Excited

I am currently planning out plot and research for a great story. It is suspense and I hope deep in character. It will include several counter-Christian Culture ideas....but Biblical ideas (so far...to my thinking). To be necessarily cryptic at this time - this story is international in scope and involves an intense fight for a child against forces that completely out-match the protagonist. But as with my last two writings God will show Himself in control...a lesson of faith for them. Likely enemies turn to be advocates...likely advocates will turn against them. Cultures will clash...but essential human understanding, the better parts, attract to one another in this fight. It will still not be enough...but Gods presence, power, purpose, and love will carry the story to conclusion.

College

My first college experience was when visiting my sister in Boston for two weeks. I was a 21 year old fireman on an island in Alaska at the time. She took me along to her first day in a class at Harvard. I think the teacher's name was Brooks and he had written 35 books all about Chaucer. The class was just about...Chaucer. He asked everyone to say their name and...something. I said my name and that i was just visiting. There was laughter and he said something. He then began to speak in the 'Old English' and was completely unintelligable but impressive. Then he read a text in the Kings English that was understandable. Afterward, he asked the classwhat the piece was about. There were so many answers from the class and so many words. I secretly thought it was about Chaucer making fun of spring-time romance...I thought back to the musical Camalot and the characters 'Going Maying' (my parents were considerably older than me so I knew such things). In the end I alone was correct compared to the verbal classmates.

I was very surprized by this having assumed that the college people were superior to me. I thought more about their responses and pondered that they were more interested in being eloquent than in being right. I remember it being very confusing.

Eventually I went to college in Charlotte and worked at a 3 star restaurant as a dishwasher. I made exactly the amount of money I needed and my mind was free to drift (lazy). But I enjoyed it and my co-worker Osman from Sudan - we worked on his English nightly. Soon I learned that some women had a problem with a 'dishwasher'. I learned I was without status. Frankly, that confused me for years...it still does to some level.

For the rest of college (in Wilmington) I was set on doing what I wanted and reading what different courses may have inspired...sometimes the required text. To this day, and even after additional graduate work later on, I cannot not pull together an academic paper to save my life. But I took the ideas very seriously. I think now that by not losing my curiosity, by not knowing ever why I was even there, by making enough C's to still manage to receive my G.I. Bill...I actually got an education. I was too old after the military to get the College Experience...but somehow I learned many things that stick with me...and delt with ideas that were foundational to understanding my country and my world.

I am old enough now to know that I am not smart enough to have pulled that off....it came off largely to a personality problem of being obstinate. It came about from my own limitations and having no thought about my future.

Can you get an education, you know, a real solid education...by 'going by the numbers?' Or is education instead something more personal...and less about a corporate view of 'excellence.' Even communication...is a mere artful trade.

From Ukraine with...a Kind of Love

Well I am still trying to collect my thoughts about this place. I have been here nearly 50 days now...50 tomorrow I think. I brought up the brooms earlier because they have short handles here. I see many women, even elderly women, bending down to sweep the steps and sidewalks with these brooms. The one in my apartment is for the floor. Now - they could have handles...but that would relieve suffering. Ukraine loves suffering. In a way, despensation of suffering is a kind of way for them express love...in a way. And they are a kind and hospitable people...you repeat the Russian expression for 'Thank you' a hundred times a day.

Also, this place is Russia. The landscape, homes, buildings, language - all deeply Russian. At least for the Eastern half of the country. That orange revolution confuses many here...they are not angry with the Soviet history - they were soviets. They fought and worked in the same way as Moscow..they have been connected by Sea, farming and industry with Russia for ever...in fact, they were the original Russia or 'RUS' in around like the year 700.

Every new day hints at a pending day as bad or worse. This is not a hopeful place...they like to dash mine often so much that I am always looking for the boot to drop. I may soon leave here...but I reserve some gloom - just in case.

I have ridden in a taxi now 7,000 times...or close to that I think. I have met all sorts...good and responsible men and clinically insane men. I will not miss that anxiety. But I will always be amazed that I have never wrecked and only saw one on a hiway. Every 5 minutes is a near miss of a wreck or running a person over. But never happens...like that drizzle in Kodiak Alask that is constant for months...but it never really rains. Not a real rain.

Berdyansk has taxes...but there is no evidence of it. Every road is strip that looks like its been bombed..as if every street was some vital supply line in some past war. The power is on sometimes, off sometimes. Internet is connected from houst to house with military 232 cable and amazingly good considering.

