Allan Arbus: Just What the DR Ordered!

Allan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce in final Episode

M*A*S*H Still Tells Our Story! 

MASH ran episode 251, Goodbye, Farewell, Amen in February 2010 and surpassed all other TV Series--including Who Shot JR and the Super Bowl for that year.  The reason was simple: MASH told our story.

Now the death of Allan Arbus, age 95, AKA "Dr. Sidney Freedman," the psychiatrist returns us to the war in Korea and exactly why the series meant so much to us.  MASH tells the story of us, human beings on the front line of life, forever struggling to maintain our humanity against all odds.  The comic element is the key:  when you laugh, you let go, and exhale the C02 and breathe in the air to live.  We are in a society in which we are holding our breath all the time for what the world will do to us next.  It is the comic element that saves us.

Actually--the comic is not just a laughing matter.  It releases us to be ourselves.  In this final episode, Hawkeye represses the tragic memory of trying to escape on a bus.  He sits with villagers trying to remain quiet--but a woman has a chicken on board who is raising a ruckus.  Hawkeye snaps--"Shut that damn bird up!"  So the woman suffocates it--only the chicken is a cover for the real baby which the woman smothers.  Dr. Freedman goes to work to unearth this memory and bring peace to Hawkeye.  He is at his best!  He sends him back to the 4077 just as Hawkeye wants to give up.  He assures him that he will go with him and visit periodically.  He has confidence in Hawkeye which infuses him to re-enter the operating room.   In the OR, a child comes in -- Pierce hesitates and Potter offers to take it--but Hawkeye says "No."  The camera switches to Freedman who is seen backing out of the OR, "You're back!" 

Who is there for us?  Who goes into the fray with us each day to remind us of our humanity?  Or, does it take our doing what Hawkeye?  He recognized the profound difference between the past holding him hostage and the present which could free him because somebody trusted him. Sometimes all it takes is for somebody to be in that corner rooting us on. 

 

Dr. Sidney Freedman Keeps his Promise to Visit

“Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. 

Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.” 

Dr. Sidney Freedman

Bagger Vance's Best Shot

The Gospel of Bagger Vance

Yep... Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing... 

Somethin' we was born with... 

Somethin' that's ours and ours alone... 

Somethin' that can't be taught to ya or learned... 

Somethin' that got to be remembered... 

Over time the world can, rob us of that swing...

 It get buried inside us.

under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas... 

Some folk even forget what their swing was like...

                                                                                            

Bagger (Will Smith)  hands club to Junuh (Matt Damon)

The Gospel means "good news" because it frees us to be who we are.  I really like this quote from Will Smith because it tells us we have to get in the game of our life.  Sit it out, stop swinging...and you lose the very gifts God gave you.  So often we hear only part of the truth -- that God's gifts are unconditional, no strings attached and forget that we must accept responsibility for them.  Christmas comes but once a year, but how many of us pass the gifts by and leave them there unwrapped?  

The good news in this story is that when the student is willing, then somehow and from some place--the teacher shows up.  Bagger comes out of nowhere--and yet speaks to the heart of Junuh.  But mark these words!  He does not give Junuh anything but the confidence to look for what was lost and the grace to go looking. 

A Prayer for a Son

General MacArthur's Prayer for a Son 

 Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak; and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee -- and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain!"

 

What do you think of this prayer?  At first, it is deeply moving and it reminds us that what we strive for as people may not be attainable. The prayer lists ideals by which to grow toward as people--but can we ever say we have reached them? 

Then I turned the prayer around.  I saw it as a prayer that God has for each of us.  These are qualities, virtues in fact, that God graces us with...and there are at times reachable as life stretches us beyond where we can possibly get on our own. 

What I do know is in the Christian faith, the prayer which God gives us was sealed by his Son's life.  In Jesus, we see what life is intended to be and find the grace to follow him. 

Go with the Flow!

Tubing on a River through Rapids

The Wisdom 
of the River
"Go with the Flow"

I will never, ever forget my first experience tubing on the Haiwasee River in Tennessee.  The class 2 rapids were enough for me (scale of 1-6)...especially with The Needles, a series of drops that spanned the river...whop and over I went!  And let me tell you how cold that water was....Brrrrr!  I also found out how much it hurt to stiff-leg a rock--put your leg out there to bounce off the rocks.  You can just take that so long.  Or how about the strategy of trying to paddle across to the other side of the river?  Just go over and try it out.  Well, in my best English, it is hard as you know what to get there across the currents.  You guessed it.  By the time I got down the 5 mile stretch, I was absolutely warn out.

