Joe is taking the photos and I’m putting them into some sort of format that makes them easy to see, along with quotes Joe finds personally inspiring. I hope you’ll sign up for them. The photos are amazing and I can’t wait to get down there to swim with them!

“Be kind to strangers for unawares, you may be entertaining an angel.”

John Oysterman was a man of the sea, a wise man, a nut job and 100% enigma. He was part Yoda, part Donald Shimoda, and part Mr. Miyagi. If you know the genre well, then you recognize it merely brings the hero’s journey to life through characters who embody the steps or stages of that journey. From Star Wars to Illusions, to Karate Kid, or any of the “Coming of Age,” movies and books, what makes them memorable is how believable the characters are and how easily we’re drawn into the wisdom that already lies within us.

What I noticed and why I decided to write The Oysterman, is that in all these wisdom genre books men are the “hero” and women play a supporting role. Not so in this book. Women can have moments of awakening as well. And don’t think that teachers are only male either. Anna meets many teachers of both genders along the way.

I think “The Oysterman” series will appeal to anyone who likes a good read, an adventure and a suspension of reality – or maybe better – a foray into an alternate reality. Book One of a four-part series is almost finished and I’m setting up the website this week, and working with an editor the end of the month to make it happen. I plan to post it on Kindle and Amazon by Sept. 1, 2011. That’s the goal I’ve set for myself anyway! Hoping you enjoy it. My blog posts may dwindle over the next three weeks, but now you know why. Regular reader? I’ll be posting a free excerpt and a discounted (.99 cent) price to anyone on my email list – so please sign up (sign up form is to the right) now. And thank you all for your support!

About this time of year in 1974 I was laying on my belly in a field somewhere in East Tennessee with machine guns going off all around me. I was in the middle of an ROTC Army Ranger field exercise. My M-14 was stretched out beside me and I was dressed in faded green fatigues. The day was perfect – sunny, mild, clear. I was in the woods and in my element and having the time of my life.

Four inches in front of my face was a perfectly star-shaped lavender purple flower, smaller than the fingernail on my pinkie finger – not quite the shape as the one in the photo – but close. As I listened to gunfire and shouts I remember it occurred to me that I was the only person on the entire planet, in the entire history of the planet that would ever see that one tiny, tiny perfect flower. In all of eternity and the course of humanity, I was the soul – the one soul – outside of God – who would see and appreciate that flower in each delicate, perfect detail. That thought has stayed with me and I think it will be the last I have on earth – that something so wonderful, intricate and beautiful was created and I was the only person ever – to experience it. I thought about that again this morning as I walked my dog through the woods and was surrounded by thousands of the same flowers.

The things we remember, and why we remember them is, as Agatha Christie said, “Odd.”

I remember the first time I heard the sound of rain on a tin roof – at Standing Stone State Park on my first vacation when I was seven.

I remember the first meal I ordered and paid for by myself with money I “made” by collecting it from the change people lost when diving off the diving board in the pool at that same state park that same year. It was a cheeseburger and a coke and it cost me 50 cents – a dime for the coke, 35 cents for the burger and a nickel extra for the cheese.

I remember how soft the fur of my first kitten was and how she died the day after we got her because the vet botched her neutering. I remember the vet was fat, smoked a cigar while he talked to us about the death and didn’t seem that freaking concerned about it – “Happens all the time,” he told my dad. I remember I wished someone would neuter him (whatever that meant) and he would die. To this day all cigar smoking vets are, in my mind, heartless assholes.

I remember how to disassemble, clean and reassemble an M-14, something I haven’t had to do in 30 years and a skill I hope I never have to need again.

I remember how I used to tie my shoes before someone taught me the “right” way.

I remember the sound a metal bar makes on a carnival ride when you’ve latched it properly – memories of a summer spent working at Elitches’ in Denver.

I remember my first kiss.

I remember the sun on my face and how it felt to fall asleep in an old red Adirondack chair in a field of buttercups in my aunt’s back yard.

I remember my first pony ride – and the first time I rode a train.

My list could go on for days. I savor those memories as often as I can because they form the foundation for my stories. If you can’t remember the intimate moments, the simple moments of your life, you can’t tell even the simplest story no matter how clever or gifted a writer you think you are. Why? Because it’s those simple elements that become the iconic moments of our lives. They define us in ways we don’t even recall. It’s when you tap into the iconic, the character forming, the intimate that you tap into story. Knowing why you remember is important, but remembering is the most important of all. It’s a writing exercise so many of us rarely practice. Try it today.

