Words and Water Worries

The trouble with impromptu activities is the lack of planning. Water, for instance. Water would have been nice.

I’ve got four slightly-uphill miles left until I reach home; or more accurately, the refrigerator. Twelve other miles behind me have narrowed my focus wonderfully. When Jesus promised that those who drank living water would never thirst again, the inhabitants of arid Palestine must have felt like this. That sounds amazing. Tell us, is this living water chilled? Does it come with ice cubes in the door, like in Texas? That would be great.

Today was not supposed to be an exercise in cameldom.

It was actually supposed to be a quick bike ride over to Wal-mart for footwear. My tennis shoes were on their last leg and starting to look like they’d escaped from the wardrobe department of a zombie apocalypse. I started getting a blister last night at work because the left shoe had a gap in the padding that went clear to the rubber. So I dutifully plodded off to go find a pair of shoes to last me another eighteen months. After finding a pair (black, so I don’t have to change socks after school; and cushy, so I still have blood flow at work) I strapped them on, tossed the old ones in a nearby can, and stood exultingly in the breeze.

And that’s when it hit me. Wal-mart was already on the edge of town, and I’d been musing about the need to get a little exercise today. Why not bike the seven miles to Pullman? Sounds fun. It’s not all that hot. I’ll be fine. So off I went: an impromptu excursion.

And, at first, it went swimmingly. There was a hint of a breeze, the noon sun gently baking me from a few million miles away... you know, if I’d known I was going to be out in this a few hours instead of a few minutes, I’d have worn sunscreen. This is going to take my ruddy Germanic tones a few shades up the chart. I glance at my arm. “Ohhh, he’ll feel that tomorrow!” “I think he is feeling it now!” “Ouch!” The Balto quotes roll out easily, accents and all, despite the lack of audience; I am alone as usual these days. Oh, well. I’m sure the angels enjoyed it.

Pullman is still in one piece and swimming with growing bustle as new freshmen and their parents make their first trip to Washington State. Part of my track crosses the campus, and on a further impromptu whim to my impromptu whim, I swing left. The WSU library is up here somewhere, and I have nothing else planned this afternoon. Now, let’s see. Logic dictates that a library, being an important building at a college, will be on the older part of campus, and the oldest parts of campuses are generally in the middle (and in this case, at the top of a rather steep hill). One map and rather less oxygen later, I found it. The surroundings—both inside and out—were a sharp reminder of what a big business education has become. I attended Texas A&M for a year and a half, and I know what the look, smell, and feel of plenty of state money is like. WSU has it. After three years of a one-room library and meeting in professor’s living rooms, it feels strangely decadent to look out a thirtyfoot library window at football players stretching on crisp Astroturf, a well-paid coach advising every third or fourth one. You can almost smell the dollars. The ungrateful students swarm by, superbly unaware of the prestige, power, and often wickedness they are financing. “Ignorance is this.” The library is spacious, modern, all lack of angles and unscented light. They only have one book by C.S. Lewis—such shame. They try to make up for it by four full stacks of Native Americana. I remain unimpressed. My hunt for the military history section takes me across the rotunda to the older section—the original library. 
Suddenly I’m in a very different world. That inimitable old library smell, the bare wooden desks and chairs, the relentlessly right-angle stacks narrowly crowded from dark floor to ceiling, few windows and less fresh air—here is the heart of scholardom on Earth. I am content. Here are words enough for any lifetime, words upon words upon words; some good, some bad, all bound and waiting patiently for wanderers like me. A few hours are spent reading half a book on dreadnought battleships, but outside the sun has moved unseen and other obligations approach. I return to modernity and its curves, pastels, and overabundant light. While the helpful young lady at the circulation desk grants me a library card, I glance at the wall, where a plastic pink triangle sign simperingly proclaims this area a “homophobic free zone, where we are happy to care for your needs however we can.” If that’s the case, they really ought to deny me that library card in the name of consistency. I muse idly while waiting over the irony of taking the pink triangle—the concentration camp badge in Nazi Germany for convicted homosexuals, like the star was for Jews—and making it into a sympathy sign. An object of reproach turned into honor. Christians, actually, have done the same with the cross. We are just so far removed from that hideous method of torture that it no longer registers. Our Lord also died a cursed death far outside the “respectable” pale, and belief in that cause also changed the world. A good reminder from a foul source.