Getting into the River is not Easy!

 So my next time out, I brought some savy with me from the river of (literally) hard knocks.  I just went-with-the-flow.  Even right at the rocks, allowing myself to first hit and then to push off back into the main current without flinging myself into the next set of rocks.  I also learned to tube with others, latch on, so that in going over the falls, we could hold together -- much harder to tip two or three tubes over.

Bottom line here?  The river was not the adversary.  The river was the way down to the goal.

Then I thought about how many times I have struggled against the currents.  Gone solo.  Tried to stand up against the currents!  Or stiff armed life to get my own way.  The school of hard knocks! 

 Then there came the year when I was in charge of a camp staff.  How do you build team, partnership, go for the goal?  We shot the Hiawasee River!  They too learned the wisdom of the river and never forgot it all summer.  At the end of the camping season, we took our last trip down--yet to this day I remember the deepest part of the wisdom, that life itself is a river and we can trust God as we navigate it. 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy habitation of the Most High. 

                                                                  Psalm 46:4

What the Rose Says

The secret of change
is to focus all of your energy,
not on holding the old,
but on building 
the new.

Socrates, 469-399 B.C.  Greek Philosopher





Or, if you prefer---then in Revelation 21:  "Behold I make all things new!"   But these are frightening words to hear and the hardest to accept--that who we are is always changing. We live under the illusion that who we are now is stable--yet it is not, never--so do we build on what we are becoming or try to hold on to who and what we are?  

Which brings us back to the rose...
It goes through a life cycle and is always moving toward its next bloom.  The healthy plant fosters new growth.  No bloom is exactly like the last one.  

Which brings us back to our own lives....
Do we have the slightest inkling of who we are becoming and want to be? 
Maybe if we did, then we could prepare and build for the new.  

I like the image of the flower--open to the sun, responsive to light...
for Christians, are we open to the Son who is the Light of the world?  

Trail Magic!

"Trail Magic" 
Makes the Journey

I continue to hike the Appalachian Trail through the book Hiking Through: One Man's Journey to Freedom and Peace on the Appalachian Trail. Every day I take a few chapters with Paul Stutzman, the author, and one or two hiking buddies who joined up along the way.

Trail Magic!  That's what is called--unexpected gifts left by others on the AT for others to find.  It even be Twinkies--remember them?  Or, then there are groups which set up grills and cook at popular shelters.  Others wait with cars to shuttle weary hikers into town for a hot meal and hotel. Other groups form and set out the next day.   Trail Magic represent all forms of free gifts with no strings attached which meet the hiker's needs.  And from what I have read--it really does make the difference. 

Caritas--that's the Greek word used in the New Testament for the gift of grace--no strings attached.  Sometimes caritas represents a spiritual gift such as compassion.  We see that "trail magic" for the Good Samaritan who stops along the way and cares for the traveler mugged and left to die.  It happens with specific, tangible gifts but is first motivated from the inner spirit to give.  Stutzman guesses that people who leave trail magic are those who have been out on the AT, know what it can mean, and break their necks to pass on the gifts---no strings attached.  Well maybe the strings of common experience out of which all compassion is usually born. 

The Hike of a Lifetime

Hiking Through: 

One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom 

on the Appalachian Trail  

by Paul Stutzman

Ever hike the AT--the Appalachian Trail?  Heck no!  I am luck to hike through our local park and find my way back home.  So, I have walked the AT with Paul Stutzman who set out following his wife's death from cancer to "get outside himself and the loss."  He is not walking away from her death.  His journey walks into the heart of it so he can literally see it in a new way.  Take a look at the picture above. What a view!  And yet the view, the new vision he sees is of his own life set against this background.

Ever hike the Emmaus Road?  Located outside Jerusalem, it was known for nothing, less than a crossroads where people lived.  Following the death of Jesus, some disciples just wanted out--to get out of town, to go to a place of no identity.  That's when they bumped into Jesus.

The hike is always the metaphor for the spiritual journey, the way we traverse inside ourselves.  You can't even walk the public park without making that connection.  The spiritual journey is about moving from where we are to the place where God calls us--just in time to move on again. 

Rock Concert Special Effects!

Mother Nature Refuses to be Outdone!

Talk about a light show! A meteor was captured on video during a middle-of-the-night rock concert in Argentina on April 21, 2013. The band, Los Tekis performed at an outdoor concert venue and in perfect timing, right after the band concluded a song, the person who shot the video panned out so that the sky was visible — just as the meteor lit up the sky.  (from the web) 

You should google this one:  (meteor rock concert) and see it for yourself--really incredible!  There they were at this concert and light show, when what to their wondering eyes should appear--but a meteor streaking across the sky with a blaze and explosion of light.  

