Exploding Yellow Elephants!

This morning, I was driving into work when I was treated to a lovely sight - a school bus, waving its stop signs like elephant ears, slowly coming to a stop, and then -- oh my!

Kids exploded out the doors like fireworks going off - boom! bam! whizz! - their arms wildly whirling, backpacks catapulted, shouts and cheers and thundering sneakers pounding the asphalt as they burst into the endless sky of their first day of freedom - summer vacation has arrived!

They flew out and scattered like pigeons, and the bus, now alone in the street, started its engine again. I watched the bus pull in its stop signs, slowly rumble down the street another 300 yards, then wave the signs again and coast to a stop. Another explosion, more shouts, more hilarity.

This continued for two more stops before I had to turn off and go my way. I might have been irritated to have to stop every thousand feet, were it not for the undiluted primal joy of watching freshly liberated humans exulting in their newfound paradise. With so much happiness spilling out of the yellow elephant bus, how could I do anything but laugh?

It's a good reminder.

Being freed takes time. You have to ride the bus of your old life for awhile, watch the others take their turns. Three more stops before you get to your stop. Or maybe twenty. You think about all the homework you've been doing. And now, it's done. But you're still here, on this bus. You begin to wonder sometimes if you'll ever get off. Maybe it'll turn around and take you back -- oh, perish the thought! And that thing that sits on your shoulders like a giant backpack, that weight of responsibility or guilt or shame or whatever - it hasn't moved all that much in a while. It has worn grooves into your shoulders. You have been sitting slouched in the same place with the same goofy and annoying others around you and your butt is sore and you're beginning to wonder if your feet will ever take you anywhere again.

Don't worry. Sooner or later, your turn is coming. Your turn to stand up, take those first wobbly steps down to solid ground, turn around, see where you were, take another step, take a deep breath, and then, with all the energy you have in you, throw that backpack up and away with a rebel yell. Watch it arc high up into the sky and then plummet back down, but not on you. You can throw it in the weeds and leave it be, to be grown over by grass until it's long forgotten. Maybe someone else will pick it up, but not as a burden, and certainly not as yours.

Summer is coming. No matter if you have to sit on the bus through your fall and your winter and even your spring, there is a summer.

There is always a summer. I have seen the yellow elephants testify the truth, and I know that it is so.

YEEHAW!

If You're Waiting

In the movies, at a critical plot moment the music swells, the cinamatographer pans dramatically across the skyline, and the protagonist gets The Sign, a message from the universe that moves him in the benevolent direction that the fates planned for him. In a novel, the hero gets in a serious pickle but by chapter twenty-two there has been some sort of revelation or cosmic twist that sets him off on a new path, not knowing where it will lead, but certainly knowing it is taking him somewhere of note, and by the end he will be wiser, funnier, more seasoned and much fuller of a human being than he was on page ten.

In music, someone steps into a bar, walks into a coffee shop, bumps into someone on the street, or looks over at the stoplight and finds the love of their life. Someone walks on the street where you live, or sings in the rain, or boogies on the dance floor and the whole world shifts.

But on a Monday in June in Seattle, it rains. No great shaft of light piercing the clouds, no thunderous proclamation from on high, no flower suddenly springing up at your feet with petals that fall and spell out "conquer the future".

Looking for a sign? Looking for the next Big Thing in your life? Looking for that Certain Something that gives you permission, clears the field, scans the horizon of your dreams and gives you the green light? Looking for the blessing of your aspirations and haven't found it yet? Think God isn't paying attention? He is.

Maybe this is it. Your sign. The one that says, take the risk of kindness, step out on faith, challenge yourself to a new way of welcoming goodness into your daily routine. The Thing that says you are loved, it's gonna be ok, and yes, there really is a reason you showed up and kept breathing today.

Maybe this is your sign.

So - get moving!

Are We Off Target Here?

Ok, it may just be me, but I think we're off target here a mite.

The mainstream Christian churches of Western Washington seem very intent on focusing on a few issues of note: the marriage referendum and.....well, now that I think of it, that's pretty much it.

