Back in March, I added a third page to this blog called “don’t eat alone: the possibilities.” The idea grew out of my writing about the connection between cocoa harvesting and child slavery. When I first wrote about it, I generated a good bit of conversation. By the end of March, I wondered how to keep it from falling out of view. I thought I could keep issues closer to the front by giving them their own page and highlighting stuff I came across. It was a good idea and I couldn’t pull it off. I pulled the site down and will speak to the issues here as they come up.

I don’t want to forget what’s important, or be a slave to the immediate, and I have to come to terms with my limitations. As much as I would love to champion most every cause I come across, I can’t do it. There are too many important things for me to keep track of them all. That’s a hard truth for me to face.

I was in the car briefly this afternoon and heard the folks on NPR mention that this week is National Headache Awareness Week and June is National Accordion Awareness Month. When I got home, I searched for more accordion information and found those events are only two in a long list. In case you were wondering, June is:

Accordion Awareness Month, National (here’s to Flaco Jimenez)
Adopt-A-Shelter-Cat Month
Aphasia Awareness Month, National
Cancer from the Sun Month
Candy Month, National
Child Vision Awareness Month
Children’s Awareness Month
Dairy Alternatives Month
Effective Communications Month
Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Marketing Month
Fight the Filthy Fly Month (as opposed to the clean fly)
Fireworks Safety Month (so you can go nuts in July)
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month
GLBT Book Month, National
Iced Tea Month, National
Dairy Month (what about the dairy alternative?)
Perennial Gardening Month
Turkey Lovers’ Month (or how to sell turkeys in June)
Men’s Month, Intl (we need a special month?)
Pharmacists Declare War on Alcoholism (they’re bringing in the National Guard)
Potty Training Awareness Month
Professional Wellness Month
Rebuild Your Life Month (I only get a month!)
Rivers Month, National
Rose Month, National
Safety Month, National
Scleroderma Awareness Month
Soul Food Month, National (now we’re talking)
Sports America Kids Month
Steakhouse Month, National
Student Safety Month
Vision Research Month
Zoo & Aquarium Month (go pet a penguin)

If that’s not enough, this week is:

National Headache Awareness Week
International Volunteers Week
National Step Parents Week
National Fishing Week (go fish, your headache will feel better)

And today is:

Day Against Drug Abuse & Trafficking
National Hunger Awareness Day
National Gingerbread Day (tomorrow is applesauce day)
World Environment Day
Richard Scarry Day (I have no idea . . .)
Teacher’s Day (always the first Monday in June)
National Attitude Day (what kind of attitude?)

It’s just too much. I don’t know what else to say.

May and June are family travel months for me. I went with Ginger to Greece and Turkey to kick off her sabbatical, then to Memphis last weekend to celebrate Scott’s graduation, and this Thursday I fly to Birmingham to cook the food for a party to celebrate my in-laws’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. I’m not home between trips long enough to establish any rhythm, so I’ve turned into a hermit, going to work and coming home. I wrote only once last week. I spent a great day in the garden today building my boxes for square foot gardening. I feel as though I’m in a separate orbit from my friends, which makes it hard to find much energy for anything other than getting through my day. I don’t like feeling so disconnected.

Without much else to say except I’m aware I’m out of sync, I was determined to write today. Taking time to find a way to make words matter is a crucial touchstone for me. I need the voices that remind me there is more to life than me – even when my time fills up with my stuff – to speak louder; I also need them to remind me that, even though I can’t speak to every need, I am called to pay attention.

Peace,
Milton

I came home last night from dinner with my friend, Tim, who is in the area for a wedding and turned on the television for something to watch while I tried to make up with the Schnauzers for having left the house at all. What I ended up watching was the last few minutes of the National Spelling Bee. Two girls were left and the word I came in on was poiesis.

Fiona Hackett asked for a definition: “creative production.”

She said the word out loud; I said it with her. Then I got a pad and wrote down how I thought it was spelled before she began to spell it. I got it right.

