He came to an evening service in Holy Week. I’d not seen him for quite a spell. After the service, we exchanged pleasantries in the quiet of the church, that we were getting on OK and spring was late this year. Then I asked him, “What brought you here tonight?” He said, “You remember that little kid used to run his toy truck up and down the aisle?” I thought maybe I did and said so. The man continued, “He’s in the choir now. That’s nice to see.” When he left, I was pretty sure I’d see him on Sunday.
Dismissals
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A faraway city where cameras and watches are sold for a song, I shopped for binoculars. An acquaintance said, “You must negotiate the price. I’ll help you!” We found a store with exactly what I wanted. The back and forth began. At last, the price agreed, I paid for my binoculars and we turned to leave. The proprietor said, “Wait!” He went behind a curtain and returned with two bottles of 7-Up, a straw in each. “For you!” He smiled and bowed. My crestfallen negotiator confessed, “It’s the custom. They give you a drink if they’ve won the negotiation.”
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Margot had a terrible illness but the cure proved worse. Long days at the hospital, painful treatments. Margot thought she could not go on. One low day in the course of Margot’s treatments, a woman asked Margot, “Would you like to go to church?” Margot said “No, thank you.” The woman said, “Well then, why don’t we just take a nice, long drive?” On Sunday afternoons, they went. They talked and looked out the windows and talked. Did you ever go for a drive and stop twice for ice cream? Margot and the woman did. More than a few times.
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In 1974, I hired on detailing cars at a used car lot. Morris, a salesman, was the only African American there. All day he stood by the glass door and watched the lot. Anyone pulled in to kick some tires, Morris went on out. Morris outsold the other salesmen and they hated him for it. I ask Morris how he did it. “I aim to sell one a day. Man can get by on one a day.” I quit that job and bought a ‘58 Dodge from Morris. Dodge’s long gone but Morris’s “One a day” is still with me.
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As a boy, I wanted to be a third baseman like Bubba Phillips and play for the Cleveland Indians. Bubba made it look easy but I struggled. For one thing, I am left-handed. A left-hander can’t make the quick throw to first. It’s awkward, ungraceful. No one ever told me that. Years later, my baseball career in tatters, I visited the rector of my church. I told him I was called to the priesthood. This elder looked at me for a long moment and said one word: “Deacon.” So it was. At last. Someone said something before it was too late.
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In 1932, my mother and her sister drove a 1924 Dodge south through the New Mexico desert on their way to Mexico. Steam came from under the hood. A man at a gas station said, “Radiator’s busted. Six dollars.” They paid and pressed on. More steam. The man with the tow truck said, “Water pump’s shot. Four dollars.” In Mexico, again, the steam. A mechanic in overalls smoked and listened intently to their long, sad story of the water pump and the radiator. He said, “The trouble is the radiator cap. It is my gift to the senoritas. De nada!”
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I have a photograph of my father and grandfather seated next to a ticker tape machine. They were stockbrokers. Someone has died and, as was the custom, both wore black armbands. My father smiles at the camera. He is young, not yet thirty, and he is confident. It will be alright. My grandfather, then 56, sits slumped. His eyes are watchful, as if to say, ‘the troubles are only beginning.’ The photograph, dated on the back, was taken eighty-eight years ago, months before the onset of the Great Depression. I have heard the stories and taken them to heart.
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In a rented car on the German Autobahn, I admired the BMWs and Mercedes as they passed me going well over 100 mph. I stopped for gas, figured out the pump and went in to pay. Behind the counter, magazines, for all to see, showing men and women in various states of undress. I remarked to the cashier that in my country we would not see this at a gas station. The man shrugged. “It is true. I have been to your country. Here it is different. In Germany, we would not sell beer the same place we sell gas.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh
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It was a beat up box of electro-junk: A transistor radio, several remote controls, a cordless phone and a telephone answering machine. I opened the lid of the answering machine, blew out the dust and plugged it in. The red light blinked three times. I pushed “Play.” Beep … Oil change is done. Come get your car. Beep … Your video is in at the video store. Beep … “Hi! Josh! This is Mark …” A good message, a voice I knew well. Gone now. I do not recall if I called Mark back. Strange, that light still blinking after all these years. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh
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A man I know fought alcoholism for years. One day, inexplicably, it was gone. He never drank again. People doubted, “Must not have been much of a problem!” The man read in a scholarly journal of another man’s remission: “After years of relentless drinking, he experienced a sudden liberation while simply walking down the sidewalk one day. He never drank again. When [the doctor] asked him to describe what happened, all he could say was, ‘On the way to the grocery store I discovered equanimity.’ It was a mysterious, unexpected gift. And after receiving it, one is never the same.” * Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh * Gerald May, From Cruelty to Compassion Through Personal…
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Yvette told about her twenty years cooking in the soup kitchen. Yvette peeled, prepped and washed the pots, ordered food and scrounged when there was a shortage, all for a bunch of folks who needed a good meal. What did she learn in twenty years? “I made it my business to bake a nice cake whenever anyone had a birthday. Now, there’s folks won’t say a word about their own birthday but some, let’s just say some folks have more birthdays than others. What I learned is not to worry whose birthday as long as there’s enough cake for everyone.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh
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Every morning I put my money on the counter at the big box drug store and Loretta hands me my own, personal copy of the New York Times. Last Monday Loretta told me, “My people’s house got blown down.” Tornados. Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Family home. “They been on that same land since the war.” I asked, “Which war?” Loretta said, “War of Emancipation. My great-great-grandfather built that house. It’s gone now.” I asked, “Will you go to Hattiesburg to see your folks?” Time off from work. Her old car. Hattiesburg so far away. “One day,” Loretta said, “I will.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh
