Watching from the Rafters

Remembering....The First Tree Was a Perfect Tree

2010-12-06T17:55:00.003-05:00

My ability to remember has been the bane of several people's existence. I really can't apologize for it, it's the way I am and frankly, I've apologized for being me a few times only to wish that I could kick myself later for having done so. I don't think that we should ever be sorry for our memories or who we really are. I believe that they are part and parcel for who we are and from where we have come.

I'm often amazed by what can bring a memory to the foreground of our thinking. I've read that smells can recall things from our past very quickly and I believe that sometimes just closing our eyes is all it takes to bring a memory from mothballs and cobwebs.

Lately I've been thinking about how people spend so much time discussing their Christmas trees and decorations. I heard someone tell recently about all the effort they had put into finding the, "perfect" tree. They went on and on about all of the places they had gone to look for one and the pros and cons of different varieties. On and on it went to the point that I thought I would surely keel from the topic of discussion.

I recall very clearly the first two Christmas trees in my life. The first was when I was six, I was in first grade and I remember Mom trying to sell the idea to Pop by saying, "there will be one in his classroom at school." There was too and it was a fresh one even, but I really don't remember any more about it other than there was one, but I remember that Mom talked Pop into it and there was a tree in the living room where we lived on Peanut's place. I can't describe it or tell where it came from, but I remember some of the ornaments on its branches and one particular comes to mind. I recall there where lights on it that were far too heavy for its branches, and I remember some glass ornaments on it too, maybe they were hand me downs from Grandma Sledge, she did have such things in her collection, but I remember the things that Mom made to decorate with more than any of them. And as I said, one in particular stands vivid in my mind.

The one I can see so clearly hanging on the tree was a creation of my mother's hand. It was made from a Christmas card cut to fit the bottom of a Banquet Pot Pie pan. It was a picture of the Virgin Mary, very youthful, herself too young to be a mother, let alone the mother of one who would buy our salvation. The image of the mother and child was attached to the botton of the tin and the edge was trimmed with red ric rac.

Surely Mom used red because it was what she had on hand or gleaned from the bottom of Grandma Sledge's box of sewing notions. I know that Mom hung on to things like pot pie tins and little boxes because they were, "too handy to throw away." And she was right. I doubt that she thought of red ric rac around the Christ child as a foreshadowing device of the blood that he would shed in the future. However, I can see God using that moment in the past for my present thinking. (He's like that you know.)

Even as a boy I found those images of the Holy Family on Christmas cards interesting and thought provoking. I liked the ones that had pictures of the City of David on them too. They are filed in my memory and are brought to mind when somone starts in on the perfect Christmas tree.

I've decided that the perfect Christmas tree is the one who sees over a healthy family, even though its trunk is bent. It is the one that is in the window of a warm house that shelters and protects the family, even if it is too hot and dry to keep a tree fresh. The perfect tree is one that stands where there is harmony and peace, even if it is a bare elm branch.

The first tree I remember from Christmas 1966 wasn't fancy, flocked or over decorated, but it was decorated with things that Mom made for a family she loved and cared about. It stood in a drafty house with a coal stove, a house that was termite ridden come spring, but all in all, that tree was pefect because it stood in a house filled with love. I think deep down, Dad surely didn't need a lot of, "selling" on the idea of a tree, he knew it meant a lot to my mother and he knew that it would be perfect.

Dads and Lads, Fathers and Sons, Pop and Punk

2009-01-07T06:40:00.001-05:00

There are some stories that simply defy words; by that I mean that I have seen things that I have wanted to share with others but simply couldn't find the words to tell the story, I know that by telling what I saw will pale in comparison to what I saw. Fail as I may, there's a story that I want to share, actually the story is based on a couple of things that I've seen lately, heart rending moments for me though for many they were just every day life going on about it's business.

A few weeks before Christmas I stopped in a local cafeteria for a bite of supper, my feet were killing me and the very thought of trying to toss even a tray in the microwave at home made me think that I would probably not eat if I had to cook it for myself. I hobbled through the serving line and picked a simple meal, survival food, nothing fancy, a couple of veggies and a piece of meat. I carried the tray to a table and unloaded it and sat down, not really paying much attention to what was going on around me, my mind focused on aching feet and weariness. I think I see things going on around me better when I'm like this, when I don't have to focus on tasks and can simply sit down, it may be the mind has jumped into self preservation mode and is trying to draw me away from the fact that I want to cut my feet off and leave them under the table.

I put my plates in order and looked up, at the next table facing me was one of the most endearing sights that I have seen in ages. A young man, maybe just 30, a cute fellow, dressed rather, “hip,” if you will. He sat with a mini version of himself, the miniature model was in a high chair, dressed equally as trendy they were obviously father and son. Xerox doesn't make copies like the ones sitting before me. While daddy's hair was dark brown, buzzed as close to his scalp as possible and he had intricately tailored sideburns, his young dinner companion had lighter hair, a little longer, but it was obvious that grooming was an art form for this family. Dad had a bright smile and beautiful pearly white teeth, Lad had the makings of an equally beautiful smile in training, those tiny pearls strung in perfect alignment across the bottom and top of his grin just below bright twinkly eyes.

It was a delight to watch the two of them share dinner. Dad had a bowl of green beans, a bowl of fruit, some mashed potatoes and a bowl of macaroni and cheese and several slices of roast beef on a plate. In front of Lad there were some green beans, macaroni and cheese and every so often Dad tore small pieces of the roast beef from his plate and put it on Lad's. Dad didn't opt for the mac and cheese for himself, he meted it and the green beans out a few pieces at a time onto Lad's plate who ate them without prodding and with a very contagious smile. Dad would take the napkin from his lap and wipe his mouth and when he did Lad would turn to his father and wait patiently for the same thing to be done to him. When Dad would be tending to his own dinner and Lad's plate ran dry, he made no noise, no ruckus, he simply folded his hands on the table, not in his lap where he would have been able to smear cheese sauce on his hip black Levis.

When the main courses were cleared away, hands wiped clean Lad was ready for the the fruit course and his smile made me melt as Dad sliced large grapes and put them on a small clean saucer on Lad's tray. Dad enjoyed the pineapple and gave a very small piece to Lad whose face drew up in that international symbol for sour, then it relaxed into a smile and he held out his hand for another piece. Dad smiled as he cut another piece of pineapple and shared it with his lad.

It did my heart good to watch these two share a meal and to do it without fussing, no prodding to, “eat your green beans,” no admonishments to use a napkin, not a pant leg. There were smiles between them and now I realize that while watching them, my feet didn't seem to hurt as much as they did when I sat down.

The two young men had kept me in such wonderful amusement that I hadn't even taken time to look around the dining room to see if there were any seated there that I knew or who might be on America's most wanted. The two of them made me want to be a part of their evening meal, dinner with a bright and happy family.

When I did take the time to look around the dining room I noticed the table directly behind Dad and Lad and noticed that there was another interesting dynamic going on at that table. Because the men at that table were seated across from one another it was a little harder to see it as clearly, but it was obvious that it was another father and son combination, only this time, Father was bent with age and most likely very near 80, his son in his early 60's sat facing me. Father worked at dinner methodically and slowly, watching him was heart warming as well; old world table manners, napkin in his lap, every bite manipulated by a knife and fork from his plate. Nodding as he listened to his son make conversation. I was too far away to be privy to the topic, but it was obviously polite and it held Father's attention as he listened and occasionally responded, usually after a sip of coffee. Son, ate faster than Father and had finished his meal and was nursing a glass of iced tea and looking at the piece of pie piled high with meringue that was in front of him.

I was glad that all of this was playing out in front of me live, not on television, it would have been on two different stations had it been on television, this way it was virtually picture in a picture. Two tables held four generations, had I included myself I could have easily made a fifth.

At the table with Dad and Lad there was no conversation of words, but actions, Dad seeing to it that his young lad's needs were met in the meting out of green beans and grapes, smiles shared between them, but no words and yet they were speaking volumes to one another through their eyes, their smiles and their actions. It was hard to decide which table to watch the closest. All the while I pushed a piece of chicken and some baked squash around my plate. Father and Son sat, ate, talked as if there were no hurries or concerns in the world, nothing to dash off to do, no particular time to be home, Dad and Lad sat, ate and in their own way held conversation and yet, they too did so as if they had the rest of their lives to spend together at the dinner table.

Both tables were portraits of a dynamic that warmed my heart, loving fathers and loving sons together. It was obvious to me that at both of these tables it wasn't just a matter of being together it was also about four people who needed one another. Lad couldn't cut his meat or slice his grapes, I later learned that Father couldn't have driven himself to dinner, he needed Son to help him with that. (I learned this later when I was putting on my coat as I left, I heard Father thank Son for taking him Christmas shopping and for having dinner with him, “I just wouldn't have driven up here,” he said.”)

The scene at the restaurant of the fathers and sons made me think of the last time that I spent with my father. It wasn't as pretty as the picture that I saw at MCL, it was in a hospital room, my father's back keeping him in agony because he wasn't allowed to sit up, he was granted a reprieve for a while and he sat on the side of the bed and I slid a chair up to him so that we sat knee to knee. I remember Pop was wracked with pain, deep crevices carved in his face from pain and worry. Yet, in a tangle of IV lines Pop sat with me and talked, I know now that in many ways he was purging his soul, he asked me questions and told me about things that were eating at him. He told me of his concern for our family, his worry about relationships, his desires for my life, his prayers for me. This was the first time that I had ever heard my father say that he prayed and yet I wasn't surprised. It was our wonderful time together to think and talk, to share and yet it didn't happen in a cozy lit cafeteria on the south side. We spent time together that evening quietly, nothing being said in words and yet volumes being spoken.

Just a few hours later after my two hours knee to knee with my father he passed away. I'm not surprised really, our last couple of hours was his preparation for departure and I'm proud that he decided that I was the one that he wanted to share that time with. Since then, one of my father's prayers for me was answered, for a while. Who knows really, maybe several of them have been and I just don't know it. Pop had lots of secrets from Punk, (his pet name for me,) who knows what his prayers were for not just me, but for others.

Driving home from dinner all I could see was the tables of fathers and sons. Tears came to my eyes as I thought about how nice it would have been to have sat across the table from my father that evening and been a part of this gathering of Dads and Lads. I prayed as well, just like my father did, only I prayed that both of those sons remain ever vigilant to their father's needs, that they listen to their wisdom, that they help as much as they can and yet grant their fathers independence for as long as they can. I prayed that the sons would recognize that their father's dignity is all important and that they should honor that.
I prayed as well that the fathers would be ever mindful of their son's needs and that they would pray for them and watch over them, that they would help them understand the mysteries of life as much as they could help them to do so. What's more I hoped that each of these four men would have a respect for every person, man or woman, that they would teach one another and find joy in being together. After all, we really don't know how long we will have one another.

Before I left the cafeteria Dad was giving Lad the last wipe down before putting his coat on him. Dad said the first words I had heard him utter during dinner, he said, “good dinner.” Lad threw his arms around Dad's neck and answered, “uh huh.” It was said with enthusiasm, like it truly was the best meal that he had ever eaten, I hope it was because of the company.

My Grown Up Gratitude List

2008-11-27T08:35:00.001-05:00

I thought that maybe since I give a list for my birthday that it might be nice to give a grown up gratitude list, a list of things that I have found and find myself grateful for that have been revealed to me this year. I say revealed because some of the things on the list aren't simply the usual things that we rattle off when we are given the five kernels of corn as a favor at a Thanksgiving dinner, many are familiar with this tradition practiced in many homes where you are to offer a thankfulness for each kernel of corn on the table in front of you.

My family doesn't do this, in fact since Pop passed away in 2006 the annual Thanksgiving meal has been one that Mom and I shared while my sisters went to their in-laws or did whatever it was that they were doing that day. Thanksgiving was really not a large holiday when I was growing up, generally it was just our household at the table. I well recall my father's table grace, not invoked often but it went like this, “The Lord knows we are grateful or he would not have given it to us.” I suppose that it was my father's public prayer and not his personal prayer. I learned hours before he died that my father was a man of prayer, something that I really didn't know, but do we really know that about one another?

So here goes, my Grown Up Gratitude List:

I am grateful that when I was suffering in heart intensely after Thanksgiving last year, I found a swift kick in the Levis was the cure.

I'm thankful that I felt that swift kick a week later and followed in the direction of the trajectory.

I'm thankful that I found a place to worship where I can worship without distraction, where falling to one's knees to pray is not expected, but accepted. A posture of humbleness for me I am grateful that I came to accept that practice early on.

I'm thankful that I have a caring family, actually, I have two, one of blood and one of choice. The ones of choice are not called friends in this case, they are truly a family of choice and if they read this, I want them to know that my gratitude for them is as deep and as intense as that for my family of blood.

I'm thankful that I have a few friends who go above and beyond simple caring, they love with an intensity that could only be compared to being in that area that spans both friend and family. Thinking of a couple of them, I know that they pray for me daily, that they worry about me when things are rough and they know that I offer the same for them, I am grateful beyond measure for them and I am grateful that I can do the same for them, that God has given me strength and insight to do so.

I'm grateful to God for those who minister to me, theirs is surely the kingdom of heaven. I'm grateful to my parish priest for the way that he has been a support to me in these last few months, understanding grief and the dark nights of the soul. I am grateful for my friends Tom and Beth who have held my hand on two of the most difficult days of this year. I offer thanksgiving for Moot and Poot for the way that they minister, not just to me, but to a host of others, that goes for Tom and Beth as well. I am grateful as well for a some others who have held my hand in a virtual way through cyberspace, it's been like they were here in my living room hearing me when I could tell no one else.

I'm grateful to Troy and Duane who came to care when I needed it.

I'm so thankful that I was able to walk from one job to another without having to see one day without pay.

I'm thankful for opportunities that presented themselves in odd ways, but without a doubt in my mind where the workings of God in my life.

I'm thankful for having food and an appetite, many don't have one, the other or both. In that line I am thankful that to date I've lost about 20+ pounds.

I offer gratitude for a dry place to live, warm unless the wind beats in from the northwest. Then I am grateful for the steam when it comes and the layers that I can put on until it does. So I am grateful to have warm clothing too.

I am grateful for and to my mother, who loves me and does a tremendous favor for me each week as she does my laundry. (For those reading this, she wants to do it, I don't ask her and I see that she knows my appreciation and thankfulness.) I'm thankful for her beyond measure, she knows me so well, listens to my stories and groanings and laughs at my jokes...still.

I'm thankful that she puts my shirts on wire hangers and doesn't beat me with them. I love you mommy dearest.

I'm thankful that I have transportation and that gas has gone down.

I offer gratitude for the music that I can listen to that comforts and sooths, like the music I'm listening to as I write this.

I'm grateful that I've been able to avoid Christmas in July, August, September, October and most of November and that I've not heard Silent Night yet.

This year there is another list of gratitudes that will tell where else I've been on my journey through the last few pages of the calendar. For many this list might be cryptic, that's okay, we don't have to know everything in order to understand another's gratitude, and some of the things that we are grateful for are deeply personal and yet somehow only seem to be even more valuable when they are said aloud.

I have a great measure of gratitude for a hand laid on the left shoulder when approached from behind.

I so treasure and am so grateful for 6:30am phone calls that I still look at the clock at that time and wait for for the phone to ring, even though it doesn't.

I'm grateful for hand holding, there is no greater feeling of comfort when there is no discomfort.

I'm very grateful for the imperfections in body and yet even more grateful to God for the way that those imperfections are made perfect in his time and in his presence.

I'm grateful beyond measure that God has provided a comfort in the sunrises that I see along the interstate as I drive to work, reminders that there is another side of the sunrise where things are even more beautiful.

Equally I am grateful for the sunset that I saw on the way home from work the other day, so beautiful it defies description, I can only say that now I understand why no word rhymes with orange, it keeps poets from describing sunsets like that one, they couldn't do it justice and shouldn't try.

I'm thankful that there aren't enough hymnals in church and that sometimes we have to share.

I'm thankful for first times and last times.

I'm grateful to God that he provides a time and a place for everything, a season for everything and a measure for everything. That we can experience his plan and find knowledge, pleasure, peace and comfort in every life experience. Even in hardship he provides a time and place for us to learn what needs to be learned, even if the lesson is, “be quiet and lesson.” God in his wisdom gives us a season and a time to forget, many times we consider that an infirmity, but I'm not sure that it really is.

I am thankful that I have had opportunities to love, give of myself and share and that for an undetermined amount of time I may continue to do so.

I am thankful for tears, they come with joy, sorrow and belly laughs.

I am thankful that my first heart surgery won't be installation.

I call this a Grown Up Gratitude List as a bit of a take on the holiday song, “My Grown Up Christmas List.” That list calls for people to get a long, no war, food for everyone...and so on. My gratitude list is sincerely a list that gets pondered on so often, not every item every day, but every item sometime. We don't realize that we are grateful for somethings until it slaps us in the face, we don't know that we have enough or enough to share until we are called upon to do so and often we don't know how grateful we are for something until we don't have it anymore. Then there are times when we are grateful for things and experiences from the time we have them until the time they are gone. I am truly thankful that I can say Thank You and I'm Grateful and not have to fear that anyone will say...”for that?” I'd have to respond, “yes, even for that.”

This is my Grown Up Gratitude List.

Soul Food at the Crown

2008-11-10T20:36:00.000-05:00

Friday was a day for running errands and doing chores, well, some chores, not all of them got done. Are chores really ever done? After having run around most of the midday I decided that it was time for some soul food. I'm not talking about the kind of soul food that one savors at a table with others, I'm talking about food for the soul.

About the soul, recently I found a quote from C. S. Lewis that really speaks to me, Mr. Lewis said, “We are a soul, we have a body.” I like the way that he thinks on this subject, I like to think that it is really the way that we are created. I can see God creating our soul, our most inner being, the part of our self that he made for himself. By the same token, I can see God creating our bodies so that there would be a temporary place to house our soul until he claims it again from earth to take unto himself. I'm not exactly sure why he feels the need to share us with the world, though I feel pretty sure it is so that our soul will be fed and nurtured and ultimately strengthened. I'm no theologian, I'm just a regular guy away from home. (You have heard me say that before though.)

If you are reading this and you are not from Indianapolis you may not be aware of what Crown Hill really is, Crown Hill is the fifth largest cemetery in the United States. Crown Hill is believed by some to be the highest point in the state and while I'm not sure of the validity of that I do know that it is the highest point in Marion County. The cemetery is a place of beauty and while some people would think it creepy, I see it as a wonderful garden in the central city, a place where there are a huge variety of trees, flower beds and the resting place of some of the state's native sons and daughters, many of them people of note.

The high point that is known as Crown Hill was once known as Strawberry Hill and was a well known picnic spot when the city was growing. The pinnacle is now the burial site of James Whitcomb Riley a well known poet in Indiana and other place too, I'm sure. Atop this hill is a monument to Riley that was paid for by the children of Indiana who gave pennies in order to fund the gray stone rectangle of columns that support beams of the same stone. The custom is to leave pennies on the tablet that gives the name and dates for the poet, the coins are collected and given to Riley Children's Hospital here in the city. It is said that if one tosses a penny into the air and it lands on one of the beams a wish will be granted. Of course, I always try this and like I told a friend of mine recently, I somehow think that it doesn't work when you stand there pitching a roll of pennies one at a time in order to make the mark and then walk away feeling confident that your wish is going to come true. I have only gotten it on the first try once in the many years that I have climbed the hill either on foot or by car.

I didn't go to the hill to make a wish or visit the graves of the city's former movers and shakers, I went there because in autumn it is one of the most beautiful sights in the city. When you are standing on the concrete that surrounds Riley's monument and look out over the city you don't see what the city really looks like, you see what it could look like or maybe even would want to look like if the city had an actual soul. There is only beauty, there are no pot holes, there is no crime, there are no drugs being sold in front of my apartment, there is no government trying to figure out how to solve the previous mentioned items. There is only a sea of autumn leaves and in the distance there is the city skyline. It is an awesome view for a city the size of Indianapolis. If you look to the east you can see the Colosseum at the state fair grounds, to the west and not so far away you can see the Indianapolis Museum of Art and on a really clear day like Friday you can see the pyramids on the north side. The city's tributes to architecture are all visible from this high point. So, Crown Hill is a place to truly drink in the beauty that is Indianapolis.

There is more to the hill than just a wonderful vantage point to see the city and that's the reason why I went. I wanted the food for my soul that comes with seeing the beauty that surrounded me, but what's more I wanted the strength of the monument and the time alone in a place closer to heaven. The wind was brisk and cold and while I had a jacket in the van, I didn't want to wear it, instead I wanted the sun heated stone column to be my warmth, I rested my back against one while I surveyed the city and looked to the sky that was that shade of blue that we only get to see a few times a year. I wanted to be in a place where there was a certain amount of quiet, the street noise is muted at this elevation. I found the things that I wanted there. After my effort to achieve good luck I stood at the top of the hill hugging the warm column, my eyes closed, thinking about the strength that was the reason stone is used for the purpose of erecting monuments that are meant to last. I hugged it and thought of the strength and power of a warm hug, the only down side is that a stone doesn't hug back. While I looked to the sky in it's glory I was reminded that while we think of heaven as being just beyond the verge of sky we are really not closer to heaven while standing on a hill, even the highest one in the city.

While I looked across the vastness and drank in the autumn wind and the shining blue sky I knew that my soul was being fed and that I was going to be warmed by the love I show to others, not the granite stones that soon will be cold and hard and gray, much like the winter will be.

Visiting

2008-10-29T21:24:00.001-04:00

I've included this clip from YouTube because it is a piece of music that I've enjoyed for a long time. I like the quiet feeling that it invokes, the peacefulness of the music. The tune touches my heart and I feel a desire to sit in front of a candle and watch the flame flicker and dance because of a draft in the room. The title of the song speaks to me, Visiting.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about visiting, only I have not been thinking of it in the same term that I think of the title of this song. Recently I visited a dear friend of mine. I had not seen her in a while, but have spoken to her on the phone. She is an elegant lady, snowy white hair that is beautifully coiffed. She has a refined style of dress, simple with little jewelry. All about her makes me think that I'd like to be like her when I grow up. (That was a borrowed statement from a mutual friend.) I would like to be like her when I grow up, yet each of us have our own style, our own personality and while she and I enjoy one another's personality we will never be the same.

During our recent visit we talked about many things, she is a wonderful communicator, she knows how to draw a person out and asks the questions that makes one think about their lives, their philosophy and dare I say goals. I say, “dare I say goals,” because I have always said that I don't have goals, that I have destinations. A person who is goal oriented, in my humble opinion, tends to do what they believe needs to be done in order to achieve their goal. This often means that they will step over any body lying along side the path to get there, they often have a narrowed vision, one that sets the goal before them with nothing else on their mind but the goal. I myself prefer to think of myself as a destination minded person, there are places that I want to get to but I realize that more than one path will take me there. My terminology differs in that along the journey there is much to learn, gleaning to do, and a broader vision. Now, I don't think that there are hard and fast rules about these statements, as a destination minded person I have chosen to keep an open mind about such things and I understand that there are surely those goal oriented who do not have a narrowed vision, though they may not exactly be taking the same kind of journey to the goal. If any of that made sense to you, please let me know and explain it to me. (Actually, I get it.)

My host engaged me in a discussion regarding my decision to change churches in December. She asked a question that I didn't quite expect and have never been asked before, one that I was able to answer without much thought. My answer came quickly, but not with a knee jerk response. (From here in I'll call her Grace, because she is and she needs a name.) “I was pulled to this place by God, led may be a better term, but I had a hard time giving up what had become treasure to me. I understand that there are times when we need to leave our treasure behind in order to find another. Sometimes we have to leave in order to find what God has in store for us, as difficult as it may be to do so, yet, I felt that it was a destination that I must travel to.”

Grace said that my answer was well thought out and yet came quickly, so I surely had given it some thought. I agreed that I had. It was her next question that made my balance tilt just a quarter bubble off plumb and yet it wasn't a question that I had difficulty answering either. She asked me what I was looking for when I went to church. Before I tell the answer let me say that I have been attending an Anglican church for nearly a year now. I felt a drawing to it even though it was far from my faith tradition. There are customs there that I embrace seeing a holiness in it that I found hard to find in the place that I left. When I arrive at church I join others who are kneeling in prayer, preparing their hearts and minds for worship, they look to the cross and possibly they are like me and see the symbol of our salvation. “Grace, I can answer that question as quickly as I answered your other. I attend church for two reasons and there are two things that I seek and I feel confident that I find them there, I can worship there, I can look with awe and wonder upon the body of our savior and offer my gratitude for the tremendous sacrifice that was made for me. I can worship through the symbols of the mass, those symbols being the visual reminders of what I believe. Yet, the equally important reason why I go is because I am seeking peace. Peace of heart, peace of mind, peace that permeates my very being, that peace that is often spoken of in the benediction, the “peace that passes all understanding.” that's what I look for. I think to seek that peace is to look upon the face of God.”

Grace smiled and shook her head, “we all go for different reasons, but I agree with you, those are the reasons to be there.” She followed by telling me that she felt that I am a spiritual person. I told her that I am just a regular man away from home.

When I am in the church, kneeling and praying I ask God for that very peace that passes all understanding. I ask him to fill my entire being with it. I often feel like a beggar visiting a home and begging for a crust of bread, and here I get it. I sometimes feel as though I am visiting the courts of praise and I express my gratitude for the opportunity to visit and to be allowed to sit at the feet of the king. Sometimes I go so far as to boldly ask to be allowed to visit in person soon so that I may know the permanent peace that comes with being in God's presence.

I shared with Grace that I recently lost the best friend that I've ever had, she smiled and said, “it isn't forever.” What wisdom, what grace. I know and fully understand what she said to me is true and is something that can be counted upon as truth, just as I can count upon the Gospel being true, soul food and comfort.

As I drove home from our visit I thought about what she said, “it isn't forever.” Right then, right there at the light at 86th and Michigan Road I agreed with her with passion that it isn't forever, that all of us are just visiting here, we are on loan by God, encouraged to travel to the destination that he has planned for us, taking whatever path the journey lays before us. I was reminded that we're are just visiting, some for a long time in order to teach those of us along the path and some are here on a visit of a short time, maybe they are teaching us as well, in fact, I know they are.

We are just visiting.

