Saturn hangs low in a deep dark predawn sky over the ocean. It may as well be the top of the Lighthouse it is so bright. There are no stars to distract from its brilliance. There are no clouds either. The sea is calm. Even the Sun lingers from rising allowing the sixth planet to have its moment.
I stand in the middle of 15th Street and look at it. Even before coffee I feel holy and humbled. It is a good way to start a Sunday. I have this disease where songs are forever popping in my head and as I’m surveying this majesty it happens again … with the strangest song.
Talking to myself
Crying out loud
Only I can hear me
I’m stuck inside a cloud
George Harrison is singing about his death which he knows is coming. He writes about losing motivation; he can’t sleep, can’t eat …never been so crazy … or sure … he wishes he had answers because he knows that there’s no cure. In spite of these feelings, the only thing that matters to him is to “touch your lotus feet” … meaning God.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah {Get it? The Beatles!}… I know he’s talking about Krishna but its God the way that he believed in God. She’s pretty cool about such stuff and doesn’t get hung up in just one way of being …God! I don’t know why the rest of us get so hung up about it.).
Yet I stand there staring at one planet in the sky and everything else gone away leaving it behind … alone. Then the oddest lyrics are running through my mind and a dying man who understands that he is … alone. And I stand in the middle of the street by myself in the quiet of a predawn morning.
I’m a big believer that we listen out for God whom I also think is a big believer in direct communication. Clergy are useful in helping us understand a lot of things but in the end it’s just us and God.
Standing there under the brightest Saturn I’ve ever seen, in a deep dark sky absolutely devoid of anything else with a dying George Harrison running through my brain …
Looking to my right into the large windows of the Breakfast Club, I see my friends busy preparing for what is surely to be a busy day. Then I turn away from them for a few more minutes to … listen. I think that hearing God sometimes, though certainly not always, means just focusing on what is happening around you.
I stop and pray one of the simplest yet mightiest of prayers …
“What are you telling me?”
My mind suddenly explodes in images all rushing together as though I’m watching a montage of pictures flash almost simultaneously. They are my pictures. Things start going wrong at work. Things start going wrong at home. My Dad dies. I start losing myself. Others ask me to give them more than I already have which was everything. Then my wife leaves. Then I leave my career. And then …
I’m alone. With a dog named Goddess.
Homeless people have been my friends throughout my whole career. They’d often arrive seeking shelter with everything that had in a bag (a homeless suitcasw is a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag) and, in many cases, a dog. Shelters do not allow dogs and I often witnessed a homeless man or woman turn their eyes away from hearing this news and wistfully sigh, “OK thanks anyway,” and walk away with the things that they had left. With the only friend they had left.
Thinking these things, I stare at Saturn.
Slowly … ever so slowly … painfully slow … the sun wakes up and rises … joining her brother in the sky. The brilliance of the sun eclipses the beauty of a planet and joins it invites it to dance.
I laugh. God joins those who of us who are left behind just as the sun rises to share the sky with the only thing left in it this morning. They dance against a blue black drop that grows increasingly paler. And I get the message.
We’re never really alone.
Even when we’re dying! And there are so many ways to die … literally … but also in a marriage … a job …a family … a place … so many ways …
I’ve certainly watched a lot of things die in my life over the past few years … and big pieces of me died too …
But … miraculously I somehow hung around … alone … like a lone star in the sky …
Just when I thought that I couldn’t stand it anymore, the sun rose and joined me.
The loneliness faded. I was no longer alone.
I blow God a kiss of thanks.
Then I walk into the Breakfast Club and a new day begins.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The Coffee Conclave
Guy Sayles started in it when we were in Seminary. Guy doesn’t especially want anyone to know that we went to Seminary together, but we did. It’s his fault.
He called me.
Every morning at ten o’clock classes ceased and there was a Chapel service. In typical Baptist fashion attendance was not required but it was clearly stated in the Student Handbook, Section III Article A that you …“would rot and burn in the hottest parts hell if you didn’t go.”
So we went and did homework or took naps. The religious people at Seminary seemed to enjoy it. The rest of us just tried to catch up.
Then one day Guy couldn’t take it anymore and announced that the Angel Gabriel had shown up at his and Anita’s place the previous night. Guy’s a terrific cook so none of had any doubt whatsoever that this could have happened. We doubted many things in Seminary … especially the Baptist exclusion of gays as there were so many there. But we doubted Guy’s cooking abilities.
Evidently over after dinner coffee Guy and the Angel Gabriel were chatting and having a cigar. The Angel Gabriel looked over and spoke to Guy. “You know, that part of the Student Handbook isn’t inerrant. In fact Guy, it is fallible. You guys should skip Chapel and go get coffee.”
The next day Guy told us this and so ... it came to pass.
We would pile in Bill Stooksbury’s car and drive to the Mall where there was Conti’s Coffee shop. There were a bunch of old men having coffee and no table was available. Deciding that we had God on our side because it was the Angel Gabriel who had spoken from on high (or maybe it was that Guy was high? We never bothered to ask.) we did a hostile takeover of one of the tables.
And that is how the Coffee Conclave was born!
A conclave is a private or secret meeting. It is especially “a meeting of Roman Catholic Cardinals.” Apparently the Angel Gabriel informed Guy of this information and told him to name us this as we skipped Chapel at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
We would gather every day over coffee and Guy and Bill Stooksbury were in charge. (A few descriptive words about Stooksbury: The guy was born a Baptist minister! Meaning he was born in a three-piece suit! He had Baptist hair, thick, wild and combed over! He would whip out his handkerchief at a moment’s notice a cry on cue! He was incredible!)
It was Guy’s meeting though!
As far as any of us knew, Stooksbury had been spoken to by (a) the Angel Gabriel; (b) an Angel; (c) God; (d) Jesus; (d) the Holy Spirit; (e) the God of any other major religion; (f) the God of any minor religion … you get my point. Stooksbury was a born Minister!
And Guy would make us talk about religion over coffee which is far preferable to listening to mostly old white men talk about God in Chapel.
Though in honesty what I mostly remember is how much we laughed … and grew to love one another ... and challenged one another to step out from under the rock (get it? Jesus said to St. Peter “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Who knew the rock could land on top of so many people squishing the life out them?).
It was an intense and wonderful time. I think we learned far more from each other than we ever did in Seminary.
Today I intended to write about how the Breakfast Club celebrated April Fool’s Day (have you ever poured Mountain Dew in a bucket, thrown toilet paper on top, placed the containers in the restrooms and put “Out of Order” signs on the bathroom doors? Me neither … but they have!).
But then the Angel Gabriel showed up and asked me what I was going to write about? I told him. He asked for a Screwdriver. I fixed him one.
He told me to fix me one.
When an Angel tells you to do something, you do it.
“Don’t write about that,” he said showing off a really beautiful leg with a high slit in his robe. “Let me tell you what to write about.”
So I did.
He called me.
Every morning at ten o’clock classes ceased and there was a Chapel service. In typical Baptist fashion attendance was not required but it was clearly stated in the Student Handbook, Section III Article A that you …“would rot and burn in the hottest parts hell if you didn’t go.”
So we went and did homework or took naps. The religious people at Seminary seemed to enjoy it. The rest of us just tried to catch up.
Then one day Guy couldn’t take it anymore and announced that the Angel Gabriel had shown up at his and Anita’s place the previous night. Guy’s a terrific cook so none of had any doubt whatsoever that this could have happened. We doubted many things in Seminary … especially the Baptist exclusion of gays as there were so many there. But we doubted Guy’s cooking abilities.
Evidently over after dinner coffee Guy and the Angel Gabriel were chatting and having a cigar. The Angel Gabriel looked over and spoke to Guy. “You know, that part of the Student Handbook isn’t inerrant. In fact Guy, it is fallible. You guys should skip Chapel and go get coffee.”
The next day Guy told us this and so ... it came to pass.
We would pile in Bill Stooksbury’s car and drive to the Mall where there was Conti’s Coffee shop. There were a bunch of old men having coffee and no table was available. Deciding that we had God on our side because it was the Angel Gabriel who had spoken from on high (or maybe it was that Guy was high? We never bothered to ask.) we did a hostile takeover of one of the tables.
And that is how the Coffee Conclave was born!
A conclave is a private or secret meeting. It is especially “a meeting of Roman Catholic Cardinals.” Apparently the Angel Gabriel informed Guy of this information and told him to name us this as we skipped Chapel at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
We would gather every day over coffee and Guy and Bill Stooksbury were in charge. (A few descriptive words about Stooksbury: The guy was born a Baptist minister! Meaning he was born in a three-piece suit! He had Baptist hair, thick, wild and combed over! He would whip out his handkerchief at a moment’s notice a cry on cue! He was incredible!)
It was Guy’s meeting though!
As far as any of us knew, Stooksbury had been spoken to by (a) the Angel Gabriel; (b) an Angel; (c) God; (d) Jesus; (d) the Holy Spirit; (e) the God of any other major religion; (f) the God of any minor religion … you get my point. Stooksbury was a born Minister!
And Guy would make us talk about religion over coffee which is far preferable to listening to mostly old white men talk about God in Chapel.
Though in honesty what I mostly remember is how much we laughed … and grew to love one another ... and challenged one another to step out from under the rock (get it? Jesus said to St. Peter “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Who knew the rock could land on top of so many people squishing the life out them?).
It was an intense and wonderful time. I think we learned far more from each other than we ever did in Seminary.
Today I intended to write about how the Breakfast Club celebrated April Fool’s Day (have you ever poured Mountain Dew in a bucket, thrown toilet paper on top, placed the containers in the restrooms and put “Out of Order” signs on the bathroom doors? Me neither … but they have!).
But then the Angel Gabriel showed up and asked me what I was going to write about? I told him. He asked for a Screwdriver. I fixed him one.
He told me to fix me one.
When an Angel tells you to do something, you do it.
“Don’t write about that,” he said showing off a really beautiful leg with a high slit in his robe. “Let me tell you what to write about.”
So I did.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Roca
It is snowing like crazy outside. The cab driver told me that they are expecting six inches today and it’s just started. The weather Gods got it wrong again as they’d reported it was starting yesterday afternoon but it held off until this morning. I’m leaving just in time.
Springfield, MASS is an interesting place. The downtown area where I stayed is nice enough. It is about eight blocks of hotels, restaurants, and shops. The interesting thing about walking around is that there was absolutely no one there. It is as though the Rapture occurred and I was left behind along with the bartenders and convenience store clerks.
I was ok with it.
So I wandered back to the Sheraton and found the hotel bar and set up the computer and went to work. I was writing up a report for an organization named Roca, which is based in Chelsea but is starting operations in Springfield.
There are 26 gangs here. They average two murders every three weeks in gang wars. Maybe the reason nobody is downtown is because of the gangs.
I’d spent the entire day in a Board room of the Sherriff’s office listening to this fascinating group of people describe how they spend their days and nights on the streets. Anisha had jet black hair, eyebrows, shirt, pants and shoes. She could almost pass for a Ninja if had she covered her mouth. She is a street worker.
Roca Street workers literally go out and work the streets finding gang members, introducing themselves and saying “Hey, I’m Anisha and I’m going to be your friend.”
The surprised gang member normally responds with a verb followed by a pronoun. The pronoun is “you”.
“Yeah anyway,” Anisha replies, “we’re gonna be friends.”
And every day for the next six to nine months Anisha shows up after tracking down the gang member wearing a bright orange shirt and Ninja everything else. Day after day after day, she shows up.
It becomes water dripping on a rock.
Finally the gang member grows to rely on her, then trust her, and then they start planning a life away from the gang. Talk about dedication!
Later I am surrounded by ten young men wearing blue shirts, blue jeans and work books. Each wears tattoos on their neck proclaiming whichever gang they were in. I shake all of their hands, look them in the eye and introduce myself.
“Hey Micheal,” they all say in response and tell me their names.
They are part of a work crew and were heading out to the Department of Public Works for a contract they had. I asked what they would be doing there.
“Car Wash,” Antonio said laughing. Everybody else laughed.
Seeing that I didn’t get it Antonio explained, “We get to wash the dump trucks.”
Then off they went happily to work. It was amazing.
What is more amazing is that Roca has a 90% success rate with these kids. Over 800 left gangs, found work and started new lives last year. I was blown away!
Molly, the woman who started this work, has been doing it for 21 years! We wandered away from a tour at one point and just talked. She was in the middle of a construction project on a new center that could accommodate 250 gang members leaving their gangs. Anisha joined us at the end and we all hugged and promised to stay in touch.
I sit here now watching the snow at the airport hoping that my plane takes off. I’m ready for home and to breath inside the things that I love. But if my plane is delayed or canceled, I’ll eventually get there.
But these guys … I think to myself. It takes people like Anisha and Molly who just make a decision that they will not spurned. They will become friends with the most unlovely people because … the most unlovely people deserve a chance too.
Springfield, MASS is an interesting place. The downtown area where I stayed is nice enough. It is about eight blocks of hotels, restaurants, and shops. The interesting thing about walking around is that there was absolutely no one there. It is as though the Rapture occurred and I was left behind along with the bartenders and convenience store clerks.
I was ok with it.
So I wandered back to the Sheraton and found the hotel bar and set up the computer and went to work. I was writing up a report for an organization named Roca, which is based in Chelsea but is starting operations in Springfield.
There are 26 gangs here. They average two murders every three weeks in gang wars. Maybe the reason nobody is downtown is because of the gangs.
