My child and religion

My child, today I am going to discuss religion since you have started asking questions. 

I take her hand; she is strong, playful, curious. We find a large boulder near a brook and we sit. I pull her onto my lap, arms around her, but lightly, so that she can break free easily if she so wishes. Our eyes squint from the sparkling caused by the sun on the water. The boulder beneath us is comfortable and smelling of moss. Bird song and flap of wing play our ears. And then there is quiet, except for a tiny breeze touching leaves against one another and the sound of water moving over rock. I kiss her soft hair and begin.

“There are three things in life that we all must take in, what we must understand: proof, or truth; theory; and belief.

Now truth is a funny thing. It can be a certainty to all men and life, like physics, where a rock thrown travels at a certain speed and distance depending on what force we apply and what angle we release the rock -“

“And air resistance,” she interrupts in her little voice, her mouth clearly enunciating the word resistance as if it held some special meaning.

“And air resistance. Good. You are very sharp today.” I give her another kiss on the head.

“But truth can also be a personal thing. I have many truths and so do you. They help define us as separate and unique. Special. We all have them. And some of us even express our truths well. Like you, with your tree climbing and your smile and your drawing and the way you say re-sist-ance.

You truths come from all your experiences, all your play and thoughts you think and all the physical things that make you be able to run fast, or give you your hair color.”

“Like from mommy.”

“Yes, you have both of us in you, and a little from my parents and hers and their parents and on and on. Mommy’s and my puzzle pieces fit together. My DNA clicks together with her DNA and the genes express to make you.”

“Mommy has the baby machine.”

“Yes, that’s one reason why she, and all girls, are special. Most of them, with their bodies, can create a child who can create things — including another child. We men can only create things for the child to live in, to play with, to ride in.” 

“Men are special, too.”

“Yes they are. But you will learn: men shape the world; women hold it together.”

I sense she has another question, feel her mind processing, but I guide her back. “That is a lesson for another day.

“So we have truths for all of us, and then we have individual truths. Now there is also something called theory. Theory is an idea we think might be true and we want to prove it somehow. It comes from a desire to know a cause from an effect. Like, if I think that more people on the street will look at a person with green hair than with brown, I take steps to put a person on the street with green hair, and then later one with brown, and sit back and look at what happens.”

“Green hair,” she giggles.

“Yes. Green hair. So here my theory can be proven or not. If my theory is proven, then it is a good theory and it has truth under the conditions I tested it. If it is not proven, then maybe I change the conditions, like trying the green-haired person in more than one city, or may all of them. If it still isn’t proven, then my theory has no truth under the conditions I tried.

Either way, it is either true, or it is not true. And it can be a truth for all, or just an individual truth.

Now there is one more thing called belief. Belief doesn’t require the desire to prove anything like a theory does. Religions are based on belief, and for those who invest themselves — give the direction of their lives — in that belief; they require no proof.

It is tied to individual truths, because one cannot believe in a god like Vishnu or the Father of Jesus, Jesus Himself, or Allah just because someone else tells you to. You have to have it in you, some experience that drives you toward investing in that belief, or you are simply going through the motions because everyone else is. And that is an empty existence for an individual.

I will teach you of other religions like Catholicism. I will have Amar tell you about Hinduism and Sy about Islam and others will tell you about Buddhism, and so on. You will go forth with knowledge, as that is the best way to know more things.

Not all people have to have religion to have happiness. There are many who don’t. They go through life finding happiness in simple things like the smile of a child, or the scent of a flower, or the hug from someone they love. They find a purpose in life doing things they love, expressing themselves through climbing mountains, or drawing, or singing, or helping people, or figuring out math problems. There are as many different purposes to life as there are individuals.

Some people spend all their lives looking for a purpose; some people try to give you one. Beware of those who try to give you one. Your purpose is your own, so is your discovery of it. Let no one try to tell you what it is.”

What’s purpose?” she asks, looking up at me.

“It’s your reason for living — why you do things.”

“What’s mine?”

