Things I Learned from R. B. (April 12th, 2020)

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Episode 11

She was well-known for beauty pageants, plugging orange juice, singing sad songs and heading up a campaign against the homosexuals from her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Her name was Anita Bryant, and her favorite phrase: “I love the sinners but hate the sin.”

We were still living in Shreveport, Louisiana, when Anita was the hottest thing on the news, stirring up hornets that seemed to have no nest.  Into this environment stepped R. B., right in the midst of the redneck, righteous South.

R. B. was skinny, almost frail—except for the small pouch of a belly which he had begun to accumulate through drinking his beer. His skin was ashen and pock-marked, giving him a face with the appearance of crushed gravel. He sported a huge head of hair growing from a widow’s peak and combed straight back into an Elvis pompadour—circa 1955.

He walked a little funny, leaning forward as he moved, dressed very conservatively and wore his clothes too long, avoiding a needful donation to Goodwill.

His voice was thin and wispy, with a tenor tone.

So in the heightened climate of bigotry sweeping the country, he was occasionally accused of being a “homo,” or having people quietly make the assumption.

Complicating the problem was his lack of interaction with females. Because his ego was very large and his listening skills very small, most women spent about thirty minutes with him before moving on to a better choice.

One night he confessed to me that he’d never been with a woman, explaining that only a year earlier he had discovered masturbation, but felt guilty every time he touched “his own.”

His lack of companionship with women, a daintiness in his demeanor, and an overwrought assessment of his viability made him a target for all the “Anitas” looking to victimize the gay community.

It all came to a head one night after we held our weekly meeting, at a local restaurant our gang favored. The manager was a friend of mine and always gave us a lovely banquet room in the back, where we could stay for a couple of hours, eating, drinking and enjoying our loud conversations.

One night there was a tussle. R. B. was talking to one of the fellows from our group. He explained that he wasn’t dating anyone and had no prospects in his near future.

The chap, lacking grace or style, jokingly asked R. B., “Well, if it’s not working out with the ladies, did you ever think about trying guys?”

It was barely audible to the rest of the table, but R. B. immediately stood up, grabbed the crass fellow by his shirt and threw him to the ground.

This led to a small, brief brawl. A table was knocked over and some chairs flew against the wall. It raised enough ruckus that the manager appeared, wide-eyed with horror. Some folks stepped between the feuding brothers, and I turned to the manager and explained that we had the situation in hand. He kindly chose not to call the police.

Normally in this type of predicament—after two feuding parties have their moment of physical struggle—they calm down, catch their breath and make peace. But oddly, as R. B. sat there, he became more angry—seething, breathing heavily, staring at his assaulter, ready to explode again at any moment.

I suggested we break off the evening and made sure R. B. got into his car as the other party quickly slipped away.

It was so odd—because R. B. never stopped fretting. Right before he started his vehicle, he rolled down his window and quipped to me, “I’m not coming back. I hate him.”

I did not know what to respond. I didn’t feel there was any future in trying to get him to mellow his mood, so I just said, “Go home—and don’t drive angry.”

He didn’t come to our fellowship for one month, two months, a third month. I heard little snippets about what he was doing through the grapevine—finally hearing that he lost his job and was moving to Dallas.

Figuring it was time for me to connect again, I dropped by his house. He came to the door shirtless, unkempt, with a bottle of beer in his hand.

He offered me one. I passed and sat down.

Concisely and briefly, he explained that he hadn’t shown up because he was too embarrassed and wasn’t sure anymore if he believed in “the God stuff” because he hadn’t gotten much out of it.

I chose not to evangelize. I just listened.

Deep in my heart, I believed he was just distressed and would change his mind. But three weeks later when I tried to visit again, his apartment had been rented to someone else, and he was long gone, leaving no forwarding address.

He didn’t contact me.

All I knew was that the last time we were together, he was going to Dallas.

Perhaps to my shame, I was relieved.

R. B. always turned me into a referee. He ruffled the feathers of those around him with his ego and his insecurity, and I was always cast in the role of his defender.

I was tired of being noble. I welcomed the distance between us.

Maybe we were never meant to be close. Perhaps it was just a friendship of convenience.

But I settled into a life—one which apparently was going to be conducted without R. B.

G-Poppers … March 16th, 2018

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G-Pop knows that nearly everybody is acquainted with the process–going out to dinner.

First, arriving at the restaurant, having the greeter seat you. And then the server comes by and sets the whole evening in motion by asking the question, “Can I get your order?”