And then I realized – again – I really am a geek.

The two girls, both around fourteen, continued their semantic tennis match for several more words until they came to weltshmerz. Fiona asked for both a definition (“a weary or pessimistic feeling about life”) and the origin of the word. When the prompter told her it was a German word, I thought for sure she would have it. (I did!) Then she spelled it as best she could:

“V-E-L-T—“ The rest didn’t matter. She forgot the w comes out life a v in German. She was gone. Her competitor, Kerry Close, won on the next word, ursprache, which means “proto-language” – what came before the words. It was her fifth year in the Spelling Bee. She said afterward she was so excited because she knew the word. She has been competing at the national level since she was nine. This is one focused kid.

When the interviewer flippantly told her she would finally have time to do some other things, Kerry said, “Yeah” with a strong hint of sadness in her voice. I’m not sure she knows what to do next. Most people, like the interviewer, won’t understand.

A couple of weeks ago, Eleanor, a woman from South Congregational Church in Concord, New Hampshire came to our church in Hanover with the labyrinth some folks in her church made a couple of years back. Eleanor came, set up the labyrinth in our parish hall, and then gave about a twenty-minute presentation on what the labyrinth had meant to her church. Though I knew something about the history of the labyrinth, it was the first time I had heard someone contextualize the practice in terms of church life. After the presentation, about twenty of us spent a couple of hours walking the labyrinth together.

A labyrinth is not a maze. It is a spiritual practice that dates back farther than the words go, enriching faith journeys all over the world for millenia. The oldest existing labyrinth dates back to twenty thousand years BCE. When you start walking, you know you are going to end up in the middle and then come back out. You also have no idea of how you are going to get to the middle because you only have a sense of the path directly in front of you. From there, you have to trust your feet. It, too, takes you to a place before the words.

My journey was marked first, by sensory images. Eleanor had ringed the labyrinth with votive candles and placed a large three-wick candle in the middle. The canvas was purple, which warmed the room even more. We walked in our socks, so I could feel the surface beneath my feet. I then became mindful of the unexpected ways the turns took me around the circle. I would make a couple of quick turns and then, all of a sudden, find myself on the other side of the circle. I was also mindful of the others in the labyrinth with me, sometimes close and sometimes far away. We smiled or touched hands as we passed one another. My thoughts wandered from superficial to substantive. I wondered how long I had been walking, where Trish got her socks with giraffes on them, whether or not I would walk on every part of the labyrinth, and how long it took to paint it. I also thought about how the twists and turns mirror my life right now, as I have some sense of where I am going, but also know I’m not yet through with my changes.

Then came the words: one of my favorite descriptions of Jesus as he prepared to wash the disciples’ feet: “Knowing he had come from God and was going to God . . . .”

This morning, Kerry Close was making the morning show rounds after her win. One interviewer asked if was glad she had not gotten some of the words that took her competitors out. She quickly named two words that would have sunk her as well. “I guess there’s a little luck involved,” the reporter replied.

For all her years of preparation and focus, Kerry Close had no idea what words were coming when she stepped up to the mike. She could prepare, but she could not plan.

In one of his books, Henri Nouwen recalls going to a monastery for a personal retreat. While he was there, a youth group came, but their retreat leader didn’t show. The head of the monastery came and asked Nouwen to lead the retreat.

“I’m not prepared,” he protested, afraid, I suppose, he would not have the right words.

“You have spent your whole life preparing,” came the reply. “Speak from your heart.”

Nouwen goes on to recount an amazing time with the young people as he listened both to God and to them and found what Jesus also knew: he had come from God and was going to God; that was enough to make the journey matter.

Sometimes, I find a great deal of comfort in that story from Nouwen’s life, which I have carried with me for years. Other days, I wonder if what my life has prepared me to be is some sort of spiritual shiftless drifter who knows little about staying anywhere for long and mostly gets the words he doesn’t know. The truth – and the creative tension – lies somewhere in between. I have come from God and I am going to God. I have much to be thankful for in my life and I am not without direction.

