don't eat alone

One of the things I have had to unlearn from my childhood is how people were described when telling a story of something that happened. What was modeled for me was white people were simply described as people: a man, a woman. People of any other ethnic or racial background were given a qualifier: “I saw a woman drop her grocery bag in the parking lot and this nice black man stopped to help her pick them up.” I’ve never understood why it mattered what color the man was. Kindness is an intrinsic human trait.

When the Coke commercial ran last night, I found resonance in the pictures of inclusiveness. “Nice job, Coke,” I posted on my Facebook page, only to learn that the commercial was “controversial.” I still don’t understand. We could have filmed the whole commercial in my neighborhood of Old North Durham; this is the America I know and love. When the vitriol began, I thought of Ray Charles — specifically something I wrote about eight months ago at the beginning of the Moral Monday movement here in North Carolina:

When I was in high school, Ray Charles recorded a version of “America, the Beautiful” that remains my favorite version of the song. What I love most about it is he intentionally sang the verses out of traditional order. He began

O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
till all success be nobleness,
and every gain divine.

Then he said, “When I was in school, we used it sing it something like this,” and then he began with what we all know as the first line: “O beautiful, for spacious skies . . . .” Before any  purple mountain’s majesty or any fruited plain, the beautiful part of our story tells of those who valued community over self-promotion and, just like the song says, mercy more than life.

It’s no mistake that he begins with something other than the first verse because he did it more than once. He starts with the heart of the song — and with one of the verses we rarely sing. Notice the last line of each stanza:

mercy more than life

every gain divine

Before we start looking at purple mountains and amber waves, the call is to look at and for one another. The images in the commercial, and in the extended online version that tells the stories of those who are featured, embody the goodness in every gain. Why, then, are their successes and dreams not cause for all of us to celebrate?

When I was in college, I qualified to be a part of a national honor society my freshman year. The only significance of membership was it gave me something to put on my resume. When I went to the voting meeting my sophomore year, we found that every applicant met the requirements of membership. Even knowing that, the president asked us to vote. I was incredulous: “Why don’t we let them all in? They have all qualified.”

“If we did that, it wouldn’t be special,” he replied without irony. Someone needed to be left out in order for us to feel important. I left the meeting.

I am a straight, white, Christian, male. If I were wealthy, I would be five for five in the categories of privilege that have controlled our culture for most of it’s history. Coke’s little film is a beautiful reminder that, outside of the halls of Congress, America is choosing not to let the white guys run the joint — and that is a good thing. As we mature as a nation, we are being called to come to terms with the promises we made to ourselves and to one another to offer “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Though our founders meant “white guys with property” when they said “all men are created equal,” we know better: everyone  . . .

todo el mundo

kila mtu

tout le monde

herkes

gach duine

America is not, and was never intended to be, a Christian nation. However, as a Christian, I have been thinking about how my faith informs this discussion. As one who grew up in evangelical life, I don’t think my Calvinist influences help me grasp inclusiveness. The idea of the “elect” smacks, somewhat, of my college honor society experience. As one stanza in the hymn “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” states,

and we magnify his strictness

with a zeal he will not own

At the risk of getting into a scripture throwing contest, the verse that keeps grabbing me comes from Philippians 2, which says of Jesus,

though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped.

Jesus was far less concerned with getting what was “rightfully his” than he was making sure those who were on the margins knew they were loved and wanted. When he spoke of what judgment might look like in Matthew 25 he said the ones who incarnated his love would be those freeing prisoners and feeding the hungry, those offering shelter and sustenance, those who welcomed strangers, those who help the invisible become visible. The posture he described is one free of fear. The paradox of power is those who have it live in fear that they are going to lose it. The power of love is it chases away fear. Go ahead. Cue Huey Lewis:

don’t need money

don’t need fame

don’t need no credit card to ride this train . . .

My prayer, then, is that we would choose to see with eyes of love rather than fear, in order that we might move beyond thinking “normal” means straight, white, and male; that we the changes in our country as expansive and creative, rather than threatening; that we could think in terms of “us,” rather than “us and them.” My prayer is also this post offers more than kindling for an already raging argument. I want to remind myself that love is stronger than fear. Any day. Any time. Anywhere.

Peace,

Milton

The Christmas tide is going out . . .

the waves of wonder which

crashed against the sea wall

of my heart are sliding away

reminding me that the tides

come and go, neap and spring:

this is the rhythm of redemption.

 

Along the now silent sands

in my mind’s eye I still see the

Magi meandering, starry-eyed.

This newly exposed beach is not

a breach, but an opening, an

epiphany (to use a stained-glass

word): Greek for “I get it now!”

 

Come — let us walk camel-less

down this beach of our lives,

wandering and wondering our

way between wall and water,

between Herod and hope . . .

write our names in the sand

and see how long they last.

 

Peace

Milton

My offering tonight is a story I wrote several years ago. Three Christmases ago, my friend Terry helped me turn it into an audio file. This past year has helped me read it a bit differently. I share it again.

A Faraway Christmas

 

As we gather together on this Silent Night,

To sing ‘round the tree in the soft candlelight,

 

From a Faraway Christmas, from time that’s grown cold,

Comes a story, you see, that has seldom been told.

 

Of all of the legends, the best and the worst,

From Christmases all the way back to the first,

 

This little tale isn’t often remembered

From then until now, down through all those Decembers.

