it is hard to imagine when you wake up some mornings that the day is going to be anything other than the norm. for me, there is a routine (of sorts) that gets me through a normal tuesday: wake, shower, clothe, drive to amelia, have a breakfast in town, be at the church, return home, frisbee, relax, then sleep… yeah did you note that dinner is optional ? today is different though, and there is no way that i could have imagined this day being at all what it has shaped up to have been… and i’m only three hours into it.
today would have been my father’s fifty-sixth birthday. happy birthday, dad. would have been because anyone who knows me knows about him and why it is that he isn’t here to celebrate. this year is a little better for me as i go through it and deal with the ‘what-would-have-been.’ in fact, today really hasn’t been at all bad for me in that department, which is a vast change over years past. all the same, the calvinist in me won’t allow thoughts that there are spirits wondering around in this realm of living, so i’m not putting what has happened today to anything short of god showing grace even on a day where my mind could have normally been thinking about loss.
today’s drive was quite different than any i have yet taken to amelia. a nearly clear morning in richmond became drastically foggy on the way down here. there were moments where it was nearly impossible to see more than just the faint red eyes of the car in front’s tail-lights glowing at me through the mist…. in some way, they are menacing, even though they provided me a perfect awareness of the distance between my car and theirs. safety can sometimes look mean… but this fog also provided me a great preaching illustration, which i intend too use this week in my sermon on job. read the lectionary for the week, and you may notice how fog and god relate….
i went to the atm machine today and did something i have never done before by walking away from the machine while my card was still inside. luckily, the bank is right across from the amelia county courthouse, so i suppose the squadron of police cars out front make this the safest looking bank in america (or at least the commonwealth). and so there i go, taking my money and leaving my card. i got all the way back to the truck when i realized my mistake. and so, i have my card back….
i then went into my most familiar restaurant when i noticed that there was a table of five men who looked surprisingly like confederate soldiers. i don’t know what confederate soldiers really look like, other than that i should probably say they look like re-enactors who are here to audition for a movie role or are doing one of those war shows that people in the south still love to do (even though we must cringe to think that we still haven’t learned that we lost that ‘civil’ war a long time ago). no idea how one of those men is about to shape my day and life….
sitting there drinking my perfectly flavored sweet tea, a woman around sixty comes in. or maybe fifty-six. either way, she is definitely of my dad’s generation. she sits down at another table in the corner of the restaurant. not elegant, nor homey, she just is a presence. she orders a coffee from the owner of the restaurant, who (mind you) is a black woman — now i say black because she says she’s black. of course, the customer doesn’t realize this and must be offended somehow, so she gets up and walks around the restaurant. she approaches another woman (the waitress) who is behind the counter and says, “i’d like to speak with the owner.” the waitress points to the owner and says, “that’ll be this lady here.” the customer cranes back and then asks to the owner (whose name is sylvia), “how long have you been here.” sylvia’s kind response, “five years, ma’am.” it was as if someone had come by and told the customer that her world was no longer what she thought. for ten seconds she stood at the counter of the restaurant in stone silence. not moving. her little amelia world had just been shattered… she nodded her head no and then immediately left the restaurant. on her way out the door, she looked at me with a look of disbelief.
i don’t know if she could imagine me giving money to a black person or if she was shocked that i seemed to be dumbfounded at the exchange i just witnessed….
my breakfast was particularly good, and if you come to amelia, i hope you’ll stop in to patronize sylvia’s restaurant. i was told on day one of my internship that it is the restaurant in town “run by a colored family.” well, let me tell you that the only color i see in that restaurant is god. she calls me ‘preacher’ each time she sees me, and i call her sylvia. people in this restaurant are all family because they are fed by the hand of a woman whose ministry is feedin’ people well. she ain’t done me wrong yet….
so as i am leaving my tuesday morning joy, one of the confederate men stand and asks another if he can step outside to talk to me, ‘the preacher.’ it is acknowledged, and i oblige. my world is about to be rocked…. he tells me that he wants me to pray with him. for him. we walk to my car and he tells me his story. he tells me about how satan is working him and making him doubt his value. he is also called to share jesus with the world, but satan is pulling him down. then he says, “it’s like i’m being thrown in the fire, then pulled out and beaten. but then i realize i’m stronger and more sharp, but back into the fire i go.” he doesn’t understand, but he is saying that he is becoming like a sword…. the blacksmith (or is it swordsmith) he thinks is satan who is making him more able to hurt the world. no, i tell him… it is jesus who makes you stronger to that you can be sharper to know right from wrong, and that you will do the will of god in this world. there is much more to this exchange, but i won’t tell this man’s sad story. but i will say that his co-workers came out of the restaurant, got in their trucks, and waited for us to pray. we prayed. tears welled in his eyes. amens poured from his mouth. and there, in the middle of amelia courthouse square, two grown adult men were seen hugging. he wasn’t embarrassed to share his story, and i would not be embarrassed to receive it.
as he got in the truck and drove away, all his co-workers waived at me.
i got in my truck and drove the two miles to the church. i got here to a family who was inurning the ashes of a loved one in the family plot. three people. the wife of the deceased man, and her parents. they stood in the graveyard and were putting the finishing touches on the grave. you can’t tell anyone disturbed the land they have just touched. we stood together, four people in the gray skies of amelia, with the faintest of fogs in the air. silence in the graveyard and the ashes of a man just a stone’s throw away. “what do you do with the urn if you don’t have the ashes in it,” i was asked when i arrived and found them about their business.