I’d spent the entire day in a Board room of the Sherriff’s office listening to this fascinating group of people describe how they spend their days and nights on the streets. Anisha had jet black hair, eyebrows, shirt, pants and shoes. She could almost pass for a Ninja if had she covered her mouth. She is a street worker.
Roca Street workers literally go out and work the streets finding gang members, introducing themselves and saying “Hey, I’m Anisha and I’m going to be your friend.”
The surprised gang member normally responds with a verb followed by a pronoun. The pronoun is “you”.
“Yeah anyway,” Anisha replies, “we’re gonna be friends.”
And every day for the next six to nine months Anisha shows up after tracking down the gang member wearing a bright orange shirt and Ninja everything else. Day after day after day, she shows up.
It becomes water dripping on a rock.
Finally the gang member grows to rely on her, then trust her, and then they start planning a life away from the gang. Talk about dedication!
Later I am surrounded by ten young men wearing blue shirts, blue jeans and work books. Each wears tattoos on their neck proclaiming whichever gang they were in. I shake all of their hands, look them in the eye and introduce myself.
“Hey Micheal,” they all say in response and tell me their names.
They are part of a work crew and were heading out to the Department of Public Works for a contract they had. I asked what they would be doing there.
“Car Wash,” Antonio said laughing. Everybody else laughed.
Seeing that I didn’t get it Antonio explained, “We get to wash the dump trucks.”
Then off they went happily to work. It was amazing.
What is more amazing is that Roca has a 90% success rate with these kids. Over 800 left gangs, found work and started new lives last year. I was blown away!
Molly, the woman who started this work, has been doing it for 21 years! We wandered away from a tour at one point and just talked. She was in the middle of a construction project on a new center that could accommodate 250 gang members leaving their gangs. Anisha joined us at the end and we all hugged and promised to stay in touch.
I sit here now watching the snow at the airport hoping that my plane takes off. I’m ready for home and to breath inside the things that I love. But if my plane is delayed or canceled, I’ll eventually get there.
But these guys … I think to myself. It takes people like Anisha and Molly who just make a decision that they will not spurned. They will become friends with the most unlovely people because … the most unlovely people deserve a chance too.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Romancing the Chicken
Something strange has happened this week and I’m trying to figure out how it got started. I think that it all began with the people that I went to college with then we took several decades off from one another before reconnecting on Face Book then collecting at my house last summer. While our lives took us all in different directions each of us retained an incredibly warped sense of humor.
So Mitch, who is the most serious of us, would post some status update, typically some obscure Celtic nonsense, and the rest would kidnap it. We would go on and on making fun of Mitch, world events, major religions and obscure Celtic nonsense. We mostly kept it to ourselves.
Then these friends met my Tybee friends and it was like Cheech meeting Chong. Spontaneous Combustion! Lots more laughter! And we all took to posting on one another’s post.
Then childhood friends from Port Wentworth decided to get involved as West Siders are known to do!
Then they all gathered forces and started kidnapping my blogs this week. It started with Spam, worked through Rain and obliterated Hate. This was accomplished by introducing nudity, tube socks, establishing a contest over the number of people responding to what I wrote (137 and counting), obscure Celtic nonsense, and now … a chicken.
I got nothing against Chicken. One of my most recent most pleasurable experiences was at K.F.C. It was like being a baby in Baby Land! I loved it! I suppose you could say that I was romancing the chicken.
But I digress.
Aside from writing about Spam, everything else that I’ve written this week has been serious. It has been from the heart and soul. I’ve explored my dreams and fears and even bad experiences that I somehow got through.
My friends didn’t care!
Except for Mitch, who is the most serious of us all. He consistently responded by posting obscure Celtic nonsense.
Everybody else … decided to collectively kidnap my blogs! It’s gotten out of hand.
A blog about rain and losing power turns into the fact that I need to learn to use a cane in the dark! A blog about Hate suddenly involves “nekkid”, loaded guns, whipped cream and a tube sock.
Suddenly my friend Valerie, an award winning nationally recognized nurse, wants to meet the above friends. That frightens me. If that should happen, God knows … Floyd Adams and Pig Jones will start joining in. Jack Kingston, who once sang “The Fish Cheer” on the floor of Congress might do it on my blog! Roma might actually get on the Internet! Keller Deal will start showing again. And God Jenny Orr who already has a goat and horse that thinks it’s a dog will get a chicken.
Wait a minute! My friend Chela already has chickens!
You see what I’m saying. This could all get out of hand.
Because I’ve never been a big believer in following rules this is hard for me to say. For the sake of keeping us from all being thrown off of Face Book, I think that we need to stay on topic when I blog.
There.
I’ve said it.
Everybody enjoy today and my blog.
Thank you.
So Mitch, who is the most serious of us, would post some status update, typically some obscure Celtic nonsense, and the rest would kidnap it. We would go on and on making fun of Mitch, world events, major religions and obscure Celtic nonsense. We mostly kept it to ourselves.
Then these friends met my Tybee friends and it was like Cheech meeting Chong. Spontaneous Combustion! Lots more laughter! And we all took to posting on one another’s post.
Then childhood friends from Port Wentworth decided to get involved as West Siders are known to do!
Then they all gathered forces and started kidnapping my blogs this week. It started with Spam, worked through Rain and obliterated Hate. This was accomplished by introducing nudity, tube socks, establishing a contest over the number of people responding to what I wrote (137 and counting), obscure Celtic nonsense, and now … a chicken.
I got nothing against Chicken. One of my most recent most pleasurable experiences was at K.F.C. It was like being a baby in Baby Land! I loved it! I suppose you could say that I was romancing the chicken.
But I digress.
Aside from writing about Spam, everything else that I’ve written this week has been serious. It has been from the heart and soul. I’ve explored my dreams and fears and even bad experiences that I somehow got through.
My friends didn’t care!
Except for Mitch, who is the most serious of us all. He consistently responded by posting obscure Celtic nonsense.
Everybody else … decided to collectively kidnap my blogs! It’s gotten out of hand.
A blog about rain and losing power turns into the fact that I need to learn to use a cane in the dark! A blog about Hate suddenly involves “nekkid”, loaded guns, whipped cream and a tube sock.
Suddenly my friend Valerie, an award winning nationally recognized nurse, wants to meet the above friends. That frightens me. If that should happen, God knows … Floyd Adams and Pig Jones will start joining in. Jack Kingston, who once sang “The Fish Cheer” on the floor of Congress might do it on my blog! Roma might actually get on the Internet! Keller Deal will start showing again. And God Jenny Orr who already has a goat and horse that thinks it’s a dog will get a chicken.
Wait a minute! My friend Chela already has chickens!
You see what I’m saying. This could all get out of hand.
Because I’ve never been a big believer in following rules this is hard for me to say. For the sake of keeping us from all being thrown off of Face Book, I think that we need to stay on topic when I blog.
There.
I’ve said it.
Everybody enjoy today and my blog.
Thank you.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Hate
I’ve seen the faces of people who hate me.
It is an incredible breakthrough of understanding when you’re sitting there doing the best you know how to do and … you see these cold eyes staring back at you … a death stare … just … hate.
One time I was giving a speech at Memorial Hospital and then Mayor (and a dear friend) Floyd Adams was sitting next to me. It was during the question-and-answer period and he was moderating when this woman got up and started saying all kinds of hateful things about I’d been doing at Union Mission and about me personally.
She went on and on in a very loud and agitated way.
Floyd leaned over and whispered in my ear while she was screaming, “If you do anything that’s important … people hate you for it. Just grow thick skin.”
I remember nodding my head up and down staring at this woman who just kept giving me the cold eyed vision of … death?
If looks could kill, as the saying goes, I’d be long gone.
What’s funny is that Floyd saw it too and in the middle of it leaned over and whispered … encouragement.
Whenever Floyd and I see one another, which is rare these days, we have this special bond. We embrace regardless of where or in front of who!
Last time was in “Larry’s Restaurant” where he was holding court and I was meeting with two former Union Mission Board members. When I walked in, Floyd and I locked eyes and he stood up as I walked directly to him shaking some hands on the way, and we just hugged.
Hate makes you appreciate … love.
In my last years at Union Mission hate intensified in my life. This coalition of people who hated me came together (Hi Mark! Hi Frank!) and I learned that at the individual level hate is manageable. When it has followers … it’s hard to stop.
And I wasn’t able to stop it. It grew. It infiltrated where I worked. It converted people whom I trusted. It gained steam. Those who are easily manipulated were easily manipulated (you’d be surprised how many are government employees!).
And they blew me away!
And they were self-righteous in doing so.
They were smug and felt vindicated in the end.
And … they won.
Well …they won the battle.
So I need to pull out some of the things that I paid good money to learn in Seminary. In Hebrew there is no real sense of time. Moses wandering in the desert for forty years means … he couldn’t figure out what he was doing for a long, long time. But then he did!
And when Jesus went into a borrowed tomb after being nailed to a cross by people who loved him one day and hated him with all that they were the next, he lay there for three days … or three years … or thirty years … or ninety.
Mark, the first Gospel was written about ninety years after Jesus was laid to rest. But either three days later or ninety years later, Jesus came back and overcame the hate.
I know … there are those who will hate me for saying that. And they will. It’s ok. The point is that the love that Jesus embodied proved more powerful than the hate that threw his dead body in a borrowed tomb.
So, I’ve seen hate directed at me. It did bad things to my life. It cost me … many things.
A year ago at this time, when even those who had always said that they loved me the most left and I wallowed around in darkness …
Well …
I’m still here.
And there are those still who hate me … those who are still enjoying the spoils of the battle that they won … some still at Union Mission … and then the most arrogant of them all who believe that they’ve won everything.
But Moses ended up getting it right.
The love of Jesus trumped the hated of the many.
Oh yeah … before I finish … thank you Floyd. I love you a lot.
Now, where was I?
Oh yeah …
It’s time to play!
It is an incredible breakthrough of understanding when you’re sitting there doing the best you know how to do and … you see these cold eyes staring back at you … a death stare … just … hate.
One time I was giving a speech at Memorial Hospital and then Mayor (and a dear friend) Floyd Adams was sitting next to me. It was during the question-and-answer period and he was moderating when this woman got up and started saying all kinds of hateful things about I’d been doing at Union Mission and about me personally.
She went on and on in a very loud and agitated way.
Floyd leaned over and whispered in my ear while she was screaming, “If you do anything that’s important … people hate you for it. Just grow thick skin.”
I remember nodding my head up and down staring at this woman who just kept giving me the cold eyed vision of … death?
If looks could kill, as the saying goes, I’d be long gone.
What’s funny is that Floyd saw it too and in the middle of it leaned over and whispered … encouragement.
Whenever Floyd and I see one another, which is rare these days, we have this special bond. We embrace regardless of where or in front of who!
Last time was in “Larry’s Restaurant” where he was holding court and I was meeting with two former Union Mission Board members. When I walked in, Floyd and I locked eyes and he stood up as I walked directly to him shaking some hands on the way, and we just hugged.
Hate makes you appreciate … love.
In my last years at Union Mission hate intensified in my life. This coalition of people who hated me came together (Hi Mark! Hi Frank!) and I learned that at the individual level hate is manageable. When it has followers … it’s hard to stop.
And I wasn’t able to stop it. It grew. It infiltrated where I worked. It converted people whom I trusted. It gained steam. Those who are easily manipulated were easily manipulated (you’d be surprised how many are government employees!).
And they blew me away!
And they were self-righteous in doing so.
They were smug and felt vindicated in the end.
And … they won.
Well …they won the battle.
So I need to pull out some of the things that I paid good money to learn in Seminary. In Hebrew there is no real sense of time. Moses wandering in the desert for forty years means … he couldn’t figure out what he was doing for a long, long time. But then he did!
And when Jesus went into a borrowed tomb after being nailed to a cross by people who loved him one day and hated him with all that they were the next, he lay there for three days … or three years … or thirty years … or ninety.
Mark, the first Gospel was written about ninety years after Jesus was laid to rest. But either three days later or ninety years later, Jesus came back and overcame the hate.
I know … there are those who will hate me for saying that. And they will. It’s ok. The point is that the love that Jesus embodied proved more powerful than the hate that threw his dead body in a borrowed tomb.
So, I’ve seen hate directed at me. It did bad things to my life. It cost me … many things.
A year ago at this time, when even those who had always said that they loved me the most left and I wallowed around in darkness …
Well …
I’m still here.
And there are those still who hate me … those who are still enjoying the spoils of the battle that they won … some still at Union Mission … and then the most arrogant of them all who believe that they’ve won everything.
But Moses ended up getting it right.
The love of Jesus trumped the hated of the many.
Oh yeah … before I finish … thank you Floyd. I love you a lot.
Now, where was I?
Oh yeah …
It’s time to play!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Rain
Yesterday morning I was sitting on the beloved back deck working on my tan. It was beautiful, warm and sunny. Then it was noon, time for the Bored meeting which was sunshine with an ocean breeze as girls in bikinis made their way up and down the sidewalk. It was shaping up to be a glorious day!
Then I took Goddess for a walk and we made it to the marsh and the Lighthouse and watched these purple clouds rolling in from the west. Moisture hit my face and I grabbed the leash and we raced back to the house barley making it before the hail came. Hail?
“What the hell?” but there is was pelting the beloved back deck, filling up Goddess’ water bowl and knocking the petals off of the flowers. In about a minute the entire deck was covered with white balls of ice.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon the temperature dropped. I didn’t like this one bit! Surely the world is coming to an end! I started getting worried about the people that I love and grew contemplative and suspicious. Sitting at the kitchen table I turned on the computer and finally hooked up with my friend whom I love and we talked until late in the night. The first part of the conversation was slow and guarded but then we busted through those things as friends who love each other do. Then we shared and I found myself excited about tomorrow and the future. So I rubbed Goddess’ belly and fell into bed.
The windows have been open for days and though it was cool inside it was that good snuggle weather under the covers kind of night. I like sleeping when it’s like this and was immediately having wonderful dreams of girls with Mona Lisa smiles and laughter that is contagious.
The next thing that I knew … all of hell was breaking loose! Somebody was pouring the ocean over the top of my house. I bolted into a sitting position and looked out of the seven windows that I can see from the bed and the house was obviously under a waterfall somewhere.
I prayed a simple prayer.
“Jesus Christ!” I said out loud.
It was pitch black! The alarm clock that projects on the ceiling had been taken out by an act of God … or Georgia Power. Either way it was gone; as were the other things that project something into the darkness to give just enough light so that I know where I am. I couldn’t hear myself think, much less if Jesus Christ would have heard me when I called out his name.
So I got up to shut the windows and immediately tripped over Goddess who was half under the bed and half out.
Then I yelled out a noun followed by a verb followed by a pronoun (though the verb and the pronoun are normally written as one word or sometimes it is a noun/verb combination followed by a pronoun).
Then I had to pee in the dark. Darker than dark actually! My friend Angela keeps referring to this Sabbatical as me spending time in a cave. I found the cave last night. It is my bathroom! So I felt around until I found the toilet and then had to make one of the most important decisions of life in the dark … sit down or stand up?
Of course I tripped over Goddess again on the way back to the bed. She obviously has no trouble seeing in the dark and was flat on her back with her paws up in the air wanting a belly rub. Now I am a lover of certain bellies and Goddess’ has one of those … though underneath a waterfall, in pitch black darkness, with a Monsoon going on outside is not the best of places to give one.
So I tripped over Goddess and literally fell back into bed. Sitting up observing the Apocalypse that was obviously taking place, I started to laugh. Then Goddess decided that she was over belly rubs and had moved on to butt rubs. She slammed her body into the side of the bed! Again and again and again! She was not going to be denied. Even in pitch dark, monsoon waterfalls outside of the windows and thunder and lightning decided to show up as if on cue.
So I fell back into the bed with my arm sticking out in the dark rubbing Goddess’ butt. I found myself smiling a Mona Lisa smile. I love this house. I love this island. I love my friends who have taken care of me through dark places. I love … for the first time in years … I mostly love!
Then Goddess turned around and licked my hand in the dark. And I fell asleep again, dreaming good dreams about things to come.
Then I took Goddess for a walk and we made it to the marsh and the Lighthouse and watched these purple clouds rolling in from the west. Moisture hit my face and I grabbed the leash and we raced back to the house barley making it before the hail came. Hail?
“What the hell?” but there is was pelting the beloved back deck, filling up Goddess’ water bowl and knocking the petals off of the flowers. In about a minute the entire deck was covered with white balls of ice.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon the temperature dropped. I didn’t like this one bit! Surely the world is coming to an end! I started getting worried about the people that I love and grew contemplative and suspicious. Sitting at the kitchen table I turned on the computer and finally hooked up with my friend whom I love and we talked until late in the night. The first part of the conversation was slow and guarded but then we busted through those things as friends who love each other do. Then we shared and I found myself excited about tomorrow and the future. So I rubbed Goddess’ belly and fell into bed.
The windows have been open for days and though it was cool inside it was that good snuggle weather under the covers kind of night. I like sleeping when it’s like this and was immediately having wonderful dreams of girls with Mona Lisa smiles and laughter that is contagious.
The next thing that I knew … all of hell was breaking loose! Somebody was pouring the ocean over the top of my house. I bolted into a sitting position and looked out of the seven windows that I can see from the bed and the house was obviously under a waterfall somewhere.
I prayed a simple prayer.
“Jesus Christ!” I said out loud.
It was pitch black! The alarm clock that projects on the ceiling had been taken out by an act of God … or Georgia Power. Either way it was gone; as were the other things that project something into the darkness to give just enough light so that I know where I am. I couldn’t hear myself think, much less if Jesus Christ would have heard me when I called out his name.
So I got up to shut the windows and immediately tripped over Goddess who was half under the bed and half out.
Then I yelled out a noun followed by a verb followed by a pronoun (though the verb and the pronoun are normally written as one word or sometimes it is a noun/verb combination followed by a pronoun).
Then I had to pee in the dark. Darker than dark actually! My friend Angela keeps referring to this Sabbatical as me spending time in a cave. I found the cave last night. It is my bathroom! So I felt around until I found the toilet and then had to make one of the most important decisions of life in the dark … sit down or stand up?
Of course I tripped over Goddess again on the way back to the bed. She obviously has no trouble seeing in the dark and was flat on her back with her paws up in the air wanting a belly rub. Now I am a lover of certain bellies and Goddess’ has one of those … though underneath a waterfall, in pitch black darkness, with a Monsoon going on outside is not the best of places to give one.
So I tripped over Goddess and literally fell back into bed. Sitting up observing the Apocalypse that was obviously taking place, I started to laugh. Then Goddess decided that she was over belly rubs and had moved on to butt rubs. She slammed her body into the side of the bed! Again and again and again! She was not going to be denied. Even in pitch dark, monsoon waterfalls outside of the windows and thunder and lightning decided to show up as if on cue.
So I fell back into the bed with my arm sticking out in the dark rubbing Goddess’ butt. I found myself smiling a Mona Lisa smile. I love this house. I love this island. I love my friends who have taken care of me through dark places. I love … for the first time in years … I mostly love!
Then Goddess turned around and licked my hand in the dark. And I fell asleep again, dreaming good dreams about things to come.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Spam
Well, you may wonder how I write these things every day. I do too. Often I am inspired by the beauty of life here on Tybee Island, things that I’ve done with my friends, things that I’ve been fortunate enough to do, travels, where I live, and my wonderful dog Goddess. Sometimes God tells me what I should write and it’s important to do what God tells you to do. Stimulation sometimes comes to me in the middle of the night, crawling into bed with me and filling my senses. So I write from the heart and a lot of people seem to like it. So I keep searching for the inspiration to write which comes from everywhere. Then there is Dedra. “What should I blog about today?” I asked her last time that she was here. “Grapefruit,” she immediately replied. “What?” She repeated herself and I closed my eyes and Jimmy Buffett’s song “Grapefruit Juicy Fruit” popped into my head. We’d been out listening to Sam and Gordo play damn good live music the night before so I wrote about that and a hangover cure. So I should have known better than to ask her a second time. But I did. “Spam,” she said. “WHAT?” “Spam,” she repeated. So, I first remembered the last time that I ate Spam which was multiple decades ago. I think that we fried it. Then I did a You -Tube search for Monty Python’s original “Spam” skit and laughed as much this time as I did the first time that I saw it in college all of those years ago. I made Dedra watch it too which got us looking at their videos of “Philosophical Football” and “The Philosopher’s Song.” So we’ve spent the morning on the Beloved Back deck laughing our ass’s off. Finally I did a Google search for the lyrics to the “Spam” Song. Lovely Spam, wonderful Spam Lovely Spam, wonderful Spam Spa-a-a-a-a-m-m-m Spa-a-a-a-a-m-m-m SPA-A-A-A-M-M-M SPA-A-A-A-M-M-M LOVELY SPAM, LOVELY SPAM! As you can see, a lot of research goes into these daily musings. After gathering all of the background information necessary to produce a thoughtful and inspirational musing that hopefully is meaningful to others, I write. Sometimes I need the help of others and can always count on Mitch for obscure Celtic nonsense; Bill Berry (not the former drummer for R.E.M. but the other one that I went to Seminary with) or I just flat out steal something that Guy Sayles wrote (which begs a question … in business it’s called gaining competitive advantage but in school it’s called plagiarism!) Well, I’m done. It’s time for breakfast. Spam, eggs, bacon, spam and spam. Dedra’s having two helpings. Damn Her!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Duct Tape
They’ve put duct tape over my name at Union Mission.
Pretty funny, huh?
I suppose it is akin to trying to blot my name out of the “Book of Life” and there is no doubt that there are those, including a former Board chair who chooses to remain anonymous, who would like nothing more than that!
But, seriously … Duct tape?
There is a sign in my old parking space. It was a gift of love of the Health Services staff and it had my name on it, proclaiming my parking space and that it was a gift of one of the staffs. It’s all still there except there is the Duct tape over my name.
It cracks me up!
I hope that whoever did it used their own Duct tape and NOT the stuff that Charles uses to patch his pants. For more than a decade I was the principal care taker of the six-foot-four, mentally ill, African-American former bank robber and I still love him still as much as I’ve loved anybody. Though Joy and I controlled his money he somehow had a never ending supply of Duct tape that he used to patch his pants, put Christmas decorations on trash cans, and leave notes for me on my door.
Then again, Union Mission is a much different place than when I was there. I would go nuts if I saw signs taped to anything! It’s just not professional. Even if it was the clear tape that grows yellow over time. You’d never see that stuff in bank. Well … maybe the one that the former Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous ran for eighteen months.
Though I must confess I’ve grown to appreciate Duct tape. It first happened in St. Martin. I forgot why but Conner and I were in serious need of the magic stuff. I think that we did a hostile takeover of the fitness center and needed to shut Nathalie up so we needed to Duct tape her mouth. Nathalie works at the fitness center even when she is hung over (see you in a couple of weeks!). I remember wine and cheese and a Norwegian being involved.
Now we’re in the Caribbean and Duct tape is hard to come by. Then Lynn O’Quinn says “I got Duct tape.” Then she goes through the forty seven storage bins that she had, one of which was filled with Duct tape and hands Conner and I roll still wrapped in the plastic stuff that it comes in.
We tell her thanks and then start to search for a knife.
“I got a knife,” she says as she opens another storage bin and pulls out a knife like the Jason used in those movies. “This is the one that I was planning to use on my husband but you can borrow it for a second.”
Conner and I both kind of just stood there … neither one of us wanting to get that close to Lynn who was holding a knife.
But we kept the Duct tape.
Now I make absolutely certain that I have Duct nearby at all times.
If you come to my house you will see my refrigerator which is covered with “Jesus” magnets holding up pictures of people whom I love, one wearing yellow boots for some reason.
Anyway there is one of Jenny Orr and me with Roma in the middle. Roma’s mouth is Duct taped shut. Jenny and I are smiling. It’s the only time that I ever remember that Jenny and I talked without Roma saying something.
So I’m done with this blog.
It’s kind of held together by Duct tape anyway.
My fingers are sticky.
Pretty funny, huh?
I suppose it is akin to trying to blot my name out of the “Book of Life” and there is no doubt that there are those, including a former Board chair who chooses to remain anonymous, who would like nothing more than that!
But, seriously … Duct tape?
There is a sign in my old parking space. It was a gift of love of the Health Services staff and it had my name on it, proclaiming my parking space and that it was a gift of one of the staffs. It’s all still there except there is the Duct tape over my name.
It cracks me up!
I hope that whoever did it used their own Duct tape and NOT the stuff that Charles uses to patch his pants. For more than a decade I was the principal care taker of the six-foot-four, mentally ill, African-American former bank robber and I still love him still as much as I’ve loved anybody. Though Joy and I controlled his money he somehow had a never ending supply of Duct tape that he used to patch his pants, put Christmas decorations on trash cans, and leave notes for me on my door.
Then again, Union Mission is a much different place than when I was there. I would go nuts if I saw signs taped to anything! It’s just not professional. Even if it was the clear tape that grows yellow over time. You’d never see that stuff in bank. Well … maybe the one that the former Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous ran for eighteen months.
Though I must confess I’ve grown to appreciate Duct tape. It first happened in St. Martin. I forgot why but Conner and I were in serious need of the magic stuff. I think that we did a hostile takeover of the fitness center and needed to shut Nathalie up so we needed to Duct tape her mouth. Nathalie works at the fitness center even when she is hung over (see you in a couple of weeks!). I remember wine and cheese and a Norwegian being involved.
Now we’re in the Caribbean and Duct tape is hard to come by. Then Lynn O’Quinn says “I got Duct tape.” Then she goes through the forty seven storage bins that she had, one of which was filled with Duct tape and hands Conner and I roll still wrapped in the plastic stuff that it comes in.
We tell her thanks and then start to search for a knife.
“I got a knife,” she says as she opens another storage bin and pulls out a knife like the Jason used in those movies. “This is the one that I was planning to use on my husband but you can borrow it for a second.”
Conner and I both kind of just stood there … neither one of us wanting to get that close to Lynn who was holding a knife.
But we kept the Duct tape.
Now I make absolutely certain that I have Duct nearby at all times.
If you come to my house you will see my refrigerator which is covered with “Jesus” magnets holding up pictures of people whom I love, one wearing yellow boots for some reason.
Anyway there is one of Jenny Orr and me with Roma in the middle. Roma’s mouth is Duct taped shut. Jenny and I are smiling. It’s the only time that I ever remember that Jenny and I talked without Roma saying something.
So I’m done with this blog.
It’s kind of held together by Duct tape anyway.
My fingers are sticky.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Lent
“I gave up candy for Lent,” Franklin says for no apparent reason.
“I gave up men,” Patti responds sitting on the other side of the counter.
“Patti’s a lesbian!” Franklin yells.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says in exasperation.
“I gave up giving up,” Nance says staring off into space.
“How else is Franklin supposed to take you’re giving up men?” Val asks Patti.
