Ethan Renoe's Blog, page 4

The Box (part 5)

Read part 1 here!

After walking for ten more minutes, Principal Bearhair’s wrist had stopped hurting. At first he was concerned that he had gone numb or gone into shock, but it legitimately felt better. He examined it by the light of the lantern and moved it around, moved his fingers around, and there was no more pain. He figured it had just been a bad sprain that had stung at first and healed up. 

But as he examined it by the light of the burning wick, something looked strange on the skin of his wrist. He looked closely and held the light closer just to be sure. The joint was still swollen, but something beneath the skin was moving around. It looked like some living thing writhing around beneath the surface. 

It didn’t hurt, but he could certainly now feel the movement. It was the size of a worm, moving around just beneath his skin. As he watched, the skin of his wrist began to tear open. It stung like getting a shot, but it wasn’t as bad as the fall had been. Something dark seemed to be poking its way out through his skin. He watched in horror as a snakelike tip made its way out of his wrist. 

But it wasn’t an animal. As it emerged further, Principal Hairbear could see that it was closer to a plant, like a vine. It made its way out until it was about five inches out of his skin. Then it just kind of remained there, like a plant from the soil. 

In terror, Mr. Bearhair put the lantern down quickly with his other hand and grabbed the vinelike plant to yank it out of his arm. But as soon as he tugged on it, he yelped in pain. It felt like pulling out his own hair, if the hair was attached to his bones. Whatever the thing was, it was tougher than a normal plant so he couldn’t just rip it off without immense pain. 

And whatever it was, it seemed to have healed his sprained wrist in ten minutes. Things in The Dimension were certainly different. 

The vine wasn’t moving now, it just sat there emerging from his wrist like a normal plant, bedded in his skin.

He picked the lantern up again and continued on. “Timmy?” he yelled.

“Help me!” came the response from further up ahead. 

“I’m coming, Timmy!” Mr. Bearhair yelled back. He hurried up his pace and nearly fell off the edge. His foot stepped off into space and he was able to catch himself and stagger backwards just in time. 

Just before him, the ground dropped straight down into blackness. Everything in the dimension seemed to be formed in perfect 90 degree corners, and this was no exception. The wall continued along, but the ground went straight down. He looked to his left and couldn’t see an end to the edge. It dropped straight down as far as he could see. And Mr. Hairbear couldn’t see how far down the drop was. It descended into utter blackness.

“Timmy! Are you down there?” he yelled into the abyss.

“Hello?” came the response from the pit. “Is someone there?” The voice still sounded far away, deep in the void. 

Mr. Hairbear started walking along the edge of the pit to see where that would lead him. He had to get down into the pit. 

Back in Crumb Hill, the police were taking another look at the black cube in front of the school. Now that two people had gone missing, they wanted to find some clues. 

Officer Gurt approached the cube and the first thing he noticed was a small black object in the hole made by the dynamite. He bent down and looked closer and saw that it was a pen sticking out of the dirt. Without touching it, Officer Gurt examined it closely and saw that there were two letter engraved into the clip of the pen: PB.

“Principal Bearhair,” he muttered just to himself. 

He looked around the hole and the cube and didn’t see anything else that would be notable or helpful since the last time. Officer Gurt picked up the pen out of the dirt and went into the school, to the office. He approached the secretary and held up the pen.

“Excuse me, does this pen look familiar to you?”

“Oh yes!” exclaimed the elderly lady. “That is Principal Hairbear’s pen! Have you found him?”

“Unfortunately not, ma’am,” replied Gurt. “I just picked it up outside the cube out front. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he was examining the cube himself.” 

“That would be interesting,” replied the secretary, “but he always kept it in his inside jacket pocket. I don’t know how it would have fallen out unless he took his jacket off, or was bent over or crawling around! I can’t picture a dignified man like Principal Bearhair doing that!”

Officer Gurt took a few notes in his pad and thanked her for her time. 

The students at Crumb Hill Elementary School had gotten accustomed to the cube by this point and disregarded the rope meant to keep them away from it. It had become a regular hangout for many of them. Some sat up on the top and let their legs dangle down the side, while others sat on the grass and leaned against it. 

