Smile

“Where’re you off to now?” they asked as I breezed into the Breakfast Club at 5:30 to grab coffee for the ride to the airport.

“Houston,” I replied pouring myself a to-go cup.

“Hope you make it.”

I nodded my head. It is 26 in Dallas and 70 in Brownsville. And I’m going to Houston assuming that I make it out of Atlanta. Because the Super Bowl is in Texas I’ve paid more money than I ever have for an airplane ticket in my life. And it is Tuesday.

Nine of us are trying to gather from across the United States to continue work designing a new system of making health care accessible. One of the nine will be calling in from Copenhagen.

The plan is to spend the day working through a plethora of issues to establish a new entity than will franchise the new delivery system that we’ve already built. Forget about Obama Care, this is an efficient system combining the best of old fashion personal treatment, physicians and nurses who actually spend time where you are and the best in new technology.

Fun stuff, huh?

It’s a bumpy ride on the plane and I bounce around as I type. The sky is a muted blue grey from top to bottom outside of my window. Everyone is trying to sleep but their heads jerk around in their seats.

Over the past couple of years, the emotions of my life have been a continuous storm of thunder and lightning. It was unrelenting. A handful of brave souls made their way into the midst of it to make certain that I was alright. A few others managed to express an occasional message hoping that I was OK. Many just stood around watching the storm wondering if I would ever make it through. Most didn’t care one way or the other.

The worst of it has moved off shore now. I can still see the thunder and lightning in the distance but it no longer encompasses me. The ocean is eerily calm and the breeze is lite. I am comfortable with the silence. My life looks like these images right now.

I’ve spent a year now writing every day exploring the things that are me. As a friend put it I’ve chosen to live my spiritual journey publicly. Through this came a new community that I hadn’t known had been there. Old friends and new friends dart in and out of my life now having discussions with me about where they are in relationship to where I am.

I have waited and things have come to me. Ignoring the advice of just about everyone I’ve concentrated on me. Joy has returned to my life and I pray that it stays. My smile has returned. Intensity has been replaced with something softer. I’ve tasted tears that are mine now. “Yesterdays are over my shoulder,” says Jimmy Buffett, and I’m learning that there is “so much to see in front of me.”

Up here looking down, I see all of these things. I feel them. I am changed. I’m an Altered Boy. I understand that there is this sense of expectation about what I’m going to do next. There is anxiousness. There are so many skeptics who doubt that I will ever match the things that I’ve already been a part of. And there are those who root for me to fail because of the past successes that I’ve been a part.

I find myself smiling. And I thank God for the gifts that have given it back to me.

Redemption Song

“Missed you at Bar Church yesterday,” I said to Whitley has he joined Johnny O and I at the Breakfast Club Counter.

“I was with the frozen chosen,” he said sitting between us.

“Presbyterians” I asked.

“Yep,” he said sipping his coffee.

And Bar Church is very different from any other that I’ve ever attended. I took my friends from college yesterday who wanted to see it for themselves. First of all there are advertisements for Budweiser everywhere. You don’t see that in most churches though the beer may be consumed there.

Then the bar had votive candles at every seat transforming it into a different kind of alter. Sam Adams has a giant screen with the words of songs on it and leads the congregation of smokers, Pirates, barflies, waitresses and cooks; just a bunch of regular people. I didn’t see any doctors, lawyers, teachers or elected officials. The holiness is down to earth and there is a spontaneity that equals the scripted stuff that the Pentecostals do when they gather.

Gordon sits at the bar wailing on his harmonica. Between verses of Praise songs Sam will yell, “Lead us in worship Gordo,” and the harmonica lifts the spirits of everyone there.

After a while Sam introduced yesterday’s speaker, a former minister named Joe. He had been married for more than 20 years, had done all of the things he was supposed to have done and his life looked like it, and was successful like you’re supposed to be at that age.

Then his wife left him and his life all fell apart. Most churches don’t hire “damaged goods” so Joe’s life was rearranged overnight.

I could relate. So could most everybody else in the room based on their reactions as they nodded, yelled out and pumped their fists in the air.

Later my college friends and I were having lunch at my house. We sat around the table munching through a thoughtful conversation. Transition abounds in our lives. We’re living on faith. We’re either hoping for change, changing or are on the downward slide of change. We shared our stories.

Relationships didn’t work out the way that we believed. We found ourselves with little love in our lives. Careers didn’t work out the way we meant for them to. If we can take it a year at a time for just four more years then … perhaps we’ll make it.

“I dunno,” I said at one point, “I did all of the stuff that you’re supposed to do; all the stuff that God asks of us, and was wildly successful. Sure I had my share of screw ups … who doesn’t? And now I’m in this transition and am not quite sure where I’m going. But I believe that God will help me work all of this out.”

One of my friends looked at me and we shared tears at the same time.

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds,” sings the major Prophet Bob Marley. And that is true! Only we can push ourselves towards God and in new directions and new lives.

And none but ourselves can free our hearts either.

I’ve been in relationships that were good for a while but then they weren’t. I don’t think that it’s anybody’s fault. You do the best you can, giving it your all. But then one day you either leave for yourself or you are left behind and there is only yourself.

This is where emancipation comes in. We have to free our minds from what was once to what is now. We must emancipate our hearts because the love that was there is no more though hearts must have love.

So we emancipate ourselves and do these things and if we do we find redemption.

And we sing.

And if we don’t?

We die a little every day. Until we are completely dead.

ANother Non-Underwear Sunday

The weather has turned for the better and I am sitting on the beloved back deck bathed in sunshine. Winter has killed many of my plants that promise of things to come and they lean wilted and brown in their pots. The trees around me are naked and Fran’s thousand shades of green has been reduced to hundreds. The wind blowing from the west is blocked by the house so it is pleasant and warm this morning.

Finally! It is another Non-underwear Sunday!

This weekend has been a collision of my friends! My friends from college have reunited with me again. On Friday night I sat with my friend in my lap and we laughed and talked.

Last night we grilled, laughed and ate. A fire was in the Chiminea and we spilled onto the beloved back deck listening to music. Later my friend Mitch and I pulled out our guitars for the first time since we played as a duo all of those years ago and launched our new band and tour.

The Acoustic Savages are pleased to announce the “Ram our music down your throat” tour!

We were pretty awful last night as I realized that my little finger can’t do the things that it used to do. But the audience kept calling for more songs and we aimed to please so we kept playing until my fingers bled. Then the band spit up and Mitch went solo.

Both yesterday morning and this morning my college friends accompanied me to the Breakfast Club. My friends were colliding with another. In no time they were conspiring together to prevent anyone from sitting at the Counter. This was because they were all seated together at the Counter so that no one else could. We had a good time though a long line formed.

Then my college friends also went to the Bored meeting yesterday and we’re going again today. First we are going to Bar Church. They have wanted to see it for a while and are disappointed that Johnny O is bringing the “word” next week rather than today. Today Gordon is bringing it and between Harmonica solos I am certain that it will be good as Bar Church can be.

Earlier this week I had lunch with Stacy. I spent time with Shirley in Atlanta and we will be together soon. Mom called and we have a brief conversation because we are both so busy. Goddess is lying underneath my feet as my college friends enjoy this moment with me. The sun shines brightly on us all.

They talk and laugh. I am struck by something. The past several days has been a gathering of the people who have loved me through this past year. They have all serendipitously come together and collided at the same time. It has been a celebration punctuated with laughter, stories, music, food, and the things that people who really love one another do.

I am telling my friends that underwear is optional for Bar Church. Flip Flops are encouraged. Smokers are welcomed. It is the place where pirates worship.

Dee is telling me that she isn’t capable of being a pirate or a wrench (unless Johnny Depp is involved).

“As much as she would like to be,” she confesses.

Underwear optional is in her future.

The rest of us who love her so dearly celebrate her steps towards liberation.

Back to the Future?

“You’re not scared to be seen talking to us?” he asked with a bemused look.

“About what,” I replied?

“He ain’t scared,” said his companion.

I shrugged my shoulders at Mayor Otis Johnson who had asked the question and City Alderman Van Johnson who had made the pronouncement on my feeling about being seen with them.

We were at the gate of our flight back to home after the annual Chamber of Commerce’s Lobby-fest in Atlanta. They looked dapper. Black men wearing black. The Mayor with a baseball cap and the Alderman with a fedora.

I was the white guy in faded jeans, dirty tennis shoes and, I suppose in an effort to show solidarity, a black long sleeve tee shirt. I haven’t had a hair cut in a while but I got a tan.

What I was supposed to have been scared of was having an integrated conversation in 2011 with a City Council who has made racism front page news again. Five black council members voted for two black finalists to become City Manager. Four white Council members wanted a white finalist too.

It’s like watching the History Channel.

They appeared confident and smug.

“I’m doing what I think is best,’ the Mayor says. “In the end that is what you have to do.”

I nod my head. Who can argue with that?

“I’m just glad that it’s not 2008?”

“Because of your heart attack” I asked?

“No, because I was up for re-election,” he explained.

I ask if he enjoyed the Lobby fest and he tells me that he didn’t go.

“The important stuff happens at the Capitol,” he explains. “I don’t need to go to no party where everybody drinks and eats.”

Everybody else at the Capitol disagrees with that assessment and were there.

We’re called to board. “When I’m done I’m going to frame my collection of Streeter cartoons,” he says as we walk down the gangplank.

Mark Streeter is the political cartoonist for the Savannah Morning News.

“I’ve got my share,” I tell him.

“I know you do,” he smiles.

Then we take our seats. No first class on this tiny plane. The Mayor is in front of me giving a speech to the guy sitting next to him. I would turn around to see what Van is doing but I really don’t care.

I ponder these things. A collection of framed political cartoons will represent a legacy. The search for a City Manager has turned into blanket assertions of race. Black is pitted against white. And 250 miles from Savannah where this is all happening, I’m asked if I’m scared to be seen with a black Mayor and Councilman in front of mostly white people who are flying to Hilton Head and don’t know about any of this stuff anyway.

It is sad.

I wonder how far we have all really come. It makes me miss St. Martin where race simply isn’t an issue.

The Garden Party

For once the weather in Atlanta didn’t suck. For the past 23 years it seems as every Savannah Day-in-Atlanta Lobby-fest was cold, wet and windy. Once Laura Webb and I had to lock arms and bend forward into the wind as we made our way back to the hotel so we weren’t blown back into Underground Atlanta. Atlanta can be bitter in so many ways.

But it was nice yesterday. The sun shone, the temperature was pleasant and I never donned the heavy coat that I’d brought for once. I had a pleasant lunch in Virginia Highlands and then went to the Capitol for the beginning of Savannah Day festivities.

I walked in with Mayor Otis Johnson of Savannah. We go way back. We shook hands. He asked if he was in the right place. You would think a Mayor know.

Then I walked inside and there was Councilman Tony Thomas who handed me a button pushing cruise ships in Savannah. I asked him if he had a good time yesterday. Yesterday the City Council orchestrated a 40 step backwards by making Racism front page news.

Then show had already started. This consists of WTOC television personality and former state legislator Sonny Dixon introducing people who are elected or appointed who mostly tell us how busy they are … how hard it is … how many committee meetings they have … and similar bullshit.

The room is packed with the current Leadership Savannah class, anybody who holds elected office in Chatham County, paid lobbyist and members of the business community. It is standing room only though the Chatham County Commission, City Council and School Board all have seats. I notice that these are the only people actually paying much attention to the BS that is being thrown across the room.

Well, and the Leadership Savannah class but that is only because they are facing the audience, behind the elected or the appointed, and are forced to look like they are interested. The rest of us are checking our blackberries, waving at one another, or whispering jokes and giggling as though we’re still in High School.

Every year that I’ve been here I was kissing political ass trying to get something done for Union Mission, Savannah’s homeless, or Chatham County’s uninsured. As my dear friend Stacy put it the other day, it was like walking around with a wet mattress strapped to your back.

After about an hour I left. Margaret Mary was standing outside and we hugged. “What are you here asking for,” she asked?

“The single question everyone in the state wants answered,” I replied. “Gov. Deal, just how in the f*@k did you get elected? Really”!

She cracked up.

Then I hooked up with Rebekah and it was time for the Garden Party at the Train Depot which is alcohol, oysters, bar-b-que for a thousand people. Without a particular agenda, it was great! Friends that I haven’t seen since Many bear hugged and kissed me. They wanted to know where I’ve been, what I’m doing and what I’m going to do. Lunch meetings and cocktail were demanded and my pocket is filled with names and dates.

My dear friend Terry Ball shows up. Shirley Sessions (who actually runs the United Way and Tybee Island) was there. Jenny Gentry, Joe Buck, Kay Ford, Bill Hubbard, Ron Stephens, Buddy Carter, James Holmes, and a hundred other embraces and tiny conversations take place.

As it all started winding down in walks my former co-workers Lavanda Brown and Aretha Jones. I suppose there’s an after party that they attend to which I’ve never been invited.

Interim City Manager Rochelle Smalls-Tony walks by and awkwardly gives me a hug. “I don’t understand what all of this controversy is about,” she tells me.

I shrug my shoulders. “Really,” I say? “I can help.”

Then I survey the room. There is no one else left to talk to. So Rebekah and I walk back to the hotel. We laugh and talk about the evening. At one point I text Aretha because as soon as I saw her she disappeared into the crowd and I never got to say hello.

Then it was bed time. And I was glad. Garden parties are really for politicians.

I’m not one.

The Politicians are in Season

It is a rotten time of year! Winter means your feet are cold and you’re looking for a warm loving place to stick them. We’re forever diving under the covers or dragging out blankets. If we’re lucky we have someone to do these things with. Football season is over and spring is weeks away.

Worse than all of this, every unit of government is back in business at the same time. Congress, state legislatures, county and city elected officials have all reconvened and are meeting at the same time offering … I’m no longer certain what they offer. It used to be leadership but for the most part leaders do not go into politics. I think what they offer these days is their own agenda.

