MY GOOD FRIEND DOUG

If you have had a conversation of length with me since the early 70s, you have probably heard me say something like:

- My good friend Doug says...

- My good friend Doug tells this story about...

- My good friend Doug wrote in one of his books...

Doug Manning was our pastor when we were newlyweds. And, he has been our "pastor" until his passing on January 27, 2025. The fact is though that he will continue to be our pastor as long as we both shall live--and maybe beyond. Our kids and grandkids have heard so many Doug stories; they're like an ingredient baked in to who we are.

I'm using the word "pastor" here in the sense of a shepherd, a guide, a spiritual mentor. I have been so fortunate to have had a few of that type in my life. The first was my father. Dad and Doug were both pastoring churches in Tulsa when they became friends. Doug spoke at Dad's memorial service. I remember the entire sermon: "We don't need a sermon today. If you are here then you knew Bill Fuller. And, if you knew Bill then you knew his life was the sermon." And he sat down.

There have been two times that Doug was also our pastor in a church leader role: in the 70s at Southern Hills Baptist Church in Tulsa, and then in the early 20-teens we started a church together in Oklahoma City. Doug wanted to call it "The Church of the Pissed-Off Baptists", but we figured we wouldn't be able to find a building large enough, so we went with Kindling Community. It was a wonderful, eclectic group with wildly and widely diverse faith views and worldviews, all focused on the exploring of ways to be followers of Jesus in the 21st century. It was amazing, and endured until Doug's eyesight made it nearly impossible for him to read and prepare.

It was the pastoring in between the church gigs that have come to mean the most to me. My Amazing-Missus and I met with Doug almost every Friday night for many years for dinner and to spend the evening discussing life. No subject was off limits.

When Covid forced all indoors, we started a group that met once a week through Zoom, the online meeting utility. I have long been fascinated by a group called The Inklings. They met regularly in a pub in Oxford, England. The members included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. We decided we would fashion our Covid-era Zoom meeting after The Inklings. We called it the Quarantine Tavern and although the pandemic has subsided we still meet nearly every Sunday night. Doug has missed the last few meetings. The cancer that had come on him with vengeance caused him pain and fatigue.

My last communication with him was a text he sent to me Sunday afternoon, January 26, just hours before he passed. In the text he told me the doctors had no good news for him and he ended with these words: "the cancer is back and it’s very very very, very growing very fast so Tuesday I have another CAT scan and Wednesday I have an appointment with him and then he made me go ahead and get an appointment with my another appointment with my radiologist so I don’t know where we are, but he did end up by saying I don’t think I can give you a good outlook or a good answer so that’s where I am. I’m not in as much pain. I’m happy I’m relaxed and I’m not bored a whole lot about anything, but I thought maybe the group should know where things are. Hope y’all have a good meeting tonight."

So this guy who has authored more than 50 books, traveled the world speaking on the issues of death and grief, is taking the time to tell a group of friends the truth and then wishing us well on a meeting he won't be able to attend.

I could go on and on and on, so I decided to boil it down to a Letterman-style Top 10.

Things I learned from Doug:

#10. Pay close attention.

#9. Listen carefully and deeply.

#8. When it comes to regrets, learn the lesson and move on.

#7. Hurt people hurt people.

#6. Barbara Streisand was right: "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world."

#5. Keep your cussing current.

#4. You can't behave your way into a relationship with God. You just have to believe and deeply hold on to the fact that He loves you and see what that does for your behavior.

#3. There's more good theology in "The Velveteen Rabbit" than is delivered in many pulpits on any given Sunday.

#2. Be wary of those who only quote scripture from the Old Testament and Paul's letters.

#1. Don't forget to write.

Let me say this about that last one. It is a line from the movie "Finding Forrester". It's about an older man and a younger one. They both want the best for each other. Their common ground is writing. Doug and I shared a love for writing. In the movie, the older man is going off on a trip and the younger one tells him, "Don't forget to write” - using the old line offered so many times in a farewell, but with the twist of holding one another accountable to write, to create, to strive to be a better version of ourselves. Often we would say goodbye, one of us would say, "Don't forget to write."

That is who Doug was to me. How can you not love someone who you know cares for you unconditionally? How can you not be broken hearted at their passing? It's selfish I know. But it's real. I hurt for his amazing family. They have generously shared Doug with me, My Amazing-Missus, and all the others he touched so deeply.

