don't eat alone

Tonight is Burns’ Night.

Two hundred and fifty one years ago, on this night, the Scottish poet Robert Burns was born. Though I have a wee bit o’ Scottish blood in me, I’ve never been an avid celebrator of the anniversary, which Garrison Keillor describes as an evening when, “They read Burns’ poems, sing his songs, eat haggis, and drink lots of whiskey.” Alas, the only whiskey in my house is Bushmills.

Burns stays with me for a different reason. As one who taught ninth grade English for a decade, I’ve read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men more times than I can count, inviting students into the sad beauty of George and Lennie’s life together. The title of the book is drawn directly from Burns:

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley

which is often paraphrased in English as, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

You may not remember much about the book. The fact is George and Lennie never had really big plans. Lennie was mentally disabled and looked at life with brutal simplicity. If George had had plans before Lennie, he had already laid them aside to take care of his friend. When they did talk about schemes, they had to do with saving money to get a place together, a dream that hangs in front of them until the very last scene of the novella. George explains it this way, when Lennie coaxes him to tell how they are different from the other guys working alongside them.

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.

What ultimately shapes us are not the plans we make, but the people we choose. I thought again today about the anniversary party I went to the other night. Though some attention was given to the various positions Rev. Cheek had held during his forty year ministry at his church, the stories that mattered were told by family and friends about family and friends, the laughter was as deep and resonant as the love that filled the room. Burns was right: the best laid plans won’t work out, mostly. What gives life its meaning are not our successes, for the most part, but those with whom we chose to share the failures, as well as the fun times. We call them our life stories, after all, not our life maps.

Here’s something Steinbeck wrote in his journal about a year after he published Of Mice and Men:

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men; if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

If I think of my life in terms of plans, and plans gang aft agley, it makes about as much sense as a street map of downtown Boston. I’ve gone from being a pastor to a chaplain to a youth minister to a high school English teacher to a chef, with a couple of detours here and there. I’ve not gotten rich, to say the least. If life is some sort of distinguishable path, I’m hard pressed to show mine as a success. The good news is I don’t think of life that way. Life, to use a borrowed phrase, is a journey without maps. We have to pay attention to the people around us in order to find our way.

Every chapter of my life has been filled with those who have offered love and encouragement far more profound than I have deserved, as well as forgiveness. As we close in on twenty years of marriage (this April!), I feel more than ever what I have said before: whatever any kind of final judgment may look like, I believe simply saying, “I was with her,” will be enough to validate my existence, for she is the love of my life.

I have had plans along the way; I still have some. To this point, none of them has worked out as I either hoped or expected. Still, I spent the evening cooking with Abel and Arnaldo and came home to Ginger and the Schnauzers, so I understand exactly what George was saying: I got a future because somebody gives a damn about me.

Peace,
Milton

In the middle of the afternoon, as I was cooking for a friend and Ginger was sermonizing, as she calls it, she started reading MLK quotes to me, ending with this one, which she introduced by saying, “Here’s one I didn’t know.”

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Beyond its newness to us, the quote stood out because it made us both think of her father, Reuben. If there is anyone on the planet who took pride in the job he did, day in and day out, it was Reuben. He is the incarnation of the words from Jesus’ parable, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Reuben was first a milkman and then later a deliveryman for Golden Flake potato chips. Both the angels and the checkers smiled when he walked into a store.

I thought about King’s words later in the evening at the celebration of Rev. J. C. Cheek, who has pastored Mt. Calvary United Church of Christ here in Durham for forty years. The ballroom at the local Hilton was filled with friends and parishioners, full of laughter and stories about this man who has poured his life into his city and his church. One of his childhood friends turned to him and said, “Thanks for letting me say these things now, rather than at your funeral.” What a gift, indeed, for both men.

Last Sunday night, I caught the end of the Golden Globes when I got home from work. The festivities kick off what some in the entertainment industry call “Awards Season” (summer, autumn, winter, awards, spring), as the weeks ahead are filled with a bunch of different congratulatory celebrations, including the Grammys and ending with the Oscars. I like watching for the moments when someone is caught genuinely by surprise by the recognition, and a year doesn’t pass that I think about how fortunate they are to have chosen a career where awards are part of the package. Most people on the planet go unsung, regardless of how well they do their jobs.