I’ve knocked around every unit of government for the past 25 years. By the time that they convene most have their minds already made up over what they want to do. People go to see them to offer support, offense or a new idea. Except in the case of agreeing with the elected of the land, whatever they have to say mostly falls on deaf ears.

Today’s headline in the “Savannah Morning News” is all about how our City government has led us backwards 40 years so that the primary story is racism is front page news! That’s leadership!

The County just laid off half of the “Recreation and Leisure Services” Department so that kids will not have supervised sports activities. They’ll have to figure out how to have fun on their own. Like learning to use knives and guns, skipping school, and discovering sex as leisure activities. Talk about smart budgeting!

I’m in Atlanta today for the Chamber of Commerce’s annual “Savannah Day Seafood Lobby-fest. Alcohol, bar-b-que and oysters will bring a thousand people together. Everyone will be kissing political ass in hopes of getting what they want. It is how the game is played.

This is the first year that I’m not representing Union Mission and the faceless constituents of the poor. There are no funding streams to protect, no new grants to explore, and no new policies to be advanced. It’s just me as a member of the Chamber and a citizen. I can ask politically incorrect questions without worry.

“Governor Deal,” I might start, “just how in the hell did you really get elected? And given your track record with your own fiscal management, do you really think that you can balance a budget?”

Of course had it been Governor Barnes who had been elected I would be asking the exact same questions! It is a sad state of affairs.

Then there is Congress. Where to begin? It’s as pompous as it gets! You rush around for ten minutes with the elected person representing you and most often see an aid who is still learning cursive as she takes notes. Then she promises that she’ll pass on your concerns to the Congressman (only white men in my district). You sit there and realize what a waste of time it is.

Political season has begun … again. I sigh heavily. It’s the worst time of the year.

And my feet are cold. I need to stick them somewhere warm.

Oh wait!!

I know!!!

Straight Ahead

I am standing underneath it before I can completely see that it really is a Palm Tree. The fog is so dense that even the lighthouse is hidden from view. I let go of Goddess’ leash but she only runs for a second before bringing it back to me. She doesn’t know where to go. I can see about ten feet in front of me. We make our way to Shirley’s sad little holy dock and walk into middle of the fog. It welcomes us with an embrace and we are one, hidden from the rest of the world, where little light shines.

This has been my life for the past year.

Eventually we leave the dock and as we make our way passed Artie’s house he comes out to give Goddess her morning treats. He asks me where I’ve been and I tell him. Then I tell him that I’m off to Atlanta tomorrow for “Savannah Day” which should be called the “Seafood and Lobby-fest”.

“Isn’t that the last time you saw …”?

I nodded my head from side to side. “No I saw her once more since then.”

“It’s only been a year?” he asked. “It seems a lot longer.”

“Tell me about it,” I reply.

Then Goddess and I make our way back into the blanket of fog, hidden from all save those who seek us out.

I run the beach but unless I am within a few feet of the ocean it cannot be seen. I guess which street I run up to carry me back home and I’m off by a block. I trip over a tree branch that has washed ashore because I am on it before I can make my foot move in a different pattern. Robert Plant sings in my ears.

New tides surprise my world it's changing
Within this frame an ocean swells
Behind this smile I know it well
Beneath a lover's moon I'm waiting
I am the pilot of the storm Adrift in pleasure I may drown

“I want you happy,” she had said.

“Me too,” I’d replied.

Then I got notes. One from someone who I know loves me but hasn’t given the best advice over the past year or so.

“Of course I'm interested and I too want you to be happy; and for you to get there you got to get out of the past! It is no longer; it's unchangeable and it's weary!”

“Create some new tomorrows / visions / breakthroughs ---- You still can!!”

I thought it to be an odd cheerleader speech and wrote back, “I got it. Straight ahead!”

I ponder his words in the fog and then count them as premature. What he’s saying is right. His timing is wrong. Then I think of the things that I’ve accomplished in the past year that seems like ten.

New tides surprise my changing world. I’ve found my smile. I wait beneath this lover’s moon. I’m piloting my own course through this storm.

Finishing the run I grab Goddess for another walk around the block so that I can cool down. We return to the fog. And standing on the end of Shirley’s sad little holy dock, the sun burst through in brilliance.

Blackballed

“Saving the world through weekly lunch meetings complete with a guest speaker and a raffle … it’s a bird … it’s a plane … its mostly white people in business suits … it’s a briefcase convention … IT’s CONAN THE ROTARIAN!!

I am the last person to be blackballed by a Savannah Rotary Club. My friend Dr. Steve Acuff had put my name in and I agreed to join. So he called me a few weeks later and asked to meet with me where he delivered the bad news.

At the time my third book had just been released, I was overseeing the construction of a shelter for women and children and another for people living with AIDS. I was all over the news and was invited somewhere most every day to speak, including all of the Rotary Clubs. I thought I was a shoe in. Steve led me know this was the first time someone had been blackballed since the days of integration.

“I wonder why,” I asked him?

“Well,” he thoughtfully began, “do you remember when the Leadership Savannah class went to Washington D.C.”?

Did I? Man we had a blast.

Our Leadership Savannah class was comprised mostly of … leaders. We were forever breaking new ground and on the D.C. trip several things happened. First of all we orchestrated the kidnapping of a bar named Déjà vu, including Steve and Pat the famous lawyer locking the Disc Jockey out of his cage so that they could keep playing “Love Shack” by the B52’s over and over again.

I also recall that our entire Leadership Savannah class was banned from ever flying United Airlines again. Several of my classmates didn’t want the party at Déjà vu to end so they brought it on the plane, complete with confiscating the microphone and grabbing stewardess’ to dance the aisle.

When we weren’t doing these things we were at Congress, the Library of Congress or Old Ebbits Grill. What got me blackballed from the Rotary Club happened in Congress and I cannot think of a better place to get in trouble.

At the time Robert Mapplethorpe was a terrific controversy because he received money from the National Endowment for the Arts and produced art that many found offensive. We were in a room in Congress and some Congressman from California was ranting and raving about Mapplethorpe. Taxpayer dollars should not go to such stuff!

He was doing this slide show and showed a painting of Jesus depicted as a black junky sitting on an inner city street shooting up.

“Look at this sacrilege!” the Congressman wailed.

I raised my hand. He looked surprised. “So,” I began, “in the Bible it says that Jesus is with the poor, the oppressed, the window, the orphan and the sojourner. A sojourner is a homeless person. Many are heroin addicts. This panting seems to convey that Jesus feels their plan. What’s your problem?”

Many of my Leadership Savannah mates were also Rotarians and evidently you’re not supposed to question things if you are a Rotarian. So I was blackballed. When Steve told me the reason I sat straighter in my chair. It made me kind of proud.

“You are softer now,” my friend told me yesterday. “To look at pictures of you then … you weren’t angry but you were …”

“Intense,” I finished for her. If you are going to represent the needs of the down and out, the sick and the poor, the addicted and the dying … you become intense.

Having a career managing the sadness and tragedies of others affects your happiness. It certainly did mine over the years. Then I reached this tipping point where the unhappiness of the world conquered my happiness. And now here I sit on this Sabbatical trying to learn from it.

“I want you happy,” she said.

“Me too,” I nodded, smiling.

