Watching from the Rafters

Watch Out Bartlett's Here I Come

2008-07-04T11:25:00.002-04:00

While I am not completely sure, I do not believe that you have to be dead to be quoted in Bartlett's Famous Quotations. I feel pretty confident that there have been many folks whose words were included while they were very much alive. I”m pretty sure that such worthy notables like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II were surely added to Bartlett's tome while they were still with us.

I would never dare to include my words of wisdom among those I just named, nor would I put myself on the plain as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Howard Hughes or Hugh Hefner. Put me on the list of those who agree that these people, along with Alice Toklas, Carrie Nation and
Shirley Temple-Black all had some important things to say and they should have been written down for the generations to come. I know that more than once I've thrown an extra log on the Internet to see if Van Gogh said anything that I might find of interest, as I recall, he did.

I told a fellow outside of a local church once, “The best things are learned on sidewalks, at dinner tables and in grocery store lines.” With all humbleness, I would like to believe that my statement just might be worthy of a place in the archives maintained by the folks at Bartlett's. Frankly, I don't look for them to pick this line up and call me for confirmation that I did, indeed say it.
There is truth in the statement though. I've learned many things about family history at the dinner table. It was there that I learned family secrets from three and four generations before me.

While standing on the sidewalk I have learned funny jokes. I learned a very important lesson from a four year old who shared with me what the red hand on the crosswalk sign means. (Now he's seen 21 years in the rear view mirror I wonder if he remembers teaching me.) I've learned of the illnesses of friends and their condition while standing on concrete that ran along side a city street.

On the sidewalk I've seen parades go by and it was there that I thought of the quote made by Will Rogers, Jr. who said, “We can't all be heroes because someone has to stand on the sidewalk and clap as they go by.” On sidewalks I've witnessed with joy and sorrow when tolerance of diversity works and fails.

Grocery store lines can be a place where a wealth of knowledge can be gleaned. I'm not talking about what can be read on the cover of the latest tabloid, but what you can learn from those standing in line with you.

About a year ago I was waiting in line at my local grocery store, I had placed my selections on the conveyor belt, provisions for my Sunday dinner, it was a horribly hot and very humid day and there was going to be no cooking in my apartment. The items were: Pickle Loaf, (Yes! Pickle Loaf, at least once a year.), Whole wheat bread with golden flax seed, a very small tomato, a pint of ice cream, (probably Chubby Hubby,) and Ginger Ale.

I heard the man standing behind me say, “Now you know, some folks around here and in fancier grocery stores would make snide remarks about your choices there, but think about it, you have all five of the basic food groups there.” I looked at the items on the belt and thought about there only being four food groups, but before I could say anything he went on, “you got meat, at least they claim pickle loaf has some meat in it, you have whole grain in your bread, a tomato, that's fruit or vegetable and you have ice cream, that's dairy. Then, my friend, you have soda, that's from the most important of the food groups, Junk.”

Before he could finish his statement his wife pushed the grocery cart abruptly into his hip and said, “You know what I've said about talking to strangers in the stores.”
He smiled at her and then continued, “you have all your needs met right there, everything found in once place, all a man needs with the exception of one thing,” he looked at me, then his wife, then me again, “you can't buy love here,” turning again to his wife he said, “can you dear?”

So Bartlett editors, hear my words and record them for posterity, “The best things are learned on sidewalks and at dinner tables and in grocery store lines.”

Seeing the Details in the Classics

2008-07-02T17:20:00.003-04:00

I love old movies, the classics, the not so classic, the obscure, I just like the qualities of old movies. For one, they don't move as quickly as movies do today, there usually isn't a lot of arguing in them and if there is it is brief and then the repair is quick to come also. I appreciate the fact that there may be a murder in the story, but unlike today's television shows and movies, I don't have to watch a Crime Scene Investigator or Coroner split the deceased open and look for clues. (I have the willies just thinking about it.) I like to see the use of simple stories that warm the heart, even if they do have a sad ending, for example, The Glen Miller Story. I love the movie Penny Serenade, it's heart rending, but a loving tale. One of my all time favorites is Mrs. Miniver, this 1942 story set in England has all the things that make a movie great, a haunting musical theme, a simple rivalry, the beauty of a rose and the juxtaposition of the second world war going on in the background.

There are the classics like Casablanca, if you ever have a chance to see it, look past the story and look at the background, the movement of light and darkness, the same holds true for the movie Algiers. The true art of these movies is not just in the story, but in the production values as well.
Movie makers make mistakes sometimes, and often they are blatant and sometimes they are so minuscule that they are easy to miss, no one ever notices. A case in point is the movie Double Indemnity, an example of the film noir genre, it has a little flaw in it that most people don't even think about, in this movie Barbara Stanwyck hides in the hall of an apartment building behind the door of Fred Mc Murry's flat. When he opens the door he cannot see her because the door opens into the hall. It seems that the fire code generally accepted around the United States after the Great Chicago Fire requires that doors from hall into apartment open into the apartment, the same holds true with houses. It is standard building practice I understand. Of course, in this movie it is important that the door work the other way or Ms. Stanwyck would be standing out in the open and thus it would ruin the story.

One evening after having watched this movie I couldn't sleep, so I was working on trying to find that, “happy place,” that we are often told to look for when our minds are working overtime. I thought back to the church of my teen-hood and I saw myself standing in the middle of the sanctuary and I gazed upon each of the stained glass windows, hoping that I could find some peacefulness in them and by doing so maybe whatever was troubling my mind would be abated. The window to the east was the famous picture of Jesus holding an armful of lilies, the portrayal of him as, “The Lily of the Valley,” (think of the film Elmer Gantry here,) on the west was the picture that has been printed on so many funeral home paper fans, that of Jesus as the Good Shepherd complete with a lamb in his arms. Then I looked to the south where the light was coming in the strongest, the window on the south of the church was the very well known picture of Jesus knocking at the door. I had looked at the window a thousand times, or so it would seem. No one had ever pointed out to me that in this famous picture there is no doorknob on the door.
The painting made into stained glass is based on the Biblical text from Revelation 3:20, “Look at me, I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and you open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.” I didn't realize until several years after I had sat looking at the window that the reason why there is no knob on the outside of the door is because then Jesus can't force his way in, he can't jiggle the handle, he can't pick the lock, you have to let him in. Come on, admit it, you've had moments like this where the light finally comes on and you really, “get it.”

What I really learned form this is that the building code that God uses is no knobs, doesn't matter which way the door opens. Oh, and lighting, stained glass works best with good lighting. Just like in Casablanca.

The Handprint of God

2008-06-23T06:40:00.001-04:00

I've always had an affection for hands, not to the point of fetish mind you, I just simply notice people's hands, they most often tell a story and if you look at them long enough you can begin to tell things about the, shall we say wearers, no I like users better in this case. I have heard others say that they pay attention to hands as well, many times these people are in retail, like myself, and they see these hands at their counters, that's where I see the bulk of them. In so doing I have the added bonus of being able to see some pretty handsome jewelry, some really funky faux nails and I have the added opportunity to see some really grungy ones too, once the grease goes in, I know it's hard to get it out.

By looking at some folks hands you can tell what they do for a living, case in point would me mine, there is often green stain on them and sometimes my thumb nail has a little green under it, though I try to keep that down, yes, green thumb does fit a florist. The rough and calloused hands often are the sign of hard manual labor, the hand that fits the shovel or plow. There are smooth hands, that smell of soap, maybe the hands of a nurse or doctor, someone who is involved in care giving. My sister told me once that waitresses who have their nails, “done” get better tips, she would have known. There are other signs that point to other jobs. Again, the hands tell a story. If hands smell like Johnson's Baby Magic, well, you can pretty well guess where those hands are most often.

What do God's hands look like though? I often think that God's hands are calloused from the hard work of yanking people like me from harm's way, they are surely rough and bruised and bloody from where we have all contributed to the hard work of saving lives. I think too that God's hands are smooth and soft because they have comforted so many, holding us like children against his breast. I do know for sure that God's hands are not rough from constant washing, because he hasn't washed his hands of me.

Does God's hands really look like the ones I've described? Do different people see his hands differently? I think that it is possible to miss God's hand altogether, simply over look them every now and then, possibly quite by accident. I had lunch with a minister that I knew a long time ago, he was an absolute neat freak, that's okay, we each have our thing, or to use the trite term, “issue”. He suggested a restaurant on the west side of the city, a small Chinese place. When we arrived he looked at the windows and then frantically looked at me and said, “I'm not sure we should eat here today.”

“What's wrong with it?” I asked. I didn't see anything that would suggest that today would be any different from any other day for a place like this.

“Those nasty prints on the window, they're horrible!” he replied, complete with a full body shudder. The prints that he pointed to were the smudgy greasy hand prints of a small child, probably those of a toddler just learning to walk, the prints were about knee high on the glass. They were here and there on the window, the pattern that would show that a child had probably used the glass to stabilize their newly learned craft of walking.

