welcome back, my love.


before "julio" heyward ascended to julio status and became the bottom half of my julio/huddy/"julio" oreo cookie sandwich of manlove, there was another.

his name was michael vick.

there are very, very few true forces of nature when it comes to athletes (let's stick with football). there are good athletes that overachieve to become stars (emmit smith, jerry rice, every white professional athlete, especially wes welker, et. al). there are really good athletes that become superstars because they combine a "head and shoulders above the rest" gift with good work ethic to obviously separate themselves from the field (lawrence taylor, barry sanders, randy moss, et al.).

then there are the force of nature types. talents that are so incredibly gifted, athletically, that, when on the field, it hardly looks like they are trying. bo jackson, deion sanders, ...michael vick.

before he went and started electrocuting dogs, there was no athlete on the planet that was any more must-see television than my michael. at his peak, his arm was as strong as i've ever seen. he was the fastest guy in the league, probably by a couple steps. he had quicks and jumpstops and full-speed-from-the-jump like barry sanders, but with all of those attributes he could get one gear higher than my favorite running back ever. It didn't matter who the falcons were playing. i wanted to watch.

like barry bonds or usain bolt or lebron, if you blinked, you truly had the potential to miss the greatest thing to ever happen in an athletic arena every time he took a snap.

and then he got caught waterboarding dogs. i've come to terms with that disappointment. sure, i hate it for the dogs and everything, but, back then, the selfish part of me was just pissed that i wouldn't get to see vick play for quite some time.

for two years, he either sat in prison or a halfway house serving his time for condoning and bankrolling his disgusting dog-fighting ring. Last year, the eagles took a flyer on him, but he was the third string guy and only came in on gimmick-y, wildcat plays.

this year, he would serve as back-up to the quarterback that the eagles handed their franchise to, kevin kolb. week one, kolb got his bell rung and is now having to sit out this sunday.

week two, vick returns. in the action that he saw last week against the packers, he was every bit his old self. Running for 100 yards and a td. Passing for 175 and couple scores. pulling away from helpless defenders as they chased him around the field. week two, vick starts against the lions. as soon as word hit that he would start, i ran to my fantasy league, acquired vick, benched tom brady (who went nuts and led me to victory last week) and plugged my michael into my starting line-up for old time's sake.

brady will probably go nuts again, but I don't care. if kolb can remember his name next week, my michael will be back on the sidelines. for one day, though, this force of nature will have the opportunity to make people remember who michael fucking vick was before he was best known as that nfl quarterback that got caught fighting dogs.

michael vick, i have missed you. you go get 'em.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-nine)
((a mommy scorned...))

editor's note: so, are you tired of coming back and checking to see if any comments have been added to "a penny..." that might add fuel to your fire??? welp, here's the supply to the ever-increasing demand, only...it's not from me this time. it's from...someone else.

that's right.

after years of negotiations, the wife has finally come down on her appearance fee. please keep in mind that she totally hates me, too, so the venom that she is shooting in my direction should be taken for what it's worth. two, count it, TWO grains of salt. 

without further ado, i present for the first time on HACAM, mommy o'kelley.

-------------------------------------------------

Now read this!!!


Kevin has asked me to blog on at least a dozen occasions. Really, I’ve been holding out to do so about topics that I can’t get out of my head, like how I don’t feel for a moment that gay marriage is a threat to my marriage or how I really hate that there are people in jail or prison at all or many other topics that move my soul and mind.

But, it’s come to this. I have to be honest. Our church family has so much potential and does so many things for its members and community. But, in the 10 years I have been coming to this church, this church family has hurt me the most of any group or individual I have ever encountered in my life. I have experienced a taste of what it must be like to be married to a politician or a coach or a minister. Apparently being vocal and being a leader invites others to say horrible things about you. Apparently it is an open invitation to vilify every action and misperceive every comment. It justifies others in making requests that you change your behavior or stop speaking your mind or just go away.

The “concerns” and opinions that make their way back to me (and I am no idiot- what I hear is only the a sample of what is actually said) and my family and my friends are usually comical in some way. My initial response is, “seriously? THAT was offensive? I thought that was the mildest of what could be bothersome.” And usually I’m amused. However, as drama and comments mount, it becomes poisonous. Some things hurt Kevin. Some things hurt me. Some things hurt our friends. But overall it is the most sickening feeling I’ve ever had.

I think I can imagine some of the asides in these “have you heard about Kevin’s blog?” conversations:

“and what about his sweet wife?”

“I feel sorry for her”

“that language! Does he use that at home?”

“I heard he beats her up. I’m sure he does.”

“I heard he hates girls. His poor daughters.”

Or maybe it’s more like:

“she’s as bad as he is.”

“she tries to make points in meetings, too”

“I heard her say a bad word once, and one time she didn’t show patience when her 3-year-old was screaming and throwing herself in the floor in the gym.”

“she lets her child sit on the stage during dinner.”

GASP!

Honestly, given my experience with the reactions to Kevin’s blog, there is no way to predict or know what other people might be saying. It’s obtuse. And frankly, I’m too tired to even think about it anymore. I get that Kevin’s blog can be offensive. I’m pretty sure he has said that before. Having had my share of arguments with my husband, he can be pretty difficult to argue with and can be infuriating. He always knows he’s right. I usually know he’s wrong. We usually reach some sort of consensus. Whatareyagonnado?

Let’s just be clear about something. If any one of the people talking behind his and our backs or any of your backs (now or at any time in the last few years) were to publish their comments and thoughts in an online forum, would you be so quick to judge those comments? I would hope so but I am fairly certain that it wouldn’t. After all, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And the past behavior in these situations really sucks.

I know that many of the people talking about Kevin’s blog have never actually read Kevin’s blog, and thus, this edition from me is somewhat wasted on the innocent. However, I can only hope that word can travel as fast that I feel like I am in an abusive relationship with members of my church as it did that Kevin looks at the internet on his cell phone during church. For the love…

During the sermon or announcements or hymns or anthem or any part of worship, how many of you can deny that you daydream? Write notes to one another on the bulletin? Make your Sunday to-do list? Look around and think about the choir’s hairdos? Wonder if we’ll get out of church in time to make it to Lee Garden before the crowd? Fall asleep? Would admission of these very human behaviors catch as much flack if you posted it on your blog or facebook? If you noted this in person or online, would word travel so fast? You all know where he sits, right? He’s not hiding it from anyone.

What really is at issue here? Is it the action/words or is it just that you are tired of Kevin O’Kelley?

It’s starting to feel a lot like the latter. We’ve seen this all before. The last time a group of church members turned on one of its own we lost a family and the “young” people who were associated with it. Actually, there are those of us whom that has happened to who haven’t left, too. Let it be known that Kevin O’Kelley does not stand alone. He has a wife and two young children. There might even be more spawn of Kevin one day (God help us all!). He has a Sunday school class (who he is on hiatus from) who loves him and looks forward to seeing him on Wednesdays and Sundays and sometimes other days of the week. He has created a Limbo atmosphere that is the biggest “attraction” we’ve had in years. But you probably wouldn’t like what any of those folks have to say either. I can almost guarantee it, because it’s out of your control. Maybe you want all of us to leave. That really would solve a lot of problems. At least until you (collective) turned on someone else…

Another aspect of this situation (and those in the past) that I feel the need to comment on is the sheer time and energy that is spent on Kevin’s blog and the loathing of said blog. Sure, my husband spends a LOT of time on the blog writing about LOTS of things he is passionate about. I can’t imagine there are those of you out there who spend near the energy discussing his man-love of (insert current sports star here) or his conversations with Kathy or his music reviews (although if you listened to some of the music he likes, you might think even less of him, if that’s possible- there are bad words in it).

What you don’t think about is that Kevin spends even more time thinking about the things that he writes about before they ever hit the page. And the marked difference in how Kevin spends this time and how many others who “can’t believe” Kevin’s blog choose to spend their time and energy is that I personally witness that Kevin spends equal time (maybe more) thinking about and participating in very important aspects of the daily life of the church. This week alone he has attended 2 meetings (both after leading soccer practice- Oh! The young minds he may taint there!) and has at least 2 meetings at the church in the coming week. He helped lead a Bible study. He coordinated a team that played over 2 hours of church softball on Monday. He will leave home without his family at 6:45 Sunday morning to prepare for Limbo. So, in coordination with all the time and energy that has been put into the blog, he’s matching that tit for tat in his daily actions at, for, and within the church and community. It’s like he never left the church staff. He’s just as busy as he was when he was the youth director there.

I’m in a similar boat in wanting to be involved in our church and community, except I don’t have the energy to fight you people anymore. I would prefer to put my thought and energy into my work and my activities in the church. I love my husband. He is not always right, but he is not always wrong. He rarely argues without good meaning and intentions behind it. If you took some time to see him as a human being, you might realize that too.

I swear my next post will be about something different.

Now, discuss amongst yourselves. Please print this installment along with the others you plan to print and distribute to your Sunday school class in your campaign to raise a rally against one of your own. I’ll put it in the Disciples’ Council meeting notes if you’d like. Just let me know.

a penny for your thoughts
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part thirty-eight))

torn.

it's what i've been for months.

torn.

torn between advocating on behalf of anonymous commenters and people that wish the pastor would send me to "christian delinquent" camp and members that wished djg had a magical influence over my hypocritical ass...torn between advocating on behalf of all the people that think know that i am the worst lay leader in the history of lay leaders and dropping this whole deal to sit in my pew, twiddling my thumbs with the all of you.

this morning, limbo started finding it's way to the crux of our situation. for 27 weeks, we've been pounding the pavement of what our function within the walls of huffman united methodist church was. did we have any function at all? was this church that was so generous to allow us one of the empty-ass sunday school classrooms to meet in representative of a system/structure/organism that we i believed in any more.

our talking point was an article whose author believed that 60 (!!!) percent of this country's population was culturally and relevantly removed from the way churches went about their business. the author (allan hirsch) lobbied his readers to embrace a new paradigm, one that encourages members of the outdated churches to take the spirit (not the letter. out of context scripture vomited from your mouth scares people. get it?) of the gospel of jesus christ to the 60 percent on their own turf in their own culture. it was an interesting angle and take. who knows where the dude came up with his numbers, but, in turn, it begged me to ask limbo this question(s).

is the "church" and church you are familiar with worth saving? is all of it's symbols and tradition and romance something worth working out the kinks, or is it time to say, "you know what? this shit isn't working. let's try something new."

a disclaimer should be entered here. no matter what you or we think of "church", there is one thing about this morning's conversation that is INDISPUTABLE. if not for huffman united methodist church and the people and our shared history and the resources and freedoms or sometimes lack thereof, there would be no limbo. it's just that simple.

on one side of the argument, you've got anonymous commenters and the like that are so blindly in love (a good thing, mind you) and loyal to their church that if some dickhead-sounding whippersnapper questions the church's means and motivations, well, then you absolutely wouldn't want to take communion from that asshole.

another side of a different coin might be interested in the idea that "church" by definition is limiting, just another governing, hierarchical body constructed so that type a's may assume leadership positions and enforce their own agendas under the guise that "jesus is lord" but might actually be operating under the "joe. q. awesome everyman is lord" concept, rarely discerning, frequently reactionary and built to eventually fail as every business model ultimately will.

before i closed our conversation this morning, i told the group that once hannah left for children's worship (didn't realize there would be none due to youth sunday), i'd yank out my phone and starting reading about football again.

reagan then asked the million dollar question that even anonymous commenters haven't asked.

"so, why even bother?"

it's a great question. a fair one. completely legitimate. and i answered him this way, the same answer that i hinted at in "the first post of september".

because i believe in the "idea" of "church". more specifically, i still believe in the "idea" of huffman united methodist church.

just because i am the definition of "hypocrisy" or a dickhead or a douchebag or an asshole doesn't give me the right as a parent to completely destroy the girls own experiences with church by poisoning them with mine.

do i see the limitations inherent in infrastructures that even call for positions such as "lay leader" (like i am qualified to lead anyone in a spiritual setting). well, of course i do. in my opinion, though, the same walls or boundaries or limits are part and parcel to any relationship. if you actively choose to marry something other than yourself, you are compromising part of yourself. if you actively choose to relate to any one thing, you say to yourself, "my experience tells me i am better off with you/it/etc. than without. let's do this shit." and when you relate to anything other than yourself, you give up on the idea that you will be solely responsible for the health of the relationship. it's not up to you anymore. it's up to y'all.

and so, as it relates to huffman united methodist church, i choose to be in relationship with the organism that is that community of faith. i choose to go every sunday even when i know people talk to the pastor behind my back. i choose to do so even when i am confident that the worship service will be, "second verse, same as the first."

i do so because i choose to. and here's the rub, anonymous commenter(s). i make all this noise because i genuinely believe in what i am doing. i believe, even if we absolutely refuse to change and make ourselves "better", that i am doing the right thing.

sucks for you, right? or not. just depends on what pisses you off and what doesn't.

i remain torn. i don't want to get in humc's way. there are days that i feel like i am more obstacle and less bulldozer.

i remain torn. i don't know if this system is what the god i love and spend time with had in mind for his work here.

while i am figuring it out, though, good thing there are several different stations for you to dunk your jesus bread in. while you're at it, maybe you can see those different stations and different options as a metaphor for our church experiences. different paths, different journeys, all finding our own way through the dark.

signed, the thorn in your side.

the first post of september


this morning in worship, i pulled out my phone and read a lot about the alabama and auburn football games of yesterday evening.

i fully expected to be able to keep up with the bama game on espn3 at the store, but it ended up being blacked out. instead, i kept up with the game by watching red arrows representing alabama and blue arrows representing san jose st. moving back and forth across a two dimensional field of dreams. it was terrible. alabama won, though, so that was good. as i type this, i'll start watching the css replay.

what i read during worship was pretty exciting. alabama took care of their weak competition just as they should. there was not a significant drop-off in production due to mark ingram being out. instead, the maturation of greg mcelroy and a group of players that seem to be growing comfortable in their current offensive system was detailed in several different articles by several different authors, all duly impressed.

auburn, too, lit up their scoreboard. the quarterback that will make or break their season was, before last night, best known as the guy that was tim tebow's back-up at florida. the guy that got caught stealing a laptop. as campus authorities marched to his dorm room to question his involvement in the stealing of said laptop, dude tossed that shit out the window, cuz, yeah, that was ever going to work. anyway, all that's water under the bridge, cuz, from what i read this morning in worship, dude is the next randall cunningham. go figure.

so, "roll tide" and "war eagle", for whatever the first week of the season is worth. from what i read in worship this morning, we are marching toward an iron bowl matching two undefeated, offensive machines. I CANNOT WAIT!

so, why were you reading about football during worship?

great question. i don't really know, to be honest. i tried to tune in during the hymns and during the communion service and during the something about pottery and christ message, but i couldn't stay connected. on communion sundays, with hannah sitting in big church with us, i like to try and pretend that something meaningful or relevant will present itself.

that seems dishonest.

good call. you are right. it is dishonest. but i don't want to give up the ghost that big church could be a meaningful and relevant place for my children even if i don't find it as one myself currently. just because i am jaded doesn't mean i should indoctrinate my children with my cynicism.

d.j. fluker is freaking huge.

i love how marquis maze just dropped the ball and ran over to his own sideline after his td catch.

so, was there a point to this post?

not really. not other than the fact that eddie lacy and "war CAM eagle" and most especially julio jones are of way more interest and excitement to me than something about pottery and christ. don't get me wrong. pottery and christ got hannah talking, and that's all that really matters. at this point, i am pretty sure it would take harris cutting off his own hand and god sewing it back on in front of us for me to sit up and take notice.

that would be pretty awesome.

right? we could advertise it online or in the paper "recommended if you liked "the last exorcism"" that would bring the crowds. they'd come roaring in, rubberneckers all. we'd celebrate the packed house and then smash them across the face with the one and the only jesus h. christ.

that would show 'em.

i love my phone.

the only college football preview that matters
(to me)
((part two))


man.

today's news makes it a little harder to write what i had in mind today, that being a completely biased take on the college football season (or, at least, alabama's football season) to come written by a completely biased alabama football fan.

wait a minute. no, it doesn't.

mark ingram missing a game (or two or three) sucks. let's not dance around it. it sucks uncomfortably hard. one of the most intimidating aspects of alabama's team this year was their overwhelming depth, depth that is possibly more impressive this year than it was last year when they won it all. four and five star recruits back up four and five star starters. outside of the secondary, there isn't a spot on the roster that shouldn't be able to overcome an injury to a starter. that includes overcoming an injury to the reigning best player in college football. as you'll hear ad naseum over the next couple of days, trent richardson may, in fact, be "better" than mark ingram, whatever that means. ingram has won a heisman, so anyone suggesting that bama isn't going to miss a beat without him has got to be completely out of their minds. fortunately for the tide, they can miss a beat or ten against san jose st. and still live to tell about it. boy, had an equivalent injury happened before the clemson game two years ago or last year against va. tech, i would have been really, really worried. not so much right now. ingram's injury does add an unexpected storyline to the season, though, one where the only real headline of significance would be if alabama lost before the sec championship game. we have another headline now, a nauseating headline that makes what seemed to be an offensive juggernaut a little less juggernaut-ish. we can't get too caught up in the ingram stuff now. if we do, we'll miss the forest for the trees, or, rather, we'd miss the forest for the redwood wearing a crimson, number 22 jersey.

