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I meet with a group of guys about twice a month, and we have been reading and processing together a book by Eugene Peterson called Leap Over A Wall. While I’m a bit of a bibliophile, and so would naturally recommend any good book, this one has been exceptionally moving. Peterson spends the pages delving into and discussing the life of King David in such a profound manner–connecting us with the grimy reality and Divine redemption of the mundane, the painful, the secular, the religious, the wilderness and all the other beauty that we share in humanity.

After a wonderful weekend with family (Alyssa’s grandma Ellen came down from Seattle and her brother Avery and wife Miranda came from Spokane), Alyssa and I vegged in front of a very entertaining, yet painfully illuminating movie about a military guy recovering his daughter from a human-trafficking gang. The part of the film that was difficult was watching a fictional rendering of a reality that is present: people being forced into the most destructive and demeaning forms of slavery.  Living here comfortably, that nightmare is in some other world, and one that I would not go out of my way to encounter.

After the movie, I jumped back into my reading, and was reviewing a section in chapter 11 that talks about lamentation and grief in Davids’ life. I was struck after re-reading Peterson’s description of the poem David writes in 2 Samuel 1:19:

Beauty. Lament isn’t an animal wail, an inarticulate howl. Lament notices and attends, savors and and delights–details, images, relationships. Pain entered into, accepted, and owned can become poetry. It’s no less pain, but it’s no longer ugly.

Earlier in the text, he talks about how our culture has a great lacking of realized compassion. We have a lot of looking on with concern, but entering into and experiencing the pain and walking together is much more rare. The desensitizing rush of media that tells us about broken relationships and loss; disasters, disagreements and death. All of that without pause to recognize what and who is lost, only that there is loss. We can hardly mourn someone we don’t know from Adam, and the constant barrage of unknowns makes it even more difficult to enter into and experience grief that is real and close to us. It’s not that we have to directly know the parties to give them some dignity; in fact, David actually decreed that the entire nation learn the song he wrote for Jonathan and Saul. The idea that I’m wrestling with is how we can truly be compassionate and honor both the grief near to us and tragedies that aren’t so near.

I’ve always found myself drawn most to music that is ‘depressing;’ sounds like Guster, Dashboard Confessional, and other emo, girlfriend-missing, best friend-betrayed, peer-disowned artists who find their expressions of pain owned in song. Maybe that is just my way of compensating personally for what seems a lack of expressions that deal with and honor loss in our culture.

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Flying over the Elk River

I realized a little while back that it had been well over a decade since my dad and I had spent any intentional, dedicated father-son time. In spite of the fact that we are partners in one business and have conspired on may other occasions, those of you familiar with family business can probably relate to how little quality time that lends itself to. Somehow birthday dinners and the occasional Sunday with the family (when we make it to Spokane for that long) inevitably hold some mention of business TODOs or a thought to our next quarter strategy.

At any rate, we both carved a weekend out of our schedule, packed the airplane, and headed into the Idaho wilderness for a couple of days of hiking, fishing, and general outdoor guy stuff. We were hardly alone, as the USFS airstrip we flew into (Moose Creek) has gained some popularity among back-country pilots, but it was a drastic change from our usual two-to-three phone ringing, several email account, insurmountable todo-list days. In fact, there was no cell-phone reception for AT&T or Verizon; the closest thing to communication with the outside world was a ranger station about a mile from our campsite.

Suffice it to say, the time was much needed, and my dad is still at least as awesome as he was 15 years ago–maybe even a bit more. It was great to have him teaching me to fly-fish, rather than us pounding out a sales plan or working on development schedules. We definitely need to make a habit of that.

Packing and prepping

One of the bridges acress the creek... just a bit shady

Taking off from Shearer (a USFS strip up the Selway River from Moose Creek).

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Over the coming days, you may notice some of my old posts disappearing; specifically those in geek-speak. A couple of years ago, I realized that however holistically I wish to approach life, it’s not fair to force anyone who would like to follow my personal journey to endure, along with it, the techiness inherent in my daily life. With that in mind, I registered another domain, and diligently parked it for future use. At long last, I have blown the dust off of that domain and launched my geekdom blog.

From now on, the less technically inclined should be safe venturing here. That’s not to say that thoughts I share will make any more sense, but at least they should be–in the majority–based in the English language. As for my fellow geeks, the rants on software architecture, system administration, disaster recovery, and what have you will be found at nonparametrics.com.

No promises, but I’m hoping that this separation will make it easier for me to communicate well in both arenas. My ambition is that this blog would provide a window into my story with whatever value that can provide to the blogosphere at large.

~ cheers

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