A picture consists of 242 words

I wish I could draw. My mom thinks I can, but then again, she thinks I can do anything. (Thanks Mom!) I think her unwavering faith in her son, in this case, comes from drawings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I used to make in junior high. In no way were the drawings even close to the same level of skill of that guy's, or even my friend Matt's - whose "works" I was copying. But apparently beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What can you say but... Turtle Power! (Seriously, now I can't remember if this is just the first time I've blog-linked that song - sad, right?)

Anyways, the draw to draw that inspired this post in the first place came as I was reading this about the lending crisis and why banks won't or can't lend money right now. About the time the article mentions the Obama administration's efforts to "jump-start [the] crucial machinery" of the banks and markets to get the economy chugging along again, I began assembling this mental picture:

A small group of people in suits, all looking grave, yet resolute, addressing a crowd. One man (probably Obama) among those in suits, speaking to the crowd in grave, yet resolute tones. Behind the suited group addressing the crowd, another small group of suited people, bent-over examining the gears and guts of a ginormous, ridiculous-looking machine (approximately the size of a decently large sports stadium), scratching their heads, puzzling anxiously about how to get the thing running again. I imagine some in the crowd of observers are watching the speakers, and others are watching the group of people scrambling to fix the machine - in either case, watching expectantly. Somehow (this is why I'm not an artist - I have no visual imagination), whether with labels or through some slick, subtle artistry, the viewer realizes this is some kind of massive deep-fryer. Pan out (again, if this is a picture, I realize there's no such thing - but I bet good artists can attract your focus to parts of the picture in stages) and you see a massive farm and garden, bursting with all kinds of delicious food, ready to be harvested and possibly even plucked off the branch or vine and eaten. You look again at the crowd and realize that everyone looks kind of hungry and irritiable, as if they've forgotten how to eat (the master artist has rendered the crowd with a dazzling feat of complexity, of course).

I am enough of an artist to know that this is the point where I sit back and let you savor the rich irony of the picture I've just painted. Go on, savor it.

Thumbs for the road: life is like a (fill in the blank)

So my post title is probably a bit confusing. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish in the following few moments of your time:

-Give a "thumb report" for something crazy that happened yesterday, and

-Make some deep, I'm talking real deep observations about what life is like (I'll explain more about the "thumbs" theme tie-in when I get there).

Thumbs way down

So, apparently I'm terrified of mice. Last night I was working in our extra bathroom to start pulling up the floor (we're prepping it for a plumber who can go in and move some pipes so we can put the toilet in a location that makes more sense than the one it's currently in). This involved taking screws out from the hardibacker board I'd so carefully put down a few months ago, as well as starting to saw through the plywood subfloor (I know, boring details, but I promise it gets good). All of this must have been quite unsettling to the poor mouse who'd made his home in the area recently, because seconds after I hear some kind of pitter-pattering sound behind me, I see THE STREAK. (At this point, I feel it necessary to point out that the animal was still a rat rather than a "mouse on steroids" as Kathryn later put it.) THE STREAK evokes THE SCREAM. THE SCREAM is immediately followed by THE FLIGHT. During THE FLIGHT there is somehow THE SECOND SCREAM. Soon enough I'm in the same room with Kathryn, which upon entering earns me THE LOOK and THE PUNCH.

Here's the same story, this time told from Kathryn's perspective (this portion of our program is brought to you by Vantage Point - own it on DVD and Blu-Ray now!). "I was in the kitchen making a pizza. In the other room I could hear the sound of the drill, which had been going, off and on, for a while. One of the times when it stopped it was immediately followed by Joe screaming. Over the course of the next 2 seconds, here's what ran through my mind: Oh my gosh! How many appendages did Joe just cut off? Can I find a container to put ice in? Will I be able to find the severed parts? Where will we go? Is St. Joseph's the closest hospital? What's the quickest way there? About this time Joe comes in and I do a quick scan - he doesn't appear to have any bloody stumps anywhere." At this point both stories converge with THE LOOK and THE PUNCH.