Doug was the last of a generation for me. It makes me miss my father even more. Now I'm the old guy for sure. I have no one left who is older that I can call on. But I do have the treasure of having had those people in my life. That's enough for now.

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For another union, a deeper communion
--T.S. Eliot

REMEMBER?

WHY DON’T WE CALL IT RE-MEMBERING?

I was listening to a medical doctor speak at a church. He was talking about the Lord's Supper or The Eucharist or Holy Communion or the Blessed Sacrament: the Christian rite (not "Right"). Christians believe that the rite was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the night before his crucifixion, giving his disciples bread and wine, referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many". Jesus told them to observe the rite regularly and to do it "in remembrance of me".

This medical doctor hinged his message on a key question. He set up his question with an example: when a person has an accident and loses a finger, we call that dismemberment. If we surgically reattach the finger or any dismembered appendage, why we don't call it re-membering?

Maybe we should. After all isn't that what remembering is? When we tell stories from our past, or look through old photos, or visit places we used to know, aren't we reconnecting; rejoining our present and our past.

Times like the holiday season are rife for re-membering. Indulge me. Last Friday, we visited Utica Square Shopping Center in Tulsa. Every year of my childhood included a Christmastime visit to Utica Square to see the lights, and wait in line for a chance to visit with Santa.

Most years we still make a visit there on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of this years visit. We're all there except Haddi and Everly who were spending the holiday with their dad. I truly missed them. A couple of notes on the photo: we should have known that the flood light shining on the nutcracker would have given a ghostly look to those in it's beam. Also, that tall building way in the background is St. John's hospital, where I was born, January 8, 1951.

My Mom saved the hospital statement from my birth, why, I don't know. Maybe as a sentimental keepsake or maybe to be able to say to the future son, "See, not only did I go through the trauma of childbirth for you but it cost us $82.00!" That's not a typo. The bill for delivery and three days in St. Johns was less than a hundred bucks. According to the Consumer Price Index calculator, $100 in 1951 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1,214.09 today, an increase of $1,114.09 over 73 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.48% per year between 1951 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 1,114.09%. Considering the price of having a baby these days, I was a bargain!

On our visit to Utica Square we took the whole crew to P.F. Chang's for supper. For what the meal cost, you could have had twins at St. John's in 1951. But! Strolling the sidewalks of Utica Square with the GrandKids in the warm glow of thousands of little lights, sipping hot chocolate or coffee: PRICELESS.

We stopped in at Santa's house for cookies. When he asked the boys what they wanted for Christmas, Malachi was still undecided. Jeremiah, the four-year-old, told Santa with solid confidence that he wanted a watch. Of all the years I sat on Santa's lap at Utica Square as a kid, I can never remember asking him for a watch, unless maybe it was one of those cool Dick Tracy walkie-talkie watches.

While I'm re-membering Christmases past, I have vivid memories of carefully researching and curating my wishlist. It usually started with the arrival of the Sears Christmas catalog around Thanksgiving time. Then, in the breaking days of December, the actual visit to Sears. Walking past a guy with a red bucket, ringing a bell, through the vast doors, there was the candy counter, brightly lit, the smells of chocolate and roasting nuts wafting through the store. On to the "Big Toy Box", which is what the marketing department at Sears called the toy department. I could watch the setup of running Lionel trains for hours. One year I got my own. Carefully putting that cantankerous track together, hooking up the transformer, and finally; movement and the smell of electrical current. Apparently re-membering includes, sights and sounds and smells too.

One of my favorite smells of the holidays was visiting OTASCO with my Dad. OTASCO, by the way, stood for Oklahoma Tire and Supply Company. The smell was a combination of new tires, fan belts, petroleum products and popcorn. At Christmastime, OTASCO had a great toy department. A Google search found me a catalog cover from back in the day. It's all there in a single drawing: Old St. Nick enjoying a cookie the little lad left for him. And, it looks like he's getting everything on his list: a teddy bear, a new wagon, a TV, a blender and a circular saw.

Listen! Did someone just say, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!"? Remember that book?

Don't worry. In the home of my childhood and that of My Amazing-Missus, in the childhood home of our two sons and in the home's of our GrandKids we remember the reason for the season. And we re-member with truth and light by telling The Nativity Story again and again. We hold on to the promise and commit ourselves to the pursuit of those words that seem so elusive: Peace on Earth!

