64 yrs old and my Mom still gets mad!

My Mom got on to me the other day. 

 Now I’m way past the age of my Mom getting on to me but that doesn’t stop her when she wants to get on to me. 

So she did. 

I was talking to her on the phone standing on the Beloved Back Deck when said, “I need to tell you something.” 

 “Shit,” I thought to myself. “I’m in trouble.” 

Throughout my life when Mom starts “I need to tell you something,” I was normally in trouble. 

I always liked it a lot more when Mom looked at Angi or David and told them that she needed to tell them something. 

Now that was fun! 

 When directed at me though … not so much. 

 I do believe that I still hold the family record for being spoken to by my Mom in her attempt to orchestrate “pre-emptive strikes” or, as in most cases if I’d already done it, “corrective activity.” 

 Let’s recount the top five, shall we? (1) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole every flag from the Port Wentworth Elementary School so the next morning no one could say the “Pledge of Allegiance.” 

 (2) The night I snuck out of my bedroom to go dancing and was run over by four college kids on their way to Florida for the first time in their lives, shattering my leg and putting me in the hospital for months. She wanted to put me on restriction but I was in traction. 

(3) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole all of the fire extinguishers out of the company on the other side of the viaduct and the police brought me home from softball practice to inform Mom while she was cooking supper. 

 (4) The night Mom and Dad left me in charge of the house while they went away for a romantic night and I hosted the party of all parties along with my brother David who was found hiding under the bed when the Port Wentworth Police Department showed up … I think that we just had stuck Age in a drawer … it’s kind of foggy … she was there when Mom and Dad left and there when they returned early from their trip but I have no recollection of her at all in between). 

 (5) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I orchestrated a photograph at the “Root Beer Drive In” of black and white kids dressed as 1950s “Greasers” and I’m sitting on the roof of the car in a black cut off tee with my arm around Debbie Hendrix flipping a finger at the photographer and it ended up being a full page photo in my High School annual. 

(6) I know I said Top 5 … but the memories are flooding back now and are overwhelming me … the night Mom and Dad were chaperoning the Mercer Middle School Dance and I started dancing with the black girl in the middle of the black side of the room and never came back to the other side. It was big stuff back then. 

 

Ah … good times. 

Not so much for my Mom! After each of these things she would look at me sternly and say, “I need to tell you something.” 

“Shit,” I’d say. 

 But, she stuck with me. 

 And she still does. 

 So I’m standing on the Beloved Back Deck and she’s giving me shit …, er … I mean … engaging in “corrective activity” … over a blog I wrote last week. 

 “You’re starting all of this new work,” she said, “you can’t write about having staff meetings on your back deck without wearing a shirt or confusing Bar Church with Bra Church. That is just … unacceptable.” 

I was looking at the thousand shades of green in the trees searching for some guidance.  

 “Mom,” I finally said. 

It never worked before. 

I’m not certain what possessed me to think it would work now. 

So she finished telling me what she what she wanted me to do and I said something clever like, “Yes Mam.” 

I’m a big believer that life is a gift. It’s one that all of us share though none of us asked for. It’s ours to do with what we want. To share with whoever we wish to share it with … and to withhold from those that we don’t. 

None of us know how long the gift of life last or how long the gift of others we love in our lives last either. That’s what makes it a gift to be celebrated every second that we have it. 

 And I’ve had this gift of this Mom. She’s put up with a lot. She’s also seen a lot. And she just keeps on keeping on. 

And I love you Mom. 

Happy Mother’s Day

Hey Jesus! (The King James Version(s) of the Bible

May 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the translation of the King James Version of the Bible into English. I’m not exactly certain which of the 16 different versions of the King James Bible that we’re actually celebrating but that is not the point. Jesus finally became an American when everything got translated to English!

While it’s only May 7th I’m exhausted from the non-stop parties celebrating the King James Version of the Bible. Every day and every night, it’s something! It seems as I’ve been wearing my robe non-stop since last week! (Of course I don’t mind wearing the robe because it means I don’t have any underwear on.)

Then Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called me and asked if I would write some devotions that could be set to music for Bar Church. They will become CDs and distributed to anyone who may actually happen to want one.

Of course I am honored. So I grabbed one of the sixteen different versions of the King James Bible that I have and went to work. Before I wrote a word I got to thinking. “Why are devotionals so freekin’ serious?” I’ve never heard a rip roaring funny devotion. Now Bar Church is a lot of fun so the devotions need to fit the ambiance.

Then I was sharing this with a friend at a King James 400th Anniversary celebration party. The theme of this party was “Which of the sixteen different translations of the King James Bible are we actually celebrating?”

It took us no time at all to figure out why this is a question … editors! They cut, paste, change and do all kinds of stuff. Sixteen different editors mean sixteen different versions.

Then we got to wondering about all of the stuff that got edited out.

Hmmmm…..

I immediately got in touch with Mitch who is an expert on all sixteen versions of the King James Bible. “Surely,” I asked, “the Apostles asked a lot more questions than were included in one the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible that we are celebrating.”

“Don’t call me Shirley,” Mitch fired back. “Of course they did. I mean think about. They’re all walking down the road and it’s a hot and dusty day. Nobody else is around. This is their opportunity to ask Jesus the stuff they really want to know.”

“You mean the stuff that the editors of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible took out?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve actually seen the clippings from the scrolls that ended up on the cutting room floor. You wouldn’t believe the insightfulness of the Apostles questions.”

“Really” I was beside myself with anticipation.

“Yep,” Mitch continued. “Like Peter asked right off the bat … Hey Jesus why did you wait until now to turn water into wine?’ We could have used that a long time ago.”

“Makes perfect sense,” I said in admiration of Mitch’s scholarly passions. “What else?”

“Matthew wanted to know why there were no girls in the Club,” he said.

Again I was dumbfounded at the perfectly legitimate question.

“Judas asked, ‘Hey Jesus why do we have to walk everywhere? Can’t we afford a wagon?’”

James asked, “Hey Jesus! Let’s just start a band. You can sing lead!”

Of course Jesus, being Jesus and all, took it all in good stride. He was focused on bigger things saving the world and all. And in the end Jesus proved right on it all.

But you have to admit. Wouldn’t you like to know the answers to the other questions that the Apostle’s asked?

I’m just saying … it’s something to think about on the 400th anniversary of the sixteen different versions of the King James Version of the Bible.

Gifts

The thing about gifts is you never know when they’re going to happen. That’s what makes them special. Then the unexpected happens and it’s something that you really needed or wanted and joy is born in an instant.

You also never know how long gifts last so it’s best to enjoy them while you have them and not put it off to later. There may never be a later.

This has been a long and busy week with multiple trips into Savannah and long hours doing new work and creating fresh and different things. While it’s been invigorating it also takes its toll.

Talking to my Mom the other day on the phone she said, “You sound tired. Your voice is low. I haven’t heard you sound like that in a long time.”

It was a good tired though; the kind that is born from doing good and worthwhile things.

Most of the past few years, my voice was low because I was weary and spent. I was running on empty and the things that had charged me back up had left and were no more. When my back’s up against the wall I try even harder and you can try too hard, as James Taylor puts it. And I did so it all just got worse.

