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thankful boy

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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5

I love Thanksgiving. It’s about not eating alone – what can I say?

I can begin by posting a couple of recipes:

We’re not talking gourmet here, but we are talking quick, easy, and pretty darn good.

I’ll have a few more recipes as the week goes on.

Apples were central to worship today. The children’s sermon was the story of Johnny Appleseed, a Massachusetts native who traveled across the Midwest planting apple seeds as an expression of his faith. At the close of the children’s time, as they headed for Sunday School, they handed out apples to the adults in the congregation as an expression of kindness and connection. Nothing like a good healthy snack halfway through the service.

Something about this week makes me want to bake pies. For several years now, a couple days before Thanksgiving Day (this year I only have Tuesday), I bake pies like nobody’s business (last year – fourteen), and then Ginger and I deliver them to neighbors, friends, and folks who are having a hard time for one reason or another. We also save a couple for our table as well, which provide sustenance in the days following the holiday as well. It’s one of my favorite things. I love the way the house fills up with the aromas oozing out of the oven. I love the tactile work of rolling the crusts, pressing my fingers into the dough to flute the edges, and mixing the various fillings: pecan, pumpkin, squash, and sweet potato. I love covering up the dining table with pies waiting to cool so they can begin their journey to their new home. And I love sinking my fork into slices of those that stay here.

One year when Ginger’s parents were visiting, I finished our pies late on Wednesday night and left them out to cool for the Big Day. When I came down the next morning, a little slice had been carved out of every pie on the table. My mother-in-law had come down in the night because she just needed to sample them – all of them. The biggest piece was out of the pecan pie; that’s her favorite.

Pie is good. Let us give thanks for pie. Amen.

On our way to church this morning, Ginger and I stopped at our local supermarket to fill up the Thanksgiving Bags for the food pantry. Walking through the grocery store with Ginger is an interesting and amusing experience because she is like an explorer in a new world. She saw the brownie mix and the cans of prepared frosting while I was loading up on soups and stuffing mix. She assured me the frosting would be quite popular at the pantry. I had no reason to disagree. Together, we provided a good balance of choices. As we loaded the bags into the car, I was aware, once again, of how much I have to be thankful for even in the midst of circumstances I would like to change.

Ginger asked me to sing a song Billy and I wrote many years ago that goes well with the season; it’s called “Thankful Boys and Girls.” Here are the lyrics:

let us be thankful boys and girls
for eyes and ears and toes and puppies with wet noses
for lessons we have learned and love we have not earned
we follow the beat of amazing grace
o let us be thankful boys and girls

let us be thankful boys and girls
for kisses on the mouth and teenage heartbeats pounding
for lightning in the sky and laugher in the eye
we follow the beat of amazing grace
oh let us be thankful boys and girls

for all that brought us here and all that will see us through
the passageways of life that lead to you, lead us to you

let us be thankful boys and girls
for a little common sense and painted picket fences
when packing up the plans in rented moving vans
we follow the beat of amazing grace
oh let us be thankful boys and girls

let us be thankful boys and girls
for mendelssohn and brahms and shadows growing longer
for years that slowly go and grandkids we can hold
for memories to keep and sorrow running deep
we follow the beat of amazing grace
oh let us be thankful boys and girls

for all that brought us here and all that will see us through
the passageways of life that lead to you, lead us to you

let us be thankful boys and girls
when hope is not enough that death can’t bury love
for wine and bread and hymns remembering again
we follow the beat of amazing grace
oh let us be thankful boys and girls

This week I’m going to have to fight for time to cook at home because I have to cook at work. For the first time in our marriage, I’m going to have to work part of the day on Thanksgiving, which in many ways is our favorite holiday. I hate it and I’m figuring out how to still make the day happen for us at home. In the midst of it all, I want to remember apples and pie and trips to the store, or anywhere, with Ginger.

I want to be a thankful boy.

Peace,
Milton

faith and phyllo

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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6

One morning this week, as Ginger and I were eating breakfast and getting ready to go to work, Martha Stewart was on the Today Show showing how to make some nifty Thanksgiving dishes. One of the things she showed Meredith Vierra how to make was a Sweet Potato Soufflé Pie. She made it all look not only easy but effortless. Here’s the thing: it wasn’t.

