Marked

  Everyone knows someone somewhere who seemed different from other people previously encountered.  Someone who seemed to have that little extra twinkle in their eye, perhaps or that little half smirk that would pop out whenever the conversation turned toward a particular subject.  Surly even now you can think of someone that just seems to “get it” when you try to talk about an experience you’ve had but have difficulty articulating.  We may consider these people to be seasoned, knowledgeable, experienced or even wise.  Funny thing is that age, while commonly associated with the wisdom of experience, has little to do with this curious phenomenon.  I tend to think of these people as having been marked by experience. 

  For example, the young woman who grew up in a fairly religious and conservative community who, though always considered to be a good girl, had to reveal that she was pregnant at 17.  Or her family who are so incredibly loving, understanding and giving to others, but in quiet moments have that little hint of something extra glinting in their eye as if to say, “I understand.  I’ve been there.”  These types of people seemed almost more genuine to me than others who were seemingly without flaw.  Certainly I felt more comfortable and trusting of these wonderful people than I would of some plastic someone who had never screwed up before. 

  It has been my personal experience to find this phenomenon very commonly among those who have been divorced.  There is an almost instant kinship between two people who have shared a common experience so emotionally tumultuous.  I remember meeting a particularly talented younger actor who was just concluding his divorce.  I could see instantly that there was something that had changed him from who and what he was before to the man that stood before me.  Though we had never before met, we were able to talk at length about our shared experiences.  He would ask me questions about my experience and offer information about his and vice versa.  We talked for several hours and parted ways as instant friends. 

  I imagine this is the draw of collegiate fraternities across the country.  Perhaps the hazing that is endured by pledges of different houses serves to cement the bond of brotherhood more than anyone but those that have experienced it would understand.  On a larger scale, I feel this is what draws men of the armed forces together over so many differences like race, religion, background, upbringing, social class, etc. and allows them to be brothers even if they didn’t engage in the same fight.  I have witnessed two men with 35 years difference between them realize and instant brotherhood upon learning that the other was also a marine.  They had both served their country, both fought in real combat, both suffered the loss of friends and both been marked by the experience and they saw this in each other.  Once a marine, always a marine. 

  Many different things can mark you.  It can be as simple as first love bitterly lost.  It can be death of someone close to you.  It can be merciless ridicule because of your appearance or because you are different from others.  I can be that you have witnessed something truly awe inspiring.  It could be that your life as you knew it was shattered and you had to rebuild a new one.  It can be that your expectations were not met.  It could be that your wildest expectations were exceeded.  It could be that you have seen true greatness in people.  It could be that you have seen the face of pure evil.  Having children can mark you.  Having children with a disability can profoundly mark you.  Experiencing the limits of human experience, good or bad, can and will change you and it leaves a mark on your life and your experience and you are no longer unblemished.  I would describe it almost as a loss of innocence, but it’s so very much more than that.  It’s almost like an awakening of understanding; like a change in the way that you think and reason.

  Now, I have always been a fan of things that have character.  A book well-worn with use and time is far more appealing to me than a brand new book with the spine never having been cracked.  So too with furniture: like the bookcase that has a gouge where a child hit it with a toy in a moment of frustration.  Or the art that has perhaps one or two brush strokes that seem like they shouldn’t be there.  Some would look on these things and consider them flaws, impurities or imperfections… I consider these things to be the character of time well spent and a life well served.  This is also true of people. 

  The battle weary with their thousand-yard stare burning through the unseeing distance may seem broken when looked on by the untrained eye, but these are the good ones.  Those who have been battered and beaten by the tidal currents of life’s ebb and flow are the real people.  Those who have been touched by the heat of the refiner’s fire and are changed by it are the genuine article.  These are the salt of the earth.  After all, it’s our imperfections that make us unique and truly make us great.  Life was not meant to be put on display under glass.  It was meant to be lived, dirty, messy, painful, horrible, wonderful, amazing, loving and brutal, it was meant to be experienced in order to change us.  