She shrugs her shoulders.
They all stop and look at me.
“I gave up religion,” I say.
“Oh Great” Franklin exclaims as he gets up from the stool beside the one that I’m sitting on.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before I asked for all of this advice?”
“Why God Why? …Why does nothing here make sense! … Why God why? … Show your hand?” are the very legitimate questions asked in the musical Miss. Saigon.
Well, I know the answer to why nothing here makes sense.
I’m at the Breakfast Club.
The “Why God Why?” question is a bit more difficult to answer.
I suppose that is why the Catholics invented Lent … so that we can position ourselves to ourselves for God’s answers which apparently come every Easter. So for forty days or thereabouts, we get ready … because we know God’s answers are the biggest answers! They’re the ones we want the most!
Then Hallmark bought the rights of Lent from the Catholics and it has become this broader tradition where even non-believers participate. (Hallmark can do most anything! They’re like Google and Wall Mart!)
I gave up giving up.
Sitting here in the afterglow of the caffeine and adrenaline rush that I get every morning at the Breakfast Club I think that Nance has it most right.
God would prefer that we give up giving up.
God gave us this life. It’s the ultimate present! Too many of us give up on it! Or pieces of it! Or we settle to be less than we are capable of being. Or we give ourselves away to others and let them determine who we are. We screw up God’s ultimate gift to us.
And that is life’s biggest sin!
As you can probably tell, I’m not into Lent all that much.
I think that God wants us to celebrate this life! She would rather us dance for forty days straight! And she’s probably making St. Augustine dance throughout eternity because he’s the one who thought up most of this depravity stuff. We should give up the things … and the people … who stop us from being … us.
“It’s tearing me apart to hold you tight. Let’s dance like it’s the last night of the world.”
That’s how I think that God wants us to spend Lent!
“I gave up men,” Patti responds sitting on the other side of the counter.
“Patti’s a lesbian!” Franklin yells.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says in exasperation.
“I gave up giving up,” Nance says staring off into space.
“How else is Franklin supposed to take you’re giving up men?” Val asks Patti.
She shrugs her shoulders.
They all stop and look at me.
“I gave up religion,” I say.
“Oh Great” Franklin exclaims as he gets up from the stool beside the one that I’m sitting on.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before I asked for all of this advice?”
“Why God Why? …Why does nothing here make sense! … Why God why? … Show your hand?” are the very legitimate questions asked in the musical Miss. Saigon.
Well, I know the answer to why nothing here makes sense.
I’m at the Breakfast Club.
The “Why God Why?” question is a bit more difficult to answer.
I suppose that is why the Catholics invented Lent … so that we can position ourselves to ourselves for God’s answers which apparently come every Easter. So for forty days or thereabouts, we get ready … because we know God’s answers are the biggest answers! They’re the ones we want the most!
Then Hallmark bought the rights of Lent from the Catholics and it has become this broader tradition where even non-believers participate. (Hallmark can do most anything! They’re like Google and Wall Mart!)
I gave up giving up.
Sitting here in the afterglow of the caffeine and adrenaline rush that I get every morning at the Breakfast Club I think that Nance has it most right.
God would prefer that we give up giving up.
God gave us this life. It’s the ultimate present! Too many of us give up on it! Or pieces of it! Or we settle to be less than we are capable of being. Or we give ourselves away to others and let them determine who we are. We screw up God’s ultimate gift to us.
And that is life’s biggest sin!
As you can probably tell, I’m not into Lent all that much.
I think that God wants us to celebrate this life! She would rather us dance for forty days straight! And she’s probably making St. Augustine dance throughout eternity because he’s the one who thought up most of this depravity stuff. We should give up the things … and the people … who stop us from being … us.
“It’s tearing me apart to hold you tight. Let’s dance like it’s the last night of the world.”
That’s how I think that God wants us to spend Lent!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Open
All of the windows in my house are open and the cross breeze from the Back River marsh rushing towards the ocean blows through it. There are 15 windows in the red room that allows it in, rushing through the yellow living room then into the purple kitchen and finally through the open sliding glass doors where it becomes concentrated hitting me sitting on the beloved back deck where. I may as well be sitting in front of a giant fan blowing on me.
I love it!
This time of year and into early summer I’ll keep the windows open. The outside becomes part of the inside at my house. It is hard to differentiate one from the other. Rooms literally spill into one another mostly distinguished by colors. The kitchen spills out onto the beloved back deck so it’s like one big room.
Fran is loving this time of year as she’s decorated her thousand shades of green with purple wisteria. It is beautiful just like she was so beautiful and I have a hard time not just staring at it. Celebrating it! Knowing that it won’t last … just like she didn’t last. Just like so many others didn’t last either.
Where I live is a pretty open place. I like it that way.
When it’s all closed up for winter it’s not as nice. The warmth flees. Cold descends. Hearts break.
As I sit here looking through three large rooms out of the windows in the front of my house I’m struck by something. I try to live my life like the house I live in … open.
Lots of color!
Lots of diversity!
Fun!
A celebration!
For better or for worse, that’s what I’ve done.
It’s hard to not think about worse first. Its human nature I guess … like slowing down to look at a car wreck. These images flash through my mind like the wind rushing through my house.
Then Fran bops me on the head with her purple wisteria and the beauty of things to come take over my thoughts. The beloved back deck is filled with color and loveliness. A Palm Tree sits close to me as I write. Behind Fran’s thousand shades of decorated green are trees of every kind … Palms and Pines and things I don’t know.
They’re all budding and blooming and spring has put the cold dark nights of winter behind me. And it was “a long cold lonely winter” to quote one of the hymns of my life. I feel a part of all of this be-birthing.
There is this one tree though. It is a hold out. There are no blooms. There’re not even any buds. It is cold and naked as though winter still commanded life.
I know a lot of people like that. They stay rooted in what is behind them. They remain stuck in the past. In spite of the beauty surrounding them, they stick out like a sore thumb. They are sore thumbs!
I was in Savannah yesterday, a rare trip these days. The first person that I met with remains stuck in the past so that’s mostly what we talked about and it was … sad.
The next person that I met with had one foot in the past and another in the future. It was a crazy conversation bouncing back and forth between … then … and now. It occurred in a happy place however where I was greeted with warm hugs and kisses.
My last meeting was about the future. Smiles abounded and were shared. Souls connected and words were not always necessary. The future has a way of pulling you along like that if you’re willing to give yourself to it.
The sun takes this moment to dance through the Palm Tree sitting beside me. I pause to watch.
Life is good today.
I wonder why?
Then I know.
It’s all about tomorrow.
I love it!
This time of year and into early summer I’ll keep the windows open. The outside becomes part of the inside at my house. It is hard to differentiate one from the other. Rooms literally spill into one another mostly distinguished by colors. The kitchen spills out onto the beloved back deck so it’s like one big room.
Fran is loving this time of year as she’s decorated her thousand shades of green with purple wisteria. It is beautiful just like she was so beautiful and I have a hard time not just staring at it. Celebrating it! Knowing that it won’t last … just like she didn’t last. Just like so many others didn’t last either.
Where I live is a pretty open place. I like it that way.
When it’s all closed up for winter it’s not as nice. The warmth flees. Cold descends. Hearts break.
As I sit here looking through three large rooms out of the windows in the front of my house I’m struck by something. I try to live my life like the house I live in … open.
Lots of color!
Lots of diversity!
Fun!
A celebration!
For better or for worse, that’s what I’ve done.
It’s hard to not think about worse first. Its human nature I guess … like slowing down to look at a car wreck. These images flash through my mind like the wind rushing through my house.
Then Fran bops me on the head with her purple wisteria and the beauty of things to come take over my thoughts. The beloved back deck is filled with color and loveliness. A Palm Tree sits close to me as I write. Behind Fran’s thousand shades of decorated green are trees of every kind … Palms and Pines and things I don’t know.
They’re all budding and blooming and spring has put the cold dark nights of winter behind me. And it was “a long cold lonely winter” to quote one of the hymns of my life. I feel a part of all of this be-birthing.
There is this one tree though. It is a hold out. There are no blooms. There’re not even any buds. It is cold and naked as though winter still commanded life.
I know a lot of people like that. They stay rooted in what is behind them. They remain stuck in the past. In spite of the beauty surrounding them, they stick out like a sore thumb. They are sore thumbs!
I was in Savannah yesterday, a rare trip these days. The first person that I met with remains stuck in the past so that’s mostly what we talked about and it was … sad.
The next person that I met with had one foot in the past and another in the future. It was a crazy conversation bouncing back and forth between … then … and now. It occurred in a happy place however where I was greeted with warm hugs and kisses.
My last meeting was about the future. Smiles abounded and were shared. Souls connected and words were not always necessary. The future has a way of pulling you along like that if you’re willing to give yourself to it.
The sun takes this moment to dance through the Palm Tree sitting beside me. I pause to watch.
Life is good today.
I wonder why?
Then I know.
It’s all about tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Pausing
So the guy beside me on the plane is having a bad day. When I strolled up to Gate 76 he was asleep with his mouth wide open surrounded by the other people waiting to get on Delta fight 1176. They were all staring at him. When I say his mouth was open, it was really open. It was hard not to notice. Like a train wreck.
He is Asian, wearing no tie, has leaned his chair back with his feet up (brown untied shoes with a grey suit), his fingers are laced across his belly and his mouth is open.
Wide open!
The plane could fly inside.
And his glasses are crooked.
This isn’t the only reason that I know he’s having a bad day. When we took our seats he was on his I-phone, as was everyone else around us, and I could see what he was writing to whoever he was writing to.
“It is not a happy day,” I saw then I tried to look away because I was invading his privacy but then it was like a Soap Opera and I was hooked. I had to know more.
Then the “Flight Attendants” were telling us how to fasten a seat belt and if anybody is caught in the bathroom “dismantling, disabling or destroying a smoke detector” then all of hell is going to break loose.
When I looked back, his I-phone was put away, he’s asleep and his mouth is wide open. He has five fillings. Not the gold fillings. The other kind.
I think that he also had Spinach Salad for lunch.
Either that or he is returning from working on the Nuclear Power plants in Japan though I’m pretty sure it was Spinach Salad.
So this has got me to thinking.
I remember one time I was driving along Bay Street in Downtown Savannah. It’s a beautiful street aside from the thousands of trucks that use it every day for some inexplicable reason other than people who were elected to public office spend all day long making decisions that have inexplicable reasons!
Anyway, I’m driving down Bay and I pass this other car. It was red. And there was this girl driving it and she had long dirty blond hair. Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. And tears were streaming from down her face which was twisted in agony. And I got all of this in less than ten seconds … from the time it takes to stop a car and look up and see something and then the light changes and then the world changes.
This occurred a long, long time ago. But I can still see her now just as clearly as when I was heading in one direction and she was heading in another and we both paused for a few seconds.
Whenever I drive down Bay Street these days and am stopped by one of the traffic lights she flashes through my mind. What was the agony? She left her husband or he left her? The doctor gave her the bad news? Something horrible happened to the kids? The boss abused her? Maybe it was the period from hell! I don’t know.
But there is something beautiful about simply being who you are … where you are … and not allowing anyone or anything to hold you back from … YOU!
I believe that God gave us life … to be us! It’s such a rotten shame that we spend so much time and energy trying to be what other people want us to be … husbands, wives, children, bosses, friends, clergy and those stupid people who run television.
We literally give ourselves away. We sell our souls. We try to make ourselves into what others want us to be. And we die a little every day when we do this.
So I’ve been on this journey for the past year. A Sabbatical. I paused from life though at a stop light. I’d given everything that I had to give to others and they sure as hell took it all!
And for the past year it’s been my time! For me!
And I’ve clawed myself back to me. There are people who I care about but that is different from caring about what other people think. Or want me to be! The rest of my life is God’s gift to me. And I’ve found my friends. And love has reclaimed my soul after it had been stripped, abandoned and left with no concern whatsoever by others. It was a barren place. Now after this visit to Pittsburgh I’ve suddenly got lots of stuff to do.
The Sabbatical is over.
The rest of my life has begun.
But that girl, crying in her car as we both paused for just seconds, remains a vision of pain and beauty to me all of these years later.
Unlike the guy next to me with his mouth wide open. Though I do hope his day gets better.
Like mine have!
And like I pray that yours do.
He is Asian, wearing no tie, has leaned his chair back with his feet up (brown untied shoes with a grey suit), his fingers are laced across his belly and his mouth is open.
Wide open!
The plane could fly inside.
And his glasses are crooked.
This isn’t the only reason that I know he’s having a bad day. When we took our seats he was on his I-phone, as was everyone else around us, and I could see what he was writing to whoever he was writing to.
“It is not a happy day,” I saw then I tried to look away because I was invading his privacy but then it was like a Soap Opera and I was hooked. I had to know more.
Then the “Flight Attendants” were telling us how to fasten a seat belt and if anybody is caught in the bathroom “dismantling, disabling or destroying a smoke detector” then all of hell is going to break loose.
When I looked back, his I-phone was put away, he’s asleep and his mouth is wide open. He has five fillings. Not the gold fillings. The other kind.
I think that he also had Spinach Salad for lunch.
Either that or he is returning from working on the Nuclear Power plants in Japan though I’m pretty sure it was Spinach Salad.
So this has got me to thinking.
I remember one time I was driving along Bay Street in Downtown Savannah. It’s a beautiful street aside from the thousands of trucks that use it every day for some inexplicable reason other than people who were elected to public office spend all day long making decisions that have inexplicable reasons!
