Nod to the boys of Stephens Street

It has begun.

Doug was born 12.12.53

making him the first

to cross the imaginary line.

The rest of us were ’54.

I think I’m next.

Mid-march, eighteenth to be exact,

about two weeks before Steve.

Denny follows on April fifth.

Donnie may have been the youngest,

maybe a summer birthday.

And Lee Ann, she was the only girl,

and I don’t remember her DOB.

Logic? I’ll take football.

My heart can be pulled and tears called forth in numerous settings. Books, movies, songs and, I might as well admit, TV shows and commercials can all overwhelm me. A heartfelt conversation, whether with a friend or someone I have just met, can lead to a place of wonder.

I’m drawn in and it happens. Something whispers of something deeper: life as I hope and dream it could or should be; forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, second chances, unbelievable tenacity and peace; taste of the holy, of something more.

I think I’ve always had a sensitive side and I think it may be growing in intensity with age. Maybe I am more aware of it and have no interest in holding it back.

In 1981 I was in my twenties and I ran a marathon, which was a big deal for me. It was the accomplishment of something that I thought impossible. I trained, registered and ran. As I neared the finish line I had a sense of being overwhelmed. Satisfaction, joy and contentment filled me. I felt I was about to cry, but I told myself, “Not now. If you cry, they (family and friends waiting for me) will think something’s wrong. But I’m okay, I can’t cry now, I’ll do it later.”

Later never came and that cry never happened. That memory has been my rallying point for trying to be better about living in the moment and accepting opportunities when they present themselves.

For almost a decade I’ve shared season tickets to Seattle Seahawks games with my youngest son. As with most things I tend to overanalyze this.  It costs money, it takes time (we live about 100 miles from the stadium) and it impacts other family schedules. I, also, have cautions about the world of football. It’s violent and I’m doing my best to be a pacifist. There are the current concerns about concussions and questions related to the very survival of the sport in the future. There are issues of money: young men making more money than they will ever need at a time in life when they have limited skills to manage the trust. The flow of cash for tickets and concessions added to advertising dollars can produce budget numbers beyond my imagination.

But then it happens. Another game day arrives. We have our rituals. We make the drive listening to the sports talk guys while having our own conversation about the impending rivalry. We park in the same area and take the same walk to the stadium, buy (usually) the same lunch, enjoy the same pre-game activities and eventually make our way to our seats.

We arrive 20 to 30 minutes before kick-off. We do not want to miss the pre-game happenings each week with few changes. The flag and national anthem are the first to get me choked up. And let’s be honest, I have deeply conflicted thoughts about Americanism, patriotism and the like. But it still gets me. Next the players are introduced. The crowd is driven to a frenzy. Another reality check: I hate hype and am known for my skepticism and unwillingness to “drink the Kool-Aid.” But I’m barely able to keep from losing it, always tearing up.

There is something in the moment, in being with my son, our neighbors (Jordan, George, Sam and the others we have shared a row of seats with for all these years, and would have otherwise never known) and the entire crowd. We are about to will “our” team to win. And it is only our team because of geography and choice. And they deserve to win more than the other team because they are our team. I know this is illogical, and it doesn’t matter.

Kick-off happens and the next three hours are the proverbial emotional roller coaster. If our team is doing well we scream, laugh, high-five, hug and dance (at times with people we have never met and will never see again). When our team struggles we try to motivate them, lift them to doing better. If the wheels come off we may drop to our seats in despair, 70,000 people each praying in their own gut-wrenching way.

One team is doing all it can to make something happen while the opposition has marshaled all its resources to stop their opponents. And in each play, each moment there is the possibility of the beauty of seeing our team overcome the odds and complete the pass or force the pick six (it’s an offense or defense thing).

It’s a game, it’s frivolous and it’s unnecessary.  Yet it can provide an emotional rush that can’t be forced or simulated. It is real and in the moment. You are either there or you’re not. While in reality we are nothing more than spectators, somehow in the flash of action and crowd, we are alive and sharing in the experience and it is beautifully overwhelming.

May God have mercy on us all.

also: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/moved/article/logic-i-ll-take-football

Tradition transitions

Growing up, Thanksgiving was an annual trip from our home in the southeast suburbs on180^th to mom’s parents’ in the northeast suburbs on 69^th. My mom, dad, brother John, Grandpa and Grandma Goodson and my Uncle Ed would crowd around the small table in a corner of the kitchen. The meal was a mix of country simplicity, my grandmother’s influence and some unpredictable flare from my grandfather. His stuffing and pumpkin pie are legendary and we still use his recipes. It was a fun, somewhat quiet day of visiting, maybe playing outside if the weather allowed.

