A Road Less Travelled

My brother Jonathan has been telling me for a while now that I need to see the television show Lost. I kept putting it off because it’s a show that’s still running and I hate starting things that I can’t quite finish yet. My sister Adiel got into the act and told me that I would really like it. I held out for a while, but then she told me that Lost was in its final season and that I could watch it online (abc.com). I had just started into the first season when I got sick. Having nothing better to do I spent quite a lot of my sick days either sleeping or watching Lost. It really is as good as they both said it was.

The show is aptly named. The premise is that an international flight from Sydney, Australia to L. A. crashes on a jungle island. There is a large cast of characters and we learn about them through flashbacks of what their lives had been while they deal with what their lives are now. It’s elegantly done. There’s the day-to-day survival that must be taken care of and there’s also a mystery about the island they crashed on. The show is so aptly named because all of the characters are lost in the Christian use of the word. They are all searching for something and the Island, which is almost another character, offers to give it to them. The characters are looking for salvation.

Some are looking for forgiveness for past sins, looking to be saved from their guilt. Some are looking to be saved from the penalty of past sins, hoping to be forgotten by those who know what they’ve done and want them to pay for it. Some are looking for purpose, to be saved from a meaningless life. Some are looking for an escape from the well worn path their lives were running in, looking to be saved from old mistakes and kept from making them again. They all want something, they’re all looking for something which is why they were on the plane in the first place. And for each of them the Island offers a kind of salvation. But the Island is capricious. The Island is not their friend.

The Island doesn’t actually care whether the survivors are saved from what they carry. It offers salvation, but doesn’t actually care about the people it’s offering to save. If a character accepts salvation it only kinda sticks because the Island doesn’t have any power to change anybody. In one episode a character might confront his issue and maybe it’s resolved for now, but the next episode comes around he’s back to making the same old mistakes. Nothing really has changed because the people haven’t changed. The Island doesn’t have any power to transform and, even if it did, there’s no telling that it would.

Now, I don’t necessarily think J. J. Abrams, the creator of the show, intended to say what I see in it. Just so we’re clear on the point. And I’ve only seen the first two seasons so far. I’m told that the focus starts changing in season three. But, regardless, I do see this theme in Lost and I see it because it’s everywhere. Wherever there are people there will be people who are looking for salvation and putting their hopes in a substitute God. The gods they choose are weak and capricious, offering salvation, but powerless and loveless. The world is full of people flying here and there, running and chasing at the same time. They run til they can’t breathe anymore, but in the end they’re right where they’ve always been- lost.

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I was cooking this past Saturday and wanted some music to listen to. I was in a fairly good mood so I figured it would be safe to listen to some music that could never be described as happy. So I put on Counting Crows August and Everything After. For a portion of my life this album was a crucial piece of my musings and a cathartic release. I was listening to it Saturday and I realized that it isn’t anymore. I can still enjoy the lyrical poetry and the music, but I don’t resonate with the emotions anymore.

The first song on the album is called “Round Here”. It begins-

Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white.

I walk in the air between the rain
through myself and back again
Where? I don’t know
Maria says she’s dying
through the door I hear her crying
Why? I don’t know

It’s moody and sad and it really felt like it fit my life at that moment. To be honest, I’m not sure why I thought this. I was upset and sad a lot and the music fit and helped me feel better. The song, though, that I claimed as my song and that would go on the soundtrack of my life is “Mr. Jones”. It’s about a man sitting in a bar feeling lonely and wishing a girl would think he was something special. The gender didn’t fit, but I was willing to overlook that. I remember one day in particular that had just been a bad-bad, no-good day and I was feeling worse than usual. I lay on my bed and listened to this song at high volume. It fit. Again, I’m not sure why, but it did and it helped.

I listened to this song on Saturday, kinda zoning as I cooked. I remembered other times I’d listened to the album and started mulling over what I’d felt in times past. I sang along with the songs and noticed something startling. I don’t have the same reaction or response to the music anymore. It hasn’t changed, though; I have.

I’m not an emotional teenager anymore. I know, shocking, right? I should know this already, but every now and again I come face-to-face with that fact in a new way and it never ceases to surprise me. I’m not the sulky teen caught in an emotional cycle she doesn’t understand. I’m not the angry girl who doesn’t know what her own skin looks like and so can’t even begin to be comfortable in it. My circumstances have changed. My personality has changed. I’m not who I used to be. And you can’t make me go back there.

I was talking with someone yesterday about times in my life you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to. The point when “Mr. Jones” was my song ranks high on that list. It might be top of the list. But I can still listen to the song and I can still enjoy the music because now, apart from still being a well-made song, it reminds me that I’m still moving forward and I don’t have to go back. It’s not my song anymore and, if God wills, it never will be again.

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Yesterday was the Sunday we specially celebrate the resurrection of our Jesus. Some call it Easter Sunday. Some call it Resurrection Sunday. Some, like me, aren’t sure we like Easter Sunday, but think Resurrection Sunday is too clunky a title. I was thinking about writing a post Saturday that would publish on Sunday that would be all “Hooray! Jesus has risen!”, but then I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because I think today I have more to say.

Saturday was a bad night. Justice kept getting up and causing trouble and Seth and Crystal were out so I was dealing with him. By the time Seth was there to take care of it I was so wound up I couldn’t fall asleep. And when I did I woke up not too long after for no apparent reason. Plus I heard my first gunshots of the season. Saturday was a bad night.

This, of course, makes Sunday a really cranky morning. As I was up and doing things my crankiness diminished, but I became emotionally fragile and was kind of out of it for all of worship. After worship we were going to go home, put two kinds of really yummy potatoes in the oven and then go down to the Lansberry’s for Easter dinner coming back for the potatoes when they were done. So we were hanging out together waiting for food to cook and snacking which is usually really fun. But this Sunday I was really out of it, a couple of the other grownups were really out of it and Justice was a horrible screaming mess. Remember how he didn’t sleep well the night before? Yeah, it caught up with him in a big way. So we were looking at not even being able to make it to when the food was done before someone had to leave with a child. I was really bummed. Our Easter dinner was shaping up to be a big bummer of a stressful meal.

But then James mentioned that we could put Justice in Margary’s crib. The potatoes were fetched from our house and were right yummy. And then we sat down to eat and the mood of the day improved drastically. We had a leisurely meal and just sat around the table together for almost three hours. Justice got woken up accidentally, but when he came down he had turned into a happy guy and suffered himself to be fed some of the really yummy potatoes. My bad-bad, cranky, no-good Easter Sunday dinner turned into a joy.

This is redemption. This is why Jesus came and lived and died. Our lives were buzzing along, out of control and painful, full of bummers and crankiness and really bad nights. I have tried to picture what my life would look like apart from Jesus washing me clean and it’s bad, but it’s a very low-grade sort of bad. My life wouldn’t be an evil you could see and point to. It would just be full of bad-bad, cranky, no-good days. Nothing would go how I wanted it to and I would pour my life out being bummed. It is a pathetic picture, like how our dinner was shaping up.

But Jesus did come and He did live a perfect life and He did die a gruesome death. I don’t have to lead that pathetic, cranky life. I can sit around a table with my family and enjoy an afternoon spent in their company even though it didn’t start how I wanted it to. I don’t have to stay in my crankiness. Jesus has come and He has died to save me from my crankiness and He is risen. He rose to go to Heaven and rule over my days and my nights. To redeem them from their cranky beginnings and makes something beautiful out all the ugliness. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

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Happy Spring, everyone! This winter has not been that much fun. Now we have summer to look forward to with the blistering heat, nasty bugs and swimming through the air humidity. Oh wait, that’s not really a happy thought. Um, Contemplative Spring, everyone!

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 Last night as I turned off my light the little knob flew off and across the room. I didn’t feel like getting up to look for it, so I unscrewed the light bulb a little to turn it off. And you all know what this means….

I got my door fixed today!!!!

Yay!

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The day before I came down with the flu, Gabrielle was telling me about a woman who started out as a missionary and then ended up getting bounced between POW camps and concentrations camps a couple of times. Gabrielle tells me that this woman survived on a few hundred calories a day, and had malaria, dysentery and beriberi all at the same time. Wow. And I’d just been thinking that I didn’t feel like dealing with the day I had in front of me. Apparently I am a wimp.

That Sunday I had to make it downstairs to refill my water bottle. I had serious doubts about that actually working. Standing up, if anything, confirmed my doubts, but I decided I just had to do it. Halfway down the stairs I had to sit down and rest. And as I sat there on the stairs, exhausted from walking down the hallway, wondering how much more of this flu I could take, I thought: malaria, dysentery and beriberi. I am such a wimp.

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 I was going to write a blog post, but I only seem to have boring thoughts right now. Perhaps it’s an aftereffect of the flu. Perhaps it really was a genetically engineered virus, which not only makes you crave fast-food cheeseburgers, but strips away your creativity to make you a good little automaton  to work fast food. Perhaps  someone needs to go on a grand quest to find the antidote to this ghastly aftereffect. Perhaps…

Oh, wait, never mind. I seem to be cured.

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I have an unusual relationship with the roads in Peoria. The relationship is unusual in that I actually know what the main roads are called and, more or less, where they go. This is unusual for me at least because in Erie I didn’t know many roads even though I’d grown up there. I knew how to get places, but I couldn’t give directions because I didn’t know what any of the roads were named. I knew that you turned left at the gas station and drove until you were supposed to turn right. Y’know, at that place. When I moved to Peoria I actually needed to learn my way around and so I had to learn the names of the roads. And then I figured out the personalities of the roads. They make up an odd, peculiar, very very normal family of roads.

War Memorial is the big, burly brother of the pack. He knows where he’s been and where he going and how important he is. Everything else makes way for him. He would be arrogant if he weren’t so right about himself. War Memorial is the linebacker of the family.

Knoxville is the eldest sister. She’s warm, nurturing and a little flighty. Where she intersects with War Memorial is fraught with turmoil as they bicker and disagree. She is probably as important as War Memorial, but less dependable so she’s not given as much recognition.

University is the next youngest. He’s got a lot of hero worship for War Memorial and tries to be like him. He’s a lot more clever than his big brother, though. Less muscle, more brains. University has a lot of good things going for him, but he’s too caught up in not being like his brother than he often overlooks his own good qualities.

Glen and Lake are twins girls. They’re best friends, always together and a little rowdy. They look almost nothing alike, but since they’re together all the time most people get them confused. If you can figure out which is which and then get them interested in something they are very dependable, but all too often people spend all their time getting them confused.

Sheridan is the punk skater of the Road family. He’s small and wiry and often hangs out with a pretty rough crowd. But if you can get him on his own and make him feel comfortable this punk skater has a lot of good things to offer. He gets along real well with the twins Lake and Glen and never gets them confused.

Prospect is the elderly father of the family. He is a dapper, old gentleman, built more like Sheridan than War Memorial. He’s learned to slow down and enjoy where he’s going so often he looks like an eccentric, but this road holds a lot of wisdom. He’s very pleased to be a road and has never wished to be anything else.

Main St. is Prospect’s counterpart, the elegant, finely coiffed battle ax of the family. She looks very elegant and has a lot of history, but she’s hard as nails. She doesn’t cover as much territory as most of her children, but she has a lot of experience with where she is.

Sterling is Father Prospect’s brother, the crazy uncle of the family. He’s a little set apart from the rest of the family and I think they prefer it that way. He begins right outside of a junky used car lot and runs along his merry way until he bumps into War Memorial. There’s great confusion where they meet and by the time they get it all sorted out Sterling has vanished. It’s just the way he is.

There are other roads in Peoria to be sure, but they play lesser roles in the family. Forest Hill, for example, is one of Sheridan’s skater friends. He’s pretty cool, but he’s trying just a little too hard sometimes. Oddly enough I-74 had no place in the family. It’s not even the robot butler. It’s just a road. Pioneer Park, however, is the new family pet. He’s barely housebroken, but still they’re all very fond of him.

I can’t say yet whether knowing the roads’ personalities will help with giving directions or knowing my way around. But at least I know their names and could turn you to turn right on University, left on War Memorial and then right again at, um, well, there’ll be a gas station on your right and a sign that says Famous Footwear. Yeah, turn there.

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Well, it looks like it’s that time again when I go about my daily life with a clove of garlic in each ear and the oil of oregano not far away. Yep, my fever turned into a cold which turned into an ear infection. Fun times.

So for the next few days it’ll be cotton ball in the head feeling, my own voice amplified beyond any enjoyment, heightened noise sensitivity and the constant smell of pizza. I don’t mind the pizza smell so much, but I think I could do without the other symptoms.

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Well, it turns out that a great way to get one’s mind off of life being strange and the family being sick is to come down with a 102.4 fever. Really, it takes your mind off of life. My favorite part was the shiver that would start way down on my legs and shoot up my body. I wasn’t cold, mind you. It was very toasty under the blankets. My feet were cold and my head was hot. It was impossibly cold without any blankets, almost unbearable with one blanket and way too hot with two. It took me about fifteen minutes to decide whether I wanted to roll over or not and then when I did I realized it had been better the other way. I had a glass of water sitting next to my bed, but drinking involved sitting up and that was way too much trouble. So I would lie there and fantasize about bendy straws. I’m pretty sure I got dehydrated, but we don’t have any bendy straws so it’s not my fault.

Trust me, if you’re looking for a way to forget about how strange life has been lately try getting a bad fever. It’s fun and educational. I’m not sure the remedy is worth the problem, but it works. It sure does work.

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