The Journey Continues

Grabbing my I-phone, I send a text to Bill Berry (not the former drummer for REM but the other one. The one I've been around the world with).

"I have a question. When we were on the train to Poland, how did we keep those big bottles of beer cold?"

It started when we were in the Czech Republic train station and I was staring at a map on the wall. Bill was on the telephone. He had an appointment and I was waiting on him when I noticed Poland and made a spontaneous decision to buy a ticket to Krakow. I pointed and waved my arms at him until finally he put his hands over the receiver to see what I wanted.

"I'm going to Poland. I have to go to Auschwitz."

Bill looked an me, shook his head and resumed talking on the phone. When he finally hung up he said, "OK, lets go."

So we purchased two tickets on a 1930s train, a bunch of Pilsner Urquell beer and started on my spiritual journey.

"How can I not go?" Bill explained.

My I-phone buzzes and it's him. "I think we tied ropes around the bottles and hung them out the window to stay cold :-) Just kidding. I really don't remember but I suspect we drank the beer warm like some Europeans tend to do. When in Rome ... What conversation are you having that sparked that question?"

Actually I'm not having a conversation but am reading a book while working on my tan on the Beloved back deck.

I send him another text.

"No conversation. Reading "The Book of Love" about Mary Magdalene's daughter with Jesus and naturally it made me remember the beers we had on that train."

Though I liked his explanation of hanging the bottles out of the window, it was February after all, he's probably right and we drank them warm. We had a tiny sleeper car with three bunk beds on top of each other. We'd unscrewed the top two from the wall and threw them in the hall leaving us a comfortable sofa where we sat and drank the beer while we made our way.

My phone buzzed and he responded, "Naturally."

"Jesus always makes me thirsty," I write, "and Mary Magdalene is hot."

The next morning we were in Krakow, sidestepping Gypsies and hitching a ride on a British tour bus for the concentration camp.  The bus left and we remained alone in the middle of hell.

At the end, we walked the railroad tracks out of the camp for several miles until we stumbled into a village with a train station and, in silence, made our way back to Prague. In my pocket was a pair of broken children's scissors I'd found on the ground outside of one of the Crematoria.

I'm at a place on my life's pilgrimage when I have a large collection of adventures, spiritual quests, battles with others and myself too. They're more than stories to tell. They're major moments in me becoming me and I'm lucky or blessed enough to have a tiny collection of fellow travelers on the roads less traveled.

Sarah and I are on one now.

Defying conventional wisdom, we're making our way in our way. While we're pretty clear about where we're going to end up we have no idea whatsoever how we're getting there. She's a planner so it can drive her crazy while I know that unplanned excursions and unconventional choices often lead you to places where God resides.

Also at this place in my life, I've reunited with friends also on their journey. They've lived long enough to get to now, and while it's been full of pleasure and plain, good times and bad, frightening and  invigorating  ... each confesses there is more.

And the journeys continue.

The Opening of the Windows

It is an annual ceremony so moving, ritual, gnostic, Druid, good Karma, holy and just damn-feel-good as sex ... well not quite that good but almost! ... the opening of the windows. When the weather is warm enough to open the twenty-six windows in this house, I just love it!

The outside now comes in. The house is designed that way. We can lay in bed and stare outside. Through open windows we listen to the choir of birds, smell the pungent aroma of the marsh and listen to the waves kiss the shore.

Now that the windows are open allowing the ocean breeze to flow through each room, I've moved outside to the Beloved Back deck. The sliding glass doors to the kitchen are open so outside easily slides into indoors and back again.

The Palm Tree with the oyster face, coconut bra and grass shirt is smiling and happy. Green Hibiscus blooms adorn the deck and Fran's thousand shades of green will soon explode and dazzle me.

Winston, the little gay dog, is keeping watch over the Cat Lady next door with her parade of new lovers and hundreds of feral cats. Goddess is laying under my feet lazily observing two squirrels dart through the smiling Palm Tree.

The acoustic storm is streaming from Key West on my computer and the book I'm reading waits on me to resume her story though I'm in no hurry. I'm still delighting in last night.

After a nice dinner out we were summoned by our friends Glenn and Vicki to come to their house and make music. As the island is known for impromptu celebrations, we dove in along with Sean and Wen. A new friend was also there and we played and sang.

Sarah meanders out, looking sexy in tight short dress, and tells me where the music is happening on the island today. Apparently a plan is beginning to take form. Sunday will be a day of celebration which is as it should be.