“Those prints,” I said, “Those? I'm not afraid of those, haven't you ever seen the hand print of God before?

The minister looked at me, the look of disgust melted from his face as he opened the door and said, “we'll eat here, I'm sure it will be good.”

Thine be the glory risen conquering Son

2008-06-15T19:26:00.001-04:00

Music Hath Charms

2008-06-15T19:21:00.002-04:00

William Congreve said, “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to often rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” I wonder where he was when he decided that these statements were true and what music was playing when he decided their truth.

Music has a way of playing every note in our emotional scale. There is nothing more stirring than to hear our national anthem, whatever that tune might be, if it's the Star Spangled Banner, we Americans are likely to quickly agree that it is a tough tune to sing and even more so when we sing it with the emotion that it deserves. The same way with the great hymns of the church, I get quite the lump in my throat when I hear Easter hymns sung with the gusto that Christians should have when they stand in the church and bring these songs from their hearts. To sing the hymns that are associated with the second week of Easter move me just as much, the hymn Thine Be The Glory, Risen, Conquering Son; the tune from Handel's opera Judas Maccabeus stirs me and helps me to see the King of Kings rising to glory.

My late friend, Doug Sechman played as a recital piece the famed Widor Toccata from Charles-Marie Widors' 5th symphony, a complicated organ piece, Doug's health was failing when I first heard him play it, his body wracked with the ravages of respiratory problems he sat down at the Thomas organ that sat in his living room and after arranging the music on the music rack on the organ he closed his eyes as if in prayer, and maybe it was, I'll never know now. He raised his head and began the quick movements on keys and pedals that this piece requires. While the organ book was spread across the music holder he never turned a page. Doug has been gone eight or nine years now, maybe ten and yet each time I hear someone play this robust organ piece I cannot choke back the tears. Doug played it like the music was truly in him, pouring from his heart to his fingers, now after all these years I hear it pour from his heart just as I did when I was sitting in his living room.

I remember my Grandma Bryant sitting down at her spinet piano in the very small house that she and Grandpa lived in, after years of not having played the piano I was amazed when she sat down at the key board and played The Connecticut March, this rousing tune was my Grandpa's favorite from Grandma's repertoire, (she did it from memory, even though it had been ages since she had played.) I often wondered what the song would have sounded like on a large grand piano, though on the piano sized for their home it was still inspiring, you did feel like you wanted to follow the instruction of the title and get up and march.

Big Band music makes me want to dance, even though I don't know how and a waltz tune makes me want to put on white gloves and tails and celebrate New Year's Eve as those in Austria do in many places. A tango can surely only have one effect on a person, it can only make one want to throw their head back and grab a provocatively dressed Argentine woman and make the moves across the floor that makes each dancer look as though they have three legs. (It's just how I've often seen it, watch the next time you see a couple tango.)

Yesterday my mother and I attended the wedding of one of my childhood friends, daughter of one of my father's childhood friends. Judy is heavily involved in music and she met her new husband through music. Before the service started the pastor's wife sat at a high gloss grand piano and played many classical and semi classical pieces. At one point I wasn't sure if the music she was playing was what I first thought it was, and now after thinking about it through the day and I evening I realize that the music that she was playing was an arrangement of Rustle of Spring. My father enjoyed hearing his stepmother, (though she was NEVER referred to as such,) play this lilting piano piece that does sound a bit like spring breaking forth. The irony was not lost on me, my father, now deceased two years, would have loved nothing more than to see this beautiful woman walk down the aisle after seeing mother and brother enter the sanctuary, her mother a vision of loveliness in her own right was followed by the bride and her father, my dad's childhood friend.

For me, it was my father being there in a way, he loved music and it quickly brought back fond memories or moments from his past were there to be celebrated, relived. I know that music does that for all of us. I'm glad that it does, it gives life a richness, a depth, a fullness that very very few things can.

Yes, Mr. Congreve was right, “music does have charms.”

It's the little things in life, right?

2008-05-30T07:02:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine told me once that she thought it was, “the little things in life.” She stopped there because she assumed that I would immediately think of some nice little thing that had happened to me and I would be on the same train of thought that she was. Let me make it clear though, I knew exactly what she was saying, what she meant and what I was supposed to carry away from her little sentence fragment. But my off beat sense of humor made me go the other way with her statement. Yep, it's the little things in life alright, Pop used to say that a bit of pepper or a blackberry seed from the jam felt like a boulder under his dentures. That's one of those, “little things in life.”

Outside my window, closest to my bed, there is an auto with one of those long playing car alarms. When someone touches the car, even just leans against it, their small movement becomes, “a little thing in life.” It becomes a half hour symphony of beeps and whines, discord in the key of car. By the same token though, a grain of sand in the right oyster and it can produce a beautiful, “little thing in life.”

I mention these things because of the statement, “it's the little things in life.” The phrase usually is followed with the statement,”that makes life worth living,” or some other statement of conventional wisdom. There is a lot of truth to statements like the one that ends, “that makes life worth living.”

On Tuesday morning, after a long weekend, I opened the newspaper and stopped at the obituaries. I always joke that I look for my name first, if I don't find it then I figure I'll work the rest of the day, right after reading the obits then I read the comics. As a florist though, the obituaries are kind of like our sports page, we look at it first to see what the day might be like, what the score is, if you will. Since people die in the newspaper in alphabetical order, it doesn't take long to formulate a good idea of how things might work and it also lets names jump out at you because it is so organized.

On Tuesday it wasn't a name that jumped from the page and slapped me awake, it was a photo attached to an obituary that stopped me in my tracks. The fact of the matter is, I said rather loudly, “OH NO, it can't be.”

The picture on the page was of the man who owned the beauty salon down the street from the flower shop where I work. The owner of the salon, 40 years old had passed away only the day before and very unexpectedly. In fact, I had seen him on Saturday morning.

He was a handsome man, but whats more he was handsome on the inside and the only conversation that I ever had with him was at the dumpster in the parking lot where he was wrestling a large box into the dumpster and losing. I walked over and said, “let me help you.” After that we waved at each other across the parking lot and you could see his smile across that distance. It felt good to share the greetings and we shared them very often, sometimes a couple of times a day, these greetings went on for years. But the news in the paper on Tuesday was that he wouldn't be there to wave any more. I would see his bright smile in the parking lot no longer.
In this case the feelings were twofold, it is true that it is the little things in life that make it special. That wave across the marking lot made life for me better, it improved the quality of my life and yet, it was a wave, a little thing.

As Tuesday wore on, I realized that it is the little things in life. This man's passing suddenly felt like a bit of pepper under a set of dentures. This loss of a, little thing in life, had that annoying kind of pain, and was not little, it was HUGE. As time goes by I'm sure that I will look out across the lot to wave at my neighbor as he gets out of his pick up truck, but he won't be there. It will hurt like a grain of sand in the oyster, but I realize already that this man, the one who was nameless until I read it in the paper was a man who was allowing me to find a pearl in the oyster, sure that precious gem is small, built of an even smaller thing, but it's value is huge. I have lost something of great worth, but I enjoy the thought that it was the little thing in life, Rusty's friendliness that made my life better.

A Quiet Walk in The Old Northside

2008-05-26T11:00:00.001-04:00

It was very quiet when I woke this morning, that's unusual in the city. There were no clanging dumpster lids, no cars charging toward the center of town, people off to work as though they can't wait to get there, when in reality they didn't leave in time because they most likely didn't want to go at all. Today is Memorial Day and many of the city's workers have the day off, hence the quiet. In fact, it appears that even the drug dealers and prostitutes that parade past my building in constant motion seem to have the morning off. They are not yelling at passing cars simply because there are so few of them.

For me, a morning person, it seemed like the perfect time to take advantage of the quiet for a stroll through the neighborhood just to the east of me. If I walk just a block over the neighborhood changes from one that looks a bit blighted to one that is beautifully cared for and is filled with interesting sights to drink in. So, at half past seven this morning I put my shoes on and took a walk through the Old Northside. It's an area that gives me a taste of another world, so unlike the one that I live it.

Here's why I like to move a block over: across the street from my apartment is another apartment building, it is waiting for rehab, all of it's former tenants have had to find other places to live, some of them moved into my building and have been very quiet neighbors, though some are not quick to speak to you in the parking lot or at the mailbox, I try to remind myself that I'm a country boy and you wave at every car that goes by and you speak to each person that you meet. I suppose they have their reasons for shutting out the world. I can look across the street and see a small lawn area that used to be Derek's Garden, (check the archives here and you can read about his garden,) I have a feeling that if Derek were to come back to his former home he would be sickened by the sight of his garden. The grass is tall enough now that only a few inches of the tops of the park benches are visible. His hedge of Rose of Sharon is haphazard and the weeds have taken over his flower beds to the point that there really aren't flower beds anymore, they have been choked by the grass gone to seed. And yet, one block over to the east things improve and two blocks over it becomes another world, a world of beauty and charm.

