don't eat alone

To paraphrase an old commercial, “I don’t play basketball, but I watch it on TV.”

Actually, I played on one team when I was in sixth grade. We were on leave from Africa and living in Fort Worth. I was on the Royal Ambassadors team for our church. (If you don’t know what Royal Ambassadors are, ask someone who used to be Southern Baptist.) Everyone else on the team had played together for years; I had never played in an organized game. They were really good and had been the perennial league champions. I was then—and remain—an amazingly average athlete.

Late in the first half, the coach told me to go in as a substitute. I didn’t know I had to check in at the scorer’s table. I just walked out on the court and told the other kid I was coming in. The ref blew his whistle; my coach blew a gasket. I went back to the bench. At halftime, he explained the rules to me. With two minutes left in the game, he put me in. Two minutes. I fouled out.

That’s when I knew I was born to watch basketball.

And that’s what I am doing. I am taking these days on the best basketball weekend of the year to watch young men and women do what I cannot, which is always worth doing. That is also the reason I have not written for a couple of days. I’m not sure this qualifies as a spiritual retreat, but it sure feels like one.

Peace,
Milton

someone is always leaving

I was twelve years old before
I met someone who had never moved
and I discovered I was the strange one
because I was accustomed to suitcases

I was twenty-nine before I had friend
for ten years and had stayed close enough
to grow our friendship face to face
instead of recalling memories

I turned forty-five the same year I
lived in the same house for a decade
when the Standells sang, “O Boston,
you’re my home” I could sing along

I am sixty-two and still not used to
being on the staying side of goodbye
the leaving side never got any easier
and yet someone is always leaving . . .

Peace,
Milton

I saw an article several months ago that claimed people quit looking for new music after they turn thirty. The study went back to 2015 and talked about neurological reasons we get dug in and cultural ones as well.

The article came to mind again as I was thinking about W. S. Merwin’s death and what it feels like to lose another formative voice in my life. So many of the voices I listen to have been with me a long time: Madeleine L’Engle, Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, John Berger, Marilynne Robinson, Toni Morrison, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jimmy Santiago Baca, James Carroll. That is not an exhaustive list by any means.

When I taught high school English, our reading lists leaned into the oldies as well—many of them books I read when I was a teenager: To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Frankenstein, The Old Man and the Sea, The Scarlet Letter. (I hope that list doesn’t cause any unintentional trauma for anyone.) Adding new books was difficult because no one wanted to quit reading the tried-and-true favorites.

As I watch the way-too-early presidential race begin, I am frustrated by the oldies-but-goodies that feel compelled to run. I don’t want someone older than me to be president. It’s time for the Baby Boomers to step aside. I don’t mean we all have to quit what we are doing, or that we can’t contribute; I do mean we no longer need to be in charge.

Somewhere along the way in the last year or so, in the discussions around patriarchy and white fragility, I learned an acronym that has been helpful to my own growth: WAIT—Why Am I Talking. In discussions about how we can make life more equitable and hopeful for all, the best thing I can do is to WAIT—to listen and learn and pay attention. I can speak up later, but I don’t need to be the one who drives the agenda, particularly when we are talking about how to get straight white men to quit controlling the agenda.

Back when he was one of the young voices, Billy Joel wrote

I guess that these are not the best of times
but they’re the only times I’ve ever known
and I believe there is a time for meditation
in cathedrals of our own

If those words ring true—and I believe they do—then they apply to the generations that have come after us who don’t necessarily know all the words to “Piano Man.”

I love the staying power of words and music. I am still moved by my Beatles records, even as I still love to read The Great Gatsby. And I love that Paul Simon and John Prine both had new albums last year and they are both in their seventies. I’m listening to a Karla Bonoff record as I write this. Then I catch myself still thinking of U2 as a new band because they came to light after I was out of seminary—and they’ve been making records for forty years. When familiar books and music feed enrich our connections to our memories and to one another, they are powerful. At the same time, the line between nostalgia and a sense of generational superiority is a thin one.

One of the choices I have made over the years is to read as much as I can of people who don’t write from an identified Christian perspective. John Berger is a good example. As far as labels go, he was a British art critic, labor activist, communist, and compassionate thinker. His writing has fed my life for many years. He asked questions in ways familiar voices did not, so I took it on myself to become friends with him through his writing. I wanted him to influence me. This year, I made a conscious decision to read theologians who are people of color for much the same reason. I want to hear from someone who asks different questions.

I am aging and I can keep growing.

I suppose that last sentence may sound antithetical to my opening premise that Joe and Bernie needs to get out of the way, but that’s not how I see it. Part of growing is letting go. One of the big lessons for me to learn is how not to be in charge. Instead of singing lead, it’s time to sing harmony, or maybe just to listen until I am invited to sing along.

