faith

Honor and Integrity

May 15, 2020 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

I still talk to people.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say people still talk to me, since I’m most often doing a greater amount of listening than speaking, which is where the ideas of most of these stories begin. It’s harder now, of course. Hard to have a conversation when you’re six feet away from the person you’re trying to communicate with. And I won’t even get into the difficulties involved in talking through a mask.

Still, it’s rare that I seek anybody out in order to write something. I’ve always just tried to keep my eyes and ears open and trust that a story will come to me. But that’s not the case this time. This time, I went out looking for somebody. I needed some answers.

Take a drive in my little town and you’ll likely get a very small picture of what’s going on most everywhere else. People are like that, I think — they grow up and live in one place or another, and I have no doubt that place shapes them like few things can, but at the bottom we’re all the same no matter where we call home.

And here in my little town, people are getting tired.

Tired of staying home. Tired of worrying every time they go to the store. Tired of not working, tired of having their lives on hold. Stop anywhere for even just a few minutes, and you’ll find that far from this virus bringing us together, it’s dividing us even more than we were a few months ago.

There are the folks who stay home because that’s what they call right, and the folks who go out because that’s what they call right. Ones who wear a mask every time they leave the house, and ones who say wearing a mask is about the worst thing you can do for a whole host of reasons. This whole mess is just one more flaw in a flawed world, or it’s a sign of something sinister in the flawed hearts of politicians.

If I scroll through my social media feeds (something I put strict limits on, by and way, especially now) the divide is even more apparent. We’re all gonna die if we’re not careful, or we’re all gonna die if we keep giving up our rights.

It’s true, it’s fake. I believe, I don’t believe. I’m right, you’re evil.

I read an article the other day that suggested a lot of this comes down to moral exhaustion. We’re all tired of not only thinking we’re going to get sick, but we’re going to somehow get the people we love sick, too. And if I’m honest, I’ll say I’m starting to worry about a whole lot more than a virus that can kill you. I’m starting to worry if we’ll ever be able to agree on anything again.

Which is why I drove out to the edge of town the other day to look for Eli. I’ve known Eli and his family for most of my life, sharing a common if distant ancestry. My mother was Amish growing up, and then Mennonite, which is kind of the same thing but not really. Eli has remained Amish, along with his wife, their six children, and enough grandchildren and great-grandchildren to fill up a church.

There are times when I’ll turn to my more earthly kin for a little perspective on things. Then there are times when only the Amish will do. Times like this one, when I needed someone who generally lived apart from society to tell me what in the world was going on with society. We sat on his back porch (six feet apart and masked) along with the birds and the sunshine. I asked Eli if he knew what was going on out there in the world. He did. He nodded and stroked his beard when I said it was getting a little hard to know what to do. Then he let out a quiet

“Mmmm” and held up one gnarled hand.

“Honor,” he said. He kept that one raised and lifted the other. “Integrity.”

I think Eli meant for that to be it. Lesson over. But I’ve never been a very good student.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Mmmm. Honor,” he said again, shaking his right hand. “Integrity,” again, shaking the other.

“You’re gonna have to help me out a little more here, Eli.”

“That’s your choice.”

“Always thought they were pretty much the same.”

He looked at me in a way that said if he was allowed to take the Lord’s name in vain, he would.

“We live by honor,” he told me. “Was a time when most others did as well. Not your father’s time. Your grandfather’s, maybe.

Now it is integrity. Everything is integrity.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Mmmm. Who am I?”

I sat there trying to figure if that was a trick question. “Eli.”

“What am I?”

“A man.”

“Mmmm.”

“That sound you keep making a sign of disgust, Eli?”

“What else am I?” He asked.

“A father. Grandfather. Great-grandfather.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. Farmer. Deacon. Amish.”

