Real Live Preacher - Childhood

One Little Book About Cavemen

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 18:49:26 -0500

In his book "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time," Marcus Borg describes the confusion and trauma that occurred when his childish images of Jesus collided with the scientific worldview of our culture. As I read his words, I felt like he was telling my own story. How well I remember when that collision began.

The year was 1969. I watched the moon landing that July in our living room in El Paso, Texas. My parents made me watch it. They said, “Someday you’ll be glad you saw this.” I saw a stark, black horizon and a man with a strange bounce coming down a ladder. I was mildly interested, but not old enough to appreciate the changes that science was bringing to my world.

At the end of the summer we moved into a small home in Forth Worth, so that my father could do some post-graduate work at the Baptist seminary in town. I began second grade that fall at Hubbard Heights Elementary, which was about half a mile away. My best friend Mickey and I walked to school together every day. I admired Mickey because he had to pack his own lunch. Usually it consisted of ketchup sandwiches and candy bars.

Hubbard Heights Elementary

I got the G.I. Joe Astronaut with space capsule that Christmas, which was a huge thrill for me. Space toys were replacing Cowboy toys. Roy Rogers was out, and Apollo was in. I played little league baseball for the first time that Spring. It was my first experience with organized sports. I was the catcher for our team, but I didn’t have a catcher’s mitt, which bothered me greatly.

Mickey and I both fell in love with the same girl at school. I don’t remember her name, but she had brown hair and wore it in pigtails. I was too shy even to wave at her and was standing around wondering how to proceed when Mickey, showing a surprising streak of romantic sophistication, swooped in and gave her a small bottle of perfume. Somehow that sealed the deal, and the two of them walked around the playground whispering for a week or so. I was annoyed but at the same time impressed with his savoir faire. He knew you should give a girl perfume, AND he knew how and where to get perfume. He was completely out of my league.

Our family went to Gambrell Street Baptist Church, which was across from the seminary and a fairly well-known Baptist church in that city. Martin Estep, whose father was a famous Baptist historian and professor at the seminary, was in my Sunday school class. He had leukemia, and we were told quietly that someday soon he would die. The idea of a child dying was so far outside my view of the world that I didn’t know how to receive the information. I just filed it away and forgot about it.

Martin loved dinosaurs and was allowed to bring toy dinosaurs to church, which was against standard policy, but no one made an issue of it, perhaps because his situation was so grim. Many Sundays Martin and I played together with his extensive collection of plastic and rubber dinosaurs.

Years later, long after Martin had died, I attended that seminary and had his father for a number of history classes. I told him I remembered Martin and his dinosaurs. He looked off in the distance and said, "Yes, Martin did love his dinosaurs."

I knew about dinosaurs, of course, but had never considered how they fit into the story of creation that I heard at church. Up until that time, the only story of the origin of the earth I knew was the one found in Genesis. God had created the world in six days, resting on the 7^th. He had created human beings on one of those days, but there was some kind of a glitch, and then Adam and Eve were on the outs with God. That’s why Jesus had to come to the world.

Children have a capacity to hold many thoughts and views at once. Truly, we all have this capacity but it is particularly pronounced in children. So I played dinosaurs with Martin, thoroughly believing that they existed millions and millions of years ago, while at the same time holding to the simple view of creation taught to me at church.

And then one day at school, I discovered a strange book, a book filled with new information and stories I had never heard before.

In second grade I had just discovered the joy of reading. The first book that thrilled me was Matt Christopher’s “Catcher With A Glass Arm,” the story of a boy who was a catcher, like me, only he had a real mitt. Sadly, his arm was a bit lacking, and this created the drama of the story. I also read my mother’s old copy of “The Bobbsey Twins” by Laura Lee Hope, falling in love with it immediately. I read that book 15 or 20 times over the years, even when I was in high school.

My second grade teacher had a collection of books in the corner of the room, which we were allowed to browse and read if we finished our work. One day I pulled out an ancient looking book from behind the others. My memories of this book are very dim. It had an old, cloth cover. I suspect that it was published in the first half of the 20^th century, but it might have been published at the turn of the century. The book was about ancient humans - cavemen and cavewomen, as they were called at the time.

According to this book, many thousands of years ago, people lived in caves and wore clothing made from animal skins. They made their own tools and arrow points, and they lived before modern technology, even before Jesus and the people of the Bible. I remember being absolutely fascinated by the book's theory of how cooking began. The author theorized that a tree might have burst into flames after a lightning strike, cooking a squirrel or some animal in the trunk. Primitive humans chanced upon this tree and found that they liked the flavor of cooked meat. This is a ridiculously simplistic view of how human technology develops, but at the time it made perfect sense to me.

I don't know why, but I became obsessed with this book for many months. Every chance I got I pulled it from the shelves and sat on a little carpet in the corner of the classroom, poring over it. I believed every word of it with the same level of innocent trust that I had given to my Sunday school teachers.

This simple book didn't address the incredibly complex questions of human prehistory or evolution, but it suggested a history of the world and humanity that was different from what was in the Bible. And these new ideas seemed to make sense to me, even then.

That was the moment the collision began. It was the moment that my Biblical worldview first collided with the modern worldview of science. The violence of this collision wasn’t immediately apparent. It was more like two galaxies slowly passing through each other.

But when galaxies collide, nothing stays the same.

rlp

Savage Joy

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:12:58 -0500

About a decade ago I glanced into my middle daughter’s room and found her sitting on her knees, looking out the window with her favorite toys lined up on the windowsill. They were all there: Her blanket - which had a personality and a loose seam for a mouth, various plush animals, a number of Disney characters, a group of small horses, and an assortment of other figures. She had turned her little friends toward the glass as if they were all looking out into the front yard together. She was talking with them, perhaps drawing their attention to something in the yard, or maybe holding court on any number of intimate subjects.

I immediately froze and did not make a sound. This was my second child, so I was an experienced enough parent to know a precious and unrepeatable thing when I saw it. I leaned against the door frame, then let my body slide slowly down the frame until I was on my knees.

She talked to her toys, jabbering about one thing and then another. She moralized, corrected, parented, acted out parts. She was lost in the Kingdom of Shelby, a place made up of bits and pieces of her life tossed about in her mind and dreams. Her kingdom was not governed by rules or laws or physics. The glue holding Shelby’s kingdom together was her own frail and developing view of the world. It was an infantile worldview without borders or categories, at least none that you or I would recognize.

I say “was” because Shelby is now a teen-ager, so she has been banished from the Kingdom of Shelby except at night when all the old things return from the deep waters and shadowed forests of dreaming.

All children have their own play world, and they are able to lose themselves in it. The state of play exists before consciousness. It is an indescribable and intensely personal thing for a child to be deep in play. And if they find they are being watched, they will come back from that world and become shy or start performing. Either way, the magic is lost.

I was getting a peek into the Kingdom of Shelby, and you can bet I wasn’t going to miss the show. I listened, leaning against the doorframe, absolutely enraptured by the sounds of her play. I suppose I was as lost in the moment as she was.

I would have stayed for hours. You couldn’t have dragged me away. Eventually a prolonged silence caused me to open my eyes. She was looking at me with a smile.

“Hi Daddy.”

She was friendly, but clearly waiting for me to leave so that she could go back to her world. I had intruded, and it was time for me to go. Shelby was a kindly landowner who would let you pick an apple and give you a cold drink if you wandered onto her property, but she would definitely show you the way to the gate.

I knew that about her. And I knew there was no use trying to prolong the moment or – God forbid – trying to recreate it.

I was drawn to my little girls in those days in ways that are quickly fading as the three sisters grow into young women. Our biological connection showed itself in my love of the smell of their scalps, my physical and intense need to hold them, and my desire to feel their small bodies pressed against my own as we watched movies together on the couch. And I always had a strong attraction to the sounds they made. Their voices were a kind of OM for me, a sound from below all sounds, a noise from the foundation of my existence. Hearing my daughters play was a joyful thing, and the ache of its absence will never heal. It is a wound I will carry as long as I walk this earth.

The best things are like this, aren’t they? They are savage and untamed. Like a great sunset, they can be discovered by chance and enjoyed, but never owned. Like love they can be received but not bought. The best things in life ride a ticklish wave along the surface of your skin, leaving raised hairs in their wake. They move through the world leaving no visible sign. You cannot follow them, nor anticipate their direction and wait for them in a blind.

You will come across spontaneous, unique moments of joy like this now and again. They are Life’s gifts to us all. They come to the washed and the unwashed, to the common and the sophisticated, to the rich and the poor, to the just and the unjust.

Moments of savage joy are there for all of us to find. If you haven’t seen one lately, you only need to slow down a bit and keep your eyes open. I can give you no counsel beyond that. But if you come across a moment of wild, untamed joy, for God’s sake eat it; drink it; hear it; receive it. This is the stuff of life. It doesn’t get any better.

rlp

The Seventh Sister

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:03:58 -0500

What will it be like when you are gone, I wonder? You’ve been with us for so long. It’s hard to remember what it was like before you came.

First there was a line between two points, a single dimension. It was like living before consciousness. There was no awareness of others. No need for it. It was just the two of us, and I was happy with things the way they were.

Then you came into our world and added a new dimension. You turned a line into a triangle with three sharp points. Everything changed, and I was afraid at first. But then you became my little buddy. Believe it. I took you everywhere in those days. I carried you high on my shoulders, behind my head. Your legs dangled in front of my chest, and I held your ankles in my hands. I wanted to show you everything - the whole world.

When the news came that we were becoming a square, I felt jealous and protective. I didn’t want a newcomer to ruin our triangle. A part of me knew that there would never again be one little girl who was my buddy. But she came, and we saw that she was also good. In time we settled into a four-cornered life.

Then a third girl came, and we took on the shape of a star. In time I came to love our star-shaped family. I even made my own private constellation. I renamed the belt of Orion and began to call it The Three Sisters in honor of my little girls.

Years passed. Each November The Three Sisters rose in the night sky. I watched them and smiled. Things changed. You grew older and wiser and more interesting to me. And I got older too. My shoulders can no longer hold you, and the view is not enough for you anymore.

