Crisis of Faith

It's always interesting to see what children notice when you read them Bible stories.

Back in February, Evangeline was puzzled by the bizarre encounter between God and Moses recounted in "Zipporah at the Inn." Other times, the girls have alternately been grossed out or entertained by some of the stories contained in the book of Judges. And tonight, the part of the Bible that came real to Evangeline was in 1 Samuel 7, just before Samuel leads the Israelites against the Philistines at Mizpah.

Contextually, this battle takes place about 20 years after the Israelites suffered the crushing loss of the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines; and after the Philistines sent the Ark back rather than endure the plagues the biblical account lists them suffering after the ark was captured. (Among other things, their god broke, their cities were plagued with rats, and a bunch of people suffered terrible hemorrhoids.)

The story in 1 Samuel 7 represents a turnaround in Israel's fortune. They've regained the ark, they've stopped worshiping the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and by the time the chapter has ended, they're going to have broken free of their Philistine rulers, at least for a while. It's an inspiring story.

What Evangeline noticed was this: "Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it up as a whole burnt offering to the LORD."

"A suckling lamb?" she interrupted. "It was still drinking its mother's milk?"

"Well, yes," I said, and started to explain the Israelite sacrificial code. "They would offer a young lamb that had never eaten anything but milk, because it was valuable, and --"

"That's horrible!"

She was crying. It was past bedtime, and she'd had a busy day, but this caught me completely off-guard. A dozen different responses jostled on my tongue. The theologian wanted to explain the typological importance of the lamb as it foreshadowed Christ's sacrifice; the former evangelical wanted to explain that this is the cost of our sin; the religion scholar wanted to explain the significance of animal sacrifice in the religion of ancient Israel.

Another voice was considering how my daughter was anthropomorphizing a sheep, and projecting her own imagined fear onto a farm animal 3,000 years ago. Those responses and others jostled on my lips for a chance to be uttered, and all died there as a wiser part of me put the Bible down, and wrapped my arms around her.

"You're right," I said, as she cried silently over something that happened all the time in the lives of the ancient Israelites. "It is horrible."

I held her some more, while the Bible story lay unread and unfinished on the bed, and then asked her, "Do you think God wanted these sheep killed?"

She shook her head vehemently, no.

"I think you're right," I said, certain that a few people I know would take issue with such a statement. "One of the psalmists wrote 'You do not delight in sacrifice, O Lord, or I would bring it; but a broken heart and a contrite spirit are all your desire.' I don't think God wanted all these animals killed, especially like this, and I'm glad that's done."

We finished the story, we prayed, and I left the room so she could go to sleep.

In her own way, at her own level, I think Evangeline has just begun her first crisis of faith. She's come face to face with an unpleasant situation in the Bible, one where God doesn't come across as nice as his press agents and publicists make him out to be, and she's having to figure out how and if she can reconcile it. It's a journey that may take her all sorts of interesting places once she takes her first step in earnest.

And how striking if it should begin with such an innocent-seeming story.


Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Struck by the thunderous magic of Thor

About twenty-five years ago, I discovered a fantastic comic book called "The Mighty Thor."

I'd read the odd issue or two of Thor before, but it never caught my interest like it did this time. Written and drawn by Walt Simonson, the comic was well into a story that had suddenly spilled across nearly every comic book published by Marvel Comics. The Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and even Rom Spaceknight were dealing with unseasonable snow storms. Something called the Casket of Ancient Winters had been broken, and the end of the world was quite possibly approaching.

Simonson, I would discover, was quite a fan of Norse mythology. In less than two years' time on the title, he had transformed Thor from another superhero in a cape into a being of literally mythic stature. He wasn't fighting some random bad guy who wanted to take over the world; he was smack in the middle of Ragnarok, the Norse Doomsday in which Surtur would stride forth from Muspelheim to destroy the Nine Worlds in a fiery holocaust.

I was a late arrival to the story, but I was hooked. Simonson's writing and his art possessed a raw energy that I'd never seen in a comic before; his characters were unique and engaging; and I loved mythology. After one issue actually ended with Surtur lowering his sword into the eternal flame to set it ablaze, I nearly went berserk having to wait an entire month for the next issue to come out.

Thor and his allies won, of course, but the changes even that victory brought to the title and to the character of Thor were stunning. More story arcs followed, some sillier than others, until Simonson finally concluded his run by matching Thor against his mythological foe, Jormangandur, the world serpent. For those who don't know the myth, at Ragnarok, Thor slays Jormangandur, takes nine steps, and dies. Simonson pretty much followed the script on that one too.

Years later, I've come to appreciate what an amazing job Simonson did on "The Mighty Thor." Many comic book writers will tell one story after another; he told one long story consisting of several smaller, self-contained story arcs. It began with the destruction of a distant galactic core on Page One of his first issue, and didn't end until he brought everything to a satisfying conclusion in the issue following the battle with the world serpent.

Along the way, Simonson gave us Beta Ray Bill, brought us through Ragnarok, took Odin out of the picture, gave Thor a beard and Viking armor, and took some very deep and fascinating forays into Norse myth. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Thor to Marvel Comics, but Walt Simonson is the one who truly made him Thor.

I have a few friends who used to read comic books and who now tell me when the subject comes up that they stopped reading them years ago. Fair enough; I can get just as tired of capes and costumes as anyone else. You know that Peter Parker's spider-sense will warn him before the bad guy gets the drop on him; you know that Lex Luthor will fail once again to stop Superman. It's one of the hazards of an industry where the heroes have to stay in the same essential cycle, lest their identity shift too much and they lose their appeal.

Still, when they're done right, superheroes have the same mythic appeal that the original Thor did, to the people who huddled in Heorot while winter lashed the doorposts and timbers and Grendel roamed the marsh. A good writer brings that out, by exploring the superhero metaphor in a different way, as Frank Miller did with "The Dark Knight Returns"; by making us look at them in a new light, as Mark Waid did with Superman in "Birthright"; or just by going back to the source material, like Simonson did with Thor.

When they're merely done competently, superhero comics are as ho-hum as any other popular novel. When they're done this well, they're worth reading again and again. They're also worth passing on.

Several years ago, Marvel began reprinting comics from its Jim Shooter years under its "Marvel Visionaries" imprint. Not surprisingly, Simonson's run on "The Mighty Thor" was included in those reprints. And not surprisingly, since I missed about half his run, what with one thing and another, I've made the effort to add these to my collection of trade paperbacks.

About six weeks ago, I handed the first volume to Evangeline to read, if she was interested. It took her a little while to get interested, but by the time the Casket of Ancient Winters came into play, it wasn't my enthusiasm that was driving her any more.

Twenty-five years after it first found its way into my life, the magic of Thor's enchanted hammer had caught her too.


Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Pensoj

Mi scivolas se mia geedziĝa estas finata.

Mi geedziĝis kun mia edzino antaŭ preskaŭ dekdu jaroj, konante ŝi antaŭe tri jaroj. Kiam ni geedziĝis, mi kredis ke nia amo sufus por tutaj niaj vivoj. Sed, ni estas tie ĉi nun, kaj mi ne povas diri ke mi konas se ŝi plu amas min ... aŭ se mi plu amas ŝin.

Kiel ni venis al tian lokon? Kiel povas du geviroj, kiuj diris ke ili amos ĉiam, rivi kie ili ĉiam, aŭ preskaŭ ĉiam, koleras? Mi ne povas feliĉigi ŝin plu. Kiam ŝi leviĝas matene, ŝi parolas kolere al mi; kiam ŝi revenas al hejmo poste sia laboro, ŝi parolas kolere al mi. Estas kiel ŝi ĉiam koleras, al mi, al aliulo, al ĉiuj kaj al ĉiojn. Kaj kiam ŝi koleras, ŝi uzas vortojn malbonegajn. Hieraŭ mi devis fermi la porton de la ĉam ke ŝi estis, ĉar ŝi estis kolerdiranta "Fiku tion! Fiku! Fiku!" denove kaj denove, unu foje poste alia. Ŝi ofte faras tion, kaj mi ja dormemas de tio.