I just wish I knew what was around the next turn. Once more, I will have to trust what was there before the words.

Peace,
Milton

I had not planned to write tonight, but everyone has gone to sleep — except for Scott who has gone to the all night graduation party — and I’m not yet sleepy. Two days in the house with family has left enough stuff swirling around in my head to keep my from sleeping for awhile. I figured, therefore, I might as well get some of it out here and maybe I could catch a couple of hours of sleep before dawn.

The picture is of my two nephews, Ben (on the left) and Scott (who graduated today). They are great guys. For years we have sent each other CDs for any occasion that requires a gift. They have added some great stuff to my collection and I to theirs. As Ginger and I thought about what to give Scott for graduation, we knew we were going to give him cash, but a CD seemed in order. We gave him one of our treasures: Pierce Pettis’ classic album, Chase the Buffalo, which is no longer in print. We have two copies. We had to share.

One of the songs that has spoken again and again to me over the years is “Family.” The chorus says:

let your love cover me
like a pair of angel wings
you are my family
you are my family

Family is a very mixed bag for me. Coming to a place where we are all gathered together is coming to hold on to what roots I have and coming into the arena to face the lions at the same time. When Pierce sings, “You are my family,” he sounds full of love and hope. For years, I heard that sentence — when it came from my parents — as one of obligation more than anything. Figuring out how to feel like I belonged in my family has been one of the biggest challenges of my journey. I’ve come a long way and there’s still work to do. And that’s my stuff. Coming together this time was so we could celebrate Scott. Whatever baggage I brought with me, this trip was about him, not me or anyone else. And we have celebrated him well.

He is a great guy, an amazing musician, a thoughtful human being, and an intentional Christian. I’m proud of who he is and expectant of who he will become. In the short time we all had together, I wanted him to feel loved and celebrated and I wanted what I did and said to lessen the possibility that family will be less of a conflicted entity that it is for me. I’m not really sure I can give him that, but it seems worth a try.

Even though we live a long way apart, I’m counting on Pierce to make my point every time Scott plays the CD. For thirteen years Pierce has reminded me what family is about; now I’m passing on the legacy and hoping I can do a good job of making Scott know he is loved and he belongs.

Peace,
Milton

This past week had more life than time in it.

I just wanted to stop for a minute to say I’m alive and planning to get back to writing after Memorial Day. There is much to say. This weekend I’m in Memphis for my nephew’s graduation. More later.

Peace,
Milton

One of the random connections on our recent trip to Turkey had to do with C. S. Lewis.

Ever since I first read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe I’ve wondered what Turkish Delight was like. I wonder no more. Every shop in Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar offered free samples. I not only had my fill, but also found out there are as many varieties of the stuff (called lokum in Turkish) as there are booths in the Spice Bazaar.

I knew I was going to make that connection.

We were in a pottery workshop and one of the plates had the logo of one of the Turkish football teams (soccer for American readers) and a lion was part of the logo. The word under the lion said, “Aslan.” Aslan is the Turkish word for lion.

Based on a few minutes with Google, I’m certainly not the first to make the connection, or to wonder if Lewis had some sort of fascination with Turkey, but I had never heard anyone make the connection before our trip. Lewis never visited Turkey as far as I can tell. I wonder how he found the word.

Two Turkish words in particular will stay with me.

The first is dondurma: ice cream. I wanted my vocabulary to be as useful as possible. This was the first word I learned and it served me well. Turkish ice cream is worth the trip all by itself.

The second word is çay (pronouned “chy”), which means tea. This one was easy because the word is pronounced the same in Swahili, though spelled differently (chai) and means the same thing. Of course, thanks to Starbucks and other savvy beverage marketers, “Chai” in America is an expensive concoction of I’m not sure what, though I think tea is involved at some level. In Turkey, çay is black tea served with sugar in a small hourglass-shaped glass and is offered anytime you are around someone for more than two or three minutes. It’s awesome.