The family tradeoff was an annual trip to southeast 76^th for Christmas Eve at my dad’s parents’ home. We’d join Grandpa and Grandma Schmotzer, Uncle Virgil, Aunt Faye and our cousins David and Diane, Uncle Joe and his wife (he had quite a few over the years). The meal was in the dining room with “good” china and all that went with it. Liquor flowed before, during and after the meal. There was loud music and louder conversation.  Sometimes arguments would break out and result in an early departure or two.

Christmas Day was at our house with both sets of grandparents, Uncle Ed and Mr. Gill. Mr. Gill was a friend of my grandfather. I think he was from England and he’d give my brother and me a silver dollar each year. Women wore dresses and men and boys wore white shirts and ties, and hard (or dress) shoes. I always hated hard shoes.

This rhythm was set and I thought it would always be that way. Yet by the time I finished high school, what I thought was unchangeable had begun shifting. My parents relocated and the cousins and Uncle Ed had gone to school or moved away.

Soon enough I had moved and married bringing new options with competing interests concerning holidays. For a few years, Connie and I bounced between our parental homes for the big two (Thanksgiving and Christmas). In the fifth year of our marriage, we moved to the far north of a neighboring state and soon our family grew with the addition of two sons. Increasing the complexity was my parents’ divorce and eventually stepfamilies. We now had to drive five to eight hours to visit three homes in three cities.

I am uncertain if it was a clear intentional act or something we drifted into, but about thirty years ago we made a change in how we celebrated Thanksgiving. We had a deepening friendship with a couple, Julie and Rick. Connie had met them when all three attended the same college. They had three boys and we had two. They lived near our parents. They made the drive north one year and it quickly became our new tradition.

Soon enough we had our own rhythm. They would arrive as soon as possible and stay as long as they could. Thanksgiving was days, not just one day. The boys played, shifting their interests over the years.  We watched movies, talked, played games, watched football, went for neighborhood walks, cooked and ate for the duration.

We started Thanksgiving with a morning service, at the church I served as a staff member. For lunch we would volunteer at the local mission for the community Thanksgiving meal and in the later afternoon we would have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The meal always included more than the two families. Extended family and friends new and old would join the celebration. It was predictably unpredictable.

Throughout the year we looked forward to the annual get-together. Conversations of times past and plans for the next gathering frequently popped up. It was a time of rest, joy, celebration, and being, being together. Some would attend once, others for years.  We’d get together with Julie and Rick at other times throughout the year, but Thanksgiving became sacred. That is until Julie died of a brain tumor in May of 2001.

With Julie gone, so much of our lives became unhinged. Nothing worked, nothing mattered. It never would be the same. Somehow Thanksgiving became this huge hole reminding us of the loss. It became a time of wondering and wandering. The very essence of faith and belief was challenged in ways we had never experienced. To be honest, by this time the older boys had begun to shift into their new adult identity and thereby new patterns, but we hadn’t noticed.

There were a couple of Thanksgivings doing anything for temporary survival. We were not going to try to keep the past tradition alive; it couldn’t continue without her. We doubted a new tradition was possible. Maybe we felt we had lost Thanksgiving and would need to accept it as a time to endure, a stark reminder of what was, what was lost and what would never be again.

But within a few years something happened. Thanksgiving celebrations returned to our home. It was different, but it became good. Julie’s youngest son brought his wife and eventually their two children. New people joined the mix. Our sons married and grandkids arrived. The house was again full and some sense of a new sacred developed. Julie was missed, but honored in our gathering and thankfulness.

Annually there are tears and laughter as we each share words of thanks around the table before the meal begins. We often rework Psalm 136 to include our own stories. There is a sense that we can endure all that life brings our way as we are fortified in such times together.

While preparing for this year’s gathering we learned that some of the next generation are making changes to begin to establish their own, new traditions. There was an initial sting. We had worked so hard to reestablish something special. We were not ready for another change.

An outside observer might tell us it was never the same way twice. Every year there were shifts. We are all different people with each new day. Watching our kids grow should have made us aware of this. The mix of people and activities was in constant flux. The reality is that Thanksgiving has always been a work in progress, shifting with seen and unseen forces. And at best we have found joy in living into the moment, whatever it looked like.  Being thankful, sharing life and meals, and inviting others into the circle will always be worthwhile.

