grace under pressure

Parade's End

2007-09-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is the last post on this blog. Moving to a new one, www.markiteight.blogspot.com

Thanks and see you there!

Aaron

Supernatural

2007-09-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

There’s another woman in my life, and has been for 11 years. I guess that’s something I should have told the Church and my various Superintendents. Melissa was ok with it, and I guess everyone else will have to be, too. Her name, oddly enough, is Melissa. But it’s not what you think.

I used to see her in my downtown neighborhood. She was always walking around with her loser boyfriend. He usually had on the same shirt, a t-shirt with big letters that said, “Shut Up Bitch.” I don’t suspect I am much of a feminist, but that kind of stuff sends me over the edge. I would make up my mind to swing back around and kick his butt, but by the time I negotiated the one-way streets where I lived, they were gone. I could never quite catch them.

I did finally get to talk to her one day. She was remarkably candid about being picked up for prostitution. Then it seemed like she was gone. Saw her maybe a few months later at the McDonald’s on Limestone. I began to sense a connection between us and I had a strange sense that I would always find her again. Sure enough, saw her a few years later out by Fayette mall with the same loser boyfriend. They were panhandling, hoping to get to Florida where supposedly he had construction work. He looked too wimpy for that and it was probably a lie to get money for the next fix. And again, she was gone.

One day, when I was doing my CPE (Chaplain work) at Central Baptist, I saw her reflection in a door that was closing. (I’m telling you, I love her so much I know her coming and going). I was coming thru another door and the way the security was set up I could not get to her. But I knew she had come out of neonatal ICU. The nurse wasn’t real sure she could tell me anything, but I sweet-talked her, saying something like you know she needs help, and who better than a chaplain? So I get her name and run-down of her premature baby, probably born addicted to crack. I left a message for her to call me. Next day, she did. We got some cokes and went outside and talked. I know she was freaked out because I remembered her and all our conversations and was talking to her then. She was pretty tore up about the way she was being treated. No doubt, it must be frustrating to doctors and nurses to have to deal with a premature crack baby and not hate the mother. But she has her own problems, otherwise, crack would not be in her life. Can we love both the baby and the crack-addicted prostitute mother?

We talked every few days. Found out she is from Santa Cruz, CA, one of my favorite towns. I got a number, but it never worked. And then, she was gone. That was summer of 2000.

I never gave up. I just know I will find her when the time is right. About a month ago, I began to get this strong sense I was going to see her again. When, I did not know. I began to think, she could be back in CA, or anywhere. But it didn’t matter. I just knew I would see her again. I have been waiting 7 years. I simply trust I will see her again. It’s not that I am patient. I am relentless. Relentlessness and faith can make you feel strung out, but it sure is good when they work together, and you are proven right.

Thursday night, I stop at a gas station to get some milk. I look at a car filling up, and who is sitting in the passenger seat? Her. I walked up to her window and said, “Are you Melissa?” She nodded warily. I said something like, “You may not remember me, but I was a chaplain at Central Baptist when your baby was in ICU…” She said that the baby died a little bit later, in Florida. We got to talking a bit about Santa Cruz and she remembered me, and looked shocked. I don’t blame her; I must seem like a stalker. A holy stalker, but a stalker nonetheless.

I said, “I am back in town, preaching at The Rock on Limestone…” I got her number. We’ll see what happens. The guy she was with and a woman in the back were kind of freaked out, but asked when services were.

Y’all, this is some freaked out supernatural stuff. You can say it’s coincidence, but not if you have waited like I have. Not if you think she should be dead or in jail, could be anywhere in the country, because she has been lots of places. Why here? Why at the Speedway on New Circle? Why there when I stop in for milk? I could have passed her car by. But I am relentless, and it sounds crazy, but I am always looking for her. Somehow, she must come to Christ, and I suspect that now I am the pastor in the place the Holy Spirit has prepared where it can happen.

The Poverty Mindset

2007-09-12T07:56:00.001-07:00

If we don’t face some things about poverty squarely, we will pull away from working with the poor. We’ll do the prudent thing, the task-oriented thing—helping in some limited ways, but making sure we don’t get taking advantage of. Maybe no one needs to reread my screed on the processes and procedures churches go thru to make sure they’re not letting someone work the system. But if you do need reminding, you can find it on my blog, back in January, titled “Walking Around Money.”

Poverty is a mindset. That is, when you begin to work with the poor, you will find yourself frustrated at their lack of initiative, their giving up as soon as they hear any kind of negative answer. Their inertia.

Part of that is that for most of the poor, life has been one long beat down. It’s not like they up and decided at 21 to be poor and “losers,” as we might be apt to call them. It started in childhood. It started in their parents’ and grandparents’ childhood. They learned early that things don’t work out. That there is not much point in saving money because it will get soaked up by some “emergency” later on. You might as well spend it now because you need it now.

They learn very quickly that they are different. It is both enraging and heartbreaking to go with a poor family to any kind of social services or hospitals. Too often, they are treated rudely, treated as if they are stupid. After spending some time and building some trust with one family, both parents let out that they did not like going anywhere that might help them because they always come back feeling badly about themselves. It’s deep. It goes from the fact that they look, talk, dress, smell differently than “normal” people. Then it goes to the fact that if someone like me walks in with 5 cute kids, they’re cute kids (I have run a sort of experiment to see how people respond to me when I end up picking up a particular bunch of kids vs. how people respond when they are with their own parents. It’s shocking. There’s something remotely sentimental when it’s me, something almost reprehensible if they are with their parents.) If a poor family comes in with 5 cute kids… which one of them should die? Because that’s what we mean, finally, when we get mad that they have too many kids. We never stop to think that God gave us what we have for those who have nothing. And if you are going to hold a parent’s irresponsibility (if that’s what it even is) against a child, I don’t hold out much hope for you and Jesus’ meeting.

I grew up pretty privileged. My dad has more books than most county libraries. I never lacked for education, motivation, encouragement. I could have been on cruise control, and life probably would have worked out from the simple force of middle class. But what if you don’t have that? What if your parents can’t read? What if, God forbid, you’re just not very smart? You add rambunctiousness and boredom to the way the poor look, talk, and act, and a child hears from day one in school (and maybe even at home!) he is stupid, will not amount to anything… how long before this becomes reality?

Part of why we have to put down the poor, why we have to be against them is that they tear down the myth that we live by: that anyone can make it if they try hard enough. Poverty, if taken seriously, may make us realize that we did not achieve anything on our own, that we were set up for success from the get-go, and some are not so lucky. Not to say that it can’t be done, that this country is not countless stories of people making it out of the worst spots. But it does not always, or even often, work like that. It’s why the stories are so important to us.

So a child grows up miserable at home, miserable at school, miserable in his encounters with society because at each place he is either judged (and a mantle of fear is laid on him—us taxpayers worry he will be a burden on us) or realizes that he is constantly beholden if he is to get anything. So he learns to con and hustle. Or sinks into despair, alcoholism, drugs. Or just becomes shiftless.

If you can understand poverty as a mind-set, a build-up of lots of experiences, you’ll have a better chance of making an impact on the problem. You’ll know, for example, that more money will not solve the problem. We’ve been throwing money at it for years and… nothing. And then you’ll know what a double whammy it is to think that we’ll give some money, but then set up a complicated process to make sure we’re not being taken advantage of by giving away the thing that we want to keep but won’t solve the problem. The only solution is a committed Christian relationship. If you really feel like doing something about poverty, it will come down to becoming friends, becoming family, building trust and love so that they see another way of living. You have to change the mindset, and you can only do that by being a Christian presence aiding the “renewing” of their minds.

But this is a lot harder than giving away some money.

Good Poetry Test

2007-09-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there are some objective factors in analyzing great literature. Even tho I don't particularly care for Dante, his stuff is, empirically, great. And it says more about me than him that I cant' really dig it.

On the other hand, there is a place where you just have to ask, "Do I like it?" and part of that question is, "Does it affect me? Does it touch me in some core, some place where it just feels right?"

On a miserable, snowy hunt in Robertson County, back in 97, I had trudged up a hill in a cold, blinding snow. Had a good spot picked out, heard the bad boys but never saw any of them. Just sat there cold, being unhappy that I had taken a day off on such a miserable day and no deer to show for it. As the sun came up, three crows jumped out of the cedar tree next to me, a crash of wings and raucous "caws" announcing the dawn. I like to think that I redeemed part of the day because I was able to get that close to them (last of the Mohicans, here) and because I really like crows.

Later on, I came across a short ditty by Robert Frost:

The way a crow shook down on me
A dust of snow from a hemlock tree
Has given my heart a change of mood
And saved a part of a day I'd rued

We can talk about iambic tetrameter, internal rhyme or how because all the words except two are native to English the sound is strong and direct... but in the end, it just captures a moment, for Frost and me.

He does it again in "They Were Welcome to Their Belief"

Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
They were welcome to their belief,
The overimportant pair.

No, it took all the snows that clung
To the low roof over his bed,
Beginning when he was young,
To induce the one snow on his head.

But whenever the roof came white
The head in the dark below
Was a shade less the color of night,
A shade more the color of snow.

Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
But neither one was the thief
Of his raven color of hair.

Fasting, Posture, and Mystical Silence

2007-09-05T11:38:00.001-07:00

Josh McDonald has an interesting testimony about fasting. He fasted for 5 days last week. He said that he realized that fasting allows him to say no to the flesh, and clears out a lot of the stuff that hinders him from hearing from God. That’s it in brief. Fast, clear out the crap, and listen.

Today in prayer and fasting, four of us were on the floor, face down. Posture can be very important in prayer. Especially in fasting, there is an element of contrition, a seeking humility (the root meaning of which is dirt. Thus, get close to the ground!), an admission of sin. But that may not be where everyone else was, in being face down. It’s where I stay in fasting.

A few years back, I began to engage the discipline of silence. I know, I know, none of you (Meg) believe that. Of course, I had to subvert it! I was in the sanctuary at Dunaway, being quiet. But I so wanted to read Psalms, and I like to read them out loud from the RSV. I finally broke down and read them. And an amazing thing happened. I realized I was actually deep into the discipline of silence in spite of the sound of my voice. The point of silence is not being quiet, just like the point of fasting is not abstaining from food. The point is to becoming open to hear from God. And in reading the Word, I cleared space to hear from Him.

Still Life With Woodpecker

2007-09-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

So today, Taildragger’s live show drummer plays with the praise band—chick drummer! I guess we should just call her Sherri. I met her step dad last week, Greg Martin from The Kentucky Headhunters. How bizarre. I mean, it’s all part of my rock and roll fantasy! And it was a total accident, or rather, an accident of ministry. Sherri’s husband’s brother died suddenly, and a few of us drove over to Bardstown to be with him during the visitation.

I used to really like The Kentucky Headhunters, so it was weird to talk to the guy, and even more powerful to find that he is a believer. Yesterday (Saturday) he sent me 5 of his newest CDs—he’s behind a band I mentioned before, The Mighty Jeremiahs, a kind of Skynyrd meets Missisippi John Hurt gospel band. He knows Billy Gibbons (from ZZ Top) and Phil Keaggy plays on the album!

The praise songs today were awesome, but laid back, and one day I hope when Sherri’s up there, we really let her wail. I had her kids with me, and Meg mercifully came to help me restore order in the pews with them and John and Joe. I said to Evalina (Sherri’s girl), “It’s awesome that your mom is playing with us!” John says, “She rocks!” Yes, indeed. I long for the day when Taildragger plays a praise set at The Rock…

John and Joe have done pretty well at school, better than I thought they would with all the transition. I asked them about it, why are things going smoothly. They said they had a hard time at the school they were at before because they knew I was far away. So I guess the idea that I am right next door and anyone at the church could take care of them, too, has helped.

I had a powerful time of prayer with the Itoula family today. These Africans are something else. I had laid off preaching in French, because Cedrick was helping me. He is working Sundays, and anyway, apparently the Francophones did not really like listening to simultaneous translation on the headset. I don’t know how the English went, but the French sermon was pretty good. I think better than English. Madame Itoula told me, “ch’a prepare un bon repas pour nous--” “you prepared a good meal for us.” I had laid off preaching in French for, finally, a spurious reason. It messes up how I preach. I just kind of roll and don’t always know where it is going. When I have to stop to translate, it messes me up and the flow is bad. Norbert Itoula pestered me for a while. “I know people are murmuring when you preach in French, but if they knew how badly we need to hear…” Indeed, we lost some people who didn’t like it, and who would get lost between the pauses. Anyway, I was praying with the Itoulas this afternoon about how on earth do we connect the The Rock’s ministry to Africa, using the people God has brought us.

I guess I have been pretty fired up about that question, because I see here what I was seeing in Louisville. The Africans come here with a powerful faith, but the church in America can’t handle it, doesn’t have anything to push them further. We’re into the whole “whatever” spirituality. So in a few months, the Africans get weak or drift away. Somehow, it’s hard for us to be infected by them—so many of you in Louisville remember George sharing about Abraham Chol’s faith, when he joined the church. We all need that! I suppose I will probably choose to live or die in a fight over pushing the church to the point that it can actually be worthy of our refugees. Like I said, this comfortable American faith is killing me.

What would have been me and Melissa’s tenth anniversary came and went without incident. I did not think it would bother me, because no day was really particularly special to us. They were just generally good most days, so it’s incidental things that might bother me. I have quit talking much about it, like I said, except with one poor dude who gets dumped on, largely because there’s this place I end up heading with some people—they think I am a terminator (someone else’s word about me, not mine), somewhat inhuman, pushing on, driving hard, either in denial, or just callous. I cracked a long time ago, so don’t look for it now. You can’t imagine how hyper and strung out I would be if I were my usual self. Picture Dan Stokes after four or five Red Bulls.

Me and the boys are winding down after the service, listening to some RUSH. John asks about the drums, because Neil Peart is flat out the best drummer there is (when it came time to do a Buddy Rich tribute, jazz drummers asked him to put it together). Anyway, I made some comment about him being the best drummer. John and Joe both jumped in and said, “No, Sherri is the best!” John added the coup de grace: “She’s a better drummer than Alison Krauss fiddles.” Dang.

Baptism

2007-08-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

I don’t want to lose the thread of exclusivity, but I have to get this out there. Pedro and I were hashing some things out yesterday, talking about the difficulty of really working with and from the poor—the way it grates on you, wears you out, aggravates you, tears at your relationships with the people who help in the work, etc. We’re conscious of this great need for those of us doing some hard-core work to simply just decide to love each other. Anyway, we discussed some joys and some validation. A particular family we are working with has started coming to the church, and after the first visit asked if we would baptize their babies.

It’s a powerful thing, infant baptism. The congregation is saying that we stand by the family in raising the child. There was a family who came to the church in Winchester and wanted me to baptize their baby. They did not live in the state, they were not believers, just wanted it done in a church they had attended as a child. I said I would baptize the baby if they would leave it with me when they went back home. Of course, they were shocked. I explained to them that this was not some magic ritual, but an entry point into the faith community, and I could not do this and let the child go back into the world. As my friend Charles Brockwell has said, “Baptism [adult or infant] is not our individual vote for Jesus. It is entry into the covenant community.” This is hard for us individual westerners to take—we think we make the decision and then we get baptized and then… so many adults baptized and where are they now? Fallen back, because the Church does not understand what God does through water and the Spirit! But I digress.

Anyway, I said to Pedro that this could be a huge moment for the church, to say that this family struggling to faith is giving us their babies while they figure it out. Peter’s comment was classic: “at that point, baptism is the only appropriate response.”

Ah yes, life in the fourth century is good!

Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas

2007-08-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

When I was in Vegas, I spent an afternoon reading Matthew Mark and Luke, with one eye: what do the gospels, what does Jesus say about his exclusivity? That is, is He the only way to salvation? This is a hard question for modern Westerners. We feel strange saying that Jesus is the only way. We want to say, “there are many ways to the same place,” or some such. I suppose that in my mind, exclusivity rested largely on His words in John, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” I did not bother going through John, because John’s gospel is clearly exclusivist in its claims.

When I read the others, tho, I was amazed. When you read it with an eye for only one thing, seeing if Jesus expresses that there are other ways, you find that on almost every page there is no other way, no other one. Jesus has committed a terrible sin in modern eyes: He does not allow for other options.

I suppose one would not die on a cross if you sort of thought you were onto something. You’d want to be real sure. And you definitely don’t want to tell Peter, “Hey dude, it’s all good—Me, Mithraism, Isis cults, as long as they’re good people, they’re in dude. And by the way, be prepared to die in a gruesome manner for my particular way that’s no better than any other.”

Here’s where my new friend was challenging me the other day, the point of our disagreement. She wondered if I was a relativist, which hurt bad! I know Baker is losing it at this point—Mansfield, a relativist?! Her question was there’s a Muslim who does not believe in Christ. Is he going to heaven or hell? My answer is from Romans 1 and 2, that those who do not have the Law sometimes live as if they know it naturally, “their consciences now bearing witness, now accusing them.” I have a difficult time thinking that if by accident of history and geography you do not have access to Christ, you’re going down. That is, did the Indians have to wait for Europeans to kill them all before they could be saved from Hell?

Well, we didn’t agree there. She is pretty persuasive and intensely logical, so I came away with a lot to think about. I don’t have any problem with the exclusivity of Christ—He is the only way to salvation. I know some people can’t even go there with me. But the question of the moment is: when does that exclusivity kick in? What is the place/condition of responsibility for accepting or denying Christ? And if there is such a place, does evangelism and mission not mess things up? I mean, if you could just be someone on some remote mountaintop, worshipping whatever however, no knowledge of Christ, why intrude if God is going to judge?

And then, one of her original questions is related to that: why try to witness to someone in a repressive culture where to confess Christ means death? Just let them be and see how things shake out. My answer felt (was) pretty hollow: I look back on my life without Christ, and suppose somehow God would have let me in not knowing Christ, all I can say is that my life with Christ now is way better than that one of ignorance. Not exactly a mindset for the martyrs… I have been feeling for a couple weeks that I really need to be formed by some Third World Christianity, because this comfortable American crap is killing me. Which is pretty much what she said, in a nicer, more constructive way: “You need to spend some time in a Syrian village, to learn Jesus’ context.”

What do y’all think? What does Jesus being the only Way mean? How does it work itself out in and for people who have never heard?

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

2007-08-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Someone (you know who you are!) was pressing me on the exclusivity of Christ. The question she asked was basically this: in some parts of the world, to confess Christ means a death sentence. What do you say to them? Is He the Way, the Truth, and the Life or not?

There's a lot to answer here, at least from my perspective. My good friend Bill Hughes has been on me to go with him to Russia, to teach in the seminary. That's fine, but what I really want to do is preach. My conversations with Norbert Itoula and Cedrick Lukonga have really been working me over about Africa, about the possibilities of connecting the refugees here with work back in Africa.

If Jesus is one way among many, why bother with evangelism, much less missions? It's not even a life or death question at this point. It's a motivation question. We'll see. I guess one thing that surprised me was that someone would give me some challenging thoughts on the exclusivity of Christ-- if you remember my time in Vegas, you'll recall I read the Gospels and found over and over again that Jesus takes His exclusivity for granted on almost every page.

Some of y'all are going to get to listen to me hash this out. Lucky you.

Pastor Libre

2007-08-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

I'm getting the boys ready for school.
My friend Misty Clark's dad is a Methodist preacher in Western Kentucky. He and some other guys do this thing called tag-team preaching. One of them gets up and preaches and when he can't go anymore or another preacher gets worked up, they tag and the next guy comes in and wears it out. This is a country Methodist, a Pentecostal, and two Baptists, one black, one white, so you know there is some real roof-raising preaching going on. Anyway, I have wanted to do this ever since Misty told me about it. If I really let myself go, I dream of wearing a mask and calling myself "Pastor Mysterio," after my favorite wrestler, Rey Mysterio. Anyway.

So, I cooked breakfast for the boys. We sit down and it is clear these ain't Mammaw's eggs. John says, "Daddy, you cook like Nacho." Nacho being Jack Black's character in Nacho Libre, a monk who dreams of being a luchador (Mexican wrestler) but is relegated to cooking for the priests and the orphans. He's no good at it, of course. We got to laughing about all the funny things we remember from the movie. John asks, "Why can't we just have salad?"

Sick

2007-08-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

I am a big baby when I get sick. I have strep, something I am prone to and get repeatedly unless I can convince the doctor to go after it with everything they have. There’s a shot that knocks it out, but they never give it to me first thing. I dread not getting the shot because I almost always have to go back after the pill antibiotics don’t work, and the strep comes back. Like I said, I am a big baby, laying around feeling sorry for myself.

They say that the hardest things to do after a loved one dies are the first times you do something that would have been together, something like that. First Christmas, birthdays, etc. I don’t think anyone has on their list first time puking your guts out all alone. Pretty miserable. But I had to laugh because all the times I puked, Melissa would say something like, “Dang, son, what’d you eat?” or “That doesn’t look like dinner did.” And inevitably the commentary on how did I keep that much inside me.

I think, finally, that the first things will be ok because there was always a lot of joy in what we did. So while it will be rough, it’ll also be good, because I can’t think of anything that I don’t remember with a smile or a laugh.

About the only thing that makes me feel better is a hot shower. Well, I am in the shower and Joe comes in and says there’s someone at the door. “Do you know who it is?” No, he didn’t so I told him to go look out the window. He said, “it’s a man and a woman.” “Do you know them?” “No, but she’s smiling and I think she’s nice.” So we had to have a quick talk about not opening a door or going with someone just because they’re smiling. He wouldn’t let it go, so I came to the door and it was Kim and Andy Newman with some beef stew.

First Day of School

2007-08-17T05:37:00.001-07:00

The first week of school for the boys has gone really well. Remarkably well. The transition to Lexington has been smooth. They miss Mammaw pretty badly, but they are making it. The amazing thing has been school. Generally, one or both of the boys will cling to me, say they don’t want to go, beg to not have to, whatever. So far, none of that. They run right in. The school has done a really good job of making them welcome, of taking care of them.

But then there’s also this. The boys have gotten a big dose of “community,” the word I exorcised from my vocabulary as too trendy and void of meaning. It’s coming back, and the boys get it without knowing the word—that strikes me as important, not needing the word, having the reality. At the end of the first day, as we crossed the street, they saw Roz. Then Ruben. Then Charlotte, Melissa, Alice, Andrew and Brent. They were really excited to think that they had so many people close by.

But before we crossed the street from the school to the church, John was holding Joe’s hand and he pointed diagonally across the street and said, “Look, Joe-Joe. That’s 12th Street.” And he began to name the people who lived there: “Laura, Jessica, Fire Queen, Our Meg, Peter, Jackie…” They know they are surrounded by people they love and who love them.

There’s something to their experience. Too often, if we use a word, we think we have understood something. And maybe we have. But better the experience of community than understanding it.

Dull Persistence of Memory

2007-08-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

Alison Krauss does a song Shenandoah recorded some years back, “Ghost in this House.” Melissa used to think Alison Krauss’ song choices were weird at best, too depressing at worst. About “Ghost in this House,” she used to say, “How can anyone be that sad?”

I don’t care if it rains, I don’t care if it’s clear

I don’t mind staying in, because there’s another ghost here.

She sits down in your chair and she shines with your light

And she lays down her head on your pillow at night.

Yes, Sissy, you can be that sad.

