"Hope is real."

As a metro-Detroiter, it's hard not to be aware of homelessness. We live just North of the oh-so-infamous 8-Mile Road that narrowly divides "The D" from Metro-D. The 8-Mile and Woodward underpass is littered with the remains of those who've sought refuge from the streets...on the street. This year and last have been particularly cold winters with temperatures regularly hitting the negatives at night. At times it's hard to stay warm in our house, I can't imagine trying to sleep without a furnace and roof, even if it's under a mountain of generously donated gore-tex sleeping bags.

The past few years it seems there's been a boom in the amount of folks standing at busy street corners hoping for help from those willing to open their windows and give something in the moments before the light turns green. It's hard not to read signs that say things like, Homeless, family hungry, anything helps, without looking into one's soul to figure out what would actually help in this tiny opening between red and green.

If you asked me to imagine what homelessness looks like, without hesitance, I'd see Eugene. I don't remember the specifics around Eugene's situation, but my dad does. Eugene was his project, his faith through works, his attempt at turning the other cheek, at giving the shirt off his back, at walking the extra mile. Eugene stayed with us many nights over many years. I'd be pouring my cereal in the morning readying for school, and catch a whiff of his dense, musty alcohol and sweat, tip-toeing its way up from the basement. My parents would ask to wash his clothes while he showered, which he often declined, then after buying him a meal, my dad would drive him off to wherever he deemed his next destination. Every time he came through, for a moment, we'd wonder if this would be the final so-long. My dad likes to recall how he'd take Eugene to Burger King and every time without fail he'd comically order a "Whopper, heavy-all." Eventually we moved to Pennsylvania and prayed he'd be okay, wherever he was.

Growing up the son of a Pastor gave me many opportunities to witness the attempts of others to live the word, or practice what they preach. Specifically in regards to the homeless and hungry, many times we took people into our home or into the church to try and provide relief, if only for a night or two, hoping that our actions represented our faith and good intentions.

Last fall while eating in downtown Ferndale, we met Julia. After a double-take, as if we were long-lost friends, she greeted us through the window with an excited wave and jolly grin. She popped her head in and said to our table with a bit of a slur and a playful tone, "I'm hungry!" Not quite knowing what to do or say, fighting silence, I foolishly said "I bet you are!" She mumbled something that only a few of us could hear pieces of and walked off. As she left there was a heaviness in the air. We're a table of well-intentioned folks who have no reason, except the inconvenience of it, not to help someone who's hungry, but none of us seemed to know what was best to say or do in that moment. We were having a family dinner, toddler and guest in tow. We were in a restaurant that likely does not want to have their customers solicited from. It was complicated. None of us felt good about the interaction. Once we parceled together what she said, I felt an elephant snuggling up on my chest: "How can you be so nonchalant about my hunger?" We finished our meal and talked about the nuances of these situations. Dad and I agreed we were at fault, my off-color comment and his silence being the culprits. We walked across the street to where she was, introduced ourselves and apologized for our insensitivity, offering her the opportunity to order from the Chinese menu as we had. She said "It's no big deal," then asked if we'd be willing to get her some chicken wings and coffee from a different restaurant. Who said beggars can't be choosers, right? We felt like such A-holes we'd probably have driven downtown to get her Slows at this point. But we walked down to the wing-joint and ordered her boneless wings and a coffee to go. She was grateful. On the coat-tails of her thankfulness, she inched close to Dad, and asked in a much quieter tone, if he could also help her make bus fare while weaving a story of woe about her daughter and the police and a stolen bike. He obliged.

On our walk back Dad asked if I heard what she said when we apologized? "She forgave us," he said.

Sometimes I like to daydream about being a more honorable man; one who lives to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give shelter to the homeless. To be more willing to sacrifice my own needs for someone who isn't able to help themselves. I hope to instill this value in our beloved, as small as she is, to feel for others. I fantasize about having the abilities of Powder, to literally feel others' pain, to know what brought them to where they are, and similarly to be able to transmit their story to those as naive as me. But such abilities are works of fiction.

One 'intersectioner' has held a sign that says, "Hope is real." Reality asks that I simply take time to learn about another. That I consider another. It doesn't feel like enough, but perhaps this consciousness alone will give me the fraction of courage I need to act when action is needed. Perhaps hope IS real and can lead to healing in some capacity. I can live in hope.

Photo: stolen from https://detroitlens.wordpress.com/tag/8-mile/

Pieces of puzzles, threads of webs.

