A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Brewery ...

 So I've been in Orlando for about two months now, and I'm trying to rebuild my life. It's sort of a funny thing to say, that. One might think that, as I moved here for Meshparjai, I'd have a life here. But of course that's not really true, and it really oughtn't to be true; you can't make your kid your life. I mean, your kid needs you to not make them your life. But I don't really have a life down here.

One of the reasons that's true is that I don't have a church here. That is, itself, a funny thing to say. A funny thing for me to say, I mean, because I kind of ... really don't like church. Okay, that's not true. I like things about church. I like the rituals of church. Increasingly, I like all the rituals of church, from the ecstatic low church liturgy I grew up with to the stodgy high church liturgies that, in retrospect, have been slowly creeping into my faith life since middle school at Chaminade. I like Communion, which is a weird thing for a Foursquare boy to say, but there you have it. I like the exegesis of Scripture. I like closing my eyes and reaching for the Spirit and saying, Hello. I missed having this time together.

Nevertheless, I don't like the way a lot of Christians expect church to be done, this early-century idea that the church is the hub of your social life. Most Christians I've met in church are just not my people, and while that still gives me a twinge of guilt to say, I'm more or less done apologizing for it. I miss Christians like Archimedes and Blue Rose and Antilles. And I miss Tenranova and being able to talk frankly about how bad so many people are at religion and what we want it to be. I miss talking to people about religion and being on the same wavelength, and it just kind of kills me how many Christians just aren't that.

Antilles has actually been on my mind a lot lately, as I think about church. I don't know about him, but for me, one of the things I valued so much about our freshman worship nights was how different they were from the standard campus Christian fellowships, and how much more intimate they felt. There was my church; there were my people--not at Campus Crusade for Christ, not at InterVarsity, not at Reformed University Fellowship. And I remember being both sort of shocked but also envious when Antilles told me he was, effectively, trying to do church without church--just some folks living in community. It didn't entirely work out, as I recall, but the idea of getting to do church with people you actually liked and respected was pretty powerful to me.

I guess that's the first time I've actually said that. I ... don't respect most Christians I've interacted with qua Christians, I suppose. Maybe that's a me problem.

Anyway ... one of the things on my parental To Do list now that I'm down here is to give Meshparjai access to her Christian heritage. And that's a complicated thing for me, for whom the closest thing I've ever felt to a real church home is The River, all those years ago. And I find, as I think about it, that that narrows the field of churches I'm interested in in a way that surprises me.

Here are the things that I would have said I was looking for in a church:

1. Sermons that aren't just self-help talks.
2. Musical worship that's mystic and alive.
3. Communion as an ordinary part of the liturgy.
4. A pastoral staff that lives and values the liberal arts and all that they entail.
5. A connection to and deep respect for Christian tradition.
6. The ability to commit to Christ without abandoning what we know academically about the Church, her history, and religion as a field of human endeavor.
7. A set of congregational values that wouldn't make me feel like I have to apologize for what happened at church to my own kid.

I find it easy enough to find 1 and 2, but I find that they tend not to coexist with 3-7. And honestly, I find 3-7 increasingly important to me for my own sake, not to mention for the sake of raising someone in the modern church.

Which is how I found myself today at a place called the Hearth, an LGBTQ-friendly, woman-pastored Lutheran church that meets in a brewery. Because I have no idea how to search for things 3-7 on my list, but I figured that looking for a queer-friendly, female-ordination-friendly place would cut out a lot of the places that weren't 3-7.

#2 wasn't there, obviously, because apparently the only parts of Christendom who remember how to do ecstatic ritual are, for the most part, not my people either (he says with a nonzero amount of bitterness). But I ... well, I have a good feeling about this. The pastor reminds me of Tenranova a bit. The people remind me of the Episcopalians I've met, in a good way. I hung out for beer and lunch and talked with a bunch of them and I kind of get the impression there's a nonzero amount of "spiritual refugee" energy in this congregation, which ... at this point, honestly, maybe describes me too.

I don't go to church to affirm my support for the LGBTQ community. I don't go to church to affirm my support for female pastors. I don't go to church to fellowship with my coreligionists, which ... honestly, between you, me, and the blog, is a failing on my part. But I ... had a good feeling about this place. The way the pastor talked about giving. The way she talked about worship (musically, not my cup of tea, but theologically, yesyesyes). The way it was so clearly and unapologetically a Lutheran service, attended primarily by non-Lutherans.The way the sermon walked the line between meaningless exegesis and meaningless "applicability." The fact that they don't have a separate youth program (honestly, in my opinion, a big plus).

The sense of tug on my heart last night, that said, "Go on. Give it a try."

The sense of closing my eyes in the service today and reaching for the Spirit and saying, Hello. I missed having this time together.

I'll be back next week.

Jungle Cruises

I think I figured it out.

Somewhere between today's three hundredth playthrough of Weird Al's "Skipper Dan," a much-needed dinner break reading my latest David Weber novel in which a young priest learns the truth about his fabricated church and wrestles with his faith, and explaining to Kara that I should never have become a securitization attorney in the first place, I think I figured it out. What's bothering me right now, I mean.

Let me back up.

The past few days I've been depressed again. I should be enjoying my spring break, reveling in the fact that I have a book coming out, lots of time to paint, a new roleplaying game I'm running (even if it is D&D, which itself is a sign of depression), lots of time to read, new shows to watch. Instead, I'm feeling like life doesn't mean very much.

Oh, part of me is just mourning the loss of my trip to Disney. I was supposed to be spending a whole week on Batuu as Kalen Lowery, an expatriate from Arkanis fleeing the First Order and the loss of his copilot, flying jobs for Hondo Ohnaka all day and being recruited into the Resistance, trying to get passersby to play a game of dejarik or sabacc or just journaling under the Batuuan sun. I had a plan: for lodging and meals on a budget, for how to carry everything I needed on my person without a backpack in a way that still looked Star Warsy. And now that won't happen. Probably not until next year at the earliest. Maybe never.

It's not about getting to Galaxy's Edge. That I'll be back to, maybe this year. It's about the trip. About having a whole five days in Galaxy's Edge (okay, maybe a day for other Disney stuff), without anybody wanting to do anything else, without anybody else there. About Kalen being stuck on Black Spire Outpost due to circumstances beyond his control and not being sure he wanted to leave. It was about me working out feelings of life being empty and pointless and deciding that it's not, about bringing joy to people's days with my interactions and remembering that magic still exists in the world if only we have the wit to see it. About really immersing myself in a place I wouldn't want to leave, and choosing to leave anyway. Kalen can't really get stuck on Batuu forever, you know. That can't be what the story is.

But good luck finding another week I can afford to take to go to Orlando before my annual pass expires.

Anyway ... as much as I hate having rituals taken away from me, my canceled spiritual retreat to Black Spire Outpost is not actually what's been bothering me.

What's really bothering me is that I feel like my job's being taken away from me, and I don't know what to do about it.

So let me back up and explain that.

