UNCLE JOE’S CHRISTMAS TREES

(The following is an excerpt from my memoir, still in progress. It falls into the portion about the most memorable people of my life—a  section that is proving to be much longer than I had anticipated.)

Uncle Joe was a man of few words. When my aunt died, he would frequently come to our house and sit in the living room and just be—to use a spiritual description of his presence. Every now and then he would say something which caught us off guard and probably made us pay more attention than if he were a man of many words. I don’t think that was an intentional strategy on his part, it was just simply who he was.

 

He was a welder by trade and no doubt a good one. He and my Aunt Almyra (aka Aunt Maurie) lived in the family homestead on Branch Street, in which my father and my Uncle Ernie had also lived during their growing up years, along with my grandparents of course. The sibling lineup was: Aunt Maurie was the oldest, my father was next, then Uncle Ernie.

 

Uncle Joe had a couple of beehives from which he showed me how to extract the honey. I watched him with wonderment as he pulled the trays out of the hives, not wearing any protective equipment, bees landing on his bare arms and buzzing around his head. If he got stung, he never let on—again, a man of few words.

 

I guess he has come to mind recently because Christmas is on the horizon and our Christmas trees always came from his property in the Pine Barrens. They were long-needle white pines, one of the most fragrant and sweetest-smelling of all the trees in the forest. 

On the established day, we would get into our ‘46 two-tone green Plymouth and go into the woods to pick out the perfect tree for that particular Christmas. It would be in the center of the platform around which my Lionel trains ran through a little Plasticville village,which included a service station, hospital, a train station, a few houses, a post office, police station, a few other things—all to my great delight.

I suppose I could say that the sweet-smelling needles of Uncle Joe’s Christmas trees were like being vaccinated with true Christmas joy and wonder.

THE MAN ON THE TOP STEP

 I’m on LBI, the Jersey shore of my childhood, my young adulthood, my middle years, and now my senior years. I came here to preach at the United Church Of Surf City this past Sunday. It went surprisingly well considering I haven’t preached in quite a while. I actually particularly miss that part of the ministry more than the rest. But, of course, it’s not like I have some supreme wisdom that the world can’t live without. The upside is that they want me to come back.

Having said that, I told a true story from my childhood that I want to share with you now in these sometimes scary and trying days we are living in presently. I shared this in my sermon and maybe you will find it helpful in some way.

When I was about five years old or so, I was afraid of the dark because we lived in an old house on Main Street in Medford that had it share of creaks and moans, the way old houses do. My bedroom was upstairs in the back of the house and my parents' bedroom was downstairs.

When I was really scared I would yell downstairs and let my parents know about it, and faithfully my father would come up and sit on the top step of the back stairs. He would sit there as long as I needed him.

It's important that you know that he had to get up very early in the morning to go to work in Philadelphia. When I say early, I'm talking about 4:30 a.m. So he sacrificed a lot of sleep time doing that. 

Sometimes he would think that I had fallen asleep and try to get up from the step carefully and quietly, but then I would say to him, "Where are you going, Daddy?" And he would say, "I'm right here" and sit right back down again and would do it over and over again until I would finally be fast asleep.

There in the dark, no matter how many nights it happened, my father would make me feel safe and protected.

When I told that story in my sermon, I ended it by saying that that's what God is like. And I believe that that is true.

OLD BOOKS AND NEW THOUGHTS

When I was the pastor of Cranbury UMC, every once in awhile I would wander up the street to an old house on the corner of North Main & Park Place, which was known as The Bookworm. It was a treasure trove of old and antique books on every floor, even down into the basement.

My reason for going there was sometimes to try to find a copy of a book I wanted and/or needed that was no longer in print. But there were other times I wanted to just be in a place that was filled with the words and thoughts and wisdom of a whole host of people, literally, of all walks of life. The many shelves of the Bookworm were their home amid the musty smells and the quiet, pensive sound of classical music in the background. 

I would aimlessly meander from room to room, occasionally taking a book off the shelf here or there—maybe poetry, maybe philosophy or religion, maybe even cooking or “how to draw.” Once in awhile an Agatha Christie or other mystery novel would catch my attention, and I had no choice but to buy it and take home with me if I wanted to know "who done  it". Once I found the complete works of Sherlock Holmes stories, which has long since disappeared from my collection. The topics were endless. 

There was something about being in an atmosphere so filled with old books that each contained the works of a multitude of authors who had carefully crafted their thoughts on pages that someone would read even many years hence. Maybe they wrote in the wee hours of the morning while everyone else in the house slept; maybe they wrote in the evening hours as the sun was going down; maybe they wrote by candlelight or gas light or by a lamp on a desk in a library.

Well, of course, you can see how carried away I can get with this stuff, (I was an English Major in college) so I’ll get to the main thing I want to say, which is that while we are so caught up with current events as well we need to be, and so overwrought by the likes of a pandemic and major storms and international crises, just to name a few, there is a need for the healing and comfort that can be found in the wisdom and humor and imagination of those who proceeded us on this planet. 

Consider this: You need a shift in some present mood that has infiltrated your soul and has left you in despair or with a sense of hopelessness? May i suggest that you find and read an old book of poetry, philosophy, spirituality, or some area of life that you've maybe even forgotten about that those kindred spirits who have gone before us left for our goodness and well-being. Treasures of thoughts and heart.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 says:

    "What has been is what will be, and what has been done         is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun."

I could very well be wrong in my interpretation, but it seems to be saying that, in the living of our lives, we can be assured that all will be well when the day is done. (Peter, Paul, & Mary)

Just a thought. 

