In 2006 this 19-year-old Israeli boy-soldier gets abducted by the Palestinian Hamas movement. He’s held in isolation and mystery for more than five years while his parents fight tirelessly for his release. Protests, demonstrations, and mentions of his captivity happened all over the world. Finally, in October of this year he’s released. Parents rejoice. Events are held. The press swarms.

Heartwarming. Yes.

But I can’t help the feeling that the difficulties of his life may be yet to come.

He lived in captivity, which I can’t even imagine. He was literally off the map for half a decade and he’ll never get those years back. But on the other hand there was a singularity of purpose in that time. Survive. Live to be released. His parents were living in a similar world of singular focus and laser guided love for their son.

But what now? Real life will have to invade for him and his parents. He’ll need a job and they will need something new to do with any free moment. And all the while I wonder about the elephant in the room:

He wasn’t just released, he was traded. Israel got one twenty-five year old, normal and unremarkable young man by giving up more than 1,000 prisoners of all kinds.

Elsewhere in the world more than 1,000 families celebrated the return of loved ones they thought they’d never see again. New lives were started. Old lives were returned. Because of one kid.

Gilad Shalit is worth 1,027 people. He can quantify his worth in human lives. His life for more than 1,000 others. And I’m left wondering if there’s anyone in the modern time who can say anything like that? Is there anyone else alive who will have to endure that reality?

Is there anyone on the planet who is worth 1,000 lives? Would 1,000 people give up their lives so Steve Jobs could have lived longer? What about Christ? He’s worth more than 1,000 lives and he did the opposite… He gave up His life so we could all live.

Gilad didn’t give up his life, he gained life in exchange for 1,000 others. He didn’t do anything but play bargaining chip for 1,000 other people. If Gilad had died so 1,000 people could live he’d be a hero. Instead he’s just going back to try and live like a normal guy. Years of political posturing and the result is Palestine going… “Okay, for 1,000 people… we’ll give you one guy.”

Now if Gilad goes on to cure cancer, or raise up Israel to newfound glory, or disciple thousands to be better than they were before… what a story that would be. But it’s more likely that he’ll just get an unremarkable job, get married, start a family, find himself out of shape and overweight and pissed at his kids about something. Just another guy.

What if some of those 1,027 released decide to cause more damage? I have no interest in getting into a Palestine vs. Israel discussion, I’m just acknowledging reports that some of those released were in prison for murder and/or terror attacks.

Yet I never saw this question in the Press. No one seemed to ask “Wait a minute…is this kid worth 1,000 lives?”. Does the family have a counselor prepared to talk to Gilad when the weight of this comes crashing down on him… cause I bet it will.

I’m reminded of the film “Saving Private Ryan” where Matt Damon is finally rescued but the entire squad that went to get him has now been killed. Tom Hanks, the last of the squad, is dying and he looks up at the kid and says “Earn this…”.  Then we return to present day and the kid is now an average grandfather who turns to his wife and says “Tell me I’m a good man….”. Cause how do you do enough to make your life worth the life of someone else?

As a father I ponder “Is my son worth 1,000 people?”. I don’t mean emotionally, as I’m sure Gilad’s parents would have (and did) anything to get him home. I mean intellectually, realistically. In one room, 1,000 people. In the other, my son. What’s the better call?

God chose the room full of people. Gilad’s parents chose their son.

What am I worth? What are you worth? And I’m not looking for a Sunday School answer here. If you were going to be traded for 1,027 other people… hell, 27 other people… would you feel worth the cost? Could I do anything over the course of my life to be worth 1 person? Or 27? Or 1,027?

Gilad Shalit will have to live with that question, and I bet it will be far harder than his time in isolation.

In the last few years I’ve taken note of a few people who have remade themselves in their late thirties, forties, and so on. And in every case I’ve marveled at how they become ageless in the change.

I know a film executive who, upon losing his high-ranking position, looked at his life and said “I want to be a chef.” At the age of 39 he enrolled into a prestigious culinary school in New York. And since then he’s cooked for a living in high-profile jobs on both coasts.

Another friend who basked in the glow of the 90s internet bubble, made a killing, and then traveled the world when the bubble burst. Early this century he asked himself “what’s next?”, and inexplicably went to grad school and became a pharmacist. He seems very happy about it, and while I didn’t think anyone actually chose to be a pharmacist, apparently they do.

A former roommate of mine dabbled in nearly everything he could find all through college before winding up in strange third world countries working in public health and crisis management. When he decided on change, this marginally dedicated student headed to medical school. He’s well on his way to becoming Dr. Smith. (Not a pseudonym… he will be Dr. Smith and his patients will think he’s kidding.)

