Sing the Swingset: Storytime

Showing posts with label Storytime. Show all posts

The D'Ambrosio's, for the most part, have never been an intensely science mathy left brainy organizy family. After the first three kids graduated with degrees in literature, philosophy, and then literature, it has been left up to Cristina and Nick to do something piratical with their lives. Everyone thinks Nick will do great things.
(he actually got an A in algebra).

He's going to go far in life.

It seems that out of all the siblings, I am the absolute worst at the practicals. I'd like to tell you a story to illustrate my own inability, and by doing so, entertain you greatly.

My sophomore year at Ave, I promised my mother I would get A in biology. She laughed. It was not exactly a vote of confidence. Who could blame her though? Class was Monday Wednesday Friday at 8:15 in the morning. I still don't get up that early. Let alone for lecture hall powerpoints on the inner workings of ATP. But I was not dismayed. Professor Davis wasn't exactly consistent with his role calls. On the first day of class, he told us that his tests would be similar to the tests on the study disk that came with our $200 biology text book. I decided studying that test instead of going to class would be a far more efficacious method of inquiry. After taking the first test and scoring far higher than any of my class going classmates, I stopped going to class entirely. I was made. This was going to be such a great semester. But alas, there was one biology period I couldn't get away with missing, or faking. Lab.

Yes, lab was my greatest fear, my greatest nemesis, the one class that I couldn't talk, study, or charm my way around. Applied science. The place where exact measurements, test tubes, bunson burners, dead organs, putrid orders, and chemical fires abound. Here, there was no hiding my absolute inability. After failing to measure 54 ounces with my pipette on the first day of lab, I was forsaken by my classmates. I was abandoned, cast aside, tossed to the wolves-the wolves being my good friend and fellow lab failure, Daniel Schnaider.

Now, all the labs called for groups of three. The way it broke down, for each lab project, there would be 5 groups of three and one group of two. Guess who was the group of two every time? The two people who seemed to be constantly breaking flasks, setting desks on fire, and in general causing great terror in the classroom.I still have many battle scars from that time, and every time I see a test tube I grab the nearest inoculating loop and go on a postal rampage, but outside of the PTSD induced nightmares, my psychiatrist tells me I'm recovering well.

One war story, however, stands out among the rest. One fateful Thursday, Schneider and I looked at each other awkwardly as all the other lab members found their groups. General Davis stood before the group to give us today's battle briefing. Today, we would be cutting up spinach leaves with a hole puncher, putting them in a flask with 4 ounces of water, sucking the air from them (so they would sink to the bottom), and recording how long it took for the leaves to re-oxigenate (or whatever) and rise back to the surface. It's among the greatest mysteries of the universe. We were privileged to get to solve such an enigma. “Before you begin, my students,” he said, “when you go to the vacuum to suck the air out of the flasks, make sure you are wearing your eye protection. I've never see it happen in all my 20 years of teaching, but flasks have been recorded to shatter when the vacuum is activated.”

Stop me if you know where this is going!

So Daniel and I rush to the fight, punching holes in our five spinach leaves like there is no tomorrow. We aren't the first to get all 50 spinach circles, but we aren't the last. Upon our completion, Shnaider gleefully rushed to the vacuum, but alas, like so many young lads, he rushed headlong to his demise. Not fast enough, in slow motion, I reached out for his shoulder, yelling “Shnaider, you forgot your eye protection!” (I've always been a bit too concerned with safety, it's a bit of a character flaw).

I was too late.

He connected the flask to the vacuum and flipped that fateful switch. He was only 20 years old.

He was JUST A BOY!

The flask exploded.

When I say exploded, I mean exploded. The class was shocked. It was all confusion for what seamed like an eternity. A girl screamed, men ducked under desks, and I fell over onto the floor laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants.

The general was less than enthused. “What the hell did you do Schneider?” Schneider still stood there in shock, holding the tip of the flask, his white lab coat covered in little spinach circles. “And you, D'Ambrosio, wipe that silly grin off your face. You have 50 more spinach circles to cut.” I stopped laughing immediately. “DAMNIT SCHNEIDER!” I yelled. “It took us an HOUR to cut that many!”

He was unapologetic. Said something about how he almost died or some crap. I wasn't moved. We spent the next hour trying to cut new holes out of our already torn up leaves. By the time we finished, most of the other groups had already finished the experiment and gone off to run amok. Schnaider was just about to get up to take the flask over to the vaccum, when I heroically volunteered to take his place and risk my well being at ground zero. “I better take this one, Schnaider,” I said, “I don't want to be here cutting holes out of spinach for the rest of the day.” I grabbed the flask and swaggered over to the vacuum. I attached its rubber mouth to the vaccum, and just as I was about to flip the switch, I thought the following thought: “Dr. Davis hasn't seen this ever happen in all 20 years of his teaching? What are the chances it would happen twice in one day?”

Yeah. Who wants to guess what happened next?

It was Schneider's turn to laugh. I wasn't wearing eye protection ether. The general was PISSED. This was the 8^th flask we'd broken up to this point. He told us that we were single highhandedly funding Flasks Inc, and that he would stand for no more tom foolery. If only he knew the truth- that Schneider and I simply were the worst two students that he had ever had in 20 years of teaching. There was no mischeif happening here, no malicious intent. We just were really, really bad at biology. And now, our five spinach leaves were history.

Ahhhh that was a knee slapper. History! I crack myself up.

We had no more leaves, and by this time, the other groups were well on their way to curing cancer. They had thrown their spinach leaves away eons ago. But I was not to be kept down! Oh no! Not this man. I once saw a motivational poster that said “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” and I was going! I refused to surrender this lab to a few green smears that once were spinach! Cue inner dialogue. “It probably doesn't matter what kind of leaves we cut up,” I thought to myself, “This is a photosynthesis lab, after all.”I nodded to myself in agreement, and then casually walked over to the windowsill, upon which stood several different species of flower. I had never seen any of them before. I stole a few leaves from one plant (which seemed overy leafy), and brought them over to Schnaider. He was ever the observant bastard, and upon seeing them, he spouted “Dr. Davis, aren't these leaves from your plant over there?!” There has never been another moment in my life where I have wanted to kill a man so much.

