Discarding Friends

Preface: The other night I reread some essays that I wrote several years ago. Going back is something very difficult for someone who likes to write. Seldom do the words hold up. Anytime I finish an essay I leave the computer convinced of its brilliance.  If I go back and look at the same piece the next day it doesn’t nearly seem so perfect- suddenly I am filled with a desire to change and tweak it. That is after just one day, so imagine what goes through my mind when I reread something that written years earlier.  One essay did capture my attention. The writing may not be as good as it once was…but I am sharing it with you today (in exactly the way it was originally written) because it spoke to something that’s been on my mind recently. I will get to those thoughts in a post script.

 

 

Discarding Friends

Last night I spent several hours last night working on a project that 
really should have been routine. It wasn’t. 

At the end I was overcome by an enormous sense of guilt and incredible feeling of sadness.

It all started with the purchase of a new phonebook. It’s something that was long overdue. My current directory was given to me as a gift after graduating college. It is more than nine years old.

Do you get sentimental about inanimate objects? I do.

Yes, it was just a phonebook, but I loved the thing. It’s made by out of softest brown leather, had a binder that allowed me to add more pages and had plenty of places to put business cards and pens.

After several years of loyal service, the phonebook fell apart. The binder stopped closing all the way. Some of the pages tore apart. The leather was scratched and cracked.

So my project last night was simple. All I had to do was copy the names and numbers of all my friends from the old book into the new one.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that this simple project would actually take a lot of work. My old book stores the information of more than three hundred people. Their names serve as a time capsule of my life. Those inscribed in ink are my friends; at least they were once upon a time. Now, all these years later, it just didn’t make sense to transfer some of them into the new book.

David Ambo was the first to go. I’ve known him since kindergarten but haven’t talked to him, haven’t seen him in years. The number written down next to his name is for his parents’ home. I am pretty sure they moved a few years ago. If I needed to, I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with David. However as I looked at his name, I realized I’d probably never again really need to get in touch with him. David Ambo didn’t make the cut.  

Others would soon join him in the reject pile. They were classmates in high school and college. They were colleagues from my first few jobs. They were women I had dated, even some who I use to have serious feelings for. They were in short the names of people who once played a huge role in my life, but are now basically strangers. I may have discarded them from my phone book just last night, but I actually discarded their friendships a long time ago.

You cannot come to that conclusion without feeling a little bit guilty. I know that the phone works both directions, but I feel like most of the blame goes to me. Why didn’t I keep in touch with these people? Was I really so busy that I couldn’t afford a few moments to pick up the phone? Why, after forgetting all about them, do I suddenly miss their faces?

When I came to Ken Pritchett’s space in the old phonebook I almost started to cry. The two of us worked together at one of the worst television stations in the country. The bond we built has to be something similar to what war-buddies go through; the situation around you is so bad that you need friends just to get by. It would be fun to talk to Ken, we could trade stories of “the good old days,” but sadly that is not going to happen. Ken’s number was outdated too.

The project taught me a lot about friendship. We all go through life collecting people. We choose some because we share interests or goals. We choose others because we have to…they’re family. The vast majority of the people we collect are chosen out of proximity. We like to be around them because they’re near us. Access makes maintaining a friendship so much easier.

Of the three hundred names only about a third made the transition into my new phonebook. I am grateful for those friends who are still in my life. But one day, perhaps nine years from now, it will be time to buy another directory and I cannot help but wonder how many of these individuals will move with me again.

My night started off by getting sentimental over a material possession. It saddened me to think that I would be losing something so familiar. By the end of the project, I knew that some of the most familiar parts of my life were already gone.

Post Script: One of my favorite stories in the Bible is that of Ruth. She was a young widow who chose to continue to live with her former mother in-law. Ruth made the decision even though she was given the opportunity to go on with her life, to perhaps remarry and fall love again but she told her mother-in-law “no.” She told her mother-in-law “I will go wherever you go.” When I first read it I came to the conclusion that the story was in the Bible because it was a sign of the devotion people once had for each other. I know thing it is the Bible because Ruth’s actions, even for the period she lived, were unusual. People just don’t make those types of commentiments, not now…and not back then either.