He waved his fingers at me like that was enough. “I am Eli,” he said. “I am a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I am a farmer and a deacon. I am Amish. I am all of those things, but honor says I am all of those things before I am Eli. Honor says I tend to these needs before I tend to my own wants. Why? Because I am a part of something greater than me. A family, a community, a faith. See?”

Starting to.

“You,” he said, and then he pointed — at me, I guess, but also everyone like me, “you say I am a father and grandfather and great-grandfather. You say I am a farmer and a deacon and Amish, but you say I am Eli first. I am a person with rights that will not be taken and freedoms that will not be curtailed no matter the reason.

Because I am an individual, and only that matters — me, Eli. See?”

Yes.

“I wear this mask not to keep me safe, but my Sarah. We stay home not to keep ourselves safe, but our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We share food and what money we can to those who have less. We pray for them before we pray for ourselves, because that is what we do. Because I will die. Soon, I think.

And then I will stand before a Lord who will not say to me, ‘What did you do for Eli?’ but ‘What did you do for others?’”

That was two days ago. Normally when I come across a story, I’ll jot some notes down in my notebook, write it all up, and then throw those notes away. But those notes are still sitting here on my desk, and I think that’s where they’ll stay.

Honor or integrity. I think that’s the choice all of this comes down to.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m fearful of the choice we’re all about to make.

The Saturday in between

March 30, 2018 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

If like me you are counted among the mass of Christians in this country, you consider these seven days among the holiest of the year.

I’ve always been a great fan of the Easter season. You slog through yet another seemingly endless winter of bare trees and gray skies thinking things will never get better, and then comes along a day upon which everything turns—your mood, the season, even history itself. Flowers begin to bloom. Trees bud. Daylight stretches a little farther. Life is called forth from death. That is Easter to me.

Church will play an important role in the Coffey home this week. On Friday evening we will gather at a building in town to sing songs of a Man who was more than a man, Whose words of love and forgiveness led to His sufferings upon a cross. It will be a somber service as far as church goes. That is by design. The point will be to put our focus on the sorrows felt by Christ on that long-ago day, as well as the sadness and fear in His followers. At the service’s end, our pastor will stand before the congregation and say,

“Go from this place, for Jesus is dead.”

The sanctuary lights will then dim nearly to dark, leaving us all to feel our way out in shadow.

It’s powerful stuff.

But what will make Friday night’s service even more powerful is the one which will follow on Sunday morning, when we will all gather once more. Gone will be the sadness and the fear, all the shadows. Then will be joy and the light of day. For He is no longer dead, this Jesus. He is risen, and by His wounds we are risen as well.

That is what we believe. What I believe.

You can hold to otherwise, and that’s fine. Plenty who visit this place do not consider themselves religious at all, and I won’t begrudge them one bit. We’re all trying to make sense of this world and our place in it. Christianity is simply the way I make sense of mine.

But that’s not really the point of this piece. What’s struck me this week is the entire range of emotions Easter offers, and how that fits into much of the time we spend in this world. Two days during the Easter holiday receive the bulk of our attention—Good Friday and Easter Sunday. One a time of utter hopelessness and faith dashed, the other a day of unending joy and a hope so real and undeniable that it came to change the world. The gospel accounts share much of those two separate days. Even if you’re not a believer, I encourage you to read them. Yet I’ve often thought something missing from the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. A hole in the narrative I sometimes wish would have been filled.

We know what happened on that first Good Friday. Know what happened that first Easter Sunday. But the Bible is silent on what Jesus’s followers felt and did on the day in between.

That Saturday—that’s what I want to know.

Because when you think about it, that’s where the majority of our lives are lived. We are not so despondent that we have come to know all we once believed as worthless. Our lives do not feel devoid of purpose. Our very foundations have not been shaken. But nor are our days filled with such hope and assuredness that we feel shot through with a love beyond any this world could ever provide.

We don’t spend most of our days in the sorrow of Good Friday or the joy of Easter Sunday. No, most often we find ourselves living in the Saturday in between. Trying to figure out what to do next, what to let go of and what to hold onto. Trying, sometimes, just to get through the day.

It would be nice to know how Mary got through that day. Or Peter or John. But we don’t.

Maybe that’s on purpose, though.

You would think something as important as that Saturday would have been included in scripture. That it isn’t would suggest that maybe it isn’t important at all.

Maybe the point here is that life isn’t supposed to make sense all the time. That all of our questions and pains are here for the purpose of helping us to grow more and better. To become. It is to embrace the mystery of our lives fully and to always be searching. Our days are so often like the end of our Good Friday service at church—just a bunch of bodies groping about in shadow, searching for a way out. That isn’t such a bad thing. You never know what you’ll find while groping about in dim light, whose hand yours will brush against or who’s smile you will meet. What cause you will find to laugh.

The point of that first Saturday is an important one, I think—hang on. Always hang on. Do your work and smile and laugh and hang on.

Because Sunday’s coming.

Gently down the stream

January 23, 2018 by Billy Coffey 19 Comments

My mother passed on early in the morning of January 15, 2018. Her loss will be felt far beyond our family and into our small town where she served as a nurse for thirty-three years. Her service was held this past Friday at a little mountain church not far from home. By the time my daughter sat at the piano and began the first notes of It Is Well, the pews and vestibule were filled to capacity.

She was a good woman and a better mother, the sort of person you could not be around without feeling a little better about yourself and your world. I’ve been asked to publish here the words I spoke that night. Feel free to read as much or as little as you like.

It’s strange, the things that come to mind in a time such as this. Mom wouldn’t want this to be a sad occasion, wouldn’t want us all to sit here long in the face and short in hope. She would rather us leave here smiling out from full hearts, knowing it is well. All is well.

That was my only aim in deciding what to talk about this evening. So when I sat down to decide what I wanted to share with you, I did so reverently. Seriously. I dug through scripture and studied the wisdom of church fathers and philosophers and writers, but the only thing that crept its way into my mind and refused to budge wasn’t a psalm or a proverb or a saying of some great person of faith, it was the beginning of a nursery rhyme:

Row, row, row your boat…

And I thought, Really? That’s all I can come up with?

So I prayed. I said, “God, give me some wisdom here. Give me some direction.”

And I waited. And He answered, “Gently down the stream…”

So I gave up on finding something profound and comforting to tell you, because a nursery rhyme is a ridiculous thing to talk about in a situation like this. I went downstairs and tried again later, and this time I decided to go straight to the source. “Mom,” I said, “I have to do this, now. There’s going to be a lot of people there, Mom, and I want to tell them what you need them to know.

And Mom said, “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.”

And with that some old dusty drawer long untouched in my mind slid open and out fell a memory, one so clear and sharp that it could have happened mere hours ago instead of forty years—Mom and me riding down the road in her old yellow Camaro, singing that nursery rhyme.

Then other drawers flew open, other memories of other times we would sing that rhyme together: when she tucked me into bed and as we sat on the porch snapping beans, while I sat at the kitchen counter watching her make supper.

Mom taught me that song when I was five, maybe six, and I remembered that I became obsessed with it. Sang it all the time, and Mom would always sing it with me. We’d do it as a round, me starting off alone and Mom starting when I reached the word “stream,” the two of us trying to keep our parts right but never quite making it, leaving us both laughing by the end. I was so young that I thought that was the point of it all—to laugh. Now, I don’t think so. Now I think even those many years ago, Mom was getting us all ready for this night.

I’ve found myself these last days wanting to grab everyone I meet by the shoulders and give them a good shake, tell them “Don’t you know that none of this will last?” We all know that, don’t we? Nothing in this world lasts. But death is something we do our best to cast aside and try to forget. We run from it, ignore it, do all we can to stave it off.
But that doesn’t change the fact that life is a stream we all are set upon, and we begin every day in one spot along that stream and end it a little further along. Those two things are absolute and unchanging. There’s no going back against that current, no floating in place. We can only move forward bit by bit and little by little, on and on and on.

We are each given a boat to move along those waters. Some are large and fancy, others tattered and plain. Mom’s was tiny in some ways, having to hold only a small woman and a small town. She would tell you her boat was somewhat defective—to the day she passed on, she would laugh and blame all of her troubles on Amish inbreeding—but her boat was strong nonetheless, with a good rudder to keep her far from the shallows and the rocky places where so many become stranded. No, Mom lived in the deep part of the stream where the waters are calm and where she could look out and see the beauty and joy in all things. She rowed her boat straight down the middle all her life.

That is an important point to make. Mom rowed. You would perhaps take such a thing as that for granted—if you’re in a boat out in the middle of the stream, of course you have to row. But not all do. Some will stow their oars and sit back and let the current take them wherever, not caring where they go.

My mother was never like that. She was as driven a person as I have ever known, and she believed in work.

I’m not sure at what point nursing became her calling, but I’ve never known anyone more suited for her job. She spent long hours at the doctor’s office in Stuarts Draft, leaving early in the morning and often not returning until past dark, coming in tired and worn not merely from her labor but from shouldering the burdens of her patients. And she did that no matter who you were. When she called your name and led you back to an examining room she did so with a loving firmness—Mom was going to make you step on that scale whether you wanted to or not.

And when she asked you what was wrong, she felt your pains and worries as her own. She was the only person I’ve ever known who would ask, “How are you doing?” not out of social convention or politeness but of genuine concern. Mom wanted to know because that was the only way she could do her part in having you feel better, whether that was taking your temperature or drawing your blood. A smile and a dose of laughter. Or a prayer she would say for you at night that you never knew.
Her job was hard on us, on Dad and my sister and me. Amy and I grew up believing that to go to the store with Mom was some form of punishment. A simple trip for milk and bread to the IGA or the Food Lion would often stretch into hours because everyone knew her and she knew everyone.

There would be someone to greet her in the parking lot and another just inside the door, and then still more as we made our way down the aisles, patients and people from church and longtime friends, and she would make it a point to talk to them all no matter how busy she might have been, asking them how they were getting along and if there was anything she could do to help, because that’s who Mom was and who she remains.

She knew people, you see. Knew the human heart and mind and soul as well as any preacher. Her job taught her that. It didn’t matter how rich you were or how poor, what color you were or what your address happened to be, at some point you were going to get sick and need to see Dr. Hatter, and you’d have to go through my mother first.

She saw people who went down life’s stream bitter and those who went with anger. Some had lost the will to row at all. Still others had come to believe the stream we’re on was meaningless, and that there was only darkness at the end.
Mom always pitied the ones who believed such a thing. She came to understand early that the best way to row down that stream was gently. Gently down the stream. That is how Mom lived. That’s how she treated everyone, friend and stranger and family most of all. That’s how she taught her children, and her grandchildren. “You got to be nice to people,” she would say, “because you never know what they’re going through, and you might be the only bit of Jesus they’ll ever meet.”

That is what people know of Mom—her gentleness. But that certainly isn’t all. So many have called and written and spoke with me these last days about how she always seemed so happy. And she was. I stand here right now and say none of that was an act. But she wasn’t merely happy. She was joyful. Always quick to laugh with a unique ability to find humor in almost anything, and to me that will always be the one quality of hers that I will remember most.

You couldn’t be in a bad mood around her. There were so many times, especially as a teenager, when I would look at her and think, “What is wrong with you? How can you be so happy? Don’t you know how messed up everything is? Here I am barely managing to hang on, and you’re acting like things are great. I’m sulking, but here you are hopping merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily on your way.”

