Tag Archives: writing

In Memory of Mac

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Some of my family went to a very difficult funeral last week. They’ll probably get why Mac, one of my best friends in high school, has been on my mind lately.

Mac was good looking. I don’t have any actual photos of him, not even yearbook pictures to prove it, but I do have a memory that may convince you. He’s sitting on his front porch steps when me and an old girl friend pull into his driveway. Athletic build, dark hair with peroxided bangs (used to be a thing if you were cool enough to pull it off), and movie star smile.

“That’s without a doubt one of the best looking boys at South Mecklenburg High School,” she says. That’s how good looking he was. Your girlfriend says stuff like that with you sitting right next to her.

We spent hours hanging out and listening to forty-fives on the record player in his room. If you want a sound track, cue The Box Tops singing about how they needed a ticket for an aeroplane cause they ain’t got time for a fast train. Over and over and over again.

I’m also remembering Mac’s fifty-three Chevy. No seat belts. No power steering. A rolling tank that we painted a pretty ugly brown with paint and brushes meant for houses.

One night, as Mac wrestled the beast into a left turn, the passenger side door flew open and out went Louie. He flipped and flopped in the dust for a bit, but was unhurt and didn’t spill a drop of his beer. We know that because when he got back to the car he bragged, “Didn’t spill a drop!” and when he took his thumb off the top of the bottle of Bud he had been protecting, we were drenched from the spew.

We fought a bit in our neighborhood. One afternoon Mac was goaded into a fight with a fellow about his size but with a little more experience in schoolyard brawls. Even so, having wrestled and boxed with Mac, I knew Mac would take him. I was wrong.

In order to win, Mac would have had to truly hurt the other fellow. Mac didn’t have the heart. He could have. I know it. But he quit, and everyone went home declaring Mac the loser. He was not a loser. I saw what I saw.

It was a no good afternoon when I heard about the accident. Mac and a two other fellows were trying to clean a basement floor with gas when it ignited. All of them were burned, Mac severely. I didn’t really know what it meant in those days, but I remember, “Third and fourth degree burns over most of his body. He may not survive.”

At school the next day I got word that some guy had jokingly wondered how “Crispy” was doing. When I spotted him in the cafeteria I was on him before he could blink. I shoved his lunch tray at him, smacked him a couple of times on the head and in the face, grabbed him by the hair, and said if Mac died, I’d be back. When Mac died, I lost interest in the lame comedian.

I did get to see Mac in the hospital. They let us in his room two at a time, and I rode up the elevator and walked down the hall with one of my good friends, a girl from the neighborhood. She went in first, stopped and grabbed my hand. Mac was unrecognizable. Even a seventeen year old struggling in Basic Biology knew that if he lived, well, “third and fourth degree burns over most of his body.”

“Jimbo!” Somehow he lit up when he saw it was me, but I failed him. I did what I learned as a pastor not to do. I let my face tell him how bad he looked. Then I proceeded to talk, without a smidge of belief, about how he was going to be alright, and we’d be hanging out again real soon. When I saw the light leaving his eyes I knew I was saying the wrong things, I just didn’t know what the right things were.

That “Jimbo!” haunts me and blesses me still. I think it may have been the next day, he gave up the fight.

Almost sixty years later, I carry all this and more. Occasionally I whisper to Spirit, “If you’d give Mac a message, I’d appreciate it. Tell him I remember him.” Perhaps Mac can hear me without need of a messenger.

Epilogue: I’m afraid this wouldn’t be a true story if I didn’t add this. I got a call a few years later from Mike, one of the guys in the basement with Mac. Mike has scars on his wrists and hands from where he tried beat out Mac’s fire. He said Mac’s mom had died, and they needed me to be a pall bearer. I told him I couldn’t. I lived in another state now. I was an Operations Manager for a national trucking firm. Successful for my age. A boss. Pretty close to the next rung. I’d have to take a vacation day. The VP would get mad. Mike said, “Okay, talk to you later,” but we never did.

