Perhaps A Different Kind of Independence Day Crown

"The huge masquerade of evil has thrown all ethical concepts into confusion.  That evil should appear in the form of light, good deeds, historical necessity, social justice is absolutely bewildering for one coming from the world of ethical concepts that we have received.  For the Christian who lives by the Bible, it is the very confirmation of the abysmal wickedness of evil."                     ----Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a theologian -- an academic; a Lutheran.  It's not the likeliest description of one predisposed to public activism -- at least in our usual stereotype.  We more likely picture classrooms and libraries and lofty lectures and papers.  Certainly there are and have always been noisy exceptions, but I suspect that Bonhoeffer would not have included himself among them.  He was a pastor, a prolific writer on the spiritual life; he was a musician and wrote fiction and poetry.

But the spine anchoring all those other descriptions was his faithfulness.  His most famous book, after all, is titled, The Cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer read the prophetic calls for a different relationship with each other and God -- one that finds treasure in the diverse uniqueness of every part of creation, and welcomes the stranger along with the outcast; one that embraces and enfleshes the divine purpose in love -- and took them to heart.  He watched and took as exemplary Jesus' way in the world, internalizing his teachings about the least, the lost and the last; and was convicted by Jesus' willingness to lose himself on behalf of those he loved.

And so it was that he "left the classroom," so to speak.  Unlike most of us -- myself included -- who mutter among our friends or mouth off on Facebook from time to time and call it enough, Bonhoeffer got to the end of his rope with the "huge masquerade of evil" that had "thrown all ethical concepts into confusion"  and confronted that evil with his life.  Joining a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, in whom he came to believe that masquerade of evil had become embodied, Bonhoeffer was eventually imprisoned when the plot failed, housed in a concentration camp, and ultimately brought quite literally to the end of his rope; executed by hanging at the ripe old age of 39.

I quite frankly don't know what to do with Bonhoeffer's example.  I won't backseat drive his choices.  I wasn't there; I wasn't in the thick of it.  It was, indeed, a despicable, dehumanizing time.  It's impossible to condone assassination, but then I suspect he, under other circumstances, wouldn't either.  And yet there he was, choosing what I have to imagine seemed to him to be a lesser evil to overcome one still greater.

And then I wonder what his counsel would be today when it feels, for all the world, like the "huge masquerade of evil" has thrown everything, not merely ethical concepts, into even greater confusion?  What would he say, and more importantly, what would he do?

At the very least he would speak the truth as the gospel had trained him to see it.  Since he did so in his own moment I have no doubt that he would caution, indeed chastise, those in ours who elevate patriotism over discipleship -- or dare to conflate the two.  He would condemn those would build walls in protection of their own at the expense of those who have nothing left to protect.  He would scoff at our collective celebration of flash and fizz; our contentment with facade; our capitulation to empty and paternalistic promises.  He would recoil at the deification of "economic forces" and tribal allegiances and would weep at the trivialization and contamination of our "life together."

If, as he once said, "The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children," ours would almost certainly earn a failing grade.  We eat garbage.  We talk trash.  This once-noble experiment in governance and culture on different and better terms is bequeathing our children a fetid inheritance.

As our calendar inexorably shoves us toward July 4 and tempts us with the usual self-congratulatory celebrations, maybe we could choose a different course.  Instead of telling ourselves how wonderful we are -- "the greatest nation in the world" -- perhaps we could prayerfully reflect upon the kind of nobility to which those founders aspired, reaching back behind the mere words of the documents to the aspirational soul to which they hoped to give voice.  This year, maybe lamentation should take the place of celebration -- the candles of penitent confession rather than the fireworks of proud assertion.

Whatever else, I'm sure Bonhoeffer would insist that it's worth the effort.  Surely we have not been so corrupted that we can no longer recognize the corruption; the decay.

This week my dentist affixed a crown to repair a broken tooth.  It wasn't as easy as snapping over the fracture a hardened and durable cover.  A week or so before, some drilling was required to remove the resulting decay; a mold was taken so as fashion the desired replacement and a temporary "fix" was put in place with the admonishment to be careful what and where I chew.  The "meantime," after all, is fragile.  And then this week the more permanent fix.  That, too, involved air on exposed nerves, a little more drilling and wincing and tapping and capping.  The process was tedious and laborious and hardly free of pain.  But it was worth it. 


 Maybe that's the kind of work that could begin this 4th of July:  naming the cracks, drilling the decay, remolding nobler intent, and submitting to the nerves and the need to heal.

It's just a thought.

Runnin’ On...Full

Growing up, I knew all of Jackson Browne’s songs.  I don’t mean that I was simply acquainted with his catalogue or knew all the lyrics.  I mean I KNEW them.  I bought (OK, my Mother bought for me) all the printed music folios for each of his albums, and I learned to play them.

Every song.

I had to.  I had to be ready.

Normal kids fantasize about going to the moon or running off with the circus, or becoming President (thought these days those three sound redundant).  I, meanwhile, fantasized about filling in for Jackson Browne.  What if something happened to him in the rough and shuffle of touring?  What if he tripped over a speaker cable and broke a finger in the fall?  What if the piano lid unexpectedly fell on his hands?  What if the bus door closed too quickly and caught his fingers as he entered?  He could still sing just fine, but he couldn’t possibly handle the piano or his guitar.  The cry would go out near and far, “Does anybody know how to play these songs?”

Shyly, but confidently, I would raise my hand and step forward.  I was perpetually ready.  The concert could go on as planned.

Understand, I didn’t want anything very bad to happen to him.  Certainly nothing permanent.  After all, I idolized him.  I merely wanted to help out.  And I needed to be ready.