This was a close second, though.

Dr Davis lost his cool. He yelled at me, told me that we were the worst students he'd ever had- which apparently is no exaggeration- and filled me in on the details. Apparently the plant I had stolen the leaves from was an endangered species that grows only on the Island of Simoa. Taking leaves from it at its infant stage could be deadly. This was the only specimen of its kind in America, and I had just delivered its death sentence. He dismissed us early that day. We never did get to solve that great mystery, about which we all wonder desperately.

Mommy, how long does it take for photosynthesis to oxygenate a leaf of spinach?

Let's be real. It's every child's first question, isn't it?

It's funny how when you're sick, all you need is sleep, but your body just wont give you any because it decides that (now that you are in the zenith of your mental abilities) your highest priority is resolving the mysteries of the universe. Really, I've been up for two hours now just letting my fever pilot my mind like an aviator with a blood alcohol content of 5. Thoughts, memories, weird dream-like imaginings are flying by like clouds, and really have no idea which direction is up. My little plane keeps flying through one cloud (metaphor key: cloud=thought... ) over and over. It's the memory of David Corbett's solemn voice asking us all “What is your most profound moment of guilt? What is your most profound moment of shame? What your most profound moment of terror?” These words crash over my mind like waves on a beach; they boom like a gong from some ancient Chinese ritual. “What is your most profound moment of anger? What is your most profound moment of confusion?” That talk has been hatching like an egg, my brains membrane birthing through my skull.

BLAHHHH!

So melodramatic I know, give me a break. I'm running a 100 fever, for godsakes. In any case, here it is: My hatched egg, a letter to all you beautiful authors.

In an interview with Elizabeth Carlton, Corbett told the journalist: “In the black recesses of your mind, there is plenty that’s wild and grand and terrifying. I’m always amazed at how students respond when I make them dig up moments of profound guilt, or shame, or terror. The writerly writing fades away, and the truth comes out.” That, my friends, is the whole shabang, the goose that lays the golden egg, its the entire purpose of literature. To let the truth come out.

HARRRGGG!!! This one *huff* better be *huff* made of pure gdamned Gold!

When I went to school and chose a major, at one time, I selected philosophy. I did that because I saw myself as a truth seeker, and I was under the false impression that philosophy is the place where the big questions are asked. What I discovered beneath the looming philosophy blackboard covered in powdery white chalk was an entire science that is completely devoid of human experience. Using phrases like “epistemology” and “logical positivism,” the students would argue about the big questions like “what is the purpose of life?” “is there meaning?” and “are we just brains in a vat?”

When the conversation ended, both sides carried on with their lives without another thought. Does morality exist? one man would ask, “or is it simply a biological, socio economic construct?” He would posit that no, morality does not exist. He would then promptly rush out the door to attend a LGBT meeting because discrimination is wrong. Similarly, a student would make the grandest argument for the existence of a creator, and destroy his opponent in the most condescending and humiliating way possible. It was what philosophers call “Leisure.”

I spend my leisure time reading ontological proofs of Gods existence!

Instead of asking “is morality God given or a biological construct?” the author asks something far more profound and far more moving. The author asks: “what does it look like in a person's life when he or she violates the moral code? How does that person cope? How do they change?” When this question is asked in the depths of an engaging plot, inside a dynamic character's life, the most peculiar thing happens: the reader changes too. We've all turned the final page of that old torn up paperback, held the book carefully, pinning the binding together so that those precious pages remain locked as stones in the book's mosaic. We've all lifted that book till made contact with our cheeks, inhaled that wondrous, old library smell, put it down on our bed, and said: I will never see love through the same eyes ever again.

Cause now I'm on team JACOB!

Story has the power to change us. Story reveals the truth in a way that no theologian, scientist, or philosopher could ever reveal it.

My friends, it's an undeniable fact that your audience is growing duller every day. No longer can you capture an audience with a powerful first page. Instead, you've got to capture your readers with a two sentence pitch and a helluva book cover. I worked in the writing center in college, and its a fact. The general public is barely literate. Western culture has declined and as has our attention span.

Squirrel!?!

This is where the story gets very, very sad. literature is not just some vehicle for entertainment- it is not “the layman's philosophy,” as my ethics professor said and it is not at all like a roller coaster. If you have ever been to an amusement park; if you've ever fearfully accepted the challenge of a mile long steel track that dips you, twirls you about, causes your heart to pound adrenaline through you like a pump, if you've ever partaken in such a life altering experience, you might have noticed an unfortunate truth. The cars hum right back into the same covered tent from whence they came. It goes nowhere.
It's good to recognize that people want a ride that takes their breath away. But why on earth don't we recognize that a roller coaster does not necessarily need to end up in the same place? Who wouldn't ride a roller coaster to work if they had the opportunity? I would be much more excited to go to work in the morning.

Who are we kidding? I would wingsuit base jump to work if that was an option.

Excitement does not need to exclude meaning. Actually, I would posit that the two are mutually exclusive to a good story.

David Corbett's central point in his speech that evening was that the human being is redefined in moments of deep and profound confusion. When a man is confronted with deep humiliation or guilt, his insipid “I'm a normal put together person” facade crashes to the ground. Behind this facade is a white sheet in splattered red letters that reads “I'm fucked up.” That man now, must face the fact that he is deeply broken. This is when those big questions that the philosophers ask matter. Not only that, but also in these moments, a written character ought to ask those questions because that's what human beings do. Thus, killing off a character's parent's is not a plot device. We don't go there because it “makes the character face something of a conundrum,” or because “we need more drama.” We do it because deep down, human beings are all seekers of truth. We love to see the facade fall down and grapple with meaning or the lack there of.

Alright my friends, here we go. It's example time.

