In The Wake of The Deluge

Sometimes I wonder if the people who come up with names for neighborhoods, apartment complexes, streets, and parks should be required to take a course in literary aesthetics. I think zoning boards should prohibit names which sound stupid.

For example, my neighborhood is called Raintree Forest, which sounds to me like a feminine hygiene product. To my knowledge, there's no such thing as a "raintree". I'm sure of it because the spell-check on my computer keeps highlighting the word in red.

Here in Tennessee, and perhaps in America in general, there is a fixation for naming suburban developments after English towns and villages. Having traveled the UK many times, I know something about the real places that suburban planners steal names from, and often they are not as quaint in reality as one might think. Have you ever been to Sheffield, England? If you had, you wouldn't name your neighborhood after it.

When E and I separated, I moved into an apartment complex called "The Enclave". Given the isolation one feels in the throes of a marriage dissolving, the complex was aptly named. Yet, the solitude I experienced emptied me in a way which allowed my soul to be make room for the love that would come by way of friends, strangers, my children, and Spirit.

My two-bedroom place was pathetically empty- a bed in my room, and two beds in the other for my daughters. They were alarmed by the bare bones, but I liked it. The one luxury we had was a television sitting on a small wooden box.

I put an easel in the dining area, and started painting again. I had stopped painting during the first months of my 25 year marriage, and now felt myself being pulled back into what had been a contemplative exercise.

When the girls would visit, we'd eat on the floor in the living room, where I would lay towels in case there was an accident involving food. I tried to make light of the situation by comparing it to the family camping trips we'd enjoyed in years past, but it didn't lessen my daughters' concerns that my fortunes had truly gone south.

Most nights, after going to sleep, I would wake up drenched in sweat, starting at 1 AM, and continuing til about 5 or 6 until I finally couldn't take anymore. I would rise, and go for a walk, but the neighborhood surrounding The Enclave wasn't much of a walker's paradise, so eventually, I started using the treadmill in the gym of the Enclave's clubhouse.

My isolation and restless nights drove me to exercising, and before I knew it, I had dropped 40 or 50 pounds, power-walking 2 miles early every morning. Since I was already up, I now had a good 90 minutes before I needed to pick the girls up at E's for school. I discovered that my church, Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal, had a morning prayer service at 7, so following my power walk and shower, I'd head for the pews.

There were usually only 3 or 4 of us in those early morning hours, huddled in the first two pews, the sanctuary dimly lit, cold, and quiet. Led by Randy and Cathy, we would quietly work our way through prayers, creeds, and scripture readings. I remember most of these mornings as rainy Spring days which served as a metaphor for my journey, rainy with a slight chance of resurrection.

Randy, who would eventually become a full-fledged priest, had been someone I'd run from in the past. He had seemed a little too flaky to me, and was "Charismatic" like a lot of the crazies of my past who had attached themselves to me like barnacles to a boat's hull. This boat would come about, or turn around, when it saw Randy coming.

Once he told me, "The Lord's been talking to me about you. Don't worry, most of it's good."

I started building a wall right there and then, and told him I had no interest in what the Lord was telling him. And I truly didn't.

The first time I attended morning prayers, the irony of redemption greeted me in the form of Randy's hug. I was informed by our past, yet I felt strangely safe, and sensed that one or both of us had changed.

I became a morning prayer regular for that short yet excruciatingly painful period of my life. Randy and Cathy would embrace me upon arrival, and upon intoning the words "Peace be with you" at the service's end.

One day, I asked him if he remembered what God had said to him back when I had started building my wall. He said, "Oh, that? That was just crazy talk!"

Those days of early morning power walks and prayers got me through the early pain of divorce. Sometimes, departing from the church in my old Mercedes, I would experience a deluge of tears. My therapist told me my heart was thawing out, and making room for love, but I just wanted to dam up the flood of tears and get on with living.

Other times, I'd have a remembrance of a painful event that I had shoved to some dark corner of my memory. I would be taken by surprise, ambushed by a rusty, jagged remark. Often, I would be haunted by the unknown price my kids would pay for my decision to leave their mother. Of course, that is still a viable concern.

Of those tear stained days, what I remember most is the centering experience of being in a house of God Almighty in the early hours, intoning ancient prayers in the hope that I wouldn't completely lose my way.

A few months passed, and the gavel came down, and the divorce was final.

I continued my exercising, but eventually, morning prayers fell by the wayside.

Six years passed. Water under the bridge. Water over the bridge.

In the wake of the Nashville flood, I had a personal awakening. I had no personal losses as did so many other Nashvillians, but those deep waters brought with them a mystical effect on my life. Seeing the mini-islands that the flood created, I faced a reality check. How like an island was I willing to become? How willing was I to isolate from my daughters, my friends, and my dearest companion?

There were patterns of behavior that might isolate me if I continued on. No, there was nothing scandalous, nothing extraordinary, but like so many Americans, I was easily lured into feelings of self-entitlement.

Looking around at the massive damage the flood brought to Tennessee, and seeing peoples' homes and lives put in disarray, I found myself with a crowbar and a hammer at the homes of a few friends whose places had been decimated. I was reminded of how good I had it, and of how blessed I was in friends, family, love and work.

Witnessing the generous spirit unique to Middle Tennessee, and exhilarated by the experience of volunteering, even in the most basic of ways, I was reminded that this is how we're supposed to live all the time, not just while in dire straits.

The flood had swept across my eyes, and cleared my vision, and revealed the island I might be unto myself, if I didn't find my center.

So, on a Tuesday morning, 6 years to the day of my divorce, I walked into a small neighborhood church at 7 am, and bent my knee before God Almighty, hoping I'd find myself surrounded and grounded by Spirit in the wake of the deluge.
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Deluge

The flood came slyly, soothing my ears with its rainy, new age soundtrack tempting me to crawl back into bed on a Saturday morning, and curl up with a good novel for the third time through.

It had been a sad enough week, and like Stevie Ray Vaughn once sang, the sky was crying, perhaps for the two suicides that had rocked our town within days of each other.

One was a schoolmate of my daughter Maddy’s, who had driven to the highest bridge in these parts, the Natchez Trace Bridge, which sits high above Highway 96 near Franklin, Tennessee. I guess the fear of living fueled whatever bravery was required for her to make the 155 foot leap to her end.

A few days later, a guitarist friend was having a conversation with his parents at his Franklin home. He casually went down into his basement, and hung himself. Bill, as I remember him, had always been troubled. A few days after his death, a mutual friend and I noted that we’d both been shocked but not surprised.

The Kyrie was at the forefront of my mind, even before the deluge crept down the Cumberland. Lord, have mercy.

While I made a pot of coffee, the rain started seeping through the same old spot near my chimney.

It was the weekend, and I had work to do. Dennis Holt had come over to play drums on some music I’d recorded. As a rule, I like to record drums first and let the other instruments fall in line with their rhythm, but I had something I’d recorded “live” in my basement with John Paul White, a most passionate singer, who can croon, soar, twang or roar. We had recorded what we call a “Guitar Vocal” version of the song, and I couldn’t leave well-enough alone. I decided it needed some architectural supports, so I brought in Dennis.

