Getting Loose

Jack Kellam's Desk

I had a friend by the name of Jack Kellam, God rest his soul. But one of the things I noticed about him was that whenever he got a piece of important information on a piece of paper, or maybe some inventory list, or packing list, and didn’t want to deal with it at the moment, he would, without hardly opening the drawer, slide it into the middle drawer of his desk where it would be safe.

I really don’t know if he ever went through that drawer.

Ever.

I have a rather large desk that is in my study. It’s got seven drawers that face where I sit down, and it also has a very large center drawer that is shallow. I, too, like Jack, have oftentimes put stuff in there thinking that one day I am going to go through it, and rarely ever do.

I had some inspiration the other night from who
knows where, and took out the drawer and walked into my living room and just turned it over on my living room Berber rug. It took me two different days to try to sort through it all.

I know I had over 45 pens and pencils which were all of good quality. I had dozens of paper pads that I have gotten in the mail from non-profit organizations. I always kept those, thinking I might need to take one out and write some note on it, but I never did. I instead would get some envelope on the top of my desk and write on the back of it whatever I was talking about on the phone, or doing some quick figuring. I also had bolt parts to shelves, ear buds I’ve never used, lots and lots of calling cards that I fool myself into thinking I better keep these just in case. I’ll bet I’ve got close to 100 of those! A bag full of twisty ties. The scroungiest paper clips you ever saw, even though I have also a package of brand new paper clips as well, etc.

I threw a lot away. But if you had not seen it before, you’d look at it now and wonder why I was so messy.

Responding to atheist Bob Seidensticker

I enjoy reading your jousting with Christians.  You are definitely a child of the post-Enlightenment rationalistic thinkers and seem to place a premium on the ability to formulate propositions in a linear, analyzable, rational, discursive manner, and that by using a scientific method of understanding reality, you have your sights set on reducing mystery to its radical, rational elements in a universal, valid form to verify the processes of prediction and control.  Fair enough?

 

I tend to see that there are basically two different kinds of language—metaphysical (which appears to be the world in which you live and move and have your being) and liturgical.  Metaphysical is the language of science, historicity, law, etc.  It tends to be an ordered way of looking at reality to be able to make intelligible and coherent statements about being.

 

On the other hand, liturgical language is one of images, intuitions, insights, icons, beliefs, visions, poetry, prayers, metaphors, and parables that excite and spark the imagination of the beholder and illumine Real Mystery.  Revelation comes from the world of liturgical language, and in a very real sense metaphysics and revelation are mutually exclusive. 

 

In the pursuit of finding the truth of a poem, I would not ask of it metaphysical questions.  Likewise, in the pursuit of the truth of a scientific experiment, I would not be asking of it questions ground in a liturgical outlook.

 

Given that prolegomena, I in all my hubris, wanted to touch on the points that you raise.

 

1) Sure death sucks, but why single out this one?  Because this is one Jesus could have avoided. Yes, Jesus was fully divine and fully human.  The kind of suffering that was experienced is not the point.  In and through it, Jesus continued to act on his most basic core principle—love.  His responses are not spewing hatred, and calumny, and “it isn’t fair,” but in and through it all, loving.. 

 

2) What about that whole hell thing?  Yeah?  What about it? You say billions going to hell.  Seriously?  Is that the action of a loving God?

 

3) Jesus didn’t even die.  Well of course he died.  What do you think the resurrection is?  A resuscitated corpse?  I don’t believe that.  Nor do I believe most of the atonement theories out there.

 

4) Taking on the sin vs. removal of sin aren’t symmetric.  I’m not sure what you are going with this.  It is the Church that talks more about original sin, not Jesus.  I’m not clear what you are driving at about “believing” being a necessity to access the solution.  If you look at the parable of the sheep and goats in the latter part of Matthew 25, the sheep inherited the kingdom because of the good things they did.  None of them got there because of some belief. 

 

5) The reason behind the sacrifice—mankind’s original sin—makes no sense.  I agree.  Nor do I think that that is the reason for the sacrifice.

 

6) Jesus made a sacrifice—big deal.  Well, it really is a big deal.  But a lot of your verbiage in this paragraph is remarkable and right on target.  I really don’t have much quibble with it.  We single out Jesus because yes, even though his motives were pure, he acts in such a loving way, even when the nails are being pounded in, that almost none of us would respond the way he did.  He is a pattern, an example for us to imitate—that is, if we are trying to develop in a better way than we quite often do, making love the root and core of our being as well.

