Category: Z3 Adventures

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Walking the Walk in Christ’s Footsteps

Energy. My wife and I could feel it the first time we visited Aldersgate United Methodist Church. From potluck dinners and member-led Bible studies to food drives and homeless outreach missions to the countless efforts being made by the clergy and congregation, we felt that this was an active faith community. It was a community where our talents could come to use.

Mary was always a giver, volunteering at Ronald McDonald House and Sunday Breakfast Mission, organizing many service opportunities through her position at Bank of America, and donating blood to award-winning levels.

I’ve modestly continued her amazing ways by saying “Yes,” as often as I can to chances to serve our community. Fortunately, Aldersgate offers many such opportunities.

This week we were able to help deliver canned food and monetary donations to several local charities, including Neighborhood House in the Southbridge neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware.

For me, there is no separation between “acts” and “love.” We must act, there is no choice. We choose to love. When we choose love in every possible moment we will act in love.

Mary chose love. She acted in love. Through Aldersgate I not only get to act in love, but I get to visit Mary’s resting place while doing so. Her remains are at the memorial columbarium there, a beautiful, quiet place I often visit and share with friends.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Adventures in Lego

February has been a big Lego month in our house since we started attending and competing in the Kalmar Nyckel’s Lego Shipbuilding Day a few years ago.

Not only will we be building an original, nautically-themed piece, but we’ll also be participating in Delaware Fun-A-Day by creating Lego sculptures every day in February.

From preparation, to brain-storming, to records of failure, to inspired success, I’ll be logging our journey here.

Today was an unoffcial kickoff with a trip to Legoland Discovery Center Philadelphia.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Rock ‘N’ Roll With Me

David Bowie has been playing on life’s jukebox since the Labyrinth’s Fire Gang gave my eight-year-old self nightmares.

By high school I was hanging out with the drama kids, singing “Magic Dance.” I was also in Poetry Club writing my own versions of Nine Inch Nails’ songs, so when Bowie toured with NIN in ’95, I was there. “The Hearts Filthy Lesson,” had just hit MTV and it was intensely dark. I put on some sort of black t-shirt and made my way to a muddy hill in a Camden, NJ, amphitheater.

At 16, I had no appreciation for the moment or the performances. The hill had turned into a slip ‘n slide and I was goofing with the goths. Fortunately, I had my head in the right place for NIN and Bowie playing “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” together. That, I will never forget (nor the dirt-covered goth girl who pinned me down for a kiss at the bottom of a wicked slide).

I went on to see him at the Roseland in NYC (a show just for BowieNet subscribers), Moby’s Area2 festival (there was a cosplay Jared, but still no Labyrinth tunes performed), and the Tower Theater in Philly (the closing lyric, “Ziggy played guitar…” still holds on to my auditory nerve center).

Bowie had virtually quit touring when I met Mary. We were at Lollapalooza in Chicago when The Raconteurs revived a lackluster set by playing “It Ain’t Easy.”

I was mostly hands-off when it came to wedding plans, but I had a couple requests. One, that her dress show off her “shoulders and boobs” (direct quote). Two, that “Rock ‘N’ Roll With Me” be our song.

—

“Oh, when you rock and roll with me

There’s no one else I’d rather be

Nobody here can do it for me

When you rock and roll with me

When you rock and roll, when you rock and roll with me

No one else I’d rather, I’d rather be

Nobody here can do it for me

I’m in tears, I’m in tears

When you rock and roll with me”

—

For a marriage that involved so few tears, yet lead to so many, this song has come to mean almost too much.

Today I reflect on “Nobody here can do it for me.” I’ve learned the truth that self-love is a connection with the internal divine. There is an infinite engine of Love. I call it God. You can glimpse it in others, feel the radiance of it, but direct access is found only inside one’s own soul. Only once you’ve done that can you really share in the warmth of another’s love.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Bad Poop Happens, But Good Poop Happens Too

I’m not sure if I’d seen this picture before yesterday. I am sure I didn’t see Isaac’s arms wrapped as far around Michael Franti as he could manage. I didn’t see Franti’s hand pulling him in to soak up the love. Nor Franti’s smile as he reached out to share more love with our new friends.

My late wife, Mary, adored Franti. She was there in that moment. The hat was from her costume box and Isaac’s arms are full of her love. Now I see Franti’s bandana, a favorite Mary accessory on cleaning or camping days, in her favorite color.

Just a couple hours earlier I had channelled Mary’s bravada to sneak us into a VIP performance by Franti. We “owned it,” as she would say, and sat right in front of a small stage as credentials were checked and folks were ushered out. Franti talked about how his father had healed after years, likely generations, of trauma. We shared in the healing. These joyous, adventurous, wild moments always push up against our pain. It can feel like poison in a happy place, but I’ve learned that the dark colors spill into the bright ones to complete the spectrum, to make us more whole than before. The rainbow needs blue, indigo, and violet. It also needs all those unseen light waves, the ones that affect our world outside of our perception.

