Nothing too serious today.  But I thought that the following exchange needed to be shared.  It was between me and a 4-5 yr old child at the store.  The following took place on Saturday.

4-5 yr old:  Are you ready for the Easter Bunny?
U_G:  Yeah, I don't think that he's coming to my house though.  I haven't been all that good this year.
child:  He'll still come, don't worry.
U_G:  Maybe if you put in a good work with him for me.  I really haven't been all that good.
child:  The Easter Bunny comes no matter what, you don't even have to be good.  Santa is the only one that checks to see if you've been good.  Don't worry. 
U_G:  Okay, thanks for letting me know that.
child:  Its why the Easter Bunny is better than Santa

PS:  Mom's doing a lot better.  May have some scary news on another front though.

The world has turned and left me here, just where I was before you appeared. 
And in your place an empty space, has filled the void behind my face.
                                                                                                     Rivers Cuomo-Weezer

I live where I grew up.  I was very embittered by this fact for a long time.  Then after life took what I thought was the most horrible turn that it could ever take, it took another turn in the wrong direction.  My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer.  All of a sudden there was a blessing in not being one thousand miles away, all of a sudden I couldn't be a waste of oxygen who spent his time feeling sorry for himself and sulking.  I had to be a pillar that my family could lean on, and I had to have a purpose.

Cancer is hell folks.  Here is the schedule that mom is on now.

Week 1:  Chemotherapy  Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday
Week 2:  Radiation Monday thru Friday
Week 3:  A breather

rinse and repeat.

Chemo is the devil.  Chemo takes every bit of color out of a person.  Out of their skin and out of their personality.  While the treatment is working it looks like it is killing my mom.  Killing her little by little until there is nothing left.  The chemo works on my family, making them crazy.  I have a father who doesn't deal with it at all.  Blaming my mother for 40+ years of smoking and treating this like her punishment.  Myself who tries to balance a 40+ hour work week with a concerted effort to help out as much as possible.  My brother who just doesn't know what to do with all of this.  Its the worst thing ever.  Hands down.  Worse than breakups, worse than depression about not finding good work, worse than anything.

I one time wrote about life being a canvas that you could paint the way that would want to live.  Using brilliant colors to represent love, happiness, and all the warm and fuzzies.  Darker colors to represent the hard times.  It seems that as I look death in the face, hear about close relatives who have lost pregnancies, dealing with issues revolving around my self exile here.  The only colors that sit on my pallate are black, dark brown, and really dark green.  Not all that appetizing....

However, I am loving love again.  I am loving being able to pour myself out again.  Seeing nothing but black for 6 months makes a glimmer of bright red the greatest thing ever.  Take time today to love everything that comes into your sphere.  Love what has made you hurt and love what makes you happy.  Love things in the shadows and in the sunshine.  Love things from the inside out, and in all of this let yourself be loved.

Know that there are a lot of readers that read this while I was in the process of living in the brightest sunniest time in my life.  Know that I checked out to feel sorry for myself.  And know that this forum has had a special place in my life.  Know that as you are reading this you are loved.  Loved by a guy that has worked at a church and wrote music, loved by a guy that used to move pianos, loved by a guy who now cuts meat and really kinda likes it.

You are loved because you have value.  Loved because you shared with me in the wonderful and made it even more wonderful, but know that I am going to appreciate you just as much if not more in a time that doesn't seem so wonderful.

I ask you to follow me down this wicked path as a look at what death might be.  Also know that mom has a good prognosis, that the treatment, while it looks as if its killing her, is working and is shrinking all of her tumors.  Know that it is going to be tough though, and it would be great if you would be here for me helping me out.  I would be so appreciative for each and every comment and each and every prayer.  Stay tuned folks, I still have so much to share.

PS:  We still don't talk about the breakup.  Its not for me to share here, and to be completely honest its not the place for it. 

Excerpt from actual phone conversation at work today.

U_G: Good Morning, Generic Grocery Store
Elderly Female Caller: Hello, I would like to place an order for delivery
U_G: I'm sorry ma'am we don't do deliveries on Tuesdays.
E F C: Its not Tuesday.... its Wednesday
U_G: Oh, you're right. Its been a long day already.
E F C: I knew it was Wednesday. Because I got an enema yesterday. Tuesday is enema day.

New York was a city on the decline in the 1970's.  Carter's recession had hit the city hard.  The city was forced to cut services to make ends meet.  When services were cut people began an exodus out of the Big Apple.  When people and businesses left, tax revenues went down, and services had to be cut further.  This vicious cycle continued into the 80's.  The city was being gutted from the inside out.  Crime was getting out of hand, and whole neighborhoods were falling into a state of vacancy and disrepair.  Politicians, pastors, and civic leaders pontificated about what should be done to stop the drug trade, lower the murder rate, and bring back the New York that so many people missed and ached for.  They hired more police, fought the drug war hard, tried to crack down hard on crime, but nothing seemed to be a panacea.  What on earth could be done to turn the tide.

They started to clean the streets again.

Nobody wanted to save the broken city.  No companies wanted to move into non-Manhattan NYC if it was a dirty grungy mess.  They started to spend money on keeping the city clean.  Before you knew it companies started moving in, neighborhoods policed themselves, and New York was thriving again.

They cleaned the streets.

This seems like something rather different than the normal subject matter that I would talk about, but there is a lesson that I am learning in my life that deals with this directly.  Sometimes the best solution to a quandary isn't the one that is overarching and idealistic.  It's the simple little detail that may have gotten you in a mess in the first place.

