Thoughts on On the Road, pt. 2: March Run

I'm reading On the Road for the first time in acknowledgement of its great American, racing, literary heartbeat. I thought it would be fun to post some of my thoughts as I go. – – – – – –

I wanted to see the sun as it set so as soon as I could don-off the work trappings and deadline woes of the day I did so and set off at a trot in a sleeveless shirt to greet the night breezes that were surely coming. March had come that year like a bashful boy at a dance, cautiously waiting for a pretty girl to make herself available With every courageous warm advancement, he didn’t know if old Wintress might snap in and give him a cold No, but today he was feeling hearty and sure. Aware of his confidence I stepped on out, too, eager to dance myself.

For severe minutes of suburban blocks my body cried out in revolt (I had been sluglike and work-worn with it for a good two weeks), but when I crested the top of a grassy rise and I saw the grinning March sunset I got myself back together and went on in confidence. Down a dusty hill and across the road, I ran up a great flag-poled forested hill and then climbed a tree so to see the last winks of sun. I peered over the miles of house peaks and tree-streets and there was that old March sunset, making tracks down below the earth. A bit satisfied, I stood up on my branch to get a look around me and behind my tree I was met with three great circles of dog-training masters, short-leashed pure Worldbred dogs yipping and lazing and hopping with dog joy. I grinned at their weaving-around community, the playing of it all, and at the kindest grey-haired man who talked so softly to the animals, warming the mean ones with a gentle muzzle touch. I looked down from my tree boughs and a quiet madame with two stately flowing dogs stopped and stared up at me and then over across the hill and miles off to the sun, now setting for sure, a great shaking orange gleam behind the glass horizon of the city. “It’s huge tonight” she offered, and I agreed for sure. When the sun went down and the sky brought out its neons and pinks I started to walk. Down a horse trail I passed a stock-still old mean hound who looked me right square in the eyes and if he was a man he would have cursed my life and taken it right then and there. But the Hispanic teenage boy held him true with a steel collar fit for a criminal and I slinked on by, staring right back. In the cool woods I pondered the snakes coming out of their sliding holes and the skittering things back in the thickets made me turn and turn again. A wise owl hooted and it was just a bird after all, but I wanted truly to see a good old coyote grizzle his lean self across my path. Alone instead, I came back to the buzzing dusk traffic street and as I crossed I wondered if any window passed me with a knowing look, a lonesome look and friendsome look. I peered through the glass as they shot by me but no one looked back, so I made my bobbing way up the next hill. The creek was finally breathing out cold woodsy airs and I passed by refreshed as I came upon the night practicing of some sport well-lit up in a concrete court. The young neighborhood kids batted at something while their parents idled at the curb, burning gas and reading books. I wondered if I’d ever have the parent-patience to sit inside a car on so great a night as that one.

Thinking heavy thoughts with every plodding step I nearly got hit by a red-lighting blue truck careening by, window down and a good old father making his way home to wife and babe for an American meal somewhere in my old neighborhood. Funny thing was, I didn’t even need to cross the street, but there I was thinking of those waiting parents and that old March sunset. I then perked up along the safe sidewalk and there it was: every good old dinner-time smell, every roasted and chicken-fried thing, every meat-loafed and potatoed plate brimming heavy in bright rooms, windows down and good-evening sounds streaming in and smells streaming out. Before I knew it I was back to my own orange puddle of streetlight and wouldn’t you know I passed right by that self-same blue truck, windows up and driver in-house. No lights in my house and no one home. Spring had come at last and I went in to open the windows.

Thoughts on On The Road, pt. 1: The American Way

I'm reading On the Road for the first time in acknowledgement of its great American, racing, literary heartbeat. I thought it would be fun to post some of my thoughts as I go. 

–  –  –  –  –  –

What a mad, lusty adventure Jack Kerouac went on – I see how the generations of the young in our country have read him with a fire in their breasts too – how they, too, wanted to course along the wide beautiful land of America and find their meaning and joy and purpose in its freedoms and its open roads, its great big stars and lonely cold nights.

But I cant help but wonder at the men who built those roads. The immigrants who laid the railroad. What did they dream about? What hope did they have?

In the commercial light of pluralistic freedom and democratic dreams, we look back with joy and warmth at that America, nostalgia-driven steam-powered dreams of altruism and slave-free historiography. We can sleep comfortably with that history and tread those roads with a deserving joy. But the very asphalt upon which we drive in our excesses and wide-eyes was laid with labor and sweat. Thankless, breakless labor done by nameless masses of lean, hungry men toiling across the native soils of other peoples, poring over their labors for meager pay and a mouthful of food. Did they envision the commerce of a future America rumbling ceaseless across the works of their hands? Did they see full families headed to the coast? Laden with skis? Truck after truck full of commodities and lettuces, refrigerated stuffs and limitless sundry wastes?