One of the things I learned when Ginger read the quote was Mac McAnally must have read King, because the quote is an obvious inspiration for Mac’s song, “It’s My Job,” which Jimmy Buffet made famous. The first verse says,

in the middle of late last night
I was sitting on a curb
I didn’t know what about
but I was feeling quite disturbed
a street sweeper came whistling by
he was bouncing every step
it was strange how good he felt
so I asked him why he swept and he said
it’s my job to be cleaning up this mess
and that’s enough reason to go for me
it’s my jog to be better than the rest
and that makes the day for me

If you walk into the Dunkin’ Donuts in Charlestown, Massachusetts on any work day morning, the express line forms to the right. These are regular customers only getting coffee. Behind the counter, there is a Lebanese man who has been at the shop since it opened. Next to him is a woman at the cash register. The man knows his customers so well that the only words spoken are ones of greeting and gratitude. He simply looks about two people back in the line, smiles, makes their coffee they way he knows they like it, and then hands it to his coworker at the register. It’s his job.

At the Durham Ritz Car Wash on 15-501, you might think the small army of guys armed with towels would just give your car a quick once over before waving for you to drive away. Instead, you should plan on standing there a good ten minutes after your car has ridden through the automated wash as they hand dry the vehicle, clean all the windows, and even spray the tires clean. It’s their job.

On any given night he is working, my coworker Abel is out to make cooking history. He watches every detail, preps his station beyond expectations, and watches out for those around him and what they might need. If the night is slow, you will find him in the walk-in, cleaning and straightening things for the folks who will come in the following morning. When he gets ready to plate an order, he moves efficiently and intentionally, making sure his food is the best it can be. Every shift. It’s his job.

I wish the Golden Globes had categories for all of them. I hope those around them are extravagant with affirmation of their excellence. I pray for a spirit that doesn’t depend on affirmation to motivate me to offer my best work. I offer this poem by Marge Piercy, who does excellent work of her own and also knew of what King spoke.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Amen. I think I will ask Jimmy Buffett to sing our closing hymn.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There’s a new recipe.

Part of my daily ritual is reading The Writer’s Almanac, both for the poem offered and for the historical notes for the day because they often set me sailing on the sea of my thoughts with their gentle breezes of suggestion. Today was no exception because I learned eighty-two years ago today Thornton Wilder’s Our Town was performed for the first time. Wilder holds a special place in my heart for several reasons, not the least of which is the play itself. I remember acting it out in my high school classrooms, both as student and teacher, always intrigued at how universally the particular lives of the people of Grover’s Corners spoke to students.

My most enduring memory of the play is Rebecca telling George about the letter Jane Crofut received from her minister, and the way the envelope was addressed,

Jane Crofut
Crofut’s Farm
Grover’s Corners
Sutton County
New Hampshire
United States of America
Continent of North America
Western Hemisphere
The Earth
The Solar System
The Universe
The Mind of God

I still feel what I felt the first time I read the scene, though I couldn’t name it then: visceral wonder. On the front of a simple envelope, Wilder captured the paradox of what it means to be human, to live lives of appropriate insignificance.

Wilder is also responsible for one of my favorite novels, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which is the story of a priest who sets out to find about the lives of five people who die when a bridge collapses, seeking to answer the question, “Do we live by plan and die by plan or do we live by accident and die by accident?” His search gives him more than answers. I also feel connected to Wilder because of one of my writing mentors, Timothy Findley, who was mentored by Wilder, now over a half a century ago. (You can read that story in this post.)

I had the chance to spend the afternoon with Don, an old friend from Massachusetts, before I took him to the airport. I gave him a quick tour of Durham, including stops for hot dogs and coffee, but the highlight of our time together was the endless stream of conversation that wandered through past and present, profound and mundane, stacking up our words like stones for another altar in our friendship. I came home to find the Hope for Haiti Now telethon on most every channel. Some of the music was amazing: Springsteen singing “We Shall Overcome,” Mary J. Blige’s cover of “Hard Times Come Again No More,” and Justin Timberlake singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” In between the songs were stories of hurt and hope from the streets of Port au Prince and the call to help our sisters and brothers who are crushed and broken and homeless, our fellow citizens of the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe, the Mind of God. George Clooney opened the evening asking why we should help. He gave stark statistics about Haiti before the earthquake, when it was a disaster, like Darfur, unworthy of the 24-hour news cycle. And then he called us to have hope enough to rebuild what was not there before.

“Hope, like faith” Wilder said, “is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.”

The relief and attention being aimed at Haiti right now is crucial and beautiful and important, and it will not be enough. We will be rebuilding Haiti for the rest of my life – and that’s without another earthquake or hurricane, and long after the telethons have run their course, not unlike New Orleans and southern Mississippi. When I was looking up the website for the telethon, one of the links was to a news story about Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio each donating a million dollars to the relief effort. Jim Wallis was on The Daily Show this week talking about how the $150 million in bonuses the big banks were paying out could cover all the houses in danger of foreclosure until 2012. Big tragedies make us want to look at big numbers and wonder why those rich guys aren’t doing more. It’s a fair question, but if I go back and check the address, remembering that the ultimate neighborhood we share is the Mind of God, I bump up against the visceral wonder of the imagination that gave birth to us and built us to care for one another, and I catch a glimpse of the hope that helps to make us whole.

Peace,
Milton

she said, in that way one speaks
to get a reaction, or the way I titled
this poem so you’d keep reading.
I’m not proud, she said, because I
had nothing to do with it,

deftly putting patriotism in
a new light, a search light, under
the bare bulb of interrogation.

What, then, can I be? Thankful:
that I was born in a South Texas
town named for the Body of Christ
and not Port-au-Prince; pride,
perhaps, would be easier

because it requires nothing
of me. Gratitude guides me to
share what was never mine.

Peace,
Milton

Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

I came across this quote in the swirl of life that has included the Haitian earthquake and aftermath, the wrangling over the health care bill, the polarizing election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, a day at work fraught with relational issues, and an evening of cooking and talking with Mitch and Arnaldo at the Duke restaurant that reinforced both my faith and my sanity.

I’ve spent the last hour trying to find the words for this next paragraph and have only written words that feel as though they add to the cacophony of incivility that rules the day, rather than offering a word of encouragement. In short, I don’t want to add to the crap, so let me tell you what happened last night.

I found out over the weekend that my father is going to Cuba on Friday with a group from Baylor. When Arnaldo, our Cuban dishwasher, came to work yesterday I told him what my father was going to do. Arnaldo came to America as a part of the Mariel boatlift of 1980. He has not been able to return to Cuba for thirty years. And he asked me this question: “If I can get the phone numbers, can your father call my family and tell them I’m OK?”

Yes. The answer is Yes. Think on these things.

Peace,
Milton

This was yesterday’s poem at The Writer’s Almanac:

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

As the day calls us to reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. King, I am aware of how little our culture at large either values or cultivates the kind of integrity and leadership he incarnated. Though we give him a holiday, we are hard pressed as a nation to say we share his values as primary. As my frustration with the dearth of leadership in our country grows, I find myself drawn to the power of the individual actions of those who have chosen to be the more loving ones, to the small and significant actions that truly do change the world. Certainly King had great changes in mind for our nation as a whole, yet what actually brought the change were young people sitting down at lunch counters, or marching down highways, taking seats at the front of the bus, or giving rides to those who honored the bus boycotts.

So I’m taking the poem as my prayer for today, and, I imagine, for several more days to come: Let the more loving one be me. Whether or not the world changes, I hope the prayer changes me.

Peace,
Milton

As we prepare to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, many of us will also take time to make it a part of our worship services as well. I thought I might offer a soundtrack for the weekend, starting with “When the Ship Comes In” by Bob Dylan, which he sang at the March on Washington where King delivered “I Have a Dream.”

The second song is a U2 standard: Pride(In the Name of Love).

Patty Griffin’s tribute song is called “Up to the Mountain.”

James Taylor calls us to remember there are ties between us all in “Shed a Little Light.”

Here’s Bruce Springsteen’s offering of “Eyes on the Prize.”

I close with Mavis Staples singing “99 & 1/2.”

May all the words we hear fall on fresh ears and open hearts.

Peace,
Milton

about the images of buildings lying
flat on top of people, of survivors
sleeping in the streets because
roofs no longer symbolize safety;

about those who sit snugly in
studios and speak for God with
ungodly arrogance and ignorance,
and those who are helping quietly;

about the helplessness that haunts
my heart on nights like this, when
the best I can do is write and wonder
why that’s the best I can do.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There are new recipes here and here.

I wish I knew how it all began. Maybe it was the cold snap last weekend, but then again, maybe not. Something happened, though, and all I was left with was a perfectly viable Internet connection and a MacBook that couldn’t find it. Ginger’s laptop could, but not mine. I let it sit for Friday and Saturday, because I was working, tried to see what I could figure out on Sunday; by Monday I was doing my impersonation of Blanche DuBois: forced to rely on the kindness of strangers by calling Apple tech support.

