Part One: Coming to Our Senses
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is my favorite story in all of Scripture. It is the one tale I never tire of teaching or preaching, as it is always reveals new insights and spiritual dimensions. Not once have I found it to taste like eating a stale Saltine in summer.
It is a simple story. It is all about mercy. It is all about extravagant Grace. It is all about the very fabric of our faith, the stuff we so of often claim, yet so seldom live. When it comes to this story, we talk a good game about the Prodigal Son, but we take the long journey home with a decided limp.
The story IS offensive – like most of Scripture, when truly studied. It begins with a son telling his father to drop dead, so he can collect inheritance, and go off to make a big name for himself in the big city.
It is about a young man’s compulsion to squander his fortune, and a father’s devotion which will keep him waiting at the window until his boy returns. It is about the absurdity of throwing a big party for the spoiled brat, while expecting the good brother to take on all the kid’s chores, and with no matching reward.
Like so many of Jesus’ best stories, it is about how Grace is never fair. It is about how Life is seldom either/or, but usually both/and – at least in terms of our values, morals, ethics. It is a story which infuriated the religious folks, and left the Moral Majority of that time shaking their heads. Religious folks always like black and white answers, but the parables are awash in greys.
The Prodigal Son hits bottom when he is chowing down at a pig trough, a pretty powerful symbol nourishing a Jew. He has lost everything, squandering not only his fortune, but his name, his reputation, and his self-respect.
Then, he comes to his senses. He stands up and heads home. He has an epiphany, and inwardly knows that back at the farm he will have ample food and a place where he belongs with a family who cares about him.
So, he slogs on. After many miles, with the sun setting in a mist of high heat, he sees someone toddling toward him. It is his patient and persevering Papa, who embraces him with an open heart and mind and arms. He comes full circle. He come back to ordinary life on the farm. He chooses black and white Kansas over technicolor Oz.
He is also ignored by his older brother. He gets the evil eye from several neighbors. His mother, I suspect, is busy making up his room and his supper, and cannot talk, but only weeps. She is so proud of her husband. So relieved. So weary of the absence.
This is a time when America has also hit bottom. I believe this pandemic has forced us to really look at ourselves, as a people and as a culture. What do we stand for? Will wealth win out over health? Will money be the deciding factor in who lives or dies? Will we quickly go back to business as usual, or will we be deeply moved and touched and transformed? The choices are all ours.
We too need to come to our senses. We need to recognize that we can do better than a pig trough of greed and bigotry and mean-spirited divisiveness. We are so much better than all the lying and deceit and name calling. We are being shown the way to higher ground. It is a long hard climb, and best done together, holding hands with the rest of the world.
We need to come home. Home to the fact that we already have more than enough. Home to the spiritual reality that we are beloved, and belong to a Creator who has a dream for each of us. We must return to the Life we have been given, the treasure of our days, and to the task of building the Kingdom on this good earth in this time.
It is a simple story. It is all about mercy. It is all about extravagant Grace. It is all about the very fabric of our faith, the stuff we so of often claim, yet so seldom live. When it comes to this story, we talk a good game about the Prodigal Son, but we take the long journey home with a decided limp.
The story IS offensive – like most of Scripture, when truly studied. It begins with a son telling his father to drop dead, so he can collect inheritance, and go off to make a big name for himself in the big city.
It is about a young man’s compulsion to squander his fortune, and a father’s devotion which will keep him waiting at the window until his boy returns. It is about the absurdity of throwing a big party for the spoiled brat, while expecting the good brother to take on all the kid’s chores, and with no matching reward.
Like so many of Jesus’ best stories, it is about how Grace is never fair. It is about how Life is seldom either/or, but usually both/and – at least in terms of our values, morals, ethics. It is a story which infuriated the religious folks, and left the Moral Majority of that time shaking their heads. Religious folks always like black and white answers, but the parables are awash in greys.
The Prodigal Son hits bottom when he is chowing down at a pig trough, a pretty powerful symbol nourishing a Jew. He has lost everything, squandering not only his fortune, but his name, his reputation, and his self-respect.
Then, he comes to his senses. He stands up and heads home. He has an epiphany, and inwardly knows that back at the farm he will have ample food and a place where he belongs with a family who cares about him.
So, he slogs on. After many miles, with the sun setting in a mist of high heat, he sees someone toddling toward him. It is his patient and persevering Papa, who embraces him with an open heart and mind and arms. He comes full circle. He come back to ordinary life on the farm. He chooses black and white Kansas over technicolor Oz.
