Living Between The Silences.

This week, I've been wondering if the noise our culture makes drawns out the melody of our souls. Have you ever gone through your day and noticed the sounds you are surrounded by?

Today, I awoke to the sound of my electronic alarm clock screeching like a drunken bird. Then came the sound of my son playing a drum solo with the help of our pots and pans. Breakfast this morning brought a moment of serenity and the sound of summer peaches around our dining table.

As I stepped out the door, I noticed that our car had a flat tire. Then came the sound of me cursing at the lugnuts. When I dropped off the car to be fixed I heard a song that said, "Save a horse, ride a cowboy."

I didn't need that kind of advice in my state of mind. I just needed a tire.

Somewhere between being jarred out of my sleep like a car accident victim and the song about sexing up cowboys, I lost track of the only things in life worth hearing. This happens to me all the time. Most days, all I hear grinding transmissions and power lines...

Songs without soul.

Souls without song.

Every morning, I wake to a certain disquietude inside me. I'm constantly tempted to fill the air with empty language. My mouth is usually a ampetheater for my ignorance. My hope lately is that silence can lead me back to things worth listening to.

Mountain air and aspen branches.

I miss hearing the sound these instruments make.

Jesus + Dinosaurs + Pet Crocodile = Magic.

The Triumphal Entry No One Saw Coming...

Raising a Japanese Snow Monkey.

Last Christmas, my son Hayden tasted snowflakes on his tongue for the first time in front of our home in Colorado. While family and friends unwrapped presents and ate turkey indoors, Hayden and I snuck out to listen to the freshly-fallen snow crackle underneath our feet.

For my Christmas gift last year, my wife converted the yellow storage room in our basement into a writer's nook.

Classic books...

Scented candles...

Fluffy pillows...

Fake bamboo...

She pulled out all the proverbial Pier 1 Red Carpet.

Above my old wooden school desk where I type hangs a poster of two Japanese Snow Monkeys huddled together to keep warm. I purchased the poster years ago after reading a National Geographic article on the flamboyant behavior these monkeys are known for.

If I remember correctly, I believe that the article concluded that monkey scientists have begun to rethink their ideas on monkey culture because of the Japanese Macaques. Researchers have discovered that the Snow Monkeys invent odd behaviors and pass them on by imitation...

Which is pretty much my approach to fathering.

In 1963 a young female named Mukubili waded into a hot spring in the Nagano Mountains to retrieve some soybeans that had been thrown in by her keepers. Like any good monkey, she found herself at home in Mother Nature's Tea Kettle. Soon other young monkeys joined her in the hot spring. The Canadian Snow Monkeys brought beer and bath salts to the party.

At first Mukubili's behavior caught on only with the young macaques and their mothers. Over the years the rest of the troop took up the behavior, which now finds shelter in the 109° F (43° C) hot springs to escape the winter cold. Several years ago, the monkeys organized a hostile takeover of the hot tubs in a nearby town.

I can't blame them for their hot tub invasion.

If I was a Snow Monkey I'd raise hell for a hot tub as well.

Aside from their strange infatuation with bourgeois bathing, the thing I remember reading about these monkeys was their snowball fights. I was unaware that monkeys ran around throwing snowballs at each other before reading this article. For some reason, the mental picture stuck with me for years.

It make me wonder if you and I are wired for something more than paychecks and pretty fences in life. Perhaps we have been given a soul in order to make snowballs and sneak into other people's hot tubs. Lately, when I look into the eyes of my Japanese Snow Monkey, I remember to listen to snow crackle underneath my feet as I walk though life.

Just Another Day Aboard The Pirate Ship of Life.

Sometimes I wish that I was a Greco-Roman wine god. That way I could turn pirates (and all other people who irritate me) into dolphins like Dionysos did one afternoon at sea.

If I had magic powers, I would turn most televangelists in America into dolphins.Then people would stop sending them their Social Security checks. Cause, really, whose going to send Uncle Sam's money to seafaring creature with a blow hole?

