lenten journal: photographer's light

One of the photographs of Jesus I keep
in the wallet of my mind is of him
looking out over Jerusalem.

The sun is burning the last bits of blue
out of the Palestinian sky as it sets,
making room for the night.

There is enough light to see the tears
running down his cheeks as he
talks about mother hens.

The gospel accounts would have me think
that I possess a one of a kind photo,
but -- after a day like today

when I’ve sat with my friends and heard
the grief harbored in their hearts,
I begin to understand

it could have been taken on any one
of the nights he walked the earth,
at most any sunset.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: don't faith alone

We’ve been spending Saturday mornings during Lent with Job at our church: coffee, fruit, pastries, and suffering – what a way to spend a weekend. I’m the discussion leader and the guy who starts the coffee pot, so I get there early to get both the pot and my mind percolating. This morning we looked at the first cycle of conversations between Job and his three alleged friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Zogood).

I was rereading passages, browsing through commentaries, and trying to pull my thoughts together when I came across a section in one of the commentaries that talked about the significance of Job’s physical sufferings. The world came crashing in on Job first, with the loss of his possessions, then the loss of his family, and then the infliction of the seeping, painful sores that left him scraping his skin on the dung heap. The reality of his crumbling body brought him face to face with his physical finitude. But there’s more to it than that. The commentator said the significance of the bodily ailments pointed to the fact that our bodies are “organs of perception”: each of us understands the world physically, through our senses and our experiences. We are not objective. What we see and taste and smell and touch and hear and feel is what we experience.

One of the most fascinating things about reading This Is Your Brain on Music was Levitin’s explanation of what happens physically in our brains when we hear a song, and when we are moved emotionally by a melody. The Hebrews understood something we are having to relearn as Westerners drenched in Greek dualism: body, mind, and spirit are intrinsically connected; they cannot be separated. What we experience spiritually has physical ramifications and vice versa. Our bodies are not merely temporal shells for our eternal souls; every last bit of our beings makes us who we are and influences who we can become.

When Ginger was doing her doctoral work at ETS in Detroit, she took a class called “The Body as a Means of Grace.” The textbook was Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork. I remembered the title as I was reading the commentary. During our study time, Ginger talked about the physical work they did – movement, Reiki, meditation – and the spiritual experiences that came about as a result. Our bodies’ knowledge is intimate and direct. It even shows up in our language in ways that slip by us: we are touched by songs and books, moved by music and movies. The words are as physical as the experiences.

When I was on staff at University Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas, one of the pastors from University Christian Church, down the block, came to our staff meeting to talk about similarities and differences in our worship services. When we asked why they observed Communion every week, she answered, “Because we want to experience Christ with all of our senses in worship, not just by sight and hearing.” Then she quoted Psalm 34: “O, taste and see that the Lord is good.”

My Australian blog buddy, Simon Carey Holt, just began a new pastorate and writes beautifully about his first taste of community there:

Once installed last Sunday as the pastor of Collins Street, the very first thing I got to do was to lead the church at the table ... the breaking of bread and sharing of wine. I am glad that’s where it began.

For me, there is no better image of salvation than of a table prepared by God. It is a place of open invitation where all estrangement disappears. It’s a place of extraordinary intimacy but never exclusivity, one of challenge but never judgement; a shared table of healing, sustenance and hope. What’s more, as people of that table we are called to beckon the stranger with the same open hospitality that draws us.

Communion is both a metaphorical and material image of the physicality of our faith. We eat together, we feed each other, and there are always leftovers. The reality that my perception of the world, and of God, is only available to me through my physical senses, meaning there is no way I can be objective and that truth is always going to be larger than I am, means faith, like life, has to be a team sport. Figuring out our faith is the live action version of the fable of the blind men and the elephant: each of us hold of a different part and we need each other for a more complete view.

Don’t eat alone; don’t faith alone, either.

Around our table this morning were some who know firsthand the despair of depression, some who are living through the pain of broken relationships, some who are grieving over the loss of loved ones, some who are living with cancer and other serious illnesses, some contemplating major life changes, and there were only ten of us around the table. As we read aloud what the three friends had to say to Job in the midst of his pain, we found ourselves on both sides of the conversation. We knew what it felt like for well-meaning people to say things that did not help because they felt like they needed to say something to cope with their own sense of helplessness and we knew what it felt like to be one of those well-meaning people wondering what to say and wishing we could do something to help. Sometimes, the best we can do is remember a line from Alice in Wonderland: “Don’t just do something; stand there.”