Across the world, people are making their way to and from church where they will enter sanctuaries with stained glass windows. They will sing songs in vain attempts to raise the rafters allowing God in but they'll fail just as they did last week. It's a good thing for them to do though and I applaud them.

As for me, I'm going to sit here and see what unfolds. There is no need for me to go searching for the Lord when She's already here ... raising new leaves to replace the fallen ones, spreading warmth to all who seek it, casting diamonds to dance on the ocean, and listening to the choirs of birds who have no rafters to raise because we're in the Cathedral that God built already.

That Kind Of Day

This spring is ever so slow in actually arriving. The sun is bright, there isn't a cloud in a crystal blue sky and plants are blooming but ... there's a nip in the air, the ocean breeze has a chill and I get cold stepping outside. It could be because I'm wearing black running shorts and little else but ... IWANT it to be summer now!

I don't want March to rush away but I'm ready for it to be perpetually in the 80s!

It may come close today.

I hope so.

Crowds have arrived for Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day. Everyone is wearing green and they're ready to party! Busses are traveling back and forth on the Tybee Road carrying them to and from the parade in the city. This afternoon they'll all rush back, filling the beach and every restaurant and bar on the island. The season has begun and the search for fun, romance, tans and beer is on!

Let them.

I'm enjoying a laid back Saturday morning far away from the maddening crowds. Goddess is sitting under my feet and Winston, the little gay dog, is underneath's Sarah's. They're remarkably quiet. The house is remarkably quiet. No words are being spoken and if silence is indeed golden then we're freaking rich!

Other than promise, I don't know what today holds.

Goddess needs a bath.

Ribs are in the fridge waiting to be grilled.

Other than that there are no plans.

Perhaps we'll venture out into the party later. We might turn the television on and watch a bit of the parade. We may stroll to the beach. It's a good day to read a book on the Beloved Back deck and steal glances of Sarah's beauty as she does things. Light a fire tonight and hold hands.

It's that kind of day.

I'm glad there's nothing else going on today.

Diving Again

It's Friday and I want to go scuba diving! It's been a while and I'm not sure where the desire came from but its back and I'd like to be floating under water, listening to myself breath and taking my time discovering whatever it is I find.

The last time I dove was with my daughter Chelsea. We were in Key Largo staying at the Holiday Inn on a Daddy/Daughter trip. We were excited and Chelsea was the first off the boat that day.

She sat on the rail and back flipped off ... landing on top of a five feet black tip shark.

I'd always taking walking on water in faith until that moment.

Chelsea was back on top of the water in a Nano-second running across the sea back to the boat. Underneath we could plainly see the shark getting the hell out of there.

I've never laughed so hard.

Chelsea had to be coaxed back into the water but we had lovely dives that day. That night we sat around the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn near the Tiki Bar, talking about the future and just having fun.

She's had just graduated from St. Vincent's High School and was college bound. We were in the Keys celebrating her transition in life.

Today she's flying to New York City for interviews for Graduate School. It's supposed to snow there so the city isn't as high on her list as it was yesterday. She's got other options too, in Washington D.C. and Tampa, Florida, so it will be interesting to see where she ends up.

Perhaps that's what's got me nostalgic for diving. Life continues to change for my baby girl.

Before Grad school, she's getting married and our relationship has morphed from Daddy taking care of his baby girl to a father and his daughter who likes to go to UGA football games together along with her brother Jeremy. We have fun and I'm missing those times.

Now I'm staring out the window because I've just received a text from her letting me know she's arrived. Her future is now.

So I say a prayer for the blessing she is to me and for the wonderful times we've had. I make a promise to orchestrate more. Until then, I'll dive into other things, enjoying them to their fullest, and enjoying cheering her on as she makes her life hers.

Me and the Pope

"Every successful organization needs one Son-of-a-bitch," Father Vernon Robertson explained as we had coffee and hot April Crisp with raisins.  "That's why we have the Pope."

"What?"

'The Pope keeps the Catholic Church in line with all of the bad stuff. No birth control! Women can't be Priests! Stuff like that."

"Right," I said not knowing what else to say.

"The problem with you Southern Baptists," he continued with his impish grin," is there are a hundred thousand Sons-of-bitches all fighting to be the one."

I had no counter argument.

"Don't worry about it Mike," he pressed forward.

"We're just a small kink in the chain of church history anyway."

"I think we're more than that," I mustered.

"Not really," he went on. "I don't much like this Pope we have now. He won't last. None of them ever do. Now the church ... it will last."

"In spite of Son-of-bitches?"

