A Big, Ugly Cookie Question

Billy Joe was a very happy nine-year-old. The usual ride home from school was a steady stream of recess happenings and Third Grade gossip. But today, his mom could tell that he was upset. His eyes were red, and he was very quiet, a sure sign that something was wrong.

 

“Are you ok?” his mom asked. “Yea,” replied Billy Joe. But his mom knew he was covering up what was running around inside his head and heart. The rest of the ride was in silence.

 

When they got home, his mom poured a glass of milk and got three cookies out of the jar and sat down with Billy Joe just to listen. It took him a while, but the first cookie did the trick. Once he started talking. He couldn’t stop, and he kept getting louder and louder. It was like a steam kettle coming to a boil.

 

“Mama did our family have slaves?” he asked.  

 

“I don’t know; we could have. My great-great-granddad had a big farm in Alabama. Why are you asking?”

 

“Today was Martin Luther King Day, and our teacher told us about him.   One of the boys in the back yelled out that his family were slaves a long time ago, and so our teacher told us about what life was like for them. It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?” 

 

“Yes, it must have been!” Mom agreed.

 

Billy Joe went on, “Another boy said that all of us white guys probably owned slaves like him. We all got mad, and it ruined the whole day.”

 

Mom asked, “How did you feel when he said that?”

 

“At first, I was mad because I never owned any slaves. Then I got tangled up inside because I couldn’t do anything if they did. It was a long time ago.”

 

“Did you feel like you had done something wrong?” she asked. “Yea, but that’s crazy. I wasn’t even alive!”

 

That thought hovered over the last cookie for a minute or two before Billy Joe asked, “Should I be ashamed of my family? I don’t want to be.”

 

This big old ugly question demanded the last cookie, and Billy Joe picked it up and started nibbling on it.

 

Mom then put her arm around him and said, “Family is Family. We gotta love ‘em, but we can’t always like them. We all do bad stuff, and we need to apologize and be forgiven when we do. If you did something terrible, you would have to apologize and take your punishment, knowing that you would be forgiven. But it is not that easy with our family that lived a long time ago. They can’t apologize, even if they wanted to. But we can still forgive them. We can’t punish them, but we can learn from their mistakes and do our best to be better people.”

 

“What do you mean?” Billy Joe asked.

 

Mom said, “We need to be patient with those who came before us, those who walk with us, and those who will follow us. We can only learn from our family that came before. We can see and understand their bad choices and then promise not to make the same mistakes.”

 

“I am never going to have a slave, Mama?”  Billy Joe protested.

 

“That’s true. But you may have people that work for you. You will need to pay them enough to care for their families and not treat them like you own them. Instead, you will need to let them make their own decisions about their lives and not be ‘the boss of them.’”  You will also need to remember that many black and Hispanic folks do not have your advantages. And so, when you have the opportunity, you need to treat them with the same respect that you expect from others and even get out of their way to make their lives a little easier.”

 

“You mean like not calling them names and not chasing them away when they want to sit or play with us?” he asked.  

 

“Exactly!” Mom said with more than a bit of pride in her son. “It might mean listening to them as they talk about their families and getting to know them by their name, not the color of their skin.”

 

“Ok, Mom, you lost me on that one,” he replied.

 

“That’s ok! That will have to wait for another cookie. Just be patient with our family and the kids in your class for now. Enjoy getting to know them! Listen when they want to talk. But most of all, just be their friend.”

 

After a good old mama hug, Billy Joe said, “Thanks, Mom, I like it when I bring the questions, and you bring the cookies.”  To which Mom replied, “I don’t know. Next time, if I have questions, will you bring the cookies?”

 

“Sure, Mama, but you are going to need to teach me how to make ‘em.”  

 

“That sounds like a good plan!” she answered with a smile.