I'll be taking a confused and reluctant to trust daughter tomorrow from her little world of 10 years. It is almost purely physical venture now in my mind...remove her from here...take her to there. I will try to work a little tomight...but hard to keep my mind on anything but the morning...and that other boot to drop and shatter all hope.

So in sum - all is suffering and folks here see it all as 'life.' It is my hope they see more and more that suffering is not always necessary..and not always productive. Sometimes it destroys character rather than build it.

Fathers Day in Ukraine

I am here in Ukraine - missing my children but enjoying time with my soon-to-be daughter here. For Fathers day my kids got together to write this poem for me. I am told that my oldest daughter said they decided to "just put dad on paper." God is WAY to good to me...



Father's Day Poem
by the Carwiles and Graham kids
For Mark/Dad:

Ice cream melts on a hot day, (not Haiku)
We miss you dad, Happy Father's Day,

Matt loves his dad and misses him,
He'll watch TV and eat CheezIts (TM) with him,

Daddy's funny, fun, and never Crabby,
He'll sing the SpongeBob song with Abby,

Caitlin, tape the show and get my Blackberry,
Glenn Beck needs my feedback--though contrary,

We can't wait for you to come home,
Please bring Kristina, welcome dom,

Baby boy will be here too,
Soon we'll find a name for you,

It's your "Day", we write you poetry,
Now we're stuck-what rhymes with poetry?

Happy Father's Day!!

A New Story...possible start to draft

The government arbitrarily allowed for street-lights this night. Some were working and showed fuel-filled puddles throughout the parking lot below. I stared through the third floor dingy soviet window pane, cutting through the steady rain, and peering down to the apartment courtyard where the prostitutes were kicking the soccer ball around with the drug dealers. Cold wet passed through the cheap dirty glass and breathed chills across my face, then to my bones. The word expedient hovered over my thoughts as I sat waiting. Before coming to Ukraine I always assumed all states of existence were some how better intended or at least knew a better day. But sometimes and in some places, this place, everyone just does what can be done. The powers did what they could to herd and rape. Those herded, survived. Expectation was just an annoying rumour and the soot-mixed evening rains dampened any hopes of escape.

I finally saw my guy pull onto the south side of the make-shift soccer field. It had to be him because it was a new black Mercedes Benz, the kind that appeared in this region mostly at dusk. Or maybe midnight blue, not sure, he was so late and it would be dark when I reached the first floor. I watched him step out of the car. He dropped and stamped his cigarette, probably French. The other criminals scattered at his gesture, a kind of warning shot. It had to be Sasha.The stained and broken cement steps seemed to moved too fast under my feet as I descended. I was committed to this now and with my life. It could be suicide to get this deep but I ran out of options back in Kiev. I needed to get inside the web undetected. Either this guy would turn things for me or the girl would end up in some apartment like this or worse.

"Sasha?"
"Da."
"Will you help?" I asked. I was practised at that question to the point of exhaustion.
"I’m here. Your Russian sucks. I know English." He lit another cigarette.
"Okay. You know the story? Any questions?"
"It stopped raining; maybe it is a sign, eh?"
I was quiet and felt the idiot look spreading across my face. Small talk is hard enough when you aren’t desperate but these guys added pain by mixing in existential junk. Their questions seemed to hold more questions.
"Look, Sasha. This is not my thing and you scare the hell out of me. This is not my world, not even my country. Was the amount alright? I mean I need to know. It really is all I have and I borrowed half of it."
Sasha took a short walk away from me. I was left wondering if this would be the end of the whole crazy venture. Or maybe it was just a tactic of his. Then like some schoolboy on a first date I searched my every word and every variable of impression they could create. He walked back more quickly than he left.
"I think you keep your money. I looked into you, checked out the time-line you sent me. You have been watched for two weeks. We will transact trust.
"What?"
"I came up, as you people say, in that orphanage. I will trust you with this so you can trust me. I planned to kill four people for 10 years because of what they did to my sister. I never did it and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t enough somehow. This is better. Do you understand?"
"I’m sorry."
"You want this girl. I want her for you…for me. It never was those people, you know. They, are no different than me," he laughed sadly, "It’s the system. I have come to this. Many more will go to hell with me this way. Also, the girl is now being watched, she’s safe."
"What? What do I do?"
"They watch you in the daylight. Buy the nine o’clock bus to Tokmak. You will get on the bus and a friend will have you sit with her. Their car will have an accident." He was gone.