"Exactly!"

The conversation ended up being a major influence on my views of religion. Vernon was my friend, a Catholic Priest at St. Martin of Tours is Louisville, Kentucky where I was a Baptist minister, and we were both founding members of the St. Jude's Guild which was the community's first response to the AIDS crisis.

Since then, Vernon has passed away, I've long left employment as a Professional Christian and the only time I have anything to do with organized religion is in a bar.

Nevertheless I remain a member of the clergy, albeit a not very conventional one. Mostly people just want to talk with me sometimes when they are struggling with something or another. That's my ministry, along with an occasional wedding or funeral. It's pretty easy to manage.

I like it better this way and find it every bit as holy as anything else I did.

Plus, there's nowhere near as many Sons-of-bitches in my life.

Tiny Miracles

"And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in a dark café"

So says the Prophetess Joni Mitchell.

She may be right.

I've certainly had my cynical, drunken moments. And I prefer dark cafes and beach bars.

But I remain an unabashed, unapologetic and passionate romantic!

Fanciful, impractical, unrealistic with idealism running through my veins and eyes full of chivalry. I believe in love! Forgiveness beats the hell out of holding onto the bad things that have happened.

I prefer Don Quixote over FOX News, Frodo more than Wall Street, Martin Luther King's dreams and Jesus' admonition to love God and each other as the basis of religion.

Sure, I've been battered and bruised by life's harsh realities. People I believed in let me down, things I believe in haven't always come true and the practical realities of money, society and selfishness have kicked me in the mouth.

Still, perhaps stupidly, I refuse to cave in and accept the world the way it is.

I take people at their word and believe that, in the end anyway, they'll do the right thing.

I believe in second chances, angels, visions and the tiny miracles we can all be in each other's life.

I know without a doubt that people can be raised from the dead because I've watched them do it when they'd been living a life with nothing much in it.

I think it's all work out in the long run and it'll be on earth as it is in heaven.

There's nothing easy about any of this. On a daily basis I'm confronted by demonic expressions of greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, envy, pride and anger.

"Of the seven deadly sins, Anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long passed, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back --- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you" (Frederick Buechner).

I refuse to go there.

Certainly it leads to disappointment sometimes but I still believe that its far better to step out in faith that the world can be better than it is ... if only I'll do my part.

Island Music

Music permeates this island.

Beginning with the high tides passionately kissing the shore as the sun rises it softly fades to a hum before reaching another crescendo as the sun sets.

On Sundays you can have music for breakfast at Social, join the wenches singing hymns in Bar Church in Bennie's or under the sunshine at Marlin Monroe's.

Like the salt that sticks to your skin, songs float here, dance is a way of life and rhythms pulsate into a sexual tropical frenzy.

Lawyers morph into musicians,  hymns are sung in four buildings by people wearing ties during the traditional hour and birds form themselves into choirs as do the mussels in the Marsh.

As the Lord's day came to a conclusion we find ourselves in Doc's Bar listening to real songwriters sing. Roy Swindelle is the High Priest as the congregation parks themselves on bar stools and benches beside tables. The bumper pool table becomes another place where people sit or lean.

Then the four horsemen of the Apocalypse sit with guitars on their knees as though in prayer. One at a time, they testify the truth as they understand it. Taking the joys they've experienced or the tragedies they've survived, they preach in humility or in wild abandon.

Latecomers are turned away at the door because there is no room in the Inn so they smoke on sidewalks or stumble across the street to Bernies for Holy water. A few make their way to the beach and listen to different kinds of music.

As the testimonies conclude, the chosen people inside explode into applause, laughter, and shout out's of "Hell Yeah!" Miraculously cups are filled anew and all fall silent as the service continues.

It is over much too soon so Sarah and I decide to return home as the moon dances across the sky and we make music of our own. And as we fall asleep we hear the rhythm of the ocean kissing the shore.

Climbing Zen

One of the ways that I've changed or grown is I'm much more Zen like than I used to be. Maybe I'm simply as laid back as it gets. Nothing much rattles me any more. I rarely get angry as its just not worth the energy and hardly ever helps. When things happen I have a tendency to let them. I absorb whatever is going on around me.

It certainly wasn't always this way. I was driven, intense, righteous and knew exactly what I wanted and when I wanted it. Patience was a foreign and unwanted concept. If anyone could change the world, it was me. I attacked life determined to mold it into the things I wanted.

A lot of things happened.

