The Descent of Hero

Curious George with his paper boat...
Mike Mulligan with his steam shovel...
Pooh-Bear’s pot of honey; Charlotte’s wondrous web...
Johnny Tremaine and the redcoats...
Huck, Tom & Becky versus Injun Joe...
Space Angels and Mushroom Planets...
Shari Lewis and Captain Kangaroo...
Charlie McCarthy and Jerry Mahoney...
Ventriloquism and Whoopie Cushion ads...
Protectors faster than speeding bullets...
Super-saviors with x-ray eyes...
Galactic guardians and green energy rings...
Mutated humans with insect intuitions...
White-hatted horsemen with silver bullets...
Indian companions craving for justice...
Bowie and Crockett dying in a Texas mission...
Hitler-hammering GI’s raising flags of freedom...
Rocket-riders braving a void beyond all breath...
Mercury men and Gemini jockeys paving the path aloft...
Apollo demigods exchanging Earth for Sister Moon...
“One small step”... “One giant leap”...
Wars hot and cold, dis-United Nations...
Fear of falling disintegration, terror far away...
Agent protectors who shun the light, “shaken, not stirred”...
“Dr. No” and “Thunderball” and love without looking back...
Leaders gunned down and caught in foolish falsehoods...
Armies heading home with little hope of heraldry...
Future fantasies brighten as present dreams are dimmed...
Starships warp and saucers are spotted on the dark horizon...
UFO’s abduct our fancies, horoscopes plot our day...
Substance submerges, symbolism reigns...
Symbols lose their meaning and are set aside...
Finally, the only one left is the letter “I”...
I and the life I live...
I and the world as I find it...
I and the feeling I feel...
I and the ones I can tolerate...
I and the story I’m in, where...
I am my own hero.


MNA 8/2/2015

Over Coffee with Jason

I found you in a grim gathering
where embers glowed warm
just beneath the tender crust
of honest orthodoxy.

You and I were searching for
and hoping for and praying
for the pearl among the pebbles--
for the ‘closer than’ of the Proverbs.

I saw in you a Jonathan
putting Philistines to flight
but unwilling to put self forward
even at a mad king’s bidding.

You saw in me a Promised
version I could never see of myself
who spent my desperate decades
stooping in caves and dodging spears.

You knew that I had been despised
by far more likely siblings, but
we take the time for those left behind
and we tried each other on for size.

So I prize a friend and a brother
who sharpens and stands guard for me
over early Friday steaming cups
of generous, fragrant joy.

The Enemy

It was so dark there in the old junkyard next to Beggars Swamp, that Josh lost all sense of direction as he felt his way around. The foul reek of the neighboring mires had long ago settled on the rusty and crumpled discards, and Josh couldn’t help but feel defiled touching first a tilting washing machine here, a pile of crusty rags there, groping along into the heart of the darkness.

Josh heard the old man’s approach long before he saw him. Heavy, boot-clad feet dragging through the litter-strewn dust let him know that the appointment had not been the hoax that Josh had hoped it would prove. He dreaded this confrontation, knowing full well that it was as inevitable as the downfall of rain in April. Of course, he knew, no riot of May flowers was as sure to follow...only the assurance that he would be torn apart and away from all he loved and cherished.

The old man lumbered relentlessly closer, likewise feeling his way between the stacks of thrown away whatnots, some of them creaking and groaning, others crashing over unheeded in his wake. Miraculously, two glimmering points of light suggested eyes to the waiting Josh as he rooted himself to a spot next to a Pisa-tower of tractor tires. The approaching eyes were the only lights to be guessed at in this oppressive gloom.

Somehow, the size and shape of the closing figure was outlined against that gloom as the faint, blinking eyes of the old man hovered like fireflies several feet higher than Josh’s head. The old man’s shuffling, lumbering gait surely didn’t mean that he was sick, weak, or even fatigued. The rumble of his breathing was deep and sounded as capacious as the fifty-gallon oil drums that rattled here and there as rats and other scuttling prowlers disturbed their aging slumber.

“Well?” the old man said. His voice was like the pedal-tone of an organ’s fattest pipe, yet it purred like an elephantine feline just aroused from dreams of devoured prey.

Josh’s voice was steady, but sounded reedy and weak by comparison. “I...I am impressed. You’re much larger than I expected you to be. Of course, I’d heard plenty of stories about your exploits. Every country...every city, village, family...they all have such colorful tales. You...have my compliments for--”

“That’s enough.” The dark giant’s breath made the fetid air swirl around Josh’s face. “Your words are wearisome to me. What do I care for colorful tales or the hearsay of your feeble race? Every story is the same. Every one has the same ending. So shall it ever be. Your words cannot change what is.”

