Note to Self...

It is said that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

It is also said that God is Love.

What else, then, do you need to know?

The answers to your endless questions exist in that one simple truth.

You are not the fear that occupies you

You are not the doubt that undoes you

You are not the selfish lies you speak

Nor the selfish acts you do

You are not the envy that you feel

You are not the shame of your failings

Nor the pride of your victories

Love, If

For those of you out there seeking answers, may I suggest that there are answers, or rather, an answer.   

Love.

Jesus said it, Shakespeare set rhyme to it, Einstein deduced it, the Beatles sang it, Robert Indiana sculpted it, Dr. King and Gandhi and Mother Teresa fought for it; yet, despite these illustrious and accomplished proponents, each one of us must discover for ourselves that it is the truth, and the answer to everything.

Be advised, however, that knowing the answer is not the same as getting the answer, and knowing only marks your starting point on a new road, not an endpoint.   If you’re like me, what will happen next is that you will realize how perfectly terrible you are at it, and how far you actually are from your destination. 

It will probably shock you to know. 

On the other hand, if you’re like me, you’ll be thrilled to have found the road at all.

Anyway, here’s where I am now on that road, in exactly fourteen lines…

and he happens to be...

Imagine a man who has had a singing career, highlighted by singing the National Anthem before Super Bowl XX in 1976, an acting career that has spanned forty years, appearing on TV shows ranging from M*A*S*H to Touched by an Angel, made some 60 appearances as a guest on The Tonight Show, and spent five years working as a special correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America. Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about living a passionate life?

Imagine a man who graduated from Harvard, has written several books including a memoir that was made into a feature film (for which he also composed much of the music), and has spoken about his life to hundreds of thousands of people.  Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about living with purpose?

Imagine a man who has met and learned from Hellen Keller, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali.  Who has run the NYC Marathon, golfed Augusta, and been enshrined into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.  Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about meeting challenges?

Alright, admit it; you have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?

That’s okay.  Truthfully, I didn’t know any of this stuff either before I picked up a copy of his book.

Imagine that the man who has done all these things is blind, and has been almost since birth.  Would you be interested in hearing what such a man has to say about living a fulfilling life?  

Me too.

The man who happens to be blind is Tom Sullivan.  If you are a child of the 70’s, or even the 80’s, you undoubtedly have seen him.  He was ubiquitous on television during much of that time.  There he is.

Told you you'd recognize him.

Here's what he looks like these days:

In addition to appearing on many popular series in those decades, he was also a very frequent visitor on the talk show circuit:  Dinah Shore, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and of course, the king, Johnny Carson.  He did them all.  Even co-hosted with Douglas for a few weeks.

But I remember him particularly from one of his sitcom guest-star roles.  He played a blind businessman on an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.  The character, and Mr. Sullivan, have been lodged firmly in my brain ever since. 

Night of the Laughing Stars

One night, not so long ago, I went outside to the backyard, just trying to distance myself from a particularly irritating set of mundane household frustrations. 

Seeking relief, I looked up at the stars. 

These were the same stars I used to look at with wonder as a child, when I would spend hours imagining all the possible worlds that orbited distant suns out there, all the strange variations of life, and the fantastic civilizations that might exist.  When I was a teenager, I used to stand under the stars and beg for something to happen, for an alien spaceship to come out from amongst those stars and get me, take me away from the small, boring, insignificant life I had, break the chains I could already feel binding me to an ordinary, tedious future, and show me all the wonders of the universe.  Then, once I was out and on my own, I stopped looking up much at all (far too busy making a paycheck for that), and the stars receded into a beautiful, but flat, backdrop.  Years passed, and I finally reached the point where I would look up at the stars, and found that I resented them.  They represented the universe, after all, and the universe was no friend of mine.  Not a universe that kept me trapped and feeling miserable, not a universe that did nothing while I struggled so pathetically, not a universe that I had actually come to believe was conspiring against me.  It felt like the stars were only there to mock me, make fun of my pain, and taunt me with the reminder that I was stuck down here, hopeless and alone, while they were up there, far beyond my reach, living it up. 

But this night was different for some reason.  Oh, I was still frustrated and feeling empty inside and at a loss for what to do, where to go.  I had exhausted my ideas, and exhausted myself.  I looked up at those stars and felt the same old remorseless laughter in response to my puny human problems.  But I remembered how I used to see the stars so differently, how they had once been filled with so much hope and wonder, and it made me ask a question I had not yet dared to ask myself:  So, who was wrong?  The me I used to be, or the me I am now?  The stars themselves hadn’t changed; they were almost the exact same stars in every measurable way that I had been looking at all my life.  Clearly I was the one that had changed.  But had I changed for the better, or for the worse?   After all these years, had I grown wiser, or had I only grown more foolish?

