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The Seed Catalog

“If I loved anything more than the spreadsheet (for the plans for next year’s garden), it was the seed catalogs. They were my porn- temptation on every single page, photograph after photograph of plump turnips and fat carrots, juicy fruits and glistening tomatoes. Some of the cannier seed dealers went not with photos but with line drawings. These were even more powerful. I filled the white space in my imagination with not only vibrant produce but also my fantasies of being an old-time gentleman farmer. Every listing burst with promise, every seed packet shouted with hope. Nothing had failed yet. All was still possible.” (Jeff Chu, Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand)

Nothing is much better than a seed catalog to get your mind and heart set on a positive future. Burpee’s and Park Seed (from my home state of South Carolina) have filled my mind with desires untold since I was a youth. Though I had no experience growing anything other than the sea-monkeys I ordered from the back of my comic books, I knew I could bring in tomatoes for sandwiches all summer if I had the chance. Is there a way you can grow Duke’s Mayonnaise?

But it’s not just seed catalogs with their promise of abundant gardens. I was captured by the stories of early inventors from the books I checked out of the Inman Library. Blessed by my mother to be a reader from before elementary school, books became my escape from making up beds, picking up yard trash, and drying dishes. It moved me from trying to learn sports I would never excel at- football, baseball, basketball (we were too poor for tennis and nobody played golf)- to seeing a universe where I could make a difference. My heroes were Samuel F.B. Morse, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Ben Franklin. So were Marie Curie and George Washington Carver, though I never thought I could be that smart.

Later, stories of people who worked to improve life for all filled my evening hours. Florence Nightingale, Dunant and Moynier, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln all gave me a vision of what life could be like. And, of course, in my teen years, I read of John Wesley, Francis of Assisi, George Müller, Dorothy Day, Teresa of Avila, who worked to make the world better for all because, as Wesley put it, “the love of God was shed abroad in their hearts.”

Later, fiction, mostly science fiction, gave me scenes of the world as it could be and not as it is. Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Madeleine L’Engle described societies where people were more concerned for the general welfare than their riches. As time has marched on, as our technology has advanced, it seems like those worlds are farther away than before. I guess that’s why it’s called fiction.

Today, it seems that our “heroes” are those who stress gain at any cost, including human rights. Worlds where people are put into classes, and never given the chance to advance. George Müller was once condemned for helping people experiencing poverty to “rise above their station.” (I hope to be blamed for something like that.) We have become a zero-sum game world, where if one person succeeds, another has to lose.

Something in me screams that is not how we are meant to be. We can all move ahead. We can all get better. Another person, nation, or race does not have to lose for the rest to get better. I don’t have to lose so that you can win. Something in me wants something more, something better, for us all.

I need a new seed catalog.

Daikon- Roots and Leaves

In the book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmer, Jeff Chu writes about growing daikon, a type of radish more popular in Chinese cooking than in American. He planted some and worried when the leaves (what we Southerners call greens) were growing abnormally fast. They were taking over the garden space. He knew that if the leaves and stems were growing above ground, not much was growing below, which is where the tuber was. The above-ground part of the plant was using energy needed for the below-ground part. Later, when he pulled up the plants for a harvest, he found that he was correct. Instead of a healthy radish, it was just strings.

I have been thinking about that this morning. How much energy do I put into the things that I can see, that others can see? And how much do I ignore what is beneath? In his excellent book The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery says, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

It is in doing away with some of the externals that we provide time and energy for the place of real growth. However, we do not need to get rid of all things. The leaves are essential to the plant. Jesus did not talk about tubers, at least, not that I know of. But he did talk about grapes and grapevines. He said you must cut away the dead branches and prune the ones that produce, so that the ones left can be more fruitful. It is the same principle, except that you can see the grapes. You do not see what is underground.

This is somewhat of a problem. We do not know if that root, that tuber, is growing underground until harvest time, which takes some trust.