Josh brushed hair out of his eyes and glanced right and left. The dark felt closer, as if it were a living thing--a growing menace expanding inward all around him. “So,” he said, “you have nothing to say to me? You are the one who arranged our meeting, you remember...”

“True enough,” answered the old giant. “Yes, young Joshua, I have heard of you as well, if you must know. I’m sure you’ve been enjoying yourself, meddling here and there with my affairs. Boasting to all and sundry that I’m not the man I once was. Even mesmerizing your admirers with your little bits of flash and trickery. I heard the reports and could hardly believe them. ‘Who does this little upstart think he is, pretending he can poach on my territory and meddle with my slaves,’ I said to myself. But I figured if I could manage a parley, maybe you’d see reason, little man.” These last words were spat out in a kind of choking hiss.

“I’m always willing to reason, with somebody who’s truly reasonable,” Josh replied. “But I’ve discovered that so few people are. Reasonable people are willing to set aside their own interests and view things from a neutral perspective. Somehow, my friend, I doubt very much that you are willing to set your own desires aside. Your endless travels...your terror and your violence...your lust for blood...your--”

“Silence!” the looming behemoth roared. Josh’s hair was blown horizontally behind him and he raised both hands to shield his eyes from the blasting breath. “You little creeping maggot! You sicken me with your words...words, words. Words prove nothing. You know as well as I do that what I do is all I can do. What I have ever done. What must ever be done. Do you think it is so pleasing to me that I’m feared? Hated? Loathed? Fought against at every turn? Arrrgh! Even my allies shy away from me! No friend in the world for me, only cursed, writhing, pitiful, creeping insects like YOU!”

“No friend in the world...?” Josh took several deep breaths to calm his nerves. Then, he slowly spread out his hands toward the old giant in a gesture of peace. “Would it surprise you to find out that I could end your misery? Be the friend you always craved?”

The towering monster made a noise of disgust and impatience, his flickering eyes turning aside as if shaking a fly from his head. Silence grew between the two of them until the croaking of frogs and fowl could be heard a furlong off. Finally the old man stooped a little toward the waiting Josh.

“You don’t LOOK crazy,” he growled in a cavernous whisper. “And I can see well, even in the dark, little man.”

“I don’t doubt that your vision is excellent,” Josh replied.

“But I have known my share of demented dreamers like you,” the old man said. “And many of them have pretended to strike bargains with me. What make you any different?”

“But I don’t pretend to strike any bargains, sir...I have none to offer. What I’ve come here to offer you is nothing less than your FREEDOM. You have stalked our world for long, long ages, aimlessly wandering, searching for release from your own slavery.”

The monster-man stooped even lower, his eyes now level with Josh’s. “I am known throughout your race as the MASTER of slaves...how is it you know that I am one MYSELF?” His voice was now as soft as lint carried on a breeze. Josh bent forward ‘til their faces almost touched.

“A little bird told me,” he said.

“But if you’ve heard that about me,” the giant mumbled, “then you must have heard that I cannot be freed from my tasks until every drop of debt is paid back. And after all these years, there is still enough out there to turn every swamp into a mighty river.”

“For one who is weary of words,” Josh whispered, “you are becoming quite poetic.” And Josh could almost hear a gentle chuckle catch in the old man’s throat.

“Poetry or no,” his friend fretted, “the debt is far from paid for--in fact, it’s growing all the time. The swamps stink with it...the cities belch it out like smog...and every lousy debtor on your wretched planet must meet me in the end.” He bowed his head. “Including you.”

“Well,” Josh explained, stroking the giant’s scaly head, “let’s talk about me, now that you’ve mentioned me. This ‘little bird’ who told me all about you, he had some surprising information about myself as well. You see, I was sent here on a kind of MISSION. And, believe it or not, my path and yours lead in the same general direction. Your task is to rule over poor, helpless slaves who are unable to pay back what they owe. And finally, to put them out of their misery...”

“Right,” the old man agreed.

“...And MY task,” said Josh, “is to bring people relief for their debts...to provide a brand new ending to the curse that caused that debt in the first place...and as a result, to offer YOU a new and glorious task!”

“And this is the FREEDOM you mentioned? But what kind of ‘glorious’ job am I good for?”

“You’d be surprised, my friend. You might not know this, but it was my own Father who gave you your job in the first place. And He is superb at giving surprising assignments to the most unlikely characters!”

“Nobody ever cared about me before. How do I know I can trust you?”

“Reason it out, friend. After all, what is your alternative?”

“Why, to KILL you, of course!”

And Josh smiled as a ray of sun began peeping through the mountains of rubbish.