On the fourth day after its appearance, a handful of students were doing just that: leaning against it, sitting on it, running around it playing tag. One by one, their parents came to pick them up, or students walked themselves home for dinner, until there were just two left: Little Bailee Nuckles and Hildegard Bildagard, who went by Hilly. 

Bailee was leaning against the wall of the cube while Hilly paced back and forth in front of her in the grass. They talked about school, homework, boys, food, and everything else while the sun went down beyond the school building. Hilly was saying something about the various boys who had crushes on her while looking at a spot in the grass. When she had finished her statement, Bailee said nothing. 

“Well??” she said, looking up from the grass. Then she screamed. 

Bailee wasn’t there, only her shoes were, with her feet still in them. 

e

Day 63 of 100 Days of Blog

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The Box (part 4)

Read part 1 h ere!

By the evening Principal Hairbear went missing, his wife knew something was wrong. He left for work as usual, but then didn’t come home by 5.

It was now 7pm and she was beginning to get worried. She called a few of his friends and colleagues and none had seen him all day.

Mr. Bearhair was very punctual and never ran late, and if he did, he would always let her know. Finally, she decided to call the police.

30 minutes later, Officer Gurt stood in her home taking some notes on his pad. “You know, we can’t file him as a missing person for 37 hours,” explained Officer Gurt. “And since he’s an adult, it’s a bit of a different situation than with Timmy Shugger. Adults can come and go as they please.”

“I know,” she replied sullenly, “I’m just worried about my Big Bear.”

“Has he said anything to you about this cube on the front lawn of the school? Do you know what it’s doing there?”

“All I’ve heard is him complaining about it being a distraction and ugly. He wants it gone. But no, he doesn’t know where it came from. Quite a curious thing!”

“It is indeed, Mrs. Bearhair. Well please let me know if anything changes, and I will do the same.”

“Thank you officer,” she said as he turned to leave.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bearhair was grappling around in the pitch darkness for something, anything. He could see absolutely nothing. He wondered if he had gone blind.

The air was a comfortable temperature, with a pinch of coolness like the inside of a damp cave on a warm summer day.

The ground below him seemed smooth like the surface of the box, and there was a scratching sound, like someone was on the other side of a wall scratching at it, but he couldn’t pinpoint where it came from.

He walked carefully forward, with both arms out in front of him until suddenly he reached a wall. It too was smooth like the ground, and cool like stone. He walked along with his hand on the wall and the other out in front of him.

“Hello?” he decided to call out. No one answered him but the continuous scratching.

Scrrrrch

Scrrrrrrrch

Scrrch scrrrch

He walked a little further and called out again. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Cold beads of sweat materialized on his forehead, not from the chill of the air, but from the voice that answered him this time.

“Hello?” It was a child’s voice, faint and far away. “Is someone there?”

“Timmy??” yelled Mr. Hairbear. “Timmy, is that you?” He hurried his pace with his hand along the wall, and promptly tripped over something on the ground. His left hand which had been outstretched hit the ground first and took the brunt of his body’s hefty weight, cracking the joint. An electric fire shot up his arm to the elbow and he cried out a string of expletives. He rolled onto his back and gripped his wrist with his other hand. Blood throbbed in his wrist and the pain grew into a searing hot blossom of agony.

Once he regained enough presence of mind, he pulled himself with his right arm back toward the thing he had tripped over. It was a small box that felt like metal and glass fashioned together. He felt around it with his good hand and realized it was a lantern. His heart sank as he felt around the device and realized he would need matches to light the wick, it was not a new incandescent lantern.

He grasped around on the floor to see if there was anything to light the wick with, and to his surprise, his hand landed on a small cardboard book of matches. With his one good hand, he managed to pry one match loose and press the matchbox against his leg with his injured wrist, just enough to strike the box and illuminate the space around him.

The sudden flare of light burnt his retinas and shocked him after being in such pitch blackness for so long. He jerked his eyes away from the flame and looked around the room around him.

