Running Thoughts

If a girl wearing a thong moons you … does it make a difference?

As I ran passed the girls wearing thongs on the beach today I was struck by another random running thought. When I run random thoughts pop into my head.

Some are keepers and turn into my daily musings. Others are unanswerable questions like this one (though I’m certain that some of you have the answer). Sometimes my mind goes blank and the beach in front of me may as well in another universe then I snap out of it and I’m half a mile further along than last time I noticed.

How do they put air into a tennis ball? I wonder as I watch a boy throw one into the waves and laugh with glee as it carries it back to him.

Today was an adventurous run as there are a lot of people here. Spring Break is breaking all around me! I love it!

So as I ran north on the south end there is bank of sand dunes and laying there two is a couple making love. The term “sandy bottoms” comes to mind. I don’t want to be rude so I keep going though I do wonder how they will get all of the sand of their mouths, their bottoms and God knows where else?

Making my way past the jetty I notice the season’s first cannon ball jellyfish have washed ashore. These are the only species of jellyfish that do not sting. Tourists don’t know that and shriek and take wide steps out of the way.

The Bored, which meets every day in front of Fannie’s-On-The-Beach to celebrate life on the island, has come up with another category … there are tourists and then there are “Tourons” (tourist + moron = Touron). In spite of our outward appearance the Bored really does think about things.

When Chelsea was a little girl she and I spent days on the beach together. Just she and I. Tourists would spot a dead cannonball jellyfish, scream, poke dead marsh oats into it and stay way back. It might jump from the sand and sting them!

Little Chelsea would stroll over into the midst of the family and pick it up. Tossing it up in the air like a baseball she would look and yell “HEY DAD! Want to play catch?” Then she’d throw it at me.

So if you put peanut butter on a jellyfish what would you have? If it was crunchy peanut butter, would it make a difference?

Making my way further along I see that the marshes on Back River are being cleaned by the ocean’s rising tides. The marsh turns dark brown after it dies and as the new green marsh grows underneath it pushes last year’s sea grass up. High tide fills the marsh twice each day carrying a load of last year’s marsh out to sea. A lot of it washes ashore and I run through it.

A lot of people complain about living in the south because it doesn’t have four seasons. But it does. Just study the seasons of the marsh. In winter it is brown. In spring it turns light green. By summer, Fran has risen from the dead, and it is a thousand shades of green. In the fall, it turns golden yellow and then brown.

It’s as beautiful as any leaves on trees changing color. I don’t why people go so nuts over that. Hell, they can name more types of cars that they are driving than they can the trees of changing leaves that they are seeing.

Running under the pier (or Touron Central according to the Bored), I suddenly worry that Sam Adams is looking for me. Sunday is of course Easter, as if anybody couldn’t know that, and Sam is after me to participate in the Sunrise Service. When I was informed that it was Palm Sunday earlier this week by Sam, he immediately started asking to participate in the Easter service.

For a thousand years there have been four churches on Tybee; Baptists, Catholics, Methodists and Episcopalians … a little something for everybody. And for years they have rotated who would be the lead sponsor for the Easter sunrise service. This year however there is a fifth church.

Yep! Bar Church! Tybee Church which meets in the Wind Rose Bar every Sunday! They are the lead sponsor of this year’s Easter Sunrise service. Sam, Gordon and the entire band will be on the Pier. I’m uncertain at this point as to the roles of the ministers of the Baptist, Catholic, Methodist or Episcopalian Churches … I have a hard time seeing them singing “Jesus is just alright with me” along with the band but … it could happen.

I turn on Twelfth Street and make my home. In preparation for Easter which I’ve thought about since I learned that last Sunday was Palm Sunday, I baptize myself in the holy water of the outdoor shower.

Hugs: The Sequel

Last night I was summoned by the Breakfast Club softball team to perform my duties as Chaplain of the Breakfast Club by showing to heckle the other team which takes soft ball as serious as those church league players. You know how church league softball is! They go for the jugular, castrate the other, slide with your cleats up in the name Jesus softball!

I have played for two Tybee Island softball teams in my life; the famous “Beach Bums” and the “Breakfast Cubs”. Both were in it for the fun interrupted only by bouts of seriousness … like, why is the cooler empty?

Anyway I had not been to a Breakfast Cubs game since I delivered their victory during the fall season when they asked me to deliver the invocation before the game. I did. They won.

This time they did not ask for invocation. They asked me to show and heckle the other team which takes itself as serious as church softball players. They did look like a church soft ball team with tidy white pants with no panty lines, professional looking jerseys and hats sporting their favorite team logos. They were intimidating.

On the other hand, the Breakfast Cubs looked like a bunch of surfers. The guys wore tee shirts promoting the legalization of marijuana, bathing suit bottoms and flip flops. The girl players wore halter tops and short shorts. It was clear to see who the underdog was.

So in a moment of brilliant strategy, Ryan Sadowski called asking me to come and heckle them. He knows that I am a Baptist minister and speak “Church soft ball” as a second language, which is basically condemning the other team to hell and doing everything you can to get them there by the seventh inning.

I was flattered. I am pretty good at it from my days at Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel where we formed a homeless church softball team. It was great! We never won a game. When we played Highview Baptist Church they started making fun of us before the game had even started. Sure our second baseman had schizophrenia, was intimidated by the manicured field and the bright lights so he lay down and hugged the base.

Our left fielder kept staring at the massive buildings of the mega church campus rather than watch the batter (he was learning that Baptist love buildings more than people). And our catcher never really caught anything. So they loudly made fun of us until I got … righteous indignation! Meaning they pissed me off.

So I started heckling back. My homeless team mates noticed that I was representing on their behalf. Sonny the left fielder turned to see what was going on. Dave, the second baseman rolled over and lay there staring me. Pouche the catcher kept missing every ball that came his way.

And in the name of Jesus they beat the shit out of us … laughing and celebrating like Samson did after beating the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. So I know what it’s like to beaten by jawbones of asses. And they were!

But I learned how to heckle.

So I showed up last night but when I did there was my friend Katie and she gave me a hug. Then I was hugged by Caroline. Then Patti! And it kept on until Philip hugged me and then I was suddenly hugged out.

But I learned something. Hugging hinders heckling. I was really bad at it last night.

In the afterglow of so many wonderful hugs, I got to thinking. Hmmmm … What happens when one hug leads to another? And then another! And another! Then you’ve progressed to something else entirely!

I found this line of thought much more entertaining than the game. Then I got to thinking about what would happen if church softball teams hugged before games? Or elected officials? Police officers! Tybee Island Parking Services? (yeah … that last one’s not gonna happen)!

So I think that hugging should become a competitive sport.

