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song and dance man

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
5

Today is Bob Dylan’s birthday; he’s sixty-six. Though I’m not one of those who owns every Dylan record, I am one who has been marked by his words and music. He is someone who has articulated life both personally and prophetically. I thought I would take some time to say thanks.

I got my first guitar for Christmas of my ninth grade year, which was 1970 to the rest of the world. I was lucky because I had friends who already played and so I had a chance to learn quickly. One of the first songs I learned to play was

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

I don’t remember the last time I actually played “The Times They Are A-Changin’” but I thought about one of the verses as I wrote my congressman and senators to decry the way the Democrats have capitulated on the Iraq war funding. I realize the issue is complicated and what bothers me most is I don’t see anyone in Washington who speaks and acts like a real leader. Dylan was way ahead of me. Over forty years ago he wrote:

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

There were eight or ten of us who would sit in a circle in the grass at Nairobi International School most everyday and play and sing. Even in Africa we felt the wind blowing, though the answers Dylan said were there felt elusive. I realize one of the things I learned from those days was life was fundamentally about searching for better questions. Though many of his lyrics roll out like emphatic prophetic hammers, their power is in the profound interrogative at the heart of it all. He wrote lines as full of symbolism as they were of syllables, lines that still stick in my heart and mind:

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog a soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

His was music that made me angry and hopeful at the same time. His songs were some of what fertilized my life to help me become who I am now. Sometimes they made me scratch my head as I tried to figure out what he was saying, sometimes they connected me with those around me as we sang together, sometimes they burrowed deep into my memory and took up permanent residence.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Alongside of the politics, Dylan’s songs were some of those that taught me about the complex continuum of personal feelings. His lyrics were both simple and impressionistic, telling a story and leaving room for us as listeners to fill in the details.

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

How could he write a song where the characters were both unknown and achingly familiar? And who says, “Fare thee well,” anyway?

When I was discovering his music, Dylan was thirty. Today, I’m fifty and he’s old enough to collect Social Security. Daniel Pinkwater had a piece on All Things Considered this afternoon talking about the current resurgence (insurgence?) of folk songs. His lament was the young singers covering the songs weren’t connected to the original feelings behind the songs. “They don’t know who the original singers even were and are young enough for their parents to not know either,” he said. I hear his point and I want to give the current ninth graders with guitars room “for meditations in cathedrals of [their] own,” to borrow a phrase from Billy Joel. Dylan has had the stage for a long time and, one of these days, will be as forgotten as the rest of us. Permanence is not the point. Dylan appears to know that, as evidenced in this quote from The Writer’s Almanac:

Bob Dylan was once asked if he thought of himself more as a singer or a poet. He said, “I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man.”

The best way I know to finish my tribute is to borrow a few more words:

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Happy birthday, Bob.

Peace,
Milton

you had to be there

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
8

My day started with preparing breakfast for some of our church members. Ginger put out the word last week and invited anyone in the congregation born in or before 1932 to come over to our house. Five folks came and we had a great time. (I also tried a new dish that turned out to be quite good.) We ate and talked for over two hours, and most of it wasn’t about church. Between the seven of us, we can account for almost five hundred years of living – an awesome thought. As many times as we have all seen each other at church and around town, this was the first time I remember that this particular combination of people has been together.

My day ended with packaging fair trade coffee from Kiskadee Coffee Company, a local roaster, to sell to raise money at the North River Art Society Festival of the Arts this weekend as a fundraiser for our two mission trips this summer. We put a hundred pounds of coffee into twelve ounce packages – one hundred and forty of them. I think I got a caffeine rush just smelling the stuff. Derek, our coffee roaster, created a blend of Rwandan and Guatemalan coffees just for the fair so that once we’ve sold the batch that’s all there is. We’ll order more for other purposes, but this will be the one weekend and the one place where anyone can ever buy our Artist’s Blend.

