All my mistakes have become masterpieces

It's been a different kind of fall than those in recent memory.

I'm back in central Pennsylvania, where the leaves are fiery and the stars are inches from your face on the right kind of night. Most everyone seems slightly annoyed, perhaps because the sudden drop from crisp and clear to cold and blustery came before they could completely unpack their winter clothes and stock up on hot chocolate and tea.

The Philadelphia Phillies have just won the World Series. This is as earth-shattering an event as any I have encountered. It was big when the Diamondbacks knocked off Mariano Rivera in 2001, when the Red Sox and White Sox won their first titles in a lifetime in back to back years, and as a Maryland resident, when the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl back before Kerry Collins was washed up for the second time and Ray Lewis hadn't been mentioned in murder cases. But never has one of my teams won a championship, and for a team from Philadelphia (where I am more comfortable than nearly anyone else) to win is something that made me tear up. The city hadn't had a title in any of the four major professional sports since the 76ers won the NBA title in 1983. The Phillies themselves are even more endearing than nearly any other team. In nearly 130 seasons of play, they have lost more games than any professional team in any sport in North America, over 10,000 losses. They would need two completely undefeated seasons (162-0) before they pulled above .500 all time. On top of this, they had just one title, in 1980, in those 130 seasons. Until now. Beautiful.

There is a presidential election happening in four days, and an enormous one at that, one that will almost certainly end up being the most important of our lifetime. I've watched a man who I rarely agreed with but who was the politician I respected the most, both for his heroic life and his record of voting for what he thought was right whether or not that was popular, become someone who I never agree with and who I do not respect at all in a matter of a month or so. As John McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination, I thought it was safe that we would be getting a great leader no matter the outcome of the general election. Since the RNC, this hope has tanked as McCain and his campaign use highly irresponsible scare tactics, hinting at Obama's ties to terrorists among other things. The old McCain would have never done this... though we can always count on Christians to swing below the belt, be hateful and fear-mongering in order to push their own agenda. As my friend Brian said, I doubt very strongly that Mr. Whitaker from Focus on the Family's "Adventures in Odyssey" videos I watched as a kid, would agree with this letter from the future that was found on the Focus on the Family website and was later discussed on CNN. It makes me sad that so many Christians choose to be hateful. Jesus didn't hate. Though Jesus never had to listen to Kenny G...

But this fall isn't completely different. Halloween is tonight, which means that "the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it" is here. That's pretty consistent. The Redskins have a new offense for the fourth time in five seasons. My fingers lose circulation when I play ultimate. The Charlie Brown specials start and run through New Year's. Movie nights happen more and more often, with more people piled under more blankets.

And memories of autumns long gone descend on me. A deep breath will remind me of Icy Hot and shorts that showed off our bright white legs in a long thigh-high stripe across the starting line. Knit blankets remind me of basement couches that I haven't seen in years, and that may well have been in a dumpster not long after I left them. Cigarette smoke mixing with fog from a cold mouth, a cloud with every exhale.

And there comes a time,
You must stay in the moment while your heart's still bleeding
And there comes a time,
When you must walk away though your heart's still beating.

Who is to say who wins or who loses?
I sing to myself at the end of the day when I know
what the blues is.
And all my mistakes have become masterpieces.
All my mistakes have become masterpieces.

mmmmmm capitalism!

In light of our country's recent economic downturn, I bring you an entry from my old blog:

Just a few excerpts from my economics professor [at Community College of Baltimore County Essex in the fall of 2007] during a class lecture. For those of you (Mohar, this is you) who know Obed [an education professor at Messiah]... this is Obed if he taught economics. None of this quotes are out of context. Sadly.

"The money makes you great! It gives you the will, the power, the love, to get up another day."

[To me, knowing I am a history major:] "If you don't plan what with to do with the knowledge of history, Magna Carta, and save all of your riches you receive from your knowledge, you will end up homeless, living on the street. You know what I am saying?"

"Profit Maximization is the goal! Cost Minimization is the key! If you have making six figures for IBM, you don't just be happy. You start your own business! You hire men in suits to work for you for six figures and they will be happy to work for you...but! You will be making ten tiiiiiiiimes!! that amount! You know what I am saying?"

"The knowledge of money is important, like the air we breathe."

"This money, it makes you have value. And this value is what makes America great."

Amen.


Peace,
Charlie


Now I would later find out that this man was not in fact my professor, but rather a professor who had been fired that week but was somewhat confused by what that meant. He apparently thought he was fired at the end of that semester. This explains why he sent away a lady at the beginning of class who said she was going to be our substitute, saying that he wasn't sick. It also explains why our real professor, a six foot tall black woman, stared him out of the class the next week.

If only I could have caught his name. This great country needs him now...

love,
Charlie

Factories and marching bands

This morning I woke up to the sound of "Holland" playing, off of Sufjan Stevens' beautiful album Michigan. It lyrically paints an August on the lake, and it is a warm day in mid-September as I write this, but still the song always makes me think of late fall..

Fall is my favorite time of year. The crisp taste in the air is perhaps God's very best creation. But "Holland" is for when that has come and gone. There are soft flurries with huge snowflakes out the window and I sip on some tea, curled up with a book under a quilt... all is calm, all is bright.

"And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper..."

I recently heard of an old friend who was going through a tough time, and everyone seemed to know exactly why except for that person.

I'd like to think I'm more self aware than that, but I'm not. My problems are simple and not devastating by any means, and yet I walk myself into the same troubles again and again like a lab rat who hasn't yet figured out that, no, neither door one nor door two has cheese behind them. I face setbacks and turn to my friends, confused at how this new set of circumstances could have possibly cropped up, like William H. Macy's character in Fargo, shocked that his plan (which involved thousands of dollars and staging a kidnapping) isn't still completely on track.

I am certain that my friends want to smack me awake, to show me my own reality, just as I wish I could with this old friend of mine. Perhaps they know more about me than I know about myself. In fact, there's a good chance of that.

Life is easier to view from the glass above it. Living it is the messy part. I'm saying nothing profound.

I love you guys,
Charlie

"I read the news today, oh boy..."

I really should get away from posting at the wee hours of the morning. The typos and run-on sentences are hard to read later.

At any rate, here's a duo of poems that I have been toying with lately. As always, please feel free to critique them. The first is an old one that I think is almost ready for public consumption and there's a new one in there too. Enjoy!


honesty is the best policy.

late one night, the Girl Who Never Lies
went into the bedroom of the boy she loved
and cut off his manhood
so she could truthfully say
that she hated all boys


death of innocence

two kids scared shitless
the boy wondering how
not bleeding could be a bad thing
and the girl wondering how
she could have become
the girl in those videos
from health class

they lay in the black
this kind of death is new
they wonder what was to be
and what will be now

together but
completely alone



Eh, since this is a weak showing after not posting for a month, I will toss a stupid haiku your way as well.


wasted opportunity

every line precious
the syllables dwindle down
this haiku sucks ass


Alright alright. I promise to have a real post up here this week or next. Promise.

Love,
Charlie

Missing the point

I had the unique experience (for a broke college student) to have my feet in both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean within 48 hours. Neither time was a particularly clean experience, taking place in two fine and very different armpits of The World: Nicaragua and New Jersey.

My trip to Nicaragua was for ten days with my church from Damascus, MD. It wasn't quite a missions trip, as we went to churches already established and, to a certain degree, thriving in terms of most everything (except funding). We stayed on a farm (don't tell the customs people please!) just outside of Managua, the capital city, for about five days, and traveled to extremely poor villages in and around Somoto and Somotillo for five days.

As with most third-world countries, the streets have no names. You get directions by remembering where the Old Cathedral used to be in the 1980s and then count blocks. It's tricky. Also, the roads are very rarely paved, and never paved well, leading to the longest bus ride (seven hours) of my life. Then we would pull into these places that were living in 1880 and do things like hand them Bibles and soccer balls and frisbees and flashlights. We would pray with them and sing with them and teach the kids some Bible stories. Then at night we would go to the house we were graciously put up in. My brother Daniel and I spent our time in Somotillo in a house that was one room, about twice the size of my bedroom, with cinder blocks, logs and cardboard making up the walls and roof. The floor was dirt. There was no electricity or running water.

I hated it, and realized that while this was some sort of sick cultural experience for me, for these people, this was their life. They would know no other way.

Reaching Wildwood, NJ for the annual Wildwood Beach Ultimate tournament the day after I got back only caused me to further furrow my brow. As people were starving in Nicaragua, people I had met, here was I, dropping way too much money to stay near the beach in a hotel. Here we were, unable to finish our pizza and funnel cake.

I thought about American imperialism while I was in Wildwood. All the sweatshops in Managua and all over that country, all those ads for Coca-Cola, even the poorest villages. Those "On the Run"s next to some gas stations we grew to adore, the only places in the country (that I know of) where you could have air conditioning and a flushing toilet. America has Nicaragua, and many nations, in an economic stranglehold. It was always sad. Seeing it was enraging.

I thought of the beach we went to in Nicaragua, some small tourist trap we went to for the afternoon as a treat. The weather was beautiful, but the water was more or less impossible to be in, on account of some brown, dark sludge that was on the surface. And while the busy season is in the winter for them, it was unreal how empty it was. Unable to make this oasis easily accessible or completely desirable, the economy was missing out a potentially very good tourist industry to an extent. Even Wildwood, where in a matter of three days Sara stepped on a sewing needle, Tracy found a scuba knife in the surf, I stepped on glass and a nail and Dan stepped on something that made his big toe bleed a lot, they had money flowing in at a tremendous rate. Because in America, if the beach sucks, build a roller coaster.

I was angry. Where was the justice in this? How could I, as a Christian, just be content with seeing this? What could I do? Where were the picket signs? How could anyone be anything more than glad to be an American? How could they be proud of what we are?

And then it sank in. This isn't why I went to Nicaragua, to be jaded and cynical. I met people who had nothing, and yet fed me three times a day. I met people who didn't speak my language, nor I theirs, trying to tell me how much it meant to them that I had come. I saw people thanking God for what they had, and really, truly meaning it. I saw middle class youth giving up their summer, and last spring, and this fall, and all year round for the next many years, to help their church grow and prosper, so they could do more good in Managua and in the impoverished areas more and more as time goes on. I met a lady who showed me her home, built for $1,200 completely on the offering collection of my church and dozens of others. And I watched her eyes tear up as she smiled proudly when I said her house was beautiful.

And I saw God as I stood in a circle of Americans and Nicaraguans with my eyes closed, praying in our own languages the Lord's Prayer, Our Father reaching across the cultural divide, the language divide, the economic divide and showing us that we are all brothers and sisters of the same heavenly family.

I waded a little deeper into the freezing Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by joyous, drunken ultimate players but alone in my thoughts. I thought of my friends in Nicaragua. I thought of Adrian, whose funeral I missed while I was away. I thought about the past year, the good and bad. I thought of my family, and my friends, past and present.

And for the first time in a really long time, I thanked God for what I had. And really meant it.

"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion..."

Well, the last few days have been rough for me, some of the pain self-inflicted. But the community is reeling from the loss of Adrian Wilson, who passed away a week ago. I don't know how good I would be at a tribute to Adrian, so I won't try. He was a great kid, heart of gold, and he is going to be missed tremendously. Please pray for his family and his friends, especially Frank Eanes.

I wrote a poem about time and leaves and love. You know this can't be good. But it's the only decent poem I've written in a month, so forgive me for how Robert Frost the themes are.


daily calendar

the tear-off sheets fall like leaves
leaves that can't come soon enough
leaves that will be too late to save us
leaves that are already too late to save us


I am heading to Nicaragua on Monday with my mom for a fellowship trip for church. My brother and sister are already down there for an immersion program. Maybe a week and half in a country where many have nothing will change my life-view, even a little bit.

Maybe that's all I need to snap out of this funk. A fresh look.