What must I do to help that part of my life grow? I need silence, meditation, time for reading and thinking, and even rest. And what do I need to trim, remove, or prune from my life? I am still working on that because I love those greens. And greens, while often tasty and nutritious if cooked well, will not sustain my life.

Author, banker, vicar, and researcher George Lings writes about seven “sacred spaces” that are avenues to a deeper spiritual life. They are cell, chapel, chapter, cloister, garden, refectory, and scriptorium. Of all of them, cell (being alone with God) is the hardest for most of us. Our world today is not designed for silence, introspection, or deeper growth in unseen ways.

But it is the most essential part of life. If I spend that time in my cell (my study at home), turning off the phone, closing the door, lighting a candle, and listening to the inner voice of the Spirit, I come out more at peace.

If I do not do this regularly, I will find that my roots are no longer roots. They are just strings in the dirt.

Ode To Joy

The date was June 3, 1997. Nineteen months earlier, my life had fallen apart (that’s a story for another time). I was now living in the rural community of Oswego, SC, serving a church and healing up. As I rode from the parsonage on Red Apple Lane to the church on the corner of Lodebar and Leonard Brown Roads, I saw a couple of my church members out in their farm fields, taking care of the land. On my left was Billy McCoy, on a tractor, doing something to keep the crops growing. Across the street was his brother, Sam, baling hay. Billy and his wife Stella were leaders in the church and were very supportive and helpful to me. If you rode by their home and saw the front door open, you were invited to stop by. A glass of water or tea awaited you, maybe a snack, but most of all a listening ear, an open heart, and a wise mind if you needed any of them.

When I saw Billy and Sam working, an idea hit me. I called Billy. He answered. “Billy, do you know what day it is?” “Not really,” he replied. “It’s not your birthday, is it?” “Nope. What’s the date?” He thought and said, “It’s the third of June…” and I broke into my best Bobbie Gentry, singing “another sleepy, dusty, delta day…” I slid into those notes like I was sneaking into my house when I was a teenager. “It’s Billy McCoy Day!” I shouted, then resumed singing, “I was out chopping cotton and my brother was baling hay.” Although it was not cotton season yet in Oswego, or down in Mississippi, Billy got it immediately.

Since then, I have called Billy every June 3 and sung part of that song to him. Usually, I get him early in the morning while he is out on the porch with his break-of-day coffee. We catch up with each other, share news of our families, always laugh about things, and promise to keep each other in our prayers.

Today, June 3, 2025, is the 28th time I have called and sung to him. Twenty-eight years of love and support, friendship, and laughter. After I hung up the phone, I realized I was smiling.

Music often expresses the joy we feel. The words may say something meaningful, but the tune frequently speaks in more profound ways. One of Ludwig van Beethoven’s final works was Symphony Number 9, which concludes with his powerful “Ode to Joy.” We often sing that tune in church, saying, “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee…”

People have different songs to express joy in their lives. Some sing hymns, like “Amazing Grace” or “This is My Father’s World.” For some, it may be an old pop song, like James Taylor’s “Country Roads” or “It’s a Beautiful Morning” by The Rascals. Chris Stapleton’s “Joy of My Life,” Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” and Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” all come to mind. For me, today, it’s “Ode to Billie Joe.”

The song itself is not that joyful. It’s rather tragic. Billy Joe MacAllister commits suicide. Something…or someone…was thrown into the Yazoo River. Brother gets married and moves away, Papa dies, Momma doesn’t want to do much of anything, and the singer spends her days dropping flowers off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Have a nice day.

But the song brings back memories of people who loved me, helped me heal, laughed, and cried with me, and a community where I found my wife. Oddly enough, “Ode to Billie Joe” has become my Ode to Joy.

A Penny For Your Thoughts?

The cost of thoughts is about to go up. The US Treasury Department has announced that after the latest order of blanks for the penny is used up, they will not be producing them anymore. The expected time to stop minting them is in early 2026.