In my defense, that mouse came out of nowhere. Seriously, it's like he materialized right through the wall of the bathroom vanity and charged right through my line of vision. Also, this mouse was in no way "mousy" - the thing was big enough to be a small rat. And I have seen mice on the run before. They look like little blurs. Not large, ravenous rat-mammal uber-blurs. I swear the thing was ravenous.

Anyways, since my wife works with lab-mice on a daily basis, I went ahead and let her take a look in the bathroom to see if she could spot it. (I figure since I'd led the charge on the roach wars I could take a more cautious approach this time.) Later on I put my adrenaline-induced frenzy aside and placed a baited trap in the area where we saw some mouse droppings. Nothing yet, but I think we'll get the beast in due time.

Thumbing a Ride on the Road of Life

I've had some thoughts stewing around in my head for a few days about what life is like. (You know - life is like... "a journey" or "a box of chocolates" or "it is what it is" - those types of things.) The impetus for these thoughts have been life circumstances that have forced me to become more comfortable living with unfinished things. Goals not yet accomplished. Tasks sidetracked. Sidetracked sub-tasks sidetracking other sidetracked sub-tasks. Those types of things.

Buying a house that was so much further from being done than I realized when I bought it is one of the things that's got me on this train of thought. Another is a project I may soon take on at work (which would involve slowly redoing a large database and website) that could drag on for months or years. Paying off debt and getting financially stable is another fun one.

And then there are things people start that they don't even get to see finished. Like people who already have kids. They know that at some point they'll die and the life they helped start will continue on after they're gone (what a horrible thing that sometimes it happens the other way around). Who are we to think we can accomplish anything? What do we know about finality and worth?

I know people who are addicted to "getting things done" because "it feels good to". I'm not going to lie - I've got a pretty long list of things I'd really like to get done - not necessarily because I'm eager for that sense of accomplishment, but because I'm tired of having things on my list. But lists never clear and stay cleared - we know that, right? I don't know, maybe there are some super-nazis out there who push through and get stuff done on schedule despite the odds and challenges, but I certainly don't operate that way.

Really, I think this is the kind of thing that leads people to say things like, "Life is a journey, not a destination." (Or Ralph Waldo Emerson - whatever.) I guess maybe people who buy into that would see the value in challenges being character-making, and they would rank that above personal achievement. Or maybe they'd take a balanced stance and say personal achievement (arriving at your destination) only gains its value when it's viewed holistically, together with the character-making process of facing challenges (being on the journey).

I looked around a little bit to see some people who have been quoted with thoughts on the subject. (Note: I wouldn't necessarily trust that this guy got his sources right, since apparently Emerson ripped his quote off of Steven Tyler.)

I like the Martin Buber quote because he mentions the secret destinations. It's hard to think of a journey, much less a destination, when most undertakings involve so many detours that you go from "we'll get there when we get there" to "by the time we get there, we'll already need to be somewhere else."

By the time you settle into a new technology, a newer is already taking its place, making it obsolete. By the time you finish the house, you're moving to a bigger one or taking a job in another town. By the time you pay off debt, something (or someone) breaks and you're scrambling to pay for repairs.

That's why when Jesus says, "It is finished", that has to be a really big deal. He's either full of total bull crap or he's totally the man who succeeded in something we've all been failing at all along.

It's nice to know that, in this world, at least somebody is getting something done.

Ride on, King Jesus, ride on. Just as long as I can hitch.

Mountain man and aspiring artist? (part 1)

New Blog!
Dear adoring fans and breaders-Like-You,
Welcome to my new blog! Not only had JoeZone not been updated in a while, but it had also begun to seem to me like clothes that just don't fit anymore once you've lost some weight. (Or even, perhaps, those clothes were starting to wear through around the armpits because of you wearing them all the time on account of how awesome you thought they were during that time, but then fashions start to change and you realize it's probably time to toss the old Hypercolor tee.) It's not a perfect analogy because I think there was some good stuff on there (in terms of the subtext and substance; of course, the writing was excellent, or so I've heard. Or maybe that was one of those inner-cranial conversations? I don't remember now.), but that's not to say there wasn't a measure more of the self-absorbed spirit, which I feel I'm starting to shed, than I'm agreeable to perpetuate. Along with that came my tendency towards self-disparaging remarks, which I'd like to mighty-morph into a healthy self-respect (which I'm learning doesn't have to be self-worship - any other recovering pop-psychology-skeptics out there?). Anyways, what better place to work all of this out than on the 'net? It's like blogs are to normal face-to-face social interaction what draining the beef-grease before adding the Hamburger Helper is to a meal. Ideally. Or else it's like a teenage slumber party in which one of the kids has access to Mom and Dad's car key and its automobile (accompanied by an opportune lack of parental oversight), where stupidity has a chance to percolate before bubbling out into the most unfortunate places. So in one such fashion or the other will I work out this personal transformation. Either way. But also neither, too - because it's probably better to work out life's big questions in community as opposed to all by oneself. So whatever.

