Praytell

Monday, September 28, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

There are seven chairs around the newspaper table in the lobby of our building.  Most mornings, sometime between seven and eight, each chair has its occupant.  The conversation is a mixture of gossip, joshing, talking about the headlines, passing the paper, holding it for a bit, getting some coffee and making sure others see that you’ve dropped in a quarter.  In other words, what happens here is exactly what happens at coffee shops across the world.

I love these circles because they reveal the two sides of our human nature.  On the one hand we can hardly wait to gather together and share the news.  On the other hand, these circles are not exactly easy to join.  Were you to accidentally occupy the booth that has been used by a group for years, you’d know it.  That is not a criticism, mind you.  I’m the same way.  “Glad to see you,” I’d say while I wondered, “Who are you?”

But this morning I had some news to share with Moses.  His recovery from the stroke and subsequent week in a coma, is coming along well.  We encourage each other.  I told him I was thinking of him when we were offering prayers for healing in our liberal progressive church yesterday.

“I’ve lived for a purpose,” he said.  “My debt is paid, now God has allowed me to tell what he has done.”

He then launched into quite a sermon, grounded deeply in his church experience which is so very different from mine–and yet they are cut of the same cloth.

“We’ve found a publisher for the book about recovery from strokes,” I said.  “The book’s been done for a few years now, and I was beginning to wonder, but as chance would have it I just happened to meet a publisher and the publisher just happened to meet me.  We talked, and the book will be out in January.”

“Praise God,” he said.

“I’m thrilled,” I said.

And then a beautiful thing happened.

“That’s great,” said one of the women.  “Who’s the publisher?  I’ve got a book too, I should talk with him.”

“Me too,” said another.  “I’ve got a book.”

“Me too,” said yet another.  Suddenly, everyone had books.  Sure, we all have stories but in the morning light around that small table our stories were books each one of which has the potential to say what nobody has quite yet said, so shine light on life in ways nobody has seen it.  Everyone has a book.

Were I the publisher, I might say, “Oh dear.”  Or one might say these days, “Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean you have a book.”

But I’m not a publisher.  I’m a pastor.  And every-one’s life is a book.  Each book has chapters, twists and turns, plots, themes, mysteries, foils, surprise endings, and, most of all, dignity.

Some years ago my father said, “Well, I’ve pretty much figured life out by now.  Problem is, nobody asks!”

He’s right.  But give us a chance and it turns out we all have books we’ve been writing for a very long time.

“I’ve got a book!”

“Me too!”

“Me too!”

“Me too!”

And guess what:

You do too.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The thought is improbable.  Some may even say it is impossible.  But today it arose again  This “it” has two sides.

One side notes that our world is not what it should be.  The litany of what is “wrong” is easy to recognize.  We have too much violence.  We are awash in too much greed.  We have problems getting bread to Darfur, but bullets have no problem getting through.  My list of complaint, and your list of complaint, are long.  We agree with the Jews who take mending the world was life’s appointed task.  There’s a lot of mending to be done.

But “it” has another side.

This morning, in my church, perhaps 50 of us gathered to hear a word of hope.  We gathered as if our prayers, our care, our community just might somehowactually balance the scale.  We gathered as through our hymns, annointing each other with oil or the laying on of hands just might, somehow, in some small way, provide an antidote.

We actually believed it. We are actually an antidote to the toxicity that surrounds us.  So are you.  We are all antidotes, even though we are aware of chemistry lessons that taught us years ago that too much antidote is nothing more than a new source of toxicity.  Be that as it may, we thought of ourselves as “antidotes.”

You did?

Yes.

Why?

Why not?  If we are not to be owned by the world that has torn itself asunder, shouldn’t we proclaim that we have hope for a better world?  Shouldn’t we name the healings we need and entrust them to the God of life?  And so we took the chance, believing and acting as though we were an antidote to the principalities and powers.  “Yes there is death,” we said.  “But there is also life.  And we will organize our lives around this life.”

Today no sermon was necessary.  It was more important to receive a drop of oil, more important to share the desired healings, more important to feel a laying on of hands, more important to trust in the sharing of  hopes and fears.  We cut the sermon.

But not the singing.

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand.

