Dead Man's Honda

Last night I lay awake with the full moon light spilling onto my forehead in slits through the shades, listening to the warm Santa Ana winds rustling the bamboo outside. I rolled over and looked out onto our cracked and vacant patio—it was bright, silvery-white, reflecting the moon. My mind was scattered about a current dilemma, the elections today, and a few other insignificant things that drifted in and out of my consciousness.

The dilemma is this: I love, and miss, working with children and youth on a regular basis. My current job affords me a very sterile, grown-up environment that I enjoy and where I am learning a lot. Last night the family for whose son I tutored last year called me to return to my old position. Financially it would be wiser to work overtime rather than commuting to a tutoring job after work. My initial reaction is: nah, not worth it--the kid I would tutor again, “John” was not a walk in the park. But, consistent with my nature, I loved him for being a pain in the ass. I loved his family for being totally and completely nuts.

See, it wasn’t a tutoring job like you’d imagine a tutoring job. That’s what makes it hard to decide—do I return to the beautiful terrible? Or do I look at the bottom line? Sigh. I can’t decide.

Let me explain.

I knew it wasn’t going to be like my other jobs when I arrived at the home one sunny fall afternoon about this time last year and John, the Father and the Mother, were in an all-out screaming match on the driveway of the enormous old house.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I wasn’t sure if I should just walk away and pretend I didn’t see it, or if I should keep walking up and hope they stopped….before I could decide the mother caught sight of me and motioned for me to come over. She pulled me aside.

“We’re having a bit of trouble with John. He doesn’t want to do tutoring today.”

Hmm…that’s strange, I thought to myself, because I knew the kid actually really liked me.

The father was raking his fingers through long, grayish curly hair and trying to keep from losing it completely, it seemed.

“Can you go in the dining room and we’ll send him in there in just a moment?” the mother said to me. I nodded and ducked into the house as quickly as possible.

45 minutes later I was still rapping my fingers on the dining room table and listening to the shouts outside. John’s 7 year old sister kept me company. But she was a weird little kid and would randomly just start yelling at the ceiling.

Good God, where am I? I kept thinking.

Finally I heard John burst into the house and go running up the stairs. John’s mother came into the dining room and sat down.

“He’s just having a bit of trouble listening to his father. I know he listens to you, but he wanted to go skateboarding right before you came and we said no, you can’t, and he just went out there to do it anyway. So I’m going to go make sure he comes down here for you to work with him, ok?” She left and I mustered a smile I hoped was hiding my thoughts of ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’. A few seconds later the father, who was very gregarious and is the director of a popular day-time psychology show came into the room, sat down and sighed.

“John has problems with his mother,” He said in his raspy voice.

I tried not to burst out laughing at that. Seriously?

He leaned toward me, “She told him…” he paused and looked over his shoulder and then lowered his voice, “She told him he was acting like a baby.”

Okaaaaay. I thought. Maybe he was?

“And I tell her, you can’t say things like that to a kid. I mean, she just doesn’t know how to communicate with him.”

With him, or with you?

“John wanted to go skateboarding and I said he couldn’t and he just decided to go, so I went out there to stop him and he wouldn’t listen,” his voice was becoming more urgent and the hair-raking more intense, “So I told him, ‘you know my father would have just come out here, beaten the hell out of me and then thrown me across the room until I hit the wall and collapsed unconscious, but I’m not going to do that to you!’”

Oh, well, that’s a plus.

“I told him, ‘I’m not going to do that to you- so if you want to go skateboarding you’re going to have to take that skateboard and smack it over my head to get past me!’ and John just stood there yelling and of course his mother comes out and says inappropriate things to him…argghh….” I leaned back and listened to these rants wondering if I could just make a run for the door.

Instead of having John come down to the dining room, they had me go up to his room where the drama continued. Then they left us alone, so I could mop up the teary-eyed mess they left behind.

And that was just the thing with the family—the parents were a mess but because of that they were making John into one. The school issues were merely a symptom of the parent’s problems—not his own.

His mother was having an affair, I surmised after several months there and both parents drank a considerable amount. His father would drop him off at high-school aged parties knowing full-well the high-school guys were playing Beirut (among other things).

