We have set ourselves apart in the animal kingdom, not because of our phobias, but because we have dared to set a moral standard and even codify it with laws. Fear will not bring us to higher moral ground, and name-calling will not win an argument. If we want to rise above the behavior of animals, we must engage in legitimate moral debate, because after all, deciding individually or collectively if a sexual practice is acceptable is a moral judgment, not a phobia.

I noticed the small orange fuel light when I dropped my daughter off at school, but I couldn’t remember if it was on when I left the house. My son had been driving the truck for the past three days. Did he see the light come on? Why didn’t he put gas in it? Since my appointment was only a few miles away, and I assumed he light had just come on, I decided to press on to my appointment and stop at a convenient gas station along the way.

About half way there, I passed an old van stalled on the side of the road. The driver was putting gas into the vehicle with a bright red gas can. We made eye contact as I passed - like a bad omen of things to come. The tiny orange fuel light suddenly looked like a flashing neon sign.

I was almost there. I could see the gas station – a hundred yards to go. Sputter. No! Cough. Just a little further! Jerk. Aw crap! My truck ran out of gas. I whipped into an adjacent parking lot. The sign from the gas station taunted and laughed at me.

I took a deep breath and kept my cool. I called my appointment and told them I would be late. I grabbed my phone and wallet and walked to the gas station. Ten minutes later I was back at the truck with two gallons of gas in a bright red container and a half-drank forty-four ounce soda. I was cool as a cucumber.

After pouring the gas into the tank, I wiped my hands and slipped behind the wheel. I took a sip from the soda and turned the key. The starter kicked in and the motor turned over and over. Nothing. I paused and thought for a moment. Oh yeah, prime the pump. I turned on the key, waited a few seconds, and then energized the starter. The truck sputtered a moment and then droned through the motions of trying to start. I took a sip of my soda and try to stay calm and cool. I repeated the process. It started for a moment and then died again. I took another sip. It was getting warm. I was starting to sweat.

I tried for twenty more minutes. All I could get was a sputtering start, a rough idle, or the moan of a turning motor that isn’t firing. I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. I wiped my forehead and called my son’s cell phone. He didn’t answer. He was still sleeping. I tried the truck again. Nothing. I called the house. No answer. I called my other son. He answered.

“Go wake up your brother and tell him to answer his dang phone!” I said.

A moment later we were talking.

“When did the gas light come on in the truck?” I asked.

“I don’t know… Sometime yesterday I guess,” he answered.

“When you saw the gas getting low why didn’t you put gas in the truck? You have a credit card.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that the light was on?” (I was looking for any excuse to shift at least some of the blame.)

“Sorry.”

“Okay, I need you to get up, grab another gas can from the shed, fill it with gas, and come help me.” I heard a long sigh.

“Okay.”

I hung up and said a short prayer. I prayed that the truck would start. I prayed that I wouldn’t blow a gasket of my own.

I tried the truck again. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I tried again, and all of a sudden, it started!

I called my son and told him he could go back to bed, and went on to my appointment. After my appointment the truck started right up. I went straight to the gas station and filled up. The truck started right up. I went to the bank. The truck wouldn’t start.

I tried to keep my cool, but the soda cup was empty. My frustration was reaching a fever pitch. After multiple attempts the truck finally started again. I roared out of the parking lot and merged onto the nearest freeway. I floored it and soon reached speeds in excess of the posted limit. When I was certain that the fuel problem was resolved, I headed home and nosed into the garage. I turned off the truck, and then tried to start it again - Nothing but a sputter.

When I walked into the house hot and bothered, my wife tried to console me, but I would have no consolation. A week earlier the air conditioning went out on our van. Out of the three vehicles I owned only one was working properly at that moment.

They used to hang horse thieves, and now I understood why. When you mess with a man’s transportation, they get testy and mean.

I wolfed down a lunch and did a couple of internet searches. I called a mechanic buddy of mine. The truck displayed all the symptoms of a bad fuel pump. Of course automotive engineers in their infinite wisdom place fuel pumps in the fuel tanks these days. Changing them requires dropping the fuel tank or lifting off the truck bed – neither of which excited me. It was all an evil plot to coerce me into taking the truck to the dealership so they could suck the dollars out of my pockets.

My calendar was full for the next day or so and I let the truck sit in the garage and drove our van with the broken air conditioner. I did try and start it a few times, but each time I got the same sputtering result. My wife put out a cry for help on Facebook asking if anyone wanted to help fix the truck in exchange for buddy passes. Our friend and neighbor, Geoff, said he could do it, but he wanted to make sure it was the fuel pump before we tore into the truck. He sent me a link from a forum discussing a recalled relay that could often show the same symptoms as a bad fuel pump.