He is also ignored by his older brother. He gets the evil eye from several neighbors. His mother, I suspect, is busy making up his room and his supper, and cannot talk, but only weeps. She is so proud of her husband. So relieved. So weary of the absence.
This is a time when America has also hit bottom. I believe this pandemic has forced us to really look at ourselves, as a people and as a culture. What do we stand for? Will wealth win out over health? Will money be the deciding factor in who lives or dies? Will we quickly go back to business as usual, or will we be deeply moved and touched and transformed? The choices are all ours.
We too need to come to our senses. We need to recognize that we can do better than a pig trough of greed and bigotry and mean-spirited divisiveness. We are so much better than all the lying and deceit and name calling. We are being shown the way to higher ground. It is a long hard climb, and best done together, holding hands with the rest of the world.
We need to come home. Home to the fact that we already have more than enough. Home to the spiritual reality that we are beloved, and belong to a Creator who has a dream for each of us. We must return to the Life we have been given, the treasure of our days, and to the task of building the Kingdom on this good earth in this time.
Part Two: Open Your Eyes
“Open your eyes!”
We've all heard this phrase, or uttered in irritation, or made as a plea and telling us to lift the veil of denial. We have all chosen to be quite blind to something so obvious. We have all decide to ignore an attitude, a behavior, a bigoted joke, a cruel remark, a bold- faced lie.
It just makes Life so much simpler to keep things nice and smooth, no waves, no rough patches, no obstacles to climb over. We like nice. We like content. We like the absence of conflict. However, we also must admit, we know what a flat line on a heart monitor represents. Smooth, but dead.
One way to come to our senses is to open our eyes. To have the fog fade away, and choose to be aware and awake, and even alert. It is to claim it and name it, and since the beginning it has been the first step in the creative process. It is the way we tame the chaos, until the next whirlwind comes, which we know will be real soon.
Why do we so often choose to live blind? Why do we too frequently dwell in the darkness? Why do we create lives so dizzyingly fast we can barely navigate the blur?
I think one reason is fear. We are anxious facing reality. We get nervous when confronted with our true Selves. It is brutal to pay attention to the log in our own eye, rather than dwell on pointing out the speck in our neighbors. It is hard to admit our own lies, fabrications, or manipulations. We live in a guilt-free culture which does not seem to be ashamed of any behavior.
I believe another reason is our refusal to mature. Recently, I often find myself wondering out loud if I am stuck in the bickering, bullying, beauty pageant days of the 8th Grade. Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing. We seem to believe in very little these days, and so our lives our shrouded in a thick fog.
I suspect another reason is that it makes us think we are getting away with something. We are pulling something off. I bet this is the result of being quietly and secretly cynical. We know the price tag of everything, but the value of nothing. We go with the flow, but flow is creating massive erosion and an enormous gap between the haves and the have nots.
I think one of the major reasons Jesus was such a crucifyingly offensive character, was how often he was basically just telling his followers, “Just open your damn eyes!” I think Jesus’ central message was simply to PAY ATTENTION and to TAKE NOTICE. This is your life you are living. I think he was often quite frustrated, and I would think he turned over more than a few tables.
What ticked Jesus off? When we claim not to know what we know we know. The Sermon on the Mount has a core message --DON’T PLAY DUMB WITH ME. It is like listening to a teenager tell you why they will just die if they don’t own this or that, or cannot go here or there, and are not allowed to indulge a whim or wish. The tragic thing these days, is that this is how the adults live as well.
Wake up. Be on the up and up. Get up and do something positive and productive, and, for God’s sake, can we please get down to growing-up. What I hear from today’s teens is consistently, “We just need the adults to act like adults!” I would hope we are up to the task. If we are not, we might as well live blind, because when you in a full-blown downward spiral, the only thing you will see is the spinning and life sucking ground.
If one truly good thing comes out of this pandemic and the resulting quarantine, it just might be that we have opened our eyes. Maybe we will now accept Life on Life’s terms, not our own, or that of our culture. Maybe, just maybe, like Scrooge, we will wake up to all the blessing we have been missing, just be not seeing with our hearts.
We've all heard this phrase, or uttered in irritation, or made as a plea and telling us to lift the veil of denial. We have all chosen to be quite blind to something so obvious. We have all decide to ignore an attitude, a behavior, a bigoted joke, a cruel remark, a bold- faced lie.
It just makes Life so much simpler to keep things nice and smooth, no waves, no rough patches, no obstacles to climb over. We like nice. We like content. We like the absence of conflict. However, we also must admit, we know what a flat line on a heart monitor represents. Smooth, but dead.
One way to come to our senses is to open our eyes. To have the fog fade away, and choose to be aware and awake, and even alert. It is to claim it and name it, and since the beginning it has been the first step in the creative process. It is the way we tame the chaos, until the next whirlwind comes, which we know will be real soon.
Why do we so often choose to live blind? Why do we too frequently dwell in the darkness? Why do we create lives so dizzyingly fast we can barely navigate the blur?
I think one reason is fear. We are anxious facing reality. We get nervous when confronted with our true Selves. It is brutal to pay attention to the log in our own eye, rather than dwell on pointing out the speck in our neighbors. It is hard to admit our own lies, fabrications, or manipulations. We live in a guilt-free culture which does not seem to be ashamed of any behavior.
I believe another reason is our refusal to mature. Recently, I often find myself wondering out loud if I am stuck in the bickering, bullying, beauty pageant days of the 8th Grade. Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing. We seem to believe in very little these days, and so our lives our shrouded in a thick fog.
I suspect another reason is that it makes us think we are getting away with something. We are pulling something off. I bet this is the result of being quietly and secretly cynical. We know the price tag of everything, but the value of nothing. We go with the flow, but flow is creating massive erosion and an enormous gap between the haves and the have nots.
I think one of the major reasons Jesus was such a crucifyingly offensive character, was how often he was basically just telling his followers, “Just open your damn eyes!” I think Jesus’ central message was simply to PAY ATTENTION and to TAKE NOTICE. This is your life you are living. I think he was often quite frustrated, and I would think he turned over more than a few tables.
What ticked Jesus off? When we claim not to know what we know we know. The Sermon on the Mount has a core message --DON’T PLAY DUMB WITH ME. It is like listening to a teenager tell you why they will just die if they don’t own this or that, or cannot go here or there, and are not allowed to indulge a whim or wish. The tragic thing these days, is that this is how the adults live as well.
Wake up. Be on the up and up. Get up and do something positive and productive, and, for God’s sake, can we please get down to growing-up. What I hear from today’s teens is consistently, “We just need the adults to act like adults!” I would hope we are up to the task. If we are not, we might as well live blind, because when you in a full-blown downward spiral, the only thing you will see is the spinning and life sucking ground.
If one truly good thing comes out of this pandemic and the resulting quarantine, it just might be that we have opened our eyes. Maybe we will now accept Life on Life’s terms, not our own, or that of our culture. Maybe, just maybe, like Scrooge, we will wake up to all the blessing we have been missing, just be not seeing with our hearts.
Part Three: Listening Up
Listening up. When our ears pay attention and take notice. When we can hear the snow falling. When we hear a solo bird sing, and then swell to a morning symphony. When we can hear the current of the river, the lap of the sea. When we can hear pirouetting golden leaves spiral down to be ground to await the crunch.
Listening up. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. The stones are shouting like a Greek chorus. The beat of our heart is no longer just a pulse, but a profound conversation, a dialogue with the Divine. Our longings are singing. Our yearnings hum. Our deepest desires simply sigh.
Listening up occurs when we stop. When we choose to locate our souls, bear witness to the Truth, and follow our hearts home. Listening up is a climb, a hike, a journey, and it instinctually seeks higher ground. It is the voice on the mountain top which begs for us to know we are deeply beloved. It is the voice of Mother Earth, whispering in our ear that we are already more than enough.
Listening up is a parent’s love, which allows their child’s tears to roll down their cheek, and which they alone can hear, the slow gentle flow of the rivulet.
Listening up is a lullaby. It is words coated with such thick kindness and mercy, it they can catch the wind, caress the soul, and tells all about once UPON a time. UPON time is where eternity resides, and when we know just how blessed is this Life of ours – the all of it. It is the silence in the song, and the lull between the shattering, and the calm before and after and during the storm.
Listening up is the holy hush, and the orbit end, when the globe ceases to spin for a second, and simply says aah. A long courageous holding of its breath. A pause to truly refresh. A second and third and fourth and fifth wind. A transforming moment. A wee bit of eternity which has exploded as an epiphany, or revelation.
We live in a most noisy time. So many lies and scams and bad jokes. So much bragging and bullying and beating up on one another. So much arrogance and ignorance. So much pure unadulterated foolishness. So much wasting of shards of lovely days. So much silly prancing about as if we have even the remotest iota of an answer. We strut about as if we have the plumes of a peacock, when in truth, we have none and are in fact, well, mostly an ass.
A good way to hold our center, restore our soul, and protect our sanity, is to daily decide to listen up. It is quite simple – really. Just shut-up and simultaneously open up, and receive the day. The magnificent gift of the Present. The shimmering possibility to be alive and awake and aware.
The day has so much to say, when we aren’t trying to prove our worth, or make a name for ourselves, or explain all the Truth we think we know but fail to live. The Word speaks into the swirling core of our crazy words, a chaotic jumble of proving our points and making our case and being a somebody – which God knows, we have always already been, even before we were born.
Maybe the best way to listen up, is to imagine for a moment, what it would be like to LISTEN DOWN. Images of giant black holes, and a din of whine, and a sense of not being able to even hear ourselves think. It is a death before death. Listening up is a choice to live fully now. To be on the up and up. To jump for joy. To leap with faith. To be born again and again and again. Tough choice? I don’t think so. Just a wise one.
Listening up. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. The stones are shouting like a Greek chorus. The beat of our heart is no longer just a pulse, but a profound conversation, a dialogue with the Divine. Our longings are singing. Our yearnings hum. Our deepest desires simply sigh.
Listening up occurs when we stop. When we choose to locate our souls, bear witness to the Truth, and follow our hearts home. Listening up is a climb, a hike, a journey, and it instinctually seeks higher ground. It is the voice on the mountain top which begs for us to know we are deeply beloved. It is the voice of Mother Earth, whispering in our ear that we are already more than enough.
Listening up is a parent’s love, which allows their child’s tears to roll down their cheek, and which they alone can hear, the slow gentle flow of the rivulet.
Listening up is a lullaby. It is words coated with such thick kindness and mercy, it they can catch the wind, caress the soul, and tells all about once UPON a time. UPON time is where eternity resides, and when we know just how blessed is this Life of ours – the all of it. It is the silence in the song, and the lull between the shattering, and the calm before and after and during the storm.
Listening up is the holy hush, and the orbit end, when the globe ceases to spin for a second, and simply says aah. A long courageous holding of its breath. A pause to truly refresh. A second and third and fourth and fifth wind. A transforming moment. A wee bit of eternity which has exploded as an epiphany, or revelation.
We live in a most noisy time. So many lies and scams and bad jokes. So much bragging and bullying and beating up on one another. So much arrogance and ignorance. So much pure unadulterated foolishness. So much wasting of shards of lovely days. So much silly prancing about as if we have even the remotest iota of an answer. We strut about as if we have the plumes of a peacock, when in truth, we have none and are in fact, well, mostly an ass.
A good way to hold our center, restore our soul, and protect our sanity, is to daily decide to listen up. It is quite simple – really. Just shut-up and simultaneously open up, and receive the day. The magnificent gift of the Present. The shimmering possibility to be alive and awake and aware.
The day has so much to say, when we aren’t trying to prove our worth, or make a name for ourselves, or explain all the Truth we think we know but fail to live. The Word speaks into the swirling core of our crazy words, a chaotic jumble of proving our points and making our case and being a somebody – which God knows, we have always already been, even before we were born.
Maybe the best way to listen up, is to imagine for a moment, what it would be like to LISTEN DOWN. Images of giant black holes, and a din of whine, and a sense of not being able to even hear ourselves think. It is a death before death. Listening up is a choice to live fully now. To be on the up and up. To jump for joy. To leap with faith. To be born again and again and again. Tough choice? I don’t think so. Just a wise one.
Part Four: Bittersweet
My wife, Christine, had just died. We both knew it was going to happen, and expected it, as much as one can grasp the full reality of Death, akin to holding mercury in your palm. She had formed a blockage following gastric bypass surgery, and her stomach literally exploded. Her doctor told us it would have been like driving a nail through her palm. (Yes, he really did say that - I swear on her grave.)
I came to let my son, Justin, know the news we both already knew, and for which we were still completely unprepared. He walked toward me across the parking lot adjacent to the Main House at the Buxton School. His lower lip trembled, and I reached out my arms for him. I wanted his need of me to fill my emptiness with purpose, but it did not.
He asked me when, and I told him the exact time she had passed. He asked if he could be with his friends. I surrendered and said yes, only because I knew this was indeed the day when he would begin a long and arduous leaving of home.
We wept briefly. We promised to talk soon, though even the thought of words made us mutually wish to gag. I stopped and waved. He ran into his girlfriend’s arms, and I went for a drive.
I thought about him as a child, and just how bloated and raw was his mother’s love of him. How much he made her laugh, and caused her to weep with worry. I thought about her mandatory adventure days with him, when she freed him from school, and they would go off in search of comic books, and Transformer figures, and shells and leaves and rocks and feathers, and all things mundane and wild.
From the day he was born, I knew I could never come close to the love she felt for him. Yes, I adored him, but hers, her love was molten, like lava, and when it entered an ocean of Grace, it created only more land, more love, more hope. She had spun the web in which he was woven together by the Word, the sigh sounds of beloved and cherished and miraculous. It is no small matter, that a child begins in the sacred womb of a woman and a mother. It is the matching imprint of alpha and omega on each of their souls.
I drove along the river just outside of Williamstown, swollen from Spring rains, and raging. I stopped on a bridge and stared for a long time. The water looked angry, badly bruised, and exuded a bitter rancid reek. I knew my son was now damaged. He would survive, but his spirit would limp. I was overwhelmed by the absence of joy I saw on his face, the ripping away of innocence, and the thumbprint of loss. He was scarred. He was so clearly and brutally altered. As if the pain made his whole being spasm, like some massive compulsive tic. He felt gouged out. He seemed a carcass.
It was a real bittersweet moment. So full of an ending and an absence, yet also so saturated in my determination to help him heal. I was stretched to breaking with my commitment to restore his hope. I had no idea of how or where or when or the why of it, but I was deeply passionately convinced that the resurrection was mine alone to give him.
My relationship to him is still coated thickly in bittersweet. Our relationship remains tender and taut; gentle and brutal; full of coming and going away; tears of sorrow and joy; a knowing so full it can break your heart; and a wish, a rabidly raging wish, that he might be happy for a time or two or three.
I sighed. I drove back to the hotel. I went to the bar and had a large brandy. I stewed and hummed a dirge in heart and soul. I rocked to the bittersweet presence of a lost wife and stolen mother, of a Life forever altered and misshapen, deformed, yet still, well, lovely, nonetheless.
I calmed. I centered. I began to consider how the cure might begin tomorrow. This healing. This minor miracle. I was wise enough to know it would to be spawned by him. I would call to see how he was. I would expect no desire to see me or talk to me. I would assume his absence, as he grafting himself on the sacred safety of his friends. on to his adolescent and thereby sacred friends. I would wait for him to open the door a crack, and let me in. I would not barge, but shuffle shyly. Play it coy.
Waiting is the one pure bittersweet experience. My relationship to Justin has been one long waiting. I wait at the window, hoping to see his lumbering gate coming toward the door, but knowing those days will be few and far between, yet, still knowing they will come – now and then, like all the good and beautiful things which enable us to get up each morning.
I am waiting now. A good chunk of me always will be. I do wait with hope. I anticipate. I do not expect. It is rare for me to be this gracious, but my son deserves my very best, and I will try like Heaven to give it to him.
I came to let my son, Justin, know the news we both already knew, and for which we were still completely unprepared. He walked toward me across the parking lot adjacent to the Main House at the Buxton School. His lower lip trembled, and I reached out my arms for him. I wanted his need of me to fill my emptiness with purpose, but it did not.
He asked me when, and I told him the exact time she had passed. He asked if he could be with his friends. I surrendered and said yes, only because I knew this was indeed the day when he would begin a long and arduous leaving of home.
We wept briefly. We promised to talk soon, though even the thought of words made us mutually wish to gag. I stopped and waved. He ran into his girlfriend’s arms, and I went for a drive.
I thought about him as a child, and just how bloated and raw was his mother’s love of him. How much he made her laugh, and caused her to weep with worry. I thought about her mandatory adventure days with him, when she freed him from school, and they would go off in search of comic books, and Transformer figures, and shells and leaves and rocks and feathers, and all things mundane and wild.
From the day he was born, I knew I could never come close to the love she felt for him. Yes, I adored him, but hers, her love was molten, like lava, and when it entered an ocean of Grace, it created only more land, more love, more hope. She had spun the web in which he was woven together by the Word, the sigh sounds of beloved and cherished and miraculous. It is no small matter, that a child begins in the sacred womb of a woman and a mother. It is the matching imprint of alpha and omega on each of their souls.
I drove along the river just outside of Williamstown, swollen from Spring rains, and raging. I stopped on a bridge and stared for a long time. The water looked angry, badly bruised, and exuded a bitter rancid reek. I knew my son was now damaged. He would survive, but his spirit would limp. I was overwhelmed by the absence of joy I saw on his face, the ripping away of innocence, and the thumbprint of loss. He was scarred. He was so clearly and brutally altered. As if the pain made his whole being spasm, like some massive compulsive tic. He felt gouged out. He seemed a carcass.
It was a real bittersweet moment. So full of an ending and an absence, yet also so saturated in my determination to help him heal. I was stretched to breaking with my commitment to restore his hope. I had no idea of how or where or when or the why of it, but I was deeply passionately convinced that the resurrection was mine alone to give him.
My relationship to him is still coated thickly in bittersweet. Our relationship remains tender and taut; gentle and brutal; full of coming and going away; tears of sorrow and joy; a knowing so full it can break your heart; and a wish, a rabidly raging wish, that he might be happy for a time or two or three.
I sighed. I drove back to the hotel. I went to the bar and had a large brandy. I stewed and hummed a dirge in heart and soul. I rocked to the bittersweet presence of a lost wife and stolen mother, of a Life forever altered and misshapen, deformed, yet still, well, lovely, nonetheless.
I calmed. I centered. I began to consider how the cure might begin tomorrow. This healing. This minor miracle. I was wise enough to know it would to be spawned by him. I would call to see how he was. I would expect no desire to see me or talk to me. I would assume his absence, as he grafting himself on the sacred safety of his friends. on to his adolescent and thereby sacred friends. I would wait for him to open the door a crack, and let me in. I would not barge, but shuffle shyly. Play it coy.
Waiting is the one pure bittersweet experience. My relationship to Justin has been one long waiting. I wait at the window, hoping to see his lumbering gate coming toward the door, but knowing those days will be few and far between, yet, still knowing they will come – now and then, like all the good and beautiful things which enable us to get up each morning.
I am waiting now. A good chunk of me always will be. I do wait with hope. I anticipate. I do not expect. It is rare for me to be this gracious, but my son deserves my very best, and I will try like Heaven to give it to him.
Part Five: Deeply Touched
Peter was a delicate, almost porcelain like, scrawny twelve-year-old boy. He did, however, have a Kennedy boy crop of thick gorgeous wavy reddish-brown hair. He had a sad look about him, wide eyed but staring off. He never seemed sure of anything. He was like one big fidget. His body was all gangly, and moved like a mobile in a gale.
His mother had recently died from pancreatic cancer. It had been an obscenely brief and brutal passing. He came into my office before the funeral, and his new suit hung on him limply, like the air in late August. He caught me at an awkward time, as I had been moved to tears by a passing remembrance of his mother teaching Sunday School. One of the few tasks which ignited and allowed her light to shine.
“Are you OK, Pastor Bill?” Peter asked meekly.
“I think that is supposed to be my line Peter.”
“Well, you seem worse off at the moment, which feels kind of good – to be honest.”
We both chuckled stiffly. I knew he knew that everyone was watching him like a hawk, fearing he might do something rash under these truly tragic circumstances. His whole tone and demeanor told me he was okay, except for having a soul shattered into millions of shards.
I showed him the funeral bulletin, and told him exactly what to expect. I knew he appreciated that, as this had been a long held neurotic need of his. When the kids played a game at youth group, Peter always had to understand each and every rule of the game before beginning. He compulsively had to know exactly what was expected of him.
He maturely thanked me for all the effort to make his mother’s funeral a meaningful event, and told me how much he appreciated it. He shook my hand, with a well-rehearsed tight grip. He joined his father and sister in the lounge, and awaited the music to herald the beginning of the service.
Peter was a clone of his mother. Susan was just as uncomfortable in her own skin, and just as lacking in confidence. Recently she had begun to share with me some “abuse” stories from her childhood, but we never got to the heart of the matter. I just knew she had come from one of those highly secretive backgrounds, carefully encased in the illusion of normalcy.
I was deeply moved by a couple of the speakers who preceded my eulogy, and when I got up to speak, I found my face grimacing, and a frog wedged in my throat. I took a swig of water and several gulps of air, and looked out at the congregation. Peter was in the first row, giving me a thumbs up and nodding vigorously at me.
