don't eat alone

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

I can show you a cup of flour,
or a pound of sugar, but
I am at a loss to quantify
how much grief weighs,
how long a heart stays broken,
how far it is to forgiveness, or
the speed of the sound of loneliness —
even as I strain to comprehend
how a heart like yours
can hold a galaxy of grace,
how sorrow becomes weightless
in the gravity of your love,
how home is as close as you
calling my name in the dark.

Peace,
Milton

On this Sunday of Joy during Advent, our children led us in a Posada, which is a tradition from Mexico and other Latin American countries. We had three “inns” set up around the church and the children traveled, following Mary and Joseph, to each door. They knocked and said, in unison, “We must find a place to stay. We are weary and the journey has been long. Perhaps these kind people will let us stay here.” Then half of the congregation sang, “In the name of heaven, I ask you for shelter for my wife is tired and she can go no farther.” The innkeeper then answered the door and told them they were not welcome because they were strangers and not known and the other half of the congregation sang, “You cannot stay here. You are a stranger. You are not welcome here. You must go away.”

We repeated the scene twice, but then they came to the door in front of the altar and this time the innkeeper welcomed them and we all rejoiced. Then the children came down the center aisle and I realized they each had something in their hand given them by the innkeeper: sugar cookies. To paraphrase Ginger’s benediction at the end of the service — what better way to capture what this season means: Christ is born and have a cookie!

The end of the service was the beginning of celebration for me because today was my fifty-fourth birthday. I knew Ginger had things planned, but I didn’t know what any of them were because our tradition is for the birthday to be a day of surprises. What unfolded was a day of food and friendship, or affirmation and celebration that was astounding. Our former foster daughter, Julie came down from Boston with her girlfriend to be a part of the weekend. We had beignets for breakfast, Turkish food for lunch, Fullsteam beer and various snacks for dinner, and then closed out the night at the restaurant where I used to work. In the gaps along the way, I checked Facebook to find one happy wish from every chapter of my life. Here, at the end of the day, I feel connected, celebrated, affirmed, and loved, loved, loved.

When I have a chance to watch awards shows on television, I often think how wonderful it is for those who act or sing for a living to have chosen a career where people are intentional about handing out awards and affirmation. I wish every career path offered such a chance for that kind of recognition, and for everyone to say thank you to those who have helped them get where they are. My birthday felt like my award show today. And I am filled with gratitude.

Peace,
Milton

I spent the afternoon at a Mushroom Workshop with my friends from Bountiful Backyards and I came home with a couple of shiitake logs and a few words.

log work 

we took oak logs
and drilled small holes
filled them up with
mushroom spores and
sealed them shut with
beeswax so we
could take them home
and wait to eat
flavorful fungi
in a season
some months away

dinner tonight
will be someone
else’s harvest
the waiting is
an essential
ingredient
nothing that grows
comes fully formed
what’s true of ‘shrooms
goes for mangers too

Peace,
Milton

This evening we gathered around our dinner table with friends, as is our Friday night custom, and one of them, John, said, “I have a poem to read.” What followed were words full of flavor and sustenance by a poet named Thomas Centolella, who was a new name to me. I would be remiss if I did not pass along to you what was given to me.

In the Evening We Shall Be Examined on Love

And it won’t be multiple choice,
Though some of us would prefer it that way.
Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on
When we should be sticking to the point, if not together.
In the evening, there shall be implications
Our fear will change to complications. “No cheating,”
We’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure the cost of being true
To ourselves. In the evening, when the sky has turned
That certain blue, the blue of exam books, books of no more
Daily evasion, we shall climb the hill as the light empties
And park our tired bodies on a bench above the city
And try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested
Like defendants on trial, cross-examined
Till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No,
In the evening, after the day has refused to testify,
We shall be examined on love like students
Who don’t even recall signing up for the course
And now must take their orals, forced to speak for once
From the heart and not off the top of their heads.
And when the evening is over and it’s late
The student body asleep, even the great teachers
Retired for the night, we shall stay up
And run back over the questions, each in our own way:
What’s true and what’s false, what unknown quantity
Will balance the equation, what it would mean years from now
To look back and know
We did not fail.