The reason is that it costs 3.69 cents to produce one. A nickel costs 13.78 cents to produce. While not the 269% increase that a penny costs, it is still 176% of the worth, so it may be on the chopping block soon. A dime costs 5.2 cents and a quarter 14.68 cents. The seldom-used half-dollar coin costs n even 34 cents, and the rarely used dollar coin 12.43 cents (probably the best deal, but we don’t seem to want to carry them). The US Mint produces other coins, too, but they are more for collecting and investing, rather than circulation. If you were walking around with one each in your pocket, it would cost 83.78 cents to make the $1.91.

Although Mr. Trump sent out a directive to stop the production of the penny, he was not the first president to attempt to do so. President Obama expressed support for eliminating the penny, as did the late John McCain.

As pennies become more and more rare, businesses will begin rounding off to the nearest nickel. My suspicion is that they will always round up, rather than lose the fractions of dollars that rounding down would cause. In addition to the slight but significant loss that consumers will experience over time, our language will also change.

Some of you are old enough to remember pay phones. There used to be a saying, “Here’s a nickel. Call someone who cares.” (Over time, it became a dime, then a quarter.) When the phone companies decided to start charging 35 cents for a call, you couldn’t easily say, “Here’s a quarter and a dime. Call someone who cares.” It did not roll off the tongue as easily. Now, it seems, a penny for your thoughts, putting your two-cents worth in, a penny saved is a penny earned, penny wise and pound foolish, penny-pincher, a bad penny always turns up, and worth every penny will go away from the common idioms.

Most people in the US make everyday purchases using credit or debit cards, though cash apps are on the rise. Cash is being used less frequently. Even though most businesses now charge between 3 and 4 percent of the bill to cover the cost of using a card, people still use them. As one friend said, “I get cash back on my card.” When I asked how much, he said, “Two percent.” Do the math. I prefer to pay with cash because…well….I am a troglodyte.

I will miss the penny when it is gone. I am old enough to remember when there was penny candy, penny ante poker, and a few nails at the hardware store could be bought for one cent. Picking up the pennies on the ground for good luck (if it was face down, be sure to turn it over three times before putting it in your pocket), wrapping enough of them to get a half-dollar, and putting one under a table leg to keep it from wobbling. All gone. I’ll miss it all.

And that’s my $.02 (now rounded up to a nickel).

Memorial Day

Monday, May 26, 2025, is Memorial Day.  It is the 160th year celebration of this holiday. Memorial Day began on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, SC, as a way to honor those who had died in the war to preserve the Union.  A group of recently freed enslaved people and others found graves where 257 bodies of unnamed Union soldiers from the war were buried. The graves were in disrepair and disregard, near the Hampton Park Race Course (beside the current Citadel). In gratitude for their sacrifice in helping to preserve the Union and bring an end to slavery, they cleaned the graveyard, placed flowers on the graves, and held services of prayer and thanksgiving for those who now lie in the earth. Over 10,000 people attended.

Since that time, we have honored those who have died in our seemingly never-ending wars. A service at the National Cemetery in Florence will be on Monday at 10 a.m. There will be other services throughout the country. I  encourage you to go to one. Each year, I attend the service here. It is very moving, and I am grateful to God for all who have given themselves to preserve the Union.

Several years ago, I ran into Will Malambri, then pastor at Central UMC, at the service. He was there with his son. After the service, we talked about the previous day’s worship at our churches and bemoaned the small attendance. (It’s usually one of the lowest-attended days in the church year.) Will said he started to stand up at the beginning and say, “I’d like to welcome all of you who do not have a house at the beach, the lake, the mountains, or the river!” We both laughed because it’s true. We started this holiday to thank God for those who gave their life for us, making it public and large, something to show our gratitude as a community and nation, not just as individuals. But slowly, like most holidays in America, it has become just another day off, and a day to have special sales.

I encourage you to make it different this year. Offer God praise, lift up in prayer those who are grieving, pray for the leaders of our country and of the world that they will soon decide to follow Jesus, the Prince of Peace, rather than Mars, the god of war. 

