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the fellowship of the broken

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

I have several friends who are authors.

Not that I’ve ever met them, you understand. They don’t even know who I am. Yet I count them as friends because their words have helped me to learn and grow. And so I carry deep gratitude and affection toward Madeleine L’Engle, Frederick Buechner, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Henri Nouwen, to name a few. I thought of Nouwen in particular tonight when I got email today about The TED Prize that was awarded to Karen Armstrong (also an author) in 2008 and culminated today in the launching of the Charter for Compassion. Armstrong is a former nun who has become one of the world’s best and best-known religious historians and probably one of the few people in the world who actually understands Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The Charter for Compassion is her initiative to call people together by beginning with the understanding that compassion and interconnectedness lie at the heart of most all of the world’s religions. The charter begins:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

I still haven’t gotten to how Henri Nouwen fits in to all of this. Well, I have to back up a few years.

Try twenty-five years.

In the early eighties, Nouwen wrote a book called Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life that I bought and read and read again. In it, he gave me the best working definition of compassion – voluntarily entering the pain of another – and he made the case for that compassion being a “uniquely Christian virtue.” As one blurb explains:

At first sight compassion seems to be a natural, instinctive, human response to others’ pain and suffering. But on closer inspection the authors conclude that for the Christian true compassion is born only out of prayerful reflection on the implications of the Incarnation and the demands it makes on all who would follow in the footsteps of the Man of Sorrows.

As I listened to Armstrong talk, I wondered what he would do if he were here to read her offering. Would the priest and the former nun find they were on the same page? The question is fun to think about, but it’s not the one driving me to write tonight. Listen to Nouwen:

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

The Fellowship of the Broken. Yes.

As I read his words again, I realize I understand what he is talking about because of the Incarnation, because of my faith in Christ and the lessons I learn from Jesus’ life. When I listen to Armstrong, I understand the Fellowship of the Broken is not limited to Christians any more than we can claim to have a corner on the truth (or the Truth). We are called to care for one another because we are all God’s children.

God’s broken children.

Nouwen was compelling because he lived a life of true compassion, actually entering pain he could not comprehend. He asked to be sent to the poorest parish in the world to work even as he was becoming a well-known writer and speaker; he also spent years as a part of the L’Arche Community. No doubt his faith was what compelled him to make those choices. The same was true for Gandhi, yet the faith that led him down the same path of brokenness was not called by the same name.

Before we even join churches or mosques or synagogues, we are a part of the Fellowship of the Broken. Coming to terms with that connection and committing ourselves to compassionate living is what will begin to put us back together.

Take a minute and watch the video.

Peace,
Milton

fall music sampler: rainy day edition

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

As the remnants of Ida make their way through our neighborhood, I thought tonight might be a good one to think about rain songs. I’ll start with a great clip of Usher dancing along side of Gene Kelley and “Singing in the Rain.”

I’ll follow with a clip of a very young Nanci Griffith singing something those of us who are not so far removed from our drought days might still be willing to sing: “I Wish It Would Rain.”

And speaking of youngsters, here is Stephen Bishop in an American Bandstand clip singing “Save It for a Rainy Day.”

One title can lead to two good songs; here’s the Jayhawks (also from long ago) singing their song of the same name:

James Taylor covered the song “Rainy Day Man” with great success; here’s Bonnie Raitt singing it back to him at a tribute show.

I’ll let her song be the segue to James Taylor and Elvis Costello covering the Everly Brothers’ “Crying in the Rain.”

She’s got a song that fits the category, so I can’t pass up the chance to share Patty Griffin’s “Rain.”

And I’ll close with another cover: the Boss singing John Fogerty’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

Stay warm and dry, my friends.

Peace,
Milton

of cardboard and connectedness

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

The loading dock area behind the West Union at Duke, in which my restaurant is located, is also where we go to throw away our trash. The singular term no longer applies because of the way we are expected to separate and organize our refuse for disposal. There is a giant dumpster where the garbage goes, but first we keep any food-related trash for the compost area, recyclables (plastics, glass, aluminum) in recycling bins, and all cardboard boxes have to be flattened and put into a baler.

I am sharing all this scintillating information to get to this detail: every restaurant in our building has to take a turn being responsible for keeping the trash area clean and emptying the baler everyday for a week, and that week comes round for us every other month. Our latest week began today. Billy, the daytime chef is a Duke institution, knows everyone, and takes great pride in the area being cleanest when it’s our week. That also means when someone just dumps their cardboard, he figures out who it is, goes and gets them, and makes them clean up. Up until tonight, he has been the one to do the baling, and I have helped enough to know how to do it. It’s just never been full at the end of my shift.

