YOU'VE A GOT A FRIEND

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[FIRST. I had told myself I would avoid politics here on my blog as best I could, but some things need to be said. I wrote this for my personal journal—not intending to share it. Then I read it to a friend who said, “That’s not about politics. That’s about friendship.” He’s right. It is about friendship; my friendship with James and everyone who is a friend whether we agree or not.]

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FROM TIME TO TIME, someone will bring up politics in a conversation with me by saying, “Your friend James Lankford…”

JAMES, ME & OUR AMAZING MISSUSES

Then they try to move the conversation one of several directions: either they think I’m cool to have a friend in high places deadset on protecting us all from the liberals, or they want me to know that they know I have a friend whose fingerprints are all over the Kool-Aid pitcher in the Whitehouse kitchen.

Either way, it’s guilt by association. Why do we do that? I don’t think that I would assume that just because you might have been on a bowling team with Ted Cruz that you are a political nutjob or that his daddy and your daddy had anything at all to do with the Kennedy assassination. (He didn’t did he?)

James and I are friends. We don’t play tennis together or exchange recipes or vacation together. The only time we talk these days is if we happen to see each other at a restaurant, which hasn’t happened since last March, unless we happened to park next to each other at curbside pickup.

I got to know James way before his life in politics. In our early conversations, politics never came up. Here’s how we met. In the 80s, I worked as the youth ministry consultant for Oklahoma Baptist churches. During that time a movement began, known as the “conservative takeover” of the Southern Baptist Convention. The movement, in my view, was set to destroy doctrines that I believed to be not only right, but essential to a church that claimed to follow Jesus.

Not all people and not all churches were signing up for this takeover, but still, for me, in the role I was in; I couldn’t see myself continuing there. During this time I made friends with a guy who understood what was going on and could empathize with the dilemma. He was also a friend that could offer me a lifeline—a way to support my family and still have a ministry to youth. I took it!

After I left the Baptist convention position there was a time of transition, and ultimately they hired a guy for a similar version of that role. That guy was James Lankford. On a couple of occasions I would meet with him to talk about what work had been done, what the priorities were then and what they could be going forward. And that’s how we became friends—over a shared passion for teenagers.

Today we’ve both moved on. We’re too old and disengaged from youth culture to matter or make a difference. So, do we have anything left in common?

Here’s one thing: I would love to have James’ voice. I don’t mean I want to be a senator and be on Fox News. Just being an informed and conscientious voter consumes all the energy I want to give to political involvement these days. When I say I would love to have James’ voice, I don’t mean his words. Don’t get me wrong: James is smart, he is perceptive, and I believe he wants to represent Oklahoma well. But his words of late are not my words.

Please, let me try to navigate these next few paragraphs, knowing that my words will fail, but I’m trying to speak without alienating. I do understand the concern about the drift of our culture, the impact of “elites” and “fundamentalists”. I get the concern about globalization and cosmopolitanism. The desire of the evangelicals to explain declining numbers? I get that too. I hear the argument that people like Donald Trump seem to be necessary in order to reverse the perceived morphing of America. Here’s my question: At what cost? I’ve asked Senator Lankford this question many times.

I am not writing this to defend James or defame him. He is my friend. I do not agree with him on the best ways to solve America’s political and social woes. He and I talked early in his time as a U.S. Representative, before becoming a senator. I asked him how it was being a member of the House. He said it’s pretty much constant negotiating: I’ll support your deal if you support mine. A lot of listening to lobbyists and reading bills. Those are not his exact words, but close. I am fearful that at some point James could become a Politician—a Washington insider, a fortune seeker. I am fearful that is one of the worst things that can happen to our elected representatives.

