Age Is A Number

This week I've been in school. Although it's been years since I put on a new pair of blue jeans, gathered my new #2 pencils and notebook and boarded the school bus, there was still a bit of that old back-to-school angst as I stepped into this school. This school has been for certification to administer a personality inventory.

A couple of years ago I mentioned to my Amazing-Missus that I thought maybe I was going through Mid-Life Crisis. She said, "Don't flatter yourself, you're way past mid-life." She keeps me real.

Well today I learned that, at least to according to the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, that Mid-Life is a stage of life and not a particular age. After all age is just a state of mind right?

Satchel Paige

Don't believe it? Then how would you answer this question:

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

This is a quote from the great Satchel Paige. As a kid, I loved listening to baseball games on the radio. I am old enough to remember Satchel playing for the Cleveland Indians. He came to the Big Leagues from the Negro Leagues when he was 42, making him the oldest rookie to ever play on a major league team.

Well back to his question. It's a good one right?

As I've tried to explain to people what I'm trying to do with this blog I explain that it is sort of therapy for me as I go through what I've come to call my Second-Coming of Age.

I also learned today that according to Jung, the second coming of age is a healthy life stage of sorts and that in this stage I can focus on some traits I have that have always been there but sort of in the background. Who knows maybe I'll be braver, bolder, more like Hemingway without the desire to beat people up. Maybe I'll be more interesting and less cynical. Maybe I'll be the same old phart, but it's sort of fun to imagine.

Girl Power

You go Pope Francis! Normally I wouldn't pontificate so casually regarding the Pontiff, but this One seems to be inviting us to be more real and familiar.

I liked so much of what he is reported to have said in his recent interview. Particularly this, speaking of the social issues that the church obsesses over: 

The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently ...

We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.

How about the role of women? When asked about this, he sounded pretty much like all male authority figures in the church:

I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of “female machismo,” because a woman has a different makeup than a man. But what I hear about the role of women is often inspired by an ideology of machismo. Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed.

Let me say clearly, I don't understand an "ideology of machismo." Apparently it is much clearer in Latin cultures and this Pope would know much more about that than I ever could.

So I will write what I do know. For many years I had a role in ministry to young people, mainly adolescents. All of this was within the Southern Baptist Convention. I am so sad to say that the most conservative of this denomination still hold to a narrow view of the role of women in the church and, unfortunately, beyond the church walls too. I am very happy to say that I've been blessed to know many, many women who identified with Baptists who were strong, effective leaders despite the rhetoric and ranting of church fathers. All of the dogma on the matter comes from a few verses in the letters of the Apostle Paul. I don't know of anything in the words or life of Jesus that would lead anyone to the conclusions the church has drawn on the matter.

Judy, Jane, Paula, Brooke, Jessica are just a few of the young women I've known who believed they had a calling to serve the church. It broke my heart to know of the hurdles, roadblocks and discouragement they would face if they pursued this calling in a Baptist church.

Again the good news is, as I've already said, many women have just forged on anyway: my Mom, my Aunt Betty, my Mother-In-Law Betty, my Daughter-In-Law Kara and my own Amazing Missus Arlene.

Yes that's my youngest grand girl, Harper, in the cape pictured above. I hope she  always believes she has super powers. Her cape is just as significant to me as the priestly garments of the Pope himself.

You go Harper and Karlee and young girls everywhere.

Stories In Ink

I don't have a tattoo--yet. The part I find most objectionable about the whole deal is the prospect of pain. My real hesitation is that, as of this time, I have no image in mind that I'm passionate enough about to submit to the process and the permanence.

Maybe I'm over-thinking it. I do that a lot. But it seems like a tattoo says something about a person and since it's still going to be around for, well, forever, shouldn't you try to have something that will be true for you now and then too?

Several years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Ted Kooser and hearing him read poetry. At the time he was the U.S. Poet Laureate. He is one of my favorite poets and here is one of my favorite poems.

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories. 

By Ted Kooser from _Delights & Shadows_, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Talk about a finding a vivid image in the commonplace. It's like we all know this old guy. While I appreciate his story, I don't want it to be mine. I have enough to remind me of who I think I once was without adding a tattoo to the record.

For those of you who were brave enough to walk into a tattoo parlor, point to a picture and say, "Yes, I'll take one of those and put it right here," Kudos. I know there's a story behind that picture.

My Crusade As "First Man"

I like to read. There I said it.

One of my favorite childhood memories was making the trip to the library or the "Bookmobile," a library on wheels, like a big RV. But then there came a time when I figured out that cool guys didn't read, or at least didn't admit to it. Maybe I quit reading partly because reading became homework, someone else was telling me what to read and how to feel about what I read. Reading lost its wonder. But it was probably the cool thing, mostly.

Ringo Starr playing a set of Black Pearl Ludwigs

By Junior High I was pretty much in full pursuit of coolness. I was playing in the band and you know what that means. Fortunately, I had chosen drums, so at least I was in the hip section of the band. But you couldn't be in the band and love books and hope for cool.

Thankfully by the time Junior High was ending, I had arrived, by Junior High standards. I was playing drums in a decent little garage band, playing a Ludwig drum set  like Ringo Starr's. We played a lot of school dances and Teen Towns. But I had to be careful, early adolescent coolness is a fragile and fleeting thing. I didn't want to risk it all by toting a book around.

Now, I'm just delusional. I believe that being well-read is cool. I'm not delusional about that part, but rather about the assumption that I still have whatever it was that made the girls want to talk to me between sets at the Saturday Night Sock Hop or fight over a broken drumstick.

I've decided: if my Amazing-Missus ever runs for President and is elected, my crusade as First Man, will be to encourage young boys to read. As a part of this crusade I would need a recommended reading list of course. I want my reading list to meet the high criteria set by C.S. Lewis:

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” 

I thought I would start with ten books on my list. It's a work in progress (obviously since there are only eight on the list so far:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain
2. The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane
3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain
4. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis
5. The Call of the Wild. Jack London
6. The Outsiders. S.E. Hinton
7. To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee
8. Peace Like A River. Leif Enger

These last three, some may question, so I'll qualify a bit.

The Outsiders is here because it is a wonderful book, one of the best coming-of-age stories. And it happens that it is set in my hometown, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the author attended the same high school I did. (I never remember meeting her at a Teen Town if you were wondering).

To Kill A Mockingbird, another female author and a female narrator--Scout Finch, one of my very favorite characters ever. This is one everyone should read every few years.

Peace Like A River is the newest book on the list. It is a fascinating story, also narrated by a kid, this time an asthmatic boy.

So, any suggestions? Come on don't be afraid. No one here is going to think you're uncool. Click on Comment and be part of the discussion.

Peace Like a River

$9.79

By Leif Enger

Buy on Amazon

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