Sometime during the last year my friend Ana gave me a book When Things Fall Apart. I was in St. Martin and apparently wasn’t doing as well as I thought. I was walking alone from Le Boutique when she stopped her dirty black SUV in front of me. Jumping out, she hugged me, then scolded me for taking care of everybody except myself and gave me the book. Then she jumped back in and with tears in her eyes and drove on to her work giving massages.
After watching her drive away, I stared at the book written by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun. Alice Walker endorsed it and I love Alice Walker’s stuff so I figured that it couldn’t be too bad. It took me forever to read it because I was in a pretty rotten place emotionally in dark contrast to the Caribbean paradise I was strolling through.
Pema says that most of us spend our lives trying to escape suffering when it is simply a part of life. It is better if we would approach our painful situations with friendly curiosity. There, in the middle of our chaos and groundlessness we discover that truth and love are indestructible.
“How very Buddhist,” I thought to myself. “Nothing is real.”
I threw it in my bag and half a year later pulled it out and started it.
The first time that things fell apart for me was when I snuck out of the house to go dancing and was run over by four college kids their way to Florida. At 14 I had a shattered leg, lying in traction in a hospital bed, discovering what a bedpan is. My world had completely fallen apart.
Then in college I discovered birth control … or what it isn’t. All of my friends went mountain climbing while I changed diapers.
At the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel I had my first taste of fame and discovered temptation, succumbed to it and immediately was thrown out by the Christ loving Baptists.
A couple of years ago I came home from an out of town work retreat, very excited only to be told that I’m no longer loved in “that way” and then I was left alone.
A few months later I woke up with nothing else inside of me to give. The work that I’d done for three decades had taken it all. There was nothing else, including anything for me.
It’s right after this that Ana gave me the book.
So that’s my list of when things fell apart in my life. Sure there were other time when things went wrong or the day was really bad, but those were aberrations to mostly good times, success, and happiness.
But there have been five occasions when everything about who I am as person, how I lived my life and the future that I’d planned … fell completely apart.
And I was left … groundless.
It makes me think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s sweating prayers to God, “I don’t want to drink from cup” but God pours it down his unwilling throat anyway. I didn’t want any of these things to happen but they did.
And they all contributed to who I am now. In the past, I was merely different incarnations of who I am today.
How very Buddhist!
I told a friend who I love recently, “Just wait, things will present themselves to you in their time.” And they have.
Talk about Buddhist! Or God’s will or timing or whatever you want to call it. Most things happen when they’re supposed to. But Pema’s got that part right, the $64,000 question is what do we do when the moments present themselves? Do we run and hide? We ignore them? We pretend that we don’t have choices to make? We withdraw and hide like little children?
Or … we fight like hell to accept what is.
Over the past few years, I’m done a lot of fighting. It grew weary but I’m finally done. I’m just accepting now. It is what it is. I am who I am. And I’m ok with it. Finally!
How very Buddhist!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Waastin' Away ... Again
Today's daily musing is engulfed in a cloud of fog that began developing last night at a Jimmy Buffett concert. I haven't danced that much in the United States since ... I don't know when!
I could have been a Nautical Wheeler! Whew good times!
OK, there's something about grapefruit and Juicy Fruit that I'm now trying to remember.
Well, back to Tybee Island now where evidently I will hear that I was in town.
Oh yeah, I'll be driving. If the phone doesn't ring it's me.
But Come Monday I'll be back in full force.
Unless I go to Margarettaville.
Which is always a very real possibility because there is this one particular harbor there.
Next to the Volcano.
It's above the bay full sharks ... you can see their Fins.
I have to also track down God's own drunk, Jeremy my son.
I could have been a Nautical Wheeler! Whew good times!
OK, there's something about grapefruit and Juicy Fruit that I'm now trying to remember.
Well, back to Tybee Island now where evidently I will hear that I was in town.
Oh yeah, I'll be driving. If the phone doesn't ring it's me.
But Come Monday I'll be back in full force.
Unless I go to Margarettaville.
Which is always a very real possibility because there is this one particular harbor there.
Next to the Volcano.
It's above the bay full sharks ... you can see their Fins.
I have to also track down God's own drunk, Jeremy my son.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Restoring my Soul
A few years ago I was visiting a project in Orlando, Florida that was trying to prevent kids from being accepted into gangs. I was with Ted Hardgrove of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and we met for dinner the night before the visit. Over grilled fist and white wine we compared notes.
Both of us had shot holes through the program based on the proposals that we’d read. Agreeing on just about everything wrong with the program, Ted concluded that we have to go through the motions of the visit but he didn’t see any way this program would be funded.
We arrived the next day and they simply blew us away. They may have been poor writers but they were doing incredible work! They went on to receive half-a-million from the Foundation.
I remember Ted saying as we made our way back to the hotel “What a difference a day makes.”
I’m sitting in my room at the Holiday Inn in Athens. The sun is bright, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and I feel good.
I woke up and the memory of Ted came to mine and I applied it to myself. What a difference a year makes.”
I told my son Jeremy that I really don’t even remember last football season.
“Trust me Dad,” he replied, “there isn’t a lot to remember about the University of Georgia’s last football season.”
But what I meant is that I remember being here, going through the motions, trying to have a good time, but mostly feeling lost and left behind. I was living alone for the first time in my life, had left my career with no clear idea of what I wanted to do next, was worn out and tired from all of those years of trying to save people from themselves, and all of this was overwhelming. I had launched myself on a Sabbatical but didn’t know it yet.
“Yeah,” I said to Jeremy, “I really don’t remember much of anything about any of it.”
“We had some fun,” he replied but as much as I rack my brain I can’t find those memories.
I blew into town yesterday because I wanted to recapture my love for Athens and having fun here. It’s a continuation of the pilgrimage I’ve been on to restore my soul.
I am with friends whom I love, hooked up with my sister Age for cocktails and we laughed and told stories, returned to “East/West” for dinner and strolled around the campus last night. It was a day that erased all of those memories that I cannot excavate from last year.
Later today we’re hooking up with more friends and plan on celebrating the night away in Atlanta, another city that lost every bit of luster that I ever had for it.
Aside from a handful of friends who are trudging away trying to save Atlanta from itself I grew weary of the pompous politics and a city that believes it is the center of the universe. I grew bone tired of forever being the outsider from Savannah representing people that no one really cared about anyway.
But today I refuse to let that part of my journey define who I am. There is joy to be found everywhere … even in Atlanta and I plan on dancing in it tonight.
Little by little, I watched people destroy themselves in my work. They lost a tad more hope with each day that passed. They drank a bit more, shot up with increasing regularity or just continued to lose faith in everything. Then I watched them die.
There were times last year when I cared less about or dying. I was merely existing and somehow got through those months. Unlike my homeless brothers and sisters somehow … though the tenderness of friends …I gained a bit more hope every day, my faith in the future grew, energy increased and … “He restoreth my soul”.
Today I plan to continue the celebration of now and the anticipation of the future. To quote my friend Joe Buck quoting the Bible, “This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.” That’s the plan Joe!
What a difference a year makes!
Both of us had shot holes through the program based on the proposals that we’d read. Agreeing on just about everything wrong with the program, Ted concluded that we have to go through the motions of the visit but he didn’t see any way this program would be funded.
We arrived the next day and they simply blew us away. They may have been poor writers but they were doing incredible work! They went on to receive half-a-million from the Foundation.
I remember Ted saying as we made our way back to the hotel “What a difference a day makes.”
I’m sitting in my room at the Holiday Inn in Athens. The sun is bright, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and I feel good.
I woke up and the memory of Ted came to mine and I applied it to myself. What a difference a year makes.”
I told my son Jeremy that I really don’t even remember last football season.
“Trust me Dad,” he replied, “there isn’t a lot to remember about the University of Georgia’s last football season.”
But what I meant is that I remember being here, going through the motions, trying to have a good time, but mostly feeling lost and left behind. I was living alone for the first time in my life, had left my career with no clear idea of what I wanted to do next, was worn out and tired from all of those years of trying to save people from themselves, and all of this was overwhelming. I had launched myself on a Sabbatical but didn’t know it yet.
“Yeah,” I said to Jeremy, “I really don’t remember much of anything about any of it.”
“We had some fun,” he replied but as much as I rack my brain I can’t find those memories.
I blew into town yesterday because I wanted to recapture my love for Athens and having fun here. It’s a continuation of the pilgrimage I’ve been on to restore my soul.
I am with friends whom I love, hooked up with my sister Age for cocktails and we laughed and told stories, returned to “East/West” for dinner and strolled around the campus last night. It was a day that erased all of those memories that I cannot excavate from last year.
Later today we’re hooking up with more friends and plan on celebrating the night away in Atlanta, another city that lost every bit of luster that I ever had for it.
Aside from a handful of friends who are trudging away trying to save Atlanta from itself I grew weary of the pompous politics and a city that believes it is the center of the universe. I grew bone tired of forever being the outsider from Savannah representing people that no one really cared about anyway.
But today I refuse to let that part of my journey define who I am. There is joy to be found everywhere … even in Atlanta and I plan on dancing in it tonight.
Little by little, I watched people destroy themselves in my work. They lost a tad more hope with each day that passed. They drank a bit more, shot up with increasing regularity or just continued to lose faith in everything. Then I watched them die.
There were times last year when I cared less about or dying. I was merely existing and somehow got through those months. Unlike my homeless brothers and sisters somehow … though the tenderness of friends …I gained a bit more hope every day, my faith in the future grew, energy increased and … “He restoreth my soul”.
Today I plan to continue the celebration of now and the anticipation of the future. To quote my friend Joe Buck quoting the Bible, “This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.” That’s the plan Joe!
What a difference a year makes!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Left Behind
I was left behind yesterday when the Rapture took place.
In fact, I hosted a Left Behind party last night at my house. I invited all of my friends who were bound to be left behind. This is not to say that this collection of people are not good, nice, or don’t believe in God.
They are just likely people to be left behind.
(John and Judy)2 were there (Johnny O and Judy an O Johnny and the other Judy). Ohio Bob and Margaret came and brought that a strobe light. Rebekah brought burgundy hair. Dedra brought religion.
Artie, who was clean shaven, brought Wanda. Artie only shaves if he has to go to town or gets laid. Wanda brought cookies so it was apparent that Artie had been to town to buy them.
Sandy and Dave were there and brought 100% Peach Cider. Rocky brought a glass of clear liquid. Somebody left a bag of clothes on my bed.
Whitley and Cheryl rode drunken bicycles but were late. Naturally we assumed that they had been raptured which led to speculation that God had lost her mind.
Esther brought wine and if you’re going to be left behind then you definitely need wine.
Phil, Katy and Gloria were really raptured and never showed at all. I did see Phil this morning and he looked like hell. Rapture is evidently not everything that it’s cracked up to be.
Roma didn’t come either. Apparently she was busy telling God who to take and who had no business in heaven. The Tybee City Manager got a “Do not pass go” card to hell.
Dedra just got a phone call from Denise her sister who was left behind too.
Goddess was also left behind. I’m a little taken aback by this as Goddess is the most pure creature that I’ve ever encountered. She seems ok with it though lying there in front of the fan peacefully sleeping.
The entire staff of the Breakfast Club was left behind as were all of the people standing in line to get inside.
The entire Tybee Island Police Department was left behind as was the entire staff of Fannie-On-The-Beach.
The entire congregations of the Tybee Island Baptist Church, Catholic Church, Episcopal Church and Methodist Church were left behind.
I went to the Wind Rose Café and every single member of Bar Church is missing.
So I took a walk on the beach. The dolphins were left behind. Fran and her thousand shades of green are still here. The sun is dancing on the ocean and exudes happiness and joy. There are lots of girls in bikinis who were left behind and I whisper a prayer of Thanksgiving for this. Shirley was apparently raptured but the sad little holy dock remains. The beloved back deck withstood the weight of the Left Behind crowd that stood on it last night.
It is a celebratory day as far as I’m concerned.
OK I need to call my Mom.
I pray that she was left behind too.
In fact, I hosted a Left Behind party last night at my house. I invited all of my friends who were bound to be left behind. This is not to say that this collection of people are not good, nice, or don’t believe in God.
They are just likely people to be left behind.
(John and Judy)2 were there (Johnny O and Judy an O Johnny and the other Judy). Ohio Bob and Margaret came and brought that a strobe light. Rebekah brought burgundy hair. Dedra brought religion.
Artie, who was clean shaven, brought Wanda. Artie only shaves if he has to go to town or gets laid. Wanda brought cookies so it was apparent that Artie had been to town to buy them.
Sandy and Dave were there and brought 100% Peach Cider. Rocky brought a glass of clear liquid. Somebody left a bag of clothes on my bed.
Whitley and Cheryl rode drunken bicycles but were late. Naturally we assumed that they had been raptured which led to speculation that God had lost her mind.
Esther brought wine and if you’re going to be left behind then you definitely need wine.