I carry this as well. Mac would have come.

My Land’s Story

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Inspired by Randy Woodley’s book, Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth, I’ve been pondering and doing a little research on the land I live with. Woodley got me saying “with” instead of “on.”

To start, I have a lot history with the land stretching from western McDowell county to East Asheville, NC. I have played, studied, worked, loved, laughed, and cried here. A good bit.

When my father announced in 1968 that we where moving from Oteen, a community east of Asheville, to the Atlanta area, my homing device clicked on. While it took me 47 years, I finally returned full time to my thinnest place on earth June 2015.

I currently live with seven wooded acres, on the side of a mountain, a few miles south of the town of Old Fort, NC. These acres straddle McDowell and Buncombe counties.

A generation ago, while I was running around in woods along the Swannanoa River in Oteen, the local boys in the Crooked Creek area outside Old Fort hunted and roamed the hills and woods that surround our cabin. I’ve found a couple of their glass coke bottles on the logging trail that runs below our place. For some reason, these boys, now old men like me, are a little taken back by the gate at the entrance to our community.

Before their time, there were loggers. I can still see the marks they left when they harvested the ancient forest.

Before them it was the pioneers. Many with a Scottish heritage that I share. They built Davidson’s fort, the fort that gives Old Fort its name. It’s said to have been “a crucial buffer” between the natives and settlers. As things played out, I am not sure the buffer went both ways.

Before the pioneers, it was the Cherokee people. And a little to the east, the Catawba, who give the Catawba River its name.

I often sit a the foot of the waterfall nearby and wonder if a Cherokee elder ever sat on the same stone. I wonder if he pondered things similar to the ponders that rise up for me as I watch the water pour over the cliff.

He has actually has become a little more than imaginary to me. I wonder if his grandchildren walked the Trail of Tears. I try not to think of my grandchildren ever enduring such.

Before them, a couple of periods I am not familiar with. There were the Mississippian people (800-1600 CE), whose people were mound builders. A couple of their mounds remain near here.

Before them, was the Woodland Period 1,000 BCE-1,000 CE). Perhaps the stone at the waterfall held them as well.

Speaking of the stone, it was once covered by thousands of feet of earth. That was when the Appalachian mountain range, perhaps the oldest mountain range on earth, was one of the tallest ever.

That’s about all the geology I have though. Sorry, Mrs. Bennett. (my sixth grade teacher who tried hard, and others represent her efforts better)

I have also learned (Perhaps relearned. Again, sorry, Mrs. Bennett) that the first Europeans in this area were led by a Spanish explorer named, Juan Pardo. His mission was to find a short cut to Mexico in order speed up the delivery of silver to the home country.

In 1567, Pardo left a fort he had built near what we now call, Morganton and headed toward Tennessee. I feel the need to note that the fort was built on grounds that were a gathering place for the Mississippian people. Likely a place of harmony and community for them.

I’m assuming that for the same reasons I-40 is presently there, Pardo marched up the Swannanoa valley, about eight miles north of my present home.

An article I read about this journey had some phrasing that I found interesting. It said that as they traveled, “they extracted food and corn from indigenous communities.” It went on to say that there was “Native resistance” and they “grew hostile,” eventually destroying the forts Pardo left behind and killing all but one of the soldiers that were there.

It may just be me, but I found “extracted” to be an interesting word for marching uninvited through people’s homeland, while taking food and corn they had stored for their families. It also read like resisting and growing hostile to such was something of a surprise.

Anyway, thank you Randy Woodley.

Land indeed has a story.

Wrote This, But Can’t Remember Who To Send It To

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I have more than a thousand stories from my time as pastor at the children’s home. There’s one that I’ve never told. Until now. I share it now with love, and because I believe it deserves to be told.

I got to Epworth Children’s Home in Columbia, SC about four years before she did. Of course, she had been in the system her entire life.