I’ll be honest. There was a time in my life when I was foolish enough to believe my mother lived in a tiny bubble and didn’t know much about the world. I was wrong about that. My mother knew more about living than I ever will. She hurt and endured and yet she remained joyful, and I believe that joy was present not in spite of those trials, but because of them. Mom came to know what so many of us never truly understand, and that is the power and grace and mercy of suffering. It is our nature to avoid hardships yet still they come, and because of our avoiding we don’t know how to deal with them. Mom did, and she did not flinch. She never once lost her joy.

And do you know why? How?

Listen to me, because this is important. This is what she wants you to hear.

Hard times, illnesses, trials, pain, grief. These things come to us all sooner or later. They come upon us like a storm that won’t pass, stripping away one layer of our lives after another until nothing is left but the soul, but those storms can go no further.

That’s what Mom found. That’s what she knew. The world can leave us bruised and maimed, but it cannot touch our souls. Our souls are God’s alone. They are always in His tender care.

And that brings me to my last point. I look out over this room in wonder that a single woman can touch so many lives. I’m not sure how, but I know why. Not long back I ran into a friend who wanted to know how Mom was doing. He said something that I’m sure was meant well. “What Sylvia needs,” he said, “is just a little more faith.”

That was all the proof I needed that he didn’t know my mother at all. You ask me how it was that Mom rowed her boat so well for so long, how she kept to the deep places in the stream so gently, so merrily, I’ll tell you it’s because her faith never wavered. Not once. We are gathered here in this place tonight, we sing her favorite songs, we pray and worship because that was the center of her life.

God never let her down. That is what Mom wants you to know. And she wants you to know that God will never let us down either. He is the one that made this stream we are on. His Son is the water and his Spirit is the current that leads us ever forward and all of it, every single bit of it, is for one purpose.

Love.

It would be easy to dismiss that right now. What I feel, what you feel, very likely doesn’t resemble love at all. And that’s okay.

I am reminded of the story of John the Baptist. At the end of his life he was imprisoned because Herod didn’t like the things John was preaching. John held on as best he could, wasting away a little every lonely day and dark night. Waiting. Praying. And when he couldn’t take anymore, he sent a few of his disciples to Jesus with a simple question.

“Are you the one, or should I wait for another?”

What John the Baptist was asking is this: Are you really the Son of God? Because I’ve spent all this time telling everyone you are, and I could really use you help here. Because I’m in trouble, and I won’t last much longer. Come and save me.”

So his disciples found Jesus, and do you know what Jesus told John’s disciples to go back and say?

Tell John that the blind can now see, the lame can walk, the lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are being raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.

That’s it.

You can imagine what John’s disciples were thinking. “Well, Jesus, that’s all just great. Really. But we’re just not too sure it’ll make John feel any better about things.”

So they turned to go away, and as they did Jesus said one more thing, saving it for the last because it’s so important: Tell John, he said, that “blessed is the one who does not fall away because of me.”

I’ve probably read that story a hundred times in my life, but the meaning of it never really clicked until this week. John had faith enough when his life was chugging along just fine, but there’s something about a prison cell and impending death that can bring doubts to the most faithful soul.

And that’s what this time feels like to so many of us right now. A cell. Four close walls and no window to see the light. Faith is easy when life is good and things are moving along exactly the way we think they should. But when they don’t? When our days become a prison like John’s, the world shrinks around us, and we are tempted to doubt the very things that are meant to give us strength, and hope, and faith.

Like John, we say, “You sure you’re up there, God? Because I really need you right now, and it feels like you’re not paying attention, and You’re not making much sense at all.”

And God says, “Of course I’m here, and I’m doing things so wonderful that you can’t even imagine them.” Then God says the same thing to us that Jesus said to John’s disciples. “Blessed is the one who does not fall away because of me.”

What does that mean? “Don’t lose faith just because you don’t understand it all. Don’t stumble because you don’t know why things have to be like this for now.”

