Preferences...

                           I’m not a people person.

                But I kind of wish I were...

        I want to be the kind of guy who excells at small talk and not the one who’s soul withers when it is required...

           I wish the love that I have for people wasn’t eclipsed by an inability to display it coherently, and that I had more the ease and grace of a Sam Malone and a little less Louie DePalma...

                           Dueling sitcoms, I know..

                     The point is, if given my druthers, the boxes I would have checked when God spoke into existence this particular strand of DNA, certainly would not have matched or remotely resembled the final draft, let alone first printing...

                        Have you ever looked up to the sky, head tilted, eyes a bit puzzled and gently inform The Creator of All that perhaps a few letters weren’t dotted correctly or properly crossed? Not that He made a mistake, per se, but just a few tiny oversights...

                      I’m probably the only one who has ever had that conversation, I know...

       The crazy thing is, that when I enter this place, if I’m being completely honest, often it is not regarding the qualities ( softer heart, gentler spirit, sacrificial giving, etc., etc., ) that truly matter in this world, but almost always in the externals;  wanting to appear more graceful, appear more confident, appear a few points smarter...

             I tell God if I had those qualities I could be more useful to Him.

                    How Loving and Patient He is...

              Words come informing me gently that although His Love is Infinite for me, His Work does not require my presence or even existence...

                                        Ouch.

                      Followed by much relief...

                          I find that I probably should focus a whole lot less on the social graces I wish I had, and a whole lot more on the the actual Graces He has placed in my life; That the woman I love and adore is off put by the Sam Malone type anyway, and never would have given me the time of day, if that was who I was; bumbling and bouncing and walking into doors evidently has there own particular charm, I guess...

               God equips us perfectly for His purposes, but how ironic it is in how ineffective that equipment becomes when we insistently drag it to the wheres and hows of our own preferences, not His...

                                He doesn’t equip me for my purposes.

                                     Thinking I should remember that...

                     So I show up and continue where I am not gifted, but where I am used.

                       Maybe that is true Grace, after all, not to be polished or comfortable, but to be used; not because of inherent value, but because of inherent brokenness ; not because of who we are, but Who He is, working inside us to reach another ...

                My social ineptitude is not enough to hinder Gods work, just as all the social graces in the world are not powerful enough to advance it one tiddle...

            I needed to remind myself this, today...

              

                         

With this Ring...

            When I was a kid, probably younger than our twelve year old, I was exploring the hundred year old cellar of our house for about the thousandth time. On the ledge beneath the kitchen, in a round antique tin, I found a baby food jar with its bottom filled with jewelry.

                            In that, I found my moms wedding ring...

                              I remember thinking I had found an answer. 

              Neither my father nor my mother ever wore their wedding rings, and at that early age, somehow in my child's mind, I thought I discovered  the reason that they always argued; why they fought and went weeks, it seemed, without talking...

                          Why they never held hands or said "I love you" to each other, or even pretended to act like that thought was true. Happily, expectantly, I brought my find upstairs to my mom, hoping that she would put it on her finger and by some crazy magic, all that was, would change into what i thought they should  already have been...

                    Soon I returned down into that cellar, putting everything back into place, the tiny gold ring still covered by flaking tie tacks and loose, old buttons...

                          I thought to myself that when I got married, I would always wear my wedding ring, and that would guarantee love and happiness...

                                         Like I said, I was very young...

                          Almost twenty five years later, I did get married.

                             I wore my ring for years, happily, having been hired by a company that paid enough to financially support our growing family, while my Wonderful Wife  worked in our home, doing a much harder job of loving and shaping our children...

                           A few years in, corporate policy demanded we remove all jewelry at work.

                        To stay employed I would have to take off my wedding ring...

                                   The child's promise made a quarter of a century before continued to haunt me, as I tried to hide how the thought of  that act was churning my insides and terrifying the still naive boy within. My brain, my " philosophies" badgered and bullied him into acquiescence...

