Letting Go (by Billy Coffey)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

There are plenty of folks who say the Civil War is still being fought around here, though perhaps not in the way most would think. I speak not of the lurking and sometimes blatant racism that is just as much a part of the South as it is the North and West. No, I’m talking about another sort of fight, the reality of which depends completely upon your point of view.

Among the great reasons to call Virginia home is its history. Some say the Indians first migrated to the our valley around five thousand years ago. Take a walk with me in the long cornfields by the river’s edge near my home, and you can find evidence of their centuries here—arrowheads and tomahawks, pottery and spearheads.

After them came the time of Washington and Jefferson and Madison, giants whose courage and vision founded history’s greatest nation. And then came Lee and Jackson and a time when that nation was torn apart.

Yes, lots of history here.

Lots of ghosts, too.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I spoke with an old-timer who told me of a house in the city that was once a hospital for Confederate soldiers. There’s a reddish-brown stain on the parlor floor there, he said. About the size of a small spill. According to the homeowners, the stain has always been there. If it’s cleaned up, it reappears soon afterwards. If a rug is placed over it, the stain somehow seeps through the rug.

Local legend states it’s the blood of a confederate soldier. The homeowners agree. Quite an outlandish claim of course, but to a lot of the people here it’s just one more ghost story among thousands.

Like the Indian warrior who haunts the factory near my home. Or the spirits who inhabit the local cemeteries. There’s an abandoned house near the railroad tracks that’s haunted by the ghosts of two murdered brothers.

Keep in mind this is just in my town. Get out of there and up into the hills, and to hear the stories you’d be led to believe there are more ghosts than people.

Such tends to be the case for those parts of our country still immersed in the old ways, where religion and folklore entwine in an always rich but sometimes clumsy dance. The older people tend to see these tales as true. The younger ones generally use them for late-night campfires with easily-frightened girlfriends.

But back to that old-timer.

Nice old guy. He’s lived in this town for ninety-plus years, and he says his family has been here for over a century. He’s a believer in the ghosts. He says there are parts of life we may never get a glimpse of, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real.

And he said this: “Those ghosts are stuck here in this world, you see. For whatever reason, they can’t let go. So they’re left to roam. They’re not living, but they ain’t dead either. And for that, they have my pity.”

In that moment all of those ghosts had my pity, too. I still didn’t believe in them, of course. To me, they were nothing more than rural fairy tales. But fairy tales tend to have a lot of truth wrapped in them, some warning or lesson to be heeded. And I began to think maybe our town’s fairy tales did, too.

There’s a lot to be said for holding tight to something, whether it’s a dream or an ideal or a hope. Perseverance and tenacity are virtues, I think. Good things.

But there are times for letting go, too. Times when holding on means to neither live nor die, but merely to roam. Our perseverance and tenacity can become twisted into something it was never meant to be, leaving us bitter instead of strengthened and a mere specter instead of a person.

And I thought, too, of those things I hold tightly to in my own life, things valuable and real. And I wondered if when the time came I could let go. I hoped so, I really did.

It’s a matter of faith, letting go. It’s the epitome of trust.

And we’ll often find that when we let go, we’ll grasp Someone who will never let go of us.


***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Going under (by Billy Coffey)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

A postscript concerning my son’s tonsillectomy last week:

Upon further reflection—and when you’re awake all night like I was, there is plenty of time for reflection—it wasn’t the visit to the hospital that worried him. He was okay with the hospital. And it wasn’t even the pain. What worried him the most was the very thing he most looked forward to.

The happy gas.

It’s tough trying to explain a medical procedure to a six-year-old, especially when the ins and outs are pretty vague to his father. I didn’t really know what tonsils and adenoids were, what function they served, or why they were giving him such trouble. But the anesthesia part I knew.
So I told him he got to wear a mask like Batman did and that the air would smell like cotton candy and he’d fall asleep. And while he was asleep the doctors would do their business and make him better.

“You won’t feel a thing,” I told him. “Promise.”

He didn’t believe me.

Experience had taught him otherwise. He’d slept before, and he’d either done things or had things happen that he not only remembered, but felt.

He fell out of the bed twice. Felt that. Bopped his face against the headboard. Felt that, too. He’s also awakened himself by burping, talking, snoring, and coughing. Sometimes all at once.

No way, he thought, no way, would he be able to sleep through someone operating on him.

So I explained that the happy gas wouldn’t just put him asleep, it would put him really asleep, and that the doctor would make sure he stayed that way until everything was finished.

Afterward, once we were home and he was safely on the sofa with his ice cream, I asked him about it.

“I didn’t feel anything,” he said. “I can’t even remember anything.”

And then he said this—“I wish I could have some of that for when I go to school. That way I could just wake up when I got home and I wouldn’t remember any of it.”

Funny, yes. And that definitely pegged him as my son. But he really had a great idea there, at least on the surface. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have some advance warning to the less than perfect things we have to face? And wouldn’t it be great if just before we could put on a Batman mask, breathe some cotton-candy air, and fall asleep through the whole thing?

Yes. It would.

I’ll admit for a while I did my best not to try and poke holes in his Happy Gas Theory. I knew there were some and most likely many. But sometimes we take comfort in those things that aren’t and can never be. That’s what I did while sitting on the sofa with him. I reveled.

But the truth of course was that we had to go through our painful things sometimes. We could slide around some and jump over others, but sooner or later a storm would come that we couldn’t outrun or take cover from, and we were left to stand there in the open under the pour.

Sometimes, that didn’t seem right to me.

It would make more sense to say that if God was there and if God was good, He would take better care of the ones who loved Him. He would make sure our paths were clear. He would prevent the pain and the pour and the doubt. He would take away the fear.

If there was such a thing as everyday happy gas, I thought, then shouldn’t it be God?

Maybe. But maybe that pain and pour and doubt served a purpose that outweighed the need for our happiness. Maybe we needed fear so we could know the value of faith.

Maybe.

I didn’t know for sure, but I thought the odds were good that He’d spared me from a great many troubles in my life without me knowing it. Not happy gas, but maybe something better. And as I looked down and saw my son wince when he tried to swallow, I knew that all the happy gas in the world couldn’t take away all the pain. Some still lingered.

That was true for all of us, I supposed. We were all a collection of bruises and cuts. We all had our tender places.

And I thought that in the end, it was our pain and not our happiness that brought us nearer to heaven.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

NightandIloveyou (by Billy Coffey)

A recent, and very early, Friday morning:

I hear it through a thick blanket of sleep, soft at first then clearer and stronger. Not the sort of noise one fears at night. Not a crack or a thump or a ring from the telephone. But the sort of noise that makes you wonder where it’s coming from and what in the world it means.

“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”

I grab the remote control and point it in the general direction of the television, thinking that I had dozed off in the middle of whatever I had been watching three hours earlier. I wave it blindly, pushing the ON/OFF button and then smacking the whole thing against my hand because the batteries must be dead. And then I realize that the television isn’t on. The noise, however, still is:

“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”

My head raises, using what can only be described as the human equivalent to sonar to identify the source.

It’s coming from my son’s bedroom.

I pull back the blankets, schlep into the hallway, and stand at his door. The soft red light from his Lightning McQueen lamp illuminates him in his bed. He is staring at the ceiling with his arms raised and his fingers doing some sort of magical dance.

“Hey,” I say.

He jerks and spins and stares at me with a look of terror. He has been worried of monsters under his bed lately, and ghosts in his closet, and the bad guy from Toy Story. I just may be all three.

“Just me,” I promise.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I am.”

“No, you’re singing.”