I am grateful that John left the typewritten page with the poem here because I want to roam around in these lines over the next few days, but tonight the take away for me was, “forced to speak for once from the heart and not off the top of their heads,” which we did in the almost three hours that followed his reading of the poem, each of us around the table doing our best both to tell stories and to listen. On evenings like this, friendships grow deeper and hope takes root like the ivy that refuses to relent in its attempt to climb the side of our house.

It was good to be here.

Peace,
Milton

We’re beginning to make the turn towards home in To Kill a Mockingbird in my American Lit. class. We had a discussion today about the way in which a crisis exposes both the things that tie us together and the things that tear us apart. Maycomb, the little town where the story takes place, had some deep divisions around race and class that stayed mostly unspoken until Atticus Finch, a white lawyer, agreed to represent Tom Robinson, an African-American man who had been accused of raping a white woman. She also happened to be dirt poor. In a few pages, the biases and boundaries of the small town were exposed as though a sirocco had blown through blowing all the top soil into the next county and leaving everything out in the open.

In one of the most powerful scenes, a group of white men come to the jail to exact their version of justice on Tom. Atticus is sitting on the porch of the jail (Where but the South do you have a jail with a big porch?) to be a human barrier between the lynch mob and his client. The men respect Atticus but don’t intend to be deterred. What none of them knew was that Scout had followed her father to the jail and was hiding in the shadows. As the tempers begin to flare and the volume begin to grow, Scout recognizes one of the men as the father of one of her classmates and she calls out to him and asks about his son. The shouting stops and the man answers the question. Scout calls out in greeting to some of the other men who greet her in return, and, within a few minutes, start heading for home, humbled by a ten-year old prophet.

Her forthrightness turned a light on the lynch mob and called them into honesty.

Though I won’t feign understanding of all of the implications of the Wikileaks mess that is going on, I do think about Scout calling those men by name when I hear another story explaining what was in the diplomatic cables. I am not naïve. I know the world has convinced itself that secrecy and even deceit are a necessary part of diplomacy and politics. And look how well it’s working. From the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to elections in Haiti to civil war in Sudan to the arrogance and incompetence of our own leaders in Washington, our leaders sit just as Buddy the Elf accused the false Santa: on a throne of lies. And they probably smell like beef and cheese, too.

Power is the primary currency and it has left us bankrupt.

At least in the book, there’s a sense that the men came to themselves, much like the prodigal son, and realized they needed to stop what they were doing and go home. Listening to the congressional rhetoric, the win-at-all-costs-anything-for-power mentality feels conscious and brazen. Wikileaks or no, they are going to keep on keeping secrets and banking both power and money because that is what they think matters most. While Congress let the Dream Act and the chance to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” fall by the wayside, the same Wall Street firms that imploded our economy are paying out $90,000,000,000 (yep – 10 zeros) in bonuses (so they need those tax cuts to continue, don’t you know).

King Herod, who would have done quite well in Washington, was willing to wipe out every toddler in the land because he was afraid of whom Jesus might become. Two thousand years later, we as the Body of Christ aren’t scaring anyone hardly at all, or expecting much to change. Christmas will come and Washington will go on having prayer breakfasts and listening to lobbyists without any sense of irony and very little integrity, ceaselessly campaigning for the next election.

I am not saying I expect our government or this nation to be Christian. It is not by definition. I am saying for people created in the image of a subversive, inside out, unabashedly loving God who picks the poor every time, we have work to do to make speaking up our daily practice rather than letting it become an occasional event.

Peace,
Milton

John Lennon was killed thirty years ago today.

(I know, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.)

