He named them Gift of God and
Little Lamb of God because they
were God’s and he was granted
stewardship of them for only a few
years, hopefully enough time for
them to see themselves as gifts
and lambs of God, which apparently
was sufficient because they have
really good self-esteem, a realistic
view of themselves and the fortitude
to have seen them through the un-
timely, tragic death of their mother.
And then he received a gift not for
having been a good steward because
that wouldn’t have been a gift but
simply because…. The Christ Carrier
came into his life just when he
needed care and carrying and he
calls her Christi and he calls his
children Matthew and Rachel. One
James or One Who Protects came
with the Christ Carrier and he
stood by and protected his mother
when she needed it as she protected
him. And so he gives thanks for
the providential love of God — for
his family, for Christi, Matthew,
Rachel and James. And that’s what’s
in a name.

They recognized him in the breaking of bread.
Is that always good? It seems always honest,
but are we all ready for honesty — seeing things
as they really are in the breaking of bread?
Perhaps the presence of Jesus would evoke
shame, guilt, anger or denial apparently as it
did when the couples met for dinner and the
conversation turned to inclusivity and the
common threads woven through world
religions and one felt her Jesus was being
attacked when a bigger, brighter more
loving Jesus appeared at the table. That
wasn’t the kind of appearing she expected
and it sure wasn’t Jesus to her. She shouted,
“You can’t talk about the Buddha and my
Jesus in the same sentence,” got up and ran
away from the table; she ran away from
those couples; she ran away from breaking
bread with them; from then on she only
broke bread with those who never, ever
invited the Buddha or Lao Tzu either. From
that day on she only ate at tables with a
very exclusive company of like-minded com-
panions. Apparently, the “my” in my Jesus
was the operative word.

He was falling asleep in a comfortable
chair when Prince Igor and the Polovtsian
Dances by Borodin started to dance in his
head and he was transported back to when
he was a high school student listening to
the music on the stereo his father had built
from individual components. It was fall
and he was home after school. He could
smell dinner cooking in the kitchen. Soon
he would turn off the stereo when his mother
called him to dinner over the singing of the
maidens’ chorus. The man felt warm and
wonderful in the remembrance of a good
time in his life. He rose from the chair,
looked at his wife and sang, “Take my hand,
I’m a stranger in paradise,” and remembered
that was a line from Kismet not Prince Igor
even if it was the same music. That’s okay,
he thought. He doesn’t know Russian. And
then he spoke to her in his best Russian
accent, “Trust me, daahhlink; I’m a very
nice Russian (rolling the r) spy.” She said,
tongue in cheek, “It’s time for dinner, Boris.”

In his mind he remained physically
invulnerable. In part, this was to com-
pensate for the vulnerability and lack
of control he felt in losing love. If he
couldn’t control that, he sure as hell
could control how to tempt fate in
physical daring do’s, which he did
until a mountain biking accident where
one nano-second made the difference
and he just missed being a vegetable.
He liked the meat on his bones so he
put away childish things and grew up
at the young and tender age of fifty-
four. He thinks about those lost loves
and as he looks in his heart he realizes
that the love for them has not gone away
and so, neither have they.

There is an undying desire
to save it all,
what we have, what we see —
the earth, the sky and the sea.
There is a desperation
as we watch it all die
an unnatural death right
in front of our eye.
The rich are the rich
are the rich and will
never change;
Looking to them for
help just brings pain.
Lobbying legislators
is like caressing alligators
so some sit at writing desks
for years and years hoping
to pen the books to
cast out fears;
others fear that time
is running out
and write short essays
and poems
like a wake up shout.
Will it work anyway
as the precious world
passes away?
Who knows?
We just keep shooting
warning arrows
into the sky
before we have to
say goodbye —
before all is through
and we offer adieu.
We have to do
what we have to do.

The big three, the Unholy Trinity —
Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney
(Oh, and then there’s # Four —
Wolfowitz, the territory carnivore)
pulled the cork
and the rest is a sort
of lingering Middle East
misery
spreading from country
to country.
The malevolent genie
laughs
as he breathes
his noxious gas
and sends millions
over the edge
and out the gate
and little boys
grow up to hate,
hate, hate
and retaliate
and now, of
course, in their wake,
the Russians
are coming
and Vladimir
keeps puttin’
a salacious smile
on his cherubic face.
Little men with
compensatory complexes of
inferiority and superiority
will always find ways
of winning over the
gullible majority
who follow like
lemmings but
send children
into a violent,
meaningless
void of
nihilism
and let’s be
perfectly clear here,
as presidents like to say,
but this time let’s
really BE
perfectly clear —
it’s always, always
because of
fear.