And then there’s the relative of a friend who has systematically changed careers every five to seven years and now, in his 50s, he’s a well-respected child psychologist. At least… for a few years I suppose. With wife and kids in tow he’s lived all over and made money in the internet, been a vet, had a corporate job in traditional business, and been a paid artist. “He gets bored easily” I was told when I first heard this story. But all I could think was… “Sounds like he succeeds easily!”

And I bet he’ll live forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least until he stops shaking things up. That’s the lesson I’m finding in all this.

I have two living grandmothers, 85 and 90 (as of this writing…). And in the last year their lives have driven this point home. The 85 year old has been fading fast. She hasn’t been able to drive for decades and her social circle and number of activities has steadily decreased at the same time. The 90 year old has outlived two husbands and seemed to be fading herself until about a year ago when she got herself a boyfriend.

I promise this is not a blog about the dating life of 90 year olds.

The lesson has been seeing the huge improvement and new life provided by change. Sameness and lack of opportunity has worn and weathered my younger grandmother. Newness and activity is pushing the other into new health and awareness.

So where does that leave me?

Well, maybe life is a screenplay, and I’m nearly 40 pages in. I’ve past the first Act break where things really turn for the intriguing. And I’m marching my way through the destination part of the story. Problem solving. Striving. Working to advance the plot.

But Act 2 needs help. Without careful planning it sputters to an unfinished halt somewhere between 60 and 80 pages. With new ideas, and maybe a twist toward the unexpected, you can launch your story strongly to a triumphant 100. Maybe you can get to 110 or more if you’re telling a really great story.

So I’m pondering Act 2. Thinking about new things. Looking for character development and a good action scene to liven the plot. I’m just not sure what it is yet.

The truth I’ve come to is that change makes you ageless. Rewrites make better stories. And apparently life, like screenplays, needs good Act 2 surprises in order to have a strong ending.

Two men with deeply held religious beliefs illegally traveled into other countries to spread their messages. Neither succeeded, but both made news. And though the news coverage has been very different, I can’t shake the feeling that their stories are almost exactly the same.

First off we have the guy on the Northwest flight, Umar, who tried to blow up 300 fellow passengers as they landed in Detroit. A part of me thinks that some people would actually rather light their underwear on fire than land in Detroit, but I digress. His bomb failed, passengers tackled him for the chance to be on Larry King, and now he’s in a tiny cell while his picture is on every TV in the land.

This is an all too familiar story in the US news media. A Muslim extremist, an Al Qaeda plot, Presidential exclamations, and near constant news blathering about “What went wrong”. In short, be afraid, run for your life, cower under the stairs, but whatever you do… don’t turn off your 24hr news station!

Next we have the story of Robert Park, a Korean-American man who snuck into North Korea on Christmas Eve with “A letter” for Kim Jong Il. Frankly he’d be more likely to get a letter to Santa, but this reality did not deter him. He was promptly captured and imprisoned in a country where the US can’t talk you out.

On the surface, Park’s story is completely different because he’s a Christian missionary. His goal was to enter North Korea illegally and deliver a letter asking one of the craziest dictators in the world to open his borders in the name of Jesus Christ.

I read both stories the same day. And I found them equally sad.

Whatever you believe… forcing it on someone else doesn’t change hearts. No one ever got forced into changing their belief system. People have lied over and over to save their skins, but what you believe is a personal thing beyond the control of governments, laws, tortures, and killings.

Yet, somewhere along the way both these guys got convinced of the exact same thing: “If I sneak into this country and deliver this message then things will change. A difference will be made. I will get a reward in the next life and others will find the right path on earth.”

For one, the message was a bomb. For the other, a letter. But it doesn’t change the fact both are just pointless extreme actions which won’t do anything but entrench people further.

If the bomb had gone off would the US have pulled its military from Muslim nations?

If the letter got read by Kim Jong Il would he have wiped away a tear and repented from his ego-manacle ways?

Um. No.

So we’re left with extremist poster children for two different religions.

Another Muslim with so little self-worth and so much belief in a one man Jihad changing the world, that he’s willing to kill himself and others. And people can point and say “See, they all just want to kill us, women, children, everyone. Muslims are all waiting on their moment to be evil …”

Another Christian convinced that his belief is not only right, but so undeniable that if he could only be heard then change would come. And people can point and say “See, another Christian shoving their belief in our face like we’re all unthinking jungle folks rooting around in our filth until he came along. Christians aren’t loving, they’re naïve and offensive.”

And no one changes. Or grows. Or opens their minds. Or makes a new friend that isn’t just like them. With examples like this, why would they?

Which ultimately brings me to another thought.

