Stars

Up until now I have contented myself to posting the non-fiction ramblings of my brain. They were interesting but also manageable. They were safe. Today I'm going to take a risk and post a short story called "Stars". It's a bit longer (but not so long as to curtail your plans for the evening). Be gentle.

The cracks are the hardest part. All the little bits of stuff get stuck in-between and then you have to go at it with jabbing motions to get them out. You can’t just sweep right over it even though that would be quicker. Sometimes-Nice Ron always wants things to be done quicker. He wants the trash taken out whenever it gets full but I like to do it at 12, 2, 4, and at 6 before I go home. I like sweeping because I can see what I’ve done. I can see the clean parts and where it’s still dirty. Sometimes it’s hard during the fall because the leaves blow all over the place. I like fall even though I have to wear my jacket with the hole on the left arm where the stuffing comes out a little. I like the way the cold air makes the tip of my nose cold. I like the way it smells—like leaves. It’s funny how leaves have a smell but you can’t really say what it smells like. They just smell like leaves.

There are lots of waves on the lake today. It’s Lake Michigan (M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N). I like to watch the boats out in the bay bob up and down, like when you go fishing. The wind causes that. It makes it seem like every wave has a little whipped cream on top. When I was little my dad used to spray the whipped cream in my mouth right out of the can until I couldn’t keep it in my mouth anymore. I would laugh and have to spit it out on the floor. Dad would smile. Sometimes I don’t like to think about my dad.

Sometimes-Nice Ron tells me to come back inside the restaurant because it looks like it’s going to rain. He is one of those funny people who isn’t young but isn’t old either. He could be younger than me or he might be a thousand years old. Sometimes I like to pretend that he is a thousand years old and he is a vampire or something. Vampires can live for a long time without looking old. I saw that in a movie once. There were werewolves too. Sometimes-Nice Ron isn’t a werewolf though. I saw him when there was a full moon. He drove me home because it was raining and the buses had stopped. It doesn’t look like rain. It just looks like grey.

I come back inside and hang up my coat in the break room. Susan has to remind me to wash my hands. “Every employee must wash their hands when returning to work.” Sometimes I forget.

I remember that I brought lasagna for lunch today. I’m happy because lasagna is on my top ten list of favorite meals. Only two and a half more hours until lunch. I like to read books on my break. Sometimes I don’t get all the words but I just skip over those parts. I don’t think I’m missing much. I read a story once about King Arthur and his knights. I liked the parts about the good knights fighting and going on quests. Quests are like jobs but people think you’re awesome for doing them. Sometimes I pretend that I am on a quest. ‘Sir Taylor rides out on his noble steed.’ But the story doesn’t end happy like it should. Arthur is a good king and he shouldn’t have died. Sometimes I don’t like the end of stories. Sometimes real life is like that too.

Sometimes-Nice Ron hands me a red bucket and asks me to wipe down the tables in the lobby. The water isn’t very warm. It’s supposed to be warm. I don’t say anything because sometimes when I point out things like that het gets angry and has to walk away. I like my job. I want to keep my job, so I don’t say anything to him about the water. There aren’t many people eating today. It’s only ten in the morning and we just switched over to lunch. Sometimes they let us have the leftover breakfast sandwiches that haven’t sold. Otherwise they just throw them out. That doesn’t seem right. There is a man and a woman sitting by a window. They’re still eating breakfast (even though its lunchtime). The man is drinking his coffee and looks kind of like my grandpa. The water in my bucket is dirty. There’s little pieces of egg floating around but I don’t want to say anything. The grandpa and the woman get up to leave. When they throw out their stuff I move over and wipe off their table.

There are three men eating near the entrance to the play area. I know I should remember one of them. It’s right on the tip of my brain. It feels like when you’re just about to sneeze but it won’t come out. Sometimes I want to go climb the structure (okay, all of the time) but I know I’m too big. Not too old though. Some of my friends at church play a game called ‘groundies.’ You play tag on a play structure with your eyes closed. It’s really fun but sometimes people don’t want me to play though.

The three men are laughing. I pretend to know what they are laughing about. I smile too. They see me and smile back but not the way my friends at church smile. Maybe they don’t go to church. Every Sunday somebody takes me out to lunch. It’s great because we go to places I don’t normally eat at. One time we went to a place with a big fish tank and I got to look at all the fish swimming and the starfish (which don’t look really alive) and the snake-y fish with its mouth open. I didn’t tell my friends but I was pretending in my head what it would be like to live underwater. I wouldn’t be a fish though. I would just be me except I could breathe. I would get to go down into the nooks and crannies where the fish go. I’d make a little house there. I didn’t want to leave when the man said that our table was ready. I went back to look when I went to bathroom. The starfish was in a different place (but I didn’t see it move).

