Yesterday I had my final meeting with my spiritual director, Ken, who is also a dear friend and a lover of poetry. We shared poems as a part of our litany of farewell; I share some of them, now, with you.
The Layers I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes. Stanley Kunitz
Fishing in the Keep of Silence There is a hush now while the hills rise up and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world. He knows the owls will guard the sweetness of the soul in their massive keep of silence, looking out with eyes open or closed over the length of Tomales Bay that the herons conform to, whitely broad in flight, white and slim in standing. God, who thinks about poetry all the time, breathes happily as He repeats to Himself: There are fish in the net, lots of fish this time in the net of the heart. Linda Gregg By a departing light, We saw acuter, quite, Than by a light that stays. There’s something in the flight, That clarifies the sight, And decks the rays. Emily Dickinson
I’ve had my share of days when I wondered why I was on the planet; Sunday was not one of them. The wonderful folks at our church here in Marshfield and several other friends gathered to remember what our years here together have meant and to wish Ginger and me well in what is to come as we head south to Durham in a few weeks. The evening was affirming, amazing, and crammed full of fun and meaning.
When we leave Coffee Hour this coming Sunday, we will leave the church for good. Ginger’s final service will include a baptism and the welcoming of ten new members into the congregation. The closing of this chapter of our lives together falls in the middle of the manuscript of a story far larger than ourselves.
The story Ginger told from the pulpit was one of gratitude: Jesus’ encounter with the one leper who came back to say thanks for his healing. She talked about how easy it is to be hard on the nine who didn’t return and cautioned us not to take the easy path so quickly. We don’t have any idea of what was going on in the hearts and minds of those who didn’t come back to Jesus. She recounted how one of our foster daughters, who lived with us for six months while her mom was in prison and she was in middle school, told us how much she loved us but she couldn’t see us anymore because we were a reminder of the most painful time in her life. Even healing hurts sometimes.
So does love. Leaving people you love is like trying to unmix brownie batter: the ingredients don’t separate easily. When I first started doing weddings, the image I had whenever I said, “What God has joined together let no one tear apart” was of two pieces of metal welded into one. Tearing them apart would leave both pieces damaged. The relationship between a pastor and a congregation is, by definition, not as permanent as a marriage and the attachments are deep and difficult to release. We have loved our days here in Marshfield almost as much as we love the people we have gotten to share them with. It is hard to say goodbye and that’s a good thing. The tragedy would be to leave and not hurt at all.
Jackson Browne has a song on his World in Motion record that fits here:
here’s to lights and virtues here’s to truths yet to be known knowledge to light the darkness the search for things of your own
here’s to lights and virtues here’s to reaching higher ground a life of hope and purpose here’s to strength yet to be found honor — though it goes unrecognized and truth — though liars abound
the pleasure of love and friendship the courage to be alone
One of the passages of scripture I know I have quoted before and find to be one of the true touchstones of my life is John’s description of Jesus as he prepared to wash the disciples’ feet: “knowing he had come from God and was going to God . . .” We were breathed into existence to live our lives in a circle of grace and gratitude. I’m a fortunate person to have had a night when a room filled with people took the time to tell me they loved me and gave me the chance to tell them the same. The pleasure of love and friendship fuels the courage to move farther round the circle, and deeper into grace.
Peace, Milton
P. S. — Speaking of church friends, there’s a new recipe.
Several years ago, when we were on a mission trip to Philadelphia, we were walking to see the Liberty Bell and passed the building that houses WHYY. “That’s where Terry Gross is,” I exclaimed. Then I laughed at myself.
Sometimes as I drive, I switch over to our local talk radio station just to see what is being said. It doesn’t take long for me to realize how accustomed I’ve become to the tone of conversation that happens on public radio because I feel accosted by the volume and venom of what I hear from the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Jay Severin who appear to relish in their rancorous rhetoric. And I’m not talking about content; I’m talking about delivery. I can’t listen for long because I’m so agitated by what I hear.
I understand the differences in opinion. I don’t understand why we have to berate and excoriate one another.
