Life is an Anthem

Salt and Light

2007-03-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting here at my cluttered desk for about one minute. I've been here at the office for a little over an hour. There's a list today. It's full of things that I need to get done before Youth Group tonight. And I'm on Blogger.

One sign of some serious short-timers before I launch into my illustrious vacation in Orlando. The weather there will be in the low eighties most of the week, and sunny (or partly so) for the entire trip. Except for the first day; we're getting thunderstorms to wake up to. I'm like a little kid I'm so giddy to see Mickey. Mickey, and the beach. :)

The Watchman

2007-03-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

So the high walls you built are coming down
And the last hill saw you break your crown
Is there anyone at all around
To put you on your feet?

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

There's an empty shell at the funeral
You were holding something beautiful
You were holding up but soon you will
Let it fall apart

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

Don't let the watchman keep them from your door
Don't let him keep you off the floor
When you're washed up broken on the shore
He's no good to you.

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

(c) 2007 Chris Clark

Moses

2007-03-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

For easter, we've decided that we want to explore how modern technology reflects the spiritual needs of its users. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, I think it was Monty, but as soon as we all heard it bells started going off. All the sudden we had ideas for Youtube videos and myspace profiles and all this funny stuff that filled our heads. We developed a character, Modern-Day Moses, who we imagined dividing shopping karts in disgust at the local grocery and striking stubborn pipes with his staff. The marketing team, gathered to wait for concrete information from the unruly pastoral team, was slightly disgusted by our mirth and paced furiously around the coffee shop while we laughed and played on the intarwebs.

So today part of that whole ridiculous strategy was the completion of several blogs from Moses' perspective. Modern-Day Moses, a character who I imagine as having a compulsive interest in all things sheep-related, Oceanography, and Exotic Herbology. The first post had Moses starting a bonfire in his backyard and the second had him diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after he covertly wrote the numbers one through ten in his neighbor Troy's freshly laid cement driveway. Funny stuff.

Anyway, if you want to be Moses' friend on myspace, search for him via email: moses@svaonline.com

~C

Lucid

2007-03-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

This has been a hard time. I think I've mentioned before that I don't often feel emotions until I've seen their symptoms. What I mean is, I don't know I'm sad until I see myself act in some way that makes me realize, "oh. I'm sad." In this case I think I'm lonely. I miss Annie terribly. What makes it worse is that I know I made the right decision, and I'm content with that decision... but darnnit, if it doesn't feel like being run through the cheese grater. At the office yesterday I must have been wearing it on my face, because everyone was sort of tip-toeing around me. I hope I wasn't too disagreeable. :-)

Last night a few inches of snow appeared, leaving me stuck at the top of Lake Alice road this morning. I enjoyed the time to relax and enjoy a few hours without responsibility, even if I am a little stir-crazy now, and wanting to get out of the house. I haven't been sleeping well, so I feel a bit lethargic. But otherwise, I'm less worn out and more deeply settled into the day, and the warmth behind the frosted windows.

Last night I went through my workout routine and noticed some improvement. I woke feeling a little sore, but pleased. And looking out at the snow is very peaceful, and gives me a great excuse for moving slowly. I'm warm, and I'm wearing clean new clothes, and later today I'll venture down the hill and work on videos with Marty. Youth group went well last night, and I think the students are ready for the challenge I've presented to them. All in all, I have much to be thankful for.

I am writing a new song we'll be playing on Sunday morning. I'm always a little bit nervous about that, especially in front of the church: if I don't get some immediate positive feedback, I tend to become disheartened and I often table the song indefinitely. I think some great songs have been lost that way. But I am confident about this one. I don't think it's going to be lost in the abyss of my deflated ego too quickly. I just have to laugh at myself: at times a vagabond starving for love, at others a greek hero decorated with olive branches. Can a man be both? Look no further.

Sun and Snow

2007-02-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

Last night, the bass is pounding in my chest, thousands of hands are raised in the red light, and upturned faces are crowded everywhere around me. I am singing the words to the song I feel in my heart. Everyone is singing. We can't help ourselves. The music takes over. It is a very pure place to be, overwhelmed with sound and the beat and the images of the other concertgoers all around me. I can forget responsibilities and taste the moments fleeting by with singular attention.

I really enjoyed being at the Snowpatrol concert. I got a free ticket and decided to take advantage. So I jumped in the church van (now my mode of transport since red october kicked the oil pan) and headed over to Seattle, and Key Arena. I'd actually never been to a concert at the Key, and it was surprisingly clear, and intimate, at least from where I was sitting.

I want to have a worship experience like that. As I was singing and beating my knee to the bass drum, I lifted my voice to God and thought, "here's my worship, God... this moment, enjoying life, and this sound... thank you so much." It put me in a deeper place than I've been in a long time, even singing the anthems to our God that make the rounds every Sunday. It got me feeling, and that got me to thinking, "why is that?" It was like waking up and realizing you've been in a desert.

Lately I have been going home and lying face down on the floor while listening to chant and plainsong, early polyphonic works and compline services on my ipod. Sometimes I'm moved to tears, or moved to thought. And interestingly enough, Gary Lightbody and the Benedictine Monks have more in common with one another than with Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman. I suspect it's just me. But something moved last night that felt a lot more true than what I'm used to hearting.

Art of the Day

2007-02-26T15:51:00.000-08:00

His Banner Over Me is Love
by George Langbroek

Ode to October

2007-02-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

The radiant rainbows of color on the concrete tell me--
My car is leaking its life-stuff,
All into the drain by the old gym where I left it.
It waited for me, parked at odd angles to the curb
And let out its oil all over the pavement
Like a dog who knows it has done wrong
And is ashamed.

But Red October,
I forgave you your wounds, and your
Less than impressive physique.
I forgave you your waddling brakes and
Squealing windshield wipers.
How could I, when your three liter six cylinder
Shudders, and gasps, and lets loose it's blood:
How could I do aught but love you?

Your sleek ruby surface,
Your bubbled wall-eyed stare;
These remain, as does my affection, always.

Witness to Death

2007-02-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

I sit still in the corner, and watch the passing of a saint. Her hands rest, curled in her daughter's palms, her head bent and leaning low as if in quiet prayer. Her eyes are closed.
Beside her a cup of tea sits cooling. The house is quiet, over fifty years gathered and standing watchful--recalling laughter, running feet up and down the stairs, eyes peering from the basement, inside garden gloves and the grown-ups collecting like leaves in the dark corners. All these, memories and mementos holding their breath, holding vigil. And me. I sit still in my corner, to witness and wait, and catch the gleam of her drowsing eyes from time to time.

This picture is of her girls, and this one the boy whose heart gave out at fifteen. This one here she looked at often, remembered the uniformed man striding on the deck in the bloom of his youth, who later laid with her and whispered of dreams and little victories. Now a memory himself--and she is going to meet him. And this last one, was it two weeks ago? She looked so much more like herself then.

But there is no mistaking the years of polish rubbed long into the old soul. And no amount of sickness can remove the glow of her eyes, that glitter and water and remember. The house is spent, the memories have all been made, save one. We witness and wait. I listen to the beating of my own slow heart. I imagine the hand of a strong and gentle man on her shoulder, and feel that hand on my own.

Later that night I stretch myself out alone on the floor, and feel the gravity, and the silence, and the slow tread of mourning feet--if only I could hold still, remain in that moment, let her take root inside of me. May I never forget her dignity, and my own helplessness, and the insistent "watch, and listen" from the voice in my heart. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust--yes. But it falls to us to remember, we who remain, whose burden and joy it shall always be. The curtain is drawn, the light goes out, the door is closed. And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes. Lord give us mercy.

Assorted Journal Entries

2007-02-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

I have been writing for the last few days when I have been away from the computer. My intention was to post these, however. So now I am. Posting these.

2-16-07
I know that transition in a person’s life usually, expectedly brings upheaval, a time of questioning, fear and trembling. I see that in stories about God, when he asks a man or a woman to uproot and move out of the place where they were resting comfortably. Abraham and Sarah, and poor lonely Joseph, and all Jesus’ disciples. There is beauty in that pain, like birth; something new is coming, and it will be extraordinary.
I am being born, and born, and born, and being asked to bear, to bear, to bear. Yet my sense of it all, in the quest for meaning and magnitude of life, feels shamefully childlike. I have little muscles. I am exasperated at how little I can carry, how even the smallest demands placed on top of my duties at work and at home and among my friends seems like one more straw towards a backbreaking. I feel like a marathon runner who looks back at his first mile and wonders that he ever thought he could run that same distance twenty six times.
Yet I am cautious not to forget that God only asks of me what I am able to bear. He doesn’t insist on another mile when he knows I have run my last. Rather, he is letting me test my strength, allowing it to run its course. Afterwards will come the resting, I trust. Still, in the midst of the struggle I cry out for water—anywhere, everywhere, where is water? And manna, though it falls from heaven each morning.
Like Moses, and the Hebrews he led complaining and groaning through the desert for so many long years. How often did they see the miracles spread like ripples through the land in which they passed, changing seas to dry paths, dead wood to flowering branches, and dew into bread? And yet day after day, they threw their hands up in the air and told God, “we’re done, we’re through—take us back to bondage, where at least we ate fish for free and saw our deaths at the end of a lash, rather than in the barren desert!” So little faith, and God’s anger was tempered only by the intervention of his chosen one.
Just as Jesus now intervenes for us, and makes us children before God, rather than woebegone desert dwellers. Thank you Lord, for your mercy.

