Vows

On a perfectly miserable day, I went to the gym to work out. It was raining and 40 degrees, with low clouds sinking lower by the minute. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon it was dusky, and streams of water were sliding across the parking lot towards the storm drain.

The gym was nearly deserted. The weather held down the crowd but mostly it was flu season, and people are careful not to congregate in places where lots of folks routinely sweat profusely while breathing deeply, and exhaling with great force. I practically had the place to myself. I dropped into the locker room to put my jacket and towel away. I saw a friend sitting on a bench leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. For a second I thought about going about my business without saying anything to him. His eyes were closed, so he probably didn’t see me so he wouldn’t have thought me rude. But, I found myself saying, “ Hey buddy, rough workout, huh?”

He opened his eyes abruptly. His eyes were red and tired. He had been crying.

In that instant, I desperately wanted to be on a treadmill, lifting weights, or cleaning out the toilets, anywhere but in a locker room with a grown man who had been crying. Men are not good at certain things, maybe not all men, maybe not even most men. Ok, I’M not very good at certain things, like comforting another man who is hurting. I never know what to say. I feel embarrassed, for myself, and for the poor guy across from me who now suddenly stands and walks over to my locker, “Doug, do you have a minute?”

We sat down and he begins to talk. He tells me about a friend of his who just got caught cheating on his wife. This couple were close friends with him and his wife. They used to do everything together. Everyone involved is devastated. There are young children involved. He thought he knew the guy, couldn’t believe him possible of such a thing.

“Doug, the worst part is, he’s probably the most committed Christian man I’ve ever known.”

I listened a little longer, tried my hand at saying something comforting. After a while, we were talking about the Ravens-Broncos game or something, and I soon held the handles of my elliptical machine in a death grip, trying to control my growing anger. My friend’s story is just the latest in the long continuing saga of infidelity among supposedly “committed Christian” men. With each new revelation, my faith takes another body shot.

What is a committed Christian, anyway? What does the term even mean? Apparently, when it comes to wedding vows, it means absolutely nothing.

I finish my run, then head upstairs to the weight machines. As I’m resting between sets of bench presses, I think about all the Christian guys I’ve known at my church who are my age who have divorced their wives. They were all good guys, at church every Sunday, guys who studied their Bibles and prayed for their families. For them, their faith wasn’t enough to save their marriages.

But by the time I’m on the abdominal crunch machine, I’m also thinking about all the Christian guys I’ve known who are hanging on to their families, who are making it work, who are still committed to their wives. There are a lot of them, and I start to feel better.

Still, when I hear the next sad story it will still make me angry. I will still feel like punching something. For although I know that my faith doesn’t promise me an easy life, and my belief in Christ doesn’t guarantee me success, my gut tells me that it ought to make it easier for me to keep my sacred vows.

I finish my workout, go sit in the sauna for ten minutes, then gather my stuff from my locker. My friend is gone. I get in the car and drive over to my Dad’s with his dinner. As I take the Montpelier exit towards his house it occurs to me that he was married to my mother for 65 years, and though she passed away 6 months ago, he’s still in love with her, …still honoring his vows.

The heavy mist covers the windshield. It’s been raining for two days now. As I make the turn onto Winn’s Church road, I think that it’s a good day to see my Dad.

Here We Go

Another Monday. Another week begins, and my eternal quest for financial security continues. This week will be especially full, many client meetings, preparations for even more meetings in the weeks to come. There will be bills to pay, cash flow to manipulate, unexpected expenses to manage.

My dad’s glasses are too loose on his face. He will need to go have them adjusted. I will take him. My daughter will come home tonight to have her wisdom teeth extracted tomorrow, then stay here until she is sufficiently recovered. There will be two meals to fix and take over to Dad. Federal taxes are due tomorrow, business bills to pay by Friday.

I don’t feel well, like I’ve been fighting something off for three days now, willing it to go away. This is not a time to be sick. I read about the Nora virus and wonder if it’s just my imagination, the power of suggestion. For now, Nyquil will have to do.

It’s raining today. All week it is to be cloudy with intermittent rain. It seems that it has been so all year. January has brought no snow, but lots of fog, rain and dreariness, like a London railway station in the movies. When the sun peaks out from the gloom we all walk outside with a hand over our eyes gazing up to get a glimpse of blue. Now I understand why the British are always so practical. Clouds do not encourage dreaming.

Another Monday. Another week.

Here we go.

