Miles to Go

Yesterday was Robert Frost's birthday. It reminded me of when I was a child, visiting my grandmother's house. She used to quote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and it wasn't long before I memorized it.  The quote she carried in her mind and on her lips was, of course "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

Later in college I learned that Frost, already a mystery to me with his New England accent and shock of white hair, was also sort of a misanthrope, and that he told people his poem was not about death. I decided that last bit was a sort of railing against fame and the inquisitive proddings of the media. When my dad would go to bluegrass jams, some nights there'd be a young kid or two that came into the sandwich shop where it was held and said something like 'Have you ever heard of a song called Foggy Mountain Breakdown?' which of course is akin to asking a college pep band if they know "Crazy Train." Some nights they'd shake their heads "no" only to play it when they left. I thought Frost was being like that...like Foggy Mountain Breakdown requests when you've been playing bluegrass since before the cancer diagnosis and before the accident at the factory that cost you two fingers. No, no, Mr. Reporter, this poem is not about death. It's about snow and horses. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

To be fair, when I learned this poem, in my grandparents' unairconditioned house, it was not about death for me either.  It was about the alliteration of dark and deep, and rhyme and repetition, and hearing my grandmother, who was loveliness itself, say the word, lovely. I thought of how hard she worked to raise 5 beautiful, lovely children and the way she fried chicken in that hot kitchen, with the little oscillating fan gamely whirring around, fruitless but essential, like CPR breaths.  I thought about  how she looked when she would nap on the couch after lunch, crossword puzzle folded over her shirt, golf pencil balanced near long, light words like 'insouciant' and the ubiquitous small weightier ones 'amok', 'atoll' and 'ala' (a winglike organ or part).

When I got older, of course, I could see over the horizon of my life a little, and I could hear whispers about the shortness of life behind the church bells from the church across the street and the whistle of the train that came through town twice a day. My grandmother died when I was a junior in college, having kept her promises and walked her miles, and we felt bereft and cheated and lost. I learned more secrets from Frost, that "Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold....So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."

I've been to Mr. Frost's grave, as it happens, and pondered his lovely, dark and deep journey, too. I have done a few funerals now, as an officiant and as a stricken mourner (held up by the sheer love of others, by songs and by prayer). I begin to see that the dark and deep woods of death is a pathway to another stage of being, another life, with God.  As Easter people, we don't think of those gone before in dark and snowy woods, all lost.  We think of them walking into groves of saplings with new green buds on them, into a new springtime of being with God. When I think of you, Mr. Frost, you are not in dark suit with macabre lantern on a snowy, lonely night.   You are a boy, shock of hair no longer white, climbing birches and swinging out into the great beyond of God's love.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Perhaps my first poem ever memorized was not about death after all, in the sense that death is not the end of the story. Perhaps it was really about the next morning, the dawn of the next day, when we awake from well-earned sleep and walk into the crisp morning and find a birch to swing on. Perhaps it points invisibly to an empty tomb and folks saying "He's not here. He's risen."

Mr. Frost, happy birthday--I shall see you in that great gettin' up morning and we'll read some poetry with a certain golden haired grandmother of mine. But first, I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.





 

Pastoral Care 101: Get out of the Car

My first experience with being with a dying person happened when I was in seminary a couple years ago. I was taking Pastoral Care and Counseling and we had just finished the class on "grief" when someone from the church where I was on staff called me.  "My neighbor's wife is dying," she said, "and they need someone to come see them. I prayed about it, and I think it's supposed to be you." I protested in a thousand different ways. "I'm only in seminary. We have so many 'real' pastors and they are all fantastic. I've never...you know...done that before...and so I'm sure I'd say the wrong thing. This is a BAD idea."  She listened patiently and she said, "Her husband would never want 'clergy' there. She's a Methodist so she would, but he's just...NOT RELIGIOUS. I prayed about it and I think you are the one to go." She sounded sure. I reported this to my "real" pastors and they said, "Go."

So early the next morning I got in my car with my Bible and an apple for breakfast. I drove to the local hospital and sat in the car, munching on the apple and praying through my fear, which was all knotted  up in my stomach with Granny Smith juice. I remembered my professor's words, when he had said just the day before to our class, "Here's the funny thing. When the call comes, when the beeper goes off, you will not want to go. You will come up with a thousand excuses for why you can't go. It is normal, and doesn't make you a bad pastor. But you must NOT give in to that feeling. When you feel that way, GO. Showing up is the hardest and most important part."  So when I felt that urge to run, I thought, well, I don't know what I'm doing but I do know that I'm getting out of the dang car.  Take that, Satan.

The woman, who I had never met, lay in the bed, unconscious. The monitors glowed and beeped. Her husband looked tired and stricken. I introduced myself.  Because I didn't know her, her husband told me about her, how she loved her bright yellow car, the one he bought her. How she looked when she came down the stairs in a certain dress, and how she always took forever to get ready. He would stop and then say, "I can't believe this." He was angry and sad and silent and laughing. The ping-ponging of grief--the shock and the crying and the laughing, the stories and the numb repetition, clinging to the sheer face of grief and searching blindly for a rock to plant a foot on that can bear the weight of this.  I listened. I said very little. I offered to leave and he asked me to stay longer, so I did. Time went by very fast.  My entire contribution vocally was just about as follows: I told him she could probably hear him, that hearing was there even when it appeared she could not hear, often right up to the end. I told him this way he felt was normal. It was normal to be angry and crazy and up and down. I observed he had many people who loved him and loved her. I told him grief was hard work, that it was important to be gentle with yourself,  and that he should eat something, even though he wasn't hungry. I suggested eggs. (Hot, protein, easy to swallow). I asked if he wanted me to pray. He said, "I want you to pray for her. I don't want to be here when you do. I will step out and have a smoke." We made a circle with me and the woman and two friends who were visiting. We prayed and I noticed he hadn't left. He was standing in the open door of the hospital bathroom, out of sight, in a dark corner, listening to us pray about light and life eternal, and grief and the loved ones gone before, that would reach out to her, to help her with this journey to be with Jesus. When I left, he seemed grateful and I thought, "For what?" I was the one who was grateful, and stunned at the presence of the Holy.