But … “all of the answers and all of the questions” will not be “locked in an attic one day” to use Jimmy Buffets line.

Leaders don’t do that.

Regardless of the cost.

Putting it back together

The airplane leaves Ft. Lauderdale and climbs over the ocean. The beach that I laid on is below me. A large red tanker ship remains moored outside of the hotel that I was in. Four cruise ships are docked waiting to carry hundreds to the Bahamas or the Caribbean. The blue green water contrasts the purple blue clouds that the pilot takes us through. Bursting through them we are suddenly bathed in bright sunshine. The clouds now below are a vast sea of white puffiness.

I am ready to be home.

Since June I’ve been to St. Martin, Atlanta, New Orleans, L.A., St. Martin again and now Ft. Lauderdale. But mostly I’ve been on my beloved back deck, the Breakfast Club, the Bored meeting at Fannies-on-the-Beach, and Bernie’s for good live music. At home my geography is very small and I want to return to the solitude there.

I was explaining to my friends over the weekend how hard it has been to embrace this Sabbatical and not feel guilty. Our culture expects us to work, to produce and earn. It has been very hard sometimes to reflect, pray, and dream as the return on these activities come much slower and are not as tangible as a product or a paycheck.

And I had a heart that had been broken into a million pieces. It is hard work putting a heart back together again. It also takes a long time. I’m not done yet and my heart doesn’t quite look the same as it did before.

Nor does it work quite like it did. It is more guarded, much slower to open up and suspicious of attempts of others who want to get inside. It used to have the capacity to love hundreds at the same time but now that number can be counted easily.

“I can’t believe that you did something so bold and unexpected when you resigned,” wrote back in June. She is the President of a bank. “I want to do it too but am scared.”

I don’t recall being scared as much as being stunned. So much had happened in such a short period of time. And my thousand miles a minute career came to a sudden stop. Everything about the way that I lived my life changed in an instant.

Over the summer months I spent all of my time in shock at this changed universe. A handful of people sought me out. These are the ones who proved to be my friends. While the rest of the world waited on me to call or to see what I’m going to do next, the people who love me showed up. And they kept showing up giving me something to work with as I put my heart back together.

Over the fall I began to leave the Sabbatical on occasion revisiting the world. My skills and talents were reaffirmed and I learned that there are a great many people who have this belief in me. They are convinced that whatever it is that I do is going to be spectacular! It is affirming in a way but I’m still very much focused on the healing that is taking place inside of me.

As the New Year began I started looking into the future. I’ve been spending time dreaming again, picturing myself doing this or that. I’m looking forward more. There are those who I love and am quick to tell them so. Productivity began to creep back into my days.

But today I am ready for home; for the love that waits for me there; for walks with Goddess and talks with my friends. I want to laugh with my extended family at the Breakfast Club and at the Bored meeting. I want to wade in the surf of the sea and to pray on Shirley’s sad little holy dock. I want to watch the marsh be reborn.

Because these are the things that bring love back into a heart that is almost put back together again.

Understanding the Crucifixion

When I was a kid my brother David and I used to fight all of the time. By fighting I mean we wrestled, grabbing one another and throwing the other around. He is almost exactly one year younger than me so we were hyper competitive. The back yard was this field of dreams where we competed with one another in baseball, football, games that we made up and God knows what else. We would pass by one another in the house and just start wrestling seeing who could pin the other to the ground.

Then one day I was watching television and it was some Cowboy show. I don’t remember which one but I vividly recall when the fight broke out the Cowboy used his fist and hit the bad guy in the face. He kept doing it until the bad guy fell to the ground.

“Um hum,” I thought to my eight or nine year old self.

Later on the carport my brother grabbed me and started to wrestle. I stepped back, balled my fist and hit him in the face.

“That’s not fair!” he screamed.

I did it again.

He started crying and yelling for Mom.

I hit him again thinking to myself that this Cowboy stuff worked pretty good!

Of course this stuff only works once. By the next day David had figured it all out and when I walked by him he just hit me in the face.

I learned that retaliation is something that people do.

A few years ago I lost my mind and decided to take on the state mental health system and make it better. If you follow this kind of stuff treatment for the mentally ill is one of the United States worst sins. There is not a single state that doesn’t underfund and under treat people with various forms of mental illness. One of the reasons that we build so many jails and they are all over crowded is because the mentally ill go untreated, do something inappropriate or really bad, get arrested and sit in prison.

As a matter of fact the prison system is the largest provider of mental health services in the country. It is a silly waste of tax dollars as preventive treatment is much cheaper and actually helps people to live a good life.

Anyway we were initially successful mainly because the Governor’s office understood the economics of it all. It is cheaper to treat than to incarcerate. So we received several million dollars matched it with private money, built a state-of-the-art treatment facility and all looked promising and good.

Then we were hit in the face. The government bureaucracy didn’t like that we were different from everything else that they supported. Those that had lost the contracts bonded together and aligned themselves with the bureaucrats to oppose what we were doing. And after a few years it all came crumbling down.

I was telling a friend of mine recently that I understand the crucifixion. People try to do good and oppose the way things are like Jesus did and end up getting crucified. It’s a sad fact of life.

Those people who have never been crucified have never really tried to do much that is good. It may be on a small scale in your family, a bigger one like in your neighborhood or a grand scale impacting lots of people. Along the way as you try to make a positive difference people hate you for your efforts and they do their best to hurt you.

The times that this has happened in my life it left me hurt and cynical. But I am a big believer that justice eventually comes around. Good triumphs evil. Love overcomes hate. The good guys finally overcome the bad guys. God reigns supreme.

“Waiting is the hardest part,” according to Tom Petty and I think that he is right. But the faithful wait. And they believe in these things. Even though they are hit in the face or the things that they wish for are denied.

So over the past couple of years I’ve been hit with a lot of stuff. All of my kids are gone. Love fled from my house. The things that I had given my life to no longer needed me. Lots of people who had told me that they were my friends disappeared. A blanket of loneliness fell over my life.

But outside of my bedroom window is a tree. The leaves have fallen on the ground and it stands naked in the wind. But there is this one red leaf hanging on. It believes that it will survive until the spring and be surrounded with the love of the sun.

It makes me smile. I believe in that leaf. With everything inside of me!

Distractions

“Do not rush this Sabbatical that you’re on,” she told me. “If you do it will all be for nothing and you’ll be back in the same place that you were in before you left. It’s like healing a broken leg or recovering from a heart attack. If you try to come back too soon you break your leg again for put stress on your heart that leads to something bad.”

I was leaning over listening to Jane Isaacs Low a program director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. After a very long day working through grants we were at a dinner table with fifteen others so Jane and I had to lean into one another so that we could hear each other.

It was easy to get distracted. The place was packed, Chelsea was getting on an airplane in New York to take off for Italy and these pictures kept popping up on my I-phone that made me look.

I’d called Jane several weeks ago asking if I could have some private time with her to discuss my future plans. As someone who helps oversee a Foundation with $5 Billion in assets, Jane has pretty much seen it all. We enjoy working together and I value her advice.