I was telling Kara the other day that I never should have become a transactional lawyer. What I should have been was a tax attorney. Transactional attorneys - the kinds of lawyers who actually make deals happen - are too much like diplomats for me to ever be a good one. As my last mentor told me before I quit the profession, in that job, you have to be okay with people being mad at you all the time. And I'm not. Not people I need to work with, anyway. I can dismiss people I can forget about just fine, but i don't have the trick of tuning out the emotional displeasure of people I have to interact with. But tax attorneys ... tax attorneys just wrestle with the law and make pronouncements to the transactional attorneys that Thus Saith the Tax Code. The kind of tax attorneys I always worked with, anyway. By the time I figured that out, it was too late. I'm not equipped to be a good transactional attorney, but I think I could've made a good tax attorney.

Should've been a tax attorney.

Or maybe not. Because then I probably never would've been a teacher. But that's kind of the point.

Because here's what's really bothering me: maybe I'm trying to be the wrong kind of teacher.

My current principal is threatening to put me in an "English language arts" class of newcomers, which is to say brand new immigrants to the US, most of whom will literally not speak English. I use the word threatening and the quotation marks advisedly. I feel wildly ill equipped to teach a class like that. I am, frankly, certain I will fail - or at least fail by the metrics that matter to my principal.

Some of her motivations in making this move are benign; I recognize that. But only some of them. And regardless, it feels like she's taking away my kids and putting me in a situation in which I cannot possibly succeed. And the reason she's doing that is because I have, in her eyes, failed to establish control of my classroom in the way she wants to see it.

Now, I know that is bullshit, in lots of ways. I do connect with my kids. I give a damn, and they know it. I know that matters in ways that isn't going to show up in my principal's precious metrics. But I also know that I have failed to convince my kids - most of them, anyway - that what we do in my class matters, and they should give a damn. Not about me. About reading.

And I have to admit, it's got me thinking. Look, I know I'm a phenomenal teacher. Give me a student who wants to learn and I can find a way to make the light bulb go on about most things, for pretty much anybody. I'm good at that. Better than most people who hold instructional positions. I know that. I am a teacher, and I always will be.

But am I trying to be the wrong kind of teacher?

This is where "Skipper Dan" comes in, by the way. I've been bingeing it not because of the Disney connection (okay, there's a little bit of that), but because it's about a man who is a phenomenal actor and spent his life failing to become a breakout star, and landed as a tour guide on the Jungle Cruise ride ("Skipper Dan is the name ..."). The actual song is pretty bleak about this, but it's such an upbeat earworm that the unspoken message is that working on the Jungle Cruise ride is actually not such a terrible thing after all. There's a kind of wonderful beauty to it. It's just not how Dan saw his life going.

You get it, I assume.

I could have been a good lawyer ... but I spent ten years trying to be the wrong kind of lawyer.

I know I'm a good teacher ... but am I trying to be the wrong kind of teacher?

I truly hate the thought that there are students out there I might not be able to teach, but ... what if there are? What if there are types of teacher that I'm not suited to being, just like there were kinds of lawyer? I mean, if you put it that way, there are almost certainly types of teacher I'm not suited to being. What if I look back in another ten years and I'm paying the rent and I'm swallowing my pride and I'm working on the Jungle Cruise ride?

Would that be okay? I mean ... maybe? I just don't know that I'd be any good at it.

I don't know what to look for, and I don't even know how to look. If I stay at my Title I school, I get my classroom taken away from me (I might need to stop thinking about it that way, but ... that's where I am right now). It's more than halfway through April, and it doesn't exactly seem like I'm likely to get another classroom right now. Should I even be looking for another classroom? Could I, I don't know, be a full-time tutor?  My coach said she'd like to see what I can do with a real honors class, and hell, so would I ... but how am I supposed to get one?

By the time I figured out I should have been a tax attorney, it was too late to make myself one. It's only been two years of teaching, and I would hate to think I've already become unemployable because I did this career wrong, too. I already lost the last two years of my marriage to this career transition, and for all I know, my chance to raise Meshparjai, too.

I'm pushing forty and, honestly, my working life feels like a failure. A lot of my life feels like a failure, really - that's why I was supposed to be going to Batuu, damn it - and I don't want my second career to be a failure, too.

That's what's bothering me. At least I figured it out.

Now my hopes have all vanished and my dreams have all died

And I'll prob'ly work forever as a

Tour guide on the Jungle Cruise ride

Skipper Dan is the name

And I'm doing thirty-four shows every day

And every time it's the same

Look at those hippos! They're wigglin' their ears

Somebody shoot me, 'cause I'm bored to tears

Always said I'd be famous; I guess that I lied'

Cause I'm working on the Jungle Cruise ride.

What Am I Doing Here? Church Edition

The subject of church is on my mind a lot lately.  Swordwind is full of people from weird religious traditions, Meshparjai actually asked to go to church last week, and she and I had one of those powerful parent-child spiritual covering moments a few nights back.  I'm thinking more about the mystical now these days just in general, in large part thanks to Tenranova (who makes me feel like a bad Christian, sometimes).

The truth is, though, that I've always had something a fraught relationship with church.  Maybe that's kind of surprising - I've always found it ironic for someone whom Princess once called "the most Christian person I know."  I've pretty much always found church hugely problematic.  I can recognize its value in my own life, but the more honest I am with myself about how problematic I find it, the harder I find it to commit to as a real spiritual discipline.

This really bothers me, of course.  To a pretty close approximation, Christianity cannot be done outside of a community.  The same is true of most religions, I expect.  And as Hebrews discusses, there is something fundamentally incompatible between the redemption of Christ and "forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some."  But there it is.

The problems I've had with church have varied over the years.  When I was in school, my basic problem was that the fellow Christians I was supposed to be building spiritual community with were not my kinds of people - by which I think I meant some combination of "into the wrong hobbies," "too popular," and "too dumb."

I have never dealt particularly well with dumb people.  I like to think I've gotten better.  But this was over twenty years ago.  And, to be fair, it wasn't just the people.  Church was often infuriatingly stupid.  I used to say that I didn't really understand how you can give a worthwhile sermon in less than an hour.  What I meant by that was that when I gather to hear the Word of God proclaimed, I really want to hear the Word of God analyzed.  I want to understand the text better.  I don't want some kind of "application" to my life.  If understanding the text happens to have application to my life, then great.  But the text - Scripture, the Word - that has to be the point.  Not my own circumstances.

As I got older, my problems with church tended to fall more into this category: that church is a place to meet with God, not a place to get moral or behavioral advice.  And in this regard, I find myself caught - have been caught for about ten years, if I'm honest - between different approaches to church.

I grew up with a very low church sort of liturgy, where the congregation enters the Presence principally through musical praise.  This sort of rock concert worship service has become fairly widespread and especially characteristic of the non-denominational megachurch, though I think my home church was unusually thoughtful about what precisely we were doing.  On the model I grew up with, musical worship is performative.  It's instantiatory.  It taps into the ancient roots within humanity that feel the need to create spiritual space where it is on earth as it is in heaven, whether we're recreating the throne room of Yahweh as revealed to John or recreating the hunting grounds of Ashur.