We’re all just playground children pointing fingers to figure out who’s at fault. The security system. Al Qaeda. Kim Jong Il. The system. The West. The East. There’s no shortage of groups to blame these days. It’s us verses them, and “THEM” has become easy to find.

How different would things be if we were worrying about ourselves instead of everyone else. No keeping up with the Joneses , or staring at the neighbors through our binoculars. You do your thing. I’ll do mine.

And maybe… just maybe… we’ll have dinner together some time. Our kids will all play as a group so we can realize they are all just – kids. If things get really crazy we might become friends. Which is really better for everyone cause you’re less likely to force your beliefs or your bombing runs on your friends.

It was like every other morning. Days that change your life often start that way.

Don Merritt moved through his waking routine like a human metronome. Everything in its time. Everything in its place. A world just… so. By the time he exited the house and entered the garage, he was two minutes behind his optimum schedule, but still well within the ten minute buffer zone he’d added to his timeline after the backed up toilet incident of 2007.

No problems this morning, he just felt tired.

The latte in his stainless steel mug filled his Jetta with its sweet earthy aroma as he rolled out into traffic and started the stop and go dance. His commute took him between forty-three and fifty-one minutes depending upon the morning. Of course that was not including that time two years ago when it took ninety-seven minutes because of that terrible wreck on the other side. Don would never understand why people slowed down to see mangled metal going the other direction. What a morbid fascination, and it didn’t do anything but make things more congested.

So Don settled in, finding himself bored of XM radio, and wanting to talk to someone. He couldn’t remember when he’d become displeased with silence. The stereo continued to blather on, but it wasn’t enough. He watched the cars around him, or to be specific he watched the bumpers in front of him and the occasional motorcycle whizzing by between lanes. He hated that about Los Angeles. Come to think of it, that was only the first of a good list of really irksome qualities in this town. Too many people for one thing. “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians” as his mom would say.

That’s when he remembered he owed his mom a call. Seeing the SUV in front of him stopping again, he was braking to a stop as he reached for his iPhone. Witnesses would later report he was looking down at his center console and didn’t see the crash coming.

A blue V8 Mustang was charging down the HOV lane, thundering past all the stop and go rubber-band drivers to his right. The driver had started to pay more attention to the stopped cars than his own lane and that’s why he was rocketing along when he saw his lane stopped as well.

The tires spit smoke and screeched as the Mustang lived up to its name with unpredicatable bucking and darting. Still doing over sixty, the car ducked left, bounced off the concrete divider like a banked cue-ball and blindsided Don’s silver Jetta.

The Jetta was sitting still with a Chevy Tahoe inches in front. The Mustang curled back the left rear like a pull tab and spun Don’s door flush with the Mustang’s grill. Both cars embedded themselves into the Tahoe’s rear door, sheering off the third row seat and making Don’s Jetta the new second row bench. At least three other cars had obvious destruction as this growing metal snowball thudded to a stop against bumpers and sheet metal. When it was all over, the police would have twelve drivers on file claiming damage from the wreck.

Don was aware of smoke all around him. The smell was acrid and almost metallic, but he didn’t realize these were side effects of the numerous airbags exploding during the wreck. In fact, Don had no clear awareness of where he was in the world, let alone what was going on. He only knew someone had spilled a latte and it was all over him and everything. What a mess.

There was darkness for a long time. Then someone speaking to him, calling him “Sir” over and over and asking inane questions as if they thought he was a five-year old. “Can you hear me?”. “Can you tell me what day it is?” “Do you know your name?”

Absurd. Of course he could hear them. And today was… well, he couldn’t think of it right now, but it would come to him. Asking his name was the really offensive part, what person over the age of two doesn’t know their own name? For that matter, what dog or cat didn’t know their own name? His name was… what was his name?

“Don. It’s great to see you. Beautiful day.”

He was lying on a perfectly manicured lawn and a man was standing over him backlit by the sun. Don tried to get up, but the man reach down and offered a hand. Now he could see who was speaking, a mid-thirties paramedic in a dark blue jumpsuit.

“I never get tired of these breezes,” the paramedic was saying.

Don stood now and looked back at the grass. It wasn’t manicured, in fact it was quite wild. Yet somehow it felt more perfect than any carpet he’d dug his toes into. He stared at his toes, barefoot in this dense green paradise, and realized he had no idea where his socks or shoes were. Or his coat and tie for that matter. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember what a coat and tie looked like or why they were important. Just as he tried to focus this line of thinking it vanished as if the breeze had taken it hostage and pulled it away.

“It is nice,” Don mused, feeling his hair flutter as the cool swell flirted up this grassy ridge and on toward distant mountains.

“And the view?” asked the medic.

