Charles in Charge

The main thing on my mind right now is Charles, my mentally ill-former bank robber-six feet tall, African-American adopted son. He is Union Mission's janitor and has been a constant in my life for more than a decade. I am his representative payee and Joy and I manage his money and needs. Through most of the staff give him presents of candy, coffee, and cigarettes. Charles wanders in and out of everyone's day, barely speaking because he is too busy talking to himself.

He came to us on parole and when that ended the officer told me that this was the most stable that Charles has ever been. So a shelter became a home and he became a janitor. He is forever wanting me to allow him to go to Augusta where he last remembers being with his family. And I've let him on a couple of occasions. He always brings me a copy of the Augusta newspaper to prove that it was actually Augusta that he went to.

Anyway, he loves me and I love him. He counts the days when I am away from the office and gets visably excited when I return. He brings me presents of coins that he has gotten and will sometimes just wander in and tell me something about his past. He is forever asking me questions like "Who do you think was worse, Nazi's or Barbarians?"

So a big piece of the stability of Charles' life is changing. I will no longer be a constant presence in his life. Joy and I have to figure out how to tell him that I will longer be there. And we will have to figure out how his affairs are going to be managed. And I pray that the relationships that he has with her and the others are enough to keep him from wandering off. The world was not kind to Charles before he came to us and I shutter to think of what it would do to him now.

So there is a lot to figure out. Everyday when I would leave my office for some destination, I would look at him and say, "Charles, you're in charge while I'm gone." And he would smile and wave a finger from the hand that was normally resting on top of his head.

So my dear, dear friend who I love as much as I love anybody, this time I am afraid that you are really going to be in charge.

Musings

"There's only one thing to be sure of mate, there's nothing to be sure of."

So goes a line from Stephen Swartz's play "Pippin" and it is as true as it gets I suppose. No matter how hard you try, or how much you give of yourself, or how much you may screw up while you try, things don't go the way that you want them to. You just can never be sure.

For the past 30 years at Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and at Union Mission, I've been part of a team that was there to catch people when they fell. Their lives came apart and suddenly they had nowhere to go. There was no family that wanted them. Friends disappeared. They were no longer sure of anything.

So I was one of the ones there to catch the fallen. And I was sure that I could help. No house to live in? Fine, we'll build some. And we did.

No heath care? We can do that. And we did.

Behavioral Health is the problem? We can fix that. And we did.

AIDS? Live here in these houses.

No work? Come here, we can help with that. And we did.

But it takes its toll, you know? And you become successful beyond your wildest dreams because you fix other people's tragedies. But their tragedies become yours in the process. You have to take them on and own them to help them get through. And so it becomes this burden that you carry.

And the success means that more tragedies come to you, from everywhere all of the time. And you are forever managing saddness. Good things happen, but you swim in a sea of tragedy.

And you find ways to survive. Relationships become intense. Gallows humor is everyday language. Intimacy is precious. And the need to have love returned in the same way that you throw it out everyday is the primary goal of life.

But this saddness lives in your heart though you do your very best to project confidence and optimism and succcess to those who so desperately need these things. But the saddness is always there and sometimes you just grow quiet and become alone with it. Because that is the way that saddness is managed. Alone.

And one part of you knows that you've done good because people thank you for what you do all of the time. But another part of you knows that you could have done things better but you are frail and human like everyone.

So you think about the things that you have done. Three little kool-aid stained girls now have a place to live and are happy and thriving. Cooks that you know have their teeth fixed at a dental clinic that you helped to build. Waitress' that you see everyday have health care. You buy things from people that you helped get a job.

And you think about it all. And you wonder what is next?

Sea Legs

I have good sea legs. I suppose it starts with my love of the ocean that was cultivated with a love of Ernest Hemingway's books about Key West and Havana, Cuba. And I made pilgrimages to both places. Throw shag music, the Beach Boys, and Jimmy Buffet in the background and a beach bum is born. Add good friends who love it like you do and it becomes a party.

I am fond of telling people that all of the things that I do at Union Mission is really just an attempt to support my beach bum habit. Now I love what I do at Union Mission but there is this other side of my life that somehow enables me to continue the work year after year. Each one of us has some other outlet for the triumph and tragedy of the work. Mine is salt air and sea.