I’ve been told that I’m pretty good at it and would like to take it to the next level. Training has already begun and I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m at. Of course it means rigorous commitment and high performance standards with multiple partners. I eat, sleep and dream hugging.

So … when your heart is heavy … hugs are in order.

When you’re happy … hugs are in order.

If you’re pulled over the cops … hugs are in order.

For no reason at all … hugs are in order.

Ok, I got to get back to training. My partner just showed and looks intense and well prepared. I gotta get my game face on!

Because today … I’m taking it to the next level!!

Now and then

My all-time favorite writer is Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and teacher who took the words of one of his professors Paul Tillich …

“We want only to show you something we have seen and to tell you something we have heard ... that here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves is a New Creation.”

Buechner took the phrase “Now and Then” as the title of the second book in a series that chronicles his spiritual quest. What he so beautifully says is that every now and then … we get God.

Each of us has these occasional glimpses of glory. Every once in a while the beauty of God, usually some event, even simple ones like listening to two branches from an apple tree clack together and know that it can be the voice of God talking directly to you.

Or, sitting on a sad little holy dock, lost and alone … maybe with a dog;

Or coming home to find that there are people who are being church in the holiest senses of the word because you’re in desperate need of it from them … and they haven’t been to church in years. But they are there for you.

Or maybe IT IS in Church when choirs happen to get it all just right for once and the congregation is left in stunned silence of the majesty of perfection and for a second or two they are perfect like God is perfect.

The thing is … you have to live through a lot of shit to get to these moments.

Often painful stuff … heart wrenching things that leave you without a voice to speak … or anger that is fierce and rises from deep within, often anger that was years and years in the making … and you know the anger and frustration is ripping you apart but you allow it to continue because of the hurt … so you keep getting ripped apart.

But in the midst of these things … the beauty of God’s ways of doing things can burst through for a second or two … and something new is created.

I am not the same now … as I was then.

I know that I’m not.

Yet I also know that I seem to find myself intimately involved in … a new act of creation.

Deep shit right?

But … it’s true. Now I appear to others the same but different. The memories of hurt, both that I inflicted on others and the hurt inflicted on me remain very real feelings. I can still be intense but am … softer. Lost smiles are raised from a place like hell …where there is no laughter … be it in the center of the earth or in the house that you live in.

When I left Union Mission all of my books were packed up by my Mom, Nanci- my- almost-sister, my daughter Kristen and Keller Deal. They’re in boxes at my Mom’s house. I just couldn’t bear disassembling what I’d spend 23 years putting together so they did it for me. Nor do I care for the continued disassembling of Union Mission by others who own it now. It’s painful and sad stuff.

Sitting on the beloved back deck …with Goddess …in the warm sunshine … surveying the yard that we’ve worked hard to transform into a work of art … suddenly the strangest of thoughts inexplicably burst into my head.

I remembered a book that was published in 1983 that I read and loved which is now buried in boxes somewhere at my Mom’s house.

My yard is being created. It is no longer now what it was then. A lot of work and investment has gone into it. Some parts were painful. But it is more beautiful and fulfilling now … than it was then.

And I believe that God is trying to say as I studied the creation of a new yard and made me remember a book from Seminary … is that I am too.

Though I have no idea what the end product is going to look like …

Hell I had no idea I’d ever have babies at 21 who would grow into the most wonderful family, go to Seminary on a lark and help transform a church, become an author of books and blogs … be at Union Mission for 23 years helping create work the likes which has never been seen or be living alone with a dog … but … I can feel creation happening!

I have felt this way a few times before.

Every now and then.

Startled (to Goddess Elliott)

Goddess spent the night away from home last night so there wasn’t the normal homecoming of licking me, running around in circles wanting me to rub her butt and generally acting like a monkey humper! She was at my Mom’s house and as far as I know that’s the only other house that she has stayed at without me.

I missed her as she always greets me with sheer delight.

And the longer the nigh went, the more I missed her.

Leaving St. Martin makes for a long. It starts off fine enough as the entire morning is staring at the aqua blue of Orient Bay. I stayed through lunch and went back to Orange where Oliver (pronounced Uh-lav-ahh) shook my hand, embraced me then took me to meeting his wife Ana and baby boy.

While she and I talked Oliver was holding his baby making faces cooing with the boy. I was struck that it may be true that the French make sillier faces than Americans do, when comes to playing with babies.

Then he opened the sand floor restaurant just for me (an hour early) so that I could have lunch. We chatted and he reminded me again of how good I look.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I answered, “Amore and all of that that!”

“But of course,” he shot back.

Afterwards Conner and I said goodbye and promised to do it all again after successfully reconstructing about fifty-two percent of what we did. We congratulated each other how much we’ve matured as this was the first time that we could remember over half of whatever it is we do.

The Princess Juliana International Airport was a cluster of lines and the hurry-up-and-wait flying that is thanks to terrorists. The crowded plane took off for the four hours flight and I was in Atlanta … waiting in line … after hurrying up. Then I waited for the plane to Savannah but was ecstatic that a friend had shown up to drive me back to Tybee Island.

I fell into the loving arms of my own bed and was asleep in no time.

Then … my eyes popped open in the dark. The moon cast light on the Palm Trees outside of my windows. All seemed peaceful but … something was wrong.

Then I knew.

Goddess was not snoring lying in the floor beside the bed. Not once did I hear the familiar sound of the doggie door opening and closing while she made her rounds. There was no lapping water from her bowl. Not once did she nudge her butt next to the bed so that I could rub it with one hand while remaining under the covers; nor did lick my face if I happened to be sleeping too close to the side.

For the past sixteen months it has just been Goddess and me living in this house. We start and end every day together. She makes me laugh and is forever amazing me with the things that she’ll do. She creates joy out of thin air like only the best of friends can do.

Once flying to St. Martin I made the mistake of watching the movie “Marley and me.” I cried like a baby and promised Goddess that she can have whatever she wants the rest of her life. I have the hardest time imaging my life without her.

When I was in college I worked the Bulloch Veterinary Clinic. Once this old man had his very old dog who was obviously nearing the end. Dr. Dugan told the old man it would be better if the dog was put to sleep. Tears filled the old man’s eyes and he placed his hand over his mouth … and sobbed. I can still the sound of that sob all of these years later.

The old man stumbled into a chair and hung his head. Dr. Dugan waited patiently. I held the dog.

Finally the old man stood, staring at the dog, still with his hand over his mouth and tears in his eyes. He went to leave and Dr. Dugan started preparing the syringe.

Suddenly the old man turned and held up his hand. “I think I’ll just take him home. Thank you Doctor.”

And he did … driving away in an old blue pickup truck with arm around his dog.

I understand.

I’m ready for you to come home Goddess.

Going Home

She was a black girl wearing a white bikini.

