Sunday Morning Chimes
Three Church bells ring in Philo,
The Catholic Mass is first,
The Presbyterians
Are next, then Martin
Luther takes his stand.
The steeples point like preachers
To blue sky up above
But storms will soon be coming
If we don’t act with love
And follow that sweet dove.
Yes, Jesus is our teacher,
We hear his bell ring true,
you sound and I am singing
You speak and I speak, too.
Bells ring for me and you.
after christmas the tree puked
needles the cat even ignored ornaments
the smudgy guilty fingerprints
enhanced the window glass
about two feet up with proof
of candy eaten frosting licked
from fingers and dog nose prints
mixed in for the seurat effect
while good people slept the sleep
of the over-indulged oblivious to the
recent refugees while focusing
on their personal holy family
Detail from Seurat’s La Parade de Cirque (1889), showing the contrasting dots of paint used in Pointillism, Metropolitan Museum of Art
NOTE: I, Gordon, not as well educated as Steve, had to look up ‘seurat’. Click HERE for information on George Seurat, the 19th Century painter known for introducing chromoluminarism and pointillism. and to get the drift of Steve’s upbeat poem. Though not feeling well these days, as noted elsewhere on Views from the Edge and on his CaringBridge page, Steve continues to amaze with his sardonic sense of humor in the face of the eventual eulogy.
Today three close mutual seminary friends from Texas, Arizona, and Illinois meet at Chicago’s Midway Airport and drive to Urbana for a short visit with Steve, Nadja, and their confused dog, Blazer. Blessings and peace to Don Dempsey, Bob Young, Harry Strong, Steve, Nadja, and Blazer.
We were young with no money to show,
But had patience, we want you to know:
We bought Mexican take-out,
And before we would make-out,
We looked good in the candlelight glow.
I hear the purr from spouse
As I feel the urge to pee
The quilt I push aside
And pivot socks to floor
The Persian carpet edge
I feel and know is worn
As I pad unsteadily
Around the bed
My right hand holds
The maple top
Of bureau that long ago
Lost the marble slabs
I wobble but reach out
For the chrome handle
Of the closet door
And inch to reach
The bathroom door
Always open to the bars
That help the elderly
Stay upright until
The seat is reached
No more do I stand
To urinate but
Lower pull-ups
Ahh release
Pull old body up again
Repeat my steps
Return to bed
INTRO: Steve just posted on his CaringBridge site: “Awoke clear-headed, with more energy than in weeks. Just wrote this poem”:
I do not know how to die.
No words left to say good-bye.The cancer spread everywhere;
Family and friends showed they care.Will I find a peaceful death?
Or fight for each gasping breath?Be here now? To future bow…
- Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 29, 2015
NOTE:
Biggest and smallest Dogs
My friend and Views from the Edge colleague, Steve, was diagnosed mid-November with terminal pancreatic cancer. For years death and dying have been a topic of conversation among the seminary friends who keep changing our group’s name. At first we called ourselves The Chicago Seven. After Dale died, we were six. We became The Gathering. More lately we call ourselves The Dogs. Steve at 6’8 is the biggest Dog. He’s always said “Big dogs go first.”
A month ago Steve came to Minnesota for a consultation at the Mayo Clinic. On a Thursday, Kay and I visited Steve and Nadja in their small room at the Kaylor Hotel across the street from the Clinic. While Nadja and Kay began to discuss the procedures Steve would undergo the next day, Steve stuck his fingers in his ears and smiled at me. I’m with Steve, I’d rather just do it when it’s time. I’d rather not know. I wonder if it’s a guy thing.
Steve wrote “The Last Septet” after his second Chemo treatment back in Illinois, a treatment meant to give him more time with no illusions about the outcome. To live forthrightly without illusion is a beautiful thing. Meanwhile, the other five Dogs watch and pray, growl and snarl, curse the cancer, mourn his demise, remember our shared mortality and the line from the Presbyterian Church (USA) A Brief Statement of Faith: “In life and death we belong to God.”
Gordon, a much smaller Dog, December 29, 2015.
Hee Haw
Burro’s ears
“Just put the burro here,” he said,
“She’ll calm the horses of the folks
inside the inn.” And so they tied
me to the pole above the trough.