Here is the poem I found digging through his words tonight.

 words with john

there are places I remember
all my life though some have changed
hold on world, world hold on
It’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

you may say I’m a dreamer
but I’m not the only one
all i want is the truth
It’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

I feel sorrow, oh I feel dreams
everything is clear in my heart
everything is clear in our world
It’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

love is the answer and you know that for sure
love is a flower you got to let it grow
all we are saying is give peace a chance
It’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

you say you want a revolution
well you know
we all want to change the world
don’t you know know it’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

why in the world are we here
surely not to live in pain and fear
grow old with me the best is yet to come
It’s gonna be alright
you gonna see the light

Peace,
Milton

caught by surprise
we say — like a fly ball
or a base runner —
caught, perhaps
like a falling heirloom –
in the nick of time

but not tonight –
I was . . .

taken by surprise
like a hostage or
a dog from the shelter —
out of my routine
and off to the theater
by the dancer I know best

then we walked
under the lighted trees
as we always do —
to find the familiar
is so flush with wonder
is no surprise at all

Peace,
Milton

When we came out of the restaurant, the air was raw – even people who know what real winter is would have shared my weather report. The wind was biting and we all braced ourselves as we walked to the car. We went out on a winter’s night because Reuben, my father-in-law, turned eighty today. We wanted to take him to Maggiano’s Little Italy because when we celebrated his seventieth we went to their restaurant in Boston, so we carried on the tradition, even in a different city.

But much has changed in ten years. And in the last two weeks.

Reuben’s Alzheimer’s appears to be picking up the pace of his disappearance, so these days of celebration and remembrance carry even greater significance. As we drove across town to the restaurant, he sang any number of songs that came to mind, beginning with his greatest hit, “Nothing Could Be Finer (Than To Be In Carolina),” and moving through much of Eddie Arnold’s catalog. When we got up from the pub table where they had us wait until our dinner table was ready, he took time to straighten all the chairs before he joined us. We asked questions about memories he can still find and he talked about growing up and going overseas in the Service. And then he effusively expressed his love for Rachel, his wife, and his eyes glistened and danced before they faded, once more, back into blankness. As we drove home, Ginger wished him happy birthday to remind him of why we were out in the cold and he began singing, “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,” with great gusto.

My task before we left for dinner was to make a caramel cake, which has been rather elusive in the years before we moved to Durham. Around here, people actually know what that is. For those of you not from the South, let me say it will meet whatever sugar fix you have. I have tried several recipes over the years and Reuben has been gracious in eating them and enjoying them, but they were never the same as he remembered as a child. Today, thanks to whoever it is that writes Smitten Kitchen, I found a recipe that made the cake I have been looking for. We got home from our sojourn and finished the evening with a good shot of sugar infused with a lifetime of memories. He made it to eighty. We are all here together in Durham, along with the pups.

What we are living through doesn’t get fixed by following the Star.

Christmas will come, Christ will be born, and Reuben will still be disappearing. We will have to tell him it’s Christmas – more than once. And what it feels like for us to live through this year is not new ground. As many Christmases as there have been, there have been people living in pain, losing one another, wondering what difference it makes that unto us a Child is born – which is not as cynical or as hopeless as it sounds. Much of the hope is the resonance of woundedness: we are not the first. We stand in the lineage that begins with certain poor shepherds and winds its way through hospital halls and houses, down the days shared by friends and families who know life’s crushing load all too well.

And Mary brought forth a son who came to both redeem and resonate: God with us.