Mountain Jam was bigger than Mary, the circumstances, or our own exploits. God put innumerable pieces together for us and we bathed in blessings.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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In This Moment

This is the wilderness part of the story.

I’m here with the sunrise. A thin fog charges, swirls, and glides over the surface of Nummy Lake. Constantly transforming, at times frantic and chaotic, at times unified and sweeping.

I thought I was waking for a show in the sky, but the air just over this water is right here with me. A symphony of silent movement. The wind picks up and tiny ripples catch the sunlight, thinning the fog as the morning warms.

I am right where I am supposed to be.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Totally Radical Dudes

When we were dating, Mary and I dreamed of a traditional, conservative life together. A life separate from the excesses, risk taking, and troublemaking of our how-did-we-survive(?) youths.

We planned a safe life, a modest family, and a secure marriage. Our sons undercut our plans, bringing a love into our lives that emboldened our true natures. I became the never-stay-at-home dad. We became homeschoolers, then unschoolers, joining the wildest ranks of a minority community.

I struck the match on many of those shifts, but Mary always took my hand and eased it toward the tinder to light the fire. She was a master fire builder.

Then she died.

At that moment, as she rose to Heaven, love poured down. That love was radical. I was filled with it and pointed out at adventure: a music festival, a road trip, museums, strangers, Shakespeare, and an RV in a ditch on a mountain in West Virginia. It took three months to start that trip, but it was immediate, inevitable, and unstoppable. I may have just as easily stepped through the hospital window into it. We picked up hitchhikers, danced atop rock faces, lost our gear, chased a full moon, and crossed paths with bears.

Mary chose a wild man to raise her children. I thought she had tamed me…mostly. She had done the opposite, cultivating and encouraging a confident independence aimed at loving myself, our sons, friends, family, and as many people as I could meet.

I’ve taken up that torch to simultaneously feed the flames of love and burn away the waste of fear.

I sat down tonight to share a memory of Mary, to make forgetting a little more difficult. I found a legacy that spans all the stories. It’s the narrative of a loving radical who knew she was unchaining three untamable beasts from fear to spread love in the world.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Adventuring with Delaware Nature Society

I’ve been attending programs at Delaware Nature Society (DNS) since before my younger son could walk. I used to spend the morning at Delaware Children’s Museum, wagon the boys down to DuPont Environmental Education Center (DEEC), and explore the marsh with a dip-netting program. I can’t remember how many times I hosed them down after getting the muddy water over their galoshes.

Those were the days when I learned I had a couple dynamos on my hands. After hours of play and exploration, we would have a packed lunch under the owl in the courtyard and a couple more hours before their mom would be home. Sometimes Mary would steal way and meet us there, but she usually opted to get home a little early to have more time with us there. We’d bird watch, jump from rock to rock, or head to Delaware Contemporary to escape the elements.

Eight years later we still love to visit DEEC. Whether it’s for biking, hiking, a summer camp, or our latest excursion: canoeing.

The day was perfectly overcast for a family-paced exploration of the Christina River at high tide. We spent three hours learning about the grasses, mammals, and birds that inhabit the watershed. A highlight was getting to watch an osprey’s hunting ritual.

I still have a couple of dynamos. After canoeing we spent time at a park and got ourselves ready for another DNS program at Ashland Nature Center. The clouds didn’t break, so our full moon hike was moonless, but it proved to be a wonderful evening of spotting bats, toads, and a red squirrel. We closed the evening with a fire by the Red Clay Creek and s’mores, because summer still has a good week to provide.

I’m so grateful for the countless adventures our DNS membership has afforded us over the years. From preschool and homeschool to family and adult to hiking and cooking, we’ve sampled just about every kind of program. Soon the boys will be old enough to try out one of the more ambitious ecotours and we’ll be real DNS veterans.

We look forward to celebrating the 10th anniversary of DEEC on Sunday, October 13th.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The Adventure Comes Home To Roost

Two weeks ago I was presented with the idea of being on TV with my sons to build a tiny, off-grid house in Texas. Like a rising wave, it quickly grew into building a magical, off-grid dwelling in the Australian bush.

I dove in. My sons dove in. It felt right. We started watching shows, videos, and documentaries. I looked at available land, reached out to Australian relatives and home educators to start building a community ahead of the abode, and had serious conversations with smart people about making it happen.

The challenges got daunting, so I went public on FB to find support and give myself more pressure to make it happen. I truly believed I should do all I could to make this adventure a reality.

We got to the interview process and my sons did wonderfully. They pointed out to me that I repeatedly forgot the coaching and instructions of the casting producer, but I thought it went well.

News was slow to come after the interview and doubts and questions about the project arose. I wasn’t shy about going to Australia. In fact, I had promised the boys that we would go whether the show wanted us or not. Ultimately, it wasn’t the actual questions that moved my heart, but that many answers would depend entirely on other people. Since I lost my wife, my greatest joy and burden has been answering questions and going on adventures (and doing most other things) as a single parent. The boys get a lot of say, but there’s no doubt that responsibility, blame, and credit all come back to me.

I wasn’t ready to relinquish my instincts to someone else’s priorities. I started secretly hoping the opportunity wouldn’t materialize, that I wouldn’t have to carry the burden this time.

During my late nights of research and worry, I started dreaming about my heart lying deep under reality, as if I had forgotten about it. This morning I woke with anxiety and determined to spend time in prayer to let the answer in to wash away my cluttered thoughts. I planned to go to a yoga class to clear my mind and then visit Mary’s resting place. I wasn’t going to get through another day without clarity.

The intention was enough. Before I got out my front door I had my answer. We adventure every day, these two weeks made those possibilities broader and grander, and I’ve got my own deep well of trails to blaze. My heart thanked me for listening and my body got lighter.

I don’t feel good about letting down the casting producer. Diona Vaughan of Aberrant Creative was amazingly supportive and I believe she was fighting for us to be a part of this project. She was sweet to me and the boys about Mary and shepherding rookies through the process. Letting her down was the last, and possibly hardest, hurdle for me to cross to decide not to move forward.

I do feel good about the world map still lain out on the floor. We actively look at the world as a set of seemingly limitless opportunities. In spite of this adventure not taking flight, our sights are set higher and our world has gotten a bigger.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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It Ain’t Easy: Voluntarism

Honoring my sons as individuals can be my biggest struggle. Providing for their needs, desires, and opportunities gives me a lot of power over their existence. Not exercising that power as a single dad is an extra fight. Mary and I would check each other if we found the other bribing, manipulating, or strong arming. Now I’ve got to observe myself and self evaluate, sometimes on the fly. It’s taught me a lot about myself and exposed the subtle, and less-than-subtle, engineering I try to impose on their lives.

My (possessive language is an obstacle to individuality) younger son, Isaac, is a moving target. He always says “yes” to trying something new. At the Milton Farmer’s Market, he borrowed a couple dollars from his aunt and bounded over to get himself freshly shucked oysters from Johnson Bay Oyster Company. The follow through gets trickier. The oyster slid easily into his mouth…pause…I encourage, “Swallow! Go for it! Get it down!”…the exit wasn’t graceful.

When the chance to try BMX racing arose, both sons were all in. After practicing around the hilly track and observing the more experienced racers, Isaac was not interested in competing. I was convinced that he would enjoy himself and be proud of overcoming his fear, but I stressed that it was his choice and it would be fine not to race. Kim, First State BMX‘s finest representative, helped by enticing with a guaranteed trophy in the novice division. I could see Isaac retreat from an automatic reward, but I explained it would be earned by taking on a new and scary endeavor with courage. As an official Jiu-Jitsu Dad, I went for it, “This is your chance to earn your white belt.”

At Elevated Studios, new students have to earn their first belt by participating in a class. I was mildly chagrined at pulling out the big persuasion guns, but he jammed that helmet back on and went to practice on the starting gate.

Through three heats I watched him grow from awkward to, well, still awkward, but confidently so. Confidently awkward is one of our sweet spots.

Isaac was the last one off the track, bringing to mind one of his mom’s favorite bands:

“The arena is empty except for one man
Still driving and striving as fast as he can
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up
And long ago somebody left with the cup
But he’s driving and striving and hugging the turns”

-Cake, “The Distance”

Voluntarism is a dance, often with ourselves. Sometimes we need someone to choose the song or nudge us onto the dance floor. I can make all the mistakes, music up too high or shoving instead of nudging.

Increasingly, I find the ways to create options and encourage the follow through.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Friends at Fortify

We enjoyed perfect August weather at Fort DuPont today for the Fortify Festival and saw lots of friends.

There were old friends who knew me in the years before I met Mary, friends who have only known me as a widower, and a brand new, beautiful spirit of a friend.

I hadn’t planned on attending today as new adventures quickly approach, but a series of events led me to Delaware City today to be with special people.

We played, danced, hula hooped, stretched out, ran races, kicked around, and made the best of every moment. No time was wasted as the adults told inappropriate stories when the children ran off and took turns joining in on their games.

Dirty, tired, and full of shaved ice, we’re all ready for sweet dreams.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason