Another day simply cannot go by without I recommend to my dear and general readership a fan-damn-tastic show called "Doctor Who."
So here I go.
You may have heard of the series: it's a British sci-fi import that had its inception in 1963, vying against the Beatles and the Kennedy assassination for the world's attention. It's been around, more or less, ever since. Ten actors have portrayed The Doctor to date. Ten! ("Doctor who?" "Just, The Doctor" -- and now you get the joke.) Our hero is a TimeLord from the planet Gallifrey, an ancient race that unlocked the secrets of time travel and subsequently pledged themselves to observe only: never to judge, never to interfere. The Doctor, though, can't help himself but meddle about in all the worlds and all the injustices and invasions he sees crashing down around him: he hi-jacked a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) and off he went to defend the world. When he gets himself thoroughly into trouble, like a mortal wound, for instance, he doesn't die: his body repairs itself through a process called regeneration, which also changes his physical appearance. (Now isn't that handy... Handy! You have to close out Series 4 like a good British seven-year-old to appreciate that!)
That TARDIS, by the by, has a chameleon device, set to transform the exterior of the ship in order to blend in with the given surroundings. Except it broke, on a trip to the UK in 1963 (fancy that), and the ship's been a blue police box ever since.
Now, the question is NOT, how do you keep that going for forty-odd years? It's How in the world could you possibly mess that up?
You can catch the latest episodes on BBC America on Saturday nights, or you exercise your Netflix queue and line up YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH history for yourself.
Recommended for students who enjoyed (FINE, I'll use the term loosely) Rittgers' Sin, Penitence and Forgiveness class. (Watch how The Doctor always gives the baddies a chance to CHANGE their course of action before he whallops the stuffing out of them and then deactivates the anti-matter vortex-bomb with a kettle and some string.)
Recommended for students who enjoyed Huelin's Hermeneutics of Hospitality class. (The Doctor is Peregrinating above all, the great Wanderer! Between Doctors Eight and Nine, his home planet Gallifrey was destroyed. Watch his new sense of community form and be challenged...)
And finally, recommended for anybody in transition, anybody who happens to be wandering. I defy you to dislike this character who will save you from certain death and then take you tumbling through rifts in time and space and visiting places and peoples you never thought possible. It cannot be done, so there.
Happy Travels!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Boy Meets Girl (Another Matins Service, maybe...)
He came through a gate at the Seattle Amtrak station with the rest of the crowd arriving from Portland, looking about my own age, and sat on the opposite end of my bench. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to say Hello. The delay was mostly due to the fact that the moment I saw him I was only half-way through the ham- and sausage- and pepperoni-laden Sbarro's pizza slice that was serving as dinner and had been since three in the afternoon -- or six o'clock Eastern, which seemed more relevant at the time. And the likelihood that this kid would not be offended by those sorts of toppings was right up there with the likelihood that he'd only randomly got up and got dressed in a maroon bed sheet that morning.
I'll be the first to admit, my religious garb color identification skills are about as hot as my academic garb color identification skills -- I only really know the ones I've thought about getting in this odd, imaginary world I often drift into where things tremendously worth the getting take very little effort to get. But I do know that garb in the first place often equals ascetic equals ham-doesn't-go-on-your-pizza. And so I finished eating on my end of the bench, and in the mean time this boy I was trying to keep steady in my peripheral vision had pulled out a long loop of prayer beads and looked like he'd gone to sleep and I almost, almost rolled my eyes.
I suppose I was so impatient to talk to him because he had this visible stamp of a religious community about him. Here I live in a religious community, and some folks know how I feel about that, but there's nothing of it that's visible on my person. My clothes don't give me away, and neither do any particular mannerisms -- I don't own prayer beads, for example, and I didn't exactly duck my head in prayer over that pizza slice, either. None of that was going to stop me from figuring out what else this kid and I had in common.
I finally got up and walked over to where he had his feet tucked under him on the bench and said, "Hello."
"Hello," he replied serenely. Of course he would reply serenely.
And with nothing else coming to mind as a conversation starter, I heard myself say, "What...religious order are you?"
He laughed, maybe because it had sounded like I'd asked what his Halloween costume was. And then he said, "I'm a Buddhist monk," and I, because I have no check on ignorance, impudence or outright stupidity, ever, when I'm nervous, rejoined, "Oh. I thought they wore orange."
Now one thing about Buddhist monks: they are patient. We're talking, Treasury of Merits, unpack-that-bad-boy-and-let-the-whole-world-pass-Purgatory-on-a-whim level of patience. I still do not recommend questioning whether they've got on the right color bedsheet. Tibetan Buddhist monks wear maroon. Now I know, now you know, let's not do this again.
His name was Jampel. We got to that very late in the conversation. That's not the name his parents gave him, but he hasn't used his birth name in years, and neither have they. (I asked.) That's one of the things that was part of his "ordination" -- the clothing, the new name, and shaving his head. He was on his way back to his community in Spokane, after an "out". I'm pretty sure I put in almost immediately something like, "I live in a religious community, and I'm on an 'out' too!" Jampel's comment was something like, "It's good to live in community. It makes you a good person very quickly, living so close to people you like...and don't like." I laughed, and shut down the little voice that actually wanted me to wonder aloud whether he meant ontologically good, and we went from there.
Big differences:
Holden is around population 80 right now, which is small. We hold four or five hundred over the summer. Jampel's community? Population 10. His is a community that's just for getting apart, pursuit of holiness and the like. Holden has a bit of that flavor (I am two days, minimum, from every other place and person I care about, so it's fair to say we're apart), but the long-term residents all have jobs: we're a retreat center. We retreat, too, but when you retreat, we do your laundry, hooray... There are Buddhist communities like that, too, where the monks have jobs. Jampel just doesn't live at one.
I am staying until the coming summer. This shocked Jampel, and I'm on the high end for length of stay at Holden. Some people stay a few months, a few weeks -- in response to the expression on his face I did not tell him there are folks who stay just a few days. I asked Jampel how long he meant to stay at his community in Spokane. He said either until his teacher moved on, or until he started to enjoy himself. He literally said that, "enjoy" himself. But he meant he would move on when the disciplines started to get easy. When three hours a day of prayer are easy and enjoyable, you might want to start looking elsewhere for holiness.
Oh, that was another thing, daily prayer. In Spokane they're spending an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening in prayer. By the time Jampel revealed those lengths, I had already divulged we share a morning and evening prayer practice at Holden, so back-pedalling was out, but I still had room to save face by fudging the numbers. I rounded up. Somewhere there's a Tibetan Buddhist monk running around who thinks we spend fifteen whole minutes a day at Matins and thirty to forty-five in worship each evening, with Eucharist going to an hour and a half, even though that only happened once and it was the week Fred Niedner was leading it.
But the big thing we couldn't get over was length of stay. The reason I don't know how a Benedictine dresses is I would never, ever become one: one of their vows is obedience, and that can mean staying in one monastery, one place their whole life. If that was what God wanted of me, you know -- I wouldn't want to know. Jampel will be in Spokane for years, and he really doesn't understand the unwritten three year rule of Holden. He wanted to know if we had anything like a teacher, and I told him about Erik, the village pastor. But then that was just a scandal: Erik's only been at Holden for two years, and he'll be there all of three. This was just not computing for my new friend. How was our community on anybody's map? What gave it any sense of authority, or continuity, as a religious community or anything? Whatever's going on up there in those Cascade Mountains, you can't step into that same river twice. You just can't. (Funny how you don't realize how weird you are until you see yourself through the eyes of a chap wearing a bedsheet.)
But I suppose he's right. There is no stepping into Lower Railroad Creek twice. And yet the thing to remember is, out here, really, we're not even stepping into that same river once. There's nothing we're out here trying to accomplish, I don't think, no matter how much ruckus folks raise about keeping internet usage down and cell phones out -- purifying ourselves in any way -- we're just here, obeying the realities that attend our being here, and busily not realizing the ideals. You can say we're learning from the great teacher Jesus, and that's what provides continuity out here. You can say we're his church and we are connected to the church throughout time and history in a sprawling, "small-c" catholic sense, and that's what provides continuity out here. But we don't need continuity. Just cite Kierkegaard for this whole paragraph: all we need is repetition. All we need is that moment of Jesus' last breath on the cross and those words, "It is finished." Because it's that moment, it's that death we're baptized into -- it happened but it happens and we experience it now. It's that moment, it's that body and that blood we participate in here in our worship -- it happened but it happens and we experience it now. It's in that moment that we had and have the forgiveness of our sins -- it happened but it happens, and if I have anybody's attention at the moment I just want to take it and say, you have forgiveness for your sins. Have a nice day.
I'll be the first to admit, my religious garb color identification skills are about as hot as my academic garb color identification skills -- I only really know the ones I've thought about getting in this odd, imaginary world I often drift into where things tremendously worth the getting take very little effort to get. But I do know that garb in the first place often equals ascetic equals ham-doesn't-go-on-your-pizza. And so I finished eating on my end of the bench, and in the mean time this boy I was trying to keep steady in my peripheral vision had pulled out a long loop of prayer beads and looked like he'd gone to sleep and I almost, almost rolled my eyes.
I suppose I was so impatient to talk to him because he had this visible stamp of a religious community about him. Here I live in a religious community, and some folks know how I feel about that, but there's nothing of it that's visible on my person. My clothes don't give me away, and neither do any particular mannerisms -- I don't own prayer beads, for example, and I didn't exactly duck my head in prayer over that pizza slice, either. None of that was going to stop me from figuring out what else this kid and I had in common.
I finally got up and walked over to where he had his feet tucked under him on the bench and said, "Hello."
"Hello," he replied serenely. Of course he would reply serenely.
And with nothing else coming to mind as a conversation starter, I heard myself say, "What...religious order are you?"
He laughed, maybe because it had sounded like I'd asked what his Halloween costume was. And then he said, "I'm a Buddhist monk," and I, because I have no check on ignorance, impudence or outright stupidity, ever, when I'm nervous, rejoined, "Oh. I thought they wore orange."
Now one thing about Buddhist monks: they are patient. We're talking, Treasury of Merits, unpack-that-bad-boy-and-let-the-whole-world-pass-Purgatory-on-a-whim level of patience. I still do not recommend questioning whether they've got on the right color bedsheet. Tibetan Buddhist monks wear maroon. Now I know, now you know, let's not do this again.
His name was Jampel. We got to that very late in the conversation. That's not the name his parents gave him, but he hasn't used his birth name in years, and neither have they. (I asked.) That's one of the things that was part of his "ordination" -- the clothing, the new name, and shaving his head. He was on his way back to his community in Spokane, after an "out". I'm pretty sure I put in almost immediately something like, "I live in a religious community, and I'm on an 'out' too!" Jampel's comment was something like, "It's good to live in community. It makes you a good person very quickly, living so close to people you like...and don't like." I laughed, and shut down the little voice that actually wanted me to wonder aloud whether he meant ontologically good, and we went from there.
Big differences:
Holden is around population 80 right now, which is small. We hold four or five hundred over the summer. Jampel's community? Population 10. His is a community that's just for getting apart, pursuit of holiness and the like. Holden has a bit of that flavor (I am two days, minimum, from every other place and person I care about, so it's fair to say we're apart), but the long-term residents all have jobs: we're a retreat center. We retreat, too, but when you retreat, we do your laundry, hooray... There are Buddhist communities like that, too, where the monks have jobs. Jampel just doesn't live at one.
I am staying until the coming summer. This shocked Jampel, and I'm on the high end for length of stay at Holden. Some people stay a few months, a few weeks -- in response to the expression on his face I did not tell him there are folks who stay just a few days. I asked Jampel how long he meant to stay at his community in Spokane. He said either until his teacher moved on, or until he started to enjoy himself. He literally said that, "enjoy" himself. But he meant he would move on when the disciplines started to get easy. When three hours a day of prayer are easy and enjoyable, you might want to start looking elsewhere for holiness.
Oh, that was another thing, daily prayer. In Spokane they're spending an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening in prayer. By the time Jampel revealed those lengths, I had already divulged we share a morning and evening prayer practice at Holden, so back-pedalling was out, but I still had room to save face by fudging the numbers. I rounded up. Somewhere there's a Tibetan Buddhist monk running around who thinks we spend fifteen whole minutes a day at Matins and thirty to forty-five in worship each evening, with Eucharist going to an hour and a half, even though that only happened once and it was the week Fred Niedner was leading it.
But the big thing we couldn't get over was length of stay. The reason I don't know how a Benedictine dresses is I would never, ever become one: one of their vows is obedience, and that can mean staying in one monastery, one place their whole life. If that was what God wanted of me, you know -- I wouldn't want to know. Jampel will be in Spokane for years, and he really doesn't understand the unwritten three year rule of Holden. He wanted to know if we had anything like a teacher, and I told him about Erik, the village pastor. But then that was just a scandal: Erik's only been at Holden for two years, and he'll be there all of three. This was just not computing for my new friend. How was our community on anybody's map? What gave it any sense of authority, or continuity, as a religious community or anything? Whatever's going on up there in those Cascade Mountains, you can't step into that same river twice. You just can't. (Funny how you don't realize how weird you are until you see yourself through the eyes of a chap wearing a bedsheet.)
But I suppose he's right. There is no stepping into Lower Railroad Creek twice. And yet the thing to remember is, out here, really, we're not even stepping into that same river once. There's nothing we're out here trying to accomplish, I don't think, no matter how much ruckus folks raise about keeping internet usage down and cell phones out -- purifying ourselves in any way -- we're just here, obeying the realities that attend our being here, and busily not realizing the ideals. You can say we're learning from the great teacher Jesus, and that's what provides continuity out here. You can say we're his church and we are connected to the church throughout time and history in a sprawling, "small-c" catholic sense, and that's what provides continuity out here. But we don't need continuity. Just cite Kierkegaard for this whole paragraph: all we need is repetition. All we need is that moment of Jesus' last breath on the cross and those words, "It is finished." Because it's that moment, it's that death we're baptized into -- it happened but it happens and we experience it now. It's that moment, it's that body and that blood we participate in here in our worship -- it happened but it happens and we experience it now. It's in that moment that we had and have the forgiveness of our sins -- it happened but it happens, and if I have anybody's attention at the moment I just want to take it and say, you have forgiveness for your sins. Have a nice day.
Friday, October 24, 2008
On Public Transit
So riding Chicago's Blue Line down to the "Loop" this afternoon I was reminded I have this great love of public transportation. Truly. I can't sing its praises enough. It's cheap; it's easy enough to figure out; it's a wonderful way to see the city. It comes with timetables, more often than not, and maps. With colors.
Busses, trains, subways -- the phenomenon doesn't extend to aircraft, for some reason. Maybe because I hate airports and deplore their general inability to represent their city with more than a Chiles Restaurant and a Hudson News. (Try getting off a flight from Seattle to Atlanta and walking -- in Atlanta! -- right up to a "Seattle's Best Coffee" storefront.) I put up with aircraft for their ability to get me places fast. But if it runs on tracks, Oh my goodness...
The love affair is a collage of moments, from getting off a New York City subway and buying a skirt on the way to visit Fordham's Rose Hill campus, to reading The Brothers Karamazov by early morning light on the LINK intercity route between Wenatchee and Chelan, to eye contact with a stranger on the train out from Paris to Versailles, to a late evening run from Pike Place Public Market to the Sea-Tac airport, laden with used paperbacks from Lamplight Books.
So it was fun to run across this passage, recently, scrawled in my journal: "What I really need is to meet someone who (1) will get as excited at new cities as I do, and (2) will shyly suggest, almost right off, "Do you think...they have a train?"
Busses, trains, subways -- the phenomenon doesn't extend to aircraft, for some reason. Maybe because I hate airports and deplore their general inability to represent their city with more than a Chiles Restaurant and a Hudson News. (Try getting off a flight from Seattle to Atlanta and walking -- in Atlanta! -- right up to a "Seattle's Best Coffee" storefront.) I put up with aircraft for their ability to get me places fast. But if it runs on tracks, Oh my goodness...
The love affair is a collage of moments, from getting off a New York City subway and buying a skirt on the way to visit Fordham's Rose Hill campus, to reading The Brothers Karamazov by early morning light on the LINK intercity route between Wenatchee and Chelan, to eye contact with a stranger on the train out from Paris to Versailles, to a late evening run from Pike Place Public Market to the Sea-Tac airport, laden with used paperbacks from Lamplight Books.
So it was fun to run across this passage, recently, scrawled in my journal: "What I really need is to meet someone who (1) will get as excited at new cities as I do, and (2) will shyly suggest, almost right off, "Do you think...they have a train?"
Monday, October 20, 2008
Pentecost 23 A 2008
Go easy on me, I haven't done this in a while.
23rd Sunday after Pentecost: “A Pharisee and a Herodian Walk into a Bar”
Matthew 22:15-22
A Herodian, seated at a table, posture working through various levels of slouching
A Pharisee, standing, to work off nervous energy, frustration, etc.
Scene: A Pharisee and a Herodian, taking a load off after the intense encounter with Jesus recounted in the Gospel lesson. Neither are in any way drunk: the Herodian is tired, the Pharisee keyed up and frustrated. Table, two chairs, two empty fruit jars.
Lector: A reading from Matthew’s gospel: Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Herodian: And the question is, where did they go? After they were amazed, and they left him, and went away.
Pharisee: And the answer is --
Herodian: -- might be --
Pharisee: -- could certainly be --
Herodian: -- for our purposes tonight, will be --
Herodian & Pharisee (in unison): A Pharisee and a Herodian walk into a bar.
Herodian: And after a bit --
Beat.
Pharisee: What does that even mean, “the things that are the emperor’s”?
Herodian: Oh, we are not still talking about this…
Pharisee: Where did he -- how did he -- how in the world did he come up with “the things that are the emperor’s”?
Herodian: I’m sure his sole design was to upset you.
Pharisee: And what makes it the emperor’s? Just -- having his image on it? His title? Only we’ve got trunks more of the same coins with the same images stacked away in the Temple from all the money we’ve changed for travelers come to offer sacrifices -- are those the emperor’s too? What have we -- just -- been giving away doves, and pigeons, a-a-a-a-and…for coins that aren’t worth anything because they can’t belong to us? Never even belonged to the people paying us with them?
