Category: family

>Holy Ground

Published on by Tucker3 Comments

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Today is the birthday of our middle daughter, Coco Madalena. She was born in 2005 with a congenital heart problem, was born a month early, had heart surgery a couple days after birth, and died of meningitis a month later. She would have been three years old today.

We have been unbelievably blessed with two other daughters who bring tremendous joy into our lives. Losing a child was one of the most difficult experiences in my life, but I have to say that God worked joy into our lives during that time. It is strange to suffer and find joy in the midst of suffering, but here we are again, in a way, with Maricel bedridden with a broken pelvis and an outpouring of love and help from friends and family.

Suffering is a kind of Holy Ground. It is where God reaches in to one’s life in a big way. God is always there, always present, always creating, but suffering can make his presence powerful. I think of Moses before the burning bush when the voice told him to take off his sandals for he was standing on holy ground. Moses was about to enter the next phase of his life, a life of great burdens and suffering, but also great joy. I don’t know what Moses felt at that moment, and I certainly do not put myself in the same category as him, but he must have felt a mixture of elation and dread. There is no more significant place to be this side of God’s kingdom than standing on holy ground, and no more difficult and terrifying place to be. Burning bushes are rare these days, but suffering is not.

At Coco’s wake, in January of 2006, I read the following words:

Last June, when Maricel and I found out that we were pregnant, we were so overjoyed. I could not have known that seven months later, on a rainy Thursday evening, I would be holding my beautiful daughter in my arms when she died.

There is no doubt this whole process has been very emotional and difficult for us. I have never cried so many tears. And yet, we have also found great joy and much for which to be thankful.

We are amazed at the concern that so many people have shown toward us. In so many ways people have come along side and helped us, whether through prayer, letters and emails of encouragement, meals, places to stay, taking care of our needs, and just being there when we needed moral support. I cannot begin to thank you all for your love and care.

We are also so thankful for the doctors and nurses at OHSU & Doernbecher. Not only are they great at doing what they do everyday, they showed real care and concern for us, for what we were going through. And they truly cared for Coco, not merely as another patient, but as the treasured, beautiful person that she was. That was a great gift to us. Thank you.

I also want to say thank you to our daughter Lily. The first time she saw Coco her whole body reacted with joy. She was so excited to be a big sister. This process has been difficult for her, but she has really done well; she asked a lot of great questions, was remarkably understanding with her parents, and is very excited to see Coco again someday.

I have to say that in all this, the person I am most amazed with is my wife. Maricel has gone through more than I ever imagined and in all of it she has been so gracious, so kind to others, so thoughtful to me and Lily, and so tough. There was not a single day that she was not at the hospital with Coco, often for most of the day. She gave all she had, physically and emotionally, to her baby, and still found time to be a loving mother, wife, and friend. Thank you.

We entered into this whole process as excited parents with great hopes and many conversations about the future. We also came with a perspective about God’s love and sovereignty that carried us through all of it, the best and the worst. At those times when life seemed most bleak I found myself constantly turning to the suffering of our lord and hero Jesus Christ.

I put on my computer’s screensaver the verse: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” It reminds me that when Jesus came to this earth he did not take away our suffering in this life, but entered into it fully, and gave us the perspective we should take when we experience suffering ourselves. He gave meaning to suffering. I can see that more clearly now.

Suffering in one form or another seems to be the lot of all of us, and yet we have a deep solidarity with Jesus in our suffering. I see this is a great gift, and although we would not wish what we have gone through on anyone, we know that Coco has had a profoundly lasting impact on our lives for the better. We certainly do not have all the answers we would like, but we do know that God loves us and is the author of Coco‘s story. In this we have found joy amidst our tears.

I am thankful that we still have hope, that we still have faith, and that we know that God is good even though the story He is writing with our lives is sometimes difficult to bear.

You honor us all so much for coming and sharing this with us. Thank you.

Happy Birthday Coco Madalena Teague!

>thanks

Published on by Tucker3 Comments

>We have a lot for which we are thankful. My family is especially thankful for the blessings God has bestowed on us. We are thankful for the outpouring of love and caring from so many people in recent days. In fact, words cannot describe how kindhearted and sacrificial folks have been for us.