“Sorry, Daddy.”

“Let’s get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”

“Nightandloveyoutoo.”

Back through the hallway, back into bed. I pull the blankets over me and roll to my side. Then, just as I close my eyes:

“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”

Sigh.

Back out of bed, back into the hallway, back to his door.

“Hey, bud,” I say.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Quit singing and go to sleep.”

“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”

I turn to leave, satisfied that my tone of voice has said what my words did not: don’t wake me again.

“Daddy?” he says, more to the shadow I cast against the wall than to me.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Mommy says to sing when you’re scared.”

Uh-oh.

I move into his room and onto his bed. “Mommy’s a smart girl,” I say. “Maybe the smartest.”

“She says singing makes the shadows brighter.”

“It does,” I tell him. But I don’t think she meant to sing a song from a commercial, and I’m fairly sure she didn’t mean to sing in the middle of the night.”

“Do you get scared, Daddy?”

I mull that one over, biding a few precious seconds by rearranging his covers and pillow. This is a murky question, one best considered in the light of day when I’m alert rather than the dark of night when I’m-not-so-much.

I weigh my options. Tell him that I am scared sometimes, and that may make things much worse. Because if Daddy’s scared, then there must really be some bad things out there. Things worse than monsters. Don’t tell him, though, and I risk much worse. I risk lying to my son.

Because I do get scared. A lot.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Sometimes.”

“What do you do when you’re scared?”

“Pray, usually.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s even better than singing.”“Does it make the shadows brighter?”

“Better,” I say. “It makes the shadows go away.”

So we pray that the angels will chase away all the monsters. He speaks of the ones in his room, and I think of the ones in this world. Because I know the truth: the ones in the world are real.

We sit alone in the quiet stillness of his room, two people determined to find peace and rest regardless of the shadows that surround us. “It’s not so dark with a father here,” he observes. With me there beside him, rest comes easier. “Nightandloveyou,” he says, and then is asleep.

Back in my own bed, I stop to consider the shadows in our world. I am aware of many more than my son, and thankfully so. I worry about my family sometimes. I worry what will happen next. Tomorrow used to be a word of hope for people. Things would be better then. But I think that too many would rather cling to the present or even the past now. For a lot of us, tomorrow's just too scary.

Then I remember what my son said. The darkness doesn't seem to dark when your father is there. Yes. The shadows lessen. Rest comes easier.

I close my eyes and say my own short prayer.

“Nightandloveyou,” I say to my Father. And I sleep.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

The Rules (by Billy Coffey)

It began two years ago with a simple conversation between one college softball player and one groundskeeper. I’m not sure who first said what. All I know is at some point one said something about being a much better ballplayer than the other, which was taken as an insult, which resulted in more insults, which resulted in the first ever softball game between the girls fastpitch team and the staff.

Last Wednesday was round three.

The games are always interesting. There is an extraordinary amount of fanfare involved, all of which can be boiled down to one word—pride. That’s what fuels these games. It’s not just pros against Joes, it’s the experience of age versus the cockiness of youth. Both teams are out to prove something, whether it be that that a bunch of old men can still kick it up a notch when needed or that the gals can hit and throw and run just as good—better, even—than the guys.

So while there is plenty in the way of friendly trash talking, there is also an undeniable seriousness beneath. My team doesn’t want to be beaten by a bunch of girls. Their team doesn’t want to be beaten by a bunch of groundskeepers, a few office workers, and a mailman.

It was an informal affair at best—no uniforms, no signals, and no stolen bases. And no umpire. Balls and strikes were called by the catchers, one of whom our team borrowed from the other. Baserunners were called safe or out based on consensus.

What could go wrong?

As it turned out, not much. For a while.

Because despite the combination of weakened knees and livers and lungs, us old guys were holding our own. And the young gals were holding theirs, despite the fact they’d been up for days cramming for finals. We were locked in a 1-0 pitchers duel.

But then through a series of walks and hits, we rednecks managed to load the bases with two outs.

Things were suddenly serious, and very much so. The chatter and clapping began in our dugout, while in the field the ladies were pounding their gloves and getting restless. And nervous.

The count ran full, and I could see the sweat building on the pitcher’s face. The intensity was getting to her. It was a look I’d seen before. No way she’d throw a strike.

And she didn’t. The ball sailed about four inches outside.

I jogged to third as the carousel of baserunners moved up one base. The runner ahead of me stomped on home plate with authority. We had a tie game.

Yes! Wait. No.

Because then the pitcher decided her last pitch was a strike after all, which was immediately agreed upon by her teammates.

Team Redneck protested in a most vehement way, of course. But in the end, there wasn’t much we could do about it. We took the field and vowed revenge our next at bat. Which never came, because after they batted they decided the game was over.

I didn’t stick around for the cookout afterwards. I imagine it was a quiet meal.
Me, I didn’t care that much. It was a chance for me to play some ball. The score was irrelevant. And I guarantee you that thought was echoed by most of the people on my team who just enjoyed playing like kids again. It didn’t bother us that we lost. What bothered us was how we lost.

We played by the rules. They didn’t.

You could see this whole episode as something bad. Not me. In fact, I see much good in it.

It lets me know that regardless of how often we’re reminded of how bad both the world and the people in it are, we still expect folks to follow the rules. To play fair. Most do. A lot don’t, of course, and never will. But as long as there is someone somewhere willing to take offense when the rules are broken, I really think we’ll be okay.

All of this has gotten me thinking about the rules my Dad first taught me about baseball. The ones I’m teaching my son now:

Play hard.

Practice much.

Don’t be afraid to get dirty.

Have fun.

Cheer for your teammates.

Keep your head up.

Win well. Lose better.

Shake hands when you’re done.

I like those rules. They’re good for baseball.

They’re good for life, too.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Sleepwalking (by Billy Coffey)

Take a walk through my town and you’ll likely see more than one person who reminds you of yourself, if only on the inside—generally middle class, generally happy, generally a little worried about the state of things.

We walk the balance beam of prosperity here. Most have neither too much nor too little, and for the most part we’re good with that. We have enough to get by, enough to dream of having more, and enough to feel like we’re living our lives the way we’re supposed to.

There are exceptions, of course. Some have a lot of money and don’t mind telling you. Others struggle to make sure there’s dinner on the table. Me, I’ve always thought it was the rich people who had to be more careful about money than the poorer folks. The more you have, the more you want. That’s what I always say.

Money is a snare, Paul said in his first letter to Timothy. I think that’s true. I’ve seen a lot of people ruined by it. And not just the rich.

Enter Danny.

Danny lives in a modest home in a modest neighborhood, which is appropriate considering he has a modest family. Wife, daughter, son, and two dogs he takes hunting with him every year. Like most everyone else, Danny’s family has enough. More than enough, really. But for him, it’s always been too little. His job at the grocery store provides his family with the necessities of life. They have the shelter and the food and the clothing. But he’s always dreamed of having more.

The 1985 Chevy truck he drives to work can get him there, which is okay. But it can’t get him there in style, which would be even better. And his home, a twenty-year-old double wide with leaky faucets and drafty windows, is comfortable. But it’s not fancy. And if there is anything Danny wants in life, it’s a good dose of fancy.

Unfortunately for him, such a lifestyle cannot normally be gotten by stocking cans of chicken noodle soup and mopping floors. All Danny knows is groceries. Ask him where any item is, and he can tell you. A can of beans not labeled? Danny knows the price. Want to know how to tell a good watermelon from a bad one? Ask him. He’s given his life to the grocery store. Been there nearly twenty years.

