Led Into All Truth

The Right Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

 

On Sunday Nov. 17, I was invited to speak at Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett, Washington, about my personal journey of faith.  Here is what I said:

 

Good morning.  You don’t know me.  I am a stranger among you.  I don’t wear a clerical collar.  I never studied at a seminary.  Nope.  I went to the UDub . . . that secular bastion down the road a piece.

 

Nonetheless, your brave Rector, Rachel Taber-Hamilton, has invited me here today.  She has asked me to share my journey of faith and some thoughts on what it ought to mean when a church says it welcomes all people.

 

What I have to say is inspired by the teachings of Jesus as I understand them.  It’s my testimony . . . speaking out loud about a truth as I have come to know it.

So, who am I?  Here’s the shorthand.  Pretty much in this order:  I am a free man; a follower of Jesus; an American citizen; a semi-retired journalist , educator and PR guy; an environmentalist; a preservationist; a vegetable gardener; a 1940s music devotee; and a Democrat – well, usually.  I also am right-handed, stand six-feet-four, have blue eyes and am follicly challenged, as you can see.

 

And, oh yes, I am a gay man.  I have been in a devoted relationship with the person I love for 38 years, and he finally became my husband last Dec. 9, the first day it became legal in Washington.

          

          I rattle this off so you can decide how I am different from you.  We human beings love to focus on our differences, don’t we?  Every week we come here to proclaim that all people are children of God, made in his image. We offer the peace of the Lord to everybody.  But in church and at coffee hour we usually sit and talk only with the people we know.  The ones like us.  That’s where we’re comfortable.  That’s what we’re used to.  Nothing wrong with that . . . is there?

           

          All my life . . . and long before I became a Christian . . . I have seen signs that I believe came from God, and I have tried to pay attention to what those signs mean.  

            What I haven’t been all my life is religious.  My parents didn’t attend church, and after I failed at being a Swedish Lutheran as a teenager, neither did I.  As I came to grips with my sexual orientation, I decided that Christianity was not for me.  That stuff about abomination in Leviticus can’t be swept under the rug.  I refused to take the socially acceptable way around it.  I couldn’t lie and fake it and deny who I am in order to find favor with a God who thought I was abominable.

            As I got older, however, I felt a hollowness, a yearning.  I was successful in my career and had a loving personal relationship, but it wasn’t enough.  One Sunday, a friend invited me to attend a small Episcopal church on, of all places, Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.  Before I walked in, I noticed an old, rusty sign outside that read “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” . . .exclamation point!

           I could feel my skepticism rising.  Where’s the fine print?  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You . . . exclamation point!  So long as . . . what?  So long as you look like us?  So long as you are straight?  So long as you agree with us politically and socially and biblically?  So long as you don’t do anything that upsets us?  So long as you keep quiet about things that might make us feel uncomfortable or challenge our assumptions? 

            Those were my honest suspicions as I entered that church back in 1996.  And I’d be willing to bet they’re not much different from those of some people passing by this church right now.  Whether we recognize it or not, churches have a lot of fine print that keeps people away.  I wonder what your fine print says here at Trinity Everett.

            Jesus tapped me on the shoulder that Sunday 17 years ago.  Despite my doubts, I was baptized and confirmed within a year.  And, never being one to do things half way, I have since served on the vestry and been senior warden at three Episcopal Churches – Trinity in Santa Barbara, St. Thomas in Dallas and most recently St. Augustine’s on Whidbey Island, where your Rector met me through her husband Nigel, our Rector.           

I have found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.  And I’m proud of how far it has come in the past four decades, on civil rights, ordaining women and publicly accepting gay and lesbian parishioners, among other things.

But I still wrestle with what that old “welcome” sign means.  Is it just our way of saying “Have a Nice Day?”   If it’s genuine, how do we put it into practice?  What keeps people away from us? 

            Every week here and everywhere, Episcopalians gather for communion.  And we hear that Jesus yearned to draw all the world to himself, and one way he did that was by breaking bread with sinners and outcasts. 