I accomplished everything I wanted only to have it become too much to handle so it handled me. Like a Shepherd with too big a herd, or a Master with too many slaves, I lost control. The things I loved scattered like sheep and the things I did my best to hold on to rebelled, ultimately fleeing away.

At first, I was full of emotion, uncontrolled and wild, tossing and turning like a ship without a rudder on a stormy sea. This led to anger and blame which finally gave way to a silent acceptance that ... this is my life.

I grew contemplative, almost prayerful, taking notice of the things I still had ... Goddess, a back deck, a sad little holy dock, my children and a handful of friends.

During this time I discovered, or rediscovered, new friends ... Fran, long dead, returned and taught me green again. The Internet spewed up lost friends from my past. The handful of friends miraculously transformed themselves into a perpetual carnival. Sarah came home.

It changed me.

In reality I think I just accepted the change. I embraced it, dancing ... absorbed it which is the way of Zen.

Sarah reminds me that some of the old ways still stick to me, remaining part of who I am. I remain quick to do things for others in real time, often at her expense or mine. I easily slide into another world, exclusive of others, often facilitated by music, writing or staring at the stars. There is a tendency for me to go to places I've already been rather than opting new adventures.

And the things she says are mostly true but I am very mindful of the struggles of people I care for and balance it with quiet contemplation. Every day is a new adventure and last year we visited places I'd never been, learning new things though I do hold on to favorite places and things.

I accept them ... absorb them ... see where they take me ... feel how they change me ... knowing full well that when I finally finish the climb to the top of the mountain, or fall to the bottom of it again, there is only one thing left to do.

Keep climbing!

Because there is no other alternative.

Closer to the Promised Land

"I'm just trying to live in the moment," she explained in the middle of a very crowded Tybee Island Social Club.

We'd gone to listen to the band but found ourselves talking instead. She is a mother, artist and long term island resident. Her companion recently returned to Tybee after three years in the Bahamas where he'd managed a private resort. It had burned him out and he's now trying to figure out what's next in his life.

"We're all at the crux of life aren't we," I said forming a cross with my hands and everyone nodded.

In fact, I seem to find myself surrounded by a community of the crux, a people trying to figure out the direction of their lives because the security of the way it used to be isn't there anymore ... or no longer satisfies ... or we embrace our unhappiness resolved to find joy again.

So we embark on a journey to find ourselves.

We leave the job, get the divorce, move to another place, find a new church or quit the old one. Half of us have already done these things while the other half are desperate but can't quite pull the trigger so they're stuck in the middle ... frozen in fear of the unknown.

When God told Abraham to leave his home and go find the Promised Land, the old man had no idea where he was going. He just went. It's a major act of faith to begin a journey when you haven't the faintest idea of the destination.

Unfortunately, religion doesn't much deal in faith anymore. It's opted for conviction instead.

It seems to me though that God likes to get the ball rolling and leave it to us to determine when and where it stops.

Perhaps it's the question of people in their fifties. We've done so much but it doesn't seem we've arrived at where we thought. We labor for things we're not passionate about. We live with someone we don't love. A routine gives us comfort because nothing else does.

I don't believe in such things.

I don't think God wants us to settle either which is were faith comes in.

If we never get up and leave the things that keep us in the crux ... in the puzzling and unsolvable life we live ... then we never get any closer to the Promised Land.

For the love of Mickey

Standing in the airport in Belize City waiting for the connecting flight to take us further south, my cell phone kept buzzing. Sarah was in the bathroom so I answered.

"I told you to never call me here," I said into the receiver.

"I'm so sorry," came the reply.

"For what?"

"I don't know," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Someone slipped me a Mickey."

"How do you know?"

"I woke up in my own bed and I have no idea how I got there."

"I see. Well, it's alright. You were fine when I saw you last."

"I didn't ruin the wedding?"

"No, you were great. Samuel Adams asked, 'Who gives this groom to be married?' and you told him that you do which is what you were supposed to do. I think it's on film."

"I don't remember," he said in a weak, pitiful voice.

"It's OK," I said watching Sarah approach with a smile.

"I'm sorry," Johnny O said again.

"I gotta go Johnny," I explained. "We're on our honeymoon. I got no business talking to you."

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"It's alright. Go back to bed."

"I'm in bed."

"Well give our love to Judy."

"Alright but somebody slipped me a Mickey."

"On Tybee?"

"It had to have been."

"OK."

"Bye," he said clicking off.

"Later," I answered putting my arm around Sarah as we made our way to the little plane that would take us further south.