Great Quote Appendix

2007-08-12T18:42:00.001-07:00

I can't print anything Jessica said.

Great Quote

2007-08-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

The context isn't important. And it would just ruin it.

"Eating at bw3 is a thinking man's game."
--Rosario Picardo, 2:52 p.m, August 12, 2007

Moving, Garden

2007-08-06T01:09:00.000-07:00

Me and the boys are moved into our new place. We live in the 05 now, and we’re pretty pumped to be right in the middle of things.

We live right smack in the middle of a bunch of parishioners, and we’re hatching plans to do our own version of 12^th Street Live over on our side. My new goal: convince as many people as possible to move to different streets. Then, there’d be a party every night somewhere…

John and Joe will start school at Arlington Elementary, right across the street from the church. Steve and I were playing no limit Texas Hold’em two Fridays ago. He was out of money and had to put Steffi on the table. He lost, and now she is stuck being our nanny. The boys will definitely appreciate the stability of having her to get them on the days I can’t.

The Garden Tour was a huge success. Close to 60 people, I’d say. We saw different types of gardens: art gardens, small gardens at a neighborhood center, a really nice one at the Senior Citizen’s Center. I am partial to ours, a very practical one—that is to say, a very Methodist one! I think we made connections with a group of people who can help us with the next phase of this work: turning the gardens over to the people of the community, for them to grow their own food.

Last night, we spent a wonderful time in the garden behind Arlington and on Price Avenue. Curtis, Paul and Venus, Maggie, Jessica, Christy, Lee and Beth, Dan and Marian, Alice and Brent and Andrew, and John, Joe, and I were pickin’ and grinnin’. The beans may be worn out, but that’s ok, we got a lot out of them. The tomatoes are coming on and corn will be ready in a few days. We had a load in Paul’s truck, and I am scared to see what First Church will bring in tomorrow… I think everyone was happy to work together, to see how much came out of there.

Like I keep saying, something good and right comes out of working in a garden. Sometimes it’s giving each other a hard time (esp about my theory of weeding. But, as I predicted, the drought isn’t bothering us because the weeds keep the ground wet...) Sometimes it’s just forging a simple but durable connection over basic work. Location and fidelity are vital to our life together, but those two things cannot be taken for granted in human relationships, especially in our rootless culture (ah, “rootless culture;” you can see that such a thing is a recipe for disaster!) A fair amount of our experience tells us that we can avoid needing each other. (Dorothy Day has a phrase for this ability/proclivity to separate: “the long loneliness.” It’s the title of her autobiography. I just finished it and heartily recommend it). No, there has to be some practice, some constancy, some unconsciously paying attention to voices and hands. Just as in regular prayer together, we get to know each other’s hearts, so in regular work together, we get pulled into each other’s lives.

3 people from the community came out and picked, too.

Archaeology of Knowledge

2007-07-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

“Community” is a word that I had exorcised from my vocabulary. For a time, it was a buzzword, a piece of jargon in certain Christian circles. You could say the word, and if everything else you said was wrong or stupid, it didn’t matter, people would swoon because you said “community” in a breathy, spiritual way.

And it seemed the more people talked about it, the less I saw of it.

But enter the gentle madness of the bean patch. Last night, Jason, Tawndee, Maggie, Jan, and Matthew joined me in picking two and half bushels of beans, along with some cukes, okra, and tomatoes. Like I have said before, there is a lot of good conversation that can happen… a lot of… dare I say it… “community.” Even if it’s only me and Jason trying our best to avoid joining the chicks in validating each other’s feelings…

Something forms over human work. It is finally work together that defines us as human. So there we were, doing the most basic human work together. John and Joe jumped in and out as they felt like it. Something subtle takes place as you work alongside one another, getting used to the voices, the posture, the movement, how you pick beans off the same plant with someone else, because there’s just that many beans.

But really, this rehabilitation of the word began to happen somewhat earlier. It’s not just that David and Ron were talking about “microfellowship,” where disparate groups of people clump together around seemingly simple things that press the complexity out of our lives. It started for me on 12^th Street. I know people are going to get sick of me talking about the things happening there, but it truly is Jesus stuff.

You can walk in for the first time and be community. It is a strange and precious gift. And then, this thought hit me: it is a free-flowing and organic thing. What will it take for a church to live and breathe like that? To be barely organized? I recognize that you need some structure, but there is a place we get to where structure becomes structure for its own sake, and even the most change-driven mindset can’t break out and trash what has been done so that what is waiting to break loose can be set free.

But I digress. It’s a strange and powerful thing to see that fellowship, community, hospitality, prayer, and evangelism are working together. I am getting into some doors and some lives because of the work that is done there on Friday nights and because of the prayers that are lifted up. One of the women prayed that I would go to a particular house and that they would ask me something specific. I went and they did. And now, through a ministry of prayer with them, Jesus is entering their lives. None of it happens, tho, if there is no prayer and evangelism supported by fellowship and hospitality.

Allison Krauss and other notes

2007-07-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

Another sign you listen to too much rock and roll. Joe starts making some weird noises in the back seat this morning. “Play that song, Daddy!” I didn’t know what he was trying to sing and then he starts in again with a kind of “ba dap bap bad ap bap” and I’m still confused. Then John helps out, “You know, the one with the big fat guy singing.” I am thinking, “Blues Traveller?” Then it hits me: NO, it’s Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster…” Good boys!

Update: look, this thing about the women in the car—not a good thing. I mean, she looked like she could hurt me real bad. And I had to wonder, why me? I mean, I start to worry if I’m her type, or worse yet, if she doesn’t care what her type is.

Ok, on to the meat. My brother-in-law (Brandon) and I went to see Allison Krauss and Union Station last night. Unbelievable. I have seen some good shows, but she is not so much a musician as a force to be reckoned with.

Here’s how the evening progresses. I have quit saying too much here because I more or less unload on this one poor dude as opposed to laying it out here. Can’t say why. Anyhoo, I was worried about going to the show, because Allison Krauss means a lot to me, her music is loaded down with all kinds of stuff for me, and she can really sing some sad songs. Before that even happened tho, I was just kind of sullen. I mean, I was actually pissed off, because Sissy and I were going to see AK in the Ville back in April. And on top of that, everyone is out together, and nothing was hacking me off more than seeing happy couples together. I love my brother-in-law, but well, there you have it. He ain’t real pretty. So I was thinking, “This was a mistake.”

First song: “There’s a restless feeling knocking at my door today…” one of her early songs. Mournful. Difficult relationship. Lost love. All that stuff. Damn. Few songs later:

I’m just a ghost in this house

I’m all that’s left of two hearts on fire

That took my body and soul

I almost got up and left. But then something weird happened. She went into some heavy bluegrass, some energetic stuff, and even when it was sad it was ok. By the time she got to “Oh, Atlanta,” that strange, priestly function of music had been in effect: she got it all out of me.

Of course, she played “When You Say Nothing At All.” I was joking when I said Gretchen Wilson is my aunt. I was just trying to mess with my aunt Mindy… but Paul Overstreet, who wrote the song, is a distant cousin from two different sides of the family. Melissa didn’t like Allison Krauss as much as I do (thought she was too depressing and thought some of her songs are a little weird) but she liked that one. And it was ok. Last song was a beautiful gospel song about your life being a prayer to God.

Life in the 05:Catcalls

2007-07-24T13:54:00.001-07:00

A month or so ago, Laura G comes in and says something like, "I got 2 'hey babys' and a growl," on her way from the Rescue Mission to the Rock. A few days ago, Jessica read some guys the riot act for saying something to one of the 12th Street Girls, and then Sunday night after we worked in the garden, she herself was propositioned.

I was feeling left out. But not anymore. I was on my bike just half an hour ago, and a car full of women comes by and the one in the front passenger seat says, "Hey baby! Why don't you park that thang at my house?" I took one look at her and all I could think about was ZZ Top's song "Under Pressure." Worst part was, I was headed their way. Every stop sign I caught up to them. I finally headed down a side street to get away...

Found my way to Capn's house, and figured he's save me if it came to that.

The Majesty of the Blues

2007-07-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

Man, do I have some mean blues today. I mean the old walking blues Robert Johnson talks about. Nothing like a good workout to get rid of it. And some Taildragger blasting thru the radio. The majesty of the blues, or country music, is that you realize someone's been there, and can cry and laugh about it, too.

Found Food

2007-07-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

I put myself thru my MA in English by working for the Physical Plant at Southern Mississippi, where I got my undergrad degree as well. It was a wild job, largely because of the guys I worked with. The first job every day was for me and my crew to pick up trash outside of buildings on the north side. Anyway, in one dorm there was a guy who would crap and throw it out the window. We’d have our trash picker and think we were picking up whatever and bam, there it was. Made us so mad. So we stopped, and I guess it got to stinking or he got mad he wasn’t screwing with us anymore so he began to hide it in all kinds of things—paper cup, bag, anything, even the plastic case an electric razor came in. We were about to lose it.

I wasn’t a Christian in those days, and so when Charlie suggested we get a case of beer and our bb guns and sit and watch the dorm one night, I was all in. I mean we were surely going to pop this guy in the tail and maybe, hopefully, get to beat the tar out of him. It was going to end badly one way or the other. He never showed up any of the nights (yes, there was more than one). Good thing, I guess. By midnight, we wouldn’t have hit anything we aimed at…

Ok, so there was no redeeming point to that story, except it’s funny, my near-miss with extreme violence…

We also had this game or something going. We would try to find fruit trees on campus and not let anyone know about it. So Larry had a plum tree somewhere. He would spray it and prune it, but he’d always give you the shake if you followed him. Ernest had something else, I forget now, maybe a pear tree. I had to get in on this action, because it was too much fun for Larry to come in with a bag of fresh plums, make us watch as he ate them. What a jerk. I learned some of my best expressions from Larry. He was like Larry the Cable Guy and Donnie Baker rolled into one.

I was also into what I called "guerilla landscaping." I had tried to convince my bosses that we should plant vegetables instead of annual flowers. So we could put in peas or corn, tomatoes, maybe carrots and turnip greens. It's all pretty and serves the same function. It's crazy to plant ornamental kale, but not spinach. They weren't buying it. My boss really lost it when he found corn growing outside the business office. "I wonder how this got here?" he asked coyly. He pulled it out. Watched him do it and almost cried. Those were my babies, y'all. But I had the last say. I planted tomatoes in between the boxwoods at the Alumni House. The ladies in there loved it! So the boss man comes by to pull them out and they were on him like a hawk. He got his tail chewed good. Nice guy that I am, I even gave him some tomatoes as a peace offering.

One day I was sent to spray fence-rows with a cocktail that even Nixon’s EPA would have arrested me for. (We had this big spray rig, but the off switch didn’t work, so you had to shut it down by pulling the plug wire off. Shocked heck out of you everytime. My boss used to get mad because I would leave it running all the time…) So there I am spraying the fence-row behind the motor pool and I see them: blackberries. Right under everyone’s nose. I come back covered in blackberry juice, and the boys knew something was up. They all wanted in, but I was taking all of them to my cousin so she could make cobbler. It was all “Hey old buddy, old pal,” but I wasn’t sharing.

But then one day I found the Holy Grail. I think I also discovered Larry’s secret: the best place to hide is in plain sight. In an alcove of the Art Department’s building a spindly tree was poking over the wall. I went in there looking for a faucet and found an apple tree! In Mississippi, of all places. There aren’t many varieties that grow in MS, much less in South MS. But it was in bad shape. Huge hole at the base of the trunk, termites.

So I get back to Physical Plant and liberated some supplies: cement mix, malathion, pruning seal, some tools. I lived across the street from the campus, so I came back after work and dug out the termite queen and squished her… yes, like a bug. I sprayed malathion and then got after filling in the hole with concrete. After it set a few days, I covered the whole thing in pruning seal. Then I waited. Apples came in the summer. Small, but golden and sweet and juicy. They all came undone when I strutted in with my bag of apples. Even the bossman was putting pressure on me to give up the location. This was 93. I ate apples from there as long as I was in MS. When I went back in 2000 for my homeboy’s wedding, I had to stop and see. Tree still there! Fruit on it, but not ready. The trunk had more or less repaired itself.

There is something mysterious about stumbling on a fruit tree or bush in an unexpected place. It’s makes you feel close to God and His Providence. There’s just stuff everywhere if you know or care to look. One day John Mynhier and I were doing some evangelism on Pine Ridge Rd. We were walking down a long driveway and spotted some blackberries the birds hadn’t found yet. We just walked and ate, and talked about our good fortune. See, you can teach a young boy with a hard life a lot about grace when God does things like that…

On Mill Street, just south of Maxwell, by Rotary Connection (go there for all your car repair needs. Chip, the service manager, is THE MAN), there’s an apple tree growing in a 2 foot gap between houses. Very good apples. There’s another at Maxwell and Madison. And two on Avon. Five-finger discount makes it taste sweeter…

So Thursday, Jim Embry (my garden co-conspirator) and I are in the garden behind Arlington School. He starts showing me all the stuff growing in the grass. We picked some young purple hull peas from the garden and plucked a salad from the grass. Talk about a sweet moment.

I think I understand why Jesus was hacked off at the fig tree that bore no fruit. He made it to bear fruit! Just so people walking by could get some and thank God for a small and unexpected blessing. A simple thing along the way, but not so simple after all.

Pickin' and Grinnin'

2007-07-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

Lots of picking. We got 5 gallons of beans yesterday, plus some cukes and okra. Tomatoes are slow to come on. Picked 5 gallons more of beans today at the Price Avenue garden, and I have another crew headed out there this evening to get the beans growing up the corn. Pulled 5 gallons more of bell peppers there, too.

I had some beans and yellow tomatoes. I headed up 12^th Street to pass them out. Peter not home, Meg not home. You snooze you lose. Left a pile with Jessica and them. And then the meant to be part of the day: Mike, chick drummer’s husband is home. He was really happy to get some garden food. And he was really happy to see me. We’ve only met in passing, but we stopped and had a good conversation about things going on and his sense that the answers are going to be spiritual. Talk about a conversation with a stranger getting deep within 2 minutes! This is the joy of being a pastor. Anyway, we get to talking about music and how he’s going to some bluegrass get together. I share a bit with him of my idea to have bluegrass pickin’ here as often as we can. I think he’s going to hook us up.

He said, “Well, it’s the people’s music. You don’t need no drums or amps. Just open your case and go. And anyone can learn it really.” I am toying with getting a mandolin—I like the sound, have wanted to learn, and bluegrass is going to be huge here if we play our cards right. Brittany Peel has my old mandolin, and I am trying to steal it back.

I have been lamenting that as a preacher no one tells you any jokes, because they think preachers don’t laugh or something. Well, as I was picking beans, an older black man was in his yard behind the garden. We got to talking. He had been a barber and when he found out I was a preacher, he said, “Oh! I have to tell you a preacher joke!” Well, you never know where something like that is headed, except it’s going to be good.

“A long time ago, there was a church in the rural. Preachers in those days rode mules, tied up alongside the church. And they called a mule an ass in those days, too. The preacher’s preaching and the church catches on fire. Everyone runs to the front door, the only way out. Preacher can’t get out and he jumps out the side window. But he didn’t land on his ass, to make his getaway. The church was digging a new outhouse and he fell right in. They tried to find him and then looked down on pitiful old preacher. One of the deacons said, ‘I told you we shoulda never called him to preach—he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground!’” With that he just chuckled and walked away.

Advance Notice

2007-07-17T18:06:00.001-07:00

Ok, so my book of John Donne's poems has a renaissance painting on it, "Venus Disarming Cupid." She's naked. Get over it. On the way into church, Sunday, I hear Joe giggling. I look back and he has the book and breast-fed baby that he was, you can imagine his commentary. He asks me, "What book is this, Daddy."

"A book of poems," I say.

"I like poems!"

"Yeah, I bet you do, chief."

So, to all of the children's workers. If Joe says, "My daddy has a book with a naked woman on the front," you know where he's coming from.

Love Songs

2007-07-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Today, love songs make me sick.

Part of that is that I keep listening to one of Melissa's favorite songs, "Patience," by Guns N Roses. Yikes, that really summed things up for us at the beginning of our relationship.

I know I need to stop listening to it. when she was diagnosed, I sat down and picked out Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," and I need to quit playing that. In fact, I may just need to give my guitar to someone until this crap passes.

And me and Brandon (my brother-in-law) are going to see Allison Krauss week after next. So I guess i will get my fill of mournful songs. Do I dare go see John Prine in the Ville in September?

But, then, it does pass in pieces even today; that is, when I learned to play "Patience" (Jon McKinney got me the music off the internet, which I was not really aware of back then...), and played it for Melissa she was touched and laughed because I screwed part of it up. So I showed her and jumped into the next song off the "Lies" CD, "I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Kill Her." So I guess we were always laughing, even when we were serious!

And then here's what's making it alright: I was looking at Pedro Blanco's pictures. You'll notice a girl some of you may not know-- blonde hair, brown top. She just crops up every so often. I think he likes her or something-- she's Peter's sweetie, Jackie. It was a good wedding for me to do, soon after Sissy died. Glad they let me in on it. It affirmed me; if i had backed out for reasons everyone would understand, I think I would have taken some serious steps backwards. So thanks, Peter and Jackie! She doesn't mind when I stand outside his window and say, "Hey Peter, man! Check out the chick on channel 9...."

Pronounced Li-nerd Skin-nerd

2007-07-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hollie Hamilton and I did not get off to a good start. It was so bad, the people at The Rock were wondering who on earth the Bishop sent them… Hollie was a homeless alcoholic. He lived on the railroad tracks. The church had been building some relationship with him and his friend, Barbara. They had slowly gone from talking to people here and there, to coming to the steps of the church, staying in the vestibule, to sitting in the balcony. Well, Hollie comes in one Sunday a few weeks after I got here and wants something I wasn’t going to give him. So he bowed up on me and started cussing me.

I don’t take that kind of crap and I bowed up, too, and kicked him out.

Well, all these good folks who had put so much into him were just crushed. I didn’t help my case any when I was still ramped up and I asked them why was he still a raging drunk if they’d been working with him for three years? I can be hard and stubborn at times, but that can be love, too. In the end, Hollie and I got on a good footing. In fact it was only a few weeks later that I saw him at 12^th and Broadway and we talked and hashed things out. His friend Barbara said tonight, “You don’t know how big it is that Hollie apologized to you. He never backed down.” I told her he didn’t back down. “We’re both the kind of guy who will tell you what he thinks if you ask him, good bad or indifferent. That’s why we were ok—he knew I would never lie to him.”

Well, Hollie died about a month ago. There’s a lot to tell, but here’s the story for now. We had a memorial service for him tonight. It was pure Rock: homeless, drunks, black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, in between, believers, non-believers, almost-theres.

We sang some songs, prayed, heard a few remembrances, and I had a small sermon. Then we listened to Hollie’s favorite song, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird.” The live version, in all its Three Guitar Army Glory. Ha, people were singing! It’s a lesson—they didn’t know Peace in the Valley so well, but they knew Skynyrd!

If you can understand “Freebird,” you’ll get closer to understanding Hollie, and hard-living people like him. Skynyrd doesn’t know how to end a song. It’s a sonic assault. It’s frenetic, because that’s how many people live, on the edge, little control, want to build up to a frenzy and let it out. You go see Skynyrd, Hank Jr., and 38 Special so you can get it all out and not kill your boss on Monday. There is a strange priesthood in rock music. They usher in some mystery. If it weren’t for ass-kicking Southern Rock and Monday Night Football, there would be a revolution. That’s just a fact. If I didn’t have Van Halen in my CD case, I’d be superfly TNT. Not pretty.

I have to tell you this crazy thing. Harold Dorsey, a retired pastor (started preaching in 1936!) and I did not get off to a good start, either. I had never met him until we met in the elevator at Annual Conference in 2006. When he found out I was coming to his church, The Rock, he started in on the things he thought were wrong, why Asbury (my seminary) was messing things up, etc, etc. Jean Hawxhurst got off the elevator at just the right time because then I took my turn on how we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in if three or four generations of preachers hadn’t quit preaching the gospel and didn’t give a rip if no one came to Jesus, and sometimes you have to burn something down before you can do anything with it… you can see where this was headed. Well, Dorsey and I are half-way friends now. I know he thinks I’m nuts, but that’s ok.

Well, I sure expected to hear about it from him that we had Skynyrd in the chapel. Instead, he wants to know all about Hollie, came down and ate with our crew, and he said “the problem is that we Methodists are a class church—we don’t know what to do with people who are not middle class. But you’re doing a fine job changing that.” Not me. The people who came before me, the people here, the people yet to come. But here’s where I am going—if you welcome a few different kinds of people, then pretty soon people believe everyone and anyone can come. And next thing you know, Pentecost is happening as all kinds of people hear the gospel in words and relationships that everyone can easily understand.

The question remains: do we have the guts to do this? I mean more than every once in a while, when we feel good for doing something out of the ordinary? It is going to be a gut-check.

Garden

2007-07-09T12:36:00.001-07:00

Peter White passed this on to me. It hits right where and why The Rock La Roca is here, and why we need to get serious about being here.

Ezekiel 36:33-36
"Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the towns to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. The land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified.' Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do."

Rebel Yell

2007-07-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

My conversation with Tex Sample got me thinking about Mississippi. Some folks from the Rock are going on a mission trip to MS. I also have been back in contact with an old friend from the Coast. It’s summer, and I like heat, and I always used to say to Melissa, around April, “you know what?” And she would say in a drone: “Yeah. You wish you were back in Mississippi, because the flowers are already blooming, and it’s getting hot and you love to sit outside and sweat.” I do love to sweat. I am a mess. It’s a good thing, because I sweat like a dancing mule. I worked with this old guy, Monroe. At lunch, he would go sit in his truck, roll up the windows and drink coffee. Sweat would just roll off of him. Ask him why he did it, he’d say, “Sweatin’ out them demons.” It’s a redneck sauna, but darn if it doesn’t work. You feel a lot better. Anyway, my head’s in Mississippi, as ZZ Top says.

Some people keep saying I should write a book. It probably won’t happen for a variety of reasons. First, the literary side of me likes to think I’d have a theme, or something to unify it and make it worthwhile to read, and I don’t see anything quite like a theme in my ramblings. I was mentioning this the other night and Jason Dillard went all Fugitive Poet on me and said, “that’s propaganda…” referencing a conversation I had with Andrew Lytle about whether or not he had a point in his fiction. He said no, banged the table with his fist and said, “That’s propaganda! You write as the spirit moves you…”

Another reason: the farther you get away from knowing me, the more likely I am to make you mad. You’d never believe the emails I get from friends of friends. Man, people need to calm down.

Finally, until the Lord changes my mind that publishing is an act of violence, I probably won’t write a book. I guess, having such an opinion, I shouldn’t read books. Or write a blog. Oh well, I’m a hypocrite, which is more or less what friends of friends tell me.

If I were to write a book, it would be about my friend, we’ll call him Edward. We used to work together on a landscaping crew. He was a black guy about 15 years older than me. He had a bad reputation as one of the toughest dudes in town. Edward and I ended up doing some jobs just me and him, and I found out it was a kind of hazing ritual—make the new guy work with Edward, who no one really liked. We got along pretty well, and that freaked everyone out. The bossman was happy because he didn’t have to worry about who would go with Edward. Funny how God works. There are some crazy stories I could tell, but something about the honesty of our friendship makes that hard. The statute of limitations is not out on some of them. Others are so profane I can’t believe I was there, heard it, saw it, lived through it. Very little of it is edifying, except as an insight into a how a white college punk was let into the lives of lower-class blacks.