 

7) What is left for God to forgive?  That’s a good question.  You seem bound and determined to use some version of the atonement theory.  If I try to use your reasoning here, then your point makes sense.  What would there be left to forgive for all that is past? Hopefully there lies a future for many of us, and for Christians at least, inevitably, unless we watch and pray, we again will fall prey to the guilt and power of sin.  Even if a Christian were to repent, accept justification, and continue in sanctification, at the very best, there will still be seeds of sin in that Christian’s heart that are much like a tinder box always ready in a moment’s notice to explode.  And if it does, the Christian would still need forgiveness.  But . . . forgiving sins is not God’s main focus.

 

8) The Jesus story isn’t even remarkable within mythology. You probably have a point here.  I’m probably not as well read as you.  But the remarkable thing to me is that Jesus was fully human (in addition to being fully divine) and Prometheus is just a myth.

 

9) The Bible itself rejects God’s savage “justice.” Very good point with respect to the Prodigal Son.  I’m impressed with how well read you are of the Scriptures.  I don’t fundamentally disagree with your point here, except to say that rather than somehow God demanding justice in order to be satisfied, I think that this is something that Jesus took on instead, on his own.

 

10) The entire story is incoherent.  I agree.  With the way you tell it, it is incoherent.  I think that a lot of the issue is as I suggested at the beginning.  You are trying to overlay onto the liturgical language of the Scriptures an empirical, rational, discursive, descriptive, linear, noetic way of grasping reality, and that is not the language nor the thought process of the Bible.  As a great critical thinker of the 20th  century, Bernard Lonergan once wrote, “ . . . the world of pure science and of metaphysics is somehow very different from the world of poetry and common sense.”

Being Used

Since I am retired, once a month or so, I volunteer to put in some time toward helping the staff out with pastoral care needs. While Marvin UMC is a big church (3000+ members), we are tilted toward the upper end of the age spectrum. Hence there are far more pastoral care needs to attend to than the clergy on the staff can possibly get done.

Each time when I set out to do this, there are usually 30 names or so to choose from. I try to see who has had some minimal pastoral care work in the last 30 days, and then I set out to write three people, call three people, and visit three people. I never really know who I am going to pick in these categories ahead of time.

One of the people I called had cancer. They were trying a stem cell replacement in their bone marrow. It's really dicey. I shared that I also was undergoing cancer treatment. They immediately opened up about how hard it was on them. Having to be in Dallas for 7 more weeks as they had to be within half an hour of the hospital if things suddenly went bad. It was like being in prison in some ways. They apologized for getting into so much detail about their condition with me, and said they knew I didn’t call to listen to their troubles, and what did I really want? I said I wanted nothing from them. I knew they were on our prayer list and just wanted to touch base with them. They were surprised. When I call people, I rarely know if anything is wrong or not. All I really know is that they haven’t been in church for a while.

Another person that I actually went to see, opened up about their fear that their child was an alcoholic. “Is pushing them down, really the best option?” That’s a tough one, because ordinarily the answer is, more often than not, a “yes” to that one. I said that this parent had to learn to become exceedingly well self-defined—to love their child, yes, but to not enable their child. I didn’t know where the conversation was going to go. I had never met this person in my life, yet I told them that in my last church that I pastored, we had an exceptional program in place to help women with their addictive issues.

When I volunteer every so many weeks, I never know what people I am going to meet or talk to, and it always surprises me that I might be the very person they need to hear an encouraging word from. In fact, I realize in those moments I am but a tool that God uses to reach out to others. That’s a very humbling position to be in.

The Nutcracker

I am a veteran acting in over 20 plays. But for the first time ever this year, I was asked to fill in a role
for Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, put on by Tyler Junior College's Academy of Dance.  Ballet, while performed on a stage like a play is, is nevertheless a horse of another color.  Completely.

“How so?” You may ask.

Well, let me count some of the ways:

1) Tchaikovsky’s music is sheer genius. I don’t see how one man could possibly come up with so many memorable tunes. It is astounding and stunning. While musicologists, I suppose, would say that Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven are his superiors, nevertheless, there is a magical element in Tchaikovsky's compositions that blow me away. Mozart’s tunes are also so memorable. The only thing I can conclude is that all of these men were somehow such sensitive spirits that they were able to channel music that was coming to them from a higher realm. I just cannot buy that their genius in music was solely the product of some human initiative or intuition.

