I'm 64 and I'm Tired, Too

One of the first things I saw on the internet this morning was a piece, attributed to Bill Cosby, entitled "I'm 83, and I'm Tired." Before I finished the first paragraph I thought "there is no way this was written by Bill Cosby", and a two-minute internet search proved I was correct. It was a pompous, malicious, racist, hate-filled rant that glorified greed and vilified the poor, Muslims and others. In some ways it reminded me of Ayn Rand.  Frankly, it made me sick. I went to church seething.

One of the readings at church was James 1:17-27. Here is the last sentence:
"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

In her sermon my priest pointed out that the widows and orphans stand for all those on the margins of society, the poor, the stranger, those in any kind of need.

The gospel reading for today was Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23. The reading ends with this:
Then he [Jesus] called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Our priest commented that if it were her list, she would add "silence." A very good point! So here goes...

I'm 64 years old, and I am tired, too.

I'm tired of the ridiculous fantasy of the rugged individual, the self-made man or woman. There is no such thing, unless there happens to be a person who crawled from under a rock on some desert island and never once laid eyes on another human being. And even then, that person did not make the island or the rock; they are both a part of God's creation.

I am tired of morality being used only in terms of sexual behavior, and I am tired of being surrounded by the worship of money and power.

I am 64 years old, an only child. My parents divorced when I was a baby, and my mother worked hard just to get by. I attended public schools; thank God my mother could not afford to send me to some elitist private school where I would be insulated from the real world. I had my first job when I was 14 years old, worked my way through a state college and got a relatively good paying job. I have everything I need and many of the things I want. And I realize I could not have done any of this without having been born with at least above average intelligence and without my community...in all it's forms...family, church, friends, and yes...gasp!!!...the government. I had no control over any of the factors. I learned, thanks to that community, that my success, such that it is carries with it a responsibility to the community.

I'm tired of hearing about how the poor in our society have some sort of sense of entitlement. I'm 64 years old and am tired of hearing folks like me and those who are even better off than I am whine about being oppressed, over taxed and threatened. Most of my working life was spent in a job that required me to delve deeply into the finances of folks from the entire socio-ecnomic spectrum, from the poorest to the most wealthy. In my experience, with a few exceptions, that sense of entitlement grows larger and larger as the balance in the checkbook increases.

I'm 64 years old and am tired of seeing folks on the margins in our society being blamed for all their, and our, problems.

I'm tired of racism and bigotry in all it's forms. I'm tired of people assuming that because I am a 64 year old white male from the south I find their racist, sexist, bigoted jokes and comments funny.

I'm tired of hearing this country was founded on Christian principles, and I have three questions for those who make the claim, But those are for another day.

I'm tired of seeing the Bible used to bludgeon my friends in the LGBT community.

I'm 64 years old, and I am tired of hearing how we should post the Ten Commandments at the courthouse, but not one person suggesting we post the Beatitudes.

I'm 64 years old, and I am tired of seeing willful ignorance glorified and intelligence vilified. And I am tired of hearing, "I respect him because he stands up for what he believes." "He" can believe the world is flat, that the sun orbits the earth or that a woman cannot get pregnant fom being raped if "he" chooses to believe that. But I do not respect his standing up for his beliefs when they have no basis in reality.

I'm tired of hearing table blessings ending with, "and keep us mindful of the needs of others," prayed by people who have no idea about the needs of others because they simply don't care about the others. The holiday season will be here soon, and I am tired of seeing people give a few dollars or food or toys to some charity for those "less fortunate" at Thanksgiving and Christmas then ignore those "less fortunate" the other 363 days of the year.

I could go on and on.

Yes, I'm 64 years old, and I'm tired. And I'm angry, too, but I do feel better thanks to the good people in my life who teach, bless and uplift me.

Wish List

I posted this to Facebook on August 30:

I have a wish list; it‘s not very long:

~I want ALL my friends to be able to marry the person they love and NONE of them to fear losing their job or home because they happen to be a member of a sexual minority.