I believe that anyone you meet can tell you the funniest, saddest, and weirdest thing you have ever heard. And I think if they tell you those things, or if you experience those things with them, it’s hard to repeat. It’s like voyeurism, or something. I sometimes find myself wishing the people hadn’t told me. But I have a gift for getting into people’s worlds, I guess.

But I can tell one story because it has some serious spiritual application, showed me something about what we Methodists call “perfection.” It’s not anything you could preach, I suspect. But it is dear to me.

At one point, I was going to go to grad school on Long Island. I know, I know—there is no way anyone can see me on Long Island. The Lord intervened big time, and I didn’t go. Well, all the guys I worked with were a little interested and impressed that one of us was getting a Master’s Degree, whatever that meant to them. We were on a big job my last day with them, a Friday. There was lots of ribbing, lots of stories about the things I screwed up (namely a backhoe. Or the time I was putting pressure on a boring machine to keep the shaft from buckling. Like an idiot, I had on gloves, and they got wrapped around the twisting shaft. Somehow, it just ripped the gloves right off, without breaking my wrists or tearing off my hands. Thus one of my nicknames, “Magic Boy,”). Late in the afternoon of my last day, Edward motioned me to come around the corner of the building. He always used to sneak off to smoke pot, kept a pocket full of wild mint leaves he ate and rubbed on his hands, but he wasn’t fooling anybody. I was worried he wanted me to have some ceremonial smoke with him on my way out.

Instead, he speaks in hushed tones. “Dude, I don’t know why you want to go to New York. Whatever you do, don’t look nobody in the eye. Don’t let nobody help you unload your truck. Here,” and he handed me a .32 pistol. “Take this. Damn. I don’t want to have to come up there because somebody f-ed up my boy.” This was goodbye.

I knew at the time that this was about as much as Edward could show anybody, and my heart broke for him and his life. As I look back, I also see it as a sign of perfection. See, we Methodists look to the intention of the heart. Perfection is not flawlessness. Perfection is a pure heart. So even with a gun, and a threat to wreak vengeance, Edward loved me as much as he could. I have prayed every day since I became a Christian (about 4 months after this weird goodbye) that God would honor where Edward’s heart is and guide him further into the truth.

They don’t treat people from Mississippi so well on Long Island. We must seem like really backward rubes. So by Tuesday I was back on the job, gave Edward back his .32. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was glad to have me back. And I was glad to be called his boy.

I keep up with Edward. We don’t talk because the last time we did, it just confused him, and me—why do I bother? I’m gone. Not part of his hard life. I am, in some ways, a bad taste. He’s stuck where he is. I came in, played at hard work, and moved on to a good life. But I pray, and call the old boss to see how Edward’s doing.

Jolene; or John threatens to take the old man down

2007-07-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

So we're driving to church this past Sunday. Listening to some tunes. Dolly comes on singing "Jolene," I think her best song. As the song started, John asks, "Is this Roletta?" [his name for Loretta Lynn.] I scoffed and said, "nooooo, this is Dolly. Better than Loretta." Wrong thing to say! I could really feel his aggravation! He let me know that "no one sings better than Roletta!"

Getting Serious

2007-07-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

It feels really good to be back in the gym. Feels really good to have the iron in hand again. It’s been a three-year layoff. Gotten fat and soft. Crissman and Baker are already crying, thinking, “Great, here it comes. More spiritual lessons from the gym…” read it and weep, losers.

As I said before, the last 8 or 9 months we were in Winchester, I got interested in Olympic weightlifting—bigger motions incorporating lots of muscles, all the major joints. The discipline of it is attractive in and of itself; you have to want it, because for the first 6-8 weeks, your strength is going to go down in the ways you’re used to measuring it. You won’t bench or curl or even squat as much. But after that initial period, everything starts going up, even though you aren’t focusing on isolation exercises. It’s like starting over; you feel like a real girly man because you start with a stick. Seriously—if you even start with an empty bar there is a good chance you’ll smack your face (it can happen) or fall over on the upswing (did happen). And over the long haul, you still don’t get to any monster weight. Most folks who can bench 400 will never clean and jerk 200.

Anyway, as I was getting closer to really putting a whole lift together, the guy who was teaching me said I should set a goal. I said, “What if I can squat-snatch my weight?”

He said, matter-of-factly, “That’s a lot of weight.” Ouch.

Then I said, “What if I lose a bunch and then we start from there?”

This gets deep. He made a raw sound of disgust and said, “Would you ever give somebody that kind of spiritual advice?” Listen, this guy and I had only briefly talked about faith. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was a pastor, but apparently he did. He went on, “don’t set your goals lower. Don’t try to work down to them. Lose the lard and lift the weight.” Like I keep saying, the children of this world are so much wiser than those of us in the light.

This Week Has Freaked Me Out

2007-07-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

I picked the first substantial amount of veggies, and dropped them off with Foti and Steve, two neighbors of the garden. Okra, squash, and peppers. And then Dulaney Wood, a friend from Lexington First who has freaked out and put a huge garden in at Andover for us, came by with the first tomatoes. Carlotta grabbed one quickly, and pronounced it good.

Dulaney and I went up to the garden. It’s neat—I’m a military brat, and so I don’t know a lot of people long-term. But Dulaney and a lot of the folks in his Sunday School class, I’ve known them for 10 years or more. So it was really special to stand there in the garden with Dulaney, plotting this weird ministry that both is and is not about vegetables.

I have to tell you about this. Yesterday, I finally got back in contact with Sherri. She is a woman in a rock band I met maybe 6 or 8 months ago. We talked about things, about her hang-ups with church, but didn’t have a lot of time, so we agreed we’d talk later. I saw her on her porch as I was walking down 12^th Street (where I was trying to get Jackie White saved, and folks, it just ain’t gonna happen. That girl is a mess. And her old man… sheesh…)

Well, we never got to her hang ups with church. We ended up talking about some personal stuff. Wow, I was blown away that she would trust me. But that’s not the half of it. I was playing with her daughter and her doll (I ain’t too proud.) I told her about the garden, and she was really pumped up to think we might bring her some good stuff. She said she was having a vegetarian dinner—on the grill, potatoes, peppers, corn—would I like to stay for dinner with her family? Not bad. I guess she figures if Laura, Jessica, and Seble think I am ok, maybe I am ok…

As I was leaving, we get to talking about her music. She knows all kinds of bands, and I think maybe she can hook us up with some good music on Friday evenings. She plays drums. I asked her, “would you like to play in a praise band?” She looked at me funny, like, “you’d let me?” I figure if Iron Maiden’s drummer could get saved by playing in a church band, who knows. She handed me her card: it’s a wild, colorful thing, with her wailing on the drums, hair flying. Looks like she could give Meg White a run for her money! Has her name and phone number, and a priceless slogan that, honestly, I am glad she knew she could give to me: “Chick Drummer With Balls!”

But wait, my freaked out life gets better. Three guys show up at the church this afternoon. They represent a growing coalition of community gardeners. They heard about what we are doing at Third Street Stuff, a coffee house 7 or 8 blocks down Lime. We spent some time riffing on outrageous ideas for community gardens. A realtor told one of the guys he could have 15 vacant lots. We just need the manpower. We talked Farmer’s Market right here at the Rock, we talked food access Northside vs. Southside, we talked setting up small businesses to market fresh, local produce to some of the upscale restaurants, and we talked about what one guy called “gardens of eatin’” at houses of worship. They are setting up a garden tour of various community gardens to get us all hooked up and let people and government know what we’re up to and the positive benefits of the work. I took them up to the garden behind the school, and they were blown away by the size. I said, “you need to check out the garden on Price Ave, it’s at least as big. And First Church has one easily twice as big, and they are giving the produce to us.” I had just come back from First’s garden when my three visitors (how appropriate!) showed up.

It was a total God-thing for these guys to show up. I dropped everything to give a tour and talk about the weird vision I have that I generally do not tell anyone else about. One of the guys is a community activist, one works at UK, the other is a teacher at Bryan Station High School. It’s fixin’ to bust loose.

Tex Sample

2007-07-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, Santiago Foster let me look at a book he had checked out from the library, Blue Collar Ministry by Tex Sample. The book is mind-blowing. It’s like he stole my book. On the one hand, it affirms what I have been doing, and on the other challenges and pushes in new directions, giving me a vocabulary for what needs to be done.

The Rock La Roca is not in a typical neighborhood. That is, mainline denominations tend to want prosperous suburban folk (well, like me) to support the ministries and the denomination. So generally, they have abandoned downtown and the countryside. As I have been saying for 7 years now, there is little difference between ministry in the hills and downtown. The social conditions are the same: lack of opportunity and isolation. Doesn’t matter if they’re white farmers, white workers, or African refugees.

Tex Sample says the pastor has to be what he calls a “ward-heeler,” the fellow from the old political machines who knew everyone in a neighborhood, what their needs were, etc, and met those needs, along with asking for a vote for the candidate. It seems crass, but once again, the children of this world are so much wiser than those of us in the light. From the get-go in Winchester, and here, my attitude has been get to know people, build trust, meet their needs. This last is what people have trouble with; we think we can only do $50 here or there. All I can say is Jesus saved you all the way.

It’s a principle of reciprocity; I helped a guy I worked with at the Physical Plant pass his college English classes and he put a valve-cover gasket and c-v boots on my car. What kind of fool would I be if I did not counsel people, feed them, clothe them and then expect that they love my Lord? If they take my rent, they gotta take my love. (I have a working title for a book: Sugar Daddy: Confessions of a Reluctant Evangelist).

Somehow we think this is cheating. Like all we’re supposed to do is be nice, have church, tell them some nice things about how good life will be if they just join our church. We don’t scare them with Hell anymore, so we’ve got to do something. Wait! I know! How bout be like Jesus! You know, feeding people, healing them, hanging out with them when they’re at their worst… and preaching a hard-core message of grace and repentance.

The coolest thing is I called Tex Sample this morning, and we had a great talk. He’s from Brookhaven, Mississippi, so we had some good times talking about that wonderful state. There’s something about guys that are half-wild who leave Mississippi. We always want to get back and we always remember good times… and we laugh hard about how that crazy state prepared us to go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone. How many preachers do you talk to where you spend time talking about Willie Nelson before you get to the meat of theology, only to realize that the talk about Willie was theology? We even swapped funny stories about the Creed—I think I have found a friend.

But then there are some significant disagreements that will get passionate (like I said, I think I have found a friend!), but will be tempered by the passion to reach people for Christ. And in the end, if you like Merle Haggard, you’re ok by me.

He’s invited me up to a seminar in Dayton next year. It’s on ministry to what he calls “hard-living people.” He said he’d like me to share some of what we’re trying to do to break into the community. It’s starting to happen, and by then maybe I will have something to say. Here’s how he hooked me: one of the assignment will be that on the Friday night of the seminar, the students have to go to a honky-tonk! I never thought that my time at The Sea-Witch, The Boat-House, Nick’s Ice House or The Chicken Shack was ever going to bear fruit in ministry…

The books to read: Blue Collar Ministry, White Soul, and Ministry in an Oral Culture.

Random Notes

2007-07-01T20:39:00.001-07:00

After the evening service, I went back up to the garden. I had been there earlier, before the service, weeding.

Excursus: I have this theory about weeding. People do too much of it. You just take out the weeds around the plants, leave the rest. If you look at a weedy garden in a drought, the soil is still moist. But if you have a nice, tilled up soil, it will be dry. Weeds do two things: first, their roots plow up the ground, opening more space for air and water, which is what you’d use a tiller for. And they keep the moisture in the ground, which a tiller will cause you to lose once things dry up. But, to some people, weeds are a sign or personal failing, of immorality. If that’s true, then I’m a pervert. Sign me up.

Next time, we’ll think about doing what I used to do: sow soybeans and clover into the garden. Beats weeds, adds nitrogen, and you can mow it down and really set your compost heap off.

Ok, I’m back. So I was in the garden, getting an eyeball on what I might have to pick tomorrow. So far, it’s just peppers. The maters are still green, and the beans have not kicked in yet.

The garden is doing its fellowship job. I had a few good conversations while I was weeding. Well, after I took a look at the peppers, I saw Rebecca, Foti’s wife, on the porch. I went over and we talked for a few minutes. Foti is the Greek guy I argue with, but who still doesn’t kick me off his porch.

Anyway, Foti is in New York. Rebecca and I talked a little bit, and she told me how happy she is that I come by. She is a Christian, from India. She said, “It’s amazing. Foti does not like religious people. And he really hates preachers. But he likes you. Thank you for being his friend.”

“Well, Foti and I are a lot alike.” She raised an eyebrow. “I used to be an atheist. Serious about it, too. So maybe we have lots to talk about. We’re passionate about what we believe.”

“Yes, you have some things in common. He was very frustrated by how stubborn you are!” we laughed. “He is also interested that you are ok about your wife.”

“Yeah, I think he turned away from God when his mom died.”

We talked a little bit more about praying for him, about hoping he comes to Christ. I prayed for the family, had little Akhilleos on my lap. As I got up to leave, she invited me and the boys to Akhilleos’ birthday party. This is what you hope for—that you get let into their lives and make a credible witness for Christ. It is slow work, this kind of evangelism. But I think we’re starting to see some fruit. Maria has been in church 3 of 4 weeks now, and Fritz came, today, too. And then Greg stumbled in off the street tonight. At least he remembered where we are.

I walked down the street and saw Steve, a guy fixing up a house. We talked about the garden. He has only met me once and he said, “Man, I heard about your wife. I am really sorry. I lost my dad to cancer. You ok?” And I got to share the amazing consolation of the Lord. These folks amaze me. Who am I? But they keep up, know I am the preacher. Steve loves the garden. He told me the school won’t build until Fall of 08, so we’ll get another summer out of it.

Joe

2007-07-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

Well, you know how Joe and I love Johnny Cash. I busted out my CD and we listened to the standards he likes—“Folsom Prison Blues,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “One Piece At A Time,” and “Get Rhythm.” He has started really liking “Jackson.” He giggles about the line, “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout.”

The rest goes on to say:

“We’ve been talking about Jackson ever since the fire went out

I’m going to Jackson, I’m gonna mess around.”

Joe asked me if I knew where Jackson was. I said I figured it must be Jackson, MS; that’s the only Jackson big enough to get in the kind of trouble Johnny Cash was talking about.

“Can you take me to Jackson some day?”

“Probably.”

Then we got to the day care, and Joe tells the co-owner, “Me and Daddy are going to Jackson, and we’re going to mess around!” There’s no telling what they think about me.

Joe is a sweet baby. Sometime Saturday morning, he crawled into bed with me. I woke up and there he was. He started stirring, woke up for just a second and said, “I wish Mommy was here.” Then he was back out. I think I know what he meant; there’s no middle to get into now. That was his place. He’d say he belonged in the middle, “because I’m the baby.”

blogspot confessional

2007-06-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Not long after I came to the Rock, someone asked me who Steffi was. Steffi is the girl who watches John and Joe in the early service. I’ve known her since she was about 8, I guess. I jokingly said she was my oldest child. The person took me literally, and I could see them trying to do the math—36 year old pastor, 20 year old girl… We have to keep up the front, otherwise I lose my family discount at Gold Star, where Steffi works… Don’t come between me and my Gold Star…

Anyway, I was in Gold Star, grabbing lunch and working on my sermon. It’s a good, quiet place. Steffi had this book she let me look at, some compendium of postcards people send anonymously and confess secrets, get it off their chest, whatever. Fascinating, moving, funny, tragic.

But it opened a wound-- an odd one, I suppose. That is, I didn’t keep any secrets from Melissa. Like I’ve said, we had an honest relationship. It started because there were a bunch of us who hung out together. I’m pretty transparent most times, and get me around some people I am comfortable with, and there’s no telling what I might say. Well, I never thought Melissa and I would end up going out, getting married, so I said things you’d never say to/around someone you might date. Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound. It was a blessing to be able to be honest. Otherwise, you live in a shadowland. Afraid, unable to be yourself. Honestly, I’m surprised she loved me. She knew what she was getting into, that’s all I can say.

How many people can you be honest with? There’s not a lot of value, it doesn’t seem to me, if you’re a hidden figure from the person you should be closest to. What if you can’t speak about crises of conscience, own your hypocrisy, express how you’ve been degraded, or that you have degraded others in truly wretched ways, what if you can’t know and be known? If we’re not careful, and sometimes if we are, God becomes abstract. An idea. You need someone who can be incarnational, to remind you of God’s presence.

Most people see me as a well-spoken, engaging person; a loyal friend; a funny guy; a friend to the broken-hearted; compassionate to the poor. That’s all there, I like to think. But then there’s a dark side; really, a heap of dark things all mashed up. I say this freely because I know you are the same, so it’s not like I’m the freak, here. Ok, I am, but you know what I mean. I was simply able to let it out, she loved me anyway, and all that crap lost its hold and power over me. I had let it go to God, but there was that part of me that said, “well, He’s God, He has to love me.” (I have come to realize that not everyone feels this way. I wish you did. It changes everything if you know beyond needing to know how you know that God loves you) But people are not as loving and forgiving as God, so I wondered. But I don’t wonder anymore. And I am never going back to the shadowlands.

Just got out of the prayer and fasting service

2007-06-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

We had a powerful time of prayer and fasting just now. There were 6 men in there. Can we find seven mighty men? And, please, sisters, come too!

We meet for prayer and fasting every Wednesday at 12:15 to 12:45.

Praises were lifted up. And a huge burden was laid down because the Holy Spirit spoke. All we did was simply pray. We came fasting, and you’d think we’d be having a tough time. But no! It was a time full of joy!

Hopefully, our endurance for prayer will grow, and our love of the Lord’s Way (fasting, for example) will grow to fruitfulness.

strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees...

2007-06-27T06:03:00.001-07:00

This Rosario diet thing has to go. Well, not really, but when I see a chart that says 3 oz of steak for a meal, I think, “I haven’t settled for 3 oz of steak since I was 3 years old.” I could eat steak even if I had a case of cholera. But, it’s working, so you can’t argue with that. A few years back I had found my way into Olympic weightlifting. It was about the last 8 or 9 months I was in Winchester. Then we got to Louisville, Melissa got sick and I fell out of the habit. It’s a slow process to get anywhere in Olympic weightlifting, but you lose it quick. The moves are complicated, taking in all the joints and needing a fast, coordinated move of major muscles. I had to work a few weeks just to get the ankle flexibility to start the motion. And it’s embarrassing that no matter how strong you are, you have to start with an empty bar. But once I got past that, it brought good results.

I was attracted to for a variety of reasons. The positive reason is that I was interested more in strength than how I look, and the negative was I hate sit ups, any kind of ab work, and preparing for the last part of the clean-and-jerk or squat-snatch works your core like nothing else. Especially when your coach ties huge rubber bands to the ends of the bar, and you have to hold not just the weight, but keep it stable on the way up. So no more sit-ups, crunches, anything, for me. The beautiful thing is that the way you have to attack the work is exactly the way you have to attack the spiritual life. The very words the New Testament uses to describe spiritual discipline is the language of training. It will be good to get back into it.

I still don’t know why I let my no-good brother-in-law talk me into interval training. It will be what kills me. I didn’t like that stuff in soccer practice, and I had a reason to do it, then.

We’re putting a gym downstairs at The Rock. So in addition to starting to get better food into people’s lives, we hope to start people exercising, especially our young people. I’m looking forward to it, as well. We’ll have all the stuff to get back into Olympic weightlifting, which isn’t much. Just lots of space and some weights. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll find our way to a Methodist Church—strengthening body and soul to salvation.

strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees...

2007-06-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

I still don’t know why I let my no-good brother-in-law talk me into interval training. It will be what kills me. I didn’t like that stuff in soccer practice, and I had a reason to do it, then.

Lunchtime Meditation

2007-06-25T09:01:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that lately John Donne is more my master than John Wesley. That is, for whatever reason, I find myself now reading Donne where I was always reading Wesley.

John Donne is one of the greatest poets in English. When I was in 7^th grade I had a great English teacher, Mr. Jourdain. He was an old school bodybuilder. That is, he was in his 50s in the early 80s, and was absolutely jacked, and had been for years. It took three of us at once, hanging off his forearm, to even challenge him arm-wrestling. He convinced us that poetry was for men, not for wimps. Especially men like John Donne—intelligent, funny, war-like, crude, kind. Everyone needs a teacher like Mr. Jourdain.

Donne was also a powerful Christian, perhaps the greatest preacher in English. He was the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London the last 10 or 11 years of his life.

Some of you know how I am prone to daydream. One day, in a Renaissance literature seminar, I was paying no attention to what was going on. Well, I was paying attention, but not like a normal person. I had only been a Christian for two years, and I still had lots of questions. We were reading Donne’s poem, “Air and Angels.” (It’s tied with his “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” for my favorite.) But for a few days, I had been wondering about circumcision in the Bible. I had lots of questions.

First, why?

How come it’s something for men, and there isn’t something for women?

And then, why?

Isn’t this a little strange—mutilation, and there of all places?

And, of course, why?

Now, I am working on a sermon on Romans 2:28-29, “Circumcision of the Heart,” so I can’t give it all away here. But I can say that reading “Air and Angels,” at a particular moment in class, I suddenly got it: why circumcision. Like I said, I won’t give away the reason, but I can show you the seed.

Donne, like no other poet, mixes the sacred and profane. That is, he quickly moves between the sexual and the holy, in imagery, in parallels, and sometimes in one word. But you don’t feel like he has insulted anyone or anything. Most of his works were never published in his lifetime. He wrote them first for his wife, Anne, and then would occasionally read them for his friends, such as Ben Jonson.

Even in those days, I knew I wanted holiness, “without which no one will see the Lord.” But what is it? Is it a set of rules? Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t go to R-rated movies? Be kind, visit the sick, take care of the poor, go to church? Sure, but holiness is fire. You can’t come too close to it for very long without being burned down. And that’s what has to happen. It refines and purifies. Can there be any doubt as to how and why so many of the deepest love songs could replace a human name or face with God’s, and still keep their integrity?

But then, holiness is also real. So real that the simplest things in life become sacraments: bread and wine, water. Animals were sacrificed in the Old Testament, and that work of slaughtering was something they did every day, as a mater of course; God came to them in precisely the things they knew about, every day.

So there I was, thunderstruck in the class by a line in the poem where it hit me: God is so real, He won’t shirk away from any part of us. I don’t recall anyone wondering what happened to me, so I guess I kept the intensity of what I was feeling under wraps. This relationship with God that we have through Jesus, this Holiness, it is unutterably real, showing up in strange places, sanctifying things we gloss over or want to put away.

Well, that’s all I can give you now, except for the poem.

AIR AND ANGELS.

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name ;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too ;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught ;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere ;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

Because I am feeling generous, here is “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” in case you don’t keep your copy of Donne handy… Peace, Aaron

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

Saturday

2007-06-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

A day of different directions. Joe went with Brandon, Melissa’s brother, to check out rvs and go to the Bass Pro Shop. John went with me, to the Zoo. We got to see the baby elephant. Mostly it was an excuse to walk around and hold hands. I wonder how much longer he’ll do that?