I have already posted some of my thanks on my wife’s blog here.

We have been trough a lot in the past two weeks. I have often thought of the Thanksgiving holiday as a kind of throwaway holiday – a day off work and good food but not much more. I always figured we should be thankful all the time anyway, and I’m not into the traditional American mythologies about its history, etc. My feelings have not changed about most of that, but this Thanksgiving has an added dimension. This year we give thanks while my wife is still in the hospital recuperating from a near death experience – that is, I am thankful she and my daughter are still alive.

I wrote in more detail about the experience here and what it means to us.

I have wondered often how one can sometimes be more thankful when in the midst of suffering than in more typical circumstances. I look back on the time when our little family went on the difficult journey of a hard pregnancy, emergency c-section, heart surgery, meningitis, and then death. I look back with wonder and remember how hard it was and also how I felt so grateful and close to God. I felt close to God because he came close to me when I needed it but did not deserve it. We made some great friendships, had others strengthen and deepen, and came to know ourselves in ways we never imagined. I learned how fierce my wife can be when it comes to her children. I learned how gracious and giving our friends and family can be. And now we are experiencing something similar again. I was and am thankful for that experience even though I would not wish it on anyone.

Why God would have us go through these things I don’t know, except that I know deep in my soul it is because he loves us. At the end of the book of Job God comes to Job and gives his answer. In short God does not say why, only that God is God. We are always looking for the “why.” If the answer is that I come to know that much better the nature of the relationship between me and God I am happy. If I become wiser I rejoice. If I learn to love more fully with a genuine spirit then I know I am that much closer to Heaven and its glories.

In times like these theology seems to take a back seat, but not as much as one might think. Not all is emotion when there is suffering. How we understand suffering is always grounded on how we answer the big questions. Is God all powerful? Is he sovereign over reality? If so, just HOW sovereign? Does life have meaning and purpose? If so, does suffering as well? How we answer these questions profoundly guides our response to suffering. Sometimes we can know where we stand on these questions when we listen closely to our prayers.

When we were in the midst of holding out for hope with our second daughter and she was fighting for her life, the terrible tsunami overwhelmed Indonesia. Many, many thousands of people died in that disaster. We had our one life to worry and pray for, but our suffering was only a fragment of what was happening on the other side of the world. I found myself at that time thanking God that we were not going through what those people were going through. I was actually thankful that our suffering was merely difficult and heartbreaking rather than devastating. We can learn from degrees of suffering. As I write this, and as my wife is in pain, and as our daughters cannot climb easily into her arms, I know that much of the world is starving. I know that millions of children have no parents or clean water or adequate health care. I know that, for all my suffering, I live in relative luxury. Suffering reminds me of these things and shows me how complacent and selfish I have become. I live too much for myself and not enough for others. Jesus is my example and I am not a very good disciple. But I know God is faithful and I trust he will create in me a new heart.

I have much to be thankful for.

The name of this blog is not inspired by the pilgrims who had that first Thanksgiving. Here the word pilgrim has everything to do with the journey I am on. In part it is inspired from Pilgrim’s Progress. In part it is from the idea of going on a pilgrimage. I often feel that I am a sojourner in a foreign land. I long for my true homeland, which is not the United States of America, rather it is someplace infinitely better. But I am still glad I live in this country – but not necesarrilly more glad than if I was living in another good country, of which there are many. So my thanks is not so much that I am an American, but that I have been blessed in so many ways and that God can be trusted.

In closing, I must say I am thankful for my family. My wife is my love and my joy. My kids are wonderful lights that brighten my life. The community in which we live supports and loves us. And God continues to pour out his blessings on us, though we do not deserve them.

God be praised

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I love my wife and daughters. I begin this post with one of my wife’s favorite quotes:

This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is the road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.

~ Martin Luther

I decided a couple of weeks ago to stop posting for a while because life has been too busy and more important things needed to be done. Now I think it is time to post again.