If Dennis were a doctor, he’d manage to find the pulse of a corpse, so keen is his ear. I’ll often bring him in and have him play on a haphazard recording, needing the cohesion, camouflage, and excitement his drumming can bring.

I like living in this community of musicians, who can drop everything and show up 30 minutes after an idea has been spawned. In no time, Dennis delivered the elements that had seemed lacking in the original recording.

When he left, it was raining pretty hard. A few minutes passed, and I continued working on the music. Dennis called and began talking about high water on Crockett Road and asking about alternate routes back to town. I sent him up to Concord Road and then shut my computer down, showered, and headed to town. I was thinking my Southern Born Woman and I would enjoy the cozy sound of rain on the windows while reading a book we’d started.

Also, we had some tasks that needed doing in preparation for her upcoming mixed media event called “Jezebel’s Got The Blues and Other Works of Imagination”, so I sure didn’t want to be stuck in the sticks. I was ready for an afternoon of working together, and enjoying her company.

As I drove, I checked in with my daughter Kate, to see where she was hiding out at. She was working her checkout job at Target, and couldn’t talk, so I left a message asking to be informed of her whereabouts once work let out.

About a mile from the Interstate, Concord Road was under water, and people were turning around. I took a right on Wilson Pike, a little two-lane road which crosses several streams on its way north. I’m a determined guy, and until a door slams in my face, I’ll assume its open. That character trait usually serves me well; not always, but usually.

Sure enough, I wasn’t a mile up Wilson Pike, when the low riding Lincoln in front of me slowed down and surveyed the submerged road. It didn’t look so bad to me, and I was feeling impatient. The Lincoln lurched forward and made it across the brook with me in tow.

I thought, this is nothing.    That kind of thinking relates to yet another character trait, and perhaps that has served me well, too.    Not always, but usually.

The drive was oddly beautiful, surrounded by lush lawns and trees, but muddy waters continued to rise.  Near the end of Wilson Pike, I came to a wide river burying all trace of the roadway.   I waited as a southbound sedan tested the waters and passed me, water rolling from its wheel wells.  Giving my car some gas, I faced the flood and plowed through, exactly where the southbound car had come from, while oncoming traffic waited to see what would become of me.  I could feel the water splashing against the fenders, and pushing against my tires, but I made my way through, pumping my brakes once across.

Moments later, I was in Brentwood proper, out of the woods. I drove the remaining eight miles to my dearest companion’s without incident.

She greeted me with a smile and a hug, and we chatted about her paintings and her theatre pieces which she was preparing for performance.  I was to provide the background music with my old National guitar and a slide, moaning the blues as actors gave voice to her musings about some troubled Old Testament characters, Jonah, Jezebel, Lot’s wife, and others.

She asked for details about Bill, and I gave her what sketchy information I’d been given. We wondered about his ex-wife and their sons, and talked about the impossible sadness of a funeral service when someone passes on in this manner.   We talked about the button suicide pushes with my daughters and me, about how their maternal grandmother’s choice to die raises its grotesque head when others give the gift that keeps on giving.

We worked for a while on her project, experimenting with canvas, paper, acrylic paint and other media, then drove a few blocks away to a showing of paintings of trees by her friend Mindy.  Little did we know that trees were falling fast at Radnor Lake, one of our favorite walking places. Nor did we know that the same was happening at other parks in our fair city.

We had no idea that there were neighborhoods being submerged by the overflowing Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers, or that a grass-roots rescue effort would soon be underway.   At Symphony Hall, the massive pipe organ was taking a beating, while the concert Steinway grand piano was being twisted, warped, and strangled. 

Over at Soundcheck, where I used to keep my Hammond Organ, and where many of Nashville’s musicians rehearse and store their gear, the Cumberland was rising.  Eventually the uncontained river would destroy over 1,000 instruments, including priceless vintage guitars owned by Vince Gill, Keith Urban, and other fine musicians.

The Grand Ole Opry was underwater, but the Ryman Auditorium, the Mother Church of Country Music, was on high ground, for the moment at least.

Meanwhile, we huddled under a wide umbrella and walked up Belmont Boulevard to PM Restaurant. We ordered our food and watched the TV overhead, with its sobering news, she eating sushi, and me eating a wasabi cheeseburger.  If PM Restaurant isn’t washed away one day soon, try their cheeseburger; it's the best in Nashville.

Kate called in tears, wondering where to go from Target.   I suggested she drive to our friend Derri's, who lives nearby.  He was ready for her, as is the way of Nashville in crisis.  It wasn’t the first time our family had been scattered across town in bad weather.  Instead, she hightailed it to my place, which was a blessing in disguise.  My basement was slightly wet, and she dutifully unplugged electrical gear, and moved instruments to the living room.

Maddy was stuck at Kate’s apartment, getting to be the little sister of Kate’s room mates, thoroughly enjoying her independence, yet wondering when she’d get to go home.

Over the next 24 hours, we heard rumors and news of homes being damaged, and even a few lives being lost.   My Southern Born Woman discovered 3 feet of southern bound water in her basement, destroying her furnace and her water heater, but in light of what was going on elsewhere, she was grateful.

Eventually, I was able to reach Maddy and drive her back to my place. We passed the YMCA, where cars were completely covered by water. My neighborhood was untouched, perched as it is on high ground.

The next few days, the rest of the world didn’t seem to be engaged with what has now been called The Thousand Year Flood. The only reason my family, scattered from Seattle to Connecticut to Ireland, knew anything was because I’d sent them pictures.

In the meantime, the Volunteer State lived up to its name. People with boats appeared on streets and rescued old timers and newlyweds.  Entire neighborhoods came together with a community spirit that is uniquely American, and gathered up the debris in the flood’s wake, stacking sidewalks high with sofas, televisions, and miles of carpet.

People lost all possessions, only to find out that they had no flood insurance. I know of no reports of looting or gouging.   I only know of a friend with a boat cruising up and down Sawyer Brown Road, searching for loved ones of strangers, ferrying helpless folks across a river that didn’t exist the day before.  I only know of songwriters and bands performing benefits, and tacos being delivered to volunteers who worked waist deep in rank basements, dismantling what the deluge had left behind, before any rebuilding would be possible.

They held Bill’s funeral in Alabama, where he’d grown up. It was packed with Nashvillians, but all the Volunteers in Tennessee couldn’t pick up the pieces of the deluge he’d left his children swimming in. What can you say at the funeral of someone who takes his or her life? I wanted to say, “Bill, are you happy now?”

I imagine he is.

There are some changes that come with no explanation or warning from Mother Nature.  The “Act of God” clause in insurance policies has always miffed me; why blame God?  Who’s to say who sends the sunshine or the rain?  When we need the rain, we thank God when it arrives, as we do when the sun relieves the dreary weather.  But what of the Thousand Year Flood?   I think all God has to do with it is in the hands of those who pull people to safety, who make sandwiches for workers, who clean out the debris, and who brush fingers across each other’s brow, and whisper, It’s gonna be alright.
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The Relatives

It’s true.  I have a cousin who is a white supremacist. 

