I Used to Be Smart.

I’ve been reading Don Miller again.

There’s this thing about reading him. Maybe I just project this onto what I read, and maybe I just single out certain parts and elevate those above others, I don’t know. But when I read Don Miller, I often feel like I’m reading something that I just as easily could have written. He is a better writer than I am. He says things more clearly. He is more focused. His imagery is much better than mine. However, on some days, I wonder if he hasn’t been stealing the thoughts from my head. And maybe everyone feels like this. Maybe Don Miller just writes in a way so that someone always identifies with something that he’s saying. If that’s the case, then he’s got the gift. However, that’s just one big qualifier. That’s not what I really came to say.

But before you get the payoff, I have to qualify a bit more. I have to inform you that I’m going to be rather vulnerable here. Being vulnerable makes me a little uncomfortable. (And if you’re reading it, it may make you a little uncomfortable, I don’t know how that works.) It’s a different kind of vulnerability than revealing a political stance that leaves me open to be lambasted by people who disagree. Those things really don’t count at all.

I am well aware that none of this may be anything of the big deal that I am making it, and that’s fine with me too.

—

Relationships are a crazy thing. They are unparalleled in their power to define how it is that we live this life. We are, after all, communal creatures. We would never survive outside of our relationships, outside of the care of those who have come before us. There is no doubt that we need each other. For some folks, relationships come easily (or it at least looks that way). They think enough of themselves and of other people that they believe it is a joy to enter into relationships. They genuinely believe that their presence is a joy to other people, and other’s people presence is a joy to them. I know those people and I love those people, and I call many of them my closest friends.

However, for others of us, it’s just not that easy. We struggle with relationships (of all kinds).

And here’s where it gets rough. It is easiest here to recount Miller’s line of thinking, because he is right. His book, you see, is about growing up without a father. And while I cannot claim that I ever grew up without a father, I do not that my relationship with the men who have acted as fathers in my life has not always been the way it has intended to be.

(Another qualifier — they have done a great job with what they were given, and I am extremely, extremely grateful for that. This is an indictment on no one.)

Miller recounts how he often felt, as a child, that he was a burden. His existance wasn’t a joy, it was a travail. He thought, at times, it would be easier if he weren’t around. Because his family structure was unable to give him a kind of validation that he needed in his life, he continued to believe that he was a burden on people around him, and that his presence in relationships was a burden.

I started “feeling it” at about this point. What Miller was saying was starting to resonate. I felt a lot of those feelings. I often felt that just my presence was enough to burden the people around me. (And who can blame them. You should’ve known me when I was a kid.) I had not, however, anticipated what Miller would do next.

You see, there’s a tendency that I’ve been recognizing in myself lately, and it’s something that I have not yet been able to exactly articulate. And because I can’t yet articulate it, I haven’t figured out what to do about it. You might have experienced it firsthand. It’s in the way that I will rarely challenge you if you say something that I disagree with. And if I do challenge you, I’m usually content to back down fairly quickly. It’s the way that I have a lot of trouble talking about the things that are most important to me — when I get quiet and the conversation often degenerates into a lot of “y’know” and “um” and sentences that end with, “I don’t know.” It’s the way that I hate praying out loud, because I just can’t do it. I’ve been recognizing all of those things in myself, and I’ve been becoming increasingly frustrated with all of them, but completely unaware of what the problem was, or what to do about any of it.

It is at this point that I must defer to a man who said it better.

I notice I pull out of a conversation when it gets too personal. And depsite the strongest of invitations to connect, I feel, intrinsically, that the other person will eventually be burdened by his or her relationship with me. I find myself doing a great job at small talk, trying to be charming and all, but when it comes time for a person to actually know me, I run for the hills. Any ability I have to be charming also comes from this desire not to be a burden. If I am light and easy to be around, my community won’t throw me out, or they won’t meditate at night on what a wonderful world theirs would be if I were not involved.
– Don Miller, To Own a Dragon

There it was, in black and white. A big chunk of what I had been struggling to articulate had been written on a page, and written well. I can’t possibly say it any better or add very much. I think this explains a lot about me, and why I’ve been struggling with some of the things that I have lately.

I don’t say any of this for validation. It is not that I need everyone to tell me that I am great, or to assure me that I am not a burden. It’s not that I need anyone else to convince me that they really do like me. It’s not that at all. It only means that I must realize these things for myself. I must realize for myself who I am, I must realize who God made me, and I must continually remember that my validation comes from who God made me, and not how I am recieved by other people.