He was in a cavernous room with walls the same smooth black surface as the box, rising as far as he could see in the dim light. He couldn’t see the ceiling by the little light of the match. The ground was the same as the walls and went out from him as far as he could see.

Mr. Bearhair got distracted looking around and the flame burned down to his fingertips and he threw the match to the ground, where it burnt out.

He grabbed for the matchbook again and repeated the process. This time, he opened the front of the lantern and held the match to the wick until it took. The flame grew until the lantern was giving off a decent amount of light, throwing a dull yellow illumination just ten feet in front of him.

He held the lantern up with his right hand and continued along the wall again, with his broken left wrist tucked up to his chest.

“Timmy?” he called out. “I’m coming!”

e

Day 62 of 100 Days of Blog

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The Box (part 3)

This part contains some bits that may be disturbing to some.
Read part 1 here!

It had been two days since the box appeared and little Timmy Shugger disappeared. The police had gotten nowhere in their search for him; it was as if he had left school and jumped into space without a trace.

Principal Bearhair was frustrated. Both of these events coincided with the school, so it was distracting students from their studies, police were crawling around which was stressing him out, and it was all a bad look on him. Early on the third morning after the cube appeared, he was walking into the school building when he happened to notice something different about the cube.

The day before, the police had tried to blow up the cube which left one side of it white and dusty (though perfectly intact), but out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that that side was no longer white.

He looked at it and noticed that it was black again. But he stared, he squinted his little eyes and it wasn’t just black. His pupils could be deceiving him, but it looked like the entire side of the black box was gone, and inside was an even deeper shade of black, like space. It wasn’t just a black-colored wall, but a void.

He walked across the lawn to the cube and squinted into the abyss. He stood a few feet away and gazed into it, making sure his eyes were not playing tricks. Principal Hairbear could not make sense of what he was looking at, even as he drew closer to the blackest of boxes and heard a faint scratching sound.

As usual, Miss Yarris was the second one to arrive at school, but this morning when she arrived, no one else was there. Principal Bearhair normally opened up the doors and would be tinkering away in his office when she arrived, but he wasn’t there now. Miss Yarris found her key and let herself in the back door.

Slowly the other teachers and staff showed up, but still no principal. It was unusual, and the teachers were murmuring about it to one another in the teacher’s lounge. Miss Yarris decided to pick up the lounge phone and call his wife, Mrs. Hairbear.

“Oh yes, he left the same time he always does!” she said through the phone line. Then the meaning behind the question hit her. “Why? …he’s not there yet?”

“No, ma’am,” said Miss Yarris.

A minute later she hung up. They thought that perhaps Mr. Bearhair was running errands or talking to the police again, and the day went on, though he never showed up to school that day.

According to some who have been there, The Dimension is kind of like a room in your grandmother’s house, where the ancient wallpaper is peeling at the corners where the horsehair plaster is crumbling.

It smells like porridge which has sat out for just a hair too long.

It is dark.

Most people who visit The Dimension don’t come back, and there are plenty of rumors floating around for why this is as well. Some say that you could return, but the madness of The Dimension sets in and you become too surrendered to fits to find the door which brought you there.

Others say that there are beasts worse than any seen in Crumb Hill which will devour, maim, torture, or otherwise keep you from leaving. They will not, however, kill you.

Other people reason that The Dimension is called that, exactly because you change dimensions. It’s indescribable. “Ineffable!” according to Terrence Dirk, who has claimed for decades that he went to The Dimension as a boy. Cumb Hill’s reporter had a chance to sit down with him and ask about the visit.

“I stumbled down a hole and found myself transformed.” Despite repeated inquisitions, Dirk has not revealed the location or nature of this hole.

“I cannot describe it to you. It would be like a three-dimensional being trying to explain our world to a two-dimensional stick figure. You simply cannot believe the transformation.

“I fell into the hole and found myself suddenly indoors. In a hallway of some sort. The doors on either side went on forever. The wallpaper smelled dank and was peeling. I went into the nearest door to me. And this, this is the part I always regret. I wish I had looked around more carefully to decide which door to go in. I think I could have picked a better door.

