don't eat alone

I had a camera once that could take pictures
with everything in focus, from front to back,
each detail crisp, sharp, and identifiable.
I can’t do that with my own eyes, as

I learned again this week, driving through
Duke Forest, the variegated veil of fall flavors
cascading down from the tree tops to street level.
I pulled to the side of the road and gazed into

one canyon of color, layers of gold and green,
of umbers and ochres, shades of life and death,
and I wished for my old camera to let me see
all of them at once. Instead, I had to settle

for my human view, choosing the near or
the far or the in-betweens, a leafy lesson
to remind me how hard it is to carry both
dreams and memories, or hope and duty;

that the journey to wholeness is less about
seeing everything clearly than seeing
clearly that everything has its season,
its fleeting moment to be in plain view.

Peace,
Milton

Remember when Alanis Morissette told us irony was “like rain on your wedding day” – which is mostly sad and not ironic at all? Well, it’s not raining here in Durham, but I have my own offering of irony: I’ve been all set for a post on Sabbath for several days and haven’t made time to write.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

This weekend my church hosted a conference on “Faith and the Environment.” My contribution was to help prepare the meals on Friday night and Saturday morning. One of the conference organizers took me on a shopping spree at our State Farmers Market in Raleigh and almost everything we ate came from there. I met some great people doing some wonderful things on both small and large scales. And I heard Norman Wirzba talk about Sabbath and what the concept means for our care of and compassion for the creation of which we are a part.

Using the Genesis 1 account as a map of sorts, he took us on a journey through the days in which God spoke all that is us and around us into existence and then looked at the Seventh Day when God rested to reflect on the purpose behind everything that had been brought into being. The climax of creation, Wirzba said, was this act of menuha, tranquility and repose. Sabbath is not doing nothing, but resting, reflecting, reinvigorating. Rest, in this sense, is the opposite of restlessness.

I came away with a couple of quotes that have stayed with me through what has already been a more restless week than I would like. I will quote them and then tell you they pull me beyond the speech in our Fellowship Hall.

Creation is the place where the love of God is made concrete.

Creation is an act of ultimate hospitality: God made room for what was not God to be.

Though I have not been posting, I have managed to get back in the routine of my Morning Pages (thanks, in part, to Wirzba’s words), which I see as a moment of morning Sabbath, if you will. And as I have turned these two ideas over in my mind and heart, what keeps coming to mind pulls me to see them in the light of knowing that I am created in the image of God. As God spent the “week” breathing, speaking, imagining a universe with everything from light years to ladybugs into existence and then followed that brilliance with time to think about what it all meant, I have weeks of my own to consider. What am I breathing, speaking, and imagining into the world in which I live? How is my love made concrete in what I do? Or is it? And then the big one, for me: how am I making room for what is not me to be?

Twice this week I’ve answered my phone to hear the voice of an old friend. Two different friends, actually. Each one was calling from the road, on their way from one place to another, and began with the same sentence, “I was driving and thinking about you and thought I would call.” The conversations took different turns after their openings, but both had the same result: I hung up the phone feeling loved and connected to something beyond me: to memories and dusty dreams, to laughter and longing, to hope , and to love (as E. E. Cummings said) that is “more thicker than forget.”

Their love made concrete has made me wonder who needs to hear from me.

Working in a restaurant kitchen carries with it a certain sense of urgency: we work with perishable products, we are almost always facing a deadline, and, once service starts, we cook until they quit coming. All those things are true, as is the fact that our sense of urgency is as much self-imposed as it is false. I get more calls on my day off than a heart surgeon it seems sometimes, and most of them were, well, not urgent. But waiting is not one of our strong suits. I’m working to understand this urgent illusion because buying into it is one of the ways I end up not making room for what is not me to be. I can’t make room. I don’t have time. I have things to do.

But living into the wholeness of being created in God’s image is about time, not things. Abraham Joshua Heschel said:

The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept the premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own.

If time is at the core of what life means, even as God took the seventh day to relish and reflect on what he had brought to be, how then does time feel like such a tyrant? Why do I feel I have to wrestle my schedule to find time for Ginger, for writing, for life?

I am not living creatively, I think. God did not imagine me living this way. I want to take time to imagine living differently as well.

And then write a new creation story of my own.

Peace,
Milton

This came into my field of vision this morning and I thought it too good to keep to myself.

From Wallace Stevens — “Ask Me”

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Aske me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

Peace,
Milton

I stood one brilliant autumn afternoon
at Quincy Market and watched a man
juggle a bowling ball, a tennis racquet,
and a chainsaw with the same ease as
those of us who watched drank our
lattes and ate our cannolis; I wondered
how he practiced – what was it like
the first time he revved the engine
and threw the saw into the air?