2-17-07
Open up the heavens, let your glory fall. Open up our hearts, that we may know you. How terrifying for Adam to step out from behind that fig leaf. I am still hiding today. God give me a heart that stands open before you, with doors hanging on broken hinges.
In worship today I felt the spirit urging us onward. Stepping out from behind the leaves, from amid the safety of anonymity, we stand before God and ask him to shine his light into the place where we crouch hidden. I imagine myself as a wild thing waiting, hiding in the woods. Sticks are in my matted hair, dirt on my palms and smeared across my cheeks. I am naked. God is roaming through the fields, on the edge of the darkened forest, and his voice is both irresistible and alarming. He is seeking me. He is seeking all of us. How long will Adam and Eve remain in hiding? How long will I?
Often I come before God in worship with only the vague sense that he is there at all, as remote as a star, or perhaps a bored judge. Sometimes I am before him on my face and I can almost feel the marble of his throne room. And sometimes I stand enveloped in the warmth of a father, welcoming back his youngest son. I can’t always tell that he is listening, but sometimes his presence is unmistakable. I know that in each of these, my truest act of worship is to reveal myself, come out of the woods, from behind the fig leaf, beyond the doors that guard my heart. It’s so easy to say, so hard to take even one tiny step in the direction of disclosure. And if it’s hard before God, how difficult is it before men and women?
Why is love so hard to accept? I’m like a tree that rejects the water it so desperately needs to survive. Thank you Lord for your mercy.

“He ain’t the leavin’ kind. He never walked away; even from those who don’t believe, and want to leave him behind. He ain’t the leavin’ kind.”

2-21-07
This evening the youth sat around small tables eating greasy slices of pizza, watching a clip from the movie “Miracle.” Afterwards I asked them how the movie had affected them. I am always surprised by these answers. Many of the kids know what they are supposed to say; there are some others, though, who really question. I thank God for both. They spur me on to questions of my own.
Are Christians really so predictable? It made me wonder, reading the same answers again and again, how we could get back to Christ, how to return to the side of the wild adventuring warrior poet who takes such daring risks. I imagine myself with my own knapsack in hand and wondering eyes opened to the frontier. But most of the time my picture of God is more like kindly Father, who wants his children to stay inside, safe by the fire.

“God created us in his image,” said George Bernard Shaw, “and we decided to return the favor.”

The young men and women in my youth group know how to play it safe. But I’ve seen them wonder and question, become still and somber; there is a deep sadness, and a muddy mystery inside of them, from whence may crawl either a tiny four-footed faith, or nothing at all. But listen hard enough, and you will hear it in the depths. Something is waiting to evolve. It just needs someone or something to come along and give it permission to grow.
I've also been thinking of this in terms of art. Tony Campolo calls entertainment, or at least the entertainment produced by the mill of consumer culture, a “cesspool.” I like that analogy, because I like to think that there is a likeness in our selves, a corollary picture. We can take steps, walking from it a new creature. In entertainment, that is where art is born: in the transcendent purpose. People are works of art waiting to be given form and shape. And as Monty said, art is never finished. We are never done evolving and growing and changing; ever into the likeness of eternity we set our shoulders against the boulders of our own nature, and onward press.
Maybe the first step for those of us who claim Christ as our master is to push past our own, Christian culture. I know more than one person who is tired of pat answers. Deep cries out to deep. I can only assert that leaders in the faith must be willing to dwell at the side of our Lord, match his strides, go forth with our own adventuring heart into the difficult questions. What does it mean to be truly "uncommon" men and women? This question was asked last night. I'm still working through it.

To own or not to own...

2007-02-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

Why is it that church is seen as a small portion of our identity, a closet in the mansions we build of our lives? Why does Christ share space with our coworkers, our hobbies, and our toys?

Me? I'm a musician. I like basketball, and I do a lot of writing. I guess you could call me an artist. I own a Mac, and love indie rock. Oh yeah, I'm also a Christian.

Our culture is surely a consumer culture. It's hard for anyone to escape the constant message that what you own is what defines you. We determine our status in our community based on what we can and do purchase. When I took a few steps out of poverty and signed on as an associate pastor at SVA, the first thing I did was think of all the "stuff" I was going to buy. I could afford to get a vehicle that reflects masculinity more than my Ford Taurus (which I have lovingly dubbed "Red October"), and could get me into the mountains around here. I could fill all the holes in my album collection and live the High Fidelity lifestyle. I'm a kid at heart: I wanted a Nintendo (and I still do, though they're impossible to find). I could afford the right kinds of clothes. I could do this, I could do that: all with the almighty dollar. The horizon was wide, the sky was tall, and I was about to sail into economic independence. One thing was clear: my goal of being a rugged mountain man, a connoisseur of fine music, and a trendy geek was now in my reach, because I could buy the things that would grant me my identity.

But of course there was one more thing I dubbed essential, especially to a pastor whose duties include oversight of both worship and youth (music is the heartbeat of a generation; just ask Brandon Prior, who regaled us all with DC Talk over the loudspeakers last week). I am now the proud owner of a shiny black, brand new, video/picture/music playing iPod.

I can't help but think that I've been fooled. What is it about a little music player and a set of earbuds that makes or breaks a person's "cool factor?" Why is the sweaty guy on the bus with the iPod cooler than the sweaty guy next to him reading the newspaper? Is it that important to be part of the crowd, is there something fundamental in our DNA that insists that we ride the river of commerce, just to gain respect? And why is it that so many churches want to tap into that? Here at SVA we just published an article in the local newspaper, basically a large advertisement for the church printed in the paper's "Valley Life" section. On the front is a picture of new staffers, enclosed in an iPod screen. Just this one association with the latest cutting edge technological trend is enough to position SVA as a place where hip Christians hang out.

One would hope that it would be a church's association with Christ, the giver of abundant life, healer of hurts, and friend to the friendless that would put it on the map.

These are the thoughts that I'm having as I struggle with the temptation to buy into that. I know that at SVA we are more about speaking the language of a culture, and less about adopting its practices for the sake of advertisement. Still, the line is easy to cross. I know we have from time to time.

Thoughts?

Listening List

2007-02-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

What's spinning in my iPod these days?

1> Ray LaMontagne "Till the Sun Turns Black"

2> David Gray "Life in Slow Motion"

3> Little Big Town "The Road to Here"

4> Leeland "Sound of Melodies"

5> Yo-Yo Ma "Bach: The Cello Suites"

Long Time Gone

2007-01-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

So picture this: five guys in small yellow cars (in which they barely fit), growling and screeching as they whip around a small indoor track walled with tires--navy blue helmets tight on their heads, knuckles white on the wheel--fighting for first place, and honor. That was the scene today.

Right now we've just returned, and I sit drained in my office. I will do better next time. Next time, Roy won't hold me off for eighteen laps and smile smugly on the podium, clutching a shiny silver trophy. A trophy that should have been mine... that will be mine! He STOLE it from us, the thief!

...My precious...

In the meantime I plan the set for this Sunday. That, and revenge.

Diamonds Are Forever

2006-12-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

VERSE 1
I’ve known love inside the frames
That only we have known
In quiet hours that never make
The show
I’ve got letters in your hand,
All your photographs
They never answer when I ask
To hear you laugh

CHORUS
Just between the two of us
What I miss was in the rust
We never seemed to mind
Diamonds last forever, but
The things that I remember never shined
Diamonds last forever, but
The things that I remember never shined.

VERSE 2
Every time we reach for love
It’s like holding sand
The glitter only lasts until
It’s slipping through your hand

CHORUS

BRIDGE
The tone you took with me sometimes
You could be unbearable
Laying my cheek on your thighs
Just another miracle

CHORUS

Copyright Chris Clark 2006

In the Woods

2006-12-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

John 4:23-24

It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.

When I read this passage I am confronted immediately with the raw, rough road that stretches out before the words, "out of their very being." It conjures to mind the myriad of times that I have sat or stood in a pew, hands at my sides, my thoughts a frenzy of buzzing voices telling me how I should be, how I should think, or (what's worse) how everyone else should do either. Inside of that swarm is the heartbeat of a center. But what is that place, the spirit, out of which I am supposed to worship?

I know this: there is no calm eye in the midst of the storm of emotion and everyday life. My true self isn't sitting still in the garden in a Zen moment. My heart is a wilderness, and my true self is an elusive beast that guards its secrets well. The fear, the doubt, the wrestling-mind: all of these things grow thick about our lives like clinging ivy. But I believe that true worship, as described in John, is meant to penetrate that wilderness, and invite God into it, and us out of it. It means to remove our fig leaves, and allow our Maker to see us as we are: vulnerable. And it is out of that heart that worship becomes life-changing and sustaining.

Standing still in the pew or in a posture of prayer, with hands raised or at our sides, these things are unimportant. Our first and only obligation is this: to invite God inside of that place where we hide our weakness. There, he is proven strong.

2006-12-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

Madonna and Child
Dawn Waters Baker

:: Trust me, the more time you spend with this one, the better. ::

Click to Enlarge

Come One Come All

2006-11-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I start shaping the spiritual direction of hundreds of people, young and old, through music, art, and conversation. Which means tonight, I'm praying. And as I'm thinking about it, I'm realizing that I've been doing it all along. That is, informing other people's spirituality. I'm just not sure that I've been doing a good job of it. Nobody can speak without saying something about God, because we prove our love, our faith, and our meaning with every choice we make.

