Dismissals

As a policeman, I liked being an authority figure. Keys locked in the car? I was there. Laundromat dryer ate your quarter? I was there. I liked the old Plymouth with its red lights and siren, great for parades and funerals. I especially liked the “10 codes” on the police radio: 10-4 was “OK.” Everyone knows that. 10-13 meant “Officer stopped at Ruby’s Diner.” Then there was 10-36: “Officer in peril. All units respond.” I never called a 10-36 but I always appreciated that it was there. I wish there were a 10-36 in the church and in the world. When we hear it, we go, all of us, to the aid of the caller. Go in peace to love…

I like horses. I’ve been around some and they taught me a few things. When a horse is eating grass, he can see 360 degrees. His sole defense is to run and he has the lungs and the legs to go far and fast. If a horse is lame, you won’t see it in the legs but in the head that bobs to take weight off the sore leg. I like it that if you put a horse in a paddock with a goat, a rabbit or a cow, that horse will bond with whatever critter is there with him. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

The word “sober” is common. It’s the opposite of blotto. The certificate I received when I was ordained deacon says that I am to live a “sober life.” As with many old words, there is more to “sober” than not being three sheets to the wind. From Pope Francis’s Christmas Eve homily: “In a society so often intoxicated by consumerism and hedonism, wealth and extravagance, appearance and narcissism, Jesus calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

A letter to Michael, an inmate: “Dear Michael, every day I pray for you. As a deacon, I believe prayer to be powerful yet I am anxious when I pray for you and then turn back to my work or my diversions as if nothing more could be required. The least that is required is this letter, if only to tell you of my continued prayer for your wellbeing, to remind you that I remain your brother in Christ, and to let you know that soon I will be there to visit you.” Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

The Church sets December 26th to commemorate Saint Stephen, Deacon and Martyr. Stephen, accused of blasphemy, speaks truth to the Sanhedrin and arouses their ire. “They dragged [Stephen] out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”(Acts7:58) We know Stephen as the first deacon of the church. We know Saul as the Apostle Paul. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

Long ago, Christmas morning, we drove through snow to see great aunt Emily. Ninety years old, she sat in a rocker, Bible close by, sewing basket in her lap. Christmas cards covered the mantel and hung on ribbons all about the room. I stood before her. “Bring me a card,” she said. I picked one I could reach, a jolly St. Nick, and gave it to her. With sewing scissors, quick and precise, she cut around the picture of Santa and held it out to me. It was a small gift to a small boy, never forgotten. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

The old man is sick with cancer. I visit him from time to time but he barely says a word. I sit in his living room on a straight chair, he in his recliner, his son nearby. The old man sometimes nods at me, or he might drift off to sleep. I mostly talk with his son. The old man may know I’m there, or he may not. Now I have a Christmas card from his son with a note, “Dad loves it when you visit!” Maybe, but no matter. It’s a gift and I am grateful for it. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

My son kept bees in Hawaii. When he was around the bees, he moved slowly, replicating their calm tempo. My son called this “bee speed.” When I am out in the world, I tend to move quickly and too often have scant time for those around me. When I slow my pace, eyes meet, there is a nod and the acknowledgement of the presence of others. I am learning, slowly, to move through the world at bee speed. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

Recently, posted on Facebook, I saw the face of Sarah, the daughter of a friend. It was a mugshot, taken on what can only have been Sarah’s worst day, when all boundaries dissolved and Sarah had a meltdown of epic proportions … a day that ended with Sarah’s arrest for intoxication. Poor Sarah, on Facebook, arrested but not convicted, forlorn and hangdog, that photograph will circulate forever in cyberspace. I will have a word with the ‘poster’ about “doing unto others” and I will ask Sarah’s dad if there is some small thing I can do for Sarah … or for him. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

How many responses might there be to war? A century ago, my grandmother rolled bandages for wounded soldiers of the Great War. As she worked, idle conversation was forbidden, so sacred was the task. Recently, I read of Karim Wasfi, conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony. He plays his cello at the edge of bomb craters in Baghdad to engender “civility, beauty and compassion.” (NPR, June 8, 2015, via The Christian Century). Far away, in another land, nuns pray day and night for an end to all war. I was told of these nuns when I was a boy. By then, they had been praying without cease since my grandmother rolled her first bandage. As far as I know, they…

I needed a haircut so I stopped at a barbershop down the street. I took a seat, the only white guy in the shop. I gave the young barber a few instructions. He nodded and tentatively started in. At last he asked, “Do you want a part?” I have always had a part somewhere in my hair so I said, “Sure I do!” I heard the fine clipper and felt the furrow he cut into my hair along the side of my head, a narrow strip at a diagonal, nowhere near where I would put a part with a comb. I walk by that shop nearly every day. I wave to the barber and he waves to me. My hair…

In a small town, far away and long ago, I was a policeman. I was the Barney of Mayberry. From the day I was handed the keys to that old Plymouth police car, it went squeak … squeak … squeak. Try as I might to sneak up on malefactors, the car went squeak … squeak … squeak. When I asked the chief about the squeak, the old man said, “What squeak?” One day, tired of the squeak … squeak … squeak, I went to the Chief’s house to ask again if I could please get the squeak fixed. As I opened his screen door, I heard a squeak that put to shame anything that poor, old Plymouth could muster. It…