Phil, Katy and Gloria were really raptured and never showed at all. I did see Phil this morning and he looked like hell. Rapture is evidently not everything that it’s cracked up to be.
Roma didn’t come either. Apparently she was busy telling God who to take and who had no business in heaven. The Tybee City Manager got a “Do not pass go” card to hell.
Dedra just got a phone call from Denise her sister who was left behind too.
Goddess was also left behind. I’m a little taken aback by this as Goddess is the most pure creature that I’ve ever encountered. She seems ok with it though lying there in front of the fan peacefully sleeping.
The entire staff of the Breakfast Club was left behind as were all of the people standing in line to get inside.
The entire Tybee Island Police Department was left behind as was the entire staff of Fannie-On-The-Beach.
The entire congregations of the Tybee Island Baptist Church, Catholic Church, Episcopal Church and Methodist Church were left behind.
I went to the Wind Rose Café and every single member of Bar Church is missing.
So I took a walk on the beach. The dolphins were left behind. Fran and her thousand shades of green are still here. The sun is dancing on the ocean and exudes happiness and joy. There are lots of girls in bikinis who were left behind and I whisper a prayer of Thanksgiving for this. Shirley was apparently raptured but the sad little holy dock remains. The beloved back deck withstood the weight of the Left Behind crowd that stood on it last night.
It is a celebratory day as far as I’m concerned.
OK I need to call my Mom.
I pray that she was left behind too.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Beach Bum Revolution
The 25th Annual Beach Bum parade took place yesterday evening. This used to be Tybee Island's celebration of itself before tourist season. Then Carl Haaisen wrote a book called "Tourist Season" and all hell broke loose. Tourists decided that anytime is a good time and about the only time that they're not on the island is the last two two weeks of January and the first week of February. Otherwise, they are here and Tybee no longer has the place to itself.
Well ... there is the "Bored Meeting" the daily celebration of life on the island in front of Fannie's on-the-beach but that's going to hell too and it's Roma's fault! She and O Johnny (not to be confused with Johnny O) got into "merchandizing" selling hats, T-shirts, koozies and even underwear. It's disgusting.
Roma hosts something called "Romatherapy" on Monday's which is girls day. I am not a girl though I attend. I may as well be a hermit crab crawling into a pink shell to get in touch with my feminie side. As I said even the Bored meeting is going to hell.
In fact, Johnny O and Trolley Joe started an alternative Bored Meeting on the Pier. So far it is men only and Dean who runs the Pier and the Mafia on Tybee, hires really good looking girls with obvious natural assets to bartend so that we keep coming back.
Jenny Orr who runs Fannie-on-the Beach counters this by bringing "Boo" back. Boo is like greatest bartender ever invented. Boo's assets are also natural though they are very different from the ones of the girls on the Pier. Meaning that Boo has both brains and a personality. And she does an incredible imitation of Roma!
None of this has anything to do with the 25th Beach Bum parade.
Last year there were 20,000 people who showed up for the annual water fight. I remember my friend and her daughters were here, as was Jeremy and Marie and we all strolled from my house to Butler Avenue with our water guns. When we were about ten feet from the parade, I just stopped and said out loud "Hell no!" and I turned around and went back home.
The whole thing had been taken over by tourists.
But last night my same friend showed up with her daughters asking if we could order a pizza.
Nobody can drive anywhere on Tybee when the Beach Bum parade is happening (or Piratefest, St. Patrick's Day, the Christmas parade or whatever other parade Tybee is having that week).
"No," I told her. "We have to go to Nick and Val's for food."
So I returned to the Beach Bum parade for the first time in years. I was wet before I walked outside of the house. I was wetter with each step that I took. By the time we made it to Nick and Val's we were soaked. But the food was really good!
Afterwards we came home and Dedra had broken into my house. She is fleeing "up country". She has something to do with the country's educational system but I'm too frightened to ask about this. She may be a terrorist.
All of this got me to thinking.
What needs to happen is that the Beach Bums need to get back together and start a new revolution. We need to succeed from Chatham County (they're broke anyway). We need to succeed from Georgia (who in the hell is this Nathan Deal guy and seriously ... we elected a Congressman to be Governor?). We need to succeed from the United States (too many people are moving here from everywhere else).
I was an almost original Beach Bum for like three weeks. Jack threw me off the team because I tried to actually play softball one night. Jiggs couldn't spell my name right for the roster so he seconded Jack's motion. Nancy, Jack's wife, tried to intervene on my behalf but none of the other "original" Beach Bums cared.
So I turned my attention to more important things though I can't recall any of them at this moment. Oh yeah ... I became Chaplain of the Breakfast Club around this time.
Anyway I think that we need to have a called meeting of the Beach Bums to discuss all of this stuff.
That wouldn't work. The City Manager would send Hodad to put a "Stop Work" order on the gathering which is "Standard Operating Proceedure" on Tybee. Tybee now stops most everything ... except parades.
Then again it might.
Beach Bums don't work anyway.
Well ... there is the "Bored Meeting" the daily celebration of life on the island in front of Fannie's on-the-beach but that's going to hell too and it's Roma's fault! She and O Johnny (not to be confused with Johnny O) got into "merchandizing" selling hats, T-shirts, koozies and even underwear. It's disgusting.
Roma hosts something called "Romatherapy" on Monday's which is girls day. I am not a girl though I attend. I may as well be a hermit crab crawling into a pink shell to get in touch with my feminie side. As I said even the Bored meeting is going to hell.
In fact, Johnny O and Trolley Joe started an alternative Bored Meeting on the Pier. So far it is men only and Dean who runs the Pier and the Mafia on Tybee, hires really good looking girls with obvious natural assets to bartend so that we keep coming back.
Jenny Orr who runs Fannie-on-the Beach counters this by bringing "Boo" back. Boo is like greatest bartender ever invented. Boo's assets are also natural though they are very different from the ones of the girls on the Pier. Meaning that Boo has both brains and a personality. And she does an incredible imitation of Roma!
None of this has anything to do with the 25th Beach Bum parade.
Last year there were 20,000 people who showed up for the annual water fight. I remember my friend and her daughters were here, as was Jeremy and Marie and we all strolled from my house to Butler Avenue with our water guns. When we were about ten feet from the parade, I just stopped and said out loud "Hell no!" and I turned around and went back home.
The whole thing had been taken over by tourists.
But last night my same friend showed up with her daughters asking if we could order a pizza.
Nobody can drive anywhere on Tybee when the Beach Bum parade is happening (or Piratefest, St. Patrick's Day, the Christmas parade or whatever other parade Tybee is having that week).
"No," I told her. "We have to go to Nick and Val's for food."
So I returned to the Beach Bum parade for the first time in years. I was wet before I walked outside of the house. I was wetter with each step that I took. By the time we made it to Nick and Val's we were soaked. But the food was really good!
Afterwards we came home and Dedra had broken into my house. She is fleeing "up country". She has something to do with the country's educational system but I'm too frightened to ask about this. She may be a terrorist.
All of this got me to thinking.
What needs to happen is that the Beach Bums need to get back together and start a new revolution. We need to succeed from Chatham County (they're broke anyway). We need to succeed from Georgia (who in the hell is this Nathan Deal guy and seriously ... we elected a Congressman to be Governor?). We need to succeed from the United States (too many people are moving here from everywhere else).
I was an almost original Beach Bum for like three weeks. Jack threw me off the team because I tried to actually play softball one night. Jiggs couldn't spell my name right for the roster so he seconded Jack's motion. Nancy, Jack's wife, tried to intervene on my behalf but none of the other "original" Beach Bums cared.
So I turned my attention to more important things though I can't recall any of them at this moment. Oh yeah ... I became Chaplain of the Breakfast Club around this time.
Anyway I think that we need to have a called meeting of the Beach Bums to discuss all of this stuff.
That wouldn't work. The City Manager would send Hodad to put a "Stop Work" order on the gathering which is "Standard Operating Proceedure" on Tybee. Tybee now stops most everything ... except parades.
Then again it might.
Beach Bums don't work anyway.
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Gift of First City Network
I’d promised Roma and the members of the “Bored” I would attend the Sunday afternoon bar-b-q at Marlin Monroe’s. It starts around three and has live music, good food and a lively crowd. Besides, Marlin’s is right on the ocean with great views and lots of girls in bikinis.
But I had guests who made for a very enjoyable afternoon so it wasn’t until six that I hopped on my bicycle and made my way. Walking through the indoor seating to the outdoor deck, Jill Knight was putting her guitar away. I’d missed it. People started calling my name and in no time I was surrounded.
And they are all gay. And we all go way back.
“Remember when we started First City Network,” I was asked. Not that I started it … that was Laurence Marley and others. But I did give them free office space at Union Mission. And their first public recognition was at the grand opening of Phoenix Place, our residential facility for people living with AIDS.
Phoenix Place would have never happened with First City Network. They literally built the place! In fact, they named it. Phoenix rises from the ashes. We’ll beat AIDS!
After a homeless man died from HIV complications living in a closet at Union Mission’s Grace House, we were approached about doing something. Someone mentioned the old “Catholic Worker House” so Joe Daniel, chairman of the Union Mission Board, and I went to look at it. It was late afternoon and entering we interrupted a really great “crack” party. It was Joe’s first.
The house was owned by Joe Fogerty, a very devote Catholic retired in Miami. Calling I said we were interested in his property. He was very excited as it had been vacant since the Catholic Workers went out of business. He asked me what kind of arrangement we were looking at.
“I’d like the same deal that you had with the Catholic Worker House,” I explained.
“What!” he bellowed into the phone. “They had it free!”
“Exactly,” I replied then rushed on to explain what we intended to do.
He was great. After hearing me out he was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what. If you fix it up and this thing works, you can have it free for two years. After that you have to buy it. I’ll sell it to you at its current value.”
So that’s how it started.
We had no money to renovate the place but … First City Network had been born and they are an incredible group of people. In many ways Phoenix’s birth was like a barn-raising. Gay workers descended upon the place every afternoon and every weekend. We gained control of the house in February. By April it was completely renovated. Talk about miracles! Nobody else would have to die in a closet.
Joe had gotten a member of the Lane family (one of Savannah’s wealthiest!) to give us $30,000 to buy stuff. First City Network did everything else. Well … there was one staff person at the Breakfast Club whose nickname is Bear. Bear showed up to do the design and heavy lifting. He was great!
At the grand opening, Mayor John Rousakis showed up having no idea that Phoenix Place was for people with AIDS as you could easily see on his face when he learned this. Over two hundred people showed up for the opening. Every media outlet was there. City Manager Don Mendosa and I spared with one another and he one up’d me good, as only he could do.
I played a practical joke on Joe by presenting him with a plaque in front of everyone that read “Fag of the Year.” He read it silently to himself in front of everyone, looked at the crowd, said “Thank you” and sat down.
I’d gotten him. Of course, he got me over thirty times after that.
Then it was First City Networks moment. I talked about how Phoenix would have never happened without them. How amazing they are as people. What incredible workers they are. How the entire city of Savannah is a better place because of them. And we had plaques for them.
What I remember most though is as I said these things I watched people who had become my friends listening and they started crying … which of course got me to crying. So this coming out party for Savannah’s gay community was baptized in tears of happiness. There is no baptism so holy.
So fast forward twenty years, and these are the people that I’m standing with beside the ocean on the deck at Marlin Monroe’s. Except for Laurence of course who is the master of coy. Outrageous coy! But coy nevertheless!
It was a wonderful unexpected gift on a Sunday afternoon as the sun set. We hugged and talked and drank. My heart was happy until I asked …
“What happened? You all look old.”
Yeah ...
I should have never said such a thing to such wonderful friends.
But I had guests who made for a very enjoyable afternoon so it wasn’t until six that I hopped on my bicycle and made my way. Walking through the indoor seating to the outdoor deck, Jill Knight was putting her guitar away. I’d missed it. People started calling my name and in no time I was surrounded.
And they are all gay. And we all go way back.
“Remember when we started First City Network,” I was asked. Not that I started it … that was Laurence Marley and others. But I did give them free office space at Union Mission. And their first public recognition was at the grand opening of Phoenix Place, our residential facility for people living with AIDS.
Phoenix Place would have never happened with First City Network. They literally built the place! In fact, they named it. Phoenix rises from the ashes. We’ll beat AIDS!
After a homeless man died from HIV complications living in a closet at Union Mission’s Grace House, we were approached about doing something. Someone mentioned the old “Catholic Worker House” so Joe Daniel, chairman of the Union Mission Board, and I went to look at it. It was late afternoon and entering we interrupted a really great “crack” party. It was Joe’s first.
The house was owned by Joe Fogerty, a very devote Catholic retired in Miami. Calling I said we were interested in his property. He was very excited as it had been vacant since the Catholic Workers went out of business. He asked me what kind of arrangement we were looking at.
“I’d like the same deal that you had with the Catholic Worker House,” I explained.
“What!” he bellowed into the phone. “They had it free!”
“Exactly,” I replied then rushed on to explain what we intended to do.
