Melissa's Holy Week

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

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

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

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

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?”

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I am so ashamed of myself.

I avoid chick-lit like the plague. But I have some in my hands. Now, look, what I am saying here is mean and politically incorrect: I don’t like self-consciously feminine writing. (In the end, I don’t like self-consciously masculine writing, either, so no Robert Bly or Ernest Hemingway for me.) I avoid Bobbie Ann Mason, Sue Monk Kidd, Roberta Bondi, anything that might get cronish given a few years. This is an odious opinion, but there you have it. Don’t say I’m not honest and you didn’t know that about me. But I do like Carolyn Chute. You have to read The Beans of Egypt, Maine.

But a few years ago, Lyle Morton, a man’s man, was listening to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible on tape. As I was riding with him from Nashvegas, I listened, too. Interesting. But I don’t know. I had a feeling she could get shrill. There might even be hand-wringing in her writing. Lord, do I hate hand-wringing.

But then, my Mother Superior, Paige Williams says, “We have to stop by Barnes and Noble. The new Barbara Kingsolver book is out.” You have to be careful what you say to your D.S. I used to jokingly call Melissa “my old lady,” it really got her goat. One day I was riding with a former D.S. and he just goes off on this fellow who used to call his wife “his old lady,” and how he worked hard to get that guy saved. Melissa was in the back seat, and I could feel her eyes boring into my head. I slunk down in my seat and said, “Yes, sir. That’s right. Amen.”

So when Paige says, “Have you read her before?” All I could say was, “Lyle Morton turned me on to The Poisonwood Bible.” Paige starts telling me what the new book, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral is about. Kingsolver and her family moving back to the farm in Appalachia to live off the land. I start sweating. I mean, y’all, this is my dream. When I was a little boy, I was convinced I would move in with my grandparents, plant trees all over the place and make it rain. And then I’d have a brick hut and… as I got older, it morphed into just wanting a simpler, slower pace. Hunting and fishing bring the great satisfaction of getting your own meat. And gardening is some pretty intense prayer. People say my grandfather lost his hair because he stood at the end of his bean fields rubbing his head, wondering if they’d make it! Melissa and I had a huge garden in Winchester. There was nothing like walking out there, cutting some spinach, arugula, oak leaf and buttercrunch lettuce, endive, and picking a few peas to go with it. Wash it, spin it out in a pillow case, and in 5 minutes eating a really fresh salad. Maybe Melissa had baked some bread. Maybe we’d have a baked beet. I even used to think there should be a liturgy for thinning beets and eating the greens and roots.

So I was thinking, “This Kingsolver woman might be ok.”

I kept thinking about it for a few hours. I broke down and bought the book later that day.

I am so ashamed of myself.

I read about 100 pages that night. I did not know whether to laugh or be mad. Laugh, because she was saying some outrageous, funny stuff. Or be mad because some of the outrageous funny stuff was stuff I had experienced something like, and if I knew I could write a book about the weirdness in my life… Man, she was writing my book, getting my money, and you can’t take that lightly.

I don’t know a lot about Barbara Kingsolver, but I suspect that she probably wouldn’t like me much—both for my literary opinions and because I’m the kind of minister I am. But that’s ok. The book is really interesting. A little far-fetched, but good. The point is that she and her family decided to live off of only what they could grow, or what was seasonally available locally. This a bit of a step beyond organic. That is, they were trying to cut out as much of the petroleum influence in food, such as transporting it across the country. They wanted to prove that you could do it. And also find something of a kind of discipline, a kind of deep joy in being tied to what is available.

On some level, we all resonate with this. We think we’d like to live in Tuscany or Provence and eat like colorful, nostalgic peasants. Kingsolver has the honesty to come out and say, hey y’all, you can call it what you want, but it’s still eating redneck-style. It’s grits, not polenta…

The attempts to learn how to live with what you can grow or get locally is revealing, educating, and often funny.

Josh McDonald, when he saw I was reading it, said, “has she started wailing on men yet?” I said, “I don’t think it will be like that.” “Just wait,” he said. He was right. When it came to talking about finding a rooster to take care of the hens, well, what else is a feminist evolutionary biologist going to say…

But I am telling you, I have not laughed this hard in a long time. Melissa has been giving me a hard time. “You’re always like this. There’s someone whose opinions you can’t stand, and then I know, right as rain, you’re going to love them.” It was that way with Bob Lyon, incidentally. I’d come back from class and say, “Man, he’s tough on people.” Or, “Man, I can’t believe he would say that!” Or, “Man, that guy is opinionated!” Melissa was always sweet enough to never say, “Gee honey, he sounds just like you…” She would say, “Just wait. He’ll be your favorite professor!” I don’t know if Kingsolver will be my favorite writer, but she sure can alienate you and make you laugh in almost the same sentence. That always makes you think.

