I saw him as a dolphin
     arching up and
           gliding down
into the Gulf waters,
but as
I think more about him,
I
realize he is
closer to Peter Pan,
the boy who would
          “never grow up, never grow
                     up, never grow up, not I.”
Of course, he never would
say or sing that, but, of course, actions
speak louder and all that….

And he dazzled his little
Tinker Bells as he
flew up
and swooped down
onto a perfect two-point landing.

He was so proud of his
boys,
the jock, the scholar and the really great kid.
I hope they are
not now lost boys without
their Peter Pan dad,
the jock, the scholar and the really great kid.
And Mother Wendy?
She grew up and held the
boys in her arms as
Peter Pan,
who really couldn’t fly, just
                  ran and ran and ran
into the
      frigid surf
until he could run
               no more.

I just read of an old Franciscan monk
        who put Christmas lights on his cane
as he walked down the streets of
        Gallup, New Mexico all seasons of
the year.  It was a conversation starter.
        I have a Chocolate Lab. He is my
conversation starter as I walk him
        up and down the street. “Would you
like to wear Christmas lights, Buddy
        Baloo? No, you light up life just as
you are, my buddy. Any more convers-
	ation and we would be late for dinner,
and I know that you never want to be late
	for dinner. How did the monk plug in 
those lights?"

People are not "good";
     people are animals...
          capable of becoming human.
Males cannot and will not
     cease the competition that
          produces both football and
               the game of war.
Put two young men in cars
     side by side and the race
           is on before the engines
               are turned on.
Given the choice of peace
     with compromise or war
           with winner takes all,
                men choose the latter.
Religion [not faith] is one
     of the top three causes of
            war and hatred
                (resources and fear).
As far as my reading of
      history, a war has never been
            "won."
There have been some close
      ones, some without which
            the lights would have
                 gone out for centuries,
but mostly the winners volunteer
      for being the victims next
            time, or winning changes
                them into what they
                     were fighting against.
War seems to be good business
     until everything
            collapses.

Chaplain [LTC] James C. Berbiglia, USA, Retired, is a Presbyterian Church (USA) Minister

I lie next
              to
     my love;
we face
        in opposite
directions
  as if,
       perhaps,
upset or angry;
   it is only
a repose;
     my hand
caresses the
    side of her thigh,
    her hand
embraces mine
  as I sigh
peacefully
and
we fall back
        to
sleep.

My friend walked, business suit, shoes and all,
          into the frigid Lake Michigan surf on
                    an overcast, cold afternoon day in May.
He just went down, but as I think of
          him, I think, rather, of a dolphin head-
                    ing out to the juncture between Naples
Bay and the Gulf of Mexico in the
          warm waters of May. I don’t know why
                    he chose that time of year, as if suicides
consider such things in the absolute,
          resolute, determination of the moment.
                    Who knows why they choose when
where and why as they do, but know-
          ing him, I chose in my mind the place
                    for his choice of time of year. I just saw
him arching up and diving down 
          in the morning sun heading out to all
                    the day’s adventures, as I ever and
always knew him to do, with joy of
          what was to be, but, in this definitive
                    moment, never to return in the even-
ing as did all the other dolphins in the
          family. He just kept arching out farther
                    and farther until I couldn’t see him as
he disappeared into the sunset just
          before the green flash seen so seld-
                    om by those standing in the sand
and surf just before they turn and
          head for home for what might be.

In the morning after exercise he noticed that

significant pain had moved up his knee cap,

from what the physician called a mildly arthritic flap

and the slightly torn meniscus he could hardly tap

to the muscles holding tightly to ligaments and tendons and all that,

and then heard the Motown muscles crying in rap,

“Why ya wan’ a work us so hard without a break, you sap?

We be workin’ over time without a dime an’ we just want a nap,

so, ease up, dude; start to use your head, you with ‘da head so fat;

we be doin’ da deed for your meniscus and that old knee cap,

so go lay your body down and give us a nap.

and dat’s a fact and dat’s a wrap,

if not such a very good rap.”

Well, thought he with the bad knee,

it’s not even old Motown, you see;

it’s old, white guy contemporary;

for in black rap, “Dude” you would never see.

Dude? Really?

Hey, there are references to body parts.

Is anything for sure, the hypochondriac wondered
as he sat with his leg up on the ottoman
and the computer on his lap.

The knee is almost fine he wrote while the ache in the
back of the knee grew worse even
as he typed the words.

Nothing major he wrote based on the physician’s diagnosis
and prognosis, but really, is anything for
sure he wondered again.

