On Light

He dipped the pen into the ink jar and wrote a few lines. The lonely candle cast flickering shadows. His head leaned toward the paper. His eyes strained to read his writing amidst the dancing shadows and weak light.
He smiled as he looked down at his work. He picked up the last blank page. After three months and countless notes, he sat completing his first chapter. His breath quickened, and his pen danced on the paper. He reached for his mug with his free hand. He drank the last drop of his fourth cup of coffee. He began putting his mug down, but his excited hand bumped against the candle stand. The candle fell to the floor. His hands jerked in reaction. His skin grew cold and white. The candle went out, and he sat there in the dark. His skin regained its normal tone. He sighed deeply and let out a muffled grunt. He rose from the table gingerly. With outstretched arms, he advanced slowly towards his bed. He crawled under his covers. With a final deep breath, he tried to find some sleep with tosses and turns.
At his printing press, each day consisted of work for Henry. As he worked, he incessantly wrote out further aspirations and dreams. Between presses, he would transcribe down notes of locations, characters, and plots for his stories. He awoke at sunrise, and the press churned out newspapers until the sun set. He would then rush home to write before the sky grew dark.
His father’s house burned down after a candle set a drape aflame, and a friend’s house nearly burned down by a newly acquired gas lamp. Henry did not own a gas lamp, and he used candles sparingly. His hands shook under the ideas in his head. The paper suffered silly typos. Food and coffee stained his notes.
“I can’t continue to live like this,” said Henry with a sigh.
“And how are you living?” asked his friend. His smile never left his face. He gazed aimlessly into the sky. His hands always fiddled with something. He twirled a pencil in his hand.
Henry said, “I have all these ideas and stories I long to express about, but all the sunlight is spent at work.”
“It seems that darkness is the enemy of your ideas. You need safe, dependable light.”
“I suppose I could dream of that.” Henry joked.
Henry’s friend’s hand stopped with the pencil. His entire body stiffened, and his eyes stared at the glass of lemonade. Henry looked on for a few moments before interrupting the trance. “What’s got your fancy?”
“Just something I’ve been toying with recently.”
Both sat silent.
“Henry, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll stay in contact.”
“Yes indeed. Do take care, Thomas.”
They stood up and shook each other’s hand farewell.
Years passed. Thomas experimented, and Henry wrote piles of notes. One day Thomas ran up Henry’s front porch and pounded on the door.
“I’ve found the solution, Henry!” he said unable to stand still.
He reached into his pocket and brought out a hollow, glass, rain-drop-shaped gadget. “With this your stories can finally be written without the worry of fire or regard to the sun’s wishes. I call it a ‘lightbulb.’”
Six months passed. Henry knocked on Thomas’ door. Thomas opened the door.
“It’s finally written.”
“What?” asked Thomas.
“My first book.” From behind his back, Henry presented a leather-bound book. The title read, The Telegrapher and His Friend: The Beginnings of Thomas Edison.
“I feel like I already know this story,” said Thomas, with a chuckle.
Before going to bed, Henry shut off the electric lamp at his desk. He wrote no notes before he slept.

Subway Scene

The subway came to a jolting stop. A mass of travelers scooted out of the train, while others bumped into each other to enter. A few people plugged into their iPods. A group at one end of the train engaged in loud debate and frequent laughter. The rest of the train remained quiet and somber. Steadily, the train gained speed to a cruise. The air-conditioning whispered overhead. The tracks rumbled underneath.

The door between cars opened. A thin boy around eighteen trudged into the train-car. His hands were leathery and dirty. His forearms bore two smudged tattoos: a spider web and a fading cross. His face was blank. His eyes stared ahead, perpetually. His head tilted down. New Yorkers continued reading their newspapers. Tourists peered at the curious sight. They whispered to each other.

He recited with a pitchy voice, “Hello, everyone. My name is John.” Taking off his hat, he continued, “I’m in a rough spot in life and I could really use the help. I’m broke. I’m homeless. I don’t have anyone to go to for help.” Pausing in the middle of the train, his head motioned from side to side aimlessly. “All I’m asking for is a little help.” His voice pitched at the end and the plea sounded like a question. “Anything will help.” He faced the train’s passengers with his empty eyes. He swallowed hard, as his head gradually fell further.

As he walked down, he offered his hat right and left. One women, sitting cross-legged, whirled her head away. Her hands tensed around her purse. The hat continued down the train. One anonymous dollar made its way into the hat. He stood before the travelers one last time. His eyes broke from their stare and darted from one person to another. No eyes met. His shoulders sunk. Turning, he put on his hat. He drew in a breath tediously. His hands gripped the handle to the door between the trains. He hesitated for a moment. Then, raising his head, he pulled the doors apart.

The train came to a jolting stop. A train-car emptied and filled with more quiet and somber travelers. The door between cars opened. A boy emerged from the previous car. His head angled down. “Hello, everyone. My name is John.”