One night I got a call from an old guy I worked with. He lived way out of town, and I lived within walking distance of the post office and the Physical Plant. (Now, look, it was night, but this old fellow called it morning) He calls and says the Post Office is raising heck because he ordered a rooster for Christmas dinner, it was making all kinds of noise and would I go get it and put it in the fertilizer room of the Physical Plant… That bird was in a box and I was still scared of it. Had that thing strapped on the rear pannier of my bike. I kept praying I would not pass someone I knew, with my bike crowing, flapping, and scratching… And I caught heck from the boss man for bringing it in. Anyway, this is one of my favorite stories, and Kingsolver has a situation somewhat like it. Only she gets the big bucks for her weird stories. There ain’t no justice, but Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a good book.

Melissa, May 1

Well, endurance in prayer is sometimes a difficult thing. This last hospitalization of Melissa’s brought it home. You pray and pray and… nothing. You get tired. Demoralized. Wondering if there is any point. You blandly assure yourself about the dark night of the soul, that God has enough faith in you that you’ll make it. But that’s not making as much sense as it did when the suffering was less intense, and ideas were ok.

But as I have said before, the philosophical/theological answers to the problem of evil don’t do much in the moment of suffering. You need something you can take with you into the concentration camp, and it ain’t modal logic, or the metaphysics of consciousness. The only thing you can take to such places is the Cross. It is the answer to the problem of evil. It atones for sin, it shows His knowledge of and solidarity with our suffering. It goes all the places we cannot, is in all the places we fear most, laying waste to the plans of evil.

So when it came to crunch time, a holding cross was the answer. One of our buds at Christ Church, Sharon Perkins, gave Melissa a holding cross, a piece of maple carved into something like a cross, but the bars are offset somewhat so that you can hold it in your hand.

We misplaced it when she got out last summer. I ordered another one for her and it came just in time.

Melissa said that this was going to be her seminary. She said this last year, before the transplant. I wondered about that, because, well, I went to the school of hard knocks, and that was ok, expected (my grandfather’s prophetic words when I was about 5). But Bone Marrow Transplant Seminary? That seems harsh.

But at the end of the day, that’s what it’s been. She said she was just waiting, going thru it all, waiting to see. And what came of it, a few days before she left the hospital was a spurt of planning, a spurt of thinking about how much she wants to be part of the church, to jump into our emphasis on children. She said one day she just started making plans and realized that after all the waiting, God was prompting her to start thinking about the future.

Sometimes, when you can’t pray, it’s not just that others are praying for you, it’s also that God’s purposes are in effect.

Working on the Garden

So we were breaking ground for the garden behind the school. Just getting to that point was something. We couldn’t find a tractor, plow, or rotavator in the same place. I could see that was not going to happen. I was about ready to break down and do it with a hand tiller. Possible, but back-breaking. I’ve double-dug small gardens, but there was no way that was going to happen here.

Then Pablo Bailey calls Bobcat and they’ll cut us a deal on a bobcat with a tiller attachment. I was pumped, because there’s hardly anything as fun as driving a bobcat. But that fell thru, because the person who had it before we were slated to get it broke it. As a fall back, they gave us a Dingo, a small tractor. That was pretty fun, too. Dustin Crowe rode it for us, and really got a tough job done.

Dulaney Wood reminded me that I was talking about big gardens to get fresh food to people years ago. Maybe it’s the only consistent thing in my life! Most of it is genetic, I guess—family from the Salinas Valley, the breadbasket you don’t know about and can’t do without!

I am making friends with a Greek guy in the neighborhood, a fellow who when I first visited him told me there is no God, etc etc. We went round and round. He’s the fellow who warmed after we helped Big Doug’s family. He invited me into his house a second time while I was waiting for the tiller. He was showing me how he was fixing it up slowly but surely. Good stuff, long way to go. His wife is a Christian, from India. Their little boy, Akhilles, is such a sweet boy. Forti, the Greek guy, asked me what we were doing across the street.

“Putting in a garden,” I said.

“But that’s madness,” he said, “the school will be building there soon.”

“Yeah, next year, but for now, we’ll use it.” I realized he thought I meant something like a flower garden. When I told him it was for vegetables, he said, “Why?”

As we got into the why of this (there’s not very good access to fresh vegetables in the community) Forti said that cucumbers at Kroger are $1.15, 2 lbs of tomatoes $5, etc etc, so no wonder people eat junk when it’s cheap and right around the corner. His mind and maybe his heart, or his heart and maybe his mind are changing.