So yesterday my friend Val at the Breakfast Club chided me because I haven’t been doing things with them lately. After hanging up with my Mom I petted Goddess, hopped on my very sober bicycle and glided to “Social” one of Tybee’s restaurants.

For Cinco de Mayo they were having chiwawa races. Val and Nick own Brutes, a chiwawa who loves sausage. The plan was for Nick to stand at the end of the finish line with sausage, scream “Who’s your Daddy?” and Brutes would set new chiwawa speed records.

It was a hoot!

Phil and Katie were there (though much younger than me Katie functions as a surrogate Mother to me) from the Breakfast Club, Helen, Grayson and others. We drank, cheered and laughed the evening away. We mostly laughed.

At one point I stopped and just noticed everything that was happening around me. Friends were together. The music of joy was in the air. The only thing that mattered in the entire universe was how fast a chiwawa could run.

What a gift!

This morning at the Breakfast Club we celebrated again the joys of last night telling stories of how the race was fixed (Brutes came in second).

Then I went home and Goddess and I played. Just as I started working Sam Adams, who plays damn good live music with Gordon and Davy, called asking me things. I love Sam, his music and his spirit.

Then I got a call and it was unexpected good news that made me happy.

Then Art and I talked forever in his Drive-way while he feed Goddess treats.

The choirs of birds were singing.

A friend who I love stopped by and surprised me.

By 9:30 in the morning I was full of the gifts of life!

And I celebrated.

As I made a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Blowing in the Wind

Archie Davis was driving me to a meeting at St. Joseph/Candler Hospital. We were putting together the collaborative that started the J. C. Lewis Health System and Memorial Health was already a partner contributing a quarter of a million dollars. Archie was convinced that St. Joe/Candler would do the same.

Archie was my Board Chair and was the founding President of the Savannah Bank. My Mom had worked for him years ago so we connected at many levels. I remember before every Board meeting that he chaired he’d ask if I was ready. I’d nod then he’d lean over and say, “Good. Don’t f*ck it up.”

Rebekah on the other side of me would always start giggling when Archie did this which was the beginning of every Board meeting that he ever chaired.

It is very hard not to love Archie!

So as he was driving I was asking him questions. He’d started the Savannah Bank from scratch and it had become the city’s most successful local bank, on the cutting edge of the growth movement of local banks. Archie’s office was close to the Teller’s stations so that anybody could stick their head in and say hello, complain or start a conversation.

He was the opposite of those asses who ran the local National Banks. Archie is down-to-earth, a southern boy, and a very smart business man.

“What makes you successful Archie?” I ask.

He ponders for just a second while driving along before saying, “The people around me.”

I don’t remember what I thought his answer would be but I wasn’t expecting that. Most Bank Presidents are all about themselves. Archie was saying it was the people he chosen to work with who made him successful.

“Sure,” I replied, “but sometimes those people let you down. What do you do then?”

Taking half-a-second before he answered he shot, “Micheal you take care of the people who take care of you.”

And I internalized that lesson immediately. It became one of my mantras.

Take care of the people who take care of you.

“Shower the people you love with love,” is how James Taylor puts it.

The truth of the matter is that things don’t always work out that way. Sometimes it all gets out of whack. You’re doing all the giving and they’re doing the taking. Or you screw up and are never allowed to forget it. Faults, which are just part being human, are exaggerated and used as emotional currency to blackmail.

I don’t know about you but this just makes me try harder. And the funny thing about that is the harder you try the more it gets out of whack.

“Try not to try too hard,” James Taylor was quoted in a wedding I was once in.

But I did and the promises of that wedding blew away in the wind.

Archie is staring at me now. He’s taken aback by my questions.

“So Archie,” I asked contemplatively, “how did you get started with all of this?”

He laughs out loud.

“Oh I got fired.”

“What?” I ask in disbelief. He’d been an icon at the C&S Bank, now Bank of America when my Mother worked for him.

“Yeah,” he continues still laughing, “I took a year off and then they asked me to start the Savannah Bank. It’s all been good since.”

I remember being stunned.

An hour later, Archie delivered St. Joe/Candler as an equal funding partner with Memorial Health in the creation of the J. C. Lewis Health Center. Two competing hospital systems immediately drew the attention of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who matched both hospitals contributions with half-a-million dollars.

There’s big money in homelessness!

That’s not true. There’s big money in creativity!

And the secret to meaningful relationships, which is not the same as longevity, is always creating and re-creating yourself. Stay the same and die is a new mantra of mine.

Archie had his year. I’m finishing mine.

It’s time to create.

I’ll try not to try too hard.

Balance

Every morning and every afternoon I check the mail, meaning e-mail, Face Book, Instant messages and Twitter notifications. I go to the Post Office once a week, maybe, to get regular mail which usually must be pried from the box. Yesterday I noticed that the number of emails now pale in comparison to these other ways of communicating.

Of course snail mail is mostly mass advertising and credit card applications.

On a daily basis from Alaska to south Florida and from New York to Hawaii my conversations take place in real time. Most are about my daily musings, followed by work related questions then travel planning because of work and finally just having fun.

Snail mail and most email are now mostly passé. Aside from the occasional personal note, they are impersonal and take out the human factor of life and work.

The more immediate and instant modes of communication are taking their place. Web pages are also quickly becoming passé because they’re not interactive and people want communication, answers and service in real time. So I can talk to Ida in Alaska and immediately answer her question. Or my daughter is in London and we Skype and Face Book to stay current on a daily basis.

Communicating this way has led to meeting new friends in person, reconnecting with old friends, questions about work have led to business, and even when a tornado blew through my son’s living room volunteers were immediately available and friends from State and Federal agencies were letting me know how they can help … in real time!

For most of the past year my life has been on Tybee Island but my discussions have been World-wide. Jose in San Juan, Jacob in Norway and Kurt in Croatia all chime in with regularity. Of course my St. Martin friends want to know how Goddess is doing and when Conner and I will return.

This is the way that the world now works.

So yesterday it was funny when I left this way of doing things to meet my mentor and friend Ben Barnes for lunch at the Starfish Café. And though cyber-hugs are great they’ll never replace the real touch of people who love you when they see you. When I walked in Chef Paul and Gloria came running with real hugs and kisses.

People I used to work came and did the same. Francis Carter who now runs Union Mission was hosting a women’s gathering for United Way. As ladies arrived many saw me for the first time in a year and made their way over for hugs and conversations.

“Micheal!” one yelled, “I thought you were …”

“Dead” I finished for her.

She released me from the hug and finished for herself, “Gone.”

“Nope,” I replied “just been lying low.”

But the fact of the matter is that I really haven’t laid low. I’ve just used different ways to stay in touch. For the most part I’ve left Savannah to Francis, a Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous, and those now in charge of things. I had my run and made my differences and how it’s their turn (well not the Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous … he’s done).

Every day I’ve posted what’s been happening in my life, both personally and professionally. When I discovered that I was suddenly single, I wrote about what it was like and I was overwhelmed with how people responded. I said things that many felt but keep to themselves and don’t say. They reached out and these dialogues began that led to … support, personal meetings and church (in the real sense of the word).