I understand the time constraints of live television, but what she did in about seven minutes takes hours of preparation and a fair amount of expertise. A look at the recipe gives a clue to what one is in for: bake the potatoes for an hour and fifteen minutes; put them through a ricer (yeah, everyone has one of those) and let them cool completely (another hour); mix in the other stuff; heat the milk and fresh ginger and then strain it through a “fine mesh sieve” (got that, too?); line the Springform pan with the phyllo dough, piece by piece, brushing it with butter (trust me, phyllo isn’t that easy to handle); mix in the egg whites; pour the mixture into the phyllo; cook for fifty minutes; and let stand another twenty before serving.

She never said a word about spending close to three hours making the soufflé. She never warned that working with phyllo dough will turn you into a serial killer (cereal killer?). She just kept pulling bowls and pans with stuff already done from underneath the counter as if that’s how it happens in everyone’s kitchen. I came away from the segment feeling as though the point was not to make me think I could make the soufflé (and I cook for a living!), but that I would notice how much better she was in the kitchen than I am. She was promoting herself, not teaching me.

My friend Billy’s dad was brilliant when it came to most all things having anything to do with computers and engineering. He had a problem solver’s mind and he was brilliant on top of that. At his funeral, the recurring theme had to do with how he responded when you went to him with something he knew how to do and you did not. Rather than impress you with his expertise, or fix whatever was wrong so he could get back to what he was doing, he would ask questions: what do you think is wrong? what do you think we should do? have you considered this? Before long, not only was the problem solved, but you had learned something knew without feeling stupid. What a gift.

I was pretty good at math until the second semester of my junior year, when we moved from Accra, Ghana to Houston, Texas. My Algebra II teacher was Ms. Gibbs; she was impatient and I was lost. The pivotal day, as I remember it, came when I raised my hand to ask a question about something and she said, after hearing my question, “I don’t have time for stupid questions.” I never took another math class, even though I placed out of my BA math requirement at Baylor because of my ACT scores. Whatever affinity I had for math she ran down and left as intellectual road kill.

I majored in history.

I’m a cook because of the way my mother taught in her kitchen. I was always an inquisitive kid and the kitchen was the best room of belonging in our house, wherever we were living at the time. While we were talking and she was cooking, I would ask, “What are you making?” She would answer by inviting me to help. The next time she was making the same thing, she would say, “You watched me do this the other day; you make it this time,” and before long I felt like it was my kitchen, too.

Much of what passes for Christian rhetoric in the public (and, I suppose, private) arena is not good teaching because it begins from the vantage point of “Let me tell you where you’re wrong.” Condescension is not a good conduit for grace. We can’t look down our noses at people in Jesus’ name and expect them to knock us over trying to get through the church doors. Jan Edmiston has a great post on “Radical Hospitality” that’s points out the incongruity between God’s expansive love and the exclusionary actions of some Christian groups. Those who are being labeled as sinful, and thus unworthy, are going to be as excited about finding hope in Jesus’ name as I would be about taking another class with Ms. Gibbs. If church is not a place for broken hearts, searching souls, and stupid questions, what’s left?

We make following Jesus sound as complicated as a Martha Stewart recipe. The path of discipleship is difficult but not complicated. It’s difficult because of its call to intentionality to love God with all of our beings and to love our neighbors – the smart, the stupid, and the sinful – as ourselves – who are also the smart, the stupid, and the sinful. It’s difficult because we are called to be encouragers, not experts. It’s difficult because Christ leads us more with questions than with answers – oh, and that line about “Love everyone as I have loved you.”

As I get ready to prepare Thanksgiving Dinner, I like reading through Food & Wine and seeing what newfangled versions of old standards they have created. Martha’s soufflé looked good despite all the grief I’ve given her. What I’ll end up making are not new things but favorite things. Everyone coming to dinner has at least one particular dish they want on the table, from sweet potatoes with the little marshmallows to Refrigerator Rolls to canned cranberry sauce. The point is not for me to prove I can cook fancy stuff but to create a table that makes everyone feel a place was created just for them. I love cooking all of it, and opening the can of cranberry sauce, because I’m cooking for family.