Then, while we were breaking the ground up, another fellow walked up to me and asked if the School District was starting to build. I said no, I’m the pastor, this is a garden, etc. We had a good conversation about building up the neighborhood. He’s a young fellow, late 20s, grew up in the house he lives in now, is putting money into remodeling it, one of the guys who is making this a better place to live. He was pretty pumped about something pretty growing on 5 vacant lots.

Before we even put a seed in the ground…

Dithyramb

Well, we’re all pretty excited for Melissa to come home. Hopefully Monday is the day. She probably could have come home yesterday, but the doctors want to be careful and sure to send her home well. It has been a long year so far.

But sometimes the weather cooperates. That is, Melissa went into the hospital for bone marrow transplant a year ago this coming Wednesday. The cancer had spread to many, many places in her body. There was even some discussion about whether to go on because it was in the brain. Cancer-free since August, and we are blessed. But back to the weather. She went in in spring, stayed thru almost to the beginning of summer—all those days when it seems right and perfect to be in Kentucky—warm and sunny. The heat is ok; things are growing all over the place. It did not seem that good weather could help our mood much!

But now, the days are bright and warm.

I have always liked my outside jobs best—winery, helping out at my grandfather’s ranch, construction, landscaping. There’s a special time in the morning if you’re outside and there are plants growing. There’s a certain smell, a smell I have imagined is the scent of Eden, of creation. It’s not just ozone or dew or dust. Maybe it’s all of them and who knows what else. But for a few minutes early in the morning, it’s a perfect smell: muted, subtle, everywhere.

It’s also the smell of boys. There is no better smell than dusty, sweaty little boys. It’s a shame to give them a bath! It’s a moment of recognition: we smell like each other when we’re sweating. The sun, fresh air, and life combine. You hold their heads and breathe in deeply, to catch the dull smell.

I suppose that part of what makes being a child such a wonderful time is that it’s ok to not be clean, to smell like life.

Right now, Joseph is playing with the red Radio Flyer wagon my mom got John for Christmas 4 or 5 years ago. What a memorable wagon—putting the boys in it and carting them around the church in Winchester; using it to go to the garden, and watching the boys loading it up with vegetables. In the garden, you invariably get dusty.

John has got some crazy putty on his hands, and he has stretched it across his fingers like a glove. “Look! A frog foot!” Yes, the days when you can be anything, and not worry if you smell like fresh air! Wild days! I had a friend in college named “Hair.” He was a stout fellow, reddish hair, down past his shoulders. One Christmas break, he didn’t go back home. He packed some gear and camped in the De Soto National Forest in South Mississippi. Some people can hold on to being boys longer. Some days you wonder if it’s worth growing up, or if you had to.

Walking Around Money, part 3

The Sunday School Class that is providing me with Wlaking Around Money is also doing something else crazy. First Church has some property on hte outskirts of Lexington where they will be starting some new services. It's on 11 acres and they're lettign the Sunday School use some of it to grow a garden, with the food to be coming down here! Amen!

Dulaney Wood, the guy dreaming it up said, "I know this is crazy..."

My motto is: "This is so crazy it just might work." Or sometimes I say, "This is so weird, it has to be from God."

Friends, how wonderful will it be when God's bounty, His wonderful provision fills the stomach and the heart?

Aaron

Big Doug

I was walking around, loosely headed to see Big Doug and his cousin, to touch base about their house that burned down and see what progress there is in finding living arrangements. As I was headed down the street where he is staying with his younger cousin’s family, I saw him ambling down the road. So I walked with him to the bus stop.

“Where you headed?” I asked.

“Ah, nowhere, I just ride the buses.”

“Just all over town?”

“Yeah. I don’t mind talking to you now, tho, as long as the bus ain’t here.”

All I could think of was John Prine’s “Sins of Memphisto:”

The hands on his watch spin slowly around

With his mind on a bus that goes all over town

Looking at the babies in the factories

Listening to the music of Mr. Squeeze

As if by magic or remote control

He finds a piece of a puzzle

He missed in his soul

This is the Gospel Of Doug, as best I can tell:

He was born in the house that burned down. From our vantage point as the bus stop, he tells me where the grocery store used to be. Well, as an infant, he suffered greatly. His mother was mentally ill, and she purposefully starved him. So, he never really developed normally. Even tho he is 20 or so years older than his younger cousins, he always hung out with them and played with them, as if he were a kid, too.

He worked one time, had a job at some kind of plant where he swept up in the boiler room. He liked it. It was suited to him. He got a uniform… and some steel-toed boots. Some guys decided to play a trick on him and threw his shoes in the boiler. Then when the boss was upset about Doug not having his shoes, they told Doug to say he didn’t like them, they hurt his feet and he wanted some new ones. He did that, and got fired. He knew enough to know he was being pushed around, but did not have the wherewithal to stand up to them. How often is that kind of story told about fellows who are developmentally disabled?