Of course, if you are a veteran of the cuisine, you know there is an order. First comes the drink, then the salad, entree, dessert, concluding with the check and tip. Candidly, the management doesn’t like it when you get it out of order. Matter of fact, you could be corrected.

Likewise, G-Pop has realized there is an order to this journey. Perhaps we should have learned it by now but there’s so much confusion–and there are too many people who want to get dessert before their salad. So we get confused.

Just as a restaurant visit is “drink, salad, entrée, dessert and then check,” in our time on Earth, we have to discover the correct order for: me, God, people, science and animals.

Simply placing one of these pieces in the wrong position can send us awry. And by awry, G-Pop means a bewilderment which settles into our souls because something doesn’t seem right.

What should come first? There are dangers.

If you start off with God you become too religious. That soon makes you intolerant of people and sometimes even grumpy about including science in the family at all.

Those who begin the order with science often find it necessary to negate a Creator, and over the years may grow weary with people, ending up giving the bulk of their charity to animal rights organizations.

Should we begin with people? That can be a real mouse trap–especially when people act like rats.

How about if we just negate the whole mess and dedicate our lives to animals? They may be cute but they are still beasts, because they bite–sometimes when you least expect it.

So just as a journey to your local bistro is an adventure requiring some basic understanding, being a quality human being certainly means you need to be able to answer the question, “Can I take your order?”

What is your order? G-Pop is curious.

When considering “me” (yourself), God, people, science (Mother Nature) and animals, what sequence works for you?

The choices you make and the order they’re in determine the abundance of your heart–and therefore control your speech and interaction with others.

G-Pop would love to hear from some of his children on this subject. Rather than rattling on about it this week, he’ll wait and see what people have to say.

So in closing, from G-Pop: Can I take your order, please?

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Good News and Better News… August 21st, 2017

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I had the night off from my gigs.

I decided to take in a church service at a small pioneer work where I’m staying. It is called Renaissance Fellowship. It touts the uniqueness of being a Christian church focused on the arts. Since I’ve been known to have a brain cell or two tuned in that direction, I was titillated.

The church is held at a community center and has about twenty-five folks who attend. The people are typical “church.” About 35% of them are excited, involved, busy scurrying around, and the rest of them have the appearance of folks arriving for a seminar on an unknown subject, with the promise that they might get free passes to a restaurant at the end.

Renaissance suffers from what every church suffers from. In trying to find God, they accidentally kill passion.

The pastor, a young man in his early forties, has a delightful desire and talent for sharing his thoughts. You can tell he is still deeply involved in the pursuit of God and the salvation of human souls, but growing a bit worn around the edges in all the well-doing. It happens to all of us.

But I heard something I liked. I heard rumblings that sounded like possibility.

Even though his message was plagued with too much preaching to the soul and teaching to the brain, I sensed that he’s beginning to reach for the heart.

For you see–human beings are not really spiritual. We aren’t thoughtful. We are emotional.

It doesn’t matter if it’s about work, play, a football stadium or church–the evidence that we are impacted is always an emotional outburst.

So I speak with great clarity to this pastor and tell him to keep reaching for the heart. Go ahead and abandon preaching to the soul and teaching to the mind. No one cares what Abraham, Moses, Joseph or any of the old patriarchs did. If the stories do not relate to family, Wal-mart and the Internet, they will not touch the hearts of American people.

Instructing the brain by pointing out clever pieces of information may once have been a path of probability, but no longer. Our brains are inundated with too much information, and of course, way too many posts on Facebook about nothing.

• Reach the heart.
• Touch the heart.
• And demand a heartfelt response.

It is the only way people are healed. As Jesus said, “If you say to this mountain, be removed, and you do not doubt in your heart, it shall be done.”

The soul, the brain and the body have nothing to do with moving mountains. It is a heartfelt action.

Although I’m sure they are delightful and blessed people, many of the folks at Renaissance were doing their best imitation of being church cardboard cutouts. But becoming a church of artistry will require that the congregation that’s already there–tiny as it is–become emotionally excited with its own faith.

If it doesn’t, they will be just an average church that occasionally puts on plays.

The good news is that the Gospel is an experience of the heart.

The better news is, the pastor of Renaissance Fellowship and his congregation have a great opportunity to become heartfelt.

I have confidence in them.

For you see, the pastor is my son.