And Monday, find a cemetery and look for a grave with a small American flag on it. Go and stand beside the grave and offer a prayer. You may not have known that person, but we all owe him or her more than we can repay.

And please, pray for the day to come when we will not have to pray these prayers anymore.

Praying for Donald Trump

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I am not fond of Donald Trump. I do not like the way he has been working to destroy not only basic democracy in our country, but basic humanity as well. Making fun of handicapped persons, ridiculing veterans, constantly putting out social media messages that sound like the rantings of a middle school bully has made the office he holds a laughing stock in the world. And his constant barrage of executive orders has done nothing to lift the poor, the needy, or even strengthen the middle class. I am not fond of him at all. That does not surprise any of you who know me.

Knowing that I pray for him every day may surprise you. Not like the Republicans and MAGA ranters who said they prayed for President Biden, quoting Psalm 109:8- “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” That Psalm, which was quoted laughingly by Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, goes on to say: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.” I heard their prayer and thought, I bet Jesus himself turned away.

I am afraid to say that now I have heard a few left-leaning folks use the same prayer about Mr. Trump. In both cases, it is disgusting.

That’s not the kind of prayer that I offer.

Here is how I pray for him. I do not pray all of this daily, but it becomes a habit over time.

I pray for his safety and the safety of his family. There are a lot of crazy people in the world, and some would like to see him physically hurt. This includes political opponents and those who think he is not conservative enough. So I pray for his safety.

I pray that he will come to his senses and begin acting presidential, caring for all the people, not just the wealthy. I pray that he will learn that the poor, not only in our country but in the world, are God’s children, and we have a responsibility to care for them.

I pray that, for the first time in his life, he will remain faithful to his vows. He has admitted to not keeping any of his marriage vows and has shown that he does not intend to keep his vows to support and defend the Constitution. I pray that he will turn and keep his word.

I pray that he would understand that life is not a business transaction, and that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.” Life is about so much more than business.  He has a zero-sum gain attitude: somebody always has to win, and the other person has to lose. While this may be suitable for a football game, it does not apply to life. Eventually, people learn that. I pray that he understands it soon.

And I pray that he will be removed from office safely and legally if he does not change. I pray this not just for the country’s sake but for his sake as well. I believe that we will all eventually recognize the ways we have hurt others, and that we will begin to live differently. If that does not happen in this life on earth, it will happen in the next life. And the sooner we learn that, the sooner we can begin to change. The more damage he causes to people and our country, the longer it will take him to make amends.

So I pray for him every day.

The Misplaced C

My friend Neil and I met to walk the Shot Pouch Trail in Sumter, SC. The trail is a 3.1 mile trail that runs from Dillon Park to Swan Lake Iris Gardens. It is a beautiful, well-maintained paved trail for walkers, runners, and bikers.

It was a typical May day in Sumter. Warm, but not overbearing, and, as always in Sumter, humid. About half-way across the trail Neil said, “I could use some water.” We had both been sweating a fair amount.

In front of us was the Sumter YMCA. I said, “I bet there’s a water fountain in there.” We crossed the street and entered the building. We walked into the lobby of the very nice buiding and I walked up to the counter. The young woman working there smiled at me and asked if she could help us. I said, “Yes, ma’am. We’re visiting town and walking the Shot Pouch Trail. I was wondering if you had a place where we could get a cold cup of water?” She asked, “Are you members here?” “No, ma’am.” “Then I’m afraid I can’t let you in,” she said, still smiling.

I looked over at Neil, standing by the fancy cross in the lobby. We just started laughing and walked out.

I said “So much for that ‘C’, huh?”

Additional note: if you’re ever walking the Shot Pouch Trail in Sumter, bring your own water. And have lunch at the Sumter Cut-Rate Drug Store in town. Not only will they give you water, their onion rings are terrific!

