lenten journal -- to know and to be known

I talked to a friend today who had just returned from a workshop on using “emotional intelligence” in dealing with conflict. The term was new to me, but is a rather well formed theory and/or practice it seems. I’m struck more by where the idea of emotional intelligence took me than learning what the whole deal is about. If I’m emotionally intelligent, do my “smart” tears, like smart bombs, know where to fall?

I was teaching high school when the idea of “multiple intelligences” first began to come into prominence. I found there really is something to working to give kids – or anyone else – a chance to show how they understand and express things, whether they feel word-smart, music-smart, people-smart, or nature-smart. It challenged my educational intelligence: could I look up from my lesson plans long enough to notice who was not getting the opportunity to show their smarts?

Ed Hirsch’s book Cultural Literacy came out during that time as well, causing quite a discussion about what we should all know in order to be able to converse with one another and maintain some sense of American community. As an English teacher, I was often a part of discussions about what books the students should read. Was there a “canon” of essential (to some, sacred) texts? Was the point to be multicultural? Was it about reading specific books or teaching kids how to read meaningfully? I wrote my Masters thesis on “Teaching The Scarlet Letter in a Multiethnic Setting” because seventy percent of my students were nonnative English speakers and first generation immigrants. To them, reading about the Puritans was multicultural literature.

One of the terms that showed up in the little reading I did online about emotional intelligence was “emotional literacy,” which connected in my mind with Stephen Prothero’s new book Religious Literacy, in which he seeks to contend with the lack of religious knowledge in this country, particularly among those who say they believe in God. Here are some of the things he found:

• half of all Americans cannot name one of the four gospels
• a majority cannot name the first book of the Bible
• sixty percent of evangelical Christians think Jesus was born in Jerusalem
• fifty one percent of Jews think Jesus was born in Jerusalem
• ten percent of Americans think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife
• many high school students think Sodom and Gomorrah were married
• a third of Americans don’t think Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount
• seventy five percent of American adults think “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible

And that’s just the Judeo-Christian stuff. Dig in on Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam and we know even less. I have yet to read the book, but I found this quote in one of the reviews of the book:

"Some friends tell me that they don't bring their sons and daughters to worship services or talk with them about their faith because they want their children to be free to choose a religion for themselves. This is foolhardy…. [I]f you offer them nothing, you are telling them that religion counts for nothing."

Religion is a problematic word for me. I don’t think of it as a synonym for faith necessarily. Religion represents the bureaucratic, self-perpetuating institution rather than the relational, spiritual, mission-minded church. As far as words go, I’m all for losing my religion. I am, however, interested in what it might mean to be spiritually intelligent: to be God-smart. “Have this mind in you,” Paul wrote, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” Evidently, this idea has been around for a while. As we make the journey through Holy Week, both Paul and Prothero make me wonder if most of us know where we are going. And it also reminds me of an old joke about the small town pastor that visited regularly with the village drunk, trying to convert him. One day the drunk said, “You think I don’t know the story. I do.” He began to give a fairly accurate telling of the events of this week, right up to the stone being rolled away from the opening of the tomb; then he said, “And when Jesus comes out, if he sees his shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter.”

In one of the more interesting twists in the English language, for a long time the word know was used to mean sexual intercourse as well as mental perception or understanding. In the KJV, Adam “knew” Eve. (For one of my seminary friends, that turned the inscription on the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself,” into a stealthy way to curse at someone.) The connection, I think, is that knowing is an intimate act. To know someone is to be invested deeply in their lives and they in yours. To know God – to be God-smart – is being vulnerable and intimate with the Very One who knew us, as the psalmist says, before we were even born.

One of the things we share in common with the disciples who walked with Jesus is how often we prove that we act like we know what’s going on while we show that we’ve missed the point. The gospel accounts of Jesus’ last days before his death show again and again that those who had been with him for three years and had heard most of his parables and seen most of his miracles still didn’t really know him or understand what he was doing. When Jesus was arrested and killed they denied him and scattered into the night as though they were taken completely by surprise. To be a part of a lineage of faith that connects back through two thousand Easters, we share an amazing resemblance to those we so easily see as less than spiritually intelligent.

Thank God the focus of our faith is not on who is smart enough to connect with God. “We see now through a glass, darkly,” Paul said, “but one day we will see face to face.” When that clarity comes, I don’t expect a quiz, but I look forward to knowing and being known.

Peace,
Milton

PS -- there's a new recipe.

lenten journal: diamond days

I wrote before I went to bed last night and I’m back at it this morning because I’ve got a deadline. According to the counter on my desktop, the Red Sox take the field in Kansas City to open the 2007 baseball season in less than six hours.

LESS THAN SIX HOURS!


In the steroid-ridden-unconscionable-salary-giving-over-the-top-
loss-of-perspective world of professional sports, I’m an unabashed Red Sox fan. I have been as long as I can remember. It’s something about both the team and the game. “Baseball, it is said, is only a game.” writes George Will. “True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.”

As far as games being unequal, here is one of my favorite George Carlin routines in which he compares baseball and football.

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a GRIDIRON, in a STADIUM, sometimes called SOLDIER FIELD or WAR MEMORIAL STADIUM.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs. "What down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups. "Who's up? Are you up? I'm not up! He's up!"

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud on the field...can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will continue!
In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go out! It's raining out!"

Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch.
Football has the two-minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: "We don't know when it's gonna end!"
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have to go to sudden death."

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be safe at home!"

I write a lot about trying to get home, or at least to find it. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love this game: home is that well defined base with a rooftop between the dugouts, surrounded by the grandstands. Home is the smell of the popcorn and peanuts, the incessant murmur of the crowd that bursts into cheer when the Hometown Team makes them proud. Home is the place you go to sit and watch and talk and eat and, for awhile, keep time by innings rather than hours and minutes. Home is the place where the kid in the top row of the upper deck brings her glove because she just might catch a fly ball. Home is the kind of place that calls up the kind of feelings Milton Bracker describes in "Tomorrow!" (after all, it is National Poetry Month):

Hoorah, hooray!
Be glad, be gay-
The best of reasons
Is Opening Day.

And cheering the players
And counting the gate
And running the bases
And touching the plate.

And tossing the ball out
And yelling Play Ball!
(Who cares about fall-out-
At least, until fall?)
Let nothing sour
This sweetest hour;
The baseball season's
Back in flower!

I would love to see the Sox take the Series this year as much as any Boston fan and, cheering for a team that has won two championships in the last ninety years, I’ve learned winning is not the only reason to go to the ballpark or turn on the radio at night to see how the boys are doing. In August of 2004 I got to perform a wedding at Fenway Park, thanks to a friend who recommended me to the couple getting married. That Sunday was the first day the Sox allowed weddings up on the right field porch and ours was the second wedding of the day. The attendees received a program and a box of Cracker Jacks when they sat down. I stood with my back to the park, so the couple looked out over the ball field as they exchanged vows. Afterwards, we went down on the field and had our pictures taken in front of the Green Monster, just steps away from where Manny Ramirez stands during a game. When the Sox went on to win the Series that year, we all took partial credit for helping to break the Curse. We couldn’t help but make ourselves a part of Red Sox history.

“Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away,” wrote Isaac Watts. “They fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.” (I had no idea he was a baseball fan.)

Find your cap and dust off your glove. Watch The Sandlot or The Rookie or Field of Dreams. Swing for the fences. Make yourself a hot dog. The parks are open and the season has begun.

