The Shack

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is a publishing phenomena. It's subtitled "Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity. It is a novel about faith. A father loses a child. The question comes to him as to presence of God in a world filled with evil and unspeakable pain. In his search for answers he finally visits the the shack where his young daughter was murdered. There he meets God, who is a black woman who makes really good pancakes. Huh? Jesus a young middleaster fellow with a big nose. Very understanding and kindly is he. And The Holy Ghost, who likes purple, appears to be of Asian extraction and is otherwise quite undescribable.

Obviously it's a fairy tale. An allegory of the quality of Pilgrims Progress? I think not. Fairy tales though, can provide wonderful moral lessons or be just plain silly. Millions of people have, apparently, felt this book to be a life altering reading experience. At least many, who might be of a less than a traditional Christian point of view, have recommended it to their friends. That's how I got it. Perhaps it's a derivative of the "Emergent Church."

The writing is weak at times and the lengthy dialogue seems trite at points. Yet, to many the underlying questions and answers must be profound.

I don't believe in fairy tales. I know all about losing a child. A good book reviewer should be able to tell his readers whether a book is worth reading or not. I can't do that because, theologically speaking, quite simply this book was way beyond my understanding. You see in the end, it is a matter of faith.

Growing Up

When I was growing up in St. Paul in the 1950's:

A little house with three bedrooms, one bathroom and one car on the street. A mower that you had to push to make the grass look neat.

In the kitchen we only had one phone,And no need for recording things, someone was always home.

We only had a living room where we would congregate, Unless it was at mealtime in the kitchen where we ate. We had no need for family rooms or extra rooms to dine, When meeting as a family those two rooms would work out fine.

We were the last kids in our neighborhood to have a TV. We only had one set, and channels maybe two or three, But always there was one of them with something worth the view. My dad thought he got a bargain from "Mad Man" Muntz you see. It was a giant 17 inches and black and white indeed.

For snacks we had potato chips that tasted like a chip, And if you wanted flavor there was Lipton's onion dip. Store-bought snacks were rare because my mother liked to cook, And nothing can compare to snacks in Betty Crocker's book.

Weekends were for family trips or staying home to play, We all did things together -- even go to church to pray.

We all loved to go camping then, here my mom is helping pack the stuff and to this very day, Mrs. T and I like still like the woods as long as we can stay. Sometimes we would separate to do things on our own, But we knew where the others were without our own cell phone.

Then there were the movies with your favorite movie star, And nothing can compare to watching movies in your car.

Then there were the picnics at the peak of summer season, Pack a lunch and find some trees and never need a reason. Get a baseball game together with all the friends you know, Have real action playing ball -- and no game video. Now they speak of the Boyz In The Hood. Well, here we all were then. Boys and girls together playing Robin Hood. That's me, lower right hand corner, getting ready to shoot. The game never tired for us as it always was a hoot.

Remember going to the store and shopping casually, And when you went to pay for it you used your own money? Nothing that you had to swipe or punch in some amount, Remember when the cashier person had to really count? The milkman used to go from door to door, And it was just a few cents more than going to the store. There was a time when mailed letters came right to your door, Without a lot of junk mail ads sent out by every store. The mailman knew each house by name and knew where it was sent; There were not loads of mail addressed to "present occupant." There was a time when just one glance was all that it would take, And you would know the kind of car, the model and the make. One time the music that you played whenever you would jive, Was from a vinyl, big-holed record called a forty-five. The record player had a post to keep them all in line, And then the records would drop down and play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then, just like we do today, And always we were striving, trying for a better way. Oh, the simple life we lived still seems like so much fun, How can you explain a game, just kick the can and run?

This life seemed so much easier and slower in some ways, I love the new technology but I sure miss those days. So time moves on and so do we, and nothing stays the same, But I sure love to reminisce and walk down memory lane.

George Clooney

Some weeks ago I posted a review of the movie Up In The Air. http://troutbirder.blogspot.com/2010/01/up-in-air.html The review was somewhat less than highly favorable. Apparently his appearance in a film automatically makes it Academy Award material. I don't get it?

Korean War Memorial

After I had (in the previous post) misidentified the Washington monument as a high rise hotel, we saw the new Holocaust Museum, and then headed down the mall to pay our respects at the Vietnam Memorial and to President Lincoln. On the way back up the from the Lincoln Memorial we noticed a large crowd was gathered around some statues. They represented some soldiers walking carefully across a rice paddy.

