STOLEN

IT ISN’T THE GRINCH THIS TIME. So, who or what is stealing Christmas and Thanksgiving and so many other treasured times and traditions.

It would be easy just to say: Covid. But New Zealand, much of Canada and others have shown Covid to be containable. That doesn’t matter though.

Here, where we live, who we are, virus spread has caused us to miss watching our Grandkids at the Hinton Fair, and piano recitals and dance recitals. You might think I’m being sarcastic. Nope. I actually love recitals.

Our kids have been wonderfully understanding. They know old Pops is old and wired shut after heart surgery a few years back. They have found ways for us to be with them in the safest ways possible. Through love, creativity, grace, frustration, prayer and cursing we’ve gotten from March to November.

I know, I know. Many will say I am stupidly overreacting. That this is not real, just made up and politically driven, or, as some believe, “we’ve turned the corner and it will just disappear soon.” I’m happy being a live and well stupid overreactor.

Each year we gather with our kids on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We eat, play, watch TV and live like we’re thankful, because we are, without taking that for granted. We all gather round for a family picture which we will have printed and sent along with our annual Christmas card to a long list of people, many of which probably say, “Why are these people still mailing Christmas cards and why do they think we would want a picture of their family?”

At some point, during holiday-time My Amazing-Missus will lay out for the kids an abundance of building materials (candy and frosting) and the basic structure so they can all make their very own gingerbread house. No rules. You get to make it just like you want to.

It is a beautifully free and creative process. It’s good that our clan is good at that because it is going to take some creativity to celebrate the holidays this year in a safe and sacrificial way. But if any crew can do it—ours can.

Here are some of the ideas we’re tossing around: Mimi (aka: My Amazing-Missus) is strategizing how to make a gingerbread house building kit for each our two groups: Corey-Kara-Karlee-Harper-Nora and Kyle-Brooke-Haddi-Everly-Malachi-Jeremiah. This year we’ll sit back and watch the fun on Zoom or FaceTime. Then when it comes bedtime we’ll rejoice just a bit that the kids are at their own houses high from all the sugar they’ve consumed that should have gone into the building of their house but went into them instead.

We’ll watch the weather closely and hope for an unseasonably warm day when we can travel to see them and spend time together outside. Maybe we’ll tail-gate around a fire, eat turkey hot dogs with chili, make s’mores and open gifts. Maybe we’ll sing a song or two and we’ll read that story—the one about where it all started; in a manger.

And that important family picture? In our bunch we have photographers, Lightroom experts, and one who teaches Photoshop for a living (along with a few other subjects).

We’ll be fine, and Thankful and Merry. Who knows? Maybe a new tradition will emerge.

L to R: Malachi, Haddi, (Jeremiah), Karlee, Nora, Harper, Everly

WAIT UP FOR ME

I’m not afraid of THE dark. I am afraid of dark. That darkness that comes with dishonesty, mistrust, deceit, hate, disease… I am afraid of that dark.

We heard glass breaking and a woman screaming. I was eleven or twelve. It was a summer Saturday night, just beyond dusk. We were probably chasing fireflys. The screams were coming from the house next door to my aunt and uncle’s. We went closer for some reason. At that point the darkness was our friend. Then we could see the flames. Her house was on fire. We ran for help. Soon the night sky was split with flashing lights and sirens. I did not want to go to sleep that night. I could still smell smoke and hear that woman. If I closed my eyes, whatever other terrors the dark held might come. Maybe it was a child’s dose of PTSD. I dreaded nightfall for days and weeks after that.

Sometimes I still do.

As I’ve written before, I got a close look at the late 60s. I was in Detroit during race riots and in Washington D.C. during Nixon’s innaugural parade. I saw what went on behind the scenes at that event. It was a rock-hard contrast to the celebratory facade on the party side of the parade.

But this; this divisivness, this dehumanization, this darkness. Is it the demise of the dream?

I’m not fatalistic. I may be a cynic, maybe an accidental malcontent but I’m not a doomsday soothsayer. I know “the darkness hour is just before the dawn”. God gives us proof of that at least 365 times every year.

Still, just as my twelve year-old self dreaded the dark after that fire, my 60-something self despises the Dark in this current dumpster fire we call 2020. But I know this:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

— Jesus

I know this empirically and existentially. I know it spiritually and faithfully, I know it for me and I know it for you. I know it in light and in dark. “Lord I believe. Help me with my unbelief.”

The story is told of Robert Louis Stevenson and his childhood fascination with lamplighters. Apparently back in the day of gas street lamps, a lamplighter, or leerie, would walk the streets with a ladder and torch, lighting the lights. Stevenson was a sickly kid and would stand at the window at dusk and watch the lamplighter. His father walked in his room one night and saw young Robert at the window. He asked him what he was looking at and Robert said, “I’m watching this man knock holes in the darkness.”