Their bones are the ribs of the roads and their sweat mingled with the soils of the American dream weaving and marauding Westward.

Love and country, origin and future they sacrificed for entitled us to sojourn out into the stars to see what’s in our own flimsy souls under the sky, before the great crashing ocean. We both dream – ours a luxury, theirs a necessity.   

Despair & Light In New Mexico

From my journal. I hope this encourages you as it indeed encourages me.


Eagle Nest, NM

Dec. 28, 2013

I'm sitting on the upper deck in the frigid morning air watching the Wheeler Peak range glow as the sun, still unseen behind the lesser peaks over my left shoulder, casts its warmth on its rise.

I am thinking of despair and hopelessness and being buried by our broken and faithless world. And these thoughts, as you may guess, hinder me from enjoying the splendor of my freezing fingers and funky coffee on the {sic} New Mexico morning.

And so I'm beginning to learn that I have a choice.

I can choose to succumb to hopeless distraction, colorless woes; or I can choose faith. Yes, faith is God-given but Jesus all the time admonishes & convicts his disciples to "have faith", one time castigating them as "Ye of little faith." So clearly we are the active agent in utilizing (or not) our faith within us. We are not passive socks full of a faith only useful when God decides to use us - in His wild, magnificent plan He's put the keys in our hand and said "trust in me" and now "drive."

So I must choose to drive and choose to trust the verse that tells me God has planned good works for me to walk in. I am to rely on my faith in the truth of this grand fact and walk in confidence and without worry in whatever places He has for me to go.

OR I can choose fear & anxiety, letting the darkness of the world bind me in inactive passivity and ultimately in selfish angst, sinful indulgence; "Well, it's all shit, may as well get mine and pray for change." THAT is certainly not how Jesus meant for His bride to live.

His people are more than conquerors, vibrant world-changers, patient as rocks and steadfast as the mountains. We are to abound in grace and overflow in unselfishness, to befriend outcast and poor, widow and orphan. Meek in spirit, humble in nature, strong in faith and joyful in living. We laugh as we trudge, we suffer with whom suffering has come and rejoice at what is good.

But above all we have chosen to live in light of this: Jesus Christ is the hope of the world and in His resurrection we find life to the full and seek for as many as can to know Him and His life also. To place my faith HERE, I have chosen; to live out my fleeting, human shuffling-of-a-life with this as the leitmotif through it all, learning to let it color my every breath and my every doing, for my joy and for God's glory. 

What is this Sept. 25th?

From my journal:

This morning an aerial host of elegant white threads went soaring aloft as a certain species of spider sent itself into the heavens to be carried by the coming fall winds and live wherever the breezes happened to carry them. Looking up, some alighted in the tops of trees, the roofs of cars, the line of a fence. Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" comes to mind, though it's more like, "Trust your Future" to the wind - God's wind. He's at work and may send me anywhere. Like a spider's strand I am subject to His mercy and His good plan, and I may land just where I started or I may rest miles away; but above all I know Him whose hand casts me onward and He is good, He is trustworthy, He is loving, He will provide.

As I look up I see the gossamer strands dancing in the bright morning breezes hundreds of feet up, twisting and flowing, drifting and billowing; dancing. So I, too, shall enjoy the dance.

Justice Conference 2013: Post-Thoughts and Pending Thoughts

Hey avid readers -

Just got done with the conference and I will be posting and re-capping soon.

Suffice it to say, this conference has found my friend Ben and I more mature and more practically inspired by the wise and encouraging words of endurance, faithfulness, tenacity and consistent righteousness.

We labor and pine that this burgeoning Justice movement - starting in the church and flowing outward - is more than a fad and that we remember the tireless and thankless labor of our forefathers and mothers.

We are the most over-rated generation in the history of humanity. We are extraordinarily entitled and living in a culture of conflated self-worth. The call of Christ to die to self can be grossly rewritten into a self-centered rhapsody of our own 'selflessness' while we exploit the very ones we claim to serve, all in the name of Jesus; this is a scary thing.

There is so much potential in us. So much energy and labor and creativity. We are so wealthy and we are so able. Let us reclaim our neighborhoods, live amongst the needy, pour out our time and limited funds like water, pray without ceasing and love without reciprocation.

For now I leave this conversation, lest I bore everyone with a burden of helplessness. Christ's yoke is easy, after all, and His burden light. More later. Goodnight.

Justice Conference 2013: Day 1 Thoughts, Part 1

(There may or may not be a part II. I have hopes and notes.)