In my work as an editor, most of the writers I work with are younger than I am. They have a lot to say. I am grateful that I get to learn from them and help them shape what they have to say. They see things in a way I had not—until I read their words, which is how I felt when I first read L’Engle and Buechner. There is more light yet to break forth and it will come from new light bearers.

“Sing to the Lord a new song,” sang the psalmist—ancient words that carry contemporary wisdom: let’s not quit looking for new songs to sing.

Peace,
Milton

PS—This song came to mind as a good way to close.

I led a Bible study Monday night at church looking at Mark 8 and the things that happened leading up to Jesus saying:

After calling the crowd together with his disciples, Jesus said to them, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me and because of the good news will save them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives?” (Mark 8:34-37, Common Bible)

I leaned into Chex Myers’ book “Say to This Mountain:” Mark’s Story of Discipleship to explain what Jesus was saying.

The cross was not a religious icon in first-century Palestine, nor was “taking up the cross” a metaphor for personal anguish. Crucifixion had only one connotation: It was the vicious form of capital punishment reserved by imperial Rome for political dissidents. . . . In contrast to Judean nationalists who were recruiting patriots to “take up the sword” against Rome, Mark’s Jesus invited disciples to “take up the cross.”

In the next paragraph he closes by saying,

Jesus thus thrice reiterates that “gain” and “loss” should not be calculated according to the ledgers of the dominant culture. Unfortunately, most Christians have failed to experiment with the mysterious calculus of Jesus’ nonviolence. Jesus closes his homily by invoking a different vision of justice.

A good bit of time in our group discussion centered on Jesus’ last question in the passage:

What will people give in exchange for their lives?

We talked about how that question seemed to turn the losing-finding discussion on its ear, almost asking, “What would you die for?” or “What is worth living for?” Jesus’ political and economic metaphors call us to see life at the margins. We are all connected to one another. When one is dying we are all dying. To gain the whole world is not living.

Based on what people said in the room, none of us had heard anything about the FBI sting that resulted in a lot of rich white people being charged with bribing to get their children accepted into elite schools. As I read articles and analyses today, I thought about our discussion. And I thought back to my days as a high school teacher.

For seven years, I taught at Charlestown High School in Boston. I had five classes a day with thirty-five students in each class. Seventy percent of them were nonnative English speakers. Most of those were the only ones in their families who spoke English. When parent night came around, I was lucky to see two or three, not because of neglect but because of work schedules, cultural differences, and fear. My last three years there, I taught seniors. In January, I would go down to the one guidance counselor (for 1200 kids) and get the unopened box of SAT applications and help my students fill them out.

For three years, I taught at Winchester High School in Winchester, Massachusetts, a town just north of Boston where Ginger pastored. I had five classes of twenty-five students. When we had parent night, I saw two hundred and fifty parents. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t receive an e-mail note from one of them. The school of 800 had a staff of guidance counselors that met individually with the juniors to work on test preparation, college essays, and recommendation letters.

I loved the students in both places. I loved reading books with them and talking about ideas and dreams. I had smart and motivated students in both places. And the playing field was never level.

[SIDE NOTE: Why were only the mothers mentioned and the fathers were not? Felicity Huffman has been married to William H. Macy for a long time. His name was not in any article I read.]

The parents who paid the bribes were egregious in their actions. I’m glad it is out in the open. I wish I thought that meant it would stop, but the so-called elite schools will continue to pander to the elites who give money one way or another. Baylor, my alma mater, is no longer affordable for a family on an average income. Yes, I know there are scholarships and grants and students are still almost impossibly saddled with debt when they get out.

The White House released the proposed budget on Monday and announced severe cuts to Medicare as a way to cut spending, even as the military budget increased and more money was set aside for the wall. Betsey Devos, the Secretary of Education, suggested cuts in education funding. I’m sure Social Security and support programs like WIC are not far behind. We have people paying millions to bribe to get what they want, yet these programs are what politicians call “entitlements.”

I know a rant on a blog or a Facebook post changes nothing. I’m working hard not to rant. I want to get beyond my anger. I keep coming back to the question:

What will people give in exchange for their lives?

When we hear the term nonviolence, we think of standing up against war or torture, but the bribery and budget cuts are acts of violence. They are doing damage. They are dehumanizing. It seems to me it is worth our lives—our time, our effort, our money, our security, our reputations, our churches—to do what we can do to dismantle these broken systems.

No, I don’t have an easy solution for what would replace them and I suck at calculus. But for Jesus’ sake, I’m willing to try and learn his math.

Peace,
Milton