Finally ...

Tea: Christmas

Music: Yes, "Hearts"

Time: Night

Got a new Internet provider today. Apparently Blogspot likes it better than it liked my last one. I'll give it a go for a couple of days, see how things go. I'd love to not have to export the archives to another host, y'know?

Anyway ... I've got some catching up to do. I'm not even going to attempt to reconstitute my days since the last post, but I'll do my best in subsequent days to recapture whatever insights came to me over that span.

Today, I got word that a former sports editor of my hometown paper -- a job I also held for a while -- died last weekend of cancer. He was my first real writing mentor, and beyond that he was (although we didn't always get along) my friend.

It's knocked a lot out of my head, save one thought that stays with me:

When I die, will anyone remember me as a mentor -- and of what?

Too much for me to think about now. I'm going to take a deep sniff of something that smells really good, just to remind myself how good it feels to be alive and have all my senses.

The catching-up starts tomorrow, God and Blogspot willing.

A Black Friday indeed ...

Tea: Chinese Melon Seed

Music: James Taylor, "Shower the People"

Time: Night.

Yet another sign that the world continues to spin upside down.

It was horrifying enough that people would put saving a few dollars over the life of a human being, so much so that they ran over workers trying to save the trampled man and then kept on shopping while store officials tried to shut down in the wake of the tragedy.

This man wasn't a part of the machinery. He went to work trying to keep body and soul together in a tough economy, and had them separated by a mindless mob bent on snapping up cheap (in every sense) goods.

It's also disconcerting (although not so much as today's death) that people were so desperate to feed the economy of a frenemy country that they lined up Thursday morning -- a day before the "bargain"-hunting orgy that is the Friday after Thanksgiving.

God save us from the madding crowd ...

Pack, Books and Candle

Tea: Blood Orange

Music: Dan Papirany, "Autumn Leaves"

Time: Night.

I did a lot of walking today -- five miles' worth, at least.

During the morning portion of my purposeful rambles, I came upon a makeshift memorial at the base of a lamppost. It had been there a while. Two of the three potted plants were still alive but drooping, and the candle -- the scented sort that comes in a jar -- was tipped over. The wax part, about three fingers deep with some serviceable wick still running through it, had come out and lay a few feet away from the glass.

I walked by ... then stopped, about fifteen feet down the sidewalk. Don't ask me why. It just nagged at me, that candle. So I righted the jar, put the scented wax back in and walked on.

Tonight, I looked up the story. That spot is where a 15-year-old high school sophomore named David J. Lengle was hit and killed by a car in August. He was the same age as my own son.

I can't imagine the pain of losing a child, especially so suddenly. I can't imagine what the driver feels, either. That can't be an easy thing to bear.

Anything else I could write would be inadequate. So tomorrow, or the day after, I'm just going to light what's left of that candle.

Two stories tomorrow. I've had enough of death for the night.

Brutality Uncovered (and Un-Covered)

Tea: Chinese Melon Seed

Music: Bob Walkenhorst, "Primitivo Garcia"

Time: Night.

Missions day at church today. Pot luck (always a good thing) and presentations from missionaries, in fields as far-flung as Asia and Italy and as close as my home county.

One of today's speakers is a member of our church and a friend of mine. He and his wife work in Orissa state, India.

Orissa is home to a Hindu ultranationalist movement that aims to force the conversions of all Christians, Jews and Muslims. The alternatives: departure or death. The violence has been appalling, and it's still ongoing.

And for the most part, it's been ignored by the Western Press. (That may be changing. I found this from the New York Times and this from the Sunday Herald tonight. Now that the Pope has issued a condemnation of the attacks, I can only hope more coverage will follow.)

Darfur has gotten a lot of press, and rightly so. So, over the past week, has the political marginalization of Christians in Iraq. Any killing is a tragedy, and no one -- of any faith or none -- should have to worry about persecution for what he or she believes (or doesn't).

But where has Orissa been in the mainstream media? Buried, pardon the bitter expression.

My friend has a theory. The violence in Darfur has been committed by Islamists. Christians in Iraq are concerned about their place in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. It's safer to write about "bad Moslems" than about "bad Hindus," because Muslims are our officially approved boogeypeople -- the Other du jour, as it were.

(Please don't think I'm demonizing all Hindus, either. My friend and his wife are able to coordinate relief efforts in Orissa because one of their agency's local partners is a Hindu priest. My friend choked up today, relating the bravery of this man risking his life for -- well, for Others.)

We're not at the point of sectarian violence in this country, but we've been there before. There were atrocities on both sides in the early years of the Mormon movement, and in 1857 the prospect of open warfare between the U.S. and the Utah territory was quite real. That's an eyeblink ago, as history goes.

Somewhere, there's a notebook with one of my rare epiphanies (I get them occasionally). I don't remember all of it, but it runs somewhat thusly:

"If I hate in my own name, I am wrong but still within my 'rights.' If I hate in my country's name, I am wrong -- but still within my 'rights,' insofar as I have a citizen's stake in the matter. But if I hate in God's name, I am not only wrong but utterly in the wrong. One cannot hate in the name of One who commands us to love our neighbors -- and reminds us that everyone is a neighbor."

So tonight, remember not only the Christians of Orissa, but the Muslims and the Jews. And if you pray, say one for the persecutors, too. Hate hurts the hater. And there's too much pain in the world already.

Lighter post and three scary stories tomorrow. I promise.

Among the Living

Tea: Peach, iced.

Music: Naked Eyes, "Always Something There to Remind Me"

Time: Night.