It was the memorial to the veterans of one of America’s forgotten wars. Korea. Unfortunately, I must admit I was unfamiliar with the memorials very existence. Of course, I had read many books about the war itself. I had also talked with my retired Marine Corps brother-in- law about his experiences there as an 18 year old. He had gone straight into the thick of the battle from high school in Mississippi.

As we approached the crowd it was apparent some sort of ceremony was taking place. TV and movie cameras were everywhere. Reporters gathered around a distinguished looking elderly gentleman. I asked a member of the crowd who the gentlemen was.
"You mean the man wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor," he replied. This is America's highest decoration for valor in defense of our country.

"His name is General Ray Davis." Raymond Gilbert "Ray" Davis (January 13, 1915 – September 3, 2003) was a highly decorated Marine Corps officer, serving in World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. His single most notable endeavor was the salvation of hundreds of trapped Marines during the 1950 Battle of Chosin Reservoir while commanding the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

History. It's all around us. You just have to keep you eyes open.

The Year Of The Flood

I needed a fix. Having exhausted my cache and spring gardening seeming very far away, I visited my local small town supplier. She said "we’re short as well." "Limited funds," she added. Where have I heard that tune before? I was standing in front of the new books section of the public library.

History and biography are my favorite books. On that day, I’d already read most of those choices on the shelf. A change of pace came to mind, so I began perusing the book jackets in the new novels section.

A "dystopian novel" one of the jackets said. This genre is not exactly the science fiction of monster robots and alien invaders. It’s more like bad dreams, projecting the ugliness of the present, into the nightmare of the future. Plausible speculation, as it were. 1984, Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange and similar classics came to mind. I took the book home.
Settled in my easy chair, I noted the title for the first time: The Year Of The Flood. The author was Margaret Atwood. That name finally rang a bell. She wrote the The Handmaid’s Tale.

That book was a classic. One of my all-time favorites. Sometimes, in blindly picking out a novel, you just have to get lucky. I was.

The social and environmental fabric of life on earth is falling apart. It’s a very different world yet entirely recognizable. The seeds of that future world are with us now. God’s Gardeners, who combine religion and science, and try to preserve all life, are predicting a human made disaster that will alter earth forever.

In rich and earthy prose and poetry, Atwood take us to a place that is dark and violent. Yet kind and thoughtful people are trying to hold back the march to human extinction. Can God’s Gardeners save humanity from the final precipice? A really good novel of this type melds a realistic present into an intolerable future. Atwood does that. There are no strawmen here. The very best ones also draw you in by reminding you that the present has some redeeming qualities. The author falls a little short there. Still if your brave and open minded enough to read about this not too distant world, I’d highly recommend it.

In the meantime, I think I’ll start going thru my seed catalogues to get ready for my gardening.
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Scary Pills

I recently ran across an ad for a certain pill. It contained, in part, the following "warning."
AMBIEN CR is indicated to help you fall asleep and/or stay asleep.
AMBIEN is indicated for short-term treatment to help you fall asleep.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
AMBIEN and AMBIEN CR are treatment options you and your doctor can consider along with lifestyle changes. When taking either of them, don’t drive or operate machinery. Plan to devote 7 to 8 hours to sleep before being active. Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with memory loss for the event, as well as abnormal behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation, and hallucinations may occur. Don’t take it with alcohol as it may increase these behaviors.
True. How true.

It seems Mrs T was recovering quite nicely from major surgery at a world famous local clinic and hospital. On that particular night, however, her roommate was having a particularly rough go. There was much coming and going of the nursing staff. At that point one of the nurses suggested the Mrs. take a sleeping pill so she could get some sleep. Mrs T agreed with the suggestion.

She quickly fell asleep, only, I learned later, to have bad nightmares concerning her prison status and the fact that someone was going to "take all my blood." Upon being awakened in the middle of the night, a nurse did indeed want to take her blood. Later, according to her roommate, my spouse categorically refused to allow this procedure three times. Also, she was unable to give the nurse her name or where she was. However, she did insist on speaking to me.