  A couple of years after writing the piece above I went through one of the most difficult periods of my life- basically the equvilant of a divorce. What’s funny is the people who helped me the most weren’t even recorded in the old phone book. I didn’t need to write down their numbers, because I already knew them by heart. The people who came through for me, when I needed them the most, were my family. That’s not to say that I don’t praise and give thanks for the friendships that have blessed my life- I do! It is instead to say that those relationships do not compare with the bond of having the same last name.  Being a part of a family that supports you in troubles is to know a richness that some wealthy people don’t understand.

 

 A week ago I was asked to talk to about 4 hundred college aged Christians If you would like to hear a copy of that speech just click on this link. http://www.portcitychurch.org/overflowseries.php

The Forehead

During his recent visit I asked my dad a question.  It was supposed to be nothing morethen small talk. All I wanted to know was how the Army family was doing.

 One of the best parts of my childhood was its stability. Things just never seemed to change, especially in the neighborhood where we grew up. Year after year the names that occupied the houses up and down my street stayed the same. The family down the road was really just an extension of your own.

 For more than a quarter of a century the Armys lived directly next door.  They had two boys around my age. One was a year older; the other was two years younger.  Some of the best memories of my youth deal with all the chaos the three of us created in the neighborhood. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to either of them and was hoping my father could provide a progress report.

 “It’s funny you should bring them up.” My dad responded.  “Mom just talked to Mrs. Army last week. Their divorce just got finalized.”

He said it with such a matter-of-fact tone that he clearly didn’t realize the bombshell he was dropping in my lap. It took a few seconds to figure things out. He wasn’t talking about my old friends, both of whom are now married. Instead he was referring to the parents.  Mr. and Mrs. Army had called it quiets! Until that moment I didn’t even know that the two of them were separated or that any of this was in the works.

From the outside it appeared like they were living on easy street. They had it made. They had acquired what everyone else is working towards.  They had both retired.  The Armys sold their home next door and bought another in Northern Michigan as well as a condo in Florida.  They had crossed responsibility’s finish line; the kids were grown, the bills were paid, their time was now their own. They had arrived at that magical place where they could just sit back and enjoy life….but apparently, not with each other.

He took the condo in Florida. She got the house in Michigan and her old name back. Things  had become that bitter. After decades of being Mrs. Army, she wanted nothing more to do with his identity.

 People in their 60’s, with nearly 40 years of matrimony behind them and no worries in front of them just don’t get divorced. Actually they do and it’s happening a lot these days.

By no means are the Armys alone. I just did a Google search on this topic and found an article that talks about the increased divorce rate in senior citizens. In 2006 nearly three thousand so called “long term marriages” broke up. One expert is quoted as saying that “raising children and paying off the mortgage unites a couple but once those burdens are lifted, more and more seniors are discovering that they really have nothing else in common.”

Is that what happened to the Army family? My guess is that both of them would probably tell you it was more complicated than that. Maybe they’d suggest that even though their divorce just became official that their union really ended years earlier. Perhaps they’d speak of how easy and tempting it is to fall into the trap of just sharing an address but never really sharing a life.

You don’t have to be a senior to understand that. Many of us have learned that lesson. Personally, I know it all too well.

Shortly after creating Adam, God looked around and determined that man shouldn’t be alone.  To fill the void he first created animals and birds only to determine that we required something more. So he brought women into the picture.  Eve, simply put, was introduced to fight off loneliness.

If there is one universal phobia, it is the fear of being alone. Yes, there are introverts and extroverts, but at the core we all long to share our lives. When circumstances prevent that, we look for substitutes: animals and birds, dogs and cats or maybe we just try to keep our schedules jam-packed with activities. If we’re busy we may not notice that we’re alone.