“Don’t be distracted from your Sabbatical,” she admonished. “Be sure that you completely finish one thing before you begin another.”

I was taken aback. From the moment that I began this journey when I became suddenly single and then resigned from Union Mission almost everyone seeking to give me advice has told me the opposite. They looked at it as though I’d fallen off my bicycle and the only thing that I need to do was to get back on and ride again.

Everyone else assumed that I had retired and congratulated me on it.

After six months, Jane is the first person to advise me to take care of this time that I have for me.

Then we moved on to talk about the things that I want to do after the Sabbatical is over. She was extremely helpful giving me great counsel and terrific advice.

I am sitting in a coffee shop in the Ft. Lauderdale Sheraton contemplating these things. It is easy to get distracted because girls in bikinis keep walking by me.

Suddenly my coffee is cold.

I was telling someone last night that I feel as though one of my feet is clearly on the ground of this Sabbatical while the other is in the air moving forward. It hasn’t hit the ground yet but there is movement. I feel myself coming back together.

Yesterday I was reminded of how much I have missed being part of a group, debating what is best and how to get things done. We were making hard decisions and though it was difficult, we laughed and enjoyed the work.

Those last few years at Union Mission, the groups that I was part of were mostly comprised of individuals looking out for their own best interest. It distracted us from the things that actually needed to get done. So it was good to be reminded of how good it is to be a part of a healthy group.

So I promise myself that I will not rush to the end of this time of reflection until it is completely over. I’ll know when that is. My gut will tell me. Looking back at all of those times that I didn’t listen to my gut, bad things happened. Emotion most often trumps intellect. I promise to listen to my heart first.

So I will not be distracted.

Hold on … girls in bikinis are walking by.

Moonrise

I’m sitting in a conference room that has no windows in it. That’s a shame because I’m at the beach, it will be 81 degrees today and the winds are calm. A perfect beach day! I’ll only catch glimpses of it when we take breaks from the grants we are arguing for and against. But the trip is paid for and I’m with this really cool collection of people and we’ll have fun and learn a lot.

In 1999 I drove to Charleston, South Carolina with Ben Barnes and Mary Ann Beil so that we could meet Ted Hardgrove. Ted was the Deputy Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Local Funding Partners Program. They give away money to health care programs that they consider groundbreaking.

From New Jersey Ted is a soft spoken, former minister, who ran his own non-profit for a while. We immediately hit it off and I explained to him that we were doing shelter based health clinics for homeless people. Then we shared the dream for a full scale clinic that would be completely integrated with housing, employment, and other services. Ted was intrigued.

We were invited to submit a grant and we did. I wrote it. And we almost got funded but didn’t. Ted called to explain that all five letters of support were identical though they were all signed by different people and on different stationary.

“Damn,” I said. Of course they’re identical! I wrote them and then got people to sign them.

Ted chuckled and invited us to submit again the following year. We did, this time with five support letters that didn’t look anything like the other, and we received $500,000 to establish the J. C. Lewis Health Center.

The following year the Foundation gave me a “Community Health Leader” award which was $100,000.

The Foundation’s been very good to Union Mission and to me.

In 2002 they asked me to serve on one of their National Advisory Committee and become one of the people who decides who gets money and who doesn’t. It’s been quite the learning experience. After today, we will go visit the places that we’ve read about and this summer money will flow to the winners and the losers will reconsider their applications.

Eight or ten times a year I am in a room like this in some city across the country. Today it is Fort Lauderdale. In a few weeks it will likely be San Francisco I learned last night. In between are Atlanta and Houston.

Last night we all had dinner together beside the ocean at an outdoor bar. We’ve gotten to know and like one another so we laughed and toasted in group speak or we broke off into soft quiet conversations.

A full moon rose over the ocean. As it climbed it cast a white trail on the water. While everyone else continued talking and enjoying themselves, my mind followed the trail to the moon and I grew quiet and introspective. My eyes remained focused on the spectacular moonrise.

And I thanked God for allowing this crazy life that I live. And I toasted the moon and I made a promise to dance under it soon in celebration of the joy that is in my life.

Travel Plans

The almost full moon broke through the nighttime clouds as I made my way to the airport before the sun woke up. Last year, I became a “Platinum level” flyer meaning that I fly a lot. Several years ago I hit “Silver” status and then “Gold” and last year hit the big time.

It comes in handy sometimes. Once I was stuck in Pittsburgh and was told there was no way that I could get on another plane until the lady saw that I am a “Platinum Flyer” and then she quickly said, “Of course you can.” I also get bumped to first class a lot which gets you spoiled.

Last year this time the Chairman of my Board who chooses to remain anonymous questioned all of my travel. So I told Jerry Rainey, “It is part of the job. Almost all of it is paid for by the people who invite me to come. I learn all kinds of things from these visits and apply them to our work because other people are doing certain things better than we are. And besides, we have contacts across the nation that can come in handy doing fund raising.”

I don’t think that he ever believed me.

Today I’m off to Ft. Lauderdale because I am a member of A National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We’ve read about thirty grants and will lock ourselves in a room for a few days to determine who gets slices of a $5 Million pie.

This marks my sixth year doing this and I’ve everything there is to know about grant writing (and I was already pretty good), the common themes of successful applications and the newest solutions to complicated issues. It’s been a great experience!

Afterwards I’ll hook up with friends and at some point this weekend run into Conner. We were last together in St. Martin and made mischief together as we do. Before that we were in New Orleans where mischief was made too but neither one of us remember what actually happened.

There is a sign that my friend Jenny has in Fannies-On-the-Beach. “Travel is fatal to prejudice and bigotry.”

I think that this is true.

And I’ve been lucky enough to have most of my prejudices and bigot beliefs be blown to pieces. It makes you more open to new things and people who you normally wouldn’t pick to be your friends. But you do.

For years I begged my kids to move to Europe for year after High School then go to College or to work. This was Dad talking of course so they didn’t listen. Oh Jeremy went later and fell in love with it. Kristen hasn’t made it yet but will.

And then my baby girl Chelsea decided to go. She flies out tomorrow for a few weeks in London before spending five months in Italy. I couldn’t be prouder. She will study art while she is there but will return a changed person. It makes me happy.

I hugged her goodbye last night because I’m flying out today. We will Skype and Face Book because the world is more connected electronically than it’s ever been. Maybe one day it will be as connected in other ways. And I’m already making plans to go see her.

So Godspeed my baby! Enjoy the hell out of it! I’m proud of you!

The Language of God

The quietness of the house wakes me. Everything is still and the silence is deafening. I roll on my side and stare at the silhouettes of the Palm Trees in the dark. Then I lay there and my mind fills with hopes and dreams of miracles and love. I don’t rush anymore. I lay there for a long time just washing myself in hopes and dreams.

This is new for me. I used to leap from the bed directly into the shower fully awake and ready to conquer the day. I’d dress and be at the Breakfast Club fifteen minutes after waking. A half an hour later I was heading for the office and the days were roller coaster rides of triumph and tragedy. Returning home that evening I would describe my day to someone who cared.

That’s how it used to be.