~If one of my daughters or granddaughters is ever raped and gets pregnant I want her to have easy access to a safe and legal abortion without anyone, politician or otherwise, standing between her and her doctor.

~I want people of faith to respect and honor their differences and realize there is much to be learned from those of other faiths.

~I want the minimum wage to be a living wage.

~I want intelligence, not willful ignorance, to be a virtue.

~I want science taught in science class and mythology taught in literature class.

Mary's Announcement

A friend of ours died a while back. The night before the saying of the Burial Office, friends and family gathered at the funeral home to comfort one another, to reminisce, to cry together and, yes, occasionally to laugh together.

Across the hall from the viewing parlor was a snack bar with vending machines, tables, a microwave oven, etc. Our friend’s daughter had “set up shop” there for her daughters providing them with books, games, and toys with which to amuse themselves and pass the time. This was no attempt to isolate the children as they were free to move back and forth between this room and the parlor where their grandfather’s body lay in the open casket and where mourners gathered.

Our friend’s granddaughter, I’ll call her Mary, was four at the time and is very fond of our granddaughters, Andrea and Ellie. At some point during the evening Mary crossed the hall into the viewing parlor and someone told her that Andrea and Ellie would be there soon. Upon hearing this, Mary raced back to the snack bar and announced to everyone there, “Grandpa is still dead, but Andrea and Ellie are coming!”

It is tempting to think “She’s only four and obviously doesn’t understand death.” True no doubt, but perhaps there is more to it,

The story challenges me to admit I don’t understand death any better than a four year old. It is an Advent, story of eagerly awaiting the arrival of one whose presence is longed for. It is Christmas story to be kept and pondered in the heart the way Mary, the mother of Jesus, kept and pondered the words of the shepherds. It is an Easter story of hope and joy laughing in the face of death and sorrow.  The story helps me understand why Jesus had the adults step aside and let the children come up front. It is the children who can accept without reservation Jesus’ announcement that the realm of God is at hand, that “Grandpa is still dead, but Andrea and Ellie are coming!”

It Happened on The Feast of St. Laurence

On August 11, I wrote to a friend and described what I called an I-can't-not-do-this experience:
"Yesterday was the Feast of St. Laurence. I had intended to honor 'my' saint by doing some particular act of service, but failed to make plans; the day crept up on me. So I spent part of the day wondering what I might or could have done. Yesterday evening I was leaving the public library when an older (at least he looked older) and obviously needy man engaged me in conversation. We actually had a nice chat, then he asked the inevitable(?) question: would I happen to have some change to spare so he could buy some food? I gave him the $5.00 I had in my wallet, and said to him, 'You've answered a question I have been asking myself all day today.' Not surprisingly this went right past him, but he did thank me and offered me his hand. We shook hands, and I could not help but notice his firm grip. As we shook hands I looked him in the eye and said, 'Please take good care of yourself, ok?' I stood there and watched as he headed toward the library entrance. As he approached the door a young woman came out, a stack of books in one hand and a baby carrier/carseat in the other. She put the carrier down, and was fumbling as best she could with one hand to drape a cover across the carrier, I suppose to shade the baby from the sun. The man stopped, helped her with it, then went into the library. As I stood there I had a vision of him in the library, finding a book and sitting down to read it. Frankly I don't yet understand the vision. It was certainly not one of expectation and to say it was one of hope seems somehow to oversimplify it. Or maybe that's just my ego getting in the way, wanting to make things more complicated than they really are."

Earlier I had written about an experience of coming very near to hearing a voice when there was no one there, so I concluded my message with, "...thank you for being the type of friend with whom I can be perfectly at ease talking about 'voices' and 'visions' knowing you will understand."

My friend replied:
"Your description of that day was so interesting to me and I think voices and visions are your awareness become more acute. I think the voices and visions are always there, but you were at that moment tuned in. I think the vision was you sending the man compassion and peace-- that it rose spontaneously from the God-in-you-ness of your spirit, surprising even your own worldly self. I think it was your ego getting OUT of the way...[A]ttentiveness and transformation--we can miss so much if we don't pay attention and we have been trained to fill our minds with thoughts to avoid paying attention."

