Am I like a lesson-teaching clown to you?

So you want lessons? Lessons learned?

From a man who spent part of the rainy weekend watching Spongebob Squarepants?

My little girl wanted me to see this new, very special episode (kind of like "Blossom," where every episode was "very special" and to be watched by your entire family).

We didn't find it but we did make lemon-poppy seed scones for breakfast and we recorded Clare's instructions on the six steps to successful baseball pitching for her own blog.

As always, our time went too quickly and I spent the drive back in full mope -- aided by two extra hours on I-65 because some dope failed to understand that "merge" doesn't mean "come to a complete stop in the middle of the highway."

I moped because I missed Clare and because I did not fulfill any goals for the furlough. I didn't read as much as I wanted. I didn't write as much as I should have. Exercise became relegated to two hikes in the dunes. My diet included as many bad things as good.

And the mope set in because I had not learned real lessons or become a better person. At the end of these nine days, I am, still yours truly.

Being stuck in traffic outside of Remington did leave time for much thinking, unless I wanted to choose between country music, classic country, contemporary country or gospel country music. I did not like the choices (I had my heart set on emo country.)

So I thought as I listened to a CD about the Enlightenment, a series of lectures so far above my head I need to get a dish installed in my noodle to pull them in. The professor started to talk about a paper my Immanuel Kant, who at one point made a distinction between private reason and public reason and how many readers in the 200 years since have misunderstood the phrases. (Private reason could be compromised: a teacher hired specifically to teach Lutheran dogma in a Lutheran school should not switch to teaching Buddhism. Public reason, though, including discussion of liberty, freedom, justice and the like, must always remain constant and resolute.) You can read his "What is Enlightenment?" here: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html

It caused me to contemplate the difference between the internal and the external, ideas I struggled with all week. I've come to believe that most of what we consider important -- morality, ethics, intelligence, reason, personal choice, happiness even -- these are all internal issues, under one's control at all times. And while this is a freeing revelation, that we can even control own own happiness regardless of circumstances, it carries with the idea a burdensome responsibility, one that can crush you if you allow it. Personal, internal control becomes scary when you realize that life is not lived in the hall of ideas but in 10,000 or more personal decisions each day. You can be a scholar on ending the death penalty, but if you treat your children poorly, where's your morality? If you're an nationally known advocate of either pro life or pro choice but you stiff the waitress after a nice meal, what is the import of the macro issue?

That said, stifled in an apartment for the first half of the furlough -- reading, writing ,thinking -- meant quite little until I braved the world again. I had dinner with a friend. I consoled a co-worker who lost his job. I tracked down someone who's absence left me less than whole. And I spent two days with my favorite person in the world, my little girl.

So what is internal control without the external act? Mere intellectual practice putting? Stretching out but never going for the run? Ethical tiddlywinks?

I should have better read my monastery hero, Thomas Merton. In thinking about his body of work and how it changed over 20 years, I rememberd how he moved from strict ideologue to a loving, giving spirit who encouraged his literary visitors to smuggle some scotch into his hermitage.

As you cannot have light without darkness, you can't have the brave internal without the acting external.

Is that my lesson? Is that all the reader gets for braving nine furlogs?

No. Because Spongebob has taught me this much:
1.) Be nice to people, even if they're not nice to you.
2.) Be loyal, because it's the most you can give.
3.) Work hard, even on simple tasks, and take joy in them.

And finally, for a real lesson, here are the six steps to pitching:




Thanks for reading and thanks for the comments.

Outside: an exigesis in play

It's fun to play outside.

As usual, my little girl boiled down the day to its most simple form.

I picked her up in Indianapolis, where we shared our usual daddy-daughter lunch and invariable stop at the book store.

We visited what she calls "the hippie store" n Valparaiso and generally spent out time on the go.

And she begged me the whole time to have a sports day, so with our time left, we played catch and enjoyed our version of "pepper," a baseball variant of hot potato.

That's what the fun of the day came down to, playing outside. That's what she'll member.