2) Our cast for the Nutcracker had over 150 people in it.
I’ve never been in a play with that many. Kids were everywhere. Stage moms were running to and fro trying to corral their little darlings, yet they and the two principals that we hired all did a really fantastic job. The coordination, the choreography blows me away. Choreography is my absolute weakest suit with doing anything on stage, and all these dancers poured their hearts out. I would smile as I watched them give their all, knowing that what they were doing, I could never do. I marveled at their art and their singular focus to give the very best. As soon as they came off stage into the wings, some looked like they wanted to collapse, but going out again under the lights, you would never know it. They were once again in character making a valuable part of the story come to life.

3) I never knew how noisy pointe shoes were till I was up close and personal with them on stage. Whoa!

4) While the principals were dancing on stage, people in the wings were shouting paeans of affirmation and applauding their every move. I was astonished to put it mildly. In the theater of which I am accustomed, you would never do that kind of a thing. But in this instance it seemed more like fans rooting for their favorite players out of the boards!

5) When I was conscripted to take the part I did, I was looking for a director who was serious, hard charging, impatient, demanding, somewhat sarcastic, trying to push and motivate her dancers to do better than they had ever done, with zero toleration for any miscues or mistakes. In fact, when I first met Carolyn Hanna , I thought, she can’t possibly be the director. She’s too nice, too pretty, too laid back, too comforting, too empathetic, etc.
Then I read about her.

She studied at Julliard? No way! Those people are too full of themselves, allowing the basic snobbery with which people who inhabit NYC look upon the rest of the world. Not Carolyn Hanna. But it was Carolyn Hanna. I came to understand that she was the bowsprit figurehead who would calm the turbulent waters of anxiety with her experienced insights, her subtle coaching that “You can do this.” Her calm, collected self-defining behavior imparted health and a greater resolve to do even better next time, to the entire cast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6) Ballet is a wonderful artistic medium
that can stir all sorts of passion not only in the dancer, but also in the individual and collective audience member(s). If you’ve never been to one, put it on your bucket list. I still marvel at how the thighs of the ballerinos
look like football players, yet they are as graceful and energetic as any human being I’ve ever seen.

Tossing It Out

Well, I have finally begun to accept the idea that no one is going to ask me to teach in seminary. 

So, I have thrown out notes that I took over 40 years ago on courses like "Church and World", "Theological Method", "Systematic Theology", "Hebrew I", "Greek I" etc.

It was fun sifting through some of the notes and comments of my own teachers had put on my papers, but I can recognize that I probably should have done this long ago. 

I had one binder that was probably 4 inches thick of notes and papers.  I've whittled it down to two inches.

Listlessness

My gosh, I can’t believe it has been five years (to the day, no less).  No one wants tomes; they want sound bites, hence the popularity of Twitter, which is being eclipsed by Snapchat (and now that I sent my youngest son one, he has sworn off that.)

 

Besides having cancer [though I am in an a clinical trial that has a 98% response rate [and yes, the one tumor I could palpate, is smaller than it was two years ago, (which is another way of saying if I were to feel my body for tumors in an average layman kind of a way, I would never notice the one that has gone down so much)], I am presently suffering with acute bronchitis.  It was fairly easy to self-diagnose, but after having gone on for a week, I stopped in to see my physician, and he confirmed what I suspected—shallow breathing, fever, deep hacking cough like you were going to throw up, phlegm that comes from your chest and not your head, fatigue, find it excruciatingly difficult to sleep for any amount of time.  Taking a chest X-RAY, there may be a little pneumonia in one of my lung lobes, but that is not conclusive.

 

I got to thinking, I am glad I am retired so that I have time to be sick.  Now, I am not trying to be Poor, Pitiful Pearl.  I am exceedingly blessed.  I’m in a better place than I would have ever dreamed possible.  But the life of the clergy is exceedingly hard.  No one gets that, till you are in their shoes.