When I punched in on Saturday, the talk was about Al Gore’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. I managed to hang in for most of my ride to work because I was intrigued by the reticence to give any credence at all to the reality of global climate change, or (perhaps, better put) to make climate change a partisan issue. I know there are more ways to look at the causes and consequences of our presence on the planet that what can be seen in An Inconvenient Truth and that a fair amount of what passes for “the environmental movement” is fleeting fashion. I am not a global warming fundamentalist and I take our human impact on the planet too seriously to leave it to the posturing of our politicians and actors. So enough about them. I’ll talk for me.
this world is not my home I’m just a-passing through my treasure’s all laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The song comes to mind again this morning because I think it voices an error in Christian theology that has left us behind the curve on environmental issues (understanding of course, that the response of Christians is not monolithic). Much of evangelical Christianity, which is where I grew up, has seen the need to care for our planet as superfluous at best. What I remember being taught, basically, was the point of our being here is to get everyone to heaven and our stay here is temporary anyway. Going green doesn’t rank high on that list of priorities. Though we talk more about the environment in the liberal branch of Christianity where I have found a home, we hop too easily onto the cultural bandwagon, picking up the slogans but not necessarily being any more substantive in our stance. On both ends of the continuum, we seem to see the issue as political and/or social before we think of it as spiritual. And we preach at each other much more than we converse.
“God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it,” proclaimed the Psalmist (24:1, The Message), pulling together our care for the planet with our concern for one another, and calling us to a more thoughtful, intentional, nuanced, and incarnational theology that perhaps most of us want to engage. If that verse is true, then life has no discards; every action matters. I have to consider, as I stand in the supermarket, that the bananas from Costa Rica that cost me 69 cents a pound do not reflect the real cost of the fruit. Seriously. I can’t fly to Costa Rica for 69 cents a pound. Am I to believe that the people who picked them were paid a living wage and the owners of the farm are making the best environmental decisions for that kind of money? I might do well to consider another source of potassium for my diet.
Yikes. I’m dangerously close to preaching and not talking.
One of the best sermons I ever heard on the parable of the Good Samaritan was called “Christ in the Ditch.” (If I could only remember who preached it.) The point was the Christ-figure in the story was not the Samaritan, but the wounded one left for dead by the side of the road. Our call is to allow the Jesus in us to respond to the Jesus in those who have been discarded and beaten up by the world around them. We incarnate God’s love best when we see Jesus in the ditch. If God is in the downtrodden, then we might pull the psalm and the parable together to say God is in the dirt as well. What we do to the planet, we do to God. Like the old song says:
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art.
Why I carry my recycling bin to the curb every Tuesday morning makes about as much sense as why I get up and go to church on Sunday morning or why we put our twenty-five bucks in the pot at Kiva.org so one woman in Mexico could try a make a living selling tacos. It doesn’t make sense, but it makes faith. We were breathed into existence by a God who relishes in what one life can do. The universe our God created is layer upon layer of infinite and infinitesimal activity, the minute and the magnificent both packed full of significance. Rather than oscillate between the arrogance of thinking we can do whatever we want without consequence to creation and the cynicism that says nothing we do matters anyway, let us choose the narrow path of intentionality and hope, believing that every step chosen well leads us closer to being the creation God imagined in the beginning.
That was the nickname I had for the song “Thankful Boys and Girls” when my friend Billy and I wrote it many (dare I say many, many?) years ago. Ginger asked me to sing the song as a part of worship today and several folks stopped me at coffee hour and asked me to post the lyric. So, here it is.