Pennies From Heaven

2008-10-08T21:08:00.002-04:00

Some twenty nine years ago I met a man in the flower shop that I was working in who would visit and engage the owner of the shop in deep theological discussions. There were times when I was uncomfortable with the two of them debating the subjects that they chose. Looking back the discussions, made with great passion, were on subjects that really didn't matter in the true heavenly realm. I blamed part of it on their faith traditions. It's not important what they were, let's just say that they both came from rather fundamentalist backgrounds.

One day, someone said, “Good Grief,” in fact, the one who said it was me. Now, it should be noted that I was all of 19 when I said it, and I'm not from a fundamentalist faith tradition. One co-worker and my employer jumped me and said that grief was not good. The owners friend looked at me like I had blasphemed, though he knew that I hadn't. His faked aghast was for my sake. He didn't say anything in my defense though.

Later when he came in I heard another employee, thank God it wasn't me, say, “Good Luck!” to someone. Oh mercy, I've never heard such a dressing down. It was said, “there is no such thing as good luck, the Lord has all things in control and you cannot have luck, God doesn't believe in it.” The fellow fundamentalist suddenly proved that he wasn't going to be just a quiet observer in this case. Willy, he said, “I think it's okay to say, good luck, look at it from the standpoint that, Luck, Love and the Lord all come from the same place, God. I think that you need to let up a little. Your line about good grief seemed a bit hard nosed to me last week.” There was more debate and that was somewhat the end of the friend that came to debate all things theological.
I've long remembered those discussions, as you can tell. I've thought heavily on the statement of Good Luck, I think that Richard was right, Luck, Love and the Lord are somewhat the same. I see that God is in control, that I can't argue with, but, we tend to use the term luck in the vernacular of the day. Many of us understand that God is in control and that we don't have to rely upon luck. Love is of God, so that's easy.

Now, to be told that grief isn't good, this is where I have a real problem. We have learned over the years that grief is good for us. Of course there are times when it can be carried for too long, or is it? But when we know that there is no emotion that Jesus didn't experience on earth. His anger always comes to me first because of his action of turning the tables over in the temple because of the sales of sacrifice offerings, probably made with scrip that was good only in the temple. I think of his agony in the garden while facing his death, I think of the emotion that was surely moving through his heart in the upper room where he offered the last supper, I feel like he surely felt disappointment in Judas, that he must have felt the melancholy of knowing that he was eating a last meal with his closest friends on earth. Of course all of these things are conjecture about the last supper. One thing that we know for sure is that Jesus felt grief when his dear friend Lazarus died. When he got word of it he went to the tomb and wept. Remember that,”shortest verse” in the Bible? Jesus wept. That he wept tells all that we need to know, he experienced grief, just as we do.

I know many people who are grieving, I know that like Jesus they weep. I know that weeping can be good because it is a cleansing of our bodies, it helps us to wash the hurt from our eyes, ultimately. I've said recently that if our eyes are the windows of the soul, then tears are the Windex for those windows.

Now, a little more about Luck, Love and the Lord. We often hear superstitions and and fairy tales while we are growing up, take for instance, “Find a penny that's face up and all the day you'll have good luck.” There are times that a penny more is all that we need to complete a purchase, is that where the good luck comes in? You had the extra penny. I like the fairy tale associated with found pennies. Seems that when we find a penny it has been thrown from heaven by someone who is thinking about us, or who wants us to know that they are okay, that they are in paradise. Do I think that those pennies actually fall from heaven? No, I don't, but I like the story just as well. The tale goes on to say that you are to pick up the penny and throw it some distance so that when someone else comes along and finds it they might think that they have found a penny from heaven and will think on someone who has gone before them. Okay, this is where the story proves itself to be a fairy tale. By throwing the penny we know that it didn't fall from heaven, it fell from our hands to someone else's a little farther down the road.
I found a penny the other morning, it was face up. Now, I could have gone with the superstition and thought of it as good luck, but since I buy into the story that they are pennies from heaven, well, I like that idea, and I felt like I knew who would have thrown that penny down from heaven, if that was actually where it came from. I know it isn't true, the penny was laying in front of a gas pump, it was just a little change that didn't make it into someone's pocket.
The song that came out of the depression, Every Time it Rains it Rains Pennies From Heaven, makes me wonder if the tune might have been a reminder to some that they were being told my those who have gone before them that everything was going to be fine, that their grief, shoveled upon them by the government and the nation's economic problems were actually abated by pennies falling from heaven. No, I don't think so.

Isn't it comforting to know that Jesus proved that grief is good by showing it himself, and isn't there some comfort in knowing that when we find those pennies from heaven that it is our own mind telling us that someone is thinking of us from the heavens and that everything is okay?

Luck, Love and the Lord, maybe Richard had a better handle on it than many others do.

Looking on the Face of God

2008-10-03T06:59:00.001-04:00

Having been in the floral industry for so many years I have had the opportunity that so many haven't. I've held many varieties of flowers and looked at the beauty in their faces.

I have clutched parrot tulips in my hands in the spring that were green and white with a touch of pink on them that looked as though it was whispered on. During the summer I've looked at the center of zinnias and marveled at how their centers seemed to bear another flower, blossoms among the blossoms. The autumn months have shown to me how very botanical the world can be, dogwood trees that wore a cross in the spring carries a berry to feed the birds. The colors of the autumn flowers become a rich tapestry. When winter comes and the cut ever greens are brought into the shop I am amazed at the silver fir, deep green on the facing surface, the back of the needles looks like polished silver.

I think there are no better fragrances in spring than the early paper white narcissus and the heavenly fragrance of the Easter Lilies are the true heralds of spring for me.

To have the opportunity to see the freckles on a Stargazer Lily is to see the freckles on an auburn headed child. The leggy petals of a John Storre orchid reminds me of the quick little spiders that run through the garden, no real threat to anyone, just momentary visitors. How can a person see a chartreuse Fuji Mum and not gasp at its vibrant color.

I have been blessed to look on these bits of nature and see the face of God and to stand in awe and and wonder at the works of his hands.

It causes me to think of family and friends and how they have become the eyes, ears and hands of God. Ever watching, listening and reaching out. I've see them a lot lately and just as it has been a blessing to look at the face of God's creation and see his face, I've been blessed in watching his eyes, ears and hands at work as well.

All of God's creation working together to make every facet of life beautiful, in the sunny days and in the stormy ones, as well as the days that are deeply covered in clouds. I have looked in the face of flowers and found comfort and I know the comfort that they provide for others.

In all these things, I have seen the face of God in the heavenly realm, as much as I have seen it on earth.

The Pearl of Great Worth

2008-09-20T22:46:00.001-04:00

O my soul, bless God.
From head to toe, I'll bless his holy name!
O my soul, bless God,
don't forget a single blessing!

Bless God, all you armies of angels,
alert to respond to whatever he wills.
Bless God, all creatures, wherever you are--
everything and everyone made by God.

And you, O my soul, bless God!

Psalm 103, selected verses.

All those who know what has been going on in my life know that one of my long time prayers was answered recently. For all of my adult life I have prayed that God would allow me to meet a man that I could love and care for who would love and care for me. I always made the payer a sentence because it didn't warrant elaborate begging, I knew that God understood my request because he, “knit me in my mother's womb,” there is nothing about me that he doesn't know. Many have been the times that I have poured out my heart to Him in the darkness, always keeping my prayer simple, it didn't require any more.

About seven weeks ago I met a man in church, his name, Bob. Bob asked me on the church sidewalk if I would like to have dinner with him sometime soon, and before the words could drift from his mouth to my ears I said, “Yes!” During that week we had dinner and as we talked and listened and started to know one another I felt that this man was different. When dinner was over he walked me to my car and we talked more, we hugged and parted company. I got in the car and when I pulled onto the highway I looked to the sunset and said, “Lord, this is the one, isn't it?”

Over the next several weeks I began to feel the peace that comes with a prayer answered, a favor granted. I knew that God had put Bob in my life, there was no question about it in my mind. Bob and I agreed that we would take things slow, he told me that he had rushed into other situations and that he didn't want to repeat the mistakes of his past. I told him that being new to all of this that I didn't want to mess things up by being in a hurry and suggested that together we simply enjoy the journey. That's what we did.

After having met Bob my birthday came along and at 9:30 on the morning of my birthday he called to wish me a happy birthday and we talked about the plans of our separate days. His was the first voice I heard that day. A few weeks ago at 6:30 in the morning my phone rang, there is a descending order for me of what that means, I always fear calamity first, family ill, secondly I think, who can't make it to work? When I answered the phone, the voice on the other end was Bob's as he said, “Good morning, Sunshine.” My heart melted a little, he called to say good morning and he did so each morning after. Before bed we talked to one another and said good night and wished each other good sleep. Each time, after hanging up I would simply say, “Lord, you have sent me the one, I can tell.”

With Bob I got to do a few things that I have never done before, I got to hold hands in the movies. Silly isn't it? A teenage thing, but a thing that I missed as a teenager. On this past Sunday we stood together in church and shared a hymnal, his arm around me, not an experience I had ever had before. I was seeing that we were recognizing that we loved one another.

On Wednesday, September 17th I received my first e mail from him, telling me again that he didn't want to rush our relationship, that he hoped that I wasn't frustrated. Me? Frustrated? NO! It was all happening at a pace that to me showed that our relationship was moving toward true and honest love. “Lord, he is the one, thank you for sending him to me.”

That evening I called to tell him good night, his daughter answered the phone and I asked to speak to him, she told me that he had died that afternoon, having suffered a heart attack. Bob was gone, slipped through my fingers like sand, he was gone from my world and the world of his family, his church, his other friends, but selfishly I thought, he's gone from my life, from my hopes and dreams, GONE, damn it, why did it have to happen this way? And then I remembered, don't ask why.

Never in my life have I loved a man as much as I have loved Bob, there had not been one before, so the experience was all new to me. He had taken me the Sunday before to meet his sister and brother in law and his grandniece. Driving home in wind and mist I knew that he was tired and needed to kick back for a while. When he dropped me off at my apartment I said, “Well, I expect that I'll be the topic of conversation over meat loaf and mashed potatoes tonight, I hope I pass the test.” Bob's response to me was, “you have already passed the hardest test of all, you make me happy.”A tear came to my eye and I told him that I have never been happier in my life. A statement that I could make with every confidence.

The time that has followed has been an interesting one, I have received e mails, and now calls from people telling me how sorry they are, people from All Saints, the church we shared, people from the church that I had recently left. Family and friends all sharing their care and concern. I have been surrounded by people who have shown their love in such amazing ways. Fr. Steve and Jerry, quick to care for me, Kathy S, who when she received the news told Fr. Steve that the two of them should come and tell me in person, though I called Fr. Steve before they had the chance. Over the phone I felt his shepherds crook around me, drawing me even closer into the fold, then the next day, not his staff, but his arms. There has been a visit from some friends from my former church, men who understood the experience of first love and living in good solid relationships now.

I am truly blessed to have received calls from friends who have simply said, “tell me about it.” Opening their hearts to hear the story, through tears and with the sounds that a broken heart makes, rattling in my chest and voice.

I have repeated two things several times, they have given me comfort, the first: I have said that I was looking for the pearl of great worth and when I found it I was allowed to hold it, feel it's luster and allowed to look into the sheen of it and see that there was a sparkle in it, but pearls don't sparkle, that sparkle came from my eyes. Now, the pearl of great worth is gone, I see now that because it was so precious and so treasured I was only allowed to hold it for a moment, our relationship only lasted about seven weeks. Still, the loss has felt like the loss of a lifetime love.

The second thing that I have said is this: I was having the feelings that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Bob, now I see that he spent the rest of his life with me.

A time to...

2008-09-07T20:51:00.001-04:00

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
...A time to weep and a time to laugh;
...A time to mourn and a time to dance;
...A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
...A time to gain and a time to lose;

These words that come from the opening verses of the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes are some of my favorite of the Old Testament. I've given only a few of the verses above, from Chapter 3:1-8, all of them are meaningful and precious to me; I've only listed a few above. They were the words that I chose to open the service of committal for my father's ashes. I chose them for that occasion because they speak of just about every event in life, and its counterpart. They seemed like appropriate words for the moment, but they speak to me as wisdom to ponder, They are words of wisdom from the pen of King Solomon and since he is considered to be the wisest man in history it only seems appropriate to think on these words.

In the 1950's Pete Seeger used the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 to write the song called Turn, Turn, Turn. He added only one line to the scripture text. After the words, “A time to love, a time to hate; A time of war, and a time for peace.” he added, “I swear it's not too late.” He wanted the song to be a plea for world peace. In 1965 the folk music band, The Byrds' recorded the song and it reached the US music charts. The song has long made it easy for me to remember the words of the scripture text.

King Solomon was truly wise in saying that there is a time for every purpose under heaven, there is, it's really that simple, though we want to complicate things sometimes. I selected the verses above because they have been the ones that have moved through my life most recently, some in very serious ways, some in a more amusing way if I think about it.

“A time to be born, a time to die;” this line is really pretty simple, there have been several births in my extended family of late, my second cousins are the ones having children now and I hear about them through my mother, she has spoken of how the mothers and fathers have beamed at the baby showers that were given by their aunts. Of course there is death, daily there are those who leave this life for the next one and I often say that I am not angry for their death, I'm jealous that they are headed to their eternal home without me.

“A time to weep, and a time to laugh;” This is a daily part of my life, sometimes there are moments of sorrow that bring me to tears, moments of joy that bring tears to my eyes, look to the verse above and you'll understand. There have been times where I have lived this one backwards and I have laughed until I cried. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. I've found healing in laughing until I cried, but I have also wept knowing that there would be moments of laughter that followed.

“A time to mourn, and a time to dance;” again, see above. However, mourning doesn't have to be just attached to death, yesterday I learned that someone I know has been diagnosed with lung cancer, it is isolated to one lung and so the treatment option offered has been to remove the lung, knowing that he can live a long life with just one, while the family is in fear and mourning the event in their life, there is the very good chance that after the surgery they will have opportunity to dance for the joy of his healing. I've spoken to a friend mentioned in one of my blog entries entitled, “A Kathy-like Faith”, she has spoken of her illness as a reason to dance. I am glad that she sees it that way and she does for all of the right reasons, granted, for me it has taken a little while for me to get out my tap shoes to join her, but the longer I think on it the more I want to dance with her.

There are other things that happen in our life that cause us to mourn and when the event is brought to true light the shock is melted away then there is cause for dancing. I've experienced that lately.

“A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;” I'm going to go out on a limb on this one, for me I have often felt that I wanted to challenge King Solomon on the wisdom of putting this statement in this order; I have wanted it to be, “a time to refrain from embracing, and a time to embrace.” This is where I'm going to go a little deeper than I have on the previous selections above. I love to hug, it is a moment of physical contact that expresses a true and honest feeling, be it fraternal, paternal, familial or made of pure romance, or deep and caring love, you know what the other is feeling when they hug you. It is pretty hard to hide your feelings when you hug, a handshake doesn't show your emotions like a hug does.

There was a time where I walled myself off from the hug that went beyond fraternal, paternal or familial. I hugged my friends, with friendly hugs and I hugged my parents and family with hugs that displayed my love for them. However, there was no one to share the hug of deep and caring love for another or the pure romance hug. Now there is, and I have to say that it has brought to me a view of life that I have not seen before. To feel love in this way is new to me, and yet it is very natural, it is a feeling that I don't want to go away, there is a feeling in these hugs that I can't wait to experience again. Frankly, this is a feeling of love that I have waited a very long time for and it is a wonderful experience. I don't want to refrain from embracing and I don't want anyone else to either, I see how it can be a cure to many of our ills. The healing of a hug, we can't bottle it, we can't compress it to pill form, once given it can be returned, but doing so is a wonderful thing; there are great things that come from the time to embrace. I am finding a healing in it, in the form of a healing from the loneliness that I've experienced in my life, some of the fears that I've had that I would always be single and thus the loneliness would continue. I don't want to refrain from embracing, I hope that Solomon will understand.

“A time to gain, and a time to lose;” okay, this is where the sense of humor has to come into play. Over many years I've put on some pounds, God knows how many and frankly, I don't want to know. Lately, I've lost a few of those pounds, but I have kept in mind what Carl Hurley says, “if someone loses weight some one has to gain it or the earth will fall out of balance and we will go careening into the sun.” So I would like to take this opportunity to thank whoever has taken up my slack. Bear in mind that I am not bragging, I am grateful and I know that it is the healthy thing for me to do, something that I've needed to attack harder in the past, but it didn't work out that way, maybe it was because I was supposed to continue to do my share to keep us from being burnt to a crisp or perhaps this is the time that it was supposed to happen, I can look at it as, “and a time to lose.”

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven;” I see my life moving through a part of the circle that is virgin territory for me, and it is moving through some places that I've been before but a very long time ago. I know that I am seeing these paths, taking these new/renewed journeys because God is truly in charge and he has heard my prayers and granted them knowing that they were all in his good time. Exciting? You bet, because I know that I have God holding my hand, and a dear and precious man embracing me, I don't plan on refraining.

happy birthday

2008-08-23T09:50:00.001-04:00

Birthday 48: The Beat Goes On.

2008-08-23T09:44:00.003-04:00

When It comes to one's birthday, it isn't a bad thing to look at the events and memories of that life. This year my thoughts were not recorded in the bathtub as they were last year. A little more thought went into them. As I said last year, my friend Doug used to say, “birthdays are a luxury that not everyone can afford.” If you think about it, he was right, then I think about the joy that will follow my very last birthday.

When my biography is written, it will not begin, “it was a dark and stormy night...” My youngest sister's story will begin that way though.
Since last year's list, (See August Archive, 2007) I have added the faith tradition of the Episcopal Church to my list of affiliations.
I have smelled the essence of vinegar as the altar was being washed on Good Friday.
I have installed a digital TV converter with the help of four people on two continents.
In the past year I have sat at a table in a pizza parlor in Evansville where the people around it were named, Don, Don, Don and John. John did not feel left out, by the way.
I tasted anchovies on pizza for the first time that evening, they're okay.
I have crossed the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, Washington Street, John F. Kennedy, and Stot's Creek Bridges, though not on the same day.
I have never seen an OBGYN professionally.
I still have the brackets and wires from my orthodontics. I paid for them, they are mine and the Orthodontist gave them to me as a joke for what I gladly paid for my smile. I didn't think of it as that much of a joke, it would have made a nice down payment on a car, but it wouldn't have lasted this long.
In just a week or so I will observe the 10th anniversary of the death of one of my dearest friends.
The Widor Toccata is one of my favorite organ pieces.
I tear up at the sound of the Navy Hymn and feel a special jolt of pride when I hear the trumpet opening of the National Hymn.
I have tried digging to China, but only got as far as their tree roots.
I am not a queen and yet I have two gold crowns.
I once designed a floral arrangement that was delivered to Luciano Pavarotti on his final visit to Indianapolis.
Once I met a man who claimed that he was so in love with a particular woman that it hurt, now 15 plus years later he has gotten over the pain.
I still wonder if 2 out of 3 dentists chew gum for their patients who don't have teeth.
My marbles are not lost, I keep them in a jar in the hutch.
My favorite salad dressing is Bleu Cheese.
My favorite place to eat it is Iria's or Puccini's Smiling Teeth.
I've learned that it's true that, “kisses aren't contracts” I've also learned that handshakes aren't either.
There's no place like home.
At times I want to be alone and I want a sentry at the door to say, “No one sees the great Oz, not nobody, not no how.!” If he wears a green fur hat, it's up to him. (Though I would kinda like that.)
There are times when the above doesn't apply at all.
When Mom said, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out!” she was just kidding, but it still sounds like something that I should believe when I hear it.
Dad told me to stay out of the wood shed, I didn't and I got taken to “the wood shed.” Lesson learned.
I remember Topo Gigo, Beanie and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, The Jackie Gleason Show with the June Taylor Dancers and Thirtysomething.
Getting to stay up in summertime to see reruns of Red Skelton was a treat.
I still watch reruns of Red Skelton and they are still treats.
I see the irony in an ice cream flavor called Chubby Hubby.
My favorite movie remains Mrs. Miniver.
Mrs. Miniver and Chubby Hubby can be pretty good together on a spring evening.

Birthdays are truly a time to look at the good, look at the bad and wonder if there were ways to have made each experience a wonderful learning experience. I've not always done that, but I do enjoy this time of thinking about the fond.

Questions Pondered, Do I Really Need the Answers?

2008-08-15T16:38:00.002-04:00

Every now and then there are things that happen in life that I call, “God Moments,” these are times when it is obvious that God's hand is at work, times when there can be no other explanation. They are times where one has to stop and wonder, just how did that work out that way?” Sometimes these God Moments come with what a former co-worker of mine called, “Holy Spirit Bumps,” she thought that if the Spirit of God was involved, one got what we would normally call goose bumps.

Recently I happened to be with a small group of people joined together for worship. Prior to the beginning of the service an offering plate was placed on a table for those who wanted to make a midweek gift. During the service a man, who appeared to be one of the city's homeless came toward the chapel and sat down; he fidgeted for a while and then with a measure of stealth, lifted the better part of the offering and left. He may have made off with less than $20. While others saw it as a theft, I personally saw it as a God Moment. Do I believe that his taking the money from the plate was right? No, it was what it was, stealing. Do I still think that it was a God Moment? Yes.

Why do I think that it was a God Moment? My reasons are simple really; firstly, I would like to think that he used the money for food and maybe he even used the money to feed his family, it isn't my place to say that he didn't, I don't know him. Jesus fed five thousand with a lot less, “bread, than what this visitor took. Secondly, we have a sign over the door of the church that says that all are welcome, many churches all over the city and elsewhere have signs that imply the same thing in one way or another, one of my favorites is, “visitors expected.” I say imply, but really I think that some are more sincere about it than others. I think that while he was certainly welcome, he might have made himself a little too welcome.

If we follow the teachings of Jesus we know that we are to show hospitality and caring to those who aren't exactly pretty, or just those who don't smell good, the prisoner the.... And then the epistles remind us that we often entertain angels unaware, is that what we did? Who is to say really, other than God?

The final thought in this line may be the one that brings it all home for me. Was this man sent to the church for some reason? Did God tell him that a need could be met if he visited the church at an appointed time? I don't want to send the wrong message, I don't think that it's appropriate to march into a church, walk up to the offering plate and help yourself. I do believe that it is stealing, plain and simple. My question is, are there times when it is appropriate to get help some way when you are desperate, aren't there times when we have been at our wits end as to what to do and just did something, right or wrong? At what point is the church supposed to stop helping by giving and start teaching people to care for themselves? If we turn our backs because we are inundated by those begging are we missing some angels that we are supposed to be entertaining?

Now the kicker:
A totally personal aside. I've mentioned many times here that I have arranged dates in an effort to expand my circle of friends, I have also mentioned that of the last five, only one showed up. When I have spoken to others about this they are quick to say to me that it isn't about me, it's about the person who stood me up. I have a problem with this statement because I was involved. The words, “it's not about you,” are batted about, yes, it is about me, the situation included me, willing or not.

I think that there is a parallel here, maybe the fact that the money was taken had nothing really to do with the man who took it. Maybe it was meant to be an eye opening moment for the congregation. Maybe it wasn't as they say, “all about him.” A friend of mine once, in a very joking way, held up his fist and said, “this is me, then he circled his fist with the other and said, “and this is the universe, so see, the world does revolve around me.”

Could this event have been a God Moment? A time when God was using an event to make people more aware, a time when he was opening their eyes? If it was, what did we see? Did we see someone breaking a commandment by stealing? Did we see a hungry, desperate man who simply needed some money for food? Did we just watch an addict get what he needed to satisfy a craving? Or did we see the fact that giving to and sharing with others is a blessing? Was the moment about him, or was it about us? What was God using that moment for?

While I don't have the answers to these questions, I do have another part of the story that I haven't told yet, after the service was over and many stood and talked about what had happened and the offering plate was moved to a, “safer” place so that what was left in it stayed in it, when all was said and done and the offering plate was finally carried away there wasn't just the two or three dollars that the man left behind. There was probably something to the tune of $80 or better. I think this was a God Moment, I think that it was a feeding of maybe twelve, and remember with five thousand there were considerable left overs. I think that it was a God Moment when we consider what some of Jesus' last words were; he said to a thief, nailed to a cross next to him, “today you will be with me in paradise.” Thinking on that I just got Holy Spirit Bumps.

Having a Kathy-like Faith

2008-08-07T07:07:00.000-04:00

“Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5b

I think of these words penned by the psalmist as words of both pain and cure. For whatever reason the tears, he realized that come the morning there would be joy. This is a concept that for most of us in this day and age seems foreign. I'll be one of the first to say that whatever may have me weeping, I will most likely be dealing with it for more than just a night. I think that it seems, notice I said seems, that there are very few things in life that can be healed over night, that with a good night's sleep the rejoicing will come. There are a pile of examples and I probably don't need to list any of them because there have been some that have already come to mind while you have read this.

I'm going to share an experience where this has been the case for me, it will seem like I'm back on my death kick again, but let's just say that the story here only sounds that way until the end. I have several women friends, all of them past the beginning of their social security applying age. It dawned on me the other day that only one of the three of them has a child. Some would say that alone causes the joy in the morning. I don't think that all of them would agree though. Each of them are facing hard times right now, physically, each of them have come to the point where something isn't working like it used to...wait, I'm not talking about me here. Guess that starts at different times for different people.

One of my, “girlfriends,” as I'm want to call them gave me a ring at work the other day and covered a little business with me and then asked me some questions about her casket spray. I have no idea of her age, frankly, don't really care. I know that she has no family, only adopted family. She asked me if it was possible to add water to the spray. I told her it could be done, she wanted to know if I would move it to the church after the service, I told her to speak to her funeral director about that, but they probably would. I told her that she would most likely bury me, so she didn't really need to worry about such things. There was no change of tone in her voice, she was still what I would call a bit merry while talking about this. “Oh, I don't know about that Dear Heart,” I love it when she calls me that. “I don't plan on lasting that long.” She proceeded to tell me that she had had a mastectomy recently, that the doctor told her that her cancer was fast growing and that she didn't think that it would be wise for her to go through chemotherapy or radiation. She also told her that there may not be any pain really, she would do like so many and go to sleep and not wake up.