Tonight, I am reminded of an old story from Martin Bell’s wonderful book, The Way of the Wolf, called “The Porcupine Whose Name Didn’t Matter.” I offer it here, even though it makes for an extra long post, because it belongs.

Once upon a time there was a cautious Porcupine name Joggi. Joggi lived with the mystery of his own life, much as any other porcupine, but he was exceedingly cautious. Joggi lived and loved, laughed and cried tentatively. One might say that anger, frustration, and tenderness had been so delicately woven into the fabric of his person as to make it difficult for us to perceive.

Joggi was cautious in the face of the mystery of life. So cautious, in fact, that almost nobody knew his name. Most of the animals in the forest who had seen the near-sighted porcupine moving slowly about, poking his pointed black nose into the vegetation, bristling and puffing, squinting and stumbling. Few had spoken to him.

Now and then, someone would say hello and attempt to strike up a conversation. It never really led to anything. When asked what his name was, he would answer: "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what my name is, can't you see, what difference does it make? It doesn't matter". More often than not, that would be the end of the conversation.

Joggi could not embrace another, he would not tell anyone his name. And the result was almost always the same -- the other animals avoided him. With one exception, this was Gamiel, the raccoon. It did not bother him when the prickly little porcupine was silent for hours at a time. And he never even thought to ask about Joggi's name. Gamiel could remember very little before the accident, and much of what had happened since was blurred somewhere in the recesses of his brain, all but lost to memory.

Raccoons are generally alert and resourceful creatures with keen perceptions and excellent memories. But all of this had changed. There had been a flash of light and then something hard ripped into the side of his head. His whole body convulsed with pain, white-hot, thrashing, 'God-when-will-it-stop' pain, that pitched him bleeding from the tree into the under-bush. Screaming pain that shrieked behind his eyes the one and only word of hope he knew, and then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.

Everything changed. He did not even look like a raccoon. The whole left side of his head was missing, he could barely pull himself along with his right front leg. Gamiel had only to look at himself in the forest pond to realize why everyone hurried past when he called out to them. Except, ever since the accident, Gamiel had been totally blind.

Joggi found Gamiel about 2 days after the pain had stopped, and approximately 3 hours after the raccoon had given up all hope. "Is someone there?", Gamiel whispered. At first, Joggi didn't say anything, the near-sighted porcupine moved closer. "You are a raccoon", he said out loud. "Oh yes, indeed I am", Gamiel stuttered. "Only I think something awful has happened to me. I cannot see anything at all, and I can barely move. Please tell me what has happened to me. Am I going to die? Why won't anyone stop when I cry out? Why can't I see? Please, I'm afraid".

And in Gamiel's searching, empty, sightless eyes, tears began to form. Joggi sniffed and said to himself: answer him. Don't just stand there with your spines bristling and your heart pounding, answer him. Joggi spoke with a steady and quiet voice: "I believe you have been shocked. I cannot be certain, of course, but that is my opinion. Are you in a great deal of pain?" "No, at first there was pain, but I can't feel anything now. In fact, my whole left side is numb. No, no more pain. Just, well, nothing".

Joggi was silent. His tiny body shivering, breathing labored, short, difficult breaths. Gamiel spoke in a hoarse voice: "Are you still there?". Joggi's heart beat faster. "Yes, I'm here. I was just wondering what to do now?". "Oh, you don't have to do anything. Honestly, I mean that, you don't have to do anything at all. Just stay with me for a little while. Just stay there. Just don't go away. Please. I'm afraid. You won't go away, will you?" Joggi swallowed hard. "No, no I won't go away". "Thank you", Gamiel said quietly. And then the wounded raccoon fell asleep.

Joggi stood beside Gamiel all that day. Then when evening came, a cool breeze made his spines whistle slightly, the sound woke the raccoon. "Are you there?". "Yes, I told you I wouldn't go away". "I'm hungry". "I thought you might be", Joggi replied. "Can you move at all?". Gamiel stretched his right leg forward and pulled himself along the ground. "Good for you", said Joggi, "that will do nicely. I can bring you food, but you will need to maneuver for yourself in order to get water. I believe you have enough strength to reach the pond, it isn't very far, and I can guide you directly to it. Come on, let's see how it goes".

