Merry Christmas, Generally

Posted on December 24, 2023 | 2 comments

I like Christmas, generally.

Some friends dread each Christmas, not in a mean-spirited Grinchy-Scroogey way, but more from the awful feeling of deep grief or loss. I can feel their sadness and always hope that their Christmases pass quickly.

Other friends are just too jolly for my bowl full of jelly. They find Christmas the hap-happiest season of all, and I don’t begrudge their happiness. I’m happy for them like I hope they’re happy for me after I get all giddy about something they don’t understand, like going for a long run.

Some friends celebrate other holidays, or no holiday at all, and I honor and respect all of their traditions and choices. It’s important to me that they know that I do.

Me, I celebrate Christmas, and I like it, generally.

It’s a season of giving, and I like that, but it’s also a season of getting, while what many end up getting is left out. Sort of a good-news, bad-news type of deal I guess.

And Jesus’s PR team is predictably active this time of year, which is maybe cool seeing that I could not be more in on Jesus, but truth be told, given some of the messaging, I sometimes wonder if Jesus missed the strategy sessions.

And I like that a lot of folks get a nice break for the holidays around Christmas time, but I recognize that many others are expected to work more than ever.

So I guess I am a little conflicted around this time of year. But all in all, I like it, generally speaking.

I like all the sparkling lights shining in the darkness, and the hot cocoa to bring warmth in a season of cold.

I like hearing someone with a musical gift perform O Holy Night and how i involuntarily close my eyes and feel my heart flutter.

I like the unexpected memories of what it’s like to be a child, and how that takes me back to a time when my parents were alive and well.

I like that my grown up, adult, independent daughters still come home for Christmas, get up on Christmas morning in their pajamas and gather with their parents as our little family of four, somehow still happening after all these years.

Yes, those are the gifts that I really, really like about Christmas, the gifts that outweigh all the other stuff.

So whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year, if any, please know that I wish you light, warmth, peace, hope, joy, and love—all the sentiments found on all the holiday cards. As for me, I will celebrate Christmas, and if you ever wonder, you can rest assured that it’s something that I like, generally.

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The (Temporary) Beach Life

Posted on December 14, 2023 | 1 comment

Life can be strange sometimes, and for me at least, oftentimes. Case in point: I grew up in a blue-collar household and may have a tiny issue with being around great wealth (that I’ve been working on for several decades now), so of course I have now lived in Malibu not once but twice. This time, just for pure comedy it seems, Jody and I had the opportunity for the past five months to rent a studio apartment on Broad Beach Road, a mile-long road with homes that realtors describe as “some of the most exclusive and expensive in all of Malibu.” Our Mazda vehicles blended in perfectly.

I confess a little online stalking where I learned that our neighbors included celebrities like Valerie Bertinelli, Dustin Hoffman, Ray Romano, Pierce Brosnan, and Mindy Kaling (and from days gone by, De Niro; Spielberg; Ol’ Blue Eyes; Matthau; McQueen; Goldie & Kurt; Devito & Perlman; and Archie Bunker, just to name a few). And then there are the rich people. So, you get it: for the past few months Broad Beach residents included the uber-wealthy, the celebrities, and the Sturgeons. As Sesame Street taught us, one of these things is not like the other. We tried to organize a neighborhood quilting group but had trouble tracking down good email addresses.

What a cool adventure it has been. That’s what I kept telling myself, and it was true. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity, but not in the wow-we-finally-hit-the-jackpot sort of way; instead, it has been a remarkable opportunity to have an actual mailing address in a neighborhood that few have the opportunity to experience. That distinction may not make sense to you, but it does to me.

We are moving into our new campus condominium at Pepperdine today, which was the plan all along, and we are happy to get settled. We are especially happy to have an actual kitchen, not to mention rooms with bona fide doors just in case we need a little privacy from one another from time to time. (Yes, the studio apartment on Broad Beach was a teensy-bit small.) But we are grateful for our life experience down on the beach.

Will we miss it? It’s a good question. One would think we would miss the sound of the waves crashing all night the most, or possibly the breathtaking views, and maybe one of those will turn out to be true, but on one hand I have chalked the entire adventure up as just that, an adventure, so I intend to be thankful for the adventure and not waste time looking in the rearview mirror; but on the other hand, if I was to miss something, I think I know what it would be instead.