My Aunt Grace who lived to be over a hundred used to say that she wanted to go to bed and wake up hearing harp music, it didn't work out quite that way, but close. I suppose that it is our desire if we really think about it, we don't want to suffer, we don't want to have to go through toxic treatments and then have to recover from those, but if we think that doing so will add years to our lives and they more often do than don't these days, we tend to rethink being repaired that way. Kathy doesn't want to do that and she's been advised not to, so like she said, “I trust the doctor.”

Still with a merry voice she said, “so Dear Heart, I don't have any plans to outlast you. In fact, I'm looking forward to being in the presence of my maker, I want to be with my husband, we had a good 58 year run and I miss being with him. It really does sound good to me.”
When we got off of the phone, I cried. Frankly, I'm not ready to let go of her, I'm not ready to let go of any of my girlfriends, nor am I ready to let loose of anyone else. Selfish as that may sound. I don't want my life to change in that way.

My life changed when my friends Doug, Clarissa and several others passed from life to eternal life and there are holes in my life where they used to fit. There are no more Clarissa kisses, which means that I haven't had deep plum lipstick on top of my head for a couple of years now. Doug will be gone 10 years this year and I miss him. There are those in my family who have left several holes, my father being the biggest one and several that have been left by my aunts and grandparents. We really don't plan of these things happening, but know that they will at some point or another.

After talking to Kathy I thought about this line from the psalms, I wondered if she had thought about that very line when she received her diagnosis. Did she cry for a night only to wake knowing that her joy was coming. Now I admire her faith, knowing that she is, “going to meet her maker,” as she said, is a joyful thing. I felt a bit of shame when I thought of the line that I have said time and again, “If heaven is what we are told that it is, (I believe that it is,) then why aren't we running to it?” When I said this to a friend recently he had a simple response that is very poignant, “who says we aren't?” Good point.

So it sounds to me that Kathy has accepted the words of Psalm 30, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Frankly, that's faith.

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.”

My Urbi et Orbi with apologies to the Holy See, My, "To the City and to the World"

2007-12-24T15:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday as I worshiped at All Saints it came time to turn in the order of service for The Offertory and The Great Thanksgiving. Anyone who knows me well knows that my hearing isn't what it should be, or even what I would like for it to be and hearing aids are not the answer to my problem., so it was good for me that the words to the Choral Anthem for the Offertory was printed in the order of service. I do hope that Healey Willan will understand that I was moved by the words of the anthem and I wish to share them with you.

“Lo, in the time appointed the Lord will come; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands: for the Lord God shall come into his everlasting kingdom: and upon the throne of David shall he reign forever. Alleluia.”

This year especially, these words speak to me in a very special way. They remind me that the Lord will come at an appointed time, (a time that we are not privy to,) it speaks of the jubilation that will come with his arrival, nature will sing out in joy, the trees will clap their hands and the mountains will break out in song! How I look forward to that day. I look forward to the day that there shall be peace on earth and that the King, the Lord, will sit on the Throne of David and we shall behold him.

Throughout this year I have not felt like I have been on the spiritual path that I need to be.. Lent didn't feel like Lent, Easter didn't feel like Easter. There were reasons, not something that I feel like I can share here. Then Advent came and it didn't feel like Advent, and then my time in the wilderness took me deeper into the woods. I'm reminded that the best way to get out of the woods is to keep on walking. You can only walk half way into the woods. Now, it's Christmas Eve, and it doesn't feel like it, my church home doesn't feel like home any more, my apartment can be uncomfortable at times and yet it is where I can afford to live and I'm grateful that I have it, God continues to meet my physical needs. My family doesn't feel like family sometimes, at times they seem like familiar strangers, and now that I have turned 47 and have never been involved in a loving relationship I feel even more uncomfortable in the wilderness, older and I'm afraid, a little colder, wanting to be loved by one who will allow me to love him.

I look at the Gospel stories that tell in very rich ways the tale of the coming of the Christ child. The burden on his parents to go where they didn't want to go. I see that they were in an uncomfortable home and that both Mary and Joseph were surely still wondering exactly what was going on with all of this baby not conceived of man thing. There had to be question in their mind, though they were willing to be used by God, surely their spiritual path didn't feel like they thought it should either. Looking closely, I see that their Christmas didn't feel like Christmas either, their Easter didn't feel like Easter either. They were difficult times. With God's help they saw the jubilation that the world was experiencing in the good news of the arrival of, “God With Us.” but I know that there was emotional struggle too when such a young man, their son, was hung to die on a cross erected by the government. The fear of our lord in the garden, “let this cup pass from me,” would that not be the prayer of each of us? Only would it not be made in such a way that it would be made while wailing, screaming and begging?” The Gospel story of Christ's life from beginning to end is a story that I hold close in my heart and ponder, just as Mary held the gifts from the Magi and pondered them in her heart, all of them gifts that explained in symbols the life that her son was to have. Gold, material for a crown, a declaration of his kingdom and the other gifts materials sometimes used in preparing a body for burial. All of them rare, all of them special, all of them foreshadowing the life of the Christ, “child.”

I believe the good news and it is my desire to follow the examples that Christ showed as he matured, I want it to be said of me, “Don lived the Gospel.” I want it said of me because I want to make every effort to live the gospel, I never want anyone to say of me, “He lived, as if the Gospel were true.” I know that it is, and I know that if we do not proclaim the joy of the Lord's coming, if we do not announce the truths of the gospels, it will be left up to the trees and the mountains, and frankly, I don't want them singing alone.

And so, this is what I want for Christmas, to continue to walk through the wilderness until I am walking out of the wilderness, I want to emulate Christ by his examples, I want to live the Gospel, because it is true.

I Don't Believe in Gawd

2007-12-05T18:22:00.000-05:00

There is one thing that I want to approach here that will cause many people to cringe when I mention it. I don't care if you call me Scrooge on this, but maybe, just maybe if you look around, you will see what I mean, we need to talk about Christmas decorating.

When I was a child, living in the country near Bargersville, Indiana, it was somewhat custom, though not always observed, that we go for a drive and see the lights that people had put on their trees and houses. Granted, this was during the 1960s and though that was in the last century it really isn't all that far in the past. On these drives it was nice to sit in the back seat of the car and drink in the simple beauty of these decorations. A homeowner that turned these lights on before the first of December was considered somewhat arrogant. After all, Christmas was a long way off. Christmas trees were not erected in homes the day after Thanksgiving or even before because they were real trees, something that wasn't found in my family's home until 1966.

Decorating was simple, our first Christmas tree was trimmed with new lights, the big ones, of course, and the rest were ornaments that my mother made. There was one ornament that I wish was still around. It was created with a few simple ingredients that would be considered the epitome of, “white trash”, design now. The base was a Banquet chicken pot pie pan, trimmed in red ric rac and inside was a picture cut from a previous year's Christmas card. There were probably several of these on the tree, but the one that I remember most had a picture of the Blessed Virgin and the newborn Jesus glued in the bottom of it. (My Grandma Bryant used to say, “poor people have poor ways,” the difference here is that we weren't poor, we were rich in ways other than money.)

To me the sign of a well decorated house was if you had the plastic candelabras in the window, the beige ones that held Christmas tree lights, this of course would mean the big lights that now sit in the Smithsonian because they are either not eco-friendly or for some other such reason. The homes that had these in their windows were real winners if the candles were the colors of real flame, i.e., orange. If you had blue ones or green ones you didn't meet the Don Bryant style standards, even in 1966. Let's face it flame may be blue now and again, but it's rarely green.

As time went by so did the level at which people began to decorate outdoors. I remember seeing in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, at a fairly young age, the patterns needed to cut reindeer out of plywood, they stood alone, pretty cool stuff really for its time. It wasn't long before those began to show up in our area. The plastic nativity scene was coming into its own and I remember seeing them in the Montgomery Ward Catalog and the Wish Book. (If you don't know what a Wish Book is, Google it, I'm sure Wikipedia can help you there because your education is seriously wanting.) Once in a while a farmer with nothing to do after the crops were in would produce a Santa Claus cut from plywood and painted, often times these looked as though they were taken from children's coloring books, fence posts held them into place and there might be a spotlight rigged up to shine on it.

These weren't enough! “And there were with the Blessed Family a multitude of the heavenly choir and red plastic candles that read Noel down the side of them.” Then as time passed there were wire reindeer in white, covered with white wires and white lights and then there was more and more and more and more. And then, just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse I happened upon two places where I learned that I couldn't be any more wrong.

At the corner of 16^th Street and New Jersey in central city Indianapolis there is a house where every post, sawed off tree and albeit some rather ingenious uses of PVC pipe, have been covered with shiny mylar garland, meant to put on circa 1980 Christmas trees, but lo, this is not enough, each of these items are covered with lights, thousands of them, tiny little colorful lights that make the corner a nightmare for the Air Force and the Indianapolis International Airport. (The neighbors who, “who had lived in darkness have now seen a great light. Like it or not.) Traffic slows to a crawl here as if the plastic, well hidden, infant Jesus might turn and smile on the driver of each passing car. I have to confess that this is so hideous and so disgusting to me that I will go blocks out of my way to miss it. (Just for the record, this is on my usual path home.) Each year more items are added to their disarray, I mean display, probably purchased at 70% off after Christmas.

As much as that bothers me there is one that bothers me as much or maybe even more. Between Franklin and Whiteland, Indiana there is a home in a quiet subdivision that decorates their home in cahoots with a local radio station. The lawn is littered with light covered trees, shrubs, cut out stacked gift boxes, bells, lights across the roof of the house and even around the doors and windows, and yes, you guessed it, every light is synchronized to the holiday tunes that are being played on the radio. Ask me not how it is done, for I DON'T CARE!

To quote Ellen Degeneres, “my point, and I do have one,” is this: There are many who think that I would just as soon steal the Who Pudding and the last can of Who Hash as to endure these things before Christmas. They are right. Seems that I want to join the many who worship God, I don't want to be a part of those who worship Gawd.

Lessons from Norman Rockwell and Sabastian

2007-11-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

Once again we are gathered around tables that over flow with food. We list them as one of our many blessings that we should be and are grateful for, I am no different in this regard. We have a list of other blessings that we are grateful for and we speak them aloud and they sound like a litany that we read from the Sunday bulletin in church. We mention our homes, we mention our family, some mention health, I don't hear that one quite as often as the other things, food, home and family. Saying these things aloud helps to make them more real for ourselves, and it's a good exercise, we we should practice more often.

We don't all sit at spinet pianos in the ski lodge like Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas and sing, “When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count by blessings instead of sheep.” We don't do it with dewy eyes like Rosemary does it in her Panavision crush on the crooner. There are things to be grateful for that many people don't think about and there are prayers that we should offer that would be completely foreign to the Irving Berlin's holiday film, but in all due respect, he only had 180 minutes.

When the Indianapolis Children's Museum hosted a wonderful exhibit of Norman Rockwell art and education I took my nephew Sabastian to see it. Actually, he thought that he was going to be more interested in the dinosaur exhibit and the Dinosphere is pretty darned cool, I'll agree. He walked into the exhibit of Norman Rockwell art and was giving me that, “shoot me now, “ look that teenagers have on their face when they think that something is going to be lame. The deeper we got into the exhibit, complete with three dimensional recreations of Saturday Evening Post covers, the more his senses were awakened, he noticed the details and pointed them out to me. He asked questions about some of the pictures and noticed that some of the covers had cars in them that he could identify, even in their often old and rusty condition. The thing that will be forever etched into my mind is when we got to the room that held over size prints of Norman Rockwell's famous paintings, The Four Freedoms. There was an old floor model radio sitting in the room, the only other thing there. Playing on the radio was a recording of Franklin Roosevelt giving his speech on The Four Freedoms. Sabastian covertly backed up to the radio so that he could hear the speech given by the president that faced most of the early part of Word War II. The look on my nephew's face changed and he began to study the pictures that were in front of him, when the “The Freedom From Want ” was spoken of by the late president there was a bit of mist in Sabastian's eyes and when, “The Freedom of Speech” was talked about Sabastian looked at the painting and stood with the same posture of the defiant looking man voicing his opinion in the picture.

I felt a sense of pride in my nephew that I will always hold closely in my heart. I think that the other two freedoms were meaningful to him, but for some reason these two caused a heart string to quiver at the sound of FDR's words. At the end of the exhibit there is the famous painting and this one the original of the young black girl being walked to school by the Federal Marshals with the splattered tomatoes on the wall behind her. I walked over to the painting and looked, as it moves me each time that I see it. (Frankly, I think that it should be on a postage stamp issued in each price point so that it is seen often.) Sabastian walked up beside me and studied the painting, getting close to it and assuming the museum stance, that being, his hands folded behind his back. I know that he wanted to touch the surface, the frame or something because he wanted to connect with it with something other than his eyes. He turned to me and simply said, “It wasn't fair was it?” shaking his head and feeling the shame that the entire nation should feel and many felt as the picture made the cover of the magazine. Then he turned to me and said, “I'm thankful that I don't have to live like that and I hope that she doesn't have to any more.” No greater words have ever been spoken by a budding young man. I choked back the tears and couldn't say anything to him, he put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a pull toward him.

We have many things to be grateful for, many many things, but just as I said before, we have things to be grateful for that we never mention. Like Sabastian, we should be grateful for the fact that life has changed in a great many ways for a great many of the children in the world. We need to be grateful that there are people trying to make change happen for those still in need. We should be grateful for the health care that we do have and pray for those who don't have it at all. We should be grateful for having an appetite when we sit down to our table and pray for those who simply aren't hungry. We should be grateful for our friends and family and we should pray for them when they hurt us or when we hurt them.

I can't say that I do all these things, I can say that I do a few of them. I thank God for his grace and goodness, his mercy and kindness, and yet that somehow doesn't seem enough. I have a friend who has seen more life than I have and she says, “I have so much that I feel ashamed that I don't give more.” I am thankful for her humbleness, I know of no other person in my life who is more generous.

It's hard to look at what we have and not want more, it's hard to look at what we don't have and be grateful for not having them. It proves that God is watching out for us. It's hard not to be hurt by people and even harder to forgive them. I recall one preacher saying, “We like God should forgive, however, God forgets and doesn't allow us to, he wants us to remember the lesson.” Great deal of wisdom in those well spoken words.

I think that at this time of expressing our gratitude we need to list a few things that we are not thankful for. I'm not thankful for my attitude about somethings. I'm not grateful for not being able to shake the feelings that I have about some issues in my life right now. I wish that they were reversed and on the other side of the gratitude list.

When I think back to that display at the museum, and the pictures of the Four Freedoms that were larger than life, I realize that all of them really spoke to me and have for a long time in my life, but then I have had more life than Sabastian has, I see the faces in “The Freedom of Religion” and I see the many faces looking to their place of prayer, be it heaven or the face to the earth, eyes opened or closed, beads between fingers or folded fingers. And I see the loving parents looking over their sleeping child and I think about “The Freedom from Fear” and I wish that I could embrace that one more closely. Yet, when I think of all those pictures, I find myself feeling a bit misty eyed too, just as my nephew was in that great hall with the president extolling the virtues that he wanted an apprehensive nation to embrace in the time of war.

My friend Rev. Jim Shaffer so often said in his offertory prayer, “Lord, you have given us all things, and yet we ask for one thing more, a grateful heart.” I find that to be my Thanksgiving prayer.

Expert? That's just a regular guy away from home.

2007-11-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday evening of this past week I was invited by friends from church to share a meal at their home, then hear Tom Erich at Christian Theological Seminary here in Indianapolis.

Tom Erich could easily be called, Father Tom, I suppose as titles go he could also go by The Rev. Dr. Tom Erich, (I expect that he has enough gilt edged wallpaper to use that title should he chose.) I know that he can be called daddy, he mentioned a son. Tom can be called author, newspaper columnist, Internet educator, businessman, frequent flier, yet I somehow believe that he would select just plain Tom before he would chose any of the other titles that he is entitled. Out of all of those titles many want to think of him as expert. Now, I was once told that an expert is a, “regular guy away from home.” There may be some truth to that, but in many fields I would say with confidence that Tom is an expert.

The format of the event at the seminary was, lengthy introductions, Tom spoke and then there was a panel discussion then some Q and A from those gathered. If the program had been left to my devising, there would have been no panel discussion and little or no Q and A. I would have chosen to have heard Tom speak longer. But, once again, the powers that be didn't call and ask me how I wanted them to do it. I just can't figure all these groups and businesses out, I'm in the book.

To be frank, I've not been in this kind of setting for a long time, may people know that I'm not exactly comfortable in a crowd, though I do tend to do okay in auditoriums and I do have a hearing loss that drives people bonkers. I will tip my hat to the designer of the auditorium at CTS, he had me in mind when it comes to sound there. WONDERFUL, applause applause, kudos. A couple of the last events of this kind that I have attended was a conference at the Indiana Government Center on World AIDS day, that has been many years ago, even farther back in the annals of history was the week long Christian Educators conference at the American Baptist Retreat Center in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Not being a man of, “organized,” higher education I don't always feel at ease in situations like these, but Tuesday night I could have easily pulled up a footstool and listened even longer. The facility was perfect, the company I attended with gracious and kind and I was hearing a man say exactly what I think about church growth, church management and the role of key players in the church as well as his opinion on where the church is headed.

Tom was candid, some of the things that he said made me want to jump up and say, “Preach it brother, help 'im Jesus.” They were what I think, and what I feel strongly about. There were a few things that I didn't agree with and some things that I would have loved to hear him say more on so that I might understand them better. I suppose it was what any educational setting might be, and opportunity to be challenged to think.

It is important to remember here that he was speaking at a seminary and there were many students in the seats, a fair amount of clergy already serving churches, many for lengthy times and then there were some folks like me. With these things in mind I find it amazing that in a setting that is thought to be a Christian Enclave there are people there that I feel confident aren't Christians. That's my view, but to me it makes sense. He slipped a little, “sermonizing” into his comments by saying this:

“Jesus came to fulfill the 800 Jewish laws mandated in the Old Testament. By coming to fulfill those laws he reduced them to three, those laws being, 'Love God with all of your heart, love your neighbor and finally, do not be afraid.”

Immediately I did a total brain scan, ripping through the education that I had stored and found that I was at a loss for having ever heard, “do not be afraid,” as law number three. I've never thought of that as the final law, I've never heard a minister say that from the pulpit in all my years of pew sitting and I've never read it. (I've read the statement in scriptures, in my mind I've heard Jesus say it to those around him, but, but...) Simply put, I wanted to ask, “tell me more about this third one and how did you come to that conclusion?” After all of that went through my mind, in really what was surely less than a minute it laid in my gray matter, then on the way home, and I took the scary way home which also reads the long way home, it fell from my head to my heart. In that very statement, that third law, I knew that I was busted. I might as well have put my hands on the wall and spread 'em right there.

I'll admit that being a son of Adam, I am sinful by nature. Doing a little shtick one time on a quote from Paul's letters I said, “Shall we keep on sinning that grace may abound? Why not, I'm not busy on Saturday night.” I know that I fall short of God's glory, I struggle with it, I suppose everyone does. It isn't that I don't love God, it's just that I don't tell him often enough. It isn't that I don't love my neighbor, I just don't always do what I could for whoever my neighbor happens to be at the time. Remember this changes based on where you are standing, well it sorta works like that, you know, “and who is my neighbor?” AND YES! I AM AFRAID. I stand in fear of many things, in fact, it looks a lot like a laundry list. Yet while I think about those things that I fear I can hear the words of the Gospel over and over again, “fear not...do not be afraid...” I hear them and yet I must confess before you, my brothers and sisters that I have broken the third law that Jesus used to replace the Hebrew Codes of Health Education and Welfare, more times than I care to think, and by doing so, I have failed to live up to the other two as well. Each time I fail at one of those, I fail at the other two.

This is where I think about how blessed I am that long ago while sitting in a musty basement in a Christian church out in the country, Sunday School teachers, preachers, youth group leaders and VBS teachers taught me the meaning of grace, “the unmerited favor of God.” When I moved to the Baptist church the meaning of grace was drilled into me even deeper and then when I moved to the Presbyterian church, I came to understand that God's grace was for me, there is plenty of it and I can't run the supply out, ever.

There were a few seconds in the car coming home that I wanted to think that Tom Erich had lost his expert status with me that he really was just a regular guy away from home, then I remembered that I was breaking law number two and was going five over the speed limit.

Thoughts on a Year of Blogging

2007-10-25T17:50:00.000-04:00

A year of blogging as of this week. My spell checker still fusses with me when I use any form of the word blog. It will learn, I keep trying to teach it. Let's face it, all of us are a little resistant or a lot resistant to change. There is surely something that threatens our routine that we don't want to change, my spell checker just bucks me on the word blog and proper names spelled with some kind of twist. My nephew's name, Sabastian is not spelled with an “e” and the checker is always trying to convince me otherwise.

Trust me, I win, I'm not afraid of its squawking and red ink. I felt the same way about my high school Junior Lit teacher, but we ended up good friends. Why did we end up good friends? Simple really, it was a matter of respect and brutal honesty. We each earned it because we each showed it. I recall with great fondness the question that she asked to start discussion after we read Ernest Hemingway's, The Old Man and the Sea. She said, “Don, explain to me what you think was driving Ernest Hemingway when he wrote this book?” I'll never forget the look on her face when I responded, “the reason is simple really, Mr. Hemingway was running out of money for his boozing and womanizing and knew that if he wrote another book that sold he ran an excellent chance of re stuffing his piggy bank.” Before she could catch her breath I continued, “I don't think it ever crossed his mind that he needed to use certain elements of writing so that he could provide high school juniors across the state something to dissect.” Her response was priceless, “Mr. Bryant, your thoughts are absolutely right, I cannot argue with any single observation that you have made, however we are going to tear it apart anyway because that's what they pay me for around here.” “As you wish,” I said and nodded. We enjoyed one another after that.

I've thought about how blogging is something like what Mr. Hemingway was doing, he was writing because he needed booze money. Which is to say that he had a drive, a reason to be doing it. I dare say that anyone who writes a blog is doing it for the very same reason, they have something to say. Maybe what they have to say is worthy of publishing in book form and making a buck off of just as Mr. Hemingway did, maybe it isn't. Frankly, I want to say something of more depth than who I'm routing for on Dancing with the Stars, but if that's what you want to use your blog for then I say BULLY! There are some who write simply to impress us with their brilliance, to that I say, WRITE ON! Some write because they have nothing to say and they need a place to say it, again I say....what do I say?

My original thought when I began this little project was multifaceted, I knew that I wanted to do a little creative writing again, I knew that I wanted to tell anyone who would read it what I had to say, I wanted to share my views on a particular subject(s), (see the Holy Week writings,) I wanted to talk about my grief process after having lost my father, I wanted to share some memories of my childhood and kidhood. I would say that I have managed to do all those things, but then I have the luxury of hindsight now.

I've experienced a reaffirmation or two while doing these entries, one of the most important ones I think is simple, “don't say anything on the Internet that would hurt someone's feelings in person.” That's simple enough really. Another would be remember, “not everyone is going to agree with you, but that's okay.” (Of course I want to follow that with the old adage, “everyone is entitled to their opinion, even when it's wrong.” However, I don't....yeah, right.) I do know that the old saying, “the truth hurts,” can be bone shakingly true, that doesn't mean that I have to lie, it means that I don't have to say everything that's on my mind. I've been reminded that not every memory is a good one and not every life experience is all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

Writing here has brought to mind, and to eye, painful thoughts and tears. Some in ways that others might not expect. The entry about Clarissa's kisses on my forehead brought back fond memories, but they were tear covered. The story about the blue butterfly will always be precious to me because it is so poignant, I feel somehow that Pop is thinking of me each time I see one, real or a sticker on a piece of mail. There are my views on just life stuff that make me giggle, I still smile at the thought of Burping the Baby Jesus. The tales of Vincent and Emlee and Huck are all important to me because these characters are all concocted of a little bit of me, okay, a lot of me, but I spread the joy, so to speak.

I've not used this space to say what I really think about some topics, there is a fine line between opinion and slander, I promised myself that I wouldn't find out where that fine line is. I'll leave plenty of cyberspace for others to do such things. There have been days though...... Well, we all have them.

There are the comments, they mean a lot to me, they tell me that people are reading what I have to say, some tell me they enjoy it, some say they haven't thought about it that way before, some say, “think about it this way.” I really want that.

What's the future here? I don't know, I will however, know when I write it.

Had I been the kid I would have said, "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

2007-10-12T20:19:00.000-04:00

I'm not bragging because she's my oldest niece, I'm not bragging because she's family at all. If I were to see her on the street I would think, “what a pretty girl, she needs different shoes.” (It is that kind of statement that has earned me the title Aunt Don.) When I think of her I think about how she thinks, she is a laugh riot, brutally honest, smart, quick witted and yes, frankly, you can smell the oil burning on the wheels and cogs that are turning in her head. She amazes me.

Miss Jessie, as I called her when she was little, has a circle of friends that are beautiful people. They seem to be as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. They look like kids from a TV show. Most of them are friends from church, they all attend school together. The girls are pretty and the boys are equally handsome, and all of them seem to have hearts of gold. They care about one another and they are a close knit circle of friends. They make me sick. I mean, really, can't at least one of them have a pimple on school picture day? If nothing more, surely one of them has a really annoying laugh. I'm sure that each one is like any other human being, created as the psalmist suggested, “wonderfully and fearfully made.”

One of the things that impresses me about Miss Jessie is the fact that she accepts me, her “homo uncle”. She has a very open mind about me and she is never afraid to ask questions. I think that she appreciates my wisdom, if nothing more, the wisdom of age. I only tell her what she needs to know. Just because she's 16 doesn't mean that she needs to know everything just yet. Her questions thus far have not been intrusive, actually that have been more philosophical and spiritual in nature. I think it is safe to say that Jessie wants to know how I bring my sexuality and my spirituality together. She hasn't asked that question in so many words, but it does tend to be the tone of her queries.

Recently Jessie and her mother stopped in at the shop to pick up the dog's sweater. No, I didn't try it on, but I did use it as a pattern to make the 'haund a change of duds. Of course they would come to the gay guy in the family and ask him to work on the K9's threads. While they were visiting Jessie shared with me an experience that she had recently had while attending a youth group meeting at church. She told me of a young man who wasn't wearing the requisite baggy jeans that allowed his drawers to show above the waistband. In fact, this boy had gone so far as to move on to what could be the next trend, dare I say it? I dare, tight jeans. (Remember, everything old is new again.) When the youth minister saw him he called him queer.