Perhaps because of this, I find this sort of liturgy a more ... complete experience of the Presence.  There is thunder and fire in it, and tenderness and heartbreak, that I don't find in the more staid liturgies of other Christian traditions.  I don't think I could take seriously an experience of God that doesn't have thunder and fire and tenderness and heartbreak.  Here my heart is open to God in a way that I crave.  Maybe this makes me weaker, in theological terms, than those who can trust God without such direct experience.

At the same time, this sort of liturgy is vulnerable to being ... well ... stupid.  I don't mean pointless: I mean literally lacking in intellectual substance.  It runs the risk of being hollow.  There is thunder and fire and tenderness and heartbreak in it, but God is more than that, and you can't have Christianity without the text.  You just can't.

The Episcopal liturgy where I've made my home for the last few years (well, intermittently) doesn't have that problem so much.  It may be staid, but as Archimedes once said to me, every word has been examined and re-examined.  The prayers are excellent, carefully grounded in the text and with many layers of function.  There is value in the sense of wholeness that comes from being part of a comparatively long-standing tradition.  I find that there is actual, direct spiritual value in the Eucharist - a value that I think even Pastor Scott would have recognized.  It is a staid liturgy, lacking in fire and thunder and tenderness and heartbreak.  But there is strength in it.

And as for the intellectual substance of the liturgy of the Word - something that, I find, all liturgies place more importance on than I appreciated when I was a kid being annoyed that Pastor Jack's hour-long sermon hadn't included nearly enough footnotes - well, as far as I can tell that's just not something you can control for by liturgy, or even by denomination.  That comes down to the individual pastor.

All three of these things are indispensable to my understanding of church - of what it means to just be in the Presence of God.  There's only one church I've ever been in that combines all three (The River, back in San Jose).  As a believer, I find that thought kind of ... discouraging.  As a parent, I find it exhausting, and a little bit frightening, and a little bit sad.  I want to worship with my family.  I want to wallow in all the things that God has to offer.  I don't want to have to pick and choose.

And this doesn't even touch the community aspect of church.

I have had the thought periodically over the past ten years that perhaps that is the missing part of the puzzle - or at least, the part that I'm supposed to grow in next.  In truth, I've only ever really had one Christian community, which was Testimony - and even then, I was always the one arguing that we had to be an a cappella group first, and a fellowship second.  I've never really appreciated community, is I guess what I'm saying.

And I don't know how to build it.  I don't know how to find a group of Christians who just happen to be the kinds of people I want to make clan - or how to have more than one clan, or how to make my clan big enough to have (say) a fencing community and a Christian community.  I can sort of understand finding fellowship in the context of a larger community where our joint allegiance helps to paper over the fact that we aren't really clan.  But what larger community is likely to have that sort of person, other than a church?  And that brings me back to my problems with church.

Which is why so often I've been in a spiritual headspace - whether it's praying with Meshparjai, sitting in the pews at St. Mark's, administering Communion to myself in the morning alone in the kitchen, or talking fencing with Tenranova - and asking myself, "What am I doing here?"

Fencing Retrospective, Two Years

Two years ago today I had my first KdF class.  Two years have passed in my own timeline since I first began to practice in Prospect Park, in the mornings atop the knoll in the ring of trees.

A lot has happened since then.  I've moved to Charlotte.  I have students of my own.  I own a sharp sword - the first weapon I have ever owned - and I own it on my terms.  I've practiced with the langes messer and dagger, two weapons that I would never have thought I would be attracted to, and discovered that I really like one of them (the dagger) and really hate the other (the messer).  I've started learning the use of the sidesword, a weapon I've wanted to learn for as long as I've wanted to learn longsword, which is the first time I've tried to learn a weapon without the benefit of in-person instruction.

I've attended two major tournaments and two minor ones.  At one of the major ones I made it to the finals in the dagger tournament, I actually won a medal in a rapier tournament, and I made it to the eliminations in longsword.

Am I any good?

I don't really feel like it, to be honest.  There are others from AHS who have been practicing for as long as I have, or very shortly longer, who are better than I am - better in technique, better in cutting, better in sparring.  I suppose it is natural to compare myself to those of my peers whom I know to be the best.  As for my students, I am not as far ahead of them as I would like.

Am I better?

Absolutely.

I have now executed cuts that I couldn't execute a year ago.  The progress hasn't been entirely forward, but it has been forward in the aggregate.  I understand the art better than I did a year ago.  Whereas a year ago I could more or less explain pretty much all of the hauptstücke, I can now just explain all but a few of them, at least in a much deeper way than I could a year ago.  And I understand the foundational concepts of the art better now too.  I no longer think in terms of tempi, the Italian concept that forms the basis of so much modern fencing theory, and instead think in terms of vor and nach, the Liechtenauerian concept that serves the same purpose.  I can exert pressure ... not well, perhaps, but much better than I could a year ago.  And I can feel pressure better than I could, which is just as important.

The reasons I fence have changed somewhat.  I started fencing as a thing for me - a corner of New York to make my own.  I needed that, to keep me from succumbing to depression.  I needed a tribe, and fencing gave me one.  I needed a reason to exercise, and fencing gave me one.

I still fence for those reasons.  The thing that keeps me eating well (well ... better than I otherwise would) and exercising is the need to do honor to my weapon.  Here in Charlotte most of my tribe are students.  And there are certainly times, even here with Thayet and Meshparjai, when I feel the weight crushing me down like one of Rodin's caryatids and I just need to feel Ruusaan's grip in my hands.

I also fence to teach.  I'm still a lawyer, but I can teach through my fencing.  It isn't really the same teaching peers as I think it would be teaching those younger, but it's still teaching.  It gives me a chance to work on curriculum and lesson design, as well as my presentation skills and pacing.  And this, as much as holding the sword in hand and hammering body and will to the demands of the art, helps to center me.

I am thirty-four now.  The five years will be up when I am thirty-seven - too old, in all likelihood, to ever be a truly top-tier fencer in the competitive world.  But I find that I remain determined to be a swordsman.  It has morphed from an exploration of force into its own thing - I must fence because I must.  I will be a swordsman.  I am a swordsman - I'm just not a good one.

Three years to go.

An Tion Jate?

"The very formula, 'Naus means ship' is wrong. Naus and ship both mean a thing, they do not mean one another. Behind naus, as behind navis or naca, we want to have a picture of a dark, slender mass with sail or oars, climbing the ridges, with no officious English word intruding.” - C.S. Lewis

An tion jate?  This is a question I ask myself a lot lately.  I in Mandalorian because it makes me think about them in a different way than if I ask in English.  I ask it because it means, "Is everything okay?"  And I am not okay.  I am sick.  The anxiety and depression, the "impaired executive function" - it's all back (I'm back on medication, but these things take a month or so to really kick in).  Everything is not okay.