You were the rooster, the one who announced a new day and a new era. The end of our line and the beginning of our shapes. Reiley Rooster Simon and Schuster. I swear we used to call you that. And oh how you did fly from animals to books, from Old McDonald to Jung, from little girl to young woman.

So what are you saying? Are you saying that we’re going back to being a square again? Are you telling me that you’re going away, and you’re not coming back?

Never? Only for visits? Are you serious?

I knew this day would come, but I never let myself think about it. Never until now at the very end.

Okay, you growing up and having your own life is a good thing. I know that. But before you go, I want you to look into the night sky. Look past our beloved Orion, far above his shoulders and even beyond the red eye of Taurus that sees all. There in the blackness you will see a little teacup constellation of six stars. Many ancient people called it The Seven Sisters.

There were seven stars in this constellation once, thousands of years ago. Seven sisters, but one of them disappeared. One day someone counted, and she wasn’t there anymore. No one knows where she went. Who knows how something like that happens. Maybe it was just her time. Time for that little star to go her own way. And yet, for centuries, they were still known as The Seven Sisters. The seventh sister went away, but I like the idea that they kept the name and maybe a place for her at the table, just in case she came home for a visit.

Somewhere along the way a modern person said, “Hey, there are only six stars.” And now people usually call them the Pleiades, which is the Greek name for The Seven Sisters. But I guess it doesn't draw attention to the fact that one of them has gone her own way.

I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. In honor of you, our departing sister, I officially reject the name Pleiades. I’m going back to the old name. As far as I’m concerned, that little teacup above Orion is called The Seven Sisters.

Can I rename the stars whenever I like? Don’t ask me; you know I can.

So now it is your time. I know that. I see you chomping at the bit, ready to take your life into your own hands. This change is right and good, but it hurts more than I ever imagined. Because no matter how often people say, “Oh, she’ll come home sometimes,” and “She’ll always be your daughter,” you and I know that things will never be the same. My little buddy is leaving, and she doesn’t fit on my shoulders anymore. That’s the truth, and I resent anyone who suggests that it shouldn’t hurt like hell.

So go now, while I am being foolish and philosophical. Now is the time. Go, my strong young woman. Go right up in the face of life. Seize everything. Do not back down or back away.

Sit high above the shoulders of Orion; I want you to see everything.

rlp

Soft True Strong & You

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:22:32 -0600

Children are so soft. Their skin is fragrant and pure, like baby leaves. Their minds are eager and ready, their hearts are trusting and open, and their eyes will lead you softly to the very bottom of their souls.

Children know God because God can be found in the soft places of the world. In mother’s hands and in father’s soft shirts. In laughter and at dinner and in the goose bumps that rise when lips slide across skin.

It is a terrible thing when soft, childish flesh meets the hard steel of religion. We cut through children like butter. In our collective unconscious there is a swishing sound. It is the sound of the swords of Herod’s men rising and falling on the children of Bethlehem.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.

Take a deep breath now, and free your mind. Do you remember when your spiritual softness was taken from you?

Did it happen at church?

What sort of church was it? Was it a brick building in the suburbs? Was it a synagogue or a mosque or a cathedral? Was it the secret church of one man’s desire, or the feral church of neglected children? Was it the cold sanctuary of science that stole your myths and left you wounded and empty and suckling at the stars? Or did you construct your own lonely chapel, like Saint Frances, barefoot and one stone at a time?

I was wounded along the way. It happens to everyone. Life is hazing. It’s one big rite of passage from beginning to end. I grew tough as leather, deeply protected, calloused, and hard. But I worked my leather with the oil of my hands and with tears and time until I became soft again. And soft, worn leather is such a comfort to have and to hold.

Now I guard children’s hearts against all religions, sacred and secular. I will throw myself at you, church man. Stay away from that child’s mind. Let her be a pagan; let her be a skeptic, a scientist, or a saint. Let her be any or all of these, but for God’s sake, let her be.

Let her be because her soul was never yours for the taking. If you lay your hands on her, she will grow hard, and still she will not be yours. But if you love her and let her and listen to her and allow her, one day she may return from the far country, fully grown and newly wise.

And soft, still soft. And strong, so strong.

rlp

To the middle sister, my string of pearls,

That’s a big heart you’re dragging around these days, and you’ve only just discovered how hard life can be.

Play the hand you were dealt.

Be soft.
Be true.
Be strong.
Be you.

-Daddy

Kenny Cameron 1961-2006

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:04:15 -0500

I found out yesterday that my college roommate died last week. His name was Kenny Cameron. I wish I could have gone to the funeral, but it was over before I knew about it.

My father was the associate pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston in the 1970s. I spent a lot of time at church, as you can imagine. Two of my closest friends also went to Tallowood - Kenny Cameron and Mark Carter. Mark sent me an email yesterday and told me about Kenny’s death. I hadn’t heard from Mark in years either, maybe not since I officiated at his wedding close to 20 years ago.

Kenny and Mark. Kenny Cameron and Mark Carter. If I say those names, I can almost feel the 70s. I can feel the heat of Houston; I can hear the Doobie Brothers; I can feel my stomach fluttering when I tried talking to a girl. I can remember the church stuff - the youth camps, the revivals, and youth choir on Sunday nights. The memories are right inside me and also far behind me. Near and far.

