Waving

 

She drove off down the street like she was going to the grocery store.  Her list said she’d packed everything in the suitcases, had her bag of shoes, her computer was in the back seat with her pillow, the small cooler was on the passenger seat floor, and her snacks were above it in easy reach.  She even remembered her phone charger.  That one would have gotten by me.  When I kissed her I told her to come back.  She said I could count on it, so I started, “One, two …”  The first thing I’ll tell her when she returns will be, “…five million, eight hundred thirty-two thousand, seven hundred forty-five.”  That’s before I give her the rose.  Hey, we have our traditions. 

I know, it’s only seventeen days.  The important word in that sentence is ‘only.’  It’s a word that is marinated in relativity.  It’s been a long time since we weren’t together most of the time.  And this business of absence makes the heart grow fonder is a bunch of hooey.  It’s strange.  It’s a little scary.  It’s painful. 

So I stood there and waved.    

Not One of the Crowd

 

Harry Dowdy joined the church in Shrewsbury when he was in his eighties.  He showed up with his wife, his love Beezie, and told me after that first visit that he was a refugee from the nearby big church where he couldn’t stand the theology being preached anymore and I had nailed it, for him. 

Being a sheep stealer was never on my agenda.  The probability being that if they were difficult to please in church A, they probably would have a hard time in church B.  I thanked him for his review and warned him that he should hang around a while before making any decisions about transferring.  He smiled into my eyes.  I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but that’s what he did.  It’s rare.  He nodded and I felt that something had just happened.  He and his wife were in the next new members’ class.

Harry was a great guy.  I relaxed around him.  He had me out to his house about once a month for lunch, he’d cook.  Nothing fancy, but the conversation was amazing.  We played golf now and then, nine holes.  He’d choose the nine he wanted to play.  With him I didn’t get better scores but I had a great time.  My shots tended to go longer, that included over the green.  He told me I’d be a good golfer if I could curb my enthusiasm.  He wasn’t sure if that was worth a better score.

He loved Beezie.  She died a couple of years into our relationship but was limited physically and cognitively before that.  There was no doubt in his mind that she was a gift given by God to him that he didn’t deserve.  It helped him understand Grace.  One of the women’s circles, fellowship groups, did a reception after her funeral.  He gave them a substantial gift.  They told him they had made Beezie an honorary member of the circle, so he came to their meeting and joined the circle.  I don’t think he was looking for a date.

He gave me a book he liked, Daily Dose of Knowledge, Brilliant Thoughts.  It’s 365 quotes from everybody anybody can think of, covering just about anything anybody can think of.  I’ve used it ever since.  It’s one of those books that you start looking something up and end reading 20 pages.  The book reminds me of Harry.  Our conversations always went beyond any initial issue.

I found a quote from Harry’s book that I used in today’s sermon.  Edith Sitwell said, “I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.”  It spoke in harmony with the scriptures from which I was preaching, and it spoke articulately to so much that is going on in this day and age, and it reminded me of a single human being who never even considered being insignificant, or being proud of prejudice of any flavor.

Harry refused to be stupid.  He paid attention to every day, considering its issues and those who spoke to them as vital input for the banquet of every day.  Its courses were compassion, humility, and self-giving love.  His spirit thrived on the diet.

He died in 2015.  He wanted a funeral that was in harmony with Beezie’s.  I use the bulletin of the service as a book mark for the book of Brilliant Thoughts.  There are three pictures included, Harry and Beezie dancing the jitterbug on the front cover, in the center, a family mob with the two of them sitting at the front, the mob was their fault after all, and on the back cover was the two of them, holding hands walking away down a beach. 

I miss Harry, as I miss so many with whom I have had the privilege of sharing parts of the journey.  But he is here with me, smiling into my eyes. 

