We stood outside the church and waited for
The priest to say the words and make the signs
Upon the eyes and ears and lips and hands
And feet of the unbaptized at the door.
“Acceptance.” “Faith.” “Eternal life.” The lines
Rehearsed are said just as the Church commands.
And those without are welcomed now within
To serve the Lord and be set free from sin.
The Gospel reading of the Mass today
Concerned the seed of faith that tosses trees
Uprooted into waters far away.
This is just one of the hyperboles
Used by Our Lord to make us understand
Detachment and belief go hand in hand.
To my surprise, the porch was wet when I
Awoke. I’d stumbled over to the dogs to let
Them out. And when I did, I noticed how,
Beneath the Chinese Elm, there was a dry
Patch on the patio. The rest was wet.
I thought perhaps someone had used a pow-
er washer while we slept–an absurd thought.
A gentle rain is welcome; heat is not.
It’s Sunday, so we rise and go to Mass.
We slip into an empty pew and kneel.
We bow our heads to pray, then Mass begins.
The priest says, “Call to mind now all your sins.”
I do recall them, then I start to feel
So foolish and pathetic. What an ass
I am! I am not worthy to receive
The Lord under my roof, not yet. And yet–
Behold! He stands at my heart’s door and knocks.
I long to let Him in, but a voice mocks:
“Your roof is leaky. All your things are wet!
He’ll hate it here! Do you truly believe
One word is all it takes to heal someone?”
“I do!” I let Him in, and He says, “Son.”
The day began with soccer and a plan
To dupe our darling daughter, whose fish died.
(And sleeps now with the fishes, as it’s said.)
I left the match before my wife and ran
Into a local pet shop, knowing I’d
Find there a doppelganger of the dead.
I made the switch: the fraud’s in the aquarium.
But if he dies, I think next time I’ll bury him.
So I decided that I’d like to write
A few iambic lines each day for fun.
“It couldn’t hurt,” I thought, “and it just might
Help my creative juices start to run.”
The first thing that I wrote was called “To Rob”—
A tongue-in-cheek epistle to the thief
Who stole me and transformed me from a slob
Into a man. It’s fine. Like this, it’s brief.
Dear Sir, it seems you’ve taken what is mine
And done exactly what I’d hope to do:
You’ve trimmed the fat, added a stiffer spine,
And made of him a better person who,
Despite his countless shortcomings, reflects
His Master’s good intentions and who can
Both be and act himself. I pay respects
To you who took a boy and made a man.
Imagery or wordplay-- which will govern the Verse of the Day? What am I supposed to do-- scrawl a limerick or paint haiku? blood from the glass well drawn up by the thirsty reed spills across the page
Annual Hayshers' Reunion Breakfast, 12-23-20 For Kim (But not for Brian, who stood us up. Again.) Old friends and eggs (and lox) -- Meaningful, meandering talks -- A year in the making, this bread-breaking is ever a pleasure for me.
Twenty-sevenish years ago, my friend Kim (a dude) watched idly from the sidelines as I debated a bevy of my mamby-pamby co-religionists in a heated debate that took place in the lobby of the Newman Center at the University of Arizona. Beleaguered by fools and appeasers who maintained that morality could not be legislated, I — like noble Aragorn fending off the Nazgûl on Weathertop– valiantly took on all comers. “Of course you can legislate morality! That’s what laws do! Or do you think murder is only illegal because it’s messy?” (For the record, I don’t think goodness can be legislated, but laws are always a reflection of a society’s morals.)
At the time, the Newman Center was located across the street from the Tri-Delta sorority house where Kim worked as a “hasher” (i.e. dishwasher / slop slinger). Kim was — and still is — a devout Evangelical, but he would frequently pop into the Newman Center to pray. (He’s cool like that.) Anyway, after I vanquished all those ninnies, he — like the mysterious Ranger Strider at the Prancing Pony in Bree — approached.
“I’m on your side,” he said.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I didn’t.
“My name is Kim Brown. I’m impossibly cool. Wanna be friends? And, yeah, you heard right: I’m a dude named Kim.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
And that, more or less, is how Kim and I became friends. Eventually, he recruited me to work with him at the sorority and that’s where the picture above was taken. Most of the guys who signed up to work as hashers were undependable creeps / frat boys who just wanted to hit on the girls. They would inevitably bail, and when they did, Kim would propose one of his Christian friends as a replacement. The house mother always agreed to bring Kim’s friends on because we always (eventually) got our work done and never hit on the ladies. I forget where she was from, but she always called us “hayshers” instead of “hashers” and that’s what we’ve called ourselves ever since.
I don’t remember when we started meeting up for breakfast, but it’s been an annual tradition for a while now and it’s always a great time. Our hilarious friend and fellow haysher Brian joins us when he can, but he’s very responsible now that he’s no longer in a rock band with Kim. The cat’s in the cradle, Brian.
A Man and His Wife I watched a man build--with his wife-- a simple, rustic cabin. It wasn't much, but it's more than I've built. It's something that's worth having.