So he has kind of ambled on in life, taken care of by his cousins, to better or worse degrees, each generation of cousins seeming to know that it would fall to them to take care of him as older ones passed on or were unable to do so.

When Doug’s house burned down, he lost a lot. It was in bad shape—no heat this winter, but by cobbling together different places to stay, he kept warm. But that was where he was born, where he’s lived his whole life, where his grandmother lived. It’s home in a way that many of us may not be able to understand.

Each year, Doug buys himself a new set of steel-toed boots. He is very proud of them, and will show them off when he gets them. And now I know a little more of why he gets steel-toes, like what he had that was taken away… and burned. No wonder it meant so much for Doug to tell me that firemen were able to get three things out for him: his wallet, his boots, and his Bible. The boots that were taken from him got burned up. These ones did not. And when he got his Bible, he said he was reminded that heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away.

I have been so blessed by those words, from this man. It’s like my friend Buddy Pittman. He was developmentally disabled and worked with me at USM’s Physical Plant. We were planting trees and shrubs one day, sweating like dancing mules, and I asked him a question. I was wondering about the part in Genesis where God kicks them out and says Adam will have to work hard to even eat and women will have pain in childbirth. So I got to wondering why do we have AC or pain-killing drugs. Weren’t we cursed? Pitt said unforgettable words: “I don’t live under the curse. I live under the blessing.”

Blew me away. This is the egalitarian libertarian force of the Gospel, that a man like Buddy Pittman, who could never teach a class at USM gave me more wisdom than I had ever received in all my years of schooling. And he was entirely humble and straightforward about it. That’ what the Truth will do, I guess.

How much time I spent (spend) trying to be wise or strong! “But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world, the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so no one may boast before Him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

People like Doug—whether poor or developmentally disabled or both—aren’t going to tithe much. And so, frankly, many pastors and churches avoid them. They’re ok as mascots, but hear me: we will put up with any trouble, division, dissension, insults and problems from the rich, because we think our churches are built on them and by them. No, our churches are built on the deposit of the Holy Spirit. And His gifts and utterances are given to any who will receive them, in and by faith. “Aaron, you are naïve.” Yes. But if I am wrong, do you want to be right?

Strangelove,

Aaron

Walking Around Money, part 2

A few friends and some folks who will be friends read something I wrote back in January, “Walking Around Money.” They have been thinking for some time how it is that they can go deeper in their faith. One of the things that they have considered is partnering with The Rock La Roca. There are lots of needs here in the community, and it will take some time of prayer and spending time together to know how best to proceed. What we need is the human capital in other churches—people who can bring their expertise to the life of the community.

But we also have pressing material needs, and as the witness of the Early Church is that you should not go to the poor empty-handed, I try to have something available for the people I minister to.

Well, these friends in The Bible Learning and Teaching (BLT) Class at First United Methodist in Lexington blew me away today. They have decided that one Sunday a month, they are going to eat a lunch at various members’ houses and take the money they would have paid at a restaurant and give it to The Rock La Roca, for my “walking around money.”

They gave me $600. That will go a long way to minister to the needs in the community. I am so grateful and blessed that people’s hearts are moved! And I so look forward to being back around some of my old First Church buddies. They knew me when! They helped me come in to ministry. They welcomed Melissa into my life. And they keep up with us and pray for us. And because we Methodists love connection, we can work together for the glory of God in our town!

Elegy

It’s one of those days where Melissa senses that she is closer to getting out than she was yesterday, that each day she is getting stronger.

On those kinds of days, one of the things that happens is we start to talking about the little things she wants to do, the little things we used to; the things that really aren’t so little. She’ll say things like she can’t wait to be able to drop the boys off at school, make a grocery list, do the shopping.

See, there was this time when how we thought of ourselves was that we were at work in the fields of the Lord. We have simply always wanted to live on a small piece of land, have a big garden. Like the John Prine song says, “Blow up your t.v., throw away your paper/move to the country, build you a home./ Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches/Try and find Jesus on your own.”

But since we were going to be a family in Methodist ministry, maybe we needed to refine our vision of the garden, or the farm. We began to see the lives that God had given us to care for, especially the lives of people who did not yet know they belonged to God, as our fields.

And in that time, we were in a church where the parsonage was right next door, and there was a big garden out back, and John and Joe helped me load veggies into their wagon. And up and down the roads I went, preaching and praying. John and Joseph were at home, with Melissa like as not playing with them, teaching them. And sometimes they would come with me to visit some of the older parishioners who loved to see the little boys.