That was how it began. An unusual partnership perhaps, certainly the rest of the animals in the forest were surprised to see the pair of them moving slowly about, managing to live from one day to the next without really doing much of anything. Occasionally Joggi would describe something for Gamiel, or answer a question, or direct the crippled raccoon toward a tasty morsel of food. Gamiel, for his part, chattered happily, basked in the sun, and generally enjoyed his friend's company.

They made a home for one another, Joggi and Gamiel. Not a regular home, exactly, not a place. More like a shelter from the excessive pain that each of them had known. A coming together of two lonely and frightened creatures. A bond of trust that asked no questions, expected nothing at all except the merciful being together that made waking up tomorrow possible.

Joggi was with Gamiel for one full year before the injured raccoon finally died. It was a quiet event, almost a surprise, but that Joggi had been expecting for so long. Gamiel's strength just finally gave out. "You know, I've been expecting this for quite some time now", Joggi said to the raccoon, who lay their on the ground no longer able to hear. "I'm surprised that you managed to stay alive as long as you did. I knew the day that I found you that it couldn't last, and yet, well, I hoped it might have been a little longer. Do you know what I mean? You see, I never knew anybody very well before. Not that we ever talked much, or anything like that, but I felt like I knew you anyway, even without talking. I have a really hard time talking to anybody, or getting to know anybody. And nobody ever wants to get very close to me because of all these spines that I have sticking out of me. I don't suppose that you ever knew that I had spines sticking out all over me, did you? They're sort of like needles, and they're sharp. I guess they scare everybody a bit. I hope you don't mind my talking so much."

"I really don't know why I'm talking to you now. I really suppose it's just that I had a little more to tell you before you died. I have been wanting to say this for almost a year and never quite found the right time to do it. It's too late now, I realize, but I've been wanting to tell you that it has been an honor to meet you, and that you indeed are a very handsome raccoon. And that I would like to consider you my friend.".

The porcupine cleared his throat. Tears dropped onto his nose. “Tell him,” he said to himself, “don't just stand there with your spines bristling and your heart pounding, tell him.”

"Oh, and by the way, I'd like to tell you what my name is. It's a funny name, I suppose, but I'd like you to know what it is. It's Joggi." Without another word, the tiny porcupine turned away from Gamiel's lifeless body, and began to cry.

“Hospitality is salvation,” says Diana Butler Bass. I think she’s on to something, as are the rest of us.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: proximity matters

After a week with my in-laws, a week where I didn’t have to work and had time to cook dinner in the evenings, I’ve had two days of double shifts split between lunch at the Duke restaurants (making soups, mostly) and evening catering jobs, one on a grand scale (520 people) and the other, a family’s holiday party (eighty people and a big house, but small by comparison). Though the two events were for the same reason, I found tonight’s much easier, and more fun, because I was in someone’s house – in their kitchen – cooking for friends. As I put platters together to go to the table, I stood in the eye of the storm of affection and connection that swirled though the house, fueled by laughter, conversation, and a good amount of wine. The same dynamic may have been a part of the larger event, but I never saw any of the people I was feeding; that was the difference.

Proximity matters.

My most recent Raymo readings (before my double shifts) found him talking about the dark matter that makes up most of the universe, continuing to puzzle astronomers and most anyone else who thinks about it:

“Ninety-seven percent of the stuff in the universe,” I said,” is stuff about which we know absolutely nothing.” “It is probably the best stuff, too,” my friend replied. The turth is that astronomers do not as yet have any idea what this “stuff” is that holds the stars in their galactic orbits. (104)

He goes on to say the thinking about what may fill it has more to do with small than large.