She was on her fifth placement, second adoptive family, and third complete name change. That means that in less than fifteen years, she was born, given a first, middle, and last name; put up for adoption, given a new first, middle, and last name; then those adoptive parents decided having a child wasn’t their thing, so she lived in a couple of foster homes until she got adopted again and was given a brand new first, middle, and last name. The newest parents turned her over to a children’s home to “get straightened out.” (I was a part of many meetings concerning her goals and objectives, but was never clear on what “straightened out” meant.)

I am pretty sure she is the only kid I ever cussed in front of. As in, “Damn, you’ve had three completely different names?” “Yep,” she said with a sheepish smile and a shrug.

We’ll call her Rachel here. What’s one more name?

Speaking of names, we were pretty formal at the home when I got there. It was Mr. Smith, Ms Jones, Dr. Brown, or in my case, Reverend Hunter. Rachel went with “Rev” and it caught on.

“What’s up, Rev?” “Where ya going, Rev?” “Can I go, Rev?” “I got a question for ya, Rev.” You’re not that funny, Rev.”

To help you picture her, think taller than average, wavy, light brown hair, fair-skinned, lively light eyes, contagious laugh, smart, poised, and graceful. Depending on her mood, she was completely beautiful, straight up pretty, too cute, or sadly unattractive. She could do them all, but straight up pretty was her go to.

A lot of girls in foster care develop an edge. A tough veneer that’s hard to get through. It’s actually a pretty handy survival skill, but Rachel didn’t have it. She was not tough, perhaps too trusting, and on top of that, she wasn’t very good at basketball.

When I was at the home, girls’ basketball was a big thing. A huge thing. We had a great coach, a good facility, did well in state tournaments, and actually went undefeated over the course of a couple of seasons. A lot of girls became pretty good players. A handful went on to play in college. Rachel came to the gym, and hoped no one would pass her the ball.

I think she was more interested in proms, sleep overs at her friends’ houses, clothes that were stylish, and telling her mom about her day. You know, all the stuff that girls who live in a children’s home don’t have.

She did give a high school beauty contest a try though. I told God it’d be awesome if she did well. Truth is, I told God I’d owe him one if she won.

She was plenty pretty and plenty talented, but white girls fixed up by black house parents, using donated clothes… well, that look is a little too eclectic for an upscale high school.

I told her that winning didn’t matter. I said being brave enough to try as your authentic self deserved a trophy bigger than one those folks could give her. She smiled, said thanks, but her eyes told me she thought she had come in last.

She did excel at church though. Choir, youth group, Bible study, parties with other churches, sharing her faith with folks, and mission trips. I can still see her on a scorching South Carolina summer day, with those paint splattered overalls, a tool belt around her waist, grinning as she told me about her new friends, and the family that lived in the house with the new roof. Hard to say how many adults that week told me how impressed they were by Rachel. “She’s awesome!” “I love her!”

She was a rock star church kid. Except when she wasn’t.

She’d do super Christian for months, and then go on a school skipping, getting high with her current boyfriend spree, and the sadly unattractive look would settle in. I tried so very, very hard to tell her there is a lot of living space between super Christian and lost girl. I don’t know why, but it was always all or nothing for Rachel.

I guess a lot of us have trouble giving up on perfection. Especially if we think it may win us love and belonging. Perfection’s just so damn hard to maintain.

A couple of years passed, and the parents decided to give it another shot. Another couple of years passed, and I left the children’s home and went back to being a regular pastor.

The connection grew weaker, but I’d hear stuff.

It was a bumpy ride. Rachel had a little girl that she gave up for adoption. Then she got her balance, married a loving young man, and they had two beautiful daughters. They were hard working and making it. They got very involved in a good church. Sunday School leaders, the works. Almost perfect. Almost a good ending.

I paused for a bit after writing that last sentence.

It was few years ago, a couple of days after Mothers’ Day, when a former colleague called to tell me that early that Sunday morning Rachel had taken her own life. Sunday. Mothers’ Day.

Of course I went to her funeral. A lot of us were there from the old days. We hugged each other, and didn’t even try to find words. Then we quietly found our seats, and spent the next hour wiping our eyes a good bit.