I ask it because, without additional context, it also means, "Was everything okay?"  And I begin to wonder if perhaps it has not been okay for a long, long time.  I am better prepared this time, more aware of when parts of my mind shut down and better able to re-route around the dark sectors or at least tread water until the lights come back on.  One of the things I have learned that helps is to sing - to roar, the kind of singing that feels like a core workout, songs that are choked full of emotion, to thunder into the void.  And I remember ... this is not the first time I have felt that way.  I have always loved to roar (as my sophomore year dormmates can attest), but it has not always been out of desperation.  But it was out of desperation in New York, when I started attending Hillsong NYC because I needed that space to roar in, a cathedral of light and smoke and sound and spirit.  It was out of desperation in the worst times in California, when the smothering blanket of depression was so thick that I couldn't sing, even when I wanted to.  It was out of desperation as far back as law school, when I first created a playlist of Disney songs that I could thunder because it was the only way I could feel something - anything at all.  

And you know what?  It wasn't out of desperation any further back than that, that I can recall.

So I ask it because it also means, "Is everything good?"  And I wonder.  Maybe this profession is not good for me.  Certainly the sector of it in which I have worked almost my entire working life is not.  I need to face up to the fact that I am sick, and this kind of job is not good for someone with my condition.  I am not certainly it is good for anyone, to be honest, but perhaps I am being overly judgmental - or overly naive, which is sometimes just as good.

And I ask because when Meshparjai is sad, truly sad, I cradle her in my arms and stroke her hair and whisper, "An jate."  And asking this question makes me remember that it will be okay.  I think, "How long have I been sick like this?" and, armed with greater experience of my illness, I suspect that the answer is a good deal longer than you thought.  But there was a time when I was not sick, and there have been times when I was at least asymptomatic.  It can be okay again.  I can be okay again.

I ask because as much as the answer is no - nayc, an nu jate - the answer is also a faithful, defiant elek.  Yes.

No, everything is not good.  My sickness is not good.  But God is good, and God is above everything, and it will be okay.

A postscript digression: One of the things I have learned helps me keep it together when the lights go dim is fencing.  This is, of course, why I have bothered to emblazon my gear with the phoenix earth; it's a way of reminding me that this is one of my anchors, not just a hobby.  When I was making my sword pillows, Thayet jokingly reminded me not to forget to include embroidering a cheesy saying on them.  So I did, and it is cheesy, but it's also quite serious.  I embroidered them: Gotal'u an kebise evaar'la, from Revelations 21:5: "I make all things new."  But thanks to Mandalorian conjugation, without specifying the subject, it also means: "He makes all things new."  And he will.

Gotal'u An Kebise Evaar'la

Now it is Christmas.

This is the first Christmas in a long time that I have spent away from my immediate family.  Certainly it is the first without Thayet or Meshparjai.  I did not go to Dickens Fair.  My house is empty and undecorated.  There are no presents here.  I may not be able to stay in Charlotte.  There has been little about this Advent that has seemed Christmas-y.

But Christmas is not about family, nor love, nor togetherness, nor cheer.  It is not about goodwill towards men.  Those are all good things, and worthy trappings for Christmas.  But what Christmas is - what the Black Pearl really is - is praise.

This is not a plea to keep the Christ in Christmas.  Even in its most traditionally religious incarnation, Christmas is already an abstract memorial of events and ideas that the Church finds significant.  If other people want to turn it into an abstract memorial of other events or ideas that they find significant, I shan't object; it doesn't diminish the sanctity of my own memorial.  But for me, what Christmas memorializes is the invasion, the return of the king ... the promise that I make all things new.

And while I love spending time at the holidays with my aliit (moreso, truth be told, than with my family in the traditional sense), and I love spreading Christmas cheer at Dickens, and I love spreading a sense of magic with decorations and presents, the one thing that Christmas really needs for me is a memorial of that epic moment, when the trap was laid for the great enemy and the powers of heaven rolled forward upon the territory of the prince of the air with all the thunder of the angels of the one whose thunder and trumpet terrified the people at Sinai, spearheaded all by the cry of a newborn.

I need the sense of remembering with others who are remembering the same thing, and are similarly moved.  It used to happen with Xenophon over Christmas carols at my parents' house.  Then I moved away, and some years it never happened.  Tonight it happened at St. Mark's Episcopal, filling that old church with carols and invoking the weight of generations past.  And at home after midnight, in this empty house with the lights off, thundering songs of praise.

I may, as it happens, be trading in my accustomed low church tradition for something somewhat more liturgical.  But I think that my cathedrals will always be made of thunder and smoke, light and shadow: full-throated worship roared to the heavens, a vocal salute.  Tonight I build one of those in this empty house, and the home is full.

And now it is Christmas.

Loathe Entirely

When I talk to people about New York, I try not to focus on the negative.  It's unhealthy and unworthy to do so on a regular basis, and also quite possibly rude, since odds are good I'll be talking to a New Yorker.  Instead I try to focus on the positive, such as the fact that I have a job (and a pretty decent job, taken on its own merits), AHS, or my church.  This may give the impression that really, I don't think New York is that bad, or that I only don't like it because Thayet and Meshparjai are not here.  This is untrue.

I hate this town.  I hate it with an incandescent fury.  I hate it with such passion that its very existence offends me.  I hate its understocked little stores.  I hate its endless, green-less stretches of concrete.  I hate its weather.  I hate its smoke-shrouded sidewalks.  I hate its wretchedly cramped apartments, and the fact that even nice neighborhoods can't be counted on to have basic amenities like free laundry facilities, or level floors.  But most of all, I hate the subway.

I am writing this instead of sparring right now because I just spent two and three quarters hours not getting to fencing, due to subway delays and reroutes caused by construction.  I suppose I could have called a cab, but this infuriatingly self-absorbed town is expensive enough as it is.  Eventually, I gave up and turned around, never having gotten more than a third of the way to my destination.  You might think it's kind of ironic that I didn't make it to fencing when I could clearly stand to hit something right now, but fencing isn't really good for expressing anger, so I guess that's something.

I understand that the New York subway system is an attempt to make a public service out of what was originally a collection of for-profit proprietary networks.  I understand that it runs 24/7.  I understand that it is over one hundred years old and desperately needs renovation.  I understand that it is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.  I understand that I hate public transit in general, because you can't sing on it and it runs on the opposite of lawyer hours.  And I freely admit that, miserable as it is, the New York subway is far superior to BART.  Nevertheless, the New York subway system has got to be the least reliable system of transportation I have ever experienced.

And it is the backbone of New York transportation.  There is no comparable method of transportation available out here.  I cannot simply go places in New York; I must subject myself to the vicissitudes of a public transportation system that is as reliable as it is pleasant.  There is something deeply, personally offensive to me about a city that tries so very hard to prevent me from going wheresoever I please, but if it must, it could at least make its precious little miniature Niles run reliably.

So yes, there are good things to be found even in this swamp of human misery - even things that, individually, I will miss when I finally shake off the dust of this terrible cesspit.  And I try to focus on the good things, because for now - for now - the alternative is a breach of duty, and that is unacceptable.  But let there be no doubt that I hate, hate hate hate hate, this waterlogged trash-compacted smoke-impregnated railroad-dependent wretched excuse for a town.