Other forms of “dark stuff” have been suggested by the physicists who investigate the realm of the subatomic: hoards of neutrinos, each endowed with an imperceptible whiff of mass; or a gas of yet-to-be-discovered “gravitinos” or “photinos” or “axions,” particles a trillion times lighter than electrons, hypothetical entities that no one could have thought of them did not wander like a pilgrim among the modern kingdoms of Prester John, the worlds of infinitely large and infinitely small. (105)

The more I read Raymo (and watch things like TED talks), the more I begin to understand today’s scientists are people of imagination, mystery, and even faith. These folks are looking into the night sky and imagining – even describing and naming – magnificently minuscule particles that might fill up the darkness. L’Engle agrees, getting to the same place by another way:

Science, literature, art, theology: it is all the same ridiculous, glorious, mysterious language. (209)

I drove to Chapel Hill this evening listening to stories about the climate change conference in Copenhagen, troops being deployed to Afghanistan from right here in North Carolina, among other things. Whatever the technological medium, I can be bounced around the world in a minute, challenged to take in more information than I know what to do with. The term “global village” may work as a metaphor as far as how information can be disseminated, but it breaks down when it comes to describing what holds us together. We are left feeling like the astronomers, wondering what is in the dark matter between us. Even in the smaller party this evening, I noticed those who talked to me as though I were a person and those who only saw the uniform and allowed me to become as invisible as a gravitino.

I came home tonight to news that a friend far away is in critical condition. I found messages from other mutual friends, all of us trying to find each other in the dark, counting on our connectedness to get us through the questions we have tonight and the explanations that will come tomorrow. I stood alone in a room filled with people tonight and came home to an empty house to feel close to my friends all because of our shared pain: we needed to find each other.

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general. (L’Engle 193)

Proximity matters. Like love, we feel pain when it has a face, a name. Our names, the subatomic stuff of the universe, connect us and bind us together in the dark.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: the specificity of sacredness

I’m not sure the first time that it happened; over twenty years, I’ve lost count of how many times we have repeated the scene. Ginger always begins the conversation, and the statement generally comes out of nowhere:

“OK,” she’ll say, “name three reasons you love me.”

And I name three specific things – three the-way-you-wear-your-hat kind of things -- that pull me to her as to no other because it is in the details of life that love finds a place to live and grow. I know what love is because of those details, though I’m hard pressed to write a definition that explains it. We talk about love as a feeling, but that idea quickly runs out of steam. Madeleine L’Engle quotes Hugh Bishop of Mirfield (not to be confused with the other Hugh Bishops) who said, “Love is not an emotion. It is a policy” (45). It is, as Billy Joel sang, a matter of trust.

Many years ago before Ginger and I even met, I saw Alan Alda interviewed by Barbara Walters and she asked about his then twenty-five year old marriage, commenting that bonds like that didn’t hold well in the Hollywood. “How did you do it?” she asked.

“We just kept our promises,” he answered. “We said we would love each other through life and we have. Everyone is looking for a custom fit in an off the rack world.”

The simplicity of the metaphor stuck with me as worth remembering. He wasn’t saying just find someone and get on with it. He was saying when you decide to love, then love. Don’t keep looking to find a better fit. Let the veracity of your commitment shape you to fit. Pick three things, and then three more things, and then three more until you have a lifetime of reasons for finding love in the one who has kept the promises with you. L’Engle says a similar thing:

Love can’t be pinned down by a definition, and it certainly can’t be prove, any more than anything else important in life can be proved. Love is people, is a person . . . I am slowly coming to understand with my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person. It has a lot to do with compassion, and with creation. (43)

I was hardly through the paragraph before I was humming an old song by my friend, Billy Crockett called “Portrait of Love.” The premise of the song saw Paul as an artist painting a picture of Jesus with the words of 1 Corinthians 13. The chorus says:

Love is patient, love is kind
Never jealous, free of pride
Love will never be confine
And love will abide
Love is hopeful, love's not blind
Love is faithful, every time
Love is Someone, and
If you'll open your eyes, you'll find
That love is alive

I met with the other deacons around the Communion Table at the front of the sanctuary to practice before the service. We have been working on our consistency in serving the elements as a means of communicating how essential the Meal is for all of us. Making sure we are lined up as we need to be, or that we are clear about who will pass what, or that we move in some cohesive sense is not about being efficient or perfect as much as it one of intentionality our love for the congregation. We mean to be prepared to serve and share the meal. We mean to keep our promises in our little off the rack church, which means we have to be able to be involved in the moment and detached enough to see what we are creating together. L’Engle says it this way:

Detachment and involvement: the artist must have both. The link between them is compassion.

Sacredness requires specificity. The grand esoteric themes of theology have their place, but love takes root in those specific moments when we voluntarily and intentionally enter one another’s pain. “God so loved the world” makes sense when love has a name and is lying in the manger. The Incarnation (big theological concept) comes alive in the person of Jesus, God with us in all our off the rackness, all our struggles, in all our, well, lives.

