When Life Gives You Lemons

Dear blog reader;

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. To all of my Illini and Hoosier friends who faced nature’s wrath a week and a half ago, I hope that your power is back on, the tree limbs are being cut up, and that all of the contractors you encounter are honorable. To the homeowners in Kokomo whose 2^nd story decided to detach and go on a walkabout into the middle of the road, wow, that must have been quite a ride.

A week ago last Sunday it was 60 degrees. Saturday, it was below freezing. What did these two pictures have in common? They both featured bicycle rides in winds that were above 25 mph. Last Sunday, the wind was actually above 30 miles per hours. They were straight out of the South. This made my trip South an arduous task, but I could turn north and I was on fire. It was a good reminder that I am not as good as the 30 mph with the wind at my back or as poor as the 6 mph with a stiff head wind.

It was a week of entertainment for the lovely Miss Beverly and me, her humble escort. We went to see Jim Gaffigan and Garrison Keillor at Ball State. In an aside, Ball State has some very good shows and the price is often less than going to the same show in Indianapolis. Check it out.

I rarely do reviews. It isn’t that I don’t have strong, insightful, and accurate opinions about others. I do. I just rarely go out for entertainment. Number one, Bev and I have not been in the position to afford anything other than the cheap seats. Which always made me wonder, why would I want to pay that much money to watch a show on a video monitor? Suddenly, we find ourselves in an empty nest and the nest is lined with a bit more money that had been previously earmarked for our children’s upbringing.

Gaffigan was very funny. He had a couple of very funny riffs; one about going to weddings, another about Hot Pockets. Keillor was completely different. I have been a fan for a long time. I have been to see Prairie Home Companion three times. Once, the lovely Miss Beverly and I got on a train to Minneapolis in early February to spend the weekend in a romantic bed and breakfast. It is a little known fact that global warming has been traced back to that weekend. I’m just saying. It was a romantic bed and breakfast with the lovely Miss Beverly, and it was Minneapolis in early February. While Garrison is a huge star in the public radio world, it is a case of a big fish in a little pond so the tickets have always been affordable and the seats are good.

This show was different. It was a one man show.  He came out and started singing; singing songs that the audience knew and had sang from memory at one point in their lives. After a couple of songs, we received a wonderful invite to join him. He said that adults are seldom asked to sing along. It was a beautiful moment; 1700 people of common musical heritage, singing from their Psalter; Back Home Again, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and I Come to the Garden Alone; all a cappella.

It struck me that he was right. We are not invited to sing as adults very often. Even in the rich church tradition that I experience, the invitation does not often come. I am sometimes admonished to sing when it dawns on the leadership that Sunday morning has become a concert with the band pumped up loud; loud enough that my lips are moving but I’m not sure that any sound makes it past my lips. It was a blessing; singing in the dark; our voices mixing and covering one another’s weaknesses.

It brought to mind Mark Twain. In fact, several things from the evening brought to mind Mark Twain. Samuel Clemmons, near the end of his life, turned very bitter. He had lost his wife and three of his children. The despair and vitriol are evident and strident in his writing. The essays were not published until 1960, in a book called Letters from Earth. The letters are written by Satan to the archangels Gabrielle and Michael. One of the major points in the essays was that the author had serious doubts about Christian’s claims to be looking forward to worshiping God forever. He claimed that we get bored of singing after 20 minutes. We get tired; start looking through the bulletin; wondering how long the sermon will last because “you don’t want the roast to burn back home.” That observation has resonated inside my head; usually when I have exhausted the bulletin and after I have “rested” my eyes for the second time during the sermon.

However, the singing a cappella in that darkened room old favorites stirred something an ignited a hope that there is something inside me that could reach out and touch the forever.

After singing, he launched into a review of his life; about growing up in Minnesota with his people. He described their stoic optimism forced upon them by their lives is northern Minnesota. Through the evening, he wove the maxims preached by his people and how they intersected with the events of his life. He mentioned repeatedly how lucky he had been. As he told stories and jokes, it struck me that this is what an evening with Mark Twain must have been like. It is remarkable what Mark Twain accomplished; the time period in which he flourished. How do you become an icon without Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Commercial radio had not become a phenomenon. He crossed the country to perform shows in front of sold out audiences. He became one of the wealthiest men in America and certainly the wealthiest entertainer. He was the Oprah of his time.

While Twain’s themes struck a strident tone, Garrison’s theme revolved around the luck in his life. The luck of events and opportunities that presented themselves after set backs; the luck surrounding his work in radio, leaving Minnesota; the luck of meeting the one teacher who could inspire his immersion into literature. It is interesting to see the results of the ruminations of the introspective.

Life exerts its pressures and blessings on us all. It appears that we take those influences in and make of them what we can. One sees the setbacks and turns bitter. Another sees the setbacks and recognizes how they forced a good turn into luck. I hope that I see the setbacks as a test persevered through and not broken by. For that, I am thankful.

Take care,

Roger.