He was great. After hearing me out he was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what. If you fix it up and this thing works, you can have it free for two years. After that you have to buy it. I’ll sell it to you at its current value.”
So that’s how it started.
We had no money to renovate the place but … First City Network had been born and they are an incredible group of people. In many ways Phoenix’s birth was like a barn-raising. Gay workers descended upon the place every afternoon and every weekend. We gained control of the house in February. By April it was completely renovated. Talk about miracles! Nobody else would have to die in a closet.
Joe had gotten a member of the Lane family (one of Savannah’s wealthiest!) to give us $30,000 to buy stuff. First City Network did everything else. Well … there was one staff person at the Breakfast Club whose nickname is Bear. Bear showed up to do the design and heavy lifting. He was great!
At the grand opening, Mayor John Rousakis showed up having no idea that Phoenix Place was for people with AIDS as you could easily see on his face when he learned this. Over two hundred people showed up for the opening. Every media outlet was there. City Manager Don Mendosa and I spared with one another and he one up’d me good, as only he could do.
I played a practical joke on Joe by presenting him with a plaque in front of everyone that read “Fag of the Year.” He read it silently to himself in front of everyone, looked at the crowd, said “Thank you” and sat down.
I’d gotten him. Of course, he got me over thirty times after that.
Then it was First City Networks moment. I talked about how Phoenix would have never happened without them. How amazing they are as people. What incredible workers they are. How the entire city of Savannah is a better place because of them. And we had plaques for them.
What I remember most though is as I said these things I watched people who had become my friends listening and they started crying … which of course got me to crying. So this coming out party for Savannah’s gay community was baptized in tears of happiness. There is no baptism so holy.
So fast forward twenty years, and these are the people that I’m standing with beside the ocean on the deck at Marlin Monroe’s. Except for Laurence of course who is the master of coy. Outrageous coy! But coy nevertheless!
It was a wonderful unexpected gift on a Sunday afternoon as the sun set. We hugged and talked and drank. My heart was happy until I asked …
“What happened? You all look old.”
Yeah ...
I should have never said such a thing to such wonderful friends.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Book(s) of Life
All of my life I’ve been a voracious reader. As a kid there weren’t many books in our house but the Bible was there so I read it several times. There was also an encyclopedia set so I read it several times too. At some point my parents took pity on me reading the same things over and over so Mom started picking up “The Hardy Boys” series. I only read them once.
I found the library and discovered Graham Greene. God what I writer! It was with him that I developed the habit of reading an author’s entire catalogue once I discovered one. So I read every one of his books. Not in succession but I read him out and still do that if I like somebody.
Next came Hemingway and his goal to write the one true sentence. And to live the one true life! Everything about Hemingway influenced me …the way I write, live, lust and travel. “There’s no one true thing. It’s all true.” Ernest did it all and I want to do it all too.
In Seminary I overdosed on books. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “There is an old Puritan saying ‘ Sellyour bed and buy a book” to which I add, “’just make sure it’s a good book.” I sold everything I had to buy more books, hocking my High School ring, guitars, clothes, whatever.
And Seminary gave me Frederick Buechner my all-time favorite writer. Mixing religion and literature in ways similar to Graham Green, Buechner took religion much further. Green explored how tarnished religion is, Buechner saved it by exploring how blemished holiness is anyway.
It was at the end of my Louisville days that I started writing. My first book came out during the move from there to Tybee. And I discovered something about myself. I can’t write and read at the same time. Somewhere I learned that Hemingway couldn’t either so I felt ok about it.
I was in Daytona Beach when “The Society of Salty Saints” arrived. There is a photo somewhere of me sitting on the beach, brown and tan, grinning like a fool and holding it beside my face. Over the next decade the books poured out of me. Seven bookswere published in ten years. That’s a lot.
When I wasn’t writing I continued to read but I really lightened up. I’d drag my chair, cooler, Chelsea and a book to the beach most every day on Tybee. This time it was John McDonald introducing me to “Travis McGee” and Carl Hiaasen presenting “Skip Whiley and Skink”. I loved the outrageousness of the writing.
I wrote my last book “Tour of Homes” proving to myself that I can a big one. It’s big. Too big really, but it gives a fictional account of the first ten years of Union Mission. I don’t like the cover much but publishers choose those things
more than writers do. I like the book though.
Then something happened.
My work got big. I was spending too much time writinggrants, appeal letters and newsletter stories. I loved the work so I didn’t mind much but looking back Union Mission kidnapped my writing and reading like it eventually did a great many other things.
Those last years the only things that I read were studies, the stupid stuff Congress puts out and everything I could on
fundraising because if you’re not raising money you’re dying in the non-profit world which is all about stopping people from dying.
But if I wasn’t reading these other things, creativity was slipping away. And Union Mission gladly took it.
Then something else happened. I discovered blogging and Facebook. I started writing again. At first it was all business but then I started “freebasing” again. I was
writing about the things that were really happening to me … the ridiculous and the sublime … the humorous and the holy …the hurt and joy of living.
Jerry Rainey, the Board chair who chooses to remain anonymous, came to see me to why I was blogging about changing a flat tire in my drive way with Goddess licking my face. He demanded to know how that helped Union Mission?
I remember thinking of Hemingway’s line “It’s all true” before answering him. “Because it’s what happened Jerry.”
Then I left and this Sabbatical happened and I kept writing.
Last Friday night I was having dinner with Bob and Margaret Handleman and she and I started talking about Hemingway. She’d just finished a new novel on Hadley Richardson, Ernest’s first wife in Paris. The next day Bob brought me the book.
And a miracle happened.
For the first time in a couple of years, I’m reading again.
I’m also writing every day and will eventually get around to making them books again.
But it feels good to be back, reading the truths of others.
And writing my own.
I found the library and discovered Graham Greene. God what I writer! It was with him that I developed the habit of reading an author’s entire catalogue once I discovered one. So I read every one of his books. Not in succession but I read him out and still do that if I like somebody.
Next came Hemingway and his goal to write the one true sentence. And to live the one true life! Everything about Hemingway influenced me …the way I write, live, lust and travel. “There’s no one true thing. It’s all true.” Ernest did it all and I want to do it all too.
In Seminary I overdosed on books. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “There is an old Puritan saying ‘ Sellyour bed and buy a book” to which I add, “’just make sure it’s a good book.” I sold everything I had to buy more books, hocking my High School ring, guitars, clothes, whatever.
And Seminary gave me Frederick Buechner my all-time favorite writer. Mixing religion and literature in ways similar to Graham Green, Buechner took religion much further. Green explored how tarnished religion is, Buechner saved it by exploring how blemished holiness is anyway.
It was at the end of my Louisville days that I started writing. My first book came out during the move from there to Tybee. And I discovered something about myself. I can’t write and read at the same time. Somewhere I learned that Hemingway couldn’t either so I felt ok about it.
I was in Daytona Beach when “The Society of Salty Saints” arrived. There is a photo somewhere of me sitting on the beach, brown and tan, grinning like a fool and holding it beside my face. Over the next decade the books poured out of me. Seven bookswere published in ten years. That’s a lot.
When I wasn’t writing I continued to read but I really lightened up. I’d drag my chair, cooler, Chelsea and a book to the beach most every day on Tybee. This time it was John McDonald introducing me to “Travis McGee” and Carl Hiaasen presenting “Skip Whiley and Skink”. I loved the outrageousness of the writing.
I wrote my last book “Tour of Homes” proving to myself that I can a big one. It’s big. Too big really, but it gives a fictional account of the first ten years of Union Mission. I don’t like the cover much but publishers choose those things
more than writers do. I like the book though.
Then something happened.
My work got big. I was spending too much time writinggrants, appeal letters and newsletter stories. I loved the work so I didn’t mind much but looking back Union Mission kidnapped my writing and reading like it eventually did a great many other things.
Those last years the only things that I read were studies, the stupid stuff Congress puts out and everything I could on
fundraising because if you’re not raising money you’re dying in the non-profit world which is all about stopping people from dying.
But if I wasn’t reading these other things, creativity was slipping away. And Union Mission gladly took it.
Then something else happened. I discovered blogging and Facebook. I started writing again. At first it was all business but then I started “freebasing” again. I was
writing about the things that were really happening to me … the ridiculous and the sublime … the humorous and the holy …the hurt and joy of living.
Jerry Rainey, the Board chair who chooses to remain anonymous, came to see me to why I was blogging about changing a flat tire in my drive way with Goddess licking my face. He demanded to know how that helped Union Mission?
I remember thinking of Hemingway’s line “It’s all true” before answering him. “Because it’s what happened Jerry.”
Then I left and this Sabbatical happened and I kept writing.
Last Friday night I was having dinner with Bob and Margaret Handleman and she and I started talking about Hemingway. She’d just finished a new novel on Hadley Richardson, Ernest’s first wife in Paris. The next day Bob brought me the book.
And a miracle happened.
For the first time in a couple of years, I’m reading again.
I’m also writing every day and will eventually get around to making them books again.
But it feels good to be back, reading the truths of others.
And writing my own.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Future is Coming to me
I was standing holding my broken brief case on a crowded subway car in Chicago. A lot of things broke in my life over the past few years so why not the strap on my twenty year old brief case. Luckily Rebekah had a rolling case so I’d slid my stuffed defunct one on top of hers.
Every brand of humanity is jammed into the subway with us. My butt’s literally in the face of the Indian dude listening to his I-pod with his eyes closed. Jim Withers is standing beside me talking and our noses were almost touching. Black kids gyrat to hip-hop, an old man carrying a new rug takes up a lot of space and a group of Asian students are awed by everything.
It’s been a while since I’ve done urban.
It’s always been a constant in my life. Watching people dumpster diving looking for food … Homeless men sleeping on subway grates ... Women pushing grocery carts piled high with their “belongings” ... lines of people outside of soup kitchens … the musty smell of mildewed apartments … aggressive panhandlers … the smell of urine …
I’ve done urban and for the day I was doing it again.
It didn’t take me long to get my bearings straight, to remain focused on everything that was going on around and to keep my guard up. That was normal for so long.
For the past year though, it’s been island living … laid back and casual … clear blue skies … miles of white sand … pelicans … the pungent smell of the marsh (which is the smell of sex in the tropics) … ocean waves … flat seas …lush shades of green … and a sad little holy dock.
I was struck by the contrast as we were making our way from the offices of the BeCause Foundation on West Randolph Street back to O’Hare.
It had been a series of very successful meetings and I suddenly have more opportunities than I did before. I’d had conversations and made presentations with a group of doctors, philanthropists, lawyers, and a homeless Vietnam vet with no legs in a wheelchair (the guy is amazing riding it down an escalator).
Everything about everything had clicked.
The night before the meeting I could hardly sleep. I was excited about the possibilities and the work. The future is coming to me.
Last night I got home at midnight after leaving at six a.m. but was wired. I didn’t go to bed until one. After a few hours of hard sleep, I lay there again, hardly able to sleep because of excitement. The future is coming to me.
Unlike the past, I’m determined to find a better balance this time. Urban and island should be in equal proportions. Give and take should be identical. Ying should match yang.
Now I sit on the beloved back deck talking to Fran’s thousands of green about all of this. It’s early morning and I sit here waiting, full of anticipation, joyous, and content. Goddess has her head under my foot as I write. The wind blows salt air my way.
And I smile.
The future is coming to me.
Every brand of humanity is jammed into the subway with us. My butt’s literally in the face of the Indian dude listening to his I-pod with his eyes closed. Jim Withers is standing beside me talking and our noses were almost touching. Black kids gyrat to hip-hop, an old man carrying a new rug takes up a lot of space and a group of Asian students are awed by everything.
It’s been a while since I’ve done urban.
It’s always been a constant in my life. Watching people dumpster diving looking for food … Homeless men sleeping on subway grates ... Women pushing grocery carts piled high with their “belongings” ... lines of people outside of soup kitchens … the musty smell of mildewed apartments … aggressive panhandlers … the smell of urine …
I’ve done urban and for the day I was doing it again.
It didn’t take me long to get my bearings straight, to remain focused on everything that was going on around and to keep my guard up. That was normal for so long.
For the past year though, it’s been island living … laid back and casual … clear blue skies … miles of white sand … pelicans … the pungent smell of the marsh (which is the smell of sex in the tropics) … ocean waves … flat seas …lush shades of green … and a sad little holy dock.
I was struck by the contrast as we were making our way from the offices of the BeCause Foundation on West Randolph Street back to O’Hare.
It had been a series of very successful meetings and I suddenly have more opportunities than I did before. I’d had conversations and made presentations with a group of doctors, philanthropists, lawyers, and a homeless Vietnam vet with no legs in a wheelchair (the guy is amazing riding it down an escalator).
Everything about everything had clicked.
The night before the meeting I could hardly sleep. I was excited about the possibilities and the work. The future is coming to me.
Last night I got home at midnight after leaving at six a.m. but was wired. I didn’t go to bed until one. After a few hours of hard sleep, I lay there again, hardly able to sleep because of excitement. The future is coming to me.
