Sometimes you gotta ask...

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

- François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), French philosopher

There is little doubt a good question is often better than a great answer!

Getting the right question, however, is not so easy as it seems.

While we often think of ourselves as question askers, Elizabeth Johnson in Quest for the Living God says:

“…our questions, driven by profound yearning to know,

are made possible by the very structure of human nature…

human persons don’t just ask questions: we are (emphasis

mine) a question in search of the fullness of truth.”

Pretty heady stuff, considering the “…fullness of truth…” is like the ever-receding horizon slipping away at the speed with which we try to approach it. Nonetheless, her comments are a reflection of the universal nature of wanting to know more.

Starting somewhere…

You know how a thought begins to formulate in your mind, and you just can’t quite capture the thing with clarity?

I had been thinking about the tragic events in the world (that we know about), and the people who find themselves in the gravest of circumstance.  Stimulated by the happenings in Paris, many other similar occurrences found themselves in the forefront of my mind related to the utter inhumanity our species inflicts upon one another.

Yet there is resilience to the human spirit that appears to transcend the darkness…to seek the better…to find hope in the face of despair.

Each of us has found ourselves in ‘places’ or ‘circumstances’ that seemed inescapable, and yet somehow, we persevered.

How do we do that?

When I find myself unable to express things floating through my head, I turn to friends to help me sort through them. In this case, it was my friend John in Canada. During his career as a Diplomat in the Canadian Foreign Service to Africa, he had seen and experienced much.

I sent him a note.

The email…

After a general greeting, the vaguely formulated question began:

”What are the kinds of things you think about? …I suppose I am simply curious about the sorts of less than random thoughts that you find yourself visiting…. a thing [place] or two that you find yourself returning to on a moderately regular basis.”

John responded with a lovely note of gratitude for a life he had been presented with and embraced in a meaningful career serving others in foreign lands. He had indeed seen and experienced so many things.

I resonated deeply with his appreciation for having had an amazing journey, but it wasn’t exactly what I was after.

I hadn’t asked the right question, but it was a start.

The call…

The next day, I was on a call with Bill, my friend from San Diego.

When I lived in that city by the sea, he and I met weekly in the early morning hours before he began seeing patients in his busy practice.

We have found a way to continue the ‘open ended’ conversations via Skype on a moderately regular basis.

I ran the question by him…we talked about it…he wrote me back suggesting there were many things he might have done differently in his amazingly adventurous life.

I still had not formulated the question I had been ‘feeling.’

I responded, “Turn the corner…where do you go for strength?”

BINGO! Where do you go for strength? That is what I really wanted to ask!

Now I was getting somewhere.

Coffee break…

Once a week or so, Frank and I get together.  It was within a few days of my email to John, and the day after my note from, and response to, Bill.

Slipping into the passenger seat of his white SUV, I buckled up the seatbelt and said,

“I’ve been thinking about some stuff and wanted to run a couple of things by you.“

He nodded…I continued,

“When there have been dark times in your life, have there been anchors…places you have gone for strength…places that helped you weather the storm?”

“You don’t have to answer this now; I just wanted to plant the question.”

He glanced over, “I don’t need to think about it. Let’s just talk now.”

It didn’t take much for him to relate a story about and event in his life when he was embroiled in a very difficult situation. Somewhere during this crisis, he found and internalized the expression,

“I refuse to be a victim!”

This was not a new idea to him, but when it became actualized, the ‘volume’ of the unchanged circumstances completely changed by the words that had given him strength and protected his mind.

Visiting my neighbor…

Finally, or rather at this point in my quest, I felt like I was ready to ask my friend Gail the question. She had been in two extreme life-threatening situations. I was a little uncertain if I should ask, but she has a clarity that few people I know have. I knew if she took on the question I would get a thoughtful response….

I asked…she wrote:

“I must go back a few years to a time when pain dominated my life.  What was my anchor then?  What kept me choosing to live one more day?  It was HOPE.  There were periods of remission from pain: days, weeks, even months when the pain subsided and I could live a normal life.  So each day, as I sat in my recliner racked with pain, I was hoping that tomorrow would be a remission day.  That kept me going.  One day at a time…’

So what?...

Growing up, I was loaded to the gills with catch phrases, quotes from different people, clichés that seemed so…well so cliché.

Somewhere along the line…it was NOT in my youth, but decades later I came to realize that words actually have power.

By now I have asked this question to about six or seven people, and each one of them has given me a bit more than I thought I would get.

I am going to keep asking and refining it when necessary, because seeing how others manage ‘their worlds,’ helps me refine mine.

By the way, where do you go for strength when the sky is not so bright? What are your anchor points?

- ted

It's hard to write...

Since the events in Paris, I have found the things I normally write about and that catch my eye pale in context.  

Paris was the ‘flash point,’ but as any number of my friends from around the world have suggested, these things have been happening in Cameroon, Nigeria, the Philippines, Mali, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and China to name just a few places. 

Maybe it took the symbolic 'City of Lights,' a city so many Westerner’s identify with, to shake our sensibilities.

The language of sorrow, as the language of joy, has no culture, no shade of skin, no social status…the vocabulary is common to all mankind.

I simply cannot write at the moment in a contained way to express all that I have been feeling.

It is easy to demonize and entertain thoughts of fear, hatred and revenge…the greatest revenge, however, is to NOT become like the perpetrators…The greatest revenge can be found in the powerful words of Antoine Leiris who lost his wife in the Paris shootings last week.

"Vendredi soir vous avez volé la vie d’un être d'exception, l’amour de ma vie, la more de mon fils mais vous n’aurez pas ma haine.”  (On Friday night, you stole away the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hatred).

The greatest revenge is, as Christ said, “…pray for them which persecute you and say all manner of evil against you…”

Steal from the ’thief’ who is intent in taking human life, and then through concentric circles of thought after thought after thought steal our very hearts…steal from the 'thief' by denying him his investment of fear...steal from the thief by cultivating all the love you can muster for those within and outside the circle of your life.

Our life is but a vapor…and yet…and yet…every breath precious.

I hope to write again soon…

- ted

The world is small...our hearts are not...

There is no post this week...

- ted

Riding with a cop...

“To become a good guardian, a man must by nature

be fast, strong and a spirited philosopher.”

Plato, The Republic

It was supposed to start at 6:30AM…the place was dark…a little more so than the grayness of the early morning sky...daylight pushing its way at the edges of the Arizona Eastern horizon.

I had wanted to make sure I didn’t hold the process up, so had gotten there a little early. The instructions indicated that if the main lobby was closed, go around to the back of the building and enter the North Lobby…it was – I did.

The small North lobby was stark…sterile beige walls, hard, but clean linoleum flooring, and a few chairs scattered around the edges of the room…a photograph collage on the wall to the left showed what the place had looked like in decades past. 

The room wasn’t ominous in feel, but gave the distinct impression that if you didn’t absolutely have to be there, it would probably be a good thing.  A sense of warmth? NO!  Efficiency? Yes!

Straight ahead was a large darkened window. Just to its right was a small sign instructing people that if no one was there…use the phone by the door, and call somebody. I made the call, took a seat and waited.

I closed my eyes wondering what it might be like to be here under non-voluntary circumstances…waiting to be led into the bowels of the unknown behind the glass…behind the door.

The arrival…

It wasn’t long before the door opened and a young man entered the room.

“Hi, I’m officer Matt G., and it looks like you are with me this morning.”

He was young – late 20s, around six feet tall with short blondish hair. He was in full working gear to include a bullet proof vest, personal communication system - an earpiece connected by a coiled wire to a small box tucked away somewhere out of sight, and a black utility belt holding a number of easily accessible tools of the trade including his service pistol.  He projected an air of enthusiastic efficiency.

Wearing nearly 30 pounds of equipment can be somewhat obstructive, but he moved with a smoothness suggesting he was athletic and fit.

We left the lobby, retracing my earlier steps to his squad car idling in front of the station.

So began my first civilian ride along as part of the Oro Valley Police Department’s Civilian Academy.

Good cops – great quality of life…

Oro Valley is one of the 10 safest communities in the United States, and there is a reason for this.

The police department here has a strong community policing philosophy, meaning they work very hard to be visible and to interact as much as possible with people living here.

They do a number of things, like ‘shop with a cop,’ during the Christmas Season. This program provides money to disadvantaged kids, who then shop along side police officers to buy presents for themselves and families.

On a regular basis, there are ‘coffee with a cop’ events at local coffee shops and restaurants where the chief of police and other officers make themselves available to answer questions or just chat over a cup of coffee.

An important part of the philosophy of this department is: “Call a cop - get a cop.” The average time from a call for assistance to the arrival of an officer here is between 5 and 8 minutes. It is further the philosophy that it is better to call 911 for any reason of concern. The department strongly believes in prevention and community partnership.  Here, citizens are encouraged to call if they are suspicious of anything…so, make the call…even if it is a false alarm, an officer will show up AND thank you for calling in.

Citizen’s Academy…

One of the offerings is 12-week community program called the Citizen’s Academy. This is made available to the community twice a year.  

One evening a week for three hours different officers and civilian employees come and cover every aspect of police responsibilities and activities in the Oro Valley community. Generally speaking, two to three separate presentations are made during each three hour block.

