love is the drum
that beats in our bones
even in our broken
melodies of grief
our symphonies of
sorrow and sadness
relentless resonance
in the late night club
of all that could have been
the hope of the high hat
the syncopation of surprise
the gentle jazz of joy
put your hands together
love is the drum
Peace,
Milton
I will tell it to you as it was told to me.
Somewhere early in my day I read these words from my friend Olivia, who lives in Boston. She is someone in love with life who looks for ways to feel connected to the world around her. Here’s what she found:
I spotted this on my drive home tonight. A local golf course was making snow and a young couple parked on the side of the road and ran toward it, holding hands. I watched them run around in the artificial snowing, hearing their laughter and sharing their joy. They ran back out a few minutes later, covered in snow and still holding hands. For that is the way it is with love.
A little later in the day, I received an email message from Maggie, a church friend and another New Englander, who had a story of her own. They had gone to dinner with a couple who have been married for a long time. The husband is in the last stages of cancer and is under hospice care. Though his death doesn’t appear to be immediate, it is imminent. Maggie spoke of eating dinner and then sitting down on the sofa afterwards and then she said:
On her coffee table was a sleigh full of Christmas cards. The outermost card had a beautifully painted winter woods picture. She told me the story of an old friend of theirs who is an artist. Every Christmas he sends a card that is a different one of his paintings. Sixty-five Christmases — sixty-five cards, and she has them all. I turned the card over. On the back it said, “This is our last Christmas card. We hope you have enjoyed them as much as we have enjoyed sending them.” Sitting there with our friends knowing this is surely their last Christmas; it was sobering to say the least. But beautiful as well. She mentioned they had been married sixty-five years as well. “Sixty-five years, sixty-five cards.”
I imagine the couple in the snow have close to six decades to catch up with the couple who has shared a lifetime together and yet both know something about the way it is with love, from stopping by a golf course on a snowy evening to keeping promises down to the very last day. From somewhere in between those two points, I wrote a song for Ginger some years ago (that has yet to be recorded) that tried to imagine a lifetime from the vantage point of two who had collected only a few years together. The chorus says,
this is the story of two common hearts
that started out young and grew old
they have practiced a lifetime
the waltz of a well-worn love
The trajectory of life moves from beginning to end. In between there is time to chase snowflakes and collect Christmas cards, to make fools of ourselves, hang on for dear life, and think of every possible way we can to say we love one another.
That is the way it is with love.
Peace,
Milton
I can show you a cup of flour,
or a pound of sugar, and
I’ve gotten pretty good at
scooping a two ounce cookie,
but I am at a loss to quantify
how heavy grief is,
how long a heart stays broken,
the depth of damage done,
how far it is to forgiveness,
the speed of the sound of loneliness —
even as I strain to comprehend
how a heart like yours
can hold a galaxy of grace,
how sorrow becomes weightless
in the gravity of your love,
how home is as close as you
calling my name in the dark
calling my name . . .
Peace,
Milton
If you have followed this blog for any length of time, or if you have read Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal
Ginger and I have had some kind of dinner gathering once a week for most of our marriage, and mostly on Thursday nights. In our years here on Trinity Avenue the dinners have taken on a new life. Some of it, I think, is because of Durham. This is a town filled with people for whom being together is a primary value. As I have said many times, it is the most encouraging place I have ever lived. Some of it is our big old house that feels as though it was built with open arms. From our first night in this place we felt at home. But most of it has to do with who sits around our table from week to week. Our dream has always been to have an open table where we can invite new people into the circle. Alongside of that dream, we have a Durham family of regulars for whom Thursday Night Dinner is as much a part of their lives as it is ours. They come early to help cook, they stay late to wash dishes, and in between we sit around the table and share our weeks and our lives.
We have gathered together to celebrate and to grieve. I suppose I would do better to find a way to say both of those are ongoing activities. We celebrate and grieve together on a weekly basis. John Berger says, “It is on the site of loss that hopes are born.” Around our table each week we have become midwives of hope. When we clear the table and everyone goes on to whatever tomorrow holds, I feel as though we have helped to give birth to more hope in our world.
As this Thursday night comes to an end, I feel as though if all I had to show for this week was I cooked for and ate dinner with my friends around our table that would be enough. I only wish the table were bigger.
Peace
Milton
One of my favorite Pierce Pettis songs begins, “The presence of your absence follows me.” The song has played in the background of my week because tomorrow, December 18, will mark five years since my dear friend David Gentiles died.
