I ran up the Back River along side the channel that separates Tybee from Little Tybee and as I turn to the main beach, it made me stop dead in my tracks. It is a wonderfully gorgeous morning with a breeze that has the seas kicked up a couple of notches since yesterday. My run had been a good one and the tunes that my I-Pod was sending to my ears were all perfect.
Then I stopped.
The lone Shrimp boat was still there. Nets cast, dipping from side to side as it trolled with a Captain that I am even more certain is desperate for a catch.
I couldn’t believe it.
The only other thing on the ocean was a lone paddle boarder whose silhouette could easily be mistaken for Jesus with a cane walking on the water, alone with his thoughts.
It made me think about all of the desperation that I’ve seen in my life. Thousands of people have cried in my office as they told me their stories and begged me for something. I am tender hearted so more often than not they got whatever it was they were asking for, though not always in the way that they thought.
It made me think about my own desperate moments often in the middle of the night. At 5:43 this morning I was staring at the ceiling choking down a sense of angst that had woken me. The bedside clock projects the numbers on the ceiling in the dark and I noticed that if I looked between the numbers and not at the numbers themselves, between the 5 and the 4 was the image of the Celtic cross.
Mary Ann Beil and Mitch Wesley immediately popped into my head and the angst went away. Friends have a way of doing that even if they’re not necessarily present.
In Celtic Christianity, faith takes root in the dark places where roots grow or in sealed tombs where crucified Saviors rise up. The darkness is just as important as the light. Without the darkness there is no light.
I’ve had a lot of dark in my life lately even as I stood in the brilliant sunshine of a day at the beach. I could use a different kind of light. An inner shinning where my heart lies in pieces. And try as I might to put it back together by myself I need help. Like jigsaw puzzles are put together faster if friends are working on it, I understand that no one gets through the dark by themselves.
As these things flashed through my mind, I resumed my run keeping an eye on the Shrimp boat. At one point, the silhouette of Jesus with his cane on the water stood in front of the boat and it made me stop again.
“What in the hell?” I said out loud.
Salt water leapt from the ocean into my eyes. I laughed out loud at both the image and the meaning that I took from it.
God bless that Captain! Throughout yesterday, last night and now today he or she has kept at it. Persistence and faith may be paying off. Jesus himself has showed up! God is moving shrimp from the dark coolness of the bottom where they rest on hot days towards the lightness of the surface.
I blew a kiss to the Captain and towards Jesus and started running again with feet that were lighter than before.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Crossing the Line
A lone shrimp boat trolled its nets at the far end of the horizon of the sea today. The ocean was flat and the blazing sun shone on it creating a glistening yellow sidewalk on the water that ended at my feet standing in the surf. My gaze was on the shrimp boat which was dipping from side to side as it made its way.
There was nothing else out there. No cargo ships lined up to come to port. No pleasure boats making their way from the north end of the island to the south end. No jet skis rushing out and back for no apparent reason. No paddle boarders standing on the water as though they were Jesus with a stick to keep them steady.
There was just the lone shrimp boat.
Trolling by it’s self.
With a captain likely desperate for another catch so that he or she can keep paying the bills; praying to God that she will allow those nets to be filled again. Please God! Please! Let there be shrimp on a day so flat and so hot that I know that they are all in the coolness of the bottom. Please!
It brought tears to my eyes and caused a lump in my throat. And I thought it the most beautiful sighting of sad that I’ve witnessed in a long time.
And I have witnessed a lot of sad in thousands of other people’s lives because my career has been managing sadness. Lately there has been a great deal of sadness in my own life which I thought I was immune to but in the end, I’m just like every body else.
When I started writing these daily musings a few years ago, I intended for it to be work related instructions that I hoped would be helpful to others trying to do good things in their jobs.
Then I started writing about the lives of the people that I interacted with every day and the musings became more personal. I was telling other people’s stories; incredible stories or triumph and tragedy.
As long as the stories were about poor people it was ok. They brought in money to Union Mission because people were moved by them to write a check and send it in. Often times they included hand written notes saying how the story had touched them. More that one made their way to the Sunday-School room included as part of that week’s lesson.
But then I started writing about me too; of loneliness in the night; collapsing in the wet sand of a low tide because sadness filled who I was. I wrote about chasing serendipity with everything within me because she represented so much hope for a better tomorrow. There were hearts that washed ashore and the most wonderful deformed Tiny Dancer in St. Martin. I wrote about getting drunk with friends in Athens, Georgia and how that can sometimes bring healing to a life.
The people at work grew increasingly uncomfortable when I wrote about me. It was crossing a boundary line that was taboo in the work place. Personal matters are to be kept at home. When you clock in, your personal life doesn’t matter. It is just about production or profits or in my case making certain that there were enough donations and grants coming in.
Like the lone shrimp boat on the sea today, I thought about how everything that I’ve ever done has been way out there like that. No other boats are on the water but there is one believer out there and I love her for it.
If I’d ever cared too much about boundaries, Union Mission would never have become what it did. When the boundary lines that I was crossing were personal ones however…well that isn’t the way that it’s supposed to be done.
So now other people can do it the way that it is supposed to be done.
I’m with the Captain of that shrimp boat.
There was nothing else out there. No cargo ships lined up to come to port. No pleasure boats making their way from the north end of the island to the south end. No jet skis rushing out and back for no apparent reason. No paddle boarders standing on the water as though they were Jesus with a stick to keep them steady.
There was just the lone shrimp boat.
Trolling by it’s self.
With a captain likely desperate for another catch so that he or she can keep paying the bills; praying to God that she will allow those nets to be filled again. Please God! Please! Let there be shrimp on a day so flat and so hot that I know that they are all in the coolness of the bottom. Please!
It brought tears to my eyes and caused a lump in my throat. And I thought it the most beautiful sighting of sad that I’ve witnessed in a long time.
And I have witnessed a lot of sad in thousands of other people’s lives because my career has been managing sadness. Lately there has been a great deal of sadness in my own life which I thought I was immune to but in the end, I’m just like every body else.
When I started writing these daily musings a few years ago, I intended for it to be work related instructions that I hoped would be helpful to others trying to do good things in their jobs.
Then I started writing about the lives of the people that I interacted with every day and the musings became more personal. I was telling other people’s stories; incredible stories or triumph and tragedy.
As long as the stories were about poor people it was ok. They brought in money to Union Mission because people were moved by them to write a check and send it in. Often times they included hand written notes saying how the story had touched them. More that one made their way to the Sunday-School room included as part of that week’s lesson.
But then I started writing about me too; of loneliness in the night; collapsing in the wet sand of a low tide because sadness filled who I was. I wrote about chasing serendipity with everything within me because she represented so much hope for a better tomorrow. There were hearts that washed ashore and the most wonderful deformed Tiny Dancer in St. Martin. I wrote about getting drunk with friends in Athens, Georgia and how that can sometimes bring healing to a life.
The people at work grew increasingly uncomfortable when I wrote about me. It was crossing a boundary line that was taboo in the work place. Personal matters are to be kept at home. When you clock in, your personal life doesn’t matter. It is just about production or profits or in my case making certain that there were enough donations and grants coming in.
Like the lone shrimp boat on the sea today, I thought about how everything that I’ve ever done has been way out there like that. No other boats are on the water but there is one believer out there and I love her for it.
If I’d ever cared too much about boundaries, Union Mission would never have become what it did. When the boundary lines that I was crossing were personal ones however…well that isn’t the way that it’s supposed to be done.
So now other people can do it the way that it is supposed to be done.
I’m with the Captain of that shrimp boat.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Atlanta
As much as I hate to admit this, Atlanta has always been a part of my life and always will be. It all started with my Dad. Because he worked for the railroad, we got free tickets on the Nancy Hanks train that went from Savannah to Atlanta and back again in a day. It had a bubble car where you could sit and there was this glass bubble and I’d sit in these tall seats and you could look all the way around from a speeding train. Pretty cool stuff for a twelve year old!
He was always bringing David and me to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to watch the Braves play. He would always take us to this little store before taking us to the game to buy a loaf of bread, bologna and a small jar of mayonnaise so that we could eat during the game. That is because once we ate like 20 hotdogs that must have cost a buck a piece at the time. Dad wasn’t going to do that again. Those were good trips but I don’t eat bologna anymore.
Baptist Corporate Headquarters was here for a long time and I was forever being summoned here because I was in trouble for either not following rules or for making up new ones. These were terrific times as the trips were paid for by Baptist Corporate Headquarters and after being yelled at, prayed over and written up, I’d head over to the Braves game and order a hotdog.
At Union Mission it seems I spent as much time in Atlanta as I did Savannah. All of those elected people from across the state (not Biblically elected but the paid off kind) collect here and there are all of those state agencies. So for 23 years I was here all of the time lobbying…er, I mean, educating the elected so that they wouldn’t screw the poor so much. (I must confess that I probably failed the most at this aspect of my Union Mission career because the elected…well, they already know everything).
Over those 23 year though, I seem to have collected a lot of friends who live here that refuse to leave for whatever reason and I love them all dearly. When I’m here I call them and we meet for coffee, lunch, drinks or dinner; sometimes for pool games, Braves games, or because Hooters is having a special on wings. When you love good friends you have a tendency to tolerate where they live.
I’ve won several awards that were presented to me in Atlanta so that counts for something. The first were back in the early 1990s in some high office tower and I remember my Mom and my sister Angi attended. When my name was called, Angi screamed and yelled and 200 elected people, government employees and pissed off losers turned to look at her. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at me on the stage and winked. Good times!
For years I’ve attended Lobby-fest, er…I mean the Chamber of Commerce’s Savannah Day in Atlanta seafood and liquor party. Oh the stories! My favorite is when Johnny O came and stood in the receiving line as one of the elected (he was not) greeting the thousand people who showed up as though he was. While the rest of the elected had cocktail sauce smeared on their lips, bourbon spilled on their shirts, or their arms around a lobbyist, Johnny O maintained his position to the end. The man is committed. Or should be!
I thought that when I left Union Mission that I wouldn’t be back here except for SEC Championship Games WHEN the Beloved Dawgs of Georgia return later this year. But now I’ll be back for the second time in a week when I return on Thursday.
I’ve said forever that you cannot accomplish anything in Georgia without spending time in Atlanta and now admit again that it remains true. I will keep coming back. They got everything here.
Except the beach!
He was always bringing David and me to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to watch the Braves play. He would always take us to this little store before taking us to the game to buy a loaf of bread, bologna and a small jar of mayonnaise so that we could eat during the game. That is because once we ate like 20 hotdogs that must have cost a buck a piece at the time. Dad wasn’t going to do that again. Those were good trips but I don’t eat bologna anymore.
Baptist Corporate Headquarters was here for a long time and I was forever being summoned here because I was in trouble for either not following rules or for making up new ones. These were terrific times as the trips were paid for by Baptist Corporate Headquarters and after being yelled at, prayed over and written up, I’d head over to the Braves game and order a hotdog.
At Union Mission it seems I spent as much time in Atlanta as I did Savannah. All of those elected people from across the state (not Biblically elected but the paid off kind) collect here and there are all of those state agencies. So for 23 years I was here all of the time lobbying…er, I mean, educating the elected so that they wouldn’t screw the poor so much. (I must confess that I probably failed the most at this aspect of my Union Mission career because the elected…well, they already know everything).
Over those 23 year though, I seem to have collected a lot of friends who live here that refuse to leave for whatever reason and I love them all dearly. When I’m here I call them and we meet for coffee, lunch, drinks or dinner; sometimes for pool games, Braves games, or because Hooters is having a special on wings. When you love good friends you have a tendency to tolerate where they live.
I’ve won several awards that were presented to me in Atlanta so that counts for something. The first were back in the early 1990s in some high office tower and I remember my Mom and my sister Angi attended. When my name was called, Angi screamed and yelled and 200 elected people, government employees and pissed off losers turned to look at her. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at me on the stage and winked. Good times!