Put me in, coach; I’m ready to play. Today.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: I am . . .

Since today marks the beginning of National Poetry Month, I have a statement to make: Jesus was a poet.

Why not? Vaclav Havel was a poet who became president of his country; why can’t a poet be Messiah? Jesus thrived on metaphor. His “I am” statements, as we’ve come to call them, are among his best: I am

• the bread of life
• the light of the world
• the door
• the good shepherd
• the resurrection and the life
• the way, truth, and life
• the true vine

The seven statements use everything from cooking to animal husbandry to describe who he was and why he stepped into our skins. Like a good poet, he did more provoking than explaining, offering metaphors that refused to be easily pinned down. Some have even expanded. Light, for instance, we know now is one of the few things than can be perceived as both a wave and a particle, but not at the same time. We draw light from an abundance of sources not available to Jesus’ hearers the first time around, leaving us to unpack the poetry in ways Jesus, perhaps, didn’t even think of during his time on earth.

I love the way he began each statement: I am . . .

In the extensive Bible study I did while driving from church to work this afternoon (which means I tried to remember every statement of Jesus I could), I couldn’t come up with a single instance where Jesus, when trying to communicate his person and mission, began a statement with “I am not . . .” He never described himself by reflecting – or deflecting – off of those he considered rivals or enemies. He had poetry to speak and to do, so negative, competitive, and judgmental words had no place in the equation. And he was standing in a lineage of poets.

When Moses asked God whom he should say sent him to Pharaoh, God answered, “Tell him, I AM sent you.” The verb TO BE. Isaiah talked about trees clapping their hands and the rivers singing because they grew tired of waiting for the human poets to catch on. The writer of Ecclesiastes had to be sitting in a coffee shop somewhere writing those words, with a small jazz combo (can you play jazz on lyre and timbrel?) sitting in the corner.

This weekend, the presidential candidates had to report how much money they’ve raised so far. They’ll spend a good deal of the money telling us why they aren’t like the other guys. But does that really tell us anything? The Democrats keep saying they’re not the Republicans, and the Republicans tell us they aren’t Democrats, but do those statements reveal any thing significant about who they are? The candidates who stand up and say, “This is who I am and here’s what I’m trying to do live mostly in TV dramas and rarely cross over (Fred Thompson notwithstanding).

I was in a Baptist seminary when the hostile takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention began. Those who masterminded the coup were clear about who they were. Those of us who were against them lost ground first because we could articulate little more than, “We’re not them.” How can you build any momentum and passion by yelling, “We’re not them! We’re not them!”? Many of us on the more moderate side of the Baptist continuum at the time could have articulated who we were as Baptists and who we hoped we were becoming. Instead, we got hooked into the power struggle and have the scars to prove it.

“I am,” said God.
“I am,” said Jesus.
“I am, I said,” sang Neil Diamond.
“I am what I am,” said Popeye.

Poetry might get you elected president, but it’s more likely to get you killed. Jesus was crucified because of who he said he was. Had he been willing to speak the prose of competition and power, or if he’d been willing to allow those around him to tell him who to be, he might have lived longer. But for Jesus to say, “I am the way and the truth” was about as comfortable for the power brokers of his day as running their hands down the business side of cheese grater, because his poetic self-awareness told them who they were not. They squash you like a bug for stuff like that.

One quarter into my fifty-first year and I still feel like an apprentice poet trying to learn how to say, “I am . . .” authentically and intentionally. I’m far more to used to the language of subversive comparison, the barbed phrases of ambush: I’m not you; take that. When I talk about who I am, there is no violence in my words. There is hope. There is love. There is truth.

There is poetry.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: timing

One of the crucial elements of the function kitchen is timing. Most everything is done in stages and needs to be finished just before it is served, so the food is fresh and attractive – both of which can be difficult when you’re trying to get the meals to two hundred people at the same time. The salads are made, put on racks that resemble a medieval torture device, and then the rack is wrapped in plastic and stored in the walk in refrigerator until five or ten minutes before they are served, when we cut open the plastic and descend on the salads with our squeeze bottles full of dressing. If the dressing goes on too soon, the salads are limp; if it goes on too late, the salads are, well, late.

We have a general idea of the schedule for serving, but every event is a little different, both in the way it is planned and the way it plays out. How we timed the meal at tonight’s wedding was not quite the same as the night before, or the one tomorrow. We expend a lot of energy trying to get the perfect the timing; the truth is, I think, it matters and it doesn’t matter. The folks in the room came to celebrate a wedding, not to stand in awe of my culinary prowess.

Palm Sunday marks the turn towards home, as far as Lent is concerned: Easter is in sight and, for most churches, we gear up one way or another to move intentionally through Holy Week. Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday for some, which I suppose came about, in part, because of the reality that many people won’t participate in services other than Sunday, so the gradual reliving and retelling of the story is lost on them. If they are going to be a part of our journey through the Cross to the Resurrection, then they need to hear it tomorrow. So many churches divide their worship services starting with palms and ending with the Crucifixion, which I think is a good thing, since there is no need for a spoiler alert: we all know where the story is going.

At our church, we begin by gathering before church in the garden to bless the palms and then we process, singing, into the church to begin worship. The idea is wonderful and has been logistically challenging to coordinate the singing on the outside of the building with the music and singing on the inside. We’ve tried several things – opening windows (too cold), strategically placing choir members along the path – and some have worked better than others. Over the years, we’ve gotten better at it and we’ve learned that part of the deal is those of us processing into the church are never going to be exactly in sync with those inside until we all get inside together. That was never the point. We process because we, like the people in Jerusalem that day, are trying to understand who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

The first time around, I’m sure there was a much smaller gathering of the faithful at Golgotha than on what we have come to call Palm Sunday. Even the first Easter was not so well attended. I wonder how many years on it was before churches began putting out extra seating for the “Easter crowd.” I don’t know of any minister who doesn’t wonder what could be done to get more of those who come primarily on Christmas and Easter to participate more regularly and meaningfully in the congregation. The reasons for why people don’t find a more significant connection are as varied as the number of them who come: grief, pain, indifference, priorities, hurt feelings, time, to name a few. But on Easter, and maybe even Palm Sunday, they’re in the room.

Let’s start there. Don’t worry about the timing. Feed them.

I have mixed feelings as we gather in the garden with our palms each year. We wave our fronds and sing hosanna, emulating the people who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem, yet, as I read the story, we are emulating people who sort of missed the point. The king they were cheering for was not the one coming to town. Jesus rode into town on a donkey, not a valiant steed. Did they not notice that as they cheered? Whether fair-weather or faithful, few if any knew where the path they lined with their coats was heading. My feelings get mixed because I have a hard time coming to terms with identifying with them, which I need to do if I’m going to get to Easter. I miss the point too, even though I’ve always waved my palms knowing where the story goes. I still miss the point, sometimes.

The timing of the week is significant from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. We’ve worked hard to outline the courses and to move with intentionality. We know where the story is going and there is still room for surprise. Though we have done this many times before, just as I know the way an evening rolls out in the kitchen, there is still room for surprise, thank God. Some people will sit down for all the courses, some will show up only for the appetizers or the entrees, and there are seats for all, if we’ve done our job well.