Driving without air conditioning in the Phoenix summer heat can cause brain damage. It was time to get my transportation troubles solved. We decided to trade in the broken van, and I was going to diagnose the truck problem or haul it to the shop.

The next day we started early. First stop was the Nissan dealership. They could replace the recalled relay if I brought the truck into the shop, but they wouldn’t sell me the relay because of the recall. I was reluctant to bring it in until I knew it was the relay and not the pump – catch 22. We test drove some really nice vehicles, met the salespeople (not pushy thank goodness), and moved on to other dealerships.

We went through the usual suspects – Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Volkswagen. In the modern information age most car salespeople are friendly, but no too pushy. They know that you are armed with a lot of information. The Volkswagen sales guy was the only old-school, what-can-I-do-to-get-you-in-a-car-today pushy type. We drove by the GM and Ford dealerships, but we just waved. By the afternoon we were sick of sales pitches, sticker prices, and standing in the sun and drove home without a new car.

After we got home I headed for the parts store and bought a repair book and a fuel pressure tester. Following the instructions, I removed the engine cover and found the “quick connect” fitting where I was supposed to attach the fuel pressure tester. The only problem was that it was a “quick connect” not a “quick disconnect” and I couldn’t get the thing to come off to save my life.

After multiple attempts and several Youtube videos explaining how to disconnect a fuel line “quick connect” fitting, I called another my neighbor Charlie that likes to work on old cars. He came over and together we tried to get the fitting to disengage without success. He remembered hearing that if the line still has pressure, it won’t be easy to disconnect. So we both listened for the sound of the fuel pump priming when we turned on the truck. Sure enough, we heard the small whine of the pump coming to life. At that point it was late, I was hot, and my brain was mush. We pushed the truck back into the garage and I called it a night.

Just before I went to bed I read the link Geoff sent me one more time. I had missed a step. There was a workaround to determine if the problem was the relay or the fuel pump. I knew that the next morning I would get one more shot at diagnosing the problem before calling the tow truck.

I got up the next morning and went for a run. I needed some endorphins. When I got back I swapped two relays as instructed by the workaround solution. I kissed the steering wheel for luck and turned the key. The truck started right up! I danced a jig to the sound of a Nissan Titan motor running like a top. My transportation troubles were over!

My wife interrupted my celebration. “Honey, can we go to the Mazda dealership before you go to work this morning?”

By the time I took off from Phoenix that afternoon, she had traded in our van and closed the deal on a new Mazda CX-9. I was just glad that my temporary transportation troubles were over, for now.

I didn’t want to go to Lake Powell. I wasn’t against spending a week on a houseboat with family and friends on one of the most striking bodies of water in the United States. I wasn’t against spending all day boating and playing in the water, or passing the cool evenings on the upper deck watching amazing sunsets while I ate barbecued chicken. I didn’t mind passing the night hours gazing up at the brilliant stars. I thought I didn’t want to go because of all the hassles of making the trip, but the journey revealed a deeper motivation.

Life can be a hassle. Money woes, health problems, family disturbances, and a host of other hassles can make your life miserable. The trail of life is a long slog of ups that elevate your perspective, to downs that blind your view. Although everyone’s road is different, no one’s road is easy all the time. In fact, I would argue that the more difficult roads could be the best roads. Lately my road has taken an unnatural emotional dip.

The night before we left I wasn’t feeling well – emotionally or physically. I went to bed stressed and angry, and my anger kept me in lugubrious darkness all night long. I can’t say if I slept or hallucinated. I passed the night in and out of a psychedelic dreams, and none of them were pleasant. I felt like I was drowning in strangeness and swimming in a drunken stupor. I don’t know if I really slept at all.

When my wife’s alarm went off at five thirty, I was already wide-awake. I lay there listening to her brush her teeth wondering if I would get out of bed or pull the covers over my head and hide. I didn’t move for twenty minutes.

I got out of bed.

Several hours later we were loading our things onto a houseboat on Lake Powell. We loaded up with food, fuel, and water toys (including two boats and a wave runner) and spent the night in the marina. The next morning we headed out into the channel and went in search of spot to anchor the boat for the next week.