Of course I knew the answer, even without admitting it.  And that led to more questions.  Was it possible that my whole way of looking at the world was fundamentally flawed?  Could it be that the pervasive sense of lack I was experiencing in my life was merely a perception, and didn’t represent the actual working reality of the universe?  Was it possible that I was wrong, and all those things that I felt I lacked:  work I loved, the opportunity to do the things I wanted to do, money, and most of all, the time to do anything about it, were really the result of a terribly misbegotten focus, a choice I had somehow unknowingly made, instead of the natural order of things? 

And if I was wrong, what did it mean to be wrong?  If the universe wasn’t my enemy, if it wasn’t actively seeking out chances to thwart me at every turn, or to punish me for continuing to cling to my ratty old dreams, if it wasn’t responsible for the helpless sense I had of things never going my way, then what kind of universe did I live in?  A neutral universe, empty?  The kind that doesn’t pay attention to you, and conversely doesn’t require that you pay attention to it?  In other words, the universe of my twenties, when I believed that I made myself, and that my will, my mind, and my hands were responsible for everything good that happened to me?  The stars as simple stage scenery?  Or was it possible that I had it right as a kid, when I saw something more out there: hope and wonder and beauty beyond my ability to encompass?   Was it possible that I lived in a universe that was not forlorn or expressionless, not antagonistic or cruel, but seething with boundless life?

'Stroke of Genius: Brittany Wenger

Brittany Wenger is seventeen.  She lives in Florida where she’s a senior in high school. 

Remember senior year in high school?  That’s the year you worked really hard to do just enough to graduate while sneaking out with your friends as much as possible.  Your parents and teachers had a name for this, remember?  They called it ‘senioritis,’ and usually the only effective way to treat the symptoms was with the repeated threat of yet another year in high school.

For all I know, Brittany Wenger is just like any other high school senior in that regard.  But I do know at least one thing that distinguishes her from everyone else in high school, and I’m talking the history of high school.  Ms. Wenger has invented a neural network that allows breast cancer tissue samples to be analyzed with more than 99% accuracy.  She taught herself artificial intelligence programming so she could create her own neural network, and then learned everything she needed to know about how breast cancer is diagnosed from tissue samples so she could then ‘teach’ the computer program to sort through all the data and reach an accurate conclusion more than 99 times out of 100. 

Hey-ha-huh??!

And I thought I was a genius when I figured out how to replace the rubber flush-flapper thingy in our toilet last week.

It’s true, though.  She did just that.  The seventeen-year-old found a way to make the most minimally invasive breast cancer detection procedure, called fine needle aspirate, almost 100% effective, where it had traditionally been among the least.

I may not be a genius (see above), but to me this is Nobel Prize-caliber stuff.  Whether or not the folks in Stockholm agree and are currently engraving anything with her name on it I have no idea; but she did recently win the grand prize, including a $50,000 college scholarship, an internship opportunity, and an award made entirely of Legos in the 2^nd annual Google Science Fair.  

Even though the contest was held last month, I only discovered Ms. Wenger’s achievement by accident earlier this week.  And that, in itself, raises a point.  How is it that this story isn’t plastered across newspapers, blared from TV sets, and heralded on credible news websites all over the country?  Fer cryin’ out loud, Google is one of the icons of the information age, and on top of that, they sponsored the contest, yet I still had to google ‘google science fair’ to find the actual site.  Seems to me they could have at least created one of those cute, customized Google logos they like to do to publicize the event. 

I feel like we should be giving this kid a parade.  Seriously, is there anybody here who hasn’t lost someone or know someone who has had to battle for their life with breast cancer?    Shouldn’t we be showering this brilliant young woman with public appreciation for her accomplishment?  Shouldn’t she be in a commercial where they show her being hoisted into the air by a legion of ecstatic fans while an announcer says, “Brittany Wenger, you just invented a neural network that diagnoses breast cancer with more than 99 percent accuracy, which could help save thousands of women’s lives every year.  What are you going to do now?” And she responds excitedly:  “I’m going to the Galapagos Islands!”  Which she is (it was another one of the prizes for winning the Google Science Fair). 

What is wrong with us that a seventeen-year-old girl can do something like this, and it gets no reaction?  Aren’t we the least bit worried we might be sending the wrong message here?  Have we really reached the point where, unless you’re an impossibly cute Disney channel star, a boob-jobbed and belly-shirted reality show sensation, or former teenage celebrity engaging in bad behavior, you don’t even make the cultural radar?  Do we really want to teach our girls that to receive attention they have to rely solely on the laws of physical attraction?