I left around 11 a.m., shaking my head at how quickly the time had gone, and seeing that God was in the room, that it was a holy space I had been in. I had been a witness, someone to stand by and watch and occasionally point out the presence of God. This preacher who loves to stand and proclaim about the gospel learned about the joys of "presence" and the mysterious judo of pastoral care. Nothing I do in this world is less about me, or more about God.  Nothing I do is more important, though.  Because the Spirit is at work most palpably in these moments of life and death, I am able to get out of the car, or walk into the hospital room, or speak at a funeral or stand in the mud at a graveside service. Because it is a God thing and I'm not God. It is a holy privilege to show up and to be in the room, to hold hands and speak about love and pain and offer both a Suffering Savior and a Risen Christ.  So, if there are any scared folks out there, eating an apple in a hospital parking lot and not wanting to go in,  let me assure you that God is in the room already.  Jesus has conquered death and the grave; Jesus makes it possible for us to love well in the midst of pain.  Take a deep breath and go.  Get out of the car.

Words to Some New Eagle Scouts

On behalf of the Covenant-Point Lakeside Cooperative Parish, and Senior Pastor Tony Love, let me say we are so proud of you both and your accomplishments today. Our congregation has prayed for and supported you and this Troop, and we have been the grateful recipients of your Eagle Scout projects. I am excited that I get to play this particular role in this ceremony, that I get to charge you before you take your oath. I was thinking about this, and I thought it was strange that a non-eagle scout, indeed a non-scout would be asked to do this, to remind you of your obligations to God as you move forward.  I’m in the theology business, so I can do some God-talk, but I am not a Scout.  I have earned none of your badges and if asked, could probably not do one part of any of them. I tie a terrible knot….Except maybe God and Family, I think I could take that badge. And yet, I am asked to speak to you.

And then I realized, it sort of makes sense that a non-Scout would take this slot. Because when you are an Eagle Scout, you are accountable not just to Baden Powell and the Scouts, and the people who know the secret handshake, but you are also accountable to us non-Eagle Scouters. Who don’t know your inside jokes or the Scout Law.  We are the people who will be your neighbors, friends and co-workers. We will be your employers and employees. I personally aspire to someday be a little old lady you will help across the street. You will date our daughters, your children will learn from you what it means to be a man and will grow up to carry on your legacy for good and for ill.  There is a lot riding on this, and not just for the people in uniform today. 

Jesus said, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” And we expect a lot from you, who have gotten this far in part because of the sacrifices of so many others. We expect you to do the right thing. We expect you to tell us the truth. We expect you to confess you’re wrong and when you hurt someone, to make it right. Jesus also said that whenever you serve those who are the “least of these” you are in fact serving Jesus. You are in fact serving God, when you visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, clothe the naked or visit the sick.  So the question I have, as a pastor of the UMC and as a non-scout, looking at you who would be Eagles… My question is not how high you can soar but how low are you willing to swoop to serve others? Do you know how to be humble? Can you demonstrate your love of God by taking the lowest place, by washing feet, as our Lord has done?  Can you love one another as God has loved you? Can you love the stranger and the even enemy?  Yes, are you enough of an Eagle Scout even to do that? Can you love God with your whole heart mind and strength and the neighbor as yourself, even when the neighbor doesn’t look like you or talk like you and you don’t even think you like them very much?

Part of your promise you have made for years is to serve God and country.  Even that badge I think I could earn today was God and family. And what I would point out is, God comes first.  It is not Country and God or even Family and God. God must come first.

I would submit to you that what we, the non-scouts, value in you is not just that you keep promises or that you are loyal. It is possible to be loyal to a bad plan or to keep a promise to do something immoral.  It’s not just that you are good leaders. It’s possible to be a great leader of a bad mission. What we value in you is that you are able to prayerfully and carefully make right choices, make promises to the right things and be loyal to the right things.  We hope that you know how to make good moral judgments and we hope that you know how to be transparent when you fail. Yes, my dear elite Eagle Scouts, you must know how to fail well.  And when you make mistakes and fail, we value that you are able to confess, repent and begin again.

Lastly, with all due respect to Baden-Powell, I would remind you that sometimes your duty to God and the fact that God must come first might get you into hot water with those in authority.  I hope, Eagle Scouts, you will make us proud in that hour.  It could be that you are called to civil disobedience. Sometimes being a good “citizen” means you land in a Birmingham Jail, like MLK did. He wasn’t a Scout, he was a preacher like me…but he knew in the end where his loyalties belonged and what it meant to serve God and his country.

Today is about celebration, but my task is to charge you, to remind you that being an Eagle Scout means you are accountable:  to the scouting community, to us non-scouts, and of course, ultimately accountable to our unruly, loving, merciful, notoriously unmanageable God.  This God can do some amazing things for God’s kingdom with folks with your training. I hope you are willing to serve God, and to serve God well.

As a representative of Covenant Point-Lakeside Cooperative Parish, I pray God’s blessing upon you and I remind you that the Church stands with you, to be a place where you can always find a reminder of who you are, whom you belong to, and what you were made for.