I have flown over Lake Powell hundreds of times. From several miles in the air I have looked down on its blue water extended into the red and brown deserts of southern Utah and northern Arizona like the long fingers of some freakish hand. Sometimes my view was so good that I could see the wake made by moving boats and wondered what it was like out on the water. Now I know.

Lake Powell is like an ocean in the desert. It is mammoth in size, but it isn’t the size that impresses, it is the contrast. The water laps up against towering cliffs of red sandstone that look like they been hand carved by God himself in a moment of artistic fervor. Enormous buttes rise up from the water like nature’s cathedrals. I’m sure that the canyons of carved sandstone were spectacular before the lake was filled, but man has enhanced the beauty God created with the creation of the lake. The blue-green water pops against the various hues of reds and browns.

Describing the view as picturesque would be like describing the Mona Lisa as a painting. Even in a houseboat that will sleep twenty people, I felt small compared to the vastness of that ocean in the desert.

My wounds from Disney World have finally healed. I scraped the skin off the last two knuckles of my left hand on the rough plaster of the lazy river at Typhoon Lagoon. It didn’t hurt too much, but it bled more than I wanted it to, and it took its sweet time to heal. Every time I saw the two circular scabs I remembered the incident. Every time I rubbed my fingers over the wounds, I felt the rough plaster ripping the skin off of those knuckles again. I relived the moment over and over again for more than a month.

I have other wounds that took years to heal, and although they aren’t as visible as the two circular scars on my left hand, they have impacted me and made me who I am. Some of those wounds were at the hands of strangers. Some, I came by because of friends. Others happened because of family members. I’m sure I caused a lot of them myself.

Just like Disney World, homes are supposed to be the happiest place on earth, but sometimes we get wounded in otherwise happy places. We long for a home environment akin to the Beaver Cleaver’s house, but it can sometimes end up more like the Simpson’s. Families are messy things full of passion and hope. The walls of our home become guardians of both happy celebrations, and ominous secrets.

Five years ago today the adoption of two of our daughters was finalized. They came to us unaware of the scars that had been inflicted on them. They came to us with a subconscious full of painful memories and flashes of love. We have struggled to heal the wounds. We have worked to help them understand their past whenever we could. We have encouraged them to let go of the pain and forgive. Adopting them is the hardest thing I have ever done.

They say you will never be truly successful until you can forgive your parents. Maybe you can never be truly successful until you forgive yourself as a parent. It’s not that you want to do damage to your kids. You want to raise them right. You want to enable them to succeed. You want to empower them and prepare them to go forth in the world and be happy productive adults. The only problem is that you are probably still trying to figure that out yourself. So, the end result is that you imprint your own fears, shortcomings, and weaknesses onto the very beings that you want most to protect, and the cycle starts all over again.

After five years our daughters still have an accent. The still say things that give away the fact that English is not their primary language. They will always be a product of their environment to a certain degree, but that doesn’t mean that their environment will determine their destiny. They, like all of us, have to make a choice at some point. We have to decide to quit blaming our parents and take responsibility for who we are.

I had wonderful parents who did the best they knew how at raising me, but they weren’t perfect. I am doing the best I know how for my kids. The truth is that sometimes our best isn’t good enough. Like wounds inflicted at Disney World, I leave psychological scars on my children. When I recognize that I have wounded them, it leaves even deeper scars on me.

I know some homes are truly hell on earth, but most homes are happy places where we have suffered from time to time. We get scrapes, bruises, and the occasional broken bone, but for most part we laugh and love one another. We occasionally raise our voices and shout hurtful things that we don’t mean, but most days we hear kind encouragement and soothing support.

The best place to learn forgiveness is at home. The pain is raw. The emotion of the moment is heightened by the proximity of the perpetrator. The memory is a lingering reminder that sits with us at every meal and plops itself onto the couch during our favorite TV show. We run our fingers over the wound and relive the moment of injury all over again. When we can learn to forgive in that environment, we can learn to forgive anywhere.

My wounds from Disney World have finally healed. They didn’t leave any permanent damage. I hope that my children won’t suffer permanent damage because of my incompetence and shortcomings as a parent and a human being. I pray that they will forgive me for scarring them with my idiosyncratic, and sometimes boorish, behavior. Maybe I will even be able to forgive myself for not ensuring that our home was the happiest place on earth, all of the time.

Oh, by the way… today is also my Mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! Thanks for warping me into who I am.

Recently the town council of Eugene, Oregon, faced a difficult and controversial vote. They struggled with a divisive proposal that threatened to incite the community and tear the council apart. One of the council members proposed that they say the Pledge of Allegiance before each council meeting.

