Happy New... Whatev's

Goddess is licking my face which is on the corner of the bed. It is way past time that I’m normally up and taking her for a walk.

“Happy New Year Pup,” I say.

She licks my face again.

I throw a pillow at her. She takes this as a sign to play and jumps into bed, tail a wagging, licking my face.

Stumbling to the shower I fall in.

“Goddess” I scream! “Turn the radio down!”

She ignores me. She can be such a bitch sometimes.

I fix coffee and pour the first cup over my head. I drink the second.

I turn on the computer and my dear friend Stacy wishes me a Happy New Year. Damn Stacy instant messages loudly!

Then my friend Dedra sends me a text and it’s even louder!

Sitting on the beloved back deck, Dean who runs the pier has a band playing or something. While the pier is about six blocks away, IT IS LOUD!

Wow. It hurt to type that.

If I had a rocket launcher Tybee Island would no longer have a pier.

OK. Happy New Year everyone!

It’s not a bad way to start. Thank God the last one is over.

My friend Claude in Louisville just to have this theory that years ending in even numbers were bad years and those ending in odd numbers were good. Of course he was from Louisiana and went to L. S.U. (which stands for “Let’s sober up” he once explained).

OK. I’m back.

I just enrolled in L.S.U.

The band on the pier is playing “Twist and Shout.”

I think that I can twist and fall down.

This is my first New Year’s Day in the United States in a long time. I now remember why I spend them in St. Martin.

Several years ago, in St. Martin I was dancing the night away when the band stopped in the middle of a song. The singer screamed “It’s time!”

Except he did it in French and I didn’t understand him. But the crowd rushed outside to the beach and I followed. Then fireworks blasted overhead. Then the remnants of fireworks fell down on our heads.

I looked over at my friend Nancy, a waitress at Papaguyo and she was crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Oh Micheal,” she said in broken English with a French accent, “I am pregnant!”

“I can prove where I was and who I was with,” I reply.

She looks at me trying to understand relationships in the United States.

Then I lean over and kiss her stomach.

“God bless your baby,” I say.

She hugs me and then we run back inside from the falling remnants of fireworks.

What a funny thing to remember this morning.

What a lovely thing to remember this morning.

This is a year of new things for me. The old has passed away. I wished it well last night. And today things look good as I sit on the beloved back deck, with Goddess asleep at my feet, wearing shorts and no underwear and no shoes.

Wait a minute.

I had underwear last night.

Any Excuse for a Party

I am contemplating having a party and setting my Christmas tree on fire.

Alone last night I sat staring at it sitting on the floor with my arm around Goddess. She is asleep. The television is on but I’m not paying it any attention.

There will be a few ornaments that I will keep. The angel that sits atop the tree is one Chelsea made for me when she was a little girl; the Snoopy sitting on top of Frosty that I made when I was a little boy. A Celtic cross, a Tasmanian thing Shirley gave me, my Grandfather tie made into an ornament by one of my aunts … these are the ones I will keep.

The rest are all hanging pieces of sadness; relics from another time when they represented togetherness, a house full of good cheer, and the promise of better things in the New Year.

I think taking the Christmas tree outside still decorated, with some friends over and setting it on fire would be a pretty good way to put all of that behind me. Only a third of the lights work anyway.

It’s an artificial tree so I suppose that lighter fluid will be involved.

It will take longer to burn so my friends can toast, drink and sing songs around the damn thing if they wanted to.

Maybe I could get my friend Chuck Courtenay or Sam Adams and Gordon to perform from the beloved back deck while the rest of us stand in the back yard watching it burn.

“Oh Tannenbaum” or “Come on Baby Light my Fire!”

Of course Tybee Island has more government than it’s ever had before and parts of the island now resemble a police state. I suppose a permit will be involved.

Shirley is my friend, neighbor, Mayor Pro-tem of the Island, actually in charge of most of Chatham County anyway and would of course be at the party. I have complete confidence in her abilities to secure the permit.

If not though I’ll invite Dr. Ricky Temple pastor of Overcoming By Faith Church and we’ll just tell the Tybee Island Fire Department that we are conducting a religious service and they have no jurisdiction over God’s burning bushes.

Come to think of it, April my friend runs the Fire Department and she and her husband James will of course be at the party singing around my burning Christmas tree. She can handle permit thing.

So I think that I am on to something. Today is my Mom’s birthday and that would be a great surprise for her!

So it is New Year’s Eve too. Whitley and I have already agreed to allow our bicycles to get drunk. Johnny O and Judy are meeting me later. Roma appears to have survived death again. At the Breakfast Club this morning, I sat in the back room leaning against Nancee, talking to Val, about these things.

But if you are going to go through Christmas and New Year’s alone for the first time in your life …

To hell with!

Any excuse for a party!!

Especially a good excuse!!!

Like little pieces of sadness hanging from the branches of a broken family tree.

Getting Ready

So I am sitting next to Dr. Ricky Temple in first class on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Savannah. We go back a bit. He built “Overcoming-By-Faith Church across the street from Dutch Town, a 40 something apartment complex for homeless people, and we hit it off from the first time we met at the Starfish Cafe.

I’m not quite certain what faith actually overcame in the naming of his church but Ricky is charismatic as hell, which he would likely not appreciate me saying. I want to order him a glass of wine to see is he can turn it into water. That would be impressive. I have a lot of faith in him.

He prayed the blessing at the dedication ceremony for the Dutch Town and said a lot of nice things about me. I’ve toured his church empire which took like a week. We laughed a lot during that time.

I am surprised that he is flying home at all on a commercial airline. I figured that he would just….gravitate there…like “Beam me down there Scotty” from Star Trek kind of stuff. He’s got his own cable show and all. And he is tall, much taller than most tall people. I think he’s a little taller than God. And his smile just melts others around him.

I re-think everything and order a gallon of water and ask him to change it into wine.

I am a Capitalist. There is money to be made. Even in first class.

Ricky decides that openly associating with me in front of all of these people may tarnish his stellar reputation. He begins talking church stuff to the person sitting next him. I immediately lose interest.

Staring out of the window I think back to the morning. Angela the maid burst into my room from the rain. She spit Spanish at me as though from a machine gun then she hugged me tight.

“I have no idea what you just said,” I said to the top of her head which was buried in my chest.

Her black face looked up at me with a mouth full of the whitest teeth. Rain drops were on her glasses.

“You leaving me today! You can’t leave me today! You got another week or something. Who’s doing to teach you Spanish?”

I laugh out loud with her. “Somebody back home because you’re doing a terrible job.”

“Did you get a late check out?” she asks.

“Of course not,” I tell her. “I’ll leave when you tell me to leave. Why would I bother with the people who run the place?

She laughs. “I got you. I got you.”

She hugs me tightly and tells me goodbye as she dashes off to clean another room.

I take it as a sign to make the rounds and say goodbye to the Koster family and Jack and Loretta, all friends from Canada. Carlos isn’t at work yet so I Face Book him and we promise to talk again soon. Hyler and Cass meet me back at my tiny little studio for the shared cab ride back to Princess Julia Airport. Daisy is our driver and she and I go way back. She drives the car like she just stole it.

Ricky Temple hits me on the shoulder interrupting my thoughts as professional Christians are prone to do.

“Hey media boy,” he says with his million dollar smile, “When you went out you did it with a bang! What exactly you been doing?”

I hate it when he calls me boy.

But he is my friend and I look at him looking at me as though I’m getting ready to share a secret that nobody else knows. He leans forward across the aisle in anticipation. It seemed like forever before I answered him but it was really only seconds.

I winked at him and said, “I’ve been getting ready.”

He leans back with his smile. “Oh yeah? Getting ready for what?”

“For me,” I tell him.

And we laugh.

Homecoming

The wind is fierce and the roaring waves crash over the reef. Coconuts fall from the Palm trees landing around me. The top of the mountain is covered in a purple blanket of clouds. People run passed my tiny little studio trying to keep their baguettes dry. The wind chime dances violently and sings to me. My neighbor dashes by chasing a crêpe that would have been his breakfast. After days on end of postcard perfect weather a tropical depression has come.

