No one has written music more like I imagine it better than Billy Joel. For me there is Johnny Cash, then Billy Joel, then Dave Matthews, and all other musicians have a long way to go to crack the top three. This title comes from a great song of his called And So It Goes. I am proud to tell you that Billy has a new box set out next week and has announced a tour next year!
You know what those three deserve permanent link status. I'm doing it.
This is a poem I wrote last year and reworked tonight while I couldn't sleep. Don't try to read too much into it. (Especially you mom) Am I this guy? Yeah, some moments of the day. I'm the guy he wants to be sometimes too. Hope you all enjoy.
When I Realized I Had Lost My Flavor
By J.D. Rose
The cinnamon had lost its flavor,
So I spit my Big Red into the bottom of the splatter guarded urinal
then remembered how much I hate people that do that,
fished it out, and washed my hands four times.
In the mirror I saw this broken man
washing his own piss off his hand.
Where did I go?
Somewhere between our first meeting and this moment
I had been sucked dry of all my charisma,
vampire bitten and relieved of my charm by a red mouth and green piercing eyes.
Now I was a man running late washing the waste off his hands.
The old me would’ve shaken his head at the new me.
He’d have used him as his motivation to work hard
lest he become that guy in the bathroom the other day-
The guy living the splatter guarded life afraid to take chances,
so conscious of hurt that he defends the urinal’s honor.
The one in remission.
The one so afraid of infection he washes his hands four times.
As I rolled the paper towel dispenser down,
ripped off three squares, and looked away from my reflection
I felt for the first time the full weight of all I had lost.
And it wasn’t you I wanted to see again.
Dec 2, 2005
Let me go. Don't give me the answer, 'cause I don't want to know. Just let my heart go on beating a little bit longer. I'm so young.
The title today is from a Randy Newman song called Let Me Go. My generation will know him from the Toy Story movies, but he's made some great music. Check him out by clicking the title.
Hello All. I've been in a funk lately. Too little sleep, too much to do, too many excuses for my too little motivation to overcome. I'll make it out. I just need a week or so to get back to myself. Wednesday was the first anniversary of the death of a buddy of mine up here in Fort Wayne who died pretty suddenly. I came across this piece I wrote in the days that followed and decided it was as good a way as I had to honor him. I talk about all the things he didn't do, but trust me a void was left. He was a good guy and a caring guy. I am proud to have known him. I noticed I write about heroism a lot. I wonder what that means? I'll get back to posting more regularly soon.
Life In The Meantime
By J.D. Rose (July 16, 1979- )
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the last few years in hospitals with people who’ve only been given a little more time. I’ve begun to use a phrase that I’m annoyed with, but have no other alternative to. I keep telling friends that I’m impressed when people decide to “finish strong”. It’s a phrase that comes out of sports I guess. My dad always told me to run through first base, to not let up, to finish strong. And as these people round third headed for home, I guess it’s all I can think to say to them.
“Finish Strong.”
I was watching video footage of Pope John Paul II (May 18, 1920- ) today following his tracheotomy and it occurred to me there aren’t too many authentic heroes these days. The same thought in a different form had flashed through my mind the night before when a teenager, who was five years old in 1994 was talking about how great singer Kurt Cobain (February 20, 1967-April 8, 1994) was. ‘Only the good die young’ would be believable if it were ‘mostly’ the good die young. This would make room for the good to live longer and other people less than good to die young as well. Or maybe that’s it, if you die young you get some pass and we don’t hold you to the same standard as someone that lives long. After all, if you made bad choices they were simply youthful indiscretions, and you didn’t have a chance to grow into a mature human being. I fully contend that Elvis Presley (January 8, 1935-August 16, 1977), had he lived until old age, would have been the first Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958- ). The same could be said for JFK (May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963) and Bill Clinton (August 19, 1946- ). But as I watched the 84 year-old Parkinson ridden, deathly ill for his sixth consecutive year, smiling, barely interpretable, barely mobile Pope get wheeled away from his window I wondered what young rebel will blow his brains out tonight or drug overdose and be on a best-selling t-shirt tomorrow and claimed an icon.
In college we used to play a game on New Year’s Eve called the Death Pool. Every one put in a dollar, and named someone they thought would die the coming year. If that person died, and if he died before anyone else’s person, you won the pot. If no one died that was named, the pot was held for another year. I picked Pope John Paul II for four years from 1998-2001. In fact I was the odds on favorite to win each of those years, but lost once to my friend Jeff (January 20, 1973- ) who chose Yankee Joe DiMaggio (November 25, 1914-March 8, 1999) and two years later to my then girlfriend Kate (July 21, 1979- ) who picked Jack Lemmon (February 8, 1925-June 27, 2001) after my suggestion. After all Walter Matthau (October 1, 1920-July 1, 2000) had died the year prior and it only seemed fitting. The prize money was never distributed however due to our very bitter break-up and the next year I voted for her new husband instead of the Pope, and someone else picked a winner, but I never knew who.
When I first left for college, in August of 1997, my college roommates and I began the ritual of turning every death into a themed celebration. In September when actor Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1908-September 9, 1997) died we had a Rocky marathon and got drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon. In October when singer/songwriter John Denver (December 31, 1943-October 12, 1997) died we got two cases of Coors Light and made each other say “Rocky Mountain High” before each drink, because none of us owned any of his music. At the end of the first semester comedian Chris Farley (February 15, 1964-December 18, 1997) died and we called each other up from our homes and then drank some liquor with our high school buddies. Of course no one really remembers that these people died, and a lot of other famous people as well, and a few people I knew personally who weren’t famous. All any one remembers about the fall of 1997 is that philanthropist (?) Princess Diana (July 1, 1961-August 31, 1997) died in a mysterious car crash in a tunnel.
I saw video footage of her car being pulled from the tunnel, her and her boyfriend leaving a party the night before, every minute of her funeral, her son’s walking down the street with their goofy looking Dad. I listened to Jane Pauley (October 31, 1950- ) and Tom Brokaw (February 6, 1940- ) I think, talk about the regal way the royal family dealt with the death, and the fitting tribute her funeral was, and I couldn’t give a damn about it all. I just didn’t have any other option. It was on every channel, and has been on some channel in some form ever since. Meanwhile as I watched the coverage a small scroll at the bottom of the screen told me that nun, activist, Medal of Freedom recipient, Nobel Peace Prize winner, future Catholic saint Mother Teresa (August 27, 1910-September 5, 1997) passed away, and I was struck by the apparent lack of interest.
As I watched CNN that night, between Larry King’s (November 19, 1933- ) overbearing panel discussion about Diana I was given some information about Mother Teresa’s death and shown some video footage of her work in Calcutta. I was only slightly surprised when my roommate Matt (born sometime in 1979- ) came in and asked who that ‘old lady’ was on the TV. Somehow I knew he would know who Diana was, although couldn’t tell me a single thing she had done, except get married.
Later that school year Sonny Bono (February 16, 1935-January 5, 1998) would die and we’d plan a ski trip for the following weekend that never happened. Harry Caray’s (March 1, 1920-February 18, 1998) death prompted a three night Budweiser brooha that took us into Cubs spring training coverage on ESPN on a somewhat somber note. We joked that we should have a Star Trek party when Dr. Benjamin Spock (May 2, 1903-March 15, 1998) died on the ides of March and we threw a true Rat Pack booze fest for Frank Sinatra (December 12, 1915-May 14, 1998) at the end of the school year. Some were celebrated more than others by the media and I suppose we were selective too.