college football preview, commence!!!

san jose st. - how many times will ingram be shown on the sidelines during this ppv broadcast? i'll put the over/under at 10. any takers? the best news of my week was hearing that the game will be shown on espn3, meaning i'll be able to catch some of it at the store saturday night. the atmosphere will be insane. i wish i could be there for the announcements of the starters alone. goodness. it will be fantastic. everything leading up to the opening kickoff will be special because it will be the last of the celebration, the last opportunity to look back and remember how special 2009 was. there will also be a game played. it shouldn't be close for much longer than a quarter. should the game go according to plan, the commentators will be speculating by the second half whether or not ingram will be back for...

penn st. - all i can think about when it comes to the penn st. game is the unnerving interview espn ran with joe paterno during the big 10 media days. it was unsettling and unfortunate. gameday will most likely be in tuscaloosa for this game. i wonder if they'll run that interview again. penn st. will be competitive. i will be massively surprised if the game is still in question in the 4th quarter. bama, 2-0.

duke - AT duke. already scheduled for a 2:30 national television spotlight. duke has got to be extremely excited about this game, considering ingram will probably be making a token appearance to make sure he's game ready for the following week. there was a time, three years ago, that i would worry about alabama sleepwalking through this game. no worries here. 3-0.

arkansas - the first sec road test of the year against a lot of people's heisman contender, ryan mallet. mallet's receivers let him down during the first half in tuscaloosa last year. really, the only thing arkansas performed efficiently all game was the block that ended hightower's season. dont'a hightower likely remembers that game. my money is on dont'a announcing his butkus candidacy here with a pair of sacks and an interception. ingram and richardson go for 100 yards each for the first time this season and alabama feels dominant. 4-0.

florida - hmm. this game is the one i can't wait for. barring injuries, it should be the first nailbiter of the year. i don't believe in the rhetoric coming out of gainesville about how much better a "true" quarterback than tebow brantley will be. if he brings his team to alabama and wins, i'll eat crow and own my shortsightedness. i am not, on august 31st., worried about this in the least. ingram goes for 150 and 2 td's and people lament for the last time that he may have had a shot to heisman repeat "if he didn't miss those first two (or three) games. 5-0, but close into the fourth.

south carolina - this game scares me a little. it'll be the week after the huge emotional payoff of the florida game. marcus lattimore will have established himself as the rookie of the year in the sec and spurrier will use last year's game (the game that won ingram the heisman) as motivation to stop the run. introducing, julio jones!!! can you believe i was able to go six games without mentioning jesus, himself. think about this for a second. forever etched in stone will be the fact (THE FACT) that it was julio's coming to the capstone that set the stage for the potential five year dynasty that is the current era of alabama football. he was hurt last year. he was leaped over by a teammate in production and value to the team during a stretch of 8-9 games where he was not at 100 percent. he is now healthy. his quarterback has taken off the training wheels. i guaran-damn-tee you this. there will be two epic julio jones performances this year. i predict we see the first one on this night in a tight game. 6-0.

ole miss - a dangerous homecoming game, but this is the game i see alabama hitting their stride. jeremiah masoli will wish he stole a computer or something and got suspended (from his second team) prior to this game after the beating he and his team will take. not close. 7-0 (edit: doesn't look like masoli's going to be eligible. even not-closer.)

tennessee - i won't predict a laugher here, but i do think it could be a long, long year for young coach dooley. his best running back isn't on the team anymore. ut is rebuilding. rebuilding teams do not beat this year's alabama football team. 8-0, going away.

lsu - if jordan jefferson takes any sort of significant step towards becoming a real quarterback this year, this game could be tight. even les miles can figure out ways to get russell shepherd the ball. russell shepherd scares me. julio could be taken out of this game, or he could announce that he's a lot surer a nfl prospect than the cornerback that blanketed him last year in patrick peterson. flip of a coin on that mano-a-mano, but i think alabama wins this game by two touchdowns. 9-0

mississippi st. - ingram and richardson do their thing. mississippi st. thinks they are turning a corner 'til they get blown away by 28 points. 10-0.

georgia st. - bill curry brings star jackson back to t-town in a game that neither of the two will ever forget. alabama will win by 50, but this is a very cool game with very cool storylines. 11-0.

auburn. - oh, auburn. what will your record be coming into the iron bowl? 8-3? maybe 9-2? better??? who knows. according to a couple espn "experts", the 2010 iron bowl could have a trip to atlanta added to the already high, emotional stakes. auburn, i expect to be better, but i don't know how much i expect. i am not sold on cam newton...yet. i am not sold that auburn won't really miss ben tate. i am sold on michael dyer. but, if the season plays out the way i have it doing so above, this game will mean much, much more to alabama and they'll be at home. if alabama has stumbled once, twice or more coming into this game, this could be the game that puts gene chizik on the real map and not just the one they sell in alabama gas stations. also, keep in mind this will likely be julio (tear) and mcelroy (he's not terribly exciting, but he did quarterback a national championship team. he's the new jay barker.) and ingram's (yesterday's injury to ingram set that in stone for him) last home game. i don't see them losing their last home game. 12-0.

am i a homer? sure. biased? completely. off-base? probably not. alabama hasn't lost ONE of it's last TWENTY-FOUR regular season games. this team is deeper and more talented than the last two. are they better? who knows. that'll play out, beginning saturday night. i think they could be, though, and, if i think that, it makes sense to project them winning all twelve again this season.

if we make it to atlanta again, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

in years past, i kept my ear much closer to the national ground than i have the last two years. alabama's story and their runs through the sec have more than enough to keep my attention.

i can tell you that i hate, hate, HATE va. tech, and yet i'll still be rooting for them on labor day against boise st.

i can tell you that i will root for EVERY sec team to win their out of conference games to shut up everybody that's been talking about other leagues "catching up".

i can tell you that mark ingram WILL NOT win the heisman again, but trent WILL next year.

and i can tell you that i love being right (see last item). god help us all if i am right with the above predictions. god help us all.

roll saban.

sonuva.

the end of the world
(part nine)
((without love))
(((hannah and caroline and me)))
((((part thirty-seven))))
(((((caroline turns three)))))


"is breathing just the ticking of an unwanted clock counting down the time it takes for you to comprehend the sheer magnitude of every single precious breath you've ever wasted?"





"time flies by."

or does it?

"it doesn't seem possible."

spoken by someone that lives a long way away.

"we can't believe she's so grown up either."

even her parents aren't paying attention!

i am being snarky, obviously, but this "time flies by" sentiment, well, i just don't buy into it anymore. for, right or wrong, to use a very predictable sports metaphor, everything slowed down for me last summer.

i mean, really, that's life anyway. or experience. or time served. or whatever. once you do something long enough, you get better at it unless you are intentionally sabotaging your own efforts. you see where "the blitzes" are coming from. you can "audible" around the obstacles. life, just like sports, slows down and you are better at it.

along with that, you hope to become more appreciative of it, too.

"all in nature ends in tragedy and i was the first to finally fade away from my grandfather's memory..."

these types of things happen way the fuck too often. i saw a commercial yesterday that said a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer every THREE MINUTES. is that fucking right? jesus. every three minutes, someone, some human that we share this earth with's life and their mindview is completely turned on it's head. and that's just from breast cancer. that doesn't count kidney cancer, or any other (fuck you) cancer or heart disease or stroke or alzheimer's or name that nasty/messed up anomaly that can happen to the human body. we go tripping along the light fantastic until life smashes us in the face. we are left to reimagine our foundation or hope that the one we had before the beating was strong enough to hold, strong enough to rebuild on top of. sometimes, it is. sometimes, it's not.

it took a couple years for a caroline to give a shit about who i was and deem me cool enough to share her air. thus, this birthday was pretty special for me and her. not that i went out of my way to do anything especially memorable. i didn't dress up as a clown and melt her face with fear. i didn't bring an elephant to her party. she did seem genuinely excited to share things with me, though, and that is pretty majestic.

in my eyes, caroline is a really old three year old. time hasn't flown by. it's gone by just the way it should have. slow and agonizing at times. breathy and easy at times. borderline orgasmic when she and her sister are playing with each other on the floor or laughing together or giving her parents a small window into the future and what will certainly be adventure after adventure after pregnancy (hopefully, not) and adventure.