Sometimes we want another person in our lives so desperately, at least I’ll admit to this, that we settle just for the appearance of having it. Even though companionship is what we are really after we try to make due with just being part of a couple- getting involved with someone where there really is no connection. That’s when we learn one of the harshest lessons that life has to offer; you can be just as lonely inside a relationship as you can outside of one.    

 

The news of the Army’s divorce should bring out my cynical nature. I should be swearing off marriage and taking a vow never to get serious with any one else. It’s tempting, but I had another conversation last week that gives me hope.

 One of my coworkers has recently started going to my church.  He told me that his attendance has drastically changed his marriage. “The two of us now pray together.” He went on to describe their new nightly ritual.  The husband and wife kneel down across from each other, leaning slightly forward so their foreheads will touch.   

 I’ve taken part in locker room conversations. I have heard men go on and on about “she did this to me,” or “I did this to her.” And yet it is the image of these two foreheads that makes me the most jealous. I’ve never honestly known that kind of touch. I’ve never known that type of intimacy.

It’s funny, but I never thought to ask what they were praying for.  Somehow it just didn’t seem to matter. Certainly it’s likely that they were coming together to petition God’s help in certain areas of their lives.  Who knows, maybe they even had the same problems that eventually broke up the Army family. And still it didn’t matter. I wasn’t the slightest bit worried about them. These two had it figured out.

Even with the example of a retreating Army, more than ever part of me wants to get back in the game.  This time I think I know what to look for. Yeah beauty and brains are important, but this time I am going strictly for the body. I even know how to tell the guys in the locker room about my next conquest; “Man, you should check out the forehead on this woman!”

 

 Share your comments on the following Questions

1.     Are you afraid of being alone?

2.     Have you ever started a relationship knowing it lacked a connection

3.     Do your pray with your spouse?

 

 I have an invitation for all of you in the Wilmington area. On Tuesday, September 16, I will be speaking at Overflow at Port City Community Church. My friend Evan  Vetter and I will be discussing the debate that goes on between believers and nonbelievers.  I hope to see you there.

Continuum

As soon as the caller id revealed who was on the other line my heart stopped beating. Why was dad calling now? This couldn’t be good news. As a lifelong workaholic it’s against his nature to try to reach someone while they’re on the job. This had to be an emergency. Otherwise it would have waited until I got home.

The time it took to flip open the phone and accept the call was immeasurable- less than a split second. Yet it was long enough for the worse possible thoughts to develop in my mind. What was I thinking leaving my toddler son alone with a 70 year-old man? There are days I can’t even keep up with this little boy. What chance did a senior citizen who has undergone two knee replacements have?  Dad had to be calling to inform me that he lost my son at the park or foolishly left him alone in the pool.

“Ah, Brody keeps asking me something, but I don’t understand what he’s saying.” Fortunately the motive for the call was far less tragic. Dad simply wanted me to talk to my three-year-old boy and interpret his words. The breakdown in communication had something to do with the fact that the old man had never heard of the Transformers or its lead character: a robot named Optimus Prime. Without that background information he had no clue what his grandson was asking.

One of the most amazing parts of raising a child is the discovery that so much of their development is instinctive.  As a parent you fool yourself into thinking that you are going to teach them everything they need to know. In reality they are born with a great amount of knowledge…and some of it is stuff you wished they’d never learned. Where does it come from?

Brody has only seen his grandfather on five previous occasions. Their relationship is the product of a modern America where families live further and further apart. The first two visits happened shortly after my son was born. Undoubtedly he has no memory of them. A year has passed since the last visit with only an occasional phone conversation in between. And yet this boy understands what grandparents are all about.  Deep within his being is the knowledge that these old people can be manipulated in ways his dad cannot. “Take me to the store Grandpa and buy me a transformer.”

 This week I’ve really seen a bond grow between the two. That may have something to do with the fact that one is totally spoiling the other, but I think it’s more than that. Both of them clearly see and understand that they are part of the same link. That they are in fact connected together in a human chain reaction.