Then it’s off though the maze of campus for home. I suffer repeatedly the uniquely civilized problem of knowing exactly where I am and where I wish to go, but having no legal route to get there. Turns, U-turns, and a mile long detour finally get me down the hill and back to the Chipman Trail. As the late afternoon sun adds nearly ninety degrees to the air, my thoughts turn to water. Camels are truly blessed creatures in spite of the hump. But at last my refrigerator is in sight and the impromptu excursion is over: I am the richer by a library card, two shoes, and a light case of sunburn. Not a bad afternoon’s work.

A Plane Old Day

Wwwwwwwrrrrrrrrroooooooowwwwwww!

Can anything equal the sound of an Allison V-12 engine roaring by?

Well, maybe the sound of a Rolls-Royce Merlin or a Pratt and Whitney.  But all three at once? Unsurpassable.

(On second thought, a deep-toned steam train whistle is probably better. But I digress.)

Little bitty Lewiston, Idaho isn’t known for much these days. Ask residents of the town where I live, and their first thoughts of the city to the south will mention two things: the Lewiston Grade (beautiful winding climb in the summer, nightmare of Route 95 in the winter) and the stink of the Clearwater Paper plant that pervades downtown.

But it does have an airport. And this weekend, the tiny Nez Perce County aerodrome has a bunch of propellers all over it. The annual "Radials 'n' Rivers" event brings a score or more of prop planes to town, and I went down Saturday to see some vintage craft. There were the usual trainers, a bunch of biplanes, an old chrome-colored passenger plane. But the cream of the crop? The World War II machines: most of the major land-based American craft of that conflict were represented, and all of them airworthy!

I started the event by pulling Red into the grassy overflow parking and sauntering past the long line for the shuttles. The runways were literally on the other side of the fence. What could they possibly need shuttles for? Besides, I needed the exercise. I got it, too; it turns out the planes were all parked on the apron on the far side of the runways,  so that a two-mile loop around the end was needed—and the beautiful, partly-cloudy, 80-plus degree day meant that would be a bit of a sweaty trip. Thankfully, a church acquaintance driving by offered a ride in the back of his truck. I love small towns!

On arrival at the apron, my first choice was to join a stretching, sinuous line to climb inside the great workhorse of WWII—the B-17 Flying Fortress. Carrying a crew of ten, thirteen .50-caliber machine guns and up to 8,000 pounds of bombs, this was the plane that flew deep into Nazi territory during daylight hours to destroy factories and other strategic targets. If you’ve ever watched any amount of documentary footage from WWII, I am certain you’ve seen at least one B-17. The inside was cramped, particularly the foot-wide walkway through the bomb bay—the portly gentleman ahead of me nearly became a permanent addition to the plane. But he squirmed through and I got this lovely shot out one of the waist guns.

Next was the B-24—the Liberator. A slightly smaller bomber than her more famous cousin, the B-17, she had a greater range and was adapted to far more uses, from antisubmarine warfare to cargo transport over the Himalayas. Her bomb bay catwalk was even narrower—a mere nine inches wide. Actor Jimmy Stewart flew 20-plus missions as a B-24 pilot in Europe.

A Mitchell B-25 was also out on the apron, but they had it fired up and running rides for the spectators, at the rate of $450 dollars for a half-hour trip. Would have been tempting if I was independently wealthy.

But the highlight of the day was at 1430, when the all the fighters present were put in the air for a grand fly-by. Two P-40 Warhawks (one of our early fighters), two P-51 Mustangs (late war long-range fighters), and the only surviving airworthy P-47 Thunderbolt, the Dottie Mae.

The Dottie Mae has a fascinating story. On May 8^th, 1945—V-E Day—she was being flown in the Alps to drop leaflets on an Allied prisoner of war camp, letting them know that ground troops were on the way to liberate it. The pilot misjudged his altitude above a clear mountain lake and crashed into it, making the Dottie Mae the last aircraft lost in the European theater. (The pilot jumped out after it hit and was saved by two Austrian girls--in a canoe.) For seventy years, it lay at the bottom of the lake in over two hundred feet of water. In 2005, an expedition financed by an American WWII vet found it and raised it, and after a ten-year restoration (most of the missing parts had to be made by hand) it now flies once again—its original pilot was even on hand to witness the inaugural flight. This air festival was only the third time it had been flown publicly. Its Pratt and Whitney engine (the same one used in the Navy’s Hellcats and Corsairs) had a noticeably lower, smoother tone than the other fighters flying today. Nicknamed “Jugs” due to their milk-bottle shape, the P-47 carried eight machine guns and could load a few bombs as well, making it a favorite ground-interdiction fighter. They took out trains, trucks, or other treetop-level targets.
The planes flew by individually at first, then in groups, and finally did a few passes with all five in formation. And the sound of those engines roaring by in unison is something I hope I won’t forget.