Because I am working toward something incredible. Because this, all of this, this stream and this current, this life, isn’t all there is. Those we love and lose are never lost at all. They’re not gone, they’re just a little ways farther down the stream. They’re home, waiting for us, ready to celebrate our arrival.

All of that from a nursery rhyme Mom taught me as a boy. All of it true. And the great thing is the last part of that song is the best part, the most comforting. David said in Psalm 17, “when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”
Did you get that? It isn’t passing on, its waking up.

David knew too, you see. He knew what Mom knew, and that is what Mom wants us all to know as well.

Life truly is but a dream. So row your boat. Go gently and merrily. Hold dear to Christ, and when you wake you will find what Mom has found: the face of God.

Keep warm

January 12, 2018 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

fireplace

Embedded within even the smallest conversation around here are certain customs which are expected to be upheld.

Any inquiry as to your own well-being must be met with “I’m doin’ good,” even if you are not. Especially if you are not. This rule does not apply to your kin, however. If your momma is ill, you can say and should, as likely this will result in some promise of prayer on your momma’s behalf. But if you’re the one sick, that is for someone else to say. You might be coughing up a lung and seeing visions of the dead, but anything other than “I’m doin’ good” will risk word getting out that you’ve turned rude. Lies are part of every interaction. That’s how it’s done.

Complicated, I know.

Chief among these unwritten rules of talk is the salutation one gives upon parting company. Most times, this includes no more than a variation of “goodbye.” (Please, though: if you’re in the Virginia Blue Ridge, don’t ever say “goodbye.” It’s bad enough here to be known as rude, but very much worse to be known as fancy.) “I’ll see ya” is the standard. “Holler at me” also works. “You take care, now” seems a relic of times long past, though we in the mountains are all about relics and so will use this phrase often.

Sometimes a salutation will arise en masse according to some current and dire situation. A system of low pressure stuck over the valley will bring the sage advice to “Stay dry, now.” And there is the always apt “Be careful,” which is not only suitable for any circumstance but also adds a welcome friendly concern. You’ll hear that often, whether at the Food Lion or the Ace or the Dairy Queen. “Be careful” makes you feel good whether you’re the one speaking it or being told.

The past week has given rise to an oldie but a goodie, especially for this time of year. We’ve been below zero for days. Pipes freezing and homes lost to careless fires, extra blankets on the bed and all the dogs inside. So what you’ll hear now is the same for both stranger and friend when ways are parted—“You keep warm.”

Those three words have stuck with me in a way that not even “Be careful” has managed. It’s part plea and part warning with a healthy dose of regard thrown in. Call it a wish for wintertime, January’s version of “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

I’ve read and heard of people who forgo New Year’s resolutions in favor of some word or phrase to base their lives upon for the next twelve months. Hope. Faith. Love. Community. Focus. It can be anything, I guess. I kind of like that idea. My problem is that I’ve never been able to settle on a single thing that could sum up all I wish for others and myself. But I think that’s all been settled now.

You keep warm.

I like it.

That is my prayer for you this year. To keep warm in body but in soul most of all, in heart. To keep loving and hoping and seeing this old world as a beautiful thing worth saving. And I think it’s a fine thing to say to others, because it’s cold out there. All you need is to turn on the news or sit in some coffee shop to know we’re all at each other’s throats. Too much anger and too much hate, too much of those few things about us that are different rather than the many things that are the same.

There’s job stuff to worry about, and all those ills. Kids who grow up overnight. The ones you love most getting sick, getting old. That lump you feel—is that cancer? And what if this Christmas really is the last you’ll spend with your mom, your dad, your husband or wife?

Living is a hard thing. You keep warm.

Pull the ones you love close. Don’t be afraid to say “I love you.” Help a stranger. Take a walk in the woods. Keep warm.

Read a book that will change your life. Seek out beauty. Be good. Turn the other cheek. Always forgive. Sit and be quiet. Don’t be as concerned for present-you as you are for future-you.

Pray. Hope. Believe.

