I like to know what’s next as much as possible, so when they call and say, “We need you to work a dinner Saturday,” I wish they would tell me the occasion and the menu, just so I have an idea of how to prepare myself to prepare the meal. I think differently for salmon than sirloin.
Catering, for the most part, means cooking blind: going to the gig to finish what those in the prep kitchen have begun, following their list, counting on them to have done their jobs, relinquishing any wish for control or simply being informed. I don’t know what’s for dinner until I start cooking it.
In the restaurant, the menu means I know what I’m cooking, but not for whom, leaving me with an equal measure of uncertainty. Fair warning is not an ingredient in most of life’s recipes. Still, I know my hands and my heart, I know how to get ready and remember the key is not ingredients, but intention.
One could wish for a day that was carbonated, words rising effervescently, even effortlessly to the top, bubbles of hope bursting on the surface. Today is not that day; nor yesterday. I’m waiting for the plumber to come find the block on our main drain, somewhere between here and the street, underneath the growing grass and the nascent hasta, underground where the words are trapped in the sludge, unable to bore their way to the surface, or to flow through to the drain under the street.
One would think, in these days so full of friends and family and meaning, the real struggle would be to keep the words from coming; how could I keep from writing? My life goes on, breakless and brakeless, trading exhaustion for expression, even as my heart fills up and overflows. My body stops and my mind races on; my brain finally tires and I toss and turn. Be still, I say, but I can’t. Instead, I pace the house looking for words, waiting for the plumber.
if it’s going to be fresh then it must be done everyday: today and tomorrow and the day after that. most of what we think of as life and cooking is preparation, or at least that’s what we call it. in fact, the chopping and peeling, the slicing, marinating – all of those things we think of as “the getting ready” are really the show: one long act of love and labor that puts the plate on the table or makes room for the moment when we get to say, “I love you” to one another — fresh everyday.
I turn down our tree-lined streets, the empty branches reaching skyward yearning skeletons just now beginning to show signs of new life, the groans of creation tuning up like an orchestra preparing to play a new symphony.
Yet, the trees have not been silent all winter. Their shadow song is harder, but a melody nonetheless. The strains of pain and silence are not easy playing or listening, yet an essential movement to inform the resurgent joy that comes with recreation, reawakening, rebirth —
and I am Nicodemus, wondering how we, as collective Creation can carry all our weight and worry back into God’s womb and come forth singing a new song. Biology breaks down in ways melody does not. We aren’t going back, but forward, from womb to womb,
birth to birth, song to song, from God to God, moving symphonically from stark to lush, from solo to emsemble, from pianissimo to forte and back again. Newborn babies cry – as do widows and orphans, the homeless and the hopeful: tears are our shared melody.
Brilliance with numbers is a curious thing. Paul Erdos, a Hungarian who died in 1996, used to travel the world and stop briefly at the offices and homes of fellow mathematicians. “My brain is open,” he would announce as, with uncanny intuition, he suggested a problem that, without realizing it, his host was already halfway to solving. Together they would find the solution. (“Let’s Talk About Figures” The Economist, March 22, 2008)
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24: 30-32)
algebra
I got lost when the numbers changed to letters and Mrs. Gibbs refused to give me directions: “I don’t answer stupid questions,” she said, and closed my brain. I can still hear her shouting down my attempt to understand algebra, or seeing it as a way of understanding.
I was on the other side of the desk when a student said of Shakespeare, “This is like algebra,” without closing her brain or her heart. She was right and I was already on the way to seeing that “to be or not to be?” was not a stupid question, nor a solitary one.
Jesus walked the Emmaus Road and asked, “What are you discussing?” and they began explaining the algebra of resurrection, even though most of the equation was still unsolved. Jesus broke the bread in two and their hearts open and on fire.
Conventional wisdom would assume a poem should be a bit more algebraic than this one, I suppose. It reduces rather quickly to wonder what we might find when we see questions as serendipitous rather than stupid and answer, “My heart is open.”
A poem is like a ball park (or is the park like a poem?): some precise measurements – the height of the mound, the length of the base paths, the size of the ball – yet each park is its own, each outfield shaped by Green Monsters and short porches; the rules apply and no two are exactly the same.
The batter who can hit one out of every three balls is a success; true, also, of the poet: one out of three ain’t bad. And, every so often, the right words come, lining up the way Manny locks in on a high fast one and swings for the fences, dropping his bat and watching in wonder before he runs home. Pure poetry.