On Monday last my wife was walking our youngest daughter along a sidewalk near our house when a large SUV jumped the curb and struck them. The story is an interesting one that involves a convicted felon fleeing the scene and hiding from police for 24 hours. The local news was all over that. My wife ended up with a fractured pelvis and multiple scrapes and bruises. But the crux of the story is the way death came by so close and did not stay.


It is hard for me to imagine my wife dying. She is in a lot of pain right now, but she is still alive. I praise God every minute for that. We are so fragile and so mortal, and yet life is so powerful and meaningful. When a couple gets married they are theoretically in it for the long haul. Marriage is not a game and it can sometimes bring a lot of heartache, not least when the other suffers. I do not like to see Maricel suffer. We got married just over 17 years ago. Sometimes it seems like a long time somethings its seems like only yesterday. We have lived much of our lives in shared communion and experience. If God were to take her away from me I could not describe the vastness of the hole that would be left in my life.

My daughter Wilder also nearly died. She was in her stroller when it was throw almost 40 feet down the sidewalk. The stroller tumbled but acted like a roll cage and my daughter came away with hardly a scratch. It is also hard for me to imagine her dying. In this case, though, I know what it is like to lose a child. My daughter Coco died in my arms nearly three years ago. I don’t know how I would go through that again. Children are amazing. They are truly gifts that should be loved and cherished at all times. My daughters are brilliant lights in my life. They gleam like stars. I do not want to ever lose one.

My eldest daughter Lily has been through a lot in her 8 years. Her uncle died of cancer, her grandmother was severely burned in a car accident, her baby sister died, her mother and other sister nearly died this week, and her mother is now in the hospital with a broken pelvis. She is a beautiful and tenderhearted girl who can sometimes be too stoic for her own good. I can’t blame her. She has been through a lot.

A friend of mine asked me a couple days ago if I was angry – angry at the driver of the car that struck my wife and child, angry at the situation. I was taken aback because being angry hadn’t even entered my mind, yet I felt at that moment that maybe I should be. Why wasn’t I angry? It’s strange to think about. I certainly don’t think it has anything to do with some kind of moral nobility. I am just like everyone else. I still want justice, I still want the driver to get what he deserves, but I don’t have those burning emotions of anger. And it’s not because I don’t think anger has its place. The only explanation I can come up with is that my experiences have put within me the idea that this is what we should expect from life, the bad with the good, and that people will do bad things because they are sinners like me. If I am mad at anyone else I need to reserve some of that anger for myself too. We are made of the same stuff.

For many the real issue on the table is what to do with all this in light of God. Why would God allow this to happen? Believing that God would actively bring suffering like this into one’s life is not an option for many people. God, they might say, does not create suffering, he only allows it. But God does create suffering, as he creates all things. The question I face is whether I will trust a God who would bring this upon my wife and family. If one does not believe in God then suffering is absurdity. It is when one believes in God that suffering takes on the difficult sheen of meaning and purpose. Suffering glares in one’s eyes. It doesn’t call out to you, it invades your life and, sometimes, it makes itself at home. Suffering forces your hand and makes you lay your cards face up on the table. Suffering tells you what you are made of. Knowing what you are made of is a great gift, and not an easy gift. If God is good, I would expect him to bring suffering into the lives of those he loves. I have struggled with this in my life and I will continue to struggle. But I have come to know that suffering is not the end of life, rather life is the end of suffering.

I am not one to quote pithy Bible verses about suffering or the goodness of God. And if someone tells me what stage in the grieving process I am in, or how God must be trying to tell me something, or how everything works for good, etc., I just smile and nod my head. I believe those verses and I know everything works for good, and I appreciate the reminders, but outside voices only go so far compared to the inside groanings. I know it’s not really a matter of the head at this point, it’s a matter of the heart – and I mean that place in the heart where all sentimentality and saccharine spirituality is stripped away. This really has everything to do with who we are and where we are going.