Later in the day, we went up to the school to ride bikes. It strikes me that the past week or so has been pretty good, maybe even really good. The boys’ counselor is very pleased with how they are handling things. She has been working with them for about 7 months, and so she knew them pretty well before Melissa died. We learned early on you have to be honest with them about all that is going, and pay attention to what they can understand.

Today marks the first week of clean eating. One of the things we were going to do was eat better. (Please, not that!) The Roz set me up with a plan for weight loss and muscle gain. Ack, more work. And today was the first day of interval training. I have always loved soccer (in Germany, there was no choice about that), but I hated running even in a game. Give me a ball to chase, and I’ll manage; running was a necessary evil if you wanted to score goals.

The Lord has given us such peace. I wish I knew how to describe it, this confidence in pressing forward, this sense that I will be ok, and more importantly, the boys will be, too. It’s hard to pin down, the way this peace comes; it’s more than prayer and fasting, scripture study, worship. It has just shown up. Part of it is conversations with friends who know me deeply, and remind me of who I am. I know that so many people are praying for us, and all along that is what we asked for, and continue to ask for. Lesser things have threatened to undo me, but in those times, I did not have near as many people praying for me. So keep us in your hearts. The biggest part of this peace is simply faith. I can’t even say how it is that I have it, because it is not so much stubbornness, although it sometimes seems like that.

My Wingman

2007-06-22T17:06:00.001-07:00

We were at a restaurant and Joe needed to go to the bathroom. When we got there, he says, “let’s go in the girls’ bathroom.”

“No,” I said, “we’ll get in trouble.”

“But we might see some pretty girls, Daddy!”

Ohio

2007-06-22T09:36:00.001-07:00

A few days ago in the car, me and the boys were talking about different languages, who speaks what, etc. John asked, “What do they speak in Ohio?” He thinks Ohio is some far-off exotic land. I was about to say “English,” but then I thought, I’ll have some fun at the expense of buckeyes and hoosiers. I said, “there’s no telling, really. You cross that river and there’s just no telling what will happen, or how weird it can get.”

Eyes got bigger in the mirror. I said, “you see this mirror? Well, we call it a mirror. But in Indiana, it’s their compass… you look in it and it tells you who’s lost.” They looked at me, wondering what is wrong with those people across the river.

I did finally tell them they speak English over there… but it doesn’t sound right.

They See Me Rollin'

2007-06-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

So I get this call from Pedal Power, a bike store downtown. “Pastor Mansfield, we have a bike waiting for you that someone has purchased on your behalf.” No way!

The Rozilhoffer and Dingo took me to get it, and I started worrying. They are always ruining me with practical jokes. Like just this morning, Dingo says, “hey, come look at this cute little box turtle. It’s right under that box.” I knew enough to know it was probably a snake, so I made him get it. Ended up being a loggerhead snapping turtle that could take your finger clean off. So I was convinced that this bike was going to be pink with flowers and a plastic horn. You just never know. You see how much I have been traumatized.

Anyhoo, I get there and meet the young salesman who handled everything. The donor wants to remain anonymous. Please accept my thanks, whoever you are! I love bikes, the idea of bikes, and just their elegance. This one is pretty nice—it has fat tires that roll easy and can hit dirt if you have to. The seat is back and low and the handlebars are higher than normal, so it rides really comfortable. Looks like a chopper. I guess I’ll call it my Harley Softail… The salesman, a young guy with dread locks said it was one of his favorite sales to handle.

It’s perfect, exactly what I was looking for. The bike was designed specifically for cruising around comfortably. I am looking to use it for making visits to far flung parts of the hood. I like to walk, to keep an eyeball on things, and you just can’t do it in a car, but the rubber on the wheels will take you farther than the rubber on the heels, as Muddy Waters says…

Also, I am going to get some baskets put on it so when the vegetables come in, I can carry lots of those around to the people I visit. I am really touched. Some pastors get a town car; don’t want one! I’m like a kid on Christmas, and I am very touched that someone thought enough of me to seriously help my ministry! God bless you, whoever you are.

Walking Around

2007-06-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

Prayer and Fasting Service was awesome today. Incense, psalms, 5 men in deep prayer. Not to slight my sisters, but we need more and more men to be strong and be strengthened.

Rosario and I went out to do some visiting, looking for families with kids to invite to our Family Fun Night this Friday. I had a particular house in mind, but then turned down the wrong street. Saw a house I had wanted to get back to and Roz said taking the wrong street was providential.

The fellow in the house is a guy I have talked to before. He said he doesn’t like church because there is so much evil in the world, and the church doesn’t really help. This guy is young, and he just had a defibrillator put in. “My lifestyle caught up with me, dude.” We talked about breaking past addictions, etc. Then I said something like, “well, it’s good that you are getting your body straightened out, but you need to take care of your soul. The body is only temporary, but the soul lives forever.”

“One thing at a time,” he said.

“That’s fine, but you have another heart attack and you’re not right with God, things will be hard.”

We got to talking about his issue with there being so much suffering. It’s the suffering of kids that gets him, apparently. “They’re too young to know anything, to have done anything.” We prayed for him to be healthy and to receive Christ. And then I challenged him to join us in good works, even if he doesn’t believe. I promised to pester him again. Maybe he will work with us and learn to love our Jesus.

One of the blessings of being at The Rock La Roca is that I get to walk all over the place when I do visits. I have taken to having meetings with people while we walk. We’re not going anywhere in particular; we have the meeting while we walk and we keep an eyeball on the neighborhood. We see streets, people and their lives that won’t get seen if we sit in our offices, or just keep driving down Limestone Street to the church.

When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do

2007-06-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be a rough day. It’s a day of fasting, and everything is conspiring against me. There’s a luncheon at church. And then, Chance comes in and offers me an oatmeal cream pie, and man do I love an oatmeal cream pie. But that’s not the half of it.

A few weeks ago, Joe was having some trouble in a swimming pool at a friend’s house and I had to jump in after him, clothes and all. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, and Joe got right back in. Anyhoo, my cell phone was drenched.

I have a potentially worse cell phone problem now. We had cheesecake at Lead Team last night, and generally I was a good boy, ate my piece and left it at that. But on the way out, Lacy offered me another piece and what could I do?

I put it on the seat next to me for the ride home. I had a few calls to make and then put the phone down. Had another call to make, and realized my cell phone had stuff all over it. Cheesecake, with chocolate sauce. I cut my lip trying to get it all off.

So, please, no one call me; I’m fasting and my cell-phone smells like cheesecake.

Job Site Blues

2007-06-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

I called Steve McKinney on Monday. I worked for him one summer, and I well remember hard work on hot days. I knew he and the boys were going to be up on a roof, and Monday was looking to be hot. I left him a message that said something like this: "Hey Steve, I know it's a hot day, and you're on the roof, to boot. I just wanted to call and say I appreciate how much you do, and the hard work. So I am going to go into a nice air-conditioned room, to keep cool for you guys. I just wanted to let you know that someone is thinking about you and appreciating you guys..."

He called back and he wasn't too happy. All I could say was sometimes you gotta bow up and take one for the team, and I was just the man to do it. I don't think I'll be invited to the Christmas party this year...

Lord of The Rings

2007-06-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, Melissa and I spent a lot of time on a small section of Elkhorn Creek. The land fronting it was owned by a guy named Joe Hieronymus. I met him by accident and he told us we could go wherever we wanted. We had a lot of fun fishing there. Actually, Melissa did the fishing. I mostly got my line caught in the trees. I used to deny that, but it’s true! Thankfully, Jesus instituted that whole fishers of men thing…

Anyway, the spot was nice, not quite secluded, but quiet. A small riffle from a deep pool led to water that shoaled across some gravel and water plants. It was a good place to fish. You could cast up into the pool, hoping to catch a small mouth that had no clue you were there. Or you could cast just below the riffle, or along the bank where the water got deeper. We spent so much time there that we didn’t always go to fish. We just traipsed around. We used to catch crawfish for bait. Man, those suckers were big. Not quite Louisiana big, but I was surprised the crawdads were as big as they are. Scientists say that crawfish come from the Cumberland River drainage, which is hard to imagine, but there you have it. Raccoons have a field day with the mussels—nothing but cracked shells. And then there are bits of crawfish strewn on the rocks, so I guess they’re going to town on them, too.

I had this plan to take Melissa back there on her birthday last year, but she was in too much pain in advance of the bone marrow transplant. And this year, well, she was in the hospital and way too weak to hike down the hill if she had been out.

I had a weird impulse these past few days and I was not sure what to do with it. I spent some time praying. This morning, on the way in, I decided I just needed to go with my gut. I took a turn off 64 and headed over to the Elkhorn. Hadn’t been in a few years, not since we were in Winchester. They fixed the bridge, and the access is not the same. So I clambered down the bank, almost slipped and thought it would not be good to be laying on the rip-rap with a broken leg and the cell phone in the car…

Got down to the creek and ran across the riffle to get to the big clump of water plants and their pretty white flowers. The impulse. I had a piece of wire and I tied my wedding ring to the ring Sissy had got for me, the one with the Hebrew on it. Said a few words about always wanting to get back here, and it felt like we had, and I’ll leave it at that. I tossed them into the pool below the riffle. I have no clue what it’s all about. Maybe in a thousand years, some Hobbit will find it... I got back into the car, took off. Turned on the radio and had to laugh: “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” came on. I hated that song, loved to hate it, but Sissy liked it. A dominant image of medieval courtly poetry is the time when “the rose was without thorn;” before the Fall of Man. There was a hope that when Jesus returned to make all things new that the rose would again be without thorn. The medieval mind was also captivated by the principle of mutability. That is, things that change. If they change, they are not permanent, and are subject to decay and death. The great hope was that the eternal, unchangeable God would hurry up. We think those times were the Dark Ages, but having studied them for 20 years now, I think they knew more than we will. I wrote a series of poems for Sissy, called “The Sublunary Anniversaries—“ “sublunary” because we are under the moon, the universe’s constant reminder of mutability. I had no clue that once you begin to play with the image, you will be taken along with it, that there is much more to it than my optimistic idea that in love, we would “Wax to generosity of intent.” Oh, sure that’s there. But there comes a time when you have to face mutability squarely. Heraclitus said you can’t stand in the same stream twice. I’m not sure you can do it once.

Psalm 119

2007-06-18T12:01:00.002-07:00

I have been looking through Melissa’s Bible. She has different passages marked, different pieces of paper or bookmarks or what-not. She had a bookmark of her favorite piece of artwork, that part of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where God’s hand is stretched as afar as possible, reaching for humanity, but the human hand is languidly offered.

Melissa had her transplant on May 5, 2006. She was in the hospital on May 5, 2007. I took the calendar sheet for that day from the hospital wall, and wrote “Happy Birthday, Sissy” on it. She placed it in her Bible at a part of Psalm 119. Psalm 119 has a lot of highlighted verses, verses that were touching her heart, being her prayers.

“Do good to your servant, and I will live” (119:17)

“I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to your Word” (119:25)

“Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your Word” (119:37)

“Preserve my life in your righteousness” (119:37).

“My comfort in my suffering is this: your promise preserves my life” (119:50)

“You are my portion, Lord” (119:57)

“It was good for me to be afflicted that I might learn your decrees” (119:71)

“May your unfailing love be my comfort…. Let your compassion come to me that I may live” (119:76-77)

“My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word” (119:81)

“Preserve my life according to your love, and I will obey the statutes of your mouth” (119:88)

“If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life. Save me, for I am yours” (119: 92-94)

“I have suffered much; preserve my life O Lord, according to your word” (119:107)

“You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word” (119:114)

“Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed. Uphold me, and I will be delivered” (119:116-117)

“My flesh trembles in fear of you” (119:120)

“Your statutes are forever right; give me understanding that I may live” (119:144)

“I will call with all my heart; answer me O Lord, and I will obey your decrees. I call out to you, save me and I will keep your statutes. I rise before dawn and cry for help. I have put my hope in your Word…. Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life according to your laws…. Yet you are near O Lord, and all your commands are true” (119:145-151)

“Look upon my suffering and deliver me” (119:153)

“Defend my cause and redeem me; preserve my life according to your promise” (119:154)

“Your compassion is great, O Lord; preserve my life according to your laws” (119:156).

“See how I love your precepts; preserve my life, O Lord, according to your love” (119:159)

“I rejoice in your promise” (119: 162)

“Great peace have they who love your law” (119:165)

“May my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your Word. May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise. May my lips overflow with praise, for you teach me your decrees. May my tongue sing of your Word, for all your commands are righteous. May your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. I long for your salvation, Lord, and your law is my delight. Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me. Ihave strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for Ihave not forgotten your commands” (119:169-176)

Viewed from one angle, such verses are an embarrassment. Clearly, the words and the prayer behind them failed. The point behind the verses she marked were prayers for healing and life, according to the goodness and riches of God. It’s not just that we face the mystery of why God, who can heal, did not. Or, I suppose we could deny healing at all, and then be done with all this superstition. And it’s too simple to say she was healed, her life has been preserved. While that is true, it doesn’t seem to answer the question here and now. What are all these words about?

Maybe we should look at it from Melissa’s perspective. It’s a perspective I am calling, “somethings you don’t know until you know.” That is, until you have the wisdom or experience that particular verses talk about, the meaning will be veiled. But then when you come up against the kinds of issues the Bible talks about, you have a clearer insight. A little bit before she went in for the transplant, Melissa met with Tim Jones at Barnes and Noble. They were there for a few hours. Tim has talked to me here and there about things they talked about. Melissa reiterated to him what she had said from the beginning: she wanted to give God glory. If that glory was a testimony of healing, good. If it was by dying, good. It’s like grasping fog right now, trying to figure out where the glory is. I know it is there, feel it in wisps (like my time with Foti). Sometimes I think, “well clearly it would be better if she were alive, and all those who remember her fondly would have her. Or maybe we would take it for granted that people will always be with us. We don’t experience them and then we kick ourselves when they’re gone. But their special, unique life touches us. I guess depending on how we let her touch us will determine an amount of the glory God receives; “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15).

Thursday

2007-06-18T12:01:00.001-07:00

Thursday was one of those days that started out tough. Nothing was right as far as John was concerned. He didn’t like the clothes he was wearing, didn’t like his shoes, did not want to go to day care. Somehow, we worked our way through it. We prayed, and that helps.

But he was not real happy the rest of the day and I went to get him early. He was having a hard time at school, and had been asking for me to come get him from about 11 that morning. And Conference was tough, so I was glad to go. I saw some cronies and that was a blessing. Did not see everyone I wanted to. Bishop King’s wife, Rose, had a sweet and profound blessing for me that threw me for a loop, and I wasn’t really the same after talking to her. It hit me, too, that now I am appointed, not us.

In the evening, we were in the pool, and Joe said he wanted to go to the cemetery. I have been asking them if they want to do that, and they always say no. So when Joe asked, I jumped on it. Put some shirts and flip flops on and headed out before they could change their minds.

They put some flowers on the grave. We had a talk about how the body is in the ground, but the soul, who she is, is in heaven. Man, that is hard enough to explain to adults! But somehow it sank in, so much so that I think Joe finally gets that she is not coming back. It’s not like before, 4 or 6 weeks in the hospital and she comes home somehow, someway.

And the day changed for John. Something about being there, talking frankly. I could see something pass out of him or drain out of him.

They’re so cute. I woke up early and went to watch them sleeping, spend some time in prayer for them. They’re so precious, so special, so dear; I can’t understand how it is that in my dealings with them I find myself as impatient and downright mean as I am. But prayer works. That is a fact; start the day with prayer and it’s not so much a guarantee as a primer of conscience. Forget to pray and you’re hosed. It’ll all depend on your good nature then, and if you’re like me, that’s slim pickens.

More Random Notes

2007-06-14T09:04:00.001-07:00

Everyone has someone famous in their family. We have two country music stars in ours. First, Paul Overstreet is a distant cousin thru some California relations. He wrote the song that Alison Krauss made so famous, “When You Say Nothing At All,” which is either one of the all-time greatest love songs, or the sweetest way to tell someone to be quiet… The other music star is Gretchen Wilson. She’s my aunt, and I guess she won’t care if I tell you her real name is Melinda Stewart. She thought Gretchen Wilson was a name that matched her hard-living style a little better.

John and Joseph told me I had to go back to Daddy School. They say that when I ask them if a treat was good or not. That is, I don’t need to ask if a blizzard or a doughnut is good. The answer is obvious, and I should have learned that in Daddy School. Today they told me that another thing they should teach in Daddy School is that “babies are supposed to have fun, not Daddies.” I asked them what I was supposed to do. “Take us places to have fun!”

John and Joe both want a little sister. They make out like they want one to be nice to, but I really think they want someone to experiment on. Anyway, they started bugging me about that in the pool a few nights ago. I told them that I didn’t see it happening. I didn’t give a reason, but Joe said, “because Mommy is with Jesus, right?” Then John piped up with an idea. “Maybe Mammaw can ask God for a baby sister, and then we’ll take her after that…”

John had a really hard time this morning. Nothing was right. I keep trying to talk to him about making good choices in the morning, at the beginning of the day. Don’t freak out if something bad happens. Or don’t make negative comments about every thing. If you start out with a negative attitude, the rest of the day will be bad. Almost always, it’s about good choices in the morning. Today, I had to practice what I preach! It was very tempting, was at the point where it would have been very easy to add to the problem by getting angry. I’d be letting something negative drag me down. We stopped and prayed, and ha! it actually worked! If I can’t show how to do it by example, I can at least make sure I don’t add to his difficulty. After a while, things calmed down. It doesn’t always go that way. Doesn’t mostly, because I’ll get frustrated and I have places to go, etc… I think we all have these kinds of days, and I hope that we can make better choices at the moment, discipline ourselves to not react.

I have been lamenting how gray my hair is getting. This past month, my moustache is being infiltrated. Oh well. It doesn’t really bother me, I laugh about it and complain mostly to laugh about it. But Guy Moyer, a good friend, was worried about me and gave me his advice, what has been working for him. He says if you use Grecian Formula on your hair, it only works halfway. That is, it just colors the hair. The trick, he says, is to drink it as well. That way, the hair that grows out, grows out dark.

Random Notes

2007-06-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the Starbuck’s on Fourth Street in the Ville. You know how I have been hollering that we need to pay attention to our immigrant populations? I mean that we need to be serious about developing ministries to them and among them. Well, two tables away, a young Russian couple are chattering away. Who is going to win them to Christ? Don’t forget the lesson of Pentecost: Jerusalem was filled to bursting with people from all over the world. The first century was a time of unbelievable prosperity and ferment. Rome reigned supreme, so there was relative peace and great opportunities for people from all over to travel freely. And travel they did. Some for business, but some also wondering if they might find meaning in the multitude of religions. They were drawn to Jesrusalem, wondering if the central ritual of Judaism, Passover, would help them find meaning.

So it should be no surprise that when the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost, the disciples were given the ability to speak languages unknown to them. Not only was that a miracle, but the content of the miraculous communication was precisely what the travelers were looking for: salvation, not in a ritual or religion, but in the person and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

These travelers, when they went home, what a story they had to tell! “First off, these Galilean fisherman, real rough types started speaking our language! And more than that, everyone from all kinds of places heard their own languages! But that’s not the cool part! They told us that there is forgiveness of sins, that there is a God who holds the world in His hands…”

The lesson of Pentecost: when God brings you people from all over the world, you are supposed to reach them in their own language so that they can go back home and tell their people. Or they can call back home. Or email back home. No matter how it works out, they spread the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ! Or don’t you believe in the Holy Spirit?

If this young couple doesn’t stop kissing and feeding each other fruit, I am going to puke. No matter what language you speak, love is the same. I am tempted to say something about the gift of tongues, but I would never do that on my blog.

Highlights of Annual Conference so far: making dinner plans with DG and Tiffany Hollums and Ken Klemme, doing my best Austin Powers imitation” “Viva Louisville, baby! We’re going out for a night on the town!” Burt Bachrach—the soundtrack of our lives… DG and Ken want to eat bait (sushi), but me and Tiffany have them talked into Q.

Ate lunch at the Delta, a place I really like and can’t say why. And, of course, I saw Turney Berry there. He has his own table there, with his name and everything.

I have discovered this thing called youtube. There is a great video of Ryan Ellis from the Rock singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” It takes a big man to sing that, and an even bigger man to laugh at him… google “YYZ drum solo.” If you like weird time signatures and want to see the most vulgar display of power on a drum set, that’s the one for you.

I am reminded of how much Melissa loved Annual Conference, if only to mess with Ken Klemme. They had this feud going. One time, he ate all the candy in her gift bag and left her nothing but wrappers. You don’t mess with her Reese’s cups. So she changed the combination on his brief case… Things got ugly after that.

Bishop King had an illustration in his sermon that Melissa would have loved. Her idol was Susannah Wesley. Bishop King said that John Wesley learned everything he needed to know from her, down to organizing Methodism based on small cell groups: “Susannah Wesley would not quit having kids. She wanted John to be in a small group from the get-go.”

The Russian couple left, thankfully. I was about to have to turn around in the interest of modesty. They are from Kazakhstan, but happy to be here. There wasn’t time for a lot of questions—dude, they’re in love. In their place has come a guy wearing a Yankees cap. I’m telling you, I’d pull for the Al-Qaida All Stars before I root for the Yankees. As one comedian said, rooting for the Yankees is like going to a casino and pulling for the House. Bold Prediction no. 238: The Dodgers win it all this year.

While I am sitting here, the Ballesteros family comes in—they are in ministry to Hispanic populations in Kentucky, and Marco, Sr. coordinates church planting in Mexico. It so happens that I am sitting under a picture, they tell me, of Cordoba, near where they have planted a church. They did it by connecting with a family who came to the US and then went back and helped start a church. Pentecost, y’all.

Noella, from Congo, Melissa's friend, had her baby. Named Melissa Deborah. Deborah, the most powerful woman in the Old Testament. And Melissa, "honey bee." Can't do much better than that. What love from this family! And it proves the point: you'd don't have to do much except be friends.

Wednesday

2007-06-07T05:29:00.003-07:00

Wednesday—who knew it was going to be such a day?

After I took care of some piddly stuff early in the morning, I had an appointment with Patrick Lukonga, on of the young men from Congo. We had a long talk, a long prayer, about prayer, about working with the refugee community. It only confirmed me in my fear that goads me to push discipleship harder: African Christians come here with a vibrant faith, but it is very hard to infect the weak American church with their intensity. It is much easier for our weakness to drag them down to our complacency. You always have to worry about a meeting with Africans, because it’s going to be filled with Scripture and challenge to a deeper spiritual life. Later in the afternoon, I met with Cedrick, Patrick’s brother and our translator. More of the same, deep discussion of prayer, seeking God’s calling in his life, plans for evangelism. They want to have long prayer retreats—start with a few hours on a Saturday and then have everyone come live and sleep at the church for a couple days. I’m telling you, if we listen to these Africans, we’ll get down to business!

Wednesday is the day of fasting, so we had prayer in the chapel. Hopefully more and more people will come to know fasting as a vital part of their prayer lives. There were four of us in the chapel at lunch, wearing it out. Me, Roz, a fellow getting past addiction and a guy 2 days out of detox at UK. He just found his way in with us. We cried out to God that He would increase our endurance for prayer, for staying on our knees so that we could always pray thru every temptation. We blessed each other.