A New Season/A New Chapter

“Those who lean on Jesus’ breast feel the heartbeat of God.”- Monk of Patmos

It was on Epiphany, January 6, 2020, that my doctor cut open my chest to see what was wrong. (Epiphany, by the way, means “unveiling” or “revealing.”) For the previous two months I had been in and out of the hospital and had several different specialists trying to figure out what was making me sick. Each path we took came to a dead end, a bad term to use when it seems that may be the actual ending. Finally, a couple of doctors thought they had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I had septic arthritis, And sepsis seemed to have filled my chest cavity. My surgeon, Dr. Holley, an expert in the area and a man I will be forever grateful for, was going to have to remove part of my sternum, clavicle, and first rib. Then he would clean out my chest. Cathy had been sitting by my bedside constantly for the weeks and helping me as I got weaker and weaker. They rolled me off to prep me for surgery while she wondered if I would live. I did not know how serious it was and would not find out until later when I was well on the way to recovery.

In the OR the anesthesiologist explained everything to me and began to do the things that would knock me out for the next few hours. His assistant talked to me and offered words of encouragement. I do not know if he knew I was a minister and a follower of Jesus, but he may have. My writings had appeared in the local newspaper for the previous seven years. It may have been because he was a follower of Jesus, too. Just before I closed my eyes and the anesthetic took over, he leaned down beside my head and whispered in my ear, “Just be like John and lean your head on Jesus’ breast.”

And that was the image I went to sleep with, just leaning my head on the breast of someone who loved me and whom I loved.

When I woke up, Cathy was there. They told me that everything had gone well, and that I would eventually be fine. The scar on my chest looked familiar to me. I realized one day it was the Hebrew letter daleth Icon Description automatically generated with medium confidence, which is often used to mean “door.” I told the few people who saw it that it was the door to my heart. What I have come to understand over the last few years is that it was a way of my heart being open to God’s heart. There are many doors to God’s heart, I believe. But for some of us, we must listen for the heartbeat to find it.

I am getting ready to enter a new season in my life. My friend Johnathon calls it a new chapter, which I like, especially since I plan to spend more time writing. I do not know what the next season, the next chapter, will hold for me. Whatever it holds, I’ll try to remember my friend’s words, and just lay my head on the breast of Jesus.

Holy Saturday

Eve(I wrote and posted this years ago. I wrote it for a Christmas Eve service, but it takes place on this day. I thought I would bring it out again.)

It was early Saturday morning when I went looking for Mary. Yesterday, Friday, had been the worst day of both of our lives. The past few days had been more than horrible. She had seen her first-born son die, and I had watched as my best friend, and the man I thought was God incarnate, give his life away uselessly on a cross. We had seen it all, some up close, other parts from a distance, but we had been there, side by side, watching it, thinking it would all change in a minute, knowing that something different, something wonderful, would happen.

But it didn’t. He died.

On Thursday night he had been taken away by the soldiers and brought before this mock trial in front of Pilot and Herod, since they were both in town. Now he’ll show them, I thought. After all, he had done that with the authorities before. We watched as he was beaten, and I held Mary as the tears ran down her face, seeing her son wear a crown of thorns, and people who he had fed and healed yell ‘crucify him.’ Crowds can turn so quickly. We had seen it before. We knew he would turn the crowds back to him. We followed behind as he was taken out to the hill to be crucified. Mary kept whispering, not to me but to herself, “I know he’ll come to save him. The Lord won’t let him down. God will come any minute now.” I felt it, too, but my hope died with each step he took. When they nailed his hands and feet to the cross, I heard Mary scream as if it were her hands that the spikes were piercing. She called out to God to come and save her son, and for a moment we thought he would. The skies got dark, the wind blew, and the earth shook. “Now God will come to us and save him,” Mary screamed through her tears.

But he didn’t.

You could tell the moment he died. His spirit had left his body. It just hung there empty, a shell of what used to be great, high on the cross for all to see. The wind stopped blowing, the clouds grew lighter, the earth stopped moving. Everything was back to normal. And we just stood there, looking at the body hanging on the cross. When a soldier rammed his spear into the side to make sure he was dead, when that spear entered his heart, Mary was leaning against me and I felt her heart break, too.

