67.

[on men and boys and the space in between]

this isn't really a post about men and boys. i suppose it's more of a post on growing up and finding wisdom and the never-ending search that should be sparked in that journey. i did some driving today in God's country - hills and fading reds and yellows, cows and barns, and all the things that made me want to explore the realities of farm living and hard working nodded to me as i passed by as an observer from point a to b. I can say that it is in those moments that I see God and think that maybe he had a hand in this beauty that we forget we live in. then, after some more driving, i got some time to sit still, to listen, to talk, and to try to bring all the thoughts and experiences i have cataloged over the past week and a half into a purview of living. we talked about our hearts as me and this lovely friend of mine often do. our hearts are our engines, driving us forward through intellectual passions and emotional risks all the same. at some point in thinking on desires, demands, and detours that were unexpected (both disappointing and joyfully surprising) we started talking about living. the art of growing up to soon, learning what we need, and wanting what we deem nonexistent.

when i was younger my daddy had a best friend who he admired. all i ever heard him say of this friend was, "now he's a good man." i wondered, and still wonder, what kind of weight that statement carried. to be a good man, or woman for that matter, what does that entail?

there are, of course, the basics: kindness, respect for others, and an understanding of hard work. it seems to me though, my ideas of good men and good women (be it fair or unfair) hold something more than these basic tenants. Mr. Dan, my dad's best friend, he was an older man with scars and bruises from living. what i think i have come to identify as part of this goodness is this element of experience. C. S. Lewis says that "Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn." now how Mr. Dan attained the elements of being a good man in my daddy's view was that he had learned about life by living it. we all live, some of us live lives that are blessed and don't' have to experience loss. our lives are never shaken up to the degree to which we have to suddenly reconfigure all that we thought we knew, or were supposed to know. there is something in this loss though, in this process of putting our realities back together and learning to understand life in a new way, learning what it means to not stop living, not give up, and keep forging through with grace and dignity that i think is inseparable from understanding another element of being a man or being a woman. there is something inherent in the event of loss that demands we step up and move forward and begin engaging in life on another level of the unknown. we work hard until that level becomes more familiar...it becomes our life. in this process we learn, my God do we learn. there is something involved in loss that siphons out the man or woman that is in the boy or the girl. it brings to surface the strengths that we never before recognized and it teaches us about living, it teaches us how to see, and it reminds us that giving up isn't an option. something in there too makes us see outside of ourselves, look forward and up and all around and embrace responsibility. our responsibility to ourselves, others, and the world. it is almost as if, in my experience, loss breeds a selflessness that is bound up in what it means to be good. we have to grow up. we have to be a man, a woman.

i think of the values that were pieced together and infused into my story. my mom and dad didn't have easy lives - they are survivors and hard workers. they aren't quitters, theirs isn't a self-pitying slow-moving existence. they understand hardship and from that have been fortunate to learn what goodness means and have learned to celebrate and appreciate joy and good fortune. they grew up, they got big, and then they found each other then did this life together. all the country songs that ring truest in my heart are about loss and wisdom...about a learned appreciation of life, loves, and experience that were borne from the slightest element of loss.

i've given years of thought to what it means to be good. i doubt i'll ever really know, but tonight with my great friend, with our stories, with our shared experiences, i think i've taken a step closer to understanding another element of my Truth of goodness. there seems to be something inseparable, at the very least, of challenge, or of loss to some degree, and becoming a man or a woman. deciding what kind of man or woman, the goodness, is all a matter of our choices in moving forward and the experiences on which our foundations are established. i'm aware that this living isn't about having the answers, well my living anyway, but it is always about the journey and that it's always about learning. i'm growing up, getting bigger, seeking wisdom, but i'm shifting and changing with the hills and the fireflies and i'm hoping for more glimpses of truth along my journeys.