            Think about that with me.  Other than tax collectors, who do you suppose the other “outcasts” were at those meals?  I’d guess they were lepers and other unclean people.  Widows and all unmarried women – certainly, there were no lower outcasts in the First Century.  The blind, literally and figuratively.  The destitute.  Anybody not a good enough Jew.  Maybe even a Greek or a Roman, on the down-low.   And, unless human nature was different then, I’d guess that a few gay people were there, too.  But unlike the other outcasts, they wouldn’t have dared say out loud why they were outcasts.  Only Jesus knew their secret. 

            Here’s my point:  There was no fine print on the invitation to dine with Jesus.  All outcasts welcome, period.  I imagine the dinner conversation got pretty raucous.  These were outsiders.  They didn’t – or couldn’t – conform to the behavior rules of the day.

So why did they come to dinner with Jesus?   I suppose it’s because he gave them permission to be themselves and to be honest.  What else did he do?  He acknowledged their common humanity simply by eating with them.  He listened.  He didn’t change the subject.  He told them they were not outcasts in God’s eyes.  He offered them hope.   It was the world’s first come-as-you-are-party. 

We know from John’s Gospel that when the religious folk of day saw Jesus hanging out with these outcasts, they were shocked and appalled.  They called him a glutton and a drunkard for associating with the likes of “them.”  That was the first episode of the shame-and-blame game.  Some churches still play it. 

So I wonder.  Do we invite people to a come-as-you party at our church? Are we a safe place where people can be authentic and open?  Do we sincerely acknowledge the common humanity of those different from us?  Do we really listen when what’s said is strange or makes us uncomfortable?  Does the Episcopal Church Welcome You . . . question mark?

            Because if the answer is yes, we ought to do a better job of showing it.  Welcome means more than praying together and breaking the bread and extending the Lord’s peace to each other.  It means examining our biases and discarding our quick judgments.  It means acknowledging those we consider “others” by sitting with them and listening even when it’s not comfortable.

Jesus never told anyone exactly how their lives would change if they followed him, so neither should we.  What he did say when they asked that question was, “Come and see.”  I did and my life has changed.  Did he make me straight?  No.  But he did make me better.

            Most gay people grow up feeling like outsiders.  We don’t experience the romantic joys and disappointments of the teen years the way our peers do.  Too often we can’t share what we’re feeling with anyone.  Not our parents, not our friends, not our church.

Too often, we don’t share because we don’t want to disappoint or embarrass or upset people. That’s a habit we sometimes carry with us through life.  It’s easier to just stay quiet.  Even though things are better today than when I grew up, there still are many gay people – young and not so young – who struggle with this.  They need an invitation to Jesus’s come-as-you-are party.

            But this isn’t just about gay people.  In one way or another, every one of us is an outcast.  Something about each of us makes somebody else disappointed, angry, embarrassed, uncomfortable or anxious.  That’s why we all need an invitation to the party. 

While I was living in Dallas in 2008, I met Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.  As many of you know, his election as a bishop, as an openly gay man, set off a shock wave across the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.  Some quit the church.  Parishes split apart, including several in our own Diocese.  A few Episcopal bishops and a number of priests resigned.  The Archbishop of Canterbury disinvited Gene from a meeting of Anglican Communion Bishops because of the worldwide uproar. 

The day in 2003 that he was installed as Bishop, Gene received death threats.  He wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments, and Mark, his partner of more than 20 years, went into hiding.

Gene visited our little parish in Dallas in 2008 as a favor to our rector, with whom he had attended seminary. The very conservative bishop of the Diocese of Dallas had forbidden Gene to vest or preside at the Eucharist while he was in town.

But our small, maverick of a parish was thrilled to have him among us.  As senior warden, I got to introduce Gene at coffee hour.  It was a joyous moment. 

He gave me a warm hug.  And as he did, I felt something like metal buckles down his back, and it dawned on me.  Gene was still wearing a bulletproof vest under his purple bishop’s shirt.  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You . . . question mark?