I don’t know what any of that means. In fact, my reluctane to write any more about it and all of the qualifiers that I put at the beginning of the post are probably indicative of the very thing that I have come to realize is such a problem. I don’t know. I don’t know if I should’ve saved this for something private, but maybe saying it helps.

Maybe that’s more than you wanted to hear. But that’s what I got.

There are some days when I just know.

Maybe it’s because it’s a beautiful day that has been stolen straight from springtime, and maybe all the sun and the warmth is just stimulating some part of my brain that winter sent into a deep sleep. But on days like today, I just know. I just know that there are feelings that stir inside of me that make it clear that this world is not all that there is, and that these days are not all that I am living for.

I know that. I know that I will find a new job. I know that the bills will find a way to get paid.

I know that my life doesn’t always have to be like this. I know that I will find that thing to which I am called.

I know that I will keep becoming more like the man that I need to be. I know that.

So on days like today, I know that it’s worth it. I know that I have to keep trying hard. I know that keeping the faith is the best that I can do. I know that even when I want to be afraid, that I never, ever should be.

Maybe it is just the blue sky and the chance to drive with a window down. But something happens, and some days, I just know.

Some days I wish I could just turn it off. Some days I just need to stop thinking, to stop being smart, to stop connecting the dots.

Saturday confirmed that. It was a disgusting morning. It was something like 6 degrees. All of the roads were covered with snow. UK was playing at 1:30. Except for suckers like that had to work, there was absolutely no reason for anyone to be out at all. I expected a slow day at work, and I was even thinking I could watch a good part of the game.

I was wrong.

I underestimated the American ability to spend money. That is what happened on Saturday. This brain that never stops working figured it all out. I figured out that Americans will go to absolutely any length to spend money. They have an unparalleled ability to consume, and very little will stop them from doing so. When Americans want to spend money (which is always), they will spend money. Not even nature itself can grind the capitalist machine to a halt.

So how did I react to my revelation? How else could I react? I got mad. I got mad at every person that walked through the door. They were, after all, the cogs in the machine. Their consumption was, after all, the reason that poor people are still poor, the reason that the “American dream” still has a grip on everyone, the reason that nothing ever, ever changes. They had, somehow, come to represent every single thing that makes me mad, all by coming to Rafferty’s on a snowy day when I just wanted to watch UK.

That was me. The angry white man, judging everyone that he saw. Convinced that he was right and every single one of them were wrong. Completely devoid of empathy, completely devoid of understanding, completely devoid of love.

On the way home, that was what slapped me in the face — how little I was loving anyone in all my anger. I was stunned at how much I can talk about loving people, and how clearly that I KNOW the singular importance of loving people — and there I stood, simply judging in a completely misguided anger (that I felt at the time was completely justified).

That’s when I have to ask, “Who am I?” and know that (to paraphrase Derek Webb), that I can’t pay for ANY of these words that I’ve been saying.

I’m frustrated. But I think there are signs of life here.

Sometimes, for better or for worse, I need to preach a little.

So just bear with me.

Jesus has this way of smacking us all right in the face. He can’t help it, that’s just what he does. He is, after all, the son of God. If he’s not shaking us all up, then something must be wrong.

Because of Jesus, reading the Bible is dangerous. Reading the Bible is extremely dangerous. There’s a chance that we’ll start to believe the things that Jesus says. And if we start to believe those things, we’re asking for trouble — loads of trouble.

What I’m about to share isn’t my fault. If thinking these toughts messes you up, then don’t blame me. You’re going to have to take up with Jesus.

There’s a story in Mark 8 about the disciples and their (constant) lack of faith. They are in “the boat,” and they are hungry. They don’t have any bread, and they are lamenting the fact. They’re probably coming up with all sorts of metaphors and euphamisms for their hunger. I’m sure, at some point, Peter informed the boat that he could “eat the ass end out of a rhino.” More than one of them was probably convinced that he was starving to death.