Parking on my anniversary

"How long are you going to celebrate your anniversary?" Johnny O asked as I stumbled in the door marked "Exit Only" at The Breakfast Club where the City of Tybee has taken away my normal parking space.

"Ummm, all year," I replied sitting across from him. "Why did the city take away another parking place?"

"It's part of the Master Plan," Franklin, who is brown, answers.

"The City has a Master Plan?"

"There's a plan?"

"This is a city?"

"Are they making Coyote crossings?"

"What's Sarah doing?"

The questions are too numerous to process so I sip my coffee and watch David Peters park beside the freshly painted yellow curb that used to be my parking place.

It's not like the old days.

Tybee used to have a great parking plan! If your car didn't tip over, you could park there.

Now the City's plan centers around accommodating more cars by eliminating parking spaces. This is in keeping with the current philosophy of doing more with less demonstrated repeatedly in every election.

I'm not going to worry about it though. Today's my anniversary and we plan on celebrating, culminating in fireworks which are illegal in Georgia so we plan on doing it another way!

Assuming we can find a place to park.

Joyeux Anniversaire

Topping the Lazaretto Bridge, the brilliant sunshine is radiant on miles of brown marsh grass against a background of deep blue sky. There are no clouds. It is so bright the Bull River condos shimmer, as if they're Hula dancing in the distance. The giant flag over Fort Pulaski hangs limp. It's impossible to not feel good. No one on the Tybee Road is in a hurry stretching the drive by slowing down.

It is low tide so I find myself staring at the deep green of the marsh blanketed by the dead grass which is slowly giving way. Soon a high tide will roll in and carry away the brown, washing the marsh clean and leaving the brilliant greens of a new season.

What was once old has been made new.

Tomorrow is Joyeux Anniversaire for Sarah and me.

A joyous year has passed since we promised ourselves to one another under a full moon on the beach. Surrounded by the happiest of friends, it seems that everyone present, both our friends and strangers who had come for other reasons, all danced in delight. Children jumped in the pool and blessings rained down upon us.

I hold these things in my heart, staring at the life of the green grass pushing the dead of the past from its roots. The old in my life has given way to the new. I've certainly been reborn. Sarah has too. Together we're making a future. It's got a fairy tale feel to it.

That's not to say they're not scary moments when unexpected and frightening things happen ... when Goblins from the past try to grab old and drag us backwards ... where people who are good turn out to be evil and witches turn into Queens ... but its mostly been a year of joy.

In the world of fairy tales, everything turns out happily ever after and that's the main difference between make-believe and the real world that in which in live. Reality means nothing's perfect, bad things really do happen and nobody's ever as happy as they pretend.

In spite of such realities, I remain a firm believer in happily-ever-after. Good triumphs evil even when it doesn't seem like it ever will, unscrupulous people are undone by their scruples, toads turn into Princes, Saviors rise from the dead and the old is made new again.

It is a time to celebrate these things! Many of them have come true already ... I live with a Queen ... and so much more is just around the corner as we watch the green grass of the marsh grow into the light of today. Happily-ever-after is upon us.

Puppy Prozac

When all the dust had settled, Goddess and Winston, the little gay dog, received $50 fines plus court cost. After months of inquiry, investigation and intrigue it was over in less than ten minutes.

Goddess was cool about it all throughout the ordeal. She took her medicinal medication and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I'd often find her just laying there, staring into space, surrounded by empty bags of Doritos and brownie baking pans.

On the other hand, Winston, the little gay, Diva, Bi-Polar, Son-of-a-bitch remains traumatized. He is now throwing up for no apparent reason. He shivers all of the time though he constantly wears his sweater, this one with the words "Fundamentalist have different views of gay sex --- mostly on the Internet or on Video."

He hides under the bed if anyone knocks on the door.


He tries to pick fights with Goddess.

Yesterday we gave him Puppy Prozac and have high hopes.

We'll see.

Last night ended up being a beautiful evening. I threw steaks on the grill and baked potatoes. Sarah made the most colorful of salads. I built a fire and listened to the waves breaking in the distance. Brilliant stars shown in a black sky. There was a calm after the storm.

It's been quite the year.

Sarah and I are on the eve of our first wedding anniversary. Since then we've traveled a lot, started a new business with Sean and Wen, took a road trip with the Carnival of Friends, serve as hosts for a book club at our house, and had Winston's balls cut off.

(The Judge did not asked to actually see the wacked balls as evidence though I had them in a baggie just in case. He did ask to see the receipt however which I provided.)

But the case is closed and we can look forward to celebrating happier things.

I gotta go ...

Winston, the little gay dog, has just overdosed on the Puppy Prozac and has barricaded himself under the bed by building a wall of tennis balls, though it is nicely decorated with throw pillows, candles and he's listening to Barry Manilow sing "I write the songs."

I'm going to kill that little Diva son-of-a-bitch.

This is my world

"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. You are a world."

So says my favorite author Frederick Buechner and I think he means the same thing Jesus did when he said, "Take up your cross" which means take up your own life, and everything and everyone in it, and carry on.

Of course no one, not even Jesus himself, can carry it all without help. Jesus stumbled and someone named Simon was told to help him and did.

It's not who you thought would have helped. His friends were all in hiding, denial or scared shitless for their own selves. I think Jesus wondered about this too and by the time he was hanging on the cross that he'd carried he screamed out, "Where the hell is everybody and that includes you God!"

Then he died.

And he took it all with him to that cross, his mother, the most trusted friends, all the fair faced Hosanna singers hung there with him in his heart, his mind and stomach. In the end it was just him alone and his last words said as much. "Where in the hell is everybody?"

In the same way it is our lives that we carry, and sometimes it makes us stumble and on occasion, if we're lucky someone appears to carry it a bit for us because it's too damn much for us to endure sometimes.

The betrayals, the divorces, deaths, unrealized potential and lost opportunities all gash at the beauty of the thing ... this life that we're gifted with. And just like Jesus, every single one of us cry out in pain and hurt, "Where in the hell is everybody?" because everybody ... the ones we loved and believed in with everything inside loved us, those we thought to be better, a few who promised that they would always be there ... were gone.

And we are alone.

When Jesus makes his next appearance, he's mistaken for the gardener. Dirty straw hat and coveralls, dirt under his fingernails make him so unrecognizable to those who loved him still, he has to tell them ... "It's me"  though they all had a hard time believing it. Some eventually came around but a lot never did.

It's that way with us too. At least for me it is. I have a small group who still believe in me though I'm nothing like I was.

He's not the same of course. No one who lives through such things are. He wasn't and we aren't either. The ones who love me do so for who I am and not for what I can do because I can't do much anything like I used to be able to pull off. But there is a peace that I've never had before, a smile that erupts from my heart and not from the affirmation of others. I'm not certain of what's next but I'm not frightened or worried ... it'll work out ... I been through worse.

Flowers are blooming on the back deck, in defiance of a cold spell, promising of this new life. Sarah has ordered a new table and chairs to accommodate us all for dinners, talks and conversations on it. The winter passes away and the days grow longer. This is my world. I've lived through too damn much to get to it.

My Unexpected Journey

Sitting around the dining room table, we snacked and sipped our drinks while the conversation had turned to religion. Our book club had read Gregg Allman's "My Cross to Bear" and I have no idea how matters of dogma, faith and purpose rose from it but they had.

"I do think we'll all together in each other's lives for a reason," I said. "I mean the odds of us all ending up together here on Tybee, as friends at a time when we can all really use each other is pretty far fetched otherwise."

"So you believe in predestination," Glenn smiled.

"Oh yeah," I replied. "Whenever I fall down the stairs I get up and say, 'Thank God that's over.'"

Everybody laughed.

I'm not so certain that God picked this particular day for a collection of people who'd recently rearranged everything about their lives to get together. I do think we've each put ourselves in a  position to help the other and that's what we were doing. Whenever people help each other, there's something holy about it.

Thinking back over my life, I've been blessed with people who intensely became a part of me. They were in the right place at the right time for help me move a bit further along in life. Many are now dead, most have moved on somewhere else and a precious few remain constant.

It is funny though. Just a few short years ago, my life centered around work, a particular collection of people and completely a different way of living. But that part of the journey concluded and I suddenly found myself with new friends (some brought back from the dead), a completely different purpose and little about the way I live now resembles what it did then.

I'm stuck by the radical changes I've lived. Sometimes there are things I miss about the old life but I'm pretty focused on living now one day at a time.

"Not all those who wander are lost," Tolkien wrote as two Hobbits set out on a quest to save the world they knew and loved. Before they were done, Frodo and Sam were not the same people and their beloved Shire wasn't the same either.

That's how I think about it these days. I'm on a new and totally unexpected journey though I'm lucky enough, perhaps even blessed, to have these companions, many of who I didn't even know just a short while ago.