I watch Ginger do the same thing as she plans worship each week and works with the various committees in the church. We talk a lot about making people, both new folks and old timers, feel welcome and at home. It’s hard work and she makes us all feel like we can do it, like faith is easier than phyllo dough.

Peace,
Milton

kitchen philosophy

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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3

In the deepest throes of my depression, one of the things for which I was most grateful was Ginger wasn’t depressed. The Power of Two became increasingly evident to me: we thrive because we take turns having a hard time. The viability of any group of people relies on an assumption that we won’t all be crashing and burning at once. From two people together in a household to whole populations of countries, we depend on one another to not all go down at the same time.

Today I saw that assumption pushed to the limit.

For some reasons I know and others I don’t, pretty much everyone at the Red Lion Inn was having a crappy day and they were responding with an extra helping of surliness. A couple of folks came to work in a decent mood, but once they got their heads chewed off by one of the Surly McSurl Pants, they turned as bitter as everyone else. My focus was trying to keep the Head Chef from coming unglued, so I didn’t have time for surly. We have been friends for a while and he was hurting today. I understood why he was acting the way he was and did my best to be a good friend, which helped both my mood and my intentionality. The bartender was also in a good mood, as he most always is. Together, the two of us held things together without realizing that’s what we were doing until quite late in the evening.

I understand bad moods. I know them well. I even understand the skewed logic that makes us enjoy wallowing in our bitterness sometimes. What I don’t understand – even though I’m quite capable of participating – is why our reflex seems to be to lash out to make those around us hurt and angry. Randy Newman nailed it in his insightfully satiric song, “I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do.”

I ran out on my children
And I ran out on my wife
Gonna run out on you too, baby
I’ve done it all my life
Everybody cried the night I left
Well, almost everybody did
My little boy just hung his head
And I put my arm, put my arm around his little shoulder
And this is what I said:

“Sonny I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do”

As soon as we ask ourselves how any parent could say that to a child, we become aware that we know the answer, even if not to that extreme. Newman spells it out in the last verse of his song.

If I had one wish
One dream I knew would come true
I’d want to speak to all the people of the world
I’d get up there, I’d get up there on that platform
First I’d sing a song or two you know I would
Then I’ll tell you what I’d do
I’d talk to the people and I’d say
“It’s a rough rough world, it’s a tough tough world
Well, you know
And things don’t always, things don’t always go the way we plan
But there’s one thing, one thing we all have in common
And it’s something everyone can understand
All over the world sing along

I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do”

Compassion, says Henri Nouwen, is “voluntarily entering the pain of another.” What is the word for voluntarily inflicting pain on another? Why does the first require such intentionality and the second come so easily? Thanks to Mark Heybo for steering my thoughts in a redemptive direction through the words of Walter Wink.

The belief that violence “saves” is so successful because it doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience- unto-death . . .

In short, the Myth of Redemptive Violence is the story of the victory of order over chaos by means of violence. It is the ideology of conquest, the original religion of the status quo . . .

Redemptive violence gives way to violence as an end in itself. It is no longer a religion that uses violence in the pursuit of order and salvation, but one in which violence has become an aphrodisiac, sheer titillation, an addictive high, a substitute for relationships. Violence is no longer the means to a higher good, namely order; violence becomes the end.

Wink says the lie that pervades our world’s view of violence as solution rather than problem is we think violence was there from the beginning. The Creation account in Genesis 1, however, says over and over God saw that it was good. Violence came later as a problem to be solved rather than as a given of our existence. Maybe it’s too big a leap to try and make a connection to make between the sniping of the surly people at the restaurant and the fallacy of violence as a means to solve our problems. But the difference between how folks shot at each other tonight and the car bombers in Baghdad seems to be one of degree more than substance. The similarities between us as human beings are more substantive than we know.

As long as I’m being “quoteful” in this post, I offer REM’s words of hope in the midst of pain, “Everybody Hurts”:

Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it’s time to sing along–
When your day is night alone, hold on
if you feel like letting go,
if you think you’ve had too much
of this life, well hang on.

‘cause everybody hurts.
Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts.

Let us both give and take comfort.

Peace,
Milton

it’s a small world

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

We live in a small world.