Then came cancer and all of this idyll came to a screeching stop. So when we think of what do we want to do, I guess it comes down to getting back to normal, whatever that is. Not just the simple, normal things, but getting back to that work that we are called to as a family. In the end, that was a pretty simple, normal thing. One day, I think it will be there again. I think we’ll get back to the life we had, in whatever new and surprising ways that God has for us. The Little Seminary will be in full effect. It’s already good to take the boys places, visiting in the neighborhood. It’ll be a dream to have Melissa in town, in the church with us.

Yesterday at The Rock La Roca

Yesterday in church was a powerful day. There were probably 60 people at the altar between the two morning services. In the second service, there was no room at the altar, so people were spread out on the floor. I had asked us simply to pray that our hearts would be broken for the people in our community who don’t know Jesus.

I have to be clear: this is in no way a response to me, nor does it rely on me. It is a response based on the Word, prayer, and the Holy Spirit. The Word is true, but people don’t always respond. The Holy Spirit draws people to come close to God, but they do not always listen. But if people listen, if they respond, it is because of the Truth of the Word and the action of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is the tool or weapon that is in our hands. For people to respond, for hearts and minds to be open, there must be much prayer, and much praying done by people other than the preacher. I do not know all or even most of the people who are praying for the church, for me, but I know there are many. Things like there never being a Sunday when there is not at least one person who responds to an altar call—this does not happen unless there is prayer.

To all those who are praying, much thanks. In every way it is what not only keeps me and my family going, it is what keeps the church going.

Can We Listen to Martin?

Chip has let me borrow an interesting book on tape: A Knock at Midnight, sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. Audiotapes of his sermons—unbelievable. In school you read his letter from the Birmingham Jail, you learned about his role in the Civil Rights Movement. But we never listened to his sermons! They are definitely too dangerous for a society that wants to forget about God. You can’t understand what he was about without knowing what God meant to him, and these sermons are hard-core gospel sermons.

Well, I listen to these in the car, and even the boys are getting into it. John, especially, wants to know more. The boys studied about him in school during African-American history month.

John will say, “Can we listen to Martin?” He has drawn a few pictures of him, and they show the innocence of childhood—“Martin is a brown man.” A few days ago, John said, “I am going to preach like Martin.” All of a sudden, he started a sermon, but done in his imitation of Martin Luther King. The interesting thing was, it was John’s own sermon, about Zaccheus, about how happy Zaccheus was that Jesus was going to stay at his house.

My Boys

No one can ever know what a joy my boys are. They are a handful. Lots of times they don’t listen, do the very thing you ask them not to, sometimes the very thing you told them not to do because it will hurt them. But there’s nothing but love from them. And more than that: joy.

Some thing that I am not sure that many people are aware of is how discouraging a pastor’s life is. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, or look for sympathy. Not at all. But a point of fact is that no good deed goes unpunished; people you spend a lot of time in helping will turn on you precisely because you’ve helped them; everyone has their own agenda about what church should be like and God forbid you think it should go another direction—you’re only the pastor, after all. And then there is, for me, the relentless misery of so many people, especially children. When I realize how little of my time gets spent in the actual ministry of the Word, it is depressing. People are dying, but the comfortable elements of the church—people on something of an even keel, administration, any number of things—sap your time and attention. Next thing you know, you’re a manager, a fund-raiser, a chaplain, anything but the pastor the community needs.

Then there are the unexpected blows that threaten the delicate life of a congregation.

It was one of those days, really a series of those kinds of days, when all such things were hitting home that my two little prophets spoke up. First was Joseph. He drew me a picture of himself. He said, “Daddy I made you a picture. See, it’s me. Daddy, you were lonely and Joseph is coming to see you.” I am glad he knows that there is not much more in life that I want than to see him.

And on a Sunday morning, as we were driving in, and all kinds of thoughts were running through my head, when I was suffering discouragement and thinking about all the things that are not going right, and how I am not fully at The Rock as much as I would like, as much as it needs, John says out of nowhere, from his back seat, “Daddy, I am glad you are a pastor.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are a good pastor and you teach me and Joe about Jesus. And sometimes I can hear your sermons in children’s church, when you get loud.”

And sometimes the sweetness is silly, and all the more sweet for that. Their favorite t.v. show is Jakers, the Adventures of Piggly Winks, an animated program about some Irish farm animals. John likes the young bull Fernie who sings off-key. On Melissa’s birthday, he sang her a song he made up, just like Fernie would sing it. No one has ever had such a raucous and loving birthday song. There was a lot of love and laughter on both ends of the phone.