Then it was time for the long walk back around, the drive home (during which I picked up an exquisite Papa John’s pizza for only eight bucks—thanks, junk mail coupons!), and a relaxed evening of watching old documentary footage of those planes in their service period.

Plainly, a good old Saturday, indeed.

Stuck in a Rut

You ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?

You struggle out of bed, bump along to your standard breakfast, rattle on to your tolerable job, just keep going through the motions, same old tasks, same old people, same old words, lies, sins. Nothing ever seems to change. God hasn’t accomplished anything for you (or with you) that you’ve noticed in months. You’re old and grouchy and tired (no matter how young the calendar says you are) and others keep passing you up on the highway of life every day.

Sound familiar? I have those days. Some days I have them more than others. The days when nothing is really out of the ordinary... but nothing really seems to be a blessing, either. The ones where God seems to have wound you up, spun you... and walked away. The days you’re caught on an alto drone note and just marking time. Meh. Bleagh. So what?

We had a Bible study this morning. In the midst of eggs and sausage and earnest discussion, Proverbs XIII 15 caught my ear.

“Good sense wins favor, but the way of the treacherous is an enduring rut.”

Wait. The treacherous get stuck in ruts?

I know this the alternative translation, the one in the footnotes, but to my mind, it is far more picturesque. At one summer camp in my youth in Texas, there was a piece of the old Chisholm Trail where you could still see 150-year-old-ruts, etched by covered wagons, inches deep, in solid rock. Those teamsters rolling north were set in their ways, it seems—just like the treacherous.

But these treacherous ones require a direct object to their verb. To whom are they treacherous?

A) A loyal servant?

B) A friend?

C) A king?

The correct answer is, for the Christian, “All of the above” for Christ fills all those offices. If Proverbs is right (and it is) only the fools, the wicked, the ungrateful are left to plod down life on the same road, shoulders bowed and bulling through by the main force of their will. Glance at the preceding part of chapter thirteen. They are unable to turn away from the “snares of death” because they have no good sense. And sense comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And this reverence for the commandment mentioned earlier extends to all God’s words, not just his written ones.

Has he spoken you a rainy, grey, textureless day? Thank him for the blessing of crops that grow and water that goes down cool. Has he spoken you a slow, meandering life? Thank him that he knows your frame and did not burn you out in a flaming lesson on overconfidence. Did he give you a community where you seem the least among the brethren, able to contribute nothing of value? Thank him for the opportunity to grow and learn if not to give. And if you’re growing and learning, you won’t feel left out and static.

Wake up and feel stuck in a rut? Thank God and wait. Sometimes he’s just waiting for you to let go of the steering wheel.

Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... there was a farm kid. That farm kid found a couple robots and an old peacekeeper, got in way more trouble than he bargained for, and ducked into a bar. In that bar he found a cowboy and a walking carpet, and they agreed to give him a ride off his dustball in their own special, piece of junk transport—

And the rest is history.

Nine movies, three animated series, a few one-offs and a billion and a half toys later, Star Wars is a global phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing down; in fact, it has a good chance of being one of the things scholars study a millennium hence to attempt to understand late-period Western culture, the same way we study the Greek myths, Canterbury Tales or Beowulf. The latest entry in that corpus? Solo, the spin-off that tells us exactly how that cowboy and walking carpet met.

I went into this movie freshly scarred from The Last Jedi and not expecting much (having, you might say, a bad feeling about this.) Rian Johnson’s take on the saga did what I thought was impossible and turned in some moviemaking that was as bad, or worse, than Episode III. Spectacle at the expense of coherence, politically-correct characters jammed into the plot, and a deliberate abandonment of all the story and saga that came before left me feeling betrayed that it made as much money as it did. Poe Dameron and one cool dogfight with the Millennium Falcon were not enough to salvage all that dross.

