Posts tagged "Writing":

The Secret of Playing Cribbage

When I saw the notice in the newsletter that I could play cribbage on Monday mornings at the Senior Center, I thought,

I used to play cribbage. All I can remember are the words "fifteen for two", but I'm sure the game will come back to me."

It didn't, but that's neither here nor there.

The three people present – the only three people with whom I have played – welcomed me warmly, accepted my Braille cards and said,

We play in pairs.

And so my re-education in how to play cribbage began.

I still think it is really surreal to be playing cribbage with two men old enough to be my father and a woman old enough to be a much elder sister.

The object of the game is to score points by the play of the game or by the cards you hold. Obvious ways are pairs and runs. Cribbage stresses cards that add up to fifteen. Here are some examples:

• five plus ten or any picture card
• seven plus eight
• six plus nine
• three plus two plus ten or any picture card
• six plus ace plus eight

You get the idea. After a while, all these numbers can make my head swim. Add to this the need to discard one card I am dealt and to play to thirty-one while being mindful of pairs, runs and the inevitable fifteen, there is little opportunity for general conversation.

There's more to it, of course, but this is not a tutorial on how to play cribbage.

My playing companions are patient with my questions and my mistakes. They congratulate me on my successes even going as far as declaring me to be

a wicked card player.

My partner, (He always calls me "partner"), comes around at lunchtime to discuss our play or to ask if I am ready to play next week's game. He has played cribbage in Las Vegas for money and plays cribbage solitaire daily to keep in practice.

I thought to myself,

How very odd. I've always suspected senior centers to be nothing more than nursery schools for the elderly. And here I am, not that old, trying to create some excitement around an hour of playing cards.

But, my friends, that's not what playing cribbage is all about.

A friend said to me,

It's the social aspect.

By this I assume she meant that it is important for people to get out and stop thinking about their isolation and loneliness or their nearness to death.

• Is that why I play cribbage?
• Is that why I go back week after week?
  • To distract myself from my inevitable demise?
  • To amuse an old man?
  • To dissipate my own loneliness and regrets?

None of this sounded right to me. There must be more going on here than bread and circuses to keep a certain segment of the population from running amok.

We are dealt five cards. One must bee discarded before we begin play. Sometimes it is easy to know which card will not produce points. Other times it is quite difficult. I must choose between several good alternatives. I hesitate. I am the last to throw down a card. The others are anxious to get started yet they wait patiently.

Finally, I slide my choice over to the crib. We begin to play. The first card goes down. Then the second. I play the third. The man to my left studies his cards. We wait. Then we wait some more.

Do you have a card eight or less?

Silence.

The first card you thought about playing is probably the right one to choose.

More silence. At last he puts down a seven. The next player throws down an ace to make thirty-one and scores a point. We begin again at zero.

When all the cards are played, each person's hand is analyzed for the most points. No opportunity to score is overlooked. The pegs are moved on the board. Someone shuffles the cards and they are dealt again.

Then I know the secret of playing cribbage.

• Each person is welcome to play the game.
• Each person's slowness or ineptitude is not held against them.
• We play to stretch our minds, confident that we are capable of playing.
• If we are having difficulty, someone steps in to help without drawing undue attention to their assistance or its need.
• This is a safe place, a place where each of us can take our time to play the best game we know how to play. Note: I must have written this some time in 2013.

0012

I close the chapel door behind me. It is already dark. During Saturday evening worship it began snowing again. I am glad I took the time to first fold then slip the fringed end of my scarf through the makeshift loop, tightening the extra material around my neck. I pulled my hood up over my fleece ear band. It will be a very cold walk home.

The wind blasts up Main Street as my guide dog and I come around the corner of the old stone church. Head down, shoulders hunched, I urge Latham forward, confident in his sure-footedness and unerring sense of direction. I cannot feel the pavement beneath the snow. I have no idea where sidewalk ends and street begins. Latham knows. Latham always knows. I imagine the wind blowing his ears back, his tail stretched out, his long golden fur streaming. Naked to the elements, he seems unperturbed by cold, wind or snow.