Beat. Pharisee might be hyperventilating.
Herodian: You need to loosen up.
Pharisee: When have you ever met a Pharisee remotely capable of loosening up?
Herodian: When have you ever met a Herodian remotely capable of giving advice besides, “Loosen up”?
Pharisee (sits): Point taken.
Pharisee and Herodian (together): Cheers.
Herodian: Here. (Fishes out a quarter.) If it makes you feel better, I’m going to take this coin, this “thing that is the emperor’s,” and I’m going to pay our tab with it.
Pharisee: That doesn’t make me feel better!
Herodian (inches an empty glass over to the Pharisee): This will…
Pharisee (up again): How could one simple question lead to such an absolute disaster --
Herodian: First of all, it wasn’t a simple question, it was a loaded question, and second: it was always supposed to engender absolute disaster, just for the Teacher instead of for you, which is how it ended up! (Herodian loses self a little bit in laughter)
Pharisee: Hey, don’t call him a Teacher.
Herodian: Why? You call him a Teacher.
Pharisee: When? When do I call him --
Herodian: You called him a Teacher today, when you asked him about paying taxes to the emperor.
Pharisee: I called him -- Look, whenever I call him a Teacher, I’m being facetious, okay?
Herodian: That’s horrible.
Pharisee: It’s not.
Herodian: It is -- Facetious. That’s awful form.
Pharisee: He’s not a Teacher.
Herodian: Well, for not a Teacher, he can sure make you look like you don’t know very much.
Pharisee (muses): The things that are the emperor’s.
Herodian: What did you expect him to say?
Pharisee (sits, and imparts in confidence): Honestly? I don’t think the man pays his own taxes. I’ve never seen him pay for anything! You see him, eating, all the time, whatever anybody’ll give him -- and often enough with tax collectors, too: they probably turn a blind eye…
Herodian: Give him a hand-out and then turn a blind eye to money he lawfully owes them and the emperor?
Pharisee (emphatically): Yes.
Herodian (sharply): Why do you hate him so much?
Beat.
Herodian: I just said we all lawfully owe and pay taxes to the emperor, and you’re not giving me a hard time.
Pharisee: Well I expect you to say we all lawfully pay taxes, you’re a --
Herodian: I’m a what? Go on, what do you say that I am?
Pharisee: You’re in Herod’s court every day.
Herodian: King Herod.
Pharisee: A puppet king! From a puppet dynasty, by no right of succession, with no right of claim to Judah’s throne -- as foreign and humiliating an imposition from Rome as their taxes to their emperor.
Herodian: Is that what you think? That taxes are a foreign and humiliating imposition? That’s sedition and I should have you arrested for it, right now. I’d have had your Teacher arrested for it, if that’s what he’d said.
Pharisee (slowly): Well, could you not? In front of everybody, I mean…?
Herodian: Oh, but I’m not going to have you arrested -- Why? (Disgusted.) Because you’re my friend.
Pharisee (relieved): I -- well, yeah… (Then, uncomfortably) You need to loosen up.
Herodian: You need to take responsibility for the things that you say, and the awful mess of contradictions that you’ve turned into. Did you even listen to the rest of what he had to say? Your teacher?
Pharisee (confused): Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s.
Herodian (demands): And?
Pharisee (confused): And…
Herodian: And to God the things that are God’s.
Beat.
Pharisee: Well?
Herodian (holding the coin between them): What’s stamped with the image of God? What’s stamped with the image of God?
Pharisee does not reply.
Herodian: Whose image is this, and whose title? Lot of good it does him. You know, you’re exactly what that Teacher said you are, a Hypocrite. Two faces. An actor with a mask. You might have been stamped with the image of God once, but somewhere along the line you grew up. You picked your favorites among the children of men and stuck with them. And I did the same thing, and look at us. A Teacher comes along to remind us we were meant to be more than we turned into -- that we’re created in God’s image, for goodness’ sake, and the first thing we do is try to get him killed. (Beat. Herodian gets up.) Stamped with God’s image. Lot of good it does us.
Herodian flips coin onto the table. Exits.
Pharisee waits; picks up the coin. Puts it back. Exits.
23rd Sunday after Pentecost: “A Pharisee and a Herodian Walk into a Bar”
Matthew 22:15-22
A Herodian, seated at a table, posture working through various levels of slouching
A Pharisee, standing, to work off nervous energy, frustration, etc.
Scene: A Pharisee and a Herodian, taking a load off after the intense encounter with Jesus recounted in the Gospel lesson. Neither are in any way drunk: the Herodian is tired, the Pharisee keyed up and frustrated. Table, two chairs, two empty fruit jars.
Lector: A reading from Matthew’s gospel: Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Herodian: And the question is, where did they go? After they were amazed, and they left him, and went away.
Pharisee: And the answer is --
Herodian: -- might be --
Pharisee: -- could certainly be --
Herodian: -- for our purposes tonight, will be --
Herodian & Pharisee (in unison): A Pharisee and a Herodian walk into a bar.
Herodian: And after a bit --
Beat.
Pharisee: What does that even mean, “the things that are the emperor’s”?
Herodian: Oh, we are not still talking about this…
Pharisee: Where did he -- how did he -- how in the world did he come up with “the things that are the emperor’s”?
Herodian: I’m sure his sole design was to upset you.
Pharisee: And what makes it the emperor’s? Just -- having his image on it? His title? Only we’ve got trunks more of the same coins with the same images stacked away in the Temple from all the money we’ve changed for travelers come to offer sacrifices -- are those the emperor’s too? What have we -- just -- been giving away doves, and pigeons, a-a-a-a-and…for coins that aren’t worth anything because they can’t belong to us? Never even belonged to the people paying us with them?
Beat. Pharisee might be hyperventilating.
Herodian: You need to loosen up.
Pharisee: When have you ever met a Pharisee remotely capable of loosening up?
Herodian: When have you ever met a Herodian remotely capable of giving advice besides, “Loosen up”?
Pharisee (sits): Point taken.
Pharisee and Herodian (together): Cheers.
Herodian: Here. (Fishes out a quarter.) If it makes you feel better, I’m going to take this coin, this “thing that is the emperor’s,” and I’m going to pay our tab with it.
Pharisee: That doesn’t make me feel better!
Herodian (inches an empty glass over to the Pharisee): This will…
Pharisee (up again): How could one simple question lead to such an absolute disaster --
Herodian: First of all, it wasn’t a simple question, it was a loaded question, and second: it was always supposed to engender absolute disaster, just for the Teacher instead of for you, which is how it ended up! (Herodian loses self a little bit in laughter)
Pharisee: Hey, don’t call him a Teacher.
Herodian: Why? You call him a Teacher.
Pharisee: When? When do I call him --
Herodian: You called him a Teacher today, when you asked him about paying taxes to the emperor.
Pharisee: I called him -- Look, whenever I call him a Teacher, I’m being facetious, okay?
Herodian: That’s horrible.
Pharisee: It’s not.
Herodian: It is -- Facetious. That’s awful form.
Pharisee: He’s not a Teacher.
Herodian: Well, for not a Teacher, he can sure make you look like you don’t know very much.
Pharisee (muses): The things that are the emperor’s.
Herodian: What did you expect him to say?
Pharisee (sits, and imparts in confidence): Honestly? I don’t think the man pays his own taxes. I’ve never seen him pay for anything! You see him, eating, all the time, whatever anybody’ll give him -- and often enough with tax collectors, too: they probably turn a blind eye…
Herodian: Give him a hand-out and then turn a blind eye to money he lawfully owes them and the emperor?
Pharisee (emphatically): Yes.
Herodian (sharply): Why do you hate him so much?
Beat.
Herodian: I just said we all lawfully owe and pay taxes to the emperor, and you’re not giving me a hard time.
Pharisee: Well I expect you to say we all lawfully pay taxes, you’re a --
Herodian: I’m a what? Go on, what do you say that I am?
Pharisee: You’re in Herod’s court every day.
Herodian: King Herod.
Pharisee: A puppet king! From a puppet dynasty, by no right of succession, with no right of claim to Judah’s throne -- as foreign and humiliating an imposition from Rome as their taxes to their emperor.
Herodian: Is that what you think? That taxes are a foreign and humiliating imposition? That’s sedition and I should have you arrested for it, right now. I’d have had your Teacher arrested for it, if that’s what he’d said.
Pharisee (slowly): Well, could you not? In front of everybody, I mean…?
Herodian: Oh, but I’m not going to have you arrested -- Why? (Disgusted.) Because you’re my friend.
Pharisee (relieved): I -- well, yeah… (Then, uncomfortably) You need to loosen up.
Herodian: You need to take responsibility for the things that you say, and the awful mess of contradictions that you’ve turned into. Did you even listen to the rest of what he had to say? Your teacher?
Pharisee (confused): Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s.
Herodian (demands): And?
Pharisee (confused): And…
Herodian: And to God the things that are God’s.
Beat.
Pharisee: Well?
Herodian (holding the coin between them): What’s stamped with the image of God? What’s stamped with the image of God?
Pharisee does not reply.
Herodian: Whose image is this, and whose title? Lot of good it does him. You know, you’re exactly what that Teacher said you are, a Hypocrite. Two faces. An actor with a mask. You might have been stamped with the image of God once, but somewhere along the line you grew up. You picked your favorites among the children of men and stuck with them. And I did the same thing, and look at us. A Teacher comes along to remind us we were meant to be more than we turned into -- that we’re created in God’s image, for goodness’ sake, and the first thing we do is try to get him killed. (Beat. Herodian gets up.) Stamped with God’s image. Lot of good it does us.
Herodian flips coin onto the table. Exits.
Pharisee waits; picks up the coin. Puts it back. Exits.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Katie leads physical education. Disaster ensues.
High School students are mostly astute enough that their teacher and I can't get away with communicating over their heads via the spelling out of longer words. So this morning, instead, he scribbled on a post-it note, circled it, followed it up with a question mark, and shoved it into my view: "P.E.?"
My response: a measured, verbal "Sure..."
Within the hour I had secured disks from the Hike Haus and was leading the kids to the tailings for an impromptu go at Holden's Frisbee Golf Course, which is internationally certified, whatever that means. We were crossing the foot bridge over Lower Railroad Creek, and one girl suddenly commented that we should have fencing for phys ed, then promptly screamed.
Apparently, she had gone for a particular stance to illustrate her fencing comment, and instead kicked her Birkenstock right off the bridge.
I peered over the side, and there went the Birkenstock, floating down the river.
Now everybody was screaming, and why shouldn't they be? Two girls tore down to the creekside, including one that was missing a shoe; I tore after them, the others followed... There ensued this properly manic scene where I got as far as I could on a dry patch of river rocks while the shoe floated by just out of reach in the creek's center and I nearly fell in...
Two boys from the class suddenly appeared thirty feet down stream, having gone around and taken the road. Seven girls, including myself, shrieked simultaneously to alert them of their proximity to the shoe. A bit of a search, and much pantomimed shrugging, and we gave all up for lost.
We processed back to the footbridge, the girls and I arriving first. I called a vote, absenting myself and awarding the girl who had lost the shoe a value of three votes, as to whether we would press on to Frisbee Golf or spend our phys ed period hiking down Rail Road Creek, in the direction of the school, to see what we could see. Overwhelmingly they voted to pursue the shoe.
We sought the boys to tell them our decision, and having gained the road, spied them emerging at last and with some measure of struggle from the bushes. One had soaked his trousers up to the knees and slowly held aloft... A dripping wet Birkenstock.
It dissolved into one of those cuddly class-bonding moments that make actual accomplishment of any sort of goal impossible: I looked at my watch, sent them all for hot chocolate, and called it a day.
My response: a measured, verbal "Sure..."
Within the hour I had secured disks from the Hike Haus and was leading the kids to the tailings for an impromptu go at Holden's Frisbee Golf Course, which is internationally certified, whatever that means. We were crossing the foot bridge over Lower Railroad Creek, and one girl suddenly commented that we should have fencing for phys ed, then promptly screamed.
Apparently, she had gone for a particular stance to illustrate her fencing comment, and instead kicked her Birkenstock right off the bridge.
I peered over the side, and there went the Birkenstock, floating down the river.
Now everybody was screaming, and why shouldn't they be? Two girls tore down to the creekside, including one that was missing a shoe; I tore after them, the others followed... There ensued this properly manic scene where I got as far as I could on a dry patch of river rocks while the shoe floated by just out of reach in the creek's center and I nearly fell in...
Two boys from the class suddenly appeared thirty feet down stream, having gone around and taken the road. Seven girls, including myself, shrieked simultaneously to alert them of their proximity to the shoe. A bit of a search, and much pantomimed shrugging, and we gave all up for lost.
We processed back to the footbridge, the girls and I arriving first. I called a vote, absenting myself and awarding the girl who had lost the shoe a value of three votes, as to whether we would press on to Frisbee Golf or spend our phys ed period hiking down Rail Road Creek, in the direction of the school, to see what we could see. Overwhelmingly they voted to pursue the shoe.
We sought the boys to tell them our decision, and having gained the road, spied them emerging at last and with some measure of struggle from the bushes. One had soaked his trousers up to the knees and slowly held aloft... A dripping wet Birkenstock.
It dissolved into one of those cuddly class-bonding moments that make actual accomplishment of any sort of goal impossible: I looked at my watch, sent them all for hot chocolate, and called it a day.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
How the first day of school actually went.
It always happens that you glance over your shoulder once the story ends, and find your memory has been busy -- that the things you hardly noticed the first time through have, while you weren't looking, grown heavy and ponderous with new importance.
I don't know where to begin, except by relating that at one point in the early afternoon, I left the high school class room in silence only to hear nine teenagers burst out laughing as soon as I'd closed the door. Not the best feeling in the world; notice it managed to get left out of the first attempt to plot out the events of the day. Or maybe I should actually introduce the misadventure by revealing that the entire high school at Holden Village rose up and decided to play a prank on me my first day as their Teacher's Aide. But, like so many good pranks, it retained the potential to go horribly awry, and -- as things often play out -- go awry it did.
The terms of the prank were simple. After lunch, the students returned to the room early, checked their e-mail at the computer bank, played some music before it was time to buckle down for a US History lecture -- all normal activities as I understand it now. Only that day, someone had a CD of Sesame Street Songs, and they set it to a track where Cookie Monster sings about leaving his cookie at the disco or some God-awful thing like that, and they set it to Repeat. And waited. What will she do?
So. The things that went wrong.
They hit play too soon, for one. They had to listen to the song six times before I even got there, and couldn't do anything about it because they were so keen on looking nonchalant they didn't want to be anywhere near the CD player once I got to the school. For another, they counted too heavily on the notion that I would need to hear a Sesame Street song more than once to get annoyed. Ah, wrong. So I walk in, note the choice of music, briefly debate about being the "heavy" that takes away their one opportunity to express their individualism, and proceed to tune out the damn cookie song. Effectively.
For half an hour.
The kids don't want to say anything; they're still waiting for their big reaction. Finally I get up to visit the copy room, and on my way out the door, pause, and cast a side long glance at the menacing little boom box still shouting Sesame Street music -- which side long glance I'll have you know they got to doing impressions of later -- and leave the room collapsing in on itself in laughter while someone finally pounces on the CD player and puts them all out of their misery.
I don't know where to begin, except by relating that at one point in the early afternoon, I left the high school class room in silence only to hear nine teenagers burst out laughing as soon as I'd closed the door. Not the best feeling in the world; notice it managed to get left out of the first attempt to plot out the events of the day. Or maybe I should actually introduce the misadventure by revealing that the entire high school at Holden Village rose up and decided to play a prank on me my first day as their Teacher's Aide. But, like so many good pranks, it retained the potential to go horribly awry, and -- as things often play out -- go awry it did.
The terms of the prank were simple. After lunch, the students returned to the room early, checked their e-mail at the computer bank, played some music before it was time to buckle down for a US History lecture -- all normal activities as I understand it now. Only that day, someone had a CD of Sesame Street Songs, and they set it to a track where Cookie Monster sings about leaving his cookie at the disco or some God-awful thing like that, and they set it to Repeat. And waited. What will she do?
So. The things that went wrong.
They hit play too soon, for one. They had to listen to the song six times before I even got there, and couldn't do anything about it because they were so keen on looking nonchalant they didn't want to be anywhere near the CD player once I got to the school. For another, they counted too heavily on the notion that I would need to hear a Sesame Street song more than once to get annoyed. Ah, wrong. So I walk in, note the choice of music, briefly debate about being the "heavy" that takes away their one opportunity to express their individualism, and proceed to tune out the damn cookie song. Effectively.
For half an hour.
The kids don't want to say anything; they're still waiting for their big reaction. Finally I get up to visit the copy room, and on my way out the door, pause, and cast a side long glance at the menacing little boom box still shouting Sesame Street music -- which side long glance I'll have you know they got to doing impressions of later -- and leave the room collapsing in on itself in laughter while someone finally pounces on the CD player and puts them all out of their misery.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Scenes from the First Day of School
Charged with introducing myself to the elementary students, I just told them my name and that I was from Florida. Those are all the facts they need: not where I went to university or what I studied or anything like that. Just Florida. The details spin out from there, how we grew in our back yard orange trees, grapefruit trees, a pineapple plant, bamboo and sabal palms. How it doesn't snow there, not ever, maybe once in fifty or a hundred years, and the Gulf never ices over.
Once they were allowed to talk back, it got interesting.
Small Child Called Ellie (to me): I like your shoes.
Actual Teacher called Steve: You've never told me you liked my shoes.
Ellie: You're not wearing Converse.
(Fact: Steve was wearing sandals with socks. Fact: half the kids were wearing crocs, so if my dress-evaluation had gone for the worse, I was prepared to fire back.)
Another small child called Jordyn announced she was going to seminary. She also asked me about my glasses and why I wore them. Later she put on glasses for math.
The high school teacher stood me outside a room where five of his students were finishing a geography test. One of those good old map tests where you draw in the capitals and everything. He handed me their geography survey book.
Dave: What do you know about Mexico?
Katie: ... A bit.
Dave: Okay. Go on in; when they finish their test, collect it, tell them what you know about Mexico, read these pages together (he showed me) and get them started on the worksheet. Off you go, then.