I was surprised he later led
a man and girl into the stall
and pointing to the straw, he said,
“Sleep here, this simple space is all
that’s left tonight, and if the child
is born the cries won’t wake the guests.”
He grimaced, but she somehow smiled
and sank down to the ground. Their rests
did not last long. Her labor soon
began and then the baby, wrapped
and warm, was laid under the moon
light bright where we, the stock, were trapped
and fed. I brayed when shepherds dumb
barged in and said a king had come…
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 11, 2012
“No Christians Were There”
No Christians were there at the birth
of Jesus. (For “…disciples were
first called Christians in Antioch”
years later.) But were those who were
there believers? the shepherds, the wise
astrologers, the non-father,
the Blessed mother? Did they see
with eyes of faith, or more like we
do: wonder, ponder, doubt and stare
at the small baby stabled there…?
That three were Jews, we know for sure.
The genealogies we read
in Matthew, Luke, go back as far
as Abraham. Eight days, we read,
then circumcision for the babe.
The Arab wise guys may be from
the land we call Iran. The sheep
herders may have been aliens
in the land illegally: cheap
pay for smelly foreigners.
The barn contained no royalty–
the stock had better pedigree…
and yet some say a King was born
to poor folks that the rich would scorn…
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 21, 2013
Kate Shoemaker, MD, and her Uncle Steve Shoemaker share the same birthday – today, December 19. Kate sent this to Steve today. Kate, from St. Louis, MO, is spending the day with Steve and Nadja in Urbana, IL.
Happy Birthday poem from Kate Shoemaker to Uncle Steve.
The Atlantic published “Professor Suspended for Saying Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God” yesterday. Tenured political science Associate Professor Larycia Hawkins [Click HERE for Wheaton College’s faculty profile] was suspended by the Wheaton Administration for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
Steve Shoemaker, Wheaton College, Class of 1965, and co-publisher of Views from the Edge’s wrote this response this morning:
Who Is Worshiped at Wheaton College?
We worship the God of Abraham. (Jews)
We worship the G_D of Abraham (but consider his name so Holy, we do not say it or write it.) (Orthodox Jews)
We worship the God of Abraham. (Christians)
We worship Jesus, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, along with God the Creator, a Trinity, who we believe was The God of Abraham.
We worship the God of Abraham. (Muslims)
We worship Allah, whose prophet was Mohammad, the same God as the Christians, whose prophets were John the Baptist, and Mary, and Joseph and Jesus; and the same God as the Jews, whose prophets were Moses and Aaron and Miriam, and Jonah, and David.
Steven Robert Shoemaker, BA, Psychology, Wheaton College, 1965.
Well, certainly sometime…
but I mean, am I dying soon?
like before my next birthday…
or even before I get to make love again…
(and these days, at my advanced age,
that might well be AFTER my next b- day),
and is that a good sign, or a bad sign?
Energy is low, even after I stopped my statins,
(which one of my five M.D.s says increases
an elderly male’s risk of a heart attack)
–btw, having 5 Docs is certainly a sign
of one’s impending demise.
All of my doctors are younger than I am.
Two of my doctors are younger
than my youngest child.
The ages given of the newly dead
in my local paper’s obits are half
older, half younger than I am, usually.
I am writing more verses than ever,
but fewer sonnets–am I preferring
free verse because it is faster?
Am I desperate to say what I have to say
before I can no longer think or speak?
There are times now I can no longer
see the grid of streets (as if from above)
in my home town. I make more wrong turns.
My dreams are more memorable than
many conversations. Nightmares
are more frequent–nightSTALLIONS
chase me till the dawn.
If death is like sleep, will I ever
really rest in peace?
NOTE TO READERS: Steve has been diagnosed with a painful terminal cancer. They say people die the way they’ve lived. Steve is typically forthright about his condition. “I’m dying,” he says, as a simple matter of fact. As readers saw in his post about making sure the chair was there before you sit and the window open before your spit, his sense of humor is strong as ever. The size and length of his spirit exceeds his height of 6’8″ and his sleeve length. Would that we might all learn to die with dignity, grace, and humor.
Views from the Edge 