A Clash Of Icons

The game was billed as a clash of icons. Arguably the best quarterback in the history of the game on one side and the most dominate middle linebacker of this generation on the other. Unlike most games that are hyped by using words like “clash of icons”, this one actually delivered, an epic back and forth battle that went two overtime periods before delivering a winner. Peyton Manning was once again disappointed, while Ray Lewis’ pending retirement got postponed another week.

Peyton Manning fascinates me, always has. On the one hand, I’ve never seen a smarter quarterback. No one who has ever played understands the game better than Manning. He will go down as perhaps the greatest of them all. I read his statistics, I look at his record and marvel. Yes, its true that most of his numbers were racked up inside a windless seventy degree dome in Indianapolis, and his legacy is obscured by a lone Super Bowl title amidst all that statistical dominance, but anyone who knows anything at all about football must acknowledge his brilliance. And yet, for his entire career he has been hard to watch. All of that hand jiving, caterwauling at the line of scrimmage, all the pointing, ranting and raving before the snap, the false starts, the hesitations and misdirection…its like all of America is screaming,” For God’s sake SNAP THE FREAKING BALL!!” But that’s Peyton Manning.

I watched Joe Montana, I watched Dan Marino. I saw Joe win all those Super Bowls with one clutch performance after another, while Poor Dan hardly ever got to a Super Bowl. My eyes told me that Dan was a far better Quarterback, but there was Joe lifting the trophies. I watch Peyton Manning, I watch his little brother Eli. My eyes tell me that Eli isn’t worthy to hold his big brother’s jock strap, yet Eli has two rings to Peyton’s one. Team sports can be a cruel mistress to personal greatness. Yet through it all, Peyton Manning ccan always be counted on for one thing, class through adversity. Once again last night after a bitter disappointment, there was Peyton Manning, two hours after the game, dressed in a suit, waiting in the empty Ravens locker room for Ray Lewis to finish his press conference, so he could offer his personal congratulations.

Ray Lewis is the best middle linebacker I have ever seen. I’m not old enough to have watched Dick Butkis, and I barely remember Willie Lanier. But when I watch a thirty four year old man lugging a brace the size of a small child around on his right arm, make 17 tackles in 12 degree weather, I can do nothing but stand amazed. As awkward and gawky as Manning is, Lewis has always been a fluid thing to watch, swift, athletic and lethal. Despite all of the pre-game histrionics he is famous for, once the game begins Ray Lewis has always played with discipline and calmness, keeping his head while everyone around him is losing theirs. When he blew out his tricep earlier this year his entire team went into a tailspin, since his return they seem unstoppable. Never have I seen a defensive player have such an impact on his teammates.

He announced his retirement as soon as this season is over. Each game could possibly be his last, and he is playing like it. But with Ray Lewis there is always the cloud. It follows him. As a younger man, he was every inch the Miami Hurricane, in every negative connotation associated with that team. There was the limo, the entourage, the gun, the murder and a trial with an ambiguous verdict. Now Ray Lewis seems to have found God, quoting scripture to anyone who will listen, and because it’s Ray Lewis, everyone listens. He’s seems the quintessential changed man. The cynic might say that his new found religion is an attempt to scrub the blood stains from hands, to assuage the guilt and wash his image clean. Maybe, maybe not. I only know that he does seem like a different man, a man who has grown into his stardom, and not been diminished by it.

The Ravens won the game 38-35. Peyton goes home. Ray moves on. And even though its only professional football, I find myself caring.

Harry Potter and Me.

Harry Potter has overtaken my house. My son and his mother have engaged in a Harry Potter marathon during this, his last week at home for quite a while. Between shopping and packing they have been watching all the movies. Since Pam was just six chapters shy of having finished reading the last book, Patrick insisted that she turn off the final movie at the exact point at which she had stopped reading. Now they are sitting on the sofa downstairs staring blankly off into space listening to a skilled actor read the last six chapters. Pam has a box of tissues on her lap. All activity has ceased, even Molly is still and silent, probably too scared to even pass gas.

I had forgotten what an amazing work is the Harry Potter series. It will be read by generations of kids to come. When my kids inform their kids that they waited in line at midnight at Barnes & Noble every time a new book in the series was released, they will stare in wonder and ask, “Mom, what’s a book? And why did you have to wait in line, and what is a barnes and noble?”