“Just be who you are. It is found in your desire to express yourself,” I tap her on the chest. “You keep listening to what is in you and keep expressing the joy that is in there and you will find your purpose.”

She sighs and leans heavily against me. We watch the sunlight on the water and dragonflys skimming the surface and edge of the brook, green transparent wings shimmering. In the distance, a bird sings a high melody, pure and clean. 

I lean in to her ear. “I love you,” and before she can reply, “and that is a purpose too.”

She holds my arms tight, thinking.

I am a Survivor

I am a survivor

Youth…hmmm. I think that says enough. Blog over.

…

…

Okay, fine, I'll write more.

My only disclaimer here, to protect the innocent, is that I'm not going to use real names. Okay, they are actually real names, but I'm writing this so you don't think I'm using real names. Heck, I might even just switch the people around so you don't really know who was actually where doing what. 

So says me.

There's a lot of controversy about how much we protect kids nowadays from simple things like running with scissors, running with sharp sticks, running with the wrong crowd…yeah, you know who you are. Leather jacket and tattoos, indeed. As a child on the farm, leather jackets actually came from cows you fed and petted the week before, and tattoos came from being stuck with an ink pen during a fight with your brother. 

Y'all have gotten too complicated with worry in this day and age. I'm going to recall a few incidents for you now that were culled from talking with a couple of my sisters, brother, mom, and my uncle Don; a man who easily carries on the tradition of his mother in telling a good and interesting story that keeps you sitting still and shutting your mouth with attention.

This first one, we'll call her Denise for the sake of the article, makes one wonder just what the heck she did wrong in a previous life to have had this type of penance dished out.

She has a brother, let's call him Scott, who dropped her down a flight of stairs when she was about 2 weeks old. She was wrapped in a blanket and didn't even cry, her mother said. I imagine it had to be one awesome, well-padded blanket, either that, or she got something jarred loose that disconnected her crying mechanism. I'm sure she made up for that not crying later in life, though. The doctor back then - I'm sure just getting finished pulling a bite-down stick out of a patient's mouth - said that children that age had such soft bones that nothing was probably broke. My non-doctor musing says that she had even softer bones after that fall. But that's just me.

Turns out that Denise also had a radio dropped on her head; assailant unknown. This wasn't a tiny transistor radio either. Back then radios were build to more sturdy specifications and bulk than they are today, durable enough say to withstand even a good thunk over the head of a small child. And you wonder why a lot of the items we use today have rounded corners. Thank Denise and her test-head.

Brothers Scott, and let's call the other one Dennis, didn't stop there. They used to tie Denise to a tree because they didn't want to play with her. Seems her sister, let's call her Tammy, had been sufficiently restricted at times, as well. With Tammy you can hardly blame them. I forgot to ask if this had been done in strong winds or during lightening storms, or when packs of wild dogs roamed the area…I imagine Scott and Dennis didn't quite care either way. Play was important back then, and that took precedence.

Scott and Dennis also pushed Denise off the garage roof, telling her it wouldn't hurt. Now I'm not one to comment too harshly in this case. In my defense I had mattresses down for my sisters to fall onto, and I didn't push, mine was demonstrate first; convince later. I thought ahead with the mattress thing, though mom probably wondered why there was grass on the backs of some of them later... And just what is it with all that crying stuff when faced with a challenge like that? Jeesh. 

Those pesky sisters had something called "memory" too. Wonder if a fall down a flight of stairs helped in Scott's case with Denise. I'm sure she remembers things just fine nowadays.

Tammy, ill-fated sister of Scott and Dennis, had also been pushed out into the cornfield and left there when she was about 5 months old. Come'on, there was play to be engaged in and a baby in a stroller or wagon, was surely a limiting factor. Even I understand that one. And her parents eventually found her sleeping, though the corn was pretty high at that point. Almost as if they had practice searching for babies or something, they were that good.

