A few days ago, on a balmy, late summer’s afternoon, I sat down at an outdoor café to have a cup of coffee with two acquaintances.

We were all in the same neighborhood demographically speaking – three senior-aged white guys.  One of the fellows I had known for about three years and the other was someone I had met but a few months prior.

The one I had known longer and with whom I had shared some personal conversations prided himself in his quick wit and benign sarcasm (When is sarcasm ever truly benign?).

The two fellows were part of a non-profit started and owned by my more recent acquaintance the purpose of which is to counsel wannabe entrepreneurs on how to avoid mistakes and how to lay out a successful business plan.

The self-proclaimed quick-witted fellow constantly prodded me about becoming a counselor with the company and when I would beg off saying that I was happy just writing my poetry (this after forty-two years in ministry as a pastor, campus minister, interim minister and hospice chaplain which I didn’t say but he knew), he would respond by asking sarcastically, “What’s the matter? Aren’t you interested in helping people?”

Ah, sarcasm once too often.  I replied by asking him if he wanted to go with me to a  march at the state capitol to protest the unfair lending practices called “payday loans”  practiced by many large banks across the country.

There really wasn’t a protest planned; I was just baiting him, but if he had agreed, which I knew he wouldn’t, I would have driven him to a local bank and offered to protest in front of the bank with him.

He didn’t know what a payday loan was.  So I explained that the working poor regularly can’t make their paychecks last from one paycheck to the next, so they go to places where they can get a quick loan.  Unfortunately, when that loan is due, often the money isn’t there and so another and another and another payday loan is secured with interest rising exponentially to some stratospheric place like 400%.  Eventually, when whatever money can be extracted from the poor borrower is exhausted, the bank moves on and the borrower has more bad credit and is vulnerable to legal action.

By this time the other fellow, who had gone for a refill, was back and the conversation then took an unexpected turn.  The two of them began a litany of accusations directed toward the payday loan borrowers and I was dumbstruck by the callousness, judgmental-ness and dismissive-ness in their pronouncements:

“Whose fault is it anyway?  Their own. They should learn to manage their money better so they wouldn’t need these loans.  You can’t fault the lenders.  They are just legitimate businesses trying to make a living. Nobody put a gun to the heads of these people.  Nobody made them take out the loans.”

The barrage came fast and furious.  I felt like I had been swift boated. Oh, my, as if that wasn’t enough, the conversation then expanded to the people who got mortgages who couldn’t afford them during the heyday of the mortgage bubble.  The same image was advanced:  “Nobody put a gun to the heads of these people.”

I tried my best to defend the masses who had fallen into foreclosure, a job no one, I mean no one in the masses asked me to do, by saying that they were seduced with promises of the American dream and a slice of the American pie by unscrupulous bankers thinking only of making large sums of money – seduced as we all are at some point in time by our desires. I made the case that these people are bombarded day in and day out with messages to buy, buy, buy and then they will finally be in the “in crowd.”  I asked them to think of the power of that conditioning upon the most vulnerable.  It didn’t go anywhere.

I asked, “Who doesn’t want that slice? And if you feel that you’ve been kept out of the game, you are going to jump at the chance.”

Then, the clincher came: “Well, we have made the correct decisions in life and we have made them ourselves. We’ve done it on our own.”

“What!”  I asked incredulously.

One said, “We’ve got 64 million out there on the dole, sidlin’ up to the public trough and aren’t carrying their weight like we are, and they just want more. They don’t pay any income tax and they want us to pay more so they can have more while doing nothing.”

My blood pressure was rising rapidly and if I had been wise, I would have excused myself and gone for a refill and then ducked out the back door, but no, I jumped right in wagging my finger and playing the “I’m a minister and you guys should feel guilty” card.

“You guys go to church every Sunday. Haven’t you heard the words of the prophets crying out against those who exploit the poor, the widow and the orphan? Haven’t you taken to heart Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount and his admonition to the rich young ruler and St. Paul’s cautionary words to Timothy about how the rich should not trust in their own riches but to trust in God and be generous with those riches?”

No answer, just resolve.  “We are free market capitalists.  What are you?”

