Theology

Theology

Three apostolic holy men, evangels all, once walked along a road.

They’d traveled far to foreign lands, and now they neared their home.

The one whose name was Law first spoke, to his companions true:

“I’ve often brought men to their knees, I’ve humbled kings and kin;

 I help them find their way along, I show them their great sin”.

The second man whose name was Works, then said to his dear friends:

“I visit men in prisons trapped, I’ve fed the truly poor;

 I shelter sick and needy folks, and fight against death’s door.”

The third great man, whose name was Faith, he was the thoughtful type. He softly said to his dear brothers then, with kind sincerity:

“My friends I am a means, a hope, an usher to a gate: with just a little bit of me, all men may find their way- but yonder stands our Master still, who set us on our way. He came to us before we went, and still pours out today. Look straight upon his radiant face, and know that we are home, for written in his eyes of love, you’ll find the name of ‘Grace’.”

The Adorner

She never waits to give; her energy pours out.

She makes new things of beauty from old things that were without.

She suffers fools not lightly; she touches broken hearts.

She delights in little children; she sees their hidden smarts.

She transforms the dreary dullness to light, in such a happy way.

She gives herself so freely; she rarely turns away.

This girl that I did marry: she does adorn my life.

I give to God all glory, for making her my wife.

Manna of God

Steady dew of heaven, coriander seeds shower lavish love;

new mercies, fresh blessings, daily bread is the manna of God.

Lord, shall I tire of the diet of your grace?

Lord, do not let this abundance be taken without cherish or taste.

Let me not be blind to your gifts to me, and lost to my sins.

Lord give us this bread always, let me not become ingrate and full,

swollen in my pride, keep me unleavened, let me savor each taste.

Lord, I wander. Lord, I become lost, and lose my way in the wild of sin, but

your arm is never too short, it holds daily bread, and it reaches in love.

A Prayer and reflection on Numbers 11

Of Gamecocks and Men

Just as the thought of paranoia is a low state of delusion that all men are bad;

the high and noble thought that all men are good, and that the enemy is abolished, is the mark of the highest delusion. Gethsemane teaches the irony that there can be hate in a kiss, and love in a sword.

There are friends and there are enemies, and any man who would come out to love must be also ready to come out to fight, if only to fight for love. 

A reflection on Luke 14 v. 25-34

Luke 11 v. 14-28

The Living Prayer

The Living Prayer, he is a man, of grace and joy and peace, but not a man of solitude, nor yet a man of ease: a thankful soul, in patience wise, a watchman in the night.

The Living Prayer, he is a sign, a witness to the last. In slumbers still, his courage comes; his smile, with kindness, lights.

The Living Prayer, his heart, it brims, his tongue is held in love. His ears, they know, the Shepherd’s voice; his eyes, they see, His face.

The Living Prayer, he joins the hosts, the Shepherd knows His lambs.  He reaches out: the hands are scarred, but marked with holy grace.

The Living Prayer, he prays out still, His love, it knows no end.

He sings with laud, to Christ’s great joy, the Shepherd holds His lambs.  

In tribute to my friend, Dubose.

Empty Boats

The sad eyes, they are weeping, as days and nights fly by.

The sad heart, it is beating, as strangers walk on by.

The empty boats they are awaiting, from far Tiberias’s shore.

As people thirst and hunger, for bread, but nothing more.

“Give us some bread”, they taunt Him, and many turn to leave.

He says: “Your work is simple; I call you to believe”.

Yet still they turn to leave Him, to walk from shore to shore.

To teach in lost Capernaum, and feed the truly poor.

With bread of life from heaven, and blood of life poured out,

Passover spilled in glory, on doors of conquered doubt.

-A reflection on John 6

Breaking Sky

            Our little precious and precocious two and three-quarter year old granddaughter said something very profound and delightful on the Fourth of July. As night and darkness enveloped us, we were all sitting up on a grassy hill overlooking a small lake, staring across it expectantly at the dam on the far side, waiting for the fireworks to begin. Little Poppy was waiting with us, and this event, while not technically her first celebration of the Fourth of July, was certainly her first articulate celebration, and she wondered, with eminently good reason, just what all the fuss was about, and why everyone was staring across the glassy water to the far bank. Then it happened, the sky erupted with explosions and colors and sparks of multi-colored fire. It was a grand display, and the crowd awed.