As we walk, isolated from the world at large, private from all the people who pass us warm in their cars, I reflect on the service: It is strange, I think, how I can attend this service every week, dressed in boots, pullover and jeans, and no one knows. I say or chant the responses, stand or sit at the proper times, extend my hands for Communion and return to my seat, and no one knows. Other parishioners greet me before or after the service, exchange the peace with me and still no one knows. They say all the usual things: “It’s good to see you here tonight.” “What’s your dog’s name?” Even “Peace be with you.” No doubt, they assume many things about me, but no one knows. It will not change in the summer either. I’I'll trade my boots in for running shoes. I'll wear loose-fitting shirts instead of sweaters. I'll keep wearing my jeans. No one will know. 'm still amazed at this. Worshipers are very remote one from another. I come with my own conversion experience, my own fear and doubt, my own desire for heart-felt gratitude and praise. I come with my own needs, my own prayers, my own longings for intimacy, my own expectations of both God and church. I appear to be just another worshiper except for my blindness and Latham. The thing which genuinely separates me from all the others no one knows.

I was one of the first volunteers. The government investigations focused on the ones who were enrolled forcibly. That happened later, when there were not enough subjects for the tests. The researchers needed a large enough sample group. When volunteers were insufficient, boards of correction found it expedient to unload their sexual predators. Bounty hunters went out in search of addicts who would do anything for a fix. When there still were not enough of us, the developmentally challenged and the mentally ill were rounded up to fill out the list of participants for the Great Experiment.

Why did I volunteer? It was a combination of fear and idealism. I was afraid of my own sexuality. I certainly was afraid of everybody else’s sexuality. I thought undergoing the surgery, receiving the shots, taking the pills, engaging in the counseling sessions would alleviate my anxiety. I would become a new person. I could leave the old fearful me behind in the hospital bed, the lab and the psychiatrist’s office. I would emerge a free person, a beautiful butterfly from its chrysalis. I would be admired. I would be famous. All my energy would flow into my creative work. I would be recognized for my courage and vision. I would be counted among the first. I would be commemorated and remembered by all generations to come. I thought the procedure would change society for the better. I thought by becoming androgynous, by everyone becoming androgynous, we would abolish all the inequities of gender and sexual orientation. The distinction between men and women would be eliminated. We would all be a single sex, loving whoever we wanted without repercussions.

Whether I started life as male or female is unimportant. I still hold onto that part of the dream. Initially, giving up my gender-specific organs frightened me. I would be unable to reverse what the surgeon's scalpel did. I wondered how dependent I was on my gendered viewpoint to interpret the world around me. Gender defined me at the depth of my being. Gender was what terrified me and hindered my growth as a complete human being.

Some of the drugs had nasty side effects. One in particular sent me tripping for days. I thought I was underwater and unable to take a breath for fear of drowning. I clamped my hands over my mouth so I wouldn't open it. When the team assigned to me pulled my hands away, I both screamed on and on while I gasped for air and coughed and gurgled as if I had swallowed half the ocean. It was so dreadful and, oh, so real.

And if you are wondering—and people always wonder even if they will not say so—my pleasure center is still in tact. We are not sexless. We are single sex people.

I do not carry a card. I am not micro-chipped. Being stripped would tell any emergency medical technician what I am. They can check with the national database. I am listed as Subject 0012.

Walking in this snowstorm with Latham is so liberating. I can follow where he leads. My body is completely hidden, away from prying and judgmental eyes. We are safe here in the storm, my dog and me.

Did I have a lover? Yes. I remember making love the night before we were permanently separated. We were equally tender and passionate, rough and gentle, sweet and strong, dominant and submissive. I woke up the next morning alone in our bed, the sheets next to me cold and empty. The prison authorities had come so that my lover could resume serving a life sentence for molesting, murdering and dismembering a five-year-old child. A government investigator told me this with sadistic satisfaction. I was sick afterwards. My lover never mentioned the past, but then, neither did I.

Was I blind when I volunteered? No. That came later when we received the news the project was being dismantled. We were glued to our screens then, watching the protests, hearing all the lies. We were denounced as perverts, branded as scientific freaks, condemned for having unnatural sex. I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't listen anymore. I couldn't speak anymore. Security found me stabbing myself with stones—my eyes, my ears, my mouth.

I am officially listed as quiescent, that is, I’m deemed to be adjusting to a normal life. Adjusting? To a normal life? How do I fit myself into a bifurcated world of males and females without sacrificing my essential self? Single sex is what I am. I will not go back. I cannot.