A funeral took me out of town for the last couple of days. It was my wife's grandmother, who lived to be 90.

Hers was a full life, in measures of both joy and sorrow. (No one should have to bury one child, much less two.) And she will be missed.

It's been a rough patch, recently, for my family and friends. Lots of departures -- some sudden, some expected but no less hard to take.

But life, as they say, goes on. Here's to the full living thereof, and the memories of those gone on before.

Aren't They All?

Tea: Arctic Storm

Music: King Crimson, "Starless"

Time: Night

This will be short. My leg hurts (the price of playing football past whatever passed for my prime) and it's been a semi-rough night.

With most members of my church's youth group off on a mission trip, and their director overseeing the endeavor, it fell to me tonight to run the show for those who stayed behind (six kids, five of them seventh-grade girls.)

Before the short lesson, on forgiveness and thankfulness, I got to tell them that one of the girls who went on the mission trip is now without a mother. She was found dead in her car last night.

I don't know details, and I'm not going to speculate on what happened. The senior pastor described the circumstances as "tragic" -- but really, isn't any death that leaves an adolescent motherless tragic?

Isn't each death a tragedy, or the culmination of one?

One is All

Tea: Mandarin Orange with Honey

Music: Mike and the Mechanics, "The Living Years"

Time: Evening.

This post was going to be about the most excellent bounty of football (the real kind, not the pointy-ended sort) I've gotten to see lately, between Major League Soccer, World Cup qualifiers and Euro 2008.

But within the last two days, my inbox has contained news of (a) my only surviving uncle's diagnosis of lung cancer and (b) the death of a cousin's husband from a heart attack -- at age 52.

It's Father's Day, and his children are without him. Meanwhile, my uncle's three children and their families are spending the day -- and will spend many to come -- praying the surgeons were able to get all of the tumor.

Relationships with fathers are complicated things. Some fathers are unworthy of the name. I've heard stories to freeze (or boil) the blood. Most, I like to think, do the best they can.

Mine has been gone for almost a decade. Suddenly, I miss him as though he had passed yesterday.

He would have loved all of this football, too.

Hello ... Hello Again

Tea: Chinese Melon Seed

Music: Bob Walkenhorst, "Life Can Turn"

Time: Evening.

Yeah, I thought about the Cars song, but it seemed way too cliche.

So ... let's try this again. I stink at keeping anything up day to day, but here goes.

Since I last blathered at you, here are some things that happened:

I had a photo show end because Nighthawks -- my home away from home -- closed. I'm still a bit shell-shocked, two weeks later. Probably will be for some time to come. The regulars there were a family ... here's hoping we don't lose touch.

I ate the best duck I've ever had at The Vineyards in Weston, Missouri, and tried -- and loved -- sturgeon the next night at Justus Drugstore in Smithville (also Missouri).

I blew the water pump on the Ford. It still isn't fixed. Heck of a big paperweight, that car.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain ... no, wait. That's James Taylor.

Anyway. I'm not going to play catch-up. Too much gone by for that. But I'll try to do better at checking in each day.

Stay tuned.

Six Silent Strings

Tea: Mandarin Green with eucalyptus honey

Music: Jeff Healey Band, "Angel Eyes"

Time: Night.

Jeff Healey died yesterday. Cancer. He was 41.

Never met the man ... but man, could he play.

I think it's fitting that he once covered "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." My guess is, there are other guitars crying in his memory tonight.

Worn

Tea: Pu Erh Poe with Ginger and Honey

Music: Elvis Costello, "Almost Blue"

Time: Night.

It's been a wearing weekend. And I am worn.

But I and mine are loved and cared for, thought of and prayed for.

And that helps. Immeasurably.

It's a grace and a gratitude, and I am grateful.

Cup XVIII: Morning Has Broken (a Chair over My Head)

Tea: Arctic Storm (green tea with bergamot, lemon, red thistle and chile)

Music: Tegan and Sara, "Wake up Exhausted"

Time: Mo(u)rning.

My late father was the sort who woke up cheerful: "Good morning, Lord!" Not me. I'm more the "Good Lord, it's morning ..." sort.

My mother, who died when I was 17, was more pragmatic and disciplined. I'm not so sure she was all that thrilled about single-digit a.m. hours, but she got up and got after it.

The weekly teaching stint starts at 8 a.m. I'll be leading the senior AP English class' discussion for the first time. It's not until tomorrow, but I figured I'd better give myself a day of being at least semi-awake at this time of day.

And, of course, no good intention goes unpunished. Getting up earlier means I have more time to be lousy company, after the discovery in the basement.

During the good years between her first cancer surgery and the time the disease came back with reinforcements, my mother painted. Beautifully.

My father loved to fish. His favorite painting of hers was a photorealist piece of crappie in a net, on a stump over water. It was, in turn, her labor of love for him. I inherited it when he died, although it hung in my stepmother's house for a time as a reminder of him. I didn't mind. She was very good for him, and still is good to and for me and mine.

We'd been storing the painting in the basement, because there's been no place to display it properly in the main part of the house. Now it's picked up some mold damage. Not much, but noticeable.

I'm sure it can be cleaned, not so sure I can afford that before the damage gets worse.

I don't have many things that tie my parents together in tangible form. To lose this would be ... I can't think about it right now.

So I'll read, and make a lesson plan, and hope to return at some point today from the Land of Not Very Good Company.

In the meantime, here's today's creepy story:

Algernon Blackwood, "The Empty House"