In between the bookends of my day, I sat down to begin Barbara Kingsolver’s new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which chronicles her family’s choice to eat locally for a year. What they couldn’t grow or find in their area, they did without for the most part. In one of her early chapters (I’m not that far along yet), she describes “waiting for asparagus.” What we see everyday in the supermarket actually has a very short two or three week growing season in April and May (where she lives). It shows up early and disappears fast. You have to be there.

The wonder of a passing moment is one of the reasons I love hearing live music: either you were there or you weren’t. A couple of summers ago, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings toured as The Sweet Harmony Revue. Each artist took his or her turn singing their songs and the others joined in and, as the evening drew to a close, they joined together to sing “The Weight” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.” No one recorded it. There is no live album. I heard it; I was there.

Which means, of course, I was not somewhere else.

Food & Wine last month had an interesting article on “The Insidious Rise of Cosmo-Cuisine” lamenting that “the cuisines of the world are merging into one giant, amorphous mass . . . [T]oo many chefs worldwide are creating menus that flit across so many borders and reference so many traditions that they – and we – lose any sense of place” (58). We can’t be everywhere at once, nor can we experience everything at once.

When we were in Turkey, one of the dishes I loved was called Imam Bayildi, which means “the Imam cried” (because the food was so good). The dish was made up of eggplant, tomatoes, onions, flat-leafed parsley, and olive oil. At the restaurant in our hotel, they used organic produce from their own garden and our server owned the olive trees and pressed them to make our olive oil. The simplicity and the sense of place gave the dish its flavor. They didn’t need Thai chilies or truffle oil.

I also read today about a Fair Harvest Exchange Program in Nicaragua, thanks to the folks at Global Exchange. Rather than a tourist trip, the eight-day excursion is to go and work along side of a family at a coffee coop during harvest season. You stay with them, eat with them, and work with them. They want you to be there.

Sometimes I go walking down the beach near our house looking for sea glass. At low tide, the beach is fairly wide: there’s no way to walk it all. I have to pick a line to follow and let the rest go unsearched if I’m going to be able to pay attention to the stretch of sand and stones in front of me. On the way back, I can pick another line, but I never get to see it all. For every piece of glass I find, I suppose, there’s at least one that I never see. If I’m at breakfast in Green Harbor, I’m not in Green Bay. If I’m listening to Emmylou, I’m missing a lot of other songs. If I’m eating from my garden, I’m not tasting other very good things. If I go to Nicaragua, I won’t be in Nepal or Nebraska.

The choice is not between having a little or having it all; the choice is between living in the savoring the sacredness of the particular or stressing over all that I’m missing. I was at breakfast with friends this morning. Whatever else I happened, I’m thankful I didn’t miss it.

Peace,
Milton

hymn in search of a tune

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

Let God Be Named

Let God be named by our farthest reach,
Not by our fears, or the rules we preach,
By what unites, not what tears a breach,
Let God by named by love.

Let God be named by our deepest dream,
Our hearts’ desire, our brightest beam,
Pushing past doubts that around us teem,
Let God be named by love.

Let God be named by a faith that’s strong,
Faith that will stand in the face of wrong,
Faith bound for home though the road is long,
Let God be named by love.

So call the Name who has giv’n us light,
Who leads us on through the darkest night,
Who pours out grace and who gives us sight,
Our God, whose name is Love.

Peace,
Milton

work and wait

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
9

Our garden is almost planted. The rain finally stopped some time last night so I got out this morning and put in the rest of the tomatoes and a few other things. Instead of annuals, I’ve filled most all of our containers and with various kinds of herbs. Here is the complete list (I think):

  • three kinds of lettuce
  • six kinds of tomatoes
  • white eggplant
  • four kinds of peppers
  • rainbow Swiss chard
  • Brussels sprouts
  • broccoli
  • fennel
  • green beans
  • butternut squash
  • zucchini
  • summer squash
  • garlic
  • sweet, purple, Thai, lemon, and cinnamon basil
  • chocolate, orange, and lemon mint
  • Greek oregano
  • sweet marjoram
  • arugula
  • cilantro
  • strawberries

Wow! That’s the first time I’ve written down an inventory of what is growing in our yard. Pretty cool. Now comes the hard part: waiting both to see what makes it to the bearing stage and to eat what we grow – as well as give a bunch of it away.