The guy was personable and engaging, even as he informed me that my computer was past its service contract, which meant I would need to pay for help, and then he said, “But let me take a few minutes to see if I can help.” Forty-five minutes later, I knew more about what it wasn’t, but could do little more than say goodnight and go to bed. Today, I decided to call again. A woman answered this time, informed me of my lapsed contract, and then said, “But let me see if I can help.” She gave me a good half hour of her time, finally passing me on to the Wireless Dept. of Apple Help, and to one more person who also told me I would need to pay for a service contract and then said, “But let me see if I can help.” He took me through some screens and maneuvers previously unknown to me and finally said the problem was with my DSL modem, which meant I needed to call Verizon. I was so far in already, I decided to keep going. I learned, first, that Verizon had a specific Mac department, so I got to make a second call and talked to yet another nice tech support person who had a whole new set of exercises for me to try. Just when it appeared I had flummoxed my fourth techie, he asked if he could “share my screen” and soon he was moving things around on my computer while I sat and watched. One of the windows he opened was one I had looked at with everyone I talked to. He stopped and asked if a small box at the bottom of the screen was checked. (I would give you more specifics, but I’m scared to open that window again for fear of changing something.) I told him it was, and he said, “That’s the problem. That box should not be checked. It’s often the problem, but it is such an insignificant thing that we often forget to look at it.”

And, with the click of a mouse, my problem was solved. OK, three hours later and a click of the mouse, but, hey, I’m back in business thanks to four very patient and personable people whom I met because I needed help.

And they helped me.

My morning began with my joining the story of Miep Gies already in progress on NPR’s Morning Edition. Gies is the person who hid Anne Frank and her family; the story was marking her death on January 11; at 100, she was the last of the Dutch citizens who hid the Franks from the Germans. I was struck, in particular, by this section of the story.

MIEP GIES: I, myself, I’m just a very common person. I simply had no choice. I could foresee many, many sleepless nights and a life filled with regret if I would have refused to help the Franks. And this was not the kind of life I was looking for at all.

TERI SCHULTZ (NPR Correspondent): Gies explained another motivation for emphasizing her modesty. She said if people are allowed to think it takes remarkable qualities to act boldly on behalf of others, few will attempt it.

Ms. GIES: People should never think that you have to be a very special person to help those who need you.

I suppose the truth in her words applies whether or not one’s life is on the line. I don’t mean to think of the kindness I received to carry the same weight as what Miep Gies did for Anne and her family, but I do think it’s the same motion. The difference is in degree, not substance. We were built to be kind, to be helpers, if we are willing to exercise those muscles.

On the same Friday night my Mac lost its way, Ginger and I spent some time at her favorite sermon incubator, the Starbucks on Guess Road. I didn’t yet know of my dilemma because I took only a book – one of my Christmas presents – Ed Dobson’s The Year of Living like Jesus. Dobson is a retired pastor who has ALS and decided to spend a year trying to live – eat, worship, act, speak, be – like Jesus as much as possible. As you can imagine, it was not an easy year. What struck me as much as anything was the way his search for Jesus pried open his heart to experience life with more compassion. We left the coffee shop in what was becoming a bitterly cold evening (even by Boston standards) and were talking as we drove home. Then Ginger said, “Maybe we should give the person at the bus stop a ride.”

I hadn’t seen a person or a bus stop, but I made a u-turn on what was an empty street, and we drove the two or three blocks back to where she was. Ginger rolled down the window and asked her if she wanted a ride. “Yes Ma’am,” she said, and got in the car. She was in her twenties, I figured out from what she told us of her story, and was on her way to see a friend. Durham is not that big a city, so we were only eight or ten minutes from her destination. We dropped her off and worked our way back home, wondering out loud why we didn’t pay more attention to lonely souls standing at bus stops. I was grateful we stopped; I was even more grateful for Ginger’s eyes. We may not have to be special people, you see, but we do have to look for one another.

Bob Bennett wrote a song many years ago on his Small Graces CD that I keep coming back to, and I thought of it again tonight. The chorus says, simply:

there’s a hand of kindness holding me
theres a hand of kindness holding me
holding on to me

I have learned (again) that kindness is not an abstraction; it is hands-on stuff. And we are the hands.

Peace,
Milton

I’m sorry I’ve been silent for a few days. The problem is with my MacBook, not me. For some reason, I can’t get on the Internet here at the house, which makes it hard to post. I’m writing now from Ginger’s computer that doesn’t appear to share my Mac’s reticence to engage. I will be back soon.