So that you can have a feel for what Kenny meant to me, I’m going to break a sacred trust I have with myself. I’m going to tell you the truth about one of the Foy Davis stories. There are six Foy stories so far. Most of them are fictional. But one of the stories is true. “Freckles and Blue” is my best and most faithful recounting of some things that actually happened to me in middle school. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the heartbreak of losing “Emma,” but over the years that memory has become tender. It brings a smile to my face when I remember what a little boy I was and how deeply I felt the things that wounded me.

Kenny and Mark were on the bus from that story. I left for camp a stranger, and I came home a week later, having had my first romance and with Kenny and Mark as my best friends.

That was quite a summer.

Kenny Cameron is dead. I have to keep saying it because I can’t feel it. Kenny was funny. He laughed a lot and had a killer smile with perfect white teeth. He was handsome and smooth with girls. I tried my best to imitate him in this regard, but I was not smooth. Honestly, girls scared me to death until I was halfway through high school. After that they only made me nervous, but after being scared to death, nervous feels pretty damn good. But Kenny was never scared around girls or anything else, or so it seemed to me at the time. That's how I remember him.

Kenny wanted to be a doctor, and we went off to Baylor University together, along with “Emma” from the story and a few others from our church. Kenny and I lived in a tiny dorm room for one year. We hung everything on our walls upside down, for some reason. We thought it was funny. Believe it or not, they used to have an organized panty raid for freshmen at Baylor. The boys would wear their freshmen beanies and sing outside the girls’ dorms. The girls would toss panties out of their windows – specially purchased for this event, one hopes – with their phone numbers written on them. I have seen a thousand boys crowded around a tall dormitory and the air filled with panties. I have seen this. I bear witness to it.

Being very athletic at the time and rather determined, I snagged 13 pair, which was pretty impressive. We hung them all on our wall, upside down, and left them there for the entire year. But I never called a single phone number. You know, that whole nervous around girls thing.

Yeah, Supertramp playing on Kenny’s 8-track tape player, drinking Cokes and sitting in our dorm room, surrounded by upside down posters and panties. Those were the days, right?

But then Kenny joined a fraternity, and I got very serious about philosophy and my religious studies, so I made the cocky decision that fraternities were ridiculous - and I passed up no opportunity to say so. We drifted apart and by the end of college, we were saying hello if we happened to pass each other on the campus.

Life moved on, as it does. I heard that Kenny never made it to medical school and that he had a daughter. Then at some point I heard that he had multiple sclerosis. I never called him. I didn’t know his number, and his friendship was long gone by then. And I missed his funeral. That’s the last chapter I have for Kenny, and now that I write it in that way, I suddenly feel very sad.

Mark Carter lives in Austin now, with his wife and two daughters. We've agreed that it has been too long. We’re going to meet soon for Mexican food, cold beer, and about four hours of long overdue conversation. I’m sorry that it took the death of an old friend to remind us of how precious these early friendships are, but that’s the way it often happens.

Precious things pass quickly. Life and living wrap themselves around you and hold you fast to the present. Years fly by, and you find new friends and new ways of being. But the truth is, new friends are an infinite possibility, but old friends are fixed in stone. There are only a few of them, and no more will be added to their ranks. Some will be taken away.

So I’m coming to Austin, Mark. I want to see what 25 years has done to you and for you. I want to hear about your life. I want to talk about Kenny and the old days. I’m coming to Austin because there were only two of you, Kenny and Mark. And now there is only one.

rlp

Sunday School Boy

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:02:08 -0600

I was a Sunday school boy growing up. My parents took us to church every Sunday, and that weekly event included an hour of Bible study designed for children. We never missed unless we were very ill. As far as I knew, Sunday school was a normal part of childhood along with regular school, visits to grandparents, Little League, and playing in the backyard.

My father was a minister who often preached in other churches, so I sampled plenty of Sunday schools over the years. They were pretty much the same wherever you went. There would be a Bible story, of course, and lessons drawn from the text. There was usually some sort of craft project that often involved dried macaroni and might or might not be connected to the Bible story in some abstract way. There was singing on occasion and sometimes games.

When I was in second grade, my family attended a church adjacent to the seminary where my father got his degree and where I would receive mine years later. Our class was outfitted with standard Sunday school equipment. Heavy wooden tables and chairs, large cardboard building blocks colored to look like bricks, art supplies, puzzles, books, and fist-sized plastic animals that came in handy if the lesson was on Noah’s ark.

That year there was a boy in my Sunday school class named Martin. Martin loved dinosaurs and had leukemia, which we were told was a grave and serious thing to have. Martin sometimes brought toy dinosaurs to Sunday school, which made me a little jealous since I was not allowed to bring toys to church. But Martin had a serious illness, so it seemed right that some exceptions were made in his case.

Our Sunday school teacher told us that God gives a special gift or talent to every person, and that it was our duty to discover our talent and put it to use for God’s glory. The whole thing made perfect sense to me because Martin knew the name and habits of every dinosaur, so he had obviously identified and begun to utilize his God-given talent. I wondered what mine might be and began trying to discover it.