I loved him when we were kids.  He was probably 4 or 5 years younger, the 4th born of my  Uncle Owen’s 5 children.  He was a cheerful oddball, the product of a strange upbringing by missionary parents.  Looking back, his sly grin may have revealed a mean streak, but it didn’t seem that way at the time.  He seemed quite the innocent to me.

My first memory of Jeff is from my Grandma Madeira’s living room, with the great African American singer Marian Anderson crying from the Victrola, “I Told Jesus It Would Be Alright If I Changed My Name”.  He’s sitting on the sofa with his sister Jane, and he’s smiling happily.

Those days at Grandma's were the days of two brothers reuniting, with 8 kids in tow.  The bond between Dad and Owen was strong, and typical of brothers, competitive and fun.  Dad was older, stronger, wiser, and humbler than Owen, who was nonetheless cheerful, fun, and daring.

Owen gave me my first airplane ride.  One day, Dad and Owen put all the boys (of course, just the boys) into a station wagon, and drove out to a cornfield in the Lancaster County farmlands, where a Piper Cub sat idling.

The fuselage was made of canvas, and there was room for 2 passengers.  Owen crammed into the back seat, while my cousin Ray Don and I squeezed into the front seat.  We sat idling and Owen said, "Boys, let's have a word of prayer before we take off", to which I cracked, "I'm already prayin'."

One icy winter, another stunt was played out on the slick roads of Grandma's neighborhood.  Dad or Owen would drive, while the other would lay prostrate on a sled with a few cousins sitting on top of him, hanging onto the rear bumper with one hand, skidding through the streets at midnight.  Our mothers never knew.

That was the fun side.

The mean side surfaced in odd stories like this one:  In the early 50s, when Owen was in the Army, each soldier was rationed a bottle of beer with his dinner.  A non-drinker, Owen's soldier buddies would ask for his beer.  Owen, thinking he was doing the men and God Almighty a favor, would smile as he poured the bottle into the trash.

This story was told repeatedly with immense pride.

Owen was a well meaning man who dragged his uptight religious wife Rita to Colombia and Ecuador in the Fifties to make converts for Christ.  Along the way, they had five kids, all raised on the mission field.   While I wouldn’t venture to bring my children up in a hostile environment nor prop them up as “different” than the natives, it could have been worse.

Take, for example, my Aunt Agnes’ kids, the other missionary cousins.

Agnes’ kids were left at a home for missionary children, for four years at a time, while their parents tried to make children of God out of pagans in Thailand.  This has always amazed me, the concept of leaving one’s children in a stranger’s care, while trying to show the rest of the world the love of God.  I’ve always thought the best way to show the Love of God is by loving your children, not abandoning them, but these were people for whom making heathens into children of God meant making their own children into orphans.

My parents took a great interest in Agnes’ kids, bringing them to Rhode Island for weeks at a time every summer.  It’s mind boggling, but Agnes’ kids saw my parents more often than their own, who were usually in Thailand.  We would take them to our family’s holy place, Goosewing Beach, where they were given the gift of belonging to a family, with a mom and dad who were conversant with them.  No wonder one of them named his daughter Anna-Lisa after my mother.

We saw Owen’s family once every few years, and it was a major event.  Once, I recall seeing them off in New York City where they were  boarding a merchant vessel for Ecuador.  Their life seemed exciting and exotic, and they were family celebrities for living their life in this sacrificial fashion.

While in Columbia, Owen was hanged upside down and beaten, all for being a Protestant.  To this day, he remembers what “the Catholics” did to him. 

Other unfortunate events occurred to this family as they sacrificed for the Gospel.  As an infant, Richard, their fifth and last child, needed an emergency tracheotomy.  The Colombian doctor cut Richard’s vocal cords, leaving him bereft of any natural voice for the rest of his life.  

What if my parents had followed God Almighty to some less civilized place?  What if their bluesman child had had his vocal cords cut by a surgeon’s poorly wielded scalpel?  Tell me what song I’d be singing now.

Richard’s untimely brush with a South American hack ended Owen’s days in foreign missions, so the family returned Stateside, where better doctors were available.  Owen’s new mission field was the Philadelphia ghetto of Camden, New Jersey, where his 5 children were routinely picked on as outsiders.

Owen was a lover of the downtrodden, and lived his life to share with the outcast, the minority, and the poor.  The price of this mission might have been turning his own children into outcasts and minorities.

I’ve wondered if it was during this season of sacrificing for Christ that the soil of Jeff’s soul was made fertile for racism and hatred.

After high school, Jeff graduated from the Nashville Diesel Mechanics College, and moved to South Carolina, where he enrolled in an obscure Bible school.  In a setting which made Bob Jones University look downright upright, Jeff was given a spurious scriptural basis for his hatred for all things black, all things nonwhite.

When his oldest brother Frank married a Jamaican woman in the 70s, Jeff acted out his racist leanings.  He stopped speaking with Frank, apart from cruel remarks meant to incite an argument, spoken with a wide, superior, gotcha grin. 

News of the family rift was sad, but we lost touch with Jeff for decades, until Barrack Obama came onto the national scene.  It turns out, Jeff’s “ideals” hadn’t softened with age, but had become increasingly hateful.

When Obama was running for the office of president, Jeff wrote me a taunting diatribe saying, “The book of Isaiah says that one day I will be able to look down into the Pit and see Obama, Martin Luther King, and Jesse Jackson!”.

Does this, kind reader, send a chill up your spine?  It does mine.

I guess I’m not reading the same Bible as Jeff. 

Today, Jeff’s certainty in his position is frightening, and there are times when I wonder if he will make the Madeira name famous, by going out and becoming another Timothy McVeigh or James Earl Ray.  He seems that far-gone to me.

His father, my Uncle Owen, has a good heart, but is no less stricken with the the same disease of unyielding absolutism. 

When the oldest Madeira cousin passed away a few years ago, Uncle Owen sent me the funeral program.  In the center page, a man had written of my cousin, “Steve was my best friend.  I believe that we lived many lifetimes together, and that we fought many battles side by side.” 

I’ve never been one for the idea of reincarnation.  No one ever says, “In another lifetime, I was a restroom attendant”.  No one ever believes they were a loser in another lifetime, never mind a toad. 

But I understood what Steve’s friend had written.  It wasn’t good theology.  It wasn’t even good fiction.  It was just a guy trying to say that he simply loved his best friend, and romanticizing rather than reckoning with that great loss.

Owen attached a note to the program:  “Steve wasn’t Christian.  Steve was New Age.  It must have been an awful shock when Steve woke up in Hell”.

I was stunned.  And outraged.  Steve, right along with Martin, Jesse, and Barrack, had been assigned to the Pit.

I wrote Owen a letter.

“Why is it”, I asked, “that you Fundamentalists see Heaven as a sparsely populated expanse, where only your kind will find an eternal home?”

My friend Mark says this of Hell:  I have to believe in Hell!  Why?  Hitler and Mama!