I spent the weekend leading a youth retreat for a church in Virginia where a good friend pastors. The group of fifteen included kids from seventh through twelfth grade. They are kind, gentle, fun, and welcoming people. The weekend was scheduled to take the word retreat seriously: we have a few sessions and a great deal of free time, which we used walking together, talking together, playing guitars together, and consuming an inordinate amount of junk food.
As I was driving up to meet them — it’s been a long time since I drove north to Virginia (well there’s the opening line to a country song if I ever heard it) – I kept wondering how a teenager thinks about following Jesus in this overwhelming world, so I decided that’s what I would talk about. In the second session, we looked at the Beatitudes. We read them and then I asked, “Who are the poor in spirit?”
One seventh grade girl raised her hand, which she does every time there is a question, and she said, “I think they are the people who don’t know how much God loves them because they don’t love themselves.” There was an audible “Wow!” in the room and we all congratulated her.
“If that’s our working definition,” I said, “then what are they inheriting if theirs is the kingdom of heaven?”
Another seventh grader raised his hand. “I think of the kingdom of heaven like a big table where everyone gets to eat and there’s always an empty chair for anyone who wants to sit down.”
From what I learned about the kids in the group, they were well acquainted with grief. One kid’s dad just got back from Iraq and is a good candidate for the lead role in a remake of The Great Santini. The girl who talked about the poor in spirit pretty much described herself; the boy who talked about God’s extravagant welcome incarnated it, despite his own struggles and sorrow. There was plenty of pain to go around. Plenty of love, too.
The other thing I did as I drove to Virginia was listen to music. I burned a few CDs of songs my nephew, Tim, gave me when he was here and didn’t get through too many of them because I kept listening to one made up of original songs by him and his older brother, Ben. They call themselves, “The Olive Tree”. On the way home, I put the CD in again because I wanted to hear one song in particular, “These Things,” which Ben signs, hit me hard because I knew the back story. His aunt, on my sister-in-law’s side of the family, died of cancer last year, leaving a husband and two small children. Here are the words to the first verse and chorus:
my aunt she died and left my uncle dying in their room the morning weighed a million pounds and he could hardly move two children in the house somewhere who won’t come down the stairs wondering what will life be without their mother there
he hits the door and hits the floor and give anyone a call and I’m listening to his sister talk to him right down the hall words of resurrection love and pain through the tears and I hit the road to take for granted my mother’s still here
I think about these things I don’t know what they mean is there joy in suffering I think about these things
it’s gonna be alright it’s gonna be alright though the darkness holds tight we’re locked into the light
I called him to make sure he knew how the truth of his poetry had hit me – particularly the last two lines:
though the darkness holds tight we’re locked into the light
Harlan Howard said, “Country music is three chords and the truth.” Though Ben and Tim write in a more alt-country vein, they prove his words.
When I left town, I thought I was going to speak. Thank God I had time to listen. It was when I did my best work.
You’ve talked to me for years and I’ve listened. Does that count as conversation? I can still see myself walking out of Baylor Records with a copy of Nothin’ But The Truth tucked under my arm; I spent the better part of the next week listening to you sing and wishing I knew your language. All these years I’ve kept quiet, except to pick up my guitar and sing your words from time to time. Does that count as conversation? And now I see you sitting and talking with my old friend – we’ve listened to you together for a long time – and he got to talk back, and to keep listening. I watched from far away and imagined myself pulling up a chair. It’s my job that kept me from getting there; I think you might understand. I’ll have to settle for that, and that I can keep listening – oh, and say, “Thank you.” I think that counts.
I’ve been staring at the screen for awhile now, trying to think of a way to bring this year’s Lenten Journal to an end and I have not found them — at least, I haven’t found words of my own. What I have found are words I first heard on Bob Bennett’s record, First Things First: the hymn, “My Reedemer Lives,” written by Samuel Medley in 1775.
I know that my Redeemer lives; What comfort this sweet sentence gives! He lives, He lives, who once was dead; He lives, my ever-living Head.
He lives triumphant from the grave, He lives eternally to save, He lives all-glorious in the sky, He lives exalted there on high.
He lives to bless me with His love, He lives to plead for me above. He lives my hungry soul to feed, He lives to help in time of need.
He lives to grant me rich supply, He lives to guide me with His eye, He lives to comfort me when faint, He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.
He lives to silence all my fears, He lives to wipe away my tears He lives to calm my troubled heart, He lives all blessings to impart.