On Park Avenue I met a woman who was out doing what I was doing, drinking in the quiet and the beauty of the new day. I greeted her with a good morning, nearly whispered as if we were somewhere sacred, actually I suppose we were, there is enough stained glass in the neighborhood that one could nearly call it church, but instead I would rather think of it as God's cathedral. She whispered the reply and I felt that she was feeling the same way, surrounded by the holy. There were only a few people visible around and they were walking as though they were walking through a museum, foot steps not to be heard for fear of interrupting another's view of Van Gogh's field of poppies or iris. In fact on this quiet street the gardens are running over with iris and the kinds that win awards at flower shows. I was especially taken in by one whose massive blooms were the color of a school bus. Another was the shade of peach that reminded me of bridesmaids dresses, complete with a ruffled edge. Another was the bearer of a breathtaking complimentary color scheme, pale yellow over light lavender. A hedge of mock orange bore one last bloom, the rest of the petals on the grass and sidewalk looking like the last of the snows.

The old houses on Park and Alabama truly look as though they don't belong in my neighborhood. They are classic examples of, well, classic styles of architecture and each has a tad bit of lawn and flower beds that continue to break forth in glorious bloom. But the most beautiful thing of all in this morning walk was the quiet, even the man overhead running the vacuum on what would now be called his exterior living room, (you know, a balcony with some nice furniture on it?) looks embarrassed that he has broken the quiet. He nods a greeting though and I appreciate that.

Since I work in a flower shop I might appreciate the flowers more than others, I don't know that for sure, but maybe I do. When I walk through neighborhoods such as this one and I see such sophisticated blossoms I want to pull up a chair and see what they know, they look as though they could carry on lofty conversations about the architecture, the well educated children of the area or the current state of affairs that the hellebores is having with the coral belles, speaking of them as though they were spatting neighbors. Yet, they only speak with their glory saying nothing bad about anyone around them. Maybe it's because they know the weeds are three blocks over bending to the ground in the strong winds. And quiet doesn't have the same respect on my street as it does on theirs.

Time Does Fly

2008-05-16T21:47:00.002-04:00

While some believe that time flies when you are having a good time, let's face it, time really does it's best flying as you grow older, good time being had or not. When you are a kid a ride of any distance in the car brings the thought to mind and then of course to lips, “are we there yet?” When you're a kid time and distance mean very little to you. As a kid there are exceptions to all things. When you are young and you are playing outside after dinner you suddenly have a sense of time when you see the sun fall behind the neighbor's house, you know that before long it will drop below the horizon and the street lights will come on and then you will have to go in and do the things that go with the end of the day and then you recognize time, it's time to go to bed, ready or not.

As we age the concept of time changes, as teens we feel like time is our ocean and we can play in its surf forever. The fact that the street lights have come on doesn't mean that we have to put our bikes in the garage and go in for the night. In fact, when we get closer to our twenties we think of sunset as the real beginning of our day, the time when we don't have to think about school, we can visit with friends, tuck away into our private space and put the bear buds on our iPod in and forget the world as we drift away in that infinite sea of time.

Yet, as we grow older time moves faster. In fact, I have heard our lives compared to rolls of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the quicker the tube rolls. I think that is fairly accurate. It feels to me some days that I have no more shaved and brushed my teeth until I'm back in front of the mirror the next morning looking at my puffy eyes all over again.

All of this thought on the relativity of time stems from my thinking today of how things move so quickly for some and so slowly for others as I look the second anniversary of my father's death in the face. For me it often seems as though he died just a month or so ago and then there are times when I feel like it has been a pair of years. Today, it has felt like both.

I visited the unit that Pop was in at Methodist Hospital this evening. I do so every now and then, I drop off a note of encouragement to patients and their families. I sign them with the nickname that my father gave me, he being the only one allowed to use it. When you are in the hospital or a health care residence of any kind, time passes so slowly and there are times that you want it to go faster and times you are glad that it doesn't. Having someone leave a card on your tray table while you're napping helps to pass time in a good way.

Pop and I had a rough start, to say otherwise would be stretching the truth dangerously thin. We had a smooth finish though and for that I am so very grateful. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have had more time with him, what wisdom would I have heard or seen? I think I would have learned more about the things he did for others, quietly and at the right time.

That isn't how it worked out though and it's then that I think about the wisdom of King Solomon when he said, “to everything there is a time and a season to every purpose under heaven.” There is too, a time to put your bike away when the street lights come on and then later you realize that there is a time to answer the call to go to, “that house not made with hands.”

Time does fly.

The Mother and Child Reunion

2008-05-12T18:44:00.000-04:00

The school that my mother attended from first through twelfth grade is also the school where I attended first through sixth grade. By the time I started there it was no longer a high school, just a grade school. Because my mother was twenty when I was born, everything monumental in our lives seems to be based on twenty, go figure. In 1946 my mother started first grade at Union School, in 1966 I started there. (My father attended school there for the later part of his education.) He and Mom graduated in 1958 and I graduated in 1978, Union being part of a consolidated school system, you can say in essence that we graduated from the same school.

Since I graduated in 1978 the math I learned at Union will back me up when I say that this year I’ve been out of school for thirty years. I attended my 20-year class reunion and noticed that the gathering of the large class of over 300 had drifted into smaller clusters of people chatting and visiting, these groups were made up of the ones who went to elementary school together. My class from Union did the same thing as the former students of Hopewell, Needham, Webb, Northwood and Southside. Makes sense really, these are people who have shared a lengthy history. After all, we signed one another’s yearbooks and field trip permission slips for a lot of years. I often thought that I was Mrs. Brown; I did her report card signing duties for a long time. I think it’s okay to tell that now.

When I thought about the groups that gathered at our last reunion I thought about how we should have a reunion of the classmates from grade school. Union has an alumni association and each year they have a dinner at the school where each of the classes join together to reconnect, even though some of them just visited at Wal-Mart the night before. They visit and recall the good old days. Even though Union ceased to be a high school in the mid 1960s I thought it would be a good time to gather my class from the ‘70s and enjoy a visit as a part of the larger group of alums.

Remember the math thing earlier? If a student who graduated from high school in 1978 is celebrating his 30th anniversary of the event and his mother graduated twenty years prior, how many years has she been out of high school and what year did she graduate? (Trust me, this story problem, as we used to call them, is a lot easier to figure out than the ones that started with, “if a train leaving Boston…”) Yes, your 3rd grade math lesson at the feet of Mrs. Bridges, shod in sensible shoes of course, has worked! Mom has been out of school since 1958 and that was 50 years ago. My mother’s class was seated at a special table for the honor and a substantial showing from her class of 20 were there. Though there are three who were attending in spirit only as they have gone on to better seating heavenward, my father one of them. It was neat to see this long table covered in the school colors, blue and gold, surrounded by a group of people who haven’t wandered very far from home or has failed to be like family for one another. The women in the group have a Christmas get together each year and the entire class tries to do something together each summer. My mom acts as cruise director in a way, and they thank her for keeping them connected.

I could see that my mother was proud and I understand the pride that she was feeling, she was with some of the people that she has the longest shared history with short of her family. She has known many of these people since she was six years old and now sixty two years later, they are all seated at a long table visiting like it was a family Thanksgiving dinner and they hadn’t seen one another in ages.

I felt some of the same pride; I enjoyed listening to those in my group share where their lives had taken them and where they were at now, some told of where they hope to be heading. I was a bit surprised that two in the class had gone back to school, one of them missing that evening to attend her capping ceremony as a nurse.

It was a good evening, knowing that in many ways this gymnasium full of people share a common interest, celebrate a shared history and hold an old brick building full of memories in such high esteem.
So, it was a good reunion for my mom and dad’s class of 1958 and my class of 1978. Since it was on Mother’s Day weekend I like to think of it as, “The Mother and Child Reunion.”

A Bit of a Walk on the Wilde Side

2008-04-21T18:34:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been walking through the neighborhood to the east of mine, grand old homes that have been reclaimed and restored, somewhat the Indianapolis equivalent to Cherokee Circle in Louisville and I'm sure there are neighborhoods in other cities that have the same feel to them. The houses are colorful because they are the subjects of studies of the residents who researched the kinds of colors that were used in the home's original period. I dare not say during the Victorian period because I don't think that they are all of that period, in fact, some are new construction. They are colorful though, mostly muted tones, not the colors of the Grand Dames of San Francisco this is Indiana after all. Most of these homes are very well landscaped, some the victims of over growth, a sign that the inhabitant has probably been there for a while.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk and went a little further than I have been going. Because the weather was nice there were others walking, many pushing the modern scaled down version of prams, some with small children on foot. Some were working in their flowerbeds, others sitting on their porches on wicker furniture, wooden porch swings and some were perched on limestone rails around their porches talking to neighbors. On one porch a little one was offering a fresh daffodil to the neighbor, a little Norman Rockwellesque.

