Midlife Meditation

Check out the horn-rims on those guys. The year was 1975, the place, the First United Methodist Church of Emmett, Idaho. I was in the eighth grade. My father, who was also my pastor, was proudly pinning my God and Country badge on my Scout uniform. He was 48; I was 14. I had just discovered girls, though it would be another nine years before I finally went on a date with one. The boundaries of my world were the walls of a decrepit middle school, a brand-new public library, a tiny manufactured home that was the parsonage, and this church. The parsonage was eventually sold (presumably so the pastor could live in something with room for a family), the school relocated when a new high school made the old high school building available, and the church was eventually torn down, with the congregation buying to a former Church of Christ as they, too, moved to a larger facility. Only the library is as I remember it--though now it is doubtless showing the wear and tear of its forty year...

The worst years of my childhood were spent in Emmett, Idaho. They were my middle school years, difficult for any young person: hormones, uneven growth spurts, voice changes, mood swings, and acne work together to make this the most awkward and least attractive phase in human development. I had all those problems, and more: I was the Methodist preacher’s kid in a Mormon town; I was an utterly un-athletic nerd; I wore thick glasses; I was overweight; and I was an introvert. It was as if my genes had conspired with my circumstances to paint a bright red target on my forehead, and filled my glands with a pheromone uniquely appealing—and enraging—to bullies. I was tormented mercilessly. And I hated it. Moving to Oregon and beginning high school anywhere that wasn’t Emmett was a gift from God. And yet, for all that misery, Emmett was a watershed. I experienced my first adolescent crush in Emmett, to a girl who led me on then cruelly dashed my hopes, laughing at my misery. I discovered ...