"so much misery. so much indifference. so much suffering...this world is nothing more than what we make of it..."

you know, i don't really know shit about anything. but i would argue that life only moves too fast when we are looking backwards. in the now, a second is always a second. 60 seconds make a minute. 60 minutes make an hour. then it takes 24 damn hours to make even one day. that's a long-ass time. if you let it be that.

this world, our lives are nothing more than what we make of it. effing cheesy, really.

but true. here is to a beautiful little girl that, along with her sister and mother and my friends make my life go by just fast/slow enough.

"...too bad this child looks nothing like her daddy, ...right?"

i am so sorry. but happy birthday anyway, caroline.

the end of the world
(part eight)
((the funeral procession))






"But I feel like I knew his pain...or mechanical failure while enduring the norm, some of us fracture, others simply deform and lose their elasticity never to return to the shape they were. I wonder which is worse."


whether you like it or not, propagandhi believes in the same sense of interconnectedness that any church-going, "christian" reader of this blog does. we o'kelleys probably call this sense the holy spirit.

the muslims (let's call them "the something racists") down the street from us believe in the holy spirit too, but in a different way than o'kelley christians. "the something racists" also believe that angels are lurking around, too, logging our every action, interceding on our behalf and pulling souls out of dead corpses and delivering them to the soul patrol somewhere over the rainbow. extrapolate these minor differences out and combine them with the controversy of the ground-zero mosque, and, well, we wouldn't want to have lunch with "the something racists", right? yeah, me either.

speaking of lunch, in the past fifty or so years, charlie down at the other end of the street and his hindu buddies have been talking about not eating the flesh of any other animal. well, i am pretty sure i have heard that the holy spirit loves hamburgers, so i am also pretty sure that charlie down at the other end of the street and his hindu buddies don't even believe in the holy spirit. i could be wrong, but i am probably right.

and then there's whatshisname. we call him whatshisname because that's what his mother calls him. or so he tells me that's what she calls him. whatshisname doesn't live on our street, but he's standing at the end of it at the bus stop every morning. whatshisname talks to his dog and swears that his dog told him that what we think of as the holy spirit is really just jerry garcia and the dog is sure that jerry garcia has been communicating with all of us from purgatory since that fateful august day in 1995. the o'kelleys see the jerry garcia as holy spirit argument as borderline brilliant mixed with a fairly apropos public service announcement to not take too much acid (in moderation, of course).

based solely on my experiences with propagandhi, in the o'kelley house, kicking with joe "the something racist", hanging with charlie or trying to avoid whatshisname, it seems like there are a lot of ideas out there for that weird-ass sense of interconnectedness.

obviously, if we chose to be rational about it, we could embrace our "neighbors" and love them the best way we know how.

that, of course, would be retarded.

what we'd rather do is embrace, not our "neighbors", but the crazy. embrace the crazy that is breaking up people into groups based on everything from age to color to college football favorite team to what i eat to what they drink to what music you listen to what words that are coming out of my mouth to how much money they make to how bad those homeless guys smell to if you like apricots to fucking whatever other delineating factor you and jerry garcia can come up with.

embrace that crazy and get upset at something that you can't put your finger on. you may call what you are upset at "kevin o'kelley" and his filthy mouth. but, you aren't mad at me.

you are mad at something else, but you either can't put your finger on it or you refuse to.

and here is where o'kelley "christians" are different. i'll look at the back of the box with you. i don't know what ails this world and this world's people and this world's churches, but i'll work with you to try and figure it out...together.

we are all interconnected.

"i feel like i knew his pain."

of course we do. we all feel the same pain.

celebrate the connections. or embrace the crazy.

your call.

the end of the world
(intermission)

effective advocacy 101

everyone knows that the first rule of effective advocacy is to not insult people. this rule is especially important in terms of advocating on behalf of animals, mostly due to the fact that meat-eaters tend to cry and whine like a bunch of fuckin' shitty babies when you pull down the diapers of their revolting lifestyle. haha, just kidding. calm down babies.

no, for example though, you wouldn't want to use terms like "moronic", "self-absorbed", "chickenshit" or "disgusting slob" when describing self-professed "radicals" who insist on killing defenseless animals for food while a perfectly good supply of pimps, stockbrokers, crooked cops, politicians and habs fans (editor's note: he's canadian, therefore you can probably disregard his opinions as, well, canadian) - among other sociopathic sources of protein - range freely throughout our communities on a daily basis. no, you wouldn't want to say something like that. that would be considered 'counter-productive'.

you also wouldn't want to walk up and down the back lanes of you kentucky fried city slicing the throats of your neighbors' pets only to dismiss the community's subsequent outrage as "childish sentimentality", "infantile anthropomorphism" or "cultural imperialism". that would be considered 'anti-social'.

and you really, really, really, reeaaalllly wouldn't want to set fire to a slaughterhouse or a fur store or a whaling-vessel or an under-construction hog-barn because...well, i can't actually think of a good reason why you shouldn't do that (besides life in prison). but you get the point. it's all about effective advocacy.

so here i am! at your service! ready and willing to ensure that people who already know better aren't made to feel guilty about their stupid, selfish, unimaginably cruel choices! besides, haven't you heard? vegetarians are 'classist'. at least that's what all the white college kids are saying when they fly home for thanksgiving dinner! haha, asswipes. you'll be the first ones i eat when i finally snap. you fuckin' posers. whoops! where was i? oh yeah, effective advocacy...

but seriously folks, every social movement has its peanut gallery. in fact, i believe every serious social movement needs its peanut gallery, and when it comes to the movement against the egomaniacal cruelty humans perpetually visit upon animals, you can sign me up for season tickets and a very big fuckin' bag of the blessed arachis hypogaea (ed: peanuts) to go along with my top-hat and monocle.

and while it may be true that i take great pleasure in ridiculing morons rad dudes who eat animal corpses and their reproductive secretions, it's important for me to be clear that veganism isn't about purity or superiority. it's simply about extending moral consideration to other inhabitants of a complex planet in a morally-ambivalent universe where, despite the statistical improbability of it all, we earthlings (humans and non-human) appear to be the only instance of sentient life that is or ever has been.

that's some heavy shit.

and seriously, if we as a society can't even bother to treat a simple, unassuming, stunningly gentle and demonstrably sentient creature like a cow or a deer with a modicum of decency, how the fuck do we ever expect to be able to treat each other - infinitely more complex, wildly divergent and often exasperating individual human beings - with anything even remotely resembling civility? it just aint' gonna happen.

so, with that in mind, and in the spirit of the first rule of effective advocacy, i leave you with this short list of potentially transformative resources, created by better and more effective advocates for animals than myself. and see? i didn't even have to insult you to make my point after all. fuck are you ugly.

read:

making a killing: the political economy of animal rights by bob torres
dead meat by sue coe
animal liberation by peter singer
the sexual politics of meat by carol j. adams


thank you and good day.

jesus h. chris
propagandhi

the end of the world
(part seven)
((potemkin city limits))


"francis didn't a give fuck about the rollbacks, over-production, reduced demand. never gave a much thought to disputed contracts...fourth quarter earning expectations, expedited their demise...when the screaming began, francis shut his eyes and felt the hand of the humanity brush over him..."

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?" - trainspotting

it's the age old story of the modern man. get up. go to work. come home. hug the kids. kiss the wife. watch something mindless on television. lay in bed. look at the ceiling. wonder why you feel so unhappy. fall asleep watching the fan blades turn, turn, turn. wake up. it's 2 am. wonder why your neck hurts. shake your arm awake. fall asleep. alarm goes off. rinse. repeat. repeat. repeat. repeat. work for the weekend. get there. it goes too fast. your team wins. your team loses. doesn't matter. go to church. sing a song. leave wondering what "all of this" really is. it's monday again...

this is probably my second favorite song on the record. it's got everything i want in a ripping punk song. breakneck pace. thoughtful message. just enough catchiness to bring me back for more over and over again.

if you've worked a day in your life and have ever felt like you have been placed or placed yourself into a structure or system you have absolutely no power to change, you can relate.
 
for too many of us, our legacy is written for us before we were even born. our parents have made our decisions for us. we'll go to school. we'll get a job. we'll have a family. we won't break rules. we'll live by and through someone else's moral contract. we didn't have a say. when we dare speak out against the understood order, we are pushed back into place. 
 
keep working dammit. 
 
stop looking around you. there is NOTHING FOR YOU TO SEE HERE. 
 
keep having children. 
 
you can't be friends with this person. what will people say? 
 
don't question that person. they're 80. they are wise and must be right. 
 
haven't you read the bible? god fucking said so, bro! you can't question the almighty. sweet jesus. what the fuck do you think "made in his image" means anyway? that you get to think for yourself??? fucking retard. 
 
francis, in this song, is everyman. there is a point in his life where "the storylines... bridge the chasms between cognition and belief" and "for five months he ran free" and he feels "...his mother's loving eyes upon him" and "he made it farther than she did", but "a quarter mile before the city limits", "they finally captured him". 
 
at the end of it all, a tombstone statue is erected in our honor and we are laid to rest. if we are lucky, one pithy statement is etched on our statue to define our entire life's legacy for those that stumble upon us. we have served our purpose as a cog in someone else's machine. 
 
