Here’s the news: Rachel had triple-bypass surgery today. She was in surgery about four and a half hours and did very well. She had no complications during the procedure. She weathered the anesthesia well and is alert, but groggy tonight.

Thanks for all the prayers and words of support.

Peace,
Milton

The last forty-eight hours have been full of almost every emotion I can name. Though I’ve been here by myself, I’ve spent much of the day talking to Ginger in Birmingham, keeping up with what is going on there. Rachel goes in for her surgery early tomorrow morning. Ginger comes back home Saturday evening to be here on Sunday and will go back to Birmingham for the week on Monday night. One of the calls from Ginger was to process how Irondale is changing — even dying, thanks to the Super Wal-Mart going up in Trussville. Not long afterwards, she called to tell me of the conversation she had with the mother of one of her childhood friends. Ginger was walking through the neighborhood and the woman was sitting on her front porch journaling. They had a good visit and then Ginger walked up to the Irondale Cafe for a glass of sweet tea before she went back to her folk’s house.

Any trip to Birmingham is time travel in some sense for her. Every rock and tree, every small house, every smiling face is the top layer of an onion of memory that peels back to reveal a past that is not so far away. Here in New England, we have history all around us, but it is preserved and guarded, even revered. The South has never forgotten that the biggest part of the word history is story, which means the past is not preserved but participated in, not guarded but mined, not revered but relished. It’s a place to find comfort rather than pedigree.

As I have listened to Ginger and prayed for Rachel, I’ve also looked for words for tonight, since mine are lacking. I found them in Pierce Pettis, a son of the South, who has spoken to me deeply at different times over the years. As Friday dawns, here is a song for us all.

I’ve Got a Hope

Man is born to trouble
All the days of his life
As the sparks fly upward
From bonfires at night
They fill up the heavens
With pin points of light
And I’ve got a hope that is not in this world

Time, it is turning
Like a plow in the field
It roots up the earth
And what’s hidden is revealed
Sewing the future
While the past, it is sealed
I’ve got a hope
That is not in this world

Half of the battle
Is only with myself
While the other half
Is something I can’t help

Lest I should stumble
I try not to forget
That every hair is numbered
Every footstep, every breath
And this life that I’m living
It will not end in death
I’ve got a hope that is not in this world

I’ve got a hope that is not in this world

I will post something tomorrow night about the surgery.

Peace,
Milton

This is not a week like any other week.

Yesterday, Ginger flew to Birmingham to be with her mother who had a heart catherization today. When we found out about the procedure last week, Ginger called her mother’s doctor to ask what was going on. The physician’s assistant was compassionate and careful in her responses, which meant she did not give Ginger much clarity as to the severity of the situation. When Ginger articulated her struggle in trying to figure out whether or not to go to Alabama, the woman said, “If it were my mother, I’d come.”

The test showed blockage “in the worst possible place,” according to the doctor, and Rachel is to have open heart surgery on Friday morning. Both Ginger and I have family who have survived the same surgery and thrived following it. My dad is alive because of his quadruple bypass. We know this is not experimental stuff. And it’s Rachel: my wonderful, beautiful, crazy mother-in-law. We are both hopeful and concerned.

Beyond the surgery, we have several things to sort out. When you are an only child who lives a couple thousand miles away from your parents who both have health issues, how you think about the days to come becomes a multi-layered process. We are not in a panic, or in a place where we have to make big changes immediately or even contemplate them in the near future; we are aware that we are entering a new chapter in our lives together. This week is a pivot point from which life swings us in a new direction.

I’m not prepared to get much more philosophical than that this evening. I’m writing tonight to ask you to pray — for Rachel, for Reuben, for Ginger, and for me. Thanks.

Peace,
Milton

As I drove around running errands today, I met someone I did not know before: I. F. Stone. Though he died a few years back, he was the topic of Talk of the Nation with his biographer, Myra McPherson. Though the facts of his life are interesting, what made me wish I had known him sooner was the description of his work ethic. Victor Navasky described it this way in The Nation:

But in short order, although he never attended presidential press conferences, cultivated no highly placed inside sources and declined to attend off-the-record briefings, time and again he scooped the most powerful press corps in the world.