The Game of Thrones. The books were amazing and gripping, yes, but the TV show nailed it last Sunday. If you follow the show, all I need to say is this: Petyr Baelish.

This guy is my new favorite villain. For those of you who don't know his back story here it is: After his parents die they leave him with a noble title, but without any wealth or land, thus leaving him at the absolute bottom of the nobility hierarchy. Despite this fact, he falls in love with a noble woman. She is betrothed to another, and though he is a small man, he challenges her fiance to a duel. The stronger man soundly defeats him, but instead of killing him, he leaves him with a scar to remember his place. Most profound moment of shame—CHECK. We're still on a roller coaster, my friends, so far this is pretty dramatic stuff. Petyr, after this unhinging incident, broken down, shamed, wearing the mark of a “beta male,” makes an off page decision: “The only meaning in life is to “climb the ladder.”

See how that worked?
If you missed it, here's the formula:

Terrible event of profound shame and hurt – decision concerning life's meaning—character drama.
So how does this make for the most superb, terrifying, unhinging character drama that people watch the show for? This conversation right here:

Lord Varys:

“I did what I did for the good of the realm.”
Petyr Baelish:
“The realm? Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Agon's enemies; a story we agree to tell each other, over and over and over till we forget that it's a lie.”
Lord Varys:
“And what do we have left when we abandon the lie? Chaos. A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.”
cue scary music.
Petyr Baelish:
“Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder.”

slow pan over his prostitute who informed on him, she is tied to a bed and shot full of arrows.

“Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. Some have a chance to climb, but they refuse, they cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. ILLUSIONS. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”

BOOM. That my beautiful authors is a terrifying villain. He's terrifying not because he kills prostitutes, but because he makes us ask the question “is he right?” He makes us ask an unhinging, life changing question: “Is that really all there is? Am I just clinging to illusions?” The roller coaster that is the Game of Thrones just took all its viewers to a new place.

Thus, my friends, Entertainment and depth cannot be believably separated. I as a reader, am unbelievably tired of reading novels that don't take me anywhere. I know, however, many of you are thinking, “well if that's what you love, then go read literary stuff. Go read the classics, I'm writing a mid grade fantasy for the masses.” Pause for me while I go wrench my guts out... literally and metaphorically at the same time. So here's the deal. To accept that some people just don't enjoy depth is like saying some dogs don't like to lick themselves. Are we human beings or are we beasts? If you want to sell a shit ton of books, let your readers get off the ride in a different place than where they got on. Yes, in order to do this, you might have to get a little crazy. As David Corbet says: “You may need to tell yourself: Okay, I’m going to risk being wild and insane and black and grand. I’m going to write from where my fear is. Make sure your own heart is beating fast. Make sure you really, truly care.” Write us something powerful. Please.

Dfw writers conference this weekend was awesome. Here are the bullet points:

Wear bowties more often. Nuff said.

Nothing says "read my book" like a frikkin studdly bowtie

From a class on detail, I just strait up do too much of that. I need to stop trying to amaze everyone with my epic turn of phrase and poetics and actually say tell you guys whats happening. No one cares how deep a crimson the sunset is or how it blends with the fiery hue's of a forest in autumn unless some dude just took a sword to his gut.

And/or is consumed by a gigantic spongebob inflatable
I naively attended the session labled how to write a good love scene. What it actually should have been called was: “how to write a steamy sex scene.” Needless to say, it was quite... ehem... informational. In fact, so much so that I'm going to need sub bullet points for this guy.

- When writing a sex scene, one writes until the change in the character occurs. The classic “fade to a random sunset after they kiss” bit only works if the drama of the occasion has already taken place. So. A really good example of this is Daenerys and Khal Drogo's wedding night in the game of thrones. You really get to see the tender side of Khal Drogo when he touches her. In that scene, things start to change for Daenerys, the scared girl starts to accept her crown here. You could never have seen the drama if it had faded to horses on the Dothraki plains right after the wedding.

"No... no, Dave! Not that o..... shit."

- There were two whole power point pages on how to get over “My mother is going to read this” syndrome. The central counter to this particular issue seemed to be the following argument: Your mother has had sex. Probably with your dad. The end.

- Loves scenes must have lots and lots of tension or else they aren't compelling. There must be at least one serious obstacle—you're a vampire and could possibly eat me if we get it on—or else it sucks. Apparently its the same as in real life. Who knew?
The unexamined life is worthless to a writer. David Corbett, the keynote speaker, spoke at the evening cocktail party on the importance of self examination. The writer's entire purpose is the peal back the veil on the human condition. We write to reveal the truth. “What does it mean to be human?” every writer eats, sleeps, and breaths this question. The key, he said, to real, solid characters is to know that the cheerleaders greatest moment of shame was when she threw up all over her shoes. That her greatest moment of guilt was when she almost had the abortion. That the time she was the most free and alive was when she saw her little sister win the dance contest. The moments where one is most helpless or unable to understand are the moments that define us as people. The journey to good authorship, then, is to first accept and understand your own. This insight was so profound. As a youth minister, I'm constantly trying to get kids to open up and “share their shit.” I do this, because when you go there, when you return to those times of deep hurt or extreme joy, two things happen. Firstly, the question “what does it mean to be human?” cannot help but be asked. Secondly, two people who would have otherwise been completely indifferent towards one another, suddenly share a deep bond as a result. The discovery “you are human too,” comes like an echo.
I wrote a whole post about this here if you're interested.
I really want to finish Guardians. The story just demands to be written. It's coming my friends. It's coming.

Squamping! The Full Adventures.

Beloved friends, family, and distant acquaintances who I met one time, as many of you know, the past month has been right treacherous for yours truly. It was also a bit silly. That entirely depends on your point of view. My squamping story starts with the unfortunate beginning of waking up in the same place I used to wake up in high school: In my parents’ house.

