Summertime

Up above the tree line the dirty haze of a summer swelter lingers into the late evening. Summertime it is out on the farm. Out on the eastern end of our property two round bales of hay are sitting in the late evening sun, and beyond those bales are acre upon acre of corn. Astoundingly, the corn is already far above our head, creating a natural labyrinth down in the valley. Everything is escaping its bounds.

It always amazes me: This season of uncontrollable abundance. Three months ago we were waiting for life to break forth from the ground. Now, we are overrun. The squash plants are up to two feet in the air; the sweet potato vines are spilling into the lawn. And soon our kitchen will be overrun with green beans and tomatoes. Anna generally looks upon the summer produce as obscene. She already carried away several squash and zucchini to a local food pantry knowing that there’s no way in Hendricks County that we’ll be eating all those “worthless” vegetables. That said: I’m sure we’ll be having our fair share of vegetable lasagna and grilled vegetables in the days to come.

Many evenings, Anna is in the garden weeding, mulching, picking, overturning, and preparing the land for its next production. I think she was getting desperate for help, since last night she let “the girls” and Thatcher out for an evening meal of parasites, Japanese beetles, and plump blackberries. We had not planned for the blackberries to be on the menu, but the chickens had other things in their pea-brained minds. And, apparently, their poorly endowed gray matter is not without some form of honing device that locks onto blackberries. As soon as they were out of the coop, they b-lined to the juiciest, darkest berries and appeared from underneath the canes with the shining gems in their beaks. Anna was none too pleased to see them stealing produce that would fetch a decent price at the farmer’s market (let alone go well in a cobbler, as I might point out), so she has decided to keep the birds in confinement through the berry season. Freedom is such an easily won and lost commodity.

We’ve been pining for some pool time all summer – especially with temperatures topping out in the mid-90’s several times already. We got our chance in the water on the 4^th of July. We went up to Denny and Granny Beck’s for the day. It was a blast to spend the day in the pool. Wyatt put to good use the swim lessons he received earlier this summer. Not to be outdone, Elise was mimicking every dive and jump. The girl is fearless, as you can tell from this picture:

I had such a blast catching her and Wyatt over and over again. Wyatt started the fun – walking up onto the diving board with the foam noodle pinned to his torso. This is when he introduced the “jump-dive,” which consisted of him going to the end of the board, jumping up one time; then jumping as far as he could into my out-stretched arms and crashing into the water. Then I’d do my best Hasselhoff, pulling Wyatt or Elise back to safety, wherein the other would be yelling from the diving board, “Catch me, Dad!”

We’ve also been blessed with several visits from good friends and family – including a surprise visit from the newly wedded Adam and Brittany Wishart. What an exceptionally fun and gifted couple they are, and Anna and I certainly wish them well in the fair city of Baltimore.

Before that, Andrew, Lisa and Ellison Smith stopped in for a picnic day. We heartily enjoyed a good meal from Chief’s, the shade under the chestnut tree, and watching our children frolic through the yard. Such frolicking is standard out here on the farm – including those fine family days when the sun isn’t nearly so hot. The kids bounce from place to place – riding their bikes, playing in the sandbox, looking for berries, or just “exploring.”

And, fortunately, we’re also a few days away from our first family vacation of the 2010 year. We’re headed up to northern Indiana for a week of boating, swimming and relaxation. I have a feeling I might be catching some more “jump-dives” off the dock.

~Wes

Tugged

I am heightened in the recesses of my brain:  awakened, now.  Dizzy with explanation, every moment a puzzle to be worked, and I - the life - that is about to be rearranged and altered into a very new picture of profound similarity and difference.

As of November 30th, 2008, I have accepted the call to serve as the next pastor for the congregation of believers known as Greencastle Presbyterian Church (read the letter I wrote to the congregation here - click on "pastor's message").  On December 2nd, the opposite side of that "hello" was sent out to my current congregation.  Leave-taking and Home-making are now the realities that shape my mind and days.  We are in the process of disengagement and engagement.  It is not easy.  In fact, it is like the stringing out of my heart and mind - a tug of war of excitement and sadness.

For those of my friends that I have been scarce to, forgive my absence.  I - again - look forward to connecting with you as I move into yet another place of learning and life.

Wes

Traveling Wilburys - End Of The Line

Rex McDaniel was my pastoral mentor while I studied at Fuller Theological Seminary.  He was profoundly distinct, complete with many habits that I loved and some I may never understand.  

One of Rex's signature lines: life is "rich and thick."  So, I was not surprised to find an email in my inbox this past Thursday carrying that same expression in the subject line.  

