Downwardly Mobile Musings

The White Crayon

This is a story about the first interaction I can recall having with God. The first that I can for sure categorize as God being there and being real. I tried many times to deny his existence, including immediately after this particular incident. However, this is not a story about doubt, it’s a story about God doing a miracle.

I was 8 years old.

I think. Maybe 7. No older than 9. But for sure, I was a kid. That much is clear.

A homework assignment for school required that I do some coloring. I believe it was a map. I went into the bedroom my sister and I had to share and went to work. I remember I was a little old to be coloring, which is a complete lie, you’re never too old to color. But I had go through the stuff on my sister’s side of the room to find the crayons, because she was younger than me, and at that age I was far to mature to have my own crayons. The crayons were in a big tin. I remember it to be very large, like one that may have held those buttery, sugar cookies you get at Christmas from people who don’t like you but feel obligated to get you a gift. This was a very large tin, rectangular and deep. It held a lot of crayons. Most of them were broken or missing the paper wrappers. Since my mother did not believe in throwing things away (and still doesn’t for that matter) every crayon that my sister and I had ever had, including the ones that were mutilated, chewed on or pieces used so much you couldn’t comfortably hold them, they were all in this tin.

I’m sitting on my bed with this tin, coloring my map, humming right along when I run into a small problem. I need a white crayon. For some reason I believe this map had to be colored according to certain directions and I couldn’t just make the call myself. So part of this map needs to be colored white, and I’m not finding any white crayon. I dig through the tin, no luck. Dig through it a second time. No luck. Dig through it a third time. Still no luck. I dump the tin out and spread all the crayons across the bed. I’m scanning them all, still no white crayon. I scan them again, this time picking them up and moving them aside to another pile after I’ve looked at them. Nothing. No white crayon. Not one little piece or scrap of one.

By this time I’m very frustrated. VERY frustrated. I can remember being rather frazzled. Seriously, my homework was important to me. As a fat kid (I was just husky according to my mom), the positive identity I created for myself was that I was smart. I got good grades. I was getting pretty ticked right about now. For whatever reason, I felt that I had nowhere else to go, there were no other crayons in the house since the big tin was the only game in town. I was stuck without this white crayon. So, I made a last ditch effort to help me get this assignment done. I asked God.

I didn’t actually ask God though, I gave him and ultimatum. I told God that he better give me a white crayon, or I’ll never believe in him again. And that was a promise.

Now, I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. So I didn’t know that you weren’t supposed to talk to God like this. In fact at the mature age of 8, or whatever age I actually was, I already had formed a rather educated opinion that God wasn’t real anyway. I was allowed to stay up late and watch grown up TV shows, so I think I heard someone say God wasn’t real on ‘Hill Street Blues’ or some other cop drama that made me feel like an intellectual equal to my parents. I think ‘Highway to Heaven’ was another show my mom watched, so I believed in angels I’m pretty sure, but I never remember Michael Landon talking about God. Since my parents had never even mentioned God, and TV was almost always right anyway (it was right about Steak-Ums being so delicious), I knew that my theology was pretty sound.

I remember this part very clearly. I closed my eyes. Closed them real tight. I said, “God, I need a white crayon. And if you don’t give me a white crayon I’ll never believe in you again. NEVER.” And boy did I mean it. Really, there were no white crayons in the tin, and I didn’t actually believe in God anyway. It wasn’t going to happen. I kinda remember feeling guilty about saying this too, but I knew I was going to be justified and once I opened my eyes to see that there was no white crayon, it would all be cool. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about saying I didn’t believe in God because in the end I still wouldn’t get what I was asking for. Thus proving the idea of God was false. I must have been a freaking genius.

Then I opened my eyes. And that’s when God showed up too.

My head was already pointed down when I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw, with no exaggeration, the very first thing - was a white crayon.

It wasn’t there before. It really wasn’t. I had looked. Really well. Very very well in fact. There was no white crayon there before. But now, it seemed to have been placed strategically in front of me as to make it the very first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, was this white crayon. It was broken in half already, and the paper wrapper had already been ripped away a little, but there it was. And I was dumbfounded.

I said something like, “Wow. Uhhhh, I guess you are real then.”

Then I back pedaled. Then I tried to rationalize what happened. This white crayon had been right in front of me this whole time, I just missed it and God wasn’t real. ‘Hill Street Blues’ was right and God wasn’t real, I just didn’t see this crayon which just so happened to be in place I couldn’t miss it. That didn’t matter. And it was broken in half. That must prove that it was in the tin the whole time, right?

I never said anything to my parents. I kept it to myself. I finished my map, put the crayons away and kinda just forgot that it ever happened. Not right away, I had to use the crayons again later. When I did, I remember looking at the white one, the very same one mind you (we didn’t buy any new crayons yet), I looked at with a sense of reverence. I think I even made an excuse to color something else white, just so I had a reason to use that particular crayon again.

This is a good memory for me. I know today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no white crayon to begin with. I also know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God heard me as a kid and did this, this miracle of making a crayon appear out of nowhere, just for me. Me and only me. No one else was in that room and no one else heard that story until after I had been a Christian for a while.

It’s a good memory for me because God did something simple, yet profound just for me, and he did it to WOW me. And if you’ve ever been WOW-ed by someone you love, just because, just because they love you and expect nothing in return, it’s a feeling almost beyond description. Perhaps God can WOW all of us if we give him the chance.