For years I’ve attended Lobby-fest, er…I mean the Chamber of Commerce’s Savannah Day in Atlanta seafood and liquor party. Oh the stories! My favorite is when Johnny O came and stood in the receiving line as one of the elected (he was not) greeting the thousand people who showed up as though he was. While the rest of the elected had cocktail sauce smeared on their lips, bourbon spilled on their shirts, or their arms around a lobbyist, Johnny O maintained his position to the end. The man is committed. Or should be!
I thought that when I left Union Mission that I wouldn’t be back here except for SEC Championship Games WHEN the Beloved Dawgs of Georgia return later this year. But now I’ll be back for the second time in a week when I return on Thursday.
I’ve said forever that you cannot accomplish anything in Georgia without spending time in Atlanta and now admit again that it remains true. I will keep coming back. They got everything here.
Except the beach!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sunday Sojourn
Today I’m leaving the beauty of Athens and will first make my way to Madison where my son Jeremy and his brilliant wife Marie live. They’re having an open house today and Jeremy left some things in the room so I’m dropping them off. I don’t mind. It’s the other town that Sherman didn’t burn when he marched through Georgia. It is quaint and beautiful and I always enjoy that drive.
Then I’ll hit I-20 and sail into Atlanta.
I know. Atlanta? There are some things that I need to do there today so what do you do?
I’ll actually be in Atlanta twice this week, retuning on Thursday and Friday to do some work for the Mary Hall Freedom House.
I’ve been laying low through the summer, as least professionally speaking. That is not to say that I haven’t been doing a lot of things. I have. They were just things that were nurturing to me after a very intense and relentless time.
Three years ago I was sitting on my Beloved back deck with Dr. Kathryn Martin who was visiting. I was slumped in my chair looking sad. She told me that I looked exhausted.
“I’m ready to leave Union Mission,” I replied.
“What?” she seemed shocked.
“It’s time Kathryn. I feel it in me. What else is there to accomplish professionally? And the needs just never go away. It’s killing me and Julie. I want to do something else.”
She told me how too many people rely on me to leave and that just made the sad tired grow.
I didn’t leave then and the ensuing years were the hardest and most difficult things that I’ve ever had to get through, both professionally and personally. I should have listened to my gut, which is another way of saying that God was telling me what to do but I listened to other people instead. And it cost me a lot!
So the summer has been spent walking away from the public life, controversial decisions, and people who told me that they would do things but never did. Now it’s been a lot of time alone and long walks with Goddess.
In this time I have come to appreciate the beauty of a thousand shades of green, the majesty of the marsh, the lovely sound of a choir of mussels, the suns daily dance on the ocean and the nightly show that the Milky way puts on for free. I had forgotten how to receive these gifts.
I’ve also come to love and appreciate the people who have gone out of their way to take care of me when I had precious little to give them in return. Many rearranged the way that they live their lives to make certain that I was doing alright. So the Beloved community returned to my life.
Now I am waiting on the sound of my gut to speak. I didn’t listen to God last time. This time I am determined to respond to Her. And I know that I have to wait a bit longer but it will come. I just have to keep preparing myself. Then the fire in my belly will explode.
Then I’ll hit I-20 and sail into Atlanta.
I know. Atlanta? There are some things that I need to do there today so what do you do?
I’ll actually be in Atlanta twice this week, retuning on Thursday and Friday to do some work for the Mary Hall Freedom House.
I’ve been laying low through the summer, as least professionally speaking. That is not to say that I haven’t been doing a lot of things. I have. They were just things that were nurturing to me after a very intense and relentless time.
Three years ago I was sitting on my Beloved back deck with Dr. Kathryn Martin who was visiting. I was slumped in my chair looking sad. She told me that I looked exhausted.
“I’m ready to leave Union Mission,” I replied.
“What?” she seemed shocked.
“It’s time Kathryn. I feel it in me. What else is there to accomplish professionally? And the needs just never go away. It’s killing me and Julie. I want to do something else.”
She told me how too many people rely on me to leave and that just made the sad tired grow.
I didn’t leave then and the ensuing years were the hardest and most difficult things that I’ve ever had to get through, both professionally and personally. I should have listened to my gut, which is another way of saying that God was telling me what to do but I listened to other people instead. And it cost me a lot!
So the summer has been spent walking away from the public life, controversial decisions, and people who told me that they would do things but never did. Now it’s been a lot of time alone and long walks with Goddess.
In this time I have come to appreciate the beauty of a thousand shades of green, the majesty of the marsh, the lovely sound of a choir of mussels, the suns daily dance on the ocean and the nightly show that the Milky way puts on for free. I had forgotten how to receive these gifts.
I’ve also come to love and appreciate the people who have gone out of their way to take care of me when I had precious little to give them in return. Many rearranged the way that they live their lives to make certain that I was doing alright. So the Beloved community returned to my life.
Now I am waiting on the sound of my gut to speak. I didn’t listen to God last time. This time I am determined to respond to Her. And I know that I have to wait a bit longer but it will come. I just have to keep preparing myself. Then the fire in my belly will explode.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Beach Day
It is dark as I climb on my bicycle and peddle to the Breakfast Club. The air is still and salt seems suspended as a blanket over the island. Early morning walkers and runners make their way and in the darkness no one speaks. It is 79 degrees and the entire Milky Way is putting on a show for free.
Stumbling in the door marked “Exit Only” the place is alive with activity as Jodee oversees the prep work and prepares for another day of customers. I pour myself a cup of coffee and quietly sip it. A Beach Day has begun.
Leaving the Club I ride down Tybrisa Street with an eye on the rising sun bubbling out of the sea. Red and orange and yellow streaks shoot out in all directions. The sea is flat and calm as though still asleep.
Down front in the big parking lot, I ride to 19th Street and my bike takes me on the beach. The sand is packed near the water and I ride it back to 12th Street. It is hard not to smile as there are not many better ways to start a day. Perhaps sharing it with the one you love.
Perhaps.
Back home, I do the things that I need to do but by 11:00 I’m back on the beach with a cooler, beach chair and I-Pod blowing Jim Morris music in my ears. There is a breeze now though the humidity is low and the temperature is in the 80s. It is a St. Martin kind of day on Tybee. People are on the beach but everyone has plenty of space.
Around noon, my feet are in the surf as I make my way towards the pier where round one of the Bored meeting commenced an hour ago. It is just Johnny O and me today and we chat as we mostly look at the expansive view of the beach from one end almost all of the way to the other. We would likely talk more but the beauty of the day at the beach sucks the air out of the sky so we mostly stare at the beauty of it all.
He leaves and I make my way to Fannie’s for round two of the Bored meeting. Fried flounder for lunch with an ice cold beer seems the perfect lunch for a day like today. My friends show up and we make jokes and laugh. Dave has brought me fresh peppers that he has made and instructs me to place them in my cooler.
My feet return to the surf and I return to my beach chair. The Beach Boys harmonize in my ears. I watch girls in bikinis walk by.
A couple of hours later, I snap out of the trance that I’ve been in, regaining my focus after the blurry eyes that being lost in thought staring at the ocean can bring.
I make my way home.
Hoping on my bike, I return down front and stumble in Spankey’s with its ocean view scenery and order a cheese burger. Dave and Sandy stumble in behind me and we laugh and joke our way through dinner.
Afterwards I am summoned back to the beach on 12th Street and sit in the swing there. Darkness descends. My senses are alive and on fire as the moon glows brightly on the sea. In the distance are couples who are holding hands, kissing, or using such a romantic backdrop to consummate their love. Who can blame any of them for doing any of it?
Then I make my way back home in the dark and the Milky Way has returned with a show for free.
“Thank you God,” I whisper out loud, “for one hell of a day.”
Stumbling in the door marked “Exit Only” the place is alive with activity as Jodee oversees the prep work and prepares for another day of customers. I pour myself a cup of coffee and quietly sip it. A Beach Day has begun.
Leaving the Club I ride down Tybrisa Street with an eye on the rising sun bubbling out of the sea. Red and orange and yellow streaks shoot out in all directions. The sea is flat and calm as though still asleep.
Down front in the big parking lot, I ride to 19th Street and my bike takes me on the beach. The sand is packed near the water and I ride it back to 12th Street. It is hard not to smile as there are not many better ways to start a day. Perhaps sharing it with the one you love.
Perhaps.
Back home, I do the things that I need to do but by 11:00 I’m back on the beach with a cooler, beach chair and I-Pod blowing Jim Morris music in my ears. There is a breeze now though the humidity is low and the temperature is in the 80s. It is a St. Martin kind of day on Tybee. People are on the beach but everyone has plenty of space.
Around noon, my feet are in the surf as I make my way towards the pier where round one of the Bored meeting commenced an hour ago. It is just Johnny O and me today and we chat as we mostly look at the expansive view of the beach from one end almost all of the way to the other. We would likely talk more but the beauty of the day at the beach sucks the air out of the sky so we mostly stare at the beauty of it all.
He leaves and I make my way to Fannie’s for round two of the Bored meeting. Fried flounder for lunch with an ice cold beer seems the perfect lunch for a day like today. My friends show up and we make jokes and laugh. Dave has brought me fresh peppers that he has made and instructs me to place them in my cooler.
My feet return to the surf and I return to my beach chair. The Beach Boys harmonize in my ears. I watch girls in bikinis walk by.
A couple of hours later, I snap out of the trance that I’ve been in, regaining my focus after the blurry eyes that being lost in thought staring at the ocean can bring.
I make my way home.
Hoping on my bike, I return down front and stumble in Spankey’s with its ocean view scenery and order a cheese burger. Dave and Sandy stumble in behind me and we laugh and joke our way through dinner.
Afterwards I am summoned back to the beach on 12th Street and sit in the swing there. Darkness descends. My senses are alive and on fire as the moon glows brightly on the sea. In the distance are couples who are holding hands, kissing, or using such a romantic backdrop to consummate their love. Who can blame any of them for doing any of it?
Then I make my way back home in the dark and the Milky Way has returned with a show for free.
“Thank you God,” I whisper out loud, “for one hell of a day.”
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Parenting (I did it my way)
My daughter Kristen, or Buffy as she is known on Tybee Island has recently taken to attending the Bored meeting, the daily gathering of a collection of friends to toast life here. My son Jeremy, or J-Luv as he is known on the island also attends when he is in town.
My youngest daughter Chelsea, also known as Chelsea on the island, does not attend although she was raised differently from her brother and sister. She is a beach baby who learned to craw in the sand. She was born on Tybee and learned early to recognize suspicious characters which is likely why she stays away from the Bored meeting. Besides she logs many hours in the sun and likes to pick up jelly fish in front of tourists and asks if they would like to play catch. Her formative years were body surfing with me.
Jeremy and Kristen spent their formative years living in a two-bedroom apartment at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in the inner city of Louisville, Kentucky. The other people who lived in the Church were homeless people and my older kids were greatly influenced by them.
Having learned to read at a very young age, Jeremy always had a book in his hands. I would often wander into the belly of the Chapel, the Social Hall, and Jeremy would be sitting in the lap of a homeless man teaching him how to read. He also liked to leave his clothes in the hallway and join homeless men taking baths in the baptismal pool.
Kristen was the sweetheart of the homeless guys who loved her dearly and did most anything she asked. Once they were babysitting her while their mother and I were out somewhere. When we returned, Kristen was sitting happily with four Happy Means from the McDonalds around the block in front of her. The homeless guys were all smiling.
“What in the hell?” I asked.
Chester, the oldest and most respected of the guys, answered on behalf of them. “She wanted a Happy Meal so we went out and panhandled until we got enough to get it for her.”
“Four?”
“She’s our girl and we gotta keep her happy,” he beamed.
So Jeremy and Kristen look at life with a different slant than most people. Both are extremely comfortable in any situation and with any kind of people. Conversation and introductions are easy for them. I’ve also watched them go without and never complain. Both are hard workers and they encourage people (social workers without the degree). They are story tellers and love to laugh.