Now I linger in the quietness of the house focusing intently on the hopes, dreams, miracles and love. These are the first things that I think about now every morning; just me and them with no interruptions. It is a sensual wakening. Why hurry when it is sensual? Life doesn’t have enough of that. We give away our sensuality for stability.

Since June, first in St. Martin then on my beloved back deck and now sitting at my kitchen table staring through the sliding glass doors at the windy winter days, I have stopped.

I used to be relentless and I gave myself away to grand causes, social justice and the things that God says she wants in Scriptures. I did a lot of cool stuff, met a lot of people, won a bunch of awards and got my picture in the paper and on TV. That was my life for decades.

Since June I’ve grown increasingly accustomed to the sensuality of the mornings. Hope, dreams, miracles and love are the major goals of life anyway so why not start every day with them?

They are prayers.

The quietness of the house is akin to the emptiness of a church. It wraps its arms around me. If God speaks in the “still small voice” then she is yelling at me.

Fifteen minutes or half an hour later I get up. Goddess is not used to this new routine so she is lying in the door to the bathroom so that I HAVE to pay her the attention that she is accustomed to. I linger in the shower now too. It is a thoughtful time and the sounds of silence are deafening in the hot water that sprays on me. I stare upwards as though in prayer. Then I sigh heavily towards the ground.

Climbing out, I have already felt every emotion that the day will throw at me. It is a much different way to wake up.

Since June I’ve waited on things to come to me rather than chasing after things. It has been very Zen like. And it has been amazing what has, and hasn’t happened.

I’ve captured the holiness of waking up somehow. My friends have come to me. The people who had always said they were my friends didn’t. I know who is who. Work finds me rather than me finding work. Fran came back to life in her thousand shades of green and I believe in resurrections more than I ever have. Old friends came out of nowhere. Joy found me.

Now is the time for my resurrection. Grand causes, social justice, the things that God says she wants in Scriptures, cool stuff, lots of people, new awards and pictures in the paper and on TV are around the corner somewhere.

But for now, I’ll take the silhouettes of the Palm Trees, the sensuality of hopes, dreams, miracles and love.

After all, this is the language of God.

The Dreamer's Disease

“Wake Up Kids! We got the Dreamer’s disease!” sing the New Radicals in one of my favorite songs.

I certainly do. I remain a kid at heart. This time of year I wear socks because its cold and I am forever getting a running start, suddenly stopping and gliding across the tile floor in my house. If I wore underwear I would look like Tom Cruise in whatever movie that was but I don’t so no one will mistake me for him.

And I have a serious case of the Dreamer’s Disease!

There is no cure.

Not that I would want one. I’ve been part of a lot of incredible accomplishments, traveled the world, know who my friends are (and who they’re not), and am preparing myself for the next great thing. That’s what dreamers do. We’re always getting ready for the next great thing; be it love, justice, creation, art, or random acts of … everything!

I showed up for bar church yesterday, dressed to preach wearing shorts, a faded blue long sleeve tee with a paint stain on the arm, and an unbuttoned flannel shirt to knock the chill blowing in off the ocean. I got a robe that I bought from a minister who was going out of business but I didn’t want to wear it.

There were lots of people on the sidewalk outside of the Wind Rose Café, which had been masqueraded as a church with a huge banner hanging out front. It read “Tybee Church! Mayberry by the Sea! Smokers and Flip Flops welcome! Where Pirates Worship”!

Making my way through the people on the sidewalk the bar was packed! It was standing room only and it stopped me dead in my tracks. Jenny O walked in. Johnny O followed her. O Johnny was already seated. Whitley must have still been there from the night before because he was on the front row.

Then there were all of these other people. Many are regulars at bar church but then there were lots of others that I recognized. Over the years they were people who had sought me out because I was someone who could get their teeth fixed, find them housing, introduce them to a doctor and take on a hospital.

“Been waiting on this Rev,” yelled Richard who is nine feet tall and tells me he bends nails for a living, meaning he works construction when he can find work and couldn’t drive a nail in straight if his life depended on it.

A lady who was vaguely familiar threw her arms around my neck and hugged the breath out of me. She couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds. Her long brown hair weighed more than she did. She didn’t say anything. She hugged me and I felt wetness in my ear. And then the ocean erupted in my eyes.

Sam Adams and Gordon started playing the music. My friend Joanie got up and did this killer version of “Amazing Grace” which is much better performed in a bar than in a church (and if you don’t believe it then Google John Newton and learn the rest of the song and how it got written).

Then this old familiar feeling started in my stomach and began making its way up. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve felt it but I knew what it was. For 30 years, the Dreamer’s Disease would infect me. Coupled with a kid’s heart it can be lethal.

So I’d kick in the doors of Congress that mostly justify themselves or Baptist Corporate Headquarters who justify who they think God is or the arrogant banks that run/ruin the economy or the Chambers of Commerce where most decisions are actually made. And I would be representing the homeless, people living with AIDS, the uninsured, the addicted, the unsteady and the ones doing the best that they knew how to do.

And I overcompensated on their behalf and was as cocky as a NFL quarterback in a playoff game. And the words of God came rushing into my heart, making their way up to my head, and spewing out of my mouth.

In Seminary I learned this phrase, “orgasmic preaching”. Damn it’s good you hit it. It is not arrogance or cockiness but there is this moment when you know with everything in you are God’s words and not yours and you couldn’t change them or influence them if you wanted to.

And just like sex, after that … you are spent. So I meandered around with my friends for a bit. But then I went home where I just needed to bask in the love that I believe God is. And I smiled and when I did.

And I believe that God smiled back.

But then again, I have the Dreamer’s Disease.

And a kid’s heart.

Bar Church

“Before you move ahead and start reading this, let me take a moment to tell you a few things. I believe in God, but I’m not certain what all that means anymore. You would think someone with a divinity degree would not say such a thing. Oh, I know a lot about what other people have said about God. Then we have church history, comparative religions, theology, church management, and a lot of other things that have very little, if anything, to do with God.”

So begins “Playing Hide & Seek: A Non-Church Goers Guide to God” which is a book I wrote a long time ago.

I remember a few things about that book. First, the publisher couldn’t get anyone to endorse it. We tried everybody and I still have this great letter from Tony Compollo, who was a really hot preacher and writer at the time, chiding me because I wrote that “No Savior will ever sleep in the White House” and he had slept in the White House and was offended.

Second was when Rev. Bennie Mitchell, of Conner’s Temple Baptist Church here in Savannah, walked into a room, saw me started shaking his head from side to side and said, “Mike, Mike, Mike”. He sat down beside me. “Why did you put all of that stuff in your book? I mean, yeah we all think it but we never say it! You wrote what we really think!”

Last were all of the people who don’t go to Church but believe in God who wrote or called to thank me for writing that it’s ok. God sometimes goes to church but not all that much. She’s busy saving the world and all.

After being a part of the special thing that the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel was back in Louisville, Kentucky I’ve had a hard time with Church. I mean if they knew when God was going to make an appearance they would put it in the bulletin; probably right after the sermon but right before the collection. At Jeff St it seemed like magic was happening all of the time and there really is something magical about an experience with God!

