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mouse hockey

0

I first saw the phrase
in the title of her note;
I’d never thought of it.
I’m sure it’s old news
in Toronto and Alberta
where they’ve moved
beyond poker-playing
dogs to a world where
mice come out checking,
skating, slap-shotting,
even riding the little
Zamboni, while rodent
fans toss back a couple
beers between periods.

Now I’m wide awake,
during dreaming hours,
playing this thing out
in my mind as though
there were somewhere
to go when all I’m doing
is setting myself up for
someone to ask why
I’m tired. “Mouse Hockey,”
I’ll say, straight-faced
and hope they can push
past the poker pups
to the frozen fortunes
of mice on ice.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There’s a new recipe.

white man’s burden

11

Say it loud: I’m white and male and not very proud.

And it’s all thanks to two NPR stories. The first came as I was driving to work. WUNC, our local station hosts a program called The State of Things. Frank Stasio’s topic today was “Hillary and Obama.” I came in on the middle of the conversation at the same time as a caller had his say. He talked about being a life long Democrat and then he said, “If Obama is our candidate, I think I’m just going to have to vote for McCain. He’s a Republican I can tolerate.”

Stasio pressed him: “Is one of the reasons you would vote for Obama because he’s black?”

The guy paused and said, “Honestly, yeah. And there are a lot of us that feel this way.”

A couple of hours later, the show was Day to Day and the story centered on John Edwards’ decision to “suspend his candidacy,” as he put it. Rather than spend much time talking about Edwards, the story focused on his absence and in particular who white men are going to vote for now that only a white woman and a black man are left – and they talked about it for a long time with several people as though white guys didn’t know what to do.

I actually dropped my knife on the cutting board and said, “Are you frickin’ kidding me?” (I was alone in the kitchen at the time.)

For the past seven years, I’ve done menial labor as a kitchen worker. It’s good work, it’s honorable work, it’s creative work, it’s what I love to do, and it’s menial labor because every night at the end of the shift I sweep the floor and push three fifty-five gallon trash cans to the dumpster and empty them. But even if I’m pushing those bins through the back hallways at Duke, I still get deferential treatment from a lot of the other workers because I’m a white male: I’m The Man.

It’s a club I wish I could unjoin.

When I was in Baylor, I qualified to join some honor society whose Greek letters I can no longer recall. It’s only value was it went on my transcript to make me look more intelligent, I guess, to future employers or graduate schools. My sophomore year, I went to the meeting where we were to accept new members. All of the applicants were qualified to join by a long shot. The president stood up and began to go through the process of voting on each one. I raised my hand and asked why we didn’t take them all, since it was an honor society and they all met the requirements. His answer was if we let everyone in then it would be as special for those who made it.

I never went to another meeting.

As a high school English teacher, I refused to allow my students to use “man” or “men” as though they referred to everyone. Every semester, someone would say, “But they’ve always been used to mean everyone.”

My response was, “They were used to mean everyone, when everyone meant the white males. When the Declaration of Independence says, ‘All men are created equal,’ it meant the white men; it didn’t mean everyone. Men means men. English is a big language; don’t let your lack of vocabulary limit your inclusivity.”

White men have been in charge for a long time. They still are – just look at who was sitting in the room during Bush’s speech the other night: a sea of dark suits, red or blue ties) and lots of white, wrinkled skin. That Hillary and Obama stand to make history one way or another is one of the signs that life isn’t always going to be so white and white. We’re going to come out on level ground more and more (and probably act like we got cheated out of something). And we need to quit whining about how immigrants and minorities get special treatment. We’ve been treated special the whole time. I don’t get followed around in a store because they think I’m going to shoplift because of the color of my skin. I don’t get stopped by the cops because they think I’m the wrong color to be driving such a nice car. I don’t get dragged off by INS because my last name matches on their list, even though the list is wrong. I’m not expected to stay home with the kids and I don’t get blamed for latch-key children because I choose to have a career and a family.

I don’t do much of anything that elicits the response: “I never saw a white man do that. Good for you. Your people must be so proud.”

Not voting for someone because of the color of his or her skin is not just wrong, it’s ignorant. Expecting to get my way because of the color of my skin is no different. In my lifetime, I’m going to become a minority: there will be more people of color than white people in America. I’m not saying that as a threat; I say it with eager anticipation. White men have had a long time to be in charge and we’ve shown we pretty much suck at everything but reminding people we’re in charge and picking fights (The White Man in Chief being our most recent shining example).

What was it Jesus said? Oh, yes – “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

Damn. Every time one of those minorities speaks up, I have to move back.