“Why don’t you take the plunge and just move here,” she asked me. “I did six months ago and I love it. You will too.”

“Hmmmm,” I mumbled.

It’s actually something that I’ve almost done on several occasions. My rebel streak, love of Hemingway, Jimmy Bufffett, Bob Marley, sunshine, ocean and commitment to sand as a lifestyle had led me to seriously contemplate expatriating from the United States and moving permanently to St. Martin.

Then last year when I found myself alone, left a career and I would spend time thinking, “Well Why Not”?

I could work from here. All I need is an airport, cell phone and lap top with Internet connection. Why not?

But then again … something changed in me over the last several months.

Last June I was here and stayed and stayed thanks to Keller Deal. When I finally went home again there were these people waiting on me. My kids, Johnny O and Judy, Keller Deal, Sarah, Shirley … They were all worried about how I would be and, truth be told I wasn’t all that great. But they were there for me when I desperately needed someone there for me.

And there was Goddess loving me through the loneliest of times.

Then I was here again in November and December with Conner and Hania but by then I was changing …

Fran was raised from the dead and reminded me how beautiful my world is. Old friends from college came back into my life bringing me joy. At the Breakfast Club hugs came back to me and at the Bored meeting I was coached back into laughing. Then Sam and Gordon got me going to Bar Church with some regularity and I was reminded of the community that I live in which is what church really is anyway.

Then there is this sad little holy dock that I’ve grown to love. And love found me there one night and … I changed.

Through the winter months I went everywhere … east coast to west coast and back again. In south Florida I was instructed to take my time and heal. Don’t rush. Rushing is the worst thing that you can do. And while it seemed like everyone else was telling me to hurry up I realized that I needed to just stop … and feel.

Then little things started to mean a lot again. Smiles came quickly over a lone red leaf still clinging to a tree outside my bedroom window, peanut butter and yellow boots; the daily gathering of the Bored to celebrate life on Tybee Island ... and time contemplating on a beloved back deck. Endless laughter with Dee that is so contagious we almost hurt ourselves.

I’ve been coming here for a decade now and love it. There are people I love that I want to share it with.

But …

It is not home.

And it won’t be.

My home …

Well …

I know where it is …

Yep …

I do …

And I’m going back to it today …

La Massage

Rope.

A Garden Hose.

Duct Tape.

Vodka.

These are the things that Conner and I walked into the Fitness Center with for our messages. Nathalie had a customer when we arrived who was frightened when she saw us and left quickly. Conner and I locked ourselves in Nathalie’s room with our supplies. We planned on being there all afternoon.

The truth of the matter is that I’d already seen Nathalie earlier in the day when I used the duct tape to tape Emma in her room. Emma is British, believes in Krishna and was with a customer at the time … meaning that she was giving a message. As I ripped the duct tape off of the roll, Nathalie came flying out of her room, saw was I was doing and busted out laughing.

“I knew that is was you,” she said in her French accent. “Where’s Conner?”

“Getting rope,” I reply.

“Rope?” she asked. “For why”?

“You,” I explain continuing to tape Emma’s door shut.

She grabs her camera and takes a picture of the duct taped door.

Conner and I don’t just get massages. We orchestrate events. A lot of spontaneous planning takes place.

Actually the people who work here have come to expect such things of us. Sometimes other people help us, especially Jacob from Norway or Chuck from Palm Springs. On occasion Conner’s wife Hania participates. When members of the staff see us coming, they start laughing and shaking their heads.

Once after Conner and I had conducted a hostile takeover of the Managers Wine-and-Cheese party, Carlos was dispatched to see us. He tried his best to be serious as he explained that we were expected to act like normal guests.

“What do you mean” we asked?

“You have to have permission to do such things,” he firmly explained in his French Caribbean lilt.

So Conner obtained “Le Permit” from Chuck a long time guest of the place giving us permission to do, pretty much whatever we want.

Now Nathalie can be an evil bitch when she wants to … especially when waxing is involved ... as it was yesterday. She would rip. Then laugh. Rip! Then Laugh! Rip! Laugh!

So we tied her up.

Later in the afternoon I was sitting on my patio looking at these beautiful pictures that my best friend had sent me. Conner strolls over (Conner never rushes or even walks … he strolls) and explains that as the Captain of a boat he can perform weddings if he is three miles off shore.

“That’s good to know Conner,” I say. He is always surprising me with useful nuggets of information.

“OK then,” he says and leaves.

I go back to studying my pictures. Then Nathalie, who is on Face Book (you can do a search … just type in “evil” and her picture pops up!) decides to send me a lesson in spelling.

I hit the delete button.

Conner returns carrying rope.

“What you wanna do now” he asks.

Then Emma walks by.

“Hare Krishna,” I say.

Celebration

Well Conner got here.

That means I have no idea how I got home last night. I did wake up in my bed hugging my I-phone. No one was with me though somebody apparently set a bomb off in my tiny little studio.

The last thing that I remember is Conner, Carlos, Damien and I were sitting at Papagayos listening to “Shine” butcher songs. As manager of the restaurant, Carlos evidently pays Shine to butcher songs. Shine thinks that he’s really good as he pumps his fist to illustrate whatever song he’s singing. The thing is all of his songs sound the same so nobody is really sure what he’s singing. Everybody ignores him.

Damien is from Barbados and is doing his best to pick up white women. He’s having a difficult time as the alcohol was preventing him from keeping a straight face. The fact that Conner, Carlos and I were laughing hysterically at everything he did wasn’t helping his efforts.

Of course I was trying to keep it at an adult level. I would introduce serious topics for discussion like adopting Russian orphans or how love is the most important part of our future.

I remember Carlos jumping up and hugging me as I said these things. He and Conner saw me get through a lot of bad times the last few years. Carlos loves me and calls me his brother and I know that the color of skin doesn’t define brothers.

Somehow last night ended up being this celebration of that. I was happy and having a good time and two of the guys who worried about me and repeatedly made themselves available to me were celebrating ... me.

I told them about where I am now. This new career is unfolding. There is love in my heart. Both have been to Tybee Island and were asking me about Johnny O and the Breakfast Club and the Bored meeting. And there was just this … affirmation in the air.

At one point I sat back and looked at the table. Conner was laughing. Carlos was grinning and looking smug. Damien was staring at white women as he slumped to the floor. It was all just … happy.

So I told them a lot last night. About everything!

And we just … celebrated.

At one point I raised my glass and toasted them all. “SEE,” I exclaimed! And we celebrated some more.

And we evidently did a real good job because I have no idea who drove me home … though I’m only about fifty feet from Papagayos so it is feasible that I walked.