...Tell them what I know about Mexico?
Recess with the younger kids. Half of them were pirates, half unsuspecting citizens. I was the pet giant that belonged to the unsuspecting citizens. You know the kids are playing because they put on cockney accents -- all of them, down to the pre-schooler who just hangs out with us to learn numbers 0-20 and the sounds letters make.
The next morning I was up at four, reading about Mexico and checking the Pre-Algebra homework and touring the library for resources on the Supreme Court and reminding myself of APA formatting. It's what my high school chemistry teacher used to say about Statistics, that last one: every time I learn it, I think it's about the easiest thing in the world. Every...time.
My first two weeks are going to be a mess. I like it so far.
Once they were allowed to talk back, it got interesting.
Small Child Called Ellie (to me): I like your shoes.
Actual Teacher called Steve: You've never told me you liked my shoes.
Ellie: You're not wearing Converse.
(Fact: Steve was wearing sandals with socks. Fact: half the kids were wearing crocs, so if my dress-evaluation had gone for the worse, I was prepared to fire back.)
Another small child called Jordyn announced she was going to seminary. She also asked me about my glasses and why I wore them. Later she put on glasses for math.
The high school teacher stood me outside a room where five of his students were finishing a geography test. One of those good old map tests where you draw in the capitals and everything. He handed me their geography survey book.
Dave: What do you know about Mexico?
Katie: ... A bit.
Dave: Okay. Go on in; when they finish their test, collect it, tell them what you know about Mexico, read these pages together (he showed me) and get them started on the worksheet. Off you go, then.
...Tell them what I know about Mexico?
Recess with the younger kids. Half of them were pirates, half unsuspecting citizens. I was the pet giant that belonged to the unsuspecting citizens. You know the kids are playing because they put on cockney accents -- all of them, down to the pre-schooler who just hangs out with us to learn numbers 0-20 and the sounds letters make.
The next morning I was up at four, reading about Mexico and checking the Pre-Algebra homework and touring the library for resources on the Supreme Court and reminding myself of APA formatting. It's what my high school chemistry teacher used to say about Statistics, that last one: every time I learn it, I think it's about the easiest thing in the world. Every...time.
My first two weeks are going to be a mess. I like it so far.
Monday, October 6, 2008
One Last Shift in the Kitchen
At the end of a long trek back from Milwaukee, I took the slow boat and wearily watched my phone signal die on the way to Field's Point. Safely back in the Village, I wiled away the afternoon working a half shift in the kitchen, as a way to say good-bye. I came here to volunteer for a year, and I lasted a month. Tomorrow I start my new work for the local school district.
They needed a teacher's aide to do Math and Science for Holden Village at the high school level (yes, we've got a school). More than one parent-set of village students approached me making sure I knew about the opening and hoping I would apply, but I didn't need much encouraging. There's a deep-seated masochism to me that sounded its alarm in response to the job posting: "Ooh, haven't used those parts of me in a while. Sounds like fun."
I still have no idea how I got the job. Really. They tell me the interview went well. Couldn't have. I was a complete asshole. Literally. The principal looked at me and asked why I thought I was qualified for the position and I told her I was a genius.
Actually, I used the word polymath.
Here a week later I stood re-baiting the mouse traps in one of our dry storage lockers when one of the high school students stuck his head in to say hello. I couldn't handle saying hello back without snapping my finger in the trap I was handling. Some genius. I swore, and apologized (although, for snapping my finger in a mouse trap, really, worse words could have come out of my mouth). "I won't say things like that when I'm your teacher," I assured him lamely. "Yeah," he said, wandering off, "'cause it's not like Dave ever says anything like that."
He calls his teacher Dave.
I'm still trying to figure out what I've got myself into.
They needed a teacher's aide to do Math and Science for Holden Village at the high school level (yes, we've got a school). More than one parent-set of village students approached me making sure I knew about the opening and hoping I would apply, but I didn't need much encouraging. There's a deep-seated masochism to me that sounded its alarm in response to the job posting: "Ooh, haven't used those parts of me in a while. Sounds like fun."
I still have no idea how I got the job. Really. They tell me the interview went well. Couldn't have. I was a complete asshole. Literally. The principal looked at me and asked why I thought I was qualified for the position and I told her I was a genius.
Actually, I used the word polymath.
Here a week later I stood re-baiting the mouse traps in one of our dry storage lockers when one of the high school students stuck his head in to say hello. I couldn't handle saying hello back without snapping my finger in the trap I was handling. Some genius. I swore, and apologized (although, for snapping my finger in a mouse trap, really, worse words could have come out of my mouth). "I won't say things like that when I'm your teacher," I assured him lamely. "Yeah," he said, wandering off, "'cause it's not like Dave ever says anything like that."
He calls his teacher Dave.
I'm still trying to figure out what I've got myself into.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What I said at Matins
In the biggest non-surprise in history, I spent my first go at leading morning prayer at Holden Village on Ezekiel 37.
"The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, 'Mortal, can these bones live?'"
Good morning. My name is Katie, and I work in your kitchen, and by way of introduction I am one of those: conspicuously over-educated manual laborers Holden so attracts. You've seen us. Everywhere. We spend the morning splitting wood and the evening working through the upcoming defense of our American Studies doctoral dissertation. We are your Harvard-educated painter, the licensed Sociologist you employ at Garbo Central, the young man commanding degrees in art and art history, of late commanding mavericks. We have our fine arts degrees framed right next to the CDL licenses that let us drive the Village busses. We know exactly how many English majors it takes to put together a good burrito bar.
I am a Divinity School student. Or I was. Who, of a sudden sought a ship to Tarshish and found a ferry to Lucerne. That's my story, in brief. And I have my days when I can tell you what I was looking for, really. This morning isn't one of them. I thought, as we orient our thoughts and hearts toward the day ahead, this new day in our common life in Christ, I might tell you a little about what I've found, here, early in the journey as it is.
I made a list.
Work. Trees. Chipmunks. Mountains. Ground squirrels. Deer. Water -- colder than anything I ever would have put up with in Florida, which is where I'm from. A whole lot of new ways to go about hurting myself: mostly in the kitchen, where you would not believe the number of contraptions waiting to burn, maim, slice, or otherwise disfigure the unsuspecting. Friends. The good kind. The kind that let you lead the hike even though you lost the trail last time. The kind that run back and fetch you a towel because it was your first sauna and you didn't know. The kind that share the songs and poems that are in their hearts. That know about the Frisbee Golf course. That give even your obsession with Dr. Who a fair hearing. That know to catch you when you've struck, and been struck by, the last page of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for the first time. Bears. You see them a lot in the early evening, right after Vespers -- why, because they've figured out we're all in church and not looking, for all I know. And while we're on the subject, church. More church than I almost know what to do with. So much church, often of so high and beautiful a liturgy, that I have my days when I wonder as Richard Lischer did of daily chapel services at a certain seminary whether this beautiful, frequent discipline might not actually save even such a wandering soul as mine. And I have my days when I wonder whether salvation isn't exactly what I was looking for, getting into this boat with you.
But today it is my happy privilege to remind us that it's much too late, for such as I; there are no answers and no peace and certainly no salvation in these hills, because the only thing that matters transpired on one hill, centuries ago in this world's history and about as far away from this place as you can get without coming back, in the saving work of Jesus' death on the cross, which is for you, which is for me, which is done -- and there isn't anything we can do about it.
That's the boat. Let me leave you with Ezekiel's picture of the wandering.
We wander through this world's old age, through Ezekiel's valley surrounded by the image and evidence of death and posed the question by the Living God, "Mortal, can these bones live?" A question that's bewildering to the best of us, and yet in the divine wisdom we've spent a summer reveling in our inability to fathom, God has imparted the answer to us, and it's Yes. These bones can live, even these -- resurrection happens. Hurt is possible, heartache is possible, but love is possible, forgiveness is possible, reconciliation is here, is effected, between God and humankind, so stop thinking about it and go find that brother or that sister you've wronged. Haven't you heard? God means to bring the world back to life. For some reason, he chose you to know about it.
So whether you leave this day, or tarry here a while, I wish you the best of one another, and I wish you a day of wandering in the brilliant light of a God whose plan is equal to your ships to Tarshish, to your getting lost in the woods, to your capacity to be struck by the world's -- even the self's -- tragedy and hurt, whose plan, at last, is life.
"The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, 'Mortal, can these bones live?'"
Good morning. My name is Katie, and I work in your kitchen, and by way of introduction I am one of those: conspicuously over-educated manual laborers Holden so attracts. You've seen us. Everywhere. We spend the morning splitting wood and the evening working through the upcoming defense of our American Studies doctoral dissertation. We are your Harvard-educated painter, the licensed Sociologist you employ at Garbo Central, the young man commanding degrees in art and art history, of late commanding mavericks. We have our fine arts degrees framed right next to the CDL licenses that let us drive the Village busses. We know exactly how many English majors it takes to put together a good burrito bar.
I am a Divinity School student. Or I was. Who, of a sudden sought a ship to Tarshish and found a ferry to Lucerne. That's my story, in brief. And I have my days when I can tell you what I was looking for, really. This morning isn't one of them. I thought, as we orient our thoughts and hearts toward the day ahead, this new day in our common life in Christ, I might tell you a little about what I've found, here, early in the journey as it is.
I made a list.
Work. Trees. Chipmunks. Mountains. Ground squirrels. Deer. Water -- colder than anything I ever would have put up with in Florida, which is where I'm from. A whole lot of new ways to go about hurting myself: mostly in the kitchen, where you would not believe the number of contraptions waiting to burn, maim, slice, or otherwise disfigure the unsuspecting. Friends. The good kind. The kind that let you lead the hike even though you lost the trail last time. The kind that run back and fetch you a towel because it was your first sauna and you didn't know. The kind that share the songs and poems that are in their hearts. That know about the Frisbee Golf course. That give even your obsession with Dr. Who a fair hearing. That know to catch you when you've struck, and been struck by, the last page of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for the first time. Bears. You see them a lot in the early evening, right after Vespers -- why, because they've figured out we're all in church and not looking, for all I know. And while we're on the subject, church. More church than I almost know what to do with. So much church, often of so high and beautiful a liturgy, that I have my days when I wonder as Richard Lischer did of daily chapel services at a certain seminary whether this beautiful, frequent discipline might not actually save even such a wandering soul as mine. And I have my days when I wonder whether salvation isn't exactly what I was looking for, getting into this boat with you.
But today it is my happy privilege to remind us that it's much too late, for such as I; there are no answers and no peace and certainly no salvation in these hills, because the only thing that matters transpired on one hill, centuries ago in this world's history and about as far away from this place as you can get without coming back, in the saving work of Jesus' death on the cross, which is for you, which is for me, which is done -- and there isn't anything we can do about it.
That's the boat. Let me leave you with Ezekiel's picture of the wandering.
We wander through this world's old age, through Ezekiel's valley surrounded by the image and evidence of death and posed the question by the Living God, "Mortal, can these bones live?" A question that's bewildering to the best of us, and yet in the divine wisdom we've spent a summer reveling in our inability to fathom, God has imparted the answer to us, and it's Yes. These bones can live, even these -- resurrection happens. Hurt is possible, heartache is possible, but love is possible, forgiveness is possible, reconciliation is here, is effected, between God and humankind, so stop thinking about it and go find that brother or that sister you've wronged. Haven't you heard? God means to bring the world back to life. For some reason, he chose you to know about it.
So whether you leave this day, or tarry here a while, I wish you the best of one another, and I wish you a day of wandering in the brilliant light of a God whose plan is equal to your ships to Tarshish, to your getting lost in the woods, to your capacity to be struck by the world's -- even the self's -- tragedy and hurt, whose plan, at last, is life.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Inventory of Items Presently in my Pockets
1. Two dollars, cash. In case I wanted to buy ice cream tonight at the snackbar. "One" scoop costs $1.50.
2. (folded) Print-out copy of an e-mail exchange between myself and a certain market in Chelan, WA, willing to ship me beer. Exchange includes list of imports and micros carried by said market.
3. My Visa card. Yeah, I made an order today. What?
4. A big bag of tea, including three (now two) pockets of Bigelow Vanilla Caramel, abandoned by some loser and adopted by me.
5. A slip of paper good for free ice cream, which I acquired by volunteering a morning earlier this week to some mavericks who needed a hand moving a bunch of crap. (And yeah, that's a pretty good description of what mavericks do.) For those slow at the math -- that's two hours of labor, traded for a slip of paper good for $1.50. And I'm happy about this.
6. (folded) Print-out advertisement for a job as teacher's aide in the Village's school. A parent handed it off to me hoping I would apply. I've agreed to inquire. This means talking to the same program director I earlier asked "hypothetically" just how much beer I could fit in a single shipment before the boat charged me extra for freight. Awesome.
2. (folded) Print-out copy of an e-mail exchange between myself and a certain market in Chelan, WA, willing to ship me beer. Exchange includes list of imports and micros carried by said market.
3. My Visa card. Yeah, I made an order today. What?
4. A big bag of tea, including three (now two) pockets of Bigelow Vanilla Caramel, abandoned by some loser and adopted by me.
5. A slip of paper good for free ice cream, which I acquired by volunteering a morning earlier this week to some mavericks who needed a hand moving a bunch of crap. (And yeah, that's a pretty good description of what mavericks do.) For those slow at the math -- that's two hours of labor, traded for a slip of paper good for $1.50. And I'm happy about this.
6. (folded) Print-out advertisement for a job as teacher's aide in the Village's school. A parent handed it off to me hoping I would apply. I've agreed to inquire. This means talking to the same program director I earlier asked "hypothetically" just how much beer I could fit in a single shipment before the boat charged me extra for freight. Awesome.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Business of Chasing off Bears
At six o'clock in the morning there's not a huge demand for the piano in the Village Center, so that's when and where I go to practice. Formal piano instruction accompanied my third through fifth grade years, and as a consequence I can still read sheet music (one more half-learned language from years gone by), but can't play much of anything. I'm trying to pick it up again.
I'm staying in Lodge One for now. Soon I'll move, but for now a morning walk to the Village Center takes me right past the cafeteria and the Ark and the porch of Lodge Four. And it's true that someone was banging, loudly and repeatedly, on a window from inside Lodge Four, but at 6am it's also true that it took me a moment to realize this was something out of the ordinary.
And then of course I saw what the banger was trying to scare away.
There he was, a marauding, medium-sized black bear, pawing through the cans on Lodge Four's porch, slightly bewildered by the banging but untroubled since it wasn't much more noise than he was making himself. I took it upon myself to make things a little clearer.
I had Charles Dickens' Great Expectations in my hand -- I keep my sheet music tucked between the pages because then if all the pianos in the Village happened to be busy I would still have something to do. I started thumping on it and yelled, "Hey!" and moved in on the porch.
The bear loped away to the Ark, and our unwitting Garbologist came in on him from the other side. We stopped and waited for him to calm down and get off the tree in the Ark's middle, and at last he did and I moved in again.
I picked up a rock but didn't throw it this time, opting for some much less effective English yelling: "Get out of here!" and the like, while he loped along up Chalet Hill and cut across the woods. I had to follow him, weary and annoyed, because now he was just making for the Garbology Dock. And so I tripped along until he cut across the road and then across the footbridge and I lost sight of him.
It turns out a large part of my self-appointed Village responsibilities has been chasing off black bears. They're finding too much food left carelessly out in the Village, and that's a reward that will keep them coming, and keep them teaching their cubs to come. If we can't show them ourselves that entering the Village is no fun at all, it won't be very long before one or two or six of them are shot and I'm figuring out how to fix bear meat in the kitchen.
So I learned when a black bear tried to accompany the head maverick and me to church one night that I'm perfectly okay with throwing rocks at a bear. We chased him toward the river, tripping through mud and weeds, rocks in our hands, and when we thought he'd gone he came back only a minute later. So Daniel and I chased him again, and that's where the trouble started.
We got closer to the river and farther from one another, see. I circled around to the playground because I'd have hated to think we'd chased "Home-Dude" (as our former head maverick was fond of calling this one) right into a pile of kids. Narnia was off to my left. Daniel went off to the right, until I couldn't see him anymore.
In layers, there's the river, there's a line of trees, and then there's a foot-path about four feet wide, before the thicker trees and a line of buildings that includes Koinonia, the Village Center, and Narnia. I took the foot-path and thought sinkingly that if I were a bear and I were being chased, I'd be on that same foot-path for sure. Narnia came into view, and I heard kids shouting and playing and not being frightened by a bear, which was a relief for just a second because then I caught the flash of black fur at the river's edge beside me.
Whimpering and wondering where the hell the head maverick was, I dodged ahead to get between playground and bear, then cut across to the river bank.
And Home-Dude came out of the trees right in front of me.
"Hey!" I yelled, deep and loud, and I threw the rock in my hand. It went wide, but that was okay. All he needed was to see a human and he took off down the river's edge, away from Narnia.
"Jesus," I breathed, and went to church, where the head maverick had his feet up since his trip into the woods hadn't been nearly so eventful, and shaking I gave him the what-for as I sank onto the pew and stripped off my sweatshirt.
Confidential to Karl: I'll try punching him in the face next time. The bear. Not the head maverick.
I'm staying in Lodge One for now. Soon I'll move, but for now a morning walk to the Village Center takes me right past the cafeteria and the Ark and the porch of Lodge Four. And it's true that someone was banging, loudly and repeatedly, on a window from inside Lodge Four, but at 6am it's also true that it took me a moment to realize this was something out of the ordinary.
And then of course I saw what the banger was trying to scare away.
There he was, a marauding, medium-sized black bear, pawing through the cans on Lodge Four's porch, slightly bewildered by the banging but untroubled since it wasn't much more noise than he was making himself. I took it upon myself to make things a little clearer.
I had Charles Dickens' Great Expectations in my hand -- I keep my sheet music tucked between the pages because then if all the pianos in the Village happened to be busy I would still have something to do. I started thumping on it and yelled, "Hey!" and moved in on the porch.
The bear loped away to the Ark, and our unwitting Garbologist came in on him from the other side. We stopped and waited for him to calm down and get off the tree in the Ark's middle, and at last he did and I moved in again.