let us be thankful boys and girls for eyes and ears and toes and puppies with wet noses let us be thankful boys and girls for lessons we have learned and love we have not earned we follow the beat of amazing grace oh let us be thankful boys and girls
let us be thankful boys and girls for kisses on the mouth and teenage heartbeats pounding let us be thankful boys and girls for lightning in the sky and laughter in the eye we follow the beat of amazing grace oh let us be thankful boys and girls
for all that brought us here and all that will see us through the passages of life that lead to you lead us to you
let us be thankful boys and girls for a little common sense and painted picket fences let us be thankful boys and girls when packing up the plans in rented moving vans we follow the beat of amazing grace oh let us be thankful boys and girls
let us be thankful boys and girls for mendelson and brahms and shadows growing longer let us be thankful boys and girls for years that slowly grow and grandkids we can hold for memories to keep and sorrows running deep oh let us be thankful boys and girls
for all that brought us here and all that will see us through the passages of life that lead to you lead us to you
let us be thankful boys and girls when hope is not enough that death can’t bury love let us be thankful boys and girls for wine and bread and hymns remembering again we follow the beat of amazing grace oh let us be thankful boys and girls
I’m watching Chef walk an interesting creative line these days. He’s in the process of making some menu changes that work to incorporate his culinary creativity with the fact that our restaurant is, as he puts it, “in a meat and potatoes town.” Instead of each steak on the menu having a different starch and vegetable, he added a couple of new steaks and put garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus with all of them. People now pick their steak – 7 oz. center cut filet, 8 oz. flatiron, 10 oz. sirloin, 12 oz. rib eye – and how they want it cooked. He still dry ages the larger steaks and brings his creative touches to the dishes, but he’s working to meet his public where they are.
And he served steaks as fast as he could cook them last night, even though our crowd was down a little since a lot of folks stayed home last night to watch the Sox beat Cleveland. (Sorry, Davy.) And he did it without selling himself short.
I’ve learned a lot working alongside Chef. He has an artful simplicity to his combinations of flavors, textures, and colors. Our dishes taste and look beautiful as they go out. The quality of his thought and practice come through in everything from the salads to the pizzas to the steaks and seafood. He has also chosen to cook in something other than a fine dining restaurant. He knows all that stuff. For his dinner last night he brought in (and shared with me) a batata, which is (I learned) a Caribbean sweet potato. While it’s probably normal stuff if you’re in Jamaica, it was exotic to me. So we ate batata and dished up the roasted garlic mashed with the steaks. (I had some of the potatoes, too.)
What Chef understands is, no matter what the dish, people are always part of the recipe. Years ago, when I was a Youth Minister, I asked one of our church members who was also an educator, to lead a teacher training for our youth Sunday school teachers. He began the session by writing one sentence on the board:
I teach young people the Bible.
Then he said, “You tell me the direct object in this sentence and I’ll tell you what kind of teacher you are going to be.” After some discussion he said, “If you think you are teaching the Bible, it won’t matter to you who is in the room; if you think you are teaching young people, you can read from the phone book and change their lives.”
Thus endeth the lesson.
Cook. Teach. Pastor. Work. Live. None of it happens in a vacuum. Not only are we surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, but a gathering of fellow participants, companions for the journey and the meal. Sometimes that means you get to try new things and sometimes that means you serve up the steak and potatoes. Both are best done with the intentionality of a personal vision and the flavor of community.
As you make your to do list for today, write down, “Buy Washington Square Serenade.” Steve Earle’s first studio recording of new songs in three years is worth every dime.
For those of you who don’t know him, Steve’s first record, Guitar Town, came out in 1986 to rave reviews and afforded him fame that almost killed him, literally. His addictions took him apart and put him in prison for a time. What he has pulled from the ashes of that existence is a thoughtful presence, a tenacious spirit, and some wonderful music. His latest recording chronicles his move from Nashville to New York City and his marriage to fellow singer Allison Moorer. (Yes, she is quite a bit younger.)
The single from the record is “City of Immigrants,” which reflects the spirit of the whole project. (The video is a performance on Letterman.)
