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the end is here, the beginning is near

I told you something cool was coming. Being the honest person I am, this gave you good reason to believe I wasn't just blowing smoke, but the long wait has certainly tested your good faith. The wait is over. On February 1st Jason and I will be starting a joint blog entitled Through A Glass Dimly. We both have a year's worth of trial and error experience with our own blogs as practice, and we are ready to put to work what [little] we've learned on a collaborative site that should actually be pretty cool. I will post the address when we get closer to the big day. This marks the end for Circle of Error. I want to thank every one for reading and commenting, and invite all of you over to the new site. See you at our new address in a few weeks!

I'll be back

Contrary to available evidence, I have not entirely abandoned this blog. I have merely taken a hiatus, which I think will soon come to an end. In the near future I will be cleaning things up around here and getting back to posting regularly. Come back soon.

Oh, and love ya, Kuckoo.

here goes nothing

This was written during Fall, 2002.

You may turn on me tomorrow,
But turn to me tonight.
For all that fails to follow,
I will never fail to fight.
Both those that fall in sorrow,
And those that fall from sight.

boy meets squirrel

As I mentioned once previously, I got in a fight with a squirrel not long ago. I didn't mean to. It was all an issue of territory.

The previous owner of this house left enough junk in the barn to outfit a stall at a weekend flea market, so one afternoon a few weeks ago I decided to investigate what exactly we had inherited. I stepped into the barn and immediately heard scurrying overhead. I assumed it was a squirrel (we had seen them up there once before), and figured it was beating a retreat out onto the roof, frightened by my approach. Young men, in their arrogance, are sometimes naive.

I decided to begin my inventory with the attic. The attic is reached by a ladder which, in places, is still attached to the wall and is made from thin slats of wood I can only assume were salvaged from the Mayflower before that proud ship rotted into the sands off Plymouth Rock. When I had nearly reached the top, I was startled by a curious noise to my left. I turned to see an infuriated squirrel not three feet from my face, his paws gripping a rafter, his body thirteen different kinds of pissed off. My hands were occupied with maintaining my altitude on the ladder, and I suddenly realized how vulnerable my position was. I had visions of this little furry rocket launching himself at my unprotected throat, sixteen ounces of fury tearing at my jugular. You may laugh, but you didn't see the way that squirrel looked at me. He barked. He stamped. I almost peed.

I quickly climbed from the ladder onto the attic floor, grabbed the first weapon I could find (a pitchfork - who the heck were these people?), and assumed a defensive position, occasionally thrusting the pitchfork in the rodent's general direction. Alas, he was not to be bullied. I rallied my wits and assessed the situation. I told myself, "Handle this like an adult, David. You don't need to be all silly and fool around. Just dispense with the squirrel and get on with cleaning. Be a man about it. Be mature." And so, after spending the next several minutes throwing nickel-sized washers at him and calling him dirty names, I began taking swings at him with a broom. When at last he came to terms with my superior strength and my skill with a blunt weapon, he leapt all the way from the attic rafter to the ground level, skidded across a dresser, and skurried behind a work bench.

Pressing my advantage, I descended the ladder and approached the bench with caution, fearful of his little mammilian teeth slicing through my Achilles' tendons. After rooting around with the broom, I finally scared him out of hiding and he dashed across the floor and out through a hole in the wall.

That was it, it was over. I had emerged victorious, still in possession of all my digits and all six quarts of my blood. Man had met beast in battle, Man had won, and I was that man. End of story.

But the squirrel didn't get the memo.

A few days ago I went back into my barn and was again greeted by scurrying overhead. Apparently he thought this was best of seven. Apparently brooms and harsh language were not enough the first time. Clearly, more advanced weaponry was needed.

So I made a purchase. I bought a soft air gun. Now, some of you, lacking knowledge about anti-squirrel weaponry, just dissolved into giggles at that name. You're probably imagining some Swiss-made salon and spa contraption that shoots puffs of scented, nutrient-rich air onto the skin of the lower eyelids, smoothing wrinkles and returning natural shine and elasticity. This is not the case. What I bought is a fully automatic air gun (350 shots per minute) that fires 6mm plastic rounds 115 feet per second. If any one is stupid enough to shoot another person with it, the shots leave a stinging, bleeding welt on the unlucky recipient's epidermis. Just ask Zach Fisher. I'm hoping this gun will become the stuff of legend among the rodents in my barn. I'm hoping young squirrels will scare each other silly telling tales of the furless giant and his gun of terror in hushed, excited tones. Oh, the glory.