“I love to tell the story,” the old hymn says, “for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”

In my kitchen, I get the food ready and work to serve it well, but I don’t get to sit down and eat. At church, we are those we prepare the table and who gather around it. We are the ones who both issue and receive the invitations, the ones who tell the story and who need to hear it. May we serve whoever shows up and sit down and eat whenever we can. It’s not the timing; it’s the meal.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: work in progress

Today held a small and important victory for me.

One of the challenges in cooking for large functions is figuring out how much to make. We have a “banquet and event order” or BEO that delineates how many people are eating each entrée offered, but how many pounds of mashed potatoes we make is up to me. As far as appetizers go, I’m told to make a cheese platter or an antipasto tray and then what different passed hors d’oeuvres were requested, but nothing is quantified other than the number of folks coming to the event. All of a sudden my job becomes a word problem:

If one hundred and fifty people are coming for dinner and you are supposed to make sausage stuffed mushrooms, chicken satay, goat cheese and eggplant crostini, and coconut shrimp, how many of each hors d’oeuvres do you make?

Chef says there are formulas to help answer the question, but my guess is they play it safe. Catering concerns are supposed to create the illusion of excess. We’re supposed to make too much food so the people at the party think they’re getting their money’s worth because there’s so much left over. Making too much is easy to do and is too easy an answer. The first couple of weeks I was doing functions, I made as many pieces of each appetizer as there were people at the event: one hundred people, one hundred bacon-wrapped scallops. If there were one hundred people and four hors d’oeuvres, I made four hundred pieces and had most of them left over.

Today, I took a different approach. The BEO said a hundred and twenty were coming to the wedding. I made a hundred chicken satay, a hundred stuffed mushrooms, a hundred coconut shrimp, and I put the eggplant mixture in a pastry bag and piped it on to the crostini each time I made a tray so I could save the bread to use for croutons. When cocktail hour was over, all the shrimp was gone and I had ten mushrooms and eight satay for the servers’ snack.

Like I said, it was a small and important victory.

I kept thinking about the Truth Shop as I cooked today: do I want the whole truth or a partial version? The unquestioned belief in the food industry is more is better: always make too much, always hedge your bets, never tell the customer you’ve run out of something.

Why? Why? and Why not?

I’ll keep working on both my questions and my answers.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: every last one of us

Of my two days off during the week, Thursday is usually the run-the-errands-and-hang-out-at-Panera-with-Ginger day. Not his week. I met with my spiritual advisor this morning because he’s going to be gone for the next couple of weeks, then I went to work because there was a function this evening (I was off yesterday), and then I came home to hang out with Ginger and watch Grey’s Anatomy, which was a rerun but one we’d not seen.

I jumped the gun a little bit in spiritual direction. When Ken asked me how Lent has been for me I ended up talking about resurrection, even though we’ve still got a week to go. Actually, I think he brought it up. I talked about my realization this week that I had made it through the winter without a major depression. What I see looking back is I started seeing Ken in October 2005, when he challenged me to figure out what I most wanted to do with my life, determine what it would cost to do it, and then figure out how to pay the bill. In December 2005, I committed to writing regularly – five days a week. In October 2006 I chose to step out of professional ministry and be the spouse of the pastor rather than the pastor. I also became a full-time chef. Though I can see only through a glass, darkly when it comes to where this road is going, I like and trust the direction in which I’m headed.

“It sounds like resurrection to me,” he said.

The conversation that ensued will show up again in my writing, I’m sure, because it was rich. What comes to mind now is a comment he made a few moments later:

“I think most people are afraid of resurrection.”

His words were like a finger on the “Play” button and my mind was the CD player. Resurrection is about more than death. Jesus pushed beyond the known boundaries to show what was on the other side. When we talk about what is happening in Darfur and feel overwhelmed or helpless or even indifferent, resurrection calls us to push on through to find what is on the other side of those feelings, just as Jesus pushed beyond the tomb or walked through the walls to get to where the disciples were. Resurrection means we are not confined by the boundaries to which we have become accustomed, or which make us comfortable. Ken responded by quoting the story, "The Truth Shop" by Anthony de Mello by heart:

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the name of the shop:

THE TRUTH SHOP.

The saleswoman was very polite: What type of truth did I wish to purchase, partial or whole?

The whole truth of course. No deceptions for me, no defenses, no rationalizations. I wanted my truth plain and unadulterated.

She waved me on to another side of the store.

The salesman there pointed to the price tag. "The price is very high, sir," he said.

"What is it?" I asked, determined to get the whole truth, no matter what it cost.

"Your security, sir," he answered.

I came away with a heavy heart.
I still need the safety of my unquestioned beliefs.

When I came home tonight, I found this comment on an earlier blog entry:

Milton, would you think about, and comment on, the story that aired tonight on All Things Considered about the UCC congregation and the man who is a registered sex offender?

I always appreciate your insight,
Charlotte

Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, California is struggling with how to respond to a twice-convicted sex offender who asked to join the church. The man visited the church for a few weeks and then came to the pastor and told him who he was, what he had done, and that he wanted to join the church because it was a community where he felt safe. The pastor introduced him to the congregation at the end of worship one Sunday, explained the situation, and then asked the man not to come back until the church had figured out how to respond.

I’m writing about this as a fellow struggler and a fellow traveler in the UCC, not as a critic, judge, or any kind of expert. Ginger and I have no children of our own. I was not abused by any adults as a child, though we have a number of people close to us who were. I’m aware of the damage that lingers in their lives alongside of the healing.

When I asked Ginger about it, she said, “I’ve thought about this a lot. That’s why I went to the police station to find out who is on the sex offender registry in Marshfield. If someone came to us, I would want us to welcome them and I would want us to be very clear about what the boundaries were: they could never sit near children or sit near where the kids come for the children’s message; they could never teach Sunday School or be in the Sunday School area; they could never talk to a child one on one; I would assign a deacon each week to stay with them during Coffee Hour and to help them keep the boundaries.” She continued, “We are called to welcome everyone and we also know the high rate of recidivism for sex offenders. The issue is how do we make everyone feel safe, the offender included.”

She was talking about resurrection: beyond death, beyond violence, beyond abuse, beyond despair, beyond comfort. No wonder it scares us. The watchword of the UCC these days is “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” Situations such as this provide the opportunity for us to step into the heart of those words. Whoever and wherever are expansive and exhaustive. The whole truth of Jesus’ resurrection is God’s grace is unlimited and unearned for all of us.

Every last one.

I will pray that Pilgrim Church will be able to incarnate that grace as resurrection people in wonderful, frightening, and uncomfortable ways. And with that prayer, I send them a song I remember from my days leading youth camps. It was recorded by the Lost Dogs ten or fifteen years ago and is a wonderful expression of the wideness of God’s mercy.

"Breathe Deep (the Breath of God)"
music and lyrics by Terry Taylor

Politicians, morticians, Philistines, homophobes
Skinheads, Dead heads, tax evaders, street kids
Alcoholics, workaholics, wise guys, dim wits
Blue collars, white collars, warmongers, peaceniks

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Suicidals, rock idols, shut-ins, dropouts
Friendless, homeless, penniless and depressed
Presidents, residents, foreigners and aliens
Dissidents, feminists, xenophobes and chauvinists

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Evolutionists, creationists, perverts, slumlords
Deadbeats, athletes, Protestants and Catholics
Housewives, neophytes, pro-choice, pro-life
Misogynists, monogamists, philanthropists, blacks and whites

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Police, obese, lawyers, and government
Sex offenders, tax collectors, war vets, rejects
Atheists, Scientists, racists, sadists
Photographers, biographers, artists, pornographers

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Gays and lesbians, demagogues and thespians
The disabled, preachers, doctors and teachers
Meat eaters, wife beaters, judges and juries
Long hair, no hair, everybody everywhere!

Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God
Breathe deep, breathe deep the Breath of God

Yes. Every last one of us.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: it is well

A short story came bubbling out of me tonight. It's raw and maybe even unfinished, but it's what I wrote, so I will share it.

Peace,
Milton

__________________________________

Cal realized he’d forgotten his reading glasses when he sat down in his second row pew and opened the worship guide. He could read the bold print, but couldn’t decipher some of the smaller instructions. He wasn’t worried though; he’d been in church all of his life and things just weren’t that different from week to week. The best news for him was he didn’t have to worry about hymns because he knew most of the favorites by heart. When he came to words he didn’t know, he just sang the word “watermelon” over and over so people still thought he knew them all by heart.

When the organist began to play the introduction to “It Is Well With My Soul” he was transported: this was one of his favorites. Since the song was reflective, the congregation remained seated. When the intro finished, he began to sing,

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

He lost himself in the lyric and was only slightly aware at how quiet the people were in the pews around him. He could hear one (maybe two?) voices from the choir loft. “It’s a grey morning,” he thought, “maybe everyone is just feeling solemn.” When the chorus came, he could hear everyone:

It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well
With my soul.

When the song was over, Dave leaned up from the pew behind Cal and said, “Nice job, buddy. That first verse was supposed to be a solo from the choir.” Cal tried to laugh it off – and did as far as Dave knew, but he felt like an idiot. When the service was over, he skipped Coffee Hour and went on home.

Brenda took her solos seriously. She didn’t feel she could do a lot of things well, but she knew she could sing. And she loved to sing. When Roscoe, the choir director, asked her to sing the first verse of “It is Well” as a solo to lead the congregation into prayer time, she jumped at the chance. She loved the hymn and even knew the story behind it, which she promptly told to the rest of the choir: “Horatio Spafford lost all of his possessions in the Chicago Fire and then lost all four of his daughters when their ship crashed into another as it crossed the Atlantic. Only his wife survived. A few weeks later, while he was on a ship going to meet her, he said he passed near the place where his daughters died and the Holy Spirit gave the words to him. “

For full effect, Roscoe chose to play the hymn on the piano. When she heard the first few notes, she quietly cleared her throat and then began to sing precisely on cue. But she was not singing a solo. There was another voice, another voice not in the choir loft. The voice was singing well, but the problem was the voice was singing at all. She looked around until she spotted him on the second row, singing with his eyes closed. She couldn’t get his attention to wave him off. She couldn’t set the mood she wanted for worship with someone else singing along because he hadn’t paid attention to the instructions in the bulletin. For all of her hard work, what people would remember was the guy in the front sang when he wasn’t supposed to. All her hard work, her prayers, her attempt to make worship more meaningful had been sunk by the phantom singer. The song had been ruined, she thought as she sat down when the hymn was over. She felt a little hurt, a little slighted, a little disregarded, but mostly like a failure. She had failed and it wasn’t her fault. She had one gift to bring to worship and someone sat on it. How could she offer a broken gift?

Charley always got to church on time and he always sat in the balcony, which, in this little church, was a single row of chairs. He mostly came to church because he had nowhere else to go and the folks here didn’t seem to mind him being around. In fact, they were pretty good at including him in things, even though faith was new to him and he’d only been coming for six or eight months. He liked to come early to hear the choir practice. When he sat down, he could hear someone telling a story about one of the songs and how it had been written because the man lost all his children.

Charley knew that feeling, too. Since his ex-wife had moved, he didn’t even know where his children were. She made it clear he didn’t deserve to see them because of all he had done. He didn’t know what else to do but agree with her.

When it came time for the song, the lady who had told the story stood up to sing. Charley had heard her before. She had a beautiful voice that was strong and soft at the same time. But when she started singing, it wasn’t just her. There was a male voice coming from the front of the church. Even though he never turned around, the two singers were right together and sounded beautiful. Charley was sure they had practiced a lot to be able to sing so well without being able to see what each other was doing. He read the words as they sang and tried to join in with the rest of the congregation, but never mastered more than the chorus: it is well, it is well with my soul.

He wondered if the writer really felt well in his soul as he stared into the sea that had swallowed up his daughters, or if he was trying to convince himself he could feel that way. All Charley knew was the words felt true when he heard them and he needed something to feel true, even if only for a moment.

Charley was coming down from the balcony just as Brenda was moving to hang up her choir robe in the closet next to the stairs. “I liked the way you and that guy did the hymn this morning,” he said. “It touched me.”

“It was supposed to be like that,” she said before she could catch herself.

He smiled and shook her hand as he moved to the front door.

“Thank you,” she said.

lenten journal: sing for peace

I don’t remember when I decided I was going to end my correspondence with “Peace, Milton.” I know I’ve done it long enough that I don’t remember when I didn’t.

I do remember the day in 1989 when I came upon David Wilcox’s first record, How Did You Find Me Here?. The now defunct Sound Warehouse in Fort Worth had a special rack where they drew attention to up and coming artists – usually singer/songwriters – who were a little under the radar. That day I bought Wilcox’s record and Shawn Colvin’s first CD, Steady On. I think part of the reason I bought David’s was I thought it was a clever title for a debut album. I called my friend Billy, who was living in Austin at the time, only to find out he had bought the same records on the same day. Over the years, I collected quite a few of his records and several of his songs have become permanent fixtures in the soundtrack of my life. I firmly believe his song “Show the Way” should be our national anthem.

Billy called this week to say Wilcox had a new song on his website he thought I should hear. You can hear it too, by following this link. The song is called “Three Brothers” and yearns for peace in the Middle East through the metaphor of family.

All three brothers loved their father,
but he's brought them here today
To see these papers and these lawyers,
and divide the old estate
All three feel that they're the favorite,
he loves each of them the best
But these documents he gave them,
will now put them to the test

So they open all the writings
that will prove the rightful heir
To this home that they remember,
and the right to settle there
Their own sister is a prisoner,
they don't see her face to face
They've not heard her song of beauty,
or felt the movement of her grace

She lives live behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Each one looks at what he's given,
and he studies what he's shown
They hold their maps that show possession,
of this place they've called their home
At first they sigh with satisfaction,
when they see what's on their maps
Each one's given all he wanted,
but the boundaries overlap

So do you wish us to be brothers?
Father help us understand
Or will we each kill off the others
to claim this same piece of land?
Do you mean there to be hatred
in this place you built to last?
And will faith just die a prisoner
in the dungeon of the past?

She lives behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

She lives behind those bars of steel
and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Jerusalem is sending her voice
from inside the prison of disbelief
Stand up you people of the one God
to bring about her release

I looked up peace at dictionary.com and two of the definitions were” the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world” and “the normal freedom from civil commotion and violence of a community,” which struck me as strange because I’m not sure there are very many people in this world who see peace as normal from their experience. War is more normal than peace in our world, especially, it seems, war in the name of God. How can we think of peace as normal when so much of our world is fueled by violence?

I’m not sure the way to peace begins with everyone coming to the table to voice their demands. Somewhere pretty early in the conversation, someone has to say to the others, “I see your point.” Peace has to matter more than power for the violence to stop. Peace has to matter more than pride, more than security, more than history, more than land. More than anything.