I’ll share a few of the words Gene spoke that morning:  

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this really astounding thing.  “There is much that I would teach you.  But you cannot bear it right now.  So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.”  I take that to mean this:  Don’t think for a minute – you bunch of thick-headed, uneducated fisherman I chose as my disciples – that God is done with you and those who come after you.  Does anyone doubt that we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn our backs on defending slavery using Scripture?  Is it not the Holy Spirit that is leading us to a fuller understanding of the gifts, integrities and experiences of women?  And I would say that the Holy Spirit is leading us to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  We should see this as a sign of a living God.  He didn’t retire someplace in the Bahamas at the end of the first century.  He has never stopped revealing himself.

God bless you, Gene Robinson, and amen.

Thank you, Trinity Everett, for inviting me.  And may the Holy Spirit continue to lead you into all truth. 



Mountains, Water, Friends, Potlucks and . . .

           Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blog talk that I performed June 29-30 as part of the Postcards From Whidbey Island variety show at the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.

          Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  C’mon, do it with me!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That’s the collective sound we Rock dwellers make when that yellow thingy is finally back in the sky and summer’s come to Whidbey after the long, wet winter. 

          Life’s good here in summer, isn’t it?   Well, mostly good.  Except for our annual invasion.  Tourists.  Thousands of them.  Craning, creeping, crawling.  Devouring everything in their path.  Hogging every parking place.  Asking stupid questions. Disturbing our bliss. 

          Oh, I know.  Those mobs spend big bucks and keep our broke little paradise afloat.  We need ‘em.  Or else this Rock might be nothing more than a mussel farm and a drive-through coffee stand, surrounded by tall trees and giant thistles.
   
           But that tourist invasion can be troublesome when you’ve driving on the two-lane path we call our state highway.  Example One:  Get behind a forty-foot RV from Florida going forty miles an hour while you’re trying to get to Freeland.  Speed up, would you? I live here!  I’d like to get to PayLess before the snow falls!  Pull over if you want the thrill of smelling Scotch broom.  I get that every day!
 
            Example Two:  Get in front of a shiny red convertible.  Obviously rented from Hertz.  Filled with tourists.  Barreling south from Deception Pass.  Afraid they’ll miss the ferry.  And their flight.  That leaves from Sea-Tac in 90 minutes.  Get off my bumper, would you?  I live here!  I’d like to be around when the snow falls!  I hope you get caught cutting in the ferry line!  And any fool knows you can’t get from Whidbey to Sea-Tac in 90 minutes!

            Of course, tourist season also means the end of those cheap winter specials at our restaurants here on the Rock.  Forget the twelve buck weekday salmon dinner at Christopher’s.  Buh-bye, nine buck pork loin and garlic mashed potatoes at Front Street Grill.  I even think the six ninety-five chicken-fried steak at the Tyee is on summer break. All replaced by tourist-enticing things like a juicy, local, grass-fed steak for only thirty bucks . . . or a hundred ways to dress up a Penn Cove mussel, starting at just nineteen ninety-five.

             So, what is it we Rock dwellers do while our local eateries are jammed with tourists spending a fortune?  We go to potlucks, of course.  Where we share all manner of local favorites with each other.    

Now I could describe what a Whidbey potluck is like, but instead let’s hear it from a happy couple about to go to one.  These are people I made up . . . but I bet you’ll recognize them.

 See, what I notice about couples who live on the Rock is that – come rain, wind, landslides, power outages or tourists – they’re always very, very content.  Love this island.  Never been happier.  Can’t imagine living anywhere else. 

So, here’s my impression of a pre-potluck chat between Chad and Chick, one of those cheerfully content couples in Coupeville.

 What time we supposed to go, Chick?

 They said to be at Sid and Sal’s by six, Chad.

 Means get there about six-thirty, don’t it.  What’re we bringing?

 The usual.  Deviled eggs and three-bean salad.

 Sure no need to change that menu!  But I do hope Sal doesn’t make her celery stuffed with whatever that is.

 Why’s that?