When I say I would love to have his voice I mean I would love to have that deep, resonate bass voice, but I would not use it in unison with Ted Cruz to read “Green Eggs and Ham” or to join the chorus of his eleven who are conniving to overturn constitutional processes with their collective, elected voices. It sounds sort of like sedition—this challenge of state’s electoral votes on January 6. Please James, as one friend to another…

This is nothing new, I understand that. Many years ago, Will Rogers said:

“About all I can say for the United States Senate
is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”

Thankfully, friendship can survive politics. If it can’t; politics isn’t worth it, or the friendship wasn’t genuine to begin with.

Please don’t feel like you need to respond or explain to me how things really are. I’m old. I’m set in ways. I will remain unswayed. I am hard-headed, but not hard-hearted. Disagreement doesn’t diminish friendships for me. I will always call James my friend.

Now to quote Penny Wharvey McGill (O Brother Where Art Thou):

“I’ve spoken my piece and counted to three.”

Remembering

“Everything changes and nothing remains still. You cannot step twice into the same stream.”

— Heraclitus

LAST AUTUMN, my Amazing-Missus and I attended her high school class reunion. I wrote a bit about it.

While at the reunion I was visiting with a lady who had been married to one of my schoolmates. As we visited I was struck with a spell of melancholy. For some reason I have no connections with anyone that I went to school with. It’s not that I didn’t have friends; maybe I’m just not a good cultivator, which is a little weird to me because a role I truly cherish is that of being a creative catalyst—one who brings creative people together in collaboration.

But then a pop on Facebook, the social media thing. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you’ve been politically manipulated by it. A name I recognized was there on the FB, the name of a girl that I considered to be a friend in grade school, junior high and high school. Not a “girlfriend” though. Her sights were set much higher.

One thing lead to another and a few weeks ago, we met for lunch. Karla, Arlene and me. What a gift it was. She was able to tell me about many of our classmates. I felt reconnected somehow. And at the same time I realized that Heraclitus was right. You cannot step twice into the same stream. 

Karla told us there was a group of Trojan alum having a meet-up at the Methodist church if we wanted to stop by. So we did. We walked into the church and followed the signs to the Fellowship Hall. We could see through the open doors the group gathered. “This isn’t them”, I thought. “This is the church’s senior adult group.” And then it dawned on me. All these people other than me have aged, and come to find out, many are gone.

I dug out my old yearbook, from my junior year 1968, and scanned the pictures of my classmates, pausing on some to recall a memory or two. Some of these, I realized, I had sat in class with year after year and I knew very little about them. Missed opportunities no doubt.

The tradition back then, when the yearbooks were handed out at the end of the school year was to hand your book to others for them to sign. I read the entries in my book through a much older lens. For the most part, we didn’t look to far ahead: “Hope you have a great summer!” Some entries were nostalgic: “Well another year is behind us…” Some prophetic: “Stay just the way you are and you’ll go far,” words I’ve never seen on one of those motivational posters.

We didn’t know it at the time but things were simpler and yet they weren’t. 1968 is notorius for riots, protests, and culture quaking moments. But without the WWW, 24-hour news outlets, a strange innocence prevailed; or at least that’s the way I remember it.

On the 50th anniversary of my senior year, I wonder about the Senior Class of 2019. Are they having a good summer? Are they aware of the crap-storm in Washington D.C.? Do they care? Have the active-shooter drills at their school become as common place as the atomic bomb drills did for us? Is there a thread or two of innocence left? Is there someone writing words of encouragement on the flyleaf of their yearbook? 

If I could write a prelude of sorts in their yearbook, I might say something like this:

Make a new friend this year. Not one of those social media “friends”, but a real one, maybe one that is different from you: race-wise, sex-wise, faith-wise—you know, different. When you get together with your new friend, put away the phones and talk. Talk about the future, your fears, your faith.

Be creative. Make a contribution. Express gratitude. Do something that makes your palms sweaty. Pay attention—not just in class but to what is happening around you. Remember: “Everything changes and nothing remains still. You cannot step twice into the same stream.” — Heraclitus

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Just a note: I attended school at Jenks Public Schools through my Junior year, but transferred and graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

P.S.: Thank you Karla Newman Taber for being a friend.