Joseph’s favorite character is Finnegan, the donkey. So much so that Joseph communicates in brays. You ask him what kind of cereal he wants, and you get a bray. I guess it’s a good thing Cheerios are made of oats… Joe can’t quite pronounce the name. It sounds like he’s saying Fillagain. One day we were in bed, taking a nap and Joe said, “Daddy, I am a baby Fillagain, and you are a daddy Fillagain, and Mommy is a mommy Fillagain and John is a big brother Fillagain.” That got John started braying, and it was another 15 minutes before we got calmed down for a nap.

John said to me, “Daddy, you should preach like Martin.” If only! Then he said, “If we were in a brown church, it wouldn’t be so quiet, and I could hear you more when I am in children’s church.” [I get a lot of help from Butch. He knows there’s a black preacher in me struggling to get out, so he hollers and claps.] How is it that John, a 6-year old, sees where we need to head? That is, we have opened up to at least calling ourselves multi-cultural. And then because we were willing to say it, we went past Anglos and Hispanics to Africans. But our community has a large African American population. Will we reach there, too? Will we be intentional? Will we reach the white folks in our community, who are culturally very different from the white folks who currently attend? These are questions not of intention, or words, or mission statements, but of guts.

And what kind of little seminary will we be? There are hearts full of joy, waiting.

Good Friday

A couple weeks ago, Joe fell off his slide, from about 5 feet up. He landed like a cat, on all fours and then he kind of crumpled, and I thought for sure he had broken his arm. But it turned out that as he came down, he grazed the edge of the sand box and cut his hip. He cried for a bit and I held him and we started laughing after a little bit. He got right back to playing. I told him he had a new nickname, “Chuck Norris.”

Chip “Norris” Guyton gave me Chuck Norris’ autobiography Against All Odds. A good read. I know, I know. People have told me for years something like this: you were a student of serious literature. Why do you like “Walker, Texas Ranger?”

What you have to know is that one of my professors told me that I was single-handedly starting a new school of literary criticism he called “Philistinism.” This was, presumably, in response to my statement that I am not into the “whole ambiguity thing.” Ambiguity, uncertainty, “complicating the issues” are all cardinal virtues of the modern world. Not for me.

Melissa is still in the hospital. Getting stronger, it seems. She is cutting up, wanting to sing hymns. Starr and Randy Clay gave me a hymnal when I left First Church in Lexington. I keep their note at the hymn that seems to sum up First Church’s impact on me, #163, “Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know.” We have been using the hymnal as a prayer book.

This will be the third Easter Melissa has not been at church. In 2005, she was too sick to come. 2006 too much pain just before the transplant. And now, it looks like she is in here for the weekend and longer.

Weird connections. Frank Woggon is the chaplain here. He was at Baptist East for some time. I met him at a chaplain training event at Earlham College almost 7 years ago. Frank is from Germany, and he talked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his presentation. Anyway, I had not seen him for years and then he was in the lobby. We talked and it was good to have him pray for and support Melissa.

Incense

We had our first service of prayer and fasting a few Wednesdays ago. Not bad—6 of us, and a few more would have been there, but we had some things come up that kept folks away. I think it will be a challenging service because it is centered on two difficult things for an American culture (I don’t just mean U.S.!!!): fasting and being silent. It’s a thirty minute service, but 15-20 minutes of it will be silence. Today it was Curtis and me, and we prayed and then had some dueling psalms, and prayed for our mutual burden: the people of God living out their faith in our neighborhood.

I have been busting out my censer during the prayer and fasting service. I light it and walk through the room, thinking about prayer and the time of incense in the Israelite religion, and how the Hebrew word sacrifice merges into the word for “rise up,” as in the smoke of incense or burnt sacrifice rising up to God. The golden bowls of incense in Revelation 5, which are the prayers of the saints, also comes to mind.

At one point I had to put some more incense on (still learning burn rates, etc) and I noticed something that fascinated me. Frankincense comes as powdered, different-sized clusters. But as it burns, it starts to look carmelized, bubbled, a new solid shape. It had to be refined by fire, had to be transformed and twisted to release its fragrance, to become something beyond useful: beautiful, sacramental.

Melissa was talking about this a few days ago, thinking about where does this illness/recovery lead? What is the end? Not that you are looking at it like it’s something intended to happen, but how do you let God take what the evil one meant for harm and turn it to good? What will be released by coming through this?

March 28

Last night, as I was putting the boys to sleep, we talked about Melissa being back in the hospital. Joe said he was scared because he was sad and sad because he was scared. That’s about as much as he has ever said about any of these things. John mentioned that he was sad and scared, too. And he added that he longed for the days when “Mommy’s hair was long and she took care of us.”