Anyway, I’m driving down Bay and I pass this other car. It was red. And there was this girl driving it and she had long dirty blond hair. Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. And tears were streaming from down her face which was twisted in agony. And I got all of this in less than ten seconds … from the time it takes to stop a car and look up and see something and then the light changes and then the world changes.
This occurred a long, long time ago. But I can still see her now just as clearly as when I was heading in one direction and she was heading in another and we both paused for a few seconds.
Whenever I drive down Bay Street these days and am stopped by one of the traffic lights she flashes through my mind. What was the agony? She left her husband or he left her? The doctor gave her the bad news? Something horrible happened to the kids? The boss abused her? Maybe it was the period from hell! I don’t know.
But there is something beautiful about simply being who you are … where you are … and not allowing anyone or anything to hold you back from … YOU!
I believe that God gave us life … to be us! It’s such a rotten shame that we spend so much time and energy trying to be what other people want us to be … husbands, wives, children, bosses, friends, clergy and those stupid people who run television.
We literally give ourselves away. We sell our souls. We try to make ourselves into what others want us to be. And we die a little every day when we do this.
So I’ve been on this journey for the past year. A Sabbatical. I paused from life though at a stop light. I’d given everything that I had to give to others and they sure as hell took it all!
And for the past year it’s been my time! For me!
And I’ve clawed myself back to me. There are people who I care about but that is different from caring about what other people think. Or want me to be! The rest of my life is God’s gift to me. And I’ve found my friends. And love has reclaimed my soul after it had been stripped, abandoned and left with no concern whatsoever by others. It was a barren place. Now after this visit to Pittsburgh I’ve suddenly got lots of stuff to do.
The Sabbatical is over.
The rest of my life has begun.
But that girl, crying in her car as we both paused for just seconds, remains a vision of pain and beauty to me all of these years later.
Unlike the guy next to me with his mouth wide open. Though I do hope his day gets better.
Like mine have!
And like I pray that yours do.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
No Socks, Nice Legs and the Underwear-less Congregation
I forgot my socks.
Wouldn’t you know it? I know a power meeting with a hospital President and her Chief Operations Officer and I won’t have socks on. I just forgot to pack them.
It doesn’t bother me as Southern boy to wear a coat, dress slacks and loafers with no socks. Everyone that my Dad ever hung around dressed this way. It is a southern thing and back home no one would give this any thought whatsoever.
Sitting in the coffee bar of the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt I can’t help but notice that everyone else here is wearing socks. Like me they’re dressed for meetings with coats and slacks and stuff except their ensemble is complete and mine is … tanned.
My feet and ankles are sporting a rather nice golden brown and look healthy! I take care of them and rubbed Queen Helene on them last night. They are moisturized. And I’m sporting them proudly by sitting at a high top table with my feet on the legs of a bar stool so that my pants are riding high so that I’m showing off my legs.
Speaking of which, when I did Bar Church the other day as soon as I was introduced by Samuel Adams somebody in the congregation yelled out “Nice legs Preacher!”
I’d never had this happen before preaching a sermon before. Of course it was the first sermon that I’ve ever delivered wearing running shorts (check it out on the Tybee Church Face Book page to see for yourself!). That’s the great thing about Bar Church … it’s laid back and comfortable.
Once I went to a worship service on a nude beach. It was interesting though I don’t remember anything that the woman delivering the sermon said. She looked good though.
And when it came time to pass the peace I recall that it took a really long time! No body seemed to be in a hurry.
I remember my Dad telling me once that whenever I spoke in front of a crowd to just imagine everyone in the audience sitting out there in their underwear. Now that I’ve actually been a part of an underwear-less congregation I have surpassed his expectations.
Wait!
There’s somebody else here wearing no socks!
Damn he’s got some white feet!
Alright! It’s time to get my game face on and be prepared to stick my feet where the sun don’t shine if need be.
I got the feet for it!
Wouldn’t you know it? I know a power meeting with a hospital President and her Chief Operations Officer and I won’t have socks on. I just forgot to pack them.
It doesn’t bother me as Southern boy to wear a coat, dress slacks and loafers with no socks. Everyone that my Dad ever hung around dressed this way. It is a southern thing and back home no one would give this any thought whatsoever.
Sitting in the coffee bar of the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt I can’t help but notice that everyone else here is wearing socks. Like me they’re dressed for meetings with coats and slacks and stuff except their ensemble is complete and mine is … tanned.
My feet and ankles are sporting a rather nice golden brown and look healthy! I take care of them and rubbed Queen Helene on them last night. They are moisturized. And I’m sporting them proudly by sitting at a high top table with my feet on the legs of a bar stool so that my pants are riding high so that I’m showing off my legs.
Speaking of which, when I did Bar Church the other day as soon as I was introduced by Samuel Adams somebody in the congregation yelled out “Nice legs Preacher!”
I’d never had this happen before preaching a sermon before. Of course it was the first sermon that I’ve ever delivered wearing running shorts (check it out on the Tybee Church Face Book page to see for yourself!). That’s the great thing about Bar Church … it’s laid back and comfortable.
Once I went to a worship service on a nude beach. It was interesting though I don’t remember anything that the woman delivering the sermon said. She looked good though.
And when it came time to pass the peace I recall that it took a really long time! No body seemed to be in a hurry.
I remember my Dad telling me once that whenever I spoke in front of a crowd to just imagine everyone in the audience sitting out there in their underwear. Now that I’ve actually been a part of an underwear-less congregation I have surpassed his expectations.
Wait!
There’s somebody else here wearing no socks!
Damn he’s got some white feet!
Alright! It’s time to get my game face on and be prepared to stick my feet where the sun don’t shine if need be.
I got the feet for it!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Giving Thanks
After giving Savannah passionate kisses, I’m back at the airport.
Waiting …
Watching …
It is a different type of contemplation than I have on the beloved back deck. Everyone seems anxious.
I’m off to Pittsburgh for meetings tonight and tomorrow with the goal of launching the International Street Medicine Institute. The Board of Directors, of which I’m one, is meeting with the President of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System. The last time that I was in Pittsburgh it was during the NFL playoffs and the Steelers were cruising towards the Super Bowl though they crashed and burned once they got there.
I know all about crash and burn. A year ago at this time I’d already passed burn out and when I found myself “suddenly single” I crash and burned in the worst sort of way.
But yesterday I had the opportunity to say “Thank you” to a collection of people who got me through that rotten part of my life. While several weren’t present at Bar Church, many were. So I told the story of my crashing and burning and then I moved to the incredible friends who rearranged their lives to take care of me when I wasn’t capable of taking care of much anything.
I don’t take much for granted anymore though certainly there were times when I did. Once you survive crashing and burning it leaves you changed. I’m told that I’m softer than I used to be ... humbler … slower …delighting in little things. Celebrating my friends!
I’ve learned a lot about friendship through all of this. After leaving a career that I’d given everything and then being left by someone I’d given everything to, yesterday I thanked my friends publicly. These are the one who refused to take “No” for an answer. They showed up, broke in, cooked when I wouldn’t eat, drug me out when I refused to go, made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.
They are incredible people and they brought me back to life when I was long gone and buried in this tomb of loneliness.
I know a lot of people. Many of them consider themselves my friends. And I like most. But the ones who refuse to take no for an answer … well … they’re special.
So I’m raising a glass at the airport to some special people. Johnny O and Judy, Whitley of all people, Trolley Joe, Jenny Orr, my extended family at the Breakfast Club, Shirley, Stacy, Sarah, Dave and Sandy and this wonderful dog … Goddess.
Conner and Hania. (woo boy …Conner … I really do hope we get to stand before the Judgment throne together! If we don’t crack God up then we’ll be laughing all the way to Hell!)
Then there are these other friends who rose from the dead to be with me. Dedra, Mitch, Mark, Gyni, Linda and most of all … Fran.
And I’m blessed with children who turned into friends.
And a mother who won’t quit!
Now it’s time to fly.
And I’m looking forward to whatever is going to happen in Pittsburgh but I’m looking forward more to coming home.
To my friends …
Whom I love …
Waiting …
Watching …
It is a different type of contemplation than I have on the beloved back deck. Everyone seems anxious.
I’m off to Pittsburgh for meetings tonight and tomorrow with the goal of launching the International Street Medicine Institute. The Board of Directors, of which I’m one, is meeting with the President of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System. The last time that I was in Pittsburgh it was during the NFL playoffs and the Steelers were cruising towards the Super Bowl though they crashed and burned once they got there.
I know all about crash and burn. A year ago at this time I’d already passed burn out and when I found myself “suddenly single” I crash and burned in the worst sort of way.
But yesterday I had the opportunity to say “Thank you” to a collection of people who got me through that rotten part of my life. While several weren’t present at Bar Church, many were. So I told the story of my crashing and burning and then I moved to the incredible friends who rearranged their lives to take care of me when I wasn’t capable of taking care of much anything.
I don’t take much for granted anymore though certainly there were times when I did. Once you survive crashing and burning it leaves you changed. I’m told that I’m softer than I used to be ... humbler … slower …delighting in little things. Celebrating my friends!
I’ve learned a lot about friendship through all of this. After leaving a career that I’d given everything and then being left by someone I’d given everything to, yesterday I thanked my friends publicly. These are the one who refused to take “No” for an answer. They showed up, broke in, cooked when I wouldn’t eat, drug me out when I refused to go, made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.
They are incredible people and they brought me back to life when I was long gone and buried in this tomb of loneliness.
I know a lot of people. Many of them consider themselves my friends. And I like most. But the ones who refuse to take no for an answer … well … they’re special.
So I’m raising a glass at the airport to some special people. Johnny O and Judy, Whitley of all people, Trolley Joe, Jenny Orr, my extended family at the Breakfast Club, Shirley, Stacy, Sarah, Dave and Sandy and this wonderful dog … Goddess.
Conner and Hania. (woo boy …Conner … I really do hope we get to stand before the Judgment throne together! If we don’t crack God up then we’ll be laughing all the way to Hell!)
Then there are these other friends who rose from the dead to be with me. Dedra, Mitch, Mark, Gyni, Linda and most of all … Fran.
And I’m blessed with children who turned into friends.
And a mother who won’t quit!
Now it’s time to fly.
And I’m looking forward to whatever is going to happen in Pittsburgh but I’m looking forward more to coming home.
To my friends …
Whom I love …
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Counting Sheep
“It’s Tybee Church,” Johnny O said for no apparent reason.
I looked at him as I took a sip of coffee. I’m never certain where these conversations are going to go. Once he called me just to tell me that he had soiled his pants in the parking lot of Chu’s convenient store. You get my point. Conversations with Johnny O are like roller coaster rides.
“You call it Bar Church,” he continued. “It’s Tybee Church.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “It’s church. It’s in a bar. It’s Bar Church.”
“It’s Tybee Church,’ he scolded.
I thought “Really? I’m being scolded by Johnny O?” The world is surely coming to an end. The moon’s closer to the earth than it’s been in 19 years. That was the last time the world was coming to an end.
“If you have 86 people there,” he continued, “you’ll beat my record by one.”
I thought back to my days as a professional Christian in Louisville at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel. I was always in hot water with the Baptists (which is another way of saying they are convinced that I’m going to hell on the express train) and the only reason that I never got fired was because my numbers were through the roof (or heaven bound as I told them). The entire time that I was at Jeff Street more people kept coming! It was a wild collection of little old ladies, homeless people, hookers, kids from the projects and radical Seminarians.
It was orgasmic!
Anyway I would stroll into the pulpit while Shannon Freeman played the dance music from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and sit in the throne type chair that Southern Baptist ministers prefer. I would make certain that my socks were pulled up and wondered if I should shave my legs? Then knowing that I would be trouble for something that week, I would count the number of people who were there that day so that I could complete the form that the Baptist required me to complete each week.
How many came to Sunday School? How many came to Church? How many got saved? How many got Baptized? Did anybody dance? Did another Baptist see you in the liquor store?
You know stuff Baptists care about!
One morning I walked into the sanctuary to the throne seat and somebody had put a cartoon in it. Underneath drawings of sheep were the words “Jesus called us to count his sheep. Not to feed them.”
I busted out laughing in front of a room full of people which is not a bad way to start a worship service.
All of these images rushed through my head as Johnny O paid for his coffee and told me that he would see me at Tybee Church.
I shrugged my shoulders. Another image came to me from my days as a Professional Christian.
“Get up!” I would be commanded.
“No!” I would yell back.
“YOU HAVE TO GET UP!”
“I do not,” I’d bark with the pillow over my head.
“GET UP NOW!”
“Give me one good reason dammit!” I yelled with my eyes still shut.
“It’s Sunday and you’re the minister!”
“Oh yeah,” I’d said. Then I’d get up.
So I’m up and it’s Sunday and I’m preaching at Bar Church today.
Hmmmm!
I wonder if I’ll have any words?
It doesn’t matter. It’s Bar Church. It’s all good.
I looked at him as I took a sip of coffee. I’m never certain where these conversations are going to go. Once he called me just to tell me that he had soiled his pants in the parking lot of Chu’s convenient store. You get my point. Conversations with Johnny O are like roller coaster rides.
“You call it Bar Church,” he continued. “It’s Tybee Church.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “It’s church. It’s in a bar. It’s Bar Church.”
“It’s Tybee Church,’ he scolded.
I thought “Really? I’m being scolded by Johnny O?” The world is surely coming to an end. The moon’s closer to the earth than it’s been in 19 years. That was the last time the world was coming to an end.