“I turned the knob and was in my childhood home. But it was different. Something was off. My mother was baking at the stovetop and I was the size of a toddler. I looked up at her, but she was different. Her skin was black as if she had been burnt to a crisp and it fell off in flakes. She turned from the stove toward me, and smiled, a big, rotten grin. Then, before I could even see her move, she had me off the ground and was trying to stuff me into the oven.”

When asked how he survived the oven, Dirk is coy with the details. It seems that the oven was yet another portal to another part of The Dimension.

“I felt the heat, but as I warmed up, my shell disintegrated. It wasn’t me who was burnt, but the shell which held me back from swimming in the universe’s ocean. You know what I mean?”

The reporter did not.

“After the shell burnt away and my crust fell off, I could see The Dimension for what it truly was. My eyes were opened. I looked upon it and–”

At this point in the interview, Terrence Dirk had a stroke which left him in the hospital, unable to speak. So she had to interview other folks who claimed to have visited The Dimension.

Little Jenny Burk’s adventure to The Dimension began in Crumb Hill’s only elevator, in the Crumb Hill Blank Brothers Building. Jenny, the youngest person to visit The Dimension and return with only one mouth, wandered away from her mother on the first floor and wound up in the elevator. She managed to slide the rusty gate shut behind her and press the button for the fifth floor.

The elevator rose like normal, and it was not until she exited the elevator at the fifth stop that she realized something was different. When she had boarded the elevator it was 10:04am.

Now it was night.

Streaks of light from the window painted lines across the floor and walls. The hustle and bustle of the lively morning had been replaced with a dead silence.

“I stepped off the lift and was really scared. I didn’t know where my mom was. I looked down the hallway and saw an old man, so I ran to him and asked for help. But he just stood there. It was like he didn’t know I was there, like he couldn’t see or hear me at all.”

Little Jenny said that she screamed and pleaded for the man to help her, but he walked very slowly down the hallway, completely immune to her presence, even after she tugged on his coat.

She eventually gave up and scurried back to the elevator, where there was now an old woman. Little Jenny asked her for help as well, but only received a blank stare out the open gate. She returned to the first floor and was back in Crumb Hill.

Our reporter thinks that Little Jenny simply went to the Crumb Hill Old Folks Facility (CHOFF) instead.

Regardless of the rumors, when Mr. Bearhair got his feet under him in the pitch blackness, he was sure he was inside The Dimension.

e

Day 60 of 100 Days of Blog

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The Box (Part 2)

“Well normally after school, Timmy gets tutored by his teacher,” Mrs. Shugger explained to the police the night he disappeared. “He would have left the school building no later than 5, and he normally comes straight home. He’d be here by 5:30 at the latest.”

“And it gets dark between 6 and 6:30,” police officer Gurt said, almost to himself.

It was half past ten at that point, and no one yet knew about the cube on the school’s front lawn. Four police officers stood in the Shuggers’ home, taking notes, looking around, and talking to the parents, as well as Timmy’s sister, Moona.

Officer Gurt and his partner then went to the home of Miss Yarris, the teacher who was tutoring Timmy. They apologized for waking her up so late at night, asked her about the evening and her session with Timmy, and took notes.

“It was normal!” she said. “We just went over math processes, showing his work, and some reading practice. He ran out the door right at 5, I finished up some things and went out the back door to my car and came home.”

“Did Timmy exit out the front door toward the lawn?” asked Gurt.

“Yes, that’s the way toward his home. I admit I didn’t watch him leave, I was just focused on my last tasks of the day. I’m sorry, officer, I should have paid more attention to him, but he always runs out and gets home safely, so I thought nothing of it.”

“That’s ok,” Gurt replied. “We are just trying to get all the details and find Timmy. You’re not in any sort of trouble.”

“I really wish I could be of more help, officers. But the last I saw of Timmy he was rushing out the door of my classroom.”

“Was anyone else in the building when you left, Miss Yarris?”

“No, I think I was the last one.”

They thanked her for her time and left.

In the afternoon of the second day after the box was found, Principal Hairbear was on the phone with the chief of police.