Not to be outdone though, Denise had been left in a church after holy mass by her parents; let's call them Don and Betty for this article. In their defense, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they did have a bunch of other kids to pack into that vehicle. There wasn't a head count, so it was easy to overlook little 5 year-old Denise. Easy. And they did care about her, they did. It wasn't until the priest knocked on their door at home later, little Denise in hand, that they did the V-8 smack on their heads and realized they had forgotten something.

Camping is also a baby-losing endeavor. Little Denise again. Seems her father Don, missed attaching the lower covering to the fold out bunks that extended from the camper. Denise eventually rolled out of the camper onto the ground. It wasn't until Don and Betty heard the crying beacon of the infant, that they knew something was amiss. It took a while, with all that lack of lighting and all, but they did find her outside on the ground, screaming into the night like she had a right to do that or something. I guess if anyone earned that right, it was Denise.

And you thought crying was just about wanting to be fed or something annoying like that. Heh. 

I asked Betty if Denise had been hurt that time and she replied emphatically, "No, our kids were tough!" 

They had to be Betty, they had to be :)

Not to be completely outdone, there is a sister of mine, let's call her Soni, who had a few incidents worth mentioning. Another brother, let's call him LaDon, managed to drop her on her head twice. He was 4 at the time, good infant-holding age. His recall of the incident? "She had a big head and all the weight went that way."

Turns out she also got stepped on as an infant by her other brother, let's call him Glen. The oldest sister, let's call her Faye, laid the child sweetly on the floor near the entrance to the living room, and then covered her with a blanket. I was sitting nearby watching whatever was on TV at the time, and I remember seeing Glen walk in and promptly step on Soni. In the ensuing surprise and anger, these words came out of their mouths: Faye - "Who steps on a baby!", Glen - "Well who puts a baby in the middle of the floor?!"

All I could think of at the time was seeing Glen take that squishy step. Soni was just cryin' fine though. 

Soni also wasn't a fan of the orange couch as an infant, promptly preferring the air-drop to the green carpet. Something tells me she was just asking to be stepped on.

Speaking of which, even the livestock got in on the action. Cocoa, not a nice cow that day, managed to rush into the barn, prior to milking, and step on Soni in the process. But don't worry, she was around 3 years-old at that point and could handle herself.

I seem to also recall her getting a bump on the head…ok, a tad more than a bump, from playing near me. We were in the haymow hanging and playing on the steel cable that supported the barns wood beam foundation. Well, there was this mass of steel coupling where the two cables joined and I was jerking them back and forth in a testing-of-strength type thing, and Soni came up to play, too. I took one hard jerk on that cable, felt and heard the thunk of steel on hard head, and looked over to find Soni's head bloody, her mouth open in a cry that screamed the remaining pigeons out of the barn. Now what were the chances she would place her head right next to that chunk-of-steel coupling? They were pretty good that day.

My other sister, she shall be called Jackie for this, enjoyed playing in the haymow, too. Add a couple of brothers to the mix and it becomes less likable. LaDon and I had made this rope-and-pulley system that raised kids high off the floor of the haymow. We were ingenious. Talented. We had vision. Part of that vision didn't include Jackie plummeting to the wood floor onto her butt when the rope broke, but we couldn't visualize everything ahead of time. I remember the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that we broke her; she had a worse feeling I'm fairly certain. She did manage to squeeze out of her agony and lungs, "get the milkman". She thought she was dying and I didn't quite contradict her at that time, thinking the same. We ran to go get the milkman. I don't think he got involved at all, but Jackie survived.

She survived long enough to break her arm on the saw-horse jump I had made for us kids. You place a wooden saw horse out in the grass yard, put some good jumping mattresses behind it, and then round up some kids to jump over the thing. Jackie ran for her turn as I was walking back from one of mine. I did remember hearing a hard hit on that wood that I hadn't heard before, seeing the inevitable flop onto the mattress, and then Jackie getting up crying hard and running around holding her arm.

I have to say I hadn't taught them all a safety course prior to the jumping, but in my defense, none of the other kids got broke.