Here's an excerpt from the original Greek myth of Dionysos turning pirates into dolphins:

"Concerning Dionysos the son of renowned Semele shall I sing; how once he appeared upon the shore of the sea unharvested, on a jutting headland, in form like a man in the bloom of youth, with his beautiful dark hair waving around him, and on his strong shoulders a purple robe. Anon came in sight certain men that were pirates; in a well-wrought ship sailing swiftly on the dark seas: Tyrsenians were they, and Ill Fate was their leader, for they beholding him nodded to each other, and swiftly leaped forth, and hastily seized him, and set him aboard their ship rejoicing in heart, for they deemed that he was the son of kings, the fosterlings of Zeus, and they were minded to bind him with grievous bonds. But him the fetters held not, and the withes fell far from his hands and feet. There sat he smiling with his dark eyes, but the steersman saw it, and spake aloud to his companions: "Fools, what God have ye taken and bound? A strong God is he, our trim ship may not contain him. Surely this is Zeus, or Apollo of the Silver Bow, or Poseidon; for he is nowise like mortal man, but like the Gods who have mansions in Olympus. Nay, come let us instantly release him upon the dark mainland, nor lay ye your hands upon him, lest, being wroth, he rouse against us masterful winds and rushing storm."

So spake he, but their captain rebuked him with a hateful word: "Fool, look thou to the wind, and haul up the sail, and grip to all the gear, but this fellow will be for men to meddle with. Methinks he will come to Egypt, or to Cyprus, or to the Hyperboreans, or further far; and at the last he will tell us who his friends are, and concerning his wealth, and his brethren, for the God has delivered him into our hands."

So spake he, and let raise the mast and hoist the mainsail, and the wind filled the sail, and they made taut the ropes all round. But anon strange matters appeared to them: first there flowed through all the swift black ship a sweet and fragrant wine, and the ambrosial fragrance arose, and fear fell upon all the mariners that beheld it. And straightaway a vine stretched hither and thither along the sail, hanging with many a cluster, and dark ivy twined round the mast blossoming with flowers, and gracious fruit and garlands grew on all the thole-pins; and they that saw it bade the steersman drive straight to land. Meanwhile within the ship the God changed into the shape of a lion at the bow; and loudly he roared, and in midship he made a shaggy bear: such marvels he showed forth: there stood it raging, and on the deck glared the lion terribly. Then the men fled in terror to the stern, and there stood in fear round the honest pilot. But suddenly sprang forth the lion and seized the captain, and the men all at once leaped overboard into the strong sea, shunning dread doom, and there were changed into dolphins."

[from The Homeric Hymns, trans. Andrew Lang (London, 1899)]

See what I mean.

Life would be simpler if I was a wine god.

Trust me, it would be...

Waterpots and Wineglasses.

Truth is a fine wine.

When sipped, it warms our imagination to the beauty and impermanence of life. I suppose that I am creating this blog with the hope that I will learn to slow down and sip the subtle beauty of everyday life.

The sound of my son's laughter as he runs through our neighbor's sprinklers.

Unhurried talks over sushi on a Sunday afternoon.

Listening to the needle settle into an old record.

Last week, as I was reading through the Gospel of John, I came across Jesus' miracle at the wedding in Cana. Instead of guzzling the narrative down like a discount soda (as I am in the habit of doing), I decided instead to sip John's words like a glass of Chilean merlot.

What stood out to me in the story was the beautiful WAY that Jesus changes the water into wine. First of all, there are no theatrics that would have landed him a cult following of David Blaine fans. He simply asks the servants at the wedding to fill the ceremonial waterpots and when they do something beautiful happens. The filthy water in the pots becomes the finest of wines. The waterpots look the same outwardly after the miracle--but inside the unadorned clay pots the wine of heaven waits to be enjoyed.

I'm beginning to believe that quiet miracles in life happen when people do what Jesus asks us to do. Most days I am in far too much of a hurry to notice the needs of others. So I write words in hopes of learning to notice a few simple waterpots along the way. If I slow down and learn to sip each moment in life, perhaps truth will begin to ferment in this filthy waterpot as well.