Still searching for the front door on the MLK Day, 2010

The family was gathering. Food was on the table. Well-wishers and mourners stopped by the house all day.

Most of them rang the front doorbell. But a knock at the back door raised curious eyebrows of the family members gathered for a moment in the kitchen.

Outside the door stood one of the most familiar faces ever to grace that farming home, a tall, elegant woman who carried her head and shoulders high. She refused to let her demeanor reveal the troubled years of her life.

“I heard about Mr. Ernest,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. He was a good man, good to me and mine.”

The woman was ushered into the house enthusiastically, gratefully. She’d come a long way to pay her respects, taking public transportation as far as it would carry her and walking the rest of the way.

How she heard about Mr. Ernest’s death was never made clear. There had been a short newspaper piece about it but Mattie couldn’t read – she was never given the chance to learn. Rather than schooling in her young years, she was working.

Her handsome and dark brown face radiated the sight of seeing so many old and familiar faces, some of which she’d seen mature from childhood to adulthood. Her face, now framed by graying hair, broke into that bright smile which for so many years enhanced that farmhouse.

“Mr. Earnest,” as she always called him had, indeed, been good to Mattie and her family – in his own way and in a way dictated by the social mores of Florida’s old, white society.

Mattie and her husband, Jimmy, lived on the farm for many years. Mr. Ernest gave them the old family house when a new one was built. Jimmy worked in the pasture and groves alongside Mr. Ernest. Mattie worked in the house with Miss Mary.

Mr. Ernest had been employer, benefactor, even arbiter when the need arose. He tried to treat his employees with respected and dignity, the way he treated everyone – but with Mattie and Jimmy, the attitude was actually one of benevolent paternalism, the social mores of the day.

It was a different era, a different time, one best left behind but not forgotten for fear of it being repeated.

The times had changed greatly by that balmy spring morning when Mattie stopped by the old farm house to pay her respects. Martin Luther King, Jr., had preached, led, taught, suffered and died trying to make sure the discrimination and paternalism of the past gave way to a new dignity, new self-esteem and a new sense of independence and social advancement.

Although he’d never been to this part of rural Florida to lead a campaign, he’d been to the big cities. His message and his mission touched the lives of everyone gather in that farmhouse that morning.

But still, Mattie came to the back door. Granted, it was the door used by nearly everyone in the family. Hardly anyone actually used the front door. Mattie had no doubt seen other people arriving at the same time and going to the front door. But this was Mr. Earnest to whom she was coming to pay her respects. She chose the back door.

It has been over 50 years since Martin Luther King began the campaign that would transform this nation. But the transformation is not yet complete.

Had the scene repeated itself today, Mattie might have chosen the front door. But like Mr. Ernest, Mattie was too a prisoner of the social mores of the time.

Mattie died in a Tampa rest home. She was practically penniless. Mr. Ernest’s family might have done more to ease her comfort in her last years but they didn’t. it was still the social midnight about which Dr. King frequently talked.

The dawn is closer but it hasn’t yet arrived. Faith, however, is inching the hours closer to a dawn where everyone is judged “more by the content of their character than by the color of their skin.”

We have yet fully open that front door and embrace the loving warmth of the dawn.

Nature always wins…

DOWN YONDER, FL. – Humankind can look pretty silly when it tries to figure out the ways of nature.

Just when you think you’ve figured out nature she’ll throw you for a loop and leave you feelin’ like just another dumb human bein’.

It all started one Saturday not too many weeks ago.

Out in the yard stood a magnificent great white heron – or great egret, dependin’ on who you talk to.

Among the most beautiful of the many beautiful birds that grace the ponds and savannas of South Florida, the great egret is regal in demeanor. Its feathers are so white they should be called another color.
When it flies, it does so with grace and elegance unparalleled.

When it walks along the ground, its steps are deliberate and refined even though its knees are on backwards.
Its eyes are sharp and piercing, taking in all sights around it but never letting on about the degree of its surveillance.

When it hunts, its head and long neck waver from side to side like they’re being blown about in a fresh breeze. But when it strikes, it does so swiftly like a meteorite dashing across the night sky.

This particular egret seemed more approachable than most. It stood its ground calmly, even though the little girl slowly walked within five feet of its magnificent plumage.

