Some body's -
I walked around work today. Its a large company - the largest I have worked for. And I realized what the biggest tragedy of an employer of this size is and subsequently the folks that choose to come here on a daily basis.

The fact of the matter is that in a sea of so many "body's" - you tend to look right past people and never actually see the "some". I don't often make eye contact with those I walk past, because when I do I become over whelmed with the idea that I will likely never know that person and simply do not have the ability to know that person. They say the human species only has the capacity to interact closely with 8 individuals at a time. To actually be a part of only 8 people's lives in a significant way at a specific time.

Now take a company of 120k plus employees and perhaps you see the fatalism. Then again, work was not meant necessarily to be a place where you do anything other then what the company is paying you to do. And still, the question does not go away. But it gets worse. There are times when I see the "some" of these "body's" but I think - "is that person important?" "Does that person pull the strings around here?" "Look at the hat he is wearing, no ordinary employee would wear a hat like that, would they?" - And there I am trying to fit one of "them" into my sphere of 8 because perhaps in someway it would be important.

But then I come back to my desk - I think through this logic. I think of a story where important people of the day were shunned by someone claiming to be the "Son of God". Important people were drawn to him, mostly out of frustration and would often visit him only at night so as not to be seen. And I think of the lessons associated with someone claiming to be the "Son of God" breaking away from crowds of important people to spend time with the homeless, the deranged, the rejected. They were important.... they were some body's - they were His.

Eight people at a time? Not a lot... as the Grail Night said to Indiana Jones in the final installment of the series "Choose Wisely".

"All I really needed to know about the Vietnamese I learned from Chuck Norris"

You tend to get a funny idea about people and cultures when you are young and influenced by movies and television. If ever there was one culture that I have inadvertently inflicted more stereotypes on then any other it was the Vietnamese. Why you ask? It wasn't because my Dad was in Vietnam or that I had an unusual anger toward Communism... it was because of Captain Vinh, the POW Camp Commander in "First Blood Part II" and because of all the random Vietnamese SOB's that tried shooting Chuck Norris up in the Missing in Action films.

You remember their faces don't you? So stoic with their very neatly parted black hair. When they smiled their mouths took on a rather evil upswing near their checks. They almost always had caped straight teeth with a little bit of black right at the edge of the gum and tooth from smoking. And the cigarettes, they were always smoking cigarettes and looking very menacing and villainous. Usually wearing some kind of uniform that had a red star somewhere, though, that was typically just because the film makers at the time made the same mistake as me and just categorically lumped Vietnamese people in with Chinese people.

None the less, put yourself in my shoes... a red headed kid raised in a fundamentalist Christian Home. A child that was allowed to watch only shows that involved violence of some kind or in some way to a villain that was non-American. Jeepers... what villains those Vietnamese people made. What with the way they would torture my American heroes, Sylvester Stallone & Chuck Norris. Who could forget that horrifying image of Stallone in a bath of human poop only to be raised out and put on an electrocution machine made out of some car batteries and an antiquated mattress box spring set?

BUT and always with a great sense of relief (as if the outcome would ever be different) the captors would always meet their match and would typically die by being blown up or shot in the forehead. (Note: if shot in the forehead it was usually with an arrow from a compound bow with explosive tips or something like that.)

Up until last Saturday night, those impressions... those ethnocentric views I held between my nationality and those of the enemy or the Vietcong held true for the most part. (Note: Vietcong is the term I used with my friends when we would play out in the woods pretending we were rescuing MIA's, I have no idea what the historical use is. Please re-read my first paragraph disclaimer on my historical understanding of these people)

But then it all changed. No, not because I actually picked up a history book or decided to start reading up on the Vietnamese culture. It was because my kids became friends with two Vietnamese kids.
Yep... And both me and my wife were invited to their parents house for a baby shower. Apparently in the Vietnamese culture, when a baby hits 4 weeks old its pretty huge because we went to this little 1200 square foot home that had Vietnamese folks pretty much squeezed into every last 1200 square foot. Aside from packing one Vietnamese person per square foot in this home, I also realized these Vietnamese folks are pretty small. (Note: This did much to destroy the notion of Rambo being "David" and the Vietnamese being "Goliath") I will admit that I had to watch where I swung my elbows at first though.

I wasn't in the door 2 minutes when all of the sudden I was taken by the hand by this little old Vietnamese lady and guided into the garage. Inside the garage there was a long table with the father of the baby at the head of the table. There were voluminous quantities of Vietnamese foods. I could scarcely see through the haze of cigarette smoke (Note: at least one of my stereo types was true) but I could hear that these guys were having a great time. This little old lady who could not speak a lick of English sat me down at the table and handed me a plate of what appeared to be some kind of catfish stew, noodles and a kind of meat, possibly spare rib. (no, I did not ask from what)

Anyone that knows me knows I am not much of a drinking man. In fact I just don't drink. I have never really enjoyed the taste quite honestly, however, after being in the garage for all of a minute I found a Heineken in my hand. So there I sat with my Heineken and strange assortments of proteins and carbohydrates. I glanced to my left and there sitting next to me is a guy that if you put a kaki green military hat on his head and gave him the controls of some kind of electrocution device could easily have fit right into First Blood II. He had that crazy grin on his face and wanted to toast about every two minutes. Through the door back into the kitchen I saw my wife sitting on the floor with some other women mostly just taking care of the children. This is when I started to warm up to Vietnamese hospitality.