A few minutes earlier, before he had died, he had looked at his mother and said, “Mom, John will take care of you.” Then he looked over at me and said, “John, watch after Mom.”

So, while friends took the body off the cross, I held her close to me. Then, when the body was lying on the ground, she walked over to it, held it close to her, as only a mother can, and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Our friends wrapped his body and took him away to be buried before we had time to prepare him with the oils used for burial. It was getting dark, the Sabbath was about to begin. I took Mary back to Bethany to stay at home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. She didn’t go to the temple or the synagogue that night. She just sat there, numb. I left the house to stay with others.

This morning I found her in the courtyard, sitting on a bench, leaning against the wall of the house. I looked at her and she looked old beyond her years. For the first time, I could not see the young girl in her anymore. She must not have been more than 48, but she looked like she was 90, older than Sarah, Abraham’s wife. She was gaunt and wrinkled and hunched over and frail. You could tell she had not slept at all.

“How are you?” I asked.

“It seems like it was only yesterday,” she said, answering a question that I did not ask.

“Mary….it was yesterday,” I said. “He died yesterday.”

“No….not that…..it seems like it was only yesterday when the angel appeared to me.”

“What angel?”

“The one that told me I would have this boy if I wanted. That I could bear him into the world, but the choice was mine.” This was a story I had not heard, so I asked her to tell me about it. Maybe it would help her deal with her grief. I had said I would care for her.

“I was just a young girl, barely past the age of becoming a woman,” she said, “when I met Joseph. He was a few years older than me, and was learning his father’s trade as a carpenter. We used to steal glances at each other in the synagogue in Nazareth. We were almost immediately attracted to each other. We would ‘accidentally’ bump into each other in the market, and our hands would touch and I could feel a spark fly between us. This went on for months, and I thought I would die if I didn’t get to be with this handsome young man. I don’t know why, but something was happening between us. Finally….and I don’t know how he did it…..his father talked with my father and a marriage was arranged between us. We were engaged! We were promised to each other!” Mary’s face brightened as she recalled that time, her back straightened up, and it looked like some of the wrinkles left her face.

“The marriage ceremony was planned for 6 months later, so family would be able to save and take the time to get there. And each day just drug on forever. I thought they would never end! I could hardly wait for the day to come when I would be his wife. What could be more wonderful than marrying the person you love, spending the rest of your days with them!”

I know, I thought. I had never married, but I had felt that way before, wanting to spend every day with a certain person. But that didn’t work out. He was dead, now.

“Then it happened,” Mary said. “One evening, about 4 months before the wedding, I was behind our house in Nazareth. It was a bright, clear, star-filled night, when suddenly there was a brilliant light that flashed, almost blinding me. I thought at first it was some sort of lightning, but when my eyes could focus again, there was a giant of a man standing before me. I couldn’t tell if he was 7 feet tall, or if he just seemed that way because everything else seemed small in his presence, including me. There seemed to be some light that shone from within him, some sort of reflection of the light that had just flashed before me. He was dressed in a robe that reached the ground, but didn’t seem to be dirty anywhere. He had dark brown eyes that didn’t so much look at you as look INTO you. He stood there for a moment, and I began to back away, not looking back up at his face. “

“Then he spoke. His voice was deep. He had no question in his voice, no wavering. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary. I am Gabriel and I come from the throne of God. God has seen you and chosen you. You will have a child, a boy, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.’”

“ ‘How can this be?’ I asked. ‘I’ve never….been…with a man.’ He told me that the Holy Spirit would do something wonderful, something miraculous in me, and that way I would know it was God’s son. Then he just stood there, like he was waiting for me to say something, those dark eyes looking into my soul. It was as if he had to have my permission for this to happen.”

“What did you think?” I asked.