Peace,
Milton

state of the union

0

After what I saw of the State of the Union address last night, I couldn’t help but think of Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington,” which he wrote in the late nineties. Ten years later, the parties’ names are interchangeable. When Steve introduces the song, he often says, “This is a song about heroes.”

It’s Christmastime in Washington
The Democrats rehearsed
Gettin’ into gear for four more years
Things not gettin’ worse

The Republicans drink whiskey neat
And thanked their lucky stars
They said, ‘He cannot seek another term
There’ll be no more FDRs’

I sat home in Tennessee
Staring at the screen
With an uneasy feeling in my chest
And I’m wonderin’ what it means

So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now

I followed in your footsteps once
Back in my travelin’ days
Somewhere I failed to find your trail
Now I’m stumblin’ through the haze

But there’s killers on the highway now
And a man can’t get around
So I sold my soul for wheels that roll
Now I’m stuck here in this town

So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now

There’s foxes in the hen house
Cows out in the corn
The unions have been busted
Their proud red banners torn

To listen to the radio
You’d think that all was well
But you and me and Cisco know
It’s going straight to hell

So come back, Emma Goldman
Rise up, old Joe Hill
The barricades are goin’ up
They cannot break our will

Come back to us, Malcolm X
And Martin Luther King
We’re marching into Selma
As the bells of freedom ring

So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now


The best video I could find was Steve singing the song with Joan Baez.

If only our politicians knew what it meant to be leaders.

Peace,
Milton

a question

6

What’s the point of pain?

That’s the question that ran through my mind last night as I drove home from work. When I wrote about remembering a few posts back, one of the lines from the clip of Jerry Orbach singing, “Try to Remember” was

deep in december it’s nice to remember
without a hurt the heart is hollow.

Why is that nice to remember? What if we remembered when we were whole, not hollow, before we ever started hurting? Right now I have folks I care about who are in deep pain: one’s father is dying at a time when the family is fractured; one’s young child is dying because there seems to be no other option; Ginger’s father’s mind is being slowly erased by Alzheimer’s. The pain appears to be eating them up, rather than making them whole.

What’s the point of their pain?

After mentioning them, I must say the cause of my question is something less earth-shattering and still difficult. When it comes to relationships, I can more quickly move to talk about the meaning of suffering, or at least making meaning of suffering. In living with my depression, I’ve learned a great deal about how pain informs hope and strengthens it. I have heard the words of those who know about suffering much more than I and who have passed down songs which give melody to the meaning they know in their lives. We just got the latest Mavis Staples record and when she sings

we shall not, we shall not be moved
we shall not, we shall not be moved
like a reed planted by the water
we shall not be moved.

The second time I heard the song, I began to wonder when a reed became so immovable. Like a boulder, or a mountain, maybe, but a reed? The melodic truth is there is an uncomfortable vulnerability to being human.

Now that I’m treading in such deep theological and philosophical waters, the reason for my question is almost hard to articulate: our house in Massachusetts has still not sold. We have never been in a financial situation to be interstate landowners, so things are getting pretty serious. Sometimes it feels as though our options lie between desperate and humiliating. I think the reason the whole thing raised my question is I don’t see some grand theological swirl to what we’re living through. The whole struggle feels pointless. And Mavis is still singing:

got my hand on the freedom plow
wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now
keep your eyes on the prize – hold on.

When I hear those words, I feel humbled long before I feel hopeful. She knows pain far deeper than anything in my life and she’s still singing about standing strong and holding on , while I would take most anything for this part of the journey.

One of the book reviews at Journeys with Jesus is of Stanley Hauerwas’ commentary on Matthew in the new Brazos Commentary series. In the review, I found this quote from the book:

The problem, after all, is not belief in the resurrection, but whether we live lives that would make sense if in fact Jesus has not been raised from the dead.

Even though their words make clear the difference between a gospel singer and a religion professor, they both articulate something that feels a bit out of reach to me right now, as do Paul’s words from Romans 8:28:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (RSV)

Life, for me and even more so for many more around me, feels more like the verses Paul quotes a little farther down in the same chapter:

For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

If Mavis and Stanley are right, I need to hold on to Paul’s finishing words:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Lent is a little over a week away; my journey appears to be already beginning.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — Here’s Mavis.

the art of living

1

I intended to write more this evening, but instead I got to paint.

My friend Doug is in town and he is an artist. I asked for a painting lesson, so tonight we sat down in the dining room and he constructed a still life centered around a ceramic Winnie the Pooh I have (at Ginger’s suggestion) and we painted. First, he painted a study to show me how to do it and then he instructed me as I did my own version. Here are the finished products. (Mine is the one on the left.)