It hung around all day, hiding in the shade of the areca palm and acacia tree.

By evening it settled on a pillow of grass it managed to shape just at the base of the areca palm.
That’s when the revelation struck – or what we thought was a revelation.

“It’s building a nest,” we said. “It’s getting ready to lay eggs.”

With the diagnosis firmly established, the next obvious step was to protect the egret’s nest from rampaging children and dogs. With the help of neighbors the nest was properly cordoned off with rope and everyone nearby was notified of the expected blessed event so they would be mindful of it and not bother the soon-to-be mother egret.

In the glorious glow of one of those South Florida sunsets that fills the entire sky it was unanimously agreed that come day-break there would be little egret eggs and a brand new neighborhood rookery.

No one quite figured out why the egret decided to lay its eggs so near so many people. But after all, there were plenty of babies around and the cat next door is pregnant. We reasoned that with all that motherhood happenin’, the egret just felt right at home.

But the next morning brought answers to question we hadn’t even asked.

The next morning also revealed the original diagnosis was an error.

Stepping outside, into the cool dawn, I decided to check on the progress of the adopted mother-to-be.
Instead of a nest filled with eggs, I found the egret lying on its side in the yard – stiff as a board and dead as a doornail.

Instead of waiting to give birth, the egret had obviously been too weak to fly away when we approached it. It was hanging around, waiting to die.

I felt like a fool. Maybe should have called The Conservancy’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic on Saturday to come get the bird. Maybe even the clinic couldn’t have helped.

Maybe the bird was just going to die, no matter what.

The children were duly informed of the tragedy, which left only one remaining step: what to do with the body. The crows were already beginning to notice.

Animal Control said the only thing to do was to bag up the bird and throw it away.

The county landfill hardly seems like an appropriate burial place for such a magnificent creature. A more suitable burial spot was found, one with dignity.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that we humans don’t know near enough about the ways of nature as we think we do.

He who knows, knows nothing. He who knows nothing, knows.

For some of us, Florida means “home.”

DOWN YONDER, FL. – The sky was a bright blue, the breeze fresh and steady. The water was a shimmering emerald and all was good with the world.

The tiny boat was among the many tiny boats crowding the pass, either coming from or going to the Gulf of Mexico to enjoy this Floriday.

A crew member spotted it first, before the captain, although he should have been looking.

It came around the corner doing 20 knots easily, its propeller trim tabs eased to the point that its stern appeared to be digging a deep furrow in the channel.

It must have been 50 feet long if it was an inch and it was charging through the pleasure fleet like a bull run amok in a china shop.

The wake tilled by its stern and speed blossomed into charging four-foot waves that tossed the smaller boats to the outside of the channel like marbles cast around a rolling throw rug.

Angry fists were hurled into the air. Epithets flew. The captain of the giant vessel seemed not to notice – or care.

“This is my boat,” he must have said. “Nobody tells me how to run it.”

The captain of a small sailboat was forced into an evasive maneuver, a 180-degree spin to avoid a swamping wash over the transom.

Beside the pilot of the giant craft, only the porpoises jumping gleefully through the monster wake seemed to enjoy the tumult.

“I can’t imagine how anyone can be so inconsiderate,” said one crew member. “Can’t that guy see the other boats? Doesn’t he realize what his speed and size do in these close quarters?’

“Maybe he sees,” said the sailboat captain. “Maybe he just doesn’t care. This is Florida. It’s expendable.
“He’s probably the same guy who blocks traffic at the supermarket while waiting for his wife to run in and pick up a few dozen items or idles his car in the parking lot while waiting for that one particular spot to open so he won’t have to walk too far.

“He’s probably the same guy who dumps enormous quantities of water on the lawn of his Florida vacation home because, well, he’s only here for a couple of months each year and wants to make sure his lawn has enough water to last the rest of the year.

“He’s probably the same guy who assumes that anyone in the store under the age of 40 and wearing a necktie must be a store employee – ‘where are the pickled beets?’

“He’s probably the same guy who dumps his garbage in a wooded area at the edge of town – ‘somebody will come along and clean it up.’

“And he’s probably the same guy who takes more than his limit of fish and leaves his discarded line floating on the Gulf.

