Elijah spoke yesterday. Elijah preached yesterday. Elijah spoke from the heart yesterday. Elijah was kind yesterday. Elijah warned us yesterday. Elijah spoke of destiny yesterday. Elijah challenged all of us yesterday:
“C’mon now! We’re better than this! We really are!
Congressman Elijah Cummings, Chair of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, is named after the Hebrew prophet.
— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 28 2019.
Elijah made Elijah proud yesterday!
Elijah, you seem really happy this morning.
I am, Bumpa! It’s a great day!
I wish I could be that happy!
You can, Bumpa. It’s easy.
Easy for you to say. It’s not easy
Uh-huh! Stop watching “How to Get Away with Murder,” Bumpa!
You mean Ray Donovan?
Ray, too. Ray and Annalise aren’t good for you. They’re making you grumpy like Oscar!
I know. Those shows are pretty depressing, Elijah. What do recommend?
Like I said, it’s easy, Just do what we do in day care.
I’m too old for day care, Elijah. Way too old. Look at me!!!
Do I have to? You have hairs sticking’ out of your nose and stuff! And you need a haircut!
Let’s get back to happiness. What do you recommend for Grandpa?
Like I said, stop watching those bad shows. They’re making you sad.
Okay, so I’ll stop watching Annalise and Ray. What do I do now?
Go to day care, Bumpa. Day care’s not just for kids. They have day care for grumpy old men. It’s called adult day care.
What do they do at adult day care?!
Don’t you know? They watch Sesame Street and get happy with Big Bird!
Sesame Street‘s for kids!
AND, for old guys with hairs sticking out of their nose and stuff. They accept anybody! Check in at 123 Sesame Street and get happy with Big Bird.
— Grandpa (Bumpa) Gordon, Chaska, MN, Feb. 23, 2019
Bumpa!!! Did you see that?
See what, Elijah?
Someone wants us to run in 2020!
Run for what?
President and Vice President!
Aha! Someones pulling your leg.
Uh-uh. Someone is serious, Bumpa.
Who’s Someone? Give me a name.
“Someone” IS the name.
I see. Where’d you hear Someone say that, Elijah?
On your blog!
Ah! So you saw Someone’s comment on the missing children post!
Yeah, Grandma showed it to me.
What do you mean “showed” it to you? You can’t read yet.
Yes I can. A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-3-4-5 . . .
I’m so proud of you, Elijah! You’re only 21 months old.
Yeah. When I turn 35 we can run as a ticket! We’ll make Someone happy!
Who’ll be at the top of the ticket?
Grandma said you got a ticket. You have a record.
No, this is a different kind of ticket. It’s not a speeding ticket.
Phew!!!
So, who does Someone think should be President?
You don’t pay attention to anyone, Bumpa.
That’s not true, Elijah. You hurt my feelings.
Just start by listening to Someone! One person at a time.
Okay, what did Someone say?
Someone said, “Elijah for President! Bumpa for Vice President! I vote for this team!!!”
And it all started with Someone.
— Grandpa (“Bumpa”) with Grandson Elijah, Chaska, MN, Feb. 22, 2019.
Bumpa, you’re mean! Why do you keep saying that?
Say what, Elijah?
That there’s no national emergency?
Because there isn’t.
Yes there is.
No, there isn’t. How would you know? You’re only 21.
You’re cruel, Bumpa! POTUS is kinder than you!
What’s gotten into your little head?
My head’s not little! My head’s bigger than 96 percent. Doctor said so! I’m in the top four percent!
I know. That’s good. But you shouldn’t get a big head about that! So, tell me, why do you think there’s a real national emergency?
POTUS declared it. I saw it on PBS!
On Sesame Street? Did Big Bird tell you?
No. It came on after Sesame Street. I saw it!
What did you see, Elijah?
MISSING children, Bumpa! Don’t you know? 1,475 kidnapped children, Bumpa! That’s a national emergency! We need to help rescue all those kidnapped children!
I hear you. We do. But the kidnappers didn’t come from south of the border. The kidnappers are not here illegally.
Uh-huh!
No, they aren’t. They’re legal. Homeland Security took them!
I like security. So there’s no national energency? The children are safe?