But that’s where his talents end. Danny’s been given the opportunity over the years to climb the corporate ladder. Those grocery store managers don’t live in double-wides and drive twenty-year-old trucks, he says. But he’s found that some of the rungs on that ladder are missing, and he’s always ended up back where he started.

“I just don’t have much business sense,” he told me.

To him, he’s stuck. Stuck stocking shelves and emptying boxes and handling the cash register when someone calls in sick. And it makes him miserable. His is not a bad life, and he’ll admit that. But it is neither a good life, and that eats at him.

Still, he dreams of better things. He always carries around one of those free homes books so he can dream of where he wants to live and hate where he lives now. And the other day he got to sit in Travis Campbell’s new Chevy. Which just reminded him of how bad his own truck looks, of course.

I often wonder if what Danny would think if he lost what little he had. If he woke up one day and found his family and his home and his job gone. And I wonder, too, if I’m not a lot like him in some ways. I tend to look around at what everyone has and forget about all I’ve been given, too.

So I’ve made myself a promise. I’m going to be happy with what I have. No doubt I’ll still dream. Dreaming is good. But not when it keeps you asleep to your blessings.

And in the meantime, I’ll say a prayer for Danny. I hope he wakes up, too. Because as far as I can tell, he’s the only poor person I’ve ever known who was ruined by money.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

***

P.S. - I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish my friend Wendy A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


Now, y'all go over to her blog, Weight...What? and do that same, kay?

Yankees or Red Sox?

image courtesy of photobucket.com

In honor of Major League Baseball's Opening Day, rather than Billy's usual Monday post here, devout Red Sox fan Bryan Allain and devout Yankees fan Billy Coffey have agreed to plead their case for their beloved teams on each other's blogs today. I'll give you a brief snippet of each, then you may follow the links and let them know where your allegiance lies.

Will you side with Billy Coffey...


I’m trying to write this with the non-baseball fan in mind, if there is such a thing. I suspect there is. While baseball is still considered our national pastime, there’s no denying the allure of sports like football and basketball, those bastions of instant gratification. Baseball is different. It is cerebral and methodical and all those other brainy words that end in “-al”. It’s God’s game. There’s no doubting this.

The rules are many and somewhat complicated, so I won’t get into them here. What I will do, however, is touch upon the one thing you need to do in order to be considered a true baseball fan.

You have to pick a side.

Yankees or Red Sox...Read the rest of Billy's story here

or Bryan Allain?

Billy Coffey is a Yankees fan and I am a Red Sox fan. We might agree on a lot of the important things in life, but when it comes to baseball, make no mistake about it, he is my enemy.

If you're reading this post and you too are a fan of the Red Sox or Yankees, I know you can't be swayed. I've got a better shot at changing your gender than changing your mind about which team to root for. But for those of you who don't have an allegiance either way, let me offer up a few points to help you make an informed decision. Read the rest of Bryan's story here

***

What's that? Where does my allegiance lie? I'll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count...

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Beautiful (by Billy Coffey)

Image courtesy of photobucket.com

A little while ago:

“What are you doing?”

My daughter is standing on her bed and facing the mirror atop her dresser. She’s not looking at herself, not performing the sort of quick once-over females tend to do before going to town. Instead, she’s studying. Closely.

“I’m looking at myself,” she says.

“Why are you standing on the bed?”

“Because if I stand on the floor I can only see half. I want to see the whole thing.”

I offer the sort of nod I often give to females. The sort that says I don’t understand you, but I’m going to act like I do.

“Okay,” I tell her, “but hurry up. We’re ready to leave.”

She continues to scrutinize and then asks, “Daddy, can I ask you something?”

“Can you ask it in the truck?”

“Can you answer it here?”

“Okay, fine.”

She tilts her head to the side and lets her blond hair spill down over her shoulder. My daughter never used to pay attention to mirrors. Now she can’t pass by one without taking a peek to make sure nothing needs tucking or straightening or smoothing.

“Am I pretty?” she asks.

“Very much so,” I say.

She tilts her head to the other side. “Do you think Hannah Montana is pretty?”

“No.”

“Taylor Swift?”

“No.”

“Carrie Underwood?”

“No.”

“Well,” she says, “I think they’re beautiful.”

“Can we go to town now?” I ask her.

She hops off the bed and takes my hand. “What makes them beautiful, Daddy?” she asks.

“Well, since I don’t think they’re beautiful, I can’t really answer that question.”

“I don’t think I’m beautiful,” she says.

“Why’s that?”

“Because there’s a lot wrong with me.”

Now:

We’ve made it to town. My daughter managed to sneak away and into the truck before I could talk to her more. And heading to town with family in tow is not the proper time for such a conversation. So I’m currently left to stew and walk the aisles of the local Target, trying to decide how I’m going to finish the conversation her and I had begun.

At eight, my daughter is on the cusp of that age when appearance begins to matter more than it once did. I don’t think that’s really a bad thing, but it is confusing to her. She thinks everything is beautiful—sunrises, sunsets, and the puffy white seedlings atop dandelions come to mind—but she secretly fears she is not. I can understand. It’s hard to compete with sunrises, sunsets, and dandelions.

And when it comes to things that are beautiful in any obvious way, she still refuses to call them ugly. To her, ugly is just a word people use for things where the beautiful chooses to remain hidden.

That’s the way I want to keep it with her. Because that is nearest to the truth.

This is also the truth—there is a lot wrong with her. Behind that blond hair and those blue eyes is a little girl who has gone through much. Too much, if you ask me.

I see the way she wears long sleeves and pants in the warm weather to hide the bruises that can pop up after her insulin shots. I see the way she talks to friends with her hands in a fist so they won’t see the pock marks left on her fingers from her sugar checks.

It’s bad enough to have a disease, she’s told me. But when you believe that disease makes you ugly, it’s worse.

I don’t blame her for thinking that way. I think there are a lot of people—older, smarter people—who do the same. But what she sees as ugliness I see as a means of becoming beautiful. Her disease has given her a compassion and an understanding I could never have.

I remember recently reading about the Miss Navajo Nation beauty pageant. Held every year. The contestants do the sort of usual things you would find in any pageant anywhere. They dress up and show their talents and talk about what they would do if they held the title.

But there is no swimsuit competition. In its place is a demonstration of some traditional Navajo skill, which can be anything from weaving to butchering a sheep.

I like that.

Because beauty isn’t simply about looking pretty and speaking well. True beauty is useful. It draws attention not to how good you look, but what good you can do.

That’s what I’m going to tell my daughter when we get home.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Lesser Prayers (by Billy Coffey)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

The prayer request portion of Sunday school class is the reason why we never seem to get much Sunday schooling done. And that’s not a knock against me or anyone else there. We have a fine class, a fine teacher, and a fine time probing the depths of the Good Book. Secretly, though, I suspect many of us spend most of that first half hour of class fidgeting and sighing so we can get to the good part. The part that, whether stated or not, means a little more.

A few Sundays ago the teacher wrapped up his lesson early, allowing those so inclined a full twenty minutes to spill their guts and tell everyone the happenings in the days of their lives.

“Prayer requests?” he asked.

Hands shot up. The teacher would call a name or nod to a person, going one by one through the room and taking notes, which would be distributed the next week on our official prayer request sheets.

Yes. We take this seriously.

Our space was then transformed from classroom to confessional as secret pains and worries were flung out into the light to be prodded and prayed over.

The lady two seats down from me was the first to raise her hand but not to be chosen. She lowered her hand and waited her turn. The one chosen began to speak on soft and muffled words of the tests she was to get in the coming week that would reveal whether she had cancer or not.