This urban neighborhood was alive with residents taking in the beautiful day; many of them I am sure took no real notice of what was going on around them. I hope that they were so entrenched in their work and relaxation that they can use those reasons for their excuse to fail to return my nod or greetings, my little waves to children in fenced yards were always acknowledge though.

My attention was drawn to two trees on one block, one in the lawn of a neglected Tudor, the tree was obviously dead and had been for several years, in fact the over grown garden had many things in bloom, scarlet tulips, radiant daffodils, while there were was beauty in the yard, the large dead tree drew the most attention, looking very out of place. The attention getter in the lawn was the overgrown vine that hid the house, the dead tree and the "come hither," beauty of the bright flowers; the combination gave the residence a feeling of having been pulled from the pages of a fairytale. Surely an evil woman lived here that hated children.

The other tree that I saw was in the corner of a lawn with impeccably manicured grass, the edges of the flowerbeds were surely cut by the hand of a well-trained surgeon. Grape hyacinths in the front, daffodils in the middle and tulips in the back, all standing at attention and looking as though they feared the wind because moving from formation would be forbidden. The lawn had a black wrought iron fence, contemporary to match the Neo-Federalist style home that it surrounded, while the lawn has the feel of being the home of stoic tin soldiers, the residents seem to be the opposite. Both men greeted me while they worked in the yard only a couple of days earlier, even being so gracious as to cut the electricity to their power tools so that I could hear their greeting. (Not everyone in this neighborhood speaks when spoken to.) The tree in the corner of the lawn looked to be a Bradford Pear that was losing its blossoms probably from a short brisk wind. The petals from the tree covered items on the ground, a lawn ornament, a little hard to identify because of the blossom shower.

As I ambled toward home I thought about how beautiful the lawn was and the contrast between the two houses that aren't far apart. The two places made me think of Oscar Wilde's fairy tale, The Selfish Giant. In a nutshell, the giant while away on a seven year visit with his friend the Cornish ogre runs out of anything to say and returns home to find his garden in full bloom and filled with happy children at play. He runs them out of his garden and posts a no trespassing sign. The children miss the garden and the happiness that they knew there. The satisfied giant has a change of heart when winter, the north wind and hail move into his garden and won't leave. After several years of living in the winter when spring and summer has come to everyone else he hears the song of a bird on his window sill and looks out to see a small place in his garden where there is spring, spring has come because the children have broken a small place through his garden wall. He breaks down the wall for the children and spring takes over. The trees blossom where the children climb and there is beauty again. There is one child who cannot reach the branches of the tree and so cannot climb it, the tree stands covered in snow, spring has not come to it, the giant sets the boy in the tree and it blooms. The giant invites the children to continue to play in his garden, but notices that the boy that he aided does not return, the children do not know him or know where he has gone.

From here I defer to Mr. Wilde:

"One winter morning the giant looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was merely the spring asleep and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvelous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face red with anger, and he said, 'Who hath dared to wound thee?' For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

'Who hath dared to wound thee?' cried the giant; 'tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.

''Nay!' answered the child; 'but these are the wounds of love.

''Who are thou?' said the giant, and a strange awe fell on him and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the giant, and said to him, 'You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.

'And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms."

How fortunate I am to have gone for a springtime walk, somewhat a bit of a walk on the Wilde side.

Miss Otis Regrets

2008-04-10T16:43:00.001-04:00

I had the experience again the other night that I have had repeated times now. It seems to be a fixture in the gay community according to my gay friends, but I feel pretty sure that the, "straight" folks have the same problem. (I hate the term straight used this way, but homo and heterosexual sounds so clinical.)

I was supposed to meet someone for the first time the other night, I've chatted with him on line a little and I've spoken to him on the phone at length. A very pleasant person and it appeared that we would be the kind who could sit and talk for a good while about any number of subjects. Like I've warned before though, don't get me started on quantum physics, it's just not smart to get me started. (I have no idea what quantum physics is.) I have been told though, that I'm easy to talk to and can talk about a lot of different subjects in an intelligent manner. I take that as a compliment. I've said before, "I read, therefore I am." It's nice to be able to just sit down and carry on a conversation and if the two people can talk about nearly anything short of quantum physics, well, all the nicer. I like to learn this way, it's nice to know where another has traveled, what foods they like, what their opinion is on a movie or what kind of jelly they find to be the best. Of course, "if it's Smuckers, it's got to be good."

Strong friendships can start this way, friendships that last a lifetime. We begin friendships by finding a common ground and often times that common ground can be something as simple as loneliness. I suppose it would be safe to say that loneliness can be one of the driving forces in establishing friendships. If you can find someone to talk to, then the loneliness can ebb. It always feels good to know that you are doing something about the problem of being lonely. When there is someone that you can share with, and someone can share with you, how can that be a bad thing? After all, bearing one another's burdens is supposed to be a good Christian thing to do.

There is a hitch to all of this, if you make plans to meet someone for the first time then it makes all of the talking and friendship building and burden bearing a lot easier if you follow through and show up. I can think of no lonelier feeling in the world than to be stood up.

I have told some friends over the past few years when I have been stood up, they are very quick to tell me that being stood up is all about the other person, it isn't about me. I know what they are saying, they are trying to tell me that it isn't because of anything that I said or did, it's all the other person's problem. "Their insecurities," is what one friend of mine called it. I don't know that everyone who has stood me up did so because of his or her insecurities. Let's face it; sometimes meeting new people is just plain hard. I don't argue that, and I understand it completely. I just want to point out that being stood up isn't all about the other person. It's about me as well, now I've been drug unwillingly into it. Now it's about that feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me feel like I some how failed the other person. It's the running through the archives of my mind and replaying the conversation tapes. Did I say something that offended the other person and didn't know it? Did they keep it to themselves to protect me?

I have had the situation where when I called one guy's hand on his standing me up he said that I should have called to remind him. We had seen each other at a mutual friend's party and had touched base about time and place. When I talked to him later and he said, "You should have called me to remind me," I simply said, "you need a secretary, I waited an hour and a half at the restaurant and I ate alone.” He didn’t need to know because I didn’t want to say it or to give him the satisfaction that his being the third one in as many months helped me sink into a weeklong depression.

Some say that in this day and age that it’s just simple to forget things because there are so many distractions. There is a great deal of truth to that when you consider how many people are reading e mail and text messaging constantly, to the point that they can’t drive without the phone pressed to their ear. I often wonder how they can have so much to say to so many and how did they do it before they had these modern conveniences? I managed to make a phone call every now and then from a phone tethered to the wall before I had e mail and a cell phone, I still use the darned thing on a fairly regular basis, and I never use it while driving, the cord is too short. I have never sent a text message, I don’t even speak the language, and I think schools offer Text Messaging as a Second Language now.

So, just for the record, it is still considered good manners to call and say, I know that we had plans together this afternoon, I regret that I’m not able to make it.” Miss Manners says that an explanation is not necessary and that the recipient of the news has no right to ask for an explanation either, I can see her point. It is so much friendlier than leaving someone with a whistling kettle on the burner and fresh biscuits on the plate while the Royal Dulton is laid out on the table by the sofa. It should go without saying now that I really appreciate Bette Midler’s rendition of Miss Otis Regrets even more now than I ever did.

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated, Thank You

2008-04-04T11:33:00.001-04:00

You may think of this ether way you want to, you are allowed to think that the speech that I've been writing is either way to late or way to early. I want to be prepared and I want to have it memorized when the time comes for me to deliver it.

It's here, on my blog, that I want to polish the speech and share my thoughts behind it. The speech is for my appearance at the Academy Awards. When I am asked to attend and I'm sitting in one of those red velvet seats after having walked the red carpet and being stopped by Joan Rivers for a brief chat, I want to be prepared if they call my name for whatever accolade they wish to bestow upon me, I think that it's important to be prepared for moments in life such as this one. You just never know when it could happen to you and wouldn't you be most embarrassed if you where not prepared and you had to do your speech impromptu? Not everyone thinks fast on their feet.

When I approach the podium, statuette in hand, I'm not going to hold it in the air like I'm a drum major, I'm going to clutch it to my breast like Elizabeth Taylor did when she won Best Actress for Butterfield 8. The award deserves that kind of respect, it is a highly coveted award; the media gives it more coverage than the Nobel Peace Prize. When the crowd ceases it's applause and they have taken their seats, my acceptance speech will be one that will shock the academy as it will surely be the briefest one that has ever been given, the TV network won't know what to do with the extra time.