For some people that pass, there are Time covers and magazine articles and moments of silence. For a few their legends grow larger with their deaths and for a few their deaths seem to overshadow their lives. Everyone remembers lost loved ones in their own way. Sometimes they do this with alcohol in a dorm room. Sometimes a bit more publicly. Elton John (March 25, 1947- ) sang at Diana’s funeral and that song was one of the biggest hits of the winter. Few ceremonies were held in Mother Teresa’s honor until October of 2003 when Pope John Paul II beatified her in a large-scale ceremony in the Vatican City and may now be called Blessed Teresa by Catholics in prayer.
In America in 2005 we’ve turned dying into its own reason for living. We value those flames that get snuffed out even if their snuffing was their own self-destructive behavior. Occasionally, albeit crass, we put such deserved deaths under spotlight and thank the deceased for their singular contribution to society, namely their own removal from it. The best source of such celebration is the Darwin Awards, an annual book, and a website of the same name. The goal of the Darwin Awards is to honor those folks who naturally select themselves out of the gene pool, thus improving humanities collective chances. Here’s the most famous winner, taken from www.darwinawards.com .
Jet Assisted Take-Off
1995 Darwin Awards Winner
The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.
The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise. It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.
Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket. The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:
The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.
The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading
"How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT."
That’s the American Way; go out in a Wile E. Coyote (created by cartoon director Chuck Jones (September 21, 1912-February 22, 2002) in 1965) blaze of glory and the rest of humanity can eat shit if they want. After all what’s life worth if not for dying in a big way. For this Air Force guy dying of prostate cancer at seventy-five wasn’t a future goal. To think of it, it isn’t one of mine either, but I’m not looking to buy a rocket anytime soon. What is this need in us to die well? Why should any of us finish strong? We’re all going to finish.
I lost a friend in November at the age of 23. He wasn’t a rock star, or royalty, or clergy, or even all that interesting to be honest. He was an evangelical conservative Christian Republican, most of which I’m not. I’m certain he died a virgin. I’m certain he never had a girlfriend or woke up with a woman kissing his chest. He never passed out at a party or woke up at four a. m. beside the toilet. He probably never even smoked a cigar or called a 900 number and laughed after hanging up. He was just a good guy and so maybe the good do die young, but for what purpose? Should I be happy he died without having lived? Because I’m not. He didn’t finish strong, he barely started. And I’ll not cry that he died so young for the mere sake of tragedy, or that I miss my friend. I’ll cry because I want to understand if Ben Wiegman’s (January 14, 1982-November 30, 2004) life had any value at all. I’ll cry because I wonder if mine does. If all Mother Teresa gets is a scroll at the bottom of the screen I wonder what that says about her impact. Will Paris Hilton (February 17, 1981- ) who’s done absolutely nothing of value for society get a state funeral and will Tom and Jane come talk about how well the heiress’ family is taking the tragic news of her untimely ecstasy overdose.
What I have to carry with me are a few flashes of Ben at a karaoke bar, having his first rum and coke on my dime, golfing poorly, debating the 2004 election, consoling me afterward, talking about graduation, life after college, and life in the meantime. I want to say that his life made a huge impact on the world and I can’t even say it made a huge impact on me. I keep thinking about this damn Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819- March 26, 1892) poem:
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself,
(for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean
—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
I haven’t thought today about Princess Diana, Kurt Cobain, Elvis, or even Michael Jackson with all his recent coverage. In fact, had I not seen the Pope on TV he wouldn’t have crossed my mind either. Twice tonight I could smell perfume on a girl in my class that reminded me of Kate. I saw a picture of Joe DiMaggio on a Sports Century promo for ESPN earlier this week and I called and talked to Jeff. The program for Ben’s funeral was in my dressier winter coat and I wore it today to class and thought of him most of the time. I returned an email this morning to the hard rockin’ teenager who thinks Nirvana invented music. And as I head to bed I’ll pass pictures of my college buddies and my dad on the wall. First thing in the morning I have some hospital visits to make.
Maybe the world didn’t notice that Mother Teresa died, but I bet the people she fed did. I bet the men and women she saved and sheltered noticed, and now they have Blessed Teresa to pray to. I don’t know if it’s wholly accurate to say we each have a verse to contribute. It is certainly poetic, but I’m finding, and beginning to come to terms with the fact, that we really contribute a note at a time and the audience is almost always a small one. But if we’re all going to finish anyway someday, why not make it strong? Why not go out with a metaphorical bang, feeding and clothing your neighbor while you can. Life in the meantime; while we wait to be out of college, or to be picked from the commoners for higher things, or shot off into the stratosphere of fame and fortune and accomplishment, that is where the heroes are.
They are laying there bets down one dollar at a time.
Hello All. I've been in a funk lately. Too little sleep, too much to do, too many excuses for my too little motivation to overcome. I'll make it out. I just need a week or so to get back to myself. Wednesday was the first anniversary of the death of a buddy of mine up here in Fort Wayne who died pretty suddenly. I came across this piece I wrote in the days that followed and decided it was as good a way as I had to honor him. I talk about all the things he didn't do, but trust me a void was left. He was a good guy and a caring guy. I am proud to have known him. I noticed I write about heroism a lot. I wonder what that means? I'll get back to posting more regularly soon.
Life In The Meantime
By J.D. Rose (July 16, 1979- )
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the last few years in hospitals with people who’ve only been given a little more time. I’ve begun to use a phrase that I’m annoyed with, but have no other alternative to. I keep telling friends that I’m impressed when people decide to “finish strong”. It’s a phrase that comes out of sports I guess. My dad always told me to run through first base, to not let up, to finish strong. And as these people round third headed for home, I guess it’s all I can think to say to them.
“Finish Strong.”
I was watching video footage of Pope John Paul II (May 18, 1920- ) today following his tracheotomy and it occurred to me there aren’t too many authentic heroes these days. The same thought in a different form had flashed through my mind the night before when a teenager, who was five years old in 1994 was talking about how great singer Kurt Cobain (February 20, 1967-April 8, 1994) was. ‘Only the good die young’ would be believable if it were ‘mostly’ the good die young. This would make room for the good to live longer and other people less than good to die young as well. Or maybe that’s it, if you die young you get some pass and we don’t hold you to the same standard as someone that lives long. After all, if you made bad choices they were simply youthful indiscretions, and you didn’t have a chance to grow into a mature human being. I fully contend that Elvis Presley (January 8, 1935-August 16, 1977), had he lived until old age, would have been the first Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958- ). The same could be said for JFK (May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963) and Bill Clinton (August 19, 1946- ). But as I watched the 84 year-old Parkinson ridden, deathly ill for his sixth consecutive year, smiling, barely interpretable, barely mobile Pope get wheeled away from his window I wondered what young rebel will blow his brains out tonight or drug overdose and be on a best-selling t-shirt tomorrow and claimed an icon.
In college we used to play a game on New Year’s Eve called the Death Pool. Every one put in a dollar, and named someone they thought would die the coming year. If that person died, and if he died before anyone else’s person, you won the pot. If no one died that was named, the pot was held for another year. I picked Pope John Paul II for four years from 1998-2001. In fact I was the odds on favorite to win each of those years, but lost once to my friend Jeff (January 20, 1973- ) who chose Yankee Joe DiMaggio (November 25, 1914-March 8, 1999) and two years later to my then girlfriend Kate (July 21, 1979- ) who picked Jack Lemmon (February 8, 1925-June 27, 2001) after my suggestion. After all Walter Matthau (October 1, 1920-July 1, 2000) had died the year prior and it only seemed fitting. The prize money was never distributed however due to our very bitter break-up and the next year I voted for her new husband instead of the Pope, and someone else picked a winner, but I never knew who.