Bajur bal Beskar'gam

People sometimes ask how it is being separated from Thayet and Meshparjai.  Not my favorite thing, I say.  Not the worst thing, I say.  I say that the necessity sort of crowds out other emotions.  All these things are true.  It is like going to work on the subway every day.  It is like going back to the knoll every morning and the studio twice a week to have a sword in my hand.  I don't tell them that it is a prison.  I don't tell them what it is also like.

I am working out of San Francisco this week.  This is not a vacation; I'm still going in to the office.  I am working east coast time, of course.  This makes my daily routine rise at 0400 for drill, be in the office at 0600, go to sleep at 2000.

I had a dream last night.  I was a sex slave in a townhouse run by three men.  My chief captor looks like Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder and is about as pleasant.  There are a lot of us held there, maybe two dozen.  I am one of the newer ones, new enough that despair has not yet overtaken the coldly furious need to split my captors' skulls.  I have been there long enough for it to feel normal, though.  We are let out of the house for errands and always trudge back.  I think to myself one day as a group of us - mostly women - trudge to the downstairs library (apparently the townhouse has a library) - that people will wonder why we don't just walk out the door one day and never return.  I observe with clinical detachment that the fact we don't means this has become our new normal.  And it is not so bad, I tell myself.  There is a couple here (in my dream they are played by friends) who were raised as slaves by another couple (played by the parents of a guy I havent seen since high school).

In the library there is a book that has a few pages hollowed out for a plastic milk cap and a sticky note on which is written the number for the local police station. This is our escape route.  Everybody knows about it.  Nobody takes it.  "Do you know how many calls like this they get each day?" asks one of the veteran women.  "Like 700.  And the penalty for trying is severe."  She says this with a glance upstairs.  I think about it for a long time.  The odds are very against me.  But I want to believe the police will come.  I have been raised to believe they will come.

In the end, I put the book back and trudge upstairs.  It isn't so bad here, I tell myself.  It is harrowing.

I wake up to Meshparjai screaming for me. "Dad!  Dad!"

It is late.  I stayed up late to watch Sesame Street with her (Elmo's Elfabet Challenge), then skipped morning drill to hold a sleeping Thayet for half an hour, and fell asleep with my arms around her.  I should have been on the train half an hour ago.

I hurry over to Meshparjai's room.  Last night we talked about how I would already be at work when she woke up.  She has been brave to stay in her bed like I told her to instead of running into our room.  "Yes, ad'ika? Daddy is late for work.  I need to take a shower and get ready to go."

She thinks about this.  Her bottom lip quivers.  "I'll come with you, " she declares.  This will slow me down.  I explain that Daddy needs to get ready to go very quickly.

She enunciates her response carefully.  She is using a formulation I have never heard her use before, and wants to be certain I understand.

"I just ... need to."

We head down the hall, and for a moment all other emotions are crowded out; she is filled with relief and happiness as only a fairy or toddler can be filled.  She chants, "I'm following you, Dad!"

The relief is ephemeral, as all such fillings must be.  In the bathroom she finds sunglasses and puts them on against the sudden brightness.  I throw myself into and out of the shower and find her curled up on the bathmat.  She struggles to her feet, determined not to miss anything I do.  I get dressed while Thayet slumbers, explaining to her what I am doing.  The concept of work is new to her, and I want to reinforce it. "These are the clothes Daddy is going to wear to work."  I debate saying I have to dress up for work.

"And that shirt?" she asks as I button my shirt.

"Yup," I say.  "This is the shirt I will wear to work."

"You look cool, Dad," she says with a big smile.

In the kitchen I explain that Daddy has to make breakfast and lunch because I will still be at work for lunch.  "But where will I be for dinner?"  She thinks but cannot remember or deduce.   "Home.  Home for dinner."

She has seen sandwiches before but is fascinated as I make mine.  "You put butter on the bread?" she asks.

Yup, the peanut butter goes on the bread.  And the jam goes on the other side.  Toddler mind blown.

We go back to the bathroom to collect my electronics.  I explain that, now that Daddy has his food packed, I have to pack my backpack.  She frowns at this and looks like she is fighting back tears.  She associates backpacks with trips, and she knows I am on a long trip somewhere far away from her.  I am not going on a trip. I promised I would tell her before I go back on my trip so it would not be a surprise.  I am going to work.  I place a veritable snake's nest of power cords into my backpack.  "See?  Daddy is going to take his backpack to work."  Oh.  That's beginning to be okay.

It's time to go.  I pull her onto my lap on the couch.  She is holding it together so far, and clearly tired, so I ask if she would like to go back to her own room to sleep.  "Yes," she says with a little wail, but it costs her something.  Her room is where she goes to be abandoned, a magical prison chamber from which she emerges to find parents missing.  She knows it is what I want to hear, though.  Her face begins to crumple.

I can't take it.  I've been trying to be quiet all morning because Thayet has been having trouble sleeping, joking in whispers with Meshparjai about not waking Mommy up, but for an instant all that flies out of my head.  I am not thinking about how a crying girl will probably wake my wife up just as I have to leave.  I only that my little girl is sad.  Ne'briikase.

"Or," I say, "you can sleep with Mommy, but you have to let her sleep."  (This concession has helped me recover my wits somewhat.)

She jumps at that.  "Okay," she sniffles.  I lead her back to the bedroom and help her into bed.  She tucks herself in, and I pull the covers up to her chin.  Thayet stirs.  "Remember," I whisper, "you have to let Mommy sleep."

"Okay," she says.  I can hear the dejectedness creeping into her voice.

"And where is Daddy going?"

She gets it now.  "To work!"  She has trouble forming the unfamiliar word, but she says it with a smile.

"And after work, where will I be?"

She thinks about that one.  She doesn't know.

"Home."

Impressions

People seem curious to know how "New York" is, or how I feel about the whole thing. I don't really have useful answers to either of those questions. I have no idea how "New York" is beyond my tiny little slice of Brooklyn. I am gathering that New York is essentially preindustrial in that most people live in settlements whose geography is defined by the local river (I mean, easily accessible subway routes), and only a few people can afford to feed their mules enough to go any appreciable distance by land (I mean, car). While I am amazed at how much land-starved people can cram into walking distance (and am grateful for the chance to walk more), this seems distinctly primitive.

As for how I feel about the whole thing ... I need more time to develop feelings about this other than, "My little girl is going to miss me!" I am sure those feelings are there, but they haven't surfaced yet. Also, I have not really been able to complete the talismanic rituals that say, "I am here." My faithful desktop/gaming PC, Monica, arrived somewhat the worse for wear, with a cracked subwoofer, monitor that won't adjust, a RAM DIMM whose heat sink cracked off, and a case that is sufficiently battered that it won't close or hold my hard drives anymore. She is still operable, but kind of sad. As I write this, she is is supine atop my 40K models and missing her right side panel, like a surgery patient in stasis. I have been able to stock the kitchen, bring my Honor Harrington pictures out of retirement, and do those other such things, but ... no Monica. So I myself am a little bit in stasis still.