After leaving Jeff St, I tried. Technically I’m a member of First Baptist Church of Savannah but I haven’t been for almost two decades. They still send me offering envelopes though! Gotta love that determination!

Then I bounced around a little bit. I went to Chapel by the Sea Baptist Church a couple of times but the sermon was “If you jog on Sundays you’re going to hell” and I had just finished jogging.

I’ve gone to St. Michael’s Catholic Church several times because I like a really good Mass from time to time. I was telling my best friend the other day that I know all of the responses and when to kneel and stand and I’m ok with genuflecting in general. But I can’t take the homilies. I learned all of this stuff from Fr. Vernon Robertson at St. Martin of Tours in Louisville and he was the greatest Priest ever! Then again, I now wonder if he was simply preparing me for my love of the island of St. Martin.

God does work in mysterious ways.

So all of that to say, I’m heading back to Bar Church in a little bit. Sam Adams and Gordon who play damn good live music here on Tybee started Bar Church several years ago (become a friend on Face Book by going to Tybee Church). It is in the Wind Rose Café. Somehow a bar band turns a bar into a church with votive candles, a large screen with words to songs and Scripture verses and the people who don’t go to Church attend.

I was the first member of the clergy to be asked to “bring the word” to this crowd. I had a blast! So Sam invited me back and today is the day. Johnny O is the first non-ordained heathen to “bring the word” to them and he will do that Sunday after next!

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the Saints,” sings Billy Joel.

Me too!

That’s where God is.

The Lazarus Convention

It started at a Bored meeting, the daily collection of friends who gather in front of Fannies-on-the-Beach to celebrate life on Tybee Island. O Johnny got the “brilliant” idea to get us into merchandizing with hat caps and tee shirts made with “Tybidiot” on the front and “official Bored member” on the back. The first run of 12 sold out in one day.

So O Johnny decided to do more. I should share that O Johnny actually spends more time in Atlanta than he does on Tybee. To make matters worse he is actually employed by the federal government who hold him prisoner there. Regardless his thinking is very warped as a result of living in such conditions.

That is no small statement when you compare O Johnny to the other members of the Bored!

So for the first ever the Bored had money. Everyone naturally assumed it would be used to buy the next round but then a miracle happened. Chuck Courtenay, Jr. the famous musician was riding down front, saw the Bored protecting the sidewalk in front of Fannies (which consists of Roma screaming at anybody on a bicycle or skateboard on the sidewalk) and he stopped.

After a brief exchange with Roma he set up his piano and speakers on the sidewalk and did a concert for the Bored. This is akin to the Beatles famous roof top concert on the top of the Apple Recording Studio in London. It immediately became the biggest concert every held on Tybee and everybody now claim to have been present (though there were like 10).

After that Chuck had endeared himself to the Bored. So in an executive committee meeting, which consists of Roma going to the bathroom and coming out with an idea, it was determined that all of the money would be given to Chuck to hold a concert at the Oceanside Nursing Home.

Several years ago Chuck started “Door of Hope Ministries” where he does concerts in nursing homes. If you’ve ever spent much time in a nursing home then you know that they are not the most fun places to spend an afternoon. Most seem to have had all the life sucked out of them as families stick relatives there until they can die. Not all families, but a lot. It is as Nursing Homes suck the life out of the people while charging them for it (kind of like government).

Chuck takes life back in by performing concerts for the residents. He shows up with his talent, electric piano and speakers. He is charismatic and speaks to each person who can walk or be wheel chaired in. He knows the music they like prefer he starts.

Then he starts.

Yesterday Roma, Jenny O, Johnny O, Whitely, the Rev. and a friend of us all showed up at the Oceanside Nursing Home for Chuck’s concert. He started with 1950s rock-n-roll and it was as though Jesus had wandered into a Lazarus convention! Old ladies long dead in wheelchairs jumped and danced! Old men stood beside Chuck as though they were background singers and dancers, snapping their fingers and clapping their hands. People confined to their seats sang along loudly. Even those who couldn’t do anything watched with more intensity than they’ve had in years.

As the only member of the Bored who can actually dance, I grabbed the hand of a lady in red sitting in her wheel chair and spun her around.

“Oh my” she said grinning from ear to ear.

A bit later, Roma who thinks she can dance grabbed some pom-poms and twirled them around in front of Chuck. To the non-trained she almost gave the appearance of dancing except that the pom-poms were going in opposite directions. Roma only has rhythm when alcohol is involved.

But this was an amazing thing to witness…this Lazarus Convention.

For years Chuck has mostly paid for these concerts out of his own pocket. He does them all over the place because it is amazing how few really give a shit about the people who live in Nursing Homes. He and I have been friends a long time and I know how he struggles to keep doing it but he does.

Yesterday was his 60th birthday too! He could have been making money or having parties or a thousand other things but he chose to bring the dead back to life.

So…if you want to do something to make yourself feel wonderful and participate in the raising of the dead, send him a check at P.O. Box 2294, Evans, Georgia 30809 made out to Door of Hope Ministry or call him at 706-210-HOPE.

I did the other day. But I didn’t realize what I was buying until I attended my first Lazarus Convention. My God! It is an amazing thing to witness.

Unfinished Stories

Before there was Charles, my six-foot-two, African American, mentally ill former bank robber adopted son, there was Keith. For the better part of the past decade until I left Union Mission Charles and I were extremely close and he achieved more stability in his life than he’d ever had. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen him but he crosses my mind every day. The last time that I saw him he told me that he loves me.

In 1995 though, there was Keith. From Ohio Keith was a mentally ill, Vietnam veteran with lupus. His head was permanently cocked to one side and his white face was filled with red splotches. He spoke with that high nasal twang of northern Ohio. He loved French fries, science fiction novels and pretty girls.

“Keith,” I asked him one day sitting in my office, “I really have a hard time envisioning you in Vietnam.”

“Oh Mike,” he replied in his high pitched northern voice, “I was different back then. It was before the lupus.”

I nodded, of course. It had to have been.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Oh I discovered pot,” he answered with great enthusiasm.

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled. “Then what happened,” I probed.

“I liked it so much I sent some to my wife back in Ohio”!

“Wait,” I said standing up, “you were married?”

“Oh yeah,” he said turning his body to look me in the eyes, “back then I was hot.”

I loved Keith.

“Then what happened?”

“Well,” he replied sitting back down with his head cocked away from me but his green eyes still looking in mine, “I mailed her really good stuff. And the Army found out so I was discharged pretty quickly.”

“You mailed it to her?”

“How else was I going to get it to her?” he stood and turned his body to look me dead in the eyes again. “I was in Vietnam and she was in Ohio.”

‘Uh huh,” I shook my head. “Then what happened?”

“Well when I got home she divorced me for being stupid.”

I didn’t know what to say.

A few weeks later I ran with the Olympic Torch and soon after I finished took it to Grace House so that homeless people could see one. There is a photograph of me still wearing the official sanctioned running wear standing next to Keith who is holding the Torch. His head his cocked to the side but his eyes are staring at the camera. He is smiling a crooked slurred smile.

So Keith became part of the family. The first time that I brought him to Tybee he went nuts over the girls in bikinis. He deserved more than life in a homeless shelter and after we got him disability I asked if he wanted to move to the Ocean Plaza Nursing Home, a couple of blocks from where I lived.