There was a spare piano in a darkened room at the church. I stole into the room and sat on the piano bench. I thought God talents would reveal themselves fully developed and ready for use. I pounded on the keys, imitating a piano player and hoping to hear music. A passing adult put her head into the room and told me to quit banging on the piano. I was frightened and embarrassed and slipped down the hall, hoping never to see her again. Clearly piano playing was not my gift. I tried other things but found no talents of any kind. After a week or two, I lost interest and went back to living my normal and seemingly untalented life.

One afternoon I found a length of bamboo in the alley behind our house. It was thicker than a fishing pole but slender enough for me to grasp it easily. I thought it made the perfect spear and spent half an hour running around our backyard, yelling and hurling the spear here and there.

Lying in the grass in the center of the yard was a large leaf. I spied this leaf and drew back the spear until my fist was beside my right ear. With a shout, I threw the spear at the leaf. By some miracle of chance it pierced the leaf and stuck quivering in the ground.

I was thrilled with myself and jumped up and down with excitement. Then it occurred to me that I had found the secret talent that God had given me. Somehow it was ordained under heaven that I should be able to throw spears with perfect accuracy. My faith in my newfound talent needed no further testing. The obvious miracle of the leaf was proof enough, and the lack of practical applications for such a talent did not occur to me.

I decided to immediately begin using my talent and enlisted the help of my little brother in setting up a public exhibition reminiscent of William Tell. My brother was about to enter kindergarten and was remarkably trusting. I positioned him in the center of our yard and backed up about 15 paces.

“Don’t be afraid, Hugh. I’m very good with spears. I’ll throw this spear, but it won’t hit you. It will fly right by your face. I’ll barely miss you. I can do this because I have perfect aim with spears.”

Hugh stood obediently in the yard, and I drew back my arm with complete confidence. At that moment my father walked out the door and into the backyard.

My father knew nothing of my passionate search for my talent. He knew nothing of the bamboo spear and the miracle of the leaf. He only knew that he opened the door of our house just in time to see me hurl a sharp stick at my younger brother, striking him an inch or so below his left eye and causing him to collapse on the lawn, screaming in pain.

When the spear struck my little brother, I was shocked and horrified. For an instant, my childish view of the world hung in the air like a cartoon character who has walked off a cliff. Then it plummeted, and I never saw the world in the same way again.

When a child’s view of the world is shattered, it is a violent emotional event. The mind reels and confusion reigns for a time. Nothing is as it seemed. If this thing you believed is not true, what other things might not be true? In that instant I gained years of wisdom. Now the whole idea of being able to throw spears accurately seemed reckless and foolish to me. I understood the grave risk I had taken. My brother and I fought ferociously at times, but I had no desire to hurt him.

Of course I didn’t have much time to consider these things because my father was headed in our direction. He covered the ground between us in about 2 seconds. He attended to my brother who, as it turned out, was bleeding a bit but not seriously injured. When he was assured that Hugh was okay, he turned his attention on me. I remember that his eyes were locked on mine and filled with anger.

“Gordon Douglas Atkinson, have you lost your mind? What were you thinking? Don’t you realize you could have put out his EYE? Don’t EVER EVER EVER do anything like that again!”

Those were the days when conscientious parents spanked their children. It was what good parents in our part of the world did. We won’t debate the question of spanking here. What I will say is that a bamboo pole broken twice over your father’s knee makes an effective paddle and is a powerful disincentive against repeating the offending behavior. We went round and round, literally.

When it was over, my brother was hustled into the house to be further cared for by our mother. I was left in the backyard. My bottom and my legs were hurting, and I had a strong but unclear sense of injustice. The whole thing was complicated and not the sort of thing a boy can easily explain to an angry father. Obviously hitting my brother in the face with a spear was a very bad thing to do. But I knew in my heart that I had arrived at the moment of transgression innocently and with good and honorable intentions. I believed that I had a talent. I felt like I was doing the right thing by seeking my gift and faithfully using it.

I never told anyone about thinking that spear throwing was my spiritual gift. I was happy to forget about it and move on. I was not a cruel boy, so I suppose my parents counted it as some kind of aberration from the norm. And yet, this event had a powerful impact on me and on my thinking. From that point forward, I was mistrustful of miraculous claims made at church. After the event with the spear, I allowed that what you heard at church might be true, but you should check these things out carefully before you put your life on the line. After all, people can get hurt.

It was a small and quiet change in my viewpoint. But it was important. It was one of the many moments that shaped me and made me who I am.

rlp

Grape Nehi and a Little Black Fly

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:30:10 -0600

Isn’t it funny, the memories from childhood that remain fresh in your mind? Some small grief that broke your heart, a hardship you had to overcome, a joy you felt with childish intensity. The event may have been small, but the emotion was strong enough to press itself into your softness. It made an impression.