After I finished planting, I came in and showered and drove to Plymouth to file for unemployment compensation. The last time I was there was when The Owner laid me off in January. Since the players were still the same in today’s scene, the script, as it were, was still in the computer so my trip didn’t take long. When I was first substitute teaching in Boston I got laid off and had to file as well. They’ve done a lot of work on the “career centers” since then. The office in Plymouth is spacious and clean and the people behind the counter are friendly, at least by New England customer service standards. One side of the office is lined with cubicles where the folks who work there help you get in the system. The other side of the room has a few cubicles with computer terminals where you can go online to look for jobs or take a tutorial. There’s also a long table with newspapers and other employment circulars. There were a couple of folks ahead of me to see a counselor, so I browsed both the print and online versions of the classifieds to see what I could find. The guy who processed my form was nice and efficient and we finished quickly. As I was walking out, I saw the guy who processed me the last time with whom I made a pretty good connection. I stopped at his cubicle to say hello and was surprised at how much of my case he remembered. Then he said, “Hey, I looked at your blog and go back there from time to time.”

I needed that.

I took a back road home so I could stop and see if there were any other interesting vegetables or herbs at some of the small nurseries on Route 53 with a mind to ending up at the gym. I was determined to get there, even though I’m still learning to like it, because it helps with my depression. And it gives Ginger and I a chance to act out one of our favorite scenes from Designing Women when Mary Jo says she likes jogging because it releases endorphins and Suzanne says, “Endorphins – you mean like Flipper?” My body was ready for the exercise today and I got a good workout. Tomorrow is weigh in at Weight Watchers, so I will get to see another benefit from my time on the elliptical machine. (In related news, there’s a new recipe.)

What the three strands of my day have in common is both working and waiting: the now and the not yet, or (perhaps better) the what will be. I planted things that will take anywhere from five to ten weeks to produce what they were created to produce. I set things in motion in Plymouth that will give me some money coming in (starting in a couple of weeks) and create some possibilities for what comes next. I’m going to spend a lot more time watching Sports Center while I work the machine (let the machine work me?) to transform my image of myself both physically and mentally. It’s all good and it all takes time. When it comes to my depression, the same formula applies: work and wait.

Work and wait. The words remind me of William Carey’s words, “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.” He is one of my father’s heroes because of his persistence. Carey went to India as a missionary and was there for three years before anyone he met chose to follow Christ. I’m not sure I’m dealing in the Great Things department in my life right now, but I like the combination of verbs: attempt and expect — work and wait.

What is true for great things, I trust, is true for small things.

Peace,
Milton

vive la resistance

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
2

Some days – perhaps most days – I write because I think I have something to say or I have a conversation I hope to begin. Some nights – like tonight – I write to show (myself) I can make the letters line up in words and sentences to make some sort of meaning. I write to prove to myself I can and to refuse myself the option of falling into the deep.

Today was a good day. In worship we celebrated our confirmands as they chose to become followers of Christ. I had coffee with a friend after church, a good nap in the afternoon, and Indian food with some other friends this evening. And I feel like I’m living under the weight of one of those lead blankets they put over you when you have your teeth xrayed.

Another friend sent me the link to this article by David Grossman in the New York Times where he is writing about writing and says:

It is hard to talk about yourself, and so before I describe my current writing experience, at this time in my life, I wish to make a few observations about the impact that a disaster, a traumatic situation, has on an entire society, an entire people. I immediately recall the words of the mouse in Kafka’s short story “A Little Fable.” The mouse who, as the trap closes on him, and the cat looms behind, says, “Alas . . . the world is growing narrower every day.”

