The man behind the counter

The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)

The heart cannot be denied. Not today. Not here. Not his. Nor mine.

A pair of sparkling silver studs in each ear, he turns left and right, back and again, dozens of times, as the line at Jersey Mike’s weaves its way through the lunch rush. 

Short, solidly built, Latino, small tattoos on each arm, one bearing a set of initials, he reaches again and again into the cold case for ham, roast beef, salami, prosciutto, provolone, white cheddar, each time shaving thin slices and piling them on loaves of white or wheat or Italian, split with a long silver knife far sharper than anything in our kitchen.

Never a hesitation, no movement wasted, a flowing current of life from one order to the next, a constant stream of affability flows from his smile to each person in line, questions, comments, jokes, laughter as each gives their order.

Tears well in my eyes as I watch, enthralled, waiting my turn, loving him, wondering who he is and how his heart became this bountiful. Strangely thankful to be standing in line with a couple of dozen others, my impatience evaporated in the spectacle of grace and the camaraderie of strangers.

For a few minutes, the reigning social divides ceased to exist. There were no conservatives or liberals in the line, no progressives or reactionaries, no venomous vitriol over the assassination of Charlie Kirk, only human souls received with joy and showered with welcome as the line snaked by, the world redeemed by the man behind the counter.

You cannot fake this. The moment flowed from the abundance of a bountiful heart that knows joy and loves human faces.

The bounty of his heart stirred an answering love in my own, revealing again the old, much forgotten truth that caring for the health of our hearts is the most important thing we can do for the redemption of our time and place.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has exacerbated bitter social divisions and the rage simmering just below the surface in millions of hearts. A flood of hatred and mutual recrimination inundated social media, sweeping untold numbers of human hearts into the bitter tide of hatred and mistrust.

Only those who care for their hearts find escape and equanimity, returning again and again to the well of love and mercy, gentleness and care. An old friend wrote that the present troubles moved him to turn on Springsteen then listen to Brahms’ German Requiem, letting the music wash over him.

I see him there and understand. Lost in lyric and harmony, each song, each verse, each line a sacrament watering the tender growth of faith, hope and love within, washing away the soul-killing poison of fear, hate and division that overwhelm us when we are too much with the world.

Our first priority, especially these days, is to care for our hearts for our own spiritual health, to flee the fray and fly to places of refreshment, to the wells of grace that heal our souls and gentle our hearts.

I have no idea where that is for the man behind the counter. All I know is that I want a bountiful heart like his, free and full, flowing with the All-Embracing Love who graces my heart at lunch counters.

Enter the joy of your master

Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master. (Matthew 25:20-21)

Time and distance dissolve in the silence of meditation. You never know who or what might appear in the inner eye of the heart, where nothing is ever lost.

So, it is today. I imagine the servant in Jesus’ parable, eagerly showing his master what he’s done, and Kristi appears. I see her in the photo she sent me 30 years ago. Relaxed, a gentle smile warming her face, a little Dominican girl sits in her lap.

I don’t recall who she was working with at the time, the Peace Corps? Maybe, but I’m only guessing. She was young, early 20s, doing agricultural work in a place much poorer than the bottomland along the Republican River of her Nebraska home.

She sent me that photo tucked inside a letter, apparently wanting me, her confirmation pastor, to see her there and know what she was doing. I wish I still had her letter. Perhaps it will appear someday, stuck between the pages of an old book, as is my habit.

I’d like to think I had something to do (however small) with what carried her body and soul to the Dominican Republic to hold that child. Maybe something I said or our fall mission festivals, where hunger and human need had central place, planted a seed in the fertile soil of her heart.

But modesty admits that a multitude of faces and unsuspected moments give birth and growth to what each of us becomes. Parents, teachers, friends, professors, any and all of them can awaken unimagined possibilities that take us to wild and unexpected places, changing our direction in the blink of an eye.

I don’t know what ultimately transported Kristi to embrace that time and place in her generous heart. I know only that she wanted me to know, and that’s plenty enough to awaken tears, my heart daring to believe that seeds I sowed for Love’s holy sake might still be growing, not only in Kristi but in the lives she touched.

I have long thought that the Holy One has yet to receive a reasonable return from the many gifts and graces God has so abundantly showered on my life. Looking back, I am more aware of my mediocrity and narcissism, most of which flowed from my vanity and insecurity.

At a young age, it seemed Kristi was well on her way to being more like the servant in Jesus’ parable than I became, for which I’m thankful. Still, I think she or God or both were trying to tell me something in that photo.

Maybe, just maybe, they were telling me that, despite what I know of myself, my poor efforts mattered more than I ever suspected.

Maybe attempting to measure how much or how little we have done, how well or how poorly, is a fool’s errand. Maybe we haven’t a clue about what the Spirit of Love manages to do through us, in spite of ourselves.

And maybe the gentle tears of remembering Kristi in that photo is the voice of my gracious Lord, saying, Welcome to the joy of your Master.

Why I come here

As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 103:15-17)

Too soon they will be gone. Wild daisies, four feet tall, cover the forest floor beneath the canopy of old oaks 70 feet tall and more.

Filtered light casts rays amid shadows on the forest floor, as the woodchip trail leads deeper into whatever mystery the woods hold for me this day.

Star-bright yellow blossoms celebrate in dappled light, seizing the day, as if they know cooling temperatures signal the end of their praise to the mystery of their Maker.

I come here to see them, already planning other hikes on other trails where I might take in their brethren, shimmering whites and blues across forest glens where my heart leads me less often than is good for my soul. Soon they, too, will pass away.

But I am here now and being here now is what most matters. I come to see and hear and feel and love the love awakened within, for which I praise the One who sings in forest flowers.

Strewn across the forest floor, the golden profusion accompanies my steps, stretching around the next bend and the next and the next, green and gilt melding together in a wash of impressionist delight.

Each blossom a saint of God, praising the Love who called them out of nothingness to light my way home into the Love for which I long.

White oaks and basswoods soar above like giants of holy faith. Spreading their arms, sheltering the life of all that flowers, fades and passes into yesterday, they strain toward the Mystery who has haunted my heart since I was a boy, wondering: what is this ache within me?

Out here, I know. It is not for the flowers and trees, but for the love they awaken that is not of my own making, but which is the other self I am, the self beyond ego and striving, the self who wants only to love, to know love, to be love, to be one with the utterly Nameless One who is Love.

The mystery of our lives is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory,’ St. Paul (or one of his followers) once wrote. Out here, I know this Christ not as someone to believe in but as the Love beyond myself who is pleased to inhabit my mortal flesh, moving me to want nothing but more of the same.

So, I continue on, my boots scuffing the woodchip trail, a blessed pilgrimage away from all that clicks and beeps and shouts and flickers from digital screens.

Each step is a sacrament, a taste of the Everlasting Love who sings to me in the flowers, shelters me under the oaks and unveils the divine face in the merciful compassion of Jesus, my brother, who bids me to come here and abide with him.

A cruel and radiant beauty

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. (1 John 3:14)

I should be grateful, but I’m not much good at being thankful for pain and worry. I could say circumstances produced the hollow chill in my heart that refuses remedy. But that’s not true.

The malady is deeper, elemental. Love.

You never know how much you love someone until something happens that threatens to upend their life, their future, their safety, their happiness. Then, you discover the cruel and radiant beauty smoldering in the inmost chamber of your heart.

In that holy burning, you feel what it is to be alive, filled with an undeniable love long seeded in the soil of your soul, now grown so great that you no longer possess it. It possesses you. You … or some significant part of you … has become love.

Why would we want it any other way? Who are we if not the loves we love, the loves that carry us beyond ourselves to ache and work and worry and give our hearts away, there to discover that this is life, the only kind of life worthy of the name.

I most admire those, like Jesus, who loved … and loved to their end, fully, completely, so that at the end there was no more left to give, or so it seemed. I’ve known more than my share of this, the truest of all beauties.

I pray to find my place among such souls, knowing that my weak heart has a long way to go, if ever to shine with the radiance of the love that embraces pain with gratitude for the beauty of loving.

But here I am, walking love’s stony path, like so many others in so many places, praying and feeling helpless to soothe the soul and grant safe harbor to another heart as precious to me as my own.

This is the way the school of love works—a hidden, excruciatingly slow process of microscopic movement out of slavery to self and into love’s radiant light. The moment we risk loving anyone we enter a curriculum laced with the lilt of laughter and the anxiety of hoping that all will be well, fully aware that there are no guarantees.

Except love, of course. For in the cruel and radiant beauty of loving, we abide in the Love who draws us from death to life, perhaps especially when the days are hard and the nights are long.

