don't eat alone

During our quick trip to New York this week, we spent the better part of one afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art losing all sense of direction and finding bits of wonder, love, and praise in many of the paintings, photographs, and sculptures that inhabit the place. Eventually, we wandered in amongst the Impressionists. I’m by no means an art critic, nor an aficionado, yet I know what moves me. Standing in front of a Van Gogh, Degas, or Monet is to stand in a thin place.

Yesterday, as we rode the bus from Grand Central to JFK, I pulled out my Harpers Magazine to stretch my mind a little and found an article by John Berger called “The Enveloping Air: Light and Moment in Monet.” Berger is one of the most compelling artists, writers, and thinkers of our time, which means he is also doing theology whether or not he intends to do so. As our big bus bounded through the traffic in Queens, I was reading about the current Monet exhibit in Paris and what Berger saw as he reexamined canvases he had seen again and again for many years, not unlike the way in which we will reexamine the scene that unfolds before us once more as Christmas approaches. To say the images of inhospitable innkeepers, curious shepherds, heavenly hosts, and a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger are familiar is to master the art of understatement. We aren’t looking at anything new, except that we are looking anew, which makes all the difference.

Or so it struck me as I read Berger on the bus. As is my pattern, from time to time, I offer a lengthy quote; bear with me.

Monet once revealed that he wanted to paint not things in themselves but the air that touched things – the enveloping air. The enveloping air offers continuity and infinite extension. If Monet can paint the air, he can follow it like following a thought. Except that the air operates wordlessly and, when painted, is visibly present only in colors, touches, layers, palimpsests, shades, caresses, scratches. As he approaches the air, it takes him along with his original subject, elsewhere. The flow is no longer temporal but substantial and extensive.

The air takes him and the original subject where then? To other things it has enveloped or will envelop but for which we have no fixed name . . . . Monet often referred to an instantaneity he was trying to seize. The air, because it is part of an indivisible substance that is infinitely extensive, transforms this instantaneity into an eternity . . . .

In rethinking Monet I want to suggest that visitors to the exhibition see the canvases there not as records of the local and ephemeral but as vistas onto what is universal and eternal. The elsewhere, which is their obsession, is extensive rather than temporal, metaphoric rather than nostalgic.

Yes, I know it’s a lot to take in. But mentally meander with me for a bit, won’t you?

The first house Ginger and bought was in Charlestown, Massachusetts and it was built in the 1840s. We renovated most of the house, and did much of the work ourselves – particularly the demolition part. As I pulled the plaster and lathe that was as old as the house off the walls, I found little trinkets that had been trapped inside for almost one hundred and fifty years and I thought about the air that had been sealed in by the builders who first brought the house into being. As I tore away the walls, I unleashed their breath and their stories that had been a part of the house down all the days. There were moments when it felt as though they were moving in the room with me, not as ghosts but companions. As I sealed our breath back into the walls, we became a part of the lineage Monet described: “the enveloping air offers continuity and infinite extension.”

The very atmosphere that surrounds us is what connects us, from the first breath of God that brought the universe into being to the first breath of the baby before Mary wrapped him and placed him in the manger to all the reenactments and retellings that will happen in our homes and houses of worship in the next couple of days. In the colors and shades and scratches and palimpsests of our own pageants and carols, we touch eternity for an instant, or with an instant – a moment when we are born anew, again together with Christ. The flow, as Berger says, becomes no longer temporal, but “substantial and extensive.”

My blogging friend, Bill Kinnon, wrote with wonderful indignation about some who see the need to bump up the cool in Christmas to reach those who only get to church once or twice a year. One church he mentioned spent eight thousand dollars on 3D glasses to wow the audience into wonder. All the tech tricks in the world won’t come close to how the shepherds felt when the angels came upon that midnight clear because the heavenly hosts were not about spectacle as much as story. They were painting the air the shepherds were breathing, connecting them to Bethlehem, to the Magi, and to all the Christmases to come, all the way down to us, gathering to sing carols in the middle of wars and recessions and loves and losses. We cannot afford for the story to become the stuff of nostalgia or manipulation. From the moment God breathed the universe into existence, the enveloping air has held us and connected us unflinchingly. To borrow Ginger’s gentle imperative to us each Sunday before worship, “Breathe in the breath of God and breathe out the love of God.”

Monet’s images have ended up on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs, mouse pads to place mats, all of which miss the point just as everything from plastic nativities to 3D glasses don’t see the light in the moment at the Manger.

Berger closed his article with this thought:

One of Monet’s favorite flowers was the iris. No other flower demands so forcefully to be painted. This has something to do with the way they open their petals, already perfectly printed. Irises are like prophecies, simultaneously astounding and calm. Maybe that’s why he loved them.