A number of years ago, Ginger and I went to Israel and Palestine. We visited friends who were living in Bethlehem at the time and saw how the Palestinians were prevented from getting to work and were turned back at the Israeli checkpoints for no apparent reason. We saw how the people collected all the rainwater they could because the Israeli government cut off the water supply indiscriminately for days at a time. We were in our hotel in Jerusalem getting ready to go on a day trip to Masada when word came that a Palestinian suicide bomber had blown himself up on a bus in the middle of the Israeli side of the city. Now – a decade later – the news still sounds the same.

Our hotel sat at the top of the Mount of Olives. From the front veranda we looked across the Kidron Valley, past the olive trees that had been there since Jesus’ time, past the cemetery that filled up most of the valley, over the path that led to ancient steps that went up to a gate through which Jesus was taken the night before he was crucified, to see the Old City. That hotel is no longer available to tourists because the violence has only gotten worse.

When I write about stuff like this, I have to fight back two thoughts in order to write. One is that very few people will comment or engage because the problem feels overwhelming, as I have seen happen when I’ve written about Darfur. (I don’t mean that to sound like I’m trying to guilt you into commenting; I just crave a real conversation about this stuff). The second is I can’t make a difference as one person, one writer, one alleged peacemaker. For Wilcox to post a song about peace he has yet to release to see what he can stir up moves me. All the diplomats from Henry Kissinger to Condoleezza Rice haven’t been able to do much with their summits and strategies, why not try singing?

Perhaps what started as a solo will blossom into a mighty choir.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: forgiving judas

I’m still turning part of John 12:1-8, the gospel passage from Sunday, over in my head:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the village of Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a supper for him there, and Martha waited on the party while Lazarus took his place at table with Jesus. Then Mary took a whole pound of very expensive perfume and anointed Jesus' feet and then wiped them with her hair. The entire house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (the man who was going to betray Jesus), burst out, "Why on earth wasn't this perfume sold? It's worth thirty pounds, which could have been given to the poor!" He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was dishonest, and when he was in charge of the purse used to help himself to the contents.

As Ginger repeated John’s words about Judas being a thief and using the group’s money as his own personal discretionary fund, I jotted down on my order of service, “Why did Judas get to stay?”

The first thing I need to do here is issue a disclaimer. I’m not willing to entertain the notion that God somehow placed Judas amongst the disciples because God needed him there for things to play out according to plan. I won’t entertain the idea (well, I guess I could tell it a couple of jokes – but then it would have to go) because it’s not consistent with who I trust God to be. If God is love, then God doesn’t assign people to be villains for the sake of the greater good. Whatever God did in Judas’ life it had nothing to do with betrayal. Now on with the countdown . . .

The question haunts me because I don’t think Judas was a bad guy. We don’t know much about him beyond what the gospel writers tell us. There’s no back story, no explanation of his mood or motivation. Since the gospels were written after the fact rather than as journals in real time, Judas’ betrayal of Jesus colors almost every reference to him along the way. He begins to take on the same role among the disciples that Bill Buckner plays in Red Sox lore. We would not have had to wait until 2004 to win the World Series if he had not let the ball go through his legs. For years, people could hardly say his name without cursing or crying. And so it is with Judas. But what did they know of him at the time? Did they know he was stealing from their bank account? Why didn’t they give the job to someone else? Matthew was good at accounting. Did they feel he was toxic from the beginning? Did they cough the word “bastard” into their fists every time he walked in the room?

The past couple of weeks our schedule has shifted to where Ginger and I watch a movie over breakfast a couple of mornings a week. If we don’t do it then, we never get to see movies together. This morning, we watched Half Nelson, the story of a junior high history teacher who is also a crack addict. Here’s the way the web site describes the story:

Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a young inner-city junior high school teacher whose ideals wither and die in the face of reality. Day after day in his shabby Brooklyn classroom, he somehow finds the energy to inspire his 13 and 14-year-olds to examine everything from civil rights to the Civil War with a new enthusiasm. Rejecting the standard curriculum in favor of an edgier approach, Dan teaches his students how change works ‚ on both a historical and personal scale ‚ and how to think for themselves.

Though Dan is brilliant, dynamic, and in control in the classroom, he spends his time outside school on the edge of consciousness. His disappointments and disillusionment have led to a serious drug habit. He juggles his hangovers and his homework, keeping his lives separated, until one of his troubled students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), catches him getting high after school.

From this awkward beginning, Dan and Drey stumble into an unexpected friendship. Despite the differences in their ages and situations, they are both at an important intersection. Depending on which way they turn ‚ and which choices they make ‚ their lives will change.

Dan keeps talking to his students about dialectics and how opposites bring about change in human history, even as the opposites in his own life pull him apart. He is conflicted, sad, creative, stupid, desperate, sympathetic, and despicable all at once. And so it is with Judas. He doesn’t appear as a single-minded antagonist determined to destroy his nemesis. I don’t think Judas saw Jesus as an enemy or a threat. My hunch is he saw Jesus as naïve and did what he did to force Jesus’ hand into taking more evasive action. Maybe John’s take on Judas’ question about the poor is off the mark. Or, like the crack head teacher, maybe he wanted to follow Jesus and he was a liar and a thief all at the same time. His opposites pulled him to kiss Jesus in the garden and then to commit suicide.

Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus that night. Peter denied even knowing Jesus even as he stood almost within earshot of where Jesus was being questioned by the religious leaders. He denied Jesus and he cursed him and then ran away and wept. Peter was his own bundle of contradictions. Yet Peter got to live through his shame and find himself bathed in forgiveness at a beach side breakfast as Jesus asked, “Simon, do you love me?”

He never got to ask Judas that question.

Judas got to stay because Jesus called him to be a disciple just like the other eleven. To say he was called to be the catalyst for Jesus’ death cheapens and distorts what it means to be called of God. Jesus saw something in him that Judas, evidently, couldn’t see. I have no doubt, had Judas lived, that Jesus would have said to him, “Judas, do you love me?”

And I can hear Judas answering much like Peter, “Lord, you know my heart, despite what I have done. Yes. I love you.”

In my mind’s eye, they embrace as Jesus says, “You, too, feed my sheep.”

I trust, somewhere beyond what we know as time, they got to have that conversation.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: the do of milton

Church started with a smile for me today.

After our call to worship, opening hymn, and prayer of confession, someone reads the Psalm of the Day, which today was Psalm 133:

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded
the blessing, life forevermore.

I was listening, not reading, and was very taken with the image of the oil running down off the top of Aaron’s head. It sounds like they emptied the whole bottle on his head, leaving it to run down the sides, perhaps filling up his ears, and (at least in my imagination) down his face until it seeped out of his beard, all of it ending up dripping down on his collar and probably ruining his robe. Though I’m not particularly an oil and lotion person, the image was moving to me. Then came the next line.

What I heard was, “It is like the Do of Herman.”

There is the Tao of Pooh – now there’s the Do of Herman, I thought. Next I wondered who Herman was and what exactly he did to make his “do” so important. The contrast between Aaron sitting and letting the oil roll down over him in quiet abandon to the moment and Herman only being known for what he did also jumped out at me. Wherever Herman is, I hope he’s finally been able to quit doing for today and can get some rest.