 

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Good News and Better News … August 15th, 2016

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Name tags hanging from a peg board

 

 

Coffee awaiting the faithful

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful mahogany walls with colored glass

 

 

An old-fashioned radiator, reminding us how long the church has been established

 

 

 

 

 

A skylight, welcoming the sunshine from the heavens

 

 

 

 

Another Sunday morning in America.

This time, it is Baughman United Methodist Church in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania.

Busy folks.

The morning announcements took ten minutes–just to cover the expanse of activity and planned events.

Matter of fact, if I were evaluating the church in America as a whole, I would conclude that it is an extremely proficient organization.

Here’s the problem: the church that Jesus came to “build on the rock” through his words and the essence of his life was never meant to be an organization. He punctuated this by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

The Jesonian church is meant to be an organism.

Here’s the difference:

• An organization needs plans.
• An organism needs food.

And although we are meticulous in the religious system to organize, put in place and promote a series of determinations, these plans themselves offer no nourishment to the starving souls trying to find their best-seated positions in the back of the sanctuary.

The church is an organism because it’s filled with people, and people need:

1. Emotional food

Yes, we require a diet of “love one another”–and all the awkward situations that produces.

2. Spiritual food

Living our lives out, finding what is real and then discovering where Jesus dealt with it in his earthly time, and studying his insights on the matter

3. Mental food

Challenging all the opinions of our youth and renewing our file with ideas that are edifying to the people around us instead of alienating them.

4. Physical food

Honest to God, we need to eat together. Jesus said “as oft as you do eat together, remember me.”

We’re better people when we’re eating. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of having a restaurant on site at every church, so on Sunday we could file out of the service to a dinner table, where we could discuss what had warmed our hearts as we fill our tummies.

The good news is that the Baughman church was filled with delightful, enterprising and searching human beings.

The better news is that if we stop approaching Christianity as an organization, we might be able to feed the organism of faith … and change the world.

 

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G-Poppers … May 20th, 2016

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G-Pop has certainly made a religion out of avoiding being religious or political.

It’s not that he lacks faith or devotion to America–just that he is leery of any club that insists on making all the rules.

So when G-Pop was waiting for his son to join him for dinner at a restaurant, as he sipped some water and tried to avoid the breadsticks they had brought to the table, he listened in to a nearby conversation among two men and a woman.

Remarkably, the trio was split among the three remaining candidates who have a chance to be the President of the United States.

• The woman was for Donald.
• The younger man was for Bernie.
• And the older man was for Hillary.

G-Pop chose to quietly monitor their conversation because it was so fascinating.

The woman who was for Donald was attracted to him because he is an Alpha male, angry over all the unfairness of government and the lack of protection seemingly being offered the American people.

The younger man was also incensed by the greed of Wall Street, the unfairness of wages and income distribution, as the older man tried to make the case that Hillary was the safe choice and at least has some background in the internal workings of the executive branch of the government.

G-Pop was keeping score in his mind.

Let’s see now: Two “angrys” and a safe choice.

He tried to remember the last President of the United States who came into office angry or as the safe choice, who ended up doing much to benefit the common good.

So G-Pop took a moment to examine the basic premises of each candidate.

Donald: America is too nice, we need to get tougher and also stop trying to please the whole world. Matter of fact, he lives this out personally by sharing that he doesn’t particularly favor apologizing.

Bernie: On the other hand, he is angry because Wall Street billionaires are hoarding all the profit, leaving the working class nearly destitute.

Hillary: She thinks her greatest appeal lies in trying to get the American people to go back to the 1990’s, when her husband was President, to restore that age of alleged optimism, balanced budgets and job security.

Always remember, every temporary solution looks better than a permanent one. That’s what makes it temporary.

Donald doesn’t want to apologize, yet we have a fellow who’s been around for two thousand years who tells us that as we forgive others, we will be forgiven.

Bernie wants to equalize the finance in the world, when that great thinker from two thousand years ago told us that those who have will get more and those who haven’t may very well lose what they have. That’s why we should be sensitive to the least of our brethren. It never equalizes.

And as far as Hillary’s contention regarding going back to the 1990’s, the same teacher instructed us that you can’t put new wine into old wineskins. 2016 is not 1995. Matter of fact, there’s little similarity anywhere in the mix.

So as G-Pop waited for his son to arrive, he thought to himself, two angry people and a safe choice will not prepare our nation for the problems we will be facing, which will demand strength mingled with diplomacy, force tenderized by forgiveness and devotion tempered by an evolution toward needful change.

Obviously, the three people at the table nearby were unable to come to any conclusions.

