Brandon Andress's Blog, page 6

Deep Calls to Deep: Abandoning the Dog

In The God’s of the Copybook Headings, Rudyard Kipling concludes his poem by saying that a few things are certain.

The Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire

Each instance depicts the cyclical nature of folly, cleverly suggesting that a fool will always return to the thing he knows, even when it is not beneficial, even detrimental.

But what each of us returns to is different.

For me, I return to a ...

Deep Calls to Deep: Garbage In Garbage Out

I have been picking up litter throughout my neighborhood and around town for about a month. Walking by myself with a trash bag in hand has given me a lot of time to think. 

Recently, I began to wonder about litter, and oddly enough, its origin story. I determined that some of it blew out of trash cans when lifted by the truck’s mechanical arm. Some of it originated from homeless encampments under bridges and in wooded areas. But the rest of it, the majority of it, was deliberately thrown on t...

Deep Calls To Deep: The Day I Turned Off the News

I quit watching the news fifteen years ago.

I do not remember what exactly caused me to turn it off, but as I sit here now and reflect, we were about five years past 9/11. Whatever sense of humanity and community we had discovered amongst ourselves on 9/12, it had slowly devolved into partisan politics, ideological division, and the dehumanizing of the “other.” And while we were those ultimately accountable for what we were becoming, I noticed how the news media curated content to keep us ang...

Deep Calls to Deep: The Wisdom of a Cluttered Garage

For the last two years, I have had this recurring issue. My heart and mind race out of control, and I can not calm myself down. While I initially thought it was a heart issue, my doctor told me it was anxiety. Maybe it has been the weight of the pandemic, the significant disruption in my daily rhythm, or too much time on social media. 

I suspect it was all of them together. 

Having this experience made me realize how I had always taken the health of my inner self for granted. And how easil...

Deep Calls To Deep: The Pandemic, a Wire Monkey, and a Procession of Angels

The incalculable toll of the pandemic is its impact on our mental health.

We do not have to agree whether every decision in response to the virus was correct or not. But we can all agree that countless adults and children alike have emotionally suffered as a consequence. We have worked and schooled virtually for two years. We have stayed in our homes away from our neighbors and social functions. We have quarantined in isolation and have been conditioned to fear being around others. And throug...

Deep Calls To Deep: The Kindness of Ted Lasso

There is a reason why Ted Lasso captured the hearts of millions.

But first. If you are unfamiliar with Ted Lasso, it is a comedy on Apple+ about a college football coach, Ted Lasso, hired by an English football (soccer) team to be their head coach. The punchline- Ted Lasso does not know anything about English football. In an attempt to destroy her ex-husband’s love and legacy, the current owner subversively hires a naive Ted Lasso to ruin the team.

Ted Lasso captured our hearts becau...

Deep Calls To Deep: Finding the Real South Bend Shovel Slayer

I remember watching the Christmas classic Home Alone for the first time when I was about seventeen years old. If you haven’t seen this movie, it is about an extended family rushing to leave for a Christmas vacation, but through the rush of the early morning chaos, they accidentally leave eight-year-old Kevin at home.

Running through the early part of the movie was a rumor in which Kevin believed that a scary-looking, bearded, old man named Marley had murdered his family and half the neighborh...

Deep Calls To Deep: The Card That Broke Me

When I was in college and dating Jenny (who is now my wife), there was a Friday night in which we were planning to hang out. As the minutes and then the hours began to pass, I became increasingly impatient, frustrated, and angry that she was taking so long, not answering my phone calls, and ruining our Friday.

After several hours of waiting in my room with no response, there was finally a knock at my door. And as Jenny walked in, my anger was immediately evident. I was fuming mad and pepperin...

Deep Calls To Deep: Joining the Chorus of Creation

The cells of our body regenerate approximately every seven years.

That means that every single cell of your body is completely replaced over a seven year span. To me, that is staggering. As a nearly 48 year-old man I am not the same person physically as I was when I was a young boy, or even as I was seven years ago. The composition of my body is entirely different. Cells have died and new cells have been generated. I am constantly a new me! And I have done this nearly seven times in my life! ...

Introducing Deep Calls to Deep

If you are like me the last decade has been exhausting. I feel as if I have been afloat a rickety raft of loosely bound driftwood with towering ocean waves crashing down on me from all sides day after day with no reprieve. It is difficult to see calm, to trust there are still waters beyond the tempest when all you can do is hold tight to avoid being swallowed by the storm.

If we are to be honest about our situation in a less metaphorical way, we feel as if we do not have control over the dail...