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

Trough the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light

Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

When my way grows drear, precious Lord, linger near,

when my life is almost gone,

Here me cry, hear my call, hold my land, lest I fall:

Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

It is unlikely our prayers, our songs, our drops of oil changed the way of the world very much.  But no matter.   Antidotes do what they can.  Every drop makes a difference.  It gives us purpose.  The Sabbath has gathered us, and centered us, once again.

Essence

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I am moving slowly this morning.

Actually, it’s called recovery.  It has been a useful, meaningful and productive week.  It might appear that I haven’t actually had the two strokes that nearly did me in.  But then there are times that become a bit overwhelming, and exhaustion makes itself known once again.  Those times have places known as stores, stores with scanner beeps, stores with Muzac that won’t cease, stores with an arrangements of items that seem to be a maze.  “And where would the corn starch be?” I finally asked one of the grocery store employees after walking the maze of asiles for half an hour or so.  And so, today is a day of recovery.  Someone wrote a book about strokes and entitled it “Slow Dance.”  The title aptly describes the years it takes for coherence to reappear, and multi-tasking to become a possibility.

But these slow days have their blessings that teach us much about life, faith, and perhaps even a measure of truth.

There is a solarium right across from our apartment.  Its high windows face south and give a beautiful panorama of the city.   It is a beautiful room.  I made my coffee, found the paper at the door and moved over into the morning light.

Our neighbor, Roy, who takes care of the plants, came in.  We talked a bit.  Did the news portend hope?  It did.  Did the news portent danger?  It did.  Back and forth, the waves of the ideal and the real broke on the shores of our lives.  I mentioned to him that my mother will be 90 in just a few weeks, and that my dad turned 90 last June.

“How are they?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said.  I wondered how much more to say.  They are fine, though the medical challenges of old age can’t help but take their toll.  It is comforting to know they have the help they need, and not so comforting to know more will be needed.

“They have challenges, but their spirits are intact!” I said, stressing the word “intact” with the exuberance I inherited from them both.  “Their essence is intact, their love of life is expressive and expansive,” I added.

Suddenly, two words and a memory ran through my mind.  The seminary professor took out a piece of chalk and wrote this word on the board during a church history class:  homousious.

It is Greek.  It meant, he said, “of the same substance.”  There were those who believed Jesus was made of the same substance as God.  Then he wrote another word which added a single letter to the strange sounding word changing it to  homoiusious.  Now it meant “of the same essence.”  These believers thought Jesus was basically made of the same essence as God.

You see how the words apply.  As we age, our substance certainly changes.  Our bones melt away.  If we have a brain injury, billions of neurons fall away.  We are no longer the person we once were.  But we are still of the same essence.  My mother the painter, the musician, the cook, her essence is intact.  My father the geologist whose closing lecture showed a picture of the earth to a class of  enraptured students who heard him say,  “It’s alive.  It’s alive!”  The essence of he who walked the mountains loving their rocks is also alive.

And so it is a slow day as essence once again finds its way.

As it is for me, may it be for you too.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I never expected to live here.  We sensed the time for change had arrived.  Could I survive a three-month course in Clinical Pastoral Education?  If I did, might it portend the possiblity of employment and an end to the exile of unemployment?  And so I took the train from Havre, Montana, to Minneapolis to talk it over with Fairview Hospital.  The program directors said they were open to the possibility of my enrollment.  I stayed in a guest room in an apartment building 40 feet from the nursing home where I’d be interning.   When I asked if there were any open apartments, it turned out there were and so handed over a deposit.  We’d found a place in Minneapolis.

I didn’t know a thing about the building or its people.  I didn’t know it was for the “elderly,” that many who live her are one step away from moving to the nursing home itself.  Nor did I know Catholic Charities referred many of its homeless clients to this building.  I didn’t know that when you get on the elevator the first thing you do is see how many walkers are already on the elevator.  I didn’t realize that “so and so died last night,” is a common phrase.  I didn’t know that the free dinners provided every so often by Augsburg College students are one of the few square meals some residents receive, or that Meals on Wheels spends an hour or so each day distributing meals to those who qualify.

But mostly I didn’t know the people I have come to love, care for, and appreciate.  They are neighbors, and what happens to them matters to me.  It is this happening that focuses the issues of the day.