The Do of Milton knocked out my usual and always enjoyable Sunday afternoon nap because I had to cook for a wedding at the Inn. Ginger and I ate lunch together and then went about our separate “dos.” I got to the Inn about one and dove into the list of things we needed to get ready. Alfonso and Pedro worked alongside of me most of the day. For someone who speaks a limited amount of English, Pedro has an amazing vocabulary when it comes to American popular music. He sings along and knows all the words, even though he doesn’t necessarily know what all the words mean. My favorite is hearing him sing along with Gnarls Barkley, “Does that make me crazy?”

While we were plating up the first course, Pedro looked at the others in our assembly line and said, “What’s wrong you people? No one smile. No good. Only Milton and me happy everyday.” I’m always happy to work with Master P.

No two ways about it, I’m a messy cook. Well, perhaps a better way to say it is I get messy when I cook. By the time the day is over, I’m wearing small pieces of everything I made like merit badges proclaiming my accomplishments. Some marks are more permanent than others, leading me to change from white chef coats to black ones a couple of weeks ago in the spirit of the eternal question, “How do you tell when a brown towel is clean?” Most of my merit badges became invisible on my new dark uniform and, according to Pedro, the black is quite slimming as well.

For both the weddings this weekend, I had to make pizza to serve at the end of the night when the couple’s closest circle of friends remained to finish out the evening, which meant I had to flour the stainless steel table to roll out the pizza dough, which also means I did a good job of flouring myself in my new black coat. Regardless of my fashion sense or color scheme, I’m going to get messy when I cook. Messy is part of the deal.

Ginger preached on Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet with perfume and then wiping them with her hair, an act that was both beautiful and messy. Jesus’ feet may have been clean, but I assume Mary must have had to wash her hair the same way Aaron had to shampoo to get all that oil out. She did a wonderful, extravagant, messy thing – the stuff real relationships are built on. As Ginger said, “Intimacy is messy.”

She also opened her sermon recounting an experience we had in Israel several years ago that bears repeating.

We spent about ten days in Israel and Palestine with a tour group of Christians mostly from mainline denominations, going to a number of sites of interest to our faith. As our tour guide often told us, most all of the sites had churches built over them and many of the sites were not the actual places where the events took place, but the “traditional” site, which I took to mean the place where it was most convenient to build a church.

When we stopped at the Jordan River to see where Jesus was baptized, the spot was not exact and was not covered over by a chapel. There were some seats and some changing rooms and a small concrete walkway down to the water’s edge that made it easy to kneel and touch the water, or, as we had planned, to be baptized. Our little band gathered around and read scripture together and then we very quietly and reverently came forward in single file for Ginger and Skip, the two ministers leading the trip, to mark our foreheads with water.

Shortly after we began our time of worship, another bus pulled up that was carrying a Pentecostal church group from somewhere in South America. From the place where the buses parked to the water was about fifty feet of gentle slope leading to the river. The group got off the bus singing hymns and clapping. Their pastor was wearing his robe and was leading the group. About three or four steps from the bus, he broke into what Ginger referred to as “a middle aged sprint” for the river and, without breaking stride, left his feet when he reached the concrete walk and leapt spread eagle into the river, gloriously belly-flopping and sending quite a wake our way. His congregation was not far behind, running and jumping into the water, and then they clapped and sang and splashed in the water like kids at bath time. They didn’t think about getting back on the bus in wet clothes or what was coming up next. They were in the water with Jesus and they weren’t going to hold back a thing.

Get wet. Get messy. Dive in. Have fun. Crack open the perfume and stink up the place.

Seemingly unusual messages for Lent, perhaps, but I think not. Does that make me crazy?

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: thankful words

The Boston Marathon begins each year in Hopkinton, Mass. and wind their way through other towns and suburbs until they get into Boston. Between the 20th and 21st mile is Heartbreak Hill, which is often the stretch of the race that determines the winner. It’s not that the hill is so big as much as the incline comes after having run over twenty miles. With two weeks left until Easter, I’m feeling the burn myself.

If you pay attention to the small print, you can see each of my entries is usually posted in the last whispers of the day: 11:56, 11:49, and so on. Some nights it’s well after one before I finish writing, but Blogger marks the time I open the new post window, not when I actually post. On nights like tonight, I find myself driving home from work wondering what I can write about, trying to think of something to say. More than once, I’ve stared at the screen for who knows how long, waiting for inspiration. Since Gracie likes to get up between 6:30 and 7, and I’m the one who will wake up when she barks, my nights have been short.

So, as the days begin to rise toward Easter and I’m just getting home from an eleven hour day, I had to push myself to do more than sit down and tell you I was too tired to write tonight. While I was in the shower, I realized I couldn’t do that, not because of a sense of obligation, but because I love doing this. When I look back over the winter (I’m speaking as if the season past tense even though I drove home from work in the snow) and see that I was not depressed for the first time in five winters, I see that what was different this year was I wrote regularly. I’ve written over 300,000 words since I started the blog in December of 2005. I’m better at both writing and living because of it.

So, at the end of this long day, I’m sitting at the keyboard typing with a deep sense of gratitude that I’m able to write, that you are willing to read (and sometimes respond), and that the light really does shine in the darkness such that the darkness cannot extinguish it.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: enough

As I was busy at the Inn today, getting ready for the weddings this weekend (one Saturday, one Sunday), I heard a story on NPR about TGI Fridays’ new “Right Portion, Right Price” menu (four items) that are thirty percent smaller in portion size and $6.99 - $8.99 in price. The interviewer asked the CEO for Fridays why they were making such a move, to which the executive answered, “We figured people were tired of eating half of their food and then taking the rest of it home so it can sit in the refrigerator for three days and then get thrown out.” He went on to talk about wanting to do something healthier and something that gave people an option to eat less.

The line of questioning then moved to the economic feasibility of the change. Less food and lower prices mean lower sales numbers as well. Can you make money in the restaurant business by teaching people to push away from the table? Once again, lines from old comedy routines coming rushing forward from the deep recesses of my mind. I don’t remember which comedian told the first one. He talked about waiting tables in an all-you-can-eat place and going up to someone who was about to leave and saying, “Sit back down. You’re not through. The sign says “all you can eat” and I don’t think you’ve reached your limit. You’ve eaten a lot, but that’s not all you can eat.”

The second comes from Paula Poundstone, who said servers in restaurants ought to be able to cut people off the same way bartenders can tell people they’ve had enough to drink. As I sit here typing and carrying an extra forty pounds of my own, I think she may have a point. In these matters, I’m a true American: I don’t know when to say, “Enough.”

Enough: sufficient to meet a need or satisfy a desire; adequate.

Molly Ivins wrote a column years ago when Texas was trying to come up with a new slogan to put on its license plates to replace Dolph Briscoe’s classic, “Drive Friendly.” Her suggestion was, “Texas: where too much is never enough.” The Lone Star state is not so different from any other in that regard.

Between basketball games tonight I stumbled on to 20/20 where John Stossel spent a whole hour on “Enough!” (his exclamation point), looking at people who had gotten fed up with something going on around them to the point of doing something about it. He talked to a guy who started an organization that is working to make televangelists more financially accountable, a woman who is trying to get “baby mamas” and “baby daddies” get married, and a group of people who intervened at the scene of a highway accident to keep a cop from shooting an injured dog. Stossel closed the show by asking, “Have you gotten fed up with something in your life enough to take concrete action to do something about it? We want to hear your story . . .”

