Propinquity Press

It is so easy to grow up in our world and never really understand how different ours is from other peoples experiences. How could we ever know unless we got the chance to experience those other worlds. Eventually, however, most of us end up getting glimpses of other people's understanding of God, religion or even culture. As my friend group expanded and I had the chance to learn that other people's churches and faith teachings seemed so different from the way I was taught in my home church on Davis Street in Ottumwa Iowa, I began to ask that basic question, "Why do I believe the way I do about God?" With in this story I reveal two things, 1. As a Member of the little known faith movement called "The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)", I was taught that God was more about love than fear and judgement and 2. Why I hate, I mean really hate, hot chocolate!

This was my first attempt to tell a story about my mother's life and her effect on mine. It is told in more of documentary style but it is worth a listen. It is one of my older stories first released in the book, "Imperfect Stories: Memories from Holt Street."

Before I really knew what my life would become, just as I was finishing up my junior year in college, I traveled to the remote western rainforest of Brazil. I spent 5 weeks with a community of people and in a place, "a living room" as different from the one I was first taught about what was important in life as possible. Now when I look back on it and experience the world of today, I wish - no I hope that people could learn to see the common elements between each other. I guess what I really desire is that people would connect their experience/living rooms with the people they see as most different from themselves. My favorite word and the name of this podcast plays underneath this story ; Propinquity: The necessity of close proximity for relationships and trust to begin.

In a small neighborhood in Ottumwa Iowa, my younger self learned the transformative power that happens when people (his child neighborhood friends) focus on a lot in between. A metaphor based on a real experience that started with the irrational act of mowing an abandon lot, knowing that it would not, could not last beyond that one summer. This became a core experience as to how the world is often transformed through acts of collaborative propinquity in the midst of a world that constantly promotes division and selfish individualism.

I wrote this story about the life and eventual death of my sister, during one of the most difficult and imbalanced moments of my life. I sat in a church parking lot, having arrived an hour too early for the meeting, and in the midst of my own confusion for the direction of my life, this story possessed my heart and soul. In one hour, I wrote it all down and cried until I laugh as my sister seemed to sit with me again and bring my back into life balance. Perhaps this is just the story you need to hear at this moment? If so, my you find tears of laughter.

This story is about the rules we learn early in our life through our games on playgrounds that eventually become the divisions in the wider society we live in as adults. Here is an excerpt: Elementary playgrounds are not as innocent as they are often imagined to be. It was there among the multi-colored slides and merry-go-rounds that I learned how to accept, judge, compare, stereotype, forgive and even fear other human beings. It was at recess, twice a day, that I experienced human behavior at its absolute best. It was also there, running back and forth on the blacktop, that I discovered the worst of what we can be when we allow our differences to drive us apart. Things we learn in elementary school are often the most lasting because they occur long before we perceive we are making choices about who we are or who we are going to be. Our understandings of the rules of the wider society seep deep into our consciousness in the midst of play and therefore, sidestep our normal internal alarms and suspicions. These ways of, and rules for, treating other people don’t seem so important or serious because they are just part of playing a game.

Sometimes the people we meet early on in our life stay with us as we experience the rest of our life. We were never a large group of church friends and perhaps the fact that our numbers rarely exceeded a dozen, made those days together even more memorable and worthy of a story. With all groups of people who grow up together, some drifted away and others joined us later in our adventures. However, most of those who, in church language, shared in cookie communion together in that nursery, were still there when it came time to be released into the wider world following our graduation from high school.

I learned early that moving from one world to the next, from one phase of life to the next part of the life journey was difficult but well worth the effort. I believe I hid this story of how my days in seminary began for two possible reasons. One, I was a little ashamed of being so poor and being from a culture that was more worried that I might learn strange things in seminary, rather than seeing anything odd about driving a little mattress flying car across the country. I did not want people to see me as Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies show. However, two, I think part of my reason for not mentioning all the events that nearly prevented me from making my way to the next phase of my life, was because in the wonderful culture I grew up in, this was simply just another day of finding my way in the world.

