Out of the Blue

 

Things happen.  Events occur without explanation, often right ‘out of the blue.’ 

* * *

Three of us are having lunch at Sandy Bottoms, the local bagel restaurant. Strange name for a place where cream cheese multiplies itself while sitting on a stool. The subject of life’s inconsistencies comes up. We all have stories to tell.

Scott, our insurance agent, slathers his garlic bagel with cream cheese, takes a bite and begins to talk. (Garlic bagels are nature’s cure for loosening the tongue.)

He reflects on our first introduction. “It was a dark day when you called.”

“How so?” we ask.

“Well, I needed desperately to rent my vacant office.  The bank was breathing down my neck and I was tight for cash. Foreclosure was on the horizon.”

“Go on, brother, unload that burden,” I say.

“OK,” he says.  “See, I had a business partner for ten years.  We were friends, even neighbors.  We made a lot of money, borrowed even more. What’s worse, my ‘friend’ knifed me in the back, took our biggest account and started his own business.  I was left with only the bills.”

A descriptive expletive forms on his lips, but disappears with a bite of his garlic bagel. Garlic replaces anger with smiles. Especially with wine.

I consider lecturing him on the evils of debt, but why load more baggage to the poor, suffering soul? I zip my lips and bite into the salt bagel.

He continues. “I put an ad in the paper, and nobody called.  I was about to tell the bank to foreclose.  Then you call, right out of the blue, just in the nick of time. I was about to be hung out to dry. You saved me by renting the office.” His nervous breakdown is averted.

 I fight back the tears.  Well, not really. Men rarely cry, except when George Jones sings, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Besides, I can’t recall ever having ‘saved’ anybody. It’s hard enough to salvage myself from wreckage.

Some events have no plausible explanation. It’s difficult to accept the reality of what cannot be rationally explained.  The phone rings.  A voice speaks.  Like a rock dropping in a pond, ripples radiate out. Suddenly, things have inalterably changed. Think about it.

 But don’t be surprised. Random rules the universe.  Accept it. No algorithm, no formula to figure out. Just buy into the simple notion that if we show up, something’s going to happen. It’s a weird blueprint.  

We dismiss the haphazard happenings as fortuitous, like a master lottery system in the blue.  We define them as ‘good,’ or ‘bad.’ They’re both, a continuum of the zero-sum game of give and take until the end. And who can say what happens in the end, except that there is an ending, for sure.

Our faith in serendipity is fractured by the scientific-based mindset.  We default our intuitive instincts to computer wizardry.  No room in the guts of Google for ‘luck,’ or ‘fortune.’

We’re all Joe Friday, the detective in the TV series “Dragnet,” whose mantra was, “Just the facts, ma’am.”  So boring, so black and white.  It reduces the romance of life into a robotic soap opera displayed in colored pixels.

Life weaves its own way through our years, even if we deny the idea there is some ‘order’ in the universe.  ‘Random’ often appears as a clown, or a magician, maybe even The Joker. And the ecclesiastical euphemism of “time and chance happens to all” is a thin disguise…the brutal truth is that sometimes life sucks.

But not today. For our friend, bad things turned out for good. His phone rang again one day.  He got a new client and is back in the chips. It’s an inexplicable epilogue to the age-old conundrum.

 * * *

When the days are bleak, when we’re confused, and nothing seems clear, Longfellow’s words help: “Defeat may be victory in disguise; the lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.”

Outside the sky is blue.  The sun shines. I smile and wonder what will happen today.

 

Bud Hearn

April 30, 2021            

My Ideas of Hell

 

There are two indisputable Eventualities.  Hell is one of them. 

* * *

Blame the dream on Covid or a friend’s comment while watching the week’s Masters warmups.  

“My idea of Hell is being chained to a chair watching golf all day,” she says. 

I agree but add being chained to a treadmill all day and forced to watch breaking news on CNN with Wolf is a close second. 

Maybe it was because of the lockdowns that closed the church doors. I miss the weekly thrashings of the wages of sin which at the same time remind me the gates of Hell swing only one way. Anyway, I had a dream of visiting the Abyss. 

The sign over the door reads, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” That will jolt you even in a dream. I look for the sign that says Exit. There is none. I go in. 

Wormwood and Gall greet me. They run the dungeon. They open the books of life and read my life’s history. They laugh uncontrollably. I’m afraid to ask why. 

I get a visitor’s day pass. I ask what to expect. They tell me it’ll be instructive, reminiscent of my life’s experiences and may even adjust my attitudes. They promise it’ll reinforce my ideas of Hell. They laugh louder. 

I’m evaluated to determine my tolerance level of boredom and anxiety. They huddle, converse with furtive whispers and summon me to a giant shopping mall. They introduce me to Ms. Gucci, a manic shopper who had twelve husbands, all deceased, the cause of which was enduring the catatonic stupor of her shopping.   

I lug her bags, suffer hours outside of dressing rooms, fearing a similar demise from her mindless addiction. I finally collapse in the shoe department next to Jimmy Choo. Wormwood revives me. 

“Maybe shopping is not your thing,” he says. “You are an outdoor type. Follow me.”      

A landscaping crew waits. An industrial strength leaf blower of eight thousand decibels is strapped to my back. It’s so powerful I’m lashed to the gigantic oak tree. Leaves fall, I blow them into piles. They keep falling. I keep blowing, they keep falling. 

I complain of the noise, the noxious odor of fossil fuel exhaust and the time wasted in this senseless pursuit. Wormwood laughs, “Time doesn’t exist here. This could be your assignment for eternity.”  

I tell him I need a snack, but not apple sauce. He consults my history and grins. Uh, oh, I remember the day I greedily scarfed my brother’s apple sauce. My father made me eat a gallon of it till it ran out of my ears. Wormwood calls for apple sauce. Somehow, I survive. 

My next assignment is the dog kennel. I ask why here. He reminds me about the neighbor’s barking dog, the one I threatened to poison, to shoot or torch the neighbor’s home. I tell him I’ve repented of that error. He wants to be sure. Thousands of dogs, all barking. I repent again. 

He says he’s overheard my opinions about Georgia’s the new voting laws, the ones that suppress voters, that force them to stand in long lines. He thinks it’s redemptive for me to have that experience, since the lines in Hell are long, especially to the ice machine.     

So, I stand there, waiting, creeping towards the voting machine that forever moves forward. I’m thirsty, hungry. No water, no food. My bladder is a watermelon. Leave the line and lose your place. Lines, all lines, lines everywhere are Hell in themselves. 

My visit ends. Wormwood offers me a meal in the five-star restaurant. I’m seated in the smoking section. Maggie is my server. “I’ll take good care of you, sir,” she promises. Smoke clogs my lungs. Maggie never returns ‘to take good care of me.’ 

Others file in, eat, leave. No Maggie. Finally, the maître de shows. “Sir, time to go. Kitchen closing. Come back soon.”    

Fortunately, time doesn’t permit more ‘instructive’ torture with the dripping faucet, the beeping smoke alarm, the rap music, tailgaters, golf carts, and TV sightings of John Galt and Jim Crow. Ideas of Hell are endless. 

* * *

We all have our ideas of Hell, even of the other Eventuality. We’ll know soon enough. But today I wake up in my bed. Somewhere a dog barks, a leaf blower whines hideously and a MAGA voice shouts on TV, “Do you miss me yet?”

 Can dreams really come true? 

 

 Bud Hearn

April 9, 2021

 Drawing Courtesy of Leslie Hearn

The Cross is Only Crowded at Easter

 

“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself.”    Words of Jesus, John 12:32

This is Holy Week in the Christian world. Through all the passion and pageantry, the cross takes center stage. But for most of the other 364 days, it stands naked and alone, suspended on pedestals in public and ecclesiastical venues, quietly minding its own business and waiting for opportunities to share its secrets. 

The cross is a silent Sentinel with an observant eye, a kindly and ever-patient Doorman-in-waiting. From its lofty height it gazes down in mute amazement at the incessant motions of mankind, a beleaguered humanity mired in the busyness of living. It waits, waits for hungry souls to approach, waits to open the doors of heaven to anyone who will simply stop long enough and ask to be admitted.

Holy Week closes in on Friday and the mood of the cross turns dark and ugly. It becomes a visceral portent of the pending crucifixion of Jesus. It culminates on Resurrection Sunday when the cross is transformed from a cruel instrument of death to a vibrant symbol of life. Crowds gather around crosses adorned with brilliant Spring flowers upon the lawns of churches. They become, at least for the day, a symbolic focal point of new life.

 But it must be lonely being a cross after Easter. Its preeminence has faded, and it blends into the hours of the common day. It’s now simply a reliable symbol, something seen in casual observation but not taken seriously, something glimpsed, but its redemptive powers largely ignored.

Never take the cross lightly. It’s no idle icon simply taking up space in homes or on grounds. It has latent powers, powers that can discern and affect the affairs of the world and can reach into the very soul and nature of humanity. Scripture records these revelations on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion:

      Spectators beheld in stolid indifference;

      Rulers mocked, being threatened

      Religious leaders ridiculed

      Brutal humanity railed 

      Penitent sinners prayed last-minute pleas

      The Covetous sat and played their sordid game 

The cross also has a strange power to trouble us. Like a stone cast into a placid pond, it creates ripples. It can open the door to questions, uncomfortable questions, questions that can disrupt our carefully structured status quo. We live in worlds of constant indecision; we dance around issues, avoid unpleasant situations. The cross has the power to bring us face to face with our procrastinations and to encourage us to confront overdue decisions.  Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s an insightful Christian allegory that reveals the power of the cross: 

“Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but with great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a pace somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher.  So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.”    

Such is the redemptive quality of the cross, a power to unburden anyone willing to accept its standing offer of reconciliation.

This Friday the crosses at most churches will be draped in black in observance of Jesus’ death.  Such somber scenes draw no crowds but remind us that we often find ourselves walking alone through dark valleys in this life.

But as we, the Christian community, gather around the flowered cross on Easter Sunday and  listen closely, we might hear the cross whisper, “Look unto Me and be ye saved.”  It’s a reminder that every day reconciliation and redemption are available for all believers, just for the asking. 

The cross is only crowded at Easter. Why not every day?  

 

 Bud Hearn

April 2, 2021