The actual email did not seem thick and rich.  Rex was writing to inform friends and family that his father died recently.  He also was wrote hoping to share some of the thickness and richness he found in the thin and bare places of his father's passing.

Rex is a wonderful man, and I think you will see his depth and beauty by reading the reflection he wrote to digest the fragility and preciousness of life he has experienced lately.  

One last thing ... he mentions in his reflection the song "The End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilbury's.  I couldn't remember the tune by name, so I found the Wilbury's classic hits at the library.  Then I listened to the song, and it came alive with a host of memories and seasons.  

It's here for you as a Youtube video.  Listen to it before you read Rex's thoughts.  Then, after you're done reading, listen to it again.  

Thanks, Rex for giving my own soul a tremendously needed resuscitation.  You're thick and rich of soul.   

I spent the last night of his life with my father in room 135 of Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California. He had a roommate, William, until about 8:00 pm but the hospital team knew we were there with Dad in final approach mode so they moved William next door. About 9:30 pm the last of the numerous loved ones who had been in the room over the previous thirty hours headed home and by 10:00 pm I, having changed into my jammies, had settled into that lean mean recliner you find in hospital rooms and docked it next to my father’s bed so that we could face other – our head and shoulders slightly raised - and hold left hands.

I took immediate advantage of the empty room and began singing – Kyrie Eleison - using the lilting melody for that prayer from Rudder’s requiem. Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison….

And then what bubbled up was the Traveling Wilbury’s – “it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line’”

For us, the end of the line was the ‘Golden Corral’. My father moved from Palm Desert California to Joplin Missouri two years ago. Fundamentally he made the move to live near his high school - turned late life - sweetheart, Mable. A cherished and nourishing (in the best sense) ritual of each week for Mable is meeting her sister and brother in law at the ‘Golden Corral’ for lunch. Although my father didn’t like going out to eat (he didn’t really like staying in to eat either – hence the nutrition issues that plagued his final year) Mable did lasso him in for these weekly luncheons. Happening to be there on a Tuesday during a visit last year I was invited and went along. Our party looked a little out of place at the Golden Corral whose typical patron has the fashion sense and the body type one would expect to find at an establishment that offers, for one low price - all the sugar, saturated fat and cholesterol you can hold. One of the last indicators that my Dad was in dialog with his surroundings was his comments about the size of the diners at the ‘Golden Corral’. Still, this weekly luncheon got him out of the house and he would always finish up the meal with one of his favorites - peach pie.

Two days after that meal I shared with the usual foursome at the “Corral”, a rainstorm blew threw Joplin and left a lovely crystal clear late afternoon. Straining to address our concern about his failure to exercise (a companion concern to the nutritional deficit) I coaxed Dad into a windbreaker and out into his neighborhood for a walk. We went around a few nearby blocks and then came to an intersection with a street that seemed to go slightly uphill for a long way with out obstruction. I asked, “Dad, do you think you could go further, maybe up this street?” “Sure” he said! So up we went for 8 or 10 blocks until it was clear that the street ended abruptly – a ‘dead end’. Just across the drainage ditch at the end of the street, cars flew by on the east/west interstate that skirts Joplin. On the far side of the interstate stood a billboard to lure east bound traffic into town for a meal at…..the ‘Golden Corral’. When I saw the ‘sign’ instantly I knew the message God had for me. You will walk with your father uphill, to the end of the road and just on the other side will be the feast at the ‘Golden Corral’. It deeply comforted and centered me. And so as we began his last night I said to whatever consciousness may have been beneath the morphine, “Seems like we may be headed for the Golden Corral. It will be a rich blessing to me if it turns out that way.”

Over the barely audible gasps he made for air twenty or thirty times a minute I sang ‘it’s all right’ and “Kyrie’ while I called to mind memories:

…of the night before my high school graduation when his patience with my college/vocational choices reached its breaking point and he declared a cut-off of support and a wish that I would instead be a trash man and at least earn my money.

…of the letter he sent me some 25 years later expressing doubt that he would ever have said such a thing and wondering, to the contrary, what could make him as a father happier than to know that I his son, loved my vocation.

…of the time he told me about the moment he first saw the Pacific Ocean in 1942 from the train taking him to Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, as it chugged out of Capistrano Valley and turned south at what we now call Doheny State Beach.

…of the time he had me lead a peer, the son of one of his colleagues, on a hike up a mountain. Well into adulthood I realized this was a therapeutic intervention for all concerned. It was a way to demonstrate ability to find our way up and down a mountain, to complete a journey.