So yesterday, my friends and I took a sea cruise. A 37 foot speed boat with two outboards and we made our way around the island. We stopped and snorkled a calm bay then sped to a deep reef. I am always mesmerized by the clicking sounds of the fish eating away at the coral. When the fish are plentiful as they were yesterday it sounds like a chorus singing underway.

Then I spied that Patti and Paul were helping Hania back to the boat so I swam over to be point in case other help was needed. The rougher waters were just a bit to much for her.

Back in the boat I had 37 emails that were waiting on me so I sat in the hull and answered them. Union Mission manages a lot of things that hurting and lost people need every day and you can never get completly away from it.

When I came out, it was time for lunch in another bay so I swam in and joined the others. Feasting on ribs, pasta and fruit, Hania was still feeling faint. So she did. But with cold water and surrounded by love, she rebounded quickly.

Then it was back on the boat where another 28 emails were waiting on me. I resumed my seat in the hull and answered them as we sped to the wayward side of the island. These were much rougher waters. Most everyone was in the back but the first mate was riding the bow, standing in the front as the boat crashed through wave after wave. I made my way to the other side of the bow and rode too.

The swells were four or five feet and were relentless and the boat would rise high in the air and then crash into sea again and again. It became a competition between me and the first mate. Ride with one hand up in the air. Ride with both hands raised (though the seas were too rough for that). For almost an hour we were one with the power of the sea. And we pounded waves laughing and throwing caution to the wind as we rode the bow.

And I one point I heard the voice of God in the wind and the spray and the crashing of the bow into the sea with me standing on it. For much of the last few years, this is what my life has been like. Crash after crash occuring in my work and in my private life. Managing people's crashed lives at work. Taken all together, it could have drowned me. Hell, it would have drown anyone.

Yet here I am. Riding the waves. Staying on top of each crash even when the bow would submerge into the sea. This is my life! And so far, I remain on top of the waves though there were times when I knew that I was drowning. But in each instance, I have risen above the crashing things in my life.

And I looked at the first mate and we laughed. And I raised one hand in the hair and we high-fived one another. And that was a holy expression of thanks that I remain in the bow, staying on top of the crashing waves of my life.

Solitude

There is more solitude in my life than there has ever been. I've always had a contemplative side and can lose myself in thought and music sitting on the back deck or staring at the ocean. I'll stand with my feet in the water, swaying from side to side lost in thoughts.

Then Conner will suddenly be standing beside with with a lopsided grin.

"What?" I ask ripping my earphones out.

"What?" he'll ask back.

Conner is a master of deep conversations.

Anyway, I have noticed on this trip the solitude of the night. Solitude far outpaces contemplativeness. And in the night, when there is no music, I lay in the bed and am engulfed in the solitude. It washes over me, surrounding the room and I stare at it.

And I think about finding love in my life again. Romantic love. The love of a best friend who is also my lover. And I lay my hand on the empty side of the bed. And I wish.

My friends here are all couples so I suppose that it is more profound to me that I am not. During the day, it is ok, but solitude commands the night.

It is alright. I know that I am preparing for the love that is coming. It will be richer and deeper and purer than any that I have had before.

Sometimes I talk to my friend Trolly Joe on the pier at Tybee and he shares with me his story and how he now holds love dearly in his life. And I've come to appreciate this time of preparing. And if Joe is right, you get better at it as you go through difficult times in your life. And you appreciate it more after you've known loss.

But in the solitude of the night, as I lay in the quiet, I begin to understand that the night brings longing. And and the longing will bring love. And that I will treat it more tenderly and hold it more dearly than I ever have before.

When Worlds Collide

"OK, it's $60 a couple," Paul announced as we finished our dinner at an outside table in the Village.

I threw the money on the table when Conner looked at me and said, "You're not a couple." Half of the money came back to me.

And I looked at the three other couples that I was with, good friends all, and recognized that as usual Conner was right. I was alone.

Well, kind of. I had my I-phone with me and was carrying on a conversation back home during the course of the dinner when Conner decided that he would leave the dinner conversation with our friends and join in on the one that I was having by texting. So he grabbed the phone out of my hands and jumped on in.

Typical Conner.

And suddenly my worlds were colliding. Savannah and St. Martin were one in the same for a moment anyway. And friends that I love were introducing themselves to one another. And I was pleased.

If I have learned anything over the past several months it is the magic that friends can bring to a life that was been disrupted and damaged. They make healing happen. They restore love. They bring the dead back to life.

