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The I Don’t Know Project: How Are They Doing?

Westen is ten years old. He sat with me at our campsite this morning before anyone else got up. We talked generally about what “philosophy” was and I threw out some examples of big questions as I used a dictionary app to make sure I got my terms right.

He came to my bed this evening with his own big questions and big tears in his eyes. He wanted to know why humans were put on Earth. It wasn’t the only thing bothering him. We had an active weekend with some intense moments. He got to see the best and worst of my parenting. I’m sure he was wondering why some humans are taken away sooner than others too.

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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The I Don’t Know Project: Insecurity

How do I wrestle with the insecurities stirred up by dating mistakes and failures?

Grab my sons, and an extra boy or two, and head out for another Zerbey adventure. This weekend we’re camping, spending a day watching vintage beach racing, attending a fine craft festival, and firing new neurons while getting into just the right amount of trouble.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The I Don’t Know Project: Dating

I called it a dance yesterday. I didn’t even half-lament the circumstances that got me here. I was fully enjoying the absurdities and discoveries. And then I found myself being cruel. I didn’t exactly plan it, but I didn’t surprise myself either. I made a public show with an attractive female friend in front of an ex-lover. To what effect? Was I trying to hurt someone I love? It certainly didn’t come from a place of love or compassion. At best it was game-playing, an attitude I had denounced not 10 minutes previous.

I consciously chose to do the wrong thing. I don’t know how to make that right.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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I Don’t Wanna Be Your Dog (or) The I Don’t Know Project: Iggy Pop

There was a night in the hospital, just before I accepted I would never get to speak with Mary again.

I was alone and bargaining and begging for God to save any part of her. Anything. I dreamed of a life always by her side, I would take care of her in a bed, or a wheelchair, whatever, as long as He didn’t take all of her.

I got angry with myself for not accepting what my heart knew was coming.

I put my earbuds in and played Iggy Pop. I don’t know why, but he takes me away, helps me smile at a traffic jam, makes me laugh in the angriest of moments without mocking the anger.

“So messed up, I want you here

In my room, I want you here

Now we’re gonna be face-to-face

And I’ll lay right down in my favorite place

And now I want to be your dog

Now I want to be your dog

Now I want to be your dog

Well, come on

Now I’m ready to close my eyes

And now I’m ready to close my mind

And now I’m ready to feel your hand

And lose my heart on the burning sands

And now I want to be your dog

And now I wanna be your dog

Now I want to be your dog

Well, come on”

-I Wanna Be Your Dog

I cried a lot that night. I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted my Mary, I wanted to be her dog.

Mary didn’t want me to be her dog. There was something in her soul that told her this would happen. There was a reason she chose me to be her husband and the father of her children. She believed in a strength in me that would weather this storm, maybe any storm.

She believed there would be a day like today, when I could sit with a friend and laugh about dating, then cry about what I had lost, then make a joke about crying and get back to laughing.

She believed in my extremes, Rage Against the Machine and Shelby Lynne, slide tackling and slow art, or The Three Stooges and Shakespeare. None of it made sense without all of it.

I feel those extremes more keenly now. They press right to the edge of unbearableness, exhausting me.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The I Don’t Know Project: Soccer

I don’t know how I can feel so good after a physically punishing loss. I watched my team play with all the heart in the world tonight. Down three goals at half time, no one was barking at each other. We knew the mistakes we had made, but we plotted a course to victory. We kept our heads up, found a deeper fight, and believed we could dig our way out of the deficit.

Mary helped me manage the team and knew the players. I’d come home and be able to share with her how proud I was of folks who had been playing longer than me as well as the gal who only took the sport up a few months ago. Mary protected my time for soccer, she knew better than I how important it was for me. She came to most games and always wanted to hear about the ones she missed.

It’s still the only place I can consistently get out of my own head. It holds a magic for me. I was blessed by my grandfather when he brought it into my life and I’ve been blessed by God with the ability to continually play and improve in the sport, while letting it improve me as a man.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The I Don’t Know Project

I’ve been scared to write. I’m experimenting in the present, listening to God, and trusting Him with the future. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if I’m being reckless, or if I’m yet to fully embrace the insane heart of my being.

I’d had an eye to the future since I was ten years old. I wanted a wife and children and a career as a continuity editor for comic books. I got all that (okay, not in the comic industry, but I have put to use the skills I practiced instead of reading the required middle school texts).

I’ve had it all. How would it not be selfish to ask for more future? How would I tempt fate to ask for more blessings?

It could be said that few things are more terrible than losing your wife and the mother of your young sons. But in our years together, the children we shared with the world, and the life we built for ourselves…our dreams came true and we had more than most people get in a lifetime.

I’ve been scared to write. I’m scared this doesn’t make sense or that it sounds like giving up. I’m scared of my tendency to change tenses, like I don’t know if I’m in the past, present, or future.

I’m more scared of knowing than not knowing. So much of what I thought I knew has been dismantled by home education. Seeking truth is a lot harder than assuming you’ve already got it. I KNEW I was Mary’s husband. That was important knowledge, but maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe I got too cozy comfortable in assuming that knowledge, that identity.

I want to be a little braver. I want to spend the next 30 days sharing things I’m learning (like my first kundalini yoga class tonight), but more importantly, sharing the things I don’t know (chakras, for one, or five, or whatever).

I don’t know how to write about the things I don’t know, so this should be an interesting October.

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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Peace is Personal

I’ve been asked to facilitate the Peace Week Delaware & Fall Equinox Labyrinth Walk at Delaware Art Museum, 6:00-7:00pm tonight (https://www.delart.org/event/peace-week-delaware-fall-equinox-labyrinth-walk-2019/).

One year ago was the first time I had walked the Labyrinth on my own. More than discovered, I uncovered a personal peace in that place and in that day. I let living things inside me die and fall away. It became a conscious process of pruning that fall and winter, but on that day I let myself go and be guided by the Holy Spirit and a parade of wonderful souls.

(https://delawaredad.com/2018/09/23/seasonal-changes/)

I no longer long for those things that I have lost. They are harvested bounty, the fruits of a previous season. I don’t wish for peaches in the fall, but savor the sweet moments of summer.

I had a beautiful human holding a light for me through the darkness of fall and winter last year. I cherish the memories of that light and I have begun to hold it for myself.

So the Phoenix Cycle rolls on. The heat of late September burning away the last decorative plumes, turning me to ash to once again fertilize the ground and prepare for rebirth.

Please join me tonight for the chance to act out your own self-discovery journey.

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