Some of the topics include (but are not limited to):

Public information                School resource programs

Crime prevention                  SWAT team demonstrations

Collision investigation          K-9 demonstrations (police dogs)

Victim’s services                   Crime analysis/investigations

911 Call center                      Community Action Team

The Academy is a free service to the community, and comes with an evening meal.

Civilian ride along…

One of the opportunities for folks taking this course is the chance to ride for a few hours with one of the patrolmen…hence my early morning arrival at the station.

A lot of things happen as a result of riding with a police officer. Of course, if calls come in, you are an observer, but more importantly, you see the police as human beings…people who feel a calling on their lives for service.

Matt was the son of a military dentist and had lived a number of places around the world. He had a degree unrelated to law enforcement from the University of Arizona and had been a collegiate athlete. 

He was a young man with a strong spiritual base, who loved getting up every day to put on the uniform and face whatever presented itself, from helping someone who had fallen and couldn’t get up from the floor, to risking his life with people intent on hurting him or others. My few hours with him were enjoyable and instructive...a chance to see what happens 'behind the curtain.'

There is no doubt, every profession has both its good and bad people. It is easy to demonize everyone in a cultural group or profession based on the actions of a few. I am not Pollyannish about this, but we are grateful to live in this little town where “Serve and protect,” means exactly what it says.

“Hi, I’m officer Matt G., and it looks like you are with me this morning.”

- ted

Moving right along...

“No one is so old as to think he

cannot live one more year.”

- Marcus Cicero

“Hey tall man, you need to take a nap!”

When the late afternoon comes, I find myself slipping into a state of mind that is…well, a reduced state of mind. 

It is almost as if my body is saying, “Look bud, the hump of the day is over…your energy levels are drifting, and you need to plug into the grid for a quick recharge.”

Often, I’ll head for the bedroom for a power nap.

A power nap used to mean: close my office door, lie on my back with legs on a chair for 15 minutes.  Some cosmic thing would happen, and I’d be energetic for the rest of the day.

Power nap, is really the wrong expression for what happens now!

I get horizontal, and within a minute or so, there is the soft padding of feet along the bedroom floor followed by the scratchy sound of those same feet at the bottom end of arthritic hips, making their way up the small staircase at the side of the bed. Next a small calico head appears – eyes just above the edge – seeming to express,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here.  Oh well, since I am already almost on the bed, do you mind if I come on up?”

With that, and NOT waiting for a response, Leah mounts the mattress, gives me ‘the look,’ – You want this too – and with gentle, somewhat labored steps, climbs to my chest, where she eases to her comfort position – paws crossed left over right – turns on the purring machine, and along with the ‘tall man’ enters a twilight zone like a pair Zen masters seeking oneness with each other and the universe.

It is what it is...

As my life journey moved past the thirties, I noticed the difference between the beginning and the end of the day. 

There is this metabolic thing that happens somewhere around the third decade of life. Sparing the details, the physiologic energy processes shift, and the things we could do, eat or drink seem to take a little more of a toll, and we don’t recover quite so quickly.

As the decades glide along these things progress, and I found myself, sometimes unwillingly, taking a little more care in order to continue to be as active as I wanted to be.

The forties taxed me a little more and I began to accept the fact that jumping as high and running as fast were probably NOT in my future, and there were consequences to being a ‘weekend warrior.’ 

It took practically the whole 5^th decade to accept what had become evident in the 4^th – some things would never be the same again!

It was here, however, I realized I had more ‘spare time’ than in earlier decades. Since I couldn’t be as aggressively active, I could read a little more…think a little more…look around a little more….

By the time the 60s came along, I had accepted the gentle downslope of my life’s trajectory, working to keep from giving in, while at the same time embracing the changes that seem to come with greater speed.

I suppose I began to believe there was wisdom in the words of that great American philosopher Harry Callahan, probably known better by his more common name ‘Dirty Harry,’

“A man’s got to know his limitations!”

I am curious about what the 70s will bring, but I’ll have to wait a couple of years to see what’s behind that door.

Sometimes you need a little help…

Part of the thing about being a human being is that often you need a little help to see the obvious. Sometimes, in the biosphere of our own minds, things are not quite so clear, and we need some guidance. I suppose that is why God constructed us to be social creatures – you know, to help one another.

There is truth in the aphorism: When I am weak, then am I strong.

In this case, and in my home, the real world reality of that saying would come from Molly.

On those afternoons, when the 5am full gas tanks don’t have much left in them and I don’t seem to understand why my get up and go has gotten up and gone, I get the  gentle look, possibly encouraged by Leah, and familiar voice,

“Hey tall man, you need to take a nap!”

- ted