I wrote about living on Tybee Island, the Bored meeting, drunken bicycles, my deck, my dog, Bar Church and a sad little holy dock. And people responded in ways I never would have imagined. One wrote asking for a photograph for Face Book of me on the Beloved Back deck with Goddess and my drunken bicycle (Nancy or Julia … we might have to do this).

Another asked if I would conduct a worship service on Shirley’s sad little holy dock? If anybody actually showed up, it would collapse.

Describing my travels and the amazing work that I see and get to participate in, lots of people have gotten in touch and I either answered their questions or made cyber-introductions to those who are the experts.

Other times I just share what is going on, funny or sad, personal or professional, inside or outside. Again I remain stunned at the response. One friend got on the Internet and took a virtual tour of the walk that I take Goddess on every day. He found aerial views of the beloved back deck, the sad little holy dock and even where Art gives Goddess treats. He is a long retired Georgia Tech man and though he doesn’t travel outside of a five mile radius, the man gets around!

So last week I decided it was time for balance (meaning Rebekah and Jodi were telling me to get out in public in the old fashion way). I’m starting close at home. There are meetings in Savannah all week and all through next week. I’ll enter the juggling act of balancing the new with the old.

Now that I think about it … that’s what I’ve always done.

Scars

I’m standing in the still of the night under a hazy silver of moon that looks like a bowl just of above the trees that I call Fran’s thousands of green. There are stars above it and they look like sprinkles dropping into the bowl or cereal.

My neighbor has left all of the lights are on in her house, on her back porch and her television is on. She lives alone so maybe this is her way of adding additional protection. Maybe she just doesn’t want to feel alone. There is no sign of her anywhere so I assume she’s asleep on her sofa.

It’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m lost in thought standing on the back deck.

There is no breeze … no rustling of leaves and no birds are singing. There is no traffic in the distance. The only sound is that of my own breathing.

Goddess is asleep in the doorway of my bedroom with half of her body in the bedroom and half in the living room. She used to sleep on her benches or her bed but sometime over the past year some protective spirit kicked in and she sleeps like this every night so that whatever she thinks is coming to hurt me has to get by her first.

After half an hour of staring out of the five windows that I can see out of in my bedroom, I get up and step over her and come outside. I am restless for the future to arrive now. I want the things that I’m wishing for. I’m telling myself to concentrate on these things and go back to bed.

I’d woken up with the image of scars ... and the people who inflicted them on me ... and the ones that are self-inflicted. I reach down and rub the scar just below my right knee where the pin had been placed to straighten out a shattered leg.

I rub the scar under the upside down moon in the bright darkness of a funny night.

This scar is self-inflicted. I’d snuck out of the house to go dancing only to be hit by car shattering my leg. Six weeks in traction in the hospital, followed by eight weeks in a body cast, was followed by a shriveled leg half the size of its companion.

I remember going back to school for the first time in months, embarrassed when it was time for P. E. I remember Maurice making fun of the shriveled leg. We’d played football together. Then Coach Greg Talley told us to line up and run.

I couldn’t believe it!

But I ran, one strong leg followed by a remnant of a leg going through the motions. And it hurt. And the embarrassment grew because I was no longer what I was. Maurice and others laughed as I made my way to the finish line far behind the last person in front of me. I was sweating, gasping for far, my leg was killing me and I hated every damn one them.

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places,” Hemingway wrote. “But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

In the midst of being broken … things were born inside of me that day.

I began to run. I did leg squats like nobody else would. I’d stand on the edge of steps and bounce up and down building my calf. Then I remember later racing past Maurice at the finish line and immediately turning just to watch him cross it behind me. Then I slapped my hand in the air dismissing him.

My finger traces the scar in the bright dark of an upside down moon.

The scars that were inflicted by others run through my mind. And I call each of them by name in the still of the night.

And I cuss them.

Something moves in the yard and I look down. The Palm Tree has a face … eyes, nose and mouth made out of oyster shells … and the haze of the moon illuminates the face. It smiles at me.

I stare at it, amused by my thoughts and its smile.

Then I’m struck that I’ll always have these scars. And the ones inflicted by others are far worse than the ones that I inflicted on myself. And I cuss them again in the middle of the night for stealing sleep from me when they’ve already taken so many other things.

But ...

It is that future that I care about.

And I will race passed the past …

Then I’ll turn around and smile ...

… because I am strong at the broken places ...

Then I go back inside, step over Goddess and sleep soundly.

Staff Meeting

The three of us huddled around my tiny kitchen table with notebooks spread out before us running through a diverse agenda. My kitchen also serves as the Executive Conference Room for the new company we’ve started. It’s kind of nice because the fridge is right there if anybody wants anything. “Acoustic Café” my Sunday morning ritual is playing on the radio. If things get touchy, the liquor cabinet is also within arm’s reach.

The kitchen/Executive Conference Room is adjacent to my Beloved Back Deck which also serves as the Executive Offices of the President/CEO. We’re establishing satellite offices on Wilmington Island and Pooler (more on the expansion plans later). The living room completes the Corporate Headquarters although we haven’t figured out its use yet.

We’re having our first staff meeting. We’ve meet over lunch a couple of times but this is the first official staff meeting and we’re dressed for the occasion. I have on running shorts and a tee shirt.

I’ve really missed corporate life!

For years I ran a weekly management meeting with all of my direct reports. I tried to keep it light and fun because the issues we were managing were so serious and dark. Over time, I turned over the management of the management meeting to a Chief Operating Officer. She was a bit more serious about it all than me though she rarely showed up on time.

Towards the end at Union Mission I took to taking the entire management team out to lunch for meetings at Johnny Harris’s, a Savannah institution. None of the African-Americans liked it but it is where old Savannah goes (all white) for meetings. In Savannah most every important decision takes place over lunch. I’m not sure why this is, but it is.

Besides I really like their “Noon Special”

We’d gotten through a lot of trauma and everybody was working killer hours so I thought it important to lighten everything up a bit. Not that I was especially light at the time. I was depressed.

Anyway a year has passed since I’ve haven’t hosted a staff meeting ... or a meeting of any kind. I do attend Bored meeting but I don’t think that counts.

But yesterday we met for about three hours. One showed up Bra-less because she thought we were going to Bar Church and when she’d asked me what people wear to Bar Church, I thought she’d said Bra-Church and told her that I’d never seen one there.

The other wore blue jean shorts and some designer tee shirt.

I must say that I’m very pleased with the corporate culture we are establishing in the new Corporate Headquarters of the new company we have started.

To commemorate the “soft” launch of the new company I’d cooked sausage gravy and biscuits for brunch which was served in the kitchen/Corporate Board Room. This was a symbolic decision on my part. Sausage gravy and biscuits launched my career in Louisville when I’d craw out of bed on Sunday mornings and cook it for over a hundred homeless people because all of the soup kitchens were closed for the weekend (who knew hunger took time off?).