His method: To scour and devour public documents, bury himself in The Congressional Record, study obscure Congressional committee hearings, debates and reports, all the time prospecting for news nuggets (which would appear as boxed paragraphs in his paper), contradictions in the official line, examples of bureaucratic and political mendacity, documentation of incursions on civil rights and liberties. He lived in the public domain.

I thought about Stone again when I got home and happen to see clips of Bush speaking today, ratcheting up the fear as election season begins, and actually saying Osama bin Laden’s name, which has not been part of his vocabulary for some time. As I skipped around from channel to channel, no one made mention of his tactics, or called him on the carpet for such a blatant move; they just repeated what he had said. I guess I’ll have to wait for Jon Stewart to come back to work to see someone play these words alongside of other clips to show the inconsistencies and manipulation.

I met a wonderful woman in Jackson, Mississippi a couple of years ago who had a bumper sticker on her refrigerator that said, “If you’re not appalled, you’re not paying attention.” We, as a rule, are not paying attention; we are getting what we deserve. We are allowing ourselves to be told what is going on rather than looking for the truth ourselves. Something is wrong when the best journalist I know is on a fake news show.

Though I do sport a “Bush’s Last Day” sticker on my guitar case, my point here is not that he is The Problem. Both sides of the aisle are filled with folks more consumed with power games than truth telling. When they talk about what is important to them, they talk about beating the other guys. Few of our leaders articulate anything other than what the polls show they should say or what will make their opponents look bad.

Navasky closed his article by quoting Stone’s own credo:

To write the truth as I see it; to defend the weak against the strong; to fight for justice; and to seek, as best I can, to bring healing perspectives to bear on the terrible hates and fears of mankind, in the hope of someday bringing about one world, in which men will enjoy the differences of the human garden instead of killing each other over them.

I drove home from a meeting at church tonight and heard a report saying the three gubernatorial candidates in my state each released attack ads today making sure we would be afraid of them all. Election season means those seeking office will act and speak on the assumption that we are stupid people with very little memory. They will make empty promises, speak in clichés, and keep telling us to “Be afraid; be very afraid.”

It’s worked before. We’ve given them no reason to believe it won’t work again. How I wish we would.

Peace,
Milton

My new schedule at the restaurant means I work forty hours in three and a half days: Monday I work twelve, Wednesday I work six, and then eleven each on Friday and Saturday. The long day on Monday makes it a challenge to write Sunday through Thursday, which is my goal. But here I am.

Mondays at the restaurant are fun and challenging because it is the day after the weekend, which means there have been no produce deliveries in Sunday and I get to take stock of what is left over and what had been left undone after the busiest days of our week. Last night about midnight, Robert, the head chef, called to tell me Sunday had been especially busy and I might need to come in a bit early. He’s never done that before. I went in at nine instead of ten.

Being the lunch chef means I have a lot of room for creativity because I’m the only one there and because it’s my job to turn the leftovers into the special of the day. Today that meant I made Uncle Milty’s Guinness and Chocolate Chili (better known as Red Lion Chili at the restaurant) for the soup du jour and a roasted statler chicken breast with caramelized onions and mushrooms in a Guinness demi-glaze (can you spot my favorite ingredient?) with roasted garlic mashed potato cakes and green beans. Though some folks tried my creations, most came in for a burger on a holiday afternoon. The funny thing was almost everyone had some change they wanted to make from the way things were listed on the menu: mixed greens instead of fries, onion rings on the side, and who knows what else. Today, the menu was only a suggestion to most, as if everyone had watched When Harry Met Sally and came into to do their best Meg Ryan impression and order everything on the side.