Scrolling through Netflix a few weeks ago, my wife stumbled on Pee-wee's Playhouse and decided to see if our three year old would have any interest. After an insistence that we watch the episode "Monster in the playhouse" on repeat for a few days we're now well into the third season and she loves it! When I told a buddy of mine we were watching it he told me about The Nerdist podcast and their interview late last year with Pee-wee himself, Paul Reubens. Among slews of other interesting things Reubens had to say about the development of his career and the Pee-wee persona, he mentioned one thing that anchors it all: he knew from the age of seven he wanted to be an actor. He tells a funny story about how, as a youngster, he hated Ron Howard because he thought he could do a better job than him as Opie. But from that moment on, he took every risk and opportunity to make it happen. For him, that was it.

Somewhere among the fifteen million headlines for Huffington Post articles that show up in my Facebook feed every day I remember briefly scanning one with the headline: The question we should all stop asking each other when we first meet, or something like that. It piqued my interest enough to read the first paragraph to find out that "what do you do for work?" was the author's culprit. He or She argued that it automatically forces us to place class judgments on each other, or something along those lines, leading to potential disconnects right out the gates. Instead, we should ask broader questions like "what do you like to do?" and let that conversation develop. I thought, "Yeah, I'm more than what I do for work, dammit!" And then stopped reading, because I got the gist of it.

Several months ago I started seeing a therapist with the intention of talking about Mommy/Daddy issues. While we've certainly talked through those, the conversation often comes back to my understandings around purpose and fulfillment, and my struggles in feeling those. I speak most about the confusion of never having had a moment where I felt sure I should to be doing any particular thing. Some people find this easy. Some people, like Reubens, know from early childhood what they want to do in life. Some people just enjoy something so much they can't not do it. Some people have life-altering experiences or epiphanies that show them the way. And some people believe the Heavens have decreed their purpose. However this certainty comes about, these people pick something and do it. They're doing their it.

I've talked with several friends recently who have said they feel like they're not doing anything productive, moving toward any particular goal, or they're not where they thought they'd be in life by now. They have a dissatisfaction with themselves. Like they're not doing something more significant. When I asked a friend about her dissatisfaction, she called it her "artistic voice" that's trying to get out. And, as she's an artist, not doing art in a full-time way, it makes sense that she'd call it that. I wonder if there are people who aren't artists in any structured fashion that feel this same nag? As I think of all the people I know experiencing this frustration, they're all artists. So maybe there's something to that.

The grand-picture part of my mind wants to deconstruct our ideas about purpose by relating it to class issues. The fact that survival is not something we have to consider, at least as middle-classers with, I'm guessing most of you reading qualify, white-privilege, changes the dynamic so much. The mere fact that I can sit here and try to wax eloquently about my ideas proves that I have the privilege to do so. I like to think about history and the development of civilizations and how people, as pieces in a puzzle, may have had a much clearer idea about what they're to do in life. Trades were often handed down through generations and only rarely was the glass shattered because people have to put food on the table. It's sort of a cog in the machine viewpoint. The machine must have all its working parts. There's a whole-lotta ugly in that sort of view too. Why should one person die of coal inhalation for another person's Industrial Imperialism? Not saying it's better one way or the other, but perhaps the option-paralysis much of my generation struggles with was not as present.

A friend recently joked about being terrible at job interviews, because he finds it hard to fake wanting to work. "Why do I want to work here? Well, I have time and I'd like to trade it to you for money." When I think of people who are super career-oriented, they are usually willing to give much of their time to their career. It's what they place value on. That or they want more money, which then requires more of their time in order to acquire it. In an attempt to fight against my self-hatred for my lack of ambition, I place value judgments on things outside of the career world. What do I like to do? Or, better yet, what makes me me? Well, let me refer you to the brief bio in the bottom right corner of this page. I am a father, a husband, a writer, a band-dude (quick plug), and so much more, right? Oh, and I'm a cog in Retail and a part-time Massage Therapist. Pieces of my puzzle. Threads of my web. But the image to my puzzle still seems hazy. I've somehow created a world in which there are no other options and have spent all my time trying fit something rather than find what fits me. There is no shoe that fits. So I guess I have fill my time with all sorts of shoes. And because of this, I have knots in my stomach, and scurry about hoping to find the elusive right single shoe. Perhaps the ambitious have the same knots, but on the opposite side of things, being defined by one particular aspect of their lives. We're all struggling with something.