“I don’t care about the cost!” he yelled into the phone. “Get this thing off of school property! Destroy it if you have to!”

An hour later, several police officers stood around the cube with axes and hammers. One stepped up and took a swing. It bounced off so fast it nearly bounced right back into the face of the cop. They didn’t try a second swing.

An hour after that, after most of the students had cleared out from the building, they had wired dynamite at the base of the cube. It was to the side of it, so it would blow any debris away from the school.

The officers ran to the far side of the building and pressed the charger. They felt the boom and waited for the smoke and falling dirt bits to clear, then went to look at it.

A five-foot hole had been blown into the earth, but the cube did not have a scratch. It now sat slightly tilted toward the hole at its side where the earth had been blown away, with some white streaks painted across it from the nitroglycerin, but it was undamaged.

That night, long after everyone had left, the side of the box opened again.

e

Day 59 of 100 Days of Blog

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The Box (part 1)

Timmy Shugger went missing the same day the cube appeared on the front lawn of Crumb Hill Elementary School. Well, technically, he never came home that night and the next morning the cube was discovered at the school.

His parents waited and waited for him to come home from his tutoring session, but he never did. Hours after darkness fell, his parents decided to call the police and enlist their help. Timmy had never been late before.

The hunt began and many of their friends and neighbors began wandering the streets of Crumb Hill with no success all night.

The next day, Principal Bearhair was the first to arrive at school and discover the box on the front lawn. It came up to about his chest and appeared to be a perfect cube. It was made of some rock hard, smooth black surface. There were no openings or cracks or creases. It looked like it was formed exactly as it sat there: seamless and solid.

He tapped on it and knocked and couldn’t find any clue as to what it was.

After a few minutes, he thought he heard a faint scratching from deep within the box. It was so faint and fast that he thought he had imagined it at first. Just a little clawing at the inside of the box.

Just after the sound, Miss Yarris the third grade teacher arrived and approached the box.

“What is it?” she asked, assuming it was part of some initiative the school was doing.

“I have no idea,” he replied, scratching his head. She had never seen Mr. Bearhair puzzled like this — he was normally so confident and assured.

She took her turn examining the box for a moment as more teachers and staff began to arrive. They each took turns walking around the mysterious cube as if they could unlock its secret appearance and purpose, but of course no one knew.

Several of them heard the faint scratching from the inside but it was so faint, and no one else reacted, so they didn’t bother to point it out.

Students began to arrive and play out the same dance of examination and hypothesizing. After the first few students had lapped the box, Mr. Hairbear called them away from it and decided to put a rope barrier around it just in case it was dangerous.

Very little learning happened that day, due to both events: the disappearance of Timmy and the appearance of the box. Students stared out at the box, trying to figure out what it was, what it meant. Others cried for Timmy. Others daydreamed about being the hero who would find him and bring him home to his grateful parents. Maybe there would even be a reward…

Around the middle of third period, some of the police left the search for Timmy and came to examine the box. They of course had the same response as everyone before them: Look at it, walk around it, knock on it, run their hands across its smooth surface.

One of the cops threw his shoulder into it, trying to move it but the impossibly heavy box didn’t budge. He slammed his body weight into it several times, but nothing happened. He heard some scratching from the inside, but looked around and apparently no one else had heard it, so he shook it off.

The police put the rope barrier back up once they determined they couldn’t figure out what the box was, and left.

School eventually let out and most families went to aid the search for little Timmy.

No one saw when one side of the box opened up that evening.

e

Day 58 of 100 Days of Blog

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Was Jesus a Pharisee??

There is this little-known fact hiding in the pages of the New Testament.

 Jesus seems to deplore the Pharisees, as He is always seen tearing into them and ripping them down verbally. He’s like an anti-Pharisee Panzer tank, with 1.5 missions: Save the universe and destroy the Pharisees.

But there’s a problem with this Sunday School tale. 

Jesus was most likely a Pharisee. 

Nothing in the Bible explicitly says this, nor does any other contemporary historical source, but most scholars who analyze things like this agree that Jesus would have been brought up in the Pharisaical schools. 