When I first left for college, in August of 1997, my college roommates and I began the ritual of turning every death into a themed celebration. In September when actor Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1908-September 9, 1997) died we had a Rocky marathon and got drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon. In October when singer/songwriter John Denver (December 31, 1943-October 12, 1997) died we got two cases of Coors Light and made each other say “Rocky Mountain High” before each drink, because none of us owned any of his music. At the end of the first semester comedian Chris Farley (February 15, 1964-December 18, 1997) died and we called each other up from our homes and then drank some liquor with our high school buddies. Of course no one really remembers that these people died, and a lot of other famous people as well, and a few people I knew personally who weren’t famous. All any one remembers about the fall of 1997 is that philanthropist (?) Princess Diana (July 1, 1961-August 31, 1997) died in a mysterious car crash in a tunnel.
I saw video footage of her car being pulled from the tunnel, her and her boyfriend leaving a party the night before, every minute of her funeral, her son’s walking down the street with their goofy looking Dad. I listened to Jane Pauley (October 31, 1950- ) and Tom Brokaw (February 6, 1940- ) I think, talk about the regal way the royal family dealt with the death, and the fitting tribute her funeral was, and I couldn’t give a damn about it all. I just didn’t have any other option. It was on every channel, and has been on some channel in some form ever since. Meanwhile as I watched the coverage a small scroll at the bottom of the screen told me that nun, activist, Medal of Freedom recipient, Nobel Peace Prize winner, future Catholic saint Mother Teresa (August 27, 1910-September 5, 1997) passed away, and I was struck by the apparent lack of interest.
As I watched CNN that night, between Larry King’s (November 19, 1933- ) overbearing panel discussion about Diana I was given some information about Mother Teresa’s death and shown some video footage of her work in Calcutta. I was only slightly surprised when my roommate Matt (born sometime in 1979- ) came in and asked who that ‘old lady’ was on the TV. Somehow I knew he would know who Diana was, although couldn’t tell me a single thing she had done, except get married.
Later that school year Sonny Bono (February 16, 1935-January 5, 1998) would die and we’d plan a ski trip for the following weekend that never happened. Harry Caray’s (March 1, 1920-February 18, 1998) death prompted a three night Budweiser brooha that took us into Cubs spring training coverage on ESPN on a somewhat somber note. We joked that we should have a Star Trek party when Dr. Benjamin Spock (May 2, 1903-March 15, 1998) died on the ides of March and we threw a true Rat Pack booze fest for Frank Sinatra (December 12, 1915-May 14, 1998) at the end of the school year. Some were celebrated more than others by the media and I suppose we were selective too.
For some people that pass, there are Time covers and magazine articles and moments of silence. For a few their legends grow larger with their deaths and for a few their deaths seem to overshadow their lives. Everyone remembers lost loved ones in their own way. Sometimes they do this with alcohol in a dorm room. Sometimes a bit more publicly. Elton John (March 25, 1947- ) sang at Diana’s funeral and that song was one of the biggest hits of the winter. Few ceremonies were held in Mother Teresa’s honor until October of 2003 when Pope John Paul II beatified her in a large-scale ceremony in the Vatican City and may now be called Blessed Teresa by Catholics in prayer.
In America in 2005 we’ve turned dying into its own reason for living. We value those flames that get snuffed out even if their snuffing was their own self-destructive behavior. Occasionally, albeit crass, we put such deserved deaths under spotlight and thank the deceased for their singular contribution to society, namely their own removal from it. The best source of such celebration is the Darwin Awards, an annual book, and a website of the same name. The goal of the Darwin Awards is to honor those folks who naturally select themselves out of the gene pool, thus improving humanities collective chances. Here’s the most famous winner, taken from www.darwinawards.com .
Jet Assisted Take-Off
1995 Darwin Awards Winner
The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.
The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise. It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.
Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket. The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:
The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.
The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading
"How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT."
That’s the American Way; go out in a Wile E. Coyote (created by cartoon director Chuck Jones (September 21, 1912-February 22, 2002) in 1965) blaze of glory and the rest of humanity can eat shit if they want. After all what’s life worth if not for dying in a big way. For this Air Force guy dying of prostate cancer at seventy-five wasn’t a future goal. To think of it, it isn’t one of mine either, but I’m not looking to buy a rocket anytime soon. What is this need in us to die well? Why should any of us finish strong? We’re all going to finish.
I lost a friend in November at the age of 23. He wasn’t a rock star, or royalty, or clergy, or even all that interesting to be honest. He was an evangelical conservative Christian Republican, most of which I’m not. I’m certain he died a virgin. I’m certain he never had a girlfriend or woke up with a woman kissing his chest. He never passed out at a party or woke up at four a. m. beside the toilet. He probably never even smoked a cigar or called a 900 number and laughed after hanging up. He was just a good guy and so maybe the good do die young, but for what purpose? Should I be happy he died without having lived? Because I’m not. He didn’t finish strong, he barely started. And I’ll not cry that he died so young for the mere sake of tragedy, or that I miss my friend. I’ll cry because I want to understand if Ben Wiegman’s (January 14, 1982-November 30, 2004) life had any value at all. I’ll cry because I wonder if mine does. If all Mother Teresa gets is a scroll at the bottom of the screen I wonder what that says about her impact. Will Paris Hilton (February 17, 1981- ) who’s done absolutely nothing of value for society get a state funeral and will Tom and Jane come talk about how well the heiress’ family is taking the tragic news of her untimely ecstasy overdose.
What I have to carry with me are a few flashes of Ben at a karaoke bar, having his first rum and coke on my dime, golfing poorly, debating the 2004 election, consoling me afterward, talking about graduation, life after college, and life in the meantime. I want to say that his life made a huge impact on the world and I can’t even say it made a huge impact on me. I keep thinking about this damn Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819- March 26, 1892) poem:
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself,
(for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean
—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
I haven’t thought today about Princess Diana, Kurt Cobain, Elvis, or even Michael Jackson with all his recent coverage. In fact, had I not seen the Pope on TV he wouldn’t have crossed my mind either. Twice tonight I could smell perfume on a girl in my class that reminded me of Kate. I saw a picture of Joe DiMaggio on a Sports Century promo for ESPN earlier this week and I called and talked to Jeff. The program for Ben’s funeral was in my dressier winter coat and I wore it today to class and thought of him most of the time. I returned an email this morning to the hard rockin’ teenager who thinks Nirvana invented music. And as I head to bed I’ll pass pictures of my college buddies and my dad on the wall. First thing in the morning I have some hospital visits to make.
Maybe the world didn’t notice that Mother Teresa died, but I bet the people she fed did. I bet the men and women she saved and sheltered noticed, and now they have Blessed Teresa to pray to. I don’t know if it’s wholly accurate to say we each have a verse to contribute. It is certainly poetic, but I’m finding, and beginning to come to terms with the fact, that we really contribute a note at a time and the audience is almost always a small one. But if we’re all going to finish anyway someday, why not make it strong? Why not go out with a metaphorical bang, feeding and clothing your neighbor while you can. Life in the meantime; while we wait to be out of college, or to be picked from the commoners for higher things, or shot off into the stratosphere of fame and fortune and accomplishment, that is where the heroes are.
