He thought about writing a profound
poem. After all it is Holy Week, not
exactly a jocular event in time what
with talk of scapegoats, paschal

lambs and lots and lots of violence,
such prefacing, predating, prophesy-
ing and placing the proverbial stamp
of approval (looking backward) on

the preaching, parables, proclivities
of one particularly unfortunate chap
who grew up in obscurity in a back-
water town surrounded by not par-

ticularly fertile territory named the
Promised Land by those who were
ever so tired of wandering in a desert
they would settle for just about any-

where, which they did. As he said,
he thought about something with
profundity but with so very much
misery to go around and anxiety

to boot he couldn’t help thinking
about the baby-faced, blue-eyed
Jeffrey Hunter cast as Jesus, who
if prophecy be right was not comely

to look upon and had no beauty
in him to behold and that led to
thoughts of Cecil B. DeMille and
Charlton Heston and Easter Bunnies

and colored eggs and milk chocolate
and he started to laugh and then
started humming “Always look on
the bright side of life,” but the most

serious religious depiction in recent
years of Holy Week was Life of Brian
and that had already been done. And
then he thought,

Well, it is only Tuesday of Holy Week.

Thanks for the memories —
Oh, my, as a fifties’ child
And sixties’ kid
And seventies’ adult
I loved watching Bob Hope
Like I loved so many standup
Comedians through the years
But we are all children of our
Time and my time with Bob
Ended in the late sixties and
Early seventies when he and
I went in very different directions
For a while and now that a while
Is over I can celebrate his hundred
Years of incredible comedy devoid
Of all political concerns. Yes, Bob,
Thank you for the memories.

The young man, about twenty, standing
behind the counter at the convenience
store gazed at the TV propped on a stand
a few feet from the counter. A customer

entered, saw the station and exclaimed,
“Not Fox Noise.” “Hey, that’s the only
station, man,” rebuked the clerk. They
bantered back and forth for a few minutes

and parted joking about “fake news” at
Fox or CNN. An elderly man was found
dead in front of his TV. The station playing
on the TV was Fox News. The old man

had been an apolitical guy until he en-
countered the station to which he swore
allegiance. He moved downstairs, hardly
communicating with his wife or grown

children. He just sat and stared at the TV
and grew angrier and angrier and more
and more resentful of everything especially
the Affordable Care Act which covered the

old man’s growing physical ailments until
the day he died. The clerk at the con-
venience store doesn’t drink, smoke or do
drugs. The dead, old man had given up

smoking years before. They never acknow-
ledged their addiction, what would come
to be called the nation’s new soma, nor did
they ever imagine that they, along with

sixty million other God-fearing, patriotic
Americans would star in a dystopian story
about an addled populace that sat staring
at their TVs while the red-headed Son of

Hitler, rightly in their dazed, somatic
state, pushed the big, red button.

You will be set free
from anxiety
if you know this:
it is all divine
kenosis
for your sake
and mine,
so,
say the theologians,
it’s a divine
condition —
emptying
one’s self
of everything
and being filled
to the brim
with the love
that banishes
sin
egoic
with life
toward
justice, mercy, peace
devoted.

He saw a program featuring the 87th birthday
Celebration for Loretta Lynn and he was
Transported back forty-some years to his
Seventeen years in the Great Commonwealth
Of Kentucky as a young, wet-behind-the-ears
Pastor. He isn’t a country music fan, but
watching the TV program brought back so
Many memories. Who would believe the kid
From the South Side of Chicago would learn
About the ballet, symphony, opera and great
Theater in Nashville and then Louisville while
Listening to the radio play ever so sad,
Soul wrenching songs by George Jones
And Tammy Wynette and then hearing first
Hand about their several affairs — a repeated
One with a former parishioner of his from
His first congregation, a rural church near
The Tennessee border — a guy who would
Walk the sawdust trail for the umpteenth time
Each time Tammy said goodbye to him and
Hello once again to George? He never dreamed
He would be so close to celebrity, especially not
In rural Kentucky at an alter call at a  spring
Revival.

Kim Kardashian is
all the fashion
on Yahoo
each and every day.

The Kardashians’
bodies proliferate
on Yahoo
to much public dismay.

Do the Kardashians
outright own
Yahoo
or a share of the take

or does Yahoo
just want to show off
Kardashian cheese cake?

Please, whatever you do,
Yahoo, just give us
all a break —

more relevant news
fewer sponsored sites
and much less
Kardashian cheesy cheese cake.

Along a once quiet road now
busy with the bustle of people
in cars heading here, there,
(where ?) and on the other side

a railroad track, not used often
but often enough for a rumbling
roar loud enough to wake the
dead, is, squeezed between the

two, a triangular-shaped, small
cemetery from a rural past.
The monument dealer wanted
to be buried there for reasons

never specified to the children.
So, his body was placed there
under a small headstone of
Swedish Granite. Then the

man’s wife thirty-some years
later — together, side by side,
bodies which in life were never
particularly comfortable side by

side. The children don’t visit.
They live in other states. Then
for another, the ashes of his
wife were spread in an inland

sea where she loved to swim. He
visits often wandering along the
shore letting the surf slap his
feet. It is as if he is being

anointed with precious oil. He
inhales the fragrance of the
fresh water, the sand and the
west wind and walks on. That

man and his wife have
decided to have their ashes
spread in the dunes where
they love to hike along the

shore. Their children will visit
every summer as they did year
after year and they will walk
along the shore, look up at the

dunes and the trails and out at
the water as it slaps their feet
and they will breathe deeply of
the fresh water’s fragrance.

Mind your own business./There is no such thing as your own business.

Follow the wisest course and be a success./Follow [Jesus] and be crucified.

Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own./Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for [Jesus] sake will find it.

Law and order/Love

Get/Give

*words of Frederick Buechner from one of his meditations

Today, in history, the Civil War ceased,
but the racial animosity continues to increase.
Nothing to win in this zero sum game,
from lynchings, bombings and blame.
Rain down justice, mercy and peace
so this national nightmare will cease.
We are all God’s children — one human race.
May equality, dignity and natural beauty
shine on everyone’s face.

“If you own your own pain
you won’t get into the blame game.”
“Soon enough we will be leaving.”
Soon enough we can stop scheming.
We see the light of a star
even though the star from afar
has been dead, perhaps,
no longer than a synapse,
or for what may be
the finger snap of infinity,
and so, your little light will shine
long after you are supine.