I sat in the smoke filled garage listening to these men tell stories and give toasts for the next 20 minutes. By the time I was into my 2nd Heineken it became quite apparent that the goal of the toasting was for all of them to get completely tanked. Something I had no intention of doing, especially with the crazy mixture of food that was churning around in my stomach.

My dear wife would catch glimpses of me through the opening and closing of the door to the garage. Later she would describe this scene as one of the funniest things she had ever scene, what with me standing up and attempting to toast to these other men who did not have the foggiest idea of what I was saying. "Congratulations" I would say "may your children grow strong like the wildebeest"... to which the response would be a magnificent roar of "Ayyy, yong, chi long....YYYYYYSYAAAAAAA"

A few Heinekens later, I managed to sneak out of the garage and found my two kids in the basement singing along to Vietnamese karaoke. The lights were turned out and a strobe light was going. This sight, coupled with the food and beer in my untamed gullet, was really quiet ethereal. My wife joined me and watched the very strange but somewhat delightful site of my kids singing and dancing around the basement with these beautiful children of another culture. We had no idea what the lyrics said, it could have been some kind of Communist marching tune for all we knew, but the beauty of the moment rose above our political insecurities.

After a few chuckles from both me and my wife I managed my way back upstairs and for the remaining time at the party that evening I listened to the father of the household describe in broken English his trek from Vietnam to the United States. How his mother was impregnated by a man from the United States and how she had to put him up for adoption for fear that the government would kill her for being with an American.

The bad guys suddenly shifted in my mind. These people at this table full of beer and food and merriment were not just celebrating the life of this little 1 month old baby. They were celebrating life period. Oddly enough, and a bit to my surprise, none of them had even seen the Missing in Action series. Not even the first one, which by the way was the best.

A Little Venting

So occasionally I get a little mean spirited... yeah, I know, not really something allowed for in Galatians 5:22, but bear with me as I will lean a bit on Romans 7:15-17.

What's worse than Christina Aguilera's song "Genie in a Bottle"?

How about a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing along with it?

What's worse than a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing along with it?

A drunk chunky Hispanic girl that also thinks she can dance like Christina Aguilera.

What's worse than a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing and dance while being drunk along to a bad Christina Aguilera song?

The fact that she is my neighbor's friend and doing it to a crappy sounding K-Mart boom box in the back yard while I am trying to play baseball with my kids.

What's worse than a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing and dance while being drunk singing a stupid Christina Aguilera song while I play baseball with my kids in our back yard?

A drunk chunky Hispanic girl that thinks she can dance and sing like Christina Aguilera and keeps talking about how bad she is sweating.

What's worse than all of the afore mentioned?

The fact that in my judgmental and highly annoyed state of mind, God decided to take a little vengeance out on me.

Upon my total annoyance and after hearing this women say for the 14th time "I am just sooooo totally sweaty and hot right now... oh my gawwwd" I decided the baseball game was over and so was my appetite.

Walking into the house my 4 year old daughter slips into her best Christina Aguilera swagger and spins around singing:

"If you wanna be with me
Baby there's a price to pay
I'm a genie in a bottle"

There certainly is a "price to pay"....

Small lessons from God I suppose.

Language

"Don't let that s#@t bother you... there is better s#%t to be gotten then that s#$t" - Female co-worker

When did language turn so foul. And just when did it hit the work place. For those of you out there that have been gainfully employed by the same company for say 20 or 30 years can you remember when this phenomena took place?

I am not one to pass much judgment, at least I try not to, but why? I will give my opinion. Like so much else lost in this busy and shuffled world, language was lost as far as I can tell a good 15 years ago. We gave up language because it became tedious and time consuming. To try and keep up... to be literate in an age of 10 minute conversations, casual journalism, and pop consumerism just does not work. Something had to give, so we gave up language. Instead of articulating ourselves carefully we have built a sort of repetitious conjunctive form of communication.

The part that perplexes me though is when did it turn obscene? When did we take words like exhausted, tedious & sinister and turn them into words like "f@%ked up", "bull s@%t" and "c$%k sucker"?

There are so many answers to this question and so many places to begin, but for now I will just leave you with this. The next time you want to make a statement about something or someone that may be easily described in one of the seven major curse words, stop, think about the statement you are going to make, use your thesaurus and try to articulate one of those words in a more creative manner. Chances are, the point you are trying to make will be more purely angry, more explicitly lurid, or more wonderfully beautiful.

