Keith Herron is a friend of mine. I don't
remember exactly how we met, but we were both pastors here in San Antonio for a
few years. Keith is one of just a few Baptist pastors besides me who use the
Lectionary for preaching. For a time we were in a Lectionary study group
together. That's when I discovered how serious Keith is about writing and
sermons. Keith left for Kansas City a few years ago, but we keep in touch.
For several years Keith has been writing a
series of essays starring a crusty but lovable alter ego he calls "Back Row
Birdie." Birdie is an elderly member of Keith's church who sits on the back row
on Sundays, drops by during the week to give the preacher some free advice, and
ALWAYS has a strong opinion.
Back Row Birdie is a monthly feature in the
magazine, "Baptists
Today." You can find the entire archive at the
Holmeswood Baptist Church website, which
is, by the way, one of my last original website designs.
I'm pleased to give Keith a guest spot here
so that you can meet Birdie.
Thanks Keith!
“A Diner at the End of Time”
I have a faint memory as a child of what it felt like to be buoyant. I remember
what it felt like to live so lightly you could float and not be bound
by gravity. I can still get in touch with my ancient, long-buried memories of
those days when I would be weightless to the world’s troublesome realities.
Perhaps my mind has polished memories of mental states that never actually
occurred, but it doesn’t really matter how I’ve reclaimed them, now does it? The
important part is that I can.
Childlikeness is a good gift I’m rediscovering as an adult. We’re much too
encrusted with adulthood to live in those memories for very long so I consider
it a good thing that I can remember them at all, even if they only come sweetly
as unbidden reminders of a lost world.
One of those memories comes in remembering those happy times when my Mom and Dad
would place my little child body between their big adult bodies and hug me so
fully there was no part of me that was not being hugged. In that sublime family
hug, I was hugged so completely it almost squeezed the breath out of me, but
never did I feel anything but absolute love and acceptance.
Birdie is my friend who helps me remember. Maybe it’s her transparency as an
older adult because she’s taken me in like a young disciple to the landscape
that lies ahead. Maybe it’s because she has reached the golden age where one
lives more in the past than in the present.
Recently, Birdie and I took a drive. It was on one of those days when the whole
earth glowed as if it was the last vestige of summer’s dying embers. It was in
that time before time when the earth sheds its skin in preparation for the long
days of a frozen winter. Not quite summer, not quite fall.
We decided we’d try out a new diner that had re-inhabited what had been a
deserted gas station at the intersection of two county roads just north of town.
Birdie and I entered and every head turned to check us out but Birdie was too
confident to give them any thought. As a young girl she had grown up in a small
town so she disregarded their stares and sat down in the booth by the window.
I’m not so sure of myself when everyone in the place is staring, but I decided
that if Birdie was confident enough to ignore them, I could too. Pretty soon the
notion of being watched disappeared.
We ordered pie and coffee mysteriously showed up without either of us asking.
Birdie was halfway through her pie when she looked up and began recalling a
memory from her childhood of another diner no longer in existence while sitting
with her Grandpa. The diner, like her long-dead Grandpa, had disappeared into
the mists of the past.
Birdie recalled these memories easily without effort. I shared my own memories
and soon we were exchanging the stories that molded us into who we are today.
“Maybe church is like that,” she offered suddenly. “Maybe we’re having church
right now. Maybe this is what the community of Jesus is all about.”
“If they served pie like this every Sunday, I wouldn’t complain,” was all I
offered. It wasn’t much but it was what I was thinking.
“Preacher, you’re like every other man I’ve ever known. Slip a piece of good pie
in front of him and he’ll forget half of what he knows. Works with other things
too I’m told.” I ignored that last comment because I knew all too well that her
mind was already three steps ahead of me and I wasn’t about to give her an
excuse to ridicule me further.
“What if heaven is like this?” I blurted out. I don’t know where the thought
came from, but I knew I was saying something smarter than my native self.
Birdie took my lead. “Why, I believe it could be just like this. It’s not in the
Bible, but maybe it’s in the words between the words. Maybe, just maybe, we all
end up in God’s diner at the end of time. We slip into a booth with a good
friend and before you know it, one of God’s servants puts a big piece of pie in
front of you and a cup of coffee. And all around you, you notice that everyone
in the place is sharing freely from the cup of memories of that time and place
where we explored God’s creation. Only now, we’re in a time where there is no
time and we’re in a place beyond all places. And all of it is like a diner where
the goodness of God’s love and grace can be appreciated like a heavenly slice of
pie with a cup of coffee.”
“By the way Preacher, that’ll preach if you don’t have anything better to say on
Sunday.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” was all I could say as I savored the last of my pie.
© September 2004 Keith D. Herron