“Everything went through me,” she said. “What would my family think? Would they believe me? What about Joseph? Would he still marry me? How can this happen? In a just a second, I thought of all the things that might happen because of this. Then I thought, say yes! Because who knows what tomorrow may hold! So I looked at the man…the angel….and said….yes. As a matter of fact, that’s what I taught my son for all those years growing up- always say yes, because who knows what tomorrow may hold.”

I had heard Jesus say something like it several times, and now I knew where it came from, He had put it this way, “Why do you worry about tomorrow, what you shall eat and drink and wear…. God loves you so don’t worry about tomorrow….who knows what tomorrow may hold. So that’s where he got it from, his mother.

“So what happened next?” I asked, trying for a moment to get her mind away from yesterday and the terrible things we saw. “Was Joseph excited?”

“No,” Mary said, laughing at the memory. “It wasn’t funny then, but it seems so now. He was furious, just knowing that I had…been…with another man. All this stuff of flashing light and angels seemed like a lie to cover up my sin to him. Even my parents agreed and were ashamed of me. But he loved me, and though he was hurt, didn’t want to shame me in public. He was going to break the engagement privately and send me away. But then that same man, the angel, showed up at his house and helped him to…uh…see the light. And though he didn’t understand it he decided to go ahead and marry me, but not until after the child was born.”

“What about your parents?” I asked.

“When I got to where I began to show,” she said, looking down at her stomach, “they sent me away to see my cousin Elizabeth. She was old, but somehow she was pregnant, too. And my parents knew that if I was around folks would talk. So I went off to stay with her for a while.”

“While I was there Caesar Augustus decided to have a census and a taxation of the whole empire. And to make it harder for everyone, he said everyone had to go back to their ancestral homes to be registered. So Joseph came and got me and took me to Bethlehem, because that’s where his family was from. His great, great, great, great, great granddaddy was King David, you know.” I had heard this from Jesus, that he was the ‘son of David.’ As a matter of fact, that’s what the people had yelled just six days earlier as we rode into Jerusalem, “Hail the One who Comes in the Name of David!”

“You ever been to Bethlehem?” Mary asked me. “I’ve been through it,” I said, “not much there. A Podunk of a town.” 

“You’re right,” she said. And when you fill it with people who are descendants, there’s no place to stay. When we got there I was about ’12 months pregnant’ and about to pop. Joseph couldn’t find a room at the only inn in town. The only shelter was a cave used as a barn for the animals. There I had Jesus, and Joseph put fresh hay in the feeding trough, and that’s where my son slept for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last time he would not have a place to lay his head.”

“Yeah, he told us who followed him to be prepared to have no place to stay,” I said.

“Shepherds showed up and told us what seemed like incredible stories of the angels appearing to them, but we both knew what that was all about. Jerusalem’s only 6 miles from Bethlehem, so when the time came a week later, we were able to go to the Temple and present him there, something we could not have done if we were back in Nazareth.  As we were coming out of the temple, an old priest named Simeon came over, looked at my baby, and said ‘this child will be a light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel. Then he looked at me, and a strange look came on his face, and he said ‘and a sword will pierce your heart, too.’ …. How did he know?” Mary said, looking down at her feet, tears coming again.

“Tell me more. I’ve not heard these stories,” I said.

“We went back to Bethlehem, and stayed there for a while. Then came the time of the massacre…” She did not have to tell me more. I had heard stories about Mad King Herod and his ordering of the execution of male children. “…so we escaped to Egypt. After a few years we heard that Herod had died, so we went back to Nazareth. Jesus was your typical boy growing up, obeying us most of the time, but occasionally going his own way. He got lost in Jerusalem one year when we went there for the Passover,” she said, a smile coming over her face. 

“Yeah, I heard about that,” I said.