The best I can do is look at the Bible as a whole and wonder at all the suffering between its pages. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where God says this life will be free from suffering. I don’t see the health and wealth gospel or the prosperity gospel. But I do see that my savior suffered, and that many of the early Christians suffered, and that to be a Christ follower is to take up one’s cross daily. All this does not provide an easy answer to to why we suffer. At least I can say that to suffer is, in some way, to be like Jesus. I can also say that if one is worried if their friendly, easy faith truly has legs then suffering will let them know. But then that faith will no longer be so friendly or easy. Genuine faith lives in that world of both terrifying reality and unfathomable hope. No wonder we are called to love and encourage each other. The more I live the more I know this to be true. When we are told to work out our faith with fear and trembling I know a little more each day about what that means.


My wife and family have a long road ahead, but don’t we all. I know that God is good, but I also know that God is God and I must ask myself if I still trust God to be good when I, or my family goes through suffering. What I pray for is that God will heal my wife soon and completely. I also pray that God will continue to be faithful to love us and that we will continue to trust in him. What is so amazing is to see my wife go through her ordeal with courage and good spirits. She has had a lot of support from so many people. Her hospital room is filled with flowers and cards. She is an amazing woman. Seeing all the love extended toward her is a testament to that.

I said I am not one for pithy Bible verses, but I have to say that many passages in the Bible take on deeper meanings in light of suffering. I can’t help but be reminded of what Jesus did. And I rejoice in his example, though I fail at living up to it. So I quote a couple verses from Philippians:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

If Christ be my example, then how can I fear suffering or death? And yet, words cannot describe how grateful I am that death did not stay this week. God be praised.

>camping decamping

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Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours,
Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children,
as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned
from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively
an interaction of man on man.
~ Henry David Thoreau


Three skulls – beauty and mortality.

Livy describes Fabius Maximus’ strategy of fighting Hannibal as a war of attrition, no pitched battles, just a wearing down through a series of hassles and an ebbing of morale. That picture is not far from the process it took to get myself and my family out the door, over the mountains, and to our nearly perfect campsite this past week end. In the end, however, and to our joy, the morale came back as we immersed ourselves in a wonderful weekend of camping in nature and with good friends.


Wilco and the setting sun.

Before I was fully decamped from my urban life I was dropped off at a Wilco concert along with the other husband in the party. The sun set over the opening band and then Wilco performed a wonderful, amazing, and long set. They are truly one of the best bands anywhere at this moment.

While I lounged on the grass my wife went to the campsite with the kids and the remainder of our party to graciously unpack the car, set up the tents, et al. She is a good and beautiful woman. I arrived sometime near 11PM. Although I felt slightly guilty at not having to set up camp, I was ready for bed, exhausted from a long week and the hellish activity of getting camping in the first place. The next morning I woke to a sunny morning with views of woods and water and an increasingly bluing sky.


Lake and woods from the camp.

In short, our camp bordered a lake, the weather was beautiful, the camp was a good camp, the kids had loads of fun. The parents worked, chatted, chased the littlest one around, and cleaned wounds – of which there were a lot.


The fire pit at the center of the camp.

Of course the biggest concern was keeping the fire going, especially in the cold mornings and the cooling evenings. Fortunately we had a lot of wood to burn.


Hash browns for eight.

The food, well… it was good, yummy, feel-good camp food. I am now eating lots of salad.

One night we drove to a restaurant in the middle of a beautiful nowhere/somewhere. The place is call the Cowboy Dinner Tree Steakhouse. Follow the link to get the menu. You’ll see it says “26 – 30 oz. Top Sirloin Steak or 1 Whole Chicken” which is exactly right.


The Cowboy Dinner Tree Steakhouse.

The steakhouse is four miles south of Silver Lake, Oregon, which is itself miles from nowhere in the most beautiful country. The landscape is classic high desert sage and juniper with rolling hills and occasional geological formations.


High desert vistas.

From there we drove on dusty roads to Fort Rock, a massive and unique geological circle of rock jutting up from an ancient sea bed. We hiked inside and the kids ran around like crazy.


Jumping at Fort Rock.

As the sun began to set we headed back to the camp. The next morning we sliced up the leftover steak (yeah there was a lot) and fried it in bacon grease (my arteries are tightening as I type this) and had it with our eggs and hash browns. Oh yum!


