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.

Memorial Day Serendipity

When I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I stepped directly in the nest that Goddess had made while I slept. I jumped a mile in the air and cussed. "Dammit Goddess!" I screamed into the darkness.

Whenever I am traveling, I'm not certain if Goddess misses me or not because she loves her other keepers. It had been Chelsea and Sam this time. But it could just as easily had been Kim or Tony and Margaret or Jeremy and Marie, like it will be tomorrow. And when I'm home consistently here she just goes to sleep in the floor beside where I'm sleeping.

When I'm gone, as I was over the weekend, the first night that I'm back she builds a nest beside me on the floor and then sleeps in the doorway protecting me from whatever it is she thinks might get me. Of course I never remember this and step onto several palms and sticks.

But it is hard to be mad with her. A dog finds a way to let me know that I was missed and she is glad that I am home and that we are together again.

I was in Richmond, Virginia to do the homily at the wedding of Micah and Mary Catherine Berry. Micah is the son of Bill Berry, not the former drummer for R.E.M. but the other one. The one that I went to seminary with.

At one point we were cracking up because it was the first time that we had been to church together in ten years. And it was the first time in twenty-five that we both had ties on at the same time.

The last time, we had committed some unpardonable sin at the seminary and had been summoned to someone's office. We had been ordered to wear ties. So we did. We tied them around our heads as headbands and calmy walked into whosever's office it was. I've forgotten which unpardonable sin that we had committed but I do remember that I got in more trouble than Bill did. Come to think of it, I always seemed to get in more trouble than he did even though he was with me the whole time that we were committing whichever unpardonable sin that we were committing.

So Bill's daughter Amber snapped a picture of us wearing ties and posted it on Face Book. Then Stretch, the offical photographer wanted one of us so we recreated the while tie-as-headband-for-committed-unpardonable-sin thing. I swear I got in more trouble than Bill did again!

We're waiting on Stretch to post the picture.

But I digress. It is Memorial Day. A lot has happened since last Memorial Day and I am spending this one alone. I don't remember the last time that I did that. In fact, I don't think that I have ever spent Memorial Day alone. It's always been filled with family, beach, cookouts, music and love.

Today there is the beach. Music is playing. And there is me.

Well, and Goddess who is laying flat on her back, with all four legs up in the air, tail just a wagging, wanting me to lay in the floor and rub her stomach.

I'll take my serendipity where I can get it.

A New Beginning

I am off to Richmond, Virginia today for tomorrow's wedding of Micah and Mary Catherine. Micah is the son of Bill Berry, not the former drummer for R.E.M., but the other one. The one that I went to seminary with and seem to get into all kinds of trouble with.

In spite of this, Micah and Mary Catherine are obviously foolishly in love because they have lost their minds and asked me to deliver the homily. The last time I delivered a homily, I was in St. Martin's of Tours Church in Louisville and Vernon, the Priest and dear friend, got drunk afterwards. I remember it as being pretty good.

Anyway, Micah and Mary Catherine are childhood sweethearts. Their lives have dipped and swooned and they fell in and out of one another's lives until they fell into each other's arms. And now that stand at the beginning of a new life together which is going to be much different from their old life together.

Oh they have been in love for some time and I enjoy watching them together. Not too long ago they were visiting me and we sat on my back deck and Micah played songs on his guitar and Mary Catherine watched him sing, knowing all of the words and encouraging him. It was sweet.

Micah is a musician and an electrician. Mary Catherine seems to beleive that he is a magician. Anyway, he plays music most nights and is on the road playing in different bands. His music has carried him around the world. He is a lot like Bill and doesn't mind trying new things. Mary Catherine is more conservative and sweet. He looks like a musician, meaning he could pass for a homeless guy most days while she wears cute dresses and always looks good. The are opposites. Then again they are not. That is what love can do.

Love is a pure and holy thing. People are not. We are flawed and we have our moments and no matter how hard we try not to, we screw up. And we have some incredible knack for wounding one another even when doing that is the furtherest thing that we have in our minds. And were it not for love, we would kill one another and everyone would live the life of a hermit.

But their is love, thank God. And so long as we focus on the love it will get us through. Micah and Mary Catherine are no different from the rest of us. There will be moments when without meaning to, they hurt one another. Or they hurt themselves. Many couples do not have what it takes to love each other through these times. I think that they do. There is a serendipity that surrounds them.

So I will be celebrating with them tonight at the rehersal and tomorrow at the wedding. And after the incredible homily that I am going to deliver, I can't help but wonder how drunk they are going to get after the ceremony.

Follow Your Heart

Bliss and beautiful or crash and burn.

Following your heart can lead to either and most often all four of these emotions occur in the same relationship. Yet, it is our hearts that we follow in spite of where we land. Other people or other things may lead for a while, but in the end it is our hearts that we follow.

Or we are so lost that we just give our lives away. To abusive others. To religions or focus groups. To drugs. To ... a thousand other things where the heart doesn't necessarily want to go.

And our hearts are always looking for love.

So I have followed mine most of my life as hopeless romantics often do. Looking for serendipity which leads to love. But...things happen.

Skip in the office was talking to some folks about this. They had been married for 40 and 50 years respectfully. They did not comprehend how couples cannot be together. After all they had so how come everyone can't? He explained how they had not been through it so they would never understand.

The heart leads you to another heart and they touch and they love and ... then? It ends and it leaves you different. If you survive.

So as I've said I've followed my heart and I've learned some powerful things.

First, it can make quite a difference. In Louisville and in Savannah, things are different because I aligned myself with others who did incredible things following their hearts. And wonderful and great and miraculous things happened. The widow, the orphan and the sojourner found peace. The dead came back to life! The Kingdom came on earth as it is in heaven for a little while.

