Praytell

Monday, November 16, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

It was five years ago that Connie knew what should, could and might even happen.  Rehabilitation had come to its end.  It had accomplished all it could accomplish.  There was nothing more they could do.

For three months we had entrusted the future into their capable hands.

“Time is on your side,” one of the therapists had said to me.  On that last day, her words came home to stay.  Grateful for the insight, I had yet to understand just how long a time it would take to heal.

Connie knew, better than I did, that the thought of returning as fall-time pastor four months after the strokes was delusional at best, dangerous at worst.  But she also knew that although therapy came to an end, life, purpose, and hope did not.  There had to be something to do.

She went to the neuropsychologist, David Gumm, PhD, who had overseen my rehabilitation.

“Would you write a book with Larry?” she asked him. She thought it would give purpose, hope, and some small way to give back to those who had given so very much to our lives.

“Sure,” he said.  “Let’s do it.”

I went to St. Vincent’s hopsital in Billings, Montana, every Friday to meet with the group of TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and stroke patients.  David and I decided to meet for lunch each Friday.  An apple or maybe a peanut butter sandwich in his office sufficed just fine.  After lunch we met with “group.”

And so Over My Head began.

The chronicling of what happened began to find its way to the page.

So, of course, did the editing process.  So much of the early writing was confused, dreamy.  So many times my lines and thoughts snagged on the same rocks, the same logs that tried their best to block the stream.  How many times could I try yet again to prove them wrong?  How could I write about denominational abandonment without trying to “get back?”  Never return evil for evil, I had said at the end of church for 20 years.  Could I do so and still speak the truth?

I kept writing.

Then I revised and wrote yet again.

For four years I assembled rewritten pages.  After a year or so I put them in a box and left them there.   I tried to find a publisher, to no avail.  I put the pages back in a box.

Last year, on the eve of their 90th birthdays, I opened the box and shared the manuscript with my parents.  They read it, wiping away tears.  They called, their voices full of emotion.

“Your book,” my mother said.  “Oh my.”

It was, perhaps, what any parent does regardless of the age of their son.  But I didn’t take it that way.

“I’m not sure it will make it,” I said.

“For Goodness sakes, don’t give up on it,” my dad said.

Rehabilitation is not a short-term proposition.  It takes years.  The only thing that can block it is a loss of hope.  And the only thing that can renew it is a resurgence of resolve.

This weekend, I wrote the final chapters.  I did so wondering, what I had perhaps left out, what had happened that I didn’t even know about, what should be added, and what should be cut?  Memory and truth, after all, are cousins–not twins.  I realized with a certain urgency that there is no reason to protect the words from the final editing my editor, Paul Nockleby and I will do.  At a deeper level it is time to trust them, time to trust the stories and love their shapes.  It is time to trust, once again, that the woman I love saw the future.”

And so, here we are, on the cusp of a new creation.

And, as you know, you are too.

Larry

Larry

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

As we assemble sacred space we are both constrained and freed at the same time.  The table is a table . . . not a chair . . . but any table will do.  The bowl of water is a font, but any bowl, any creek, river, or sea will suffice.

In the end, there is order.

When the clerk takes his or her seat in a Quaker meeting, everyone knows it is time for the silence to begin.  When the pastor says, “may the meditations of my heart and the words of my lips will be acceptable in thy sight, everyone knows the sermon is about to begin.  This order is a beautiful thing.  Like love, it has its own way but is nether rude nor arrogant in expressing that way.

So there we are.  The hubbub of getting the kids ready, leaving a messy kitchen, stepping on a potential argument or two, finding a place to park, wondering if the church will ever sort itself out . . . whew . . . it all somehow finds a place to settle.  “God is in this holy temple . . . let all the world keep silence before him . . . keep silence . . . keep silence . . . keep silence before him,” our choir sang when I was a child. The tune, the words and the meaning keeps flowing through me even though there will be more talking or singing than silence in the way we worship.

Be that as it may, here we are.  Which leads to a question:  Why are we here?