All of us love hanging out together, which is different from a lot of parents with adult children. We laugh a lot when we’re together and Chelsea has to listen to the same stories over and over again of the Jeff Street days when Chester, a homeless street alcoholic for 40 years, was transformed into a grandfather of my children.
And Pouche, a handsome African-American homeless man with one front tooth missing from decay because of no insurance, would teach them classical music which he loved.
Or Bruce, a drunken country music roadie, would sing them Willie Nelson songs.
R. C. taught them how to use spray paint to write grafitti.
So my kids are a bit different because of these things.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way. And today I say a prayer of thanks for this wonderful collection of friends who helped raise them.
My youngest daughter Chelsea, also known as Chelsea on the island, does not attend although she was raised differently from her brother and sister. She is a beach baby who learned to craw in the sand. She was born on Tybee and learned early to recognize suspicious characters which is likely why she stays away from the Bored meeting. Besides she logs many hours in the sun and likes to pick up jelly fish in front of tourists and asks if they would like to play catch. Her formative years were body surfing with me.
Jeremy and Kristen spent their formative years living in a two-bedroom apartment at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in the inner city of Louisville, Kentucky. The other people who lived in the Church were homeless people and my older kids were greatly influenced by them.
Having learned to read at a very young age, Jeremy always had a book in his hands. I would often wander into the belly of the Chapel, the Social Hall, and Jeremy would be sitting in the lap of a homeless man teaching him how to read. He also liked to leave his clothes in the hallway and join homeless men taking baths in the baptismal pool.
Kristen was the sweetheart of the homeless guys who loved her dearly and did most anything she asked. Once they were babysitting her while their mother and I were out somewhere. When we returned, Kristen was sitting happily with four Happy Means from the McDonalds around the block in front of her. The homeless guys were all smiling.
“What in the hell?” I asked.
Chester, the oldest and most respected of the guys, answered on behalf of them. “She wanted a Happy Meal so we went out and panhandled until we got enough to get it for her.”
“Four?”
“She’s our girl and we gotta keep her happy,” he beamed.
So Jeremy and Kristen look at life with a different slant than most people. Both are extremely comfortable in any situation and with any kind of people. Conversation and introductions are easy for them. I’ve also watched them go without and never complain. Both are hard workers and they encourage people (social workers without the degree). They are story tellers and love to laugh.
All of us love hanging out together, which is different from a lot of parents with adult children. We laugh a lot when we’re together and Chelsea has to listen to the same stories over and over again of the Jeff Street days when Chester, a homeless street alcoholic for 40 years, was transformed into a grandfather of my children.
And Pouche, a handsome African-American homeless man with one front tooth missing from decay because of no insurance, would teach them classical music which he loved.
Or Bruce, a drunken country music roadie, would sing them Willie Nelson songs.
R. C. taught them how to use spray paint to write grafitti.
So my kids are a bit different because of these things.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way. And today I say a prayer of thanks for this wonderful collection of friends who helped raise them.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Baptisms
I am not one to spend too much time in the past and I don’t visit there very often. I never thought it did anyone much good and if you’re not too careful you can get stuck there. When you’re stuck in the past your life passes you by and opportunities that hit you in the face fall to the floor without ever being taken advantage of.
My past is mostly catalogued anyway in the books that I’ve written and more recently in the blogs that I post. Stories of marvelous and sometimes tragic things that I’ve witnessed or participated in are used to illustrate thoughts or feelings that I hope to convey.
Well Face Book has reconnected me with my past. Childhood friends, High School friends, college friends, Seminary friends, homeless friends, professional friends, and just friends all collide on the page everyday. It is a wonderful and miraculous thing to experience!
And it reminds me of stories long stored away. Yesterday my friend David from Seminary wrote about a blog that I’d written and reminded me that he was born by the sea too.
Then Seminary and water came together in my mind and I was reminded of the baptismal pool at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel where I was once employed as a professional Christian. The large pool had a backdrop that was a painting of the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. The water was painted as brown which is actually what the River Jordon looked like though the water in the pool was as blue and crystal clear as the Caribbean.
Anyway, there were all of these homeless people sleeping outside and I was in charge of this building called a sanctuary that had bars on the window to keep people out when a sanctuary is a place for people to go. I was in seminary at the time so I knew everything!
There were also all of these unused Sunday School rooms in the building because the only people who came to Church were five little old ladies who started attending before the bars had been installed on the windows.
So the ladies and I had a garage sale getting ride of all of the cute wooden tables and chairs and used the money to buy beds. Then we invited homeless people to live inside of the Sunday School rooms. Very Biblical stuff, huh?
After about two weeks you could tell homeless people were living in a church because the place stank. Most Churches do not have shower facilities.
BUT, we had a baptismal pool! I filled it up, passed out soap, and the dirty became clean!
It was by far the most popular part of the Church. I would wander to the baptismal pool and several homeless guys would be naked, lounging around, enjoying themselves. They took to buying candles to set a better ambiance than the brown water of the River Jordan. Many days my young son Jeremy, around four at the time, would be swimming around them having a good time.
So the Baptist at corporate headquarters in Atlanta would send me this form to fill out every month. How many people came to Sunday School? How many people came to Church? How many people got saved? How many people got baptized?
The Baptist in corporate headquarters believes that Jesus called us to count his sheep and not necessarily feed them.
As a professional Christian I was obligated to fill out the form and the answers were always the same. Five. Five. Zero. 487.
Later the Chapel was recognized for shattering the convention’s record of baptisms in one year!
Ah, good times.
My past is mostly catalogued anyway in the books that I’ve written and more recently in the blogs that I post. Stories of marvelous and sometimes tragic things that I’ve witnessed or participated in are used to illustrate thoughts or feelings that I hope to convey.
Well Face Book has reconnected me with my past. Childhood friends, High School friends, college friends, Seminary friends, homeless friends, professional friends, and just friends all collide on the page everyday. It is a wonderful and miraculous thing to experience!
And it reminds me of stories long stored away. Yesterday my friend David from Seminary wrote about a blog that I’d written and reminded me that he was born by the sea too.
Then Seminary and water came together in my mind and I was reminded of the baptismal pool at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel where I was once employed as a professional Christian. The large pool had a backdrop that was a painting of the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. The water was painted as brown which is actually what the River Jordon looked like though the water in the pool was as blue and crystal clear as the Caribbean.
Anyway, there were all of these homeless people sleeping outside and I was in charge of this building called a sanctuary that had bars on the window to keep people out when a sanctuary is a place for people to go. I was in seminary at the time so I knew everything!
There were also all of these unused Sunday School rooms in the building because the only people who came to Church were five little old ladies who started attending before the bars had been installed on the windows.
So the ladies and I had a garage sale getting ride of all of the cute wooden tables and chairs and used the money to buy beds. Then we invited homeless people to live inside of the Sunday School rooms. Very Biblical stuff, huh?
After about two weeks you could tell homeless people were living in a church because the place stank. Most Churches do not have shower facilities.
BUT, we had a baptismal pool! I filled it up, passed out soap, and the dirty became clean!
It was by far the most popular part of the Church. I would wander to the baptismal pool and several homeless guys would be naked, lounging around, enjoying themselves. They took to buying candles to set a better ambiance than the brown water of the River Jordan. Many days my young son Jeremy, around four at the time, would be swimming around them having a good time.
So the Baptist at corporate headquarters in Atlanta would send me this form to fill out every month. How many people came to Sunday School? How many people came to Church? How many people got saved? How many people got baptized?
The Baptist in corporate headquarters believes that Jesus called us to count his sheep and not necessarily feed them.
As a professional Christian I was obligated to fill out the form and the answers were always the same. Five. Five. Zero. 487.
Later the Chapel was recognized for shattering the convention’s record of baptisms in one year!
Ah, good times.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Gone Fishing
Back when I was a professional Christian at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, Kentucky I had the idea that we should close once a year and go on a retreat together. The idea came one day when I was looking at a bunch of homeless people who were tired from sleeping in the streets, begging for alms to buy alcohol, and standing in line to eat.
“You fellows need a vacation,” I said because if anybody needs a vacation it is the poor. The rest of us get them but poor people don’t.
Then I looked at the little old ladies who were the backbone of the place mostly living off Medicare. I would take them to the grocery store and watch them pinch pennies and buy chicken necks to make soup out of because it was the cheapest thing. I thought that they needed a break too.
And the poor students who attended the church because they were the radical fringe of the seminary spent more money on books than they did food. As a matter of fact God’s name was invoked in the Book Store more often than the seminary Chapel whenever we saw the prices of the book. After the short prayer of God’s name we would usually add the word “Dammit!”
I’ve always been good at raising money and finding resources where a lot of people wouldn’t think of looking, even at 25 years of age. So I found a $1000 or so somewhere, booked a band camp out in the countryside, bought a ton of food to cook and about 70 of us went on a retreat from our lives.
We would leave on a Friday and return on Sunday evening so the sanctuary was closed for services that weekend. Before we left I would make a sign that read “Gone Fishing” and put it on the front door.
I crack myself up! This was a great line invoking Jesus admonition that we should be fishers of men and women though it could also mean “To hell with it! We’re outta here for a while.”
So once a year for the eight years that I was there we repeated the practice. I got better at raising money and finding resources every year so the places and the food got better. Towards the end we had almost 200 people attending. “Gone Fishing Sunday” was more popular than the Christmas or Easter service combined!
We would all show up with guitars, Bibles and footballs. Homeless men would show up with bottles of vodka and normally by Saturday evening we were all having a rip roaring time.
And we had a rule. “What happens on retreat stays on retreat” because a lot of stuff normally happened on retreat.
The following Sunday was “Confession Sunday” and I remember that it was the longest service that we had every year.
Ila Massey, one of the radical fringe seminary students gave me a gift at one of the retreats. It was a painting of sand dunes covered with golden sea oats marking the fall of the year (the retreat was always in October). In front of it were lyrics from a Jimmy Buffet song:
Now in my line of work
I seem to see a lot more than most
Write ‘em down, pass ‘em around
It’s the Gospel from the Coast.
Reflections not just replays,
Taking time to escape the maze;
looking for better days.
It is one of my most prized possessions. And now for the first time since those days, I find myself on retreat from the life that I have lived. It is long pass due and for the life of me I cannot figure out why I stopped the wonderful practice of retreats except that the major prophet John Lennon is right: “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
Retreats are for getting your life back.
So I’ve gone fishing again for the first time in decades.
“You fellows need a vacation,” I said because if anybody needs a vacation it is the poor. The rest of us get them but poor people don’t.
Then I looked at the little old ladies who were the backbone of the place mostly living off Medicare. I would take them to the grocery store and watch them pinch pennies and buy chicken necks to make soup out of because it was the cheapest thing. I thought that they needed a break too.
And the poor students who attended the church because they were the radical fringe of the seminary spent more money on books than they did food. As a matter of fact God’s name was invoked in the Book Store more often than the seminary Chapel whenever we saw the prices of the book. After the short prayer of God’s name we would usually add the word “Dammit!”
I’ve always been good at raising money and finding resources where a lot of people wouldn’t think of looking, even at 25 years of age. So I found a $1000 or so somewhere, booked a band camp out in the countryside, bought a ton of food to cook and about 70 of us went on a retreat from our lives.
We would leave on a Friday and return on Sunday evening so the sanctuary was closed for services that weekend. Before we left I would make a sign that read “Gone Fishing” and put it on the front door.
I crack myself up! This was a great line invoking Jesus admonition that we should be fishers of men and women though it could also mean “To hell with it! We’re outta here for a while.”
So once a year for the eight years that I was there we repeated the practice. I got better at raising money and finding resources every year so the places and the food got better. Towards the end we had almost 200 people attending. “Gone Fishing Sunday” was more popular than the Christmas or Easter service combined!
We would all show up with guitars, Bibles and footballs. Homeless men would show up with bottles of vodka and normally by Saturday evening we were all having a rip roaring time.
And we had a rule. “What happens on retreat stays on retreat” because a lot of stuff normally happened on retreat.