I picked up a rock but didn't throw it this time, opting for some much less effective English yelling: "Get out of here!" and the like, while he loped along up Chalet Hill and cut across the woods. I had to follow him, weary and annoyed, because now he was just making for the Garbology Dock. And so I tripped along until he cut across the road and then across the footbridge and I lost sight of him.
It turns out a large part of my self-appointed Village responsibilities has been chasing off black bears. They're finding too much food left carelessly out in the Village, and that's a reward that will keep them coming, and keep them teaching their cubs to come. If we can't show them ourselves that entering the Village is no fun at all, it won't be very long before one or two or six of them are shot and I'm figuring out how to fix bear meat in the kitchen.
So I learned when a black bear tried to accompany the head maverick and me to church one night that I'm perfectly okay with throwing rocks at a bear. We chased him toward the river, tripping through mud and weeds, rocks in our hands, and when we thought he'd gone he came back only a minute later. So Daniel and I chased him again, and that's where the trouble started.
We got closer to the river and farther from one another, see. I circled around to the playground because I'd have hated to think we'd chased "Home-Dude" (as our former head maverick was fond of calling this one) right into a pile of kids. Narnia was off to my left. Daniel went off to the right, until I couldn't see him anymore.
In layers, there's the river, there's a line of trees, and then there's a foot-path about four feet wide, before the thicker trees and a line of buildings that includes Koinonia, the Village Center, and Narnia. I took the foot-path and thought sinkingly that if I were a bear and I were being chased, I'd be on that same foot-path for sure. Narnia came into view, and I heard kids shouting and playing and not being frightened by a bear, which was a relief for just a second because then I caught the flash of black fur at the river's edge beside me.
Whimpering and wondering where the hell the head maverick was, I dodged ahead to get between playground and bear, then cut across to the river bank.
And Home-Dude came out of the trees right in front of me.
"Hey!" I yelled, deep and loud, and I threw the rock in my hand. It went wide, but that was okay. All he needed was to see a human and he took off down the river's edge, away from Narnia.
"Jesus," I breathed, and went to church, where the head maverick had his feet up since his trip into the woods hadn't been nearly so eventful, and shaking I gave him the what-for as I sank onto the pew and stripped off my sweatshirt.
Confidential to Karl: I'll try punching him in the face next time. The bear. Not the head maverick.
In which our hero spends her first day at a new place in tears.
I arrived on a Thursday. "Hunger Awareness Day," for anybody familiar with the goings-on of Holden Village -- although I'll admit, I'd forgotten. Thursday's lunch is always spare, and the money saved out of our food budget donated to Lutheran World Relief or another humanitarian aid organization.
The upshot, for our purposes, is that I wandered off the bus and ate a large plate of plain rice by myself.
And then I went through staff orientation, where I was the only one in my class, and not knowing what else to do but eagerly await a proper meal at dinner, I read for a while from John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I was to the part where a pile of likeable Hamiltons died, and then Lee left and came back -- typical of the tragic-comic nature of that section of the book.
At Vespers, I learned that a woman on teaching staff that week was a dance instructor, when she led an uncomplicated version of the same circle dance we use to Psalm 133 in the Soul Purpose play "And They Danced." Her class demonstrated, and then what must have been a hundred people got up to join when invited. The rest of us sang along -- the same traditional melody we adopted for our use in the play, the words in Hebrew. "Hinei ma'tov u ma'naim / Shevet achim gam ya-had..."
The Hebrew made me think of Phil's and Isaac's and Mark's and my drinking song from years ago, the singing and the stomping of years of looking on as Esther.
And that was my very existential first day in the Village.
The upshot, for our purposes, is that I wandered off the bus and ate a large plate of plain rice by myself.
And then I went through staff orientation, where I was the only one in my class, and not knowing what else to do but eagerly await a proper meal at dinner, I read for a while from John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I was to the part where a pile of likeable Hamiltons died, and then Lee left and came back -- typical of the tragic-comic nature of that section of the book.
At Vespers, I learned that a woman on teaching staff that week was a dance instructor, when she led an uncomplicated version of the same circle dance we use to Psalm 133 in the Soul Purpose play "And They Danced." Her class demonstrated, and then what must have been a hundred people got up to join when invited. The rest of us sang along -- the same traditional melody we adopted for our use in the play, the words in Hebrew. "Hinei ma'tov u ma'naim / Shevet achim gam ya-had..."
The Hebrew made me think of Phil's and Isaac's and Mark's and my drinking song from years ago, the singing and the stomping of years of looking on as Esther.
And that was my very existential first day in the Village.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Travel Diary
I could have avoided arrest altogether at the Chicago O'Hare airport if I had remembered my Nalgene was still half full of water before I made it to Security. But that's just one on a long list of things you learn about yourself and about the world on a trip across the country.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 5:45am
Location: Big Rapids, MI
After five days with relatives and too much food in Michigan I need to get on a train bound for Chicago's Union Station. I'm packed and loaded into the car, but Grandma wants me to fit more of "my" food in my backpack, and echoes of my own protestations ("Look, I'll eat the shrimp cocktail and corn on the cob for breakfast, I swear!") are dying in my ear.
The train is full from Grand Rapids to Chicago -- and rumor has it, oversold. This does not stop the family of four seated in front of me from abandoning their entire row of seats to visit the dining car about three minutes before our first stop in Holland, MI. The train stopped and flooded with people, and I defended the family's claim as best I could from ones and twos and threes of people with heavy bags, until finally I abandoned my own seat and proceeded to occupy the family's entire row -- myself on one side of the aisle, John Steinbeck's East of Eden occupying the other side. Stay out, we said, without having to say anything. As the train lurched forward again, I was thinking bitterly that the family wasn't even coming back to their seats at all, but then they arrived, laden with boxed breakfasts and wondering why I was spread across their daughters' chairs.
My own seat had been lost in the deluge, and for my reward I sat near a man who spent the whole journey talking loudly on his cell phone, talking loudly to the book he had brought along for reading, and executing the unsettling practice of cracking his elbow, wherein he threw his arm forward like a whip to hyperextend the joint. I tensed every time.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 3:00pm
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport
Maneuvering through security, I'd extracted my laptop from my bag and laid it in its own tray, remembered to take off my coat and shoes and belt, and was showing an officer the inside of my hat when another showed me my orange nalgene bottle, half full of water, and my spirits fell. I'd spent most of the last two days writing, which brings every possible emotion right up to your skin, and that's the only way I can account for my overly dramatic disappointment in myself -- How could I forget the nalgene! -- which the officials sensed and, not knowing what else to do, sent me to a nearby trashcan to empty the thing and promised I wouldn't have to get back in line.
Well, the bartender in me didn't want to dump 16oz of liquid into a trashcan because I know what it's like to throw it out after too many people have done that. So without processing the implications I actually exited Security and threw the water down a drain.
I dodged back into line, under a barrier, nalgene empty, and was showing my new friend the inside of my hat again, when a police officer skidded to a halt beside me. I looked up at him, affronted. "Did you just almost tackle me?"
He seemed impressed with the quickness of his own reaction, which threw him off. "Yeah," he said simply, at the same time negotiating signal input from the other security employees who were kindly trying to assure him I wasn't a threat.
And then he wandered away.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 9:48pm
Location: McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
I'm exhausted and starving, and pay as much for my Amber Bock draft as I do for my sandwich.
On the plane, no one else in my row shows up. I can hardly believe my luck and sit patiently through take off before adjusting my seatbelt and wiping out on three US Airways seats.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 12:48am
Location: Seattle, WA
United stole my guitar from US Airways, but happily I got it back. I proceeded to sleep fitfully across another conveniently empty row of armrest-free seats in baggage claim. This was not the best idea I've ever had.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 5:13am
Location: Seattle, WA
The heck with this. I wander outside into the public transit bay and hop a city bus across town to the Amtrak station and sleep there.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 1:20pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
A four hour bus ride to Wenatchee and I'm nearly there -- an inexpensive intercity bus route will take me the thirty miles further into Chelan, and I go for it. On Highway 97 we pass a small pear orchard and I decide I am in a magical land.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 2:45pm
Location: Chelan, WA
I know the ferry won't leave until tomorrow, so I start scouting around for a place to stay. There's nothing here. I find a Forestry Service house, wander in, and absolutely melt down when the girl behind the desk tells me local hotels are easily $150-$250 a night, and no, they don't rent tents there.
I discover I have a singular hatred for Chelan, and get on a bus back to Wenatchee.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 6:00pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
Wandering up Wenatchee Avenue, I try to find a hotel that won't be such a far walk back to Columbia Station in the morning. I find the "Holiday Lodge," check in, and initiate a fantastic bar crawl that includes a British Fish & Chips place where the server gave me a Bass so cold it hurt my hand.
Thursday, August 21
Local Time: 7:45am
Location: Lake Chelan, WA
I brave the busride back over to Chelan and buy a one-way ticket to Lucerne and Holden Village. Shivering on the dock, waiting for the crew to call for boarding, I think uncharitably that this was a really, really stupid idea.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 5:45am
Location: Big Rapids, MI
After five days with relatives and too much food in Michigan I need to get on a train bound for Chicago's Union Station. I'm packed and loaded into the car, but Grandma wants me to fit more of "my" food in my backpack, and echoes of my own protestations ("Look, I'll eat the shrimp cocktail and corn on the cob for breakfast, I swear!") are dying in my ear.
The train is full from Grand Rapids to Chicago -- and rumor has it, oversold. This does not stop the family of four seated in front of me from abandoning their entire row of seats to visit the dining car about three minutes before our first stop in Holland, MI. The train stopped and flooded with people, and I defended the family's claim as best I could from ones and twos and threes of people with heavy bags, until finally I abandoned my own seat and proceeded to occupy the family's entire row -- myself on one side of the aisle, John Steinbeck's East of Eden occupying the other side. Stay out, we said, without having to say anything. As the train lurched forward again, I was thinking bitterly that the family wasn't even coming back to their seats at all, but then they arrived, laden with boxed breakfasts and wondering why I was spread across their daughters' chairs.
My own seat had been lost in the deluge, and for my reward I sat near a man who spent the whole journey talking loudly on his cell phone, talking loudly to the book he had brought along for reading, and executing the unsettling practice of cracking his elbow, wherein he threw his arm forward like a whip to hyperextend the joint. I tensed every time.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 3:00pm
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport
Maneuvering through security, I'd extracted my laptop from my bag and laid it in its own tray, remembered to take off my coat and shoes and belt, and was showing an officer the inside of my hat when another showed me my orange nalgene bottle, half full of water, and my spirits fell. I'd spent most of the last two days writing, which brings every possible emotion right up to your skin, and that's the only way I can account for my overly dramatic disappointment in myself -- How could I forget the nalgene! -- which the officials sensed and, not knowing what else to do, sent me to a nearby trashcan to empty the thing and promised I wouldn't have to get back in line.
Well, the bartender in me didn't want to dump 16oz of liquid into a trashcan because I know what it's like to throw it out after too many people have done that. So without processing the implications I actually exited Security and threw the water down a drain.
I dodged back into line, under a barrier, nalgene empty, and was showing my new friend the inside of my hat again, when a police officer skidded to a halt beside me. I looked up at him, affronted. "Did you just almost tackle me?"
He seemed impressed with the quickness of his own reaction, which threw him off. "Yeah," he said simply, at the same time negotiating signal input from the other security employees who were kindly trying to assure him I wasn't a threat.
And then he wandered away.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 9:48pm
Location: McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
I'm exhausted and starving, and pay as much for my Amber Bock draft as I do for my sandwich.
On the plane, no one else in my row shows up. I can hardly believe my luck and sit patiently through take off before adjusting my seatbelt and wiping out on three US Airways seats.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 12:48am
Location: Seattle, WA
United stole my guitar from US Airways, but happily I got it back. I proceeded to sleep fitfully across another conveniently empty row of armrest-free seats in baggage claim. This was not the best idea I've ever had.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 5:13am
Location: Seattle, WA
The heck with this. I wander outside into the public transit bay and hop a city bus across town to the Amtrak station and sleep there.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 1:20pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
A four hour bus ride to Wenatchee and I'm nearly there -- an inexpensive intercity bus route will take me the thirty miles further into Chelan, and I go for it. On Highway 97 we pass a small pear orchard and I decide I am in a magical land.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 2:45pm
Location: Chelan, WA
I know the ferry won't leave until tomorrow, so I start scouting around for a place to stay. There's nothing here. I find a Forestry Service house, wander in, and absolutely melt down when the girl behind the desk tells me local hotels are easily $150-$250 a night, and no, they don't rent tents there.
I discover I have a singular hatred for Chelan, and get on a bus back to Wenatchee.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 6:00pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
Wandering up Wenatchee Avenue, I try to find a hotel that won't be such a far walk back to Columbia Station in the morning. I find the "Holiday Lodge," check in, and initiate a fantastic bar crawl that includes a British Fish & Chips place where the server gave me a Bass so cold it hurt my hand.
Thursday, August 21
Local Time: 7:45am
Location: Lake Chelan, WA
I brave the busride back over to Chelan and buy a one-way ticket to Lucerne and Holden Village. Shivering on the dock, waiting for the crew to call for boarding, I think uncharitably that this was a really, really stupid idea.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Image for the Human Condition
The latest basement I've slept in this journey belongs to an aunt and uncle and several cousins in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When I inquired after the possibility of a shower, they directed me to one at the top of the stairs: "the kids' bathroom."
It is so designated for two reasons. The bathroom is in the kids' collective jurisdiction first to use, and second to clean and keep up after -- to till it and keep it, perhaps. It is the parents' will that the kids keep it clean, and of course should the bathroom fall into disarray, this would be against the parents' will, but the parents' will allows it.
The effective result of this delicate balance?
Well, for anyone whose experience of the world allows this to remain a mystery, here follows an inventory of items I had to avoid -- not on the bathroom floor, but on the shower floor:
* near empty bottles of shampoo (3), conditioner (1), and shower gel (3)
* two wet washcloths
* a wet hand towel
* a flyswatter (also wet)
* a string of Mardi Gras beads
* a single metal spoon
So there it is.
It is so designated for two reasons. The bathroom is in the kids' collective jurisdiction first to use, and second to clean and keep up after -- to till it and keep it, perhaps. It is the parents' will that the kids keep it clean, and of course should the bathroom fall into disarray, this would be against the parents' will, but the parents' will allows it.
The effective result of this delicate balance?
Well, for anyone whose experience of the world allows this to remain a mystery, here follows an inventory of items I had to avoid -- not on the bathroom floor, but on the shower floor:
* near empty bottles of shampoo (3), conditioner (1), and shower gel (3)
* two wet washcloths
* a wet hand towel
* a flyswatter (also wet)
* a string of Mardi Gras beads
* a single metal spoon
So there it is.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Katie's Last Week in Florida, Part II
Friday, Aug 8
My last round with the Middle School Youth Group. It goes well. Someone asks me why it is I'm leaving exactly, and it feels suspiciously like I don't have a good answer.
Saturday, Aug 9
I head to the post office and ship winter clothes and books to Chelan, Washington -- then to the public library where I pay off fines and late fees accrued over the past year. The two transactions come to about $100. People who know me can debate just how much went to either errand.
My last shift at the Green Iguana. The manager buys me a Yuengling, the bartender buys me a shot. I'm tired and pick a Jager Bomb. The bartender makes it and disappears, and the next thing I know I'm taking a five-gallon bucket of ice water full in the face. One of the ways they say Bye there, and part of me knew I should have been prepared for it. My cell phone stops working just in time for a loosely-coordinated cross-country jaunt.
Sunday, Aug 10
After church I go out to lunch with my family. Then my brother and I go windsurfing, which almost makes me late to High School Youth Group. After youth group I'm almost dry, and spend the rest of the night packing and cleaning. I realize belatedly that I left something in my (former) office at the church.
My Valpo pennant.
Monday, Aug 11 (early)
I get on a plane.
My last round with the Middle School Youth Group. It goes well. Someone asks me why it is I'm leaving exactly, and it feels suspiciously like I don't have a good answer.
Saturday, Aug 9
I head to the post office and ship winter clothes and books to Chelan, Washington -- then to the public library where I pay off fines and late fees accrued over the past year. The two transactions come to about $100. People who know me can debate just how much went to either errand.
My last shift at the Green Iguana. The manager buys me a Yuengling, the bartender buys me a shot. I'm tired and pick a Jager Bomb. The bartender makes it and disappears, and the next thing I know I'm taking a five-gallon bucket of ice water full in the face. One of the ways they say Bye there, and part of me knew I should have been prepared for it. My cell phone stops working just in time for a loosely-coordinated cross-country jaunt.
Sunday, Aug 10
After church I go out to lunch with my family. Then my brother and I go windsurfing, which almost makes me late to High School Youth Group. After youth group I'm almost dry, and spend the rest of the night packing and cleaning. I realize belatedly that I left something in my (former) office at the church.
My Valpo pennant.
Monday, Aug 11 (early)
I get on a plane.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Scenes from Pentecost 12, or Katie's Last Week in Florida, Part I
Sunday, Aug 3
I gave the children's sermon at two services, a "contemporary" and a "traditional". Positive reactions from folks who attended the first slipped utterly away into obscurity when I learned that a woman at the second, who had taught my confirmation class for the better part of a year, was affronted by my appearance in the sanctuary (too casual) and particularly my hat (cf. I Cor 11.6, 13, and 16 you stodgy old coot). I don't think she remembers me.
Monday, Aug 4
Management surprised me by sending some kid in for me to train behind the bar at the Green Iguana. He went by his initials, but I somehow convinced him to tell me his real name. (Kim.) I promptly asked him if he took a lot of shit for that, and he laughed, and I wished that it were always like this, where I can just say whatever comes into my head.
Another server at GI got tired of seeing perfectly good (if partially eaten) hamburger meat go to waste, and decided to collect it for her dog. She labeled a To Go box and set it at the outside service station for collection.
KATIE (clearing a table): Here, N*, I guess you can have this.
N*: Awww, Katie, are you gonna put beef in my box?
KATIE: Yep, I'm gonna put... (notices general laughter among the guys) I hate you all.
