A Divine No

They wouldn’t let me in. I made what could be described as a pilgrimage to the hospital where my father died, but the person at the desk said I was not allowed to return to the floor, nor the waiting room where I spent three months forty-four years ago. My intentions were to access emotions and to honor the 20-year-old within me who had no idea how his life was changing at the time. As sincere as my intentions may have been, the world, or those in it, had other thoughts. I went back to the parking garage, taking solace in my having made the effort before my flight home.

I was in the area to visit my daughter who had recently begun a job in this very familiar part of the world. While she was at work, I wandered the roads back to my college, walked the paths, and peered into classrooms. I went into the town and entered the church I attended and the classroom where I taught my first Sunday school class. I also went to the cemetery where my ancestors are buried, including both of my parents. Looking down and seeing their names carved into stone always causes me to gasp. Because I bear my father’s name, it’s a small leap to imagine the stone that will one day lie beside their’s.

I expected to be filled with thoughts about the past, but I wasn’t. In both my writing and my walking, I kept thinking about the days ahead: Instead of my father who died, I thought about me being a living father; instead of thinking about my shortcomings as a creative writing major, I took pride in having recently published a novel; passing the local bar where I spent too much time, I gave thanks for my sobriety; and sitting in the creaky pew, I thought not about my faith back then, but the one I have now.

Like the woman at the front desk of the hospital helped me see, maybe we don’t need to go upstairs and wander the halls. Maybe we need to get back in our cars and focus on the road ahead. Who knows how much time we have left? It would be unfortunate if we spent it scratching the dirt in hopes of uncovering our past when it’s within us. The trick is to honor it while walking forward.

I think the woman at the desk provided a divine no, a closed door, if you will. It caused me to turn around and live the life already in progress. Today will be my past, after all. I should make the most of it.

Another Season

A flock of geese fly overhead

Toward another season

While I stand in the shell

of what used to be

our chapel.

The foundation holds

Ashes waiting for spring.

as a new church looks on

With its antiseptic sheen.

I prefer weathered bricks

And weeds.

It’s where I sat as a student,

Where I learned best.

It still is.

The geese honk for me to join,

But I refuse.

Spring will find me, I say,

One day.

I’ll wait here,

Where I belong.

A New Pair of Glasses

It happened again.

I put my glasses down somewhere and had no idea where. With my tail between my legs, I entered the store to purchase a new pair. “Don’t tell me, you lost them again,” the store owner said with a grin. Because of me, he drove a Porsche.

As I sat waiting with other customers, I thought about something that happened earlier that morning. I went to the Amazon website to look at the sales report of my recently published novel. It had only been two days since I had checked it and the information had not changed. The ups and downs of sales on particular days was interesting, but the fact was I would never make back the money I spent publishing the book.

I tried to remember all the good that had happened since the book went into the marketplace: I had received notes from readers the likes of which I’ve never received, reviews made the book seem like a bestseller, and I got to spend four weeks discussing the book with a Sunday school class, filling our souls in countless ways.

“Ok, your turn,” said the shop owner. As I got up from my seat, I knew that this new pair of glasses was not the only change I needed in my vision. Whether as writers or lawyers, artists or truck drivers, mothers or fathers we need to be careful about the glasses we wear. There will always be ways to see ourselves that diminish our souls. With effort, however, we can learn to look at our lives with a new set of glasses. The key is to find them and keep them on. `

Burning Faith is a novel about a congregation that loses its church and finds it faith. Available on my website (www.withoutacollar.com) or through Amazon.

Check out the “Burning Faith” mix on Spotify.