Jessie and her friends were taken aback by the youth pastor's comment. In their minds the question of sexuality came first. Actually, at their age, it would have done the same thing for me, but remember, Im' the gay guy, but at 16 years old in 1976 it wasn't acceptable to be so open about it. (The June 28, 1969 Stonewall riot and Judy Garland's death had been a mere seven years earlier.)

Jessie wanted to know again, in so many words, how to put the spirituality and sexuality thing together. I think that at the time the thought hadn't crossed the kids minds that their friend may not be gay at all, though the youth minister had declared it so. The kid may have been something nearly as feared as homosexual, he may simply be trendy. YIKES! I'm proud of what did cross their minds, “We have to stick together and defend our pal.” I appreciate that, Oh man do I appreciate that.

Now, I've pointed out to my niece that when those who want to debate with her Levitical law as a way to point out the Bible's rules on the subject of homosexuality they will only want to use the “laws” that serve their own purpose. I've told her in the past that she should remind them that if we are going to go back to living by those laws then we have to live by all of them. I've told her to ask them about their penchant for ham, sausage or bacon on their Mc Donalds breakfast sandwich. These of course are no nos according to Old Testament law. Oh, and do you like shrimp? Yes? SINNER! Then there are my favorites, is that shirt 100% cotton or is it a blend, it better not be a blend. And frankly, I can't tell you the last time I saw anyone send a menstruating woman out of the city gates. It just doesn't come to mind. Are there even city gates any longer?

I've told her to suggest to them that they look at what Jesus had to say about homosexuality in the gospels. Say, “here's a copy of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Here is a legal pad and a pen, you write down all of the references of Jesus' statements regarding homosexuality and I'll check back with you in about a week or so.” A smile always comes to her face and then a little impish snicker. (I told you she was smart.)

The important issue in the event that she shared with me isn't about someone being, “queer” at all. It's an issue of a person entrusted with the care and spiritual feeding of the youth of the church. To me this was glaring, it jumped off the marquee to me like the word theeter being spelled wrong. I helped her with her first concern, but pointed out that their youth minister instantly became a stumbling block. If not to them, he did to me. What he did is NOT COOL. I also reminded her that we all make mistakes, we say things that we wish we could take back later. I don't know if that was the case or not for the youth pastor, but I know I've sure done it.

What I wanted to tell her, and now I am, is that we all make mistakes providing that we are human. If her youth minister is human than he is afforded the same room to make mistakes as any other human. I think at this point there would be a little puff of brain smoke that would come from those wheels of hers as they kick into high gear. I don't think that the youth minister called the kid, “queer,” because he knows so, and if he did again I say, YIKES! Essentially, what the man did was judged a book by it's cover. The other day I heard someone say that the only thing on the cover of the book that you should judge is the price. If this is what the youth minister was doing, again, I say, NOT COOL. If we look at all this from a different angle, he also failed at his job, who knows the damage that was caused by what he did. He made fun of a kid who was daring to be different, wasn't that what Jesus' ministry was about, wasn't it daring and different?

There has been a rash of this kind of thing going on around me lately. People making judgment calls that, A: Aren't theirs to make. 2: Are very uncaring and insensitive and III: are simply inappropriate to say out loud. Are we about to go through that thing where we pass out scarlet letters again? Are we going to be cutting out pink and black triangles and yellow Star of Davids?

Now, my point, yes, I have a point, is this; I said earlier that we all make mistakes, we all have feet of clay, none of us are perfect, it's that simple. If I could put all of this into a simple phrase for Miss Jessie it would be from a sermon that I heard as a teenager or I may have been just out of high school. My dear friend Stanley Bush was an American Baptist preacher, he gave a sermon once about how we are all guilty of the same sins, each and every one of us have done things that we know are wrong, we ask God for forgiveness and yet we know that we are fragile and we'll no doubt do it again. He talked about how we all want to hold others to a higher standard than we are able to meet ourselves. He spoke of how people in the pews want to hold the minister to a standard that only Jesus could meet. He made a very profound statement that I'll never forget. He did something that was very uncharacteristic of him when he made the statement, he stepped down from the pulpit, walked off of the chancel and stood in front of the communion table and said, “I do not stand before you as the judge, I stand next to you as the accused.”

I try to remember that, but I fail, I put on my black robe and I reach for my gavel and I clear the jury box.

Jessie has seen another example of how words can be hurtful and I hope that she will remember, and I'm sure she will, that simply put, God is love and his grace is enough, period.

The Summer Breeze, The Autumn Leaves, The Moon Rise and Fireflies

2007-09-30T09:57:00.000-04:00

While many are quick to say that smells trigger memories fastest for them, I have to say that subtleties in weather bring memories to the forefront of my thinking more quickly.

One day this week I stepped out on the stoop of my apartment building at the corner of numbered street and an eastern state ave, and I felt the humidity level that reminded me of starting junior high school. The temperature and humidity reminded me of the same weather that we usually had at the annual flag raising observance each autumn. An old tradition in the school's history, it involved being taken out on the front lawn of the school where the band butchered a few patriotic songs that they admittedly had not had enough time to learn. The pledge of allegiance was intoned for the year and there were a few comments droned from the principal, unlovingly known as Chrome Dome, this title of course was not levied because of his hat. Now I would qualify for the same knick name.

Another morning when the weather was cooler and the grass was a little wet I felt the climate transporting me to back to first period Phys. Ed. Class when I was a freshman in high school. The dewy, freshly mowed football field that provided for us grass clippings to track onto the newly polished floors in the hall outside of the locker room did smell fresh, not new mowed hay, but certainly fresh cut glass and Glo Coat. The tracked grass was often spoken of by an ired school janitorial staff who surely thought that we should have taken our shoes off at the door, like high school boys were going to do that.

The turning of the weather this time of year reminds me of sitting on the school bus and passing fields surrounded by wire fence. Many of the wire framed squares in the fence had spider webs in the corner, it really does happen, it isn't a set up shot for the September leaf of an, “Across America” advertising calendar. The morning glories clinging to fence posts and corn stalks, glistening with dew drops is real too, not misted on my a photographer's assistant, but left by the hand of God. Even when I was a kid I looked at them and saw their beauty, a beauty that my contemporaries didn't see. Even when I pointed them out to whoever sat with me on the bumpy ride down country roads. (The bus Driver didn't appreciate them either, he told me to keep my forehead off of the window, I was greasing it up.) I didn't appreciate him afterward. My thought then and continues to be, “get some Windex, you're missing the beauty of the earth.”

I sat in my living room with the windows open one evening this week and watched as very menacing clouds blew across the mid evening sky. A dark sky like the one that evening is so much different than the ones that I grew up with in the country. I love thunder and lightening, and yet it is somehow more dramatic in the country. Instead the thumping of a car stereo at the intersection causes my glasses to rattle in the cupboard, I would prefer that jiggle to be caused by nearby thunder. I still love to sit and watch the clouds float across the sky and feel the wind move through the windows, a breeze that causes the curtains to dance about like tethered ghosts.

There is a certain shade of blue gray that reminds me of Saugatuck, Michigan. When I see it I want to rush to the lake. A cloudy day on the beach is cause for whining by most vacationers, they flock to Holland to the outlet mall or the movie theater, but for me, the best entertainment is rougher water and the overcast skies. The water moves with increased power that reminds of the power of God and the mottled gray clouds drifting along remind me of a fluffy quilt that can easily comfort and chase the fear of the waves away. All in one place. Better if shared with someone.

Yet at sunset, that perfectly round, stunning orange orb fills my heart with yearning for someone to share the sight with, someone to hold hands with as it slides down to kiss the horizon. Being alone becomes all the more obvious when turning from the beach and it's darkening horizon to see the blue-white full moon that has been sneaking up my back. It goes from full moon to full mourn in seconds, it's richness is to be shared. I have spoken to others on the beach and mentioned the dual beauty. I've been looked at like a nut or as if I just blew the moment for them and they were going to have to go find a way to rebuild the momentum.

The changes in the weather can invoke fond memories of childhood, the shooting stars observed from the porch swing on a hot summer night when no one could sleep indoors, it can remind me of the coldest December 1^st on record when my family stood in a country cemetery to say our last farewells to my maternal grandfather, a long winded preacher making it all the worse, apparently he wasn't wearing the black skits and dresses that my aunts and girl cousins were wearing. It can bring to mind the days of being a teenager and the smell of dew on the grass, the morning after I mowed. The weather often reminds me of the times as a very young teenager when I would go to the woods and lie on my stomach on a bed of autumn's brown and now crispy leaves and watch the Dutch Boy's Britches as they hung from the “line” and danced when I blew on them. The weather takes me back to sultry July fourths when I have sat on the porch with my family spiting watermelon seeds into the yard, or early summer nights when it would still be just a little cool when the sun went down and there were fireflies to chase.

The weather can bring back those visions of sparkling dew drops that looked like diamonds hanging from morning glories, it can remind me of the evenings watching a sunset and moon rise. Yet it also reminds me that all of these events are best seen not just through my eyes but the eyes of another. I look forward to the day when one of my nieces or nephews notices them and tells me about them, I hope that they will. They may be the only extra eyes in my future that sees them with me. I pray that they never have to look at the moon rise on a warm summer night alone.

The 1964 Family Reunion Tour

2007-09-17T18:22:00.000-04:00

There is a tradition in many families around the country and I suppose around the world called the Family Reunion. This summer I have attended two one paternal, one maternal.

On Labor Day Saturday my father's clan gathered at my parent's home. The crowd was down this year over last but last year the gathering was also the day that that we buried my father's ashes, with a spectacle such as that you can usually draw a little bigger crowd and frankly, it's a little hard to top the next year, horseshoes and corn toss games tend to just not be the same.

My father was part of what is now known as a blended family, when my grandparents were wed I expect it was more a matter of you got 'em and I got 'em they'll just have to get used to it. My Grandma Bryant told me once that she worked hard at making the family one. “If one of them needed a whippin' I whipped them all just so they understood I wasn't playing favorites.” I don't know how true that was, but I can somehow see her doing it for a while so that everyone understood. The patriarch and matriarch of the Bryant Clan are both laid to rest now, as are a couple of the children and a couple of their grandchildren and yet, when they gather there is still a boat load of us.

I have a mind for memory of small details. This can be especially maddening at times, well, right now I can think of two times, one is when I forget something and the other is when my sister, Georgia, swears that I am making the stuff up. I'm a storyteller, but the things that I recall seem real enough to have actually happened or been and in many cases there are photos to back up my memory, it's just finding the picture in the right album to prove it. So it is with this in mind that I offer this yarn based on memories from a family reunion the summer of 1964.

My Grandma Bryant, my father's step mother, though he never called her that, was somewhat famous for her iced tea. I have to agree that it was better than most and it was produced under rigorous standards and quality control was closely overseen. At the 1964 reunion I was probably not quite four years old, but very nigh unto it, Grandma had made her renowned brew and it was served in a faded red, dented and chipped three gallon Thermos like container that had a silver spigot on the front of it that worked like a kitchen sink. For some reason, its construction and operation has stuck in my mind. I know the container was an item that was tossed when my grandmother broke up housekeeping when Grandpa died shortly after their fiftieth wedding anniversary, bear in mind each had been married before. As far as I'm concerned that container was worthy of a spot in the Smithsonian collection.

There were rides on a pony and more in my grandfather's goat drawn cart. I remember seeing it, but I don't recall a ride. There may have been a cut out of a green alligator holding a tape measure with a sign that read, “you must be this tall to ride this ride.” I'm sure that I would not have made it very far against the sign.

From this particular day there is a photo of my family taken by the side of the house. My little sister Georgia and I dressed in matching outfits and my mother in a checked sleeveless dress that in those days were called, “shifts”. We won't talk about her longest hair ever and her white cat glasses. My father slim and handsome in chinos and a white t shirt.

I remember other gatherings of the Bryant clan, but not quite as clearly. I know that there was always copious amounts of food, where I grew up I'm sure that someone would have said that it looked like a “thresher's dinner.” I'm sure that it did, my family for the most part was usually in farm country. I know that the meals have always been eaten in harmony.

The Bryant's still get together, at least the ones who live close enough. The general pace of life in our day and age has taken its toll on the gathering of extended family just as it has on everything else. But memories are gifts that aren't easily taken back. They can be stolen, usually age is the culprit, and yet there are times when age is the, “blesser” of memory. Things spark them and we are suddenly taken back to a certain time or place where we either revel or mourn or simply recall. Sometimes sweetened iced tea takes me back to my grandma's kitchen on, “tea day.”.

My maternal grandmother's family gathered this weekend in Brown County, Indiana. The Walkers. I said to my mother on the way home from the dinner and visit that I found it amusing to compare families. My father's people, German and Irish are storytellers, they laugh, they nudge one another and hug and celebrate with good food. It seems to me that the heritage of the Germans and Irish must have been constantly centered around food, well seasoned and joyously prepared. (The artist Gauguin, a French painter from the Post impressionist period said, “No mean woman can cook well, it takes a light heart and generous spirit.)

The Walkers are English and I noticed that they don't laugh as much and they are quieter. There were times when I expected someone to burst into tea, but we left before the appropriate hour for the English custom. My grandfather's people were Welsh and there are very few of them, too few to gather really, that event could be held at a 8 top table at Denny's..

I don't have the memories from the Walker Reunions that I do of the Bryant's and we attended one in June of 1964, the same year as the Bryant one that I have such vivid memories of. There is little told of the ancestors on the Walker side and yet there is a family historian. I think she would tell all if it were a small gathering, but in the larger one she asks a few questions as discussion starters. The families are just different and it is from the blending of our backgrounds that give us the material for the hearty blend that we are.

A customer in the shop one time looked at me with a rather puzzled look and said to me, “What is your European Heritage?” Frankly, I have never been asked that before, at least not in the way that he asked. I smiled and said, “I'm German, Irish and Welsh.” He shook his head and said, “and what does that make you?” I didn't have to think long before I said, “A mean drunk who knows how to dig coal.”

I'm glad that I have the best of all the family coursing through my veins, and frankly, I'm glad that I have their bad habits and all that makes them who they are, obviously, it makes me who I am too.

With that in mind, God Save my Nieces and Nephews.

Thinking in the Bathtub, Birthday 47

2007-08-23T21:32:00.000-04:00

Follows...some thoughts on my 47^th birthday:

My life has spanned two centuries. Now, before you think that is old, anyone born before January 1, 2000 can say that.
Like James Taylor I can say, “I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend...” You can take it from there.
I've had my feet in 15 states not counting, Euphoria, Confusion or Discontent.
I have seen both solar and lunar eclipses as well as meteor showers and the tails of two comets.
There have been five Popes, ten Presidents and six Archbishops of Canterbury in my lifetime.
I've churned butter, picked strawberries, tailed green beans, popped fresh peas and shelled beans. I have also eaten hot tomatoes in the field as the migrant workers ate them at the same time.
I have milked both cows and goats, goats are more dangerous and I am lactose sensitive.
Though I was young, I know where I was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and I remember the funeral. (I was watching Popeye and Janie, it happened right after Beanie and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent.)
Again, I was young, but I remember the “I Have A Dream,” speech.
I cried in Junior High Geography class while a plane filled with Vietnam POWs deplaned in the United States.
I have read East of Eden and loved it and watched East of Eden and hated it.
I have held my newborn nephew in the hospital and in a very lame Darth Vader voice said, “Luke, I am not your father.”
I have seen each of my two nieces and three nephews come home from the hospital wrapped in the same shawl that I came home in as well as each of my three sisters.
There have been tears of joy, sadness, grief, fear and disappointment come from my eyes.
I have laughed at jokes, falls, funerals, weddings and family reunions.
There have been rants, raves and disbelief in my life, several of them before noon today.
I have interrupted my mother while canning peaches. It was August of 1960, I made her go into labor. (As if canning peaches wasn't labor enough.)
Peaches are my favorite fruit.
I've made friends, lost friends and missed friends.
I've read, written, sang, drawn, painted, hand lettered and faux finished. In fact, I like to think that my death will be a faux finish.
I've celebrated, lamented, feared and dreaded birthdays, all in the same day.
I've had nightmares of playing naked Twister with the Golden Girls.
I have lived in hopes of finding someone to share my life with, the search has spanned two centuries. This is when it seems like a really long time.
Man has walked on the moon during my tenure here.
I've been under the Golden Gate Bridge and avoided Alcatraz.
I've been a Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and always a Christian.
I have been witness to first steps and last breaths.
I have sat through Gone With The Wind, The Ten Commandments and some really bad sermons.
I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle.
I've never been on a property owned by Disney, unless you count the mall stores.
I own a Mickey Mouse watch.
I've been given “truth serum” and gave my opinion on Wellington Boots while under it's influence.
I have cranked ice cream.
I've owned three bikes, a 1969 Ford Falcon and a 1976 Ford Mustang Anniversary Edition.
I have learned this advice from a very dear friend, no longer with us, “Birthdays are a luxury that many cannot afford.”.

Kiss Me Clarissa

2007-08-19T19:55:00.001-04:00

This afternoon I thought of my late friend Clarissa. Now by late I mean that Clarissa has gone to be a part of the heavenly throng. Clarissa will forever have a special place in my heart and I'll never forget her. She had sass, and lots of it, but that sass was seasoned with such an immense measure of love that every word was hand dipped in her sweetness.

What made me think of her is something that seems so silly and fun that it has to be marked as one of the most important moments of my life.

Sure, birth was great, I don't really remember much of that event that will be marked by it's 47^th anniversary on the 23^rd of this month, others seemed to have made a bigger deal of that day than I did, I have heard that I cried through part of it.

The first day of school had a memorable moment or two, well at least one, while I stood at the end of the lane, book bag in hand the big yellow student conveyance went off and left me standing there. I remember going to the house and saying, “They don't want me to go, they won't stop and pick me up.”

I remember my parents coming home to inform us that there would be a third child added to the family. My response through tears was, “this ruins everything.” Of course it didn't.

Another life moment that I won't forget was being in the hospital room when my best friend died. The sound of finality filling the room as his mother and I sat and looked at one another wondering if it really was over. I see now the mystery of life and death.

I remember a birthday party that I threw for myself, a dinner party for six, $350 in food and flowers, there were only three of us there. I wondered what I did wrong, not sure, but I'll tell you this, I won't turn 30 again.

Clarissa had a way of making you forget those moments that weren't fun, those hard memories were a part of what made you – you, but a laugh, an, “oh you,” her smile, her glow, even in the face of fighting breast cancer she was all grins and smiles and if she couldn't do it, you didn't see her.

I thought of her today because I remembered being Clarissaized. Somewhat like being baptized, it was into the family of Clarissa, not exactly the family of God, though the two were very tight friends. It wasn't an immersion into deep water, it wasn't a sprinkling, it wasn't walking on hot coals, it was one big deep plum colored kiss right on the forehead, for me, right where bald meets balder. I called it being Clarissaized. Right there in church in front of God and everybody, a smooch on top of my bald head that looked like a lip shaped neon sign.

It was a neon sign, it was a neon sign that reminded me that this beautiful woman, nearly the age of my own mother enjoyed life so much that she wanted to share it with anyone who would enjoy it with her. She referred to me as one of her boys. She only had a girl or girls I think, but for me it was one great honor to be one of her boys. Up and down the church aisle on Sunday morning, Clarissa the usher captain hugged and squeezed, and kissed her boys. When she plastered that nearly purple kiss on my forehead I didn't do like others did, no rubbing it off for me, I left it and I wore it just about all day and when it was faded I wanted to go back and ask her to do it again.

“For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them.
In my life I loved you more.” - Lennon and Mc Cartney

These words from a popular Beatles song ring through my mind often, my friend Reed and his wife Holly danced to these words at their wedding. They are the words from a love song, perfect for that first dance. For me they are the words from a love song for those that I wake up thinking of, when I'm longing for a dayglow purple kiss right on my bald spot.

The photo above is not a gratuitous shot of me mugging for the camera by the way, I just wanted you to see the expanse that Clarissa had to work with.

Living in Community: "You don't want to be measured and found wantin'"

2007-08-10T19:47:00.000-04:00

There is a chance, only a chance mind you, that one of the best feelings in the world is to be wrong. Now, I'm not so foolish as to say that being wrong every time feels good, but there are certain subjects that it's just nice to find out that you are wrong about.

It isn't good to be wrong about having enough room to beat the train. VERY WRONG to try and second guess a freight train. It is not a good idea to just believe that the iron isn't hot any longer. My mom always said, cold or hot treat it like it will burn you, I do. There are other ways to get burnt, their scars are not quite as visible.

I lament quite often that it seems that the idea of community is dead. I'm not talking about a neighborhood. That is a concept of community that will never die. We will always have that kind of community. I'm talking about living in community. Let's take a couple of, “for instances,” I live in a rather natty building near the corner of a numbered street and a street named after a state. Oh, what the heck, I live near the corner of 16^th and Pennsylvania in what I like to call Central City. We aren't downtown, but in this building we sure as heck aren't uptown either. In fact, I joke that I'm waiting for the editor of Better Shacks and Hovels to call and put my place on their cover. In my building there are 24 apartments. Generally speaking there are about 22 or so filled at a time and the rest are always in a state of perpetual clean up for the next tenant. I would not call my apartment building a community. It's a neighborhood, but we do not live in community. Well, not everyone does.

Take for example the man who lived across the hall from me. An aging black man who made it clear on the first day that I lived in this building, “I don't take well to people.” I explained that someday we would be happy neighbors, glad that the other was near by, as it turned out we did become good neighbors, lived with a sense of community and now that he has moved, I miss him.. There are others in the building who haven't been exactly the model for friendliness. Another example, there is a man in my building, very attractive, when you see him one of two reactions are going to take place, I don't care what gender you are, you are either going to knock yourself out to speak to him because he is attractive, or you are going to be intimidated by his good looks and you are going to do the embarrassed school girl routine and kick the dust with the toe of your shoe while looking down bashfully. I have spoken to him several times. He is not friendly and has no intention of becoming so. I went so far as to explain to him that living in community is a good thing, should there be a fire he doesn't want to be the one that no one wants to alert. No one was asking him to cook dinner and invite us in for it, we simply would like to say hello at the mailboxes and be acknowledged. He does it, but begrudgingly. There was a fire scare in the building and when I pounded on the door to wake him at 2 in the morning, I was working my way down the hall to alert the others in the building that there was unexplainable smoke and to be prepared to leave. Mr. Beautiful thanked me later for waking him and asking him to dial 911 to make sure that it had been reported as I continued my rounds of waking those still uninformed.

This is when I wish that I could say that there was a turn of events, there wasn't; he still grunts when he sees me in the parking lot and says hello only when spoken to at the mailbox.

The first of this week I went to the grocery store here in the neighborhood, the one that has been dubbed by the First Earl of Herron Morton Place, (that's me,) as the Kreepy Kroger. There are sights there on a regular basis that amaze and astound. There are times that I wonder where these people come from. I've seen two women in their Sunday best literally elbow one another out of the way with vicious aplomb to get to a pile of mustard greens, scrapping like they had each come upon the Holy Grail first. I learned later, while each was strolling through the grocery store having filled several plastic bags with the foliage that they went to church together. YIKES!! And they were , Sister this and Sister that.

I've been to a more upscale grocery in town and had an unnerving situation happen. Two men, shopping together like a happy couple playing house were there, we had just been in church together not an hour earlier. I had shaken hands with them at the passing of the peace, we are all regulars. When I spoke to them in the grocery they acted offended and wanted to know why I was speaking to them. Are these examples of community? There have been many other examples of these kinds of experiences that I could share, in fact I could probably regale you for pages. It makes me wonder at times if the line from Shrek applies to me, “I'm just an ogre.” I know that I'm not. Something scares people away though.

I mentioned that I love to be wrong, and here's where I am most happy. I went to the doctor's office the other day and because my clinician is often running late I took a book with me. I was zipping through the book enjoying the format as much as anything. I giggled each time I closed the book for a moment because on the opening page is a quote that says, “If I set you on fire, will you keep me warm?” Now in this particular waiting room I have seen a little bit of everything. I'm not going to hide it exactly, the practice specializes in mental health. I understand why we are there. For some reason or another and at varying degrees we need a little help, some a lot of help, but it makes me feel good that there are those who have chosen professions to do just that.

A young man, maybe 24 or so, not more, came in and sat down against the wall at the end of the room, only a few seats from me, he leafed through a magazine and then saw me laugh about the book. He said, “So, that book must be good.”

“It is,” I told him.

“What makes it so good?'

“I love the opening line, it says, 'If I set you on fire, will you keep me warm?' Besides that, the concept of the book is very clever, the kind of thing that I would like to write.”

“That is a good line,” he said, repeating it to himself.

He was called off by his clinician and he turned to me before leaving the room and said, “it was short, but I enjoyed talking to you.” I told him that I enjoyed it too, and I did. Two strangers actually talking to one another? What was that all about?

When I got in to see my clinician she told me that it was her first week back after having been at church camp for two weeks. She shared with me that her 11 year old son came to her choking back tears on Tuesday and he told her that he missed singing that song. “What song?” she asked. “You know the one, 'Shall we break bread together on our knees.'” While telling me this she began to fight back tears. I told her that I thought that her son was missing a very important thing. While he was at camp he learned the importance of community, he learned that while breaking bread in the celebration of the Eucharist he became a part of the body of Christ and while in the Anglican tradition that she and her family are a part of they believe that they actually became a part of the body and blood of Christ. But what's more, while doing that he learned that being a part of the body of Christ also meant being a part of a community of faith. A community! Her tears began to dry as she said to me, “That's exactly what he learned and he learned on his first day back in the real world that that community isn't just everywhere.”

But it is everywhere, yet, I regret to inform you that there are so many people for whatever reason believe that they hold onto the notion that they are the center of the universe and we are their satellites. We orbit them, we are here for them. The sense of community, of being a neighbor of offering ourselves as helpers, supporters, encouragers, coworkers, has been beaten within an inch of its life because of the folks who believe that their problem is more important than everyone else's, their health is worse than anyone's, their loving relationships make yours look like training wheels on a trike. That because of these things we are here to serve them.