The Parable of A Walnut Tree

It was 1954 and I was 11years old when Hurricane Hazel came sweeping through Medford, NJ. It took out our family’s much beloved English walnut tree in the side yard and stretched it across Main Street, blocking traffic. Neighbors came from all over the neighborhood and beyond to help cut it up, and to my recollection, those were the days long before chain saws were a common tool.  

It was a very dramatic scene seeing all those men working so diligently at a job that had very little rewards for anybody other than doing something together with a complete sense of comradeship. And when the cutting and chopping were done, my dad insisted that the leftover stump be set upright in place. Would it live? Only time would tell.

We were heartbroken because of all the memories that tree held in its branches. Each year my parents would gather up the walnuts after they had fallen, and put them in a cardboard box, and store them up in the attic to dry. The aroma the walnuts emitted as they “aged” was amazing! Open the attic door and the scent came wafting down the steps, enticing you to just go up and spend some time.

Besides the walnuts, it had also been the center of family life. My sister and her friends would sit under it and talk teenage talk. My dad hung up a swing for me on one of its branches. There was an array of crocuses that came up under it every spring. Friends and neighbors visited with my parents beneath it, sitting in our lawn furniture --a metal glider and chairs for those of you who know what they were like. 

Here's the thing: other people might have decided to remove the stump, thinking of what use was it? The tree's no longer there--take it out and fill in the hole and move on. But, not my dad. The next spring he planted a rock garden around it in loving respect for what the tree had meant to all of us.

And yes, it continued to live with little branches and leaves. It reminds me of that text from Isaiah: "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots..." [Isaiah 11:1 NRSV]

I guess you could say about that, that there is strength in our memories to help us smoothly transition into the next phase of life, as long as we have faith in even the littlest glimmer of hope. Tend that hope like a rock garden surrounding the best roots and branches of our past.

Just a thought.

The Sand Bucket Parable

I haven’t spent much time at the beach this summer because other things have been going on, plus we’ve had some pretty hot days, which for an old guy like me aren’t exactly the ideal conditions for sitting on a white sandy beach. I do love sitting in a beach chair under the umbrella, listening to the sound of the waves washing ashore and reading and people-watching. There is a wonderful sense of joy in hearing laughter and the voices of children playing in the surf, dramatically pretending to be in great danger when in fact they are perfectly safe.

When I was a child, we would go to LBI each year and my parents would buy me a new bucket and shovel at Hands Department Store, costing roughly 25 cents. They were made of tin and were always decorated with some cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse or Popeye or Woody Woodpecker or cowboys like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. 

As I played along the water’s edge, I would dig for sand crabs, filling the bucket to the top and insist that I take it home, believing they could live very comfortably in the bucket of sand—perhaps forever or at least for a very long time—which of course was a kid’s limited understanding of biology. By the next day they had all died and I was just left with a stinky bucket to be dumped in a far corner of the yard. 

Several years ago I saw in a case in a collectibles shop on LBI, a tin bucket just like the ones my parents bought me for 25 cents each year. The price tag was $350!  If only I knew then what I know now! Actually it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. I probably would have still filled it with sand and crabs. I was a kid; why would I care? Today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow. Kids are mostly present moment people.

Then we grow up and think, “if I only knew then what I know now…” Deep sigh and shrug of the shoulders. Life goes on.

But what we know now is what we will allow ourselves to know. And truthfully, it’s all we need to know for the living of these days. And what is it that we know now? We know that we are living, breathing creatures privileged to be still walking on this earth. We know that life is unpredictable but still gives us the permission to pursue our dreams if we’re so inclined. We know that there are things that bring us joy and happiness, and that we should fully allow ourselves the time for them when the opportunity presents itself. And we know that we are loved even on the days we don’t feel so lovable.

May I suggest that you make your own list: Things That I Know That Makes My Life Something To Celebrate. 

Just a thought.

RIDING THE HOPE TRAIN

 Another summer of my life is making its way toward autumn—and I am too—riding on the calendar train as it chugs along the track of inevitability. I can hear the clickety/clack of the one-day-at-a-time progress toward the unknown territory of the future. I have hopes of seeing friendly faces waiting at the depot when I arrive, waving, not palm branches as if I were worthy of a holy reception, but at least hands gesturing a sign of welcome, “Glad you’re here!”

The thing is that all of us want to be welcomed to the future. After all, we’ve traveled through some sometimes rough and often threatening terrain. There were train robbers along the way, wanting to take our supply of joy and hope. There were things on the track attempting to interfere with us getting to a safe and lovely place. Yet we’ve made it this far so far. And we’ve survived pretty well. But for some, not necessarily altogether healthy.

By the way, it’s not the first time nor the first train we’ve journeyed on. And we know that how we travel—that is, what kind of passengers we are—makes a difference as to how we arrive at the next station, the autumn depot.

 For one thing, were we congenial to the others on board, knowing that we all shared the ride in hope of a promising destination? Were we kind and forgiving of ourselves for when we lost hope and spent our time in anger and cynicism? Did we at least spend some time, even a millisecond, in prayerful thanksgiving for what is right with the world and for those who have made it so?

There are many ways of journeying on this train to the future. We will arrive at the station soon. Here and there, in our daily progress, maybe we could consider that we’ve made it safely thus far, and upon our arrival disembark and breathe in the fresh fall air, and celebrate the splendor of the colors of the new season, and most importantly, ordain ourselves as prophets of hope and joy and love.

 Just a thought.