Afraid of the Dark

When I was nine years old, my two older brothers had already moved out, and there were just two of us left. Naturally, my next older brother got the larger bedroom with the twin bed, and I got the smaller bedroom with the older double bed. Ordinarily, this was ok with me, but when we had company, I moved to the huge sectional sofa in the living room just off my Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I dreaded sleeping there because I would have to deal with the snarling gorilla that stood at the end of the room.

It happened every night. The room would start echoing with growls and snorts in the middle of the night. I woke and would see a huge, dark, hulking shape at the far end of the room next to my parent’s bedroom. It never moved. It just stood there and stared at me. I laid awake for hours until falling asleep from exhaustion.

 

After being diagnosed with sleep apnea, I remembered these terrifying nights and sorted them out. My Dad also had sleep apnea. His snoring was almost as scary as the moments when he would quit breathing altogether. That silence was worse than the snoring. But as a 9-year-old, I did not hear the silence, only the growling. And the enormous upright piano that sat outside my parent’s door transformed into a hulking gorilla that threatened anyone on the sofa.

 

When we see a mystery, our mind struggles to explain it. Mysteries are acceptable only when we tell ourselves that there is a “perfectly reasonable explanation” for them.   Until we define them, they evoke fear. Unfortunately, unreasonable explanations become gospel as long as that unreasoned fear exists. We can let go of the fear and enjoy the mystery when a reasonable explanation comes along. But reason will never explain every unknown. If we are to have a relationship with the mystery, we will need to develop a healthy respect for it.

 

Respect is the key to any healthy relationship. Respect means allowing room for the other person to be who they are without falling back on prejudices or biases to understand them.   The same is true of mysteries in our lives. We need to allow a mystery to be what it is, an unknown. We cannot rush to judgment about it. We need to resist those unreasonable explanations and wait for the mystery to explain itself in its own time. We must respect the unknown and trust that it has something important to share. And then listen to the mystery, not through our fears, but with the utmost respect. 

 

Many mysteries refuse to yield their secrets. We must then live with the snarling gorillas, the unrelenting mysteries. We need to double down on respect and refuse to give in to our fears in such situations. We need to trust the mystery until it reveals itself. Let the mystery be what it is, an unknown. Allow it to probe our soul and teach us about ourselves. Allow it to suggest new ways of seeing our world that may peel back a layer or two of the unknown. And, when all else fails, sit back and marvel at the mystery and soak up the wonder and awe that it offers. A frightened 9-year-old would have gotten a lot more sleep on that sofa if I had done this.

It's Complicated

Like most of us, Dan was a complicated guy. He was never quite what you would expect. We were coworkers, but we could never build much of a friendship. As I said, he was a complicated guy, and as we talked, I learned that his (and my own) complexities were mainly due to life in our unique village of family, friends, and others. 

Dan enjoyed being with people, but he would retreat behind a wall of silence and inner turmoil without warning. He was very creative but needed routine and order to stay focused. Dan could sit for hours as he contemplated the universe and then not sit still for days. He was a fascinating mixture of opposites wrapped up in the façade of a loyal coworker. There were several different versions of Dan. Like the rest of us, he is, in fact, a whole community of folks in one body-mind-soul. And this multi-faceted personality is the result of our village.

 

From his boss, Dan saw himself as a competent, loyal worker who loved his job and enjoyed a reasonable amount of success. He also saw himself as flawed and not always deserving of praise and promotions.

 

His golf buddies were the whetstones in his life. He saw himself as better than some and not as good as others. In the words of the old TV show, he learned the “thrill of victory” and the “agony of defeat.”   He saw his capacity for ill-founded pride and a need for humility on the golf course. He learned a way to improve even when he did not act on them.

 

His neighbor, the “Evil One,” helped Dan see his anger and shame, sense of superiority, and victimization! His neighbor’s eyes made his flaws visible to everyone. He was capable of unreasoned pettiness and incredible generosity when it suited his purposes.