I started reading The Tipping Point this week, which is a book about how change happens. The author’s thesis is, as you can tell by the title, things have to reach a tipping point – that moment when the small things stack up to create what he describes as “an epidemic,” or significant change. One of the stories I’ve been following this week is the growing pressure on Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial president of Zimbabwe, to step down. He has wreaked havoc and terror on the people of his country for years and years, but things appear to be reaching a tipping point, despite his brutal tactics. Inflation is at 1700% annually (if you bought a gallon of gas today at $1.65, this time next year it would cost over $27) and people are growing tired of his senseless torture and killing of most anyone who disagrees with him. Though this situation does not appear to have reached a point of change as far as most of the world is concerned, Zimbabweans are ready to lay down their lives for change, even if no one else comes to support them. They’ve had enough.

I’m troubled that I’m paying twenty cents more for gas than I was a month ago.

One item in our produce order today was strawberries – two hundred of them. The wedding couple on Sunday wants strawberries served with each glass of champagne. (They must have seen Pretty Woman.) The berries we got came from Chile. They traveled over two continents, being sold and resold by who knows how many people, and were still cheap enough to be used as a garnish on a glass. Perhaps it would have been enough to have passed out the champagne at this March wedding, or else to have gotten married when strawberries were in season.

The rest of the menu is a Boston Bibb lettuce salad (wrapped in cucumber with grape tomatoes and carrot curls), rock shrimp with kalamata olives and tomato-basil sauce over penne, filet mignon with roasted fingerling potatoes and bundled root vegetables or statler chicken breast with herbed risotto and asparagus, and wedding cake. There are also passed hors d’oeuvres, a cheese display, and an antipasto platter.

I don’t mean to pick on the happy couple. From time to time, I’m challenged to come to terms with the fact that I work in an industry that encourages excess, at least on some levels. This is one of those times. As easy as it is for me to disparage the national chain restaurants, I have to give it to Fridays. They are taking concrete action to do something where few others have done anything at all. Sunday night, I may talk about how much excess food we are sending out, and I’ll still keep filling the plates. Maybe we won’t fill them quite so full.

Some days while I’m chopping and stirring and thinking on these things, I wonder if a restaurant can be a fair trader, environmentally conscious, economically fair to its employees, thoughtful in its portioning, clear in its identity, affordable in price, hospitable in atmosphere, and profitable. (I realize I’m not inventing the wheel here – I’m sure it’s being done somewhere and it’s just that I don’t know about it.) A place like that would be enough for me.

Enough – that might even be a good name for it.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: just notice

It could have been a roomful of friends gathered for coffee, based on the way they greeted one another and talked, cups in hand. They were meeting in a church parish hall, where the congregation normally gathers for coffee hour after morning worship; these folks would easily fit in.

It could have been a book group, or even a Bible study, based on the way they gathered around big tables set up in a square, shared readings, and then told their own stories.

It could have been a group gathered for a cause, based on the passion with which they spoke and their determination to succeed at their task.

It was the Alcoholics Anonymous group where I took my friend this morning. I had never been to one. The room was peopled with about twenty folks of varying ages who didn’t look any different than anyone else. Actually, the way I first noticed them was in thinking that I didn’t stand out in the group. I looked just like them and, like them, I headed to the coffee pot as soon as I walked in the room. There were announcements, some reading from the Big Book, and then the person chairing the meeting told his story and then opened it up for anyone else to speak. Eight or nine people raised their hands.

As each one began, they would say their name and then add, “And I’m an alcoholic.” The entire group would respond with a warm hello. When they were finished, the group would thank them in unison. Their various stories hung between the group’s words like a hammock between two palm trees, offering comfort and rest. The topic today had to do with acknowledging our Higher Power. Many talked about their struggles with faith, about bordering on agnosticism, about having to learn about grace. One man, a tall, sturdy, Liam Neeson-looking character, spoke about advice he had gotten from his spiritual director: “just notice.” “If I need evidence of God,” he said, “all I need to do is just notice what is going on around me.”

I noticed the people in the room, once again: the old man with the big glasses who spoke of the grief of losing his wife, the two guys in the back who looked like they were on their way to a Sox game, the woman who made the lemon squares, the woman in the wheelchair, the guy with the pony tail that chaired the meeting, and my friend, who looks a lot like a hobo at the end of a long trip right now, who sat silently with head down for most of the meeting. I noticed the hope in their stories informed by pain and desperation that gave them reason to trust that life would not always be as it had been. They were making intentional choices to change.

Nora Gallagher tells of her encounter with a woman who suffered from such a severe depression that she had to be hospitalized from time to time.

“I go to the Oaks when I cannot stand it anymore,” she said. “We call it the Schiz Ritz. I read the words over the door when I go in, each time, and they give me some kind of dignity.” And then she paused and collected herself and said, “And it is where my daughter is now.”

And then the woman read the inscription on the bottom of her apron. “Non est vivere sed valerie vita,” she read: “Not only to live, but to live valorously.” And if we had been the magi then, we would have gathered our gifts and traveled toward her, toward someone who was not only willing to shape her vulnerability into words but brave enough to speak them. (183)

When the meeting was over, I noticed the way in which the big guy who told us to notice and the pony-tailed man traveled toward my friend and began to talk, offering their gifts. They had a book of all the meetings in the area. They asked a few questions. They told a little more of their stories. They wrote down their phone numbers. When my friend said phone access was difficult right now, Liam Neeson replied, “Anyone can find a way to get to a phone,” and then he smiled.

When we got in the car, my friend didn’t seem to know what to do with a roomful of people who understood, who wanted to help, and weren’t going to take any excuses.

The King James Bible says the prodigal son went into the far country and wasted all of his money and a good bit of his life on “riotous living,” which is a wonderfully evocative phrase. When he turned toward home, I don’t think he ever imagined another chance to live valorously, as if he had ever lived valorously. He came back to be a slave mostly because his father’s slaves ate better than the pigs he had been eating with. On the long and dusty walk home, he practiced his speech, hoping for a chance to beg forgiveness from the father he had wounded so deeply.

By the time the son got to make his speech, it was moot: the father had already forgiven him and had moved on to throwing a welcome home party. As grateful as the son must have been, I’ve often wondered if the party was painful for him. My sense is before he left he was an entitled brat who probably made life miserable for the very servants who were now blowing up balloons and filling ice buckets. He had ridden away on a cloud of pretense and pomposity only to come back empty-handed and embarrassed. It might have been an easier night if they had made him a human piñata. Did they really believe he could shift from riotous to valorous living? How could they believe when he didn’t?

Grace hurts, sometimes, because we have to grow into ones who are able to receive it.

Tomorrow will be the third day of my friend’s sobriety. I keep praying they will be able to grow into the grace that surrounds them.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: what I can do

While I was preparing for the weddings at the Inn this weekend, I listened to a story on All Things Considered about some people in Missouri going to a class to become storm spotters. The reporter began by talking about all the new technology NOAA has at its disposal and then went on to quote one of the meteorologists who said the best way to know about the weather was to talk to someone on the ground where it was happening. He went on to describe what he was trying to do in the class: “You do not have to attend this class to spot a mile-wide tornado producing 250-mph winds bearing down on Osage Beach. If I can put you in a position to identify the type of thunderstorm you're dealing with before the storm produces its weather, in particular tornadoes, then we can save lives together.”