"turn around, i'm gone."
 
fuck. 
 
that.

28 days later
(we'll have football to talk about)


for now, we have football talk to talk about. and what else would we talk about than the preseason coaches poll being released today.

for the first time since 1978, alabama begins a season at number one. it should always be this way. not alabama being ranked number one, but the previous season's champ beginning the next on top of the mountain. regardless of how many key members of that team you lost, until some other team proves otherwise, this team is still king.

as we get closer to the season, there will, of course, be much more to discuss, dismiss and dismantle about the upcoming college football season.

today, we have this.

55 of 59 votes, and let's be honest. the other four coaches are just being contrarian. i would love to hear their arguments against voting alabama one. what would it be? they lost an awful lot on defense. they are replacing all of those losses with more "talent" than last year. continue. ...

...

they lost their kicker and punter.

...

...

 there really aren't many holes, are there? the offense that was pretty powerful last year comes back stacked and more experienced. and, oh yeah, julio is healthy at the moment. he wasn't most of last year. think about for a second. also, depending on how the chips fall, this alabama backfield could be remembered as one of the best in college history. already, they are every bit as dangerous as the cadillac/ronnie brown duo from a few years back. julio will be better. maze will be better. i am getting ahead of myself. it's not time to get excited just yet. it's time to close the celebration of the 2009/10 season and begin the process of being an alabama fan for the 2010/11 season.

i was two when expectations were last this high. it will be fascinating to see how saban plays with this deck of cards as compared to his rag-tag group of cory reamers and javy arenas' and like overachievers. will the success of last year bring with it complacency. or swagger.

what if this year's team is (shiver) better?

jesus. i need to calm down and go watch the braves.

we'll start counting down and breaking down soon.

very soon...

the end of the world
(part six)
((human(e) meat - the flensing of sandor katz))


"'cuz i believe that one can only relate with another living creature by completely destroying it"

(the following resumes a series last seen around these parts fourteen months ago)

listening to propagandhi on the way home this afternoon reminded me that i left this little series dangling last year around the time i got my, you know, "news". seriously, fuck cancer. moving on...

if you've never heard of sandor katz, you're life is no worse off because of it. here is his wiki page. not much too it, right? the fact that he's a culinary author holds no interest to me. his only mark on my life will be that he inspired the best band in the world to write this righteous song.

while the song riffs and finds humor in the idea of "being one with the food you eat", there is also a deeper message to be found.

i am the worst at this. i'll go ahead and admit it. internally or out loud, how many of us are guilty of tearing down our neighbor to feel better about ourselves? this blog stands guilty as the vast majority of its posts are doing just that. i throw the word "hate" around like it's candy. i talk about things and people being "terrible" and "worthless" and accuse fellow humans of being bad to worse than bad people, pastors and workers. me acknowledging my guilt doesn't make we want to stop tearing others down. it just, say it with me, IS WHAT IT IS.

removed from the comfortable walls of HACAM, though, i am usually more sensible. and patient. and kind. when someone offers a, in my opinion, terrible idea, i don't call them stupid to their face. i usually nod my head, try to process where their opinion is coming from and relate to them on some common ground. it's only several days later when i find myself in front of my computer will i completely obliterate the idea with some subtle sleight of hand via wordplay that infers one thing when it usually is poking somewhere else. even then, though, by the time those days have passed, i usually don't care about the stupid idea any more and write about the (horrible) girls or the (terrible) braves or (worthless) alabama football. most stuff thrown up against the wall that is me doesn't stick. and if it does, i'll be damned if i show you that it affected me.

our society (that term is big and vague enough, right?) rules at "relating to" other "living creatures by completely destroying" them, doesn't it?

lebron "sucks" 'cuz he didn't stay in cleveland, so we offer our loyalties to the more innocent kevin durant, who, as far as we know, hasn't spurned anybody yet.

marcel dareus is "stupid" because he couldn't resist whatever temptations were luring him to some party in miami in the offseason, leading to his hurting himself and his team while suspended indefinitely.

yunel escobar is "cocky" because his flair and his game doesn't really mesh with the redneck and white nucleus (think about it...huddy, chipper, mccann, lowe, wagner) of that braves ball team.

obama, god love him, can do no right at this point. the boondocks has done a wonderfully deft job of insightfully satirizing how the hope and change of his platform is now being held against him, his opposition casually lobbing "what have you done for me lately" grenades at him from the sidelines or rival newsdesks.

"i believe that one can only relate with another living creature by completely destroying it."

"be careful what kind of world you wish for. someday, it may come knocking on your door."

conversations with kathy
(part three)


Kathy: CWG, book 1, pg 13: "God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to do with as you will. In this sense, your will for you is God's will for you. You are living your life the way you are living your life, and I have no preference in the matter. This is the grand illusion in which you have engaged: that God cares one way or the other what you do."

I wish I could quote about three paragraphs here, because I know how this can be taken out of context, but we'll just go with it- maybe it will be more provocative :)

While some people may read this and tearfully respond, "God doesn't care about me," this whole idea of literal FREE WILL helped me figure out what to do with my life. Christianity is big on the WILL OF GOD. It's our responsibility to memorize it (according to the bible) or discern it (with the help of the Holy Spirit) and then bring ourselves to heel. But the idea that God has a plan for us- well, for some that might be comforting, but for me, it was terrifying.

WHAT is God's will for me? WHAT am I supposed to be doing with my life? See, if there's something I'm supposed to do, then there's a whole lot that I'm not supposed to do. I've been paralyzed by the fear of doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision, choosing the wrong career...etc.

But what if there isn't a wrong answer? What if God is perfectly happy with me making choices that reflect who I am, rather than who someone else thinks I should be? What if I can't screw up? Think about how many things you might try if you weren't fearful of doing the WRONG thing? What if you knew that when you made a less than stellar choice, you could simply change your mind, choose again, and face no punishment (other than natural consequences)?

---------------------------------------

kevin: i am glad you chose this topic, because it's one i've been dwelling on a lot, too, since reading the book several months back. our whole life landscape in the community of faith that is huffman united methodist church (we'll keep it local right now, since we are both part of that community) is constructed around these dated ideas of what we should and shouldn't do.


one of the reasons that i've been so sensitive to how people are perceiving limbo is that our group was borne out of the idea that church was doing it "wrong". now, to your point and this post's thread, "wrong" would be relative, so we'll go with limbo was borne out of the idea that (our) church was borderline irrelevant. due to the fact that i made the decision that we'd meet during the sunday school hour, the church has understood us to be nothing more than a sunday school, for better or worse, one that is "looking to be involved" and one that should probably be interested in luncheons that might be attractive to other "young adults" that are looking for a place to "plug in". limbo is seen as "filling a need" because we are all under 40 and weren't doing much within the church, corporate, before limbo got off the ground. while all of those things serve a noble and honest sentiment, they still miss the point. i am losing my point.


i think what i am trying to say is that we are salmon swimming upstream, fighting against the antiquated current of what "should be", a structure that was forged and laid hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. it is a structure that relies primarily on the idea that god will "punish" us if we don't figure out what it is that he wants us to do and appropriate our thoughts and measures according to how many generations before me have interpreted who god is through their reading of the scripture.


now, this begs the question, who am i to swim upstream? who i am i to question the proven theory and thesis that is christianity. if i didn't believe in "the story", i wouldn't be worried about my church and it's relevancy and limbo and/or vacation bible school or the halloween carnival or any of the other "ministries" that i have developed a passion for over my 33 year plus years. or, would i?


but back to your thought. or the book's thought. or god's thought. gosh, wouldn't that just be something? that all this time, the nature of our choices and the lives that we led would, at worst, lengthen the period of time between now and when it WILL BE that we meet "our maker". that the choices we make or don't make according to our communities of faith weren't necessarily wrong, but off-path. the nature of reward vs. consequence being thrown completely on its head. it's a lovely thought. it's a thought that my 33-plus years of living in the shadow of eternal separation from god being a reality is not totally comfortable with and totally in love with at the same time...