As the father of two daughters, I can only hope that’s not the case.  I want them to live in a world where girls and women are recognized for the fullness of who they are, for their amazing intelligence, and all of their gifts and beauty, and not just the disproportionately large, shiny parts you see on some lonely trucker’s mudflaps. 

Jump

There he was, measuring the distance from the top of the big rock to the water below.  Twenty feet?  Twenty-five?  Whatever it was, it was far.  More concerning to him than the drop, though, was the depth of the water.  Ten feet maybe?  Twelve?  He stood there looking down, knowing there was no real way to gauge from above.  How much water do you need?  He wasn’t sure. 

You should just go.  You just saw Angel do it.  His anxiety level, which had been a low persistent buzzing in his body since stepping out of the forested canyon and onto the rocky promontory, jumped a notch in response to this thought.   He was filled with a nervous uncertainty, but he noticed that it lacked a sharp edge of fear, which surprised him. 

Little Mikey explores the swimming hole in 2007.

He’d seen this cliff many times before, but never from the top.  After all, this was his favorite swimming hole in all of Oak Creek, large enough and deep enough to swim in, with a wide, shallow area for the kids to play in.  And then there were the rocks on the far side, the deep side, that seemed like they were designed for jumping into the water.  There were three of them, in perfectly ascending order.  He thought of them as the Three Bears rocks, because one was too little, one was too big, and one was just right.  He’d jumped from the little one and the just right one many times in years past, but never big bear rock.  He’d never even considered jumping from that rock, even on the few occasions he’d seen others do it.  But he was there now, and he thought he might just do it.  He even felt, in some strange way that he knew was unconnected to any sense of masculine pride, an urging, like he was supposed to jump. 

His being there at all was really an accident.  The others set out from camp to go swimming a half-hour before, and so to save time, he took a side path through the forest, guessing it might turn out to be a short cut.  And it was just that, except the near-constant upward tilt of the trail brought him not to the water’s edge, but to the rocky outcropping overlooking the swimming hole.  Right to the top of big bear rock. 

Guest Post: Kent Yoder

Today marks another first for thunderstrokes:  the first guest post.  It comes courtesy of Kent Yoder, a friend and fellow blogger.

Kent and I came to know each other through our mutual friends, Rick and Karri.  Over the years, we would connect at the occasional get-together, and, of course, Rick and Karri’s seminal white elephant party at Christmastime.  I always appreciated Kent’s quick comebacks, sarcastic asides, and obscure references (three of my favorite pastimes); and as a result, we formed a kind of friendship by association, a friendship once removed, you might say.  For a short while, we actually worked together at the post office, and it was during that time that I developed an appreciation for Kent’s honesty and dedication, and learned that his sharp, dry wit wasn’t just something he saved for parties.

Last year, Kent was unexpectedly diagnosed with prostate cancer (really, is there any other way to be diagnosed?).  Over the last twelve months the disease, and its treatment, have taken a serious toll on him physically.  Seeing him, especially as infrequently as I do, is to be surprised all over again by the constant and relentless siege he is enduring.  He seems to exist within an increasingly narrow range of the physical spectrum, between manageable discomfort on the good side, and unalleviated pain on the bad.  Despite this, his positive attitude, sense of humor, and a certain, not wholly definable form of good-natured nonchalance - or is it humility? I can’t quite put my finger on it - continue to throw out sparks from under the inconceivable weight of fatigue and suffering.

Floating Lessons

I watched Maria struggle with learning to float on her back in our local public pool.  It was her second week of swim lessons.  The instructor had his hand underneath her, holding her up, and he was encouraging her to relax, and spread her arms and legs out. He was there, he told her soothingly, and nothing bad could happen.  Maria’s arms were flailing and slapping the water, and her rigid legs were sticking out of the water like two arrows shot from the same bow. 

This was actually progress.  She had spent almost all of the first week clinging to the side of the pool and wailing.  And last year’s lessons, when she was two, were a study in a small-scale disaster.  We were in the pool together for those classes, and she had absolutely no interest in anything but the bucket of pool toys the instructor brought with her.  Every day we tried, and failed, to practice blowing bubbles, dunking, and doing “big arms.”  Leg-kicking was the only area where she would make any effort at all, in short spurts, and only because we shamelessly dangled toys like carrots as a reward.  Her stubborn tendencies were on full display, as were mine, and many days our lesson ended early.  Sometimes very early. 