I have no need of Hell in my belief structure.  The appeal of Christ is His love, not the fear of Hell.  For some reason, most evangelists see it differently than I.

Owen backpedaled and denied that he had consigned Steve to Hell.  He also recoiled at being called Fundamentalist, and that remarked that he was an Evangelical.

By the way, I am neither.

A few years later, he emailed the known world a letter about Jane Fonda, calling her a traitor and bringing up the ancient wounds of Viet Nam.  The heading of the email read “Never Forgive”.

There is a kind of certainty that scares me, a certainty that it isn’t about faith, but about being right.  It is connected to the fear of being wrong.

This is what empty religion, theistic or atheistic, accomplishes or aids and abets: fear, wars, racism, murder, genocide, hatred, and unforgiveness. 

It boggles my mind that my cousin might as well be in the Klan.  I wish we weren’t related, wish we didn’t share our last name.  And I can rail all day long about Uncle Owen and the phrase “Never Forgive”, and I’ll remind myself that he and his brother David, my dad, were miles apart when it came to living what, to me, looks like the Christian life.

But the real struggle is my own Christian life.  Can I give some breathing room to fundamentalists, racists, and “mama”, or will I silently think “Never Forgive”?  I don’t want to be related to Jeff or Owen, but damn, we are related. 

What’s more, I am related to every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve, from Al Sharpton, to Madalyn Murray O’Hair, to Jerry Falwell, to Hitler, and to Mark’s Mama.

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Passion Fruits

For nearly every October of the new millennium, I have traveled to San Francisco to participate in a free music festival called “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass”, given to the city by financier Warren Hellman

 In 2009, I had two Hardly Strictly appearances to make, one with Buddy Miller and Robert Plant, and the other with Emmylou Harris.  Having plenty of time to enjoy this beautiful city,  my Southern Born woman joined me for a relaxing weekend there.

Most of the October days I’ve spent in San Francisco have been fairly chilly, but this particular weekend was perfectly sunny and mild.   We exulted in the opportunity to walk as much as possible. 

It had been suggested to my dearest companion that we visit the San Francisco Art Exchange,  a gallery showing  photographs of famous musicians  from Sinatra to the Stones.   Under normal circumstances, neither of us would have cared about seeing pictures of aging rockers in the glory days, but we decided to honor her friend’s recommendation by popping in to take a look.  The curator of the collection asked if we were in town for the Festival, and upon finding out that I worked with Emmylou, he took us under his wing, and gave us the cook’s tour. 

Name dropping has its perks.

In an off limits room, we were given a glimpse of rare portraits of Elton John, Mick Jagger, and The Beatles.   The curator explained that these prints were printed from the original negatives in limited runs, and the price tags were commensurate with their rarity.

The most captivating photograph was of Frank Sinatra tying his tie backstage, with a look of fatigue and weariness.   He didn’t seem to be enthusiastic about having done it ‘his way’.   It wasn’t a flattering picture, however, it was magnetic and telling, giving credence to the idea that when someone takes one’s picture, they are stealing their essence.  Frank’s vacant blue eyes looked like his soul had been captured one too many times.

We crossed the street and entered the Weinstein Gallery, quite by chance, where a showing  of Richard Kipniss prints was premiering.  Fantastic prints, painstakingly constructed, revealed not only the stark imagery of  autumn, but also the  dedication of an artist to finding perfection, beauty, and balance.

The curator of this gallery was a twenty-something young man, who knew his stuff.  His enthusiasm was unbridled, and while we knew he hoped to find customers in us, it was apparent that he truly wanted us to be enlightened about Richard Kipniss’ work.

Embracing us as eager students, our young teacher was more than delighted to dispense knowledge, explaining the painstaking printmaking process, which involved carving a negative image onto several sets of stones.

We left with our heads full of crisp, floating autumn leaves, tree limbs emerging from blackness, taking root in the creative soil of two people who like to paint.

From the galleries on Geary Street, we walked over to Chinatown to the Red Blossom Tea Company, another recommendation.   Our host was another twenty-something man named Peter, whose family owned the business.

He stood with us at a wall of shelves on which hundreds of urns sat, full of fresh tea.

When my companion disclosed her taste for chai tea, Peter was diplomatically dismissive.  We were informed that teas such as chai were low on the food chain of tea, and he compared them to  cheap wine.

In moments like these, the “Southern” in my Southern Born Woman blooms like a fragrant rose, undeniable and undismissable. 

“Well”, she said wryly, “Can you show me a tea that you can respect?”

Caught in airs, Peter broke into a smile.

She had him, as she often has had me. 

He apologized and offered us a seat at a small table, where he methodically prepared tea.  The ritual was calming and beautiful.  As he brewed several different pots for us, he spoke of the origins of tea, taking great pleasure in dispensing knowledge on eager students.

Later in the evening, over a wonderful paella and a good bottle of red Zinfandel at the Hayes Street Grill, we noted the thread of passion that was woven from the photo gallery, to the print gallery,  to the  tea room.   How wonderful to have encountered  people whose vocations had relevance and connection to  things that they were passionate about.

“I’m not interested in what you’re against”, she often says, “Tell me what you’re for.” 

Amen.

The next day, we decided to seek out a place of worship.  We found Trinity Episcopal Church nearby, and walked over.  It was a grand place, but a sign on the door pointed usaway from the sanctuary, and toward a small chapel. 
Apprehensive about the follow-through, we poked our heads in for a look, and were immediately ushered up to the second row.  We were probably 25 minutes late, arriving as congregates were exchanging The Peace. 

Too late to turn back now.

The parishioners seemed to be from two people groups:  Gay or octogenarian, with a few homeless people, and one exceedingly handsome young man and woman thrown in for good measure.  Token hetros, I assumed, provincially.

Many were there with dogs and cats, and we realized that we had probably just missed The Blessing of the Animals. 

On our left flank, not three feet away, sat a small choir, who rose for the offertory. 

I’ll give them an A for effort.

The basses and tenors were everything one would expect from a choir in San Francisco.  But the altos and sopranos, all very old women, warbled with vibratos that felt like the tremorous prelude to an earthquake. 

It was like being at a mother-son banquet for a gay men’s chorus.  Lap dogs welcome.

As we moved into the communion part of the service, the odd little band of priests and acolytes began vigorously making preparations.  The priest in charge was English, which made things feel properly Anglican.  And God knows, I’m all ears when it comes to an English accent. 

But at some point, I tuned out, gazing  about at the interesting group of worshippers.  I was transfixed by an older homeless man, who seemed blind, or perhaps blind drunk.  I was caught up in wondering about his story, probably making assumptions that had no basis in reality.

It was in this moment of daydreaming that I didn’t see the other priest, a 60-ish woman, fall over.  There was so little commotion, as if this was part of the service, perhaps a very radical form of genuflection, that I didn’t even notice it.  My Southern Born Supplicant, however, did notice, and wisely waited to tell me after the service. 

It was a small act of kindness, God Almighty blinding me in that moment of unholy disruption, so that I wouldn’t lock eyes with my woman and fall together into a spasm of laughter.