 

 

 

Rumble and Thud

Rumble and Thud

It’s been sunny all day.  We went swimming.  This afternoon the heat and the humidity made it an effort to work in the sun.  The sun set with wind coming in from the North.  The flashes came like headlights turning into our driveway, flickering for a moment and then gone to shine somewhere else.  The first rumble shook the glasses in the breakfront, taking away all question.  It rolled across the street, a party that wasn’t paying attention to the sound regulations.  The rumble had a movement to it, a roll that brought it down hill, out of the anvils up above.  But there was no roll or movement at its end.  Only a thud, a slammed door that made a point of power and finality. 

Now comes the rain.

Stiff Upper Lip

 

During the normal weather of the summer, that is sun, heat, and rain every couple of days, the grass of my lawn grows rapidly.  More than a week between cutting and it’s beginning to look like I do when I try to stretch a haircut to six weeks.  Shaggy.  Lately we’ve had a stretch of rain, lotsa rain.  A few days of lotsa rain.  The lawn reacted.  My grandfather would want to bring out the bailer and get the hay ready for bailing.  The forecast listed cloudy with no rain until the afternoon.  Time to fuel up the mower.

Trying to start a habit of being good to myself, I usually split the mowing into two sessions on two days.  Age, heat, push, pull, yada, yada, yada.  But considering the monsoon that had descended upon us, if I got a four hour window, get it done.  When I finished the first half, I chugged some lemonade, wrapped a wet tea towel around my neck and went back out into the 90 degree, 85 percent humidity. 

It was getting hard to see through all the sweat pouring down my face, and I had to push the chattering mower close to one of the big pine trees on that side of the yard.  The cone was one of the tight ones, it hadn’t opened yet.  Picked up by the rotary blade, the cone was flung at the tree that had dropped it, bounced back, and hit me in the mouth.  It felt like a sucker punch from an offended boyfriend, or someone who you just beat on a layup, for the seventh time.   Sometimes they take you by surprise, sometimes they’re embarrassing for the one throwing the punch.  This was the former kind.  I thought maybe I was hallucinating from overheating or dehydration.  But the blood in my mouth made me stop to make sure I hadn’t lost a tooth.  Immediately my upper lip swelled up as if to prove that I better watch running that noisy thing near the tree’s roots, his turf and all.  Or it could have been, I better watch running that noisy thing near her kids.  Either way, I had a fat lip.

I shook my head, restarted the mower, and finished the job.  The bleeding had stopped, but I still had a golf ball above my upper teeth to prove I had lost the fight.  As I was putting the offensive mower away, I wondered why nature doesn’t hit back more often.  Maybe it does, but people don’t give the trees or the raccoons or the squirrels credit for the assault.  We don’t give nature credit for having power. (Global warming isn’t real right?) Maybe I need to let the yard know I’m just giving it a haircut, no harm intended.  In the old days, our ancestors talked to the spirits of the trees and the sea and the animals.  Hey, it’s only polite.  After all they were here first.  Where do we get off messing around with their back yard?

Gotta remember that next time I gas up the mower. 

Being Famous

 

The other day someone asked me how they could find my blog.  I told them to just look up my name, I was sure it would be listed.  They got back to me to tell me all kinds of things about yours truly that they found.  “You’re famous!” 

It made me wonder about that title.  Surely the meaning now is vastly different than it used to be.  Anything we do is immediately recorded and released onto the web, making us well know rather quickly.  But are we well known?  Or is the nature of the things we’ve done apt to put our names out there? 

I have a friend who does his best to get his name into anything he can.  He figures the best way to remain anonymous in this digital age is to stand in a snow storm of trivia.  According to his theory, the ones who truly stand out are the ones who are off the grid.  I think he wears an aluminum hat.

Before the net created the tropical storm of information that lifts simple sand high into the atmosphere, it took something of significance to make a dent in ‘being known.’  You might have been a big fish in the puddle of your world, but the major tributaries won’t pick you up.  Being known took some major water pressure.  Now, piddles make news.  Enough piddles, you’re known.  But by whom?  And for what?