The following Sunday was “Confession Sunday” and I remember that it was the longest service that we had every year.
Ila Massey, one of the radical fringe seminary students gave me a gift at one of the retreats. It was a painting of sand dunes covered with golden sea oats marking the fall of the year (the retreat was always in October). In front of it were lyrics from a Jimmy Buffet song:
Now in my line of work
I seem to see a lot more than most
Write ‘em down, pass ‘em around
It’s the Gospel from the Coast.
Reflections not just replays,
Taking time to escape the maze;
looking for better days.
It is one of my most prized possessions. And now for the first time since those days, I find myself on retreat from the life that I have lived. It is long pass due and for the life of me I cannot figure out why I stopped the wonderful practice of retreats except that the major prophet John Lennon is right: “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
Retreats are for getting your life back.
So I’ve gone fishing again for the first time in decades.
Monday, September 13, 2010
When the Coast is Clearl
Purple, red and white clouds that had been hugging the eastern shore finally blew out to sea this morning and a magnificent sun high in the sky. The waves were softly kissing the sand and a breeze blew sand from the north end of the island to the south end. Everything was so fresh and clear that I could easily see the details of Hilton Head just across the mouth of the Savannah River. Massive Cargo Ships were lined up for miles and will make their way up the river throughout the day to the Ports.
The beach is lightly sprinkled with people, most walking in the surf, holding hands, appreciating the beauty of just how beautiful it all is.
The coast is clear.
Once I sent postcards from St. Martin to a lot of people including many at work. Aside from the name and address I wrote, “I’ll be back when the coast is clear.”
I stole it from a Jimmy Buffet song that I love, “I come down to talk to me, when the coast is clear.”
Some people who received the cards thought that I was talking about the weather and that I must be stuck in bad storms which prevented me from returning until things cleared up.
Others thought that there was so much bad stuff going on that I had fled to St. Martin to get away from that I wasn’t going to return until things got better. You could take it either way.
At this point in my life I can take it both ways. The coast is definitely clear outside of my window and I think a big part of this day is going to include me in it. Feet in the surf, fingers dragging through the sand, cooler by my side.
Nor am I involved in that other stuff taking place on the mainland. Politicians are making decisions (mostly bad ones). Business men are making deals. Clergy are recovering from Sunday. Teachers are teaching or hiding from their students. The poor stand in line. That was my life for three decades but I am clear of it right now.
Last night I strolled over to Shirley’s sad little holy dock because she has taken pity on me. Sundays have always been special to me but over the past few years they lost their luster and have become difficult to endure. First Union Mission’s heavy agenda started showing up and kidnapping the day as I tried to manage so much diverse activity. I would sit and stare already consumed with what Monday would bring.
Then the person that I used to share Sundays with left and it became a reminder of lost. Love is something you fall into. Sometimes you have to make yourself get back up. Sundays became get-up day.
I shared this with Shirley several weeks ago and, dear friend that she is she’s made certain that I am preoccupied on Sunday evenings. Last night we just sat on the dock listening to the ticks and pops of mussels opening and closing. A sliver of a moon hung low in the sky. Stars were high and bright. We were talking about a lot of things as good friends do but we kept stopping to admire how beautiful everything is.
So I’ve finally come down to talk to me. I am spending most of my time doing that right now. There are others who dip in and out of the discussion but for the most part it is me facing me. It’s hard stuff to do.
But I’ll be back soon. I’ve got too much left to give so I’ll be back.
When the Coast is Clear.
The beach is lightly sprinkled with people, most walking in the surf, holding hands, appreciating the beauty of just how beautiful it all is.
The coast is clear.
Once I sent postcards from St. Martin to a lot of people including many at work. Aside from the name and address I wrote, “I’ll be back when the coast is clear.”
I stole it from a Jimmy Buffet song that I love, “I come down to talk to me, when the coast is clear.”
Some people who received the cards thought that I was talking about the weather and that I must be stuck in bad storms which prevented me from returning until things cleared up.
Others thought that there was so much bad stuff going on that I had fled to St. Martin to get away from that I wasn’t going to return until things got better. You could take it either way.
At this point in my life I can take it both ways. The coast is definitely clear outside of my window and I think a big part of this day is going to include me in it. Feet in the surf, fingers dragging through the sand, cooler by my side.
Nor am I involved in that other stuff taking place on the mainland. Politicians are making decisions (mostly bad ones). Business men are making deals. Clergy are recovering from Sunday. Teachers are teaching or hiding from their students. The poor stand in line. That was my life for three decades but I am clear of it right now.
Last night I strolled over to Shirley’s sad little holy dock because she has taken pity on me. Sundays have always been special to me but over the past few years they lost their luster and have become difficult to endure. First Union Mission’s heavy agenda started showing up and kidnapping the day as I tried to manage so much diverse activity. I would sit and stare already consumed with what Monday would bring.
Then the person that I used to share Sundays with left and it became a reminder of lost. Love is something you fall into. Sometimes you have to make yourself get back up. Sundays became get-up day.
I shared this with Shirley several weeks ago and, dear friend that she is she’s made certain that I am preoccupied on Sunday evenings. Last night we just sat on the dock listening to the ticks and pops of mussels opening and closing. A sliver of a moon hung low in the sky. Stars were high and bright. We were talking about a lot of things as good friends do but we kept stopping to admire how beautiful everything is.
So I’ve finally come down to talk to me. I am spending most of my time doing that right now. There are others who dip in and out of the discussion but for the most part it is me facing me. It’s hard stuff to do.
But I’ll be back soon. I’ve got too much left to give so I’ll be back.
When the Coast is Clear.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Remember (Charles)
On September 11, 2001 I was in my office when someone told me about the plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I remember getting up and walking back to the dining room where a television hung on the wall for homeless men to watch after dinner.
Several were watching when I entered the room including Charles, my six-foot-two, African-American, former bank robber, mentally ill, “adopted” son. I stood and watched the smoldering hole in the building.
Then the second plane hit and when it did, Charles grabbed my arm and squeezed it tightly. He was shaking with fear. Of course I tensed in disbelief when the plane crashed into the building and when Charles grabbed me I almost came out of my skin.
Turning from the television I looked at him and he was bent over as though he was trying to hide behind me. He shook and his eyes were full of fear. His hand remained gripped on my shoulder.
Charles had been with us for a few years at this time and was as stable as he had ever been. He cleaned our building, ate Oreo cookies like a kid, and mostly talked to himself. He would write letters to the President which meant that I got regular visits from Bill at the F.B.I. Except for when he was talking to himself --- laughing or cussing loudly --- Charles never showed much emotion.
This was the first time that I had ever seen him frightened.
“Sir,” he said in his deep voice as I stared at him and put my arm around him, “do you think that they will come for us?”
I couldn’t believe how scared he was but who knows how his mentally ill mind was taking it in. I glanced back at the television in disbelief at what I was seeing. Not knowing who or why. I made myself think about him.
“No Charles. We’re just a homeless shelter. No one is coming after us,” I reassured him.
“Why not?” He shot back as his head was almost on his knees as he stood behind me still holding on to my arm and shaking, “You get us government money.”
My head shook in another kind of disbelief. How does one answer something like that? I had no words for him. So I hugged him tight and told them that I would take care of him.
Whenever September 11 comes around I cannot help but remember this. Our nation changed that day. Fundamentalism of any kind is a cruel and evil thing be it Muslim or Christian or any other brand. Lives were lost because people’s religious and political views are as perverted as Charles’ ability to think rationally.
When all is said and done, it is about how we treat one another at the individual level. What happened between Charles and me that day was as significant as anything else happening that day. People hugged one another and cried as we witnessed tragedy beyond comprehension.
So it is right to remember what our country lost that horrible day. But it is also right to remember that it reminded us how much we care for one another. And in the end we will be there for each other.
Regardless.
Several were watching when I entered the room including Charles, my six-foot-two, African-American, former bank robber, mentally ill, “adopted” son. I stood and watched the smoldering hole in the building.
Then the second plane hit and when it did, Charles grabbed my arm and squeezed it tightly. He was shaking with fear. Of course I tensed in disbelief when the plane crashed into the building and when Charles grabbed me I almost came out of my skin.
Turning from the television I looked at him and he was bent over as though he was trying to hide behind me. He shook and his eyes were full of fear. His hand remained gripped on my shoulder.
Charles had been with us for a few years at this time and was as stable as he had ever been. He cleaned our building, ate Oreo cookies like a kid, and mostly talked to himself. He would write letters to the President which meant that I got regular visits from Bill at the F.B.I. Except for when he was talking to himself --- laughing or cussing loudly --- Charles never showed much emotion.
This was the first time that I had ever seen him frightened.
“Sir,” he said in his deep voice as I stared at him and put my arm around him, “do you think that they will come for us?”
I couldn’t believe how scared he was but who knows how his mentally ill mind was taking it in. I glanced back at the television in disbelief at what I was seeing. Not knowing who or why. I made myself think about him.
“No Charles. We’re just a homeless shelter. No one is coming after us,” I reassured him.
“Why not?” He shot back as his head was almost on his knees as he stood behind me still holding on to my arm and shaking, “You get us government money.”
My head shook in another kind of disbelief. How does one answer something like that? I had no words for him. So I hugged him tight and told them that I would take care of him.
Whenever September 11 comes around I cannot help but remember this. Our nation changed that day. Fundamentalism of any kind is a cruel and evil thing be it Muslim or Christian or any other brand. Lives were lost because people’s religious and political views are as perverted as Charles’ ability to think rationally.
When all is said and done, it is about how we treat one another at the individual level. What happened between Charles and me that day was as significant as anything else happening that day. People hugged one another and cried as we witnessed tragedy beyond comprehension.
So it is right to remember what our country lost that horrible day. But it is also right to remember that it reminded us how much we care for one another. And in the end we will be there for each other.
Regardless.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Smiling Out Loud
Most people just get along doing the things that they’re supposed to do and life remains pretty constant. There are others of us though who blow up our lives or sometimes have our lives blow up on us.
At 57 years of age my friend Trolley Joe decided to blow his up. He had a successful career, marriage and kids. Then he went through a divorce and lived alone for a couple of years before meeting the love of his life, Barbara. Though madly in love, something inside of him was calling him away. She said if you got to go then go, which is about as mighty expression of love as there is.
So he called a friend who lived on a house boat in Key West and asked if there was enough room for him to crash for a while. The invitation was made and Joe made his way to the island. He slept in a tiny compartment but it had a view of the Gulf of Mexico and all of the tension and frustrations of his life began to disappear.
In a short period of time, he got a job driving the Conch Train, the tourist tour of Key West. He proudly called Barbara to inform her of his good fortune. “Looks like I’m gonna be staying awhile,” he explained. “I have a job making $6.50 an hour!”
Of course Barbara did what most wives who love their husband would do and quit her job as a nurse to move to Key West. She also got a job working for the Conch Train. They found their own place and for two years became one with the island that succeeded from the Union during the 1970s!
It was an idyllic life but one day Barbara told Joe that she wanted to be nearer to their children and by then he had healed from the scars of the past. After a bit of discussion he found that he could “transfer” to Savannah and work for the Trolley tours there. They found a condo on Wilmington Island to be near the ocean and Joe drives the streets of Savannah Wednesday through Saturday.
Sundays through Tuesday he is one of the original members of the Bored, a collection of friends that congregate every midday to toast life on Tybee Island. Thanks to O Johnny, we have hats and tee shirts that have “Official Tybidiot” on it ($25 if anyone would like to order one; plus shipping and handling). I further understand that Joe, Barbara and their daughter have “Certificates of Authenticity” as official Bored members.
The point of all of this is that I’ve wanted to do it for years. I begged for a Sabbatical several years back but didn’t get it. So I fall into the category of life blowing up on me rather than me blowing up my life to get to where I want and need to be.
It hurts like hell to do it this way but I’ve never been know for taking on easy tasks always preferring the hardest way instead. I mean I made a career out of homelessness and AIDS.