What I remember most about the Harry Potter phenomenon, sadly, was the uproar it ignited in the Christian community, at least my corner of it. We knew many parents who were horrified by the books, thought that they were satanic, glorified the occult and were aimed at nothing less than the possession of our children’s minds, and if our kids were allowed to read them they would become lifelong slaves to Lucifer. With those kinds of accusations flying about, my contrarian, rebellious nature insisted upon giving them a try. I don’t remember all the details, but the first time I discovered the books was on a drive to Maine, or Nags Head, or something. As I drove, Pam read the book. I took maybe fifteen minutes to discover that this was indeed no ordinary “ children’s book”. This was beautiful writing, filled with wit and crackling with imagination. Yes, the story centered around magic, but as far as I could tell, it was chocked full of big themes of right and wrong, courage and friendship, and even good and evil, with clear delineation between the two. Plus, it was great fun.

It was the very first time that Patrick showed any interest in a book. Now, as an adult, he loves reading. Kaitlin was overwhelmed with the stories, and the Harry Potter books played no small part in her adult love of literature and the pursuit of discovery it has produced in her. For this, I suppose I have J. K. Rowling to thank. So far, neither Kaitlin nor Patrick have succumbed to the full time service of Satan. Fingers crossed.

The Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey Interview.

The headline read, “ Armstrong Will Ask Oprah For Absolution, Forgiveness”. In this Therapeutic Age in which we live, this is top of the fold news, must see TV. Two huge questions flashed across my mind when I read this. The first was, why now, Lance? The second was, wait…Oprah’s still on TV?

So, Lance Armstrong is going to come clean. After years of angry denials, he’s going to admit to cheating. The seven time Tour de France winner, and cancer surviving icon and hero to millions is going to admit to blood doping or using performance enhancing drugs or whatever it is that he’s been accused of by a host of competitors and teammates alike. Instead of calling a press conference and reading a statement of guilt, he will sit down for an hour and a half interview with Oprah Winfrey. He will cry. She will cry. The studio audience will cry.

This is how we do contrition in 2013 America. The rich and famous go on Oprah. She listens earnestly, those huge brown eyes wet and piercing. She asks about their childhoods. We discover long buried memories of abuse. We find out just how despicable their now safely dead parents really were. Why, it’s a wonder that they even survived their childhoods. Is it any wonder that they had a sex party with six women on the very day that their spouse was giving birth to their first child? Who among us can say that given the circumstances we wouldn’t have done the same thing?

Just once I would love for Oprah to snap out of her fawning celebrity-worship love fest and conduct a real interview. Lance Armstrong would be a great place to start. It might go something like this…

　

Oprah: You have consistently denied these accusations against you for years. In the process of those denials, you have attacked the ethics and motivations of every accuser, yet you come here asking ME for forgiveness. Shouldn’t you first go to all of the people whose reputations you have publicly attacked and ask THEM for forgiveness?

Lance: Oh, I plan to. It’s a process Oprah. Baby steps, baby steps.

Oprah: Why are you coming clean now, when just three months ago you held a defiant news conference in which you defended yourself vociferously against the governing body of your sport, accusing them of having a jealousy fueled vendetta against you?

Lance: Oprah, I’ve lost everything, I’ve got nothing left, nowhere else to turn.

Oprah: Everything? You’ve lost everything? You have a personal net worth of over one hundred million dollars.

Lance: Well, of course I still have the money I earned from winning all those races and the endorsements I scored from those wins and the great almost God-like reputation that being a seven time Tour winner brings. But money can’t buy happiness.

Oprah: True. So give it all back.

Lance: Wait… what?

Oprah: You heard me. Give it all back.

Lance: Well, that’s er, uh, logistically that would be, er…

Oprah: You make me sick Lance. You really do. You come here on my show, you cry me a river about how horrible you feel, about how everything you worked for your whole life has been shattered, how rotten your parents were, what a terrible wife Cheryl Crow was, but you know what I see? I see a wretched little man who built one of the most untouchable reputations in all of sports on cheating and then when he got caught his ego wouldn’t allow him to admit it. So instead, you spent years throwing everyone and everything under the bus to save your own sorry ass, and now you don’t have one single solitary friend left on this planet. So, you come to me. You hope that I’ll cry and you will cry, and all of America will feel sorry for poor little Lance and magically forget what a mean, manipulative jerk you are.

Lance: Well, yeah… isn’t that what you do?

Oprah: Not any more. Give the money back Lance. Give it all to charity and start over from scratch. Sell your six homes, sell all of your toys and go back to school. Maybe you can become a gym teacher somewhere, or become a personal trainer at American Family Fitness.