A Story to Live - my life is on an internets

I’ve never been one to start off strong. And with what I lack in natural ability, I like to think I make up for in effort. Not that effort has been one of my strong suits either, but I’m making amends. Today however, my efforts are to make my life look a little bit more like a cohesive story, rather than just a series of random events.

Now, I’m not complaining. In fact I’m quite hopeful. Sarcastic, very much so. But quite possibly more hopeful than I can ever remember being in my whole life. There’s a question I have though. More like an observation about living, but one that begs questioning. There has to be more to life than these random scenes of joy and pleasure mixed between the mundane, right? There has to be more than simply existing. Existing and paying bills. Existing and scraping up enough money to go out to dinner. Existing with random bouts of loneliness. Existing without a clear direction. There has to be more. There just has to. I don’t struggle with these things. Not anymore. But the answer still shrouds itself in mystery.

When I think of my life, as well as the lives of my wife, children and those close to me, I don’t see them with any sort of over-arching narrative. I see them as random scenes, highlighted with funny moments and other memorable scenes. Good stories always have memorable scenes. Like that time when my youngest child was born and we didn’t find out the gender ahead of time. When we found out ‘it’ was a ‘she’, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so uncontrollably over seeing someone so beautiful in my entire life. Then there was that time when my wife and I renewed our wedding vows on our 5th anniversary. There’s been many funny scenes too. Like when I put on that pair of thong underwear, but backwards. Oh, and then there was that time when I thought I was helping this homeless stranger by taking him to the hospital to see his injured little girl. Except, it turned out I was just helping him buy crack. Wait a minute, that actually wasn’t very funny at all.

But if you are anything like me, aside from these random scenes, a good deal of the story of our lives plays out like a Michael Bay film. But without any explosions, robot aliens or other fantastic special effects. Which is to say; without any real plot. It’s filled with all these little sub-plots about buying a car and later how you’re going to afford the monthly payments. Then another very similar story about buying a house, then another one about buying a Swiffer and it’s amazing dust-trapping properties. All these things are fine, but when I’m dead and buried, my kids will sell the house and throw away the Swiffer. This is resistance. These sub-stories to the big story become the story, and now - years later, I wonder why a small part of me is dead.

In my daydreams, I’ve wanted to be writer of some fashion or another. Perhaps wearing a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, except I’d wear a Led Zeppelin t-shirt underneath. Or maybe some other novelty shirt I got on clearance from Target. I can’t take myself that serious now. In my daydreams about writing, I do think I came to believe that through the writing process I’d work out through my superior mastery of wit and wordplay the meaning of life. I’d make the connections between mere ideas and living life fully blend together into a magical stew. A stew that I would serve you at $14.99 a pop. $29.99 if it was a hardcover. Yet, with the high school diploma I possess and the few words I have written (which are usually commentaries on LOST), I’ve yet to find these profound insights that invite me to live deeper.

Now, for a bit of business. I was already planning on posting some of these very same thoughts, but by happenstance a contest has come up that has fit the occasion. Please check out this website and the following video:

www.donmilleris.com/conference

http://vimeo.com/12011394

I feel a bit like Charlie Bucket looking for his golden ticket. I’d love the opportunity to go. Although I didn’t have the financial means to attend, before this contest was even announced I cleared my schedule during the dates this will be going on. You know, just in case.

I want to write a story. I want to write a story with my life. I want a new way of life. I’ve been a Christian for some time, and I would consider myself as being ‘saved’ the moment I accepted Christ. Yet, I’ve still been living wrong. I’ve missed the point time and time again. I’ve made myself the central character of a story without a point. I don’t want to be the central character anymore. I want to live a redeemed story. I don’t just want my soul ‘saved’, I want my entire character, my entire life, to be saved and redeemed into the Great Story, written by none other than the author and finisher of our faith.

If chosen, I’d like get a few things from the conference. I’d like to learn how to relate to others authentically and honestly, without putting myself as the central character and using others to fulfill my desires. I want to learn how a family can draft a story together and live it out together. I’ve got this idea about serving in my community. Specifically in regard to serving the homeless, which there are quite a few of around here. The conflict though, I hate them. I don’t know how to love them. I hate their grubby little hands, those dirty grimy hands that Christ died for. That time I thought I was doing something good for a homeless man, he manipulated me into buying him crack (it’s a long story, maybe I’ll unpack it later). I want to see how love and compassion play out in this business of living a better story.

Regardless of whether I go this conference or not, I’ve got a lot of hope. I have quite a bit of it. I’ve had several glimpses of this right kind of living, and it exists in a big way through community. I think that the best part of this story happens to be the characters. You are one of those characters. It’s been said the point of a story is never about the ending. It’s about the characters and how they get molded in the hard work in the middle of the story. It’s about the transformation of character. It’s not about making our peaceful fantasies come true. It’s about how we change as people. If your character doesn’t change, the story hasn’t begun yet. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Being changed and transformed is hard work. And it’s just easier to live a simple story about buying a Swiffer and watching T.V. But that story sucks. I want to live in a story where our characters, yours and mine, are insanely happy and  live life with a point. Not that I know exactly which point, not yet. But as our characters are transformed throughout the story, the point will manifest itself clearly enough.

The characters are truly great, but maybe there’s something better. Perhaps the best part is that this story hasn’t been finished yet. We get to create it - together. We don’t have to be the same people we were yesterday. Just because we may not have started off strong, doesn’t mean we have to eek out a meager existence until we die. No, we get the unique privilege to live life with a point. To live with purpose and meaning. To create a story as big as we can imagine. A story that our children and grandchildren will be telling their kids. Right now is a wonderful time to be alive.

Let’s create a few stories together.