Our world changed... and perhaps with it, so all of us has too. I hope for a world where the differences we have with one another do not encourage the harm and threat of those we deem to be different. I am just storyteller and simply offer this story of a long time ago that took place on an island that looked like a turkey.During the days when I was privileged to see the world through the eyes of my youth, I remember knowing that my friends were both Democrats and Republicans, they were Baptists and Catholics and even an atheist, if my memory is true. I knew some were liberal and others conservative, but those terms seemed secondary and only served as descriptors to our diversity and not impediments to our friendship. I miss that island! I loved that place for all the things it allowed me to become back then. My love for that island is not the kind that would compel me to give up my future travels just to go back for one more visit. In fact, it was my time on that island with my friends in the Turkey Island Gang that taught me to take risks and walk down lots of other paths to other uncertain possibilities, even if I often had to mow those paths myself. I will always love that island for the way it pushed me to explore other places!

I owe a lot to my grandfather for the person I have become. When I was young, I saw him as nothing short of a superhero with amazing powers to make his and other's lives better. What I did not then, but learned later, is that he really was a hero who saved the lives of millions during World War II. He and so many of that generation fought against evil in this world unleashed by Adolph Hitler. He was one of those soldiers who first came upon the concentration camp at Dachau. The interesting thing is that my grandfather chose never to speak of his time during war, I share it here, in part, because he and so many others deserve to known as hero's. We need more of them in our world.

Its interesting how our childhood experiences can live underneath our adult lives. Sometimes the effects are positive while other times these memories cause us to fear and mistrust ourselves and others. Even worse, most of the time, human beings are completely unaware of the way these events impact our adult life. As a therapist, my wife often helps me understand how our "Childhood Self" can manifest in our reactions to others and situations. This can occur through our fears, anxiety, need to protect, shame and even perhaps in my mother's case, the need to move the living room furniture every week. My mother never had the resources to visit a counselor to explore these manifestations in her life, instead she just had a son who loved to tell stories to make some meaning out of those moments. If you have a few "Secret Messages" showing up in your life, please seek out a counselor to help you decipher these message into something positive.

A short story about a father, my father, passing on the wisdom to live life in such a way that we do not let our souls become too old. Stories of death and dying are not easy shared or really common between a father and son but my father was anything common. I am thankful for his words to me or at least the way the words landed on this storytellers heart.

My grandmother was one of my greatest faith mentors partly because she had seen the worst of what church could be and still managed to believe in God. Her life was harsh and difficult for a woman who chose to divorce her abusive husband in the 1940s and though she found very little grace and love from the church, she live a life in which she both gave and received joyful redemption to and from others. This story includes a few details surround my uncle Ronnie who struggled to find happiness in this world but in the end at least found some healing at the end of his life through my grandmother, his mother. This story is one I often tell from many directions, for many different audiences while making sure the truth of the story never changes.... However, this particular telling is closer to the real, raw and difficult details of why my grandmother taught me how to always find a way to give grace and accept for yourself as well. Some wounds that we experience in our childhood can never be fully healed but if my grandmother was even a little correct, its still worth trying to find a new story.

This episode is a series of 3 stories that take place during my first year at Culver-Stockton College. As human beings, we experience a lot of pressure to remain in the familiar worlds in which we grow up. Sometimes those forces come from within and other times we experience extreme pushback from those in the new worlds we try to enter. As human beings, we tend to respond in two possible ways, 1. with laughter and acceptance and friendship or 2. with fear and hatred and anger. These three stories attempt to capture my first real experience of being the first in my family to be accepted to four-year college. So much of what I learned that first year in college about how people act when we encounter someone or something different then the person we are or the culture we come from, compels me to listen and learn from my new neighbors.

A short sample of Propinquity Press stories... from Hellos and Goodbyes

This story is about a the first moment I learned the power of saying hello and goodbye to another person. This universal human experience occurs over and over in our lives between friends, parents/children and potential life mates. Her name was Elizabeth and she was my first real love and the person whom I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my life. In the end we needed to say goodbye but I am forever thankful the ways she made my life better in this world.