A couple near the front had just learned they were going to be parents. It was their fourth try, they said. The first three pregnancies had resulted in miscarriages.

One man was losing his job.

Another man was still looking for one.

One woman said her teenage son came home drunk two nights before and threatened her. She’d been staying with her sister since, afraid to go home.

A mother and father had a son who’d just been given his traveling orders for Afghanistan. “Pray he shoots straight and ducks,” the father said.

Another couple had a friend who’s son had just come home from Iraq. The funeral would be the next day.

A car accident had taken the life of a seventeen-year-old son of a preacher in the next town.

A woman buckled under the grief of a marriage in tatters.

And on. And on.

And through it all, the woman two seats down would raise her hand and wait her turn, lowering it when the Sunday school teacher had called upon someone else, scribbling both name and note on the paper.

After ten minutes, her hand went into the air slower and with a little more hesitation. After fifteen, her hand wasn’t raised at all.

I found her in the hallway afterward and said hello. Then I mentioned the lack of time and the abundance of prayer requests in class, and that it was a shame she never got to share hers.

“If you’d like,” I said, “you can tell me what it was. My family and I will pray.”

She looked at me and offered a small smile.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I guess it’s not that important. I lost my necklace, you see. It’s just one of those cheap silver crosses that you can pick up at the Christian bookstore for about five dollars, but it meant the world to me. My son gave it to me for my birthday last year. Saved up his allowance for almost a whole month.” She paused and than added, “I just don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t find it.”

I nodded.

“It seemed so important at the time,” she said. “But then came all those other things people needed praying for, cancer and war and death. So many are hurting now. My problems just didn’t seem that great after that.”

I nodded again. I understood, I really did. But she was wrong.

She was called away before I could tell her what I was thinking. What I thought she really needed to hear.

She’s right, of course. There are so many hurting now, and for so many reasons. But I for one believe that doesn’t mean one person’s problems are greater than another’s. Not to God.

To God, at that moment the only thing in the universe that mattered was that she had lost her necklace. Just like the only thing in the universe that mattered was one son going to war and another coming home, and a family dissolving, and a car accident, and a threatened mother.

Humility is an important thing to feel. We need to know the world doesn’t revolve around us.

But the love of God is an important thing to feel, too. And we also need to know that.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

God Work (by Billy Coffey)

Hey y'all! For those of you coming here expecting to read a post by Billy Coffey, I won't disappoint you. Below you will find Billy's first "official" regular Monday guest spot for Hey Look a Chicken originally posted on May 4, 2009. Much has happened with Billy's writing career since I first stumbled on his blog almost a year ago. To read more about that, check out Part One of Billy's interview with Linda Yezak today over at Author Culture In the meantime, here's Billy Coffey circa May 2009:



I’m sitting at work, keys in hand, watching the clock. In nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds, I can go home and call it a day. Though what sort of day remains in question.

My life is no longer defined solely by job and spouse. Other things have been added to the mix over the years, things like children and blogs and columns, query letters and book proposals and deadlines. And as I was recently ambushed by a few college students who bound, gagged, and drug me into the modern world of Facebook, I now have something new to add to the list of What I Need To Keep Up With.

Keeps me busy, yes. But busy in a good way. Because I am doing what God wants me to do. God Work, I call it.

My job affords me the luxury of letting me roam about in relative freedom over fifty acres of a college campus and putting me in touch with a constant stream of people who are more than happy to share what’s going on in their lives. God has blessed me with three wonderful things: a loving family, the ability to hit a curveball, and a bartender’s ear. That middle one isn’t really relevant anymore, but the first and the last come in pretty handy. Writer’s block is something I’ve fought before, but rarely now. If I’m starving for something to write, I just stop what I’m doing and look around. Something or someone is bound to happen along.

Today that someone was katdish, who emailed me and said, “Hey, since you’re so lawesome and frigintastic, could you fill in on my blog occasionally so I can go live my life? Monkey sex pornographic cheese butler.”

Well, maybe she didn’t say that. I don’t remember.

But I do remember giving her an unqualified yes. Because katdish is pretty frigintastic herself.

Even more than that, though, was the fact that I saw this as more God Work. I want to write books, you see. And these days a publisher will pooh-pooh you away with a snorty guffaw if you don’t already have a pretty substantial audience. And since my own blog traffic is just a couple steps above sucktacular, I was looking for a way to attract more readers. To me, this was God saying Alrighty then, here you go. Don’t screw this one up.

The problem was that I had to sit down today and write something semi-coherent and quasi-brilliant. Which meant I didn’t have time to mess around with anyone. No talking, no visiting. I had more important things to take care of.

I had God Work to do.

So when the nice lady on the other side of campus began talking about what it was like cleaning out the closet of her recently deceased husband, I rushed through the conversation as politely as I could and said I’d pray for her.

And when one of the groundskeepers confessed that he was feeling terrible about a fight with his wife this morning over how much milk to put in his cereal, I said a quick it’ll-be-alright and left.

And when the phone rang and a friend began talking about his wife’s pregnancy, I said I’d call him back later.

Because I was busy.

Doing God Work.

Another quick glance at the clock. Four minutes and ten seconds to go.

My post is all typed up and ready to go. Mission accomplished. And it’s decent, if not good. I should feel great about getting all of that done. But I don’t. Not even a little.

Because I’ve just realized that I haven’t accomplished anything. Not the things that mattered, at least. Living a day isn’t simply a matter of crossing things off a To Do list. It’s more than that. I’ve bumbled my day by doing the thing I thought God wanted me to do rather than the things I knew He wanted me to do.

Those lofty ambitions we have, those dreams of things we believe will make us more suitable for God’s use than we are now, really don’t matter as much to Him as they do to us. Because while we’re busying ourselves by getting ready to do some good eventually, God’s tapping his foot because He knows we can do some good now. And it doesn’t have to be as moving as writing a bestseller or speaking to thousands. God’s more into little movements: bending an ear or lending a hand or lifting a burden.

That’s what He wanted me to do today. Pounding away on a keyboard wasn’t as important to Him as listening and helping and encouraging.

That’s God Work.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I have to say, I think reading my blog has richly enhanced Mr. Coffey's vocabulary. So I just wanted to say, "You're welcome."

Taking a Tumble (by Billy Coffey)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I want it known before I begin this post that but for a small handful of people, I do not grumble. Ever. It is a Coffey tradition steeped in Southern Redneckness—you do not whine. The reasoning behind this is both simple and teeming with most of the truth you need to get by in this world—life is tough on all of us. We all have our own stories and our own problems, and we’re all trying to get by the best we can. Therefore, complaining helps no one.

That said, my shoulder hurts.

A few weeks ago I was ambushed by a slab of ice that was cleverly disguised as snow, bruising my knee and spraining my shoulder in the process. The sprain further aggravated an ancient yet lingering rotator cuff problem from my baseball days, which basically rendered the entire right side of my body useless. I was pathetic for a week. Ask anyone.

Both my doctor and the nice folks in the local hospital’s radiology department concluded it was nothing truly serious. A good thing. In fact, I’ve been promised that I’ll soon be back to my normal self. Assuming that I do two things:

Wait and move.

The waiting is simply that. Waiting. Time heals all wounds, and apparently this holds true for busted shoulders as well. Which means full contact sports are not an option, which is bad, but they’re not an option for now, which is good.

And as far as the moving goes, I have exercises to do. Stupid ones. Things like moving my fingers up the wall and swinging my arm in front of my like I’m pretending to be an elephant. Things designed to make me look as ridiculous as possible and thus be a fount of endless entertainment for my children.

