DaddyRoBlog

A Light Shines in the Darkness...

 

and they would not let me in!

I got to the gym early this morning.  It wasn't open yet, so I took this picture while I was waiting.  Light is a sort of beacon, isn't it?  A homing device that, particularly in the darkness, helps us locate where it is we want to go.

Fortunately, I didn't have to wait too long.  Then I had a half hour of having the weights all to myself--my favorite time to work out.  Just the iron and me, with nothing to distract from our private communion of sweat, toil, and the intensely focused physical pain which can be so cathartic in clearing the mind of everything else.

Epiphany

  

Epiphany is perhaps a lesser known season in the Church Year.  It is a season where we think about what it means for light to come into the world.  One thing is for certain; light sure makes life beautiful.

Flying at Over 2,000 MPH

Overheard: "Mom, I'm seventeen, aren't I?"

Mom:  "Yes!"

Daughter(completely serious) :  "That's good.  I didn't think I was 18." 

She really is a kid after my own heart.  I can never quite figure out how old I am, either.

In other news today, we have a bit of history.

I visited with a man who flew the Blackbird SR-71 and asked him what that was like.

"You just took it up to 85,000 feet and set it at Mach 3 and it was all pretty mechanical from there," he responded.  [Editor's note:  Mach 3 is over 2,000 miles per hour.]

I asked him if you could feel the speed.  At 85,000 feet he was cruising above the clouds.  It was dark, he said, but you couldn't see the stars.  That meant there was nothing going by to give a sense of how fast he was moving.  "The thing you did notice," he said, "was how fast we were  barreling down on the horizon."  He also said the plane's windshield was so hot at speed that if you touched it without your gloves you would severely burn your hand.

His wife was also there for the visit.  She said to her husband, "Tell him about the time you buzzed your town to let your mom know you were coming."

"I'd like to hear about that!" I affirmed, laughing.

"Well," he began rather sheepishly, "I was flying a B-36 bomber.  "They were big ol' planes.  Very noisy."

"I was approaching before dawn, and the whole town was pitch black.  But as I flew over it, you could see the light in every house turning on."  He chuckled.  "They frown on that sort of thing these days," he concluded.

I could tell it was a good memory, and I was glad to be included in it.

The Wrestler, Gran Torino, and Me

Having now seen The Wrestler as well as Gran Torino, I can’t help but be struck by the similarities.  Both are about aging men trying to find their place in the world.   Both are alone.  Both struggle with family—or lack thereof.  Both face physical failings which drive home their mortality.  Both feel like they’ve botched their lives, or at least important parts of it.  And I don’t think it is too much to say that both hate themselves for it. 

It’s interesting.  Rourke’s character (The Wrestler) has lived on the fringe of society, and by society’s accounting his life hasn’t amounted to much.  

Eastwood’s character (Gran Torino), however, might well be considered a successful man.  He had a long and productive career, served his country, goes to church, married and raised an equally successful family (his kids have nice homes ,nice job, nice cars, nice families).  But he is still ashamed of himself  and feels “soiled”.

In other words, they both end up in the same place.

And I don’t think it is an uncommon place for men to be.  It is, I think, one of the chief reasons why so many of us struggle with depression, carry such a deep sense of loss and sorrow, and feel so inadequate in the face of the rolls we feel called to play.  It is one of the primary reasons why so many of us are, in fact, alone—we really have no “friends” to speak of.  We can’t let others in on our secret, that we’re not all we’re cracked up to be (interesting expression, isn’t it?).  

Don’t worry—this is not written as an expression of my own circumstance, as a not –so- secret confession of my own self loathing.  Yes, I do struggle with everything above, but I’d like to think I have the relationships and support systems present in my life to help me find a way through. 

By the way, I should probably say that both these movies have strong content and are rated “R” for good reason.       I wouldn’t want anybody to say, “Oh, a priest mentioned this movie, it  sounds interesting, I think I’ll go see it”—and then be surprised by the what’s in it.

Suburban Winter, Northern Virginia Style

  Take one small hill...

Add a dusting of snow

plus kids of all ages...

And let the fun begin!

Gran Torino

I finally saw Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino.  Among other things, it is an interesting look at masculinity.  There is a train of thought in some psychological circles that sees socialization into traditional forms of manhood as more or less synonymous with violence, and that the primary object of such violence is one's self.    Of course, if that is the case, violence really can't help but spread from there, can it?

Or maybe it can--but only if one is willing to pay a very high price.

One of the lines that really hit me came when Eastwood faces the seemingly inevitable escalation in violence that comes in fighting for what you care for.  He says something to the effect, "In war you see it coming, and you steel yourself for it."  What goes unsaid is that in life, it is not what we expect to come from our caring--but it is what we often get.   We don't see our greatest losses coming, our deepest hurts and pains, and so we find ourselves terribly unprepared to face them.

You hear a lot about how Christians are presented unfairly in the media.  I guess I don't really watch enough of it to know.  But I do know that one of the main characters in the film is a Roman Catholic priest, and it is a very favorable portrayal.

A Promise I'm Holding Onto...

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

    3 though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.  

    4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
       the holy place where the Most High dwells.

Psalm 46:2-4

In the Wild

Though these are red fox tracks found not terribly far out of Washington, DC, with just a little imagination they could be the tracks of a massive wolf left somewhere in the great artic wildnerness.

Which is to say that even in the midst of a relatively densely populated area of civilization, one can still manage to get away and immerse him self in the beauty of nature.

That is something for which I never cease to be deeply grateful.

Evidence of Angels

  It is a very light imprint, exactly as you'd expect from the wing of an angel.  It's the kind of thing  you really have to be looking for to see, I think.

Of course it was really left by the wing of a bird.

But does that make it any less wondrous?

Upheaval

Once again the Potomac River has completely frozen over.  This year it's different, though.  It's like a massive train wreck of ice.

There are sheets, shards, and splinters of ice that have been thrust up from the river and over one another.   Its current stillness makes it all the more dramatic.

The squirrels, however, were anything but still.  With the temperatures soaring into the mid 40s today, they were very active.   The tell tale rustle of leaves produced by their scampering and scurrying was everywhere present.

I don't know how well you'll be able to see this guy's head poking out of the hole in this tree, but I managed to catch him just before he popped out and went chasing after two others in a furious game of...  well, whatever game it is that squirrels play when squirrels play games!