 

Then there was his loving wife in whom he saw himself just as he was. He was worth the trouble of being loved and was pretty good at sharing it. He was as realistic about himself as she was about him. It was n0t always comfortable, but it was bearable because he knew she loved him and had his best interest at heart. At the end of the day, when all these other people had been bubbling up, he could go home and find himself. Occasionally, one of these other people would pop up at home, and he would hear about it from his wife. But then, he could see himself in her eyes and discover the power of forgiveness and new life.

 

When we live in a village of people both beyond and within ourselves, our life comes aknockin’. All we can do is open the door to your beloved and get to know the person you see in their eyes. Focus on seeing ourselves in our beloved’s eyes (people we genuinely believe have our best interest at heart), and we will come to know, accept, and appreciate ourselves.

Leaning into Dying

 I knocked gently on her door, and a weak but welcoming voice called out, “Bob, is that you?” 

“Yep, it’s me,” I replied. 

“Come on in; I’ve been expecting you.” 

I opened the door and found Margaret in her oversized recliner, where she had spent most of her days since her last surgery. Her life was within easy reach from that chair. Cancer had taken most of her energy, but Margaret lived her life with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. I looked forward to my weekly visits.

As a Hospice chaplain, I had the opportunity to meet some extraordinary people like Margaret. With only a few months left, she was determined to enjoy every single day. She taught me the meaning of “Leaning into dying!”

Margaret was not religious, but she had her unique way of looking at things. And her beliefs served her well in these difficult days. She was not interested in talking about an afterlife. But she was very interested in talking about her life in the present. She loved living and knew that her days were limited. And so, she did her best to lean into the headwinds of her dying. In doing so, she found the joy that each new day offered.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“I had a rough night, but the nurse took care of me.”  After a pause, she added, “Y’all said you would take care of me. And she did last night.”  Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, “I’m good! And now I have a whole new day to enjoy!”

“Leaning in” is the opposite of “leaning away” or resisting. Margaret refused to spend her last few days fighting against the inevitable. She believed that fighting a disease that would win was a massive waste of time—leaning away from the unavoidable made things worse. But leaning in allowed her to embrace the new dawn.

In hospice, many patients were afraid of dying. They feared the dying. They feared the pain that came with the disease process. They feared the helplessness and the burden they placed on their families. Many could not bear to see grief in their spouse's or children’s eyes.

Other patients were afraid of being dead. They were afraid of being dead! Some were afraid of living life in the eternal torture of a burning Hell. Others were afraid of the uncertainty over whether there was an afterlife. These fears included missing their family and friends who would be left behind and the unfulfilled hopes and dreams.

But Margaret did not fear dying. She trusted the hospice staff to keep her comfortable. That trust allowed her to hope for a good day every morning. She visited with her family and friends. She watched her documentaries and sitcoms. She enjoyed her memories. In short, she loved living too much to fear dying.

Nor did she fear being dead. She had accepted the afterlife as an open and unanswerable question. And she refused to let the unknown destroy her hope. She preferred to focus on what she knew. So, she chose to lean into each new day with a living, breathing hope and claim her legacy.

The afterlife was an unfathomable mystery, but she knew about eternity. Her ancestors deserved to be remembered. She was responsible to those who would remain and those who would come after. That was all the eternity she needed. She learned from her ancestors and hoped to leave something good in the world to her descendants. That hope gave her the ability to bounce back after a difficult night or a setback. Her resilience in living and dying helped those around her to live well, especially when an ill wind blew. She was determined to die as well as she had lived, which would be her legacy.

Margaret was with us for a few months. She unwrapped each new day like a special gift. When the disease took her ability to wake up, Margaret rested easily in her dying. After so many months of practice, she was not afraid. Her dying was a gentle slipping-away. She embraced all that she had learned and discovered. She prepared her family well, and she taught this chaplain a thing or two about dying as she leaned into the headwinds and celebrated every day of her living.

RIP, Margaret. You did good!