OK, so it was a self-serving fantasy.  But, then, who ever has selfless fantasies?  Regardless, and alas, I was never needed.  Abilene never seemed to make it onto his tour schedule.  

The closest he came was Fort Worth in my freshman year of college.  It was his “Runnin’ On Empty” tour and I wasn’t about to miss it.  How I had the money for it I haven’t a clue.  But I even took a date — a dear friend from high school then attending Baylor University.  Clear evidence of adolescent insanity, I borrowed a fraternity brother’s car, drove the 90 miles south to Waco, picked her up, drove back to Fort Worth for the concert, and then back to Waco to take her back to her dorm, before getting back into the car to head back to Fort Worth where I no doubt fell into bed...exhausted but still humming.  And smiling.  

I’ve seen him a dozen times since — with a band and more lately solo acoustic.  It doesn’t matter to me.  As long as I get to hear him.  He typically honors requests shouted out from the audience.  Somehow always asks for “Rosie” and he always smirks and replies, “Oh, so you are THAT kind of crowd,” before playing the song.  Everybody laughs.

He’s still going strong, writing and recording, though I’m guessing, given the vagaries of broadcast media, his new stuff doesn’t get as much radio time as his old.  The latter certainly shows up in the rotations of “oldies” stations, but that necessarily precludes the current material.  That’s alright by me; I don’t much listen to the radio anyway.

And so it is that tonight Lori and I will once again take our seats in his audience — “the best darn seats,” to borrow a line from Bill Murray, “in our price range.”  And I’ll be smiling; no longer fantasizing, but simply relishing the joy of being there, listening.  Runnin’ On Full.

I’m trusting that he’s healthy. I’m long since out of practice, although I can still bang out a pretty good “Doctor My Eyes” and “The Pretender.”  

Besides, at our age, neither Jackson nor I need anybody wishing us ill.  We need all the positive energy we can get, if we are to keep runnin' at all.

I Guess We’ll Have to Stay

“Here’s how we are going to do this,” he said matter-of-factly over the phone.  

 After living my entire life in one part of Texas or another I had accepted the call of a congregation in Des Moines, Iowa.  I didn't know the first thing about Des Moines.  Its neighborhoods were foreign lands to me; its style and norms were unknown.  But I had to find a place to live.  I had spent the better part of two weekends “house hunting” in the company of Jerry Aldrich, a longtime member of the church and even longer-time realtor, and had finally identified a potential residential candidate.  

But in the course of assembling my financials to make an offer and apply for a mortgage it became absurdly clear to Jerry that I was ill-prepared for securing a mortgage.  Having lived in church-owned parsonages up to that point, I had no equity.  My credit rating, while not altogether bad, was flaccid enough to invite any bank’s rejection.  And as for assets, there weren’t any.  As for consumer debt, there was too much. To most eyes — including my own — this all added up to a hopeless dead end.  But not to Jerry.

I have no idea how many phone calls he made, or what sales pitch he employed — all without my knowledge—but in a matter of days the phone rang.  “Here’s how we are going to do this,” he said from a thousand miles away.  He gave me the name and address of a then-faceless couple in the church and said that I would be making my monthly payments to them.  I didn’t understand the technicalities until much later, but in essence Jerry had arranged for that couple to buy the house outright and then sell it to me — at the current mortgage rate — on contract.  

And that was that.

Until about 20 years later when I once again found myself over my head with a very different real estate challenge.  His life had changed considerably in the ensuing years, as had mine; in fact it was in the process of changing, still.  

I had been claimed by the cockamamie conviction that I needed to learn how to grow food.  As the idea fleshed itself out it was obvious that the townhome in which we were living offered very few agricultural options.  Some friends had pointed out a property they thought might interest us.  And it did — at least it interested me.  Lori was the rational one who readily comprehended the lunacy of us purchasing it.  It was too big, too far, too fraught with managerial complications, and too expensive.  Nonetheless, we visited several times with the listing agent, but when it all reached the point of put up or shut up we thought we should have our own agent.  In stepped Jerry.  And when our meager offer was summarily and conclusively rejected by the sellers, Jerry waited a few compassionate seconds (to honor my disappointment and Lori’s relief) and said, “I know of some other properties that might better suit you.”

And indeed he did.  After internalizing our various criteria — our “must haves” and then our “want to haves” — Jerry methodically went to work.  Over the subsequent few weeks we placed our necks in Jerry’s yoke and visited several possibilities, ultimately settling on this one that has happily and gratefully been our home for nearly seven years.  

Throughout the process of purchase, and in the cracks and crevices of life in the subsequent years, we talked through the ups and downs of church life, world affairs, family life, cancer, ballroom dancing and soil composition.  He even gifted me several of his geology books from college.  

When I visited him last month I had to wait for him to complete the final frames of a Wii bowling tournament he was enjoying with neighbors down the hall in the care center.  Once back in his room he pointed to the calendar and noted the date by which time he was supposed to be dead:  the last day of the month.  He wasn’t morose about it.  Indeed, he was concerned that he was, thus far, too healthy to make that date.  With true business pragmatism — like he had exhibited to me for the previous 25 years — he lamented how much this heightened level of care was costing him, and how he hated the thought that those expenses would spill into a new month.

When I prepared to take my leave I asked him if he wanted me to have a prayer. After responding in the affirmative, Jerry went on to coach me as to the prayer’s needed content.  “Ask Him to move this process along.  Tell Him I’m not having any fun down here.”

Jerry missed his deadline by 18 days, a fact that no doubt rankled him.  But albeit late, he ultimately got his wish.  He always told me that he intended to beat this cancer, and at last he has succeeded.  

Whatever else his passing means, and along with my sadness and multiple layers of gratitude, I’m guessing it means that we, too, are finally home.  I don’t know how we would ever move without him.