“Can I look at girls in bikinis?” he asked.

“All you want,” I told him.

So he moved into the nursing home and though Julie would visit him and play Chinese- Checkers with him sitting on his bed, he hated it. I was forever getting phone calls from Susan the administrator.

Keith had taken a boom box, placed it in the middle of the community room, hit play and the Rolling Stone’s “Sympathy for the Devil” blared into the ears of all of the wheelchair bound residents. Keith gyrated and danced and got mad that no one would dance with him.

One day I was called to immediately come because Keith had taken $1,700 on a group trip to Wall Mart. He wanted to buy a Walk-man. The Nursing Home Policy was to charge rent first and leave a bit of spending money for the residents. I’d hid Keith’s money so that he had plenty.

“Dammit Keith,” I was furious after Susan had given me back his money, “what were you thinking?”

“I don’t know what a Walk-man costs,” he calmly answered. “I didn’t want to be embarrassed if I didn’t have enough money.”

I didn’t know what to say.

In my mind I thought that it would always be this way. Keith would live and die as part of my family on Tybee. Kristen and Chelsea would visit him with us. It would be a perfect ending to a rotten life.

But Susan called me one day to tell me that Keith was gone. I rushed out to his room at the Nursing Home and he had cleaned it out. And … that was that.

Life is full of unfinished stories. We’ve all got our share.

So Keith, if you’ve figured out the Internet yet in your science fiction brain, or have a Face Book page or might you still be alive, this is for you. “Not trying to change your mind … but to say that I miss you … good luck, goodbye …”

And thank you.

Bye Mrs. Tommie

Back in those days, Chelsea was five or six and would wake up when I woke up. She dressed quickly and was waiting on me when I walked into her room. Kissing her good morning, I took her tiny hand and we made our way to the car for the quick drive to the Breakfast Club. In those days it opened at six a.m. and my daughter and I took our seats at the counter.

Chelsea ordered the same thing every day. “The Chelsea Special” is what Bruce called it. A grilled cheese sandwich with “the rhine cut off” and bacon. I was already dressed for work with a shirt and tie on and Chelsea never mastered the art of a napkin back then. She used the shelve of my shirt to wipe her hands after eating.

On one side of me was Jake, the master of ceremonies; deaf as he could be but equally funny. On the other side of him was Georgia who delivered the newspapers to the island.

“God I’m tired,” Georgia exclaimed one morning. “I just want to go home and take my bra off and go to sleep.”

“That explains it,” Jake said.

We all stared at him.

“Those two loud thuds I hear every morning.”

Laughter exploded on every side of the counter.

Sitting on the other side of Chelsea was Tommie Pierce, a nurse with the Chatham County Health Department. Tommie would stroll in every morning with her newspaper, kiss Jake, kiss me, and then kiss Chelsea, softly wishing each of us a good morning.

Then she would open the paper to the obituary section, order a bowl of grits and a side of bacon, and intensely study who had had died.

After about ten minutes she would look up, make the sign of the cross and exclaim, “Whew! I’m not in there. It’s going to be a good day.”

She did this every day for the decade that she was a member of the Counter Crew, first shift of the Breakfast Club.

One day she called me to tell me that her freezer had stopped working and that we were invited to the party.

“Party” I asked?

“All of this stuff is thawing so Frank and I are cooking everything and having a party. Hurry on over,” she explained.

It’s hard not to love Tommie.

She counted the days until her retirement and knew it down to the minute. When that happy day finally came, I drove to the Health Department for her farewell party and we hugged and laughed as I listened to the stories about her career. After that she no longer needed to rise so early so she became part of the Counter Crew, third or fourth shift, depending on the day. Whenever I saw her she gave me the same kiss and wished me good morning.

So yesterday at the Breakfast Club I sat on the same stool that she used to sit next to me on and I read her obituary. My eyes filled with salt water from the sea as I pictured her daily ritual. And I stared at her picture and told it that I love her.

It was fitting last night that Chelsea and I went together to the funeral home to help send her off to heaven. Now finishing college, Chelsea hugged Frank and we made our way through the crowded room talking to this person and that.

At one point, Chelsea was talking to someone and I stood there a part of the crowd but in a different universe at the same time. And I remembered how Tommie used to laugh when Chelsea would finish eating and wipe her hands on my shirt shelve before I went to work.

“Homeless people are going to be hungry all day long because you smell like bacon,” she would tell me.

So bye Tom! You remain so loved. I’m glad that you and Jake and Blind Mike are all reunited. And do me one last favor. Whenever I show up, save my seat at the counter. And save Chelsea one too. And we’ll do it all again.

An Important Question

“Tell me something,” she asked on the phone, “what makes your heart happy?”

It gave me pause. It’s not a question that is easily answered. It is certainly not one that’s honestly answered. We cite clichés or lie to ourselves by saying the things that should make us happy but don’t really. So we say Jesus or our kids or spouses or friends or work or windsurfing or something exciting. Such things should make us happy but many times … in spite of them we’re not.

When Bill Berry (not the former drummer for R.E.M. but the other one that I went to Seminary with) and I were standing in the middle of Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration in Poland, I kept asking questions of our guide, a Holocaust survivor. I would impatiently blurt out questions of things that I wanted to know.

“What became of the Kappos?”

“What happened to Rudolph Hoess’ lamps?”

His name was Martin and he was dignity personified. I stood there wearing a red and white University of Georgia coat with the matching hat, knowing that I already knew everything.

As I blurted out the questions he would pause and his eyes would lock mine. He had this way of letting the moment linger so that tension was created. Then he would clap his hands together in the cold February weather and smile.

“That is an important question,” he would say. “I will answer for everyone.”

I was put in my place.

Later that day Martin and I disappeared together. He left the British tour group he was leading that Bill and I hijacked. We stood in front of the gallows where Rudolph Hoess, the most infamous Commander of the Camp, was hung after the war.

“Why do you know these things?” he asked me standing there.

And I didn’t know how to answer. In a history class at Groves High School in Garden City, Georgia of all places, Wayne Seay showed a film of the liberation of the camp. My mind and my heart woke up that day.

And it led me to college, then to Seminary, then to the worlds of homelessness, AIDS, the uninsured, the worst of poverty … and then to Denominational Headquarters, City Halls, State Capitols, Governor’s offices and Congress.

I’ve been to some bad places.

“Ummm,” I finally answered her. “I got to think about that.” Then I quoted Martin, “It is too important a question.”

I sit here now pondering it. Balmy tropical weather makes my heart leap. Islands and oceans do too. Writing comes from somewhere deep in my heart and bursts out and always surprises me. The things that I’ve done and the places that I’ve been stagger me. The smell of the marsh in the heat (sex in the tropics is what it smells like).

Goddess.

The people I love.

More important recently are the people who love me and are not afraid to show it.

Special ones who have my heart in their back pockets.

When God touches me and I cry.

When I’ve helped justice roll from the mountain tops or watched something that I said birth hope in somebody’s eyes.

It’s an important question. It will take a long time to answer.