The service ended, and we left all smiles.  It was one of the oddest church experiences we’d ever had, not life changing, not particularly inspiring, but in its own way, it was lovely in its life affirming kookiness.

I wonder how that English priest feels about his crazy little flock.  Maybe he feels the same way Jesus feels about His crazy little flock. 

Some Sunday mornings, I find myself  sitting in a side pew at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville.  It’s a vast room compared to Trinity Church’s chapel out in San Francisco.  I look around me and take note of the society types, the young couples, the widows, and even a few homeless, as is the case with most downtown churches.  I notice, with a particular amount of warmth, quite a few gay couples sitting together, reciting the Creed, kneeling for prayers, and finally bringing the chalice to their mouths to receive the Gift of God Almighty’s passion.

I am weary of a phrase many Evangelicals have beat into the ground:  Love the sinner, hate the sin.

We can talk 'til the cows come home about every person being welcome in church, but this is an untruth of Evangelicalism.  If you are gay, my friends, you are not welcome in their churches.  So insistent are they on hating your sin, that they don’t have the time nor the inclination to hate their own sins of pride, hate, gluttony, lying, misogyny, lust, and a list of isms to long to write down here.

I think I’d rather find myself in the company of displaced persons and lap dogs.

The next time my Southern Born Woman and I visit San Francisco,  we’ll seek out that little church again.  And maybe once again the Body of Christ will bring us a good laugh.

Made Up Names

I'm writing from my hotel room in St Paul, Minnesota, the second time in as many weeks that I've been in this very non-Southern town.   St Paul is a picturesque city with a town square that's as beautiful as any other in the Midwest.  The St Paul Hotel, where I'm staying, overlooks the square, and is a stone's throw from Assumption Catholic Church; which I had assumed was St Paul's Cathedral.  The building has the stoic, stubborn look that I imagine the apostle himself had, unimaginative and hard, determined to outlast the harsh winters and winds of apostasy that howl at its thick and unwelcoming doors. 

So much for assumptions.

I came to town to play on National Public Radio's  "A Prairie Home Companion" with my boss, Emmylou Harris.  When she introduced me to Garrison Keillor, the show's host, he looked at me with that most owl-like visage and replied in a glorious baritone voice, "Phil Madeira... sounds like a made-up name."

I thought of saying, "Look who's talking- Garrison Keillor", but let it slide.

Years ago, I thought about changing my name.  I've always preferred my given name, Philip, but most people are too lazy to pronounce both syllables, so I gave in long ago to being Phil.  To complicate matters, Madeira is often misspelled by anyone who knows the "i before e" rule.  Consequently, I did go through a phase of trying to find a 'made up name', but nothing suitable was coined, and here I am, Phil Madeira.

The other thing Mr Keillor said was "You must be from the Midwest", to which I heartily answered, "No".  I am not sure what about me gave him that impression.  Perhaps it was the large Hohner accordion hanging from my neck, giving credence to a surmised background in polka music.   I think of the Midwest as pedestrian and white bread, and the accordion often bolsters that image, albeit wrongfully so.  But I will leave the accordion to defend itself.

I went to college in the Midwest, specifically to Taylor University, in Upland, Indiana.  With the exception of Iowa, I'm not sure that there's any more Midwestern place than Upland.   It's nondescript, in the middle of bloody nowhere.  There is literally nothing to do there, which is exactly why a group of stodgy Methodists built a college there in the 1800s.

In the Fall of 1970, my parents drove me from coastal New England, across a winding ribbon of highway that carved through Pennsylvania's hills, gradually settling in Ohio, on a level stretch of land that glibly announces "Welcome to the Midwest".   By the time we neared Taylor University, where I was to begin my college career, we were surrounded by fields of tall corn, ripe for the harvest.  In Indiana, we literally turned a corner, and there was my college of choice, rising from an endless sea of maize, a horrible sight for a boy raised on the craggy coast of Rhode Island, where history's ghosts had waged wars, where neighborhoods teemed with Portuguese and Italian immigrants, grilling chorico sausages with onions, sauteing clams and garlic, and where blue bloods dined on crops of lobster and bluefish harvested from Narragansett Bay.

Indiana had, well... nothing. 

As we took a right turn and saw Taylor's shallow buildings rising abruptly from the corn, we said nothing.  I think we were all hoping that it was some other college, and that we had taken a wrong turn, but alas, that was not the case. 

Had I been a more conscientious student, all would have been different.   I would have been accepted, like my siblings before me, into that grand institution of Christian higher education, Wheaton College in Illinois.  My parents had gone to Wheaton, along with their classmate and friend Billy Graham.  My siblings had gone there.  My siblings' spouses had gone there.  My siblings' spouses' parents had gone there.  There was a time when I believed that all Christians went to Wheaton College,  "For Christ and His Kingdom".

It must be a wonderful thing to have such a great college experience that you want your children to attend your alma mater.  My parents, particularly my mother, loved their Wheaton experience, and certainly thought it would be the best scenario for the education of each of their children.

I was the only person in my immediate family who did not attend Wheaton.  I had little choice, after being rejected by George Cramer, the school's registrar, and a former parishioner of my father's church.  You have to be pretty damned undesirable to get rejected by a college whose alumni roster includes your parents and your siblings.  I always knew George had it in for me.

When I was a senior in high school, I really didn't have a plan for college.  I fatalistically assumed that  I would wind up at The University of Rhode Island, although I had no idea what I would study.  I applied to Taylor, because a family friend, Jack Diamond (not a made up name) went there and did well enough to transfer to Wheaton.  Mind you, Wheaton was where I was expected to go.

One day, an admissions counselor from Taylor called and asked if she could visit with my parents and me, as she was traveling through New England.  During the meeting, my mother suggested I read some of my poetry to her.  I had written a series of poems about apathy called "Who Cares About Apathy?", which at the time seemed like a catchy and poignant idea. These poems were actually quite dreadful, but my senior English teacher, a bovine-nosed woman named Mrs Karr, had given my work an A+, so it seemed worth it to my mother to present it to the counselor.

On the basis of the creativity my paper revealed, I was invited to join the class of 1974 at Taylor University in the fall of 1970.  My student number was 70666.  I liked that.

Turning that corn field's corner and seeing my new home was a real let down.  The architecture sagged with mediocrity, and the buildings were separated by great distances on an uninteresting and very Protestant tract of land.   I would discover these distances, during miserable winters, to be impossible to traverse without getting windburned and frostbitten.

My parents both wore hopeful smiles, believing in something unseen, and blocking from their minds the fact that had I achieved something more, we would be unloading my luggage in lovely Wheaton, Illinois, where much of my spiritual heritage had been forged, and where my parents had met in the mid 1940s.  You know the type of smile I'm talking about; it's actually an exaggerated version of a smile, like a grimace, I suppose, which should be called a "grinace".  These smiles appear when one encounters grave disappointments, achingly sad truths, and news of misfortune. 

In my parents' minds, and perhaps even in mine, I would have my freshman year in a sort of Purgatory, where the better angels of my nature would ferry me across the mundane waters of required liberal arts basics, and land me where I was supposed to be, Wheaton.

