Tag Archives: Introspective

To Dream a Dystopian Dream

In the before times, and certainly when I was a grad student, I wrote in this space weekly, if not more often. Contrast that with the present, when I never cease to surprise myself with the gap of time between one post and the next whenever I return here. The intention is there…my traveler’s notebook is packed with things to write out…but the time seldom is, although that’s a work in progress. Part of the problem, though, is that when I think of writing…here or anywhere else…I struggle to be positive. I want to write about the cool things I’m reading and watching, the spiritual insights that being a parent gives me, the random thoughts that drift through my head. Certainly, all of those things are still there. They’re tempered, though, with this spectre of dread in our current age.

Don’t get me wrong, I have little about which to complain. I would never presume to say that we are not blessed as a family. I have never been in a position to wonder where my next meal is going to come from. I woke up this morning to a wonderful family, and will go to bed thinking about the job I return to tomorrow and considering retirement and vacation plans. I’m living the suburban dream, in all of its tragic grace.

Regardless, though, we seem to live in an age (whether by true degree, or just because I’ve started noticing more) in which the darkness comes knocking.

Early in our marriage, my wife lovingly pointed out how much time I spent reading the news. I’ve gotten better about this, and one of the ways that I have is that I do my best to avoid news on weekends. I take a sabbath. This morning in church, though, as I was chatting with a friend, he mentioned a major international event that could spiral into a war. I, of course, had to pull out the curse that is having the Internet in my pocket and check the details. I tried to avoid it, but it found me.

At some point in my adult life, my dreams of creative and academic pursuits dissolved in favor of doing my best to provide our children with the loving stability that I had as I grew up. That was more a decision of instinct than anything else, and at times I question it, especially as I’ve come to realize that we live in a system that is designed to be able to yank the table-cloth of stability from beneath you at any moment and for no reason…a system almost sentient in its malevolence at times, and growing more so as we dare to create the AI that science-fiction authors have spent decades warning us about. Also, a quest for stability brings with it, by necessity, a certain degree of striving for financial success. And yet, I am reminded that we are to cease striving, to know that He is God.

Tying these threads together, I have difficulty writing anything positive because I’m scared. Despite our blessed state and relative freedom from worry, I am scared of the world that we leave our children, that they have to grow up in this mess. The excitement and optimism that I experienced at their age is potentially not even possible now as a faceless, opaque algorithm makes critical decisions for us without accountability, when money and science are worshipped as the gods of our age, when corruption is obscured by an inability to think critically, and when objectification of human beings is normalized. At least, when I grew up, we had a sense that we would learn and gain wisdom from our experiences, and be able to pass that down to our children in predictable environs. For the last decade, though, I’ve watched that vanish, progressively crumbling as we do things simply because we can, without ever questioning whether or not we should. Work and good intentions stand for nothing. We’re just waiting for floor to fall out.

So, I suppose I don’t write as much because my head is always full of…that.

Perhaps I’ve gotten it out, now.

Perhaps there’s something positive to hope for.

Perhaps…

Losing Letters

Maybe I’m missing something, but there seems to be a dearth of dads writing about being dads on the Internet, at least in thoughtful, long form ways. Perhaps this is because there is a dearth of anything long form on the Internet in its current sound-bite, social-media poisoned iteration, but I digress…

This is particularly noticeable to me because I think being a dad is hard. I know that I’m not alone, because every dad I know recognizes that being a dad is hard. Like any experience, there are things that only other dads would understand. There’s also a common ground that’s formed immediately, regardless of age or culture, in being a parent. Other dads just get it. We understand and sympathize.

I very much appreciate dads writing about being dads. In a society in which we’ve actively chosen to eschew the wisdom of our elders, I think that gaining whatever insight I can from others who have already been through whatever parenting challenge that I might be experiencing is of paramount importance. That’s why this post stood out to me in a very real, very poignant way, because it is insight into parenting from the son’s perspective instead of the parent’s. The son has recently lost his father, and speaks of the importance that the father’s letters have in his life now. The encouragement is for fathers to write more letters to their children. I encourage you to take a moment to read that post…it’s well worth your time.