It's more than a little upsetting when your wife is in the hospital, and a nurse calls at 2 a.m. It took me a few seconds to get up to speed. The nurse said, "Your wife wants to talk to you." The bottom line though was when the nurse added, "basically Mr. Troutbirder, you wife is being incoherent and uncooperative." I replied, "So what else is new?" Nah, I didn't really say that. Just bit my tongue. My wife then got on the phone and repeatedly said, "I love you."

On a more serious note, she later told me she had never been so frightened in all her life and couldn't remember what she said. Truth to tell, we have both had experiences where being told of possible side effects of a drug might have altered our uninformed choices. I had a near death experience once, which later cost, a unnamed by legal agreement, multi-zillion dollar "big pharmo."

Flyaway

Some time back I was lucky enough to win a give-away at Hasty Brook. http://hastybrook.blogspot.com/

Lynne is an avid birder and so naturally the book was about that subject. The book was actually about birds from a rehabbing point of view. Titled Flyaway, by Suzie Gilbert, it’s really a memoir by a woman passionate about life, birds, her precocious kids, and understanding husband. The whole thing was a stitch. I loved it.

After some positive experiences in an animal hospital and a local raptor center, she turned her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center. Funny yes. Heartrending at times Gilbert learns about human as well as animal nature. Human carelessness and compassion.
Pursuing one dreams no matter how unconventional. Holding on and letting go.
Its hard not to like this remarkable woman and her passion for caring about other living things. Even if your not a birder.

Into The Wild

April 27th, l992
Greeting from Fairbanks! This is the last day you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here two day ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here.
Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. It this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild.
Alex
Postcard received by Wayne Westerberg
in Carthage, South Dakota
Quoted from Jon Krakauer’s book Into The Wild

Historian? Investigative reporter? Jon Krakauer writes intriguing and most often controversial books with flair and style. There are almost always mysteries surrounding the facts and his interpretations of them. They also become best sellers that other people write or film rebuttals about. I first ran across his writing about a mountaineering disaster on Mount Everest. I had seen an Imax film on the subject and numerous television documentaries, then I read his book into Into Thin Air. It was an astonishingly evocative book. You felt you were at 28,000 feet gasping for air and your very survival. Krakauer pulled no punches putting the blame for all the deaths where he felt it belonged. Some people felt he tweaked the facts to make a more interesting story. Hmmm.

Other books followed including Under the Banner of Heaven. This was an account of the past and present history of the Mormon Church focusing particularly upon the practice of polygamy and two dissident brothers who murdered in the name of their religious beliefs. The Mormon Church officials did not approve of Krakauers’s interpretation.
Another best seller was Where Men Win Glory an account of the life and death of Pat Tillman, who left a career in the National Football League to serve in the war in Iraq. The real truth of his death was not revealed by the U.S. government.

I just finished reading Into The Wild. A young college graduate leaves his well to do family and becomes Alex Supertramp. He gives up his money and family and becomes a wanderer. He eventually intends to spend a summer, living off the land, in the Alaskan wilderness. And he dies there. Why? What actually happened? Reading the story it was easy enough to brush off the whole thing as the mistakes of a stupid, selfish and naive young man. But not really. I found much empathy for the psychological depths that the author turns up, much of it based on his own youth and experiences.
Krakauers books are about life on the edge. They never disappoint me because they make one think about some of the bigger questions of our lives. And then you wonder if they are nonfiction fiction. That’s part of the mystery.

Up In The Air

It was only sixteen below zero last Friday..... so time to get out of the house and head to the big city and do something. A quick mall stop, then the public library to look for a book on improving bird habitat in your backyard, lunch and then a movie. I favored Sherlock Holmes, my favorite detective. Mrs T wanted George Clooney. Well, you get the picture. A chick flick I thought. Well it might be funny. It wasn’t.
There were some humorous spots but the underling premise was that George’s job was to travel endlessly across the country, firing people from their jobs, that their rich, arrogant and gutless bosses wouldn’t do themselves. Now that fits in well with the national economic mood. Nice! George had to be frozen emotionally to put up with this kind of work. Then he met a woman who appeared to be similarly oriented. Then a young hot shot woman appeared, whose computer skills were ready to replace George’s very way of making a living. No, it wasn't a triangle. It was a mess.
Perhaps the sophisticated banter, psychological swampiness, and unexplained twists and turns in the plot were way above my somewhat naive small town perspectives on life.... but when the film ended my basic response was WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?