What do you remember?

No picture has torn at my heart more than this one taken last month after a woman’s dog broke its leash and ended up in the water off of what looks like a very chilly pier. A German tourist strips to his tighty-whities and jumps in the water to save this small dog. I know MY heart would have been breaking if I’d been this distraught woman. But the stranger rescues the dog and I assume, gets warm and dry as well as a hug!

Anyway, I put the photos into a Free DogRescue ebook as well as this post so you can share the story freely. It’s definitely a story worth sharing! Click on the DogRescue link above to download the PDF. No need to register. Just download it.

God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day which is Sunday which is why we have to go to Church one day a week. God made Adam. Adam got lonely, so God took a rib out of his side and made Eve. Being a woman Eve was tempted by the devil who appeared as a snake in the Garden of Eden. She ate the apple and then got Adam to eat the apple from the tree of forbidden knowledge.

God got mad and kicked them out of the garden of Eden. Eve and Adam then had sex for the first time and Cain and Able were born. Cain killed Able. Time passes. Lots of people populate the earth, but God decides they’re all evil and decides to wipe out everybody and start over. But he sees this righteous guy named Noah and tells him to build an ark and puts two of every kind of animal on it and he and his family and the animals survive the flood.

If, like me and most of the Southern Baptists I know, your concept of Christianity revolves around all these holidays. You know the stories, but I’ve rarely met anyone who can explain WHY Jesus ended up being born and why exactly we worship him and what exactly it is He was sent here for. Trust me – it wasn’t to spoil our fun.

Let’s go back to Genesis – which is the first book of the Bible. Before God created man, or earth – he created angels. We know this because in Job 38:4-7, “the sons of God shouted for joy” when He laid the foundations of the earth. So, God had an audience while he was shaping the earth. (p.s. God talks literally about fire breathing dragons, unicorns and other creatures in Job too by the way).

These angels weren’t and aren’t the harp playing, frail and effeminate creatures depicted in far too many books and stories. When angels appear to men in the Bible the reaction of those who see them is to fall on their faces in fear and trembling. Remember when the angelic host appeared to the shepherds at Christ’s birth? They fell to the ground in fear. As a matter of fact – the first words out of almost every angelic encounter in the Bible seems to be, “Fear not,” as the angel tries to reassure the human being that they’re not in danger from the angel. And remember who guards the entrance to the Garden of Eden? Yeah – an angel with a flaming sword. I get the distinct feeling nothing is getting by him.

The appearance of these spiritual creatures in their natural state is apparently terrifying – whether from their size, or their wings, their glowing continence or whatever. They’re seriously impressive and intimidating no matter what their mission. They were created to serve God and throughout most of the Old Testament their job is as protectors and warriors. So who are they fighting?

Well, according to the Old Testament, they’re fighting other angels. According to the Old Testament the most powerful, beautiful angel ever created was Lucifer. He was God’s right-hand angel and very, very powerful. But his power went to his head and he decided he, not God, should rule the universe. Sounds a bit like Darth Vader don’t you think? Well, God – being God and being all-powerful, kicked Lucifer out of heaven. Apparently there was a huge battle and one-third of the angels in the universe were cast down to earth.

This is why Lucifer – who we know better as Satan – was so freaking pissed. He lost. Evil lost, God won. But Satan wasn’t a good loser by anybody’s standards. So when God created a new race – man – Satan went after man to ruin him in order to get back at God. He succeeded, managing to tempt Eve in the garden with what many people believe was having sex with him. After all the reasoning goes, why would God punish Eve with increased pain in childbirth and an increased sexual desire for Adam, and punish Adam with having to work harder to bring forth food from the earth for eating an apple? The sex question comes up because in Genesis 6:6 we learn that fallen angels, and non-human beings called “Watchers” came down from the skies (outer space) and mated with h human women. The offspring of the “sons of God” (which some believe to be Cain’s offspring and not angels) and the “daughters of man” were the Nephilim. The spirits of dead Nephilim are believed to be the demons we read so much about in the New Testament. They have a super natural knowledge of who Christ is and what his mission here on earth was/is. If you don’t read the New Testament much it’s pretty much all about demons, miracles and supernatural stuff. There are UFO’s in there, people being raised from the dead, and although there are as many UFO’s as in the Old Testament, which is just eaten up with them, (as are many historical and non-religious texts, paintings and carvings) it’s pretty clear that UFOs and the spirit world are very much real and there’s a lot of stuff going on way outside the commercial realm of Santa Claus and the annual manager scene.

