When I was a youth minister in Texas, we had a foot washing service one Maundy Thursday and it was solemn and thoughtful and meaningful and, well, what I can say is I got more out of washing than being washed. Then again, I’m not one for having my feet handled. But the experience has stuck with me beyond my bewilderment because of the way our pastor introduced the ritual, quoting John 3: 3-5 –

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

The trajectory of Jesus’ resolve and compassion is what grabs me: knowing that he had come from God and was going to God, he washed the feet of his disciples, who lived in a world with dirt roads and open-toed sandals: a world of filthy feet. Jesus’ action was not quaint or ceremonial; he wasn’t going for brownie points here. He was doing something few people would do as a way to show his love because he knew from whom he had come and to whom he was going, which gave him all the time and presence he needed to incarnate his love to his loved ones in the most practical way possible, even on the night before his death.

And the practicality of his incarnation of love is what grabs me. It’s not the foot washing for foot washing’s sake; it’s remembering where we’ve been (with God) and where we’re going (to God) with such tenacity as to make us aware and able to love so viscerally, so practically, that what we do to show our love meets that kind of basic-barefoot-in-the-dirt kind of need.

I mostly stumble into those moments.

Tony, our dishwasher, is very new to the US and speaks very limited English. He works hard and he wants to learn because, if we’re talking trajectories, the way out of the dish room is to learn to cook. Abel, who is Guatemalan and can speak well to both Tony and me, has been teaching Tony on the nights they work together and Tony can now cook all the sauté dishes, and cook them well. Last week on a busy night when Abel was not working and Tony was left on the line with two English speakers, he had four or five pans of rosemary pasta going and we were running out of pasta bowls because he was up on the line cooking (where we desperately needed him to be) and not washing the dishes. I didn’t have tickets on my station at that point, so, rather than take over for Tony so he could wash dishes, I went and washed them myself – about three loads, which was enough pasta bowls to keep us going. I was busy washing and didn’t realize they had caught up on the line and Tony was back with me. When I looked up, he was grinning from ear to ear and he said, “Tank you, Miton. Tank you.”

Only then did I realize what I had done. For Tony, it was washing dishes rather than feet that let him know I was with him, that I cared, that I understood how hard he was working, that I knew he, too, had come from God and was going to God. But I can learn. I am intentionally going back to wash when I can. He smiles and “tanks” me every time. Maybe you can teach an old dog new grace.

If we come from God and are going to God, then we began this journey with the very same boundless love and grace that we well find at the end, and that walked with us the whole way. There’s no race to run, nothing to earn or prove. As I’ve said before (mostly so I will hear it again):

we are loved, we are loved, we are really loved

If we are going to end up with the One who begat us all, then this life is not about progress, but about passion and compassion, about loving one another at street level where the roads are dirt and we’re all sockless. And it’s about opening our eyes and hearts that we might do more than stumble into sacredness, but we might, as Jesus did, do what we do on purpose.

I’m grateful I have a dish machine to remind me of the lesson I need to learn and relearn. And a smiling dishwasher who could use a hand.

Oh – and this song from Victoria Williams, passed on to me long ago from a friend with whom I’ve been traveling this circle for a long time.

Peace,
Milton

holy week

is slipping by
while I’m at work
(so are a lot of things)
and I wonder how it felt
the first time around
looking for donkeys
and upper rooms
holy errands, yes but
still things to do
by the time they sat
down for dinner
thursday evening
I wonder how much
they spent talking shop
until Jesus took the bread
and broke the whole
thing wide open

or perhaps it’s just
what I hope will
happen to me

Peace,
Milton

man on corner

who was only on camera for a
moment, or perhaps a line,
moving the tale from here to there

there was one in my story today

he stood in the dark on ninth street
waiting for the light to change;
I drove past and we waved

OK – it was the guy head bob thing

and I came home to find
my wife and stereo schnauzers
and promises to keep

and he walked out of my story

and on into the night,
and the darkness that tells his
story, of which one credit reads

man in jeep.

Peace,
Milton

The future’s so sacred,
we gotta wear shades.

Peace,
Milton

Let’s go Red Sox!

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — and of course, Opening Day has been postponed due to inclement weather; after all, it is April in Boston.

• They have poets in Oklahoma?
• They give them awards?

The answer to both questions is yes. Poetry does come out of Oklahoma, and it’s good. Nathan is a determined and gifted person who works hard at his craft and has a great deal to say. I quoted one of his poems a couple of days ago. Here’s another of my favorites from his new book.

Taking it Back

They stand there flash shocked
in a black and white photograph
right beneath the caption:
55 Years Perfect Attendance.

Turns out to be for Sunday School.

His hand barely touches the back
of her arm. They’re both
uncomfortable with the contact.

Tiny, frightened eyes panic
behind big bifocal lenses.
They’re thinkin’ about the drive home
in front of a dirt road dust cloud
that will eventually settle somewhere
far to the east on the grassy plain.