I could say many things about David, but maybe this will give you an idea: after five years, his Facebook page is still active because those he loved and encouraged have continued to talk to him. And those he loved and encouraged are legion. I am one of them.
For most of the month I have thought we were marking four years, but the other night as I was digging back through memories I realized it has been five years without him here on the planet. Life has gone on. All of his family and friends have waked up and lived and loved and hurt and missed him. And we are not alone. Most everyone we meet is living through the day after and the day after that, stringing together weeks and months lived in the presence of a palpable absence. The more days we live, the larger the cloud of witnesses, the more of those with whom we are without.
Tonight there are Pakistani parents who are living without their children, alongside of parents in Sudan, Sandy Hook, and Ferguson. A colleague at work who is in her twenties spent today at her father’s memorial service. One of our church members was back Sunday from her father’s funeral. The longer we live, the more grief becomes our most common currency.
We have much in my life for which to be grateful, not the least of which are the friends, family, and even acquaintances that fill each scene, that give us a chance to feel connected, challenged,and loved. Everyday we are called to be together, to invest ourselves in one another, to connect, to love, to be with each other, even as we understand one day we will be without.
Such is the risk, the cost of love.
It’s worth it.
Peace,
Milton
Going to the mall each day means being inundated with holiday music — well, the same ten songs. I thought tonight I might offer a soundtrack that has found me in these days. Talking about Patty Griffin’s “Mary” a couple of days ago set me to thinking. My list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it traditional, as far as Christmas music is concerned, but these are songs to learn and sing. Together.
Paul Simon’s most recent album holds a song called “Getting Ready for Christmas Day.”
Getting ready, oh we’re getting ready
For the power and the glory and the story of the
Christmas Day
To say Steve Earle has a Christmas song might be surprising to some. He actually has two. “Christmastime in Washington” remains powerful and current, but tonight I want to point to “Nothing but a Child.”
Nothing but a child could wash these tears away
Or guide a weary world into the light of day
And nothing but a child could help erase these miles
So once again we all can be children for awhile
Somewhere along the way I picked up Over the Rhine’s record, “Snow Angel.” One of the songs is called “Here It Is.”
somewhere down the road well lift up our glass
and toast the moment and the moments past
the heartbreak and laughter, the joy and the tears
the scary, scary beauty of whats right here
I’m wrappin’ up my love this Christmas
and here it is
Though it is not a Christmas song, James Taylor’s setting of Reynolds Price’s text, “New Hymn,” is hauntingly comforting, even as it is disquieting.
Till our few atoms blow to dust
or form again in wiser lives
or find your face and hear our name
in your calm voice the end of night
if dark may end.
Wellspring gold of dark and day,
be here, be now.
Emmylou Harris’ record Light of the Stable has long been one of my favorites. The last verse of the title track says,
Come now, there it shines so bright
To the knowing light of the stable
Lean close to the child so dear
Cast aside your fear and be thankful
Hallelujah.
Peace,
Milton
I have been going back through some poems I wrote several years ago. My intention was not to repeat them, necessarily, but a couple of them have taken hold in new ways and feel as though they are worth bringing to light once more. I needed these words tonight. I hope they find you, too.
saints of diminished capacity
I only saw the words written,
requiring me to infer tone;
to assume either compassion
or conceit; to decide if the poet
mimed quotation marks when
he said, “diminished capacity,” —
or saints, for that matter —
if he even said the words out loud.Either way, the phrase is
fragrant with failure, infused
with what might have been,
what came and went,
what once was lost . . .
and now is found faltering,
struggling, stumbling,
still hoping, as saints do,
failure is not the final word.Forgiveness flows best from
brokenness; the capacity for
love is not diminished by
backs bowed by pain, or
hearts heavy with grief.
Write this down: the substance
of things hoped for fuels
those who walk wounded:
we are not lost; we are loved.
Peace,
Milton
Last night before I went to bed, I pulled the box up out of the basement that holds our tree (both Ginger and I are allergic to the real ones) and we set it up in the living room. As we working, I said to Ginger, “I wonder if life was this hectic for Mary and Joseph.” We laughed. We wanted to get to it earlier. We were able to do it last night. So we cut ourselves some slack and enjoyed the lights on our tree (I wish you could see . . .). Tonight we went caroling with a group of our neighbors, which is an annual event in Old North Durham. I look forward to turning on our outside lights every night.