Thomas Merton wrote, "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can."

I can't think of a more difficult challenge or one more worthy. The task of loving, of getting our egos out of the way so we are free to love without regard to "worthiness", is the work of a lifetime. But I find that at those times when I do so, I encounter those I-can't-not-do-this moments, and the paradox of not really having a choice of how to respond frees me from my ego's need to control, frees me to live in the moment. The "voices" say to me, "you matter," and the "visions" as well as my actions may just be a way of passing that message on.

Role Models

Role Models

Recently, I've been thinking about role models.  We seem to be intent on looking for them in the wrong places.  Whenever we look to those who are rich, powerful, popular, or any combination of the three we are making a fundamental error.  If you are an inhabitant of the mundane world in which the overwhelming majority of us are born, die and struggle to do the best we can in between, I suggest you may want to look elsewhere.  Whether it be an athlete, politician, wealthy business person, actor, rock star or any other celebrity for that matter we best be careful when we elevate them to the level of role model because chances are that ultimately they will fail us, and then what do we do with them?

I do have a few suggestions as to the type of people we might look to as role models for the lives we are living.

There's the man who works two jobs every day just to make ends meet and support his family. But when his brother-in-law takes off leaving behind our man's sister and his nephew he always manages to have time to be a father to that nephew so the child will grow up knowing he was loved.

There's the clergyman who in the 1960's had the courage to stand before conservative, southern congregations and suggest to them that maybe African-Americans should have the same rights and privileges in this country as do their white neighbors, and today he makes the same case for LGBT persons, immigrants and the other disinherited ones among us.

And there's the man who gets out of bed at first light, puts on his work clothes, fetches his chainsaw from the barn and heads next door to remove the tree that last night's tornado deposited across the home of his elderly neighbors.

There's the priest who shows up at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. because one of her parishioners is having surgery this morning. She offers prayers, touch and perhaps most important of all a comforting presence, an incarnation of God's presence there in that hospital room.

There's the woman who comes home worn out from working all night but rather than go to the bed she so desperately longs for she makes breakfast for her children and sees to it they are dressed and off to school.

There is the woman who takes time to sit with her neighbor who yesterday had to have a beloved cat whom she had adopted many years ago put to sleep and now must experience the grief accompanying such a loss.

There is the small group of people who gather outside the gates of Central Prison at 2:00 a.m. on a cold, rainy February morning. They are there to protest and hold vigil as the State of North Carolina executes a condemned man.

There is the couple in their late 60's who every year return, at their own expense, to Malawi where they met many years ago while working as Peace Corps volunteers.  They go there to work with the Malawi Childrens' Village, a group of people who are doing their best to take care of hundreds of orphans most of whom have lost their  parents to  AIDS.

And there is the woman who, when she learns of the death of the cancer patient she was hired to care for during the day while the patient's family was away at work, calls and says she will be over this morning to clean house for the family and, no, she will not under any circumstances let the family pay her for the work.

These are a few examples from the world in which I live. Be careful how you choose your role models; they inform the way you order your life. And your children and grandchildren are watching!

More of the poetry of Hafiz

I Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

From: IHeard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Heroes

A couple of years ago I attended a series of classes based on the “This I Believe” series that was done by NPR and based on the 1950’s radio program of the same name. The goal was to write an essay that could be submitted to NPR for inclusion in the project. Mine turned out to be entirely too long for submission, and I was unwilling to shorten it enough to fit within NPR’s time restraints. So I simply shared it with the others in the class and kept it to share selectively when I thought it would be appropriate. My essay follows.


Several years ago someone suggested I make a list of my heroes. This was to be a list of people who in one way or another had a significant impact on my thinking and my life. They could be people whom I knew personally or had never met, just no fictional characters. After making the list I was to review it, meditate on it and see what it had to say about the person I was or wanted to be, my values, hopes and dreams.