If you remember, taking care of the boys is really the only thing Melissa has ever wanted to do. She did it well, perhaps too well, when you think of the gap between what they had and how things are now. Oh sure, we take good care of the boys, but it’s not the same as having her around as she was. John and Joe are hopeful that one day she’ll get back to it. It’s particularly cruel because each time she picks up and can do more with the boys, something comes up and knocks her down.

It’s hard for them to see her go to the clinic each morning, and I know that they watch her go out the door and wonder if she’ll be back that night. But they are amazing little boys.

The word this morning is that the graft-vs-host disease is working on her intestines and that the pain medication has masked pain, but added to her digestive system not working well. In the back of my mind every time something comes up is that the lymphoma is back. So I am glad to hear it’s more of the graft-vs-host. Maybe if she just has a mean bone marrow it will work that much harder if the cancer ever tries to come back.

Through the long days of the summer, when she had the transplant, when the lymphoma spread to her brain, when she just looked like she had been pummeled, I read Ezekiel a lot. I mean like every three days I read the whole thing. I kept saying to God, alright, we get it! Enough of the being on display! Enough of Jesus’ solidarity with us on the Cross!

“My soul finds rest in God alone” Psalm 62:1

p/g

This Past Sunday

It was good to see my "cuz" Lisa Watkins this past Sunday! She's been such a good evangelist-- 5 people come to the Rock thru her! Yikes, and she gets this done from Louisville!!!

We also welcomed a couple-- husband from Central African Republic, wife from Togo.

Since I last said much about Africa, we have welcomed a number of Liberian families.

Keep praying that we are open to this!

Aaron

Joe's Swing

A few days ago, we were, as usual, out in the woods. I pointed to some stuff floating down the creek and asked John, “Do you remember what those are?”

“Sycamore seeds!” he said. He has had a lot of fun picking up the seed balls and separating the seeds to scatter them on the wind or water.

I suppose there are some standards for good poetry. But in the end, I think it comes down to what you like. Or maybe what strikes you, what resonates with your own experience. So, I have shared with you before how one cold, snowy morning I was hunting Charlie Wilson’s farm in Robertson County. I trudged up the hill, found my spot, settled in and waited. Sunrise came and I had not seen anything. But the day was not lost at least; Three crows were in a cedar tree next to me and they all flew away at once with loud “caws”, beating of wings and a spray of snow. I didn’t see a deer, but I comforted myself that I got that close to the crows. Or maybe they just didn’t care. Anyhoo, it brought to mind a short poem by Robert Frost that I used to love only for it’s tight structure. But now I love it because it described something I now knew:

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

There’s another Frost poem that has spoken to me, “Birches.” When I was a kid, I loved nothing better than to go to my grandparents’ house. It was out in the country, and I loved the solitude. Me and an old border collie and whatever adventures we might cook up. You had to make your own games.

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter, darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging them doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice storms do. . . .

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

On the day that John and I were looking at sycamore seeds, I heard Joseph laughing downstream. I looked and it seemed he was floating in mid-air! He had found a vine draped over a tree branch in such a way that he could sit on it and swing.

Now, we don’t live too far from town to learn baseball, or to have toys. But there is something important about being surprised, being open to what might come along if you’re looking, or if you’re open to what it means to be in the right place at the right time.

Not only did the poem come back because Joe had some play he found himself, but also because I found myself in the poet’s voice, nostalgically wanting there to be boys who are outside, doing something besides watching tv or playing video games. Boys who come running when one of them says he’s found a snake.

We went hiking Saturday at Taylorsville Lake. After our brief snack we went to the tailwater and saw all kinds of people fishing. The boys definitely want to fish, so I got them rods and they practiced casting. Unlucky for them, I am not much of a fisherman. I like it, but am no good at it. So we’ll see.

When on Safari, The Careful Hunter Carries a Mime-Rifle

I promised Nelson I would tell a good mime story in the wake of describing Blue Man Group to him. Besides my uncanny ability to summon deer, I can also call an army of mimes to my immediate aid. I will pass on the knowledge of this arcane skill if you promise to use it only if you are in desperate need and there is no other way out.

Back in the day, I used to go to New Orleans all the time. Southern Miss was about 90 minutes away, so Friday afternoon, we’d pile in to my truck and hit the town. New Orleans was a special place. At first, you go to all the places college kids go. But then you find your own places. Good bookstores, quiet places to sit, bars where the real music is. Was? New Orleans at once benefited and suffered from its reputation. You had to go to the Prytania. Eat at Frankie and Johnny’s, and you didn’t show your face there if you didn’t love the Saints.