It just so happens that this is somewhat normal for college graduates these days, especially if you've studied one of the top ten least marketable majors, like English. Now, nothing against my family, but living at home after not living at home for any significant period of time can be….. trying. From having to wake up early in the morning for no other reason than “9 am is plenty late” to the endless pile of dishes in the sink, it was becoming more clear by the minute, “It’s time to get the hell out of dodge. So I did the only logical thing that any one in their right mind would do. I commandeered a tent and sleeping bag and pitched that shit in the middle of the scariest, most apocalyptic looking abandoned farm I could find.

Yes. Those are shotgun shells.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Marcellino! That’s absolutely the least logical thing you could do! Only a person who is absolutely not in their right mind would do that!” If that is what you are thinking, please refer to my last post were I clearly outline how I am crazy.

Anyway, as is the case with all crazy people, their methods, though unorthodox, perhaps, usually have some reasoning to it, and for me, I believe that I am following the long standing tradition of American men who do crazy things just to prove they can. From the guy who drives his mattress across town with nothing but his hand out the window to steady it, to the dude who said: “oh look a shark, I’m going to put on a santa suit and bmx bike over that crap,” I am in good company.

But really, in every culture that has ever existed, with the exception of our progressive, egalitarianized western culture, there has been a coming of manhood ritual. I will hold back from jumping on top of my “oh the feminized culture” soap box, if you would like some more on man’s need for such “primitive” shenanigans, as bunji jumping off a makeshift scaffold except with vines instead of bunji cords, head on over to the boys at the art of manliness, they’ll do you right. I’m just trying to let you know that I’m following in the tradition of very respectable, holy people have done similarly crazy things. People like Jesus.

Now make haste, go into the village before us. Upon entering you will find a miniature tyrannosaurus rex upon which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, say unto them "the Master has need of it."

For those of you who don’t know, Jesus spent 40 days alone fasting in thewilderness before beginning his public ministry. Throughout it, he was constantly going up on mountains alone to connect with the Father. Before him, John the Baptist lived in the Judean wilderness surviving off of stolen bee honey. After Christianity was legalized in the 4^th century and the persecutions stopped, it just wasn’t quite as bad ass to be Christian anymore, so a bunch of dudes called the Desert Fathers just went out and lived in hermitages in northern Egypt. That’s a desert by the way. St Benedict, before founding the first monastic rule, lived in a cave. St Francis, the revivalist of all revivalists lived in the wilderness for… pretty much his whole life, and St. Ignatius, the evangelist of all evangelists lived in a cave alone for several years before founding the Jesuit order. If none of those do it for you, here’s Theodore Roosevelt riding on the back of a moose.

By now if you haven’t figured it out, the word squamping, is the combination of the words squatting¸ and camping. That is what I was doing. I highly encourage it. Pretty much every day during the month of October, I would go to work, make tasty food, eat it, and then go home in the evening to a campfire, howling wind, 40^o nights, and a cozy, cozy sleeping bag. I smelled perpetually of campfire for the entire month. It was awesome.

So here, chronicled, are some of my experiences for your enjoyment..
The light was already dim as I drove my motorcycle off the country road and onto the squampsite. The October sun had just dipped below the western tree line, and the cabin now stood an ominous dark structure, almost hidden under the canopy of two huge half dead cypress trees. I road down the overgrown path towards what would be my home for the next month. As I past the derelict barn and the heap of old rusted farm machinery, a realization crept in like the cold seeps through your coat in winter. This was going to be a frightful evening. The landscape, which had been unsettling during the day, was now downright terrifying in the twilight. The nape of my neck prickled and my heartbeat picked up as I neared the rotting wooden fence that surrounded the cabin. My tent was pitched just behind it, under the canopy’s dark outline. I had originally planned on clearing the broken glass from the cabin and staying inside it. This was about the time that I thanked God that I had brought a tent instead. There was no way I was going to set foot inside that thing now that it was close to dark. To the right and to the left of my tent were two lines of trees about twenty yards apart. They pointed all the way back into a thick, rugged thicket. Though there were farms on either side of this property, I was hidden from the world. The feeling of isolation sunk into me as I hid my bike next to the overgrown telephone pole a few yards away. It would do if I had to make a quick getaway. I cut the engine, removed my helmet, and listened.
The wind exhaled a long breath through the tree branches, brushing leaves together and snapping dead twigs, finally forcing their eviction. Crickets chirped and jumped from one square of matted hay to the next. You don't hear them jump, so it really just sounds like the largest raindrops you've ever heard occasionally falling from the sky. They did not fall at a high enough frequency that makes you forget their presence, but instead occur irregularly and rarely enough that each jump is profoundly surprising. In my heightened state of awareness, every one sounded like a footstep.
If you have never spent the night outside or in an unfamiliar place alone, you've got to try it sometime. Your senses jump to super human levels of sensitivity, especially your hearing. As my Uncle Stephan—a tried mountaineer and outdoors man—would say, “when you spend the night outside alone you can hear a mouse fart a mile away.”
That's really how it was. I could hear everything for miles around. A dog would bark all the way past Preston Rd and I would jump as if a ravenous pack of coyotes were at my feet. This never turned out to be the case, but my squampsite was not without its dangers.
Every night after work, I'd ride in on my bike underneath a starry sky, hide the bike by the telephone pole, cover it in a tarp, and start to gather wood for a fire. I'd pack hay and twigs underneath broken fence posts and branches, strike a match, and it would go up in seconds. I'd sit back, smoke a cheep cigar and just feed the fire for hours. Every 45 minutes or so, I'd hear something moving right across the fence. I could tell from the sounds it made that it was small, about the size of a small dog. But it was only fifteen feet away, and it was annoying (scarring) the hell out of me. It was especially terrifying when I zipped myself into my tent and I could hear the thing padding around my fire. I would just be about to doze off when it would scamper from the tent to my fire pit and back. It would scare me just enough to make my nights miserable. I slept in that tent for 10 nights before I found out what that thing was. I was digesting a delightfully dense portion of St. Therese’s Story of a Soul, when the aggravating beast began its usual nightly ritual of making lots of noise and hiding when I tried to see what it was. I walked over to the fence, about three feet away from the noise. It stopped. I returned to my place by the fire, my curiosity unsatisfied. I picked up my book again and dove back into Therese of Lisseux. Just as I was about to grasp the meaning of life, once again the noises start back up. I tried to ignore it and read, but my eyes would just scan over the words without making any sense of them as my mind began to imagine what it could be. A fox? A possum? A poisonous snake? A HUGE RAT!? I knew now, I must kill or be killed. There was only enough room in this squampsite for ONE! I picked up my shovel, determined to slay this huge rat—that must have been what it was—and strode toward the noise courageously. The noise stopped. I couldn't see anything in the darkness, just the fire casting long shadows on the cabin. I slammed the shovel down on the ground and grunted loudly. If I could not slay it, I would give it a taste of its own medicine! Maybe I could scare it away. I layed about me and banged on the fence, on the tree branches, on the old over turned rusty office chair beside it. I made a lot of noise, and when I was quite done, I returned to my chair, still holding my shovel. Seconds later I heard it move again. This thing was making a fool of me. This time, I just stayed absolutely still. The noise came closer, it moved along the fence till it was only about five feet away. I sat still. It came closer, right under the fence, and I could just see its dark outline begin to take shape. It stepped into the light.

