Part 1: SIX DECADES

I had plans.

For a while, there seemed to be a lot of talk about tattoos. I was spending time with young artists then so maybe the heightened discussion was more about proximity than time. Occasionally, I would be asked if I had a tattoo or would I ever get one. Maybe; if I could think of something worthy of the pain and permanence. One day I decided, that if I were to get one (which I haven’t) it would be this, a simple sentence in maybe Courier or Helvetica: “BEST BY SUMMER OF 69”. Yes, a “best buy” date like on a carton of milk. I wrote a post about this back in October 2018.

Why the “summer of 69”? I graduated from high school in 1969, and still find that summer memorable and good. I’m sure I’m guilty of ignoring the counsel of Ecclesiastes (7:10):

“Do not say, “’Why were the old days better than these?’” For it is not wise to ask such questions.”

But as Bryan Adams sang in his song, “Summer of 69”:

Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Oh, yeah Back in the summer of '69, oh

Here we are in 2020 and I’m in the middle of the summer of my 69th year, speeding toward the completion of my 6th decade. I had plans to celebrate this summer. I actually designed a t-shirt for my grandkids for the “Summer Of Pops!”

Remember the “Summer of George” on Seinfeld? It was kind of like that.

And just as the Summer of George didn’t go as planned, the Summer of Pops was doomed by mid-March. Maybe all of this is punishment for my arrogance in declaring a summer of big ideas, fun and adventure for myself.

While my 69th summer has not gone as planned at all, in many ways it is shaping up to be one of the most memorable. I’ll admit to a heightened awareness of almost everything—the bad, the ugly and THE GOOD. I savor each rare time that we get to be with our kids and grandkids; friends and family.

Just the other day we got to spend time with Jeremiah who is in his first summer—truly a summer of firsts for him. He is beautiful, bright-eyed and curious. There were times I was sure he was going to give himself whiplash trying to keep his eyes on his big brother who was bouncing around the room like a pinball. Maybe that’s what I mean by heightened awareness—for all of us in some ways. We are seeing life through a lens we’ve never seen before, and feeling life as if all our nerve endings were on high alert—whether it’s our 69th summer or the 1st.

Part 2: SIX FEET

That’s the definition of “social distancing”. I can live with that. I am an introvert—confirmed by testing and analysis. So, all is well.

Probably the first store I will visit when and if I ever leave my house again will be a bookstore. I love bookstores. I love the quiet isolation. I don’t like it when someone comes down the same aisle I’m on. Virus or not, I don’t want to be within six feet of another person on a bookstore aisle. But that’s really more like physical distancing isn’t it; at least for me. Whatever it is, it creates a challenge to relationships that calls for a creative response.

For example, my mentor Doug Manning decided to offer a grief counseling group using Zoom, the online video meeting tools. Word spread and now he has a problem. People have raised their hands all across the land and even in Canada and Australia wanting to join in. How do you do a meeting across time zones? Apparently, Barbara Striesand was right: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

The social distancing I can deal with, even appreciate, but the relational distancing is weighing heavy. Let me explain. Maslow says one of the key psychological needs of us humans is BELONGING. I agree. Belonging is more than a membership card or knowing the secret handshake. Heck, I have an American Express card that says, “Member since 1989” which makes it one of the groups I’ve belonged to the longest, but I don’t know anyone there. I don’t know if us AMEX members have a team song or club meetings. It just doesn’t feel very relational.

I want to mention a couple of other groups I belong to in one fashion or another just to explore relationships and belonging a little more deeply. Let’s start with the family of my Amazing-Missus. Even before we dated I felt welcomed from the start. I was invited to eat meals around their table (which was an offer only a fool would pass up). Once I began to date their daughter/sister the welcome warmed into something else, a sort of acceptance, but not yet what I would call belonging.

We married young. I was afraid if I didn’t “put a ring on it” right away, she would see the light and send me packing. On our wedding day she was 18 years and 3 days old; I was 21. I’m pretty sure there were some in the community that were surprised that our 9-month anniversary came and went without news. “Why would E.J. and Betty’s baby daughter Arlene marry him, unless…”, must have been whispered among a few of the church-lady circles. Just to throw them off we waited eight years to have our first bouncing baby boy.