So I was three-quarters expecting more of the same. That’s not what I got. If The Last Jedi was a movie written by a PC Disney bureaucrat, Solo is a loving nod to all those sixteen-year old boys who wanted to strap on a DL-44 blaster, jump into the left-side pilot’s seat of a YT1300 Corellian freighter, and yell “Chewie, punch it!” (My nerd is showing. I know.) We get to see Han’s steampunk-meets-Detroit-slums homeworld, Han saving Chewbacca’s life and earning the famous “life debt,” and the Kessel Run. And most of it is pure fun.

"What a piece of junk..."

This movie runs strongest when it’s bringing to life what fans already know happened. We’ve always known Han won the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a game of Sabacc, but now we get to watch him do it (although that may not happen quite the way you’d expect.) We’ve known that it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, but we didn’t know how good that was (twenty-plus is normal!) or why he had to do it (so his ship wouldn’t explode.) We’ve known Han saved Chewie’s life, but him doing it on the side of a snowy mountain monorail during a crazy heist is perfect. And we get to see why the Falcon looks quite so junky when we meet it again five or so years later. There’s just a lot of good, old fashioned shoot-em-up thrills.

Not that it doesn’t have a few weak spots. This is no Rogue One, (the very late change in directors probably being to blame) and it shows the most when Solo is trying to connect all the preordained dots. Han’s love interest is supposed to be a femme fatale “survivor,” for instance, but comes off far too heavy on the femme and way too light on the fatale. We enter the movie knowing she’s going to betray him and leave him the cynical smuggler we find on Tatooine, but when she does it mostly fails to land—whether from lack of on-screen emphasis or poor acting, I don’t know. Part of the fault lies with Alden Ehrenreich, who tries his best but just can’t quite capture Harrison Ford’s ability to be scared out of his wits and way out of his depth, and still be gruffly charming. He mostly just comes off as lovable, and this movie never quite completes his journey to the grouchy side. Part of that may have been mandated to save room for a possible sequel, but if so, it was a bad move. Paul Bettany tries his best as a scarred crime lord but is never quite up to the looming threat of Jabba the Hutt. There’s also some brief weirdness with Lando Calrissian and his droid that I shall simply choose to ignore when this movie is mentioned. Like midichlorians. Also, I never heard a Wilhelm scream. And that is just sad. But moving on...

My favorite single moment was a cameo that probably utterly bemused and puzzled those who have only watched the movies, but filled in a huge lingering question for lovers of the Clone Wars animated series. Well done, Disney.

The final ranking? I’d own it and watch it again. A good 7/10 or so, above the prequels (and waaaaaay above The Last Jedi) but below Rogue One, Clone Wars/Rebels, and the OT.

Hope that’s helpful, Star Wars fans. Here’s to better times ahead for the franchise. Chewie—punch it.

Antepenultimate

I’m guessing most of you, if you’re old enough, remember a day that you realized that your life was different than you planned.

And I don’t just mean at the end of the week, when you realize you haven’t made it to the grocery store again. I mean the big stuff. You’ve dreamed your whole life up to now of doing something: seeing the pyramids, being an astronaut, buying that certain car, marrying that girl, making that amount of salary. And then one day, you realize that you probably—or certainly—never will. That’s just not the way your life can go now. You missed the turn. Whether through active choices or passive ones, you wound up at this little spot on the map of your life that reads YOU ARE HERE.

I had one of those days recently. I took a look at one of my dreams and noticed that if I’d really wanted that, I should have made a different choice or two (or ten) half a decade ago. It’s a little late now.

This may be what they call a mid-life crisis. If it is, I hit it early (just like my birth.) Or I’m only going to live into my fifties. (Either is quite possible, if you think about it.)

And these missed turns on the road of your life don’t generally come along on sunny days as you travel a bucolic byway beneath a few wooly clouds and flash a grin at the flabbergasted bunnies by the culvert. You’d notice then. They come in the sleet storms, thieving fingers of wind striving to steal your hat from your head and breath from your lungs, two raindrops tickling coldly down the back of your neck. You haven’t seen the sun for days, it seems, and even God is silent when you stop to ask for directions.