I shouldn't forget one of the great lessons she taught me previously. On her first weekend visit with me after I moved to Valparaiso, we took the train to Chicago and went to the American Girl store. There, we over-payed for hairstyles, food and other useless mini-baubles. We ate more in the top of a high rise, and after getting home to Valparaiso went to an arcade. Then, that night, as we snuggled on the couch, I introduced her to "The Three Stooges," particularly the vernacular. When she went to bed that night, I gave the usual benediction to the little girl I love so much. "Goodnight, chowderhead," she said.

Of course, I literally fell over laughing and couldn't stop. I saw in her that teary-eyed response I enjoyed as a child, when I made an adult laugh the same way.

The next day, as we readied for "the switch" as divorced parents call it, I asked her what was the favorite part of her trip. "When I called you chowderhead and you laughed and fell over," she said without pausing.

It wasn't about money. It wasn't about doing. Our memories are about the simplest bonding a daddy and daughter can do. And I forget that but she brings me back.

I'm adding some photos of her, as she writes in her new journal (with new feather pen) before bedtime. She's designing clothes and accessories in this new journal, a favorite because it's covered in the "peace" sign and at 8 years old she's a determined pacifist.

I also add a photo of from French thyme I bought at Penzey's in Indianapolis, the best spices you can buy. But it makes me nervous to travel when I buy an ounce of dried green herbs in a clear plastic bag and then spend a couple hours on the freeway.

And indeed, it is fun to play outside.

Has anyone seen my furlog?

Sheer panic is one sleepless night away.

How can I tell?

Tonight, it's a tinge of panic, a smidgen of panic, a pinch of panic.

And that anxiety will mushroom like a, uh, um, well a mushroom, I guess, into full-blown panic Saturday morning because I do not know that I'm one damned iota better today than when furlough began one week ago this evening.

I have just two days left to determine or prove that I've used this gift of free time to improve the remains of my character, the detritus of my intellect, the thing of my thing.

These two days will have one common theme: that of my wonderful daughter, who likely will distill my fears into some simple, childlike wisdom that will light the bulb in my noggin. We try not to make big plans, instead moving through our time organically and if that means we cook an omelet, that's what we do. If we feel like nature, we go to the beach. And if we need a philosophical treat, then it's Spongebob Squarepants. (Seriously, the dude's very Zen. Except for the whole wisdom thing. Other than that, totally Zen, man.)

Just what the hell have I done all week? Other than some readin' and writin'? I didn't even try cipherin'.

Today, because the weather was a gift from Jehovah himself, I returned to the state park where I finally caught that damned elusive red-headed woodpecker on film. Then I trekked the dune that takes you to the Beach House Blowout, a formation of sand dunes that looks like a bullhorn, were you to look down at it from space -- or Google Earth. The place calms and soothes and challenges all at the same time. I'm attaching a video. (The audio is the wind, not me.) Blowouts form when the the eternal winds move south down Lake Michigan and breach the nearly 200-feet tall dunes that separate the lake from the land. The blowout can be caused by a lack of plants holding the sand down or just the whims of nature. What they create, though, are these great sand-based amphitheaters where one can sit softly and watch the show that is Lake Michigan.

I also reconnected with one of my dearest friends, the Countess Angela Murphy, who without dropping names can move through the philosophies of Pascal, Darwin and George Carlin in three sentences. I realized in my hermetic seal that I should never again forego such a person-- and for this I am truly thankful.

But what does that add to any facet of my life, to go to a place I've been so many times I could walk it in my sleep?

I hope, I hope that in the next two days I can find something to tell -- to both my dear Furlog readers and myself-- that I've become a better person through this gift of unpaid time off.

If not, I will need help from you. And I will seek it.

A fine day out

For all the fine reasoning behind sealing oneself off, living the life of a reading and writing hermit, there remains the need of human contact.

As I've mentioned before, I've long admired Thomas Merton, the literature major turned silent monk. You can read about him here: http://www.merton.org/chrono.htm.

And what the quiet and silence monastery brought Merton, he still needed the human contact of his brother monks and, as his fame grew, of those visitors who sought ought his wisdom.

Needless to say, no one's seeking out my wisdom -- unless it's 1970s TV trivia, and no one's done that yet. Nonetheless, I needed a fine day out.