Skye and I went to the garden to set up next steps, stake some tomatoes, hang out with a neighbor boy, and talk about the kinds of ministry she can take on at the church. While we were walking there, we were on a mission, working out the details of watering. We walked by a woman sitting on the steps behind the school.

Prayer meeting was good, has been for a few weeks. I have been preaching out of Leviticus—this obscure book has so much to say RIGHT NOW. Skye brought the woman on the steps to the meeting, and we prayed hard for her serious needs. I had to go up to her and repent for walking by her… so focused on a task, I missed a person. Alice wasn’t holding back and started talking about the Good Samaritan and I realized was I ever the Levite that afternoon—too busy with good works to do a good work…

Once the prayer meeting, youth and children’s programs were over, we kept cranking. Earlier in the day, me and Dingo visited a family that just moved in on 12^th Street. Two families, nine kids in a house. 4 belong to one mother who is just visiting. Such sweet kids. Anyhoo, one of the boys tells us it’s his birthday. Of course we have to get a cake. We get a cake, and get some plates and ice cream together for later. After the evening activities, a few of us headed up to the house. All the kids in the house and a number of people from the church piled into the house and we had a party for Austin, 7 years old. Rebecca baked a cake earlier in the day, so we had two cakes and all got big pieces!

I am not sure I can explain the energy in the house. I looked around and it wasn’t so much that we were all there—everybody had kind of settled in, talking to the moms or kids, it was that micro-fellowship David Singleton talks about.

Austin came by me in the hall and said, “This is the best day ever!” After things wound down, Jessica took a few of the boys to a ball game a neighbor boy was playing in.

12^th Street is being made holy by the presence of some godly young women—Meg, Jessica, Laura, MJ, Christy, I know I am leaving someone out--sorry. Peter and Jackie will be back from honeymoon in Greece soon, and they will add their love to 12^th Street in a new home.

Some of you know my fascination with www.chucknorrisfacts.com the website with crazy things about Chuck. My favorite: “Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.” I guess another favorite is, “Chuck Norris doesn’t read a book, he just stares at it until the information he wants comes out.” Or, “The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.” Alright, one more, I promise that’s it: “Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.” Tuesday evening, the family thought they heard someone in their upstairs. They were freaked out, don’t have a phone yet, so they ran to Jessica and Laura’s. They were shocked that Laura just went over to the house, started walking around and looking for whoever it was. A bunch of us laughed because she does crazy stuff like that, walking late at night, kicking drunks out of people’s yards, whatever. I said, “No one will mess with her, she’s too mean.” John C said, “yeah, Chuck Norris answers to Laura…”

The Fundamental Elements of North Side

2007-06-07T05:29:00.001-07:00

North Lime is the protean spine of our side

of town; starts out all business and like guts,

ends that way; creeps along to quaint houses,

then bars and shotguns; three schools

that might as well be on different planets;

churches that no one knows are there.

Its side-streets peel off like nerves

a few of them straight and clean,

gay dudes and their elaborately painted doors;

others flagellate in stink and weeds, people

who don’t even wonder how it got this way.

Savages

2007-06-07T04:39:00.001-07:00

One day week before last, the boys were as usual down at the creek. It was pretty quiet down there, which means there was some plotting going on. I walked down there to dog-eye the situation, keeping back to observe unobserved. What a beautiful sight! Both boys were covered in mud. And since it’s mostly clay down there, they looked like little savages, which is what every little boy should look like! They had their little trailer in the water (it goes to a John Deere bicycle/tractor), hoping it would float so they could sail away. It’s that kind of imagination that you rue losing.

2 weeks ago, my father-in-law opened the pool and so they are in it constantly. They don’t care how long they stay in. Nothing can tempt them out. Eating is a nuisance to them at this point. All they want to do is swim.

This week, Melissa’s cousin Casey is staying with us while the rest of the family is in Washington, D.C., where my brother-in-law graduates from an FBI training course. They are loving life, but I think Casey may be traumatized, as they try take every advantage of her that they can.

There’s a lot of work to do in comforting them in small things, things that are probably not directly related to Melissa’s passing. And then there is paying attention to the sources of anxiety—reminding them that I am going to work, but will be back at such and such a time. Sad thing is, a distance can grow as I wonder how to handle things for myself.

Many, many people have been praying for us for so long. I would ask that those prayers continue, especially for the boys. I am not sure what the path ahead looks like, and so we will desperately need God to guide, and to listen to His guidance.

Most days, tho, they are busy being the little savages I love so much!

Witness in Death

2007-06-05T08:13:00.001-07:00

Dear Sissy,

You won’t believe this. Ok, you will. You remember Forti, the Greek guy? Well anyways his name is Foti, but he tells people it’s Forti because it’s easier to pronounce. “Like the number,” he’ll say. Well, I asked him what it meant—“the one who gives light,” he says. So I tell him that’s what my name means. Aaron means something like “enlightener.” Or so I have been told. Or maybe I made it up. Even if it’s not true, it’s still a good story…

ANYWAY. Back in the summer, Foti and got into it when he said the whole church and God thing was ridiculous. Well, you know me, I won’t take that and so I said something like, “The ‘whole’ thing? Please. I can buy that half of it is ridiculous. But the whole thing?” We went back and forth and I was working him over about choice and consciousness. We parted and I knew he’s one of those guys you can argue with heatedly and he’ll be ok.

So, for the next few months, he’d stare at me from the porch. He’d tilt his head back and take a drag on his Marlboro, thinking I was perverting the neighborhood. Then Big Doug’s house burned down, and he was blown away that we were helping them the way we were. After that, he’d wave at me when he drove down the road. And we even talked in his house, when he needed to ask someone about an ethical question. He asks me, the man who believes in totally ridiculous things!!! Then when we were putting in the garden, he was freaked out. He really got on a tear about the cost of produce and I think he was happy that we are going to make kids eat their vegetables…

[Sissy already knows all this story, but she’d listen anyway, because early in our relationship, she’d say, “you already told me that,” but then she realized that I always start at the beginning every time, working it over in my mind…]

Well, Foti was in Greece visiting family for a month and now he’s back. He was there when AC Milan beat Liverpool in Athens. Dog. So, we were on his porch, just talking and he asked me where I live. I said Shelbyville and he wondered why. I told him you had been sick and needed treatment at UL. He asked what was wrong. It was that awkward moment (for him, not so much for me) when I said you had been dead for three weeks.

His eyes welled up with tears and he said, “I am so sorry, my friend.” I told him I appreciated that. We were quiet a few moments. Then he said, “My mother died of cancer. She was 48, but still too young.” He asked if I wanted coffee. No thanks, not a coffee drinker. Tea? he asks. Sure. So his wife, Rebecca, from India, makes me Indian tea—like chai, but Starbucks are a bunch of losers compared to this stuff she gave me.

Foti says, “Speaking freely—after your wife’s death, and you still believe in God?”

“Absolutely.”

“How? How do you believe in a God who takes such a young woman, when so many others really deserve to die?”

“ah, that’s a big question…”

“I know,” he said with a laugh, as if maybe he were proving his point.

“I’d have to believe He took her, to go where you are.” There was some silence. Then I said, “There is evil, sickness and death in this world. Only a fool would deny it. And I suppose it’s strange that I have spent so much of my life thinking about this very issue. For a long time, I believed there was no god, there could not be, if people dear to me might die. I can’t explain what changed other than that first, I came to understand that logically, there is no escape from the existence of God. And then, I had a personal experience of Jesus’ presence. And all I can say is that I am painfully aware of evil, but my life with Jesus is good.”

Some more silence. Then he said, “When my mother died, it was all hill-down for me.”

“How old were you?”

“13. I had to move to Germany because that’s where my dad was.” Ah, a bit of the story is revealed. Germany was not a good place for him. At least not going there. What a huge change, to go from Greece where you are known, to the latent racism of Germany against its “guest workers.” You remember how when I was a kid, some folks would think I was a Turk or Greek, and more than once I had to run like hell to get away.

“So, was your mother’s death the thing that turned you against God, or was it a long process.”

“A process, yes, but that was pretty big. And then, the final straw was Akhilleos.” Akhilleos is his son. Achilles in our language, and I know how much you love Achilles. And I always liked Odysseus. Wanted to name John or Joe Telemakhos, after Odysseus’ boy.

Akhilleos is a beautiful boy, almost 3. He had a port-wine stain birthmark that was removed a few months ago, and his left eye is cloudy. Foti told me he was born with too high blood pressure in that eye. “It’s almost gone. Why would God do that?” Rebecca is a Christian, and Foti told me she wonders why this happened.

I did not presume to tell Foti that Akhilleos is fine.

“It doesn’t make sense. I see all these drug abusers, drug dealers, and they are doing fine.”

“Yes, that’s true. It’s a big mystery. But we believe that God is good.”

“Well, sure that’s what you believe.”

“We’re up front about that. The Psalms talk continually of how the wicked ‘strut freely about’ while the righteous are oppressed.”

Around this time, Rebecca came out and I thanked her for the good tea. Here’s another person you would have loved to know, Sissy. You and your tea. Erin won’t get out her tea pot because she says it’s still too soon after you died, and she wishes you had taught her more how to use it. She says she remembers you told her that “life is too short to re-use tea bags.”

I asked Rebecca about where she was from in India. Hyderabad. Know the name, no clue where it is. She says it’s easy enough to be a Christian in India, if you are just a common person living your life. But if you are a preacher, there is persecution because they don’t want anyone converting from Hinduism

Foti said, “If I ever become religious, I will be a Hindu.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it is man-made and convenient,” Rebecca said.

Foti was displeased. “No, because they accept everything.”

“Sure enough,” I said. “I hear they have shrines to the Virgin Mary there, anything that could be an appearance of the Divine. They’ll accept anything about Jesus except His claim to be the only way.”

“All religions say it’s us or nobody,” he said.

“Even Hindus? Yes, even them,” I answered my own question. “it’s a matter of truth. Things are true or not. There’s no neutral ground on the truth.” Foti once told me he preferred neutrality to good and evil.

I asked Rebecca if she had a church. She goes to a church a little ways out. “But I don’t really know anyone there.” I invited her to walk down the street to our church. “You’ll meet people from right here.”

I had been there a while, and things were winding down. Foti, for all of his skepticism, tells me that a family has moved in next door with three kids, and maybe I should see them…

So, Sissy, I remember your sang froid when you were diagnosed with acute lymphocytic lymphoma, and you said that all you wanted was to be a witness for Jesus. As you went through treatment you wanted to strengthen others. If you were healed, what a great testimony. If you were not healed in this world ( John an Theo are working me over because I said you lost your fight with leukemia. They say you conquered death, and they are right) then you went on to be with Jesus. And so you were a great witness to so many who encountered you—through what you believed, but also in how you persevered.

And then this morning. I was up at the garden to see what kind of rain we got. Foti was on the porch, waving at me. I went over, welcoming him back again, talking about soccer. We get to talking about you. And he and I are getting close enough for him to feel for me, to remember his own sorrow, and to think about your boys. He is one of those boys who lost a mom. And then, he was honest enough, wondering enough to ask if I still believe in God. Wow. If he never comes to Christ under my ministry, I will still say that this is the most powerful evangelistic conversation I have ever had.

I wanted so much to say to Foti, but how could he hear it, “We have this moment, where we have become much deeper friends through our sharing, because my wife died. You will know that I do not believe out of stubbornness or a need to cope, but because of an experience with the Risen Jesus. All my wife wanted was to be a witness for Jesus. She has died, but has given us this very moment. Jesus said, ‘Unless a seed of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’”

One day, we’ll hear about Foti coming to Christ. He will find peace about his mom not in spite of evil, but because of God. And he will find that Akhilleos is fine, in spite of his problems. Steve always said I was lucky when I found you, and Howard always said you would be a great help to me in ministry. None of us had this in mind, but how powerful is it that you were there on Foti’s porch?

thinning beans

2007-06-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

My mom says that the smell of her childhood is oranges. Her grandfather and great-grandfather planted citrus orchards in Southern California, and she says she always liked it that she and her cousins all smelled like oranges. She missed that when my grandfather moved to a farm farther north, leaving orchards behind in favor of produce.

The sense of smell is very powerful, evoking memories more viscerally than the other senses.

I got to the church a little before 8 today and went up to the garden. We had maybe a ¼ inch of rain, and I hear that fell in about 10 minutes. But it was enough to do a better job than all our watering. No matter how much we watered, the peppers drooped a little. Now they are standing tall.

The beans and my request, cowpeas, came up pretty good, but thick. So I went out and thinned them a bit. That brought back a flood of memories. The dominant smells of my childhood are in California, the smells of the harvest—carrots, garlic, tomatoes, and beans. Many thousands of acres of each would be harvested and processed, and the air for miles would fill with the smell of whatever was being picked.

The beans fill the air with a complex smell, sweet and dull at the same time.

So, I think this will be a good day, the kind of day in ministry I like: varied. Thin out some beans while praying. Or pray while thinning out beans, as the case may be. Hang out with some kids eating lunch at the church. Meet with a student about ministry she wants to pursue here. Sit down with Hugues, a refugee from Congo, to translate some documents related to getting his wife and son over here. Visit in the neighborhood. Foti is back from his trip to Greece and it was good to sit with the fellow who thought the “whole idea” of church was ridiculous, but we win him over by good works in the community…

The garden is making progress more than we expected. It’s not just that stuff is growing. Rather, relationships are growing. Ron and David, who do the watering, have noticed this, have helped the relationships grow. David called it “microfellowship.” The planting and the on-going care of watering and weeding has brought different groups together—mostly people who don’t normally get together. That is, there were people in the church who came together to work who may not normally be together. And then there are people from the community who come out and wonder what’s going on. That’s what we really want to happen. The last thing we’re doing is growing tomatoes. They’ll be a nice bonus to the work of being together, and getting to know our neighbors.

The Heavenly Let-Down

2007-06-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

So in the second service today we sang “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” I like the hymn, but it really hit me hard today.

“This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise

To seize the everlasting prize

And shout while passing through the air,

Farewell, farewell sweet hour of prayer!”

Those lines put into form something I have been meditating on. Viewed from one angle, there is a “heavenly let-down.” That is, from the this-world perspective, heaven is a mixed bag. On the one hand, we’re out of the struggle of life, no more sorrow, suffering or death—the old order of things passes away. But then there is the part of us that thinks that heaven means a restoration of all things here, all the pleasant stuff we knew.

It’s the old joke. Two guys spent a long life loving baseball. They made a deal with each other that whoever died first would tell the other if there was baseball in heaven. So one of them dies. He comes to visit the other a few days later and his friend says, “Well?” The dead guy says, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is, you’re pitching tonight…”

I don’t think there is baseball in heaven. Soccer, probably. Much of what we know and value here is not there. That is, we tend to think of heaven as an expansion or perfection of all that is good here.

I am fumbling, so let me get to the example. I was looking at Melissa’s Bible, looking at a new but worn book, full of some bookmarks and notes here and there. I was thinking, boy she really would have enjoyed hanging out here and studying the Bible. But then I thought, “How foolish! What does she need with the written Word when she is in the presence of the eternally-living Word?” I mean, we really can’t comprehend it. We see only dimly thru the glass…

And then, those lines from the hymn—“farewell, farewell sweet hour of prayer.” Yikes. She loved her prayer time. She was fond of reminding me and I guess everyone that Susannah Wesley had 19 kids, 17 survived, and when she needed a break, she would sit down and place her apron over her head and the kids knew not to disturb her. Or she would recall how Ann Goolman would go sit on the rock by the barn and everyone knew to stay clear. Melissa made those times for herself, often telling me she needed it and that meant, “Keep the boys occupied.”

I was thinking as we sang, she loved her time of prayer, vaguely thinking, I bet she misses it. Will we really say “farewell” to something so dear and powerful as our hour of prayer? See, if you are tied to this world, even the righteous things of this world, heaven won’t seem like much. But if you recognize what Paul was trying to tell us in 1 Corinthians 13, you’ll be quivering until you get there: everything is going to pass away. Even the good things like prophecies and miracles. Gone. No more. No need. Because God’s love—His very presence is the order of the day, all day, forever.

In 1 Corinthians 15, the Bible teaches us that the resurrection body will be nothing like our present bodies. That is, the analogy is to a seed—the wheat plant looks nothing like a wheat seed. So the perishable thing—the seed that dies (see John 12)—is raised in imperishability, becoming whatever it was that planted it, a spiritual body totally unlike the seed. I am not sure what will be like it is here.

That gets me—even the righteous things of this world, the things that bring spiritual growth—we’ll say good-bye to, because we’ll be where we are supposed to be. At least that’s what strikes me today.

The Creed

2007-06-03T16:51:00.001-07:00

I love the Apostle’s Creed. Some of that love is theological; it is the summation of the faith, accessible to and for all people. But part of the love is personal. When I was making my way to faith, I was in the Methodist Church in Greensboro, AL. I had been hunting with a friend, and when you were at his house, you went to church. Well, there in the sanctuary, behind the choir loft, was the Apostles Creed, carved into wood. From the Catholic services I attended as a child, I could remember the words of the Nicene Creed, similar to the Apostle’s Creed. So there was a point of connection. Maybe it’s part of why I became a Methodist?

And now there is something else: Melissa was adamant that her funeral would be a worship service, and that specifically the Apostles’ Creed had to be part of it. And now, the Creed rolls around in our worship service, and I think of Melissa. Not a bad thing, because the Creed remembers Jesus’ life and death. There is an element of spiritual growth in this; Can I mourn for Jesus’ death, and think joyfully of His Resurrection, and be continually convinced of that in Him for Melissa? What I feel for her is as properly referred to Him—what I feel for her is because of Him.

And then there is this humorous moment. Melissa McDonald was telling me that a fellow known to the church came in, “maybe 6 hours sober,” Melissa said. When it came to the Creed where we confess faith in the “holy catholic church,” he couldn’t quite get his mind around it and said, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy METHODIST Church…” For a few weeks there were a few people adding this in.

Before you worry too much about such a change to the ancient formula, let’s all remember that the word Methodist comes from two Greek words, “meta” and “hodos,” meaning something like “having a way.” We do have a way, the Way, the Truth and the Life! So our confused brother was not too far off the mark…

www.p-over-g.blogspot.com

Stations of the Cross

2007-06-02T16:06:00.001-07:00

Back in the summer, I had a post about the Stations of the Cross at St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Louisville. The gist of it was that I was spending some time in the church, meditating (as much as is prudent for a Protestant…) on the Stations. It was a huge time, really, of digging into the suffering of Christ. Melissa was in the throes of transplant, and she was holding on to the holding cross Sharon Perkins gave her day and night.

When she went in for the transplant, the cancer had spread extensively. There were a few places she said she could feel with her hands. I was too chicken. I wouldn’t touch where she showed me. I wonder about that. Would it have helped or hurt if I had? Somehow, I see it as a failing, a moment of selfishness, like all cowardice. Anyway, the worst was in her lower back. It was just a lot of pain. When she went for the radiation, she had to lay flat on a hard table, and it was the worst pain she said she had ever felt. “But,” she said, “I kept thinking about Jesus on the Cross, and how He has gone everywhere ahead of me.”

So there I was in the church, trying to get my mind around that, around the Cross, around the suffering of Jesus. Each of the stations seemed to flow to me, they began to make sense. You can go back and look at the post if you want to, but there’s one that hits me right now. I wrote down the ideas that were coming to me in the back of a nice Bible Sissy gave me. The last station: “Jesus is laid in the tomb.” After each station, I wrote a “reason.” There, “because we think death is the end.”

When I was sharing that with Sissy right after I came back, she said, “HA!”

Joann

2007-06-02T16:05:00.002-07:00

During the visitation, a call came in. I took it in the hallway of the funeral home—it was Joann Hall, now Joann Wells. Joann was a little girl, I guess maybe 13 or 14 when we moved to Winchester. I knocked on her grandparents’ door, and she started coming to church, and hanging out with us at the house. She loved to help Melissa with John and later Joe. She liked to hang out with us, helping around the house.

Joann called because she got off work and was afraid she would miss the visitation. Would someone stay long enough for her to come? Sure, I said. So about 9:45, Joann came in with her husband. She cried a little bit and then told about how much she loved Melissa because Melissa loved her. Joann said Melissa would take her shopping with her, nothing special, groceries or whatever, get her a treat and they would have the best time. Joann said, “I always used to tell everyone she was my sister.”

What makes a 19 or 20 yr old girl you haven’t seen in 3 or 4 years show up, be so intent that she would come late, hoping someone would be there, because she could not get to the funeral? Melissa had that kind of effect, and it was on people who most of us will never know. She led a Bible study for the crisis pregnancy center, and I can only wonder what things passed between Melissa and the girls.

Lachrymoptera

2007-06-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

I wonder why we didn’t build the butterfly garden before? Or why we didn’t start on it earlier? I mean, I know the answer; we did not want to take the time at the time. When Melissa was with us, our time was really pressed, and so we were either hanging out with her or the kids, or both. And then, there was the whole “when I get better” thing.

I don’t know if it’s nice or not; I am not much of a landscape designer. I like to plant stuff and dig in the dirt. A few years back, Melissa got us an armillary, one of those globe-like things with an arrow through it. I planted some clematis under it, to run up it. We always liked clematis. There’s marigold, coreopsis, coneflower, butterfly bush, verbena, marigolds, lilies, lavender, and an oleander. Some hollyhocks for the heck of it. Butterflies are showing up. There were two chairs her great-great aunt had in her garden that Sissy always wanted a place for.

The boys help me water it, and we always look for the butterflies. I wonder how that is going for them? They seem excited, they are glad to remember her when we see a butterfly, or see the garden. On some level, I know that part of the sadness of all this is that since she was gone for so long in the hospital, it probably has not completely sunk in that she is gone.

Amos

2007-06-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

We did not always have the faith that has sustained us through these two years. When Melissa and I met, we were in something of a similar place, faith wise. I was new to the faith, looking to get grounded. I know the word now is that I was looking for someone to “disciple” me. Melissa had grown up in church, fallen out of the habit, and was looking to get back connected with God.

Of all things, I think we cemented our relationship at a Pentecostal revival. Brother Moxley was preaching at Old Paris Road Church of God here in Lexington. I don’t think it is too much to say that Melissa found relief from some burdens on her heart. From that revival on, things seemed different. It wasn’t just that we were in love and all that, but more that we had some understanding between us about the place God would have in our lives.

And so, over the years, we dug deeper, were surrounded by a great church, studied the Bible, worshipped, got involved with some folks who taught us to pray. I am not sure I could write down all the stuff that went into making us who we are. Somehow, we found a faith that trusts God in all things.

When we were first married, we would read the minor prophets at night before we went to bed. Doesn’t sound too romantic, but all I can say about that is that when it came time for the Bible Competency Exam at seminary, I got 100% on the Law and The Prophets… and Melissa was always sold out to Amos after that. Her heart of compassion came not simply from the words of Jesus, but also from recognizing how much Jesus’ ministry was informed by the Old Testament, esp a prophet like Amos.