“He’s probably, too, the same guy who complains that his property taxes are helping pay for the education of other people’s children.”

It’s a peculiar problem Florida has.

So many people come from other places to stay a few months here and, then, return “home.”

This isn’t “home” for them. It’s someplace tropical to come spend a few months without a care in the world – or a care for the world in which they reside temporarily. For too many year-round residents, even, “home” is somewhere else, somewhere with roots and history.

“Home” has value. Things Floridians are expendable.

“I’m not going to be around. Why should I care?

“So what if I use a lot of water while I’m here? It’s cheap.

“So what if I bully my way around? These people don’t know me. I don’t know them. They’ll never see me again.

“So what if I dump my garbage is the swamp? It’s just a swamp.

“And who cares if I treat the land and water and the people with disdain?

“This isn’t home. This is Florida.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009

The Kennedys inspired us to believe in politics and public service as a good and honorable pursuit; one in which we could help people.

We’ve known for well over a year, now, this day would come.

Many of us hoped and prayed Sen. Kennedy would survive long enough to cast the vote to see what he described as his life’s work become reality: reasonable, affordable health care for all Americans.

He did not and with his passing go also a generation of leaders who inspired millions of us to see public service as a way to help among us the powerless and downtrodden.

We really never knew Joe. But we knew and loved and were called to a higher sense of being and service by John, Bobby and for nearly 50 years Teddy, too.

The New York Times describes Sen. Edward M. Kennedy this morning as “a man of great faith and great flaws.” But aren’t we all?

I wonder, this morning, how many of the millions of men and women who have served in the public sector over the past half-century, the countless millions more who have volunteered in political campaigns, would have done so without the inspiration of a higher calling given us by the Kennedys?

How many of us became driven to create in this great nation an even greater nation of compassion and equality and, yes, empathy and creativity because of the examples set by John and Bobby and Ted?

And Ted showed us how to operate within the confines of Washington, how the grist mill of politics can actually yield success in the gears of the United States Congress.

Only two senators served longer than Sen. Kennedy. Sen. Byrd of West Virginia remains a powerful if ebbing figure in the most exclusive club in the world. Sen. Thurmond of South Carolina left us a few years ago.

But it is the legacy and works of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts that will shine brightest in American history.

Ponder some of his accomplishments for a moment, the life of a United States Senator since 1962:

 Helped President Johnson pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
 Led the fight to lower the voting age to 18.
 Helped abolish conscription into the U.S. Military.
 Helped remove restrictions from the airline and trucking industries.
 Helped adopted the Fair Housing law of 1968.
 Helped establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
 Built federal support for health care centers in poor communities around the nation.
 Created the Meals on Wheels program.
 Championed health and nutrition programs for impoverished and pregnant women and their children, what became known as WIC.
 Successfully defended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 when the Reagan Administration sought to weaken it.
 Won approval in 1990 of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
 Won approval in 1997 of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or S-Chip.
 Was the leading proponent of universal health care for all on Capitol Hill and in the nation.

Sen. Kennedy’s most famous speech, perhaps his most inspiring words, came in the eulogy he gave for his fallen brother, Bobby, in 1968 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Those words, now, can describe him best, too:

“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

“Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world.”

Malady strikes health care debate…

DOWN YONDER, FL. – Lost amid the din of screaming and corporatist-stoked extreme paranoia expressed in the hyperbolic chambers of public meetings this August is a serious medical malady sweeping the nation.

In what may be the greatest irony of 2009, it appears many national decision makers, opinion leaders and certainly the national press are falling victim to what the National Centers for Disease Control has called Weak Underpants & Spine Syndrome or WUSS for short.

The CDC has recorded a burgeoning WUSS problem among members of Congress and even the Obama Administration. It may become our single biggest health care concern, threatening even to overwhelm and reduce to meaningless numbers the nearly 47 million Americans who can not afford health care at all.

Symptoms of WUSS include but are not limited to:

• Recoiling in fear when called names in a public setting.
• Stammering incoherently when presented with rash and unfounded hysteria.
• Reaching immediately for one’s Blackberry to email staff members with instructions to rework previous statements of support for health care reform.
• Hastily retreating from public meetings, ashen and shaken, wondering aloud if insurance companies will pour millions into the campaigns of future election opponents.