Those Sunday morning breakfasts were the starting point of a career that has been amazing. Well … up until last year. But it’s kind of like the wedding renewal vows that I’m conducting on the beach later today. They’ve been married 25 years and want to renew their vows. So we’ll gather on the beach and I’ll say something like …

“Dearly Beloved! We are here today to celebrate O Johnny and Judy’s 25th wedding anniversary … 16 of the happiest years of their lives.”

21 out of 23 years for me isn’t too shabby!

Anyway … I wanted to signify the launch of this effort is going to be just as amazing as that first one was. Jesus started the whole “Born Again” movement with a Last Supper consisting of bread and wine. I figured sausage gravy and biscuits, served with screwdrivers is perfect for this endeavor.

At some point we left the kitchen/Corporate Board Room and retreated to the Beloved Back Deck/Corporate Executive Office of the President/CEO. It’s at this point that I lost the tee shirt. But we sat out under Fran’s thousand shades of green talking about how committed we are to this. How the opportunities are there! How the needs for what we have to off are incredible. How business has already sought us out. Even Union Mission could use some of what we got.

Then “Acoustic Café” was over and they started playing regular rock ‘n’ roll. I called the meeting to an end and everyone left with their assignments. I played Frisbee with Goddess.

Last night I returned to the Beloved Back Deck/Corporate Executive Office of the President/CEO and propped by feet on the railing. I was thinking deep thoughts like “Is your foot equal to the size of our face”?

Then I had to go to bed. The rest of the week is full of stuff that I’m now obligated to do. It’s a good thing that Corporate Headquarters is located beside the ocean. Cause we’re diving in the deep end.

And it’s going to be a beautiful dive!

The Masterpiece

Even the choirs of birds are mindful of the quiet of this Sunday morning. The tide doesn’t move and is still over the marsh grass. Goddess bows on Shirley’s sad little holy dock. In the distance a lone kayaker floats across the Back River which is glistening in the morning sun. The sky is painted deep blue and the lush green trees stand proudly in contrast. Red, yellow and purple flowers mean that the bushes are wearing their Sunday best.

It is a holy day.

Every morning I take Goddess for a walk. Some mornings are more special than others. Today God has painted a masterpiece! I find that I can’t move because I want to be a part of it. Goddess seems to understand this. After all she is a dog who believes that she is a person. She lies contently, almost prayerfully, at my feet.

So I stand at the end of the sad little holy dock and raise my arms in Thanksgiving. This is the day that the Lord has made.

Indeed.

No one is out and about on this part of the island. They’re getting ready for church or standing in line at the Breakfast Club. Many are still sleeping while others take long drags off of cigarettes and try to remember what yesterday was like. Runners are running and walkers are walking along the beach. Somewhere someone is singing.

I figure it’s a good time to count my blessings. After a shitty couple of years, I am happy. On a morning like this I am mindful of the special things that have made me so.

Somehow, I’m still not quite sure how, I was given the gift of time ... to be quiet … to have solitude and time for reflection. I was able to take inventory. Over time I began to notice the things around me in new and deeper ways. Sitting on this dock or underneath Fran’s thousand shades of green all of the hurt in my life began to … heal.

I’m not one to dwell on regrets. I did the best that I could and, sure I screwed up some along the way, but everybody screws somewhere along the way. It’s just the way life works. Sure, if I could do things over again I would do some differently but we don’t get to do things over again.

Over this time, I’ve thought long and hard about this. There are a handful of regrets. As much as I would like for there not to be any, they are. Uninformed decisions, poor choices or selfish reasons were the foundation of each.

Sometimes it was me just being me and having to pay the consequences It’s amazing to me the people who don’t want me to be me … who I am. They want me to be someone else. They want me to be who they want me to be.

To hell with them! There is unholy evil in that. God made me. I trust her to be live my life as me. They can go to church and pray for me if it makes them feel better.

But … I feel fine.

With my arms raised on the end of Shirley’s sad little holy dock I say a one word prayer.

“Thanks”

And at that moment, the choir of birds burst into their songs. The sun climbs higher and sprinkles more diamonds on the Back River. The lightest of breezes suddenly kisses my face. Goddess stands and nudges my leg. A dolphin jumps and returns to the same hole in the water that she made when she leaped into the air.

All of this happening at the same time takes my breath away.

God’s not finished with her masterpiece.

She’s just getting started.

And I’m gonna play.

Beach Run

A few hundred of us showed up for today’s “Turtle Trot” 5K race for the Marine Science Center here on Tybee. It’s the first time that I’ve officially registered and participated. A friend asked me to do it then Kristen and her boyfriend Sterling wanted in so it became a family affair.

I’d run by it for the past several years but had never got around to actually registering. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have this year either were it not for the specific invitation. Kristen and Sterling arrived at the Pier first and registered for us.

We arrived and got ready.

Sterling has this thing about wanting to compete with me on anything. We shot pool together Friday night and he’s a real trash talker. For the race he said, “I’ll be waiting on you at the finish line, sitting in a beach chair and having a beer.”

“Uh-huh” I say.

“By the time you cross the finish line I’ll probably have killed a six-pack.”

“Uh-huh,” is my witty reply.

It is a glorious day on Tybee Island. The sun is bright, the sea is calm and there are no clouds in the sky. It’s a day that has “beach” written all over it!

I don’t recognize most of the people in the crowd. They all seem to be from somewhere else. A handful are friends from Tybee. It’s a funny collection of serious runners dressed in spandex, compression socks up to their knees, special caps and sunglasses. Then there’s the rest of us.

I have on a “St. Marteen Drinking Team” tee shirt, black shorts and shoes off of the sales rack.

Kristen has lost her mind and is wearing sweat pants. By far my most independent child, she’s always done things her own way and I never give it much thought anymore.

The thing about trying to organize a serious run on the beach is … you’re on the beach. Only the ones in Spandex and compression socks seem to be unaware of this. They stretch and run in place.

I’m looking at girls in bikinis.

Bob Marley is blasting from my I-Pop. “Livy yourself up,” he sings, “nobody will do it for you.”

People start running pass me and I surmise that the race has started. So we run.

There are maybe 300 of us including a midget who is serious runner. And she could fly! It was fascinating watching her dart through the people of all shapes and sizes moving at various speeds. She kept checking her running watch as she did so. The woman is a runner!

After about a mile I’m sliding into a zone. Bob is now telling me to “Stir it up.” My pace quickens as the sweat comes. I stay with my friend and try not to run into people as I keep looking at the sunlight dancing like diamonds on the ocean. A giant cargo ship is on the horizon. Dolphins swim to the side of us running. Cannonball jellyfish litter the beach.

I think about picking one up and throwing it at Sterling as he runs passes me but think better of it. Most people don’t know that these are the only jellyfish that don’t sting and I could start a riot.

In the middle of the race my friend has to pee. I run faster. This could be uglier than me throwing a jellyfish. The wind is in our face so if she pees while running the people behind her could get sprayed.

I don’t want anything to with this. I decide to catch up with Sterling and kick it up a notch.

Bob’s now telling me “No Woman, No Cry.”

“Tell me about it,” I tell him back.

