The Break In

I suppose it's part of living in the vale of tears that you occasionally get burglarized, right?  I guess it was our turn. It was a week ago yesterday that thieves opened the unlocked front window of the house and walked in. 

They took the one-week-old 47" TV (it was too big anyway), two laptops and my wife's Christmas present - a spunky pink Dell Netbook.  Also, both of our wedding bands and some cash.

Everyone is so sorry.  I've heard it several times. But I would almost have paid someone to steal the Xbox, which is also gone.  The silence around here since its disappearance has been golden.  Of course, one of my kids who most cherished the Xbox has been wandering around dazzed, lost, incredulous, mournful as Mozart's Lacrymosa.  My daughter, on the other hand, asked me to please not replace it.  So its three against three.

So, friends.  Possessions.  What about them?

There is this scene in C. S. Lewis' Perelandra, in which the devil (Ransom) is tempting Eve with a lovely coat or shawl of some sort.  She admits it is lovely, and agrees with him over its great workmanship.  He gives it to her to hold, and after a moment of enjoying it, she drops it on the ground and wanders over to smell a flower.  Surprised, Ransom picks it up and runs after her.  Here, you can have it, he says.  She responds that she doesn't really understand what he means.  You know, keep it, hold it, to enjoy again later.  She replies with a laugh, why would I want to do that?

Aside from the Xbox, the absence of which has been like a tree of life in our midst, or more apropos, like a successful polyp removal, the stuff we enjoyed was just stuff. I almost dont remember it now. We pulled our old TV out of the garage and set it up again. I got out my old laptop gathering dust in the closet since the new one arrived last year, and here I am typing on it.

The only thing we really miss is the writings and papers that cannot be recovered. The wedding bands and a few other personal items of little worth pinched.  Both bands have Ephesians 5:25-27 inscribed in them, so I hope the Holy Ghost will haunt anyone who tries to buy them from whatever pawn show they end up in.

But the shock of having the house ransacked has passed (we gave it a good tidying up after that), and the stuff was really...forgettable.  I can't speak for the rest of my family though.

words etc.

There are no adjectives left.

Great, wonderful, terrific, fantastic - cha! our grandparents were wearing out these words years ago.  "Incredible," after being misused, became so overused as to be meaningless.  "Awesome," was a giant that fell hard.  The culture, mainly writers for magazines like Atlantic Monthly or New Yorker or Slate or Salon, the hundreds or thousands of writers desperately wanting to break out, to distinguish themselves, have bastardized every emphatic or superlative in the English language; snatched them from on high and remolded them, cheapened them, yea even prostituted them, for their common momentary need.

Take the word 'epic.' This word, a superlative of sorts, is applied commonly to pizza, monster trucks, intestinal gas, smartphone apps.

'Gargantuan' was used for a while in the 80's, but was considered too clumsy.  Lollapalooza may have the same fate, as it seems to be used only by marketeers.

Oh, there are so many tiresome others.  Massive. Radical. Kick ass. Tubular. Way. 

I read about the snow storms in the northeastern states last week referred to as 'snowpocalypse.' And one may read about someone having their first encounter with an iPad as an 'apotheosis.'

What's left?

You know what this is?  Consumerism, applied to words. We are consuming these words, sucking the life/meaning out of them, and then tossing them aside. For example, who can use the word 'radical' anymore? or 'incredible'? No one even knows what incredible means anymore.

Not only are we consuming the words, we are effectively banishing them from the common vocabulary, like Tamar kicked out of Amnon's bed of rape. Goodbye, 'extreme', 'intense', 'perfect', 'divine', sweet'. Done with you, now get out.

I started on this trail, because I was trying in vain to think of an adjective that describes my feelings about parenting. The sense that I have regarding the task of parenting, the ultimacy of the task, the burden on a father's shoulders, the responsibility...

the realization of what I've said that cannot be undone,

the likelihood of failure in today's social climate,

the singularity of purpose that exists in parenting, as if nothing else mattered in comparison, the sense that everything I do is really because of my children - the reason I work, endure insults and disappointments, endure business attire, advocate healthier food, buy a bigger house and car, the reason I scrape pennies together to put in a savings account, wear socks with holes, sweaters eaten by moths, the reason I dont buy myself a new computer or cooler car or take vacations alone with my wife, 

the reason I do battle with them - daily nagging them to do their homework, to do it well, to improve their handwritting and watch out for careless errors, insisting they get off the computer or the Xbox, setting and enforcing curfews not only for being out, but for cell phone use, jousting with them over dress code, parrying with them over sarcasm, thrusting, blocking, reposte-ing over grades, shoes, toothbrushing, belching, being tardy...

The adjectives no longer exist to describe my feelings about this, the sense of eternal moment, and the sense that I am an utter failure at my greatest, and only remaining calling.