Tuesday, Aug 5
I decide to eat Cuban sandwiches all week or until I get sick.
J*: (another server at GI, who DOES THIS, all the time): Katie, do gay people go straight to hell?
R* (before I could answer): Oh, please, we were around before the Bible was.
I gave the children's sermon at two services, a "contemporary" and a "traditional". Positive reactions from folks who attended the first slipped utterly away into obscurity when I learned that a woman at the second, who had taught my confirmation class for the better part of a year, was affronted by my appearance in the sanctuary (too casual) and particularly my hat (cf. I Cor 11.6, 13, and 16 you stodgy old coot). I don't think she remembers me.
Monday, Aug 4
Management surprised me by sending some kid in for me to train behind the bar at the Green Iguana. He went by his initials, but I somehow convinced him to tell me his real name. (Kim.) I promptly asked him if he took a lot of shit for that, and he laughed, and I wished that it were always like this, where I can just say whatever comes into my head.
Another server at GI got tired of seeing perfectly good (if partially eaten) hamburger meat go to waste, and decided to collect it for her dog. She labeled a To Go box and set it at the outside service station for collection.
KATIE (clearing a table): Here, N*, I guess you can have this.
N*: Awww, Katie, are you gonna put beef in my box?
KATIE: Yep, I'm gonna put... (notices general laughter among the guys) I hate you all.
Tuesday, Aug 5
I decide to eat Cuban sandwiches all week or until I get sick.
J*: (another server at GI, who DOES THIS, all the time): Katie, do gay people go straight to hell?
R* (before I could answer): Oh, please, we were around before the Bible was.
Friday, July 25, 2008
I have a pet sister. I've had it since I was 15.
So, this is what I think: that Holly, the red-headed, rough-and-tumble, cancer surviving, scarily smart 8-year-old who thinks she's big enough to push me in the pool, has decided to remind us all that trips to the hospital are really, truly, as they always have been, units of measure for just how great your childhood is going.
Holly came home with a cast on her right ankle last night, which I promptly signed, while she told her story for the umpteenth time of how she got it.
Seems she was at a little indoor play park with her summer camp when she spied a bunch of her friends leaping off an eight-foot platform onto a big inflatable below. So she followed suit, except she caught the landing (apparently) a little differently from the rest of them. Just a sprain, they said, wrapping it and issuing three foot crutches at the hospital. Stay off it for a few days.
Picture me getting flustered and saying, "Holly, if all of your friends decided to jump off a bridge, would you do it, too?"
And then picture her imperial condescension as she reclaims her Sharpie and replies, "Clearly."
Holly came home with a cast on her right ankle last night, which I promptly signed, while she told her story for the umpteenth time of how she got it.
Seems she was at a little indoor play park with her summer camp when she spied a bunch of her friends leaping off an eight-foot platform onto a big inflatable below. So she followed suit, except she caught the landing (apparently) a little differently from the rest of them. Just a sprain, they said, wrapping it and issuing three foot crutches at the hospital. Stay off it for a few days.
Picture me getting flustered and saying, "Holly, if all of your friends decided to jump off a bridge, would you do it, too?"
And then picture her imperial condescension as she reclaims her Sharpie and replies, "Clearly."
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The night my dad and I DIDN'T get kicked out of Le Ritz Hotel, Paris.
This is a great conversation starter, by the way. Particularly if you find yourself behind a bar, which I did, today, and do, often. Usually the conversation starts when one patron or another sees me take a sip of water.
They inevitably ask the following: "Is that cucumber?"
And I say, "If you think a lemon makes water taste clean, you've never tried it with a slice of cucumber."
This is not something I came up with on my own. This is how they roll at Le Bar Hemingway, located in Place Vendome's Ritz Hotel, in Paris. Which I visited for obvious reasons. With my dad. Before we left, we had stolen six coasters, two monogrammed cloth napkins and a menu insert. And run up an almost inconceivable bar tab with just one round of drinks.
Pretty classy place, that.
And a bit different from the Green Iguana, where I found myself today because, well, I'm a sucker. It's stamped on my forehead. When I can, I do people favors and cover their shifts. The pastor at my church has picked up on this.
"Hey, will you cover tonight's devotion for the beach walk?"
"...Tonight?"
"Yeah."
"...Yeah."
Like I said. Stamped on my forehead.
They inevitably ask the following: "Is that cucumber?"
And I say, "If you think a lemon makes water taste clean, you've never tried it with a slice of cucumber."
This is not something I came up with on my own. This is how they roll at Le Bar Hemingway, located in Place Vendome's Ritz Hotel, in Paris. Which I visited for obvious reasons. With my dad. Before we left, we had stolen six coasters, two monogrammed cloth napkins and a menu insert. And run up an almost inconceivable bar tab with just one round of drinks.
Pretty classy place, that.
And a bit different from the Green Iguana, where I found myself today because, well, I'm a sucker. It's stamped on my forehead. When I can, I do people favors and cover their shifts. The pastor at my church has picked up on this.
"Hey, will you cover tonight's devotion for the beach walk?"
"...Tonight?"
"Yeah."
"...Yeah."
Like I said. Stamped on my forehead.
Monday, July 14, 2008
And then very many things happened at once.
First, for the people who don't know what "balls to the wall" means: calm down, I am as anatomically equipped to use that phrase as I would be to preside over Divine Service, I ASSURE YOU. That's not to say the guys who came up with "balls to the wall" don't delight in the words' ambiguity -- I think it's a safe bet they do. Those guys are fighter pilots, for whom maximum acceleration is reached by pushing the throttle (that thing that looks like a handle with a ball on it) as far forward as it will go (i.e., to the wall). Okay?
Second: I'm tentatively committed to a house-sitting gig in Durham, North Carolina, for a Divinity School prof who just moved to Atlanta but still hasn't sold his place next to the Duke campus. No rent, in exchange for keeping up the place while buyers continue to check in. And no, I don't know how these things keep finding me. Oh, but I only get this house if a certain professor joining the Duke faculty and moving to Durham from the Chicago area this summer doesn't decide to buy it.
Third: I got a preliminary call from Holden. That's really all I can say right now. Into the woods? Maybe...
Fourth: two women walked into the Green Iguana last night, landed at one of my tables, and we talked about this, that, and the other thing, and before they left, one handed me a phone number and a web address and the offer of an obscene amount of money to stay in Florida for one more year and work for her. Obscene, like, I would be able to pay for Duke.
Ugh. Divinity School. Holden Village. New job. Every one of them a stellar option. But right now, they all think I'm coming their way in a month's time. So there's a lot on my mind all of a sudden. Making calls like these is just a part of growing up, I guess. I told somebody recently that I refuse to grow up into a person I don't want to be. I think I'm going to pretend I meant that.
Second: I'm tentatively committed to a house-sitting gig in Durham, North Carolina, for a Divinity School prof who just moved to Atlanta but still hasn't sold his place next to the Duke campus. No rent, in exchange for keeping up the place while buyers continue to check in. And no, I don't know how these things keep finding me. Oh, but I only get this house if a certain professor joining the Duke faculty and moving to Durham from the Chicago area this summer doesn't decide to buy it.
Third: I got a preliminary call from Holden. That's really all I can say right now. Into the woods? Maybe...
Fourth: two women walked into the Green Iguana last night, landed at one of my tables, and we talked about this, that, and the other thing, and before they left, one handed me a phone number and a web address and the offer of an obscene amount of money to stay in Florida for one more year and work for her. Obscene, like, I would be able to pay for Duke.
Ugh. Divinity School. Holden Village. New job. Every one of them a stellar option. But right now, they all think I'm coming their way in a month's time. So there's a lot on my mind all of a sudden. Making calls like these is just a part of growing up, I guess. I told somebody recently that I refuse to grow up into a person I don't want to be. I think I'm going to pretend I meant that.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Katie has an abstract thought. In Spanish.
My most recent shift at the bar, I was unloading dinner plates at Saul's dishpit when he asked me, "Katie, tienes novio?" I replied in the negative, and he followed up by asking if I was happy.
I shrugged. "A veces." And continued, "Creo que tener novio es como tener un trabajo en la iglesia." (Saul knows I do children's ministry.) "Cuando no lo tengo, lo extrano, y cuando lo tengo, es como, 'Ay, por que hago esto?'"
Saul laughed. And then we talked for a while about the wife and daughter he has waiting for him back in Mexico, waiting, mostly, for him to make a lot of money and then quit this crazy scene.
"Septiembre, quizas," he says. And I say, "Espero que si."
I shrugged. "A veces." And continued, "Creo que tener novio es como tener un trabajo en la iglesia." (Saul knows I do children's ministry.) "Cuando no lo tengo, lo extrano, y cuando lo tengo, es como, 'Ay, por que hago esto?'"
Saul laughed. And then we talked for a while about the wife and daughter he has waiting for him back in Mexico, waiting, mostly, for him to make a lot of money and then quit this crazy scene.
"Septiembre, quizas," he says. And I say, "Espero que si."
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Things I'm Glad Happen to Me and Not John Nevergall.
I drove my car today. The paper said 60% chance of rain, and the sky concurred, and I thought I'd just better suck it up and drive. Church, the restaurant, and my house marked on a map make an almost equilateral triangle, seven miles each leg, and that's a long way to be from your next destination when it's pouring rain.
Now it's happened before that my car, sitting unused under the Florida sun for days at a time, becomes a cozy, shady spot for some creature or other to camp out. A favorite camp site seems to be right under the windshield wipers. You can imagine, since it usually has to be raining for me to get in the car, and since rain means going for the windshield wipers, I tend to get a rather abrupt introduction to my car's little tennants.
Lots of spiders. Occasionally a lizard. (You know the anoles they sell at Valpo Pet N Hobby for $9.00? Come visit me in Florida and I'll catch you one for free. I'll catch you eight. They're everywhere.)
I was two miles down 66th Street and hadn't turned on the wipers yet when I saw the little reptilian head, staring reproachfully at me from its new flat: right you-know-exactly-where on the car. Then he disappeared, and half a mile later, when the rain picked up, I thought the lizard (I THOUGHT it was a lizard, stop getting ahead of me) might have scampered away, the way you DO when your house rumbles to life and runs away on you.
I went for the wipers.
And my wipers dragged a foot-long snake across my windshield. An upset, writhing, foot-long snake.
Allow me to describe that moment for you.
In a moment like that, you don't think about the glass separating you. You spit, sputter, and swear, and bat frantically at the wiper control, and turn it on MAX before you manage to turn it off, and the snake's gone who-knows-where, before you know it, and that's it. It's over. The CD changes tracks and you're still safely in the center lane and, hmmm, your heart's on the dashboard, that's different, but really perhaps none of this ever happened at all.
The tires kick mist into the exhaust and you shoot on down the street through shades of grey.
Now it's happened before that my car, sitting unused under the Florida sun for days at a time, becomes a cozy, shady spot for some creature or other to camp out. A favorite camp site seems to be right under the windshield wipers. You can imagine, since it usually has to be raining for me to get in the car, and since rain means going for the windshield wipers, I tend to get a rather abrupt introduction to my car's little tennants.
Lots of spiders. Occasionally a lizard. (You know the anoles they sell at Valpo Pet N Hobby for $9.00? Come visit me in Florida and I'll catch you one for free. I'll catch you eight. They're everywhere.)
I was two miles down 66th Street and hadn't turned on the wipers yet when I saw the little reptilian head, staring reproachfully at me from its new flat: right you-know-exactly-where on the car. Then he disappeared, and half a mile later, when the rain picked up, I thought the lizard (I THOUGHT it was a lizard, stop getting ahead of me) might have scampered away, the way you DO when your house rumbles to life and runs away on you.
I went for the wipers.
And my wipers dragged a foot-long snake across my windshield. An upset, writhing, foot-long snake.
Allow me to describe that moment for you.
In a moment like that, you don't think about the glass separating you. You spit, sputter, and swear, and bat frantically at the wiper control, and turn it on MAX before you manage to turn it off, and the snake's gone who-knows-where, before you know it, and that's it. It's over. The CD changes tracks and you're still safely in the center lane and, hmmm, your heart's on the dashboard, that's different, but really perhaps none of this ever happened at all.
The tires kick mist into the exhaust and you shoot on down the street through shades of grey.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Applications, away!
While I've yet to officially notify Duke Divinity School that I'm thinking of deferring my acceptance for a year, now that I've been to Holden Village I kind of like the idea of one more year of personal enrichment, this one with a little less bartending and a little more mountain climbing.
So off goes my application for long-term staffing in the mail today -- rolling the dice: will they make me a maverick? a worship assistant? a cook? Stay tuned!
While less intense than grad school applications, the Holden App is still a rather lengthy and reflective writing project -- and so a welcome respite from the other writing project (this one a play) that I realized I was spending too much time with when my representation of God, typically an un-flusterable character, got upset and said, "Jesus!" Oops. Break time.
So off goes my application for long-term staffing in the mail today -- rolling the dice: will they make me a maverick? a worship assistant? a cook? Stay tuned!
While less intense than grad school applications, the Holden App is still a rather lengthy and reflective writing project -- and so a welcome respite from the other writing project (this one a play) that I realized I was spending too much time with when my representation of God, typically an un-flusterable character, got upset and said, "Jesus!" Oops. Break time.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Katie visits a seminary.
It seems like every time I think to give my synod the finger in some official capacity, they remind me they're okay with eating with me and I have to stop and think.
I write on the occasion of my very first visit to the city of St. Louis. I was only there briefly, and in cooperation with Wheat Ridge ministries, which I learned was not just Lutheran but an LCMS flavor of Lutheran in its organization when Garret, the helpful hotel desk attendant, handed me complimentary breakfast tickets for my two mornings, and attributed them to the church body that had brought me to the city.
I shrugged and pocketed the tickets. In the end I didn't use either of them; Morning #1 I had camped out in the Business Lounge, taking advantage of my first computer access in ten days to hammer in some worthy revisions to the play Wheat Ridge Ministries has commanded. Morning #2 I was on a shuttle to the airport by 4:30am.
One thing I did have time to take advantage of: a few free hours in the afternoon and charity from Pastor Jim brought me for the first time to the Concordia Seminary campus.
I went to their chapel first. It was empty, and I wandered, and I surprised myself by crying. Like, a lot. A few hours passed, and Pastor Jim found me, and we headed out for beer a little earlier than we had planned, after I apologized to him: "It stings to be here in a way that I didn't adequately anticipate."
This is what I found myself thinking on, wandering down the campus paths: the simple question, of what they teach people here about me-and-Word-and-Sacrament. That love - do they want their students to think it springs from my pride? Or that it's the work of a Tempter? Really? No shit I upset myself.
Happily I'm coming off a run with Soul Purpose that included The Hard Part, my favorite play that we do for two reasons. IT'S FUN. And it's about a girl whose dearest love is considered unclean by the community that raised her. That hit hard this past week. Because in the very effort to embrace what the community cuts off, Hannah, hero of The Hard Part, moves into a position she never anticipated: cutting herself off in anger from the community. And while I sit and contemplate "giving my synod the finger in some official capacity," Hannah confronts me with another gesture, her hand raised, outstretched to the Son of God: "I hate my neighbors... If you choose, you can make me clean."
It's making me think. But I know now I won't ever be able to study at St. Louis.
I write on the occasion of my very first visit to the city of St. Louis. I was only there briefly, and in cooperation with Wheat Ridge ministries, which I learned was not just Lutheran but an LCMS flavor of Lutheran in its organization when Garret, the helpful hotel desk attendant, handed me complimentary breakfast tickets for my two mornings, and attributed them to the church body that had brought me to the city.
I shrugged and pocketed the tickets. In the end I didn't use either of them; Morning #1 I had camped out in the Business Lounge, taking advantage of my first computer access in ten days to hammer in some worthy revisions to the play Wheat Ridge Ministries has commanded. Morning #2 I was on a shuttle to the airport by 4:30am.
One thing I did have time to take advantage of: a few free hours in the afternoon and charity from Pastor Jim brought me for the first time to the Concordia Seminary campus.
I went to their chapel first. It was empty, and I wandered, and I surprised myself by crying. Like, a lot. A few hours passed, and Pastor Jim found me, and we headed out for beer a little earlier than we had planned, after I apologized to him: "It stings to be here in a way that I didn't adequately anticipate."
This is what I found myself thinking on, wandering down the campus paths: the simple question, of what they teach people here about me-and-Word-and-Sacrament. That love - do they want their students to think it springs from my pride? Or that it's the work of a Tempter? Really? No shit I upset myself.
Happily I'm coming off a run with Soul Purpose that included The Hard Part, my favorite play that we do for two reasons. IT'S FUN. And it's about a girl whose dearest love is considered unclean by the community that raised her. That hit hard this past week. Because in the very effort to embrace what the community cuts off, Hannah, hero of The Hard Part, moves into a position she never anticipated: cutting herself off in anger from the community. And while I sit and contemplate "giving my synod the finger in some official capacity," Hannah confronts me with another gesture, her hand raised, outstretched to the Son of God: "I hate my neighbors... If you choose, you can make me clean."
It's making me think. But I know now I won't ever be able to study at St. Louis.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hi Pastor Jim, Scene 2
Second Scene of Three.
Darkness. Ladders (two) on an otherwise empty stage. Voices only.
Zoe: Son of man, can these bones live?
Ezekiel: (as before) Oh… Lord… GOD. You know.
Homilist: Then he said to me -
Z: Prophesy to the bones.
E: Prophesy to the which?
Z: Bones.
E: Bones? THOSE bones? These? They’re not alive. Not now, and if they can live, YOU know, but you haven’t told me yet - now you want them to hear something?
Z: Yes.
E: Good. That’s settled, then.
Z: Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”
E: (sighs) Oh…kay.
H: So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
E: Well, this is, eerie. And helpful. They look better, but not living.
Z: Yeah, one step at a time, this is the part where -
E: Oh, right.
H: Then he said to me,
Z: Prophesy to the breath, son of man.
E: (Feebly.) The… what?
Z: Prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”
E: Oh. Is that all then?
Z: That’s all.
E: (Working it out for himself.) Then they’re going to… Then they’ll be living. Right. Breath, breath of God, riding out on the winds to accomplish his… purposes… (Beat.) Wonder what that’s going to look like.