The pastor did a good job. He held the balance between celebrating her life and the almost unspeakable tragedy. He said she died from mental illness. I thought I was going to be almost okay. Nope.

The family was walking out when the youngest daughter, maybe three or four years old, began to weep and loudly cry out, “No! I don’t want to leave! You said we were going to see Mommy! I want my Mommy! Where’s Mommy?!”

I thought about the Mothers’ Days for the rest of that little girl’s life, and then I cussed in front of Rachel for the second time. This time from the heart, with conviction, and a good bit worse. This time I cussed right at God. It’s been a few years now. Can’t say I’m completely over it.

Addendum: A good friend that was my partner in ministry at the children’s home has connected with Rachel’s oldest daughter, the one she needed to put up for adoption. I’m told the young woman is awesome and wants to learn every thing she can about her birth mother. My friend has shared bunches of memories, and gave her all the pictures she had of Rachel. Except one she keeps in her office.

And she tells her Rachel was beautiful inside and out. Because she was.

I just wish Rachel had been able to believe it.

Who Are You?

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I am a retired United Methodist minister, seventy-two years old.

Some would say that seventy-two isn’t that old, and most days I agree. Still, I watch the seasons change, and wonder how many more leaf cycles I have in me. There is no getting around it, retirement can feel like the second to last thing on your life’s to-do list.

While that feeling is there, and it is a fact that no one is getting younger; I just don’t believe the retirement chapter is supposed to be the one with a bunch of blank pages. That said, I don’t think a retired pastor’s, or any other retired person’s, immediate question should be, how do I fill those pages? That feels a little desperate. Distant travels, books to be read and written, and beach trips with grands will be there. If you are healthy, there will be stuff on those retirement pages. My deeper question is, who am I now that my name isn’t on the church sign? How do I fill my remaining days with meaning?

Not counting a nine month interim appointment and a couple of forays into church politics, I am a decade into the retirement chapter. Turns out Reverend is a tough label to shake. It feels like I should be a little further down the self awareness road, but ten years after culling my wardrobe to a pretty sparse supply of so-called “church clothes,” I’m still asking, who am I?

I have learned that there is an identifiable second half of life. It’s bad math but some call it the third half. It’s different in a lot of ways from the first half or two. A bunch of things besides clothes don’t fit anymore. If you haven’t tested the water earlier, retirement throws you in the deep end this pool, and it’s time to swim.

This season in our journey has its unique gifts, lessons, and tasks. I am no longer a student. I am not building a career. I am not identified by what I do because I no longer do it. I am an elder. (elder and elderly are two different things) Again, it’s a new and different place in life’s journey. There are new maps, and sometimes they are hard to read. I am growing more comfortable with the edges though, and sometimes a compass will do.

I got pretty comfortable with my role in the church and community. I dedicated my life to the local church, and represented it wherever I went. But, turns out my first name actually isn’t “Pastor.” I am not tethered to the denominational nest anymore. The world is a whole lot bigger than I thought.

It baffles some of my friends and family, but I no longer worry too much about what is orthodox, or Wesleyan, or biblical for that matter. I believe that the essence of those things is written on my heart, and I don’t need to keep checking in with them to make sure I am okay. I now ask, is it real? I worry more about being authentic than I do about being right. Like Pinocchio and the Velveteen Rabbit, I just want to be real.

Put another way, I want to be a real, genuine, spiritual human being. Plainly said, like the Spirit, I want to be one who doesn’t do but is love. Okay, maybe that wasn’t plainly said, but that’s what made Pinocchio and the rabbit real.

A friend challenged me to describe myself without referring to what I do or by the roles I fulfill in my life. In other words, who AM I?

I told him, “I’m me. I’m the me I have been all along.”

Retirement Is a new chapter, but it doesn’t define you any more than that job title did. You are more than a retired whatever. It’s just that now you are freer than you ever have been to lay down your label and be your truest you.