, those times where discipline is needed.
“Stay in this area. Don’t go into that area,” I tell the 5 year old. As I say it I know what I’ve done, and it’s too late. I’ve made the off-limits area mystical, enchanted. “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Well what did you expect?
I’m sitting, watching. I see the 8 year old playing where I asked him to play (of course I do because he always wants to know what to do and what not to do so he can do what he’s supposed to do) (generally), but I don’t see the 5 year old. I know. I give it a few more minutes to give the kid a chance and to give myself a chance. Three minutes, no 5 year old.
The 12 year old shows up. I didn’t see him sneak in, which is my failure. He’s angry and scared, the 12 year old. I walk to the enchanted land. The 5 year old is caught, his gaze drops in shame.
If I don’t feel the 12 year old come in the room, he’ll run the show, and he knows so little, a kid in charge of a company.
I thank and dismiss the 12 year old. He’s important and is not to be killed. He may be immature and misguided but, he’s confident, and he remembers things that I don’t. This leaves me with me at 40, not knowing how to discipline, to disciple. Do I remove something from the 5 year old loves, a treat or tv time? Do I put him in the nebulous “time out”? Do I trust my gut, and is my gut the 12 year old in me? No one is there to help. Sometimes I have a sense of the next move; often I do not.
We stand there together while shame and fear devise a plan and attack.
The 8 year old keeps playing.
September 8 2023
A friend of mine asked me about my concept of God and my feelings about Jesus. The two of us know each other well, so I could talk freely and experimentally — we trust each other, so there was no fear of any of our ideas as being concrete or that we were attempting to convince the other to believe or accept anything.
I thought about how I would respond to the same question from someone I didn’t know, a person where the trust of a long relationship hadn’t been built. If I were in my courage, I would sit there in silence with them for 20 minutes.
Any words I use to speak of God are inherently wrong. Every word I utter of God does not come within a billion light years of communicating God’s being. The very best I can do is to sit in silence, to be still and know.
If I were even more courageous, I’d get up from my seat and dance a wild dance.
•••••••••
In Japan for an international conference on religion, Joseph Campbell overheard another American delegate, a social philosopher from New York, say to a Shinto priest, "We've been now to a good many ceremonies and have seen quite a few of your shrines. But I don't get your ideology. I don't get your theology."
The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head. "I think we don't have ideology," he said. "We don't have theology. We dance."
September 5 2023
What remains of the hair on my head is almost all grey now. My beard is on that trail, not far behind. I have to shave my ears. I did not know that was a thing, but I’m not surprised. I injured my wrist a month ago and it still aches. Cleaning out my closet I came across two suits I haven’t worn in years. I hung them back up, fully knowing I can no longer fit in them, with that voice in the back of my mind that said maybe I’ll be able to one day. That’s the same voice that I’ve heard saying, “Of course you can still do a flip on the trampoline” when I’m at the trampoline park with the boys.
I need glasses. I hold books further away from my face, squinting, then sighing.
They don’t see the ear hair, the squinting eyes, the suits never worn again, or the aching wrist. They don’t see the bank account or the bills. They don’t see the check engine light on the dashboard of my body or the car.
They don’t need to see any of those things. They only see dad. They see what is standing before them in that moment, not the details or the physical appearance, but the presence, the being.
It’s comforting. Just be, Joshua. Be as fully as you can be. Let that be enough.
I stared into my youngest boy’s face the other morning while he was sleeping. I swear I saw him getting older.
September 1 2023
How I move through the threshold of summer to autumn will be connected to how I move through the threshold of marriage to divorce. How I transition from renter to homeowner or homeowner to renter will correlate to how I move through my boys’ leaving our home when they are 18 or so. Insert any transition here — new job, starting school, friends moving away, death of a brother. It’s all connected. Like Richard Rohr says: how we do anything is how we do everything.
These transitions all have their own magnitudes — some are like a single creek that gently splits off into two, and others are a lightning strike that induces a forest fire, scorching the land.
If I can weep and say thank you at the splitting creeks, maybe I can do the same at the forest fires. If I am not conscious of the creeks, or if I ignore them, then the devastation of fires will overwhelm me, and I will run to whatever numbs. I am well acquainted with each.
The weeping and thank yous will look different at each threshold. The point isn’t to make the difficult transitions easy by engaging the gentler transitions well; the point is living, period. Life to the fullest, as it was said. I want to be in all of it. I practice that now, and when I come to a time where I very much don’t want to be in it, I’ll have reminders to stay and to trust.