It is a good day to leave.

I’ve been here many times and have never yet been quite ready to come home. This time I am. There is a restlessness rumbling inside of me and it is something that I haven’t felt in a long time. It is a sense of anticipation. The birth of new things is coming. The old has passed away.

A couple of years ago I was sitting on the beloved back deck talking to Kathryn Martin. I was sad and tired and my face laid in my hand as we talked. I told her that it was time for me to leave Union Mission. There was nothing else to accomplish there and the longer I stayed my life grew increasingly stale.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

I didn’t have the energy to respond.

After that I ended up staying which was a rotten mistake in many ways and a blessing in others. Isn’t it funny how life is that way? Ying and Yang always go together. Breathing in is always followed by exhaling. The good goes with the bad.

So I stayed and Union Mission survived some pretty horrific happenings. That’s the good. The bad is that it cost a lot. I became consumed with correcting the wrong. I drank too much. I grew self absorbed. I lost the capacity to really love others because it was suddenly all about me. Or the “me” that others wanted me to be. Not who I really was.

“But I still liked you better when you hated yourself,” is a song from the Badlees that my son Jeremy introduced me to. I love it. “Good friends don’t come easy, even assholes like you,” is the other great line.

And those last couple of years I grew to hate myself. And other people loved it. And I listened to assholes instead of myself (that would be you Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous). So I lost many things that I loved.

I am a huge “Lord of the Rings” fan and have read everything, and I mean everything, that J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote. And everything that C.S. Lewis ever wrote. AND everything that Charles Williams ever wrote. They all taught together at Oxford and were incredible influences on each other’s lives. They met every Tuesday to drink and read one another whatever they were writing. They called themselves “The Inklings” because they didn’t have an inkling of an idea about anything yet were the most brilliant thinkers of their time.

For years I knew everything. And the proof is in the pudding. At Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and at Union Mission success was rapid and incredible. I lived this large life. And a couple of things happen when you live large. A lot of people appreciate and admire it. They tell you so. Then there are others who hate you because you have achieved success that they feel belong to them.

For the better part of the last year I’ve been quiet. I’ve let my wounds heal and marvel at the scars. My large world suddenly became small. The thousands of people that I know were reduced to a handful of friends. I know who loves me. And I know who doesn’t.

I’m ready to do things now. The restlessness that has always guided me washes over my heart. There are new rules to be broken. Accomplishments await! Love is all around me. It just means that I have to stop being self absorbed and recognize it.

Tolkien and Lewis used to drive one another crazy as they drank pitcher after pitcher of beer. One wrote one manuscript in his entire life that was a million pages long and ended up being multiple books and an incredible trilogy of movies. The other wrote thirty books and now has his own movie series with the Chronicle of Narnia.

But both readily admitted that it was Charles Williams who motivated them to do it all. He brooded. He ordered the next pitcher. His books are dark and not well known. There are no movies made from his writings. He went to the dark places to create and inspire.

So I feel creative again. And I don’t mind brooding about it. This morning when I the wind and the rain woke me, I turned on the computer and there were lots of messages from lots of people; some wanting me to come home and others who don’t really care. One told me that I could go to hell.

That’s cool. I’ve been to hell. Now I’m coming home.

To me.

Wine and Cheese

On Monday’s Steve and Linda the managers here throw a wine and cheese party for all of the guests. They go through a hundred bottles pouring it in little plastic cups. A table is set up with various brie and cheeses. Almost everyone attends the weekly event and the outside patio and the restaurant are jammed.

In years gone by I’ve helped Carlos who oversees the restaurant serve the wine because the managers were away. Then Conner and I got to taking our own wine glasses as a way being different. Someone evidently complained and we were stripped of our wine glasses in front of everyone and handed plastic cups. That led to us, along with our friend Jacob, to throw an alternative wine and cheese the following week. About sixty people came.

Last night I was sitting on the porch of the tiny studio reading letters. People began strolling by on their way to the swore many asking if I was coming. I assured them that I would be there shortly and a bit later I made my way down the sandy road.

Linda was pouring the wine and handed me a cup. I found Jack my friend from Canada and we sat on the wall laughing and talking. After a bit, I made my way to get a refill. Carlos was now pouring and he wouldn’t serve me. He is upset with me still over Christmas when I failed to go to his house for the celebration. It had been a hard day for me, this being the first time in my life that I’ve navigated the holiday alone.

“Really” I asked him.

He turned his head away.

I shook mine and walked inside the restaurant where J.P. was behind the bar. In lighting speed he handed me a glass filled to the brim.

Paul from Michigan was sitting at the bar rather than joining the crowd. He is a good friend of Carlos’ too and owns an apartment on the island, spending the winter months here. He’d watched what had happened.

“He isn’t angry,” Paul explained. “He’s just hurt. They were so excited that you are here and really wanted to help you get through Christmas in a good way.”

I looked back at Carlos who is watching us.

So I began explaining to Paul who held up his hand and said, “Hey I understand. I’ve been there.”

So I wandered off into the warm night making my way to the beach. A billion stars hung above the water. The lights of Anguilla lay just out of reach. St. Bart’s shown in the distance. And the lights on the mountain at the far end of the beach looked like a massive Christmas tree.

I threw the wine in the sand and sat down.

Isn’t that the way it is sometimes? You do the very best that you know how to do to get yourself through. For the most part your friends give you space when you need it or take it away when you don’t. The last thing you want to do is make it all harder by offending someone that you care. Somehow you do and what is already a difficult time becomes even more so. Damned if do. Damned if you don’t. And I’ve never been one to disappoint people so it grates my soul like fingernails across a chalk board.

After a while there is nothing to do except start all over. God’s greatest gift! I stand and brush the sand from me. Then I dive in the ocean and baptize myself in forgiveness.

I walk back inside and J. P. hands me another glass of wine before I can ask for one. Carlos is watching me intently.

Someone grabs me and turns me around. I recognize him from previous years. “How are you?” he slaps me on the shoulder. “Where is that beautiful wife of yours?”

I stare at him for a second. “Over there somewhere,” I answer.

Then I spy the Koster kids all in a Mosh pit kind of collection and I run to them.

And I dance.

A Byproduct of Living Alone

Taking a stool beside the bar at Andy and Cheryl’s Baywatch, a New Jersey style beach restaurant, I chatted with Cheryl. She and Andy used to be married but now they are co-owners of one of the most successful business’ on Orient Beach. It makes for some interesting observations sometimes like today when they were fighting as I made my way into the open air place in bare feet.

Cheryl took my entrance as an opportunity to walk away from Andy by hugging me, dragging me to the far end of the place from Andy and decided to stay close by me. Ross the bartender handed me a beer. Adrian strolls over to give me a hug; meaning he almost broke my ribs. Brilliant white teeth are a stark contrast to his black skin and the broad smile cancels out the massive biceps.

“When we going zip lining Mon,” he asks.

“Monday,” I answer.

We both laugh. It is an old joke. Once, Adrian was going to meet a group of us in the rain forest for zip lining. We planned it around his day off which is Monday. We all showed up at the place and it’s closed on Mondays. It’s been a running joke sense.

Baywatch is dead. Normally at noon it’s jammed with diners who order “Mussels a’ la Andy” or “Margarita Shrimp.” Today only one table is occupied and the staff is sitting around joking trying not to be bored. Andy sits at a table near the entrance and starts singing along to the oldies station which is a constant at the restaurant.

“How many people are on the beach?” Cheryl asks me. “This is a terrible day.”

Shrugging my shoulders I try to describe a crowd on a beach that is a mile-and-a-half long. “I don’t know Cheryl. Most of the chairs seem occupied.”

She stares at me for a moment. “What do you want to eat? We’ll make you anything that you want today. Give us a challenge.”

Ross rolls his eyes. I try to think of something that will throw them and that I can eat at the same time.

“How about a jerked Philly Cheese Steak?” I finally suggest.

