Questing Parson

The Earth, the Universe, and Us

Do you remember where you were forty-five years ago at 7:59 p.m. this past Sunday. I do. I remember it vividly. I don’t know if it was the event that called us to my in-law’s house. It very well could have been. After all, we were a struggling family, and they were a well-established one. That meant their television screen was a lot bigger than was ours.

We were in the den of their house. Funny, I don’t remember the kids being in the room. Maybe my daughter had been put to bed. That seems a bit odd as we were at her grandmother’s house who tended to let her do whatever she wanted. Maybe she was in the room and I don’t remember because of the momentous moment. But I remember all of us sitting around the room, staring at the screen, the grainy black and white picture.

Earlier the world’s inhabitants let out a sigh of relief when the words were heard: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Land it did; that black and white video we were gazing at in amazement was the leg of the Lunar Module Eagle resting in Moon dust.

Then, it happened. We saw a leg, the leg of an astronaut moving down the ladder. And we sucked in our breath as Neil Armstrong jumped from the ladder onto the surface. “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” we heard. Humans were now walking on the Moon.

There’s no reason for me to go to Google Image to recall one vivid picture of that historic event. It’s emblazoned on my mind. It’s the picture of the footprint on one of those astronauts on the Moon’s surface. I’m sure it’s still there today, a testimony that humans have gone far beyond our own planet.

A year before that Moon landing Astronaut William Anders took another picture while orbiting the Moon in preparation for the landing. The picture showed Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon just as the Sun rises over Earth’s. Earthrise. Wow! The Earth is so beautiful. The blue and white colors stand out so vividly against the darkness of space and the gray of other planets. The Earth is so special, our home, our delicate, delicate home.

There’s another picture of Earth I love. Eight years after the first Moonwalk, Voyager I was launched by NASA to explore our Solar System. She explored and sent back data for thirty-six years. In 1990 Voyager I left our Solar System. She was 3.7 billion miles from Earth. NASA commanded her to turn around and take one more picture, a picture of the Solar System and Earth. Earth appears in that picture as a Pale Blue Dot, occupying only a half pixel. Earth, so beautiful, so small.

The week before last Sunday all the news was about violence. Little children, refugees from violence, being yelled at violently. Israel and Hamas slinging missiles at each other again, with a renewed sense of violence. Upheaval in Ukraine. Passenger airlines being fired upon with surface to air missiles with bodies falling from the sky into the yard of an orphanage. Scores being shot in Chicago.

A footprint on the Moon. The Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon. The Pale Blue Dot that is where we live. We are a people of promise. We are so violent. And we are so insignificant. What is wrong with us?

Interrupted

The parson sat down to write his daily blog. He was about three paragraphs into an essay on capital punishment. The phone rang.

“Hi, Dad.”

The parson heard the voice of his oldest son, recently moved to Connecticut where he's become the Associate Director of the Pilobolus Dance Theater.

“Dad, you got a few minutes?”

The parson did. And two hours into the conversation the parson realized the essay can wait until tomorrow.

Here's To The Teachers

I write a weekly newspaper column in The Calhoun Times, Calhoun, Georgia. Today, I’m sharing that column here.

The school year is over in the county and will be over in the city at the end of the week. What a year it has been.

For a week or so the teachers will be doing those necessary things to finish out the year. The students will be sleeping in, complaining of chores, reveling in the freedom of summer vacation and showing no evidence of the boredom with summer that is to come.

Picture if you will, then, an almost empty school. Walk down the hallway with me. Hear the echo of our steps along the empty corridors, tapping out a cadence of solitary progression.  Look into the rooms as our progress continues along the empty passage. See the teacher in that room, compiling the report.  Look in this room where he’s reading an assignment written by a student as an end-of-the-term requirement and smiling at the improvement over the course of the year. Over there, in the lab, watch the teacher inventory the chemicals and pack them away for the summer break.  And there, see there, pay attention to the teacher looking out the window, staring toward the horizon. That’s the one who is thinking about calling it quits, getting out of the contract, and going to work for the father-in-law. Peer with me into the seemingly endless hallway of classrooms where lessons were taught, students challenged, tests given, and lives changed.

The school year is over. Deserved vacation has arrived. Some will head to the mountains, others to the beaches; some will stay home and attend to needed projects; others will take summer jobs to supplement their devalued effort.

All will look back on the year and marvel at the things that happened, and smile at the memory of laughter reverberating from a hundred shared moments of frivolity. All will leave this past academic year and step into the summer months having touched lives in thousands of ways that were often unseen and without a doubt underappreciated.

This past year a second grader with green snot dripping toward a puckered lip had his face wiped by a dedicated giver. A middle school child was pointed toward a course of discovery that will someday lead to new inventions and a better society. A high school girl was encouraged to step beyond the present day into a future ripe with opportunity. This past year countless teachers in countless ways embraced, encouraged, and empowered a new generation.

It takes a special person to be a teacher. It takes an even more special person to continue teaching year after year, class after class, matriculation after matriculation without receiving proper recognition, thanks, and certainly adequate compensation.

To the teachers who labored with such dedication this past year, please receive our thanks. Receive our thanks now which should have been given day-by-day as the past ten months progressed. Receive these, our belated thanks. And please accept our apology.

Accept our apology for standing silently by as our government treated you with distain. Accept our apology that we spoke not a word of protest as our governor forced you to take days off without pay and in doing so treated you as though your task is no more important that the most menial state position.  Accept our apology that we asked you to stand before that classroom without our support, without proper appreciation.

Accept our apology, and please show up next year, for without you our society is doomed.

The Measure of Time

The meeting between the parson and the hospital chaplain had not lasted long. Both had come prepared; both had a busy schedule; both kept on task, and the meeting accomplished its goal in record time. The parson headed across the central lobby on his way to the church where he had to prepare for a talk to a men’s group in the evening.

He was two-thirds across the area when a voice called out, “Parson, Parson.” 

Turning toward the sound the parson saw Agnes Howard. She and her family had been members of a church he served twenty years ago.

“Hello, Agnes,” the parson greeted as he hugged her. He remembered her wedding and how she insisted it be a thoroughly religious occasion. Holding her at arm’s length the parson proclaimed, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Oh, Parson, you shouldn’t be telling lies. Three kids have made sure I’ve changed a little.”

“Well, from where I’m standing it was all for the better,” the parson smiled. “What brings you to this hospital?”

“Daddy’s here,” she said. “He was on his way to visit Aunt Helen and started having chest pains. He pulled into the rest area on the interstate and called 911. They are making sure he has stabilized before sending him back to his own doctors. These folks have really been good to him. You don’t suppose you could go back and see him? I know it would mean so much to him.”

The parson agreed he’d go back and visit Curtis. He headed down the familiar hallway with Agnes at his side.

In the hospital room, Curtis Howard seemed delighted to see the parson. For several minutes they talked about old times and caught each other up on their histories. Then the parson asked how things were going at the church.

“I guess they’re going okay,” said Curtis. “We seem to be surviving despite that young whipper-snapper the bishop sent out way last summer.”

“What’s the problem with your pastor?”

“He thinks he’s so busy, that’s what. He’s always on the run, can’t seem to sit still for more than five minutes.”

“What do you mean, Curtis?” the parson asked.

“He was here this morning. The man didn’t even sit down. He talked to me for maybe five minutes, maybe ten, and then he had a prayer and left. The Reverend Mr. Busy is what he is.”

“Curtis,” the parson asked, “how often has he been up to visit you.”

“Well, he’s been here all three days I’ve been here. But if you add all them up you don’t have one good visit.”

“Curtis, it’s at least eighty-five miles one way to visit you.”

“That’s about right.”

“So, between two and three hours out of his day to visit you is not enough?”

“He was only here ten or fifteen minutes, Parson. “

The parson threw in the towel. He said, “Let me have a prayer with you, Curtis. I’m really busy today and have to get going.”

Time At the End of A Tiring Day

A long way from home, the parson turned in that direction. A day visiting a member, now living out-of-town with a relative while recovering from a debilitating illness, followed a late night session in the emergency room where he was filling in for the chaplain. 

Thirty miles on the journey, the parson pulled into a convenience store. He purchased a Peppermint Patty and a bottle of V-8 juice, a strange combination to be sure, but the parson needed to make himself more alert. Twenty miles further the candy bar long gone and the V-8 consumed, the parson realized the attempt was futile.

 “Next Rest Area Fifty-Two Miles” read the sign, inviting the driver to take a break at this one. The parson exited into the area. Checking the sun he found a spot that would be in the shade fro a while. He pulled in, lowered the car windows a few inches, pulled out his iPhone and set the timer for forty-five minutes. He let the seat back, removed his shoes, and closed his eyes.

The sounding alarm was like the blast of the air horn of a semi. The parson jumped upright. He looked around to get his bearings, checked the time, slipped on his shoes and stepped out of the car. He walked around for three or four minutes before heading to the restroom where he splashed cold water on his face. Back in the car, he adjusted his seat, turned the key and began to pull out of his space.

Merging into the traffic, he set the cruise control, turned on the radio and headed home at a steady pace while listening to the happenings of the world on NPR. If he was lucky, he realized, he’d be able to get home in time to help Ms. Parson cook supper and to enjoy the rest of an evening with no appointments scheduled.

The iPhone rang. The parson pushed the button on the “No Hands” device.

“Hello.”

“Parson, Ben Watson here.”

“How are you Ben?”

“Not bad; not bad. Look I was wondering if you’d be available for a meeting of the Planning Committee tonight. I know this is the last minute but Roger, Helen, Jim and I are all able to be there. So, we thought maybe you’d agree to have the meeting tonight.”

“I”m sorry, Ben,” said the parson. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I have something on my calendar.”

“That’s too bad. Would it be okay if we meet without you?”

“That would be fine, Ben.”

“Okay, thanks, Parson.”

“No problem, Ben. See you Sunday.”

As soon as Ben said Good-by, the parson hit the “End Call” button.

“Hi, Sweetheart,” said Ms. Parson as he walked in the door. “Ben Watson called and wanted you to be at a meeting tonight.”

“I heard about that,” said the parson, “but you’re the only thing on my calendar tonight.”

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