The speech goes like this: "it's an honor to be nominated, thank you." And then I would be led off of the stage by one of those blonds clad in a cheesy, slinky dress to the wings where I would be photographed for the papers and US magazine; then I would walk off to wherever it is the winners go, probably back to my seat. The speech is simple and yet it says it all. Now, there is a great thing about this speech, it is so versatile that it is unbelievable. This same speech is written in such a way that win or lose it can be delivered. If I don't win the golden idol for movie success and I'm being shoved out the stage door in the back of the theater, where the lesser known reporters and photographers ask me to make a very brief statement, I can say, "it's an honor to be nominated, thank you. " Then I'll dash off to my waiting yellow cab, if you lose do you leave in the same limo that you came in? For some reason I don't think that you do, you either leave in a taxi and return to the hotel to collect your things and leave down trodden for home or you pile into a Yugo with a bunch of the other losers and you head to a small diner where you look as though you were the inspiration for Hopper's famous paining, "The Nigh Hawks," only in tuxedos and evening gowns.

I really don't think that the dynamics behind the Academy Awards fit every aspect of life, I'm glad that they don't. You just scratched didn't you? You're wondering how I just took that left turn from the paragraph above to where I am now. Humor me. I point this out because in life I don't think that there should be a Best Actor or Actress category, though there are those who are working overtime to achieve that award. There are those who work so hard at giving life instruction, often on subjects that they aren't prepared to give advice on, so I suggest no Best Director Awards either. I think that there are surely other categories that the Academy has that don't fit as life Oscars either.

There are two, however, that I think are surely the only awards necessary. If we were to all vie for either of these titles there would be no choice but to expand the number of awards given for them. The Academy would be overwhelmed at the number of nominations and it would be impossible to chose who could possibly win the golden trophy, the only answer would to be give more than one. The categories of which I speak are the only life award that the Academy could apply to our daily lives; this of course is my opinion. I think the real awards should be given to the Best Supporting Actors and Actresses. Isn't that our hearts desire, really? Isn't that why we are here, to encourage and support one another? I'll be the first one to say that it's an award that couldn't possibly be won every year. There are times that we are only able to qualify as Best Supported Actors and Actresses, we couldn’t be much help to anyone that year, we couldn't get past our own pain and heartaches to be a support to others, we could only be supported.
There is just one problem with this category; I really don't see how it can work. I really want to see the Academy abolish this category as well. I'm sure that this takes you aback after I have touted it so heartily. There is a major flaw in the concept of Best Supporting Actor and Actress. While Shakespeare may have said that all of life's a stage, I think that we fail to realize the chink in this situation's armor, life really isn‘t a stage. We shouldn’t be actors, we should simply be ourselves and confess that we have a need to love and be loved; that we are in a position to help and support, but only because we have that same need for ourselves. We don't need to act as though we have a God shaped vacuum in our lives, we have one, we have a real need for someone/something to believe in, we have an inner drive to exercise faith...in something.
For the most part, I see that for myself, I put too much effort into being an actor, pretending to be someone that I'm not in hopes that the makeup and the costume will hide who I really am. While I don't want to be the one that points this out, I've noticed that there are very few on life's stage that aren't doing the same thing, it's just our nature. We don't want to admit that we are frail and fragile and that we need to be assisted by the supporters and we don't often see that when we are who we really are, we are the supporters and encouragers for others, being real makes it easier.

All that said though, isn't it a wonderful thing to visualize ourselves at the podium and giving our speech, "It's an honor to be nominated, thank you."

Spring, Cemeteries and Victory: No, really.

2008-03-26T13:02:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite places to take a walk is a cemetery, you see, most of the time when you walk in the cemetery there isn’t a soul to bother you. (Bad pun, but true.) I have walked some very well known cemeteries in Indiana and Kentucky and there are some that I would like to take a stroll in, but haven’t yet. Then there are some places that feel like cemeteries that really aren’t, I’m going to make an effort to not talk about those.

I have walked in obscure country cemeteries that I just happened upon while out walking, some of them when I was out for a drive. I have snooped around in the Nast Chapel Cemetery, I have some ancestors buried there. I have walked in the Deer Cemetery and I have combed the Harris Cemetery where my father is buried. All of them have a charm of their own, if a cemetery can have a charm, and I do believe that they can, I believe that they do.

There have been walks through much larger graveyards, I have walked through Our Lady of Peace, St. Joseph’s and Concordia in Indianapolis, I have walked through Forest Lawn where some of my friends are interred. I enjoy walking through Greenlawn in Franklin, Indiana, an old cemetery with giant trees and gravestones that are unique and amazing for the period of time that they were erected. My great grandparents, grandparents, a third cousin and several friends are planted there.

Two of my favorite cemeteries are Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, I believe that at one time it was considered the fifth largest in the country, Arlington being the nations largest, Crown Hill may still be number 5. I think my absolute favorite is in Louisville, Kentucky known as Cave Hill.

Cave Hill isn’t a cemetery really, you don’t notice the graves because of the beauty that surrounds them, there are awesome trees, magnolias, dogwood and redbud for spring viewing and when the autumn colors come the area is second only to the New England area, and I can only judge that comparison to pictures as I’ve never been to New England in the autumn. There are stones with bronze sculptures that are amazing, headstones that have stained glass encased in them, older stones of limestone and marble that are intricately carved to look like angels, tree stumps covered with ivy and many have amazing flowers chiseled into them. There is a great pond that is home to many swan, thousands of birds of many varieties, speaking of birds, I have had the unique experience of leaving a special memorial at the grave of Colonel Harlan Sanders, the famous fried chicken magnate. I left a small red and white stripe box with a few chicken bones in it. Since I’m sure that he has contributed to my cholesterol reading it only seemed like the thing to do. There are other notables, many of Kentuckian-only-knowledge and some people very famous from history, not only purveyors of chicken.

Crown Hill in Indianapolis is one of the places where I have stomped the most, so I know it better of course. Not quite the arboretum that Cave Hill, though Crown Hill boasts some 400 different varieties of trees. There are many Hoosier native sons buried here of course, President Benjamin Harrison, a stack of early history vice presidents, the man who invented the Gatlin gun is there just outside of the national cemetery section of the graveyard, the irony isn’t lost on me. The man who laid out the mile square section of Indianapolis, aka downtown; his monument has a map of the city on it, he is also famous for laying out the original, “downtown” area of Washington DC. There are doctors, lawyers and race car drivers, wife beaters, knaves and scoundrels. There are people who have their epitaphs in their native languages and of course, I can’t read them. There are the good citizens of the city and the man who played Uncle Remus in Song of the South is laid to rest there, not too terribly far from John Dillinger, famous gangster.
The high-light and if you have been there, you will see that the previous statement is a pun, there is a place known as Crown Hill and that poet James Whitcomb Riley’s grave is there, at the highest point in the city. On a clear day you can truly, “see forever” from this city landmark. At one time this hill was known as Strawberry Hill and it was known as a great spot for a picnic, actually, I have picnicked there myself.

From this lofty point in the city the downtown skyline is impressive, it’s clean and fresh looking and all the trees between the hill and the central city makes it look like the city is floating on a green cloud. From this point in the city it looks like there are no drug dealers or prostitutes or panhandlers in my neighborhood, from this point it gives the illusion that there is no urban blight. Crown Hill gives a view of a fresh and clean place to live, just a mile or so out, just don’t look down over the hill to the west where one is quickly jolted back to reality.

Thoughts and signs of spring make me want to go for a walk in Crown Hill or some little country cemetery because of the signs of life there, the blankets of dandelions, the cushions of violets, the green grass, and usually there is lots of it. I’ve been thinking about going for a walk lately, maybe to happen upon some busy robins on the ground or some squirrels dancing about in the tree branches, in the season of Easter, it’s easy to think on spring, to think about new beginnings, those tulips planted next to headstones, the magnolia trees in Cave Hill covered in pink and white blossoms, delicate dogwood flowers that bear the blood stains of the nails of Christ, per legend. The verse that comes to mind so often when I walk through cemeteries, as beautiful as they are is, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

The answer is simple, it isn’t here, the Victor over death has risen, just as he said.

Welcome Back Alleluia, It's Good to Have You Home

2008-03-22T23:17:00.003-04:00

The Sunday before Ash Wednesday there was a group of children standing before the altar holding a banner that they had made in Sunday School. The banner a simple piece of fabric had been decorated by the little ones with the words, “Good bye Alleluia.” They had learned in their class that the word Alleluia would not be used or sung again until Easter, and it was time to say good bye as the days ahead would be a time of quiet preparation, not a time to shout the Alleluias that we sing throughout the rest of the year. The children folded the fabric into a small square and put it in a basket that had a lid and they slid it beneath the altar. One little blue eyed blond girl, very young, taking the time to turn and wave good bye as she walked away.