There are sidenotes of course. The Vatican vs. Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Planned Parenthood. Obamacare. The ordination of women in the Catholic church and women as bishops in the Anglican church. The Gay Agenda. Rampant atheists running amok, making funny cartoons ("What atheists shout out during sex" springs to mind.) People who want to take "In God We Trust" off the money we issue. Or stop prayer in the Pentagon. (Do they actually pray in the Pentagon?)

And yet. And yet.

Not much coming from the loudspeakers about a Christian response to the economic crisis. No leaflets on ecological choices. Not much preached about how it is that we have gotten complacent being a nation at war, when we are followers of a God who blessed the peacemakers. Our fourth graders have never known a nation not at war with someone. Silence about those who are sitting in our pews struggling with PTSD, mental health issues, or just plain loneliness. Nothing about how we spend our spare money on technology, shoes, toys, clothes made in substandard working conditions by people who barely make a living wage. Nothing about the groceries picked by migrant workers. We don't ask. We don't tell. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, about Syria. Or, for that matter, the divisions between us here at home. Muslims who are afraid of Christians who are afraid of Muslims. The looks we give to those standing on street corners, and the looks they give back to us. The neighbors we don't know, even as we have lived in the same houses for years. Houses we spent too much to buy, and now we live in debt. The yawning in the pew on Sunday. The love of capitalism. Or of socialism. Or any --ism of your personal choice. Take your pick. Lately, they all seem to be a little more leaning towards cannibalism.

Who do we love now? Who do we hang on to with our last breath? And who, God forgive us, have we let go of? Maybe Jesus? Maybe ourselves?

It seems to me we have lost our way. Convinced that we are the faithful somehow being viciously attacked from the outside, we have lost our courage to face our own failings, which, between you and me, are usually a lot more dangerous. What was that thing about splinters in others' eyes and logs in our own? Oh right, something Jesus said. To someone else. Surely not to me.

I don't know. It all seems like a great distraction. Wielding the shield of truth, carrying the sword of justice, so we protect ourselves from this big bad world, and if we're lucky, we can whack off someone else's ears and prove how much we are willing to....well, whack off someone's ears. Peter tried that once, Jesus wasn't too impressed. I suspect he's not any more impressed with us.

Got priorities? Are you sure? Are you really sure?

I'm not so much anymore.

The Miraculous Poetry Machine

This is the miraculous poetry machine. I found it today on Front Street in Issaquah.

What you do, is this: you take a piece of paper, you write five random words on it, you slip the piece of paper in the slot on the side, you wait, and presently out pops another piece of paper on the other side. The new piece of paper has a poem freshly penned, using all five of your words.

TaDA!

Miraculous enough in itself, but there is more. Let me start at the beginning.

I have been in the dumps for a week or so now, and realized that, with this Friday off from work and free from family obligations, I had the opportunity to take my sorry self out for a me-date, and perhaps refresh the old amygdala.

This is the first Friday of the month, and that means it's the night of the Issaquah Art Walk. All the shops on Front Street open their doors and invite local artists to show their wares, either on display in the shop itself, or just outside the door.

I arrived just as the artists were getting in place. I settled down on a bench in front of the old Shell station that is actually an arts shop, housing a number of photographers' wares. There was a three-man band set up in front, calling themselves the Trainwrecks and doing pretty good covers of the Eagles and assorted new country singers. I watched them for a good half hour, enjoying the music and their ease with eachother. Which was fortuitous, because for at least twenty minutes of that half hour I was pretty much their only audience. They didn't seem to care all that much about how big the audience was, or wasn't - they simply were laughing and singing and playing and generally having a great time. It reminded me of the truth of art - you don't wait for an audience to make art, you make art and share it if anyone shows up.

Then I wandered off to the chainsaw carver and checked out the pine gnomes. Next to him was the guy who makes garden stakes with flowers on top, the petals made out of spoons. Across from him, the woman who makes purses out of old clothes and the other woman who makes hats out of old men's slacks.

I wandered into an art gallery and checked out the pottery, the paintings, the mixed media offerings of cats on couches, dogs on beaches, birds flying across landscapes, city scenes, still lifes, portraits. I cradled a clay sparrow in my hand and enjoyed the heft of it, so unlike its real counterpart.

