In this season of calendar and life, choices are before me. 1.) I can measure walks in miles and minutes, holding to old standards that now feel like a pinch collar. Or 2.) I can recalibrate myself, forget about increments all together, and laugh at my dog. In short, I can get either frustrated or philosophical. Continue reading
If only folks would pay as much attention to what they say and how they say it—whatever the medium—as yesteryear’s kids did mastering the stubborn capital “G” or lowercase “z,” how much better off humanity would be. Continue reading
The truth about songs of your youth is they raise your heart’s curtain. They do mine, anyway. Time punches the accelerator; neither you nor I can slow it down. My thumping ventricles make me dream of being saxxy, but my veins are in their seventh decade of service and feel each season peeling out into the next. Continue reading
My guess, late 1947, their first apartment, no children yet. Mom is seated, Dad standing over her shoulder, passing her hair through his fingertips. Their expressions are carefree, Mona Lisa smiles on them both. The instant is tender, the future a blue heaven of hope. Continue reading
He was restless and quivering on the 20th. The next morning Kathy and son Micah got him to the veterinarian in time for his last breath. Our buddy possessed a finicky digestive system, sensitive skin and his breed’s lust for the chase. He hooped endlessly. He was a lanky galoot. His forehead was glorious to kiss. Continue reading
What possessed me to start bellowing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as I helped my mother-in-law, Edna, remain standing while wife Kathy and daughter Elena quickly changed the hospital bed sheets? I’ve no clue. Continue reading
Some folks find idols playing their songs of yesteryear depressing. Not me. I’ll take old performers over their younger versions any day. Continue reading
Oniontown Pastoral: Holy Trifles
This post is dedicated to my colleagues in ministry.
Just now, I finally got it. I understand why those of us long in the tooth are loath to part with our treasures. The matter is clouded by television programs about hoarders who clutch last week’s pizza box to their chest because the cardboard might come in handy. Also fogging up the conversation are youngsters with hearts of flint who categorize objects without a practical purpose as “all that junk.” Well, I keep trifles, and the reason has become clear.
I feel low this Friday, which promises rain later on. Its wispy sound will be welcome, as I have work to do and will be sitting where I am now when it falls—this report has to get written along with a sermon. The tasks are agreeable, though melancholy leans against my chest, in the hollow where tears come from.
St. John’s Lutheran Church in Oniontown, Pennsylvania, is like many mainline Christian congregations. We’re aging quickly, and the faithful whose sturdy souls and frames gave richly to the church are disappearing one by one, over the horizon and into glory. Neal’s funeral was this past Wednesday. Bill’s was in late January.
Please know, I’m neither crying in my morning tea nor looking for sympathy. A pastor’s call involves baptizing, marrying and burying. Like my colleagues, I put shoulder to wheel. Pastors do love their folks, however, not theoretically or by obligation, but with plain old human love. This reality makes the vocation by turns buoyant and weighty. Downstream from baptismal waters are ashes and dust. This is life, right?
But just now, sighing and imagining light perpetual, I looked at the bicycle pump needle on my windowsill. Fred, who died two years ago come June, gave it to me. One afternoon I tried to inflate his car tire with some electronic device. It should have been cake, but I floundered. My next visit he handed me the needle and went on a laughing jag. I pick it up, close my eyes and listen to Fred’s joy. He had the greatest laugh. I see him there across from me, and in my mind, dry bones rise and dance.
The needle helps me keep Fred close by. It occurs to me that both here in my writing hut in Erie and in the pastor’s study in Oniontown, I’ve surrounded myself with relics of a sort.
The tin my mother packed full of sewing machine bobbins now contains quarters, dimes and nickels. I run my fingers over the lid faded by decades and hear her mighty Singer hum again downstairs as I fall asleep.
Dad’s Hall’s Excelsior Bank—a small iron piece—holds pennies, which my grandsons shake out on the floor now and then. His father’s pocket watch resides to my left and can be coaxed briefly to life with tender winding. The cigar friend Ray gave me sheds its leaf, kept together only by a glass tube. As before, he and his sagging jeans flop into my passenger seat for an afternoon of errands. “Ah shucks, Pastor,” he says, “I’m tired.”
Me, too, Ray. In my case, I’m tired of goodbyes. When at St. John’s I scan the study’s landscape. Deanie’s cardboard Vacation Bible School giraffe peaks out from behind the filing cabinet. In my top desk drawer reclines a pack of matches that says, “If there’s an umbrella in my drink, it better be raining.” My hunch is this was left behind by a pastor or two ago, and I’d like nothing more than to clink mugs with that guy. And Sadie’s portrait from early in the past century suns itself near the window. For a time, she will remind me of Bill, whom I mentioned earlier. They were related. Bill was the purveyor of much St. John’s mischief. His passing is still fresh, as is his memory. I’ll work my way to laughing soon enough, but for now, I just miss him.
Are the holy trifles I keep at hand my way of coping? Ah well, so be it. My mother’s red Paper Mate pen rides in my shirt pocket. Putting down a signature, I say something like, “You’re dead, Mom, but not entirely. Not to me.” Her cursive was lovely.
