Dismissals

As I venture into the world to minister to prisoners and homeless men, I am frequently ministering to men who are not all that lovable. They have their own beliefs and opinions. I dispense the alms … they receive the alms … why can they not see the world as I see it? Alas, I learn every day that God has not arranged the world for my personal tranquility. From time to time … more now than before … I see a little of these men in myself … and a little of me in them … and a healthy dose of God in us all.

It was a gift, a pocket-sized New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. I was grateful, and surprised that it was a “red letter edition”… the Lord’s words in red ink. Matthew has the most red ink … then Mark, Luke and John. The red tapers off and there’s almost none until Revelation, where there’s plenty. Thumbing through the mostly monochromatic midsection, I chanced to find this bit of red ink: 2nd Corinthians 12:9 … the Lord’s words to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” … words now at work within me.

I sit in the hospital waiting room, listening to the drone of daytime television and hushed cellphone conversations. There are worn magazines with movie stars on the cover. A man and a woman enter. He has a beard but no mustache. He wears a pale blue shirt, denim pants, suspenders and work boots. She wears a grey dress, a bonnet, and black shoes with thick soles. They look around the room and sit across from me. I nod to the man. He nods in return. We wait together, the three of us, saying not a word, the television prattling on.

Mindful of the ethos of today’s world, and chancing upon Thomas Moore’s Introduction to Thomas Merton’s 1965 book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, these words: “In all his writing Merton was onto this mystery that can be appreciated only through religious vision or through an extraordinarily subtle psychology: genuine strength arises only in a condition of vulnerability. The flagrant display and self-serving use of power are an admission of deep incapacity.”

What might I say for myself? Born in 1949, I’ll soon be 80. I am the only son of an only son of an only son. My mother was born 1908, my father 1901. Our early years were in Antigua, West Indies. I graduated a well regarded prep-school but never came close to graduating college. I worked at various jobs, then invented my own work locating missing heirs for banks and attorneys. Ordained deacon November 12, 2010. I was married once in a church, twice in museums. I love my wife, Linda, my three sons, and almost everyone else.

The old man shambled along the sidewalk in front of the grocery store. There, he was greeted by a Cub Scout holding a tin can. “Support Cub Scouts?” The old man felt about his pockets, looking for a loose nickel or a few pennies. “Well, I don’t … wait … no … maybe … I forgot my money. Say, that’s a quite a collection of merit badges! How’d you earn all those?” The boy spoke earnestly of each badge as the old man listened. A half-dozen folks dropped money into the boy’s tin but neither the boy nor the old man took notice.

My father’s mother was a lady of refinement, a widow with many friends and a busy social life. When the U.S. entered World War II, after Pearl Harbor in 1941, my grandmother set aside her small pleasures … tea with friends, visits to the art museum, a drive in the country … and considered what she might do to aid American soldiers overseas … something practical … something real. She had never met a wounded man, nor heard the guns of war, but every day until the war’s end, on September 2, 1945, she sewed bandages that the Red Cross shipped to Europe.

Long-ago, I watched Juan fix the brakes on his ’53 Chevy. The car was on blocks. Juan knelt in the dirt. His toolbox was spare: pliers, screwdrivers, hammer, cold chisel, hacksaw … and accumulated parts from other cars. At noon we walked to the parts store to ask questions. Late in the day, on a country road, the windows rolled down, Juan let me drive. The car was mine. My first. Juan fixed the brakes the same way he practiced his faith: Start early, work straight through, ask questions and never lose heart. God rest you and keep you, Juan.

I don’t recall quite where I came across these words … they are the good fortune of aimless scrolling. I have a shirt pocket archive for such writings. Therein, these words of The Rt. Rev. Morris K. Thompson, Jr., Bishop of Louisiana: “Let us resolve to respect the dignity of every human beginning today, and when the sun comes up tomorrow let us once again resolve to respect the dignity of every human being and again the next day until God tells us we are free from our sins. For this is the work God has called us to practice.” Amen!

I’ve had some wild-eyed notions over the years … impractical, unworkable ideas. As a kid, I tried selling ice cream cones from my bike on a summer day, pedaling through neighborhoods as the ice cream dripped onto the pavement. My ideas are some better now. I question … experiment … I proceed slowly and ask the advice of others. Still, there’s a hidden risk: If I tell someone what I’m going to do, they might run my idea into the ground with a dozen reasons why it won’t work … and I might not get out of bed the next morning. Still … onward!

I’d been dispatched on an errand to the medical complex. Doctors’ offices, X-rays places, laboratories, a lot of people milling about looking for their doctor or the exit. I had in hand what I was sent to get. I looked around, got my bearings, and headed for the exit. An old man, maybe my age, appeared to be looking for something, so I asked, “You OK?” He said, “Trying to find the men’s.” I walked with him. Slow going, but we found it. He said thanks. He meant it. I went on my way, feeling some better about life. 

My father was a literature major (Dartmouth, 1923). I inherited his love of the classics and made my way through a fair number. Some were terrific, others not so much. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has remained a mainstay for me, a work I return to from time to time. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim … not a favorite … save for one sentence, near the book’s end, an instruction to Jim from his father, a churchman, that Jim should, “Trust Providence as the established order of the universe.” Those words come to me, from time to time, as if from my own father.