A New Denomination's Take on Holy Communion

In my new denomination, Holy Communion will be celebrated at every worship gathering. At random times, but at least once a month, the setting for the communion liturgy will be to the tune of Gordon Lightfoot’s immortal classic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” There will be no discernible pattern to the occurrence of “Wreck Communion” so that parishioners will not be able to plan their attendance schedules in a way that will avoid participation in this rite. Moreover, once the music begins, the doors will be locked to prevent escape.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

I love this song, and I don't feel it gets the play it deserves. I can't trace when I first really started loving this song. It probably goes back to Darlene Love singing it on Letterman, which obviously deserves its own oral history.

The song is classic Phil Spector. Do what you want with that. But, it takes you somewhere pretty great in just under three minutes. Attention must be paid.

The original version by Love is still the best, and there's a case to be made for it as the best pop Christmas song of all time. As a testament to the greatness of the song, it's hard to make a lousy cover of it. One of my favorites is the version by U2. No frills really; just their normal weirdness. May it be stuck in your head until June.

The Christmas Song

Not to be confused with "Christmas Song" by Dave Matthews (I'll get to that later), this song begins "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." It usually isn't one of my faves. I have to be in a certain mood to want to hear it, and I'm rarely in this mood. I also feel like it has been done by literally everyone, which I know is the case for lots of songs I'll be discussing.

My favorite version, hands down, is Nat King Cole's. I think there's really no comparison. His phrasing is incredibly suited for the music of the song. I also love the instrumental break. Everything works together so well. Even the somewhat cheesy "Jingle Bells" bit at the end is great.

No one else should bother with this song.

The Christmas Song

Holiday Songs

For some time I have threatened to release an all-encompassing master list of holiday songs. The time is now for this to happen. I shall try to post one each day through Advent and perhaps beyond. Sometimes the songs will come with extensive comment. Other songs need no explanation. If you feel that the versions I list as the greatest are in error, please prove me wrong. They will occur only in the order I think of them. Let's begin.

Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding

This song makes me exceedingly joyful whenever I hear it. I don't think there's any way to make it better. It's perfection.

Honorable mention for other good versions: B.B. King and Bruce Springsteen

Making Room

My son, who is almost three years old, loves the movie Room on the Broom. The book is one of my favorites to read with him because it reminds me of fall and Halloween (which I love). It also has a cadence of words that I enjoy. The movie is different in some notable ways. First, it takes thirty minutes to tell a story that can be read in about eight. So the cadence of language is lost. Second, the narrator is British, so that’s an improvement to my voice. Third, the characters express emotions in a way they don’t in the book. The most obvious way this final difference changes the story is found when subsequent characters ask, “Is there room on the broom for me?” In the book, a straightforward and excited “Yes!” from the witch is all that happens when a dog, bird, and frog ask about climbing aboard the broom. But, in the movie, when the dog asks “Is there room on the broom for a dog like me?” a cat, who had already been granted access to the broom, shakes his head. What’s worse, each animal who is welcomed to the broom wants to deny a place for each new animal. In the span of a few minutes, the dog goes from practically begging for a place to denying a spot for the now begging bird. What is it that makes those who were once unwelcome receive welcome and then become unwelcoming to others?

This past Sunday, the Sunday School class my wife and I attend discussed Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard. We used Dr. Amy-Jill Levine’s study “Short Stories by Jesus.” Levine makes a fascinating point regarding this parable. She focuses on the idea that those in the story who are waiting to be hired for work have been waiting in the same spot all day. Something she finds troubling is the lack of advocacy those workers who are hired engage in for those who remain unhired. Moreover, when those who were waiting to be hired were finally hired, those who were hired earlier grumble at the fact that they are paid equally rather than celebrating both the generosity of the vineyard owner and the providence for those who need to be able to feed themselves and families. How can we deny others the same gifts we have received?