She smiles. I’ve pulled it off.

“What in the hell be dat Mon!” I hear the cook in the kitchen yell when he reads the ticket. Everybody laughs.

Cheryl hands me a piece of paper with her phone numbers on it. “Let’s do dinner one night,” she says. I tuck the paper in my hat.

My mind drifts back home to all of the dinners that I’ve had alone over the past year. Cheryl lives alone now so I get what she is asking. Most nights it just doesn’t seem worth the effort to cook for one. So I don’t. Or I’ll make myself go out just to get out of the house and be with people. After a few months, I’ve eaten everything that Tybee Island has to offer on multiple occasions and am sick of it all. It becomes this vicious circle of loneliness.

Last week at a Christmas party a person I love was sitting beside me and asked, “Is that all you’re going to eat?” staring at my plate.

“Yeah,” I replied looking in her eyes shrugging my shoulders.

It is a by-product of living alone.

Thankfully other customers arrive and Cheryl rushes off to greet them.

Ross delivers my jerked Philly Cheese Steak and we both stare at it for a moment. If hell were a food, this would be it. It was literally burning on the plate.

“I’ll get you another beer,” Ross said.

“Yeah, make it two.”

Boxing Day

In the end, the day ran out of steam as I worked my way through it. The morning was fine enough and the weather was great. I Skyped Kristen and Chelsea and gave them a virtual tour of my studio. By the time night fell though I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate much anything. If the angels were singing it was somewhere else.

Carlos whipped in and I said I was going to stay here. He told me that Verna was going to be upset but I explained and he seemed to understand. He sped away on the sandy road into the night.

After a while I tell myself to snap out of it and wander over to the Villa where another party is taking place. Lucas spies me and runs over. Lucas is the ten year old son of Ana who works here. The rest of the gathering is a mixture of guests staying at the resort.

After an embrace, Lucas pulls me into one of the bedrooms where he has set up Wii and he wants me to play 007 with him; meaning he tries to shoot a virtual me while I try to shoot a virtual him. In no time at all we are two little boys firing away and jerking our bodies from side to side as if that somehow helps the virtual people we are trying to shoot.

A child’s laughter fills the room.

After we finish, Lucas has permanently attached himself to me. His arms wrap around one of mine and he becomes my constant companion for the night. He is continuously begging me to go play Wii with him again. I shot him more than he shot me and he is dying for revenge. I’m smart enough to know to quit while I’m on top. So I keep telling him no and he keeps asking anyway.

Dinner is served and it is a formal sit down affair. My friend Hyler stood and prayed a very Christian prayer to a roomful of mostly non-believers who all just stared at him. Undaunted though Hyler thanked God on behalf of everyone else for the birth of the Christ child.

Because everyone was from somewhere else most of the dinner conversation circled around geography and weather; except for Lucas who kept repeating his plea, “Please Mike one more time! Just one more time”!

Afterwards everyone spilled outside into the warm night. As I began saying my goodbyes I was reminded by Nancy that I have to cook breakfast for everyone on Boxing Day. And it is true that for the past several years I’ve cooked a southern breakfast for my Canadian friends who say “Delish!” with every bite.

Boxing Day is the day after Christmas sales in Canada. Banks close and stores open and bargains are everywhere as the prices come tumbling down. Originally it was a day to make certain that the poor were taken care of but the poor don’t rate as highly as they used to.

Boxing Day come from a Christmas Carol when Good King Wenceslas was surveying his land the day after Christmas when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine and carried them to the peasant's door. Helping the poor at Christmas time seems to come from this story.

Now my very different Christmas is over and the agenda is breakfast. I’ve got a few more days here and will be back on Tybee Island for the New Year. Then this year of transition will be over and a new one will begin. It is very much a stripped down life that I march forward with. Both personally and professionally I am no longer what I was. Everything is new! Everything is mine for the making!

Working through loss and then journeying hard to find myself has reminded me how uncaring people can be, like the poor who are mostly ignored on Boxing Day. But I’ve also learned how incredibly wonderful they can be as they when they choose to make a difference. It is always funny how one group is quite large and the other quite small. The selfishness of many is diminished by the magnitude of the few where love reigns supreme.

So I am ready for this New Year to begin and for this damned current one to end. And as soon as this breakfast is over, I’m taking the boxing gloves off.

A Very Different Christmas

Samba Christmas tunes blast from the radio making it hard not to dance as I sit here sipping coffee. A stocking hangs from the mast of the schooner moored in the bay. Bright sunshine radiate the long leafs of the Palm trees which dance in the Trade Winds. The waves are barely making it over the reef and the aqua-blue water of the Orient Bay is flat and calm.

Christmas in St. Martin begins on Halloween and it is taken very seriously. You can find fresh Christmas trees but they quickly turn brown in the heat. People don’t care. There are decorated brown trees everywhere! My friend Verna drove me past the best Christmas decoration on the island, a giant inflatable Frosty the Snowman, and she clapped and grinned like a little girl when she saw it for the hundredth time. She still has the wonderment of a child this time of year.

Last night at dark-thirty I wandered over to the Villa where my friends Paul and Nancy were hosting a cocktail party. I was immediately chided for being late. “It’s almost time for dinner,” Nancy scolded. “We didn’t think that you were going to come at all.”

I’d been sitting outside when Nathalie came over after she had gotten off work. She’d asked me to order and bring her pairs of shoes when I came because Reebok doesn’t do international shipping. So I did and she’d come to pay me and collect them. She asked if I wanted to go out with her and her friends which I quickly declined. Nathalie has this habit of staying out all night before stumbling into work the next morning. She once asked me to go get her a cappuccino before giving me a massage.

“You have to peel potatoes tomorrow,” Nancy tells me, “and don’t cut yourself this year.”

I ignore her and talk to my friend Suz and her boyfriend.

At Papagayo’s, the restaurant here, there was a buffet supper of traditional American fare. I sat surrounded by Canadians and a politician from Wisconsin who wanted to talk politics. I left the table and joined another group of Canadians who wanted to dance.

Carlos, the restaurant manager, had found a new D J at the last minute because the one booked was sick. The new guy was having a hard time finding the right kind of music for the crowd. Of course I was no help requesting songs by PINK or the “Black Eyed Peas”. He finally hit on 1950s Rock-and-Roll and the dance floor filled.

I wandered into the forbidden zone where the wait staff wait and danced with Nancy and then Aralias. He was wearing a ring on the finger and I was asking him who he had traded me in for. Nancy grabbed me and started pulling me away before Carlos arrived and told me that I couldn’t be back there. When I stopped and stared at him with mock horror on my face, he burst into laughter shaking his head and giving up.

As the dance floor filled I take it as my cue to leave and wander down the sandy road into the warmth of the night. Brilliant stars fill the sky and the lights of Anguilla dance on the water across the way. I wander down to the beach collecting my thoughts on this very different Christmas time.

Carlos wanders out behind me and puts his arm around my shoulder. “I’ll pick you up at 6:00,” he tells me which can mean anytime after dark.

I nod my head and he hugs me before going back inside to work.

Making my way back to the studio I turn on the computer and am surprised to see numerous greetings and messages from a very diverse group. I fall into late night conversations with a few folks and then realize that there is an hour time difference. What is late for me is not so late for them.

Having spent the better part of yesterday sleeping, I am surprised that I am sleepy. I walk back outside to tell the stars goodnight.

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” is sung by Nat King Cole as the final song from Papgayos. And in the warmth of the night I wish myself a merry little Christmas.

And my heart fills until the tears come.

Making Illusion Reality

Though the drapes are heavy and a towel hangs over the window in the door, the sunlight fills the tiny studio. One eye cracks open and I smile. Then I do something that I never do. I just lay in bed.

Thinking.

Wishing.

I lay there for an hour before jumping up and ripping the curtains to the sliding glass doors open. Then I do this stumbling dance opening every window and the brilliance of the sun floods the room.