He struggled night and day, day and
night with outdated routers, long-lost
passwords, modems, cable connectors,
not to mention Indians in India whose
accents were thicker than anything he
ever heard down south and other
technicians who started by saying ad
nauseam — perfect and then ad infinit-
um — sorry. Reducing channels, add-
ing streaming, he thought he would
be a screaming mimi, so he went to
bed only to dream frantic dreams of
cables snaking around his feet and
modems nipping at his heels but that
was nothing compared to exchanging
cable and wifi equipment at the local
network store the following morning
only to be greeted at the sign in desk
by Frau Mueller barking orders at him
to move over, go here, stay there, be
quiet and stand still until she gets
her job done. Later, as he sat juggl-
ing four remotes and a bewildered
look on his face, he thought how glad
he was for all the advancements in
media technology making life ever so
much simpler.

Twice a year he examines his clothes
closet for things to be taken to the
second-hand store. “What haven’t I worn
for a year?” he asks himself checking
himself on what he let pass six-months
ago — a pair of really nice hiking boots
(“Hey, I’ve got two left,” he reminds
himself.), two polyester tees for jogging
and casual wear which don’t fit all that
well anyway, a pair of really, really nice,
nearly new jogging shoes which he won’t
wear now that he has discovered the maximal-
ist brand with the crazy name, which make him
feel like he’s jogging on clouds. Then he
moves to the guest bedroom where his wife
says, “We have to do something to upgrade
this stuff; it’s too big for the room,” —
said stuff being the solid maple bed frame
which he has had since he was a kid and has
dragged all over creation and which has the
image of the cracked Liberty Bell carved
into the headboard that he still thinks looks
more like a jack-rabbit’s head and the solid
maple dresser that has about a much family
history. He looked at the room and said, “It’s
solid stuff, in really great shape.” He hes-
itated and said, “I agree; it’s more than
time to downsize and move on. Maybe some
kid will get the bed frame and think it
really looks like a jack-rabbit’s head
instead of the Liberty Bell, too.”

He heard on the radio that blacks who
receive equal health care to whites
actually respond better and are
healthier than whites.
 
And whites don’t want to know.
 
From track to basketball to football to
baseball and now to tennis and golf
and soon to be domestic soccer
and maybe swimming, economics
permitting, blacks are there and
whites aren’t so much anymore.
 
And whites don’t want to know.
 
And once the scales of justice are
balanced and blacks are out of jail
and into academia, there exists the
possibility that blacks will outshine
their white counterparts in every
field from science to the arts
and humanities.
 
And whites don’t want to know.
 
Maybe whites just got too far away from
home all those millennia ago and the
genes just couldn’t keep up with
the demands of adjustment
and adaptation.
 
If so, whites just don’t want to know.
 
And when the political power and
economic power shift,
 
well, even Moses was lifted
out of De Nile probably kicking
and screaming but, thank God,
not shooting.

It had been an interesting four-day,
end of the season camping trip, not
far, just about an hour north along
the Big Lake to a place they had
visited frequently. By then most
of the seasonals had gotten to know
him pretty well. In fact, because he
is a retired minister, several availed
themselves of some free counseling
in spite of his protestations that he
is a retired minister not currently
on call and then there were the visit-
ing Labrador Retriever experts who
freely offered advice upon unsolicited
advice on how the man and his wife
should care for their Chocolate and,
of course, the guys who wanted to
know all about the stem cell trans-
plant he had on his right knee until
he actually started telling them about
it at which point they just gave advice
upon un-solicited advice pertaining to
knees and the general state of ambu-
lation. However, there was one fellow
who didn’t offer any advice; he just
shared books and thoughts and quest-
ions — what a rare fellow indeed and
a breath of fresh air, as fresh as the
breeze coming in off the Big Lake —
like fetches causing cooling waves
to wash over bathers on a hot day.