Change of address

Currently Listening The Velvet Rope By Janet Jackson see related

It's been a rough week. To top it off, I got sick.

I will admit that I kind of enjoy being sick ... I walk around my apartment moaning and complaining, throwing tissue on couches and leaving cups of tea in every room. Sometimes I purposefully call people because, a:  I like it when my voice is hoarse, and b:  I can complain to something besides my walls. When I went to the store to buy popsicles and rent a movie from the Red Box, the cashier said, "How are you today?" and I desperately wanted to say, "I'm sick and pitiful." But I think my watery eyes and red nose said it for me.

I spent some quality time with Nyquil and woke up Friday morning refreshed, albeit kind of fuzzy around the edges. And I'm not referring to leg hair. But when I got out of bed, I heard the most God-awful scratching and wrinkling that could only have been caused by something the size of my foot. After a pep talk, I shook out my shower curtain and a freaking huge cockroach pranced across the tub. I grabbed the poison spray and slathered him until he was belly-up.

All this to say, I think my general life suffering has brought me to the point between perseverance and character. Although I have real trials and real perseverance/character building, this roach madness is a good analogy. A safer way to illustrate my life online, if you will. This isn't the first roach of the season -- by the way, I'm not disgusting, really -- and I only mildly shrieked at this encounter, before I grabbed the toxic fumes and took care of business.

Just to make sure I'm being sufficiently tested on perseverance and character, God went ahead and invited some more roaches to have a little party while I was gone this weekend and leave only their droppings as evidence. Nice little surprise when I came back.  But I went back to my friendly cashier at the store and bought traps, calmly and perseveringly.

As an expert, I can offer these tips when trying to kill roaches:
-- Keep a few inches between you and the ground by wearing high heels (closed-toe boots if they're handy)
-- Paper sacks make for good gloves, but wadded up toilet paper or paper towels do as well
-- Sometimes you have to leave the room out of frustration or disgust if the little guy keeps kicking, but be sure he's not tricking you and waiting for you to turn your back
-- Talking out loud to yourself or screaming both guides you and lets the roach know you're not taking his presence lightly

If you like insects and living things a lot and this offends you, or, say, you work in a museum and touch creepy crawlers because you want to, I apologize.

I wrote this a few years ago and never submitted it to the magazine I had in mind when I wrote it. Maybe if I post it on here, it won't be like I had an encounter meant for more people that I never shared.

His gray hair stood out above the scraggly, dirty, smelly people who waited in line to get their free meals. He wasn’t much cleaner, and he waited for the same meal.

He smiled gently and nodded his head at a young man. He opened his mouth and raised a red foam club.

“Would you mind if I beat the hell out of you?”

Dwayne Good, 54, doesn’t do small talk.

The young man, well aware of Good and his schemes, nodded with a smile. After Good lightly tapped him with the club, he talked to the man about sin and God’s way of taking the evil out of people through Jesus. Then they prayed.

With a name like Good and a habit of discussing God in every encounter, he’s like an angel walking among the poor and homeless of Waco, Texas. Yet his past and quirks suggest anything but saintliness. Good went to college in California and received two associate’s degrees, one in human services and the other in industrial welding. His dream was to become a child psychologist, because “it’s better to build a man than try to rebuild a man.”

But after college he traveled as a construction worker, making up to $18 an hour. Now settled in Waco, you’d never know Good once made a living from building things and making order out of a mess. His home is two next-door houses in a rough neighborhood of a dead-end street. A broken-down van sits out front in the lawn. But it’s hard to say where his lawn ends and his house begins. Cleanliness can’t be next to godliness, because Good is a man of God, but his house is a wreck.

Old shoes, roofing material, barbed wire and boxes clutter the outside of both white houses. The three-walled house he sleeps in protects him from the elements with a tarp pulled tightly and hooked with a bungee cord. The other house is filled with computers, which can be seen through the front window. After making some money in construction, Good went into computer programming and stock analysis. Unfortunately his analysis wasn’t up to par – he lost a lot of money in the stock market.

But, as his home shows, Good doesn’t care about making money. “Why make money if you don’t love the ones you’re with?” He said, “It’s a privilege to love.”

It’s that idea of love that drives him, but it’s been a journey of heartache. Good married a Swedish woman, whom he met in the United States, about 20 years ago. After four years of marriage and the birth of their son, Noah, they divorced. Brokenhearted, Good said his divorce made him want to study commitment and God’s idea of marriage.

“I don’t know about falling in love,” Good said. “But loving someone is about developing a love relationship.”