As Greg Bennick, of the brilliant Between Earth & Sky, and of being-the-kind-of-guy-I-wish-I-was put it: purpose is anything we give purpose to. And my mind knows this. But my mind is at war with my history and with our culture.

My dad went to school for Engineering, until one fateful day when God called him to be a minister. There are people like Kayla Mueller who die trying to relieve the suffering of Syrian refugees. And then there's Pee-wee and a billion other examples of people who just knew what they wanted to do, I'm just not one of them, and so I'm doing things, and thinking about more things.

Here's to searching for the elusive it, and to balance and patience.

Image: stolen from google at http://media.cleveland.com/tv_blog/photo/peewee01jpg-537d8351f2470384.jpg

The most wonderful time of the year.

Since August I've been growing my beard. Not because it contrasts beautifully with my high and tight 50s swooper of a haircut (that I've also decided to let grow for a while), or because I had an afternoon of vintage-y, hands-on-wood-splitting-labor at Grandmother's house last summer, or because I've started investigating various bourbons, or any other reasons that make me seem like I'm in a Hipster 101 class, but because I hope to dress as Santa Claus in a couple weeks. Yes, Santa Claus. I'm not trying to be Santa, so much as pay homage to the coolest dude with the sweetest profession during the most wonderful time of year. So I'll spray my beard white and wear a lot of red, maybe wear a red floppy hat. I've already played out in my mind what I'll say to our beloved or any other child that's showing signs of confusion or wonder when they see me: "I'm not Santa, but Santa is SO COOL that I wanted to try and look like him this year!" We'll see how that goes over.

If you've known me for any amount of time, you'll know I LOVE Christmas! I have a tattoo to prove it. By mid-November this year I had December pretty booked up with Holiday-sy events that just tickle my fancy! This year we have A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and White Christmas all showing at the Redford Theatre, Wild Lights at the Zoo, Noel Night, Holiday Nights at Greenfield Village, a trip to Frankenmuth and Bronners, along with 3 family Christmas gatherings. Not to mention a Secret Santa exchange at work, White Elephant exchange with family, and maybe a friend-party if I can find the right victim to host! If you weren't sure...it's the most wonderful time of the year!

I had a friend say to me the other day, "Whitfield, I know you love Christmas, but I've never asked you why you love Christmas so much?" My quick and simple answer was, "it makes me feel like a kid again."

In the liner notes for a song called Separation Anxiety on my band's demo five years ago I wrote:

This is an ode to the hearty sense of freedom and individuality most of us experience as children. Usually somewhere in adolescence we relinquish our imagination and naivete as we're told to take life more seriously. I'm convinced that most of us will spend much of our adult life trying to repossess the sense of wonder and joy we once had as children.

The other day a friend told me he's thinking of rejoining the church. He grew up Catholic. I asked him why and he said something along the lines of: I don't know, I just grew up in the church, I miss being a part of something, feeling like I belong to something bigger than me...and even though I hated going as a kid I feel like going now. I replied with a "fair enough." I fully understand and honor wanting something simply because it reminds me of childhood. (I have a tattoo and blog posts to prove it.) As we talked I asked him all the pertinent questions about his feelings around faith and beliefs around god. He confessed he's not sure he believes in a god, but feels its possible there is something out there. I tend to be less wondrous than he these days...about this something anyways.

As you may know, I grew up in the church, the son of a pastor. Christmas, while fun, and beautiful, and exciting, always had a focus, an origin, a reason more important than the human mind can fully comprehend. The birth of redemption. The bridge, born of a virgin, for man to now access God. But none of that feels reasonable to me anymore. And so I'm left with all the other things we indulged in...the bells, whistles, and everything more tangible.

Why do I love Christmas so much if my adult understanding of it is so far removed from the weight and emotionalism that was applied to it in my upbringing? Was "the reason for the season" clearly applied to it or was it smothered by the blasted secularization of the season? Can children even remotely comprehend we're 'celebrating the birth of the savior of humanity?' Should that idea even be presented to them? How can that message even hope to contend with presents, lights, Santa and all the other things that naturally capture the imagination of children?

We are the sum of our experiences.

Of course we are more than that too. Nature and Nurture weaving a fucked-up web of confusion. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to have positive associations with the Christmas season that outweigh the negative associations. And my positive associations are powerful enough to outweigh my appeals to reason, inclinations against capitalism, and doubt of traditionalism. I know full well there are plenty of reasons to hate Christmas. Most of my friends are quite quick to tell me them. Just watching commercials the week before Thanksgiving should be enough to make a misanthrope out of most of us.