Tonight it was. More than full. So full Abel and I had to take out almost a third of what was in there to get the baler to work. For those of you who remember when David Letterman used to crush things with a pneumatic press, that’s what this baler does. The cardboard gets loaded in the front, a giant press keeps squeezing it down, and that process continues until you have a full bundle. Then you manually keep the press in the down position, open the front of the machine, thread two twenty foot metal ties through the machine so they wrap around the bale and bind them, release the press so the bale is free, set a wooden palette in front of the open machine, raise the floor so the bale rolls out on the palette (we’re talking a ton of cardboard here), roll the palette down to the loading dock, put some fresh pieces of flat cardboard down so the threading will work the next time, and close the front door so people can start stacking stuff in there again. Tonight, we got to add the steps of cleaning up after two restaurants who, when they saw the baler was full, decided it was cool to jus throw their boxes next to the machine without even breaking them down.

If you are still reading at this point, here’s my question: when you know what it is like to have to deal with the baler because you have to take a turn, why would you make life more difficult for those who are baling when it’s not your turn?

Seems like an obvious question (and answer), yet I notice most every time I take out the trash, whether assigned to bale or not, that cardboard is strewn about without much thought for who does have to do the cleanup. And, I’m afraid, that kind of insensitivity is not confined to recycling at Duke. We, as human beings, often fall short in the “do unto others” category. We may not want it done to us, but we don’t necessarily choose for that to also mean we won’t do it unto others.

In restaurants that serve more than one meal, as the ones I work in both do, all of depend on the kindness of coworkers to leave the station in shape for us who follow. And we are expected to leave things ready for the next shift to come in. That means everything from cleaning well to leaving notes about what might have been used up or will need to be prepped, to taking time to refill squeeze bottles or consolidate the produce in the walk-in refrigerator. And, though I realize this has to rank right up there with a shaggy dog story when it comes to lengthy set ups, I am struck that life is the same way. Whatever the action or the situation, we are, for the most part, following someone into that situation and will be followed by another. It’s as true about grocery lines as it is about churches.

Somewhere in my blog reading when I got home from work (and I lost the reference by the time I got out of the shower and came back to write), I came across a wonderful post challenging churches to think beyond the present tense and be mindful of those who will follow. Their point was looking at a grand theological idea; I’m looking at the same idea on a more hands-on level. Think about who will be walking into the room next, pulling into the parking place next, using that shopping cart next, stepping into your spot once you have moved on. I’m not advocating Random Acts of Kindness (though I like those) as much as making a case for Intentional Acts of I Knew You Were Coming After Me.

We are all being followed, even as we follow someone into most every situation. We may not be able to control much of any of the situations we walk into, yet we can determine how we will leave things for those who come after us. Though I wish more folks would remember this week, while I am baling the cardboard, I’m writing mostly so I will remember next week and next month when I’m not.

Peace,
Milton

best lights

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

It’s not so much the words
as the way they sometimes
line up, the way they are
placed on the page —
single syllables can speak,
tear open false healings,
deep calling to deep
with faith and familiarity
both brand new and ages old.
I saw these four words:
our own best lights
at the tail end of a sentence
about being true

and I wondered where
my best lights had gone,
why I become too easily
accustomed to beams
buried under bushel baskets
of daily living, how I can
forget what brightness is,
how easily dim becomes
the definition of normal.
Yet, found by four small
words, I remember the light
shines in the darkness and
the darkness cannot put it out.

Peace,
Milton

chance meetings

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

I’m a collector. Not a keep-it-in-the-box-so-it-will-be-valuable-someday kind of guy, as much as I like to keep things around for a few days (weeks, years) before I let them go. Things like grocery store receipts, ticket stubs, random pieces of paper that somehow ended up in my pocket. I have brochures and postcards, old magazines, business cards scattered here and yon around the house and, every so often (though not as often as Ginger would like) I clear (at least some of) them out.

My mind is much like the top of my desk in that I collect random bits of information, both useful and not so, and keep them tucked away in what passes for a mental filing system, but is perhaps more like one of those random thought generators that goes to the pile and pushes one to the top every so often. One of my favorite recurring metaphors that keeps bouncing back came from a Wittenburg Door article in the late Seventies or early Eighties that talked about “billiard ball relationships” and how we spend most of our lives deflecting off one another on our way to somewhere else rather than spending the time and energy required to listen to and love one another. Even in the incidental contact of life, we can find meaning and connection rather than allowing ourselves to offer nothing more than a glancing blow.