It was a skunk.

My friends, this is how I know that there is a God. It is an absolute miracle that the thing didn't ink me in the FACE when I was banging around with a shovel.

That indecent, however, happened after I had already pushed through most of my fear. The first three nights that I spent at the squampsite were downright terrifying. The third night I came back late from hanging out with friends (who were, by the way, very curious as to why I smelled like campfire), and instead of making a fire and calming myself down, I attempted to go strait to my sleeping bag. This was not smart. It was the windiest night we'd had all fall, with the wind howling through the trees. The tent's lose material flapped so loudly that it sounded like a thunderclap on repeat. I tried to let the haunting melodies of Bon Iver lull me to sleep, but alas, it was not to be. I simply could not calm myself. What must have been an hour passed, and another hour passed, and still I could not shut out the noise and the fear that came with it. Finally, I was just beginning to lose consciousness when atom bomb exploded right outside my tent. My mind raced to keep up with my heart as adrenaline hit my bloodstream like fire. I immediately knew what had happened, but it didn't matter, the damage was done. I would not sleep tonight. My shovel had been standing upright, and the wind had blown it over. It was the loudest noise I'd ever heard.

I made a fire and spent the rest of the night calming my nerves. When little traces of light began to creep up on the outline of the eastern treeline, I finally pulled myself together and went to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of sirens and men yelling.

I must be caught! THE COPS ARE AFTER ME! Or maybe the caught someone doing drugs at the cabin by the road. NO I'M DONE FOR!
These thoughts and more flooded my mind. I didn't even stop to close my tent. I ran to my bike. The sounds got closer and in my morning haze I just couldn't piece it together. WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON?! The siren was on the property, across the other side of the treeline, but it was moving at a deliberate pace, not as fast as a car. Huh.

And was just about to drive out of the gate and make a run for it when I saw what was causing the commotion.

It was a bicycle race. It went all along the road and right across the treeline. The cops were there to make sure no cars hit the bikes. I realized that my bikes two stroke engine was going to do absolutely nothing good for me in this situation. I shut it off, pulled it up next to some trees and waited for the race to end. I waited and waited as a continuous stream of men and women passed right by. I ended up three hours late to work. What do you tell your boss in a situation like that?

For the most part, however, my time at the squampsite was one of exterior incident, but of inner conquest. Joseph Campbel wrote on the mythical hero's three part journey. The hero could not be a hero without a time of separation. He writes: "The hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. . ." (30). Though I didn't have an oriental prison, or cult like secret society on the top of a mountain, or the Judean wilderness, or swampy moon, the squampsite, for me, was such a region of supernatural wonder, separated from the normal world. Like Batman, the Apostle Paul, and Luke Skywalker, my time in the wilderness was defining for me. I left that squampsite a different person than I had arrived. The experience has settled deep in my soul, pinning me up, proving to my doubting self that I am, in fact a man. Such experiences, once common to a culture, are no longer understood or valued by our safe and comfortable suburban society. But something tells me that this safety is really a facade, and that as this time of crisis continues to deepen and take form, men are going to need their own proving ground. Hero's now, are once again needed. Maybe not to slay dragons, perhaps, but to lead families, to father movements, to be bastions of strength and integrity in a world that is increasingly dark and cynical. These are no less daunting, no less heroic. For Campbel, the hero's time of separation leads to initiation. He writes that “fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won" (30). Think of Luke Skywalker's encounter with Darth Vader in the cave. Finally, the hero's time in separation ends with return. Campbel writes: "the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power
to bestow boons [gifts] on his fellow man" (30). The hero comes back "from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection)" (246). This is the hero's legacy. I don't believe that I'm done with wilderness, but I think every man needs this turning to take place occasionally in his life. It's the heart of story, and unless we want a boring, un-consequential, comfortable life, we will find the wilderness and seek it out.

I'd love to hear about y'alls wilderness experiences, so hit me up with them. I'm sure some of you have had wonderful, terrifying separation's and some equally as powerful returns.

–Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949

I am crazy. I mean that something is not right in my head, or maybe it is. That's sort of the problem. Anyway, I was about five years old when this became abundantly obvious to my parents. That's all the time it took, really. At the time we lived in a neighborhood in downtown Baltimore, just across the street from a community pool—which much to my chagrin required parental supervision to enter—and right across a fence from a low income housing apartment complex. One of the most wonderful discoveries of my youth took place in a small patch of wooded area by that fence. Anthony and I used to play make believe there all the time, running around hitting bushes with stick swords and shooting bad guys with cap guns. It was wonderful. One time we discovered some shiny metal bullet casings lodged in the tree trunk closer to the road. We immediately began to argue weather the gunmen had been GI Joes or someone fighting evil dinosaurs that got free from the zoo.

like this guy!