I wobble outside making my way towards the ocean, wade in to my knees and fall over. The Kingdom has come on earth as it is in heaven. The sea kisses me awake. I stand and survey the day. The sky is such a deep blue that a full moon and the sun dance with one another on opposite ends of the heavens. The Palm trees dance in the trade winds which are light.

Making my way back to the studio I pour a cup of coffee, grab the computer and sit on the tiny porch with the heavy wooden table. Before I take the first sip, Victor flies up in a golf card and jumps out before it stops. Victor is over six feet tall, one of the sweetest security guards that I’ve ever met and is the father of my friend Carlos who oversees the restaurant here.

We embrace and he sits across from me speaking in his Caribbean lilt. “Did you see the picture of me on the Internet”

I tell him that I have not and he looks at my Netbook wanting me to find it. So I search and cannot. His face falls.

“My son Carlos will find it for us,” he tells me and I smile.

“I must tell you the news my friend,” he says standing up. “I am employee of the year! Two plane tickets to anywhere I want to go. Five nights anywhere I want to stay. And 500 Euros in my pocket!”

Jumping up I hug him. His smile beams across his body.

“OK my friend, I see you tomorrow,” he says jumping back in his golf cart. I am invited to Carlos’ for the family Christmas whatever-it-is-they-do-in-the-Caribbean celebration.

People are strolling by with croissants or baguettes from Le’ Boutique. “Good Morning,” they all pleasantly say. Half I do not know and the other half I do. Ned stops to talk about how good the Wi-Fi is this trip. Cindy stops to see if I need anything from the store. Terry from Oklahoma stops to ask where my UGA flag is.

For years I hung one from my beach chair and the outside of the tiny studio but gave it away and have never gotten around to replacing it.

Martina one of the maids pulls her cart by.

“Oh My God,” she screams in the Caribbean lilt, “Mike! You are here for Christmas!” and she leaves the cart full of cleaning supplies, brooms and mops and hugs me tight.
“Christmas is good,” she concludes and I love Martina as much as I love anybody. I once cooked her lunch and along with Carlos and Verna we all hid out in the studio when they should have been working and just talked and laughed.

She pulls her cart away smiling. I cannot help but smile back.

My celebration of the coming of the Christ-child will consist of a swim to the reef where I will marvel at everything underneath, a beach walk to Orange to wish my friend Oliver Merry Christmas over a fish sandwich, and a day with my feet in the sea. I wonder if the Tiny Dancer is here. I hope so.

Winston calls me from the front desk to tell me that they have found my storage bin. It has my stuff in it; Extra pillows, a wind chime from the past; Snorkel and fins; a radio, coffee filters. The place is suddenly home again.

Maria comes in barking Spanish at me. I am her tenant meaning that she is the maid of this room. She has been trying to teach me Spanish for the past year and has taken the approach of only speaking to me in Spanish until I start making her laugh. She hugs me tells me that she loves it when I am in her section because there isn’t much to clean. So she sits across from me and we talk about what her Christmas will be like.

In many ways this place is an illusion. A lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes to reach this place of island simplicity. Over the years I have come to appreciate and celebrate and love the people who make it all a reality.

They are my friends.

People who make illusions reality always have been.

It's Geting Better All the Time

It’s only happened a couple of time as Christmas has approached. Last week Goddess and I found ourselves sitting under the decorated tree and it was a lonely and frustrating evening. Then a couple of nights ago I sat up late into the night staring at the lights contemplating … everything.

Last night my family gathered at my mother’s house for the annual celebration. Dad wasn’t there, of course, but David, Age, Jeremy and I drove to Driftaway where a plaque hangs honoring him. All of his friends were there and we all embraced and they told us stories about things Dad had said or done. We were all moved by how much they love him though it’s been a year-and-a-half since he died.

Back at Mom’s house David’s family looked dressed for Christmas with Reindeer sweaters and bright colors. Angi wore black and her sons were dressed as though ready to take the field for a football game. My kids and I looked like we had just stumbled in from a Pfish concert; or maybe the Grateful Dead.

The table was filled with ham, turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese, greens, beans, bread and too many things to possibly eat. There was plenty of wine and iced tea.

Mom asked me to say a few things before dinner so I recognized our friends who were there and then turned it over to David, who said grace. Meaning he had this long soliloquy with God. Afterwards he took Dad’s place of going first in line for the food.

Presents were distributed to the kids and then the smaller ones started singing Christmas carols. Everyone laughed when they mixed up the words to “Frosty the Snowman” or “Oh Tannenbaum”. The room was filled with all of the things that Christmas is supposed to bring.

I sat staring out of a window. At one point I noticed my Mother staring at me as I stared outside. I really wasn’t there. The whole Christmas season has been out of sorts and I’ve done my best to avoid it. I looked at Mom and she resumed singing along with the kids. I stared out of the window again. Everything in the room was muted.

“Nobody ought to be alone on Christmas,” Darlene Love sings. Yet I am.

It is funny after spending a career making certain that everyone else in the world wasn’t, I suddenly am. I feel it the most when I wake up in the morning. I shake it off when I get to the Breakfast Club but it returns right before I go to bed.

Others feel it too even though they may be sleeping beside someone or have a house full of children. I understand that. But Thanksgiving launched a Christmas spent in three-quarter time for me.

It is also the anniversary of when I was married. Anniversaries are funny things. They can be joyous if you are still in love with the person that you married all of those years ago or they can be agony if you’re not.

On the day that someone you loved with all of your heart dies … well you grow to never really like that day again.

At least for this year, Christmas has taken on the sad representation of the swan song of a marriage. I remember it fondly and when I read what I wrote then it is full of optimism and hope. I remember dancing with my wife and taking walks down the beach though as our time in St. Martin drew to again she withdrew. A couple of weeks later it was all over.

I sit on a plane writing this. The year is ending as it began. I am heading back to St. Martin for Christmas by myself. It appears I’ll be returning much earlier than I intended because my passport expires in a few days and even friends in Congress can’t get anything done until after the New Year’s (HA as if they get much anything done anyway!).

No question that the past year was the most difficult and frustrating that I’ve ever lived. The first half was full of loss. The second half has been this Sabbatical that should have been taken long ago. I’ve learned a lot about other people but mostly about me. During the last few months joy has returned to me.

For Christmas this year Shirley gave me an ornament that meant a lot to her. Chelsea and Sam gave me Monty Python. A lot of people gave me grief and heartache. Then there were these angels that showed up though from the most random of places. I choose to dwell on them and the coming of a new year.

Or as the Beatles sang, “It’s getting better all the time.”

“Couldn’t get much worse.”

Great Expectations

“Micheal Elliott,” I say into my cell phone as I sit in front of the computer lost in thought.

“Well darling when you go into hiding you REALLY go into hiding,” said the maple syrup southern drawl of Trish DuPriest. “So I want to know where in the hell are you? What are you doing? And who are you with?”

A broad smile spread upon my face. Trish and I go way back. She works in Congressman Jack Kingston’s office taking care of constituents at the local level. Before that she did the same thing for Congressman Lindsay Thomas. One is a Republican and the other a Democrat. Elected officials come and go but the people who really get things done remain the same.

For years Trish would call me needing something for someone she was trying to help or I would call her for the same thing. We developed a good friendship going this. The last time that I talked to her was in May when she’d called wanting something for someone.

“Oh,” she continued, “and Merry Christmas!”

I busted out laughing. Typical Trish!

I’d called her needing something. She told me that it was impossible to accomplish and then told me how to do it. There is always a way. We both share that as a guiding philosophy of helping people.

“Not so fast,” she commanded, “answer my questions first.

So I did. We talked a long time about Union Mission and about the future. At the end I was ordered to come and see her when I return home in a few weeks.

“Yes mam,” I replied and returned my attention to my computer.

The phone rang again. It was Skutch. Skutch is a reporter for the newspaper and has covered me for years. Actually he looks like an actor in a “B” moive playing a reporter. A month or so ago we had lunch together with our friend Shirley at the Breakfast Club.