                       And not a day has went by since, that I haven't looked at the empty space on my left finger without a smidgen of sadness that I couldn't intelligently explain.

                       And that is why now, after having put it back on my hand a few months ago,something deep inside of my heart or soul or psyche- maybe all three of them, are in unison, calmly saying no...

                                          Having finally held my wife's  hand again across a dinner table, seeing her dark eyes illuminated by a flickering candle flame, her fingers entwined in mine, and the gentle glint from the stones in both our rings; hands so intricately meshed  that we could hardly tell where hers began and mine ended...

                                            I cannot fathom how to let that all go...

                   

                         My Wife will love me whether i wear a ring or not. I would love and adore her if no jewelry ever touched her skin again; Im not afraid that not wearing a ring will affect our covenant, because in truth it was fulfilled by a God immensely larger than any shaped metal and stone.

                                        It is not fear I feel, of that child after all...

                                                             Just sadness...

                      I'm going back to work in a few days and by policy, must remove this ring again...

                                     And the same choice I made when they instituted this rule, I'm going to have choose again. I can't not work; I need to provide for my Wonderful Wife and McMonkeys three...

                        In a world full of chaos and violence, in the perspective of a million real problems, in the life of people living , hungry and afraid, this doesn't even count as a shadow of an actual problem. In context, this should not matter at all...

                                                                But it does...

                               Where the ring has been all this summer has left a fleshy white band beneath the metal, faint enough to not immediately catch ones eye, but defined enough, if you look.

                  Maybe God Graced me with this gentle reminder, to soften my silly sentimentality...

                               Maybe even in the little things, He Loves us, lifting up these tiny personal sadnesses, using them as examples to show us that even our hurts imperceptible and trivial to the rest of the world, He feels worthy to lovingly touch...

                                                     I like to think that...

                                                     It gives me comfort.

                                                  Maybe that's the point...

Netflixed...

                                                             I hate texting...

                            Except when answering texts for my Wonderful Wife, while she's driving on a two hour trip, on her phone. It's not so bad when you're responding to every ding with " This rest stop bathroom is a mess. I'm pooping." Or " Darn, it won't flush. They're  going to be really surprised by that one!", interspersed with coffee and hamburger emojis...

                       It took an hour and a half, but her friend eventually texted back " Hankster! Is that you?"

                                         Good times. But other than that...

                                                               I hate texting.

                          I know that in the year 2017, writing this statement is just about enough to get me involuntarily committed. I try very hard to distance myself from all the other reasons that could lead to the probability of that eventual occurrence, but I cannot allow the laws of self preservation to silence me.

                                                                Not on this.

                                   Let them come with white coats, happy jackets and butterfly nets; some things just need to be said...

                                      I am not that old. Well, maybe I am approaching that watermark, a hefty, balding anachronism whose teen McMonkeys think he has already driven well over that precipice...

                                             I can't quite accept  I'm there yet.

                            My job is reasonably technical and I have been confused for " the tech guy" once or twice, in a few factories. I am not him, I assure you, but at times faking it was enough to actually repair some fairly complex machines; I have googled and copied and pasted...

                                                     I'm not a technophobe.

                                                             But...

                                  Generally, everything after but is bull- hooey, I know...

                                        But... I have an inherent incompetence communicating in social media, and am about as graceful in typed conversations as a bull in an Apple Store. ( not sure I can go back to the one in Crossgates Mall yet) but that's a whole other story...

                                   I can express words, thoughts and emotions, in a reasonable fashion; given days to ponder how a functional person would react to a particular sentence, and eventually I'm able to formulate a response.

                              Sitting down, one to one, it is a coin toss; maybe, maybe not, but at least there is a chance. Text me, and all hope dives out the window. 

                               Is there a phobia somewhere for the identity I own?

                                         I don't do small talk well. Correction, I don't do small talk at all. I stutter and act stupid, I bumble and bounce, like riding a verbal hoppity hop down the stairs...