Livin’ in a city of immigrants I don’t need to go travelin’ Open my door and the world walks in Livin’ in a city of immigrants
Livin’ in a city that never sleeps My heart keepin’ time to a thousand beats Singin’ in languages I don’t speak Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of black City of white City of light City of innocents
City of sweat City of tears City of prayers City of immigrants
Livin’ in a city where the dreams of men Reach up to touch the sky and then Tumble back down to earth again Livin’ in a city that never quits
Livin’ in a city where the streets are paved With good intentions and a people’s faith In the sacred promise a statue made Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of stone City of steel City of wheels Constantly spinnin’
City of bone City of skin City of pain City of immigrants
All of us are immigrants Every daughter, every son Everyone is everyone All of us are immigrants – everyone
Livin’ in a city of immigrants River flows out and the sea rolls in Washin’ away nearly all of my sins Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of black City of white City of light Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of sweat City of tears City of prayers Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of stone City of steel City of wheels Livin’ in a city of immigrants
City of bone City of skin City of pain City of immigrants All of us are immigrants
Though I was flying home alone from Durham last Thursday night, I was not by myself. Seated next to me in the exit row was a large man who actually needed the extra leg room and who quickly fell asleep; across the aisle sat a couple who each had a puzzle book to work as they flew. And, about twenty minutes into the hour and a half flight, I became aware of the little boy sitting behind me who, evidently, was quite proud of both his singing voice and his command of the alphabet:
a, b, c – ellaminnowpea q, r, s – ellaminnowpea x, y, z – ELLAMINNOWPEA
His mother spoke to him several times in a maternal corrective whisper, but to no avail. He simply changed his tune:
LA LA LA (I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy) LA LA LA (I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy)
He was a little kid on a plane being a little kid. He was happy, he was learning, and he had a pretty good voice. I’m sure it never crossed his mind that anyone around him might not share those sentiments. I’m grateful none of us adults who sat near him felt the need to tell him anything different than what he knew was true in his childlike heart. Somewhere in our muscle memory we resonated with his version of the alphabet song. (Is there a better run of letters than L M N O P?) I know I wished for the kind of abandon that would let me sing out, “I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy.”
Though not yet verbal, the baby that sat across the aisle from me in church yesterday with her mother was singing the same song. She bubbled and cooed through most of the service, throwing in a gleeful squeal every now and then for good measure. When we reached the closing hymn, I couldn’t help but feel the words as a prayer:
Come, Thou, Fount of Every Blessing, Tune my heart to sing thy grace . . .
At least those are the words I know. Our UCC hymnal is one whose compilers felt driven to revise for several reasons, some (to me) more valid than others. So their opening lines read,
Come, O Fount of Every Blessing, Tune my heart to sing your grace . . .
I know it’s a small change, but it’s just the beginning. The one that really gets me is the second stanza, which revised reads,
Here I pause in my sojourning, giving thanks for having come, Come to trust at every turning, God will guide me safely home.
Those aren’t the words. The changes here are significant because they remove a wonderful image, even if it does need some explaining:
Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come. And I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
The power of symbol is it packages the weight of memory and hope in way it can be carried across the miles and the years. Sure, in my junior high days, “here I raise mine Ebenezer” made us snicker as we played that good old Baptist adolescent worship service game, “Under the Sheets,” where you simply added the words “under the sheets” to the end of hymn titles with some humorous results:
O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing . . . Love Lifted Me . . . I Surrender All . . .
And as I sang and chuckled, the words worked their way into my mind and heart and stayed until I could ask what an Ebenezer was with a straight face. The reference is from 1 Samuel 7:12:
Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it “Ebenezer” (Rock of Help), saying, “This marks the place where God helped us.” (The Message)
One of the ways we tune our hearts is by matching the tone of faith that resonates down from the generations that have come before. The little soprano voice that sang “ellaminnowpea” so enthusiastically will learn more and more about where those letters can take him as he finds them shaped and gathered in the words of those who have preceded him. Those letters will teach him about Pegasus, Moses, The Little Prince, Eyeore, and Milton (John, that is), among other things. Billy Joel began his song, “Summer Highland Falls” with the words:
They say that these are not the best of times, but they’re the only times I’ve ever known; and I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own.
The crash of emotion in those few lines has pulled me since the first time I heard them. That we are aware that these are the only times we’ve ever known should pull us to notice the Ebenzers standing tall across the landscape, making sure to remember the stories, rather than knocking them all over for our own construction projects. It is hither by the help of the other runners in the human race that we have come thus far, as well. Joel concluded:
How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies, perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies, and as we stand upon the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities: it’s either sadness or euphoria.
The melody of faith is more complex and more nuanced that his polarity. From the sadness to the euphoria and all of life in between, the hymn calls us to pray, with gratitude:
O, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be; Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee.
Yesterday, Ginger and I made our annual trek up to Newburyport for their Fall Festival, a wonderful community celebration. We got there in time to see the bluegrass band play their first song – my favorite song – “Angel from Montgomery.” The last verse of that song says:
There’s flies in the kitchen – I can hear ‘em a buzzin’ and I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today. How the hell can a person go to work in the morning and come home every evening and have nothing to say?