In the middle of all their complaing, Jesus speaks up. I like to imagine Jesus sitting aloof from all of the others. Maybe he’s got a bit of rope in his hand, and he’s picking off strands and throwing them over the side of the boat, or maybe he’s cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails with Peter’s knife. I like to imagine that he sits silently for a while as everyone complains. I like to think that Peter’s crude metaphor makes him laugh a little. And as the frustration builds, Jesus finally speaks. I like to think that he must have delivered these words very evenly and directly. Mark recalls it like this:

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Wow. It’s one of those places where who Jesus is just barrels into us broadside, like two cars who have both run a red light. Letting Jesus words in this passage register does something powerful. It leaves us without excuse. Just as it left the disciples without excuse, it leaves us without excuse. If we say that we believe ANYTHING about Jesus, then we don’t have a choice but to believe what Jesus is saying in these few vereses. The disciples were stuck. They had seen Jesus gather the bread. They knew of his capability to provide for them, and they STILL could not trust in it.

We are no different. We have seen God’s providence in our lives. We have seen the ways in which God has provided, both for us and for those around us, and we still cannot trust in. We neither have the knowledge nor the ability to be able to do such things.

Believing this passage leaves us utterly without excuse. There is no fear that we can justify, because we have seen that God has the ability to provide and that God can utterly conquer even the worst of those fears. That’s powerful, and that’s scary. It paints us into a corner. It leaves us with no fallback. We don’t have a choice but to trust Jesus. We have no option but to live life in the way that God prescribes. There is no excuse for NOT living life in such a way. Our exposure to Jesus ability to provide leaves up without a contingency.

The part of this story that I find really interesting is what it doesn’t say. In typical fashion, Mark just moves on to the next story. What happened? How did the disciples react? Did they get defensive? Did they just really not understand?

My guess is that they because intimately aware of the details of their feet. The only picture I can see is of a bunch of men staring at the ground, because they know that Jesus is right. They know what he has just said. They know what it means. They know how it changes things. They are already experiencing the difficulties of living that life. I wonder who was brave enough to finally break that silence, and I wonder what he said.

If I were actually preaching, this is the part where I would give some grand altar call, but I never like it when someone draws all the conclusions for me. So I’m just going to leave it where Mark left it, in big awkward silence.

Sometimes I almost can’t stand it.

I can’t stand to hear people tell me what I already know. It’s not that it makes me angry. It’s not that at all. It’s just that it gets something stirring inside of me that makes life difficult.

I figured out a long time ago that apathy was the easy way. Keeping yourself detached makes everything easier, and on some days, I just give in to that apathy, because it’s easy. There’s nothing scary about apathy.

But if apathy is the easy way, then passion is the rougher road. Being passionate about ideas, about people — that complicates life. That makes everything difficult. That makes these things that I can’t contain but can’t find an outlet for well up inside of me so strongly that I can do nothing but try to capture them in words that are always too fleeting, too vague.

I know that there is a different way to live this life. I know that I meant to be something besides a slave to a job that drains me. I know that I’ve chained myself down with some pretty heavy things, but that none of those chains are unbreakable. I know that if I ever find the courage to ACTUALLY live as God would have me to live, that those things that I am so worried about would find a way of being resolved in the partnership of my hard work and creativity and God’s providence.

And if things keep piling up this way, if the evidence keeps stacking up, I’m not going to have a choice. I’m going to have to do something radical, something subversive, something that keeps the fidelity of all of the words I say, or else I’m going to become to frustrated to ever deal with the paralysis.

I think I’m standing on the edge. I just need you to push me.

I have a new song that I’ve become obesessed with.

It’s by Bright Eyes, and it’s called “Don’t Know When But a Day is Gonna Come.” From the title itself, I should’ve known that I was going to fall in love. From the very start, it’s a perfect piece of a properly apocalyptic perspective. (I apologize for the alliteration. Sincerely.) So, before I start gushing, the lyrics:

Is it true what I heard about the Son of God?
Did he come to save? Did he come at all?
And if I dried his feet,
with my dirty hair,
would he make me clean again?
They say they don’t know when but a day is gonna come,
when there won’t be a moon and there won’t be a sun.
It will just go black, It’ll all go back, to the way it was before.
I knew a lovely girl, with such pretty pride, and every man wanted her, yeah and so did I.
So did I.
But she up and died in a fit of vanity.
Now men with purple hearts, carry silver guns.
And they will kill a man for what his father has done.
But what my father did, you know it don’t mean shit. I’m not him.
So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share.
I have been sent to my room. I’ve been sat in a chair.
And I held my tongue. I didn’t plug my ears.
No, I got a good talking to.

And now I don’t know why,
but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I’m just a child.
Well, I’m not a child.
No, I am much younger than that.
And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave.
If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth.
There is only you and what you make the truth.
So I will just sing my song and I’ll pass a hat.
Then I’ll leave your town and never look back.
No, I don’t look back because the road is clear and laid out ahead of me.
I’ll get home and meet my friends at our favorite bar.
We’ll get some lighter heads for our heavy hearts.
And we will share a drink.
Yeah we will share our fears and they will know how I love them.
They will know how I love.
They will know how I love them.
I am nothing without their love.

I don’t know when but a day is gonna come
when there won’t be a moon and there won’t be a sun.
It will all go black.
It will all go back to the way it is supposed to be.
Is it true what I heard about the Son of God?
Did he die for us? Did he die at all?
And if I sold my soul for a bag of gold,
which one of us would be the foolish one?
Which one of us would be the fool?
Which one of us would be the foolish one?
Which one of us would be the fool?

Could you please start explaining?
You know, I need some understanding.
Could you please start explaining?
You know, I need some understanding.
Could you please start explaining?
You know, I need some understanding.
I could do good with some explaining.
You know. I want to understand.

When you just read the lyrics, you probably don’t get that excited by the song. And I understand that. But there’s something about this song that is so good that I almost can’t take it. There’s a level on which Conor Oberst gets it. From this song, especially, he makes me think that he understands the faith I claim better than a lot of the people who claim it.

It would all be enough to make you worry about me, probably. If I think these kinds of thoughts, and if I find resonance with these sorts of lyrics — with these doubts, and with these questions. And I would understand if you worried about me (although you shouldn’t).

Even if all of the faith stuff is wrong, he’s exactly right about his friends, and I think that’s the best part of the song — because it’s true. We’re nothing without the love of our friends.

I have no point, really. I just wanted an excuse to post those lyrics. Even though I know that listening to Bright Eyes is a chore for most people, and I don’t expect anyone else to like any of his music.

As for me, I’m still trying to figure out who the fool is.

(To be so demanding as to ask for two entries in a day means that you have to suffer through the entries like this.)

and sometimes it strikes me in a way that i can’t quite explain. the world is an average place. we are very average. its a misplaced qualifier, i know. to be very average is like being one of the best, it should never, by definition, happen. but it’s true. we are all very average.

i used to think that life was made of all of these grand highs and of all these grand lows. and if i didn’t know that i was in the middle of one, then it must be the other. everything was grand. everything was dramatic. nothing was ever just what it was. it was always a piece of something so much bigger, something that mattered so much more.

and i was convinced that i was something different than everyone else. then i made a random line around a few people that i liked, and i decided that we were different than everyone. i — we were better than everyone else. that’s what i really meant. that’s what i always meant. i just knew that i was ever allowed to say that. i couldn’t help it. i only needed to break the curse of average.

and who doesn’t? we are told from the time that we know to listen that we aren’t average. we are told that we’re all special. but that can’t be. if we’re all special, then none of us are special. if we’re all pretty, then none of us are pretty. if we’re all smart, then none of us are smart. we all believed the hype. but we didn’t know better. all we could do was trust the only voices that we could hear.

what i am learning is that life is composed of the remarkably average. in the middle of all the voices trying to be heard as something special, most of what makes up life is average. it is the boring living of one day and the next, all fading into forgettable days. it’s just a long string of unremarkable days where the “rememberable” is hard to find.

but is there anything wrong with that? is there a problem with average? even though the longing for something better is so deep some days that i almost can’t stand it (and it is), is there anything wrong with our averageness? or is that all we have? these forgettable days that run together like some sloppy watercolor? do we just sell ourselves short because we’re all afraid? do i sell myself short because i’m afraid?

or maybe this is just how all goes — remarkably unremarkable.

Jayber Crow was right.

(You don’t know who Jayber Crow is. I don’t expect you to.)

There is something special about the gospels. There is something about the gospels that Jesus character that has a way of standing head and shoulders above the stories and the characters before it and the stories and character after that. Until Jayber Crow, I had never thought of it that way. I think I had nascent pieces of those thoughts (especially in places like Paul’s plea for pacifism for the sake of spite), but I never knew that I was allowed to give those thoughts legs.

I’m beginning to think Jayber was right.

