Accidental Car Door Ding

My car door opened too quickly the other day 

And accidentally hit the side of the truck beside me. 

 

Thankfully, it was a white work truck that already had a wrecked front

Because it left a little ding. 

 

A man was in the truck and 

He unhappily looked at me and made an exasperated gesture. 

 

The man had just come out of the gun store 

With a new gun. 

 

I felt uneasy as I walked away and 

Hoped the man wouldn’t be waiting for me when I returned. 

 

He was still there when I walked back to my car. 

I didn’t make eye contact. 

 

I cautiously pulled away, 

Afraid he might follow me. 

 

As I drove down the road, 

I looked in my rear view mirror. 

 

Two cars back, 

There he was. 

 

Fearing road rage or being attacked when I got out of the my car, 

I pondered my options. 

 

Thankfully I was going to be driving awhile. 

And i was going to be arriving near a fire station. 

 

About five minutes into the drive, though,

The man slowed down and suspiciously turned around. 

 

I felt relieved. 

But I also felt sad that I had to consider plans for what to do with a man’s misplaced anger. 

 

I don’t want to live in fear,

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t carry the fear of guns and violence qnd rage and untreated mental illness and school shootings in my bones. 

 

We have a lot of work to do, friends.

We shouldn’t have to be afraid of accidentally dinging someone’s car door. 

 

We shouldn’t have to be afraid at all. 

Prayer in School

 

Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. 

 

I’m practicing in the auditorium with my 4th and 5th graders this week. 

We have a program on Friday night. 

A church meets in the auditorium on the weekends.

Some of their instruments and unassuming stuff is still on stage. 

At the end of rehearsal this morning,

One of my students walked up to the prayer request station 

And quietly asked if he could write a prayer. 

I told him yes. 

So he did. 

Another kid joined him and asked me how to spell Vietnam. 

As the original student walked away, he wiped tears from his eyes.

 

Like I said, maybe I shouldn’t have let them use the church’s materials

To write a prayer during school hours. 

But I did. 

And at least for today, 

I’m not sorry. 

Sanctity of Human Life

 

If I believe in the sanctity and dignity of human life,

Then I must care about not only when life is conceived and born 

But also about what happens to that life once it enters the world. 

I must care about not only people who look and sound like me

But also about people from every tribe and nation, of every language and skin color. 

I must care about actions and policies that not only honor and protect me

But that also honor and protect the least of these. 

If I am free in Christ, 

If I believe in and follow Jesus, 

If I believe that Jesus really did summarize the law and the prophets in one statement: Love God and love others as self, 

Then I must love others not by 

Damning them 

But by welcoming them as God’s child,

Created in God’s image, 

Both to be born and truly to live. 

 

The Archies

 

We had our Fall Festival at school this past Friday night. 

My job for each year’s festival is to be the DJ. 

In preparation for this year’s big event, 

I curated a playlist on Amazon Music. 

It was a mix of Halloween music and upbeat music from different decades.

I even asked my colleagues for song requests so that I knew the music would be relevant. 

 

After I got the sound system set up and tried to connect my phone to the speaker via Bluetooth, 

I realized that I was standing in a dead zone.

My phone had no cell signal

Nor would it connect to the school’s Internet.

The result? 

No access to my carefully curated playlist. 

 

Thankfully, I had packed two computers just in case.

Thankfully, again, both computers would connect to the school’s Internet.

Thankfully, for the third time, a friend let me use her YouTube music account and I was able to access the music with no commercials.

And so, I stood typing in the names of songs from the playlist and using YouTube song suggestions.

 

For an hour and a half, 

All was going well…

Until I played one song.

 

Now. 

I like the song Sugar Sugar.

It’s a cute tune from the 1960s and I have a cup game lesson that goes along with it.

So when I started playing it,

I did not expect the older gentleman who was sitting near me

To jump up and come walking toward me with a sense of urgency,

Yelling, “The Archie’s! No! No! No!  Absolutely not!