These and other symptoms of WUSS may be leading national decision-makers and policy advocates to simply roll over in their sleep and receive, without complaint, health industry enemas which will leave them inert and unable to adequately respond to a major problem among the populace.

Members of the press corps and national news organizations appear also to be falling victim, in increasing numbers, to WUSS. Symptoms for this type of sufferer include reporting as fact gross distortions and flat out lies perpetrated by vested interests and repeated blindly by ignorant sycophants and, even, freely giving a national megaphone to the clearly inept and ignorant.

The symptoms of WUSS appear even more acute when victims are confronted with shear insanity. Unable, apparently, to mentally separate psychotic hysteria from rational debate WUSS sufferers may begin to actually believe lies spread upon public discourse by ideologues bent on wrecking havoc and by insurance companies committed to retaining enormous profits on the backs of WUSS sufferers’ constituents.

But there is hope.

Together with a good diet, regular exercise, avoidance of the Faux News Channel, a new drug therapy developed by a consortium of rational thinkers offers some much needed courage and fortitude to lawmakers and reporters alike.

The drug, Groapair, when combined with deep meditation, good nutrition and a walk around the block has shown promise in helping decision-makers remember why they were elected in the first place; why the American people voted in November, 2008 for a substantial change of direction and why, in the final analysis, a massive correction is needed for a health care system run amok in profits and lack of adequate care.

Congressman Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, showed what can happen when lawmakers stand firm in the face of teabagging.

Frank was asked the following question about health care reform at a recent town hall meeting: “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has continued to support this policy?”

Never a shrinking violet, the veteran Congressman responded: “When you ask me this question, I’m going to revert to my ethnic heritage and respond by asking you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?

“As you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is…it is a tribute to the First Amendment that such vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to debate a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.”

WUSS sufferers could stand to take seriously the example set by Congressman Frank.

Fear and loathing in the town hall…

DOWN YONDER, FL. – Anger and its brother, hate, are usually the result of fear and fear is the essence of self-indulgence, self-centeredness.

Some forms of fear are useful. We don’t throw ourselves onto a burning fire for fear of being burned. Most of us tend to run away from snakes. Most of us try not to harm ourselves for fear of pain. It’s self-preservation but in its purest form also self-centered, rooted in Freud’s ego.

But if we fear pain why do we indulge ourselves in the pain of anger?

Been thinking about this quite a bit, lately, watching some of our fellow Americans react in violent and angry outrage over a debatable point of public policy.

It’s clear the anger, the violent outbursts – some to the point of physical confrontation, vandalism, a display of weapons – are all rooted in this self-centered fear.

There is a spiritual axiom which suggests if I am upset or angry or hate-filled there is something inside of me that is not quite right. If I am upset or angry or resentful there is something wrong with ME. That “something wrong” part about ME usually means:

a.) I’m afraid of losing something I have.
b.) I’m afraid of not getting something I want; or
c.) I’m afraid people will not/are not acting the way I think they should.

Notice all the “I” part of that; the ME. I want. I have. I think they should. And, of course, all rooted in fear.

It’s been true over the centuries when people are persecuted by hate it has always been the result of self-centered fear; usually the same three fears: losing, not getting, not acting right.

It is helpful, then, to understand how easily fear can be set ablaze to hate and anger by only a single match: the very public turn of phrase, say, of a demagogue or even one considered a leader by some. When those phrases and declarations become ubiquitous, even more voices are raised in cacophonous echo because in them is found comfort and, even, justification of fear; even if the fear itself is not fully realized.

When a woman at a town hall meeting angrily screams, “I want my country back,” she is not expressing the justifiable outrage of Native Americans, she is really saying she’s afraid. She’s afraid of losing something she has or of not getting something she wants or she’s afraid of the actions of others might lead to one or both of the first two. She can’t express that fear so concretely because she probably can’t even articulate so precisely her fear. But it is fear nonetheless and it’s been torched into anger.

The fear may be unfounded – often is – or irrational but it exists in the mind just the same.

When fear is turned to anger and used by political extremists as a tool for derailing public discourse it serves only to dampen or destroy what could be good and useful public discourse.