            Little Poppy was petrified and indeed horrified by the spectacle. She said simply in a quaking, wavering, nearly tearful little voice: “Coach, the sky is breaking!”. She knew things were amiss, and that of all things, the continual presence of the sky was a source of stability. The permanence of the heavens was at least something upon which a two year old mind could really depend. It was not the noise which frightened her, it was not the gaudy colors or the designs which so startled her, it was rather the more unfathomable prospect of the sky and heavens really and actually breaking apart and passing away, the realization that permanence may not be permanent. It was this realization which absolutely spooked the sweet little child in such a fantastic, cataclysmic, and remarkably profound way. For in one instant, Poppy had grasped her own smallness, the smallness of all of us, and the fact that we have nowhere to hide in the face of a great power beyond ourselves: and the implicit affirmation of the dependency on God’s daily mercies, all in one simple, short phrase: “Coach, the sky is breaking!”.

            For Poppy knew, as all little children know, that when something such as the sky “breaks”, there is something coming which is more profound, real, and a matter of such significance as the world coming apart at the seams. Mommies and Daddies might well reassure their children that it is fine for the sky to “break” on the traditional day of fireworks, but only children can imagine the terror of such a notion without holiday, and it is the terror of the end. It is the terror of stopping. It is the terror of conclusion. When something funny happens it is Poppy’s habit and joyous response to command: “do again!”.  As obedient grandparents, we stage a repetitive performance of the humorous event, and on these occasions the old always grow weary of the joke before the young ever tire of it. But in the world of the broken skies, it is possible that we may not be able to “do again!”, because we have run out of do-overs and second chances, and it is finished. This is, of all things, something to fear. It is a child’s appreciation of the gravity of the forecast of the apostle Peter in his second letter: “But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. The heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything in it will be found to deserve judgment.” Such a caution should be equally fearsome to adults as it is to children, yet it is not.

            Most mature people in our world do not believe in something so fantastical and “mythic” as the end of time unless, of course, they are speaking of something so popular as global warming, but almost all children easily and readily grasp it, because they can grasp their own shortness, both in their stature and in their history. They grasp the miracle of waking up each day to discover something fresh and new. They grasp the wonder and joy of saying: “do again!” and then seeing it done again. They grasp their own silliness of laughing over and over again at the same little joke. They grasp the wonder of daily creation. They grasp their very smallness and their dependency on Mommies and Daddies, and hopefully, through the example of the family, their utter dependency on Christ’s creation.  They grasp that bedtime is only a temporary ending, and waking again each day to a dependable sky and heaven which was there before they came is a recurring, repetitive and delicious miracle and gift. They remain, in part, humble in the humblest sense: they are aware of their smallness and the bigness of the heavens. With full appreciation of this small humility, their fear of the end and conclusion is not the irrational fear of the mad cults making preposterous forecasts of the precise time and date of end of the world, but it is rather the quite rational fear, in the sense of profound respect, of something larger, more real and much, much more powerful than they, and they “get it”, even when the unenlightened and over-educated adults around them do not. They understand the lie of their permanence, and the absolute truth and expectation of the future unseen permanent. They understand the joys of the new beginning and the trepidation of the absolute end just as do the very old and very wise before their very end. They grasp the profound reality that God may not choose one day to “do again”; they understand what might happen when the sky “breaks” on some day other than the Fourth of July-

 

Holy Tears

 

Born of joy, conceived in love, the holy tears stream down His face.

Abandoned son, of tortured man, a broken heart cries tears of pain.

Of sins wept clean, of shame washed dry, the tears they work, unfathomable grace.

The tears they fall, they wash the feet, they speak to men, these Holy Tears:

First  Martyr’s death, is it in vain, or are you touched, by God’s own pain?

The tears of blood, yet made in love, are these your tears, in measured years?

In anguished pain, He stretches arms; He reaches out, high on His Holy Pole with two thieves. 