I got lost in Algiers one night, stopped at a gas station. The cashier was in a cinder block hut with thick glass. He had a box you put money in, so no one was getting to him. I walked up, and before I could say a word, he said, “Son, you turn left over there. You can go east or west after that, but whatever you do, get your a** out of here.” It could be a tough place, but somehow, folks took care of the naïve kid I was in those days. Like the clerk at the A&P who wouldn’t give me directions to some place I was looking for. “You got no business there, boy. Your mama would never forgive me if I told you how to get there.” And no, it was not The House of the Rising Sun.

I had a professor who was a little like Niles and Frasier Crane—everything was supposed to be civilized and proper. We were on our way to see Strauss’ Elektra at the Opera House (I told you it was like Frasier Crane…) We got lost and I stopped and asked for directions at a dive under I-10. Man, was that place under water during Katrina. Anyhoo, we got directions and he asked what the name of the bar was, because the sign had him guessing: “The Shatto.”

I reluctantly told him it was “The Chateau.” He almost stroked out; couldn’t believe he had gone in to not just a dive, but one with such a terrible misspelling!

I could tell you a hundred stories. I’d have more, but one year, a woman shot her cousin for cutting in line at a Port-A-Potty and I figured maybe I didn’t need to go back…

My friend Shawn had this boyfriend. He was not the sharpest tool in the shed. In Jackson Square, there are all kinds of street performers. Tarot card readers, Olympia Brass Band, jugglers, you name it. For a few weeks there was an absolutely beautiful barefoot woman singing old time country with a jug band. They looked like they had just come out of the bayou, and maybe they had. There were also mimes.

Now, I have inherited from my mother a pathological horror of mimes. But I am also fascinated by them, so much so I sometimes want to learn mime. Anyway, Shawnie’s boyfriend saw one who was standing stock-still. She was so still he did not believe she was real. He kept mouthing that she must be a statue. Well, he decided to find out so he smacked her. She was real, alright. She immediately began screaming and shouting, “Richard! Richard!” Mimes descended on him, and it wasn’t silent and it wasn’t, well, mime. He took a beating. I’ve been in some rough places, y’all. And I am telling you, you would rather knock over all the motorcycles at The Satan’s Helpers Biker Bar than tangle with angry mimes.

But: if you are ever in dire need, shout out the mime-underground alert, “Richard!” and help will be there.

Live Shows; being an addendum to a previous post

Back in the summer, Charles Brockwell let me have his two tix to see Willie Nelson in Louisville. Melissa was slated to go, but she was not up to it, so me and her brother went. It was a great show, one of the best I have ever been to. Willie Nelson has forgotten more about playing guitar than most folks know.

Willie bought the small Methodist church where he grew up, because it closed and he wanted the town to still have a church. I thought about bum-rushing the stage, telling him my story like Ralphie in Christmas Story getting his request out to Santa.

But then I thought: those are Dr. Brockwell’s tickets, and when the newspaper headlines are: METHODIST PASTOR RUSHES STAGE; BEGS WILLIE: “BUY MY CHURCH!!!” I knew people would say, “Wait a minute, doesn’t Charles have season tickets to shows at the Performing Arts Center? No, it couldn’t be! Could it?”

I’m always looking out for you, Dr. Brockwell!

The Birth of Cool

Back in October, we went to Texas to visit my folks. One day, I took Joe to Barnes and Noble and we took my dad’s truck—a red, Hank Hill truck, no less!

What you have to know: if you want to see a cool show, go with my Uncle Tim. He tried to get me to see Poco with him when I was 16, but you couldn’t teach me anything. I was a metal-head and was surely not going to a show with 200 people for some fruit band. And now, all I really like is a small show. Anyhoo, Tim and I did see Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, and that was off the charts awesome. So my dad is out in Cali and he goes to see Steve Miller with Uncle Tim.

We get in the truck and my dad has a Steve Miller CD in there. We put it in, and Joe loves it (no denying him) and he starts tapping his hand on the door through the open window.

A few days ago, Joe and I are going down the road and “Take the Money and Run” comes on. Joe says, “Hey, we listened to that in Texas Papa’s truck! Turn it up, Daddy!”

Being There

Last Saturday, John and I went to see Blue Man Group in Louisville. We saw them in Vegas at my little brother’s wedding. It seems like maybe that will be something we do together whenever we can. Anyway, it was a good show, but mostly good for hanging out, and it strikes me that the fun was going in and coming out, talking, remembering the trip to vegas. John said something about that Blue Man show being the time we came up with a silly name. He asked why I always call him and Joe silly names. I said because they teach that at Daddy School, and that you have to say them all the time because when they get older they won’t want to be called silly names anymore.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Well, when you’re 10, I don’t think you’ll want me to call you ‘booberry’ in front of your friends.”

“I don’t want to be 10, then.”