Don't get me wrong. I love animals. I love squirrels. I even have a squirrel feeder in my yard. I am more than willing to share my property with them. But the barn is off limits. They have already torn a hole in the downstairs ceiling, and their cleanliness standards are less than metrosexual to say the least. I have no interest in killing them. I just want to scare the living acorns out of them and return them to an arboreal lifestyle. I want to tell them, "Before there were human dwellings around here with their water-proof roofs and easily shredded bedding materials, your ancestors actually lived in trees. Trees."

In the end, there is a big difference between what a squirrel wants and what a squirrel needs.

beauty from pain

Sheldon Vanauken - A Severe Mercy (1977) - This book tells the story of Vanauken's marriage to his wife Davy, their conversion (largely a result of their friendship with C.S. Lewis, many of whose letters are included in the book), Davy's tragic death at a young age from a rare and unavoidable disease, and the subsequent fallout in Sheldon's life. This book scared the Doritos out of me because of the many subtle similarities between my own marriage and that of the author's. Vanauken wrestles with all the big questions - Is God unfair? Does He even exist? What are His reasons for allowing tragedy? He ultimately realizes that periods of pain in the life of the believer are instances of "severe mercy", God teaching us something we can learn no other way. This book will alternately warm and break your heart. It has been read from several times at Remix during our recent discussions of why God allows suffering. I highly recommend it.

C.S. Lewis - Surprised By Joy (1955) - This is the story of Lewis' early life and what led to his conversion to Christianity from Atheism during early adulthood. C.S. Lewis is to a young Christian writer what The Beatles are to a young rock musician, but I am not just paying dues when I say I am almost never more inspired and humbled than after reading this man's work. His knowledge, logic and talent are overwhelming. If you are up to a heavy but reaffirming read, borrow this book.

Madeleine L'Engle - Walking On Water: Reflections On Faith And Art (1980) - This book is especially "relevant" during the modern Church's discussion of art and culture, but it's publication date gives credibility of time separation to the author's thoughts. Though unfortunately I cannot always agree with L'Engle's theology, her thoughts on art and the creative process are invaluable and beautiful. Read this book, especially if you desire to be involved in the creation or appreciation of art, no matter what variety. Sharing the crown with Lewis, L'engle is second to none on my list of influential authors.

Vincent Van Gogh - Dear Theo (1873-1890) - This extensive volume of letters from Van Gogh to his brother Theo effectively tells the story of his troubled and ultimately short adulthood, revealing his creative process and views on art, God and society in the process. This book saddened me. Van Gogh, easily my favorite painter and now considered the greatest painter of the last century and a half, spent the last half of his life believing in a God who does not punish sin, who cares only that we show kindness, who has little involvement in our daily lives. This is especially sad because he spent his early adulthood avidly studying Christianity, at one point even copying an entire volume of The Imitation Of Christ by Thomas A Kempis by hand. Unfortunately he saw no correlation between the Christ of the Gospels and the harsh judgments of the church leaders in his life, and he ultimately rejected God, unwilling to surrender self-will. The writing in these letters is always honest and approachable and often beautiful. Borrow it if you want a challenging and thought-provoking book from outside the Christian community.

Yehuda Nir - The Lost Childhood (1989) and Elie Wiesel - Night (1960) - Both of these Jewsh authors were boys in their early teens during the Holocaust and experienced the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. You can imagine (though in reality none of us can) the experiences narrated in these two books. Both are powerful but easy to read. Check them out.

Madeleine L'Engle - Two-Part Invention (1988) - In this fourth book of the Crosswicks Journal, L'Engle tells the story of her marriage to actor Hugh Franklin. With humor, honesty, beauty and her ever-present class and grace, she describes their meeting, courtship and life together, and the pain and struggle of Hugh's battle with cancer. Whenever I think I might be able to write a book, I read a book by L'Engle and I realize I'm retarded. Borrow this book.

The Nilsen library is almost always open. Feel free to call and stop in to browse and borrow. We only ask you be willing to return the favor in the future.

Thanks for reading.

clothed as one of these

Peace amidst the violence. Glory to God in the highest.

Those words have stuck with me since I first put the two sentances together three and a half years ago. Maybe its because they seem to perfectly summarize life for me most of the time. There is chaos but it is not without reprieve. There is noise but it is not without rhythm. And at all times, there is our thin praise going upward, and the glory of God bleeding from everything, despite our world's best efforts at cauterization.