He lives, my kind, wise, heavenly Friend, He lives and loves me to the end; He lives, and while He lives, I’ll sing; He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King.
He lives and grants me daily breath; He lives, and I shall conquer death: He lives my mansion to prepare; He Iives to bring me safely there.
He lives, all glory to His name! He lives, my Jesus, still the same. Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives, “I know that my Redeemer lives!”
Holy Week has had to jockey for space on the calendar this week like an NCAA basketball player working to get in position under the basket. Monday was Saint Patrick’s Day. Tuesday, Barack Obama made his amazing speech on race in America in which, as John Stewart said, “talked to us as if we were adults. Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq even as we near the tragic milestone of the deaths of 4000 American service men and women there, not to mention the thousands of Iraqis who have perished.
In my reading today (and I can’t remember where I first found the link), I learned about a benefit that was held this week in New York for Jack Agüeros, a Puerto Rican poet who is living with Alzheimer’s and who writes psalms like this one, so applicable this week after Obama’s speech:
Psalm for Open Clouds and Windows
Lord, reserve a place for me in heaven on a cloud with Indians, Blacks, Jews, Irish, Italians, Portuguese, and lots of Asians and Arabs, and Hispanics. Lord, I don’t mind if they play their music too loudly, or if they leave their windows open – I like the smell of ethnic foods. But Lord, if heaven isn’t integrated, and if any Angels are racists, I swear I’m going to be a no-show because, Lord, I have already seen hell.
from “Lord, Is This a Psalm?”
Today, according to The Writer’s Almanac, marks the birthdays of Stephen Sondheim, Billy Collins, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I’ll admit I’m more a fan of the first two than the last, yet Webber’s show, Jesus Christ Superstar, holds a special significance to me. The first live rock event I ever attended was a concert version of the musical that came to the Tarrant County Convention Center when I was in high school. My dad took my brother and me. I was mesmerized from start to finish. I saw the show years later in full musical form and have watched the movie more than once or twice. I think what pulls me most is the way the disciples are presented as both flawed and well-intentioned: faithful failures, if you will – like you and me.
As my personal calendar has run parallel to Holy Week, Good Friday and Holy Saturday have been unpacking and hanging picture days at our house. As the hours of the Crucifixion passed, I was driving nails into the walls to hold keepsakes to make our new house begin to feel like home – and I watched my fair share of basketball, a microcosm of my Lenten season as a whole: flawed and well-intentioned. In the midst of my tasks, I looked up tonight and it was dark outside, before I had a chance to mow the yard, and the metaphor was not lost on me. While I was busy doing what I was doing, Holy Week moved from the cross to the tomb and the darkest days of the year.
Our observance of Jesus’ journey through death should probably carry a spoiler alert because we know the triumphant ending before he even dies. As Tony Campolo has often said, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Those who were with him in real time didn’t have that assurance. In Superstar, those who were left behind sing, “Could We Start Again Please.”
MARY MAGDALENE
I’ve been living to see you. Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this. This was unexpected, What do I do now? Could we start again please? I’ve been very hopeful, so far. Now for the first time, I think we’re going wrong. Hurry up and tell me, This is just a dream. Oh could we start again please?
PETER
I think you’ve made your point now. You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home. Before it gets too frightening, We ought to call a vote, So could we start again please?
ALL
I’ve been living to see you. Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this. This was unexpected, What do I do now? Could we start again please? I think you’ve made your point now. You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home. Before it gets too frightening, We ought to call a vote, So could we start again please? Could we start again please? (Repeat 5 times)
MARY MAGDALENE
Could we start again?
A significant source of the hope I find in the Resurrection is the stone rolls away to answer that question with a resounding, “YES.” As Kyle Matthews wrote,
we fall down, we get up we fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get up and the saints are just the sinners who fall down and get up
Today is also World Water Day. The event has gone largely unnoticed by the general public over the last several years, but the state of our world is such that, before long, we will begin speaking of water in much the same language we now speak of oil. Agüeros has a psalm that speaks to that as well:
Psalm for Distribution
Lord, on 8th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway there are enough shoe stores with enough shoes to make me wonder why there are shoeless people on the earth.
Lord, You have to fire the Angel in charge of distribution.
–from “Lord, Is This a Psalm?” (Hanging Loose Press, 2002)
As we prepare to start again come Sunday, let us pray for eyes to see that we are the angels of distribution, that we are the incarnation of God’s love in our world, that we are the conduits of God’s grace and not the arbiters of God’s judgment.