Conner is nowhere to be seen. He is my slab mate meaning his studio is next to mine. Wait! Good news! He is not dead. He just stuck his head over asking for water to make tea. He looks terrible. We stare at each other for a nanosecond and bust out laughing.

“Who drove us home last night,” he asks?

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s normally Hania. She’s our designated walker but she’s not here.”

“Well it wasn’t Damien.”

“It could have been Carlos. He wanted us to go out.”

We both contemplate this. Going out with Carlos is always fun but it can last for days.

“You cut your nipple,” Conner says as he walks away to fix tea.

Sure enough, blood is all over my chest.

“Damn,” I say to the French West Indies Trade winds, “I wish it was something else all over my chest this morning.”

The Last Resort

That last year at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel I was burned out. Not yet thirty and burned out as a professional Christian. Fame had come quickly and I was in magazines, on television shows and was invited across the country to speak in front of large crowds. A little broken down inner-city congregation had become this show case of what “church” can be.

I’d grown cynical about it all. The Baptists just wanted bigger numbers and I delivered. But they didn’t like how I did it. Homelessness, AIDS and Salvadorian refugees kept me in the newspapers and the Baptists didn’t believe in these things.

The last year was just a chore. I had become known as an unorthodox preacher who would say mostly anything. And I had a style. It’s a great job when you get to be the center of the universe for twenty minutes every Sunday speaking on God’s behalf. Like most preachers, I relished that time … Orgasmic preaching where you really the only one getting off.

I had groupies. God’s name was used in multiple ways; some more heavenly than others.

My grandfather, Rev. Ira Carver remains one of my heroes though he is long dead. He would come to Louisville often to visit me and I remember him talking to me once about it all. He told me that too much had come to me too quickly. He told me to be careful. Temptation was everywhere. Then he put his arm me and told me that he loved me and that he always would. No matter what!

He knew before I knew.

I would sit in my office prior to Church listening to the Eagles sing “The Last Resort”.

And you can see them there
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
What it’s like up there
They call it Paradise
I don’t know why
You call some place Paradise
Kiss it goodbye

I’d listen to it over and over sitting in the dark of an office full of books and bars on the windows. I was sad. But there were these people that I’d come to love. Homeless people ... people who had discovered AIDS and were wasting away in front of me ... these little old ladies who should have been dead but they refused to die … and these crazy Seminary students who believed that we could change the world RIGHT NOW!

This had been my world for seven years or so. My children Jeremy and Kristen were born into this world. Chelsea came later and it is fascinating to me to see how she is different from the other two. Chelsea is more withdrawn, speculative and suspicious. Jeremy and Kristen are comfortable anywhere and anytime. Homeless people raised them. They touched AIDS when we were told you could catch just breathing air.

Chelsea has broken out of her … circumspect. We just finished talking. She’s in Italy and I’m in St. Martin. She’s engaged to Sam whom I love. I’m suddenly single. Unlike her brother and sister she is a beach baby and was trying to impress me with her Italian tan. I reminded her that she has tan lines. I don’t.

There is a six hour time difference between us and Sam has just gotten online so Dad gets bumped for someone more important. So this song keeps running through my brain. “Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.”

Then my Granddad comes back from the dead and visits me in Paradise just to tell me that he will always love me no matter what I did.

He makes me remember the great and the horrible of the things that I’ve done. And I can see him smile his Impish grin.

Hummingbirds startle me. They are suddenly everywhere. They are lite and dart from the Palm Trees and my heart is filled with love. I watch smiling a Mona Lisa smile. I find myself wishing.

And I thank my Granddad and God at the same time. I’m in Paradise. And I blow kisses to what has been … but more …to what will be. Because what will be is everything that I was born to become.

Smile

Martina sits across from me on the patio of the tiny studio where I am staying. Her push cart full of cleaning supplies is in the middle of the sandy road. She is wearing a yellow smock and blue jeans. I’m not wearing much anything. I close my laptop and ask if she wants coffee. In her lilting Caribbean voice she tells me that she just wants to talk.

We’ve known one another for a decade now. She is tall with jet black skin and a new haircut; meaning she doesn’t have much hair anymore and what she does have is red. It is striking and I miss the long black dregs that she used to wear. But I love Martina and she waits while I pour myself more coffee.

Once I fixed lunch for everybody that works here and they all hid out in the tiny little studio and we ate, told stories and laughed. I’ll cook sausage gravy and biscuits and people go nuts over it.

It goes back to my days at Jeff Street when on Sunday mornings I would fix it for a hundred homeless people every Sunday morning. It was the cheapest and most filling thing that I could prepare.

Martina asks me if I’ve cooked any. I tell her no and she shrugs her shoulder. I sit back down with my coffee.

“Oh my God Mike,” she says in this exaggerated fashion placing her palm on her forehead, “you were just measurable. You looked like shit. It was terrible.”

I stare at her as water wells in my eyes.

Martina never really looks at me when she talks. She looks all around me and our eyes lock for only the briefest of moments. It makes me think of my best friends when we talk or don’t talk our eyes remain locked on one another.

When she first saw me this morning she screamed “Oh you’re here!” and she left her cart in the sandy road, hugged me and kissed me, and then sat down. That was an hour ago.

“Where is Mike and Hania?” she asks in the beautiful lilting way of the Caribbean.

“Conner gets here tomorrow,” I answer. “I don’t think Hania can stand us anymore.”

She smiles and returns to the previous conversation. “Oh my God Mike. You looked like shit.”

“Thanks,” I smile.

She laughs which makes me laugh.

“Tell me,” she says, “what has happened? You are different. You are like you used to be. Your smile is back.”

It makes me pause. I lost my smile? Someone stole it? I didn’t know. Of course you never do when you go through sad times.

A truck with the logo “Bati-pros” pulls into the grass beside the beach chalet across the sandy road. A guy pulls out a pressure washer.

“Ah,” Martina spits in disgust, “the Billionaire.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen him … Big black limo!”

“Little girl blond,” Martina shoots back describing the girlfriend of the week.

I laugh so hard I spew coffee on the table.

“I’m late for work,” she suddenly says standing up, “but I need to tell you something.”

I look at her. She has this way of being all serious as though she’s getting ready to tell me the secrets of the universe. She eclipses the beauty of one of the most beautiful places God has ever made.

“Your smile looks good. I am glad it is back.”

She hugs me and I think about Oliver yesterday. “You are different from last time,” he said. Now my friend Martina is agreeing with him.

We embrace again and I kiss her on both cheeks as the French do.

Then she walks inside my tiny little studio.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Cleaning your room,” she laughs.

And I just smile.

Orange

I am floating face down in the aqua blue water of Orient Bay.

It is how I wake up.