They are laying there bets down one dollar at a time.
Nov 15, 2005
We used to dream about heroes, but now it's just about beating the system.
This lyric comes from a song I've been digging the last couple of weeks by a guy I don't think I've ever heard of named Guy Forsyth. Don't click on this title to see him, rather go to www.guyforsyth.com and go to Listen on his website and the first track you can hear is Long, Long Time-all the lyrics are pretty good/socially biting and definitely written by someone in my age range.
I see it in the kids I work with. I see it in my own defeated sense of which path to take sometimes. Life is hard work and heroes are hard to come by. I've been trying to find poems/quotes that lifted me up and inspired me. In looking I found and remembered this one from my childhood.
Casey At The Bat
by Ernest L. Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.
The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that.
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake;
and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake.
So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat;
for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.
And when the dust had lifted,
and men saw what had occurred,
there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey.
"Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand,
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone,
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew,
but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate.
He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
but there is no joy in Mudville --
mighty Casey has struck out.
For years I've known this poem and for years I've thought it was pretty depressing once I read it, on my best days just as a story without a happy ending and on my worst as a commentary for all of us, that more often than not we strike out-even when we seemed destined for greatness. And so it is that I came to find true solace in the following piece today as a companion to this one, as a telling of how true heroes get off the mat once they've fallen, and as a final peaceful ending-with redemptive teaching-to go along with the above classic. Check the beautiful video version out by clicking on the title of this blog or read the version at the link. That's right, from the minds at Johnnie Walker comes this uplifting sequel.
Once you've been there, lift your head up, and keep walking!
I see it in the kids I work with. I see it in my own defeated sense of which path to take sometimes. Life is hard work and heroes are hard to come by. I've been trying to find poems/quotes that lifted me up and inspired me. In looking I found and remembered this one from my childhood.
Casey At The Bat
by Ernest L. Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.
The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that.
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake;
and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake.
So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat;
for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.
And when the dust had lifted,
and men saw what had occurred,
there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey.
"Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand,
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone,
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew,
but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate.
He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
but there is no joy in Mudville --
mighty Casey has struck out.
For years I've known this poem and for years I've thought it was pretty depressing once I read it, on my best days just as a story without a happy ending and on my worst as a commentary for all of us, that more often than not we strike out-even when we seemed destined for greatness. And so it is that I came to find true solace in the following piece today as a companion to this one, as a telling of how true heroes get off the mat once they've fallen, and as a final peaceful ending-with redemptive teaching-to go along with the above classic. Check the beautiful video version out by clicking on the title of this blog or read the version at the link. That's right, from the minds at Johnnie Walker comes this uplifting sequel.
Once you've been there, lift your head up, and keep walking!
If I hide myself wherever I go am I ever really there?
Well, I've been away awhile, contemplating life and work and purpose and delivering a sermon that I expected to rattle the cages people were sleeping in. And it did. I didn't say many of the things they think I did, and I did say some things they didn't hear. This title is a line from a Barenaked Ladies Song. Check them out. And if you have time and energy and an open mind, read my sermon posted below. Some of it you've heard or read before. I was fully prepared to resign after they grabbed their pitch-forks and torches and ran at me. But God reminded me I don't have him figured out and I heard almost nothing but praise and honest reflection following. Hmm, hard to know anything isn't it? Special thanks to Chase for a Henri Nouwen quote that has been inspiring me about true saints, Laura for taking my call, Sean for his wise counsel, and you all for your prayers.
You know many of you get tired of the word change coming from me. I think it’s because you misunderstand me. You see when I speak of change I speak of changing this church, all churches, mankind even for the better. I see what could be and you see what could be lost. When I see your reaction to the word change I’m often left wondering if the river frozen over in winter still remembers it was once a raging current. I’m not trying to make you something you are not. I am merely trying to remind you of all that you could be. A few things happened this week that led me to the sermon I am about to deliver. I attended consistory Monday and left feeling discouraged and alone amidst a family torn apart. I had four conversations this week that made me feel like the wound inflicted here in this church was deeper than we had all even begun to realize. And I read this quote in a magazine, citing Dr. King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.I have always told you that I would use my time here in this pulpit to tell you what I had learned and share with you my perspective on events unfolding. I have prayed more this week than any week I can recall and slept as little as I have in many months. I stand before you one struggling to speak words of truth in a loving way. If you will allow me the next 15 to 20 minutes and really listen to the words God has laid on my heart, I offer up these thoughts with deepest humility to this family I have spent the last four years a part of.
Messengers of Hope
Written/Delivered by J.D. Rose
Delivered November 13, 2005
First United Church of Christ-Bluffton
2TI 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
I give you this charge: Preach the Word. Today I am offering my version of what Paul writes to Timothy here in the fourth chapter of his second letter to his young friend and protégé. The passage that follows this is Paul’s goodbye to Timothy, the oft-quoted passage about fighting the good fight and finishing the race. I know only a little about fighting the good fight. I know nothing of finishing the race. I’ve been in the first few laps of mine for many years. What I do know is a great bit about being called. Today I have come to call you. Specifically, balcony and assorted Youth below, I am here to call you. I am here to give you this charge: Preach the Word!
We live in a world we’ve made out to be the enemy. What awaits us beyond the walls of our homes and our churches is too often villainous and evil, too often narrowed to regions of safety and peril, and too often relegated to a status where it is no longer connected to the lives we are living and where we are living them. Indeed we make much of life an either/or question, often choosing extremes as the only two possible conclusions. Things quickly become either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, progressive or traditional, conservative or liberal-winners or losers.It makes life easier to separate the world in this way. When we can see the good and the bad around us we can more easily steer clear of sin and temptation. When we can identify those who are wrong we can remain apart from them in our rightness or at least in our less wrongness. But I’ve sat and listened to us speak in recent days and I’ve heard many of you ask the question What Would Jesus Do? And a few weeks ago a different version, What Will You Do With Jesus? But these questions too seem to separate us into categories of those who know the answer or those who do anything with Jesus at all. And while I would not suggest that evil doesn’t exist, or say to anyone of you not to use your head when heading into darker places that do exist in this world, I can also no longer allow this room of saints and sinners, each one of you each, to act like we’re not part of the problem. We’ve been running around here saying who is right and wrong, who belongs and does not, and missing the point I am afraid. The passage from the second letter to Timothy begins as a call to ministry and then becomes a reminder of how to minister: be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. Have we been correcting one another with patience? Have we been rebuking each other with careful instruction? Have we been encouraging each other? In the kingdom of God there are no winners and losers that aren’t also those who believe and those who do not.
Churches today wage war against one another while the imaginary world they’ve created grows blacker and whiter and the real world they aren’t ministering to grows only darker. First Thessalonians says we are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Why aren’t we winning over this world of darkness for God? Because we’re having too much fun fighting over the spoils of a war that Jesus would have nothing to do with. Let me say this. Jesus liked division when it mattered, but not in the way we’ve been celebrating it. Jesus looked at a man as one of faith or of none. Jesus saw one as faithful or unfaithful, as a believer or a doubter, as a follower or one still lost, as one blessed or in need, as one to minister alongside of or one to minister to. Did he say there were consequences to being on the wrong side of him? Absolutely, but he never passed by one he could minister to because he thought they were unsavable. And he didn’t put you or me or any church in charge of deciding who was and was not saved.
I believe for all of our best intentions we have become a church that wants to have all of Jesus’ authority, but none of his accountability.