But I’m following orders, if only because I know that by doing so I’ll get better. My wound will be gone.

Since I’m the type of guy who tends to philosophize about everything (and since I couldn’t really do anything else except watch reruns of The Dukes of Hazard), I spent a lot of time those seven days pondering my condition. I’ve come to realize there is a spiritual component to all of this. You can take a tumble on the inside just as easily as you can take one on the outside. Both hurt much the same, and both sorts of falls can be cured in the same way.

For instance.

It hurts more when you fall at thirty-seven than when you fell at seventeen. At least that was true for me. Either my body has gotten softer or the ground harder in the last twenty years, and neither case is appealing. Such are the ravages of time. The body adds weight over the years, and not all of it is cushion.

The soul tends to add weight, too. A tumble there hurts more at thirty-seven than at seventeen too, and for the same reasons—either the heart has gotten softer or the world harder. The more you live the more you feel, and the more you feel the more likely you’ll get hurt. It’s unfortunate, yes. But the alternative to feeling too much is to feel too little. Ironically, that ends up hurting even more.

Most people think stumbles happen when you’re not paying attention. While that’s true sometimes, it isn’t always. I was paying attention (promise). But the problem was disguised. A thin layer of fallen snow had covered the ice, rendering it invisible until it was too late.

Which is why I do my best not to stand in judgment of whomever is unlucky enough to find themselves on the cover of the latest tabloids in the supermarket checkout lines. No matter how well we pay attention to our hearts or our heads, sooner or later life sneaks up on us all. Legend has it that when Jesus stooped down to write in the sand between the adulteress and those who wished to stone her, what He scribbled were the secret sins of everyone who held a rock in their hand.

I really like that.

We all need to wait and move. We all need to have patience, both with others and ourselves, and we all need to exercise our wounds to make them better.

We can think or act however we want, but the truth is that we’re all clumsy. The truth is that grace is given to us because we do not possess it ourselves.

(Thanks to Sarah Salter for putting this idea into my head.)

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

IfI'da (by Billy Coffey)

I interrupt this blog post to wish my friend and sister in snark Marni from The Chronicles of Marnia a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Okay, go ahead Billy...


image courtesy of photobucket.com

The C always showed up on my report card for my science classes. I was neither interested nor gifted in that area of study. And those Cs always bothered me. It meant I was neither great nor awful, just right in the meaty part of average. I hated that. I hated science.

But now I’m thinking differently. Science may well be on its way to solving a lot of what’s been bothering me over the years, especially when it comes to the IfI’da Principle.

I’ve suffered with this condition for quite a while.

As near I can tell, it began in the fourth grade and involved the Lorie, the pretty brunette who sat in front of me. My first true crush. Since I was hopelessly inept in all things romantic, my true feelings went unsaid. She was snatched away from me on the playground by another boy in another class. And I remember sitting there with a kickball in my hand thinking, If would have said something first, maybe I’d be holding her hand right now.

There are other instances. There was the time in high school when I struck out with the bases loaded in the state championship baseball game, the first time I’d struck out all year. And also the high school dance when I tripped over a microphone wire and spilled punch on my date. There was my decision not to go to college, too.

Of course I don’t wonder only about the things that went wrong. I wonder of the good things, too—of my decision to start writing, of falling in love once and for all, and of my kids. In each case I’ve caught myself at some point wondering the same thing:

If I would have made a different decision or acted a different way, how would my life have worked out?

Over the years that question has been pared down to the bare essentials. “If I would have” became “If I’d have,” which became “IfI’da.”

As in, What would have happened IfI’da?

By and large our lives are not shaped by the jobs we have or the people we surround ourselves with. They are instead the product of an endless line of the small and large choices that we’ve made every moment of every day from our beginning until this moment. Decisions more than destiny determine our lot in life. I really do believe that. Our genes, our upbringing, and our faith can either prop us up or knock us down, but in the end our lives are still our own. Though I believe God to be utterly unsurprised at where I am and where I’ll be, I like to think I’ve come this way by His guidance and my own choices rather than pulled along by the hand of fate.

If I happen to be wrong with all of that, I’ll gladly say so. But if I’m right, then that means the decisions I make every day are pretty important things. Maybe the biggest things. Even the smallest acts can have lasting consequences, both good and bad. Which leads to a great deal of wondering on my part..

Which is where science comes in.

It’s called The Multiverse Theory of Quantum Physics. Dumbed down so I can understand it, the theory goes something like this: each choice we make in life creates an entirely separate universe in which the opposite choice was made. Which means that everything that can happen has happened somewhere.

I’m wondering about all those other me’s out there. Wondering what they’re doing, who they are. And most importantly, if they’re happier than I am.

In some other universe there is a Billy Coffey who confessed his love to Lorie in the third grade, who did not trip over that microphone wire, and who did not strike out with the bases loaded.

He sounds like a good guy. Like a guy who’s got it together.

But I suppose there is another me somewhere out there who has it much worse than I. A Billy Coffey whose choices were much poorer and resulted in much more regret than my own. I think of him, too.

All of this has brought a much-needed sense of balance to my existence. There may in fact be other me’s out there better and more well-adjusted. But if that’s true, then there are other me’s who are not.

Which may well mean that in all the universes in existence, I occupy the meaty part of average. Neither great nor awful.

I can live with that.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Good Writing - A Writer's Toolbox

image courtesy of photobucket.com

You might be asking yourself what business I have writing a post about how to write well. That is a valid question to which I have no satisfactory answer except this: I love the craft of writing and I think I recognize good writing, even great writing when I read it. I also think I have the ability to recognize potentially good writing. So here we are… (If you think those are flimsy qualifications please feel free to stop reading now.)

One of the fringe benefits of being Billy Coffey's website administrator is that I get to read his stories before everyone else does. Last month, Billy wrote a post called Finding Success about Malcom Gladwell's book The Outliers. Before his final draft was posted, I recall a rather long email exchange with Billy in which we were on opposite sides of the "Is it fair?" debate.

Billy's contention was that everyone should get an equal opportunity to be successful; that luck and circumstances should not be factors. I countered with the argument that very few people are simply lucky. Behind every overnight success story you will find talent, time, hard work, determination and sweat equity. He still doesn't think it's fair, which is ironic because he is no stranger to any of the qualities it takes to make your own breaks. (He had also never heard of the term "sweat equity", but I digress...) Many people will read his writing and remark, "God has blessed him with a very special gift." And while I'll be the first person to agree, I also know it's not enough. Billy has done his homework. He pays attention and he possesses the basic tools which are required for good writing. His writer’s tool box is well equipped.

Excerpt from On Writing by Stephen King:
“I am a approaching the heart of this book with two theses, both simple. The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.”

I believe there are very few great writers, but there are many good and potentially good ones. If you consider yourself to be in the aforementioned group, how well is your toolbox stocked? Do you have a mastery of the essentials? Writing rules, as with many rules, can be broken. But you must know the rules first.


image courtesy of photobucket.com

If you don’t already have the following books in your writer’s toolbox, I would highly recommend them:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White
On Writing by Stephen King
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell


There are a few good books about the craft of writing. (There are also many not-so good books about writing.) I'll share some of those with you in subsequent posts. In the meantime, I wanted to share another excerpt from Mr. King. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan.):

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind or heart. You can come to the act with your fist clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe.

Love still holds on (by Billy Coffey)

image courtest of photobucket.com

If you were here last Monday, then you've already read Part One of this story. If not, check out Holding On.