“Mike,” he said in his Baltimore mumbling now laced with southern words, “when are you going to call me and let me do a story on what you’re doing.”

“When it’s a story,” I laughed back.

“Well son, I’m the reporter so let me decide that.”

I busted out laughing again.

“Soon Skutch soon,” I replied.

“Alright,” he mumbled, “Merry Christmas then.”

Then I was off to town for a lunch meeting at Johnny Harris’ an old Savannah tradition. Rebekah, Jodi and Peter and I were there thinking through an idea. I hadn’t seen Peter in a while though for years we were wed at the hip as we created respite care, the J. C. Lewis Health Center, defined economic arguments for taking health care to where people are rather than the other way around. We bear hugged one another and then the conversation began.

Peter and I are like two knights fighting for a Queen when we talk. We violently throw words at one another and use any means possible to make our points. When one of us pauses or concedes, the other one smiles. “Gotcha!”

At the end of the conversation Peter said, “Well you know everyone is just waiting to see what you’re going to do next. We all talk it about it.”

Immediately I thought of my dear friend Mary Ann Beil. She’d told me the same thing a couple of months ago as I hobbled out of a hospital with a heavily wrapped leg.

It finally hit me that there is a sense of expectation about what I do next. I have a tendency to think about the task at hand, how others are doing, and maybe get around to me at some point. That is why this Sabbatical has been so helpful. To quote Dar Williams, “but oh how I loved everyone else, when I got to talk so much about myself.”

So last night in a quiet house, midnight had passed and the full moon competed with the Christmas tree lights, I sat and thought; about the future, who I love and who I don’t, and the expectations out there that others have of me.

“Goddess,” I softly said in my own southern drawl influenced by years of public speaking. She cocked her head and looked at me.

“It really doesn’t matter what other people expect,” I told my dog. “What do you hear in these sounds?” I quoted Dar again.

“The stories that nobody hears…I collect these sounds in my ears…and that’s what I like about, that’s what I like about…these sounds.”

Keep the Candle Burning

In my house is a broken pair of scissors that is corroded and tiny. Children’s scissors. I found them beside a mountain of rotting clothing outside of one of the seven Crematoria in Birkenau, the main death factory at the Auschwitz Concentration camp in Poland. I remember seeing it lying there on the frozen ground with snow lightly falling. Already full of emotion from merely being there, I knelt on one knee as though in prayer and picked it up.

I held it up towards the frozen sun but there was no warmth in this place. I looked at the mountain of clothing and it was mostly dresses and kids clothes. Mothers with their babies had been ordered to disrobe while standing outside on frozen days like this one and then marched into the gas chamber. As soon as they were dead, the Crematoria incinerated the bodies; mothers still holding their children.

The mountain of clothes belonged to the very last groups that were murdered by the Nazis. I picked up a tiny moldy blue dress and cried.

Bill Berry found me this way. He and I were the only ones there. We had jumped off of a British tour bus that had carried us from Krakow, the nearest town, sixty kilometers away. We had no idea how we were going to get back.

I showed him the tiny broken scissors before shoving it in my pocket. Neither one of us could talk. I remember Bill putting his arm around me, shaking his head and then wandering off … somewhere.

Back in Groves High School a thousand years earlier Wayne Sears was trying to introduce enthusiasm to history class. He got hold of a recently declassified movie of the liberation of Auschwitz and showed it to us. And my mind woke up that day. I asked for more and Mr. Sears got them for me to watch after school. I became an expert on the concentration camps and can rattle them off by their strange and foreign names. I know what made them different from one another.

I was in Prague with Bill to talk to a group of clergy about working with homeless people. Bill had other things to do but I’d already completed the assignment. Standing in the train station, I surveyed the map and saw we were a day’s train ride from the most infamous of the camps.

There was no question that I had to go. I remember buying a ticket before even talking to Bill. He is my friend and while it took him a bit to rearrange commitments that he’d made, he bought himself one too.

After he stumbled away I knelt their holding that moldy blue dress for the longest time. I hugged it to my chest. And I thought of Chelsea, my daughter back home who would probably have fit in it. I thought of her cherub face and tiny hand clutching my finger. And I could picture her being told to take off her clothes and march inside.

I sobbed for a long time clutching that dress.

When there were no more tears I made my way towards the back of the camp and came upon a rock monument that had been built. A circle of stones had been constructed and leaning against them was this slate with Hebrew written on it. I learned Hebrew in seminary but it was too faded to read on the stone.

Something flickered and I peered behind the stone. Underneath were two candles; one lit and the other untouched. They were Jewish prayer candles. I surveyed the miles of Birkenau and there was no one there other than Bill and I. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Who in God’s name had lit that candle? How did it remain lit in this wind?”

I stared at the lit votive candle, a tin with a flaming wick floating in melted wax. It would soon burn itself out. Again on my knees, I took the unlit candle then held it above the flame. The moment the new one was lit the other was extinguished.

And holiness came over me. I knew in an instant that I had traveled around the world, made a last minute spontaneous decision to go there, jumped off of a bus with no idea how we were getting back … to light this candle.

I hold the tiny broken scissors in my hand this morning and all of these emotions and thoughts flood me. And I think to myself, sometimes it is the tiniest of things, the simplest forms of worship, that are the most significant to God. And to us.

Then Bill found me. And we could find no words to speak as we walked the railroad tracks out of the camp.

The same tracks that had brought in precious little girls in shinny blue dresses.

Friends

One of the things that I’ve learned on this Sabbatical is who my friends are and who they are not. I’ve been surprised at who falls in both categories. I was blessed this weekend with friends everywhere making Christmas cherry and bright.

On Friday night I stayed home alone. Sam and Chelsea had come for dinner but they left early. Goddess and I sat beside a fire on the back deck until it started raining then we came inside. Though alone, my friends busted through the night with technology. Typically on Friday nights I go meet them at Bernie’s to listen to Sam Adams and Gordon play good live music. My friends did. I didn’t

So they texted me a play-by-play and send photographs. I must say that I had no idea that Whitley could dance. Or that Patti could dance in his lap like that! Or that grabbing a breast is a clever dance move! They were asking me to come and drive them home but I am smart enough to know that they were really just trying to get me there to join them. By now the rain was pouring and I could not imagine how I could possibly improve on the show that Whitley and Patti were putting on. So I stayed home.

Saturday morning at the Breakfast Club, a very red eyed Patti walked in, gave me a death stare and said, “Do not say one word.”

Of course that unleashed several hundred words at once. Plus I had Cheryl’s play-by-play on my I-phone and numerous photographs. Ah, good times!

That night I threw a party at my house. I now believe in miracles and the raising of the dead because Whitley showed up. I’m not certain that he remembers showing up because he was still living Friday night on Saturday. Though everyone was disappointed that he didn’t show us his clever dance moves, he did sway a lot.

So there was this party from six o’clock until ten o’clock and then Keller Deal arrived with a boy toy. In no time at all Keller Deal had run off all of the Tybee people so the rest of us sat around telling old Union Mission stories or making fun of current events. Sometime around three in the morning I feel asleep dreaming of love.

When I woke chestnuts were roasting on an open fire; meaning my throat was raw from laughter and wine. I drank several gallons of water before surveying my house. It looked like Afghanistan. Because I’ve spent so much time in Washington and Atlanta I picked up the phone and immediately made an application for disaster relief funds. At noon a check arrived and I hired a bulldozer to clear it all out.

Evidently I attended yesterday’s Bored meeting but have no real recollection of it. Johnny O did tell me that I enjoyed myself.

When I woke, someone was pounding on my head. Come to find out it was the front door. When I opened it there was my dear friend Dedra from college. It was time for another reunion. We forgot to invite Mark and Mitch. So Dedra and I plowed through the night, commandeering Nickie’s where my friend Randy “Hat man” Smith was playing live music and Phil and his wife Katie from the Breakfast Club were also eating. Then Gordon wandered in to tell us to come listen to him and Sam Adams play so we did. I am incredibly thankful that Dedra showed up otherwise I may have never made it home.