I think of one who also survived a stroke, who shares that she too was “offloaded” by an insurance company, and now things are a “mess” as she tries to figure out what to do, how to do it, and what is going to happen.  Must fear always be a companion of vulnerability? I wonder.  In our country, it is.

I think of one whose insurance will not cover the test strips for his diabetes.  The strips cost six cents to manufacture, but are sold for a dollar.  Self-care is a good idea, but diabetes is a rich man’s disease.

I think of the woman who piles her walker with all kinds of stuff and wanders the building, going somewhere, who knows where, and am so thankful that she has a home somewhere in this building.  She is the epitome of the title of a book written years ago:  Where did you go?  Out.  What did you do?  Nothing.

I think of those whose husbands have died, and who maintain dignity, who will not be part of gossip, whose presence is reassuring, who take advantage of all the building has to offer and who are aware of its culture of complaint but rise above it.

I think of the man who finds scrap metal and brings it to his apartment and then sells it to make his rent, the ex-priest who misses his ministry, the farmer who planted beans in the flower well to the consternation of the flower club, the man who now cares for the solarium after its keeper from Guyana died a month or so ago.  These people and the story of their lives move me.

It was Christmas when we left Big Timber, Montana.  In my last sermon I preached the Christmas story.  We have stars to follow.  “We’re going to the North Star State” I said.  Here we go.

It has turned out to be an unexpected journey of love.

But then again . . . isn’t that what life it?

Monday, September 21, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I am still thinking about the South Carolina school board and the change of heart it took, many years ago, for a Ku Klux Klaner to begin actually working with a black member of the board.  It is too easy to say that “need” produced “change.”  The need for health care of some kind is a given.  But that need hasn’t produced change.  Senators need to work with each other.  But that hasn’t produced change either.

So what does?

Perhaps vulnerability is the key word.  It is not a word we like.  It is not good to be vulnerable.  One must watch one’s guard.  One must not be outflanked.  We read a certain helplessness into the word.  Nobody wants to be vulnerable.  But it may be an essential part of change.

“I did that?  Well, I guess I did, I’m sorry to say.  What was I thinking?  I guess I was wrong.”  Each phrase speaks of vulnerability to a larger truth that appears only when we stop defending ourselves.

If you’ve been reading these columns, you know I’m headed for a story.  I do not know if it is true.  If it isn’t it should be.  And I don’t remember where I heard it.  Because memory and truth are cousins, not twins, I make no claims to accuracy.  Here’s the story.

A young man in California had joined up with the neo-Nazis skinheads.  He had swastica tatoos all over his body, all kinds of violent signs, perhaps a word or two about white being “right.”  In other words, he was a full-fledged Nazi.

But then something happened.

He fell in love.  And a young woman fell in love with him.  How that happens I don’t know.  But it does.  And evidently it did.  Perhaps she saw who he really was instead of the persona he projected to prove himself.  Well, one day they went to the beach together.  It was a lovely California day.  There were all kinds of people swimming in the ocean and enjoying themselves in the sun.  Some were young, some were old, some were black, some were white, some were oriental.  The young man was wearing a shirt to cover up at least some of his tatoos.  He probably had boots on, but I don’t know.  I wasn’t there.  So there they were, at the beach.

“Are you going to go in?” she asked him.

“No,” he said defiantly.

“Why not?”

“Look whose in the water,” he said.

She looked at him.  Suddenly he looked foolish.  She wanted to go in.  And she could tell he wanted to go in.

“Look at yourself,” she said.  “All locked up like that.  There’s the whole ocean and you can’t even take your shirt off to go in the water.”

He realized she was right.  He had painted himself into a corner.  He was so “right” he just had to be wrong.  He was locked up.  To unlock the door to his heart he had to give something up.  Identity.  Fear.  Isolation.  A sense of self that only came by rejecting others.  It all had to go.

And did.

He went swimming.  She went swimming.  Everyone went swimming.  And he began disengaging from the groups that had poisoned his soul.

In church we call this confession.

And in church, we call this grace.

In church we embrace this vulnerability.

Without it, change doesn’t have a chance.

When Clouds Cross the Sky

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

And so the hoped-for consensus on health care didn’t happen.

