When the mist breaks, when the canopy opens to the stars, when the smoke is blown away by a cool breeze, that’s when life begins. Those are the fleeting minutes that I hope to find. Those are the times that I fight for with my boy.

It’s the connection that keeps me awake when he’s in a talkative mood in the darkest hours of the night. It’s that clarity that I, and every autism parent I know, fights for every minute of every day and night. That’s what I constantly watch for so I don’t miss them because I know that they don’t happen nearly often enough. They don’t last nearly long enough.

And so I watch, staring into the dark, straining my eyes, wishing my hearing were better, praying for connection, fighting against the fog.

You see more than I . . .

The post Fighting Against the Fog appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Okay, so it’s time for a few definitions about what some of us have been discussing. Feel free to join in. Socrates once said, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” The more people involved, the easier it is to pass the fire.

SO: Let’s start with easy ones.

Deism: John Hick says that deism is “the idea of an ‘absentee’ god who long ago set the universe in motion and has thereafter left it alone.” Leaving aside the usual political discussions that occur on the question of a deistic view of God, this God is clearly not at all troubled by the event surrounding human life. Thus, evil is not an issue. A deistic God has long since forgotten about humanity (if this God were ever aware of something as insignificant as humans in the first place).

Think of it this way: Your little girl wants to plant some apple seeds to see what happens. So like the good parent you are, you go outside with her, find a place where the dirt doesn’t look baked to a crisp, dig a little hole and drop in some seeds. If you’re really thoughtful, you might water the seeds before going back in from the heat. You go inside to have a nice, cold one before you have to go to work in the morning.

When you wake up in the morning, not only have you forgotten about the seeds you planted the night before, but you’ve also forgotten the dream of having a little girl altogether. Thus, those seeds you planted might have actually been planted or they might have only been Bobby in the shower at the end of that stupid season of Dallas you watched as a kid.

A deistic God is at best unconcerned and probably completely unaware of his/her actions (supposing that “actions” even approaches being an accurate description of something such a god would do).

As strange as it may sound for a Christian (and yes, I do claim that title despite what some on FaceBook may think) to say, there is something appealing to me about this view of God. It certainly solves the issue of why bad things happen (God’s not around to fix stuff). It allows for there to have been a creator. It allows for there to be still be something greater than ourselves (which as a Christian, I believe to be important).

On the other hand, deism really leaves me hanging. After all, if there is no there there, why bother? It seems that the notion of chance would serve the same purpose. This is the quintessential deus ex machina or as Sting might say, Ghost in the Machine. If it’s laughable in fiction, “real” life (and yeah, we’re going to have to have a discussion about that someday) should be no different. (Except that it is. Truth is stranger than fiction, after all.)

And so we begin. Suggestions?

The post Definitions: Deism appeared first on Geek Palaver.

As I leave Savannah on Highway 80, I pass the paper mill on the left. Similar to Butchertown in Louisville, whose smell in the summer contributes to the marked rise of vegetarians, the International Paper Mill forces me to reconsider ever putting anything on paper. Even veganism seems wise:  If eggs can smell that bad when they rot, they can’t be good to begin with. While hydrogen sulfide may not be officially hazardous in low doses, it’s disturbing how quickly it overpowers the sense of smell. Stay in the area overnight and, in the morning you wouldn’t know that you stank.

The water takes on the same flavor. I never knew that plain water could taste sweet until I moved out of the Southeast. This is why all the tea is sweetened, and everyone drinks coke. Join the community for a short while and your taste buds forget what good water tastes like. The images of sulfur and eternal heat that street preachers invoke come alive to those living near a Southern paper mill. Only there, it’s a dry heat.

Thankfully, I’m driving into the wind on my way East. Once I’ve reached the bridge onto Tybee Island, nothing but dampness comes through the windows and sunroof. It’s strange having to run the wipers when it’s not raining: The humidity never drops below ninety percent, even in the driest summer. Tybee means salt in the Native American Euchee language. Salt can purify and preserve, but it can also burn. I once heard that even people who cannot swim can float in the Dead Sea because of the high concentration of salt and minerals. The air on the island feels that way except, instead of supporting you, it crushes you. The saltiness of the wet air surrounds, envelops, encloses the night around you. During the day, the sun burns off some of the moisture; at night, it folds in on you.