It strikes me that we walk around in our own "light" and what we view as special effects.  Along comes God in creation--and wow--the Light outshines the light.  It's been that way since creation, hasn't it? 

The Golden Pond Gospel

When great actors utter wonderful wisdom...

Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda          On Golden Pond

Was the plot great in On Golden Pond?  Or did great actors like Hepburn and Fonda make it so?  There was just something in the dialogue, the acting between them, that echoed a wisdom that went beyond the plot itself.  Both in their old age brought out the truth of old age which we saw in them.  Fonda suffers from dementia, wanders out to the end of the road, and we see him panicking because he forgets where he is and what he is doing.  The movie ends with Fond collapsing with heart pain on the front porch.  But most of all are the Loons who themselves age and Billy the young teen snags one which has died.  "Norman," asks Billy, "are you afraid to die?"  Fonda barks back--"What kind of a question is that?  Why do we always have to be asking questions?"  Three months after shooting the movie--Henry Fonda died. 

I must say that the part of the movie which rang truest for me was when Norman sets the cabin on fire. Billy runs in, throws a bucket of water on it, and then Norman complains because he has made a mess.  He cusses at Billy and stomps off.  Enter Ethel played Hepburn.  She tells Billy:

"Sometimes he has to roar like an old lion to remember that he can still do it.  Billy, sometimes you have to look straight at a person and just remember that he is doing the best he can."

As I watched this movie--I told myself that Hepburn and Fond were doing exactly that--the best they could to show us this side of the older years. 

Self-Care is Name of the Game

Greg Maddux, Cy Young and Golden Glove Winner

Call it:  The Maddux Move 

I will never forget the 7th inning of an Atlanta Braves' game. Greg Maddux, the all stars all star, was moving them down from the mound. Never over powering, always on target with perfect control--the players called him "professor" because of the geeky appearance with thick black glasses.  At one time, Maddux earned around $3500 per pitch.   So it was the 7th inning, and Maddux had 2 strikes on the batter, when suddenly he stopped, stepped off the mound and motioned to the dug-out.  So out came the manager and trainer--and soon Maddux himself left the game.  Nothing apparently wrong!  Later on, I read in the paper that his arm just did not feel right--so he stopped right in the middle of one batter and took himself out. 

What does it take to take yourself out of "the old ball game?"  When do you realize that there is something wrong so that you need to stop then and there? 

I was driving my boys to Maine from Atlanta in a big old loaded down Suburban--a land yacht. I looked down at the thermostat--a routine glance--and it was in the red zone.  How long?  Who knows.  But that is the danger zone and if you burn out your engine if you don't pull over right at the moment---no next exit--just stop! 

How long do we travel down the road of our lives without checking the dials, those vital stats? 

Recently, I hit that place where I was over-saturated with too much stuff--the work, the emotions, the reaching out to the point of being blind to self.  It was time to go to the dug out....to pull over....and to spend a day in self-care:  just being, breathing in the day and touching your humanity. 

The Native Americans used to journey for several days.  They would then stop because they said they needed to allow their spirits to catch up.  Or, to breathe in  the Holy Spirit to revive the human spirit. 

How well do you know yourself to take yourself out of the game?

How often do you check the gauges in your life to know when to pull over?

How long have you hiked without letting your spirit catch up?

God only knows....and so should we. 

Honoring Boston Victims

Words Fall Short for Boston Victims

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love 

will have the final word in reality.  

\That is why right, temporarily defeated, 

is stronger than evil triumphant.  

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Martin Richard (age 8)      Krystle Campbell (age 29)      Lu Lingzi  (20's, Chinese National) 

Sean Collins (age 26, MIT Security Guard)

 

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

Revelation 21

Boston Freed--Suspect in Custody!

No Man Is An Island     by:  John Donne 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

I watched the hunt for the suspect in the Boston bombing all day long.  The TV was left running as I went about my work.  Then, as I watched the final surrounding and surrender, my feelings and thoughts surprised me.  Pity, concern, now they can treat him....

What?  I was shocked at my reaction because I had also felt the deep anguish and pain for the carnage of human lives.  Nothing can erase the agony of those left alive who lost loved ones and who were maimed.  What about the terror imposed on neighborhoods as the police forces went door to door--the all clear was announced--and this kid was still there?  The cost was overwhelming right down to the mundane dollars spent.  Once again the face of America will change.  
 
I can only explain my feelings at the end of the manhunt as "hiumanizing" this figure of evil into a 19 year old kid.  He became a person--no matter how horribly twisted and perverted into the worst of the worst.  He was hunted down like a rabid dog because he had acted worse than that, something sub-human.  But he was human in my gut and that's where my feelings must have come from. 

 John Donne captures it:  "every man's loss diminishes me."  The humanity in me connected with his humanity...all of us are linked together.  The bombs killed a part of us, wounded all of us.  Donne was saying that until we are all freed from hate and terror--the terrorist and his target--we are all bound up together.  The only way out is to pray for all of us.  Yes, I said that--all of us. 
I can also share the waves of sheer respect and affirmation for the police and security personnel on all levels.  I saw a community freed from terror.  I could stand in the crowds and shout for the joy of being set free.  

But still I return to Donne and to the prayer that one day we will no longer need security and then we shall be truly freed--"and there will be no wars or rumors of wars" and "there will be peace on my holy mountain."  

Tonight I pray for Jesus to carry that young man home to healing in the most ultimate of ways--and with him, those he killed and maimed, and lastly to carry me home as well.  

                             
 

Suspect leaves in ambulance

The FBI Suspects

FBI Releases Suspect Pictures in Boston Bombing

"If you could reach down and pull out the heart of evil,

you would pull out your own heart."  

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

No getting around it.  The acts of terrorism in Boston were evil.  Whatever we call good in our lives and in this world is the opposite of the deliberate harm of human life. The Solzhenitsyn quotation gets to the heart of it--we are all capable of evil.  The Christian standpoint does not regard evil and good as equals:  "good transforms evil."  The power of God's goodness was declared at Creation--not a perfect world, but a world that is GOOD.  Evil was not created at the same time; it is a perversion, corruption of God's goodness by our free will.  The faces of these suspects could be any of us.  They happen to belong to two young men who believe for their own reasons that they were justified in what they did.  Goodness prevailed. People ran into the chaos and brought out the order of selfless care.  Goodness has always had the last word. 

Two Thumbs up, Roger Ebert

"I was born inside the movie of my life."
                                                     Roger Ebert
                                         Life Itself, his memoir (2011)

Oh my say no...so sorry Roger to see you go.  You were the thumbs up and thumbs down guy I turned to because I could not trust The New Yorker movie reviews. You were the "go to guy" for the screen.  I like what Dan Zak wrote in the Washington Post: 

I love movies because of you, Roger.  Or, rather, I understand the movies and myself well enough to call it love because of you.

It is one thing to just rely on another person's opinion like I did.  Quite another to learn a way of seeing the world and how it is cast on the screen so it can be understood, its passion passed on.  Again, Zak writes:  

A critic’s noblest and most generous act is to inspire passion in others. 

Roger Ebert taught me to love the movies.

Let's respect Ebert even more for the battle he waged against cancer.  When you are being eat alive from the inside out, how do we keep our perspective, our vision of the world and our place in it?  Where do we find hope to live the next day?  For Ebert, I saw a man who life was bigger than himself and the place to look for it was on the screen.  

Two thumbs up, Roger!

A Place in this World

It happens to me too,
the voices and choices
are too much at times
and I need a quiet place
just me and the moon
or me and the sky
a place where I can hear God whisper
reminding me to breathe
asking me to 'hold on'
and when I hear this
I know everything will be O.K...
Ron Atchison

Who was it that said--give me a fulcrum big enough and a place to put it and I can move the world?  Or does it matter who said it?  The real point is what God can do and will do for us. Get to a quiet place.  Step out. Offer your life up -- and accept the blessings that flow with the sunlight into your deepest self.   Then it will you who will be moved! 

Boston After-Shocks

Boston:  
The Media After-Shock

Earthquakes are followed by after-shocks.  They frighten almost as much as the original quake because they recall and repeat the previous experience and emotions.  I found myself changing channels every time they did yet one more replay of the bombs going off in Boston.  This time I would not make the same mistake to allow the media to sear the image of the planes and the towers.  Nevertheless--the assault was there.  Dare we say co-conspirators for the terrorists as their act and fear was replayed over and over? 

In the book, the Reality Slap, the author tells readers that the first response is self-care.  You get suddenly burned--then take your hand off the burner.  This goes for the media saturation that sears those events into us. 

What we can do is exactly the opposite of what terrorism does--humanize and not retreat by reaching out to others where we live (go give a unit of blood!), open a door for those in need, and by all means pray, pray, PRAY for those on the front line in Boston.  Terrorism degrades humanity in so many ways. It instills anger, hate and revenge.  "Faith, hope and charity--these abide, but the greatest is love."  (I Cor 13)  Go in the direction of LOVE. 

The Artist's Signature

Anne Kilham, Artist

"How would you like your picture autographed?"  

Some stories just keep coming back to me.  I visited the Anne Kilham gallery in Rockport, ME.  Far from the traditional glorious grey of the Maine coast, she paints with bright vivid colors that awaken your spirit.  I recalled going into the gallery that was very crowded on a Saturday.  I purchased a matted picture of a lighthouse (could not afford anything else!).  I went outside from the crowded gallery and sat down next to a woman who I soon smelled as a smoker. I distinctly recalled getting up and going.  She was dressed in old jeans--like she had been working outside.  We spoke for a while...and I commented how much I loved Anne's style, a vast improvement over some of the depressive tones of traditional Maine watercolors.  Taking a drag on her cigarette, she said through a puff of smoke--"How would you like your picture autographed?"  My goodness!  It was Anne Kilham herself.  I had bumped into the artist and the artist who met me and heard my comments wanted to sign off on the work.  She signed it.  I thanked her and she just got up and left.

We love the phrase--"You are a piece of work."  Aren't we all a piece of work--by the hand of God--and aren't we "signed" by God in who we are? 

Psalm 139

1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

                                        13 For you created my inmost being; 

                                     you knit me together in my mother's womb.

                          14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

                                       your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

The Gospel of The Help

The Gospel according to 
"The Help" 

Aibileen Clark: You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

Charlotte Phelan: Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.

Preacher Green: If you can love your enemy, you already have victory.

I must admit that I have not read the book.  The movie was riveting, and once watching it, could not stop.  If the Gospel is about liberation from who we try to be to the person God calls us to be--inspite of ourselves--well, The Help sends the Gospel message in these 3 quotations which struck me during the movie.  

The Gospel affirms our self worth:  we are all "kind, smart and important" in our own way. Not necessarily the way the world rewards people--but through the eyes of God, every hair on our head is numbered.  Do we accept that and treat others that way?  

The Gospel recognizes where our "Help" truly comes from.  Until all people are free, we ourselves are still enslaved.  Who were the real victims in the movie--there is the obvious group of maids who are second class wait staff.  There is the status quo majority who are also enslaved in their own system.  

Which reminds me so powerfully of that second quotation.  Courage is in our blood as God's children.  We can claim it and use it at any time.  Sometimes it skips a generation--but it is always needed and virtuous in God's greater service.  

My favorite scene in the movie?  When the maids are all gathered in one room, reading the book and kicking up their heels in sheer delight.  They have been HEARD, RECOGNIZED and AFFIRMED.  Their joy is unbounded in their freedom.  That's the Gospel of The Help. 

Jonathan Winters' Gift

 Farewell, 
Jonathan Winters....

 
"I could not wait for success...
so I went ahead without it!"
                                             Jonathan Winters


We lost a good one in Jonathan Winters. He embodied the theme of the title for these posts--
These stones will shout--because he was the real McCoy, the authentic guy in or out of character. 

One of my favorite Winters' show was "It's a Mad, Mad World," in which there was a star studded cast.  Winters stood out as somebody that the others took their cues from.  They could really be themselves because he was truly in his element. 

Who does that for us? Who do we relate to which frees us to be more ourselves?  Some pick a religious figure.  Or a spouse, friend -- more than role models to imitate, they seem to give permission for us to be ourselves.  Authentic people do that.  They don't wait for the success and recognition given by the world.  They believe enough in themselves to just step forward.  Thanks Jonathan!  You were truly one of a kind. 

Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor Awarded to Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun 

(60 years after his death as POW in Korea)

President Obama called Kapaun "an American soldier who didn't fire a gun, but who wielded the mightiest weapon of all... a love for his brothers so pure that he was willing to die so they might live." He was called the "shepherd in combat boots."  He carried a wounded soldier 4 miles in a forced march as a POW. 

It is utterly breathless to see the scripture lived out in such a act of bravery on behalf of another person.  John's Gospel put it this way:  "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."  

The Daily Medal

Every day we carry people's lives.  With words said, actions taken, prayers uttered--we carry the burden of the lives of so many others.  Like the chaplain, by sharing our lives--others are "saved" as they are released from whatever imprisons them.  Recently I watched a very loving daughter embrace her mother as the mother died.  I saw in her the power to carry another human life.  I also saw the ICU staff support this daughter in her amazing grace-filled embrace. 

No medals are given.  But life flares up like fatwood, the dross burned away and the real essence of a person revealed, as the poet says, still trailing clouds of glory.