I am uncertain what the next phase will be, but I hope we will be able live into it with openness, acceptance, celebration and thankfulness.

May God have mercy on us all!

catapult magazine VOL 12, NUM 22 :: 2013.11.29 — 2013.12.12 : https://www.catapultmagazine.com/celebrate/article/tradition-transitions

Just say no! But: why?

There’s danger in heeding the demand to “just say no!”

Christians (you know, “those Christians”) love jumping on various bandwagons that affirm their convictions and prove that their clan is the right one.

The convictions generally tell us the world is bad, we are bad and they are bad. Essentially everything is bad. If we buy in, we (oops, I just lumped myself in with “them”) see so much evil it is amazing anyone gets out of bed in the morning and risks a breath. We love evidence that our list of “forbiddens” is the correct one. And we love any time the beast of culture sees the light, and agrees with us.

The problem is that our lists are usually a muddled mix of fears, discomforts and leftover things we were taught or assumed. Seems the more conservative (I know it’s a loaded word, but what else works?), the longer the list.  Or maybe not.

My faith roots are deeply embedded in fundamentalism with its rules and prohibitions. In my adult years, I have had associations that allow me to drift across much, if not most, of the spectrum of American Christianity.  Interestingly, I have discovered that in addition to fundamentalist conservatives, there are fundamentalist liberals who can have similarly deep prejudices.  The trick is that they are often more educated and culturally savvy at disguising their prejudices.  Liberals have their revised lists of evils — you know, like never voting Republican, or shopping at Wal-Mart, or avoiding TV (except PBS) and radio (except NPR), or enlarging their carbon footprint, and so on. The hate toward conservatives is another place that liberals show their true colors. For all of their so-called open-mindedness and inclusivity, they can be vicious in their assessment of conservatives (without any honest conversation along the way).

I agree that we all need to have self-control, healthy limits and reasonable boundaries. But I fear for anyone (especially me) who lives life focused on the negative. Even worse would be the life of anyone who focuses on judging the negative for others. In the name of religious purity many have missed the joy of life. Art, adventure, medicine, movies, alcohol, sex and learning have all been on someone’s bad list. And the faithful have lined up to please prophets and preachers by adopting strict lives of self-denial. 

I understand that as a child I needed to learn not to run in front of cars or put my hand on the stovetop (learned this one the hard way). It takes structure to find our way in this world. But at some point we need to cross the line, become adult and start living in the dangerous world where all is possible.  It’s a tough challenge, but it’s also a great adventure. I don’t need to walk a wire over Niagara Falls for an adrenaline rush. The very refusal to be guided and defined by simplistic rules and prohibitions is a risk many shy away from.

My best shot is this: if your convictions are primarily negative, you’re living a sad life. If your convictions are summed up by “supposed to,” “should” and “have to,” you’re living a sad life. If you are focused on pleasing others, you’re living a sad life. If you are driven by a list that you can’t explain or don’t understand, you’re living a sad life. If you are great at boundaries and saying “no,” but it is actually rooted in selfishness, you’re living a sad life.

Somehow we need to make peace with ourselves, this world, our faith and God. Negatives may provide a base for beginning, but life is lived in the possibilities — the messy, dangerous, beautiful, wonderful, complicated, scary, confusing and soul-feeding possibilities.

Lord, have mercy (and help me to live mercifully).

also: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/just-say-no/article/just-say-no-but-why

9/10/11/12/13

@ Uisce Irish Pub, Bellingham, WA

Sherman's gift

The way Sherman told it, he was born before the first big war and grew up in the desert southwest. Home was on a piece of land that may have once been — or at some time wanted to be — a farm. But like most of the area it was dry, hard dirt and scraggly, if not dead, trees and brush. A house of rough, weather-beaten boards offered little protection from the sun, wind or rain.

As the oldest of four, Sherman knew his role. He watched out for the others — like the day they came home from school and found the note on the kitchen table. It was from their mom. It said she loved them but that she had to go away. She told them to watch out for each other and listen to their father. It said they would be okay. Years later, Sherman would learn she had run off with the preacher, causing a distancing from God that lasted most of his lifetime.