Her most powerful prayers, the ones that used to scare me to think if she got what she was asking for, rolled like something Amos would have asked for. Perhaps more than anything else, I wish the people at The Rock La Roca could have been infected with her twin passions of plain faith in Jesus and simple work for justice. If she was talking about having faith in Christ, it would end up in a response to ease suffering. If she was talking about justice, it always came back to the necessity of saving faith in Christ. She was sold out to calling those who have faith in Christ to act like it, and for those who came to the church with needs, she was sure that more than some diapers, food, or help with rent, they really needed faith in Jesus. Plain faith in the blood of Jesus, not simply an abstract “spirituality.”

Her favorite verse from Amos is: “I will make that time like mourning for an only son,” (8:10). Amos is prophesying doom to those who turn away from God. Where this hit Melissa was the way this prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus’ death. It’s not simply some kind of “type” as the Alexandrian Fathers might say. Rather, because of God’s eternality (there is no past, present, or future for God; He sees it all), Jesus is always already crucified, from the beginning. I guess maybe the Alexandrian Fathers would say that, too.

I suppose it’s why she likes Revelation 5:8 so much; the golden bowls of incense which are the prayers of the saints. She would ponder the eternal omniscience/omnipresence of God, and think of all the prayers He hears from forever to forever. She loved to think that worship joins not only those who gather all over the world any given Sunday, but also those saints from the past and the future. Worship never ceases. Duh, that’s what Revelation says…

A friend of Melissa’s, Sheila Price, who knew how much Melissa loved prayer said, “Just think! Now she really knows what to pray for!” Look out…

Si se Puede

2007-06-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

About five years ago, I learned something of vital importance. Our church was going thru Natural Church Development, a powerful systematic tool for analyzing church health and function. The author, Christian Schwarz, has massive information on over 12,000 churches on six continents, all sizes, all denominations. With that much information, they began to have information to answer questions they had not intended. NCD focuses on 8 Quality characteristics of healthy/growing churches. But the large data set let them answer other questions, or maybe they began to discover some things about the 8 quality characteristics that they had not anticipated answering.

The one that intrigued me was that they discovered, universally, the optimum size for a church is 200-400 in worship. After that, you have taxed a pastor’s ability to keep up with his flock. Further, the fastest growing churches were around that size, and they were also busy starting new churches. The simple math is this: a church can split, start a new church and those churches can double and split again. It is much easier for a church of 200 to double than it is for a church of 10,000. The Kingdom principle revealed in the data is that Jesus’ mission is being accomplished better by 50 churches with 200 than one church with 10,000. We see this principle at work in America, or at least we suffer from its not being in effect: no county in America has more people in church today that it did in 1990. So in spite of Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and the other mega-churches, the Kingdom is in worse shape now than 15 years ago. A mega church may be impressive, but it is a drag on the growth of the Kingdom. This is an incontrovertible fact.

So, from that time on, Melissa and I began to pray about church-planting. Every day. Looking for discernment. After five years, this is where I am in discernment. I am not sure that I am to be someone who pastors a brand new church. But I know for sure I am supposed to facilitate it, to encourage and equip others in that work.

So imagine my delight in being at The Rock La Roca, itself a new church, albeit coming from a previous church. Part of the genesis of The Rock La Roca was that it would at some point start a new congregation. And starting new churches is like having children: if a church waits until it has the money or is “ready,” they’ll never do it.

I was bandying these kinds of ideas around, and Rosario Picardo indicated some interest. We talked about it a little bit. I wasn’t sure what would come of it. Then I started talking to Tom Eblen, the director of New Church and Congregational Development for the KY Methodists. We had some “what if” discussions. Pretty soon we were all getting excited, realizing that maybe there would be money to help, because Rosario was hot to trot.

So here we are. At Conference in a few weeks, Rosario will be appointed by the bishop as a pastor to The Rock La Roca for church planting. He’ll be entering an intentional process of visioning, building a team, and scouting locations. The Conference will provide most of the resources, and the Rock will provide space, supervision, some values DNA, and some interested volunteers to start the new work at the appropriate time.

My hope is that we are able to craft a model of churches planting churches that can be used in other places. Starting new churches is the most effective evangelism tool, and if we are going to stop the rot at the heart of Christianity in America, then it will have to include lots of new churches.

The Rock La Roca is also working on supporting some church starts in Mexico and Honduras that have come from our people here, or from their relatives. At the end of the summer, we will have a church-wide (i.e., the whole United Methodist Church) conference on Honduras in Frankfort, KY, and we will be working hard to connect with the Honduran Methodist pastors so that we can support their work through connecting our people here to Methodist churches back home.

The powerful thing about this work is that it is also what we will be doing in partnership with our African refugees: figure out how we can work with their families in the camps in Africa, connecting with the global reach of the United Methodist Church. Curtis Book, our Missions Pastor is stoked about the possibilities of dong all kinds of mission simply by mobilizing who we already have with us.

The Rock La Roca is a church that experiences some anxiety; that is, there is still some confusion about how it got started; some pain for the old church that died; a marginal population that doesn’t always dream big enough; and then some huge changes in the past year—not just a new pastor and a new associate pastor, but a whole new population, a new culture and language, and new directions. So no doubt there are some who wish we would not take the step of starting a new church; some who think it can’t be done. Si se puede! Because this is not a cockamamie scheme of man, but a response to Pentecost—people are coming from all over the world. They can hear the gospel. And we hope to send them out to spread the word, whether it is across the ocean in Africa, or down the road in Lexington.

We are hopeful, but we need help. Please pray for us, especially for Rosario and the new church. We need your prayers and support.

Option G

2007-05-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

I have a friend a few of you know, Clark Stanard. Clark has this saying, that whenever you face a problem or an issue, there's only one answer, Option G. You may lay out the choices, "Option A," "Option B," or "Option C." But no matter how hard you try, no matter how insightful your analysis, it comes back to there only being one, "Option G," or giving it up to God.

This has always been good advice. I mean, these are sound words. But what happens when good advice becomes real? I mean, you can know that something is right. But what happens when you discover that it is right? Book knowledge to street knowledge.

This advice has never been truer. Option G is all there is. It's not giving up or giving in, it's recognizing the answer before you screw up the question!

So how are we surviving? Option G. If it all feels wrong, it'll still be alright. I have no idea how I got to this point; it baffles me. Good advice is one thing. It's not just that acting on it is another, it's more like, how did I find the faith to see Option G. It's not entirely my choice-- even there, it's still Option G!

Remember

2007-05-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was saying before that thru these tough days, especially looking back on Sissy’s Holy Week, I saw something more clearly about the Gospel, especially the life of Jesus. Then it was something like understanding why it’s so important to remember His life, the things He said and did. I was thinking particularly of that last week of His, where there was so much activity, so much time He wanted to spend with His friends.

Now that is being refined a bit. As I try to deal with the guilt that comes when I realize that because Melissa is no longer struggling here, and more time is opened up in our lives, I ask myself a question: what would Melissa want me to do? That is easy enough to answer, because as I so graciously know, there was nothing left unsaid between us. Even before she had cancer, we would talk about what do we do in case one of us dies, and it was always: take care of the boys. And we always knew that that meant staying close to God. The best thing we could do for each other, for our family, was love God.

So when I answer the question, what would Melissa want me to do, I live a moment with grief and hope, sad that she is not here, but knowing that if she were here, we’d be doing what we’re doing. That is an incomparable gift.

This weekend was a good one. Saturday night, we had a cook-out with Melissa’s parents, brother, his wife (Erin) and her parents. We had steaks, cooked corn on the grill, had some good potatoes and bread, dessert. We sat around and laughed and had a high time. Before the dinner, Connie (Sissy’s mom) was remembering how when Sissy entertained, she didn’t fret too much. The goal was not how good anything was (Altho it always was; I lose a man card here, because Sissy was actually the grillmaster), but rather spending time with friends and family.

Tonight (Monday) we had a fish fry at Sherman and Diddy’s (Melissa’s aunt and uncle). We caught fish (well, I didn’t; Roz caught three and told me to stick to preaching…), everyone just kicking back by the pond. And Sissy was not there. But she would have loved it—she liked catching bluegills and crappie, liked a fish fry, liked hanging out in such simple ways.

When we do those things, we honor her memory! We keep a part of her with us. We can, if we remember, do it in remembrance of her. The sacraments are really pretty straightforward if looked at that way.

Saturday night, did I tell too many Melissa stories? Did I remember her too much for comfort? I don’t know. When Brandon put the corn on the grill, I told him about how Sissy would grill garlic and the cloves would spread like butter. Or I’d recall how she did this or that. I regaled everyone with the story of me and Melissa’s first winter, when we lived in an old historic home, and she would sleep with the windows open, how it actually snowed in our room one night, and she had no clue why I was in bed with layers of clothes and a toboggan…

There is a curious moment in John chapter 11. John tells us that Jesus is coming to Lazarus, who is dead. When John says that Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, he takes a moment to say, “this is the same Mary who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair…” But that doesn’t happen until chapter 12. Obviously, everyone already knows the story, and John is heading them off at the pass so they don’t say, “Hey, isn’t that the same Mary who…” You can see the scene; John sitting with a group of people who want to hear about Jesus. “Tell us again,” they say, “we would hear about Jesus…”

Sometimes we don’t really get that Jesus was tragically taken from His friends. We get too theological, too church-y. His death is an historical fact, a religious doctrine. But the only reason we have a doctrine or a church is because His friends have said for 2000 years, “Do you remember that time He…”

One day, Melissa came with me to Lexington during the week. I said, “let’s go visit some folks.” Melissa—and this is just like her—said she wanted to visit some of the Congo families. We could have seen anybody—important people in the church, whatever. But she wanted to see someone who might really be blessed, and bless us. SO we ended up visiting with Noela, David’s wife. We had John and Joe, and they played with Noela’s boys Malipo and Benjamin.

We were there for three hours! They hit it off immediately. They talked about everything-- having boys, loving babies, cooking. It was a long conversation about the different foods in Congo and Kentucky. They talked about breast-feeding, and look, I was translating and I was kind of worried I might be crossing some cultural taboos. They just connected in a deep way. Noela, and this was so like Sissy, was Melissa’s first friend at The Rock La Roca.

After church Sunday, Noela asked me, “Is it okay if we name our baby girl after Melissa?” Remember…

Human Culture

2007-05-28T10:57:00.001-07:00

When I was working on the butterfly garden, digging and sweating, I remembered some times we had at the church in Winchester. Well, it was not in Winchester, it was in Trapp, but you know what I mean.

Melissa and I were digging up a part of the garden for asparagus. We were really working the ground over—double digging, it’s called. It loosens soil in about the best way possible. But it is hard work. I would turn over a chunk of ground with a shovel, and Melissa, at a right angle to me, would start to break it apart with a grape hoe. We’d go over it that way a few times, and move each row of soil over into the one next to it. If you do this over a period of years, the soil gets totally moved around and it leaves a richer soil. It is hard work.

But it is human work. It may not get anymore basic than that. This is the work that humans have been doing from before civilization—it was the groundwork of civilization. There is a reason that culture and cult (worship) are tied linguistically to agriculture.

This was the work that God gave Adam and Eve. This is the work of Jesus’ parables. We have more or less lost this in the modern world, and its replacements are few and far between. That is to say, what ties a man and woman, a family, together? There is hardly any substitute for sweating together, doing the work of survival together. When on some fundamental level you realize you need each other, there’s a deep quality to the relationship, something beyond attraction, “love,” mutual compatibility, whatever. Fidelity becomes more probable in this kind of home economics. Or maybe it’s that we feel the loss of this human culture so completely that when we taste it or feel it for a moment, we sense that we have found some bond more binding than what we say and more permanent than what we “feel.”

We knew we were not going to be farmers. But if we had been, we knew we would have been the types whose work was a complete family affair, with all the work dependent on love and fidelity to each other and to the work. And so it was a gradual realization for us that we were “at work in the fields of the Lord,” as we put it. That the earth was souls, and the seeds were the Word and the crop was faith. So when we prayed as a family to be preachers together it was with a serious intent—on one hand knowing that the illusions of the world can easily take us away from plain human work, and on the other, wanting to strengthen the work of our hands.

The Hammer

2007-05-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

It hit me on the way into church this morning, a trip the boys and I have made countless times, a trip that we never made with her, that Melissa is not coming to the Rock with us. You’d think I would have already made that connection. Before she had those last days in the hospital, before her Holy Week, she and I would talk about how she was feeling stronger, and how we hoped that not only could she come on Sundays, but maybe during the week, she could come in with me and if she got tired, she could go rest at Steve’s house. How quickly things change.

John is sad, Joe is mad. That will be the way of things, it looks like. Joseph seems to think she will be coming back. For four months now, she has been absent, in a way that was more thorough than even the transplant hospitalization. And she came back. So it seems that to him, this is another long absence. You can come back from heaven, he thinks.

The phone rang a few days ago, and John asked, “Is it Mommy?” It’s hard to do the little things like get rid of her cell phone. I was the last person to call her, the Sunday afternoon before she died.

When I told the boys that Melissa had died, we were in my mom and dad’s hotel room. Joe kind of blocked it out, but John got really agitated and said he wanted to go into the bathroom and cry. I went with him. He asked me, “Are you going to get another Mommy?” He has asked that two more times since, and I was not sure what he was asking. Last night, he says, “Are you going to get another Mommy?” We were having dinner with my brother-in-law and his wife and in-laws. We were all a little uncomfortable, and what am I supposed to say? Then John explained what he meant: “Mommy in heaven can be our special mommy and the new one can be our Take Care Mommy.” Poor little thing—Melissa spoiled him and Joe so much with love and affection, now they’re feeling lost. And it hit me at that moment—we are mourning in different directions. Each of us feeling a different loss acutely, looking for completely different answers, solutions. I hope and pray that the very thing that keeps us close—our loss—will not become a source of friction when we realize we have different needs, desires, and hopes for outcomes. John is afraid he won’t be taken care of how he was used to. Joseph is on edge about absence. Me? I am not sure.

And there’s still that messed up layer of guilt. There’s was always this “when you get better” talk, about how things would be. Well, those things are in various ways coming to pass, and perhaps more will, and others will be revealed. Only she’s not here to be part of it. Steve said, “she did get better.” And that’s true, more deeply than we know, but that’s not at all what I had in mind.

Prophetic Burden

2007-05-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

I have been hanging out in a weird place:

“The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover the lower part of your face or eat the customary food of mourners ."

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded.

Then the people asked me, "Won't you tell us what these things have to do with us?"

So I said to them, "The word of the LORD came to me: Say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to desecrate my sanctuary—the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, the object of your affection. The sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword. And you will do as I have done. You will not cover the lower part of your face or eat the customary food of mourners . You will keep your turbans on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep but will waste away because of ^[a] your sins and groan among yourselves. Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.'

"And you, son of man, on the day I take away their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes, their heart's desire, and their sons and daughters as well- 26 on that day a fugitive will come to tell you the news. At that time your mouth will be opened; you will speak with him and will no longer be silent. So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD." Ezekiel 24:15-27

Back in the dark days of the late spring, early summer of 2006, when Melissa was undergoing the bone marrow transplant, I was reading Ezekiel a lot. Part of that came because I was teaching Disciple 4 Bible Study, and Ezekiel was part of the reading. The class was really wrestling with what to do about this prophet. As I was studying and preparing classes, I kept coming back to something: more than any of the other prophets, Ezekiel himself is the prophecy.

That really resonated with the two of us, because Melissa was sold out to whatever came from this process. No matter what, she wanted to be a witness. So if she did well and could say, “This is awesome,” how wonderful. But if things were difficult, she would testify to God’s power in the worst times. And maybe she would strengthen somebody else for the journey.

She was ok with that, I was not. I knew, figured, understood, whatever, that no matter what the outcome of this, there would be much walking with God, much to say, to learn, to pass on. I have often said that this life is war, and success in war depends on there being some veterans who survive long enough to teach the new guys how to survive long enough to fight back. I did not want to be that guy. Melissa didn’t mind.

So I would read Ezekiel. And when things would get tough—when the radiation was at the peak of its destructive power and her mouth and guts were were shedding like snake skin; or when her liver was swollen, because radiation is like a million punches becoming one; or when huge waves of anxiety would hit because of the massive doses of steroids, I’d be reading Ezekiel, aggravated because I say too much some times, am too transparent, and yet God uses that to help others. I’d get really mad when I felt like she was going thru something that prayer would get her thru and she might tell someone or say something about it… I did not want there to be anything to witness to…

And then there was my own message, what I have been preaching to one degree or another for a few years, that there is a difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is tied to your external factors, things that are mutable, perishable, and utterly untrustworthy. But joy is tied to the inner condition of the heart, to faith in God. So I can have all things, but totally lack joy—and what a wreck of a human being is the spoiled brat who has it all and still manages to screw up life!! Or I can be stripped bare but still have joy because of the love of God in my heart.

So between my message of joy and not wanting there to be anything to witness, I would walk around outside, taking a break from being in the room and say to God, “Enough! I get it!...”

And so now: I am not really left wondering what this is about, or what it all means, or what is supposed to happen. It’s not just that Melissa and I talked about a future without her in it. It was that we talked about such things in light of the work of God in our life, especially her life.

It’s pretty plain, this thing I have come to call the prophetic burden: speak plainly about what God has done in our lives, making special reference to a plain fact of faith: none of what we believe depends on getting what we want, but on faith. It simply has turned out that the Word I get is about endurance in prayer and perseverance in faith in spite of bad news, in spite of tough times. I wish I had a different message. I wish I had a pleasant word, a nostalgic word. I wish I got to be one of the pastors who is a “leader.”

Instead, I preach as one refined in fire, and not like gold or silver, or even some alloying process to make steel. More like rock that fell into some form as God saw fit. Nothing special, they’re all over the place, except most stones don’t speak.

And what do I say? For the moment, that is plain, and has been plain for a few months now. One day Tim Jones and I had some prayer, and we came out of that prayer in serious agreement that what the Lord wanted was for me to preach about how we are getting through all this with our faith intact. I sat down and prayed some more and fleshed out 7 sermons about hope. They all made sense. Basic hard-core pastoral theology. They were on the docket.

And then, Melissa died. There was a temptation to lay off for a while, to sit back and lick my wounds. That may come in fits and starts. But I began to remember what Melissa would have expected of me—to get right back at it, to charge hard, to bring some to their knees, to lift others from their pits, to convict some of sin, to assure others of forgiveness, to be beloved by some, disliked by others (it happens, actually. Sweet as I am, it still happens.) I began to hear from God almost immediately about Ezekiel, to remember that where I am and where we had been is not so much the subject of preaching as the sign of the faithfulness of God.

In the middle of all this, I actually thanked God for being present, and for letting me mourn for my wife, unlike Ezekiel.

So I sat back down in prayer, to take a look at the sermons. I wondered: are they still the same? Does anything change? I was ready to preach them, I worked on them, in the hope that Melissa was going to be ok, that all kinds of plans were going to work out. And now?

I looked hard at them and marvel at God who seems to have negotiated a future. If Melissa were still here, these sermons would be ok, good reminders of God’s faithfulness. So I won’t change anything about them, because now that she is not here, there’s no doubt but that He means His Word, and I mean it, too. I wonder at God, to lay something on my heart, no matter what. So I won’t change them; not the word about all things working to the good, not the sermon I will preach on healing. It is not dependent on getting what we want. It depends on the faithfulness of the One who spoke the Word from which we preach. As Harold Dorsey told me at the visitation, “God is a very present help in the time of trouble. If that’s not true now, son, it never was.”

Finally, I am not surprised by all this. Not only not surprised, but also strengthened. The Word, even the obscure and difficult parts of The Prophets, is full of power. And then there is the mystical truth that the fundamental condition of poverty is being on display—whether it is the physically poor who can not dress right to hide their condition, or the spiritually poor who, like Christ on the Cross, are something of a spectacle in times that seek ease and happiness as opposed to peace and joy.

Poverty sticks out, and this is its crushing force. In the long hospitalization in February, I think Melissa was at her lowest moments emotionally. So much poking and prodding, so much intestinal pain and problems, so many interns checking out the weird case, so much alternating anxious despondency and frenetic thinking because of the massive doses of steroids. One morning, she was having a lot of trouble breathing. Her mom and a nurse were helping her sit up straight. She was getting ready for an unpleasant test. That was the day when I was afraid my words were trite, coming from me. I said quietly to her, “Jesus was powerless, disgraced, and humiliated,” something like that. She said later that helped her very much. She was very much on display, under a gaze, I think Lacan would say. Scopophilia, C.S. Lewis called it.

I wonder, too, at the power of prophecy. About 5 years ago, at an Easter Sunrise Service at Dunaway, in anticipation of celebrating the Resurrection, I kept us at Holy Saturday. I had been reading the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom) that week. Part of what I distilled from them was that the pastor’s job, among other things, is to prepare people to die. To do otherwise is to avoid the reality of earthly life and the deep consolation of the faith.

I suppose you can’t help feeling weird in the wake of a death. People are attentive, tentative, because you want to say something, but what can you say? You wonder, “Will he fall apart?” “What about the boys?” So it is a time of spiritual poverty, of not feeling right about anything. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those that mourn, for they will be comforted--” by Him, but by others as well.

If there is to be a time where who we are is on display, then let us be fools for Christ, mourning with great hope and joy. And may it be that who we are in Christ is plain to everyone, and our lives be signs of God’s faithfulness. If Ezekiel is something of a guide, and there is any example I may give, then let it be, that armed with the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, you, too, find peace in the dark night of the soul.

California Dreamin'

2007-05-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was working on a poem for Melissa these past months. It’s not like I put a lot of time into it, and you’ll see that. I just never finished it, never got it right.

The squeaks and groans of sleeping boys
Have been my lullabye.
If I seek their warmth on a winter night,
They make me their apprentice,
Teaching me the tools of life together:
Piling on, woven legs, contented sighs

I don’t even know if there is anymore to it, other than trying to say something about not making room.

I expose the boys to lots of things they probably shouldn’t hear. For example, when they get out their swords, Melissa had to tell me that “eviscerated” is not a word a 4-yr old should know. And maybe Robinson Jeffers is not the best poetry for them…

“But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from
the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet
there are left the mountains

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant
insufferable master
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits, that caught—they say—God,
when He walked on the earth”

---Robinson Jeffers, “Shine, Perishing Republic”

Robinsons Jeffers made Big Sur, the atavistically beautiful peninsula south of Monterey, his home. And so that makes me think:

My sister-in-law’s mother, Lynn Grogan, made a great collage for Melissa’s visitation. I hope you got to see it. Each picture has a great story to tell. But one is getting to me. It’s a picture of Sissy on the California Coast, below Santa Cruz. We were out there in ’99, December, a lovely time on the Central Coast. We took a great drive over from San Francisco, HWY 17 over the mountains and to the Coast. Then it was HWY 1 all the way to Cambria and over into the Salinas Valley. I had always wanted to show her Big Sur.

Anyway, the picture captures a moment before a moment. She is sitting on the edge of a cliff. You can see, if you know to look, some thick clouds on the sea. Those clouds were but a few minutes from rolling into the cliff to be shot up and envelop us. I told her to get ready for something cool. We stood there and then we were in the clouds, a cold, misty, magical moment she always loved.

She was just barely pregnant with John then, we found out later.

She Tommy Boy-ed me later on that day. I was on the side of the road peeing and she comes around the corner with the video camera.

