Month: September 2019

1 Kings Chapter 18 verse 44 states:  “Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.”

Hard to comprehend that a seemingly harmless small bundle of clouds could grow into a raging hurricane like Dorian.

Unless you were a salamander lodging under a decaying log, or a grub munching tall fescue roots in your neighbor’s lawn, I suspect you heard about Hurricane Dorian. 

Even though Dorian eventually moved away from us, we are going to continue to learn about Dorian’s destruction for a long, long time.

In the aftermath of Dorian’s destructive path, I think the National Hurricane Center should retire that name from their storm naming list. I’m sure there are lots of nice Dorians in our world, but this storm wasn’t very nice.

As the storm approached the Bahamas, Dorian decided to shift out of drive into park. With 185 mile an hour winds and higher gusts, Dorian obliterated the Abaco Islands. 

For almost two days, Dorian did not move. Looking at the post-Dorian photographs, I only see destruction. I wonder how anyone lived through the howling winds, pounding rain, and an angry surging ocean.

Watching news reports from our kitchen table one evening, my wife and I listened as the head of the National Hurricane Center, Ken Graham, reported that Dorian had lost its steering currents. These steering currents are a flow of wind embedded in the hurricane. While they be a smaller feature of the storm, these essential winds determine the movement of the hurricane.

For whatever reason, those steering currents stopped working inside Dorian. That non-movement resulted in Abaco’s devastation. 

Even when the steering currents returned to Dorian, the storm’s travel speed was slow. A gradual turn pushed the hurricane to taunt the southeastern coast.

 Finally, on Friday, September 6, Dorian came ashore over the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Even as a Category 2, Dorian’s 90 mile an hour winds, buckets of rain, and turbulent ocean consumed and isolated Ocracoke Island.

Thankfully, by late Friday, Dorian’s steering currents pushed it offshore, and accelerated the storm further off the coast.

For some reason, all of this attention about Dorian, and its troublesome steering currents made me wonder about my own steering currents. 

What steers me in my daily path through life?

What impacts my actions, my thoughts, my temperament, my interactions with family, neighbors, friends, colleagues at work, and strangers?

Along those same lines, I wonder what stirs the steering currents for other people?

Recently, no matter where I look our steering currents appear to be dividing us.

 I think we are allowing our steering currents to create a gap, a separation between us. This type of steering prevents us from finding a level path to have civil conversation. Heck, even the steering currents in my Methodist church over human sexuality have created a division.

Last week, as Dorian was creating its churning chaos, I needed to discard some cumbersome items at the county’s landfill. With a borrowed pickup truck, I made the drive, paid my fee, and positioned the truck for unloading.

Another truck pulled up beside me and the owner started to unload. But, at one point, this gentleman stopped, and he asked me if I needed a hand. This stranger had observed that I was going to need some help with one large item.

His assessment was correct. I gladly accepted his offer. Afterwards, I shook his hand and thanked him for his help.

I wonder what steered this man to offer assistance? What nudged him inside to offer a hand?

Dorian rose out of the sea as a little cloud. 

In contrast to the monster hurricane it became, I wonder what  I, you, me, we could become if we allowed our steering currents to be less divisive.

Something out of the blue steered that stranger to lend me a hand—why?

Perhaps, uncovering the “why” is in imbedded in the steering currents of our hearts.

On the morning of Friday, August 30, I confirmed to my wife, the Commander Supreme, what I suspect that she has quietly known for almost 44 years—she married a moron.

Let me explain my confession.

Earlier in the summer, we had our basement professionally waterproofed. That intrusion turned our quiet basement upside down. It was organized chaos during the process, and for me the chaos is still churning as I struggle to get the basement back to normal.

On Thursday evening, I was attempting to be a good husband by washing clothes. I filled the washing machine with a load of my dirty clothes. This was a dark load, so I set the dial for cold water,  and pushed the start button. 

I had a properly measured cup of liquid detergent ready to hold under the cascading cold water. When my hand and cup hit the water, the water I felt was hot, not cold. How could this be? I rechecked the dial setting. It was clearly on cold.

I let that load run. Prepped a second load, went through the same routine—hot water again, no cold.

So then, something dangerous happened—I started thinking.

I inspected the hose connections at the source. Both were properly connected to hot(red) and cold(blue). I followed the hoses to the back of the washing machine. The connections looked correct. But, I inspected further, and that’s when I discovered the incompetence of my brain. 