I don't remember if we ever completely resolved that conflict, but I do believe we came to a consensus that cowboys and Indians (I hadn't learned the term native american yet) may have played some role. What was absolutely certain to both of us, was that if the bad guys had been shooting at the good guys, the good guys hadn't been hit. If the good guys were shooting at the bad guys, then if they missed this time, somewhere down the road there must be dead bodies. After searching the massive forest that was the quarter acre of our back yard, we never found any dead bad guys. We did, however, dig out the shell casings. We brought them home and set them on the kitchen table like a trophy. As you might imagine, my mother was less than enthused. What strikes me about this incident though, is that already at the age of five, I the lens through which I viewed the world was clear, and it was simple. There was good, and there was bad. Good was anything that was heroic, strong, pretty, beautiful, and honest. Bad probably smelled greasy and eeewy, had facial hair, tried to kidnap pretty girls and hold them in tall castles or tie them up on train tracks.

^Bad Guy

My parents and I were clearly on the good guys side, and we were fighting against the bad guys. I have no idea where these ideas came from. But I believed in them very very strongly. To illustrate exactly how strongly they held sway over my five year old existence, I need to tell you about the ice cream man. There were a lot of kids around my neighborhood at that time. I knew this not because I had any immediate contact with them, but because every summer, this curious phenomenon would occur. First you would hear a distant baring, a few notes would prick your ears, and your heart would beat a little bit faster. You didn't know exactly where it was coming from, but you knew the icecream man was closebye. It was absolutely necessary that you find him. You would be left out if you didn't. He would drive somewhere else and all the other children that found him and chased him would get to taste the explosion of sweetness and goodness that was icecream-the idol of every child's heart.

Tell me that girl isn't experiencing that exact thing right now

So every time the loud blaring carnival music started and the big white truck drove down the street, flocks of exuberant children poured out of apartments and down the streets after this man who held in his mobile freezer the promise of luscious creamy-sweet joy. I don't remember if my parents ever gave me the money I needed to take part in this liturgy of wild chase. I do know, however, that at some point, one of parents, probably my dad, told me that the ice-cream man was bad. Since my father was, it seemed to me,the bastion of all goodness and heroism in the world, if he said the icecream man was bad, than he knew what he was talking about. In hind sight, what he probably said was something along the lines of “you can't eat icecream all the time, it's bad for you.” What I heard was “the icecream man is a peddler of an evil product that corrupts all the good children and kills them.” So quite logically, the next time the ice cream man drove by I threw a rock at him.
It was the first thing I ever confessed.
Seriously. It is the clearest memory of my childhood. It must have been fall because I was raking leaves in the back yard and no kids were chasing him anymore. Come to think of it, he probably wasn't having a very good day already. I saw his car come lethargically down Nottingham road (I remember that because “Nottingham” was where Robin Hood lived), and I began to get angry. My little five year old heart filled up with rage at the injustice of.... well.... some injustice must have been somewhere BECAUSE THE ICECREAM MAN IS BAD!! I knew something must be done, but it was so scary! This must be what Robin Hood must have felt like when he was going to fight the evil Sheriff of Nottingham! I labored over what I should do, and when the moment had all but passed, just before the ice cream truck turned the corner, I picked up a small rock and hurled it with all my might at this bad, bad man.
I had never actually seen a bad guy before, mind you, so when the truck screeched to a halt, and a real guy stepped out of the door, I just about pooped my pants. I was so scared I couldn't move. BUT I HAD TO STAND MY GROUND BECAUSE GOOD GUYS DON'T RUN AWAY! The now, very real, middle age black man that was yelling at me was not what I had imagined a bad guy looking like at all. He just looked like a really really angry grown up. There is nothing more scary than an angry angry grown up to a child of five.

One of these things is not like the other

Apparently I wasn't the only kid who threw rocks at his truck. Kids had been throwing “Ga'ddam” rocks at his “Ga'ddam” truck and his “Ga'ddam” tail light had been broke just last “Ga'ddam” week. He told me to go get my mom. I really didn't want to because I now knew that I had done something really bad and I'd be in trouble. Adults only yelled at you when you did bad things. I stood there. I didn't say anything, I didn't move, I just stood there. And so with a “Ga'ddamit” he walked down my sidewalk and knocked furiously on my door. When my mom came out, I ran as fast I could to the trees in the back and hid. I didn't know what else to do! I cried a little bit. I was just trying to fight the bad guy, but for some reason that was wrong and I just really didn't know how Robin Hood would act if this happened to him! I thought maybe since he lived in Sherwood Forest, he might run back there too. But really, I just felt really guilty and really scared because I knew I was in huge big trouble. I was going to get spanked. I knew for sure I would be spanked.
I don't remember getting spanked, but it was the first time I ever felt shame. It was my "first unfairness," as Peter Pan says. It was the first time the world didn't go the way I thought it should. That is a subject I'll get into more later. What strikes me about this story the most is how early I learned that good was good and bad was bad. I mean, I was only five years old and I already viewed the entire world like it was some game field. Good and evil were the two teams battling for the win, and I knew exactly which side I was cheering for. I was so convinced of this that when my Dad said: “Icecream is bad,” I didn't hear: “icecream has poor nutritional value,” I heard: “Icecream is evil.”

Skulls have lots of calcium, but they are really hard to chew.

At that point, Christianity had very little to do with this core belief. I didn't know much about God, he was an old guy with a beard that owned the “Good Team.” All I really knew was that there was absolutely nothing more important to me than playing for the good team. Some people might say that this was because of the way I was raised, and yes, I believe that contributed to this oddity. But I can say this. I found the story of King Arthur and his Round Table far more compelling at five years old than the book “Are You My Mother.” I knew this because after My Uncle Cary told me about this mythical hero, the only thing I wanted to do all day long the next day was draw pictures of King Arthur, make believe I was King Arthur, eat majestically huge turkey bones I imagined King Arthur must have eaten.

not even kidding.