Maybe it was all predestined though I don't think so. Even the most scripted of journeys rarely go according to plan. But I do think that God is involved somehow. There is faith in the journey's end and the holiness of this collection of travelers has to be more than mere chance. There are fears that come in the night, goblins and evil people who have left deep scars.

More than these things though, a wonderment fills me as I walk beside these friends on an unexpected journey where it is ourselves we are finding.

Real Kitty Love

"You should have written more about Winston, the little gay puppy," Johnny O told me sitting at the  Counter of the Breakfast Club."

"Ummm," I mumbled paying him no attention.

"I got all excited when you started off with Winston but then your blog fizzled out after that," Johnny O continued paying no attention to the fact that I wasn't paying him any attention.

I had more important things on my mind.

The Cat Lady has a new lover.

Apparently my fuzzy pink bathrobe with blue bunny skippers next door neighbor with the blue towel wrapped high on her head and cat fur circling around her like a halo is a phenomenon in bed.

Looking like Marge Simpson on Meth as she screams "HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!" throughout the day apparently draws a certain kind of male. A few weeks ago it was a sandy hair, crisp white shirt wearing dude driving a white Bronco. With glistening white teeth I saw him open the fuzzy pink bathrobe, raising a cloud of cat hair around them, and he shook in anticipation.

I threw up in my mouth a little.

Now the white Bronco is gone ... replaced by a brown one. He has black hair and uses product in it. His tanned chest is shaved, immaculate white teeth glisten, and his biceps bulge. She no sooner yells, "HERE KI ..." before he's on her, ripping the towel off her head, opening the fuzzy pink bathrobe and disappearing inside.

A frenzied moan emerges. A duet of MEOWs is punctuated with kitten grunts and they're lost in a volatile cloud of cat hair with an occasional arm or leg sticking out.

Goddess covers her head. Winston, the little gay dog, wearing a red sweater with the words "Closets are for clothes!" runs inside and hides under the bed.

A hundred hot and bothered feral cats seem to appear from everywhere at once seemingly encouraging each guttural MEOW screamed from her deck.

The earth moves and then ... all is quiet in sweaty exhaustion.

He stands on wobbly knees, picking cat fur from his mouth. My neighbor closes her robe with a smile and he helps her stand. They disappear inside and the hundred feral cats follow them.

I stand on the beloved back deck as witness to it all.

I'm left with only one question.

Where's a coyote when you really need one?

This Day

Bright sunshine floods the kitchen and Winston, the little gay, dog can't seem to get enough of it, laying there content and wrapped around himself.

Sarah remains snuggled under blankets, enjoying the leisure of a morning in a quiet house. Her children are gone so there are no demands being made, no breakfast to cook or schedules to manage.

Goddess lays on the floor at the foot of the bed watching over her, ever protectant, all loving, intently watching me each time I walk past the door to check on my wife.

In spite of the cold, a bird sings a solo from a tree in the backyard in protest of winter's refusal to leave early.

A lone flower, red and defiant against the winter day, blooms on the beloved back deck. Two pinkish orange Hibiscus blooms stand tall above it. Green leaves are abundant in the flower pots strategically placed for our enjoyment.

I sit at the table watching the ocean breeze blow the branches from the Palm Trees and they appear to beckon Saviors to arrive, though the street remains empty Yet they continue to wave hopefully.

Trance like, I see all of this but I may as well be looking a million miles away as the things around me come into focus only to grow watery again as I see things off in the distance. It feels very much like prayer though I am not thinking of God or Jesus, Saints or prophets or anything holy.

"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it," said whoever wrote it all those years ago.

I don't much feel like rejoicing through I'm pretty glad this day has arrived. I wish it were a warmer day but at least its sunny and bright. I'll take it. It's all I've got anyway.

Perhaps I'll rejoice later.

For the moment, I'm as content as everyone else in the house seems to be, with a bird singing outside and flowers blooming in spite of the cold, staring off in the watery distance of a future being made.

It's always Christmas here!

It always feels like Christmas on Tybee Island!

That's because the city forgot to take down all of the decorations from Christmas.

Between 14th and 15th Streets on Butler Avenue, also the Korean War Memorial Highway, nearing the end of Highway 80, you'll find one Christmas boat still hanging.

It still lights up at night and everything!

I'm not sure if this was planned by the City or not to leave a wee bit of the Holiday Spirit year round on this clump of sand but I like it.

Yesterday I was driving past City Hall and read the flashing message on the electronic sign welcoming visitors to the island.

"PAY TO PARK!" is the warm fuzzy that greets everyone.