If I could go back and find him, I would
say, “I know now.” I know you don’t
intend, you just juggle. When the
phone rings and says, “You must come,”
and the menus are due, and there are
friends to call and prescriptions to fill,
followed by the long plane ride home,
you just keep juggling; it’s what life is –
and everyday is show time.

Peace,
Milton

Years ago, I wrote a lyric for a Communion song called “Here’s to the Day” and the last verse says

gather in close cling to each other
sing to the night you don’t sing alone

This has been a day when I have been reminded, again, that life and faith are both team sports. We are not alone; we are all in this together, whatever the day brings. And so, as this day closes, I offer another familiar hymn, if you will, which holds as good a definition of love as I can find:

if you break down, I’ll drive out and find you

Patty Griffin wrote “When It Don’t Come Easy,” Justin McRoberts covers it (well) in the video below, and I offer it tonight as both an affirmation of what I learned again today and a word of thanks for all those who keep driving out for me.

Red lights are flashing on the highway
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonight
Everywhere the waters getting rough
Your best intentions may not be enough
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonight

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy

I don’t know nothing except change will come
Year after year what we do is undone
Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home

You’re out there walking down a highway
And all of the signs got blown away
Sometimes you wonder if you’re walking in the wrong direction

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy

So many things that I had before
That don’t matter to me now
Tonight I cry for the love that I’ve lost
And the love I’ve never found
When the last bird falls
And the last siren sounds
Someone will say what’s been said before
Some love we were looking for

But if you break down
I’ll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I’ll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don’t come easy

Peace,
Milton

Dad and I sat at breakfast yesterday and talked about the old hymns that fed our hope and faith in these days. This is the one I have been singing tonight, though not quite David Phelps.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

We have felt held by Love today. Mom had a long, hard day and also made progress. I feel both loved and grateful.

Peace,
Milton

it’s not what you know it’s what you don’t know
or what you’ll ever figure out
that takes you out where the wild things grow

and makes you wonder what you’ll have to show
for all the days of being devout
it’s not what you know it’s what you don’t know

that hints at what grace can bestow
as love demands a different route
and takes you out where the wild things grow

beyond what feels safe or apropos
where you feel less “with” and more “without”
it’s not what you know it’s what you don’t know

that pulls at your heart like an undertow
and smells of rain in the dust of drought
that calls you out where the wild things grow

beyond what feels safe or apropos
in the daily mix of faith and doubt
it’s not what you know it’s what you don’t know
that takes you out where the wild things grow

I have a love-loathe relationship with much of the technology that gets thrown at us. I love my laptop and I wish the manufacturers had chosen to make sure they were making a great mobile phone before they added all the un-phone features to it. And I don’t really get the whole Twitter thing. Those of you who know me will understand. When have I ever been able to express myself in under one hundred and forty words? Tonight, however, I am thankful for the technology that makes Facebook possible because I have found great comfort there.

My mother had surgery on Thursday. The sentence in itself is not remarkable; my mother has had more surgeries than I can count. When we lived in Boston, I used to tease that she was much like the USS Constitution: still in commission and only about twenty percent original material. My mother is also the most tenacious person I know. She is undaunted by difficulty and determined to push through and keep going. So when the call came last night that the surgery itself was successful, in that they were able to do the necessary repair, but her heart was not keeping a normal rhythm, the news landed hard here at our house. I sat down and posted a few sentences on Facebook asking for prayer and within minutes – literally – the responses began to come. By this morning there were over forty, words of hope and solidarity from most every chapter of my life:

high school friends from Nairobi, Fort Worth, and Houston;
childhood friends;
church folks from Westbury Baptist, where Dad pastored;
folks from the youth and college groups at University Baptist;
friends from Dallas days;
Baylor friends;
seminary friends;
Boston and Winchester and Marshfield and Hanover friends;
Durham friends;
and blog friends,
to name a few.

Reflecting on a youth camp experience, my friend Billy Crockett wrote a song years ago called, “Lines,” that sets to music what I saw happening on my screen and in my heart over the last twenty-four hours:

A spider spins the lines from leaf to ladder
A trellis spans the canyon to Katmandu
A transatlantic cable carries transatlantic chatter
And there are lines that run from me to you

Lines that run from vine to branches
Lines that carry love’s advances
For those who try
To find their place in time
There are lines … lines

There are lines and I can see them. I am trusting they are strong as we head for Texas in the morning to be with my mother and my family. Some of you I may get to see face to face over the next few days; most of you I will not. But I am leaning hard on the promise that life and faith are team sports, that we are in this together, and that nothing – NOTHING – separates us from Love.