Here's Part Two:

“You’re gonna have to write about this, aren’t you?” she asked.

I nodded and said, “I’m afraid so.”

She looked down and toed the concrete. A faint smile crossed her mouth. “Awesome,” she whispered.

And it was awesome. The sort of story that I like to tell, part II of what will hopefully be a trilogy, complete with a “happily ever after” at the end.

Last May I wrote a post about her, her boyfriend, and their impending and involuntary separation. The college year was over and she was heading home to Utah, leaving both her love and her desire here. Her boyfriend lived and worked about three miles from campus.

Neither had ever believed in love at first sight. Not that they were jaded, mind you. Just practical. It takes time to fall in love. Time and effort and more than a little doubt. At least in their experience.

But experience isn’t always the best teacher, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Love is a power unto itself. It cannot be bottled for study or manipulated for experimentation. It simply washes over you and leaves you breathless.

Which is what happened to them.

The problem with that sort of thing is that it temporarily suspends all rational thought concerning some of the bigger issues. The fact that she was basically a visitor here and he was a permanent resident didn’t cross their minds until a few weeks before the school year ended. Which is when she approached me with this question:

Could their love survive the distance that would be between them?

I answered yes. Of course. Because love is all-powerful. The force that moves both world and man. Love conquers all.

That’s what I said then. And this is what I can say now—I didn’t really believe those words at the time. Not in general of course, but for them specifically. Because as powerful and conquering as love is, it is also an exceedingly fragile thing. Especially when you’re barely out of your teens.

So yes, I had my doubts. But I hid them as any good person should. After all, the general theory still holds—despite it all, love truly can hang on.

When I saw her this afternoon for the first time in four months, she was smiling. A good sign. And I noticed that she still wore her boyfriend’s class ring on her necklace. Another good sign. Yes, she said, they had made it through the summer. In fact, they made it with very little effort.

“So modern technology held you together?” I asked, remembering her prediction that emails and phone calls would never suffice.

“No,” she answered. “I mean yeah, sure. But no, too.”

I wrinkled my brow.

“We wanted to keep in touch,” she said. “I felt like I had to talk to him every day or I’d just go crazy. But honestly? I think if we had to go the whole summer without ever hearing from each other, we’d have been fine. I’d have come back here and we would have been just as much in love as before. Maybe more. Know what I mean?”

Yes. I did.

I knew husbands and wives who were at that moment separated by thousands of miles because one or both were serving our country. I had a friend who because of work was about to spend three months away from his family. And just mere months ago I attended the wedding of two people who had only seen one another four times in three years.

How can this happen? Beats me.

Is it any wonder why we have such a hard time describing and defining love? Faith seems easier—“the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.” Yes. That’s it exactly. And hope has been defined as faith holding its hand out in the dark. Perfect.

But love? You can’t define love. Love is simply one of those things that must be experienced instead of pondered. It can be expressed but not explained, bent but not broken, and tested but not found wanting.

Which is why it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Holding On (by Billy Coffey)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

This story was originally posted on What I Learned Today back in May of last year. Some of you who read it back then had asked for an update, which Billy has assured me will be forthcoming next Monday. Stay tuned...

But for now, here's Part One:

I listen as she talks, nodding and smiling and saying “Uh-huh” every few words so she’ll know I’m getting ready to say something wise. The softball glove I had been restringing is now in front of me on the desk, put there so she knows she has my undivided attention. This is serious stuff. Especially when you’re twenty-two.

“So,” she asks, “what do you think?”

“I think you should ask your boyfriend,” I say.

“He says he’s not worried. We can still keep in touch.”

“He has a point.”

“But I told him that’s not the same.”

“You have a point, too,” I concede.

Then, she repeats: “So what do you think?”

A year’s worth of accumulated college stuff is packed into her battered Ford outside. It’s been a long year of studying and cramming and writing, enough to make even the most ardent student eager to turn tail and run home for the summer. But she’s stuck around, unwilling to leave because of what she will leave behind.

“It’s not that far, you know,” I offer.

“It’s Utah,” she says. “That’s a long way from Virginia.”

“Could be worse. You could live in California. That would add a few hundred miles.”

I smile, but she doesn’t smile back.

“Why did I have to fall for a guy here?” she asks.

I shrug. “The heart knows what it wants,” I answer. “Rational thought is sometimes left out of the equation.”

“But he’s here, and I’m going to be there.”

“But you’ll be back here in three months,” I say. “That’s not a big deal. And there are plenty of ways to keep in touch until then.”

“But I can’t see him,” she says. “Talking over the phone and emailing isn’t the same as seeing him.”

“Because you’re in love?”

“Yes.”

The nod I give her isn’t a sarcastic one, but an acknowledgment of the truth. They are in love. Truly, madly, deeply in love. Love in its truest sense is not solely the domain of people who have been around for longer than twenty-two years. I see them on campus and I know. Love has a look.

“I don’t want to go,” she says. “I want to stay here. With him.”

“But you have to go, right?” I ask.

I get silence as an affirmative.

“And you want to know if your love for each other can withstand the distance between you?”

More silence.

She sits across from me, chewing on a fingernail. In the background the radio is playing Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man.” Fitting, I think, because that’s exactly what this city girl from Utah has found. And though I don’t know him well, I know enough to think she’d better hang on to him. Because it’s always been my opinion that those small town Southern men are worth keeping around. My own bias of course, since I’m one of them.

She breaks her silence and says, “So what do you think?”

“I think yes,” I say. “I think if you love him as much as he says he loves you, then distance is irrelevant. I think that wherever either of you are, the other one will always be. Faith is a powerful thing. Hope, too. But love? Nothing stops love. And if it’s as strong as you say it is, then that love will always be something you can stand under whenever the rain starts pouring.”

“We’ll be all right?” she asks.

“As long as the two of you don’t give up on each other.”

She smiles at that. She has hope now. Hope that life and circumstance do not have the last say when it comes to matters of the heart.

That in the end, love always holds on.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

***

If you'd like to read another story by Billy Coffey, he's guest posting over at Coffee with Marty today. While you're over there, read a bit of Marty's writing. He's a great young writer, and you'll be hearing more from him soon.

Fishing for Answers (by Billy Coffey)

Image courtesy of photobucket.com


Next time I won’t order the fish. That’s what I thought after he left. If I would have ordered chicken or steak or shrimp I would have gotten my food earlier, which meant I would have prayed earlier, which meant he wouldn’t have seen me. But he did, and like they say, that is that.

Lunch time for me is a sort of take-it-when-you-can thing that depends on how busy I am and how far I want to drive. Most of the time that places me inside a small restaurant downtown, just a few blocks from my work. Nice place with nice food. Very friendly, very tasty, and very quick.

So. The fish.

An extra ten minutes, the waitress said. “You sure you don’t mind waiting?”

No.

The man came in five minutes later and was shown to the table across from mine. We smiled and nodded like friendly folk do, and I was fairly certain that would be the extent of our interaction. It wasn’t. Because soon afterward my fish arrived and I offered a very silent and inconspicuous prayer.

He was staring at me when I opened my eyes.

“So you’re a churchgoer?” he asked.

“Yep,” I answered. “You?”

“Never,” he said in a tone that seemed rather proud.

I nodded and went back to eating.

“Don’t believe in God myself,” he said. “Just seems like a waste. I guess that means I’m going to hell, huh?”

I’d been around long enough to know when I was being baited into a conversation I really didn’t want to get into. This, I thought, was one of those conversations.

So I just said “Not my call” and raised another bite of fish.