Jackie also got lost in J.C. Pennies, recovered by a nice police officer who gave her an orange soda, and she also ran headlong into an electric fence at another time. 

I have to join her on the electric fence thing, though I had the benefit of much more speed. Yep, dad had moved the fence lines without telling us. I took my bike hard and fast down the normally unrestricted field to the pond when something caught my throat and knocked me clean off the bike. I slammed backwards five feet, the bike continued for another fifteen. 

Seems we got tough necks.

And no, at that speed you don't feel an electric jolt from the electric fencer at all.

I could go on about how LaDon got shot in the foot - cowboy booted foot, might I add - by another brother of his who shall remain nameless lest everyone think there's a common denominator to all these injuries…come to think of it now, the brother in question ended up shooting 3 of his brothers with a bb gun; foot, upper thigh, middle of the back - hey, he said it wasn't loaded!

LaDon nearly drowned in the pond. Yep, slipped under the water without a splash. I jumped off the embankment, plunged in and saved him. 

No, I did not push him under. That was later on, so he says. Playing shark with my other brother, we apparently knocked them off the raft into the water, turning it over on them, and then somehow they had trouble breathing under the thing. 

I'll take his word for it. I did save him prior, so I think that evens things out.

My other sister, we'll call her Rhonda (I have 8 of these tough siblings, by the way), was jumping off a parked hay wagon while we were playing superheroes. I had already made the jump, moving aside the ropes that were strung up to hold the bales in from the side opening, and was flying away first. I then looked back to find Rhonda struggling against a rope around her neck, legs kicking in the empty air, a look of wild strain on her face. Well, I flew back, arms outstretched as if I was actually flying…the silly things you do when you're immersed in play…and lifted her up so we could get the rope off her neck. I imagine that at that young age she hadn't yet had her neck toughened up enough by electric fences.

There were more. I nearly got speared in the back from a sharp and rusted piece of steel as I fell from a tree ten feet to the ground. I hadn't nailed down that one board on that limb and off I flew. Such a soft landing on the outstretched branch below, and that's when I looked next to my shoulder and saw the steel. That spanked the reality of the situation right into me hard.

I was nearly crushed to death by several hundred pounds of frozen silage. In winter we dig with multi-tined forks into the silage (chopped corn, stalks and all) stored in a concrete storage silo. The silage closest to the wall was always impossibly frozen, so we'd hollow out a center hole and work our way down. Well, come spring and the thaw, the outer wall of silage decided to melt enough and fall inward. I was up there alone, when I heard a deep, tearing sound. I looked and saw the whole wall of silage coming down at me. I rushed to the side as fast as I could, though everything truly seemed to move in slow motion, and just missed it covering me. It landed partially against my leg without pain.

Gives one a different perspective.

Then I was successfully taken out by a little bacteria from a pitchfork I had been dragging on the barn floor behind me. I pulled the fork up only to set it back down into the heel of my ankle by accident. There was blood, some pain, but nothing that would equal what would come later. I was in the hospital for almost 2 months. At one point an experimental medicine was used and, well, I'm alive and have my foot working just fine. 

I only recently found out about the experimental medicine. Some people would say that explains much about me.

There are more stories. But you've read enough now. Suffice it to say we definitely grew up in a less restricted environment. We survived and became tougher for it. Toughness was applauded and admired, and it went right along with play. Hard play was the catalyst that inspired growth, prepared us for what was to come in life. We don't shun a lot of the hard stuff that many do in the new generations being raised, having experienced things the way we did. Our trials and pain brought us closer, taught us about ourselves and the value of those around us when in time of need, and when not. 

Telling these stories to each other around the table that night raised in us the strength of family, that we are there for each other, that we would do most anything to see each other safe and together. But also knowing deeply, that we all get to the same spot by different roads. And that bumpy roads make for an interesting ride.

Shaun Rudie

Survivor, Rudie farm

Home: Journey to Wisconsin

Home

Effortlessly slipping back in time, that’s what it was. Well, perhaps not effortlessly. It took three days and fifteen hundred miles to make that trip. What was effortless was transitioning through the pockets of values each state and population held on my way there. 