Do you see, His healing balm, will you look upon this forgiven serpent’s sting, lifted up, for all to see?

Look closer still, into His eyes, drink in those tears of glorious love, and see, blind man, see.

Amen.  

Taste and see that the Lord is good….

Ps. 34 v. 8

A Mother’s Love

The baby’s plaintive cry, calls out to change her world:

to suit just her alone, as if her eyes could lie.

She is a creature small, on one great massive orb-

She wails against it all, but finds her mother’s love.

What mystery she feels, her hands upon her skin-

her lips, her touch, her smile, now soothed in silent awe:

one part of God revealed.

Of Cana’s Great Chained Mountains

It is as ancient as the stones, yet fresh as morning dew;

as strong as brimming full moon tide, but faint as dawn’s first light….

a wave, a ram, a wild unbroken horse, a lion who does prowl…a force beyond remorse-

a lamb, a rose, a young dove’s perfect wing…a tender shoot, a sprout of hopeful spring.

It reaches past the ages, created yet creating, it leaves the kindred call.

It is a chain of many links, a tree with branches tall, a prison with its freedoms, a refuge for a fall.

It is a heart of pain forgiven, a toil of hardship’s trust: his love for his beloved; her redeemer’s loyal call.

Two mountains tied together, transformed at Cana’s wedding, His love abideth all.

The Christmas Debutante Ball

What queer place is this, a pattern of heaven, a blueprint for demons,

a chorus of saints, a drama of hell?

“Most assuredly it is heaven”, he said, “these comely young ladies are as angels, they dance on thin air, they dress in all white, please try not to stare”.

“Are you blind to the proud, the gossips, and boors, this place is of hell, I can take it no more.”

“But see the happy fathers, with generosity galore, as chivalrous as knights, giving the sweet angels in love, nothing more”.

“Can’t you see those bejeweled women so rich and so proud, so false and pretentious, I want to scream it out loud”.

“Yes, the ladies they smile, but with gloves on their hands, their good manners

derive from the gospel, even in these obscure, strange, false, foreign lands.”

“Those hens how they cluck, those snobs, how they look down,

their manners won’t save them”, he said with a frown.

“All manners are patient, all manners are kind, all manners insist but on love to mankind.  On this great green earth, even where the brokenness abounds, the Author of Love, the Giver of Hope, the joy of the Christ Child can nonetheless be found.”

Fear of the Rain

What are you afraid of losing, my child?

Is it the loss of your youth, so fleeting and short?

The loss of your health, so subtle and frail?

The loss of your family, so close yet so far?

The loss of your money, position and pride?

It is none of these things,

Yet all that I fear.

I say they are nothing, but cling to them dear.

I hold them, I count them, I squeeze them so tight.

To lose them tomorrow would set me a-fright.

My child you should know this,

I’ve taught it before.

It bears repetition- it comes as a shock-yet it is true beyond doubt.

These things that you have, are gifts from above.

They come straight from heaven, they are given in love.

If you give these same gifts back to others this way,

 you return them to me in just the same way.

If you give them to me, and empty your life, you never can lose what I gave with my life.

When I give you the rain, it is not counted as cost.

It gives all to the earth and returns yet to me.

It falls without fear, it surges in hope, it rises and crests and pours out on the land.

My gospel is rain on the land of your heart.

Please give it away, so the healing may start.

Men Who Cry

I love the man who cries,

but not from pain or fear.

I love the man who cries,

but from Your touch so dear.

He cries out for Your love;

he cries out from his sin.

You touch him in your truth,

You plant the seed within.

The man he cries out: How?

As if to know Your ways…

You answer simply this:

I AM...just trust...obey.

I pray for men each day,

I prayed while here on earth,

I teach my truth to all,

but bind my thoughts to One.

