Still Puzzled...

When I Look at the World // U2

When you look at the world
What is it that you see
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees

I see an expression
So clear and so true
That changes the atmosphere
When you walk into the room

So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world

When the night is someone else's
And you're trying to get some sleep
When your thoughts are too expensive
To ever want to keep

When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now do you
Don't even look away

So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world

I can't wait any longer
I can't wait 'til I'm stronger
Can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When I look at the world

I'm in the waiting room
I can't see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
When the rest of us choke

Tell me, tell me
What do you see
Tell me, tell me
What's wrong with me

It's definitely a different kind of summer. Friends come and friends go, but not like this before. I have a few friends in Ocean City, NJ, this summer, one also in Virginia Beach. Another is waitressing at a lodge in the Virginia mountains, while her roommate from last year is also in the mountains -- of Colorado. A good friend is on internship in Orlando. Others are working at camps around the state and nation. A couple cronies are in Spain and Paraguay, respectfully, for two or three months. And from I can tell, based on two or three excursions back down to Muncie this summer, those who have opted to shack up in Middletown really become a community all their own in the summer months. Their ties to the town are summer class and work and, on an underrated note, friends. To borrow a line from Blink-182 -- I know what you're thinking, I can't believe it either -- I guess this is growing up. There, now that wasn't so bad.

Being at home in Warsaw really holds next to nothing for me. Yes, yes, family, but the fam is so largely set in its ways. The fact that I have been home five-plus weeks hasn't seemed to change much of anything, the dynamic and such. People around here still have fuses short as Verne Troyer. For that matter, not much seems to change in nine months time during the school year, short of people nestling deeper into their ways. Their ways consist either of the precocious-yet-misguided high school daze [NadaSurf's song "Popular" comes to mind for my younger bro's current stance] or the "same ol'" rut that middle-aged life can be for some [Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" does not come to mind for my 'rents]. I hope to be vibrant and refreshed and looking for new things when I'm 45-50, not what I see here. What I have here just shows me how powerless I really am to change the way someone else thinks, what he believes, how she sees the world. This is true of the stranger and of the family member under my own roof, and I think it's good perspective to have going into my Traverse City experience.

I guess the uniqueness of this summer officially hit me this morning. I woke up at 8:15 a.m. -- sick enough in itself -- to watch the French Open women's final [if you don't know what sport I'm talking about, you schtink]. Dull match, but then the time turned 11 a.m. and it was time for my brother to leave... for Mexico for 10 days. He won't be back before I leave for Traverse City, and then I won't return 'til Aug. 9. The goodbye was heartening but brief. He has a job to do, and so do I [that is largely to take a break from all things known, normal and cozy, thanks to the change of environment].

So friends and family are fanning out this summer, and in a week's time I will get to fannin' too. It's really just seven or eight hours north of here, but, I mean... it is Michigan. I can't wait. As I just said to a friend, this summer has been too long. Yes, it's five weeks old, and it's seemed long. But it's going to pick up soon tempo-wise, as I leave for Traverse City in Northwest Michigan in "seeven daysss..." [repeat that phrase in a whisper, a la The Ring... it's fun]. So I'll keep reading, writing, mowing, washing dishes, and playing some tenacious tennis for this one week. One week is no time at all.

This is going to be long, but bear with me, I think there will be a point to my meandering. I will be the first to confess: I like big words and I cannot lie. You know a brother can't deny. I have a vaunted vocabulary, and I do take pride in it. It's like an identity for me, and I don't try to hide it because in the words of Ricky Slade [Vince Vaughn] in the movie Made, "it's just part of who you are." All of my close friends know of this idiosyncrasy and rib me for it. Yes, I get excited to do the "Word Power" quiz in Reader's Digest. Yes, I write down words foreign to me that I find while reading C.S. Lewis books and then look them up in the dictionary. To me, the dictionary is the Bible Jr. [ I am only kidding]. On a side -- if not completely unrelated -- note, an eerie thing occurred when I last went to Red Sun Chinese buffet in Muncie with JW, EC, SB and... Glen, my fraternity brother who will remain acronymless. Anyway, my fortune cookie slip there read, "You are a lover of words. Someday you will write a book." Now while I take complete stock [none whatsoever] in notes found in dry, five-year-old "cookies" at Muncie buffets, that fortune did strike me as just being cool. And, for what it's worth, I still carry it in my wallet.

Story about my subbing days from the vault: Everyone in my freshman English class had started talking [during a state-required test, no less!], and I said sternly, "Just because I asked one person a question doesn't grant everyone an open license to talk!" It got quiet for a second. The class was befuddled. "Right, whatever that means," one kid said. "Oh, I got a license!" said another kid, reaching for his back pocket with a smirk, "riiight here." The class laughed. I... cracked a smile. Within minutes, I was christened "Mr. Dictionary" by the kids [as opposed to "Mr. Scott" or "Mr. Sub-face," or something worse, I suppose].