Mi ja dormemas, kaj mi ne povas kontinui tiel. Hodiaŭ vespere, mi demandis de mi se mi povas kontinui geedziĝe tiel, kaj mi komprenis ke mi ne povas. Ni jam geedziĝas dekdu jarej. Kiel oni kontinui tiel por kvardek jaroj ke ankoraŭ venas? Kiel oni kontinui tiel por tridek jaroj ke ankoraŭ venas? Dudek? Mi ne povas, kaj mi ne certas ke estas iu kiu povas, sen feliĉeco sufa por diri "Mi amas mian edzinon."

Mi ne certas plu se ŝi plu amas min. Estas kiel nia geedziĝo mortis.

Ankaŭ, ni havas tri gefiloj; la plijunaj aĝas malpli unu jaro.

Mi ne volas por ili grandiĝas kun deedziĝo de ilia gepatroj ... sed mi ankaŭ ne volas por ili grandiĝas kun la kolero de sia patrino ĉiam kie ŝi estas.

Sinjoro Eternulo, aŭskultas mian preĝon, kaj trovigu por mi la respondon de tia problemo, ĉar mi ne scias via vojo.

Your message gets lost when there's too much information

There's an old saying in the news business: Less is more.

The point is that, often, being succinct communicates the message much more effectively than excessive verbiage. Flowery speech can sound impressive, but usually it just sounds pretentious. Give 'em the facts, get straight to the point, and let them decide.

This principle even can apply to personal communication as well. Including too much information can ruin the effect of your intended speech, and hopelessly garble your message.

"I love you" is probably the most beautiful thing to say in any language. Still sweet, but a little less impressive, is the declaration, "I love you more than anyone." But your point is lost forever if you go on from there: "I love you more than my ex-girlfriend, and more than my co-worker Sally. Oh, and you remember Laura from the party last month? I love you more than her. And I love you heaps more than the barista at Starbuck's. She means nothing to me." By this point, the chances are good that the speaker has dimmed the flames of passion for a good many days to come, if not for all time.

This is a lesson teachers should heed as well. No one could ever fault someone for saying "I decided to become a teacher because I love children." Expect pushback should you ever say, "I decided to become a teacher because I love 12-year-olds."

Because sometimes, you know, it's just a good idea to leave well enough alone.


Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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My friend the jackal

Job's wife gets one line in the book, and we all roast her for that.

"Are you still holding onto your integrity?" she asks him, as he sits in the ruins of his life, scraping the sores that ooze all over his body, with a shard of broken pottery. The poor man is numb with grief over the deaths of his ten children as she confronts him, mad with her own grief and loss. "Curse God and die!"

Meanwhile Job's friends browbeat him for 36 chapters, telling him that he's only getting what he deserves. Job's wife merely wanted his suffering to end. These vultures won't be happy until he's really suffered, and yet we calmly discuss them as merely errant in their thinking.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Tears deferred still come due

It wasn't until I held the baby that I cried.

I had been at the Centre Hospitaliere du Sacre Coeur in Port-au-Prince since about nine o'clock that morning. Lord knows, there had been plenty of reasons to cry before then. The parking lot of the medical center, after all, was a tent city of sorts, providing shelter to some 56 people who had suffered some form of injury following Haiti's disastrous earthquake on Jan. 12.

For starters, there was Joshua. It's hard to tell how old he is, but his future looks like it will be a bleak one. He suffers from club feet and cerebral palsy, two conditions that are difficult anywhere, but especially in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Sitting with Joshua, it's hard to feel down. He can't speak any language that I know, but he smiles constantly and he loves to smack his eager hands onto yours. You can turn it into a game, where he tries to smack your hand before you can move it away, and he cracks up when he misses. Or you can let him get into an easy rhythm, clap-clap-clap, and he finds it hysterical you do something unexpected and suddenly change the rules.

The head nurse at the clinic told me that Joshua's mom wants him back because his condition makes him useful as a beggar. A brutal story if true, but that didn't make me cry.

Then there's Katura. She's a vivacious little girl; in the United States she would be attending kindergarten and mastering the fundamentals of reading and writing. Instead, because she lost her right leg above the knee in the earthquake, she's sleeping in a tent in the parking lot of a hospital, and getting around in a bright red wheelchair.

The skin has mostly closed up over her wound, and when the medical crews change the dressing on her wounds, it's a perfunctory thing. It doesn't ooze and it doesn't seem to hurt her at all. God willing, she'll be outfitted with a prosthetic device and can begin the task of learning to walk all over again.

She has a long road ahead of her, but I didn't cry when I played with her.

Or there was Karl. He's a little bit older than Ketura, probably somewhere between the ages of my two older daughters. When I met him on Thursday, he was quiet, but not with the quiet of deep thought. He was overwhelmed by all that had happened, from the devastation to his country down to the fracture in his left patella that had left him in a wheelchair.

I did everything I could to get a smile out of Karl, but nothing worked.

Still, when I had wheeled him to the door outside the X-ray room and asked him if he wanted me to stay with him, he said yes. So I sat there, and told him jokes, and showed him a picture of my infant daughter, and when they had finished the X-ray imaging, I wheeled him back to the parking lot where he and the other patients have been living.

I felt deeply for him, and wished I could bridge the gulf between us to bring him comfort and assurance, but still I didn't cry.

There are others there, with stories too horrible to think about. There is a woman with a pressure wound so bad that you can put your entire hand into her side; there are adults and children alike with braces screwed into their legs to immobilize the pieces of shattered bone, but I expected horrible injuries when I came to Haiti, so while I ache for them, I didn't cry.

But then there were the babies. Twins, they were born last August and came to the hospital some time with a minor injury that has since healed. They have no home to go to, their mother has no way of providing for them, and so they have been allowed to stay in a tent out of compassion and a sense of human decency.

Their lives are so innocent, their needs so simple, and their promise is unbridled.

I picked one of them up, and I held her in arms that have missed another baby for the past four days.

And then I cried.


Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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After the quake: pressure wounds and delayed treatment

The doctors told me the woman had been trapped under the rubble of her house for days.

When an earthquake shook Haiti to its foundations on Jan. 12, she was one of the lucky ones. Unlike an estimated 200,000 people killed in the earthquake, she survived. And unlike other adults and several children staying at the clinic with her, the debris that fell on her didn't break her bones or require doctors to amputate her limbs.

But she was trapped and unable to move until rescuers freed her.

The human body, with its grand design of skeleton and muscle, is meant to be a poem of smooth motion. But when it is held still for days on end, as this woman's body was, the rhythm of the poetry is ruined. The concrete pressed down on her leg, and cut off the flow of blood.

When there is no relief from the tremendous pressure, the skin breaks down and splits open; and as the pressure continues, additional tissue dies.

"For some people, the pressure wound has gone so deep that it's gone all the way to the bone," said Krista Duval, a doctor of osteopathic medicine from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. "These people will have very serious scars for the rest of their lives."

Krista was one of 18 people on a medical team that left from Quisqueya Crisis Relief Center on Thursday to run a medical clinic at at the Centre Hospitaliere du Sacré Coeur, in downtown Port-au-Prince. The medical team treated some 100 people who came to the clinic that day, as well as another 56 who have been living in tents in the parking lot of the medical center.

While several of those patients are receiving physical therapy and followup treatment to amputations that were needed after Haiti's horrific Jan. 12 quake, many others are receiving treatment for other injuries serious in their own right, such as the pressure wounds suffered by this woman.

Treatment takes time and patience. Gauze dressings must be changed at least daily, and a steady regimen of antibiotics contains the threat posed by infection.

Time, patience, and medical personnel. Most visiting medical crews leave Haiti after a week or two, and unfortunately, Haiti still lacks the infrastructure to provide the long-term medical care these patients need.