In the stages of loss you reach a point called “Emptying” and I think that I’ve finally gotten there. This morning Goddess and I meandered along the Back River looking at the High Tides covering the marsh grass. There was no breeze and the orange sun danced on the water. My I-pod played in my ears.
It always seemed like a good idea
Buy a little house boat free and clear
Living on Shrimp and Navigator beer
Every day goes by without a cloud
And every time you see him
He’s smiling out loud.
Trolley Joe smiles a lot. And this morning I found myself smiling out loud too.
At 57 years of age my friend Trolley Joe decided to blow his up. He had a successful career, marriage and kids. Then he went through a divorce and lived alone for a couple of years before meeting the love of his life, Barbara. Though madly in love, something inside of him was calling him away. She said if you got to go then go, which is about as mighty expression of love as there is.
So he called a friend who lived on a house boat in Key West and asked if there was enough room for him to crash for a while. The invitation was made and Joe made his way to the island. He slept in a tiny compartment but it had a view of the Gulf of Mexico and all of the tension and frustrations of his life began to disappear.
In a short period of time, he got a job driving the Conch Train, the tourist tour of Key West. He proudly called Barbara to inform her of his good fortune. “Looks like I’m gonna be staying awhile,” he explained. “I have a job making $6.50 an hour!”
Of course Barbara did what most wives who love their husband would do and quit her job as a nurse to move to Key West. She also got a job working for the Conch Train. They found their own place and for two years became one with the island that succeeded from the Union during the 1970s!
It was an idyllic life but one day Barbara told Joe that she wanted to be nearer to their children and by then he had healed from the scars of the past. After a bit of discussion he found that he could “transfer” to Savannah and work for the Trolley tours there. They found a condo on Wilmington Island to be near the ocean and Joe drives the streets of Savannah Wednesday through Saturday.
Sundays through Tuesday he is one of the original members of the Bored, a collection of friends that congregate every midday to toast life on Tybee Island. Thanks to O Johnny, we have hats and tee shirts that have “Official Tybidiot” on it ($25 if anyone would like to order one; plus shipping and handling). I further understand that Joe, Barbara and their daughter have “Certificates of Authenticity” as official Bored members.
The point of all of this is that I’ve wanted to do it for years. I begged for a Sabbatical several years back but didn’t get it. So I fall into the category of life blowing up on me rather than me blowing up my life to get to where I want and need to be.
It hurts like hell to do it this way but I’ve never been know for taking on easy tasks always preferring the hardest way instead. I mean I made a career out of homelessness and AIDS.
In the stages of loss you reach a point called “Emptying” and I think that I’ve finally gotten there. This morning Goddess and I meandered along the Back River looking at the High Tides covering the marsh grass. There was no breeze and the orange sun danced on the water. My I-pod played in my ears.
It always seemed like a good idea
Buy a little house boat free and clear
Living on Shrimp and Navigator beer
Every day goes by without a cloud
And every time you see him
He’s smiling out loud.
Trolley Joe smiles a lot. And this morning I found myself smiling out loud too.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Public Displays of Affection (PDA's)
I was having lunch with Ben Barnes, 91 years of age with a mind that is as good as ever. And his mind was good, as President of First Bank of Atlanta then was associated with the Bank of London, then in his retirement he started the Wachovia Bank in Savannah. He served 12 years as a member of the Union Mission Board and we are very close.
Thin white hair, a long winkled face with glasses resting on top of a narrow nose he is dressed causal which is rare for him. He even has tennis shoes on. I’m in a tee shirt, blue jeans and flip flops. We’ve always been “Mutt and Jeff” as he refers to us.
I’ve had the incredible good fortune to have had an incredible string of Board Chairmen, virtually all who have become good friends. Jerry Robinson, Carol Beeson (Ben’s daughter), Archie Davis, Philip Solomons, Jr., Curtis Lewis III, Don Kole, Herb McKenzie and …Ben.
Ben is actually mentor to several of the names above. He is a legend in the banking world and walking the streets of Atlanta with him is a history lesson. He knows how every building came about and there is a story behind each and every one. His old office is in 2 Peachtree Street in Atlanta which is now a 40 story government complex. Ben built it.
We were at Johnny Harris which is a Savannah landmark of a restaurant known for its bar-b-que and seafood. In its day, it where Savannah decked out to dance under the inside stars. Today it is used for political meetings and “old Savannah” families. It remains a place to be seen.
We had not seen one another since May and he wanted to know everything that had taken place in my life. Ben’s a good listener and so he did for half-an-hour as I described professional and personal changes that have occurred. He would interrupt with an occasional thoughtful question that pushed my answers to deeper levels.
Then he sat back and stared into space for a second before exploding the words out of his mouth at me with his thoughts.
“You’re a leader,” he began, “so whatever it is that you do you be sure to be out in front cause that’s where you’re most comfortable.”
Ben doesn’t beat around the bushes.
“And people are followers because they follow. There are too few leaders in this world and dammit you are one. And stop taking your time about it! The world needs you. And the world is bigger than Chatham County and your beloved Tybee! And the longer you beat around the bush the sooner people forget who you are! And people forget quickly because they are followers!”
Then he pushes back, wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin, smiles and concludes, “Of course that’s just my opinion which nobody asked for.”
How does someone respond to all of that?
“Um-huh,” I answer.
He laughs and it is a good one. I reach my hand across the table and touch the top of his and he grabs mine as his eyes grow moist. And I know that he loves me as he knows I do him.
It is good to be loved.
“One last thing,” he says pulling his hand back from the brief display of public affection (or PDA as Keller Deal calls it). Ben is the epitome of proper and dignity. It is rare for him to display emotion like this whereas I wear my emotions on both shoulders.
“We’re not going to let this much time pass anymore without talking and getting together! You understand that?”
And I look at this 91 year old man whose days are numbered understanding that he is more concerned about me than whatever amount of time he has left. And I am humbled by it and thankful beyond words.
We walk outside and he sees my convertible with the top down and smiles.
“Go pick up some chicks,” I hear him say as he laughs and gets in his car.
Thin white hair, a long winkled face with glasses resting on top of a narrow nose he is dressed causal which is rare for him. He even has tennis shoes on. I’m in a tee shirt, blue jeans and flip flops. We’ve always been “Mutt and Jeff” as he refers to us.
I’ve had the incredible good fortune to have had an incredible string of Board Chairmen, virtually all who have become good friends. Jerry Robinson, Carol Beeson (Ben’s daughter), Archie Davis, Philip Solomons, Jr., Curtis Lewis III, Don Kole, Herb McKenzie and …Ben.
Ben is actually mentor to several of the names above. He is a legend in the banking world and walking the streets of Atlanta with him is a history lesson. He knows how every building came about and there is a story behind each and every one. His old office is in 2 Peachtree Street in Atlanta which is now a 40 story government complex. Ben built it.
We were at Johnny Harris which is a Savannah landmark of a restaurant known for its bar-b-que and seafood. In its day, it where Savannah decked out to dance under the inside stars. Today it is used for political meetings and “old Savannah” families. It remains a place to be seen.
We had not seen one another since May and he wanted to know everything that had taken place in my life. Ben’s a good listener and so he did for half-an-hour as I described professional and personal changes that have occurred. He would interrupt with an occasional thoughtful question that pushed my answers to deeper levels.
Then he sat back and stared into space for a second before exploding the words out of his mouth at me with his thoughts.
“You’re a leader,” he began, “so whatever it is that you do you be sure to be out in front cause that’s where you’re most comfortable.”
Ben doesn’t beat around the bushes.
“And people are followers because they follow. There are too few leaders in this world and dammit you are one. And stop taking your time about it! The world needs you. And the world is bigger than Chatham County and your beloved Tybee! And the longer you beat around the bush the sooner people forget who you are! And people forget quickly because they are followers!”
Then he pushes back, wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin, smiles and concludes, “Of course that’s just my opinion which nobody asked for.”
How does someone respond to all of that?
“Um-huh,” I answer.
He laughs and it is a good one. I reach my hand across the table and touch the top of his and he grabs mine as his eyes grow moist. And I know that he loves me as he knows I do him.
It is good to be loved.
“One last thing,” he says pulling his hand back from the brief display of public affection (or PDA as Keller Deal calls it). Ben is the epitome of proper and dignity. It is rare for him to display emotion like this whereas I wear my emotions on both shoulders.
“We’re not going to let this much time pass anymore without talking and getting together! You understand that?”
And I look at this 91 year old man whose days are numbered understanding that he is more concerned about me than whatever amount of time he has left. And I am humbled by it and thankful beyond words.
We walk outside and he sees my convertible with the top down and smiles.
“Go pick up some chicks,” I hear him say as he laughs and gets in his car.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday Drives
When I was a kid, we would do what a lot of Southern families did during those days. Church came first (Pastor Johnson always went past 12:00), followed by a big lunch either at home or at Morrison’s Restaurant where we waited in line with all of the other Christians, and then we would often take a Sunday drive.
These drives could be to Tybee Island, to other neighborhoods to see how other people lived or to the Country to see cows or horses or pigs. It was Mom, Dad, David and me. I suppose Angi wasn’t born yet or my folks had put her in the trunk because she cried all of the time. Either way, I don’t remember her on Sunday drives.
The world has changed since then. A lot!
On Face Book I’ve made a lot of new friends whom I haven’t actually met yet. One is Will Simmons who lives in Atlanta and is a graduate of Georgia Tech. He is the grandfather of Sam who is my daughter Chelsea’s boyfriend (Yes they are a mixed relationship. He goes to Tech and Chelsea is at the University of Georgia).
Regardless, Will made a friend request which I gladly accepted and we have been communicating back and forth for a while now. Will reads my daily writings and he decided that he wanted to visit to see for himself the places that I describe every day.
So he goes to Bing’s Bird Eye View on his computer, types in my address, and there are satellite images of my house. He looks at it from the street then scrolls around the side. He sees the carport and the hanging plants and the outdoor shower where I am baptized most days. He goes into the back yard and sees my beloved back deck.
The he travels down the street to the marsh and traces the walk that I take daily with Goddess. He finds Shirley’s sad little holy dock.
He messages me to tell me these things and I am blown away!
Then I think about Deedra, Mitch, Mark and Gyni who I went to college with and how Face Book led to a reunion at my house. We have talked together every day for more than a month now. It is though thirty years of not seeing or talking to one another never happened.
Even Guy, the person to blame for me going to seminary and becoming a professional Christian, is now on and talking to us.
One of the blessings of being at Union Mission all of those years were the wonderful people from across the country that I got to know when I visited them or they visited us. We are now in a constant dialogue with one another.
Then there are the communications that I have with those I see with some regularity. Johnny O posts pictures for me to see though he is only a few blocks away. I let Conner know of all of the new and creative things that he can accomplish with a nail gun. Shirley lives around the corner but we Face Book more than we talk.
Even when Keller Deal is mad with me and not communicating she chooses to use Face Book to make her point and the silence can be deafening.
Then are daily private conversations that fly back and forth offering or receiving advice and counsel, love and encouragement, or to make plans.
And on Sunday’s, I have more time to take a drive on the World Wide Web to see what is going on in the lives of people I love and care for. It seems that many of them do too. And these Sunday drives are just as special today as they were when I was a kid.
These drives could be to Tybee Island, to other neighborhoods to see how other people lived or to the Country to see cows or horses or pigs. It was Mom, Dad, David and me. I suppose Angi wasn’t born yet or my folks had put her in the trunk because she cried all of the time. Either way, I don’t remember her on Sunday drives.
The world has changed since then. A lot!
On Face Book I’ve made a lot of new friends whom I haven’t actually met yet. One is Will Simmons who lives in Atlanta and is a graduate of Georgia Tech. He is the grandfather of Sam who is my daughter Chelsea’s boyfriend (Yes they are a mixed relationship. He goes to Tech and Chelsea is at the University of Georgia).
Regardless, Will made a friend request which I gladly accepted and we have been communicating back and forth for a while now. Will reads my daily writings and he decided that he wanted to visit to see for himself the places that I describe every day.
