The soft, cushiony blow
of the steel rod
let the red blood flow.

The flow was so soft
and wonderfully warm blood
continued to waft

up and down and all around
the head, torso, feet —
she’s on the ground.

And twelve hours lost,
her innocent black body was found —
blood having been rain-washed.

On soft billowy cement was seen
only a black and blue hue
where a beautiful black life had been.

It was on this day in 1865 that the Civil War came to a formal end. Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, surrendered, and the last Confederate army ceased to exist. The war that cost 620,000 American lives was over.
— The Writer’s Almanac, Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Formally, maybe.
Informally, certainly not!

His first Sunday School experience was being
taught about the disciples under the teaching
of a kind, sweet, white woman named Mrs. Lambert-Neeling,

All twelve from Peter
to (well not) Judas said she
were good, white boys working hard to be
fishers having fun by the sea,
singing songs of reverie,
resembling more Robin Hood’s
band who were so very merry,

but that, of course, wasn’t reality.

And so he grew up
with a white, suburban mentality
of what was Christian truth and spirituality.

And what did that get him, really?
He was indoctrinated to a false reality
of God’s revelation to humanity.

Only by the grace of God,
did reality begin to sink in.
Mrs. Lambert-Neeling actually
read the words of Jesus
and over time, the man
began to see biblical reality.

But for years he wore white privilege
as he swam in a sea
of social justice inequity.

He climbed out of the sea
naked as he could be,
baptized by cold reality,
and began to breathe
a little more freely,

but he knows and
so does (better than he)
just about every other ethnicity,
that he has a long way to go
in his life, to actualize biblical reality —

as do most white Christians
as they look out upon
on the harsh reality
that they (in some
cases, at best, with benign neglect and naïveté)
have caused so much
injustice and inequality.

And now, he thinks, maybe
he is just being a guilty,
white, privileged, self-indulgent, crybaby.

Lord, have mercy,
Oh, woe is me.

Then came a voice from eternity,
Oy vey, you aren’t dead yet.
You can still do something.

The gas jockey climbed out of
his steed, a 1965 Mustang, to

go to work pumping the gas.
“Fill ‘er up, kid,” said the cus-

tomer.  The gas jockey stood
inhaling the fresh scent of raw

gas thinking to himself how
fragrant such a fresh scent is.

He opened a can of trans-
mission fluid, breathed deep-

ly and thought about how lucky
he was to be a gas jockey riding

around in America’s garden of
greasy delight. The owner came

out to finish the transaction,
“That will be two dollars and fifty

cents, please,” as the gas jockey
climbed back into his steed and

rode around the track in the garden
before heading into the sunset

for the dorm.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
said simply that the lights went out,
all went dark in our country’s house.
The temporary Commander-in-Chief
is MIA, in a White House bunker to
protect himself from the potential ass-
ault of the mostly, peaceful protesters
across the street in the springtime park
with all the beautiful, fragrant flowers.
A TV reporter on the scene said that
in a certain respect, the temporary
Occupant is now irrelevant. A portrait
in courage — not.

He talked with his wife about his growing anger resulting in impatience or vice versa. Some have to do with age and experiencing the creeping onset and advance of various illnesses and general decline — an assault on his image of himself as a life-long fitness freak and some unresolved issues from the past, but some have to do with everything that is swirling around — politically, ideologically, racially, environmentally and a worldwide pandemic.

He knows all the theological/spiritual responses to the loss of control and while he agrees with those responses and ponders and practices them — yielding, giving up the illusion of control, letting go and letting God, finding meaning in vulnerability, trusting, following Jesus, practicing mindfulness, doing meditations, contemplation, centering prayer, etc. — he is afraid he is far from totally internalizing them.

And then there was that word, that “at the bottom of everything word.” He realized he is “afraid” not just about internalizing the spiritual disciplines but that he is afraid, simply afraid; and in that simple act of verbalizing of fear, his fear and naming the “demon,” and the truth of that revelation, ironically he felt comfort begin to settle in, giving him a sense of calm and hope and the sense that he was farther along the spiritual path than he had thought.

Yes, he thought, we are all afraid of various things for various reasons but ultimately all those things are related to — decline and death in one form or another.

And then his wife said, “It’s a start, dear.”

“A start? I’ve been at this for years.”

“Well, starts are better than stops unless you are driving a car and there is a stop sign ahead, but that’s a stop so you could make another start. Hey, that’s not bad — spiritual disciplines as stop signs along the journey of life so you can survey the situation, accelerate and make another start. Except, don’t accelerate too fast at your age, dear.”

“Sheesh.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Then the proverbial light went on.

“Of course, that’s the other word — the antidote word, the healing word, the courage word, the vulnerability and trust word — love.”