Venting

I have allergies. Some mornings I literally want to take my head off my shoulders, wring it out in the toilet, and then set it back. So when I got up this morning and started my nasal rendition of a Formula 1 engine warmup, I immediately took a Claritin and two Sudafed.

I headed down to my hotel lobby for coffee, a donut (okay, two donuts), and a bit of Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. There I was, enjoying myself, into my second chapter, when I sniffled a little and the only other person seated in the area, a man with a buzz cut, running shorts, and a tucked-in athletic shirt, turned around and said, “May I get you a tissue? I’d be happy to get up and get you a tissue.” Apparently I had been sniffing quite a lot and disturbed this wannabee athlete’s peaceful breakfast. What an ass. I raised a napkin and said I was fine, thanks. He got up and left.

It’s a time like this when my mind immediately rehearses all the things I wish I had said.

“Would you like a bloody nose? I’d be happy to get up and give you a bloody nose.”

“Yes, please do find a tissue. You’re going to need it when I pop you in the mouth.”

“I’m sorry. Did your mom not teach you any manners, or did you drive her so nuts she bounced you into severe brain damage?”

“Little uptight there, eh? Try arsenic. It’ll calm you waaaay down.”

I did not say any of these things in part because I was so completely shocked by this guy’s audacity. It actually took a lot of courage for this guy to speak up. Either that or I really annoyed him. I felt sorry for him, I really did. I had no idea I was sniffling as much as I must have been.

Celebrity's Kid

Last night I dreamt a little boy (I'd put him at 6) walked up to me, and he looked so familiar I asked him, "Hey, are you a celebrity's kid?"

"Yup," he said, smiling.

"I know which one," I said.

"It' Su--"

And together we finished his sentence: "Susan Sarandon."

"You look like her!" I said. "Well, you tell your mother that I think she's a great actress."

And then, as if he'd heard that a thousand times, he mumbled okay, and took off for more interesting things to do.

Lennon-style Evangelism

You say I'm a dreamer,
I'm not the only one,
Maybe some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

These lyrics strike me as a great model for evangelism. After all, regardless of what you think of John Lennon's gospel, this song, "Imagine," is trying to convert people.

I like it because it's more suggestive than demanding, more thought-provoking than preachy. It also points to how the world could be better if "you'll join us" rather than threatening people with what will happen should they fail to join.

In Memoriam

Lorrie Menninga: Composer, God Wrestler, Friend

Less than a week before her death Lorrie was in our living room for our biweekly small group meeting. We asked her to tell us how we could help her, and she said she eventually would need transportation to the hospital once a week for her chemo treatments. She wanted someone to be with her, to be another pair of ears, during these appointments. I remember thinking I would mow her lawn for her.

She recalled tearfully that when she had cancer four years ago there was a point when she wanted people around her but didn’t necessarily want to talk to them the whole time. She mentioned board games might be a good way to facilitate this quiet companionship. She said she wasn’t at that point yet this time around, but in the future she could be.

Our small group has been going through Richard Foster’s and Emilie Griffin’s Spiritual Classics, and we were on the John Milton chapter at our last meeting. The chapter includes two of Milton’s famous sonnets, one on his disappointment with what he had accomplished by age twenty-three and one on his blindness. Looking at the first sonnet, we talked about yearning as the combination of disappointment and hope. Roger said it was too bad Milton was so hard on himself.

We were running out of time, so I asked if we could move along to the next sonnet, “because I really like this sonnet,” I said. Lorrie said she did too and could we wait until next time to discuss it to give it the time it deserves, and we all agreed that was a good idea. Because of scheduling conflicts we decided to meet the very next Sunday instead of waiting our customary two weeks.

Lorrie died the following Friday morning at 3:30. Father Chuck said some of her family was around her at the time of death.

But here is the cruelty of death: an undiscussed sonnet, a scheduled conversation that will not be, a life broken.

Lorrie will not be at our small group this Sunday, tomorrow. But I find myself asking, Is she still here, this composer of hymns, this wrestler of God? Is she with me now as I write this? Is she looking over my shoulder, maybe, touched by my little tribute to her? I hope so, and yet I do not know. I simply do not know.

Lorrie Menninga. She was a person it would not have been natural for me to befriend. We did not have much in common. But over this past year we in our small group came to know her as a wise and sincere person, a person devoted to working out inner turmoil, a faithful servant to her Almighty. She was not a superficial person. She was melancholy. That’s just who she was. She was serious, but I still remember her smile too. She became known among us for the elaborate snacks she sometimes brought to our meetings; I especially liked her cheese balls flecked with parsley.

She was a good friend, a good person with whom to be on the journey of faith. And now she’s gone. I’m still trying to grasp this reality. I suppose I will be for some time.

A Prayer

In light of the recent and tragic death of Sudan's John Garang and the suffering of a friend who has cancer, the following prayer just came out one evening before our small group got together:

We pray, Father, that this would be a holy time--holy because we together are your servants even when we do not understand you. We may rail against you, hoping, we hope, that you will rail back against us, as we do not fear your acrimony so much as your absence. So, Great Spirit, fill this place and these souls with your presence, that we will know you live and rest in your will. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.