And, you know?

I was going to wind this down
to a great, sarcastic finish . . .
something to do with religion.

But, honestly, I’m touched by such
commitment. People like this actually
still exist. And there’s something
I know I should be grateful for
in the way they balance out
a world gone mostly mad.

Treat yourself to a volume of Nathan’s poetry (he has five). You will find something to feed your heart and you will help him pay some bills. Turns out, though the Oklahoma Book Award is a great honor, it doesn’t come with much of a cash prize.

Peace,
Milton

It was a first for me. The call came early this morning from church friends Tracy and Robin saying their beloved beagle, Violet, was going to be put to sleep. Ginger was up and out of the house in minutes. About a half hour later she called and asked me to meet her at their house to bury their pet. I put my shovel in the back of my Cherokee and drove over to share in what was a very sacred time. They brought Violet down from the house, beautifully swaddled in a sheet, and laid her in the place we had dug at the bottom of the yard, next to the fence that backs up on the wooded land behind them. Nellie, their beagle puppy, ran around us as I dug and they grieved, a visible sign of hope beyond the loss. As we were putting the grass back on top of the grave, Robin threw a piece of a root over the fence into the woods and said, “It’s good to be on the edge of the wilderness.”

Yes, and meaningful.

The physical act of digging the grave and placing the body of the dear little dog down in the dirt had a visceral effect on me. There was a time when people were more accustomed to living with death, and dealing with it. The old row houses in Boston have “coffin corners” – small indentions in the wall of the stairway so the coffin could make the turns when the body was brought into the house for the wake. People dug graves together, waked the body together, buried their loved ones and threw dirt on the coffin together. They got to say goodbye with body, mind, and heart in a way we do not these days. Our funeral rituals are quiet and solemn and do their best to keep us from seeing anything but flowers. I felt honored today to get to share so practically and poignantly in the grief of our friends. It is good to be on the edge of the wilderness – together.

My afternoon was an exhumation of sorts, and unintentional at that.

We finally got to some boxes of books that have been in the shed since we moved into the house. We’ve been staining bookshelves and are ready to fill them, so today we started bringing in the books and helping them find their places on our shelves. (We also set some aside to find new lives on other people’s shelves.) I opened one box to find binders of poetry and lyrics going back seventeen or eighteen years, words I had allowed to get buried under the passing of time. Some of them would do well to stay underground, but some deserve to be resurrected, if you will, to find a new life in these new days. I have no idea what I will do with them, but I know I’ve got to dig back in and see what is there, find what I had to offer.

On October 26, 1992 I wrote:

sacred rituals

she can’t fall asleep till her daddy sings songs
the porch light stays on until everyone’s home
there’s a note in his lunch box to find everyday
and she plants every year as the snow melts away

he doesn’t get up till he’s hit the snooze twice
if it’s Tuesday night then it’s chicken and rice
each time they meet they exchange and embrace
before she eats dinner she bows to say grace

the meaning of lifeagain and again
as oft as you eat
as oft as you drink
remember me
remember me and you

Our church is continuing our Lenten practice of celebrating Communion a different way each Sunday even as we participate in the long tradition of Palm Sunday. I love walking in with the palm branches and singing together because it brings the same kind of physicality to worship I found in working the shovel to make a place for Violet. When it comes time for Communion, we are all going to process out of the sanctuary, rather than up to the altar, and celebrate the meal outside on the front patio as a way of physically reminding ourselves we are carrying Christ with us as we go into our daily routines.

The Body of Christ – to go.

My notebooks full of words and ideas got lost because they never got attached to anyone. If they find life now, it will be because I find a way to flesh them out into a poem or a song to share, to make them something more than an idea dreamed up in the comfort of my own home. The rituals that matter – whether in shovel or song or sacrament – are the ones that bind us together, here on the edge of the wilderness.

Peace,
Milton

My favorite section of the book came about at the suggestion of someone else in the church, and that was to ask the children in our preschool Sunday School classes to give us their favorite recipes and then to add them to the cookbook verbatim, which we did. Here are a couple of them:

BAKED POTATO
Take one Irish potato and put it in the microwave. Cook for 50 minutes. It’s done because the bell rings. Put butter and cheese on it. Eat it. (Alison, age 5)

CORN
Green corn with butter. add pepper and salt, stir. Put it in the oven at 68 degrees. Cook for 20 minutes, then put lettuce on it. It’s ready to eat. (Wesley, age 4)

TURKEY AND DRESSING
Put turkey sauce on the turkey and put salt on top. Cook it on top of the stove for 25 mintues or so. It’s done when it gets real dark. Mix up some popcorn and a drink to go with it. (Margie, age 5)

OATMEAL COOKIES
Take oatmeal and put it in a big bowl. Then put it in another bowl. Add pepper and milk. Stir and stir. Bake it in a hot oven at one degree for just forty weeks. (Ethel Mae, age 3)

PUMPKIN PIE
Take out a pan, scrub it out if it’s dirty. Now that you have a clean pan, take some dough and roll it out and then cook it. After you cook it, you put different color dots on it. Put about four glasses of cooked pumpkin in it. Then you put orange icing and black for the eyes and mouth. Then it’s done. (Margie, age 5)

What I love about the recipes is the perspective. The kids were telling how they saw those things being made, remembering details that made the most impression, or perhaps repeating things they heard in the kitchen (“Now that you have a clean pan . . .). An pastor friend of mine asked his four year old son what he thought his dad did for a job and the boy thought for a minute and said, “You talk on the phone a lot.” That’s what it looked like from where he stood. Though our perspective may widen as we age, we still make up our own recipes.

