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advent journal: god bless my family

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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3

Ginger and I got one of our Christmas presents early tonight: Jay took us to the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus “Home for the Holidays” Concert. Chad, the organist and choir director at the church in Hanover is the musical director for the group and we know a couple of folks who sing in the choir, so I was psyched to get to hear them. They lived up to my expectations. It was a wonderful evening.

Along with the obvious holiday emphasis, the other theme that ran through the evening was that of family. Between songs different choir members told stories about growing up, about their families of origin, and about their chosen families. The stories were full of both pain and hope, as any good story is. As the evening drew to a close, they sang a song called “God Bless My Family.” The chorus said:

all of the family my life has given me
from the corners of the earth
to the beaches of the sky to love eternally
though my heart aches everyday
this Christmas I will find a way
to let each face I’ve loved shine out in me
God bless my family

I got to talk to my brother today. I’m twenty-one months older than he is, which means there have been times in our lives when the age difference felt insignificant and other times when it felt like a huge cavernous gulf between us. At fifty and forty-eight, we seem to be pretty much in the same boat. I’m deeply grateful that he and I are related because our interests are different enough that we might not have crossed paths otherwise. I’m glad I’ve known him most all of my life and that we shared a roof for so many years. I’m glad we’ve had to learn how to communicate and live out our love for each other. I’m glad we’re getting to grow old(er) together, even though we are separated by several states and a lot of miles.

I spent an hour today with Don, the pastor at the Hanover church where I worked for three years. We’re family by choice, finding a sense of brotherhood in the many hours and cups of coffee that fueled our ministry together. I also called Doug, the other charter member of the Pastoral Spousal Support Group (OK, the only other member) to tell him the Social Committee had dropped the ball on our Christmas party so we were going to have to schedule it on our own. He and I are going to have Mexican food on Thursday. We’re related to one another by our love for our minister-wives, our willingness to explore interesting ethnic cuisine, our senses of humor, and beer.

Last week, both my parents and my in-laws were here to celebrate my birthday. I’m grateful that I got to turn fifty with all of them around the table, along with Cherry, Jay, and Eloise who are among my chosen family. I loved blending the two together as we stuffed our faces with Brazilian food.

Ginger and I are a little over a month away from having known each other eighteen years. We met on a weekend youth retreat and the short version is I followed her around until she would go out with me. (I can say that shamelessly because she married me.) No one in my life has made me feel like I belong more than she has. I have learned more about love and what it means to be family from her than I can tell.

Family has not been an easy concept for me. I know there were many years I made my brother and my parents wish they were related to someone else as I tried to figure out how to let them or anyone else get close to me. In my twenties, when things between my parents and me were most distant, I can remember praying that my father wouldn’t die before we had a chance to get things straightened out between us. I still don’t want him to die, but I can say the air between us is clear and good. If something does happen, we’ve both said what we need and want to say to one another. (Yet another thing I learned from Ginger about what it means to be family.)

Most all of the men in the chorus tonight were old enough to have had to grow up coming to terms with their sexuality in less than hospitable environments. Some were ostracized by their families when they came out, others were embraced. What was clear as they stood shoulder to shoulder, one hundred and fifty strong was their harmony was something more than musical and the family they were singing about something more than sentimental; they were a family whose arms were open to anyone else who wanted to join in.

The last verse of Lyle Lovett’s song, “Family Reserve” says:

and there are more I remember
and more I could mention
than words I could write in a song
but I feel them watching
and I see them laughing
and I hear them singing along

God bless my family.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: an incremental christmas

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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5

My day was bookended by memorable phrases.

I was listening to On Point on the way to work this morning. Tom Ashbrook was leading a very interesting and rather animated discussion about the possibility of sending a surge of additional troops into Iraq as a way to make things better. William Odom, a retired Army Lieutenant General and former head of the National Security Agency, was wonderfully articulate in his criticism of the idea to the point of out right ridicule. In the process of making his comments he described what we are doing in Iraq as “colonial ventriloquy,” meaning we prop up the Iraqi forces and put words in their mouths and guns in their hands and our lips never move.