The three men get up to throw out their trash. I go over to wipe off the table. They weren’t very neat. There are bits of fries and salt and pepper on the table. I sweep it all into my bucket and start to clean. At first I don’t hear anything because I’m trying to make sure I clean the whole table but then I see the familiar man coming over and saying something. I know that I should remember him but I can’t. Does he ride the bus with me? Does he work at Fun 4 All toys? I can’t remember and it makes me angry. He’s talking to me. “Hey retard, we’re not done.” I don’t’ know what he’s talking about so I keep wiping the table. “Idiot, we’re still eating.” He points to the table. Then I remember where I know him from. He is Steve … Steve what? Steve Grunaldi from Grand Haven High School. He was a year behind me in school. His face got fat. In school he had a locker on the east wing by where my friend Mike had his locker sophomore year. It was by Mrs. Rosenberg’s classroom. She had pizza parties on Fridays.

I see Sometimes-Nice Ron coming out from behind the counter. He’s saying something to Steve. Now I realize what I did wrong. They were coming back to their table and I wiped it down too fast. Steve and his friends are yelling at Ron. Everybody in the restaurant is staring. I’m mad at myself because Sometimes-Nice Ron has told me before that I need to wait until the customers have really gone before I clean the table. I know that. I know that.

Susan is yelling at the man from behind the register. She looks like she’s going to come out and talk to the men. Susan gets angry sometimes. One time I saw her fighting with her boyfriend in his car on her break. I was supposed to be sweeping but I stopped to watch. Her boyfriend looked at me. He had mean eyes. I didn’t like him. He threw a cigarette on the ground. I hate that even when it looks cool on the freeway when it sparks red. Ron is telling her to stay where she is. I don’t know if the men are staying anymore. I don’t know what to do.

One time when my dad and Miss Jessica were yelling at each other, dad threw a glass against the wall. It broke and I got scared and I ran and ran until the houses were gone and the fields started. I ran and saw the corn was really tall. Running past the corn made me feel like I was running super-fast. I ran for a thousand miles with the corn. I ran until my lungs felt like fire. I sat down and my world was gone. I was nowhere. The sun got all red and started to go down. It started to get dark and the shadows were everywhere and I got scared even though I know there aren’t such things as ghosts or anything. But it looked ghost-y. I was sitting down in the dirt of the road and no cars had come by. Maybe nobody would ever come by. I prayed and started to cry. I didn’t know what to do then either. I wished dad had never thrown that glass and I wished I hadn’t run and I wished mom had never left. Mom had soft brown hair. I saw headlights coming and I stopped crying because I didn’t want them to see me crying. The car stopped by me but I didn’t get up because they were Strangers but it was Miss Jessica and she drove me home. When we got home dad wasn’t there.

Steve is very angry. Ron is telling him to leave. Steve is swearing. He starts to walk away but he has to pass where I am standing. He walks real close to me and says “move it retard.” I try to get out of his way but I kind of trip on my own feet (like the time with the milk). I don’t fall but I have to let go of the bucket and catch myself and it sloshes on my pants and falls to the floor. There is water everywhere. A Big Mess. My pants are wet. I look like I peed myself. Steve and his friends laugh and leave and give Susan the bad finger which makes her even madder and she swears. Ron tells me not to worry about the bucket (even though I want to clean it up) and ways that I can go home which is nice cause it’s not even really lunchtime yet and that’s when it gets busy. I ask him if I can take the trash out anyway. He says okay. I always take the trash out before I go home. At home, Tuesdays are trash day. I do the recycling too.

I put on my jacket and remember to bring my lasagna home. It’s still lasagna day even if I’m not at work. There aren’t many bags of trash but I throw them in the cart anyway and wheel it out to the trash corral. Cows live in corrals. The trash smells so I hold my breath. The sky is still grey but there is no rain. On the lake the ships shimmer like shiny, friendly stars. I feel like I’m floating there, holding my breath like a balloon or a bobber on the water. Floating, floating, floating, never sinking until I can’t take it anymore and breathe like it’s the first breath I’ve ever taken.