Does that lessen my responsibility as a pastor? I think rather that it increases my responsibility as a human being. Now, of course, is when the verse about "every word held accountable" nudges itself through the rank and file of half-memorized bible verses and towards the front of my brain, where it shakes an accusatory finger.

Art of the Day

2006-11-30T20:32:00.000-08:00

Many Disciples Desert Jesus
Emilia Cleopas

What's the Consensus?

2006-11-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

I've noticed some things upon reentering the blogging world, browsing around friends' pages. They're infinitely more slick than they were when I abandoned Live Journal last year. But also they seem a little less meaty for all of the gloss. Bloggers treat their postings like mini-news feeds. Blurbs of events. Like some kind of internet Headline News, maybe, with comments. Here's what's going on with me.

And it's interesting, too, that when given the option to "leave a comment," most readers do just that: comment, which I think is a little strange. We have a chance to ask questions, dig deeper, penetrate the crust a little bit. But instead we leave little ten word news-blurbs of our own, and don't stick around to keep talking.

Is this part of the internet code of ethics? Or is it that we're uncomfortable for other reasons? Maybe there's not enough time? But whatever it is, I hope there's a way of taking time out to say, "what's going on with you?" And maybe we can be prepared to have that same question asked of us.

Either that, or wait for evolution to furnish us with the hive mind.

So what do you think?

Art of the Day

2006-11-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

Blue Hands
Artist Unknown

*If you look carefully, you can see the continents on the hands; North America is on the bottom of the left hand--see the Gulf of Mexico?

Click to enlarge

After Compline

2006-11-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

After compline the monks file out,
The last one shuts the door
And leaves behind the cracking joints,
The paper sounds

The staring icons on the wall, Mary and Jesus
With the weight of candles hanging in the air
Bless those whose eyes
Are tight shut

Their foreheads bowed,
Pressed against the invisible--
Pushing against brambles,
Something struggling to be born

And afterwards the click of heels
On concrete floors,
And the squeak of leather shoes.

Art of the Day

2006-11-25T18:24:00.000-08:00

Our Lady of Louisiana
Rick Delanty

Art of the Day

2006-11-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

Edward Knippers
The Foot Washing

Only the Courageous Need Apply

2006-11-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a book called "Stages of Faith," by James Fowler. This was a text book, assigned years ago in college, I think in early 04. What was I doing back then? It couldn't have been as important as reading this book. Woe to the symptoms of senioritis that plague the collegiate fold! What else have you stolen from me, Slacker of Christmas-Past?

Anyway, I've been enjoying the book, and I decided to post some thoughts on the first couple of chapters, to help move it into the applicable side of the brain. You might enjoy it also.

"Faith, rather than belief or religion, is the most fundamental category in the human quest for relation to transcendence. Faith, it appears, is generic, a universal feature of human living, recognizably similar everywhere despite the remarkable variety of forms and contents of religious practice and belief."

I have been wrestling with this idea, that faith is a universally recognizable "sphere," a need that must be met within the human form in tangible ways. What does this say to the modern Christian, who has adopted the word "faith" to mean "Christian faith?" What does this suggest to the athiest, who may view such a desire for meaning as an evolutionary mechanism based on survival? And what dialogue does this idea open up between the multiple religious practices and beliefs held around the world? I think it's important to enter into such a conversation, if only to discover our commonality with one another as humans.

But Fowler goes on to suggest that true vitalizing and fulfilling faith is one in which a person trusts as an ultimate giver of meaning. If that is the case, than it's easy to see why the American culture of our time is seemingly rich and poor at the same time: affluent and wealthy in form, but lacking substance; hollow. Or better, I picture a society of emaciated kings and queens.

Art of the Day

2006-11-21T00:17:00.000-08:00

East of Eden
Bruce Herman

I'd like to hear your reactions. Click the picture to see a larger version.

This does it for me.

2006-11-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

http://monkeysforhelping.blogspot.com/

I hope random is your bag.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

2006-11-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

Today the long dark night stole in at 3:30, when I casually remarked to Josh how the days are getting shorter. And I thought about it a bit more, and realized how profoundly I had put it, the feeling of life rushing by and death speeding like a train down the tunnel of my twenties. Emotions are like colors, and I can name this one, now that I have seen the reds leached out of the leaves on my front steps and felt the days get short and cold. Life leaves you breathless and surprised. I feel like I’m a character in a cowboy movie, the badguy who just got shot from behind; he’s advancing on some immanent victory, and then blam! The blooming hole is punched through his chest, his eyes go wide, and his hands find the spreading red.

Well, what’s bleeding is November.

I swear, I’m not morbid, but Ecclesiastes can get a man down. “All is meaningless” is an easy catchphrase to latch onto when you’re broke and feeling foolish and inferior. But don’t worry about me. Clark Kent suffered such misgivings too, according to the WB.

The Mountains

2006-10-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last evening I drove back from Yakima. I-90 takes you right over Snoqualmie Pass. The miles hurried by, the rough hewn cascades looming large and silent outside my window. It was the sort of misty fall gloaming I love. I felt invisible, a spectator in a gliding red torpedo passing through a country that did not notice me. Thinking about it now I remember C.S. Lewis, who wrote that mankind's desire to fuse with nature is not, as so many natrualists would claim, an empty instinct or even, as other faiths might claim, an end in itself. Rather, it is a symptom. The blooming of desire I felt in the mist and mountains has a root: a longing for a home that I have never seen, and a communion I have never celebrated. But the cascades do not see or recognize me, any more than I can acknowledge heaven.

I feel it so keen these days, when I am surrounded by empty vanity and the pursuit of pleasure that so often grips me and twists, controls, thwarts my ambitions to be a better man. We are all a race of vagabonds and barbarians, and I am their chief and their fool. I think we all can sense it to some degree. We are conversant with the rough tongue of our own hidden nature; we speak it in the secret worlds behind our eyes. It does what it will, ignorant of the smaller voice of my conscience that struggles for breath. The holy part of me goes unnoticed by the cloud-hung cascades of my sin, and God is a lonely traveler who wanders through my wilderness.

What's In a Name?

2006-05-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here he lies on the couch--
Striving against gravity and the devil.
Fighting, but beaten by silent minions;
Flying, but beating broken pinions,
Feasting, but bloodless in the joy--
Father, unremembered boy.
What happened to you?
A saint you would have been,
Had your father not given you
My name.

Cement

2006-03-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

I'm underneath the floorboards
Underneath my shoes
Do they see me shake and
Do they know that I can see them too?

I'm out of body sometimes
An empty parking lot
The pavement lines are drawn
and filled with what I am and what I'm not

And that's the thing
I'm not sure just what thing I am
What comes will go
What stays will throw
Me into space time and again

Tie up my ankles please
Make sure the concrete's set
It's better living underwater
With my feet in your cement

A New Word

2006-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

A Word to Ponder

I came across a word, a verb, to “maunder.”

It means “to vent your discontent”

To our friends across the water.

To others it may mean a different thing:

To speak like Kurt Cobain could sing,

Or slowly idle, stroll, or wander.

maunder \MAWN-der\ verb

1 : chiefly Brit : grumble
2 : to wander slowly and idly
*3 : to speak indistinctly or disconnectedly

Serendipity

2006-02-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

Serendipity:

Words synonymous – chance, fate, destiny, providence, luck, coincidence, accident

For Janelle

It snowed last night.

A dusting, really, still clinging to high perches in Wedgewood where I walk to work.

It got me thinking.

How strange, this new year christened with record rains,

We had four days cloudless, as your smile is without pretense,

And I noticed the cherry trees budding outside 7A.

We ran ‘round the lake, and played Frisbee in the mud.

It was spring, it was early. We meant it to stay.

And just like that blue came out of the blue,

So came the frost, and so came you.

As if our lives are just weather fronts, and we captive to the winds.

Be it fate or chance, what God’s caprice may bring

In the dying throes of winter or the newborn spring,

I bless it, serendipity.

Becoming a Knight

2006-02-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

Today was a day for doing things that needed doing.

I am at this moment sitting at the dining room table; we had a party five nights ago, and it only just now made its way out of storage. The couches are back as well, and the fish tank is in its usual spot. I had a dream last night that all the fish died, and the guilt I felt when I woke up this morning propelled me to their immediate rescue. I am sick today, at least, on the edges of being sick, and tomorrow I think I'll be well enough to go back to work.

So for the rest of today I'm reading this book. It's called the Wizard Knight. The narrow minded would hear me out before passing judgement on its title.

The best review I can give the book is that it's true. Isn't the truth a strange thing? We are so often quoted as saying that we are in search of it. Who among us can say what truth is? I'll tell you: they are those who have dwelled in it deeply, and having known it from immersion, tell those of us on land what lies in wait for us under the waves. So it is with Christ. With God. We can only know Him by being swallowed by Him.

The stories and songs that we love the most are those that move us, we say. "It speaks to me," we offer. Something in the word calls out a reality that we sense, but can't describe. That's what I feel reading this book. The author is a catholic, but don't expect Sir Able (the chief protagonist) to resemble anything you would find painted in a dusty church frame. In fact, the reason the book works so well is because it does not, at all, have hanging around its neck any glittering gilt cross, nor sewn into its jacket any red letter. Take it for what it is.