Paul says to Timothy that the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
When I first read this passage I imagined the comfort some of you would find in hearing this. I imagined that many of you would draw a line in your head from the words of the accusations in this passage to the United Church of Christ. I am no UCC apologist, defender, or ambassador here. While it is not my place to decide, nor my preference to advise you, it is clear this church and the UCC are headed in different directions that are not compatible. And we can debate whether or not the United Church of Christ has sound doctrine and it would accomplish about as much as it has already. But Paul is telling Timothy, his friend and student, to beware of something far closer to home than what some outside entity believes or professes. He is warning Timothy, he is warning us, about the tendency in man to surround himself with people he agrees with. What challenge is there in never engaging one another in dialogue, never debating as brother and sisters do? And what form of Christianity is it when at the end of our debates we tout the score and name the losers? For too long the young men and women of this church, all men and women of this church, have been waiting for the moment when we could let go and get back to a life more normal, without division and without circumstances thrust upon us. For it is impossible to live through what we’ve been living through and not feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and dismay. And there are missing brothers and sisters that I don’t believe are coming back, and we are responsible for that regardless of our best intentions not anybody else. But for whatever reason we are here, we came today. To find God? To feel love? To be there for one another?
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place.
We are not inadequate and we are not helpless. If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith. You explain that Jesus would never turn someone away. You lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. The clouds have descended but they are leaving soon.
For those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
When I was 19, a college sophomore, a binge drinker, a high school football player turned party animal I came home for a weekend and found myself sitting in Sunday morning worship. That day a Professor from Eden Theological Seminary spoke at church, all about ministry as a vocation and what a seminary experience was like, and to be honest I tuned out most of it. But at the end he quoted Luke 17: 6 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it will obey you.” Then the Professor looked around the room and said that there were already those among us God was calling to the ministry, that the whole church knew who these young people were. He said that the church had given them a seed of faith and that a seminary would cultivate it and nurture it. And as soon the benediction was spoken I was barraged with numerous remarks that I was such a person. What a moment of awe and humility. My church family knew what I was, but they also knew what I could be. They encouraged me to become that.
To the young people in our midst who have known me I can only say that I could have never imagined you. I have still, but a mustard seed of faith and much of my faith is in you. I know very little about good fights, nothing about finishing the race, but I know what the Bible means when it says You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. That is the feeling one gets when he is fulfilling his call to serve God’s children. It is a poetic telling of the places God takes you to where you find strength from those unexpected things that surround you, like mountains and trees, and young people.
Paul says to Timothy and I say to you young people and all people here in this church, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Your ministry, what will it be? What gifts has God given you? Science? There is no better place for Christians to be than deconstructing the universe and finding God within it. Music? There is no better expression of the emotional depth of Man and his connection to God. Law? God gave us our law and His Truth remains the highest form of it. Will you write or paint or play your faith to life? Will you teach? Will you create something with your hands that can be put to use by mankind? Will you make something with your hands that inspires or challenges mankind? Will you be the one at the dying man’s bedside who displays faith in the last moments of a life spent in doubt? Will you serve mankind by doing his taxes, filling his prescriptions, delivering his mail, delivering his children, building his houses? Will you find a way to be a man or woman of faith in a world craving for good examples of them? And are any of you brave enough to stand here?
Are any of you brave enough to preach the Word?
I searched for the Filmore Theatre for 3 and a half hours. I walked over 6 miles in the wrong direction. When I finally found a little shop still open to ask for directions the reply to my question 'How can I get to the Filmore?' was the wide opening of eyes and the words 'You can't walk there. You need to call a cab.'
I did walk there, after walking another 5 miles in 90 minutes up and down massive hils. When I arrived I found each visitor to the Filmore is asked to take an apple from a large basket that sits in its opening hallway. This tradition stretches back to the Theatre's opening. I took an apple without hesitation and entered the theatre to see a large open room with a red curtained backdrop to a simple stage. Six large chandeliers hung above, lit purple. I looked around and people watched as I waited for the concert to begin.
This was San Francisco on a Saturday night. The concert I was about to see was Gillian Welch, a contemporary folk/bluegrass singer/songwriter best known for singing with Emmylou Harris and Allison Krauss on the 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' soundtrack.
As I gazed across the room I made two snap judgments. One-people in San Francisco are hip and fashionable. Two-I am neither hip nor fashionable. They wore clothes that pushed the edges, they had perfect hair, they had the coolest glasses. There were women in boots and skirts with little stylish glasses and cherry lips. There were men with leather shoes and perfectly cuffed pants and tight fitting black shirts and highlights. I looked like I'd ben beaten on the way in.
Being from the Mid-West the stereotype is that San Francisco is full of gay people. A claim which I found to be mostly true. It is also full of black people and Asian people, Hispanics and Middle-Eastern people. There is just more of everybody in a city and more of the marginal in San Fancisco. At this concert I would say about half the room was gay or lesbian at first glance. I knew this because of obvious signs like kisses and handholding and informing symbols like rainbows on t-shirts. And for the other thirty-eight percent I just assumed. I also assumed that this was a largely liberal room.
I stood there proud of myself for being there. I wear my open-mindedness like a badge of courage, however naïve I really am. I wondered what the folks here at church would think of the sight of this room. I bet the sight of apples being eaten en masse by gay urban liberals would've gotten the smoke rising in some of you, at least symbolically. The crowd near the stage started clapping, the lights dimmed, Gillian Welch and an accompaniest came out on stage. I was impressed by Gillian's voice and his guitar. These were great musicians. I stood there in the midst of these San Francicans and wondered if they got the same message I did from the songs I was hearing. One song in particular struck me as the lyrics were something like 'We've got to find a spiritual way to make it through these days..."
I stood guessing how many believers there were in the room and trying to discern if this was why I had found my way to The Filmore-to see how many people in the world needed God. Then Gillian announced this was the last song of the set and began to play "I'll Fly Away". I almost chuckled at the thought of a room full of gay urban liberals standing and cheering to a Gospel song. But then I heard the singing...
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.
It wasn't just a few, it wasn't the half I'd assumed was straight, or the slight majority I'd have guessed were believers...
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
It was the whole room. Standing there together singing...
When the shadows of this life have flown,
I'll fly away.
Like a bird thrown, driven by the storm,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
Louder than our Sunday worship service. This was the middle of the most liberal city in America and a group of the most liberal people in it were singing a closing hymn. And I got it. I was being shown something that I've always known is true. God belongs to everyone. And everyone belongs to God.
Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away.
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory,
I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
So I give you a new question, Where Would Jesus Go?If he walked the earth today where would he go, what places would he seek out, and who would he spend time talking to? If you think it’s this room you have not read your Bible well. If you think it’s any church of any name you are sadly mistaken. Those dark places that we don’t go, those neighbors homes that we are leery of, those regions of peril, and places of danger and wrongness, that’s where he’d be. He’d walk squarely into The Filmore and explain how it is one fly’s away. He’d seek out those that we have pushed out of our churches and our society and he would hold their hands and they would know a love we failed to show them.
This is why the church needs you young people, because we are failing too often. We need creative capable intelligent inspired committed called men and women to show up to our seminaries and we need them today. We need you because Jesus is not here to go into the dark places and share the light. We need you because we have been called to do so. We need you because the clouds have descended, but they are not staying. We need you to remind us how to live, with patience and careful instruction. We need you to encourage us. We need you to inspire us.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day. But what have we been speaking of? How did we get here with such good intentions?