 I’d never tell her, but it tastes kinda funny.  Never know what she puts in it.  But I do hope Lon and Lou bring their Rockwell beans.  The Sherman family recipe.  You know if they’re comin’, Chick?

 Oh, Chad.  Those two haven’t missed a potluck in 10 years.  You’ll sooner see a sunny day in December than for Lon and Lou to bring something other than Rockwell beans to a potluck.

 Well, you’re right about that.  And let’s hope Tom and Trish bring their chicken casserole with those crispy onion things on top.  Say, this is making me hungry!

 Now don’t spoil your appetite, Chad.  There’s always too much to eat at a Whidbey potluck.  You’ll never starve.  Dave and Dixie will be there, too.  They always bring something they make with all that zucchini they grow. 

 Hey, speaking of zucchini, you see the one I brought in from our garden this morning? If I hadn’t picked it, that green monster would probably weigh four pounds by tomorrow!  That stuff grows like a weed on Whidbey!  Aren’t we lucky to live here!

 I’ll make some zucchini bread to take to the Methodist potluck on Sunday.  And, yeah, thank God we live on Whidbey!  Mountains, water, friendly people, potlucks . . . and more zucchini than we can eat.  What more could you want?

 Yup, we’re blessed.  Know what?  While you’re making those deviled eggs, I’m gonna sneak in a little nap before we go!  Wake me up around 5:45, would you, so I can put on a clean pair of jeans and fresh tee shirt?

 OK, Chad.  But don’t put your grass-stained sneakers up the couch! 

 See, I told you you’d recognize those people!  That’s how it sounds when we get ready for a potluck here on the Rock.  Anyway.  I need to get home and pick my zucchini before it gets too big.  See ya!

 

 

 

 

 

Emmanuel

            Could there be a more inauspicious beginning?  A poor married couple, living under an oppressive and brutal dictatorship, is ordered to travel miles from home only a few days before she is to give birth.  When she goes into labor, they take refuge in someone’s cave-like living place, and she delivers a son in a portion of the house usually reserved for the livestock.
           
           This, we are told, is the story of Emmanuel – how God came to live among us for a time.  It’s a story of hope amid despair, renewal amid devastation, love amid pervasive hate.
           
            I didn’t become a Christian until I was 52 years old.  I had rejected religion as harsh and judgmental, guided by rules and mythology made up by angry old men who claimed some kind of divine right.  About as believable as a fat guy in a red suit coming down my chimney with a bag of presents.  Bah, humbug!
           
           As I got older, however, and began to think about the enormity of the idea – God dwelling among us, taking our human form – I began to understand the power of the story.  The innocence of childhood.  The power of love to conquer hate.  The immediacy of reality over abstraction.  And it hit me.  A child is always meant to lead us, to show us the way.  How else will we ever know God?
 
           Flash forward to December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut.  Twenty children murdered for no reason.  Twenty young faces flashed endlessly on television screens.  Twenty stories about dreaming to be an astronaut or a painter, or helping others, or always smiling, or loving peace, or being the “light of our family.”  And it struck me.  Every child is Emmanuel – fresh from the arms of God, full energy and passion and innocence, effortlessly showing us how things are meant to be. 
           
           It seems so futile.  Every child brings hope for a better world.  Then we snuff out that hope, over and over again.  Darkness falls.  Hopelessness returns. With what, then, are we left?  I guess it’s just this:  No matter how evil we become, no matter how selfish, blind, dishonest, greedy and murderous, hope does spring eternal with every birth of a child.

           O come, O come, Emmanuel!  And ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.
           
          

Married

Lotte Lenya and Jack Gilford as forbidden lovers in "Cabaret," 1966

          A subplot in the 1966 Broadway musical “Cabaret” concerns the doomed romance of an elderly Jewish fruit vendor and his non-Jewish landlady in early-1930s Berlin.  Their love was taboo in the anti-Semitic German culture of the day, and their marriage was against the law – even before the Nazis made it a capital crime.  At one point, the man sings these words to his forbidden lover: 

How the world can change.
It can change like that-
Due to one little word:
"Married."
See a palace rise
From a two-room flat
Due to one little word:
"Married."