An eagle visited us one day.

I can’t help but notice how good it is to camp, especially for the kids. It’s not merely about having fun or getting away from the everyday. There is a profound need within us to engage directly with wilderness, even in a rather controlled environment as a campground. Children grow better with nature, I am convinced.


Previous campers left us a flag.

Finally, I have to say it is both good and sad to be back in town. I am relieved to be able to sleep in a bed, to take a shower, to have Internet, etc. I am also that much more aware of how much we cling to the false security of cities and society. My goal is to find the balance, to cease the war of attrition and to be content.

>ah nature!

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>We’re out of of town this weekend.

Friday we sent to the zoo.

There’s nothing quite like seeing zoo keepers in their natural habitat. The animals, on the other hand, were just trying to manage the heat and ignore the gawkers – who would be us.

>kids outdoors

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>I am blessed with two beautiful daughters. They both love the outdoors. I find myself increasingly interested in understanding the relationship between kids and nature, that is, how nature plays a role in how kids grow and develop.

Recently I took my eldest daughter on a backpacking trip. Although the “work” of hiking and carrying a pack was not something she loved doing, I did see her come alive at every moment she was able to play and explore. This makes sense to me, and it makes sense when I look at my own life. I am reading a book called Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.

The basic premise of the book is that in our present age children are not getting into direct contact with nature the way children have for all of history up till now. Nature has been pushed aside because of distractions like video games and computers, by time pressures, and by fear. This lack of nature in kids lives is having a profoundly negative impact on children and our society.

Below are a couple of videos that look at this topic.

When I look at my own life I know that I also suffer from nature deficit disorder. I spend too much time at the computer, on-line, in a cubicle, in front of the television, etc. It’s not just kids that are suffering, it’s all of us who live too much indoors and on-line.

>Tam McArthur Rim and our resonance with Nature

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Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.

~ John Muir

There is a stunning geologic formation within the Three Sisters Wilderness known as the Tam McArthur Rim. I took my daughter Lily on her first backpacking trip there this past weekend. Although Lily had some small trouble getting used to the pack (as do most kids) she was a real trooper and had loads of energy, plus she had a lot of fun. I am so proud of her hanging in there and then finding real joy in the experience. Kids, I have learned, are made for the outdoors.

The rim is a fault scarp that produces cliffs over five hundred feet high and views of the mountains and valleys that are virtually unparalleled. The whole area is mostly the creation of volcanic activity, which give it a special quality. We hiked up through the alpine forest onto the upper plateau, then on to the major viewpoint, then beyond to a fairly secluded spot for our camp. Because it is a designated wilderness no mechanical vehicles are allowed, including mountain bikes.

I don’t think there was any part of the trip that wasn’t, in some way, stunning. The views are magnificent from the rim, the alpine setting is gorgeous and so different from our valley, the air is thin and clear, and the ground is at times almost a moonscape with its volcanic history. There are unique alpine flowers and plants everywhere. The trees are twisted and gnarled from the harsh conditions.

Our hike began roughly as the trail immediately went uphill and Lily’s pack, which is brand new to her, was bothering her greatly. We slogged slowly up the path, frequently letting day hikers pass us, until we arrived at a spot overlooking Three Creeks Lake, a popular car camping destination. We decided that Lily could wear her pack without the waste belt, which isn’t as efficient, but doesn’t bother her as much. We also transfered a number of items from her pack to mine – something I anticipated doing. After seeing the view of the lake, and a better view of our destination, and then stopping in the woods to look at the lupine, we were more energized and moving better up the path. We also stopped for a lunch/snack at another viewpoint from where we called home and Lily played on a patch of snow. After that we hiked on to the major viewpoint.

The highest point on Tam McArthur Rim is 7730 feet in elevation. That’s higher than many mountains in Oregon, or the U.S. for that matter. From the car that also represents an elevation gain of 1180 feet and about 2.5 miles of hiking. This can be quite a hike for an 8 year old, but Lily was a trooper, and as long as she was having fun (read exploring or sliding on snow) she didn’t even notice the effort it took. The view is amazing, and the experience is well worth the effort it takes to gets there. Words, and even pictures, don’t capture the true nature of the place.