“Not your call,” he repeated. “That’s typical.”

I chewed and thought about the last little bit of what he said. It was more bait, of course. And it was still a conversation I didn’t want to have. But maybe it was now one I should.

“Typical?” I asked.

“Yeah, typical. You people like to use those pat little answers for questions you just don’t know or are just too afraid to face.”

“Like whether you’re going to hell?” I asked.

“Sure. That just bugs me. Christians say that God is love, but if you don’t go along with the program then you get eternally punished. That doesn’t sound like love to me, that just sounds hypocritical.”

I shrugged. “Not really. I reckon God’s spent—what, fifty years or so?—trying to get you to pay attention to Him. He’s arranged circumstances, given you a glimpse of things you don’t normally see or think about, even spoke to you. There’s no telling how many chances you’ve gotten to say ‘Hello’ to God after He’d said the same to you. But you have a choice. That’s how He made you. You can choose to listen or not, choose to believe or not, choose to accept or not. I take it that so far, it’s been not. So if you spend your whole life telling God to stay as far away from you as possible, He's gentleman enough to do just that when it’s all over. So yes, I suppose if you keeled over right here right now, you’d go to hell. But it’s not me who’s gonna send you there, and it’s not God either. It’s you.”

He looked at me. I looked back.

“Alright then,” he said.

We both continued our meals. Ten minutes later he squared his tab with the waitress and left, pausing at the door to offer me a smile and a tip of his hat.

The waitress focused on me then, asking if I’d like more coffee or just the check. I asked for a check and an answer.

“That fella come in here a lot?”

“Sure,” she said. “He’s the preacher at the church next door.”

“He’s the what?” I asked her.

“The preacher.” Then she smiled and added, “Was he havin’ a little fun with you?”

“Don’t know if I’d call it fun.”

“He likes that,” she said. “Likes finding people who call themselves Christians and tests them. Sees if they know their faith or just accept it. These days we have to be ready to defend it, don’t we?”

“We do,” I said.

And that’s the truth. It isn’t enough to just accept our faith nowadays. We have to stand for it. And this is the truth, too—next time I go there to eat, I’m ordering the fish. Maybe he’ll stop by.


***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Handling the Remote (by Billy Coffey)

Photo courtesy of flickr.com

Sexist I'm not, though I must admit I believe there are a few things men have a firmer handle on than women. Just a few, mind you.

Chief among these is the proper handling of the television remote control. This is most likely due to an almost childlike ignorance concerning its proper function on the part of the female. The remote is not used to simply turn the channel or adjust the volume. It's purpose is much more intricate--to obtain an overall grasp of station selections, striking an elegant balance between quality viewing and commercial evasion. Or, in more simplistic terms, to channel surf.

My wife has long abandoned any hope of holding the remote control. Not that I do not trust her with it. But watching her use it is painful to me in the way that a composer would be pained by watching a hillbilly use a Stradivarius. It is a skill, the handling of a remote. Something that cannot be taught but must be inborn.

Over the past few weeks, however, an insurrection has begun over our family's remote control. One led not by my wife. Not even by my son.

By my daughter.

It began innocently enough. I walked into the living room one evening and found her on the sofa and the remote on the ottoman. During a commercial break on her favorite cartoon, I decided to see what else was on. When I reached for the remote, however, I found a hand already there. Hers.

The ensuing standoff was both temporary and bloodless, and my Alpha role within the family remained intact. But as these remote control battles increased in frequency, I began to lose a bit of face. The last one, yesterday, ended in a tickle fight that was only broken up with my son whopping me with a pillow.

I'll be honest here. I really don't understand the whole remote control thing. I don't really know why it must be in my hands and no one else's. I am not a callous snob. I will gladly watch what my family wants. But I must be the one to turn the channel.

True, there is a certain amount of power involved in the remote. Those buttons are alluring. I have a control over the television that is not offered in my life. Possibilities that are difficult at least and impossible at best.

Zoom, for instance. With a push of a button, my remote will enlarge a certain area of my screen and bring greater detail to the larger picture. The ramifications are enormous. I have outwitted both Shawn Spencer on Psych and the dude in the vest on The Mentalist by the careful manipulation of that button. I don't miss anything. Which is quite unlike my own life, in which I miss too much.

And there is the Swap button. A wonderful feature that lets me instantly trade what I'm seeing for something else. Easy on my remote. Harder in my reality.

The Exit button is even more handy, enabling me to quickly escape from a screen I have no idea how I managed to get to. The Exit button works wonders for me when it comes to the television. Not in life, though. Most of the time I have to find my own way out of all the self-inflicted confusion.

I would also like to have Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward buttons in my life, just so I could take a break or try something again or skip over the parts I don't like.

Play, too, would be a necessary function. I would like more play in my life.

That, I think, is why I'm so passionate about the remote. And if you're honest, I don't think you can blame me. Because no matter who you are, we all want a little more control over our lives.

I will say, however, that there I have one function in my life that is much better than its counterpart on my remote control: the Guide button. A push of that button and I know how to navigate around on my television. Handy.

But handier is the Guide in my life, the One who can navigate me through all of those parts in my life I would like to skip over or redo or exit. The One who can help me zoom in on what needs to be seen.

And Who can help me swap earth for heaven.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Angela versus the Big Bad (by Billy Coffey)

I’m settling in at the movies with my popcorn and soda in an attempt to escape the world’s dreariness for at least two hours. Which is strange given that I’m about to watch the latest in a long stream of post-apocalyptic movies in which some Big Bad collapses governments, then societies, then people. Lots of movies like that lately, I think to myself, though I’m not sure why. We no longer cast a hopeful eye toward the future. Which I guess says a lot about our present.

The movie starts and the fifty or so people around me munch and gawk. It’s a good movie, really. At least the first part. Halfway through the picture and just as things start to get interesting the sound begins to slur, the picture wobbles, and the screen goes blank.

A chorus of groans ripples through the theater that is followed by an assortment of exhales, some stretching, and a few snide remarks. I sigh and think that I’ll have to wait to see what the end of the world is like.

Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Because as I sit among all these people and watch their reactions, I get a very small glimpse of it from right where I am.

The Big Bad in this case happens to be a broken projector. Not really Big and not very Bad, but it has on a smaller scale the same effect as machines taking over the world or nuclear fallout—we’re all confused, and no one quite knows what to do now.

But then personalities take over. The Type A’s shoot for the door and the manager, eager to fix the situation. The sanguines in the room remain in their seats, certain that everything will work out in the end. The more pragmatic folks see the interruption as a chance to take a bathroom break without missing any of the movie. And then of course there are the pessimists now voicing their certainty that they are now out of twenty bucks.

The theater manager inches through the door. He looks to be about sixteen and I get the nagging sensation that up until this moment the only crisis he’s had so far today is losing his newest copy of Gamer magazine. He stands where he can make a hasty exit and uses the ponytailed lady from the ticket counter as a human shield, placing her between us. Still, all eyes are on him. He’s the one in charge.

He whispers to Ponytail and turns toward the mob. This, I think, is his time to shine. This is why he wears the suit.

The manager stiffens as he draws in a massive breath, exhales loudly…and leaves.

Ponytail watches him with a look of shock. Evidently her being hung out to dry had not been part of the conversation. But just as I think things are going to turn into something less than fine, she does the unexpected.

She talks.

And better than that, she doesn’t talk to us. She talks with.

She tells us her name is Angela and that everything is being fixed. She asks how the movie is so far and if we need anything. She talks about her children. She tells jokes and listens to ours. She is kind and thoughtful and attentive, both sharing our aggravation and easing it. And when the movie flashes onto the screen again ten minutes later, I swear, I swear, we’re almost sorry.