Merry Christmas everyone from Pops, My Amazing-Missus and the whole crew. To all those who are spending Christmas without someone who was once with them, we pray that somehow the season and The Story will provide rich opportunities to re-member.

TO HAVE & TO HOLD

June 16th. Our day. That was the day the knot was tied, the vows were said, the cake was eaten. The day it all started was actually weeks and months before that. I don't remember it being an actual moment; more like an unfolding. We didn't shake a Magic 8 Ball. There was no Rock, Paper, Scissors, or coins tossed. There was a bit of ignorant bliss, romance, naivette, hormones, young love and belief that this was a match made in heaven. At least that's the way I remember it.

We didn't use the traditional vows in our marriage ceremony. We wrote our own and they definitely had an early 70s zeitgeist of peace and love to them, but they were sincere and have stood the test of time.

When I speak of traditional vows I'm talking about those that go something like this:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.

First, we didn't even know what "to have" and "to hold" meant. Next, we were kids. We were invulnerable to stuff like worse, poorer, and sickness much less death. Why bring all that crap into the celebration?

As I think about this anniversary of our wedding, I'm 52 years older and I still am not sure I understand what have and hold mean. I could guess; and I will before the essay is finished. All these years later I don't know that I would want those words in our vows if we were to do one of those vow-renewal things. That sounds so possession-y, like some kind of claim of ownership. Like maybe: "I promise TO HAVE control over you and TO HOLD you back from being your own person" or something.

I think my attitude has been marred by all the focus on that twisted theology that religious fundamentalists call "complementarianism". I would love to write about how I feel about it but I'm not going to let it be a dark cloud over my intent of writing a heartfelt sentiment about how blest out of my heart, head and soul I am to have been married to My Amazing Missus for more than half a century.

So, here's how I'm viewing and understanding having and holding. Let's start with the dark side of having/holding.

Remember poor old Peter? The guy that was known for eating a lot of pumpkin; so much in fact that he has been known for eons as Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater?

He had a relationship problem. Or, was his problem a wayward woman, or maybe he had signed up for a doctrine that somehow believes that wives are subordinate to husbands. The question that other men seeking submissive wives might have is: how in the world did he get her into that pumpkin shell and in what state was she in that he was able to keep her there "very well"?

Sometimes seeking to have and hold turns into an ugly form of possesion--dehumanizing another to the point that they exist only for the other's use: like a commodity.

Let me illustate with the this little excerpt from a newspaper article:

The drab free port zone near the Geneva city center, a compound of blocky gray and vanilla warehouses surrounded by train tracks, roads and a barbed-wire fence, looks like the kind of place where beauty goes to die. But within its walls, crated or sealed cheek by jowl in cramped storage vaults, are more than a million of some of the most exquisite artworks ever made. --New York Times.

I realize that it seems like I'm using an inanimate object: art, to try to make my point about being fully human, created in the image of The Creator. But think of it as representing something bigger. Let's call it "beauty". Somethings are just not meant to be KEPT. Having and holding are so much more than that.

Let me try it this way. If you are a parent or a grandparent, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, this next sentence will cause a burst of images and memories, joys and maybe a few sorrows, but sublime all the same. Ready?

We HAVE a new baby and I got to HOLD him.

Can you feel the honor in that? The joy? The desire to share the news.

Here is a picture of My Amazing Missus and me. It is moments after the birth of Jeremiah our youngest Grand. We are crammed in the window seat of the hospital in Enid, Oklahoma, with all of the other Grands, taken January 19, 2022 at 2:11p.

Had he been born a few weeks later the hospital would have been locked down because of the pandemic. Selfishly, I cannot fathom what it would have cost me emotionally to not be able to be there for that moment--that first moment of HAVEing a new grandson and HOLDing him.

That's what it means to me to have and to hold. Obviously I didn't HAVE him. His beautiful mom Brooke did all that work with steady support from his dad, Kyle. And, obviously HOLDing is more than physical, literal holding.

If I haven't made my point yet, then I'm a lousy point maker. It's just that if I were to tell my bride of 50-something years that I am committed to having and holding, I would want her to know it is all about cherishing and celebrating and sharing.