 

A colleague of mine recounted how his nephew fresh out of college has landed a job in which he will make more money than this man made at his last church before retirement.  I grimaced when he said that.  I knew it was true.  And I totally grasp that none of us entered the ministry to make money.  But clergy have incredibly difficult jobs.  Everyone in your congregation, especially on the Monday after Sunday, can tell you how you could have done it better.  Or how you failed to see Aunt Minnie in the hospital and people are all upset.  Or there’s never enough money, and you constantly have your hand out to remind people about giving to the Lord.  Grace is free, but A/C, and lights, and gas all have a price tag, as does building upkeep, as does quality staff.  Or there is a rumor spreading, which is a half-truth (worse than a lie) and you’ve got to try to counter it.  Or you have an off month attendance wise and you begin to feast on your anxieties.  What am I doing wrong?  Why don’t people like me? 

 

I’ve been retired for over 2½ years, and just reading through that list, is like a heart stab.  I’ve not forgotten.  It is a trait, that by and large, clergy are looking for love and affirmation, and all too often, the churches they serve are toxic for them. 

 

What I’m saying to you is this: whether you go to church, or whether you do not, pray for some minister, somewhere.  It will do you good.  When you pass a church, think about the poor pastor trying to keep it all together.  It’s tough.

 

But coaching is tough, and so is being the superintendent of a school system.  It is exceedingly hard to remain self-defined in such highly anxious systems.

 

I think in some ways our society is being envenomed by the political atmosphere through which we are going.  The acrimony, the finger-pointing, the ad hominem arguments, are poisoning.  People that I know personally, take on a nearly scathing, vicious persona on line.  One of my colleagues while being very personally affirmative looks for every single negative article he can post about the current administration.  People are seemingly unable to get loose from their anxieties surrounding the political sphere.  I have cut way back on watching the cable news shows because the constant bombardment of conflict, intrigue, looking for a deep, dark ulterior motive rather than take the Occams Razor solution with any credibility are enervating. 

 

Just recently, I had a 1st cousin, twice removed, post one of the most outrageous, unsubstantiated bits of libel I had ever seen about the death of David Rockefeller.  I took him to task, albeit in a playful way.  I helped him to understand that Rockefeller had given away ½ of his fortune to help others.  I wondered if in any given year, he had given away even $5,000 to help the common good.  Silence.

 

In my current malaise I have been enjoying more simple conversations, just reading and “liking”, (although in a closed clergy group, liturgical concerns still get my dander up),  letting go, and letting the world spin around some.

 

Deborah Sue Thomason

Oh, she was w-a-a-a-a-a-y out of my league. But I had always admired her from afar. She was a cheerleader at Beaumont High. She went to the church I grew up in— Trinity UMC. She sang in our youth choir. For a period of time she was in MYF when Patsy Quested was there and Al Frost and others. She would volunteer as a junior high kid to work with the Vacation Bible School kids in the summer. In 1967 she was the Neches River Festival Queen. But I just found out last night that Debbie Thomason has died.

I do not know all of her claims to fame. What I remember was that she played the part of the girl, Luisa, in the Beaumont Community Players rendition of the Fanastaicks, back in the ‘60's. Until she landed that role, I did not really know that that troupe even existed. It shows you how sheltered I was. The reviews she got were raving. The first play I was in, For Heaven’s Sake, she was in as well.

I can’t get over that she has died.

She was one of Dean Martin’s Golddiggers and toured with USO. She was a charmer to be very, very sure.

I remember her parents, M. V. and Clarice. They seemed older to me as a child, and perhaps they had her later in life. I never really knew. What I did know was that she was larger than life—energetic, infectious, mesmerizing, coltish, stunning, beautiful, alluring.

I just can’t believe that she is gone.

Good bye, Debbie. I’ll see you down the road.

Shaking the Hand of the Man

I had begged Charles many times to go.

He would usally just look away and wave his hand as if to say, "Scram, Son, you are bothering me."

But today he actually called me to go. I was glad to have him.

Man, the place was crowded. Cars everywhere.

Even the meeting was crowded with guests and members.

The speaker spoke on autism, and that was clearly a topic that moved Charles’s heart as his beloved child is autistic.

After the meeting was over, since we have both parked our cars out back, I knew a short cut and asked Charles if he wanted to follow me to get to where he needed to go.

He consented, and after walking through a rat maze, we were getting close to the last door to push open, when out of the corner of my eye, I happened to notice a man sitting at a table who looked familiar. I thought to myself, "Naw . . . it couldn’t be him. Just a look-alike."