“How silently, how silently,” wrote Philips Brooks, “the wondrous gift is given.” The night is far spent; the day is at hand – and not just any day. We are not waiting to be told a story to make us feel warm and fuzzy, or to be fascinated by some new-fangled telling. We are waiting for the dawn to break, for the Child to be born again in our time and our culture, for the shards of light to pierce our hearts in this moment, for the air that we breathe to connect us with all the enveloping air and the love from which we can never be torn away.

Peace,
Milton

Here’s Who I Saw Today:

a high school friend who met
me for breakfast and a walk
around Midtown Manhatthan;

the man who drove the shuttle
to JFK fighting through traffic
and still had energy to smile;

the TSA identification checker
who never changed his facial
expression as he worked;

the server at our favorite
Mexcian restaurant in Durham
who welcomed us home —

all indicators that Christ
will be born again — but this
time piece by piece by peace

Peace,
Milton

we were walking
back to our hotel
as the moon was
climbing the ladder
of night above us

we were walking
down the avenue
against the current
of tourists and taxis
leaning into the wind

we were walking
away from the show
we had come to see
full of the laughter
and lightness of life

we were walking
into a night that will
give birth to the day
that takes us back
to what home holds

we were walking
as we have for miles
and years together
down the path of
a well-worn love

Peace,
Milton

On this Solstice night, we are chasing daylight in New York City. I surprised Ginger with a trip to see one of her all-time favorite things, now on Broadway: Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

There are days to write and reflect and there are days to bask in the sheer joy of love and what it means to be together. I am grateful for days like these.

Connect the dots, la la la . . .

Peace,
Milton

Tomorrow I
get to show
the person
I love most
how much
I love her
how much
I get her
with a
surprise
that has
her name
written
all over it
I wonder
if this is
a hint of
what God
felt like on
Christmas Eve.

Peace,
Milton

My friend David died a year ago today. I wished I could have talked to him about the repeal of DADT and the failure of the DREAM Act and his daughter’s graduation and what he was doing for Christmas and what music he had been listening to and what the plans were for camp next summer. But I couldn’t. I did, however, spend a good bit of time talking to the Frontier Communications computer voice and a few of her human minions.

the connection was broken

this morning so I called
and talked to a computer
who had been made to
sound helpful and buy time
I had not planned to sell

it’s been a year since
we talked to each other
I even dialed your number
today to leave a message
it, too, has been disconnected

after an hour I was back
online and exhausted from
how long it took to find
someone who could help
and you are still gone

even though I stared at
our picture on my desk —
we were both smiling
at Christy’s wedding
I can still remember

Peace,
Milton

we made a deposit
at our local food bank
524 pounds of groceries
math doesn’t do much

for poetry, but here are
the numbers: they need
112,329 pounds of food
everyday – every day

we had eight ninth grade
boys who unloaded the
truck and then stood on
the scale together

one ton of teenager
who had brought half
their weight in food
hoping to be of help

the woman at the scale
answered their questions
balanced their hope with
the weight of the world

we went back to school
then home for the holidays
she stayed to wait for the
other 111,800 pounds

Peace,
Milton

“History is written by the winners.”

So wrote one of my students in a list of ten quotes that were meaningful to him that I had asked him and his class to find and explain. His take on the quote was: “If you win, you get to be important.” Perhaps. Or at least you get to feel important, or say that you are since you won the right to control how the story gets told.

The quote came back to me twice today. First, I thought about it while listening to an NPR report about the CEOs who met with President Obama to talk about how to get the economy going. Part of the discussion had to do with the some two trillion dollars that big business in our country is holding on to; Obama wants them to turn some of that, anyway, into job opportunities, so we can get back to being Number One in the world. There was nothing particularly notable about the report, other than the really rich guys – the ones who make 263 times the salary of their average worker — were the ones who have the ear of the president. The second time came in a note from poet and friend, Nathan Brown, quoting a line from a poem by Charles Bukowski (I’m expanding his quote a bit):

                  it’s not
                            the known great
but the great who died unknown;
                 it’s not
                            the history
of countries
but the lives of men.

Once upon a college, I was a history major. I was fortunate for my first professor to be Wallace Daniel, who taught his classes with novels rather than textbooks and was far more interested in how people lived that who won the war du jour. One of the things I learned from Wallace was that the story of humanity was more vital and varied than the polarities of most history books, which do reduce it down to who won and who lost. When we begin to talk about what people ate, where they lived, what they did for work, how they thought of family, and how they made meaning out of their existence, then we get to the essential questions on which we all feed and thrive.

If we only hear the stories of conquest and power, we will starve to death.

Or at least miss the point or what it means to be here. If power were the point, the Incarnation would never have happened. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us not so God could show us what real power looked like, but to remind us, as John says, that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.” Jesus’ birth narrative calls forth a cast of also rans and ragamuffins, the weary and the unwashed, to hear the angels sing. The Christmas story is humanity’s story, told in the losses and the near misses, at the margins and the fringes, among the unknown and the unforgiven, who heard the angel choir. Those who followed centuries later with crusades, military and otherwise, wandered horribly off script. The history of Christianity may be one of how it conquered the world, but that is not the story of our faith. Two thousand years of people gathering to pray together, to sing together, to eat together, to re-member shattered lives together: now, there’s a story.