Lines that run from vine to branches
Lines that carry love’s advances
For those who try
To find their place in time
And for those who long
To know that they belong
For those who pray
And those who up and walk away
There are lines … lines

I feel loved. I feel connected. I feel grateful.

Peace,
Milton

P.S. — This is a link to an old recipe, but it is one that we had for lunch today in honor of my mother.

it’s not the same you know

waiting in line
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting (waiting) for the world to change

tonight I am not passing time
or fostering impatience
I am waiting for news
No – I am weighting for news
time is not passing
time is falling in layers
each one heavier than the last
each one heavy with hope
and uncertainty

I am weighting for the phone to ring
and, yes, for the world to change

Peace,
Milton

Tonight was a night to remember in the kitchen because nothing really happened. And it was a night I learned from my coworkers.

I shared the evening with Mitch, our line cook (and among the best read line cooks with whom I’ve had the privilege of working), and Arnaldo, our dish washer (whom I have written about before). Both of them are at stations in their lives where working part-time in our little kitchen is what they need to do. It was an average evening from a business standpoint, which meant we had time to talk as we worked, and time to get to know one another better.

Mitch is an avowed Bob Dylan fan and brought a CD of John Wesley Harding in for us to listen to as we prepped for dinner. In the process of the rambling discussion that followed about favorite Dylan songs, I learned that he sang at the March on Washington. Right after Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered “I Have a Dream,” he sang “When the Ship Comes In.”

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

We got off to a slow start, which meant Arnaldo had finished the pots and pans left from the afternoon prep and was with us on the line, because he makes the salads and desserts. I knew from talking with him before that he had some ship stories of his own, and that he had been in the Cuban Army and had been sent as a solider to fight in Angola back in the Seventies. He also had told me the reason he left Cuba was they wanted him to go and fight in Ethiopia, but he refused. Tonight, he was telling Mitch the story and he responded to Arnaldo by saying, “You were a part of the Mariel Boatlift?” (Like I said, Mitch is one well-read line cook.)

Arnaldo smiled. “You’re a smart guy, he said. I tell my story all the time and nobody in America knows about Mariel.” Between April and September, 1980, Cuba allowed people to come to the United States. (This is a really simplified telling.) One of the controversies was some of the folks Cuba sent our way were prisoners they wanted to get rid of. Arnaldo chose to come because they said they would imprison him for life for not being willing to fight if he didn’t leave. He knew nobody here, spoke no English, and came to Durham because of a sponsorship through a Presbyterian church. After a year, the sponsorship dried up and he was on his own. Now, almost thirty years later, he is washing dishes in our kitchen, showering us all with his indefatigable kindness, and singing Cuban songs as he goes about his work.

Earlier this week, my friend, Gordon posted a wonderful article on the essential impact of individual relational encounters. He words have hung on to me since I read them:

I tend to be a little suspicious when I hear someone refer to large, vague categories of people. We often speak of “the poor” and “the rich,” as though those groups had unionized and were meeting regularly to decide policy and organize action committees. “If only the rich would be more generous,” one person bemoans, while a another says, “If only the poor would take advantage of their opportunities.” I’ve got news for you. The rich and the poor will never act in one accord because there are no such groups. There are only people. Some are rich, some are poor, most are in between, and all of them are individuals. And in the end, I believe that loving individual people is our first and highest calling.

I came home tonight to words my blogging friend, Simon, shared as a part of his latest blog post, quoting Jurgen Moltmann “on the contemporary ‘distress of time’ and the advent of ‘homo accelerandus’”:

He has a great many encounters, but does not really experience anything, since although he wants to see everything, he internalizes nothing and reflects upon nothing. He has a great many contacts but no relationships, since he is unable to linger because he is always ‘in a hurry’. He devours ‘fast food’, preferably while standing, because he is no longer able to enjoy anything; after all, a person needs time for enjoyment, and time is precisely what he does not have.

I can recognize the accelerated being in myself far more quickly than I would like. My days fill up and drag on at a pace that make both my knees and my heart ache. With that in mind, I can do nothing better tonight than to make time for thanks. I am deeply grateful for an evening of discovery, sailing with the two of my crew around the room on the sea of conversation, fueled by the winds of music and memory, and the reminder that what truly saves us is sailing together.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — Here’s Bob.