After the wedding, I felt officially like I belonged. The Cox clan are generous, grace-giving folks. Her siblings are my friends and I cherish their company, their wisdom and their sister. But even in family, belonging extends only so far. Although she has been a part of the family she and I have made for 48 years and was a member of her nuclear family for 18, that is still HER family. There is a bond there, it is beautiful and it is as it should be. I belong and am a part of the story until they start telling stories about their childhood days, then I step to the margins with the other brother-in-law and sisters-in-law. We’re okay with that. We’ve heard the stories so many times we feel like they are our stories too.

As I’ve said, I’m okay with the current definition of social distancing and some physical distancing. I could not bear relational distancing.

Part 3: SIX MILES

The other group where I BELONGED for a time was a community, an actual little town. You could draw a six-mile circle and pretty well include everyone with maybe the exception of a farmer here or there. There were some who said of this proud little community, “If you’re not born there, your not from there, and you’re never going to belong there.” That’s probably been said or felt about many tight-knit communities. If you can drive through the town cemetary and see only about six family names, you’re likely to live in the margins there.

A little more than a year ago, we drove to Dubach, Louisiana, to spread some of the ashes of my dad who passed. It was his hometown. We wanted to leave the ashes at the graves of his parents and some of his siblings. As is the case with many small towns, there were more headstones in the cemetary than actual living residents of the town. And in this one 90% of them seemed to be named “Fuller”. There were an equal number of Colvins, Hamiltons, and Smiths. (I’m using a new math here.)

Back to Hinton. We moved to the town of Hinton in 1991. I would be working at the bank, in a non-banking role, thankfully. But mainly I would be the youth minister at the Baptist church. A role I loved. Despite the conventional wisdom about not being able to BELONG if you came in as an outsider, we always felt more than welcome. It had little to do with me. My Amazing-Missus and our two sons put down roots there and added to the beauty of this community.

We now live beyond the six-mile circle, but a part of us will always belong there. That’s the way it is with relationships. They can withstand some geographical distancing as long is there is some tie that binds.

As I said, I can endure a six-plus-mile geographical distancing. I cannot bear the relational distancing. I need to be a better friend. To all those I’ve offended and hurt; I am sincerely sorry and in need of forgiveness.

Part 4: SIX DEGREES

You’ve probably heard about the theory of six degrees of seperation? Check this out from The Guardian:

In a world of 6.6 billion people, it does seem hard to believe. The theory of six degrees of separation contends that, because we are all linked by chains of acquaintance, you are just six introductions away from any other person on the planet. Recently researchers announced the theory was right - nearly. By studying billions of electronic messages, they worked out that any two strangers are, on average, distanced by precisely 6.6 degrees of separation. In other words, putting fractions to one side, you are linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances to Madonna, the Dalai Lama and the Queen.

You have probably said more than once: it’s a small world. You know when you’re talking to someone and you find out they know someone who went to school with your mom and…

Recently, I received a message from a girl I knew back in high school days. We went to different high schools but the same church. I haven’t seen her since those days. She messaged to ask about a relative of mine. I asked how she knew this person. Turns out she used to live next door to my uncle and knew him well. It’s a small world.

For all of our distancing, for all of our closing ourselves off and dividing into tribes, in all of the shrinking of our six-mile circles. It’s still a small world after all. It is still true that God SO loved the WORLD (whether we like them or not) that he became flesh and dwelt among us.

Part 5: SIX STEPS

Unless there’s a 12-Step program for pandemic gluttony, I’m going to strive for a Six-Step program of my own making. Surely I can manage that; one step at a time. Actually the first three of these come from Micah 6:8 in The Message.

Step 1.) Do what is fair and just to your neighbor.

Step 2.) Be compassionate and loyal in your love.

Step 3.) Don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.

Step 4.) Listen.

Step 5.) Consider the lillies.

Step 6.) Remember the story of the Sixpence.

Part 6: SIXPENCE: The Story

“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like.

“It is like a small child going to it’s father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.”

—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Mere Christianity

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SIX THINGS