To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time.

~ Cornelia Otis Skinner, The Ape in Me, 1959

BlogHer. That annual get-together where bloggers from across the nation meet and greet one another, swap cards, and drink a lot.

It swung through my neck of the woods this past year and so I considered going. Only no one told me you had to register two years in advance. And spend lots of money. And drink a lot. So out of protest, I stayed home. Listened from a distance. Probably what I would have done had I actually been there, being a wallflower of sorts.

I just don’t do crowds. Much more my style is the informal rendezvous, somewhat haphazardly planned, with no fanfare and a very short agenda:

Meet up. Chat. Go home.

Ed and I had been planning just such an encounter, and we managed to pull it off Christmas week last year in Dayton, Ohio. His five kids, my four kids, some tagalong relatives, and an Air Force Museum seemed like the right amount of chaos for a lovely and lively time.

It just so happens that another blogging friend, one Daisyfae of Trailer Park Refugee, lives near Dayton, so she came along and brought a friend.

Headcount: Seventeen people, the majority under three feet tall. Did I say I’m not much of a crowd person? Ignore that part.

Highlights:

Ed and I met in the blogosphere because we both have daughters named Zoe. Zoë in his case. Mine has no umlaut. These two young ladies are only a month apart, and they hit it off like long-lost sisters reuniting over coffee. Nigh inseparable they were. The chatted about girl stuff and might have even noticed a plane or two hanging around.

That, my friends, is an SR-71 Blackbird. Daisyfae? She likes her some Blackbird. She saw it sitting there, all black and impressive in the hangar, and raised her arms in the air and exclaimed, “My God! Look at it! It’s like sex in the sky!” I interrupted her reverie for a picture . . .

Ed looked happy to be there for the most part . . .

. . . despite the fact that he’d spent the night before tending to his very sick child, wallowing in the sick that naturally spread his way as the morning progressed. Tucked in his back pocket is a map of the museum with all the restrooms highlighted in bright yellow. He’s a trooper, that Ed. He and his clan ended up leaving early so he could go home and pass out on the couch, curled up in a fetal position. We’ve agreed the next meet-up will be in a park. Lots of fresh air and plenty of places to hurl should the need arise.

After a quick tour through the exhibit on rockets and space travel, Daisyfae and I decided to pack up the remainder of the party and retire to the local Bob Evans for some lunch before heading home. I made a gift of some homemade Chex mix and, being the more stubborn of the two of us, she insisted on picking up the check. Being the least stubborn of the two of us, I let her. But next time, girlfriend? I’m buying.

***

Well, needless to say, I found myself hooked on meeting blogging friends. And it just so happened that my wife and I planned on taking the family to Minnesota to spend a week after Christmas. And pray tell what city should the road lead us through on our way to Points Northwest?

Madison, Wisconsin!

The thoroughly-cheesified Home of Maggie (Okay, Fine, Dammit), and a hop, skip, and a jump from Erika (Be Gay About It). After much emailing back and forth, trying to pick a time and a place to pull in for a pit stop, it was Erika’s wife Jenn who came up with Rocky Rococo’s, a pizza joint complete with a game room, comfy leather seats, and bottomless pitchers of pop. Or is it soda in Wisconsin? Regardless, it was perfect.

These are two of my blogging heroes. And yet meeting them felt completely . . . normal. Want to see my favorite picture?

Erika recently broadened her site to include a section titled BGAI Together, “a grassroots storytelling project where LGBTQ persons and their allies unite to counter adversity with positive stories of love and affirmation.” My daughter helped her design the badge for the site (you’ll find it in my sidebar, over there on the left) and here they are meeting for the first time. Notice how Erika, who is much taller than I ever imagined, gets down to Aryn’s level. Doesn’t stand over her, but instead allows Aryn to shine.

Erika’s heart is large, my friends. And meeting her in real life, hugging her neck, listening to her laugh, and sharing in her joy as she told the story of her and Jenn’s Christmas miracle, made this mid-trip rest stop a miracle all its own.

She also made me a “stud tape,” a two-disc set of some of her favorite music. It was the soundtrack for our trip, and I am now a huge fan of Band of Horses . . .

***

And then there’s Maggie.

We left Minnesota on the morning of January 1^st and planned to drive straight through. But, as you might have guessed, I have become a fan of sidetracking. I tweeted that I might be available for dinner, and Maggie wasted no time in inviting us over for ham sandwiches.

Only Maggie lives in . . . how did Sarah put it . . . oh yeah!

Waythefuckoutsville.

That’s somewhere along Country Road Death, as my kids now call that meandering road leading to her back porch. They also refer to her as Maggie in the Middle of Nowhere.

GPS be damned, we found it!

