Scars

I've got a lot of them.

The oldest one has shrunk to a dot over my left eyebrow. I was six or so and playing baseball in my uncle Russel's yard with much older cousins. I slid head first into home plate and hit my head on the side of the sidewalk. Blood everywhere (head wounds are the worst!), carried by a cousin, a long ride in my mother's arm to a doctor 15 miles away, some stitches and a ride home, still in my mother's arms. Repercussions to cousins for sure for letting 'little Jimmie' get hurt.

Scars, it seems to me, are like the rings on a tree stump. Scars tell us something about how life has gone over time. Scars have, literally, marked the passage of life.

I'm not sure I can label them all. I have so many.

On my left arm: two ten inch scars from where I broke the two bones in 10 places and had them replaced or attached to titanium rods--the longest rods the surgeon had ever put in an arm. He was proud. I was just glad I broke the bones so badly that they were repaired two days later. No cast, just Physical Therapy. That was in 2008 or so when I hit a guard rail on an icy exit and the air bag broke my arm. If you break a bone, do it up right so it gets fixed fast....

Further up my arm, barely visible except no hair grows there, is when as a child a bat in my step-grandmother's house startled me and caused me to fall against a red hot pot belly stove on a cold winter night in Waiteville, WV. The scar,like the one over my eyebrow, has diminished over the decades, but I can still smell the burned skin and still remember the night in a feather bed with salve soaked rags wrapped around my arm.

My stomach is a topical map of scars--appendectomy on the Eve of the Millennium and prostrate cancer surgery in 2005. (Yes, I am a cancer survivor. Praise the Lord....)

On my right index finger--a 9 stitch scar from pulling open a drawer on Thanksgiving several years ago and having the glass knob break and slice open my finger. Mimi and our friend John and I went to get it sewed up while Tim and Bern and our friend Hanne tried to keep dinner eatable! Mimi sent Tim photos from her Smart Phone of the minor surgery. Hopefully long ago erased!

Cut my left thumb open after that. No sign of the stitches--4, I think, done in an urgent care office just down the road.

And my eyes--scars on both irises from over wearing contacts that should have been replaced. I never wore contacts again, but the pain came before the permanent damage (not the way it usually happens) so my vision is fine but I have these intriguing scars on my eyes that many people notice and find in some strange way, attractive.

Your scars are 'who you are'. Think about that. Ponder it. List your scars--relive the moments that caused them. Ponder how that shifted your life. Wonder who you would have been without your scars. Would that have been better or worse?

(Oh, I just remembered, I had bloodless surgery to remove a cyst on my left elbow years ago. I can't find the scar, but it's there, if only in my mind.)

We are our scars.

What a thought.

Ponder that, see where it leads you--and don't stop with the ones we can 'see'. There are other scars, not visible, to our hearts and souls and minds.

Those too have altered and shifted and changed and transformed and made us who we are now.

Scars are too profound to ignor.

Ponder your scars....It will help make you more whole, ironically....

David Brooks is sitting Shiva

I always look forward to Friday because David Brooks (NY Times) and E.J. Dionne (Washington Post/Brookings Institute) are on "All Things Considered" to discuss the political landscape.

Brooks is a Conservative Republican I deeply respect and agree with more often than I'd ever tell my Leftist friends! He IS Conservative, no doubt about it. But he is a Conservative in the linage of President Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller and Everett Dirksen--men I all admired.

Brooks can hardly hold back tears that his Republican Party has gone so far off the rails in this Presidential Election cycle. Brooks is a Conservative of the Jeb Bush and John Kasich ilk. Which means that David is a man without a Party right now.

Today he even said that he fears a irreparable split in the Republican Party between free market/socially moderates and whoever it is Donald Trump is speaking for. He said that political parties 'realign'  every half a century or so, and this might be the Republican's time.

He's devastated by all this, it's obvious in his voice and choice of words.

He's already sitting Shiva for the Party he loves so.

I like David Brooks so much, I must feel pain for him in my heart, though me mind is jumping for joy that the Republican Party may be self-destructing....

Free and ABSOULTELY TRUE advice

I am going to give you some 'free advice', which I often do.

My free advice is almost always based on my left wing politics and theology.

It is always 'free' (have I ever asked you to pay for it? really?) but, even I must admit that my advice, though free, is not 'absolutely true' advice.

My advice is always filtered through my odd and very liberal lens. Did I say 'left-wing' above referring to my politics and theology? Correct that. (See how free stuff should be carefully scrutinized?) My politics and theology is VERY left-wing!