But, then again, turning fear into anger is usually the only tool available to political extremists because useful contributions and genuinely good ideas would be welcomed into the center of public discourse. Reason, wisdom and persuasion stand in the center of public discourse. Fear, anger & hate can only shout shrill from the outside.

The progress of public discourse, certainly in a participatory democracy, depends upon the individual becoming part of the collective, identifying with and possessing a piece of the greater good. Fear, anger & hate – self-centeredness – keeps us outside.

Never underestimate another’s ability to soar…

DOWN YONDER, FL. – “Who knew birds was into yoga?” asked the old man as he sat beneath the covered deck staring absently out across the calm lagoon.

“What?” asked the old woman, incredulous.

“I’m just sayin’, I didn’t know birds practiced yoga,” repeated the old man.

“Have you done lost your mind?” asked the old woman.

“No, looky there,” he said, pointing at a seagull standing one-legged at the edge of the dock, its left wing outstretched.

“Why are you whispering,” asked the old woman, also in a low voice.

“I don’t want to disturb the bird,” said the old man.

“You really have lost your mind, ain’t you?”

“No, no…look.”

Sure enough, as the old woman looked, the seagull again stretched forward its left wing while at the same time stretched back its right leg. It held that position for quite a while.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said the old woman.

“I know,” said the old man. “It’s bird yoga!”

“You’re still nuts,” insisted the old woman.

“Maybe,” agreed the old man. “But that doesn’t mean that seagull right there ain’t doing what the yogis call, ‘Virabhadrasana 3,’ or, ‘warrior 3,’ or simply, ‘airplane’.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of,” said the old woman. “And where’d you learn about yoga?”

“You don’t know everything I do,” said the old man. “And it ain’t dumb at all. Who’s to say animals don’t seek some kind of center? Some path? Never underestimate the ability of another creature.

“The ancients told the story of how the animals and birds challenged each other to a ball game,” said the old man.

“The animals were sure they could field a superior team because, after all, they all had four legs and the birds only two.

“Along the way to the ball ground, the bear – who was captain of the animals – kept bragging about how he was strong and huge and could pull down or tackle anyone who got in his way.

“The turtle, too, bragged about how his shell was so hard nothing could hurt him. And the deer, who was by far the fastest of them all, bragged about how he would steal the ball from any bird and run away with it.

“The birds had the Eagle as their captain and the great hawk and they were all strong and swift. But they were a little afraid of the animals, if the truth be known.

“Finally, the dance was concluded and the ball play was about to begin. The birds were up in the tree limbs, pruning their feathers, when two little four-legged creatures scurried up the branch.

‘We want to play for the birds,’ said the creatures.

‘But you have four legs,’ said the Eagle captain. ‘Go play for the animals.’

‘They laughed at us and told us we’re too small,’ said the creatures.’

“So, the birds fashioned wings for them from old drum skins and they became the bat and the flying squirrel.

“The game began and the flying squirrel was the first to grab the ball. The birds kept it in the air for quite a while until it dropped. The bear rushed to pick it up but the purple martin reached it first, scooped it up and threw it to the bat who grabbed and began darting in and out of all the animals, making many of them fall over, until he threw right between the posts.

“The birds won the game easily.”

“You’re bird-brained, if you ask me,” snorted the old woman.

“Ah, maybe,” said the old man. “But never underestimate a person’s ability to soar.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident…

DOWN YONDER, FL. – Been thinkin’ ‘bout the reason for this holiday, this celebration: the Declaration of Independence.

It’s a short document, amazing considering its consequence. Its second paragraph is without a doubt the most elegant statement of human rights ever penned.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT:

That means everything in that paragraph ought to be obvious to everybody.

THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL;

Now, in those days, they meant what they wrote – “all men” – are created equal. ‘Course, nowadays we know it’s right to include all women, too, and all people, no matter the color of skin or walk of faith or sexual identity or anything else: all people. It just took us a while and, unfortunately, several wars – including one big one against ourselves – to realize that particular self-evident truth. Some folks still can’t understand it.

THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS;

That word, “inalienable,” means that endowed rights can’t be changed or altered by anybody, for any reason. And that everyone is entitled to them, no matter who they are or where they come from. We forget that sometimes.