Let us no longer hold ourselves inside, nor the world at bay. Let us go where Jesus would go and be who Jesus would have us be. Let the divisions end now. The one between winners and losers. The one between the world and the church: between us and them, between you and me. The one between the places we would go and the places God would have us go.
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place. I’m afraid not for all of us. My time is running short and I am not alone. I love the kids in this church, and if you doubt that, you don’t know me. And I cling to this small seed of faith within me, and I put most of that faith in them. I listen for God’s calling and I try to be who it is that I truly am as he made me-as he is making me still. So I stand in front of you, below a cloudy sky, and assert that God does not belong to any of us unless he belongs to all of us. I stand here with one hope left in saving this church-all churches-all of mankind.
Youth look at me. Church family hear me.
If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You’ve already begun I can proudly tell you. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith and you lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. Pity on you who have only heard me say change, and not heard me call this church to be better. I leave it to you now to make this place a rushing river again. Yes. The clouds have descended but they are not staying.
We need messengers of hope.
You know many of you get tired of the word change coming from me. I think it’s because you misunderstand me. You see when I speak of change I speak of changing this church, all churches, mankind even for the better. I see what could be and you see what could be lost. When I see your reaction to the word change I’m often left wondering if the river frozen over in winter still remembers it was once a raging current. I’m not trying to make you something you are not. I am merely trying to remind you of all that you could be. A few things happened this week that led me to the sermon I am about to deliver. I attended consistory Monday and left feeling discouraged and alone amidst a family torn apart. I had four conversations this week that made me feel like the wound inflicted here in this church was deeper than we had all even begun to realize. And I read this quote in a magazine, citing Dr. King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.I have always told you that I would use my time here in this pulpit to tell you what I had learned and share with you my perspective on events unfolding. I have prayed more this week than any week I can recall and slept as little as I have in many months. I stand before you one struggling to speak words of truth in a loving way. If you will allow me the next 15 to 20 minutes and really listen to the words God has laid on my heart, I offer up these thoughts with deepest humility to this family I have spent the last four years a part of.
Messengers of Hope
Written/Delivered by J.D. Rose
Delivered November 13, 2005
First United Church of Christ-Bluffton
2TI 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
I give you this charge: Preach the Word. Today I am offering my version of what Paul writes to Timothy here in the fourth chapter of his second letter to his young friend and protégé. The passage that follows this is Paul’s goodbye to Timothy, the oft-quoted passage about fighting the good fight and finishing the race. I know only a little about fighting the good fight. I know nothing of finishing the race. I’ve been in the first few laps of mine for many years. What I do know is a great bit about being called. Today I have come to call you. Specifically, balcony and assorted Youth below, I am here to call you. I am here to give you this charge: Preach the Word!
We live in a world we’ve made out to be the enemy. What awaits us beyond the walls of our homes and our churches is too often villainous and evil, too often narrowed to regions of safety and peril, and too often relegated to a status where it is no longer connected to the lives we are living and where we are living them. Indeed we make much of life an either/or question, often choosing extremes as the only two possible conclusions. Things quickly become either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, progressive or traditional, conservative or liberal-winners or losers.It makes life easier to separate the world in this way. When we can see the good and the bad around us we can more easily steer clear of sin and temptation. When we can identify those who are wrong we can remain apart from them in our rightness or at least in our less wrongness. But I’ve sat and listened to us speak in recent days and I’ve heard many of you ask the question What Would Jesus Do? And a few weeks ago a different version, What Will You Do With Jesus? But these questions too seem to separate us into categories of those who know the answer or those who do anything with Jesus at all. And while I would not suggest that evil doesn’t exist, or say to anyone of you not to use your head when heading into darker places that do exist in this world, I can also no longer allow this room of saints and sinners, each one of you each, to act like we’re not part of the problem. We’ve been running around here saying who is right and wrong, who belongs and does not, and missing the point I am afraid. The passage from the second letter to Timothy begins as a call to ministry and then becomes a reminder of how to minister: be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. Have we been correcting one another with patience? Have we been rebuking each other with careful instruction? Have we been encouraging each other? In the kingdom of God there are no winners and losers that aren’t also those who believe and those who do not.
Churches today wage war against one another while the imaginary world they’ve created grows blacker and whiter and the real world they aren’t ministering to grows only darker. First Thessalonians says we are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Why aren’t we winning over this world of darkness for God? Because we’re having too much fun fighting over the spoils of a war that Jesus would have nothing to do with. Let me say this. Jesus liked division when it mattered, but not in the way we’ve been celebrating it. Jesus looked at a man as one of faith or of none. Jesus saw one as faithful or unfaithful, as a believer or a doubter, as a follower or one still lost, as one blessed or in need, as one to minister alongside of or one to minister to. Did he say there were consequences to being on the wrong side of him? Absolutely, but he never passed by one he could minister to because he thought they were unsavable. And he didn’t put you or me or any church in charge of deciding who was and was not saved.
I believe for all of our best intentions we have become a church that wants to have all of Jesus’ authority, but none of his accountability.
Paul says to Timothy that the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
When I first read this passage I imagined the comfort some of you would find in hearing this. I imagined that many of you would draw a line in your head from the words of the accusations in this passage to the United Church of Christ. I am no UCC apologist, defender, or ambassador here. While it is not my place to decide, nor my preference to advise you, it is clear this church and the UCC are headed in different directions that are not compatible. And we can debate whether or not the United Church of Christ has sound doctrine and it would accomplish about as much as it has already. But Paul is telling Timothy, his friend and student, to beware of something far closer to home than what some outside entity believes or professes. He is warning Timothy, he is warning us, about the tendency in man to surround himself with people he agrees with. What challenge is there in never engaging one another in dialogue, never debating as brother and sisters do? And what form of Christianity is it when at the end of our debates we tout the score and name the losers? For too long the young men and women of this church, all men and women of this church, have been waiting for the moment when we could let go and get back to a life more normal, without division and without circumstances thrust upon us. For it is impossible to live through what we’ve been living through and not feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and dismay. And there are missing brothers and sisters that I don’t believe are coming back, and we are responsible for that regardless of our best intentions not anybody else. But for whatever reason we are here, we came today. To find God? To feel love? To be there for one another?
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place.
We are not inadequate and we are not helpless. If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith. You explain that Jesus would never turn someone away. You lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. The clouds have descended but they are leaving soon.
For those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
When I was 19, a college sophomore, a binge drinker, a high school football player turned party animal I came home for a weekend and found myself sitting in Sunday morning worship. That day a Professor from Eden Theological Seminary spoke at church, all about ministry as a vocation and what a seminary experience was like, and to be honest I tuned out most of it. But at the end he quoted Luke 17: 6 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it will obey you.” Then the Professor looked around the room and said that there were already those among us God was calling to the ministry, that the whole church knew who these young people were. He said that the church had given them a seed of faith and that a seminary would cultivate it and nurture it. And as soon the benediction was spoken I was barraged with numerous remarks that I was such a person. What a moment of awe and humility. My church family knew what I was, but they also knew what I could be. They encouraged me to become that.
To the young people in our midst who have known me I can only say that I could have never imagined you. I have still, but a mustard seed of faith and much of my faith is in you. I know very little about good fights, nothing about finishing the race, but I know what the Bible means when it says You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. That is the feeling one gets when he is fulfilling his call to serve God’s children. It is a poetic telling of the places God takes you to where you find strength from those unexpected things that surround you, like mountains and trees, and young people.