Each of the friends that I was with have been to Tybee to visit me. And I have visited each of their homes. And they are curious and protective of me and the things that are going in my life. When I am interested in talking to someone by texting during dinner, they want to be included. Because good friends care.

So Conner has made a date to talk with a friend of mine from back home. And I think that friendship begats friendship. And love begats love. And God knows what is going to happen next. But I love it.

Holiness Personified

I was here when my grandmother died. Throughout my life, I was incredibly close to my grandparents. My second book is dedicated to them and when I wrote "Playing Hide and Seek with God", my grandfather was dying and I wrote about it. It is a sweet dedication but I have a hard time reading it without crying.

My mother remains very protective of me and the public life that I live intrudes even here. Yesterday I was fielding phone calls from Savannah politicians who needed things done or responding to Keller Deal's emails ordering me to do this or do that. It's just like that. So when my uncle died a few years ago, my mother refused anyone to tell me so that I could enjoy being here.

But then my grandmother died and I can still remember Mom calling me and how I cried in paradise. Then it was a rush to change airline tickets and get back home as quickly as possible.

There was this moment though that I will never forget. I walked outside of the tiny studio that I was in and there was a crowd of perhaps thirty people. Friends from all over the world. They hugged me and cried with me and it was the greatest church experience that I've ever had. Holiness personified. Love without boundaries.

Many of those same people are here with me now. There is a closeness that we share. Hugh and Patti arrived yesterday and he immediately let me know that we have lots to talk about today. Hugh lost his father recently and we will talk about it on our beach walks.

Patti and I danced last night as she celebrated my survival of recent months as only good friends can celebrate with one another.

Paul and Nancy rounded out the dinner crew and I was struck last night how we act like family more than anything else. We order for one another, share things off one another's plates and resume old conversations as though they'd never stopped.

Conner and Hania arrive tomorrow and then the collection will be complete. And the beach patrol will be reunited. Denise is waiting as the only female member. And we will talk up and down the beach a thousand times. And we will talk. And we will laugh. And we will celebrate the pasing of Hugh's Dad and remember my Dad and my grandmother and the birth of Conner's grandchildren and all of the experiences of our lives. We are bound. And it is a speical and holy friendship that we share.

And I am humbled to be blessed with friends such as these.

Suddenly Single

When I am here, I wake up, turn on the coffee pot, stumble to the ocean, wade in up to my knees, and fall face down in the water. I think that this is the way that God intended us to wake up. The ocean is like a huge body kiss! Not quite an orgasm but as close as it gets.

Except for today. I stumbled to the ocean, waded in up to my knees, and fell into the arms of Rick and Cook. They are old friends who live on the west coast and both make me laugh a lot. I've stayed with them in their house during my travels and they are two of the nicest people that I've ever met. Plus they are funny. Both are very different, you would never put them together, but they make me laugh. We spent time together last night and they had me laughing before I was even standing in the water.

"Mike, I have a question," Rick begins. I am convinced that Rick talks in his sleep. He is never at a loss for words.

"What?"

"Well, you are here alone, but you have two towels and you make up two chairs when you are on the beach. What is up with that?"

"Ah, thank you for asking Rick. I am making it up for the beautiful woman who is going to be laying beside me."

"Who?" Rick asked with his eyes growing wide. Cook leaned in to listen.

"Uh, I don't know yet but I am planning for when she shows up."

They burst out laughing.

In reality I had the exact same conversation with my Irish Catholic friends and Jeremy. We were at the bar in the Athens Holiday Inn when Walter asked if I was going to Colorado alone. His wife doesn't want to go and he doesn't want to be a fifth wheel and he knows that I am going and I am single.

"No, I am not going alone," I told him. "I just don't know who is going with me yet."

The room exploded in laughter and Walter said "Excuse me" and turned his chair around. (Jeremy can validate this conversation as Irish Catholic males are not especially trustworthy.)

A few months ago I was at dinner with my Irish Catholic friend Bill, and Charlie and somebody else at Rocks on the River. Bill was making introductions. "This is my friend Micheal. He is suddenly single!"

They laughed and I just looked at Bill. He had been suddenly single a few times in his life and is an expert at recognizing it when he sees it. So he saw me and recognized it when I didn't.

Then the most expert suddenly single person that I know is Johnny O. He has been suddenly single three-and-a-half times and he has been coaching me through this transition.

