Author: J. Thorp

"The New Girl … and Me"

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There’s a new girl on my blog. Way over there on the right and down a little bit … yup, just there, under “Friends and Good People.”

Jacqui Robbins helped this guy I know, an awkward, melon-headed kid from Michigan, adjust to life at Yale, and now she’s in Michigan, writing children’s books. And she has a book out, called “The New Girl … and Me.”

And – get this – thanks to First Book and Spoonfuls of Stories, they’re giving the book away for free in boxes of Cheerios right now!

If you have little ones at home, then you’re bound to need Cheerios, and you’ll recognize this story as true-to-life, and beautiful and funny as only kids can be – so pick it up.

If you don’t have kids at home, you can still eat Cheerios (good for your heart), read the story (also good for your heart), read it again en español (the Cheerios version is bilingual), then give it away (very nice!) or keep it (we won’t tell).

The point is, check it out. The Cheerios version is pretty tiny, but I’m sure you can get nice hardcover ones at bookstores and stuff!

Congratulations, Jacqui – and in case I didn’t tell you before, thanks.

War Torn

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I love good silver-screen battle scene. Especially battles that precede the 20th century, when most warriors still had to get up close and personal with their adversaries – and get blood on their hands.

The appeal of such scenes to me isn’t the action and gore, but the courage of conviction in the face of horrific violence they represent. When you are forced to look your enemy in the eye and assess their humanity firsthand before killing him, you best believe in the cause, right?

What our men and women in Iraq are doing requires that same sense of purpose. Think about it: they’re fighting in close urban quarters against an enemy that can only be distinguished from the civilian population with difficulty. According to the few accounts I’ve heard, our soldiers are often making split-second decisions at point-blank range – who to kill, who to let live.

I was talking to this guy on the bus the other day, saying that it seems to me we shouldn’t be surprised that soldiers are returning with mental health issues, given this up-close-and-personal style of combat and the widespread misgivings about the war (if not among the soldiers, at least on the home front).

“It’s tough,” I said. “I mean, regardless of how you feel about the current administration or its policies, the troops have to know that we support them.”

A woman seated in front of me turned around and said she’d done a tour a in Iraq. “It’s extremely important,” she said. “It means a lot to know they have support back home.”

The question then becomes how do you criticize an administration, a policy, or a war while still expressing support for the men and women fighting?

Steve Earle has one answer. On his 2004 release, The Revolution Starts Now, Earle included a spoken-word-over-guitars piece called “The Warrior.” The song, if you can call it that, pays homage to warriors past and present, while holding modern warfare and policy-makers in contempt – and ultimately, holding all of us responsible.

It’s magical, poetic – a tribute to the warrior spirit and a passionate plea for peace. At least that’s how I take it.

What about you? From a practical standpoint, is it possible to openly criticize the policy and still give the troops the moral support they need to face death on daily basis?

The lyrics to “The Warrior” can be found here.

Incidentally, if you ever really get fed up with our current administration, take Pearl Jam’s self-titled release, Green Day’s American Idiot, and selections from Steve Earle’s The Revolution Starts Now (“The Warrior,” “The Gringo’s Tale,” “Home to Houston,” “Rich Man’s War,” and “I Thought You Should Know”) and Jerusalem (“Ashes to Ashes,” “Amerika v.6.0,” “Conspiracy Theory,” “John Walker’s Blues,” “The Truth” and “Jerusalem”), put them on your iPod, and shuffle freely at high volume.

"Simple, Neat, and Wrong"

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On the way home today, NPR featured a story about two companies who believe that spraying iron-laden seawater into the ocean would “fertilize” the growth of plankton, which would absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere helping to slow global warming. If it works, it would provide a low-cost way for people and organizations to offset the greenhouse gases they produce by funding such iron-spraying, plankton-growing enterprises. The companies say it’s a win-win (naturally) – they’re helping the planet and making a little money, too! Some scientists are a bit more skeptical.

Here’s what we appear to know for sure: plankton absorb carbon dioxide. Here’s what we know in theory: spraying iron in the ocean may encourage plankton to grow.