Gene Wolfe
Book 1: The Knight
Book 2: The Wizard

I plan on rereading it.

Thanksgiving Poetry

2005-11-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

In the living room we sat (some lay),
Having done our duty
to God, to Country, to Pumpkin Pie.
Steve needed more light to see his poem by,
And so satisfied we each take turns to read.

My father's turn, Wayne's turn,
sheaves of Walt Whitman perched on his belly:
Father is the last, and we are tired.

I can't say who started it;
My aunt is trying not to laugh as he reads the title for (perhaps) the fifth time.
My lip curls, my mother is frowning at his effort to read the first line--
Overwrought, the syllabels invested with more gravity than dear Walt intended.

Steve smiles,
The dam cracks,
We are smothered under peal after helpless peal
Laughing at Walt Whitman and my father,
Cheeks painted with wine,
Each tear-streaked word a reason to love him.

Why am I Watching This?

2005-11-08T00:50:00.000-08:00

It's supposed to rain.
They said it on the news today
But I already knew--
Last night you told me "things have changed."
And one of those things is the way that you feel about me.

I couldn't blame you;
It's not your fault the leaves are turning brown.
Someday spring will pick up what fell on the ground.

So here comes the cold,
Here comes the dark;
When the sun comes out again,
It was all worth it in the end:
You left a mark.

He Died Alone

2005-10-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Let's not grieve our innocence
We watched it flow out of us
And we knew (but how could we have known?)
Just what we were doing.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
He died alone.

Let's not wish for better times
They expire, and so we too
Like grass and dust the wind can carry us
Despite our bones.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
So we don't have to die alone.

Let's not waste what's been bestowed
We've done enough of that
No more kings and queens, the peasants
Feast at tables made from their own hands.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
Hallelu He died alone.

Shallow

2005-10-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

Your words are holy places
Everything I write myself is
Just ink in uniform that's
filling in the empty spaces
Maybe it was better the way it was.
Maybe it was better the way it was.

Lost

2005-10-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am hooked on this show. I can't get enough of it. In fact, I am right now staying up past my bed time in order to watch it. We've taped it, tonight. It's become our sacred weekly pleasure, a rite that balances out the spaces between Monday and Friday. No one gets left behind; this week it's Ben who we're waiting for. Tomorrow I will get up at 4:30 AM to pull an opening shift at Tully's.

2005-10-05T01:19:00.000-07:00

UOY SSIM I

From a while ago... posted with love.

2005-09-30T00:08:00.000-07:00

Some things can’t wait until the light of morning before they disappear. For instance, the thoughts accompanying the darkness above my head tonight.

She was stiff in her greeting, offering “one last hug,” as if we were closing the cover on a book we’d been long in writing together. She didn’t return the wink I gave her as we let go. Something final had changed. Always before I was in her spotlight; later as we exchanged glances across the reception hall I realized that from that moment on, in that place and in every place thereafter, I would be a mere prop in the drama she was living in, moving on and through, without me. And I was very glad.

My friends have always kidded me, saying that of course I was jealous, after hearing the news of their engagement. They were right and wrong. A part of me has always held on to the pieces of our memories together like secret souvenirs, but watching her be married, I had no reservation about my past choices, no regrets about what-could-have-beens. I caught myself beaming at her back today as they exchanged rings and I consider that proof enough.

Still, the thought that I could have been the one in the tuxedo struck me as unreal; for an instant I caught a vision of a future I had turned my back on years ago, and the power of that thought moved me into another space.

What choices am I making now will allow the possibilities of my life to become the stuff of reality, and what futures am I laying to rest even before they may be conceived? What choices are we as a nation making that will become the stepping stones to history books my children will bring home and read? To what do we owe our Lord’s long absence from the dust of which he became a part?

A little over a year ago I decided to take control of parts of my life that hitherto had gone ignored, placed on the “someday” shelf with an odd assortment of responsibilities and decisions that could comfortably wait until some future version of myself felt more fit and able to deal with them. There are still items collecting dust on that shelf. A few less, yes, than before. Thank you, Lord. Let’s move on.

I offer these sentences to those to whom they belong. You’ll know who you are.

I hope when people look at me they see

You left a mark. “She was here.”

From one G to another, you’ll always be my brother.

I’m honored to be walking the path with a man.

And also, Yeah, dude.

I Changed Some Stuff on the Side -->

2005-09-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

LOTS of STUFF to WRITE about.

This is actually old news, but I have a website: chrisclarkband.com
And also, with that comes a new email! chris@(make your best guess)

The site is a placeholder for when a cooler site is developed (more on that later), but in the meantime I might as well get some use out of it, if only for a sweet email address. So this is what it feels like to have your first name in your addy. But how will all my hacker friends know 'tis I? Crash and Burn (four points to whoever gets that reference).

I offer a pair of selections from my Tully's shifts over the last week. They each propelled me through their respective, slow, coffee-scented hours. Since the condiment bar was clean I figured this was next on my priority list.

***On the Avenue***

On the Avenue the concrete lets you know
It belongs here--
Doesn't give us any reason to stare or notice, stops
Just short of being alive itself.
In eighth grade art class, my teacher demanded:
"Never let the canvas show through!" but
There's just no room left for something like that;
Filling in the holes in Darryl's tie-dye t-shirt,
Stuck between the teeth of a black man's blue comb,
Present in the window's of Beth's tibetan shop,
Four doors down, "that tai place is better than this one here."
Anyway, we were getting pizza.

***David***

David slept in again, tried to forget he was tired.
Stepped through the door on the floor where his death had transpired.
Life in white envelopes stacked in a pile by the door;
Forty five k, and no hours in the day to make more.

Untitled

2005-09-20T01:53:00.000-07:00

Jealous, ragged, raging,
Boiling beneath this paper thin skin,
The restless creatures that inhabit newspaper clippings and
Bible studies press their bodies together,
Their lifeblood hot and wet and mingled.
The ink drying in their cracks and creases;
The litany of deeds read before the mourners;
We are, we were, we yet will be
Coffins buried in divinity.

I Want To Apologize

2005-09-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Seven times seven
Seems that nobody was built that way
How could I ask you to remain
If baggage claim would take the feeling
I would pack up, I would stay

Photographs are
Become a technicolor halo from my past
We aren't the first you aren't the last
In the ones of you and me, I never see
The shadow that I seem to cast.

David Brooks

2005-09-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

For those who are fans of David Brooks, I offer this article. For those not familiar, you should probably read it anyway. I think he's spot on.

New Orleans. The majesty of mother nature has been revealed in tooth and claw, and human beings are reminded yet again of their fragility and weakness. Not only in mortal fiber, but also in moral. A revelation of human nature; the heart of darkness bound up in the wills of fallen men and women, juxtaposed with the mindless destruction of our planet. And in what direction will we swing next, as the clock ticks on?

For Harmony

2005-08-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

You, my friend, are messy and chaotic, a finder of meaning, a seer of all things silver lined, and a lemonade maker. You love Firefly and fantasy. Dragons, or Unicorns, would you rather? Always gracious, always a bright-sider, always ready to dance. Shakespeare in your pocket, and your left hand is holding a Cape Cod. Slowest at Gin-Rummy, but only because there are so many other wonderful things to pay attention to (including dangling participles). Imaginative, friendly, earnest, dear. Remember, Bards are wonderful support characters, but they often steal the show. You are a dreamer and an idealist, unsinkable. Youth tempered with just enough old-fashioned wisdom. Your smile is infectious. I'm glad I know you.

God thank you for Harmony, without which all we would have is just the melody, and what fun would that be? You are a minor third and a major fifth, youngest Wallender.

Happy 21.

Who Are These People?

2005-08-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time with stuff like this. Really, who wouldn't? Isn't it funny that when you hear about Christians in the news, it's inevitably about some skewed church members who make the rest of us look like cave-dwelling mouth breathers? No wonder Christians are so often portrayed as ignorant and mindless.

Kittens...

2005-08-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

A scientific breakthrough was announced today regarding the successful mating of cloned wildcats, an advance in cloning technology that could potentially be used to bolster the numbers of currently endangered species on the brink of extinction.

Read About It.

Is this trustworthy rule over the earth? Is this an example of scientific progress coinciding with God's desire for us, as appointed caretakers of the earth, to subdue His creation? I think it's a step in the right direction. Despite what anyone may think about (possible) global warming, devestation of wilderness is happening all across our globe.

Genesis 1: ²⁸God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Somehow I don't think God was picturing Saddam when He used the word "rule."

Politik

2005-08-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Before we get underway here, a follow up to a previous post.

Pat Robertson.

So of course, he apologizes. But not without saying, "I was taken out of context." Well, let's give the man the benefit of the doubt. Still sounds a little fishy to me. And that begs another question. What does a fish sound like, anyway? Probably something like this:

Here

It's too late, buddy. Your tongue has been steering you into America's doghouse for a long time now. I'm not sure there's much you can do.