I have a basket full of ready answers.  It’s part of my life, it’s what people do, it pays attention to things that are often ignored.  And I’d like the church to work.  I want it to be healthy.  I want it to be caring, brave, alive, useful, meaningful, and not something I worry about.  I am, perhaps, a bit like Obama who just wants church to be church in ways that are meaningfully filled with justice, mercy and humility.

I’m well aware that may involve a committee.  Oh dear!  And so I’m on one.  How’d that happen?  Our committee  had been invited to reflect on what would make the church better, more useful, more meaningful, more inviting.  There is a place for discussions about “more,” but more often than not they tend to run out of gas or get a bit prickly.

It occurs to me that perhaps we should direct the discussion another way.

“Why do we go to church?”  I asked.  A moment of silence ensued.  A well of emotion and recognition gave itself to me.

“I go to church for the restoration of hope,” I said.  “After my strokes God left, and I had to leave the church I loved.  I lost hope.  And so for me, worship is a place, a time, and a way to restore hope.”  I can feel the emotion in the words.  What happens in worship is precious, essential, and pivotal.  I wonder for a moment if I have said too much. The strokes aren’t a secret but neither have I shared.

Maybe I should have remained silent.

But no.

I was and am not talking about the way I’d like the church to be.  I was and am talking about what worship that blesses an essential and elemental return of  hope.

And you?

Why do you go to church?  And what lies beneath your answers?  It could be a worthy discussion . . . one the table, the water, the food, the windows, the symbols, the pianos, the harps, the hymns, the keys, and the congregation are both waiting and eager to hear.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

This weekend I missed church.  That doesn’t happen very often.  I love the rhythms of Sunday morning.  Watching the dawn’s glow embrace the skyline, reading over the New York Times, brewing coffee, carrying it to a table wondering if I’ll spill it or not, and feeling the gentle thrill of actually being alive.  After my heart attacks I found myself awaking each morning saying almost without thought but with love, “I’m still here!  Still here!”

The words still flow through me, surrounding the coffee, the news, the shower, the clean shirt, the wait for the elevator to take me from the 22nd to the first floor, the unlocking of my bike (Geeze!  Nobody stole it!  Wow!) and the ride to church.  I suppose you could say it is all a prayer of thanksgiving that is sometimes inturrupted with words.

But not yesterday.

Over the weekend I realized I had a cold.  That may not seem like a big deal to you, but for me it is very unusual.  It has been five or six years since I’ve had a cold.  I tend to go for the “bigger deals” such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, eye surgeries . . . you know, real stuff.  I don’t get colds.  But I did this weekend.  I woke up wondering if I could get up, and realizing that I was the fringe edge of my strength.  So I didn’t go.  “It wouldn’t be wise to expose others to a cold,” I said . . . realizing within an instant that I used the excuse as a bit of rationalization.

All day long, I felt something was missing.

There were no prayers lifted in songs known as hymns.  There was no listening to the prayer concerns of others, no way to join in a circle of prayer for Joyce who had just been diagnosed with cancer, no offering, no listening to some word of scripture, no reflection on those words, no folding of the chairs and putting them back, no looking around the room with a sense of satisfaction that I now know perhaps half the names, but there are still many I have yet to meet.  Take that away and something is missing.

Years ago, Weavings magazine, published by the Upper Room, devoted an issue to the Sabbath.  A pastor and his wife came to the realization that they would not really worship and lead the sabbath at the same time.  Although I completely disagreed with that premise, I read their story with interest.  I apologize that I do  not remember their names.  But I do remember what they so beautifully wrote.  On Monday morning, they packed a light lunch and headed for the mountains.  Once there, they would hike until lunch.  Along the way, they did not speak a single word.  Instead, they let the trail, the stream, the sky, the hillsides, the chipmunks, the birds, the grass and trees speak to them.  At lunch they shared what they had seen.

It was a prayerful sharing.  They then returned home where they read the paper, answered mail, did some reading, and prepared supper.  Their sabbath observance restored their soul.

“We try,” they wrote, “to get the rhythm right.”

That line has stayed with me.  Sabbath is about “getting the rhythm right.”  When we miss it, we realize anew how very important that is.  Just a hike doesn’t do it; television doesn’t do it; shopping doesn’t do it.  Sabbath does.

“Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy,” God said.

Good idea, I say.

Very good idea.