(1200 Words – Reading Time = 4.8 Min.)

Surprised by Thumb

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Surprised by Thumb[Two men sit in overstuffed leather chairs. They’ve both inched their seats away from the fire at the height of its intensity, and now most of the warmth they feel is an effect of the drink in their glasses. One of them speaks. His tie visible beneath his sweater. Silk under cashmere. He has the habit of twisting his index finger in the air while thinking, like an insect’s antennae.]

I haven’t told you about the source of my power.

That’s a hard sentence to just come out with. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get jazzed up enough to say it. This whole time you were talking about your interest in contemplative prayer, and your unhealthy relationship with Tylenol PM—it’s not that I wasn’t listening. But I wasn’t fully engaged. I had my own thing I wanted to talk about, something I had stowed in my back pocket, but which was barely contained there. Like a coffee card with all ten punches.

It’s C.S. Lewis’s finger. Or thumb. The one on his right hand. It’s his famous thumb. I have it in my desk drawer at work. You have your spare bottle of Evan Williams and a Gaelic St. Patrick’s Breastplate copied out in Sharpie. I have C.S. Lewis’s thumb.

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Surprised by Thumb

The Book of Life

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Book of LifeI got to be part of the children’s choir on an album by this singing songbook. Before it changed, my voice was as smooth and clean as soap. I got to meet the guy, Phil Chambers, who played the singing songbook. He appeared dressed as the book. He stayed in character for the duration of the recording session. His face painted white, the bright blue bookcovers closed, the pages packed in behind him. I found it strange that he would stay in costume and made up during a recording session.

He was an auteur of Evangelical children’s entertainment. The word “entertainment” on its own fails, because cultural artifacts made for evangelical children must always be overtly instructive. Mr. Chambers wrote the music and the stories, recorded them, performed them, designed costumes and sets for videos and photo-shoots, and most other things. I read the liner notes of the albums and marveled. I had questions. I had my own plan for creating media.

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The Book of Life

Stealing: A Monologue

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“The thing about getting older is that we’re all, as we get older, at least everyone around me, we’re all spending a lot less time stealing from convenience stores. I never stole much, but I had a few friends that did.

“The one time I stole from a convenience store I couldn’t believe how easy it was. It wasn’t a pre-meditated hit. I was walking down an aisle with two friends. One was Dave and one was Jon. They’d both been in separate life-threatening car accidents, but Jon was the one who’d had mild brain damage. It hadn’t lowered his IQ at all, but it had made him somewhat spacey and passive. And I think that when we were walking down one of the convenience store aisles, and I saw a package of oatmeal cream pies, and thought, “I’d like those” it was Jon’s passivity that beckoned to me, and encouraged me to actually take the cream pies and shove them into his coat and down the sleeve of his coat. Continue reading “Stealing: A Monologue” →

Stealing: A Monologue

Moses, According to Caleb

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A couple weeks ago I was sitting in the teriyaki chicken place, Red Bento, with Caleb, and I could tell he had something to say, so I delayed by immediately wondering out loud about this whole Red Bento issue. “Why must the Bento be red?” was my question. Caleb is my younger brother. I’ve made him cry in public more recently than it would appropriate for me to say. Two months ago.

When I concluded with, “and it’s the whole mind-body duality that we’re really at war with,” Caleb nodded and then waited for me to say more, but I’d harvested every field of inane banter on my topic.

“Here’s something I was thinking about,” Caleb said. Right then our server came for our orders.

When he left, Caleb began again.

“I was thinking,” he said, and was interrupted by another server bringing miso soup.

“Do you know the end of Exodus 4?” He pointed his forehead at me, an angle of intense inquiry.

I wanted to best him with instant recall of the passage, but failing that I said, “In the Bible?”

“Exodus, second book of the Bible, chapter 4. End of the chapter, I don’t remember the verses.”

I looked at Caleb.

“Do you know it?” he said.

“Yes.” I didn’t.

Caleb stuck out his lower lip and nodded.

“As you know, it’s where Moses is heading out of Midian, back to free the Hebrews from Pharaoh, and the Lord shows up and wants to kill him.”

“Right. Coming back from Midian,” I said, making a limp gesture.

“Every time I read that passage, it sticks out to me. I’ve never understood why God wants to kill Moses.”

“But now you think you do,” I said. Our food arrived and deplaned.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his chopsticks together in a vigorous attempt either to remove splinters or start a fire.

“It’s because he’s a dick,” Caleb said.

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Moses, According to Caleb