ZOE and EZEKIEL burst onstage, wearing capes, which fasten at the neck with elaborate bowties, and also bicycle helmets. They cross toward the ladders and climb them, sitting at the highest point. Once aloft, they are (physically) preparing to dive from this incredible height. EZEKIEL, junior of the two winds, is nervous and less comfortable with this prospect than is ZOE.
E: (As they approach the ladders.) Can you - slow down at all?
ZOE ignores him.
E: Because I know YOU know what you’re doing, but I - actually… I mean this is actually a little newer for me.
ZOE ignores him.
E: (Mid-climb now.) What I’m trying to say, is I’m nervous.
ZOE stops and looks at him. Contempt palpable. Keeps climbing. They reach the top.
E: You’re going to count to three first, right?
Z: Oh, get you’re helmet on straight; this gets easier every time you do it.
E: Yeah?
Z: Yeah. (Prepares to dive.)
E: Wait!
Z: (Waits.) What?!
E: Wait, I - Sorry, I’m not ready, yet.
Z: There’s no “ready” about it, we’re Wind, and this is what we DO. God calls, we answer. It’s - (words fail) it’s what we do!
E: What.
Z: (Confused.) What?
E: What - what is it we do, exactly?
Z: We - look, (gestures vaguely downward and outward) there’s no breath in the slain, okay? God wants there to be breath, wants them to live again.
E: Well we’re Wind, what do we have to do with that?
Z: I - hm. Well, he called us, too, when he called the Breath. I think the Breath is going to get there when and because we do.
E: How…?
Z: Not a question we ask, okay? We didn’t get put here to ask that. We got put here, by God, with specific instructions, to - (Gestures.) Whoosh! Helmet check.
EZEKIEL’s hands fly to his helmet. ZOE prepares to dive.
E: Hang on, wait! I’ve got - one more question!
ZOE ignores this.
E: I mean, it sounds great and all, us being the Wind and working with the Breath and all, but… The BREATH is the enlivening principle, right? The Breath is the actual work of God that’s going to bring life. There was a distinction in the prophecy: breath, come from the four winds… I’m just saying: it’s nice of God to have given us a job and all, but it seems like the Breath is the only thing that’s actually going to accomplish anything here. And having by definition airy properties and directional quality of its own, it might not even need Wind to get where it’s going and accomplish what it’s doing on it’s own, and so we wouldn’t have to (gestures) Whoosh, which is incidentally something I’m still incredibly. Nervous. About.
ZOE has turned slowly to look at EZEKIEL. Contempt is palpable.
Z: Your bowtie.
EZEKIEL scrambles to straighten it.
Z: Look, I’m not going to argue with you, and neither am I going to make you come with me. Of course the breath of God is the only thing ACTUALLY accomplishing anything of note here, but we are charged to cooperate. End of story. And you can stay and sit and sulk and be profound about your knowledge that only God can accomplish God’s will if you like, or you can take a chance and actually try and DO the one thing that seems to have been hard-wired into your system from the beginning, scare you as it does - and who knows! Maybe since God himself has been trying to get you to do it since Day One, he might have plans to bless it! (Beat.) Or he might not. Like I said, it’s taking a chance. (Adjusts helmet. Speaks mostly to self for a moment.) But did you ever sit back and go over the ways you’ve tried to feel alive, and wondered if you were missing the most obvious one? (Remembers EZEKIEL.) Ready over there?
E: Ready has nothing to do with it.
ZOE nods. In unison, a Superman tableau. Then they wordlessly clamber down and doff WIND costumes to become ZOE and EZEKIEL again. They cross to their ALBS and begin to robe for serving Communion.
Z: Hey, look, it’s really good to see you here; I’m glad you decided you’re okay to do this.
E: (Unenthusiastic, focusing on securing the alb.) Don’t worry about it, please. Just try and realize you’re short an acolyte prior to Confession and Absolution next time.
Z: Well, I HAD, but you weren’t here to save the day yet.
EZEKIEL’s head snaps up, wary of a latent accusation.
Z: I’m not picking on you! Hey, I mean, you weren’t LATE-late, you just - cut it a little close. Not that it… matters. At all.
E: I just… found myself taking a quick detour, is all.
Z: (Her attention is off-stage. Abruptly.) It’s fine. You don’t have to explain it.
E: I wasn’t going to EXPLAIN it; I wouldn’t know where to begin to explain it - are you even paying attention to me?
Z: (Trying to shush him.) AHEM! If you could kindly NOT talk over the Words of Institution?
Silence, briefly.
E: Is that our cue?
Z: Just about. Hey. You know that bit the pastor just said about, “In the same way also after supper he took the cup, blessed it, gave it to them and said, “Drink ye all of it, for this is -” Do you think he’s saying “Drink ye all of it” like “Drink ye ALL of it” or “Drink ye’all of it”, because I never know -
E: Zoe…
Z: - and it would be an easy enough thing to check, right? Either we get the ‘all’ in English out of a Greek collective, second person plural, or as a modifier for ‘it’, it being the wine.
E: (Firmly.) Zoe, shut up, please.
Z: And I mean, it would just be an interesting theological point either way, right? Radical inclusion of all the disciples at the Institution of the Sacrament - (gasps) I wonder if Judas Iscariot was there, do you think? - or else a firm enough injunction AGAINST wasting the consecrated host to make you wish for the days when Pastor Schroeder - remember him? - would wrap up communion by just swigging the rest of the common cup?
E: Zoe, I said, shut up! Just - are we doing this or not? I’m here and I’m not happy about it, if you haven’t noticed, and if you can’t stop (Words fail) being yourself, for just ONE MINUTE, I might not be able to handle it…
Z: I… Hm. Yeah, I suppose. In fact, that was the plan. I am going to stop being myself, and you’d better, too, because we’re up; we’re serving communion now, something neither of US is at all worthy to do. (Beat.) Um. Are you all right?
E: No.
Z: Because -
E: I know.
Z: I’m not going to make you come with me.
Beat.
EZEKIEL exits, brushing abruptly past ZOE. She follows.
Darkness. Ladders (two) on an otherwise empty stage. Voices only.
Zoe: Son of man, can these bones live?
Ezekiel: (as before) Oh… Lord… GOD. You know.
Homilist: Then he said to me -
Z: Prophesy to the bones.
E: Prophesy to the which?
Z: Bones.
E: Bones? THOSE bones? These? They’re not alive. Not now, and if they can live, YOU know, but you haven’t told me yet - now you want them to hear something?
Z: Yes.
E: Good. That’s settled, then.
Z: Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”
E: (sighs) Oh…kay.
H: So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
E: Well, this is, eerie. And helpful. They look better, but not living.
Z: Yeah, one step at a time, this is the part where -
E: Oh, right.
H: Then he said to me,
Z: Prophesy to the breath, son of man.
E: (Feebly.) The… what?
Z: Prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”
E: Oh. Is that all then?
Z: That’s all.
E: (Working it out for himself.) Then they’re going to… Then they’ll be living. Right. Breath, breath of God, riding out on the winds to accomplish his… purposes… (Beat.) Wonder what that’s going to look like.
ZOE and EZEKIEL burst onstage, wearing capes, which fasten at the neck with elaborate bowties, and also bicycle helmets. They cross toward the ladders and climb them, sitting at the highest point. Once aloft, they are (physically) preparing to dive from this incredible height. EZEKIEL, junior of the two winds, is nervous and less comfortable with this prospect than is ZOE.
E: (As they approach the ladders.) Can you - slow down at all?
ZOE ignores him.
E: Because I know YOU know what you’re doing, but I - actually… I mean this is actually a little newer for me.
ZOE ignores him.
E: (Mid-climb now.) What I’m trying to say, is I’m nervous.
ZOE stops and looks at him. Contempt palpable. Keeps climbing. They reach the top.
E: You’re going to count to three first, right?
Z: Oh, get you’re helmet on straight; this gets easier every time you do it.
E: Yeah?
Z: Yeah. (Prepares to dive.)
E: Wait!
Z: (Waits.) What?!
E: Wait, I - Sorry, I’m not ready, yet.
Z: There’s no “ready” about it, we’re Wind, and this is what we DO. God calls, we answer. It’s - (words fail) it’s what we do!
E: What.
Z: (Confused.) What?
E: What - what is it we do, exactly?
Z: We - look, (gestures vaguely downward and outward) there’s no breath in the slain, okay? God wants there to be breath, wants them to live again.
E: Well we’re Wind, what do we have to do with that?
Z: I - hm. Well, he called us, too, when he called the Breath. I think the Breath is going to get there when and because we do.
E: How…?
Z: Not a question we ask, okay? We didn’t get put here to ask that. We got put here, by God, with specific instructions, to - (Gestures.) Whoosh! Helmet check.
EZEKIEL’s hands fly to his helmet. ZOE prepares to dive.
E: Hang on, wait! I’ve got - one more question!
ZOE ignores this.
E: I mean, it sounds great and all, us being the Wind and working with the Breath and all, but… The BREATH is the enlivening principle, right? The Breath is the actual work of God that’s going to bring life. There was a distinction in the prophecy: breath, come from the four winds… I’m just saying: it’s nice of God to have given us a job and all, but it seems like the Breath is the only thing that’s actually going to accomplish anything here. And having by definition airy properties and directional quality of its own, it might not even need Wind to get where it’s going and accomplish what it’s doing on it’s own, and so we wouldn’t have to (gestures) Whoosh, which is incidentally something I’m still incredibly. Nervous. About.
ZOE has turned slowly to look at EZEKIEL. Contempt is palpable.
Z: Your bowtie.
EZEKIEL scrambles to straighten it.
Z: Look, I’m not going to argue with you, and neither am I going to make you come with me. Of course the breath of God is the only thing ACTUALLY accomplishing anything of note here, but we are charged to cooperate. End of story. And you can stay and sit and sulk and be profound about your knowledge that only God can accomplish God’s will if you like, or you can take a chance and actually try and DO the one thing that seems to have been hard-wired into your system from the beginning, scare you as it does - and who knows! Maybe since God himself has been trying to get you to do it since Day One, he might have plans to bless it! (Beat.) Or he might not. Like I said, it’s taking a chance. (Adjusts helmet. Speaks mostly to self for a moment.) But did you ever sit back and go over the ways you’ve tried to feel alive, and wondered if you were missing the most obvious one? (Remembers EZEKIEL.) Ready over there?
E: Ready has nothing to do with it.
ZOE nods. In unison, a Superman tableau. Then they wordlessly clamber down and doff WIND costumes to become ZOE and EZEKIEL again. They cross to their ALBS and begin to robe for serving Communion.
Z: Hey, look, it’s really good to see you here; I’m glad you decided you’re okay to do this.
E: (Unenthusiastic, focusing on securing the alb.) Don’t worry about it, please. Just try and realize you’re short an acolyte prior to Confession and Absolution next time.
Z: Well, I HAD, but you weren’t here to save the day yet.
EZEKIEL’s head snaps up, wary of a latent accusation.
Z: I’m not picking on you! Hey, I mean, you weren’t LATE-late, you just - cut it a little close. Not that it… matters. At all.
E: I just… found myself taking a quick detour, is all.
Z: (Her attention is off-stage. Abruptly.) It’s fine. You don’t have to explain it.
E: I wasn’t going to EXPLAIN it; I wouldn’t know where to begin to explain it - are you even paying attention to me?
Z: (Trying to shush him.) AHEM! If you could kindly NOT talk over the Words of Institution?
Silence, briefly.
E: Is that our cue?
Z: Just about. Hey. You know that bit the pastor just said about, “In the same way also after supper he took the cup, blessed it, gave it to them and said, “Drink ye all of it, for this is -” Do you think he’s saying “Drink ye all of it” like “Drink ye ALL of it” or “Drink ye’all of it”, because I never know -
E: Zoe…
Z: - and it would be an easy enough thing to check, right? Either we get the ‘all’ in English out of a Greek collective, second person plural, or as a modifier for ‘it’, it being the wine.
E: (Firmly.) Zoe, shut up, please.
Z: And I mean, it would just be an interesting theological point either way, right? Radical inclusion of all the disciples at the Institution of the Sacrament - (gasps) I wonder if Judas Iscariot was there, do you think? - or else a firm enough injunction AGAINST wasting the consecrated host to make you wish for the days when Pastor Schroeder - remember him? - would wrap up communion by just swigging the rest of the common cup?
E: Zoe, I said, shut up! Just - are we doing this or not? I’m here and I’m not happy about it, if you haven’t noticed, and if you can’t stop (Words fail) being yourself, for just ONE MINUTE, I might not be able to handle it…
Z: I… Hm. Yeah, I suppose. In fact, that was the plan. I am going to stop being myself, and you’d better, too, because we’re up; we’re serving communion now, something neither of US is at all worthy to do. (Beat.) Um. Are you all right?
E: No.
Z: Because -
E: I know.
Z: I’m not going to make you come with me.
Beat.
EZEKIEL exits, brushing abruptly past ZOE. She follows.
Hi Pastor Jim, Scene I
In the desperation inspired by my e-mail crashing and a deadline looming and a shift at the restaurant I need to get to and it still being a little early to call Valpo, I'm getting a message to Pastor Jim in the only forum yet available to me. To the rest of you, hi.
First Scene of Three.
Darkness. Voices only.
Homilist: We make our beginning this day in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God who is … (Fades off.)
Zoe: (Quietly.) Ahem. (Insistently.) AHEM. You.
Ezekiel: Hm? What, oh. Sorry. Go ahead.
Z: No, no, no, look: It’s ME.
E: Oh, it’s -- YOU. Sorry. Wow. It‘s been - ages, right?
Z: Oh, a few YEARS at least, college and all that.
Beat.
E: Did you want to sit down?
Z: No, I need you to get up. Here, follow me…
E: Now?
Z: Now.
E: Because we’re kind of in the middle of --
H: As a called and ordained servant of the Word --
E: -- something.
Z: And if YOU could have got here on time, I could be done telling you what I need to already. Do not make me ask you again.
E: Is this important? REALLY important?
Z: Yes.
E: But, more important than -- OW! Okay, I’m coming.
Lights. After a moment, enter EZEKIEL and ZOE.
E: WHAT?
Z: (Takes a deep breath and prepares to deliver, then reconsiders.) Are you -- hang on, try to stop being mad at me before I tell you this.
E: You pinched me! What are you, twelve?
Z: Are you over it yet?
E: Yes.
Z: Truly? All right. We’re short an acolyte. Two, actually, and I don’t know why, I just know they’re not here.
E: Oh my God, you pulled me out of…
Z: Hello? You’re not calm. You’re not listening.
E: CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION…
Z: Can we focus? You’re lucky you got as much of a Confession and Absolution as you did -- Pastor had to light the altar candles himself this morning. Do you have any idea how badly that throws him off?
E: (Seriously) None.
Z: By the time I caught up with him in the Sacristy he had his stole on but he wasn’t wearing his alb, that was draped over his arm, he had his sermon notes in his teeth and the processional cross in one fist trying to shake it out of its stand. (Beat.) Anyway. All that’s to say, you’re helping with Communion.
E: No, I’m not…
Z: You are.
E: Not.
Z: Are.
E: NOT. Can’t you grab an usher or something?
Z: The ushers are going to be ushering during communion - I mean, unless you WANT to watch the service fall apart COMPLETELY, I guess I don’t see why not…
E: An elder, then.
Z: No, look, I HAVE elders, I have ushers, I have a pastor - what’s left of one - I NEED acolytes. One (she means herself) and (she extends the gesture to EZEKIEL) two.
E: (Beat.) No. Look, I can’t -
Z: You CAN. You HAVE, beautifully, in the past, and you will again. Today.
E: No. You’re not listening to me at all, today is the last day I could possibly be up to this.
Z: Right. Today it is, then. (For ZOE, the scene is now resolved, and she’s ready to exit.)
E: HOW.
Z: Because now that Pastor’s got his head on straight, thanks to you and yours truly, this is the part where you get to hear the story of Ezekiel interpreted for you.
E: How is hearing about Ezekiel going to make me feel better?
Z: It’s not; but at least you get to listen to a story about someone who WANTED to serve in the Temple but COULDN’T. Makes you appreciate what you have?
E: No, makes me think, lucky him.
Z: He COULDN’T, serve, even though he was a priest, because there was no where and no one to serve: his land had been invaded, his people slaughtered and the survivors hauled off into captivity.
E: Oh. That would be bad luck, then.
Z: But it’s a story of hope! (She moves back toward the exit into the sanctuary.) And you’re going to miss it. Come on.
E: I wouldn’t be missing it if you hadn’t dragged me out --
Z: (off) You’re the only one you’re waiting on now!
EZEKIEL exits. ZOE [GOD] enters immediately by way of another door, and waits. Presently, the HOMILIST takes up the service again.
H: Our Old Testament reading is taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. (Beat.) The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; (EZEKIEL enters amid the congregation) it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me,
Z: Son of man, can these bones live?
H: I said,
E: (Bewildered.) No.
Z: No?
E: (More confident.) No.
Pause.
Z: Are you… certain?
E: Fairly certain. I mean, I’m not a medical professional, and my opinions aren’t USUALLY solicited about this sort of thing – but when I see a pile of rib cages and no sign of a beating heart, and a pile of femurs so stripped of flesh that there were probably birds of prey involved, and that WEEKS ago because now said femurs are awfully dry looking – I guess not too many active verbs come to mind. (incredulous) I mean, did you really use ‘live’ as the predicate in a sentence where ‘dry bones’ were the subject? Who am I talking to again?
Z: (After letting the question hang.) Who did you think?
E: Actually, you’ve got the voice of an old friend I haven’t seen in years – some girl I was best friends with since something like the sixth grade. (guesses) Zoe?
Z: …No.
E: No?
Z: No, and I’ve NEVER gotten that one before. This is God. By the way.
E: …Yeah?
Z: Yeah. Did you… want to change your answer?
E: YEAH.
Z: Yeah?
E: Yeah. Change it to… ‘yeah.’
Z: Son of man –
E: Yeah?
Z: Can these bones live?
E: (Emphatically.) YEAH.
Z: Better. How do you arrive at your conclusion?
