The Refectory Manager

The refectory . . . A place to nourish the soul. A place to share the savory comestibles, the sweet confections, the salty condiments of the things that matter. A place to ruminate the cud of politics. A place to rant on the railings of religion. A place to arrange the flowers of sanguine beauty. A place to pause in the repose of shelter. Welcome, my friend. The Refectory Manager

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Location: College Place, Washington, United States

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

But what is love, if love be not friction?

The old woman slowly rocked back and forth in that old, creaky whicker rocker. For the umpteenth time, a swaddled newborn was placed in her blanket-shrouded lap. Instinctively, a knurled old finger caressed the patina of another great-grandchild’s cheek. Instinctively, a little mouth opened, the rooting reflex in play. Back and forth, in time with creaks of the rocker, a finger and a cheek so lightly touched. But what is love, if love be not friction?

He felt the burn of the snapped wet towel on his quivering, wet butt. It did hurt. And he quickly turned to identify the perpetrator in this showering PE class of teenage testosterone. And he was met not with the maliced snarl of a bully, but the scintillating, yet concealed smile of the other who seemed to be different. And the communication of pain was but a fumbling way of touching in a forbidden way. But what is love, if love be not friction?

The middle-aged man was renting the downstairs of an old, ramshackled, two-story house. A house that could contain no secrets. The routine was soon recognized. The muffled sound of the early morning up-stairs alarm. The rhythm of a rocking bed. The moose-like grunts, the high-pitched little squeals. And then, the abrupt interjection of silence to be finally given away to the sound of steps, the flush of the commode, the clanking of hot water pipes. Later, they would emerge together from the upstairs doorway, hand-in-hand, to bounce down the external steps. He in his pizzeria t-shirt and baseball cap. She without her Wal-Mart “How can I help you” vest. The old smokin’ pickup truck jostling them together out of the parking lot. But what is love, if love be not friction?

In the frenzied life of the soccer moms, this kind of moment was infrequent and precious. Her eye lash would but nearly imperceptibly brush the cheek of her soul-mate. Their prone embrace all encompassing. Their hearts beating in unison. Her fingers combing the long hair of her partner. Their souls melding in the stillness of the hour. But what is love, if love be not friction?

They are an eclectic bunch in the 21st century virtual band of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims. The KinNet travelers that is. Each with a tale to tell. Sometimes goading. Sometimes chiding. Sometimes confirming. Sometimes deriding. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes crying. Sometimes angry. Sometimes sighing. Sometimes affirming. Sometimes denying. But a tale to tell by each that touches. But what is love, if love be not friction?

The Refectory Manager

Monday, December 17, 2007

That desperate drive of the-obnoxious-touchable-cat.

[ . . . an excerpt from an e-mail to my Muslim friend at the Unitarian-Universalist church, sharing my experience at visiting another UU congregation.]

The Horizon UU Church has the same custom as the First Jefferson UU Church. It was never done this way back in Maryland or the New England UU churches that I have attended. I guess people in that region of the country are simply more prudish. And that is the tradition of the holding of hands at the time of the benediction.

I will admit, I was somewhat startled at that, on that first Sunday I/we were at First Jeff. For there is such a taboo in western culture about “touching.”

Strangers simply recoil at touching another.

When PG (the manager I worked with at Sodexho in Gaithersburg, MD and who is now in the US Army in Kuwait City) and I would walk around the little lake next to our office building after lunch (it was a ¾ mile circle, about 20 minutes), and commiserate about the horrible state of US politics and stuff, sometimes our hands would bump together, and without exception, he would apologize like it was offensive to me or something. He would say that he knew that men in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries would hold hands, that it was culturally acceptable, but he recognized that it was more or less abhorrent in our culture here. I would never comment on that. Just let it pass.

But there is something life-giving about touching.

The newborn infant, lacking in the experience of being touched, will succumb to the failure-to-thrive syndrome. Touching is so crucial for fulfilled life. Look at the animals around us. There are two cats living in our house. They simply demand to be touched. There are in your face, to the point of being obnoxious, insisting on being touched. Look at the dog who scrambles under your feet, demanding to be touched. Look at the sea lions basking on the bank . . . one mass of touching. Look at the baby penguins in the movie “March of the Penguins,” how they are touched. Look at the young hetero-lovers walking in the park, how they touch. Look at the two elderly lesbian residents in a nursing home, how they touch. Look at the two, young, gay studs, how they touch.

And so the UU Churches in this area incorporate “touching” in their benediction ritual. For some it will be a perfunctory touch. An obligation. A moment of prolonged endurance. A gritting-of-the-teeth-to-get-this-over-with-experience and let me return to my sterile cocoon of prudish isolationism. For those who are in love, it is an intimate shared communication of awesome experience, culminated with a tender squeeze at the final “Amen.” For others, it is a recognition that though they feel as untouchable as a leper, someone is still willing to touch them. For still others, it is a validation that they really are a part of the human family.

Oh, that the churches of my youth would have condoned “touching” in the benediction ceremony. Oh, how I would and did scheme to sit next to the boy I was so infatuated with. And if the holding of his hand were a part of the benediction ritual, I would have benedicted the whole service from introit to end.

But alas, touching was abhorrent. So abhorrent.

Ayman, I remember that moment of a shared touch on that Sunday we first met. You had been seated on my right side. We were standing for the benediction. Directed to hold our neighbor’s hand. I sort of freaked out. For I had not touched another’s hand in well over two years other than the perfunctory handshake that is typically void of meaning.