THAT AMONG THESE (RIGHTS) ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS;

That passage right there is the cornerstone of these United States of America. It can be a controversial passage today because some folks try to twist it to their own political purposes. But is seems clear to me: ALL FOLKS, ALL PEOPLE have an automatic, God-given right to live their lives free and happy. It is the simplest, yet most compelling argument ever given for dignity and human rights.

It does not, however, give us a “right” to pursue our own “happiness” on the backs of others; exploiting them for our own selfish purposes. “Pursuit of happiness” means, just as the ancient Hebrew prophet Micah suggested, we should all have an even chance at sitting contentedly, peacefully under our own fig tree. It is an idea borne of the Enlightenment, of Locke and Descartes; the notion of the supremacy of the individual above all else. “I think, therefore I am.”

It is a uniquely Western thought, taken to its limits by the American experiment. There is, alternatively, the African concept, “Ubuntu,” which suggests supremacy is not found in the individual but, rather, in the community. Perhaps we could better practice that concept through this next part:

THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.

Anarchy can’t secure rights. Corporations can’t secure rights. Think tanks and television networks can’s secure rights. Governments must do that. It is an idea as old as Plato. Beware of so-called leaders who belittle a government’s authority to protect the rights of the otherwise unprotected.

The American experiment added the concept which suggested the only legitimate government is the one that gets its power from the people it governs. That was a radical idea back in 1776, given voice by the likes of Thomas Paine debating Edmund Burke. Given the present state of government in the U.S. of A., it’s almost as radical today – at least to many of the men and women now in Washington.

THAT WHEN ANY GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THESE ENDS IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT AND TO INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT, LAYING ITS FOUNDATION ON SUCH PRINCIPLES AND ORGANIZING ITS POWERS IN SUCH FORM AS TO THEM SHALL SEEM MOST LIKELY TO EFFECT THEIR SAFETY AND HAPPINESS.

If we don’t like the government, we can change it – so long as we continue to hold those to those basic, self-evident truths and irrevocable rights.

That’s it, isn’t it? We have a God-given right to revolt if our government is interfering with our rights…to happiness…to privacy…to health?

It’s hard, sometimes, for our elected to remember they are in office because we sent them. We may not have contributed thousands of dollars to their campaigns. But we voted for them. They work for us. The small minority who gave them thousands of dollars should not control them. They work for us: the people.

It is hard being an American democrat, sometimes. We tend to get set in our ways; protective of the power that comes with elective office and lazy when it comes to standing up for our rights.

It is We the People who have the inalienable rights. Politicians govern only with our consent.

That special gift of this and every Father’s Day

DOWN YONDER, FL. – And, then, in the blink of an eye, she walked away…

It was only yesterday, it seemed, she lay there on her blanket on the floor; not even 24 hours old, those already alert eyes watching the blades of the ceiling fan go ‘round and ‘round.

As amazing as it was for her father, not even 24 hours into fatherhood, that moment would be surpassed many times over by even more amazing moments.

There has always been a certain spirit about this child; a sense of wonder never satisfied; a thirst for the new and exciting never quenched; a stranger never met; an expression of joy never stifled.

She walks with grace, this child, from Barney sneakers to high-heels; it is a grace so ingrained and divinely sparked she is completely unconscious of it.

To her there are only friends and people she has yet to meet and with whom to become friends.

To her there are only canvasses waiting to be filled. To her there are only lumps of clay waiting to be molded into fine works of art by talented hands. To her there are only great tapestries to be hung along living spaces. To her there is only that yet unknown bit of knowledge to be gleaned and passed along to others.

Fathers have special duties, special responsibilities; particularly when they are father to a child of such grace and infinitesimal zeal for life. There really is no higher calling for any man than to be a good father. Almost any man can be a father, of course, but there’s a higher calling: to be a dad.

This child’s father was blessed with the greatest of dads to show the way, to set the standard. And while this child’s father didn’t always live up to that standard, he knew the standard and tried.

Despite his errors and despite his shortcomings – indeed she nearly lost her dad – this child of grace always managed to save the most special part of that grace for her father. She needn’t say it. She needn’t even express it. It is there. It is felt, constantly. It is an incomparable gift and it will last well beyond her walking away.