But still, it remains. The excitement stays with me. And now I get to rejoice within our beloved's 3 year old version of it! And I get to hope that the sum of her experiences with us will stick with her in the best, most exciting of ways. Hopefully you'll feel some of it too.

Forgiveness.

Last summer I had a conversation with friends about a documentary, which I haven't seen, that evidently makes a case that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, or a deviation which may be out of the control of those affected. My buddy who watched it said the documentarians made it known they believe acting on these impulses is unequivocally wrong, but the goal was to understand the inclination, or orientation if it is one, better. Being that two of us were fathers in the conversation, I couldn't help but ask my friend, whom I consider a roll-model of a father, what he'd do if he were to discover one of his beloveds had been sexually abused? His response was visceral, raw: "I'd fucking kill the person." It was a glimpse into a primitive version of him we only see once in a blue moon. As he realized what he said, he immediately disclaimed that he knows violence is the opposite of what he's been actively trying to teach his family and the opposite of his faith's hope.

Not even a day later, this showed up everywhere. My heart feels heavy for everyone involved.

While my upbringing created a moral compass that taught me forgiveness is the higher of roads and nobler of choices, the display of humanity's inclination toward destruction and selfishness we see throughout history, and every day, evokes feelings of futility and Nihilism ("vee believe in nussing Lebowski, nussing") which asks me to challenge whether forgiveness is truly the voice of reason that humans should aspire to, or that echos beyond our graves. But even as my mind doubts the power of forgiveness, seeing the images of the offender in the link above turns my stomach. I'm pretty sure most fathers would have the same reaction this father did. But looking at the aftermath, vengeance also feels wrong.

I often get stuck in the Facebook-thread-web where one post leads to reading comments, which leads to reading profiles, which takes me far, far away from everything that is more important in life. One of the rabbit-holes I often plummet down is the "people you may know" stream. Having lost track of basically everyone I grew up with I can't help but scroll through the names and faces of potential "friends" once or twice removed from my present life. The ghosts of lives past create an inescapable curiosity about who is out there that once mattered. But last week a former boyfriend of my wife was proposed as a person I may know. Facebook was hoping we'd be friends. Now I don't know this person, but I know about this person. The things I know make me grit my teeth and clench my fists. The pain he caused is a permanent fixture in our relationship, an old wound still superficial enough it's capable of being snagged every once in a while. But like she approaches everything in life, with dignity and grace, Candy has allowed his actions to reflect poorly of him, not her. I know the way my imagination can run wild wondering what might've been had I seen things as clearly as I can see them now; wishing wisdom had prevented this or that from happening. But she's ascended beyond his decisions to make her own. She's forgiven herself for being duped, for trusting the wrong person. She's forgiven herself, which allows her to move forward.

As we continued to discuss whether forgiveness is the decision that echos longest, my buddy, after back-pedaling on his rage response, mentioned the 2006 attack on an Amish school in Pennsylvania. I hadn't heard of this, for whatever reason, but you can read about it here. Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32 years old, took hostages from a one-room schoolhouse, shot 10 girls, ages 6-13, killing five of them execution style, then committed suicide. The heinous violence sounds like an old-hat story now as since then, from 2006-2013, there have been 115 school shootings, the deadliest taking place in 2007 at Virginia Tech with 33 victims. What set Roberts' attack apart was the outpouring of forgiveness and mercy by the Amish community toward Roberts' family, from the Wikipedia page:

On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, "We must not think evil of this man."^[15] Another Amish father noted, "He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he's standing before a just God."^[16] Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts."^[15]A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.^[17] Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts' widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts' sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him.^[18]The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter.^[19] About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts' funeral,^[18] and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.^[20]

Maya Angelou once said "Bitterness is like a cancer, it eats upon the host..." Is forgiveness the key to self-liberation from pain? What does forgiveness look like in situations like the above without a belief system which declares divine judgement is balancing the scales for actions taken in life? Is the Amish response the kind that all us should aspire to? Certainly the family Roberts left behind, who were just as mortified by his actions, benefited from forgiveness. What about when the perpetrator is still alive and well and has yet to meet any sort of judgment, let alone a divine judgement?

No answers, only questions. And that's okay.

The key.

August 10th, 1999. My buddy Josh sat on a curb, drunkenly apologizing to my buddies and I for having to babysit him and some other classmates as they defiantly ran down the street to another party. That night I declared I was Straight Edge. A couple weeks ago, August 10th, 2014, would've been my proper 15th anniversary.