--------------------------------------------------------------

The sunk-cost fallacy. That's what popped into my head. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's the argument that "money, time, or energy already invested justifies the investment of yet more time, energy, or money." In other words, if we've been doing religion a certain way for hundreds of years, then we should continue to do it that way because to change the way we do it would in essence be saying we've been doing it wrong all along. We don't want to have wasted all this time...so let's justify what we've been doing by continuing to do it :)

This is the problem with the "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!" crowd. Maybe if we believed that God was still talking, still evolving, then we'd still be listening and evolving too. Maybe we wouldn't be afraid to ask ourselves if God still wants us to be doing religion the way we have been...or if He ever wanted us to do it in the first place. Personally, I thought Jesus was preaching the message that religious law was trumped by personal freedom in God. Maybe I've misunderstood. Wouldn't be the first time. However, I've become cynical enough to believe that Churches have become bureaucracies whose sole purpose is to sustain their own existence. We need to bring people to Christ (church) so that they (or our church) can be saved.

Anyway- maybe that's a little off topic. Or maybe it's just the applying of these ideas at a corporate level, which is where you were going with it, I think. But can we change the way we perceive choice at the corporate level without changing how we see choice at the personal level?

A quick caveat- You've just read this book. I read it over 8 years ago for the first time. The first time I talked about these ideas with another person, I was trembling all over. The very foundation of my Christian belief was shaking apart, and it manifested physically in my body. I couldn't control the trembling- even my voice was shaking. Eight years later, these ideas no longer thrill and scare me at the same time. As I said when I gave you the book, the ideas took root in me, quietly and firmly, OVER TIME...and there they have remained. I trust my soul to discard false ideas. Funny that the ideas that have been discarded are Christianity's most fundamental beliefs.

----------------------------------------------------

regarding your caveat, it's obvious we found this book at very different points in our respective spiritual journeys, which i think is one of the reasons that having a back and forth about the ideas contained within the book are fun and invigorating. what i found while reading the book was not something scary or something that shook my foundation, rather ideas that characterized a god that i've always wanted to believe in but one that is continually reinforced in my "christian" experiences doesn't exist.


advancing the thought of churches having evolved into entities where survival is priority number one, well, you already know that i agree with you here. let's take a quick look at the northeast alabama united methodist conference for a second. god bless our beloved pastor, but it is now no secret that he is under immense political (read this word intentionally) pressure from his district superintendent and bishop to increase humc's connectional giving. so much pressure in fact, that if we do not change our giving habits, harris legitimately feels that a likely consequence will be his appointment being moved away from us. simply put, what kind of retarded logic and broken system would make such threats??? before i continue, let me reinforce what should already be obvious. i believe in the theory of the united methodist connectional system. in theory. i have colored my own person, literally, with how strongly i believe in it if done correctly. having said that, our system no longer is working in theory. in practice, it has been perverted. in practice, is the bishop truly concerned the the spiritual wellness of his congregations as shown through their connectional tithes, or he is concerned that our not giving makes his budget on the conference level more likely to be out of whack? there may be some of the former in there somewhere, but political threats such as the ones that have been levied against our pastor and congregation argue much more strongly for the latter. as much as i love harris, will humc stop being a church if he is removed and someone lower on the totem pole that the bishop feels we "deserve" is sent to us? of course not. we'll continue to fall back towards our "final stand" becoming more instinctual and more survival-prone and eventually we will dwindle away. but who does our dwindling away actually hurt? what harm will be done? in truth, not much. inventories will be taken. new ministries will arise. a new daycare in the heart of our community will open to service the needs of those we might leave behind. the conference budget will be adjusted to account for our absence. and that will be that.


in the first several meetings i took part in while serving as lay leader, i continually tried to ask the question, "who are we?" is humc a building or an idea? currently, i would say that we are a building. a building with old plumbing and old ideas and a congregation that is in love with our building and the way we've sustained ourselves for close to 140 years. shouldn't we be an idea, though? before the richards moved, as part of my rhetorical question i would say out loud that, while i loved my church, i would be okay if i worshipped around the richards' pool every sunday morning if it meant our church finally found a way to be an idea not handcuffed to a building.


this longwinded example speaks to choices our collective community makes out of fear of "the consequences". what if we could remove that from the equation...

--------------------------------------------------------

One of the quotes I'd wanted to include above I'll add here, paraphrased: God is like a parent who sends his children into the back yard to play. He doesn't care WHAT we play- we could play hide and seek or capture the flag or kickball- it's up to us because he's put us in a safe place and he gives us the freedom to experience what we want. We may get hurt accidentally, or hurt someone in anger intentionally- and God, like a parent, would be quick to soothe and/or correct, but the next day, the children get to go out and play again.

Somehow we've gotten the idea that God wants us to play kickball (or church). And that's all we've played. And it's not fun anymore- we're bored, we don't know why we're still playing, and hardly any of our friends want to come over anymore.

Metaphors are just popping into my head like crazy- I'll try not to bore you.

You have to be willing to part with old, rarely worn, outdated clothes before you'll have room in your closet for new ones.

Nature's forest fires clear acres and acres of old wood so that a forest can be reborn.

You get the picture.

Why are we so afraid to let go of things that are no longer inspiring? I won't say they're no longer working, because for some people they work. But what we lack is inspiration. What makes you excited about God?

I'll be bold and say that I don't think God gives a flip about church. God cares about people joyfully experiencing their God-given potential, and let's face it, a majority of the time religion is stifling rather than inspiring.

God, IMO, doesn't care about church. We can do Sunday morning worship or Saturday afternoon football parties or Wednesday night supper clubs- out of those three, where do find yourself truly connecting with people?

We're free to do a new thing- why is that so hard to believe?

---------------------------------------------

well, i can only speak to my experience of course, but it is so hard to believe because it sounds too good to be true. at least, personally, it does.

church-wise, like i've said, i am and have been asking the same question? it shouldn't be this hard. it isn't this hard. we make it this hard.

we serve platitudes like "seek god's will" and "guide me, holy spirit" and "change the world" to each other without spelling out what any of those things actually mean. when i hear someone offer the advice that we just should "seek god's will", i cringe, because the implication is that i or we or our church isn't doing just that. it implies that the giver of the platitude has things completely figured out in their life and is hiding the magic answer from the rest of us. it rings hollow. just as it feels the practice of church as we currently know it and do it rings hollow for many, many people close to me.

does that mean we are right and the rest of the "christian" world is wrong? no, of course it doesn't. but, if even one part of god's collective genuinely feels a twinge to move in a direction opposite of the norm, it does a disservice to god's collective to not hear the differing opinion with the same weight as anyone else's.

if we are made in god's image and he has given us free choice that is associated with free will, we are doing shamefully little with that gift if we continue to constrain ourselves to someone else's right and wrong.

---------------------------------------------------------

Let's try (Ha!) to come full circle here. We've focused a lot on Christianity and the church experience in particular here, but that's only one example of how a belief in GOD'S WILL (as being somehow "out there" and separate from ours) can create staleness in life. Fear of doing the wrong thing, or the fear of failing to figure out God's will, paralyzes us from moving forward in TRUE FAITH. Faith to me is not about believing in things that can't be proven- Faith (to me) is believing that all is right in God's world and that what's happening cannot be outside of God's plan. How is it phrased in the book? "If you're looking for God, you're in luck! God is so big, you can't miss."