Most of the time we use that sentence to mean we are all more aware of the whole planet: I listen to the BBC on the way to work in the morning; I have a link to Al Jazeera (in English) on this page; we can buy produce shipped from Chile and Peru in our supermarkets and even buy sushi; I can call around the world without hesitatinig; most all of my clothes are made in another country; and it’s not just ABC’s Wide World of Sports that spans the globe anymore.

As I drove home from work tonight thinking about what I wanted to write, the idea of a small world kept playing over and over in my head, but not for the reasons I just mentioned. I live in a small world and that troubles me. My life too easily becomes about going to and from work, running errands, and responding to life on such a local level that my eyes never see beyond the city limits of my own existence. Unless I work at it, life quickly becomes like living in Pleasantville, where it doesn’t matter what happens to the road outside of town because no one ever goes that far.

I like my life. My job is challenging and fun, even when I have to work three twelve hour days in a row, as I’m doing this week. I can’t think of anywhere in the world I would rather go than home to be with Ginger and the pups. I love my church and I love spending time making sure we have what we need for Coffee Hour every week. I like digging in the dirt to plant flowers and vegetables. I look forward to spending time in front of my computer screen each evening as I write. I don’t feel as though I’m wasting much time in my life and I’m aware how easily my world becomes smaller unless I intentionally figure out a way to zig where I normally zag so that The World Out There can break in.

Part of zigging for me is looking up from my task to see what is going on. I can be more focused than a homing pigeon when it comes to setting my mind to a task and getting it done. One of the good things about that is I get a lot of stuff done. The down side is a lot of stuff goes whizzing right past me without my noticing. A couple of weeks ago, I was going downstairs to change into my chef’s uniform, which meant I had to pass through the laundry room at the Inn to get to the changing room, and as I did I spoke to the Italian woman who does the laundry.

“How are you today?” I asked.
“I’m OK,” she said as I passed and then added quietly as I was closing the door to change, “Actually, I’m not so good.”

When I came out of the room, I asked what was going on and she told me her father, who was in Italy, had had a stroke the night before. She went on to tell me about her family and how hard it was to be so far away and how her brother in Italy was coming down on her pretty hard for being so far away and leaving him to take care of everything. Somewhere in there I realized I was standing with a bundle of kitchen towels under my arm and speaking a body language that said, “Sorry about your dad but the restaurant opens in thirty minutes and I’ve got prep work to do.” For once, I put down the towels and listened and made my world stop shrinking.

That was a couple of weeks ago. This week, my life has focused on me and on my family. I know there are things happening across the planet and in the lives of my friends and none of them is a part of my world right now. I’m not looking at or listening to much outside of my own orbit. I have my reasons and some of them are good. There’s a legitimate time to say, “I’m doing what I can right now.” There’s also a unending call to not let that be the last or only word. The creative tension between those two poles is where worlds grow, and hearts as well.

In the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (one of the favorite shows in the Brasher-Cunningham household), there was an episode called “Earshot” in which Buffy ended up being able to hear everyone’s thoughts. Ultimately, the sheer volume of pain was excruciatingly crushing. She needed some filters, some limits. We live in a time when it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. There are more worthy things asking for our attention and energy than we can count – and those are just the worthy ones. There’s also enough guilt to go around when it comes to struggling with the reality that we can’t respond to all the need in the world. We can’t even meet all the needs in front of our faces.

And when I feel overwhelmed, I let my world get smaller. I can’t find the answers to my life, so I quit listening to all the questions. But there aren’t answers, only a call which requires that I listen and look up to hear and see more than me. Tomorrow, for the third day in a row, I will drive down Route 3A to work, spend most of the day cooking, and then drive home. Thursday, I will run errands and try to check a couple of things off a very old list of things to do around the house, and then spend two more days driving and cooking. On Sunday, I’ll go to church. In the nights and evenings sandwiched in between those days, I will come home to my wife and my puppies.

It is a meaningful existence, perhaps even noble in some sense, and it is small in the same way all human lives are small and particular. Yet, in the paradox of grace, I’m called to be both grateful and unsettled as I look at my life.

It’s not a small world, after all.

Peace,
Milton

a good kind of tired

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

I had the kitchen to myself today.