Blue sky reaches out to the horizon and touches blue-green water. Moonlight washes away the vivid color of the day. White sand becomes light gray. Sky and water meld into pitch.  I learn what it is to be color-blind like dad. At night the beach isn’t about seeing and being seen. No seeing; no touching; no talking; no hearing other than the rush of the wind past your ears. Only smell and taste remain; even they fade in repetition.

Turning into the public parking lot a little too sharply, I flash back to driving lessons with dad as I hear his dreaded command, “Easy. EASY!” echo in my head. Officially, the beach closes at midnight, but the police never enforce this rule. I watch for the watchers anyway; at three hours after mid-night, it’s better to go unnoticed. I need to be alone.

I park as far away from the streetlight as possible. “Night Swimming” by R.E.M. is fading into the background: “you I thought I knew you / you I cannot judge / you I thought you knew me / this one laughing quietly underneath my breath / night swimming / deserves a quiet night.”[i] Knowing, judging, being known, needing escape I close the door and step into the wind. It’s always strong, especially at night; but tonight, it seems as if it has somewhere to go, and it’s insistent on getting there early. Dad’s shouting, “Hurry up, you’re making us late!” is blown away. I hope the wind continues to do this work.

Alone.

I leave my shoes, wallet, shirt, and all but the door key in the trunk. No sense in tempting anyone to steal my last ten until the end of the month. If it weren’t for the gas card, I couldn’t be here and I’d likely starve. Dad shakes his head, “You need to learn to manage your money better, boy.”

The asphalt is still warm, but the sand is cool. It’s even cooler than the air—drier anyway. It’s like someone left the air conditioning on with the door open. Somewhere, dad is shouting, “Close the door!” I realize the wind is letting me down. Thoughts keep intruding.  I pick up the pace to get to the wet sand so the wind will stop sandblasting my ankles, but it’s difficult running on a surface that gives way under every step. I turn south so the wind’s at my back. My hair streams out in front of me, pointing the way, forming blinders to everything around me. “Get a hair cut!” I head into the darkest part of the beach on its southern edge. This must be what a sensory deprivation chamber feels like. I can hear only the gentle breaking of the waves on the rocks. I can see only a few stars through the clouds. I can feel only the warm water splashing against my shins. I can smell only the brine in the air. I can taste only the salt on my lips.

I climb over the break, take off my shorts, and wade into the Atlantic. Isolated. Separated. Alone. Silent. Safe.

An hour and a half up I-16, the cancer is spreading. Three years ago it invaded his colon. They tried to isolate it. To separate it. To convince it to leave him alone and safe. It didn’t work.

Within a year he was back at the hospital with a shortness of breath, silencing him. As if he were trapped under water, his lungs couldn’t hold enough oxygen. The x-rays showed some spots: Little dark spots that seemed to be joining together in places. Forming communities. Staking claim to their territory. Climbing on up. They try again to isolate it and separate it.

A few weeks ago the left side of his body felt numb, and he had trouble walking. Stumbling into the neurologist’s office, he sees an MRI of his brain. The communities have taken up residence there now. Overcrowding will soon be a problem. The population control techniques have failed, and there’s no place left to be alone. There’s no room left.

One month from now, during a night much like tonight, the growth would finally stop. Dad would simply stop breathing: merciful separation. Tonight though, breathing is still important to me; and as I float on my back underneath the clouds, I add a few extra ounces of saline to the sea.

I swim back to the breakers, pull on my shorts, and walk north toward the lot. I feel cold as the wind dries me. The wind and the surf drown out most sound, but then I notice a gull calling out the morning. The brine leaves my lips chapped and my tongue feeling swollen. My nose clears, and I smell the dry morning air blowing in from the west. My hair, no longer providing the blinders, flails about behind me. Color returns, and I can see the light of a red morning ahead. Mourning ahead.

Before I get into the car, I try and knock off as much of the white sand as possible, but my efforts are futile. I carry the beach back home with me: little communities, refusing to let go.

Today, twelve years later, I never go to the beach alone, and I haven’t been to Tybee since that night. The night swimming is past, “replaced by everyday.”[ii] Laurel and I often go out at night for a walk on the beach, together. She never knew dad, but she was there for the funeral: drove down from Louisville just to be with me. That was when I knew.

Leaving the babies with her mom, we walk east on Orange Beach before midnight. I stop and look at the horizon where water and sky meet and merge into one. Laurel reaches out, takes my hand, and we merge as well. Laughing quietly underneath my breath, I whisper, “Good night.” My community has found me, known me, and I am not alone. We walk back to the condo to check on the kids. The night air swirls around and between us. Safe.