But G-Pop wants his children to know that unless one of these three candidates steps out of his or her present format and starts forgiving, being more realistic about wealth distribution and admits that we can’t live off a Presidency that is twenty years gone, we will have more problems than just a close election.

We will end up with leftovers in a world that demands main courses.

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Confessing … May 23rd, 2015

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III.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

My dad liked cashews. Honestly, I think most people like cashews unless they’re cursed with some sort of peanut allergy. Certainly, his chubby eleven-year-old boy loved them.

My father was of an old-world mind, which believed that the patriarch of the family should be given special consideration and gifts greater than his offspring. So whenever we went to a restaurant, I would be allowed to order the chicken in a basket while he munched on T-bone steak.

Likewise, when my dad bought a can of cashews, he opened them, took out a couple and then hid them in the drawer of his desk. He did not offer any to me because they were expensive and I was just a kid.

When I asked him for a cashew, he said, “Little boys eat popcorn. Daddies eat cashews.” (Candidly, popcorn is very good unless you’re aware that cashews are within a three-mile radius.)

So every time my dad walked away from his desk to do an errand I would sneak in and steal from his can.

At first I tried to limit it to one or two cashews and attempted to “nibble” on them to extend the pleasure. Yet I think you will agree that cashews are better consumed in handfuls.

Pretty soon I found myself taking four, five, ten…twenty.

I looked into the can and saw that it was obviously depleted so I shook the can around, trying to plump them up to look like more. Unfortunately, I continued to eat them and “poofing” became impossible.

So I took the can out, dumped the cashews on the desk and stuffed Kleenex in the bottom, then placed the cashews back on top, trying to make it look like a full container.

But my appetite did not subside.

Soon it became obvious that there was Kleenex sticking out from among the cashews, so it became necessary to take a drastic step.

I ate the remaining cashews and then took the empty container and buried it in the back yard, careful to NOT remember where it was located so that when my dad asked me if I knew where the can of cashews was, I could truthfully say “no.”

He did ask.

I lied.

He didn’t say anything.

I don’t know if he stopped eating cashews or just found a better hiding place. But I was always ashamed of both my gluttony and my deceit.

Even as I write this today I wonder what selfishness would cause me to be equally as much a liar in my dealings with others.

I hope I would either ask for cashews or buy my own can.

Because even though I buried my sin in the backyard, for many weeks afterwards … it cried out to me.

 

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We’re Open… October 9, 2013

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The restaurant was determined to communicate its message.

Since it found itself tucked away behind a barrage of construction, orange cones, dump trucks and road workers, it was important to communicate to the public that they were still there, making food–open for business.

As I head off tonight to Grace Lutheran in Pittsburgh, I wonder if they’re as smart as this restaurant. Do they understand that the true message of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness is nearly hidden by a busy religious machine which has committed so many atrocities against human beings that it hardly seems likely that anything behind the curtain of theology has much to offer?

Yes, right out in front of your church there are blockades, orange cones, dump trucks and people with signs, squeezing the traffic of life down to one lane, headed away from you.

If you have any intention of helping the brothers and sisters around you, you’d better get a big sign and put it out in front of your establishment that says, “We’re Open.”

• We’re open to feeling. Yes, we don’t just recite things in our building. We let people feel the presence of God in the heart. Likewise, we don’t walk in ashamed because we have sinned. We come in looking for ways to do things better, so that next week we don’t have to be so embarrassed.
• We also apply. That’s right–spiritual ideas are not merely noted or read in a deep voice from the lectern. We actually take ancient ideas and make them current, and if we can’t, we move on to the next passage, probing for the new wine.
• We think.You will not need to leave your brain at the door and pick it up when you leave the service. We are willing to listen to great ideas, because after all, if we really believe in God, such noble overtures are completely within the spectrum of His will. And when we leave to head out to the parking lot to push past the construction:
• We smile. We know nothing in life can be achieved if we do not decide to “be of good cheer.”

Lo, we need to put up a sign in front of the fellowship house of God that says “We’re Open.” We need to hope that pilgrims trapped in traffic, aggravated by the construction and torn up roads in front of our location, will risk coming in, and when they get there, they will find people who feel, apply, think and smile.

Or I guess we can just hope they assume that “supper’s cookin’.”

As I said, the church tonight is called Grace. But true grace is extended to those who are confused by the screaming yells of religion and would love to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.

We’re open.

Advertise it–but also be prepared to back it up … if somebody can survive all the detours.

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