Grossman is writing about the effect of living in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and (at the risk of belittling his observations by connecting them to my personal state of being) I find resonance in his quoting of Kafka. The world is growing narrower everyday for me.

I also found resonance in this paragraph:

Writers know that when we write, we feel the world move; it is flexible, crammed with possibilities. It certainly isn’t frozen. Wherever human existence permeates, there is no freezing and no paralysis, and actually, there is no status quo. Even if we sometimes err to think that there is a status quo; even if some are very keen to have us believe that a status quo exists. When I write, even now, the world is not closing in on me, and it does not grow ever so narrow: it also makes gestures of opening up toward a future prospect.

Again, he is speaking in more global terms than any individual’s psychological struggle, much less my depression, and I understand how the world can change when I put words on paper. Part of our UCC ritual at confirmation is to ask the young people if they promise, with God’s help, to resist evil and oppression in Jesus’ name. While we were getting ready for church this morning, there was a television preacher who promised a CD that would cure depression if I would just believe enough to send him some money. (His actual tone was less cynical.) Another made it sound as though it were just a matter of my strength of will: if I were sincere enough in my prayers and committed enough in my mind and heart, I would feel better.

Damn. If I’d only thought of that sooner life could’ve been so much easier.

The question to the kids did help me as I asked myself if I promised to resist.

Resist: express opposition through action or words; withstand the force of something; refuse to comply.

The image that came to mind was that of freedom fighters from World War II Europe to Mandela in South Africa looking for ways, both big and small, to keep the world from growing more narrow and to resist what was destroying their humanity. Every person that has refused to comply with whatever sought to narrow their world has gestured toward “some future prospect” that is not necessarily painless or perfect, but is something beyond the status quo. I’m not saying my personal pain is on a par with those is Gaza, Jerusalem, or Darfur. I am saying the act of resistance is a personal act regardless of the size of the oppressor.

One of the things Ginger said to the confirmands today was:

As you face the demons that accompany adolescence and adults adulthood, remember that practicing our faith and praying empowers us to live as Jesus taught refusing to nurture those inner demons who hinder us from being who God calls us to be, hinder us from wholeness, from being all that we can be, wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved.

As a congregation we repeated the words, “I am wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved.”

Though I feel as though I’m living a lead-plated life, I will move my hands to write and resist, looking for words to widen the way to wholeness and connectedness, harboring hope, and refusing to comply with the narrowing way. If I can write it, perhaps I can live it.

Peace,
Milton

no room at the inn

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
13

Today felt more like March than May.

I drove up to the Inn about three o’clock to find The Owner and see if I couldn’t get a clearer picture of what is going on. The first person I saw was one of the other chefs I work with who was coming out of the function kitchen rather than the restaurant where he usually works. He told me he had been told I was not coming back. With that information in hand, I went inside to wait for The Owner who had gone to run an errand. When he came in, I asked for a few minutes of his time and followed him up to his office. He sat down and looked at me as though he had no idea why I was there.

Ginger and I have been rehearsing what I might say (and how I might say it – often the larger issue for me) over the last couple of days. I’m not going to recall the whole conversation because I don’t feel the need to embarrass him, but I will say I felt good about what transpired in that little room. I said what I needed to say without resorting to a personal attack or falling into a power struggle. I stood up for myself and got the money he owed me, which was not a done deal when I went in. I also got to say goodbye to the people I enjoyed working with during my eighteen months at The Inn. Then I got in the car, drove to the bank and cashed the check, and went to meet Ginger so we could go to the gym.

He never knew about the nights I drove home and talking to Ginger on the phone and telling her how much I loved my job. He never knew how much fun I had with my Brazilian buddies plating up the steaks for the functions. He never knew because he only knew me as an appliance and not a human being. At one point in our conversation today, I called him on something he had done and he snapped, “I’m the owner; I can do anything I want.”

