brandon williamscraig

A core tension underlying this trip is the need to spend time with precious people juxtaposed with the need to imbue an authorial hermitage with impregnable solitude and make Headway. At the moment the work seems like dry flats, an endless expanse of scattered textual crumbs, punctuated by very infrequent shrubs of meaningful progress. I feel a bit desperate in the face of struggles with my own will and distractions from without which, most often, are done a disservice by being labeled as such.

Against that emotional background I went to Kessler Park United Methodist Church for Father's Day. I facilitated the Sojourners Sunday School class, suggesting more conscious work with the consequences of ideas, myth as lens, delaying true/false determinations, holding ambiguity, religion as martial art, working with scripture as a weaving of voices within which some whispers of the divine may be found. I didn't have time to mic everybody so this recording (below) is an edit mostly restricted to what I said, with a couple of contributions by participants to give context.

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After class I sat between my Mom and Lisa through the service in which the children were sent to pass out a boutonnière to their Papa. Intellectually I know I fit in the criteria "all those who are, or have been a father, or like a father to someone", but I couldn't manage to strap on a red carnation. Then I got up to solo while they passed the plate.

Refrain
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sicksoul.

1. Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. Refrain

2. Don't ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend, and if you look for knowledge he'll ne'er refuse to lend. Refrain

3. If you can't preach like Peter, if you can't pray like Paul, just tell the love of Jesus, and say He died for all. Refrain

I probably should have followed the instructions and Refrained, or added the surprise verse that praises the value of masochism and urges the congregation never to think before agreeing to anything asked by someone who hangs with Jesus. And blame. Can't forget the verse about imagining yourself as emotionally invulnerable in order to substitute blaming other people in retrospect for cultivating self-discipline. It's a real tear-jerker.

Then we were taken to a lovely lunch at La Aldea by a friend and benefactor, Marvin Harkins.

In the afternoon, a call from Russ Alvey (Sensei, Dojo Cho at North Texas Aikido) gave us the delightful opportunity to down a pint at Trinity Hall Irish Pub at Mockingbird Station while hearing him, and several equally accomplished others, deliver some excellent Celtic folk. This recording is just a snippet with no attributions, thereby bowing to the preference of a performer, as it should be. His son, Ian, previously featured in my life's simulcast as a squat, pudgy pre-teen, now a 6'4" male model, came to hear him play and promised to join us for training at North Texas Aikido sometime soon.

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Then we went to see my Dad and step-mom, Julie for dinner. All photos of Lisa and I, and of Aidan, have been removed from the surfaces crowded by family photographs of children and their babies. The food was fabulous. As always, we listened to some of the best music ever recorded. When I asked to rip a CD Dad felt moved to condescend and take me to task for stealing software and music. The game does belong to the Lord, after all. Feeling beyond tired of modeling conflict skills I did my best to fade from view for the remainder of the evening as we heard how a 21 day water fast can teach that the point of yoga is to learn that, where the body is concerned, the Mind is boss. Heady stuff. Then got blamed on the way home for the tension in the evening.

Happy Daddy Day.

End of rant.

Today will certainly be better. If I don't write for several hours I may jump out the window and Up onto street level. That'll show 'em.

In other news...

Joannie sent me a great story about the way Aikido helped her work with an uncomfortable situation "out there" in the "Real" world. Click here to find it on the AiBerk blog.

Gilead as it should probably sound.

The church newsletter report on the Sunday's Sojourner class I facilitated, written by an entirely objective reporter - my Mother...

Sunday was brimful of blessings. Laurel brought her friend, Marcie, and she promised to return. Stephanie was in town and Pamela was back. We missed Nan, Helen Francis, Mike and the Bernards---Tom was with his mother and the Wagenbachs are up east. Our guest teacher was Brandon WilliamsCraig, child of Oak Cliff and resident of Berkeley, Ca. We sprang off the block with our lesson writer's statement, "Unlike the Israelites of Hosea's day, we generally do not view national tragedies as God's judgment." Our teacher said what we were thinking, "We don't??" What IS our story about judgment? We can't leave Lesson Two in this series. It's purpose is "to examine how divine judgment is neither punishment nor vengeance but an expression of God's faithfulness and truth" --- in 45 minutes? He challenged us ---Do we have a working 'shared narrative'? Who is 'we'? There is no question that our "narratives" shape us --our thoughts, actions, our culture. Brandon gave us a tiny taste of how the thinking martial artist waits before an ideation of God, alert and open to wonder; how little we are tolerating the ambiguity or considering the quality of our practice of dialogue - the authentic conflict of ideas. He led us into a sparkling forest of ideas. We even got silent; asked him to teach next week; held onto him with our need and made him late to worship. Oh, delicious sojourning!

Labels: AiBerk, Aikido, audio, Father, grief, student, teach

| posted by Unknown @ 6/18/2007 11:36:00 AM

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