So last night on the dance floor I realized how suddenly single I am. I was dancing as I always do. She was pretty with long brown hair and I was throwing her around and catching her by her hand, when she crashed into me and kissed me long and deep in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Suddenly single suddenly had deeper meaning than it did before. Serendipity indeed.

So we danced through the night. Then we took a beach walk. And now I am trying to wake up but Rick and Cook are making it fun.

And they tell me that I am going to need more towels. So today I am getting four. By the time that Hugh and Conner get here, I may be way too busy for them. After all, being suddenly single means that I am a very busy man.

Now

Sometimes there is nothing else to say. So the quiet comes. And it takes a while to get used to the quiet after you have spent years talking to someone. But you do get used to it. From time to time you remember the unfinished conversations, the halted dialogue, the tremendous pain in words. Your stomach still turns at the memory of the pain. At first the quiet is oppressive.

Evenutally you grow somewhat accustomed to it but it doesn't seem completely natural. You embrace it the best that you can but quiet is not intimacy and that is what we long for.

And you begin to do all of the things alone that you used to do together. And you learn to do things for yourself that you always relied on someone else to do for you. You take inventory of what you have lost and you hold dearly onto the things that you have left.

Then the miracles begin to fill the silence. Friends randomly call or stop by and new discussions begin. And you focus on them intensly because voids have to be filled. And there is no going back so you move forward. And you become very intent on filling the voids with good things, wonderful friends, holy purposes, and as much love as you can gather and hold on to. Serendipity happens.

Today I sit in the same place that I did on Easter morning. I was angry that day and I had let it be known the night before. And the anger was returned in kind. And while a dying love wasn't raised from the dead that day like I prayed, I was. I found the beauty of life again watching a tiny, deformed woman dance in the water and I realized that I could heal my own brokenness. And I began to dance in new ways. Better ways. Deeper and richer and fuller because of the brokenness.

Then I celebrted. Jeremy and Irish Catholic friends made me laugh and drink and love the hell out of the life that God had given me and that had been tainted. Mostly by me, but tainted nevertheless. And I dove into my life again with the wild abandon that is at the core of me and that I had traded for something else.

So I look at the day ahead of me. I did my very best in the ones that are behind me. For whatever wrong I've done, I hope that I'm forgiven. But there isn't anything that I can do about it now except my best to learn from it.

And today I want to laugh. I want to dance. I want good discussions with good friends. I want to celebrate God's creation. I want to embrace serendipity. I want love. I want to do all of these things with wild abandon because that is who I am.

So, I will sing along with John Mellancamp,
Your fathers days are lost to you
It is time for you to do what you must do
Your life is now,
Your life is now,
In this undiscovered moment
raise your head above the crowd
We could shake this world
if you would only show us how
Your life is now.

A Journey of One

And I am off on an adventure of one. Traveling back to a place that I love. Alone. It is an interesting mix of feelings with this trip. I've been alone before on two different occasions. The first was a true boy's trip with Conner and me just having a good time. Then this past April, I went with Conner again but I was coming to terms with the conclusion of a transition that I'd been experienced.

Now the transition is long complete. So those feelings are not with me on this trip. Though I will be surrounded with people who will remember me as someone else. Someone who was connected with somebody else. They will remember me as part of an "us" but that is no longer who I am.

I am just me.

I am looking forward to sliding into my contemplative side as I stare at the ocean and swim to the reef. And God knows what laughs Conner, Hania, Hugh and I are going to have. Patti will just kind of float around us as she does, when she's not counting the number of beers that Hugh is having. Nancy and Paul are always a hoot. Rick and Cook are back for the first time in a while. Marty and Denise have already written wanting to know when I arrive.

In many ways I will be introducing myself to them for the first time. But the new me isn't quite the same as the old me. I am an altered boy.

And I had a harder time saying bye to Goddess this morning than I usually do. I've become much more of a home body than I was before, just enjoying sitting at the kitchen table or on my beloved back deck. And I worry about my plants that represent promises of good things to come. And there is this serendipity that has been floating in and out of my life that I am anxious to keep.

And I have a lot that I need to accomplish while I am away. There is a manuscript that I have to complete for a new book. I've started it but it has become very difficult to give it the conentration it needs when I am home. There are too many distractions from work. Now I'll have the time to love it to completion.

So I am off. On a journey of one. Reintroducing myself. To myself.