The debate I’ve more than once (both in college and since college) is the debate about who wrote what, and whether Paul wrote everything attributed to him. Because of the views of the teachers that I respected, I usually defaulted to agreeing with their groupings of “who wrote what.” But since Jayber Crow, I’ve been thinking a different thought. What I’ve realized is the groups are especially convenient. In the “Definitely Pauline” group are the books that don’t offend liberal, academic sensibilities. (And I always liked that.) They contain Galatians’ idea that everyone — male or female, Jew or non-Jew, slave or free — is just the same. We get a touch of pacifism in Romans, pleas to help the poor in 2 Corinthians. With the exception of things that we have been able to explain away (the misplaced degradation of women in 1 Corinthians, for example), it all appears to be a group of texts that we can live with — they we are comfortable having in our own canon.

The other texts, the ones that someone else must have written, they’re a little more difficult. They contain ideas that our liberal, academic minds struggle with a bit more. The view of women does not import to our 20th century standards. The theology has developed, and it has developed in ways that we don’t always find favorable. Because of that, we see all of that a bit differently. We lean a little more heavily on the evidence that tells us what we want to hear. We are, after all, human.

Here’s what Jayber Crow makes me realize. He makes me realize that we’re this room full of angry people, pushing and jostling each other around, jockeying for position. We’re all yelling too loudly, and nobody will let anyone else finish their sentence, or even consider the things that anyone else is saying. The benefit of the doubt has been left at the coat check, and it will cost $5 to get it out. (I think I might be preaching now. I’m sorry.) All the while, this man is walking around the edges of the room, occasionally raising a finger and an eyebrow, trying find a way to get a word in, but he can’t. He’s not rude enough to interject, he’ll just wait until somebody needs his input. And Jesus is just passed around the fringes of this crowded room. He’s usually only pointed to as a weapon. No one is letting that man change them, they are only interesting in how he proves them right. (But he is persistent, content to stay on the fringes.)

And maybe that’s our problem — not just the liberal, academic types — but all of us, me especially. (That’s a bit of rhetoric I stole from Paul, for the record.) We’re all guilty of not letting Jesus (and the gospels) change us. We’re more concerned with being right, or with keeping or stuff, or with being comfortable, or with WHATEVER, that we have no idea what it means to be changed by Jesus, to be really changed by reading the gospels. (And when I indict everyone else, I indict myself the most, because I know how little fruit my own life shows.)

And maybe there’s a reason. Mayber we’re too scared. (Maybe I’m too scared.) Maybe we’ve managed to chain ourselves to all of the wrong things. (Maybe I’ve chained myself to all of the wrong things.) Maybe we don’t know how to let Jesus change us. Maybe we’re not patient enough for the slowness of the change. Maybe we don’t have a desire to be changed.

Whatever the case is, I think Jayber was right. There’s this crazy way that the whole thing peaks at Jesus. And I think that if we see that, and we let ourselves be changed by that, then it changes everything.

I’ve learned a lot of things from reading Thomas Merton. So many that I can’t tell you what I say is my own, and what is just some cannibalization of Merton (or Nouwen, or Berry, or whomever). One thing that I do know is a product of reading Thomas Merton is the way I have come to be aware of fear, and the powerful weapon that fear can be. Fear as a motivator is nearly unparalleled. Fear as a weapon is nearly unstoppable. However, it is contingent. Fear is contingent upon the fearful. Those in power who wish to use fear are counting on the fact that they can make their subjects afraid. This is the only way that the politics of fear work. If we are not afraid, then the weapon of fear is made powerless.

—–

George Bush is a smart man, and the people around George Bush are smart people. Yesterday, they made a claim (however dubious) of a foiled plot to attack the tallest building in Los Angeles. As the article states, it is a claim with suspicious timing as the President struggles to push through his agenda of domestic “intelligence gathering.” (The appeals for which are also based largely on fear.) Those in power want us to be afraid. As long as we are afraid, we need their power to keep us safe. We need their influence for our comfort. A threat to America is the greatest means of consolidating power. Under the guise of doing everything possible to alleviate your fears, those in power wish for us to be afraid so that they may never move past the point of usefulness. As long as we need them, their power is secure.

—–

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment; and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
-1 John 4:18

Do not be afriad.

That is what we are told. This is what we are promised — that we never, ever have any reason to fear anything. Yet, daily, we let the powers that be (at every level) use fear as a means to keep us under their thumbs, to railroad us into serving their ends. We allow them to make us afraid of serving a God who has promised us that we never have to be afraid.