From my vantage point in front of the TV, being a meteorologist – at least the TV variety – seems like a great job. You get to play with some cool toys and you can be wrong fairly regularly and still get paid. In New England, they even get to hedge their bets on the high and low temperatures because of the variety of landscape. This morning one of them said, “The high today will be 41 to 46.” I often think of George Carlin doing Al Sleet, the “Hippy Dippy Weatherman”: “My apologies to the former residents of Pocatello, Idaho. That storm caught you folks napping, man.” Meteorology is by no means an exact science, yet we often look at the screen to see what the weather is rather than look out the window.

Beyond chill factors and heat inversions, the most difficult forecasts to make involve the weather of the heart. The internal tornadoes steal up stealthily and can do some serious damage. I spotted one tonight after work and spent the evening with the one caught in the turmoil. They would move around their apartment as if they were having an out of body experience, then plop down in the big leather chair and say, “What should I do?”

This past weekend on the retreat we looked at the story of Jesus’ healing of the man at the pool at Bethsaida. The guy had come everyday to the pool for thirty-eight years, hoping to be healed. But he could never get to the water first, since he was lame, so he had set himself up to lose. Before Jesus healed him, he asked a question: “Do you want to get well?”

It’s one of my favorite questions in the Bible and also another place where I wish the gospel writers has conveyed more of the tone in which the words were spoken. It could be asked like a truck stop waitress taking an order, a therapist waxing rhetorical, or a friend trying to figure out how to help. (I’m sure those are not all of the options.) What I hear in Jesus’ voice is informed compassion. He can see both the man’s pain as well as the way in which the man has set himself up to stay in pain. If he’d been at the pool for thirty-eight years, then a good bit of his identity was wrapped up in being the lame guy who never makes it to the water. To be healed would mean he was not that guy anymore after a lifetime of living that role. Did he want to get well?

One of the other stories we read was from Acts 3 where Peter and John encounter a different lame man begging at the city gate as they entered. “We don’t have any money,” Peter said, “but we’ll give you what we have. In the name of Jesus, get up and walk.”

When Ginger and I first moved to Boston, that story came to life in a new way. We were trying to help start a new church (and quickly learned neither of us is much of an evangelist). We, too, had very little money and also faced a pretty steep learning curve when it came to becoming a part of Boston life and culture. We talked about how we would finish the thought: we’ll give you what we have. In the name of Jesus . . .

The pain my friend is bearing is their story to tell, not mine. How I help bear the load is mine. The storm has been raging awhile, so there’s already a good bit of damage done. When they survey the wreckage, they feel worthless. “How many chances do you get before God gives up on you?” they asked.

I know the answer to this one experientially: “As many as it takes. God doesn’t give up.”

I meant the words when I said them and then realized the only reason I know they are true is because they were incarnated to me – someone let those words become flesh in my life. If my friend is going to believe them, I must inhabit them in the days (months?) to come. I can’t give up either. In the morning we are taking the first step together: I’m taking him to get help.

Whether the storm damage is irreparable to their family, job, and life is a question that won’t be answered quickly. Whether they want to get well, or are willing to do what it will take to get well is still up for grabs. But they said yes to going to get help tomorrow. In the name of Jesus, I can go and take them to where the help is.

I want them to get well, too.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: yes, you can

For most of the Marches we have lived here Ginger and I have spent a day together at the New England Flower Show. For the first few years, we would forget it was going on until we saw an advertisement and then we’d scramble to get to the Bayside Expo Center before it closed. Six or seven years ago, we discovered we could join the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and get free tickets with our membership that were mailed to us in February and gave us time to plan when we wanted to go.

Our day at the show has a very particular arc. We enter the main exhibit hall, drop off our coats at the coat check (since Spring doesn’t follow the calendar in these parts), and then walk through the exhibits in the main hall. This year, my favorite was a series of dining tables set in garden settings, each one done by a different group or company. The place settings, centerpieces, and decorations gave a hint of what kind of meal might be served at each table. Some of them gave me the sense that whoever decorated them never thought about sitting down to eat, only having people stand around and talk about how pretty the table looked.


The theme for this year’s show is “Yes, you can!” which I think has more to do with encouragement than with granting permission. I suppose they wanted us to look at the tables and the arrangements and the landscaping exhibits and think, “We could do that in our back yard.” I like the idea – though, for some of the things, a better theme would be “Yes, you can -- if you have a bunch of money,” in the same way Steve Martin used to joke, “OK, I’m going to tell you how to be a millionaire. First, get a million dollars.” One of the reasons I go to the show is to be inspired to think about getting our garden ready for Spring and about what I vegetables I want to plant, even though we are weeks away from any serious planting. From our visits to the Flower Show over the years we have gotten some great ideas and learned we can do a lot of things, even without a huge bankroll.

Once we circle through the main hall, we move to the exhibit hall in the back of the building. Our most important stop is the first: the Iguana Cantina, a Mexican food booth done by the Cactus Club restaurant in Boston. They have a small counter that seats four where we have margaritas and quesadillas and have a conversation with the guy running things who is one of the managers from the restaurant in town. Every year we have a different conversation with him. This year’s focused on two things: his almost one-year old daughter and his love of winemaking.

I loved how animated he became as he talked about making wine in his basement. He has barrels from both France and America. He buys the grapes from the Napa Valley. As he talked, his story meandered from remembering his father and grandfather making what amounted to spiked grape juice when he was a kid to his dream of creating a business where he could help people make their own really good wine. While he talked, the people working with him were handing out beers and burritos as fast as they could and he never lost track of his task at hand. I suppose it could also be said the other way around: as he dished out the food like a short order cook he never lost sight of his dream.

Across from his booth was one of the event banners: “Yes, you can!” I hope he saw it.

We’ve talked to this guy for at least the last three years, which means his dream is aging right along side of the wine he’s making. If his dream is to come true, it will be because he was willing to carry it to term, to live through the discomfort and hope of the gestation period, however long it may be. (That’s probably about as far as a male writer can carry a pregnancy metaphor without losing credibility.)

Dreams don’t come true overnight, anymore than gardens grow quickly. I planted Brussels sprouts last June and ate them in October. The trees we planted six summers ago only now are beginning to shade our front porch from the afternoon sun. All we could do was plant the trees, tend to them, and wait for them to grow. Some dreams take money, but all of them take time.

After lunch, we walk up and down the aisles of the exhibit hall, looking at the various gardening tool demonstrations, fence and stone displays, statuary stores, artists’ booths, and, of course, the fudge vendor. We rarely buy anything other than food and drink, except the occasional Christmas or Mother’s Day present. (We found one of each.) Then we go back to coat check and leave the flowers for the cold wind of the parking lot and the drive back home.

Though the wind did blow today, the cloudless sky meant there was not as much snow in the yard when we got home tonight as there was when we left. Spring officially snuck in tonight, but will also have to wait awhile to come true in these parts. By Easter, perhaps, the daffodils along our front fence line will begin to poke their heads up, followed by the tulips. When the hostas begin to come up, I’m going to have to split them this year because, five years on, they are huge and need to be thinned out. I’ve also got to move several things around one of the hydrangeas because I was shortsighted in my planting a couple of years back and didn’t leave enough room for it to grow. I planted it as it was, not as it could become. Though our garden is mostly perennials, there is much to do to keep it growing and healthy. Though I think I know what’s there, I’m always surprised.

Tomorrow I will head back to the Inn to cook and dream about where my cooking will lead me someday. I have a brochure from the Flower Show. Maybe I’ll put it up on the bulletin board under my to do list.

“Yes, you can!”

Peace,
Milton