This year we decided to put her into the first level of real swim lessons straight away.  No toys, no holding onto Daddy, no getting out early.  Thus, the initial clinging and wailing.  

It might sound harsh, but we desert dwellers take the ability to swim seriously.  We have to.  In Phoenix, every other house has a pool, and for a long time we led the nation in child drownings and near-drownings every year.  When you live here, swimming isn’t a luxury; it’s a survival skill.  So, watching her struggle with putting her face in the water, or floating, while difficult, was a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Leaps of Faith: The Dorina Groves Interview

This interview marks the opening of a new front on thunderstrokes.  I’m expanding the scope of the blog to include interviews with people who have interesting, or even amazing, stories to tell about themselves.

I am particularly fascinated by stories involving a ‘leap of faith.’  I’ve taken the proverbial leap once or twice myself (in fact, the blog itself is one).  I am endlessly fascinated by others’ experiences, and learning more about where the impulse to make vastly logic-defying moves comes from, how it all comes into being, and then, of course, assessing the consequences.  I guess part of me is always seeking to understand things better, and leaps of faith can seem like mysterious, or incomprehensible, creatures.   

Dorina Groves’ story falls into the amazing category, at least for me.  This is a woman who walked away from the life she had built for herself, which included owning and operating a coffee shop here in Phoenix called “The Coffee Grove.”  A few weeks ago, she set out on the road in her ‘hoopty,’ an old camper she obtained in a trade for her car, to spread a message of hope to the people she knows are out there right now feeling lost and lacking faith in life and themselves.   That’s all you really need to know for the following interview to make sense, although part one of this two-part set provides a good deal of useful background information.   

I feel extremely fortunate that Dorina Groves made the time to talk to me, even as she was trying to tie up all the loose ends of the life she was leaving behind, and making last-minute preparations for the great adventure to come.  We talked for two hours after she closed the store on her last Thursday at The Coffee Grove.  In the moment, the conversation we had was inspiring, and I was inspired over and over again as I transcribed her words and then put together the interview you are about to read. 

At the end of part one, I posed a question that was probably foremost in many readers’ minds, along the lines of:  “What could possibly possess someone to get rid of almost everything they own at the age of 40, buy a dilapidated ’78 Dodge camper, and travel across the country to spread the word that, ‘If you have a pulse, you have a purpose?’” Here to answer that question, in her own words, is Ms. Groves. 

Leaps of Faith: Dorina Groves

As we speak, Dorina Groves is somewhere east of here, here being Phoenix, the home she left a few weeks ago.  She doesn’t have a home anymore; not in the sense you or I think of home, at least not for now.  She sold or gave away almost everything (she did keep some books, and her two dogs, Roscoe and Riley).  She walked away from the free rent she had at the apartment complex where she worked as a property manager.  She sold the coffee shop she owned and ran by herself, and traded her car for a ’78 Dodge camper.  Before she left, she painted it, which she variously calls her ‘hoopty,’ ‘the beast for the east,’ and ‘sexy b*tch,’ with bright stripes of purple, blue, green, and yellow.  Also painted on this tired old camper are the words, “If you have a pulse, you have a purpose.” 

Those words are the reason for everything she’s doing.   

Dorina with Roscoe and Riley

She would probably be the first to agree that she’s no stranger to taking chances.  This is a person, after all, who once drove from her home in Washington state to Minnesota just to interview for a job as a housekeeper.  In 1996, she drove to California to find a job in motorcycle racing just because she thought it would be cool.  No experience in anything related to racing, no connections; she just knew she wanted to be involved somehow with the sport.  She did get a job, and rose to the level of Media Manager for the AMA Chevy Truck Superbike Championship in '02.  A willingness to travel seems to be in her blood.

Aiming with Accuracy

I’m watching the local ten o’clock news the other night, and somewhere in the middle of the broadcast they run a story about a man by the name of Jeff Fabry.  Jeff Fabry is a world champion archer who happens to have only one leg and one arm.  He shoots from a wheelchair, holding the bow with the one arm.  To pull the string back, he bites a piece of dog collar material that’s been wrapped around the bowstring.  He is astonishingly accurate.  In the interview, he explains that he lost his right arm and leg as the result of a motorcycle accident at the age of 15.  He talked about how, after the accident, he didn’t like having to stay home while his friends went hunting, so he “figured out a way to shoot. I didn’t let anything get in my way.  And I think having that state of mind is what led me where I am today, because I don’t give up.”

Those words resonated deeply with me, because I had just been pondering the same thought.  Not learning to shoot a bow and arrow, despite the influence of Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games; no, I’m talking about the ‘figuring out a way’ part.