He herded his brother and sisters out of the house and they climbed into the lower branches of the barren tree in front of the porch. After questions he couldn’t answer and tears he couldn’t heal, he made up stories to fill the time until their dad got home from work.

Soon enough Sherman had quit school to care for the younger ones, never to return. As often happened in those days, he left home young, maybe to seek something better, maybe to escape, maybe both. Sherman wandered the west until he settled in Portland, Oregon. He kept working, when work could be found, in restaurants. Sherman never finished school, but he had learned to cook along the way.

As the depression lingered and the next big war approached, Sherman met a young widow who had left a small town to find work in the city. She was waiting tables where he was the cook. Friendship led to more and they were soon living together. It was a scandalous arrangement in the 40s, and even more so because the waitress had a daughter. Neighbors shunned them, as was expected.

The war came and went. They got married. Had a son. Saw their daughter get married and start a family of her own.

Sherman soon became a grandfather. And he was a good one. At family meals, he’d usually announce that the meat of the day was either squirrel or opossum.  He’d keep it going until about the time the grandkids were expected to take a bite and then break the tension with a more welcome truth. A few bites in, however, he’d repeat the bluff with enough sincerity that the tension would build again.

Sherman was known for gag gifts at Christmas. And he was known as a faithful scoutmaster who influenced numerous young boys over the years. He drove big, fast cars, usually black Chevrolets. He would joke of needing a new one as soon as it was time to rotate the tires.

In the early 70s, Sherman helped his oldest grandson get his first job as a high schooler, washing dishes at the restaurant where he was working.

However, in his mid-fifties cancer hit, and hit hard. Before long Sherman was eating through a tube and losing weight. He refused to give in. He’d plunge a syringe of pale mush through the tube in his side, smack his lips and announce, “Damn, that tastes good!”

Sherman told of sneaking out of his hospital room at night to go to the corner store for cigarettes. He asked if he could take naps in various caskets to find which was going to be most comfortable. He got a cemetery plot and wanted to have picnics on the spot to “get used to it.”

There was a time his oldest grandson and young wife visited the hospital. The weak-stomached grandson started to wobble after an unexpected medical procedure had taken place. Sherman hopped out of bed and said, “Here, lay down. Looks like you need it more than me.”

During another hospital stay a young chaplain was making rounds and saw Sherman’s name on the roster.  He stopped by the room and reminded Sherman that he had been a busboy at a restaurant with him some years back. A friendship grew and Sherman asked the priest if he would officiate his funeral. “Of course, but I am going to ask something of you in return. Are you willing to discuss some readings with me?” He agreed and they began to read and talk about stories from the gospels.  Before long, a small group gathered in June of 1979 for Sherman’s funeral and the priest, the one who had been a busboy, led them through the service.

Like most, Sherman was gone too soon. He was my grandfather and I was the one he helped get that first job. I was the one who got wobbly at the hospital. He left me with many great memories. And he left me with two recipes. One is for cornbread stuffing. We use it every year at Thanksgiving, and it is well-loved.

The second is for pumpkin pie. It is pumpkin pie as it was before the trends of locally-sourced, farm-to-table, gluten-free, natural and organic ingredients. And it is good. It, too, comes out at Thanksgiving. I make about six each year. Family and friends talk about it and look forward to its annual return. It has been known to show up at Christmas occasionally, but is generally reserved for Thanksgiving.

I enjoy anticipating the week of Thanksgiving, making sure all ingredients are on hand for the time of preparation. Anticipation is heightened as the smell fills our kitchen and drifts into the family room. While I enjoy the product, my deeper joy is in seeing others dig in.

People now talk about it as my pie, even calling it grandpa’s, because I am one. Actually, I’m closer to the age of my grandfather’s death than I’d like to admit. But I call it grandpa’s pie, because it is grandpa’s pie — Grandpa Goodson’s Pie.

Here’s the recipe, as he wrote it for us. I trust you’ll try it and I know that if you do, you’ll love it.

May God have mercy on us all.

catapult magazine VOL 12, NUM 17 :: 2013.09.20 — 2013.10.03 : https://www.catapultmagazine.com/homemade/article/sherman-s-gift 

Nurturing community

As a child, community was defined first by family, then my parents’ circle of friends. Over the years there was a strong sense of community in our post-WWII suburban neighborhood. Eventually, friends became my community of choice as school became the focus of my time. Church was layered in there somewhere.