“But I gave him a talking to that he never forgot,” Mary said, “and was no trouble at all after that. As a matter of fact, he was an incredible son. Joseph died young…” Mary said, a shadow coming over her face. Jesus had never spoken to me about his earthly father, only about what he called his ‘heavenly father,’ a term he used with great familiarity. I wanted to know, but didn’t push Mary about how Joseph had died. She was already in enough pain. “….and even though Jesus knew he didn’t want to be a carpenter, that didn’t seem to be what he was born for, he took over the family business until one of his younger brothers could do it and provide for us. We were all very poor, but we worked together. Then the day came when he took me outside the home, and said ‘Mom, it’s time for me to do what I was called to do.’ I remembered what the angel had told me, and I gave him my blessings. You know the rest of the story.”

Yeah, I knew it. As a matter of fact I had lived most of it. The healings, the feedings, the miracles, the teachings, the crowds. It was so exciting. We never thought it would end this way.

I looked over at the old woman sitting on the bench. Finally I asked the question that had been building up in my heart and mind. “Mary, if you had the chance to do it again, would you say yes? You know, knowing the joys, but also the heartache and the pain, knowing what would happen, knowing about….yesterday…..would you have born Jesus into this world?” I wasn’t really asking for her. I was asking for me. You see, Jesus had told me something strange one day, something I didn’t quite understand, not sure that I really do now. He told me that I…that all of us who followed him…had to ‘bear’ him into the world, to carry him within us, sort of like having a life within that is part of you but is still not yours alone. Almost like having a baby inside, but a grown up one. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but it seems like he was saying that somehow he could live in us and in this world through us. But I saw what happened yesterday. I’m not sure I could handle it. So I had to know. “Mary, would you say yes again?”

She looked up at me and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “because who knows what tomorrow may hold.”

We just sat there for a few minutes, not saying a word. Finally I said, “Get some rest today. I’ll get the ointments so that tomorrow morning we can go and properly prepare his body.” “Okay,” she said, and leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. 

I walked away, leaving her in the courtyard. I thought, “Would I say yes? Then I thought, “Who knows what tomorrow may hold?”

St. Patrick- A Meditation

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. There are all kinds of celebrations happening around the United States, and around the world. Many have to do with Irish culture more than St. Patrick. A few do honor him. Most are just a great way for us to party, drink Guinness, eat corned beef and cabbage, wear green, and be thankful that somehow all of us are Irish. Oddly enough, most of the things we do to celebrate did not start in Ireland, but in America.

The Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick had a lot of myths grow up about him- he was Irish (he was born in Britain); he brought Christianity to Ireland (he, in fact, was converted while in Ireland); he chased the snakes out of Ireland (Ireland has been snake free since it became an island).

There are a few things that most historians agree on regarding Patrick. He was born somewhere in Britain, sometime around 390 CE. Sixteen years later he was taken captive by Irish raiders, taken to Ireland, and sold as a slave, where he became a shepherd for his owners. He was held a slave for six years, during which time he became an ardent follower of Jesus. (Note: his parents were most likely Christians, and Patrick may have been baptized early in life, but there is no indication that he took it seriously.) After six years of slavery, he escaped and went back to Britain, where he became a priest. He stayed in Britain for 16 years (until he was 38), rising in the ranks of the Catholic church. He then returned to Ireland, to the people who held him captive as a slave, and brought the gospel of Jesus to them in new ways. Many became followers of Jesus, and the country itself changed.

In my meditation time this morning I was reading about having “a great heart.” There is a Buddhist term, bodhichitta, which means “a heart that is noble and awakened, filled with compassion for others so that you feel the pain they feel.” I think it is what Jesus telling us in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Otherwise, they do not make sense. I’ve been thinking about people with great hearts. People who see beyond the pain that others have caused, and long for them to find the peace they know, even if it is costly. Stories I read of Corrie Ten Boom, David Wilkerson, Elisabeth Elliot shaped my early life in following Jesus. Watching Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela spurred me on. Patrick, too, leaves me awestruck. Honestly, I do not think I have a heart that wants the best for those who have hurt people. But I want to have that heart.

I find myself singing Johnny Clegg’s Great Heart almost every day. Though it’s not Irish, but African, I think Patrick would like it. He had a great heart.

And I know it is the only way things change.