For one, Jesus is referred to as “Rabbi” by numerous people. that means that He certainly was a trained rabbi of some stripe, so there must have been some school that He was raised in. Rabbinic Judaism comes exclusively from the Pharisees. So he definitely was not a Sadducee if He was a rabbi…which He was. 

Also, His theology aligns most with the Pharisees. The gospels make it clear that the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. Jesus does and debates them on this often. The Pharisees on the other hand do believe in resurrection, and this is one of the biggest distinctions between the two groups (their approach to Rome perhaps being the biggest).

Yes, Jesus critiqued the Pharisees often and somewhat ruthlessly, but it’s possible to read these rebukes as a brother rebuking His own kin, rather than an outsider just tearing down a foe. It seems more like His attitude is that of, “Come on guys, I know you can do better than this! Don’t weigh people down with the law, but love people and God!” 

There is also a good chance that Jesus’ words to the Pharisees seem harsh to us, but they may be Jewish forms of debate or reasoning. Much of what Jesus says seems more harsh than loving, but they just need some contextualization, plus some imagination to help His tone of voice. 

Plus, it is a few Pharisees who warn Jesus to get out of their city when Herod is looking to kill Him. (Luke 13:31)

 Then you have Nicodemus, to whom Jesus says the most famous verse ever in John 3, who returns later in chapter 19 to provide 75 pounds of spices and expensive oils to embalm Jesus’ body, accompanying Jospeh of Arimathea. Clearly, at least this Pharisee followed the ministry of Jesus from its start to its end. 

So perhaps the Pharisees are not these crooks we often make them out to be. Maybe they’re more like pastors: Some are good, some are bad, all are human and need more instruction and wisdom from Jesus.

e

Day 57 of 100 Days of Blog

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When you show up with a purpose

Throughout the haphazard experiment known as my career, I’ve ended up in several positions where I show up to an event in a specific role.

I show up to weddings as the photographer or the officiant — the guy giving the speech.

I’ve shown up to other events as the speaker, or the TV show guest.

I show up to a spot, I’m supposed to be there, people I’ve never met know why I’m there, I have a purpose to serve there, and I know what it is. I’m not thinking about how I look or how I’m coming off, or if I’m making a good impression on people…I have a job to do! No time to be thinking about things that don’t make a difference. I have a specific and meaningful sort of confidence.

I compared these experiences versus events where I’m just showing up as an attendee — especially at events where I know very few other people. Like when I flew to other states for friends’ weddings but didn’t know anyone but the groom. I show up and don’t really have a purpose other than “Attend,” and I feel awkward, out of place, purposeless.

“Why am I here?” I find myself asking. “The groom won’t even remember I was here and I feel like shrinking down and away from people. Why even try to socialize for two hours with people I’ll never see again? Am I making a good impression? Am I being too cocky or too shy?”

I feel like I’m four feet tall.

When I compare this to the confident, assured, and purposeful Ethan who shows up to places with a purpose, the difference is night and day.

I wondered how this might expand into life as a whole. I don’t yet know what it’s like to show up to life with a purpose, as if I know what I’m here for. Maybe that would make me more confident; perhaps I could assert myself like a person with a job to do.

Perhaps, like the grasshopper, I’d hurl myself forward like I knew where I was going — or at least pretending I did.

I wouldn’t feel like I showed up on earth by accident, like I got the wrong invitation in the mail and showed up to a stranger’s party.

Purpose is powerful, and the lack of it is deadly.

It’s more important than happiness, joy, or even — dare I say — human connection. If you don’t know what your life is for, you’ll see no issue with leaving it.

Your purpose is the entire reason you’re at this party called life, and you got an invitation for a reason. Perhaps you just need to figure out what it is, but I’m positive it wasn’t sent by accident.

e

Day 56 of 100 Days of Blog

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How to care about the world

There are many people for whom the rest of the world is abstract, like a theory. When discussing poverty in developing countries, it seems to them more like a sad dream than a reality experienced by human beings, like them, like their family or friends. 

Oh yes, that would be tragic if people lived like that. That would be very sad. 

