Dismissals

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…

I was at a table with scholars and theologians. The to and fro was arcane but lively. I said nothing until the topic turned to a practical consideration of what it might be like to live the ideal Christian life. I offered a rambling and imprecise paraphrase from G. K. Chesterton. I thought it germane but Wham! They were all over me, tut-tutting, correcting, parsing. I kept sinking lower in my chair until they moved on to some fine point of Greek. My pride was dented but I survived and now I want you to have the precise quote so that, when the occasion arises and you are in the company of academics discussing the ideal Christian life, you will…

If you have a flat tire, have it in front of Pete’s house. Pete will come out and help. Pete will hold the lug nuts so they don’t get kicked into the high grass. Pete will stand by the jack to be sure it’s secure then help you get the old tire into the trunk. When the job is done, Pete will be sure that the hubcap is on good and tight and invite you in to wash up. Keep an eye on the road in front of your house. One day, that could be Pete with a flat tire. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

I read aloud from the 13th chapter of First Corinthians: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.” As I read, I recollected a bearded man at a marble control panel with levers and rotating handles. God, from his cloudy realm, controlled my thoughts and my movements. I was a child and afraid. “When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” I am older now, and less afraid. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

His name was Luis. I sat next to him at dinner and thought him fussy when, with a frown, he picked the avocado from his salad and set it to the side. Later, he told me that he grew up in the slums of a city in El Salvador. There, overripe avocados fell from street-side trees and his family often ate them for lack of anything else. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Josh

This is a portion of the Confession of Sin, written by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, prayed at Kol Halev synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement: For the sin we committed before you … By not reading enough. By reading too much and not acting on our reading. By not serving our community. By serving our community and neglecting ourselves and our family. By having a narrow point of view and not listening to those who disagree. By listening to others always and not having convictions of our own. By chasing after material possessions. By thinking we are unworthy of owning nice things. By neglecting our dearest friends. By chasing friends and running away from ourselves. Go in…