And the old despair
That was often there
Suddenly ceases to be.
For you wake one day,
Look around and say:
Somebody wonderful married me.

            I have thought about that a lot since Referendum 74 was approved by the voters in Washington, and same-sex marriage became legal in the state this month.  My partner Terry Bible and I have been together for 37 years.  We met in 1975.  Our relationship was still against the law in many states.  Those old laws were rarely enforced by then, but everybody knew they were on the books.  Even living in a big city like Los Angeles, we were cautious whom we told about having a “roommate.”  Our official status was always checked “single/never married,” our public lives were quite separate, and only those we chose to tell knew who we really were.  Prejudice, if it happened, wasn’t overt.  Just whispered.

            It has gotten so much better through the years.  The “stigma” that my mother worried so much about has pretty much disappeared.  We have lived in diverse communities in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Dallas, and have shared our lives openly with everyone.  It’s amazing how many straight couples these days tell us how much they admire the longevity of our relationship.

On our 30^th anniversary in 2005, we had a church wedding at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, before 200 friends and family members.  And since we moved to Coupeville in 2009, we have enjoyed a warm reception by this very friendly, close-knit community that we love so much.  This is where we intend to spend the rest of our lives.  On Dec. 6, the first day it was possible, we got a “legal” marriage license at the Island County Auditor’s office in Coupeville.  At least 10 other same-sex couples, most of whom had been together for many years just like us, were lined up, waiting for the office to open.  After the required three-day waiting period, we had a civil marriage service on Dec. 9, officiated by Coupeville Mayor Nancy Conard.

So, after 37 years together, with every aspect of our lives already enter-twined, and every human being we know already aware of who we are, what difference does “legal” marriage make?  A lot.  It feels good knowing that Terry has all the legal protections and benefits of any other spouse in Washington.  It feels good knowing that when I am introduced as his spouse, people will automatically know we’re married.  And it feels good knowing that all the young gay men and women who come after us won’t have to share their love in the shadows or pretend to be something they’re not or tell lies about the person they love.  They’ll be able to marry that person, just like anybody else can.

Most of all, it feels complete.  Somebody wonderful married me.  Thank you, Washington voters.  Thank you very much.

Thoughts and Deeds

 

Here is a piece I wrote for the newsletter of St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Dallas, just before Thanksgiving, 2007:

 

Thanksgiving is always a time to reflect on the Pilgrims and Squanto. I’m sure you remember the story we all learned in grammar school. Squanto was a member of the Patuxet tribe in what is now Maine. In 1608, he was kidnapped and taken to England as a slave/servant. When he was freed and returned to America a decade later, he found that his entire tribe had been wiped out by diseases the English had brought with them. He had every reason to hate his captors, but he didn’t. Instead, he helped save the Pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay – who by the spring of 1621 were sick and starving – by teaching them how to plant and fertilize native crops like corn. If there had been no Squanto, there likely would have been no first Thanksgiving.

I thought about that story the other day as I was reflecting on all the good things that have happened since we began the Saint Thomas Community Garden earlier this year. And I reflected on angels – like Squanto – and miracles – like the first Thanksgiving. In college, long before I professed my Christian faith, I took a philosophy course from a rumpled professor who looked like Einstein. A devoted agnostic, he nonetheless offered these definitions that have stuck with me for more than 40 years: Angels are God’s thoughts, he said, and miracles are deeds inspired by God’s thoughts.