Today was day 1 of the conference - I attended the pre-conference and the actual 1st day of the conference itself. 7.30 am till 9.30 pm of learning, listening and pondering.

For now, I'll talk about what I've gleaned so far.

I learned in Session 1 that justice is not sexy but it is beautiful, that it is the power of Christ, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, to 'make a way out of no way' and to be 'a balm in Gilead for the sin-sick soul,' that Jesus has been to Mordor and back and that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like me, wrestled through doubts about who he even was, fundamentally torn between an imprisoned, light-longing soul and a supposed lover of the Truth.

I learned in Session 2 not to pity the Congo but to labor and seek for its beauty to be realized, to intercede for reconciliation at the tribal level and to download a helpful and practical app for saving money to be used for small but important charity victories called Forgo.

I learned in Session 3 from a Chinese-American lover of Philly named Laurence that scarcity leads to clarity and reveals my priorities, that suburbs are good at hiding the poverty they contain in larger numbers than most cities, that the changing urban world requires unity among Believers and that unity requires sacrifice of self motivated by a Grace that 'breaks the seams and redraws boundaries beyond the familiar.'

I learned in Session 4 from the man who started One Day's Wages just how exactly I might go about putting action to my dreams and hands to work to create my vision, that I, like him, suffer from the "messianic complex" that I and I alone must do all and save all, and that our generation is "the most over-rated generation in human history," that our conflated sense of self, entitlement and wasted creative brilliance has us "languishing on the surface" of truly impactiul initiatives while lackimg the tenacity.

Then there was the poetry slam, some gospel, a tiny acoustic set by Michael Gungor and meeting a handful of the exhibitors. For now, day 1. I'm falling asleep already - we met up with several conferencers after the last session and then met even more new strangers-turned-friends on our walk back home. We keep things busy.

Justice Conference 2013: Philly

Welcome to Philadelphia, a city where I deign to think of myself as a local already, knowing the difference between Market Street and Southside, Passyunk and East Passyunk. I know where not to buy cheesesteaks and where to buy seafood and I know several actors in shows I see in posters as I walk down the street.

This city, bedecked with grandiose Masonic architecture, crowded with row-houses shoved together in delightfully close-knit unity, jostling with national history on cobbled streets, is an inspiring place.

And somehow, it is a city that welcomes you in with open arms.

So I am not a local so much as the city simply becomes my friend, invites me to its parties and lets me in on a few secrets. It showed me love, not I it.

Philadelphia - as we all know our greek etymology - means brotherly love, or love between brothers. Love is a strong concept and I don't mean that random city dwellers lock me in an embrace as soon as they see me (though that would be swell, I think), but it speaks to a certain unity that we all want. A certain bond we all desire - a communal fraternity (ladies included) of people.

This makes me think of the Church. Big C. It makes me wonder if the Church is, at times, as welcoming as this city? And this city is just a large-scale experiment in human community, like any other. But do we as a Church, as the Bride of Christ, have as open arms? Do we beckon and invite others to our tables; do we show them more hospitality than these few strangers-become-friends I've met?

This is a big yes and no answer and more than a mere blogpost can tackle, especially as I sit minutes before the Conference begins with the last sugary dregs of street-cart coffee. But suffice it to say I've been thinking about "adelphoi" - Brothers and Sisters - the Church. The greek word Paul and Jesus used to talk about the People of God. Paul used it all the time and Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, used it via translation - but the word is often treated in most Bible translations as simply "Brothers" - perhaps because of past patriarchy or perhaps not - and "adelphoi" given a nice little footnote.

But my point is: the Church was and comprised of Brothers and Sisters and referred to as one word, as "adelphoi", as those joined in love so strong that it is considered "philadelphia", brotherly love - strong, open, bold and unbreakable love. Jesus is the only "friend who sticks closer than a brother" so apart from Him we, Church, need to love each other with the unity and sacrifice that comes with "adelphoi"- only then will we rightly love this world. This world needs love and more than that it needs real Love and if Christians believe what we say we believe we've got a lot more loving to do.

My train into this city saw the outside, the less-loving parts, where the row-houses not so quaintly lean near-to falling down, where most buildings lie in decay and abandonment, where the trash of struggle and cheap living stick to the fences and gather in the corners. This isn't a diatribe about 'urban decay' but a microcosm of the larger story - the larger brokenness pervading this Creation that looks for its fix when only one Fix will do. The Church is tasked with this work, this work of brotherly love.

Thus am I here at this conference, to learn better how to put action in my arms and meaning behind my words. There's more to say and better ways to say it but for now, this is where things are.