It’s so far removed from a dirt-in-your-fingernails sort of reality that it can’t be imagined; or it exists in a different sort of universe, but not ours. Couldn’t be ours — look how comfy we have it.

But once you’re welcomed into a cinderblock home where you smell the wood stove filling the entire single-room home with smoke, and realize that the dirt where you stand doubles as a bed, there’s no going back. There’s no way to then remove this reality from your consciousness, even if it dwells in the background of your mind like a specter. 

For me, as I settle into my comfy, air conditioned bed at night, the reality that I’ve seen and touched firsthand is always present somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain. 

I saw kids in Thailand begging with nubs for arms and legs because they’d been amputated. Because kids with missing extremities make more money begging.

I’ve been inside homes in Guatemala where chickens roamed the same dirt floors as the family packed inside. Which sounds cute except when you think about the poop and pee and how it all turns to mud when it rains…every day.

And I’ve seen kids running and playing naked in Nigeria and India — more joyful than half of America. 

So for me, these things — these people — are no longer a theory or an abstract meditation: What would it be like if people actually had to live like this?

Because they do. And I’ve seen them and talked to them and prayed with them, and their odors and crusted tears are as real to me as the keys I hit to type this. 

And I think this is one of the benefits of short-term missions trips. They get hated on a lot, but I would vouch for the experience of any of the teens I took on these trips. The Guatemalans we met are no longer pictures in a sad commercial to them — they’re real. And even if my students and I didn’t make any difference in the week we were there for the locals, it has shifted the perspective, the reality for my students. 

Maybe you’re someone who needs to get out and touch the world. Maybe the idea of poverty and slums is nothing more than a bad dream your imagination conjures up when you see a sad movie or read National Geographic. 

Maybe traveling with intention can cure you of this malady. 

Even though I’m finishing my Master’s degree in the comfortable United States, I’m consistently aware of how good I have it, of how comfy I am — and how I hope that isn’t permanent. 

And I encourage you to do the same. Escape comfort; not for the postmodern sake of ‘feeling alive’ or personal experience, but so that the suffering in the world outside of our borders becomes more real to you. So that the humans on the other side of the world who live in poverty become humans to you and not tragic fictional characters. 

[And in the meantime, while I’m enjoying a comfortable existence in the USA–and I don’t say this to brag, but hopefully to inspire you to do the same–I am proud to say I support several missionaries I know personally who are in Asia and South America, caring for those very real people and being Jesus to them in the flesh. When we can’t be there in person, looking into the faces of these humans, we can at least give to people and organizations who are.]

e

Day 55 of 100 Days of Blog

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Be like the grasshopper.

At work, I often have to walk long stretches through scenic courtyards that connect our buildings. This summer, littering every inch of sidewalk has been hundreds of grasshoppers. They jump out of my way as I stroll along, and I noticed something after watching hundreds of them leap around. 

They jump dozens of times their body length, casting themselves up into the air and — this is the interesting part — slam into the ground, not usually on their legs. I watch as they land, roll, spin, and find their way back to their feet. 

Even more interesting is, after some research, they can’t see very fine detail. They have several eyes and different lens types, good for detecting threats from 270 degrees, but not good for making out a spot several feet away…where they will land. 

So for comparison, imagine you could throw yourself across a football field just by jumping. But the football field is covered in fog, so you can’t see what awaits you when you land. And you won’t land on your feet, so you kind of just hit the ground and make your way back to your feet. But your skin is also made of armor, so you’re alright on that front. 

Would you even make that jump once? 
Much less, just about every time you move?

It made me respect the insects a bit more, thinking about jumping blindly into the unknown and slamming into the pavement, comically unhurt. 

They showed me just how unlike a grasshopper I am. Or, most of us are. 

We are capable of hurling ourselves across the planet…yet we usually don’t.We opt instead for comfort and certainty. We want to be able to see dozens of steps into the future, with perfect certainty about where we are going and how it will turn out for us. When we make a big move, we need to know exactly how everything will land, and we want to ‘hit the ground running,’ so to speak.

So how do we become more like the grasshopper? 