Now I suppose any number of learned theologians might quibble or disagree with those definitions. But as I have watched our community garden take shape over the past six months, I’ve seen too much evidence to doubt my old professor. Consider this:

• Our garden committee knew we needed a shed to store tools and hoses before we could even get started. But we had no money to buy one. One night, Lynn Armstrong, a friend from Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, mentioned she had a shed on her rental property. Thought: “If you want, you can have it,” she said. Deed: Harold Spiegel had his crew moved it to Saint Thomas.
• We looked at the enormous size of our proposed garden and asked ourselves, how will we ever get this weed patch ready to grow vegetables for the hungry? Our parishioner Harold Spiegel owns Preservation Tree Service, the best-respected tree company in Dallas. Thought: “My crews have some down time and we can help,” he said. Deed: Harold and his crews tilled our soil, trimmed our trees, and gave us mulch and compost – all at no expense.
• There was no water in the garden space, and we had been warned that it might cost $5,000 or more to install a water meter and run a pipe to the garden. Our Senior Warden Kathy Carson has worked with the city water department in her real estate profession, and Harold Spiegel’s crews know how to install landscape watering systems. Thought: “Let me see what I can do,” Kathy said. “I think we can handle it once we have a meter,” Harold said. Deed: The city installed a water meter without charge and Harold’s crews ran the pipe to the garden at no cost.
• I created a sign to promote the garden but I had only some flimsy stakes to put it up near Inwood Road. It looked pathetic. Saint Thomas’s neighbor to the north, George Hendricks, noticed the forlorn sign. Thought: “I want to make that look better,” Mr. Hendricks told Stephen Waller in a phone call. Deed: At his own expense, Mr. Hendricks bought plastic piping and tie-backs. He straightened up our sign and made it look great.
• We had no tools or hoses to use in the garden. John and Kris Braddock are new members of our parish who moved here from New York last year. They used to have a country house with a big garden north of Manhattan. Thought: “We have lots of garden tools, hoses and garden furniture just sitting in storage,” John and Kris said. “Do you want them?” Deed: Our shed is now filled with the Braddocks’ tools and hoses, and their beautiful Adirondack-style garden furniture is arrayed under our spreading oak tree.
• As we contemplated how much work it would be to keep tilling the soil by hand to make sure it would be ready to plant next spring, we thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a power roto-tiller to use in the Saint Thomas Garden? But we can’t afford one.” Our parishioners Bruce Davis and Wayne Palmer have a beautiful home and garden in Oak Cliff. Thought: Bruce emailed Stephen Waller to say that he and Wayne had a Toro power roto-tiller they weren’t using much. Would we want to use it in our community garden? Deed: I had the pleasure of using Bruce and Wayne’s power roto-tiller to break up the soil before we planted the seven varieties of winter vegetables you now see growing in our community garden.

Thanks to all the angels who brought God’s thoughts to our community garden. And Thanks Be to God for the miracles those thoughts have created. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

(P.S.:  Another miracle occurred in April, 2008.  The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, accepted our invitation to come to St. Thomas the Apostle and bless our community garden, in an amazing celebration.  The garden has now been helping to feed the hungry in Dallas for almost five years.)



Honorable

My Mom visits me during Army basic training, Fort Lewis, October 1968

 

As I get older, I find myself ruminating on things.  I think it's a privilege of being a "senior" and I love it. 

 

Today is Veteran's Day, 2012.  I was drafted into the U.S. Army in September, 1968.  I spent most of 1969 in Vietnam, all expenses paid.  When I was discharged from the Army, the letter I got thanked me for honorably serving my country.  Truth is, however, I wondered then if I had done the honorable thing.  And even today I am still ruminating on that question.

 

In the 1960s, I thought the Vietnam war was a misadventure and I thought the draft was unfair.  Fifty years later, I still do.  Several million of us went there but 50,000 of us didn't come back.  Did we win anything?  Did we make the world safer?  I tear up when I visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.  I agree with those who call it an angry black gash on the National Mall.

 

How would my life have turned out if I had gone to Canada in September 5, 1968, instead of the Army induction center, as I had considered?  How would I feel about that decision today?  Would I consider myself "honorable?"  I wonder.

 

But I didn't go to Canada.  In the end, it wasn't for any big, Save-The-World reason.  It was because I was too worried about how it would affect my mother.  How would she explain to her friends that her son had skipped the draft and fled to Vancouver?  She was a woman of the 1950s, always concerned about What The Neighbors Might Think.  I knew she'd be embarrassed some, but I also knew she'd be even more out-of-her-mind worried about me.  I'd be a fugitive from U.S. justice and could be arrested if I cam home to visit.  How would I make a living?  Have a family? I always suffered when I knew she was in pain.  I just couldn't hurt her that way.  