Man Cards

2007-05-23T18:32:00.001-07:00

You start every day with 5 “man cards.” These cards guarantee your masculinity. You lose a man card anytime you do something Nancy. So, presumably, I take a hit immediately every day because I have a light purple boom box. It was Sissy’s and I was too cheap to get another one. But I am too much man to worry about. I’ll spot the rest of the world a card. As the sign outside my office at UK used to say, “Last of the full-grown men.”

I lose a further man card if John Gallaher catches me listening to Alannis Morrissette. A further card if I am listening in the dark. I surrender all man cards if I am weeping while singing “You Oughta Know.” None of that has ever happened, but John says it has. But this is the same guy who has twice been REJECTED going to the hoop by the fat old preacher, who plays on a knee that has been operated on twice. I am the sultan of swat, the duke of Tenacious D, the earl of funk, the ayatollah of rock and rollah… wait… wrong scenario… How many man cards do you lose there, John?

Why all this talk about man cards? Because I suppose I will lose a further one on a permanent basis for what I am about to share. But like I said, I can spot the world a card or two.

I basically finished the butterfly garden today. It has been my therapy, my solitude, my getting away, my time of communing. I like hard work outside. Some of the last plants I put in were some clumps of lavender in various edges. As I put them in, I could smell the fragrance on my hands. Lavender was one of Sissy’s favorite plants and favorite scents. There’s a baby soap and lotion that has lavender in it, and we always used it on the boys before they went to bed, and they smelled so sweet. These past months, I would bring the boys to her so she could smell them before they went to bed.

Sissy bought some lavender ironing water, and she would use it on our pillow cases so we’d go to sleep with that soothing smell. And here’s where I lose the man card. She also used it on my shirts. I’d get inured to it pretty quickly, but first thing, it was invigorating. And later on during the day, I might catch a wiff and think about the boys and Sissy, who always did a million little things that you never quite pin down, some you didn’t know she did, some you took for granted, accepting gratefully but not always consciously that that was just how she was.

You're A Dirty Dog, Melissa Mansfield...

2007-05-23T18:29:00.001-07:00

We got so close. Melissa was cancer-free since August. There was general confidence. She overcame, we thought, one of the worst cancers. ALL has a 2 yr survival rate of around 20%. So, to die from the treatment, well, that’s hard to take.

If you haven’t seen what happens in a bone marrow transplant, you probably don’t know how brutal it is. You ask a lot of “Why are we doing this exactly?” But Melissa did not do that as much as the rest of us did.

Man, we came close. We thought that after getting out of the hospital last time she was turning the corner. The last week of her life, one of the clinicians told us, as we were facing some of the difficulties with the liver, that most people who had been thru as much as Melissa had were already dead, and that everyone was amazed not only at how tough she was, but how she did it without complaining.

So last night, after I put the boys down, I went out driving, clear my head, get some quiet. Listened to the radio and had to laugh because “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” by Poison, came on. I can’t stand that song, and Melissa liked it. I always talked about how bad the song was.

She used to laugh at me for going on various rants. They were predictable, so much so that she would start them for me before I did!

There’s a bridge in Louisville that the state has been trying to paint for 3 years, paying millions and it’s still not done. I would always say, “Me and Niedermeyer ( a custodian at Christ Church I was close to) would paint that for $1 million a piece. Give us a budget for spray paint, and we’ll do it.” So every once in a while on the way into the clinic, she would head me off at the pass and say something like, “I bet you and Niedermeyer could paint that bridge…”

Or if anything about the Queen came up, esp if someone tried to teach us commoners about protocol with the Queen, I would say, “We fought two wars so I don’t have to worry about her,” or “Andrew Jackson settled my right to chew tobacco in her presence if I want to…”

Or if Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page” came on, I would start in on how I did not feel sorry for any rock star. “He’s making millions, so it’s really hard for me to feel sorry for him if he has to be on the road for 16 hours a day, or if yokels make fun of his long hair. Cry me a river.” She’d say, “you ruin every song!”

So, the Poison song was a favorite target. But there it was on the radio. I couldn’t change the station! I had to listen. I was just laughing, “Melissa Mansfield, you are a dirty dog!” I know, I know, she didn’t have anything to do with the DJ’s song choice. But the next song was “Love Me Two Times…”

L.A. Woman

2007-05-22T06:12:00.001-07:00

Melissa and I always liked to listen to music in the car. She had her favorite songs, I had mine, and then we had some together. She got me into Guns-n-Roses a little more than I had been. She never got much into Rush and definitely didn’t like Primus, which was ok, as THEY NEVER PLAY THEM ON THE RADIO!!! But I digress…

Our favorite song together was no doubt Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold.” I preach a sermon called “Stranglehold—“ that’s how much we liked it! One evening about 6 or 7 years ago, we were coming back from something, and Stranglehold came on the radio. We were about 2 blocks from home, so we kept driving. Then “L.A. Woman” by the Doors came on (and I love the Doors, too. Influence of my old man, I guess.) So we keep driving. Then Skynyrd, I think “That Smell.” And then a double shot of Van Halen. When that ended, we were in Harrodsburg, KY! We always laughed about that evening. Such a good ride.

So last night, I was driving up to Louisville, to have dinner with my family before they left. “L.A. Woman” comes on. When you think that the Doors rocked that hard with no bass player… So there I was wondering—ok, what’s the response? This is a song we really got into. Just happy. So there I was, window down, doing my best Morrison impression—“we were rocking and rolling in the city of lights!....” What can I say, except that all day yesterday I felt ok.

It goes back to a few things: first, there was nothing left unsaid—about how we felt for each other, what we wanted for the boys, what to do if she died, etc etc. Second—I know her faith, her assurance, her peace. She was a Methodist Wesley would have been proud of. Methodists have been known for “holy dying;” that is, because we preach God’s grace, and the assurance of salvation through faith in Christ, there is little doubt in our minds where we’re headed. So, we die and it is going home. We can be happy for and jealous of those who go home. And when we mourn, it is not as those who have no hope. When you know someone like Melissa intimately, when you know how deeply she believed and trusted, it rubs off.

The visitation was unbelievable—it was so good to see so many people come to pay their respects—so many people whose lives she touched. People who did not know her, who maybe worked with people who knew her came. I can’t tell you the number of stories that were told to me about something she said or did that someone remembered. An off-hand kindness that stuck with someone. A few that are sticking out:

Karin Ceralde told me that she remembers a children’s moment where Melissa said you should not put your Nativity set away, you should always keep baby Jesus out.

A woman who was in her Bible study said that one day Melissa said, “I have this knot on my collar bone I have to get checked out, and Aaron is traveling, so remember to pray for him. That’s how she was, always concerned for you and family.”

Leo Bartlett, from the Rock, said something that maybe is her greatest testament. Leo greets people at the door on Sundays. Melissa came in one Sunday and Leo said, “You must be Melissa!” He said there was some instant connection. She stopped and talked to me and looked right at me.” See, Leo is one of these guys that in his life has been overlooked, walked past and stepped on. It was just like Melissa to take a moment and let him know she saw him, talk to him like he mattered.

I don’t know how many people came, but I was glad they did. It took a long time, but I was not really worn out as much as I thought I would be, because it was so energizing to see so many people.

And I am thankful for all the pastors who came. My brothers and sisters, you showed what we mean when we say we have a connectional system; folks there were pastors there I did not know personally.

Melissa’s funeral was what I think she would have wanted. No, I know, because we talked about it. It was great to see so many people there. Friends, family, all kinds of people from all over—from Winchester, Louisville, Lexington, Shelby County and all around; some of our Hispanic worshippers, our Congo families.

We sang the songs she loved. We had a worship service. Tim Jones has been a close friend to us, esp Melissa for close to two years. Howard was our pastor. Dan Stokes—what can I say about Dan—he played his heart out for her!

The eulogy was not as hard as it might have seemed. I feel a little weird about that, because I don’t want to seem like a Terminator, or some kind of machine that can just get up and do whatever without regard for the situation. I felt like somebody needed to get up and say something for her, to say who she was. And, really, folks, she was such an awesome person, the reason this hurts so much is because she was so wonderful and gave us so much.

Howard said something in his sermon that hit it right on the head—trust is planting a tree whose shade you’ll never sit under. Yikes, that’s who we are as a family. I have planted more trees than I can count; very few do I expect to see again. We planted apple trees at the church in Winchester. We may never eat the fruit, but we planted them anyway. It’s funny, we were ok with that. Ok and more, because we took a great joy in knowing that we could plant something—trees or faith—and trust God for the rest. And I guess the visitation and funeral were proof of that.

Our little parsonage at Dunaway—we worked to spruce the yard up a little. No one lives there now, and it looks a little wild. But—it is taking on a cottage look around the porch, which is what Sissy was aiming for. You know, a profusion of plants and flowers around near the door, something Hobbity—and boy did she love the Lord of the Rings story. So we planted lilies along the fence, around a small maple. Around the maple I think we got from Carol Parker. Along the fence from Hilda Kinghorn. We planted black-eyes susans, again from Carol. Hollyhocks and clematis. The clematis was blooming when I had Stephen and Kristy Horton’s wedding a few weeks ago. I went to the parsonage to look around. I took a clematis bloom back for Sissy. It kept its beautiful blue hue for a week or so by her bed. It really meant a lot to her. The apples had bloomed, and there were bees all over them! That’s the first time I have seen bees on them. Before, I think the flowers were immature—it takes the variety I planted a while to reach maturity. And then the frost hit, so I think we won’t see apples this year.

There was something else going on these past weeks. Ever since she came home from the hospital after transplant in June of 06, we were not able to sleep in the same bed. She pretty much always had some stomach problems associated with this, and I am a real thrasher and mixmaster in the bed. So I would put the boys down, and lay in bed with Sissy until she fell asleep, then I headed back to the room I had with the boys. When she came home about three weeks ago, she felt so much better (no stomach problems) and so we were able to sleep in the same bed again. For the two of us, that was huge, because we were always snugglers. We had a king-sized bed, but always ended up in the same little sliver of it. The four of us could actually sleep in a twin bed.

Sissy’s mom and I are going to build her a butterfly garden. Someone gave us a butterfly bush and someone else a tree that attracts them. So we’ll plant those and some others, set some chairs out, a few windchimes, have a meditative place, where hopefully we’ll see all kinds of butterflies.

Things You Didn't Know

2007-05-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

Melissa was a good shot. A really good shot. She was an ace with a 9mm. She hit a bull’s eye at 50 yards the first time she ever fired a black-powder rifle. Back when we were at UK, some of us used to go shooting Friday evenings after we’d eat at Sam’s Truck Stop in Georgetown. She’d skunk us all.

She didn’t like my .30-06, too much kick. She liked her grandfather’s varmint rifle, a .22-250. We loosely talked about getting her one, but never did.

She liked football, especially the Bengals.

You start to think—liked hunting, shooting, football, eating at truck stops and Waffle House, we were peas in a pod.

A Ring

2007-05-21T17:25:00.001-07:00

A few years ago, Melissa bought me a simple ring. Silver, with Hebrew on it, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

The ring did not fit, so she sent it back to get another size. It didn’t fit either, and then for whatever reason we did not do anything with it. Anyway, as we were getting things ready to put on Melissa in the coffin, we found it in her little box with her wedding ring. I picked it up, thinking that she had just sent it back. There it was. And I remembered what the deal was. It did not fit on my right hand. I slipped it on my left hand, above my wedding ring. I guess it looks kind of goofy there, but it fits.

Here Comes the Rain

2007-05-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

Things caught up with me last night. I put the boys down, went driving around, ended up in a theater watching Delta Farce. I was the only one in there, and I knew why; the movie was awful. So I left after about 20 minutes. As I was cruising around, a song came on that we absolutely loved—The Eurythmics “Here Comes the Rain Again,” a very plaintive love song.

Melissa was always worried about the time I was taking away to be with her. For this year, it has been hard on all involved—her, me, the boys, her family, the church. She really felt like she was a burden. But I treasured every moment with her, because Melissa sick is better than most people well. I treasured the times we went to the clinic—we’d watch three back-to-back-to-back episodes of Walker Texas Ranger. We’d sit and talk, laugh, whatever. The ride up and down was a time we had.

But she felt bad about that. And then it hit me: well, now, she doesn’t have to worry. I’ll have more time for the church. Well, let me clarify that: more time for the work of the church—there’s a difference. But I feel really bad about that. First, there’s guilt. I mean, she’s gone and we’re moving on, and a selfish anxiety of mine is creeping up. And then, I just don’t want the time. I’d rather be taking her to the clinic. I didn’t even mind staying in the hospital with her—helping her walk around to build strength, reading to her, singing hymns to her, for her when the pain was bad. Funny how that works.

But Melissa stayed up with all that was going on in ministry. She was always into it, praying for it, strengthening me. And when the evil one does his prime work of discouragement, of trying to beat down calling and ministry, she always was there with encouragement. And I feel weird because I know she is doing that even now. About 5 people have confirmed something that the Lord was speaking to me, something that is brewing in prayer and meditation, that I will share as it becomes clearer.

I think I was faithful to my calling in spite of the severe limitations these past 2 years. In brief, what is coming to my heart is that now that she is in glory, no more struggle, no more suffering, what better reason to carry on with the very ministry that is our faith, so much so that she continues to offer peace through what she believed? This is all very ham-handed; I am not quite sure what it is—a wrestling with things she and I talked about when she got sick—that no matter what, we continue in our calling.

The scar there is that in order to do so, it has meant her passing. It came down to either her healing or her passing. And I don’t know how I feel about that. I want to kick the devil around. I want to snuff that punk. But it feels weird to think about getting back down to business.

Maybe what happened today is a better indicator of the churning going on. Maybe if I separate it from calling, I can get some picture. Today I took the boys to see Shrek the Third. Funny. But as were walking out, it hit me: this is really no different from how things have been the past year and a half. A few times in that time, Sissy got to do stuff with us. But not much. And so there really isn’t much different about it just being me and the boys. But every time we did something without her, every time, there was the hope that one day it’d be all of us together again. I used to get mad thinking people thought I was a single dad with the kids for the weekend. I wanted to say, “No, wait! One day, my wife will be back out with us!” But now she won’t, and now what? We’ll keep doing stuff, and move on, and that’s just perverse.

A friend of mine, about a year ago said, “You need a beer.” Hell, if I started drinking, I’d never stop.

I have a Doors CD in. She always loved it when I sang “Love Me Two Times.” “Love me two times, babe, I’m going away…” What was also getting me last night was that I am kicking myself for not spending my time with her differently. What if I had stayed up all night with her, Monday night?

Something John Said

2007-05-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Friday, before we left for the visitation), John said, “whenever I see a sycamore, I am going to think of Mommy.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because a sycamore is so pretty, and so is Mommy.”

The boys were a bit confused about why she was in the coffin if she was in heaven. I got a chance to talk to John and Joseph about that Saturday morning. They were wondering what do our bodies look like in heaven, and really, how can she be up there if she is down here?

I said to them, “Do you remember what a sycamore tree looks like?” They did. “Do you remember the sycamore seeds we saw?” That, too. “Does the sycamore seed look anything like the tree?”

No. So I told them about Jesus talking about the kernel of wheat that goes into the ground and produces a plant. And we talked about how we would rough up the balls of sycamore seeds to loosen them up, throw them into the creek and see how they would wash up on the bank somewhere and start a new tree. We talked a little bit about the stunning part of 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul talks about the resurrection and the resurrection body, where we are analogous to a seed. We put a seed into the ground—the seed has one body, the fruit another.

So I hope that when they know that Melissa’s body was put into the ground, what is perishable will rise up in imperishability.

Melissa's Eulogy

2007-05-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

Melissa Gayle Eggen Mansfield was born on April 9, 1971 in Shelbyville, KY. She died May 15, 2007, at the University of Louisville Hospital after a long and courageous battle with cancer. She is at home with the Lord, because we are sure that absent from the body is present with the Lord.

Melissa grew up in Waddy, and attended Waddy Christian Church. She was very proud of being from Waddy. It may have been the first thing I ever learned about her! She was involved in a number of clubs and activities. She took dance classes from the time she was 4 until she finished high school. She was also very active in 4-H, winning some state championships for canning among other things. In high school, she was in the drama club, FCA, and Beta Club. She attended EKU as a Presidential Scholar, majoring in English. She continued in FCA, and went on to do Master’s work in English at UK. Melissa and Aaron were married on August 30, 1997. She worked at Asbury Theological Seminary and UK until John was born, and she took on her greatest role and accomplishment as a stay-at-home mom.

At First UMC, she worked with the youth group, various Bible studies, children’s ministry and prayer ministry.

At Dunaway UMC, she started a children’s ministry, a women’s small group, was instrumental in a powerful prayer meeting, and setting up a food pantry.

At Christ Church UM, she was in children’s ministry, Bible Study, Sunday School, and women’s bible study as much as she could be. She loved the Fellowship Service, especially the children!

Who She Was.

Melissa was a most beautiful little girl. Vivacious, funny. As a baby, she was known for a distinctive, deep laugh that she always graced people with. She was talkative. Loved being a country girl, a self-proclaimed girlie-girl. Some of the things I always heard her talk about from her childhood are: how much she loved being with her mom, especially baking and cooking. Her dad owned the Waddy mini-mart, and she loved being there, meeting the characters, and going with Bill to the produce market in Louisville, riding in the truck with Spike, the dog. She was also bossy to Brandon, beat up by Brandon, and ran intereference for Brandon when he was in trouble. She loved being with her grandparents, staying on the weekends and fighting to not have to go home. She loved her Aunt Lisa, especially getting to sleep in the bed with her. She loved having fun with Aunt Diddy, and said that anything and everything would turn into an adventure with Diddy. She loved family dinners at Uncle Jerry’s, and she was so happy, Jerry, when you found faith in Jesus. She loved her cousins so much. She just loved family. All she needed to be happy was to be with family. Mom, Dad, Nathan, Heather, you don’t know how often she would say, “I miss your family.” Once she got sick there was not much chance to get together.

Melissa was entirely unassuming—what you saw is what you got. One time at Annual Conference—and boy, did Melissa love Annual Conference! She hoped she would be well enough to get back to it. One time, she told me about a conversation she had in the hall of the convention center. She sat next to a woman and they got to talking, and the conversation turned to Susannah Wesley, John and Charles’ mother. Susannah was in reality the actual founder of the Methodist movement, and Melissa would tell that to anyone who would listen. Well, Melissa and this lady talked for close to an hour about how Susannah modeled Christian motherhood—in love and piety. A wide-ranging conversation. She said she found a kindred spirit. A little while later, Bishop King’s wife was introduced, and Melissa said with a gulp, “That’s the woman I was talking to!” She started worrying that she had talked too much or said something crazy, and what would she think? I was a little worried, too! Anybody else would have been a real crawler, trying to get in good with the bishop’s wife. In the end, Sissy just found a good friend. That’s how Melissa was—she would talk to anybody. A bishop’s wife, a homeless fellow looking for food. And they would get the same attention, the same love.

Her Boys

Melissa always said she had three boys—John, Joseph, and me. I have said many times, with gratitude and amazement, that Melissa accepted me for who I am. Never tried to change anything. Always stood by me, always supported me, and you absolutely need that in ministry. We had a love that was a gift from God—how else could we have found each other? She was the first person I met in Kentucky. A year later, we had become friends, were both just out of hurtful relationships, and realized we were meant to be.

I think everyone else saw it, too. She came to church with me here, at First Church one Sunday. As the choir processed in, and Susan Arnold came by, she pointed at Melissa in a very exaggerated way and mouthed for all to see, “She’s the one! She’s the one!”

There was an unconscious intention in our lives that we treasured once we realized what it was: there wasn’t anything worth fighting about. Altho we did argue all the way from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS whether or not little boys should have pink bikes…

Our life together got deep when we had the boys. John and Joseph—you made Mommy happier than anyone or anything could have. Her wisdom about life with them was profound: “Life’s too short to clean up all the time.” It really is a choice between having an uncluttered house and holding babies as much as they want to be held. John and Joe, for the first year at least of their lives, took a nap while she held them. They soaked up the love. She would drop everything for a crying baby, a dirty baby, a hungry baby, a laughing baby (to join in the laughter). She would sit and teach them, read to them, love on them. So you have to understand how hard this is on the little men. The Mommy who was always there, always had energy, always had her loving presence for them, this Mommy got weak, and was not always able to be with them like they were used to. But she gave to them as much as she could.

John and Joe, I want you to know how much Mommy loved you. I will help you to remember that. She fought very hard for you. She wanted nothing more than to be your Mommy. She gave us a lifetime of love in the short time she was here. We’d have liked more time, but we had all the love we could handle.

Melissa’s love for us, Melissa herself, was a gift from God. Human love can only go so far. But the love of God flowing out of a person fills others up completely. And that’s what we had, and thru the mystery of the resurrection, it is what we have. Melissa loved worship. That’s why we’re here like this, not in a funeral home. It goes back to something that happened here a while back. When Ann Orr died after a long battle with cancer, Melissa was so impressed by her funeral. It was a worship service. “That’s what I want,” she said. “Hymns, sermon, Apostles’ Creed. A worship service. Joyful.” Howard Willen will preach the gospel today, as he did to us for the 5 years we were here. He married us. The Bach piece, Arioso, that Dan played for us as a prelude, was played at our wedding. He baptized our babies. At this altar, over there, Melissa had a powerful experience. She was worried that she might have a difficult pregnancy because of her epilepsy. Taking communion, she heard Jesus say to her heart, “This is the hem of my robe for you.” It seems right to be here, worshipping.

Of course, we’re doing this 40 or 50 years too early. But what Melissa wanted was to worship God.

Melissa loved prayer. I suppose that she kick-started my desire for prayer. When we would say our prayers at night, I would be vaguely worried, thinking, “If she gets what she’s asking for, boy, will there be some upheaval in life!” Her prayers were direct and powerful, simple yearning for the will of God to be done in our lives, in our family, in the church. Melissa always prayed—for healing, for strength, for endurance, for me, the boys, her whole family. In the last prayer time she and I had together, she prayed for the The Rock La Roca. She so wanted to be with us there. She wanted the children to break her heart. She wanted to love on them. She only came to church with us three times. She kept waiting to get well enough to be there. She was so touched by everyone’s prayers, by the cards she received from people she did not know. Her prayer was that The Rock La Roca would become what God needs it to be.

Melissa loved the Bible. She loved to think about Jesus and what He did. She was a constant Bible student. She taught it thru her life, thru straightforward devotion. She fit right into how I prepared my sermons. I have a bunch of ideas running thru my head. She’d listen to how they developed over time before anything was put down on paper. We’d just discuss and she would help me think it thru, pray it thru, and compare it all with Scripture. My sermons, finally, came from our life together.

In the end, Melissa was the better preacher. People generally do not remember what I preach. Heck, I don’t remember what I preach. But a number of people have stopped me and said, “I remember a children’s message she gave…” I do, too. Many of them. I will always remember her life. Her life and her love, they were the same thing.

Things

2007-05-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Things come in waves. I might be ok most of the day, then something hits. My father-in-law built a ramp for her, so she would not have to climb steps into the house. She was too weak for that after all the steroids. I guess it’s been up for a month. I hate seeing it. I want to stomp on it, break it, set it on fire, pee on it. Who knows why?