What a great choice of words. I’ve been trying all day to figure out a way to work it into conversation.

“Enough of this colonial ventriloquy; get back to work.”
“I’ll not be the dummy in your colonial ventriloquy.”
“I’m considering a career in colonial ventriloquy.”

I never had an opportunity.

Tonight Ginger and I took the pups for a walk when I got home from work. Orion was out with his dog, Sirius, right behind as well, dodging clouds in the night sky. While I was cooking for Lobster Night in America, Ginger was hosting Sisterhood of the Spirit, a women’s group in our church. It’s good for us to schedule a party of some sort every now and then because it makes us clean up. I also finally got our big, lighted wreath hung on the fence in front of our house. We moved and straightened things last night and this morning and Ginger came home from the office early to finish decorating. As we made the turn towards home with the Schnauzers, Ginger said, “I guess Christmas is coming incrementally this year.”

This has become an incremental Christmas.

Christmas is a week away and I still have lights to hang on the porch and things to do around the house. I have groceries to buy and food to prepare. I have purchased most of the presents I want to give, but they still need to be wrapped. And I could use a whole day just to call friends I’ve wanted to talk to during these days but have yet found or made time to do so. Life, this year, feels like one of those Advent calendars where you get to open a door each day to see what’s behind, each picture taking you one step closer to Christmas. The challenge, I suppose, is to make the increments intentional: to move toward the Manger and then beyond, since the birth is just the beginning.

Jesus came incrementally, too. As Luke described Jesus as a twelve year old: “And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.” (The Message)

In the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell’s character only prays to “Dear Lord Baby Jesus” because he “likes the Baby Jesus best of all the Jesuses.” This scene around the dinner table would make a great lead-in for a discussion on prayer.

If Jesus had not been born, we would not be who and where we are today, but the birth in and of itself is not what matters most in the story of Jesus’ life or our lives as his disciples. What matters is he grew and matured and incrementally became the one we read about in the gospel stories beyond Bethlehem.

Yesterday morning, when I entered the worship service as the prophet Zephaniah, the little boy who was playing the role of Jesus in our Christmas pageant was sitting on the front row. I came down the aisle singing “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” from Godspell and turned to face the congregation right in front of him. He was spellbound. I don’t think he blinked, much less took his eyes off of me. The little one who played Jesus in the first pageant I saw here in Marshfield was with the five year old angels up behind the pulpit this year, having moved up incrementally through a couple of years of being a sheep and a shepherd without speaking lines.

We grow like Jesus grew. I’ve walked the earth now almost twenty years longer than Jesus did in his lifetime; my grandmother just tripled Jesus’ age when she turned 99 a couple of weeks ago. For all of us, the years happen a day, a moment at a time, in both significant and insignificant increments.

Christmas is coming incrementally for us this year, just as life and faith come day after day. And I still have time to hang the lights.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: uncomfortable manger

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

Church today, for me, was an experience of non-sequiturs tethered together by Coffee Hour.

On the heels of an experience that came close to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, we had our monthly Church Council meeting, which involved discussions about everything from window shades to stewardship. Everything we talked about was important to someone in the room and we all worked hard to listen to one another and respond. Compared to many church meetings I have attended, we do a pretty good job of being Christian to one another, yet — for me — the meeting was uncomfortable because I didn’t leave the Parish House with the same sense of joy I had when I walked out of the worship service.

Maybe it was just me.

There are days when I think – no, I feel – that really buying into the hope that comes from following the star to the manger is naïve. “Glory to God in the highest and on Earth, peace,” sang the angels. It makes me wonder how long it was after they left the manger before the shepherds were dickering about whose turn it was to feed the sheep.

On the world stage, this week was marred by the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran (I think they had a different name for it.), as people got together to show how hatred blinds us to truth (though that was not their agenda). “Love your enemies,” Jesus said; “be good to those who hate you.” He also told us to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile. He was serious.

I heard a story on NPR this afternoon about the record bonuses given out at the investment firm of Goldman Sachs: $16 billion.

That’s right: $16 billion.

It averages out to $600,000 per employee, though the distribution is not quite so equitable. The top tier of folks were getting $100 million each.