I never once walked around the yard asking inanimate objects if I was their progeny. Back then, this was the norm for every young boy in the neighborhood. If other kids hadn't heard of King Arthur, Anthony and I would gladly tell our wide eyed audience the story; of course letting them know that we he was our great great great grandfather. We would then commence to make swords from card-bord boxes and battle each other for hours on end. The point my friends, is that regardless of whatever faith you may profess, good is good and evil is evil. The heart of man begins knowing the appropriate response to evil, it is only later that he gets it educated out of him. That response is not a “meh,” along with a casual shoulder shrug.

fail.

The only appropriate response to evil, as demonstrated by five year old me, is to throw rocks at it.

This blog will not pull any punches. It deals with human nature, where there’s dirt and mud and wilderness to be explored. You might want to pack a couple extra pairs of socks and another pair of pants with you because on this adventure, we're going to tromp though the swamps and the creeks and the canyons of my soul. I will (*&^ out expletives as a courtesy, but you will know they are there. I'm not going to p@#8sy foot around sex or drinking or anything else that needs to get talked about. So let us begin, shall we?

One time a couple years ago my brothers and I sat on a couch in our living room and watching a show on MTV about cliques. This school had the unfortunate problem of being normal and having a serious issue with cliquishness. The parents made a ruckus and so the principle brought in a team that specialized in breaking up cliques. It started with hundreds of these high school kids in a gymnasium, all sitting around looking disdainful and silent. They sat with their like kind, the football players and the cheerleaders, the band kids, the thugs. No one played with the basketballs, those stayed on the floor in the corner, and no one talked above the “whisper chuckle” level. There is no more awkward of a place in the world than a place where the normal daily high school culture. The discomfort is palpable. It's like catching a couple hundred deer in the headlights all at once.

“this place is SO lame, like omg."

They all seize up, stop moving and look around as if the light will just go away if they act like they don't exist. It's really funny really. Getting them to talk, much less play together takes nothing short of a miracle. But the group that was putting this little retreat on had a few miracles up their sleeve. After they introduced themselves and made a few jokes to lighten the mood, they told the kids they'd be playing a game. After some coaxing, turning on loud music, and offering few cool prizes, they had the kids jumping hopping around on one foot and trying to untie a knot of human arms locked uncomfortably close to one another. I couldn't believe it. Then after the games, they kids sat back down, read faced and smiling. The counselors then one by one got up on the stage and said the following. “Hi, I'm (insert name), and to know me you have to know (insert the most incredibly vulnerable experience of brokenness you've ever heard).” It was pretty wild. One of the guys, Jake, was kind of a hipster looking dude with a handlebar mustache and lots of tattoo’s said “Hi, I'm Jake, and to know me, you have to know that when I was a kid, my dad used to come home drunk and beat me and my mom till we were all shades of blue, green and yellow. My mom used to put makeup on me to hide the bruises.” A girl got up after him. She was really tall, like six foot, really big, but still really pretty. She said, “Hi, I'm Alyson, and to know me, you have to know that I'm a lesbian. The kids spray painted “big fat dike” on my garage door one morning, and I started cutting when I got home that day.” A cheerleader type got up and talked how her mom would make her stand on a scale every day before dinner, and wouldn't let her eat if she weighed any more than 100 lbs. After a while, she just stopped eating entirely.” And then Tyrel stood up and talked about starting to deal drugs so that they could pay the heating bill and his mom, little brother, and little sister wouldn't freeze to death in a Detroit blizzard. Every single one of the counselors came from completely different social groups, dressed different, talked different, but were no less broken. All of them had been really really broken.
When I was in high school, I went on every single retreat my youth group had available. Then after high school I helped put on retreats with a few different churches, and I'd never seen anything like what I saw that day on MTV. We liked to stay at a comfortable level of detachment, where we would touch lightly on our stories of brokenness, but move off them as quickly as possible. It would usually go something like this: “I was going through a really difficult time in my life, like stuff was really bad, you know? I was depressed, and some kids said some things to me that were kind of hurtful, and then I realized that God loved me.” If you ever want to make sure that people walk away from a conversation knowing absolutely nothing more about you, the words “Stuff” and “things” are your two best friends.

“Well, I was struggling with some race stuff and one time...”

I remember being bored most of the time during those witnesses and just wanting to get to the parts where we jumped around to music or got to go play paintball. “You had to sit through these things to play paintball, its just the way it is,” I thought. And most of my fellow classmates would have agreed. They would kind of pay attention and offer lots of thoughtful cliche's in small group after, but these were just things you had to do to get to the largely unsupervised free time later. But not in this retreat. The kids were riveted. They might have felt awkward or uncomfortable at times, but their eyes were, without exception glued to the person talking. No one checked their phones, no one chuckled or punched their friends arm. They listened in a sort of palpable awe. The counselors never even did the classic turnkey “but now I know God loves me” phrase. All they did was get vulnerable. And when they each finished telling their story, they broke all of the kids into small groups. The small groups were made up of eclectic bunch of random people who didn't really know each other or run in the same circles. The counselor opened it up, and said “we want to know your stories, so just go ahead and do like we did, just say 'hi I'm ____ and to know me you have to know ____.” By the end of the session, the cheerleader, the punk, and the math nerd were hugging and crying and telling each other how much they appreciated each other. It was incredible. There is real power in vulnerability. Its crazy what it can do when a group of seemingly unlike people drop the facade of strength and actually encounter one anothers weakness. It's like we're actually all the same. It's like we were all on the same sports team when the coaches made us do “two a days” and we never knew it. Doing youth ministry, if nothing else, has taught me that every single person on this world has experienced tremendous suffering and brokenness, whether they live in a mansion, drive a Volvo or support the Yankees—Democrats and Republicans alike. Shared suffering somehow ties us together and inspires empathy in even the hardest of hearts. How that works is a mystery to me, but I know it's true nevertheless, and so did God. When he could have sent his Son to overthrow the Romans and set the Jews above all other worldly powers, he let his Son come and suffer betrayal, deep loneliness, and painful death. That was his plan to redeem us. It's so wild and so crazy, and so unintelligible, but at the same time so powerful!
When I was a kid, I imagined heaven like they made it look in the cartoons. A bunch of people floating around on clouds strumming harps.