Still, I am finding it hard to feel in sync with the season. To feel the rhythm of the dance, if you will. When I get to Sunday mornings and am able to do my thing as the prophet, singing and reading the scripture, I feel connected to the story. Yet, somehow, I also feel a little bit like Cindy Lou Who: Where are you, Christmas?
This week our church will have our annual Blue Christmas service, which is designed to make room for the sadness and heaviness many of us carry through these days. It is one of my favorite services of the entire year, even if it’s far more quiet and meditative than is comfortable for an extrovert like me. I wish more people knew it was there. There’s enough sadness to fill the room. (Did I mention the service is 7 p.m. this Wednesday at Pilgrim UCC here in Durham?)
For all the tinsel and trappings that make up the season, the more I hear the story and work, as Meister Eckhart says, to give birth to Christ in my time and in my culture, the more I find the sadness inherent in life is intrinsic to the story. The darkness of these days is not simply something to endure to get to Christmas, these are the labor pains. The light shines in the darkness. One of the songs that always speaks to me during this season is Patty Griffin’s “Mary.” The song begins,
Mary
you’re covered in roses,
you’re covered in ashes
You’re covered in rain
you’re covered in babies,
you’re covered in slashes
You’re covered in wilderness,
you’re covered in stains
You cast aside the sheet,
you cast aside the shroud of another man
who served the world proud
you greet another son, you lose another one
on some sunny day and always stay
Mary
The angel said his name would be Emmanuel: God with us.
Who knows how many times I’ve written that sentence. It doesn’t get old to me. Here in the darkness, God with us. Even if we aren’t finished decorating.
Peace
Milton
I was going back through some poems and found this one, so I spent a little time revising it and offer it anew tonight. Feel free to sing along.
first lines
I pulled into Nazareth was feeling ‘bout half past dead
I don’t want to hear a love song
doctor my eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of tears
headlights are flashing down the highway
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home
a look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping
when you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand
keep a fire burning in your eye pay attention to the open sky
you who are on the road must have a code that you can live by
you come a-walking with a scar on your soul
taking too much too lightly
you with the sad eyes don’t be discouraged
there’s a river of sorrow in my soul
there’s a river of love that flows through all times
don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by
there are the ones you call friends
the mississippi delta’s shining like a national guitar
another turning point a fork stuck in the road
people get ready there’s a train a-comin’
you can play the game and act out the part
baby I’ve been searching like everybody else
in the middle of late last night I was sitting on a curb
where have all my friends gone? they’ve all disappeared
like a bird on a wire like a drunk in a midnight choir
I’ve been sleeping for some hours
just woke up and you were there
I will remember you will you remember me
when the road gets dark and you can no longer see
in every heart there is a room a sanctuary safe and strong
didn’t say we wouldn’t hurt anymore
people that are sad they wear a frown
it’s coming on Christmas and they’re cutting down trees
I heard was there was a secret chord
eight years old with a flour sack cape tied all around his neck
I’ve heard love songs make a Georgia man cry
am I young enough to believe in revolution
when it’s dark outside you’ve got to carry the light
the waltzing fool he’s got lights in his fingers
there ain’t nobody asked to be born
shut it down and call this road a day
we’re living in a time of inconvenience
you come home late and you come home early
we are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well
all the unsaid words that I might be thinking
the presence of your absence follows me
something in your eyes makes me want to lose myself
here we go again another round of blues
it was all I could do to keep from crying
oh play me a blues song and fade down the lights
so many years so many hardships
just when every ray of hope was gone
tell anybody that ain’t got nobody somebody’s coming
when I was a little boy my daddy told me mister
don’t ever try to climb too high ’cause it’s the fall that gets you
screen door slams Mary’s dress waves
we are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well
when you start if you exist God believes in you
I am an old woman named after my mother
I’ve been lately thinking about my lifetime
I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles
Peace,
Milton
I spent a huge chunk of the day working on my book. The time was one of my birthday gifts from Ginger. As I sat writing about home, I realized once again how much I have come to love Durham and the people who make it a wonderful city. Over the past few months as I have written about moving most all of my life and struggling to learn how to grow roots or feel as though I belong somewhere. In the process of writing the book, I have learned that home means different things at different times. I think more than one place in life can be home because it’s not a one time thing.
Seven years on here in Durham, after spending the day wandering around town on my fifty-eighth birthday, and still basking in the glow of a wonderful surprise Thursday Night Dinner last night, I feel at home here. I hold two cities close to my heart: Boston and Durham. I am fortunate to feel I belong to both of them.
And I had a great birthday. I feel celebrated, loved, and encouraged.
Peace
Milton