---

I read a biography during the month of January about William Wilberforce.  Now, Wilberforce doesn't have the name recognition in this country that he should.  There is an argument that can be made that he has more historical importance in this country than even Abraham Lincoln, and Wilberforce isn't even a yankee, he was a member of the British House of Common's.  And, Wilberforce may have much more to do with the abolition of slavery in the United States than any US citizen ever has.  He was the first person in the Anglo-American sphere to take on the slave trade and win. 

Wilberforce was a kind and agreeable fellow, who was well liked and respected at a young age.  He had tremendous ideas, and those ideals were of a benevolent nature.  He looked at government and society as something that should offer a hand up to folk who were oppressed.  This may seem like a normal way of thinking in the age of trillions of dollars of tax, housing, and banking bailouts.  At the time however, the societal and even religious view was that people on the lower rungs were there out of God's will, and no other reason.  This was prevalent in Britain, but also in Britain's colonies, and its former colonies.  The slave trade was looked at in the same way.  Wilberforce wanted to do something about this, he just couldn't make it happen.  He felt scattered about in his thinking, and didn't know how he was going to be able to get such a great thing accomplished.  Until he started to change the little things about himself that were impeding him.

He stopped hanging around in the "clubs" that parliamentarians had set up for themselves.  Stop dilly-dallying around with parties and petty gambling.  He started going to bed earlier to be clearer during the day.  He began to take better care of his health.  And he himself started to be the selfless person that his ideals led him to believe society should be.

He cleaned himself up

And with these little changes, he readied himself for his monumental task.  One that led to the abolition of the slave trade in Britain and all her colonies.  A ritual that weakened its influence to the point that a complete abolition of slavery could happen in England, and soon thereafter in the America's.  His fight was the opening salvo in the war on African slavery.  And he accomplished it not by caterwauling lofty principle, but instead by changing himself in the manner that needed to be done to succeed in such a task.

It wasn't a speech, a 15 step plan, a piece of legislation that started the ball rolling.  It was one person's small attention to the details in his own life that changed the course of the argument.

---

In the shadow of NYC and that of Wilberforce, I feel condemned.  For years I have preached a Gospel, not of abundance or prosperity, but one of tools.  Tools, gifts, and blessings of God's grace that could help a person get through a tough spot.  Knowing that God's Grace is sufficient enough to get one through anything, and that his love is tethered to us in a way that no other love can be.  Completely unbreakable.  I spent my years of relitive abundance in general ignorance of the words coming from my mouth, my pen, my keyboard.  I stopped living in the habits that had gotten me into a place of complete faith in my Maker and Redeemer.  I would recall bad experiences to others as examples of what this Gospel of tools was capable of doing, as if my affliction had been healed, and those tools would not need to be taken out again.  Instead they were now on my mantleplace as an example to those I would come across.  Showpieces, nothing more.

The habit of being in community, of being in the word, of being in constant prayer.  These were my lifeblood.  These were the things that kept my tools sharp, oiled, and in a state of repair.  But all those years up on the mantle have caused the hinges to rust, the blades to dull, and the handles to become loose.  Now when presented with what is the toughest time in my life I cannot use them anymore.  They seem so diferent and foreign.  Its like I am working on a 390 engine with a metric socket set.  IT JUST WON'T WORK!!!!

I fret over what the grand solution is.  I feel there has to be a master switch that when flipped will get the innerworkings of this life interupted working once again.  So I search and hurt.  Fumbling around in the dark for the big quick fix.

All I need is to ask my maker to fix my tools
And slowly we'll work on this project together

Lately I have been playing a new game.  This game doesn't need any other participants.  No board, die, or game pieces are requires.  No sticks, balls, pucks, hoops, or padding is required.  And you don't need to drop any money on the newest game system to play this game.  Its the kind of game that keeps you up at night, the amount of time that you spend playing it effects everything from your work to your relationships.  But, its really not all that fun at all...

"What If...."

I sit here on the precipice of 30 having in the last 6 months everything in my life that I held certain completely blown apart.  From my future, the flavor of my faith, my vocation, my relationships, my family, my likes and dislikes, my values.  They seem to have all been wiped away or changed in a way that now seem unrecoverable. 

"What if I wouldn't have waited so long?"

I think that this is a common thing for people to go through, but you're supposed to go through it at age 18-20 right?  Isn't this a part of growing up?  Why is it so scary at 28?  I tell myself the scary part is that if I make a new plan by the time I make life 2.0 a reality I'll be approaching my mid 30's.  I tell myself that I am still mourning everything that has been blown away.  I tell myself that I can start making real plans next week.  Next week things will be better.

"What if I had majored in journalism?"

So I sit, waiting for this grand affirmation, this great commishion, a gift of gumption that will lead to the first step on the next path.  But, the time that I spend sitting, waiting, wishing, and playing the game;  its quiet and lonely.  It can be cold, but I am getting to the point that I can feel the warmth around me.  Its a warmth that was gone for so long.

"What if I just moved to Chicago, got a new name, and started over?"

I write a lot of music now.  I have tried to keep diaries, journals, records of life.  This blog has become that in some ways.  However, I always look back and feel foolish about the person that I was.  After this game has come to its conclusion I hope that I can look back at the songs, the notes, the entries, the conversations, and say....  "Good Night! I really was clueless!"

"What if I just had cared a little more?"

I don't think that the game will ever end.  It's a part of who I am, and a part of who I'll be in the future.  I have no problem beating myself up, because I always seem to forgive.  I just need to know what might have been with so many things.  I think that I am allergic to regret.  Its my Kryptonite....

"What if it never gets better........"