One morning, on the beach at sunrise, I took possibly the best picture I will ever take in my life (pictured above, thanks iPhone). Both sunrise and sunset can be spectacular in these parts, especially during what SoCal tries to call winter, but what is more remarkable than the view and the picture it produced is that often, at sunrise, I would walk down to the beach and look to my left and then to my right before coming to the stunning conclusion that I was the only person around. That feeling, my friends, was a gift that I don’t have words to describe.

If I will miss anything, that will be it. But when you get a gift like that, how could you be anything but grateful?  

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Be a Tourist Wherever You Are

Posted on November 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Be a tourist wherever you are.

Walk around smiling in wonder at your surroundings,
As if for the first time.

Take way too many pictures. Don’t be ashamed.
Be on the lookout for all the beautiful things
you hope never to forget.

Drive slowly, and take in the sights.
You will piss off people who are in a hurry,
but that’s okay. Because you are a tourist,
enamored with your great privilege.

After all, and anyway, we are all just tourists
on this floating bed and breakfast we call
Planet Earth.

Live gratefully.
Today.

Be a tourist wherever you are.

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Warming Up for Thanksgiving. Or, Things I Am Grateful for That Get Less Attention.

Posted on November 19, 2023 | 2 comments
  • The Sunday paper.
  • An all-day breakfast menu.
  • Real books.
  • Salted peanut butter gelato.
  • Learning something new.
  • Remembering something special.
  • Forgetting something harmful.
  • Comfortable conversations.
  • Public parks.
  • Private restrooms.
  • A well-executed sacrifice bunt.
  • Gluten-free, double-stuf Oreo’s.
  • The first sight of a loved one arriving at the airport.
  • Watching others spot loved ones arriving at the airport.
  • Traveling somewhere new.
  • Then, coming home.
  • Trees changing colors.
  • Snow falling.
  • The sound of the ocean.
  • Light rain, and a picture window.
  • Ample parking.
  • Sweatshirt weather.
  • The price of bananas.
  • The word, simplify.
  • The fist bump phenomenon.
  • Making eye contact.
  • Holding hands.
  • Huggers.
  • Electric toothbrushes.
  • Backup cameras.
  • The Notes app.
  • Birthdays on Facebook.
  • Adult children.
  • Losing to my wife at cards.
  • Unexpected messages from an old friend, just because.
  • Dreams where I see my mom and dad again.
  • Maya Angelou speaking.
  • Bono singing.
  • Children playing.
  • Contemplating confusing art.
  • Standing desks.
  • Well-run meetings.
  • Handwritten, generally speaking.
  • Politics. (Ha! Just checking to see if you’re paying attention.)
  • Discovering a writer who thinks like you do.
  • Meeting someone different from you.
  • Getting your picture taken with friends (not alone).
  • Solitude, not loneliness.
  • Dad jokes.
  • Being bald (surprisingly).
  • Making the bed (after).
  • No alarm clock mornings.
  • Morning runs at sunrise.
  • Walking in the woods on a crisp day.
  • Comfortable shoes that still look good.
  • Looking at the horizon, both literally and conceptually.
  • A sense of wonder.
  • A sense of purpose.
  • A sense of accomplishment.
  • Genuine smiles, given and received.

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West on “the West”

Posted on November 12, 2023 | 2 comments

My friend, Lane, sends occasional texts with links to cool things, and the latest was an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast. Lane shared his caveat on Rogan himself but called this particular interviewee “fascinating,” so you can imagine my surprise when discovering that it was my favorite professor way back in 1990 at the University of Arkansas!

Dr. Elliott West is a retired history professor and is 78 years old now, which meant that he must have been around 45 when I sat mesmerized by his lectures in a course titled, History of the American Indian. I have told three Dr. West stories many times since: First, he would interject ridiculous things in his lectures to make sure we were paying attention but said that he stopped doing that with freshmen the day he was going on about how President Lincoln would wear a negligee in public, waiting for someone to interrupt, when one freshman finally raised his hand and asked, “How do you spell negligee?” Second, the day he brought the wrong lecture notes to class, shrugged his shoulders, then proceeded to deliver a seamless, fascinating lecture without missing a beat, which had quite an impact on a future educator. And, finally, and most memorably, the time I arrived to class to discover a note on the door that class was canceled that day—and was disappointed—which immediately signaled that to disappoint a 20-year-old by canceling a history lecture is the sign of an uncommon professor.