“Yeah. Nice.”

“Wow. You’re either a tough critic or you don’t like anything.”

The valley was more beautiful now. Maybe Don was paying attention for the first time, but it seemed as if the groves of amber leaved aspen and a whitecapping river had materialized as he stared.

“I just don’t,” Don started, but then stopped himself to examine what he was really wanting to say. “I don’t think about scenery. It’s nice, but that doesn’t resolve my day.”

“Resolve your day, huh? Too many management courses for you, maybe?”

Don looked at the Medic, expecting to be annoyed and tell the man exactly what he could do with his blue collar assessment, but two odd things occurred to him. First, there seemed no way to embrace anger while looking at this man. And secondly, instead of a paramedic, the man now looked more like a construction worker. The blue jumpsuit was the same color. Maybe he hadn’t seen the man correctly when he first awoke.

This posed a new question for Don. Where was he?

“Let me show you,” the construction worker said and turned like a man leading a buyer through a build site. He had a yellow hard hat all of a sudden. Don didn’t have one, but also couldn’t see buildings or construction in any direction.

This would have been the first thing to ask if not for the impression of the mysterious construction worker opening a door from apparent nothingness. It was as if a square of the world had been sliced with utmost precision and a thick chunk hinged back to reveal a room. Don suddenly wished he understood more about multiple dimensions, but all thought fizzled like a sparkler as he stepped through the door.

To call the room a stadium would be like suggesting a bottle rocket was the same as a Saturn V. Every concept of an indoor space was revolutionized by the size of this warehouse. It was as if he’d shrunk to the world of mice. And all around him were huge stalls of perfect white, each one clearly labeled with a destination.

“It’s snow,” Don said as if speaking it aloud would help him believe.

“Do you have any idea how many types of snow there are?” his guide asked. Don decided he must be a guide because now the coveralls seemed very high-class and fitted like a NASA flight suit. “Snow is a bit of a hobby of mine,” the man said.

“But every snowflake is unique right… so you’re asking a trick question,” Don’s head was clearing now and he wanted to make sure this guy didn’t take him for some patsy.

“Ah, you’re right. But I mean types of snow, wet, dry, light, heavy.” The guide was excited, scooping up handfuls of each one as Don stood over his shoulder. They weren’t walking and yet the whole room seemed at their disposal. The guide would only reach down and find yet another stall of snow available. “I have so much fun watching those little guys debate the consistency or the crystalline structure.”

“What guys?”

“Well, there’s Ahmil, Alfonse, Anthony, Armando…

“Okay, I get it,” Don hated the bite in his voice. For him this was the nicest way to stop the list of names, but even so, any tension felt ready to rip the fabric of this place. “Elves or something.”

“No. Of course not.” His guides said, flat. “But I realize you don’t know any of the snow scientists, so I’m not surprised you don’t know their names.”

“Snow scientists. Right.”

“How can you not like snow?”

“I’m more of a warm climate kind of guy”

“You say that,” the guide began, challenging him. “But when’s the last time you walked on the beach? Or sat outside and sipped a glass of wine?”

“Just last week,” Don responded, annoyed.

“You were inside. Drinking iced tea. And paying more attention to the game than the sunset.”

“How do you know?” Don demanded. But his guide didn’t seem to hear the question.

The man reached for nothing, but when he turned his hand around a doorknob it opened a door which hadn’t been there a second before. Another huge chunk of the world parted and his guide motioned him to step through.

It was night on this side of the door, a dense perfect blackness without any manmade light. Yet, Don shielded his eyes as they adjusted to a blazing white. The moon hung closer than he’d ever seen, it’s craters and ridges distinct . And in the blackness all around this blazing orb hung more stars than Don thought possible. Somehow they shone along-side this overgrown moon, visible when he looked for them, but vanished when he focused on the moon again. Simultaneous, and individual. Impossible, but true.

“Am I dead?” Don asked. Suddenly the thought overwhelmed him. This couldn’t be real, and it wasn’t a dream.

“No,” said his guide. “But the life you lead is but a walking shell. I would not wish to continue.”

Don didn’t respond, but his mind screamed out “Who asked you?” and stirred in defiant silence that this odd workman would dare question his existence.

“I am right to question you,” the guide said. “It’s all mine. This moon, and sky. The snow I mix and remix into a trillion combinations. And you and your unhappy existence.”

Don was really going to let him have it now, but one look at the guide’s face and he couldn’t remember why he was angry. Instead he felt the thing rising up from behind the anger. The hidden thing. The staggering thirst for beauty which brought him to tears under these million stars. He was lonely. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen something beautiful in his daily life.

“It’s alright, Don. There’s still much to see. Much you’ve missed.”