Recognize that we have built-in armor already. How many of us live unaware of just how much of an exoskeleton we have? And I don’t mean physically, I mean in life. How many safety nets do we have, but never even take advantage of? 

If you’re reading this on a computer or phone screen, chances are, you have enough safety nets surrounding you to make any jump you desire. And if you’re a believer in Jesus, you know that there couldn’t be more armor than the protection and care of God! What the heck are you afraid of?

You may slam into the ground and tumble around for a moment, but you’ll get back to your feet soon enough.

The jump won’t kill you. 

e

Day 54 of 100 Days of Blog

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Men can hate their bodies too.

Earlier today, I posted this as a caption on social media:

“Where did your abs go?” a dude messaged me recently in response to some shirtless beach picture I’d posted in Hawaii.

It went to my spam filter so I didn’t see it until just now and idk how to feel about it.

On the one hand, I’m aware that that’s how so many people found out about me. As GQ put it, I was “Ethan and his six-pack abs,” so it’s married to the territory. So it’s not surprising for people to have a sort of expectation there.

On the other hand, I’m in an interesting position because people do feel permitted to say hurtful things about my body as a dude. And it stings.

I hope he wouldn’t say something like that to a woman. “What happened to your flat belly?? You used to be so fit!” I wonder if that dude WOULD say something similar to a woman who used to be more fit. Or does he feel permitted to because I’m male?

I know that women are endlessly under immense bodily criticism and even shaming, but I think it goes under-reported that men have struggles with their own image as well.

No, I’m not as shredded as I was 9 years ago when I was the viral ‘shirtless wonder,’ but I’m still not in terrible shape for a 33-year-old so I don’t give a rip (well maybe a few rips…). But I don’t struggle with male body hatred as much as other men I know, and if someone said that to one of my friends, I’d lay hands on them.

Long story short: Don’t say hurtful things about dudes’ bodies because you never know how they feel about it deep down!

What do you guys think?

Let me know while I chug this salad and ugly cry.

And the response was immediate.

Lots of people told me I still look great — but iar I wasn’t fishing for compliments. But many other men said they felt similarly. In bold comments, they publicly said they grew up wishing they looked more like their action figures, the way little girls want to look like Barbie. They saw Batman and Thor’s rippling physiques and wanted their own muscles to push out of their sleeves.

It’s something I see regarding women constantly on social media. They’re posting about loving their bodies and it’s okay to fluctuate a few pounds, and so on (I have no idea why the algorithm always tries to get me interested in them…I just want memes!).

But I rarely see the same sort of posts about men.

I see David Goggins cussing us out and other fitfluencers flying around bars or doing endless crunches (which should be avoided at all costs) with their 13 packs rippling in the sunlight. Interestingly, in Fight Club, Brad Pitt mocks the men in the ads, looking the way Calvin Klein wanted them to look….despite looking like a Greek Adonis himself for the entire film.

I don’t see a lot of guys telling other men that it’s ok to NOT look like CBum, and that women will still love you. In fact, in my experience, women care less about you being shredded and care more about our invisible qualities. Not that they completely disregard the physical, but they tend to be less physically driven than men are.

The response has been heartbreaking and I just want to give these dudes hugs. Ironically, most of the ones who commented are already married so they already landed a lady! But for those of us who are still single, I think it’s important to know that we don’t need to maintain 2% body fat, and we can embrace and care for our bodies in a way that doesn’t twist them into peak physique, beyond their natural design, and we won’t necessarily end up alone.

So maybe don’t tell dudes that they’re getting chubby, or looking less fit, or whatever, even if he jokes about stuff like that. You never know what’s happening beneath the surface.

Maybe men do need to be told that they can still be loved, whether they’re skinny or thick, and they don’t need to be angry at their body until it gets ‘better.’ Healthy, yes, but there is no need to look like Mr. Olympia 365 days a year. We don’t need to shame ourselves for looking normal and healthy, but not runway ready.

Men and women alike need to hear this regularly, and I just feel like the former have not been told that enough. We don’t need to carve ourselves to look like the He-Man action figures we have in our drawers.

What are your thoughts?

e

Day 53 of 100 Days of Blog

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