Hello from the still transforming space,
As of late I have ponder those things in life that give me some sense of pride, not in an arrogant manner, more perhaps more in a resilient way. As I have found myself on the other side of a daily requirement of working in some “you are required to be somewhere” daily process. Recently when speaking with an incredible person who has profound achievements from being a professor to an incredible innovator, from being a wonderful and insightful conversationalist to unparalleled beauty. She told me I need to slow my brain down. I sometimes wish it were easy, but I’m not sure how I might do that. Even when I try to merely watch some show, I find myself asking the larger philosophical or societal questions of why it is we create such dilemmas in our lives. From where does this propensity to think or ponder at some, perhaps, esoteric, even recondite echelon or degree come? Is it a reasonable, a productive place to spend so much of my time?
The two pictures above are of me. The first is my kindergarten graduation, what would be the first of more than a couple; the second is of me in perhaps 7th grade. I was indeed the slight, proverbial smallest member (or darn close) of his class, and perhaps even the year behind me. I was merely trying to make sense of junior high school when I seemed to be quite behind physiologically than those I met or lived among everyday. I was that kid that needed to be away from home and at school because it was safer than being in the same space as my mother. Therefore in spite of my often being teased somewhat mercilessly, it was preferable. Additionally, learning to navigate both aspects of my life, perhaps what could be referred to as public and private, I learned long before I ever stepped onto the yellow footprints of MCRD the Marine Corps’s adage “take cover, but never duck.”
While there were often times as I child I was afraid, I learned or developed a certain strength that would overcome fear. This was, and is, not to say I am never afraid, but much like any less than ideal experience, I’ve developed an ability to face most anything with sense of seeing it as a problem to be faced and solved. Again, this is not to say I’ve been completely successful, but instead, I never duck hoping to protect myself, but I am intelligent or savvy enough to realize there are times to take cover. That requires some quick thinking, at times some thoughtful analysis, about how whatever I do or decide is never performed in a vacuum. When it’s all washed, dried, and folded, it still requires me to do something. I am accountable for all choices and the consequences for those choices. The infamous hindsight seems to be a more constant companion from day to day. And yet if one thinks too much about the what if? should I have done something differently? would another path been more successful or prudent? the possibility of living in the moment and looking forward with a sense of hope would be likely impossible. Life would become a process of regret, and that is no way to live. Too often we seem to jump from one extreme to the other. Our ability to think about the present when glued to our past is difficult at best.
As I have noted, albeit a bit cryptically, there continue to be some health issues from what I learned a year ago to what seems to be occurring now. From my liver to my kidneys, from my Crohn’s and the subsequent diabetes, (Crohn’s has such far reaching consequence), my daily managing of health has become a central part of what I do and who I am, and yet before you think I am lamenting, that is not the case. As I have noted from time to time, a birth of 17 ounces way before a due date had consequence. And yet, I am still alive, and more often than not thriving. My newest way of describing it all is pretty simple: I did not have enough time to bake, and things are a bit tired. And yet, they are working quite well considering. Perhaps that is one of the things that taught me to be generally content. I do not believe I am owed anything, and through an improbable wandering, a sort of meandering with no consistent realization of where I was headed, I have been blessed beyond measure. The difficulties have taught be to know when to take cover . . . stepping back to figure out the immediate necessities to manage whatever I was (or am) facing. And yet this is nothing I have accomplished on my own. Throughout my life I have been fortunate to have people in my life to assist, to protect, and to love me. More often than not, I was not always aware (certainly to the degree) of how important they were. What the situation created in terms of teaching me resilience, hope, and gratitude.
During the past weeks, gratitude has become something I have chosen to focus upon more intentionally. I believe there are two things that have occurred as I have transitioned to this more focused process of being thankful. First, it has reminded me more succinctly of those people from the earliest days of my life to now who have been gracious to me. From a young mother who chose to allow me life (and I realize abortion was not legal then, but . . . she was 15) to my grandparents, who chose to take my sister and me into their home. From when a grandfather passed and a grandmother struggled, who chose to give us up for adoption. And while I have noted some of those hard times as an adopted child, their choice to take us provided opportunity I would have never had. More times than I readily knew, I believe there was a significant aspect of Divine intervention. And yet too often we believe that God’s intervention is some readily perceivable event. I have often noted that most of the angels I have been face-to-face with do have white raiment and visible wings. I remember when I was serving my internship in Big Lake MN. Some of those angels are still in my life and their surname is Snesrud. When I was traveling on a Lutheran Youth Encounter team, their names were Lee and Judy, or when I was in seminary, they had names like Karsten, a classmate, Susan, who I met in a gas station where I had a part-time job. There were people in Houghton with names like Berkenkotter and Sotirin, Schwenk, or Cortright. And there are so many others. It was with their assistance that I was able to take cover rather than merely duck in fear.
When I enlisted in the Marine Corps, I had little idea what I was doing as a pint-sized 17 year old. Even more so, I had little idea what I had learned during that enlistment, but I experienced and saw things that changed my life. That was easily noted, but it is even now that I am realizing what it really did. I have a sense of honor and duty to the other in ways I would have never known. I have a discipline, but also a sensitivity to injustice that runs deep. I have a sense of principle that had been given to me before I stepped on those yellow footprints at MCRD, but I understand that commitment to principle because it was forged like tempered steel in the time I was in the Corp. What I realize yet today is my sense of honor, my sense of goodness, my commitment to the other or democracy, my love for my fellow human beings and the breadth of our world was examined and hardened in a way I could have never accomplished without the Marines. When I see a dress blue uniform or even the Class A uniform to this day, there is a sense of pride and hope that runs throughout my body, it is in my blood, and I will be forever grateful. That time taught me so much, and it was where I perhaps first learned to take accountability, to think and analyze. Those skills were instilled and developed some time later at Dana College, but like all life, it is still in process. Even now, and as I am still learning, growing, and managing my awareness, I am still keenly cognizant of that adage, Marines take cover, we do not duck. Knowing the difference has served me well. Seldom can I listen to this version of the popular song from the movie, The Prince of Egypt. Both Whitney Houston and Maria Carey exhibit two people who epitomize vocals that are unparalleled. This can bring me to tears when I think about how frail such talent was and is. My life is described by this song.
Thank you as always for reading, and I apologize I have been a bit under the radar as of late.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 