The experience was full of so many good things for me, not the least of which was getting to hang out and do something creative with my good friend who is really good at painting. I got to learn something new, too, which is always worth the trip. What I loved most was listening to Doug talk about how a painting comes to be. He talked about values and colors and light and shadows. His instruction was about painting and was also parable for me because it led me to think again about how the creative tensions in our lives are what make us grow and thrive.

Painting is full of polarities: light and dark, cool and warm colors, translucent and opaque. When Doug talked about the colors, he even spoke in opposites. When we started painting, it was the collusion of the opposites – the mixing of colors, the grasping of shadows – that brought the image to be on our boards. Our creativity was fed as we worked with the tension between the poles instead of choosing one side or another.

The point of this little painting parable is one I think you can see coming, but I’ll say it anyway. A big part of what stagnates us as a country is we, as Americans, deal with most issues as either/or: we are attracted to the poles in most any discussion. We take our sides on either end of whatever the discussion and then yell back and forth at each other as if that counts as conversation. Rather than moving to a more creative place, we end up hoarse and hostile.

I’m not saying the answer is some sort of middle way that “tolerates” everyone and accomplishes very little. I am saying we have the possibility of being creators when we are willing to listen to both poles and live in the creative tension that grows when we don’t move too quickly to claim our values are absolute. Whatever the issue — global or local, institutional or relational – we all have something to learn, something to teach, and room to grow.

The art of painting means learning how to integrate the opposites in a way that creates something beautiful. The art of living is not so different.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There’s a new recipe.

heart breaking news

2

Gaza is one of the Palestinian Territories on the border between Israel and Egypt and a part of the land taken by Israel in the 1967 war. Conditions these days have continued to worsen because of an Israeli blockade on the area that has not allowed even food and fuel to get into Gaza. Reuters has a good article on the situation here. They also give some good background facts:

HISTORY OF THE TERRITORY:

Gaza has been continuously inhabited for more than 3,000 years. It was a crossroads of ancient civilizations and a strategic outpost on the Mediterranean. The Bible says Samson died in Gaza while destroying the Temple of the Philistines.

It is believed to be the burial place of Prophet Mohammad’s great grandfather.

The Ottoman Empire ruled Gaza for hundreds of years until World War One when it came under British rule along with the rest of Palestine. It came under Egyptian control in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel’s creation.

Gaza’s population tripled in 1948-49 when it absorbed about a quarter of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees displaced from areas that are now part of Israel.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 war and ended its military presence there in September 2005, having removed 8,500 Jewish settlers from 21 enclaves after almost four decades of occupation.

Israel resumed ground operations in June 2006 after militants from Gaza tunneled across the border and captured an Israeli soldier, who is still being held.

Just one year later in June 2007, Hamas Islamists took control of the Gaza Strip in fighting with their secular Fatah rivals, triggering the closure of front-line crossing points. Aid agencies warned of growing hardship for ordinary people.

More recently Israel closed its borders with Gaza, cutting fuel supplies to the territory’s main power plant and petrol stations and stopping aid shipments that include food and other humanitarian supplies. The closure raised international concern over a potential humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel said the blockade is a bid to curb rocket salvoes fired into Israel.

LIVING IN GAZA:

About 1.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza, more than half of them refugees from past wars with Israel and their descendants. Gaza has one of the world’s highest population densities and demographic growth rates.

Most Gazans live on less than $2 a day. Israeli security closures curbing cross-border trade and access to jobs and Western sanctions imposed after Hamas came to power in early 2006 have hit the Palestinian economy hard.

Gaza’s creaking sewage system became the latest casualty of Israeli sanctions aimed at getting Hamas to halt militant rocket fire from the impoverished territory. Officials at the local Palestinian water utility said more than half of Gaza’s population had no running water this week.

Heba of Contemplating From Gaza, one of the blogs I read, wrote an article on her personal experience here.

Last night, someone blew holes in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt, allowing thousands of Palestinians the chance to cross over and get sorely needed food, fuel, and other supplies. Here are two video reports, from Reuters and Al-Jazeera.

Since it took me awhile to find much focus on the situation among American media, I thought I would pass this along.

Peace,
Milton

birches

1

The Writer’s Almanac put me back in touch with a poem I deeply love yesterday. Since I’m struggling to find words of my own tonight, I’ll let Robert Frost do the talking.