As I cross the finish line a few short steps behind Sterling, Bob is saying “Everything’s gonna be alright! Everything’s gonna be alright! Everything’s gonna be alright! Everything’s gonna be alright!”

Sterling high-fives me and I tell Bob.

“It already is.”

Then I turn around to see what damage my friend has done.

Reconvening the Kitchen Cabinet

“Well if it’s not the Prodigal Son,” said Ben Barnes into the phone after his wife Betty had told him that it was me calling.

“Hi Prodigal Pop,” I replied.

Ben is 92 years old, the former Chairman of the Board of Union Mission, my partner in starting the Employment & Training Center, J. C. Lewis Health Center and the Starfish Café, and a dear friend. He is a long retired banking God (First Atlanta, Bank of England and started the now Wells Fargo Bank in Savannah for fun in his retirement).

We would travel together bringing money from other places to Savannah. At 5:00 every afternoon I would go to his hotel room and he would open his briefcase and pull out a bottle of triple malt scotch.

“Nectar of the Gods,” he would say while pouring.

It’s hard not to love Ben. We would sit in his room processing the day and making plans for tomorrow.

“What are you doing?” he demanded into the phone.

So I told him. We’re meeting for lunch at the Starfish Café next week so that he can advise me on things. Ben is a mentor and member of my kitchen cabinet.

Back when Andrew Jackson was President he got sick of the bad advice from people he worked with so he fired them all. In their place he collected people he trusted to give him advice. They were dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet.

Throughout my career I’ve had a Kitchen Cabinet. They have guided me well. Those last years at Union Mission the work got so messy and complicated and I stopped convening them.

I had a small minded person who never met anything that he didn’t like to rape asking me to justify everything that I was doing. Plus the agenda was suddenly daunting though … very manageable but he zapped my time and energy with minutia and small minded matters. At the same time I’d fired those who proved untrustworthy. It was emotional and taxing. Then my wife left and it got worse and I stopped calling on the Kitchen Cabinet.

That was a mistake!

Now it’s time to do things again. So I’m reconvening the Kitchen Cabinet.

After Ben I called his daughter Carole Beeson, also a former Board Chair of Union Mission. She was the first woman to ever chair the Board and is a fireball. “Well, my brother is finally back from the dead,” she exclaimed into the phone.

After catching one another up on personal stuff she told that it was time to straighten things out.

“You mean rearrange the past?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said with utmost confidence.

Then Philip and I had an email conversation. Joe Daniel and I have been going back and forth. Herb will be back soon. Mary Ann Beil and I are getting together next week after I meet with Ben. Terry Ball will be in town soon. I still have to track Thurmond Tillman down but he’s a minister and damn near impossible to get hold of. I’m thinking about adding Tony and DaVena Jordon because they make it all younger. And youth is the secret to creativity!

For the first time in a long time, I sit at a table and roll my fingers across the top. My leg shakes under the table full of energy and vigor. My senses are exploding. It’s time to create!

When I was at Union Mission I would end every meeting with every staff person with the mantra “Go create something.”

And we did.

The likes of which have never been created before.

It was the youthfulness of the people I worked with coupled with the wisdom of the Kitchen Cabinet that made it so.

Today, I’m young again after a couple of years of being old. I’ve surrounded myself with the youthful thinking of creative people regardless of their age.

It’s time to kick ass.

And I need my Kitchen Cabinet again.

Everybody else … needs to get out of the way.

The Theater of Bad Things

Last night a tornado decided to take a stroll down Park Lane in Madison, Georgia which happens to be where my son lives. Jeremy and my brilliant daughter-in-law Marie have this killer house on a beautiful street in a drop dead gorgeous area in one of the country’s most picturesque southern towns.

As much of a beach bum as I am their place is one of the only non-ocean retreats that I like. Every view is a postcard view. We enjoy one another anyway and our senses of humor complement one another’s so we laugh a lot. We can also have prolonged serious conversations about most anything. But when you get to do it in a setting as charming as where they live … it is this quaint bonus.

Coming home from Pittsburgh yesterday I kept hearing about storms coming. They were supposed to sit the Steel City around 4:00 and I was hoping that I could get out early. Because of pre-planning we finished a meeting scheduled for six hours in three. I was back at the airport booking myself on an earlier flight.

That flight was delayed.

So I chatted on the phone for an hour with my friend about dancing, the state of homeless work in Savannah, angels, assholes and which church we would like to attend. The hour passed quickly and then my plane was delayed for another hour … because of storms. I finally made it to Atlanta which was of course a cluster. There were long lines at every gate.

As soon as I got off the plane I looked at the monitors for the first flight to Savannah though the one I was booked for was now leaving well after midnight. Luckily it was on the same concourse so I ran down, showed them my ticket, got a seat, ordered a glass of wine and came home.

When I got home from the Breakfast Club this morning, Age my sister … her real name is Angi but I’ve always called her Age … was texting me asking me if I’d talked to Jeremy.

“Why?” I texted back.

Before she could respond a voice mail message popped up from Jeremy. The quaint massive oak tree in their front yard is now in their living room. Jeremy, Marie, Smoo and Beans (their cats) made it into the basement with about three minutes to spare.

“Damn storms,” I muttered.

But my kids are safe. None of that other stuff matters. It’s just stuff. Stuff can be replaced. Kids cannot.

My brilliant daughter-in-law Marie calls and describes what had happened. After she finished she said, “One day we have to have a long talk about all of this.”

I understood her meaning.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Throughout my career I’ve had a front row seat at the theater of bad things. Homelessness ... AIDS ... The worst access to the best health care in the world … The hell that is behavioral health ... The Georgia State Capitol ... Congress ... Mega-churches … Tybee Parking Services. I’ve had first-hand experience with it all of it.

After I hung up with Marie the first thing I did was to say the most holy and simplest of prayers.

“Thank God.”

Then I told my friend what had happened. Then I talked to Janice and Kristen … and Chelsea and Sam just need to keep having a good old time being engaged in Europe right now with no worries.

So Goddess and I wandered out to the beloved back deck and took our places. The tree in my backyard is growing its own mushroom. Who knew that trees do mushrooms like we did in college (not you Dedra, Mark and Mitch … oh … by the way … that’s where I was all of those Baptist Student Union nights that I didn’t show up to)?

But my kids are alright.

Saltwater fills my eyes and the prayer becomes even holier.

“Thank God.”

I hate the theater of bad things.

Then I keep praying.

“Hey God. Just why in the hell did you make it?”

I Feel Fine

“Morning Rev. Elliott,” she called as I made my way through the airport.

She looked vaguely familiar and was surrounded by High School kids who were all taking over the Starbucks near the Delta gates.

“I’m Dora. I used to work at Union Mission,” she beamed as we shook hands. She was there with a Bulloch County High School is on their way to New York City for an “Educational” trip she explained while making quotation marks with her fingers.

I laughed. “Good for you!”

“You look good” she said rubbing my shoulder.

“Thanks. I am good.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Pittsburgh.”

“OK … hey I just want to say that I loved working for you. It was a wonderful time.”

I smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “I want to thank you for everything you did to make us do all of those things. We helped a lot of people.”