The current situation of welcoming some people but not all people in an equal fashion in the United Methodist Church is problematic for many reasons. Perhaps the most offensive element about the lack of welcome to all people is the position of ownership by other people. To return to Room on the Broom, the cat and dog don’t own the broom. The witch does. Those who are requesting a space on the broom aren’t asking the other occupants; they are asking the owner. The church belongs to Christ. If Christ has called and welcomed all people, who are we to turn them away? If the generous owner of all things seeks to make us all equal, who are we to persist in inequality? Perhaps we have forgotten who created all things and called them good. Maybe we have also forgotten that the Lord we worship was born in a stable because his family was told, “There is no room for you.” We continue to tell God “You are unwelcome” until we make room for all God’s children.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

My wife and I saw the Mr. Rogers movie a few weeks ago. I definitely remember watching one iteration of his show when I was a kid. The trolley and castle were most appealing to me. I don’t think I took in much of what he said. But then again, maybe I did. A few things from the movie stuck with me. 

The notion of silence and space that he created is sorely missed from TV today. My wife and I are both fairly quiet people. We wake up quietly and open and close doors quietly and keep the TV at the lowest volume possible. This has been tough with a young child because so many shows and toys are so loud and busy. One of my favorite things to do is take my son outside on our back porch. He is now interested in the deer and birds that come to visit. I am trying to teach him that there is great beauty in quiet stillness, and also, that other creatures are our neighbors. 

Mr. Rogers was an expert with children. Working with children was his gift. The way he interacted with children would now (I think) be deeply suspicious to many people. I had to admit that if his show came on today, my first thought would likely be, “This dude’s a creeper.” And yes, I know how awful that thought is. It troubles me that I think this way and that people who are drawn to children and gifted with them sometimes make me uneasy. But his way of seeing the child in everyone challenges me. I am really angry pretty much all the time right now. There are lots of people doing lots of things I loathe. I have even had hatred in my heart for some of these people. So how do I remember that they are someone’s child? This is another thing that I hope I teach well to my children. I don’t believe people are bad or good. People do bad and harmful things. Many times the same people do good and loving things. People are deeply complex, and treating each person with as much love and compassion as we can means that we treat them as though we understand they are someone’s child.

A guy in Luke’s gospel asks Jesus a question: “Who is my neighbor?” The way the man asks the question suggests that he is trying to get Jesus to let him off the hook from loving certain people. Jesus doesn’t fall for it. He tells a story that is now mostly known as “The Good Samaritan.” (Reading AJ Levine’s book on the parables pointed out to me how bad/racist that title is. Think of someone saying “The Good Mexican.” See what she means?). My reading of the story is that ultimately Jesus says, “Your neighbor is whoever you treat like a neighbor.” In other words, we decide for ourselves who our neighbors are and aren’t. Think of Mr. Rogers’ question. Rather than saying, “Who can I get away with not having as a neighbor?” he instead asks, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” And it seems as though he asked that of more or less everyone. 

Four

*Author's note: An earlier version of this post conflated two different days into one. This mistake proves both my claim to not remember any actual dates correctly and the indispensable relationship I have with my wife. Without her, I literally would not know what day it is. 

Katie and I had finished running the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville. We weren’t even supposed to be running in it, but the St. Jude Half in Memphis was cancelled due to winter happening. One of the options we had was to transfer our registration to Nashville, and we thought, “Why not?” It turned out to be somewhat fortuitous because, a few weeks before the run, we found out we would be moving to Nashville. So, we could take advantage of our time in the city to check out places to live. This was a turning point in our lives. We had married three years earlier and had lived in the same house ever since. We were excited to be in a new place with new possibilities. This was four years ago to the day.