I’m not sure what they were told in Sunday School, it being for the little ones, of course, I didn’t hear the lesson, I don’t fit on a chair that size very well any more. I can imagine what they may have been told and I can see them furiously working on the project, markers flying, knowing that they didn’t have much time to complete their work before it would be presented to the congregation so that we may say our good byes as well. I think that it was a good lesson for the beginning of Lent. A good way to teach children and with great subtleness, teach we adults too that there was a time coming to start looking within and without.

It is during the season of Lent that it seems that nature provides the most darkness, grey inky days, and for central Indiana this year, we had brutal winds and ice pellets that stung the skin while one tried to scrape the earlier deposits of ice from one’s windshields. In the wee hours of the morning, with a scraper in hand that was designed for delicate frost patterns, not thick ice, it’s a little hard to think of Christian charity and introspection. There are those who are doing it though, like the guy who lives next door who is a junior in high school. He started his little pick up truck and while my van was running we cleaned ice from my windshield and then we worked on his. It’s true, many hands make light work, but what’s more, in the pitch black of a late February morning, it’s good to have someone who is helping and offering to do so from a warm heart. Tim had no idea what he was doing for me, an unknown offering of grace. I’m very grateful for his offering.

This past Sunday as the procession of the congregation, palms in hand, walked to the red doors of the church, I was reminded that I had read recently that often the doors of churches are painted red because it symbolizes the fire of the Holy Spirit within. For me, a great symbol, on this Sunday though, it seemed that red should be the color of the coats thrown before the Victor on his entry into the city.

Throughout the week, I thought about how our days were changing, weather-wise, even though it was hard to believe as I scraped frost one morning and the wind blew through my light jacket. There was a warm breeze though as I walked into the church on Maundy Thursday, in fact I did so in shirt sleeves and I paused outside of the red doors and listened to a robin sing, though I could not see it. In that bird song just outside of the church I felt a sense of hope and found peace in those musical notes. Inside there were reminders of what Lent is for, what the ride to Jerusalem was all about, simple chairs lined in a row, a basin and a stack of towels, the leader of the church on his knees pouring water from a stone ewer on the feet of his parishioners, I had a chill as the vision of Jesus doing this very thing came to mind. Then, rising to his feet, I could see Jesus drying his hands on the towel wrapped around his waist as he discussed the meaning of this act with Peter.

On Good Friday, a day that had been very trying for me at work; my body aching from lifting trays of Easter Lilies and loading them into the van for delivery, my mind kept thinking about what Good Friday means to me as one of the stepping stones on the way to the tomb. When the end of the day came, I couldn’t think of any place on my body that didn’t hurt, and then as I entered the door of the church and then saw the barren altar, in my mind I saw the image of Christ nailed to the cross, his head lying on his chest. I heard in the message that night that in the New English Bible that it doesn’t say, “it is finished,” before Christ breaths his last, rather it says, “it is accomplished.” I knew that my pain was nothing, and I felt shame in thinking about it.

This morning, (Saturday) as I pulled myself from bed, where it was warm and the city sounds were muffled, I felt those same aches and pains, only intensified and I reminded myself, this is nothing like many feel each day and it certainly is nothing like what Jesus suffered, grab your self by your Reebok strings and move on I told myself.

Later Saturday, evening:

The church was dark, there were no lights anywhere, including on the face of the building, nothing to make it look welcoming, though over the door the sign read, “everyone welcome.”
Inside it was cold and dark, very tomb like and then I felt what a friend of mine calls, “Holy Spirit Bumps,” she doesn’t have goose bumps. Scriptures were read that brought to mind exactly how we got to this point, the journey to the cross began with Moses and the Passover and it never occurred to me that the scripture tells very plainly that Jesus was placed in the tomb on the evening of preparation, he would have been in the tomb at the beginning of Passover. Suddenly, the bells that were ringing throughout the church and the lights that were coming on all through the sanctuary proclaimed that Christ has broken from the tomb and that we should too.

Welcome back Alleluia, welcome back.

CHRIST IS RISEN, CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!

Morning by Morning, Daylight Savings Time and Lent

2008-03-12T09:06:00.004-04:00

Daylight savings time has started, I’m still not used to it, it keeps me in the dark while going to work, so spring feels like more winter, I don‘t need more winter. Usually when the sun starts rising at the real hour in March, it’s such a welcome sight for guys like me who are really better in the morning. I’m usually up before the alarm clock, so it’s nice to rise with the sun. I don’t need a longer, “day,” I need the darkness to come at it’s appointed time so that I can sleep and rise to be the morning person again. People say that you get used to daylight savings time, I don’t know that I ever will, frankly, I‘m not sure that I really want to. However, I don’t have a fiddler on my roof playing Sunrise, Sunset, so I take what comes when it comes to daylight.

People who know me well know that spring is my time of year and Easter is my holiday. I have to confess that since Easter is nearly as early as it can be this year, it means that the journey through Lent has seemed more like a race through the season, even though it is the same length of time that it always is. This is another reason why I like for the sun to rise early in the day, it sheds light on the look I’m taking on my inner self. That’s what Lent is really about, not the notion of giving up something. I don’t know that I’ve ever given up anything for Lent, but I have used the time to think about what’s coming and what’s behind and what needs to be put behind or away.

This Lent has been different than last year, but it is because I made it so; taking the steps early so that it would be what I needed for it to be, I think that it’s what God has called me to do. Time to listen for his still small voice, time to look deeply at my sins and seek his forgiveness. I’ve pondered on what Rev. Rachel said in a sermon this past summer, “we should seek to forgive, we do not have to seek reconciliation.” It has been food for thought during this time of introspection. Some of the things that I’ve held on to for the longest time are starting to slip away, I don’t think of them as often, I think that is how God let’s us know that we are accomplishing what we have set out to do in working to forgive, and for that I am grateful. There have been several things that have slipped away from me this Lenten season. Thinking about that, I guess I haven’t given up something, I’m giving up something. I just had the Eureka! moment that it as an ongoing process.

Beginning Sunday we commence the last steps to the Great Feast of the Resurrection. It starts with a parade for a victor, is interrupted by a, “dinner party” that goes sour, is darkened by the brutal death of the Messiah, and then the fulfillment of scripture in his rising to new life once again making him the ultimate victor. It is hard for me to imagine being able to fit all of that into one run on sentence. But in a filbert shell, that’s the story. It is also hard for me to imagine that in that one sentence our life is completely changed. In so many ways our lives fall into the same pattern, maybe once, maybe often.

There are times where we feel like we are king of the world, (we don’t have to hang off of the front of a luxury liner to feel that way.) Then, through a course of life events we come to a point where we may wish that we could die, we fall into the deepest darkness, somewhat like the darkness of a tomb where we feel that we are descending into hell. This is usually the point where we seek the face of the Lord and through grace we are raised to new life where we feel like we are king of the world again. I feel like this is truly the lesson we are shown so that we may see at what level we are able to experience just exactly what Jesus went through. It’s here that we have to bear in mind that we will never be given more than we can handle.

Daylight savings time or not, this story doesn’t change. The words of the old hymn come to mind, “…morning by morning, new mercies I see.”

I'm Still Scratching My Head on This One: Old sayings and how they apply to daily life.

2008-02-27T21:33:00.002-05:00

Over the years I’ve been in earshot of many maxims, adages and any other term you want to use for what might now be called conventional wisdom. At least it was the wisdom used at the convention that was being held when it was first spoken. I heard them in the home that I grew up in, my mother and father used them all the time. Let’s face it, one of the first ones that we might hear growing up is, “Don’t touch it, it’s hot.” Now that statement is not exactly what I mean when I speak of maxims or adages. I’m really thinking more along the line of things that might be found in Poor Richard’s Almanac. You know, statements like, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That sort of thing.

One that my Grandpa Bryant liked to toss around was, “If you convince a fool against his will, he’s of the same opinion still.” There were many times that he and I had discussions that were efforts to, well, enlighten the other. More than once I walked away reciting his maxim with him in mind, I know that at the same time he was saying it of me. Frankly, that’s okay. I can only think of one conversation that was meaningful enough between us that I went so far as to make it very clear that he needed to see things my way, that I wouldn’t tolerate his bigoted opinion any longer. When the conversation was finished, at least I had nothing more to say on the subject and I would hear no more on it either, my grandpa looked me square in the face and said to me, “you are my favorite grandson, and I’ll tell you why, you stood up to me.” I know that my granddad loved all of his grandchildren alike; I do think that I held a bit of a special place in his life because I made it clear that I wasn’t going to allow him to get away with everything that he did.

There are other things that I have heard, another attributed to Grandpa Bryant was information that he imparted to newlyweds, well those headed to the altar, any way. He would give them this sound advice, “You are about to tie a knot with your tongue that you can’t untie with your teeth.” While he was right in his statement about making promises and commitments before God, it is also true that the same knot that he’s talking about can be gnawed in two by even a lousy attorney.