…of the hike with him up the mountain at the end of range that semi-circled his home in Palm Desert. He made this hike dozens of times, usually to reset the flag staff topped with a white rag which he planted in the rocks there and which could be seen from miles away and thousands feet below with binoculars from his backyard.

…of the way this connects my father with the iconic image from Iwo Jima and the dear men in the book Flags of Our Fathers and of my son’s pride in the fact that his grandfather had gone across the ocean in each of America’s mid century wars to fight in the Solomon Islands, Korea and finally Vietnam.

…of the damage he did for years using drink to try to fill in and cover up the deficits and disappointments in his life.

…of the startling vitality that remained when one day on his own, after several of the most approved interventions had failed, he simply quit using drink and somehow self exorcised the demons that had possessed him.

…of the last day on a hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back just short of his 80th birthday when in a more dramatic fashion he gasped for air and I feared with every step he might keel over on the trail or misstep and pitch over the edge onto rocks below.

…of a completely tame hike, a walk really 10 years ago or so through a nature park when we came upon a colony of ants working furiously to establish a new base. We knelt down to observe their frantic activity and noticed that hundreds of times the worker ants would rush up out of the ground, fly to an invisible circumference, turn abruptly and rush back. Having picked up enough trivia about insects to be really dumb, I speculated out loud that the workers were on a chemical leash…that some pheromone from the queen let them go only so far. Dad kept looking. “No” he said “they are carrying a grain of sand each. When they get to the divide where gravity will pull their grain outside the new home they immediately drop it and return for another.” I looked more carefully and sure enough he was right. I can wish it was forty years earlier, when I was eight rather than fifty. But that seems small when nothing can take away the moment on my knees in the sand with my Dad learning about ants.

…of a final test of wills just two weeks ago when I insisted that he return to Southern California to finish out his life.

“Kyrie Eleison”

I only let go of his hand for a moment at quarter hour intervals to push the button on the morphine pump. When our night began we were about thirty hours into a regime of palliative care. There were no monitors in the room and Elizabeth, our nurse left us alone all night. His hand remained warm and although the little breaths got hard to hear, whenever I would open my left eye I could see them continuing. Just before she went off shift at 7:00 am Elizabeth came in to change the saline bag on the IV pole. I called my wife, children and siblings to say there had been little change, that Dad was still with us.

So, I spent the last night of his life with my father in room 135, of Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California.

Just before noon, lunchtime, just when my sister on the other side of the bed had asked me what I loved about my work and I had turned away from him for a moment to conjure my answer, we finally arrived at the “Golden Corral.” He went on in. I trust he had a dessert plate heaped with peach pie.

Post Script: My sister and I met with the mortician later, at 3:00 pm. It was 4:30 pm and in the very bowels of the traffic when I got on the 5 freeway to come home. The random shuffle of the I-pod made the traffic more than bearable. The music and lyrics unleashed emotions, gratitude and tears. At about the time I should have been paying attention to exiting onto the Pasadena Freeway I was lost in Springsteen’s “The River”, the live version from the Springsteen Live 75-85 album. It is the one that begins with the long story about the conflict between Bruce and his father. I got lost in this and missed my exit. I drove on to the 2 North and got into another run of stop and go. But the I-pod kept playing and when I finally got on the 134 east with a just a couple of miles to go it served up in its ‘randomness’ ………………………the Traveling Wilburys – “it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line….maybe, somewhere down the road a ways, you’ll think of me and wonder where I am these days…..well it’s all right”

Vacation

The luminous orb that is the moon seems fixed to the center of the sky, and weightless clouds float underneath its brilliance like airy waters passing from continent to continent. The wind is chilly for once, and fall is flaunting. It is a good season - one I enjoy more than any other.

Carmel apples have been plentiful at a nearby orchard, although I hear the apples came from Michigan this year. Winter - you may remember - found its way back into the party after being put to bed - interrupting a strange surge of warmth. So, the apple trees around here didn't fare well this year, at least not enough to supply the 21st apple festival at Reid's Orchard. But, pay no mind, apples are always delicious under the copper blanket of carmel.

So, I have been enjoying those carmel apples, almost one a day lately, which will both keep the dentist away and the dentist in business.

For her part, Anna would rather have the cider - by the gallon or in a frozen slurpee mixture. Wyatt too likes the slurpee.

God, I love fall. Thanks for creating it - for the good occasion to remember a hard season past, for a time when work turns to joy. I've put the mower away for a brief spell and taken to the rake and shovel - working until I break a sweat underneath the thick cotton of my long t-shirt and the warm embrace of my new hat.