"When you had a different face"

She will tell you what she thinks. She will tell you whether or not you want to hear it. And some times she will tell you something so simple about yourself that you will think she is not real. Because no real person can see you so clearly and so simply at the same time right? Fake people can see what they want to see. Mean people can see you from the top of their middle finger. Cold people can look right past you.

She holds your face carefully with her little hand and looks you in the eyes. She tells you that you have bad breath and tries to cover her head with a blanket. She will try to tell you how much she loves you by holding her arms apart as far they can go.

She walks you through her life, one day at a time, summarizing all the details that meant so much to her dating back to just minutes ago.

"Dad, remember, that picture of you with long hair..."
"yes... I was 19" - I say
"Remember when you had a different face"

I remember. I had a different face.

She looks at me now as if I have always looked this way. She will only ever know me from each day progressively forward in her life.

Remember when we all had different faces?

My Cover Show

6 years going and I am a rock star. In my car at morning and dusk I am a rock star. At the front and center, covering songs by Bob Dylan, U2 and the Replacements. My voice rises and falls to each song typically ending in a fever pitched crescendo.

"Won't you take me down that long 8 Mile Road"... I am Grant Lee Buffalo, with a less cool name.
"I don't wanna be no man's women"... I am Sinead O'Connor, only a man, singing about being a man-hating women.
"I'm just a man, my will is sooooo strong"... I am Michael Hutchins, resurrected.
"I hear more support for the Monarchy... I hear Truganini's in chains"... I am Peter Garret from Midnight Oil, with out a clue what any of his politics mean.
"I would like a place I could call my home... to have a conversation..."... I am Bernard Sumner out of order.
"You be in me for a while, I'll be you"... I am Paul Westerburg, and apparently he is Brandon Barnes.
"Like a rolling stone"... I am Bob Dylan, rolling in my Saturn L Series with front and rear airbags.

When I climb into my car each and every day, for 1.5 hours I am on stage. The 9 speaker surround sound in my car is my band and I am front and center with a swagger that is freaking sexy and of course safely buckled in.

Death

The move was swift and timely, the marble fell into the metal indention, filling the red triangle, the final white decimal. She smiled and made a small gasp like laugh beneath her oxygen mask. The first of 9 games she had won, beating her mother to the finish. She was only half the player of Chinese Checkers that her mother was and this certainly was a fulfilling victory. A dizzying and tiring victory of Chinese Checkers. A whole new dimension to a once simple game played over and over again in days past.

Later, her mother rolls her past pictures hanging in the hallway of the home she has returned to recently. Pictures hang symmetrically on the wall. Pictures of younger girls. Pictures of older girls. Pictures randomly capturing motion & season. The squeak from the wheel of the chair guiding her to her room makes her sick. The weight of her folding lungs becomes nearly intolerable as she focuses her vision on the bed at the end of the hall.

This is the home she will die in. This is the bed she will die in.

The marbles neatly assorted in their star-shaped resting place will sit on the kitchen table and in the morning will not have moved.
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“Next time it will be different”
“Next time I will not get my hopes up”
“Next time I will make sure….”
Words spoken in small breaths between sobs call from the bathroom.

“I will not do this again”
“I will not do this again… not again”
“I will not…. DO THIS!”

On the other side of the bathroom door, sliding slowly with his back against it, he comes to rest on the floor. Head in hands & the moment so surreal its barbs surround the memory, instantly, and choke it forever.

The home carefully built and constructed meant to secure life and protect it, now turns against them spiting out the first chance to reckon itself.

The baby is gone.

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It’s nearly too much to sit and watch. You need to move around in these stories. You need to make them apart of you. You need to follow them to there rightful conclusions. You need to stand in the midst, helpless and let these emotions run over you. Feel this. Do you feel this? I feel this, I feel connected to this. These are not mine. This is not my time but these are true.

I cannot make my home here.

So instead I stand outside of my home and look on. Afraid to look in and find out when the walls may breath their last. Will it first be in my son’s room? Will it first be in my daughter’s room? Will it first be in our room? Will you tell me? Will you promise me it won’t? Honey please. Please tell me it won’t ever happen under this roof.

Honey, if this happens to any of us will you sell the home? Honey will you get what you can for it?

You won’t and I won’t. We will keep the investment. We will trust in the Market to yield the long-term profits. We knew in the beginning it would be worth it.

We knew we would die here. We knew as the hours counted down that we would find our end in the strength of these walls, our respite in the hope of the divine.

"I will not again see the LORD ,
the LORD , in the land of the living;
no longer will I look on mankind,
or be with those who now dwell in this world.
Like a shepherd's tent my house
has been pulled down and taken from me."
King Hezekiah - Isaiah 38:11-12a