This morning’s New York Times announces that the hoped-for peace plan between Israel and Palestine also hasn’t happened.  Hope is once again delayed.  Shadows have covered the mountain.

What then is to be done?

I want to be careful in asking the question, because we live in an age of easy pontification.  Everybody has a blog, even me.  We write as if we had the power to produce change.  Preachers are especially adept at this.  A sermon about what Israel and Palestine should, must, and could do would sound convincing unless George Mitchell was in the third pew with a glance that said, “If it were only so easy.”  If I could read his mind he might also be saying, “You’re a pastor, not the Middle East Envoy reporting to the Secretary of State.  There is a difference.”

But still the questions emerge.  In spite of reality, what good can be done?  Perhaps a review of what my son Andy calls the “A-ha” moments of change and inspiration could help.  We all have them.  We thought one thing, and then realized something else was true.  And so we changed course, or tried to.

Studs Terkel is one of my favorite writers.  He just “went out” and found the dignity, and beauty, of life on all sides.  In one of his books he interviewed a member of the Ku Klux Klan member who had been vociferously spewing the toxic ideology of that group.  The Klan member had a cause.  The cause defined him by separating him from others.  That’s what causes can’t help but do.

Well, one day, somebody said that if he really believed all that stuff, he should run for school board.  (Talk about toxic!)  And so he did.   He was going to make sure the town, its kids, its school, its freedom and his White race wasn’t going to be sold out.  He was elected.  (I believe this story took place in South Carolina . . . sorry! . . . )

But a Black woman was also elected to the very same school board.  And she had a vote.  He realized that he couldn’t do much of anything if he didn’t have her vote.  And so they began to work together if anybody was to accomplish anything.

That’s no big deal.  It is exactly that sentiment that brought Mitchell to Rahmah and Jerusalem, that caused Max to create a gang of six–three Democrats and three Republicans.

But . . . and here’s the point.

The Ku Klux Klaner realized that unless he gave up his antipathy towards anyone who wasn’t White, nothing could happen.   Somewhere in his heart he needed to repent.  In Hebrew, the word for repent means “turn.”  Only then could something happen.  I don’t need to share with you that he and his “opponents” became friends on behalf of a larger cause–the children of their community. The two began to work together, and to appreciate each other.  Both had the much-fabled “change of heart.”

What changed?  Fear met its match.  And so, agendas  had to change.

We do not need violins to serenade the moment.  But we sure could use some music and a change of heart.  If it can happen at a school board meeting, who knows . . . maybe there could be an “A-ha” moment somewhere else as well.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

I have long believed that if we gather at a table and patiently unravel the differences that divide us something new will emerge.  The talk itself will turn the page.  “We need to talk things out,” has always been a friendly pastoral rubric.

And I’ve believed it is true.

But the events of this summer have revealed that I may be wrong.  I am not dismayed that I may be wrong — that’s nothing new.  But if its true that engagement does not yield something new, I am indeed saddened.

Over the last four or so months, Max Baucus assembled a group of six to work through a health care proposal.  From all I’ve read it has been quite a process.  For hours they met around a table in his office with its huge map of the Big Sky.  There were three Republicans on his panel–Charles Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzy of Wyoming, and Olympia Snow of Maine.  They’d take up a topic, pick it apart, see where compromise might happen, find lines to draw in the sand, and then try to redraw them.  It was a momentous effort.

Last week, it was time to bring the process to a close.  My hopeful imagination had a clear vision of what might be:  we, Republicans and Democrats, have worked together and agree that this is a wise and practical way to extend health care upon which so many lives depend.  Max would be at the microphone.  The senators he worked with would be gathered around him, each beaming.

But no.

It didn’t happen.

All that talk, all that hope, all that meticulous attention couldn’t jar open the door.  Agenda stole the day.  The fierce power of ideology (and I am the first to say that liberal ideologies are as deeply ensconced in culture as conservative ideologies) would not allow something new to emerge despite what I’ve believed is the fierce power of “now” which calls for reform.  Max had said that his GOP colleagues had made such a huge investment of time in the painstaking (no pun intended) process that they wouldn’t walk away.  But that isn’t what happened.

“My yes” and “Your no” aborted our hope.