For example, this piece of advice: vote for Bernie Sanders in the Primary and then, in November, vote for Hillary for President. Every vote for Bernie (who can't be the nominee unless Hillary is in prison for her e-mails) drives Hillary further to the Left. See the method in my madness and the self-servingness in my advice?

But this advice is both "free" and "absolutely true". Believe you me....

If you are ever eating HAPPY YUMMIES 'Gourmet Cajun Mix'--peanuts, pretzels and sesame sticks in a Cajun style--(and you should, by the way--delicious and very spicy) don't ever wipe your eye with the hand you've been using to eat the Cajun Mix.

I did yesterday and it was a nightmare.

Water splashed in my left eye for five minutes and two different eye drops finally cleared it away enough to see again.

It was, for the first few minutes, equivalent to putting a white charcoal briquette in your eye.

So, don't do it.

Free and absolutely true.

Nothing much better than that.

(And the thing about voting Bernie for his proposals and Hillary because she can win by moving left toward Bernie--all that is 'free' as well. If you're a socialist at heart and a liberal in mind.)

sometimes meetings are good

The Cluster Council officers--President, Vice-President, Treasurer and me (and Nathan) haven't met for a long time to plan the agenda for the Cluster Council meeting since the Cluster Council hasn't met since sometime last fall.

Things are simply perking along--which is what I like! I am a fan of positive ruts--so there wasn't really anything to meet about.

But the Executive Committee met tonight and the Council will meet next Tuesday.

(For those who find all I've written to be in Sanskrit: I'm the Interim Missioner of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry--three churches who share clergy and practice 'total common ministry', which means clergy are a necessary evil but not necessary for much of the life of the churches in the cluster!)

Meeting tonight was great. We all love each other and sharing a meal is a good thing to do any time and maybe we should meet from time to time (though I really don't like most meetings).

We meet at the Cozy Corner in Durham. The waitress there (only one for 12 tables!) is young and lovely with the slightest of Italian accents who is the greatest waitress I know).

I tell Bern about her. Bern has been a great waitress herself and actually waited tables while she was in New York acting when we were newly married and waited tables and acted while I was in Seminary in Virginia.

The young woman at Cozy Corner is amazing. I walk in after three months or so and she smiles, says hello and says, "ice-water and a Pinot Grigio?"

Amazing! And with people at all 12 tables she takes orders, serves and buses the tables all by herself while noticing (who knows how?) whether anyone needs coffee or wine refills.

A Pearl beyond price she is.

I tip her 35% and include something in cash.

That's how good she is.

Such competence and attention is seldom demonstrated and ever less appreciated.

I think the 5 of us should meet more often just to be served by her.

And, finally, to learn from her what 'service' and 'ministry' is all about and how to recognize it and appreciate it and emulate it.

Waiting tables is a lot like 'ministering'.

Knowing that should humble us 'ministers' enough to do the job and enlighten us enough to know what we do isn't 'special' unless we do it with the same competence and grace as that young waitress.

What a gift her service is to me.

Dear DCCC

I am a yellow-dog Democrat (in case you don't know, that means if the Virgin Mary was running for office as a Republican vs. a Democrat Yellow Dog, I'd vote for the latter....

But the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) is testing my yellow-dog-ness.

I've gotten emails today, ostensibly from the President, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi asking for money for the DCCC since Paul Ryan and the Republicans are raking it in hand over fist and Democrats are sitting on their hands (and wallets) and being shown up like the fools we are.

Finally as email titled, "we're desperate", reminding me I'd heard today from the President, Vice-President and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and if that wasn't enough, they were going to break into my house, eat my homework, kill my dog and disconnect my internet if I didn't sent them at least $5 to show those blow-hard Republicans (though donations in triple digits were preferred!) that we weren't taking their beyond-all-imagining fund-raising for granted.

I sent no money to the three ranking members of my party or to the sniveling little snot who told me the DCCC was 'desperate' and dying without me.

Just a few moments ago I got my 5th (count them, 5) email of the day from the DCCC to tell me they'd just had their BIGGEST FUNDRAISING DAY of the entire election cycle.

Imagine that!

And I hadn't sent a dime.

Good for us.

But there was still 90 minutes left for me to 'chip in' some money.

Hell, I'd donated nothing and it was the BIGGEST FUNDRAISING DAY ever. They should send me $35 and we Democrats would take control of the congress in November.....

Insane but not stupid

Wayne told me a story about a friend of his who went to pick up his mother who was a cook at what we used to call "insane asylums" before we were politically correct.

Wayne's friend was waiting for the shift to be over when he noticed that one of the front wheels of his truck had lost all but one lug nut. If that one came off on the way home his wheel would fall off and he'd wreck with his mother on board.

He was puzzling over his predicament when one of the inmates wandered by.