Parent orientation centered around a church service, which was as interesting and as moving as the sea of corn in Taylor's back yard.  After the bow-tie clad chaplain said the benediction, we walked to the cafeteria, which was housed under a large, white, dome-shaped building, nicknamed, I would soon discover, the TU Tit.  Indeed, it had the appearance of a reclining woman's pleasantly relaxed breast.  One time, some pranksters climbed the giant mammary, placed a 55 gallon drum on top of it, and painted the drum pink along with a large circle around it, giving it a very erect nipple, and thus, a much more realistic appearance.  The newly improved TU Tit didn't last long.

While standing in line for my first glorious meal, my mother took pity on a tall, gangly, bird-like boy, and began talking with him.  Her compassionate mind was thinking "Paw thing", and she took it upon herself to brighten his day by showing interest in him.  The complication of her charity was that my father and I were conscripted into the conversation. 

"Wheruh you from?", Mom asked.   In a moment which makes me wonder if God isn't mean-spirited after all, Steve replied "Wheaton, Illinois".  "Oh, Dave and I and our two uthuh children all went to Wheaton", Mom announced. 

The next thing I knew, Steve, the bird-boy, was inviting himself to join us for lunch.

Great, I thought.  My last meal with my parents, and I have to share it with this weirdo from Wheaton.  After our meal, Steve said, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if you and I turned out to be roommates."  I sure didn't think so. 

"Yeah", I said.

A half hour later, Mom was the first to walk into my new room, and I heard her say "Oh NO!" and then recovering, "er, what a surprise".

Sure enough, the bird-boy was my room mate after all.  He had already chosen his bunk, his desk, and had hung his artwork all over the room.  His chosen medium was flesh.  Steve was an amateur taxidermist.  His work included a stuffed pigeon and a rabbit's head mounted on a piece of plywood.  I later would learn that he was a scavenger, and anything left on the roadside would wind up in our room, despite my protests.

(Steve would eventually transfer to Wheaton, where perhaps he studied taxidermy.   Years later, he surfaced in the Colorado Springs area, where he had built a home from scavenged materials.  No lie.)

My parents soon left, and I donned my freshman beanie and set about the work of embracing my new home.  I didn't realize it then, but I had just entered the epicenter of Evangelicalism- The Midwest.  If I thought for a moment that my home life had been flavored with the taste of Christendom, the spirituality I was about to experience was of a flavorless, over-cooked variety, like English pub food without the glorious architecture and beer.

At first, I fell hard, mesmerized by the thrill of being with a crowd who thinks like you think.  My first experience of the sensation of camaraderie was the childhood discovery a fellow Yankee fan in Red Sox country back in Rhode island.  Now here I was at TU, with 1400 people who all loved Jesus, and who wanted to change the world for Him.  It was an amazing thing, like being in a gigantic youth group.

Truth is, that rebel yell in my heart cannot be stifled for long, and eventually my colors will show.  My proclivity to be set apart, to be different, to be Phil Madeira, will always override my desire to belong.  My rebel yell sometimes manifests itself in the form of a grand profane moment, in which I am exposed as an odd sort of Christian, and subsequently rejected completely or tolerated generously and sweetly as someone who has yet to truly understand the change that Christ demands of his followers.

I'm a lousy joiner.  

Like the housekeeper who doesn't do windows, I don't do religion, although I can make a case for doing windows.  The case for religion is weak, and no one has made that clearer than Jesus Himself.

So, I sought out like-minded rebels, but they were hard to come by.  I didn't want to throw out the Baby Jesus, just His bath water. 

Although I felt a kinship with the rebellious crowd, I was apprehensive about becoming too emeshed, because most in that scene were frequent drug users.  Refugees from religion, there was a bitterness among this group, most of whom had been steeped in Midwestern Evangelicalism to the point of spoiling.

I wasn't interested in smoking pot, although I had many evenings breaking the Taylor Pledge by splitting a $1.50 bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine, or drinking Drury's, a dreary beer served at Newt's Glass Bar, so chicly named because the bar was constructed of glass bricks.  Yep, that's how they do things in the Midwest.

Eventually, I gave in to my curiosity about weed, and occasionally smoked in the confines of my off-campus room.  I remember going to a chapel service,  high as a kite, and trying to remain inconspicuous by wearing welder's glasses.

Someone told me I was having fun.

I hold no affection nor sentimentality for my short-lived pot smoking days.

That nothing-to-do-bubble in Indiana was less protective than one might imagine.  I've often thought had I gone to the University of Rhode Island, I might not have ever done anything rebellious, since partying was a way of life at big state schools.  What grain would I have gone against in such a hedonistic place? 

I gave my soul to a Taylor girl, a Christian Education major who gave me a considerably unchristian education.  Rather than celebrate my enlightenment, I mourned the loss of my ignorant innocence, as well as the loss of the girl, who didn't last long at Taylor.  She was an outsider, too, and that's what did me in.  Perhaps your average college boy would be high-fiving fraternity brothers after conquering such supple landscape, but I knew that it was me who'd been conquered, not her. 

A few months after my heart had been broken, I met guitarist Phil Keaggy who was playing a concert at nearby Marion College.   On the night we met, he told me that he thought someday we'd be in a band together.  Three years later, this assumption or prophecy or wild guess, call it what you will, came true when I made the trek to Upstate New York and joined his band and the cult which he was a member of.  But that is another story.

I had a philosophy teacher in my Junior year named Herb Nygren, and it was he who opened up the world to me, and made faith intriguing.  If there was a single thing that my college education gave me, it was the sense that spiritual exploration was not only interesting and entertaining, but necessary in order to stave off the crippling atrophy that seemed to make invalids of so many religious people, from Jesus' time to the present. 

As I pondered my own beliefs, questioning God seemed to be a Biblical expression of faith, and even worship.  Searching for God would have to include a scrutinizing of him in order for a mutual satisfaction to occur between Creator and creature.  The tale of Jacob wrestling with God in the wilderness and limping away, the victor, alluded to a picture of God Almighty wearing a "Question Authority" tee shirt, and saying "Bring it on" to honest doubters.

Evangelicals hammer away at the idea of a personal relationship with Christ, which I resonate with to this day.  Yet, they depersonalize the concept with rigid theologies, particularly Calvinism, which foists a determined, willful God on hapless Christians who have no choice in the matter of following Him or Her.  The notion of God choosing some for Heaven and some for Hell, does not sound like the gracious Shepherd I heard about in Sunday School, going to the ends of earth to find one lost sheep.

Calvinists, whom often call themselves "Reformed", love the box they have created for God; in preparing this concrete place for him, they sequester him in finiteness and smugly declare the subservience of his love, a muted affection smothered and dwarfed and beneath a gargantuan Will which God's own tears cannot erode.  Calvinism seems to be at home in the Midwest, as squared off as a road map of Indianapolis.