E: (Rushes the Third Article.) Because I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, and the life everlasting, amen, and if I can believe I’m talking to God right now – if I’m that deluded or gullible or both – then it’s not a far leap to look around at an expanse of unburied bones and all the ways a hundred people could come to their end – car crashes, plane crashes, earth quakes, and hospital stays until enough of you dies that the rest gives up, too, or how about just being in the wrong place at the wrong time when some poor idiot who’s not even together enough to write a suicide note decides to let the world know that ‘Oh, by the way, I was unhappy,’ by taking out three and a half bystanders before he shoots himself – or you know, even the ones that are happily together with their one and only until they die within a month of each other at the respective ages of eighty-eight and eighty-six, even THEY are going to die, and to circle back to your point, I don’t know WHAT you are hoping to find in their dry, picked over bones, but it’s not LIFE. It’s not LIVING. It’s not THIS life anymore, at least. (Beat.) Oh but wait, I was (sarcastically) talking to God, wasn’t I. He can FIX even that. Right? (“Fix” is almost a curse word, and “Right?” is an accusation.)
Z: (With very little seeming interest.) How long has it been since last we talked? Has it been very long?
E: (Approaching a state of fury.) NO! It hasn’t! It hasn’t been long at all! We can even toss out whatever faltering attempt on my part might have got through a page earlier in the liturgy. YOU MADE ME LATE TO CHURCH THIS MORNING.
Z: I did?
E: You DID.
Z: Does that sound like the sort of thing I would do?
E: Why, are you going to tell me now you DON’T have divine sovereignty over every accidental happening in every moment throughout history?
Z: How’s the weather out on that limb?
E: You know what, I don’t even have to go there. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s just stick to this morning and my drive here. Let’s talk about the least of these.
Z: The least of these?
E: The least of these.
Z: I love talking about the least of these!
E: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give a cup of cold water in my name -- Whatever you do for the least of these, you’ve done it to me. Follow me so far?
Z: You would be hard-pressed to “lose” the being that endowed you with the capacity for rational thought in the first place, but make an effort to arrive at a coherent point anyway.
E: THIS MORNING. My car, my drive here. My ATTEMPT to drive here. Except I saw that woman on the side of the road. That same corner where there’s ALWAYS somebody, and whether they’ve got a sign drawn up that day or not, you know they’re there because they’re waiting for a hand out. Do you want to tell me why I stopped? Because I don’t know. I usually drive right past and wish I’d stopped. So maybe I felt guilty. Maybe I thought I’d take her to church, tell her about the only thing she really needed. Maybe I thought I’d help somebody who needed it just because that’s what you said I should do.
Z: So, you met Brenda.
E: (Beat.) Is that her name? She told me everything else about her. She’s got her story so ready you think it’s a con, but then she’s got the dirt and the bruises and the blackened fingernails right there to go with it -- so you don’t know.
Z: What did she ask you for?
E: Guess. Money. Money for food, money to pay off the friend that’s letting her crash on the floor for a few days. And a ride back to the friend’s house -- what was I supposed to do?
Z: What DID you do?
E: What did I do? Why are you even asking - you were there! Weren’t you? Wasn’t I talking to you the whole time, looking at your bruises and your broken-off fingernail? Or were you just kidding about that part, about being the least of these? All I was trying to do is the right thing, while you sat in the car and lied to me about I-don’t-know-how-much of your story. And you know what I feel now? I don’t feel good inside, like I did the right thing. I feel absolutely disgusting inside, and like everything is disgusting outside, too, and I would love to know if you. Even. Care.
Z: (After letting the question hang.) Son of Man, can these bones live?
E: (As though he has suddenly developed a very bad headache.) Oh… Lord… GOD. (Hands outstretched signify infinite resignation.) You know.
Exit EZEKIEL.
ZOE pulls a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket.
Z: I don’t think you need to be sore just because I’ve won every argument we’ve had today.
Exit ZOE.
First Scene of Three.
Darkness. Voices only.
Homilist: We make our beginning this day in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God who is … (Fades off.)
Zoe: (Quietly.) Ahem. (Insistently.) AHEM. You.
Ezekiel: Hm? What, oh. Sorry. Go ahead.
Z: No, no, no, look: It’s ME.
E: Oh, it’s -- YOU. Sorry. Wow. It‘s been - ages, right?
Z: Oh, a few YEARS at least, college and all that.
Beat.
E: Did you want to sit down?
Z: No, I need you to get up. Here, follow me…
E: Now?
Z: Now.
E: Because we’re kind of in the middle of --
H: As a called and ordained servant of the Word --
E: -- something.
Z: And if YOU could have got here on time, I could be done telling you what I need to already. Do not make me ask you again.
E: Is this important? REALLY important?
Z: Yes.
E: But, more important than -- OW! Okay, I’m coming.
Lights. After a moment, enter EZEKIEL and ZOE.
E: WHAT?
Z: (Takes a deep breath and prepares to deliver, then reconsiders.) Are you -- hang on, try to stop being mad at me before I tell you this.
E: You pinched me! What are you, twelve?
Z: Are you over it yet?
E: Yes.
Z: Truly? All right. We’re short an acolyte. Two, actually, and I don’t know why, I just know they’re not here.
E: Oh my God, you pulled me out of…
Z: Hello? You’re not calm. You’re not listening.
E: CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION…
Z: Can we focus? You’re lucky you got as much of a Confession and Absolution as you did -- Pastor had to light the altar candles himself this morning. Do you have any idea how badly that throws him off?
E: (Seriously) None.
Z: By the time I caught up with him in the Sacristy he had his stole on but he wasn’t wearing his alb, that was draped over his arm, he had his sermon notes in his teeth and the processional cross in one fist trying to shake it out of its stand. (Beat.) Anyway. All that’s to say, you’re helping with Communion.
E: No, I’m not…
Z: You are.
E: Not.
Z: Are.
E: NOT. Can’t you grab an usher or something?
Z: The ushers are going to be ushering during communion - I mean, unless you WANT to watch the service fall apart COMPLETELY, I guess I don’t see why not…
E: An elder, then.
Z: No, look, I HAVE elders, I have ushers, I have a pastor - what’s left of one - I NEED acolytes. One (she means herself) and (she extends the gesture to EZEKIEL) two.
E: (Beat.) No. Look, I can’t -
Z: You CAN. You HAVE, beautifully, in the past, and you will again. Today.
E: No. You’re not listening to me at all, today is the last day I could possibly be up to this.
Z: Right. Today it is, then. (For ZOE, the scene is now resolved, and she’s ready to exit.)
E: HOW.
Z: Because now that Pastor’s got his head on straight, thanks to you and yours truly, this is the part where you get to hear the story of Ezekiel interpreted for you.
E: How is hearing about Ezekiel going to make me feel better?
Z: It’s not; but at least you get to listen to a story about someone who WANTED to serve in the Temple but COULDN’T. Makes you appreciate what you have?
E: No, makes me think, lucky him.
Z: He COULDN’T, serve, even though he was a priest, because there was no where and no one to serve: his land had been invaded, his people slaughtered and the survivors hauled off into captivity.
E: Oh. That would be bad luck, then.
Z: But it’s a story of hope! (She moves back toward the exit into the sanctuary.) And you’re going to miss it. Come on.
E: I wouldn’t be missing it if you hadn’t dragged me out --
Z: (off) You’re the only one you’re waiting on now!
EZEKIEL exits. ZOE [GOD] enters immediately by way of another door, and waits. Presently, the HOMILIST takes up the service again.
H: Our Old Testament reading is taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. (Beat.) The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; (EZEKIEL enters amid the congregation) it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me,
Z: Son of man, can these bones live?
H: I said,
E: (Bewildered.) No.
Z: No?
E: (More confident.) No.
Pause.
Z: Are you… certain?
E: Fairly certain. I mean, I’m not a medical professional, and my opinions aren’t USUALLY solicited about this sort of thing – but when I see a pile of rib cages and no sign of a beating heart, and a pile of femurs so stripped of flesh that there were probably birds of prey involved, and that WEEKS ago because now said femurs are awfully dry looking – I guess not too many active verbs come to mind. (incredulous) I mean, did you really use ‘live’ as the predicate in a sentence where ‘dry bones’ were the subject? Who am I talking to again?
Z: (After letting the question hang.) Who did you think?
E: Actually, you’ve got the voice of an old friend I haven’t seen in years – some girl I was best friends with since something like the sixth grade. (guesses) Zoe?
Z: …No.
E: No?
Z: No, and I’ve NEVER gotten that one before. This is God. By the way.
E: …Yeah?
Z: Yeah. Did you… want to change your answer?
E: YEAH.
Z: Yeah?
E: Yeah. Change it to… ‘yeah.’
Z: Son of man –
E: Yeah?
Z: Can these bones live?
E: (Emphatically.) YEAH.
Z: Better. How do you arrive at your conclusion?
E: (Rushes the Third Article.) Because I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, and the life everlasting, amen, and if I can believe I’m talking to God right now – if I’m that deluded or gullible or both – then it’s not a far leap to look around at an expanse of unburied bones and all the ways a hundred people could come to their end – car crashes, plane crashes, earth quakes, and hospital stays until enough of you dies that the rest gives up, too, or how about just being in the wrong place at the wrong time when some poor idiot who’s not even together enough to write a suicide note decides to let the world know that ‘Oh, by the way, I was unhappy,’ by taking out three and a half bystanders before he shoots himself – or you know, even the ones that are happily together with their one and only until they die within a month of each other at the respective ages of eighty-eight and eighty-six, even THEY are going to die, and to circle back to your point, I don’t know WHAT you are hoping to find in their dry, picked over bones, but it’s not LIFE. It’s not LIVING. It’s not THIS life anymore, at least. (Beat.) Oh but wait, I was (sarcastically) talking to God, wasn’t I. He can FIX even that. Right? (“Fix” is almost a curse word, and “Right?” is an accusation.)
Z: (With very little seeming interest.) How long has it been since last we talked? Has it been very long?
E: (Approaching a state of fury.) NO! It hasn’t! It hasn’t been long at all! We can even toss out whatever faltering attempt on my part might have got through a page earlier in the liturgy. YOU MADE ME LATE TO CHURCH THIS MORNING.
Z: I did?
E: You DID.
Z: Does that sound like the sort of thing I would do?
E: Why, are you going to tell me now you DON’T have divine sovereignty over every accidental happening in every moment throughout history?
Z: How’s the weather out on that limb?
E: You know what, I don’t even have to go there. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s just stick to this morning and my drive here. Let’s talk about the least of these.
Z: The least of these?
E: The least of these.
Z: I love talking about the least of these!
E: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give a cup of cold water in my name -- Whatever you do for the least of these, you’ve done it to me. Follow me so far?
Z: You would be hard-pressed to “lose” the being that endowed you with the capacity for rational thought in the first place, but make an effort to arrive at a coherent point anyway.
E: THIS MORNING. My car, my drive here. My ATTEMPT to drive here. Except I saw that woman on the side of the road. That same corner where there’s ALWAYS somebody, and whether they’ve got a sign drawn up that day or not, you know they’re there because they’re waiting for a hand out. Do you want to tell me why I stopped? Because I don’t know. I usually drive right past and wish I’d stopped. So maybe I felt guilty. Maybe I thought I’d take her to church, tell her about the only thing she really needed. Maybe I thought I’d help somebody who needed it just because that’s what you said I should do.
Z: So, you met Brenda.
E: (Beat.) Is that her name? She told me everything else about her. She’s got her story so ready you think it’s a con, but then she’s got the dirt and the bruises and the blackened fingernails right there to go with it -- so you don’t know.
Z: What did she ask you for?
E: Guess. Money. Money for food, money to pay off the friend that’s letting her crash on the floor for a few days. And a ride back to the friend’s house -- what was I supposed to do?
Z: What DID you do?
E: What did I do? Why are you even asking - you were there! Weren’t you? Wasn’t I talking to you the whole time, looking at your bruises and your broken-off fingernail? Or were you just kidding about that part, about being the least of these? All I was trying to do is the right thing, while you sat in the car and lied to me about I-don’t-know-how-much of your story. And you know what I feel now? I don’t feel good inside, like I did the right thing. I feel absolutely disgusting inside, and like everything is disgusting outside, too, and I would love to know if you. Even. Care.
Z: (After letting the question hang.) Son of Man, can these bones live?
E: (As though he has suddenly developed a very bad headache.) Oh… Lord… GOD. (Hands outstretched signify infinite resignation.) You know.
Exit EZEKIEL.
ZOE pulls a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket.
Z: I don’t think you need to be sore just because I’ve won every argument we’ve had today.
Exit ZOE.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Call of the Corporate World
I haven't felt a desire in years to get a "real" job with any real potential to make real money. But I'm spending a week in Paris with my dad, who works for an internationally-based company and actually flies there regularly, and some of the benefits have become, shall we say, apparent.
I'm referring of course to the People-With-Money-Only club that hides in most major American airports.
When we came upon the Tampa location, to fill our pockets with free pretzels before catching our flight to Philadelphia, there were some People-Without-Money lounging outside, utterly oblivious to the secret entrance right behind them. My dad pressed a button, and the wall revealed its true nature as a panel that simply slid to one side.
"To the bat cave," I breathed, unable to mask my awe.
I kid you not, there are free pretzels, free sodas, free fruit, free brownies and free beer in these clubs. They play CNN on huge flat-screens and stock newspapers from major US cities. The bathrooms are clean.
This is the start of my immersion experience with unfamiliar cultures. I spent my hours on the plane to Philly with a French phrasebook nearly as old as I am (my dad never bothered to learn the language, just keeps the book handy to get him by). I taught myself to say "Sorry" and "I speak very little French" and "Speak slowly, please" and "I'll take it. This phone card will be the perfect gift for my boyfriend Paul. Now he can call me. I get tired of calling him all the time."
(I kid you not, that entire phrase was in the book.)
I'm very excited about the days to come. All I remember of my last arrival in Paris was that it was around five in the afternoon, Paris-time, the sun was blazing, I was exhausted, I dropped my bags in my family's hotel room, wandered down to the street and bought an entire roasted chicken off some sidewalk vendor, carried it to an end-table upstairs and collapsed on my cot for fourteen hours without having eaten a bite. I was twelve.
I'm referring of course to the People-With-Money-Only club that hides in most major American airports.
When we came upon the Tampa location, to fill our pockets with free pretzels before catching our flight to Philadelphia, there were some People-Without-Money lounging outside, utterly oblivious to the secret entrance right behind them. My dad pressed a button, and the wall revealed its true nature as a panel that simply slid to one side.
"To the bat cave," I breathed, unable to mask my awe.
I kid you not, there are free pretzels, free sodas, free fruit, free brownies and free beer in these clubs. They play CNN on huge flat-screens and stock newspapers from major US cities. The bathrooms are clean.
This is the start of my immersion experience with unfamiliar cultures. I spent my hours on the plane to Philly with a French phrasebook nearly as old as I am (my dad never bothered to learn the language, just keeps the book handy to get him by). I taught myself to say "Sorry" and "I speak very little French" and "Speak slowly, please" and "I'll take it. This phone card will be the perfect gift for my boyfriend Paul. Now he can call me. I get tired of calling him all the time."
(I kid you not, that entire phrase was in the book.)
I'm very excited about the days to come. All I remember of my last arrival in Paris was that it was around five in the afternoon, Paris-time, the sun was blazing, I was exhausted, I dropped my bags in my family's hotel room, wandered down to the street and bought an entire roasted chicken off some sidewalk vendor, carried it to an end-table upstairs and collapsed on my cot for fourteen hours without having eaten a bite. I was twelve.
Reflections on Being a Bartender, Part 2
I'm finding it difficult not to enjoy being a bartender more than I do being a youth minister. I say this despite the fact my left shin still smarts from my least graceful trip to date of scaling up and over the Green Iguana's Tiki wall.
I guess, at bottom, I like being a bartender because when I go to work, and people come see me there, they want something. And some of them even know what they want. They know it by name: "Tanqueray and tonic." "Vodka-cranberry." "Beam and seven." "Malibu baybreeze." "Pixie sticks."
And even the ones who don't know what they want ("I need three shots. Surprise me.") tend to be able to recognize and appreciate when I deliver.
This knowing-what-they-want phenomenon differs greatly from my experience thus far of youth ministry. For one thing, not nearly as many folks come to see me in the youth room as come to see me at the bar. And for another, the ones that do come, seem to have very little idea of why they're there, or what they want, or if they even want anything. They're not falling all over themselves to pray with one another, they don't have burning questions about the Bible or the liturgy, and not all of them are certain they even like hanging out with one another.
Low numbers prod me to ask myself what they could want, what could draw a few more of them in, and what could give the ones who show up at all a better time. But then I think about it, and the reality of church work is more of a big shrug-off of what anybody wants anyway: because nobody wants what's right for them.
What I do, actually, is about what they need.
Whether they know it or not.
I guess, at bottom, I like being a bartender because when I go to work, and people come see me there, they want something. And some of them even know what they want. They know it by name: "Tanqueray and tonic." "Vodka-cranberry." "Beam and seven." "Malibu baybreeze." "Pixie sticks."
And even the ones who don't know what they want ("I need three shots. Surprise me.") tend to be able to recognize and appreciate when I deliver.
This knowing-what-they-want phenomenon differs greatly from my experience thus far of youth ministry. For one thing, not nearly as many folks come to see me in the youth room as come to see me at the bar. And for another, the ones that do come, seem to have very little idea of why they're there, or what they want, or if they even want anything. They're not falling all over themselves to pray with one another, they don't have burning questions about the Bible or the liturgy, and not all of them are certain they even like hanging out with one another.
Low numbers prod me to ask myself what they could want, what could draw a few more of them in, and what could give the ones who show up at all a better time. But then I think about it, and the reality of church work is more of a big shrug-off of what anybody wants anyway: because nobody wants what's right for them.
What I do, actually, is about what they need.
Whether they know it or not.
Monday, May 5, 2008
And everyone was Mexican for a night.
"Katie! No dishwasher hoy!"
It was Spanglish. The upside-down exclamation point preceding it was audible nonetheless.