If I numb now I’ll numb later. If I ignore now, I’ll ignore later. Force, force. Begrudge, begrudge. Welcome, welcome.
The movement from summer to fall is an invitation for me to mark a gentle threshold. Thank God for the soft ones.
Thank you, light. Welcome, darkness. What will you have for me, and what will I have for you?
August 28 2023
The 3rd step of the 12 steps in AA is this:
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.
Daylight is diminishing. I have generally dreaded the night — a fear rises in me. And so from June 21 to December 21, as the days get shorter and shorter, my distaste for autumn and winter grows. The seasons themselves are fine, but being forced into that much darkness unsettles me.
This is especially true when I believe that and live into the idea that I am in control (even as the seasons are telling me that, obviously, I am not).
The 3rd step, when embodied, and even simply in theory, brings comfort. I’m not in control. I need so much help. Joshua, turn your will and your life, your thoughts and your actions, over to God as you understand God.
Then some recurring phrases from the Jewish Scriptures and the New Testament start churning in my body: Do not be afraid. Do not fear.
With turning my will and life over to the care of God, and with the embracing call that tells me I do not need to be afraid — maybe I can welcome the darkness.
I am dipping my toes into new waters this season:
I see you autumn. I welcome you. I feel you , sweet darkness. Come close.
••••••••••
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
(Sweet Darkness by David Whyte)
August 25 2023
Murphy, the one who looks like a Murph, snuck a toy car to school on his first day of kindergarten. He took it out at his desk, and his teacher (who is fantastic) saw it an asked him to put it away, which he did.
Ten minutes later she saw him playing with it again and told him to go into the hall and put it in his locker, which he did.
Thirty minutes later she saw him with the car again. Murph had asked to go to the bathroom, but instead of going to the bathroom he went to his locker and got the car.
I received a very nice email from his teacher about the whole thing. I told her, “Welcome to Murphy. Enjoy the ride!”
Murphy and I talked about it that evening. I told him that he needs to wait at least a week before taking anything else to school. (How can a boy’s pockets not be filled with collections, with wonders?) Then I told him I’ll give him something small to sneak in to school (maybe a little keychain or a fridge magnet). His task will be to sneak it in, never take it out of his pocket, and return it to me that night. Then we’ll pick another item for the next day.
Murph gave me a huge hug.
My boys will be domesticated during their childhoods, which is inevitable and neither good nor bad, but who will teach and guide them to be wild in a way that is honoring, kind, curious, and mischievous? I will, and others I trust will as well.
•••••••••••
Has Anyone Seen the Boy by Rumi
Has anyone seen the boy who used to come here? Round-faced troublemaker, quick to find a joke, slow to be serious. Red shirt, perfect coordination, sly, strong muscles, with things always in his pocket. Reed flute, ivory pick, polished and ready for his talent. You know that one.
Have you heard stories about him? Pharoah and the whole Egyptian world collapsed for such a Joseph. I would gladly spend years getting word of him, even third- or fourth-hand.
August 21 2023
Keep coming back.
That is a sort of mantra for AA folks like myself. In my circles we say it at most meetings, sometimes one person to another, sometimes collectively.
For the newcomer into the program, at its most basic, it’s a call to continue going to meetings. Keep showing up. Just get into the rooms. Get yourself around other sober folks, around support, around stories. When you don’t know what to do, just get to a meeting; it’s part of how it works.
You work the program and the program works you, and the only way for that work to happen is to get your tush in a chair and show up, again and again and again. If you do that, if you keep coming back, your chance for sobriety and a depth of living increases dramatically.
Don’t show up, stop coming back, and it becomes much more difficult.
•••••••••••
“Keep coming back” has expanded in meaning for me. It’s a call to go deeper and to remain there.
When I am at my end with the boys, keep coming back Joshua. Turn your face and your body towards them. Return, return, return.
Joshua, return to God, over and over. Return to the great weaver. Every movement away from God is an opportunity to return. Every shift away from connection is a chance to reunite.
Joshua, keep coming back to salads. You need that good earth in your body. Walk away from Oreos.
Keep coming back to silence, to stillness. Be still and know. Make yourself available. Return to listening. Creativity is often mystically birthed from the womb of silence.
Keep coming back to the earth. Get your bare feet in the soil. Smell the evergreen needles, taste the honey, feel the bark of the black locust.
And Joshua — keep coming back to yourself. Return to the goodness that is in you and has been in you your entire life. Remain in your value, which does not come from your job or bank account or furniture or status. Keep coming back to you, because God is in you and you are in God. Why go anywhere else?