These Nephilim were giants – literally 9-36 feet tall. They eventually ate everything on earth and then began eating each other – they were cannibalistic. Numbers 13 (Old Testament) confirms this. These demi-gods are the basis for the Roman and Greek Gods – because they literally did have the powers of angels and stature of men. (While you’re researching angels, Nephilim and tribes you’ll come across descriptions of the Ananuk or Anunnaki. Yep. In the Bible. They’re deities we might (and do) call “aliens” or extra-terrestrials. Moses sent spies into the promised land to see what the Jews were up against and his spies ran into these giants. They’re described in both the Torah and the Bible, among others.

God saw this and saw the mingling of his creation – man, with Satan’s fallen angels – the ones who opposed His rule, and he decided to destroy them. The old “don’t intermarry” laws of the Old Testament weren’t about marrying blacks and whites – but about marrying hybrids – those born from a parentage of human/fallen angel or Nephilim. If you’ve tried to get through the genealogies of the Old Testament and wondered why genealogies were so important, it’s because it was very important to those who worshipped God that they not intermingle their DNA (although they called it their bloodline) with evil/Satan. the flood was His eradication of the hybrid races. Noah was the only man whose family had not bred or intermarried with fallen angels. That’s why he was righteous in God’s eyes. Noah worshiped God and hadn’t intermingled his bloodline.

In case you don’t follow Anne Rice and the Vampire novels, or pay much attention to the bloodline of rulers (Kings, Presidents and Queens) you may not have realized that in the bloodlines of rulers all the rulers are related to each other. Didn’t you know that many, if not all of the presidential candidates and presidents throughout USA history are related to each other? It was considered the “Divine Right to Rule or the Divine Right of Kings,” and is why the Queen of England got so fraught over Princess Diana marrying Charles. Not to worry though. Diana is said to be of true royal blood – and more powerful than Charles ever was – thus the fascination with her children, particularly Prince William and the future of England. Bored yet?

Trust me. You DO NOT get this in the Baptist church, or any church really. But it is all in the Bible, and if you study the Bible, history and the prophets as well as the news and politics, it all begins to make sense. Christ was born into the world to save those who believe and understand the larger battle. If you recall in the Matrix, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – all the classic literature we all love and “wish” were real – this same battle is fought – evil vs good. And only a handful of heroes know about it. It’s happening right here on earth. Only a handful of people understand or belief it. We see the UFO’s. We watch world events. We see who the players are. We understand why Jesus was born and was hidden and protected until His time came.

The rest of the muggles and sleepers think Jesus and God and sin and conspiracy theories are all silly religious rituals designed to keep them from having fun, doing what they please. The joke is on you if you believe that. A larger story has been playing out for centuries and it’s about to culminate in a huge battle and those in the know – know it.

If you’re thinking “Baby Jesus, oh how sweet,” you didn’t get to the chapter where he straddles the mountains of Jerusalem and kicks some serious, serious ass. We’re not talking hell. We’re talking what the Bible says is happening NOW, on earth, and will happen. Grab your hot chocolate or Starbucks and sing “Holy Night” if you want to this year, but you might want to look into the words to Handel’s Messiah as well.

For those of you who have differing points of view, like the Bible is not a literal document, or this is all BS, you’re welcome to your interpretation and point of view. If you don’t believe there is a God, you’re welcome to that too. My point here is to share what I what I believe to be the “greatest story every told,” as told by the Bible, the Torah, history and civilizations throughout time so people get a chance to explore for themselves and to decide for themselves what they will believe. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about seeking and finding a living God and savior, not a parody of one like so many of the churches and religions of today would have us swallow hook, line and sinker. You are all free to believe what you will, but I urge you this season, really LOOK at what you believe and WHY you believe it. Don’t take anyone’s word for what happened. Read the Bible for yourself and see.

Madeleines

I saw a wonderful photo the other day of a Ralph Lauren inspired and decorated Airstream. I downloaded the photos to my desktop and have been gazing at them for several days now. They evoke a warmth and desire in me I haven’t felt in years. I’m not surprised. They are visual metaphors, invoking involuntary memories of camping cabins I have happy memories of. I was just surprised at their power, even knowing where it comes from. Thank you Marcel.

