Mother's Day

When I got home from church this morning, my 23-year-old Wolfie met me in the kitchen. “Did you see your Mother’s Day present?” he asked, with sort of a dry edge in his tone, though smiling. I followed him to his room on the other side of the house where I saw boxes being packed, an upturned mattress and missing drafting table desk in the corner.
 

“I’m giving you your independence for Mother’s Day,” he said. (Normally, he offers to go to church with me and ends up going sailing with my brother.)

This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. In fact a couple of weeks ago, I left after the early service, not staying for the annual parish meeting. Nancy told me later that when she asked where I was, Patricia noted that Wolfie was moving and I had gone home to make sure he moved.

My son’s first month of rent has been paid since May 1 but until today, this Sunday, Mother’s Day, he will have not spent a single night in the new digs (he’s one of three roommates in a house of young twenty-something boys). 

This morning when I got to church, I walked into the empty sanctuary, catching Patricia at the altar. “Good morning, you’re in town,” she said, looking up from her notes, where she was marking pages, thoughts, for the service. “Has Wolfie moved?”

At that point, the last I’d heard was that Wolfie and his sidekick Johann, this Swedish kid he’s known since Kindergarten, planned to rent a U-haul. “I’m not sure what he will be putting in that U-haul,” I mused to Patricia. “Unless it’s car parts.”

But as I said, I got home and there it was, my Mother’s Day present, the last child leaving the nest, albeit with some reluctance. Sensing he was upset, I suggested we get a cup of coffee and sit on the back porch and talk. His head immediately fell despondent onto his arms, which were folded on his skinny long-legged lap in defeat.

My comforting wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and I could imagine the stubborn toddler 20 years ago who refused to walk into pre-school, because someone had the audacity to smile and say cheerful “good morning.” Still, I pointed out what a wonderful growth experience this would be, freedom, independence. My oldest son, Wolf’s big brother, made a pit stop after college at home for maybe two weeks—he was all about being the master of his own domain.

But Wolfie has never particularly had that streak of adventure to strike out on his own, as many Millinneals do not. In fact, one time, when my big brother was grumbling about going to an office every day, Wolfie suggested he just live with his mother. My brother replied, “I don’t want to live with my mother (strict). I want to live with your mother (pushover).”

In the parish hall this morning, I was thrilled to hold a little baby belonging to one of the families staying with us at the church this week. He was a pudgy little dumpling, seven months old, and he fell asleep in my arms while his three-year-old brother chased giggling after Conner, who liked keeping the little boy occupied with running and other games involving hopping and jumping and climbing but drew a line when it came to reading the child a storybook. 

The baby’s mother was young and pretty--and I thought--quite brave. I watched her watching the swarm of us, smiling kindly as we passed her baby around—I passed him off to Lee and I’m not sure who was in line was after that—at St. Dunstan’s, you can sell tickets to hold a new baby. 

And of course this reminds me of the point has been made so many times—God loves us as a mother loves her child. But it should be pointed out what that means: God’s love, like a mother’s, is for all times—something you get even after no-matter-what. And, like a mother’s love, it’s boundless. Independence has very little to do with the reality.  

Passing Peace

I was downtown early the other morning on Marietta Street walking through the GSU campus. It was early enough that it was still quite nippy, the wind whipping through the buildings, rising up over the expressway against a clear blue sky, made brilliant by the gold on the Capitol dome. Passing me in both directions on the sidewalk, students with backpacks, groups of athletes, business people, cops. 

I was walking quickly to stay warm and because I was late for an appointment, when a small dark body came up close on my right side. As we made eye contact, he said “good morning.” I smiled. “Good morning,” I returned. The little man kept step with me, and continued, “Thank you for speaking. A lot of people don’t.”

Of course, he spoke to me first but it was nice of him to say. I stopped a moment and he told me his story—he had HIV, it was tough on the street. I had no money, not even a cash card. I gave him my hand before hurrying away on my business.

I was thinking of that this morning in church as we passed peace in the early service. How important it is to touch other people, to look them in the eye, to smile and say “peace.” You matter just because you are a human being. We don’t always know everyone at church, or know them well, and it doesn’t matter. We are practicing blessing each other and that’s what we take with us when we go out into the world.

Ok, the stranger who spoke to me that morning did not disappear from my life. Later in the afternoon, when the sun was out and I was walking through Five Points, I chanced to look back and quite unexpectedly, there he was again. I smiled in recognition, in the way that you do with people that you have connected on the level of, “we are all in this crazy life together.” This time, he smiled back.