I understand the concept of one thing complementing another. I'm intimately familiar with peanut butter and jelly. But, in a true complementary relationship one thing is not subjugated to the other. That is an ugly distortion, and it is one that I'm vulnerable to. In fact, I've done that kind of crap to others. Hopefully I've haven’t justified it by being a christian, a male, old, white, democrat, introvert, bald, cynical, peanut butter & jelly loving jerk.

Happy Anniversary to My Amazing Missus. Like the old song says, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." I'm still here; to have and to hold from this day forward.

REMEMBERING AUNT BETTY

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Has a better opening paragraph ever been written? I've chosen to start this essay with it because it is in the spirit of what I want to talk about, but I don't have the ability or insight to craft a sentence like it.

A few days ago I stepped into a time capsule and whooshed back sixty years or so. In a little ghost of a town named Dubach, Louisana, we gathered with cousins to remember our Aunt Betty, Dan and Philip's mother and my dad's last living sibling. The night before her memorial service we gathered and told stories of childhood.

My cousin Dale said to me, "Do you remember that time we were playing Tag in the dark in Aunt Betty's backyard and you ran into the clothesline? It caught you right in the neck. Your feet went flying and you slammed on your back. We all stood around you, looking down to see if you were still alive."

I didn't remember it. Maybe I blocked that memory, but others seem as fresh as they did when we were just kids. Dubach was one of those places and the halcyon days of the late 50s and early 60s one of those times when we could run unfettered from morning to night with little to worry about; save a clothesline.

Remembering playing Tag? Did your version provide a homebase where you could be "safe" from the the pursuit of the person who was "it"?

Dubach, and more specifically, Aunt Betty's home, was a safe base. Aunt Betty took grace and eternal hope seriously. To a casual observer she might appear to have a side to her that seemed stern, strict, springing from a devotion to her faith. In reality she had higher aspirations for us all than we even had for ourselves. Make any sense? How about an example:

She was a fine musician. If you had the slightest interest in music (as I did), you would feel sort of a weird accountability to her to get it right. Dig in. Learn more. Practice, practice, practice because the art demanded it. For her, music was created by and was a gift from God. If you claimed to be a musician, you had a responsibility to honor that gift. I can't thank her enough for being my first and foremost teacher of music appreciation.

It was not just music, but in life that she expected the best. We were implored by her example to unrelenting devotion to family and faith.

Those priorities were the super glue that bound my father and his little sister. In the birth order of the six children of Chroley and Bernice Fuller of Dubach, Louisiana, Dad was fourth, Aunt Betty, fifth. Apparently, from stories we've heard many times, Dad saw himself as guardian and protector of his little sister. Later she became his spiritual and doctrinal guide.

Dad, being a Baptist pastor during a time before Baptist fell into the abyss of authoritarianism, sort of complied with the common beliefs and interpretations. One day years ago we were gathered. The subject of the role of women in faith came up. Mention was made of the current fad of religious leaders putting women in their subjective place. My Dad, who grew up with a mother who was a cornerstone in their local church and a sister who was the glue of that church, said, "I tend to agree with that view." His sister, my Aunt Betty turned from the kitchen counter where she was preparing a dish and said, "Brother! You know better than that." Turns out he did know better. He knew empirically and experientially that to view women as subserviant to anyone in the work of faith is untrue, unjust and ungodly.

A few years ago, My Amazing Missus and I were having dinner with my parents. Dad told us he and Mom wanted to talk with us about their last wishes. He said, "We've decided to be cremated upon our deaths." I was so surprised. This had never been mentioned in our many conversations on the matter. Where had this come from?! He continued, "We were visiting with your Aunt Betty on the phone the other night. She has been praying and reviewing scripture on the matter and has come to peace with a decision in favor of cremation for herself."

That settled that.

That's one of the things about homebase, that safe place from the "its" of life. There are trusted voices. People with high expectations for us but also a deep, abiding love that lets us try, and whether we succeed or not, they are there.

That's why even at 70-something, with the passing of my Aunt Betty, the ground feels a little less sure. The certain voices of my early life are passing. But we have their wisdom and spirits with us still.

After the service, a few of us cousins and spouses gathered at the cemetary in Dubach. There are so many headstones there with the "FULLER" name, that if that's your surname, you wonder how there can be any left. But, there we were, the kids who once ran around that little town, who ate at Aunt Betty and Uncle Steve's table. For a few moments, as the sun was setting and the mosquitos were beginning their attack, we were all at home base, safe, about to return to grown up life trying to outrun "it".