The first blue sliver of the impending sunrise revealed mountains on the horizon. Don realized he was standing on a beach of sand so soft and fine it felt like ground marble. And then he heard the crash of waves, unknown until this moment.

“Wait…” he pleaded, though unsure what he was asking for. But he needed more time here to figure it out.

The guide put his hands on Don’s shoulders and looked him in the face the way a friend does to build you up. A look of safety and support, with needed truth arriving soon.

“Time is a fabrication. Beauty is eternal.” his guide said. ““Check your schedule.”

The moon faded, taking the stars and the horizon as well. A blackness took him, dense enough to reminded him of his childhood hiding place so deep in his parents closet that he risked his own terror every time he used it for hide and go seek. A darkness filled with menace and texture. Immune to light.

And then his eyes opened to a sunny day. The sound of traffic, helicopters, and shouts of men crushed his ears as if a giant mute button had been turned off. He could feel hands on his neck. More on his shoulders. He was moving, but all his limbs were still.

He was laid onto something, then strapped tight to a gurney. He was now looking up at four paramedics. They looked like his guide, but they weren’t.

“We got him,” one of them said in a rush of adrenaline and stress.

Don could hear the squeak of a gurney wheel as they rushed him across the ground. He smelled gasoline, water, and sweat. Each distinct and somehow pleasing to him. They smelled like life.

Then he noticed the palm trees reaching up into the perfect blue of the day. Spaced and leafy, soaking up the morning sun like an image on a postcard.

And as the gurney tilted, Don could now see the freeway. Cars snarled around a terrible wreck. Flares on the ground. Onlookers slowing in the traffic going the other way.

But most shocking to Don was the palm trees. Here, just above this freeway which he recognized were the beautiful trees. He’d never noticed them before, and now their mere presence overwhelmed him.

Tears filled his eyes as he noted the hundreds of faces in the cars. None of them looked up. How many had even noticed the palm trees or the cloudless sky. But he knew the answer.

None of them. And he wanted to tell them.

But it was just as likely he’d forget as well.

I attend a gathering of Christians in the entertainment industry – an odd group who are way too liberal for “Christians” as most people think of them, and way too grounded / conservative / stupid (depending upon the person judging) for the rest of Hollywood.

I generally get something out of it, but tonight the speaker touched on something profound. Or, more specifically, profoundly sad:

You’ve probably heard that Hollywood is all “who you know.” But, I’m here to tell you it’s more true than you ever imagined. No one gets hired off a great resume. It’s who knows them. Who vouches for them. Who’s worked with them before. So there’s a lot of time spent connecting over similarities or places where you and the person across the table see eye to eye. Sometimes there’s a genuine connection. Sometimes it’s “Oh, a picture of you skiing… I like skiing.” Redefining lame.

So you would think that people with similar spiritual beliefs could find a great common ground. We didn’t order the same thing at starbucks here “you get that too? Isn’t it the best?” This is a touch deeper than that – a commonality of questions of purpose and eternity.

Yet every other group in town is helping each other. Encouraging networking. Asking people to “give them a shot” or “take a meeting” because they went to the same school 35 years apart. Or both drive a BMW. Or hate that same restaurant.

And the Christians? Adhering to a “no networking” policy. Only patting others on the back if they’ve got a knife in their hand. Paying less and asking more because “we’re family”, yet ceasing to be relatives when they could put in a good word.

Tonight, the topic wasn’t even about this problem. We talked about confidence and encouragement. And as a side note… a mention that we should encourage each other. When did we all stop being fans of other people? Can no one succeed but us?

I’m guilty. I’m working on it. I know a lot of talented people. And every last one of them deserves a shot cause they’re gonna knock it out of the park. Truth is, they deserve it completely even if it’s the same kind of shot I’m waiting for.

Cause I’m a fan. And they are family.

I left this evening with one statement ringing through my head. An offshoot. A tangent. But the crux for me… I want it on a T-Shirt.

“Why is the Army of God the only one leaving their wounded behind?”

In Hollywood, it seems part of the battle plan.

The next time I’m in the trenches, I hope I remember to grab a gurney and some bandages. Someone’s gonna need it.

When it was over I found myself not just thinking about “Up” or Pixar, but my personal connection to movies. More specifically… why films can make me cry.

Yup. I cried multiple times during “Up”. Tears streaming down my face from behind Polarized 3D glasses. I have no doubt it was a hysterical photo-op now lost forever. I’m also sure that the 14 year old girl next to me must have thought I was the biggest pansy to ever grow to 6’3”. My wife even patted my hand at one point like I was a five-year old. I’m sure seeing me blubber at 3D animation made her want me like never before…

And I don’t care. I’ll see it again. Probably cry then too, no matter if it’s 2D, SD, or iPod. Once a film gets under my skin I can’t stop myself. The odd thing is; I was a kid with tantrums full of hysterical crying, but became an adult most people count on to be even keel with emotions in check.