In the specific person of Jesus, God says, “Me, too” in a way that had not been said before. The stories in the gospels are full of specifics, Jesus making particular movements, though not spectacular ones, to offer compassion and healing. He stopped when the woman with the hemorrhage touched his coat. He asked Zacchaeus if he could come over to the house. He wrote in the sand to move the focus off the adulterous woman in John 8 to take the attention off of her for at least a moment. He offered Peter breakfast.

On the way to church this morning, I heard an interview on Weekend Edition Sunday with the authors of Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between. The book is a humorous and thoughtful look at how people regard the afterlife, the authors having chosen to tell jokes to get their points across. Here is the title joke:

Heidegger and a Hippo stroll up to the Pearly Gates, and Saint Peter says, “Listen, we’ve only got room for one more today. Whoever gives me the best answer to “What is the meaning of life?” gets in.

Heidegger says, “To think Being itself requires disregarding Being to the extent that it is only grounded and interpreted in terms of things and for beings as their ground, as in all metaphysics.”

But before the hippo can grunt one word, Saint Peter says to him, “Today’s your lucky day, Hippy!”

The Incarnation is a mind-blowing theological concept. How do we explain God with skin on? We don’t – we can’t, anymore than we can define love. But when we look at the specific brush strokes of Jesus’ encounters with those around him, we begin to get the picture, to see the portrait of Love. When we gather together at the Table and participate in the simple act of passing bread and wine to one another, we remember Jesus, as in we re-member the Body of Christ and put it back together again. Love lives in the looks, the touch, the simple words of affirmation, the daily acts of recalling the promises we’ve made and keeping them.

Peace,
Milton

the fellowship of the broken

I have several friends who are authors.

Not that I’ve ever met them, you understand. They don’t even know who I am. Yet I count them as friends because their words have helped me to learn and grow. And so I carry deep gratitude and affection toward Madeleine L’Engle, Frederick Buechner, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Henri Nouwen, to name a few. I thought of Nouwen in particular tonight when I got email today about The TED Prize that was awarded to Karen Armstrong (also an author) in 2008 and culminated today in the launching of the Charter for Compassion. Armstrong is a former nun who has become one of the world’s best and best-known religious historians and probably one of the few people in the world who actually understands Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The Charter for Compassion is her initiative to call people together by beginning with the understanding that compassion and interconnectedness lie at the heart of most all of the world’s religions. The charter begins:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

I still haven’t gotten to how Henri Nouwen fits in to all of this. Well, I have to back up a few years.

Try twenty-five years.

In the early eighties, Nouwen wrote a book called Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life that I bought and read and read again. In it, he gave me the best working definition of compassion – voluntarily entering the pain of another – and he made the case for that compassion being a “uniquely Christian virtue.” As one blurb explains:

At first sight compassion seems to be a natural, instinctive, human response to others’ pain and suffering. But on closer inspection the authors conclude that for the Christian true compassion is born only out of prayerful reflection on the implications of the Incarnation and the demands it makes on all who would follow in the footsteps of the Man of Sorrows.

As I listened to Armstrong talk, I wondered what he would do if he were here to read her offering. Would the priest and the former nun find they were on the same page? The question is fun to think about, but it’s not the one driving me to write tonight. Listen to Nouwen:

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

The Fellowship of the Broken. Yes.

As I read his words again, I realize I understand what he is talking about because of the Incarnation, because of my faith in Christ and the lessons I learn from Jesus’ life. When I listen to Armstrong, I understand the Fellowship of the Broken is not limited to Christians any more than we can claim to have a corner on the truth (or the Truth). We are called to care for one another because we are all God’s children.

God’s broken children.

Nouwen was compelling because he lived a life of true compassion, actually entering pain he could not comprehend. He asked to be sent to the poorest parish in the world to work even as he was becoming a well-known writer and speaker; he also spent years as a part of the L’Arche Community. No doubt his faith was what compelled him to make those choices. The same was true for Gandhi, yet the faith that led him down the same path of brokenness was not called by the same name.

Before we even join churches or mosques or synagogues, we are a part of the Fellowship of the Broken. Coming to terms with that connection and committing ourselves to compassionate living is what will begin to put us back together.

Take a minute and watch the video.