Our humble camp was along the rim, not far from the cliff’s edge. We could see several mountains from our camp (Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Jefferson, Hood, the top of North Sister, and Broken Top). We could also see the valley floor with its lakes and rollings hills. In the clear morning we could see smoke from camp fires near the lakes below. Our plan was to sleep out under the stars, but by 6 PM the winds were picking up and it didn’t seem appropriate to be outside the tent. A couple of times I went outside to either tighten the guidelines on the tent or bring items inside so they wouldn’t blow away. By two in the morning the winds had died down. The morning was calm and clear. The sun came in through out tent door and warmed us.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

~ John Muir

The Three Sisters Wilderness was established by the U.S. Congress in 1964. It is part of both the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests. The designated wilderness comprises 286,708 acres. Its most noticeable features are the mountains, which I have climbed years ago, but it has a lot more to see. I started visiting the place when I was a kid. My favorite location then was Sunshine and Obsidian Falls on the west side of the North Sister.

Although I am familiar with the Three Sisters Wilderness, I had never been to the Tam McArthur Rim area (that I can remember), so this was an adventure for both me and Lily. To get there one drives about 18 miles south of the town of Sisters to Three Creeks Lake. The trail head is well marked. We saw a lot of day hikers on the trail. It is a popular hike. We only saw one other couple with backpacks though. We also saw them on their way out on Sunday.

By the end of Saturday I noticed we were getting low on water. There are no lakes or streams on top of the rim, so we began rationing. I wanted to make sure we had enough water for Lily and for hot chocolate the next morning. This meant that be the time we got back to the car on Sunday I was rather dehydrated. For dinner we tried freeze dried meals, which were fair. Most of the time we ate trail mix and cliff bars. I have determined that the next trip we will camp near a stream or lake. I don’t like running out of water, or carrying a lot of water.

What I find so interesting in getting away from the comforts of home is how it changes my perspective. I learn about doing without, about how much I take for granted, about who I am and what I truly need, and I learn about the real value of things.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

~ John Muir

On Sunday the we packed up and hiked back to a viewpoint we had not seen before. There we had our hot chocolate and called home. From there we decided (Lily’s idea) to go off the beaten path and descend to the lake cross country. The going was more difficult than we anticipated. I love that she prefers to go cross country rather than follow the path. She is a real adventurer. For parts of our descent I carried Lily’s pack as well as my own because it was so steep going down the rock slides and snow. But then we got to the lake. There we found a little stream and water falls. Lily loved it and played for a while. About 15 minutes later we were back at the car. We stopped a the Snow Cap burger joint in Sisters and then drove the two hours home. Lily slept in the car.

Why is it that we seek out places like the mountains or the sea? I suppose that answer is unique to each of us. But I also suppose there is something universal in that desire. We are all wanderers of one sort or another. Some of my most vivid memories come from my youth when I camped in the mountains. I remember sleeping under the stars and waking in the middle of the night to the most glorious of star-filled skies. I remember hiking into Chambers Lakes in the Three Sisters Wilderness with my parents, my cousins, aunt and uncle, and grandparents. I remember these places and experiences because they touched something deep within me.

I recently realized most of my poetry is rooted in a sense of place, and most of those places are in nature. I love vast and awesome areas. If nature is a direct expression of God, then nature is profound.

Even the most mundane aspects of nature speak to us. Some days just leaving an air-conditioned building and feeling the fresh breeze on my face reaches my soul.

Lily loves being out of doors. What a great expression, “out of doors.” What does that say? A door is a point of separation, a threshold from one world to another.

I am learning more and more that kids need nature. Lily loves nature. She comes alive in the woods or near a stream. She exclaimed many times how she loved the view from the rim. She could complain one moment about her pack and then be running for a patch of snow or stop to pick up some lichen to show her mama. I believe there is a connection between the way humans are designed and the way nature is designed. I believe that connection explains, in part, the deep resonance one can experience in the face of nature.