I do have some feelings, but they are mostly impressions. I spent most of the flight over devouring The Night Circus (which I strongly recommend to anybody who enjoys the fantastical, the romantical, or the fantastical romantical - to put it another way, it is the most Natalian book I have read in years), because ever since my sophomore year of college, "west" has been the direction to go. West is chasing the sunset. West is home. East is retrograde motion (though I did take some comfort in the thought that east is also greeting the sunset). I stopped reading to watch the landing out of a sense of duty. There is a moment in any landing that I have never been able to define in which the people and structures below stop being a mere representation of the ground, as you might find on a model train table, and become real - another moment, similarly indefinable, in which one ceases to be "flying" and becomes simply rather high off the ground. A gentle bump, a sense of incredible speed as the air brakes deploy, and then one is down with a finality so real that it takes the brain several minutes to catch up.

In my case, the sense of transmission was marred by my increasingly desperate need to pee.

It was raining when I arrived and wrestled my luggage into the back of a taxi. No city shows itself to its best advantage in the rain, so perhaps Brooklyn can be forgiven if its first impression was rather dismal. Years ago, I remarked to my family how much I hate the brick architecture that dominates the middle colonies, and I found my hatred intact. The red brick seems to suck the light out of even the sunniest streets, and with no unbroken surfaces even the largest buildings seem crowded and cramped. I realized on the cab ride over that it is not just the brick I hate - I also despise block house architecture. On the west coast (except for parts of San Francisco, which I also loathe), lots slope up away from the street. Here, the buildings tend to present themselves straight up and down right from the sidewalk, their baleful monolithic faces making even the broad Brooklyn avenues seem like the urban canyons I have assiduously avoided all my life. On my street the houses (I cannot really think of them as "apartments") at least have stairs that lead up and away from the sidewalk, which has an outsized psychological impact.

I do not intend to write much about my housemates, although I have only positive things to say.

I am very close to Prospect Park, but owing to computer-related issues and staying up practically all night to play the X-Wing miniatures game with my father I didn't get a chance to explore it until fairly recently. I went in search of greenery and a place to practice fencing between lessons (more on that later). I had a much more detailed running narrative in my mind as I wandered, but I'm afraid it has largely devolved into flashes now. I remember trying to remember the wretched east coast humidity and the heat of the sun - really remember, trying to place myself on Nova. The map of the park, glanced over and then ignored. The enormity of the tree branches - not the trees, but the branches, heavy and thick, arcing overhead - I finally understand why trees can be a symbol of strength and not just endurance. The rough-hewn ashlar wall that borders the park, good cover in a firefight. A playground near the 9th St. entrance that Meshparjai would like. The wide open spaces of grass beneath the trees that she might like even more. I pass couples picnicking on the grass, and think, I could bring Thayet here. More children than I have seen in one place in a long, long time. A little girl running through a shower of delicate golden leaves blown in the breeze.

Beyond the children is the so-called Long Meadow, full of actual baseball diamonds occupied by what appear to be pick-up games of baseball. People actually play pick-up baseball here? On the other side of the Long Meadow, inviting and mysterious trees. I wander through them, following the trail as it winds up and down hills. This would be a good place to run, I think. A man who can only run on flat paved surfaces cannot run at all. I relish the sense of being surrounded by trees filled with actual birdsong. I close my eyes and try to add the sounds of monkeys and tigers, again attempting to seize this moment for Nova. This is my life, now, and all life must eventually come to the story, to the game. Somebody has constructed a shelter beneath the canopy, lovingly piled branches against the spine of a fallen tree to form a sort of cave in which are three small logs, clearly intended as benches. It is not my space. I enter anyway and begin to understand how centuries ago people could fall in love with this coast, with its wretched waterlogged air and magnified heat and greenery that is resplendent even now.

There is a road on the other side of the trees, and I cross it. I am on a path again, one that climbs a small hill with three sets of quasimonumental stairs. Somebody put these stairs here with a foreign country in mind, I am certain in that moment. They remind me of Cambodia, not that I have ever been there. The long stone steps actually sag in the middle. Remember that detail. I take the first set of stairs two at a time. I am compelled to jog up the second and third.

I continue to wander and find myself back at the Long Meadow. This time I walk its length, past the baseball games and towards an even greater concentration of children. It must be school, I think, then realize no - these are summer camps. So this is how the children of the city enjoy their resplendent greenery. Near the children is a hillock, the top of which is too shaded for grass by a ring of trees that enclose the space. I remember the walls I excavated at Monte Polizzo and have a similar impression of sacred demarcation. Broken glass is ground into the dirt, but here - this is the spot. I have not yet taken up fencing, and I do not know for sure there will be drills I can do in the early morning if I do, or even if I will be able to get up in the early morning before work - but standing on this spot as the breeze blows back my hair I can see myself, patiently drilling in the morning gloom before the children arrive. It took me two and a half years to get any good at dancing, practicing four and often seven days a week - the only athletic endeavor to which I can compare. I mentally give myself five years to get any good at fencing, and smile at my own optimism.

I leave the ring of trees and wander through the summer camps. The children ignore me and this suits me. Past the picnic house I go, a great brick block in the middle of the park. Now I am on a pathway of grey hexagonal bricks instead of plain asphalt, and this pleases me. I wander until I reach Grand Army Plaza, then turn around to wander back through the park listening to worship songs.

I discover afterwards that I have explored about 25% of the park.

Be'riduurok

Having alluded a number of times to Mando'a now, and finding myself in more of a blogging state of mind lately, I thought I would meditate a bit on what exactly I'm getting out of all of this. Twilight observed recently that the whole Mando thing for me seems bound up in my relationship with Thayet, which is an accurate observation, so I thought it appropriate to determine the traditional Mando marriage vow. This consists of four first person plural declarative sentences. Owing to the time-elasticity of the Mando'a "present" tense, these are both statements of identity and promises of future behavior, but I'll translate in the English present tense.

Mhi solus a tome. Mhi solus dar'tome. Mhi me'dinui an. Mhi bajuri verde.

We are one together. We are one apart. We share all. We raise warriors.

The exchange of these statements is all it takes in Mando law for two people to marry each other. Neither witnesses nor synchronicity are required - if you want to explore the boundaries of what's legally allowed, you can think of it as a sort of offer and acceptance. For example, it wouldn't matter if one person makes the statements via text message on April 3, and the other made them via Skype on April 14, so long as the person who wanted to be married on April 3 still wanted to be married on April 14. Obviously this has not happened in my life, though fortunately for me I don't expect the validity of my marriage to be challenged under Mando law any time soon. And while an exchange of this kind would be super cool, the real significance for me of all this is as a shorthand to encapsulate what I think about marriage.

