Breaking Up is Hard to Do

The billionaire breaks up with his live-in girlfriend and won't grant his bastard children normal inheritance rights to his vast wealth. She takes it to court and finds out the truth…she wasn't his wife. Another moneyed couple breaks up and fights over who gets the L. A. Dodgers. She said he defrauded her into signing away rights to them, but now she wants him to ante up. No wonder the church didn't want to have anything to do with marriage until about the 8^th century! We thought it was about sex, but we were wrong. It's about money—inheritance money, who gets what.

The church calls it a sacrament, a means of grace. Where's the means of grace here? Certainly neither of the parties is being graceful! The ones who celebrate the sacrament of marriage are not the clergy, but the couple. Each promises to love the other until death parts them. It is intended (as per Ephesians 5) to be a model to the world about how God's love works. It seems to me that if these two couples had come to it from a Christian understanding the first woman would have had a ring on her finger and the second wouldn't care who owned the Dodgers. On the other hand, they probably wouldn't be breaking up in the first place!

An Old Warrior

The wallow was fresh, I could tell by the imprint of hog hair on the edges—but not so fresh that a raccoon hadn't come through afterwards to leave his little fingerprints like a child playing in the mud. It was a place where wallows were common, laying as it did on the uphill side of a cattle pond, and I had often checked the little swale of trees just beyond it. Once or twice I had surprised the hogs there and even less frequently I had taken home the bacon, so to speak.

Ranchers don't like feral hogs. They tear up pastureland and destroy fences, and a big angry boar can be dangerous. He can kill a dog and send a grown man to the hospital in a hurry. They have been known to kill and eat fawns, and nothing can kill them except the animal that first brought them to this continent—humans. I like feral hogs. I like to match my wits with them, and I like to eat the younger results of a successful hunt. From past experience I knew that after years of stewing in his own hormones an old boar may be edible, but he's not palatable unless you're really, really hungry.

This hunt had not yet been successful, but I'm a creature of habit, so more out of habit than anything I had checked the wallows. I scanned inside the trees. Thanks to the cows the underbrush was virtually non-existent, except for a ring around the edge. Since for the last three years all I had seen was bare earth littered with leaves, I took an almost cursory glance through the ring. My eyes riveted on a big black hulk sprawled under a small cedar. His legs lay extended to my left, his head was on the far end of him, and the most prominent part of him from my point of view were his sizable gonads. My hands began to tremble at the first rush of adrenaline. He wasn't 30 yards away, and apparently unaware of my presence.

I took my dark glasses off and slid up to a sapling. I leveled the 30.06 and squinted through the scope. No good. I could angle a shot under his front leg, through his neck and into his head, but it was dicey at best, and I passed. If only I could sneak around further to the left. At any moment I expected him to suddenly huff and blow out of there, leaving me trembling and double-guessing myself, but as far as I could see, he slumbered on.

5 tense minutes later I was 15 yards to the left. Another sapling presented a steadying rest, and I trained the crosshairs on his chin. I had a clear view of the underside of his jowls. The rifle spoke, and the great beast trembled as all animals do when they are head-shot. A red badge of death began to leak his life into the dirt that had been his bed from between the great jaws.

I approached, a little awed. An impressive upper tusk curled his lip into a snarl. A long, hooked snout would have daunted any ancient Sythian boar hunter. Wavy black-and brown bristles, caked with mud, gave him a royal look. His tight, hairy ears and straight tail told me his genetics came more from Sythia than the barnyard. From this close vantage point I knew better than to try to put him in my freezer. I wasn't that hungry!

I looked into his eye, but the black depths told me nothing at all. I tugged at his back leg. His final reflexes sent his legs into a kicking fit, as if to offer a token attempt at either fighting or fleeing. For an old boar hog it's one or the other—freezing like a rabbit is just not an option. I pressed his lower lip down to see how big his lower tusks were—and found instead a mostly-healed scar, I could only assume that only the root remained from some great fight. I lifted his head and checked the other side. That one was broken off in an ugly shard just at the jaw-line. The upper tusks lacked the flat side formed by the lower tusks rubbing against them, keeping them both razor sharp.