I was watching “The Lady Killers” the other night, the new version with Tom Hanks. When I put the disk into the player I was thinking about how I want to live in a real community, what would it mean to be a part of a real community? Then I heard the lovely, deeply southern Negro lady lead say, “You don't want to be measured and found wantin', you don't want that written on your wall.” I fear that is where our world is headed, I fear that we will turn our faces away from our neighbors, that we will refuse to live as a community and we will have to answer to her question. I would enjoy being wrong, I would enjoy thinking that we won't find this written on our wall.

I thought as I drove to work the next morning, I'd like to see New Harmony, Indiana. It was designed to be a Utopian community, then I thought about the Shakers and how they were looking for the same thing, then the light came on, well it turned green and as I drove through it I was reminded, both of these communities didn't make it. So maybe it's best not to look for a Utopian community. Just a regular one for me please, a nice little community.

Shadows of the Evening, Emlee meets Susannah

2007-07-29T19:59:00.000-04:00

Going home without an umbrella wasn't the world's biggest travesty thought Emlee. Going home without the name of the woman who could recite the poem with her was the real travesty. Emlee took herself to task for not introducing herself to her fellow poetry performer. While Emlee sat at the kitchen table in the small apartment she kept berating herself. She went to the kitchen counter and took the loaf or rye bread from the chrome clad bread box. She closed the door where her reflection popped into view as she turned the knob. She pointed at her image and said out loud, “Now Emlee, all your had to do was stick out your hand, with all five of those bony fingers and say something brilliant like, 'hi, I'm Emlee.' It's like Mom used to say when you pointed at what you wanted, 'Em' your mouth runs when it shouldn't, the least you can do is ask for the butter, use that mouth when you should,'”. Emlee knew that her mother spoke the truth. Her father taught her the proper way to shake hands so that she could, “succeed in business.” About ninety nine percent of the time she followed her parents' advice and did the proper things.

“Why didn't you shake hands and introduce yourself, Emlee? You know better than to let opportunities like that get by, oh sure, you put your arm around her, but she wasn't very receptive, you should have shaken hands” she continued to lecture herself as she buttered the crusty slices of light bread as she prepared her lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich. “You won't do it again now, will you Emlee?”

Emlee knew that anyone who might be listening would surely think that she had left reality, but if they knew who they were really listening to they would know that she was no threat to herself or society. Emlee laughed at herself, she was always talking to herself, especially when she needed a good dressing down like she did this time.

Emlee hated her life in the city. Her apartment was small even though she could afford bigger but since it was just her, why more space to clean? Her parents were far away, she had a few co-workers that she would call friends though they rarely did anything socially, she knew they really weren't friends, they were what they were, co-workers. They were only friends when one of them was getting married and wanted a wedding present, then at the receptions there would be a table full of, “friends” from work.

She put way too much energy into her work at the insurance company. The position as manager of the company's in house advertising department was very demanding. She didn't burn midnight oil at work. She told her boss when she was promoted that spending the night there would not continue, there was no such thing as midnight oil at work. She told her boss when she was advanced that spending the night there was no longer an option for the staff in the department. She reminded her that having been a regular employee in the department had taught her a few things, work at work – not at home, focus while at work, do what your third grade teacher worked so hard to instill, “do your own work,” Emlee informed her boss that there would be a much smaller turnover in the department if the management would do just a few things: show respect, show appreciation and understand that work was work and no employee should have to sell their soul to the company. Emlee was prepared to be passed over for the position and dismissed as well for disloyalty. She was shocked when Ms. Hawkins gave her the promotion. The department's director said, “you've had the grunt's job, let's see if you know what you're talking about. “ Emlee was proud that productivity was up substantially, absenteeism was down and the quality of work was superior and rarely was anyone in the office after six. All it took was some pats on the back, the occasional vase of flowers for a job very well done and an understanding of the third grade concept.

All of Emlee's hard work paid off and the company was paying her handsomely for it too. Still she lived a very modest life and put money away into sound investments, her plan was to retire young, somewhere in the country near her parents who still lived in her hometown.

“Emlee, why didn't you just introduce yourself? You know she wouldn't have bitten you. She's a woman not a starved junk yard dog, if she was she could have bitten you right there, you were close enough. For Pete's sake you put your arm around her and didn't tell her your name.” Emlee kept up the chastisement while she cleaned up her lunch dishes. “No wonder you don't have anyone to play with, you can knock 'em dead at work, but leave that corner office and you're a mouse, what gives girl?” She asked herself as she wagged her finger at her reflection as she ran a towel over the front of the bread box, removing her finger prints.

Susannah stopped at the grocery after church and then went home. She stood at the deli counter looking over everything that was on display. Nothing really appealed to her, she ran her eyes from one end of the case to the other waiting for divine inspiration, it came when the short and abrupt man behind her tugged on her sleeve and said, “for the love of God lady, pick something before it all grows short blue hair.” Susannah's lunch was colorful if it was nothing more, though there was no short blue hair. She reached in the brown bag and removed one half pound of cranberry orange relish, one half pound of fresh mozzarella with grape tomatoes that were freckled with dried black basil flakes, it sat stewing in olive oil and vinegar. In the bottom of the bag was a piece of cake, white cake with raspberry filling and covered with white chocolate. “This is food for the love of God - lady,” she told herself. She left her lunch on the kitchen counter and went to her bedroom to change her clothes, her Sunday best was hot and still a bit damp from the sudden cloud burst at the end of church.

She stood at the dresser where she looked at her naked form in the mirror. She touched her breast then looked in the mirror and said, “what can you say Susannah, gravity is the law.” With that reminder she pulled an over size tee shirt from the drawer and poked her head through the gaping neck hole as she slipped her arms into the sleeves, shimming into it in a choppy motion. She tugged on a pair of too short cut off jeans and went back to the kitchen where she stood at the counter and looked at her lunch selection. “Everything has some red in it Susannah, were you in a certain mood?” She was startled when there was a loud crack from the lightening that hit near the house. “More rain,” she thought, “let it pour Lord, you know that we need it,” she said as she relaxed from her start.

“Eat something, just pick one thing, you only have to eat one thing,” she told herself as she reached into the silverware drawer and removed a fork. She peeled the flexible plastic lid from the tub of cranberries and wandered around the kitchen eating the tart berries while feeling caged. The rain had turned from a pelting rain to a more gentle fall and it looked as though it would rain for a while. Susannah loved days when it rained like this, though on summer days like this she simply felt like she was a hostage in her own home. She wanted to be out and about in the yard, or maybe sit on the porch for a while and watch the weather. She didn't like the idea of being cooped up in the house in the summer time knowing that it would be only a few weeks before the weather would change and it would be cold and unpleasant. “That's it, I'm going out,” she thought.

Susannah knew that she couldn't go much further than the porch the way that she was dressed, if she was going to walk in the rain she couldn't wear the shorts and t shirt that she was wearing, it was a walk in the neighborhood after all, not a wet t shirt contest in some tasteless bar. So she changed, putting on a black button down shirt that she knew belonged to a man before she got such a good deal on it and she put on more respectable shorts, she didn't want her tennis shoes to get wet, so she put on a pair of flip flops knowing that they would be slick when they got wet. She took her house key from the hook by the door and went out to walk in the rain.

Emlee turned on the television and picked up the remote, she sat on the her big sofa with all of the pillows and hugged one to her, she felt alone and a bit downtrodden since she had given herself the major, “Dutch Uncle” chat about letting Susannah get away without introducing herself. She flipped the channels, golf, golf, baseball, golf, sensationalized news, the usual fare she thought. She pushed the red button on the remote just as she waved good bye to the next one at the tee. She picked up the Sunday paper and began to flip through it, it made her nervous to even hold the paper, she shook. “What the hell are you thinking Emlee, get out of this apartment, the walls are closing in and you need to escape.” She grabbed her old tennis shoes and stuck her feet in without socks, she hated to walk in wet shoes as it was, but the sound of squishing socks didn't help the matter any. She stuffed her keys in her pocket and dashed for the door nearly running to get to the steps so that she could leave the front stoop behind and get out of her dungeon.

“Rain, sweet summer rain,” she thought, knowing it was a line from a movie, but not sure which one. She ambled along the sidewalk and enjoyed the big drops that fell from the trees, sliding from the large Sycamore leaves and the big heart shaped Catalpas with their long seed pods that looked like beans, surely they were the magic beans that Jack bought, weren't they? She thought and smiled.

Further down the street there were brownstones and she thought about how they really did look more like movie sets than homes. In front of them were what she called, “the precious or unruly trees” because they were always caged up. She began to get to the small shops along the street, the green grocer had a few apples in bins in front of his store and because of the oil on their surface the rain beaded just like it would on a well waxed car. She stood at the jewelers window and admired the blue rings, necklaces and bracelets, she saw a pair of earrings that caught her attention as well. Everything in the window had some kind of blue stone in it. The earrings had Lapis Lazuli in them. The stones were not top quality, too much pyrite in them, but the quartz in them gave them the appearance of a midnight sky with stars twinkling, she loved the look. “You need more earrings like you need more anxiety,” she mumbled.

A woman had joined her in admiring what was in the window, “Aren't they beautiful? I love blue.” Emlee turned to the voice next to her to look at the woman by her side, drenched, her long hair sagging down her back it was Susannah. Susannah pushed a hank of saturated blond hair from her face so that she could see more clearly the figure next to her, she laughed and pointed at Emlee and said, “How beautiful is the rain!” together they laughed.

Emlee put her arm around her again, just as she did in church and very promptly said, “I'm Emlee, no i in the middle. I'm sorry about my manners earlier, I should have introduced myself.”

“I thought nothing of your manners, I did wonder what your name was though and while I was at the grocery I realized that I didn't tell you my name, so I guess we're even.”

Their gaze fell again on the blue jewelry in the window, everything so beautiful. “I love lapis,” said Emlee, there is so much to see in a piece of lapis and that dark blue is so rich. It looks like a late night sky just as the stars emerge. When I was in first grade we would line up to go to the bus and together with our teacher we would recite the hymn, not sing it, 'now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening steal across the sky.' Silly that I remember such things, isn't it?” Emlee looked to Susannah who was wearing a great big smile and eyes the color of lapis.

Hey Buddy, Yeah, You, You're My Neighbor, Now Get Used to It.

2007-07-20T15:49:00.000-04:00

When I read the topic of Sunday's sermon on the church's website, I have to admit my heart fell an eighth of an inch, this is not to say that I felt down hearted, it was that I've heard this story so many times in my church sitting years that I wasn't looking forward to hearing the story again. The same question is always raised out of the story of the Good Samaritan. It's an honest question, it's the same question that Jesus asked, “Which one acted like a neighbor?” (Luke 10: 25-37)

I have to tip my hat to Rev. Rachel, she did what had to be in my mind the toughest job ever done, she made this story fresh. She presented the two who went before the Samaritan as local religious leaders—Indianapolis notables, that made the story come alive right there. The real kicker for me was when she asked the question that the religious leader who cornered Jesus asked, “Who is my neighbor.” Of course, she turned the question toward all of us to think about, she didn't ask just us, she was asking herself too, and I dare say that like most of us in the pews, she could nearly recite the answer that Jesus gave.

This week I've thought about the answer as I see it. The important part of the story isn't exactly that the Samaritan man showed mercy, though without it we really don't have a story. The thing that I accepted was Rev. Rachel's challenge to look about us and see just who are neighbors are, who are they really?

While I sit at this computer and write these blogs I can see out on the street of my inner city neighborhood. I can't say that I live downtown and I don't think that we have enough inner city to call it uptown or midtown, I like the term, Central City; has a nice ring to it. Looking out of my apartment I can see a very important corner here in the Central City. It is an important corner because it is one of the busiest for drug trade and prostitution. In a casual conversation that I had with an investigative reporter once long ago I shared the concept that I have observed over the years of living here and watching what goes on, the idea is simple really, if the city were to observe the business system of the drug business in my neighborhood and were able to see the supply chain and upper management they would have one of the most dynamic models for government, commerce, and industry in the world. If the city were to invite companies to this city and insist that they learn from this model every tax in the city would be lowered because of the increased productivity and sales would skyrocket. I'm not going to give away their secrets here, it's not my business, but I am going to give a description of the lower echelon.

Day in and day out, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year, in the most pleasant of weather, (as we have right now,) to the hottest possible, (like we just had, factor in the humidity,) to the coldest day on record, rain, snow, fog, sleet, hail, with the tornado warning siren blaring in their ears because it's just over their heads and through every possible condition or time; they pace, they walk from the corner of a numbered street and a state named street, (clever aren't I?). They sit on retaining walls and yell at the oncoming cars of former clients. They are joined by prostitutes, because one stop shopping is still popular. Well, let's just put it this way, they are definitely difficult to see as my neighbor and yet they are right there in my neighborhood. If one were to fall and be physically in trouble like the victim in the Samaritan story, would I rush down and dress his/her wounds and put them up in the local hospital and pay the tab? I think that I would call 911 for them, but I have to say that I don't think that I could do what the Samaritan man did. Would I be expected to put myself in possible danger to do so? That's a good question, the Samaritan did, the robbers who beat the unidentified man could have easily made the Samaritan their next victim. He easily could have been the next to be robbed and beaten because he didn't know how far the thieves had gone, they could have been lurking, using the victim as bait. This is a tough call.

It is hard to look at others as neighbors too, people around us who take advantage of us until we feel that we cannot stand another use or abuse of our kindness. This one is a mixed question, are they still my neighbor? I think so, does the lesson Jesus taught about bearing the Centurions back pack apply here? I would like to think that it does.

There is another element in my community, but it isn't just a neighborhood, though in my case it does apply partially since I've been told that I live in the gay ghetto. I've met, let me rephrase that, I've tried to meet folks that I recognize as being a part of the gay community. Most often the effort that I make is to recognize them with a hello in the grocery. A nod, a friendly greeting at Mc Donald's when they are getting coffee on their way to work. I am more often than not astounded by the response that I get. Often it is the same response that the first two respondents in the Samaritan story gave. I don't understand that. I met a man one time in a place where my company buys supplies. I greeted him, I recognized him from my neighborhood. He gave me the grimace of, “Why are you speaking to me? I don't know you.” Yep, that's the point, you don't, but I'm your neighbor. I saw him several times in my neighborhood and waved...nothing. I saw him in church one Sunday, greeted him, that same look again. Finally, I walked up to him and said when I was getting supplies, “Hi, I'm Don, we live in the same neighborhood, that makes you my neighbor. Where I come from we recognize our neighbors, be that in the grocery, on the street, wherever. I see you take your dog for a walk I can see you from my desk, I watch to make sure that you are okay, we don't have much crime other than drug sales in our area, but I watch you just the same. If anything were to happen to you, I would call the cops, and be out the door to help as fast as I could. I believe in community.”

First a smile came to his face, his response was a surprise to me, “I'm glad to meet you, thank you for being a neighbor and watching out for me, I really do appreciate that as I am often a bit leery of what goes on in the neighborhood, I'm glad to know that you are aware.” Inside I was leaping for joy. Don't take me wrong, I wasn't excited because I was accepted as a Samaritan, but because I was, make that, am seen as a neighbor. It feels really good.

I like to think of the story of the Good Samaritan as being wrongly titled. It should have been called, The Samaritan who did good. Who was the real neighbor in the story? The young religious scholar told Jesus, “The one who treated him kindly.” Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” While this is the important lesson in the story, I think that the most important person in the story is the victim. The victim made it possible for three men, maybe add the inn keeper and make it four, to learn just how important it is to be the neighbor, the good neighbor, the neighbor who did good. It's hard to remember that just as those drug dealers and prostitutes are my neighbors, we all are, I'm their neighbor too.

Once again, the prologue in the middle, you would think that I would learn.

2007-07-01T09:45:00.000-04:00

Allow me to introduce to you Emlee and Huck, also known as Susannah. These two women are life partners, which is rather blatant as you read the stories. As is obvious, Susannah has passed away after a battle with cancer. Emlee is doing her best to make her way in the world after having laid to rest her trusted friend, confidant and loving companion.

These are stories of love and compassion and the feelings that Emlee experiences after having seen Huck slip away from her life. It becomes obvious through time, or will, that Emlee will have to look for a new beginning or what a friend of mine calls, “a new normal,” though I don't believe that there really is such a thing. The concept of a new normal doesn't keep us from looking for it, even when we are sure that there really isn't one.

The stories here are a little spread out and begin with a story that I was “warming” up on. The entry here called, Because I have not Written Like This for a While is the first, then Good Morning Star Shine followed by the most recent, Emlee in Church. Note that these stories are a little like an obvious treasure hunt, similar to the entries entitled Vicar of Another Man's Life, each one has an inspiration in them, in the stories about Emlee and Susannah the inspiration is a song or a poem, as time goes by, there may be other references to make you think, and to give you a tip to what was going through my mind at the time.

An aside: in Vicar of Another Man's Life you may want to Google your clue, or simply Google Vincent Van Gogh, you may find the painting that was the inspiration for the story.

Please, please, make a comment, just so that I know that you were here. You may play critic if you like, you can tell me if you recognize the clue, but most of all, you are simply letting me know that while you were sipping coffee, or having a nosh before bed, you took a moment to see what these characters are up to.

"How Beautiful is the Rain" Emlee in Church

2007-07-01T09:23:00.001-04:00

Emlee sat in the old rocker that had become a fixture on the front porch in summer for the past several seasons. There were two, but since Huck had passed away Emlee just couldn't bring herself to haul the other from the shed where the rockers had been stored for the winter under a large tarp in a valiant effort to keep them clean. Because Emlee was a good hostess she knew that her rocker would not be enough seating on the porch for those neighbors and city friends who often dropped by to visit and to simply check up on her. Losing Huck had been one of the most difficult things that she had experienced and her friends, neighbors and family knew it and they were doing their best to comfort Emlee, though it was hard for Emlee to be the recipient of such kindness. Not because she wasn't grateful, but simply because she was always the one to offer this grace to others. She was always the one with arms extended to hold someone who was crying, she was always the one to drop by with a few flowers, be they from the flower shop in town or from Huck's garden. She was the one who would spend time in the kitchen whipping up a quick dish to deliver to the home of someone grieving. She remembered having that experience referred to as the delivering of sympathy by means of a covered dish. She laughed because she knew that it was possible for green bean casserole to extend a care and concern on behalf of the person who sent it. While she knew that food was not love, she knew that food could express love, just like the flowers, just like the arms around someone crying for whatever reason their tears came.

Emlee had other chairs on the porch, none of the rest of them rocked, but they all matched the rest of the furniture on the porch, her rocker, the table. She had made chintz cushions for each of the chairs though it had been treated with laminate in case it rained, it still had a chintz pattern. She thought of when she excitedly brought the fabric from the store with such joy because she loved the pattern and it had been marked down to bargain basement price, it had flowers with birds and the birds in the print were humming birds no less. She couldn't wait to show it to Huck. Huck looked at the fabric on the roll and simply said, “you're the design department, I'm maintenance and all that other good out door stuff.” A little crestfallen, Emlee knew that Huck was right, she didn't really have the same appreciation for such things, but deep inside she wanted things pretty and nice, and she knew that Emlee would take care of such things. “You know me Em, I would have brought home some dreadful dark stripe, I married you because I love you and you have good taste. You always make me look good.”

While rocking in her porch chair with the cushion in the seat and another tied to the knobs on the back, Emlee took a deep breath and when she did she drew in the fragrance of the incense that had been used in church that morning. The price she paid for sitting so close to the aisle and sitting in the middle of the nave. When the gospel was read, she was right next to the deacon as he swung the sensor back and forth and the white smoke rose from the ornate device. It was especially pungent because she was so close to it, but when she was farther away it did have a pleasant aroma that did remind you that you were in a holy place.

Since it had been quite a while since Huck's passing Emlee thought that it was time to go back to church. She knew that it would be emotionally difficult, but she also knew that her spirit was waning and she needed the strength that she received from being in church. She had not been raised in a strict, “religious” home, as a family they believed in God, the Trinity even, church was just not a part of everyday life for her family. Emlee's family never said grace at the table, her father so often said, “If God didn't know that we were each grateful, then he wouldn't have given it to us.” Emlee understood that his statement was an admonishment to each of them to be grateful to God for what they had.

Emlee needed to go the the place where holiness inspired more talks with God, while there were those that she knew that could go and sit in the city park and feel as though they had worshiped in the cathedral of the trees, she often wondered if that was a cop out for not being disciplined enough to roll out of bed and go to church. She also realized that God was in their hearts and if they could focus, then they could worship in the park, she knew that it would be hard for here to do so, she knew as well, that it wasn't her place to make their decisions for them.

Emlee simply needed the things that church offered, a place where she was led in worship, a place where there were others who thought like she did, a place to contribute to the good of her fellow earth riders and whats more, if she met someone to care about, then all the better, it was a place for Emlee.

It was in church on a summer morning that threatened rain that Emlee met Susannah. The old red brick and limestone church was a landmark in town, it was old and everything about it reminded Emlee of the churches that she visited in the English countryside when she took a European trip while she was in college. She was so taken by the stone churches that were a part of every country village that she had to go in, she had to see the inside, she suddenly noticed that The Church of England was somewhat standard in the interior architecture. After being in the churches in several villages she learned that there were only subtle differences in the services, usually it was the priest that made the difference in the mass, all things considered, they seemed like holy places to her, shrines to a living God. The red brick church in her neighborhood was really no different. It was Episcopal was the only difference really, but they were quick to identify themselves as Anglican and in communion with The Church of England; generally speaking she never saw a picture of Queen Elizabeth when she went to this church or any other Episcopal church in the city.

The heavy oak doors were propped open on this Sunday that honored St. John the Baptist. There were dark and heavy rain clouds overhead and they bore a heaviness that gave the feeling that they would not be able to stay in the sky long, they would surely fall. Most of the people who went through the door of the church were toting umbrellas, a weather tool that Emlee didn't bring with her, though a sure symbol of faith that it would rain. She was not able to park close to the building and she knew that her madras dress would be soaked by the time church was over and she would head back to the car. It was too late now, Emlee could not run back home for such a silly thing as an umbrella at this point in time, though she lived only a few blocks away. She stepped inside the door, was welcomed by the greeter just as she dipped her fingers in the font and made the cross, reminding herself of her baptism. The greeter was patient, waiting for Emlee to finish and then she spoke a benign hello and handed Emlee the missal for the day. Emlee nodded a silent thank you as she took the booklet and turned to look to see if her usual seat was filled.

Her usual place under the window was empty and she stepped lightly on the old hardwood floor that creaked and moaned under foot. At the end of the pew she bent at the waist toward the altar, it was her custom to do so instead of genuflecting as others did, genuflecting became very difficult for Susannah as time went by, because of the chemo, getting down on one knee often was easy, getting up again was harder. Emlee slid into the pew and brought the kneeler quietly into position. She made the cross again and looked to the crucifix as she prayed. “Welcome me home sweet Jesus, draw me ever closer to your heart as I come here to renew my spirit and grow ever closer to you dear Lord.” She sat on the pew and with her hand she returned the kneeler back to it's position with great stealth, quiet was the code for one's entrance into the church. She slid across the pew as she knew that Susanna would want to sit on the end so that she could quietly escape if she needed to. “The damn chemo,” Emlee thought as she sat there before church started, the Voluntary had begun and the organ was at a loud part in the score. She simply looked to the cross again and uttered a simple addition to her prayer, “Father God, forgive me for my bitterness.” She knew that Huck was not coming and it angered her to have to sit alone.

The bells rang signaling the beginning of the service and Emlee stood for the opening hymn, the words simply could not make it to her lips, though they did make it to her heart. It was more difficult than she thought it would be, she thought that it would take her longer to feel the loneliness of not having her Huckleberry friend sitting next to her in the pew. She kept looking down at the seat to see if her beloved friend and partner was okay sitting while everyone stood, Susannah so often mentioned how funny, embarrassed even she felt because she could not stand and participate as those around her did. Emlee told her not to be silly, since she was before the Lord to worship he did not care what her posture was, just being there was the important part. After reciting this litany to Susannah several times she began to agree and understand just how true the statement was when Emlee worked to convince her. Emlee worked to instill this in Susannah because she knew that there would come a point where they would not be able to attend church any more, that the hospital chapel would be where she would do her praying, she feared that and it often brought her to tears, though always in secret, away from Susannah so that she would not be adding to her troubles, her fears.

By rote Emlee heard herself saying, “And also with you,” knowing that the priest was about to offer a prayer.

“O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help us...” said Father Gilham

Emlee was drawn back into the present with these words from the priest. With effort she focused on the response to the Psalm, she heard the reading of the Epistle. When the sub-deacon presented the gospel to Father Gilham and it was brought down from the chancel to the nave of the church, Emlee was always impressed with the way that those in the front turned and followed it as it was brought down the aisle. Each one giving a nod as it made its way past them. Lifting the book high over head Father Gilham said, “The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke!” It was then that the deacon began to swing the incense that permeated Emlee's thin cotton summer dress.

The smoke of the incense hung low over head, the humidity was high and it was obvious when she looked out of the windows that the rain was even closer, the leaves of the trees in the garden just outside of the church wall were turning their backs to the sky. Emlee knew that she would wish for an umbrella as she left the vestibule. Emlee thought back to when she met Susannah in this very place and it was a day not unlike this one. There were inky menacing clouds when she arrived at the church that Sunday. The doors were propped open just as they were at this very moment. The trees that lined the cobblestone walk that went from the street to the door were under a canopy of summer leaves. The weather had been very hot and dry, rain was something that everyone was crying out for and now the trees and flowers were crying as well. When she entered the church the air felt as though it were made of glue, it was sticky and uncomfortable and the old red brick church had not been graced with air conditioning, so the week's worth of humidity was still bottled up inside even though it was being stirred now by fans. It seemed that their job was hopeless.

On that hot and humid Sunday, it was the silent prayer from many that rain would come and that it would come in quantity. Many had brown and crispy lawns and there were droopy flowers in flower beds. The city had announced that they could not allow sprinkling. This didn't upset Emlee, though she did want it to rain, she knew how important it was to everyone's wellbeing. Father Gilham said the blessing for dismissal and the congregation responded, “Thanks be to God.” On this hot Sunday, his dismissal didn't sound like celebration, it sounded more like word from the governor. Everyone sat down as the organ voluntary began, the daily missals doubling as fans and the congregation was praying that the organist would be merciful, since he was high aloft, where the law of heat was well represented, he obliged. The last note still in the air, the faithful stood and headed for the doors, scattering in every direction to get relief from the stagnant air of the sanctuary.