Hotel St. Dunstan's

Hotel St. Dunstan’s has wrapped up its first week! We began the week with two homeless families staying with us. When they arrived, our guests were shown their room, paneled with shoji-screen treatment on the windows. Thank you Ginny for this brilliant, economical, real-simple solution. Sunday supper was prepared and served by an effort representing three parishes: Holy Innocents, St. Dunstan's, and St. Luke's . We hosts joined our guests at the table for Sunday dinner.

When I was growing up, the Sunday dinner was traditionally held at my grandparents' house and all the cousins, aunts, uncles gathered for a family meal. I felt reminiscent of the family gathering.
One overnight host shared, "It was WONDERFUL to see these families here and hear little children laughing in our parish hall.  A great first night!"

One mom works as an LPN. The other mom started a job this past Tuesday. The dads have an opportunity to go to the Family Promise Day Center at St. Luke's Presbyterian to look for work and update their resume.

As Tricia summed it up, "The week has gone very smoothly, mostly thanks to the incredible work of our coordinators, and to the many of you who have volunteered to organize, set up and take down, cook, serve food, and spend the night. Everyone I’ve talked to who has been involved has said it has been a great experience. We’ll have the opportunity to do it again in May. This is, indeed, holy work. Thank  you to all who have been involved."

Hesitation

What made me hesitate? Three times. How hard is it to ask someone if they’d like to you get them a cup of coffee and donut? I mean he definitely looked like he needed it, his skinny bird fame perched high on one of the bar stools on the food side of the convenience store—a young black kid was behind the counter, wiping down the stainless steel. 

I stepped out of line and began walking toward the man, a wool hat pulled down over his eyes, gray dirty hair and beard, clothes, hands stained with dirt folded in front of him on the narrow table top. But then I became suddenly self-conscious and stopped. What if offended him? Who am I to go offering complete strangers coffee and donuts? What if he made a fuss and my fellow convenience store shoppers became irritated with me stirring him up?

The second time I stepped out of line was to see if I could get a glimpse of his face without appearing obvious. Then I felt like he caught me staring and I jumped back in line, yet again. I noticed he was now clutching a dirty t-shirt like a security blanket. 

I am happy to say the third time I stepped out of line, I actually went over and asked the gentleman as politely as I could if I could get him some coffee and a donut, pastries, whatever. He was not at all offended or embarrassed by my offer: “No, thank you. I’d prefer a dollar if you have it.” 

He followed me outside where I retrieved a dollar from the center console. “Just having to get a start over in his business,” he stuttered and then the “business,” as he explained it to me was a few things muddled together—a hotdog-oil change-tire-cleaning shop. Then he stooped down to demonstrate, wiping out the rim of my tire with the dirty t-shirt.

I was in a hurry and stopped him from demonstrating, wishing him the best of luck in his endeavors.

In parting, he apologized: “I mean I didn’t study any marketing or anything like that.”

Inauguration Day

I’ve been in DC a lot lately for work. If Atlanta is home, then DC has found its way into my heart as my second city, second home. It’s hard to be in the nation’s capital and not at least contemplate the bigger picture, like on inauguration day where I joined thousands to stand in lines that went on for blocks and hours. 

You’d think people would get irritable after six hours in line and two hours waiting by the side of Pennsylvania Avenue, waiting for a blurred glimpse of the president, hidden behind four-inch thick glass in a well-guarded limo. While that’s why many people go—to celebrate their candidate winning—I knew in advance that I was going to see the crowds (a friend tipped me off--unless you’re a very important person, you can expect to stand in the Mall and look at big screen TVs broadcasting the ceremony, none of which will be visible to the naked eye).

This huge mass of bodies (thousands and thousands, nearly a million) becomes important on inauguration day because more than anything, I think it’s a day of national pride and it reminds us of the many virtues we try to cultivate as a country (freedom, liberty, justice, equality) and I think most people feel just that. 

In the lines, everyone spoke quietly, pleasant conversation, where we were from, how we got there, how our guys at Hartsfield airport could process two million people in half the time of the parade security guys. We took each others' hands as if we were passing peace, feeling our bond as Americans, as if our membership in a larger community were as intimate almost as our memberships in our various spiritual communities.

It was a great day but still I wish that larger community of Americans could have all heard Patricia’s sermon this morning, on Paul’s love letter to a fractious community (most often heard in weddings). But the love Paul spoke of, as Billy said at the door after the service, is the harder kind of love. Loving certainly those in your immediate church (what would be the point if you didn’t, even the ones that irritate you) but love as a selfless practice, love as the centerpiece of who we are. Love as a foundation of our Christianity. Without love, we’re nothing, Paul says (I'm paraphrasing).

I’ll quote a bit here:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.