Stop that music right now!”

 

Afraid that I had accidentally played a politically incorrect group from the 60s,

Or that I had unknowingly triggered a PTSD memory, 

Or that something was majorly wrong,

I immediately stopped the music. 

My heart was racing and I felt a little sick.

I shakingly fumbled to try to find a new song to fill the sudden silence,

All the while, listening to the man say,

“No bubblegum pop.

Bubblegum pop is terrible.

You can play any other style of music, just don’t play that.”

And then he chastised me for being a music teacher who didn’t know what bubblegum pop was. 

 

After he walked away,

I became paranoid about the music I was playing.

Suddenly, not only was I mindful of trying not to play music with cuss words,

But I was also mindful of not playing music that might trigger someone,

Or in this case, 

Possibly just annoy someone who made a really big, somewhat scary deal about it. 

 

We live in precarious times. 

There is so much deep seated trauma 

That we don’t know how to deal with it. 

There is so much anger and emotion that it explodes at weird times 

And transfers to weird situations. 

An elementary school Fall Festival is definitely a weird time. 

And being yelled at and demeaned for playing a song was definitely a weird situation.  

 

But hey. 

Other than that, I had a nice time. 

And that’s something, right?

 

Unexpected Praise

 

I stopped by Jersey Mike’s for lunch on last Friday’s work day.

As I stood in line to wait for my sandwich,

I heard the manager say,

“You guys just rocked that. 

That was so good. 

I know it was a lot at once. 

But you did it. 

And you rocked it.

And everything looked beautiful. 

I’m so proud of you guys!”

 

I’ve had the privilege of working for cheerleaders for the past many years. 

I feel appreciated by my boss and 

I’m thankful to work for someone who sees what I do and expresses his gratefulness on a regular basis. 

 

But not everyone can say that. 

 

In fact, I imagine that most people can’t. 

 

I think that’s why the Jersey MIke’s manager’s words 

Meant so much to me. 

She was genuinely proud of her team, 

She knew they were discouraged, 

So she shared her encouragement through praise. 

And even though the teenagers that she was working with didn’t really acknowledge her speech,

I think it meant a lot to them. 

How could it not? 

They had been seen and their time and efforts had been valued. 

And, after all, isn’t that what most of us deeply desire?

 

May this be a reminder that 

Words are powerful

And that sometimes they affect even the people they aren’t meant to reach.

 

May we use our words to build up and encourage

And when we see something good,

May we hold it in light and 

Celebrate the people involved in the goodness,

Especially when they may not often hear words of encouragement and praise. 

 

Amen. 

Free

Oh God—

I want to live free

Because I AM free indeed.

You have made me so, Jesus,

And you ARE MAKING me so—

Every day, every moment—

A release of the fears that bind.

You say do not worry about tomorrow—

You say live today for today.

You, who is the WORD,

Have spoken truth as are YOU ARE the truth.

Help me to live in that truth—

Always in your truth,

Not as fiercely independent and self-reliant,

But in community and relationship and service to others,

In you,

In Love.

Amen.

The Strolling Piano

We were in the agriculture building

Looking at the fruits and vegetables

When I heard someone hit a few chords on the piano, 

Which I thought was odd because I’d never heard music in that building before. 

So I turned to where the sound was coming from and

Saw a woman sitting at a piano near the entrance of the building. 

“Weird,” I said to myself, 

As I continued looking at peppers,

And talking with my friends.

 

A few moments later, 

It got weirder.

The woman playing piano was rolling toward us!

Lights flashing, speakers blasting, 

She was on a Strolling Piano that moved kind of like a Roomba vacuum cleaner. 

She would stop. 

She would spin. 

She would move forward. 

She would turn at an angle. 

The movements were sporadic,

Not at all with the music she was performing,

And we were all dumbfounded to be seeing

This full-sized-piano-Roomba-vacuum-cleaner

Amongst the fruits and vegetables.

 

After a few minutes,

The side door to the building opened,

The Strolling Piano went through the door,

The door closed,

And she was gone.

 

After her disappearance,

Which happened just as suddenly as her appearance,

We looked at each other, laughing in disbelief, and said,
“Did that really just happen?

I feel like I’m on a sit-com or something that isn’t real!”

 

But it was real.

Outside the building,

On the walkway,

She continued performing.

“Good evening, North Carolina State Fair!

I’m Maria with the Strolling Piano and

I’m so glad to be with you tonight.”

 

We kept staring in astonishment

Until we finally located the man with the remote control.

Even then, the Strolling Piano filled us with so many questions and

Became the highlight of our 2024 NC State Fair Visit…

 

Which, by the way,

We were so confused by the whole experience that

No one thought to take a picture! :-p

 

What has astonished, confused, or amazed you lately?

I’d love to hear.

 

"Cat"

 

My dad is convinced that he speaks, “cat.”

He says that he understands what the cats want

And that the cats tell him what they need.

In all actuality, the cats simply want food and

Know that he’ll give it to them.

As a result, he hasn’t trained them,

Rather they have trained him,

And they keep him up at all hours of the night,

Demanding to go in or go out,

Begging for dry food or turkey.

 

I tell him to ignore their demands,

But he swears that they will just swat at him and get mad.

He said that Annie Mae got mad on Sunday morning,

Hit the chair,

And then stomped off for hour.

She may have,

But she was better by Sunday afternoon,

When she told me

(Yes, I speak, “cat,” too)

That she wanted to take a nap.

I obliged,

And she did what she always does

When she’s being affectionate:

Hopped onto her spot,

Made biscuits,

Turned around,

And laid down right next to my leg.

 

Annie Mae is not an overly affectionate cat.

But when she wants pets,

She lets us know.

And when she wants to nap,

She curls up beside me,

Always touching some part of my body,

But never laying on me outright,

Because that would be too much love.

 

In so many ways, people are like cats.

We tend to be the center of our own universe.

We communicate what we want both passively and aggressively and

We hope that someone listens.

We’re opinionated and prickly at times,

But even then,

We want someone with whom

We can be ourselves,

Rest, and

And feel safe, warm, and secure.

 

I hope that each of us can know and experience

Even a fraction of the love and

Life of comfort that

Annie Mae has come to live.

From thrown away teenage mother to

Queen of the House,

She is teaching me about

Adoption, redemption, and love…

All in her language of “cat.”

Whisper

 

“I’m whispering something to you,” she wrote. 

And then she confessed. 

She’d been struggling with a very annoying friend. 

She hadn’t wanted to say anything negative about the friend. 

But she was really struggling. 

And she’d been struggling alone. 

But finally she said what was on her mind and in her heart. 

And it set her free. 

 

In the weeks after she whispered her secret, 

Her attitude changed. 

She started to engage the friend in conversation more, 

And she didn’t get as annoyed with the friend’s behaviors.

The friend hadn’t changed. 

But she had. 

And it’s all because

She allowed light

To penetrate the darkness

Of what she’d been trying to hide. 

 

She was right.

It’s good not to talk negatively about other people.

It’s good to live by the mantra
“If you can’t say anything good, then don’t say anything at all.”

But sometimes, words just need to be whispered.

Whether over coffee, or via text, or even in a therapist’s chair,

Some words need to be said,

Not to put others down,

Or gossip,

Or slander,

Or lie,

But to lift the heavy burden they’ve become in our souls.

Some thoughts, feelings, and actions need to be confessed,

Not for judgment and condemnation,

But for light and grace and peace and love.

 

That’s what happened with her.

And it changed her.

Maybe it will change you, too.

 

Oh God: May we each of us find spaces where we can safely speak our truths and may each of us be that space for others when the burdens become too much. Amen.