When I preached last Sunday, the congregation wanted to know what to call me.  Chris and I smiled and started making a list of things people have called me.  David, Rev, The Rev, Pastor, Pastor David, Pastor Dave, Mac, Rev Mac … The list went on for a while.  It made me realize how many roles and resulting titles I have assumed.  But that doesn’t make me famous.  That makes me busy.  Are they synonymous? 

Lotsa questions.  Not many answers.  But I’ll tell you this:  I ain’t famous.  But that’s only according to me, and what do I know.  I’m just a retired old fart from North Carolina.  

 

Glory Days

 

“It’s a weapon, not a sword.” The first words my coach said to a bunch of nervous adolescent boys put us back a step.  He was the only one holding the ‘weapon’ we were itching to get our hands on.  But there was a long way to go before thirty inches of steel was put at our disposal. 

I guess the past does get clearer as we age.  That was decades ago.  Those practices seem vivid as I pick up my foil today.  Learning to move my hands and feet.  Learning to lunge and parry.  Learning to hold and control this tool of the sport with fingers instead of fist, see?  Clear lessons.

There’s a competitive fencing club here.  I’m going down tonight to see what’s up.  I’ll be taking my mask and glove and weapon.  I’m wondering if, in this modern day, the disciplines that were foundational to my sport are still taught.  I’m wondering if the coaches are as tough as mine were.  I’m wondering what role this rusty blade will play here and now. 

This is a different weapon.  My first lessons were with a French grip.  I moved to a Modified Belgian.  That was stolen with the rest of my equipment.  It was like losing a child.  I got this one a few years ago on a whim.  It’s new, without experiences, without scratches, without bruises and blood, not one win or loss.  I feel a bit the same way.  All that experience, all that work and pain and joy, all that losing and winning seems to belong to someone else.  I’m covered with scratches and dings, I’ve lost and won all kinds of things, but now I feel like a kid again.  All that experience, knowledge, and skill is gone. 

Days and years add things to us and at the same time take things away.  I remember an insane confidence then, and I remember a terrible insecurity.  I remember hearing my name announced for the first match in the finals of the Mid Atlantic Conference finals and being sure that they’d made a mistake.  I couldn’t have made the finals.  I guess all our life is like that, a bouillabaisse of insecurity and confidence, neither extreme taking into account the potentials or the limitations of the moment.  

But the best times are those when we look over the edge of now and step, even when it feels like a grand canyon looms.  What’s to lose except an opportunity to experience a moment of life?  Another memory to consider as we remember the Glory Days.

Pasta Olio

 

Having been born in Bloomfield and spent most of my life in New Jersey, it’s no wonder one of our children is an Italian teacher.  Part of what it means to live in North Jersey or the environs of New York City is to know what ‘real food’ is like.  To experience Italian is to eat and to be passionate about it.  

To know Italian food is to know pasta.  Pasta goes way beyond spaghetti and red sauce (or gravy, depending on the region of Italy being represented by the cook).  To recite a litany of sauces and dishes is to go through a scrap book of the palate, a journey on which I have been fortunate to be spoiled by some amazing cooks, sitting down at their tables, most often kitchen, and having a hard time getting up.  At the core of all this Italian food is Pasta.

One of the most elegant and knowledgeable gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing told me that Pasta Olio is the most basic and the most easily messed up approach to this foundation of good food.  If he had never been to a restaurant (he meant an Italian restaurant, of course), he would simply order a plate of this arrangement of the basics of Italian life, pasta, olive oil, and garlic.  If the establishment did a good job, it was worthy of his business.  If not, he’d wait for new management,  Pasta Olio being the litmus for good food.  He looked great in a tux too.

Chris asked me what I wanted for Fathers’ Day dinner.  We had pan seared scallops, tomato and cucumber salad with fresh basil, and Pasta Olio.  I’ll be coming back here.