To change the metaphor, it’s like living in a novel.  There comes a point in every good story when things get hard and dangerous, wild and wooly. The hero goes down for the count (and it’s usually his own fault). And if you’re not one of those heretics who skip to the end of the book first, you almost don’t want to keep reading; because there is no way under heaven it’s going to turn out like you hope it will. The sea pours into the dike. The plane’s engines start to cough. Edmund heads off with the White Witch. Frodo lies still under the cliffs of Cirith Ungol. Bigwig is in the wire. David stares at Uriah with fear and frustration and murder in his heart. Adam grasps a fruit in desperation.

God hangs on a cross.

One of my favorite words as a ten-year-old was antepenultimate. (æn.ti.pəˈnʌl.ti.mət) It’s Latin based, an adjective, and basically means “the thing before the thing before the last thing.” For example, Thursday is the antepenultimate day of the week. The twenty-ninth is the antepenultimate day of July. And after the antepenultimate, comes the penultimate. In a good novel, you have at least one antepenultimate build-up, a penultimate crisis, and the final, crashing resolution. In a really good one, you have several.

In one sense, all of human life is the Antepenultimate. From the first squalling breath to the last shuddering gasp, every son of Adam and daughter of Eve lives in the crisis. We ride the shock waves, travel the journeys, and generally wind up nowhere near where we wanted to go ten years ago. If we had known our current destinations a decade ago, we’d be terrified, disappointed, or both; no matter how good (or terrible) it would seem. We’d probably be so worried about how to achieve (or miss) this spot on the map that we’d freeze. It’s not really good to know that you’re in the crisis part of the novel as a character...it tends to chill the blood.

And wherever you wind up, eventually comes the greatest crisis. Death, the Penultimate Event. If you cross that bridge, your GPS has no way to recalculate your route. One way only.

But then you reach your Ultimate (in both senses) destination. And once you’ve made it there, the route you’ve taken—missed side roads, exits, gas stations, and all—will make perfect sense. It will, literally, be the only road you could have taken to get Home. You climb out of the car, stretch, and grin in sheer, tension-melting relief.

Made it.

Remember that the next time you missed a turn.

New Years, Old Years, and Jet Skis

My pastor challenged me yesterday. He mentioned that the divide between the old year and the new was a good time to take stock of what you’ve achieved (or failed to achieve) during your last trip around the sun—and what you expect to get out of the next one.

Man, I hate it when he does that.

See, by preference, I’m a drifter. I prefer my achievements to float up in front of me like logs on the flume ride at Six Flags—dead center and obvious, get on if you want, no pressure, it’s nice and slow. If I don’t manage to catch that particular one, there’s always another one arriving with a small splash about thirty seconds later. There's only one channel to ride. No failures. No missed opportunities. No regrets.

But I got challenged to a retrospective. And if you look back at last year—really look—my life looked less like a log ride and more like piloting a jet ski through some tricky sandbars during a glowingly thick fog... on the ocean.

Heeeere we go! Full steam ahead, sixty minutes an hour, seven days a week, and oh, yeah, the brakes don’t work so great anymore. Yes, I have a partial map, but with the wind, and the spray, and the fact that I can only see about six feet in front of me... I think I missed a few turns. Scraped some paint off the bottom. One of the gauges is cracked. I might have wound up in entirely wrong part of the ocean—it’s hard to tell. There’s too many drops clinging to my crooked glasses to see much of anything.

All water looks alike at half an inch.

Okay, the metaphor ran away from me... just like last year. In retrospect: I really didn’t mean to wind up in this chair at this moment, I had other plans. I was going to have a different roommate, be dating a really nice girl, have way more money in the bank, and probably no longer be working a full-time graveyard shift during school. Oh, and I was going to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay holier. The complaining and the envy and the slothfulness—gone. I was going to be God’s perfect child by now.

(I’m picturing the Father smirking behind his hand, like you do when your two-year old announces that she is going to cook breakfast “all by herself!” Sure, kid. Knock yourself out. Just don’t put your spoon in the microwave with the Fruit Loops.)

Did I have a banner year? Not really. I’m still single. I’m still mildly in debt and clawing my way above the poverty line. I never made the dean’s list in school (of course, I never really planned to). I sinned against a bunch of people, complained to a bunch more, and was only as holy as I had to be most of the time. Depressing, isn’t it? (Maybe I actually crashed the jet ski...)