Keep warm.

Christmas now and then

December 21, 2017 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

I write this in the early morning of December 21, four days until Christmas.

The presents have been hidden but not yet wrapped. The tree is up, the lights hung on the house. The tiny plastic wise man who has for so long roamed he downstairs in search of our Nativity remains hopefully (and haplessly) searching. Last I checked, he was perched atop the clock in the living room. Moved there, I will add, by hands not my own. I’ve narrowed the suspects down to a certain daughter and son, and now I’m waiting to see when and where he will move again. That is one of the finer things about having teenagers as children. My kids are too cool for Santa and too sophisticated to go looking for elves. But that plastic wise man on the clock has left me believing they still hold to the magic that is this time, and that I have taught them well enough to know they can do their own small parts in spreading it.

Christmas has snuck up on me this year.

Such a thing has never happened. As a boy, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day was the longest slog imaginable, more difficult even than the month before summer vacation. Back then, the newspaper would publish a little cartoon at the bottom of the front page that included how many days more I had to wait. Thirty seemed an insurmountable number. Twenty wasn’t much better. By the single digits, my parents were praying it would all be over soon. The pace of time was so slow as to be maddening.

But this morning I poured my coffee in shock of the calendar on the refrigerator. The twenty-first? Impossible. How could Christmas get here so fast? Where have I been?

I’ve read that the passage of time feels quicker to adults more than children because of simple math. A month feels like days because I have so many months behind me. The thirty or so days since Thanksgiving comprises only a small percentage of the time I’ve lived, whereas the little kid across the street (the one currently searching for reindeer tracks out in his yard) has fallen to the belief that Christmas will never get here. This past month is a much larger chunk of his life.
It makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it. Still, I’m not wholly buying into the theory. Most people I know will never admit it, but they secretly abhor Christmas. Having to wonder where the money will come from for all those gifts. Having to haul all of those decorations from the attic. The travel. And really, how many times can you hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” before you want to shove an ice pick into your ear?

Family squabbles. Family worries. Realizing you once viewed this time of year with anticipation—“What’s going to happen next!”—and now it’s more the dread of “What’s going to happen next?”

Bah. Humbug.

Believe me, I know. That kid across the street? Give him time. Put a few Christmases behind him, he won’t be out there looking for reindeer tracks. He’ll be the father standing at the door yelling for his kid to get inside. Or he’ll be the neighbor looking from an upstairs window and secretly hoping that maybe there really is a track somewhere. At the edge of the roof, maybe. Santa making a practice run.

Time. That’s what I’m thinking about this year. Where it’s all going and gone.

What tends to trip up so many about Christmas is its insistence on slowing us down and reflecting a little. I can think of no other holiday like it. That’s a tough thing for a lot of us to do. Maybe that’s why we’re so insistent on keeping busy this time of year. We’d rather feel stressed than silent. We’re more comfortable thinking it’s all about what’s happening now rather than what happened then.

That’s it’s about us and not the Child.

We are coming fast upon an occasion so wonderful, so life altering, that the entirety of Western civilization has divided history itself into all that happened before it and all that has happened since. A birth that came not with royal aplomb, but quiet mystery. In four days we will celebrate whatever it is we love most. To some, it will be family. To others, things wrapped in shiny paper. Still more will celebrate nothing at all.

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the fact that baby was born for us all that we may know once and finally that we are not alone, that there exists in each of us a worth and a purpose unimaginable, and that with him we may be battered by life, but never bettered. Love will win in the end. Light has overcome darkness. Dawn will chase away every dark night.

Let it be so.

Blessed are those who mourn

December 14, 2017 by Billy Coffey 10 Comments

Winter scene

So, here’s what happened—

My wife was diagnosed with leukemia. Our daughter continued on with her mostly up but sometimes down battle with Type 1 diabetes. Our son broke his wrist. Mom’s health took a turn for the worse and then the very worse. It all got so bad there for a while that people at work started referring to me as Job. But while things by far have yet to settle down, it is Christmas—my favorite time of the year—and I do have a new book coming soon. And I really missed popping out a blog post every seven days. So here I am, doing my darnedest to get back into the swing of things.