Before we left on our trip, I took a disposable camera that had been in my Jeep for several months to CVS to get developed. (Actually, I took it there about a month before we left; we had no idea what pictures might come back. I picked them up today. All of the images were from late last summer and last fall. One of them is the main reason I wanted to write tonight. I just wanted you too see this picture. Whenever I pick up Gracie, our youngest Schnauzer, I wrap my arms around her and let her legs dangle. She then begins to kiss my face with complete abandon, totally trusting that I won’t let go. And I never do.

Peace,
Milton

I was back on familiar roads yesterday, rain-soaked as they are, listening to All Things Considered as I drove to the grocery store and tried to figure out how to integrate where I have been the past three weeks and where I live. I had just pulled into a parking place when Meillsa Block said Stanley Kunitz died. He was one hundred years old. I paused to listen to what words they had to say about this wonderful poet.

Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and lived, in his later years, splitting time between New York and Provincetown. He was twice the Poet Laureate of the United States. I got to see and hear him at the Dodge Poetry Festival several years ago. He was a man of both strong and gentle spirit who grew in hope as he aged, rather than in bitterness or cynicism. When he wrote about poetry he said,

“The poem comes in the form of a blessing—‘like rapture breaking on the mind,’ as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.”

At the end of the NPR piece, they played a tape of him reading a portion of his poem, “The Layers,” which I had forgotten, but will not do so again.

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

“Live in the layers, not on the litter.” He could have written only that one sentence and called himself a poet.

One afternoon on our trip, Ginger and I were having coffee (or tea) and trying to being to take at least some of what we had seen and heard. Though I had never been in either Greece or Turkey before, I had a strange sense of familiarity, even a sense of belonging that resonated with my youth growing up in Africa. I loved the variety around me, the layers of culture and history, the possibility of discovery, the feeling of connectedness with the world beyond America.

When I was in high school or college, I never imagined I would live my whole adult life in the United States. Now, just a few months away from turning fifty, I’m faced with having done exactly that. Life rolled out differently than I thought. I am an American who speaks only English, lives in a predominantly white suburb and works in a very white church. I struggle with feeling comfortable as an American. I want to be a citizen of the world first. But that is only one layer of life. One of the most meaningful books I have read over the past couple of years is Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity, in which he makes a wonderful case of what he calls the “emerging paradigm” in the North American church, which he sees as growing and living alongside of the “earlier paradigm” or more traditional expression of faith, which is where I grew up. I am fed now by the more progressive side of faith and the inclusive expression of the love of Christ that struggles to find a foothold once you move outside of Western Christianity. All of that to say, as hard as it is for me to be an American, I am an American Christian.

“Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered!”

Part of my sense of discomfort I packed before we left for the Mediterranean. These are days when I can feel the plates shifting beneath me. I have had a sense for awhile that change was on the wind; I have not yet been able to discern what that change is, or what life will look like in the days to come. I find great hope in a man literally twice my age who could still read these words with hope and conviction:

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

If faith means anything, it means we have the courage to navigate the changes and to look for ways to grow. It means we are open to being changed, to being made new. The most touted of Paul’s conversions happened on the road to Damascus, but his letters are filled with the important and incremental growth that comes from learning to live in the context of relationships, of learning how to live both as a family member and a world citizen.

At the end of Act 1 in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, Rebecca and George are talking:

“I never told you about the letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick,” Rebecca said. “He wrote a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.”

“What’s funny about that?” George asked.

“But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God – that’s what was on the envelope.”

“What do you know!!” George said.

“And the postman delivered it just the same.”

My address is as specific as a street name and as expansive as the night sky. The layers of life stack up like a sumptuous feast, calling us to both nourish ourselves and share the bounty. Today, I’m called once more to remember to live in the layers.

I’m not done with my changes.

Peace,
Milton

PS — Speaking of layers, here’s the first of many recipes from our journey.