Unlike the past, I’m determined to find a better balance this time. Urban and island should be in equal proportions. Give and take should be identical. Ying should match yang.
Now I sit on the beloved back deck talking to Fran’s thousands of green about all of this. It’s early morning and I sit here waiting, full of anticipation, joyous, and content. Goddess has her head under my foot as I write. The wind blows salt air my way.
And I smile.
The future is coming to me.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Moonset
Driving across the causeway through the marsh that connects Tybee Island to Wilmington Island eventually leading to Savannah, I watch a pink moon set. It is full and huge and the light pink color makes the dark craters more pronounced. The bottom barley touches the tree tops of the island and by the time I’ve driven the seven miles it has set completely.
“Dear me,” I said out loud to myself when I first got a glimpse of it rounding the curve just before the Lazaretto Creek bridge.
It put me in a pensive mood. At six a.m. I’m driving to travel to where new work is beginning. I’m excited and have been working for a few weeks now. Last night I had a hard time sleeping because this is the beginning of new things which is always exciting.
Watching the moon set as I drive away from Tybee I can’t help but appreciate the image. Tybee’s been my refuge for the past year as I lived through my “dark night of the soul” to use the words of St. John of the Cross.
Joni Mitchell puts it another way … “all romantics pass this way sometime.”
Rod Steward cuts to the chase … “ain’t love a bitch.”
The setting pink moon marks the ending of this time. It is celebratory and decorated for the occasion letting me know with no uncertainty that those days are no more.
Oh I still have the scars. I look at them and marvel at my survival. I touch my chest when special friends leave because while broken hearts can never be put back together quite the same, they can be put back together. When they do it makes you believe in miracles again. I tap my chest to marvel at love after death.
My mind has been racing with plans.
The past is done.
How in the hell did I get through it?
There are lots that I wouldn’t change for anyone and there are parts that I wouldn’t wish on Satan.
Dark nights of the soul are all about leaving the past I think. Rod’s right … it’s a bitch!
The sky grows baby blue after the pink moon with the dark crater scars drops behind Fran’s thousand shades of green.
The dark night is no more.
It has passed.
The baby blue sky envelopes me.
The sun is rising and I watch the birth of a new day.
I am aware of the birthing of a new me.
I think increasingly about the future. It is baby blue and orange and … some of the past makes its way through … red and black. It’s a diverse place that reaches to cities around the world. It is filled with songs. It has chocolate, is sticky and somehow I think that I’ll be in more hot water then than I’ve ever been before (no small feat!).
But it also remains rooted on an island. The ocean sings me awake and to sleep every day. Fran and the congregation of friends that she has assembled watch over me. Goddess waits for walks to the sad little holy dock. A beloved back deck that may as well have been an emergency room hospital bed throughout the dark nights is now a corporate office.
My I-phone buzzes. The first screw up of the day has occurred. All of the materials that I’d planned to pass out in today may not make it.
It’s ok.
I’ve been through worse.
This baby land blue that I’m driving through just me makes me smile.
I pray the first prayer of the day.
“Let’s go.”
“Dear me,” I said out loud to myself when I first got a glimpse of it rounding the curve just before the Lazaretto Creek bridge.
It put me in a pensive mood. At six a.m. I’m driving to travel to where new work is beginning. I’m excited and have been working for a few weeks now. Last night I had a hard time sleeping because this is the beginning of new things which is always exciting.
Watching the moon set as I drive away from Tybee I can’t help but appreciate the image. Tybee’s been my refuge for the past year as I lived through my “dark night of the soul” to use the words of St. John of the Cross.
Joni Mitchell puts it another way … “all romantics pass this way sometime.”
Rod Steward cuts to the chase … “ain’t love a bitch.”
The setting pink moon marks the ending of this time. It is celebratory and decorated for the occasion letting me know with no uncertainty that those days are no more.
Oh I still have the scars. I look at them and marvel at my survival. I touch my chest when special friends leave because while broken hearts can never be put back together quite the same, they can be put back together. When they do it makes you believe in miracles again. I tap my chest to marvel at love after death.
My mind has been racing with plans.
The past is done.
How in the hell did I get through it?
There are lots that I wouldn’t change for anyone and there are parts that I wouldn’t wish on Satan.
Dark nights of the soul are all about leaving the past I think. Rod’s right … it’s a bitch!
The sky grows baby blue after the pink moon with the dark crater scars drops behind Fran’s thousand shades of green.
The dark night is no more.
It has passed.
The baby blue sky envelopes me.
The sun is rising and I watch the birth of a new day.
I am aware of the birthing of a new me.
I think increasingly about the future. It is baby blue and orange and … some of the past makes its way through … red and black. It’s a diverse place that reaches to cities around the world. It is filled with songs. It has chocolate, is sticky and somehow I think that I’ll be in more hot water then than I’ve ever been before (no small feat!).
But it also remains rooted on an island. The ocean sings me awake and to sleep every day. Fran and the congregation of friends that she has assembled watch over me. Goddess waits for walks to the sad little holy dock. A beloved back deck that may as well have been an emergency room hospital bed throughout the dark nights is now a corporate office.
My I-phone buzzes. The first screw up of the day has occurred. All of the materials that I’d planned to pass out in today may not make it.
It’s ok.
I’ve been through worse.
This baby land blue that I’m driving through just me makes me smile.
I pray the first prayer of the day.
“Let’s go.”
Monday, May 16, 2011
In Celebration of Monday
A year ago whenever Monday arrived I would groan. After twenty plus years of carrying the problems of the world on my shoulders they had begun to sag. The happiness of the job was fleeting and increasingly rare. A sad weariness had taken root inside of me. I remember merely walking into Union Mission would make me tired.
While the needs of the homeless, uninsured, sick and addicted remained relentless every day, the challenge of meeting those needs had diminished for me. We’d built the nation’s most elaborate and integrated series of programs to meet those needs. Professionally there was little more to accomplish.
But every day, these people would come to see me, stop me in the hallway, call or write. They would spill out their problems asking if I could help. Most had lives that resembled train wrecks … addicted, sick with no insurance or job. Could I help them?
And the programs were in place to do so. I would patiently explain the steps they needed to take to work the programs through. They often needed encouragement and someone to express confidence in their ability because no one gave them these things.
A while back I wrote a book called “Out From Under the Rock” as a way of raising money for Union Mission which it did. Over 9000 copies were sold and the money paid for more services that people needed.
The book argues that there are increasing numbers of people who have little or no use for church but still need a minister in their lives. Someone to marry, bury and bless. Everybody needs encouragement. We need somebody to have confidence in us when we seem to have lost it in ourselves.
We need someone to give us hope.
These ideas were formed day after day, year after year, patiently listening to person after person ask me to help. The truth is that they already knew what they needed. They understood the programs and how to get in them. They believed that their lives would be greatly improved if they did these things for themselves.
What they didn’t have is someone saying that “I believe in you. You know how to do this. I think you can.”
While I did a lot of cool stuff at Union Mission and at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, this really was my most important function.
To look at people living shitty lives, who desperately wanted better, and to give them hope.
But it caught up with me and I couldn’t do anymore. I’d given everything that I had to give and of course they still needed more.
It isn’t rocket science to understand that something had to give. And what gave was me. I crumbled under the weight of it all.
Looking back at the things I wrote on Monday’s last year, the words are full of a weary sadness that underlines that I had nothing left. Yet the needs remained oppressive.
And when you’re a weakened state there are those who take advantage of you and you’re just too beat up to notice. Until they’ve done the things that they’re going to do … at your expense. Then you’re worse off than you were. And your own confidence is shaken in other people.
Last year, I was becoming more and more like my homeless, sick, addicted, hurting brothers and sisters. Love left. Hope faded. I crashed.
Today is different. It is Monday and I’ve been dying to get started. After sweet dreams I woke and lay in bed, staring at the silhouettes of Palm Trees outside of my bedroom windows. Choirs of birds were singing in celebration of the coming dawn. Adrenalin rushed through my veins and I welcomed … Monday.
After some photo shoots this morning, we’re assembling the things that I’ve been writing over the last several days for presentations in Chicago tomorrow. I’m pumped!
The homework has been done and I know, with no uncertainty that we’re going to blow the room away. Later this week, we’re meeting with the Press and making a lot of things public that we’ve been working on for the few months. Old skills have been polished. Confidence is flying high.
Over the past year there have been a handful of people who ministered to me. Most wouldn’t be caught dead in church (save Bar Church perhaps) but they encouraged and kindled hope. And I would be here without them.
I begin this day by whispering prayers of Thanksgiving for each of them, blowing them kisses towards the sea as I lay in my bed in what has become a time of morning prayers.
Then I leap with energy in celebration of Monday.
While the needs of the homeless, uninsured, sick and addicted remained relentless every day, the challenge of meeting those needs had diminished for me. We’d built the nation’s most elaborate and integrated series of programs to meet those needs. Professionally there was little more to accomplish.
But every day, these people would come to see me, stop me in the hallway, call or write. They would spill out their problems asking if I could help. Most had lives that resembled train wrecks … addicted, sick with no insurance or job. Could I help them?
And the programs were in place to do so. I would patiently explain the steps they needed to take to work the programs through. They often needed encouragement and someone to express confidence in their ability because no one gave them these things.
A while back I wrote a book called “Out From Under the Rock” as a way of raising money for Union Mission which it did. Over 9000 copies were sold and the money paid for more services that people needed.
The book argues that there are increasing numbers of people who have little or no use for church but still need a minister in their lives. Someone to marry, bury and bless. Everybody needs encouragement. We need somebody to have confidence in us when we seem to have lost it in ourselves.
We need someone to give us hope.
These ideas were formed day after day, year after year, patiently listening to person after person ask me to help. The truth is that they already knew what they needed. They understood the programs and how to get in them. They believed that their lives would be greatly improved if they did these things for themselves.
What they didn’t have is someone saying that “I believe in you. You know how to do this. I think you can.”
While I did a lot of cool stuff at Union Mission and at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, this really was my most important function.
To look at people living shitty lives, who desperately wanted better, and to give them hope.
But it caught up with me and I couldn’t do anymore. I’d given everything that I had to give and of course they still needed more.
It isn’t rocket science to understand that something had to give. And what gave was me. I crumbled under the weight of it all.
Looking back at the things I wrote on Monday’s last year, the words are full of a weary sadness that underlines that I had nothing left. Yet the needs remained oppressive.
And when you’re a weakened state there are those who take advantage of you and you’re just too beat up to notice. Until they’ve done the things that they’re going to do … at your expense. Then you’re worse off than you were. And your own confidence is shaken in other people.
Last year, I was becoming more and more like my homeless, sick, addicted, hurting brothers and sisters. Love left. Hope faded. I crashed.
Today is different. It is Monday and I’ve been dying to get started. After sweet dreams I woke and lay in bed, staring at the silhouettes of Palm Trees outside of my bedroom windows. Choirs of birds were singing in celebration of the coming dawn. Adrenalin rushed through my veins and I welcomed … Monday.
After some photo shoots this morning, we’re assembling the things that I’ve been writing over the last several days for presentations in Chicago tomorrow. I’m pumped!
The homework has been done and I know, with no uncertainty that we’re going to blow the room away. Later this week, we’re meeting with the Press and making a lot of things public that we’ve been working on for the few months. Old skills have been polished. Confidence is flying high.
Over the past year there have been a handful of people who ministered to me. Most wouldn’t be caught dead in church (save Bar Church perhaps) but they encouraged and kindled hope. And I would be here without them.
I begin this day by whispering prayers of Thanksgiving for each of them, blowing them kisses towards the sea as I lay in my bed in what has become a time of morning prayers.
Then I leap with energy in celebration of Monday.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
A Night on the Town
Last night I was out for a night on the town with the two girls that are staying at my house this weekend. We were at Bernie’s listening to Samuel Adams, Gordon and David play damn good live music. Sam kept taking breaks so that he could come over and talk to us.
Meaning he talked to them.
Sam’s forever telling me that whenever he sees me I’m with beautiful women. I must say that I do hang around a pretty decent crowd.
Anyway Sam was hitting on …er, I mean discussing theology with them while I people watched.
Then Gordon tapped me on the shoulder and wanted me to see his new CD. Speaking in his Slingblade voice he said, “Rev, check this out and tell me what you think?”
All of the songs were about waking up in bed with someone you do not know.
“If she’s beside you and you don’t know her Play Dead” was one.
“Baby be my Juliette and I’ll be your Romeo … later” was another.
I’m used to the way that Gordon thinks because he often ad libs when singing along with Samuel.
“Ladies and Gentlemens it is truly horrible and if you wake up and you’re wanted ‘Dead or Alive’” as the band launches into the Bon Jovi song.
Doing a Johnny Cash tune he sings, “I shot three men in Reno … they were extremely rude men … so I shot them.”
“Honey I’m cooking you breakfast tomorrow ‘Coffee and Visine.’”
Gordon is a real romantic.