The joke has always been that she looks like her mom – and is more than blessed because of that – but burdened because she acts like her dad. And that’s more truth than joke.

But the two share a core of their souls; an untouchable, indefinable essence buried deep past blood and genes and environment in the deepest place of human psyche.

And, so, as she walks away, out into the greater world and her own life, her father worries what kind of world his generation has left for her. It is a world at a crossroads: one road leading toward hate and war and unthinkable trouble; and the other road leading toward a rebirth of creativity and vision and beauty. She is well suited for the later. No one is well suited for the former.

Or maybe that’s wrong. Maybe the children of grace like her are the best suited to overcome hate and war and trouble. Maybe through their very grace they will lead toward a world of respect and tolerance; a world of understanding and creativity; of celebrating and glorifying the great patchwork quilt that is all of humanity.

Every father wishes this for the generation of his children; when finally humankind will take up Isaiah’s call to study war no more; to work toward Micah’s vision of justice where everyone has a fig tree under which they can rest; where “love thy neighbor” is so engrained in the polis it becomes a matter of course.

This child knows that grace, believes it, lives it with unassuming ferocity and resolve.

There will be tears shed as this child stands and walks away. But there will also be great joy. This child’s father knows what is deep inside the core of this child’s soul. He knows her strength and inner resolve; her calm and her center; her still small voice.

As she walks away, this child’s father knows well his failures but he also knows he did one thing right, if only one thing: be this child’s father. It was – and will always remain – the greatest blessing of his life.

From building blocks on the floor to building blocks for a life sure to be lived to the fullest…in the blink of an eye, she walks away.

Never a sunset like this…not THIS green!

DOWN YONDER, FL. – They existed in the open cocoon and blazing hue of a brilliant sunset beach, these two lovers.

She danced and twirled to ancient rhythms. He sat peacefully watching her glorious shape bend and sway to a hidden song.

He liked to watch her as she danced, her body moving lithely, conforming to patterns molded by melodies meant to enchant, to capture a heart.

The beach at sunset will do that to anyone, particularly two people in love.

The heat of the day melts quickly into the cool, clean sand and the brightness of the sky slowly fades to an auburn glow like coals at the edge of a warming fire.

There are no other sunsets like those over open water. There are no sunsets like those over open water watched in unison by lovers, freed from all other worldly constraints and contained solely in the glow of dance and rhythm. There is no time. There is no duty. There is no obligation except to the dance of the sunset and to each other.

Then it happened.

He saw it first and started waving his hand frantically, trying to get her attention and hating to break up the dance. But this she must see.

He said nothing, simply pointed. He wasn’t even sure he was seeing it.

But, of course, she saw it, too and came running to grab his hand to link together with the vision.

The curious thing is they’d seen the legendary green flash twice before in as many weeks, twice as many times together as they’d seen it separately over the course of their lives before each other.

But this was different.

The sun was only half-way into its disappearance through the door of the sky vault, as the ancients would have described it. Fully half its orb still appeared above the horizon in blazing orange. Suddenly, without warning, It flickered green; it’s full half-orb, but only for a moment.

Then it flickered green again and before either could say a word, it turned a translucent and shimmering green and stayed that hue as it sank into the distant water.

Neither said a word, at first; only stood in stunned silence.

“What did you see?” he finally asked, tentatively.

“What did YOU see?” came the equally tentative reply.

“I saw the whole dang thing turn green,” he said after a few more minutes, still not sure.

“I’ve never seen THAT before,” came her reassuring reply. “Not that much green, that big.”
“Then we’re not making it up?” he asked.

“No,” she said softly, gripping his hand tighter.

Some people claim the green flash is a myth, that it doesn’t exist. Some say people who claim to see it only imagine they see it.

Scientists and folks who study such things will tell you the green flash is the result of light being refracted through the earth’s atmosphere at the unusual angles of sunset or sunrise.

Some folks described it as a pop of light or a wisp of spirit.

Some folks simply have no sense of beauty or romance.

But when half the setting sun turns a pulsating green there is no denying it and when another is there is share that vision neither is there any sense in denying the soul-stirring pulsating hearts that echo its majesty.

It is right. And the world is right and passing day sinks into star-filled nights.