What then is to be done?

Somehow we must change the conversation.  Somehow experience and story must find ways to surface.  Such an approach may not produce change, and it is fraught with danger.  Just because something sounds true doesn’t mean it is true.  Ideology loves nothing more than anecdote.

And so I’m thinking, wondering, searching, for those times that story did lead to a change in heart.  Over the next few days I’ll share a few.  I do not want to give up on my belief that we can talk things out.  But I confess that Max’s experience with his committee has made me wonder if such a thing is possible.

Until tomorrow,

Keep on keeping on, letting life lead the way.

Larry

Lake Shore Sky Shore

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

This morning’s story took place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Capernum, but the shores of the Potomac would work just as well.    The disciples were fighting over who was the best and who had the place of honor.  The arguments didn’t make Jesus happy.  And so, what did he do?  He asked for a child to be brought to him. I suspect he learned that trick from his parents.

We may start arguments at the dinner table, but it doesn’t take long for someone to say, “Not in front of the children.”   In their presence we are reminded of a higher calling.

The presence of a child changes the tone.  Only then can the teaching begin: the first are last, and the last are first.  Only then can we be reminded a truthful life is about giving something up.

A few hours later, Walgreens brought the message home.   The store is an easy bike ride away and I needed to pick up some batteries for my blood sugar meter.  I’ve written about this store before.  From the outside it looks typical pharmacy in a poor part of town . . . but it’s not typical at all.  Its people are first rate.

When I arrived, the parking lot looked like it had been hit by a hurricane.  There was trash all over the place.

“Did you get vandalized last night?” I asked the clerk.  “It’s a mess out there.”

“It’s that way every morning,” she said, as she showed me how to put the batteries in my machine.

“Wow,” I said.  “That’s a lot of trash.”

I paid her, thanked her and went outside.

A man in a blue shirt, wearing a tie, was picking up the trash in the parking lot.  I asked him the same question I’d asked the clerk.  He said the same thing she had.  Every morning there is a lot of litter.  As he spoke I noticed the word MANAGER on his badge.

I suddenly realized why that particular Walgreens is such a great store.  The manager cares.  The manager picks up the trash.  And the neighbor’s trash.  The manager sets an example of service.

“You have a really good store here,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said, dropping yet another wrapper into a large plastic bag.

“I don’t know how they do it,” I said.  “They know us by name and they really care.  I’d melt down in their job in about five seconds.  But they don’t.”

“They are good,” he said.  “Sometimes I wonder how they do it.  But they do.”

“I wrote a letter to them last Christmas, thanking them.”

“I saw it,” he said.  “I forwarded it to headquarters, but they didn’t respond.”

His observation wasn’t a complaint.  It was just a fact.  It would have been nice, but it didn’t matter.  What mattered was that he noticed.  The staff noticed.  And I’m sure they notice when he goes out and picks up trash each morning.  It’s a matter of setting a good example.

How do we change the tone?

We serve, just as Jesus said.  We let ego go.

We remember the children.

I saw it in the lesson.

And I saw it in the parking lot.

I’ll let you know when I see it in Washington as well.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

William Blake's When the Morning Stars Sing

I am a pastor.

Which is to say I believe in prayer.  This connecting of our lives with God is what we do.

I am increasingly aware that while prayer itself has no limits, we tend to narrow it.  I want to know specifically what I should pray for.  But when I do, I sometimes forget that rivers of prayer flow into an ocean that receives them all but forgets their individual names.  Once the waters of the Hudson reach the sea, they become the sea.  Same with the Yellowstone.  Same with Saxine Creek.  Name the river . . . but don’t forget the sea.

I wonder why we do not pray as much for acceptance as we do for the bone that has fractured.    Why do we not pray more often for the power to adapt?  And what about surrender?

In part I know.  We want to overcome disease and disability.  We want to cure cancer.  We want to vanquish polio, smallpox, the swine flu.  I want to turn the clock back.  And doesn’t surrender mean loss?  Don’t acceptance, acquiescence, adaptation and surrender speak of failure?

And so we ask for something specific in time: today’s CAT scan, today’s operation, today’s tests.