That’s right: $100 million each.

ABC News posted a great article giving some perspective on what a person can do with $100 million.

You could provide immunizations for more than 40,000 impoverished children for a year ($37.5 million), then throw a birthday party for your daughter and one million of her closest friends ($60 million). You’d still have enough to buy a different color Rolls Royce for each day of the week ($2.5 million).

You could feed about 800,000 children for a year ($60 million), recreate the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes and Brad Pitt-Jennifer Aniston weddings four times over ($16 million), buy one of Mel Gibson’s private islands ($15 million), and still remain a millionaire nine times over.

You could pay Harvard tuition for more than 1,500 students who couldn’t afford it ($70.5 million), provide health care to over 1,000 Americans for a year ($7 million), and still have enough to buy a different Brioni designer suit for every single day of the year ($6,000 suits for all 365 days would cost $22 million).

You could take everyone in the country of Grenada to a Broadway show, then buy the most expensive apartment in New York City (a triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel, $70 million), and still have an extra $15 million dollars in your pocket — over 300 times the median income of the average American household.

You could buy every person in Kansas City a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes (147,000 pairs of $400 shoes comes out to about $60 million) and still have $40 million dollars left — that’s more than 500 times the average doctor’s salary in the United States (about $80,000).

You could buy 1,000 gala tables at your favorite charity’s ball ($10 million), provide winter blankets for 350,000 children in developing countries ($14 million), personally pay Derek Jeter’s salary for a year ($21 million), and still buy your own private Boeing jet ($55 million).

My standard disclaimer at this point is I don’t understand how and why so much profit can be made without producing anything. From where I stand, I mostly notice the jobs that are lost in the mergers and acquisitions and the growing distance between the rich and the poor in this country and around the world. I must also say, as one who lives with a fairly steady feeling of anxiety when it comes to personal finances, it’s easy for me to become judgmental and indignant towards people who make that kind of money. Even easier when I have no idea who they are. I want to send them a copy of Jesus’ encounter with the one we have come to call the Rich Young Ruler and hope that most of those billions would end up building schools and hospitals around the world rather than buying new BMWs. Maybe some of it will.

I read tonight that TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is us. They didn’t pick a world leader or celebrity. The cover has a computer screen with a mirror so we can see ourselves, the great democratizers of the planet thanks to all the time we spend on the World Wide Web.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Part of the reason Church Council struggles is we are trying to deal with specific issues and look at the bigger picture at the same time. Both are crucial and the creative tension between them is not a comfortable place to live. Church done well is rarely comfortable; meaningful, hopeful, welcoming, encouraging, challenging, embracing – but not comfortable because we are called to be faithful to the point of feeling foolishly naïve, trusting that we can both glorify God and bring peace on earth by the way we treat one another in Jesus’ name.

The only way the folks at the conference in Tehran or the offices of Goldman Sachs can believe their perceived reality is a credible way to live is to let their world be no bigger than themselves. If we stare too long into the cover of TIME this week we can fall prey to the same self-focus, just as we do when we are more concerned with the safety of our endowments than the expansiveness of our calling as a church. We didn’t earn our money anymore than the folks at Goldman Sachs earned theirs.

I was one of the Magi in the pageant today, which meant I stood at the back of the sanctuary until almost the end of the story. When the shepherds moved from the fields where they lay on the right side of the pulpit to Bethlehem on the left side, they came up one aisle, past us kings, and down the other aisle to find Mary and Joseph and the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. They high-fived us as they went by saying, “We saw Jesus! We found the Baby!” Then we all sang together

let every heart prepare him room
and heaven and nature sing

Somehow, between shepherds in bathrobes and lighted sneakers, angels with cardboard wings, and Jesus in footy pajamas we brushed up against what it might have felt like for Mary and Joseph in the barn behind the Bethlehem inn watching what unfolded around the manger.