“We sure did,” she exclaimed.

Making my way through the kids I couldn’t help but think that this is a nice way to start the day. It’s funny I fly out of Savannah a lot and rarely do I encounter people that I know. Most seem to be going to and from Hilton Head. I see more Savannah people in the Atlanta airport than I do in Savannah.

Settling into my seat on the plane I spy a couple in the seats in front of me whispering intently. Then this elderly couple stands and turns towards me awkwardly.

“Are you Micheal Elliott?” both ask at the same time.

“I am,” I reply awkwardly standing to shake their hands.

They smile at me. “You helped our son a while back. We never said thank you. We thought that it was you.”

What does one say?

“You’re welcome,” I reply. “That’s why we were there.”

They sit back down. I sit back down. I have no idea who they are ... or who their son is.

Last week and this week Jodi has had me getting in touch with people that I haven’t talked with in a year. So I sent them an email asking for a favor and it’s been interesting. There was this immediate burst of replies from people across the country … Atlanta, Idaho, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago …

Then typical Savannah waited a few days before responding (well, aside from Peter Doliber who is always fast on the draw) so over the weekend and the first of this week I started getting responses. Also in typical Savannah fashion most said that they would but only if I would meet them for lunch first.

Hmmmm … this could become a pain in the ass. Of course in Savannah all business actually takes place during lunch, Happy Hour, dinner or on somebody’s boat. I’m not really sure why anybody has an office.

But … I feel good. I evidently look good too. Who knew? And though I’ve been doing this work sporadically over the past few months, it begins in earnest today.

I’ve signed a contract and work starts in Pittsburgh before moving on to Anchorage, Austin, Cleveland, San Juan, and Santa Barbara. There is also this thing in Philadelphia that I’m committed too. Atlanta keeps calling but … it’s Atlanta.

This Sabbatical that I’ve been on has been long was overdue and it has been good for me. If you ever feel that you need one, or have to just get away from it all, then I strongly encourage you to listen to yourself.

I didn’t and it costs me.

But then it sent me on this journey because I had no choice. At first I simply went around in circles like dying Horseshoe crabs on the shore. Then I said to myself, “To hell with this. I got one life to live. I’m not going to spend the rest of it like this. I’m living to love another day.”

And I do.

And it’s time to go back to work.

So today I am.

But there is nothing the same about who I am.

And I feel fine.

Dead Love

Running in the soft sand of the mouth of the Back River the shore is littered with dead Horseshoe Crabs and Cannonball Jellyfish. The banks of the shore are steep here so when the tides go out it leaves them behind. In the sand are the tracks of the desperate attempts of the Horseshoe Crabs to claw themselves back into the water. Some become disoriented and go in circles. Others make a straighter dash to the ocean and live to see another day.

It is a sad sight.

What makes it sadder is that Horseshoe Crabs only come ashore to mate.

Looking for love literally kills them.

The theme from M*A*S*H pops into head and plays over and over as I run through the sands of dead love.

Through the early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see …
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

It’s the punk rock version that plays … lyrics relentlessly spit out over crashing drums, fiery guitars and a haunting piano melody. It’s the opposite of the sweet version on the reruns of the show.

It reeks of the pain that envelopes dying things.

“The game of life is hard to fake …” the band changes the lyric and I realize it for the first time. And I note how true it is. We stay in places we don’t like. Our relationships are unfulfilling. We go through motions we hate. We remain in rotten relationships for the kids. We sleepwalk through life with little joy, less laughter and precious little love.

We … settle.

Yesterday a friend of mine up and quit her job. She doesn’t have another one but she hated the one that she had so she quit. What makes this even more shocking is that she’s going through a divorce. Talk about guts! I can’t help but admire that! Throwing caution to the wind is one thing … kicking it in the ass is another!

Through the early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be …

Growing up is not the absence of dreaming. Ah, but having the guts to chase your dreams …well… that is a rare thing.

I turn at the of the mouth of the ocean and there is no more dead love here. The shore has a gradual slope. The beach is clean aside from the occasional dead Jellyfish who don’t have a mind to make up anyway and let life take them … whereevs.

I keep thinking about the crabs and the two kinds of tracks that they left in the sand. Most ran in circles never making up their minds to … live.

Some realized though that there is only this one life. They had experienced love on the shore but it wasn’t what they needed so I imagine they said to themselves, “To hell with this! There’s better out there. I’m living to love another day!”

So they did.

The rest gave their lives away and litter the shore.

Premature

Today there is all of this stuff that I’m supposed to do in town. Homeless guys who are my Face Book friends have been after me forever to see them. Some want advice. Others just want to catch up. One has a business proposition for me and guarantees me big money if I come out of retirement to help him start a Fortune 500 Company.

So I picked a day and it’s today to meet with all of them.

Lunch is with my old friend and accountant Carlton.

Then it’s back to corporate headquarters to finalize stuff which should have been finalized last week (ummmm…Rebekah, exactly where are we?). There is lots of work and planning to do and I have timelines again … sigh …

This is big because I don’t go to Savannah much anymore except for the airport which really belongs to Hilton Head anyway. Hilton Head has also purchased the thunderstorm rights to Tybee so it rains there but not here.

But yesterday I took a nap and woke up with an infected ear. Normally, like most males, I would ignore this knowing that it will either go away or get worse. Either way it would work itself out. But I have to fly to Pittsburgh later this week and remember something about ears blowing up on airplanes if they’re not healthy so I resolved to get in touch with Jerry Williams this morning to make sure I’m not a terrorist threat.

Then I got in my car and the battery was dead.

Hmmmm … Is God trying to tell me something?

So … I hopped on my bike and rode it to the Breakfast Club. Johnny O was back after a week of being on loan to the Legends Golf tournament in Savannah. Over coffee he was telling me all about the tournament and I couldn’t hear anything that he said.

I reframed the entire question about God trying to tell me something. I was being blessed and didn’t know it. So Johnny O talked and I nodded my head not hearing anything that he said. Thank you Jesus! Thank you Lord!

Riding my bike back home, I got to thinking. Are these things signs? Should I be focusing on the things around me rather than the people demanding my attention who are elsewhere? My focus for the past year has been on me, healing and finding my way back to me again.

I was telling my best friend how excited I am about the future and all of the things that I’m ready to do. Hell, Skutch and I had a long funny conversation on the phone Friday (Skutch is like an actor in “B” movie playing a reporter but he really is a reporter and covered me for the past decade.). She told me that it’s nice to see me excited again.

But now I can’t help but wonder … am I being premature about all of this? Is God reminding me to not rush? To completely finish healing before I dive back in to the world and its unrelenting demands? Did God stick her wet finger in my ear to remind me that I’m not quite healed yet?

A few months ago, in a Ft. Lauderdale restaurant Dr. Jane Lowe of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and I were having dinner. She looked at me firmly and said, “Micheal do not rush this Sabbatical. It would be like having heart surgery and then going on one of your five mile runs before you can take it. You’d be far worse off than you are now.”