Emlee moved to the street entrance and when she arrived the sky had opened and rain fell straight down from heaven. She was grateful for her simple cotton dress, sleeveless and cool. She stood just inside of the heavy oaken doors when Susannah came to stand next to her. Complete strangers, Emlee looked out on the falling rain, it came heavily to the ground, and no one was complaining, even those who, like herself, had not brought umbrellas.

“How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat,” Emlee recited from an old poem that she remembered from junior high school.

“In the broad and fire street,” Susannah chimed in with a great smile as Emlee looked at her, two strangers watching the rain.
“And in the narrow lane,” said Emlee as she took her turn.
“How beautiful is the rain,” they chanted together.

Emlee without ceremony or pretense put her arm around Susannah and said, “How wonderful that you remember such things.” Then she darted into the street and rain, twirled in a circle as her full skirt filled with air, doing the same dance of a little girl in a new dress.

"Good morning Starshine"

2007-06-21T17:48:00.000-04:00

With the winter gone, the windows were open and the lace curtains that had danced in the winter from the drafts were now tied back to let the late spring breeze through. Having the curtains tied back inhibited some of their dancing, yet when the wind came in just right, like just before a storm, they looked as though they were line dancing.

The natty gray sweater that had been a part of the her daily uniform through the winter had given way to cotton dresses without sleeves, if there were a bit of a chill in the evening she kept a man's long sleeve shirt where she could get to it quickly. Her long hair had become bothersome and yet she couldn't entertain the thought of having it cut to a short bob, and yet that's what she had always worn in the past. So many things had changed in her life since her, “Huckleberry Friend,” had crossed the Moon River. The little farm that they so desired when they lived in the city showed signs of her grief, the house, though tidy didn't have the same charm about it, the colors seemed drab and lifeless, though she knew that she was seeing them through clouded eyes. Eyes that were sometimes clouded with tears.

She woke earlier in these days of late spring, the sun was rising and it seemed that the law of gravity no longer applied to her bed because it tossed her out at just the same moment each morning. . She would seemingly jump from it and run a brush and comb through her hair and tie it back with the first thing that came to her hand, sometimes a tie dyed bandanna, other times it would be the fuzzy hair band that she had picked up at a little boutique in town. She would do nothing about her appearance otherwise, she slipped out of her roomy cotton gown and slip yesterday's cotton dress over her head knowing that she would be back later to clean up for the day, she needed to be outside, she needed to see the sunrise as if it would pour some kind of magic upon her as it broke the horizon with it's brilliant color. She padded down the back steps to the kitchen, listening to each creak that the steps made as if they were symphony music. Concerto for wood steps and bare feet in the key of knee. That's what she used to call it when they would make this ritual together. The switch on the coffee pot was flipped as she nearly ran out the door to bask in the rising sun.

The railing around the porch needed painting desperately. Yet it held her safely as she leaned against it so that the sun's rays would fall upon her hair and illumine her face. She thought it easily might be the best beauty treatment in the world. Would it wash the months of grief and winter from her face, would it really melt it off? While each day grew a little easier without her, she still thought of her many times during the day and wondered what Huck would do if she where here. One thing for sure, there would have been rows in the garden that would have been perfectly straight and they would be showing results of her work by now. As it was it laid fallow and she told herself that just as it was instructed in the Bible this year would be a year of Jubilee, she would let the ground lie fallow and the garden could rest this year. She knew that if Huck were alive there would be berries on the strawberries that had been planted in the clay jars designed for that very job, the runners would have covered it by now and there would be little green berries forming. Again, a year of Jubilee.

As the sun rose higher in the morning sky she walked off the porch barefooted and began to stroll along the gravel driveway. She didn't step into it as she knew that the sharp stones would be painful to her feet. She walked in the grass down the winding path toward the creek and the bridge that crossed it. As she did she heard the plop of little frogs jumping back into the creek for protection. She remembered when her father would get angry and her mother would tell him to go jump in the creek, it made him laugh because the nearest creek deep enough to jump into was easily a couple of miles away. Subdivisions didn't have creeks, they had mosquito hatcheries called retention ponds. The willow along the creek was past the stage of having bright yellow whips hanging over the water, they were deeper green now and the shade they made caused the pool under the bridge to be dark and cool reminding her of the famous Monet paintings that she and Huck had seen when they were in France.

She turned to walk back to the house, taking a bit of a detour from the path that she had taken to the creek. Along the path she noticed that some of the wildflowers were in bloom. The Queen Anne's Lace wasn't in bloom yet, but it's foliage added a beautiful lacy effect to the patch that was also home to some runaway mint the lawn also harbored wispy yellow sweet clover that grew like the very thing that many thought it was, a weed. There was the beautiful blue chicory that had grown up with it and here and there was grass that was tall and headed up, ready to go to seed.

As she walked closer to the house she saw that the sun was now well above the pine trees on the other side of the barn and the barn was showing the need for paint, just like the rail around the porch. All of that would need doing before summer was over, but the yard was being given opportunity to have a year of Jubilee.

Standing in her cotton dress with her hair pulled back she looked up to the bright yellow sun, surrounded by pale blue sky and she said, “Good morning Starshine, the earth says hello.”

The Prologue as the Intermission, or something like that.

2007-06-11T18:55:00.000-04:00

A few people, okay, a couple people, gonna make me tell the truth aren't you? One person, has said to me, “What do you mean 'Vicar of Another Man's Life', in these blog entries?” I figure if one person asked then another might want to know. So, for your edification:

The New Lexicon, Webster's Dictionary defines Vicar as mostly priestly duties, how it works in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican tradition. It is the last line that the definition gives that I'm thinking of. It comes from, now it's only a slight stretch, but only stands to reason: “a representative, as the pope is called, 'the vicar of Christ.'” Now don't think that I'm trying to pass Vincent off as the vicar of Christ any more than we are the vicars of Christ as well, we are supposed to be his representatives here on earth. The stretch comes, but is it really a stretch, when we see that Vincent through his imagination becomes the vicar of another persons life, he thinks of what it might have been for him if he had been that person.

Really, it is a use of the word vicarious in a bit of a creative way, good ol' Webster helps me out again here; acting , or done, on behalf of someone else or in his place. Of someone else's experiences which one shares imaginatively..... Thanks Daniel. It would stand that the last part of the dictionary entry is the one that I'm working upon in these entries. It would also stand to reason that if you are living life vicariously, then it would make you a vicar.

Now, the character Vincent is ever so loosely a reflection of the great Dutch painter. He had a brother, Theo who is said to have been less than kind. He only saw Vincent for what he might be able to profit from his brother's talent. At this point in my plotting of Vincent's life I really don't see Theo doing that, but I'm not done writing about Vincent. If you know Van Gogh's work you will see mention now and again of titles of his works but you don't always see them as very obvious, other times it's blatant.

To answer another question that has been asked by a few people, and we can stop there because it has been a few people, “Is Vincent really Don?” I'm going to answer that question in a couple of different ways; I was told in Creative Writing Class in high school, Writing and Reading the Short Story and it is repeated time and again in many places, “write what you know.” I don't think that is always the world's best advice because it doesn't always send us out to research, to ferret out information that will help to make us grow and see even more of the world, even if it is a world past. The second answer to the question is simply, “sometimes,” Vincent has very Don like characteristics. It really isn't such a bad thing, or is it?

Being the Vicar of Another Man's life simply means to put one's self in the shoes of another. For me it means to put on his shoes, his hat, his coat and see just how far he travels and imagine what his conversations and experiences good be. If I am really Vincent.

A few thoughts...Memorial Day

2007-05-29T07:05:00.000-04:00

The pastor of my mother's church called on Thursday and asked if he had my permission to read a portion of a letter that I had written him, he wanted to use it during his sermon on Sunday. Of course I had to run through a quick recall of what I had said in the letter but I quickly said, “you most certainly may.” The letter was a letter of thanks that I sent him on the first anniversary of my father's passing. Pastor Steve had been very attentive to my father while he was in the hospital and he was equally attentive to my mother and all of us kids, (my three sisters and I.) When my father passed away at Methodist Hospital at nearly one in the morning he arrived before two of my sisters who were just a little further away. The letter was not just a thank you note, but a look at what life means to me, or maybe that statement isn't exactly right. I suppose a better term is how I see life happening, from there it leads me to the thoughts on what life means to me, though those excerpts are not recorded here. I thought that maybe it would be a line or two that he would use in his sermon, but instead it was a preamble of sorts on what the circle of life is, it was actually the beginning of a memorial service and dedication of memorial gifts that had been given to the church in the last year. Here is a portion of the letter that he received, the part that he shared.

Dear Pastor Steve,

Leaves have turned green, flowers bloomed, flowers faded, leaves changed to the colors of autumn and fallen, snow has blown across the fields; now we see the process end to end. The entire circle starts again, the cycle of life runs its paces. All of these things happen because God, our creator has ordered it so.

Tonight I sat on my mother's front porch. The very place where I have seen these very scenes unfold and play out over and again. The Box Elder tree that my father was going to cut down every year for 34 or so years still stands. When he would mention cutting it down I would simply say, “you don't want to do that.” Then he would move on to his next project, like cutting the tree, many of the projects were never started. Seeing the tree in the yard reminds me that God has made for us seasons. I'm reminded too that we are here on earth for only a season. In so many ways it seems that some seasons are long and seemingly never ending while others feel as though they pass before our eyes quickly, at the same speed of the hummingbirds that come to the front porch here for a quick nip.

The letter continues in such a way that Pastor Steve might not want you to know. He shared with me privately that what he did/ does, “is simply my job.” Nice of him to say so, it appears to be, it's what he is comfortable with.

We are a part of a cycle, we are part of a season that can be like a vapor quickly gone. I thought on that on Memorial Day. Many who served our country did so in such a way that they were but a vapor before their life was ended and many returned to their families, many grateful that they were whole, some feeling the ravages of war in their hearts, something that they could never speak of. Some came home with the visible signs that they had fought, gave limb or organ in order to make us free.

Many post bumper stickers that read, “War is not the answer.” I don't disagree, it isn't the answer, but all too often regular people, like you and I who agree that war isn't the answer are never invited to the table to strike the peace accord. We aren't in a position to share with one another just how hard it is to watch our families and friends give up their lives when peace may not really be so far away. Would we agree at that table that politics doesn't have to be so complicated?

The others who are giving up their lives, mostly unwillingly are seeing the cycle of life just like those who lie in hospitals fighting infections, disease, and every other foe that wages war in the body. We would see together that war is an infection, a disease and we should want to work together to find cures, not add to the illness.

Will I know peace in my life time? Will you? Most likely not, for two reasons, the Bible reminds us that, “there will be wars and rumors of wars.” And, secondly and regrettably it is a part of that cycle, the circle of life and it reminds us that it can so often last like the hummingbird's dinner.

Derek's Lovely Garden : Reprise

2007-05-24T06:16:00.000-04:00

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled a niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had, whose life is/was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.” -Bessie Stanley November 30, 1905

Derek continued to pull weeds, though there were days that it was obvious that it was causing him a great deal of pain. His body was slowly wasting away, he held his abdomen when he squatted to grab an errant blade of grass or shake the seed from a pod on the Rose of Sharon bushes that he had used to create a hedge. The dog was showing a bit of gray on his muzzle, just like I do when I let my beard get a little long, proof that age leaves it's mark on everyone and everything. Time was taking it's toll on all that I could see, except the garden.

In the corner, some ivy, around the trees some ground cover. Along a wall a few herbs. The garden could not have been more beautiful. New day lilies were bright orange and bobbing their heads in the late spring sun. The gardener didn't look as well.

I spoke to him one day and he told me that he was taking treatments, that he had a few more to go. I felt confident that he wasn't talking dialysis. He looked ill, there were not a kinder word I could use to describe his appearance. This gentle man who wanted nothing more than a beautiful place to rest looked as though he might be doing that soon. He shared that the building was going condo and that he was going to have to move. Finding a place for him and the dog wasn't going to be easy he said. I knew that to be true, but not from personal experience. He surely was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, but without Atlas' frame to do so.

Derek moved away. The garden has grown up in weeds and is rarely mowed. His ornamental grasses are there, but they seem less than ornamental. It is the picture of what the garden looked like in Oscar Wilde's story The Selfish Giant. Bleak, very overgrown, lonely and unloved, nothing looks right about the garden and it has been difficult to look out over it in early spring and see very few bulbs in bloom and only a spotty smattering of crocus.

Now and again, I see Derek, maybe he comes to have dinner at the bar across the street, maybe it's to visit friends in the apartment building that he lived in. He doesn't go into the garden though. I thought about his garden this morning and I looked around for a laminated card that a friend had given me long ago when I said that I often wondered if I would know success. It was one of those moments that we all have, we question what we are doing, we wonder if we are making a difference. It's amazing really that he knew just the words to share. He wouldn't be the kind to say them out loud, but he would give you a card with his thoughts on it. The quote by Bessie Stanley was printed on the card. It is often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, it has not been found in his writings, but there has been a piece that might have been his outline based on the same thoughts.

Derek has proved that he has met success. I don't know for sure if children love him, but he has a dog that does, does that count when you aren't a parent, uncle...? He did find his niche, he worked to make the world better than he found it and he tried to improve it with a poppy, well, other flowers, but he would have put poppies in if someone had shared them with him. He has dealt well with the ugliness of life and met it with the best that he could muster, I do see his life as an inspiration and I trust that some day like we all hope for ourselves his memory will be a benediction.

In Derek's Lovely Garden

2007-05-23T21:17:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that my family thought that I was reaching for my last bit of gray matter when I decided that I wanted to live in the inner city. Having grown up in a rural setting, idyllic at times with it's rolling hills, beautiful autumn colors and striking pale green lace in spring. I thought it was time to break the Bryant tradition and I was heading for the city. This year I will have lived in Indianapolis for 11 years. All of it in the same apartment building, all but one year in my, “cat bird seat” that looks out over Pennsylvania Street. Disregard what some say, time flies, good time or bad and yet there are days that it drags its feet like it were wearing cement boots.

While I have been perched on the second floor of this building for the last many years I have seen things that I have found shocking, simply funny, incredibly amazing, sad, tragic and a few things that have caused me to scratch my head wondering how this or that feat was accomplished. In the time that I have lived here there have been three shootings, one of which I was witness to seeing the gunslingers escape through the building. While I couldn't see them distinctly, I learned that because it was a drug deal gone bad that the city detectives had no intention of working too hard on the case. I was told by one cavalier gum shoe that, “they are only policing themselves.” I reminded him that every person is mourned by someone and that his assumption was much less than appreciated in my home and I showed him the door, this was on his second and last visit.

For fear of making it sound like living in the inner city is horrible, I want to remind you that I said that it can be shocking, that's not always bad, sometimes I wonder just how a drag queen can wear a hat that big and how all those lights can be powered for so long and where's the power plant that's running it? Simply funny was watching a man try to unload a U Haul across the street trying to fend off the drug dealers who work the street trying to, “help” the mover for the price of a cold beer, make that any kind of beer in appreciation for their efforts. Amazing: the wind that kicked up a plastic grocery bag that floated around through the air for what seemed like hours. I sat mesmerized while watching it float and flutter and then be violently kicked back up into the air to float about two stories above the street level from where it came. Just like the scene in American Beauty.

And then I think of the tragic, but the story isn't the usual tragedy, at least I don't see it as that, and the man that this story is about wouldn't see it that way either. A couple of years back, I noticed that a young man who lived in the building across the street was coming along very nicely on his gardening project. Until this spring he worked at putting a lot of back breaking work into preparing a small space next to his apartment building that had a bit of a park like feel to it, though neglected for a long time he decided that it was time to do his part at leaving the world better than he found it. He begged, scrounged and was graciously offered plants from several sources for his project. He had a few generous benefactors who provided him with three nice Bradford Pear trees, enough Rose of Sharon to plant a hedge and he resourcefully used one of these plants as a centerpiece for his garden. He mulched, he planted mint, ivy, some day lilies, ground covers, all from starts scrounged and snitched. By the middle of the spring that year I noticed that his garden had become quite the lovely place.

That June I was offered some tree starts and I thought that the gardener across the street might like to have them to plant. The word on the street was that he liked to plant his garden from donations, making the job a bit more of a challenge. I crossed the street one afternoon and told him that I had access to some pine starts, nice starter plants, white pines and would he like to have them? He was taken aback, someone was being kind to him instead of making wisecracks. He was pleased I think because I'm not one of the drug dealers who work the area on a regular basis and I wasn't complaining about how his plants were in the way of their “hiding places.” His demeanor changed and he accepted the plants with grace and appreciation. I made arrangements to meet him there the next day to deliver his trees.

The next evening he told me that he recently had been diagnosed with a very sever kidney ailment and the he was told that without dialysis he wouldn't live long. It hurt me the same way that the news would if it were from a member of my own family. After all, in the last nine years I had watched him raise a puppy in this space and train him to be one of the most obedient dogs I have ever seen. (All he had to do was hold the chain leash up and the dog walked into its opening and began to walk across the parking lot. I know children that aren't that well trained, not that I advocate children on leashes.) I had watched over the last few years as he prepared his garden space and began to squirrel plants, in fact it became a bit selfish of me because I enjoyed seeing his garden from my perch above the street, I had the perfect view of his garden. I had seen him carry copious amounts of water to the garden and I sat and watched from my apartment as he filled his watering can and watered in the cool of the evening or while he held a coffee cup at sunrise. He later shared that he had a compromised immune system and that fighting his kidney issue was becoming even harder. I learned that he had been shunned by his family for actions taken in his life. A few days later he said that his intention was that if he died soon he wanted his and the dog's cremains spread under the plants that he had tended so well. A fitting tribute to his gardening I thought.

A few weeks passed and I didn't see him in his garden. When he returned I told him that I had missed him and was concerned about him. “You were?” he asked. I inquired about his absence and he said that someone—I knew who—had pulled up his day lilies, that another had as a matter of fact taken a weed eater to his ground cover, freshly planted creeping myrtle. He was understandably discouraged. He said he couldn't face the garden and he had been taking his dog for walks in other directions away from the garden.

A few evenings later, after a bit of a windstorm, I noticed that a man who ran drugs through the neighborhood usually on a bike, was pulling on the branches of the big stately box elder tree that has been a part of the garden for many many years. It was in the corner of the garden and the branch gracefully arced out over the side walk providing shade for a couple of the neighborhood's elderly women who gathered now and again for a bit of what I suspected was, “news swapping.” The bike rider pulled and tugged and yanked, I finally had to walk away I couldn't stand to watch any longer. The branch had not been damaged in the windstorm, but the mobile dealer couldn't stand on his bike pedals and clear the branches. When I rose the next morning, I opened the curtains and saw that the branch had been dismembered and tossed into the garden, breaking some of the Rose of Sharon hedge. I cried, tears rolled down my cheeks like raindrops down a window pane.

How must the gardener felt I thought, he is working to prepare a space for his final resting place only to see it treated like a landfill, or the center for illegal drug distribution? How must he have felt when the flowers that he planted himself to make his part of the world a better place, for not just himself, but for others, it surely hurt to see them plucked from the ground like fresh Vadalia onions? When he heard the whine of the weed eater, did he cringe, did he cry?

It wasn't the end of Derek's lovely garden. Watch for the rest of the story to follow.

Remembering Pop, A Year After His Passing.

2007-05-16T07:39:00.000-04:00

Pop's Sunday morning record concerts, the stack of records, The Harmonicats playing Ramona and Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.

Being taught to cast a fishing line into a circle drawn in the barn lot gravel, at six years old.

Going fishing the next day, I caught a sun fish, he caught none. He said, “There goes a good fishing buddy.”

Nasty canned Lima beans with sugar sprinkled on them.

The massive sombrero that he wore when mowing grass toward the end of his grass mowing days. So silly and yet so useful.

The really rough times. The really good times, the every day stuff and the smile at the mundane.

Pop making sure that at nine years old I got to see the first moon walk, while camping with no electricity. Well, someone had it, a t v and our families joined to see it together. We didn't know them, but my father never met a stranger, and they taught us to make somores. .

Having a tooth pulled while wearing painful boots, I was 10 years old. After the injection of sodium penethal the sandman asked me how I liked the boots, I said, “I hate the damn things, they hurt like hell.” (Now you know why they call is truth serum.) Dad, though we couldn't really afford it, bought me new shoes on the way home from the oral surgery.

Dad's musical prowess, he played the juice harp, the kazoo and the obnoxious tambourine. As opposed to the non obnoxious tambourine. His musical talent was really designed for the first thing I listed.

The braying donkey planter that sat on the dresser all of my life, a gift from his mother. I found one at a thrift store and bought it for a dollar. I've never ever seen another.

The photo of his mother that sat on the table next to whatever was considered his chair.

Tears when he spoke of his mother.

Peanut butter and any sweet sticky pour-able substance that could be qualified as syrup.

The big soup spoon that he ate many many things with, the one I called, “his shovel”

The day that he told me to come to him, (he couldn't see me in the kitchen,) I said, “Just a second.” He said,”now, drop everything you're doing,” he said, I dropped two of my mother's drinking glasses on the floor and broke them to shards. When I went he said, “Well, I was going to tell you to get me a glass of tea, but I think I owe you an apology and I need to get a broom.”

The smile on his face, though he didn't want to at first, at the party that my sisters and I gave he and mom for their 40^th wedding anniversary. Mom said, “give us a 40^th , we might not make it to 50.” He missed it by four years.

The covert peacock like style that he strutted around my grand opening, but he could hide it no longer, his pride ran over.

His love for my mother, he adored her. What an example.

The way that he handled it when I came out....”I know,” he said, and went on.

The way he loved the food that he ate, it was a contributing factor in his death, yet he enjoyed every bite.

I didn't know that he read, and I had NO idea that he read The Christian Science Monitor...my dad?

His adoration for his children, grandchildren, all children. The way that he would rock a baby and sing to them. I remember him singing, “I'm walking beside you on our wedding day, I would walk beside you, but you're in the way.”

The fact that he was insistent that his children's names could not be shortened. My name is Don, not Donald. He often said that when I was born they asked him if he meant Donald on the birth certificate. He told them no thanks, he couldn't afford the other three letters.

I love the fact that I share his middle name and that it is a legacy that he received from his grandfather, one that I received from him and one that my nephew shares with all of us. Jerome, there aren't many of them.

I am grateful for the punishment that he meted out. Some of the styles of “torture” seemed cruel and unusual at the time, but they really weren't, but I still don't buy the idea that they were to build character.

A fond memory: I remember saying when I was about thirty five that it was so hard for a gay man to meet a man of quality, that I guessed that my standards were just too high. So, my father said something about it to a man who worked on one of the docks where they were unloading Pop's truck. The fellow turned to my father and said, “Maybe it's because he hasn't met me.” My father tried to arrange a date, but it never worked out. I always say that my father became so comfortable with his gay son that he was willing to “cruise” for me.

Once in my life, my father selected a very sentimental card to send me, signed it, “Love, Pop.” and addressed it and mailed it to me. He did that once again with a birthday card, he only sent me cards twice in our lives.

On May 16^th of last year, my father Gary passed away. His death has been one of the most difficult things that I've ever dealt with in my life. However, it has strengthened my spirituality, given me a better understanding of resurrection faith, and it has given me a view of what I am really made of, some times strong as limestone, sometimes weak as jello..

I do take great comfort in fond memories, memories that aren't too fond are helpful too. It all boils down to knowing that we will be with one another again.

I look forward to the day.

Vicar of Another Man's Life: II

2007-05-06T13:12:00.001-04:00

Vincent sat on the front steps of the house and watched the sun slide down the sky as a perfect round circle the color of a tangerine. The sky around it was a color that defied description. He loved this hour in the evening when the neighborhood and seemingly the world slowed and became quieter. There were fewer cars on the street, the children were all indoors squirming at dinner tables, even pets were having their dinner behind the houses. There was some noise, but only enough to remind Vincent that he hadn't gone deaf. Vincent was grateful for even that noise because having one “bad” ear he feared not hearing out of it completely.

Vincent couldn't stare directly at the earths brightest star as it went down, the light was still far too intense, but he knew that as it fell further behind the row of houses the next block over that he would be able to see most of its final descent and he would be able to enjoy the change of colors as the sky moved through several shades of blue before it turned the velvety shade of midnight.

Vincent had visited a jewelry store once when he was young and in love, he thought once that he would pop the question. He went to the store looking for the perfect diamond in order to create a masterpiece of an engagement ring. When he told the handsome well dressed man behind the counter what he was looking for he was led into a well lit room where he and the salesman were locked in and he watched as the jeweler laid out a piece of velvet the exact shade of a clear night sky. The color of the evening sky, the color of earth being turned away from the sun. In that very moment it became his favorite shade of blue.

Vincent watched his little village neighborhood welcome this shade of blue. As it spread across the sky the children were told that they were excused from their dinner tables after they washed the residue of dinner from their hands and faces. Nearly every evening that Vincent took in the evening sky show he noticed that the two boys across the street would bolt through their front doors and off of their porches like they were race horses leaving the gates at the sound of the bell.

Vance lived at 719 Pine Street and Denny lived at 721. Their mothers had shared a room at the county hospital the day the boys were born. Some in the village thought that the boys were twins though it was easy to tell by looking that they weren't.

Each evening when the boys flew from their front porches they were equipped with the tools they would need for their evening adventure, empty mayonnaise and pickle jars to hold their catch of fireflies. Holes in the lids had been punched in with a hammer and a nail that had been lifted from Vance's father's garage without his permission, and with great stealth returned to its place in the garage.. After all, the luminous catch must have air in order to survive. Vance's jar always had a handful of grass in the bottom.

The boys took a severe scolding from their mothers at the beginning of firefly season when they both turned up in their respective kitchens with blue Ball canning jars. Each was looking for a lid and a ring. Neither of the boys knew that a conventional one piece jar lid was better for holding their prey. Neither of them had figured out that the two part lid would prove troublesome when caging their catches. Neither of the boys had a clue that to their mothers the jars were valuable.