Oceans, Sacred and Wild

All sound is drowned out by the constant crash of the surf against the rocky shore. Looking out upon the waters one sees a vast canvas of the sea, set about with whitecaps. It is perpetual motion; an undulating expanse as wave after wave driven by wind and tide press ever onward. An island, lush with trees lit with the fires of autumn sits like a sentinel on the horizon, nameless, uninhabited, a touchstone against the backdrop of the ever-shifting waters. As I watch, the sun, unseen on the land, paints the water with an even more vibrant shade of aquamarine. There is a chill in the air but the rays upon the water gives the impression of a hot, shimmering summer’s day. This is Lake Huron.

I will admit that from my land-locked home, I often forget the grandeur and vastness of the four great seas that surround me (other states lay claim to Ontario). I see them rarely, most often catching a passing glance at southern Erie as we drive through downtown Cleveland. How little I regard these majestic giants. Looking out upon the face of any of the Great Lakes one would be hard-pressed to differentiate them from an ocean save the lack of the briny tang in the air. One can only imagine the thoughts of those courageous explorers as they stood on their yet undiscovered shores, or set sail on their unplumbed depths. I’m sure that many, upon hearing the great clash of waters from a distance, became convinced that they had reached the farthest extreme of this new world.

We struggle to appreciate our mighty neighbors these days. How can they compare to the length and breadth of the seven seas upon which the world’s commerce is borne and under which the lightless depths hold incalculable mysteries? We know so much these days (too much perhaps). We can see on a map or from a satellite the farthest extremes of the world. We can compare the lakes surrounding us with the great seas of Northern Europe or the gulfs of the southern hemisphere. We learn the mileage and volume and surface area. But do we comprehend? With our vast stores of information can we come to a place of understanding the size and scope? We lose sight of the enormity of life inhabiting a single cove in the grand scheme of an entire sea. This affects all areas of our lives but is particularly insulting to our unique borders that bear the stigma of familiarity.

Let us look again, with eyes anew, on our lakes and try to see them not as geographical objects but as vast communities of life; of beauty; crafted by Divine hand to reflect unseen glory.

Michigan: the Hollywood starlet, boasting a metropolis and the golden coast of the elite, whose northern extremes boast nationally recognized wonders. The crystal blue waters and sandy beaches lure millions to its shores every year. Michigan you may be our vacation home but we know you so little. What do we know of the plovers who nest on your shores? Have we witnessed the petulant winds sculpting your dunes? Forgive us if we have taken you as a trinket without truly seeking to grasp your grandeur; without seeking your soul.

Erie: maligned and forgotten. You became to us a commodity to be traded and in so doing we tarnished your gown. We no longer looked at you as a thing of beauty but as a means of transport, a battleground for our wars. You bore the ore that fed our pride. You bore the very means by which we forgot you. Let us see you again as you were; as you can be again, without our reckless stain upon you.

Huron: I confess ignorance of you. You existed in my mind as an emerald enigma and I sought you not. Teach me, if you would, even as I sit upon your rocky shores. Show me how to appreciate your power.

Oh mystery deep and foreboding are you Superior, most ruthless of your siblings. You are to us a foreign world, misty and cold. Your bones run deep and your ancient shores speak of secrets long withheld. We sought to tame you yet you would not be broken. It was we who broke upon your shores and sank beneath your waves. Bitter and alien you seem to us. Let us ponder but a little further if you will allow, that we might see the deep things of the world as you do, fully grasping the profound solemnity.

Ontario you seem to me a far-flung cousin rather than a sibling. Your shores belong to another land; another time. Speak, if you will. We will listen. We will hear your story.

As the sun sets upon the sunrise coast and I shiver in my sleep, let us together pledge to gaze with renewed vigor and openness upon our long forgotten inland seas.

The Worst Singer in the World

This morning during worship service at my church I sat in front of the absolute worst singer I’ve ever heard. Hardly a single note was on key. I’m not a particularly musical person myself but I feel like I can hold my own with my voice, such as it is, but this woman was rough. I had to fight back the urge to turn around and look her in the eyes. To be honest I didn’t want to match a face to the voice. I was already being pretty critical and I didn’t want to judge her every time I saw her. At one point I wasn’t even aware of the band or of the congregation singing. All that surrounded me was a sea of cringe-inducing vocal exercises. This woman was ruining my experience and disrupting my world

Lately I’ve been really troubled with the notion that Christians are brothers and sisters. See, I’m an only child without any cousins so I grew up in a very small circle of family. When I became a Christian and started getting acquainted with the rituals, routines, and eccentricities of church life I came to view gatherings as services. In an array of leadership capacities I learned to plan events and schedule the elements of worship: songs, prayers, sermons. Ingrained in me has been the desire to iron out the wrinkles and deficiencies. The wandering warbler sitting behind me was definitely a wrinkle.