Peace,
Milton

life is a restaurant

Part of what makes working in a restaurant kitchen interesting is you never really know who is coming for dinner and when they are planning to come. At the Durham restaurant we take reservations, so we do know the answer a good bit of the time, yet last Sunday night we had reservations for forty and we served ninety by the time the evening was over. More than half of the people just showed up to become part of that evening’s story.

The Duke restaurant is even less predictable because our major client base is the student body and, even though we are a fairly spiffy sit-down restaurant, we are, in their minds, a dining hall. Who needs to make reservations for the dining hall? One night last week a group of seventeen walked in for dinner. They were followed by two groups of seven, two groups of six, and three groups of four, and all of them were seated within fifteen minutes of each other.

In what has become an unintentional series of blog posts, I thought I might add life is a restaurant to the list: you spend most of your time getting ready, you don’t know who is going to show up or how long they will stay, and the point is to feed people and let them enjoy being together. Not bad.

The idea has set me to thinking about the people who have wandered (wondered?) into my life, though I have to say the metaphor breaks down a bit here because the ones who came to mind were people who fed me as much or more than I did them. They came to mind because of what is going on at our church. We are getting ready for a big celebration of our own in early October marking the tenth anniversary of our congregation’s choice to be intentionally Open and Affirming, which is to say we welcome everyone. Period. The O&A designation has particular significance to the gay and lesbian communities because they are not always sure where they are welcome, when it comes to church. We wanted to make it clear.

I grew up Southern Baptist, so I know all the arguments and verses folks use to say gays and lesbians have to straighten up (pun intended) to be acceptable. I’m not writing to pick that fight. I started to write, “The conversation is difficult because no one comes in willing to have their minds or hearts changed.” Here’s the thing: I’m writing about this metaphor because it’s how my heart and mind were changed.

I’m chasing a metaphor, remember?

In the restaurant that is my life, I’m grateful for more people than I can count who have dropped in, but tonight I want to point to four people – four gay men – whom God used to shape my life. The first is my friend, Jay, who was my first gay friend. I don’t mean he was the first gay or lesbian person I ever met, but he was the first one with whom I developed a long-lasting friendship. When we lived in Boston, he came up from Texas every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas for about a decade and then, when he moved to Boston, he lived with us for a year while he was finding work and getting on his feet. We share history that connects us and stories that bind us together as intentional family. I’m thankful for Jay who has helped me learn to be a better friend.

The summer before I turned forty, I fell into an existential crisis about writing. I had said for years I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t feel like I was writing anything. So I signed up for a summer session at the Humber School for Writers in Toronto, which is where I met Timothy Findley. I worked with him in the workshops that week and then he served as my mentor in a one-year correspondence course to write a novel. (Yes, I did write a novel. No, it has never been published.) In conversations during the week, Tiff and I talked about writing and faith and life. He had started in the theater and was working in a play with Ruth Graham and Thornton Wilder when he published his first short story. Graham read it and told him to write. We made a strong connection with one another and continued writing after the class was over. Tim was an excellent writer, a thoughtful and faithful person, and he was gay. I’m grateful for Tiff who helped me recognize I am a writer.

My favorite Christmas gifts over the past few years have been experiences rather than possessions. Ginger does an amazing job of finding things for me to see and do that last long after the events are over. One of the best gifts she ever gave me was a class in Byzantine Iconography. I don’t mean to learn about them, or to admire them, but to paint (actually, the verb they use is to write) icons. For a week one January, and then weekly for many months to follow, I sat in the studio with Chris as he invited me into the spiritual practice of iconography. I learned ways to pray I had not known before. I learned so much about the history and significance of the images we were creating. I learned I was pretty good at writing the icons. And I found a real friend in Chris as well, whose gentle and vulnerable spirit was as much a window into heaven as the icons were. And he is gay. I’m thankful for Chris who showed me I am an artist and taught me how to pray with a brush.

The summer after we moved to Marshfield, I feel into a deep depression. I’ve written about it any number of times in these pages, so I’ll spare you the story now. One of the people who helped me find my way and make meaning of those dark days was Ken, who began as a my counselor and became my spiritual director as I sought to shift from looking at the depression to trying to find a more holistic perspective. Ken and I share a love of poetry and, on more than one occasion, he would end our session by saying, “I have a poem for you,” and he would hand me a photocopied sheet of something by Mary Oliver or Rumi or who knows that appeared to have been written just for me. I don’t know anyone else who incarnates the grace of God anymore than Ken. And Ken is gay. I’m grateful to Ken for helping me see life is full of meaning, even when I was depressed.