I’m sure it was amazing; I doubt it was comfortable.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: lives in the balance

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

While my parents were here they wanted us to open our Christmas presents early so they could see how we liked what they got us. I love mine –- they gave me an iPod Shuffle. The postage stamp-sized gadget holds two hundred and fifty songs. I loaded it up for work this week with some Steve Earle, Jess Klein, and Jackson Browne to keep me moving while I was doing prep work by myself in the afternoons. Browne had been a big part of the soundtrack of my life since I bought his first record in high school. Today, I was caught again by his wonderful lyrics like these from “Fountain of Sorrow”:

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

You were turning ’round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Or these from “For a Dancer,” which always makes me think of Ginger:

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you’d always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found

Twenty years ago, he came out with a record called Lives in the Balance that had a harder political edge than anything he had done because he became passionate about the mistakes our government was making in Central and South America. Now, in 2006, the song sounds as if it were written yesterday. Here are the lyrics and a video of the title track.

I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can’t take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can’t even say the names

They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

As long as I’m relying on him for most of the words tonight, here is the closing verse of “For a Dancer”:

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

In the opening verse of the passage I will read as the prophet Zephaniah in church tomorrow, he sounds as if he is speaking to dancers as well:

Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!

At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you;
I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered.
I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.

At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the LORD.

And so we wait.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: following stars

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

In Arabic poetry, there are four great subjects worthy of the poet: love, song, blood, and travel. Roger Housden writes:

These were considered the basic desires of the human heart, and thus travel was elevated to the dignity of being a necessity for any human being who is truly alive. The Romans felt the same way. Plutarch tells us that before the departure of a ship in stormy weather, the captain would pronounce that “to sail is necessary, to live is not.”

Though I know they aren’t supposed to arrive until early January, my favorite characters in the Christmas story are the Magi, the Wise Men, the Three Who Kings of Orient Were. They are the out-of-towners, foreigners, the mysterious ones, the only ones away from home, and, perhaps, the least likely to end up in the Nativity Scene.

David Lynch has made a new movie, Inland Empire. I heard an interview with him on WBUR, our local public radio station, in conjunction with the screening of the film at a local art house. Laura Dern was also interviewed about her role in the project. She is a regular fixture in Lynch’s movies and was interviewed about her role in the new film. For all the movies that left me intrigued and confused (Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive), he made two of my all-time favorites, The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, both of them about the journey of the discovery of what it means to be human.

For this one, Lynch didn’t begin with a screenplay, but used a consumer-quality digital camera to film scenes as they came to him and then used those as the raw material to construct a movie from the parts, almost like putting a puzzle together without having the picture on the box as a guide. Dern talked about the challenge and frustration of making a movie that way, and about the authenticity it created. “One of the dangers for an actor, when you know where your character has been and where she is going, is to feel as though you need to telegraph some of what is coming to the audience, but life doesn’t work that way.”

The Magi embody what Laura Dern was saying about the daily unknown with which we live: all they knew to do was follow the Star. Our days dissolve one into the other like scenes in a movie, but without a formulaic plot or any indication of what the larger picture is, for the most part. We have very few moments where we can feel the orchestra begin to swell in the background to tell us a dazzling song and dance number is about to begin. We rarely get the kind of split screen effect they use on 24 to let us see what is happening in several different places simultaneously. And we don’t get to see all the loose ends tied up in a heartwarming ending very often. We have way too many scenes that go nowhere. The cosmic, or even existential, significance of misplacing our keys, picking up a box of Cheerios, or hanging up on a telemarketer is rarely unearthed in the movie that is our lives.

My fascination with the Gift-Bearing Bunch has led me to assemble a small collection of poems that look at them from a number of different angles, some even in response to others. (One person put many of them in a sermon here.) This trio that comes cameling in from off-camera with unbelievably odd baby gifts, unnerving kings, and willing to go wherever the Star took them are the quintessential Adventers, even though we ask them to wait until we are through waiting ourselves. They didn’t hear angel choir – or any voices for that matter, they were not steeped in Judaic prophecy; all they had was a light they had to wait until dark to follow. Traversing afar must have been hard enough, but doing it in the cold dark desert night only made it tougher.