I spent two hours last Thursday evening listening to Joe Rogan interview Dr. West, and it was a beautiful trip down memory lane. Dr. West is known as one of the greatest historians of the American West and has recently published a 700+ page book titled, Continental Reckoning (that I will be purchasing and devouring), so you can imagine that there was plenty of interview material. I’ll just touch on one part toward the end—the movies known as “the Westerns.”

Dr. West explained to Rogan that Westerns aren’t really about the West: instead, much like what you see on the movie screen is actually something that is projected from a contraption behind you, the Westerns as we came to know them are projections, too—much more an idea than a reality. When you think in simple North-South-East-West terms from the perspective of the United States as it existed at the time of westward expansion, North-South were areas engaged in terrible conflict, the East represented where the young nation had been, so the West became a unifying and romanticized idea as to where the nation might could go. It became both an exciting, dramatic, hope-filled idea and, tragically, an opportunity to create a shared villain in the native inhabitants. The Western on the big screen projected all that and more.

On Saturday morning, Jody and I spent a few hours hiking in Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks, where many classic movies and television shows were filmed, including a crazy number of Westerns such as The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, just to name a few. Well, maybe I’ll name one more just for the name: the epic movie titled, How the West Was Won. As we hiked the hills, picturing stagecoach robbery scenes, I kept hearing Dr. West’s voice explaining what the West was really like, and “how the West was (really) won,” and remembering how fortunate I was to have had the chance to learn directly from him. I’m glad that he is still teaching, and I’m glad that others have the opportunity to listen.

Me at Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks (PC: My sweet wife)

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On All Saints Day

Posted on November 1, 2023 | 1 comment

Today is All Saints Day, and as I reflected on this special day on the Christian calendar, I came across a prayer inspired by Oscar Romero. Romero, as you may remember, was an El Salvadoran priest who stood in solidarity with the poor and was assassinated in 1980 just after delivering a sermon in a church-run hospital that cared for the terminally ill. This prayer was not written or spoken by Romero but is inspired by his words and composed in honor of his life and teaching. I think it is beautiful and appropriate for any day, but maybe especially today, on All Saints Day.

A Prayer of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Amen.

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The Answer, My Friend

Posted on October 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

The stunning natural beauty of Southern California is no secret, providing compelling reasons for the ridiculous housing prices in the form of abundant sunshine, glistening beaches, mild temperatures, ocean breezes, and rugged mountains all together in one spectacular package. Likewise, the opposing natural forces are equally well known, i.e., terrifying earthquakes, dangerous mudslides, and raging wildfires, but there is one negative that comes to mind less readily if you do not live here: Santa Ana winds.

If the popular SoCal picture is driving down PCH with the top down, a gentle breeze caressing your face, then the Santa Ana wind experience is more like having your face used for a punching bag by someone wearing clothes irons instead of boxing gloves. Seriously, imagine howling, constant, hot, dry winds, with frequent hurricane-force gusts, and you’ll get the picture.

The Santa Anas heighten wildfire fears for good reason, and they are even thought to affect the mood of the entire region. In 1938, Raymond Chandler wrote the following passage in his novel, “Red Wind:” “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.”

The Santa Anas arrived last night and are howling as I write this afternoon.

We have been given the ridiculous opportunity to live in a tiny apartment directly on the Pacific Ocean for the past few months until we move on to campus, and it has been an awesome privilege to lie in bed at night and listen to the waves. It is truly amazing. Last night, however, we listened to the winds howl instead, and this morning I was out in the street surveying damage and retrieving the trash cans. With the sunrise, I noticed that the waves kept coming, but the powerful winds took a layer of ocean spray each time and lifted it to the sky like a LeBron James powder toss (see picture above, although it doesn’t do it justice).

Just another day in paradise.

As today unfolds, something I had forgotten about this crazy phenomenon returns to mind, and that is how beautiful it is afterward. The absurd winds seem to cleanse the sky of any hint of haze, and it looks like someone drew the horizon with a Sharpie. The winds come and go, and in the aftermath, it is more beautiful than ever.

I remember many a Bible lesson about the Greek word translated “Spirit” (that really means, “Wind”), and how you cannot see the wind as it blows, but you can surely feel it and notice its effect on things. That seems relevant to life in general as I look out my window this afternoon. The winds of life surely come and go, sometimes gentle and refreshing, sometimes harsh and destructive, but regardless, when they die down, something remains. Whether those winds cleanse us or wreck us, as surely as the Santa Anas visit Los Angeles, they surely clear out the haze and produce some clarity.