Somewhere around the same time, Christine Lavin sang a song that I keep in the same file, “The Moment Slipped Away,” that begins:

She’s a famous actress movies and TV
I recognize her as we climb the stairs of the IRT
we cross the street together moving up Broadway
I’m trying to come up with something clever I can say
about how I love her work what it means to me
how in her most recent film she acted brilliantly
maybe she’ll think I’m stupid maybe this’ll make her day
but she disappeared into the crowd and the moment slipped away

Both metaphor and melody found me in the afternoon flow of this fall day in 2009 as I was out running errands. I had three tasks: take the Story People poster Ginger gave me for framing, get light bulbs at Lowe’s, and get gas for the lawnmower. My first stop was the TROSA Frame Shop, which also sells furniture. TROSA is Triangle Residence Options for Substance Abusers and a wonderful organization that helps addicts get back on their feet through work. Along with the frame shop, they have a landscaping business and a moving company; all three do great work at fair prices. I’ve been going to the frame shop for over a year now and have gotten to know the woman who does the framing at least well enough that we call each other by name and have told a little bit of our stories.

At the end of April last year, I stopped in the store because I was passing by and saw her at the desk. She beamed as she told me she was just days away from being clean for eighteen months. I asked her what that meant and she said, “It means I get forty dollars of my own each month.” She continued, “That don’t sound like much, but when you’ve gone eighteen months without two nickels to rub together, it feels like a lot.” TROSA had provided her housing, employment, and support over that time, but that forty bucks meant she had earned their trust.

I have not seen her since. Today, I walked in as she was coming down the stairs and she smiled, called my name, and gave me a big hug. Before I could say anything about framing, she told me November 3rd had been her two year anniversary. She had completed the program, was going to graduate on November 15th, and was now in school training to become a TROSA staffer.

I felt fortunate to get to share her excitement and achievement.

I parked at the BP station not far from our house and went in to pay for the dollar’s worth of gas I needed for the mower. When I came out, a Pontiac that looked as though it had come off the assembly line about the same time as Christine Lavin’s record was parked behind me. The driver’s door was open and a man who looked quite frail was sitting with one foot out on the pavement, looking at my car and perhaps wondering what had happened to the driver. When I walked up, he said, “I like your license plate.” (I have Red Sox frames around them.”) I thanked him and he continued, “I was up there in 1980 – Carlton Fisk’s last season.”

“We moved from there about two years ago,” I answered. “I like it here, too.”

“More laid back,” he said, and smiled. I wished him a good evening and then he said, “Nice to meet you. I don’t imagine I will be seeing you again.”

He turned our glancing blow into a lovely moment of truth and connectedness. We probably won’t see each other again. (Right – now watch us run into each other at the gas station once a week.) The brevity of our contact in the scope of human history shouldn’t diminish the moment of common humanity we shared. How much better a life full of those kinds of chance meetings over one filled with silent passings.

Someone has said of language that we have words for what matters to us. Take note, then, we do not have words for the kinds of encounters that colored my afternoon. The frame lady and I are not friends, yet we are more than acquaintances or passing strangers. The gas station guy are more than passing strangers simply because we took time to speak. We have words for neither.

Both need names lest we forget they matter, and they help to make us whole.

Peace,
Milton

kodak moment

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

I had a camera once that could take pictures
with everything in focus, from front to back,
each detail crisp, sharp, and identifiable.
I can’t do that with my own eyes, as

I learned again this week, driving through
Duke Forest, the variegated veil of fall flavors
cascading down from the tree tops to street level.
I pulled to the side of the road and gazed into

one canyon of color, layers of gold and green,
of umbers and ochres, shades of life and death,
and I wished for my old camera to let me see
all of them at once. Instead, I had to settle

for my human view, choosing the near or
the far or the in-betweens, a leafy lesson
to remind me how hard it is to carry both
dreams and memories, or hope and duty;

that the journey to wholeness is less about
seeing everything clearly than seeing
clearly that everything has its season,
its fleeting moment to be in plain view.

Peace,
Milton

taking time

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

Remember when Alanis Morissette told us irony was “like rain on your wedding day” – which is mostly sad and not ironic at all? Well, it’s not raining here in Durham, but I have my own offering of irony: I’ve been all set for a post on Sabbath for several days and haven’t made time to write.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

This weekend my church hosted a conference on “Faith and the Environment.” My contribution was to help prepare the meals on Friday night and Saturday morning. One of the conference organizers took me on a shopping spree at our State Farmers Market in Raleigh and almost everything we ate came from there. I met some great people doing some wonderful things on both small and large scales. And I heard Norman Wirzba talk about Sabbath and what the concept means for our care of and compassion for the creation of which we are a part.