Since I was gone this weekend and it turned out to be one of the busiest of the year at the restaurant, I worked today so the others could have a day off. I got to the Inn about 10:15 am and left around 10:15 pm, with a steady stream of customers and a prep list as long as my arm to work through. I’m tired and, as Jackson Browne sings, “When the morning light comes streaming in I’ll get up and do it again. Amen.”

As much as I work, I’m surrounded by folks who work more than I do. Robert, our head chef, pretty much lives at the Inn. Most of the other cooks and dishwashers have at least one other job. Pedro, who is my dishwasher on Monday nights, works a construction job all day and then washes dishes from six to midnight. He bounces in every evening with a loud, “What up?” and a smile on his face. Tonight, at 9:30, I could hear him singing in the dishroom. When he came out to put the clean dishes away, I told him his happiness helped me.

“It’s good to be happy,” he said. “I got problems, but I leave them at my house. Everybody got problems. Why I need bring mine to work? I like my job. I work hard. I like people. I’m happy.”

Ginger got home tonight after an extended day of travel, thanks to Northwest Airlines and some nasty weather around here. I came home to a familiar and welcome sight of my wife and schnauzers all curled up together on the couch. I showered, put on my pajamas, and hung out with them for awhile before I came up to write. Gracie followed me upstairs and has curled up in the armchair next to my desk, as she usually does. With each tap on the keyboard, exhaustion gives way to sleepiness. In the few hours between when I left work and when I go back, I am, as Martina McBride sings, safe in the arms of love.

Tonight, I go to sleep more grateful than tired.

Peace,
Milton

random notes

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

Farrier was the word on the way to Birmingham; pedorthics was the word on the way home: “the art concerned with the design, manufacture, fit, and modification of foot appliances as prescribed for relief of painful or disabling conditions of the foot.”

On the flight from Atlanta to Manchester, I sat next to a woman who is a cobbler and had been at a pedorthics symposium to learn more about how to help people with their feet. Much like the guy who shoed horses so they could feel healthy, this woman did the same thing for humans. They also shared a love for their work. I came away amused that my trip had been bookended by feet.

_________________________________

Ginger doesn’t come home until tomorrow night, so I stopped at Blockbuster to pick up a movie to pass the time and ended up taking an unexpected journey. Kevin Wilmott wrote and directed The Confederate States of America, a mock documentary history of our nation as if the South had won the Civil War. It has the look and feel of Ken Burns’ work, using some original footage, along with old newsreels and educational films, and peppering it all with some bitingly satiric commercials.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when it started. I was half prepared for a very anti-Southern diatribe, which it was not. It was much more about “us” as a nation rather than “them” as the South. Wilmott does a wonderful job capturing our personality as a nation and resituating it in the changed outcome of the war; he also has a keen eye for what the consequences might have been. The most disturbing thing is some of them are not that much different than what life looks like in America today. It’s worth watching – and watching with some folks who can talk about it afterwards.

_________________________________

My father-in-law had a good weekend for the most part. There was obvious evidence that his short-term memory is fading and the family reunion offered him the chance to relish in the times he remembers with astounding detail. He’s a good storyteller and he’s got some great stories to tell. My favorite moment of the weekend came I was getting ready to fix dinner Friday night. Soon after Ginger and I met, I told her one day the difference in our families’ attitude towards food was when my family ate it was an event; her family ate so they didn’t die. Neither of my in-laws feel compelled to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

“What are you fixing for dinner?” my father-in-law asked.
“Pot roast,” I answered.
With a mischievous look in his eye and a gentle smile aimed at his wife he said, “Pot roast – what’s that?” And then he laughed. We all did.

_________________________________

One more movie note that’s just too good to pass up. When I clicked back to the TV after the CSA movie was over, Cool Hand Luke was on. Paul Newman is the coolest guy ever. For no other reason than the scene just grabbed me, here is Luke’s prayer in the closing scenes of the film:

“Anybody here? Hey, Ol’ Man, You home tonight? Can you spare a minute? It’s about time we had a little talk. I know I’m a pretty evil fella. Killed people in the war and got drunk and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much but even so, you gotta admit, you ain’t dealt me no cards in a long time. It’s beginnin’ to look like you got things fixed so I can’t never win out. Inside, outside, all ’em rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Just where am I supposed to fit in? Ol’ Man, I gotta tell ya. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it’s beginnin’ to get to me. When does it end? What do ya got in mind for me? What do I do now? All right. All right. (He kneels on his knees and cups his hands in prayer.) On my knees, askin’. (pause) Yeah, that’s what I thought. I guess I’m pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case. I guess I gotta find my own way.”