Once the basic basement water proofing work had been completed, I rushed to get our washer and dryer back on line. I failed in that rush to look at the big H and C on the back of the washer. These not so subtle reminders were obviously created for husbands like me who quite often operate without a full deck. So, since early July, thanks to my ineptness we have been washing clothes in hot water. I quickly made the correction.

Now the tough part was ahead of me—making the confession. Perhaps, I should consult a website for brainless husbands for advice.  Not wanting to ruin the Commander Supreme’s Thursday evening, I saved my confession for Friday morning. 

On Friday morning, I was pleasantly surprised. The confession didn’t garner much of a response—a mild “Good that you found it.” But, it was the mildness of the reply that worried me. What was the Commander thinking behind her tolerant brown eyes?

My hunch is she was thinking something like this—“My husband, just confirmed for me what I have known for years. Now, if I ever need proof in the future to convince someone that his brain is smaller than a ceratopogonidae, a noseeum, I have it!”

Working in a church, I sometimes come across situations that make me wonder about the functionality of the gray matter of the people who use our building.

How can a coffee urn be left for weeks without being properly cleaned?

For example, how can a person not flush a fully loaded toilet? 

How can a person put bagged landscaping debris into a recycling dumpster?

How can a person slam a hymnal into the pew rack with such force that the rack collapses?

In that same environment, how can a person allow one of their feet to make one of the nailed slats of the Bible holding rack under the pew collapse?

We have church members who volunteer to tidy up the pews to make sure everything is neat and properly stocked for the next Sunday service. Bottom line on this one, I’m sorry to let you down, but we Methodist are not neat worshippers.

On that same Friday of my confession to the Commander Supreme, I was tasked with making a pew rack and Bible rack repair in the Sanctuary. 

In making those repairs, I’m pretty sure the devil must have been loitering in the Sanctuary. Because everything that could go wrong went wrong in fixing the flawed fixtures. At one point, I contemplated removing every hymnal and Bible rack. 

I thought further, I would love to catch the person who created these rack problems. I guarantee it would be the last time, and then it dawned on me— Bill, you are whining, whining, whining, whining. What about your own imperfections? Have you forgotten the hot and cold washing machine blunder?

Earlier on Friday morning, after I had made my washing machine catastrophe confession to the Commander Supreme, I headed to Trinity.

I was outside on the Preschool side of the building. Preschool starts on Tuesday, I was knocking down spider webs and sweeping debris.

At the entrance closest to the Bicentennial Garden, I saw a young mother and father and their two children walking toward that doorway.  I asked if they needed to get in the building, and they responded, “No, we’re just practicing steps.”

One of the parents had the daughter by her hand. They were navigating the sloped brick sidewalk and the steps that lead to the door landing. Words of encouragement came from the parent to the daughter.

These wise parents were prepping the daughter for Tuesday’s opening. They were helping her anticipate this new environment—practicing steps.

So much of life is simply about practicing steps. 

Everything we do on a daily basis that we take for granted involved  a series of steps. Some steps are planned, some are improvised, and some intrude without warning.

Maybe, our chances of attempting to live right are better if we consider our practices in our steps. For me that can mean incorporating the practice of taking a giant step back and reflecting on my imperfections.

This quote from Katharine Hepburn sums me up pretty well:

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers—but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But, it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you’re the one who has got to change.”

Without question, and with quite a dose of grumpiness, I am often quick to blame.

When this happens, Luke 6:42 is nowhere to be found in the vacuum between my ears:

“Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye?”

Clearly, no speck of sawdust is in my eye, I have a 2×4 lodged in there.

I need to rethink my steps in life.

I wonder if I can change?

My steps need some practicing.

Every morning, Monday through Friday, since August 18, I’ve been making a left turn off of Grove Avenue on to Belmont Avenue.  I pass the expensive, but delicious Zeus Gallery Café, clear the intersection at Hanover, and then pull into the parking lot at Benedictine High School, a private, military school supported by the Catholic church.  

I park. As I walk across the lot, I observe young men in Army green. Besides the green, they also have something else in common—a barber who only knows one style, a military cut.

 I walk up the stairs, through the main office, down a short corridor lined with cadet history.  I make a left down a hall lined with graduating class pictures to Room 206. This is where I teach four straight classes of freshman English from 8:00 to 11:17.  

Clearly, I have lost my mind.