The kids romped and played and colored pictures. Ty impressed Maggie’s husband with his Rock Band skills. And Maggie’s husband laughed at me when I shed my coat and revealed my IPFW sweatshirt. Apparently they’ve experienced the suck that is IPFW Mastodon basketball.

We sat and talked for a long time. About blogging. About writing. About iPhones. And about ham. And then . . . glory of glories! I made it past the outer court and found myself worshipping in the inner sanctum.

Where this . . .

. . . begat this!

Maggie and I laughed until we cried. And then, my head, tummy, and heart full to bursting, I drove the clan home.

Notice my hat? That’s an SR-71 Blackbird.

Notice my Unibrow? Yeah, it’s back. And sexier than evah!

***

This is my first post in exactly one month. It was a planned hiatus. A chance to recalibrate my brain and settle a few things that needed settling.

While I was away, I missed you, dear Cheek Tweaker.

We might have crossed paths on Twitter or Facebook, but nothing compares to the interaction that happens here. Or over there, on your blog.

Meeting these friends in real life made this place so much more special for me. For here, because of this, across the accidents of time and space, I have found a few friends. And I am better for them . . .

***

Oh! Before you go . . .

Did I tell you about the newborn in our house? NO?! Well, you’re in for a treat . . .

[Flickr photo is by lepiaf.geo and is protected]

To my family,

Throughout this very difficult year, you never let me stop living . . .

These moments are ours, and I am thankful for each and every one. Happy New Year!

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others – something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

~ Albert Schweitzer

The first time I rang the bells, I stood outside the entrance to Sears in Glenbrook Mall. The fountain before me usually got all the coins, but on this night those nickels and dimes found their way into the red kettle mounted on a stand beside me.

Two things I learned my first time ringing the bells:

1) That shit is hard! The bells I used that night were the muted kind. Less annoying to the shoppers and merchants, but you gotta really shake them things to make them jingle. When my arms started aching and my wrists seized up, I checked my watch; I’d been at it a whopping ten minutes. It was going to be a long night . . .

2) Most people are crabby. Especially in the mall. I’d smile and say “Merry Christmas!” or “Good evening!” if people glanced my way and made eye contact, but only a few responded in kind. Most just scowled and walked on by . . .

But not the family with the little guy in the stroller. He really wanted to put his change in my kettle, so they wheeled him over. I leaned the kettle down so he could reach it better, and then let him ring my bell before he and his parents wandered off toward Macy’s. The boy had cerebral palsy and a killer smile.

I had arranged with the local Salvation Army volunteer coordinator to ring the following morning at a grocery store. The sun broke through the clouds every once in a while, but added little heat to the air. The wind chill factor was about ten below zero, and I wore enough layers to where I resembled me back in my fat dad days. A lady with bobby pinned hair and a fur coat offered to buy me some Starbucks. I showed her my sixty four ounce insulated mug of hot chocolate and declined. She just shook her head, dropped in a folded dollar bill, and went about her busy day.

The next day, I met Manga Lady. Sitting on the bench next to my post by the automatic doors, she drew fan-fiction sketches of Cardcaptor Sakura. She mistook me for a fan when I commented on her wicked skills – how she kept the eyes big and the mouths small – and started rambling on and on about the love triangle her character had found himself involved in. I just smiled, shook my head, and thanked the baby Jesus when her bus showed up.

Later that same morning, I met Placement Guy. He had walked over from the McDonald’s across the street where his sister worked and he hoped to gain a bit of employment. They told him they could maybe give him five to ten hours a week, tops, and he figured that would be enough to keep the people in charge of his “placement” happy. It showed he had potential. And gave him just enough free time to prepare for his GED exam. He wore a button-up shirt under a zip-up hoodie that wasn’t zipped, and all that shivering made his voice shaky. He bummed my phone to call his mom and I overheard as he made plans to maybe get together over the holidays. I hope they worked it out. I told him that I too was out of work and wished him the best in the days ahead.

And then there was the family that reminded me of the clowns. I helped them to their car the following night at the Community Harvest Food Bank distribution center. I pushed the cart plumb full with over 120 pounds of canned foods, ramen noodles and frozen turkey. And I laughed out loud when I noticed four kids piled up in the back seat where the food had to go because the trunk was crammed with Toys for Tots. No way were they going to be wearing seat belts. As they climbed out and began running around the car . . . well, I thought of the clowns at the circus that pile out of a car way too small to hold so many clowns. We managed, and they drove away with the back of the car scraping the ground when they hit the bumps.

So many faces.

So many stories.

So many people in need. And so many people willing to lend a hand. It made the weeks leading up to Christmas more than a drudgery of days. Those hours spent swinging a bell or pushing a cart meant something. To me. And to those who will find a helping hand when they need it most.