But we live our lives over time.  Over time we learn to accept, just as Niebuhr said we should in the serenity prayer that asks us to change the things we can, accept the things we cannot change, and learn to know the difference.  His is one of the few prayers that doesn’t seek to bend heaven and earth toward a specific outcome.

Surrender in war does indeed mean failure.  But surrender in faith is utterly essential.  Jesus surrendered to the cross.  Baptism means giving up one life for another.  The word “Islam” means surrender.  I think of the beautiful hymn, “I surrender all,” that we sang so often in the amber light of Montevideo’s serene sanctuary:

All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give; I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live.  All to Jesus I surrender, humbly at his feet I bow, worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me Jesus, take me now.  I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, I surrender all.

Surrender did not mean “quit.”

Instead it led to acceptance, to adaptation, and a world of new meaning.  Chronic disability is chronic because it does not offer an escape.  It stays with us for the duration.  We live with it for the duration.

Those essential prayers that tie us together . . . may they continue to flow.  They do save our lives.  We are grateful for the changes they bring.  We are also grateful that we are  called to adapt, to accept, and to surrender.

When we do that, we too lift our voices and sing with the morning stars who raise their voices in praise over a Job whose sufferings of the moment are trapped in time before healing works its way into an ocean of meaning.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

There are but six words on the altar table:  “This do in remembrance of me.”

For most of my life they’ve had a specific context and place that somehow connected us with the living God.  But give them a chance and they extend far beyond the last supper.  They also frame our relationships with each other.

A few months ago, I received an email from a former student who somehow discovered this “blog.”  (How I recoil at the sound of that word!)    Suddenly, 40 years vanished.  She and others became aware of the medical challenges we continue to face as a family.  Memories of what we shared years ago came to mind– those thrilling crazy plays, the hope of my track and cross country teams that tried in vain to recruit athletes from the more powerful zeitgeists of basketball and football.   The memories led her and others wondered what could be done.

I sent her a thank you note, and she wrote back.  She reminded me of some stories I had forgotten.  Remember the story you told us about the play you did for the kids in Appalachia? she asked.   I hadn’t thought about it for years.

I was in Buckhorn, Kentucky, population 32 at that time.  There was a mission there and we were to work with “kids.”  When a publisher asked me yesterday what I once taught I replied with my usual answer, “kids.”   The subject is secondary, the students primary.  At the mission I had kids like Larry, who couldn’t read; like  Owen, who was “slow,” whatever that meant at the time; like Essie, who grew up with too much violence.  And Dan, Dan who never said a word.  I had no idea what spawned the silence.  What had happened?  Must have been something.  But who knew?

By the time Christmas rolled around we had already made a zoo, complete with a captured possum, a white rat, two goldfish, and a canary.  We invited Lyndon Johnson to come see our zoo.  He couldn’t make it but sent an embossed note of regret that we framed.  But now it was Christmas.

We’d do a play.  That’s what we’d do.  A play.  We didn’t want to do a pageant with predictable lines, Essie as Mary, Larry as Joseph, and a few animals from our zoo.  No, we wanted to do a real play.  We’d show that Christmas was as big a deal as our generosity could allow.  Instead of waiting for a king we’d wait for kindness and find its voice on all sides.

Everyone had their lines.  Larry  memorized his.  So did Own.  So did Essie.  So did Essie.  And so did Dan.

“You gave Dan a line?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll never say it.”

“I know,” I said.  “But let’s trust him.  Let’s wait and see.”

T’was the night before Christmas that the staff and other kids assembled in the small auditorium.  Everyone was waiting to see if Dan would speak.  The play began.  Larry said his lines perfectly.  Owen delivered his with poise.  So did Essie.

Then it was Dan’s turn.

“Has anyone seen Christmas he asked?”   Clearly, with power and poise, he spoke his line.  And then broke into a smile.

Nobody could believe it.  Dan couldn’t believe it.  The play ended.  We bowed and headed for the cookies laughing and congratulating reach other.  We’d found Christmas.

“Do you remember telling us about that?” my former student asked.

I had forgotten.  But now I remembered.   I remembered that the exuberant life of teaching and learning that connected us so many years ago and realized it continues to find its way.

Dan spoke.

And so do we.

The six words on the altar table will always have a two-word refrain.

Thank you.