"Saul!" I chided. (His name is pronounced "sa-OOL," but just because I know that doesn't mean I can articulate anything like the upside-down exclamation point that goes with it.) "You can't go!"
But Saul was kidding, and we both knew it. He would never really go. He was the only Mexican on the schedule at the Green Iguana for the night of Cinco de Mayo, keeping the rest of us on the level. And he was on top of the world, it seemed, running his dishwasher while the gringos on the line made taquitos and chimichangas and black bean soup. Every time I ducked into the kitchen we greeted each other with a raucous, "Viva Mexico!"
Saul and I talked for the first time months ago when I traveled right past his dish station with a full bus tub of dirty plates, and had to stop myself and come back. He was waiting for me, eyebrows raised. Flustered, I told him I'd been taking out the trash, when I realized I didn't have trash in my hands, but a bus tub. I told him this, in Spanish.
The cat was out of its proverbial bag. I know about as much Spanish as Saul knows English, which isn't much for either of us. He can ask me how I'm doing, and I can tell him I'm tired, and I can ask the same and he'll tell me he's bored. It's more than he can say to most people, and he says it to me.
Before the night was over, I talked the Corona Lite promo guys into giving me a Corona Lite hat. I gave it to Saul.
It was Spanglish. The upside-down exclamation point preceding it was audible nonetheless.
"Saul!" I chided. (His name is pronounced "sa-OOL," but just because I know that doesn't mean I can articulate anything like the upside-down exclamation point that goes with it.) "You can't go!"
But Saul was kidding, and we both knew it. He would never really go. He was the only Mexican on the schedule at the Green Iguana for the night of Cinco de Mayo, keeping the rest of us on the level. And he was on top of the world, it seemed, running his dishwasher while the gringos on the line made taquitos and chimichangas and black bean soup. Every time I ducked into the kitchen we greeted each other with a raucous, "Viva Mexico!"
Saul and I talked for the first time months ago when I traveled right past his dish station with a full bus tub of dirty plates, and had to stop myself and come back. He was waiting for me, eyebrows raised. Flustered, I told him I'd been taking out the trash, when I realized I didn't have trash in my hands, but a bus tub. I told him this, in Spanish.
The cat was out of its proverbial bag. I know about as much Spanish as Saul knows English, which isn't much for either of us. He can ask me how I'm doing, and I can tell him I'm tired, and I can ask the same and he'll tell me he's bored. It's more than he can say to most people, and he says it to me.
Before the night was over, I talked the Corona Lite promo guys into giving me a Corona Lite hat. I gave it to Saul.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
How the town you grew up in will change without telling you.
A few weeks ago I was startled to see a banner outside the funeral home I ride my bike past every day to get to church, advertising a MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL.
I had to think for a while about what kind of person could or would take advantage of a Mother's Day Special at a funeral home, and just what that special would involve.
And belatedly I noticed that the funeral home that's been a funeral home for years is now a Day Spa.
I remain unsettled.
I had to think for a while about what kind of person could or would take advantage of a Mother's Day Special at a funeral home, and just what that special would involve.
And belatedly I noticed that the funeral home that's been a funeral home for years is now a Day Spa.
I remain unsettled.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Breathe... You're forgetting to breathe...
The pastor knew I worked in a restaurant. He'd even visited, and I'd even waited on him. But I happened to be out on the floor during that shift, as opposed to behind the bar. And so it had escaped him that I do more than just serve at the Green Iguana.
And so it only hit him recently that his youth minister moonlights as a bartendress.
And by the look on his face, and the stunned silence, I either just got major cool points, or fired. I'm not sure which.
And so it only hit him recently that his youth minister moonlights as a bartendress.
And by the look on his face, and the stunned silence, I either just got major cool points, or fired. I'm not sure which.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Reflections on Being a Bartender, Part I
There are three ways to get a job in this town.
(1) Lie.
Just lie. You won't get hired without experience; but unfortunately, you won't get experience without getting hired. So, lie. "Yeah, I learned to tend bar out where I lived before. Three years." Then hope they trust you on that and don't think to pay attention to you till long after you've got your feet back under you.
(2) Know somebody.
Have a friend who can get you the job, and (more importantly) loves you enough to show you the ropes. This is usually but not always combined with the first rule for getting a job; i.e., know somebody -- who's willing to lie for you.
(3) Go entry level, and go climbing.
Host, bus, serve, prove yourself a quick learn all along the way, and, finally, belatedly, bartend.
Or there's the way I got to be a bartender at the Green Iguana, which of course wouldn't fit any of the above-defined categories. No, my life (or, at least, my career trajectory) is more like a subplot to The Devil Wears Prada.
My time at the Green Iguana started off looking remarkably like Rule #3: I had been a host, I had been a server for months, but I was hitting the glass ceiling when it came to getting on the bar schedule. Now the woman keeping watch over our bar by night, Jenna, knew of my interest and was getting me on that bar schedule right about as quickly as the Missouri Synod has been hopping to ordain me, and for precisely the same reason. Men were the only hires she made, and for her own, privately arrived at reasons, which were open to discussion but not revision. Similarly maddening, but not quite the same level.
Then came the week I cut my hair entirely too short. (It was an accident, and made me miss roommates from college years who would cut my hair for free whenever I asked and not mess it up.) To combat the mess, I bought a hat -- to be sure, one properly called a cap, according to its class and European-fishing-village-flavor -- and liked it so much I bought a second in a different color. I wore (and still wear) these with such frequency that regulars at the restaurant have time and again known me long before I got around to waiting on them.
Which I do still wait tables -- but, ever since the week or two following that one, I've been on the bar schedule, too. And that's not an accident. Jenna, enjoy her company as I do, never had the time of day for me prior to the Cap Era.
And I'm not going to lie, it makes me wonder what goofy screw-up on whose part will shatter that other aforementioned glass ceiling.
(1) Lie.
Just lie. You won't get hired without experience; but unfortunately, you won't get experience without getting hired. So, lie. "Yeah, I learned to tend bar out where I lived before. Three years." Then hope they trust you on that and don't think to pay attention to you till long after you've got your feet back under you.
(2) Know somebody.
Have a friend who can get you the job, and (more importantly) loves you enough to show you the ropes. This is usually but not always combined with the first rule for getting a job; i.e., know somebody -- who's willing to lie for you.
(3) Go entry level, and go climbing.
Host, bus, serve, prove yourself a quick learn all along the way, and, finally, belatedly, bartend.
Or there's the way I got to be a bartender at the Green Iguana, which of course wouldn't fit any of the above-defined categories. No, my life (or, at least, my career trajectory) is more like a subplot to The Devil Wears Prada.
My time at the Green Iguana started off looking remarkably like Rule #3: I had been a host, I had been a server for months, but I was hitting the glass ceiling when it came to getting on the bar schedule. Now the woman keeping watch over our bar by night, Jenna, knew of my interest and was getting me on that bar schedule right about as quickly as the Missouri Synod has been hopping to ordain me, and for precisely the same reason. Men were the only hires she made, and for her own, privately arrived at reasons, which were open to discussion but not revision. Similarly maddening, but not quite the same level.
Then came the week I cut my hair entirely too short. (It was an accident, and made me miss roommates from college years who would cut my hair for free whenever I asked and not mess it up.) To combat the mess, I bought a hat -- to be sure, one properly called a cap, according to its class and European-fishing-village-flavor -- and liked it so much I bought a second in a different color. I wore (and still wear) these with such frequency that regulars at the restaurant have time and again known me long before I got around to waiting on them.
Which I do still wait tables -- but, ever since the week or two following that one, I've been on the bar schedule, too. And that's not an accident. Jenna, enjoy her company as I do, never had the time of day for me prior to the Cap Era.
And I'm not going to lie, it makes me wonder what goofy screw-up on whose part will shatter that other aforementioned glass ceiling.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Katie makes a nemesis.
Like the totally self-absorbed jerk that I am, this is how I introduced myself to our church secretary.
ME: Is Paul around?
CAROL (in all capital letters): WHO???
ME (spooked and speaking in all lower-case letters): i mean -- pastor...
Much, much later, my mentor, who incidentally shares my habit of using our pastor's first name in direct address as well as third party conversation, tried to reassure me by convincing me I never had a chance in the first place. (Odd choice, that.) In his view, our dear secretary only really puts up with people who have one (or both) of two qualities: (a) they're of blood-relation to her, or (b) they have a clerical collar. "But if you show up wearing a clerical collar -- yeah. Not gonna help your case."
Thanks. Like I've never heard that one before.
This happened some time ago, and in the mean time I've made several forays toward thinning the ice. There was the day I made no noise. There was the day I earnestly solicited her sage advice on a variety of things I needed to do. I had the most hope for the day I played a sort of look-at-my-bicycle enthusiasm. But of course it was only on Carol's terms that we would finally become friends: she wandered into the office toward noon on a Friday and announced to all of us (save the pastor, and I'm not telling him) that she would have been on time but she found upon waking that she lacked clean under-donks and had to stay home a while doing laundry.
"Under-donks?" I mouthed to the fourth grade teacher, as in, Did I really just hear her say... The teacher nodded, eyebrows raised.
Yeah, and now we're cool. Figure that one out.
ME: Is Paul around?
CAROL (in all capital letters): WHO???
ME (spooked and speaking in all lower-case letters): i mean -- pastor...
Much, much later, my mentor, who incidentally shares my habit of using our pastor's first name in direct address as well as third party conversation, tried to reassure me by convincing me I never had a chance in the first place. (Odd choice, that.) In his view, our dear secretary only really puts up with people who have one (or both) of two qualities: (a) they're of blood-relation to her, or (b) they have a clerical collar. "But if you show up wearing a clerical collar -- yeah. Not gonna help your case."
Thanks. Like I've never heard that one before.
This happened some time ago, and in the mean time I've made several forays toward thinning the ice. There was the day I made no noise. There was the day I earnestly solicited her sage advice on a variety of things I needed to do. I had the most hope for the day I played a sort of look-at-my-bicycle enthusiasm. But of course it was only on Carol's terms that we would finally become friends: she wandered into the office toward noon on a Friday and announced to all of us (save the pastor, and I'm not telling him) that she would have been on time but she found upon waking that she lacked clean under-donks and had to stay home a while doing laundry.
"Under-donks?" I mouthed to the fourth grade teacher, as in, Did I really just hear her say... The teacher nodded, eyebrows raised.
Yeah, and now we're cool. Figure that one out.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Katie makes a friend.
Like the totally self-absorbed jerk that I am, I was in the Church office's mail room taping my name (and title of my choosing -- Interim Director of Student Ministries) over our DCE's name on his/my mailbox -- before he had even left.
The elevator behind me dinged behind its doors to signal its arrival, and then opened. Out walked a man, and his bike.
I turned and, utterly transfixed, said awkwardly and in all capital letters, "HI."
"hi," he replied, in all lower case letters.
"So," I continued. "Who are you?"
He explained his role as music teacher/gym instructor/about five other things that I can't remember since I was staring at his bike the whole time -- floored, I guess, by the fact that someone besides me rides his bike to work (and takes it up the elevator with him, apparently for secure office storage).
"Yeah, I'm Katie. I'll be around. We're going to be friends."
He said, "Okay then."
And presumably he pedalled off.
The elevator behind me dinged behind its doors to signal its arrival, and then opened. Out walked a man, and his bike.
I turned and, utterly transfixed, said awkwardly and in all capital letters, "HI."
"hi," he replied, in all lower case letters.
"So," I continued. "Who are you?"
He explained his role as music teacher/gym instructor/about five other things that I can't remember since I was staring at his bike the whole time -- floored, I guess, by the fact that someone besides me rides his bike to work (and takes it up the elevator with him, apparently for secure office storage).
"Yeah, I'm Katie. I'll be around. We're going to be friends."
He said, "Okay then."
And presumably he pedalled off.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
No manner of luck at all.
Picked up a shift tonight at the Green Iguana. (Yes, I still do that.) Early on in the evening, I was refilling someone's iced tea, and noticed as I wandered away from the service station that my trousers were wet. Specifically, they were wet in just one little, inconvenient spot on the front and a bit off to one side. Briefly bewildered, I figured I'd splashed myself accidentally and carried on.
Five minutes later, I had not been back to the service station, and my trousers were profoundly wet. More wet than they had been. And cold. I thought, "This is really weird," and for some reason stuck my hand in my pocket.
I found an ice cube. Half melted.
Now that is a lucky shot.
Accordingly, I decided to buy a scratch-off ticket the moment I got off work. But then I got off later than any reliable scratch-off vendors were open -- so I suppose we should conclude from this exercise that it wasn't that manner of luck to begin with.
Five minutes later, I had not been back to the service station, and my trousers were profoundly wet. More wet than they had been. And cold. I thought, "This is really weird," and for some reason stuck my hand in my pocket.
I found an ice cube. Half melted.
Now that is a lucky shot.
Accordingly, I decided to buy a scratch-off ticket the moment I got off work. But then I got off later than any reliable scratch-off vendors were open -- so I suppose we should conclude from this exercise that it wasn't that manner of luck to begin with.
Friday, April 4, 2008
No rest for the weary. Or the rested.
I was at a park. A pretty one. Looks out over the bay. Minding my own business. Composing a letter that, sent, would (will) make ticker-tape of my dignity. But so it goes.
And I got a phone call.
Twenty minutes later I wandered into my church's fellowship hall and our DCE mused aloud, "What are the odds you would have forgotten about a middle school youth event, AND still have been available to come?"
"Slim," I replied, and I got another phone call.
From whom, I have no idea, since about eight preteen heads swiveled round to shout, "No cell phones!" which was as much to say, If we can't have our cell phones here, neither can you have yours, dreadful hypocrite though you may be on your own time. I meekly powered mine down, while another chaperone informed me that, being a chaperone myself, rules did not apply to me.
Our DCE stepped in again. "So did you forget you were teaching high school Sunday School this Sunday, too?"
Now, that one was bang out of order, and I told him so. No, I had no clue I was supposed to be teaching Sunday School a day and a half hence, but neither had anyone informed me of the expectation. I had a dim recollection of notice for the middle school youth event, and fessed up to as much, but the Sunday School thing someone else had goofed.
Doesn't change the fact that suddenly I need to come up with a lesson plan, or something, anything, as it turns out Eric has finished his own series and left the future rather a bit open.
Good. Grand. Or should I say, fuck. But this is the story of my life. I was actually set apart to be a slacker, and I ably do my part to conform to that identity. Then some tremendously misguided if well-meaning people* invariably come along to hand me things I'm not prepared to handle. And I grow as a person. (*See Smetters and Wilco handing off the sacristan gig, Ed Uehling's ruination of my ultimate frisbee career by inviting me onto an academic dean search committee, et cetera, et cetera.)
And so it goes.
And I got a phone call.
Twenty minutes later I wandered into my church's fellowship hall and our DCE mused aloud, "What are the odds you would have forgotten about a middle school youth event, AND still have been available to come?"
"Slim," I replied, and I got another phone call.
From whom, I have no idea, since about eight preteen heads swiveled round to shout, "No cell phones!" which was as much to say, If we can't have our cell phones here, neither can you have yours, dreadful hypocrite though you may be on your own time. I meekly powered mine down, while another chaperone informed me that, being a chaperone myself, rules did not apply to me.
Our DCE stepped in again. "So did you forget you were teaching high school Sunday School this Sunday, too?"
Now, that one was bang out of order, and I told him so. No, I had no clue I was supposed to be teaching Sunday School a day and a half hence, but neither had anyone informed me of the expectation. I had a dim recollection of notice for the middle school youth event, and fessed up to as much, but the Sunday School thing someone else had goofed.
Doesn't change the fact that suddenly I need to come up with a lesson plan, or something, anything, as it turns out Eric has finished his own series and left the future rather a bit open.
Good. Grand. Or should I say, fuck. But this is the story of my life. I was actually set apart to be a slacker, and I ably do my part to conform to that identity. Then some tremendously misguided if well-meaning people* invariably come along to hand me things I'm not prepared to handle. And I grow as a person. (*See Smetters and Wilco handing off the sacristan gig, Ed Uehling's ruination of my ultimate frisbee career by inviting me onto an academic dean search committee, et cetera, et cetera.)
And so it goes.
safely home
News that isn't: I'm back where palm trees grow on the medians, hale and healthy and missing Valparaiso University (and hugs, and office hours, and incense) tremendously anyway. After the usual round of flight delays, I arrived in Tampa and met up with my older sister, from whom I recovered my car (which, yes, I do drive, and frequently enough to be currently overdue for an oil change). It was a painful switch, though: one that found my knees immediately jammed into the dash. By the time I'd fixed that, I was looking at the back seat in the rearview mirror, and then when I pulled to a stoplight and leaned back, I found myself lying down. Physical discomfort meet to mirror the odd fit of a scholar's soul slinging liquor on the waterfront. But others can identify.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Squirrel sought in hit-and-run that stuns cyclist.
I was on my way to the library to return a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I'd finished reading in O'Hare airport while waiting for my flight to decide from what gate and in how many minutes it would be leaving.
I was on my bike.
I was on the sidewalk.
I was passing a yard that was not on a level with the sidewalk, but rather ran about a foot above it, the boundary with the sidewalk consequently made up by a concrete ledge.
A squirrel did that thing that squirrels do, where they dart to the edge of the road in front of a moving vehicle and then at the last second, Ohhh, no, it's too dangerous, it's too dangerous! Peril, peril! and they scrabble back across the yard the way they came.
This particular squirrel made it across the yard, launched himself from the concrete ledge, attached himself by all paws to my calf for a split second and then executed a perfect flip turn back into the yard and away.
Perhaps he saw the bats?
I was on my bike.
I was on the sidewalk.
I was passing a yard that was not on a level with the sidewalk, but rather ran about a foot above it, the boundary with the sidewalk consequently made up by a concrete ledge.
A squirrel did that thing that squirrels do, where they dart to the edge of the road in front of a moving vehicle and then at the last second, Ohhh, no, it's too dangerous, it's too dangerous! Peril, peril! and they scrabble back across the yard the way they came.
This particular squirrel made it across the yard, launched himself from the concrete ledge, attached himself by all paws to my calf for a split second and then executed a perfect flip turn back into the yard and away.
Perhaps he saw the bats?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)