Vincent watched the boys, he thought of how summer nights were made for this very thing. The canopy of evening was surely made for two things for children and one for adults. For the young it was made for running about chasing bugs with tail lights, or for that last few turns around the block on your bike if you were too old for bug chasing. After you passed that age then it was time to sit on the porch and remember those days.

The evening before, both of the boys ran out of the house earlier than usual. They came before the bug chasing hour. The two boys sat on Denny's front porch, scruffy from a day of play they looked like they had worked at an excavation site all day. Each one sat like his bud next to him chin on palm of hand. They watched the sky change, their backs to the sun and when the sky became just the right shade of blue they ran into the yard, fingers crossed and said in loud voices, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” While it was too far for Vincent to really see for sure, he was confident that each boy had his eyes closed, wasn't that how you wished?

Vincent closed his eyes and thought back to the days when he was a boy that age. Vincent's best friend's name was Dane and while they were the same age they didn't share the same birthday. They lived in this very village though there were far fewer houses in those days and there really was no such thing as a, “subdivision” as there would be later in their lives. They both lived on the same side of the road, but there was a good walking distance between their houses. They knew each other well, they were the only boys on the street within close enough proximity to be allowed to travel the distance to play with one another. Vincent and Dane looked very similar, both the children of first generation Dutch to come to America they sported the white blond hair and blue eyes that matched their parents', though they didn't have the thick Dutch accents that their parents had.

Dane and Vincent's houses were separated by a a large field and at times there was a crop of kale planted in rows that were perfectly straight. They knew that there was just enough room between each plant that they could step between the plants crossing the rows, but they also knew, after severe punishment that there was not enough room to run between the plants, running would have to be down the rows where the paths were wide enough for the workers to squat back to back and harvest the bottom leaves. Each evening in summer when the sky changed to a certain shade of blue they were allowed to meet in the field to catch what they called lightening bugs. Each had made a box to hold their catch covered with a piece of cheese cloth so that they could see the flashing insects inside the box. Vincent and Dane would spend hours out in the field chasing the bugs and one evening they stopped in their tracks and Vincent said to Dane, “We have to stop now.”

“Why, we're just getting enough to really light up our boxes?”

“That's true, but I cannot tell any longer where the bugs stop and the stars start.”

“Oh come on fool, you can too, let's keep at it, Momma will be calling for me soon and I'm not ready to go in, especially when my box is so close to being so bright.”

Vincent agreed that they should continue and they ran up and down the paths between the rows of the dreaded green vegetable. When Dane's mother called for him he went directly to the house, knowing better than to put her off or to beg for more time in the darkness.

Vincent sat down in the field as Dane went home, carefully stepping between the plants as he crossed the field going home. Vincent looked with great wonder at the stars overhead, if he squinted when he looked at them they appeared to dance in the dark blue sky. How very beautiful he thought. It was then that his mother called for him and he stepped between the plants going the opposite direction that Dane had gone.

When Vincent went in and began to clean up at the basin he told his mother how beautiful the night sky had been with all the wondrous stars and how they seemed to dance in the sky. “I wish that I could stay out there until the sun comes up. I wish I knew where the lightening bugs stopped and the stars began, I wish that I could reach up and catch a star instead of a bug and put in my jar so that you could see it Momma. I wish you had been there so you could have seen the starry starry night”

Vincent's mother listened to his wishes and taught him the simple rhyme that she learned as a child. “Vincent, tomorrow night when you go out, go a little early and get Dane to come out early too, watch the sky and when you see the first star say, 'star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.'” Tell no one of your wish and believe that it will come true.

The next night after dinner Dane and Vincent met in the field where they usually did, boxes in hand and ready for a night of hunting. Vincent told Dane that they would sit in the field until they saw the first star and that they would wish upon it and recite the verse that his mother had taught him. Dane thought it was silly, but Vincent never asked him to do anything so he thought maybe it would be a kind thing to do to join Vincent in the foolish game. As the first star popped into view they did the thing that Vincent's mother said to do and they made their wishes.

Each night afterward they did the same thing, Dane began to be the one who was first in the field and he would make his wish quickly, anxious to get it in before there might be a second star. Vincent took a little longer, but his list of wishes was longer. Even when they grew older and there was no longer a field between them but two houses instead, they met on the sidewalk and made their wishes on the evening star, into their teens they stopped to make their wishes early in the summer evenings.

Then one day Dane come rushing to the place on the side walk, nearly 17 he told Vincent, “Guess what?”

“I have no idea Dane, what's so exciting?”

“My wish on the evening star came true, I'm going to be married. I've wished the same wish on the evening star ever since you talked me into it when we were little boys and now I going to be married to the girl that I wished for when we were boys.”

Vincent tried to share the same excitement with Dane, he tried to maintain that same excitement as he stood next to Dane in the church as his best man, he labored to share that same excitement when Dane and Katrina moved into their own home and started their family. Vincent was disappointed that his wish had never come true, why he thought, “what did I ask for that was something that the evening star can't give me?” Vincent became very depressed after several months of laboring with the question.

One morning when Vincent's mother couldn't get him to come to the breakfast table she climbed the stairs to his room and found him curled up with the sheets pulled up over his head and hugging his pillow. Theo, his older brother had the room across the hall said, “Leave him alone the big baby, he cried all night and I didn't sleep a wink.” Theo generally had no sympathy for Vincent.

Vincent didn't even turn his head to look at his brother and his mother as they stood in the door of his room where the shades were still drawn and it was dark.

“Theo, go eat your breakfast and get out of the house, I talk to Vincent.” Theo stomped down the stairs huffing at his whining brother.

“Vincent, tell Momma what's matter.” Vincent laid silent as his mother repeated the question several times.

Vincent finally turned toward his mother and with tear filled eyes struggled to say, “I wished on the evening star for 11 years and I didn't get my wish, Dane wished beside me every night and he got his, what did I do wrong Momma? I don't understand.”

Momma pulled her son, no longer a boy into her arms and asked him what he had wished for.

“I wished for love for everyone, peace for each person and nation, I wished to be happy and for all of us to always be happy. Wasn't that a good wish Momma, what's wrong with that wish Momma, what did I do wrong?”

“You wished well Vincent, you wished well, but if you did anything wrong in making your wish it would be that you wished for the impossible. You will never see your wish come true this side of the evening star, but you will get your wish someday. Keep wishing on those evening stars boy, keep wishing. And keep going into that starry starry night”

As Vincent sat on his own front porch on Pine Street he watched Vance and Denny make their wishes evening after evening. How he longed to rush and tell them, “Keep wishing on those evening stars boys, keep wishing and keep going into that starry starry night.”.

Vicar of Another Man's Life: I

2007-04-18T18:03:00.000-04:00

Vincent was seen as a wise man by those around him, he was easy to talk to, quick to listen, slow to judge, he cared, was witty and loved a good play on words. He could easily carry on a conversation with folks in the check out lane at the grocery store or he might try to engage another while waiting for the spin cycle at the laundry. There was really only one word that would describe Vincent, if a person was called upon to offer a one word description, Vincent was shy.

Vincent felt uncomfortable in crowds, often he found himself being pulled toward the walls of the room as if he were in one of those amusement park rides that spun at high speeds and held the thrill seeker tight against its walls. Vincent was never sure exactly why he felt the way he did. He did know that while he believed he understood people, he was confident that they didn't understand him.

The third floor apartment that he lived in was lined with bookshelves and they were packed to overflowing with all kinds of books. Cookbooks, though he rarely used them, history, classics, mysteries, fiction and even children's books. It was not uncommon for Vincent to climb the six flights to his apartment, slip into the simple room, draw the curtains closed, sit on the sofa and read for hours on end. He often forgot to cook dinner, he would wash his face, brush his teeth and climb into bed with his book, promising himself he would eat a bigger and better breakfast in the morning.

Imagination was not a shortfall for Vincent. He had an abundance of it, he could read and through the words paint vivid pictures in his mind; the location the story was set in, what the characters wore, how they sounded when they spoke, the dialog that was printed and lying in his lap was what made the people in the story real to him, his imagination made them alive. Through words on a page Vincent could easily smell the stench of boiling cabbage in the New York tenement house. He could see the green valley in Steinbeck's East of Eden, he could laugh as Quentin Crisp spoke of life in England. Vincent could see himself in the background, in the crowd, near by as an innocent observer overhearing the conversations or he might find himself as one of the characters if he thought they were a lot like him.

On a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon Vincent changed from his church clothes to a pair of khaki shorts and a grey polo shirt. (He wore these colors often hoping they would help him to be less obvious in his environment.) He ate his lunch of dark brown bread with strong Stilton cheese and a smear of brown spicy mustard, while sitting at his kitchen table he looked down on the people in the neighborhood going about their lives, a woman walking a dog, a young couple lifting grocery bags from the trunk of a car, the prostitute standing on the corner tired of the world, there was the jogger who seemed to circle the block for hours. Vincent wondered how the jogger kept from being a statistic since he couldn't hear the traffic with the wires of his iPod stuffed into his ears, but then it dawned on him, he ran in circles, he never crossed streets. Vincent took the last bite of his lunch and decided that it was time to go outside and enjoy what his neighbors were enjoying, even the drug dealer that walked tirelessly up and down the street seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and the spring day.

Vincent put on his walking shoes, took his keys and headed for the park where he could walk or he could sit on one of the benches along the promenade in the shade. Being such a beautiful day the park seemed to be filled to bursting with people. Families with children in strollers, one upwardly mobile couple in appropriate costume pushed a vintage pram with a newborn inside. The promenade felt like it was wall to wall people and suddenly Vincent began to feel panicked. There were no walls to gravitate to, only more, “great outdoors.” He knew that to quell this feeling he would need a wall behind him so that he felt less exposed, his breath came in pants while he looked about to find a place where he wouldn't feel so obvious. Finally, he sat on a grassy spot and laid back so that it looked like he was cloud counting. He took deep breaths and worked to calm himself, it was working, each deep breath a reminder to himself that he was fine that there was nothing to be concerned about.

After a few moments he began to feel more peaceful, more at ease with the surroundings and he had convinced himself that there was nothing to be concerned about, nothing to worry about. He sat up and looked around and became more comfortable with what was going on around him, he began to breath more evenly and was finally at ease. He saw a pair of park benches back to back, one of them empty he picked himself up from the grass and went to the empty bench. When he did he noticed that there were many children who had been lying around him actually counting clouds and identifying their myriad shapes. He sat on the bench alone, the one that backed up to him had a young couple seated there, stealing kisses and holding hands .immediately Vincent felt embarrassed by their public display of affection. He wondered why he felt that way, it was spring after all, and wasn't it the time that a young man's heart was supposed to turn to fancy? Vincent fidgeted with the elastic cord that ran through a channel around the bottom of his lightweight jacket.

“I really enjoyed last night,” said the young man, “it was wonderful to eat outside and the music was awesome. I'm so glad that we found that place, we'll have to go again.”

Vincent closed his eyes and saw a bistro along a quiet street in one of the smaller neighborhoods in the city. On one side of the cafe there was an area covered by a black canopy that held small copper lamps hanging from it in measured distances apart from the next. On each table there were low copper bowls filled with black smooth river rocks, water in each bowl supported large vibrant dahlias, most of them some shade of red.

Vincent reached across the table and took her hand. Soft and delicate yet warm and rich, everything about her skin made him want to touch her. Her dress was the perfect compliment to her, it made the highlights in her black glistening hair shimmer all the more even in the subdued light of the cafe patio. The dress made her eyes sparkle, probably because she tended to move about gracefully in the glow of the lanterns their light danced on her eyes. Vincent didn't know the name of he perfume, but it was perfect with just a whisper of tuberose and it made him want her close to him.

His gazing upon her was interrupted by the waiter wanting their drink order, they both ordered glasses of white wine just as they heard guitar music. The flavor of the music was Spanish and yet it didn't have the spice that led to complicated dancing, Vincent wanted to move with her on the dance floor.

He stood and smoothed his ivory linen shirt over his black trousers. He pulled her chair away from the table and they walked to the small wooden dance floor. Vincent took her hand in his and placed his other on the small of her back as she placed her hand on his shoulder, then she rested her cheek on his chest where she could smell his cologne, rich with sandalwood and tobacco and maybe a touch of rum.

Alone on the dance floor they moved to the music, the guitar player appreciated their dancing and played music that made them move in well choreographed circles around the small dance floor where they were so entranced by one another they never realized that they continued to be the only ones there, they didn't know they were the envy of those around them. Vincent broke their embrace and led them back to the table where the wine glasses sat in puddles of condensation that had run down their chilled sides while the two of them danced.

After dinner they shared desert, a meringue cloud toasted to a perfect rose tone that floated on a mixture of sliced peaches, blue berries and there were small delicate glasses that held just a splash of almond liquor.

Vincent's eyes popped open when the young woman at his back said, “The crust on that pizza was to die for, was that fresh basil on there? And jazz, that cat knew how to wail on that sax, it screamed baby!”

Vincent stood, tied the cord at the hem of his jacket and ambled out of the park, it seemed that he lived in an imaginary world much more graceful than the one the young lovers lived in.

Paper, Pen and a Stamp, the Romance of the Letter.

2007-04-15T09:15:00.000-04:00

In 1969 I learned something in elementary school that has stayed with me over these nearly 36 years. I learned a lesson in what was newly named in “language arts”, (no longer known as English,) a lesson invaluable , it was known as, “friendly letter,” writing. I have enjoyed the lessons that I have learned about this craft and I've found great pleasure over the years in letter writing.

Letter writing, be it my hand or by machine is a truly lost art. With the dawn of the telephone, the popularity of letter writing began to ebb and now with the cell phone, e mail and text messaging, letter writing has gone the way of all flesh and has been replaced with methods of communication that even has its own secret code.

In 1969, I was a fourth grader and as part of our grammar and penmanship lessons we were assigned an exercise; write a letter to a relative or friend that could not be handed to them, it had to be mailed because addressing the envelope properly was part of the lesson. I wrote a letter to my grandparents in Florida and explained that it was a school assignment and that a response would improve my grade.

I mentioned penmanship, contrary to the thoughts of contemporary elementary school children, penmanship is not a funny named floating vessel. We had books that had writing assignments in in them, the books instructed how to sit, where the paper should be placed and even went to the extreme of saying where one's feet should be placed. For some reason I took the lessons more seriously than many of my classmates. I've been told that I have the handwriting of a third grade school teacher. When I received this compliment I simply said, “Thank you, what a nice thing to say, I take pride in it.” I really don't know for sure that they meant it as a compliment or not. Through the years my handwriting has remained clear and crisp, like the lessons taught in school, but it has also taken on elements of my personality as well.

Several years ago my cousin, Grace, passed away at age 102. We called her Aunt Grace as an honor more befitting her age. She was reared before the age of the commonality of the telephone, letter writing was the means of communication that was the means of the day. While sorting through the residue of her life I learned that the art of letter writing was something she practiced her entire life. I found post cards that were a penny, postage included; these cards contained more information on a small space than many people put on greeting cards three times the size today. Some of the post cards I found had recipes, cooking instructions and the latest news...all on the same card. The cards were mailed from the county seat, geographically in the center to the western edge what could easily be a twenty minute drive now. There were all kinds of letters in her collection, along with greeting cards that held lengthy notes and photographs and there were regular “friendly letters,” as well.

A letter is a simple gift on paper. It usually contains information from the heart that might not be included in a telephone conversation. I had a long love affair shared on paper with my father's eldest sister, my Aunt Lucretta. In fact, I have each of the letters she sent, many years worth. They are stacked and tied with a satin ribbon, just like the letters that secret lovers have in the old black and white movies that I love so. My Grandma Bryant would write from Florida many years I wrote letters to my Uncle Gaylord. None of these letters will end up in a museum, but they are precious to me. I have a stack of cards and notes that my friend Alice wrote, she lived in Olympia, Washington until her death several years ago. For a long time the letters between us were tucked into cards with sunflowers on them, a tribute to the way that we met and the discussion we had that they always had their face to the sun. Aunt Lucretta and Alice are gone now, they live on in my mind each time I pick up a pen to write a letter.

When Aunt Grace passed away I informed her niece by marriage, Page, by letter. We have written occasionally now over a period of several years. We share news, memories of the one we held in common, tales of our family and what is going on in our lives at present. There has been announcements of new arrivals in our families and unfortunately Aunt Grace's passing is not the only one that we have spoken of. I love to receive a letter from Page, her life in New York City seems so much more exciting than mine here in Indianapolis. She travels abroad, attends the opera and visits her friends abroad. I so enjoy hearing of her latest read and have been known to ask what book is on the table next to her favorite chair. It's fun to hear what she's been reading, where she's been going, what she's been doing. In her letters, I would enjoy reading about a trip to the market because I know that it is different there than here.

In her most recent letter she spoke of seeing the spring flowers ablaze in Central Park as she walked through the park to attend the opera. A life so different than mine that it seems more like news from a foreign country or a few leaves from a wonderfully written novel, not the story of life four states to the east.

When I would correspond with Alice in Olympia I heard about trips to the ballet and little winter jaunts to Hawaii, mentioned with the casualness that a Hoosier would mention driving to Florida for a week. For them, it was the same, only the drive, well, you know. I heard about the cacophony of colorful baskets of Cosmos and Statice that was carried in by the farmers at the open air markets in summer. I heard how the farmers would set bushel baskets of peaches and green beans next to the flowers, food for body and soul. She always mentioned that no tomato on that market there tasted like the ones grown in her home state of Indiana. She spoke of weekend trips to Seattle where she and her husband would tuck away in a hotel and take in the ballet or a play, dine somewhere different than the places at home. Her life with Bob sounded as different than on the west coast as Page's does on the east. All so very different than the life I live in the Midwest.

Surely a letter is a gift on paper that may well be the most inexpensive one that can be given. It is a gift of the heart, it is often just a report of what is simply going on in one's life, but it is sharing experience and history and often the love of family and friends. It's great to know what someone is reading these days, what the latest dish is being served elsewhere, the part that touches my heart is the sitting down in a bit of quietness and putting ink on paper and being a part of one another's life be it like Aunt Grace writing to Aunt Minnie half way across the county or how Page and Alice have shared with me the excitement of their lives though it may seem very every day to them, it's literature to me.

Where is my paper, my pen and my address book? I've worked myself up to writing a letter.

And a Little Child Shall Lead Us...Christ is Risen

2007-04-07T23:45:00.000-04:00

My dear friend Beth sent me the most wonderful Easter card! I've always said that if I could do it I would send as many Easter cards as I do Christmas cards. But the truth be told, one cannot buy boxes of Easter cards like one buys Christmas cards. Why is that? Both are considered the high holy days of the church? And without one, there is no need for the other, no birth, no resurrection. Really a circular thought, but one not always pondered on in that light by a good many of us.

The card was chosen she said because it made her think of her grandson Jonah, who is a young lad. She said she liked it because it is the kind of humor that her grandson is into right now. In fact the joy of this card is the fact that it is so child like and yet so profound. As I've said before, a child like faith is the faith that we should have, making all of the “steps” of Christianity difficult has led to the over stating of what God made so simple. Yet, I have to agree, faith is a tough idea to get one's mind around. (Just walk out onto a frozen pond if you are a big guy like me, now that's faith on ice if you know what I mean). The card is perfect for Easter. On the outside of the card in large blocky letters it says, Knock Knock, then lower in smaller letters Who's there? Inside it says, “He is not here: He has risen just as he said!”

I hope the American Greetings company will accept my tip of the hat for their masterpiece, but it truly is a masterpiece of Resurrection Joy. As we say in my family, “this one is a keeper.”

Easter, the high feast day of the church, the lesson that all of the prophecy, all of the “warnings” of “I'm gonna do it,” by Jesus has come to glorious light, even to the point that it amazed his followers, the men who followed along with the women who became his, well, what might be called his care-giving groupies. Mary and Martha, cooking and caring, yep, they were right there, they heard every word that he said and they were surprised by what they found at the grave, but I have to give them credit, they were the first ones in line for an introduction to an entirely new concept, salvation through sacrifice and resurrection. It may have been a touch of weak faith, but I think that it was also a matter of fear and simply not understanding what seemed like an abstract idea that they had never really heard before.

But as we shout Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! We know that it's true, they proved it by finding an empty grave and a visit from Jesus there confirming it in their seeing and hearing. And now we see the joy and introduction to faith in that story well told by simple statements enjoyed by Jonah...the truth told in a Knock Knock joke.

"He is despised and rejected of men..." Good Friday, April 6

2007-04-06T06:43:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid and well into my teens I attended a small white framed church, somewhat like one sees on calendars surrounded by autumn leaves in New England. The church wasn't quite as quaint as the calendar and post card pictures, but it had its charm and it was small and everyone there seemed to be related, but a few, I was among the few. It amazes me really when I look back on those days in that church, but they had a great deal of respect for the youth in the church, and for a church of its size, (we broke 100 a few times a year and then near 120 on C & E as the pastor called it.) there were a lot of kids and we were very active.

It was the custom in that Independent Christian Church that on Good Friday the youth of the church held a candlelight communion. It was well rehearsed, at many youth group meetings before hand, assignments were made, readings were rehearsed over and over with one on one mentoring on what was being read meant and it was done in hopes that the reader would take the words to heart and would read their part or say their part with passion and heartfelt meaning. Because it was an Independent Christian church there were elders and deacons that served the communion. Older teens were put in the places of the two elders who served the table and then there were four younger teens that served the congregation. This was a plate passing church with real unleavened bread cut into tiny squares and the, “wine” was served in teeny shot glasses, though they were never called that.

In 1975 I was one of the older teens who was passed over for serving the table, though the other guys were the same age. The person who gave me my assignment said, “I want you to read this,” handing me her black, well worn, King James Version, (the only real Bible they thought at the time,). “I want you to read this right here,” she said pointing to Isaiah 53:3-8, and I was taken off to the pastor's study for my first reading of the Old Testament lesson for Good Friday.

When I saw that today's Lectionary readings for Good Friday included this passage if flooded my mind with memories of that Friday night, dressed in my better than Sunday clothes I stood behind a blond wooden pulpit that was right behind the communion stable, set with white lines, staked trays of the bread and grape juice, (Welch's, no other!) After several weeks of reading the passage over and over for one of the youth leaders I was ready to read it to the full house of the Lord. To this day, while I cannot recite the entire thing, I get a chill when I hear the 2nd verse because I know the following words better than the Pledge of Allegiance.

“He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities...”

Between Helen and Marilyn these words were all translated to me, though many of them I was already familiar with. Come to think of it, it wasn't so much that the words were translated as much as the words were taught to me in phrases, making them very real to me.

Good Friday night with those white candelabra behind me dripping wax from purple candles, windows of the church open because it was warm outside, the dogwood tree just outside the window where I could see it from the pulpit, I began to read the words of Isaiah 53. I was told to read it slowly, so that everyone could understand and to remember what it meant. In those better than Sunday clothes I began to read the words, “He was despised and rejected of men, A man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief.”

It was there that I choked. A tear welled in my eye, just as it is doing know as I think of that time, and those words. I could see the picture of Jesus painted by El Greco that I had seen the Indianapolis Museum of Art just a few weeks earlier. The elongated figure, hands nailed to the cross, pulling because of the weight of his body. “He was despised and rejected of men...”

I remember that I was disappointed in the beginning that I was not selected to read the New Testament lesson, but I realize now, looking back that this passage has become so meaningful for me in the Holy Week liturgy that I think that in April of 1975 God was preparing me for this Holy Week, that he is reminding me that, “..He was wounded for my transgressions, He was bruised for my iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by His stripes, I am healed.”

The Guest at Dinner Gets Uninvited Holy Wednesday, April 4

2007-04-04T06:46:00.000-04:00

The Lectionary text for Holy Wednesday is the story of Jesus introducing his betrayer at the dinner table. The story reads as a simple one, the disciples gathered about at dinner; Jesus warns them that he must fulfill another prophecy and he in turn tells them that someone is going to betray him, the prophecy even goes so far as to say how this person will be introduced, through the sharing of bread. While each of the disciples wonders who it is and then prompted by Peter, John asks, “who is it Lord?” Then the bread is dipped and Jesus hands it to Judas.

When I was reading this text and thinking about writing on it, John 13:21-32 was a story that I had heard and read many times, I knew the way that the story played out and where it was leading. Not exactly the same feeling that I've had when watching a movie and having that feeling that it was predictable. This morning, for some reason, the story sounded completely new and the part that seems most new to me is where after Jesus gives Judas the freshly dipped bread he says, “Do what you must do.” Judas leaves the group and they think that he is off to make preparations for the Passover feast.

It seems so often that when Jesus is telling people around him that he is revealing prophecy they seem to miss that part all together, this situation is no different. Jesus just gave the disciples the, “heads up,” that someone at the table was going to betray him, he tells them the method of identification and they see it fulfilled before their very eyes. They go so far as to say, “Who is it?” They never seem to catch on that when Jesus passed the crust of bread to Judas, that he had just pointed to the one. They don't even seem to grasp the notion when Judas picks up and leaves.
We don't hear much about Judas in the gospels, we know that he was the treasurer, (most likely a crooked one,) and that he was annoyed that Mary's expensive perfumed oil was not sold and was in his book wasted on Jesus. We know that he was at dinner with the disciples when he was, “fingered” by Jesus. We find out later that he was paid off for, “fingering” Jesus and fulfilling his end of the deal, making the prophecy come to complete fruition. We know too from scripture that remorse caused Judas to end his own life after having received his pay for pointing Jesus out to the soldiers who came to take Jesus away.

I don't watch a lot of contemporary television. I cannot deal with the stories anymore. Hospital rooms with heart monitors remind me of my father's last days in Methodist hospital, and it reminds me of his longing to die. I don't like to watch stories where there is drug dealing and prostitution, I can look out my front window and see that coming into my neighborhood in vivid living color. I don't like to see car chases, bombings, or any of the so called action films. I know, when it comes to TV, what do I watch? My answer, not much. (Just to make sure people don't think that I read all the time, I do love the movies and TV shows of the past when there was a moral lesson, a happy ending or when there was rejoicing in some manner for the goodness of life. I do sit in front of the, “tube.”) This story of betrayal and how it finishes sounds like a plot to a mob film to me, surely the Sopranos have an episode built on this very story line sans the salvation and resurrection at the end.