Bills are waiting in our mailbox everyday. We find more and more "necessary" repairs needed for this house, a structure that was already a teenager when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. And to make it worse, our town has suddenly made those repairs much more inconvenient by requiring inspections and permits for almost everything. I need to clean the gutters and weed the flowerbeds and sweep the kitchen floor, but I'm afraid I might need permits first. We are in a wrestling match with our old electric company over why our final bill from the last house was five times what it should have been, and yesterday, while cleaning the barn, I got in a fight with a squirrel. And I'm not kidding.

But, before I lend practical reality too much of a say, before I throw out the baby of Creation with the bathwater of the Curse, I must be fair. I find salve in the aching beauty of God's universe. Our backyard just before dusk looks like a Van Gogh that hasn't finished drying. It is no mistake that in Matthew 6 when Jesus is instructing His audience not to worry and fret about their physical and financial needs, He directs His listeners' attention to the birds of the air, the flowers of the field. I'm pretty sure there are two purposes here. The first is the obvious analogy - I take care of birds and plants, I'll take care of you. But I also think literally turning our eyes to Creation in time of worry has value in itself. It calms and encourages us, but also reminds us of our role along with the rest of nature in bringing glory to God. We do not exist for ourselves. God does not exist for us. Corn and soybeans do not even exist ultimately for us. We exist, like everything else, for the glory of God, and stepping outside and watching the trees and flowers and birds radiating that glory helps us recognize and acknowledge that. So does realizing that after you go back inside to fix dinner those trees and flowers and birds will keep on glorifying God even without you there to watch them doing it, realizing as Job did that it rains in the wilderness even when no man is there to see it.

And I've found beauty is a narcotic for the soul. It does us good to soak it in. God's beauty bleeds out all over. When life is a mess, I have to look around, find the beauty, let it do it's work. And this is something that must be learned, and takes practice.

And so, our lilacs are in bloom. A firedragon is shocking the tea and crumpet crowd of flowers in our garden with it's shameless and uncouth explosion of red. Our magnolia tree, after an orgasm of color in April, has sighed and gone to sleep with a grin beside the porch. Peace amidst the violence. Glory to God in the highest.

But I am a curiously stupid animal most of the time. I miss the meaning and magnitude of what God did in creating Man for His glory, in purposing before the foundations of the world to send His Son and then proceeding to do so, in laying thousands of years of prophetic and societal groundwork in prepartion for that event, and the brainbending results of Christ's death and resurrection. He purposed Christ's death before there was death. He forgave my sin and calls me righteous. If we are going to (metaphorically) imply effort or exertion on God's part, my sin is the heaviest weight God has ever lifted, my justification is the hardest task He has ever pulled off. Not creating stars. Not the physiological problems of pre-Curse biology. My sin. This, too, clears my head, offers perspective on bad days.

It is late now. There is good music coming from the cd player. My wife is laughing giddily at a book she is reading. It is late, but I do not feel tired. There is peace amidst the violence.

Glory to God in the highest.

2006 NBA Playoffs

My first legitimate post in weeks, and I'm going to alienate most of my readers by talking about sports. This is my first playoffs without Reggie Miller (except '97. Let's not talk about '97), but when I wipe away the tears I can see a pretty exciting post-season taking shape. And here are my biased, unqualified, not very educated opinions of what will happen.

Eastern Conference Round 1

1 Detroit Pistons vs 8 Milwaukee Bucks - Milwaukee's backcourt of T.J. Ford and Michael Redd matchs up with Detroit guards as well as anyone in the league, but the interior game will be found lacking against the Wallaces in Detroit. The Bucks live and die by Redd's shooting, and a one man offense is going to get eaten alive by Detroit's tight D. Detroit in 5 games.

4 Cleveland Cavaliers vs 5 Washington Wizards - Watching James and Arenas score in bunches will be fun, but Lebron is far and away the superior player and leader. For all his scoring ability Arenas has mid-90's Jimmy Jackson written all over him. Don't remember Jimmy Jackson? Exactly. Cleveland in 6.