The events of the past few days (sorry, can’t go into more detail) have reminded me that, though we are all trying to make a life, we can come up with very different recipes for what that life looks like. In a series of interactions this week I saw how one person’s primary ingredient was power. It’s how she evaluates relationships and responds to them. She wants the power and doesn’t want to share it. For the most part, that ingredient doesn’t much show up in my recipe, so I had to work hard to figure out what was happening between us because what I was saying was not what was being heard.

When we start to talk about faith we have the same issues. Growing up Southern Baptist, I was brought up with a lot of battle imagery. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war. We talked about fighting Satan and being prayer warriors. The overarching images of Christianity were ones of conflict and conquest, and we were in it to win it. The difficulty with that recipe, for me, is wars require enemies. Once one is defeated, another must take its place or the recipe falls apart. The circle gets smaller and smaller until we are left shooting at each other.

The recipe of faith I have been working on for most of my adult life is less about conflict than it is about community. It’s less about measuring up than making room, less about who is right than who is here, less about wars than welcomes. I’m pointing out the differences to point to the difficulty of understanding just how the other recipe works. Some who see themselves fighting for truth might look at my recipe and think it ranks right up there with Margie’s pumpkin pie – well-intentioned, but lacking a complete understanding. When I have written about responding to violence with violence being neither a successful nor Christian response, I’ve gotten comments trying to help me out of my naiveté. I’m not naïve, I just don’t think violence is a solution. I think it’s safe to say most of history will bear me out.

At the risk of stretching my metaphor farther than it is prepared to go, and going back to my experiences this week, the challenge for me is how do I learn to share the table with those whose recipes for living are so different than mine. The situations this week were more than passing glances. I have to deal with this person on pretty much a daily basis, both of us trying to make something of the situation, and both coming at it from very different perspectives and seeking very different outcomes. The best way for me is to start with an ingredient Ginger added to my recipe years ago with a quote she passed along: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” I can follow that by remembering I’m responsible for the life I’m making – for my recipe – and not for the other person’s. I need to stick to what I trust is true regardless of how she chooses to respond.

This is advanced cooking – and hard to do.

Then again, I knew it couldn’t be as easy as Margie made it sound.

Peace,
Milton

when they ask how you’re doing
say something other than tired

The line came to me because of how tired I felt and I wished for the wherewithal to say something beyond the obvious when someone asked how I was doing. Answering, “I’m tired” is akin to saying, “I’m busy.” Both may be true, but they lie at the base of the hierarchy of meaning, when it comes to feelings. (Oh, are you reading this? That last paragraph was mostly talking to myself.)

Tonight, after a long day of work – long for reasons other than being tired, I met Ginger and some friends at Six Plates Wine Bar to listen to my friend, Terry, who is an amazing harmonica player and who plays once a month with a wonderful jazz trio who do an awesome cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.”

There are nights when you gather with friends, and then there are nights when friends gather around you. Tonight, for me, was the latter. I had the opening lines early in the day; I needed my friends to show me where the poem wanted to go.

when they ask how you’re doing

say something other than tired
say something other than busy
look for something to say

beyond the shadow of circumstance,
past the pugilism of pettiness,
through the façade of failure

and say that thing; say it again

say it the way you sing that song
that bored deep into your heart
long ago, before you were tired

before you knew about busy,
when you could remember the truth
without having to be reminded

when they ask how you’re doing
answer a different question
tell them you know what it’s like

to be gathered around by friends
and harmonica music
you never get tired of that

Peace,
Milton

begin bouncing her ball
on my feet, begging me
to choose her over words,
I think about monks

and those who cloister
themselves to meditate,
yes, and to write, to get
closer to God, seeing

isolation as the way to
make meaning of life.
I write in traffic, feeling
like the street performer

who juggled three things
chosen by the crowd –
a bowling ball, an apple,
and a working chain saw –

and kept them all in the air.

That’s contemplation –
and it’s a public act. (Now
I sound like I’m polarizing.)

Those cloistered clerics may
have had about as much
choice in the pace of life
as I, a juggler, myself,

who wishes for a couple
more hours of sleep,
and wonders how one
who unfamiliar with the

unabashed ambush of
canine affection finds
anything to say at all
on nights like tonight.

Peace,
Milton