If you really want to know what is there down in the depths of your soul, like I often do, maybe Dylan nailed it when he said that the answer is blowing in the wind.

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Tragedy

Posted on October 20, 2023 | 2 comments
Pepperdine Graphic

tragedy: a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster.

Painfully, recently, the Pepperdine University campus community has borne witness to tragedy.

Around 8:30pm on Tuesday night, four Pepperdine seniors—Asha, Deslyn, Niamh, and Peyton—were killed when struck by a car on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Those four precious students were attending a school-sponsored fraternity-sorority mixer and were standing on the roadside when a high-speed vehicle crashed into multiple parked cars, propelling one to fatally strike the young women. It is a tragedy that is simply beyond words. The driver of the vehicle is twenty-two years old and a Malibu resident, and some in the Pepperdine community know him, too. Words do not exist. An unspeakable tragedy.

This, of course, comes on the heels of the savage terrorist attacks in Israel that has impacted the Pepperdine community as well. Los Angeles has the largest Jewish population outside of the nation of Israel, and that is reflected on campus, including here at the law school where I work. In fact, one of our terrific law professors was in Israel celebrating the holiday with his family when the attacks occurred and ended up teaching a class via Zoom from a hotel rooftop in the war zone. He is back among us now, thankfully, but the pain here is personal and palpable. Add to the mix our students and colleagues with personal and family connections to Palestine. Their pain is most personal as well, along with unique fears and concerns, now feeling a double minority in a terrible, terrible time. Another unspeakable tragedy.

It has been and is a time of great sadness here.

Tragedy. We sit in the audience and watch tearfully as the play ends with both Romeo and Juliet lifeless on the floor of the tomb. As the curtain falls, we’re stunned that Medea gets away with murder—or that Oedipus is heartbroken, blind, and begging—or that Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms. We sit in the audience and weep for Rose and Jack as the Titanic goes down.

We are all too aware of the concept of tragedies. But when we discover ourselves in close, real-life proximity to those enduring unspeakable pain, we instinctively remember the phrase, there but for the grace of God go I, although there is a gnawing thought that our day will come, too, grace of God notwithstanding

Tragedy.

How does anyone even find the courage to face life in the face of such, well, reality? I am no expert. I only have so many birthdays and personal experiences, but what those have produced so far are the following thoughts, for what they are worth:

  • Be kind. Be kind to others, Be kind to yourself. Life is hard enough, and it is too hard for any of us to add any more unkindness to the world.
  • Be grateful. That there is anything good in life is an act of grace, and there are absolutely things that are good in life, and grace exists. Life is too hard to neglect anything beautiful that occurs along the way.
  • Be intentional. Live well. Make your life count for something. Don’t waste your precious moments. Contribute your verse. Awaken to the penetrating question that Mary Oliver poses of what you will do with your wild and precious life. Life is too hard not to make it count.

This community is in a time of great sadness, so surely not now, currently in the throes of grief, but when individuals are able to get up off the mat, whenever that is, and face life again with tragedy all too evident, I pray that we choose to do justice to the memories of those who have been lost. Life is simply too precious to waste.

Niamh, Peyton, Asha, and Deslyn

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Legends at the Bowl

Posted on October 16, 2023 | 3 comments

The show on Saturday was incredible.

Like most Los Angeles landmarks, I first learned of the Hollywood Bowl by watching the Beverly Hillbillies, which come to think of it feels somewhat appropriate on a personal level. In Season 1, Episode 23, originally aired in 1963, a con-man tried to sell Jed Clampett the Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Park, and the freeway between them. I absolutely remember watching that rerun, and that I ended up there watching legends perform seems as unlikely as Jethro Bodine.

Back to Saturday night: Our friends, Mikey and Jenna, bought four tickets for “Brandi Carlile and Friends” and graciously invited us to join them for an evening at “the Bowl.” (Nothing makes me feel so L.A. as saying that I’m going to a concert at “the Bowl.”) Unfortunately, Mikey and Jenna had to cancel their trip but shared the tickets so that we invited Erica and Natalie to join us. What a gift that turned out to be for all four of us.