“If you have 86 people there,” he continued, “you’ll beat my record by one.”
I thought back to my days as a professional Christian in Louisville at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel. I was always in hot water with the Baptists (which is another way of saying they are convinced that I’m going to hell on the express train) and the only reason that I never got fired was because my numbers were through the roof (or heaven bound as I told them). The entire time that I was at Jeff Street more people kept coming! It was a wild collection of little old ladies, homeless people, hookers, kids from the projects and radical Seminarians.
It was orgasmic!
Anyway I would stroll into the pulpit while Shannon Freeman played the dance music from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and sit in the throne type chair that Southern Baptist ministers prefer. I would make certain that my socks were pulled up and wondered if I should shave my legs? Then knowing that I would be trouble for something that week, I would count the number of people who were there that day so that I could complete the form that the Baptist required me to complete each week.
How many came to Sunday School? How many came to Church? How many got saved? How many got Baptized? Did anybody dance? Did another Baptist see you in the liquor store?
You know stuff Baptists care about!
One morning I walked into the sanctuary to the throne seat and somebody had put a cartoon in it. Underneath drawings of sheep were the words “Jesus called us to count his sheep. Not to feed them.”
I busted out laughing in front of a room full of people which is not a bad way to start a worship service.
All of these images rushed through my head as Johnny O paid for his coffee and told me that he would see me at Tybee Church.
I shrugged my shoulders. Another image came to me from my days as a Professional Christian.
“Get up!” I would be commanded.
“No!” I would yell back.
“YOU HAVE TO GET UP!”
“I do not,” I’d bark with the pillow over my head.
“GET UP NOW!”
“Give me one good reason dammit!” I yelled with my eyes still shut.
“It’s Sunday and you’re the minister!”
“Oh yeah,” I’d said. Then I’d get up.
So I’m up and it’s Sunday and I’m preaching at Bar Church today.
Hmmmm!
I wonder if I’ll have any words?
It doesn’t matter. It’s Bar Church. It’s all good.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Dens of Iniquity
It’s best to be honest. I like dens of iniquity. I always have. I’ve been to many. Often on multiple occasions! If Conner is involved we immediately become the most popular people there while deteriorating the property value at the same time (no small feat!). Just to be clear, a den of iniquity is “a place of immoral behavior, usually of a sexual type.”
The first time that I recall visiting one was in Washington D.C. where there are more whores concentrated in one place than anywhere in the world. I was in Congress. Talk about a den of iniquity!
Anyway I was on a bus full of Southern Baptists, I myself was a professional Christian at the time, and there was this big fat Baptist named Ed who was sitting beside me. The bus was in traffic on M Street and Ed and I could see down this alley that was full of hookers.
“Oh my,” he said in a soft tenor voice.
“What?” I asked staring at the abundant cleavages that I suppose was marketing, though I didn’t realize it then. (I have to ask my friend Jodi about this.)
“I could never,” Ed said.
“Never what” I asked? “Have sex?”
“No,” he answered still admiring the marketing tactics of hookers. “Go to a place like that,” he finished.
“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa,” I shot back holding my hand up in the air. “Doesn’t the Bible say that we’re supposed along the highways and byways and all that stuff …meaning everywhere to deliver the Good News?”
“Well, I could never be with ‘THOSE KINDS OF PEOPE.”
“Really?” I asked in Southern drawl English.
I stopped being Ed’s friend that day. Though in honesty we really weren’t friends anyway! He was a condescending prick. I never liked him.
So later that same day, I walked back to M Street and found the alley and made my way in. She was blond, wore a fur coat and these yellow rubber boots.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Coffee,” I answered.
“I could use some,” she replied.
“Come on,” I motioned.
“No this way,” she corrected my direction and led me to this coffee shop and we ordered. When we sat at the table I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t wearing anything under the fur coat. It was really good coffee!
We spent about half an hour talking. She had a son who was five who she loved more than anything. She was from Virginia and was doing her best to get by. She’d gotten pregnant in college and I told her that I knew all about that. She asked me what I did and I told her that I was a Southern Baptist Minister.
“Yeah,” she said rolling her eyes, “we see a lot of those.”
“Are we nice?” I asked.
“Not really,” she answered taking a sip of coffee.
Then she told me that she had to get back to work. “A girl’s gotta make a living,” she sighed. “And I got my boy to take care of.”
So I walked her back to the alley and she asked me if I needed anything else. I told her no and thanked her for the coffee and gave her $20 telling her it was for her son. She smiled and squeezed my hand then positioned herself for marketing. It got my attention. But I walked away on the cold windy day.
That was the first time. Since then, I’ve learned that “these are my people.” Back home in Louisville I took to visiting the porn shops and met all of the dancers. Most were just like the girl in Washington. They had kids that they loved and were doing their best to support them and themselves.
They took to calling me “The Rev.”
Then homeless guys picked it up. Then it moved south to Tybee Island and I’m still “the Rev.”
I grew to love “Those kind of people.” Passionately! Deeply! They are honest and they are kind and if I asked to kill for me, they would.
I know worst people like bankers, clergy and elected officials but “MY kind of people” are just doing the best that they can.
Just like me.
And just like you.
The first time that I recall visiting one was in Washington D.C. where there are more whores concentrated in one place than anywhere in the world. I was in Congress. Talk about a den of iniquity!
Anyway I was on a bus full of Southern Baptists, I myself was a professional Christian at the time, and there was this big fat Baptist named Ed who was sitting beside me. The bus was in traffic on M Street and Ed and I could see down this alley that was full of hookers.
“Oh my,” he said in a soft tenor voice.
“What?” I asked staring at the abundant cleavages that I suppose was marketing, though I didn’t realize it then. (I have to ask my friend Jodi about this.)
“I could never,” Ed said.
“Never what” I asked? “Have sex?”
“No,” he answered still admiring the marketing tactics of hookers. “Go to a place like that,” he finished.
“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa,” I shot back holding my hand up in the air. “Doesn’t the Bible say that we’re supposed along the highways and byways and all that stuff …meaning everywhere to deliver the Good News?”
“Well, I could never be with ‘THOSE KINDS OF PEOPE.”
“Really?” I asked in Southern drawl English.
I stopped being Ed’s friend that day. Though in honesty we really weren’t friends anyway! He was a condescending prick. I never liked him.
So later that same day, I walked back to M Street and found the alley and made my way in. She was blond, wore a fur coat and these yellow rubber boots.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Coffee,” I answered.
“I could use some,” she replied.
“Come on,” I motioned.
“No this way,” she corrected my direction and led me to this coffee shop and we ordered. When we sat at the table I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t wearing anything under the fur coat. It was really good coffee!
We spent about half an hour talking. She had a son who was five who she loved more than anything. She was from Virginia and was doing her best to get by. She’d gotten pregnant in college and I told her that I knew all about that. She asked me what I did and I told her that I was a Southern Baptist Minister.
“Yeah,” she said rolling her eyes, “we see a lot of those.”
“Are we nice?” I asked.
“Not really,” she answered taking a sip of coffee.
Then she told me that she had to get back to work. “A girl’s gotta make a living,” she sighed. “And I got my boy to take care of.”
So I walked her back to the alley and she asked me if I needed anything else. I told her no and thanked her for the coffee and gave her $20 telling her it was for her son. She smiled and squeezed my hand then positioned herself for marketing. It got my attention. But I walked away on the cold windy day.
That was the first time. Since then, I’ve learned that “these are my people.” Back home in Louisville I took to visiting the porn shops and met all of the dancers. Most were just like the girl in Washington. They had kids that they loved and were doing their best to support them and themselves.
They took to calling me “The Rev.”
Then homeless guys picked it up. Then it moved south to Tybee Island and I’m still “the Rev.”
I grew to love “Those kind of people.” Passionately! Deeply! They are honest and they are kind and if I asked to kill for me, they would.
I know worst people like bankers, clergy and elected officials but “MY kind of people” are just doing the best that they can.
Just like me.
And just like you.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Ripped Open (Ocean Crossing)
Take my hand across the water
You won’t leave no tracks behind
Step all over the moon lit ocean
It’s only in your mind
All these thoughts just rip me open
Who can heal a heart that’s broken?
Like the winds that blow unspoken
Blew my love away
So sings Arlo Guthrie in one of the songs that has become a hymn of my life. When Julie left it was the first part of the song that I posted as a blog because I couldn’t find my own words to write.
Looked into your eyes this morning
You were far away
You knew that I was looking for you
You knew you couldn’t stay
I was in a cab in Washington D.C. with my heart being drug from behind as though tin cans on the back of the car of a newlywed couple’s car.
I was just numb.
Then Skip Eloge called and asked me what was wrong? Where are your words? You always write. So I told him in a numb sort of way. I remember staring at the Washington Monument as I spoke and it was a bright sunny day in D.C. And Arlo’s words kept ringing in my head.
My friend Dedra and I were talking recently and she asked how I kept using lyrics in my conversations. I told her that I think in lyrics. It may as well be a foreign language that I’ve mastered. My dear friend Mitch has also mastered it and he and I can carry on complete conversations with one another just quoting song lyrics.
Anyway, Julie knew she couldn’t stay. I don’t blame her. We’d been through so much. The weight of the world had become oppressive and it crushed us. She went off to survive and I send her the very best of everything.
And I’m still here! Though “here” is a much different place from then. Some things are the same. Goddess is still the most beautiful dog though she stays near me all of the time slamming herself into the sofa or the bed when she wants love. She knows loss too. Though she knows new loves too and gets excited when they arrive.
The house is the same then again it’s not. My Mom had all these dreams about what it should look like and she is a person who has always made dreams come true. So she’s working on it. And it is taking on a different look … a different feel … becoming the right setting for a very different …me.
The friends that I have are the same that I had before though the friendships are far deeper and richer…and fewer. Far fewer! This isn’t a bad thing, I’ve come to learn. Rather than trying to satisfy the masses, I have far more time to invest myself into the few and much more appreciation for what they have invested in me. These are the people who have gotten me through.
So this morning I sit on the beloved back deck with Goddess lying beside me. The choirs of birds are singing. Fran is showering me with love in her thousand shades of green. The newness of the back yard is warm and inviting. I hear the waves of the ocean slap the shore.
On the other side of Fran’s thousand shades of green, hidden from me, are three musicians playing their instruments, remnants of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Savannah. A guitar, a violin and a cello sing to me through the trees. Fran has blessed this with purple wisteria shooting from the thousand shades.
And it makes me cry.
So I lean towards the ocean and reach out my hand to the future. Towards this hand that I know is reaching out to me.
I am scared.
But I believe that she’ll take it and we’ll step all over the moon lit ocean. And we’ll make it real. I’m already ripped open though the broken heart is beingl healed.
And there is no need for words.
They’ve all been blown away.
You won’t leave no tracks behind
Step all over the moon lit ocean
It’s only in your mind
All these thoughts just rip me open
Who can heal a heart that’s broken?
Like the winds that blow unspoken
Blew my love away
So sings Arlo Guthrie in one of the songs that has become a hymn of my life. When Julie left it was the first part of the song that I posted as a blog because I couldn’t find my own words to write.
Looked into your eyes this morning
You were far away
You knew that I was looking for you
You knew you couldn’t stay
I was in a cab in Washington D.C. with my heart being drug from behind as though tin cans on the back of the car of a newlywed couple’s car.
I was just numb.
Then Skip Eloge called and asked me what was wrong? Where are your words? You always write. So I told him in a numb sort of way. I remember staring at the Washington Monument as I spoke and it was a bright sunny day in D.C. And Arlo’s words kept ringing in my head.
My friend Dedra and I were talking recently and she asked how I kept using lyrics in my conversations. I told her that I think in lyrics. It may as well be a foreign language that I’ve mastered. My dear friend Mitch has also mastered it and he and I can carry on complete conversations with one another just quoting song lyrics.
Anyway, Julie knew she couldn’t stay. I don’t blame her. We’d been through so much. The weight of the world had become oppressive and it crushed us. She went off to survive and I send her the very best of everything.
And I’m still here! Though “here” is a much different place from then. Some things are the same. Goddess is still the most beautiful dog though she stays near me all of the time slamming herself into the sofa or the bed when she wants love. She knows loss too. Though she knows new loves too and gets excited when they arrive.
The house is the same then again it’s not. My Mom had all these dreams about what it should look like and she is a person who has always made dreams come true. So she’s working on it. And it is taking on a different look … a different feel … becoming the right setting for a very different …me.
The friends that I have are the same that I had before though the friendships are far deeper and richer…and fewer. Far fewer! This isn’t a bad thing, I’ve come to learn. Rather than trying to satisfy the masses, I have far more time to invest myself into the few and much more appreciation for what they have invested in me. These are the people who have gotten me through.
So this morning I sit on the beloved back deck with Goddess lying beside me. The choirs of birds are singing. Fran is showering me with love in her thousand shades of green. The newness of the back yard is warm and inviting. I hear the waves of the ocean slap the shore.
On the other side of Fran’s thousand shades of green, hidden from me, are three musicians playing their instruments, remnants of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Savannah. A guitar, a violin and a cello sing to me through the trees. Fran has blessed this with purple wisteria shooting from the thousand shades.
And it makes me cry.
So I lean towards the ocean and reach out my hand to the future. Towards this hand that I know is reaching out to me.
I am scared.
But I believe that she’ll take it and we’ll step all over the moon lit ocean. And we’ll make it real. I’m already ripped open though the broken heart is beingl healed.
And there is no need for words.
They’ve all been blown away.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Happy St. Patrick's Day (or Not)!
I am standing under the spray in my outdoor shower washing my sins away and baptizing myself in Holy Water beside the sea. I am mesmerized at the moment. There is a hole in the wood and a brilliant beam of sunlight is shooting through as though it a laser. Molecules of water mix with the light and two of the four elements that make everything are dancing together in front of me.
Moving my hand through it, I capture the sacred mixture closing my eyes as I close my hand bathed in both water and light. Choirs of birds are singing hymns to God … or to me, I don’t know, but they are proud of their songs and sing them loudly. From the shower I see Fran’s thousand shades of green standing in erect attention not daring to move in the divinity of the morning.
I knew it was going to be a special day as I was running this morning. A red sun hung just over the calmest ocean and the breeze was light. Waves were acting up at the last moment, breaking just at the shore, playfully slapping it then rushing back to Mother Ocean. I kind of lumbered along, not really running … jogging, I guess … because it was all so … serene.
Tranquility is not something that I’ve had an abundance of so when it comes I slow down and take it in. There something about breathing deeply the things that you love…making them part of who you are … redefining your being …becoming who you are going to be.
I think these things as I stand in the baptism of the outdoor shower holding the blessed sacraments of light and water in my still closed fist.
I linger not wanting to move.
It is St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah. As I said last year, it is St. Patrick’s Day … the second highest holy day in Savannah after Christmas but before New Year’s and Easter (Easter would rank better were it not for the Baptist who refuse to participate with the other church’s in their sunrise services).
Flying in from Boston the other day into the Hilton Head International Airport located in Savannah, the plane was filled with people wearing green. They were pouring in for the party. A city of perhaps a180,000 will welcome 400,000 guests! It is something to see and before you die life, you need to see it.
When I was flying into Boston I sat beside a soldier returning from Afghanistan to his home. Next to him was a saleswoman from Albany, Georgia who was well traveled. As soon as the soldier sat down he asked if could borrow my phone.
I imagined he carried a gun, or was trained to kill with his bare hands and Delta does this “Hero Worship” military appreciation speech on every flight, so how could I say no? And he called his girlfriend of seven years. They had not seen one another in seven months. And they excitedly talked about … St. Patrick’s Day.
“Thank you sir,” he said handing me my phone.
“Yeah I appreciate you not killing me either. Oh yeah and for ‘everything that you do for us’” quoting the Delta speech.
He grinned and we got to talking. Most soldiers absolutely hate all of this adoration! It leads to bad things like homelessness, addiction, mental illness and such. I know.
Boston has the largest parade in the world but it doesn’t take place until Saturday. He starts off at a breakfast place on the parade route with his entire family. They start drinking early like we do in Savannah though they have to do it in private there. So they dart in and out during the parade so they can drink. After the parade there are parties everywhere, mostly in bars or backyards (though in snowing in Boston when I was there!).
Then I told him about Savannah. The girl from Albany confirmed my description.
“No shit!” he said repeatedly. “I gotta go!”
“Before you die,” I said. “As a matter of fact, skip this war and have some fun.”
“Yes sir,” he said and smartly saluted.
Still lingering in the baptism of the outdoor shower with the choirs of birds singing with a woodpecker now keeping time and Fran’s thousand shades of green perfectly still, I send him a prayer. I hope he’s having fun. He deserves it. We all deserve it.
And I send another to all of the hundreds of thousands in Savannah today. Y’all have fun too!
Life should be mostly fun.
Then I open my hand and the light mixed with the water resumes its dance.
“Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” I say to no one.
Moving my hand through it, I capture the sacred mixture closing my eyes as I close my hand bathed in both water and light. Choirs of birds are singing hymns to God … or to me, I don’t know, but they are proud of their songs and sing them loudly. From the shower I see Fran’s thousand shades of green standing in erect attention not daring to move in the divinity of the morning.
I knew it was going to be a special day as I was running this morning. A red sun hung just over the calmest ocean and the breeze was light. Waves were acting up at the last moment, breaking just at the shore, playfully slapping it then rushing back to Mother Ocean. I kind of lumbered along, not really running … jogging, I guess … because it was all so … serene.
Tranquility is not something that I’ve had an abundance of so when it comes I slow down and take it in. There something about breathing deeply the things that you love…making them part of who you are … redefining your being …becoming who you are going to be.
I think these things as I stand in the baptism of the outdoor shower holding the blessed sacraments of light and water in my still closed fist.
I linger not wanting to move.
It is St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah. As I said last year, it is St. Patrick’s Day … the second highest holy day in Savannah after Christmas but before New Year’s and Easter (Easter would rank better were it not for the Baptist who refuse to participate with the other church’s in their sunrise services).
Flying in from Boston the other day into the Hilton Head International Airport located in Savannah, the plane was filled with people wearing green. They were pouring in for the party. A city of perhaps a180,000 will welcome 400,000 guests! It is something to see and before you die life, you need to see it.
When I was flying into Boston I sat beside a soldier returning from Afghanistan to his home. Next to him was a saleswoman from Albany, Georgia who was well traveled. As soon as the soldier sat down he asked if could borrow my phone.
I imagined he carried a gun, or was trained to kill with his bare hands and Delta does this “Hero Worship” military appreciation speech on every flight, so how could I say no? And he called his girlfriend of seven years. They had not seen one another in seven months. And they excitedly talked about … St. Patrick’s Day.
“Thank you sir,” he said handing me my phone.
“Yeah I appreciate you not killing me either. Oh yeah and for ‘everything that you do for us’” quoting the Delta speech.
He grinned and we got to talking. Most soldiers absolutely hate all of this adoration! It leads to bad things like homelessness, addiction, mental illness and such. I know.
Boston has the largest parade in the world but it doesn’t take place until Saturday. He starts off at a breakfast place on the parade route with his entire family. They start drinking early like we do in Savannah though they have to do it in private there. So they dart in and out during the parade so they can drink. After the parade there are parties everywhere, mostly in bars or backyards (though in snowing in Boston when I was there!).
Then I told him about Savannah. The girl from Albany confirmed my description.
“No shit!” he said repeatedly. “I gotta go!”
“Before you die,” I said. “As a matter of fact, skip this war and have some fun.”
“Yes sir,” he said and smartly saluted.
Still lingering in the baptism of the outdoor shower with the choirs of birds singing with a woodpecker now keeping time and Fran’s thousand shades of green perfectly still, I send him a prayer. I hope he’s having fun. He deserves it. We all deserve it.
And I send another to all of the hundreds of thousands in Savannah today. Y’all have fun too!
Life should be mostly fun.
Then I open my hand and the light mixed with the water resumes its dance.
“Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” I say to no one.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Health and Nazis
“Whose drunken bicycle is that outside?” Patti asked as she entered the door marked “Exit Only” now in multiple languages at the Breakfast Club.
She was smiling at me.
I pointed down the counter. “That would that drunk right there,” I answered.
She turned and, sure enough, there he was wobbling on a stool at 6:50 in the morning; un-kept blond hair, half-closed eyes and smelling of alcohol. He was sitting very close to the grill which had me worried…the whole place could go up in flames in a Nano-second.
Patti winced and said “Ouch!”
It’s Whitley’s bicycle’s fault. A couple of weeks ago at the Marlyn Monroe’s oyster roast his bike got wasted and got Whitley wasted too. I had to take both of them home in my car though they only live 3 blocks away. Nevertheless, Whitley’s bicycle has already had a tremendous negative influence on the island’s other bicycles. This is the latest example!
“Can I have a cigarette?” the blond wobbly boy asked.
“Stop mooching off my employees!” Jodee commanded as he pulled an egg beater affixed to a rubber tube, hanging from the ceiling and began to beat eggs.
I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to watch; wobbly blond boy or Jodee trying out his latest invention? You can easily lapse into sensory overload at the Breakfast Club!
Through I was only gone for two days, strange things have occurred at the Club in that time.
First of all, Phil has taken to wearing rubber gloves as he makes toast, puts pickles on plates, and butters English muffins. I assumed he was merely combining his lifelong dream of becoming a Proctologist with his love of cooking.
Then there are the hairnets! They appeared overnight and beg a very deep question. “Why do men with shaved heads wear hair nets?” I can’t figure it out.
Finally, I understand that a new dry-erase board will be installed at the end of the counter so that Franklin, who is brown, can write down the time that a dozen eggs are pulled out the walk-in cooler. This is so that customers, most of do not sit within view of the end of the counter, will know that the eggs have not just been sitting all day becoming chickens.
Now if you’ve been to the Breakfast Club, you know that they cook a lot of eggs! Crates each hour! Franklin, who is brown, is also responsible for getting everything ready for the cooks so that they can … well … cook! I think that he can write so maybe this announcement of the abortion of a dozen eggs will be meaningful to some.
But if Franklin, who is brown, will have to stop prepping every time a soon to be aborted egg comes out of the walk-in cooler then production is going to be significantly reduced and the lines at the Breakfast Club are going to get longer and then Tybee Parking Services will have to get involved and they are Nazis.
“So,” I ask in my never ending role as Chaplain of the Breakfast Club, “who thought of all of these bright ideas?”
“Health Department,” I am told.
“Hmm,” I reply. I have lots of good friends at the Health Department. Most are really good people. A couple are the dearest of friends.
“Really” I ask?
“Yeah,” I am told, “this guy with a clipboard comes in and walks around telling what is wrong and how to fix it. He just gives orders. We can’t talk to him. Then throws out scores and tells us that it better be fixed time he comes in. Then he leaves and goes and does it at another restaurant.”
“Sounds like Parking Services,” I muse. “Does he wear a hair net and rubber gloves?” I ask.
Blond, wobbly boy stands up and wobbles.
He had ordered an egg, cheese and bacon on a toasted English muffin. As I watched them prepare it … well…it suddenly seemed like NASA space experiment. Nobody could touch anything. The Chefs put on body condoms. Franklin, who is brown, was trying to write the time every time an egg came out of the walk-in cooler which was every 7 seconds.
Somehow they did it.
I was exhausted!
And I couldn’t imagine how much more protection we can stand. Government has turned into Nanies. I mean I understand that restaurants should be held to the highest of standards as they serve the public but … some of this stuff is ridiculous.
“Would you like a lid with your To-go coffee sir,” Daniel asked drunken, blond wobbly boy?
“No thanks,” he wobbled back. “I’m on a bicycle.”
And as I left, I couldn’t help but think that there is something strangely similar to both lines of logic.
She was smiling at me.
I pointed down the counter. “That would that drunk right there,” I answered.
She turned and, sure enough, there he was wobbling on a stool at 6:50 in the morning; un-kept blond hair, half-closed eyes and smelling of alcohol. He was sitting very close to the grill which had me worried…the whole place could go up in flames in a Nano-second.
Patti winced and said “Ouch!”
It’s Whitley’s bicycle’s fault. A couple of weeks ago at the Marlyn Monroe’s oyster roast his bike got wasted and got Whitley wasted too. I had to take both of them home in my car though they only live 3 blocks away. Nevertheless, Whitley’s bicycle has already had a tremendous negative influence on the island’s other bicycles. This is the latest example!
“Can I have a cigarette?” the blond wobbly boy asked.
“Stop mooching off my employees!” Jodee commanded as he pulled an egg beater affixed to a rubber tube, hanging from the ceiling and began to beat eggs.
I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to watch; wobbly blond boy or Jodee trying out his latest invention? You can easily lapse into sensory overload at the Breakfast Club!
Through I was only gone for two days, strange things have occurred at the Club in that time.
First of all, Phil has taken to wearing rubber gloves as he makes toast, puts pickles on plates, and butters English muffins. I assumed he was merely combining his lifelong dream of becoming a Proctologist with his love of cooking.
Then there are the hairnets! They appeared overnight and beg a very deep question. “Why do men with shaved heads wear hair nets?” I can’t figure it out.
Finally, I understand that a new dry-erase board will be installed at the end of the counter so that Franklin, who is brown, can write down the time that a dozen eggs are pulled out the walk-in cooler. This is so that customers, most of do not sit within view of the end of the counter, will know that the eggs have not just been sitting all day becoming chickens.
Now if you’ve been to the Breakfast Club, you know that they cook a lot of eggs! Crates each hour! Franklin, who is brown, is also responsible for getting everything ready for the cooks so that they can … well … cook! I think that he can write so maybe this announcement of the abortion of a dozen eggs will be meaningful to some.
But if Franklin, who is brown, will have to stop prepping every time a soon to be aborted egg comes out of the walk-in cooler then production is going to be significantly reduced and the lines at the Breakfast Club are going to get longer and then Tybee Parking Services will have to get involved and they are Nazis.
“So,” I ask in my never ending role as Chaplain of the Breakfast Club, “who thought of all of these bright ideas?”
“Health Department,” I am told.
“Hmm,” I reply. I have lots of good friends at the Health Department. Most are really good people. A couple are the dearest of friends.
“Really” I ask?
“Yeah,” I am told, “this guy with a clipboard comes in and walks around telling what is wrong and how to fix it. He just gives orders. We can’t talk to him. Then throws out scores and tells us that it better be fixed time he comes in. Then he leaves and goes and does it at another restaurant.”
“Sounds like Parking Services,” I muse. “Does he wear a hair net and rubber gloves?” I ask.
Blond, wobbly boy stands up and wobbles.
He had ordered an egg, cheese and bacon on a toasted English muffin. As I watched them prepare it … well…it suddenly seemed like NASA space experiment. Nobody could touch anything. The Chefs put on body condoms. Franklin, who is brown, was trying to write the time every time an egg came out of the walk-in cooler which was every 7 seconds.