Who taught, Who cried, Who bled, Who prayed

….for all the men who cry

A reflection on John 17

OF FICTIONS AND PARADOXES

If you want to comprehend the law, the best place to start is with the fictions. Fictions are the soul and conscience of the law, and without fictions the law would be empty. If you doubt this, consider this concept: “a corporation is a person”, pure fiction, and yet this is at the heart of commercial law. Next consider these equally ridiculous fabrications of the law: that there is such a thing as “a reasonably prudent man”, such a thing as “proximate cause”, such a thing as “constructive delivery”, or even such a thing as “master-servant liability”. These are all mere fictions, created by courts and judges to fill in the gaps of fairness and equity in order reach a pre-conceived result which seems fair to the general sentiment of the times. So my advice to young lawyers and law students is always this: learn the fictions first, it is all in the fictions.                           Similarly, as for the gospel, it is in the paradoxes that the message really lives and endures. He who would lose his life will save it. The first will be the last. To be born again requires death of the self. The wondrous and deep nature of these paradoxes allow us to see ourselves at a distance and grasp the Lord’s gentle teaching, guidance and corrections in a deeply personal, yet honestly objective, way. They allow us to see ourselves as the Lord Jesus sees us, while still standing before our very own personal mirror.                           The paradoxes are almost always scandalous, and perhaps the most scandalous of all is the paradox of servant hood: that one will become great through humility. This concept that greatness is derivative of small things, and that the diminishment of greatness of one kind leads, paradoxically, to greatness of another kind, reveals to us, incredibly, the fault line between the things of the world and the things of God’s kingdom. The close corollary to this is yet another deep paradox, that service in the kingdom leads, necessarily, to radical freedom in the world.                            At a recent legal ethics seminar a brilliant academic compared and contrasted the progression of lawyer advertising in the past with the more modern and recent “marketing” tactics of the blogosphere. Lawyer advertisements have always been considered at least mildly tacky, viewed askance and with suspicion, especially by the more snobbish and gentrified members of the bar who claim that law is a profession, or perhaps even a monopoly of the family. The course materials in the seminar included a disciplinary opinion about a lawyer who, about a century ago, had the sheer audacity to publicly advertise his ability to obtain “discreet divorce” for his prospective clientele.  In response to his stroke of marketplace genius, he received a heavy-handed ethical sanction and disbarment from the highest court of Illinois because his ad “undermined the wholesome fear of public opinion”, and was therefore, antithetical to the ethical practice of law. Wholesome fear of public opinion compels, of course, that every divorce should be notorious.                               This “wholesome fear” is, of course, neither a fiction nor a paradox. It is quite true, and quite real, and it is the seed of snobbery and enslavement. A man who is totally bound to public opinion, is bound indeed, and a man who is not so bound is the freest man in the cosmos, free to the point of being able to be scandalous, yet not insane.                        Our Lord, no matter how one reads the Gospel, clearly had no wholesome fear of public opinion; even modern theologians acknowledge this aspect of Jesus, “historical” or not, bead color or not. In lieu of that kind of fear, Jesus had the only really wholesome fear, which was the fear of God, a rather huge and significant distinction. The Everlasting Man was many things, but above all, He was a respecter of God, and a dis-respecter of snobbishness and the idle fears of man. He held out his utter lack of fear for public opinion equally to the religious and the agnostic, the rich and the poor, the snob and the simpleton. "Fear of public oinion" did not motivate, or even effect his views, and yet he cared and loved more deeply than any.                           Historically, advertising for discreet divorce was scandalous because of the fear of the opinions of man at that time. Nowadays, the opinions of man about this particular subject are quite different than they were in Illinois at the turn of the century, but the biblical position that God hates divorce was never based on public opinion, rather it is based simply on objective truth and objective love.                             The newest fears are not fears of discreet divorce, they are fears of inequality and intolerance. Just as at one time the biggest insult to a man’s honor who had broken the unwritten code of all gentlemen and abandoned his wife and children for another, younger version, was to call him a “womanizer”, the biggest insult now is to call a man a bigot.  One “wholesome fear” has given way to yet another “wholesome fear”, and so it goes. Call me an adulterer if you must, but please do not say I am intolerant, homophobic, racist, Islamaphobic, or phobic de jure. Phobic in this sense of course means fear, not really hate anyway, yet in the modern lingo, fear is hate. Of course, under the new healthy fear of modern rubric and enlightenment,  those who fear God, hate the most, just as those who share the new wholesome fears of men, apparently, love most as demonstrated by their tolerance except, of course, for the unenlightened intolerant. I suspect this is why “bullies” draw their universal ire and deserve summary death. Yet, as long as there is testosterone there will be bullies, and there will also be leaders to correct, teach and show the bullies a more excellent way, even to the point of being bullies themselves.                         The new wholesome fears always carry with them the latest intellectual enlightenments, the greatest sense of elitism, and always, educated snobbery and a new kind of intolerance. Wholesome fears of men always replace and supplant the only really and truly wholesome fear: the fear of God. The swings between the wholesome fear of man and the wholesome fear of God is the story of history, and indeed, American history.  So many once came here out of a wholesome fear of God. Later the wholesome fear became Pharisiacal, and it devolved and degenerated to a wholesome fear of man’s laws without understanding that in the fiction of the laws one can always find kindness, redemption and even mercy. The up and down cycle of one fear pushing out the next is indeed the history of social and intellectual thought.  We have of course reached, just about, the limit of that cycle now. It has settled in on a specific kind of tolerance which is the end of all tolerance; for real tolerance means we are all quite different, objectively so, but we can nonetheless love in spite of our differences. Today’s new fear “tolerance” means precisely the opposite: we are all the same, all equal, and because of this we cannot love, but we must merely coexist. This new tolerance is the tolerance of not being able to think and not being able to speak anything which might be even remotely considered intolerant, even when the statements may spring from a wholesome fear of God rather than the “wholesome fear” of public opinion.                  As we drift to this new secular elitism as a nation, we should not be unhappy or even worried. It is during these times indeed, which the Lord does His best and most glorious works. History bears this out. In times when the world is or seems adrift in the “wholesome fear” of public opinion, our Lord stands and points to the one truly wholesome fear. “Whom then shall I fear?”, indeed- certainly not the unwholesome public fears of man…”fear the Lord, you his Godly people, those who fear the Lord will have all they need”. Ps. 34 v. 9. Amen. ©Free Anglican Press