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from the town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Peace,
Milton

underneath the satellite sky

5

Ever since I wrote the post on memory the other day, I’ve had the Hubble Telescope on my mind (which may explain the headaches). I don’t know much at all about the giant flying machine except it is discovering all kinds of things about our universe and sending back pictures that are absolutely amazing. When I went to the website today, I found this image of an Einstein Ring


and this explanation:

The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull’s-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. This very rare phenomenon can offer insight into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and even the curvature of the universe. The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive galaxy in the foreground bends the light rays from a distant galaxy behind it, in much the same way as a magnifying glass would. When both galaxies are exactly lined up, the light forms a circle, called an “Einstein ring,” around the foreground galaxy. If another background galaxy lies precisely on the same sightline, a second, larger ring will appear. The massive foreground galaxy is almost perfectly aligned in the sky with two background galaxies at different distances. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away. The inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 billion and approximately 11 billion light-years. The odds of seeing such a special alignment are estimated to be 1 in 10,000.

What I understand about those words is what looks like a single image to me is the alignment of light particles just now getting to where we can see them that range from 3 to 11 billion light years away and the chance of them lining up as they did is better than the chance of me winning the state lottery.

Here are two other images I saw (took) today:

Ginger and I participated in Durham’s Annual Martin Luther King Celebration March and Rally with several hundred folks who walked side by side through downtown and ended up worshipping together (more than rallying) at First Presbyterian Church. This is my first experience living in a town so directly affected by King and all of the Civil Rights Movement. The history I had been taught second hand, the experiences I had growing up in Africa, the way Martin’s words and writings have influenced me over the years, and the spirit of those with whom I walked today aligned to give me my own little Einstein Ring, I guess I could say, bending the light and dark of all these experiences into a picture I had not anticipated.

You see, the reason Hubble had been on my mind is I’ve been thinking about all the things it had gone past. The pictures get cooler and more amazing and the gallery gets larger and larger and stuff gets left behind. (My metaphor breaks down a bit here. Hubble is actually orbiting the earth taking pictures deeper and deeper into space; I didn’t know that when I was thinking about this stuff so bear with me.) Hubble was launched in 1990, the same year Ginger and I married. In the same years that it’s lens has been pointing deeper and deeper into the universe, my focus has not been quite as singular. I’ve been a youth minister, a Blockbuster video guy, a substitute teacher, an English teacher, a concert security guy, and a chef – and that’s just the jobs. I’ve made candles and handmade cards, painted with watercolors, learned to write icons, written songs, wrote the draft of a novel, am trying to put together a book of poetry and recipes, and written this blog. I’ve lived in four towns, five houses, and had six schnauzers. I’ve worked on Habitat projects, written letters for Amnesty, cooked who knows how many church dinners and breakfasts, had three foster kids, and probably lost track of more stuff than I’ve hung on to. Whether I’m in orbit or hurtling through space, stuff – even important stuff – has gotten left behind.

Yet, when I read about the Einstein Ring, which I found by accident on the Hubble site as I went to find the link for this post, it gave me a different way to think about it. When we say a star is three billion light years away, it means the light we are seeing is three billion years old: that’s how long it took to get where we can see it. Sometimes the light from things long ago takes a while to get here and, when it does, it shines in such a way to make connections we had not seen before. Sure, some stuff stays behind us (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) and there are things we will not understand until the light of both the past and the present hits just right.

Ginger came home from another MLK service this evening and, in the course of our conversation, said, “You know, the world is really different than it was forty years ago.”

Yes, it is. We can see that now.

Peace,
Milton

walking with martin

When I was in seminary, I took voice lessons because I wanted to learn to sing better. We had a musical school that offered voice to non-majors, so I went and asked and they agreed. One of the songs I learned was “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked,” which was sung from the vantage point of one walking through Palestine and being in all the places where Jesus once was. At the time, the song was something to help me learn to sing. Some years later, Ginger and I got to go to Israel and Palestine. When we walked from the Mount of Olives up to the small stairs that entered the Old City on the way to Caiaphas’ house, our guide said, “I can tell you for a fact Jesus walked up these stairs. Much has changed since those days, but these stairs have always been in use. Ginger and I scooted our feet across every inch of the stones and wept, overcome that we had walked that day where Jesus had also walked.

I thought about that song in church this morning as we focused our worship around the life, words, and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. One of our older members, a retired minister, gave the children’s message and talked about King coming to Durham and Chapel Hill to meet with thirty-five white ministers who wanted to know how they could help. When he got to town, they realized there was not a restaurant in the area that would allow them to eat together, so Dewitt said, “Come over to my house.” He went on to say when they got to the house they offered Dr. King his choice of the chairs in the room and he chose this rather unassuming one (which was next to Dewitt at the front of the church this morning). I wasn’t fast enough to get the picture of Ginger quickly sitting down in the chair as the children returned to their seats.