This morning Dedra and I went to the Breakfast Club, was joined by Johnny O and marveled again at Carolyn’s ability to say the alphabet backwards at lighting speed. She has been practicing this for years for when she was pulled for driving under the influence. Not too long ago she was and told the cop, “I am not drunk, Watch!”

She spit out the backwards alphabet at lighting speed. It freaked the cop out and she was arrested. Surely you had to be drunk to do this.

Dedra left and I fired up the computer. Carlos from St. Martin immediately messaged me reminding me that I am spending Christmas with him. There will be 40 people in his tiny two bedroom apartment in St. Martin. I will be the only white person there.

It will not be the first time that I’ve been the only white person in a crowd when I am with my friend. We once went to a lingerie show together and Carlos told me to hold our spot while he got us beers. I protested that he would never find me again but he was firm. After he left I burst out laughing. In a crowd of perhaps a thousand I was the only white person. Of course he could find me again.

Now I’m sitting here with my best friend Goddess. She is asleep. I lay down beside her. In no time at all we are snoring in unison.

The Christmas Spirit

I normally write after going to the Breakfast Club, taking Goddess for a walk, several miles of running on the beach, another walk with the pup, a shower and then I fire up the computer. Only one of those things has happened this morning.

WAY behind schedule!

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen actual sunshine from my bed. Even with this thick cloud cover the S.O.B. broke into my bedroom and woke me up. It is true that there are five windows that I can stare out of when horizontal in my bed. Typically I am gone before the sun wakes up.

Not today.

I hosted a Christmas party at my house last night. We drank a lot; told a lot of stories. Broke all Ten Commandments (our favorite one multiple times) and watched midnight come and go. Well the Tybee people all left before midnight. My other friends were not going to be rushed. They are all Union Mission alumni and they actually outlasted the Tybee people!

By several hours!

It is true that on Tybee party is a way of life that occurs daily so it may be, as my dear friend Dedra pointed out, that parting on Tybee has its own rhythm; like the tides of the ocean. They came and went led by Johnny O and Judy. Whitley began preparing for the party sometime Friday afternoon and if the man sees Monday then surely Jesus rose from the dead. Artie and Wanda showed up from around the corner having defaced bottles of wine with Auburn stuff (Artie has a one track sense of humor and does the same thing again and again and again).

They all left and then there were all of these Union Mission alumni led by none other than the extremely famous Keller Deal who confiscated two sofas, two chairs, brought their own photographer, and charged into the night!

Union Mission was a very special place when I was there and at one moment last night I looked at these people and understood why. The passion, laughter, and thumbing of our collective noses at “expectations” raised the roof of my house on numerous occasions.

God did we laugh!

We were all slammed against one another on the sofas. To protect the guilty I shall describe it this way. There was me first with my feet in the lap of someone who shall remain anonymous who was sitting next to Rebekah who was sitting next to Keller Deal who was sitting next to the boy toy that she brought.

On a stool in front of Keller Deal was another person who shall remain anonymous with her hands up Keller Deal’s skirt.

On the other sofa was the husband of Rebekah and their child Frenchy who was sound asleep. Then our official photographer, who is the husband of one of the aforementioned anonymous people, hovered around snapping photos.

“You feet look like a five piece nugget deal from Wendy’s,” Keller Deal said to me.

She gives compliments with the best of them.

The Christmas spirit was everywhere!

As was the wine.

I know that Jesus turned water into wine when he was an adult but now wonder if when he was sucking his mother’s breast if he did it then too?

Something to think about.

That would explain why he really didn’t get started being a Savior and all until he was 30.

OK, I gotta go. Keller Deal’s SUV is parked on the neighbor’s porch. The neighbor wants to go to Church or something. Keller Deal must be around here somewhere.

As soon as I can remember how to put one foot in front of the other I’ll go see.

Tender is the night

It is night. Chelsea and Sam have just left after dinner that I cooked. Country fried steak for Chelsea, a mountain of rice for Sam, green beans, and home made gravy that would have FFDA warning labels on it if the government knew that I’d made it at home. These days home made gravy is kind of like a meth lab in Effingham County or Ardsley Park.

One of my all time favorite stories is about a meth lab in Ardsley Park which is an old established and very prestigious Savannah neighborhood. At the time John Lutz was the Chief Operations Officer at Union Mission and we were gathering for a staff meeting. He was telling us of a neighbor’s garage that blew up for no apparent reason.

We all busted out laughing.

“What?” he asked looking like Opie from Mayberry. If John had red hair instead of black he would have been a ringer. Everything else about him reeked of a 35 year old Opie wearing a white shirt and a black tie.

“John do you know what a meth lab is,” Lavanda asked laughing.

A look of horror enveloped John’s face. “Not in Ardsley Park,” he exclaimed.

We all burst into louder laughter.

“It’s everywhere,” Aretha said shaking her head. “Why wouldn’t it be in white neighborhoods? It’s mostly in the white neighborhoods.”

“Yeah,” Lavanda continued. “I used to wonder why white people never lived in the slums. Then I realized that they have trailer parks.”

Joe Bridges sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve before saying, “Lookie here. Every neighborhood, white or black has their drugs. I should know. I’ve visited them all. Ardsley Park included.”

Everyone laughed except for John who laid his head on the conference table and groaned.

“It’s a white people’s drug,” someone said.

Joe shrugged his shoulders. “A drug is a drug,” he explained.

Joe is a former addict and at the time was in charge of maintenance of Union Mission. He oversaw the building of everything in the 1990s retiring after the J. C. Lewis Health Center was done. He and I wrote our names in the concrete of the foundation one sunny afternoon when the work had begun.

I called the meeting to order and we got down to business. When your life is working in the middle of human tragedy, you laugh at whatever you can find humor in; even when it isn’t funny to most people. It’s funny to you. And it sustains you for another day.

When Robin William’s movie “The Fisher King” came out I took the entire Union Mission staff. It is about a homeless man. We laughed when everyone else in the theater was tearing up and it was crazy rip roaring laughter. And we cried when everyone else laughed.

Doing the work of God is an upside down kind of existence. People grow to hate you for it.

These are funny thoughts on a Friday night.

Goddess and I are on the beloved back deck with a fire going. We listen to the waves crashing against the shore in the distance. I have on my holy jeans which will soon have too many holes to wear in public, a long sleeve tee shirt and no shoes. I keep putting my bare feet next to the fire.

Jackson Browne is telling me how tender the night is; the Benediction of the neon lights. I am over neon. I’ve had a lot in my life.

“Tender are the lovers undercover; the stranger and the secret lover.” I pause and consider these words while staring into the fire with the ocean tickling my ears behind the music.

My whole career has been this tender work…until it was no more. “In the hard light of an angry sun, no one remembers what was said or done. Tender are the words they choose.”

You win.

I win.

We lose.

The rain starts to fall and I sigh. Then Goddess and I leave a wonderful December night and close the sliding glass doors on the past.

O Holy ...Morning.

After a very productive morning and afternoon spent with friends that I love, last night I found myself sitting in the floor with Goddess. It is right before Christmas … and all through the house, not a creature is stirring. Not even a mouse. Not even Goddess. She is asleep between the Christmas tree and me. I take her picture.

The tree is now fully decorated after initially I’d only done half to represent loss in my life. Lying under the tree are three manager scenes that I got in the divorce and a couple of bags that contained birthday presents for Goddess.

Stockings are hung over there but there isn’t anything in them. I found some electric votive candles that I also somehow inherited and placed them in the windows. From the outside looking in the house is decorated and warm but on the inside there is no joy to the world. If the Lord is coming he’s waiting on a ride with Santa Claus I guess.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” comes on television. I listen to the melancholy opening song with the kids ice skating and Snoopy whipping everyone around with Lianas’ blanket. When I was at Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville the show meant a lot. Every year when “Dolly Madison” would broadcast it, we threw a big viewing party. Everybody came and we munched on cupcakes and sang “Joy to the World” with Charlie Brown and the gang after Snoopy’s tree won the competition.