At 5:50 in the morning, the sun is shining through the windows of the tiny studio that I’m staying in. Crawling out of bed, I hit the “on” button of the coffee pot and stumble to the Bay, squinting my eyes because of the bright orange ball hanging over the ocean. Wading in up to my knees, I just fall forward and the ocean gives me a full body kiss.

“Your words seem happier when you’re down there,” a friend wrote me yesterday and it is hard not to love it here … especially when I can wake up like this.

When I need air I stand in the Bay dripping wet and survey what is around me. Waves break over the reef in the distance. Boats are moored in the Bay. Green Cay, Pinel and Anguilla are in the distance. Mount Vernon is green and dotted with condos and houses at the other end of the beach a mile and a half away. And the ocean … well … it is the most beautiful ocean.

The sun turns from orange to yellow as I stand there.

I fall back down into the water.

On the soft powder white sand of the beach people are talking drinking coffee … or rum. Some are exercising. Couples hold hands as they walk wearing nothing but smiles. By 6:30 a beach day is in full swing. Back home on Tybee Island the sun isn’t even up yet.

Standing again I study my finger nails which grow at the speed of light here. I’ve checked this out with other people and it’s true. I’m not sure why but they do.

I make my way through the sand back to my tiny studio that is literally on the edge of the beach. A white tub filled with water is beside the sliding glass doors and I stick my feet in it to wash the sand off. Angela, my friend the maid who tries to teach me Spanish when I’m here, has left a bath towel just inside so that I won’t fall on the slick tile floor.

I pour myself coffee and sit at the heavy wooden table and study the beauty of it all. It is a wonderful way to start a day.

Yesterday I made my way down the beach to have lunch at my favorite restaurant here, “Orange”.

“Micheal,” yells Oliver when he sees me in his thick French accent, so it comes out as “Mikeeeelllllllll.”

We shake hands. Then everybody who works at Orange comes over, calls me by name, asks me how I’ve been and shakes my hand. It’s all very French but the floor of the place is sand … it’s literally built on the beach so my bare feet are comfortable.

I don’t wear shoes when I’m here … unless Conner or Carlos makes me go somewhere and then it’s just flip flops. When I get home and have to put shoes back on, its … painful.

Oliver tells me how good I look. I tell him that he’s just working me for a bigger tip. He laughs and replies, “No, No … you are different than last time,” and he is all serious and is ignoring everyone else in the place to give me his full attention as only the French can do.

I love Oliver and his tip just got bigger.

“So tell me,” he commands.

And I do.

And he brings me food without me ordering.

I turn on my bar stool and study Orient Bay. The sun sprinkles Hope diamonds on the water…they are blue somehow. Oliver gives me another drink and puts his hand on my shoulder.

“You look good. Better than last time,” then he winks and smiles. “Is it love?”

“You French people,” I laugh. “It’s all about love right?”

“What else is there?” he replies with indignation.

“Ummmm,” I shrug. He’s got a point.

Thinking these things, I contemplate my day. After a morning at the beach, I think that I’ll go to Orange and spend some more time with Oliver and my friends there … with my feet in the sand … as I eat … and think about love … which may be orange …

Extraordinary

“Have you ever considered,” asks Reepicheep the gallant sword swinging mouse in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, “that extraordinary things happen to extraordinary people?”

He is trying to console Eustace Smith the selfish brat who lets his greed get the best of him by putting on a golden bracelet that turns him into a dragon. Eustace put his own desires above others and that always does you in. In the end he has the chance to redeem himself by putting others first and he does.

But Reep’s question is a good one. Have you ever considered that extraordinary things happen to extraordinary people?

I think so but you have to be open to it. You have to be willing to becoming extraordinary and then doing extraordinary things.

Sadly, most of us don’t.

We settle for ordinary.

We stay in the same place though it doesn’t challenge us to grow. We remain in relationships that are stale and stagnant because that’s what we’re expected to do. Routines never change. Jobs become a boring means to support what we have, though not necessarily what we want.

Standing in the Atlanta airport yesterday I was talking to my son Jeremy. Since graduating college he’s pretty much done the things that were expected of him … he was a teacher and coach ... bought a nice house … kept the grass cut … helped his wife Marie do the dishes … paid his bills on time.

And while a lot of good came out of all of this … so did a lot bad. Jobs can be lost. Storms cause trees to fall on houses. There’s never enough money at the end of the month. Routine can lead to lethargic living. Depression can set in.

So they decided to blow it all up. Sell the house. Get an apartment in town which is what they’ve always wanted anyway. Go back to school and become the family’s first Ph. D. Throw caution to the wind. Do extraordinary things which will lead to extraordinary results!

Later in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” a little girl says to Lucy, the young heroine Princess, “When I grow up I want to be just like you.”

Lucy has been struggling to grow up to become beautiful like her sister. She doesn’t think she is and has fought through the temptation to make herself into something other than who she is.

She puts her arm the little girl and says, “No you don’t. When you grow up, you want to be just like …you.”

And that’s the thing. When we embrace ourselves and live up to the potential that is who we really are, then extraordinary things begin to happen. It often leads to leaving homes, relationships, jobs, safe routines and the same old ordinary expectations that are placed on us.

I was laughing with Jeremy. “I know right? Here I am heading back to St. Martin to hook up with a friend just … to have fun. I should be working. I should be home. I should be saving the money. I should be continuing this healing that I’ve been doing emotionally. I should stay in place.”

But I didn’t. To hell with all of that!

And I’m proud that my son didn’t either ... or his sister who is in Italy for six months with her fiancée ... or his other sister who has always defied societal expectations.

Like them, there is so much more that I want out of this life before it is no longer mine. I’ve had a lot already, much of it extraordinary but …there’s more.

I believe that God wants to have all of the life that we have and not just parts of it. I want a new career that is more satisfying and rewarding than the last one. There is a girl out there with a Mona Lisa smile that I’m determined to hold onto. There’s more of the world to see that I haven’t seen.

Pausing I look up into the canopy of long leaf Palm Trees that I’m sitting under. Coconuts are plentiful in them. Pink blooms are in the bushes across the sandy road from where I am. The Trade Winds of the French West Indies is light like the blue in the sky. The warm air embraces me. I whisper a prayer of thanksgiving that I am here.

It is simply … extraordinary.

Troppo

Like all enlightened people George Harrison found the beach after the Beatles. He got a place on a mountain overlooking the ocean in Hawaii. He’d had a string of strong solo albums until he did one titled “Gone Troppo” about life at the beach. It did not sell well so George said “What the hell?” and took several years off to be a beach bum before coming back and starting the “Traveling Wilburys” to finish his career.

On the album is this catchy little tune “Gone Troppo” that is just full of visuals of life at the beach.

I am one of those people who live at the beach and vacation at other beaches.