That is why I go to church. For that space of time I can be shamelessly myself, wrapped in mystery, totally immersed in the other who is God. Gender has no meaning. God is neither male nor female. God is both male and female simultaneously. I can see God. I can hear God. I can speak to God. My physical self is neither an impediment nor a conduit. I am present. God is present. That is all that I need.

I’m relieved Latham has turned in at our apartment. The illusion of the storm’s protective covering would have seduced me to keep on walking until I succumbed to fatigue and hypothermia. Gratefully, I would have lain down, letting the snow envelop my body. I wonder if you really do feel warmer when you freeze to death.

I take off Latham’s harness when we get inside the apartment. He wriggles all over as I rub him down with a large towel. It’s important to him to do his face. He snorts. Do it again. It’s a game. Drying his feet, his tail, his belly–he tolerates me. His face, however, is a joy to be rubbed.

I strip off all my clothes. I’m cold and wet. I curl my toes. My feet feel numb. I run a hot bath. I add several capfuls of what the label calls a Milk Soak into the tub. The sales woman told me it would help me sleep. I slip into the aromatic water, run my puff between my legs and over my abdomen. I sigh. I dip the puff into the hot water again splashing my shoulders and chest. I breathe in the essence of lavender and chamomile. I sigh, more deeply this time and stretch, arching my back, bending my knees, satisfying myself.

Perhaps tonight I will dream, nestled under my blankets, hearing my lover whisper to me, “One times twelve is Twelve … Two times six is Twelve …Three times four is Twelve … Four times three is Twelve … Six times two is Twelve … Twelve times one is Twelve.”

---

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Weekly Message - Working

I shared this message with The Judson Fellowship: An American Baptist Church and member of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists this morning in Jamestown, New York.

Biblical texts for today:

• Psalm 66;
• John 14:8-14.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Can you believe it? Can you really believe it? Jesus says to us today: "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to [God] (John 14:12 NRSV).

Do you believe–do you really believe–that we can do greater things than Jesus? That is what our Scripture says this morning. It says that we will do greater things than Jesus did.

I don't know which is more fantastic, more astonishing, more preposterous–that we are capable of doing greater things than Jesus or that Jesus is speaking this Word to us today. Look around you. Jesus is saying this little band of believers gathered here this morning will do greater things than Jesus did in his lifetime on earth!

Do you believe this? Can you really say it out loud? Can you?

And more importantly, do you? Do you believe it? Do you act every minute of every day that you will do greater things than Jesus?

Let's find out. Try this sentence: I __ (say your own name out loud) will do greater things than Jesus.

How does that sound to you? Fantastic? Astonishing? Preposterous? Irreverent? Blasphemous?

How about scary?

Let's think for a minute what Jesus did. Give me some examples.

(Here are a few samples:)

• Cured a man of his demons (Mark 5:1-20);
• Cured a woman of a twelve-year flow of blood (Mark 5:25-34);
• fed the five thousand (Mark 6:30-44);
• walked on water (Mark 6:45-52);
• Gave Bartimaeus his sight (Mark 10:46-52);
• Raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44).

And we can do greater things than these?

Thursday night we read an article together from March's InSpiritor. 54 American Baptist churches and a number of like-minded individuals have declared themselves to be welcoming and affirming to "all persons without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity". In response, there's a proposal to "disfellowship" all Welcoming and Affirming churches from their respective associations and refuse to allow these same churches to associate with other churches non-geographically. A consultant to the General Board of ABC-USA has talked about "acceptable losses". Our General Secretary has called on us to be bridge builders rather than people who put up walls between us; to be Baptists who focus on the work. (The link is no longer active.)

"Disfellowship" is not a nice word–much less a real word. I began to ask myself if "fellowship" is a verb. Certainly not in English. In Greek perhaps–the original language of our New Testament? Well, yes, there's a verb and it means "I share." "Disfellowship" means, therefore, an unwillingness to share.

Well, The Judson Fellowship knows about sharing. We've been dubbed "the sharers": the people who don't want to put their resources into real property but want to reach out to other people, to put the money into work. Isn't that what Welcoming and Affirming is all about–sharing God's love with all people? Isn't that the work?

Fellowship is such a hard thing to maintain. It is so much easier to walk away. Isolation seems preferable: no arguments, no wrestling with our consciences, no struggling with what it means to be Jesus' disciples or how to love each other when we hold opposite views, no change, no growth, no work.

When I first got Caitlin–when we were still at the Seeing Eye–I bought a Nylo bone for her. It was just a toy for her to chew on. I hesitantly held it out to her. Those powerful jaws closed tightly on it. She seemed to be saying, "Mine!" Dogs don't share. Toddlers don't share. As adults, we make decisions about with whom we want to share. We have our own bank accounts, own our own homes in which we live with other people or not. Some of us may share clothing–jackets, sweaters, maybe even shirts, but I wonder about items like underwear. Toothbrushes are definitely out. We all have our limits.

Jesus says to us today, "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to [God]."

What sort of works is Jesus talking about? Not necessarily miracles: these works are not signs or wonders. It's work plain and simple–the kind of work that raises a sweat or provides a service. Jesus says our works, our deeds, our toil, our labor, our services, our sweat equity will be greater than any works Jesus did.

The old adage says: If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't. We may be inclined to ask, "What's the fine print here?" The offer that comes in the mail that says, "Here's a check for a thousand dollars for you," also says, "Cash it and you've agreed to pay it back at considerable interest."

When Philip says, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied (NRSV); that will be enough for us (NIV); that is all we need (CEV); something in me says, "Oh yes. Show us! That would be wonderful!" To be caught up in God would be to put all my troubles aside. I would be filled with love and a peace beyond words. That is all I need I tell myself!

Jesus, however, finds fault with Philip. Jesus finds fault with me, too. You and I and The Judson Fellowship are called to "greater works than these," not blissful contemplation. We are not to shirk the work.

To see Jesus is to see God. Unlike Philip, we are not reclining at table with Jesus in Jerusalem around the year 30. We are here in Jamestown, New York, May 1, 2005. Shortly we will eat a loaf of bread together and share a cup. It is in the words at our table, in the passing of food and drink, in the sharing of this meal, that we will know Jesus is in our midst. We will see Jesus in each other's face, feel Jesus' touch as we are handed food and drink and we hand food and drink to another person. Jesus is present in the simple act of sharing. Jesus is present in the work.

Think how different we are. Only a few of us are biologically related. Think how little we have in common. Jesus is the one who binds us together, who enables us to share our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our troubles and our fears with one another.

It's fantastic. It's astonishing. You wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, if you hadn't touched it with your own hands, if you hadn't experienced it for yourself.

Sharing together is one of the greater things Jesus is talking about today. Bringing very different people to be partners together is what Jesus is talking about today. Inclusion is what Jesus is talking about today. This is the work Jesus is talking about today. That is why I find "disfellowshipping" so offensive.

Relationships are difficult enough with the people we love. Relationships with people we don't agree with are very hard. I know. I'm experiencing this right now. I would rather just hang out with people who like me, who agree with me, who support me, who approve of me. Jesus' words call out to me to do something more, something fantastic, something astonishing, something preposterous. Jesus calls me to share with others: people who don't like me, who don't agree with me, who don't support me and who don't approve of me.

The greater things than all the miracles we named at the beginning is "love each other, just as I have loved you. If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:34b-35). It's sweaty, gut-wrenching work.

There's no way around it–Christian love is work. There's a lot of risk involved. Feelings get hurt. Self-esteem and confidence fall through the floor. Minds get changed. Truths we once thought were incontrovertible turn out to be falsehoods.

I have one caution: Risk-taking in relationships does not extend to putting yourself in harm's way in domestic relationships. Jesus does not intend for us to be in abusive relationships: spiritual, emotional or physical. If you are in one, get out. If you need help, ask. There is no situation that you can't get out of. You don't have to stay. Get out.

What I am talking about today is those voluntary associations we respond to because we believe God has called us together to be a community of Christian love and to continue Christ's ministry of building the Kingdom of God on earth. One way I believe we do that is working so that some day all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or their gender identity will say, "Blessed be God, because [God] has not rejected my prayer or removed his [or her] steadfast love from me" (Psalm 66:20. This is the greater work Jesus calls us to do today.

Amen.