my dad would have been fifty-six today. he is dead. now, his remains sit in an urn i have never seen. i don’t know if he is buried somewhere or if he rests on the mantle of a house. i pray he isn’t shoved into a drawer or closet. but as i watched this morning, i couldn’t help but to realize that i’ve seen — in three hours — a whole life.
i’ve seen joy. i’ve seen humanity’s dark side. i’ve seen confusion and unease. i’ve seen sadness and ultimate sleep.
i don’t know if god is watching from some place high in the heavens or next to me on earth. i don’t know about my dad’s soul or his physical remains. where either are is a question of faith and hope. but today, it is my dad’s birthday. and rather than dwelling on the life as it could have been, i’ve been given his birthday presents… life as it is.
i’m glad the tuesday routine was broken.
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Tags: amelia, birthday, death, father, fog, god, happiness, life, routine, sadness, sylvia
amelia villagers…
so let me tell you more about this place.
within my first week here, i had met a member of the congregation who had needed an outpatient procedure performed. i went to her house where her daughter from a neighboring town was shelling some black-eyes peas. (*note to self* – they come in cans and are brown. but before the cans get them brown, they are green. i somehow missed that part of learning about them growing up). well, i spent a good time with this member, and life went on.
how funny it was, then, that when i went to the bank a few days later, i walk in and the teller takes my pennies, nickels, and dimes to convert to quarters for laundry. in the midst of our conversation, i simply inquire where the presbyterian church is (since the methodist and the presbyterian churches are nearly identical in structure). immediately, she says, “you must be the new pastor at rennie.” i nod in affirmation, and she tells me that i had met her mom. well, you see — her mom had described me to a ‘t.’ shocking how news travels in such a small place. (oh, by the way, she gave me six cents out of her own pocket in order to round me up to the nearest quarter… talk about nice).
my truck was having problems, so i talked with one of the members who referred me to the local mechanic. now, the mechanic isn’t in town, but is actually three miles from my church out in the middle of the country where there is a store–pointon’s store, to be exact. can i tell you that i got the best service on the truck i believe i’ve ever received ! and the price… well, it was very generous. “it is probably because they know you’re the pastor,” i was told. maybe.
maybe this pastor thing ain’t gonna be so bad…
and another thing… i hate cabbage. loathe it. if there is a vegetable that should be smitted from off the earth, it would be the cabbage. well, i managed to tell a few members of my disgust for cabbage. now this isn’t so bad, but what makes it funny is that it made it to the ears of one member who was grating cabbage the day i met her. her home smelled of it, and the whole time i was hoping she wouldn’t offer me any because i didn’t know what i would do. well… they all know now, and there are jokes going around the community about how i don’t like cabbage.
it’s very humbling (in a good way) when your congregation begins to laugh just at the sight of you because of the jokes. i think i’ll end up using a cabbage one day as a sermon illustration just to prove a point. any ideas ?
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Tags: bank, pastor, people, truck, village
amelia, virginia
i have a story to tell.
the sad thing is, this isn’t just my story. it is the story of a people who have been in a community long before i came into their lives. for the next year, i am a part of this small place… a tiny blip in the middle of the map of virginia. it is amelia. or is it amelia courthouse ? or is it amelia court house ? they call it amelia, and so that is what it is, and that is what it will be for the duration of the next twelve months.
the title of my blog is “the world as my house.” i believe this is who i am. i have lived in france and have traveled to the middle east. i would love to see africa and spend time in asia. but for right now, the room i am in is called amelia. and now, here’s a story….
today, i met with a prominent member of the amelia community. she wasn’t born there or even raised there, but she plays a very vital role in the daily living of many people. today, she played a role in mine. i’ve seen her twice before today, but it was on this occasion that i introduced myself to her. i’ve known her name, but she hadn’t known mine. and though she said she isn’t good with names, i gave her one that she will remember. you can call me “pastor.” i told her who i am and what i am doing in amelia.
we started talking and reflecting on a tragedy that struck the small community last week when a 32 year old man killed himself. his wife was cheating on him. they had two children. one is 3 and the other is just 1. they won’t know a life with their natural father now. how sad, we reflected, must a person be that they can’t reach out to another person in the church or the community. how sad, indeed…. then the story changed from this man to her. she told me about her life before she relocated to amelia. she had been a prostitute. maybe i shouldn’t have said this, but i think it is a part of her witness, and i don’t believe she would mind. she did drugs. she was nothing to anyone who would care to treat her like a person… a human. she overdosed on pills and tried to kill herself. unsuccessfully.
she was unconscious for five days. she says she remembers nothing except the voices of struggle between satan and god. one would tell her that it was right that she had tried to end her life. another would tell her that she would be restored and made better. one voice told her to give up. another told her to hang on. she chose to remain alive.
still unhappy with herself, she didn’t embrace life. she tried to kill herself again by running her car into the backside of a tractor-trailer. she had heard and learned that if it is suicide, the kids wouldn’t get any insurance. by this way, it would look like an accident. she accelerated and was just at the truck when–somehow–she was no longer behind the truck but in the lane next to it. she believes it is god. i will believe her. she pulled her car over and wept like jesus wept.
god brought her through it and “he kept his promise.” he made her better, and now she is a prominent figure in amelia. now she is a prominent figure in my life. and now… your lives.
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Tags: amelia, pastor, suicide
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