Anyway. Leaving Dr. Robertson behind... (That sounds like a great indie song title)

Some comments on my journal lately have steered into the topic of goverment and faith, and how we mix the two. Or if they should even be mixed. Now let's talk about Christian journalism. If news journalism is meant to give an unbiased opinion to the public, then where does the Christian journalist fit in? I suppose what I don't see as being congruent is this: to what greater denominator do we cater, if by writing material devoid of our beliefs we alienate the truth we are really trying to convey? What place do Christians have in journalism?

Good Old Pat

2005-08-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Pat Robertson,

Please cease and desist.

Check this out: here

I am embarassed.

I couldn't have said it better...

2005-08-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

From Sufjan Stevens, singer/songwriter:

"I think that when people react reflexively to material that is religious, they're reacting to the culture of religion. And I think an enlightened person is capable, on some level, of making the distinction between the institution of the culture and the culture itself. The institution of Christianity, the way that it's set up, it's institutionalized and comodified, and anytime that happens, anytime it's incorporated, it leads to disaster. I'm on the same page as everyone. I have the same knee-jerk reaction to that kind of culture. Maybe I'm a little more empathetic to it because we have similar fundamental beliefs. But culturally and aesthetically, some of it is really embarrassing."

Well said, Suf.

This Country Needs

2005-08-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Clarity.

It's hard to understand the correct application of the word "Truth" in our postmodern society. Turn on the TV and you'll get several perspectives on just what exactly is going on out there in the world. Our pipelines are the media outlets we have each chosen to cluster around; left-leaning CNN (the Clinton News Network, some of my staunch republican friends call it), or the "balanced" (read: conservative) FOX news network, for example. Yes, of course; journalists are human beings too, just as subject to the same frailty and faults that each of us has hard-coded into us since Day One (however you might like to define it). For this very reason it's hard to put your finger on exactly what is "true."

Political Science is largely a historical and theoretical pursuit. Unfortunately, neither does us any good at coming closer to that elusive 't' word. We go to school to learn about how modern problems might be dealt with given hostorical solutions that may or may not fit snuggly into today's current situation. Our paradigms are influenced by our culture and our science. Our ideas are driven by bias and prejudice, our opponents villains and wrongdoers instead of individuals. Our commentators deliver their eye-witness accounts from within the maelstrom.

This is exactly why we must insert our faith into the political drama as Christians. The truth in Christ is the only thing that can offer clarity, but it is less the clarity of day to day decisions, and more the clarity of purpose. Yet we wrinkle our noses at the concept that "religion" should have any place in the public and political sphere. We have deflated faith to fit into our private closets and conversations. Worse yet, we fail to be in conversation with the world around us. Not for lack of trying, but for lack of tools; we have no language, as Christians, that can speak toe to toe with the vernacular of science and rationale.

That's why we, as believers in Christ, must use another language to speak into the darkness of our age. It means an active faith that is more concerned with love than with correctness; too often have we indulged in the right vs. wrong mud slinging that characterizes bipartizanship and distrust. After following that road for the last two hundred years, Christians have become superstitious and insipid to the world at large.

Thoughts?

Post for the sake of itself

2005-08-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Poll:

Which is better, to be unemployed but happy or unhappy and responsible?

Not that I'm pondering either of these extremes. But I'm curious about your input.

C

Prayer

2005-08-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent
his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a
father the son he delights in.
-- Proverbs 3:11-12

Shepherd,

How many times have I run from you? I am sick and I am silent, lost within myself, begging for daylight. My lips are weak to speak your name, yet how much more still do I wish to be left alone in the dark? Your love is a distant beacon, drawing me towards unfamiliar places. Mine are unwilling feet.

Father,

Of all of the good things you have given me, which have I neglected? Please forgive the phone calls I haven't returned, the letters I haven't written, the words I haven't said. Across the divide span your strength, Father. I cannot cross myself.

Lord,

I have sold my inheritance to vanity. Break me. Bend this stubborn back and make me chaste. A servant I am not, accept in name. How can I ask forgiveness when the asking has been done before a thousand times, on my knees, in the car, in the dark, at your feet, under God, with hands clasped and eyes closed, open, with companions: brothers, sisters, doubts, fears, anger and resolve?

King,

Put yourself on your throne, and dipose the mocking prince that bears my face. You know that where I belong is at your feet. It is wisdom to spend all I have there before you. Do not relent until the last wall crumbles, the last battle is won, and the river flowing from my mouth is made pure. Let everything that comes from me echo with the clarity of your kingdom.

I ask these things in the name of that perfect man, your son.

Amen

Brutal and Beautiful

2005-08-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

I was reading GQ on the stair machine the other day, studying how they’re written. I don’t usually read GQ. When I walk in to the exercise room I keep it folded with the back cover facing out, so no one can tell what magazine I’m reading. Comparisons are inevitable if someone see you with a magazine like this. Why is that guy reading GQ? Who does he think he’s kidding? This is a magazine advertising Gucci and Giorgio Armani, both of which are such household names for quality cool that they don’t trigger the spellchecker on my word processor. Wearing the suits are models sporting mandatory six packs and patented blue steel stairs.

I expect to feel alienated by the lifestyle I see portrayed in the advertisements, but actually I really enjoy what I am reading, and for some reason, this imparts some of the magazine’s own savoir-faire to me. I feel almost vindicated—I guess I must be the kind of guy the editors had in mind when they sat down to piece this thing together if I actually respond to the writing. Maybe now when I bring it to my workouts I won’t curl it into a little tube.

I discover my own sophistication while leaning over the pages and trying not to sweat on them. Between my pre-read insecurities and my post-read revelation I’m intent on the articles for the purpose of seeing how they’re put together, how they’re written. Most of them seem to subscribe to what must be common rules of journalism. One of these rules was spelled out by an interviewer writing a piece on an especially laid back movie star. The author couldn’t fall back on the usual standbys of modern journalism, he said, because this star didn’t fit in a box. In the presence of his peers, I can understand the writer’s apparent dilemma; each contributor seems particularly concerned with placing their subject in the context of a single unifying theme. Something to tie it all up with in the end, a gift-wrapped moral or loose thread that eventually knots itself into a single clever line.

A lot like this one, for example.

It’s brief and stark for impact, and, I assume, to accommodate the sitcom culture in which we now find ourselves, which demands brevity in all things. I’ve used the one-liner device myself in painfully dramatic posts on my blog, which for some reason always read like cheesy Aesop’s fables. The only difference between me and the writers in GQ (besides the paycheck) is that the magazine writers are good at making it work.

Hence my study. I want to write, and be read, and be lauded for my genius, among other things. I wouldn’t mind writing about rock stars if I can’t be one. But this writing kick that I have found myself on, and this creative tangent that has occupied my thoughts with such force these last few weeks, is really the symptom of something deeper inside of me that is struggling to find daylight.

It’s more than a proverbial diamond in the rough. It’s part of my fabric that’s coming unraveled, a layer beneath the skin that’s starting to peel. Or maybe it’s better described as shedding the old skin--sometimes I feel less like it’s a part of me that wants to come out and more that it’s all of me wanting to transform into something else completely. It’s a reaction to my situation, to the people in my life, to the state of my nation, my world, and my faith.

And that’s exactly why I’m having trouble finding a voice with which to write about these changes. Unlike the writers in GQ, there is no simple theme around which I can extract the events of my life. There is no magical “it all started when.” If I could write a sentence about myself that could satisfy the TV enthusiast and literary critic alike, I’d send my resume and a writing sample in to GQ.

Post-Interview

2005-08-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

I don't think anybody reads these. Does anybody read these?

I am quickly realizing how little I know about corporate America. Mostly, I don't understand how to engage its culture, I sense, which demands that a person be authentically one's self while remaining a professional. There are real people underneath the ties and white collars, yet somehow they have been transformed into an odd combination of Flesh and Forbes.
Case in point, the thirty-something man I sat next to on the bus on the way back from my interview with Microsoft yesterday. His shirt had undoubtedly begun its day as stiff with starch as GQ. But by this bus ride home, you could see the creases where he had been sitting all day long, and his sleeves were rolled up past the elbow. Here was I, too, in a shirt freshly ironed that morning, but with designer jeans and aviator wannabees I looked rather conspicuous; the others on the bus could sense that I was an alien in their midst. So I haven't yet mastered the art of business casual.
Next to me my neighbor pushed up his cuffs even further and flipped open his cell phone, which had been in his left hand the whole trip, so far.

"Gary, what'choo doin'? Uh huh... Yeah, so listen, I think I'm gonna take Ray's offer. Well, I haven't told him yet, I'm gonna let him stew for a while, you know, make him sweat. But it's a pretty sweet deal. Forty seven five, with comission. Yeah, I know! I've decided. Alright."

I marveled at this exchange, which seemed to me less like an actual conversation and more like a stock ticker with voice acting. I wondered if I would someday do the same, relating the events in my life in short thirty second blurbs via a wireless pocketpc with mass email. The wave of the future:

"Hey everyone,
Just had the baby. 8 lbs, 6 oz. Boy, "Jack."
C"

The man closed his phone with a satisfying snap and looked out the window at Lake Washington speeding past us. Did he see the view, or was he imagining dollar signs and ATM reciepts? I hoped the latter, but suspected the former.
But then again, maybe I was the one with the problem, a petulant child wanting to drag my feet into the world of adult responsibility. I hadn't yet found a job in over a month of searching; not unexpected or even out of the norm, but yet a feeling of guilt hung over me like a raincloud against the brilliant blue July sky. What was it about me that couldn't accept this world? Was it sheer youthfulness that (unfairly) colored corporate America into a montage of paper-pushing mindlessness? Why was I torn between a desire to embrace the HDTV era and the urge to run off and become a voluntary castaway on "Lost?"