After Sasha drove away I noticed the others didn't come back out. They were always there at this hour in the shadows but couldn't hide their cigarettes. I finally just got street-credit and had to leave in the morning. I returned to the my flat and slept soundly for the first time in months, moving my knife from under my pillow and to the nightstand. Just before falling off I realized he was probably certain he told me something, something to trust. Instead, again I had no idea what he was talking about.

In Ukraine

Well...I am in Ukraine right now...again. The trip is interesting so far...So much accomplished and so much left to do. Learning some things actually and hope to write about it soon.

TIME FLIES

Break from editing -

I google mapped down the old neighborhood in Portland Oregon... going back in time to 1974.

Wow. Things change but then they don't. The 'boys club' seems abandoned. I played pool there with a 100 other fatherless guys when I was just 6 and 7. Wow - that is Matt's age! I liked the guy who ran the place. He treated me well, took time to talk to me. I think now he probably knew I wasn't comfortable being the only white kid. I had not met my dad yet but he seemed like what a dad was I guess. I never met my dad until he came for me a few years later. Funny thing, my dad turned out to be a corporate exec. Think these years were just the result of some marital revenge on his part. I bounced to several foster homes at times, but they were all in the neighborhood.

The business buildings look exactly the same - just closed now. And the mailbox is gone. The 'store' was on the corner there. I use to go down to get cigarettes for my 12 year old sister...tell them it was for my mom and to put it on charge. We had a huge charge the guy kept in an index box. He gave me grief every time...then gave me whatever I was sent for. I thought all milk was 'powdered' :-)

Here is a photo of my street - seems they renamed it 'Rosa Parks Way.' I got my second dog from the house in the foreground - the people moved one day and just left the dog. I named her Blackbeard.

Looks like they replanted 'street trees.' The city came in to beatify the neighborhood when I was a kid. My brother and his 'friends' bought some machetes at a flea market and literally chopped down the city's first attempt.

The tall house was abandoned the whole time I lived there, like 4 years. The kid across the street taught me how to use matches when I was 5 years old. That same day we ran around lighting little fires and putting them out. One kind of got away from us under the back porch of this house. So we worked hard to stamp it out...with a large wood door laying in the back yard...and other wooden boards we found. I finally got an idea...I ran to the house and passed my mom while I carried a party punch bowl full of water.

"What are you doing?"

"Noth'n."

The fire department came and saved the house...but not the back part. The fireman said, "the other boy says he didn't do anything."

I said nothing. But remember processing that.

I told them I set the fire. He talked to me about never doing that again and stuff like that.

Funny - fire has been serious stuff with me. I never trust its really out. I ended up driving fire trucks later in life.

Doctrine of Election

I want to see thousands of these photos. How to accomplish this? It seems so the least of ministries to so many. Getting the 'word' out seems to be the primary 'commission'. Most of these little guys and gals barely escaped abortion...they are the residual, flukes of their societal context. Yeah, hundreds of thousands of them in the one country if you include those living on the streets.

One morning, when I was 12, I left the Fairmont hoity-toity hotel in New Orleans. I walked and walked. I walked into a pretty bad area of town. I slowly passed a kid my age...an old coat draped on him like a blanket. Curled against a door to an abandoned building. He was asleep. I stopped, don't know why. I remembered the night before I had ordered a cheeseburger from room service. They came to my room and cooked it in front of me...in the room.

The pain is everywhere. The poor are always with us. What can you do? But we still find ways to market them...talk of a village gets miles for one power hungry woman. Throwing money at them as a former community organizer gets another one the Presidency. And yet...there they always are. The answer? I hear another power happy woman in the congress say...make less of them and it will reduce the burden. Really, she doesn't appear to me to be burdened.

This little guy above is Ukrainian. Hes on his way to a family, a hope and a future. I don't know all the motivations for people to step out and pull one of these little guys in. But I can't stop seeing the Gospel in this photo. He does not really know the hell he is escaping...or the incredible future he is stepping into. He's a little down syndrome boy excited about his new backpack and riding a train. Riding a real train! And talk about airplanes! He was chosen.

You - yes you - are a down syndrome little boy from the worst mental institution in the back-waters of Ukraine. Except you have freedoms to eleviate and limit some of your suffering. A semblance of control. If you find this idea painful you can reject it too. But it may be that you see what I see in this photo...a child brought out of a mess into a real family. Forever. Maybe you see yourself and wonder...what would that smile look like on me? If you are a Christian 'in the family'..you might ponder what God felt like when he slapped that first eternal grin on you. Maybe He wants you to know. Maybe...He wants you to know.

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