Ginger split her sermon time with Bill, who had come to the South as a college student to help with voter registration. As he told about things that happened over forty years ago, his emotion was completely present tense. Then Ginger told her story of being born in Birmingham, Alabama on May 9, 1963, just down the street from the Birmingham Jail and days after King had written his letter from his cell. Ginger had researched and recounted to us all that happened in her hometown the week she was born. After she finished, Ginger, Bill, Carla (our associate pastor), and I read excerpts from King’s letter. Here’s the part that stuck with me:

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

When we finished, I wanted to scoot across the stairs that lead up to the altar because I felt as though I walked today where Martin walked, and not in days long ago, but in my lifetime. One of the most significant implications of the church being named the Body of Christ is we are the incarnation of God’s love and grace in the world. We are God’s hands and feet and eyes and ears. Martin moves me because he lived like he believed that to be true, all the way to his own death. That doesn’t make him a hero; it makes him faithful.

Patty Griffin has an amazing song called, “Up to the Mountain,” which is her tribute to Dr. King. The second verse says:

sometimes I feel like
I’ve never been nothing but tired
and I’ll be walking
till the day I expire
sometimes I lay down
no more can I do
but then I go on again
because you ask me to

As Jesus called Martin and both call to us, may we call to one another to go on again, choosing to work for others rather than protect ourselves and truly incarnate the God who created every last one of us.

Peace,
Milton

one thing I can hold on to

5

I’ve stared at the screen the last two days and then gone to bed without writing anything. I woke up this morning, intending to chase away whatever was keeping me from putting words down, but didn’t have much luck because I just felt empty. As I sat there, John Prine’s words came to mind:

there’s flies in the kitchen — I can hear them a-buzzin’
and I ain’t done nothin’ since I woke up today
how the hell can a person go to work every morning
and come home every evening and have nothing to say?

As many times as I’ve sung “Angel from Montgomery” (or listened to it – it’s my favorite song), that last verse penetrates deep into my heart: how can I look at the world, or at my life, and come up wordless? Ginger, who has had the special privilege of living through these days with me, first suggested I get out of the house and to a coffee shop to see if there were any words there and then called about a half an hour later to say, “I know what you can write about.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Write about what you’re thankful for.”

With those words she gave me one thing I can hold on to. When it comes to saying thank you, there’s always something to say.

I’m deeply grateful for the way the folks at Pilgrim UCC have welcomed and embraced us. Moving to a new place (and grieving the one left behind) is lonely business and the folks here have been unabashed in expressing their intent for us to be a part of them.

I’m grateful for hymns. On any given Sunday, my entrée into worship is through the congregational singing. Back in seminary days, they told us the congregation was the true worship choir, all of us singing together, not as the audience but as the primary participants in the act of worship. As much as I like some of the new music, the songs that feed me most profoundly are the ones that have been sung down over generations, words weathered and wise, because they pull me into the stream of singing saints, a sort of melodic Communion.

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

I’m grateful for my brother, Miller. A number of years ago, when things between us were distant, at best, my dad said to me, “You need to keep in touch with your brother. He’s the best friend you have.” At that time, my father’s statement was not true. The years since have given grace enough for us to let some stuff go and work through some other stuff such that he is today not only family but a dear and trusted friend.

I’m grateful Ella is bouncing around the house spreading joy and socks wherever she goes.

I’m grateful for this blog and the connections created here. I’m also thankful it has afforded me the chance to develop the discipline of a writer (even when I don’t know what to write).

I’m grateful that pitchers and catchers report in less than a month (Go Sox!).

I’m grateful that just ten days short of nineteen years ago, at a retreat in Texas, I walked over to a beautiful woman and introduced myself. I then proceeded to follow her around the rest of the weekend and, when I got back home, called her and asked her to go see Lyle Lovett (which meant I gave away the ticket that was to have been my friend’s birthday present). I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating in the least when I say spending my life with Ginger has saved my life. I’m still going because of the way she has incarnated indefatigable love and grace and hope on a daily basis. The best news I know is I get to spend my life with her. As I wrote once, imagining us together as old people:

this is the story of two common hearts
that started our young and grew old
they have practiced a lifetime
the art of a well-worn love

Tonight’s list is by no means exhaustive, but I would like to add one more: I’m grateful John Prine wrote this song:

Peace,
Milton