Paul says to Timothy and I say to you young people and all people here in this church, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Your ministry, what will it be? What gifts has God given you? Science? There is no better place for Christians to be than deconstructing the universe and finding God within it. Music? There is no better expression of the emotional depth of Man and his connection to God. Law? God gave us our law and His Truth remains the highest form of it. Will you write or paint or play your faith to life? Will you teach? Will you create something with your hands that can be put to use by mankind? Will you make something with your hands that inspires or challenges mankind? Will you be the one at the dying man’s bedside who displays faith in the last moments of a life spent in doubt? Will you serve mankind by doing his taxes, filling his prescriptions, delivering his mail, delivering his children, building his houses? Will you find a way to be a man or woman of faith in a world craving for good examples of them? And are any of you brave enough to stand here?
Are any of you brave enough to preach the Word?
I searched for the Filmore Theatre for 3 and a half hours. I walked over 6 miles in the wrong direction. When I finally found a little shop still open to ask for directions the reply to my question 'How can I get to the Filmore?' was the wide opening of eyes and the words 'You can't walk there. You need to call a cab.'
I did walk there, after walking another 5 miles in 90 minutes up and down massive hils. When I arrived I found each visitor to the Filmore is asked to take an apple from a large basket that sits in its opening hallway. This tradition stretches back to the Theatre's opening. I took an apple without hesitation and entered the theatre to see a large open room with a red curtained backdrop to a simple stage. Six large chandeliers hung above, lit purple. I looked around and people watched as I waited for the concert to begin.
This was San Francisco on a Saturday night. The concert I was about to see was Gillian Welch, a contemporary folk/bluegrass singer/songwriter best known for singing with Emmylou Harris and Allison Krauss on the 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' soundtrack.
As I gazed across the room I made two snap judgments. One-people in San Francisco are hip and fashionable. Two-I am neither hip nor fashionable. They wore clothes that pushed the edges, they had perfect hair, they had the coolest glasses. There were women in boots and skirts with little stylish glasses and cherry lips. There were men with leather shoes and perfectly cuffed pants and tight fitting black shirts and highlights. I looked like I'd ben beaten on the way in.
Being from the Mid-West the stereotype is that San Francisco is full of gay people. A claim which I found to be mostly true. It is also full of black people and Asian people, Hispanics and Middle-Eastern people. There is just more of everybody in a city and more of the marginal in San Fancisco. At this concert I would say about half the room was gay or lesbian at first glance. I knew this because of obvious signs like kisses and handholding and informing symbols like rainbows on t-shirts. And for the other thirty-eight percent I just assumed. I also assumed that this was a largely liberal room.
I stood there proud of myself for being there. I wear my open-mindedness like a badge of courage, however naïve I really am. I wondered what the folks here at church would think of the sight of this room. I bet the sight of apples being eaten en masse by gay urban liberals would've gotten the smoke rising in some of you, at least symbolically. The crowd near the stage started clapping, the lights dimmed, Gillian Welch and an accompaniest came out on stage. I was impressed by Gillian's voice and his guitar. These were great musicians. I stood there in the midst of these San Francicans and wondered if they got the same message I did from the songs I was hearing. One song in particular struck me as the lyrics were something like 'We've got to find a spiritual way to make it through these days..."
I stood guessing how many believers there were in the room and trying to discern if this was why I had found my way to The Filmore-to see how many people in the world needed God. Then Gillian announced this was the last song of the set and began to play "I'll Fly Away". I almost chuckled at the thought of a room full of gay urban liberals standing and cheering to a Gospel song. But then I heard the singing...
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.
It wasn't just a few, it wasn't the half I'd assumed was straight, or the slight majority I'd have guessed were believers...
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
It was the whole room. Standing there together singing...
When the shadows of this life have flown,
I'll fly away.
Like a bird thrown, driven by the storm,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
Louder than our Sunday worship service. This was the middle of the most liberal city in America and a group of the most liberal people in it were singing a closing hymn. And I got it. I was being shown something that I've always known is true. God belongs to everyone. And everyone belongs to God.
Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away.
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory,
I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
So I give you a new question, Where Would Jesus Go?If he walked the earth today where would he go, what places would he seek out, and who would he spend time talking to? If you think it’s this room you have not read your Bible well. If you think it’s any church of any name you are sadly mistaken. Those dark places that we don’t go, those neighbors homes that we are leery of, those regions of peril, and places of danger and wrongness, that’s where he’d be. He’d walk squarely into The Filmore and explain how it is one fly’s away. He’d seek out those that we have pushed out of our churches and our society and he would hold their hands and they would know a love we failed to show them.
This is why the church needs you young people, because we are failing too often. We need creative capable intelligent inspired committed called men and women to show up to our seminaries and we need them today. We need you because Jesus is not here to go into the dark places and share the light. We need you because we have been called to do so. We need you because the clouds have descended, but they are not staying. We need you to remind us how to live, with patience and careful instruction. We need you to encourage us. We need you to inspire us.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day. But what have we been speaking of? How did we get here with such good intentions?
Let us no longer hold ourselves inside, nor the world at bay. Let us go where Jesus would go and be who Jesus would have us be. Let the divisions end now. The one between winners and losers. The one between the world and the church: between us and them, between you and me. The one between the places we would go and the places God would have us go.
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place. I’m afraid not for all of us. My time is running short and I am not alone. I love the kids in this church, and if you doubt that, you don’t know me. And I cling to this small seed of faith within me, and I put most of that faith in them. I listen for God’s calling and I try to be who it is that I truly am as he made me-as he is making me still. So I stand in front of you, below a cloudy sky, and assert that God does not belong to any of us unless he belongs to all of us. I stand here with one hope left in saving this church-all churches-all of mankind.
Youth look at me. Church family hear me.
If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You’ve already begun I can proudly tell you. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith and you lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. Pity on you who have only heard me say change, and not heard me call this church to be better. I leave it to you now to make this place a rushing river again. Yes. The clouds have descended but they are not staying.
We need messengers of hope.
Nov 2, 2005
This is not that. I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown.
Title today comes from a woman I once thought I would marry, and the story is pretty much about her too. Click on the title, lyrics from Stay (I Miss You) by Lisa Loeb to see her website. I suggest going there now, so the audio from her site can be playing while you read this story, but do what you want.
I was at Lilith Fair, because I've noticed I'm around lesbians a lot, and because Jewel AND Lisa Loeb were appearing-two women who at the time were high on my list of future wives, but have fallen far since, as well as Emmylou Harris, The Indigo Girls, and Sarah McLachlan. (all great musicians, but not my type-and in a couple cases I'm not theirs!)
It isn't important who I was with. Let's put it this way I haven't spoken to any of the four of them in six years. But there were three guys and two girls and all three of us were trying to date the one girl, even though in retrospect the other girl was much cooler. It doesn't matter, because on that day I only lusted after one woman. (at a time-depending upon who was on stage)
Lisa Loeb was either first or follwed someone I don't remember now. She played a great little seven song set ending with her one hit to date at the time (and still) Stay (I Miss You). You may remember this song from the Reality Bites soundtrack or you may be too old to have seen that movie or too young to have cared.
Lisa is famous for wearing these sexy little glasses in front of her eyes, and looks kind of like the smartest supermodel or the sexiest librarian ever!