She’s really the only person to be so blatantly affirming of how I’ve spent the past year. Even now there are all of these people who want me to do things. Or they want to do things with me. I’m being cautious. It seems premature somehow.

My friend Samuel Admas, who plays damn good live music for a living and is the mastermind behind Bar Church, was after me last week to be a part of yesterday’s Easter Sunrise Service on the Pier. As soon as he asked me I said no. So typical Sam he asked me again. I said “Hell no.” He smiled and said “Fine, I’ll text you.”

But I stood in the back yesterday enjoying and watching it all. Tybee Church blew the other churches away (and I can’t get “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun” out of my head. Thanks Sam!).

I was struck though, that I’d made the right decision. As they sang a funky version of “Holy, Holy, Holy” I slipped away. I’ve had my time in the limelight of the crowds. And I’ll have it again. But … now would be premature.

And God can be funny sticking a wet finger in your ear to give it an infection to remind you of the things that are most important.

Sunrise

The Baptist Minister brought the invocation and the Methodist Minister delivered the Homily but it was Bar Church’s show. It may as well have been Woodstock on a Pier in the name of Jesus! Sam Adams, Gordo, Davy and boys in the band were on their “A” game before sunrise.

With crowds spilling onto the beach, cross walks and standing in the parking lot the band was cracking it up at the annual Easter sunrise service. A white cross was behind them decorated with the green branches of Palm Trees. The ocean was calm and flat. No clouds would interrupt the rising of the sun to symbolize the rising of the dead.

A bit earlier I rode my bicycle to the Breakfast Club and stumbled in the door marked “Exit” only. Everyone was busy getting ready for what was going to be a crazily busy day. After celebrations of Saviors rising from the dead there is a mad dash to the Breakfast Club, Sunrise, and the Rock House for breakfast.

“When does it end?” Val asked me wearing white bunny ears, a fluffy white bow tie and a little white cotton tail. She’s forever showing her ass.

“When the sun comes up,” I reply.

She turns around, bends over and sticks the cotton tail in my face.

Then Ryan comes in wearing pink bunny ears. I groan. This is disgusting. I fix a to-go cup and peddle to the Pier for the show … ummmm … I mean service.

The Band outperformed the clergy! People are still talking about the “Amazing Grace” finale sung to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun”. Typical Tybee! Why can’t you have Amazing Grace in a whore house?

The sun comes up on cue.

It was impressive. A lot of people clapped and demanded an encore.

I return to my seat at the Breakfast Club. My friends are gobbling down food before it opens trying to get ready for the onslaught of Christian eaters.

And then the Lord rose. And the line formed. And it was bedlam.

The place filled up in a nanosecond. Everyone was rushing to take care of the Easter dressed crowd. A line a block and half suddenly formed outside of the door. The Breakfast Club became claustrophobic.

“Anybody need anything?” I ask standing up.

One of my duties as Chaplain of the Breakfast Club is to get cigarettes for those who forgot to them for themselves. I do this four or five times a week.

“Vodka at one o’clock,” yells Val.

“Ah,” I say, “Of course but we better make it two or Ryan will get all pissed and I don’t want him chasing me around in pink bunny ears.”

“Love you long time,” Val says giving me to-go cups to return later with.

I return to my bike and peddle down Tybrisa Street (which used to be 16th Street and is between 15th and 17th Street but elected officials once again decided to mess with the brains of the public). The other day I was almost killed on Tybrisa Street on my bike. A mad motorist in a convertible full of kids tried to run me down. By a miracle of God I somehow survived.

Anyway in the cool of the morning the Church people are lined up at every place selling breakfast. The beer bottles and cups from last night still line the sidewalks and benches. Families walk down the street holding hands and singing “Amazing Grace” to a tune about a whore house. Cigarette butts fill the street. The Mayor sits on a bench drinking coffee and reading the paper. Across the street is a woman on another bench smoking a cigarette staring toward heaven trying to remember last night.

I peddle home and get Goddess. We stroll over to the sad little holy dock.

Choirs of mussels are singing Hymns. Choirs of birds join them. The once dead marsh grass is green. Fiddler crabs dance in the mud. Pelicans fly in formation overhead. It is all teaming with life after a deep dark winter that had chased life away.

Miracle of miracles! Dead thing come back to life!

I sit on the deck with my arm around my dog. We take it all in and I say a small prayer.

“Welcome back,” I say out loud.

Surprised

Commandeer Jodi (who can be as bitchy as Beckah) ordered me to get in touch with people whom I haven’t spoken with in a year. I’ve no communication with them whatsoever being on this Sabbatical, the center of my universe has been my back deck.

My support systems have been Fran’s thousand shades of green, a tight circle of friends and a dog. Quiet reflection have been the norm. Words were no longer necessary. Fran is now an angel who hovers over this place. There isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t tell me how loved I am. She and Goddess must talk regularly because she lets me know too. Then these friends … well, if it’s patterns that define behavior then … they let me know too.

Out of nowhere others started coming into my life. Some college friends were raised from the dead and another net was strung under the high wire act that’s been my life.

Then a few others showed up here asking if they could be a part of my future. With sadness consuming me, I looked at them as though they had lost their minds. What future? I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to do anything. But they persisted.

There were a handful of others … scattered around that I stayed in touch with, meaning they heard from me or saw once or twice in a year … Terry, Karen, Peter, Tina, Philip and Herb … That was it.

It’s been a small world.

After living most of my life in a very large way, it’s been … fascinating. My college friend Mitch just left. He’s leaving his career just like I left mine. I was asking him about cleaning out his office and saying that I’ve got a lot plaques that I don’t know what to do with. Hell, I’ve got an Olympic Torch that I don’t know what to do with!

These things looked great in my office but they don’t fit so well into my house. I was telling Sarah the other day that my new office is my back deck and that I’m getting a sign to read “Micheal Elliott Enterprises, Corporate Offices.”

“You need to have on drift wood,” she quipped.

So I sent out messages to a lot of people whom haven’t heard from me in a year asking them a favor. “Would you be willing to say some things about my work? What kind of difference did it make? How others would benefit from these experiences?”

It’s a strange exercise. I went through the names of elected people, government employees, some who were intense partners, former Board members, news personalities … just about every kind of person.

A thirty-one year career means that I ended up knowing lot people. I worked with them, drank with them, we ate together, told sortied jokes with them that will get you into trouble if email them, had long talks with each other and stayed in one another’s homes.

But it had been a year. I’ve given them nothing. My small universe did not include them.

So it was humbling to ask for a favor when I’d given nothing. Throughout my career, I always had something to give. I could help with this or that. I could make introductions. I could do magic. But … I’ve mostly just sat on my Back Deck, my stool at the Breakfast Club, my seat at the Bored meeting or Shirley’s sad little holy dock.

For the first time ever, it’s just been about me.

It was hard to ask for the favor.

Because I love Stacy Jennings so much, I still get the Savannah Morning News and thumb though it every morning at the Breakfast Club. Then they grab it and rip it in a hundred different directions. The crossword puzzle is most popular part, followed by used car adds, the apartment search section, sports, tide chart and horoscopes. I’m not sure anyone actually reads any news (EXCEPT … anything written by Skutch!).