Not since the mid-1980’s have I been responsible for preparing lesson plans, taking attendance, rereading pieces of literature that I thought I would never see again, playing psychological chess with teenage males, and grading papers.  

Years ago when I first became an assistant principal at a local high school, people asked me if I missed being in the classroom. My first response was I don’t miss grading papers. 

 And now again, I’m up to my ears in grading papers.  The faculty and staff at Benedictine ask me how I’m doing, and I tell them I’m going to have a t-shirt designed that will say, “Benedictine: It’s Wearing Me Out!”

Having spent all of my previous life in public education, I have noticed a few subtle differences at Benedictine.  

Faculty meetings begin with a prayer. Morning announcements begin with the Lord’s Prayer.  Cadets learn the school’s prayer, and students have the option of attending confession a couple of times during the week.  Even though I’m not Catholic, I’ve attended three masses with the faculty, staff, and our students. 

 Despite all of this Catholic exposure, my mother-in-law can relax; I have no plans to convert.

Schools continue to be fertile ground for stories. And speaking of fertile, there is a young teacher on the faculty whose wife gave birth to their fifth daughter last week.  

I heard about one teacher who with his wife was locked by accident into the Henrico County dump late one evening. They were scavenging through the too good to be thrown away section.  

Learned about the retired Marine Corps Colonel who has a high ranking daughter in the Marines. But, the Colonel also lost a son in the crash of a Marine helicopter during a training mission.  

But the real stories evolve around students.

The transition from middle school to high school is challenging just about everywhere, but when you factor in an Army Junior ROTC program, that can make the adjustment even more challenging. This is especially true for freshmen who have anxiety about orientation from upperclassmen not to mention the expectations from the Army veterans in charge of the program.    

For one of my students this transition wasn’t any fun.  

Teenagers will be teenagers no matter what the environment might be. One afternoon while this young man was in the process of getting ready for his physical education class, a classmate directed some inappropriate comments toward him. 

 The student who was devastated by the comments is slender, with a slight frame. And I’m guessing that any pursuit of organized athletics was probably a frustrating experience for him.  Of course, the perpetrator was the exact opposite.

I found out about this crushing afternoon from a friend of mine in our neighborhood. My friend knows the young man’s family.  I received an e-mail from my friend letting me know that the student had a rough day, and he simply asked that I keep an eye on him tomorrow.

Later that evening, I received a phone call from the headmaster of the school to discuss the situation.  The headmaster had spoken with the student’s mother at length.  

She told the headmaster that her son was so upset that he had stated to her, “Tomorrow, I don’t want to wakeup.” In all of my experiences working in schools, I can’t remember a comment hitting my heart so hard.

It was easy to tell the parent that the knucklehead who created this problem had been punished. Now, the real issue was whether or not the student who had taken the verbal harassment would have the courage to attend school tomorrow. 

The headmaster had a plan.  A letter to the editor in the Richmond Times-Dispatch  written from the perspective of a young man with Down syndrome about name calling and stereotyping was going to be used.  I would share this article with my four freshmen classes, and make clear that there would be no tolerance for this type of behavior from any cadet.

I also prayed for the young man that he could trust the school, want to wake up, and have the courage to return to school. 

The next morning I was doing my daily devotional routine with the Upper Room and the Bible.  For some reason, I stumbled into Romans Chapter 12, verse 16;  “live in harmony with one another.” I wondered if those words might have any bearing for our freshmen.

Before I knew it, I was making my left turn on to Belmont Avenue. Not long after that my first period class started showing up. Luckily, the young man found the courage to attend.  

After getting through some daily requirements, I passed out the article, and I called on various students to read aloud.  

Once the reading was finished, we talked about respect, responsibility, tolerance, expectations, treating people with dignity, and then I wrote on the board, “live in harmony with one another.” 

I asked the students where that quote might have come from?  After taking some guesses, there was a fair amount of surprise when I told them the quote was from the Bible.

When first period was over and as students were filing out, the young man who “didn’t want to wake up” stopped and thanked me. 

 I wanted to tell him don’t thank me. Thank the good Lord for answering a prayer.

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father as we go through each day of living help us to realize the importance of “living in harmony with one another.”  In your name we pray, Amen.

*Author’s note, this piece was written in October 2008. It was shared as a devotional in the Outreach Sunday school class at Trinity United Methodist Church at some point that fall.