“That is how all the debts will be paid. That’s how the end will begin. That’s WHY I’VE COME!"

What About Bombadil?

A good friend I frequently meet for coffee on Friday mornings always brings up stimulating topics for discussion. He and I are often drawn to the same kind of books, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy The Lord of the Rings offers plenty of material for our conversations.

The last time we met we happened onto the subject (I forget how or why) of that funny, surprising, enigmatic character named Tom Bombadil.

Of course, in the wondrous made-up world of Middle Earth, Tolkien has placed a host of fascinating, imaginative, complex persons: hobbits, wizards, goblins, elves, dwarves, trolls, giant tree-people...even humans! Names such as Gandalf, Frodo, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn...just to name a few of the important ones...poplulate the story’s pages. In the course of this lengthy tale, Frodo Baggins and his friends meet up with surprising secondary characters such as the Gaffer, Farmer Maggot, Barliman Butterbur, Bill Ferny, Elrond, Treebeard, King Theoden...and the list goes on.

Tom Bombadil, however, stands totally alone. His very existence presents a unique puzzle to every Tolkien fan you might chance to speak to. Ask a LOTR reader, “What do you make of Bombadil?” and you are bound to get one of any number of answers and opinions.

For the uninitiated, Bombadil is a man (apparently), fairly short by human standards, who lives in the midst of the Old Forest bordering the Shire where most of the hobbits live. He is heavy and brown bearded with a weathered red face, and spends his time hopping and dancing through the hills and the woods, making paths along the river valley, gathering water lilies for his pretty lady who lives with him, and singing nonsensical songs about himself and his little land. A brief example of his singing:

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the Master;
His songs are stronger songs and his feet are faster!

It’s interesting to note that, while Tom often sings or chants verses to communicate--to others and to himself--pretty much everything he has to say follows the same metrical, poetic pattern! Obviously, there is a kind of rhythmic flow to his thoughts and speech that wells up from deep inside him.

Bombadil displays an awesome, elemental kind of power over both the natural world and the spirit world. For example, when an enormous willow tree tries to engulf or devour two of the hobbits, Tom rescues them by shouting at the tree, beating it with a branch and singing into the crack in the tree’s trunk. The old willow obeys Tom’s command like an angry, wayward child. Later, when a ghostly barrow-wight captures Frodo and the other hobbits, Bombadil arrives to save them once again after Frodo remembers a call for help that Tom taught him to recite earlier.

Tom Bombadil’s pretty lady, Goldberry, also a kind of elemental being--described by Tom as the “river daughter”--had some things to say about Tom as well. When Frodo asked whether Tom was the owner of the surrounding woods where their house was situated, Goldberry replied, “No, indeed! That would indeed be a burden...But Tom Bombadil is master! No one has ever caught Tom yet. Tom Bombadil is master!”

I recall an illuminating interview with Ian McKellan, the excellent actor who portrayed Gandalf the wizard in Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies. An admittedly gay man, McKellan obviously rejected the idea of finding any Christian symbolism in the writings of Tolkien. He pointed out that, in the idealistic realm of Middle Earth, there is no such thing as a church, clearly implying that, in a utopian society, Christianity would be an unnecessary commodity.

It is clear to me, however, that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Christian understandings of creation and of God Himself permeate the fictional world that flowed from his pen.

Tom Bombadil is, to me, a clear example of this fact.

Attributes of Christianity’s God characterize this jolly, wise, powerful, untroubled being, whose presence in the story provides a restful haven for the four hobbits who are being pursued by the evil forces of Mordor’s dark lord. In the house of Tom Bombadil, the travelers spend several days of peace and renewal, while the old man tells them marvelous tales about the natural world, the history of bygone kingdoms, and indeed, pre-history stretching back to the dawn of time. Tom’s memory and wisdom are awesome and profound. And when Frodo lends him the magical ring of power that all the free peoples consider such a terrifying threat, Bombadil merely laughs, tosses it in the air and makes it vanish and reappear like he’s playing with a trivial trinket.

In short, Tom Bombadil seems to represent the joyful, free, sovereign, omnipotent, all-wise nature of our Heavenly Father. A Being who has no fear, who can treat the weighty troubles of this world as the trifles they truly are, when compared to Him.

When the Black Riders of this age of the “real world” are hunting us down to destroy or devour me, when I weary of the journey and the dark forests and forbidding mountains along the path, when I get lost and bewildered and the enemies of my soul threaten to enchant and entrap me...

...it is at those times that I am invited to repair to the home up, down, underhill...a quiet, safe haven that is untroubled and free of care...a realm where a joyful Master can chase away all attackers with a song that seems like nonsense...and then can turn about and teach me the secrets of the universe as I sit at His feet.