So he goes to Bing’s Bird Eye View on his computer, types in my address, and there are satellite images of my house. He looks at it from the street then scrolls around the side. He sees the carport and the hanging plants and the outdoor shower where I am baptized most days. He goes into the back yard and sees my beloved back deck.
The he travels down the street to the marsh and traces the walk that I take daily with Goddess. He finds Shirley’s sad little holy dock.
He messages me to tell me these things and I am blown away!
Then I think about Deedra, Mitch, Mark and Gyni who I went to college with and how Face Book led to a reunion at my house. We have talked together every day for more than a month now. It is though thirty years of not seeing or talking to one another never happened.
Even Guy, the person to blame for me going to seminary and becoming a professional Christian, is now on and talking to us.
One of the blessings of being at Union Mission all of those years were the wonderful people from across the country that I got to know when I visited them or they visited us. We are now in a constant dialogue with one another.
Then there are the communications that I have with those I see with some regularity. Johnny O posts pictures for me to see though he is only a few blocks away. I let Conner know of all of the new and creative things that he can accomplish with a nail gun. Shirley lives around the corner but we Face Book more than we talk.
Even when Keller Deal is mad with me and not communicating she chooses to use Face Book to make her point and the silence can be deafening.
Then are daily private conversations that fly back and forth offering or receiving advice and counsel, love and encouragement, or to make plans.
And on Sunday’s, I have more time to take a drive on the World Wide Web to see what is going on in the lives of people I love and care for. It seems that many of them do too. And these Sunday drives are just as special today as they were when I was a kid.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
When Bicycles Get Drunk
On Tybee Island we use bicycles a lot. The island isn’t all that big and the traffic this time of year is horrible. The parking lots are full so even with the Tybee sticker on our windshield that allows us to park for free we end up just riding around looking for some place to use it so most of us just use our bikes.
Most of us have regular bicycles that you peddle. Not Johnny O. He has one that has an engine and he doesn’t have to peddle. Johnny O is not a big believer in exercise.
Once, my friend Conner told me a story that relates. The company that he works for held a meeting that everyone had to attend. In an effort to improve the health care of the employees the folks in the corporate office wanted them to exercise. So they gave a speech about it and passed out odometers.
“We want everyone to walk and run. The odometers will allow you to keep up with your distance. Each week, everyone will report their distance and each month those who’ve done the most will be given cash awards.”
It was a great idea.
Typical Conner decided to do it his way. Every day after work, he grabbed his odometer and a rubber band and went to the bar. After ordering a Coors Light, he used the rubber band to attach the odometer to the beer. Every time he picked it up to take a drink it registered the distance. He did this throughout the night. Every night!
At the end of the month Conner was awarded a first prize cash award which he used, of course, to buy more Coors Light.
It’s hard not to love Conner.
But I digress (though Conner does fit in really well on Tybee).
Recently at the daily Bored Meeting, so called because we have been accused of being Boring, O Johnny showed up and his arms were all scratched, bruised and bloody. (Just so everyone knows, O Johnny is different from Johnny O. O Johnny actually works. For the federal government no less! And he peddles his own bicycle.)
“What happened to you?” several of us asked at the same time when he peddled up to join us.
‘This is what happens when bicycles get drunk,” he explained.
Everyone nodded their heads because no further explanation. It seems that everyone has a bicycle that drinks.
Tonight at the city council meeting a lot of locals are going to show up to express their support of the Tybee Island Police Department, all of whom were fired or placed on administrative leave recently for using Tassers on people.
I’m not going. I do not believe that Johnny O is either. Or O Johnny. Roma is going but she is old.
The reason we’re not is because of one of the numerous other controversial issues surrounding the Tybee Island Police Department. Last summer they began ticketing people for riding around on drunken bicycles. Talk about blaming the victim!
OK, I gotta go and hose down my bike with cold water. It’s almost time for the Bored meeting and it didn’t come home until like 2:00 last night.
It woke me up slamming into the screen door when it came in to park itself after I’d fallen asleep studying my Sunday School lesson.
Most of us have regular bicycles that you peddle. Not Johnny O. He has one that has an engine and he doesn’t have to peddle. Johnny O is not a big believer in exercise.
Once, my friend Conner told me a story that relates. The company that he works for held a meeting that everyone had to attend. In an effort to improve the health care of the employees the folks in the corporate office wanted them to exercise. So they gave a speech about it and passed out odometers.
“We want everyone to walk and run. The odometers will allow you to keep up with your distance. Each week, everyone will report their distance and each month those who’ve done the most will be given cash awards.”
It was a great idea.
Typical Conner decided to do it his way. Every day after work, he grabbed his odometer and a rubber band and went to the bar. After ordering a Coors Light, he used the rubber band to attach the odometer to the beer. Every time he picked it up to take a drink it registered the distance. He did this throughout the night. Every night!
At the end of the month Conner was awarded a first prize cash award which he used, of course, to buy more Coors Light.
It’s hard not to love Conner.
But I digress (though Conner does fit in really well on Tybee).
Recently at the daily Bored Meeting, so called because we have been accused of being Boring, O Johnny showed up and his arms were all scratched, bruised and bloody. (Just so everyone knows, O Johnny is different from Johnny O. O Johnny actually works. For the federal government no less! And he peddles his own bicycle.)
“What happened to you?” several of us asked at the same time when he peddled up to join us.
‘This is what happens when bicycles get drunk,” he explained.
Everyone nodded their heads because no further explanation. It seems that everyone has a bicycle that drinks.
Tonight at the city council meeting a lot of locals are going to show up to express their support of the Tybee Island Police Department, all of whom were fired or placed on administrative leave recently for using Tassers on people.
I’m not going. I do not believe that Johnny O is either. Or O Johnny. Roma is going but she is old.
The reason we’re not is because of one of the numerous other controversial issues surrounding the Tybee Island Police Department. Last summer they began ticketing people for riding around on drunken bicycles. Talk about blaming the victim!
OK, I gotta go and hose down my bike with cold water. It’s almost time for the Bored meeting and it didn’t come home until like 2:00 last night.
It woke me up slamming into the screen door when it came in to park itself after I’d fallen asleep studying my Sunday School lesson.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Global Love or Individual Love
So, I go to Chicago, hang around brilliant people, come home with a brilliant idea, work the emails and the cell phone, checking it out and setting it up. It is going to change the world. We all know it and spent today reaffirming it. We know. World changing stuff but at 8:45 p.m....I am home and alone.
Goddess has gotten a lot of love but she is loved out.
It seems that a lot of people are that way. I guess that love isn't everything that it used to be.
I don't know.
I've spent a career doing global love and I did it very well. I've got a lot of awards to show for it, but the problem with awards is that after a while you don't know what to do with them. Some are in the closet. Most are in storage at my Mom's house. Sooner or later she'll want me to come and get them and I don't know what to do with them. I have no more wall space.
When Mom retired, she had broken like every glass barrier that a woman in the south could break. So she had a lot of awards too. My Dad took care of it for her. He sold them all to a re-cycle awards place. She was furious, but didn't have to worry about what to do with all of those plaques and things.
Knowing Dad, he kept the money.
Anyway, I am an award winning global lover. At the individual level, I don't seem to be all that much.
Let me rephrase that. I am a GREAT lover. But things haven't worked out like I thought.
I wouldn't trade my experiences or the relationships that I've had. Sometimes people come in your life at the right time and the right things happen but it doesn't last beyond what it was supposed to. At least that is how I choose to look at it.
The passion, depth and intensity were all there in the relationships that I've had. In the beginning, love is the "suddenly compact universe of skin and teeth and hair" to quote Bruce Cockburn. They grew beyond that of course and deep abiding friendship came. And it was good. But it ended just like life one day ends.
It can be boring being alone sometime. Television is boring. I finished the book that I was reading and don't feel motivated to start a new one. Maybe I'm just spent from going and coming to Chicago in 34 hours.
So I grab my I-pod and a glass and go to my beloved back deck to talk to my friends the stars. Goddess decides to join me. A light summer breeze is blowing and I prop my feet on the railing.
Of course every song that plays on my shuffle is a love song! I laugh at the irony. Sometimes life is funny that way.
I stare at the stars. I know that I am getting ready for a lot of new things in my life. I have the gift of this particular time when I can think and write and talk to only the people that I want. New endeavors are just around the horizon and everyone tells me how wildly successful it is going to be. The past is becoming only other stories to tell as I look forward to the things that are next.
Yet as I sit there, the thing that I am most looking forward to the most, is receiving the kinds of rewards that I did for global love with that one person who is just for me.
Goddess has gotten a lot of love but she is loved out.
It seems that a lot of people are that way. I guess that love isn't everything that it used to be.
I don't know.
I've spent a career doing global love and I did it very well. I've got a lot of awards to show for it, but the problem with awards is that after a while you don't know what to do with them. Some are in the closet. Most are in storage at my Mom's house. Sooner or later she'll want me to come and get them and I don't know what to do with them. I have no more wall space.
When Mom retired, she had broken like every glass barrier that a woman in the south could break. So she had a lot of awards too. My Dad took care of it for her. He sold them all to a re-cycle awards place. She was furious, but didn't have to worry about what to do with all of those plaques and things.
Knowing Dad, he kept the money.
Anyway, I am an award winning global lover. At the individual level, I don't seem to be all that much.
Let me rephrase that. I am a GREAT lover. But things haven't worked out like I thought.
I wouldn't trade my experiences or the relationships that I've had. Sometimes people come in your life at the right time and the right things happen but it doesn't last beyond what it was supposed to. At least that is how I choose to look at it.
The passion, depth and intensity were all there in the relationships that I've had. In the beginning, love is the "suddenly compact universe of skin and teeth and hair" to quote Bruce Cockburn. They grew beyond that of course and deep abiding friendship came. And it was good. But it ended just like life one day ends.
It can be boring being alone sometime. Television is boring. I finished the book that I was reading and don't feel motivated to start a new one. Maybe I'm just spent from going and coming to Chicago in 34 hours.
So I grab my I-pod and a glass and go to my beloved back deck to talk to my friends the stars. Goddess decides to join me. A light summer breeze is blowing and I prop my feet on the railing.
Of course every song that plays on my shuffle is a love song! I laugh at the irony. Sometimes life is funny that way.
I stare at the stars. I know that I am getting ready for a lot of new things in my life. I have the gift of this particular time when I can think and write and talk to only the people that I want. New endeavors are just around the horizon and everyone tells me how wildly successful it is going to be. The past is becoming only other stories to tell as I look forward to the things that are next.
Yet as I sit there, the thing that I am most looking forward to the most, is receiving the kinds of rewards that I did for global love with that one person who is just for me.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
A Duct Taped Life
I saw Charles the other day for the first time since May. For almost 15 years, Charles has been my six-foot-two, former bank robber, mentally ill, child like janitor of Union Mission, who the staff called my adopted son. When he first came to Union Mission, he was on parole so he was forced to stay. That ended over a decade ago and we were able to achieve a stable environment and a quality of life for his mentally ill mind.
For all of these years, I have been the one constant in Charles' life. Joy Pankey oversees his affairs now and she and I needed to see one another to swap some items. I phoned her as I pulled up to the Fahm Street campus and she told me that Charles was sitting outside. I have missed him as we talked at least once a day for all of those years.
The car stopped at the curb and I crawled out. Joy was standing there grinning and he sat at her feet. When he saw me he stood and walked to me. His orange shirt was filty. His faded green jeans were mostly held together with duct tape. His hair hadn't been cut in a while and was a bit wild.
"I see you've almost got that shirt broken in Charles," I said shaking my head.
He looked down at it and then up at me with a grin. I don't know if he was smiling at the joke or was glad that I was there. He walked up to me and we hugged. He gave me as much as he could which was a limp embrace though I squeezed him back tightly with a lot of love in my heart for him.
I rubbed his hair and told, "Charles, you got gray hair."