                                     And this isn't the reason I hate texting; it's just the synopsis of the crazy basket in my brain. The reason, I think, is much more personal...

                                           You can fall in love on the telephone.

                            I know you can, because I have. If you are old enough to remember pay phones, you have too...  Thirty five or forty years ago, after dodging sabertoothes, I remember being on the phone for hours, with an old girlfriend. Conversations on politics and horror movies, philosophies and broken hearts; deep, personal secrets and stupidly outrageous jokes.

                                    That can't happen on a phone keypad; if it does, you've probably fallen in love with the inventor of autocorrect, not the person you are texting. I can call my Wonderful Wife twice in the same week, from work, and have practically the same conversation, and within moments I can usually tell, by her tone if she's having a good day, a-someone peed on the bathroom wall-day or an-unusually disoriented husband forgot to empty his wallet of receipts, and now we are broke for the week-day...

                                                            Just by her tone...

                                   I read stupid memes saying if your boyfriend doesn't text you back right away, he doesn't love you.  News flash...

                    If your boyfriend loves you, he's going to want to hear your voice...

                                 How many dating teens are hovering over the glow of a stupid screen, waiting for snippets of a conversation, instead of taking part in a real one? When did people start thinking that little green balloons with a few words, dashed out with hastily added emojis can take the place of intimate conversation?

             

                                  I hate texting because you never have someone's complete attention when they are with you, if their phone is on. Someone else is always with you. 

                         Correction- everyone else in their contact list is always with you. They may be well mannered enough to not constantly be checking their phone, but when a lull in the conversation happens , almost inevitably, they dive to check.

                                                          The tragedy is, this is normal.

                     Mention it and you are called out of touch. With some, voicing opposition to text based communications is punishable by stoning...

                                    Bring it up at any place people congregate with their phones.

                      Kitchens. Public bathrooms. Funerals. On the nightstand while making love....

                                    Ask people the most embarrassing place they ever received a text.

                                                    I double dog dare you...

                     How strangely ironic; an affinity for human intimacy in a socio-phobe...

                                             Of course, I am just a few months past cro-magnon; I refuse to use the self serve checkout lines because they feel impersonal, and I find it kind of gauling that companies want me to do the job of their employees and accept that it is for my own convenience. I look forward to watching my favorite shows, on the same day, on the same channel, at the same time, every week.

                     I binged watched only once, Daredevil, season 2 on Netflix last year recuperating from shoulder surgery... Great show, but it isn't  anything I desire to do again..

                                I don't tip people for running a cash register, either...

                                         Like I said, I'm out of touch...

                           My son gets mad that I won't text him. He doesn't get it...

                                   I want to talk to my son, even if all we talk about is when I need to pick him up. I don't want, fifteen years down the road to find out I can't remember how he sounded but can recall his favorite font. I want to say " I love you, bub" every time, when I hang up, even if it makes him feel embarrassed. I want to hear my loves melodious,if frustrated voice, at every opportunity - even if she's mad at me...

                    But I am our of touch and my value system has crested past obsolescence ...

                                                 And I'm ok with that...

                             

Rubber crutches...

                        So...I was sitting in our creaky recliner the other day, watching old cooking channel reruns...The phone rings across the room, and instinctively I jump up, take three or four steps, then freeze in place...

                     I may have forgotten to mention that I just had my hip repaired two days before. The crutches I was supposed to use every time I walked, were still conveniently laying across the basket on the floor, near the chair, for easy access...

                                                Of course, I was physically across the room now, thinking their placement not presently convenient....

                                  A lot of things went thru my mind. First, I thought " Oh, poop"...

                                          ( not certain that those were my exact words)  

                      

                         I remembered that my Wonderful Wife was upstairs on her computer, filling out paperwork and figuring the bills. As I recalled this, still trying to balance on one good leg, nervously caressing the brace strapped from my chest to the knee, the one I would be wearing 24/7 for the next four weeks or so, I knew that if I asked her, she would be down in seconds to assist me. I also knew that I would be hearing about all my little jaunts physical risks,the proper body mechanics I should have been displaying in said travels, and many pertinent and pointed questions regarding the exact placement of the common sense I had evidently misplaced...