It’s so easy to fall into an attitude of performance that takes us away from the truth of the matter: namely that believers in Christ are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are family. My lack of close family; of siblings, has always tripped me up in this regard. But the Bible repeatedly calls us to view each other in such terms. It is enmeshed in the language of the epistles. We have been adopted by the Lord into a family of aliens and strangers. We have been brought from a life of sin into a new life in Christ. Our old lives are dead and we live new lives in a new reality; a new family. We are not simply people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. How would we respond differently to our worship services if we could view them as family gatherings? How would we respond to our differences if we didn’t view our relationships as disposable but rather built upon the bonds of family? I have an inkling that we would be a little quicker to give each other grace; that we would be a bit more willing to gloss over arguments and controversies; that if we knew we had to live together at the end of the day we might be more inclined to talk to each other and really care about what our friends are saying--- because those are the things that you do for family--- or should. When the person in need is a brother or a sister or cousin, you go a little farther; you dig a little deeper; you sacrifice more to their benefit. If those are the things that are true of biological families how much more should that be true for those of us who follow Christ; who have chosen by our own wills to enter into a new family?

If I can see the person in the pew next to me as my brother; as one chosen and redeemed by Christ, then maybe I can bring myself to actually talk to him and actually care about what’s going on in his life instead of simply shaking his hand during ‘fellowship’ time. If I can see my pastor as a brother entrusted by God with particular skills and a particular calling, then maybe I won’t view him with cynicism and mistrust. If the teens in the back row aren’t just loud, annoying, and frustrating strangers but instead my sons and daughters, nieces and nephews then perhaps I can find it in myself to be a model for them, to give them the grace that Jesus gives them. If only I saw our worship services as family reunions rather than sterile exercise then maybe I’d feel less alone; maybe I’d be more willing to open myself up; maybe I could feel peace among friends. If only…

The song is ending. There is an acapella chorus. I am overwhelmed by the droning voice behind me. I turn to look my sister in the eye so I’ll never view her as a stranger again. If only I can see her as family then maybe I can sit through another song.

What Will You Remember of Me?

This evening I indulged in a pleasure that I wish were more a part of my regular existence: I finished my evening sitting in front of a crackling fire in my fireplace. With my feet warming on a stool, my eyes pass over the bookshelves lining the walls. My attention is drawn to a simple wood carving of a bald eagle. Having just seen this very animal earlier in the day I am aware of the many ways in which the carving differs from the real thing. The eye is too perfectly round. The beak too curved. One of its talons is twisted unnaturally. Its feet rest upon a of piece driftwood which has been broken and hastily reassembled.

Yet the eagle sits upon my shelf overlooking the expanse of my living room not for its perfection but for its creator. The figure was carved by my grandfather, now departed. It is for that reason that this figure is more than a sum of its parts. It remains a physical memory of his life and effort. As I ponder these things I am reminded of how few tokens of his life I possess. In fact, my memories of his life are far fewer that I would like. I can already feel my own memories of him slipping into the fog of history. What do I truly have that encapsulates this man’s life? What will be remembered of him?

My thoughts, as if bidden by an unseen oarsman are swiftly swept onto my own existence. What will be remembered of me? It is the question that plagues Man with a doggedness only equaled by the certainty of his own mortality. Our days are like a vapor. Our flesh is like grass. Here today and gone tomorrow. What will become of us? What will become of me?

Even in the limited sphere of my life I ponder what of me will remain. My daughter, now nearly two, what would she remember of me if I were to vanish from this earth? Would I be a mere carving on the mantelpiece to her? Would she remember the way I yelled at her when she poured a drink on the floor? Would she remember the times I was too occupied by some pointless news story to sit down and play with her? Would she remember my worries and anxieties; the way the weaknesses and sins of my past haunted me? What of my doubts and fear? My grumbling and complaining? What memories am I making for her? What kind of legacy am I leaving?

Paul sets a mighty example for us when he writes to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Will this be my legacy? Will I be known by my trust in the Lord or by my doubting? How am I building my legacy? On the presupposition of my own efforts? Or am I building it upon the character of the Lord? My own efforts will fail. I should know that by now. My own projects, as successful as they might seem, are but a passing wind, lost very quickly to the swiftness of time. What will remain? The Lord only. My only legacy is in Him and in my trust in Him. Will my daughter see that in me? Will she in my life the majesty of my Creator? Could she discern from the memory of me the character of God? As I rest my eyes this night, the question resonates: what will she remember of me?