Hope and the New Punk Rock

This post contains some spoilers for the movie Superman. If you haven’t seen it, what are you doing? Go see it. It’s good!

The tagline for the original Superman movie in 1978 was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” And, sure, since I was 9 years old, Superman has been cool to me because he could fly, move at superspeed, hoist a car, and shoot lasers from his eyes (technically heat vision). Yet it has long been true that the aspect of this strange visitor from another planet has been his goodness. Despite having abilities far beyond mortal men, Superman always sought to make the world a better place for every man, woman, child, and squirrel.

I’m less concerned with whether a man can be powerful. But to make me believe a powerful man can be kind? That is something extraordinary.

So let’s cut to the chase. Superman, written and directed by James Gunn, did just that. It is a fun and fantastic comic book come to life with bright colors, kaiju, pocket universes, and all sorts of superhero shenanigans. I had a goofy grin on my face for most of my two viewings of the movie in theaters. Yet even more than the fun, the film captured the essence of Superman and even made it work in a present day context.

I am not sure that I have anything of value to write here, but when you turn 42 it is tough to turn down the chance to write something with the title above (it is a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a book I haven’t read but did see the 2005 movie starring Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel). Spoiler alert: I have not acquired that cosmic answer.

I don’t feel like I have a lot of answers lately. Which is unfortunate because I spend a decent amount of my life right now sitting in hospital rooms being asked the question “What do I do?” I find myself saying things like “I don’t know” or “I wish I had some sort of magical answer to fix everything.” People figure out fairly quickly that I am not an answer man. I have suggestions, insight, and the occasional flash of wisdom, but I’m not going to be posting any social media content or writing books about what someone else needs to do.

But I hope that they also figure out that I am going to sit with them through the questions and all the emotions that come with them. At this point in my life, I guess that is what I am trying to do. Not just with people that I meet in the hospital but with whomever I find myself. I am just trying to be present with the people who are in the room. I am trying to leave the space for them to be who they are and I am trying to authentically be who I am; even when I am experiencing emotions like hurt, anger, disappointment, or other things from which I would shy to theoretically protect myself and others.

To Jim on His 15th Birthday

Last night—the night before you turned 15—I spent way too much time trying to figure out what we needed to do for you to get your Learner’s Permit. Besides the fact that the State of Tennessee unsurprisingly has woefully inefficient websites, I was struck by the fact that sometime in the next few weeks I will be sitting next to you as you drive a car.

Now I completely trust you. Although you did recently say something to the effect of “How hard could driving be? I do it in Mario Kart all the time.” That terrified me slightly. Then we had one of our conversations where I came at you with logic, you doubled down with stubbornness, I pivoted into absurdity, and that finally made you crack a smile. We have a lot of conversations like that and I enjoy them. But I digress. Once you learn the basics of driving, I have no doubt that you are going to be a safe and responsible young man behind the wheel. I’m just having more trouble with the fact that you are going to be a young man behind the wheel.

Fifteen. As that number has approached, you have dangled this upcoming age out there in some sort of attempt to make mine and your mom’s head explode. Every kid probably does that when they sense they are getting to an age that once seemed impossible to their parents. Your mom has usually responded by denying that it was going to happen. I usually look you square in the eye and stoically assert that I know how the math works. But the truth is it is kind of hard to believe you are fifteen. It is here that I am starting to hear the clock tick on you one day going off to college.

This brief reflection contains spoilers from the latest MCU movie Thunderbolts*

I keep going to movies and taking my boys with me because I love stories. And there is always a chance with a story that there might be something onto which I can grab that helps me make sense of my world. Or perhaps it will put into moving pictures that for which I have struggled to find words. These cinematic epiphanies don’t happen all the time, but you’d be surprised how often they do appear. But even I don’t think I was prepared to have one of these moments when we went to see the newest MCU installment Thunderbolts* (and, yes, the asterisk is part of the title).

Usually these superhero movies conclude with a third act CGI slugfest. Although these special effects extravaganzas can be done well, there is an element of diminishing returns when it happens in nearly every single blockbuster movie. Thunderbolts* feints in the direction of a supervillain wreaking havoc upon a city, but then it zigs where you think it is going to zag.

I have been struggling with a question these last few weeks: What does Easter look like inside a hospital? How does talk of hope and resurrection sound within a place where so many people die? (Parenthetically, this thought is somewhat unfair as hospitals are just as much places of life and healing as they are of death; people just don’t generally call chaplains for the celebratory stuff). Those abstract musings became more concrete this past week as a patient whom I have been following for several months suddenly and unexpectedly died.

Over the past seven months at the hospital, I have bore witness to a fair amount of death. I do not write that with any particular pride; it is simply an unavoidable part of where I work right now. All of the losses have touched me in different ways, but the one from this past week cut deeply. I spent many hours in this patient’s room talking with him or his wife. I met their children. I witnessed recovery, setbacks, recovery, and then ultimately loss. I care deeply for this family and I wish to God that this all could have turned out differently.

So what is resurrection in the face of grieving widows, crying daughters, and hopes cut down? All I have been able to grasp is admittedly not that original, but it is this: what happens in the hospital does not have the final word. This death, this heartache, this loss is not the end. That is the hope to which I cling. The empty tomb and love defeating death can sometimes be my only hope.