The problem with taking so much time off from a blog is that you have too much to say when you get back. It all tends to get muddled up in the mind. That’s a little of what I’m feeling right now. So instead of one story about one thing, I thought I’d take this bit to share some of the things that have been on my mind.

You remember the story of John the Baptist being put in prison? Herod had reached the limits of his patience with this hillbilly out in the desert and so tossed John in jail to rot (and ultimately to have his head literally served on a platter). While there, John hears reports of all the things his cousin Jesus is doing and sends his disciples to ask Jesus one simple question: Are you really the Son of God? Because I’ve been spending all this time telling everyone you are, and I could really use your help here. For his part, Jesus told John’s disciples to go back and say that the blind now see, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are being raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.

And then Jesus adds this, saving it for last because it’s so important.

Tell John, he says, that “blessed is the one who does not fall away because of me.”

I’ve probably read that story a hundred times in my life, yet it never really clicked with me until these last months. John had faith enough when his life was just chugging along—great faith, even—but there’s something about a prison cell and the threat of death that can bring doubts to even the most faithful soul. You sure You’re up there, God? Because I kind of need a miracle right now, and it seems to me You’re just not paying attention. And God says Of course I’m here, and I’m there, and I’m doing things so wonderful that you can’t even imagine it all. But don’t lose faith just because I’m not fitting into the little box you made for me. Don’t stumble because you don’t understand why things have to be like this for now.

A hard lesson for sure, but one my family is learning.

I was walking through town one morning a while back and happened upon an honest-to-goodness professional singer. You wouldn’t know him. He plays a few of the clubs across the mountain on the weekends, that’s all. But he gets paid for doing it, and in my book paid equals professional. I was one street up along a little hill, walking parallel to him and minding my own business. No traffic, no people. That’s when I heard him sing. Rich baritone, smooth as butter. Enough to make me stop and watch. What I noticed is that he would sing when walking by the buildings, then stop whenever he came to an open space like an intersection or an alleyway. It got me so curious that I bumped into him accidentally on purpose a few blocks later to ask what he was doing. Testing his voice, he said. You can’t tell how strong your voice is if you’re singing out in the open. But when you sing while surrounded by something like brick and stone built up so high that it dwarfs you, then you know. Things like that bounce your voice right back to you. You hear your true self rather than the noise in your head.

Maybe that’s a little of what John the Baptist was doing, and me, and maybe you. Testing our voices up against things we can’t move. Finding out who we really are.

You know you’re getting up there in age when all the stars of your childhood start passing on. That’s the first thing I thought when I heard that David Cassidy had died. The Partridge Family ended when I was two, but I grew up with the reruns. Was there anyone cooler than David Cassidy? Nope. He had the looks and the hair and the voice and got to travel around the country in a funky school bus. I remember him on magazine covers and being mobbed by girls. Rich. Famous. What a life.
And yet I read an article last week that mentioned his final words to his daughter. Know what they were?

“So much wasted time.”

Kind of hits you hard, doesn’t it? Especially when you realize everything that man had is everything the world says is necessary to live a good life, and everything most of us are either chasing after or wish we had.
I’ve heard he suffered from dementia at the end. Maybe that was the prison cell David Cassidy found himself in, like John the Baptist. Maybe that’s what allowed him to face the hard truths of his life. Or maybe he just found himself singing into a wall too big and wide for him to get around, and he finally heard his real voice for the first time.

Maybe.

But this I know for certain now, and maybe you know it, too—life can sometimes be a terribly hard thing to endure. Sometimes the things that happen make no sense. But that’s no reason to stumble. No cause to throw your hands up and say it’s all for nothing.