John has been asking me what we’re going to do the next few days. I told him tomorrow is visitation, and as I explained it, he said, “Like Hugh’s.” Well, it was Hugh’s father, but yeah, just like that. He said, “Joe and I said, ‘we haven’t seen a dead body, and you wouldn’t let us. We obeyed you. But we won’t this time. We want to see Mommy.” I told them they could, and they could stay as they wanted to.

Then I told them that Saturday would be the funeral, which I explained as a worship service. “It’ll be in the church where Mommy and I got married. The man preaching married Mommy and Daddy, and he baptized you and Joseph.” At that, his eyes got big.

Melissa’s mom told me about talking with John about being sad about Mommy, about missing her. John cried a little bit, and told her that he had a way to talk to Mommy. He cupped his hands to his mouth, said, “I love you,” opened his hands in front of his face and blew towards heaven.

Butterflies—they have been special for Melissa. There’s “The Butterflies,” a women’s group at Christ Church that prayed for Melissa. People would send cards that had butterflies on them. One day in prayer, Tim Jones told her he had a vision of her as a little girl, walking thru a field full of butterflies. This had happened to her when she was a little girl, so she was shocked that he saw it in such detail. Then he said he saw her walking with the butterflies, holding Jesus’ hand. She held on to that time of prayer, that vision, and it brought such great comfort.

Someone sent us a butterfly bush, and I think maybe we will plant a butterfly garden, outside the porch, by the window where she sat. For hours she would sit and watch the woods and the field here in Waddy.

I told the boys that when we see a butterfly, we’ll think of Mommy. They saw one today.

The kicker is, we thought we had this licked. The doctors did, too. Geoff Herzig was shocked and disappointed. He is normally the picture of reason- analysis, calm decisions, quick thinking when you need it. Roger Herzig came into her room and cried. We came to him in December of 2005 and he seemed to know everything about what she needed after only having her chart for 30 minutes. We were comforted by his words and demeanor. Everything went so well. Cancer free since August.

The staff at the bone marrow clinic said they never saw anyone fight so hard and have such courage and grace. We spent parts of every week there with them. You get to know staff and patients. Folks, remember to pray for the Herzig brothers—they bring a lot of knowledge and care to what they do. Their staff is full of compassion and care. We’ve never seen such nurses! And if you need a place to send some money, send it to the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinic at the James Graham Brown Center. Dr. Geoff told us that they will take what they have learned from Melissa’s case and use it to benefit other patients.

Melissa said at the beginning of this cancer journey that she wanted to be a witness for God—His love and His power. Whatever happened, that was all she wanted. She was ok with whatever. She wanted to survive for me, her boys, her family. But if she did not make it, she wanted to be a witness to those she came into contact with. Just last week, she talked to two patients who were distraught at how badly they felt. I sat there amazed, knowing that I was witnessing the best pastoral care I have ever seen.

The night she died, my parents, brother, and I grabbed a bite to eat. I did not want to go anywhere she and I had been. But when we got to a place we had not been, it didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. Does life go on? That doesn’t seem right. We always liked Harper’s restaurant in Louisville. I saw that it closed down, and I was glad—a place I could not go anymore. And how sad is that? I mean, people lost their jobs.

I had a million nicknames for her. And for the boys. We saw a restaurant called Buca di Beppo, and my mom said Beppo is an Italian nickname for Joseph. Wow, a new name for one of my boys. And I thought, no way. Sissy doesn’t get to call him that. It seems stupid, but there you have it.

Melissa's Holy Week

2007-05-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we saw the first signs of a problem. Didn’t know it was a problem. She had received an injection in the back of her arm that morning. Later that evening, it started bleeding and it took a while to get it stopped. Not a huge amount of blood, but a steady flow from a pin-prick hole. I thought, “Well, her platelets must be really low.” Got it stopped, no more problem. She went to the clinic for her usual visit Sunday. We knew her liver numbers weren’t great. But when she got there, they were worse and with the bleeding, they admitted her.

Apparently, your liver has a huge role to play in clotting, and even if your platelets are good, if the liver is not helping, you’re in trouble. I stayed with her Sunday night. We watched The Big Lebowski on tv. We saw it for the first time Friday night, and were laughing that it was on again.

She was weak Monday morning. I went on to the church. Came back, got the boys settled, returned to the hospital about 7:30 or so. Connie (Sissy’s mom) told me she was not so good. And she wasn’t. But, I thought, she’ll get past it. She always did. I had seen her weaker. She had liver problems right after the transplant. She did not look as bad as then. Her eyes were a little yellow, but not bad.

Through the night, she’d get up and I’d help her to the bathroom. She was still getting up, still strong enough to get up and walk. We didn’t talk much—I was tired, she was, too, and I had no clue how things were.

Her levels of different things were spiking up and they tried to get them down. Some of the clotting numbers were improving. Then at 5 a.m. or so, she started bleeding massively—her heart rate went sky high, blood pressure dropped. The crash team came in and after about 40 minutes got things under control, but Sissy was never really responsive much after that. You could call to her, and she’d look at you. I told her I loved her. Melissa’s parents came in as soon as her nurse told me she was doing bad, and they needed to be called. We had to make decisions—she might need to be on a ventilator.

We knew from long before she ever got sick she didn’t want that. And thru this all she told me that if it got to the point where she was fading, let her go. She stabilized. Dr. Geoff Herzig won’t give up, and he felt like if she could get her past this, the liver would regenerate and we’d be back where we were, a positive place where she was doing good in recovery. But by noon, it was clear that was not working. We could give her blood, blood products, clotting drugs and all it would do was work a little. The liver just didn’t have anything else in it. Her kidneys did not seem to be functioning.

So I had to say things I never thought I would. I broke my own heart and said, let’s let her go.

I left about an hour after that to go get the boys. To tell them something. To take them to be with my parents and brother who had come in. I knew that Sissy might not last until I got back. But I also knew she would want the boys taken care of. I knew her love for them is what would send me. My goodness, what love she gave to us, that even in the most desperate moment in my life, when all I wanted to do was stay with her, to watch her, to touch her, to speak to her, I knew I could leave because she loved those boys. And there has never been anything left unsaid between us. There was nothing more to say to her that she had not know long before she ever got sick.

My brother drove me to the house. Got clothes for the boys, got them from school. I told them that Mommy was really sick, that her liver was not working, and when that happens, people don’t live. John fell into me and Joseph jumped around like he head not heard and then snuggled with Nathan. As I had been told, they would hear it and then move on, trying to deny it. We sat around loving on them, then took them to Dairy Queen. Dropped them off at the hotel with my parents. The boys were so glad to see them. It was a great distraction, a great aid for them to be with family, where the grief would not be so open and raw all the time.

My dad drove me to the hospital. When I came onto the unit, one of the nurses, Shellie, came and got me and rushed me back. I stepped into the door way and Sissy stopped breathing. Y’all, she waited for me to come back. She knew I had that darn squeaky left shoe. Could hear it coming down whatever hall I walked. I prayed over her. And then there was so much crying. My dad held me like he has never had to in probably 30 years. “I wish I didn’t love her so much.” He said, “no greater love…” a reference to his favorite verse. Jesus laid down his life that we might live.

But now let me tell you about what I am calling “Melissa’s Holy Week.”

I think she knew something was up. I am not sure she knew she would die. But I think she knew that she might have something going on she would not recover from. So it was time to hang out. Monday, she had the best day ever, as she said. We left the clinic, ate at Skyline, got the boys. She did not want to go home and sit or sleep. So we all went back to town, dropped off her handicapped parking permit, went and got some periwinkles. We came back and planted them, me and the boys, while she sat in the garage and watched. We had a picnic outside. Maybe that day she really did feel good. She wanted to hang out with us. Periwinkles—a chemo drug Melissa took is made from African perwinkles. They are my favorite annual flower, I guess. And now, like all things, they are freighted with memory.

Tuesday, she hung out with her mom. Wednesday I think, she drove around with her dad, more energy, doing more things. I think she knew she had to soak up some time.

Friday was the last good day. I took her home from the clinic, we got the boys, planted what was left to plant while she sat in the garage. There was nothing but patience with the boys, where I was a little impatient. Then she wanted to watch the boys ride their bikes at the school down the road, something she had not done yet. She was really quiet as she watched them, and me. I should have known.

We had another picnic. She told me, “I am glad you like to be outside.” She knows this is important to the boys. I think she was telling me, as she had in a million other ways, even literally, “You’re a good Daddy, and thank you.” Dummy me, I said, “When you get better, maybe we can adopt some kids,” because all we wanted was a lot of kids. Connie bought her some new clothes, and we see now that Melissa looked at her with a look that said, “Why buy these now?”

What a good week it was. She spent her time with us. She didn’t say how she was feeling. A mother and a wife to the end—her love for us spent time with us. She took care of us to the end.

I married Melissa because: we were good friends; she was the most beautiful woman; she was funny; she accepted me for who I was; when we held each other, all was right in the world; I knew she would be a good mother; she loved Jesus; I knew she would stand beside me.

Melissa and I were submitted to each other before we knew of the biblical doctrine of submission, that each would seek the other’s good before his/her own.

She was never more beautiful than when she had her babies. She loved them more than anyone could. They know it, and it’s our task that they remember it. That’s what she told her mom when she came out of the hospital in June after the transplant. “If I don’t make it through this, you have to tell them how much I loved them, how hard I fought for them.” Do this in remembrance of me.

I am as heartbroken and beat down as I have ever been. But I have peace. I can’t explain this power of Jesus. It’s not only that I know her faith, her trust, and how it grew these two years. She is a model of grace under pressure, of the power of faith in Christ in times when it’s easiest to give up, to ask where is this God everyone keeps talking about. My peace also comes from knowing that if her love sustains me now, to the point I could go to the boys, not knowing if she would die before I returned, how much will Christ’s love sustain us?

Y’all, I am beat down. Crushed. There are no words for my grief. But there are no words for my peace. He lives. She lives in Him. John and Joe have kept saying that they know she is with Jesus and one day they will see her again. “Jesus has better food even than Mammaw.” But Melissa might beg to differ.

During the day, I read her favorite Scriptures to her. Revelation 5, esp 5:8. Matthew 11:28-30. Psalm 62. Then some others. John 12, the seed that dies to produce fruit. 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection and the resurrection body. Philippians 1, because she says she wins either way—she got that from Ann Orr, when Ann was dying of cancer.

Remember us, especially my boys. It’s a long road. One that will need light on the path. I’ll need wisdom and discernment to discover how I live now, how I continue in my calling. There was a time in the desperate days before and right after transplant when I said, “Maybe I should quit and take a regular job where the time demands are not as great or at least not as demanding in times when you could spend it wit you or the boys?” Or when we talked about what might happen if she died: “Do I quit for a while, find a regular job, something where I can take care of the boys in the best way?” She had a quick answer, “You wouldn’t be happy doing that.” She always supported me in everything. Always will.

Let me tell you one of those stories you hear, a strange moment. I was coming back from my parents’ hotel, going back to Waddy to be with my in-laws, make arrangements, etc. I turned on our (the four of us) favorite tape, Jars of Clay’s Redemption Songs. I like, “God Will Lift Up Your Head.” John likes “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.” Joe’s favorite is “It is Well With My Soul.” Sissy’s favorite is “I’ll Fly Away.” I turned it on in the car. I said, “Sissy, I am playing your song.” Then I did what I too often do: start talking too much, analyzing, thinking out loud. Do they hear what’s going on down here? Do they care up in heaven about this miserable place? I was wondering, “What would Aquinas or Chrysostom say?” Then I heard clear as day, “Be quiet and let me listen!” How many times has she said that? I’m a ranter and raver, a think-out-louder, and so many times she would just ask me to be quiet for a spell. Or, one night when she could not sleep she said, “Tell me about Pol Pot” (because I know just about everything there is to know about Pol Pot…) and she went out.

I looked over in the passenger seat, a seat she sat in all the time, we would hold hands all the time. And it was empty. But my heart is full of love for her and her love for me. Folks, it’s like I get a clearer picture of the gospel: the disciples (loved ones) don’t quite get it, that the end is coming. Jesus spends some real time with them, even tho He always had anyway. Some last words, some powerful love. He dies. Then we go about keeping the memory alive. Keeping the love and the power of the love alive.

One day, things will recede. I won’t be constantly heartbroken. The devotion to her memory will not be as fierce. But it will be there, I pray, a constant source of strength. She loved me, the boys, her family, like no one else. I floated around constantly, did whatever, had confidence in all things because I knew simply that at the end of the day, no matter what, I could go home to love.

I suppose I will say a lot more. It’s how I process things, I guess. And more: I want you to know her.

Mother's Day

2007-05-13T17:51:00.001-07:00

Last night John and Joe made me so proud. They were lined up facing each other on their bikes. John had his fishing pole out in front of him and Joseph had his pirates of the Carribbean sword over his head. They were ready to charge! I had to put a stop to it, but I was so proud!

In Sunday School, I think the kids learned how to tell the story of the loaves and fishes. One evening last week, John sat down in the garage, took out some clay and made loaves and fishes, and used them as props to tell the story.

Joseph likes the Old Testament, it seems. When we were in the garden a few weeks ago, he and John were pretending to be slaves, and Joe said, “And Daddy is Pharaoh.” He’s also pretty intent about Adam and Eve and Noah, and more than just the little kid parts; he wonders about the serpent, or how things didn’t get settled when God started over with Noah. You know, kid stuff.

And that came back into play today as we got to talking about Melissa coming into the hospital. Joe said, “Wherever you go, Jesus is following you.”

John said, “Well how come He doesn’t always do the miracle to keep people from getting hurt?” Kid stuff.

“Well, this isn’t our home. We’re here for a little while. And the devil is here—there’s sin and evil…” I was grasping. What do you say to two little boys who are asking about the problem of evil. There’s no answer for philosophers. Ok, so there is. But it’s complicated. And probably does not matter. In the end, it is the Cross of Christ that you look to, that you need. In the dark night of the soul, it’s not fine arguments that matter.

This is the third Mother’s Day that has not been so good for Melissa. 2005, sick. 2006, sick as a dog from total body radiation. 2007, admitted to the hospital. It’s not just Mother’s Day—it’s the pile of days, the heap of trouble. It gets to you. So I asked Melissa how she was doing. Attitude-wise. She says, “I’d rather not be here, but I am ok.” This is a testimony to prayer, hers and yours.

A-Game

2007-05-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ministry at The Rock La Roca is always kaleidoscopic, sometimes fast-paced. You might have to change modes and gears very quickly. Yesterday was a prime example. I was going out visiting with Rachel Kochackis. Before we headed out, we prayed on the bus with the Goldenaires, a group of seniors, going on a trip up to Indiana. We drove by the garden so they could see it and we could talk a little about it. Then came the litany of what we needed: “Half runners!” was running neck and neck with “Greasy Grit beans!” Greasy grits are a mountain bean. If you read Kentucky Explorer, this time of year people are always asking for greasy grit bean seeds. I wonder how a variety becomes popular and spreads thru a region? What is it about it that definitively says, “Home,” “Old Times?”

So then Rachel and I hit the road and we have a series of productive visits. Rachel has a real heart to see the church do some practical things in the community while sharing the love of Jesus at the same time. So when she would ask someone what they thought needed fixing in the neighborhood, they just opened up. We hit one house where the lady was just floored that not only did we show up to talk about Jesus, but that we were also intent on being here, living here, doing life here. She and her husband have been out of church for years because they felt like they were hit hard by a harsh, legalistic church. Rachel told something she let go of at the altar with me, and I could see the woman’s eyes get big like, “You said that in front of a preacher? And he prayed for you right there? And he’s walking around with you now?” Then she hit us, “I was praying that someone would come. I know what this is. This is that Holy Spirit!”

So after a few of these visits, I see a woman pushing a stroller. She is dressed in African garb and I have to go talk to her! I catch up (Rachel broke her ankle and I had to leave her behind. I mean, she broke her ankle a few weeks ago. Not right then. Altho, I suppose to do some evangelism, she might have had to take one for the team. I’d do the same. If I go down while we’re winning souls, keep moving y’all!). But back to the point: the woman is from… Congo! Lives in the neighborhood, doesn’t know the other Congolese families. I talk to her husband, they’re freaked out to be speaking French on North Lime, and, still, so am I. He tells me that some guys from the church had already been to his house ( I think it was Roz and Shutey). Amazing! This is the stuff I have been dreaming of—having other people who visit, who meet people, who feed people, who serve people, so that when I show up they know we mean it!

Bikes

2007-05-08T15:56:00.001-07:00

A bike is such an elegant piece of technology. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they are a recent invention. Maybe it’s a shame that they came along so close to the internal combustion engine—maybe bikes never had the chance to get off the ground.

I have tended to like my bikes very much. The first one I remember I got in California, at Christmas. It was a big black and green dirt bike. I kept it for a few years. When we got to Germany, it was really exotic, so I traded it for an old soccer ball (the best kind—they float when you kick them) and a bow. I saved up some money and bought my next bike, a 12 speed Huffy that I rode all over our part of Germany. A bike was the most important piece of kid technology. You could go anywhere.

I rode that bike throughout high school in Texas and Mississippi. It finally just about fell apart my first year in college. Then I bought an eminently forgettable mountain bike from Wal-Mart.

In 94, I was hit by a drunk-driver. The insurance was trying to juke me, so I got stubborn and instead of buying a car, I bought a bike, a Mongoose cross-bike. I bought it at Moore’s bike shop in Hattiesburg, MS. Tom Moore is a great guy and his shop really shows a love of bikes. A good thing to do: support your local bike shop. Sure, you can get a $70 bike at Wal-Mart, but you can’t trust a $70 bike.

Since I did not need a car, I did not need the paltry settlement they were offering for my car. So I toughed it out for 6 months and they had to offer what I was asking. Sweet. Always good to stick it to the man.

When I left Hattiesburg, I gave my bike back to Moore’s bike shop so he could fix it up to give to someone who couldn’t afford it. That bike took me to work, to the grocery, everywhere. One day, the guys at Physical Plant used a torch to cut thru my lock and used the bucket loader to put my bike on the roof. They always got a kick out of my bike, with its baskets all over the place to carry my stuff. I guess it did look weird, kind of like grandma delivering flowers on a pretty cool bike.

I am thinking about getting a new bike, to keep at The Rock. I am looking for an old-school bike. You know, one of those that doesn’t even have any gears, just a pedal-brake. Something I can put some baskets on to carry all the veggies that will be coming in, something that can get me up and down the streets pretty quick.

But the real impetus of this is that now that the weather is good, it’s great to take the boys riding bikes.

Joseph’s bike won’t be his bike much longer—he is outgrowing it. And he is a real speed-demon. Both boys have become dare-devils, riding off the curbs, taking sharp turns. How long can I keep them from the knowledge of ramps?

We go up to a school down the road. It has huge flat surfaces to ride on. They have made great improvements in their riding. It seemed that before, riding on sidewalks, John especially had trouble. He would get easily frustrated when he couldn’t get it going from a stop on an incline. And you can only imagine the kind of help my frustration added to his is!

But lately, he is really doing well. It’s almost time to take his training wheels off. Which is a huge thing given where he was just two months ago, and he has not ridden the bike much since then. I am not sure what makes the difference. Well, in a way, I do know. A lot of things have picked up for him. He was having a really hard time in school, since about Christmas. He was acting out. He was convinced he could not do anything right—anything that did not turn out, there was something wrong with him. That was hard to watch, hard to hear. Especially hard was knowing that I added to that. Home for us right now really has to be the place where you can recuperate from the world. Because I can say to John and Joe all day long how much I love them, how proud I am of them, and then they go out into a world that can have a wildly different message.

Maybe I have to say it, they think. I am their daddy. And maybe they experience me in the times when it doesn’t look or feel like I am proud. And for little kids who internalize everything, it might feel like they aren’t loved.

So what changed? If you ask John about it, why are big things and little things going so much better—from behavior in school to riding bikes, he will say it’s because Melissa is home. Even if she is weak and sick, she’s there. It doesn’t take them long to trust again, to quit watching her as she goes out the door to the clinic, wondering if she is going to be back tonight or sent back to the hospital.

I guess it makes sense that when they get to the school parking lot, they go to the flag-pole and pray. At first, I thought it was because, as John says, “It’s not a Jesus school” (that is, it’s public). When I asked what they were praying, John said, “it’s in our heart.” But Joe said, “We pray and thank God that Mommy is home.”

Prawnsong

2007-05-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, me and John Crissman, The Roz and Shutey were sitting around some bar-b-q. John has known me for 10 or 12 years I guess, and he told the other guys, “Look, if Aaron starts a story by saying, ‘This is weird,’ or ‘You’r enever going to believe this,’ there is a 50% chance the name Steve McKinney will be in it.” John neglected to point out that Steve will also show up in stories where he has no role at all… Thus the following.

One of my favorite bands is Primus. I suppose they are an acquired taste. They call themselves “the most self-indulgent band in the world.” As proof of that, they refuse to play the song they are best-known for, precisely because they are best-known for it, largely by people who aren’t fans and see the song and the band as a novelty. They’re hard to define. Is it heavy metal? Acid rock? Funk? Yes. At one time, Talking Heads were trying to be “urban country.” Primus pulls it off, with a decidedly freaked out sound and songs about fishing and car-racing. Back in the day, one of my cousins from the Bay Area told me, “You’re so into RUSH, there’s no doubt you’ll like Primus.” This was when all Primus was was a band from El Sobrante that no one knew about. I didn’t listen to her, thinking, there’s nothing that will ever compete with RUSH. Was I wrong.

Primus almost never gets played on the radio, unless it’s the aforementioned song they don’t play anymore. I used to call up Double Q in Lexington and complain that they never played Primus. And they never would.

When I was working for Steve McKinney, and we were redoing Omar’s horse barn on Iron Works, we’d listen to Double Q. Everyday at the same time, I think about 2, the DJ would play Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung.” It’s on ok song to hear a few times a year, but not EVERY day. It got so bad that Jeff swore he was going to take a shot at the radio with a nail gun next time the song came on. You don’t know Jeff, so it’s safe for me to say he doesn’t always hit wood with the nail gun…

I called and asked them to quit playing “Aqualung.” I guess they did for a little while. And I kept up my campaign for more Primus. Heck, ANY Primus.

Fast forward a few years. I am listening to Double Q and cannot believe my ears. It’s Primus. Well, maybe. I mean, it’s Primus’ bass player for sure. There’s no mistaking the sound, the style. But the song is Black Sabbath’s “Nativity in Black.” (don’t get freaked out that I listen to Black Sabbath—if you want a clear picture of how people get sucked into sin, you need to listen to Nativity in Black, or “N.I.B.” as it’s known.) Ozzy had put together some people to redo old Sabbath songs, and I guess Primus were the guys for the job. (It makes sense; when I saw Primus for the first time, opening, of course, for RUSH—Superdome in New Orleans, 1992, their first song had some clear Black Sabbath influences. For a few bars, it sure sounded like “War Pigs.”)

But then, guess what? They played the song TO DEATH. Every day, numerous times a day. It was killing me. I get a little Primus that wasn’t really Primus and they were driving it into the ground. So I called and said, “Will you guys please stop playing this song all day every day?” The whole time I know the DJ was thinking, “Aren’t you the dude who is always asking for Primus and now you’re complaining when we play Primus?”