Dismissals

Long ago, I started a business. Forty years later, I closed my business and declared myself retired. My work had required travel. My first foray was to a courthouse in Maryland to testify about my work … what I had done … and why I had done it. It was nerve-racking but ended well. My bill was paid in full. As I left the courthouse, I chanced to see a Sheaffer fountain pen in a stationer’s window … a gold nibbed beauty for seven dollars. I still have that old Sheaffer pen. I keep it handy for writing … and for the memories. 

A letter to Nick: “Yes, I am still a deacon! They’ve not yet defrocked me. And yes, twelve years on, I still write those weekly Dismissals. They all have one thing in common, though my Muse forbids me say what it is. I call them “Dismissals” because, when the Sunday service ends, the deacon dismisses the people: ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!’ (or some other dismissal, page 366, Book of Common Prayer). To write these little stories is a delight whenever the Muse deigns to visit … though often enough, I am left to my own devices.” 

Phil was 20 years older than I, a working man who joined the Navy in the aftermath of WWII. Phil crossed the Pacific on a Navy destroyer and spent three years in Tokyo. There, Phil studied and trained at the renowned Kodokan School of Judo. When Phil returned to these shores he opened a small Judo school, a dojo, in the basement of his home. I was one of his students. Phil was never much of a talker … he didn’t quote the masters or particularly want to talk about Judo. Phil was a listener … and that I learned from him.

In my old car … busy street … curb lane … windows rolled down … waiting for the light to change … she walked right toward me. Maybe thirty or so, she looked like she was on hard times. She leaned in the passenger window, “Hey, can you give me a ride?” I wasn’t born yesterday. I said to her, “I don’t believe I can.” There were two little packs of crackers on the passenger seat … my lunch for later. She said, “Can I maybe have one of them?” That changed my perspective. I handed her both of them. She said thanks and was gone. 

Mike was the first prisoner I ever visited … 24 years ago in the “Supermax” … the fortress-like prison in Youngstown for the “Worst of the Worst.” I visited Mike many times in that cold, hard place. A few years ago, Mike moved to a prison near Cincinnati where his mother lives. Mike hasn’t seen his mother since before his conviction. Still, Mike remains certain his mother will visit him. She said she would. Time goes by and she’s still not visited. When they talk on the telephone, she tells Mike she’ll see him soon. I’m beginning to have my doubts.

I was every bit of thirteen years old, standing next to my mother in a store, not but a few hundred miles from the north coast of South America. The store was a wonderland of high-priced, high-end goods from Europe. “Duty Free” said the sign. I was transfixed by a particular Swiss watch. I knew I could never have such a thing, but stared and imagined the joy of owning this watch. The sales person talked to my mother, my mother talked to my father, I left the store wearing that watch. I wear it to this day.

I was a young man at a wedding. Family came from far and near, dressed to the nines … adults and children … tuxedos and ballgowns. The orchestra played and we danced as we were able … waltz … foxtrot … jitterbug … except one young lady, about my age, hair in braids, a full white dress … a cane by her side. My father gently urged me to ask her to dance. I could not. My father went, bowed to her, said a few words, then took her onto the dance floor … the first of several dances … my father, dancing with the belle-of-the-ball! 

A sabbath meal was prepared and people came from far and wide … women, men, farmers, fishers, physicians, shepherds and Pharisees. There were the rich and there were the poor, the lame, and the blind. All came to this Sabbath meal and sat where they pleased. There were no high tables or low tables. When the time came for the meal to be served, a lone figure in an apron came to each and every guest, friend and stranger alike, offered them the peace, and washed their feet. Each guest, unsure at first, knew who it was who knelt before them.

I promised that I would serve all people … particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, the lonely and the lost … the good and the not-so-good … the Christlike and the convict. That’s a tall order and I do the best I can. Maybe I’ve made a difference but I’m not keeping score. I seldom see the effect or outcome of what I’ve done … but no need! This Kingdom will be built one brick at a time. I do have a maxim … spoken often by Martin Luther King, Jr. … and in the lyrics of Curtis Mayfield: “Keep on keeping on!”  

I’d known Owen for years. He worked odd jobs and drove an old car … a few dents but it always started. Owen wore clothes from a second-hand shop … a few patches but always clean. He lived in a small walk-up … took Sunday dinners at a modest diner … in every respect, a modest life. He told me that his father’s name was Owen … and his father’s father was Owen and way back there were men named Owen. I asked him why that name. Owen told me it was so no one would forget: “Own little and owe no one.”

Burl was the foreman and I was the youngest among several grizzled men. I was told to disassemble a piece of machinery. I wasn’t sure what the thing was but I was to reduce it, piece by piece, to its smallest parts. I whaled away … I cursed … I yanked … I hammered … doing my darnedest to show I knew what I was doing. Burl walked by. He barely slowed. He said, “You can drive a 3 inch nail with a two dollar hammer, but you’ll only ruin the hammer and annoy the nail.” I thought about that some. I still do.

These are trying times … a difficult road lies ahead. I am beginning to understand how to live with hope … whatever hope may be. Poet Emily Dickinson wrote: “Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.” These ethereal words brace me … carry me along … and so, too, the spiritualist Matthew Fox: “Hope is a verb with its shirt sleeves rolled up.” I walk the road that is ours to travel … I look aloft … perhaps to see hope perched in a tree … my shirt sleeves rolled up.