French novelist Marcel Proust might have faded into all but literary obscurity except for his most well-known work about the notion of involuntary memory, and an oft quoted phrase about Madelines. Involuntary memory is a term Proust actually coined to describe cues or triggers we encounter in everyday life that set off memories or feelings from our past with no conscious effort from us in the process. Smell wood smoke, cookies or pie baking, or hear the crackle of a freshly lit fire, or some other visual, auditory or kinetic event and like many of us, some fond memory leaps to mind. Unlike conscious memory in which we struggle to remember details and emotions, involuntary memory leaps from the darkness of our subconscious – dragging emotion, memory and our past with it – snapping every fiber of our focus to attention. It’s quite amazing really. For those suffering from some past horror, involuntary memory can be triggered by a backfiring car, the sound of a helicopter, the wail of a police siren. Involuntary memory can bless or curse us. And that’s why metaphor, which can trigger a kind of involuntary memory, can be so powerful.

Anyway, Proust’s long and sometime boring piece, except for the most famous passage about the “episode of the Madeleine,” is still a good read because he captures this event so well. Background: The Madeline is a small French cake, famous mostly for its reference in Proust’s novel, “In Search of Lost Time.” The narrator in the book experiences an emotional awakening, an involuntary memory, upon tasting a Madeleine dipped in tea:

“She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites Madeleine, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…”

You will find this passage quoted frequently by anyone from attorneys to perfume sellers who want to impress upon their reader the power of evoked memory. We quote it for good reason. It conveys the power of involuntary memory within us. We grasp the power of the passage not because of the words – but because we’ve been there. We’ve been transported back in time by the scent of a loved one’s cologne or perfume on the coat of a passerby. We’ve unexpectedly had a spouse bring us coffee or breakfast in bed that evoked a parent’s care when we were sick children. We’ve been comforted by the mere act of picking up a child’s stuffed animal if we too cuddled one as a child.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) programmers call such events “anchoring” opportunities. These programmers actually create or have us recall such powerful memories in order to form an anchor (such as snapping our fingers or touching two fingers together) to evoke this emotion for other purposes when needed or desired. If you are a marketer, storyteller or sales person – or if you just want to evoke a strong emotion in someone, using written or visual metaphors when telling your story is one way to tap into this involuntary memory if your audience shares the emotions. It’s why Harley-Davidson patented the sound of its motorcycle engine, and why Coca-Cola “owns” the color red. It’s why “branding” is so important – those are all ways to tap into the power of the subconscious and direct (or even control) a person’s decisions and feelings. Strong branding means strong loyalty.

Check the ads in your local grocery. Although most dairy and food products are produced in modern factories, you’ll still see the old fashioned images of farms, barns and pastures on the product itself. They’re meant to evoke a feeling of wholeness, freshness and calm. They’re less effective today since most people under 30 have never been on a farm and don’t have the memories, but still, they’re very effective. Most advertising in fact relies on visual metaphors and color association. Think of what holidays we associate with orange and black, or red and green, or pink and white.

Metaphor then can be very powerful for good or bad, depending on its association to your audience. It can also work its magic on you as well. The next time you feel strangely drawn to a product, service, person, place or thing – stop and look for the metaphor, the involuntary memory. And think seriously about incorporating metaphor into your own stories.

In one of the stores he picks up a mirror and looks in it. Not ever having seen one before, he remarked at the image staring back at him, “How about that! Here’s a picture of my daddy.”

He bought the mirror thinking it was a picture of his daddy, but on the way home he remembered his wife didn’t like his father, so he hung it in the barn, and every morning before leaving for the fields, he would go there and look at it.

His wife began to get suspicious of these many trips to the barn.

One day after her husband left, she searched the barn and found the mirror.

As she looked into the glass, she fumed, “So that’s the ugly bitch he’s runnin’ around with.”

I laughed. So did you I’m sure. But this email from a friend was part of a discussion I’ve been having with people about how our thoughts, how our outer reality is just a reflection of what’s happening inside us. Psychologists call it “projection.” Are you calling someone annoying? What is it that makes it annoying really? Is it something that you do yourself?

Byron Katie speaks to this topic in “The work.”

And while this may all seem like it has nothing to do with triiibes or tribes, it has everything to do with triiibes. Because the stories we tell about others may really be the stories we’re telling about ourselves. I don’t believe in the absolute mirror theory, but I do believe that our THOUGHTS about things rather than the FACTS about them, impact our business, our clients, our communication.

How?

Well, in the past week three new clients have come to me with new business and I’ve turned them down – even though I could really use the work right now. Why did I turn them down? One refused to pay my rate, even though he could afford it – but his last web designer “ripped him off,” and never finished the website and charged him $2,000 and he got screwed. I told him I was sorry that happened, but that I was not that designer. I offered to break down the work in segments and get paid only after he was satisfied at each stage. His solution was to pay me $300 for a $2,000 website. I declined. He was angry at his last designer and I knew I would end up taking the brunt of his anger and that didn’t work for me. He didn’t respect me or even want to give me a chance at proving that not all designers were rip-offs.

Another would-be client wanted a brochure. Simple enough. But his competition made fun of his last design, so he wanted me to figure out a way to create a design THEY would respect. Huh? Think of the Microsoft/Apple pissing contests. Same thing. I don’t want to be designing for a company that would NEVER admit the design was cool even if they thought so. We had “the talk” about being his own man and setting the standard, not following someone else. He wanted to pay for ONE FINAL design, but not all it would take to get there. I turned him down too.

A fairly well-known copy-writer came to me and asked me to write an ebook for them and then “split the profit.” I’d do 80% of the work – they’d handle all the money, create the landing page, and then eventually sell the site and take 2/3’s of the sale. For an “up-and-coming” writer like me – they said, “It’s a great deal.” No it wasn’t. We’re not talking thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars here. He was talking hundreds….as in, less than $1,000. I didn’t laugh in his face, but wish I had. In the past he’s offered me $5 per hour to rewrite his articles. No respect there for me.

My initial thoughts were: What is wrong with ME that I attract these people? Then I wondered if the “mirror” was about me not respecting myself enough and attracting people who didn’t respect me, and on and on and on!! The friend who sent me the hill-billy story said, “You’re not the problem – it’s the STORY you’re telling yourself about what YOU see in the mirror that’s the problem.”

So – the moral of the story – stop trying to figure out what the mirror is “saying” and start looking at the story YOU’RE telling about what you see IN the mirror. It’s the STORY you tell about what you see that matters most….THAT will determine your feelings, and from your feelings will come your actions. Look closely. What do you see?

“I don’t feel good daddy.” He put one hand on her head and looked down in concern before stooping to hug her.

“Okay,” he said, smoothing her hair back with one hand and feeling for a temperature. He kissed her forehead. “We won’t be long. Let me get these stamps and then we’ll go home.” She looked up at him and nodded. The line moved slowly forward. They stood, side-by-side until they reached the window.

She swayed and hung listlessly, reaching for his hand as he let go of her to pull out his wallet and pay for the stamps and hand the clerk his package.

They almost made it out the door before “I don’t feel so good,” became projectile vomiting – all over the tutu, all over daddy, all over the floor.

He stopped. He knelt down. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket as he watched her struggle with the next wave of nausea. As he watched the tiny mouth open he picked her up and held her up so she could vomit into the trash can. Her pink tutu trembled and he whispered in her ear and kissed the top of her head. He knelt again and wiped her mouth carefully with the handkerchief and found a piece of candy in a pocket.

“It’s okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes people get sick. It’s okay. It’ll wash out. I’m worried about you. How do you feel?” And he wiped and he reassured and he calmly took a handful of paper towels someone handed him and cleaned up his fairy princess and himself as best he could, smiling kindly the whole time. Slowly, patiently. No rush. We’re okay. It’s all okay. And then he held her hand and they walked out to the car.

It is in the small things our love shines through.

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”
– Samuel Adams

A little over three years ago I was one of millions of unnamed, unknown homeless people living in a van in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Denver, Colorado. Then I was a little better known, having spoken at TED Global. Now that the video of the talk has been posted my name and my story is known to millions.

The only difference between me and any other homeless, or working homeless person is that “irate, tireless mind willing to set brush fires in people’s minds.” As Margaret Mead said, “”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It wasn’t my talk, or the video that made a difference. It was individual people posting, blogging, talking and sharing that made a difference. ONE person can spark the conversation or the idea, but it takes other individuals to continue it. This is the butterfly effect…..

My favorite stories are all about this phenomena called the “Butterfly Effect.”

“The Butterfly Effect” – is a belief that the air stirred by a single butterfly’s wings flapping eventually creates a typhoon that hits land on the other side of the world. It’s a principle that viral marketing – or all successful marketing is built upon – one small thing leading to another, and another.

A snowflake by itself weighs nothing. Put it with a ka-trillion others and it will collapse oak trees, roofs and any structure known to man by its sheer weight.