In various ways over the past week, I’ve heard different members of our government from different branches talk about the need for us to “get back on top in the world,” which isn’t a helpful goal. Deciding what matters most is to be Number One leads us to spend all of our time looking in the mirror while we think we have a great view of the world. Besides, who decides who is Number One? Neither Billboard nor the BCS has a chart for that. The perspective sets us up for an all or nothing approach. As one of my other students said, in response to the quote with which I began, “Second place is just another name for loser.” The next step is to win at all costs, because all that matters is winning.

Though I’m sure Jesus lettered in several sports at Nazareth High, he shied away from sports metaphors in his parables. He talked about farmers and poor people. He talked about banquets for everyone and fathers who forgave unflinchingly. And he talked about lilies that rocked because they did little else but be themselves. Oh, yeah – and the meek would inherit the earth.

The Incarnation is not a statement of supremacy, not a call to conquest, but a tangible invitation to community, to connectedness, to a life more profound than winning and losing. No one’s keeping score: we are loved, we are loved, we are really loved. Every last one of us.

Even the rich and powerful.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — I couldn’t resist.

I’ve been staring at the screen for a couple of hours now.

I had a couple of ideas I was chasing, but my mind kept coming back to the sadness that has marked my day because it was one year ago today that I got the call that my dear friend, David Gentiles, had been injured in an accident in his home. He died three days later. I miss him terribly for a number of reasons, not the least of which is we both loved John Denver. In fact, a month or so before the accident we sang back and forth to each other on the phone one afternoon for no other reason than he was listening to John Denver records (yes, vinyl) when I called. So, tonight I offer one of our favorites — and a version of it that I know would bring a smile to his face.

Peace,
Milton

300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

No, that’s not my salary offer to pitch next year, nor is it the number of Cheetos I have consumed in my life time. 300 sextillion is the latest estimate of the number of stars in the universe, which is three times what astronomers had previously thought. As we learned from Hubble’s “Deep Field” pictures, every time we look out into the darkness, we find more light.

Or, perhaps, it’s the other way round.

The story is not new, but I thought about it again today because of another NPR story on Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched in 1977 to look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which is getting close to the outer edge of our solar system and will move on into interstellar space in about four years. Melissa Block talked to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium and asked him what had been the most amazing thing he had learned from Voyager and he talked about seeing the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The images were clear enough to see mountains and ice. They aren’t just big balls of gas, he said, they are worlds.

As I meandered the web before I started to write, my friend Sonya pointed me to this article by Mark Morford that talked about the sextillion stars and finished with one other thing:

Oh and BTW? 300 sextillion, says our sly scientist, also happens to be the rough sum total of all cells inhabiting all human bodies on planet earth at this particular moment. One sextillion stars, one sextillion cells. Isn’t that fascinating? Isn’t that an odd coincidence?


Well, no, say the wise ones. Not really. Now pipe down and get yourself awed.

I put it all together and I come up singing hymns:

O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder
consider all the worlds thy hands hath made
I see the stars I hear the rolling thunder
thy power throughout the universe displayed
then sings my soul . . .

On the continuum of wonder, we sit somewhere between the two sextillions, cellular and celestial, stealthily bombarded with opportunities for amazement from both directions, even as we, the inhabitants of this world, are consumed by our fears and distractions, along with our ever-expanding sense of ourselves. Yet, the sum of all our arrogance doesn’t come close to 300 sextillion ramekins of rage (or whatever the measurement might be); our fear stands dwarfed by the brilliance bound for us at the speed of, well, light.

Maybe that’s why every time an angel shows up in the gospels he leads with, “Do not be afraid.”

Yes, it’s dark out there and, as David Wilcox says, “there’ll always be some crazy with an army or a knife.” But all the IEDs and RPGs, all the cancers and car crashes, the Alzheimers, all the terrorists and tsunamis, all the smart bombs and stupid politicians, all the wars and rumors of wars don’t come close to outnumbering the 300 sextillion stars – the light gaining on us – and all the cells that are our built-in reminder of what has been true since Creation: nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Bill Mallonee has a song called “Look at All the Stars.” The last two verses say:

there are some who’re blind by choice
and there others who are not
and I’ve kept so many faces
but my own I’ve long forgot
father often took me here
he was like a little child
long before the lights went out
I can still see him smile
he said look at all the stars
oh my look at all the stars

yeah I brought you here to see
all the things I never see
brought you to this highest peak
so you’ll me what I’m missing
when the clouds are blown apart
I hear the moon shines like a cup
in that silver velvet blue
the heart of God it opens up
look at all the stars
you say look at all the stars
oh my look at all the stars

Pipe down and get yourself awed: say, “Oh, my, look at all the stars.”

Peace,
Milton