In The Straight Story, David Lynch tells the true tale of an elderly man who gets word that his estranged brother is ill and decides to go see him. He can no longer see well enough to drive, so he takes his riding lawnmower cross-country – nine hundred miles – to get to his brother’s house, not knowing how he will be received. The movie is the story of not only his journey, but the journeys he interests along the way. A runaway teenager shows up at his campfire one night and they talk about family. A woman whizzes past him on a country road only to hit a deer not too much father along. Here’s the scene from the screenplay:

EXT.–DUSK RED ROAD HWY 18

Alvin drives up to the woman. Alvin executes his slow dismount. The woman glances briefly at Alvin but barely registers his presence because she is so distraught.

ALVIN
Can I help Miss?

DEER WOMAN
No you can’t help me. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No one can help me.

Alvin moves around to the front of the car. He notes that the car has quite a few dents. We see that the woman has struck a nice eight point buck. Alvin’s face shows relief. All the while the woman rants and paces.

DEER WOMAN (cont’d)
I’ve tried driving with my lights on. I’ve tried sounding my horn. I scream out the window. I roll the window down and bang on the side of the door and play Public Enemy real loud…I have prayed to St. Francis of Assisi…St. Christopher too, what the hell! I have tried everything a person can do and still every week I plow into at least one deer. What is it?

Alvin shakes his head. She now begins walking around the car, the mower and Alvin. She flails her arms.

DEER WOMAN (cont’d)
I have hit 13 deer in seven weeks driving down this road mister and I have to drive this road every day 40 miles back and forth to work. I don’t know what to do…I have to drive to work and I have to drive home…

She pauses. Takes a deep breath and looks out over the flat landscape. She turns and pats the deer carcass.

DEER WOMAN (cont’d)
He’s dead.

She starts to cry.

DEER WOMAN (cont’d)
And I love deer.

She turns and climbs back in her car. She backs up and sprays gravel as she accelerates away. Her front fender falls off and she runs over it. Alvin watches her drive away, then looks down at the deer.

The colorful band of characters that end up at our mangers and mantles had no idea that was where they were going. Much as Laura Dern described, they simply played their daily scenes without knowing much of how they were connected, only that they were. We label our days – Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow – to give ourselves the same sense. Yet, how things stack up feels more like the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime”:

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself – well . . . how did I get here?

We were breathed into being by the One who hung the Star the Magi followed; by the One we rehearsed the choir that sang to the shepherds; by the One who became fully human from birth to death and beyond; by the One who calls us to mark our days but not try to explain them, to know the Old, Old Story and tell it freshly every time. As W. B. Yeats wrote in his poem, “The Magi”:

Now as at all times I can see the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Star of wonder, Star of Light, guide us to thy Perfect Light.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: wake up

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

My birthday means I’ve made some additions to both my literary and music libraries. One of the volumes I got to spend a little time with tonight is Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden. The second poem is one by the marvelous Spanish poet, Antonio Machado called “Last Night as I was Sleeping” (translated by Robert Bly). Perhaps because I’m running on fumes and ready for some sleep the title pulled me.

I was also attracted because I love Machado’s poetry. Even in translation, there is a rhythmic beauty that pulses in ways English cannot on its own. His words are invocation, evocation, and benediction all at once. Housden quotes two small sections from Machado’s “Moral Proverbs and Folk Songs,” one of which says:

Beyond living and dreaming
there is something more important:
waking up

Machado is a poetic alarm clock calling us to awake, look, and listen. His words are those of a prophet. Here’s the poem:

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

I don’t remember dreams very often. I wake knowing that I dreamed, but with little clue to what they were about. Ginger remembers her dreams with all the detail of a forensic investigator and is able to learn a lot from them. The word dream is more alive to me when it means hope, possibility, or expectation. That one word is used for both is worth noting because I think both kinds of dreams are connected: both speak of our spirit finding voice and sight – waking up. Phillips Brooks must have understood the connection when he wrote:

the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Dreams carry some of both hopes and fears, as well as a good dose of the unknown and the unexplainable. They also chip away at our senses of adequacy and control because they are packed full of paradox. The best thing a dream can do for us is to make us wake up. For Machado, waking was a spiritual act. Speaking to Jesus he said,

All your words were
one word: Wake up.