                                      Basically, the response of any good and caring wife...

                               Mare was a physical therapy assistant for many years, into our marriage and the birth of our first son. My dilemma is her forte... She knows what I need to do to recover without issue...

                                 And in that one moment of instinct, I found myself in a situation that I did not plan, recalling all the things I should have done... I didn't want to rip apart all the work the surgeons did days earlier, by doubling the walk taken so far, and returning to the chair.

                                     I didn't  want to ask for help, even from the most amazing lady I know, who loves me, and accepts all my foibles and bumblings without question....

                                             Well, maybe a few questions...

                     Who has all the skill and compassion and ability needed to help...

                                        And my good leg was wobbling...

                                 I would love to describe how I embraced common sense and called up the stairs, asking for assistance, how I accepted care and correction humbly and gratefully.

                                             But I hobbled back to the chair...

                                                

                                                        In that chair I started thinking...

                         

                                 How closely this can parralel struggles in a Christian life...

                      When I am broken, it is Jesus that props me up and steadies me in His perfect support.                  He carries me when all that I am is unable... 

                                                      Jesus is my crutch...

                          Non Christians sometimes say that in a negative, but for me, that is an absolute positive... 

                         I make no apology for needing Jesus to work in me.

                       My hip cannot hold me up; I need something stronger than me to support the frame that houses who I am. I need these aluminum crutches.....

                                  My spirit is much more fragile than my hip, left to its own devices. It takes fewer steps from God to tear it apart; tragically, the further I walk from Jesus, the harder it is to see the true need I have of Him...

                         The harder it becomes to stop in mid- step, yell up the stairs "Could somebody please help me here? I just did something stupid, and just want to get back to my chair..."

                              

                              When I instinctively react, trusting in the failability of my own power, injure myself in those first long steps away from God, I face my first choice- rely on my own strength and intelligence to repair the situation, or accept the simple fact that my decisions caused my dilemma; realize that I am my own biggest problem, and just stop...

                                                     Stop being an idiot...

                                                 Stop being willfull and enamored with my own self obsessed, unworkable " solutions"...

                                                It is so much easier to stay in His presence than it is to find my way back into it.... 

                                          Thankfully, He always searches for His lost sheep...

                                                I realize that my brain is my biggest rubber crutch; to every appearance it looks supporting and functional, but when tested, generally bends quickly over, creating chaos...

                                           

                                               I am so thankful for my real ones......

                              

                                            

                                             

Victory Woods...

                                A few centuries ago, when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, my brother and a friend of his took me with them into the woods, where they went daily to check their trap lines, at 5:00 am., each morning. This was long before I began drinking coffee religiously, so I stumbled thru the brambles and pickers with less grace than a bull in the proverbial china shop. To be honest, even with coffee and a full nights sleep, I more resemble that male bovines spacial ineptnesses than most ...

                                          But that is a completely different story.

                            Anyway, after my tripping in the mud a half dozen times or more, and sliding down a riverbank or two, we approached the first trap they had set. Happily it was empty, but my brother looked across the creek that we were standing by, and said" Look! There's a squirrel on a branch.... Do you see it?"

                                              Of course I lied. " Yep. I sure do".

                          ( picture this whole conversation in a Dukes of Hazzard twang. That's not how it actually sounded, but it's how it SHOULD have sounded. If you can't do that, then just use your best " Victory Mills drawl)

                                       He handed me his single shot  bolt action 22 rifle, and said  "Good. Shoot it".

     Unbeknownst to me, this poor little fellow had been shot a few dozen times already, and was tied to the limb by a string; they had found him dead on the ground, almost a month before, and put it on the branch, for target practice. Whenever it fell off, they tied it back up, and this particular morning, they decided to use him to see just how much of a crack shot I actually was.