I'm going to make a prediction- which I will probably not be around to see-

I think that within the next century the church institution will die out and be replaced by small group communities. We are trying to inject life into a terminal patient. I understand why we're doing it- because we haven't figured out the alternative yet. But God has given us the ability to figure it out- and he's given us permission as well. Now, we just have to give ourselves permission.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-six)


vacation.

friday, sarah and i drove to a chalet in pigeon forge. the first night, we had driven close to five hours to partake in two activities we very well could have found on chalkville mountain road. dinner at cracker barrel then a movie. the theater we saw inception in was hilariously outdated. it felt like the lobby of the old center point cinema six back before center point was the dollar movie destination. the theater's capacity was 85 compared with the 310 or so of the biggest trussville auditoriums. four of those 85 seats were out of order. we weren't sure why. they were covered in plastic, so any number of things could have happened. in my mind, i went with quadruple homicide. the movie experience, itself, wasn't that bad. the picture was fine. the sound was loud enough. the story was fantastic. that we drove five hours to find ourselves fifteen years back in time, well, we just found it funny.

saturday, we found more adventure. we spent a couple hours in a truly epic titanic exhibit that didn't celebrate the tragedy as much as it did the stories of those onboard. it was really well done and i can totally see a september 11th "attraction" 50 or 75 years down the road that will be equally tasteful and a fitting reminder that it's never about what happened as much as it is finding meaning in what happened. after titanic, which was preceded by our first of two trips to smoky mountain brewery, we headed to gatlinburg proper. i forgot how much the strip felt like one big carnival. all the storefronts have the same charm as the booths of any traveling fair. the attractions look second class from the outside, but, if you pay money for one of them, chances are you'll find yourself having a first class time. we ate at hard rock and then went to walgreen's. that's right, walgreen's. we redboxed a movie and bought yahtzee to take back to the cabin because i had been craving the game for a couple weeks. there is a walgreen's and two redboxes on chalkville mountain road.

sunday was nice and relaxing. we found the best french onion soup either of us had ever had. we stuffed our face and then went back to the cabin to watch precious. it was a severely depressing look into the poverty stricken world of a 16 year old, overweight, still in middle school girl. she delivered the second of two children fathered by her father during the movie. we saw that the first was born with down's syndrome. the second one is healthy. the mom is abusive. precious finds out towards the end of the movie that she is hiv positive. it was a real pick me up. well-done, but a downer for sure. after the movie, we went back out to find ice cream, mini-golf and beer and wings to close out our weekend, three of four we could've found on chalkville mountain road.

we drove five hours home to birmingham yesterday and ate lunch on chalkville mountain road at waffle house. we weren't very far into the trip when i started pining for the girls. perhaps it was precious, perhaps it was being away from them for the longest time in a while. perhaps it was other things. whatever it was, i missed them. badly. it was a good thing to get away for a while, even if we could have saved a whole lot of money by staying at the comfort inn down the road. in the long run, though, i think we both agreed that our next trip would include the girls, not finding a way to leave them behind.

we picked them up early for them from daycare and we all got back home a little before three yesterday afternoon. i exercised and the girls napped or lounged around on the couches. we had a nice family dinner around the kitchen table and, after, the girls started yelling at each other and i ended up spanking hannah for some serious not-following-directions.

yep. we were back. not that spankings happen every night. or dinner around the table. but we were back together. back pushing each other's buttons. back sharing space, sometimes comfortably, sometimes reluctantly. back being upset and making up later with hugs and time on the couch. back laughing at each other and with each other. back being family.

going on vacation was nice.

it's good to be back.

one year ago today


today, i celebrate a different kind of anniversary.

where were you on july 23, 2009?

me? at this time one year ago, i was probably in a room after having my right kidney removed from my body by dr. brian k. wade. turns out that kidney had been housing a malignant mass for who knows how long. also turns out that i ended up being one of the "lucky ones". i was lucky, in that, for whatever reason, those perverted cells that made up that mass had not yet decided to go exploring in the rest of my body. the friday after the surgery, dr. wade came into my room and told me it was "completely contained" and also told me to "celebrate".

a year later, i don't know if i've let myself celebrate. for the first six weeks, post-surgery, it was all about the physical recovery. getting back into shape after having been cut into was a new, long and painful process i had never done before. after three weeks, i went back to work. after six, i started lifting and exercising again. looking back, the surgery and the physical recovery was the easy part.

then came the demons. after i started getting back into my normal life-ly routines, i started worrying. i've always been good at worrying, but now i felt like i really had something to worry about. after all, i just had freaking cancer removed from me. surely the doctors had missed some of those perverted cells moving somewhere, right? in my mind, i was convinced that the answer to that question was "yes".

i was dizzy all the time. i started seeing floaters. so, in the first six months leading up to my first follow up ct, i went to the eye doctor and had my eyes checked for tumors there. no tumors. just floaters. i also went into my primary care doctor's office, cried like a baby and allowed them to schedule a "peace of mind" scan on my head so that we could rule out a brain tumor. no tumors. just anxiety. i went to therapy three times for the anxiety. learned the "is it possible? yes. probable? no." mantra.

six months passed. i went back to see dr. wade, again knowing full well that my first follow-up scan was going to show something bad. it didn't. neither did the chest x-ray. by this time, i had been prescribed and started taking lexapro to help fight off the demons. it helped. time helped. all the clean scans helped. the no tumors in my eyes report helped. and i started acting like the crappy human being that i am again.

i plugged back into church. we got limbo off the ground. my store became a point of pride again. things started feeling..."normal". two weeks ago today, i went back for my year-out visit. the scan looked good again. they saw something in one of my lungs. but then, they didn't. i had a chest scan. clean there too.

is it time to celebrate?

maybe it is. i still worry. this week, i started the process of weaning myself off the lexapro. can't take that shit forever. we'll see how good i've got at coping with the demons on my own.

today, a full year removed from my surgery, sarah and i are heading to gatlinburg. it'll be my first trip there since late 1999 when i took a few youth there to see gay-ass josh mcdowell and the columbine crosses (that part was actually kind of moving) at some youth praise-all-things-that-came-from-jesus-which-is-everything gathering.

today, we are going to travel somewhere without children for more than one night for the first time since 2002. it is going to be weird. we hope it's relaxing. and fun.

it's been a helluva year. here's to many, many, many more (without cancer).

false alarm


so, tuesday morning, i got the "official" phone call that i had been waiting on.

yes, it's true. last friday morning at 8:10 i had my year-out follow-up scan. and the initial reading of that scan by dr. wade could not have been any more positive. i went through the ct machine four separate times. once, without the iodine contrast, two times with the iv hooked up and the dye flowing through my veins and one final time with the iv unhooked for good measure. i got my clothes on and sarah and i waited patiently for the man that took out my right kidney to come in and make us hip to what the scan revealed. he came in the and the first thing he said to me was, "happy anniversary". he had his very pleasant smile on his face and it was obvious that he wasn't worried in the least that the images were going to show anything other than the expected. he asked sarah and me if we'd like to come over with him to the computer and check things out. i asked him, respectfully, if i could wait until he could give me a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". he grinned and said, "of course". so, i turned to the side and he pulled up the images. sarah watched the screen and i watched her face as he went through his checklist.

"spleen looks good."

"bladder looks good."

"stomach looks good."

"left kidney looks good."

and so on. he went through and looked at everything, and everything looked as it should on someone that's had one of their kidneys removed. and so i breathed a sigh of relief. time to celebrate, right?

well...

flash ahead to tuesday morning. i am mid-workout and my phone rings. i recognize the number. it's dr. wade's office. i pick up the phone and it's the ct technician that i started last friday morning with. her voice is kind of high and a little scratchy. she also has a little valley girl southern twang. this phone call, ideally, will be to tell me that the official radiologist report is in and confirms what dr. wade saw, which is nothing out of the ordinary. it will also tell me that the result of the chest x-ray.

"kevin, i just wanted to tell you that the radiologist looked at your ct images, and every thing there looked great,..."

"woohoo!", i said to myself and her at the same time.

she continues, "but..."

but. but? but, what? my forehead began to sweat.

"but, something showed up on your chest x-ray."

holy.

shit.

my stomach turned. i wanted to sit down but my legs wouldn't move. i stood there, destroyed. almost a full 365 days worth of panic and anxiety turned away came flooding back at me. i had already been told a year ago that if the type of cancer i had were to move, the most likely place it would go would be to my lungs, hence the chest x-ray that has accompanied all of my follow-ups.

"but, something showed up on your chest x-ray."

she then continued with what i should have heard as good news. "they don't know, exactly, what it is. it is very small, about two millimeters long. it could be a smudge or possibly a shadow. the part of your lung that they are looking at was actually captured on friday's ct. i took those images to the radiologist that read your chest x-ray and, as i was looking over his shoulder, he said he couldn't see anything."

"he is not worried."

"i am not worried."

"dr. wade is not concerned. if dr. wade was concerned, he would have called you, himself."

all good things. in that moment, though, i coudn't hear them. rather, i couldn't process them as good things. i could only fear the worst. i could only imagine this being "the other shoe". i was right. everyone else was wrong. my cancer was not all gone. in fact, it had moved to my lungs.

thankfully, it had not.

after coming down from my panic, we rescheduled a follow-up chest scan from thursday to wednesday of last week around lunchtime. i only had to wait about 24 hours after the phone call to hear and then process what everyone else was already certain of. that i was fine.

the same technician called me wednesday afternoon with the final piece of this follow-up's puzzle. the chest scan looked "completely normal". they suspected the mark on the chest x-ray was a "motion artifact".