Somehow they did it.
I was exhausted!
And I couldn’t imagine how much more protection we can stand. Government has turned into Nanies. I mean I understand that restaurants should be held to the highest of standards as they serve the public but … some of this stuff is ridiculous.
“Would you like a lid with your To-go coffee sir,” Daniel asked drunken, blond wobbly boy?
“No thanks,” he wobbled back. “I’m on a bicycle.”
And as I left, I couldn’t help but think that there is something strangely similar to both lines of logic.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Waking Up
Three young teens sat at a table with a smiling supervisor. Each was different. Long black hair spilled over the back of her wheelchair and a beatific smile of the whitest teeth greeted me as I entered the room. Her throat had a purple scar and when she said “Hello” it came out slurred as though she missed the “L’s”.
Beside her, a young chubby boy with thick black hair studied his work with deep concentration. Brown eyes sat deep back in the sockets and his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. Using his good hand, he took the balloon and worked to affix it on top of the value. The supervisor was giving him undivided attention celebrating each time he was successful.
The last was a smaller boy with his back to me. His Red Sox cap was on backwards so I could see the dirty logo. His dirty jacket had the Patriots logo on it. He worked at lightning speed throwing completed balloons with values in the giant bag.
It filled me with emotion and moisture covered my eyes. I smiled back at the girl and told her “Hello.” Her smile grew bigger.
Later in the day I sat beside her at a table full of people with disabilities or self-advocates as they called themselves. With us were two parents and a few staff members of “The Triangle” near Boston.
“When I was growing up my mother would push me down the stairs,” a short plump girl with wild black hair explained, “she is a drug addict and calls me every day asking for money and I TELL HER NO.” The words came haltingly with the silence in between each word full of wet emotion.
A short man of perhaps 40 with a crew cut and eyes that looked in two different directions at the same time spoke in the voice of child. “My mother always protected me growing up and now I want protect myself.”
A young man who couldn’t sit still kept raising his hand then quickly putting it down again. His face remained devoid of expression and when he talked it was in a monotone voice and his eyes were looking past us into another universe. “What happened in the 4th grade will always stay with me,” and told us being attacked for simply being … different.
As each spoke the others at the table would smile and nod and mutter words of affirmation.
Then we walked into television production studio called “Ablevision.” Three people were working filming their own cable network show … One behind the camera, one at a computer working on sub-titles and the last holding the microphone talking. “We are people with ability,” he said in a loud voice.
And they are … in spite of the things that are wrong.
Finally we went into a cafeteria that reminded me of the Starfish Café that I helped to start all of those ago. Except this one was run by people with disabilities. Taking my tray down the service line each asked me with a broad smile what I wanted.
Soup? Sandwich? Salad? Cookie? Then the older man sat at the cash register at the end of the line. The room was filled with people, virtually all with … challenges that I don’t have.
Nine out of ten people with disabilities are abused in the United States. Sexual abuse is most common among the youngest of them.
I was there learning about amazing work being done teaching these folks how to be “self-advocates” and take care of themselves. They proudly demonstrated what they had learned. And I was doing my best to help them think through how to take all of this stuff to the next level.
In another meeting, a man in a wheelchair with one knarred hand spoke from a mouth that only one side worked. “There are two types of stories about us,” his slurred but passionate words informed us, “we’re either a sob story or we’re ‘Super-Crip’ throwing off our disabilities in a single bound.”
Throughout the day I kept grabbing my I-Phone to send messages to people about things that I was learning and that we’ll need as we establish an effort to help others make themselves better.
In the midst of this day something inside of me woke that’s been asleep for a while. I found myself missing … this.
And the passion that has driven me through my life is awake again.
Beside her, a young chubby boy with thick black hair studied his work with deep concentration. Brown eyes sat deep back in the sockets and his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. Using his good hand, he took the balloon and worked to affix it on top of the value. The supervisor was giving him undivided attention celebrating each time he was successful.
The last was a smaller boy with his back to me. His Red Sox cap was on backwards so I could see the dirty logo. His dirty jacket had the Patriots logo on it. He worked at lightning speed throwing completed balloons with values in the giant bag.
It filled me with emotion and moisture covered my eyes. I smiled back at the girl and told her “Hello.” Her smile grew bigger.
Later in the day I sat beside her at a table full of people with disabilities or self-advocates as they called themselves. With us were two parents and a few staff members of “The Triangle” near Boston.
“When I was growing up my mother would push me down the stairs,” a short plump girl with wild black hair explained, “she is a drug addict and calls me every day asking for money and I TELL HER NO.” The words came haltingly with the silence in between each word full of wet emotion.
A short man of perhaps 40 with a crew cut and eyes that looked in two different directions at the same time spoke in the voice of child. “My mother always protected me growing up and now I want protect myself.”
A young man who couldn’t sit still kept raising his hand then quickly putting it down again. His face remained devoid of expression and when he talked it was in a monotone voice and his eyes were looking past us into another universe. “What happened in the 4th grade will always stay with me,” and told us being attacked for simply being … different.
As each spoke the others at the table would smile and nod and mutter words of affirmation.
Then we walked into television production studio called “Ablevision.” Three people were working filming their own cable network show … One behind the camera, one at a computer working on sub-titles and the last holding the microphone talking. “We are people with ability,” he said in a loud voice.
And they are … in spite of the things that are wrong.
Finally we went into a cafeteria that reminded me of the Starfish Café that I helped to start all of those ago. Except this one was run by people with disabilities. Taking my tray down the service line each asked me with a broad smile what I wanted.
Soup? Sandwich? Salad? Cookie? Then the older man sat at the cash register at the end of the line. The room was filled with people, virtually all with … challenges that I don’t have.
Nine out of ten people with disabilities are abused in the United States. Sexual abuse is most common among the youngest of them.
I was there learning about amazing work being done teaching these folks how to be “self-advocates” and take care of themselves. They proudly demonstrated what they had learned. And I was doing my best to help them think through how to take all of this stuff to the next level.
In another meeting, a man in a wheelchair with one knarred hand spoke from a mouth that only one side worked. “There are two types of stories about us,” his slurred but passionate words informed us, “we’re either a sob story or we’re ‘Super-Crip’ throwing off our disabilities in a single bound.”
Throughout the day I kept grabbing my I-Phone to send messages to people about things that I was learning and that we’ll need as we establish an effort to help others make themselves better.
In the midst of this day something inside of me woke that’s been asleep for a while. I found myself missing … this.
And the passion that has driven me through my life is awake again.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Doing Urban
Let me begin by saying that I like Boston. Actually I’m in Cambridge which is full of students and trendy places on MASS Ave spilling into Harvard Square. I’m staying at a funky Bread & Breakfast, the “Harding House” which used to be a grocery store in the 1860s and now boast 20 guest rooms. It sits on Harvard Street and is surrounded by student apartment complexes and old Cambridge homes. The streets are brick and naked trees line them. It is quaint.
Around 3:00, after checking in I went exploring meaning I walked outside realized how cold it was and immediately went back inside. Grabbing my coat I resumed my exploration. People were bundled up and most everyone wears black or grey. Right off the bat I noticed a couple of things.
First of all, I seemed to be the only person in this city who realizes that it is COLD!!! Everybody else seemed to be under the delusion that it’s spring. Evidently in Boston if the sun is shining that means it’s balmy.
Next I noticed that white people are a lot whiter here! I had to put on my sunglasses just to nod hello or ask for directions as the balmy sun glared off of their pasty white skin magnifying light to atomic proportions. We’re talking white people! Someone should be trying to figure out how to harness that energy!
So I did what I always do when I have a few hours to kill in a city. I found a local neighborhood pup which is one of the great things about urban living in old cities. “Callahan’s Down Stairs” is a one story building with a green façade with blackened windows. From the outside looking in it appeared to be an Irish Pup that had closed decades ago. But it was open so in I went.
Dark, musty with oak floors the bar ran from one end of the building to the other and the stools were filled with men. The bar itself took up a quarter of the room. A small dance floor was in the corner with band equipment set up for some time later. Real paintings of near nudes hung on the walls and were in sore need of dusting. Flat screen televisions showing basketball games were the only hint of modern anything.
Finding a stool I nestled in between two groups of men. Both groups were older and were drinking liquor in big glasses. Obviously friends, they slapped one another on the back, cracking jokes. One group talked news. The other watched basketball. Both sets were equally integrated.
When I ordered a beer and asked for a glass both groups stopped talking to watch Mike the Bartender serve me. They watched me pour in silence. The sound of the Miller Light hitting the glass was deafening. I looked up at them, shrugged my shoulders and took a sip. Several laughed and they all resumed what they’d been doing.
After a while I made my way back to the Harding House where I met my dinner mates and we walked to a trendy restaurant “Country Kitchen” which has nothing country about it. Another old store converted into an eatery the place was filled with students. Water was served in the tiniest glasses ever invented. Wine was poured into the largest goblets that I’ve ever seen. Organic food was piled in tremendous portions.
But it was a good place to talk and we did. Topics ranged from what’s been going on in our personal lives to opportunities for new things in an ever changing world. Afterwards I was reminded of another thing that I like about urban living. After supper you walk home or back to where you’re staying. It was a pleasant end of the day.
Then I went to bed. As night deepened, the freeze resumed its command of the city. I lay in a bed piled with comforters, warm and cozy but God forbid if I needed to get out for any reason. I must confess that this makes for good sleeping. The only thing that would make it better would be to have right person to cuddle with beside me.
It was a nice slide back into the urban life. In Louisville I lived in the inner city with my family literally alongside homeless people. In Savannah my entire career was working to enhance the downtown area. My work has taken me to most every major city in the United States, some in Europe and even Havana Cuba. I’ve seen a lot of urban in my life!
Today I will spend my time doing urban in detail again. There is this group that is working to develop curriculums to teach children with disabilities how to protect themselves against sexual assault. The rate of assault for kids with problems is twice as much as kids without a disability. Most often they happen in school or church.
Fun stuff, huh?
But important stuff!
Sipping coffee this morning I feel myself gearing up to dive back into it all. I’m still not finished with the self-journey to who I am but I understand that this is part of it. And while I miss the balmy eighty degrees of Tybee Island, I am glad that I am here today.
Around 3:00, after checking in I went exploring meaning I walked outside realized how cold it was and immediately went back inside. Grabbing my coat I resumed my exploration. People were bundled up and most everyone wears black or grey. Right off the bat I noticed a couple of things.
First of all, I seemed to be the only person in this city who realizes that it is COLD!!! Everybody else seemed to be under the delusion that it’s spring. Evidently in Boston if the sun is shining that means it’s balmy.
Next I noticed that white people are a lot whiter here! I had to put on my sunglasses just to nod hello or ask for directions as the balmy sun glared off of their pasty white skin magnifying light to atomic proportions. We’re talking white people! Someone should be trying to figure out how to harness that energy!
So I did what I always do when I have a few hours to kill in a city. I found a local neighborhood pup which is one of the great things about urban living in old cities. “Callahan’s Down Stairs” is a one story building with a green façade with blackened windows. From the outside looking in it appeared to be an Irish Pup that had closed decades ago. But it was open so in I went.
Dark, musty with oak floors the bar ran from one end of the building to the other and the stools were filled with men. The bar itself took up a quarter of the room. A small dance floor was in the corner with band equipment set up for some time later. Real paintings of near nudes hung on the walls and were in sore need of dusting. Flat screen televisions showing basketball games were the only hint of modern anything.
Finding a stool I nestled in between two groups of men. Both groups were older and were drinking liquor in big glasses. Obviously friends, they slapped one another on the back, cracking jokes. One group talked news. The other watched basketball. Both sets were equally integrated.
When I ordered a beer and asked for a glass both groups stopped talking to watch Mike the Bartender serve me. They watched me pour in silence. The sound of the Miller Light hitting the glass was deafening. I looked up at them, shrugged my shoulders and took a sip. Several laughed and they all resumed what they’d been doing.
After a while I made my way back to the Harding House where I met my dinner mates and we walked to a trendy restaurant “Country Kitchen” which has nothing country about it. Another old store converted into an eatery the place was filled with students. Water was served in the tiniest glasses ever invented. Wine was poured into the largest goblets that I’ve ever seen. Organic food was piled in tremendous portions.
But it was a good place to talk and we did. Topics ranged from what’s been going on in our personal lives to opportunities for new things in an ever changing world. Afterwards I was reminded of another thing that I like about urban living. After supper you walk home or back to where you’re staying. It was a pleasant end of the day.
Then I went to bed. As night deepened, the freeze resumed its command of the city. I lay in a bed piled with comforters, warm and cozy but God forbid if I needed to get out for any reason. I must confess that this makes for good sleeping. The only thing that would make it better would be to have right person to cuddle with beside me.
It was a nice slide back into the urban life. In Louisville I lived in the inner city with my family literally alongside homeless people. In Savannah my entire career was working to enhance the downtown area. My work has taken me to most every major city in the United States, some in Europe and even Havana Cuba. I’ve seen a lot of urban in my life!
Today I will spend my time doing urban in detail again. There is this group that is working to develop curriculums to teach children with disabilities how to protect themselves against sexual assault. The rate of assault for kids with problems is twice as much as kids without a disability. Most often they happen in school or church.
Fun stuff, huh?
But important stuff!
Sipping coffee this morning I feel myself gearing up to dive back into it all. I’m still not finished with the self-journey to who I am but I understand that this is part of it. And while I miss the balmy eighty degrees of Tybee Island, I am glad that I am here today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)