Million Miles

Every life is a story, a collection of events compiled chronologically one on top of the other, culminating in either an emotionally filled, fulfilled ending or a half-hearted, half-lived death.

...at least, that's what Donald Miller suggests in his excellent new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. After reading it, I am inclined to agree.

As usual, Miller's writing style is that of a meandering journeyman, a tapestry of writ woven with his standard brand of personal accounts, anecdotes, and life-lessons. Something is different about this book, though, something that moved me personally.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is not a book about self-aggrandizement or self-deprecation. It is not a book of self-explication or self-innovation. Instead, Million Miles is a book about excavated hope, an appeal to the cynical masse to leave behind its boring, pedestrian life to embrace one of ambition and fulfillment.

Life, lived with others, for others, and through others, is the only answer to our human condition, posits Miller. Through God for humankind, human persons can experience a better than the American way of life, a more authentic, un-surreal life, a content, honest life.

Million Miles is perhaps Miller's finest work. Any and every person that has the ability to read should in fact do so; I find it highly unlikely that if one were to sit down with such a finely moving story, that they would be unmoved. My encounter with the book has certainly left me better and I can only conclude that it can achieve the same positive result in the lives of others as well.

Cutting up the road

Cutting up the road the way a alligator mississippiensis knifes its way through the muddled sub-surface
(Its tail swallowing its past in violent reverie, fully at once a venereal verdict, slicing the
Immutable shallows with adept, animalistic simplicity. In short, this reptilian destiny is solely that of
Consumption.),

Your filthily besmirched automobile swam its way up the drive, warbling in
Guttural, repugnant shivers of exhaust. Naturally the ugliest and bluest green, the vehicular pigment is now
Indiscernible from a compound of the earth’s most craven elements which
Are caught up in its
Trusses; no disreputable road has gone untraversed by your 80s model, two-seat, American truck.

Which I
Hate as I hate you, you all the more so when the truck’s windows gaped open in hand-cranked blinks and I, rebuffed by revulsion at your stench soaked cab, fell backwards, a man charged by the
Beastliness of your ignoble existence. Out of the open car doors empty cheap cigarette boxes descended in tears one after the other, coming to rest upon the wholly unsympathetic,
Fallow earth. I immediately recognized them to be the chief culprits in the case of the
Absconded clean atmosphere.

Your cigarrettes are old. And cheap. And reek of ignorance. Like you.

Can’t you see that your grandson has autism? That he needs professional aid? That his quality of life should be drastically improved by holy, subsidized state therapy?

Or are you too selfish? Too uncaring? Too callous to the reproachful stares of society? Too slimy to heed the wretches of your prey’s death rattle—your grandson’s deep discipline problems?

Yes, yes,

You will never see. With your forked, double-lidded eyes you will carve your own way. And with your pointedly curving
Piss-yellow coloured toenails, you will mar his existence all the way to his coffin of rodent dropping floors
And newspapered walls.

Your reptilian existence sickens me and condemns your seed to death. He’d be better off a ward
Of the state. At least he would no longer suffer your repressively steel-jawed, crookedly toothless speech—the speech of fools and predators. The speech of a begrudged upbringing. The speech of heinous,

Malevolent neglect.



© Jordan Shea. July 2009.

Intoxication

At Starbucks tonight, the following questions/thoughts were forced upon me:

What invisible, external substance do groups of individuals roundly consume in order to become socially drunk? Not intoxicated by liquor. No. By just sitting at a table with cups of water, a group that I was in close proximity to became intoxicated.

Laughing overtly. Obnoxious comments. Arguing. Singing. Odd hand gestures. Convulsions. Disturbing noises. Modulated voices.

They were drunk. Just being together was somehow license to carouse and cavort with manners no better than that of twitchy, methamphetamine abusing, rainbow coloured Shetland show-ponies.

And this was in coffee shop, not a bar.

What manner of buffoon is it that can be wholly and serenely unaware of their surroundings and the level to which they infringe upon other people by their actions? At what point is it okay to label a person so flummoxed by commonplace social etiquette an unforgivable, hopeless Philistine? An ignoramus? A dolt?

Pics from Access 5k Outreach

Hatchets & Sweet Tea

Last weekend, I spent some time with a couple friends that I met while enrolled at college. They're lovely people that moved perhaps 18 months ago to a better job, a nicer house, and a coastal town. Together, the three of us spent the fat portion of that drizzly Sunday afternoon exchanging jokes, snapping snapshots, crisscrossing all around downtown, and eating at a barbecue chain. I drank southern tea and ate chicken wings with brown sugar. They drank Cokes and had sandwiches with garlic bread in lieu of white, wheat, rye, or pumpernickel.

After dinner, I departed from them with a full heart. And stomach.

Our relationship has not always been this way; in fact, there have been several occasions where I violently spouted obscenities at him. Several occasions. Violent obscenities.

My friend. His wife. And we had wonderful last Sunday together.

What mended relationships? How are we in a good place again?

(1) humility
(2) time
(3) honesty
(4) real attempts, however thwarted and feeble they may be, at having some objectivity
(5) love.

Last night, I formally buried the hatchet with another person. It was like taking the first pain-free, deep breath after being held underwater; instantly, I recognized that it was over. The spell was lifted. The surface broken. The breath finally taken.

I enjoy enjoying people. I like being hopeful.
Thinking quite badly of people can be the godawfullest thing.

I am again reminded of my friend's words, "Get over yourself." More and more, I understand them anew each day.

Admit we're all douche bags. Forgive someone. Live life with others. Love everyone.

jacksonpollack.org

I really enjoy the website www.jacksonpollack.org because of it's simplicity and subtle creativity. It recently won a Webby, which is a sort of Oscar for the world wide web, though acceptance are limited to five words only. You can see video pertaining to the 13th annual event, including all of the five word acceptance speeches on The Webby Award youtube channel. Some of them are really quite funny...

Your assignments, then, are as follows:
(1) try www.jacksonpollack.org;
(2) check out The Webby Award acceptance speeches.

Ending The Letter: Rant: Your spirituality sucks.

In my opinion, Chris Abel has recently written one of the better notes on religion/God that I've read in awhile. You should read it.

Ending The Letter: Rant: Your spirituality sucks.