A few police cars drive up in front of the church. Dragline calls out to his friend from the church door: “Luke?”

Luke looks up and addresses an aside to God: “That’s your answer ol’ Man? I guess you’re a hard case too.”


Peace,
Milton

turn it up

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
3

I want to take time to mention three culinary-related adventures during my short visit to Irondale, Alabama.

  • The Irondale Cafe is better known as “The Whistlestop” because of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, which they serve when in season. I went for the fried catfish and hushpuppies this time around.
  • The Krystal. (In this part of the world, you say “the” in front of most store names.) I’ve been in this monument to small square hamburgers everyday because they have free WiFi. Seriously, how can they have free wireless and Starbucks still make you pay for it? More seriously, you have to try the Corn Pups.
  • La Cucaracha. That’s the name of the closest Mexican restaurant to my in-laws’ house. I’m assuming they know they named their eating establishment for an insect whose presence violates the health code, but that’s not important now. They have really good food and even better margaritas, but what I will remember most is the mariachi band who do a mean rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama.” I wish Neil Young could remember what the song sounds like with guitar, fiddle, and guitaron. Roll, Tide, roll.

Time to sign off and get some sleep before my sunrise flight back home. But first, I think I’ll have one more Corn Pup. Though I don’t have video of the mariachi, I did find this:

Turn it up.

Peace,
Milton

the friendly skies: part two

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

Not long after I finished writing yesterday, I boarded the plane for Birmingham and sat down next to a big guy from Moody, Alabama, which is not far from Irondale, where my in-laws live. He was ready to talk. Usually, I sit down and fall asleep when I get on a plane, but this time I was awake, so I listened and asked questions.

He told me he was returning home from a trip to Salt Lake City where he had been teaching. He was about six foot three, maybe sixty, with salt and pepper hair and a mostly grey moustache and goatee. I had the sense that he usually wore a cowboy hat, though he was not wearing one on the plane. He had an affable, Slim Pickens sort of manner, all of which left me wondering what kind of classes he taught. So I asked him.

“Proportional horseshoeing,” he answered.

I still had no idea, so I asked some more questions. He was happy to answer. After a lifetime of shoeing horses in Alabama, he developed a way of looking at the horse more holistically and then shoeing the horse appropriately.

“I look at horses to see what they’re built for,” he said. “You can learn a lot by looking. I look at you and I know you can cook ‘cause you told me, and I know you could play lineman for the Green Bay Packers. But you ain’t gonna play center for the Detroit Pistons. You could be a lineman. You’re a large man.”

I got the point.

“I stand on one side of a horse and take a perfect mental picture and then go around to the other side and notice what muscles are out of place. God made horses to turn left and right and go forward and backward. When they can’t do those things, something is out of line. I look at the horse and find out what needs to be corrected.”

“And then you can fix it by the way you shoe the horse?”

“That’s right. It’s like putting on orthopedic shoes. I may put a pad in between the hoof and the shoe, or something like that. I’ve got horses people thought were through that are back at work and going strong just because I taught the people how to shoe them properly. It’s worked out pretty good for me,” he continued. “I’ve been self-employed all my life and this has turned into a pretty good retirement plan; people pay good money for me to come teach ‘em.”

My mind jumped to metaphor like a well-shoed horse in a steeplechase.

“What strikes me, “ I said, “is how often life changes for us when we pay attention to the small stuff and take time to notice what’s out of line in our lives, or have someone else point it out.”

We spent the rest of the flight talking about what kind of eyes we needed to see our lives the way he looked at his horses. Just a half hour before, I’d been sitting on the floor in the airport watching people walk, lemming-like, to baggage claim and now I was sitting nest to a guy who paid attention for a living – and changed lives because of the way he looked at things. All this from a farrier (my word for the day).