The red clay on my Southern soles doesn't blend with the dry dirt of the Midwest.  My blood doesn't want to freeze, and my will doesn't want to surrender.  Like Midwesterners, I'm holding my ground, but it's a different kind of soil.  This dirt tastes like it's been trod over by gospel-singing negros, woman warriors, and spirit-filled portrait painters, with names like Sister Rosetta, Flannery O'Connor, and Howard Finster.  The ground I'm holding is my faith, flexible and evolving, open and mystical, childlike and offensive.  I don't want to put a name to my beliefs, lest they feel contrived or made up.

May God Almighty recognize me apart from the labels I've acquired:

"gangstuh"  (my mother's pronunciation)
Sanguine
ENTJ
7 on the Enneagram
8 on the Enneagram
lost
unteachable
Baptist
Catholic
not a Christian
conservative
liberal
apostate

...and forgive me for the labels I've bequeathed.

Meanwhile, my Southern Born Woman smiles and knows my type, but is content to call me baby, which is not a made up name.

The Church of St Johnny

Timing is everything.  Two weeks before Christmas 2003, I told E I was leaving.  We hobbled through the holidays with our secret weighing us down, our children unaware that all was about to change forever. 

We waited until our fir tree was less than evergreen, shedding its sticky needles onto the living room rug, and on the worst day of our lives, we told them it was over.  I will leave the details of that terrible evening in the sanctuaries of my daughters' and their parents' collective memory.  Despite their acceptance of our divorce as "the best thing", the pain which it caused my daughters is something I will regret forever.

I moved out a day or two before New Year's Eve.  My friend Steve came over and helped me strap a bed onto the roof of my old Mercedes wagon.  We brought it, along with my trusty Lowden guitar and a small TV, to the apartment.  Steve helped me set up the bed, and then left. 

I sat on the bare mattress and wept.

I wept for my children.  I wept with the same uncertainty I knew they were feeling.  What was to become of us?  What lay ahead of us?  I wept, my soul knowing more than I was conscious of, knowing that I was about to unearth feelings that I had shoved into the furthest corners of my worn down heart.  I wept, hoping God Almighty would have mercy on me, and receive my tears as a bitter, salty, early Passover offering, while wondering if he might forget me.

That evening, I went to a party at the Capitol Grille, hosted by my friends John and Natasha.  Originally, I had planned on bringing E, but now all had changed, so I brought my old friend Dennis instead.  We sat among John's coworkers, dining on Kobe steaks and drinking copious amounts of Cabernet.  Exuberantly happy, I finally went back to my little apartment and wrapped myself in the swaddling purple sheets of my single man's queen-sized bed.

I'm don't often remember my dreams, although when accompanied by a few glasses of red wine, they seem more insistent on being recognized.  Shamans, prophets, seers, and soothsayers all place stock in the nocturnal playground of the subconscious.  With all the noise that accompanies consciousness, perhaps there's something to the idea of the Spirit finding a wider berth in the vessel of our dreams.

Dehydrated, I woke at Three AM.  My thirst had interrupted a dream which was fresh and vivid.  My mind had taken me on a row boat ride with the ghost of Johnny Cash sitting in the stern and dispensing homespun wisdom to me as I rowed across a choppy sea. 

Knowing there was something in the phrase "The ghost of Johnny Cash", I immediately rose, found my laptop, and began writing a lyric.  Four verses later, I sent the pieces to my friend Chuck, a fellow songwriter, and we began sending verses back and forth until we had a finished lyric a few months later.

"The Ghost of Johnny Cash"
Chuck Cannon & Phil Madeira

woke up in a cold sweat
from a dream at 3 a.m.
driftin on the sea of shadows
the rain was whippin in the wind
i saw a man dressed all in black
reach out and take the helm
and he charted us a course
into the spirit realm

i can taste the salt
and feel the blisters on my hands
as i'm pullin at the oars
rowin on to glory land
sittin in the stern
singing hymns and talkin trash
is my broken guardian angel
the ghost of Johnny Cash

johnny's quotin from the Bible
i'm tryin to steer this leaky craft
his familiar voice reminds me
i'm a man who's cut in half
his tarnished halo slips and shines
as ragin billows crash
i'm riding out the deluge
with the ghost of Johnny Cash

you gotta stand for something
cause when you're gone you're gone
the devil lost a lot of souls
when johnny put that black suit on
he's still flippin off the pharisees
and laughin at ole Scratch
and he haunts the halls of heaven
the ghost of Johnny Cash

SOME SINNERS NEED THEIR SAINTS TO BE
SURVIVORS OF THE FALL
CAUSE WHEN YOU'RE DOWN HERE ON YOUR KNEES
MOST ANGELS LOOK TOO TALL
SO I'LL JUST LIVE THIS LIFE OUT
DUST TO DUST AND ASH TO ASH
WITH MY GUIDE FROM THE OTHER SIDE
THE GHOST OF JOHNNY CASH

I'LL JUST LIVE THIS LIFE OUT
DUST TO DUST AND ASH TO ASH
TIL I'M RAISIN HELL IN HEAVEN
WITH THE GHOST OF JOHNNY CASH
©2004

I was a man who was cut in half, broken but believing, and somehow newly set free, although being set adrift was the true feeling of what looked to some like freedom.  In my marriage, I felt no embrace clinging to me in love, and now I felt none either, but I hoped that the arms of God  Almighty were wrapping around me as I descended into the abyss.

I needed that vision of Johnny on that old January night. 

Johnny was someone I could relate to, a broken screw-up who had no pretensions.  There were no skeletons in his closet; they were out in the open, lounging about his Tennessee home like old rivals and lovers at a reunion, awkwardness be damned.  Of all the ghosts I could've dreamt of, thank God it was Johnny.

Johnny sat in the low end of my little boat, where the water splashes easily over the sides and into the hull, and where the bilge settles if you don't bail.  My hands were raw, and my feet were getting cold and wet, but with Johnny singing hymns and cursing the wind, I knew I wasn't alone on my perilous journey.

Sometimes, I find myself in ancient places of worship, with statues of saints staring through me as if I'm not there.  Stained glass windows hold images of the holy in heavy solder borders, immovable and motionless, unreachable, although many people whisper prayers to them.  Some of these saints lived their lives in near perfect holiness, sacrificially carving out the Name of an Incarnate God into the heart of the church.  Yet, I've never been inclined to whisper a petition to one of these images, no matter how beautiful and perfect it might be.   I'm too busy trying to carve my name into the heart of God.

If I were to build a cathedral to the glory of God Almighty, the saints in residence would be like The Man in Black.  The sun would shine through cracked glass images that I could brush my fingers against with a sense recognition, as if looking at photographs of my ancestors.   Statues wouldn't stand in holy poses, but would bend under the weight of burdens and failures, looking parishioners dead in the eye, smiling a crooked grin.

In my heart's cathedral, there is a floating stained glass window, where St Johnny sits in the stern of a rowboat as the sea rages around him.  He's ailing and wild-eyed like John the Baptist in the Old West.  His halo tilts like a ragged pork pie hat, and his feet are covered with salt water.  He knows where he's been, does he ever, and his eyes are on the horizon.