  That’s life, what can I tell you. 

Sleep

  Those of you who know me and are reading this will probably know the love affair I have with sleep.  You will also probably have heard the stories of my wonderful bed and how much I love it, too.  I love sleep and think it is about the second best thing in the whole world. 

  While in flight school, I had the chance to study sleep extensively.  I began looking into it as it pertains to air transportation safety at first, but as I found out how it works and what works better to get a great night’s sleep, I became fascinated by the technical aspect of sleep.  The simple fact of the matter is, though we know much about how sleep works and what it kind of does, we still do not know why we need to sleep. 

  “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast”

  --William Shakespeare, Macbeth

  I suppose I could regale you with the process of sleep and how it works, but I won’t; Sufficeth to say that sleep, for me, serves a multi-role purpose in my life. 

  First, sleep is a healer of the body.  During specific stages of sleep respiration is increased while blood pressure is decreased along with heart rate and body temperature.  While in this state the body, which is amazing in and of itself, goes to work repairing the normal damage inflicted on it during the day.  This is the stage where muscle tissue it regrown, dead cells are sluffed off and carried away to be disposed of and other “maintenance” procedures are completed to allow the body to function.  This stage is particularly important for those who are much more physically active during the day than others.  This is also the stage in children where they grow. 

"And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created."

            --David Lawrence

  Second, sleep is a healer of the mind.  While you dream somewhat through the whole night, you really only begin to experience vivid dreams later into your night’s sleep, usually after the fourth of fifth hour of sleep.  This is when the body has completed most of its physical repair and can now turn to the repair of consciousness.  This is when the brain, magnificent and mysterious, literally “cuts off” communication with the rest of the body and begins a pattern of sleep that is incredibly similar in brain activity to being awake.  This is the time when a person experiences deep dreaming.  This is the time when the subconscious mind, which is far more perceptive than the conscious mind, “downloads” its contents into the understanding of the mind and begins to sort out things that were not possible to process during waking hours. 

  Have you ever been so frustrated by something you were thinking about that you just couldn’t find a way to understand?  Then after getting a good night’s sleep, you take a second look at what was so frustrating and it just seems to make sense.  During REM sleep, neural pathways are formed between stored information in the brain which allows access of information between related subjects.  It’s like the most advanced cross-referencing software you have ever imagined on steroids.  This is the time when emotional confusion is understood.  This is when intellectual dilemmas are worked out.  This is also the time, I believe, when personal, individual, divine revelation can be received and understood.  More on that point in a later posting.

  “The bed is a bundle of paradoxes:  we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”

 

--Charles Caleb Colton

  Third and finally, sleep is a chance to lay down the cares of the day.  It’s like a miniature death that allows you to lay aside your frustrations and worries of the waking world and succumb to the peaceful bliss of infinity.  If sleep is the microcosm of death, then I do not fear death and will welcome it, but for the pain of those left behind, when it comes.  Sleep is a chance to reassess and realize what is really important.  It is a chance to take the longview of things. Sleep allows me to begin to fathom the mysteries of the universe and even gain a little understanding and a few answers to the unanswerable questions of life. 

  Now, here’s the punch line.  Why, you may ask, when I feel so strongly about sleep do I often forsake it in favor of time doing other things?  Why do I spend time with other people instead of seeking the wonder of the sleep I have just described?  The answer is simple.  Because I choose to. Because it’s worth it.  Because I feel that time spent with that person is worth more than the sleep I am giving up.  Because, as wonderful as sleep is, as amazing and blissful as it can be, real life and real people and real interaction is worth so very much more.  If you are one of these people that take the place of sleep, feel loved, valued and cherished.  You are the first best thing in the whole wide world.