Wake up to a spring breaking forth, to golden bees, to a fiery sun, to God. Wake up to hard choices and good friends. Wake up to transformation.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: a heart with wings

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

The first event of my birthday was Ginger giving me a t-shirt that read: “fifty is the new thirty.”

I then had a wonderful breakfast with Ginger and both sets of our parents at Percy’s Place in Plymouth, a wonderful breakfast cafe that boasts the biggest breakfast menu in New England and has good biscuits and gravy (not easy to find in this part of the world). After the meal, I got to open presents. All the gifts were thoughtful and meaningful and made me feel both known and loved. My parents gave me a four-volume scrapbook of my life – a two-year labor of love on my mother’s part. It is truly a treasure.

When we left the restaurant, Ginger drove out of town in the opposite direction of home. As she continued to drive, the road became less and less habitated and I had no idea where we were, but I knew it was going to be good. One of the traditions Ginger and I keep on our birthdays is to do something we have never done before. The something may be big or small, but beginning a new year with a new adventure is our way of looking to the future with open hearts and minds. While I was trying to figure out what was going on, she made one of several turns and we were driving on a road that ran beside the Plymouth airport. As she turned into of the driveway of the Alpha One Flight School, she said, “You’re going to take a flying lesson.”

How we got to that point goes something like this: Ginger was trying to think of a surprise for me when she found a coupon for a one hour flying lesson in the Val-Pac envelope that comes in the mail (see, you knew you ought to open that thing), called them and made the reservation. What the hour involved was about twenty-five minutes of orientation and thirty-five minutes of flying. Jeff, my instructor, was a great guy who enjoyed helping me mark the beginning of my fifty-first year. He walked me around the plane, talked about how to check it before take off, and explained how the different flaps and things worked. Then we got inside the Cessna two-seater and he explained the different gauges, switches, and levers.

The first thing I had to learn to do was steer with my feet. The rudders and the brakes are controlled with foot pedals, which were quite a challenge. We serpentined to the end of the taxi way and then Jeff talked me through turning the plane onto the runway. He raised the throttle and we began to gain speed as we moved down the runway. “Pull back on the yoke (airplane for steering wheel),” he said, which I did and we were airborne. We flew at about 2500 feet over Plymouth Harbor. I could see the beach near our house, which was not far away, as well as Provincetown and the Boston skyline in the distance.

Once we reached the altitude he wanted, he taught me how to gauge how the plane was sitting relative to the horizon and then told me to make a 360 degree turn and come back to where I could see the same view of the bay in front of me. I stepped on the rudder pedal and turned the yoke and the plane banked into a circle. When I made it all the way around, he had me do the same to the right. Then he began to talk about stalling, which he said is what most folks worry about when they get in a small plane. As he talked, he instructed me to continue to climb slowly. He wasn’t increasing the throttle, so we keep losing airspeed. When we fell to forty knots, a small alarm began to go off. He asked me how we could increase airspeed without opening the throttle; I answered by going down instead of up. He told me to lower the nose of the plane and head down, which I did – quickly. For a moment, it felt like we floated.

He smiled. “Most people are a little more frightened of that particular maneuver than you appear to be,” he said.

As we gained speed, he had me make the reverse move to slow us down and I could feel the increase in gravity as we started to climb. I was laughing out loud. We made a wide circle around the airport and came back in to land and I foot-steered us back to the hangar once we were on the ground.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Until today, I don’t remember ever thinking about what it would be like to fly a plane, or wishing for the chance to do so. After my hour in the sky, I’m ready to go again (though flight school is not in our budget anytime soon). The experience reminded me I’m not through discovering or experiencing the wonder of living on earth.

We ate dinner at Cafe Brazil, also in Plymouth, where we were joined by our chosen family members that live in the area, and then Ginger took me into Boston – under the guise of taking Jay and Cherry back to the train – where I was surprised by friends who span all of our time in New England at one of my favorite haunts, The Burren. We laughed and talked until we had used up what was left of my day. Again, I left feeling known and loved.