Johnny is all the saint I need to get to where I'm going.

Water Lilies

Easter is the Big One when it comes to holy days.

I like Christmas better than Easter, because I’m sentimental.  I like watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story”, and between those two films, I have a substantial hook to hang my stocking capful of sentimentality on.

Not to mention Jesus being born so humbly and quietly in the back slums of Bethlehem, under a lone star, never mind his miraculous conception or his sweet young parents. 

And then there’s the music, both sacred and secular, from “Joy To The World” to “The Christmas Song”; I can sit down and play just about any secular Christmas standard for memory, and ad nauseum.

Christmas gives us memories that are carried forward for years.  Heart-warming or blood-chilling, Christmas leaves a mark.

Yet Easter, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection is what really matters most to Christianity.   There’s nothing sentimental about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.   It’s not warm and fuzzy like the cotton cloth you want to wrap the baby Jesus in.  Holy Week is more of a spiritual emotional journey- Hope welcomed and celebrated, Hope betrayed, Hope put to death, and Hope coming back to life in victory.  Nothing sappy about that.

Easter is a holy day, not a holiday.  No one fondly recalls a particular childhood Easter, but more likely will lump the egg hunts and Easter baskets of the past into one collective Easter memory.

I can’t remember any Easters before Easter 2008.  I remember ‘08 because it wasn’t all that long ago, and because the newness of love was in my life.  I picked up my Southern Born woman in the early-ish hours and went to Christ Cathedral.  I don’t remember anything of the service, nor about the lunch I’m certain we shared afterwards.  Neither of us was in a particularly resurrected mood, and the weather was grey, but I remember that I was with her, and glad of it.

Easter 2009 was a good one.  My dearest companion went with one of her daughters to an early sunrise service, put on for the homeless; they were eager to hear Del Rio, a homeless preacher who’d spoken in years past.  They liked the sound of his name, and they repeated it soulfully, as if the name “Del Rio” tasted like barbecue in Memphis, rolling around in their mouths.

Much to their disappointment, Del Rio didn’t show.  A seminary student spoke, lofty and intelligent, perhaps condescending, and certainly without the soul of Del Rio, thus disappointing the two Southern Born Women.   Following the sunrise service,  they met me at the Cathedral, where, trust me, nothing tastes like Memphis. 

The sanctuary was packed with Belle Meade socialites dressed to the nines, a few homeless folks, regulars, and irregulars.  The Bishop delivered a fine sermon, and the choir was accompanied by a brass section, and my memory was vaguely stirred with the singing of “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today”,  Easter’s most popular hymn.

After receiving the Eucharist, we skipped out, and took the younger SBW to her father’s church, which sits piously above a buzzing Nashville neighborhood called Green Hills.  Ninety minutes later, we had read the New York Times and shared a pot of Lady Grey tea, and headed back up the hill to retrieve said daughter, upon which we encountered her father and his new girlfriend, as if to highlight the new season that Easter represents.

Finally, we got to the only thing that mattered any more on this fine Easter Sunday- the restaurant where we had made brunch reservations.  My daughters arrived, along with their cousin Dave and his wife Liz, and my brother David and his wife Lynda, who were visiting from Washington State.

Sitting there with David, I realized that although we don’t look much alike, we share traits which our father passed on to us.  For example, we both get misty-eyed when we speak of sentimental or holy things.  My brother relayed the theme of a sermon he’d recently heard, one in which the blues were exalted, along with gospel music, and the idea that a life well-lived can’t have one without the other.   It was an idea that resonated with all of us, and as he told it, I thought, he’s got tears in his eyes, runs in the family.  

This wasn’t a new discovery to me, but a recoginition that he’s always done this, and so have I, but when did Always begin?  Were we this way before divorce and failure made more merciful men out of us?  The more I think about this, the more I come to believe that it’s a mere function of genetics than anything else, because Dad was the same way, and he hadn’t been broken by divorce or failure; he’d lived a wonderfully successful life when it comes to marriage and family, and just plain living.  

I was a child when I first took note of Dad’s easy tears.  We were at the movies, watching the end of Old Yeller, when I realized that even grown men could cry.

I wish my eyes didn’t tear up when I’m moved.  I find this trait to be an inconvenience, a distraction, and a betrayal of sentimentality. 

I wonder if Dad, too, was annoyed by his propensity to moistened eyes when he felt the weightlessness of being loved. 

Since my father apparently bequeathed his misty eyes to me, I accept the gift as something which must be intrinsically wonderful, because he certainly was.

I grasp onto anything which might put me in Dad’s league.  So much of my behavior pulls me away from the kind of man he was, a pure, unvulgar, beautiful human being with an amazing capacity for tolerance and understanding.   I know he loved Mom like no one else, and he loved his children in such a way that we each thought we were his favorite child.  And, despite my broken, vulgar, unsubtle ways, I do know how to love.  And I got that from him.

When Dad died in 2006, I choked up, but didn’t weep.  His Alzheimer’s had taken him from us long before his heart had stopped beating, and I felt that I had already grieved for him in those preceding years of loss.  I thought that it was fitting for him to depart so close to Thanksgiving, as I was truly thankful that his suffering was done with.

There was a month long gap between his death and his funeral, giving me plenty of time to collect myself before eulogizing him. 

On Christmas Day, my daughters and I, along with their mother, boarded a plane and flew to Providence for the service.  E and the girls stayed with her step-mother, while I bunked in at the Providence Radison with Rob Grant, a close friend of most of my life. 

My brother David and I each had written eulogies, which we had kept to ourselves.  We knew we would far exceed the three minutes we were each alotted to give tribute, but neither of us was going to send Dad off without fully celebrating him

I was fully confident that I would ascend the steps to the pulpit and deliver my remembrance of Dad with a dry eye.  Within the first ten seconds, my voice was quivering, and I knew I was in for a difficult ride.  However, as The Funny Guy, I was able to laugh through my tears, and tell the packed house about the lovely human being we now celebrated.

Once, I said, I had visited Dad and Mom at their assisted living facility near Hartford, and Dad looked at me with an expression of familiarity.  At first I thought, he knows me.  Then I realized he probably thinks he’s looking in the mirror.   Those who remembered him saw the uncanny resemblance.

I spoke of Dad’s love of the New York Yankees, a brave position to take in the heart of Red Sox country;  I reflected on Dad buying David and me Yankee jackets and hats.  In a quiet gesture, Dad had marked his sons as distinctly his. 

As I spoke, my eyes weren’t misty; they were flooded.  I wept under the weight of loss, with the recognition that no matter how much I believe in the Resurrection, one day without Dad in this world may as well be eternity.  I wept for a world bereft of this vessel of goodness and decency, and wondered how Heaven could possibly need Dad any more than this old world needed him.

I wept as a man who looks every bit his father's son, but knows how fully his heart must be resurrected in order for the imitation to become real.

I am mindful of the notion that God Almighty keeps a bottle in which nothing evaporates; in which precious ointment, perfume, or oil may as well be treasured.

Lo, it’s filled with salty tears from misty eyes.