Then I stood back, more than just a little awed. Here was an old warrior, laying under his cedar at the end of life, like a knight after his final battle, standing in the mist with a broken sword and a rotting shield. But it wasn't like he was quite done. More out of curiosity than anything else I felt the top of his head between his ears. There was no corresponding badge there, at the other end of the bullet's path. The bone was solid. He had stopped 220 grains of hot lead at 20 paces.

I wondered how such a grand old one could lay there and let me send him to his eternal reward so easily. The thought hit me—perhaps he wasn't slumbering after all. Perhaps he knew his date with destiny, and accepted it with dignity. I thought about dragging him into the pasture to let the beasts of the field profit from his final remains, but I didn't. I couldn't dishonor him so. I left him where he chose to die.

Arizona Hotspot

Wow! Drama in the Desert! Shoot-out at the OK Corral! Arizona moves to disrupt illegal immigration, and the Federal Government steps in to block it. Sounds like a lot of high-level politics, but the issues are really much more complex…as they always are. The target in blocking immigration is to control the movement of illegal substances and human trafficking—both issues the state has a stake in. But the way they did it steps on the toes of the Federal government, who retains the right to regularize immigration policy across all our border states. And then there is the complicated situation of illegal immigrants who come over to the US to do honest work for an honest day's wage, because such is not available in Mexico. They are not trafficking in drugs or people, yet they get caught up in the net as well, because the law doesn't distinguish. Obama has concluded, along with his predecessor, that an overhaul of immigration law is in order, and that it can hardly be done piecemeal. Arizona apparently can't wait for the Feds to get their act together.

One can argue that breaking the law is breaking the law. But how about when the law breaks good people? How about when the law is broken in the first place? I think this is precisely the point. How much richer has the US society and economy been over the mere 400 years that Europeans have been in this neck of the woods because we have welcomed immigrants? How much of the economy of the border states with Mexico hinges on precisely the labor of undocumented workers? (Much more than you think.) Or are we deciding that the Lady Liberty's famous invitation to the poor, the homeless and the destitute no longer applies?

Nobody invited the Europeans to this continent, and when we met resistance to our arrival we generally responded with force. It was a unilateral move met with a mixture of welcome and dismay by the locals, whose ancestors moved into a continent uninhabited by humans at least 10,000 years ago, perhaps longer. When this all comes down in the end, I would hope that we can remember our own past and the mercy that was shown us (willingly or unwillingly,) and legislate some compassion, and not be so tight-assed about building fences to keep good people out.

Sperm Donors Beware!

Well, there is a difference between being a dad and being a father after all! Anyone can become a father in 20 seconds. It takes a lifetime to be a dad. On Good Morning America they ran a story about a young man, son of a sperm donor and his mother, who is joining the ranks of some 30,000 others who are searching for their biological sperm-donor fathers. Poor record keeping in the sperm banks and occasional slanting of the truth has produced some rather surprising and unexpected results. One man is recorded as having around 125 children, 70 of those children are under the age of 7. Can you imagine when all of those become teenagers and the girls start wanting him to tell them their prom dress is pretty? Then you get the specter of unexpected incest should some of these children fall in love and want to marry….

By and large these kids' mothers have married and they have a "dad" who is not related to them biologically. But the curiosity about their biology, the other half of their DNA, spurs them to discover some truth about themselves. That could be important information for medical reasons. Fatherhood is more, it seems, than merely 20 seconds after all. DNA lasts a lifetime as well, with or without the emotional part.

Perhaps we should rethink this sperm-donor thing. Guys, should we really sell what the Bible calls our "seed" so glibly? The law aside, just think of all those kids out there who are part you…and you don't even know it!

Honduras

I'm swallowed by the silver bird,
And hatched into a silver land,
Of golden hills and humble men
Who never touch the slight of hand.

Hand to hand, ear to ear,
Between us grows a brand new heart,
And soon it is that all I hear's
The crash of distance come apart.

Another me arises then
To face the silver bird again.
I see my face and know my eyes,
But other blood's beneath my skin.