Angela stays with us for a few minutes to make sure everything’s fine and then makes a quiet exit.

The action resumes on the screen. Lots of explosions and blood and mayhem. But I’m not really thinking of the movie now. I’m thinking this:

I don’t know what’s coming down the road toward us. I don’t know if there’s some Big Bad or when it will happen or what we will do when it gets here. But I do know this—if and when that time comes, the future of our world won’t depend on governments or gun-toting heroes.

It’ll depend on people like the ponytailed lady who collected my ticket. People who take the bad and make it better.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Haiti, Pat Robertson, and the Thin Places (by Billy Coffey)

AP Photo/Jorge Cruz


I could not help but think of my grandfather as the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake was relayed on the evening news. Could not help but wonder what he would say about what had happened. I wondered, too, what he would do. He said he would never return there and kept that promise, but in many ways his heart beat for the Haitian people. A part of me thought something on this scale might have drawn him back to the place that almost killed him. The place he warned me never to visit.

My grandfather travelled the world for most of his adult life as a missionary, visiting the remote villages and enduring the third world conditions of far-flung places not just for his love for people or even God. No, it was his love for adventure that took him behind the Iron Curtain, into Africa, and—twice—to Turkey in search of Noah’s ark.

But it was Haiti that captured his wanderlust the most, that tiny half of a tiny island that was so crowded and, back then, so forgotten. That was where he spent most of his time. He would write me letters and I would devour them, studying not just the smooth cursive handwriting but the stamp and the postmark and the envelope itself, worn and frayed as though it had passed through entire worlds to reach me.

The stories he told bordered on fantasy—villages in the grip of madmen, ritualized rape, and lives stripped bare to the point where the essentials had become excess.

He witnessed acts that defied both reason and physics performed in the name of unnamable spirits. Spoke of zombies and ghosts and curses.

Haiti was a place of wildness, he wrote. And it was also full of the most beautiful and caring people he’d ever met.

Yet twice he had been threatened by voodoo priests who saw his presence in their villages as a threat to their authority. Twice he escaped. He was a smart one, my grandfather. And no doubt protected by powers greater than darkness.

It was on a mission trip there in the mid-eighties that he disappeared. Authorities found his Jeep abandoned in the middle of a field. There were no footprints or tire tracks. No witnesses. The State Department was contacted, who then reached out to the American embassy. For three days our family waited and prayed for news.

On that third day my grandfather walked into a village sixty miles from where he’d last been seen, confused and shaken but otherwise in good health. He was questioned by both the Haitian police and the State Department, but those interviews proved fruitless. My grandfather never told them where he had been or what had happened. Never told his family, either. And he never returned to Haiti.

A few weeks before he died he pulled me aside during a family meal for questions that were short and ordinary—how’s school? Baseball? Are you still praying every day? He nodded and smiled, satisfied. And then his face grew serious, almost fearful, and he spoke to me the last words I’d ever hear him say:

“The world is a wonderful place, Billy. You should see as much of it as you can. But never go to Haiti. Promise me.”

I did. I still do.

I suppose if anyone would know the truth (or lack thereof) of what Pat Robertson said last week, it would be my grandfather. I’m sorry he’s gone. Sorrier today. But I’ve spent the better part of today remembering those letters and the way he talked about the Haitians, and I know what he would have said.

He would have said there are people who like the idea of a vengeful God as long as that vengeance is directed at someone else. He would have also said that Christianity is best defined not by what its adherents should believe, but what they do with that belief. It’s the love they display and the help they provide, regardless of where that love and help is needed.

He would have indeed said that Haiti has its evils. There are thin places in this world where other worlds meet and linger, and those are the places that must be tread upon lightly. Haiti is a thin place. But he would also say there are thin places within each of us as well, where good and evil clash and struggle.

Yes, he would say, Haiti is dark. But so are we.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

***

And to read ways you can help with the relief and rescue effort in Haiti, please visit my friend Maurenn Doallas at Writing without Paper

Choosing Love (by Billy Coffey)

I worked with Jenny for about two months twelve years ago, just another face that walked in and out of the revolving door of the town’s gas station. She was a nice lady, Jenny. Always smiling. The smile is what I remember most. Well, that and the bleached jeans she always wore that rode high on the waist and had tiny denim bows in the back near the ankles. Jenny was a joy to be around, but she was no fashion maven.

She was, however, considered quite the catch. At thirty-five, Jenny was still both unmarried and unattached. Rare for these parts. And it wasn’t for lack of options, either. It was no secret that the busiest nights at the Amoco were the ones when she worked the cash register. Every available guy in town would suddenly get the urge for a can of Copenhagen or decide his tank needed to be topped off.

They’d show up in their best boots and hats reeking of Drakkar Noir, tough guys with big trucks and mustaches. But then Jenny would smile and say “Hey there” and they would transform from Bo Duke seducing an unsuspecting girl to Opie Taylor crushing on his teacher. It was both hilarious and sad at the same time.

Jenny seemed genuinely ignorant of the whole thing. She dated here and there but was content with her life. She lived in a double wide on the edge of town with her Australian shepherd and her growing collection of Garth Brooks CDs, sang in the church choir, and had a weakness for the Saturday morning sales at J.C. Penney.

In other words, Jenny had a good life. And even though she had her share of lonely nights, they weren’t chilly enough to convince her she needed a man to keep her warm.

But then one Friday night in walked Chad, who was neither dressed for church nor smelling like a gigolo, but tired and dirty and heading home from his job as janitor at the elementary school. He said nothing beyond the usual niceties of “That’s it” and “Thanks” and made his way out the door, but Jenny did something I’d never seen her do. She watched him leave.

The two saw each other again the next Saturday, this time for dinner at Applebees. To this day I don’t know who did the asking. I suppose it doesn’t matter. They weren’t serious, but they spent their fair share of time together.

It was around their fourth date (which, as it turned out, was bowling) that the stars aligned one more time for Jenny. That was the night Aaron stopped by because his Mercedes was a quart low.

Jenny, I noticed, watched him leave too.

Aaron spent more on Jenny on their first date than Chad made in a week.

You couldn’t find two men more different from one another than Chad and Aaron. One pushed a broom all day, and the other traded stocks in the city. One lived in an apartment behind the 7-11 on Main Street, and the other lived on twenty acres in the country. Neither had quite captured Jenny’s heart yet. Both tried desperately.

The heart abhors competition, and the time came when both demanded Jenny make her choice. She was torn. Aaron was distant and sometimes cold, but with him Jenny could have the comfort she never enjoyed in life. There would be no more nights at the gas station, no more bleached jeans with denim bows in the back. There would instead be dinner parties and fine food and more security than she ever thought possible.

It was a life she knew Chad couldn’t provide her, but he could provide her with everything else. The things that both Jenny’s mom and her preacher knew were important. The things that mattered. Chad loved Jenny, pure and simple. And promised to do so always.

I saw Jenny the other day. She works the register at the grocery store now. Still wears those bleached jeans, too. Her smile and extra makeup couldn’t quite hide the sadness and bruises that were underneath. Chad’s a drinker. Jenny didn’t know that until it was too late.

She’s confessed to some that she often thinks of Aaron and the life she could’ve had. A better life. A better love. But I don’t think so. I think Jenny had it all wrong. I think Aaron would have left her just as miserable and hurt.

Because I don’t think you can choose who to love. I think love chooses you.

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations” ~ Kahlil Gibran

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.