Yet I cry at movies. Sometimes TV shows if they catch the right nerve.

More specifically, it’s about theme. The same themes get me every time. My five favorite films all have the same basic theme. In fact, if you told me your five favorite films I’d bet they all share a common theme. For some of you we’ve talked about this before and you know it’s true.

“Up” happens to have the core theme of many of my favorites: One man who sets out to achieve a singular and personal goal only to improve others along the way. Or, if you prefer: A lead character who improves the lives of others just by being true to themselves.

My top five films all do this. “Up” does it too.  (Plus it has Dogs and Adventure) So it gutted me.

When the credits roll on my life, I hope that theme proves true of me. I don’t know if I’ll achieve it, but I wouldn’t have been able to put my finger on that concept without seeing it in film. That’s the power of movies. We see worlds we want to live in. The kinds of people we want to be. We can feel, and live, and experience without the worries of cost, or danger, or the social and political repercussions of it all.

Or in my case: Cry like a kid who just dropped his ice-cream.

The child, no matter how innocent and dependent they may be, will one day be your intellectual equal. Maybe even your intellectual better. But a dog cannot possibly understand the intricate workings of our brains and awareness. And they never will. They can learn concepts and patterns but never break down the reasons for things. We operate way beyond them. Yet dogs think they “get it”.

That sounds like me and God.

My dog understands that when I slow down from freeway speeds I’ll open the windows for her. She knows when I say “window” that I’m going to roll them down. But there’s no comprehension of how to roll them down, or the actual distance over time and complex machinery behind freeway speeds.

The phone is like our doorbell, and when it rings she goes nuts cause she knows that someone’s coming. We’ve even changed the ring tone and she still figures it out. But she doesn’t know who. Or how the phone brings them up.

I could go on… because any time I think about what my dog knows and understands I’m struck again by how similar my view of her is to God’s view of me.

I bet your thinking… so God’s got a big brain – bravo Todd, what a breakthrough.

Yet the lesson for me, sometimes daily, happens on our off-leash walks. I spend most of those times wrestling with God. Thinking about where I am. Where I’m not. Where I “should” be by now. Wondering where God is in my current situation.

Is he listening? Am I going the right way? What if I get off track or make a bad choice?

And then my dog wonders off the hiking trail and into the underbrush. I stop and call her. If she doesn’t respond I keep doing it. If it’s dangerous I get firm with her. If she’s defiant and could get hurt… I go get her.

But most of the time, I’m just walking. Letting her bound around in the brush. Or through someone’s yard. Hollering out “Left” or “Right” when she needs to know direction – but I can’t tell her before the crossroads because that would only confuse her. (Again… wow… I’ve suddenly got a new perspective on God’s seeming last minute directions and help… maybe I’d get confused too if I knew more…)

Mostly though… I just let her run. Discover. Find fun things to chase and enjoy being out in the world. I like when she comes and checks in with me. Or comes close for water, a treat, or encouragement. But she’s off leash. Just like me.

Right about now I’m wondering where God is in relation to my part of life’s hike. Am I way off in the underbrush chasing something stupid? Am I going to get in trouble if I continue? Am I right on track and just need him to nod and say “good boy”?

Maybe I just need a good scratch, a treat, and a long nap on God’s couch. I dunno. I do know I’m hoping for a “Right” or “Left” at the impending crossroads.

And I’m very much off leash. This dog needs his master…

If you like this… try God & Dog II

So it got me thinking about him again, and the significance of his death.  Thus, I’m posting the tribute I wrote almost exactly 3 years ago:

The Funeral
12/25/05

My uncle Steve was a ball of contradictions, and awash in unused potential. He was loner, nearly a hermit, but maintained a childlike connection to his mother. When a subject interested him he trapped information like a boa constrictor, squeezing every bit of fascinating usefulness out of what he learned. So he must have known the realities of his vices, but he never banished them. In the end it was the worst of him that got the upper hand. He died alone, brought to an early end by his favorite vice, smoking.

Those of us left to mourn him were now faced with reconciling the best of him with the worst of him. No one could deny his humor, his mind, or his passion for quiet solitude in the outdoors. And I found myself besieged anew by our similarities, and aware that my mind, my humor, and my yearning for wilderness solitude fall more in line with him than even my own father.