This has not been the most pleasant of years for me and mine. But all that gets lost in the din of the bell ringer . . .

[Flickr photo is by ndrwfgg and is protected]

Wit . . .

3a. The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things.

3b. One noted for this ability, especially one skilled in repartee.

Also . . .

3c. A skill Brian @ The Cheek of God lacks.

See? I cannot even come up with a witty way to say I’m not witty.

All this has been confirmed for me thanks to Twitter. Consider this recent tweet by yours truly . . .

Because, you know, like, in that movie The Shining? Where the family gets snowed in? And the guy goes bananas with the pick axe?

Yeah. I know. Lame. Maybe not so much because of the content, or my intention, but more because of the way I wrote it. There’s no punch. No pizzazz. Nary an ingenious syllable in sight. I wouldn’t even give myself an A for effort.

So, sorry to disappoint you, Dear Tweaker, but I am not witty. I recently admitted as such . . .

. . . and at least one person joined me in my self-deprecation.

She is far wittier than me, you can trust me on that. And so are all of these fine people, whose recent tweets had me . . . er . . . ROFLMAO:

I can’t complete with all that, tweople. Not only are these some very witty and comical tweets, IMHO, but there is NO way I could ever reply in any sort of equally witty manner. I tried to reply to this . . .

. . . and failed horribly:

I screwed up the emoticon. Damn tiny buttons on my BlackBerry. And besides? It’s . . . lame. See, my son is taking German, and I asked him to translate it for me. Which he did. And we laughed. And he said he was going to take it in to class the next day and ask for extra credit. And maybe get a laugh. And . . .

See? That’s the problem. Most of my replies have to be qualified. Or lack context. All impossible to provide with only 140 characters. I’m long winded that way. And . . . well, I’m just not that funny.

Here’s an illustration of why I don’t generally reply to witty tweets, courtesy of @realdadshangout:

Mike is a great guy. Loves to laugh at himself. And he was kind enough to let me include this little exchange to illustrate my point. Unlike Mike, I would need a mulligan every time.

(Lame . . .)

So, I’m trying to fix the problem subliminally . . .

I give up. Even this post is lame. The very definition of NOT witty. So carry on without me, internets . . .

(Special thanks to these fine folks. If you’re on Twitter, do yourself a favor and follow them all: @realdadshangout, @OutnumberedisMe, @BinaryDad, @PetCobra, @JettSuperior, @jurgen_nation, @prayingtodarwin, @redneckmommy, @MartinFitz, @mommywantsvodka, @DebJorge, @MyBottlesUp, @theGoatandTater, @zanger, @uhura13)

P. S.

I did find at least one person who thought I was funny:

She’ll get over it soon, I’m sure . . .

I woke up this morning and felt the urge to pray. Only I realized I don’t really know how to do that anymore.

Prayer is what we do, right? When things seem to be beyond our control? When the frayed end of the rope is right there, in front of our faces? When there seems to be nothing left to do?

As a kid, prayer meant another event to go to. Prayer meetings. Prayer breakfasts. Twenty-four hour prayer rallies. Healing extravaganzas and intercessory cavalcades. And within the tradition in which I was raised, regardless of the confines, it meant lots of unintelligible whooping and some occasional jumping around and running up and down the aisles.

People took their troubles to the Lord and would up with Holy Ghost Hyperventilation.

After many years of this, both as a supplicant and spectator, I came to view prayer as nothing more than a God-ordained pity party. A woe-is-me pleading that felt good at the moment, cathartic and wet, but in the end led only to a handing over of control to the God who resided just inside the ceiling tiles.

Surely this is not what was intended.

In her book Encountering God, Diana Eck describes prayer as engaging in the practice of paying attention: “What are we practicing for? The goal of this practice is not to get to some other place, some lofty dazzling experience, but truly to recognize the place where we already are.” For Eck, prayer looks a lot like meditation, and leads to mindfulness of not only the subtle rhythms of our bodies but also to the chaotic and often indiscernible rhythm of God. Prayer for Eck isn’t something we do, but is something we live. It is a way to engage the Sacred even as the Sacred slips through our fingers.

This is the problem with being reverently agnostic, being willing to engage both sides of the question but unwilling to settle down on either one. In Life of Pi, the main character struggles with this question and comes to a conclusion – the same one that sits upon the back burner of my mind . . .

It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

And at no point does being undecided spiritually feel more uncomfortable, more immobile, than when one feels the need to pray.

A question:

Do you pray? Regardless of your religious beliefs – for all are welcome here – what does prayer mean to you? I’m looking forward to your response . . .

[Flickr photo is by theogeo and is protected]