Over the past few months I’ve noticed while reading of others whom I’ve worked with who are no longer where they were. These were friends at hospitals, universities and even Catholic Charities. They’re all gone. Just like I am!

Savannah of course, goes on without us.

But yesterday when email started buzzing I was overwhelmed at the responses of my request for a favor. Throughout the day came notes and comments and promises from people scattered everywhere. The things that they had to say were … overwhelming.

After dragging me out on a night on the town, Mitch and I were sitting in the Corporate Headquarters office and I was telling him about all of this.

Mitch has this great gift. He can be stoic with the best of them while being impish at the same time. He thinks hard and deep but uses humor to make his points. It’s one of the many things I love about him. So sitting in the dark after a night on the town with our feet propped on the rail, he looks over as only he can do … with this smile that some would swear is a smirk … and said …

“You made a difference. Why are surprised?”

Good Friday?

Exactly what is so good about Good Friday? I mean it wasn’t all that good for Jesus.

After a last supper that didn’t go so well with Judas storming out in the middle of dinner and Peter apparently apparently wanting chicken, Jesus needed to clear his head and wandered into the garden for fresh air. Everybody else took a nap so the food at the last supper must have been heavy (hence Peter’s insistence on chicken). Those who didn’t nap stayed at the table listening to the live music (choirs of angels singing sad songs).

“I don’t want to do this,” Jesus mumbles out loud.

Silence …

“Seriously, I don’t want to do this.”

Silence …

There is a rumble in the bushes and Judas storms back in with a crowd of his new best friends. They greet one another with a kiss.

Then all hell breaks loose. Jesus is arrested for terrorism, committing acts of violence in a Temple, holding a whip slashing it at bankers and loan sharks. He was evidently so pissed he turned over tables, yelled slanderous terms, and sent a religious congregation fleeing from a maniac.

Peter angrily wakes from up his nap violently taking the ear off of one of Judas’ friends. “It’s OK,” Jesus says.

Then there are three different court appearances during which Jesus offers no defense. Pilate sends him to Herod who sends him back to Pilate who is not happy about the workings of his own judicial system. Pilate was also having his own problems at home with a bitchy wife who was telling him how to do his job.

In midst of this a rooter crows … Peter listens to it. The chickens have come home to roost.

While all of this was going on Jesus was in Abu Ghraib getting the shit beat out of him. Then he’s hauled back to Court for his final appeal. He’s got nothing to say obviously satisfied that his actions speak for themselves.

An exasperated Pilate wants a plea.

Silence ...

Outraged at the silence, Pilate continues the interrogation by asking “What’s true here?” Jesus keeps quiet. Pilate’s frustration grows and he asked “Just who do you think you are …God?”

Jesus looks up, shrugs his shoulders, and speaks for the first time. “Whatever.”

“To hell with you,” Pilate barks.

Jesus is led outside and stripped naked. An already beaten up man is slapped with a chunk of wood and carries it through a snarling crowd … people who had cheered his last public appearance a short time ago now hated his guts with everything in them. Last week it was coverage by the liberal media but now it’s Fox News, Entertainment tonight, and someone says “the Tribe has spoken” … you’re out of here.

Before he dies, there is one last controversy. “Hey, hot shot! If you’re all that … get us out of this.”

“Aw, leave him alone. He ain’t done nothing like we did. Hey Jesus, keep me in mind.”

Jesus mutters … “Today.”

Knowing that he couldn’t help anybody, including himself, Jesus asks for one last favor. “Take care of my Mom … God I’m thirsty.”

Silence …

“Suck on this,” someone yells.

And then it was over. His last words are spoken. “It is finished.”

Then the heavens speak in thunder.

Back at the reassembled Temple the crime scene tape that had been put up to keep people out blows away.

A few hours later he was taken down by the friends who had stuck with him to the end. His body’s wrapped in an old quilt and laid on top of other bones.

Wanting no more controversy, Pilate put up crime scene tape and orders security.

And people went home …

And that was Good Friday.

The Garden

Once I was standing in front of the White House. I was in Washington to give a speech and it had gone well. It was almost dusk and Julie and I stood there pondering the sights, the power of the place, the city cut in half --- the poorest of the poor living in front of the mightiest of the mighty. It is a place the can inspire and make you sick at the same time.

“What would you do if you were President?” she quietly asked.

At the time I was staring at the lawn and said the first thing that came to mind.

“I’d probably be out here picking crab grass.”

She laughed and said “The world would be a better place if President’s came out and did that every evening.”

At that time I would come home from work, run five miles to release the stress of work, then spend an hour or so tending plants that I’d planted and pulling crab grass of the yard. I was into it and in time at all the yard, deck and flower gardens that I’d planted made the place more beautiful. Tension was gone. I was proud. And the vibes of the living plants all around me birth good karma and it was hard not to admire the beauty of it all.

Then I’m not sure when but several years ago a tipping point was tipped. Work, tension and other problems overcame the gardening. My plants died. Crab grass grew in clumps around the yard. Weeds came. Beauty faded.

And something inside of me died too.

Sadness grew around the house. My marriage ended. Work became frustrating and difficult. Life became hard.

In the middle of all of this last year I went to Home Depot and bought a lot of stuff and for the first time in years planted flowers. I called them my “Promise Flowers” because they signified better things were coming. It wasn’t much but it was a step in the right direction.

A couple of month’s ago, I was feeling better. I’d been traveling across the country working to help people and their organization do things better. The better-ness rubbed off on me and new plans had been made and started to fertilize. New offers and opportunities came my way. The joy of friends, music, and love sustained me though the bad stuff.

One day sitting on the Beloved Back Deck, I was talking to my Mom describing what I wanted to do in the back yard. For years I’d intended to turn it into a funky garden that reflected things I love. Now my mother is a gardener on steroids. The next day she shows up with supplies and work began. Somehow I became a sub-contractor in my own garden.

Today Goddess and I took a run and then we were watering the flowers. Goddess is a dog who thinks she’s a person so she helps me with lots of things. There were these trees that Mom had left to be planted so without thinking much I planted them. Goddess ran around the yard. Choirs of birds sang. The sun shone. And it felt … satisfying.

Back when I was at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel employed as a Professional Christian (getting paid to do what I asked others to do for free) we were forever going outside of the Hymn Book for inspiration. A favorite was a Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie song. We’d sing it in Sunday Service instead of those “sad old sisters of Salvation singing Nearer My God to thee” songs.

“Grain for grain, sun and rain, find my way in nature’s chain, tune my body and my brain to the music of the land.”

I haven’t thought of it in years and years but today with Goddess running around the yard, dirt on my knees, the sun on my back, the song was raised from the dead and I found myself singing as I worked. Afterwards, watering the newly planted tree, I stepped back.

“Damn,” I said out loud to Fran’s thousand shades, to all of the growing things around me, to Goddess and myself and God, “I feel good.”

Running Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hugs: The Sequel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I learned how to heckle.

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

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

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

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

So I think that hugging should become a competitive sport.

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

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

When you’re happy … hugs are in order.

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

For no reason at all … hugs are in order.

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

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