Light savers

We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. (1 John 1:3-4)

The air has been heavy, threatening rain, every morning this week. Lush little branches with many-fingered leaves sprout in the sultry air on the locust limbs arching over the sidewalk. Feathery ferns, tender as baby-flesh, they coat the dark arms with the dewy fresh growth of Eden, creeping up to the fork where a dove repairs her nest after recent storms.

She flies across the street, picking twigs and wood chips from the neighbor’s mulch for her rehab project. Weaving them into her domicile, she flies off for more, repeating the process for as long as I care to watch from my perch on the balcony.

Watching is what I’m here for, whispers a silent voice within, stirring a thought: It’s what we are all here for.

We are here to watch and see and listen, to touch and testify to whatever light, life and beauty we see.

Only so, do we become truly human. Only this satisfies the Love who lives at our core, the Love who is our true self, children, as we all are, of the Love who first smiled on Eden.

Sharing what we have seen and heard breaks the ancient spell of selfishness that separates us from each other and hollows out the joy which God intends for us.

God is light, First John writes, the light in all that is light, which is to say the love in all that is love. The light and love whom God is … appears in every life, touches every heart, seeking to wake every sleeping soul to feel and know the Loving Mystery by which and for which we are created.

We are … or can be … light savers for each other, gathering up the moments, holding them to our hearts and sharing the light that touches our lives. For what we have seen and heard, what we have touched and hold dear, is our gift, no, God’s holy gift, to be shared with hearts close to us and perhaps strangers on our way, all of whom are no less needy that ourselves.

For the fulfillment of our humanity is not known in splendid isolation or the sweetness of morning reflection, holy as that is. Our soul’s delight is the joy that engulfs our hearts when the light who shines on our lives is shared.

All that is light draws us toward the Loving Mystery who is from the beginning and who shines most fully in the gracious face of Jesus, the Son of this Holy Mystery, whose unfailing love is the fullness of our joy.

Beyond the needles

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  (Matthew 11:28)

I didn’t feel the needle when the phlebotomist slipped it into my right arm. She likely knew exactly when to ask a question to distract me from watching too closely. Or maybe she is simply deft from long practice.

She filled two vials with my blood before I knew what was happening. What was happening, however, went far beyond the needles. In fact, it is still happening. I am haunted by her voice.

‘I’m terrible,’ she said at one point during our three minutes together. ‘I’ve got to get back to my Bible reading.’ She shook her head and repeated her judgment, ‘I’m terrible.’

Whoever this person is—and whatever her name, since I didn’t catch it—she is a million miles from terrible, which, caught off guard, I assured her, fumbling over my words.

“You’re not terrible,” I said. ‘That’s only one way to commune with God. There’s prayer, being in nature, talking with friends.’ My voice trailed off, failing to find words to say what I felt but couldn’t get out.

‘Yes,’ she responded, cutting through my awkwardness. ‘I talk to him.’

Catching my eye, we nodded, and within seconds I was out of her chair as a dozen others waited for their turn.

Half way across the parking lot, when my brain finally kicked in (five minutes late, like always), the words for which I stumbled finally appeared in my heart. ‘You’re not terrible,’ I wanted to say. ‘You are beloved. There has never been a day of your life when God has not delighted in you.’

How I wish I had those words at the tip of my tongue, ready to speak in that moment. How different our lives would be if we were ready in all times and places to offer this, the heart of God’s love, amid our bitter, cynical times when the Holy Name of God is blasphemed to justify hatred, division and cruelty.

I cannot know how she would have responded. But I would have loved for her to have heard that one word, ‘beloved,’ hoping that it would fall like a seed in her heart and grow.

For your heart, O God, surely hungers for her to know you have cherished her since before the dawn of time. And I, Lord, want you to tell her that the other voice, the one that says,’ You’re terrible,’ is a damn liar. For your love is the core truth of our existence.

Maybe then, she can read her Bible not as a spiritual obligation to be performed (and to feel guilty about when she doesn’t do it), but as an opportunity to listen to the Voice of Love inviting her to come home and rest.

I need to go back to the clinic next month and have more blood drawn. I hope she is working that day. I’d like to hear how she’s doing. And there’s something I’d like to say.

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  (Matthew 11:28)

I didn’t feel the needle when the phlebotomist slipped it into my right arm. She likely knew exactly when to ask a question to distract me from watching too closely. Or maybe she is simply deft from long practice.

She filled two vials with my blood before I knew what was happening. What was happening, however, went far beyond the needles. In fact, it is still happening. I am haunted by her voice.