I people watched for awhile; a grandfather with his granddaughter and their very old, very much loved dog. A woman with pink highlights. A man with a grizzled beard and a fedora. Ten year old boys in a small herd, grazing down the street. An Indian man with his young daughter in a stroller, her hair all touseled from napping, the curls across her forehead tangling through her fingers as she wiped her eyes.

And then I came across the Poetry Machine. It looked more like a voting booth, red, white and blue folded panels with plastic bunting taped on the top, and peacock feathers for good measure. A chalkboard sign on the front, with stick on letters that said, "I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions: James Michener"

It was pretty easy to see the two women inside, sitting on stools and writing on small notepads. Even though an MP3 player tapped out the sound of an old typewriter, the pieces of paper that came out with finished poems on them were all handwritten.

Nobody cared. Kids hovered around the front of it, clutching notepads and chewing pencils, trying to come up with five good words to feed into the machine, so that a poem would be ejected back to them. Mothers giggled as the kids asked for advice. Some of the parents took up notepads of their own.

I took a notepad and wrote five words on it: Paleological. Laughter. Resurrected. Squirrelly. Victory. I passed it through the slot and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Poems popped out the other side. A poem for Matt. For Angela. Tony. Chris. But not mine.

I waited.

And as I waited, leaning against a telephone pole, a woman approached me and told me I looked like an angel. Which is weird, unless you think of angels as being 60 pounds overweight and dressed in jeans and tee shirts from the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

I smiled, leaning against the pole further and extending my arms out in front of me, striking what I hoped was a beatific pose. She said I reminded her of someone she knew who was gone. And then she complimented me in ways I don't even remember. I thanked her and added, "And all of it, of course, covered in milk chocolate."

And that's when she burst into tears.

"I knew that's what you would say, " she said. "It's exactly what she would say."

And she fell weeping into my arms.

Sometimes you go someplace because you have a random idea, or because you are bummed out and need distraction, or because you're bored, or because if you stay home you'll eat ice cream and blow your diet. That's usually the times when God decides to make something really interesting happen.

I started to think maybe I understood why I had gotten in the car and schlepped down to Issaquah from Maple Valley, on a whim. I got a better idea of why my poem, of all the poems, was so tardy. I got an inkling as to the importance of this particular telephone pole. I was meant to be here when she came by. Sometimes they shoot the messenger; today, the messenger was hugged. I hugged her back and told her that her friend loved her very very much, and that I was sure that's why I had been sent there, to wait for her and tell her just that. I felt her cry and shake against me and hung on tight, rubbing her back, pressing my palm in her shoulder blades, feeling the ridges of her spine. She thanked me for being there. I told her I couldn't take the credit, I only did as I had been told. We both laughed. "Yes," she said, "she would be bossy, wouldn't she?"

My poem popped out. We read it together, and it was yet another affirmation for her. This is what it said:

Victory
I hear my own laughter
ring in my own ears;
a squirrelly sound;
a good sound.
I hear my triumph
resurrected from my fall
and I feel paleological as
I am of the oldest times.

She gasped, laughed, then cried some more. I held her hands. I kissed her cheek. More laughing. She told me she loved me, and I said I loved her, too. I know that she was talking to the woman who had died, and I allowed my voice to say what I knew that woman would have said. It was the most natural moment in the world. What I was saying was true. I told her it was time for me to go, but that she would know she was being watched over, taken care of, and always loved. I turned around and walked away. We lost sight of each other in the crowd, just as it was meant to be. Amygdala refreshed, mission accomplished.

Sometimes I think my words don't count for much. Sometimes I feel restless, uninspired, invisible. But in that moment, I did not feel invisible. I felt transparent, free, with someone else's light was shining through, the both of us feeling its warmth, and that was certainly visible, on both sides of the veil. I felt lucky to be chosen, grateful and humble.

A gift all the way around. A paleological resurrection. A miracle in front of a poetry machine, as delicious as milk chocolate. A very, very good day.