As aforementioned, I like -- no, love -- words. Sometimes, however, conversations can get out of hand. Case in point: The Matrix:Reloaded and that wordy exchange between Neo and The Architect. Here is the Web addy for that dialogue [as with this blog, read it at your leisure and read it at your risk]: www.theantitrust.net/articles/viewarticle.php?articleid=108. The Architect tells Neo that he is "the eventuality of an anomaly." Seriously, who talks like this? Also, what does this even mean? I did have to look it up. In layman's terms, the Architect's superfluous name-calling means that Neo is "the possible occurrence of something inconsistent or abnormal." Well, ain't that somethin'. Some friends assumed that I would have loved this wordy exchange in the movie; in fact, I hated it. I wanted to punch the Architect in the face. I wish Neo had taken the unmentioned third option with the Architect and just taken him out. I guess that would have eliminated the need for a third film in the trilogy.

All of my own verbosity here has been to say this: I'm now realizing just how one cannot take a great deal of stock in words. After one particular long-winded monologue on the Architect's part, Neo responds, "You haven't answered my question." Too true. That makes me think. How many things do we indulge in that in all actuality offer us next to nothing? I'm considering the realms of music, movies, books, "reality" TV, computers and being "online" here -- and the list goes on. Ultimately, none of these things hold anything for me, or anyone [least of all self-help or dating advice books]. But all these wonderful toys are the most convenient pieces of distraction we have, the flavors of the week. They are temporary candy for all our senses, attention-sappers. Ironically, anymore in this culture, the motto for such flavors of the week is "here today, gone later today." They too will pass, a mere "chasing after the wind."

In the meantime, we keep seeking even more. It never ends. Take network "reality" programming. "Love & Money," anyone? And American Idol "judge" Simon will soon bring us "Cupid." Sickness! It's an empty vacuum, and like immersing myself in music [a passion of mine], like foregoing outdoor activity on a luminous Sunday afternoon, instead opting to see Bruce Almighty [which I did], it ultimately offers nothing but temporary gratification and distraction. Distraction from questions you and I have at hand and from the searching we are unquestionably doing. These are questions that, as Neo's retort to the Architect shows, haven't been answered. Not yet. But The Architect sneeringly continues: "Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the one." A way with words? Hardly. What a waste of words. [shameless sidenote: People, stop bothering yourselves with trying to find hidden or deeper meanings in the words of The Almighty Matrix. There are none!].

Proverbs 15:4 reads, "The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly." Ageless words from the wisest one himself, Solomon. To me, this just renders The Architect's discursive discourse as, well, meaningless. Purely meaningless. Conversely, consider the Bible. It contains 66 books written by various authors although all its words were "God-breathed." All the truth you or I or the Wall Street broker or the high school custodian needs is contained in those pages. For example, Genesis 4 tells the story of brothers Cain and Abel, sons of the first man, Adam. The story details Cain's disdain for his younger brother, culminating with Cain murdering Abel. According to writer Roberto Rivera y Carlo, subjects examined in the story of Cain and Abel include "the family, human passions, crime and punishment... the emergence of agriculture, art and human cities. It does this all in 26 verses and approximately 630 words" [www.boundless.org/2002_2003/features/a0000759.html].

President Theodore Roosevelt is reported to have said, "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." I'm readily inclined to agree. I can find nothing but encouragement, truth, hope and love in the Bible's words. I can't say journalism classes, involvement in student media organizations or guest lecturers at the university I have attended for three years, which proclaims its status as "everything you need," has accomplished anything near that or even on that scale. And the words of the Bible are not empty; to reiterate, they are "God-breathed" and "useful" [2 Timothy 3:16]. These divinely spoken words equip me for life. The Bible -- The Word -- is "living and active" also [Hebrews 4:12]. It penetrates and it judges the heart, and I'm glad for it. I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that we've all got some Neo in us -- not the kung fu finesse, but the questioning, the searching, the road we're traveling. Like Neo, we haven't had all our questions answered, and we'll search them out through the avenues of all the media forays and distractions we can find. I know I do so all too often, and the effort is in vain. Answers can be found in two words: The Word.

Martin Luther did much to precipitate the Reformation, and he was a prolific writer. Pastor Al Sherer from Shelbyville noted in my Romans Bible study last semester that the volumes Luther wrote are at least enough to line a bookshelf along the entire length of a wall of a normal-sized room. Luther wrote and wrote, and he said all he wanted to say. Now again, consider the Bible. Consider the story of Cain and Abel. Consider all that is contained in that Book and how compact it really is when you think about it. That's all God wanted to say to everyone who would listen to Him. Now that's everything we need! This is becoming more and more incredible to me in these lazy summer days that I've thus far wistfully spent listening to "this" and watching or reading "that." Ultimately though, I am starting to find my lifesource in Words that are so above and beyond me and yet so overwhelming and personal to me.

Ironically, I have used so many words to try to make what may be an obvious point to some. I have no singular thesis for this, but I do hope there's a point to be found here, that someone can sift that point out of all my chatter. One particular quotation from Martin Luther's famous Christmas sermon in 1522 basically sums up everything I've tried to say here. It's definitely worth far more than the service I'm going to give it, a mention here and downsizing it into a personal blog proverb. I'll finally wrap this now with Luther's immutable words:

"O that God should desire that my interpretation and that of all teachers should disappear, and each Christian should come straight to the Scripture alone and to the pure word of God! You see from this babbling of mine the immeasurable difference between the word of God and all human words, and how no man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words. It is an eternal word and must be understood and contemplated with a quiet mind. No one else can understand except a mind that contemplates in silence..."

-Martin Luther