(Bi)Polar Bear:

from A SeaWorld Education Department Resource

1.Adult polar bears have no natural predators. Males occasionally kill other males competing for mates. Males periodically kill females protecting cubs.

2.Cubs less than one year old sometimes are prey to adult male polar bears—

3.Newborn cubs may be cannibalized—


Attempting to hide my profanity. Dates between entries. The gaps between my physical highs and lows. Cave days. I am a dangerous bastard. Exhausted and hungry. I’ve (supposed to have) been living on salad, rice and tuna for weeks now.

I Am The Salad Shooter.

Two months ago, I helped my boss butcher a buffalo. For days, I imagined the meat under the skin of several people I’d talked to. Separating meat from bone always does that to me. Too many senses involved— buffalo blood on my hands, the sticky tallow, the predatory smell—

There is always this loss of innocence, combined with a greed and a fear, stocking up for my family, in case of disaster, in case of misfortune, in case I finally tell some power drunk people what I really think— Clichéd suburban father run amok by fear. My shadow self.

Trinity is hit again. Again with a hardball. This time it is at practice. This time from the coach’s hand. Hit twice in the batter’s box; one ball to each arm. They tell him to keep batting. I am not there to rescue him. He loses trust in adults. Days pass. We play catch on my day off. He ducks even my softest throws.

More days pass. It is practice again. I have to swallow my vomit, push him into the batter’s box for his own good, for his own safety. Aggressiveness in the box means less chance of injury, I think to my self. He doesn’t want to bat. I tell him that he has to. That he will thank me later. I know he will never thank me later.

Trinity says that his hair is so itchy under his helmet, that he can’t bat today. His mouth is dry. I keep nudging him to the plate. Gruffly, because that is what I do when I am afraid, and I have been afraid every day since his birth.

Trinity says in a sad whine that he feels like he is going to fall asleep. I tell him to face his fears, to get in there and to punish the ball. He begins to swing. Stiffly several times, backing out of the box. I praise him for trying to stay in there.

Trinity swings, finally fouls it, and tension is released. He even smiles at the catcher. His next swing pokes the next pitch into left field. Later he fields hits for his teammates, smiling and joking with his coach, but I know that I am not off the hook. I am afraid that I am cannibalizing his love for the game, and for me… and I don’t know any other way.

Today, I am driving home from Bend. It’s raining like Hell, while I am trying to find rest; find my balanced self. I miss God more than I miss red meat. The blood, the sticky tallow, the predatory smell— I wish I could find God in one of those hundreds of churches that squat on every other city block in Central Oregon. Maybe I would find peace and quiet in one of those empty sanctuaries now, since their people are all holding picket signs in front of the theaters playing "The DaVinci Code."

I wish I had the time to make a sign protesting those signs. It would read,

“Jesus is on vacation. Why weren’t you invited?” or "The Passion Part 2: Dawn of the Dead"

But today, the only spiritual platitude that melts its way into me is on the bumper of a VW bus in front of me, splashing a rainbow of spray onto my windshield. It is a quote from my favorite movie, simply put—

“The Dude Abides…”

and abide I shall...

Seeing and Believing

Villae Populi, Romania: One year ago, on a pillowed green hillside overlooking a rural orphanage, our students were encouraged to think of an abstract — service— and to make it specific through their actions and observations. For the rest of the week we cuddled with babies, we played soccer on a makeshift field with the youth of the orphanage, and we worked to hand-pour a concrete bridge.

For me, there is one particular moment. Late afternoon, sun baking streaks of wet cement on our burning arms, we have poured our final concrete pillars into their metal reinforcement skeletons. A group of visiting Carmelite nuns begin to walk across the solid part of our bridge in a single file line, floating swans in their flowing white garments resembling that of Mother Theresa. The last nun in line strays from her group, lingers by me, and with both of her thin, ebony hands, cups my face to look me in the eye. She smiles. “Good Teacher” I hear her say, but her lips do not move; she hasn’t uttered a word.

An invocation. An undeserved harvest. More than the title of an educator of children. Her hands, soft and strong, bestow an anointing, as though I were divine. As divine as these lost children of Villae Populi, seeing instead, the face of the one she serves in each of them,

and now in me,

on that humble bridge, crossing an even humbler stream.

With Love, From the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Ashland Oregon:

At the Angus Bowman Theater with my students, watching The Diary of Anne Frank. I watch one student of mine, thoroughly absorbed in the performance. His grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz.

It is the silence that frightens us most—

Afterward, rendered without words, we somberly follow the steps down to Lithia Park. Girls from another school, make catcalls to our boys, their heels clomping the wooden steps in unison behind us, like soldiers marching by a cramped, sacred hiding place.