A few months ago, I was driving to work in typical fashion. It’s early in the morning, my iPod is playing, I’m wishing I were still in bed…and it’s raining. It wasn’t so long ago that rain was a novelty to me. I grew up in the arid plains of west Texas, and the only “greenery” you will see is at traffic lights and on John Deere tractors. However, I was living in Houston at the time, where rain is a fairly common occurrence.

Some people freak out when it rains. They think that at any moment a rushing wall of water is going to envelop the road on which they are driving, sending them tumbling helplessly toward the Gulf of Mexico and certain death. Or that every other driver on the road is maniacal, and they are all on the verge of simultaneously spinning out of control and creating a massive pile of twisted metal in the middle of the freeway. There is not a large group of otherwise hibernating racecar drivers who descend upon the roads the second it starts raining. This irrational fear is not only unwarranted; it is unhealthy. I’m convinced that, for these people, the combined stress of a 15-minute driving experience in the rain is the equivalent of a minor heart attack. And yet, for all of this worry, there is absolutely nothing that can be done. Not a single second of fretting will change the fact that it is raining; it is absolutely beyond our control.

I, on the other hand, don’t mind the rain. If you are a safe, defensive driver, there is no reason to fear for your life on the road, even in the rain. Most people decrease their speed substantially when it is raining, anyway, so traffic is moving much slower (not that it ever moves fast in Houston). In fact, most people are much more cautious in general during adverse driving conditions, not crazed speed demons. Even if they were, there is nothing that can be done about them on my end. I can’t remotely steer their vehicle to a safe place on the side of the road and disable it until the rain stops. No, all that I can do is operate my vehicle as safely as I know how, and hope that everyone else around me is doing the same.

However, as I was driving to work on this ordinary day, enjoying the rain, my joy turned to perplexity when I saw a landscaped area with it’s sprinkler system turned on. I’m serious. It’s raining hard enough for my windshield wipers to be on “high,” and somebody has the sprinkler system on. What kind of an idiot does that? Is there really any added benefit? What if it floods?

It was at this point that I caught myself. I was worrying about something that was completely beyond my control, and it was just a silly sprinkler system. In reality, there were probably very good intentions behind those sprinklers. I’m sure there is someone who gets paid to make sure that particular piece of landscaping looks good. That person probably has those sprinklers set up on a timer so that they turn on at the same time every morning, for the same amount of time every morning. They might even have it calculated so as to deliver the perfect amount of water for maximum benefit of the landscaping in question. Perhaps they just forgot to check the weather the night before, and therefore didn’t get the memo to turn off the sprinkler timer for the following morning. Maybe that person was just making the best plans possible for what he or she thought was going to happen.

There will always be things to worry about, and there is really nothing that your worrying will change. In fact, worrying is probably only going to make things worse. So don’t worry or fret. Just know that there are so many things in this life that are beyond our control, that to freak out about them all of the time is nothing but an exercise in futility. So futile that it could cause you to miss out on the beauty that is all around you. So slow down, take a deep breath, and remember that you will never have another chance to enjoy today.

If people thought I looked like I got dressed in the dark today, it’s because I did.

Well, not dark, technically, but in the dim light that filters into my basement bedroom from the two windows that keep me from feeling like I’m in a dungeon. I’m not a glutton for punishment or a delinquent on my electric bill, but part of a living experiment in simplicity. (Or so I like to say.)

In my community of five college students and myself, part of our goal and our struggle is to figure out what it means to live simply, to place ourselves alongside the poor and the marginalized in society so that we can better understand one another and work together for a better future. It sounds noble, but it’s a goal that often gets lost in the midst of laptops and iPods and cell phones that are constantly strewn about the house.

To fight that, we take on “simplicity challenges” — little ways to pare down what we need and better understand what it might be like to go without certain things — like laptops or meat or, in this case, light. We’ve established “No Light Wednesday!” in our house as an attempt to understand what it might be like for people who just can’t afford to make the payment for their electric bills on time. After some bargaining among the students — Can I use my headlamp? What about a flashlight? What if it’s one of those flashlights you shake to power up? — we agreed that “no lights” meant “candles only” and began gathering our random assortment: votives, tall candles in glasses bearing pictures of La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Ultima Cena, one clear candle in a glass jar embedded with some metal moose.