Mhi solus a tome.
We are one when together. We will be one when together. The value here - and this comes across better in the Mando'a than the English, I think - is as a declaration, a promise. I promise that I will be one with you when we are together. How so one? Not as halves of a person, surely. We are personal, but we are not a person. Only I, only you can be a person. I fall back on the only model I have of the super-personal: if I am to become part of something without diminishing my personhood, it must be something like my heart is part of me. My heart is my heart, separate and distinct and completely described as "my heart," but it is also part of me - and, crucially, while my heart is not less a heart if it is not a part of me, I am less a body if my heart is not a part of it. Of course a heart cannot survive without my body, so the analogy breaks down there. Call it like a family, if you are fortunate enough to know what it is like for a family that is a living, breathing, entity in its own right. I can survive apart from my family (as my heart cannot apart from me), but my family is nevertheless less my family - indeed, less a family, period - if I am not part of it. But - and this is where the heart is perhaps a better analogy after all - while I can survive apart from my family, I am diminished by not having its blood pump through me. Think of it like the Godhead, if you're used to thinking of God as a super-personal entity. God is still God if the Son is not part of God. And the Son is still the Son if it is not part of God. But God is diminished by separation from the Son, and the Son is diminished by separation from God.

When we are one, I think it is because we are part of a super-personal entity that is diminished by the lack of either of us. I am still me whether I am married or not. But I should also diminished by not being part of - by not being one with - that marriage. How so diminished? Not in that I should lack anything I possessed, or was, before I got married. More as if something good and vital pumped through me and is now pumping through me no longer. I cannot think of a very good analogy, but I am reminded of Lewis' observation that Christians have always pictured divorce as more like cutting a body than anything else. Cut off from my marriage, I am still me, but my riduur's blood, which surged through me and nourished me, surges through me no more.

How so together? Together in space and time, certainly. We are never one by default; we must choose to be one and God must give consequence to that choice (more on this in a later post, perhaps?). When we are together in time and space, when we have the opportunity to hold and touch and speak, then of all times we must choose to be one. But also together in beliefs and temperament. When it is easiest to be one, we must choose so to be.

Mhi solus dar'tome.
We are one when apart - or more literally, "not together." As we must choose to be one when it is easiest, so we must choose to be one when it is hardest. When we are not together in space and time. When we are not together in beliefs or temperament.

This is one of the must significant portions of the riduurok to me, and one of the things that drew me to Mando'a when I first discovered it. This sentiment already had a Natalian expression: "I will love you no matter what you do, or who you are." That is essentially how I understand God to love. This is not really even about love so much as the nature of promise. Suppose I promise to make it to my daughter's school play, or fencing match. What conditions are entailed in that promise? What if traffic is just really bad? What if a client has a problem that came up unexpectedly? What if I'm the only person who knows enough to fix it? When do I get to say, "I didn't break my promise. I never promised to make it if X happened."

Maybe some contingencies are implicitly included in a promise like that. If I miss a fencing match because I stopped to help the victim of a hit-and-run to the hospital, I didn't really break my promise, did I? I imagine a lot of people would say I didn't. I think I actually prefer to think that I did break my promise, and hopefully Meshparjai would forgive me.

But what if it isn't a promise to make it to an event? What if it's a promise to love somebody. What contingencies, if any, are implicitly included in a promise like that? One cannot know who another person will be in the next moment, let alone in years to come. If you love dancing together, what if that person later stops dancing? If you love that person's sense of honor, what if their sense of honor evolves to something unrecognizable? If you love their faith in something, what if they lose it? What if their personality changes in a way you would never have predicted and find utterly monstrous? What if? What if?

I recently saw Finding Nemo with Meshparjai, and I am reminded of Marlin's question to Dory: "How do you know something bad won't happen?" Dory's answer: "I don't." We never do, and God certainly offers us no assurances. "Nothing bad will happen" is not among the promises that God makes. So we have two choices. We can either try to anticipate all the things that will make it too hard to love somebody, and carve those out of our promise either explicitly or implicitly, or we can promise to love anyway.

Of course, no matter how thoughtfully we approach the promise, the time will come when we look at our beloved and wail, "I didn't sign up for this!" Something will come up over the course of a love relationship, probably more than once, that causes us to say, "I shouldn't have to love you like this." And we will be right. It will be something that nobody should have to love anybody else through. But for myself, I am ashamed to seize the excuse that fairness offers when I remember that Jesus had the opportunity to do as much for me, and refused. Why? Because he promised to love me, no matter what. Even when it was unfair. Even when it was unjust. Even when he got nothing out of our relationship. Even when acting on his love was to his personal detriment.

Insert the obligatory caveat about God being perfect and us not being perfect and not being God and blah blah blah here. But by God, I can try. Mhi solus dar'tome.

Mhi me'dinui an.
Share. We will ... share. Share what? Property, certainly. I think separate property regimes are fundamentally at odds with what marriage is. To be honest, I don't feel nearly as much pride about the fact that California recognizes my right to, say, religious freedom as I do about the fact that California recognizes that I do not earn income. We do.

So property, yes, of course. Do we share dreams? I don't mean hold dreams in common, though may there ever be dreams that we do. I mean do we tell each other about our dreams? Do we share our feelings? Do we communicate? We won't by default. It must be promised. What about when we're trying to avoid a fight? What about when what we have to share is only anger and hatred for each other? What about when we are empty and drained, and have nothing to share? Do we promise to share all, even then? I think we should. Mhi me'dinui an.

Mhi bajuri verde.
What makes a warrior? The silent workmanlike butchery of the Spartans? The refusal to admit defeat of the Romans? The passion of the Picts? Is it skill at arms, a strong spiritual core? Is it to embrace the desire to see one's enemies utterly destroyed? An ethic of victory that offers mercy to the vanquished? Esprit de corps?

I like to meditate on this question, but if I had to put down an answer, I would say that a warrior is praus as Jesus was praus (link). My understanding of that begins with a true assessment of what is a threat and what is not. I understand Jesus to have been a person who knew that many things that most people would think are threats in fact are not, and thus require no violent response. I also understand Jesus to be somebody who would fuck your shit up if you actually were a threat. I don't want Meshparjai to be a "violent" woman. But I do want her to be a woman of force. I want her to be the kind of woman who is serene in the face of things that would drive others into fits - but when she is presented with a real threat, I want her to have the will and the skill to obliterate it with absolute finality, with utter suddenness and unfettered by notions of fair play.

But of course, not just Meshparjai. And not just her siblings, God willing that she have any. I do not rear only the blood of my blood, but all children who come into my life. And as the childrearing lessons I teach my children are passed on to their friends, I rear those children as well.

So how so bajuri verde? On the one hand, by teaching her the skills of force. I would identify these, at least, as skills of force: How to kill, how to explain one's beliefs, how to question one's beliefs, how to acquire new beliefs, how to pray, how to engage demons. And on the other hand, by teaching her how, when, and why to use those skills. By teaching her just who Jesus was and was not, and in what way he was praus.