But perspective is everything. It wasn’t a bad year, either. I’m still in one piece, relatively healthy, and making enough money to eat with, which is more than a lot of folks can say. I got to watch my old roommate trade me out for a fantastic wife. I’m learning great and wonderful things with a bunch of joyful and reliable Christian people, day in and day out. I have a pastor who gives me challenges (that hopefully lead to far more than blog posts!). I have reliable friends. I have a great, enormous family. And I have a whole year ahead to give it another shot. So what if I’m dripping wet? I’m in the water, where I’m supposed to be.

Where will I be a year from now? God only knows. Possibly still in this chilly chair, single, with a different pesky roommate and more gnarly, tangled sins than anybody but Christ could count. But maybe not. After all, if you’d told me four years ago that I’d be sitting here, I’d have laughed you out of the room.

So here’s to Anno Domini MMXVIII. In prospect (can I do that?): This year I hope to pay senior year down, begin to pay off my loans, be the best friend I can be to my pals, write a lot more, read a lot more, come up with a senior thesis, and not get any more cavities. And, shoot, maybe find a date. And while we’re at it, I hope those close to me can look back and say, “Wow, James, you’ve really grown more godly this year.” Feel free to hold me to that.

Toss me the keys to the jet ski. It’s time to climb back on.

Ambulatio Noctavaga

The sound of the bell washed out over the sparkling hillsides, breaking the silent night with a smooth silver tone—just once, and then the silence overwhelmed it again.

I smiled. “Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one!”

Nothing happened. I hadn’t really expected anything to. The sudden appearance of a ghost at one in the morning this Christmas Eve would have shocked me just as much as Marley did Scrooge. The moment had passed, and things were as it should be: cold, crisp, and very clear. I gave up staring toward the church steeple and concentrated on not falling as I strode down the ice-glazed sidewalk. Whoever had shoveled it had given it their best shot, but they hadn’t quite reached the concrete.

It’s cold. My phone says that nature only has four of her degrees tonight. I wonder idly which four. A bachelor’s, two masters, and a doctorate, perhaps? She gave the rest up. They’ll be back someday, but tonight their absence can be felt by every inch of my cold legs. Only a thin (it feels thinner than normal) layer of blue sweatpants stands between them and all those missing degrees, sucked into the winter degree vacuum. As long as I keep moving, they’ll survive. The rest of me is fine. My power plant is insulated by four layers of cotton and polyester blends; my toes wiggle securely in a massive pair of twelve-year old floppy, toasty boots. If I’d been able to remember where my long johns were stowed last winter, I’d be perfectly outfitted for this little stroll.

Everything sparkles. The snow, the trees with their thin layer of snow and thinner layer of ice, the deceptively dark-hued roads. Streetlights and starlight glitter off every surface. There might be a moon floating somewhere too, but I can’t find her. The brightest thing in the heavens is a lone star in the south that I’m fairly sure is Venus, the Morning Star, an appropriate symbol of hope to men for millennia, just like this Christmas Eve.

I’m sure anyone who saw me trudging along through the three inches of snow wondered why I was there. An hour past subfreezing midnight isn’t exactly a popular time for a constitutional. One of the perils of working a night shift is that your clock can get really off, and I woke up this midnight fresh as a proverbial summer daisy. It felt like a good time to return the library books that were due yesterday. So I layered up, and off I went.

I actually had more company than I expected. A diesel truck grumbled its way down Washington Street, loudly voicing its displeasure for being forced to labor in the icy darkness. I glimpsed a party through yellow windows playing board games, coats and hats still on in an attempt to bolster poor insulation. Later, as I returned down Main, a quartet of WSU students wobbled stridently up the opposite side, their restraint removed and chilly bodies fortified by internal application of alcohol. Further on, the two lone employees of a bar stood together just inside door, waiting the fifty minutes until closing time would let them go home. Twenty years ago they would have been flirting. Now they’re just both on their phones.

But in spite of these, except for my own crunchy tread over potato-chip snow, it was remarkably quiet. I understood why all the old carols always mention the stillness of winter. In the days before the internal combustion engine, it must have been still indeed. Even so much further south in the bleak lands of Palestine, the coming of those angels would have been a mighty shock to shepherds used to “the bleak midwinter, when half-spent was the night.”