"I know, sir," he replied as he reached up with both hands and somehow grabbed one gray hair in his fingers and pulled them up. He flashed his beautiful smile as he did this.
Then he got serious and stepped back from me. Closing his eyes and placing one hand on top of his head, he said, "Sir, I was very sorry to hear about your resignation. Please tell Julie hello for me."
We're never quite certain what Charles does or doesn't know. He knew that I had left Union Mission but no idea that Julie has been long gone.
"I'll tell her Charles," I said.
Then a few members of the staff came outside and gave me hugs and Charles took this has his cue to leave. He prefers one-on-one with me rather than having others around. But he left and it was poignant.
I looked at all of the duct tape on the back side of his pants and was struck by a thought. Charles' whole life is mostly duct taped together. He has done so well for so long because we were outside of the box with him. We didn't follow our own rules and made exceptions for him. But the result was a good one. Stability and a group of people who care for him almost like the family he no longer has.
I've since learned that he has stopped referring to a lot of people as "Sir" which is what he does when he gets to know someone. Over the past year he was finally calling me "Micheal." Today I was "Sir" again.
My time as Charles' principal care giver has passed. As has my time overseeing Union Mission. For everything there is a season, right?
Today I say a prayer for Charles. That his life becomes more than duct tape. That exceptions are still made for this child-like man who will never grow up. That new caregivers love him as much as they are capable. That his mind find peace. And that one day he can go home again.
He has taught me much over these years.
And I thank him with everything inside of me.
I love you Charles.
For all of these years, I have been the one constant in Charles' life. Joy Pankey oversees his affairs now and she and I needed to see one another to swap some items. I phoned her as I pulled up to the Fahm Street campus and she told me that Charles was sitting outside. I have missed him as we talked at least once a day for all of those years.
The car stopped at the curb and I crawled out. Joy was standing there grinning and he sat at her feet. When he saw me he stood and walked to me. His orange shirt was filty. His faded green jeans were mostly held together with duct tape. His hair hadn't been cut in a while and was a bit wild.
"I see you've almost got that shirt broken in Charles," I said shaking my head.
He looked down at it and then up at me with a grin. I don't know if he was smiling at the joke or was glad that I was there. He walked up to me and we hugged. He gave me as much as he could which was a limp embrace though I squeezed him back tightly with a lot of love in my heart for him.
I rubbed his hair and told, "Charles, you got gray hair."
"I know, sir," he replied as he reached up with both hands and somehow grabbed one gray hair in his fingers and pulled them up. He flashed his beautiful smile as he did this.
Then he got serious and stepped back from me. Closing his eyes and placing one hand on top of his head, he said, "Sir, I was very sorry to hear about your resignation. Please tell Julie hello for me."
We're never quite certain what Charles does or doesn't know. He knew that I had left Union Mission but no idea that Julie has been long gone.
"I'll tell her Charles," I said.
Then a few members of the staff came outside and gave me hugs and Charles took this has his cue to leave. He prefers one-on-one with me rather than having others around. But he left and it was poignant.
I looked at all of the duct tape on the back side of his pants and was struck by a thought. Charles' whole life is mostly duct taped together. He has done so well for so long because we were outside of the box with him. We didn't follow our own rules and made exceptions for him. But the result was a good one. Stability and a group of people who care for him almost like the family he no longer has.
I've since learned that he has stopped referring to a lot of people as "Sir" which is what he does when he gets to know someone. Over the past year he was finally calling me "Micheal." Today I was "Sir" again.
My time as Charles' principal care giver has passed. As has my time overseeing Union Mission. For everything there is a season, right?
Today I say a prayer for Charles. That his life becomes more than duct tape. That exceptions are still made for this child-like man who will never grow up. That new caregivers love him as much as they are capable. That his mind find peace. And that one day he can go home again.
He has taught me much over these years.
And I thank him with everything inside of me.
I love you Charles.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Beach Chairs and Bar Stools
This has been a summer of Beach Chairs and Bar Stools. Most of the Beach Chair time was spent in St. Martin in June but I have logged a bit of time with my toes in the sand on Tybee Island.
Chelsea and Kristen argue that this is the least amount of time I’ve been on the beach in their entire lives. It is true I know as I have concentrated on the Back River and the marshes around my house.
Last night my Mom and Jeremy and I sat on my beloved back deck and spoke of lost love while we grilled steaks and chicken and drank wine. It was good to be with my family in the tropical back yard where I spend most of my time these days.
“I want to get a sign made with Fran’s name on it,” I explained, “and put it there on the fence underneath the canopy of a thousand shades of green. I think that it would be a good memorial.”
Fran was my friend in college and she taught me green one day as she stared at a bunch of evergreens outside of the History Building. She had M.S. and knew that her days were numbered and she appreciated …everything! Especially the shades of green and she took the time that day to teach me.
I can no longer sit on my beloved back deck and not pay a bit of homage to her. She died years and years ago and I am now convinced that Fran is the green.
Mom agreed and we discussed how it should be done. We then talked about serendipity and my writing and Jeremy’s job search and all of the things that my Mom does (which is a lot for a 70-something year old woman who believes she’s in her 40’s).
Then Chelsea and Sam blew in to get Jeremy for Tybee Bingo. Mom took this as a cue to leave and in a matter of seconds Goddess and I were alone. She started at me with her tail wagging.
“What?” I asked. Yes, I talk to a dog. “What do you want?”
She stared at the top of the fridge where her leash is kept.
“Ok,” I answer and got it.
We stroll to Shirley’s sad little holy dock. Shirley has hidden a couple of chairs that we can pull out and sit in so I grabbed one and Goddess and I sat and watched the sun set. The tide was low so the music was the ticks and pops of shells opening and closing. Fran must love the marsh too in her after life because it was also a brilliant explosion of greens against an almost black mud and purple gray sky. I sat and patted Goddess and watched and wondered.
A lot of people have told me that they are surprised that I am back from St. Martin at all. They thought that when I left Union Mission that I was finally going to expatriate. I returned because my Mom ordered me too basically and because I chase Serendipity. Last night I wondered about it all.
When I was in St. Martin there is this beach bar named “Orange”. It is built on powder white sand just yards away from an incredible aqua-blue ocean dotted with mountains and islands rising out of it. Orange is very French and Oliver (pronounced Ah-liv-eeeer) and they struggle with English. Almost every day I would stroll down Orient Beach and sit on the same bar stool, order a Presidente and a fish sandwich.
Oliver got to know me as the weeks stretched out and saw that I was alone. Through his broken English he would ask me questions and in no time at all I was greeted with smiles. Now the French are quick with smiles but not service so these lunches took a while but it was a nice break sitting on a bar stool from a long day in a beach chair.
And I remembered how grateful I was to Oliver for his greetings during a lonely and difficult time for me. And their fish sandwiches are better than our fish sandwiches. And Presidente Light is better than Bud Light. And I contemplate returning.
Then Goddess licked my thigh and I snapped out of this memory with a jerk.
“Well,” I said petting her with as much love as I have inside of me, “at least I got you!”
Then Goddess and I walked home underneath a brilliant blanket of stars on a warm summer night.
Chelsea and Kristen argue that this is the least amount of time I’ve been on the beach in their entire lives. It is true I know as I have concentrated on the Back River and the marshes around my house.
Last night my Mom and Jeremy and I sat on my beloved back deck and spoke of lost love while we grilled steaks and chicken and drank wine. It was good to be with my family in the tropical back yard where I spend most of my time these days.
“I want to get a sign made with Fran’s name on it,” I explained, “and put it there on the fence underneath the canopy of a thousand shades of green. I think that it would be a good memorial.”
Fran was my friend in college and she taught me green one day as she stared at a bunch of evergreens outside of the History Building. She had M.S. and knew that her days were numbered and she appreciated …everything! Especially the shades of green and she took the time that day to teach me.
I can no longer sit on my beloved back deck and not pay a bit of homage to her. She died years and years ago and I am now convinced that Fran is the green.
Mom agreed and we discussed how it should be done. We then talked about serendipity and my writing and Jeremy’s job search and all of the things that my Mom does (which is a lot for a 70-something year old woman who believes she’s in her 40’s).
Then Chelsea and Sam blew in to get Jeremy for Tybee Bingo. Mom took this as a cue to leave and in a matter of seconds Goddess and I were alone. She started at me with her tail wagging.
“What?” I asked. Yes, I talk to a dog. “What do you want?”
She stared at the top of the fridge where her leash is kept.
“Ok,” I answer and got it.
We stroll to Shirley’s sad little holy dock. Shirley has hidden a couple of chairs that we can pull out and sit in so I grabbed one and Goddess and I sat and watched the sun set. The tide was low so the music was the ticks and pops of shells opening and closing. Fran must love the marsh too in her after life because it was also a brilliant explosion of greens against an almost black mud and purple gray sky. I sat and patted Goddess and watched and wondered.
A lot of people have told me that they are surprised that I am back from St. Martin at all. They thought that when I left Union Mission that I was finally going to expatriate. I returned because my Mom ordered me too basically and because I chase Serendipity. Last night I wondered about it all.
When I was in St. Martin there is this beach bar named “Orange”. It is built on powder white sand just yards away from an incredible aqua-blue ocean dotted with mountains and islands rising out of it. Orange is very French and Oliver (pronounced Ah-liv-eeeer) and they struggle with English. Almost every day I would stroll down Orient Beach and sit on the same bar stool, order a Presidente and a fish sandwich.
Oliver got to know me as the weeks stretched out and saw that I was alone. Through his broken English he would ask me questions and in no time at all I was greeted with smiles. Now the French are quick with smiles but not service so these lunches took a while but it was a nice break sitting on a bar stool from a long day in a beach chair.
And I remembered how grateful I was to Oliver for his greetings during a lonely and difficult time for me. And their fish sandwiches are better than our fish sandwiches. And Presidente Light is better than Bud Light. And I contemplate returning.
Then Goddess licked my thigh and I snapped out of this memory with a jerk.
“Well,” I said petting her with as much love as I have inside of me, “at least I got you!”
Then Goddess and I walked home underneath a brilliant blanket of stars on a warm summer night.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
What I Am Doing
I was lost in thought, walking Goddess, I-Pod streaming Jim Morris beach music into my ears. My neighbor threw down his weed-whacker and walked towards me.
He is a large man with a large house and a large family. Whenever I see him on the beach he has large flags flying over this set up. The U.S. flag, the University of Georgia flag, Furman University and the Irish flag. He also has a large smile whenever he waves at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and I was touched by the sincerity in his eyes. “I mean you’re not really retired are you?”
“What are you doing?” It is the question that I have been asked the most throughout my life. Many times it’s “Just what in the hell are you doing?”
Growing up my parents asked me. In college it was my friends and professors. In seminary, I helped those ordained teachers learn to cuss when they asked it. While earning my Masters of Social Work, I was sitting across from the Dean who wanted to throw me out of school when she asked it.
As a professional Christian in charge of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel the people at corporate headquarters in Atlanta would fly me there to ask it. And at Union Mission Board members would enter my office with exasperated expressions and demand me to answer.
Now when I’m not doing anything people still want to know what I’m doing.
“I am gathering my thoughts and rearranging them,” I replied.
“Oh, you’re consulting,” he said flashing the large grin.
Laughing, I told him that I am. I didn’t tell him that I am mostly consulting myself right now.
The other morning at breakfast with two former Board members I was asked the same question and I replied that I am writing, learning to live alone, and taking the Sabbatical that I wanted several years ago that I think would have altered the direction that my life has taken.
“You’re gathering your thoughts,” he shot back. “You need to be doing something!”
Well, I am doing something. I’m taking advantage of the gift of these moments because none of us are assured much anything. And I am not relentlessly changing people or things for the first time. And I am getting myself back after pretty much giving all of me away for the past three decades.
It is hard work.
And I am deciding. Dive back in to the deep end of the work pool or expatriate to a place where there is no winter. I know that I would do well regardless of what I decide to do. Self-confidence has never been an issue.