Here’s a little bit of what we don’t know:

1. Will spraying iron in the ocean negatively impact other ocean species?

2. Will a surge in plankton negatively impact other ocean species?

3. Will spraying iron in the ocean change the nature of the plankton we’re attempting to grow?

4. When plankton dies, what happens to the carbon? Where does it go, and for how long?

5. Will the gases produced by a lot of new plankton be detrimental to the planet?

H. L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” It amazes me that, in the face of a puzzle as massive and complex as global climate change, any scientist would advocate the rash implementation of anything billed as a quick fix.

Advocates of the idea say we need to “do something now!” Doing stuff is what got us here. We need to stop doing stuff …

Constant Rebirth

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One of my first and formative lessons at Yale was the utter ineffectiveness of religious appeals to those who do not share your faith. As a result, I tend not to lead with my faith when making introductions or arguments. Increasingly, however, I’m realizing that A) much of what I enjoy talking and writing about involves religion or spirituality, and B) people should understand where I come from so they can disregard me with reason!

I grew up the son of a fallen-away Catholic mother and an … atheist? agnostic? closet Buddhist? … father. I made my First Communion somewhere around fifth grade, during a church-going streak of a couple years, as I recall – but my spiritual upbringing was shaped as much by Dad and his Little Grandma, a remarkable, diminutive woman who raised him up right – on the Bible, if not in the Church. To this day, he’s one of the most Christian people I know, despite the fact that he sees no evidence or need for a God, per se – benevolent or otherwise.

So I arrived at Yale in 1992 a country kid of relatively modest means and an old-fashioned upbringing not tied tightly to any particular faith tradition. I roomed with six other guys whose views and values were as different from mine as our hometowns – rural Remus, Michigan, versus Cape Cod and Walpole, Mass.; New York; Philadelphia; Chicago; L.A.

They grilled me over my views on abortion, abstinence, drinking, you name it. I believe I surprised them on two counts: my strict adherence to these values despite being nearly half a country from home, and the fact that I didn’t reference the Bible or God in my arguments.

I didn’t because A) from a religious perspective, I wasn’t sure what I believed, and B) the non-religious majority in the room didn’t buy faith-based arguments and dismantled our one strongly Catholic suitemate simply by asking why. (He quickly discovered that although he believed precisely what the Church taught, he had no idea why they taught it.) Instead, I pursued these discussions as dialectic, working out the truth of my values through their constant challenges. In the meantime, that first semester I took a class in physical anthropology, focusing on human evolution, and quickly fell in love.

I majored in anthropology and studied human evolution for four years. Halfway through, I took a summer job at Wall Drug (yeah, that Wall Drug – the one with all the billboards) and fell in love again, this time with a cradle Catholic. And I learned a couple things in the process.

First, I learned that, on the whole, scholars who study human evolution are generally great critical thinkers, quick-witted and skeptical, and they generally lack a family life. (They seemed like a terribly smart and lonely lot.)

Secondly, I found out that a cradle Catholic and a skeptic-in-training make a pretty mean team in the search for Truth.

Jodi’s quiet faith, and a wonderfully honest and human priest named William Zink, brought me back into the church (not to mention my mother, who, like me, is now a lector). I’m Catholic and proud to be so, although to this day I sometimes have doubts and misgivings about the Church, its teachings, and my own faith* – and I’m not at all convinced that we’ve cornered the market on the Kingdom of Heaven.** But I know what I get from the faith tradition I practice, and it’s too good to give up and go looking elsewhere.

Besides, where would I look?

*****

vigil

we watch for signs
signals too dim to light our way
stop us dead.
we wait – for what?
an invitation is ours
each day; each moment
we are born again
to do more good
to do better
god is god the everpresent
he leaves not
each dawn an easter
each day a rebirth

j. thorp
27 sept 01

*****

I’m never sure how I feel about that poem as creative writing, but when I wrote those words, they seemed like a revelation.