For the boy it’s about the past. A sense of where he came from. Something he can really only get from his grandparents. Shortly after my father arrived Brody showed him a generation photograph of the three of us. It was taken on a previous visit. Perhaps he wanted to remind the old man that the two of them had met before. “Look that’s you and me,” he told his grandpa. He also wants to make sure that I understand the importance of this visitor. Several times this week he’s pointed to the gray haired man and whispered to me; ‘That’s your father. He’s your dad! His name is Jack. Jack Wahl!”

For the old man the bond has everything to do with the future.  It is impossible for me to fully know or understand the joys associated with becoming a grandparent. My hunch though is that it has a lot to do with being part of a continuum. The younger generation is part of my father’s legacy. It is the assurance that in some ways his own life, not to mention his name, will go on long after he has died. He’s done his job. He was a begater.

One of the most boring sections of the bible is in those areas when the history of Israel is broken down into a series of names: Judas begat Phares and Phares begat Esrom and Esrom begat Aram and so on and so forth.  There must be some scholars who find this all fascinating but most of us don’t.  We’d rather just gloss over the funny sounding names and the phonebook style of writing in the hopes of getting to something better, something- ANYTHING- that pertains to our modern day life.

Some of the names in the biblical chain are well known, but most are not. I’ve always kind of felt sorry for those stuck somewhere between Abraham and David or Solomon and Jesus. It is as if history has reduced their entire life to just a cameo…just footnotes and afterthoughts. All their accomplishments, if they had any, proved in the end to be insignificant. What kind of an epithet is just a name?

 Maybe, on second thought, maybe it’s a pretty good one.

If for the boy the Wahl family chain is all about the past and for the old man it’s all about the future…well, for me then it’s about the present. My little link is vital. I am what both of them have in common. My existence is what made their interaction possible. Without me this week would never have happened. Somehow that seems to give my life more purpose. It is the type of happiness and joy that only comes when you lose yourself…when you become a part of something so much bigger. 70 years ago my grandfather begat Jack and then Jack begat Doug and Doug begat Brody. What more do you need to know about me?

Yesterday it was time to take another generation photograph. No visit is complete without one.  The three of us, along with a friend who owns a bunch of expensive camera equipment, traveled to Greenfield Lake. The photographer arranged us with Brody sitting in between his two older relatives. Camera guys think symmetrically. Big , little, big just seems more artistic to them.  The photo turned out great, but next time I am going to insist we are positioned in chronological order. Instead of being on the end I want my rightful potion. I rather like being stuck in the middle.   

 

For those of you who care to comment this week, I am asking you to share your stories of the relationships between your children and parents.

Earlier this week I wrote about Hurricane Gustav. Right now it is Hannah and instead of going to the Gulf Coast it is coming our way…with Ike right behind her. Please keep the Carolinas in your prayers. Check back on Monday for the next Off the Wahl Column

 

 

The Storm

As I write this the television set is on. It’s tuned to CNN.  For the last several hours the network has focused its coverage on Hurricane Gustav. Once again the Louisiana coast is being threatened by a major storm.

It’s almost surreal, like we’re being haunted by the past. We’ve seen this before, not all that long ago; the video of people clutching their most precious belongings and packing them into a suitcase, the pictures of cars cluttering the highway- all traveling in the same direction, the boarded up windows, the deserted streets and the weather guy pointing to this huge cloud taking an all too familiar course.

 Who could look at these images without thinking of Katrina?

In the background right now is a story being broadcast on the future of New Orleans? They’ve interviewed so called experts, a psychologist and socialist, both are predicting that this storm could be the end of the city. “If it’s powerful enough,” one of them tells the reporter, “than New Orleans will become Atlantis, or at the very least America’s first metropolitan ghost town.

That is what many of us thought three years ago.

It’s not my favorite topic of conversation, but when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast I was living in Louisiana. Whenever someone finds out where I use to live and when I was there they inevitably ask me about the storm. It’s human nature. People like hearing first hand accounts. They want to know if the devastation was as bad as it looked on television.