Using the Genesis 1 account as a map of sorts, he took us on a journey through the days in which God spoke all that is us and around us into existence and then looked at the Seventh Day when God rested to reflect on the purpose behind everything that had been brought into being. The climax of creation, Wirzba said, was this act of menuha, tranquility and repose. Sabbath is not doing nothing, but resting, reflecting, reinvigorating. Rest, in this sense, is the opposite of restlessness.

I came away with a couple of quotes that have stayed with me through what has already been a more restless week than I would like. I will quote them and then tell you they pull me beyond the speech in our Fellowship Hall.

Creation is the place where the love of God is made concrete.

Creation is an act of ultimate hospitality: God made room for what was not God to be.

Though I have not been posting, I have managed to get back in the routine of my Morning Pages (thanks, in part, to Wirzba’s words), which I see as a moment of morning Sabbath, if you will. And as I have turned these two ideas over in my mind and heart, what keeps coming to mind pulls me to see them in the light of knowing that I am created in the image of God. As God spent the “week” breathing, speaking, imagining a universe with everything from light years to ladybugs into existence and then followed that brilliance with time to think about what it all meant, I have weeks of my own to consider. What am I breathing, speaking, and imagining into the world in which I live? How is my love made concrete in what I do? Or is it? And then the big one, for me: how am I making room for what is not me to be?

Twice this week I’ve answered my phone to hear the voice of an old friend. Two different friends, actually. Each one was calling from the road, on their way from one place to another, and began with the same sentence, “I was driving and thinking about you and thought I would call.” The conversations took different turns after their openings, but both had the same result: I hung up the phone feeling loved and connected to something beyond me: to memories and dusty dreams, to laughter and longing, to hope , and to love (as E. E. Cummings said) that is “more thicker than forget.”

Their love made concrete has made me wonder who needs to hear from me.

Working in a restaurant kitchen carries with it a certain sense of urgency: we work with perishable products, we are almost always facing a deadline, and, once service starts, we cook until they quit coming. All those things are true, as is the fact that our sense of urgency is as much self-imposed as it is false. I get more calls on my day off than a heart surgeon it seems sometimes, and most of them were, well, not urgent. But waiting is not one of our strong suits. I’m working to understand this urgent illusion because buying into it is one of the ways I end up not making room for what is not me to be. I can’t make room. I don’t have time. I have things to do.

But living into the wholeness of being created in God’s image is about time, not things. Abraham Joshua Heschel said:

The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept the premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own.

If time is at the core of what life means, even as God took the seventh day to relish and reflect on what he had brought to be, how then does time feel like such a tyrant? Why do I feel I have to wrestle my schedule to find time for Ginger, for writing, for life?

I am not living creatively, I think. God did not imagine me living this way. I want to take time to imagine living differently as well.

And then write a new creation story of my own.

Peace,
Milton

a word from wallace

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

This came into my field of vision this morning and I thought it too good to keep to myself.

From Wallace Stevens — “Ask Me”

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Aske me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

Peace,
Milton

show time

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

I stood one brilliant autumn afternoon
at Quincy Market and watched a man
juggle a bowling ball, a tennis racquet,
and a chainsaw with the same ease as
those of us who watched drank our
lattes and ate our cannolis; I wondered
how he practiced – what was it like
the first time he revved the engine
and threw the saw into the air?

If I could go back and find him, I would
say, “I know now.” I know you don’t
intend, you just juggle. When the
phone rings and says, “You must come,”
and the menus are due, and there are
friends to call and prescriptions to fill,
followed by the long plane ride home,
you just keep juggling; it’s what life is –
and everyday is show time.

Peace,
Milton

one more song

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
1

Years ago, I wrote a lyric for a Communion song called “Here’s to the Day” and the last verse says

gather in close cling to each other
sing to the night you don’t sing alone

This has been a day when I have been reminded, again, that life and faith are both team sports. We are not alone; we are all in this together, whatever the day brings. And so, as this day closes, I offer another familiar hymn, if you will, which holds as good a definition of love as I can find:

if you break down, I’ll drive out and find you

Patty Griffin wrote “When It Don’t Come Easy,” Justin McRoberts covers it (well) in the video below, and I offer it tonight as both an affirmation of what I learned again today and a word of thanks for all those who keep driving out for me.

Red lights are flashing on the highway
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonight
Everywhere the waters getting rough
Your best intentions may not be enough
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonight

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy

I don’t know nothing except change will come
Year after year what we do is undone
Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home

You’re out there walking down a highway
And all of the signs got blown away
Sometimes you wonder if you’re walking in the wrong direction

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy

So many things that I had before
That don’t matter to me now
Tonight I cry for the love that I’ve lost
And the love I’ve never found
When the last bird falls
And the last siren sounds
Someone will say what’s been said before
Some love we were looking for

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy


Peace,
Milton

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