“Actually, that’s not true,” I answered. “You can’t treat me like I don’t matter and get away with it.” Soon after that, I gave him back his key and left. I drove away both unemployed and unburdened. Whatever is next, my time with him today confirmed that it is time for me to not be there: there is no room for me at The Inn.

As I remember another story, that’s not necessarily a bad thing . . . .

Peace,
Milton

advanced calculus

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
9

About a month ago, I checked in with the doctor who monitors my antidepressants feeling reasonably confident: I made it all winter without feeling seriously depressed, which is a first in the last six years. I instigated a conversation about cutting back on one of my medications to see how I would tolerate it. He remained neutral about the idea, but willing to follow my hunch, so we set up a two or three month timetable to wean me off the pill. The first step was to cut the pills in half each morning. When I opened the bottle after breakfast the next morning, I couldn’t do it. This week, I’m grateful I trusted my second hunch. The storm clouds are gathering; they don’t call them tropical depressions for nothing, I guess.

Learning about my depression meant learning that sometimes it grew out of circumstance and sometimes it ambushed me through my body chemistry. The source doesn’t necessarily make a difference in how it feels for me (in me? to me?), and part of the beginning of making some meaning out of the darkness for me is found in knowing where I am. This time I know the ambiguity of my work situation is exacerbating things. Over the past six years, the one place I have always been able to find solace is in the kitchen and I’ve been scheduled out. I haven’t helped things by allowing myself to postpone going by The Inn to find out what’s really going on. Wednesday I stayed in the garden; today my car stayed in the shop. I’m determined that tomorrow be a Day of Non-Avoidance.

Gordon posted a link to an article on depression by Norman Bendroth posted at Christian Century online, which referenced William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, a book that has also been meaningful to me. Bendroth quotes Styron:

By far the great majority of the people who go through even the severest depression survive it, and live ever afterward at least as happily as their unafflicted counterparts. Save for the awfulness of certain memories it leaves, acute depression inflicts few permanent wounds.

Man, I hope that’s true. Tonight, it doesn’t feel true. Though I first found a name for it a little over six years ago, I can look back now and see a far less visible darkness present in my life for many, many years. I took the MMPI in 1987 and was on the borderline of being clinically depressed my psychologist told me. I knew nothing about depression then and couldn’t imagine that was me. To come to a place now where I can see the darkness has been a part of my life for almost half of my life compels me to see the depression as part of who I am because it has been a significant factor in the calculus of my humanity, to borrow last night’s phrase. It’s in my mind. It’s in my body. It’s in my heart, my soul. It’s not all of me – or even most of me – but it is part of who I am.

I’m six weeks into Weight Watchers and I’ve lost eighteen pounds. Going to the gym and getting on the elliptical trainer is becoming both habit and ritual for me. Though I’m not ready to claim I like working out, I’m happy to say I like the way I feel when I’m done and I can tell a difference because I’m working out. I’m figuring out how to alter my equation of body, mind, heart, and soul to come up with an answer to who I am that is something other than “the fat kid;” it’s working.

I work hard on the calculus of depression as well, but it’s advanced calculus and the truth is I suck at math. I was, however, always pretty good at the word problems because, I suppose, I always liked words better than numbers. The problem here is to figure out how to live with depression, I think, rather than how to get rid of it. When I worked as a hospital chaplain, I heard cancer patients talk about the importance of thinking of themselves as living with cancer rather than dying with cancer; the semantics changed the equation. My mother was clear of her bladder cancer for nine years – long enough to be regarded as officially cured – when it recurred. She beat it again and she lives with cancer.

I live with depression.

As I sat down to write tonight, Ginger was watching the season finale of ER in the other room. The only thing I heard were the strains of Leonard Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah,” floating in to find me.