When the earthquake struck on Jan. 12, it destroyed more than an ability to provide immediate care for the victims of the quake. It also brought crashing to the ground the country's ability to provide long-term care in the weeks and months that are still to follow.

That was particularly in evidence on Friday. The medical center we visited is an 18-bed private hospital located a short distance from the wreckage of the National Cathedral. The building, although it survived the earthquake and the many aftershocks that have followed, is badly damaged.  The hospital is still standing, and doctors and nurses working with teams from the Quisqueya Crisis Relief Center have been able to use its equipment, but until repairs can be made, the hospital is effectively closed.

And hospitals and medical care remain in great need. On the day I joined the medical team, there were some 100 patients who came to the clinic. That number has dropped from the  average of 300 that visited the clinic when it first opened, but it remains high.

In the parking lot of the medical center stand a dozen tents, housing 56 men, women and children suffering from injuries suffered in the quake, or caring for those who had.

"Every day we discharge a few and admit one or two," said Beth Milbourne, 30, a registered nurse at Greenville Memorial Hospital in South Carolina who quit her job in the United States and moved to Haiti three weeks  ago. She has been going to the clinic at the medical center every day since.

One of the patients admitted Friday was an elderly man who required an operation because of an obstructed urinary tract. Dave Drozek, a general surgeon from Ohio University who performed the surgery, spoke to me a moment about the operation as orderlies lowered the patient onto a makeshift cot under a tent in the parking lot.

"We're transitioning to more regular day-to-day needs," Dave said of the work he'd been doing that week at the clinic.

But, as he also noted, many of those needs have been delayed because of the pressing nature of the trauma inflicted by the quake.


 Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.



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On the eve of going to Haiti: Letter to myself, age 22

Dear 22-year-old self,e

In a sense, this may be one of the most pointless things I have ever written, since it comes 17 years and some months too late to make a difference in the trip you are about to take to Haiti, but foolish or not, I am writing it.

I know that you're still upstairs, somewhere, wearing clothes that haven't fit me in years and that were never exactly fashionable in the first place, so I write this in the hope that it will do some good, somehow. Often the value is not in the hearing, but in the saying.

Right now, you're pretty excited about the trip you'll be taking in two days. This is something you've been looking forward to since January 1991. You remember that, right? That was when you took a short-term missions trip to LaGonave with STEM Ministries, while everyone else in the college fellowship headed to Urbana, Ill., for the big missions conference.

You didn't say much at the time to the others on your team, but the experience was one that you found to be deeply meaningful. There was that moment in LaSource where you realized that Pentecostalism wasn't what you had thought it was; and then there was that boy, Samuel, whose stomach was distended, whose hair was going red from malnutrition, and who you learned hadn't eaten a decent meal in weeks.

So, as I say, you're keen to be headed back to Haiti, to work with STEM. You're an idealist at heart, and since the Peace Corps called to say they were ready to assign you in Africa, and then called back 15 minutes later to say, "Never mind, we just realized you're an evangelical Christian," you've been looking forward to the door that it appears God has opened for you. No Fortune 500 job for you, you are going to make a difference!

Oh, Dave, you're such an idiot. You really have no idea what's going to happen, do you? Over the next two years, everything is going to hit the fan. Everything.

For starters, you're going to see need - real need. Not like the men at the homeless shelter you volunteered at one night your freshman year, who had a place to stay and food to eat because the United States has the wealth to feed its indigents when we want to.

No, we're talking the sort of need that comes when you have 8 million people in a nation where $3 is a decent day's wages and most people are unemployed. It's the sort of need where children sleep on the concrete driveway of the Jamaican restaurant on Route de Delmas. It's the sort of need where 14-year-olds are so underfed that they look like they might be 8.

It's a need that will slap you in the face every time you step out the door and interact with the people. The beggars in particular will overwhelm you. Some will be adults and some will be children; some will be sincere and some will merely be con men preying on you.

There will be no escaping that need. It will greet you when you wake up in the morning, it will haunt you when you get something to eat, and it will steal its way into your dreams. No matter how many times you discuss it with others, no matter how often you pray about it, and no matter how you try to rationalize your way around it, you will never make peace with it. Never.

One by one, your illusions are going to fail. Right now you have some pretty naive ideas about Christians, about Christianity, and about missionaries. You understand Christianity as forgiveness of sins, Christians as American-style conservatives, and missionaries as bastions of indomitable faith in God.

Over the next two years, you're going to realize the inadequacy of evangelicalism to deal with the problem of suffering and need; you're going to begin appreciating just how radically liberal Jesus was in his social attitudes, and you're going to discover that missionaries are just as human as the people in your church back home. Many missionaries whom you meet will disappoint you, just as you will disappoint them.

Incidentally, God is going to die while you're in Haiti. It'll be a combination of things that will finally do the old bugger in, but one day the light will fail and you will start crawling around on all fours in the dark to find the body. Eventually you will, and you'll wonder how you ever thought such a sad and miserable thing was worthy of worship.

Which is not to say it'll be all bad in Haiti, because it won't be. It'll be two of the hardest years of your life, but even though it sets you on a path that ultimately destroys the evangelical brand of faith that took you there, you will treasure your time in Haiti for the rest of your life.

You're going to meet some tremendous people and have some tremendous experiences that will still shape you years later. There'll be the Haitian church services you attend, particularly the ones with Herve; there will be the time you realize that while it hurts to turn away 200 hungry children, at least you were able to help feed 300 others; and there will be friendships with people like Elizabeth Gerritesen, Brian VanWyhe and Dan Kramer; with Tammy Lynn Johnston; with Rick Root; and with the Murphys and the Herseys.

(There is a funny story about how you meet the Murphys. I wonder sometimes if Lonnie remembers it, or what her kindergartners called you.)

The reception you get when you return Stateside will be underwhelming. I hate to say this, but your own pastor is going to dismiss what you did as "not missions work." and from time to time, the lack of interest other people have in your experiences there will lead you to question whether you really accomplished anything. Sometimes the loudest voice there will be the one in your head.

Ignore the gainsayers. The difference you make to the people you meet will be real and lasting, especially when you become a teacher. A Jewish tradition holds that to teach a child is to be as a parent to her. In less than a year of teaching, you will have 40 children who will never forget you, nor the lessons you teach them.

It's going to come to an end far too soon for you, and when it does, it won't end nicely. I haven't liked that ending for 15 years now, and frankly, I think it's time for the curtain to rise on a second act.

Now 39,

Dave Learn



Copyright © 2010 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Ebooks and the storied history of reading

I don't like ebooks.

I'm sure the convenience of carrying an entire library in your bag is a wonderful thing, and like others before me, I'm all for reducing waste and conserving resources. And of course I adore the idea of being able to keep books "in print" in perpetuity. I've never been able to find a copy of "The Elder Edda" in translation when I've looked, but there's no reason to believe that would be a problem with an ebook reader in my hands. There's so much to appreciate about ebooks, really.

I can't do it, though.

The reasons for this disinterest are all around me. They're the 1930 edition of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" and "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" that used to belong to my grandfather, the copy of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens" that I have read a half-dozen times in the past ten years, and the hundreds of other books that line almost every room of my house.

Books are more than just stories; they are memories. There is the trip I took to Alaska in 1988 while I was reading "Paradise Lost," the conversation I had with Steve Hersey about "The Divine Comedy" in Port-au-Prince, the time I woke my roommate by talking in my sleep about "The Brothers Karamazov," and the tears I shed over the final chapter of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Sometimes these memories are marked in the book with little notes, bent pages or other tells, and sometimes not; but the associations are always strongest with the copy I was reading at the time. The story may be the same in another edition or copy, but the pages I have are old friends, and they know me just as I know them.

In the end, books are more than just the words that they contain. They are sensations. A book is the rustle of paper as you turn the page, it is the rough yellowed fibers under your fingers. It is the ache in your hand that you're vaguely conscious of after holding the book open one-handed for an hour while you were doing something else.

