LEAVING MARKS ON THE EARTH

In August, the Portland area Lutheran church softball season culminates in a two day tournament at Meldrum Bar Park. Church softball can be distinguished from other forms of softball by the ritual group prayer that opposing team members participate in together before they try to beat the hell out of each other.

The typical prayer format:

General thanksgiving for nice weather
Vague promise to enjoy fellowship
Petition for injury free play

As with most prayer, the recognition of answers requires active and imaginative interpretation.

There’s really nothing like sliding in shorts (except maybe falling off a motorcycle) to set up the circumstances that will showcase the miracle of self-repairing skin.

Softball, with its rules and regulations, is rich with metaphors and analogies that can be applied to life in this universe.

In the following dialogue from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, commander Sisko explains our linear existence with a baseball metaphor.

JAKE ALIEN

"Baseball" - what is this?

SISKO

I was afraid you'd ask that...

A beat... How the hell do you explain baseball to an alien... he takes a deep breath, well, here goes...

SISKO

I throw the ball to you... and this other player stands between us with a bat, a stick... and he... he tries to hit the ball in between these two white lines...

Commander Sisko with antique baseball copyright Paramount Pictures

Jake alien blinks with confusion, Sisko pauses... regroups... getting another idea... his delivery growing with confidence as he continues...

SISKO

The rules aren't important... what's important is -- it's linear. Every time you throw this ball a hundred different things can happen in the game... he might swing and miss, he might hit it... the point is you never know... you try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can... but in the end it all comes down to throwing one pitch after another... and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape...

BATTER ALIEN

(grasping the meaning)

And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed...

SISKO

(beat)

That's right. In fact, the game wouldn't be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.

JAKE ALIEN

(flabbergasted)

You value your ignorance of what is to come?

SISKO

(acknowledges, driving home his point)

That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching... not just for answers to our questions... but for new questions.

Script from DS9 pilot episode Emissary

Sometimes I get caught up in trying to figure out the title (the shape) to my story. Even more, I’d like to have some reassurance that it’s going to be a good story. But I guess all you can really do is take time out every once in a while and look at the tracks you’ve made so far.

One day, we’ll be gone, and all that will be left is the evidence of how we played.

It’s good to be reminded sometimes that you just can’t be afraid to get dirty.

Dirt Angels

Shaman at work

Revelation @ Laurelhurst Park

Traffic on I-205

Coast
Stop
Coast – roll – roll
STOP FAST
Sit
Wait…

(crap!)

Bumper Cars at Oaks Park

Why don’t they make real cars more like bumper cars? The daily commute would become the highlight of the day and auto insurance companies would quickly go out of business.

I tell the Monkey-cam, “It’s a universal intuition. There must be something more to life than driving to and from work.”

Old tree at Laurelhurst Park

“That’s why on weekends, we go hiking to discover the tell-tale brushstrokes of some transcendent artist.” I added.

Trees at Laurelhurst Park

Monkey-cam agreed that there were many times when the world seems like a beautiful masterpiece.

Bench at East end of duck pond - Laurelhurst Park

“Still,” he pantomimed, “isn’t it enough that we’re alive and we can eat bananas and meet girls?”

“Well,” I replied, “the culture I was born into thinks it’s important how you do those things. For instance, we’re supposed to meet girls, not so much for fun, but (within the confines of holy matrimony) to reproduce and create more consumers to keep the economy growing.”

Monkey-cam looked incredulous.

“No, really,” I tried to explain, “a majority of Americans actually claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus (who turns out to have equal ranking with God) and they say they try to live their lives according to his will.”

“How do they talk to him?” Monkey-cam asked. “How do they know what his will is?”

“Well, most of them say they speak to him in prayer. But they also say that he speaks to them through his ‘word’, which turns out to be a collection of loose histories, poems, songs, stories, gospels and letters that Jewish people and, later, Christians collected over thousands of years.

“So he doesn’t really talk to them in any sense of the word ‘talk’?”