So why do we consistently allow them to make us afraid?

If a person is truly and genuinely Christian, must they operate on the fringes of society?

Sometimes, it seems that way. DH and I were talking about the folks from The Simple Way yesterday afternoon, and since then, something has occured to me about folks like this. (And this is not to their detriment, it’s just an observation.) It seems like these folks are very much on the fringe. They are doing awesome things, awesome things that I wish I could emulate, but it seems like they’re doing them on the fringes of society.

Now, I am ready to admit that I might just have my priorities all wrong, and perhaps I need to do a significant re-evaluation of things. That’s the disclaimer I’m making, and that gives you the right to call me out on any way that you think that I’m missing the boat.

Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that some of the greatest agents for change in the world have operated and made a difference on the “inside.” The two easiest examples that come to mind are Dr. King and Gandhi. Both had credibility with the powers that be, with the world. Dr. King, especially, was well-dressed, well spoken, and able to exist easily in the halls of power. His ideas and his methods weren’t on the fringes at all. Nobody ever really considered him “weird.”

Can I be completely normal, completely well-adjusted, and still be genuinely and radically Christian? Is that possible?

Am I even asking the right questions about anything? Do I just care entirely too much about what everyone else thinks? Does that paralyze me? Would genuine radical actions overcome any sort of existance on the fringe?

(I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, for the record. That’s why I’m asking them.)

No matter what the answer to all of these questions is, I still have one distinct, overarching problem.

I am a slave.

I had this conversation with Katie yesterday. (Yeah. Half of the time my blog is just cannibalized converstaions, I figure I should at least give credit where it’s due.) I don’t really feel like I’m in a position to do very much that can be considered radical. I felt the need to get a very expensive education, and that expensive education required the use of a large amount of student loan debt. That student loan debt must be paid, and in order to be pay it, a steady job is a must. To not pay that money back myself would mean that my creditors would begin to look for the money elsewhere. For example, from the loans’ co-signers — my parents. To saddle them with my debt would be incredibly irresponsible and pretty much unacceptable.

So here I am. Stuck. Looking for a way to be genuinely Christian without venturing into the fringes, yet still embracing the margins and paying off student loan debt.

I am a mess.

He pulled the cigarettes from his, packed them in his palm, and lit one. He hated the things, he had since he was 15. He couldn’t help it though. They were comfortable, so he kept buying them, kept packing them, kept smoking them. He didn’t even know why he had started anymore. It was just something that he had always done, and he didn’t see any reason to change it now. He knew the stairs were harder climb now, and he knew that he was seized with fits of coughing more often now, but he knew those things were no reason to change the way that things had been for all of these years. He was used to cough, he was used to smell. And if nothing else, it gave him something to do. No reason at all.

—–

He was sure by now that he must’ve been happy to see the old man go. It wasn’t that he hated him. He just knew that it was time for him to go. It was time for something different to happen to him. He was never a terrible father. He could’ve been warmer. He could’ve been less demanding. He could’ve found time to throw baseballs in that tiny backyard but he never much cared that he didn’t. He knew that his father needed to work. He knew that they needed the money.

That was why it was all such a shock. Not that his father had died — everyone knew that the cigarettes and red meat would take care of that eventually. The shock was the bank statement that his mother showed him the week after his father’s passing. None of the accounts were startilingly big — he had always known that. He had always known the way that his parents had struggled to make the money last in the weeks between each paycheck. He was too aware of all of the things he had missed. The shock was that one set of numbers was significantly larger than all of the rest. If he would have been aware of the words, he would’ve thought, “not marginally, but significantly.”

He acted like he was surprised, because he knew that he was supposed. But if he told the truth, he had no idea what he was staring at, and he was almost sure that he should be upset that all of that money had never been used.

“Your father had been saving this money for you.”

He wasn’t sure what she had just said. The same father that had been forced to deny his family so many things they wanted for the past 17 years had been saving money for him? “Why?”

“So you can go to school.”

It wasn’t enough for college, and they both knew that. But that was okay, he wouldn’t have wanted to go to college anyway. School was never quite his style. But he knew that it would be more than enough for trade school. He knew that he could learn to do something valuable. His mother knew that it was more than enough for trade school, and that his father had left him the ability to buy the things he would need to have a better life.

—–

(I’m not sure I like it, but there it is. Maybe I’ll write more if you think I should.)