Huh?

A few years ago I spent some time in Russia, part of the former Soviet Union. As an Air Force pilot in the European Theater I figured I might go there someday, but it wasn’t like I anticipated. I flew into the country as a passenger on an Aeroflot airliner, not as a combat pilot in the A-10. My wife and I made the trip to adopt the two girls that we have called daughters for almost five years now. Traveling into former enemy territory to adopt children is an eye-opening experience to say the least.

I found a land still reeling from the lingering effects of socialism and communism that barely operated at a level above the third world, and in some cases definitely performed below third-world standards. I saw the collectives, large utilitarian apartment buildings with crumbling facades. I traveled on roads in such need of repair that I was sure that the richest man is town had to be the mechanic that sold and replaced shocks and struts. I shopped in poorly stocked grocery stores with scarce and sometimes rotting produce. The experience reminded me of some of the South American villages I had seen. It certainly didn’t feel like I was visiting a former world power.

The most dominating relic of the communist reign was the over bloated bureaucracy everywhere we went. We spent hours in dimly lit hallways waiting for our turn in front of some obscure official just so we could get the rubber stamp and go on to the next official. We would enter agencies with our facilitator and find a jumbled mass of humanity waiting for a rubber stamp – no lines really, just a huddled mass of confused and bureaucracy-weary patrons with hollow eyes. A door would open and someone would press forward into the office, and then the door would close to a collective groan. As an outside observer the whole process appeared to be more like the Keystone Cops routine than a functioning government. I longed for the organization of the Department of Motor Vehicles with their please-take-a-number system.

The most notable cultural difference in the process was the lack of humor. No smiles. No friendly banter. No chuckling at whispered jokes. Russians frown on (literally) too much public frivolity. I surmised that it must stem from years of oppression. Why highlight yourself by smiling or laughing if you know they can haul you away in the middle of the night without just cause? Although public displays of happiness are taboo, Russians are very friendly and personable, one on one.

Through all of this I saw a light. Capitalism had taken hold, and it was growing. In Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and even smaller Petrozavodsk, modern stores were popping up. Small businesses seemed to be thriving. Technology was becoming the rage. Women’s fashion (a sure sign of coming prosperity) was a booming business. Economic freedom was invading deep into the heart of the former Soviet Union and setting up shop.

After several long weeks, the appropriate number of rubber stamps on our paperwork, and several thousand dollars (yes, new unfolded twenties and hundreds), we were going home with our two new daughters. We had one last bureaucratic visit – the American Embassy in Moscow. After passing the Marines at the front door, we found a slice of Americana. People smiled and laughed. The process was streamlined and organized. We even took numbers and waited to be called. We didn’t need a facilitator to grease palms so we could move past the mob. It was a welcomed sight.

When we touched down in Los Angeles I wanted to cry, but it wasn’t because of the smog. We were back in the USA! A black woman in a uniform smiled at us as we approached passport control. She chatted with us about our trip. She made jokes with the girls and tried to make them laugh (even though they didn’t understand). When she finished reviewing our packet of paperwork she took us over to another desk with three men behind it – an Asian, a Latino, and an All-American Anglo. They laughed and joked with one another. They teased each other. They helped each other.

I smiled and started to cry. “Can I tell how good it is to be back in the USA?” I said.

I explained that I thought they were the epitome of what this great nation stands for. Each of them came from different ethnic backgrounds and different cultural viewpoints, yet they worked together without evident problems. They laughed and joked with one another. They were efficient and professional. Their diversity was a strength, not a weakness. They carried themselves like a free people unafraid of despots and tyrants. To this day I still get choked up at the contrast between a free people and those suffering from the effects of long-term oppression.

In the end the City of Eugene, Oregon, compromised. They decided to say the Pledge of Allegiance four times a year at the meetings closest to four national holidays. Their courage and patriotism is underwhelming.

I am glad I live in a country where a city council can decide against saying the pledge, or pass resolutions that are intended to undermine federal policy without fear of the gulag. I will shed blood to protect those principles of the Constitution that afford us those freedoms.

BUT I have no respect for citizens so ignorant to the greatness of this nation and its founding principles that they have to debate whether or not to say the Pledge of Allegiance at an official government meeting.

Maybe we should start a fund to educate them. I even have a name for it – One-Way Tickets to Tyranny Ville. Maybe a few weeks in the former Soviet Russia or a month in Cuba would bring them a new perspective. They can pay for their own way back. Enjoy the trip.