Steve was like my personal time machine. I could look at him and see myself in two decades. Early on I recognized that what separated us was our surroundings and opportunities, not our raw material. Had I lived where he lived. Had I embraced my reclusiveness or self-education, to their fullest then I would probably end up as Steve did. He was found in his home. Naked, just as he entered the world. At first this discovery begged foul play. But the truth is it proves otherwise. Steve slept naked. He’d done so since his twenties. Just like me.

Now on a cloudy morning in December I exited my grandparent’s church and followed my grandfather to his car. The sky looked threatening to rain and I wondered about our morning event of scattering Steve’s ashes in a place he loved. Somehow, I hadn’t connected my current task to the one at hand. And it wasn’t until my grandfather opened the trunk that I realized what I was “helping him” retrieve.

In the trunk of the large sedan sat two well-sealed boxes. One, a cube the size of an autographed baseball, contained the ashes of “Troubles”, my uncle’s dog and closest companion, even to the end. The other box was bigger, the size of a shallow shoe box standing on end. Steve’s ashes, with his name clearly printed on the extra sealed lid; “The remains of: William Purvis”. You see, Steve went by his middle name because he shared a first name with his father. Just like me.

As the rest of our little family exited the church, I stood by my grandfather in the wet parking lot holding all that remained of my uncle and his dog. “Heavier than you think” my grandfather mumbled in the casual observational way he starts conversations. But he wasn’t trying to start a conversation on this near-Christmas morning. He was filling time.

“Yeah,” I said. Filling time back.

I watched him now. Saw in his eyes the same ring of tears that had been rising and falling in waves since I’d hugged him upon my arrival. I suspected that same tide of emotion had been beating against him since the Monday morning when he’d arrived at his son’s house like a thousand times before. But this morning Steve hadn’t come to the door when his dad honked the horn. And after a time the elder William Purvis got out and went into the house. He found his only son lying on the floor with Troubles standing guard above him. When he told me the story he’d maintained his emotions until he added “I only wish I hadn’t found him”. And that was the first time I saw this ring of tears.

He read the box like people do when they’re holding something that makes them uncomfortable. He read it all. Tilted the box a bit, though there were no more words, and read it again. I saw him brush his thumb over the name, probably didn’t even think to do it, and in that moment I realized the bizarre collision of realities this box held.

The name on the lid was his son’s name, but it was also his name. So in a weird way he was seeing himself as a box of human remains. Yet simultaneously he was holding his son in a size and shape which were nearly the same as Steve would have been the first time my grandfather held him. From nothing, to a baby he could hold in hand and heft the weight. And now, a lifetime later, Steve had returned. Ashes to ashes, and our task for the morning.

A church van took us to the sight. We small-talked along the way but were mostly quiet. And at a bend in an unpaved road we stopped at a conservation sight of trees leading down to a distant river. There was a sign in the parking lot, “Archery Deer Hunting Only”, and I felt Steve here in an instant. He loved to watch animals, letting them roam undisturbed. But in this ball of contradiction lived a hunter who also loved hunting deer with a bow. There wasn’t a better place to leave Steve and Troubles. They had walked this area many times… and we’d brought them back for the last time.

I helped my grandmother down the muddy bank to a flat clearing at the forest edge. Brown fallen leaves stuck to our feet, and I held on to my grandmother’s tiny hands as we all settled in a vague little clump. My mom stood nearby, quietly mourning the loss of her only sibling, but her mother stood by me. For most of my life I’ve been taller than my barely five-foot grandmother, but now, as she prepared to say goodbye to her only son, she felt smaller to me than at any time in my existence. I don’t know if she stood by me because I filled a surrogate role. Or if it was because my grandfather was now opening the box he’d carried since the car that morning. Either way, the pastor and the prayers were done, and the scattering remained.

Inside both boxes were metal-tagged plastic bags. But instead of the ash I knew from a thousand wilderness campfires, the contents looked more like tiny stones. My wife and grandfather scattered Troubles. Then he cut open the bag for Steve and handed it to my grandmother. And she did an amazing thing… For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should wear gloves, and then she banished the idea with the same resolve a mother uses to deal with a thousand nasty substances. I helped her hold the bag, remembering my grandfather’s comment about the weight, and watched mother and son have their final moment.

She reached into the bag. Her tiny bare hand, kinked and buckled from arthritis and displaying the spots and deep blood-vessels of age, reached in, pulled the first handful of ashes, and tossed them into the forest so loved by her son. I couldn’t help but see a younger hand as she did it, and found myself flooded by the knowledge that she had already carried Steve when he was only tiny particles. And now, in the end, she was doing it again. The first. And last.

We each spread some ashes. It was like the finest polished gravel, kernel like specs of a thousand shades between white and black. Cold, and sterile, and almost chalky on the wet leaves of this winter forest. My wife sang a hymn. And each person froze in place once their time with the bag was finished. I hugged everyone in turn. We all cried.

In the end, I wandered deeper into the forest and wept. Overwhelmed by the things in me which are so like Steve, I stared out through the barren winter trees and couldn’t help but feel the time machine again. Is this my path? Is it something else? Only a line of decisions and opportunities would tell the tale. Steve died at fifty-three, made up of great stuff. What things are we accomplishing with our stuff?

No one likes funerals. They are the great inevitability, and we’ve all seen our share. But for me, seeing a body made up by man’s artistic hands and laid in a pretty box… that never had the reasonance of those ashes in the forest. Maybe it was the fact that the outdoors speaks to me like it did to Steve, but I think in many ways the issue is in the typical funeral itself. The body and box somehow cloud the holy truth of it… Man has dressed up just how little we become.

Born from nothing. Living only to return to nothing. Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust. I know what that means now. And knowing makes me want to Live.

As the bag drained empty my grandfather tried to say something to end our time in the forest. “He had a lot of good memories here…” He barely finished the final words before he choked them back with a wave of tears. In that moment I took in the surroundings differently for the first time. I didn’t see a place that I would like at all. For me it would never be a place of good memories or even beauty. But for Steve it was.

I thought about the things I enjoy which are only mine. Simple things. Things others would never enjoy. And I wondered if I realize how much they matter to me when I’m in the midst of them. I remember all the things I hate. I talk about it to anyone who will listen. But why don’t I share the simple/stupid things I love?

We scattered my uncle’s ashes in a wintery forest down a backroad in Missouri. What that means to my family remains to be seen. But I hope that I remember all the things that mattered in this time. They were all the little things. They were all the important things.

Like him, I find myself awash in thoughts and emotions which visit every time the Olympic theme plays and the rings fill my TV screen as part of some far too expensive graphics package.

For as long as I can remember I’ve looked at these athletes and thought “What’s next for them?”. Especially during the summer games when spritely girls who can’t drive or see over coffee tables become the subject of heartfelt mini-documentaries about their grueling schedule and struggle to be a teenager.

16 year old superstars. Or 20. Maybe 25 for the real late bloomers. They arrive at the peak of their life – an Olympic performance. And if they win a medal it gets worse. Now what?

The pinnacle of existence before they’ve even had the chance to find a wrinkle or a gray hair. That leaves a lot of decades still to come.

And I think of the other side. The “I coulda done that” part of every American sitting on the couch eating potato chips while Michael Phelps makes a swim race look like a soak in a hot-tub. Of course we couldn’t, but it’s worse than that…

These Gymnasts are being groomed at 5 or 6.
Michael Phelps was picked at 11.
If your child isn’t in CART Races before the age of 10 then they have little chance of being a world class driver.

It’s like the thoughts I have when working with Zac Sunderland, the 16 year old solo-sailing around the world. If he makes it before he’s 18 he’ll be the youngest ever. Which also means if he makes it after that he’s just…. What?… Well, still a person who sailed around the world alone!

But that’s less exciting somehow ’cause there’s no glory. No record. No mark made in History. It’s too late for that.

I turn 35 this year. I wasn’t a prodigy in any way. If anything I was such a late bloomer I felt like a high schooler in college. By the time I figured out even the basics of college social settings I was out of college, out of state, and out of time to take advantage.

Too late for that….

I’m in good shape… but if I were an athlete any press about me would be asking when I plan to retire.

Lance Armstrong is my age. And he’s the elder statesman now.

Brett Farve was in college when I was… and he’s the new fossil of football.

Milestones and glory already gone by mid-thirties. Claimed. Put away and out to pasture.

When I was a kid I remember 35 being a milestone in my perception. That was the magic number for me. People 35 and up were all… old. I can’t tell you why I latched onto that number, but I did.

And in a month… I am that number.

And it ain’t old.

I feel like I’m in my mid-twenties. But how I wish I was the man I am now when I was actually that age. I’ll probably say the same thing in another ten years.

A lot of life ahead of me. That’s what I think of when I watch the Olympics. I’m watching people ½ my age make their mark on the world and realizing I feel far younger than them.

My best is still ahead of me. My peak still to be climbed.

Whatever I will make of myself. Whatever I will offer the world. I’m not there yet. I’m still training. Struggling. Trying to be in the best shape at the right time for the right event.

And when I get there… I hope I recognize it. I hope I can embrace it, enjoy it, and revel in it.

Cause there won’t be a podium. Or an anthem. Or a medal.

Yet it’s still out there… on the horizon… and I love that feeling.

It’s not too late for that.