I stepped off the bus and had a realization:

My whole life, up to this point, has been groomed in preparation for entry into this world.

Doesn't it make sense? The juggernaut of American Education is designed to mold young minds into corporate sponsors, people who fill an economical niche and stay there. I was never meant to have my own life, where relationships and community and fulfillment are the priorities of living breathing people. Instead, I have been trained to mimic these things in return for a paycheck, to which I am to owe my undying allegiance. In the process, the face I wear is a splash of color on the tableau, something to ease the tedium for its fellow members and island spectators.

And it isn't melodrama, either, to say that despite this, we as human beings are still trying to "find ourselves" in the midst of the machine. My mother tells me everyday that I need to get a good job with a steady paycheck and benefits. In the same breath she tells me that I should do "what makes me happy." The tension I feel isn't my own; that is, it doesn't belong just to me. It's become a part of our human (American) condition. Unfortunately, there is no happy medium. Whatever I do, I will be in rebellion; either against the expectations of a culture whose idols dress in green, or the heart that was put inside of me by the One, against whom idols are merely silhouettes.

This realization left me feeling cold and isolated despite the summer heat and the crowd around me as I walked down Pine Street. At the corner, I took out my cellphone.

"Hi, it's me. Yeah, interview went well. Going running when I get home. You? Alright, talk to you later."

I've got to get out of here.

A blast from the past

2005-07-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have a blog that was begun over a year ago on Livejournal, and in revisiting it today I noticed how much I have changed in the last year. I have posts dating back from last August on there that seem like they were written by someone else. Very strange to read, for me. But perhaps the discrepancy in personalities will be less shocking to you. Either way, you are welcome to read it at this link:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/arkknight/

C~

Irrelevant Titles

2005-07-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

I was knee deep in an introspective and witty comparison of pre- and post-graduate life when I was pulled into a mini-crisis, about an hour ago. It wasn't pretty. Her skin was an unhealthy shade of radioactive red, her blonde hair disheveled, a vague look in her eyes from a sun-stroke induced fever. She had taken a wrong turn, and wound up at my house. Would I please take her home?

I will not pretend to understand how our Creator and Keeper steers us unwilling beings through the convoluted pathways of what is, and will be. I believe, though, that it was serendipity by design that put me on the porch this evening, with no place to go and no promises to keep.

I have this left this post's title as it was before the sudden emergency, for two reasons. First, because I was writing about how none of my post titles had anything to do with the actual content of my blogs, and this remains true now, having rewritten this particular post completely; second, because it is ironic that I was writing what has since turned out to be irrelevant and self-gratifying when juxtaposed with someone's immediate need. And that's exactly how I believe God has revealed Himself tonight.

When I left my patient tonight, she gave me a weak thank you and waved her hand at me through a fever-soaked delirium. Really, it is me who owed her my gratitude, for allowing me to step into her need. Somewhere in that hour something flowed out of my friend and into me that I hadn't felt in a long time. I was given a purpose, albeit small in stature and short in duration, more substantial by far than the self-pitying navel gazing that had until then been my Saturday evening. It was a small miracle, and I can't even articulate why.

Aloe, powerade, an arm to lean on as you fumble up the stairs. A land flowing with milk and honey.

Whole Cloth

2005-07-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

I am made of a cloth less strong by far
Than that which wrapped his little form
Or draped a camel's back beneath a star.

And I am weaker and more quickly spent
Than what was giv'n his friends to wrap
Their king upon his body's limp descent.

And yet too weak to stand, too softly spoken,
I am more indeed than what was woven
Into every fiber of my mortal frame.
I am soaked in crimson, like him broken, stained
With his blood a man becomes the same.

Where We Are, Where I Am

2005-07-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't had the stomach for much writing recently. Sometimes when you set things down on paper (or on internet, as is the case now), they become that much more concrete. When the Israelites met with God and He with them, they would erect a monument to the occasion so that all the generations that would come after would look at that rock and say, "God did this for our people."

We only seem to want to erect memories when God's action in our lives is pleasant to contemplate.

Yet here I am with my hammer and chisel. The inscription on this particular marker? "I did not get the job that I wanted at Microsoft."

A few days ago I went to the house of a person who does work for them, doing the same thing that I would have been doing. He has a condo in the U-district, an amazing little place with views and leather couches, a flatscreen TV and a sports car, a soundsystem that was not designed with neighbors in mind. As I ate his food and drank the drinks he was mixing from his minibar, I felt a very keen sense of loss.

It doesn't take much for me to remember that God is in control; I make my home inside these words, move my mouth over these syllables and feel the weight of them. It has been dawning on me that maybe I should be throwing a party instead of playing "Taps."

Whatever the Lord has in store, we don't praise Him for being ineffectual or uninterested. All of the preparation I went through, the hours of coding practice, the interview ordeal itself: all of these will work to my benefit in some way, and I will find what God has in store for me, even despite myself. If I keep these words in front of me, I don't need to keep looking in my rearview mirror to see what I've passed by on my way to something better.

These started as sentiments akin to a pacifier. But they've outgrown their humble beginnings; my smile is genuine. I am not alone.

Thank you.

Travelogue: Minnesota

2005-07-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

Travelogue: Minnesota

I am sitting in the Minneapolis airport at the beginning of a seven hour travel marathon. “Paging Jimmy Marquez,” drones the female announcer over the intercom. Her announcement drowns out the conversation occurring several feet away from me between a pair of teenage boy scouts (in uniform) and some (apparently) older girls who are stranded here on standby till tomorrow.

These girls were in Minnesota for a beauty pageant. “You girls are at least as pretty as Miss Montana,” comments the fifty-year-old scout leader, “can I take your picture?” He looks like a cross between Smokey the Bear and Santa Claus. Looking at these girls, I’m struck by how lonely it must be in the woods.

“How old are you guys?” asks one of the girls.

“17,” says the oldest boy, “you guys go to college?” He is the obvious spokesman of a large group of boys who have clustered around the girls silently, letting their oldest and most experienced member in the art of flirtation act as their diplomat.

The girls do go to school; some community college that I forget as soon as I hear the name. The boy remarks that he wants to go to Arizona State.

“Paging Arthur L. Crommel,” the announcer lady drones. Her voice has a hypnotic robot feel, the equivalent of that famous Space Odyssey 2001 computer. I can only remember the name of the astronaut who was his nemesis:

“I can’t let you do that, Dave.” Announcer Lady’s voice comes in over the intercom again, paging Art for the fifth time. The stale air of the airport, the girls’ annoying voices, and the general discomfort of these broad gray terminal seats has become a serious detriment to my good mood, but I keep thinking of the temperate Seattle night that I’ll be walking into this evening and the feel of my own bed. The hot Minnesota nights will become, for me, a sticky memory, and soon the score of mosquito bites on my left leg will fade as well.

“The boyscouts, they can tie some really good knots,” says one of the girls into her cellphone. She’s talking to her boyfriend. I can tell she’s bored with the scouts and wants to send the message that she’s taken, which, if I know my gender, won’t make a lick of difference, even if she does call her prince on the other end “baby” after every sentence.

“And we can make some really big fires!” says another boy.

I’m not sure where the boyscouts went to in Minnesota, but after spending much of the last few days driving through corn field after corn field, I think I would have asked for my money back. A lazy brown river (the aptly named Minnesota) is the only body of water worth mentioning this far south of the Great Lakes. I hear the scouts talk about canoeing on it and seeing some nice houses. And really, in this part of Minnesota, that’s worth mentioning as far as site seeing goes. Some nice houses.

I looked at a map of Minnesota upon my arrival here, and the thing that struck me immediately was just how many tiny towns are scattered across its monotonous surface, and how oddly named are these little hamlets. They aren’t even genuinely funny, and thus memorable; mostly towns like Frackas and Humpatonee evoke a head scratch and then fade back into Minnesotan obscurity. One of these villages is really as good as any other. You can expect a McDonalds, a little town pub, and (if you’re lucky), a Denny’s or a Denny’s equivalent, and usually some sort of German-affiliated landmark, like a large rock.

When I packed I stuffed two coats, three pairs of long pants, and my cold-weather running gear into my duffel with a sense of smug pride at my foresight. As I have come to learn from my stay, pride comes before a long string of sweaty nights gasping outside your covers scratching your bug bites. I packed two pairs of shorts that I wore in rotation for five days.

I have mentioned the mosquitoes already, but I’m not sure you could truly call them that. A mosquito in Washington is like a kid with a pointed stick compared to those in this place, who circle like winged Huns as they admire your bare flesh in the humid Minnesotan air. Their only goal is to rape and pillage the fragile human form. At last count, I had over three dozen bites on both of my legs combined.

But the country really is quite pretty. While Minnesota is mostly flat, there are enough hills raising themselves out of the countryside that your average Washingtonian doesn’t feel exposed to the point of paranoia. I missed the mountains and the sea, however. It’s very nice to find yourself in pleasant farm country, but there’s just so much of it, it loses its charm quickly. As a place to visit, Minnesota is a nice change of pace from Seattle traffic and the fast pace of coastal life. I liked the slow pace of life that seems mixed into the water here, and even enjoyed the shimmering heat, but I found myself wondering how a person could stand to live in a place where all the prominent landmarks are water towers instead of mountain ranges.

I will attempt to give you a uniform description of the Minnesotans, despite the obvious flaws in such an approach. I like to think that my generalizations, however inaccurate on an individual level, gain some truth when viewed from a macro-perspective.

There is an aura of rural goodnaturedness that I expected to find when I imagined quiet farming communities and lazy dirt roads. In fact, most of the people we came into contact with seemed rather detached and uninterested, somewhat resigned to boredom, and not particularly friendly. They are unusually blunt and somewhat humorless.

I suppose, in some way, this description correlates with my description of the state, which shouldn’t be unexpected.

To be fair, most of my experiences with Minnesotans were with stressed wedding volunteers and people in the fast food industry, not typically the best place to find gems of human charm in any particular state.

Did I enjoy my time here? Yes, but only because of many happy reunions with many good friends, and in sometimes despite the state itself. Would I live here? What circumstances might arise that could contribute to me settling down anywhere within Minnesota’s borders are too obscure to contemplate. I need rugged mountains and fierce rivers, cool evenings with the salt air drifting off the coast. The Mall of America just isn’t enough of a draw to merit my devotion.

So in reviewing my previous post, after my return from the beach, I believe I can say with certainty that my eyes have since been opened even wider to the fast paced complexity of Seattle life, and my appreciation waxes with abundance. How funny to gain such a new perspective in such a short time.

I'll settle for Bell Square, thank you very much.

Return from Paradise

2005-07-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

So here I am again: Seattle, where my heart lies.

When I came in over the hill last night and saw Seattle spread out before me, looking like the crown on some vast king's invisible head, the feeling of relief I had did somewhat surprise me. I didn't know I could feel this way about concrete and neon. At the same time, however, I think I have learned something in the last few days that I suppose I have always understood on an intuitive level, but until my trip had never made it past a gut feeling.

How does Tim McGraw put it?

"I wanna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows, spend my nights tucked in close to you... raise our kids where the good Lord's blessed, point our rocking chairs towards the west, dream our dreams where the peacful river flows... where the green grass grows."

Seattle holds my heart in the same way that a hat rack holds a man's hat. Where it really belongs (the man's head) is its real home. When it is't at home, the hat spends its time on the hook, waiting. Seattle is like this for me: a fantastic, interesting place, but really only a temporary one until I figure out where home really is. I understand that eternity with our Lord is our real home and that nothing in this mortal earth can satisfy our thirst for that place and that time, but what I am talking about is that feeling you have in your bones when you come home weary, that connection you feel walking the land, familiar with the rocks and the trees in such a way that they have become a part of your identity. Turning in the drive and knowing everything is where you left it.

John Mayer puts it well (how funny that in our modern day era our pop musicians have become our poets, our Dickinsons and our Wordsworths; did people in those times feel the same way about their contemporary artists as we do about ours? Has Bono replaced Blake?) in his song "Home Life."

"See I refuse to believe my life's gonna be just some string of incompletes, never to lead me to anything remotely close to a home life..."

Home is a place where you feel like you've completed something. Your wanderings have come to an end, here. I haven't had that feeling since I was very small. I know, though, that there really is a corner of the world somewhere that waits for my rocking chair, my porch, and my guitar.

I don't know where this place is for me, but I know that Seattle is holding me, for now, while I wait to find it, or it waits to find me.

Time goes by

2005-07-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

Today I went off to an interview with Expedia for a full time position. I turned the radio on and oldies started coming through the speakers, a Beach Boys song I've heard more times than I could count to without getting bored. I thought to myself, "this song is playing as I am going to go do something that potentially will have a huge impact on my life as I know it," and I pitied the past version of me who had no clue such a thing was coming when last I heard that same tune. Isn't that funny? What song will be playing the first time I dance with my wife? What song will be on the radio the first time my kids ask me to turn the channel because they can't stand my generation's version of the "oldies?" 'Mo Money, Mo Problems?'

Rest in peace, Biggie Smalls.

Tomorrow is the beginning of something beautiful: 4th of July weekend at the beach. Thank you, my good and gracious God, for all of your gifts and your provision, and the stretching, stressful times that make weekends like this that much more appreciated.

Gestation

2005-06-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

These days seem pregnant with possibility.

I have discovered a new facet of life outside of academia. For lack of a better name, I'll call it "What I've Always Wanted to Do But Never Could." Lots of things on this list, these days; stuff I have wanted to do for years but never could because they required funds I didn't have, or time I couldn't waste. Most are items I had just shunted off to the "reserved" rack behind the checkout stand while I kept browsing.

"Here's your receipt." A degree from Seattle Pacific. I have made it through the line, donned the cap and tassle, taken the pictures, and spent the graduation money (on rent).

So now none of my limiting factors are an issue anymore. I have the time, the money, and the freedom.

Here's a snapshot of my list:

1. Take a martial arts class.
2. Take a wilderness survival course.
3. Own a black pickup truck.
4. Write a novel.
5. Live by myself.
6. Own a dog that proves the man's best friend rule.
7. Buy a sweet custom guitar.
8. Go on long backpacking trips, all weekend.
9. Tithe regularly and generously.
10. Give my time to a local church as a volunteer.

These are just ten items on a list that could easily be pages long from the top of my head; if I read my journal I imagine I could come up with even more.

Ah, life is good.

I am Batman

2005-06-15T03:01:00.000-07:00

Just so you know: Batman Begins could be the best movie I've seen all year. Not best as in, "for a comic book movie." I mean best as in, the proverbial summit of my film entertainment viewing for the year 2005 (thus far).

Go see it. That's all I'll say.

Anika - I will call you tomorrow, Lord willing. After band practice I was dropped right off at the theater, and there was no time for socializing outside the cloister of my fellow beloved nerds. Hope DC doesn't fry you too badly you're incapeable of normal speech.

Good news! Microsoft wants me to interview for a full time position. I'll post more as I get more to post.

And finally: wheels coming my way, soon. Graduation present. The folks' old car. '98 Ford Taurus. It may be the ultimate family Dad car (Will Ferrel: "I drive a Dodge Stratus!") but it gets me from A to B (and back again!).

3:11 am, you are looking mighty fine this evening.

~CC

Untitled 1

2005-06-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

The smooth climes of her cheek;
Up and up they go to that forehead I love,
Never wrinked even when stumped
Or even angry, and
Bless her brows that work one without the other--
lift a little, say a lot, in perfect concert with
Her full lips (how I love them),
With freckles like a tiny private constellation--
A little lift of those lips and those brows
Speaks volumes.
So this sudden smile is like the spread of full daybreak:
Leaping into the world and letting all it touches
Rejoice in light, in warmth, in love.

CC

Bad Poetry

2005-06-11T00:41:00.000-07:00

I am entitled to a little bad poetry.

I am graduating after all; there's no one left to impress.

Not even myself... nope, not even me.

I flew away, I think, a while ago while I was sleeping.

Right out of the top of my head, like the elevator forgot to stop.

I floated over North Bend; looked down on my house.

MY house:

The side yard where I made a sword out of the fallen branches of an uprooted vine maple.

The forest they cut down right across from my house that I was never allowed to go into.

The ditch where Noel crawled to, dragging her broken leg, and died.

I waved goodbye and oriented to a nameless star.

I wish you could all come with me.

Wherever it is I'm going.

A Little Red Wine

2005-06-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

Reflecting in the kitchen tonight.
This wine is beginning to find its way into my cheeks.
Tomorrow, I am painfully aware, is both a beginning and an end,
And the stove, with it's dim light casting
A cold patina on the dishes in our crowded sink,
Sits oblivious to the holy epithets of fate
Screamed now, at me, from my reflection on this dirty kitchen floor.

I envy them.
They remain the same while I am changed by what I've left behind.
They won't feel the rust: dumb and mindless, blissful, blind.
I?
I am a creation of another kind,
Gifted, cursed with body, breath, and mind.

Allow me to Explain

2005-06-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

What I mean is this:

I think we all, to a certain extent (especially us men) desire to be just like the heroes in our favorite stories--the William Wallace, the Aragorn, the Gladiator. But I think also, there is a part of us that doesn't want to be THE hero, we just want there to be A hero, surrounded as we are in this broken world of untrustworthies who sin against us, often despite their best intentions.

And I realized, soon after this, that Jesus was not the hero in my story. At least, I don't view Him as the hero. And yet, that should be His place.

So what I am saying is this: The Lord should be my warrior, to fight my battles for me. I should cheer Him and His victory in my life. But most of the time I feel like the sword remains in the stone.

Which is my bad.

A Hero in the Story

2005-06-07T02:03:00.000-07:00

I realized last night that I don't want to be the hero in my own story. I just want my story to have any hero at all.

That's when I realized that Jesus wasn't my hero.

That bears some thought.

Born in '74

2005-06-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided that I want to marry an artist.

At the Fremont Café Ladro they’ve put up a small display of a local woman’s work. I recognize the intersection in one of her paintings; she’s really quite good. It’s a little strange to think that each of these was once frameless, alone with her in (perhaps) a little studio somewhere nearby, unfinished, still wet with possibility. She was born in ’74. Thirty years of her life are somehow represented on every canvas.