The word and idea of community is having a trendy run these days. Trying to identify true community might be akin to clarifying the line between friends and acquaintances. We commonly call almost anyone we have an ongoing relationship with a friend. I think it would be more accurate to realize most of us have many acquaintances and some friends. In a similar way we can call any group of people we have connections with a community — or better yet “our” community. I think our definition of community may be weak or we may be fooling ourselves in evaluation. Simply put, I question how many of us actually experience community on a level that changes and sustains us.

The challenge becomes deciding what makes a connected group of people something more, a community. Following is an attempt to identify how I understand, relate to and hopefully nurture community for others and myself.

It takes time to become (a) community.

The old realtor’s jag is that the three most important things are: “location, location, location.” In the late 70s and early 80s, my wife and I worked at a conservative Christian camp. In that setting we connected with others in their teens and twenties. We were all trying to gain some sense of becoming adults. The intensity of shared work and living together in a ministry setting resulted in life connections that moved deeper, quicker than they might have in another context. We eventually went on full-time staff with the camp. Others stayed around town for school or work. Some went away and returned. We have walked together through the 70s, 80s, 90s, aughts and now teens. Time and experiences have strengthened and deepened commitments, connections and understanding.

Communities are a crucible of strength for times of crises.

Life is messy and survival cries out for help. Because of a shared sense of getting through together with those we consider community, we have walked through life transitions, loss, failure and trials. Almost everybody experiences the random confusion of health crises, despair and death. At times we have little to offer each other except the sense that we are committed and we are present.  A few years back my career went south. My communities (yes, I have more than one) rallied in the process and aftermath by offering active support and wisdom. Friends from the near opposite corner of the country kept touch each step of the way. It was full circle as I had helped them through a job crisis about five years before. Together with my local community I was supported to survive the mess and build a base for a new future.

Healthy communities are a strange mix of tight connections and openness to welcoming new people.

Back to the group that was shaped in the summer camp setting: even though our relationships began in a close, defined, shared experience, it is not a closed set. Friendships, growing families and marriage have brought others into the circle that did not share in the camp staff experience. What was originally a collection of young people with a small age span now includes three generations spanning more than eighty years. Community continues to be enriched by the ever-widening circle.  

No laughter? No thanks.

The ability to laugh at life and oneself in a safe place is food for the soul — the background stories and unspoken things, a look, phrase or memory that communicates beyond words. Laughter that is shared in love is one of the greatest gifts of community. I meet regularly with a group of men. Our shared roots go back almost twenty years. We began when we were young leaders in local ministries. No matter how much we hate to admit it, we are now elders in almost any setting. We meet weekly to share life, talking about work and ministry, family, books, faith, sports, what’s happening around home and in the broader ministry world, movies, belief, hopes, dreams and struggles — and we laugh. Our shared history and common life experiences give us the ability to let go and realize that we may not be quite as important as we’d like to think. I think laughter has been a part of every gathering over the years. What sparks the laughing is rarely important. The fact that we let go together is very important.

We all need a place that supports risk-taking.

Having a circle of friends to share the process of looking squarely at doubt and questions is gold. Honesty and acceptance are crucial. If community is about deeper connections, it needs to allow dangerous exploration into the raw edges of faith and belief. Not everybody wants to be a part for these conversations. I am thankful for safe people and safe places where I have them.

Communities are not static.

Change happens. Individuals change and groups change. There are times I do not like the shifts, but I understand that no group can be static. Friends have moved out of deeper circles over the years. Some have made a clean break and others have done a gradual drift. Location, employment and family configurations are common factors in shifts. The reality is that we rarely know the reality and are left with our own sense of acceptance and forward movement.

You’ve got to feel the pain.

A community isn’t a community until everybody has had his or her feelings hurt and decided to stick it out. Real people do real things, like hurting each other. Without digging up all the dirt I am sure I have been on both sides, causing and receiving pain. Hopefully I am able to forgive and seek forgiveness as needed to enable greater life and community on the other side.

In other times and places the choice of community was virtually predetermined: who was nearby, end of discussion. I realize I have the privilege of choice in determining my community. With privilege comes responsibility. I know I need the others’ support, even when I don’t know it. I hope I am living up to the privilege by fully participating in the life of the communities that I share in.

May God have mercy on us all.

catapult magazine VOL 12, NUM 16 :: 2013.09.06 — 2013.09.19 :  https://www.catapultmagazine.com/let-s-get-together-11/article/nurturing-community