About a month after the half marathon we were back in Nashville. This time Katie had a job interview, and we were checking out more places to live as it was getting down to the wire. We were looking at a rental home. It was in an area we liked, but the landlords were really weird. Like too weird to be actual people; more like landlord caricatures. As we were leaving the house, someone pulled up in a car and asked if we had seen his Giant African Tortoise. He had made a sign with a photo on it that read “Lost Tortoise” with a phone number. The sign wasn’t great, but at least it was to the point. I started looking around for a camera crew and trying to remember 1) if “Punk’d” still existed and 2) if they ever messed with people who are the opposite of celebrities. We talked with him a few minutes about his escape reptile. All the time I’m wondering “How fast can those things go?! I mean, the search grid shouldn’t be that large.” The person who was taking us around to show us rentals mentioned something about a creek nearby. Surely the man would find his pet there. As we were parting she said, “I hope you find your turtle.” The guy said nothing. I told Katie later that I would have given all the money I had to the guy if he had shouted back, “It’s A Tortoise!” To this day I have no clue if that creek exists or not. It was a good day, and then my phone rang.

My stepdad was calling me which rarely happened. He said something about my mom being in the hospital. I was confused. He was more confused. I knew that we had to cut our tour of homes short. We drove back to Jackson (where we were living at the time) and went to see my mom in the hospital. I still had no idea what was really happening. It turned out mom had undergone a colonoscopy (which I had no knowledge of), and it revealed tumors in her colon. In the next few days she would officially be diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, Stage IV.

I have been on a spectrum of numbness since that day, and really I connect that day with the day of the half marathon because my excitement on that initial day was challenged by the news to come. The median survival for those who have the same diagnosis as my mom and received treatment is (we were told at the time) two and a half years. We have had four years with her, and they have brought great joy and immense sorrow. My mom and stepdad are now in assisted living although he doesn’t know they are, neither does he know (most days) that she has cancer. My brother and I, with the help of countless people, have taken over their affairs. Obviously all of this has brought numerous difficulties but also blessings. In going through their things I found my mom’s engagement photos before her marriage to my father. She was breathtakingly beautiful, and that’s not just a son saying a somewhat creepy thing about his mother - many others have said the same thing. I found the train set they (mostly my stepdad) got me when I was probably around ten years old. It wasn’t some cheap garbage set. It was a Lionel set with a metal engine. I probably haven’t seen it in twenty years, but I recovered the whole set, and I can’t wait to show it to my children. Notice I said “show;” they won’t be allowed to play with or even touch the train set. I don’t want to spoil them the way I was.

My mom is still young, and yet I know we likely don’t have much time left together. After a fairly long period of dormancy (apparently you can’t really use the term “remission” when someone has this form of cancer) her disease is now spreading pretty rapidly. She’s trying an oral chemotherapy drug. So far she’s experienced minimal side effects. It’s mostly making her much weaker which is among the hardest things to see given the fact that I know of few people as strong as she. I’ll be going by to visit her tomorrow. I don’t know whether I’ll bring up the four year anniversary or not. I might remind her of some of the other parts of the story and show her the Facebook background I haven’t changed in four years. It’s been more or less frozen since that day when my life drastically shifted into this new normal which is still so abnormal.

Four years seems like a long time, but it really isn’t. I compare it to how I reflect on high school and college. Those days are basically like flashes of light. But, certain days stand out to me, and my memory of those days hits me with a lot of detail. I remember almost everything about September 11, 2001. Also the night I found out one of my closest friends died and the days that followed can’t be erased. I remember good stuff too. Soccer games, my first job at Chick-Fil-A, concerts, picking up a turtle that then peed on me (or maybe released water in this weird way - perhaps water from a creek) - all moments that won’t go away. I’m not sure the specific moments I’ll remember from the last four years. I’m trying to record as many memories as I can in my brain. But that’s never really how it’s worked for me. There’s no accounting for my memory. I will forget quickly extremely important things. Dates almost never stick. It’s usually when bizarre things happen. Running 13.1 miles with around 40,000 other people and then looking at houses and then being confronted with the terror of a tortoise on the loose and then a phone call. I don’t even remember when the call actually happened. Hell, it was four years ago.