My thoughts drift from silence to carols, to my family far away in the warmth of Texas and Kuwait, and to my friends home with their families in places far and near, and I pray that they will know how blessed they are. For every Christmas many of us get a tiny glimpse of what the Eschaton, Tolkien’s Eucatastrophe, will be like. For we will be home, everlasting joy and food and drink will flow in abundance, and the family will be complete. We will go from wandering alone in the cold night—as fun as that sometimes is—to the warmth of the flame imperishable and the everlasting light of the Morning Star. My final thought as I knock the snow from my treads and twist the knob, ready to warm my knocking knees? Never take Christmas for granted. But don’t think that’s as good as it gets, either. 

Heroes IV--Stonewall Jackson

Heroes IV—Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

Lest you think that all my heroes are fictional, let’s jump to a few historical figures. First off: one of the greatest (arguably) military men the Americas ever produced: Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. Much as it embarrasses me to admit it, I still haven't finished Dabney's defining biography of him after three years of on-and-off effort. But I will. In the meantime, I still know a few things.

Born in the backwoods of Virginia in 1824, he survived becoming an orphan, brutal work, and poor schooling until he entered West Point at the age of eighteen. There he displayed a single-minded determination that was to mark the rest of his life, rising from dead last in the academic rankings to seventeenth by graduation. His peers later said that if studies had lasted another year, he would have made first place. He immediately left to fight in the Mexican war as an artilleryman, earning some recognition for a gallant defense at Chapultepec. He was assigned to the Virginia Military Institute after the war and taught there. While he was a terrible teacher—he memorized his lectures, recited them by rote, and never deviated from them—he was a better churchman, and taught Sunday school to the black slaves of Lexington. His first wife died here in childbirth.

When the war broke out, he organized the 2^nd, 4^th, 5^th, 27^th and 33^rd VA Regiments into a brigade he commanded. On July 21^st, 1861—156 years ago to the day—he led them to immortality on the fields of Manassas. General Bee attempted to rally his fleeing troops by shouting, “Look at Jackson! There he stands like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” Both the commander and the brigade would ever after bear the sobriquet “Stonewall.”

Afterwards came the triumphs that built his legend: The Valley Campaign, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville. His audacity, speed, and coolness under fire all became parts of an enduring story that was almost a myth. His basic Calvinistic believe in divine providence gave him no cause for fear, his solitary devotion to duty left him no time for playing politics. There were the enemy, and it was his God-given, terrible duty to destroy them until they laid down their arms. With his brilliance came all the usual idiosyncrasies of genius—he always stayed bolt upright even in the saddle to keep his organs in place; sucked lemons; tended to throw his left hand out, palm upright, as he waged battles and implored divine providence; and tended to throw the full weight of military court-martial at subordinates who committed very minor offences. But his soldiers loved him and he won battles—the two ultimate tributes to a fighting commander.

He died of pneumonia May 10th, 1863, eight days after being mistakenly wounded by his own troops after his great triumph at Chancellorsville. He had cemented his place in history in a little under two years. A great soldier, a devout Presbyterian, and a doting husband, he remains an inspiration to me and many others in North and South alike.

Heroes III--Obi-Wan Kenobi

Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time...

(How long?)

A long time...

    Since according to the local paper, Star Wars came out twenty-five years ago today, it seems fitting to proceed to my next hero of fiction. Jedi Knight, teacher, hermit, strategist, and wiseacre, Obi-wan Kenobi stands out as the foremost character of Star Wars outside the Skywalker family. His portrayal has been excellent through every incarnation. Alec Guiness’ nuanced performance in the original when telling Luke his story is literally the reason George Lucas was able to make prequels. Ewan McGregor gave the young Obi-wan a dash of spirit and charm that along with Anthony Daniels carries the prequels through some of their worst moments (Except maybe that mullet in Attack of the Clones). James Arnold Taylor bridged the two with an excellent voice performance in Clone Wars. From the first lightsaber battle with Vader, to that epic multi-level duel with Maul, to Asaij Ventress, Grevious, Savage Opress and Maul together... even Anakin on Mustafar...he’s had the best battling skills in the franchise to date with a blade. And even in the darkest moments, he never loses his cool. 

And did you know that now that "Obi-wan Kenobi" is a traditional fourth nonsense answer on multiple-choice questions online? Now you do.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

The Sirens and Charybdis

It’s 0005. (That’s 12:05 AM, some of you.)

I’m up due to circumstances entirely within my control but outside my choice. You see, I’m in school, and I work a night shift. So occasionally when I get a day off, I wind up awake in the wee hours of the morning, blinking and wondering what on earth I’m supposed to do. I certainly ain’t sleeping.

Of course, the answer always lurks around every corner of every book on the floor and note on the desk: homework. There is always homework. Outline this. Study that. Memorize this. And with term finals starting in three days and plenty of work to still consider and the fact that I really haven’t grown any more disciplined than the old days of “eat, drink, and watch movies, for tomorrow is a test day” all piling up over my head, homework seems less of a duty and more like a hulking monster. A great, hungry, dragon-toothed, all-consuming monster; eating up all my joy, and time, and energy. “You want to read a book for fun?” he snarls. “Ha. You have an essay to write and a six-hour project due Thursday. You haven’t even touched them. And there’s your summary due tomorrow. Done any of that? That’s in twelve hours, mind. You want to talk to God about your future, your worry, your sins and triumphs? No time for that, miserable fool! I have consumed it! I will consume it all!”

Panic.

And when I panic, my habit is to run to my old false gods. Entertainment. Oblivion. Had I lived a hundred years ago, I’d be at the tavern, a large mug of something in my hand and two more empty beside it. Fifty years ago, I’d still be at the mall beating a high score on Pac-man or out cruising with the radio turned way up. Now I click a few times and watch Facebook or Netflix fade into a thousand little pixelated opiates; idols soothing and whispering, “Who cares about tomorrow? Dopamine, not deadlines.”

Odysseus didn’t get it quite right. Most of us don’t have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, but between the Sirens and Charybdis. On the one hand is the great sucking monster of duties and obligations, pulling our effort, money, and time itself in like a great black hole. But push your way outside of that and you drift into a misty, golden-hued land of lotus fumes and soothing notes, promising to fulfill your every desire. Of course, it’s a trap. Death waits there as surely as at the bottom of Charybdis’ rotting, gaping maw. But it seems much more pleasant, and far more gradual. Listen to them sing: Why die today, listener? Far better to linger on in our voluptuous land of sensate stimulation. Are you not weary with much toil? Your roommate’s asleep. No one will ever know, and food eaten in secret is sweet. Come to us, and we will give you your heart’s desire. You wish for victory and bloody triumph? We have a thousand varieties, enough for a lifetime. You wish for a pretty companion? We have every kind, more than Solomon’s whole harem, without a disagreement or misunderstanding to be seen. You wish for peace? We have every Hallmark moment you could devise and ten more, all with just the right chords playing in the background. Come to us, and be free. Come to us and be happy. Come. Come. Come.

With that kind of siren call pounding in my blood and no other prospects but Charybdis’ dark vortex of school and work and endless chores, is it any wonder why I drift towards Siren Island so often? There doesn’t seem to be any other way out. Damned to either work myself to death or waste my life—I might as well pick the more pleasant option. There’s no other choice.

That’s a lie, of course. There is a way out, no temptation beyond what we can bear. But we have to find it, and it’s not where we think it is. Unlike Odysseus, God doesn’t give us a vanishingly small belt of safe sea in between our painful callings and our fleeting pleasures. We don’t have to constantly trim sail to maintain course between two dangers. He gives us an escape. There’s an exit sign flashing in the gloom. Unfortunately, it’s right in the middle of Charybdis’ dark, slurping mouth. “No, wait,” we think. “That can’t be right. God screwed up.”

If I can screw up, what chance is there for you, child? Look to the ant, go to your labor. Dive all the way in to it and hold nothing back. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. That includes work and homework and the dishes, you know—even every second of your time. For everything there is a season.

“Wait. Don’t you want me to be happy? What about pleasures and joy? Don’t the Sirens promise more of those than that monster of work, Charybdis?”

Why this aversion to work, son? Even I work in creating, sustaining, saving and beautifying. This is the path of life, where at my right hand are pleasures forevermore. There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot and my gift to man.

Gulp. “If I go that way, there’s no way out. I’ll die.”

Yes, you will, He chuckles. But that’s all right. I’m in the resurrection business.