All four people helped shape my life and my faith. God has spoken to me through them, God has incarnated grace and love and hope and faith in their words and actions. I am the person and the Christian I am today because of the love and care of these four men. These four gay men. Don’t get me wrong. They don’t get all the blame. There are many others, gay and straight, whose love has carried me. Still, in the restaurant that is my life I could not feed those who drop in had it not been for the nourishment offered me by these four friends.

Every Sunday at our church, Ginger begins by quoting a UCC slogan:

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey,
You’re welcome here.

Yes, I know it’s the UCC and that we are the liberals whose theology, as one Texas Baptist pastor used to say, “killed the Church of England.” (Another friend says it this way: if Christianity were a neighborhood, we’d be the last house on the left.) I also know, at the very bottom of it all, it’s about what you do with people way before what you do with Bible verses. One of the choruses I learned in youth group in the Seventies we sang last Sunday:

we are one in the Spirit we are one in the Lord
we are one in the Spirit we are one in the Lord
and we pray that our unity will one day be restored
and they’ll know we are Christians by our love by our love
yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love

Come, the table is now ready.

Peace,
Milton

waking up

I’m about a week and a half into the resurrection of the ritual of writing my Morning Pages and I’m already feeling a shift. I’m getting used to getting up and, other than making the coffee, letting those three handwritten pages be the first thing I do. Those scribbles are starting to shake up my soul.

Something about waking up with a pen in my hand seems to set the prevailing themes of thought for the day. I woke up today realizing I had not spoken to my parents or my brother in several days and I found time to call them this afternoon. On a more profound level, I’ve felt a growing sense of restlessness in my job of late and this morning I woke with Paul’s words leaking out through my fingers:

“[F]or I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

The seed was planted last night when Ginger asked me if I was happy. When I said, “Yes,” she told me I didn’t always seem that way of late. And she’s right, yet the past few days have brought a shift. As a therapist told me long ago (and I have repeated here more than once, I’m sure), the only two things I can change in any given situation are what I do and say and how I feel. My control of the circumstances ends there. I was in a more observant place when I answered her question last night and followed her response by saying when I took time to remember who I get to spend my life with, my home, my friends, and the fact that I get to do something I love for a job, I think life is pretty good.

Two nights ago left me almost sleepless because I had brought home my frustration with me from work. The events of the day had left me feeling taken advantage of and I chose to pack my bitterness in a take out box rather than shake it off in the parking lot. The bleary-eyed morning pages that followed woke me to the realization that, rather than allow myself to feel victimized and bitter (as Cherry’s friend says, “Bitter is a flavor, not an emotion”), I need to speak up for myself (I’m working on that one) and I can chose how I want to feel at work. You see, part of the changes are I’ve been moved from cooking on the line to expediting the shift, which means I call the tickets and check the plates before they go out to the dining room. It also means I get to set the tone in the kitchen, for the most part.

I love the job.

After my morning musings, I came across Marcus Goodyear’s post at HighCallingBlogs.com and began to see the theme of my day, which was my day off. Part of what he had to say was:

We can talk about glorifying God through our work all we want, but if we’re not also serving our neighbor we are completely missing the point. We can’t love God without loving our neighbors. And loving our neighbors means showing mercy to them.

He also quoted a line from a Marge Piercy poem that is one of my favorites and worth including here.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

The real work of my life is in giving mercy: “a disposition to be kind and forgiving.” In the common tasks of the kitchen, I am called to contentment and compassion. I can’t do either one in my sleep. I have to be awake.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” Jesus said. Though my week has not necessarily borne that out, the real work of my life also entails leaning into those words as though they will come true, just as I must trust I am a vessel shaped to share love with those around me.

Sleeper, awake.

If I am going to be of use, I must remember every move matters: every cut of the knife, every spoon on a plate, every word from my mouth, every beat of my heart. If I am to be merciful, as I am called to be, I must be intentional. Compassion is not an accident. Neither, I suppose are bitterness or complacency.

The choice is mine.

Peace,
Milton

P.S. – How could I not end with this piece? And I love that the guy is sitting in his kitchen.