But Charles looked up and exclaimed, "Mr. President!" And walked over to him and greeted him profusely.

He recounted to him a story the details of which were familiar to the President.

And when the President asked him what he was doing now, instead if pulling out his prestigious work at a national level, Charles replied that he was the emeritus pastor of my church. And then he said, "I’d like for you to meet our senior pastor."

The President stuck out his hand.

I was flabbergasted. I shook it and said, "Mr. President, it is so very good to meet you."

Later, I thought, "Wow! How many people ever get to shake the hand of the President of the United States of America?"

I know I am the first one in my family ever to have done so.

The Good Physician

Man it was very, very tender to the touch.

My first thought was, "Man, I do not remember banging my head this bad!" Yet there was a slightly raised place on my skull like from a concussion, yet it felt a little crusty. I thought, "What is up with that? Psoriasis?"

Then I noticed above my sideburn there was the same thing. Then I noticed I had some hives by my eye and lip and on my cheek. So I tried 25 mg. of Benedryl. Didn’t even phase it. So before I went to work, I got some Claritin to deal with the wheals. Still nothing. It looked like a pimple or two was trying to form by my lower lip. I thought, "Have I been eating all that fat or greasy of foods? What is up with THIS?"

Next I began to notice some recurring shooting of pain on my head on these spots. And I thought, "Man, what is up WITH THIS?"

I went to bed after having taken some acetaminophen (which I rarely take), but about by 1 a.m., the shooting pain woke me up. And I thought, "Man, What is UP WITH THIS?" I could not go back to sleep. I did not know what to do. I began to think, "Man, I wonder if I have the shingles?"

But then I thought, "Why it can’t be the shingles. I’ve already had that shingles shot that all the old folks are supposed to take." Another shooting pain occurred, and I thought, "Man, what IS UP WITH THIS?"

I went to a web site and just tried to use it like a recipe book. I have these symptoms, tell me what I got. But wouldn’t you know it, I could find no such site. I thought, "Man, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?"

Now, just to touch the scalp area was painful. The right side of my neck was swollen. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I said, "MAN, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?"

I began to focus on that maybe I did have shingles after all. Nothing else made sense to me. Of course, I went to the dark side for a moment, and thought maybe I have some weird stage four cancer that is erupting. And then I thought, "Well, no. That is unlikely. I just had a well man physical. Something would have shown up in the blood work."

The pain was getting greater. I thought, "I wonder if I have any hydrocodones left over?" Eureka! I popped two into my mouth at about 3 a.m. Within 20 minutes I was drifting off to sleep.

I made an appointment to see my internist. He is a neat, very knowledgeable, board certified kind of a guy. I love our give and take and verbal sparring. He walked into the room and I said, "I just want to see if you are as good of a diagnostician as I am."

Not taking to it kindly he said, "Listen up! I am better than you are."

I said, "I hope you are, but I just wanted to see if you are at least as good as me. I’m guessing Herpes zoster."

He said, "I knew that before I even came into the room."

I said, "Oh, come on, give me a freaking break. You may be a doctor, but you are not a wizard. Oh, I get it, you heard it from one of your technicians whom I told her that that is what I thought I had!"

He said, "Wrong, camel breath. When I saw on the chart that you had some pain on the right side of your scalp and on top, I said to myself, I said, ‘That dude has shingles.’ When I walked into the door and saw your face my diagnosis was confirmed!"

I said, "Well, you really are a pretty good diagnostician."

Then I sat down and shut up and listened as he lectured me.

Bringing in the New Year

Many people are saying that they are dead. That FB and Twitter are becoming the media of information exchange about what is going on inside.

I don’t fully agree despite my terrible negligence of this medium.

But . . . on New Year’s Eve, my son Micah was with me, and he condescended to spend some time with his old man. So, I thought to treat him, I would cook us a meal. Thank you Mark Bittman!

I made (all of this from scratch):

• Parmesan spread for toast using the real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• Spaghetti with eggplant
• Pan grilled salmon fillets with lentils (though I should have checked ahead of time for thyme and bay leaves and chives which I did not have—that would have immensely helped the lentil flavoring, but I did use some parsley)
• Braised butternut squash with garlic
• Dinner rolls
• Caramelized Granny Smith apples

My goodness, did we have some leftovers or what?