"Take one nut off each of the other three tires and you'll be fine until you can get somewhere to get new ones," the woman said to Wayne's friend.

Of course it was the perfect solution--each wheel would have three nuts holding them on.

Wayne's friend thanked the woman and started to ask her how she figured that out, but since she was in a mental institution he didn't quite know what to say. Finally, he sputtered out, "how did you think of that?"

The woman rolled her eyes, "I may be insane," she told him, "but I'm not stupid!"

A helpful distinction. Insane but not stupid.

And quite helpful in looking at most of the candidates left in the Republican field for President.

Rubio is obviously smart, if he could just keep spouting the same things over and again.

Cruz is scary smart. Smart and Scary.

And Trump--well, obviously the guy is brilliant to have convinced so many people to vote for him.

So, they prove the point: you can be insane but not stupid.

When people die

One of the most humbling and vital things a priest does happens when people die.

I've often thought I was privileged to be present to the 'moving on' of so many over the years. I long ago lost count at around 500 funerals I've presided over. And the time before with the one moving on and the time after with those left behind. It has been a privilege I do not deserve to be present and hopefully 'available' to people in those times.

And one of the things I give myself credit for is having no 'comforting words' at the time of moving on from this life to whatever comes next. I have no comforting words since I have absolutely no idea at all about 'whatever comes next'. I just don't know. It's that simple.

On an upside I would tell you "there are just some things I leave to God": and one of them is death.

On a more honest moment I would tell you, "I just don't know what happens next. It's that simple."

Kurt Vonnegut--perhaps my favorite writer ever--told a story about an Episcopal priest on Martha's Vineyard, where Vonnegut had a home, who would fall apart when one of the parishioners died. Vonnegut liked that about the priest and said, "there's something comforting about putting a man of God back together".

I don't 'fall apart' when people die. I am, I pray, what is called 'a non-anxious presence'. I am simply there--no answers and all.

This all comes up because Burt died and I'm presiding at his funeral tomorrow. I've known him for somewhere around 5 years (my confusion with linear time and all...) which means I've only known him in his 90's because he was 95 when he died this week.

Burt was in WW II--not many of those left--and, in the time I knew him was a dear, dear man.

I think of myself as 'getting old' and Burt was nearly 30 years older than me. Life, like Time, is relative.

If you asked me on a good day about my own death I'd tell you I'm at least as curious as troubled.

On a bad day, I'd lie and say I'm not afraid of 'that good night'....

Being at Burt's wake this afternoon, I was reminded of the poem below. I wrote it over eight years ago when I was a full-time priest. In those days I was often with 'holy ones'. Burt is the most recent of them all.

God love you, Burt. (And, though I don't 'know' much...I know God loves you.)

I DRIVE HOME

I drive home through pain, through suffering,

through death itself.

I drive home through Cat-scans and blood tests

and X-rays and Pet-scans (whatever they are)

and through consultations of surgeons and oncologists

and even more exotic flora with medical degrees.

I drive home through hospitals and houses

and the wondrous work of hospice nurses

and the confusion of dozens more educated than me.

Dressed in green scrubs and Transfiguration white coats,

they discuss the life or death of people I love.

And they hate, more than anything, to lose the hand

to the greatest Poker Player ever, the one with all the chips.

And, here’s the joke, they always lose in the end—

the River Card turns it all bad and Death wins.

So, while they consult and add artificial poison

to the Poison of Death—shots and pills and IV’s

of poison—I drive home and stop in vacant rooms

and wondrous houses full of memories

and dispense my meager, medieval medicine

of bread and wine and oil.

Sometimes I think…sometimes I think…

I should not drive home at all

since I stop in hospitals and houses to bring my pitiful offering

to those one step, one banana peel beneath their foot,

from meeting the Lover of Souls.

I do not hate Death. I hate dying, but not Death.

But it is often too much for me, stopping on the way home

to press the wafer into their quaking hands;

to lift the tiny, pewter cup of bad port wine to their trembling lips;

and to smear their foreheads with fragrant oil

while mumbling much rehearsed words and wishing them

whole and well and eternal.

I believe in God only around the edges.

But when I drive home, visiting the dying,

I’m the best they’ll get of all that.

And when they hold my hand with tears in their eyes

and thank me so profoundly, so solemnly, with such sweet terror

in their voices, then I know.

Driving home and stopping there is what I’m meant to do.

A little bread, a little wine and some sweet smelling oil

may be—if not enough—just what was missing.

I’m driving home, driving home, stopping to touch the hand of Death.

Perhaps that is all I can do.

I tell myself that, driving home, blinded by pain and tears,

having been with Holy Ones.

8/2007 jgb