Our lives are the product of a million influences, nudges, comments and knowledge of whose origins we know nothing about. And while the actions or inaction’s of others are impacting us every day, so our actions and inaction’s are impacting others as well.

Most of us know who Rosa Parks is and how her refusing to move to the back of the bus sparked the Civil Rights movement, but how many of us know that she was not the first African American to refuse to move to the back of the bus? Ten years before Rosa Parks took a stand, baseball legend Jackie Robinson was court-martialed (and acquitted) for not moving to the back of the bus. Robinson, a second lieutenant at the time, was on trial not because he had violated any articles of war, his attorney told the board, but because a few officers “were working vengeance against an uppity black man.”

All charges were dismissed, and several months later, Robinson received an honorable discharge from the Army. But the butterfly’s wings had flapped and ten years later the winds of a typhoon called the Civil Rights movement began to stir. “A life is not important,” Robinson said, “except in the impact it has on other lives.”

How true. Some of us can identify the butterflies who stirred the wind that moves beneath our wings. Others only know they’ve felt the breeze and puzzled over the events in their lives that seemed to be a “stroke of luck or fortune.”

And while we all have been touched by the butterfly effect – sometimes we forget that all we do creates our own breeze, or typhoon. It doesn’t take much. A careless remark, a timely compliment, a smile, a welcome, an insight, an email or an invite for a cup of coffee. There are many ways to stir the winds of change. A person you introduce to someone today may change their life tomorrow.

I read a story recently about a man whose teacher ridiculed him for his lifelong desire to be a firefighter. The teacher thought it was stupid and ridiculous to follow such a dream when there was college and a world of other opportunities to pursue. So the man went to college and hated the life others expected him to live. Eventually he gave it all up and went back to his real love – firefighting. Hr became a firefighter and loved it. Then – amazingly enough – he recently one day to a crash site and extricated his old teacher and his teacher’s wife, and performed CPR on him, saving his life. And now he has the story to tell, and does, and it changes lives. People hear it and follow their heart. All because a teacher ridiculed a job choice so many years ago.

How will you change the world today?

Donna Howell-Sickles is one of my favorite artists. When I get my RV/trailer, I’m having one of her prints, or a mash-up of her work, repainted on it….She’s my favorite because her visuals send an unexpected, but very effective message – like this one – “Keeping Out The Bears.” More than an artist, Donna is a storyteller. I often think about what the story in this painting is. There are so many.

I was looking at it again this morning and thinking how often we all think putting up a picket fence will “keep out the bears.” On the one hand, if those “bears” are thoughts, or “paper tigers,” the right fence may work. After all, it just becomes a construct we use to deal with scary stuff. On the other hand, if those “bears” are real things like the economy, housing, a job, our health, those flimsy picket fences we put up – fences like our belief that “This bear will never come into my yard,” isn’t going to last long.

So I’m torn, do I write about keeping out the mental bears and paper tigers, or the futility or struggle of trying to fence out the “real” bears – poverty, disease, housing?

The fact is, we all experience BOTH kinds of bears and the real question is, “How are we going to deal with the bears once they want in?” I have some experience with both paper tigers and real bears.

30 years ago I was hiking in Canada with two friends. The three of us were living out of a Volkswagen van, camping and traveling around Canada and the west for the summer. We had found a great trail outside Banff, registered with the park service, then hiked 20+ miles into the back country. It was the second or third morning “in country” when we came upon a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs about 500 yards from timberline. When faced with life-threatening danger, I go for practical and proven every time – in this case, climb a tree.

So, JoAnn and I headed straight up the nearest lodge-pole pine tree – about 40 -feet up, well out of the range of a the 15-20 foot reach of a grizzly intent on dragging down prey and protecting her young.

However, Rose Marie, the third woman in our group, stayed on the ground, believing she could “talk” to the bear and become its “friend” should it approach. We resigned ourselves to watching her be torn limb from limb and chewed into small bloody pieces. It took only seconds for us to reassure each other we would not play hero and try to rescue her. She refused to climb up and sat on a stump, waiting for the bear’s approach.

Meanwhile Joann and I discussed how best to spend the night and the next week living in a lodge-pole pine. Then I heard a noise I couldn’t place. Thunder? A tank? Oh – no, it was the grizzly, standing up and roaring – her jaws open wide enough to swallow a live hog whole. The noise…I can’t even describe the sound or the chill that ran through me as she stood, slinging her head from side-to-side as she bellowed her rage and frustration and warning.