At the end of her set the PA announcer told us that Lisa would be signing autographs and gave us directions there. Without saying anything to my companions I ran from my lawn seat around the corner. I was at the top of a hill and the booth she was to be in was at the bottom. A massive line of quicker stalkers and agile would be lovers of Lisa had already formed and as Emmylou Harris was next, and I'd been the only one in my party who knew who she was I decided not to get in line.
But just as I turned around Lisa was headed right toward me on the passenger seat of a golf cart coming from the back of the stage. The cart was moving slow and I thought I could take the guy driving it, gun it, and drive away with Lisa, but instead I just put my hand out for a shake.
They came by slowly and seemed to almost stop, as they may have, because I'm kind of a human roadblock. Lisa was smiling through her cute glasses and I noticed she had beautifully full lips and perfect hair-which I never notice about anyone-and then she reached out her lovely hand and grabbed mine. I squeezed gently. Her hand was above mine, it was more of how a man offers his hand to a woman to dance than a handsake and if I had any guts I'd have kissed it though I'm certain I'd have been in deep for that. She was staring right at me and I said, "Great set." She smiled and this smile was worth whatever they'd have done to me if I kissed her, and said "thanks" and drove off.
I stood entranced, as I've only been on two other occasions. It was like a Dreamweaver moment from Wayne's World only the music was better. I watched as she climbed out of the cart and began to sign autographs. Now what happens next is perhaps the part of the story many of you will think I'm an idiot for. As soon as she had begun, she was finished. Now in truth, at least five songs were sung on stage while I stood and watched her sign autographs, and the entire line met her while I stared, but in my head this was the same second as when she sat down. They were just simply one moment. One dreamweaver of a moment where I fell in love from one touch and an extended look. And then, just as sweetly as she had arrived to the booth she climbed back into the cart and they drove off. I almost turned away to head back to my seat, but then I saw the driver make a U-turn and head back up the hill to me.
This time I know they stopped, she was almost giggling. I stood in the exact same spot I had been in, with the exact same expression on my face, and held out the same hand. This time she took it and held it, like one might do when talking to a good friend, she looked at me both impressed and disturbed and asked, "Weren't you standing here a while ago?"
Now, many answers rushed through my mind, from lies to half-truths, to pickup lines, to some backstory forming about a heart condition and how I had to take it easy which I thought might have gotten me a seat next to her in the cart and maybe even a visit backstage, but all that came out was the truth. "After you touched me I couldn't move." I said. She smiled now bigger than ever, worth the price of admission plus a million dollars, and adorably said, "That's sweet!"
This is the moment when I realized how pathetic what I'd said was. I couldn't move? What kind of lowly poor excuse for a lover was I? (for that's where my head had placed the stakes of my words)Like anything I could have said was that magical. She squeezed my hand, and turned forward, which is when I let go and the driver pressed the gas. I watched as as she headed backstage, looked around a minute or two at the folks watching me, and headed back to my seat.
I have only been entranced on two other occasions. How I wish that I could tell you my words then were legendary. How I wish I could tell you that they opened doors into physical and spiritual paradises. They pretty much both ended up this way-with me alone headed back to my seat.
I heard Stay (I Miss You) today and I just couldn't help but remebering this story. Perhaps we all have one entrancement that lasts forever, but I've fallen in love at least three times. Once all she did was touch my hand.
I was at Lilith Fair, because I've noticed I'm around lesbians a lot, and because Jewel AND Lisa Loeb were appearing-two women who at the time were high on my list of future wives, but have fallen far since, as well as Emmylou Harris, The Indigo Girls, and Sarah McLachlan. (all great musicians, but not my type-and in a couple cases I'm not theirs!)
It isn't important who I was with. Let's put it this way I haven't spoken to any of the four of them in six years. But there were three guys and two girls and all three of us were trying to date the one girl, even though in retrospect the other girl was much cooler. It doesn't matter, because on that day I only lusted after one woman. (at a time-depending upon who was on stage)
Lisa Loeb was either first or follwed someone I don't remember now. She played a great little seven song set ending with her one hit to date at the time (and still) Stay (I Miss You). You may remember this song from the Reality Bites soundtrack or you may be too old to have seen that movie or too young to have cared.
Lisa is famous for wearing these sexy little glasses in front of her eyes, and looks kind of like the smartest supermodel or the sexiest librarian ever!
At the end of her set the PA announcer told us that Lisa would be signing autographs and gave us directions there. Without saying anything to my companions I ran from my lawn seat around the corner. I was at the top of a hill and the booth she was to be in was at the bottom. A massive line of quicker stalkers and agile would be lovers of Lisa had already formed and as Emmylou Harris was next, and I'd been the only one in my party who knew who she was I decided not to get in line.
But just as I turned around Lisa was headed right toward me on the passenger seat of a golf cart coming from the back of the stage. The cart was moving slow and I thought I could take the guy driving it, gun it, and drive away with Lisa, but instead I just put my hand out for a shake.
They came by slowly and seemed to almost stop, as they may have, because I'm kind of a human roadblock. Lisa was smiling through her cute glasses and I noticed she had beautifully full lips and perfect hair-which I never notice about anyone-and then she reached out her lovely hand and grabbed mine. I squeezed gently. Her hand was above mine, it was more of how a man offers his hand to a woman to dance than a handsake and if I had any guts I'd have kissed it though I'm certain I'd have been in deep for that. She was staring right at me and I said, "Great set." She smiled and this smile was worth whatever they'd have done to me if I kissed her, and said "thanks" and drove off.
I stood entranced, as I've only been on two other occasions. It was like a Dreamweaver moment from Wayne's World only the music was better. I watched as she climbed out of the cart and began to sign autographs. Now what happens next is perhaps the part of the story many of you will think I'm an idiot for. As soon as she had begun, she was finished. Now in truth, at least five songs were sung on stage while I stood and watched her sign autographs, and the entire line met her while I stared, but in my head this was the same second as when she sat down. They were just simply one moment. One dreamweaver of a moment where I fell in love from one touch and an extended look. And then, just as sweetly as she had arrived to the booth she climbed back into the cart and they drove off. I almost turned away to head back to my seat, but then I saw the driver make a U-turn and head back up the hill to me.
This time I know they stopped, she was almost giggling. I stood in the exact same spot I had been in, with the exact same expression on my face, and held out the same hand. This time she took it and held it, like one might do when talking to a good friend, she looked at me both impressed and disturbed and asked, "Weren't you standing here a while ago?"
Now, many answers rushed through my mind, from lies to half-truths, to pickup lines, to some backstory forming about a heart condition and how I had to take it easy which I thought might have gotten me a seat next to her in the cart and maybe even a visit backstage, but all that came out was the truth. "After you touched me I couldn't move." I said. She smiled now bigger than ever, worth the price of admission plus a million dollars, and adorably said, "That's sweet!"
This is the moment when I realized how pathetic what I'd said was. I couldn't move? What kind of lowly poor excuse for a lover was I? (for that's where my head had placed the stakes of my words)Like anything I could have said was that magical. She squeezed my hand, and turned forward, which is when I let go and the driver pressed the gas. I watched as as she headed backstage, looked around a minute or two at the folks watching me, and headed back to my seat.
I have only been entranced on two other occasions. How I wish that I could tell you my words then were legendary. How I wish I could tell you that they opened doors into physical and spiritual paradises. They pretty much both ended up this way-with me alone headed back to my seat.
I heard Stay (I Miss You) today and I just couldn't help but remebering this story. Perhaps we all have one entrancement that lasts forever, but I've fallen in love at least three times. Once all she did was touch my hand.
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