The particular stories which occasion this post (as well as the next - I'll be splitting them up seeing as I already seem to be digressing more than progressing) are quite appropriate and timely for the contemporaneous life-shifting and blog-hopping. One is a tale of adventure, the kind that every man should have regularly so that the world, with its institutions and fixations on safety and risk-management and comfort, doesn't tame him - especially if he finds himself at a desk or computer each day (not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just not in our nature to sit still! Look at little boys, and remember they are the way they are because God made them that way. There's a lot less fallen-ness in youthful energy and vitality than is easy to believe, in my opinion.); the other is a tale of vocational discovery (what is it that God, throughout the course of my life, in all of my doings and pursuings and learnings and strugglings, is preparing me for? It's the "big question", and it's so much more than merely paid employment, though neither is that excluded). Both stories are ones I believe may ultimately prove to have been critical to my journey of self-and-other-within-Kingdom discovery. Or else they'll suffice as acceptable blog-fodder. Either way. But hopefully more the former. So whatever.

Potential milestone #1: The call of the wild (don't let it go to voicemail)
From Nine March to Eleven March Two-Thousand Aught Eight In the Year of Our Lord Anno Domini, did myself and my portly pack ascend the mount beyond the River Paluxy upon the Park of the Valley of the Thunder-Lizard, and there we did make camp and exercise much manliness through the lugging of said pack, the subsequent scaling of lofty cliffs, the drowsy braving of thunderstorms, the marking of trees and ensuing domination of nature, and the continual sweating-through of apparel. Yea, most assuredly, did no pleasant odor go unconquered.

Ironically, I was expecting that backpacking would allow me to get away for a few days of relative relaxation and peaceful reflection. No sooner did monkeys fly out of my butt than I said to myself, "Spike, that was pretty danged naive." One-man backpacking is a heckuva lot of work, especially when you get onto the wrong trail an hour before dark, and by the providence of God stumble onto a different campsite with just enough time to set up a tent before dark and the onslaught of a Texas thunderstorm, only to wake up the next morning with a wet tent and sleeping bag, and still somehow think how much you'd like to continue on to that campsite which the park ranger said was his favorite (which happens also to be the one furthest out), if for no other reason than to prove how much of a man you are. And since such was utterly and undeniably proved, it was therefore a heckuva lot of work. But an awesome experience.

Oh, and it gets lonely and scary in the wild of those state parks where there may not be any major roads or facilities for literally thousands of feet, and where, at night, you can almost feel the hot, putrid breath of the wild raccoons and white-tailed deer on the thin tent-nylon, cold and dewy from the rain of the forty-degree, onslaught-uous Texas thunderstorm. And me without my hatchet! Thus the marking of trees. Not to mention the mini-concert of songs that any person or thing within probably a couple-mile radius heard that night as I belted out my defense against the enveloping darkness. The score: Darkness and Beasts-of-the-Wild, zero; Joe, eight-hundred and ninety-three. Million.

So, all things considered, and all hatchets and packs back in their respective places of storage, do I think I got out of the whole experience what I thought I was signing up for? Probably not. Did I get more, and in different ways than I expected? Probably so, and most definitely yes! And so, to this day, some people who backpack in DVSP say that, on cold, thunderous nights, they can still hear a young man singing:

Then sings my soul,
My Savior, God, to Thee,
Back up offa me, raccoons,
How great Thou art!

Or something like that.

Tune in next time for...
Potential milestone #2: The-artist-soon-to-be-known-as-Joe-Peebles?