Lance: I should have listened to my agent. He said “Go on Barbara Walters”, but I insisted on you, Oprah. And this is the way you repay me??

Oprah: Lance Armstrong, everybody! We’ll be back after these messages from our sponsors!

Downton Abbey is BACK!

It’s finally here. The day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. The waiting has been unbearable, the anxiety and anticipation excruciating. That’s right. Downton Abbey is BACK!!

For months now we’ve worried about them, wondered what will happen next. Although when last we tuned in Matthew and Mary were spinning around in the snow, finally a couple, none of us believe it’s a done deal. Something surely will conspire against them in season three, we just know it. Then there’s poor Mr. Bates rotting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, er, uh, a crime he probably didn’t commit, while that angel, Anna, grieves gracefully.

We wonder if Robert, the Earl of Grantham’s brief flirtation with that maid will come back to haunt him. We don’t much care for Cora, his American wife. She’s just there. Same for Edith, the plain, spiteful sister. Sybil, the hott one, has married the Irish chauffer, Branson, moved to Dublin and gotten pregnant so we know that they will be back.

Meanwhile, downstairs, it’s all about Thomas and O’Brien, that dynamic duo of chicanery. What schemes will they dream up, and how will Carson ever manage to stop them from bringing dishonor ( gasp!!) on the good name of the Crawleys? Mrs. Patmore will be in a frenzy to feed them all, and Daisy will manage to muck up the works with one of her bouts of self-loathing and indecision.

But what this night is really all about, what all Downton Abbey fans have really been waiting for is the smack down between Violet, the Dowager Countess, and Cora’s American mother, played by Shirley Maclaine. Truth be told, without Violet, Downton Abbey would lose half of it’s appeal. When she waltzes into a scene, any scene, we all sit on the edge of our seat and wait for it. We wait for that tone of voice, that aristocratic turn of phrase, that classically educated rapier wit. Everyone has a favorite. There are so many to choose from. I love them all. When describing the poor financial condition of a potential suitor for Mary she tilts her head and says, “Fortune? He’s lucky not to be playing the violin in Lester Square. He is hardly the consummation devoutly to be wished!” In all the history of television, no one has ever quoted Shakespeare to greater effect.

So, tonight we begin season three. My house will be filled with the Fort family. We will watch the last two episodes from season two as preparation. Instead of crumpets and tea there will be pizza. We are, after all, Americans.

Can’t wait!!

Johnny Freaking Football

Last night I watched the most exciting, dynamic football player I have ever seen on the college level, and he’s a freshman. Johnny Manziel was unstoppable against the Oklahoma Sooners, just as he was against the Alabama Crimson Tide earlier in the year. Oh, and he won the Heisman Trophy last month.

Johnny Football is a paradox, a riddle wrapped in an enigma. I watch him standing in the backfield and he looks diminutive, a wiry unimposing mess with buckles and straps sticking out of his jersey as if he was dressed to be shipped UPS. But then I look down at his feet and find size 15 cleats. Weird. Then I watch him roll out to his right and suddenly dart through the slimmest of holes like he was fired out of a gun, a gun with a hair trigger. He looks like the fastest, quickest man on the field, and I remind myself that he is white. Weird. Just when I think he’s just a one dimensional running quarterback, I watch him throw a laser 40 yards to a barely open receiver from his back foot. He runs for 220, throws for 290 and goes the entire game seemingly without ever getting hit. There’s not a scratch on him, he’s hardly broken a sweat. Weird.

As intrigued as I am, as enthralled with his game as I am, Johnny Football worries me. I’m old school enough to prefer humility in my sports heroes. Guys like Hershel Walker and Walter Peyton, guys who simply flipped the ball to the ref and ran back to the huddle after some jaw-dropping feat with nothing more than an “awe, shucks” grin. Manziel is the quintessential modern athlete, full of bravado and showmanship, a guy who loves the limelight a little too much for my taste. Then there’s the arrest back in June for a fight outside of a bar for which he spent a night in jail and still faces charges. I see the swagger, the ego, read about the arrest and wonder whether he will simply be the latest in a long line of pampered, entitled primadonna athletes who end up spending more time on TMZ than on Sports Center.

But intrigued I am. What I saw last night was simply brilliant, as dominant a performance as I have ever witnessed by one so young on such a stage. He is twenty years old and has arrived at the pinnacle of fame. The spoils of big time college football lie at his feet. If I were his parents, I would start praying. Hard.