Colorado, as I was told repeatedly as I prepared to move to Denver, has more than 300 days of sunshine a year. Our first “No Light Wednesday!” was not one of them. I awoke and showered a little unhappily, wishing for the sunshine that usually hit our basement bathroom at just the right angle in the morning to make it as light as if we had flipped a switch. The house made it through the morning with only some minor mishaps: a couple of cries of No light day! as we absentmindedly turned on a light, and the realization that we couldn’t turn on our hair dryers in the bathroom if the light wasn’t turned on.

We all came home from work in the afternoon and got to the task of preparing dinner in a slightly darkened kitchen. We ate a candlelit dinner together, and scrambled to do at least some of the dishes so that we weren’t washing them in the dark.

Later in the evening, with candles scattered on tables and shelves, we gathered for our weekly “spirituality night” together — a chance to reflect and grow in our faith together as a community. Each holding a candle casting light and shadow on our faces, we talked together about our call to serve, our need for community and the barriers holding us back from connecting with one another. We talked about difficult pasts and hope for the future. We cried a little, we hugged a little and we strained to read poetry in the dark.

Afterward, rather than scattering to our separate rooms, turning on lights and closing doors, we stayed together in the semi-darkness. We played our own version of the board game Scruples, where you challenge one another with moral dilemma-type questions: If you were selling your house because it had been burglarized five times, would you tell people why you were selling it? If you were a librarian and your library had books saying the Holocaust was a hoax, would you ban them?

Over bags of pita chips and pretzels, we asked and pondered and listened and laughed. In the flickering of small flames, we faced our own light and our own darkness. And when I went to my basement bedroom and blew out my candle to go to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep; the room had never felt so bright at night before.

My friend Laura has a default face. She makes it when she’s tired, and it basically involves staring straight ahead with her mouth hanging open. It always makes me laugh because it is funny to see someone so engaged and active default to the closet thing to being comatose while still actually being awake in a matter of seconds. Her default face has become such a constant part of who she is that I would be surprised if I didn’t see it at least a couple of times a week.

But that isn’t her only default quality — it’s just her funniest.

Last week, I said goodbye to Laura for the second time in less than a year. This time was more difficult than the last because this time she’s taking off to hike the Appalachian Trail. While this is wonderful and amazing for her, it means she’ll be without a cell phone for six months. I’m dreading this, because Laura is my default friend.

In the short time I’ve known her, Laura has always been there. Jamie, Becka, Christina, Jacky, Blair — in their own ways, my other friends are constants in my life, but when it comes to a default way of living, Laura’s got it. In the best way I could ever imagine.

While I get upset and frustrated with tiny things, she has patience and kindness that I can only pray for (and I’m a teacher). When my car was broken into, she was the one who found the service to fix it the next day and the one who vacuumed the glass out of the car while I wallowed.

When a new prospective date enters my life, it’s Laura who reminds me not to rush or settle or do anything else that will cause me pain down the line. Her first words are a reminder of my continued worth and value, not exclamations fueled by the momentary excitement of the situation itself.

When we rock climb, I take the “color blind” route that involves putting my feet on whatever peg I can reach and trying my best to pull myself up the wall. She’s always at the bottom of the wall encouraging me, pushing me on, never mentioning that I’m kind of missing the whole challenge part when I hop from red to blue to green to yellow instead of staying on one set of colors.

She has never once lost her patience or stopped encouraging me. I would get a little tired of seeing someone hang on for dear life 15 feet up a wall when they’re securely strapped in, but she never does.

When it’s my turn to stand at the bottom and watch her, I’m always struck by her consistency and focus. No matter how hard the route or how much her legs shake, she never cheats. It’s the perfect example of how she lives her life: on a constant, meaningful default mode – it seems to be so natural she doesn’t even have to think of it.

Last week, we threw a party to celebrate Laura’s departure to the great East Coast wilderness. As we discussed possible trail names for her, “Default” came up, along with a few stories and an impersonation of the face. I think we missed the point a bit with her nickname. To everyone sitting in that room, who is sad that we are losing her once again, and to me especially, Laura is Default not because of a silly face she makes when she’s tired, but because of the way she has chosen to live her life.

Hers is a life of gentleness and openness. A life that defaults to the best of responses when most of us default to anger, frustration, tears or bitterness. I want to live a default life. I want to act in kindness without having to think about it. I want to be steady with the choices I make and the life I’m trying to lead instead of constantly second guessing what makes me happy or secure or successful. I want to take a deep breath and talk myself down from the high-strung, multi-colored peg wall I so often find myself clinging to during the day before I’m on her couch having her do it for me.

Besides, I don’t have the luxury of her help anymore. At least for the next six months. I’m going to miss Laura’s default face, but I’m going to miss her default way of living so much more.

