Dismissals

Jim was married to my sister but they divorced and Jim drifted off to Florida. He was always a terrible drinker and, honestly, I didn’t miss him much. I chanced to visit with Jim’s son and I couldn’t help but ask, “Whatever became of your dad? Still drinking, I suppose?” He said, “Well, I guess you haven’t heard the news.” I expected to hear that Jim had died behind some watering hole but his son told me, “Dad’s been dry 10 years now. He’s a bigwig in Alcoholics Anonymous in Florida. Some kind of regional director. Sober as a judge.”

I was two. We lived in Mallorca, Spain. My parents worked and I spent days with Maria. Maria spoke no English. I learned Spanish. Maria and I wandered the markets, sat in the cool of the church, watched the fishermen mending nets on the quay. The fishermen gave me Spanish words to say … not high-minded words … I repeated the words. Maria scolded the fishermen and they laughed. I know now that I was not the object of the fishermen’s delight. Their eyes were on Maria, may light perpetual shine upon her. Maria Colon, May 15, 1924 – February 8, 2019.

Men traveled the road looking for work. Sometimes they knocked at the old woman’s door and asked for food. She gave what she had. One day, a hungry man let slip that her fencepost had the hobo’s mark. Her house was ‘good for a handout.’ She went right along feeding the men. Some days she baked extra bread, maybe pie and always soup with a little meat in it. Some days, the old woman went out to the fencepost with a little lampblack and made the mark nice and dark so the men could see it plainly from the road.

Bee speed is about two thirds of the speed of a stroll in the park, at which speed we arouse no fear, suspicion or even interest in those around us. At this pace, we can walk through a hostile crowd or a convention of optimists and no one will take note of us. When we walk in the shadowed valley, or among homeless men, or move among the bees, wherever our ministry may call us, there is something we communicate to others in our pace and our movement. 

My father and I played dominoes, a game popular world-wide and certainly in our home. I’ve seen raucous games played for money on the sidewalks of foreign cities but our games were quiet. I tried to interest my sons in dominoes. No luck, competing as I was with Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. I did not realize it then, sitting across the table from my father, that as we played dominoes we talked of many things, of the great and of the trivial, our words paced to the click of dominoes on the kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon. 

They’d traveled not but four miles when the boy heard the tire whacking against the fender. He pulled the old Ford to the berm. His aunt, lips pursed, sat the back seat. The boy’d not before changed a tire on his own but set about it, unhitching the fender-mount spare, bracing the jack, loosening the lug nuts, then jacking the wheel clear of the ground. The first lug nut squealed as he put the wrench to it. His aunt called from the back seat, “You ever get ‘em off, you best put them lug nuts in the hubcap, lest you kick ‘em into the weeds!” The boy frowned and bent to his work. He applied the wrench to the next…

Voices from my past… words of three men at different times and places when I was young… words that come back from time to time to help get me through whatever it is I need to get through. Phil Parker: “I can see you’re looking for something, but I don’t think you know what it is.” Jim Krause: “You won’t get anywhere just standing there.” Ed Perkins: “A wet bird never flies at night.” Phil and Jim’s aphorisms keep me on the path, moving ahead. Ed’s wet bird lets me get off the path and not take myself too seriously.

Halfway home on a long drive, I stopped to buy a comestible from a vending machine. I put in two crisp dollar bills, pushed the button for chips… nothing. I pushed pretzels… nothing. Peanuts… nothing! I hit “refund,” heard two, tinny clinks and knew I’d been hoodwinked. Two bucks invested, two coins in change and no snack. I set about cursing the machine. Drat! Phooey! I scooped the coins into my pocket and drove on. I pulled into the the next rest area and fished the coins out of my pocket. It was a miracle! They were now dollar coins.

Before Christmas, I heard the Cleveland Orchestra perform George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. The choir, numbering over a hundred, sang words from Isaiah: “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace!” Beautiful! It was surely Christmas! Yet Handel’s masterwork continues. At the oratorio’s end, from the Book of Revelation, the choir sang: “Blessing and honor, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.” These are words of Easter. Then, God willing, I will listen again to the words of Handel’s Messiah.

At the St. Luke’s food pantry, I give oranges to children who wait in line with their parents out in the cold. Sometime I give an orange to a mother or a father or some guy who’s alone … I don’t keep track. One girl had her hands tucked up under an old sweatshirt. I held out an orange. She took one hand out and held it open. I placed that orange in her hand. I felt her hand … her fingers were so cold. Maybe I’ll give the oranges a rest. Mittens! I’ll get a wheelbarrow full of mittens and gloves!

My grandmother kept the brittle, yellowed obituary of Return Jonathan Meigs in her Bible. He achieved distinction as an officer in the Revolutionary Army and later as a pioneer in Ohio. The obituary concluded: “His father, when a young man, became enamored of a young Quaker woman. Though repeatedly rejected, he persisted in his suit. On his last visit, as he slowly mounted his horse to ride away dejected, she relented and beckoned to him to stop, crying out, ‘Return, Jonathan. Return, Jonathan.’ These words, which gave him so much happiness, he gave as a name to his firstborn son.”

A letter to a prisoner, dated December 3rd, 2008: “Dear Michael, Never a day goes by that I do not think of you. As a churchman, I have come to believe that thought alone may be a form of prayer. I offer now my prayer for your wellbeing, your good health and your peace of mind. I do believe that prayer is made stronger, more powerful, if we send it along with a small gift, an offering to God. Michael, please consider this letter, poor as it is, to be that small gift, an offering to God. In peace, Josh”