There is a fit, a connection, going on at some deep level between humans and the rest of God’s creation. I realize now that I’ve got to get my family outside a lot more, especially into wilderness. No amount of Discovery channel programs can replace breathing mountain air, seeing the sun rise over a valley, or cooking over a butane stove. No amount of nature books (though I do love them) can stand in for walking up a volcanic slope, picking up obsidian along a path, or seeing wind ripples on a lake far below. Nature, in all its beauty and fierceness, in all its rugged danger and sublime honesty, is a gift.

Even though we were absolutely exhausted when we arrived home, we were already thinking of our next trip. Lily said she wants to go back to the same place, but I know there are other places she will love. Maybe we’ll go to Green Lakes or Chambers Lakes (both by the South Sister), or maybe we’ll hike into the Jefferson Wilderness. What I can say is that we need to get out more than we have.

The mountains are calling and I must go.
~ John Muir

>…if the ocean was your pond

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Thoreau was not a surfer.

Recently I’ve started re-reading Thoreau’s seminal and quintessential American polemic, Walden. This has coincided with an emerging desire within me to get my kids (and myself) out into nature more, especially into awe-inspiring nature. I am coming more and more to the conclusion that nature is designed to fit with our psyches and vice versa. It seems that one of the advantages of so-called progress is that our lives are contrived such that nature can be experienced as an end in itself, that is, as a ground for unfettered experience, as it were, rather than merely the context of labor. In other words, nature can be both a source of pleasure and offer some deeper connection to our souls.

Sometimes I think it makes sense to pull my family out of society and go deep into nature – permanently. But then I wise up. For all that I love nature, I also love the city. Still nature has its call, which can be powerful. And this makes me think of the Paskowitz family.


Doc Paskowitz, modern Thoreau
or eccentric despot?

Living a life unfettered from society, close to nature, and not far from a kind of animal existence, living in cramped quarters, constantly on the go, and surfing all the time, sounds like the perfect existence for the young surf bum. For a family of eleven (9 kids) it sounds crazy, but that’s what the Paskowitz family did. Here’s a sampling from the recent documentary Surfwise (2007):

There is something in there that I love and long for. There is also something there that I fear. I want my kids to grow up immersed in nature, I want them to run around like beautiful beasts, to live fully and wild. I also don’t want that. They should also be educated, well mannered, savvy, and have the groundwork laid for future opportunities. Balance is key.

So I am both in awe of the Paskowitz clan and I shake my head. What a great life on the one hand, and a limited life on the other. If I could I would do something like they did for a summer, but not a lifetime. Remember, Thoreau lived at Walden pond for only two years.

Of course, I have yet to try surfing.

>breath of God

Published on by TuckerLeave a comment

>

Out on the thin, vast plain of sand
bodies, hurled with glee, run.

Listing I see:
Fish, trapped in pools, wait for the tide.
Rocks, dotting the bar, lay dark and unhurried.
The creek, cutting the sand, ripples downward.
Gulls, huddled under gray skies, exist.

And crashing comes energy, pent up
for miles of open seas, to lay finally
like a soft kiss on the shore,
like a mysterious voice
that says come, go, come, go.

What are these things, these ordinary wonders?
(The kids are still running, skipping, skimming.)
Are we not in communion,
in the very language itself,
of a great wind, a voice,
a pillar of fire?
Are we not, then, inside
the breath of God?

*photos taken on the Oregon coast July 20&21, 2008. Poem written July 21&22.

>to blog . . .

Published on by Tucker2 Comments

>My own observations tell me one of the most common topics amongst those who blog is the question “why blog?”. I ask myself this question. I see others doing so. I see some questioning the validity of blogging, some quiting their blogs, some taking extended breaks from blogging, and many writing about their reasons for blogging as though they are justifying their actions. I also see many expressing a kind of obligation to provide blog content; they apologize for not having posted in a few days or a few weeks. I see some stating they are re-committing themselves to their blog. Some of those do, and some do not. I frequently see blog posts explaining why other things, mostly life, crowd out the time otherwise used for writing blog posts. Some of those life “things” are big things, like a death in the family, or a birth. Other times those things are rather ordinary, like a busy week at work or preparing for final exams at school. And I see many blogs continue to exist largely because those who provide their content do so out of a kind of obsession; those blogs exist because, in some deep way, they must.