Fortunately bears have lousy eyesight. She could smell us, but not place us. Her cubs wandered down the back of the ridge and out of her sight. So eventually, she left, following them, heading away from us. Eventually we climbed down and decided what to do next. I refused to hike on the next 9 miles to our “above timberline” campsite. I insisted on hiking out instead, arguing that I didn’t want to have to burrow under a boulder when the bear returned at night. JoAnn agreed. So we hiked out, much to Rose Marie’s protests. Good thing. Once off the trail a couple of days later, we signed out of the Canadian hiking permit/camping system, only to discover that the other campers at our campsite had been killed and mauled by bears. It could have been us. Had we proceeded, we would have walked into camp only to find pieces of bodies, a fresh bear kill and no trees to climb.

I remember that trip every time I see this poster – the smiling, friendly, “Oh a picket fence!” bears versus the real grizzlies that had torn two campers (both foresters/scientists studying bear behavior by the way) into hamburger so many years ago. And I remember that Rose Marie saw picket fence bears, and JoAnn and I saw grizzlies. Yet, we all walked away alive. Did Rose Marie’s picket fence keep the bears at bay? Did her sing-song assurances to the bear as she sat on her stump keep the bear away? Or was it the prayers, the strength of my Southern Baptist upbringing, force the hand of God? Or was it the cubs, attention diverted by whatever diverts the young, that drew mama bear away from our group? I’ll never know. Maybe it was all, maybe none of those things. I think though, had they all failed, the tree would have saved me.

We move through life and for the most part, we avoid the bears because we don’t venture into their territory. We don’t linger where they live. And when we do, we plan, whether for picket fences, or lodge pole pines. The songs, the prayers, the picket fences, the totems and gods/God we invoke may keep the bears at bay, but I’ll climb a tree every time.

As I get older, the trees (friends, finances, freedom to chose) are more sparsely placed, harder to find, harder to climb. Maybe it’s time to find a tree and build a tree-house in it. And then hang Donna’s print on the wall. It’s a thought.

How about you? How do you keep the bears out?

“When is it supposed to hit?” Todd asks. I shrug.
“Friday? Saturday? I’m not sure. Friends called to warn me it was on the way,” I explain.
“Should we go anyway?” Todd turns to Faith.
They debate the pros and cons. A small trailer in a high wind is not a risk anyone wants to take.

“Maybe it won’t become a hurricane,” I say as I keep snapping pictures.

Faith is a minister, a bearer of the word of God, a Moses with her “rolling tract” – Bible verses emblazoned in careful hand painted lettering on their trailer. There many Christians hesitate to share their faith with a friend or co-worker, Faith is anxious to single-handedly fulfill God’s admonition to share the gospel with the world. Being a “rolling Bible tract,” is how she has chosen to do that. And it works.

“Except for the verse where I misspelled staff and wrote shaft for “Thy rod and thy staff comfort me…” it’s all the word of God,” she laughs.
“We got some comments on that one.” She steps back, waving one hand at the corner of the trailer where the corrected verse is now scrawled. We walk around the trailer. The familiar verses are there….and Rev. 3:20, ‘”Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, (then) I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me,” is, appropriately enough, written on the trailer door. They have a sense of humor and even laugh at the reactions they get.

“People see us coming, they either run away or run towards us,” she explains.
“That’s the spirit of God. It draws those who want to hear His word to us.”

The verse covered trailer draws Christians, but it also draws the curious.

“Lots of people want to take our picture, or a picture of the trailer,” she nods.
“Cell phones, video cameras, still cameras. We get our picture taken a lot. Some people say they don’t have time to read the whole trailer and want a picture so they can read it later. Some people don’t believe we’ve done this and some, I don’t know. They just want a picture.”

They’re used to the attention – mostly positive. No one hassles them, although they’re concerned that they might run into problems in Myrtle Beach. Tourist towns, as a rule, don’t allow overnight parking in store lots. It’s not that the stores mind so much, parkers do tend to spend money – about $150 per person in Wal-Mart for instance. It’s that the hotels, campgrounds and other merchants prefer to see those through campers paying for a stay and paying them.

The couple relies on God to provide. He does, usually through “love offerings, gifts and the kindness of strangers.” They’re not a 5013c non-profit and any money, food or gifts they receive only bless them and the giver, not anyone’s tax return.