This morning in the warm dark of the back deck I sipped coffee and petted Goddess. No breeze disrupted the quiet and salt water hung in the air. Then Kristen comes blowing making tons of noise screaming for coffee. Her long blond hair is brushed but the rest of her looks like she has just drug herself out of bed. Which she had!

Goddess was immediately suspicious. She jumped on her bed and just started at me. I knew what she thinking. “He’s leaving again, damn him!”

I’m off again to St. Martin where Conner and I will reform “Team Mike” and spontaneously figure out ways to make ourselves laugh without ceasing. Carlos, Verna and my other Chelsea will be there. And Nathalie is already worried because Conner has booked time with her (waxing will be involved).

I’m looking forward to this trip because the last couple of times I was on St. Martin it was a much more difficult time. In November with Conner and Hania I was still just trying to cope managing so many radical changes in my life occurring at the same time. At one point Conner told me that I wasn’t doing all that good. Hania kept trying to get me to eat.

Over Christmas I was just trying to get through the holidays without getting depressed. But I learned that it’s never a good idea to be in a foreign country with an expired passport and was ordered by none other than Trish DuPriest to “get your ass home now.” So I did.

This time though, I feel good. Productivity has suddenly become abundant again and possibilities suddenly abound. There are things that I will actually miss while I’m gone … a birthday party of a little girl who has come to mean a lot to me … Chuck Courtenay’s concert at Marlin Monroe’s …to see if Franklin (who is brown) survives another day … Goddess, the beloved back deck and the sad little holy dock.

Yet this trip comes at a good time. It will wash the taste away of the disrupted Christmas. It is a dividing line of finishing the Sabbatical because when I return there is a lot that I will be doing. Before this trip I wallowed in lost love but now I’ll come back full of it and ready to share it. Bikinis will be in season when I return to Tybee and there is a belly or two that I really enjoy looking at!

For the past couple of years I was in a state of shock in St. Martin. For the first time I was traveling alone and it was depressing. Conner and Hania took on the role of caregivers as good friends do during difficult days. Whenever I would return from St. Martin my close friends and the ones I love the most would be waiting on me to see how I was handling things.

These are the people that I will keep posted on this trip because they care and have become daily constants in my life. I love them so. Rather than hooking up with Conner needing him to drag me into good times, today I just can’t wait!

And in just a few hours I’ll be standing in the surf of the aqua blue bay staring at the island of Anguilla in the distance and watching the waves crashing over the reef and then gently settling into the bay. I’ll probably compare that image to my life. Not too long ago I was crashing around through life. Now a gentleness has come to dominate it.

So I leave looking forward to a celebration of how far I’ve come and very much looking forward to coming back for the beginning of summer on Tybee Island. And all of the crazy love that encompasses me there.

Hugs

My friend Shirley ends all of her messages with the word “Hugs”! It’s full of warmth and affirmation.

All of those years working with homeless people I witnessed lives without hugs of affirmation and what that can do to a person. They would come up and tell me their story or ask me to do something on their behalf and I always made sure that I touched them … shaking a hand or giving a hug.

Often times they would tense up because nobody had touched them in years. I thought it was the first step to helping them solve the issues that led to homelessness.

After all where does one go for a good hug these days?

Some religious gatherings still offer them freely but they sure seem to be growing rarer. I think that young people offer far more hugs than older people but with every passing year they lose a bit of the ability to keep doing it. And in the business world hugs lead to charges of sexual abuse.

It’s sad.

I’ve always ignored society’s increasing intolerance of hugs. It’s a big part of what is wrong with the world! If every meeting started with everyone giving everybody else a hug there would probably be a lot more productivity.

Or maybe not! Because people would get carried away with hugging one another and remain focused on the affirmation, sensuality and generally good vibes that hugs produce.

It would be great if every member of Congress and the State Legislature were forced to hug one another before they started screwing things for the day. I think that there would be far less screwing up!

During my last days at Union Mission I had a Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous who witnessed his predecessor and I hugging one another at the end of a meeting. The next time that the Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous and I were alone talking, he looked at me and said, “I am not one of those kinds of people.”

“What kind of people?” I asked, thinking that is how most refer to homeless people. They’re not people …they’re “those kinds of people”.

“I don’t hug,” he said emphatically. “I don’t get emotional. I just get to what needs to be done. It’s all business with me.”

I remember just sitting in my chair looking at him. It was first time that I’d ever seen one of “those kinds of people.”

Then a bunch of stuff happened and I left Union Mission. When I finally returned from a long restful stay in islands, I had to sit through a lot of meetings at Hunter, McClean, Exley & Dunn … Savannah’s largest law firm. When we finally got to the end of all this, there were a lot of hugs between the attorney, the previous Board Chair, a previous Board Chair to him, and then … the Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous caved into peer pressure and gave me the most awkward hug I’ve ever had in my life.

It was a start.

Though homeless people who hadn’t been touched in years offered or responded to better hugs.

Last year at this time I was burned out and depressed; finally taking time away from it all to get back to me. I was hurt, sad and lonely. And I didn’t accomplish much during this time. Every morning I would crawl out of a king size bed of which one half had been deserted. I’d go through the motions of getting ready for a day that really only had one agenda … getting through the day.

Then I’d go to the Breakfast Club. Now I’ve been going there a long time. But as I was suffering more than I’ve ever experienced something changed. Nance started hugging me every morning. Long, passionate, affirming hugs! Then Denise joined in ... then Patty ... then Ryan? ... then Franklin (who is brown). And though it got weird … it got me through.

I was struck this yesterday. My days are now full of hugs … be it the Breakfast Club, listening to Sam and Gordo play good damn live music … sitting with Johnny O and Judy at “Whine and Cheese” … or in the parking lot at Target!

They are not all physical. Lots of messages float across cyber-space and they are technological hugs of affirmation and warmth.

A couple of weeks I returned to the Starfish Café after a year long exile by a Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous. As soon as I entered Philip and I hugged for a long time. Then Gloria and I hugged for a long time. Then Chef Paul and I hugged for a long time but he added kisses.

And as this happening, I remember thinking … no I remember feeling … no, I remember being …damn … it’s good to be home again.

Best Buns on the Beach

I was standing between Johnny O and David R on the Pier at Tybee Island where I live. It was a beautiful day and we were there to raise money for our friend Jenny Orr who was sponsoring the “Best Buns on the Beach” competition. Jenny is a successful business woman who operates “Fannie’s-on-the-Beach” and “Marlyn Monroes”.

(We stop this blog for a brief announcement. Chuck Courtenay, musical extraordinaire will be performing at Marlyn’s on Sunday around 3:00. It is the must attend event on Tybee this weekend!! Now … back to our regularly scheduled blog.)