Behold, I’ve taken my appreciation of objects with a negligible purpose to a new level. Last week I received a shipment of 100 mechanical pencils from a retired man who tells me he has a couple hundred more to sell, along with a handful of fountain pens.
Beside Mom’s Paper Mate I carry a pencil from John K. Denlinger Service Station in Lancaster, Pa. The proprietor may well have been looking over my shoulder as I wrote down today’s duties. I never met John, but I hereby take the liberty of calling him my brother.
I dropped wife Kathy off at work at 7:00 this morning. She’s an oncology nurse navigator, shepherding patients through treatment, prognosis, hope and mortal dread. She wants to cry. She comes home spent. Her work is of first importance. Continue reading
A Sable Cloud Turns Forth Her Silver Lining
U-turn and detour. Limbo and leap. Bob and weave. This is my life, and the seasons ahead may bring shrug and chuckle as well as shimmy and shuffle. The joyful dynamic I sway to is occasioned by two realities: family and writing. As a husband, father and grandfather, I embrace delays, entreaties and ambushes as opportunities to help, love and be a good sport. As a writer I know that most of my worthy subjects resemble stumbling blocks.
I say resemble because one man’s annoyance is another’s delight and stumbling blocks because my truth is partly physical. My wife of 39 years is a purveyor of beauty. It’s out my window overlooking the backyard: sunflowers, young spaghetti squash hanging from improvised latticework, wildflowers planted just for me, other splashes of color I can’t name. Eye pleasing, yes, but it’s also an obstacle course. I can’t walk in any direction on our humble estate without maneuvering around, over or under something.
Robust leaves shining with dew bow across the path between me and my writing hut. Frequently I belly up to the desk with my person and clothing damp.
On days I drive to Oniontown for church work, climbing into the car reminds me to lose weight. Coneflowers and daisies tap my hamstrings as I suck in my torso to skirt the side-view mirror.
Oh, but before reaching the car, I hum “Limbo Rock” and duck the clothesline. Then to open our underachieving gate, two carabiners must be released. The mechanism still works, but not well enough to keep foxhound Sherlock Holmes from escaping.
Which reminds me, the K-9 has taken to joining Kathy and me in bed after years of occupying the living room couch. Seldom does he curl into a ball, though. To find a comfortable position I have to accommodate his lanky legs—four furry baseball bats. He’s a nocturnal real estate hog.
In short, if you see me crossing the backyard or trying to sleep, I’ll be moving like Carmen Miranda, minus the fruit basket turban.
Meanwhile, I have myriad errands. About every other week, Kathy will call shortly after I’ve dropped her off at work. My beloved is a virtuoso of forgetting necessities: briefcase, purse, satchel, glasses, cell phone, approved nursing shoes, etc. I drive 15 minutes home, park, shimmy past flowers, disengage carabiners, low-bridge the clothesline, secure the vital item, then do the whole business in reverse. Not infrequently, what Kathy requires is not where she says it is. This is where “good sport” comes in. No God in heaven or on earth can divine the object’s hiding place. When we downsized residences eight years ago, the remote garage door opener at the new place promptly disappeared. Of course, there was only one. Eighteen months later, a bemused yelp from the basement heralded its return. Kathy had slipped the remote into one of her gardening boots, where the poor innocent endured exile.
When Kathy does remember her wares, daughter Elena may well have designs on my agenda—like this morning. Back in 1634 John Milton prophesied my 8:45 to 9:30 in his poem “Comus”: “Was I deceived? Or did a sable cloud turn forth her silver lining in the night?” Whether by genetics or conditioning, I fly directly through clouds to claim silver linings. Elena’s plea would not be ignored. Was I by chance in the car? Could I watch the boys (Cole, 8; Killian, 6; Gavin, 2) while she hurried to the store? If so, her errand would take 20 minutes. If not, an hour or so—sneakers, car seats, selective listening, attitudes, armed rebellion, etc.
Recognizing the blessed intersection of family and writing, I made a U-turn. “Be there in a few.” A moment’s backstory explains my motivation. When Cole and Killian were born, they came to my rescue. They brought me a love I didn’t know existed during a dark stretch of road. Kathy’s love for me abides, patient and kind, more generous than St. Paul would dare to describe. And now Gavin smiles and reaches out, rests his head against my gray chest. As Abraham said, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”
I’m not one for self-flagellation, but truth is truth. I never deserved two boys chattering and climbing into my lap. My gladness had runneth over before the third, Gavin, arrived, but now I see that goodness and mercy sometimes follow those who have no right to their ministrations.
And this is what I’ve been weaving toward. Elena thanked me for babysitting, but neither she nor the boys realized it was they who cared for me, they who made straight my path by asking me to swerve. Therefore, foliage standing in the way brings flowers close to my eyes. Changed itineraries take me to my boys and give me a chance to kiss Kathy goodbye again. And I write the whole business over and over, often forgetting that where I’m heading is almost never where I need most to go.
A Napper's Companion 