When I was a young man and newly married, also being at the same time a poor college student, I did not want or need the burden of another child to raise. Our first had arrived just eleven months after the wedding. I did, however, want to have sex with my wife. The answer, of course, was contraception, and the most obvious solution was “rubbers,” as we called them then. …
Our current news focus on the Penn State athletic department has likely caused a lot of people to reflect on bygone shame. I am one of those who has. The following is a personal experience I have never written about. Moreover I have not spoken about it with any parent, relative, spouse, or friend. So why am I about to tell of it now, and publish it on the Internet with my actual name? I do not know. And as i begin to write, I wonder if I may change my mind and keep it as a private account. Time will tell. …
He had served in the U.S. Navy in World War Two. His ship had been in battle, with many killed and injured. He was among the injured. He wasn’t killed, but they thought he would be dead soon. They must care for the ones who had a chance. Unconscious, they rolled him into a room that was out of the way. The men of the ship had a name for this room. It was “Saint Peter’s Room.” My friend told afterward that he kidded the medics for putting him in Saint Peter’s Room when he didn’t need to be there. He recovered from his wounds and lived a long life afterward. …
I was asked for advice by a young man. He did not specify what kind. He may have had in mind his career, or his health, or relationships, or politics, or religion, or any other subject. Not knowing, I took it as open ended and that he was interested in any lessons learned or words of wisdom I might wish to have heard and heeded when I was his age.
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The scene is still there in memory from 1959. I can play it, pause it, rewind it, replay it. Everything except erase it.
The store keeper's teenage daughter was at their home next door. The country store was downstairs and the family lived upstairs above it. She was out in the back yard beside a dirt pile the size of a small truck. She with a heavy digging maddock and swinging furiously, desperately at this pile. A rather pretty girl who had "gotten herself" pregnant with a high school boy. Neither of them had wanted this, nor had his parents or hers, nor had their churches, or this small farming community. Nor had I, their young college student part-time pastor.
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People have body language and so do cars. When you ride a bicycle, as I do, you notice the body language of cars. I noticed one yesterday. I was holding up his progress, and I could tell he was restless back behind me. As soon as it was clear up ahead, his engine roared and tires screeched and he was off to beat me up the road and show me who was boss. Although he had 200 or more horsepower and I am not as strong as even one horse. But this guy acts like it's something great that he can outrun a bicycle.
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When bears fight, they usually keep on until there is a winner and a loser. If you are a human being watching, it is sometimes hard to tell who is ahead. Bear fighting is similar to wrestling, and most of us don't understand the point system. The bears do. The loser knows he is loosing, and the winner knows he is winning. And when the winner wins, he declares it in a very strange way. He turns his back to the loser bear and calmly walks away from the field of battle. To us, this can look like he was the defeated bear and is admitting it by retreating. Actually it is a show of strength and quiet confidence.
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Today I drove again on Sligo Creek Parkway and past its intersection with Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. I remembered again being halted here by a minor accident. I remember it vividly, because standing beside the bent fender of his new car was a grown man crying. He was crying as in wiping tears from his wet face. He was middle aged and dressed well, wearing glasses, and Asian in appearance. I was touched by this sight, and remember it every time I pass this spot. This has gone on for over 25 years.
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If you're on a long, time-dragging flight and listening to music on your iPod, your eyes might wander. Wander several rows ahead and across the aisle and across the woman's shoulder there who was reading. She was reading carefully and turning pages slowly and deliberately, I saw. I also saw that the reading material was one of those magazines that present themselves to you as you stand in the supermarket checkout line. …
I was hiking on a lakeshore trail in a nearby state park. Ahead was a small wooden bridge across a stream. Several good steps and you would be across this bridge. But crossing it on this early morning, I noticed something that brought me to a stop. Someone had written something there. I imagined it to be the hand of a young boy. But instead of "fuck you" or "parents suck" it was something strangely different.
"I love you!"
As I walked on, I began pondering this message. It was not addressed to anyone. Usually you would expect a name attached. "I love you, Mary!" Or Jane, or Sally . . . someone with a name.
Was the boy shy? Did he want to leave the message anonymous, so he could point it out to any girl he brought and claim it was to her? Or could his love have been for another boy, and no girl at all? Or was this message more of a wish than a reality? He felt love, but his love had no name to attach to? Or could he have just been happy on a bright, sunny day and in love with life and with everyone? I kept wondering because there were all these possibilities, and no way to tell for sure about any of them.
However, I vote for the bright, sunny day. A day with an exclamation mark beside it. A day when love was an overwhelming feeling that had to be written down, even on a bridge. A day when it was free and unbounded, including all the world and the entire human race.
I know this sounds like nonsense. I know such writing was not placed by the head of the local chamber of commerce, kneeling down on those boards in his business suit and tie. It is nonsense for sure to him. This is the work of a child, we assume. It must have been a child, we assume. Thus we make it childish and foreign to our practical lives.
Sometimes on televised football games the camera shows a person in the end zone holding a sign saying "John 3:16"–the location of a verse in the Bible. The person wants us to get a Bible and read that verse. He believes it will do us some good. Perhaps it will for, if I recall correctly, this passage begins "God so loved the world . . .." So in this theology it is god-like to love the world, but that is in theory. It seems that the majority of god-fans don't see it that way. Their god loves their particular portion of the world–their country or tribe or religion or ethnic group, or whatever.
Speaking before a fundraiser for his political party, Newt Gingrich recently declared: "I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous!" In this view it is every country for itself, and may the best country win. Or it is every race or language group for itself. Or it is every social or religious group for itself. And so we always at war, one against another. So it goes, and so it goes.
Human love, if we have any, tends to narrow down, not broaden out. We love only certain classes, races, political persuasions. We love children and relatives only if they behave themselves and treat us as they should. We certainly would never love an enemy. Our loved ones are the loving ones, meaning those who love us. Thus does love amount to no better than a practical selfishness.
I know the author of the inscription didn't have all of this in mind, but it's what I think about every time I cross his bridge.