There's plenty of time to look for a parking place because so few people come to the island this time of year.

Well, unless you're on 12th Street where all of the parking spaces have been done away with and replaced by yellow curbs. There's no parking there even for the people who live there.

Not to worry! There are three large parking lots on the island and in the winter everyone has plenty of "Pay to Park" options.

Should the lots be full though, visitors still have plenty of time to search for parking though because of all the Stop Signs on the island.

Apparently another town went out of business and Tybee got a bargain on its signs. You can hardly go anywhere on the island without stopping. Of course we want people to stay and now it takes a really long time to leave once you're here.

It's all good though.

I'd still rather be here except for those times I'm not.

Everything beautiful that life has to offer

Sean, Wen and I were at the table just talking after a morning meeting. Sarah had rushed away to a lunch in town giving the three of us time to simply be together. We communicate most every day but hadn't had the chance to just sit for a while so nobody was in a hurry.

The topics varied but the major theme was acceptance. Life's rarely what we thought. Plans went array, wolves nip at heels and God prefers strange silence when we desperately need to know things. If you don't accept it then you're immediately overwhelmed what you can't control.

"Security is an illusion," is how Sean summed it up.

Later I was at Bernie's collecting my thoughts and preparing for the afternoon but found myself preoccupied. Amber is the daughter of Bill Berry (not the former drummer for REM but the other one; the one I love and have shared many an adventure with!). She's an amazing girl, beautiful and talented, a graduate of Savannah College of Art & Design, now back home in Richmond, Virginia.

She writes a blog ... "Live. Laugh. Lymphoma" ... that chronicles her diagnoses and treatment with Hodgkins Lymphoma. It's just "your every day, twenty-something girl, enjoying everything beautiful that life has to offer." (http://livelaughlymphoma.blogspot.com/2013/02/chemo-3-inspiration.html )

Just a few months ago she was happy and healthy, making her way through life when the cards she was dealt suddenly changed everything. Security is indeed an illusion. Yet Amber's first response was to say, "Well maybe I can be a mentor to the kids going through treatment."

Did I mention that Amber's amazing?

In the mornings, I check to see if she's posted anything and when she does I have a glimpse of what she's going through. It's pretty humbling ... especially if I'm worried about the cost of repairing the air conditioner at the rental house or why the contract at work is taking so damn long to close.

What we have is here and now. The people we have in our lives are the ones who are here. God's response to our demands to know why or how or when is a quiet affirmation of it is what it is. You're where you're at ... with who you're with ... with both opportunities and obstacles. Do with it what you will. It's all you've got.

The question is what are you going to do today?

Enjoy everything beautiful that life has to offer you?

Or settle for something less?

The joy of the few

After dropping off Sarah's oldest daughter at school this morning I was stuck in traffic as mostly Mothers were bringing their children. I was heading out as they were arriving and I found myself staring inside the compact universes of other lives behind windshields.

Most were talking on their cellphones as their sons and daughters were writing texts or playing games on their phones. Others were yelling or animatedly talking to children who either were yelling back or staring straight ahead not listening. The rest were staring off in the distance as they drove, already invested in the things that needed to be done while their kids occupied themselves with getting things ready for school.

I didn't see any of them playing.

No one was laughing.

It stuck me as sad, though I don't know why. Most had drug themselves out of bed, quickly dressed, gobbled down breakfast, were admonished for not moving fast enough lest they be late. The kids would enter another universe at school were the foundations are friends, social interaction peppered with some education. The mothers drove off into their worlds, sullen, pre-occupied and serious.

Turning up the radio and rolling down the window I sang loudly. After days of rain, the sun is shinning, and the marsh grass is a dark brown with hints of green at its roots. Soon it will be an explosion of lush bright greens and the ocean will carry away the dead sprouts from last year.

That which is old will be made new again.

This is my second go-around driving kids to school. A generation ago, I took my kids. I remember singing loudly and laughing often. Perhaps those are just the memories I retain and most mornings I was as sullen and preoccupied as the Moms I watched today. I don't think so.

This time around, things seem more serious. There is more at stake. Uniformed guards are at doors. Teachers double as security and traffic officers. Everything is locked. Dogs patrol hallways.

Times have changed.

Returning to the island, grey clouds cover the sunshine. Police cars lay in waiting behind Oleander bushes. Sullen drivers stare straight ahead into an unfocused distance. The wind picks up.

Turning up the radio, I sing songs from the past and resolve to not allow the unhappiness of the many interfere with the joy of the few.