But despite breakfast, my day out tended more toward more silence, unless you count the knock of the red-headed woodpecker, the scattering of the gray squirrel. They were my best friends for the day.

I hiked for some time at Indiana Dunes State Park and, as I do every time, wondered why I don't hike there more often. Not just every week but how many times a week. The state park and the National park serve as a cathedral to nature. I've lived in many places, and not seen any, at least yet, where I can stand 200 hundred feet above sea level, look in one direction and see nothing but blue-green water, turn 180 degrees and see nothing but arboreal forest for thousands of acres. And all of this vista is carpeted by the finest of sands.

Remarkable.

County your blessing, my local friends. (But you're only allowed to count them if you live them.)

I also visited the new lakefront park in Portage, a beautiful reopening of waterfront property, once poisoned and dead, now alive in nature and use of people. I spent nearly an hour watching gulls spy the waters for food, occasionally diving quickly to catch some fish foolish enough to seek the warmer top waters. As I walked from my car, I heard one man call them "flying rats," a phrase I've heard since spending time on big water 20 years ago. And, indeed, the bird will eat anything. The moniker hardly diminishes the beauty, though, of the white and gray birds as they fly, dive and then rise again. Nature is too pure to let derision make it anything less.

It was, as Wallace and Gromit would have it, a fine day out.

The end

I'm finishing the end of "The Gospel of Jesús."

He dies.

That is all.

A novel day

If Jesus returned to Earth today, in what manner would he return?

What would happen if he returned as an illegal immigrant, smuggled into the United States by his parents as an infant?

I raise the questions because they form the broad outline of my second novel, "The Gospel of Jesús," which I worked on the better part of today. It stands at about 52,000 words and still has about two chapters to go.

The idea occurred to me reading books by John Dominic Crossen, a former priest and monk who is among the leading Bible scholars of the day. It happens that the historical Jesus -- and there is such a figure external to what's written in The Bible -- wasn't a blue-eyed, blond-haired dude who sat in the front row of the mega Church. What we know according to contemporaneous histories of his time, he was of a Semitic people born into extreme poverty in what was then the armpit of the Roman Empire. And yet, within 60 years of his death, Roman writers like Pliny the Younger and Flavius Josephus were writing about this nobody and his follows (Pliny killed a bunch of them, to boot).

Believer or not, it is unique in the true sense of the word.

Tell me that's not intriguing.

Here's the beginning of the book:

They were to cross at El Paso.
José, Maria and the baby Jesús piled into the box truck that waited for them in the Paso del Norte neighborhood of Juarez, where they met the coyote, an unsmiling, sweaty, dirty and smelly man who simply stuck his hand out waiting for payment.
José handed the man a stack of American dollars, $2,000 for each of them. Six thousand total – virtually all of the money José had made in the last three years.
The coyote handed José a jar of axle grease, the smell of which would throw off any search dogs.

“Frótelo todo sobre usted,” the coyote whispered hoarsely. “Para cubrir encima del
olor humano.”
Rub it all over yourself. To cover the human smell.
José took the grease and looked at Maria. He could see the fear, the pain, the worry in her face. In her arms, she held Jesús, whom she had birthed just three days before. Jesús looked around, as he had since his birth, paying attention to everything, never crying, rarely sleeping, all of these traits unusual for a newborn.
José and Maria had hoped to cross before the birth, allowing Jesús to be born in America, the promised land, knowing that if the American policia caught them, at least Jesús could stay because he would be a U.S. citizen.
But too many people knew José had $6,000 on him and the danger of staying in Mexico became worse than the danger of attempting to cross into the U.S.
José opened the jar of grease and scooped his curled fingers into it, pulling out enough to cover Jesús in three quick swipes.
“¿Qué sobre el bebé?” Maria asked. “¿Lo lastimará?”