I’m struck by their passion for preaching, and of course their lifestyle. Living and traveling with seven dogs in a small trailer – it takes passion. We talk for about an hour, until the Benedryl I’m taking for a bad case of hives kicks in and I can barely stay awake. I wonder at what I’m so passionate about that I’d be moved enough to cover my van with it all. I tape my interview with them and I know I’ll come back to it later. For now – I’m impressed that they have a tribe, a group of followers and like minds. There’s a tribe for everyone – it’s true. And I feel better about my own journey. We heretics, the crazy ones, the ones who will change the world? We’re out there. Faith and Todd are proof of that.

Then I crawl back into my van, they head into the Wal-Mart, and another night passes – hot and muggy with no promise of rain. I drive by their rig on my way out of the parking lot at 7 a.m. There is no movement and the dogs aren’t visible. But the car and trailer are pointed south. They’ve made their decision and it’s not a surprise. They didn’t seem like the threat of a storm was a big deal.

That large white object is not the moon, although it could be. It’s a balloon – symbolizing letting go….it’s a beautiful post that is worth the read! So why this photo? Who is Seth Raphael?

Seth Raphael, “Magic Seth” to his blog readers, is now a married man! Congratulations! I met Seth at TED Global 2009 when we were both interviewed for a short video for the National Library Association. He also heard my talk about homelessness. In his blog post, “Letting Go,” and writes, in part:

“Before our grand event in Massachusetts, we’d been living in Portland Oregon. I had a job, we had an apartment and extended family very nearby. Within twenty four hours of getting back from TED, and eighteen hours before Cullen would fly East to prepare for the wedding, we had a crazy idea. Let’s move out right now, before the wedding. Circumstances had conspired for me to leave my job, and at whatever hour of the evening it was, it seemed like a tremendously good idea to move out of our apartment before August 1st, and therefore avoid paying a month of rent. A whirlwind of packing made the night a daze, and in the morning I drove Cullen to the airport. Opening the door to our apartment after dropping her off revealed the wreckage our whirlwind had laid out. I had another twenty four hours to pack everything into a U-Haul, and put it into storage… in Monterey CA, the place we had decided to call our new home. I found a willing Portlander heading South to split the 12 hour drive in a 10-foot truck, and I waved goodbye to our home, thinking fondly of Becky Blanton’s story of homelessness.”

It touched me to be remembered thus….seriously. Because that first leap, that “letting go,” is really all about potential and not about falling. It’s not until we start to fall that we learn we can fly.

Congratulations to Seth and his new bride. May you both remember your “homelessness” with fondness on your first anniversary!!

Koko and a solenoid

So, I bought the alternator ($36.74) and replaced it myself. It was hot, greasy, nasty, sweaty work, but it felt good to know I could “do it myself.” But as I laid in the grease on the hot asphalt, in the sun, burning myself repeatedly on the hot engine parts that hadn’t cooled completely I thought about Bob’s Wheel Alignment and how unlikely I am to go back to them ever, even though I like Bob.

But I also thought about how I’ve been trusting the universe/God to take care of me on this trip. On Monday for instance, Ken Moss drove out 30+ miles to get my van started when it broke down in a gas station outside Lynchburg. I know Ken from his incredible bio-diesel processing plant in Gretna, VA. He’s not only a brilliant man, but a kind, generous and helpful one.

Once I got to Charlottesville, VA and the van died again on Tuesday (I still hadn’t realized it was the alternator since it died slowly and worked mostly), I had the volunteers at Martha Jefferson Hospital offering to jump the van or help however they could. I ended up calling Suzanna Turner, an old friend, who came to the rescue and helped me get to Bob’s. Bob let me spend the night in the parking lot in the van.

When the van died again at the Food Lion parking lot, Don, a businessman in Fluvanna County, saw me standing with jumper cables in hand and immediately offered to help out. He was the one who noticed that my battery cables had been installed backward – with the red on negative and the black on positive. Had he not spotted that we would have blown the batteries. So much for the mechanics who installed THAT!

All along the way friends, acquaintances and strangers stepped up to help. A career Army guy named James even stopped by while I was under the van at Auto Zone and helped install the last bolt and muscle the alternator back into place – getting the belt tighter than I could have. He refused my offer of pay or even a cold drink and was a gem. So, I got on the road far quicker than I could have otherwise. And now the van is running well.

Trusting God? Or trusting human nature? I think it’s both. It’s amazing to see how the world opens to you when you expect it to. Try it. You’ll be amazed.