A little girl, not old enough yet to know Ella Minnow Pea, danced across the stones in front of the stage as they sang, twirling with total abandon, incarnating the depth of the song’s question. Whether morning or evening, coming or going, working or playing, let us answer together in song:
Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it: prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for thy courts above.
Peace, Milton The video and recording is Sufjan Stevens.
The clue for 41 Down in the “difficult” crossword in Spirit, the in flight magazine of Southwest Airlines was “golden rule word”: unto, as in do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus’ words are as obvious as they are wise. We, as a people, however, often have to be reminded of the obvious.
When the schedule at work operates as it usually does, Sous and I follow each other working the fish station. The normal flow of a shift is to arrive around two, figure out what needs to be prepped, prep it, work the dinner service, do all you can to be ready for the next day, and clean up the area. The cold top on the line has twenty-two bins, each one containing an item, a sauce, or a garnish for one or more of our dishes. On the fish station, I’m talking about bolognaise sauce, curry sauce, julienned peppers, julienned snow peas, julienned portabella mushrooms, heavy cream, sliced shallots, diced butter, Raye’s Seadog mustard, chopped garlic, chives, diced roasted tomatoes, whole roasted tomatoes, basil chiffonade, chopped tarragon, lime wedges, grated Romano cheese, and sliced chorizo.
That’s just the top. We have four cold drawers. One for pasta, lobster meat, ravioli, and back ups; one with spinach, gnocchi, Swiss chard, green beans, and mashed potato cakes; one with mussels, crostini, and more back ups; and one with the raw fish, shrimp, and scallops. Much of the prep needs to be done fresh everyday, so making sure the other stuff is stocked when we finish a shift makes the next day a little less hectic.
All of that to say, one of the other line cooks preceded me on the fish station Thursday night instead of Sous. He normally works the grill, but moved over because of some necessary schedule changes. When he works the grill (a station he shares with Chef), he makes sure everything is backed up and ready for when Chef comes in. He doesn’t share the same work ethic when he works other stations. I got to work yesterday to find my station clean, mostly empty, and disorganized. It took me an hour just to get it back in shape so I could do my regular prep work. My colleague would not have known the answer to 41 Down.
We buy the wines we use for cooking at the restaurant by the box because of the sheer volume of liquid we use. The box of white wine at my station is the equivalent of twelve bottles. It’s good wine – it’s just in a box with a spigot on the bottom. The Marsala wine at Chef’s station has a notation on the side that reads, “Tilt box forward to get last drop.” Chef showed it to me one day, smiling, and said, “Gee, I’m glad they told me.” One of our running jokes, when I get to the end of my box, is to say, “Man, I wish I knew how to get that last little bit out of my wine, but there aren’t any instructions.” (Ah – chef humor. Sigh.)
If Jesus had been a cook, which I’m sure will be discovered in the next round of discovered scrolls, he might have elaborated on doing unto by reminding his listeners someone always follows us, whatever our station in life. When we’re doing and cleaning and prepping, we need to remember the one who comes next will be directly affected by how we do our jobs. At the end of our shifts we need to be able to remember what it felt like to be the one coming in to the empty bins at the beginning of the shift, rather than allowing ourselves to only feel the exhaustion that comes with wanting to finish quickly and get home.
OK, so maybe Jesus wouldn’t have said it quite that way, so I will. We are 41 Down kind of people: we spend our lives doing unto, whether or not we do so intentionally. At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, we need to live like we’re being followed.
I was going to write this morning, but I got to reading the annual Southern music issue of the Oxford American, which comes with an amazing CD. The periodical is a labor of love and excellence, and certainly worth a look. Check out this piece on yodeling by Roy Blount, Jr.; “The People’s Singer,” a chronicle of the life of Lee Hays, a founding member of The Weavers, along with Pete Seeger; and “Mystic Nights,” a memoir of Bob Dylan’s recording of Blonde on Blonde in Nashville. The articles taught me, challenged me, moved me.
Good people doing great work: that’s always worth noticing.
Here are The Weavers singing, “Goodnight, Irene” from 1949.