Song of Heaven’s Sea

Won’t you come with me to the green fields of Galilee,

Where poor and proud were called,

Merely to come, merely to see, in Galilee.

In Galilee, where blind men see, where peace falls on the land.

In Galilee, down by the sea, where Christ will hold your hand,

Come and stay in His own land, the region of the sea,

Where once He walked on water’s edge with twelve who mended nets

and fished for all of broken men, on God’s green sea, in Galilee.

In Galilee, where blind men see, where peace falls on the land.

In Galilee, down by the sea, where Christ will hold your hand,

Meet Me again in the Galilee, Gethsemane is past,

Again let’s go to Galilee, now sin’s ordeal is over,

Where Peter feeds my many lambs and John still writes on sands.

In Galilee, where all will see, and peace will rule the land.

In Galilee, down by the sea, where I will hold your hand,

-Inspired by the last chapters of Matthew and John

© Free Anglican Press

When Ships Come In

The mystery of Your Holy Name;

It sends away all sin.

The gates of heaven You open wide,

and beckon all within.

And yet, we turn and run way,

because we fear the pain.

Forgetting yet angelic choirs sing

 in heaven, still, You reign-

-Your mercy is a guiding truth,

Your love, an anchor raised.

You send a fleet of many ships,

the nations bear your praise.

©Free Anglican Press

A Child Will Run Again

The servants’ feet do walk the miles, with gentle hand to lead.

Though tired and unworthy still, they carry forth Your word.

Though scarred and broken to the quick, You wash them in Your love.

Though slow and lost in most unruly gait, You guide then in their paths.

Through desperate and in most fearful pain, You feed them with sweet hope:

That one fine day, at heaven’s gate, a child will run again.

© Free Anglican Press

The Greatest Teacher I Never Knew

            Memories of George Dunlap bless me and haunt me to this day. He was the most jovial, unpretentious, and singularly kind teacher I ever knew.

            As a boy of 13, the son of an Army Lieutenant Colonel, I attended a somewhat snobbish, all boy, southern boarding school. Quite luckily, Mr. Dunlap was my very first English teacher and table master. When I showed up at the place, I noted immediately that my wardrobe was a good bit smaller, and my weekly allowance was a good bit less, than most of the other boys. Acutely aware of my relative poverty, I felt, quite frankly, a bit inadequate amongst the largesse.

Back in those days we convened three times a day for meals at a family-style table. The new boys, “rats” we were called, sat in the middle of very long table which could accommodate 16 chairs. At each opposite end of the long table, a school master presided. His family would cluster around him, followed by upperclassmen in descending order down to the four lowly rats in the middle. Rats sat two-by-two across, with each pair of rats devoted to serve and pour water, tea or milk to the folks at their respective ends of the table. The rats also were required to scrape and stack the plates after the meal and memorize the desert (“the boss”) and menu. The consequence of a memory lapse meant forfeiture of your boss to an upperclassman, or as they were known to us, “old boys”. After the meals, the most colorful and free characters in school, the student waiters, would retrieve the plates and serving dishes from the rats. The waiters wore special crimson jackets, and held the high privilege of private dining in the kitchen, away from the watchful and strict eyes of the masters. They were not given complete immunity however, as the waiters rotated in two shifts, thus requiring every boy in school to spend some time at a family table on a periodic basis.

 This school was as wild and savage a place as the Amazon, and often quite lonely, but George Dunlap had so much empathy in him that he knew no strangers. He actively sought out the loneliest of boys, always giving a healing word of hope, kindness and encouragement when and where the words were needed the most.

His nickname was Dewey and he had a wife and a boy and a girl and he drove an old yellow checker sedan as his means of off-campus transportation. Every boy who ever sat at Dewey’s table was immediately adopted, and made to feel at home. Meals with Dewey were a feast, because the man knew how to love.  

We had a rather byzantine set of rules, as all boarding schools do. Once snared in the rules, a student would continuously become more and more ensnared through the accumulation of demerits, until at last, all semblance of freedom disappeared entirely, giving way to desperation. Demerits were the negative currency of the one commodity we occasionally shared and all prized most in the institution: free time.

Within my first month I had accumulated every conceivable kind of demerit for all sorts of minor and major offenses, infractions, and vices: tardiness, sloppiness, procrastination, and unpreparedness, vices which have followed me still. I remain unbroken of my brokenness today, a proud graduate of the demerit system.  

To regain freedom, one had to walk, write or work for a master. Dewey, sensing my mounting accumulation of infractions and my hopelessness, took me under his wing one Saturday morning and gave me complete amnesty by letting me work for him around his house. However, “work” with Dewey was not work at all; it was an adventure. Off we went in his checker yellow sedan to the hardware store to gather up things for our project with Dewey laughing, smiling and singing the whole way and just chatting with me the whole time as if we had been friends forever. The man seemed completely mad in his peculiarity and familiarity; he was unlike anyone I ever met. He had none of the tell-tale symbols of madness; however, his only concerns seemed to be of others and for others. I rather suspiciously wondered how anyone could be so damned good and whether anyone in their right mind could indeed be this jovial, this kind, this sane, and this serious about decency and yet take themselves any less seriously than Dewey.

Dewey taught me several times over the course of my four years. In class he was absolutely theatrical- laughing, crying, singing and always kind and encouraging- and yet we all suspected that no man could ever really be so- that deep down he had to be well- quite frankly- faking it –for he was- in the highest, best, and archaic use of the word- a “gay man”. No other words can describe him so aptly. I can only surmise from his actions that he was also a man of deep and profound faith.

            By the time of my junior year, however, Dewey began to suffer a string of cumulative setbacks and personal tragedies. His wife left him for a seminary student from the theological college next door, taking his beloved children with her. Profoundly saddened by this, but yet remarkably courageous and upbeat, Dewey moved out of his faculty house into the student dorm as a hall master, the regular domicile of the most junior and youngest faculty members who generally taught for a few years before moving on to new careers and graduate school. There he lived among his adopted boys with the same unflappable generosity as he had shown before the tragedy until he could no longer stay. I continued to view him with much suspicion, wondering how anyone could remain that steady and seemingly invincible as I moved on to my senior year, ever cautious about Dewey.

            The graduation litmus test for any senior was something we approached with great fear and trepidation: the senior research paper on tragedy, and my teacher for the course was, of course, Dewey. By the time the paper was due, I had been in the midst of a triumphant senior wrestling and lacrosse seasons, for I fancied myself as a big man on campus, team captain, monitor, proud and invincible, not yet broken on the wheel of life. Consequently, I had ignored the paper and just put it off. Not to worry, I thought, Dewey is a pushover. When the time came, I hurriedly slapped something together and simply turned in a rough draft to Dewey, confusing his characteristic kind nature as being weakness instead of strength. Already accepted at Washington and Lee, I was looking for the gentleman’s C, an easy way out: the nice easy slide to graduation. Relying on the good graces of the friendliest teacher on campus did not seem to be taking too much advantage of the system, surely I deserved a break.

            I think Dewey was sadder than I was the day he called me into his apartment and told me personally, that I had failed his class. He told me simply that I was capable of much more, and that the work I had turned in was not up to par for me. He told me this in a firm, yet compassionate, way, and he set off a flurry of panic and nausea in my wild beating heart. Failure of the tragedy term paper meant a fifth year of school, it meant no graduation, no college, it meant failure and ridicule. I took the matter personally, of course, not really knowing Dewey’s motives at the time as a mere boy of 17, knowing him now only in hindsight, as a man of 51. I failed then to know, see, and appreciate his love, a love which expects the best, yet forgives the worst.

            What I did not know then and know now is something I learned in prison ministry. Something the prisoners taught me, something deep, spiritual and profound: that people who are hurting, generally and almost universally hurt others. “Hurt people hurt” is the way they say it in prison, and it is at once an explanation, a statement of empathy, and a slogan of love and understanding. I have seen so many teachers or anyone in a position of authority who is hurting, simply mete out their hurt on others in this same way- they become the mirrors of their own reflective hurt and anger over the hurt. It would have been so simple for Dewey to crush me like a bug and then turn his back on me, because I know the man must have really hurt at that time in his life. Here the man was, of all ironies, teaching tragedy at this boarding school, and living out the tragedy of his very life- but living it out with joy and love, as a complete comedy. He was suffering, and by all justice and rights I had failed and there should have been no second chance- no forgiveness at all- for I should have gotten exactly what I deserved and this hurting man could have and by all rights should have given me the door, but instead he simply gave me another chance and a big cosmic hug. I suspect that this kind of love and grace is nothing, if it is not supernatural agape love, and I now know it as the rarest of pearls.

            Dewey said simply you have the weekend to re-write the paper and he handed it back to me. When I went back to work on the wretched thing, I found that Dewey had probably taken more time constructively grading it and commenting on it than I had taken in writing it. The margins contained red penciled questions, the text contained circled words, circled modifiers, questions of diction and spelling. I went to work, turned in the paper, received a “C”, graduated, and never thanked Dewey for the opportunity for a second chance, lost completely in my sense of entitlement.

            A boarding school experience can get in one’s DNA. It becomes hard to stay away, and in my first few years after graduation, I occasionally returned to “the Hill”, if only to see old friends. It was on one of these occasions that I saw Dewey for the last time, and he was not walking, he came along on a motorized scooter, wearing a hat and his characteristic grin, and he warmly greeted me and a few of my friends, calling us each by name and then, he scooted off, the same wonderful jovial man he had always been. It was then that I learned that Dewey had developed a debilitating, horrific and terminal disease. I understand that soon thereafter, when the paralysis of his body made him no longer able to teach, he left the school, bound only for heaven.

            One of the biggest paving stones on my road of good intentions was my failure to run after Dewey at that last moment. I want to run after him now. I want to chase him down and tackle him and hug him around his neck and thank him. I want to tell him I love him, that I know and understand his pain, but that I am blown away by his love. I want to tell him what an amazing example of Christ’s love and mercy and forgiveness he was. I want to abide with Dewey just a moment or two longer and hear him sing and laugh and make his silly jokes. I want to know the man a bit better: the greatest teacher I never knew.

© Free Anglican Press