Jenny was raising money for Diabetes so we were all volunteering. At the time I was President of Union Mission and spent all of my time raising millions of dollars for its work. But Jenny can be quite convincing so there I was between Johnny O and David R wearing a black thong underneath my Preacher’s robe.

A huge crowd had gathered to watch us perform and then choose who had the best buns on the beach. Music was playing, drinks were being purchased and the crowd was growing festive. The idea was that we would dance and the crowd would stuff dollars into our costumes and whoever raised the most had the best buns.

“Don’t worry boys,” Jenny said standing beside us, “this is gonna be great.”
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We were not so convinced. Well, David was. But that was because Jenny, being the astute business woman that she is, had a cooler full of cold Crown Royal on one side of the waiting area and another of beer on the other. It was free to those of us donating our time and David was on his second cooler of Crown.

Then it was time. Johnny O was first to perform. For those of you who have never met Johnny O, think of Mr. Rogers with glasses. Think of Mr. Rogers with glasses high on pot … with the sweater. That’s as close as I can paint a visual picture.

So Johnny O walks to the stage, drops his pants, is wearing “whitey tighties” and just stands there as some crazy computer gibberish plays. It was awful. I took a shallow of David’s Crown Royal and he kissed me right on the mouth. I’ve never had another drink of Crown Royal since.

I think Johnny O raised $1.23 for the cause.

Then it was my turn. I confidently strolled to the stage in my black Preacher’s robe with Dusty Springfield singing “Son of a Preacher Man” in the background. Putting my hands in the praying position I stood there a moment as the crowd bowed their heads. Then as Alice Cooper blasted “School’s Out”, I ribbed the robe open and danced in my black thong.

I was great! Thousands of dollars were thrust into my thong including quarters that had been frozen. I had the best buns but those quarters … well … they prevented me from advancing in other categories.

Then it was David’s turn.

Now David is big man with a shaved head and a goatee. He’s a Tybee legend! He was also full of Crown Royal. Dispensing with any kind of set up, he stripped to a pair Lady’s leopard skin thong panties and danced amazingly. With one hand on top of his head, with his eyes closed, he stood on a picnic table and gyrated to “What’s love got to do with it?” People swarmed him sticking twenties into his thong. Some had to throw up first but it was for a good cause and we all love Jenny so they kept at it.

Then it happened.

I was standing between Johnny O and Jenny, robe back on, watching David’s incredible performance when one of his testicles fell out. Johnny, Jenny and I all covered our mouths at the same time.

“Hmmmm,” Jenny said. “You don’t see that every day.”

I threw up little.

Now David has a devoted wife who loves him dearly. David was oblivious to what had happened and continued gyrating with his eyes closed feeling the love of the crowd. So she rushes up to the picnic table, takes one finger and pokes it back into the leopard skin thong panties. Then she retreats back into the crowd proud of her husband who was obviously going to have the best buns on the beach. People were writing checks and leaving their credit cards.

“Hmmmmm,” I said to Johnny O and Jenny when she ran up and poked it back in, “you don’t see that every day.”

A couple of years later Jenny had to stop sponsoring the wildly successful “Best Buns on the Beach” competition. It got out of hand.

But that first one … Wow!

Never have I witnessed the love of a wife to her husband like that.

Castles in the Air

Heading south on A-1-A just outside of St. Augustine, with the ocean to the left and beach houses to the right, there is a castle.

Somebody built it as a home and there is no mistaking it. It towers above the beach houses, has the tutor windows and guards for archers to launch their arrows from the top. It is something right out of the thirteenth century.

Every time that I’ve ever driven past it, I’ve admired the hell out of whoever built it. This is someone who doesn’t believe in conforming, thumbs her nose at expectations, and follows his convictions in spite of the cost.

I laugh when I picture members of the Homeowners Association dropping by to complain and wonder if hot oil is poured from the top as they knock on the door. Or when the City Marshall delivers a summons because the castle is out of code compliance if rocks are dropped from on high to get rid the pesky rule enforcer. If you happen to own and live in a castle, you have these kinds of options.

A man’s home is his castle, so goes the old saying, but it’s really not. I wonder if the people living in the beach houses surrounding the castle pop themselves on the forehead and exclaim, “Shit! Why didn’t I think of that?”

Even worse, some guy is probably watering his grass when his wife comes out, folds her arms staring at the castle and says, “Well Skippy you always told me that you give anything but nooooo … you didn’t get me a castle now did you? You are so cheap! Sleep on the couch tonight. Again”!

My friends Johnny O and Judy, then Whitley of all people, have been to St. Augustine recently. It is one of my favorite places in the universe! There is a little hotel at the marina just north of the city where I love to stay. I never tire of wandering down St. George or sitting at the Milltop listening to live music with an incredible view of the harbor and the fort. I just love the place!

I was last there in October. It was Georgia/florida weekend so Mom, Sam, the kids and I drove down A-1-A from Jacksonville to America’s oldest city. I was not in a good place at the time. Suddenly single had turned into definitely divorced. I was burned out from a career that I’d recently walked away from and the settlement stuff was running out so there was all of that to think about. The beloved Dawgs of Georgia were in the midst of a rotten football season that was as painful to watch as I was trying to get through the nights. I wasn’t eating and drank way too much. It was simply an awful time.

Then we passed the castle.

I’ve probably seen it a hundred times and it always mystifies me.

Later that day at the Milltop, I was suddenly in a festive mood. We all laughed and joked and had a good time. The views were as gorgeous as ever and I celebrated all of the wonderful hours I’ve spent there.

And I kept thinking about the castle. Throughout my life I’ve always had a tendency to do things my own way. In college I turned a four year track into five and was basically ordered to declare a major so that they could be done with me as quickly as possible (streaking and the hostile takeovers of a Haunted House and a Baptist Student Union were involved in their reasoning). But I learned how to learn.

In Seminary it took a lawyer to get me out of there as apparently God told everybody else one thing and me another. Who knew God is practical joker? But while I was there this little rag tag inner city collection of little old ladies became the city’s most dynamic and groundbreaking Church.

Back in Savannah a little $40,000 a year, twelve bed homeless shelter morphed into a $13 Million company that helped cut a city’s homeless population by more than half. It’s the only such accomplishment in the United States.

The castle builder in me contributed to these things.

This morning as I was running the beach the sun shone brightly on the ocean creating a sidewalk across the sea that ended at my feet. I love seeing this and have come to attach religious significance to it. Throughout the good days and the terrible days at Union Mission I would run and the eye of God blazed that sidewalk on the sea affirming that I was doing holy things.

The last few years have felt anything but holy. More like hell! But today as I ran I was thinking about all of the things that are next. My brain was wrapping itself around new things, new loves, different work, better adventures and …happiness.