I don’t give money to the homeless. Not anymore. I thought word might have gotten around, but the beggars and panhandlers still approach me on a regular basis. Their haggard shapes drift between lurches, and at night, they appear like jilted scarecrows, lonely souls who came down off their split rail crosses in search of companionship.

Some are more scantily clad than others. They are shirtless and scarred; partial sections of ripped denim adorn gaunt bones that breach man-made holes with every step. The shoes on their feet were found in foreclosure scrap heaps and do not fit. Like hermit crabs, they will discard these shells when they become worn and useless. The alleys are littered with such accessories, a graveyard for decade-old fashion trends and accoutrement faux pas.

At first I played Good Samaritan. I had money. What was it going to hurt, giving a dollar to a starving person? How could I turn down a plea when I came home to shelter and warmth, love and hearty meals? The obstacles of my life were inconsequential to the person before me. I hit the fan when my Internet went down. This man spent all day thinking how he’d stay alive.

After a few months, the stories I’d heard began to run parallel. Broken down car. Pregnant girlfriend. Fractured foot. Money for the bus. My fifty cents were supposed to cure all these things. Two quarters would fix that radiator, pay that emergency bill. Better make it three.

I’d shell out my change and then watch. My good faith recipients would head to the liquor store. I’d find them two hours later, standing in the parking lot with a paper bag and no recollection of whatever bullshit story they’d laid on me. They’d get high on inhalants and pass out behind Home Depot. They’d visit a crack dealer and light a rock on my front porch on Sunday mornings before the church crowd emerged. Some would hit me up 30 minutes later with a different story and no memory of our first visit. Apparently I’m a pretty forgettable face.

Not everyone was an addict. Not everyone was a liar. There was truth in some of those stories and I felt helpless being unable to determine fact from fiction. I stopped giving out cash and began to buy meals. It seemed like a better trade. Over soda and burgers, we could talk. There was time to learn about details and discover the realities of our city. Inside the child-friendly fast food walls, lucid with colorful astro-pop characters and gastrointestinal glitterati, parents cooed over ambitious tales relayed by their satiated kids while we did the same. My adopted friends told me things that made my heart ache. They told me about crime and they told me about murder. When we exchanged glances with other tables, their eyes shifted away and the moms gently touched their children’s hands and asked them not to stare.

I soon realized that I was spending far more on meals than I ever had handing out spare change. I did the math and it was nonsense. At this rate, I’d spend hundreds of dollars on strangers. Strangers who usually forgot my name and my hospitality before we met again. Strangers who weren’t my job to take care of.

I began to say no. I left my wallet at home. When the outstretched hands spread toward my body, I looked up to their eyes. There was no reason to lie. “I have nothing,” I told them. “Just myself.”

I began to volunteer at a soup kitchen, spending time with people and knowing that I was helping them get a good meal, clothing and first aid. There was no guarantee that these guests were addicts or thieves, but we were providing necessity rather than desire. Our charity was outreach in the hope that someone would seek guidance, not just a sandwich.

I no longer carry money or goods. I carry cigarettes. When people ask me for money, I give them a few smokes and we talk. I’m the cancer-distributing Johnny Appleseed of the 21st century, sowing my wild rows of Marlboros along the concrete lots of Atlanta. It’s not a healthy activity, and I’m sure the Surgeon General would love to make a speech to kindergartners about the wickedness of my ways. Everyone on the street smokes. This is a way to listen and offer advice. I tell them about the shelters and I tell them where to find food. If they have skills, then I talk about where to find work and cheap shelter. Almost always they will pause to listen; however, the split of concern is roughly 50-50. Most of them don’t expect some white boy to listen to their problems, but there are those who are genuinely interested in finding help. They scribble down information and names. Others back off when I ask questions. They don’t need advice or a sympathetic ear. They need five dollars for a fix and if I’m not going to give them cash then I’m just wasting their time.

I cannot simplify the streets into black and white. Ex-cons, addicts, migrant workers, the mentally handicapped, hookers, pimps, and teen runaways… they all call this home. We all live together and a hundred political promises or waves of progressive city programs are not enough to separate us. We are bound to each other and have been handed a choice. Being proactive doesn’t mean telling some bum to get a job. It also entails more than a sympathy buck and a handshake. I don’t have a glorious answer to keeping my neighborhood free of all the filth that festers within. I just try to keep an open mind and look people in the eye when we pass. If there is need in those eyes, then I stop and say hello. Treating people like human beings, I’ve learned, goes a long way.