 

But I found an old copy tucked away on a shelf,

And I turned through the pages, and I thought to myself,

 

Of all of the times between now and then,

This is the Christmas to hear it again.

 

Once upon a time in a place we might know,

‘Cause their woods, like ours, often fill up with snow,

 

Was a small little hamlet — a Long Ago Town —

Of no great importance, or no real renown,

 

Filled with people who seemed fairly normal to me,

With names like Francesca, Francine, and McGee.

 

They had puppies and children, ate bread and ice cream,

They went shopping and swimming, they slept and they dreamed;

 

They laughed and did laundry, they danced and they dined,

And they strung Christmas lights on the big Scottish Pine

 

That grew in the square in the middle of town,

And when Christmas was over, they took the lights down.

 

They read the newspaper, they sometimes told jokes,

And some of the children put cards in the spokes

 

Of their bicycle tires, so they made quite a din

Till it came time for parents to call the kids in.

 

Yet for all of the things that kept people together,

The nice festive feeling, the Christmas Card weather,

 

For all of the happiness one was likely to hear,

This Faraway Christmas was marked, mostly, by fear.

 

Well, yes, they were frightened — but that’s still overstated;

What bothered folks most really could be debated.

 

Some were tired (exhausted), some were sad or depressed,

Some — the best way to say it — well, their lives were a mess.

 

Some felt pressure from not having paid all the bills,

Some were keeping dark secrets that were making them ill;

 

Some felt guilty and thought they were headed for hell,

But the town seemed so happy, who could they tell?

 

So everyone kept all their feelings inside,

And wished they had someone in whom to confide,

 

To say, “Life is lousy,” or “I’ve made a mistake,”

Or “Sometimes I’m so sad I don’t want to awake,”

 

Or “I miss my Grandma,” or “I loved my cat,”

Or “I never, no never get my turn at bat.”

 

Everyone kept it in, no one said a thing

Until once Christmas Eve, when the man they called Bing

 

Came to turn on the lights on the tree in the square

And nobody — not anyone — no one was there,

 

And he looked at the lights as he sat on the curb

And he said — to no one — “I feel quite disturbed;

 

“I know that it’s Christmas, when I should feel warm,

But I don’t think this year that I can conform.

 

It’s been hardly two months since my friend passed away;

How can I smile when he’s not here to say,

 

“’Merry Christmas’?” he asked and burst into tears,

And all of the sadness from all of the years

 

Came out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks,

And he thought he would sit there and blubber for weeks.

 

When Samantha showed up — she had not been expected —

And sat down beside him ‘cause he looked neglected.

 

He looked up through his tears, she said, “You look kinda bad.”

And he answered, “The truth is I feel real sad.”

 

When she heard those words, tears jumped straight to her eyes,

“The truth is,” she said, “I tell too many lies.

 

I  want people to like me, so I try to act cool,

But deep down inside I feel just like a fool.”

 

So they sat there and cried, like a sister and brother,

And were joined by one, and then by another,

 

With a story to tell and feelings to free,

And they wept and they hugged ‘neath the big Christmas Tree.

 

Can you imagine how many tears fell,

After all of the years that no one would tell

 

How much they were hurting, how broken or mad,

How long they had smiled when they really felt sad.

 

How long does it take to clean out your heart,

To get it all out, to make a new start?

 

That answer’s not easy to you and to me,

But they found out that night, those folks ‘round the tree.

 

They cried until daybreak, till the first rays of dawn

Broke over the tree tops and spread ‘cross the lawn,

 

in the new morning light Bing could see all the square;

He also could see the whole town was out there.

 

They had come through the night, first one, then another

To sit down together like sister and brother

 

To pour out their hearts for the first time in years,

And let out their feelings, their sadness, their tears.

 

Samantha stood up and then turned back to Bing,

“You started us crying, now help us to sing.”

 

So he started a carol, the one he knew best,

About joy to the world, and it burst from his chest.

 

The others joined in, not because they weren’t sad,

But because they’d admitted the feelings they had,

 

Everyone sang along, both the sad and the scared,

Because true friends are found when true feelings are shared.

 

There’s more to the story, but our time is short,

Of how life was changed I cannot now report,

 

But instead I must ask why this story’s forgotten;

It’s not hopeless or humdrum, it’s not ugly or rotten.

 

Do you think it’s because people said how they felt,

And if we tell the story then our hearts, too, might melt?

 

What if we spoke the truth, what if we named our fears,

What if we loosed the sadness we’ve tied up for years?

 

Would we ever stop crying, would the dawn ever come?

And like those in the story, once the tears had begun

 

Would we sit on the curb, first one, then another,

And talk about life like sister and brother.

 

Oh, that is exactly why I chose to tell

This lost little tale we know all too well.

 

Our world is no different; we’re frightened and sad,

We feel helpless and hopeless, and certainly mad,

 

But none of those words is the last on this Night

That we wait for the Child, that we pray for the Light,

 

That we sing of the good news the angels did bring,

And we wish for peace, more than any one thing.

 

Yes, this story that came from a Long Ago Town

Of no great importance, of no real renown,

 

Could be ours, if true feelings were what we would say;

And we’d find such a Christmas not so faraway.

 

Peace

Milton

 

P. S. — You can find a downloadable version here.