I was turning back the excessive growth of grass upon the sidewalk and driveway yesterday. It was a job whose time was much overdue, but I have only recently procured an edger to do the deed. So, with the half moon blade beneath my feet, I pushed into the dirt ... once, twice, perhaps fifty times until a neat, linear line had been set against organic chaos. At the end of creating a long row of trimmed grass, like discarding excess icing from a cake, I bent low to pick at the remaining roots. The smell was rich from the four day rain that fell upon the land - musty. Deep browns and blacks hid a filthy matter that repelled and attracted me, the death and life of humus.

Inside I've been painting, lots of painting. Got smart about it this time and prepared properly: drop cloth, and painter's tape, primer and good rollers. All told, it's probably going to equate to one and a half rounds of primer and one, good round of semi-gloss, acrylic, marsh-green coat of paint. Our walls finally look modern, and our house is - inch by inch - creeping into a home that reflects us instead of Lucy and Ricky.

The smells in here are strong like the soil, but this is noxious. I have drunk the toxicity of the fumes far too long today, so much so that my head is swimming beneath the harsh oils and chemicals.

Did I mention that I've been reading Stephen King lately. Actually, just the last two weeks. I've been steadily marching through his less popular stuff: his short stories. The book I'm reading is titled Different Seasons and consists of four novellas for each season. Spring is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and Fall is The Body - both of which have been made into motion pictures. Spring is easy enough to remember for anyone who enjoys watching movies or has TNT. Fall is equally famous, although the title is different: Stand By Me.

That's the story I'm reading right now: The Body (or Stand By Me ... however, you choose to remember it). I watched the movie today as well - good movie, better story. King has this fabulous line in the novella, which Rob Reiner chose to use as the capstone of his film:

"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"

Great question. My friends at age 12 where fellas I'd still go to bat for: Smithers, Super-C, Levenhagen, Gray, Moore Brothers, and Petrin.

Coincendentally (and wonderfully), one of those friends - the one and only T. A. Smithers - is headed this way tomorrow morning - when I'm still sleeping off the paint fumes. It reminds me of that other King novella - The Shawshank Redemption - and one of my favorite movie lines of all time: "I guess I just miss my friend."

Amen.

Keep rollin' clouds. I got to gets me through the night, and then it is into long waiting of hope - the state that is longer than any emotion.

Wes

300 Acres & 300 miles

300 acres of woodlands, a log cabin, a pond, two dogs, three deer, a turkey, one rope swing, and some good Foster's ... stir it up and you get one heck of a brief retreat from the (small) city of Owensboro.

Anna and I were kindly invited to join another couple out in Ohio County (east of Owensboro) on Saturday afternoon. After thinking about it for two seconds, we said, "hades yes!" It was grand. We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by our host (meatloaf, ceasar salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus and fresh bread) out on the wooden porch, listening to bird song and the subtle chirp of crickets. To top it off, we enjoyed some great cheesecake (two slices for me ... hehe) and a bottle of Red Truck wine (a white from Sonoma County).

Yes, it was all incredible, and I give such good thanks to be together with those friends ... in that place.

One thing also stuck with me ... that time, that place, they were inconsequential to the rest of the "world" in the sense of productivity or importance. For all intents and purposes, for an evening we had disappeared, dropped off the world or gone into some Bermuda triangle in between Louisville, Indianapolis and Nashville - an abyss devoid of art and entertainment, politics and religion, industry and commerce, just a wide space of creation and us under the darkening sky. Some people may be frightened by such isolation, by such a lack of relevance. Not me.

....

Anna takes off tomorrow for an art fair up in Milwaukee. She is going to take a class in precious metal clay - learning how to craft and bake clay into jewelry. Somehow this clay is transformed through refining into valuable metal. I envy her opportunity to see definitively and artistically the Refiner's Fire.

....

I'm going to stay around for two days - hopefully finishing up a sermon for Sunday and getting Wyatt's bedroom painted (yes, we are notoriously bad for doing house improvements in any timely fashion).

....

Then, I'm off to Greencastle with Anna's dad and on to Chicago Thursday to catch up with Andy LaDow - an incredibly gifted, humorous and satirical friend. He's being kind enough to see to my visit.

....

Friday I venture on up to Milwaukee to rejoin my wife and son. That same day we'll pack up the xA and travel the great distance back to Indianapolis for my mom's wedding this upcoming Saturday.

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Sunday: back in Owensboro ... to preach and hopefully tend to a garden in our own backyard.

....

By the end of it all, those 300 acres are already going to be a distant memory, and I will shortly be in need of another stay in anonymity.

Wes