When I run, I soar. I sing, I fly, I skip, and I dance in my head as I go. The feeling of flight is a freeing one, but it wasn’t always that way.I began running 11 years ago. I was not athletic; in fact, I was always the chubby girl in school who stood timidly in the back of gym class, praying the ball wouldn’t come near her because what would she do then? The only athletic thing I did that I liked took place in sixth grade: the dreaded mile. I told my friend Ashley, a skinny little thing, that I would run it with her. She walked halfway through; I finished without walking. The chubby girl beat the skinny girl. I screamed and cheered in my head, and I proudly walked to the curb and stretched like a pro, waiting for her to finish.

It was that feeling I remembered when, in seventh grade, my friend Kelly asked me to run track with her. Since the team made no cuts, I figured I had nothing to lose. So we plodded along during track conditioning through early spring. We both dropped out to help manage the baseball team, but that endorphin-stimulated high was intoxicating. And I wanted more of it.

So I went out for the cross-country team in eighth grade. I don’t know what convinced me that this was a good idea, as my coach was a strict, wiry man who was also my history teacher. He was of the intimidating and variety, yet he waited all those practices, when everyone else’s parents came to pick them up. He waited until I came straining and sweating up the hill… the very last one to finish my workout.

“Good job, Lusk. Way to finish,” And then he’d ride off into the sunset as I collapsed into the grass with pain throbbing in my chest, sides and legs. I barely waved bye before he was gone.

While he was strict, with high expectations, he always made sure to encourage us not to walk… no matter how slow we had to run. I clung to that training tip like a lifeline. And it did me good in the end. At the very end of eighth grade, I stood by his desk staring at the high school cross-country sign up sheet taped to the front. I heard rumors — scary rumors — about the conditioning and practice required to be on the team. A friend came up beside me and asked if I was going to run in the fall. I started to shake my head no…

“Of course she is,” Coach said, catching the end of our conversation. “She has to.”

Well. That settled it. My head shake quickly morphed into a nod, and I felt my hand sign the paper, the whole time thinking, OhmanIdon’tknowifIcandothis. I was easily coerced in my younger days. But it was the best choice I ever made.

During my four years of running cross-country and track in high school, I made it through grueling, seven-day camps, at which we worked out twice a day in midsummer heat. I made it through interval sprints uphill over and over and over. I made it through icy winter runs, conditioning for the spring season. I made it through crunches in the dirt at the park as we worked to strengthen our ab muscles and our backs. Sometimes I was sure I wouldn’t make it. Other times I nearly passed out. I logged my miles for every practice and every weekend run. Because of those years and my choice to take a chance, I have the freedom now to throw on my running shoes after a stressful day (sometimes week, sometimes month) and take off for anywhere I want to go. My favorite thing to do is cue up my iPod and set out on an unknown path, exploring new roads and trails. I love to wave at fellow runners as we silently encourage each other through mind messages: You’re doing well. Looking good. Keep it up; you’ll feel better when you’re done. I love to sweat, to hear my heart pound and to stretch long and hard at the end of a run. I love to feel loose strands of hair whip around in the wind. I love to feel the health in my bones and the flex of muscles in my legs, back and arms. I love to be outside in those rare moments where a rumbling storm is brewing on the horizon, the sun is just peeking into the day, or it’s drizzling just enough to give you a second wind. So while I never got a blue ribbon, I did acquire self-discipline. While I never experienced crossing that line first, I experienced the fruits of genuine hard work. And though I never earned a trophy, I learned to value my body, my health and my quality of life. While I can fly now, I had to crawl for quite some time to get here. Sometimes the outcome of your work is different than what you think it’s going to be. And you are more blessed because of it.

I hate the apostrophe in Father’s Day.

To my grammatically hardwired mind, the apostrophe-”s” construction is trying to force me to choose a dad. And that’s a problem, because I’ve never really had just one.

My relationship with my first dad — my biological father — exists somewhere between the “guilt trip” e-mails my mother sends me every couple of months to remind me of his birthday, his role in my birth or the fifth commandment and his phone number stored in my cell phone under his first name. We haven’t spoken since Christmas two years ago, and I can’t remember the last time we had a real conversation. Still, I am beginning to appreciate what he has given me; I’m pretty sure my natural affinity for math might have something to do with his, and I love that my pretty feet and skinny fingers match his mother’s.

I appreciate some of the genes, but beyond that, and more importantly, my dad gave me the freedom to look for others to fill in the gaps in our relationship.

And I found them.

Three of these men, in particular, have made such an impact on the way I view my future — and my past — that the official way of punctuating last Sunday’s holiday seems insulting.