Two of the requests I remember in particular. One man was allergic to wheat, which meant he couldn’t eat the potato cakes (flour) or the demi-glaze (Guinness); the bartender wanted to know if I could figure something out so the man try the special. I had some potatoes that had not been made into cakes and I made a sauce for the chicken out of butter and roasted garlic. Not only did the man get to eat, but he thoroughly enjoyed his meal. The second request came from a woman who comes in regularly and has yet to order off the menu. A couple of weeks ago, she came in and asked if we could make Fettuccine Alfredo. The simple answer was yes. Last Monday night she was less specific – she just wanted something other than what was in print – so I made her a vegetable risotto. Tonight she came in and asked the bartender, “Is Milton cooking tonight?” When he said yes, she asked him to ask me what her options were. What I had was wild mushroom risotto (leftovers) that I doctored up a bit to give it a little more pizzazz. Her husband ordered the chicken special. When I went out to the pub to get some cranberry juice and check the Sox score, I had a chance to talk with them a bit. They were both quite happy. So was I.

I smile at myself because I get such a rush from being able to cook for people. I’m glad folks ask for food the way they want it. I love that someone knew if I was there I would fix a dinner just for them. I wish I had a place where I could talk to them while I was cooking. Who knows – maybe someday. For tonight, I’m just thankful I get to do what I love doing.

Peace,
Milton

I drove to church in the rain this morning.

Somehow the weather reads the calendar: as soon as September comes there is a marked change. Of course, this year even August cooled off, but we have always been able to count on Labor Day Weekend giving us tangible proof of the end of summer as things cool off. This year it seems the sun will not make much of an appearance either. More folks than I expected made showed up for worship on a wet holiday Sunday and it was a Communion Sunday, which always helps me.

After church and a cup of coffee with Don, my senior pastor; from there I headed to the gym for some treadmill time, where I would meet Ginger, before my well deserved Sunday afternoon nap. Don and I talked about using the September Sundays to preach on different metaphors for the church as a way of trying to engage more of the congregation in the conversation on who our church is and feels God wants us to become. I realized the challenge with such a sermon is to articulate meaningful metaphors without getting caught up in shooting down the ones we don’t find helpful. When I was teaching English, we approached metaphors by starting with an odd comparison and seeing what we could find there, sort of like Forrest Gump: “Life is box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to find.”

I left Dunkin’ Donuts and turned on to the street toward the gym (part of a commercial/industrial park) to find a red Ford truck with its flashers on and a man standing beside it. I pulled over to see if I could help, thinking I could at least offer my cell phone. Abel, the man standing there, didn’t speak much English, but I did learn he had a bad flat, no spare, no phone, and no one to call for help. I offered to drive him to a nearby service station where I knew they had a mechanic. About that time we were joined by Santiago, his friend who had gone looking for help and who also spoke English. We drove to the service station; they had no one on duty that could help us but told us Sears at the mall had an auto shop open on Sunday.

On the way to the mall, I got to learn a bit about my fellow travelers. They were Mexican immigrants who had come up here from North Carolina. Santiago worked as an electrician and Abel helped him. When I told them I was a cook in a restaurant, our talk turned to food, then to the dearth of good Mexican food in our area, and then to a rather wistful conversation about tamales. I do love me some tamales.

When we got to Sears, I realized I needed to hang around because they had no way to get back to their truck. As we got in line at customer service, I also realized my two companions were the only non-Anglos in the place. I was painfully aware of how what seems simple to me is a difficult if not daunting task for those who are new here. There were no signs directing us where to stand in line, nothing that offered much help at all. The salesperson was a bit curt at first, though he warmed up, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that had to do with my running interference for Santiago and Abel. Regardless of what the Statue of Liberty says, we are not set up to be kind to immigrants.

We got the tire and I got them back to their truck. I left them to mount the tire and I went on to the gym, though I was tempted to reward my kindness by skipping the time on the treadmill. (Run, Milty, run.) Hey, no good deed goes unpunished. I worked up a sweat in yet another room of white people, watched a little beach volleyball to distract me, and then came home. When I passed the place I had seen Abel, the truck was gone. They had to get to work, Santiago told me: “We work seven days.”