All of my life, my birthday has been on the way to Christmas. When I was a kid, my parents didn’t decorate until December 13 so I wouldn’t feel like my birthday got swallowed up by the holiday. Becoming intentional about observing Advent has meant erasing that line, but my day has only grown in meaning. The photographs in the scrapbooks stack up like stones in an altar to show me a picture of the “me” it has taken fifty years to build. My family and friends gathered remind me that the building project has been a community effort: they are helping me to become who I am, just as I am a construction worker in their lives. Ginger, who has been a part of almost half of my history, stokes my dreams into a blaze of imaginative possibilities that give my heart wings. We drove home tonight under a starlight sky and she reached across and took my hand, as she has done countless times before.

I trust there are still countless times to come.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: you say it’s your birthday

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

I’m minutes away from completing my fiftieth year on the planet. I would like to anticipate that moment by paying homage to those with whom I share a birthday:

  • 1673 Ahmed III 23rd sultan (Turkey, 1703-30)
  • 1745 John Jay diplomat (NY-Governor)
  • 1792 Alexandros Ypsilanti Greek resistance fighter
  • 1805 Henry Wells founder (American Express Company & Wells Fargo & Company)
  • 1805 William Lloyd Garrison abolitionist publisher (The Liberator)
  • 1821 Gustave Flaubert Rouen Normandy France, novelist (Madame Bovary)
  • 1835 Georges Jean Pfeiffer composer
  • 1863 Edvard Munch Norway, painter/print maker (The Scream)
  • 1913 Jesse Owens US, track star (4 golds 1936), spoiled Hitler’s Olympics
  • 1914 Patrick O’ Brian, England, novelist (Master and Commander)
  • 1915 Frank Sinatra Hoboken NJ, singer/actor (old blue eyes/chairman of board)
  • 1923 Bob Barker Darrington WA, game show emcee (Price is Right)
  • 1924 Edward I Koch New York NY, (Mayor-D-NY, 1977-89)/judge (People’s Court)
  • 1925 Cora Lee Johnson social activist for rural poor
  • 1928 Helen Frankenthaler New York NY, abstract expressionist artist (Arden)
  • 1938 Connie Francis Newark NJ, singer/actress (Where the Boys Are)
  • 1940 Dionne Warwick East Orange NJ, singer (Solid Gold, Way to San Jose)
  • 1942 Mike Pinder Birmingham England, rocker (Moody Blues)
  • 1943 Grover Washington Jr jazz artist (Mr Magic)
  • 1943 Dickey Betts West Palm Beach FL, guitarist (Allman Brothers-Ramblin’ Man)
  • 1946 Emerson Fittipaldi Brazil, Indy-car racer (over 10 wins)
  • 1952 Cathy Rigby McCoy Los Alamitos CA, gymnast (Olympics-4th-1968, 1972)
  • 1957 Sheila E. San Franciso CA, disco drummer (Krushgrove, Holly Rock)
  • 1962 Tracy Austin Rolling Hills CA, tennis pro (US Open 1979, 81)
  • 1970 Jennifer Connelly Brooklyn Heights NY, actress (Labyrinth, Rocketeer)
  • 1970 Madchen Amick Reno NV, actress (Shelly Johnson-Twin Peaks)

From depressed artists to race car drivers to lounge lizards to psychic friends. Go figure.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: ice cream hopes

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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3

Earlier this week, Ginger asked me about buying ice cream for a Sunday School special event. She needed restaurant sized quantities, so I went to by East Coast Paper, a local restaurant supply, and ordered three gallons each of vanilla and chocolate for Ginger to pick up Saturday morning. Last night, on my way home from work around ten-thirty, I called to let her know I was headed her way and she asked if I would go by the store and get the sauces and sprinkles and whatever else I could think of for the kids’ party. So I did. I got home about eleven-fifteen.

This morning, as we were preparing to sing our congregational benediction, Ginger stood up and told everyone what I just told you and then announced that I had actually bought all the elements for my own birthday celebration at Coffee Hour, along with everyone else who has a birthday in November and December. She and her partners-in-crime had taken a ten-foot gutter, lined it with aluminum foil, and then scooped the ice cream into it to make one giant banana split. We each grabbed a plastic spoon and began adding sauces and so forth and had ourselves a grand old time. Only about a half a gallon of ice cream was left when it was all said and done.