As I sat down to write today, an old nursery rhyme rose to the top of my memory:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

The explanation that followed on the web site where I found the poem said:

A clever set of lyrics encouraging a child to apply logic to the consequences of their
actions. Perhaps used to gently chastise a child and explain the possible events that might follow a thoughtless act.

The horse sense I found in my conversation on the plane and the rhyme together leads me to think about the possible events that might follow a thoughtful act. The man next to me was making a living helping people see their animals in a life-giving way, rather than discussing how to cut their losses. The biggest consequence to thoughtlessness is we give up too easily. The more we are acculturated to expect planned obsolescence, the more intentional we must become in looking for ways help each other last.

When they brought the adulterous woman to Jesus, he saw her not as an exception, but an example of humanity worth saving.
When he saw Zaccheus in the tree, he saw more than a crook; he saw a philanthropist.
When he saw the blind man, he didn’t see someone who was being punished by God, but someone through whom the love of God could shine.

I want to learn how to see the world – to see the people around me – with those kind of eyes. For now, I’ll say thanks for the farrier: he made flying fun again.

Peace,
Milton

the friendly skies

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

When I was a kid, I loved to fly. Heck, for most of my life that’s been true.

There’s always been a certain romance to getting on a plane and crossing a continent or an ocean in a matter of hours. When we lived in Zambia, we used to drive out to the airport in Lusaka to watch the British Airways VC-10s land. No one in the country had ever seen a plane that big. The flights were still long and often inconvenient, but we were stepping into the world of the Wright brothers and Charles Lindbergh and Ameila Earhart. We were doing what Icarus dreamed of and this time the wings didn’t melt.

When we came back to the States on leave, we took a flight from Amsterdam to Montreal to Houston twice. I was going into sixth grade the second time and I remember taking off from Amsterdam right about sunset and flying due west all night long just fast enough to keep the sun from going down until we landed in Canada. Then there was the time – a little more harrowing and turbulent – when we flew on an old DC-3 from one end of Malawi to the other at about 7,000 feet. The next week, my brother and I were playing tennis at the Baptist encampment at Limuru, Kenya at the same altitude.

I’m writing tonight from the Atlanta airport, one of my least favorite places in the world. I’m sitting on the floor next to an electrical outlet (so I can plug in my MacBook) and wondering where the romance went. It’s not so much fun to fly anymore. Part of the reason is the size of airports like this one. It took me about a third of the time it did to fly from Manchester, New Hampshire to Atlanta just to get from the gate where I landed to the gate where I’m making my connection to Birmingham. In between, they’ve managed to turn the airport into a hybrid shopping mall, another dehumanizing environment. While I’m in hell I can still shop!

Part of the reason is flying is much more common. Airlines are flying buses these days; it’s how we get around. When the Space Shuttle made its first landing, I remember Frank Reynolds lamenting the end of our romance with space. Now, he said, it will become commonplace – and it did. Mine was the last generation that stared up into the starry night hoping to see satellites and wondering what it felt like to be Neil Armstrong.

The rest of the reason is fear. (Yes, I realize this is a recurring them for me.) While I’ve been sitting here on the floor writing – about thirty minutes – the same Homeland Security (I hate that name) announcement has played telling me the alert color is Orange (relatively high) and I have to put any liquids and gels in a separate clear plastic bag, which they will provide and which can be searched separately of my carry on. The woman behind me in Manchester had to forfeit her eye drops because they were in a 4.5 ounce container rather than a three ounce one. Once they confiscated it, I was sure the color would drop to yellow.

Fear makes us lose our sense of humor. Southwest, I will say, has managed to keep theirs, for which I’m thankful. My favorite instruction came the day the flight attendant was telling us how to use the oxygen masks and said, “If you are traveling with a child, put your mask on first and then fix theirs. If you have two children, pick the one you like best and tell the other one you’re sorry.”

I’m not sure there’s much romance in that, but it was funny. I like funny.

There’s probably not a way to keep the romance in flying. The world got smaller and we kept getting on airplanes until it was not as big a deal. They really are buses with wings. Maybe it’s not the romance I’m missing. Chasing that turns me into a nostalgic those-were-the-days-and-you’ll-never-know-what-it-was-like kind of guy. I don’t want to be him.

