She showed me an old check made out to her for $12.88. “Can you cash this for me? I need groceries.” I looked at the ragged check and handed her a twenty. “Pay me back when you cash that check.” I was darn sure I’d never see that twenty again, more the fool I, but a few weeks later she saw me. “I have your twenty!” I was surprised. I thanked her and turned to go but something occurred to me that had not before. I handed the twenty back to her. “Keep it for groceries. Peace be with you.”
Dismissals
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“Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” Is this saying Confucian, ancient Irish or maybe African? Google doesn’t know for sure but many have offered their own interpretation. Sampling: “If someone is uncoordinated and can’t dance, they have no business handling a weapon.” … “I’m sure you know what an angry person can do with a sword!” … “A person who can dance is probably happy and wouldn’t want to use a sword anyway.” … And this: “Anyone who cannot dance has no real appreciation for the things that the sword could destroy and would use the sword without remorse.”
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I am again reading Moby Dick. Ishmael went to the whaler Pequod to hire on as crew. The Pequod’s owner asked Ishmael why he wanted to go whaling. Ishmael replied, “To see the world.” The owner sent Ishmael forward to peer into the offing and then asked for a report of what he had seen. “Nothing but water [and] considerable horizon.” The owner then posed this vexing question: “Can’t ye see the world where you stand?” Ishmael only knew that “go a-whaling I must.” Ishmael signed the papers, having neither met Captain Ahab nor heard the name Moby Dick.
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Satan says, “Are ye not hungry? Thirsty? Are ye not weary? Would ye not rather lie about in the pleasant lounge?” I had to Google that one. Satan quotes Swiss theologian Ulrich Luz: “In the pleasant lounge, the hope of the Kingdom cannot be understood.” Satan does not want any Kingdom building on his watch. I try to stay focused but some days I fall prey and spend my time loafing about in the pleasant lounge. I am getting better, though, and I am getting wise to Satan’s tricks. It’s never easy. There’s never a moment’s rest in the wilderness.
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An adage I recall from when I was a boy: “If you put a single teaspoon of sewage into a barrel of wine, you have only a barrel of sewage.” Today, a friend shared with me a finer rendering of this ancient principle, spoken by Śāntideva, a Buddhist monk who flourished between 685 and 763 CE: All the good works gathered in a thousand ages, Such as deeds of generosity, And the offerings to the Blissful Ones – A single flash of anger shatters them.
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At the men’s homeless shelter, an angry man stands before us. Crouching, fists raised like a boxer, the man shouts, “I’ve had enough! No more! You hear me?” He is big. No one moves. Two security men enter. They walk slowly, greeting others as they move in an arc toward the shouting man. They speak to him softly, a gentle hand on his shoulder, “John, we could hear you from the dining hall. Come with us. Tell us what’s going on with you.” His hands fall to his side. He leaves with them. We remain silent, grateful, praying for him.
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A pretty church, newer building, Sunday morning. I sat an empty pew and admired the clerestory, the natural wood and stone. Center-church, an old, marble baptismal font, dark and stained. If I’d had some soap and water with me, I’d have given that thing a good scrubbing. After the service, I visited with the altar-guild. I asked about the font. “Oh, that’s smoke-stain from the fire that burned our old church. That font reminds us of bygone days.” Well, maybe. But I’m pretty certain I’d not let a child of mine get too close to that font.
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It took all summer for the young man to earn enough to buy the car. Driving home, the exhaust spewed smoke and the engine quit. He sat the running board. From a shady porch, a man asked, “Need a hand?” The man raised the hood, shook his head, fetched a toolbox. Soon, parts lay about the sidewalk. For hours, the man bent over the engine. At last the man said, “Turn the key.” The engine sputtered and caught. No smoke. The young man asked, “What can I give you?” The man said, “Nothing. I had a car like this once.”
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The man drank coffee from a chipped diner mug and told me about a time when, driving the logging road, he saw a young boy walking where he oughtn’t. The boy’s mother was cook at the diner so the man and the boy drove there and sat at the counter. It wasn’t long before the boy’s mother turned to see her son and the tale was told of the logging road and the ride back to the diner. She said, “The coffee’s on me. You take the mug with you. Remember what you’ve done. This boy is all I’ve got.”
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At the symphony, Mitsuko Uchida walked from side stage to the Steinway concert grand, bowed low, sat on the bench and raised her hands to the orchestra. Mitsuko Uchida would both conduct and play Mozart piano concertos. I was mesmerized. At intermission, two men in dark suits went to the piano, inserted a wrench into the workings, tapped a key, turned the wrench, tapped and turned until that one note was perfect. Of the 88 piano keys, one key was out of tune. With a full orchestra playing, I could never hear it, but Mitsuko Uchida did, and played on.
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Far, far away, deep in the outer reaches of space, another civilization lives on a planet much like our own … or not at all like our own! We will communicate with these people and tell them of an intense, bright star seen two thousand years ago in our eastern sky. We will tell of the manger, the birth, the Son of God who came and lived among us. The people of the faraway planet will say to us, “Yes! We, too, saw that bright star in our eastern sky and the Son of God came and lived also with us.”
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Long ago, Santa gave me a 250 piece jigsaw puzzle. I put it together on Christmas Day and found there were pieces missing. My mother allowed that we could return Santa’s gift at the local five-and-dime. The next day we went. There was a line. A sign said: “Your money cheerfully returned if not delighted!” This seemed too easy. What would happen if someone tried to get their money back when there was nothing wrong with their gift?” My mother said, “The storekeeper will say, ‘I was delighted with your money and I will not return a dime!’”