After Lucy explained that Charlie Brown has panophobia, a fear of everything, I grabbed the remote and changed the channel.

I flip through them and nothing is interesting on television. I flip to the music channels and Christmas music comes on and I pause. Gene Autry singing Rudolph and if I had a brick in my hand I would have taken the flat screen out.

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” plays and I pause.

“I wish,” I say to myself.

I flip it to adult alternative and Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit” fills the room. I throw the remote on the tile floor waking Goddess. She lifts her head and stares at me for a second, before lying back down and letting out a heavy sigh.

“What the hell?” I say to myself and lay my head on her sleeping body. Goddess has never minded me using her as a pillow.

“I’m worse at what I do best,” Kurt Coban sings. “I find it’s hard to find, hard to find, oh well, never mind.”

A few hours later I wake and my head is on the tile floor. Goddess has gone outside and must have used three of her four paws to lay it there. Stumbling to bathroom I get ready for bed and then collapse into it.

At 4:30 I wake to the bright lights of the Christmas tree and electric votive candles. Goddess is snoring in the floor beside me. I roll over and cover my head with pillows.

A little after six I climb in the shower and just let hot water hit my face. I used to leap out of bed in the mornings but now go through the same routine with more effort. Goddess is waiting for a belly rub when I get out. I throw on my running stuff, give her some treats and go to the Breakfast Club.

Coffee awaits me and Nancee gives me a hug. Johnny O and I read the headlines of the Savannah Morning News. It is a story of a Catholic hospital Face Book postings of male pelvic reasons. You can’t help but laugh a bit at the absurdity of it. “Finally, Savannah has a gay hospital,” Johnny O says.

“Repeal ‘don’t ask don’t tell’!” someone else yells.

The Club is alive and full of friends. Heat radiates from the grill. We all talk about … everything. Christmas lights hang over the booths.

My friend and former waitress Jamie is there visiting from college (I have a serious crush on Jamie. If I were younger, perhaps 49 or 50, I’d be all over her! But I’m older and she has a boyfriend and he could probably take me out if he wanted so I just admired from afar, though she did Face Book me last night to tell me to be there so there is hope!).

So we all chatted, caught one another up on life. Johnny O left and there was about fifteen minutes before the first customers arrived. So everyone sat around me and there were hugs and the promise of a new day dawned with the sun.

“O Holy Night?” I asked myself.

“My ass,” I replied. “O Holy Morning.”

Going back inside of the box

With a tremendous sense of sadness when I read of Union Mission Savannah’s decision to split itself in half by spinning off the J. C. Lewis Health Center to become its own independent company. But I understand. They did so for two reasons: government bureaucratic policies and money.

Governments operate and allocate money in silos from one another. So government health care funds health care; housing funds housing; employment funds employment and so on. And this happens at multiple layers; the federal, state, County, and city levels. Each has their own rules and requirements to fulfill. Separately they can be challenging but collectively they are damn near impossible.

The result is that most organizations receiving government support can only manage doing the one thing that they are given money to do.

Irregardless the vast majority of people needing help are in dire need of more than one thing. Someone gets their health care taken care of only to not have housing so they get sick again! Or someone has housing but cannot find a job so they lose their housing which then leads to sickness and a vicious cycle is born.

It is ironic that government demands local efforts form collaborative partnerships to receive money but they themselves are incapable of working together. Their policies and rules conflict with one another. So they cannot leverage their dollars and buy the biggest bang for the buck. Millions are wasted treating individual symptoms and the need never diminishes. Talk about job security!

Government enforces their rules and regulations with allocation of our tax dollars. So, if someone is trying to accomplish more than the policies call for then that is against the rules and funding is reduced. Do it the government way, funding can go up. It makes it very easy for bureaucrats as policy dictates there is only one way to do anything. Sure there are many good people who work for government and some take risks to buy real results, but rules are rules and that is what rules the day.

Union Mission has been different because it successfully blended federal, state, County, city, philanthropic and local support into a one-stop shop where the very real needs of people were met at same time. Its approach is similar to being admitted to a hospital where rarely it is for just one symptom. Union Mission treated the entire person and not just individual symptoms.

It’s not rocket science.

Union Mission fulfilled the bureaucratic rules and regulations along the way. Often barely! These often crazy rules were forever being challenged and boundary lines pushed. Union Mission was forever busting out of the bureaucratic boxes that were forced upon it to receive funding.

Sure it had its issues in doing it this way. Sometimes it messed up but it took “the-try- until-you-get-it right” approach. Over time it got many more things right than it did wrong.

The result of doing it this way speaks for itself. Flip through the last twenty annual reports and tens of thousands asked for help, thousands obtained health care, hundreds ended their homelessness, and hundreds found jobs. A once unmanageable homeless population became manageable. The quality of life of an entire county went up.

And Union Mission was moving upstream with its programs to prevent homelessness from ever occurring in the first place. Isn’t that what everyone really wants? Like anyone really wants another homeless shelter?

And there was plenty of external validation of such an approach. The national spot light often shown on Union Mission. People from around the world came to see it for themselves. The place is filled with awards, accolades and, more importantly, token expressions of gratitude from those who worked their way out of the mess that their lives had become because of Union Mission’s approach.

This will soon be a thing of the past with the splitting of the J. C. Lewis Health Center from Union Mission. Sure the Health Center will receive some increases in federal funding but it will not generate the impact that blended funding and melded services did. And health care by itself will merely treat symptoms again just like housing alone will.

There is always more than one way to do things and Union Mission has repeatedly demonstrated that. Until now! It is putting itself back in the box and will soon look much like every other program in nation. At least the bureaucrats will be happy.

Birthday Girl

When I returned home from the Breakfast Club it was with a piece of real bacon sent by Val from the Birthday Girl! Today is Goddess Elliott’s birthday! When I opened the front door she lay on the landing waiting on me as she does every morning. Recognizing that something was different she jumped up staring at the napkin in my hand, her tail started wagging. I gave her the gift and off she went to enjoy it on her bed.

She is five-years-old. This means that she is 35 in dog years so middle age is fast approaching though I am not certain that she has mellowed much during this time. She still stalks rabbits, chases squirrels, barks at any other dog who dares to walk in front of our house or, if she loves you, backs her butt up to you so that you can scratch it.

Recently she has learned to open the bathroom and she is not inhibited by anything if she loves you and wants to give you the pleasure of scratching her butt!

For five years during college I worked at a Veterinary Clinic (yes I crammed four years of college into five!) and at 7:30 every morning had to clean the cages of the dogs and cats who were recovering from surgery or being boarded. Doing that alters the ways that you perceive domesticated animals.

So when Julie bopped in one day saying that she wanted a dog … well I’m sure you can imagine what leapt into my mind. I think my response was a tender and loving “HELL NO!”

Then Julie showed me the photograph on the web page of the dog rescue organization and those eyes just grabbed me. A few days later she moved in.

I did claim the right to name the dog so when Julie asked me what it was going to be I replied, with a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction, “God.”

“You are not naming our dog!” she immediately shot back.

“I don’t know why not,” I calmly and rationally replied. “Dog spelled backwards is God. She is a bitch and that sends a great theological message that God can be a woman. I fail to see the downside.”

“Oh I’ll tell you the downside,” she passionately answered, “I know you! You’ll be on the back deck calling her ‘God! GOD! GOD!!!! Dammit come in right now!”

I offered no response.

The next day it was explained to me that she would be called Goddess. And it is a much more fitting name. I’ll be walking her and people will smile and comment what a beautiful dog she is then they’ll ask me her name.

“Goddess,” I say.

“Of course it is,” they nod.

Not to say that she is perfect by any stretch of the imagination. She was sentenced to six months probation by Judge Henry Sheer at Tybee Court for disturbing the peace. It could have been a $1000 fine and I was horrified. But the Judge and a neighbor evidently are not huge fans of dogs barking (thinking of you Leigh Eoff-Marsh) but Goddess got off with the six month’s probation and a pounding of the gavel.