The grande torchbearers of the Straight Edge movement, Earth Crisis, in 'The Discipline' said "the key to self-liberation is abstinence from the destructive escapism of intoxication." The song is permanently stuck in my head with the first few painfully wailed words encapsulating the rest of the song: "Straight Edge, the discipline, the key to self-liberation..."

In my thirties I've probably struggled more with what I believe than ever before. By design we believe in youth what we're told to believe. It's a trust we put in our elders, a hope that they show us the way, the truth, and the light, as they see it. College solidified what, or who, I aligned myself against; who I decided I was not. My twenties mostly served to reinforce and refine those alignments. Marriage, fatherhood, and family ties, have seemed to chip away at these ideas and ideals; re-configuring priorities and challenging me to be more honest with who I am.

What is self-liberation? What is the key to self-liberation?

Last fall we went camping in The Sleeping Bear Dunes with most of my wife's family. It was our second trip to the same grounds. The babies from the year prior were now officially toddlers. We novice parents were a little more seasoned. Our ability to weather storms, figuratively and literally (we already had the 30-foot tarp raised in the trees in case of rain), was much greater. Hell, I even had my own hatchet to throw at the tossing-tree with the other badass boys this time around. It was with bundled babies chasing their shadows, sticky s'mored hands, and toasting fleece-socked toes up on the eight-foot-round fire pit wall that I thought, "why not have a drink with my family in this perfect scenery?" It was in this moment that I no longer felt liberated by my choice to abstain. But it wasn't time just yet.

I'm not sure what the key to self-liberation is, but perhaps a piece of it is embracing the ability to choose what is well and best for oneself moment by moment. Perhaps it's maintaining a consciousness of others' decisions and the effects that follow that have lead to the best and worst in life. Perhaps it's living in recognition of my own feelings more accurately.

As of last month, fifteen years and a whole lot of rootbeers later, I've bid adieu' to a chapter in my life I'm quite proud of. And now, instead of raising my fist to this noble idea, I'll raise a glass to those dear and near, and to the on-going quest to find the key, or keys, to unlocking self-liberation.

Raining. Pouring.

Seven months into the year and I've already heard of more hardships among people I know than perhaps I've heard my whole life. A friend lost two brothers and her mother within 13 months, another, after losing her first baby moments after birth, lost her second child in a miscarriage, another lost his wife of 40 years, another, a father of two, was diagnosed with terminal lung and brain cancer, and last weekend a friend lost her husband and the father of her toddler. It keeps piling up.

Last Thursday Candy was outside spray-painting picture frames to display some of her photos. Our darling daughter was tooling around in our driveway playing with sidewalk chalk. I was inside taking a moment on the couch when I heard a giant cracking sound coupled with a scream I'd never heard before, followed by a crash. I tried to react as fast as I could, but like a cartoon character revving up for a race, my socked-feet pedaled like they were on ice, leaving the rug rippled behind me. When I got out the side door Candy was clutching our beloved. A dead tree-limb on our neighbors lot had fallen onto his house then tumbled onto the hood of our car in the driveway. The car was a foot in front of our gate, our daughter was a foot behind the gate. In tears, Candy tried to explain the sinking feeling she had when she heard the initial crack and saw the shadows above her shift. We caravanned inside, sat down, holding each other, we thanked our lucky stars that the limb crushed our car, not our child. I never want to hear a scream like that again.

In these moments we're forced to contemplate what we'd do if the unthinkable happened. Who would we become? How would we continue to live? And yet, people do it every day. They adapt, against their will, to living with new realities, and without the sight, sound, smell and feel of their beloveds.

Part of me wants to turn this into a railing against anyone who tries to comfort those left behind with classical notions that their loved ones are in a better place, or they're at peace now, or any of the other things people like to say when they want to make sense of the senseless. But this is not that time.

I have no wisdom to share. I have no experience to aid. I have no words to comfort.

But god-dammit I'm thinking about you all. And wishing you didn't have to deal with any of it.

I can still hear the echoes...