On Easter

Every year at Easter I am struck by how hard it is to get into the Easter spirit. I'm not even sure what the "Easter spirit" is. The Christmas spirit, by contrast, is so easy to define and get into that it can be found at events like Dickens Fair, where I'd be surprised if even 50% of the workers care (or even agree) that God invaded the world.

My strongest memories of Easter are of uncomfortable little-boy clothes, bizarre rituals, and awkward family gatherings. There were certainly fun parts of Easter growing up (such as the morning search for the Easter basket), but on the whole, Easter was a rather unhappy holiday for me. Now, there's an argument to be made for Easter not being a joyous holiday, but how are you supposed to get into a holiday that's unhappy?

Of course, there's an argument to be made for it to be a joyous holiday too, but I've never really been able to get 100% behind that. As an adult, the adjective that feels to me most appropriate to Easter is shell-shocked. A previously dead man is no longer dead. The executed deity is no longer executed. The one who descended into hell is no longer in hell. Those are good things ... I guess? My honest reaction to those things is not joy. It's more like just ... whoa.

When I need a handy lens through which to think about Christmas, I tell myself a Phoenix Earth story, where Alaen Kerona relates to Mackenzie Taylor what it was like to be there on Christmas night, when the armies of heaven were for just one brief moment unleashed on the world and battered a hole in the serried ranks of the enemy to allow the First to be born as a baby. For what? Nobody knew. Those were their orders; not for them to know why. And I think of the angels of the expeditionary force witnessing that invasion after millennia of fighting a losing battle and, even if they didn't know why it was coming, I can easily imagine myself standing on the sidelines shouting myself hoarse, roaring, "Go! Go, you magnificent bastards, go!"

When I need a handy lens through which to think about Easter, I don't really have one. I know the theology, just like I know the theology about Christmas, but trust is not maintained by knowledge alone. I'd almost venture to say the opposite: that the fabric of trust is primarily emotional, propped up and given stability by knowledge.

But I did have a thought today, walking Meshparjai to the store to pick up ingredients for an Easter salad. I was struggling with something that might make sense but that I don't want to do. It was (is?) all mixed up with outrage at other people, my dreams for what might have been, my fears for what might not be, but God directed my gaze, as always, at one particular aspect of my emotional hurricane - the pride that says, "I shouldn't have to do this." Maybe that shouldn't be the most salient fact. But, funny thing about being a Christian, pride always seems to become the most salient fact.

And I realized - or God pointed out to me - that, "I shouldn't have to do this" is a very Easter-y dilemma. Invading occupied Earth, well, that's one thing. Anybody can get behind liberating occupied territory. But then the liberation turns out to require the better to die for the worse. And ... well, you shouldn't have to do that.

I imagine that at some point the observing angels must have realized what their master and commander meant to do. I think of Alaen Kerona realizing what the point of the invasion had been all along, and thinking to herself, "He shouldn't have to do this." Reading the Gospels, I'm pretty sure that Jesus felt that way in Gethsemane, and it wasn't even a secret to him. Just ... it's one thing to commit to do something in the future, and another to stare at it from inches away.

And - and perhaps here's the most important thing to me - I agree that he shouldn't have had to do this. As any number of thinkers (mostly skeptics, perhaps) have pointed out over the years, God doesn't need people (or, if you don't think God exists, God shouldn't need people, were he to exist). If the nature of God is such that people can choose to walk away from him, and they do, well ... they made their own bed, right? Let them lie in it. If any of them have regrets down the line, well, we all have regrets in life, and you can't undo the consequences of your past actions.

It's the world we live in - and the world, I think, that we all accept. In my younger and crueler days (at least I hope I become less cruel as I grow older) I would look at parents dealing with broken teenagers and shake my head because, hey, it's too late. If you don't have a strong home by the time your kid is fifteen, well, it's too late to fix it now. It's too late to fix it when your kid is five. Heck, my kid is fifteen months, and you know what? It's too late to fix the mistakes I've already made. It's always too late to fix the past. All we can do is pick up the pieces and move on as best we can.

Isn't that how we all live? It's sad, but we accept it, don't we? How many of us really think that it needs fixing? Because that's the main theological point of Easter, I think - that it never has to be too late. For a better man to die for a worse man - a better man who doesn't need the worse man in the least - to fix something we are pretty much all okay living with, well ... he shouldn't have to do that. Who among us hasn't felt the power of that simple protest? I shouldn't have to do this.

And maybe you shouldn't. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I don't. Maybe there's nothing requiring me, or us, to do it, than our own natures. And yet ... I shouldn't have to do this! Even when the only person demanding you do something is yourself, the power of I shouldn't have to do this can stop you cold.

Perhaps the spirit of Easter is overcoming that protest, that last ditch scream of an outraged pride. If Alaen Kerona had been at Gethsemane, I don't think she would have understood everything that was going on. And overcoming my own pride isn't going to create the possibility of redemption for the world.

But it may create a bit of the Kingdom in my own family's sphere. And isn't that what I should do? Isn't that what any good buir would do - isn't that, in fact, what makes a buir?

Last night Meshparjai and I saw a bit of Peter Pan. She lost interest, but I think I needed to see it. I needed to hear Mrs. Darling say once more that Mr. Darling was a brave man.

Says Wendy in the cruelty of youth, "Father. Brave."

"There are many kinds of bravery," her mother replies. "There is the bravery of thinking of others before oneself. Now, your father has never ... brandished a sword, nor - nor fired a pistol, thank heavens!* But he has made many sacrifices, and put away many dreams."

Michael perks up. "Where did he put them?"

"Why ... he put them in a drawer. And sometimes, late at night, we take them out and admire them. But it gets harder and harder to close the door. He does. And that is why he is brave."

* A good buir, of course, should be able to brandish a sword and fire a pistol. Working on it. Funds are presently lacking.

A Dalyc'ade Kotla'shya

It is late, and behind me, Meshparjai sleeps on the couch while Kendall Payne plays on my iPhone. We have just finished watching Tinker Bell.

Meshparjai is almost sixteen months old now. She walks, she climbs, she begins to run. She begins to speak, and certainly understands some of the words that Thayet and I use. Mostly those words are English. When we are alone, I still speak some mando'a. In part it is for my own practice. But only in part.

There is a Mando saying, "Raise your children: raise your sons to be strong, but your daughters to be stronger." The Natalian appeal should be obvious, but it's probably less obvious that there's nothing about Mando culture that is pro-female or anti-male. This is one of the many reasons the Mando mindset appeals to me. It's ... a lens, I guess, through which to process my fatherhood.

In what does fatherhood consist? When I vowed to Thayet, "Mhi bajuri verde" (well, in my heart anyway; I try to avoid vocalizing too much Mando stuff lest it become silly), what exactly did I have in mind for a sixteen month old? She still needs her diapers changed and the turmoils of babyhood soothed, but now that she begins to understand ... what? How do you teach a sixteen month old to be a lady knight, a verd mandokarla?

I can't articulate an answer to that doesn't seem immediately incomplete. But I can name little things to do. Sing to her songs that explain who Jesus is. Watch movies and read books that dream of a better place than here - so she will know that here can be made better.