It’s truly a shame that this peculiar character didn’t make the cut when Peter Jackson and his team wrote the screenplay for their films...perhaps they just didn’t know what to make of him.

But to me, Tom Bombadil will always inspire me to find in my untroubled God a sweet haven of peace along the dangerous road of life’s journey

MNA
7/3/15

A Man Called "Bill"

A boy who loved his mom and worked the land,

Who made his friends with ease and lent a hand

In times when scarcity made living hard;

He grew up loving peace and standing guard.

This child who heard of conflicts far away

He went to shore up freedom in his day...

Returning with his patriot heart still warm,

He chose to stand guard in another form.

And, marrying well, he drove his brave patrol

With children watching him fulfill his role.

So, whether daughter's eyes, or wife's, or sons',

All saw in him a peace not forged by guns.

Indeed, I well remember Father's claim

That suspects don't deserve a crippling shame.

He taught me that all men deserve respect--

To try hard in the bad, good to detect.

In fact, I find it rare that Dad would speed

To judge a fellow man of careless deed.

Yes, many lessons he has left behind...

And, as he mounts in years, we children find

That Father's shoes become harder to fill.

And that we'll always love a man called "Bill."

The Argument

We often hear the old saw: "There are two sides to every argument." I think the reason this proverb exists is that, for all our accumulated wisdom, truth is often hard to come by or to clearly discern.

This past week we all heard the horrifying news of yet another seemingly mindless shooting incident that rocked a church in South Carolina--a congregation peacefully gathered to offer up prayers and praises to God. The perpetrator of this murderous outrage snuffed out the lives of nine men and women, ostensibly because of their skin color. He is a young man in his twenties, obviously racist, whose father had given him a gun for his birthday.

Today, on the other hand, I have the privilege of delivering a brief address at another young man's graduation ceremony. This one is the oldest of eight children, home-schooled his entire life, who now plans to attend a Christian college in Florida. As far as I know, he is a loving, obedient son, a loyal and exemplary brother, a sharp, insightful student, and an honest, hard worker.

I asked my daughter on the phone yesterday what she thought I should say to this eager young graduate...what encouragement she would have appreciated at his age when she anticipated the beginning of "life on one's own" in an uncertain world. After marveling that this youngster she and I had known for so long had so suddenly arrived at this juncture in his life, she suggested that I counsel him to take time to get to know people. Resist the urge to isolate himself and bury himself in his studies, shutting out the world at large. Good advice, I thought, and told her so.

There often appears to be a two-sided argument when it comes to people. There always seems to develop among groups large and small a definite "pecking order," to use the old barnyard metaphor. Often, we are tempted to fall into this pattern of evaluating and categorizing the other homo sapiens we know personally, encounter casually, or view from a distance. Some rise to the top of the heap, others sink to the bottom, based on talent, appearance, economics, intelligence, physical prowess, religion, philosophy, upbringing, personal hygiene...the list of value factors goes on.

But the argument in its basic form is one of worthiness, it seems to me. That young man in South Carolina had come to the shocking conclusion that some of the people around him weren't worthy enough to go on living. Whatever hateful, fanatical, twisted thoughts or propaganda had led him to that conclusion are not really the issue. The type of weapon he used or its availability doesn't really matter much either. What truly matters is that the worthiness of one human life ought never to be an argument with two sides.

People die every day all over the world. People have been dying for thousands of years ever since Adam and Eve. Some have given back the life-gift God gave them in a willing, noble fashion, many even choosing to sacrifice it for the lives of others. Many...too many...have had that gift stripped or ripped from them by the two-sided argument of someone who counted them unworthy.

The young man graduating today has been taught faithfully by a loving mom and dad over the last eighteen years, taught that a gracious God has given life as a free gift--the most precious gift of all. He counts every person alive to be worthy of this gift, no matter where, what, who, and how they are.

And God expects every person alive to cherish and protect this gift--for oneself, and for all others.

Fantasy Lost

I dreamed of children soaring
to isles beyond the blue...
but the dust of fairies faltered
once they’d aged a year or two.

Sweet pixies used to sparkle
and flit a merry dance...
until love’s cool rejection
rained a mire upon romance.

Unicorns often galloped
through meadows of my mind...
their twisted horns were bloodied
when I left boyhood behind.

My playmates once took pleasure
in simple jest and sport...
now, "play" means a casino
or an overpriced resort.

Bright eyes reflected wonder,
adventure, friendship, fun...
then, lust and greed and boredom
rose like tow’rs to block the sun.

Remembering the treasure
we gathered without cost...
I long to flee and vanish,
following that which was lost.


MNA  6.3.2015