Loss

  I had a dream last night.  I don’t know what it means, but it left me pretty shaken when I woke up today.  In my dream my family was hiking through a forested, mountainous area with large, full trees, rocky trails, birds, animals, the works.  It was beautiful and serene.  My parents and sister were there laughing and talking with me, my brothers and our kids.  It was picturesque, really.  I remember the impression, now after waking up, that it had been a wonderful time of fun and adventure and that we had really enjoyed the day. 

  Then in an instant it all changed.

  My boys were running around the trail up and down a sloped section of the path, goofing off and playing tag when suddenly my youngest, J, slipped and fell.  Due to the slope of the path he began to tumble backward down the trail like some sick version of a cartoon character snowballing down a hill.  I didn’t realize that he was falling until right at the end when he tumbled right up to the rock that I had rested my day pack on. 

  I was concerned as any parent would be as I picked him up and brushed him off.  I knew that he would begin crying at any moment so I began to calm him.  Now, it has been my practice for a long time to help minimize the “artificial hurt” -- the additional crying and carrying on that a child feels due to the fear of something they experienced that they think should hurt regardless of whether is really does or not -- to pick up the boys and immediately praise them for how awesome a fall they had just pulled off. 

  “Wow,” I said.  “That was an awesome fall!  Did you see how far you rolled when you fell?”  J, was sniffling as he looked up at me with those huge eyes and dust smudged face, but he smiled as he was trying to be brave.  I looked over to my parents who had seemed not to notice the fall and were still talking to each other.  When I looked back to the face of my son it was stained red and the hood of his jacket was blood soaked.  I reached over to the picnic basket and grabbed a handful of paper towels to mop at his face and I called my father over as calmly as I could to help me.  I laid a paper towel over the wound on my sons head and it immediately soaked through with blood. 

  I calmly told my father to go get the park ranger.  My father, who was still laughing slightly at something he had been talking about, didn’t seem to see the urgency of the situation.  Instead, he came over to coo at J and began to dust off his pants.  Again, I told my father to go get the park ranger and to call 911.  Again, my father ignored me as he was talking to J and encouraging him to be brave and not cry.  With my hand over a mess of towels that were now soaking through and coating my hand in my sons blood, I finally shouted at my father, “Go get the f***ing ranger!!!”  I remember that I was looking at my sons eyes as they sleepily began to close while I screamed this last plea for help both in my dream and in reality.  It was this call, out loud and in real life that woke me from the dream.

   I don’t know what dreams are for.  I don’t know why I remember some dreams and forget many others.  What I do know is that upon waking from that dream, I feel a profound urgency to hold my son and make sure he is alright.  I had the sense after waking that as my son closed his eyes in those last moments that he was dying and for that split second, I knew the pain of the loss of a child. 

  Just yesterday I was told that my parents were going to be attending a funeral for one of their missionaries who had lost their 8 year-old son.  I knew almost all of my parent’s missionaries and viewed many of them like brothers so to know that one of these friends had outlived his own son was very hard for me to hear.  No man should have to bury his own child.  No man. 

  It took me back to when I had stood with my cousin as she and her husband had to lay their son to rest.  He had been sick for a long time and the mixture of pain and grief we felt was swirled together with relief and bitter-sweet happiness at his departure from the pain and suffering of this life.  I was a new father at the time and my oldest was just a baby, but I remember very distinctly the weight of grief I felt both for my cousin and as I imagined losing my own son.

  They say that God only gives you the trials that he knows you are strong enough to handle.  I know that one of my greatest fears is having to learn about the pain of loss first hand.  I have already lost much.  I have needed to rebuild my life many times and through it all, there has been one thing that I have never lost but always been afraid of losing: my family. 

  Here is the wonderful bit.  I can’t lose them now.  Not even to death.  My family is forever.  They are bound to me by eternal right and I will never lose them.  My boys are my boys through all the dimensions of time and throughout eternity.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that even if I am asked to be parted from them temporarily by the veil of death that I will hold them again.  This brings me peace in quiet moments and, with time, I know it will bring peace to my friend and brother.