What about the baby? Will it hurt him?
José shook his head no. It did not matter that he didn’t know the answer. He had given the money to the coyote and must do what he was told. Even if he balked for the safety of the child or his wife, he would never see the money again. All coyotes knew only two things: money and violence. It would be one or the other for José and, worse, for his family.
After smearing the baby, who squirmed like he was in a bath, José covered Maria. He’d done as he heard, covering all exposed skin and rubbing extra areas that produce the human smells the dogs could pick up. The modest Maria did not flinch as José, whom she not yet been with, rubbed axle grease first on her.
Then José covered himself in the grease. They wrapped the baby in another bath towel, which they then painted with the last of the grease.
The coyote pointed them to the back of the box truck, which had tools and construction equipment and the countless stains of axle grease from predecessors, where a false wall had been pulled out. The space where they would make the short trip was just 10 inches deep, maybe less. It needed to be so border guards could not sense the subterfuge. They would splay their feet and turn their heads and clasp their hands to hold the baby Jesús. And then the wall would close on them.
The coyote asked if they had done as he’d asked the day before, giving the baby some cold medication to make it sleep during the crossing. If the baby cried, they were all caught. José nodded but he could see what the coyote could: the baby was as alert as they.
The coyote warned that if the baby cried, they must smother it even to the point of death if this is what they wanted, to go to America.
“Y no deje a bebé cagar cuando los perros están aquí,” the coyote sneered.
Do not let the baby crap.
For the first time in days, maybe months, José felt like smiling. “How do you stop a baby from crapping,” he thought. “You did not tell us to bring a cork.”
As they backed toward the wall, José and Maria turned their faces toward each other, José did smile and Maria smiled back as Jesús’ eyes darted back and forth between the two.
The wall went up and was snapped into place and it was utter darkness.

Planting seeds of contemplation

If you allow yourself time to think, you actually think.

I've found that in my three-day imposed hermetical seclusion.

In the quiet, I've found the poet Frederick Seidel, described as perhaps the best poet no one knows about in America. I would print portions of his poems here, but he is controversial, largely I suspect because he's supposed to be a highbrow poet but he combines his erudition with lowbrow reality.

Until about five years ago, I was fairly tone deaf to poetry, unable to tell good from bad but attempting to learn. Then I found found the lowest of lowbrow poets anyone could imagine -- Charles Bukowski -- and began to understand a little better. Maybe that's a sign of my stature in life. The learning came not from the vulgarity but from the idea that a poet need not right solely about great grand life and unrequited love and red-breasted robins. I know others knew this before me, but that's how learning occurs. Not when someone tells you something but when the spark of knowledge alights deep below the orbital ridge.

I found Bukowski accessible, just as I find Seidel. More so than Paul Muldoon, whom I like but mostly for his ability to push nice words together rather than my ability to grasp what they all mean.

In a moment of serendipity, cleaning a bookshelf to make room for more books, I found an old notebook from 2006, in which I found some poems from a project of writing poetry based on breaking news. (It's the lazy man's poetry. Someone else has done all the reporting for you, given you the key words; all you have to do is break them up and rearrange them.)

Here's "Peace at Hand":

Amman talked to Olmert and Fouad

So peace could begin at 5 a.m. Monday

That led to

Fifteen dead in Rachef

Eight near the ports of Sidon and Tripoli

Three in air strikes on Kharayeb

One in the Bakaa VAlley

Eleven from Israel

Seventy wounded

To add to the 1,100 dead

In this month of war

Which will cease to fire

So leaders try to run of bombs

and soldiers

and civilians

Three hundred of whom

were some parent's children.

If you're reading this, you're one of fewer than five people alive who've read any poem I've written. (Now I'm up to six -- huzzah.)

And by the end of the day, I had Thomas Merton in mind. He had a master's from Columbia in literature but gave up the dull life of an English professor forever bedding his students for the life in a silent monastery in Kentucky. I grew up reading Merton and -- while I could never understand his poetry worth a damn -- I admired his prodigious output of material, mostly of the autobiographical and spiritual. I thought long that it was because he had the time to produce, being all monked up and all.

So I dug up my mom's old copy of "Seeds of Contemplation," which he wrote in 1949 (and I purloined nearly forty years later) and found this: "There is too much passion and too much physical violence for men to want to reflect much on the interior life and its meaning. yet since the interior life and contemplation are the things we most of all need ... the kind of considerations written in these pages ought to be something for which everybody, and not only monks, would have a great hunger in our time."

I realize today, he had the time to think it first. That's the key.