Most of the Brazilians I work with at the restaurant also work at least one other job. Pedro, our head dishwasher and all around handyman, works construction all day before he comes and washes dishes from six to midnight. He just got a new construction job las t week. When I asked if he liked it, he said, “It’s good job. Dishwashing is good job. I like work. I feel good to work.”

In our church, as in many UCC churches, we invite people to Communion by saying, “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” I know we mean it and I know we have a lot to come to terms with to incarnate our words well. I’ve been thinking about the name of the guy I first met this afternoon when I stopped to help: Abel because of this verse:

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I supposed to look after my brother?”
(Genesis 4:9, NIRV)

If church is a family — the Family of God, then the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. Look after your brother, your sister, your cousins, your uncle in prison, and your crazy aunt with all the cats. If church is a meal, then there are seats for everyone and all the seats are the same. There is plenty of food to go around and lots of people working hard to make sure everyone gets to eat. There is also chocolate, ice cream, chicken fried steak, and Guinness. And fried catfish. And hushpuppies. Oh – and tamales.

If church is a nation, then the borders are open and citizenship is universal. The debate over who’s in and who’s out is old business. Living in Promised Land has less to do with milk and honey than it does with keeping our promises to love God with all of our beings and our neighbors as ourselves. Homeland security gives way to “ally, ally, oxen free.” The legacy of any civilization is not in conquest but in how it cares for its citizens. We will be remembered for how well we loved one another.

It seems like a no-brainer to me that everyone would want to be a part of a group that is determined to love one another, regardless of the metaphor. Instead we opt for church as business, or fortress, or battlefield, or courtroom. I’m not sure it’s because we don’t want to be loved and to love as much as it is we don’t believe that love is stronger than fear, or power, or insecurity, or even death. We have a hard time trusting God and each other.

If church is a guy with a flat tire on a rainy afternoon, then we stop to help. I know — I went to that church today.

Peace,
Milton

Today marks a week since I joined the gym.

When it comes to exercise, I can think of at least fourteen other things I would rather do than walk or run or do sit-ups. But I am about three and a half months away from my completing my fiftieth year on the planet and I would rather weigh four times my age on my birthday than weigh five times my age, which is where I am now. Years ago, when I was in seminary, I went waterskiing with my roommate Burt and his family. His granddad was driving the boat and he almost drowned me because the motor wasn’t big enough to get me out of the water. He turned to Burt and said, “He’s a big ol’ boy!”

I still am.

I went to the gym this morning and spent about forty-five minutes on the treadmill and stationary bicycle, which is good for me. I punched the “cardio” button on the treadmill so it made sure my heart rate was where it needed to be. To keep from fixating on the digital clock telling me how much longer I had to go, I watched the television screen in front of me (and I thought about the kids in the grocery carts). One of the side effects of going to the gym is I am going to be more conversant about sports than I have been in years. The two viewing choices I had were ESPN and a soap opera. I opted for Sports Center and am on my way to being semi-informed about any number of things I don’t find particularly interesting or know much about.

One of the things they have talked about incessantly is Fantasy Football. Though I’ve heard people talk about it enough to know lots of people play and it has something to do with picking teams, I can’t say I understand it. (And please don’t feel like you need to explain it to me; I’m good.) Twice this week I’ve heard a commentator articulate one of his twenty-five rules for Fantasy Football. Number 18 was “Mike Shanahan hates you” and Number 19 was “The preseason means nothing.” Neither comment was particularly helpful to me.

Last week at work, it was slow and I walked around to the pub to talk to the bartender for a bit. He was watching something called the World Sports Stacking Championship on ESPN. We were both intrigued as we watched kids – I mean ten and eleven year olds – stack cups faster than, well; watch the video of the world champion. (The announcer is annoying, but hang in there.) Now these are kids who are doing more than watching TV in the grocery store. Chris and I talked about the kind of concentration, determination, and focus it took for these kids to get to where they could stack the cups as fast as they did. My guess is it’s pretty good developmentally for them as well.