This narrative in the gospels is the gateway to where the story of Jesus' impending death begins to become really dark, the intense agony is not far away. The heartache that Jesus was feeling becomes more apparent, he is making steps through the feelings that we so often have, reminding us again that he has experienced our every pain and sorrow. At this point it doesn't feel like there is going to be any more miracles, he knows that even the Passover festival is not going to be what others are having, that it won't be a meal of friends being solemnly taught at the beginning, and then a fellowship filled with the warmth of family. Jesus knows that it is going to be different, after all, he's expelled a member of his family of choice. He knows what is ahead for him, he knows his hour is coming,

Duracell? Are you kidding? Tuesday April 3 Another Holy Week Observation

2007-04-03T06:46:00.000-04:00

My grandparents had a thing for night-lights. There was hardly a room in their home that didn't have one. I used to tease my granddad that if a storm ever blew the roof from the house pilots would think they had found the airstrip. It seemed to me that there was never darkness in their home. Yet, in my own home in kidhood, I was raised with The Mole People, as I called my mom and dad. I knew that you turned the lights out when you left the room, Pop reminded us that we could turn them back on when we returned...if we returned, (he knew kids.) It wasn't a matter of economy that lights were not left on, it was really more about comfort as my mother tends to be pretty light sensitive. Yet, between these two homes I never felt like I was over or under exposed to the light.

April 21, 1972, “I saw the light,” as the old Gospel song says. The church that I grew up in would have said that or that I had, “been saved.” I didn't see it as any miraculous event but one that simply made sense. In fact, it would be safe to say that I had a child like faith at that time and I was acting on it. Believing in Jesus seemed simple to me, I never saw it as complicated, I still don't even though there have been many who have come along that have tried to make it so. Faith is simply child like in my book

John 12:35-36, these verses seem at first to be complicated to me, but really they are as simple as daylight and dark. Jesus uses the comparison of light and dark to explain to his followers what the next few days are going to be like for them. If they don't stay close to him they will run the risk of being in increased danger as he knows that there is a darkness in the hearts of the government and religious leaders who want to put an end to his work. He tells his disciples that if they stay close to him while he is there with them, they will have an illuminated path. Jesus is telling them, I'm the light, you're safe here. I won't always be with you to protect you. Yet in typical Jesus style he instructs them if they believe in him, commit to him, he will give them light, his light, and it will be within them; it will shine through their lives. He said they will have the title Children of Light.

While there may have been enough lights, lamps, night-lights and flashlights in my grandparent's home to do surgery by, my childhood home was never really dark. Each one of us made decisions based on child like faith to accept the tittle, Children of Light.

Jesus offers to each of us an opportunity to own the real “Maglight” and he makes it clear that taking his Maglight for our own we will never be searching through kitchen drawers, junk drawers or auto glove boxes looking for AA Duracells.

Angry in Church, Surely Not! Holy Monday, April 2

2007-04-02T07:09:00.000-04:00

Reading today's Lectionary from the Gospel of Mark, (this could be the wrong year's reading, my source was a bit fuzzy, the lesson is still poignant for me today.) the lesson is that of the Fig Tree that Jesus cursed on the way back to Jerusalem. Mark11:12-25.

This story speaks to me today because of the things that Jesus is doing and the emotion that he is showing. Seems that Jesus wanted breakfast and he saw a fig tree near by, so he went to the tree to get a fig, when he got there the tree was barren. One of the things that stands out in this reading is that it isn't time for the fig tree to be bearing fruit, but it is leafed out. Jesus shows anger and tells the tree that it will never bear fruit again-ever. He walks away knowing that the disciples have heard him say this.

From the fig tree we see Jesus and his disciples going to the temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus goes into the temple he sees the money changers, (the temple had its own scrip,) and it was good for buying sacrificial animals and probably grain for the offerings in the temple. Enraged, Jesus turns the place over. I can see metal slugs of temple money scattering and bouncing on the floor, pigeons flying out of their cages all over the place, scared, but free. I like to think that Jesus out of breath when he says, “My house was designed as a house of prayer for all people, but you've turned it into a hangout for thieves.”
This story speaks to me in a unique way because it shows Jesus showing an emotion that we haven't seen before in the gospels. ANGER, RAGE and HAD-IT-UP-TO-HERE. It helps me to know that it is true that Jesus felt every thing that I feel.

Rarely have I ever gotten to the point in my anger that I have turned over tables, instead I tend to do other things that aren't nearly as healthy, I tend to internalize it and try to justify it. I don't think that is always the healthiest way to cope with these emotions. It is apparent that even Jesus had his limit and it amazes me even more that Jesus would show his anger at the two places where I think it is easiest for me to experience anger, In line at Mc Donalds trying to get breakfast, and dare I say it? I dare, I dare, I get angry at church.

Jesus shows that there comes a point when enough is enough, and I'm sure that knowing that he was slowly walking toward his death didn't make things easier. I'm sure the anger boiled up after he saw that his teaching had not been taken seriously by the people who only yesterday were lining the streets and treating him like a victorious king, a Super Bowl winner or a visiting, much loved film star.

But there comes a point for all of us when enough is enough, and while it may seem a bit awkward to think of it when we consider Jesus as being the patient teacher, the man with the healing touch, the victorious grand marshal, that he got to the point that he was angered, but I think it was stronger than that, he was enraged to the point to make it clear that he had it up to here with being Mr. Nice Guy. I think he displayed what can only be called more of his holy boldness.

“In the morning, walking along the road, they saw the fig tree, shriveled up to a dry stick. Peter, remembering what had happened the previous day, said to him, “Rabbi, look—the fig tree you cursed is shriveled up!”

A Parade Gone Bad

2007-03-31T07:08:00.000-04:00

In a matter of mere hours now, Palm/ Passion Sunday will be the focus of Christians as they prepare for Holy Week.
I have mentioned here that there has been very little about Lent that has felt like Lent to me this year. In fact at church last year's Paschal Candle is still burning, I wonder, “Will this be the chain smoking Easter?” Symbols tell a story.

Easter is my favorite of the Christian Holy days. I think it might be because I can wrap my arms around the cross more tightly than I can wrap them around the cradle. There is a reminder of hope for me when I close my eyes and see the cross that I'm embracing. For me, at the beginning of those 40 days of Lent the cross is rugged, rough and ugly, by Easter it is gold, bright and precious. I understand the grace that was created there. I grasp that grace is not something that I have to hope for, I don't have to hope for God's love, it's here. I've heard so many say, “I hope that I get to heaven.” Christ professing people saying this? I cringe. I know that when it comes to my turn at the judgment that I have the best representation that money cannot buy.

That is the difference between hope and grace to me. I referred in an earlier entry to the Guild of St. Jude, The Men of Hopeless Causes. While it seems like a good name for us I have to remind myself that no situation under heaven is truly hopeless. I know that, I've seen the evidence.

The parade of palms, the passion story on this Sunday. The Chrism on Wednesday; that day that we are reminded of the symbol of healing in the oil of anointing. No magic, no mystery, but a symbol of the healing that God wants us to have. Maunday Thursday, the reminder that in the symbols of bread and new wine we are in the presence of the Lord and he's making a new promise to us at an intimate dinner party. Friday Good as one pastor friend of my used to call it; that day when we see that the anguish of life has an earthly end. The hour of, “it is finished.” and the miracle of the most holy place being revealed to us. The Vigil of Easter, that anticipation of Good News, the lighting of a new fire that we use to light a candle marking the new day, the candle that lights the way through the fog and mist and takes us to a garden where the greatest of miracles has occurred, the empty tomb and the shouts of Christ is Risen! It is the week that proves that our feeling of helplessness has been dispelled along with our sense of hopelessness.

There is so much darkness in the world it seems and yet that new fire on Holy Saturday isn't like one Lucky lit off of the last one, but a new fire, freshly laid, intense in it's burning, the white hot coals that provides for us a source of brightness so that we can see our hope coming, illumined so that we can see it more clearly.

I think of the events of Holy week, the way the parade of Palm Sunday turns ugly as the stories of the week progress, betrayals, soul selling, flashing swords, the washing of feet, an intimate dinner party between friends, and denial. Power hungry religious types, corrupt officials, the washing of hands, the agony of a son tortured, the pain of a helpless mother and the bewilderment of faithful followers.

All of this leading to a cross, a murder, is it any different than some of the places right here in my city on any given week? And yet, through all of this a flicker, a spark. A light in the darkness that shines on the seeds of hope and promise, it seems so very far away and yet I'm confident that the seeds will sprout.

The Guild of St. Jude or The Men of Hopeless Causes

2007-03-30T19:46:00.000-04:00

He was across the hall when I moved into my apartment, a black man in his seventies at the time. I'll never forget our first conversation, but that's coming up.

Being reared in the country I learned at a very early age that it didn't matter if you knew the farmer on the tractor, the boys on the hay wagon, the driver of the pick up truck or the woman in the car, you waved at them. To fail to do so was considered rude in our household. I recall seeing my father at work in the yard when he would throw his hand up in the air and wave at a non existent vehicle, “passing by” in an effort to make up for the ones that he had missed, that's what he claimed to be doing any way. When we went to town we spoke to folks, many our neighbors, old school chums and most certainly a nod to folks we didn't really know, we didn't take a chance at offending someone by failing to be friendly. It was in these situations that I come to learn the true meaning of community. If you were friendly in cases of simple greetings then there was every chance that you were going to be a good neighbor too. Putting up an errant cow that found the only place in the fence that was down, helping to push a car out of a snow bank, an offer to help when there was illness, extensions of sympathy in a covered dish was practiced where I grew up.. This is how I was raised, and I have no regrets for it.

That being said, my first conversation with Mr. Miller was at the mailboxes in our apartment building and it went something like this: I simply said hello to him and inquired about his health, safe subjects generally. (Mr. Miller, by the way is never referred to by his Christian name, Robert, it is always Mr. Miller, not because he says so, but because we say so.) His response to my greeting seemed odd to me, but honest and I have a tremendous respect for straight forward honesty. Mr. Miller said, “I don't take well to people and they don't take well to me.” Since that day, nearly eleven years ago I have made it my personal policy to see that I was friendly, not intrusive, but neighborly, living up to the code that I was raised by.

The forecast on that January morning was for a dusting of snow. When I left for work that day, I could see where it would be just a dusting, but as the day went on, dusting became six inches with some ice to boot. Three o'clock in the afternoon and it was nasty with a capitol N. True to my rural upbringing I phoned Mr. Miller, “Mr. Miller, this is Don Bryant, I live across the hall from you.”

“How did you get my number?” he asked in a tone of voice between annoyed and cynical.
“You're in the phone book,” I replied.
"How did you know you had the right Miller?”
“Your address is the same as mine.” I didn't chuckle out loud, but I saw humor in it, he wasn't seeing the humor. “Mr. Miller, I'm stopping at the grocery on the way home I need a few things, I was wondering if I could get you anything?”
I believe they call it a pregnant pause, a very vacant space followed my question. “I could use a loaf of the cheapest white bread they have on the shelf.”
“Consider it yours,” I told him.

From there on in we have been cordial neighbors, passing brief pleasantries in the hall or on the front stoop.

Last summer the front stoop came into its own. Mr. Miller would often sit on the stoop and he engaged in conversation with several other gentlemen tenants, it was one of the first times in the 11 years that I have lived here that I felt that I was part of a community, I was proud that I was invited to join in the conversations which ranged from politics, movies, (the man knows his Oscar winners, even the obscure ones,) medicine, the current condition of the neighborhood and the world, cooking tips and there were comments on the beauty of the “humanity” that passed us. I got to hear tales of what it was like on Indiana Avenue in the late fifties and early sixties when he would take his wife out for a little stroll on the Avenue. (The man knows his music too.)

Yet by Mr. Miller's choice, not everyone was welcome to just step up and toss in their two cents worth, and passers by and fellow residents seem to know it and took no offense by it. In fact there was nearly a sense of being in the presence of someone great, someone who was due this kind of respect. Frankly, I think he is.

One evening it was just the two of us and we had a wonderful discussion on the merits of pie. Chess pie was what started it off. He shared this tidbit, “black folks don't go so much for pumpkin, we make sweet potato.” I chuckled, he asked what was so funny, I told him, “you're a lot smarter for doing so, pumpkin takes too much work to prepare to make pie out of, sweet potatoes are a lot easier. Not nearly as much work involved.” He told me that he was surprised that I knew that pumpkin didn't grow in the can.

I learned during our front stoop visits that he didn't like the term African American. He told me, I'm an American, my skin color has nothing to do with that. I served in the Navy, I answered the call of my country to defend it. And besides, who do these people think they're kidding, they couldn't tell you the last person in their family who came here from the African shores. They need to get over it and move on and be glad that they are here.”

The men who gathered on the stoop last summer were dubbed The Guild of St. Jude by a self proclaimed, “Mackerel Snapper.” The Guild of St. Jude or the men of hopeless causes. It seemed a title aptly applied.

At 81 years old Mr. Miller has taken ill. Recently hospitalized there was a buzz amongst the guild trying to figure out what his illness entailed, was he in the hospital because his diabetes acted up? Maybe a TIA, did his knee lock up and he fell? Every notion was entertained. We learned that he has brain cancer, that was how it was told to us anyway and I believe that any of us could have been taken out with a feather. That's twice in the last year that I've been introduced to the true meaning of shock.

Now, I feel more than ever that what I first called, “The Front Stoop Menses Society,” was more appropriately named The Guild of St Jude. I don't say this because I believe that Mr. Miller is in a hopeless condition, but the rest of the guild feels that way, we feel that we are the ones in a hopeless condition, not him. We are the hopeless ones. We feel like our leader has left us, or that's how I feel. I feel like the hopelessness might be better described as helplessness, I think we are all feeling it. What can we do, what can I do? Yesterday after learning the diagnosis I closed the door to my apartment and tears ran down my face. I'm truly a member now of The Guild of St. Jude.

What happened to my Lent?

2007-03-21T13:24:00.000-04:00

I grasped the handle of the door to the church and knew that just from the weight of the heavy metal ring, that was the door pull, that I had better put some muscle in it. Good thought to have had, the door was as heavy as it was imposing. As I stepped in and my eyes adjusted from the bright sun of a late summer San Francisco day, I wondered if the door was designed to keep Satan out or sinners in.

Grace Cathedral at the top of Nob Hill was like a siren calling me to come inside, and I gladly dashed my boat against its rocks. When my eyes adjusted I could see that I was in a beautiful place, a place properly named.
The nave of the church has a very old world feel about it. As I walked down the side aisle I thought of Dorothy Gale saying to Toto, “I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” (Funny that I should be quoting from the Wizard of Oz while in San Francisco.) There were elegant banners hanging just below the windows high over head and they invoked scenes of what I believed churches and castles in Europe to look like, though I've never seen them banner to face.

I walked about three quarters of the way back into the nave before I slid across the pew where I sat quietly and alone, though somewhere in the building someone was practicing organ and ironically, God of Grace and God of Glory.

The word Grace kept running through my mind. When I was in my early teens I learned in a little country church that grace was, “the unmerited favor of God.” Not until I was a little older did I come to understand that what I was being told was that God loved me, I didn't earn his love, I couldn't buy his love, I didn't deserve his love, but he was giving it to me anyway and he was doing it lavishly. He wanted me to have it and was pleased with me for being so open and willing to receive it. In fact, my taking from God what I didn't deserve somehow pleased him. Now, to truly make sense of all of that I needed twenty more years and a trip to the left shore.

There was a beam of light beating down through a small pane of clear glass in a window across the aisle on the Gospel side of the church, seems I always gravitate to the epistle side. The window was easily two stories above the floor. It was an intense beam of light and it focused on the altar, at least 150 feet ahead of me. My eyes followed the beam from the source down to the altar where it focused on a simple cross of gold thread embroidered on the green parament. The light was intense, it made me think of the childish prank of training a light through a magnifying glass to ignite a piece of paper or as the bullies do, toast an ant, essentially, that's what was happening, only without the smoke and flame and God is no bully. In that golden thread, fashioned into a simple cross on the altar of Grace Cathedral I came to see exactly what grace truly is. I had to leave Indiana to see the meaning of grace.

Simple, golden, intensely lit, laid upon an altar, an altar of sacrifice, a place where the two bodies of Christ meet. The body of Christ in the form of the Eucharist and the assembled modern day disciples that are also known as the body of Christ. This is grace, the laying down of Christ's golden life, the intense light of God in a simple message, “I forgive you and you can't help it, I love you and you can't stop me. I live in you and I'm not moving. I'm giving you my grace and it's enough for you.”

I sit in church on Sunday mornings, not in Grace Cathedral, but my church, the church at home. There are times that a bright beam shines across the nave, only here it is epistle to Gospel. The beam never seems as bright or as intense as that beam that burned through the glass of Grace Cathedral. The ray of light never falls where it did at Grace. I wait, wondering if it ever will fall upon that golden spot for me, will it land there once more to remind me?

Not long ago I sat there on a Sunday morning, internally there were tremors. I used to have them much more often than I do now, simply, they are periods of anxiety. I kept looking inside and prayed, “why is this happening? Why do I feel this way? Are you there Jesus?” Of course I knew that he was there, after all there is grace, that California revelation of, “I live in you and I'm not moving.” The tremors calmed, but not as quickly as I would have liked. When the postlude was played out and I was leaving two conflicting thoughts met in my mind and in my heart, “where is the holiness? And, 'I'm giving you my grace and it's enough for you'.”

It is Lent, a time of looking within and reconnecting with the reason that God would make one final sacrifice. For me the symbols of Lent speak volumes and help me to feel and to see that I am the reason that God had to sacrifice his perfect lamb. This year I'm struggling with what I most need from the season of Lent. I'm wrestling with other demons, vicious ones; the ever present feeling of loneliness, grief, turmoil that surrounds me in the form of being a sounding board for others and I am at the point of not wanting to listen any longer, there are the demons, then the sins and the shame, I have to remind myself that some of these are not the same as the other, that some of the demons are not shame, but it's a complicated chain and some of the links are oval, some square.

I needed the symbols of the church to remind me of what Lent is preparing me for. I needed the darkness and the way that the darkness causes us to look inward. I needed the reminders through solemness that my sin is serious business and the sacrifice made on my behalf is not to be taken lightly. I needed the quiet, not the raucous. Without these things in my life right now I don't feel the dawn coming, and it is growing ever nearer. I don't see the bright intense light being trained on a wooden cross causing it to become golden. Instead it has felt like business as usual, Tom Bodett has even left the old porch light to the tomb burning and I feel like Lent has been preparing me for nothing more than lighting one Marlboro from another. Will that happen?

Still, I hear the voice, “Where is the holiness? I'm giving you my grace and it's enough for you.”

Not that Dream Question Again

2007-03-13T22:29:00.000-04:00

A Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

As much as I hate to say it, I sometimes feel as though that am asked about dreams an awful lot these days. “What are your dreams?” If you want to believe me or not, it's up to you, but I have laid awake for a while because of this question. I suppose it is because I feel hounded by it.

Yesterday while I was rerunning the Sunday sermon in my head I thought about how this question was asked again. All that I can think of is how I once had dreams, but I don't seem to have them any longer. It was thinking about this when the poem by Langston Hughes came to mind. It was then that I realized that maybe there is a possibility that my dreams will return, but they are certainly gone for now. I had a dream, I had a few, but they have been dashed like the ships in Hitchcock's movie Jamaica Inn, a lodge and pulic house along the Cornwall Coast. In one of the earliest of his films with sound Hitchcock told the story of how land-bound pirates would extinguish the signal light so that the ships would run aground along the treacherous Cornwall Coast and then they would kill the crew and rob the ship of it's cargo, usually very precious things, for the king and the gentry of England in what appears to be the late 1700's, but bear in mind they kept a commission.

I may not know exactly what happens to a dream deferred, but I do know what happened to the dreams of my past, few if any of them came to pass. Maybe our dreams run very high risk of going through the process of the last line of Langston's poem, “Do they just explode?” Mine did, and they did it with anything but aplomb. I don't find it necessary to share those fallen dreams with others now.

I've gone from dreams to what I believe to be the more adult and spiritual approach. I have some hopes for my life, I have desires of the heart that I believe God's spirit knows better than I do. I'll share a few of them, in some particular order, but not in exact order, I'm not sure they need to be in any particular order.

I do hope that I don't die alone. (Sure, God is with me, but I want a member of my family circle or circle of friends to be there with me. On the same topic I hope to have good care, not just from the hospital or hospice, but I want spiritual care not just for me but for my family as well, I hope that they are comforted.) I hope to see the direction God wants me to go in my life, I feel confident that this hope is being realized, but I tend to see it granted daily, but in the rear view mirror usually. I hope to have a partner some day, someone to share an intimate love, (not that kind, but true intimacy the cerebral kind). I hope to see a very real example of living peace, (it's okay to think on that one for a while.) I hope to see the joyful spirit that I used to have come back, I miss it. I hope to see an end to the bad memories I have from some of the life traumas that I've had, though I hate to call them that, I don't like the word trauma used outside of the ER.

I don't think that hope and dreams are the same thing. I see hope as being more spiritually grounded, I see hope as being prayerful; when it is a sincere hope, a heartfelt desire. I guess that I see dreams as Shakespeare described them, “True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air.”

Left Scratching my Head, Do I have regrets?

2007-03-04T09:26:00.000-05:00

So I was talking to what I like to call my, “professional friend” one day. Okay, I pay her some and the insurance makes up some of the rest of it, that's why I call her that. I say that, but it's true, she has become a friend, but keeping her professionalism has been important for both of us, so the mix is good.

I said to my PF, “I get tired of being alone and lonely, being single has gotten very old, I've done some of the things that gay men do to make friends, but I want quality friends and out of those quality friends maybe there will be someone who will be special and we'll be special to one another.” You see where my line of thinking is going so I don't need to bore anyone with the rest of it.

PF suggested to me that I try to find a group who “has a passion for something that you have a passion for, how about starting a knit/crochet group, you seem to like that a lot.” PF is wise, that's why she is a professional friend.

Sparing you the technical details of this yarn, get it, yarn? I'll keep you from needing two cups of espresso while reading this part, the group got started, I had an idea of what I thought that we should make together and Clicking for a Cause was on its way, and I would say that we have been productive. While I have met a few folks that I really didn't know before, what's more I have come to know a few people better and I enjoy their company, that part has really paid off and the fact that there is also a product that comes out of the group that helps others, well, that's a great thing too.

In late November, near Thanksgiving I received a call from a man who was trying to get a group together to knit in a tony knit shop in town, I agreed to go and encouraged a few who knit in Clicking for a Cause to go too. John agreed to go and at the first meeting there were the usual awkwardnesses that come with being in a group of people that you don't know. With that in mind you live in hope that the next meeting will be better, and I suppose that it was. At the second gathering of people you see if your first impressions were right. As in any situation like this you learn that you are wrong about some, right about others, but you also realize, or should, that they are looking at you and wondering too.

This past week there was an interesting experience and just like King Midas' barber I've felt the need to go to the meadow dig a hole in the ground and whisper that King Midas has donkey ears, so here I am, spade in hand. All of the men in this group are what my friend Brad calls, 'mos. That's short for homosexuals, I think he hates the term gay, because many of us aren't as bon viant as the word gay might imply. Somehow and I am still a little foggy on this one, one of the men in the group referred to his, “ex”. Then another referred to his three, “exes.” Personally I thought that triple X was something else all together, but seems I really don't know what I'm talking about in this case. Happy to be purling away on my project and keeping my yap shut on the subject, Mr. XXX turned to me and said, “Don, you must have done very well, you haven't mentioned any exes.”

“That's because I have none.” I replied with confidence but not with the sense of ire that was building within me.

“Wow, then you found the love of your life right off the bat, how did you do that?” XXX questioned.

“I'm not partnered.”

“So how long have you been single?”

Now I'm at the point where the sarcasm is building and if I don't let some of it out, I'm surely going to need more than one of my anti anxiety drugs when I get home. “Well, I said, I've been single since, let me see, I was born in 1960, there was that two month little dating game that didn't go well at all, I guess if you wanna figure from the womb it would be 45 years 10 months.” While one of the men in the circle smiled, the sarcasm fell on deaf ears for the most part. Actually I hoped that XXX aka Perry Mason would stop with his line of questioning. Somehow I knew that I wasn't at the end of this and I'm sorry to say, I was right.

“Do you regret being single?” He asked.

“Yes, but only on days that end in Y and months that have an R in them.” I replied, going back to my less obnoxious tone of voice though I could hardly stop being sarcastic. Trying to tell myself that maybe he just didn't understand that, a) it was none of his business and I was being too polite to say so in a group. 2) maybe he was gathering information for a thesis but didn't want to say so in an effort to keep me from being less than candid or III) he really didn't understand how hurtful questions like this are for the terminally single.

Not able to contain myself any longer I went on to say this, “Yes, I regret being single, I think of it often, for some reason I have a hard time meeting the kind of people that I want to meet, I don't like bars, so I won't be finding anyone there because they, (bars) make me incredibly uncomfortable. I've tried a couple of other places that didn't produce even a few, “good friends,” I've tried another place that I know there are like minded people, but it doesn't seem to have exactly what I'm looking for, (and it feels less comfortable all the time) , and for many reasons. I joined a group like this because I thought that I might make a friend or two, I've done some things that I'm not proud of in an effort to maybe just on a fluke meet someone, that little mission didn't pan out either, though if you don't try you don't know.

But I have come away with some wisdom in all of this too, there is a saying that goes, 'Better to be single than to wish that you were.' I buy into this because I have some gay coupled friends that can't stand one another, they can't get away from one another quick enough but they have a lease together or bought a house together and can't find a way to get out from under that and not go broke. I know couples that will sit in a gathering pawing one another so that everyone thinks that all is well and then go to the parking lot afterward and argue, scratch and hiss because they have different ideas of where they would like to go for brunch or dinner and have no concept of the idea of compromise. That bothers me, frankly, it scares me.”

I took a deep breath and said, “At this point in my life there are times that I think that my biggest regret is not being a monastic, I know that it's not too late for me to convert to Catholic and I'm on my way after a few psych tests. I regret the time that I've spent energy thinking that being single and alone is shameful, it isn't and I don't know where I got the idea. I don't regret though never having been in a relationship that I couldn't figure out how to get out of because I was so miserable that I was having the very thought to begin with.”

“Well, I just wondered.” he said, as if I had only said, “yes, I do regret being single.”