Scene from Lewis and Clark State Park

“Honestly, no.” I admitted. “It’s more convoluted than that. They have to interpret ‘the word’ and apply it to their lives. For instance, there’s a story that explains how rainbows are a promise from God that he won’t kill everybody again in another worldwide flood.”

T-Rex stalking old man in off-leash area of Laurelhurst Park

Monkey-cam was obviously uncomfortable. “That’s not much of a promise,” Monkey-cam signaled, “since someone/something as inventive and creative as God can undoubtedly find plenty of novel solutions to the task of worldwide genocide.”

“Would you like a piece of apple? Monkey-cam asked.

“Sure!” I said. “Let me stop at the store and I’ll get a sack full.”

Monkey-cam stretched out his hand with a wedge of apple in it. “No.” he gestured, “Just take this piece in my hand.”

We looked at each other for a moment, me with a somber look of sadness, Monkey-cam with the sudden realization that he was imaginary.

We sat in silence. It seemed like a long time.

“Look,” I said, trying to cheer Monkey-cam up, “you may not be as real as Real Jesus, but you’re every bit as real as Imaginary Jesus.”

I saw a little tear collect in the corner of Monkey-cam’s eye. He motioned that he wanted to go talk to his friend, Naked Picasso. “Naked Picasso understands me,” he signed.

Later, I saw Monkey-cam and Naked Picasso on a park bench at Laurelhurst Park, contemplating their situation.

I approached them quietly and was about to say hi, but they disappeared as if they had never been there.

Path through Laurelhurst Park

It left me alone to ponder my path. I wondered what I would do the next time I found myself in a dangerous photography situation without my longtime hiking companions. I had always felt certain, that when it came down to it, Monkey-cam would give his life for me.

Ember paths - traced from Jason and Julie's 'firepit'

Like sparks from a fire pit, we travel routes that, at least on the surface, seem like they ought to be easy to pre-determine within a natural framework, but because our understanding and capacity for observation are limited, the routes turn out to be unusual, unique and highly improbable. Evidently, given enough matter, rules, time and variables, properties emerge and dirt talks.

Overlooking Portland from the top of Mt. Tabor

We do the work of communication with a symbolic language that lends itself to metaphor. We speak from the ‘heart’ though we understand its primary function is as a pump.

From a bridge in Leavenworth Washington

Without any evidence, we postulate a soul – some essential essence of ourselves distinct from our physical bodies – that might bridge the chasm of physical death.

We write that words – ideas - are mightier than swords.

Bench at the top of the unleashed area - Laurelhurst Park

We populate the world with ghosts - from the depths of our inspired imaginations springs the Holy Spirit.

Imaginary Jesus and Monkey-cam at Laurelhurst duck pond

If only we could get the story right - maybe we could change the world.

THE ACROBAT

A Unible (about half as good as a parable - or worse)

by scott

The terrible accident put an end to the dangerous trapeze act.

(dramatic pause)

…some time later, another acrobat appeared at the circus employment office to fill the vacancy created by the accident.

At first, the resident acrobat could not be coaxed back onto the trapeze.

But acrobats are not well suited to sweep up peanut shells….

He could not stay away for long.

In the beginning their timing was off.

But It got better.

…and soon the accident was almost forgotten.

The trapeze act opened again.

The bleachers were filled to capacity...

...and then some.

It was soon time to try the death-defying 42 somersault sky-leap with the special over-torque effect.

“…Never before attempted!” said the circus master, “…successfully.” he added.

Suddenly the resident acrobat remembered the accident.

And when it came time to leap…he didn’t let go.

The two acrobats looked silly just hanging there.

The crowd said, “Boooo!”

…and the act came to an end…but only for a while.

Sometimes the grandchildren would demand, “Tell us about your circus days!”

The old white haired ex-resident acrobat would turn off the T.V. and set aside his sandwich and beer.

The Acrobat said, “It was my job to be there…to catch and hold on tight.”

“But what really made the show exciting… was learning to trust and…let go.”

“Why, I’ll never forget the day your grandma and I finally attempted the death defying 42 somersault sky leap with the special over-torque effect…”

“…successfully!” he added.