Frost into Spring

As we accelerate into a rich, green spring, and as even the Wyoming desert rejuvenates into a new cycle of life, I thought of some Robert Frost poems that capture two distinct but related feelings evoked by the lucious springtime weather in my winter weary soul: peace and wanderlust.

(And I threw in a few pictures of cute spring children and lovely Elizabeth . . .)

A Prayer In Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

The Sound of Trees

I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

Dissatisfaction and Complacency

What drives someone to excel? To reach beyond their current situation and to strive for something greater?

Often, we speak of the need to find contentment with where are lives are at, with what we are currently doing. This is Zen-like: living joyfully in the now, appreciating the wonders of the present without clamoring for the future or regretting the past. But when does Zen transform into complacency?

Should Martin Luther have been content with the corruption he regarded in the Catholic church? Should Christopher Columbus have been satisfied and remained in ignorance at the center of a flat earth? Should Thomas Jefferson have stayed comfortably within the maternal auspices of the British Empire? Should Winston Churchill have succumbed to political pressures and placated the advancing Nazis? Should MLK have disregarded the racial injustice swirling around him and quietly accepted the brutality of his white oppressors?

My friend Dan and I had a conversation along these lines yesterday. It seems that the great persons of history were usually nudged forward by the elbow of their discontentment with the status quo.

If we were completely satisfied with the present, what would impel us towards the future, towards improvement and progress? If we were perennially satisfied with the greenness of our own grass, would we ever venture outside our own pastures?

But this motivating dissatisfaction, if unopposed, can be equally poisonous to our well-being. "It's no secret that ambition bites the nails of success," says Bono. Should life be a never-ending quest to find something better than what we've got right now? That fast lane of ambition seems to drive CEOs to prison and Latin American politicians to be deposed and hanged.

I guess walking this tightrope between dissatisfaction and complacency is one of the many tricks we learn in life's circus; can we balance between them without tipping over and falling to our premature deaths?

More to the point: is being a small-town doctor in Wyoming enough to keep my happy?

Or is this gnawing restlessness in my stomach driving me towards some yet unforeseen greatness?

Or do I just have bad indigestion?

The Easter Bunny: Ambassador of Deceit

My precocious five-year old daughter has it all figured out: the Easter Bunny is a lie.

This year, I thought I had done an admirable job of surreptitiously masquerading as the Giant Pagan Lagomorph. Due to inclement weather, the EB (with input from his lovely pregnant bride) decided that the eggs should be delivered indoors. So while the kids were distracted upstairs, I furtively ensconced the eggs in the basement. Then I loudly informed the kids that I needed to take the trash out, but once out back, I stole around to the front and doorbell ditched the baskets. I then nonchalantly strolled in through the back door as the kids were discovering the front porch surprise, congratulating myself on a job well done. Even the CIA couldn't top that.

But a little while later during breakfast, I saw my clever daughter eyeing me skeptically. She whispered to her Grandpa Mick, "I know my Dad hid the eggs." To his credit, Gramps played along with the ruse. "How could he do it? He was taking out the trash." But she could not be dissuaded. "He hid the eggs while we were upstairs, and then he rang the doorbell when he said he was going to take out the trash."

Bingo. She had me pinned to the wall, my legs squirming like a skewered insect. "But Joy," I stammered, "how could I be the Easter Bunny? You saw me right here the whole time! Don't you believe in the Easter Bunny?"

Meanwhile, Grant mumbled, his chin dripping with jellybean juice.

So there I was, caught in the act of blatantly lying to my otherwise trusting daughter, defending an outlandishly preposterous lie. Really, what self-respecting five-year old could believe in a giant rabbit who travels the whole earth, sneaking imperceptibly into people's basements or backyards, and delivering bad candy and hardboiled eggs? This is supposed to remind her of Jesus?

In spite of my protestations and my genuine sense of loss for her already vanishing childhood innocence (I think I believed in the Easter Bunny until I was, like, twelve), another part of me swelled with pride at her intellect and her adamance. Here she was with her parents and grandparents--the most trustworthy adults in her life through whom her entire worldview was filtered--all insisting on the truthfulness of an obvious lie. Yet she stalwartly maintained her position, having the inner confidence to trust her own eyes, ears, and intuition more than this gaggle of charlatans.

With Elizabeth's help, we negotiated our way out of the situation with purposeful uncertainty: we admire you, Joy, for believing what you believe, but it's also okay for five-year olds to believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy

But our reassurances were beside the point. Our deception had been exposed.

Soon, we were headed to church to worship a God and His Son whose existence can be felt but never seen, never proven. I glanced in the rearview mirror at the serene smile of my angelic little girl, who seemed suddenly wise yet still blithely unaware of the morning's metaphysical significance. I reached for my wife's hand, hoping--praying--that through the years our daughter's faith in an invisible Jesus could withstand the onslaught of her mental inquisition . . . and the memory of her parents' deceit.

"So Others May Live"

Elizabeth and I saw a good movie this weekend, The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, about Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers. While some of the acting was a bit stiff (as is Costner's M.O.) and some of the early ocean scenes were somewhat skimpy on the special effects side, the film still managed to tell a powerful coming-of-age story about loyalty, courage, selflessness and true heroism.

I had never thought much about the Coast Guard before. What do they actually do? They protects our waters and our borders, and to paraphrase the movie, they go out into the storms when everyone else is heading into shore. The elite Rescue Swimmers are the guys who are dropped from helicopters into the churning seas to rescue capsized sailors or fishermen or tourists. Everyday they head into work, they arrive with the knowledge that there is a good chance they could die that day.

The movie hints at a rivalry between the Navy and the Coast Guard. The Navy Seals are tough, superiorly conditioned, and trained to kill. The Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers are equally tough and conditioned, but in contrast, they are trained to save lives.

As the film concluded with a powerful and poignant rescue, the Rescue Swimmer's motto flashed across the screen (set to a nice little tune by the erstwhile rocker, Bryan Adams): "So Others May Live." The unwritten prologue to this motto is clearly, "I Will Die . . . "

What type of person chooses to risk their life daily to save perfect strangers?

I have chosen a service oriented career, one where my primary goal is to help alleviate the suffering of others. But there is a very big difference: I don't put my life on the line to do it. (Except for the occasional threatening encounter with a narcotic addict . . .) :)

I can think of two other movies which strike a similar but even more powerful chord: Saving Private Ryan and Ladder 49. I highly recommend both of these movies as well.

I suppose all stories of selfless heroism resonate back to the basic Christian narrative: a Savior who sacrifices His life to save us all. During Easter week, we might remember the power and meaning of Christ's atonement through the lens of the Coast Guard motto: "So Others May Live."