An alien in my mother's land,
The world's heart within my breast,
Will either share the silver here,
Or break in giving it my best.

Honduras, here we come!

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, July 14) a bunch of us will gather at a local eatery to enjoy some fellowship and an American meal before heading off to Honduras for a week. There we will stay at an agricultural College that serves very nutritious meals that is totally safe for soft American stomachs to eat. But they won't be American meals. They will feature corn tortillas, black refried beans, rice, fried bananas, and baby cheese, all made at the college on their experimental farm. One breakfast will be pancakes, American pancakes—with honey instead of syrup. Whereas I especially love the fried bananas, the grease does tend to make me into difficult company. Now, I grew up overseas, and strange foods bear a funny sort of Zimmeresque attraction to me, day in and day out I want something I know.

On the other hand, if I really didn't want surprises I wouldn't go to Honduras for a week. During this time I'll sleep in a strange bed, talk to people I've never met, try to help in a field I'm not trained in (medical,) solve problems I've never confronted, and talk to people about things I know very little about. And I come back exhilarated and exhausted at the same time, a good kind of tired that leaves you breathless with new vision.

So then, isn't that exactly the point at issue? We all want something we know. Having what we understand, what we expect, what we're used to, makes us feel comfortable, in control and powerful. But isn't it exactly what we don't understand, what we least expect, and what makes us uncomfortable exactly what makes us stretch and grow, sometimes in very rewarding ways? Surprises have the potential of opening the doors of our souls and letting them out for a barefoot walk in the park. The unexpected can (doesn't always, but can) show us not only chinks in our armor, but cracks through which new growth reaches for the sun.

So I'll go for my American meal, and probably eat another when I get home. I'll do so for the fellowship as much as the food. But in between, like the most interesting man in the world, I say, "stay thirsty, my friends," thirsty for whatever will enrich the world.

Coming and Going

Today Joyce Critchlow hangs by a thread. Doctors said she went into renal failure late last week. Most people would have checked out by now, but she's tough, and she's still with us. Her children have come in from all around the country, they hover by her bedside, counting her every breath. Each time the question is very real: Is this the last one? Has that moment come? We know it will, but no one can hurry the body without incurring the wrath of the law and loved ones (rightly so.)

Last night my wife made an insightful comment. Waiting for death is like waiting for birth. Outside of C-sections and executions, these are mysteries that work on a timetable that knows nothing of calendars and clocks. The body's rhythms work in their own way, and when things are ready they happen. All we can do is stand by in expectation and wait. Everyone is reduced to the same level. The king awaits the birth of the heir apparent just the same as the peasant one more mouth to feed. The homeless man on the street is attended by his half-sober friends the same as the head of state by high officials as they approach the end of this mystery we call "life."

It reminds me of three things:

1. Calendars and clocks are human inventions and conventions to assist us in community, but they describe reality, they do not, and will never prescribe it. There exist many ways to reckon time. Perhaps some of the other ways conceal wisdom that in our day we've learned to forget.
   
2. Under the skin we are all the same. We are born, we live, we love, we struggle and we die. There are only a few human stories to be told. They come in an infinite variety of variations, but ultimately any person's story is my story, and my story is every person's story. Every child is my child, every parent is my parent, every struggle is my struggle and every joy is my joy. What an irony it is when a child is born of rape or a man is killed in war. The child is just as alive as if born of the loving union of husband and wife, and the man is just as dead as if laid to rest after a long and fruitful life. Even our violence cannot disrupt these rhythms of life, they become somehow, part of the great story of our species. Grace flows in everything, for everything is connected.
   
3. Birth and death are gateways through which we only see through a glass darkly. We're born naked, we die naked. We come with nothing and we leave with nothing. We're told what comes next, but we do not comprehend it. We're told that nothing comes before, but we can never be sure. What we have is now. Our faith tells us that what counts is the quality of the relationships we build, and seminal to all relationships is that primordial relationship with God. Life is a window into an existence for a space in time, eternity is whatever wall or building that window is in. The only vista our dark vision renders is relationships now.
   

It is truly better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.