When I see stuff like that, my mind gravitates to thinking about the kind of practice involved. It took hours and hours for Emily to get where she could stack those cups in less than eight seconds. Mastering the skills can’t be much more interesting than walking on a rubber road to nowhere for thirty minutes. I just need a taste of her determination to walk until the pounds starting falling off. And besides, if I keep practicing, maybe I’ll be as good as these guys.

Check out the video below.

Peace,
Milton

Wednesday is my early release day at work, which means I got to listen to All Things Considered on the way home rather than listening to the Red Sox lose another game on their West Coast slide. They were just beginning a story on Grocery Cart TV. Seriously. Wal Mart (of course) and a couple of other supermarket chains are testing grocery carts with TV’s built in so the kids won’t drive you nuts while you shop. One of the people who commented said she was afraid this was another way we were teaching the younger generation that life happens on a screen rather than by actual experience.

Before long we are going to be a nation of people like Chance, the gardener in Being There: “I like to watch.”

Quick disclaimer: I have no children of my own. I’ve seen parents in the grocery store try to shop while Jeffy or Mikey or Buffy tries to pull down every box of Pop Tarts or wants an explanation about every can on the vegetable aisle. I see their pain. I can also see the attraction of a screen that will numb them into submission while you grab the Hamburger Helper, though I think the woman who worries about our creating a nation of watchers is probably right. But that’s not my point.

I came home to find a great comment from Suzanne about yesterday’s post on bananas which began, “I hear what you’re saying, Milton. But, at the same time, I’m wistful about times when I could eat without fear.” Put that together with the grocery carts and here’s my point: I’m glad I got to be a kid when I did because I got to grow up without much fear.

• I never knew anyone with a peanut allergy.
• I never wore a bike helmet.
• I hitchhiked in high school (sure, it was in Nairobi, but still –).
• I played with other kids without having to have a play date.
• I climbed trees, dug holes, built forts, and never worried much about being safe.
• I thought skinned knees were part of growing up.

My list is not intended to wax nostalgic or to trivialize the danger that truly exists, though I’m guessing George W. didn’t wear a bike helmet either. (I’m just saying . . .) I do think it’s harder to be a kid because the world is more afraid. Fear changes us and causes us to crave what is safe and familiar. We become too easily accustomed to taking the path of least resistance; we learn not to ask too many questions. We end up being watchers rather than experiencers. (I think I made up a new word.)

In a somewhat related tangent, what just popped into my mind is the scene with Butch and Sundance at the top of the cliff looking down at the river. Sundance flinches before he jumps and says he can’t swim. “Can’t swim?” says Butch. “Hell, the fall will kill you.”

I taught English is a wonderful suburban high school that worked hard to support the kids in every way we could. The guidance counselors were amazing. Teachers stayed late so kids could get extra help. We bent over backwards to help them succeed. The one thing we didn’t do was help them learn how to fail and live through it. I had semester after semester when not one of my one hundred and twenty-five students failed. Our grading system was the bike helmet that kept them from feeling the full brunt of the fall, and kept them from learning that they could live through the pain and learn from it. One bad grade wasn’t going to kill them. We should have told them when the stakes were low; I’m guessing they have had to learn the lesson when people were playing for keeps.

The woman who critiqued the TV carts talked about the grocery store as opportunity for conversation and exploration, as a chance to engage and interact with your kid as you shop. Yes, they do get bored before the shopping is over, and they get to learn – or begin to learn – that life isn’t about keeping them comfortable or out of the way.

Spookyrach had a great post this week about starting a new church that made me laugh out loud and want to join right now. “Church leaders,” she said, “will wear robes and sometimes capes,” which reminded me of my second-favorite Guy Clark song, “The Cape,” that is an appropriate way to end my meanderings.

