between our dreams and action's lies this world

I've been back to both Manhattan and Paola (hometown), the last two weekends. And both trips hit me in the heart, but for very different reasons. My friend Greg has often spoken of experiencing an unresolved ache whenever he goes back to Manhattan. And up until a weekend ago, I could never really understand where he was coming from. I had nothing but fond memories and a lot of love for that beautiful little town...

But a week from yesterday, I helped my youngest brother Jonny move into Manhattan and begin what I hope will be for him a college experience every bit as rich as mine (of course I expect him to actually graduate before he leaves town...) But anyway, I finally understand. It hit me just a few minutes after I got into town. I drove past the lonely, desolate lot where the "blue house" once stood. The house that offered me in the beginning a profoundly new life, and then a haven and solace, and finally, for two years it was my home. I parked my car on the street in the same spot I had parked so many times before. And I walked up the steps to the sidewalk, and as I surveyed the empty flat ground, all I felt was a gaping hole in my heart. So many memories flooded back to me.

I remember this photo from my first semester or second semester at K-State of my friend Kevin and I standing out in the yard looking into the blue house as a Navigator after-party raged inside, and I was no more than four feet from that very spot. There were all those times that Ad, Deavey, Greg, Dean, Snake, Tone and whoever else would go on for hours about God, theology and various issues within Christendom, of course Abe got stir crazy and took off before too long, it always made me laugh, and I loved joining him... There was the time that Tone Bone went all maniac on Dean, whipping him with a stick, cackling and galloping off like a gazelle ( it was also the first day that I met Scott Slade and Ashley Deaver)... we sprayed Tone with a fire extinguisher in that yard, and he lost his dinner from drinking a half-gallon of prune juice in 30 minutes in that yard...

Brody! crapped all over that yard and Barrett and Scott stepped in it more than they or Chris and Shelley would have liked... Chris would vault off that porch onto the gigantic bush growing beside it and bounce onto the ground... I remembered when Tone would climb onto the roof and howl and do his one of a kind impressions and we would watch from the yard and eat it up... I remember having to clean the upstairs every Wednesday before lifegroup, well watching Scott clean the upstairs anyway, and making Keith take his weekly piles of socks, dirty dishes and other assorted oddities downstairs... There was the time that Glenn and Creagar and I drank too much, met Milk Guy on the way home, ordered Pizza Shuttle after finishing off my corn dogs and stripped off our shirts on the porch and felt on top of the world for just a second...

And then I started remembering the house. Every room and every hallway. The way it was so alive. In a sense, my life began in that house. Meeting Greg, Abe and Tone in that Bible study forever altered the course my life will take. Some experiences we can never shake. Thank God, this is one of those. But experiences are only moments in time. Mere snapshots that are incapable of lasting for very long. And there is a not too small part of me that wants to jump back into those snapshots and feel one more time, just how great it was. And that is just it. I can't go back. None of us can go back. We can remember, reminisce and be grateful. But that season has passed.

I also experienced rather strongly, the sense that I had left so much undone. So much I squandered, that I should have accomplished. Why did I care so little about academics? Why did I waste so many opportunities to learn? I would often stroll along campus listening to the campus clock high in the tower, strike on the hour, and ponder how fortunate I was to have the freedom and opportunity to attend a University. Dr. Linder more than any other professor I had at state, loved purely and deeply the idea and reality of the "university." But I did not honor or accept the responsibility that came with that gift. "If only" propositions are a waste, but I can't help thinking "if only I could go back, knowing now...." Also, the six years I spent in the Little Apple were far and away my best chance at meeting a girl, and beginning a tale to last a lifetime. I don't have to tell you, if you know me at all - I squandered that too.

These days when we are all together, there are fleeting moments that bring back the feeling of back then, but they are very brief. Graduations, jobs, engagements, marriages, kids and varying locations have served to forever alter our friendships, our bond. Even though the final "blue house generation" moved out almost a year and a half ago, so long as the house was still standing, I felt like something right and good still existed, still carried on. But standing there at that lonely lot brought the same finality I have felt while walking away from a gravesite. Which, if houses can be commemorated so - it now is.

If this seems a sort of lament, I have written much too melancholy. It is, I think the realization that happiness is to be treasured deeply. And also, that each season brings with it, other, and perhaps separate joys. And if we are too fully embrace new joys, we must not get caught looking back at past ones, however cherished and extraordinary they might be.

As for my trip back to Paola, it was not a trip filled with many fond memories or the desire to go back. I went to the Roots Festival for the first time in about seven years and saw some people that I had not seen in several years. A couple of them I enjoyed seeing once again, but as for the rest, I tried to steer clear. If the "blue house" was the beginning of my new life, Paola is the most stark evidence of the old. I have carried around a lot of shame and regret since becoming a Christian, and most of my regretful actions took place there. I've forgiven myself. I was young, and didn't have a lot of guidance. But it was unpleasant to be so immediately and tangibly back in that place. It's my personal "pandemonium."

Although, on a positive note, it reinforced the goodness of the blue house, and my changed life. Seeing where you've been can really make a person appreciate where you are going. After all, C. S. Lewis did say that we need to be reminded far more often than we need to be taught.