Saving the world from terrorism,
but really just wanting oil;
saving the world from terrorism,
but really just grabbing for soil;
the blowback we are now ex-
periencing
makes me wonder why Mr. Rogers
is missing;
where are you, Mr. Rogers, when
we need you most,
when you were the neighborhood’s
greatest host,
for all the children to feel loved
and special,
when all the children felt life
was incredible?
Where are you, Mr. Rogers, when
we need you most?
“It’s a beautiful day in the
neighborhood,
a beautiful day for a neighbor,
would you be mine,
could you be mine?”
We all want to be friends
in the neighborhood, Mr. Rogers.
We don’t want to be
afraid of each other, Mr. Rogers.
Would you be mine;
could you be mine?

She told the story of her
late husband, his skills,
his leadership, how he

took a company from
nowhere to somewhere
in just a few short years

and then in a few shorter
years lost it all — person-
ally. When she was done,

a person to whom she
spoke simply said,
“Shamed.” He, the only

son, was shamed for
not measuring up to his
eighth-grade educated,

functioning alcoholic
father and he, the only
child, believed his father

instead of recognizing
his own abilities and
more, much more im-

portantly than that,
his self-worth, but he
couldn’t because the

sins of the fathers de-
vastate the children
from generation to

generation. And so,
he, too, was victim-
ized by the bottle and

“That’s right, dad, I
saw myself as a fraud
and the only way I

could outdo you was
to drink myself to
death in three short

years. Even you didn’t
have the courage to do
that, dad. For shame.”

King David had many victories,
defeats and tragedies in his
time as King of Israel.

In his later years, alone,
a beautiful, young woman
came into to his tent to

warm his cold, weary, sad
bones and to give him the
tenderness he craved. Let

no one pass judgment on King
David for holding a warm,
tender body while a tear

trickled down his cheek
as he fell asleep. And
the Good Book says “He

knew her not,” and maybe
he didn’t but if he did,
let no one pass judgment

on King David for it was
God’s will that the Anoint-
ed’s bones be warmed.

Camping over the 4th, I
visit with Seasonals (those
who stay for about six months
in one place and six in an-
other) I have known for years,
some closer than most. At

the Fourth of July parade I
sit between a Vietnam vet-
eran, right-wing Republican
and a woman who until recent-
ly I had thought was political-
ly conservative and quite pre-

judiced but turns out is not
at all toward minorities and
gays. We all stand for the
color guard (even I who reg-
istered as a Conscientious
Objector to Viet Nam) and

then sit for the rest of
the political advertisements
pretending to be floats.
The right-wing guy asks if
this is a parade or a pol-
itical event and I have to

agree. He and I don’t agree
on much but for some strange
reason like each other. A
float of some hokey, hyper-
evangelical church’s praise
band passes and, as a retired

minister, I wonder what Holy
Spirit they are praising real-
izing that spirit doesn’t re-
semble my liberal Holy Spirit.
On the day we leave, I say
goodbye to the right-wing

Republican and give him a
hug. The lone, local social-
ist walks by, a friend and
a guy whose politics and
philosophy I appreciate and
whose artistic photography

I love. We, too, hug good-
bye. I remain confused about
the USA, politics, religion,
and patriotism, for sure,
but I feel that the thing
that holds me together

through it all is the love
of Jesus. Now, which Jesus
is that, exactly?

Camping, the radio set to the classical
station, he hears Borodin’s “Prince
Igor, Polovtsian Dances” and immediate-
ly thinks of “A Stranger in Paradise,”
because that was really big when his
dad bought the stereo and Reader’s Digest
classical albums and he listened every
day after school not having a clue what
Borodin had in mind but having a really
great idea of what he had in mind as he
thought of his new junior in high school
girlfriend.

The day broke windless and bright
and we knew this was water’s beckoning
so we tossed the kayaks with all our might,
climbed aboard and made a dead reckoning
into the water among the big boys and girls.
We paddled enjoying simple thrills.
Tired, exhausted was soon our plight;
we would not kayak into the night,
so we tossed them on top the car
and celebrated at a favorite micro-brew bar.

We traveled a mere sixty miles to
camp for the Fourth of July week-
end, carrying along our sixteen and

fourteen-foot banana boat kayaks —
banana boat because they are bright
yellow and long with tapering ends,

like bananas. We have new kayak
carriers and lift assist to help us
get the kayaks on top of our SUV

which we use to pull our seventeen-
foot travel trailer called an Egg
Camper because it is white and

shaped like an egg. We wanted to
drop the kayaks into the water today,
Friday of the weekend, because it

wouldn’t be real busy on the water
unlike what is anticipated for Sat-
urday, Sunday and Monday, the Fourth,

but the wind was really, really
strong and the air really, really
chilly (It’s Michigan.), so we went

to breakfast instead and had banana
pancakes and eggs over easy to
celebrate the weekend even though

we couldn’t get the big bananas in
the water, so we just sat outside
the Egg. Maybe tomorrow, if the

wind dies down, we can break out
of the Egg and peal out of the
campground to drop our bananas

into the water before it gets too
busy. If not, we will just have to
settle for corned beef hash and rye toast.

It took the better part of the afternoon
to figure out how to use the lift assisted
kayak holders. We knew we needed them
when it became too difficult to toss the
kayaks on the top of the SUV. Getting
the kayaks on and off proved a song,
but the way the directions were written
we couldn’t figure out the tie down
straps, until, after a couple of hours,
we mentally cut out the directions for
the straps and put them at the beginning
of the instructions. We looked at each
other and said, “Simple.” Let’s hope
the whole thing takes about twenty-
minutes next time or we may never get
those boats in the water again.

The Franciscan wrote, “If you do
not want to go there, you’d better
stay away from the
Holy One.”

It’s a very dangerous place because
you have to die, die to all
the things you have
been taught to

live for. It will shake the foundations
as another theologian wrote.
He has a Pentecostal
friend (Yes, there

are a few left over from the 60’s and
70’s and 80’s.) who keeps moan-
ing because our highly rational
culture won’t accept

the validity of his experiences in
speaking in tongues. Well,
he thought, if you back
up all that gibberish

to most ears with just a word or two
of understood love and an
action or two of
experienced

love what difference would it make
if anyone judged the ecstatic
practice of the in-
explicable,

even frightening, encounter with
The Holy One? Didn’t
St. Paul ask some-
thing along

the same lines? If an earth-shaking
encounter doesn’t lead to
death to all the first half
of life’s goals

attained and now disdained, don’t
even think about how
nice it is to speak
in tongues

or have just the right liturgy and
music in a very rational
mainline congregation’s
worship service.

The cenotaph stood tall but
no one knew where the real
body rested or even if it did
rest and isn’t that so true of
life? Who lies in Grant’s
Tomb? Well, Grant, of
course, unless somebody
lied, but many, maybe most
now wonder who Grant was
and if his remains really
reside in the tomb. Do we
need a rehabilitation or
exhumation or better yet
an excavation, not of Grant,
may he rest in more peace
than he had in this life
(He should have retired as
a general and not a scandal
plagued president.), but of
the rest of us? A bumper
sticker states, “Everybody
sucks, 2016.” Do we need to
exhume or excavate what we
wanted so badly, have lost
and has turned to (all that
stuff) dust or just wait
for the wonder of what was,
is and will be eternally?