 

So I did what I was asked to do,  and I managed to come home.  And I resumed my life and I made a good living and I built my own family and now I'm retired, happy and content.  But I still wonder.  What does "honorable" really mean?

 

Today, as I see tens of thousands of our beautiful young people returning from two wars since 2001, many of them mangled but still alive, I feel a deep hurt.  I imagine another angry, black gash on the National Mall to recognize them.  But I am amazed at their spirit.  So many of them are getting on with their lives, as best they can, not letting their horrific war experiences hold them back.  I suspect that many of them may feel better about "their" wars than I do about "mine."  After all, we were attacked and we had to defend ourselves.  Isn't doing that an "honorable" act?  

 

In my rumination, I haven't found an answer.  I suppose I never will.  I get angry when I see some folks wave flags and put "support our troops" stickers on their cars, and criticize those who don't.  That's so easy.  It's harder to help military families stay off food stamps or hire a veteran or be willing to pay higher taxes so we can give veterans the right benefits.

 

It's Veterans' Day.  It started out as Armistice Day in 1918, celebrating The War To End All Wars.  We've had at least six wars since then.  So,  The War to End All Wars wasn't.  Is anybody surprised?  Do you suppose that, when we're finally out of Afghanistan in 2014, we won't be involve in some new war?  To me, that would be honorable. Let's hope.  It's the best we can do.

 

                       

 

 

Living on a Rock Is Scary

Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk that I performed this weekend (Oct. 27-28) at the Postcards from Whidbey Island variety show at the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.

            BOO!  Did I scare you?  I thought not . . . except maybe for those folks over there, who were dozing off.  I saw you jump!

You see, it’s not easy to scare people here on the Rock.  We’re scared out of our wits just living here.   And not just at Halloween, although that is a scary time.  What with Dale Sherman flinging pumpkins across Ebey’s Prairie from his catapult, and Cindy Van Dyk selling all manner of horrifying stuff in her Far From Normal shop on Front Street. 

            But what I want to talk about are the EVERYDAY things that scare us on this Rock. 

            For instance, turning left from Broadway onto Highway 20.  How scary is that?  I was in my car the other day, making my way down the highway toward the Coupeville stoplight, minding my own business.  Out pops a beat-up station wagon turning left at Broadway. . . right in front of me!  Terrifying!

“Idiot!” I yelled, while stomping on the brakes.  Well, actually, I used a less polite word with an adjective I won’t repeat here.  Couldn’t you have turned left at the light?  Would that have been too much trouble?  All I remember is the driver looked like Freddy Krueger from the “Halloween” movies.  And either he had spent too much time at Toby’s Tavern that afternoon . . . or he was in a hurry to go murder somebody.  For a while, I was afraid it was going to be me.

            See what I mean?  The Rock is a scary place to live!

            And while we’re talking about scary moments in the car, how about the worst one of all . . . of course, that’s driving after dark.  For all those years I lived in America, driving after dark was no big deal.  Lots of big mercury vapor lamps all over the place made it bright as day everywhere I went.  But as soon as I moved to the Rock, I heard people say, “Oh my no, I never drive after dark.  It just scares me to death.”  Of course, like any newcomer, I thought they were all just a bunch of wimps.  Who’s afraid of the dark?  Come on!

            Then I ventured out one evening.  And I quickly learned why everybody here makes dinner reservations no later than 5:30. Yikes!  It’s really dark!  And the few lights you see along the roads seem to have 25-watt bulbs in them.

            And, can we talk about high-beam headlights?  The ones that the drivers coming toward you never dim until they’re blinding you?  Everybody is so small-town polite and civil here on the Rock.  So why is it that some of us become rude, inconsiderate Big City jerks when it comes to high beams?