Other old sayings come to mind like, “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” I understand that this statement refers to personal life, that the days before the end of a crisis will always be the hardest ones to face. Makes sense really, how could it not be true. There comes a point where we reach the acme of any situation and then it heads toward its decline. It’s like the concept that you can only walk half way into the jungle, from there you are walking out. I know enough about overgrowth to know that in the center of the jungle it’s usually the densest and therefore most likely the darkest. If you squint you can see the parallel.

The adage that I’ve had on my mind the past few days is one that’s been heard over and over again in most of our lives. If we deny it, we’re only kidding ourselves. How many times have we heard, “you can’t go home again.”? I know that I’ve heard it over and over, and I have to admit that it took me a long time to figure out exactly what it meant. It’s no secret that I moved out of my family home later than most and when I moved it was under fire and when I look back at it, I moved out in a knee jerk reaction situation, for everyone involved. While I have thought about it this week I have finally come to understand exactly what the statement means. The thing that got me out of the house the quickest was patched up hastily after I had an address of my own. The move changed my life in many ways, some for the good, some for the bad, but I expect that there’s an old saying to cover that as well. I got to thinking about the statement, “you can’t go home again,” on Sunday afternoon and there finally came a clear spot where the light could illuminate it for me. After I moved out of the family home, the manse of my childhood, teen years and young adulthood, it took me many years to go back and spend the night. Really, there was never a reason to stay the night, I only moved forty minutes away. It didn’t make sense to sleep on sheets that my mother would feel obligated to wash after I slept one night on them when I could go home and put another day on the sheets that I was going to wash anyway.

I don’t think that I spent a night at the home place until after my father died, since then I’ve spent several nights there in the last 21 months. It doesn’t seem like home really, I’ll always be comfortable there, but the house creaks different than my apartment building does. There are sounds that I’m not used too, smells I’m not familiar with and there are things that just aren’t the same as when I was a kid, so they don’t feel quite right now that I’ve lived away and have a place of my own. The bed I've slept in there doessn’t sleep the same because it’s at my place and the sheets smell like Bounce, they don’t smell like me. Being at Mom’s for an overnighter feels more like being a guest than it does being at home, but I am at the place that will always be home. It’s a strange position to be in, one where you are comfortable, but not comfortable, a bit of a paradox really.

There are other places that we pass through in our lives where we grow comfortable and feel at ease when we are there. They become second homes for us, or shelters or cozy coves where we know that we can tuck in and weather the storms in our lives. There are times though that for one reason or another we leave those places and when we return, we find that the cozy has run out of the little cove with the tides that have risen and fallen while we were away, we feel that our boat isn’t as safe there as it once was. There are places, that once felt like home where we are always welcome, we can spend the night there if we chose, but we won’t be sleeping in our bed, we'll be sleeping in, "theirs." There are people there that we love, and people that we just don’t feel as comfortable with as we used to. I’ve been looking at all of this and trying to think of an old saying that covers these thoughts. Surely there is one, isn’t there? “You can’t go home again,” just shouldn’t be true. After all, isn’t it home? Isn’t it the place where we grew up, where we should be most comfortable, the place where we learned to cozy up in during the storms because it was a cove that we could return to when the waters got too rough? Isn’t home where our family is where we are allowed to be ourselves and everyone understands?

I’m having a hard time with this one, I’m not sure of the answer, I do hear Dorothy Gale singing in the barnyard about a place over the rainbow, maybe that is the place where we will forever feel at home. Why am I saying maybe? It is the place where we will forever feel at home. Seems like I remember something about only walking half way into the jungle, maybe on the way out I’ll see the Emerald City. I know that I’ll feel at home there.

Lysol, Latex and Love, Life in the age of influenza

2008-02-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

When I call into work sick for one day, it’s rare and most likely connected to something that wanted out of my digestive tract more than it wanted to stay. However, when I call in the second morning my employer fears that the third call he receives will be from my undertaker. I’m usually not sick. I went four years of high school without taking a single sick day; I worked my first eleven years post high school before I took my first two sick days.

I attribute my being able to make this claim because of my clean living and wholesome lifestyle. (You may now quit snickering.) By many people’s standards I am Mr. Goodie Twoshoes and they never want to believe my claim of clean living. I’m neither bragging nor complaining when I say that at 47 years old I have never been drunk, in fact my last libation was about eight years ago in a local sleazy gay bar where I had a gin and tonic, double lime and only a half shot of gin. The bartender’s response to my request was, “careful there tiger.” Were I not lactose sensitive I would have changed my order to a glass of skim mike and an orange slice. (Fruit and dairy, now that’s healthy, right?)

I have never smoked a cigarette first hand, though through my childhood and youth my father saw to it that the entire family got to suck back a Marlboro Red Soft Pack a day; he smoked the other pack and a half at work.

Once in a while in my youth, as, “reckless” as it was, I confirmed that there were two one o’clocks on my digital time piece, though at home asleep often sounded as good as whatever I was doing. I was still able to sleep until seven thirty or eight in the morning on Sunday and I never missed Sunday school or church, but if at all possible I snuck in an afternoon, “religious” nap before going to youth group.

I was told by a former roommate that I’m a pretty healthy cook and eater. I know how to prepare a balanced, attractive meal and with a little butter, orange juice and brown sugar I can successfully hide the fact that I scorched the carrots because I became engrossed in, The Simpsons.

My healthy living comes to a grinding halt when it comes to exercise, yet I’m convinced that one can be a multi medal winning triathlon athlete, lean and svelte, gluten avoiding and you cannot out run, out swim or out bike the flu or a nasty cold. Yells and screeches by those along the sidelines of, “run Forrest run!” would not and could not have saved Mr. Gump from these maladies.

Just as the Center for Disease Control advises the other ingredient beyond what I have listed already is constant hand washing. In fact, I recently saw posted in a public restroom bi-lingual instructions on how to properly wash ones hands. Remember this is by CDC standards. Step 1: Turn on the hot water and allow it to run. Step 2: Pressing the soap dispenser with the left elbow, apply the provided pink pearly antibacterial soap into the palm of the left hand. (Figure that one out.) Step 3: Vigorously and with a vengeance, scrub your hands until the top layer of your epidermis begins to loosen and peel. Step4: Rinse in the boiling cauldron provided. Step 5: If an air dryer is provided press the start button with your right elbow and run your sterile paws together until the hot air ceases. Step 6: (You have two options here,) Use your shirt tail if long enough, to open the door for your escape or stand and wait until some unsuspecting or undereducated fool opens the door with his now corrupted hands and put your foot in the door and toss it open so you can get out without using your hands.

If you follow these six simple steps you can escape your exposure to colds, flu, leprosy, scurvy and malaria. This of course is putting aside the fact that the person standing at the next sink was hacking up a lung and not coughing into his elbow as suggested by the CDC while he was reading how to wash his hands.

I think the other great safety against winter illnesses is to avoid at all costs snot nosed children and the people who care for them. (Personal observation only.) As an adult do you really need to tickle Elmo? Leave their toys alone, talk about a breeding ground for instant death.

There is the great last resort that my family and co workers used on me upon my return to the workplace, homemade hazmat suits and copious amounts of Lysol, antibacterial hand cleaners, bleach saturated wipes and latex gloves.

Let’s face it, if the cure to the world’s ills is love, it never could have broken their barriers to have gotten to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have sheets and towels to boil, a toothbrush to douse in gasoline and burn. There are some chicken feet and garlic bulbs to string for around my neck and I’ve got to cover my computer keyboard with Saran Wrap so that I can Google a recipe for a mustard plaster.

I've Never Seen Colors That Vivid Before. Is this the face of God?

2008-01-21T16:35:00.000-05:00

In late March of 1979 I stood at my work bench at the American Floral Arts School of Chicago where I was attending on a football mum scholarship; we were working in the corsage and wedding flowers unit, an area that I was especially interested in, I liked the idea of flowers being connected to fashion. While standing at that bench I was handed a white phalenopsis orchid. This particular orchid variety had a plant that had been named for the owner of the school, Mr. William Kistler. The Kistler orchid was pristine white and had a finish that looked like Dresden. It seemed fragile to look at and it was given to me to use nestled in a bed of orchid straw, (aka shredded waxed tissue paper.) Yet these flowers thrive on neglect and grow on the side of trees, hardly the fragile thing it would have you believe it to be.

I have no idea what other students where thinking while they looked at those blossoms sitting before them on their bench, but I was drawn into the flower, just as Alice was drawn into the looking glass. There are five petals on this snow-white flower; it has a shallow throat that reduces down to two very fine, hair-like filaments that curl toward the center of the throat. As you can tell, words don’t do this flower justice; it is truly something that one should see in person. I know that for me it was like looking at the face of God. All of God’s best work in nature came together in that flower. While it was white, when the light fell on it just right I could see the spectrum all in one tiny spot, turn the flower another way and it was pure white, no sheen, the only thing breaking the purity of the color was the touch of pale apple green in the center of the throat. There was nothing about it that made me think of any other flower, it was truly unique and I thought it quite an honor that a man should have a flower variety named for him, and how fitting it was that it should be named for a man who had devoted his entire life to the floral industry.