My I-phone buzzes and it is Rebekah wanting to know why I’m not working. She’s working so she tells me that I should be working. I walk outside to explain that it is Saturday night and I’ve punched out. She tells me that is doesn’t matter because there are deadlines and a big presentation in Chicago next week.
I hold the phone at arm’s length and tell her that she’s breaking up on me and I’ll call her back.
“That your wife?” Bob asks as he passes me by. “I do the same thing with mine.”
I laugh and shake my head walking back to the courtyard where the band has cranked back up.
Sitting with my friends is Marjorie Young and a friend of hers. They had heard Gordon singing and thought a murder was taking place. Being good people they stopped to see if they could help. Realizing it was the band playing they saw Gordon was making the crowd happy with his cleaver lines.
“Don’t drink and drive,” he is explaining, “Drink and walk. Catch a Pedi-cab. Maybe drink and crawl. At least get yourself a designated walker.”
“Not Gordon,” Sam chimes in.
“No, no, no, not me,” Gordon agrees.
“Why aren’t you working?” Marjorie asks me.
I wonder how she knows Rebekah.
My I-phone buzzes and it is Rebekah calling me back. I contemplate letting Gordon answer for me.
“I was escorting one of my ex-wives by her neck,” he is explaining to the audience.
I turn around sitting between my friends. Sam is smiling at them and sticking out his tongue. They are giggling. I throw up just a little.
When they break again I tell my friends that I have to go let Goddess out. They decide to leave with me since both are married.
Once home they talk to one another. They are including me in the conversation but I am ignoring them. Well … I’m looking at them nodding my head up and down but I’m not listening to anything that they have to say.
I’m focused on the future.
When they leave.
Meaning he talked to them.
Sam’s forever telling me that whenever he sees me I’m with beautiful women. I must say that I do hang around a pretty decent crowd.
Anyway Sam was hitting on …er, I mean discussing theology with them while I people watched.
Then Gordon tapped me on the shoulder and wanted me to see his new CD. Speaking in his Slingblade voice he said, “Rev, check this out and tell me what you think?”
All of the songs were about waking up in bed with someone you do not know.
“If she’s beside you and you don’t know her Play Dead” was one.
“Baby be my Juliette and I’ll be your Romeo … later” was another.
I’m used to the way that Gordon thinks because he often ad libs when singing along with Samuel.
“Ladies and Gentlemens it is truly horrible and if you wake up and you’re wanted ‘Dead or Alive’” as the band launches into the Bon Jovi song.
Doing a Johnny Cash tune he sings, “I shot three men in Reno … they were extremely rude men … so I shot them.”
“Honey I’m cooking you breakfast tomorrow ‘Coffee and Visine.’”
Gordon is a real romantic.
My I-phone buzzes and it is Rebekah wanting to know why I’m not working. She’s working so she tells me that I should be working. I walk outside to explain that it is Saturday night and I’ve punched out. She tells me that is doesn’t matter because there are deadlines and a big presentation in Chicago next week.
I hold the phone at arm’s length and tell her that she’s breaking up on me and I’ll call her back.
“That your wife?” Bob asks as he passes me by. “I do the same thing with mine.”
I laugh and shake my head walking back to the courtyard where the band has cranked back up.
Sitting with my friends is Marjorie Young and a friend of hers. They had heard Gordon singing and thought a murder was taking place. Being good people they stopped to see if they could help. Realizing it was the band playing they saw Gordon was making the crowd happy with his cleaver lines.
“Don’t drink and drive,” he is explaining, “Drink and walk. Catch a Pedi-cab. Maybe drink and crawl. At least get yourself a designated walker.”
“Not Gordon,” Sam chimes in.
“No, no, no, not me,” Gordon agrees.
“Why aren’t you working?” Marjorie asks me.
I wonder how she knows Rebekah.
My I-phone buzzes and it is Rebekah calling me back. I contemplate letting Gordon answer for me.
“I was escorting one of my ex-wives by her neck,” he is explaining to the audience.
I turn around sitting between my friends. Sam is smiling at them and sticking out his tongue. They are giggling. I throw up just a little.
When they break again I tell my friends that I have to go let Goddess out. They decide to leave with me since both are married.
Once home they talk to one another. They are including me in the conversation but I am ignoring them. Well … I’m looking at them nodding my head up and down but I’m not listening to anything that they have to say.
I’m focused on the future.
When they leave.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Cabana Boy
At 6:40 this morning I was in a dead sleep when she stuck her face in my face asking “Aren’t you taking me to the Breakfast Club”?
My eyes cracked open … barely.
The first conscious thought of the day formed in my brain … “Shit”!
She was dressed and ready to go.
I was under the covers continuing to celebrate the wonderfulness of a great night. I’d fallen asleep after 3:00 am with my I-phone on my chest.
Goddess was in her customary position with her head in the bed room and her body and her butt in the living room to protect me from whatever comes to harms me in the middle of the night.
She failed miserably.
The company staying with me are excited to be at the beach and are ready to go. Last night I’d taken them to Tybee’s combat zone breezing through Bernie’s, Doc’s and the Rock House. This was after dinner at Stingrays.
I have been a good host.
I do not deserve this.
She leaves and I drag myself out of bed looking at Goddess.
“Bitch,” I say to her.
Her golden eyes stare at me full of sadness. Then she flips over on her back so that I’ll rub her belly.
“Hell no,” I say falling into the shower.
Afterwards I dress and the company is excited and ready to do. I suddenly understand the death penalty.
We stumble into the Breakfast Club.
“Big Night” Johnny O asks.
“Oh yeah,” I answer. He gets it and shuts up. Johnny O and I understand one another.
I nurse the coffee, making passionate love to it, lingering over the memory, tantalized over the smell and the warmth of the moment.
She won’t shut up.
The entire Breakfast Club staff takes a step backwards.
Johnny O leaves.
Everyone standing in line waiting to get into the Breakfast Club decide to have breakfast at the Sunrise instead.
I stand and walk to the back and stand next to Franklin, who is brown.
He looks at me as though he is a serial killer and asks without using a single word, “What’s wrong”?
I nod my head towards my company.
He turns, looks and turns his head back before nodding his head with sympathetic eyes.
With no words being spoken, he completely understands everything.
He picks up a knife and looks at me with hope in his eyes.
I shake my head from side to side.
He sadly looks down.
I return to my seat with a heavy sigh.
A new day is beginning. On three hours sleep I am expected to be a “Cabana Boy” setting up a tent on the beach, running to get them drinks, and chasing the clouds away if they remain over the sun. But if it’s too hot I’m expected to conjure up a breeze at just the right time.
I process all of this information.
Then I wish it was still last night.
My eyes cracked open … barely.
The first conscious thought of the day formed in my brain … “Shit”!
She was dressed and ready to go.
I was under the covers continuing to celebrate the wonderfulness of a great night. I’d fallen asleep after 3:00 am with my I-phone on my chest.
Goddess was in her customary position with her head in the bed room and her body and her butt in the living room to protect me from whatever comes to harms me in the middle of the night.
She failed miserably.
The company staying with me are excited to be at the beach and are ready to go. Last night I’d taken them to Tybee’s combat zone breezing through Bernie’s, Doc’s and the Rock House. This was after dinner at Stingrays.
I have been a good host.
I do not deserve this.
She leaves and I drag myself out of bed looking at Goddess.
“Bitch,” I say to her.
Her golden eyes stare at me full of sadness. Then she flips over on her back so that I’ll rub her belly.
“Hell no,” I say falling into the shower.
Afterwards I dress and the company is excited and ready to do. I suddenly understand the death penalty.
We stumble into the Breakfast Club.
“Big Night” Johnny O asks.
“Oh yeah,” I answer. He gets it and shuts up. Johnny O and I understand one another.
I nurse the coffee, making passionate love to it, lingering over the memory, tantalized over the smell and the warmth of the moment.
She won’t shut up.
The entire Breakfast Club staff takes a step backwards.
Johnny O leaves.
Everyone standing in line waiting to get into the Breakfast Club decide to have breakfast at the Sunrise instead.
I stand and walk to the back and stand next to Franklin, who is brown.
He looks at me as though he is a serial killer and asks without using a single word, “What’s wrong”?
I nod my head towards my company.
He turns, looks and turns his head back before nodding his head with sympathetic eyes.
With no words being spoken, he completely understands everything.
He picks up a knife and looks at me with hope in his eyes.
I shake my head from side to side.
He sadly looks down.
I return to my seat with a heavy sigh.
A new day is beginning. On three hours sleep I am expected to be a “Cabana Boy” setting up a tent on the beach, running to get them drinks, and chasing the clouds away if they remain over the sun. But if it’s too hot I’m expected to conjure up a breeze at just the right time.
I process all of this information.
Then I wish it was still last night.
The Next Chapter
I was talking to Frank Stanton, former Union Mission Board member, partner in the development of the Magdalene Project, Savannah’s first shelter for homeless women and children, and the person who coined the title of my book “Partners In Grace”. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a year. I remember him walking into my office right after I’d hired Frances Carter. She walked out and he walked in.
“Hey Parson,” he said shaking my hand. Frank’s called me Parson since we met over two decades ago when he’d ask me to speak at his Rotary Club. I had a long pony tail at the time and showed up wearing jeans with a coat and tie (I was a pioneer in the Kroger Bag Boy look!).
“Are you Frank?” I asked the gentleman obviously looking for somebody he didn’t know.
He nodded and I introduced myself. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re a minister?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
He introduced me and I gave the speech. Afterwards Franks purchased a copy of my first book “The Society of Salty Saints.” We said goodbye and I thought that was that.
The next afternoon Frank burst into my office. “Who wrote this book?” he asked holding the book.
“Um Frank … look at the cover. That’s my name on it. And everybody thinks my name is spelt wrong so it must be mine.”
“There is no way in hell that you wrote these prayers,” Frank insisted.
“OK, you got me!” I confessed. “I broke into a vault in the Vatican and stole them.”
From that day on, Frank and I have been friends. I’d called him asking his advice on things including what my presence in Savannah should be moving forward. Aside from serving on the Step Up Board of Directors the only other thing I’ve done is talk to my friend Floyd Adams who called wanting to know what I thought about him running for Mayor again. (“Floyd, not yes but HELL YES!” is what I said.)
Now living in Augusta but deeply rooted in Savannah Frank and I talked for an hour. We talked about people, things we’d done and plans for the future.
In mid-career, Frank walked away from a comfortable job at an oil company. He cashed in his retirement, life insurance, and took loans out on everything he had to start his own company. In no time, former co-workers were asking him for a job.
“I don’t have a company yet,” he explained to them.
“We don’t care,” each responded.
He told them that they would make less money, have no fringe benefits yet and would work long hours initially. He also promised that they would have fun.
Every one of them quit their jobs to work for Frank.
Within a year they had the fringe benefits. Within two years they had surprised their previous salaries. Several years later he sold the company to a British Petroleum Conglomerate in a multi-million deal. He also signed a contract to continue running the company has he had been with the same staff. That lasted for another 8 years then Frank walked away. Each of his employees did too. Everyone could afford to.
“It’s humbling when people believe in you like that,” he told me on the phone. “It makes you work harder because you don’t want to let them down.”
Frank always blows me away and he was doing it again telling me this story.
“Let me tell you something Parson,” he concluded. “A lot of people believe in you. Everybody understood that you were finished with Union Mission. You hung around a little too long is all. You got some bad advice from people you believed in. But it all worked out. You needed a break.”
I didn’t say anything as I nodded my head in agreement standing on my beloved back deck.
“Parson?”
“Yeah Frank.”
“We’ve all just been waiting … glad you’re back,” he concluded before telling me bye and hanging up.
A John Lennon song is gifted to me as I think about Franks words.
“There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed … some forever, not for better … In my life, I loved them all …”
And I do. But I get Frank’s point. The things that I’ve loved in the past are gone. They’re mostly really good memories.
But I’m gonna love this next chapter more!
“Hey Parson,” he said shaking my hand. Frank’s called me Parson since we met over two decades ago when he’d ask me to speak at his Rotary Club. I had a long pony tail at the time and showed up wearing jeans with a coat and tie (I was a pioneer in the Kroger Bag Boy look!).
“Are you Frank?” I asked the gentleman obviously looking for somebody he didn’t know.
He nodded and I introduced myself. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re a minister?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
He introduced me and I gave the speech. Afterwards Franks purchased a copy of my first book “The Society of Salty Saints.” We said goodbye and I thought that was that.
The next afternoon Frank burst into my office. “Who wrote this book?” he asked holding the book.
“Um Frank … look at the cover. That’s my name on it. And everybody thinks my name is spelt wrong so it must be mine.”
“There is no way in hell that you wrote these prayers,” Frank insisted.
“OK, you got me!” I confessed. “I broke into a vault in the Vatican and stole them.”
From that day on, Frank and I have been friends. I’d called him asking his advice on things including what my presence in Savannah should be moving forward. Aside from serving on the Step Up Board of Directors the only other thing I’ve done is talk to my friend Floyd Adams who called wanting to know what I thought about him running for Mayor again. (“Floyd, not yes but HELL YES!” is what I said.)
