CINDERELLA

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age
I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

LET’S TALK ABOUT CINDERELLA. Not the girl, but a place. Actually an old hotel.

POSTCARD OF THE CINDERELLA HOTEL. SHAWNEE, OKLAHOMA.

I don't know the history of the Cinderella Hotel. I could probably have done some research, but I'm not writing a piece for posterity here. And, I want to recall the Cinderella as I encountered her over the years.

Let's start with why she is on my mind. She has sat abandoned, except for a few homeless folks looking for a night's rest. Now, the word is that she will be bulldozed. This is the merciful thing to do.

What was once a lovely place to stay with all the post-war promise of a young, abused stepchild who has just met her fairy godmother, to a seedy place where the best business plan was probably to rent rooms by the hour rather than for the duration of a family vacation with “refrigerated-air” and a lovely pool.

My first experience with the Cinderella was as a mildly rebellious, young preacher's boy with a small bag of wild oats to be sown. Those oats grew into straws, one of which, but not the camel's back breaking one, was a "function" (read: dance) for the students of the Baptist university a bison's chip's throw from the Cinderella, a function that I may have had a hand in planning, which may now live in infamy.

Years later, our family which was scattered around Oklahoma, gathered at the Cinderella for a family Christmas gathering. By this time the old girl was showing signs of giving up. Like her glass slipper didn't fit anymore and her prince had lost interest.

A year ago we moved to Shawnee to become a burden to our children. We drive by the Cinderella often on our way to the dance studio and a little restaurant called, "Shawnee Pho" which is a favorite of our Grand-Girls, and sits next door to the Cinderella. We ate there just last night. As I always do, I glanced over at the dilipated, fenced off mess and remembered better days. After eating I cracked open my fortune cookie to discover there was no fortune inside. See where I'm going?

This morning, I saw the headline that the old princess will be plowed under. I don't know what will take its place. Maybe they plan to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

Remember this lyric from John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." Maybe I'll write that on a piece of paper, carefully insert it into a fortune cookie and throw it into Cinderella's remains along with the memories of vacations, honeymoons, ashtrays, COLOR TV, and paper ribbons that stretched across toilet seats telling us that it had been “Sanitized For Our Protection”.

I kicked off this essay with a stanza, my favorite stanza, from the song "I Am A Town" by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I don't claim to understand what Mary had in mind when she wrote it, but I can imagine a town like Shawnee and so many others singing it, if a town could sing a song.

Speaking as a Shawneeite, I'm excited that we have a new Taco Casa and Dutch Bros Coffee, but these don't do anything for the shell that was once a vibrant downtown. I wish it could vibrate again. I'm not counting on a visit from a fairy godmother or a decision by Joanna and Chip Gaines to make Shawnee their new home, bringing a truckload of shiplap and promise of rebirth, so, I'll offer this verse, taken way out of context, as a step:

"Also work for the success of the city I have sent you to. Pray to the Lord for that city. If it succeeds, you too will enjoy success.” Jeremiah 29:7.

Here's to old Cinderella. Thanks for everything. Sorry you didn't live happily ever after.

Please take time to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter's song. Here's a link and the lyrics.

I'm a town in Carolina
I'm a detour on a ride
For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side
I'm the last gas for an hour if you're going twenty-five

I am Texaco and tobacco
I am dust you leave behind

I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl

I'm the pines behind the graveyard
And the cool beneath their shade

Where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves

My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them

I am a town

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age

I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

I'm a town in Carolina
I am billboards in the fields
I'm an old truck up on cinder blocks, missing all my wheels
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and 'Southern Serves the South'

I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign, on the rural route

I am a town

Recollections

rec·ol·lec·tion |ˌrekəˈlekSH(ə)n| noun

the action or faculty of remembering something.
“to the best of my recollection no one ever had a bad word to say about him”
a thing recollected; a memory.

As I write, I’m listening to a song called “Recollections” by Miles Davis and band. It’s 19 minutes of free jazz and one of my favorites. I tend to be mindful of having a soundtrack to life.

This week I roadtripped to Nashville. I prepared for the trip emotionally and spiritually by listening several times to Loretta Lynn’s new record, “Full Circle”. The trip represented a sort of full circle for me. I was visiting Floyd and Ann Craig at their beautiful home in Nashville, AKA, The No-Agenda Retreat Center. Riding shotgun was my dear friend and mentor Doug Manning. Driving up from Atlanta to join us was my “brother” Gene Chapman.

For me this was a re-collection of people who have been there in some of the most pivotal times of my life. We spent hours recollecting and remembering the past better than it was. (As we’re apt to do.)

Back in the early 70s I was going through a crisis of faith and calling. Floyd was my go-to guy during this and he introduced me to Doug. If you’re interested in more of that story, I’ve told a bit of it in a post last year about this time. Gene and I met a few years later as I was seeking to live out my calling on the other side of the crisis. I've always felt I could be completely real with Gene.

Hopefully you get a sense of how important these guys are to me, as are the recollections that have rushed in through being with them again.

photo by Krystal Brauchi

I also hope that in the midst of the bunnies and eggs and chocolate and ham this weekend, you will re-collect your friends and families and that there will be good times of story-telling and recollecting.

Most of all I hope for a time of anamnesis for all of us.

anamnesis |ˌanəmˈnēsis| noun
(from the Greek word ἀνάμνησις meaning reminiscence and/or memorial sacrifice), in Christianity is a liturgical statement in which the Church refers to the memorial character of the Eucharist and/or to the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. It has its origin in Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me”, (Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:24-25).  -- Wikipedia

Anamnesis is just a fancy word for recollecting, for remembering, but that is powerful stuff. I heard a doctor speak one time about remembering. He explained that when someone loses an appendage, let’s say a finger, it is called “dismembered”. He said that when it is reattached it should be called “re-membered”.

That’s what happens when we remember: we reengage, we reconnect, we re-member and we recollect. That’s why families and friends gather and stories are told; to re-member.

At our No-Agenda Retreat in Nashville, we all gathered around a table for lunch in a restaurant. Floyd asked, “Do you all remember the way Grady Nutt used to say the blessing before a meal?” Grady Nutt was a special guy to all of us there. Grady, unfortunately died in a plane crash many years ago, but we remember him.

So Floyd led us in the blessing, just as Grady would have done. We all joined hands and Floyd said exuberantly in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “He’s done it again!!!!”

What a beautiful acknowledgement of the provision of God. It was so wonderful to re-collect and recollect.