I certainly did my part to make it disappear.

I can’t think of a much better celebratory substance than ice cream. (Guinness would be the one exception – put them both together . . .) I would rather eat ice cream than cake, as far as birthdays go. The one essential word I learned in Turkey that served me well as we traveled last spring was “dondurma” – ice cream. And let me tell you: they know how to make ice cream.

I loved sharing the sundae with all the (other) kids who stood wide-eyed waiting for the word to dive in. Though a couple of people assumed they would be able to stake out a small section of sundae as their very own, I encouraged folks to dive in wherever they wanted to. We weren’t going to get sick; we were having too much fun. Besides, it’s the joy that’s contagious.

I have a friend who was born on the same day as I was, but some years later. His life is falling apart right now. He feels alienated and alone. He is alone. The possibility of his being infected by joy is slim to none these days. I thought about him driving home from church and wished I knew a way to help him feel celebrated and included. My wife and my church family gave me an amazing gift today because they took the time to make me feel their joy in my being on the planet. I’m even more grateful that this year, short days and all, I’m not feeling depressed and am able to feel celebrated and loved in a way I have not been able to do the past few Decembers.

Even if my friend had been in the room today and we had all sung to him, he would not have felt any less alone. He is despairing to the point of hopelessness right now. Thanks to Sheep Days, I learned something about hope and waiting this week:

In a recent editorial in the Christian Century, John Buchanan noted that the Spanish word (and I will add, the Portuguese) for “to wait” is “esperar.” Being a little too close to the language to realize this myself, he pointed out to me that this is also the same verb we translate in English as “to hope.” It is true. In the Spanish brain, there is no differentiation in the actual words “hope” and “wait,” though I presume that just as we English-speakers have words that mean two things, context is everything (example: “wait” in the sense of passing time before an appointed event and “wait” in the sense of serving a table in a restaurant). “Hope” in Spanish is “esperanza,” derived from “esperar.”

The wise men had the wherewithal to follow the star, believing it was a sign of someone they had been waiting for, but the angels had to go and find the shepherds in the field who lived at the margins of life, slept in the pastures, and were waiting for little or nothing because there was little or nothing to wait for.

“Joy to the world,” sang the angels. Even for those who were not joyful.

When I was doing CPE at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, we were talking in seminar one day about how to be with people who were in situations that appeared hopeless to them. The chaplain leading the seminar said, “Sometimes all I can do is say, ‘I can see you are feeling hopeless right now. Perhaps the best thing I can do is offer to hope for you.’”

This is a birthday to remember for me; for my friend, it is one to forget or simply live through. And I plan to live thought it with him, hoping where he cannot that life will not always be the way it feels to him right now.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: crumbs to follow

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

Journeying through Advent has a bit of a Hansel and Gretel flair for me because I feel like I spend my day looking for a crumb or two to let me know where I am on the journey and to remind me where I’m going – which reminds me of a story.

A number of years ago, Ginger and I went to Las Vegas just because we had never been. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel (since we got engaged in the Hard Rock Café in Dallas) for a couple of nights and then we had had our fill. On the morning we were leaving, I was taking some stuff down to the rental car and followed two men and a woman out of the hotel. For me, it was morning; for them, it was still the night before.

The woman said, “There’s two things you gotta know in life: where you’re at and where you’re goin’.”

“Well, hell,” said the man to her right. “I always knowed where I was at, but I ain’t never knowed where I was going.”

I got to thinking about traveling tonight because of this photograph posted by Mark Heybo. He’s been dropping one great visual crumb after another ever since Advent began. This one knocks me out. The suitcases have stories to tell as evidenced by their missing latches, broken handles, and scuffed up exteriors. They seem to be leading the luggage parade, based on the others lined up behind them.

And then there are two sprigs of holly stuck in the handles as decoration, as if the ascending stack of cases is a luggage artist’s rendition of a Christmas tree. Even in the scuffed up places, there’s reason to celebrate and wonder.

For some reason, that takes me to one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Those are crumbs worth following.

Peace,
MIlton

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