Haven’t heard from you in quite
a while. I’m wondering how you
are doing on your journey.

I had to say goodbye to a good
friend of thirty-eight years who
died after a long, slow suicide.
I went to the memorial service
last week. He was a complicated
and tender man for whom life
proved too harsh.

A close friend of fifty years
blew a gasket at me while we
were hosting him and his wife
and won’t recognize the need
for us to do some relational
fence mending. Apparently, he
insists he’s right and I, now,
can understand where he is com-
ing from given my own behavior
from the past, but still….

It may be that our time together
has come to an end and our
correspondence has served its
purpose; if so, I feel gratified
for your healing and the small
part I may have played as a fellow
on the journey through the dark
night of the soul into light.

You have helped me on my journey.
Thank you.

All the best….

Familiarity does not necessarily breed
contempt, although as he stands in front
of the mirror in the morning having
just cleaned his glasses, he may wince.

Most of the time, however, he realizes he
is growing comfortable with his skin
and even begin to forget what it once
looked like except when he runs into some-

one he hasn’t seen in several years and
the person exclaims, “Holy Cow! Is that
you? I heard the voice and realized it
was you but never in a million years

would I have known it was you just by
looking at you.” But only he has to
stand in front of the mirror each time
and give thanks, in part, for not running

into less than tactful acquaintances from
the past more often and for learning to
embrace the things that are receding
and those that are exceeding in spite

of the planks, the stretch bands, the
slow jogs in the woods and the less than
Tour de France speed on the fifteen mile
round trip bike ride into town on his

forty-year-old ten-speed which has been
painted a few times and which always gets
nods of approval and affirmations of joy
at bike ships with the accompanying words,

“They just don’t make them like that
anymore. I’d like to buy that bike
from you and hang it proudly in the
front window.” He just has to accept

that nobody is offering to hang him
in the front window for all to see
that they just don’t make them like
that anymore.

We obliterate towns, blow up children,
men, women, dogs, cattle and anything
else that moves, (sounds like an Old

Testament script) tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands (maybe a million)
of humans, collateral damage all for

oil. Thank King George W, Dickie the
Sly Dog and Donald the Ducker of
Responsibility or any old Neo Con. The

children who live on as orphans become
what they believe to be freedom fighters
avenging the deaths of their parents,

aunts, uncles, grandparents and they kill
hundreds and thousands of other Muslims
and then they appeal to lost, looney-tune,

disaffected, wandering Americans in the
spiritual wasteland to get readily
available guns, assault rifles and

hit the soft targets, ten here, fifty
there, three somewhere else which sends
the people who have lost their way into

a panic and those who take the credit
know that guerrilla warfare works as
blow-back for what, in their twisted

minds, the arrogant Empire has done
like smug Goliath the Philistine roaring
before David and his five smooth stones.

He looked at the sad-faced sliver,
chin out, lips curled into a frown,
and wondered what had gone down
to cause such sadness; did it quiver?

The days passed, the face not a sliver,
but had grown full and very round —
still the lips were curled into a frown.
The moon remained still; it was his quiver.

This season or that, life does still shiver
for him who experienced the sad clown
of sorrow and loss, life up and life down.
Still he swims on in experience’s river.

He breathed deeply as he jogged on the
trails near the dunes
along the Big Water. Stepping over roots,
on hard ground, listening
to the sound of the wind in the pines and
the squirrels jumping along
the woodland floor and up the trunks of oaks
screeching from branch
to branch at the intruder in their midst.
He stops on the bridge over
the pond, meets and greets his wife who had
jogged in the opposite direction
arriving back at the designated time — their
morning meditation complete.

The congregation regularly had the preacher for lunch even if lunch
were the church school class immediately following worship when the
class teacher, a wannabe preacher, ate the preacher alive for standing
in the wrong place at the wrong time in the chancel and reading from the
lectern when that Gospel reading should have been read from the pulpit even
though the preacher had his doctorate in liturgics.

Young women had the preacher for lunch actually during lunch weekly in
the town’s greasy spoon with the preacher’s wife in attendance and they
thought nothing of it.

One day, the preacher encountered an army vet who had served in Viet Nam and
the preacher said, “Thank you for your service to the country,” even though the preacher had been a war protester during that era, but, of course, never judging
the poor guys who went when the old guys in Washington said so.

“You a vet?” the man asked.

“Of a different sort. I followed another calling,” said the preacher. “I went into the ministry.”

“Holy Cow, preacher. That’s what I call hazardous duty. I’ll take the army any
day.”

All the preacher could do, was to mutter, “Amen.”

A friend of thirty-eight years
died somewhat prematurely
of slow suicide.

A friend of fifty-years blew a
gasket at him, won’t apologize
and hasn’t a clue

about the middle steps of the
twelve-step program, the ones
where you do a

fearless inventory and admit
your faults and make amends
where possible.

He’s thinking he’s too old for
such shenanigans and things
that make him sad.

He’s done sad, done tragic,
done significant conflict
and he just wants peace

and after a death by walking
in front of a train by his
father when the man

was seventeen and after a death
by cerebral hemorrhage of his
late wife at forty-nine

he thinks he deserves it and,
really, who can argue with
such sentiments?

They worked their way up from the
southeast corner to the northwest
corner of Indiana — corn, corn,
corn corn, church, church, church,
church. They wanted a back-road
road trip but they got red light
after red light. Might as well keep
to the interstate and make a lot
better time they concluded because
ubiquitous fast-food joints and
giant, all-purpose super markets
have taken over main street America
and turned it into strip mall USA.

Somewhere around fifteen years ago
his friend just decided to implode,
remove himself from complicated

relationships, almost barricade him-
self in his apartment, care for his
cats and find false intimacy in social

media. He continued to smoke like a
chimney and eat donuts and pork rinds
like they were going out of style. A

great mind, a great heart, a great guy —
broken by life. Yes, he was broken by
life; life really is too tough for some

gentle spirits who might posture big
and actually get big in size and weight
but who remain vulnerable little boys.

Some go fast, step in front of a train,
slit their wrists, gobble a bunch of
pills; put their heads through a noose;

some go slow, drink gallons of booze,
eat and smoke themselves to death
while under the illusion that they have

thousands and thousands of friends
and lovers when they could have had
the actual love of a couple of kids

and a couple of friends in the flesh
and actually did, but for some reason,
that just wasn’t enough. For some that’s

not enough. He thought about his dead
friend and he then he thought about
fifty-four years ago and how as a kid

he cried, “Why wasn’t my love enough,
dad?” Yes, some people are just too
gentle for life.

The preacher floated around
the profundity and complication

of the deceased by telling
somewhat funny stories and

then once in a while saying
something somewhat in-

appropriate as he ventured out
and approached the corners

of the difficulties which
involved those sitting in the

front pew. They were caught
in their own thoughts and

probably missed what was
said and that was all to the

good. They certainly didn’t
need another weight on

them as they just began to
emerge from the weight

of all those inexplicable
years and experience some

semblance of relief in a
collective sigh after the

benediction.