I was deeply touched. This fragile little boy was offering me all the strength he could muster. He was taking care of me. He was offering me a vote of confidence. He lifted me up, and I rose to the occasion. He nodded at me almost all the way through the homily. Peter’s nod and thumbs up transformed the moment and my spirit. I also suspect it enabled Peter to weather the massive confusion of attending his mother’s funeral at age twelve.
In this time of isolation, quarantine, and social distancing, we need to be vitally aware of our need for being touched. All of us. Every person on the planet. We all need to know we are cared about, we matter, and to know that others are offering their encouragement and attention. Now is a time ripe for heavy doses of compassion.
Make sure you give somebody a sign today. An affirming nod, or thumbs up. Let them know you are there for them. Let them see and experience you have noticed, and that they are not alone. If faith is anything, it is the motivation to declare and confess that we are all in this together.
There are indeed many ways to touch somebody, and myriad opportunities to inform our neighbors that we choose to love them at this very moment. It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. It can be a pat or a prayer. It can be a caress or a question asked with the sincerity of actually waiting for an answer.
Doesn’t take much! I know I will never forget the young man nodding at me from the front row, and hiding his monstrous grief behind two raised triumphant thumbs. It will always define uplifting for me. Way way up. Soaring.
His mother had recently died from pancreatic cancer. It had been an obscenely brief and brutal passing. He came into my office before the funeral, and his new suit hung on him limply, like the air in late August. He caught me at an awkward time, as I had been moved to tears by a passing remembrance of his mother teaching Sunday School. One of the few tasks which ignited and allowed her light to shine.
“Are you OK, Pastor Bill?” Peter asked meekly.
“I think that is supposed to be my line Peter.”
“Well, you seem worse off at the moment, which feels kind of good – to be honest.”
We both chuckled stiffly. I knew he knew that everyone was watching him like a hawk, fearing he might do something rash under these truly tragic circumstances. His whole tone and demeanor told me he was okay, except for having a soul shattered into millions of shards.
I showed him the funeral bulletin, and told him exactly what to expect. I knew he appreciated that, as this had been a long held neurotic need of his. When the kids played a game at youth group, Peter always had to understand each and every rule of the game before beginning. He compulsively had to know exactly what was expected of him.
He maturely thanked me for all the effort to make his mother’s funeral a meaningful event, and told me how much he appreciated it. He shook my hand, with a well-rehearsed tight grip. He joined his father and sister in the lounge, and awaited the music to herald the beginning of the service.
Peter was a clone of his mother. Susan was just as uncomfortable in her own skin, and just as lacking in confidence. Recently she had begun to share with me some “abuse” stories from her childhood, but we never got to the heart of the matter. I just knew she had come from one of those highly secretive backgrounds, carefully encased in the illusion of normalcy.
I was deeply moved by a couple of the speakers who preceded my eulogy, and when I got up to speak, I found my face grimacing, and a frog wedged in my throat. I took a swig of water and several gulps of air, and looked out at the congregation. Peter was in the first row, giving me a thumbs up and nodding vigorously at me.
I was deeply touched. This fragile little boy was offering me all the strength he could muster. He was taking care of me. He was offering me a vote of confidence. He lifted me up, and I rose to the occasion. He nodded at me almost all the way through the homily. Peter’s nod and thumbs up transformed the moment and my spirit. I also suspect it enabled Peter to weather the massive confusion of attending his mother’s funeral at age twelve.
In this time of isolation, quarantine, and social distancing, we need to be vitally aware of our need for being touched. All of us. Every person on the planet. We all need to know we are cared about, we matter, and to know that others are offering their encouragement and attention. Now is a time ripe for heavy doses of compassion.
Make sure you give somebody a sign today. An affirming nod, or thumbs up. Let them know you are there for them. Let them see and experience you have noticed, and that they are not alone. If faith is anything, it is the motivation to declare and confess that we are all in this together.
There are indeed many ways to touch somebody, and myriad opportunities to inform our neighbors that we choose to love them at this very moment. It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. It can be a pat or a prayer. It can be a caress or a question asked with the sincerity of actually waiting for an answer.
Doesn’t take much! I know I will never forget the young man nodding at me from the front row, and hiding his monstrous grief behind two raised triumphant thumbs. It will always define uplifting for me. Way way up. Soaring.
Part Six: This Stinks!
Baking bread. Cinnamon. A Christmas tree. A wind dried sheet. Lilacs. A baby fresh after a bath. The clean air after an August thunderstorm. The smell of grandma’s house. The smell of your own house. My father’s tobacco. My mother’s perfume, ironically, MY SIN. My sister’s cars in her youth, when she wanted to hide the smell of cigarette’s with clouds of lemon. Polished shoes on the first day of school. My beloved fifth grade teacher, Miss Semington, and her powder laced Norwegian sweaters. ENGLISH LEATHER, which I truly believed made me reek of manhood.
Smells are sacred. They are time travelers. They can relocate a place or a person or an experience with the precision of a laser beam. Odors are uncanny in just how unforgettable they are. They seem to be quite eternal, always hovering in the atmosphere just above our ordinary days.
This is also true, maybe even more so, of those smells which stink, reek, and which are foolishly called funny. Milk gone bad. Feet at the end of a long hard run. Your pits after a night spent dancing. The contents of a baby’s early diapers. Where on earth did that come from?
A bad smell is a certain clue that something is off, something doesn’t feel right, and that there is something lurking around the corner. It is a declaration of a lack of trust in someone or a situation. It is the recognition of a pattern which shouts a warning of impending danger, be it large or small.
It is indeed the sign that something has GONE BAD, and it is understood immediately just what BAD means.
There is simply no denying a bad smell. We can’t hide our wince forever. We know when something truly stinks to high heaven. We know when something smells funny, like a bold-faced lie, or bigoted words, or acts of hatred. It can never smell like a rose.
It smells rotten. It smells spoiled. Spoiled rotten. Isn’t that what we are smelling so often these days? A culture which too often reeks of immaturity; throwing bratty tantrums; demanding that we don’t have to play by the rules; and refusing to fulfill our adult responsibilities – like taking out the garbage.
Smells. In a spiritual way, a smell has an intimate connection to our possessing a sixth sense. A sixth sense is an intuition, a hunch, a premonition, a gut feeling, an aura, an awareness, a sense that something is gravely amiss.
We express our sixth sense in terms of smelling: this really stinks; this smells off; get a whiff of that; I would hold your nose. A smell has a spirit. A smell can be quite haunting. A smell can linger, like having fried fish. A smell speaks of the essence of a person or place. It tells a tale. It creates an atmosphere. It expresses an attitude.
Good smells. Bad smells. Either can be legendary. As for a time in our lives when we are being called to take one day at a time, I would suggest stopping and smelling the roses. These days could use a dab of perfume.
Smells are sacred. They are time travelers. They can relocate a place or a person or an experience with the precision of a laser beam. Odors are uncanny in just how unforgettable they are. They seem to be quite eternal, always hovering in the atmosphere just above our ordinary days.
This is also true, maybe even more so, of those smells which stink, reek, and which are foolishly called funny. Milk gone bad. Feet at the end of a long hard run. Your pits after a night spent dancing. The contents of a baby’s early diapers. Where on earth did that come from?
A bad smell is a certain clue that something is off, something doesn’t feel right, and that there is something lurking around the corner. It is a declaration of a lack of trust in someone or a situation. It is the recognition of a pattern which shouts a warning of impending danger, be it large or small.
It is indeed the sign that something has GONE BAD, and it is understood immediately just what BAD means.
There is simply no denying a bad smell. We can’t hide our wince forever. We know when something truly stinks to high heaven. We know when something smells funny, like a bold-faced lie, or bigoted words, or acts of hatred. It can never smell like a rose.
It smells rotten. It smells spoiled. Spoiled rotten. Isn’t that what we are smelling so often these days? A culture which too often reeks of immaturity; throwing bratty tantrums; demanding that we don’t have to play by the rules; and refusing to fulfill our adult responsibilities – like taking out the garbage.
Smells. In a spiritual way, a smell has an intimate connection to our possessing a sixth sense. A sixth sense is an intuition, a hunch, a premonition, a gut feeling, an aura, an awareness, a sense that something is gravely amiss.
We express our sixth sense in terms of smelling: this really stinks; this smells off; get a whiff of that; I would hold your nose. A smell has a spirit. A smell can be quite haunting. A smell can linger, like having fried fish. A smell speaks of the essence of a person or place. It tells a tale. It creates an atmosphere. It expresses an attitude.
Good smells. Bad smells. Either can be legendary. As for a time in our lives when we are being called to take one day at a time, I would suggest stopping and smelling the roses. These days could use a dab of perfume.