Now living in Augusta but deeply rooted in Savannah Frank and I talked for an hour. We talked about people, things we’d done and plans for the future.
In mid-career, Frank walked away from a comfortable job at an oil company. He cashed in his retirement, life insurance, and took loans out on everything he had to start his own company. In no time, former co-workers were asking him for a job.
“I don’t have a company yet,” he explained to them.
“We don’t care,” each responded.
He told them that they would make less money, have no fringe benefits yet and would work long hours initially. He also promised that they would have fun.
Every one of them quit their jobs to work for Frank.
Within a year they had the fringe benefits. Within two years they had surprised their previous salaries. Several years later he sold the company to a British Petroleum Conglomerate in a multi-million deal. He also signed a contract to continue running the company has he had been with the same staff. That lasted for another 8 years then Frank walked away. Each of his employees did too. Everyone could afford to.
“It’s humbling when people believe in you like that,” he told me on the phone. “It makes you work harder because you don’t want to let them down.”
Frank always blows me away and he was doing it again telling me this story.
“Let me tell you something Parson,” he concluded. “A lot of people believe in you. Everybody understood that you were finished with Union Mission. You hung around a little too long is all. You got some bad advice from people you believed in. But it all worked out. You needed a break.”
I didn’t say anything as I nodded my head in agreement standing on my beloved back deck.
“Parson?”
“Yeah Frank.”
“We’ve all just been waiting … glad you’re back,” he concluded before telling me bye and hanging up.
A John Lennon song is gifted to me as I think about Franks words.
“There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed … some forever, not for better … In my life, I loved them all …”
And I do. But I get Frank’s point. The things that I’ve loved in the past are gone. They’re mostly really good memories.
But I’m gonna love this next chapter more!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
About Face
It was a wonderful start to a wonderful day! The morning was full of sweet surprises and comforts. It was hard to leave the island for a lunch meeting in town with one of the people that I used to work with at Union Mission. That was pleasant enough as I hadn’t seen her in a year and we’d worked together for more than a decade.
Then I returned to the island and the day just exploded. It was as though I was happily dancing along when someone screams, “ABOUT FACE!” The sweetness of the morning became a depressed and gloomy afternoon. As hard as I tried I just couldn’t recapture the promises of the morning.
As the sun started to set I grabbed Goddess and went for a walk throwing prayers to the sky that the evening and tomorrow will be better. God maintained her customary silence. But it was a beautiful sunset over the marsh which is turning greener every day. The choirs of mussels were in full song.
I am not celebrating it as I have been of late. I’m off kilter, out of step with myself.
“This was unexpected, what do we do now?” Mary Magdalene asks in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ after Jesus is arrested and carted off leaving his followers dazed and confused at the sudden turn of events. “Could we start again please?”
Goddess leads me along the Back River as I’m lost in thought pondering this pilgrimage that I’ve been on for the past year. Life has become a celebration again. The little boy inside of me woke up and playfulness is back. The once extinguished fire in my belly burns again. I can taste the future that I want.
I remember all of the things I’ve done to get here. It’s been a difficult and bumpy journey. A year and a half ago I wanted to occupy an empty tomb and roll the stone over its entrance myself. Thankfully there were others who didn’t think this was the greatest idea. So they intervened and these tiny beams of light shone into my dark world.
After that, this haphazard series of events commenced. Stuff started making its way to me. Invitations to travel across the country led to plane tickets and trips. Old friends came back from the dead. The empty tomb that I was living in began to fill with life. Laughter erupted.
It didn’t happen all at once.
It was like a Ferris wheel ride. I started at the bottom, going up … then down again. Then up … only to stop at the top and marvel at how far I’ve come. Then slide backwards a little bit … then up over the top again, before all of the way down and then starting all over. During parts of it you scream as your throat drops into your stomach and at other times you smile in wonder and contentment.
That’s what this journey has been like I think as Goddess leads me along the Back River. I conclude that this is what life is really like.
“I’ve been on bottom and I’ve been on top,” sings Dan Fogelberg, “but mostly I’ve lived in-between. Where do you go when you get to the end of your dreams?”
I know the answer.
To new dreams ... different ones ... new loves … to a new you …
That which was once old is made new … my house … my work … my circle of friends … my kids … my love … ME!
Goddess leads me home. The day has been a Ferris wheel climbing to the top then dropping me to the bottom. Standing on the beloved back deck I stare at the stars up in the sky.
Up there!
“I touched you this morning,” I say out loud, “before dropping back a bit. But I’ll be back. And this time I’m grabbing hold and not letting go.”
The stars are silent in response.
I laugh. “Fine,” I tell them. “But you’ve been warned.”
Then I returned to the island and the day just exploded. It was as though I was happily dancing along when someone screams, “ABOUT FACE!” The sweetness of the morning became a depressed and gloomy afternoon. As hard as I tried I just couldn’t recapture the promises of the morning.
As the sun started to set I grabbed Goddess and went for a walk throwing prayers to the sky that the evening and tomorrow will be better. God maintained her customary silence. But it was a beautiful sunset over the marsh which is turning greener every day. The choirs of mussels were in full song.
I am not celebrating it as I have been of late. I’m off kilter, out of step with myself.
“This was unexpected, what do we do now?” Mary Magdalene asks in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ after Jesus is arrested and carted off leaving his followers dazed and confused at the sudden turn of events. “Could we start again please?”
Goddess leads me along the Back River as I’m lost in thought pondering this pilgrimage that I’ve been on for the past year. Life has become a celebration again. The little boy inside of me woke up and playfulness is back. The once extinguished fire in my belly burns again. I can taste the future that I want.
I remember all of the things I’ve done to get here. It’s been a difficult and bumpy journey. A year and a half ago I wanted to occupy an empty tomb and roll the stone over its entrance myself. Thankfully there were others who didn’t think this was the greatest idea. So they intervened and these tiny beams of light shone into my dark world.
After that, this haphazard series of events commenced. Stuff started making its way to me. Invitations to travel across the country led to plane tickets and trips. Old friends came back from the dead. The empty tomb that I was living in began to fill with life. Laughter erupted.
It didn’t happen all at once.
It was like a Ferris wheel ride. I started at the bottom, going up … then down again. Then up … only to stop at the top and marvel at how far I’ve come. Then slide backwards a little bit … then up over the top again, before all of the way down and then starting all over. During parts of it you scream as your throat drops into your stomach and at other times you smile in wonder and contentment.
That’s what this journey has been like I think as Goddess leads me along the Back River. I conclude that this is what life is really like.
“I’ve been on bottom and I’ve been on top,” sings Dan Fogelberg, “but mostly I’ve lived in-between. Where do you go when you get to the end of your dreams?”
I know the answer.
To new dreams ... different ones ... new loves … to a new you …
That which was once old is made new … my house … my work … my circle of friends … my kids … my love … ME!
Goddess leads me home. The day has been a Ferris wheel climbing to the top then dropping me to the bottom. Standing on the beloved back deck I stare at the stars up in the sky.
Up there!
“I touched you this morning,” I say out loud, “before dropping back a bit. But I’ll be back. And this time I’m grabbing hold and not letting go.”
The stars are silent in response.
I laugh. “Fine,” I tell them. “But you’ve been warned.”
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Back to the Cesspool
Dr. Cathy Dunham is sitting in her Washington D. C. office talking on the phone to me who am on my back deck. Though she lives in Boston, she commutes to the nation’s Capitol where she is working to provide oral health care to homeless children.
A couple of years ago twelve year old Deamonte Driver had an abscessed molar that was untreated because he didn’t have insurance. The infection spread to his brain and killed him. The family’s Medicaid coverage had lapsed because enrollment paperwork had been sent to the wrong address. The Mother tried hard to get her son’s tooth treated by taking him to the Hospital Emergency room.
Doctors operated twice and Deamonte spent several weeks in rehabilitation which is where he died. A relative minor dental procedure could have prevented all of this but most dentists don’t treat Medicaid patients. So the hospital ate the cost of treating an emergency which is one of the reasons health care cost so much.
Cathy is working to fix this.
I first met her eleven years ago when she visited Savannah to inspect our work at Union Mission. Representing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cathy was the founder of their “Community Health Leader” program; an effort to creative health care programs. She also runs the Access Project for Brandeis University out of her back pocket.
We had started the J. C. Lewis Health Center providing both health and oral health care to homeless people.
Cathy liked what she saw and so I was given an award at the National Press Club in D.C. along with nine other people who were really doing creative work (most of us remain very close friends). Part of the award was $100,000 in cash which I gave to Union Mission.
Now she is asking me if I know the story of Deamonte.
“I do,” I replied. “I was in D.C. when it happened. I remember the story in the Washington Post.”
“When are you coming back up here?” she asked.
“Aw I don’t know Cathy,” I stammered. The last place I want to return to these days is Washington D. C. I’ve had my fill of politicians and the “Baskin-Robbins” approach to doing business. You go to Congress, take a number, ask them to help fix something, have to keep returning and asking them, until one day the Congressman becomes convinced that it’s an idea that she or he can champion.
Then they fix the problem, or most often fix some of the problem.
Then you take a new number and go to the back of the line and start all over. That really is how most things happen in Washington!
“You need to come,” she scolded.
Damn! Back into the cesspool of politics?
Then again, I’d do anything for Cathy. She actually did a lot of things to make Savannah a better place. In addition to helping funnel well over half-a-million dollars in funding, she visited often, typically visiting the hospitals to solidify their support of our efforts. She also promoted our work nationally.
So I owe her. Actually, all of Savannah owes her. They just don’t know that they do.
“Micheal,” she said in her lilting, New England accent that always has a hint of laughter behind it, “seriously you could help with all of this. You are really good at this stuff.”
Damn! I’d called her asking for a favor. How did this happen? Then again … she’s Cathy Dunham for a reason.
“OK,” I sheepishly say.
“Perfect!” she laughs.
So now the nation’s Capitol is in my future again.
Dammit!
Then again … I’ve had my break. There is lots to do. Before other little boys and girls die for stupid reasons like money, Dentist profiling, and lack of access to the best health care system in the world.
A couple of years ago twelve year old Deamonte Driver had an abscessed molar that was untreated because he didn’t have insurance. The infection spread to his brain and killed him. The family’s Medicaid coverage had lapsed because enrollment paperwork had been sent to the wrong address. The Mother tried hard to get her son’s tooth treated by taking him to the Hospital Emergency room.
Doctors operated twice and Deamonte spent several weeks in rehabilitation which is where he died. A relative minor dental procedure could have prevented all of this but most dentists don’t treat Medicaid patients. So the hospital ate the cost of treating an emergency which is one of the reasons health care cost so much.
Cathy is working to fix this.
I first met her eleven years ago when she visited Savannah to inspect our work at Union Mission. Representing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cathy was the founder of their “Community Health Leader” program; an effort to creative health care programs. She also runs the Access Project for Brandeis University out of her back pocket.
We had started the J. C. Lewis Health Center providing both health and oral health care to homeless people.
Cathy liked what she saw and so I was given an award at the National Press Club in D.C. along with nine other people who were really doing creative work (most of us remain very close friends). Part of the award was $100,000 in cash which I gave to Union Mission.
Now she is asking me if I know the story of Deamonte.
“I do,” I replied. “I was in D.C. when it happened. I remember the story in the Washington Post.”
“When are you coming back up here?” she asked.
“Aw I don’t know Cathy,” I stammered. The last place I want to return to these days is Washington D. C. I’ve had my fill of politicians and the “Baskin-Robbins” approach to doing business. You go to Congress, take a number, ask them to help fix something, have to keep returning and asking them, until one day the Congressman becomes convinced that it’s an idea that she or he can champion.
Then they fix the problem, or most often fix some of the problem.
Then you take a new number and go to the back of the line and start all over. That really is how most things happen in Washington!
“You need to come,” she scolded.
Damn! Back into the cesspool of politics?
Then again, I’d do anything for Cathy. She actually did a lot of things to make Savannah a better place. In addition to helping funnel well over half-a-million dollars in funding, she visited often, typically visiting the hospitals to solidify their support of our efforts. She also promoted our work nationally.
So I owe her. Actually, all of Savannah owes her. They just don’t know that they do.
“Micheal,” she said in her lilting, New England accent that always has a hint of laughter behind it, “seriously you could help with all of this. You are really good at this stuff.”
Damn! I’d called her asking for a favor. How did this happen? Then again … she’s Cathy Dunham for a reason.
“OK,” I sheepishly say.
“Perfect!” she laughs.
So now the nation’s Capitol is in my future again.
Dammit!
Then again … I’ve had my break. There is lots to do. Before other little boys and girls die for stupid reasons like money, Dentist profiling, and lack of access to the best health care system in the world.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Life Without A Net
Sometimes you wonder how you got to where you are. The things that you’d planned didn’t quite work out like you thought they would. People who said that they would be there for you weren’t. Others promised to do things for you and didn’t. Still others proved to be just wanting things from you and taking without giving back. And sometimes you let yourself down too by not fulfilling your potential.