As I’m writing, a flight has just unloaded at the gate across from me. The people walked out single file as if they were in Jonestown looking for Koolaid. Maybe that’s what bugs me. We know it’s ridiculous to give up our eye drops in the name of safety, but we do it. We know a bag of peanuts and a biscotti does not qualify as a meal. We know if we ever have to use our seat cushion as a flotation device we’re done for. We know the color of the day makes absolutely no difference. We know we’re being fed a load of crap.

And we still line up with our boarding passes and do what they say.

Rise up, O men and women of God; be done with lesser things.

At the end of Arlo Guthrie’s wonderful song, Alice’s Restaurant – all twenty-five minutes of it – he tells his audience:

And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similarsituation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”. And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both [nuts] and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

Hear me clearly: I’m not advocating bomb jokes or demanding to carry your Big Gulp sized shampoo in your carry on, yet there has to be a way to be creatively subversive to reclaim our humanity.

Sit in the corner and sing while you’re waiting for your flight.
Skip from gate to gate.
Give a package of Peanut M & Ms to the surly gate agent.

Maybe I’m crazy, but all I need are a few of you and we’ve got ourselves a movement. I guess that’s why I’m wearing my orange shirt today. I wonder if the TSA has noticed.

Peace,
Milton

hello in there

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

For the first time in about four months, I have four days off in a row.

I’m flying to Birmingham tomorrow to meet Ginger and hang out with my in-laws and go to a family reunion (well, at least part of the family – Ginger’s cousins are all over that country); I come back on Sunday in time to be back at work on Monday. I’m glad to be getting away. I hope it gives me a chance to find some perspective on the disappointment of the week. I walked up to the bakery this evening – it closed as of this morning – to find everyone just walked out. They didn’t clean up or put up or do anything. There was still pancake batter, eggs, and fruit in the refrigerator and cookies and pastries in the display cases. It looks like it should be filled with the sounds of people sharing meals and the aroma of breads and cookies coming from the kitchen.

Instead, it stands hollow, more than empty.

The main reason I’m working so hard to get to Birmingham is to see my mother-in-law and my father-in-law. She had triple coronary bypass surgery in September and is doing wonderfully. I haven’t seen her since the surgery. He is dealing with the early stages of Alzheimer’s and is fading incrementally. I want to be with him as much as I can. I thought of him as I stood in the bakery this evening, a room that looked like it should be inhabited but was not. He is the man I have come to love dearly over the years and he’s not the same: he is not completely inhabited anymore. He is fading away and I don’t want him to go. He’s one of the good guys.

He is a man who has always put his arms around the world. He never met a stranger, he is always ready to have a conversation, and he always feels “fine, wonderful, magnificent.” One of my favorite stories about him happened a few Thanksgivings ago. My in-laws were here for the holiday, as were a few friends who have become intentional family. One of them is gay. We have a sectional couch and between Thanksgiving and New Year’s we put a futon mattress down to make a big palette in front of the TV. My father-in-law and our friend were lying on the mattress together watching a football game. I, the straight son-in-law, was in the kitchen making Thanksgiving dinner. Ginger walked through and said, “Hey Dad, did you ever think you’d be lying on the couch with a gay guy watching football while your straight son-in-law was cooking in the kitchen?”

He said, “No, but he’s a pretty good guy,” and then let out a belly laugh. For our friend, whose father won’t let him come home until he’s willing to be straight, the moment was grace incarnate.

Northern Alabama is filled with people who have been touched by his love and hopefulness. There are folks in our church here in Marshfield who love him deeply, even though he only gets to come up once or twice a year. He is a man of open heart and gentle spirit, one of the finest people I know.

John Prine has a song called “Hello in There.” The chorus says,

old trees just grow stronger
and old rivers grow wilder everyday
old people just grow lonesome
waiting for someone to say
hello in there
hello

The thought of him fading into loneliness breaks my heart. Hopefully, the medicine he is taking will keep him from fading quickly and give us all some good years together. As deeply as so many names are etched upon his heart, it’s going to take a lot to make him forget.

Peace,
Milton

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