Mr. Kistler saw me looking at the bloom the way that I was and he came to me and said, “You were meant to be a florist, I can tell by the way that you look at my orchid. What do you see in it?” I responded, “The face of God.” Mr. Kistler smiled and walked away, I think that he saw the face of God in the flower, just the way that I did then and still do whenever I see a phalenopsis orchid.

Yesterday morning as I sat in worship at All Saints I drank in the incense as the thruifer walked passed in the processional. The church was cold and the winter light coming strongly through the south windows of the church made the smoke from the censer all the more obvious. During the opening prayer of the mass I looked up and saw that the rising smoke, rich and heady continued to the vaults overhead the smoke brought out the colors of the beams of light that fell across the wall to the floor, just before the altar. The smoke drew my attention to the area where the beams of light were coming from; I could not see the window that was the source of the colors, I could only see the beams.

The shafts of red and orange were very intense, the colors of fire trucks and safety vests. The amber that hung next to them was the exact shade found on traffic lights, the green was bold and intense, but the blue and the violet were the colors that really grabbed my attention.
The violet, I’ve spent an entire day trying to think of a place where I have seen anything that shade of violet. It was intense, electric, rich, regal, bold and yet, just like the phalenopsis orchid, it defies description that does it justice.

There are things in nature and in our lives that defy description, there are sounds that we hear and cannot replicate, though musicians try and should continue to. There are colors that artists cannot make on their pallet and yet, I think they should continue to stir. There are flavors that can only come from certain foods and yet all too often we mere mortals try to come up with them through some artificial means. (Grate that nutmeg fresh please, it will never taste like the stuff already ground.) I still wince at the smell of artificial vanilla; some things are simply best left to the Creator.

For me, it’s hard to imagine seeing that shade of violet again, even if I sit there for a hundred Sundays more I don’t know that I would catch that moment in winter when the light through those south windows will be that perfect, that intense and that memorable. I know that each time I look at a Kistler Orchid it doesn’t look like the first one I saw, but I do see new things in them sometimes.

Now, I’ll wax philosophical: Are we really supposed to see these things twice? Is it God’s intention that we feel first love twice? Do we appreciate the perfection of the beams of color on the brick wall the next time as much as the first? Have I seen it and walked past it before? Do we look at the floor before us looking for the shiny nickel when we should have our eyes lifted to the heavens where we can see the shiny star instead? Do we often miss the beautiful colors because they are shrouded in the smoke or are the colors more beautiful because of the smoke?
Had I not been watching the fragrant smoke rise I would have most likely missed the colors, I would have missed their message for me, “look for the face of God.” Had I not looked down into that pile of soggy tissue paper 30 years ago I would have missed the face of God in a simple and yet at the same time complex flower. How many times have I missed seeing his face in other places?

Sermons by Cardinals and Dogwood Trees

2007-12-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, (sounds like the beginning of a fairytale doesn't it?) Many years ago I sat in a small white frame country church during a spring revival and I listened, using only one ear as the preacher gave us hell fire and brimstone and tried to put the fear of God in us by trying to tell us that the commies were coming and our lives would be worth nothing unless we, “gave our hearts to Jesus.” We sang a few rounds of Just As I Am and we went to the basement for cookies. I was nearly twelve or maybe just over that mark.

The next night I went back, we sang some rousing gospel songs, prayed between them, scared up a few more bucks for the evangelist to take back to his Indian Reservation Mission in some part of the Oklahoma Territory and then we prayed some more and then he preached. This time I turned him and his anti communism laced sermon off, the cold war had been over for a few years, (I'd never been through a duck and cover drill,) I really wasn't concerned that the CCCP was most likely the Antichrist. Instead I sat in the blond oak pew and looked out the window as, “heaven and nature sang.” The view was serene, a beautiful red cardinal sat on a branch in a dogwood tree with pristine white blossoms, each shaped like a cross. Even then at such a young age, just starting in the church, I knew that the real sermon was being preached outside that window.

Outside the window I could see creation at its perfection, a gnarled tree covered in white crosses, a blood red cardinal seemingly enthroned in the tree, his song more beautiful than any hymn I had ever heard. I wanted to nudge someone and point it out, two things kept me from it, I knew better than to nudge in church and secondly, I was sure that they wouldn't see what I was seeing. I knew even then, not everyone sees or hears things like I do, they see and hear things like they do.

Instead of there being cookies and a meet and greet with the evangelist that night, we lined up at the door to shake his hand and hear an invitation to, “come back t'mar.” He stood at the door in a western cut suit in a shade of green usually reserved for shady used car salesmen, a bolo tie and rattlesnake boots. I stood behind my aunt who had taken me to church with her, the evangelist invited her back as he pumped her arm like she was a pitcher pump, she went out the door into the warm spring evening. The man in his cowboy clothes shook my hand and said, “you should pay attention to me instead of lookin' outta that winder.” I said nothing, I didn't go back either.

I can see that tree, amass of white blossoms and that bird in contrast perched on the branch as vividly today as I could on that warm spring evening.

A year or so later I was a baptized member of that small country church. I never told anyone what the wannabe cowboy preacher said to me and I never told anyone about what I saw outside of that window, until now.

While in junior-high school, no such thing as middle schools then, I made friends with a boy my age named Dan, we weren't exactly close at that time, I couldn't even say now how we even met, but I liked him, it was that simple. As we progressed through high school together our friendship grew. We don't hear from one another much any more, but I still think of him as my brother. His parents called me son #4. His father was a preacher in a Baptist church across the county and I transferred my membership from the little country white frame church to the little bigger ochre brick country church on the other side of the county.

Driving cross town on the way to church, midweek prayer meeting and then choir practice I had time to think. I thought often about the sermon outside of the window and how beautiful it was. I would sing to myself, “...he speaks and the sound of his voice, is so sweet the birds hush their singing...” If the clamoring cowboy had quit talking would he have heard the preaching of the cardinal? If he had hushed his, “singing” he could have heard the sermon that the bird was giving.

Dan and I grew up together in many ways, a lot of folks called me Dan by mistake, I never cared, after all we were/are brothers. Dan and I sat with our peers while his father preached gentle and loving messages about God's mercy and grace. Through his sermons I came to know that God loved me, no matter what and our relationship would never be different, God loved me, case closed. I'll never forget Rabbi, as I called Dan's father, preaching a sermon called, “Who Does God Love?” He started out with prisoners, the drunken, (remember we were Baptists,) thieves, murderers and Don and Thelma and Martha and Robert and Jerry and Hester and the list went on, he named every person in that sanctuary, not in the order they were seated, but randomly and he included the choir seated behind him and he ended by saying, “and God loves me, and I don't know why because I'm a sinner. Please remember, I don't stand before you as your judge, but next to you as the accused. Yet, God loves me just as I am.”

I know there were those who looked out the windows at the growing corn after their name had been called, maybe they were seeing a sermon unfold outside the window, others were keeping score trying to catch him, surely Rev. Stan would miss one and they could be mad at him for doing so. There were those who were simply not listening.

One evening that autumn I sat in the living room with Rabbi and Mom II, the fireplace was going, Rabbi reading the paper, Mom II knitting and I sat on the floor next to Mom II's chair. She was still teaching 3^rd grade and probably was in her 24^th year at the local township grade school. Dan was a freshman in college. I looked across the bookshelf, these books, next to Mom II's chair were her books. The Shepherd of the Hills, a few children's books, some helps for Sunday School teachers and two other books, the titles of which I've never forgotten, one titled, The Geranium on the Windowsill Died and You Kept on Talking, the other, You Think Just Because You're Big You're Right.

I asked Mom II about them, she told me that both books written by the same man, an elementary school teacher, learned these lessons from children in his classroom over the years. He wrote them so that other teachers wouldn't make the same mistakes that he did. She told me that I could read them. I declined, I knew what they said just by the titles.

“The geranium died,” this title reminded me of the Cowboy Evangelist, he talked right through the sermon outside the window, “and he just kept on talking.” Rabbi looked up from his news paper and said, “The other will mean more to you later.” Once again, this man who knew who God loved, knew that the other title would mean much more when I became a man.

It does mean much more, it reminds me of the Cowboy Preacher who tried to tell me in his own way that, “just because he was big he as right.” and that I should listen to him. I see now that each of us as we walk through our daily lives have moments, hours, days, weeks and or months when we think that we are big and we are right. I do, I won't lie about it. I miss the dead geranium on the windowsill too and what's more, I forget at times where I stand, judge or accused.

I'm grateful for a God of grace who doesn't forget where my place is. He's big and he's right and he never ignores the dead geranium or the preaching cardinal, after all, “His grace is sufficient for all.”