What's Age Got To Do With It?

WHAT DO YOU GET when you put together a group of people ages 78, 64, 67, 41, 37, 82,  and 36?

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels.

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels

On January 15, 2016, Blue Note released I Long To See You, the profound new album from Charles Lloyd & The Marvels. The album finds the iconic saxophonist and recent NEA Jazz Master in the company of a new band featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz, along with his longtime quartet members bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland. The album also includes two remarkable guest vocal appearances by Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. — from Blue Note.

The release of this album alone is worthy of a blog post, but that’s only a small part of the reason I’m writing this.

My main point is to highlight the beauty of a multi-generational collaboration, and even more broadly, to acknowledge the power and potential of multi-generational friendships.

I came to this conviction first by seeing it at work in my own life, and then I began to notice it in all walks of life. As I have written before, I am a tested and confirmed introvert. My batteries are recharged in solitude. That’s not to say I don’t have close friends or that I enjoy spending time with friends. I do. But I prefer to spend that time with just a few at a time in a quiet, intimate setting like a coffee shop or bookstore. I’m not saying this is the way it should be, but it is what I prefer.

One day I just sort of noticed something about my friendships, or maybe someone pointed it out to me, but I can count on one of Mickey Mouses’s hands the number of close friends I have that are near my age. Most of my friends are much younger or older than me. I don’t know why. I have a theory or two. But, nothing certain. Maybe I don’t need to know why. I may know more by tomorrow sometime.

Tomorrow night, Charles Lloyd & The Marvels are playing at Jazz At Lincoln Center in New York. I will be there in spirit.

Tomorrow at Noon, I will be having lunch with some of my favorite people. One is 20-something, one is 30-something, one is 60-something and the other is 80-something. I plan to ask them how they feel about being a part of a multi-generational collaboration. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Fore Friends

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO TAKE A BIG LEAP!

The leap is from an episode of Seinfeld (one of his best comedic bits, in my well-tuned opinion) to a self-analysis on friendship.

In this bit Jerry and Elaine are at the counter of a car rental company, “Worthy Rent-A-Car.” Jerry finds out from the attendant that while he made a “reservation” for a car, they do not in fact have a car for him. He then explains their problem: they know how to TAKE the reservation, they just don’t know how to HOLD the reservation. Here’s a link to the clip on Youtube. Watch and enjoy.

SEINFELD ON HOLDING THE RESERVATION

Now for the leap—Get ready, set, JUMP…

I’m very envious of people who can not only MAKE friends, but they can also HOLD the friendship so to speak. Maybe you’re one of those who has friends from childhood or college. I don’t. I’m not whining about it, but I do wonder why some people seem to have lots of real friends (as opposed to the category of friends we’ll call Facebook Friends).

Don’t get me wrong, or assume I’m completely misanthropic and narcissitic. Maybe it just that I live with someone who sets a very high bar when it comes to having strong, beautiful, enduring friendships.

It’s not that I don’t have some friendships like that (you both know who you are). I blame it on introversion. I Googled “introverts and friendship”. I found lots of things like “5 Keys to this,” and “3 Steps to that.” All of it had to do with getting out of your shell and MAKING new friends. There was a common theme though: “Try harder”; basically. 

I love to play tennis, and I used to play at least a couple of times a week. You would think I would have been close friends with my tennis partner, but my partner was a ball machine, that just mindlessly, and relentlessly shot balls at me. It always won, so I broke the relationship off.

Guys, especially among us “men of a certain age,” seem to prefer golf. So I’m going to give that a try. So far, my play has all been on a driving range by myself.

Lawdy, Lawdy, I’m having a pity party. But I’m not in despair. Just saying, that if you don’t mind playing golf with someone who might throw clubs and say bad words, give me a call. But, if it doesn’t blossom into friendship, know this: it’s me, not you.