Then I noticed that the golden sidewalk on the sea was wider and broader than I’d ever seen it! It was a road of yellow dancing diamonds that led to the sunshine mixed with ocean that gives us all life.

And I smiled. God was letting me know once again that I’m on the right track. As painful as it’s been, it’s getting better. And the next castle is going to be far superior than the last!

Contemplation

By nature I am a contemplative soul. It is easy for me to slide away from a house full of people to sit on the beloved back deck and just … stare at the stars. Most often there is music in my ears but not always. I can go to the beach and just sit there staring at the ocean lost in thought. Goddess and I will walk over to Shirley’s sad little holy dock and simply sit there smelling the marsh and listening to choir of mussels and be … content.

A couple of years ago all of the kids were here and we’d eaten dinner and they were watching television with Julie. I slid off to the beloved back deck and was just staring at the stars … thinking … feeling … praying, I guess.

“Why does he do that?” Chelsea asked out loud.

“I don’t know,” Julie answered with a bit of frustration.

I looked through the sliding glass doors through the kitchen into the living room and they were all watching … I don’t know.

As a kid I loved television. I was always the first one up and would sit in the floor with my nose inches from the screen, turning (back then we turned, we didn’t flip!) totally engrossed in whatever was on. My Dad would come in and tell me that I was going to go blind from sitting so close to the television.

I ignored him.

Now, I find it pretty boring. There’s not much that holds my interest. When the Tsunami hit Japan last month I was a day behind the breaking news. I came home from the Breakfast Club where everybody was talking about it and turned on CNN and watched the waves wash the cars and buildings and people.

For the most part I use TV as a radio playing music all day long.

Music is better suited for contemplation.

The older I get, the more I just enjoy the beauty of what is around me. And who chooses to be around me. It is far more entertaining to watch the stars and discover what messages they are sending me than it is to see who dances with them.

My friend Bill Shearouse told me a story about his Dad’s last days. Mr. Shearouse and his wife Bootsie was great people and friends too. They adopted me and my kids at University of Georgia Football games. In his latter days, Mr. Shearouse would sit in the living room looking out of the large plate glass window while everybody else was busy doing something else.


“What you looking at Dad?” Bill asked.

Slowly, Mr. Shearouse pulled himself from the contemplation and looked at his son. “The birds,” he finally said.

Bill looked out the plate glass window and sure enough … there were birds.

“He knew,” Bill explained later when he told me this story. “He was getting ready.” And soon after that Mr. Shearouse died, sitting in his recliner, waiting on Bootsie to bring his desert watching the beloved Dawgs of Georgia on television.

I think that God created this world for a lot of reasons but one of them is for us to delight in it. I’ve seen incredible things just sitting on the beach, the deck and the dock. Possums walk hanging upside down on electric wires. Mussels form themselves into choirs and sing hymns at low tide. On a hot summer day the marsh smells like sex in the tropics. Dolphins dance and smile when they do so. God paints a different masterpiece in the sky every single day.

There are times when someone shares these things with me. Most often it is Goddess my dog. She loves to watch egrets flying over the marsh, squirrels climbing trees and rabbits in the thickets by Shirley’s house.

Sometimes it is others. Trolley Joe and I are fond of standing on the pier staring at the ocean and occasionally saying something to one another. When my son Jeremy is here, he’s taken to sitting on the beloved back deck in silence with me taking it all in. Words are few but the senses are filled to the point of exploding. As someone who makes his living speaking and writing words it is fascinating to learn how unnecessary they are to appreciate … love.

It is raining now and is a good day to do … nothing. Except watch the trees dance in the wind … listen to the songs of the falling water … dance to the claps of thunder … marvel at the lightning … and whisper prayers of thanksgiving that I am part of this incredible gift called life.

Rings

Wedding rings ... The rings around Saturn … The Lord of the Rings … Earrings … the ring in the toilet and the bath tub … the luminous ring around the moon at night … rings of all kinds …

As far as we know the first rings worn were found on the fingers of Mummies in Egypt and in Greek urns. In Ireland they started using rings to symbolize engagement in the 17th Century. These would have a clasped hand, a crown and heart engraved on them symbolizing friendship, love and loyalty.

The Egyptians were the first to use rings to symbolize a woman belonged to man … but they meant it like slavery. It’s funny how this tradition continues in a lot of marriages.

It’s only been in recent times that a wedding ring symbolizes equality in a relationship. It’s funny though, most relationships have a dominate person and another who, for whatever reason, is submissive. It doesn’t have anything to with gender though it can I guess.

There are two wedding rings in the second bedroom lying with a bunch of other things on a silver plate in the shape of a crab. The crab claws from a ring around the plate. I wander around the house pondering these things. I told my friend Dedra recently that I need to have a garage sale of wedding rings.

Honestly, what do you do with old wedding rings?

Are they relics of the past like those on mummified fingers? Do I pass them on to the kids when they married? Do I take them to Pawn Shop? Do I walk down to the ocean and throw them as far away as I can in some ritual of days are gone? Like Fordo Baggins do I wear them on a chain around my neck because they represent the hurt and darkness of lost love?

Love never dies says the Bible.

But it sure as hell can stop! It can become stagnant and stale. It can be twisted into hate. It can become violent. It can be passive to the point where it is meaningless. Or it can you soar!

But it never dies.

Over the past several months I’ve had a lot of company and people leave things. On my table is a child’s sock. On another table lay a pair of earrings. There is a book that I’m not interested in reading. There is Tupperware that I do not recognize. There are clothes that are not mine.

I hold on to these things believing that whoever left them will eventually return and reclaim what they’ve lost.

Then I’m struck by the wedding rings and comprehend that there’s no getting back what was lost when they were taken off. It took me a long time to take mine off. I liked wearing it. I liked the way my fingers would tan and there would be this white circle around the one because the ring prevented the sun from going there.

Hmmmmm …

The ring stopped the sun from shinning completely.

It gives me pause.

At the end of “The Lord of the Rings” Gollum finally recapture the ring of power by biting off Frodo’s finger and falls into the abyss loving what he’s recaptured. A fingerless Frodo survives … but he is changed and is never the same again. Finally recognizing this, he sets sail with others who have also been changed leaves and his life behind … for another.

I send love to those who shared rings with me. They deserve the very best. They earned it by putting up with me. I earned it too by putting up with them. And the love doesn’t die but it will ever be the same again.

Looking at the earrings I find myself laughing … and telling myself that I should change the kind of rings that I’ve been using. I always meant to get my ear pierced but just never got around to it.

As I’m setting sail towards this new life I wonder if three’s the charm on getting a new ring. Or … perhaps it’s finally time for that earring.

Stuck Inside a Cloud

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.

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.

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.