                                                So I grabbed the rifle, the first one I'd ever held, and postured as only a thirteen year old, prepubescent male can, responding " No problem. I'll knock him right off that branch"

           That would not have sounded so ludicrous if I happened to be able to see the squirrel; it might have maybe even passed as believable, if I pointed at the correct tree...

                         So I fumbled with the rifle, and  fought with the safety, guessed as well as I could, and pulled the trigger...

                             I managed a perfect shot, right in the middle of the tree.

                      Sadly, it was a tree two trees away from the one that held the squirrel, tied to a branch...

                                " You got it !" My brother cheered, as his friend played along. We walked to the tree that held the squirrel and examined my supposed handiwork. There was dried blood and multiple holes thruout his body, none by the shot I took.

                      Not being able to see the squirrel in the first place, I decided that I probably didn't really hit the tree I was shooting at and, hit the real target squirrel by mistake...

                                                " Wow! I hit it GOOD!" I said...

                              So why did I drag you down Alice's rabbit hole, in Victory Woods?

                                           I had a point to begin with...

                                                                      Really, I did...

                                                Sin is such a stern and judgemental word.

                                    When I hear it, I act like a Pavlovian abused dog, hiding from that inevitable newspaper that is surely coming at my nose; instinctively I react,  Bad! Bad ! Bad!,  not just to the word sin, but also my place in it. I tend to internalize it, in guilt, almost as if it were my true identity...

                               Someone shared the most widely accepted and most accurate Biblical definition of sin with me years back, and again, recently it appeared in my studies.

                                                         To miss the mark...

                My life and my sins have been so much like that little squirrel fest I went on as a kid; not seeing what I was supposed to shoot at, faking it, denying what I did hit, and convincing myself that I did hit the right target all along...

                                 And all God really wanted to do was point my barrel at the right tree, the right limb, and maybe sight in my scope for me... He does not hate me for sinning, for missing. He wants to correct me and guide me, show me what I'm doing wrong and let me attempt again, until I improve enough that I hit that mark, exactly as He defined it...

                                                   There is so much Grace in that definition.

                         We all miss the mark every single day, more often than not, not having a single clue to where that last bullet went. We need each other so much, to notice when we are firing off range and ask us, hopefully gently and lovingly, can you REALLY see that squirrel???

                                                I fail at this, often; when I do try, more often than not, I completely miss the mark of giving Grace and kindness, while attacking with the question; and sometimes, I don't even try, I  just go down the middle of that old west street, six guns ablazin...

                                     I find myself so miserly in lending grace, and so comfortable holding a rolled up newspaper...

                                                      

                                         Then I remember that God loved us long before we sinned, long before He created us , and long before we needed correction. He loved us with the full knowledge we would miss His mark so terribly in The Garden...

                                            Perhaps that's meant as an example? 

                                                      I'm thinking so...

                                               

                                           

                                            

                                                

I thought it was just a picture....

                                    Sometimes, I am just an idiot...

                        Caught up in the "Meme wars" transpiring on Facebook, I saw a wonderful picture of a baby in a mothers hands, posted by my Wonderful Wife. Above it was a simple disclaimer and a gentle request for this not to become a political debate...

                                                    I love this woman.

                       She has the grace to share a point quietly, almost unassumingly..

                                             Me, not so much.

                                          Understatement alert, in case you missed it...

                                                   So, back to the story.

                                  I thought " Great picture. Neat disclaimer, clicked like and kept on scrolling....

Later that night, we were sitting drinking coffee and eating free desert at Friday's, while waiting for our kids to finish at our Church's  life groups. I said I liked her picture and she started sharing a bit about her post...

                                I started thinking that maybe I missed something...

                                      This morning, I see comments all over her " picture".

                                   I click on the disclaimer and an amazingly emotional and intimate part of her life, events that God used to help shape her into the amazing woman she has become, drop down for multiple long paragraphs...

                                                                I had missed it. 