Today, Good has his eyes on Julie, better known as the neighborhood cat woman. She cares for cats in her neighborhood. And Good cares for her:  getting her cat food and walking her home. Julie and Good both go to the Gospel Café, a nonprofit kitchen that feeds the poor and homeless. Marsha Marti, pastor of Crossties Ecumenical Church, runs the Gospel Café. Good has asked Marti to keep him accountable, to learn selfless love and to honor Julie. He has an appreciation for love from his failed marriage, and he takes it with him everywhere.

In his wallet, he carries cut-out pictures of models. But each face has a tooth darkened or freckles drawn. The imperfections “make them more lovable.” Good’s quirks don’t stop at his wallet. His hat – which once said “Recruit” – has the first two letters marked out, because Good said he doesn’t want to be “re” anything. He’s original.

When he’s not answering to Dwayne, or wearing that hat, he most likely has a tin foil helmet on and a matching lance. And he’s answering to Don Quixote. Good takes the literature character to a new level – he refers to bondage to sin and honor – making every encounter a theatrical event, but sharing the Word of God no less.

And Good passes out booklets he created from his own computer program. Tract topics range from literature to salvation, because every new acquaintance is an opportunity to share.With eternity on his mind, even at the grocery store with cat food in one hand and batteries in the other, Good talked to the checkout woman.

She said, “Have a good day.”

And Good answered, “Have a good forever, don’t stop at a day. You ever think of that?”

These Exhaling Sounds

Actions speak louder than words, but silence speaks loudest, and to the soul. Rumi said that language is only possible because we are separated from our source, like a reed flute makes sound because it's separated from the reed bed. We're empty, hollow and longing for our home. Here's a poem by Rumi that I like:

Is the sweetness of cane sweeter
than the one who made the canefield?

Behind the beauty of the moon is the moonmaker.
There is intelligence inside the ocean's intelligence
feeding our love like an invisible waterwheel.

There is a skill to making cooking oil from animal fat.
Consider now the knack that makes eyesight
from the shining jelly of your eyes.

Dawn comes up like a beautiful meal being served.
We are hungry and distracted, so in love with the cook.

Don't just be proud of your mustache
as you drive three donkeys down the road.

Instead of gemstones, love the jeweler.
Enough of these exhaling sounds.

Let the darling finish this
who turns listening into seeing.

Anyone else have a favorite poem to share?

Currently Listening You Know I'm No Good By Amy Winehouse see related

Pictures say a lot. Some carry smells or emotions or voices and can be loud or quiet or mysterious. And the most expressive pictures aren't proudly displayed on a bedroom wall or facebook wall, because those have been carefully chosen to show good hair days and toothy smiles and portrait lighting.

Sometimes the loudest pictures are unsuspected, unintentional.

These pictures have been floating around my dresser since I moved into my own apartment. Much like extra buttons to shirts that probably don't fit, I have these photos stashed in random places, and I don't even notice them anymore.

If I did stop to really look, I wouldn't see my grandparents. I'd see love strong enough to keep oxygen flowing through veins and lungs that gave up several years ago. I'd see soft, tan hands holding out a stuffed Garfield. I'd smell biscuits and coffee on a sunny porch. Or I'd hear a soft, scraggly voice speaking words I only kind of recognize.

My family used to go on family vacations every summer. Rule one:  we never went to the same place twice.  Rule two:  we never ate at chain restaurants. Rule three: we called as much attention to ourselves as (in)humanly possible.

My mom packed all of our clothes. Monday at Epcot Center ... Let's go with navy stripes. Tuesday at Busch Gardens ... I'm gonna say red shorts, white shirts. Wednesday at the beach ... Broncos shirts as cover-ups.  Thursday at Disney World ... Ah, yes, what we've all been waiting for -- the toucans.

My mom also sewed. Matching outfits. Usually florescent. Sometimes with birds. We all happily wore them. My dad, behind the camera, also has on shorts and a shirt with the tropical print. My mom and I have dangly fruit earrings in.

What I absolutely love about this expressive, unintentional picture is the poor girl on the left. With the goofy hat. Who she is, I don't know. But her face seems to foreshadow so much. Like the way I felt about family vacations and matching outfits a few years later, when I realized it wasn't cool to have people pointing and laughing. And thus began my five-year phase of never smiling in vacation pictures, so I would always remember that I was too cool to enjoy being with my parents.

And even though my dad doesn't understand, I'm still too cool to wear matching, homemade outfits. Even if they are stitched together in love. I still don't like birds.