Well, no, Elijah. Homeland Security took them away from their parents, and then Homeland Security lost them.
So the President called a national emergency to find them, right?
No, Elijah. POTUS hasn’t said one word about the missing children.
Why, Bumpa? Why? That’s not right! Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, right?
Right! It’s not right!
Right, I told you! You’re wrong! There is a national emergency.
— Bumpa and Elijah, Chaska, MN, Feb. 18, 2019
Bumpa, can I be president… or do I have to be a lawyer?
Yes, you can, and no, you don’t. Why would you ask that, Elijah?
‘Cause they’re the only people who count.
Oh, my, Elijah! You were born in a strange time!
Uh-uh! I was nine when I was born. Mom says it was past time. Mom was miserable before I got borned.
She was, Elijah. She sure was.
You’re miserable, Bumpa! Are you pregnant?
No, only young women get pregnant and miserable. Old men just get miserable and grumpy.
Yeah, we’re Minnesotans. When can we go ice fishing?
Grandpa doesn’t do ice fishing. Maybe Uncle Andrew will take you and Calvin together.
Does Uncle Andrew have a fish house?
No. You don’t have to have a fish house to go ice fishing.
But you have to have a big house if you want to be president or a lawyer, right?
Well, no. You don’t have to have a big house to be a lawyer. Some lawyers are street lawyers and public defenders. All lawyers take an oath to protect the constitution.
But some lawyers are bad, right? Like Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani. Grandma says they’re walkin on thin ice. It’s a national emergency!
Yes and no, Elijah. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Giuliani represented or represent the president. The president’s about to fall through the ice for making stuff up.
Yeah, the president’s a national emergency and his lawyers pretend he’s not!
Yes, that’s our opinion.
Right! I changed my mind. I don’t want to be president, Bumpa, and I’m glad I don’t have to be like Michael and Rudy.
Like I said, Elijah, you could be either president or a lawyer, but you don’t have to be. You can be anything you want.
OK! I wanna to be like Uncle Andrew! I can be a ice fisherman right here in Minnesota and grow up to be a grumpy old man. I wanna be like you, Bumpa.
— Grandpa (“Bumpa”) Stewart and Elijah (21 months old), Chaska, MN, February 17, 2019
We’re in a real pickle this morning, Elijah. I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out it!
I like pickles! Pickles are good. You’re getting senile, Bumpa. You can’t get in a pickle!
No, no, we’re not inside a pickle. It’s is an idiom.
You said a bad word, Bumpa! I’m telling Mom! Mom says we’re not supposed to use that word.
I didn’t say idiot, Elijah. I said idiom. It’s a figure of speech, like “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
It’s raining cats and dogs? You must be senile, Bumpa. I’m little, but I’ve never seen it rain cats and dogs, and I know we can’t fit inside a pickle! You’re freaking me out!
I like pickles, too. Well, most kinds of pickles. Especially sweet pickles, like bread-and-butter pickles. I also like Jewish deli pickles. But this morning’s pickle is a real pickle that makes me sick.
Yeah, I hate that. I was sick last week. I hate throwing up.
Some pickles are sweet. Some pickles are sour. It’s the sour ones that sour my stomach.
So, are we in a sweet pickle or a sour pickle? Are we in a little pickle or a big pickle?
A BIG pickle, and it’s really sour.
You should only eat bread and butter pickles, Bumpa, and stop watching Rachel and Ari. Turn off the television and have a bread-and-butter pickle. Pickle is GOOD!
TURN UP THE SOUND and listen carefully as Elijah with his pickle tells his mother “Pickle is good!”
— Bumpa Gordon, Chaska, Minnesota, January 29, 2019.
I’ve never been a big fan of habits. In spite of what Octavia Butler believes — “Habit will sustain you, whether inspired or not” — I have scorned habits in favor of a more creative, spontaneous, non-habitual life. But this morning I came to my senses. I’ve not been inspired, and I’ve gotten out of a habit that sometimes brings inspiration.
Elijah
I’ve felt like the psalmist . . . or like poor little Elijah just 24 hours ago when he couldn’t keep anything down. Not even the Gatorade. When a joyful 19 month-old child gets sick, he doesn’t know what hit him. Sometimes his 76 year-old grandfather doesn’t know either.
Some viruses can’t be seen under a microscope. Some illnesses require more than an Internist’s diagnosis. Their origins defy medical explanation and resist our usual remedies: a stiff drink, an anti-depressant, vitamin and mineral supplements, exercise, or a change of diet. Which is where habits come in.
It’s been weeks since I got out of the habit of morning prayer. Flailing about at four o’clock this morning, I remember the line from Chaim Potok’s The Chosen: it’s the four-o’clock-in-the-morning questions that trouble us over a lifetime. I’ve gotten out of the habit of greeting the day with readings from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), spending a quiet time pondering the psalms and other readings assigned by a calendar prescribed by doctors of the soul. I need to return to a healthy diet.
My best friend is hospitalized, awaiting surgery required by complications from pancreatic cancer. His time is limited. So is mine. Fifty-four years of friendship soon to vanish like the morning mist. Whatever happens today on the operating table, it won’t be long before one of us is gone. I open the BCP. “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; O LORD, be my helper,” cries the psalmist (Psalm 30:10-11, BCP), recognizing that there is no quick fix for what ails him.
My friend knows this feeling. He also has a habit that serves him well when the raindrops keep falling on his head. When the four-o’clock-in-the-morning clouds and torrential rains come over him, he turns, as do I this morning, to that which he has not made up, and crawls inside the psalmist’s faith that “weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:6, BCP).
Returning to the habit I’d neglected, I read the psalm again and pray for my friend. But I’m not seeing my friend. I’m seeing someone else. I’m looking at Elijah. He has crawled inside his mother’s watchful care…in the bathtub. He is smiling, playing, and splashing the bath water with no hint of memory of last night when he couldn’t even keep down the Gatorade.
“You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy. Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O LORD my God, I will give you thanks for ever” (Ps. 30:12-13. BCW).
— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 15, 2018.
Opening up the cabin after a month away, the temperature was a bit chilly before we built the fire in the wood-burning stove. What warms me more than the fire is the stillness of the place. I read the Psalms differently here. I take time to ponder them.
Psalm 25 is the one I pondered this morning. At first it struck me as the kind of religion that’s killing us — the prayer of religious pride. A second and third reading took me deeper.
“Let none who look to you be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes. Show me your ways, O LORD, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me…” (Psalm 25:2-4a, Book of Common Prayer paraphrase).
Truth and falsehood. The ways of shamelessness and its opposite — treacherous schemes — collide in this psalm. I come to the cabin to get away from the treacherous schemes. I’m for truth and goodness, not treacherous schemes! That’s Trump, not I! Like the psalmist, I claim what no one can honestly claim: “in you have I trusted all the day long” (25:4c) But the psalmist is wiser.
Truth and Falsehood, Iza Bella [CC BY-SA 2.0 uk (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
“Remember, O LORD, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O LORD” (Psalm 25:5-6).
When you look at me, see me through the eyes of eternal compassion, the eyes of your steadfast love. See me the way a grandfather can’t help but see his 17 month-old grandson, Elijah, after Elijah has opened the kitchen cabinets he’s been told repeatedly not to open. See the look on the grandson’s face when he’s caught and his mother tells him “NO!” Watch Grandpa cover his face with his hand to hide to his smile and giggle as he sees the defiant look on Elijah’s little face.
Perhaps God is like that. The LORD of life (the Breath) is Mishomis —Ojibwe for ‘Grandfather’! See grandson Elijah playing peek-a-boo with his Mom from his car seat.
Remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, Mishomis.
BOO! And a good day to you. Sixteen-month-old Elijah’s strapped in his carseat for the drive to day care. Mom initiates some fun. Elijah imitates her babbling. Then, on his own initiative, he suddenly takes off his knit cap to play Peek-a-Boo, like the children in Georgios Jakovides‘s 1895 Peek-a-Boo painting from Germany. Some games are timeless and ubiquitous. Peek-a-Boo!🤗
During a recent visit to our house, Elijah’s mother had taped a moment between grandson and grandpa. Yesterday, Kristin wanted to show Elijah the video. He calls Grandpa Gordon “Bumpa” — take a peek.