[ii] Ibid.

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Wisdom comes often in small packages, and words are often small packages of meaning waiting to be opened. This is the beauty of poetry; it is a gift that I do not have. To capture meaning in the smallest of packages. To express that meaning in a single word. In this, I am lost as a writer. I am in awe of those who can write poetry. For me, it takes a plethora of words. But there are times when meaning is grasped in a small package. The problem is that this meaning is elusive.

I read Elie Wiesel’s Night for the first time quite late in life. I believe I picked it up for some light summer reading between college and seminary. Maybe I thought it would be a good Beach book . . .

Of course I knew it was a holocaust book, and I think I had avoided it for that very reason. The extermination of a entire race of humans while the world watched was not really something that my “recently freed from reading lists” mind was ready to grapple with. I was, after all, still going to live forever. Extermination wasn’t possible, and so dealing with it in literature just wasn’t necessary.

Much of that changed for me in 1991, but that’s a story for a later time.

So, I picked up this tiny book and began to work my way through the evil that humans are remarkable skilled at inflicting on others.

And in its opening sentence, I met a man who would forever change the course of a young life: Moishe the Beadle. If I may be forgiven for being a young geek, he was Obi Wan, Yoda, Gandalf, and perhaps most of all, Mr. Spock, rolled into one. His is the wisdom of the ages in a small package.

Elie writes of Moishe in Night:

He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk.

“Why do you cry when you pray?” he asked, as though he knew me well.

“I don’t know,” I answered, troubled.

I had never asked myself that question. I cried because . . . because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew.

“Why do you pray?” he asked after a moment.

Why do I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

“I don’t know,” I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. “I don’t know.”

From that day on, I saw him often. He explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . . (Wiesel, Elie. Night. 4-5.)

As Socrates taught us, questions open up dialog. They are the tiniest package of wisdom that I know of. They are troubling. They put us ill at ease. They wake us up at night. The frighten us in the brightest day. The chill us as we suffer through the hottest summer in history. They are the first realization that there is someone/something outside of ourselves. They are our attempts to bring order to the chaos that surrounds us. And so in the voice of a scary smart little girl, we look to the sky and ask in a quiet, child-like voice, “Why?”

That is the smallest package I’m capable of creating, and it’s wisdom is always elusive. Questions possess a power and a wisdom that are lost in the answer. Perhaps, in other words, some questions aren’t meant to be answered.

The problem of evil may be one such question. I think it’s important to acknowledge that I don’t know everything. I think it’s also important to keep asking questions. Question inspire dialog. Dialog leads to connection. With connection comes the possibility of wisdom. And so we ask together in child-like voices, “Why?”

The post The Power of a Question appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Okay, so I suck as a blogger. (Of course 60 hour work weeks in the spring semester and 5 classes in the 10 week summer semester had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.)

Anyway, if there’s still anyone listening, it’s my intention to do better. Of course, I hear that intentions are good paving material.

So much to talk about, so little time. My thoughts of late have been on the problem of evil, so I think we’ll talk about that for a while.

So, Evil and it’s problems. A quick overview might help.

This is a uniquely theistic problem, in other words, we Muslims, Jews, and Christians all face the issue (if we allow ourselves, anyway.) It’s that question that wakes me up at night. Along with other things, of course, but it’s the one issue that I keep coming back to. It’s like that missing tooth that your tongue keeps reaching for. What are we to do with the presence of bad things that happen in our lives?

The philosophical rendition of the issue goes something like this:

God is all loving, and

God is all powerful, but

Evil Exists.

This is the conundrum, for if God were all loving, God would want to eradicate evil. Furthermore, if God were all powerful, God would be able to eradicate evil from our world. And yet, evil continues to exist. Thus, either God isn’t all powerful and cannot eradicate evil, or God isn’t all loving and won’t eradicate evil.

This is the problem.

I’ve struggled with this problem since college, and it became real shortly thereafter. Over the past 20 years, it’s never left me, but I think it’s time to expose it to the light of day.

So, I’ll post it here. I’ll think about it out loud. I’ll write about it. I’ll read about it. I’ll hopefully discuss it with you (supposing of course that you’re still out there to discuss stuff with after a half a year break).

More to come soon.

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