Eight years old with flour sack cape
Tied all around his neck
He climbed up on the garage
Figurin’ what the heck
He screwed his courage up so tight
The whole thing come unwound
He got a runnin’ start and bless his heart
He headed for the ground

He’s one of those who knows that life
Is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold you breath
Always trust your cape

All grown up with a flour sack cape
Tied all around his dream
He’s full of piss and vinegar
He’s bustin’ at the seams
He licked his finger and checked the wind
It’s gonna be do or die
He wasn’t scared of nothin’, boys
He was pretty sure he could fly

He’s one of those who knows that life
Is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold you breath
Always trust your cape

Old and grey with a flour sack cape
Tied all around his head
He’s still jumpin’ off the garage
And will be till he’s dead
All these years the people said
He’s actin’ like a kid
He did not know he could not fly
So he did

He’s one of those who knows that life
Is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold you breath
Always trust your cape

Maybe – just maybe – the fall doesn’t kill us.
Peace,
Milton

I came up to write this evening without much on my mind. Today has been another cool, rainy, and gray day (in August!) and I felt on the inside much like the weather felt on the inside. So I began clicking on some of the news links in the sidebar to see if I could find a story that could pull a response out of me. What I learned is The Nation has just published a food issue and one of the articles by Alice Waters is called “Slow Food Nation.” Here’s how she begins:

It turns out that Jean Anthèlme Brillat-Savarin was right in 1825 when he wrote in his magnum opus, The Physiology of Taste, that “the destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are fed.” If you think this aphorism exaggerates the importance of food, consider that today almost 4 billion people worldwide depend on the agricultural sector for their livelihood. Food is destiny, all right; every decision we make about food has personal and global repercussions. By now it is generally conceded that the food we eat could actually be making us sick, but we still haven’t acknowledged the full consequences–environmental, political, cultural, social and ethical–of our national diet.

I picked up some bananas in the supermarket today because I’m supposed to eat a banana everyday to accompany my high blood pressure medicine. (I sometimes wonder if instructions like that are really doctors’ cute little practical jokes – “tell him to stand on one leg when he takes the pill and then sing the chorus of “Hit Me, Baby, One More Time.”) Bananas are not grown anywhere in the United States. Most of our bananas come from Haiti, I believe. I picked up the almost ripe fruit and checked the price: sixty-nine cents a pound. I tried to figure out any way I could assume, with the cost of shipping and handling, that anyone who picked those bananas could have been paid a living wage. Not a chance. I couldn’t sell the tomatoes out of my garden to my next-door neighbor for sixty-nine cents and make a profit. Someone’s getting screwed so I can eat bananas. When I look at Haiti, I can see how the destiny of nations depends on how they are fed: they are starving and I’m not.

They are also the ones paying the true cost of the banana, not me.

Waters concludes her article by saying:

The pleasures of the table also beget responsibilities–to one another, to the animals we eat, to the land and to the people who work it. It follows that food that is healthy in every way will cost us more, in time and money, than we pay now. But when we have learned what the real costs of food are, and relearned the real rewards of eating, we will have laid a foundation for not just a healthier food system but a healthier twenty-first-century democracy.

On average, the food we eat as Americans travels over two thousand miles before it reaches our tables. We no longer understand that fruits and vegetables have a growing season; we just have it shipped from the other side of the world and expect to pay about the same as we do for what is grown closer to home. Until about eighty years ago, Americans didn’t even know what bananas were. Once American companies figured out there was money to be made in buying up the farms of Haiti and commercially growing bananas, they taught us to eat and to want what should be a treat we get to have when we visit the Caribbean.

Man, I had no idea I was going to end up ranting about bananas. But Waters’ caution about every decision we make about food having personal and global repercussions hits close to home. There has to be another source of potassium that doesn’t require someone else to pay the price for my health.

Peace,
Milton

Thanks for the feedback. I didn’t see the kindler, gentler version of this template when I was switching things around. Hope this makes things a little easier on the eyes.

Peace,
Milton