                                                Sometimes my bumbling can be my charm, an amusing distraction from the monotony of life; sometimes it can be the path that eventually leads me to a grace God meant for me long before, when I take the long and twisted road to simply cross a street...

                     And sometimes, sometimes, all is is something to underscore my idioticy...

                                                             Like today...

                                                     Because sometimes, I am an idiot...

                                                             She still loves me.

                                                Even when I miss it completely. 

         She kisses me good night and pauses half a second for my nightly "Thanks for marrying me honey. And thanks for all the baby- having"..

                                              " Thanks for asking" she always replies..

                                     She doesn't mention how stupid I am or completely self involved I became. She doesn't pout... 

                                 She just kisses me and says "Thanks for asking"...

                                     

                           So here is just one more of the reasons I call her my Wonderful Wife.

Goodnight, Santa...

                                                  I may have killed Santa Clause...

                     Maybe not killed exactly; I don't think I was directly involved in his actual demise, but I did deliver his eulogy...

                             We had a snow day the other day, the bubs all home from school and it just happened to be on one of my regularly scheduled days off. The two youngest McMonkeys were vibrating with a strange amalgamated mixture of teen and tween jubilation.

                My eldest son refused to venture into the nor'easter. He told me he was too old for snow...

                                                     Me too, kid. Me too...

                       We other three, we layered up like only northerners can, and packed sleds into our trusty, rusty Ford Explorer. A short jaunt later found us at a local park, still unplowed, but already inhabited by laughing children plummeting downhill, over snow covered bushes. Of course, my two adolescent cimeans ignored their moms inbred common sense and bypassed the sleigh path most traveled, that the other saner kids were enjoying, choosing instead a vertically plunging, picker infested cliff, interspersed with tangly trees and mounded clumps of snow covered grass...

                                   I looked at it and had second thoughts.

                            Second, thirds and fourths, if we're being honest...

                              As they trudged up the hill, pulling on the frozen plants that would soon be whipping their gently iced faces, I stopped and tried to figure out  just exactly what I was going to say to their mother later, when she asked what I was thinking.

                                  With no ready answer, I sat on the bench a few hundred feet from where they would be sledding. I had no idea what I was thinking, I guess...

                                        The Wonderful Wife would buy that.

                               None of the terrible things I pictured in my mind happened that could have, and the boys spent a rather uneventful few hours enjoying the snow. I smiled, now having an answer to the " What were you thinking?!?" quandary question I will eventually get for something else...

                               At home, everyone yanked off the winter clothes in the mud room and Stephen went inside to the kitchen. Jake and I finished hanging our clothes up to dry, and he said he couldn't wait for Santa to come...

                    I looked at my littlest McMonkey, at his trusting smiling face and deep into his joyful, childlike eyes and remembered all those times we played and pretended all manners of imaginated worlds. I recalled the blanket forts and nerf wars, superhero costumes and plastic swords; I somehow recalled each and every Christmas morning spanning the past fourteen years and the gleeful screaming, not even fully down the stairs,of all three in unison, "Santa came! He brought presents!"...

                        I remembered the nights of present-free trees and reindeer feed sprinkled outside in the snow, of expectation and extravagant wishing children's hopings....

                          Sneaking presents down creaky old stairs and praying none of the three slumbering kids would wake and venture out into the hall to catch us doing St. Nicks job..

                                We put so much effort into the illusion, into their childhood...

                                                          Where did it all go?

                    " Jake" I said, " You do know there isn't really a Santa Clause, don't you?"

                                                              Just like that.

                                                              Just like that...

                                                   I didn't know what to expect. 

                                         Jake just looked up at me and smiled, then in a tiny whisper he said " I know dad. I just like to still pretend, sometimes..."

                                             I hugged him like I'd just been gently clutching all of those past Christmas memories; I felt his thick mop of hair against the pieces of snow still in my my beard, as I quietly mumbled ...

                                                            " Me too, kid...

                                                                 Me too..."