That’s enough for today. I have to get back to doing something as I stare out of the window and enjoy just how beautiful Fran’s thousand shades of green are in the trees in the yard.
He is a large man with a large house and a large family. Whenever I see him on the beach he has large flags flying over this set up. The U.S. flag, the University of Georgia flag, Furman University and the Irish flag. He also has a large smile whenever he waves at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and I was touched by the sincerity in his eyes. “I mean you’re not really retired are you?”
“What are you doing?” It is the question that I have been asked the most throughout my life. Many times it’s “Just what in the hell are you doing?”
Growing up my parents asked me. In college it was my friends and professors. In seminary, I helped those ordained teachers learn to cuss when they asked it. While earning my Masters of Social Work, I was sitting across from the Dean who wanted to throw me out of school when she asked it.
As a professional Christian in charge of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel the people at corporate headquarters in Atlanta would fly me there to ask it. And at Union Mission Board members would enter my office with exasperated expressions and demand me to answer.
Now when I’m not doing anything people still want to know what I’m doing.
“I am gathering my thoughts and rearranging them,” I replied.
“Oh, you’re consulting,” he said flashing the large grin.
Laughing, I told him that I am. I didn’t tell him that I am mostly consulting myself right now.
The other morning at breakfast with two former Board members I was asked the same question and I replied that I am writing, learning to live alone, and taking the Sabbatical that I wanted several years ago that I think would have altered the direction that my life has taken.
“You’re gathering your thoughts,” he shot back. “You need to be doing something!”
Well, I am doing something. I’m taking advantage of the gift of these moments because none of us are assured much anything. And I am not relentlessly changing people or things for the first time. And I am getting myself back after pretty much giving all of me away for the past three decades.
It is hard work.
And I am deciding. Dive back in to the deep end of the work pool or expatriate to a place where there is no winter. I know that I would do well regardless of what I decide to do. Self-confidence has never been an issue.
That’s enough for today. I have to get back to doing something as I stare out of the window and enjoy just how beautiful Fran’s thousand shades of green are in the trees in the yard.
Back to Normal
After Labor Day passes, Mike Hosti owner of the Tybee Markey normally has the sign out front of the grocery store proclaim “Back to Normal!” The tourists are gone and the island is ours again. The letter N is typically backwards because Tybee’s sense of normal is not quite like anyone else’s. It’s one of the many reasons that I love living here.
For the first time in my life I have not returned to work on the day after Labor Day along with everyone else. It’s a bit strange but I have list of things to do today:
(1) Go to the Drug Store for prescriptions which I was to have picked up on Friday but never got around to it;
(2) Swing through Wall Mart because Goddess keeps eating everything in the house and she needs new stuff;
(3) Attend the Bored Meeting;
(4) Maybe go to Johnny O’s to watch squirrel feeding (or as his wife Judy calls it when I sit on their porch “It wine and Whine!”)
(5) Call my mother because she’s leaving me messages to call her and I haven’t gotten around to it yet. (Mom, I am not sure why this is number 5. You know you’re number one but my computer keeps dropping you to fifth. Technology!)
(6) Have Goddess take me for a walk.
(7) Try to come up with an answer to Mom’s question when I finally do get around to calling her. She ends every conversation with “What are you doing for dinner tonight?” because she knows that I have no idea and will often not even bother with it.
(8) Breeze by my 30-going-on-17 year old daughter Kristen’s weekly beach volley ball tournament and watch her be the only girl to beat the boys.
(9) Attend Roma’s weekly pool tournament at the Quarter and try to get their in time to actually play.
(10) Brush Goddess on the beloved back deck, prop my feet on the rail, sip a glass of wine and dance with the stars.
A few years ago, Union Mission went through a very difficult period and I had conversation with Aretha Jones. We both acknowledged how much of our self identity was tied up in our jobs. Who we were was determined by where we worked.
I now understand that this is a perverse way of living life. God created us to be …us. Not to work for the man (or woman)! Sure work is something that we do but it is not who we are. I am at a place now where I am trying to get back to Normal…to be the unique “me” that I was born to be.
I think that each of us reach a point in our lives where we have to face ourselves. And we either do or we don’t. And those who do embrace themselves for who they are grow closer to God in the process. And those who don’t lose a little bit more of themselves every day.
So I am working on getting back to normal by facing myself as just me and doing my best to embrace me for me.
Of course, the N is backwards in my normal. Just as God intended it to be. She’s smart that way.
For the first time in my life I have not returned to work on the day after Labor Day along with everyone else. It’s a bit strange but I have list of things to do today:
(1) Go to the Drug Store for prescriptions which I was to have picked up on Friday but never got around to it;
(2) Swing through Wall Mart because Goddess keeps eating everything in the house and she needs new stuff;
(3) Attend the Bored Meeting;
(4) Maybe go to Johnny O’s to watch squirrel feeding (or as his wife Judy calls it when I sit on their porch “It wine and Whine!”)
(5) Call my mother because she’s leaving me messages to call her and I haven’t gotten around to it yet. (Mom, I am not sure why this is number 5. You know you’re number one but my computer keeps dropping you to fifth. Technology!)
(6) Have Goddess take me for a walk.
(7) Try to come up with an answer to Mom’s question when I finally do get around to calling her. She ends every conversation with “What are you doing for dinner tonight?” because she knows that I have no idea and will often not even bother with it.
(8) Breeze by my 30-going-on-17 year old daughter Kristen’s weekly beach volley ball tournament and watch her be the only girl to beat the boys.
(9) Attend Roma’s weekly pool tournament at the Quarter and try to get their in time to actually play.
(10) Brush Goddess on the beloved back deck, prop my feet on the rail, sip a glass of wine and dance with the stars.
A few years ago, Union Mission went through a very difficult period and I had conversation with Aretha Jones. We both acknowledged how much of our self identity was tied up in our jobs. Who we were was determined by where we worked.
I now understand that this is a perverse way of living life. God created us to be …us. Not to work for the man (or woman)! Sure work is something that we do but it is not who we are. I am at a place now where I am trying to get back to Normal…to be the unique “me” that I was born to be.
I think that each of us reach a point in our lives where we have to face ourselves. And we either do or we don’t. And those who do embrace themselves for who they are grow closer to God in the process. And those who don’t lose a little bit more of themselves every day.
So I am working on getting back to normal by facing myself as just me and doing my best to embrace me for me.
Of course, the N is backwards in my normal. Just as God intended it to be. She’s smart that way.
All Over the Place
It is Labor Day and I am working on me these days after decades of working on others. In many ways, it is much more difficult work.
Over the years I had assumed many postures and positions that weren’t really me but I used them to accomplish or to cope and now I am stripping them away to get back to just me. It’s like scraping barnacles from the bottom of a boat. It hurts like hell but is necessary for smooth sailing.
One of my weekend traditions is to review all of the things that I wrote that week. I read them bask-to-back-to-back, sort of taking an inventory of me. Recently a friend of mine told me that I was all over the place so I started looking at it from that perspective.
It is true. I am all over the place.
Everything from bicycles that drink too much to 91 year old men who forsake their numbered days for my benefit; from my adopted son Charles to making out with my High School girl friend at the Drive Inn on Sunday nights; and, of course, to the family all agreeing that my baby sister Angi would enjoy a Sunday Drive better from the trunk.
I’ve written 8 books (one self-published as a fund raiser for Union Mission) and one of the things that kept getting me in trouble as an author is that I would never stick to a particular subject line. My books are all over the place too! So I had to keep finding new publishers because the old ones didn’t like the new subject matter. They wanted me to write the same stuff. I wasn’t interested in that. I wrote about what I WAS interested in.
It may very well be that being all over the place is the way that I’ve always lived my life and not just recently because of the trials and traumas of relationships that fall apart and work that comes to an end.
Union Mission is as diverse and as complex as it is, in many ways, because I was always interested in moving on to the next thing.
My 91 year old friend Ben told me the other day, “I’ve watched you a long time now. You like to create. Then at the ribbon cutting you smile and pat someone on the back, hand them the keys and move on to the next thing.”
As soon as the words hung in the air at Johnny Harris’ restaurant, I knew that they were as true as any that have ever been spoken.
For decades I survived work by carving out this schizophrenic lifestyle where in Savannah, I was one person --- public, driven, relentless; but on Tybee I was another --- laid back, beach bum, picking up crab grass in the yard. It worked great. Until it went to hell!
A few years ago work started invading Tybee and my home. It became all consuming and so it consumed all.
Today I sit here looking at Fran’s thousand shades of green in the bright sunshine and for the first time in my life appreciate Labor Day. Most every one has the day off. The government of all things created a holiday to say to us, thanks for the hard work. You did good! Take a little time for yourself and your family. They are more important anyway.
And I’m coming to realize that I’ve always been all over the place. It is who I am. For Christ’s sake my friends range from Johnny O, Conner, Roma, O Johnny and Trolley Joe to Will Campbell (Southern Baptist prophet) , Jack Pegrim (does street medicine in Calcutta), Lucy Hall (Amazon woman in Atlanta saving addicts on the streets), and Dr. Jim Withers (founder of the Street Medicine movement). Talk about a schizophrenic collection of people! And I love them all in equal proportions.
So, on this Labor Day, I am going to celebrate me and the work that I am doing to get back to just me.
It’s all over the place.
Over the years I had assumed many postures and positions that weren’t really me but I used them to accomplish or to cope and now I am stripping them away to get back to just me. It’s like scraping barnacles from the bottom of a boat. It hurts like hell but is necessary for smooth sailing.
One of my weekend traditions is to review all of the things that I wrote that week. I read them bask-to-back-to-back, sort of taking an inventory of me. Recently a friend of mine told me that I was all over the place so I started looking at it from that perspective.
It is true. I am all over the place.
Everything from bicycles that drink too much to 91 year old men who forsake their numbered days for my benefit; from my adopted son Charles to making out with my High School girl friend at the Drive Inn on Sunday nights; and, of course, to the family all agreeing that my baby sister Angi would enjoy a Sunday Drive better from the trunk.
I’ve written 8 books (one self-published as a fund raiser for Union Mission) and one of the things that kept getting me in trouble as an author is that I would never stick to a particular subject line. My books are all over the place too! So I had to keep finding new publishers because the old ones didn’t like the new subject matter. They wanted me to write the same stuff. I wasn’t interested in that. I wrote about what I WAS interested in.
It may very well be that being all over the place is the way that I’ve always lived my life and not just recently because of the trials and traumas of relationships that fall apart and work that comes to an end.
Union Mission is as diverse and as complex as it is, in many ways, because I was always interested in moving on to the next thing.
My 91 year old friend Ben told me the other day, “I’ve watched you a long time now. You like to create. Then at the ribbon cutting you smile and pat someone on the back, hand them the keys and move on to the next thing.”
As soon as the words hung in the air at Johnny Harris’ restaurant, I knew that they were as true as any that have ever been spoken.
For decades I survived work by carving out this schizophrenic lifestyle where in Savannah, I was one person --- public, driven, relentless; but on Tybee I was another --- laid back, beach bum, picking up crab grass in the yard. It worked great. Until it went to hell!
A few years ago work started invading Tybee and my home. It became all consuming and so it consumed all.
Today I sit here looking at Fran’s thousand shades of green in the bright sunshine and for the first time in my life appreciate Labor Day. Most every one has the day off. The government of all things created a holiday to say to us, thanks for the hard work. You did good! Take a little time for yourself and your family. They are more important anyway.
And I’m coming to realize that I’ve always been all over the place. It is who I am. For Christ’s sake my friends range from Johnny O, Conner, Roma, O Johnny and Trolley Joe to Will Campbell (Southern Baptist prophet) , Jack Pegrim (does street medicine in Calcutta), Lucy Hall (Amazon woman in Atlanta saving addicts on the streets), and Dr. Jim Withers (founder of the Street Medicine movement). Talk about a schizophrenic collection of people! And I love them all in equal proportions.
So, on this Labor Day, I am going to celebrate me and the work that I am doing to get back to just me.
It’s all over the place.
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