John told me he spent his entire spring break wasted. A thirteen year old kid goes on vacation with his mother and sisters and spends the entire time drunk and the mother doesn’t notice? Irresponsible!

My Messiah complex tells me to swoop back in and become the confidante and voice of reason in that poor, amazingly intelligent kid’s life. But I ask myself--am I doing it for him or for me and my need to feel like I’m doing some world of good in some kid’s life?

Last night I kept rolling that thought around in my head like a marble with a flat edge. It banged back and forth as I thought of all the kids I’ve tried to “help” and whether or not I really did it for them or if it was some control issue of mine. I thought about little D and how we used to keep her with us, away from her crazy mother, and she would cry out at night for me if she woke up and I wasn’t beside her.

Did I keep her with me because I really thought she was safer as a result or did I keep I her with me because I needed to control a desperate situation and make myself feel needed and therefore relevant? And when does the call of what we should be as Believers end and our own need to matter and to control the environments of others, begin?

I don’t flipping know. I just don’t.

I realize today is Election Day and I should be advocating certain policy initiatives (Vote NO on 87 because there is no accountability for it) and condemning others, but I’m not going to do that at the moment (entirely) because of something so ludicrous (yet apparently unnoticed) it has me shaking my head.

The recent disclosure of a “sex scandal” involving Ted Haggard, the former head of the 30 million strong National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life church in Colorado Springs, has initiated action on behalf of other high-profile evangelical leaders.

Last week a male prostitute came forward stating that Haggard had engaged in sex with him as well as used him to purchase methamphetamines. After days of denials, Haggard has come forward and confessed to the majority of the allegations.

In reaction, James Dobson, Albert Mohler Jr., Ravi Zacharias, and H.B. London, among others, have joined together to put Ted Haggard through a “disciplinary and restoration” process. This process will involve drug tests, counseling and polygraph tests.

Dobson stated:

“And I do reach through these microphones and put an arm around Ted. He is my brother, he's my friend. I said in the press release that he will always be my friend. But because homosexual indiscretions have occurred, they must be dealt with, and they will be. And I ask our listeners to be in prayer for Ted, for Gayle, for his family, especially his children, for New Life Church, and for the three of us -- Tommy Barnett, Jack Hayford, and myself.”

Uh—hello—what about the drug use? What about using another human being? What about his unfaithfulness to his wife? “But because homosexual indiscretions have occurred, they must be dealt with, and they will be.” WHAT?! That’s it?

Haggard himself has stated:

“I am guilty of sexual immorality; I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.”

Wait- what is the repulsive and dark part? The drugs? The marital unfaithfulness? Or the homosexuality? Or all of it? I have a hunch Haggard was really only referring to the homosexuality statement. Anyone else feel like that is the case?

Here’s what has me up in arms:

What is implied from Haggard’s statements and is implied from what Dobson omits from his statements is that the drug addiction and the marital unfaithfulness (not to mention the blatant condemnation of others) are not the main issues here—the important issue, it seems to be the case, is that a pastor has had homosexual thoughts and allegedly acted on them. It seems that the “homosexual issue”--not the lying and breaking of the law--are the primary subject of concern for most evangelicals. No doubt conservatives like Dobson will use this as a moment to explain how homosexuality can be healed and that Haggard can be “restored” to his family and community. Forget the fact that he might need to be in drug rehab or jail, let’s just talk about the homosexuality. Why heal a drug addict or adulterer when you can you heal the homosexual?

Why isn’t anyone discussing a coherent moral code extricated from the entirety of Christian philosophy instead of a few sentences in the old and New Testament?

Where is the discussion about how Haggard used another human being as a commodity?

Instead, in his confession to his church, Haggard asks his congregation to forgive the man who revealed his transgressions on a radio talk show.

Forgive him? For what? The man broke the law as a prostitute and drug peddler. He did nothing against the individual members of the congregation. Nothing in what Haggard or any other evangelicals is saying even mentions forgiveness of statutory crimes and perhaps forgiveness for judging things on which they have no business passing a verdict.