Through a series of conversations about death and dying my college roommate taught me some of the best lessons of life. His name was Greg and he was just one of those people who seemed to know that his time on this earth was limited and getting the most out of it as quickly as one could was important. We talked about our faith and what we thought might happen after it was over BUT mostly we just had some of the most soul giving conversations as friends. WARNING: This story obviously deals with grief and the struggle to understand the deep and often painful whys of suffering in this world. You may cry or relive some of your own difficult and disorienting moments. Listen with caution but my hope is this story of my conversations with Greg are more about the hope that can happen between friends when being OK in this world is not always possible.

This is a story about my family's secret and its impact upon my life as a storyteller. My grandparents kept secrets on the farm as an act of pure love. One family secret nearly destroyed our family and was the reason I was raised in town (Ottumwa Iowa) rather than on the family farm. Through some humor and childhood adventures I attempt to share a word of hope that arose from one of the most difficult moments in in my mothers life.

This is the second part of the story in which the author wrestles with the complexity of human life. This story involves the best of human life mixed with the worst that human beings can produce. This all takes place at a wedding reception but its about a whole lot more..

This episode begins the story of the first time the Dunning family left Iowa and how it expanded the author's understanding of the wider world as well as his beliefs around being a perfect human being. Perfection and being OK in this world are not the same thing.

One of the reasons I thought I must be from Mars when I was younger revolved around my struggle with reading. I learned eventually that I had a condition called Dyslexia. This story is about finding a way through this difficulty with the help of many great teachers from Ottumwa Iowa. This is a great listen if you or someone you know is struggling with Dyslexia or other learning difference or just need a little encouragement to believe that the unique person you are is critical to change the world for the better.

All human beings eventually learn that life moments are temporary. We learn that things change and even disappear. People move away and in time pass from this earth. We cannot stop time but we can preserve at least some parts through our memories and story like this one. Take a listen and remember the "in between" moments of your life that made you who you have become

The Tunnel was/is a deep metaphor for difficult moments and troubling mistakes for my life. Growing up in my home church in Ottumwa Iowa serves as the backdrop of the story but the deeper meaning of those moments have continued to impact my ability to find my way to being OK in a world that always wants us to see ourselves and others and broken beyond repair. This story is also a great Holy Week story as it deal directly with our human need to find the light/hope/forgiveness after "Good Friday" moments

This story is a tribute to my sister and comes from my first book "Imperfect Stories" She made me laugh in the midst of a world that can bring so many tears.

The Other Side of Shadows begins with the memory of being part of the "Live Nativity" events in my early childhood and address a key moment when I began to learn how to value both where I had grown up and where I have been able to go in life. No answers are given in this story, just one human's experience of how to find hope and even happiness in both where I have been and the places I was encouraged to experience.

A story about a group of young friends I met when I was seven years old and the way an old building in Ottumwa Iowa (my hometown) along with the people who walked its halls, helped me to know that I had a future story. The most powerful thing we can say to another person is to tell them they have a future.

In a world where it is easy to devalue someone or act as if you certain people are more valuable than others, I share a story about my father's (or really every human being's) desire to be valuable enough to his son to give him something of him/herself. My father loved to build boats but eventually I learned what he was really trying to teach me about how to be the best kind of human.

When I was growing up in my hometown my parents had a unique way of teaching me about the value of taking the time to the learn how other people see the world. It is so easy to idolize our own understanding of NORMAL as this is often what gives us comfort in an uncertain and changing world. However, my parents taught me through a few family fishing trips the importance of taking the time to see the world through another persons experience. This simple skill that my parents taught me seems too rare in our divided world today. If you are willing to take the risk of remembering how to value other peoples, perspectives and cultures take a little time to listen to my latest podcast on Propinquity Press entitled "The Platform People"

The opening Story of the Book, "Why Im not from Mars and a few other stories of why I turned out OK" This story is about a young boys journey from believing he is a Martian ambassador to believing he might just be a fairly unique human being after all. It all begins in that first house at 818 E. Holt Street in Ottumwa Iowa.

A story about why my faith journey is a little different from others and as a bonus, why I really hate hot chocolate.