A Day in the Life of Chaos

Everyone and every culture has a different way of communicating.  Some do it through actions, some gestures.  Some people have to say what they feel, some can never find the words.  For myself, I have always communicated best with the written word.  To me there is something magical intertwined between the letters and that can reflect sentiment far better than I can in voice.  Language is the essence of humanity and the written word is far more complex than the spoken one. When speaking, 2,000 English words cover 96% of the average person's vocabulary.  The passive vocabulary that a person understands is far higher, perhaps 10,000 words.   Writing rather then speaking gives me an opportunity to think and reflect.  Often the spoken word only reflects a momentary emotion yet is void of contemplation.  It is ironic in a way, I was trained years ago in speech and debate.  In high school it was my passion and I was highly decorated for my ability.  However, as life progressed something

Last night in the last moments before sleep carried me away my son came to me.  He hugged me and had anguish in his voice.  It was a deep sadness and while I could not see his eyes I felt they were filled with tears. "I will never see Greg sitting in his living room again Pop."   I immediately knew what he was talking about.  Greg was the husband for one year of a woman who lives one house up the street.  He married the divorced mother of one of Noah's best friends and was the owner of his own landscaping company.  He was only in his early 50's and seemed to be filling a void in the lives of his three step children.  He must have brought stability to their house again.  The sense of permanence that children long for.  In the mornings I would see him preparing for the work day with a Mexican he employed.  In the afternoons he would be outside playing basketball or throwing a football with one of the boys.  Last May he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  When I h

Today as I prepared to go to work I sat in a hand carved thrown chair personally carried from Bolivia and regulated to my laundry room.  It has a red velvet pillow, lions feet for hand rests and a high carved back.  It sits next to my washer and dryer and is really quite regal.  I reached for a worn pair of brown leather shoes and cinched the laces tightly.  I buttoned myself up in a coat and prepared to meet the cold weather out side.  It is January 2011, a new year has arrived and carries with it all the promise that was never reached in 2010. New Years always amazes me.  People make resolutions, promises and pledges.  With the changing date there is a perception that a page has been turned in the book of life.  The new page is simply blank, not tarnished by words or finger prints, not soiled by oil or drops of food.   It is a page yet to be written.  This year will bring new challenges.  It will usher in new promise and for a neighbor of mine who just lost her new husband to pan

Every year about this time when you are an adult you find yourself reflecting on the past.  Christmas is like a bookmark in our lives and while one might blend into the next there are often moments or traditions that hold a specific significance.  Sometimes, they are remarkable for their simplicity. When I was a young man my parents took me to Europe.   It was my second time across the Atlantic.  When I was younger we spent a summer driving around to genealogical sites and visiting the English Country Side.  It was a magical introduction yet  this trip however was different.  This time it would be a trip that would span London to Vienna and Rome.  In three short weeks I would visit or cross five countries and enter the greatest capitals created in the history of the world.  It was also Christmas time and with a plane fare too low to resist, we boarded a nearly empty DC10 and left the eternal darkness of Alaska for Europe.  I was fortunate, as an only child my parents could make the

There is nothing I despise more then conflict.  Some sick people thrive on it, I detest it.  This doesn't include debate.  I enjoy a spirited, structured exchange of opinions if they are well founded and perhaps may make both people think.  No I am speaking of the conflict that arises between two people over an issue perhaps professional, perhaps not.  I hate it.  It burns in me but I can't keep my mouth shut.  I refuse to be a victim but I hate the repercussions of not being one. Yesterday I was walking out to my car at lunch to drop off a few things and I noticed an older man who works in my office as a contractor doing something strange.  It was only upon closer examination that I discovered he was standing between two open doors on his Ford Explorer changing into a suit.  In my profession this is not odd, often people will do this when we have to go to court.  This avoids wearing a suit all day long.  Anyway, I noticed his door touching my fender.  When he closed it I

I used to admire the elderly.  Oh in many ways I still do.  I value their insight and their perspective.  I marvel at the world they have known in their lives and how it has changed.  How they survived the hard times and prospered.  How some just survived. Politics however has given me a different perspective.  It is a much uglier perspective and not one easily spoken of. The truly elderly are the most remarkable in my mind.  Those that have retained their minds in a late state of age.  My father recently regaled me with a tale of my grandmother's first political contribution.  She was shy to give, 10 dollars was all she could afford and she was afraid it would mean nothing.  A visiting campaign worker canvassing for a local city council candidate was present and my father interceded.  "Would ten dollars help?"  he asked. "Oh yes!" she replied.  "It takes six dollars to buy a t-shirt."  "Six dollars!" my 93 year old grandmother excla

There is something warm and furry in my house. It has a pink nose and demonic red eyes that provide a counter balance to it's seemingly cute and cuddly nature. It runs in the night like a ghost passing through walls and it searches the dark recesses of it's lair for buried treasure. It has freakish hands that grip like mine as it opens pockets of treasure and reveals the morsel tuck within. As often happens to a parent despite my best effort at strength I is was undermined by a vast array of elements poised against me.   These include the begging eyes of a child and the sympathetic support of a grandfather.  It is enough to make the strongest mountain cave in upon itself.  Grandfather's are in the unique position to support any desires of their beloved grand child while being able to walk away to the tranquility of their own home.  Ahh... what a luxury.  At the same time be careful of what you reap my mind reminds, as the very same child is filling himself with diabolica

Growing older is a stage in life.  It doesn't matter if you are young or old, the constant is always the progression of age.  Coupled with this, is the feeling of being left behind. It happens to us usually when we are associated with a group.  We seldom hearken back to a moment in time, rather a period of life when our minds and emotions were satisfied.  When we shared a commonality with others in an experience.  Youth provides fertile ground for this.  It is a unique stage of life when we are surrounded by a group experiencing exactly the same thing.  We see them day to day and often feel the same frustrations, the same pain.  It is a time when others share our age and we gaze out through the window of life from the same perspective.  I think for this reason when we age we often look back at our youthful years with nostalgia like none others.  They were a time of innocence when our lives were still largely unwritten.   Life presented few constraints over possibility. For this

Recently former and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a minster from Arkansas and darling of the conservative Christian community gave a speech about health care.  As a minister I anticipated words filled with compassion for the sick and care for the poor.  This was after all the message of Jesus.  Throw out the money changers in the temple and care for the down trodden.  Had I lived prior to 100 A.D. Jesus would have likely found me to be a great sympathizer.   Well Minister Huckabee spoke concerning the issue of the new health care reform, specifically the new law that now forbids insurance companies from not insuring a person with a preexisting condition.  No longer can an infant born with a condition be denied.  No more can a person with a medical problem be denied coverage and sentenced to either death or poverty in the face of medical bills they can't afford.  While I would think Minister Huckabee's Christian leanings would have caused him to laud

There is a time in every parents life when they wonder if the punishment fit the crime.  When their child does something they shouldn't do, how do you respond?  Even worse, how do you respond when the crime is serious in the eyes of another and quite ridiculous in your own? I have attempted to look back to my own past for guidance yet have come up dry.  Perhaps it was because I was vastly more culpable of serious infraction than my child.  On the other hand, it might have something to do with the fact that on one occasion when my mother attempted to seriously punish me the entire affair ended in disaster.  I remember it as clear as day.  In my family there is this spoon.  Legend has it, it was given by a Russian Czarina to my Great Grandmother after she performed a piano concert for her accompanied by the legendary Polish pianist Paderewski.  In truth my grandmother was the family equivalent of a solitary bass fisherman who claims to have hooked a small whale in a local lake.