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

That’s it: “It doesn’t matter which you heard/ the holy or the broken hallelujah.” In the equation of my life – advanced calculus, if you will – with garden dirt under my fingernails, vocational uncertainty unsettling my brain, the blanket of Ginger’s love surrounding me, and the gathering storm of my depression daring to deluge, holy and broken feel like the same thing.

Hallelujah.

Peace,
Milton

the calculus of being human

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
6

I’ve been surprised with a week to myself because The Owner didn’t put me on the schedule at The Inn – and he didn’t give me any explanation. I called Sunday night to see if I was working Monday (which I have done for the last eight months) and was told they had not yet done the schedule and would call me Monday morning. No one did. I called back Tuesday evening and was told I wasn’t working this week and The Owner was not available to talk about it. I was going to drive up there today to see if this is his bizarre way of telling me I no longer have a job, but I got started spreading the mulch I ordered in the flower beds and opted for a day of feeling productive rather than one feeling frustrated and angry. I can do that tomorrow.

About three this afternoon I came in from the yard, showered, dressed, and drove over to Panera to meet Ginger and our friend Don for coffee. Our conversation lasted the rest of the afternoon and went all around the world. Part of it centered on my father-in-law’s Alzheimer’s, which is steadily worsening. As his memory becomes less accessible he doesn’t seem like the same person and yet he is, still, to his core one of the kindest, gentlest, most hopeful people I have ever known. Don talked about a swami who spoke at an interfaith gathering who talked about the essence of the soul staying the same (at least the way Don remembered it). If you cut off your arm, the swami said, your soul would still have the same essence.

As the three of us turned that over, we began to think a little differently. The relationship between heart, soul, body, and mind is complicated and multifaceted. All four are essential to our humanity and are, I suppose, part of our “essence.” When one is affected, the whole person is affected. When my father had open heart surgery a decade ago even he could see he was fundamentally changed by the experience. He was still recognizable and he was different. One of our friends was in a car accident a number of years ago that left her a paraplegic. Before the accident, most folks saw her as a carefree spirit. In the years since the accident, she has completed law school and is in private practice. She was a nurse before. Her essence has proven to be one of resolve, hope, and tenacity. Coming to terms with my depression over the past five or six years has changed me as I’ve learned to live with a disease that plagues both my mind and my body chemistry.

The picture painted in Hebrew scripture is of heart, soul, mind, and body creating a unity: they are inextricably connected. Rather than one being the essence of a person, the different aspects of our humanity – the raw materials – live in concert, in equation. There is a calculus to being human: when the variables in the equation change, we change. If we learn to think differently, more than just our minds are different. If we face some sort of physical challenge or change, our hearts, souls, and minds aren’t left unaffected. The impact of the change doesn’t stop at our skins. Ginger’s parents have been married almost fifty-one years. The changes in my father-in-law also have an impact on my mother-in-law, on their daughter, on me. None of us can stay the same.

I have been changed by my time at The Inn. I’ve learned a great deal about my craft and I’m a better chef. I’ve even learned a lot about the business, coming to a better understanding of dealing with food cost ratios and other fun stuff. Because I’ve had to deal with The Owner, I’ve had to learn how to speak truth to power without getting defensive or belligerent. I’ve also had to learn how to detach from the soap opera aspect and do my job. I’ve also had to learn to live with uncertainty when it comes to my job security, regardless of my performance. Though I can’t claim to have gone all Barbara Ehrenreich on the world, I have been changed by my first hand experience in the hourly wage, no benefits, no job security world that is The Inn, if not most of the restaurant business. As my equation of heart, soul, body, and mind has changed — so have I.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” says Deuteronomy, which I’ve always taken to mean, “Love God with all that you are.” One single aspect doesn’t hold our essence; it’s the whole intricate, complex, dynamic, amazing, and fragile package. It hurts to see my father-in-law slipping away. I hurt for my mother-in-law who is physically and emotionally present as her Loved One disappears.

The calculus of being human is hard work.