Glenn Kahler

When I left Broken Arrow to start at a brand new school, I wanted everything to be perfect. The first thing I remember trying to control was the identity of the girl who sat across from me in Ms. French’s fourth-grade class. Her name was neatly lettered on the pencil-shaped name tag taped to her desk: Jessica Kahler. So, each time a girl walked into the room (usually accompanied by her mother) I sent out mental messages, trying to will the girl to either be Jessica or to walk away from her desk, depending on how I liked the looks of her. When a cute, smiley, blonde girl walked into the room holding her mom’s hand, I wished and wished and wished and wished for her to turn way from that seat. But for all the wishing in the world, that girl sat down, introduced herself and declared that we would be friends.

I didn’t quite believe Jessica’s prediction at first, but about two hours later we had bonded, and within the week she had invited me over.

Fourth grade was a long time ago, and the story of how Jessica ended up as my best friend is the only thing of that year I remember in vivid detail. But I do have muddled memories of the time I spent at her house. I remember eating meals at the Kahler’s kitchen table and being treated like a member of the family. And I remember her dad, Glenn, asking me about my day at school as though he truly cared about the crush I had on a boy in my class (I wouldn’t tell him who because Jessie liked the same guy) and the books I enjoyed reading. Mr. Kahler even engaged my fourth-grade mind in religious discussions — he believed, I didn’t.

It wasn’t until recently that I understood the impact Mr. Kahler has had on all my relationships with men. He was, though I never phrased it like this, the archetype of a father — and thus a crush, a boyfriend, a future husband, perhaps — for my fourth-grade self. And, though a recent description of my ideal guy would include characteristics from many different people from my past, Glenn Kahler, as my first Ward Cleaver, taught me about fathers.

Grandpa

I think I was in middle school when I realized my grandpa — on my mom’s side — was a dad. I mean, I knew he was my mom’s dad, but I hadn’t really ever thought about what that meant. My grandpa is no Glenn Kahler; he doesn’t pray at the table or offer rides to the mall or the movies … he’s a different kind of dad.

While Glenn would bandage a knee skinned on a bike ride and talk you through hurt feelings, Grandpa is just there. Always. He is a safety net kind of dad.

My mom takes him out at least once a week — gambling and dinner, usually — and she talks to him at least once a day. Most of their phone calls are initiated by Grandpa, who just wants to know how his stocks are doing (Mom looks online for him) and whether she’s had any business at her shop.

Grandpa is also a tomato plant-delivering, big coloring book-buying, can’t-remember-which-kid-is-which kind of dad (it’s OK because he has eight children and 23 grandchildren).

He’s a “there” kind of father, and this realization — that he’s a dad — has allowed me to see that someone in my family (my family) can be there. He’s also helped me to start considering what I will do when a “there” kind of dad isn’t anymore. Grandpa is 86.

Dennis Jacques

Grandpa and Glenn showed me that dads could be reliable, that I didn’t have to be strong because they would be there. My best friend’s dad, Dennis, though, showed me that dads could be people too.

One night in January 2006, as I ate apple slices standing up, in my favorite party dress and brand new black heels, my best friend talked on his cell phone. But then he hung up, and everything changed.

“Becka, I have to go home.”

My first reaction was annoyance. He had promised to be my date to go chaperone my little sister’s church dance, and he was going to bail.

“Your cousin has been in an accident.”

“Haley? She’s OK, right?”

He just shook his head.

My relationship with the men in that family allowed me to be strong, be weak and recover from a death for which I was really a second-hand griever. Yes, Haley was my cousin (by blood), but she was also my “adoptive” father’s “adopted” daughter. She was my best friend’s little brother’s best friend. She was mine, yes, but it was at their house that she ate dinner frequently, and they were the ones who gave her rides and asked her about homework and treated her like family.

When Dennis stepped in front of the pierced, dyed, studded denim and leather crowd at Haley’s funeral and said the words her best friend was unable to say, the words we were all too shocked and sad to say, I saw that dads can cry. His tears didn’t change his being the strongest father I had ever had — the one who could (and would) change the oil in my car, the one who gave me a bike and helped me with school projects … the one who stuck Post-it notes declaring his love for his wife all over their house.

These men have taught me what it is to be a father’s daughter — and what to look for when trying to find a father for my future daughters. And so, despite what Wikipedia and Whitehouse.gov (I checked) say about how to punctuate last Sunday’s national holiday, I still hate that apostrophe.

Happy Fathers’ Day, Dads.