We’ve taught both of our daughters to write letters. In some cases, this was seen as a curious novelty by their friends, and certainly the practice is often replaced by digital channels now in the case of our oldest. Still, letters and hand-written cards frequently enter and leave our mailbox, because we feel that this is an important social activity that should not become extinct. I also notice that both of our daughters, like us, keep journals of ideas and important thoughts. Like us, these aren’t digital journals, but hand-written pages. Like us, these journals are prized possessions, not because of the items themselves, but because of the ideas and memories contained within them. I’m actually quite proud of the way both of them hold onto this much more civilized and polite manner of communicating and keeping record of their musings.

And yet…

When I think of the written communication between my oldest and myself, it’s almost exclusively digital. I’ve thought often about this blog, and about how I hope that my kids will read it at some point when they’re older. I’ve even pondered if they will be able to gain insight into my thoughts and motivations after I’m gone by reading this space (I’ve been writing here long enough for it to be an actual record in many ways). That makes many assumptions, though, not the least of which is that someone will keep this around once I’ve passed for anyone to read it. Perhaps the Pulse will have happened by then and nothing of the digital realm will exist anyway. My point is that, I take the wisdom of the writer I linked to above. I need to write more letters, or at least notes, to my kids. Physical, hard copy letters. Things that they can keep with them and treasure if they so choose, because those are permanent, or at least more permanent than a URL. They also carry more meaning, because there’s something…spiritual…about taking the time to physically write out your thoughts for someone to read. The intentionality of that act is emotionally and mentally heavier than typing on a keyboard, if for no other reason than someone took the time. That, in a frenetic society starved of free time, is a valuable currency, and thus a valuable gift.

A year or so ago, I went hiking on the coast. This is a regular trip for me during the summer months, a day when I get away, be near the ocean, and center myself. As I sat down for lunch on that hike, overlooking the ocean on a beautiful summer day, and opened by backpack, I discovered a note written by our kids. It was simple…a heart drawn with the words “we love you”, and signed with both of their names.

A note written to me from my kids.

Simple, but profoundly powerful, because they had taken the time to write this together, to slip it into my backpack when I wasn’t looking, to send their love with me for the day in such a real, tangible way. I saved that note. It is immensely valuable to me.

I need to learn from that. We need more notes and letters. We all do.

Go write them.

I’m Looking at You, 2025

Dare I write optimistically?

I’m not one to believe in things like luck, but there’s been an unfortunate pattern for a bit. I’ve written optimistic New Year’s posts for two years now, and have had some fundamental things about my world shaken for both of those years. The resolutions I’ve made? Sparsely successful. The biggest thing that I’ve accomplished? Survival, if I’m to be honest. Interesting, isn’t it, how you can look forward at your life at a given point, only to find yourself looking back on that point years or decades later and wondering how you could have been so positive. Yesterday’s optimism becomes today’s naiveté. And so it goes.

The thing that’s forefront in my meditation this New Year’s is an overwhelming feeling of time wasted, of a desire to redeem that time, somehow. I want life to work, to be stable, but not in the sense of logistics or the employment crises I’ve found myself in for the last two years. I mean that I want life to work in a larger, more wholistic sense…a more metaphysical way, if you will. I feel as though the experiences that I’ve had in the last two years have demonstrated that the road not taken in the Before Times may well have been the best one, and I’m trying to determine what to do with that.

So, my journal holds new year’s resolutions. I’m very hesitant to record them here. I’m hoping that, in a way I would struggle to articulate, things start to click this year. And that word is the beginning of the process: hope.

Such a small word to write, such huge implications.

I know this: yesterday morning, on New Year’s day, I woke up with my daughters and made pancakes for breakfast. Such a small thing, but something that they both love the three of us to do together, and something we hadn’t done in a long time.

Such a small thing to do, but such huge implications.

Here’s to 2025.

Christmas and Monopoly

I remember a handful of very important, impactful Christmas gifts over the course of my life. I’ve written about a few of them here. As the years progress, though (I’m much closer to retirement age than I’d care to admit), my interest in gifts lessens. I like opening some surprises on Christmas morning, but I’m much happier watching the kids’ eyes sparkle as they open theirs. Most importantly, though, as our celebration of Christ’s birth incarnates with people, is being with family. This is especially meaningful after a pandemic, during which we realized what it was to live without human connection over the holidays. We hosted some family from out of town this year, and a theme in the gift-giving was games. There were several board games given and received this year, which sparked some interesting conversation.

We’ve been wanting to play more games together as a family for a while. Somehow, the act of solidifying this into a practice and a routine has proven elusive. I’m not entirely certain why, but at the end of the day, the problem is one of discipline. Not at all insurmountable, especially now that the inspiration has struck.

As we discussed these games, a memory forced its way to the surface. When I was young…about the age that our kids are now, actually…my family played Monopoly. We really played Monopoly. The game would be set up on an afternoon as I arrived home from school. My father would arrive home from work and, after dinner, the game would begin. We never ended the game that night, though. We would play for hours, pause, and resume the next evening. These games could last for a week in some cases. Somehow, my father always won, except for one instance. I don’t remember anything else about that specific game, or that week, or that night, but I remember that I won the game once. Only once. That was a big deal.

I’ve always been close with my parents, and those sorts of family events were a big reason why. Who knew that games of Monopoly would prove such a cohesive event for my small family unit. Now, as my daughters have indicated that they wish we did more things together as a family, I’ve found my inspiration for a solution. While it won’t be Monopoly, it will hopefully be of the same effect. Those were better days…days that I’m sad our children won’t get to experience as the world becomes a progressively worse place in which to live…but I’m hopeful that we can at least pass down this.

My parents never knew what they were doing with those Monopoly games. Or, perhaps saying that is not giving them enough credit. I imagine that they were less than enthused about them at times. I am so glad, though, that they persisted.

Image attribution: mike_fleming under Creative Commons.

Hearing Myself from the Past

I started unobtrusive lucidity a long time ago.

I was in seminary then. I hadn’t yet met my wife. My days were primarily composed of reading and writing. Blogging was new, and I was fascinated by the outlet. I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically) late one night in the tiny apartment in which I was living at the time, set up an account, and wrote my first post. The words just flowed out of me. And, though I wrote with a very different voice then, I could think so much more clearly. There was time. There was quiet.

I’m not sure if I categorize those days as the before times, really, but they were certainly adjacent. I chronicled a lot of my life and journey then for your, dear reader, in the hopes that it would be useful in some way. My motivation for writing here has never been one of narcissism. My life is still private. I just choose to expose parts of it with the thought that I’m likely not the only person experiencing something. I truly have always hoped that the words here help someone.

I didn’t think that, decades later, I would help myself.

You see, the thing about writing these posts for so many years is that some lodge into my memory, either because of the idea or the experience behind them, and others drift away almost as soon as I write them. I consider them all to be important, but some are less memorable.

I’ve been on an emotional roller coast for the past two years. Most recently, that roller coaster has taken me through a very difficult few months. There was a point where I felt hopeless, desperate, abandoned. Even though I logically knew this wasn’t true, the emotional impact of that mental reaction held a physical force, as though someone had punched me in the face. I was hurting. This was a dark place.

I feel very blessed to say I’m coming through the other side of it now. Toward the end, though, when I was at my lowest, I stumbled upon something I had written long ago. So long ago, in fact, that it was second post I ever wrote here. While I feel the emotional struggle in my words all of these years later, the odd thing is that I can’t remember exactly what I had been writing about. I have a guess, but can’t be certain. Interesting how time really does heal our wounds.

Whatever the problem, and however strange my voice from that time sounds to me now, I needed the advice that I had written. I needed to be reminded of what I had learned. I just needed that encouragement. I suppose that means that this space is fulfilling its purpose, hopefully to others, as well.

Hopefully to you.

May your Advent season be blessed.