“A socialistic capitalist, one that believes in checks and balances and regulations to keep the long arm of greed at bay.”

Oh good, I just handed them the ammunition that they needed to shoot me and my argument out of the saddle:  a socialist and a liberal, left-wing, bleeding heart minister.

“Well, we are self-made men.  We have earned what we have.”

There it was:  the myth of the self-made man so near and dear to old, white guys.

“You know what?  You’re just a couple of old, white guys scared to death of the coming of the Rainbow Coalition, the blacks, browns, yellows and reds.  And while there is no such thing as the self-made man, there especially is no self-made man who came from Bloomfield Hills, MI.”

Oops, that was it. Them was fightin’ words.  The guy from Bloomfield Hills, the self-proclaimed quick-wit, lost that wit, got really close to my face, scrunched up his and said, “Don’t make this personal. Where I come from has nothing to do with this. How dare you.”  The other guy agreed.

I said, “It isn’t personal (even if it was, a bit); it’s demographic.  If you claim to be self-made, that claim is untenable, especially if you come from one of the most economic privileged demographics in all of America.  You guys didn’t spring full-grown in three-piece suits from you mother’s womb.” (Actually, I didn’t say that, but it was a great after thought and while I wish I had been fast enough to think of it, I got to use it here.)

The other one, as if to justify his own claim, protested that he was from Detroit which served to do two things:  indicate that maybe the Bloomfield Hills guy wasn’t self-made after all and simply reference a Detroit from back-in-the-day when it was solidly middle-class and not the primarily the poverty-stricken town of today.  Nice try.

They both accused me of making an assumption about Bloomfield Hills. Yes, I know how to spell assume, but this was a pretty safe assumption.  Think birthplace of the Republican candidate for the presidency and just try not to think “privilege.” It just screams.

The self-proclaimed quick-witted one had to go, so as he left, I said, somewhat sarcastically, “The peace of the Lord be with you, brother.”

“Hey, you said that sarcastically,” stopping, he called back.

“Hey, you said that sarcastically,” the still seated Detroit guy said.

“And so it was,”  I said.  “But I’m in good company. Jesus could be pretty sarcastic, too, I think.”  In this case, I hoped and prayed they didn’t know scripture, especially I Corinthians 13 and all about not speaking with love.

And so, it will be quite a while, if ever, before the former tres amigos have coffee together again.

“Hey there, socialist, radical, left-wing, bleeding-heart minister, say that in American.”

Later, I wondered why those two social Darwinians bother to help those wannabe entrepreneurs rather than just let them fend for themselves and let the best “self-made man” win.  They don’t do as they say.  They talk tough and then they do something for others. Actually, I think they have a heart deep down under that old, shriveled, white skin.

Still, I should have gone for that refill.

Wounded warriors wear

Fatigues and strut and pose

With guns in hand for photos

To be sent home to mom

Indicating invulnerability

Before being blasted onto

A gurney and into a

Rehab hospital for years

And years and years;

Formerly tree trunk tough

Boys lying atrophied with

Spindly birch branch

Limbs and sucking air

Through plastic screwed

Into the soft, soft bark

While aging, blustering,

Bombastic voices on a

Big hill don those bloody

Torn and shredded

Fatigues, flash water pistols or

Paint ball guns at each

Other laughing heartily

And talking ever, ever so

Tough to the media.

He turned from preaching to the choir

to walking among the pews —-

coffee with two acquaintances

at the sidewalk café on a gorgeous,

late summer’s afternoon between

three, old, white guys — clever, sarcastic,

repartee, tete-a-tete about nothing much

at all that matters other than and perhaps

including yesterday’s sail on the thirty-six

footer that the owners only use as a day-

sailor anymore. Then, economic theories

and ideological javelins were hoisted, lines

drawn in the middle of the table, tempers

rising, two right-wing, free-market dudes,

one “What are you anyway?” “Socialistic

capitalist.”  “What’s that?” “Responsible

economics with regulations to keep

good old-fashioned greed in check.”

They stared blankly.  One reference to

Bloomfield Hills touched a nerve and

torched the rhetoric: “Don’t make this

personal!”  Hmmm.  “Not personal, just

demographic, brother, and a reference to

your contemporary, the Republican candidate.

Wasn’t he from there? So you pulled

yourselves up by your bootstraps, boys?

I thought those were Docksiders, prefer-

ably worn sockless now showing the

spider veins around your ankles.  Perhaps

you boys pulled yourselves up by your own

Ralph Lauren soft cotton crews.”

They hoisted spoon javelins waving

Them in the pleasant breeze, because they

were not hoisted up on the shoulders

of those who went before.  They did it

alone. They stood their ground over

coffee as they do now as old, shriveled,

white guys standing against the inevitable

coming of the rainbow coalition — blacks,

browns, yellows, reds — the people of

color who make the white guys blanch.

“Sixty-four million sidlin’ up to the

public trough, dead-beats, not lookin’

for work.  Tell ‘em to get a job. Nobody

made them take those pay-day loans. No-

body held a gun to their heads to take

those home loans. When are they going

to learn to take personal responsibility

like we have? We’ve earned what we have.”

He walked up the aisle, turned to the

choir and started singing, “Jesus loves

the little children, all the children of the

world. Red and Yellow, Black and White,

they are precious in his sight.  Jesus

loves the little children of the world.”

He felt a tap on his shoulder.  Turning

he heard Jesus say, “You forgot Brown.”

The old, shriveled, white preacher said,

“Sorry. I’m trying.”

Standing on the upper deck overlooking the birches

he feels his spirit there in the bark, in the trunk, in

the veins moving out to the leaves and floating

into the air.

Then the tree trimmer comes, climbs the ladder

reaching up and out to the branches.

Breath is cut short, chest tightens,

suffocation strangles

as he hears the branches scream and tumble

to the ground. He grabs his inhaler and draws

deeply, knees buckling; he’s holding

onto

the railing for dear life.  The  tree trimmer and

his assistant nonchalantly rake up the branches

and toss them in the trailer. They gasp,  bleed

white blood

onto each other’s wilting leaves and expire.

He reaches for a seat coughing violently,

gasping, sucking air where the

oxygen is now too thin.

It’s another Bad Day at Black Rock and

Where is Spencer Tracy when you need

Him most?

He conquered the isolated, southwest town

With a really bad secret and a huge case

Of paranoia

Written in 1948 in the midst of fear of

The Japanese and released in 1954 with-

Out the endorsement

Of the Honorable, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Dry desert, weather-beaten buildings, and

Booze to numb shame

Bad Day was/is a great metaphor for jingoism

And xenophobia right there in the desert west

And all over today

In a dried out but sweating, frightened, political

System where supposedly intelligent, educated,

elected representatives

of ours strut around without guns hanging from

their hips but who hide them in their pants and

pop off at their jewels regularly.

It’s another Bad Day at Black Rock, a town along

I-17 we pass regularly and stop at occasionally

For a beer

After visiting a relative in Cottonwood.  The barmaid

Looked really tough so we made jokes and we didn’t

Engage others

Not being Tracy ourselves, but just moved along

Thinking that eventually we could get back on

The road

Or perhaps we could start thinking about having

Something good happen in this miserable, intolerant,

Blood-thirsty,

Trigger happy society and weak-kneed political

Environment beholden to billionaires with bucks

Not guns (or perhaps)

By seeing a white guy in a black suit reverse him-

Self and become a black guy in a …(We won’t go there

Mr. Jolson); but we can

Vote for a Good Day at Black Barack.

He saw Marsha Mason one evening

on TCM in “The Goodbye Girl,”

and while he watched was transported

to another place and time and then

just this immediate time knowing that

the past and the present and the future

are all one

and he glanced at her in the room

feeling at one with all as he watched

Marsha’s Paula and her short brown

hair and really cute butt, and it occurred

to him that the year he fell in love with

Marsha Mason was eleven years after

he had seen the

really cute (Dreyfuss’ Elliot line was “cute,

really cute….”), really cute kid in the shoe

department of J. C. Penney’s on Eighth Street

and in that  moment so many, many moments

ago but now, ever now, the “Goodbye Girl,”

eventually, providentially would become,

became and will be his

“Hello Girl” twenty-seven years after he first

saw her and seventeen years after he married her.

They both had had to say goodbye to their “Good-

bye Lovers and Mates” in premature death and pro-

found suffering and grief of love won and love lost

so soon, too, too soon, so horribly soon, then and

now and in the future.

But to this day, which in a sense was yesterday

and tomorrow, the “Goodbye Girl” is still his ever

“Hello Girl” with the short, thick, curly, brown hair

and really, really cute butt.  And like Elliot and

Dreyfuss and Neil Simon, he’s Jewish, too, on

his mother’s side – the short, dark-haired Dutch

side or maybe

that’s just  wishful thinking for a half Swedish,

half Dutch formerly dark-haired kid who had

dreamed of stand-up comedy ever since his

Speech 101 class when he brought down the

house with a skit about a first date and a first

kiss with a broomstick prop and found it in a

pulpit and timidly, bashfully with a guitar, like

Elliot’s, a guitar

with which he would only, could only serenade

his “Hello Girl” good night – a guy lucky enough

to be married to the dark, thick, curly-haired,

green-eyed Irish girl with the really, really cute

butt – his now and ever and always “Hello Girl.”

Hello, girl.  Hello, girl, then, now and

forever.

Sitting on his porch at one a.m.

observing distant lightning,

hearing no thunder only the

rain falling on the dark cedar

shielding his head and cool damp-

ness on an Indian summer’s night

blowing in his face and across his

asthmatic chest, his eyes fixated on

bright, piercingly so, light like lasers

entering his skull, red, silver-blue,

yellow, white, Jedi bursting beams

across what then became a battlefield

in Normandy, a flooded, rat infested

trench in a rural German field, the

crumbling, blown to bits streets of

Dresden, a mountain of sun bleached

skulls in Cambodia, some hostile, remote

mountainous region of Afghanistan

accessible only to human-less drones

controlled by someone sipping French

pressed coffee in a room near a suburb

somewhere, a dry riverbed in Iraq next to

an abandoned, shredded, armored vehicle

with only dried blood inside and shriveled

brain matter along the dusty canal to

say that humans had once been there,

alive with whole bodies and all their

fingers and toes intact, invading,

obliterating his tranquility at one a.m.

The assault came from a room a block

away between houses and under branches.

They left the room or perhaps a parent

shut off the T.V. and lights or called for

them to go to bed.  Kreisler’s “Aucassin

et Nicolette” slipped quietly through

the barely open door behind him;  their

fingers massaged his neck, working

their way around his ears, over his skull

through his hair and into his closed eyes.

His fingers met theirs; he held them close

to his chest and drifted into peace, once

more, at a little after one a.m.

Pushing against the grain

instead of going with the flow,

what does he have to gain;

what is it he doesn’t know?

He does know it leads to “fame”

With “in” to win and “me” to show

So get ready for the place of blame

and be sure not to pass go,

His fame was “In”-fame-“me,”

so doe-ray-me and doe-si-doe

and Lord Have Mercy

and he had miles to go.

Do not collect two hundred coins

and sometimes go to jail

with just a few to visit and no coins

to pay the bail.

He wasn’t good at Monopoly,

and playing that game

will not be his fame,

but he lived his life fully

having a vocation, a calling

beside a burning bush, falling

to his knees, (off a horse truth

be told) not this world’s fame,

but that is the name

of the Realm’s very best game,

not just pushing against the grain

but living with nothing other to attain

but to be a fool in the face of this world’s fame.

As he rode his bike north

along Lakeshore Drive,

the lake roared its welcome

in his left ear.

The oaks and maples rustled

their branches trying to slap

his back with a gentle hello

in the westerly breeze

in an anticipatory effort before

their leaves went south for the

winter. As he walked his

ten-speed on the pier,

out to the lighthouse, the

boats came in from Lake

Michigan winding down

the Labor Day

weekend. The tired boaters

looked straight ahead trying

hard to focus perhaps after

a few too many

drinks and contemplating gett-

ing the boat in the slip or perhaps

grudgingly thinking about

the work-a-day

world of tomorrow like a kid

getting nervous on a Sunday

night about unfinished homework

and apprehension of

going to school the next day.

Only the waves in the wake

waved.