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.

Blog Manager

Hey! This is his daughter. I just changed his page. Let me know what you think!

Impossible?

Ever wonder if God was there? Or if he cared? Or maybe you messed up with this whole Christian thing?

That he gave you a heart for good...but then bound your hands. Or a time when he answered a small little day-to-day kind of prayer - took care of something that was nothing really...but did it in a big way, astounding way. Yeah...it was cool.

Then something big comes...something really worthy of His intervention...but nothing. Thats ok..not yet, his timing. Wait. Wait. Trust.

Still waiting? Yeah, me too.

Oh - and while you wait you see people (friendly friends) drop off like rain. You find yourself alone...staring at the impossible...the impossible he is famous for making sooooooo possible. Alone. Stupid.

Maybe you are suppose to learn something. So many are sure of it, maybe they are right? But then...when you think, they are as stupid as you. You just have the view... the one you get at the end of the rope. Only room for one there. One at a time I guess.

Look up that rope and you will see where you have been...all the kind folks gripping the rope with one hand and clinching onto their latest salvation in the other hand. Some holding a good sermon, a cool tune, vacation plans, a beer, a good deed, volumes of Calvin, ... each item from you view though... looks like a handful of crap.

One orphan girl pinned in by demons. Come on! Really...how hard is that??

Out of Options...

I met a stranger the other day. He noted that there is something, just something, about stopping. Stopping at something you were certain about when you first started. Specifically, were you ever sure about something God told you? Where he cut through all your garbage and made you to hear Him? Probably, you were at your worst spiritual state...and therefore, unknowingly, at your most attentive to him. A broken and momentary spiritual giant who heard Gods personal direction.

I have been there a couple of times. Usually it is an answer to prayer for direction. He speaks. And often in very general terms He tells you to go...to do...this or that. So you do gladly and with all confidence and hope. Then somewhere along the way you sense His pulling away. You begin to see that your idea of speed does not reflect the reality you are experiencing. You slow...you wonder...you doubt. You plead. Nothing.

There you are...in the cernter of the weeds where you first expected glorious flowers all about you. Alone. You slow.

You stop. And you harden. You are surrended to your experience where once...some time back, too far back...you were surrendered to Him, trusting.

You are then resolute to create a 'Paxel' kind of state of mind. Where nothing gets to you, where you expect little if anything, and you plod. There is something about plodding that cements your stoppage...a kind of stopping program. This is life...plod...expect nothing...wait the ride out.

Back to my stranger. There is just something about stopping - when things don't turn out. The results were not what you expected, dreamed or hoped for. But the One who set you on your venture...He had results in mind for certain. All He asked was that you move in Him. Do we presume He would want us to stop moving in Him? In what He laid on our heart in such a general way demanding daily trust? No. But the enemy...yes, that is his focused interest. To move on our flesh...to vex...to clog and cloud.

Was there direction back there? You know there was...

"Move in Me writing, fighting for an orphan..."

But all is shattered and hopeless.

"You are called to My purpose."

But where is your power?

"In My Son in you."

That is theology.

"No. Move in Me."

I just don't know anymore.

"Take that with you."

Really?

"Yep. See?"

Living the Life

You ever wonder why you are where you are? This may be an actual 'after 40' writing. You ever get caught between your incredible blessings, the attending responsibilities, and a wrong vocation?

We know the free spirits for which living seemed their art. They would write or paint, sure. But we find they lived with passion. Others recluse. But each living as true to their desires as they possibly could. I am thinking of Poe, Gauguin, Einstein, Hemingway, Louis L'Amour, others.

Compromise was not something they allowed into their lives and dreams. Do you spend a great deal of time in a cubical? Or a business that simply serves the same function and purpose? A work that attends the responsibilities of your wonderful blessings - your family.

Now some of heroes listed above and others made a choice - a decision to compromise their families. But some didn't even allow even that one indiscretion. They insisted on having it all to the best of their ability.

What if you missed this understanding early on - the one they grasped? What could you do then being old? Now, as the title of L' Amour final work - Education of a Wandering Man - I can say that has been my case until the point I turned deeply into my own thinking. Waking from my slumber now I get that old familiar itch...to travel, to meet, to work something new. To rescue and create.

Scripture tells us that a work was put in place for us before we were even born. And Christian gurus tell us that we can find our 'purpose.' For me, I can't hear that without thinking of Steve Martin in the Jerk. But scripture, I can buy that. He says the poor is always with us...and that orphans need help as well, fatherless need fathers. He says, shake the world off you. Serve, give, help, and live abundantly resting in Him.

What if we made that our art? Families in tow on that adventure. A smile on our face not brought there by the latest comedian, movie, or Italian meal.

What if we sought to maybe even make that our vocation?

Yeah, I need to get real. And while I do that stop telling other people what they should do - what 'the Bible says.'

That's the real hurdle isn't it - living a life that enrages people. Being a counter-cultural freak who oppresses others with their talk of ... orphans.

PLACES

Travel. There are so many possible places. There is always the 'before I die I want to' kind of place. I think this city, Budapest, would have to be my number one. It brings to mind many images of history....but of of other cultures and places. East meets West. All the counts and kings and queens. All the scandal and intrigue. It seems a strange and dark place to me.

What interests me most is how little I know of this place, culture or history. The city is more like a vague rumor. I don't even know one single historic point of interest or landmark. I know about a few places, some details of them,but have no inclination to visit them...the great well-known areas of the world...not since they invented cable TV.

Wait. I believe they have a large Gypsy population. It all makes sense now. :-)

If you are passing by this blog along your Internet travels - and you have been to this great city of which I am so stupid of - please drop some knowledge and experience in the comments section below. I would love to learn more about it.

Köszönöm!!