Thirty years. They’ve shaped her, sculpted her, polished her until the color of the wood beneath is just now beginning to glow in earnest. They also have yet to truly touch her looks; in addition to her obvious talent, she’s also beautiful. Really, it’s rather hard to tell… the blurry digital shot of her posted next to her “artist’s statement” isn’t as defined as the lines of the Red Hook Brewery she’s detailed in the painting directly above me, but because I imagine that there must be beautiful artists living somewhere in the world, it isn’t hard for me to adorn her with a touch of optimism. I can tell she does the same thing in her work—the brewery I know isn’t nearly as clean as the one in her painting.

Maybe I’ll find one more my vintage. We’ll hang her art together in a similar coffee shop, chatting in the early morning hours typically regarded by both of us with contempt. 6AM will have lost its power for now, submerged in the tide of starry-eyed anxiety that awoke us both before the alarm, excited with the possibilities of unexplored territory. Will she sell a painting? Will she sell all of them? The best ones are hanging on the wall of our bedroom, and I looked at them with new eyes this morning as we pulled on our sweats and faded Safeco Field baseball caps. “They’ll sell,” I tell her for the third time. She just smiles and raises her eyebrows, stretching to reach the hook above her head.

A week later she’ll get her first real commission and we’ll sit on our balcony, beers in hand, watching the sky get dark, talking about what it all means. I’ll remember how surprised and awed I was when she shyly brought me into her studio after our third date. She’ll pointedly remind me that she knew I was “the one” before she ever heard me sing.

She always jokes like that.

Endings

2005-06-02T19:40:00.000-07:00

We slipped into each other's shoes
Like how we always thought it might be
We kissed, but it was more like blues
She said she liked my company.

Honesty

2005-05-31T00:41:00.000-07:00

I just read a friend's blog. I was surprised to find such honesty in his writing. It really inspired me to write about my life on this page in ways that deal less with abstraction. Read my last post. Do I ever really tell you anything about me, or who I am, other than that I'm going through some "garbage" right now? What does that even mean? Instead of a journal, I've been posting ten minute forays into a tenth grade poetry assignment.

So I guess it's time that I wrote something about me.

Truth be told, I'm very lonely. Not in the way that happens when you look up from life and realize that there's nobody around you, no one within shouting distance, and you're afraid just to be by yourself. Actually I am surrounded by people all of the time, and most of them want my attention. I am sought out constantly. In fact, I am notorious for not answering my phone or responding to messages. You would think my problem is that I am too seldom alone. But while I appreciate my friends and I love them dearly, I don't feel like they really like me for who I am. I think they like me for who they percieve me to be.

I guess it comes from being a social chameleon, of sorts. I have no problem adapting to whatever social sphere in which I might find myself. That ability serves me well as a bridge towards building relationships, except that it more often than not ceases to be a bridge and becomes a foundation. I'm afraid that if people knew the real me, they wouldn't stick around.

For example: I play Dungeons and Dragons. That's right. I bet you didn't know that, huh. I have two friends who come up every Friday that I've known since highschool, and I play D&D with them. I am so embarassed of that fact, that the only people who know about it are my roommates, and that's only because they live with me and you just can't keep the fact that you're rolling dice and fighting trolls down in your basement a secret for very long when you're in such close proximity with people. And yes, they make fun of me for it.

I am such a nerd. I bought a Star Wars book the other day. And as I took it down from the shelf, I made a disclaimer to my friend who was with me... "I'm about to do something I'm not proud of." When someone asked me what book I had bought at the bookstore, they laughed when I told them.

I play games online with my friends. Don't tell anybody. I have a level 28 character named Spearsong.

Then there's the other side of me (are they really "sides," as if they were incongruous?) that loves to play basketball, runs and lifts at least five times a week, likes to go to sportsbars and drink beer. I'm socially well-adjusted and I know how to talk to people; I'm comfortable in groups and at parties. The people who know this version of myself know nothing about the nerd books and games. I would never tell them. But really, I often can't decide if I want to play a roleplaying game online with my friend or watch the Sonics game on a given evening.

Oh, and let's not forget that I work at CIS and I know how to use a computer. Heaven forbid.

What other side of Chris Clark can I dredge up? Ah, the guy who plays music that makes girls want to make out with him. He's a cool musician who likes to have deep conversations and make witty remarks. He'll sit in your living room and drink tea, turn out the lights and listen to an album, usually something appropriately hip but still pop, like Ben Folds or Jack Johnson, or retro "I-know-a-lot-about-music" like Eric Clapton or Paul Simon. But the people who know this version of me don't know about the others.

I'm just so sick and tired of being put in a box, and what's even worse is that I'm tired of putting myself in it.

There has never been a girl that has known the full extent of these myriad personalities. I'm always afraid that if they knew I read Star Wars books they'd be turned off. I always thought that if they knew that I was a terrible fielder in softball that they would go looking for someone who was. If they knew I actually enjoy listening to "Toxic" by Britney Spears than I would be out of the club.

But here's the real, deep down secret side of Chris Clark that not many people truly ever witness. It's the version of myself that would write something like this. That would say, I am bleeding. That would admit that I struggle with my self-image and self-esteem. To most people I have it put together. Men want a man that they can relate to: that's what I give them. Women want someone who's strong and confident. I give them what they want. But these boxes that I put myself in are never big enough to contain what I really am, and I'm too scared to let people view me without some sort of special packaging.

The truth is, I feel like I have to sell myself to every single person I ever meet.

Without the commercial, you'd just be left with me.

My Life is a Symptom

2005-05-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that I was pretty "in touch" with my feelings. Maybe that was true when I was younger, and my emotions (and the situations out of which they were born) were less complex; now I don't seem to recognize that I am feeling until something in my behavior changes and, like Alice, I am forced into the rabbit hole.

I imagine that as I fall into the darkness I can see the earth's crust speeding past me, roots and the ends of worms floating by, my presence in their world unheeded. I am slipping into the earth, into the depths. The stones here belong to the silence, and rest in the centuries like a loose skin.

If we are created in God's image than I imagine there is something of His infinite depth in each of us. Somewhere beyond the crust of the earth where our day to day doings are unknown even as rumors in the caverns of our being, the only echo is the one that resounds with His voice, saying plainly, "It is Good."

No matter how long I fall, I never reach this place. When Alice fell she never had to make it through a landfill to get to the good stuff.

I Am My Father's Son

2005-05-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Two young men sit on a park bench overlooking a Seattle lake. It's cold enough for a jacket, but not cold enough to numb the feet of the sad one who chose to wore flip-flops at two in the morning. They are talking, sometimes loudly in a moment of exultation when one gets the other suddenly, like discovering the puzzle piece in the jigsaw that magically connects two seemingly unrelated parts of the picture. Most of the time one is silent except for a random grunt of acknowledgement as the other unpacks a thought and lets it hang to dry.
On the ground before them is a pair of smashed paper cups and an empty thermos. It was tea they were drinking, but now the conversation is sustained mostly by sheer will and the after-effects of a caffein buzz. They both know that they'll be leaving soon.
One of the men is listening with one ear, and with the other he is rewinding the conversations of the last 72 hours, or rather, the lack of conversation. What is she thinking? What does she want? How could she just let it slide and slip away without even grasping for it? But that's exactly why he left her. That's exactly why he won't call her, even though he wants to. She never wanted him, not in the way he wanted to be wanted.
As the last minute lapses before they get up to go, the other man is speaking now, as if to himself. He doesn't want to go back yet but he can feel the restlessness of his companion. To give his friend some time to think he allows the words he has just spoken to hang for a minute above the Seattle skyline as he lights a cigarette. The glow, the fragrant wind, the lights all pull through the filter and into his lungs.
When they leave the sad one looks out over the bay and imagines he is in a movie; perhaps a camera is hidden in the corner to catch the look he has as he sweeps the water with his eyes. He would deliver that picture to her, where she will look at it in her slender fingers, and the audience will be silently urging her to make this a happy ending, for their sakes.
The car pulls up to their house and they part ways, their boats drifting into the night back to the lonely islands they have made in their rooms. Here the night above them will echo with their thoughts. The sad young man will dream she loves him. The talkative one will wake up late into the afternoon and still feel alone.

"Diary of a Chortling Mountain Man"

2005-03-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not exactly sure how to feel right now.

You see, the thing is I can look back at my life, but I can't look forward.

I think that's maybe why I like to walk up mountains so much. Eventually you emerge from the trees and the landscape below you makes a lot more sense than it did while you were surrounded by it. You can see more. The road is without mystery: just a slight turn here, a bend there, and then... mayeb a straightaway for a while. What is it going to bring? You don't have to wonder on top of a mountain, it's all laid out before you.

I think that's why I like climbing. It brings you to a point where you realize how small you are. All of your problems become like the little houses you see clumped together (I can see mine from here!) in neat rows and uniform construction. They just line up, they're all rather insignificant, and darn it if they don't just lose some of their grandeur when put into a little perspective.

How cute.

But the future, see... that part lies under the clouds, or is so far off it's inscrutable simply because of the distance.

But like I said, I don't know how to feel. But not because of the future. The thing is, I'm looking out over the valley where I've come from and I don't appreciate the view. I don't like what I see. And I worry about this: will I make a better picture out of what's to come? Will I want to put that on a postcard?

I'm so sorry Sarah, word's cannot describe.