After my run I kick my shoes off and wade into the ocean; salty sweat dripping into the salty sea. Salt preserves things. It adds spice and flavor. It enriches. I baptize myself in holy ritual of preservation.
I’m still alive after multiple crucifixions. I have no idea how that happens. It must be God. Sure as hell wasn’t me.
A huge yellow sun bathes me in light. The sky is a brilliant deep blue. Diamonds dance on the water. Cargo ships are in the distance hauling for the other side of the world. There is no one else on the beach. In the midst of God’s grand Cathedral, I feel small.
“How did I get here?” I ask God out loud.
She chooses to not answer in kind. Rather God just lets the truth of things speak for itself. I am standing with my feet in the ocean on an island that I love surrounded by a small group of people who love me fiercely. I’m living life without a safety net! It fell apart a year or so ago.
As bad as the bad days have been (and they were horrible) the sun continued to rise, the ocean kissed the shore every morning, and the people who really love me did (though I’m still mystified at exactly who they are and who they’re not).
I have this habit of slapping the top of the water and splashing it in a particular direction. I’m pretty good at it and can make huge splashes or very tight, focused ones. Absentmindedly, I start slapping the water. A flock of pelicans fly in V formation overhead.
Yesterday was a day full of work at two different levels. Most of the daylight hours were spent figuring out how to make money in a way that is self-fulfilling, rewarding and honors God. Luckily I have these partners who lost their minds and decided to do this with me. So we spent the morning together in my kitchen working on things. Then in the afternoon one stayed and we kept working until the phone rang and it was time to work on personal things.
When the call came late afternoon, I stopped the professional work to commence on the personal. One of the things I’ve learned is how these can really get out of whack. The professional will take everything if you let it. It rapes and keeps raping until there’s nothing left to rape.
So when the call came I immediately withdrew to the Beloved Back Deck in the shade of Fran’s thousand shades of green and focused all of my energy on who I was talking to. Rebekah was still inside working and finally figured out that I’d clocked out for the day. She blew me a kiss and left. I waved and remained intent in the phone conversation.
When I hung up, I propped my feet on the railing and pondered things. We rush through daily interactions and meaningful conversations without giving them proper focus. A friend of mine prepares for conversations by making notes of things and feeling left from previous talks and prepares for the next interaction. I respect that.
My I-phone buzzes and it is a friend from Princeton, New Jersey. Ted is retired from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I’d emailed him earlier asking for a favor. He wrote, “You’re not going to believe this but I was having lunch today at the Foundation and was asking about you. Then I get home and here you are! I’ll call soon.”
Hmmm … serendipity?
Then the night was filled with walks, talks, and digging through the events, false starts, stupid utterings and lucky breaks that got me to this moment.
I think about these things with my feet in the ocean, slapping the water, watching ships sail away.
While there is a lot that I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemies, everything that I’ve lived through has just been preparing me for this moment. I raise my hand out of the water and stand straight.
“OK God,” I say out loud. “I got it. It is what it is. Thanks.”
Then I turn and pick up my shoes from the sand and walk towards home to live this day … that gift from God to be lived.
After my run I kick my shoes off and wade into the ocean; salty sweat dripping into the salty sea. Salt preserves things. It adds spice and flavor. It enriches. I baptize myself in holy ritual of preservation.
I’m still alive after multiple crucifixions. I have no idea how that happens. It must be God. Sure as hell wasn’t me.
A huge yellow sun bathes me in light. The sky is a brilliant deep blue. Diamonds dance on the water. Cargo ships are in the distance hauling for the other side of the world. There is no one else on the beach. In the midst of God’s grand Cathedral, I feel small.
“How did I get here?” I ask God out loud.
She chooses to not answer in kind. Rather God just lets the truth of things speak for itself. I am standing with my feet in the ocean on an island that I love surrounded by a small group of people who love me fiercely. I’m living life without a safety net! It fell apart a year or so ago.
As bad as the bad days have been (and they were horrible) the sun continued to rise, the ocean kissed the shore every morning, and the people who really love me did (though I’m still mystified at exactly who they are and who they’re not).
I have this habit of slapping the top of the water and splashing it in a particular direction. I’m pretty good at it and can make huge splashes or very tight, focused ones. Absentmindedly, I start slapping the water. A flock of pelicans fly in V formation overhead.
Yesterday was a day full of work at two different levels. Most of the daylight hours were spent figuring out how to make money in a way that is self-fulfilling, rewarding and honors God. Luckily I have these partners who lost their minds and decided to do this with me. So we spent the morning together in my kitchen working on things. Then in the afternoon one stayed and we kept working until the phone rang and it was time to work on personal things.
When the call came late afternoon, I stopped the professional work to commence on the personal. One of the things I’ve learned is how these can really get out of whack. The professional will take everything if you let it. It rapes and keeps raping until there’s nothing left to rape.
So when the call came I immediately withdrew to the Beloved Back Deck in the shade of Fran’s thousand shades of green and focused all of my energy on who I was talking to. Rebekah was still inside working and finally figured out that I’d clocked out for the day. She blew me a kiss and left. I waved and remained intent in the phone conversation.
When I hung up, I propped my feet on the railing and pondered things. We rush through daily interactions and meaningful conversations without giving them proper focus. A friend of mine prepares for conversations by making notes of things and feeling left from previous talks and prepares for the next interaction. I respect that.
My I-phone buzzes and it is a friend from Princeton, New Jersey. Ted is retired from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I’d emailed him earlier asking for a favor. He wrote, “You’re not going to believe this but I was having lunch today at the Foundation and was asking about you. Then I get home and here you are! I’ll call soon.”
Hmmm … serendipity?
Then the night was filled with walks, talks, and digging through the events, false starts, stupid utterings and lucky breaks that got me to this moment.
I think about these things with my feet in the ocean, slapping the water, watching ships sail away.
While there is a lot that I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemies, everything that I’ve lived through has just been preparing me for this moment. I raise my hand out of the water and stand straight.
“OK God,” I say out loud. “I got it. It is what it is. Thanks.”
Then I turn and pick up my shoes from the sand and walk towards home to live this day … that gift from God to be lived.
Monday, May 9, 2011
I'm Not Dead Yet
At 5:41 this morning a bird assumed its normal position in the tree outside of my bedroom window. I imagined she settled herself in on the right branch, probably looked around, then sucked in air and burst into song. For the next 19 minutes I lay there listening to her. It was impossible not to.
It had been a great weekend! Friday was just this fantastic day of wonderment. I worked most of Saturday but went to a great beach party that night surrounded by friends who love me and Randy “Hatman” Smith playing live music on a third floor porch overlooking the ocean. Sunday was Bar Church, conversations with my Mom, and the most delightful afternoon visit. I hadn’t enjoyed myself so consistently for so long in … I don’t remember.
There is lots of work to do this week. I have a staff meeting first thing then there is a public relations plan to finish, scheduled conference calls, eight different trips to plan across the United States and a Board meeting that I’m staffing in Chicago next week. I also have a book to edit (actually more than one), devotions to write which will be recorded and I’ve agreed to serve on another Board of Directors and now I’m being asked to Chair it.
Suddenly I’m in need of office supplies.
So when the bird burst into her morning song, all of these things exploded in my mind at the same time!
So I prioritized!
First I lay there and remembered a terrific weekend and said prayers of thanksgiving for the wonderful things that now occupy my life. I did that for 15 of the 19 minutes. I’ve gotten to where this is how I start every day. That bird is my companion. She shows up at roughly the same time and sings me awake. I lay there and remember the good things and celebrate them. She sings throughout this celebration.
Then I move on to everything else in the last few minutes before getting up. Today I reminded myself of the things that I want to accomplish in this staff meeting and then assigned myself things to get done on certain days this week.
Tomorrow is a conference call with Boston. Friday is lunch with my dear friend Stacy downtown. I left a message for Skip last night because I’d like to see him again. A few others from my Union Mission days are also wanting to hook up. I think these things as I stumble to the shower.
Goddess opens her eyes as I do so though she doesn’t move. Half of her body is in the living room and half in our bedroom. She’s making sure that I’m safe from hurt.
In the shower my friend Mary Ann pops into my head. We had lunch together last week and she has this way of saying things that immediately snap things into perspective.
So we’re sitting there laughing and catching one another up. She is chiding me because I’ve basically dropped out of sight for a year. I tell her about the Sabbatical, what it’s like to heal and from what, a Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous, the work I’m now doing and what it’s like to run into people who used to want everything from you but now when they see me, they’re stunned.
“Shouldn’t you be dead?” is the message they convey in their eyes and mannerisms.
Mary Ann burst into laughter which in turn makes me laugh.
“I’m not dead yet,” we quote Monty Python at the same time.
Our food comes. We grow quiet for a minute.
“You know Micheal,” she thoughtfully says. “You’ve done your office time. In Louisville and at Union Mission you took an office and filled it with creativity birthing all of these new things that no one had ever done before. The thousands of lives that you impacted is just staggering. But you know what?”
“What?” I asked with a mouth full of salad soaked in Ranch dressing.
“You’ve outgrown office.”
Swallowing and putting my fork down at the same time, I looked at her. What?” I repeated.
“You had nothing else to accomplish in an office,” she kept going, picking at her chicken salad but focused on the things she was telling me. “You outgrew office.”
I can’t believe what she’s saying.
“There was nothing more to accomplish in one. You look at the people who are doing the most interesting things. The ones creating and making the world better. They don’t have an office. They do it in their garage, mountain retreats or boats.”
I just sat there.
“People who have offices just worry about one thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Corners with more windows,” she laughed.
So I clean the pollen on the table and chairs under the umbrella on the Beloved Back deck getting it ready for staff meeting.
It’s time to create.
It had been a great weekend! Friday was just this fantastic day of wonderment. I worked most of Saturday but went to a great beach party that night surrounded by friends who love me and Randy “Hatman” Smith playing live music on a third floor porch overlooking the ocean. Sunday was Bar Church, conversations with my Mom, and the most delightful afternoon visit. I hadn’t enjoyed myself so consistently for so long in … I don’t remember.
There is lots of work to do this week. I have a staff meeting first thing then there is a public relations plan to finish, scheduled conference calls, eight different trips to plan across the United States and a Board meeting that I’m staffing in Chicago next week. I also have a book to edit (actually more than one), devotions to write which will be recorded and I’ve agreed to serve on another Board of Directors and now I’m being asked to Chair it.
Suddenly I’m in need of office supplies.
So when the bird burst into her morning song, all of these things exploded in my mind at the same time!
So I prioritized!
First I lay there and remembered a terrific weekend and said prayers of thanksgiving for the wonderful things that now occupy my life. I did that for 15 of the 19 minutes. I’ve gotten to where this is how I start every day. That bird is my companion. She shows up at roughly the same time and sings me awake. I lay there and remember the good things and celebrate them. She sings throughout this celebration.
Then I move on to everything else in the last few minutes before getting up. Today I reminded myself of the things that I want to accomplish in this staff meeting and then assigned myself things to get done on certain days this week.
Tomorrow is a conference call with Boston. Friday is lunch with my dear friend Stacy downtown. I left a message for Skip last night because I’d like to see him again. A few others from my Union Mission days are also wanting to hook up. I think these things as I stumble to the shower.
Goddess opens her eyes as I do so though she doesn’t move. Half of her body is in the living room and half in our bedroom. She’s making sure that I’m safe from hurt.
In the shower my friend Mary Ann pops into my head. We had lunch together last week and she has this way of saying things that immediately snap things into perspective.
So we’re sitting there laughing and catching one another up. She is chiding me because I’ve basically dropped out of sight for a year. I tell her about the Sabbatical, what it’s like to heal and from what, a Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous, the work I’m now doing and what it’s like to run into people who used to want everything from you but now when they see me, they’re stunned.
“Shouldn’t you be dead?” is the message they convey in their eyes and mannerisms.
Mary Ann burst into laughter which in turn makes me laugh.
“I’m not dead yet,” we quote Monty Python at the same time.
Our food comes. We grow quiet for a minute.
“You know Micheal,” she thoughtfully says. “You’ve done your office time. In Louisville and at Union Mission you took an office and filled it with creativity birthing all of these new things that no one had ever done before. The thousands of lives that you impacted is just staggering. But you know what?”
“What?” I asked with a mouth full of salad soaked in Ranch dressing.
“You’ve outgrown office.”
Swallowing and putting my fork down at the same time, I looked at her. What?” I repeated.
“You had nothing else to accomplish in an office,” she kept going, picking at her chicken salad but focused on the things she was telling me. “You outgrew office.”
I can’t believe what she’s saying.
“There was nothing more to accomplish in one. You look at the people who are doing the most interesting things. The ones creating and making the world better. They don’t have an office. They do it in their garage, mountain retreats or boats.”
I just sat there.
“People who have offices just worry about one thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Corners with more windows,” she laughed.
So I clean the pollen on the table and chairs under the umbrella on the Beloved Back deck getting it ready for staff meeting.
It’s time to create.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
64 yrs old and my Mom still gets mad!
Now I’m way past the age of my Mom getting on to me but that doesn’t stop her when she wants to get on to me.
So she did.
I was talking to her on the phone standing on the Beloved Back Deck when said, “I need to tell you something.”
“Shit,” I thought to myself. “I’m in trouble.”
Throughout my life when Mom starts “I need to tell you something,” I was normally in trouble.
I always liked it a lot more when Mom looked at Angi or David and told them that she needed to tell them something.
Now that was fun!
When directed at me though … not so much.
I do believe that I still hold the family record for being spoken to by my Mom in her attempt to orchestrate “pre-emptive strikes” or, as in most cases if I’d already done it, “corrective activity.”
Let’s recount the top five, shall we?
(1) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole every flag from the Port Wentworth Elementary School so the next morning no one could say the “Pledge of Allegiance.”
(2) The night I snuck out of my bedroom to go dancing and was run over by four college kids on their way to Florida for the first time in their lives, shattering my leg and putting me in the hospital for months. She wanted to put me on restriction but I was in traction.
(3) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole all of the fire extinguishers out of the company on the other side of the viaduct and the police brought me home from softball practice to inform Mom while she was cooking supper.
(4) The night Mom and Dad left me in charge of the house while they went away for a romantic night and I hosted the party of all parties along with my brother David who was found hiding under the bed when the Port Wentworth Police Department showed up … I think that we just had stuck Age in a drawer … it’s kind of foggy … she was there when Mom and Dad left and there when they returned early from their trip but I have no recollection of her at all in between).
(5) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I orchestrated a photograph at the “Root Beer Drive In” of black and white kids dressed as 1950s “Greasers” and I’m sitting on the roof of the car in a black cut off tee with my arm around Debbie Hendrix flipping a finger at the photographer and it ended up being a full page photo in my High School annual.
(6) I know I said Top 5 … but the memories are flooding back now and are overwhelming me … the night Mom and Dad were chaperoning the Mercer Middle School Dance and I started dancing with the black girl in the middle of the black side of the room and never came back to the other side. It was big stuff back then.
Ah … good times.
Not so much for my Mom!
After each of these things she would look at me sternly and say, “I need to tell you something.”
“Shit,” I’d say.
But, she stuck with me.
And she still does.
So I’m standing on the Beloved Back Deck and she’s giving me shit …, er … I mean … engaging in “corrective activity” … over a blog I wrote last week.
“You’re starting all of this new work,” she said, “you can’t write about having staff meetings on your back deck without wearing a shirt or confusing Bar Church with Bra Church. That is just … unacceptable.”
I was looking at the thousand shades of green in the trees searching for some guidance.
“Mom,” I finally said.
It never worked before.
I’m not certain what possessed me to think it would work now.
So she finished telling me what she what she wanted me to do and I said something clever like, “Yes Mam.”
I’m a big believer that life is a gift. It’s one that all of us share though none of us asked for. It’s ours to do with what we want. To share with whoever we wish to share it with … and to withhold from those that we don’t.
None of us know how long the gift of life last or how long the gift of others we love in our lives last either. That’s what makes it a gift to be celebrated every second that we have it.
And I’ve had this gift of this Mom. She’s put up with a lot. She’s also seen a lot. And she just keeps on keeping on.
And I love you Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Hey Jesus! (The King James Version(s) of the Bible
May 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the translation of the King James Version of the Bible into English. I’m not exactly certain which of the 16 different versions of the King James Bible that we’re actually celebrating but that is not the point. Jesus finally became an American when everything got translated to English!
While it’s only May 7th I’m exhausted from the non-stop parties celebrating the King James Version of the Bible. Every day and every night, it’s something! It seems as I’ve been wearing my robe non-stop since last week! (Of course I don’t mind wearing the robe because it means I don’t have any underwear on.)
Then Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called me and asked if I would write some devotions that could be set to music for Bar Church. They will become CDs and distributed to anyone who may actually happen to want one.
Of course I am honored. So I grabbed one of the sixteen different versions of the King James Bible that I have and went to work. Before I wrote a word I got to thinking. “Why are devotionals so freekin’ serious?” I’ve never heard a rip roaring funny devotion. Now Bar Church is a lot of fun so the devotions need to fit the ambiance.
Then I was sharing this with a friend at a King James 400th Anniversary celebration party. The theme of this party was “Which of the sixteen different translations of the King James Bible are we actually celebrating?”
It took us no time at all to figure out why this is a question … editors! They cut, paste, change and do all kinds of stuff. Sixteen different editors mean sixteen different versions.
Then we got to wondering about all of the stuff that got edited out.
Hmmmm…..
I immediately got in touch with Mitch who is an expert on all sixteen versions of the King James Bible. “Surely,” I asked, “the Apostles asked a lot more questions than were included in one the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible that we are celebrating.”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” Mitch fired back. “Of course they did. I mean think about. They’re all walking down the road and it’s a hot and dusty day. Nobody else is around. This is their opportunity to ask Jesus the stuff they really want to know.”
“You mean the stuff that the editors of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible took out?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve actually seen the clippings from the scrolls that ended up on the cutting room floor. You wouldn’t believe the insightfulness of the Apostles questions.”
“Really” I was beside myself with anticipation.
“Yep,” Mitch continued. “Like Peter asked right off the bat … Hey Jesus why did you wait until now to turn water into wine?’ We could have used that a long time ago.”
“Makes perfect sense,” I said in admiration of Mitch’s scholarly passions. “What else?”
“Matthew wanted to know why there were no girls in the Club,” he said.
Again I was dumbfounded at the perfectly legitimate question.
“Judas asked, ‘Hey Jesus why do we have to walk everywhere? Can’t we afford a wagon?’”
James asked, “Hey Jesus! Let’s just start a band. You can sing lead!”
Of course Jesus, being Jesus and all, took it all in good stride. He was focused on bigger things saving the world and all. And in the end Jesus proved right on it all.
But you have to admit. Wouldn’t you like to know the answers to the other questions that the Apostle’s asked?
I’m just saying … it’s something to think about on the 400th anniversary of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible.
While it’s only May 7th I’m exhausted from the non-stop parties celebrating the King James Version of the Bible. Every day and every night, it’s something! It seems as I’ve been wearing my robe non-stop since last week! (Of course I don’t mind wearing the robe because it means I don’t have any underwear on.)
Then Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called me and asked if I would write some devotions that could be set to music for Bar Church. They will become CDs and distributed to anyone who may actually happen to want one.
Of course I am honored. So I grabbed one of the sixteen different versions of the King James Bible that I have and went to work. Before I wrote a word I got to thinking. “Why are devotionals so freekin’ serious?” I’ve never heard a rip roaring funny devotion. Now Bar Church is a lot of fun so the devotions need to fit the ambiance.
Then I was sharing this with a friend at a King James 400th Anniversary celebration party. The theme of this party was “Which of the sixteen different translations of the King James Bible are we actually celebrating?”
It took us no time at all to figure out why this is a question … editors! They cut, paste, change and do all kinds of stuff. Sixteen different editors mean sixteen different versions.
Then we got to wondering about all of the stuff that got edited out.
Hmmmm…..
I immediately got in touch with Mitch who is an expert on all sixteen versions of the King James Bible. “Surely,” I asked, “the Apostles asked a lot more questions than were included in one the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible that we are celebrating.”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” Mitch fired back. “Of course they did. I mean think about. They’re all walking down the road and it’s a hot and dusty day. Nobody else is around. This is their opportunity to ask Jesus the stuff they really want to know.”
“You mean the stuff that the editors of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible took out?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve actually seen the clippings from the scrolls that ended up on the cutting room floor. You wouldn’t believe the insightfulness of the Apostles questions.”
“Really” I was beside myself with anticipation.
“Yep,” Mitch continued. “Like Peter asked right off the bat … Hey Jesus why did you wait until now to turn water into wine?’ We could have used that a long time ago.”
“Makes perfect sense,” I said in admiration of Mitch’s scholarly passions. “What else?”
“Matthew wanted to know why there were no girls in the Club,” he said.
Again I was dumbfounded at the perfectly legitimate question.
“Judas asked, ‘Hey Jesus why do we have to walk everywhere? Can’t we afford a wagon?’”
James asked, “Hey Jesus! Let’s just start a band. You can sing lead!”
Of course Jesus, being Jesus and all, took it all in good stride. He was focused on bigger things saving the world and all. And in the end Jesus proved right on it all.
But you have to admit. Wouldn’t you like to know the answers to the other questions that the Apostle’s asked?
I’m just saying … it’s something to think about on the 400th anniversary of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Gifts
The thing about gifts is you never know when they’re going to happen. That’s what makes them special. Then the unexpected happens and it’s something that you really needed or wanted and joy is born in an instant.
You also never know how long gifts last so it’s best to enjoy them while you have them and not put it off to later. There may never be a later.
This has been a long and busy week with multiple trips into Savannah and long hours doing new work and creating fresh and different things. While it’s been invigorating it also takes its toll.
Talking to my Mom the other day on the phone she said, “You sound tired. Your voice is low. I haven’t heard you sound like that in a long time.”
It was a good tired though; the kind that is born from doing good and worthwhile things.
Most of the past few years, my voice was low because I was weary and spent. I was running on empty and the things that had charged me back up had left and were no more. When my back’s up against the wall I try even harder and you can try too hard, as James Taylor puts it. And I did so it all just got worse.
So yesterday my friend Val at the Breakfast Club chided me because I haven’t been doing things with them lately. After hanging up with my Mom I petted Goddess, hopped on my very sober bicycle and glided to “Social” one of Tybee’s restaurants.
For Cinco de Mayo they were having chiwawa races. Val and Nick own Brutes, a chiwawa who loves sausage. The plan was for Nick to stand at the end of the finish line with sausage, scream “Who’s your Daddy?” and Brutes would set new chiwawa speed records.
It was a hoot!
Phil and Katie were there (though much younger than me Katie functions as a surrogate Mother to me) from the Breakfast Club, Helen, Grayson and others. We drank, cheered and laughed the evening away. We mostly laughed.
At one point I stopped and just noticed everything that was happening around me. Friends were together. The music of joy was in the air. The only thing that mattered in the entire universe was how fast a chiwawa could run.
What a gift!
This morning at the Breakfast Club we celebrated again the joys of last night telling stories of how the race was fixed (Brutes came in second).
Then I went home and Goddess and I played. Just as I started working Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called asking me things. I love Sam, his music and his spirit.
Then I got a call and it was unexpected good news that made me happy.
Then Art and I talked forever in his Drive-way while he feed Goddess treats.
The choirs of birds were singing.
A friend who I love stopped by and surprised me.
By 9:30 in the morning I was full of the gifts of life!
And I celebrated.
As I made a joyful noise unto the Lord.
You also never know how long gifts last so it’s best to enjoy them while you have them and not put it off to later. There may never be a later.
This has been a long and busy week with multiple trips into Savannah and long hours doing new work and creating fresh and different things. While it’s been invigorating it also takes its toll.
Talking to my Mom the other day on the phone she said, “You sound tired. Your voice is low. I haven’t heard you sound like that in a long time.”
It was a good tired though; the kind that is born from doing good and worthwhile things.
Most of the past few years, my voice was low because I was weary and spent. I was running on empty and the things that had charged me back up had left and were no more. When my back’s up against the wall I try even harder and you can try too hard, as James Taylor puts it. And I did so it all just got worse.
So yesterday my friend Val at the Breakfast Club chided me because I haven’t been doing things with them lately. After hanging up with my Mom I petted Goddess, hopped on my very sober bicycle and glided to “Social” one of Tybee’s restaurants.
For Cinco de Mayo they were having chiwawa races. Val and Nick own Brutes, a chiwawa who loves sausage. The plan was for Nick to stand at the end of the finish line with sausage, scream “Who’s your Daddy?” and Brutes would set new chiwawa speed records.
It was a hoot!
Phil and Katie were there (though much younger than me Katie functions as a surrogate Mother to me) from the Breakfast Club, Helen, Grayson and others. We drank, cheered and laughed the evening away. We mostly laughed.
At one point I stopped and just noticed everything that was happening around me. Friends were together. The music of joy was in the air. The only thing that mattered in the entire universe was how fast a chiwawa could run.
What a gift!
This morning at the Breakfast Club we celebrated again the joys of last night telling stories of how the race was fixed (Brutes came in second).
Then I went home and Goddess and I played. Just as I started working Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called asking me things. I love Sam, his music and his spirit.
Then I got a call and it was unexpected good news that made me happy.
Then Art and I talked forever in his Drive-way while he feed Goddess treats.
The choirs of birds were singing.
A friend who I love stopped by and surprised me.
By 9:30 in the morning I was full of the gifts of life!
And I celebrated.
As I made a joyful noise unto the Lord.
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