I confess that I did not know the difference between Brandi Carlile and Belinda Carlisle until a few weeks ago, but Jody had sufficiently introduced me to the musical genius of Brandi Carlile prior to the show—and she absolutely delivered, as anticipated. But what we were not prepared for was the “and friends” portion of the show title. There were amazing performances by artists who may very well be ridiculously famous someday, too, but the crazy surprises started when Wendy & Lisa (of Prince fame) joined the show, much to my wife’s delight.

And then, Annie Lennox. Holy cow, Annie Lennox was incredible. Annie Lennox is pushing seventy but, pardon the pun, hasn’t missed a beat. She hit the stage wearing a tilted fedora and as you can imagine mesmerized the audience with her inimitable voice and trademark scowl, waving her arms like someone attempting to land an airplane in a hurricane. It was phenomenal and more than we bargained for.

But then: Joni Mitchell. My goodness. Joni Mitchell. For a regal end to a joyous evening, the stage set rotated and Joni Mitchell appeared, sitting as a queen on a gilded throne, with Annie Lennox on her right hand and Brandi Carlile on her left. The crowd went berserk.

Joni Mitchell is only ten years ahead of Annie Lennox but suffered a brain aneurysm rupture in 2015 and stayed seated through the musical set, unable to walk without assistance, often stopping to cough as she attempted to sing, but her musical gifts were evident throughout, and it was sweet in all the best definitions of sweet just to hear her voice. My favorite part, however, was watching her right arm instinctively skip back and forth to the beat in a mystical dance with the walking cane that she held in her right hand. It was a sight to see, and it was beautiful.

At the end, when our hearts were flashing danger signs that they just might explode if we didn’t stop, Brandi Carlile suggested that we sing Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell since we probably won’t be at her house when she turns eighty in a couple of weeks, so sixteen thousand of us enthusiastically sang a song to Joni Mitchell, a song that celebrates the fact that she was born, which felt like the exact right thing to celebrate. What a night.

I am certain that the sixteen thousand of us in attendance will think of that night often as time marches on, but I am already thinking how impressive it is that a gigantic talent like Brandi Carlile chooses to use her prominent status to celebrate the legends that changed the world and inspired her. It doesn’t look like I am going to be a gazillionaire after all, but if that had happened, I can only hope that I would choose the same.

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Hooray for (Mt.) Hollywood

Posted on October 7, 2023 | 3 comments

I am pleased to report that we hiked the Mt. Hollywood Trail this morning (not to be confused with Mt. Lee of the famed HOLLYWOOD sign). To do so, we left Malibu just before sunrise and arrived in the Griffith Observatory parking lot before 8am, well before you have to pay to park there but nowhere nearly before significant numbers of folks arrive to enjoy the spectacular hike, e.g., as we approached the trailhead, a large high school cross country team was stretching in preparation for some serious hill work.

From one perspective it turned out to be an easy hike—wide trails, easy to follow, and just 1.2 miles to the summit—but the 550 feet of constant elevation is anything but simple. Case in point: The many runner passersby did not appear to be whistling show tunes. And although I refuse to complain about SoCal weather, while the weather app said it was 67 degrees, most of the trail was exposed to the sun and it was the hottest 67 degrees imaginable, maybe with our slowly approaching the sun and all.

There were fun, quirky parts of the hike, like the Berlin Forest, complete with a road sign sharing that it is 5,795 miles to Berlin, Germany, one of L.A.’s sister cities, and a rest stop sponsored by Tiffany & Company, but of course, where one can sit and enjoy a nice view of the HOLLYWOOD sign. But the panoramic views along the way were the real stars of the show: looking back down on the Observatory and Park, looking out at Downtown Los Angeles, and on a clear day like today, looking all the way to Catalina Island and the vast Pacific Ocean.

For our purposes, it was simply another nice day to be together, out in nature, seeing something special, and not to be overlooked, enjoying the beautiful human diversity found in this City of Angels. It was a good morning from start to finish.

We stopped at one point on the trail in an area ominously named Dante’s View, partly to see what was there, but mostly to stop going uphill for a minute, and in that brief moment yet another small pack of the young cross country team passed us by, and when they did I overheard one young leader encouraging his teammates by saying, “This is going to make us better.”

Well said, my young friend. Well said. That’s why Jody and I got up early today and drove across Los Angeles—to be better, both individually and together.

This morning, thanks to a young runner that I didn’t even look up to see, I was reminded that courageously pushing ourselves up the hills of life surely isn’t easy, but it makes us better, and the views from the top are absolutely worth the struggle.

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