And just as books are connections to their previous owners, so they also are bridges to our children. Already I've been able to hand my daughter treasured books from my childhood and watch as the exact same words on the exact same pages carry her away in wonder, horror, and awe. It doesn't matter if it's "Something Under the Bed is Drooling" or Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." It's my book, and it's having its effect all over again.

Ebooks do none of this.

They read well enough, it's true, without the too-bright gleam of a computer, and as for transporting eager readers to realms of wonder, I am sure they do that as well. But it's also hard to imagine building a sentimental attachment to an ebook. "Here, Evangeline," I can't imagine myself saying. "I've had this computer file since I was your age. I'd like you to have it now."

Gone also are the other thrills of books. The wonder of walking into a bookstore to find something new to read, the thrill of running my eyes along a shelf of books for a familiar friend to read and rediscover, and the delicious smell of old books in a library either personal or public -- those are all gone with an ebook. All that is left of the selection process is a sterile screen and an experience no more transporting than browsing the Internet for something to buy.

Books are friends; books are life. An ebook is neither. It might as well be a jpeg or text file for all the emotional attachment it will get.

Something else ebooks lack: permanency. When I read a book, I can put it down for a day, a week, a year, or even a decade. When I return, I know not only that the book will still be there, but also that its contents won't have changed. The same foolish typos, the same controversial language, the same bold ideas will still be exactly as I left them.

We've already seen with ebooks that this is not true. It was only in July 2009 that Amazon erased copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" from the Kindles of customers who had bought them. Books that can be erased or that can be changed, are not books.

The marketing mavens believe that ebooks and ebook readers are the way of the future. I fear they are right; I hope they are not. For as long as I can, I am going to continue to read books the way I always have, and hope that my children will as well.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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A pirate looks at 39

In about six more hours, the sun will set on my 39th birthday.

As milemarkers go, 39 isn't one of the big ones. For one thing, it doesn't end in zero like many landmark ages and anniversaries. And while it does lie at the very cusp of middle age, it's not an age particularly noted for anything.

At 16, I got my first driver's license. At 18, I received legal recognition as an adult. When she was 25, Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne and ultimately became one of the best-loved and most powerful monarchs of England. At the age of 33, Alexander the Great had lain the foundations for what eventually would become modern Western civilization. But 39? That one's noteworthy only for being a year short of 40.

And that's essentially how I feel right now: that I'm staring down the barrel of 40 years old, and in another year it's going to blow my head off.

Six years ago, when I turned 33, I observed how nice it would be on my deathbed to quip that I had missed the best years of my career because I had spent them all with my children. Well, mission accomplished: Five years ago, I grabbed my career by its halter and led it to a place behind the stable, where I shot and killed it. Only, recently, I woke up and found its head on the pillow next to me.

Looking back I don't feel that I have much cause for regret. The past five years have been spent almost exclusively in the company of two children whom I have taught to read, whose scraped knees I have kissed, whose laughter has given me wings and whose razor-sharp tears have stripped me to the bone. I have sung with them, danced in their company, delighted in their artwork, and learned some of the most poignant and important lessons of love and life at their feet.

For their sake, I have served three years on the school board. For love of them, I have walked around in public with bows in my hair. I have scheduled my days around taking them to school, to the doctor's office, to friends' houses, and to art and ballet lessons. I have carried them on my shoulders, in my arms, and upon my back. Most of all I have carried them in my heart with such an earnestness that it has hurt.

I've received no salary for this new career, save in the only currency my children know: the tireless love and affection that they shower upon me.

It has been almost enough.

I only started to appreciate how much my career change to stay-at-home dad has cost me last Thursday, when I was talking to a friend. Only a few years older than I, Sonja is in the midst of a mid-life career change, to art history. She had just been offered an entry-level position, and she was thrilled. As she put it, it was difficult enough to compete with twentysomethings while she was in her 40s. There would be no way to start over again in her 50s.

There was a time when the world was an oyster with unlimited potential that I could crack with my good right hand. Now I am uncomfortably aware that a crocodile has eaten my right hand, and if I listen, I can hear the ticking of the clock that tells me the crocodile is coming back for the rest.

I have at most five, maybe six, years to begin my next career in earnest. Anything beyond that, and the odds stacked against my success will increase steadily with each year. So what's it going to be? Will I return to teaching? Will I return to writing news and feature stories, to magazines, or to editing and teaching other writers their wordcraft? I've done all of those, and I've done them well. On days when my neck doesn't feel the pinch of the blue monster, I am confident I can do them again.

Or maybe I should do something new. I could turn my blog into something with meaning and purpose that stretches beyond my fancy of the day, I could found an arts magazine with the local focus that I understand so well, or I could turn my full attention to my fledgling public relations business and make a living on that.

Whatever it is, I had better decide soon. That crocodile loved the taste of my hand, and he's definitely coming back for more.

What I really want, my driving passion, is not just to be a writer, but to be an author as well. The stories I can tell, the stories I need to tell, are stories that can inspire laughter, tears, longing and regret. Stories are the vehicle I use to teach the great truths that I have learned, and I want desperately to do nothing more than to take the sacred space at the head of my classroom and begin to teach.

Now, nearly five years after I left the workforce to spend more time with my children and complete the great novel that has been my ambition since middle school, I can safely say that I have spent more time with my children. The great novel, like many of my other children, lies gasping for breath in a pauper's field while I concoct excuse after excuse for not working to save it.

Three years ago, I wrote about my experience with cancer and the uncomfortable reminder it brought of my own mortality and how badly I had done on completing my life's most important work. Now three years later, I am shamed once again by how little I have changed. Age, like cancer once did, is awakening me to how briefly the candle flickers upon the stage before it disappears in a wisp of smoke.

If God is gracious, and if I am wise enough to accept that grace, I know that I can write and publish a few books in the years that lie before me, and I can give birth to many of the stories that have gestated within my mind all these years. I may even enjoy that moderate success that other writers have found, where they are not really household names, but they do enjoy a loyal following.

Whether I succeed or fail as a writer in large part depends on forces that are hardly mine to command, but I have seen the past 39 years that God prefers it when we give him something – anything – to work with.

In another 30 years, or 40 if I am lucky, I will ring down the curtain as everyone before me has done, and will exit the stage while younger performers put on their shows. When that day comes and the critics take stock of my life's work, I want to stand behind all my children and proudly say, “See what I have done with what I was given. I have been here, and I have mattered; not a thing has been wasted.”

That would be a good life.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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an open letter to tritium

Dear Tritium:

I've been reading some of the stuff people have to say about you, and it seems pretty clear that you've got a lot of people almost as impressed with you as you are with yourself. I mean, look at what they have to say: "It has an atomic mass of 3.0160492! Like, omigosh, that's the same as an atom of lithium!"

And the comic book geekboys all love you, because you occur naturally when cosmic rays hit the Earth's atmosphere and interact with hydrogen. "Yo, dude," they say, in that annoying stoner voice that we always associated with Star Trek Voyager. "That's just like the Fantastic Four!"

But let's be clear about something: Dude, you are freaking hydrogen. That's it. When it comes to the Periodic Table of the Elements, you are at the bottom of the heap. Ever wonder why you have trouble getting a date with the noble gases? That's it.

You might think you're something special because you've got two neutrons and deuterium has only one, but it's the protons that count, buddy, and you've got only one. Even if she didn't have a thing for carbon -- and who doesn't, after all? -- the department secretary isn't going to be caught dead on a date with you any time soon. She has standards, and she has a reputation to uphold. Suck it up and deal.

And there's the way you're used in thermonuclear detonations. My, aren't you impressive. Stick a little tritium in the nuclear warhead, and a regular A-bomb goes straight to H-bomb. The extra punch you pack increases the payout of the fissile material and blows the lid off an otherwise conventional nuclear explosion.

Of course, that's not all it blows the lid off -- one of those nukes can destroy a major population center, killing millions of people just upon detonation, and creating radioactive fallout that will screw up the environment for generations to come.

You know, tritium, maybe you missed this in your contemplation of how awesome you are, but the phrase "You da bomb" isn't meant to be taken literally. Real bombs suck, just like fourth-graders suck when they think that wearing bling makes them cool even though they ignore their teachers and talk trash about girls.

You want to talk radiation? Plutonium is impressive. It's named after the Roman god of the dead and for good reason. All you have to do is hang out around plutonium for a few days and you'll have some really freaky, frightening and fatal forms of cancer springing up all over your body. Same thing with uranium.

Not you, though. Your beta radiation is so wimpy that it can't even penetrate human skin. Even the cheap pocketknife I had when I was 3 years old could do better than that.

Sure, you talk big when you swagger into a bar with unbonded oxygen atoms. "Hey, baby," you say, "I have a half-life of 4,500 days, plus or minus eight days." Wow, I'm so impressed. That means in about just 12 years and four months, you'll have turned into helium-3, and your main source of income will be inflating balloons at birthday parties.

You think you're something special, but you know it's all just hot air. Even your symbol, ³H, is embarrassing. You know what that makes you look like? An isotope that didn't have even have enough protons to join the local 4-H club. How pathetic.

Maybe you haven't quite got the picture yet, so let me spell it out for you. Every single link in this article so far is to Wikipedia. Wikipedia. You got that? You're not even impressive enough for me to bother linking to a real reference source.

Look tritium, there is one thing you do well, and we're all proud of you for doing it. You know what it is: You keep the sun going. Our sun is a big flaming ball of gas, a fusion-powered furnace that keeps us warm and toasty on this planet. I know a few people have been complaining about your job performance there too, saying that you've been letting the sun lose mass so that eventually the Earth will break free of its orbit and plunge deep into space where we'll all freeze to death.

I can't say I'm wild about that, but the truth is that we've known all along that this was only a temporary arrangement anyway. Sooner or later, we all expected you'd want to move on up the Periodic Table of Elements and try something new: maybe a stint as nickel, or copper, or even selenium. That's how these things have worked as long as the universe has been around, and you want your turn.

It'll come. Just be patient, and keep doing your job.

Signed,
Me

Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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That ugly, vicious thing we call divorce

I don't get divorce.

Much of this is due to my parents, I'm sure. They were married my entire childhood, and still are. They've fought over money and they've dueled over how to raise the kids, but they've never parted ways. Sometimes my mom gets aggravated over my dad's sense of humor, and sometimes he zones her out, but here they are in their late 60s, and they're still together. They celebrated their 44th anniversary just this year.

And here I am in my late 30s, and it seems like one couple after another whom I've known is coming apart. They swore to be there for one another, never to part, and that foundation of love that they laid is splitting. My best friend and his wife married 17 years ago. They're separated. My other best friend and his wife married 12 years ago and divorced last year. And now another friend writes, after more than 20 years, "We're divorcing. He won't even consider reconclilation."

Why?
Why?
Why?

Divorce is an ugly, vicious thing. It takes lives that have grown together like flowers whose stems entwine one another so closely that you scarcely can tell where one begins and the other ends, and it tears them apart. Staying married isn't easy -- I doubt anyone alive can possibly begin to explain just how much work, hard work, marriage is, and how much it hurts sometimes -- but God knows it's worth it.  When my heart was torn from me and I dropped into the volcano, it was my wife who saved me. When her mother died and drought came to my wife's life, I was there for her.

Marriage hurts, but in the end, it makes me far stronger than anything else does. I've been short on hope, but I made it through because my wife was at my side. I've lost friends, but I survived because my wife stood by me. I've lost jobs and I've seen dreams die, but because my wife was with me, I came out on top. I lost a son and though it was like the sun was extinguised and all life had vanished from the world, I found the strength to keep moving -- because my wife gave it to me.

How on earth do couples who swore to love one another all their lives, until the bitter parting of death, give that up?

When my friends Myron and Jessica separated two years ago, I told a friend of mine about it. I wished I hadn't. Jon is in his late 20s, but when he heard that two people he had never met were divorcing, I saw the pain in his eyes. His parents had divorced when he was 9, and he's never forgotten.

I have no anger, no harsh words for people who divorce. I know that their pain is deep and beyond expression. All I have is grief that anyone should have to go through such an experience.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lower the shields and prepare for transport

Maybe I should take Eowyn to see the new "Star Trek" movie; I think she'd find it very accessible.

In many ways, she's like the Enterprise herself. Get into a talk with her, and if her long-range sensors pick up something getting too close, she raises her shields immediately. Get in closer and it's all power to the forward shields, launch decoys, or whatever it takes to keep you from getting in a position to harm the ship. And if she determines you're a real menace, she'll shut down all nonessential systems and float dead in space like Kirk had the Enterprise do in "Balance of Terror."

Is there someone there? the Romulan crew wonders. Or is it a faulty sensor reading?

But every now and then it's possible to fly in close enough that you get inside the shields. You can see the dents and dings the ship has taken from its years of flying at warp speed, scan for metal fatigue where Klingon warbirds have struck with their disruptors, and even beam a landing party aboard.

It's a rare treat to walk the corridors of Eowyn's starship, but it's more satisfying than anything Paramount has produced for its franchise.

Today Eowyn let me aboard. She let me walk the corridors, visit engineering, and even gave me a seat on the bridge.  Put in non-Trek terms, this is a Big Deal. Essentially, Eowyn let me into the sacred grove as a sign of how much she trusts me not to desecrate it.

I walked carefully.

Eowyn and I were taking a walk while Ruth was at ballet, and discussion turned to hanging out with friends. Eowyn rarely does this, so I wasn't surprised when she made a silly remark to divert me. All power to the forward shields, Mr. Scott.

"You know," I said. "I've noticed that whenever the conversation gets uncomfortable, you make a silly remark. It's like this is you" -- I held up a clenched hand -- "and if someone gets too close, you try to keep them out here" -- I waved a safe distance away with my other hand. "Am I right?"

"Maybe," she said. But I could tell that I had nailed it. After all, it's not like I don't know where she learned this behavior. She has learned well.

But she has also learned over the past nine years that she can trust me when she wants to. And for some reason, she decided this time to trust me. To extend the Star Trek metaphor, she lowered her shields and allowed me to beam over, and while I was on board, we talked.

"I'm just kind of used to being alone," she said.

"Alone, or lonely?" I asked. She didn't answer, which was answer enough. "I see you alone too, and it tears me up inside, because I know how lonely you feel."

"It's okay," she said. "I'm kind of used to it."

And that, I pointed out, is one of the strangest things about human nature: We get used to anything, and tell ourselves that it's all right and even normal. I reminded her that the Bible tells us that Adam once had an easy time with his work. He would plant crops, and they would grow as easy as anything. It was work, but it was work that he could enjoy. But after the Fall, it didn't come as easy as it used to. Work became toil, weeds grew among his crops, and sometimes animals would eat his crops before he did.

"I'm sure Adam got used to living like that, but if he had a choice, which do you think he would have rather had: that life, or the one he and Eve used to have in Eden?"

"The one they used to have," Eowyn said.

So we talked some more about friends, and how sometimes you meet someone and she becomes one of your best friends almost immediately; and sometimes you meet someone, and you like her but she doesn't like you; and sometimes you meet someone and it takes a while to become friends, and you have to work at it, by talking with them, and hanging out with them, and getting to know one another.

"And sometimes that's risky, because sometimes you get hurt," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," I said, "sometimes someone will do something that hurts you. They don't mean to, but it does, and you need to forgive them. And sometimes they won't do something that you thought they should, and that hurts too, and you need to forgive them."

"And sometimes they go away."

Aha.

"Eowyn," I said. "I miss him too."

Of course it's not just Christian. It's Gabe and Kyra, two of her best friends from preschool whom we used to see regularly, except Gabe moved away, and Kyra's family didn't fully reciprocate our efforts to build and maintain the relationship. It's also Cassie, the older sister of one of Ruth's preschool friends, whom Eowyn got to know, but whose parents also didn't fully reciprocate our efforts to maintain the friendships.

And of course it's also the entire stinking third grade at school, when Eowyn was thrust into a classroom with none of her friends, and was barred from sitting with her friends at lunchtime because of some petty administrative need for control during the one time the kids have each day to be themselves.

But we talked. We talked for a good 30 or 40 minutes, sometimes on a bench, sometimes squatting in the parking lot. We talked about how there are a lot of people in her classroom and on her softball team who like her, we talked about the need to talk to friends and to reach out to people we like so that we can become friends, and we talked about how there's only so much that I can do as her father, and she needs to do the rest herself.

We talked a long time, and when we were done, I knew she had been crying, though she didn't want me to see the tears that had gathered on her nose.

We talked, and before we had dinner she called one of her friends and invited her to come over on Monday after school.

I'm trying, Lord. It's not easy, but I'm doing my best.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Rain, rain, go away

It's pouring for the fourth or fifth time in the last six days. Huge, heavy sheets of water are pounding the pavement outside my window, streaking the air and scouring the streets, carrying away anything small and light enough to be borne upon the currents.

This isn't rain. Raindrops are small, they strike the window with a dainty tink-tink-tink that is calm and reassuring, as gentle as a bee on the flower. This is a river, falling from the sky in a torrent of a thunder god's wrath. If you go outside in rain, you feel refreshed and cleansed; if you go outside in this, you feel cold, tired and miserable, and all you want to do is to go someplace warm and dry off.

Rain waters the plants. This beats them to the ground, stripping leaves and even branches from trees. The only thing that is growing from this symphony of thunder and water is mushrooms. They came from nowhere, an army of decay, and suddenly the soldiers are everywhere, overrunning everything. They have overrun the back yard, appearing on wood chips, popping up between the blades of grass, and growing ever larger in the dim afternoon.

Meanwhile lightning strobes overhead. It barks thunder like a mighty cannon, rattling our ears, shaking our teeth, and making tall buildings groan and hide.

This must be what it was like for the neighbors of Utnapishtim: day after day of unrelenting water and no sun, until the creeks rose, the rivers revolted against the chains that fixed them to their beds, and even the highest hill disappeared beneath the cresting waves.

As it was in the days of Noah ...



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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linkedin recommendation

As someone originally from the Northeast, I frequently have been disappointed by the quality of drugs available during my trips to the South. I've never found a dealer who could give me a nice cut of weed, one that didn't give me a headache when I smoked it; the last three times I tried to buy coke, the idiot tried to sell me Mello Yello; and the ecstasy dealers, when they weren't peddling useless shit, were so clueless that they actually preferred to sell E at clubs frequented by the police.

Ms. B., however, has renewed my faith in the South as a place to do illegal drugs. She runs her organization with an efficiency that borders on the brutal. There are no snitches in her organization, although there are several buried beneath parking lots and shopping malls in her area. Delivery of the smack was always prompt, discreet and at competitive rates.

What's more, this is some high-quality shit that she peddles. Smoking even a small dose of the crack that she provides was enough to put the monkey on my back, let me see all my bones, and give me an experience that neither I nor the fifty people I allegedly ran into that night will ever forget.

And the angel dust she sells -- wowza! The police claim that I broke the jaws and ribs of sixteen different officers before they were able to take me down.

I would be remiss not to mention the extensive connections Ms. B. has built up with local, state and federal authorities in Georgia. I attribute this not only to her line of work, which always draws official attention, but to her generous nature, which prompts her to give money, cars, expensive watches, junkets and other gifts to friends in need of them.

In short, you cannot ask for a better employee for your organization than Ms. B. She is going places, and believe me, wherever she is going, she will take a horde of clients in her wake. I would not hesitate to do business with her again, once I am eligible for parole in 2096.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission. All rights reserved.


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The doctrine behind 'Good Omens'

The thing about "Good Omens" is, it's just as fresh and original the third or fourth time through as it is the first time.

Bar none, this is the finest novelization of the Apocalypse that has ever been written. Leave "Left Behind" under the short leg of your table, where it's actually useful; and never mind the attempts of other authors to cash in on Antichrist fever. If the End of Days doesn't happen the way authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett describe it, there needs to be a do-over.

The bulk of the action takes place in what is supposed to be the last week of history as the armies of heaven and hell amass for the epic conclusion of their war, at the culmination of human history. There's only one little problem. The forces of hell accidentally misplaced the Antichrist shortly after he was born, and no one's really sure where to find him.

As the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride their motorcycles toward Tadfield, England, a demon and an angel who have been living on earth for so long that they can't bear to see it destroyed, join together in a desperate effort to find him and avert Armageddon.

Not surprisingly, the book is full of oblique references to "The Omen." For instance, the infant Antichrist was meant to be switched with the infant son of an American diplomat, as in the movies. The satanist nun involved in the switch suggests "Damien" as a name for the baby, as he was named in the movies. And so on.

Originally published in 1990, "Good Omens" was ahead of the curve for the millennial craze that eventually spawned "Left Behind," so "The Omen" at the time was the most recognizable story to feature the Antichrist.

The fast pacing and British humor that Pratchett and Gaiman bring to the book are reason enough to return to this book again and again; but these two are intelligent writers, and there's enough meat in the book to draw me back long after the jokes will have worn out. (If that ever happens, which seems unlikely.)

There's an interesting humanism at work within "Good Omens" that expresses itself through the framework of Armageddon. Since Adam was raised not at the center of power, as the son of a powerful American diplomat, but as the son of nobody important in Tadfield, England, he's grown up free of the influence of both heaven and hell. He's just pure boy, loving the things a boy loves, doing the things a boy does, and seeing a resolution to the War in Heaven that neither heaven or nor hell apparently anticipates.

The book also repeatedly underscores the role and nature of humanity itself, as the unconsidered third party in this war. The angel Aziraphale and his demonic colleague Crowley, regularly are surprised by a capacity for goodness in humanity that astounds Aziraphale, and a capacity for evil that shocks Crowley. Crowley, we discover, took credit for the Spanish Inquisition even though he had nothing to do with it; and Aziraphale blows up the radar guns of police, because he always assumed that hell's side had come up with them.

In a sense, the humanist themes of "Good Omens" are a rejection of popular Christian eschatology, which often juxtaposes harmonious depictions of Christians leaping straight from earth to heaven via the Rapture, with horrific descriptions of the Great Tribulation, in which God pours out of his wrath upon the earth, and a third of all living things perish, a third of the grass burns up, and a third of the stars are darkened, and so on.

The existence of God himself isn't called into question in the book, ironically enough, although that admittedly would be hard to do when you have angels, demons and the Antichrist himself running around as major characters. God instead is treated fairly respectfully; the questions about his ineffable purpose, such as "Why put a tree right in the middle of a garden and say 'Don't eat from it' instead of planting it somewhere remote and inaccessible if it's such a bad idea?", are hardly new questions, and have in fact bedeviled Christian and Jewish thinkers and philosophers alike for thousands of years.

Crowley and Aziraphale wrestle with these questions themselves after Armageddon passes with the world unexpectedly still intact. Crowley ultimately rejects the notion of history as a cosmic chess game between God and Satan; and, given God's omnipotence and omniscience, decides that it is, instead, more like a very complicated game of solitaire.

Like any good piece of fiction would do, "Good Omens" ends there, leaving readers to sort out for themselves such questions, as well as the general morality of evicting humanity from Paradise over a piece of fruit.

As I once wrote about "It's a Good Life," the Twilight Zone episode where 6-year-old Anthony Fremont sends anyone who displeases him to "the cornfield," stories like this serve an important function for Christians and for the church, if we will let them.

Far from being attacks, they usually are thoughtful critiques of the message that Christians present as coming from God. Sometimes they point out ways that we have bowlderized or just avoided difficult or painful truths; other times, and I think "Good Omens" falls into this category, the stories can and should shore us up, and draw our attention to faults we never admit to ourselves or one another but that are painfully obvious to anyone who has listened to us for five minutes.

(In this case, I'd have to say it's the self-righteousness that glories in the suffering of non-Christians, combined with the narcissism of the prosperity groups that most push the Rapture. Gaiman and Pratchett serve this up in the midst of the Apocalypse with a scene involving an American televangelist who embodies both those traits.)

When you get down to it, "Good Omens" really isn't primarily meant to be a depiction of the Last Days or of biblical prophecy, any more than the book of Revelation is. It's a rollicking good tale, with several themes beyond those I just outlined. The book of Revelation, while it does contain prophecy, is primarily a book about the majesty and glory of God, and the promise that however bad things are, we can be assured that Good will prevail.

And isn't that a more meaningful story than the one they like to tell in church about the Antichrist?



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Something to remember next time you need surgery

I got a call from my younger brother today that made me stop and think about some of the problems that are endemic in health care.

We all have our areas of specialty. Brian has a degree in computer science. It's generally accepted that we call him for tech support. Herb  is a handyman, so we call him when we need help with our cars. And I think we've all talked with Ward at one point or another about our pets and their proper care,

Meanwhile, I majored in English back in college and have made a career as a writer.

Contrary to what you might expect, I don't get many panicked phone calls from relatives. Shockingly few people face crises where they need a point-by-point comparison of "Troylus and Criseyde," Chaucer's paean to romantic love, with Shakespeare's satirical "Troilus and Cressida" in the next twenty minutes. Nor am I asked to field questions about sentence structure, subject-verb agreement or dangling participles.

In fact, no one in my family has called with a question related to my field of study or choice of career, ever. 

Until now.

Ward, who runs the heart-lung machine during open-heart surgery, called the house around 10 a.m. Monday with a burning question. The surgeon he was working with had been reading an article in The New Yorker, where the writer had used the word coöperate, and the doctor was trying to figure out why the writer had put two dots over the second O. 

He was pretty sure that was called a dipthong, but even so, it was a mystery. 

So Ward called me from the hospital to find out.

Those two dots are properly called an umlaut. When they appear, they signal that the vowel they're attached to is pronounced separately from the vowel before it, so we know to read the word as co-op-er-ate, and not as coop-er-ate. but it's pretty rare to see them in English. 

More broadly, umlauts are a kind of diacritic, a typographical flourish that shows that the letter they're attached to is breaking with conventional pronunciation rules. Diacritics in English most often appear attached to loanwords that come from another (typically European) language and that haven't completely made themselves at home yet.

English by and large has done away with diacritics, umlauts included, in favor of the standard 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. That's why we write fiancee instead of fiancée, facade rather than façade -- and cooperate instead of coöperate.

A dipthong, incidentally, is two vowels that combine to make a single sound, like the oy in boy, or the au in baud.

Having gained the answer he wanted, and -- what's more -- having learned two new words to showboat with, Ward hung up the phone and returned to surgery, where he shared his news.

"I have decided to change my title to perfusiönist for added snob appeal," he later wrote me. "That was the moment of public recognition guys like you wait a lifetime for, and you were a couple states away. Sorry."

Just remember: This is what occupies the minds of your surgeon and her crew when you are on the table.

Good night, moon

Today I liquefied my brain and removed it through a hole I had drilled in my skull, then filled the skull cavity with epoxy. Well, no, not really, but that's about what it felt like.

What actually happened is that I chaperoned a field trip with Rachel's class to the State Theater, where we saw a dramatic performance of "Runaway Bunny" and "Good Night Moon," both by Margaret Wise Brown. These are pretty basic bedtime stories, only 34 pages each, aimed at essentially preverbal preschoolers.

If you're thinking "What an incredible idea! I'll bet this was a really innovative reinterpretation of the books, bringing out the latent drama in a child who feels suffocated by his mother's all-consuming desire to thwart his independence, and his Gilgamesh-like desire to demonstrate his worthiness of immortality by resisting the beguiles of sleep," then you are thinking exactly what never occurred to me.

Alas, it also never occurred to the good folks at Mermaid Theatre, who turned two 34-page children's bedtime stories into two 34-minute children's plays with lullaby music and some clever puppeteering, in a very dark theater. No interpretive dance, no music numbers, no dialogue, no Avenue Q. Just puppet rabbits that hop, fly or sail, depending; a couple of cat puppets; and a mouse puppet that runs around. And a bunch of adults who quietly fade off to sleep while the kids watch the show.

Well, the kids enjoyed it, at least. But I remember thinking, as I drifted off, "I spent $27 so Rachel and I could watch this?"

But of course that's not why I spent that money. While we watched the show, I put my arm into Rachel's seat, and she let me wrap it around her waist. She moved closer to me, and I felt her warm little body snuggle against mine, and I thought, This is money well spent.


Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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'Jesus Camp'

My first thoughts after watching "Jesus Camp": Geez, that was unsettling.

Filmed in 2006 during the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Samuel Alito, "Jesus Camp" follows three children to a summer camp at Devil's Lake, North Dakota. There they are taught about the need to stand up for their faith and for righteousness in America, and to reclaim the nation for Christ. The "Kids on Fire" summer camp is led by the Rev. Becky Fischer.

This is one creepy movie.

I feel that creepiness in part because I'm a former Pentecostal myself, having joined the Assemblies of God in 1989, about a year after my own spiritual awakening. I don't recall seeing anything as extreme as what I saw in "Jesus Camp," but I definitely saw the tendencies. Watching the movie was like looking into a mirror and seeing in its reflection all your inner workings when you're accustomed only to seeing your outward appearance.

Evangelicalism generally and Pentecostalism particularly stress the importance of an emotional born-again experience, where the person awakens to a keen sense of their sinfulness and unworthiness to stand in the presence of God.

This isn't just an intellectual assent to "Yes, I've done wrong in my life." In the Pentecostal church especially there is pressure to make it an emotionally driven affirmation of wretchedness. You have to feel that the building is on fire and there is no way out, that the water is rising and you are running out of air, that there is a gunman about to blow the brains out of everyone you love -- and it's all your fault.

To be fair, I'm exaggerating a bit, but less than some of my Pentecostal and evangelical compatriots would like to think. Altar calls, as they are called, are emotionally driven affairs, given while the music is playing softly and a preacher you've taught to respect greatly because of his ministerial office, gently and repeatedly implores people to accept Christ.

A typical appeal goes something like this: "I know you are out there. You've been coming to church for years, thinking you're following Jesus, but deep inside, you know you aren't. You've been fooling everyone, even yourself, but not God. And now he wants you to make it real. Every head is bowed, every eye is closed. If you'd like to accept Jesus as your savior, raise your hand."

That's a lot of emotional manipulation for adults, but it's unconscionable to subject children to it, especially when you consider that the message Jesus and the Apostles brought to the world wasn't "You're going to hell," but "Follow me."

So while it was weird to see a mullet-haired boy named Levi saying that he had become a Christian at the age of 5 because he "wanted more out of life" -- I guess the Cartoon Network and Oreo cookies just couldn't fill that void -- it was distressing in the extreme to see children, some seemingly as young as 6 or 7 years, brought to tears by this church pastor over their sins.

Children do have the same human nature as their parents. Anyone who has had a child between the ages of 2 and 4 knows how selfish, angry, and even cruel they can be. But honestly, is it necessary to indoctrinate children, using the same psychological techniques of breaking down and rebuilding that get used for brainwashing adults? The term "abuse" gets abused a lot these days, but I don't think it's much of a stretch here.

(And Fischer is aware of what she is doing. Watch the movie and you'll see her working on a PowerPoint presentation for maximum impact, complete to picking a blood-drooping font for the Bible verse "The wages of sin is death.")

Fischer also repeatedly appeals to the example of Islamofascist camps run by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, where children are taught to hate and kill Jews and Christians. Her argument is that it's necessary to do the same with our children, in order to save the world. That's not a comparison I like, personally. In addition to the Islamophobia she encourages with blanket statements about Islam, Fischer is also suggesting that the proper response to Islamofascism is christofascism. I wonder if she appreciates the irony of using the same justification that terrorists use in defending her ministry.

I could go on, as many others have, about the false correlation of Christianity with conservatism; about the children who are taught bad science in the name of Truth; and the generally unsettling attitudes being inculcated by groups like this. (I will say I was amused by the boy who confided to his breakfast table that he watches Harry Potter movies when he visits his father. It generated the same reaction you might have expected had he produced a copy of Playboy.)

It's a frightening thing to see a large group of children being indoctrinated into militant paranoia, but that's essentially what this movie shows. I don't think it is an entirely objective perspective on evangelicalsm, but it is an accurate depiction of what goes on in a vocal and active subset of evangelicals here in America.

A friend tells me that when she watched "Jesus Camp," she felt like she was watching a documentary of her own childhood. I can't claim that, and I'm glad that my children can't either. I teach Evangeline and Rachel, rather than indoctrinating them, and I encourage them to ask plenty of questions not just of their Sunday school teachers, but of me as well. I don't have all the answers, and my hope is that they will see that from the get-go, and not be crushed when they discover that themselves in years to come.

But for children like Levi, Rachael, and Tory, unpleasant discoveries are on the way. They don't know it all, and their parents don't either. At some point they are going to learn about a much larger world outside their church doors, and hopefully the damage done by well-meaning evangelists won't overwhelm them and leave their faith in ruins.


Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.



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To absent friends

Last Tuesday as we were eating dinner, Evangeline told me that she does not want to move away from Nova Bastille.

There are no plans to move, but she was not to be put lightly aside. She does not want to leave. She has a school here, she has friends here, and it is, after all, the only home she knows. It soon became evident that she's concerned that we'll have to move because neither I nor her mother is having much luck finding full-time work here in Iowa. The economy is in the tank, and while it doesn't seem to be falling faster, she's concerned we may have to relocate to find a job.

Moving's rough, especially when you're a kid. It's not just the disruption to your life, it's having to start all over. It's having no one, because you've lost all your friends.

Like her father, Evangeline is not a person to make friends at the drop of a hat. She judges people carefully before she commits, and when she decides someone is a friend, she locks onto them for good. Evangeline feels friendship deeply. Losing a friend means having a piece of your heart torn away, and feeling your life flow out that hole every day.

I was reminded recently of this when I came across my friend Erzsébet on Facebook. She and I met in 1993, when she came to Haiti on a short-term missions trip with STEM Ministries.  We bonded quickly. She and another team member joined me and another of the resident missionaries for card games in the evening on our grilled porch, we hung out and talked on the roof of the missions base while parts of the city electric grid turned on and off, and we talked around some of the troubled dynamics that sprang up between the team and the resident missionaries. (I also tormented her ruthlessly with a large plastic tarantula my brother had sent me, at every chance I got.)

In Haiti, we relied on a private service to bring us our mail.  Letters were a godsend, a reminder that people back home still thought about us from time to time and cared enough to let us know. Maybe two weeks after she had returned to the States, Erzsébet surprised me with a long, hand-written letter, beginning a relationship that was to last for five years. We continued writing back and forth, and when I returned to the United States, we switched to e-mail and to weekly phone conversations that could run for hours.

I'm fairly certain that Erzsébet's mom, who had been on the missions trip with her daughter, had high hopes for our relationship. Those hopes never came to fruition. Shortly after I got married in 1998, Erzsébet and I lost touch. I tried calling her about two years ago, but the phone number I had was no good, and I couldn't find a new one.

I have thought of her plenty the past 10 years, if not every day then certainly every week, at times with a soul-ache that is numbing in its intensity. We were close enough, I think, that if we were to connect again, especially in person, things would slide back into place and the years, like this too, too sullied flesh, would melt and resolve themselves into a dew.

I've told Evangeline that when we love someone, whether a friend or a family member, we remove a piece of our soul and give it to them to care for, to remember us, and to stay connected with us. I saw Erzsébet's profile recently on Facebook, and I stared at her picture in wonder, recalling some of the conversations we had shared and the letters we had written and read. I could feel my soul crying out for its missing piece, and I wondered if hers ever feels that same longing.

Sometimes that ache overwhelms me because of the number of friends I've lost track of. There is Brian VanWyhe, the English teacher I worked with at Cradle of Life Christian School, who became my closest friend in Haiti; and Dan Kramer, another close friend who joined STEM the same time I did and whose wedding I foolishly did not attend.

There are other people, including some who live right here in the Bastilles, whom we lost track of after our old church disintegrated. I wonder how we can bear to give our hearts to our friends, when we value friendship so lightly that we let it go over a paltry argument, a failed church, or even over nothing at all.

Evangeline is fearful of losing friends if we have to move, though neither her mother nor I have said we are actively considering such a course of action. That is the edge of a razor I would do anything to spare her, but I know that ultimately she will feel it one day, and it will cut her deeply.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Mike becomes Shelley

So this is it. In about eight more hours, my friend Mike will be done with being Mike. He will be living as Shelly 24/7: going to work as Shelly, seeing her wife and kids as Shelly, attending church as Shelly, and self-identifying without exception as Shelly.

Much of that isn't new; she's been moving that way for most of the past year. What's new is that this is the crossover point. After breaking the news to her co-workers on Thursday and spending Friday in her male identity, she is returning to work on Monday in her female identity.

After moving out of the house and letting the kids work through this at their own pace, she is visiting them one last time, on Valentine's Day, as their father. The cat is out of the bag, and let the mice beware.

After today, I'm not really sure how to classify what her relationship to them will be, as their other mother, or as their female father, or as something else.

I've known this day was coming for a year, arguably for closer to a decade, and I'm having a hard time dealing with it. I can only imagine how they're feeling.

Aristotle once wrote, "What are friends but a single soul inhabiting two bodies?" That's pretty much how I've felt about Mike. After my wife, there is not a person alive who knows me better than, nor even as well as, Mike. There is not a single secret that I have from him at this point. Not one.

We have walked with one another through the darkest moments of our lives. When I lost my foster son, Mike listened without reproach as I raged against God. When our marriages have teetered on the brink, so near to ruin that we could taste the burnt gunpowder of divorce, we listened, we stood together, and we provided support without a word of judgment or reproach.

We've written together. Stories, the first draft and half the second draft of a fantasy novel, and reams of original humor, from faux news reports to mock histories, and our signature "Chicken Soup for the Soulless" that nearly got us sued by a publisher of inspirational material.

And now ... and now, I don't know what to say.

Mike has been my best friend for more than half my life at this point. This is without question the biggest change either of us has gone through so far: bigger than our respective marriages, bigger than having children, bigger than his decision to break with evangelicalism or mine, and to be honest, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with it.

I don't get it. Gender dysphoria is a mystery to me. I don't understand how someone can physically be one sex and yet self-identify as another. I don't understand how dressing and socializing as a woman will in any way make him feel that he has actualized this self-identity any more than wearing a costume can make someone feel that she is a police officer. I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't get it. I try, but I do not.

All I can say is that I know that Mike is a good person. I know that he has put himself through hell trying to make it work as a man, for the sake of his wife and his children. I know that he has taken every reasonable measure he can, and more, to avoid hurting the people around him. He has gone out of his way to consider the feelings of his parents, his wife and children, his sister, and his friends.

I'd be a liar to say that I'm completely at ease with the approach he has taken and the decision he has made -- I'm not. But it's not my decision, it's his, and for better or worse, he's made it.

God be gracious to us all.

Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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