When I was a small boy, my family regularly drove 700 miles from El Paso to East Texas, where both of my grandparents lived. A 700 mile journey is emotionally and intellectually incomprehensible to a child. You might as well tell him you are driving to Jupiter. My memories of those journeys are a disconnected jumble of images and impressions. Car sickness. Intense heat. A shimmering mirage on the road ahead. Silent white lines zipping under the car in the light of the moon. The names of towns tossed into the back seat by our parents so that we would know we were making progress. Telephone poles, fence posts, and signs rushing by our car on a frantic journey to places we had already been. These are the kind of things I remember.

On one of these epic journeys, something happened to me that was burned into my childish memory. It is a small thing. It is a thing that no grownup would remember. I know it was an event of no special significance, but my memory of it is vivid. I remember the way things looked to me on that day. I remember the colors and tastes and feelings. I remember how small the world of a little boy can be.

Those were the days of full-service filling stations. Their primary purpose was indicated by their name. You stopped at them to fill your car with gasoline. And if you had engine trouble, these stations had mechanics on hand who could fix your car. Fixing and filling - these were the functions of the old gasoline station.

My brother and I had been promised a cold soda when our father stopped to refuel the car. Having a soft drink was an exciting thing for us. My parents never kept them in the refrigerator at home; no one did in those days. A soft drink was a special treat, something we looked forward to. And we did not have soft drinks often enough to dull the intense pleasure that came with the promise of receiving one.

The station we pulled into had the classic, greasy look common to service stations of that era. There was no convenience store and no bright colors. Everything was the color of worn metals, tools, and engine lubricants. The men who worked at the station walked back and forth between the pumps and the mechanic’s bay with a sense of purpose. They were constantly wiping their hands on little red towels that they pulled from the rear pockets of their coveralls. The place had a smell that I still associate with hard, manly work.

There was a simple office with a grimy linoleum floor and a battered desk covered with invoices, oil cans, pens, and some assorted tools. Outside the door of the office was a soft drink machine. I remember this machine very well. It was taller than I was, of course. You put in a quarter and opened a glass door. Inside the door was a vertical rack of bottle necks sticking out of holes. Having paid, you grabbed the neck of the bottle you wanted and pulled it out. After that the machine clamped shut and you couldn’t pull out another bottle unless you paid again.

I fidgeted with excitement as my father put a quarter in the machine. He opened the door, and I pointed to a bottle of Grape Nehi soda, which was my favorite at that time. You didn’t want to pull a bottle halfway out and then let it slip out of your hand and back into the hole. You could lose your soda that way. So I was happy to let my father pull out the bottle. He stuck it into a slot that contained a bottle opener and pushed it sharply downward. There was a hiss as the cap popped off, and he handed me the cold glass bottle filled with bubbly, purple goodness.

This was the moment I had waited for. The long, hot drive was made bearable by little pleasures like cold, grape soda. As I walked toward our car, a fly landed on the lip of the bottle. I stared at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. While I stood there with my mouth open, the fly suddenly dropped down into the bottle where it floated on the rolling waves of a small purple ocean. My father was busy paying and taking care of grownup business, so I was left to solve this puzzle on my own.

I tipped the bottle, hoping to pour out the fly, but instead the fly floated away from the lip and toward the bottom of the bottle. A small amount of grape soda was lost. I tried again with the same disappointing result. Frustrated, I turned the bottle carefully in my hand, hoping in some way to position the fly so that I could pour it out along with a small, sacrificial portion of soda. It never worked. I tried and tried until the bottle was empty and the fly was left sticking to the bottom.

My father didn’t have any more change, so I was not able to get another soda. I was obliged to absorb the loss with my own coping mechanisms, which were not very well developed at that time. Of all the soda bottles in the world, the fly had chosen mine, and the whole thing seemed like a terrible injustice. There would likely be another soda offered at some other gasoline stop, but that reality was tenuous and in any case too far into the future to be a comfort.

As we drove away I brooded over this event. It shouldn’t have happened. I should have been sitting in the back seat, merrily sipping my Grape Nehi. I turned around and stared at the station as it receded in the view from our rear window. This was a bad station. A station with mean flies and drab colors, and it wasn’t the kind of place that made allowances for little boys. You could lose your Grape Nehi and that was it. There was no recourse, no easy solutions, and no rescuing. You lost and you dealt with that loss on your own. I didn’t like the station and hoped never to return to it.

I was unable to let go of my sorrow. So I sat and fumed until my limited attention span brought other things to mind and the black fly and the grape soda were allowed to turn slowly from present pain to painful memory.

Your world is made of your memories, and your memories are given to you by your world. The whispering voice of happenstance is always in our ears. “This is the world. This is the way things are. Look. Pay attention. Remember.”

rlp

Open Communion

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:36:15 -0600

I don’t know how many of you are out there. I have some statistics that suggest there are a lot of you. A very large number of you. I try not to think about that when I’m writing. It’s hard, but I have to keep my eye on the ball. I have to pay attention to the writing and not think about the people who will read it.

But yeah, I know there are a bunch of you. Sometimes I think about you when I’m not writing. I imagine people sitting in front of their computers, their faces aglow with a blue light. I will not be able to explain this, but somehow you feel like friends to me. My Real Live Preacher friends.

That’s crazy, I know. But that’s how it feels.