My heart breaks for Haggard because he lived a lie and damaged others (including the prostitute) with it. My heart breaks for his children because they are born out of that lie and must live through this public humiliation. My heart breaks for his wife because of everything—but mostly because she is a victim of an ideology that errs in places no one is even looking.

My heart breaks the most because everyone is focusing on a speck when there is a much larger plank that needs to be addressed.

Honda did not have a good weekend.

Someone threatened to wrap her around my neck.

I don’t want to jump to any conclusions but I’m guessing that might be a little painful for, as well as difficult on, both of us.

The weekend began with me smacking the poor car into the side of our ridiculously narrow dirt-floored garage. Again. The long black panel that once graced her right side is now completely gone. Before Friday she had half a strip still left on the back end. Now, no more.

After driving several miserable hours to Las Vegas (yes- she may not look very hearty but the car can driiiiive) we finally arrived on the strip near mid-night. My sisters were car-sick since poor Honda has this rhythmic jerking problem that occassionally makes you feel like you’re sitting in an electrical massage chair, but usually makes you car sick. This time, the girls were car sick. And probably quite a bit dizzy. It’s a lot like driving in a wind-tunnel hovering over a girating tractor. I’m used to it. They, unfortunately, were not.

Our Yahoo-complimentary directions ended at the freeway off ramp and a dead-end at a resort where we weren’t staying. Time to explore. After driving around a bit I managed to get us on a road that looked very much like it was going to drive us right up to the neon-outlined hotel in the distance where my aunt and uncle were waiting.

Ten seconds later something just didn’t seem quite right. No one else was on the road...there was quite a bit of construction going on....it was really, really, dark.

“Uh, Leis, I don’t think this is uh…a…um…road…” Lindsey said gingerly—trying not to be that back-seat driver we all hate.

“Yeah but I think its fine...” I brushed her off in my usual, overly confident manner.

“But that woman in a construction uniform is waving for us to go the other way.”

“Well,” I say, “You can’t trust everybody,” and keep driving. Only, the road became much more difficult and we kept hitting very, very, large gaps in the cement. This doesn’t seem right, I kept thinking to myself. But I kept my mouth shut.

Soon after we reached a dead end (very close to the hotel, mind you) over a very large, yawning abyss.

Crap.

I saw a man off to the side who was entering a construction site porta-potty—

“Excuse me!” I shouted “Before you go to the bathroom—does this go to that hotel?” (Ok, so clearly it didn’t but I thought I might try my luck). My sisters slunk down in their seats.

“Don’t roll your window down too much!” Desiree warned.

The man shut the port-a-potty door and walked toward our vehicle.

“Oh no, you have to drive around.” He said in a very thick accent and then nodded.

“Where?” I asked.

“Oh you go around to the Industry Street. Turn left and go around and then you will get to that hotel.”

“Ok, great,” I said. “What’s the name of that street?” I pointed to the one we were barred from entering and on which the hotel was located.

“Yes that street.” He said.

“Yes, that street,” I repeated “Right there,” I added as I smiled.

“Yeah that’s a street.” He said again.

“But what street is it?” I asked again.

“Yes the street.”

Okaaaay.

This was going nowhere. I nodded, thanked him, and turned the car around, ignoring the construction woman and her “I told you so” look as we passed the dark hulking building site.

At Industry street there was a wall where he told us to turn left.

Hmm…..problem.

Rather than stressing over this I yanked little Honda (who was overheating just a tad) into a wide street that failed to have very visible lines.

I soon found out I was going against traffic.

As in, straight toward the oncoming traffic.

As in the left lane when I should have been in the much, much, further right lane where everyone else was driving northward.

I may have given Lindsey a heart attack.

I can’t finish this now so I will explain what happened on the rest of the trip at another time. But what I concluded at least on this part of my excursion to the desert in my very interesting and filthy car is this:

Journeys are a lot more worthwhile if they are filled with unexpected, unwanted but laugh-worthy detours.

That sounds like one of those really ugly inspirational posters with a dolphin superimposed onto a gaudy sunset, but I still think it’s true. The trick is learning how to laugh at those detours instead of crying our bloody eyes out.