I wish that I would have the presence of mind to ask the Judge “Is that in dog years?”

Aside from her brush with the law and learning how to enter bathrooms whenever she decides she wants, she has been damn near perfect! We spend a great deal of time talking to one another; consoling each other; playing together, and while I brush her every day she refuses to respond in-kind.

As I write this her paw is on my foot and she is staring at me with her golden brown eyes. We’ve already argued and I hope that she’s trying to make up. She wants to know why I’m writing when I should be taking her on a walk. This is her walk time.

I explained that it is 23 degrees outside but she doesn’t seem to care. So I’m done. It is her birthday after all. And if she wants a friggin’ walk in the cold then she gets it.

Goddess.

Dammit.

When I was the Innkeeper

It all began on a bitterly cold day in Louisville with the wind chill taking the temperatures well below freezing. My wife, year old son and I had just moved into the two-bedroom third floor apartment on top of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in the inner city. I was a full time seminary student and I’d just become the person in charge of the rag-tag congregation of five little old ladies and a bunch of prisoners caravanned to Sunday morning service by a sheriff carrying a rifle. The apartment came with the job and it was free.

The salary was mostly what was collected on Sunday mornings. Jeff Street survived because in those days Baptist still cared for the poor. So the folks at Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta paid the bills as part of their home missions. I remember my entire compensation that first year was $3,100.

I think that they believed that anybody poor certainly didn’t have Jesus in their life and was going straight to hell hence investments in buildings like Jeff Street.

Baptist Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta somehow had convinced themselves that I would be able to rectify this and help poor people get saved. Perhaps the only thing that I ever really accomplished there was saving poor people from Baptist Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta!

We had a Christmas tree that year. A few blocks from the apartment was an outdoor market that sold them. I was sent to get one and we had so little money that I tried to barter with the guy selling them.

“Sure,” he said full of Christmas spirit, “come back on December 26.”

So I spent more than I’d been instructed to spend and drug the tree across concrete blocks and then up three flights of stairs. It was a “Charlie Brown” tree for sure after that but Janice has this great ability to make things look good and by the time she’d finished yelling at me and working her magic it looked pretty good shining down on Louisville’s largest housing project.

The following Sunday morning I crawled out of bed and dressed for Sunday service. Blue jeans, brown hiking boots, a white shirt and a blue sock tie. I called it the “Kroger-look” because I looked like one of the bag boys at the grocery store.

Then I’d walk down the stairs, flip on lights, adjust the thermostat, crank up the van, fix coffee while it warmed up, then climb in and go try to round up a congregation. Quite honestly there was little reason to attend Jeff Street then. The five little old ladies all fell asleep as soon as the service started and the prisoners were all contemplating a plan to jump the sheriff with the gun.

The biggest attraction was Janice’s terrific ability to hit bad notes rather than right notes on hymns. And of course Jeremy was always finding his way to the Baptismal pool leaving clothes lying in the hallway.

On this particular morning though, I walked downstairs, flipped on the lights, adjusted the thermostat, fired the coffee pot … and saw them.

Five men huddled together in the doorway of the Church, trying to get out of the cursed wind, jumping up and down and smoking and cussing. Jeff Street had glass doors and glass walls at the entrance so I stood there looking at them and they stood there looking at me. I remember that I had keys in my hand.

And a thought struck me. Here at I am, 23 years of age in charge of a building called a sanctuary with locked doors and bars on the windows while outside stood five men desperately in need of a sanctuary.

There was this pregnant moment when ten eyes looked at me and two eyes stared at ten. With no thought I unlocked the church and told them to come inside. There were steps to climb when you entered and they all sat down on them patting themselves and willing warmth.

I poured them cups of hot coffee and started another pot. Then I sat with them on the steps. Their names were Chester, Bruce, R.C., Poochie and Mr. Edwards; three white, two black. All freezing!

They all thanked me over and over for letting them inside. I think that I remember Janice brought Jeremy down at one point to see what was taking me so long and there I sat with five homeless men drinking coffee. Introductions were made though that part is foggy to me.

Then we all became the dearest of friends. Some moved into Jeff Street with us because there were all of these Sunday School rooms that nobody ever used. Chester became the babysitter after Kristen was born. Poochie was our protector. They were forever getting me out of bad situations on the streets of Louisville and I was forever saving them from themselves.

It was the holiest of times.

Today I sit and stare at Goddess asleep on the beloved back deck in 23 degree weather. The wind is whipping. I have layers on and it is cold inside of this beach house. But it takes me back to where it all began for me.

The outside looking in and the inside looking out, a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, Baptists who love buildings more than people … and me discovering that I was an Innkeeper and there were these people with nowhere to go. So like the Innkeeper in the story who found room for Joseph, Mary and a soon-to-be arriving Savior to the world, I invited them in.

And all of these years later there is something very Christmas about that morning.

More Christmas than I’ve ever felt before.

Or since.

Christmas Thoughts

“Let’s go to St. Martin!” Johnny O exclaims as he enters the Breakfast Club shaking off the cold.

Whitley agrees having already cursed the bitter 25 mile wind whipping off of the water. From the sky the ocean looks like a steaming vat of hot chocolate with masses of sea foam looking like melting marsh mellows. From the ground it is a bitter windstorm.

We take our normal seats at the counter and during this time of year our friends who work there have time to talk. So we tell stories and in no time at all we are laughing to begin our day.

“Anymore panties” Nick asks?

I shake my head, “Nope just the one pair that is still hanging on the door knob.”

“Chelsea’s art showing looked impressive,” I am told. Yesterday my youngest child had an exhibition of her art on the island. Included were a number of nudes. Her mother said, “Can you turn the nudes around?” as though the paintings would show the body’s backside rather than frontal nudity. We laughed.

Then Whitley and Johnny O leave and I remain behind sipping coffee. Patti sits next to me and reads the paper. Franklin and I chat about his grandmother, my friend, Tommi who was taken to the hospital yesterday. It is warm inside because of the heat from the grills. There are no customers at the moment and I just sit with members of my extended family watching the flags be blown from the flagpoles atop the Ocean Plaza hotel.

I linger because I’m wearing running shorts and a couple of long sleeve tee shirts. I know that I’m not going to run in this wind. My entire body would be chaffed.

It grows quiet and I look at my friends.

If Christmas is for friends and family I am more immersed than I ever remember being. At Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and at Union Mission is was all about others. Family and friends got squeezed in. This year there is plenty of time to just … enjoy what is around me.

Why did I give so many Christmases away?

I know why; so many don’t have them. I have this flare of doing things on a grand scale so I orchestrated grand celebrations. Hundreds of people had stuff. I had great partners pulling it off but the standard was set by me. Everyone would have joy in their stockings and if they didn’t have stockings then they’d get two.

But everything has a cost to it and while hundreds got through a Christmas day because of these efforts, my wife, children and friends didn’t get very much of me.

I look at Goddess lying on the beloved back deck with the wind blowing through her fur coat and my promise plants blowing over. This Christmas there are no hundreds to care for, no parties that I must attend, no one in this house that I must do anything for aside from a dog who loves the outdoors as much as I do.

“Loved the story of the half decorated Christmas tree,” Johnny O told me the other day. “I can just see you talking to Goddess and say “Let’s just decorate half’ because the other half is gone anyway.”

Then he explained how it happened to him when his Dad died. Other people have told me the same thing since I wrote about lighting the tree with only half the lights working and it represented the reality of living alone and no longer a part of the couple that was. A few have explained how they have drug out Christmas trees for the first time in years and while it may have taken them a while to get them decorated, they are up. Because I did it!

And the only reason I did it is that a mother has the ability to make a 54 year old son feel guilty. There’s nothing under the tree other than three manager scenes that were left behind.

Then last night Goddess got up and walked over to the tree. She sniffed a new ornament that my friend Shirley had given me which used to belong to someone very special in her life. Then Goddess curled up under the tree and went to sleep.

And I was filled with more emotion at Christmas time than I’ve ever felt in my life.