Peace,
Milton

no strings on love

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
14

I was at a Rich Mullins concert some time in the early nineties when, in the course of his concert banter, his tone took a turn that became as dangerous as it was didactic. “We should all be praying,” he said, “that Bill and Hillary Clinton would be killed in a car accident.” The words he spoke were incongruous with those he wrote and sang. I didn’t know where they came from and was both surprised and angry. Granted, my politics were then and are now closer to the Clintons than to his and I couldn’t understand how Rich could pray for God to kill someone he disagreed with.

Jerry Falwell died today.

According to the story I heard on NPR, he collapsed in his office about 11:30 this morning and could not be resuscitated. He was 73. I don’t know much, if anything, about Falwell beyond his public persona. I also don’t know of much of anything he and I agreed upon. In one article, he described God as “pro-war.” On September 13, 2001, he said, “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians, who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who try to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.'”

I know that’s not all he said. I also know I don’t think what I consider to be an arrogant and judgmental expression of faith does much to help anyone. Of all the times I saw him on television, I don’t remember one instance where he appeared to be willing to learn something; he was always the one with the answers.

Some years back, Billy Crockett and I wrote a song together called “No Strings on Love,” which grew out of our desire to speak to the wideness in God’s mercy. Here are the lyrics:

got to tell you what I know
there ain’t no strings on love
wherever you are wherever you go
there ain’t no strings on love
you might scream and stomp the floor
pack your bags and hit the door
God keeps coming back for more
there ain’t no strings on love

told you about the prodigal son
there ain’t no strings on love
party time when he came home
there ain’t no strings on love
you’ve been running so have I
got a few more tricks that we can try
we’ll get tired by and by and
there ain’t no strings on love

they say life is all a competition
how can you survive
without some ammunition

lose your looks your hair falls out
there ain’t no strings on love
some of you know what I’m talking about
there ain’t no strings on love
you might live on borrowed time
broken heart a troubled mind
God thinks you’re the keeping kind
there ain’t no strings on love

spend your life keeping score
there ain’t no strings on love
joneses just moved in next door
there ain’t no strings on love
what you learned on grandpa’s knee
was equal reciprocity – forget it
ally ally oxen free
there ain’t no strings on love

they say life is all a competition
how can you survive
without some ammunition

listen to me one more time
there ain’t no strings on love
sunday morning friday night
there ain’t no strings on love
sunny day pouring rain
avalanche or hurricane
God keeps calling out your name
there ain’t no strings on love

When we wrote it, the open invitation was aimed at those who were marginalized. It puts to music what is proclaimed in many UCC churches on a weekly basis: “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” I was singing to the unloved, the outcast, the great unwashed, if you will – all those being kept down by The Man. I was singing to the very people Falwell was damning with his words and actions.

If grace is true and God is love, the invitation is for The Man as well. There ain’t no strings on love – even for Jerry Falwell.

That sentence is easier to write than it is to live – and it wasn’t so easy to write. The people I want most for God to judge are the people who have used or are using God like a club to beat people into submission, or at least scare the hell out of them. My righteous indignation remains intact as long as I don’t humanize the objects of my judgment. Then I read things like this:

In some ways, Falwell was an unlikely religious leader. He was born Aug. 11, 1933, and grew up in Lynchburg, the son of a one-time bootlegger who hated preachers. His grandfather was a staunch atheist.

Falwell was working out some old family stuff in the way he lived his life. I’ve done a little of that myself. (I’m not necessarily proud of that, but it’s the truth.) When I read that sentence, I realize he was probably a pretty wounded guy, just like the rest of us. I abhor that he dealt with his woundedness by inflicting pain on others. I think he was wrong – a lot. I have spent a good deal of effort reaching out to those who have been on the receiving end of his vitriol. I think he did damage to the image of Christianity in our country and around the world when he kicked into zealot-with-a-clear-conscience mode. And Jesus ate with the Pharisees just as he did with the sinners.