A Scene of my Father

The graying clouds and dim kitchen lights made for a somber scene. The younger children sat in dining chairs while the older siblings stood around. They exchanged perplexed glances. The eldest shifted his fingers incessantly. The parents walked in, silent. The father sat down, facing his children. Taking time to look at them, each individually, he smiled. His thumbs fumbled in his folded hands. The wife took her place in the chair next to him. Her eyes were on him. A gentle smile lingered on her face despite the faintest quiver at the corner of her mouth. The children sat motionless under the silence. It began to rain.

“Kids... I’ve lost my job.” The father looked at his children. He noticed them shift in their seats. His youngest boys gazed blankly. He noticed the older boys grow stiff. He felt the touch of his wife’s hand grip his. Their eyes meet and locked. He then turned back to his children.

“The next few months will be difficult. But we’re going to make it through.”

A few months grew to eighteen. Savings emptied. Friends brought groceries. Resumes squandered paper. Appointments wasted time. Quite dinners followed unsuccessful interviews. Prayers grew longer. The father noticed the cloudy days more than the sunny ones.

Another day meant the hour-long drive back from a temporary job. It barely payed for itself. Steering the car into the driveway, he noticed squealing children spill out of the front door. They ran to the car laughing. The father chuckled to himself as they chased the car into the garage. As he walked out they told him about their day, interrupting each other incessantly. He listened, ignoring the worries rattling inside his brain like a hundred tacks. Their grins seemed oblivious to his weary face. He detected a hint of Lasagna in the air as he opened the door to the kitchen. He embraced his wife. They held each other for a moment. He went into his office and sighed, setting his briefcase down beside resumes, bills, and food-stamp forms. The phone rang. He answered it casually.

“Yes, Mr. Carman? The company we spoke of -- They’d like to make you CEO.”

The parting clouds and warm office lamp made for a rich scene. He stood there, unsure whether his heart would stop beating or bust through his chest. A breeze swept through the trees.

Thoughts on the Porch

My family moved into our house 3 years ago. My parents designed it with our family in mind. They yearned for a final resting place. The blueprints always included a wrap-around porch. Friends thought we would hardly use it. The contractor agreed. My parents stood firm. After moving in, my siblings and I spent most of our waking hours on that porch.

The left side over-looked the garage, curving underneath the house into the basement. The right side faced a wall of trees towering around a valley formed by the wandering vein of a distant creek. The front embraced all-comers with a spacious staircase at the center. A garden sat below in the yard, and beyond a forest trail beneath a canopy of countless windows of sunlight. I occasionally napped outside on a rainy day. I would rock back and forth, reading a book. I enjoyed snacks with friends. In the back, I occupied my time studying.

Us kids once all owned a pair of roller blades. We scooted around the porch, laughing and screaming with glee. When we slept on the porch, the wonder of creation kept us awake as the crickets serenaded under the shimmering moon. Last summer we added a table for meals in the gazebo. After the corn harvest, we devoured sweet cobs dripping with butter, pepper, and salt. My hospitable mother often invited people over for parties, reunions, birthdays, dances, socials, or merely dinner. The back porch routinely served as the buffet line while the front and sides furnished space for conversation.

The porch holds a spell of pleasant memories. I chased my siblings around the porch. I laughed and cried with my parents. I absorbed philosophy from my mentor. I conversed with God. I opened the letter of acceptance to The King’s College. I descended the steps leaving for college. I wish to walk back up when I return.

The door normally functions as the entrance into a home. It locks up and keeps out. Our house has such a door, yet also a porch. The porch does not shut or lock, but remains open and unlatched; forever wrapping around as if to embrace all the sheltered merry souls. New York lacks wrap-around porches. I miss that season of life with the joyous giggles and marvelous freedom.

On Language

I love my mother. Back in grade school, I would study homework, albeit often sidetracked, and my mother would walk into the room doing whatever a mother of seven children does. Then, quite randomly, she would turn to us children, look deeply into our eyes and say “my children, that you would know God, that you would know God.” Even now, it freezes me where I sit. That phrase continues to inspire me to live my life a certain way - with a yearning for God.

Some things take time to sink into one’s head. I once heard one must hear something seventeen times to remember it. Before high school, I had not heard this phrase from my mother seventeen times yet. It just confused me. Why does she say it with such passion? Why do her knuckles turn white and her tone serious? I could not grasp it. I would work on math, rather struggle with math, and in the middle of teaching me she would stop, and her attitude would grow serious. “Charles, that you would know God, that you would know God.” I would sit still and swallow hard, struck with an emotion I did not fully understand. It seemed as if something attacked me forcefully on all sides amidst a stream of almost painful love.

I finally heard it the “seventeenth” time as a junior in high school. My younger brother struggled with math like me. I noticed my mother push the math homework aside and bend down close to my brothers despairing face. The room fell silent and the air heavy by the strain of the pivotal movement. “Joseph, that you would know God... that you would know God.” The sweetest arrow tore open my heart. Her reality shocked me: seven children to raise in a world teeming with doubt, darkness, and death where, at the end of the day, knowing 2 + 2 was not near as important as knowing Him who gave us 2 + 2. In that moment, life made such dreaded and wonderful sense, and my mothers inner longings became my own through one small, simple phrase.