3 New Jersey Nets vs 6 Indiana Pacers - "Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: it might have been." My Pacers are the NBA's biggest coulda-woulda-shoulda of the decade so far. In 2004 Ron Artest flagrantly fouled us right out of our best championship chance since 2000, last year our entire season was torpedoed by a December brawl (Artest again), and this year nothing, and I mean nothing, has gone our way even though we were on the preseason short list of title contenders. This is going to be a weird series because no one has these two teams figured out. Is New Jersey for real? How good are the Pacers when they are actually healthy? New Jersey is hot but I'm convinced any team led by Jason Kidd and Vince Carter could fall apart at any time. If they play well, the Nets win the series. If Jermaine O'Neal plays big for Indiana, Stojakovic shows up under pressure, and our three stooges point guard line up can control their turnovers, this could be an upset. I'm going to be optimistic. Indiana in 7.

2 Miami Heat vs 7 Chicago Bulls - Ben Gordon is good, but he's no Dwayne Wade, and Chicago has no answer at all for the aging but still overwhelming Shaquille O'Neal. The games will be competitive, but Miami wins this in 6.

Western Conference Round 1

1 San Antonio Spurs vs 8 Sacramento Kings - This will be fun to watch. The awesome but disloyal Ron Artest (may his days be filled with paper cuts, stubbed toes and the gum disease gingivitis) has Sacramento truly playing like kings, and this tired Spurs team is going to be tested. San Antonio in 6.

4 Dallas Mavericks vs 5 Memphis Grizzlies - It's sad when the 4 vs 5 series is more of a blowout than 1 vs 8, but that's what we have here. Memphis' blue-collar basketball is heartening, but ultimately can't hold up against one of the league's best squads in Dallas. Dallas in 5.

3 Denver Nuggets vs 6 Los Angeles Clippers - This could be the best series of the entire first round, and could easily go either way. The teams are pretty equal in talent and playoff inexperience. The best player is Elton Brand from The Clips, so I'm calling L.A. in 7.

2 Phoenix Suns vs 7 Los Angeles Lakers - This is going to be an exciting series. Neither team stands a chance of winning a title this year, though Phoenix could contend next year with Stoudemaire back in the line up. L.A. can't cover Steve Nash, while Phoenix has no match-up solutions for Kobe or Lamar Odom. My prediction - Bryant averages 45 and the Suns still win in 6.

Eastern Conference Round 2

1 Detroit Pistons vs 4 Cleveland Cavaliers - This is the series where Lebron will get to prove himself. The Cavs can't win the series, but if Lebron obeys his Jedi calling the win could take a lot longer than Detroit wants. Pistons in 6.

2 Miami Heat vs 6 Indiana Pacers - This is where I start to cry. We have no answer for Shaq or Flash. With the exception of Fred Jones, on defense our guards display all the lateral quickness of pregnant goats. Our rebounding and interior D have been weak all year with frequent injuries to key players. *sigh* Miami in 5.

Western Conference Round 2

1 San Antonio Spurs vs 4 Dallas Mavericks - This should be the conference finals, but due to a screwy three-division setup, one of the two best teams in the West will get ousted in Round 2. If Dallas plays like they mean it and San Antonio stays bored, Dallas wins. But the Spurs won't stay bored. San Antonio in in 7.

2 Phoenix Suns vs 6 Los Angeles Clippers. Phoenix gets to boot two L.A. teams in the same year. Brand is a problem, but the Clippers can't handle the Suns' offense. Phoenix in 6.

Eastern Conference Finals

1 Detroit Pistons vs 2 Miami Heat - Last year this went to the end of game 7, but Detroit has gotten better and Miami has gotten worse. Miami might stretch it to 7, but I think the Pistons will take it in 6.

Western Conference Finals

1 San Antonio Spurs vs 2 Phoenix Suns - I would love to see Phoenix win this, but without Amare it ain't happenin'. Phoenix needs more than just offense. Steve Nash can't guard his own shadow effectively. San Antonio determines how many games this takes. It should take 6, but I'll credit Nash and Co for their heart and say San Antonio in 7.

NBA Finals

Detroit Pistons vs San Antonio Spurs - In a rematch of last year's finals, the tides will shift to the East. Detroit wins this in 7.

Now let the disagreements begin.

yo homies

I know, I know, it's been a long time. This move has had us busier than squirrels in November. I promise there will be more substantial posts in the coming days and weeks, but for now I thought I would let you read a poem by probably my favorite poet (and possibly the greatest American poet of the twentieth century), Edna St. Vincent Millay. Last week while I was waiting for Lyndie's dad to get here to help me work on something, I sat by the upstairs window of what is now our library and writing room and read from a volume of her poetry. The following stood out to me, given the time of year, the abundant flowers at this place, and the way the wreckless cynicism of the poem fell in line with the stress and disconnectedness of our move. Enjoy.

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.