‘I’m terrible,’ she said at one point during our three minutes together. ‘I’ve got to get back to my Bible reading.’ She shook her head and repeated her judgment, ‘I’m terrible.’

Whoever this person is—and whatever her name, since I didn’t catch it—she is a million miles from terrible, which, caught off guard, I assured her, fumbling over my words.

“You’re not terrible,” I said. ‘That’s only one way to commune with God. There’s prayer, being in nature, talking with friends.’ My voice trailed off, failing to find words to say what I felt but couldn’t get out.

‘Yes,’ she responded, cutting through my awkwardness. ‘I talk to him.’

Catching my eye, we nodded, and within seconds I was out of her chair as a dozen others waited for their turn.

Half way across the parking lot, when my brain finally kicked in (five minutes late, like always), the words for which I stumbled finally appeared in my heart. ‘You’re not terrible,’ I wanted to say. ‘You are beloved. There has never been a day of your life when God has not delighted in you.’

How I wish I had those words at the tip of my tongue, ready to speak in that moment. How different our lives would be if we were ready in all times and places to offer this, the heart of God’s love, amid our bitter, cynical times when the Holy Name of God is blasphemed to justify hatred, division and cruelty.

I cannot know how she would have responded. But I would have loved for her to have heard that one word, ‘beloved,’ hoping that it would fall like a seed in her heart and grow.

For your heart, O God, surely hungers for her to know you have cherished her since before the dawn of time. And I, Lord, want you to tell her that the other voice, the one that says,’ You’re terrible,’ is a damn liar. For your love is the core truth of our existence.

Maybe then, she can read her Bible not as a spiritual obligation to be performed (and to feel guilty about when she doesn’t do it), but as an opportunity to listen to the Voice of Love inviting her to come home and rest.

I need to go back to the clinic next month and have more blood drawn. I hope she is working that day. I’d like to hear how she’s doing. And there’s something I’d like to say.

I heard it from the finches

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. (Colossians 1:13)

Early mornings were cooler this week. It was still humid, but lower temps summoned me to the balcony on the east side of the house to sip coffee and listen to the birds.

I usually try to call the cardinals, imitating their whistle. Sometimes they reply, although I sense confusion in their response.

There is no confusion among the finches, however. Red-crested house finches flutter madly around their home in the big spruce that brushes the side of the house, protecting their domain.

Nearby, goldfinches pierce the morning air, furiously pumping their wings. They rise then stop, pump then stop, pump then stop, pump then glide, over and over again. Their flight scallops the air in repetitive arcs, gracefully up and down, up and down, whizzing by until one lights on a frail, bare branch pointing skyward atop the maple near the corner.

With nary a catch of breath, like kindergarteners released for recess, they burst from their perch, racing and chasing each other above the grass-green expanse. Feather-light, unburdened with no thought of the morrow, they preach a Sunday sermon, demonstrating the joy for which we are made.

I pray to be as free as they. I seldom am, but watching them … I think I see what God has in mind for us.

Surely, Jesus had such as these in mind when he told us to look at the birds and let go of our obsession with ourselves. Just watch, he seemed to say. The Love who loves you will have its way; just give it some time. But that’s most of our problem. We want things our way.

It’s hard to let go and let Love have its inscrutable way with us. And it’s even harder these days when the Love Who Is appears so powerless. ‘The power of darkness’ poisons our politics as masked men maraud our streets, hunting prey, mocking the mercy and decency I once thought was irrevocably encoded in the DNA of our nation.

Examples of official cruelty and jingoism are too obvious to mention. More troubling are the millions who cheer it, willfully blind to the humanity of those crushed in the juggernaut of federally-sanctioned hatred.

Cheer it or condemn it, we all wake into the same world each morning, or do we?

So many appear to wake into a world where might makes right, a zero-sum world where one must always be on the defensive, where the most important value is power, being greater, better, stronger and able to enforce your will. In this callous world, the lives and struggles of others don’t much matter, especially if they are ‘different.’

This reality is all-too-much with us, but out here, looking at the birds, I feel the presence of quite another reality. Their sermon transports me into a world where the light of beauty and mercy has shattered the power of darkness, a world where I can breathe the featherlight sweetness of morning, drawing in the grace of an Immortal Love who dances and plays and charms my heart.

Out here, I know: I don’t live under the power of darkness. Transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved, I dwell in a world of beauty and mercy where every life is precious and holy.

And I … am personally invited … to come out and play.