Big cities and small form around the practicing values held in the hearts and minds of individuals gathering in one place to form family. Agreed upon associations and presentation of like minds, the structure of law to prevent breakdown of ideology and also create some sort of equilibrium we call “fairness”; the family becomes society. 

Varying levels of home-like comfort, accepted values, draw individuals to specific societies. Whether these are wanted values, or established values, the end result is a need to fit in with those of like mind, attitude, presence.

The following stood out to me. 

Atlanta, as a city, was massive to me. As in having a weight, a bearing that seemed founded in squat, dense lodestone. I drove through the heart of it, pleasantly spending time in traffic that allowed me to observe its scope from the ground level. There was such movement, such flow of being that had some place to go, some place to get to now. Concrete, steel and glass formed by hand and machine, by creative minds taking time to imagine a presence, an interconnected flow and travel that would appease both function and form - as long as it didn’t get too high off the ground. And it was unmoving humid. Living in Florida I understand humidity, but Atlanta’s humidity was on a massive scale, no ocean breeze to move it along. 

Paducah Kentucky stood out to me as well. There was more a level of comfort there, homy-ness, than I expected. I loved the mountainous pocketing of it, nestled and hidden away, approachable through roads dotted with slow moving semi trucks cut in the rock earth. Sheer yellow and brown limestone walls topped with green…this was earthen massive, a surrounding panorama of backlit mountain and clouds with not enough lift, skirting them like vaporous frill. 

I took time sitting in a local mall, wanting to observe the people. Here’s what came of it:

Observation 8-2-11 Kentucky mall

A stork lady walked quickly past, her upper body lean and speed only emphasized her "escaping a predator" air, her head snapping side-to-side as she carried her bag in one folded "wing"

Everyone, a small group overall, seems to be in a hurry, many making an appearance repeatedly moving through the central crossing; it is not a big mall. One teen and his friends try to make a sale of a plastic bracelet with only his personality the marketing tool: rambunctious, too eager and pleading, yet sure of his smile. Hasn't sold it yet...I'm fairly sure he won't.

The mix of fashion here is an order of magnitude different from Tampa Intl. Mall, seems here is a lot less care about it, a home grown amalgam more closely tied with where they want to be, rather than what or who they want to look like.

Then there was the state of Illinois. It is a long state. There is a lot of corn. That was the majority of my seemingly endless trek through. Corn. Sky. Long, uninteresting roads. And it was seemingly endless. Cell phone service was out for thirty minutes at a time, not a pleasant thing when you are using the phone map feature to guide your way. 

And did I mention the corn and sky?

Northern Illinois was dotted with wind turbines, massive grey and white pinwheels forcing the air to servitude. As unattractive as they were on the horizon, and jutting up behind and around homesteads, it was certainly more interesting than…any guesses?

Next was Wisconsin. Wisconsin was felt in the air, a cooler, cleaner quality that allowed my body to feel rested just driving through. It was home. It was as if some genetic expression was being satisfied, some weight of the world was being removed. It was sturdy, green and gentle hills touched by four crisply distinct seasons. Family moved over it, on earth turned by plow. Through hardship, toil, the satisfaction of a days work behind them, a flavor of nature lovers living with the land, valuing it and the life abundant.

A family reunion, my grandma’s family on my mother’s side, brought me in touch with smiling, energetic faces and minds, some cousins I hadn’t seen since they were five or six or younger. Most had children of their own, which only added to the number of names I had tendency to forget. Throughout all my interactions with them, there was the unerring tilt toward witticism and humor, a distinct need for playfulness from the majority of them. A genetic trait? I found out later on the swings and climbing equipment that none of that was lost on the children, my younger brother (now forty) among them, as he walked backward on a rope with nearly the same balance skill he had had as a child. 

Impressive to not lose ones childhood talent with all that life throws at you. Home is where you get to flex it, to play…and they have to accept you.