For me it’s always an embarrassing subject. At times I feel a little like a veteran of a war who avoids speaking of the past. He suffers from the realization that he was lucky when others weren’t. To even talk about his experience seems like he is dishonoring their memory.

 Yeah, in Katrina my family had it bad, but comparatively speaking; it wasn’t all that bad

Living roughly 90 miles from the Gulf the storm lost much of its strength by the time it hit our home. Oh, the winds were still powerful enough to knock down power lines. We went without electricity for close to a week. Hundreds of dollars of food was thrown away, but others didn’t know where their next meal was coming from.

In the backyard a pretty good size tree was blown over, pulling up from its roots. Had it toppled on the house there would have been big problems. Instead it fell in the other direction. To me the branches, the leaves, the kicked up soil was just one big nuisances, meanwhile others were anxiously sifting through the debris in front of their own homes looking for something- anything- to salvage.

Inside it was impossible to walk in the living room without stepping on one my in laws. In the first few days seven distant relatives were staying with us. Two of them, including my mother-in-law, set up camp for more than month. She is a challenging personality who knows how to push my buttons. It’s one of her favorite past times. Looking back she added to the stress of that period, but others didn’t even known where their relatives were or if they were living or dead.

A resident of the 9^th ward is on the screen now. He’s telling reporters that regardless of what happens he is going to come back. “I returned three years ago, and I’ll return again. This is my home.”

I think that man understands something that is lost on many others. It is certainly lost on the psychologist and socialist…it was lost on me too.  Shortly after Katrina I started a massive job hunt. I wanted to get away from the destruction, from the air of depression that was gripping the state. I also wanted to make sure never to go through anything like that again.

When the job in Wilmington came open, I almost didn’t apply. Who’d want to move to another coastal community? Who’d want to run the risk of having it happen again?

That’s the attitude many of us take after a storm has disrupted our lives. It really doesn’t matter what kind of storm it is either. Our main goal is avoidance. Get away! Have you ever sworn off love after a painful breakup? Never again will this happen to me. Never again will I put myself in a position to be hurt.

Life can easily turn into one big game of dodge ball. “Got to keep moving! Stay on your tows! Be alert!”  And maybe you get lucky and survive, but the strategy does nothing to slow down the onslaught of the balls

For me it came to a point came where I just looked at a map and realized it doesn’t matter where I moved…there’s always going to be a storm on the horizon. Other than Wilmington, the options were job offers from Tornado Alley, snow covered Vermont and earthquake prone California. Each direction had the possibility of doom.

 The book of Mathew tells us instead of trying to runaway; put your focus on the ground you’re standing in. Stop dodging and brace yourself for the hit. You can, you really can,  survive any storm, even a hurricane, when you  place your feet on something solid rock and stay away from the sand.

That man in the 9^th ward knows this. A CNN camera got a shot of him finally evacuating. As he walked out his front door, towards his car, he passed a boarded up window that he turned into a work of art. Written in green spray paint were the words: “Bring it on Gustav. We’re ready!”

Anyone who saw him drive away into an uncertain future had to come to the same conclusion. Who could doubt that he will honor his promise and return? For this man, and many others like him, the storm is really not all that powerful. Oh, it may do a lot of damage, but in the end it lacks the strength to rattle their foundation

The rains will come down. The stream will raise and overflow. The wind will blow and beat against us, but as Mathew wrote that doesn’t mean we have to fall.

   Questions

1.     Is there a big storm in your life right now

2.     Have you ever tried to avoid a storm? How did that work?

3.     What foundation are your feet planted in right now.

Hope you enjoy the holiday. My dad is in town right for the week.  I am enjoying the visit, but it’s pretty clear that it’s more about seeing his grandson than me. That’s okay. I’ll cope.  It has been fascinating seeing the two of them interact. In fact I think it’s taught me a lot about family. I explore that on Wednesday in a Colum called the Continuumin.