Louis would later write this poem.

The Lamplighter
Robert Louis Stevenson

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
Oh Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!

Verse can be so illuminating.

A man named John Claypool was an inspiration to me. I heard John speak several times and have read his books. John contended that every human needs two things for emotional and spiritual survival: light and warmth. Light he said is illumination—being able to see something clearly and honestly. Warmth he said is companionship—someone at your side.

Verse can be so illuminating. It can also be warmth.

Read these lyrics from a song by Amos Lee. In fact, read them out loud. Then put on your very best set of headphones and watch Amos sing the song on this YouTube video.

When you cannot get to sleep at night
Taunted by that new daylight
When you just can't sleep before the morn
And you do not feel reborn

Wait up for me
Wait up for me
I'll be coming home
So you don't have to be alone

When you're lost out in this world
And you feel you've come undone

Wait up for me

“I will not leave you as orphans. I am sending a comforter. ”

— Jesus

THE BEAST AND BEAUTY

SOMETHING GOOD WAS HAPPENING.
Then, there was an interruption, and it stopped.

A really interesting conversation was going on.
A louder, more agressive voice entered the room and it stopped.

A group of kids was having big fun making up a game of make-believe,
Until someone carrying some weight of authority said, “You’re doing it wrong.” It stopped.

I remember it well, a jazz band rehersal, the director was called out for an important phone call. He looked to the first trombone player. “Mr. Vernon. Take over.” Mr. Vernon was a high school kid like the rest of us but with a maturity and discipline that earned him a high level of regard and respect. He did take over. He lead one of the most influential sessions of jazz band I can ever remember and we never played a note.

When the director returned, he said, “Mr. Vernon, I thought I could count on you. I hand you the baton and you do nothing,” a presumption based on the fact that he couldn’t hear us playing from his office. I’m pretty sure though when he started us “from the top” after returning to the rehersal, he heard a quality of sound from us that he hadn’t heard before.

Sometimes things happen quietly, creatively, beautifully, but they get covered up by the loudest, brashest, heaviest presence.

I work for a humble CEO. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. He encourages leadership development. He’s not afraid to delegate even important leadership to others. Still; if a meeting is going on and there is good discussion with involvement from most everyone in the group, as soon as he walks in the room, it slows if not stops. It’s not because he’s overbearing or authoritarian. It just comes with the position. That’s just the way it is sometimes.

Other times though, people and ideas and creative processes and even humanity gets pushed to the margins by the loud, the arrogant, the jerk, the bully. And, the bully isn’t always a person.

In the spirit of If You Have Something To Say; Say It, for this little essay, I’m calling out a few bullies.

The first is politics. Don’t worry I’m not going to pick on your favorite candidate or politician. I’m talking about Politics en masse as the whole beast. There are so many wonderful things happening in our world right now—people are making a difference in wonderful ways, some are not seeking to alienate others, some are doing unto others as they would have others do to them. Scientists are working at an amazing pace to solve problems. Artists of all sorts are contributing in new ways. For example, here’s a link to a video of Bill Frisell (my favorite jazz guitarist) and his trio playing one of my favorite songs* on the streets of Brooklyn.

People are still trying, hanging in there, teaching and parenting and giving care, finding hope and being human—that’s what human beings do. But so much of it just STOPS; because the bully has entered the room, sucking all the air and energy and life out of it. Why have we let Politics get so big and slimy and pervasive that it blinds and darkens until we don’t even see our real selves anymore. Maybe it’s that we have placed our hope in Politics and politicans. Politics and politicians can not Make America Great Again—not him, not any of them. Politics can’t even make democracy great. It is a necessary evil. It cannot do what only SERVICE can do.

While I’m rolling, I’m calling out fundamentalist religion too as an out-sized force. For “christians” it’s almost as if Jesus never existed. It’s almost like he didn’t say, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.” Because the Imago Dei has been distorted beyond recogntion.

Contrast the persona of those who loudly proclaim themselves to be the manifestation of “evangelicalism” by virture of their political alignment with this (Philippians 2:2-8 The Message):

Do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!

Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

Religion can not do what only humble SERVICE can.

In case you’re wondering what happened under Mr. Vernon’s brief time with the baton as our classmate and leader that made it so effective, he started off with this, “Louis Armstrong said it best: “Jazz is music from the heart.” Then he said let’s talk about the contrasts between how we feel when we play jazz, when we’re with the entire band, marching in a parade, or when we’re playing the fight song just before the kick off a big game, or when we’re playing in the orchestra. If we approach all music the same, we’re doing it wrong. He was right. It changed the direction of that rehersal and made us a better jazz band.

Our director was a fine musician and educator. His style would have never allowed 15 minutes of a rehersal to be devoted to discussing how it feels to play music from the heart.

What if we could do something—not from political affiliation, religious dogma, suspicion of others, conspiracies, mistrust and hate, but from the heart? It’s happening you know!? We just can’t see it or hear or feel it because of; well, you know.

---

In My Life
The Beatles

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone, and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends,
I still can recall
Some are dead, and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more
In my life I'll love you more

BELIEVE

DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN YOU? I hope you do.

I know it’s important to have people who like you, people who love you and people who care about you. Lately though, I’ve been thinking how crucial it is to have someone who believes in you.

I did some googling, hoping to find a good juicy quote from someone I respect to help me make the point about how vital it is to have someone who believes in you. Weirdly, but maybe not surprisingly, the conventional wisdom—based on quotations from notables on this subject—seems to be that the most important thing is to believe in yourself. Here:

“If you believe in yourself anything is possible.” —Miley Cyrus

“When you believe in yourself and you believe that you're a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.” —Joel Osteen

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that makes you a winner right there.” —Venus Williams

“When people don't believe in you, you have to believe in yourself.” —Pierce Brosnan

Okay, Okay. I realize these select examples are not exactly T.S. Eliot or C.S. Lewis or even Dr. Suess. But I have a sinking feeling these would garner a few Amens.

I’m going out on a limb here and share an idea I’m mulling over these days. This probably won’t end up in a Google search of great quotes but here it is:

I’m not so sure you can believe in yourself if you don’t have at least one person of significance in your life who believes in you. —Pops

Not to brag; but I have many, well a few anyway. Without a doubt the person who has been in the stands cheering for me the longest is my Mom. She’s in her 90s now and I’m knock-knock-knocking on 70’s door. Her belief in me hasn’t always been rational or justified or realistic, but it has been unwavering.

As a kid, I aspired to be a great athelete. Mom, a former high school cheerleader at Okmulgee High, knew a thing or two about encouraging aspiring sports stars to greatness beyond their talent level and physical potential. She used to sing this song to us when we were kids:

You’ve got to be a football hero
To get along with the beautiful girls.
You’ve got to be a touchdown getter you bet,
If you want to have a baby to pet.
The fact that you are rich or handsome,
Won’t get you anything in curls.
You’ve got to be a football hero,
To get along with the beautiful girls.

Thankfully the song is wrong. You can also be a drummer in the band and be lucky enough to have an Amazing-Missus with curls.

No matter what we aspired to, achieved or didn’t, Mom was always a believer.

A friend asked me one time: what is your greatest fear? Without hesitation, I said, “Squandering opportunity and becoming irrelevant.”

I told my oldest son that the other day as he and I were talking about Life. He said, “I wouldn’t worry about that Dad. I’ve seen you reinvent yourself numerous times.”

That is so empowering and encouraging. Every time my sons or others ask me for my thoughts, I know they believe in me. And the older I get the more I’m able to see their maturity and wisdom, their quiet, solid leadership. I believe in them. I believe in their beautiful wives and our grandkids.

Since 1972, the person whose belief I trust and value most is My Amazing-Missus. Without a doubt, I believe one of the most beautiful things about our marriage is that we believe in one another.

Maybe one of the greatest gifts we can give someone is to believe in them. That’s one of the things I loved about working with teenagers for many many years. I wanted them to know that I believed in them. Of course, I wanted them to know that God believes in them. I know that too. But it sure means a lot when someone says it to you. Maybe that’s one of God’s best gifts—the people he places along our journey who believe in us.

If I can be honest, I’m in a real dilemma right now. As I’ve said, my Mom has always been there for us. Now the shoe is on the other foot. I believe in my Mom, that’s for sure. She is a fighter. She has fought back from so much. A few months ago, she had a fall—not her first. She has more articial joints than real ones. This time though she is fighting back alone. My Dad passed a little over a year ago. He was always there to encourage her. She knew he believed she could and should bounce back. With the pandemic we have not been able to visit her in the rehab unit. She has been on her own.

In her last evaluation from her care team, they reported that she will not be able to return to her assited living apartment which means she’ll be moving to the nursing home wing. Anyone who knows my mom knows that she clearly and emphatically stands on preferring anything to going to the nursing home. Last night she told me she asked the physical therapist if she would just put her and her purse on a bus to California.

I tried to explain to her that she can once again gain the strength and dexterity to return to her apartment and be safe, so we don’t worry about another fall. But, when I told her that we had packed up her stuff for storage…

I’m afraid that she has come to the point where she thinks no one believes in her anymore. She says things like, “We know that won’t happen, I’m not getting better again. I’ve done all that the therapists have asked me to do. I don’t know what else I can do.”

Now, believing in her will have to different. My mom is very social, she loves to visit with people and dig in to their personal lives. She has a way of giving people the idea that she believes in them, because she does—if they will let her.

Maybe I will say to her: Mom I know this isn’t what you wanted, but I believe you will find ways to make a difference in people’s lives just as you always have. I believe in you Mom.