But we touched. A warm, firm, responsive touch.

Like the infant that needs to be touched to survive, that brief moment of touch was an infusion of survivability.

At that final “Amen,” I squeezed. Simply could not help it. That desperate drive of the-obnoxious-touchable-cat. And the shared squeeze was felt in return.

I am not sure if I am completely comfortable with that UU tradition here in Texas . . . so culturally steeped in the abhorrence of touching I am.

It is not that I find touching abhorrent.

It is I am so fearful of touching.

But I certainly recognize the emotional and therapeutic fulfilling that it can bring to the members of a congregation. In time I will get “used” to it. And getting “used” to it might rob it of its powerful impact.

Must wait and see.

Perhaps humans might evolve yet, to the point of being an in-your-face-obnoxious-cat in the demand and fulfillment and acceptability of touching and being touched.


The Refectory Manager

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

It can’t help but to be prayed

It seems to me, prayer is invoked for but one of two very human necessities. And whatever it is we think of prayer, it is simply a human reach of primal necessity. And now that you [my Muslin friend from the Unitarian-Universalist Church] have cloaked me with the mantle of "praying buddy," I have engaged in considerable reflection of what that might mean.

At this moment in space and time, I am compelled to pray in my preferential way. And that is to pray in the response of inspiration. The prayer of praise. The prayer of thanksgiving. The prayer of gratitude. The prayer of joy.

But my gut wants me to pray for the other reason, for the reason of desperation. And I hate that reason. For it reminds me of that old ditty:

On the brink of danger,
But not before.
God and the doctor you adore.
And when danger is past,
And all is righted,
God is forgotten, and the doctor is slighted.


And that prayer makes God a fat old elf in a red suit . . . "for you better watch out, you better not cry, you better be nice for I’m telling you why . . . he knows if you’ve been bad or good . . ."

But at this moment, I listen to the caw caw caw of a crow, the rasping chatter of ducks. The way-off-in-the-distance ambient noise of a self-centered city. For I sit on a little bench at the side of the River Bottom path at the Ft Worth [Texas] Nature Preserve. And in a very human way, I pray.

Some minutes ago, the stillness was raped and shattered by the scream of war. Two military flying machines of lethal destruction, in close formation with each other, in close proximity to the terrestrial surface of a preserve of peace and inspiration, menaced overhead with a domineering presence ... But what is war if not the desecration of peace.

But before that, the sounds of the soft cooing of a nursing baby. The sounds of a German accent of a young mother. The sounds of a timid "Hi" of a young father, their poodle on a leash, their toddler, toddling behind.

And later, the sounds of conversation with the old man in his Bwana hat, his waving hickory cane, his totally out-of-place-for-the-pathway Penny loafer shoes, who doesn't come here very much anymore. He was sad that all his friends were dying, and his favorite little restaurant was but the last to severe a personal connection. The "Wild Onion." A little joint out in the middle of nowhere northwest of Ft Worth. The old gal that ran it folded the place up. Couldn't keep it up. Couldn't get decent help. And hence, that black-eyed-pea salad with the olives and oh, those yeast rolls ... It truly is sad to see an old man smiling in the act of mourning.

And he told me to not get old.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Didn’t know if he was really joking or not. There is however, poignant truth in a joke.

As we parted, I wished him to take care, to have a good day.

He said he was workin' on it.

And workin' on it, I do too.

And that meant seeing things through the brilliant back-lighting of a clear winter day. Seeing the tenacious leaves fluttering in their brilliant shapes and colors and textures of that special kind of light. Of reflecting on the beauty of berries, seeds, pods, vestiges of floral parts, of ripened and dried herbaceous plants.

It meant inhaling the earthy smell of the living death of the decaying trees and shrubs and leaves and plants.

It meant remarking at the patterns of repetition in the layer after layer of lichen leaching its existence from the dark side of a tree.

It invoked feelings of the intimacy of touch. The two turtles. Stretched out on the sunlit rock in the marshland. The fore-turtle with head and neck fully extended outward. The rear-turtle snuggled tightly beside, with its fully extended head and neck nuzzled tightly to his partner. The picture of utmost trust in each other. An exemplar of soul-mate experience.

The touching of infant mouth to the nipple of the mother, the reflexive action of suckling by baby, the reflexive action of milk let-down by momma.

The touching of a poodle to his master through a taught leash.

The touching of a toddler to his daddy by independently stepping in his daddy’s footprints.

It meant the feel of the breeze. The moist warmth of the earth. The sweat on the brow. The tiredness in the feet.

An experience like this is that inspiration thing. If I am the "praying buddy," then you are my "inspiration buddy."

For thinking of you triggers inspirational things.

And inspirational things prompt prayers in response to inspiration.

And prayers of inspiration force out the dread of needing to pray for desperate things.

It lets one realize that life is the caw, caw, caw of the crow. It is the raspy chatter of the marshland duck. It is the separation from the ambient noise of the mania of the city. It is the intimate touch of turtles. It is the conversation with an old man. It is the nourishing of a new-born. It is the following in the steps of the one you love. It is the pulling on a taught leash. It is the back-lighting that gives brilliance to one’s shape and form and color and identity.

And the prayer of inspiration is a prayer that can’t help but to be prayed.

My Friend, as you find your place in space and time, I hope it is in the space of the prayer of inspiration that you find yourself and not in the space of the prayer of desperation.

Peace.

The Refectory Manager