Palm Sunday

One of the major theological shifts in my life occurred when I learned that the triumphal entry—this great parade of palms and hosannas—was a protest. Jesus rode a humble donkey instead of a war horse. He processed into town down the main way like a conquering general and yet it was the conqueror who would be conquered. Like all of his ministry, Palm Sunday was a challenge to how those around Jesus perceived the world; it is still an upside down contrast to how we assume things are presently.

You think that victory, freedom, and justice are delivered by political power or sword? I am going to show you another way.

Lots of people didn’t get it. Lots of Christians still don’t get it. Honestly, there are many days when I don’t get it.

U.S. History has always been one of my favorite subjects. Growing up in South Carolina, I had the privilege to go on field trips to important sites of the American Revolution like Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Fort Moultrie. There was something about walking in the footsteps of freedom fighters that ignited my imagination. I realized early on that I could learn much from the past: both the events that fill our hearts with pride and those that cause us great shame. The latter is important too. I am, after all, a son of the American South.

To Liam on His Twelfth Birthday

As I think about this last year, the first place my mind travels is out west. I envision you climbing rocks everywhere we went: the Oregon coast, Yosemite, Joshua Tree. If there was something to be explored, you were out there chasing after adventure. It was like your spirit was going to bust out wherever you went. As a parent, it was sometimes frightening. You have this knack for charging off without a sufficient amount of forethought. Yet there is this spark in that fearlessness that I hope ignites something amazing in you.

This has been a year of uncharted territory for you. You started middle school. You performed in your first school play. You hit bumps of anxiety. You continue to run deeper into adolescence. All of these treks have been exciting, scary, difficult, annoying, and life-giving for you. I can see the tug-of-war going on in you everyday between wanting to still be our little boy and wanting to be more independent. Even as you continue to pursue the latter, you will always be the former. Your mom and I will never stop caring for you or loving you.

Is it ridiculous that this is your last year before you’re a teenager? Of course it is. As I have told you and your brother many times when you try to bait me into an existential crisis by pointing out how old you are, I know how time works. Yet I can still close my eyes and see you as a baby or as a fedora-wearing toddler or this mischievous kid. There is a voice recording that has been on my phone for over nine years in which a three year old you tells a wonderful meandering story. I know how you got from there to here, but I would be lying to say that there is not a small pang that make me miss all that you have been.

Ash Wednesday hits different in a hospital. “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return” seems painfully obvious in a place where so many people die. I half imagined a doctor or a nurse responding, “Yeah, I’m well aware.” This is a place where it would be hard to forget that we are dust.

I found myself wondering how different this remembrance would be in a church if the imposition of ashes was done not by pastors in robes and suits, but nurses in scrubs, doctors in lab coats, or children in hospital gowns. Would that be too over the top? At the very least it would be more difficult to shake the reality of our finitude and fragility.

For some of us, the fragility of life is not that far from our minds. Every news cycle can seem like another chaos monster careening out of control. And I realize not everyone feels that way. It’s getting a bit harder for me to understand why, but it is the reality whether I know why or not. Yet in the midst of this chaos, I take some solace in the fact that we are all dust.

Twenty-seven degrees is cold. There has never been a moment when I saw that the temperature was in the 20s and thought, “Oh boy, let’s go outside!” Yet it is funny how a few days of temperatures in the early adolescence can make 27º feel almost pleasant. It was that cold this morning as I walked into work and I found myself thinking, “This isn’t too bad.” It is fascinating how quickly our bodies can adapt to what at one time was the abnormal. I think that our spirits do the same.

This season is a weird one for me. This is the eighth Sunday of the year and I believe that I have been to church once; back in early January. It is almost certainly the least that I have been to church since I was a fetus. And since my mom was in church regularly during that time then it might as well be the least that I have been to church ever.

The irony is that this absence is due to my presence at the hospital providing spiritual care. On Sundays, I hold a pager, check the network for consults, make rounds, and sit with folks navigating peaks, valleys, and everything in between. Sometimes, these encounters are just chitchat. Many times, it is a sacred experience. Even when God is not mentioned, the divine has this way of showing up in the room. What I experience on Sundays is not exactly church, but it’s not not church either. I’ll often experience community, a passing of the peace, an exchange of wisdom, and sometimes prayer.

So…it’s been a bit of a week. There was yet another school shooting in our area, which has torn open wounds for people who have experienced these tragedies before and scared anew children in schools including my own. On the national front, it seems that calling on people to protect the frightened and vulnerable is seen by many as a radical leftist agenda rather than, as I have understood it, basic human decency.

Of course, there have been other things good, bad, and in between. Everything is not lost but, Good Lord, the dark clouds loom ominously and I feel tired. You might feel tired too.

I would like to give you some sort of rousing speech about things being darkest before the dawn, but we don’t really know how long the arcs of history bend. I’m reminded of my favorite Frederick Buechner quote, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” I actually quoted that to one of my sons this week talking about the shooting in Antioch. But, you know, it’s okay if you feel a little scared. You are a person after all (I said this to my son also).

So we’ll go from Buechner to the mid 2000s arena rock banger “All These Things That I’ve Done.” Not the lyric “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” though there is something in there too. But simply this: “If you can, hold on.” Throughout scripture, people are encouraged to not grow weary in doing what is right (Galatians 6:9-10 pops into my mind immediately) even though said weariness is warranted.