It’s completely impossible, but it would be fun if we could all get together just once. I would reserve a huge banquet hall and fill it with round tables. The tables would be loaded down with wonderful bread. French loaves, doughnuts, fresh baguettes, cinnamon sticky buns, croissants, every kind of bread you could name. And there would be homemade jam, fresh churned butter, and honey too. There would have to be wine, of course. Bottles and bottles of it. More than anyone has ever seen in one place. There would be other drinks, sodas and coffee and tea. Plenty for everyone.

Children would run and play among the tables, handing out bread and getting pats on the head. After the wine had flowed, the conversation would flow as well, and just for one night we would all believe in neighbors and friendship and love.

You there. Lonely girl. Yes, I see you. Even you would come to believe. Because if you were standing around wondering where to sit, a hundred people would pull out a chair and wave you over. You would blush and your heart would pound in your chest because it feels so good to be wanted.

The buzz of a thousand conversations would throb in the air. Some people would close their eyes and sway to the ancient feeling of that sound. Listen to the Om, to the growling roll of the multitude.

After a time I would step up to a microphone. You would hear a faint, “ding ding ding,” as I tapped my fork on my glass. I would be a little nervous because for the first time I would see how many of you there actually are.

Here is what I would say:

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Many of us have traveled a long way to be here tonight. Some of our journeys were of the geographic sort, but others were journeys of the heart and the soul and the spirit. Some of our journeys are so personal that we never speak of them. Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find food and family. I know something about this kind of journey.

My mother and father are both from deep East Texas, from the little town of Livingston. They were the first in their families to go to college. They took their two boys far away to El Paso, and that is where we lived for a time. But once or twice a year, when the days were accomplished that we should be delivered, we packed our car and made the journey across the state to Livingston. We traveled east on the road and backwards in time. It was a long journey, and we were going home.

My brother and I were small boys. We fought and fidgeted our way across Texas. If I close my eyes, I can conjure up a jumble of images. Small gas stations; drinking grape soda in the sun while my father stretched his legs; spotting the glowing eyes of white-tailed deer at night; singing little made-up songs with my brother when the pine trees that marked East Texas appeared outside the windows.

Livingston seemed forever lost in a bygone era. My parents would settle back into the routine of being children and siblings. Old ways were remembered, and everyone grabbed their partners and moved in the familiar rhythms of our family’s dance.

I felt at home there, though I had never lived in Livingston. But I knew that our people were Livingston people, East Texas people, country people. The family welcomed these two confused city boys with open arms, even as they shook their heads in amazement at our tender, white feet and strange fear of fresh vegetables.

The weather was different; the smells were different; the accents and attitudes were different. But nothing was as new and unfamiliar as the food. In El Paso my mother bought our food at the grocery store. In Livingston my grandfather had a garden big enough to require a small tractor. We ate the fish he caught, the fruit he grew, and the vegetables he pulled from the ground. The fresh vegetables were strange to us at first. But in time we got used to them, and then we came to love them. It was as if this food was made for my soul. Or maybe my soul was born at my grandmother’s table.

Cream Peas were my favorite. The women would shell them on the back porch while we children played and the adults talked into the night. My grandmother would cook Cream Peas with butter and a little bacon. How can I describe the taste of them? They are like the soft, light, and buttery young cousin of the harsher, Black-eyed Pea.

The food we ate in Livingston was earthy because it had only just come from the earth. You ate the fruit of labor and land, and there were a hundred stories and traditions behind the preparing and the consuming. Country cooking is rich and fat and flavorful. It nurtures working men and women. It grows children. It makes a home.

We never forget the food of our homeland. We long for it always. I have a black, cast-iron skillet at home, and I can make corn bread if I feel a need for it. I know how to make it so that the outside is crisp and dark, but the inside is soft. I keep my eyes open for roadside stands that might sell the very rare and hard to find Cream Peas. How I long for them. Perhaps I shall have some next year in Jerusalem, or maybe in Nacogdoches.

We lived far from East Texas, but it was still home for me. In Livingston you were loved, family was close, and the food nourished your body and your soul. I never lived in East Texas, but East Texas lives in me. I cannot escape it. I will never forget it. No matter where I go or what I do, I always remember the summer nights and the laughter of the women shelling peas. I remember my people. I remember who I am and who I long to be.

So many of us have lost our sense of home over the years. Others never had a home to speak of. And that is why I say that we have journeyed long and far to be here together tonight. For those of us who are Christians, the bread and wine are symbols of something old and rich and meaningful. The bread nourishes more than our bodies, and the wine loosens more than our tongues. This meal is a celebration of the redemption we have always hoped for, always sought, and desperately needed to find. We consider ourselves to be a family in this faith.

Those of you who are not a part of our spiritual tradition are nonetheless welcome at these tables. The bread is freshly baked. The wine is rich and heady. As you share in this meal that means so much to us, perhaps you will tell us of your own journey to find meaning and to find your place in the world.

Laugh and talk and drink and be loved. Feel at home here, for the food is good and you are among friends. Eat as much as you want. Stay as long as you like. I’ll turn out the lights when everyone is gone.

That’s all.