A couple months ago an article was published about a tattoo shop in Grand Rapids newly residing in a former hotel that is thought to be a Prohibition-era drop off point. Before the article dropped I had a behind-the-scenes look because my brother-in-law's girlfriend, Stephanie, tattoos at the shop and they were renovating the space together. After finding a secret room filled with vintage-y items they knew this new space was special, but beyond that, having been there mostly by themselves they had to confront a more grim reality about the space: that it's haunted. Strange sounds, smells, temperature changes, and even visions of other-worldly residents have been frequent. Stephanie has at times even felt a sense of dread, like the presence in the room wanted to harm her. Both she and my in-law are reasonable skeptics, neither of whom carry faiths that guide them toward or away from believing in after-lifes, purgatorys, or spiritual limbos. They're not bullshitters. They have no agendas. They're just trying to explain their experiences. Which is why hearing their first-hand accounts is all the more potent.

Last month we visited the shop to see all the renovations. Upon entering, three of the four of us said they felt "something." I felt nothing. After foolishly voicing this I was challenged to spend some time in the basement by myself, which I quickly declined. Though I don't really believe in supernatural things like this, the experiences of others can be quite convincing. I'm open to the possibility of the supernatural, but I'm more amazed by the vibrancy of my imagination and am fully aware it is filled with all sorts of terrible things extracted from fictional and non-fictional outlets. (It was late college before I was able to not look over my shoulder for Michael Myers while climbing the stairs of the parsonage.) Would I have experienced something in the basement? I was too chicken to put it to the test.

I can still hear the echos..."the greatest trick the devil can play is to convince us he doesn't exist."

In the last ten years I've pretty much whittled away the idea of a literal Devil. Every day people hurt people in such ways that it's easy to feel like there must be some divine-being orchestrating the terror. It's the only way to make sense of the pain we're capable of causing each other, especially when the pain is so heinous that it's beyond reason. The idea that my seemingly rational deduction, that humans are the lone culprits in the world's suffering, could be the magnum-opus lie of a master-deceiver chills me to my bones. This seed was planted in such a way that it's grown stems beyond it's purpose. It's the seed of doubt, of mistrust...in myself.

In my early teens my dad recounted an evening in which he came home late, and upon entering the bedroom he felt the presence of evil in the corner of the room. My mom sleeping in the bed while this presence awaited him, he conjured his nerve and with 'the power of Christ compelling,' shooed it away. Sounds like he could've been on the cusp of some real Exorcist shit. I imagine an experience like that wouldn't change in his mind over time, but memories are funny. I called him the other night to see if he remembered it, or if his understanding of it changed in any significant way. It hadn't. He remembers it just fine, but hadn't thought of it until I brought it up.

The movie, The Sixth Sense, touches on childrens' ability to sense the supernatural better than adults can. Once in a while I'll catch our precious baby girl talking to someone who isn't there. Most times it's obvious she's just talking to talk. I know imaginary friends are a thing, hell, we even watch Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends with her here and there. I feel confident I can tell when she's just being silly or kid-ly, but there are a handful of times since she's been talking, when it's felt different. Like the one time she was yelling, "NO! You go away!", at the corner of our bedroom. It was probably just Buzz, the cat, whom she was yelling at and I couldn't see, but my imagination coupled with the fact that a former owner died here in the house doesn't help. Of course I automatically rationalize that it must've been the cat. It's always the cat in horror movies, at least in the false-scare scenes.

I was talking with a coworker the other day who was quite open about being a paranoid guy. I tried to talk him into using the word "prepare-anoid" to better describe himself. He wasn't having it. He doesn't believe the boogey-man is out to get him, or even the man neccesarily, but he fears the possibility of these things and potential harm in general. He said he doesn't believe in the supernatural, ghosts, what-have-you, but still said, "I'm definitely not going out of my way to mess with that stuff." Part of me thinks it would be bad-ass to go all Leiutenant Dan on it all: "It's time for a showdown! You and Me! I'm right here!" But I learned humility, thankfully. And I listened to Operation Ivy years ago and the words "All I know is that I don't know nothin'" still rattle around a good bit.

Since I've entered my thirties I've made a concerted effort not to fret about things that are outside of my control or don't directly affect me. I can't tell if it's wisdom acquired or futility realized. I've just wasted so much energy getting wrapped up in what others are doing, saying, thinking, or feeling. See The Reformer for thoughts on this. But perhaps this effort is why these witnesses peak my imagination and inspire piloerection (sounds dirty...but it's not...), but do not ultimately affect the way I live or think about about things I can't explain. All I can do is listen to the haunted tattoo slingers, Christ compelling Fathers, and precious-little-baby-cakes-of-wheat-who-yell-at-corners of the world and live and let live...and hope that Michael Myers is not actually behind me right now waiting to pin me to a wall with his big knife.