"i am sorry you had to worry, but these things happen all the time."

not to me.

but to me, it happened.

what my reaction to the smudge on my chest x-ray tells me is a little cloudy. it had already been established that i have not rid myself completely of anxiety. i am still quite certain that, spiritually, i am not ready to pass from this place.

i thought, though, that i had worked on and succeeded in controlling my fears over the last six months. i thought that the sum of time and lexapro had given me an advantage over the irrational demons that lay in wait for my most vulnerable moments to present themselves.

maybe i haven't. maybe, in a sense, i don't want to. i don't know.

what i do know is that tuesday morning's false alarm will be remembered with just as much clarity as any piece of news i received last summer and in january, because it is every bit as much a part of this process of healing as the rest.

as i begin to wean myself off of the medication this week, surely i am better equipped than i used to be. to deal with those demons, that is.

we shall see.

now comes the hard part


it's been a year a one half since i took on the responsibility of being the lay leader of humc. there have been good times and so-so times concerning my being in that position during those eighteen months.

let's look at the positive. the atmosphere of the church is as healthy as it's been in years. that, probably, has nothing to do with me and more to do with the change from a dictator to a humble servant in the senior pastor's office. but, it has happened. with less drama to focus on, the church has been able to take somewhat sincere evaluations of ourself and look forward into our future with a cautiously optimistic attitude. harris has commissioned and asked me to lead a long-range planning committee. we have met three times this year, all ending with a very positive feeling of accomplishment. it's interesting, how a room full of honest people should be able to talk about their church and not get all bent out of shape and yet, the blissful feeling we've left with after our meetings has come across as quite novel. while that's a sad statement on the past, it's a good omen for the future. i've missed only one meeting in the 18 months that asked for my participation. the close to 100 percent attendance has allowed me to drive my heartfelt points and emotions home consistently without venom. if you hardly make a meeting and come to it with a point to drive home, it's going to be hard to take that person seriously. your motives and your agenda will be questioned. and your credibility will take a hit. i haven't always swung a big stick with my words, but i feel like my presence has been solid and stabilizing. then again, i could be giving myself too much credit to that end. what else? limbo is now 19 weeks old. it seems fairly certain that the group is here to stay. while limbo doesn't directly relate to my position as lay leader, i think it's a safe bet that we wouldn't be doing it i weren't as plugged in as i am. i may be forgetting things...

let's look at the negative. first off, not a lot has changed. that's not to say things are changing, and that is good. but 18 months into my "term", the church still doesn't have a unifying mission and we are still operating by, mostly, doing "what we've always done". as i've mentioned many times, there is immense worth in the ministry that is happening at humc, but that worth is not building a bridge to our future yet. it is renovating the bridge to our past. my (and harris') first run with the lay leadership committee was pretty weak. we gave ourselves too little time to find capable members to run our already overstretched and undermanned committees. we gave ourselves too little time to accurately inventory and restructure our current system. finally, we did "what we've always done" and asked people to sign up for positions that were not adequately spelled out, setting them up to fail. i hope that we can better our efforts this year. in spite of our efforts to look at huffman for what we truly are, it is my opinion that huffman still thinks too highly of our current standing in our community. yes, it's great that we are still here. yes, it's great the impact that the church is having on the families of our daycare children. the overwhelming feel, though, still permeates that the community "out there" is a goal to be achieved, heathens to save from being "lost", poor that need to be nourished with "the word" rather than they are just humans like us. humans that aren't official members of our club. as expected, my leadership style has been questioned. how dare i speak from my heart? how dare i not speak like a politician and not advocate for the congregation even when it still feels, to me, that the current pull of our congregation is in the wrong direction. how dare i be so "young" and so full of cuss words? how dare i this? how dare i that? listen, this part bothers me least. lord knows, i knew going in that there were 14 representative members of the church that didn't want me to be lay leader. i didn't want to change their minds. i just want to change our church. and change is happening...

i think.

what concerns me more than anything is the current feel within the church for limbo. and partly, that is my fault. it was me that thought it would be the best idea to start us during the normal "what we've always done" sunday school hour. maybe i don't want to make others feel bad when they obviously don't have a feel for what we are trying to do within that room. of course, i am sensitive and protective of the perception, because i want it to develop naturally. hearing that we "want to be involved" shouldn't be a curse, but a blessing. being involved doing "what we've always done", though, well, that holds no interest to me. you see, we are 19 weeks old. 19!!! we are consistent. i feel like we are excited to be with each other every sunday. but we are not ready to be defined. we are 19 weeks old. 19 hours, plus some, that means we have spent together as a unit. sometimes, we have to work. sometimes, we have life that takes us on vacation or to the lake. sometimes, we just need to sleep in. what we can't be is what you want us to be, not because we are actively trying to be rebellious but because, in many of our opinions, what you want us to be is misguided and in poor form. we are 19 hours old. 19 weeks old. it is not the church's fault that you are not copied on our correspondence. it is intentional. it is not coincidence that no outside pressure has come from those that are. they understand. this is a long way of saying, please back off and let limbo grow for a little while. if we are wasting your space this time next year, you can ask us to move.

wow. that was a tangent.

so, why the self-evaluation and limbo defense today? i guess, in so many words, because things still kind of feel off. and i am honestly wondering if our church would be better served if someone else served our current system in my current position. i am not saying this in a threatening manner whatsoever. it's not like the o'kelleys are going anywhere. well, these o'kelleys aren't. we are much too stubborn for that. if we are trying to grow doing "what we've always done", i don't know that i am the man for the job.

it's just something i am thinking about. and, in this era of social(-ized) media, you might as well hear me thinking...

since it concerns you.

hello, panic. it's been a while.


dateline - eastern urology, july 9 @ 8:10 cst.

there are days in the last sixth months that i think i have started to own the idea that i had cancer. had cancer. past tense. that, on july 23rd of 2009, a malignant, physiological anomaly was removed from my body along with my right kidney. there are days, more of them in the last six months than the previous six, where my state of mind is one of control. whether that control comes due to a function of time removed from last july, lexapro, or a combination of both maintains no real consequence. on those days where i am in control of my mind, i can think an irrational thought, compartmentalize that thought and file it away under "you shall not pass!!!", and i am a functioning member of society. loving, father of two. decent to crappy husband. par to above average director of a locally owned and operated franchise. getting worse by the game softball player. getting better by the day friend. a still-wasting-tens-of-peoples time blogger. a proud member of limbo. an emeritus weed. and so on. not only do i function, but i, believe it or not, can enjoy life. the girls make me laugh. the girls make me yell. the braves bring me joy. bobby cox makes me question his worth as a human being. i love going to work. a customer reminds me that loving going to work is a privilege, not a right. i am happy. i rap along with eminem and then sing along soulfully with the gaslight anthem. in the last six months, i have had many more of these days.

and then there are days like yesterday...

i know my anxiety is racing more than usual because i set my year-out follow up scan last week. i know it. intellectually, i get it. i just can't do anything about it. yesterday, it was all i could do to hold it together.

and nobody knew. that's an improvement.

around lunchtime, i found out that a 32 year-old coworker from the homewood psp prematurely lost her life saturday to causes yet known. before that news, i was already on edge. after, it was a ramped up version of that on-edge story. my senses turned themselves to hyper-aware. i felt dizzy all afternoon 'til i came home and was able to sit down. pains and/or tweaks in my neck, back and lower abdominals that i've been talking away for weeks now all came back at once. her circumstances had nothing to do with my medical history. but her tragedy and my sadness towards it, though, sent me spiraling into deathdreams i had not experienced since before christmas.

to compare or try to tie together my fate with that of meredith would be beyond ridiculous and selfish to a blasphemous fault, and, please believe me, i am not trying to do so. not one bit.

what i saw and heard in my co-worker's passing was an unsolicited reminder of my mortality, and my instinctual reflexes, bent, perverted and re-conditioned through my experience with cancer last summer betrayed me.

i wanted to cry for meredith, but i was too scared too. i wanted to call her employees and tell them i was sorry, but i couldn't shake myself out of the office. i wanted to call the store director at pelham and meredith's old boss to share with him my condolences, but i could only manage a text.

days like yesterday, for me, are fewer now and farther between. what massive work on my state of mind i'd like to believe i've made was deconstructed right before my eyes by horrible news.

i now worry for friday's results with little thought for rationale. i worry for them and see them through selfish and tragedy tinted lenses.

fuck you, cancer and fuck you, circumstances that tore meredith away from her family, her friends, her co-workers and loved ones.

rest in peace, meredith. and godspeed.