The other night I was rounding the curve by the Navy’s Outlying Field and was caught in a pair of high beams so bright I thought it was a Close Encounter of the Third  Kind and I was about to be abducted by aliens.

            Then I thought maybe it was a tractor trailer driven by some thoughtless off-island teamster.  Imagine my shock when I saw it was a Prius.  Shouldn’t high beams be illegal on a Prius?  I’m just sayin’.

Of course, not all the scary things on the Rock are concerned with driving.  It’s also plain scary when it gets dark here at 4:30 in wintertime.  Ever forgot to turn on the porch light before you wander out to the garage?  Good luck with that!  Have a nice trip!

Or tried to get your dog or cat to come in at dinnertime when it’s pitch black outside, and you have no idea what kind of wild critter is making that horrifying noise?  Can you spell s-c-a-r-y, boys and girls?

            And of course, that pitch-blackness is even scarier when we get one of those power outages this Rock is famous for.  When we first experienced one, it was kind of nice and cozy.  Candles everywhere.  Fire in the fireplace.  Reading to each other.  No background noise.  Actually having a conversation.  Sweet.  Unfortunately, we found out that the magic wears off as the temperature plummets, the furnace doesn’t work and you’re almost out of firewood.  Going to bed and quickly crawling under the quilt is the best option to reduce your fright – and warm up your toes.

            I’ve saved a couple of the scariest things about the Rock for last. Here’s one.  You discover you need milk and a loaf of bread.  You head to the Red Apple at Prairie Center.

It’s a little after 3 p.m.  A sudden fear grabs you.  Damn!  You forgot!  School just got out!  Backpacks block the entrance.  Two girls, one with purple streaked hair, the other with green streaks, guzzle Red Bulls as you try to grab a cart.

Frightened but undeterred you push forward into the store.  Lines of school kids back up into the aisles, impatiently waiting to pay for armloads of Doritos, Ho-Ho’s, Donettes, Twinkies, Fried Pork Rinds, Teriyaki Jerky and other junk specialties your cholesterol count forced you to give up years ago.

They’re wearing t-shirts with skulls and cross bones, and pants that somehow hang below the part of the body that normally holds them up.  Their tattoos celebrate music and celebrities you never heard of.  Strange objects fill their pierced ear lobes, nostrils and other body parts.

How old you feel standing there with milk and a loaf of bread!  How out of touch!  Maybe you really were abducted by aliens!  How scary!

And, finally, here’s the really scary thing about living on this Rock.  Everything is so historic here!

The glaciers and woolly mammoths were around a little while, then high-tailed it – leaving behind their rocks and bones.  Then the First Nations people arrived.  Not sure who they were, but it must’ve been pretty cold because they quickly left, leaving just a few petrified camas bulbs. 

Then the Swinomish, Skagit and Snohomish people moved in and ate a lot of deer, oysters and salmon and built a lot of fires.  Then Captain Vancouver came around and named everything after the sailors on his ship.  Then Captain Ebey and Captain Coupe built some really cold and drafty Victorian houses and got scalped.  And through it all farmers just kept on trying to find something they could grow and sell on this Rock.

            See what I mean?  It’s his-tor-ick  here.  You never know when you’re going to step onto or into something really important around here.  You walk across a field and maybe step on a prehistoric clam shell dropped by a Pleistocene-era bird.  Yikes!  Or disturb the remains of a campfire built several thousand years ago.  Or find an  unidentified bone that may be human . . .or maybe it’s just a squirrel remnant that somebody or something ate in the fourth century B.C.

            Don’t get me wrong.  I love the historic heritage we have on the Rock.  We are the stewards of what we’ve inherited and our job is to preserve it for those who come next.  Most of us want to keep the Rock just like it is. 

Although don’t you wonder what archaeologists four thousand years from now will think of – oh, I don’t know – maybe all those septic tanks they’ll dig up?  I hope they’ll understand they were a big reason the Rock was always so green while we were here.    

            Any way.  I need to get home.  It’s dark and you know how scary it is around here!

            See ya!