When I came up to write tonight, I had a song swirling inside me, which I subsequently found on Youtube and watched, cried, and sang along several times before I began typing. The song is Kathy Mattea’s “Where’ve You Been?” (written by Jon Venzer and Don Henry). It tells the story of a couple who were married sixty years before one began to disappear. The final verse says

claire soon lost her memory
forgot the names of family
she never spoke a word again
then one day they wheeled him in
he held her hand and stroked her hair
in a fragile voice she said
where’ve you been
I’ve looked for you forever and a day
where’ve you been
I’m just not myself when you’re away

I get to this point in my posts and I think, “I’m saying the same things over and over.” I am pulled to repeat carols and Patty Griffin lyrics I have posted over and over, I come back to what it means to be community – together, and what it means that God climbed into our skin and joined the circle of woundedness and wonder. I find comfort in the repetition because it’s one of the ways I am drawn to resilience. I read T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” and come to the lines where he says

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This:

And I can feel him banging those words on the desk, the repetition compelling me to pay attention and let the words make their indelible mark on my heart by tapping at it again and again.

One of the people with whom Reuben shares a birthday is Peter Buck of REM. They have also been victims of my repetition over the years because “Everybody Hurts” is a hymn, as far as I’m concerned.

when you think you’ve had too much
of this life well hang on
’cause everybody hurts
take comfort in your friends
everybody hurts
don’t throw up your hands
oh no don’t throw up your hands
if you feel like you’re alone
no no no you are not alone

On this night when the dark and cold are deep inside, when the light in Reuben’s eyes flashed for a fading moment, and when all I know to do is to cling to those I love and words I know so that Christ will be born again in my time, I have nothing new to say. But what I have is enough.

Peace,
Milton

The first Sunday of the month means we celebrate Communion at our church, as in many Protestant congregations. Of all the things we do together in worship, Communion lands at the top of the list for me: we remember the story that binds us together in word and in action, we feed one another, and we do some thing that every Christian who came before us has done all the way back to that First Supper in the Upper Room.

I come away from the meal each month feeling filled and connected.

This afternoon, Ginger and I went to an assembly of Durham CAN (Durham Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods) which is a community organizing group made up of a wide cross-section of people from across the city who connect to bring about change in our city. They organized neighborhood audits a couple of months back where people walked the streets of various neighborhoods – particularly some of the poorer ones – and made note of all the things that needed to be fixed. They gave that information to the city. Today, the City Manager stood before the assembly and one of the Durham CAN leaders asked him if he would be accountable to come back in ninety days and report on how the needs on the list were being addressed. He said he would.

Durham CAN doesn’t raise money or hire lobbyists. They connect people in the community and bank on the relationships to call people to accountability. The trust of the organization is in the power of relationships. After the meeting ended, Ginger introduced me to Mauricio, whom she had met at an earlier meeting.

“I want you to tell Milton your story,” she said to him.

Mauricio is from El Salvador and came to the U. S. in early 1980 at the encouragement of his mentor, Bishop Oscar Romero, who helped him and several other your Salvadorian men get out of the country to tell El Salvador’s story and to escape being killed by the death squads. Romero himself was assassinated in March of the same year. I was speechless. I was standing next to someone in Durham, North Carolina who was standing next to me because of the actions of one of the heroes of my faith. For a moment, I stood in a small church connected across miles and years to someone who had helped to shape my faith, connected hand to hand, person to person.

When we left the meeting, Ginger and went home, fed the pups, picked up the pot of chili I made this afternoon, and headed for Fullsteam to break bread or at least eat chili and drink beer some folks who had been at the assembly and a few others who were just coming for the food and fellowship. The chili was hot, the beer was cold, and the conversations were rich and flavorful. I met some wonderful people. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the folks with us pointed out a large table of Duke Divinity School students and mentioned several of them had gone to Wheaton College in Illinois, where our nephews went to school. Ginger and I walked over to the table, introduced ourselves, and then asked if they knew Ben and Scott and several faces at the table lit up. For a moment, I stood in a pub connected across miles and years to two guys I love deeply through people I can’t even call by name but who share the affection for Ben and Scott.

The incidental contact of an introduction, a conversation, or passing the Bread and the Cup is the stuff of glory, or community, of incarnation. We make our way across oceans and opinions, across aisles and attitudes in small steps and gentle gestures much more than huge leaps and grand actions. We serve one another, hand to hand, all the way back to the Upper Room.

Peace,
Milton