The physician had said give it a couple of months to heal
and the knee will be good as new but,
to be honest,

the physician seemed somewhat distracted in the examination
room as he spoke and then he admitted to
having had a serious

illness that almost took his life fifteen months ago, so if
he was so distracted, how would the man know that
his knee cap won’t fall off

and he would lose three inches on that side of his body and
if he does, that will throw off stability and
balance and symmetry

and he will wear out the other side, too, eventually walking like
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. I am doing moderate
exercise he continued to write

as if the writing itself would convince him that “All shall be well;
all manner of things shall be well,” with
appreciation to Julian of Norwich

and I am doing cold laser therapy with a little red light laser
pointer even though the FDA hasn’t
approved it for therapy.

Hey it was $20 versus $500 for the approved kind. I’m sure I will
be jogging before we leave for AZ, he wrote declaratively,
but the pain moved around

to the meniscus and he thought about arthritis cutting off any
further movement and circulation and
gangrene setting in,

thus necessitating amputation above the knee. Therefore, he
wrote, we shall leave Dec. 21 spending
a night in Chicago and on

the road seriously, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise,
(Lord willing he won’t be having a
MRI on that day and

major surgery a week or so later he thought) on the 22nd.
Probably, (really?), we will
spend Christmas day in

Flagstaff before the final and easy ride all downhill into
Phoenix on the 26th. Merry Christmas.
Love, Dad

He left the farm in rural Iowa

when he got the call and went

to seminary with his rural Iowa

bride. It was the sixties. Then

he got another call. He thought

the Lord was calling him to

stand up for all oppressed blacks.

Actually, he just wanted to be

hip, and from watching the

Motown Supremes, Smokey

Robinson and a bunch of groovy

guy groups that meant being black.

He started having wet dreams

about Roberta Flack, took a

small church in Harlem, ditched

his white wife, married a girl

from the ‘hood and had a child

he named James Brown because

he felt so good like he knew he

would. The church gave him the

old heave-ho. He tried his hand

at social work, got divorced and

split the scene, in the hip 60’s

way of putting it. James Brown

now wonders what it might be

like to be a rural, white guy in

Iowa but he doesn’t think that

is going to happen anytime

soon.

Advent is a time of waiting.

A prepared waiting.

Formed in ages past.

By sorrow.

Disappointment.

Wrong turns and bad decisions.

By prophetic words.

Dreams and fancies.

Promises and hopes.

All of it, a preparing.

A shaking and a shaping.

Molding the spirit.

Advent waiting.

Pondering what has been.

Ages past, and just last year.

Everything counts in the shaking.

The shaping.

The molding.

Nothing lost.

All is used.

The good and the bad.

We learn in Advent.

To give thanks.

For everything.

Not because everything is good.

It isn’t.

Some of it is downright evil.

But nothing defeats the work of God.

Everything is a tool.

To prepare the soul.

Advent invites Thanksgiving.

For the preparing and its pain.

For the journey and its joy.

And when thanks is given.

When, with love, we receive what has been.

When, in humility, we dare to see the preparing.

The future opens before us.

A star shines from on high.

And in a nearby stable, small and warm, the Christ is born anew!

I am so far outside, the Hubble telescope

can’t help me see in. I cannot see through

the dark skin of African-Americans into

what it means to be black in America.

I thought I could back in grade school

but I noticed my best friend on the play

ground had dark skin and after school

he went to his home and I went to mine

and never the twain met, and in college

my senior year room-mate was a black

guy who I counted as my best friend for those

nine months, but I couldn’t get into his skin,

and he once asked me to hold my arms

down at my side and he pointed out

how curled, like a gorilla, my fingers were

compared to his and so asked without

the question, who was the monkey.

I am a white man of Swedish and

Dutch ancestry and in spite of the ups

and downs of life and, to be honest,

there have been some significant

downs as well as ups, I still only see

life as a privileged white in America.

It is stamped on my national DNA.

I think I am a follower of Jesus and

I try to strive for social justice and to

speak out for those mistreated by

the system, but those are acts and we

are talking about being. My being is as

an American something who cannot

understand an American something else

because of our very different roots in the

same garden. In my America, my roots

always flower; in their America, seen through

my America, their roots mostly result in weeds.

I am a child of a country founded by whites

who have had supremacy in the marrow of

their bones from day one till now; I, too,have

inherited that heritage and it, too, goes to the

marrow of my bones without my even knowing it

and in spite of my dark-skinned savior Jesus. I

have had it easy; I am racially profiled, too, every-

day as a-okay; I choose safe neighborhoods in

coveted areas in which to live; I had no trouble

choosing and achieving the American dream

because I am a privileged, white American;

but because I can only see from my side of

life’s story, I can see nothing at all; I am blind

and as I said, not even a Hubble telescope

would help. I’m too much of a white American.

I’m sorry, Jesus, my dark-skinned savior.