Pictured above: A place no 6 year old boy ever wants to go.

“Eternal rest,” sounded very unappealing to a 6 year old who hated the thought of bedtime even more than eating vegetables. I grew out of that pretty quickly, but I never had anything really good to replace it with. Suddenly I had a new image, that is probably still very incomplete, but much closer. I feel like heaven is going to be a lot like that gymnasium. Filled with beautiful individuals that never knew they shared so much with so many people, weeping in each others arms as they are forgiven, heard, and understood-- a place to belong.
Something woke up in me while I was sitting there engulfed in this mystery of human nature happening on a screen. I knew that I wanted to tell my story, because somewhere, someone is hurting the same way I was hurting, and will take comfort in sharing my suffering. We'd share it like a meal, and be healed and freed in its digestion. In that instant, I just wanted to go outside and introduce myself to the first person I saw on the street; and without any pretense or any smokescreen I wanted to say, “hi, my name is Marcellino, and to know me, you have to know that I'm really f*@#*g crazy.

Part One. Mount of the Ascension

To start this off, I should first let you know that this probably not going to be the funniest post I’ve ever written, but I hope that you’ll enjoy this sharing of experience nonetheless. This was not the first time I’ve ever been to the Holy Land. I went once when I was twelve, and once with my family four years ago. It’s hard to count my trip back in my childhood, seeing as all I really got from it was a vague feeling of boredom and an unbridled anger at Shabbat elevators, which stop at every floor. (Pushing buttons is “work” as specifically outlined in Leviticus.) My trip four years ago was amazing, but very different. The Lord used it to bring us closer as a family, and allowed me and my brothers to express ourselves in ways we never had before. We snuck off from the group at every opportunity to do such things as play “Prepare the Way at the birthplace of John the Baptist, and play “I Like Weather” on the Ruins of Mount Tabor (where the Lord was transfigured). That was a time of great growth joy, and almost homecoming for us, as the Father really affirmed the talents and eccentrically wild personalities of two of his sons.

My boys, my boys.

This trip was very different. It was different in three ways. Firstly, I was at a different place in my relationship with God. Second, I was not distracted by my family and spent a lot of time alone, taking it all in. Finally, I was in a place of responsibility in leading the group. These things made this trip dramatically different. Not better, not worse, just different.

Those of you who know me know that last year was a really difficult year for me. Jesus humbled me a lot. My graduation was not a time of expectation but disaster. So this Advent I was beseeching heaven to not become that cynical old guy that tells kids that Santa isn’t real and that they’ll never be a power ranger. Also that he would give me new purpose and revelations of his will for me. That remained my prayer when I arrived at the mount of the Ascension.

After leading the group in worship, I popped in my headphones, pushed play on Sigur Ros, and blotted out all of the tourists talking and snapping of pictures. I then read the great commission at the very spot it was given. With the palm of my hand resting on the last stone that Jesus ever touched, I read:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.”
– Matthew 28:16-20

I felt the Lord’s presence there with me in a very real way. I felt peace, and for the rest of the trip I felt Him lifting my burdens.

Prayer #1 answered.

My Trip to Austen: Quidditch, Hang gliding, and Other Rash Behaviors. Part I

My adventure to Austen was SO awesome and so frikkin packed that I’m going to have to break it into three separate blog posts, which I will post this week (I swear). Part one will focus on my time spent on the UT Quidditch fields.

For those of you who have not heard, Quidditch, the magical broom riding sport of the Harry Potter world, has launched into muggle universities all over the US. My friend Augusta, who I was visiting this weekend, plays for the Gryffindor house at UT. Soon, her and her teammates will be traveling to the Quidditch world cup in New York. There will be something close to 40 college teams competing there from all over the world! Who knew right? Anyway, when I rolled into UT, Augusta and her roommate were already getting suited up for their Quidditch tournament against Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. I was very excited to even have the chance at witnessing such an event, but as we drove over to the field I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime: The chance to be the Snitch.

^ ME

GOOD HIT BRO!

Now let me explain for a moment how “Muggle Quidditch” as it has come to be known, is played. The players must hold a broom between their legs as the run around on the ground, attempting to throw a volleyball through three hoops at the end of the field. The snitch is actually played by a person dressed in gold, (usually a cross country runner or rugby player) who tucks a sack with a ball into the back of his shorts. The seekers attempt to pull said ball sack from the Snitches pants (no one ever jokes about this at all). The thing that really makes this whole thing so awesome though, is that Snitches literally have no rules.

They can run wherever they want, do whatever they want, tackle, taunt, shove, and disrupt in whatever manner pleases them at any given moment. If you would like to see some premier seeker action from last year’s world cup in New York City, check this out:

For me, an ex cross country runner and rugby veteran, this was a dream come true! NO RULES? DO WHATEVER YOU WANT? TACKLE GUYS WHO CAN ONLY USE ONE ARM?

I think yes.

By the end of the night I had hid in two separate buildings, climbed over a barbed wire fence, hid on top of a roof, used innocent bystanders as human shields, disrupted a Frisbee game, a soccer game, and three separate tennis matches, tackled the crap out of the seekers, and thrown up a ham sandwich all over the field. It was pretty intense. But in the end, it really was a very joyful and outrageous experience.

This is a short clip that I think really captures the spirit of the game. Check it.

I’ve written about a few emerging games from the millennial generation, such as Humans verses Zombies and Assassins, and Quidditch really follows suit. It is a game that you can take super seriously, but will always, always be ridiculous. Childlike joy, my friends. That is what playing is all about. For those of you out there who would have never played or seen a Quidditch match, it is a thing worth adding to your bucket list. Look around online and I’m sure you’ll find a team or a tournament near you.

Here are some pictures of me snitching: