Category Archives: Love

Verse – The Memorial Service

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The day we remember
at the Memorial Service
a friend of 55 years, some
will say he was a human
having a spiritual experience,
looking to the skies for the
one who’s “passed on”.

Others of us remember
the face, the smile, the stride,
the fitness, the speech
and mannerisms during
walks in the mountain woods
of a real human having a
spiritual experience.

Are we flesh and blood,
living on the eternal’s shore
turned back to dust?
Or are we stardust that
never dies, immortals
experiencing mortality
before returning to the sky?

Has he died or passed on?
Are the ashes and memories
of Phil what remain of him
or were his smile, his walk
and talk just time-bound
expressions of a spiritual
being locked in a cage?

I hear no bird singing but
the funeral dirge and hymn
reminding us to think
less of ourselves and our
not-so exceptional species
of flesh and blood, dust and
ashes left in cemetery urns.

“O God, our help in ages
past, our hope for years to
come, we fly forgotten as
a dream dies at the opening
day. Be Thou our guide
while life shall last and
our eternal home.”

Today our tears again will
fall, as do all creatures
great and small when
time’s short river returns
to the eternal ebb and flow
whence we came and to
which all soon return, with
sobs of humility and praise.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, October 17, 2015, written in anticipation of today’s Memorial Service for college and seminary classmate and friend Philip Conner Brown. At the same time as the Memorial Service today at White Bear Lake United Methodist Church, he will be remembered in a Chapel service for Maryville College alumni who died during the last year.

 

A Hopeful Prayer for Healing

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A prayer for a sick person named “C______”:

Gracious God,

We know how to pray for sick C______, and, indeed, for anyone (including ourselves). Your child, Jesus, taught us to pray for daily bread, forgiveness, for You not to lead us into temptation, AND TO DELIVER US FROM EVIL!

Cancer is evil (as are heart attacks, brain tumors, diseases beyond number, and your last enemy, death.) Deliver C______, and us all. We pray for healing and full health.

We also know, however, even Jesus did not heal everyone, that not all His prayers were answered, even His prayer “If possible, may this cup pass from me.”

If healing is impossible, remind us of Psalm 23, and that in the shadow of death, we can know You are with us, fear no evil, and be comforted. Amen.

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 7, 2015

I’m Sorry

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Remember Love Story’s line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”?

It was mistaken then, and it’s mistaken now. Love often means saying your sorry. Repeatedly. It means some sadness. It means taking responsibility.

Watching and listening to Hillary Clinton over these last weeks and months leads me to another version of the Love Story line, created by the increasing perception of entitlement.

“Haughtiness means never having to say you’re sorry”… except when it becomes necessary to rescue one’s own ambitions. The smirk, the tilt of the head, the rolling of the eyes speak louder than “I’m sorry”.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/08/politics/hillary-clinton-private-email-abc-news-apology/

Sorry (kinda/sorta) for being so political!

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, September 10, 2015

Who Is Emily Hedges?

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Emily Hedges

Emily Hedges

Emily’s not just any writer. She’s a good one!  Emily’s review of Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s controversial sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, appeared on Views from the Edge on Thursday.

Parenting three adopted children with husband Joe, she carries a history of courageously outgrowing herself. Today she’s thriving at Dartmouth College, earning her master’s degree in creative writing and student-teaching basic writing to undergrads. Kay and I became friends the Hedges during their time here in Minnesota.

New Hampshire is politically hot right now in the run-up to the New Hampshire Presidential Primaries. Donald Trump is making it big.  So what happens when conservative parents from Oklahoma take over the television during a family visit in New Hampshire?

You may recognize yourself in this highly personal piece. She’s sensitive to her parents, although she no longer agrees with their conservative, apocalyptic view of the world. She constantly struggles with when to bite her tongue and when to speak up. Now that her children are old enough to be influenced by their beliefs, the stakes have never been higher.

Check back with Views from the Edge for her story Trumped.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, September 5, 2015.

Verse – ?

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Question Mrk

Question Mrk

Sending a son or daughter off to college is hard for a parent.

Steve captured the sentiment in this piece “written in 1988 when my son, Daniel, left home to go to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.”

 

 

 

To choose a title first is such an act
of pride (as if one knows just where a thought
will go.) Is “Saying Goodbye to Our Son”
a better choice than “Letting Go?” And when
is specificity superior
to breadth? Do only parents know the fear
of being left behind when children leave?
Is every parting death, a tiny grave?

A title should invite…entice…alert
the reader to the text. But what comes next?
That is the question. Eyes will open wide
and see new truth. Will truth lead to the good?
We hug and hope and wave goodbye. The path
twists back and then away (“A Brand New Birth?)

  • Steve Shoemaker [Published in Presbyterian Outlook]

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Verse – after a 7-day party

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the torah says the world was made
in 6 days then g_d rested our
big family gave gifts of food
& drink & games & laughs & more
for 7 days without a break
because for 5 decades my wife
& i were too stubborn to make
a split of course there had been strife
im often selfish or a jerk
so get a spouse who will not talk
& have 2 kids who always look
at the best side of what they see
give thanks for generosity
& for the worlds best family

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 24, 2015

NOTE: Happy 50th Anniversary, Steve and Nadja.

Verse – Mutual Attraction

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She may have been my father’s mistress, but
I’ll never know. “I’ve given all that up,”
was all he’d ever say until we put
him in the ground. He helped our mother up
and down the stairs for years with her bad knees,
and washed their clothes, perhaps in penitence.

But forty years before, in innocence,
I wrote about her beauty in a verse
for high school English class. I showed my Dad,
he said, “Why’d you choose her?” “I see her three
times every week in Church!” I said, “and she
is the best looking woman there…” He had
no more to say. Was it coincidence
she and her husband left our Baptist Church?

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 5, 2015

Verse – Eclipsed

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Our son called with the news of his
son’s birth. It was before cell phones–
I took the call while sitting down
behind my own grandfather’s desk
now in my office at the Y.

The news caused both of us to cry.
He had been with his spouse, of course,
had helped the Doula and the Nurse,
but she produced the small, grand child
without a Doctor near. I called

my wife at her Lab with the news.
We laughed recalling the eclipse
that left me in the dark when she
had birthed our son so painfully.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 4, 2015

An Obvious Conclusion

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Author Frederick Buechner puts into words the feeling at the 55th high school reunion last weekend.

ON AGING

As time goes by, you start picking [your contemporaries] out in crowds. There aren’t as many of them around as there used to be. More likely than not, you don’t say anything, and neither do they, but something seems to pass between you anyhow. They have come from the same beginning. They have seen the same sights along the way. They are bound for the same end and will get there about the same time you do. There are some who by the looks of them you wouldn’t invite home for dinner on a bet, but they are your companons de voyage even so. You wish them well.

It is sad to think that it has taken you so many years to reach so obvious a conclusion.

– Frederick Buechner, originally published in Whistling in the Dark. Re-published today by The Frederick Buechner Center.

55th class reunion

55th class reunion

Verse – Last Prayer for a Cat

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Often only your tail twitched in sleep.
Now you move not at all.
When you were spry,
you batted toys (and mice)
with a blur of paws.

When snuggled into a lap,
only the felt vibration
indicated life.

Digging your grave
let me mix muscles
with tears– energy
put to some use.

Rest well, my friend.
I knew you were my friend
even when you ignored me.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 8, 2015