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Then I would step down and you would not hear from me again, nor would you be able to find me. If you looked for me at the microphone stand, all you would find is a hat and a denim clerical shirt folded neatly and laid over the back of a chair. I would be gone, lost among the tables, just one of the children, just another son in this human family.

The laughing and the noise would go on into the wee hours of the morning. Slowly people would leave their new friendships and make their way to the doors. All would be comforted to have found that kindred hearts are all around us. How sad it is that we haven’t taken the time to get to know each other.

Then, when no one was left and all you could hear were the crickets, one small man would turn out the lights, lock the door, and walk alone into the parking lot. He would turn his face toward his beloved stars, wipe the tears from his eyes, and say, “We did this; and we remembered You.”

rlp

Cream Peas

A Desert Childhood

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:30:10 -0500

I spent my early childhood in El Paso, Texas. We lived in the desert, literally. If you stood on our front porch and looked across the street, there was sand and cactus and horned toads and tumbleweeds. Desert as far as you could see. Or at least as far as a small boy could see. Sometimes I would say to my mother, “I’m going to play in the desert, okay?” This seemed to me to be a perfectly normal thing for a boy to say.

This is the jumbled story of things that can happen to a small boy in the desert.

Coyotes ate my dog once. We had a little beagle named Missy. One night she heard wild yips, yelps, and howls, in the desert night. She went to investigate and never came back. I hear that coyotes like to eat dogs and cats. They’re easy prey, and wild animals do not have the luxury of being sporting.

My little brother drank desert sand in El Paso. We had glasses and were pretending that we were pouring Kool-Aid into them, only we were pouring sand. The girl from next door and I pretended to drink, but my little brother thought we really were drinking, so he tossed back a full mouthful of sand. I remember him crying and sticking his tongue out. It looked like one of those doughnuts that are rolled in cinnamon and sugar.

There was a huge canyon in the desert across the street. At least it seemed huge to me. If I stood on the edge and looked down into it, it would make my groin and stomach tingle. Later I learned that this was simply an arroyo, a dry gully or creek. The drop was probably no more than ten feet. But I spent the entire time we lived there terrified of falling into the arroyo because I heard that a boy named Chuck went over the edge in roller skates. What he was doing in the desert wearing roller skates was never made clear to me. But I remember the idea of falling with heavy boots and wheels on your feet was something so terrible that it haunted me until we finally moved.

My great-grandmother once visited from East Texas where my parents grew up. She brought grapefruit because she and my grandfather thought grapefruit was one of the greatest miracles and joys in life. They talked a lot about grapefruit and made special trips to places where you could buy it. I don’t think they had much fruit when they were kids, so it was still a wondrous thing to them. One morning I was pushing a small car around on the floor, and I went into the bathroom on my hands and knees, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by my great-grandmother’s toenails. I ran to my room, utterly horrified by what I had seen.

Years later I could still remember her toenails. My memory was that you could lift up her big toenail and there was a secret place underneath it, like a little pillbox. The secret place was divided into two sections by a membranous wall of skin. I became convinced that we all had a space like this under our toenails, but most of our toenail lids were stuck shut for some reason. I used to daydream about what I could hide in my big toe if I could only find a way to pry open the lid without it hurting so much.

When I finally got old enough to understand that our toes aren’t hollow, I also realized that the membrane toe-space divider of my memory looked exactly like the limp membranes of a grapefruit that are left after the meat has been eaten. Obviously our childhood memories, dreams, and reflections have a way of getting a little jumbled.

In kindergarten, I fell in love with a black-haired, brown-skinned girl named Carmen. I loved her because she colored in the lines better than anyone else. When she used crayons she pressed them lightly on the paper, and all of her strokes went the same way. She didn’t push down hard with her crayons and scribble every which way. That was when I came to understand that you shouldn’t color with a crayon held tightly in your fist. You should hold it lightly and at an angle. Carmen taught me that, and I loved her for it. I used to imagine her face, smiling and confident, and her arm moving back and forth over a piece of paper.

Four years later another girl named Carmen became the first kid I ever knew who died. We came to school on Monday morning to find our teacher crying at her desk. She told us that Carmen’s family had been in a car accident and that she had died. Her empty desk sat there in our class, haunting us. I couldn’t keep from staring at it. One little boy who was always mean said, “Oh well, I guess her batteries just ran down.” It made me feel sick when he said that. He was a pretty unhappy boy, as I recall.

That afternoon I walked by Carmen’s house on the way home from school. I stood on the sidewalk staring at the front of her house until someone came out and asked what I wanted. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned and ran. After that I walked home a different way.

El Paso is the only city in Texas with mountains nearby. Sometimes my parents would take us up into the mountains to beautiful places where you saw how the desert would look if there were no people and houses. Just natural desert, brutal, stark, and beautiful.

There is an arid joy that comes when you learn to feel the beauty of the desert. It is a joy without frills or margins. An empty canteen or a cactus can take this joy away in an instant, but if you are safe and have time to look and feel, the part of your brain that is at the base of your skull can love the clarity of the desert. You can love the dry air and the way the temperature drops at night. You can love the harshness of it. You can even love the coyotes and all the hard and mysterious things that define our lives. All the things that we never, ever forget.

rlp

Images of El Paso