My list contains several names that would appear on any list made by a bleeding heart liberal American who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s—Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi—all men who faced the injustice they saw in their time and place and confronted it with courage and vision of a better world.

There are folks like Albert Einstein whose brilliant mind I stand in awe of. And there are those who have such insight and such a way with words that their writings entertain, inform and inspire me.

But there are heroes on my list you, almost certainly, never heard of. For instance there is my mother’s sister, my Aunt Leila Smith. Aunt Leila’s unwavering faith, her humility, her capacity for unconditional love and her generous spirit were an inspiration to everyone who knew her. At her funeral the minister said, “Mrs. Smith was such a humble person I’m sure she was surprised to see the angles waiting at the gates of heaven just to welcome her.” None of us who knew her would have been surprised. I remember seeing her cry once because she had to buy a washing machine to replace an old one that had broken down. She had wanted to use that money—she didn’t have much—to help my mother who was struggling financially.

And there is my mother’s brother, my Uncle John Cook. Uncle John stepped in to be the father figure in my life when my parents divorced; I was less than two years old at the time. Uncle John worked at least two jobs all his life but still had to time hang out with his “buddy.” In addition to working in the cotton mills in eastern Alabama where we lived, he was a small-time politician who served several terms as Justice of the Peace. He would take me with him on the campaign trail; knocking on doors, talking to folks, leaving his campaign cards for those who were not home, and visiting the old country stores around Chambers County and chatting with the farmers as they sat around the wood stoves playing checkers. Now, that would be enough to get him on my heroes list, but there’s more to it.

Uncle John was born in 1905 and lived his entire life in the rural south, Georgia and Alabama. He would not have been considered a liberal by today’s standards, but (and considering the time and place, this is quite amazing) I never once heard him say the word “nigger.” When Uncle John died in 1964 his body was brought to his house, as was the custom at the time. An elderly black man came to the house, the back door of course, and asked if he could see “Mr. John” one more time. All the white folks left the living room; my aunt escorted him in and left the room herself. I stood in a hallway where I could see into the living room; no one else could see or hear as they had all moved to a different part of the house. Our visitor removed his hat—almost all men wore hats back then—stood beside Uncle John’s casket for a few moments and then said, “Lawd, Lawd. What we gone do now Mr. John’s gone?” I have no idea who the man was or how he knew Uncle John, but clearly he and I shared the joy of having known, and the grief of having lost, this kind and gentle man.

Another of my heroes is a beautiful lady, Essie Mayo. Essie was our maid when I was a young child and in addition to doing the cooking and cleaning around our house, she took care of me when my mother and Aunt Leila were away at work. She was probably in her sixties or seventies at the time, and she, like my Aunt Leila, loved me unconditionally, and it showed. One day—I would have been about six or seven years old —she scolded me for some sort of misbehavior, and I sassed her. Essie looked me straight in the eye and said, “Now, you think you can talk to me like that ‘cause you’re white and I’m colored, and you think you’re better than me, but I’m just as good as you are.” At that moment, for the first time in my life I felt the pain that we experience when we realize we have hurt someone who loves us and whom we love. I was embarrassed and angry with myself because I knew, even in my child’s heart, that she was right and I was wrong—very wrong.

My heroes have protected me; they held me when I was a frightened little boy; they tended my wounds—physical, emotional and spiritual—and they kept me safe. They teach me to see beauty, to be open to being amazed and awe struck, and to love. They teach me the power of words and give me courage to find my own voice and to use it to speak out against injustice. My heroes inspire me to believe a better world is possible and to work to bring it about. They challenge me to find joy in learning, to be curious and always to be skeptical of my limited perception of reality. They challenge me to honor my better angels of humility and generosity. And sometimes, even when I’d rather they didn’t, they hold up a mirror in which I can see the reflection of the dark side of myself—the side in need of forgiveness, of healing and of wholeness.

So…what do I believe? I believe in heroes. And by the way, my list of heroes is with me right now—on paper, in my mind and in my heart.