Life is a constant series of rebirths – perhaps the most dramatic in my life is described in an essay called “Thomas and Me,” which can be downloaded here.

It’s long; ask Jodi if I can ever tell a short story. Feel free to share your thoughts.

——

* Father Bill told me that even priests have their doubts and not to let mine get in the way of experiencing the fullness of life in the Church. He also assured me that the head on my shoulders is God-given, and that, as long as I continue to seek, I’ll be alright.

** You’ll see on my short list of favorite books “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell and “Living Buddha Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hanh. I don’t necessarily buy everything these fellows are selling either, but they make for compelling reading. Jesus said, “I am the Way,” right? I believe there are a lot of non-Christian people walking that Way, narrow or not!

You Know Me

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You never know who you’ll cross paths with later in life, or how they might touch you …

*****

“You know me,” he says, although in reality I don’t. Not that well, at any rate.

Sure, I knew him in high school—knew who he was; recognized his lanky form and hat-hair; heard the familiar jeering in the halls. Kids used to bleat his name like sheep and laugh. Don’t ask.

“You know me,” he says. That’s how he starts everything—like we go way back, or something. Like we’re tight. He arrives the same way each time—just about sundown, first sound, then sight and smell. This time I hear the rattle and pop of his lawn tractor coming up the road from the east. I’m working on my own mower as he pulls up; I step to the porch as he kills the engine. He looks the same as he did then, save a bit of gut and a scruff of beard, tall and a little off-center, somehow; hair mussed, teeth yellow with tobacco juice. He smells of chaw, exhaust fumes and manure. The latter has dried to the sleeve of his sweatshirt and the leg of his jeans. His shoes, however, are spotless and white—athletic shoes he must only wear after work. He squirts brown spittle from between his teeth, politely, into the grass before stepping onto the porch.

Maybe it’s the job again—he works for a dairy farm to the north, and doesn’t much like his boss. Maybe it’s his truck—transmission’s out, and the transfer case. $1,800 to get it going again, and he makes $6.50 an hour, before taxes. Maybe it’s the car—the old Thunderbird I sold him for a $20 down payment and a winter’s worth of snowblowing. He drove it all winter without a rear window or a heater.

Maybe it’s some combination—if he can keep the Thunderbird running, he can visit another farm this weekend, one that offers better pay. Maybe the owner would recognize him as a hard worker and loan him the money to fix his truck. Maybe he’ll get housing on the place this time, and maybe in a few years, insurance. Maybe he’ll clear $7 an hour.

Maybe he’s finally had it. “You know me, Jim—I don’t take shit off anybody,” he says.

He took shit from everybody. Sitting beneath a shade tree away from the rest of the freshman football team, he took off his helmet, opened a bag of fresh tomatoes and took out a shaker of salt. We sat with our Gatorade and sandwiches and candy bars and bananas and ridiculed him.

Some of the guys lived for giving him shit. I gave it to him less than most—but what’s that make me?

He asks if I’d noticed he’d been by earlier. I hadn’t. He points out the fresh-mowed grass along road in front of the house. Maybe I’d like him to do the whole yard? Maybe I’d like to borrow his mower until mine’s up and running. Maybe, if I’m interested in his snowblower, maybe I could loan him the $1,800, and he could give me the snowblower and make payments on the balance. Then he could fix his truck and visit that other farm up to Traverse City.

He tells me his plans for the weekend, the week, the future. He asks advice on how to approach the other farm owner when he calls him, and how to deal with his current boss. He tells me about his girlfriend—about being too tired “to pop” some nights, and about forgetting whether or not they did, others. It’s more information than I need—we were never really friends, were we?

The neighbor kid’s out of jail, but shouldn’t give me any trouble, he tells me —he’ll see to it himself. He tells me if I need a new mower, he’ll talk to a dealer he knows.

“We’ve known each other a long time, Jimmy—I’ve got no problem putting in a good word for you,” he says. “You know me.”

Better than most, I think, and say, “Thanks.”

*****

That was in Michigan. I don’t know how he’s doing—last I knew, he didn’t have a phone. But I think about him from time to time …