Sometimes, I suppose, we fall into both categories.

To me, Jerry Falwell was somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. As a member of the United Church of Christ, I’m one of those who lives in “the last house on the left” in the Christian neighborhood. The boundless, stringless love of God covers the whole map.

I trust, tonight, that God surprised Jerry Falwell when God saw him and hollered, “Ally, ally, oxen free.”

Peace,
Milton

a time to plant

By
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
4

I got to spend a good deal of the day in the yard cleaning up, pulling weeds, and beginning to fill the various containers we have along the driveway and the fence. Over our years in Massachusetts, Memorial Day has been the beginning of the planting season for me; this year things have warmed up earlier, so I got an earlier start. I enjoyed my day outside, even with the somewhat ominous evidence of climate change. Though I’m pretty good at the flowerbeds, I suck at lawn care, mostly on purpose. I don’t really like lawns. When we moved to Marshfield, we tore up most of the grass in the front yard and created perennial beds. Last year, I filled in the gaps with herbs, a couple of pepper plants, and some arugula. This year, I’m going to do more veggies among the blooms.

I became a planter when we lived in Charlestown. Our “yard” was a two-tiered concrete slab next to our row house put in after the house that was on the lot burned many years ago. We covered it with planters – about fifty of them. A friend was visiting who was way ahead of me on the local food curve, said, “Why don’t you plant vegetables?” The simple answer was I had never thought about it. When we moved out of the city, I cleared out land behind the garage (mostly because I saw that was where my neighbors had their garden) and planted tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. The next summer, it was tomatoes and zucchini. I missed one of the squash under the leaves for several weeks and it was as big as a baseball bat by the time I picked it. Each summer I’ve added a couple of things. Last year, I learned about Square Foot Gardening and increased both my variety and my yield, adding numerous herbs, Brussels sprouts, eggplant, and Swiss chard to the mix. I may also going to try a bit of Hay Bale Gardening (which I learned about thanks to Tigre) if I get really ambitious.

What I’m learning is I can grow a lot of food if I am consistent in my intentionality and effort. One of the joys of late summer and early fall for me is giving away tomatoes (that’s when we harvest them here). I’ve also learned what it means to enjoy things seasonally. I was allergic to tomatoes until about seven years ago. Thanks to a friend introducing me to NAET, which cured my allergy (I’m telling you it really works) and, for the first time in my life I could eat tomatoes. Our first summer here I grew my own and once I tasted them fresh from the garden I knew the year round varieties they sell in the supermarkets were impostors. I’ve learned a tomato is worth both the work and the wait.

When Jesus told us to “consider the lilies,” part of the consideration had to be they only bloomed for a short time during the year. Learning to live with seasons means discovering some wonderfully temporary things, turn, turn, turn. During our time in New England, I’ve discovered the temporal joy of fiddleheads, and have a great and simple recipe as well that may not be of much use to many readers since I don’t think they get exported much. Hell, they only last a week or two around here.

One of the things that bothers me about The Owner at The Inn is he treats people as a commodity: something he can consume at will without further thought. Our 24-7-365 world has taught us to disregard the seasons and all the other signposts built into creation, which leads to our thinking of the Earth in terms of commodities and production. Most of us can’t find one constellation, much less use the stars to find our place in the world. The steak or chicken we eat comes wrapped in plastic and we know little about how the animal lived or died. Neither do we know much of the plight of the workers who picked the bananas or grapes that were then flown halfway around the world so we could get them on special for seventy-nine cents a pound. (Actually, the bananas were twenty-nine cents here last week. Tell me someone in Haiti isn’t taking in the face on that one.)

Whatever the justice issues are when it comes to food – and they are legion, my day of gardening reminds me I am closer to figuring out a way to incarnate the ethics of living and eating to which I’m attracted when I’m growing at least some of my own food. I am working to live as the folks to, as The Ethicurean says, “chew the right thing.”

Peace,
Milton

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