But I lost two things as great things were accomplished. Something that I never thought I would have ever imagined. Especially the second.

The first, we were babies. I discovered what I do after we had discovered one another. Then we discovered birth control. We did our best and conceived wonderful children who are my best friends today. And she is a wonderful person who does good things.

Then I found the love of my life. Until I learned that I wasn't the love of hers in the same way. And I learned darkness that was so deep and so painful that I never thought I would survive. And the thing is that I understand. She is doing what she needs to do for her and I support that. Though the painfulness of coming to this cannot be worst than the worst parts of hell.

I wish them both peace and happiness. Life is too short for anything else.

Afterwards, I moved on and followed my heart and touched bliss and beautiful again. For a second. Then it was crash and burn. I am expert on all four.

And I sit here and wonder how over thirty years, homeless people, and sick people, and mentally ill people; the prostitutes and the junkies, and the infirmed and poor can love me without ceasing. And their families call often, asking me to love their sons and daughters and mothers and fathers. And how we are all always here for one another without question. Never have we so much as questioned our allegiance to the other. We are bound. But this is a sad and oppressive love that sometimes leads to moments of happiness but it teaches you how we are all bound in life together if we are going to get through it.

But dear ones whom I have given my heart to cannot maintain the ebb and flow of love that we do with one another. And I understand that there is injustice in the world. And in my life. And that resurrections do not always occur just because you pray.

So...I look for the love in my life. Again.

Goddess is panting behind me and wants me now without question. Those crazed flawed wonderful collection of friends at the Breakfast Club remind me of weariness and laughter at the same time. The Bored meeting is another carnival of friends who thrive mostly on laughter. Then there is this smattering of the Diaspora ... friends who are scattered throughout the world who remain in touch and we share love. And the people of Union Mission who love the people who have loved me most for thirty years.

And I pine for the bliss and the beauty because once you have had it you always want it.

But these things are not mine right now.

So I ponder what to do for a while.

Then I stand and know. I will do what I have always done.

I will follow my heart.

Life Down Here On Earth

Every morning when I run the beach I can't help but notice the difference from the day before. Especially if I'd been on the beach the day before or have taken a beach walk like I did last evening.

In the daytime people have left trash and cigarette butts and other stains on the shore. All kinds of things wash ashore from condoms to beer cans to pieces of boats. God's beauty is stained.

But as I run the water mark, I see where the ocean has cleansed the beach, swallowing these things into her belly. And what was once dirty is not clean. The sins have been washed away, as an old hymn goes.

There are times when I wish that life was like this. As i've gone through mine, I've pick up stains by doing things that hurt myself or hurt others. And try as I may to hide them or sweep them under a rug, at some point they usually come out. These things then become part of who we are as individuals. We may only do something once but it remains a part of who we are.

Halos fall to one side. Angels fall and when they get back up they are dirty never as pure as they were.

Yet this is what living life is, I think. We go through with the purest of intentions but we do selfish things or stupid things or hurtful things. Almost always we immediately regret them, but they have been done. They are now part of our history and they alter us. I see it every day at work as people fall into poverty, addiction, and homelessness as decisions become patterns in one's life. I am certainly an altered boy, to quote Jimmy Buffett, and can never be quite what I was before I made some of my choices.

There is a song I love by Nashville songwriter Kevin Welch called "Life Down Here on Earth." Singing about life with our carnival of friends and highlighting our flaws, he gets to the line:

I killed a lot of time
that was my biggest sin
but I forgave myself
and I'm alive again!

The point being that we are flawed people and that overcoming crooked halos or dirty white robes begins with forgiving ourselves and jumping right back into living life!

So while I am sorry for some of the things that I've done, especially those things that hurt others, I have forgiven myself and I'm alive again. And I'm going to do my very best to not repeat myself as I live my life down here on earth.

Sountracks

My friend Sarah likes to dance in the rain. I like to run in it. It has though God herself is baptizing me with holy water thrown down from above. There is something cleansing about running in the rain.

This morning it was coming down steady when I took off from my house and made my to back river. My I-pod is on shuffle and as I top the sand tune, The Beatles are singing "Octopus Garden" from the "LOVE" remix so the song begins with searing strings before exploring into George Harrison's crisp guitar. It is the perfect song for the rain beside the sea.

Then I turn the protection of the back river for the south beach and the wind blast my body with blowing sand and rain. I am running against it and John Anderson's "Seminole Wind" blows through my earphones. A song about the winds of change and how beautiful things get ravished and I think to myself, "I've taken worse than this lately and survived," and I keep running.

Making my way to Butler Avenue, the main drag, "Counting Blue Cars" by Dishwalla carries me beside the traffic and it is hard not to laugh. "Tell me all your thoughts on God, cause I'd really like to meet her, and ask her who and what we are?" A dear friend of mine explained that the writer believes that God must be a woman because a man is incapable of creating such beauty in the world.

On Twelth Street, I begin my return to home when it is replaced by "Here Comes the Sun" by George Harrison, and right now cue out it pops, brilliant and bright. The rain stops and the wind dies a little. I wonder if angels have programmed this shuffle.

Slowing down on my street, Yvonne Elliman sings "Everything's Alright" from the "Jesus Christ Superstar" Soundtrack and I beleive that it is. After several waves of major shitstorms where I often felt that I would drown and never get my head above water again, the sun is now shinning. Warm winds blow through my heart again.

And this is the message of the day. Sometimes holiness touches us in funny ways. A random succession of songs hit the bull's eye dead and center. And I feel that God is indeed answering my questions of who and what we are.

So I begin the day with a pray. Cause I really want to thank her.