So why blog? Blogging is a somewhat new thing. Writing and journaling is not new, but in historical terms blogging, and its technological underpinnings, are very new. On the other hand, blogging is just another form of personal expression, and there are few things in all of human existence as old as that. The reasons people blog are as numerous as those who blog. And yet, the reasons are universal as well: humans need to, and will, express themselves, extend themselves into the world, seek meaning for their existence, and connect with others. If not blogging then something else will fill the gap. When bloggers give up blogging they do not give up expressing themselves. They go down new routes, other pathways of expressing. But blogging is a great path, and so many blog.

For those with an aesthetic sense, which includes everyone but in some it is more pronounced, blogs allow for some design around the verbiage. In some cases blogs will consist only of images with almost no words. For others, blogs are about the words and the ideas they can express. In any case, blogs are generally about ideas, about existence, about the present, about being human. A catalog of blogs would show, most likely, a rich cross-section of all that it means to be human, both specifically/uniquely and universally. Blogs breathe and bleed our humanity.

Why do I blog? Like most people there is a story behind my decision to begin blogging, and the reasons I continue are also drawn from my life. I came to blogging by way of curiosity and a “need” for some creative outlet. I put need in quotes because I can also say blogging became a diversion from what I truly needed to be doing a the time I started blogging, that is, writing my thesis and getting myself graduated. Regardless, I wanted to do something that was more creative and connected myself to others in some way. Fortunately I also finished school.

But there was a bigger reason for my starting to blog. In January 2006 my second child died. We had spent a great amount of time in hospital caring for her. Months had been devoted to her life, and then there was nothing more we could do. This was a crisis for me, and my family. The process raised a lot of personal issues and question, not least of which included questions of who I was and who did I want to be? I realized I had gone down pathways that, step by step, moved me away from my love of the arts, and more specifically, cinema. This may seem like a lightweight realization in such a context, but it reached all the way back to my childhood and brought up a host of deeply personal issues. It was not, needless to say, the only realization I experienced, but I digress.

I had studied art history, film history, and film production at university. I received two undergraduate degrees and one graduate degree in those fields. I had planned on getting my PhD and then becoming a professor at a film or media studies department somewhere. As the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh tell him your plans. So there I was, a long way from my old plans, working at a software company, reacting to the loss of a child, and wondering who I was. I wanted to start connecting to like minds, reconnect myself to my love of cinema, and learn more about on-line communities. Mostly I just wanted a creative diversion that might also mean something.

I began with MySpace. I created a page and used their blog tool. I grew tired and frustrated with MySpace for a host of reasons and switched to Blogger. Sometimes I am frustrated with Blogger too, but here I am almost a year and a half later. I am considering switching to something like WordPress. It may not be worth the trouble, or it may.

Like many bloggers I wonder if I have anything to say, if what I have to say is worth the fuss of creating and maintaining a blog, if blogging is worth the time and effort when I could be doing other things, and I wonder just how permanent is my blog. The click of a button could take it all down in an instant. So far I feel that blogging has been mostly good for me, but I also am thinking of moving somewhat away from it and try to channel my energies more toward action rather than words. I would rather my daughters know me as a father who interacts more often with them more than the father who is always at the computer. I also want to be a more active person, get outside more, do more of the things I dream of, like climb mountains, go snow camping, take my kids to ball games, hang out with my wife, etc. Regardless I do know this, in one way or another, I will continue to express myself.

For now, PilgrimAkimbo continues on. I have begun to include other topics of interest to me beyond cinema. I see this blog as becoming my public journal more than merely my way to connect to the on-line cinephile community. My desire is still for a creative outlet, but my needs have been changing. I do hope this blog continues to be a means of enriching my life, and I hope, in some small way, it might actually enrich the lives of others. And yet, who knows what tomorrow may bring.

Wilder says, get outside!


Wilder at the park while her papa keeps her swinging.