Billy Coffey

storyteller

An Easter Like One Other

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image courtesy of google images

Nobody’s ever had to live through an Easter like this.

That’s what I keep hearing. In some small but important ways, that’s true.

Everything feels like it’s shrinking. Our lives are now confined to only the necessary places — home, the store, work — and the necessary people — those we live with. All those other facets of our lives have been stripped away, and in their places are holes we can’t seem to fill.

I’ve noticed that time has shrunk as well. Before all of this happened, it was nothing for me to live my life a week or so in advance. Always planning things, always so focused on what was ahead that I often lost sight of what was right in front of me. But no more. Now there’s really no point in living a week in advance because weeks don’t feel like they exist anymore. Everything could change by next Friday, or maybe nothing will. We just don’t know. So what’s the point in planning anything?

Days, too — they’ve changed in a fundamental way. Sunday through Saturday doesn’t carry the same weight as it once did. There were once seven days, and those seven days made a week, and 52 of those weeks made a year, and that was the basis by which we all measured our progress through this life. But now those seven days have been whittled down to the only three that maybe have ever really counted:

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

Yesterday, back when the world was as normal as any of us could expect and we were living as though our lives were as solid as the mountains outside my window. Change would come, we all somehow knew that, but it would come slowly, gradually, and from a distance long enough that we could see it well in advance.

Tomorrow, which is so filled with uncertainty and fear right now that most of us try to avoid thinking much about it at all.

And today, this moment we’re all trying not to sink inside, where so much of what we think and do is spent just trying to keep safe without losing our hope.

So yes, it sounds right on the surface. Nobody’s ever had to live through an Easter like this.

But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that’s not true. Surely down through the ages there have been other Easters when so much went wrong in such a hurry. Moments in history when everything felt broken to the point that people wondered if it could all be put back together again. I could maybe dig out some of my wife’s old college history textbooks and find some examples, but I don’t need to. One Easter has stood out in my mind all week as the perfect parallel to what we’re all facing right now.

That first one. 

Of the three days that make up the holiest weekend of the Christian calendar, two of them are given the due they deserve. Good Friday and Easter Sunday are so ingrained in our hearts and (believe it or not) our culture that it’s easy to miss what exactly they mean for all of us. But that day in between — that’s the day I’ve spent so much time thinking about lately, because that’s the one that describes exactly where we are at the moment.

Not Good Friday or Easter Sunday, but Holy Saturday.

I only know it’s called that because I looked it up, thinking that day had to have some sort of adjective attached to it. And it’s the perfect one, don’t you think? Holy.

“Venerated as or as if sacred; having a divine quality.”

Yes.

We know the story of Good Friday. We celebrate the events of Easter Sunday. But the Bible is strangely silent about the Saturday in between, leaving us to only imagine what that day was like for the disciples Christ left behind. Men and women who were suffering from the so much that went wrong in such a hurry. Who were facing their own shrunken world of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Yesterday their world lay drenched in beauty. They spent their days at the feet of their Lord, watching in wonder as the sick were healed the poor were given hope, astonished at every turn that God could be so loving, so gentle and kind.

Tomorrow was an unbearable thought. So much was made unknown now, their hopes dashed by the memory of the dead man hanging from a cross. What comfort could tomorrow bring? What meaning could the coming years provide when life itself felt so meaningless?

Which left them only with today, that first Holy Saturday. They woke from an uneasy sleep heartbroken by the feeling that life as they knew it had come to an end. Everything they had believed had come to nothing. Far from beautiful, their world had become a place of danger, leaving them to hide indoors for fear of the same death suffered by their savior.

Sounds familiar in a way, doesn’t it?

That’s where we are right now, you and I. We’re living out our own Holy Saturday, only ours will last months instead of hours. Caught between a yesterday that aches upon its recollection like pressing on a bruise, and a tomorrow that only offers more of the same.

Like every other Christian with any common sense, my family will spend this weekend at home. We’ve never had to go through an Easter like this. That’s why it will be so special.

Because we know what those men and women on that first Holy Saturday did not — there is a power beyond all sickness and death, a certainty that can tame any doubt, and a hope that transcends anything that threatens to befall us.

That is why even in these days we can yet laugh. That is why we can stand strong. And that is why if I could somehow find those few men and women hiding in fear on that first Holy Saturday nearly two thousand years ago, I would tell them the same as I tell you:

Hang on, because joy comes in the morning.

The best things in us

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image courtesy of photobucket.com

A quick look at my website tells me that it’s been almost two years since I added a single word to this blog.

Aside from the (very) occasional update to social media, I’ve largely been absent from the internet. There are reasons for this, good ones and many, which will likely come up from time to time in the weeks and months ahead.

For those who have kindly reached out privately to make sure I am still alive, thank you. I very much am. And for those who have wondered if I’m still writing — yes, I also very much am.

But again, we’ll get to that.

Suffice it to say for now that there was some question if Billy Coffey should remain Billy Coffey or perform a bit of literary magic and become someone else, and that at some point in the last two years, the internet became little more to me than just a place where people shouted at each other. Both of those things made me realize that maybe the wisest decision was to take a nice long break and head back out into the real world.

It’s ironic that heading back out into the real world is what ended up bringing me back to my own little corner of the virtual one.

Because it’s crazy out there right now, isn’t it?

One month ago we were all under the impression that our lives were as solid as the world we walked upon. Now we’re coming to understand that was just a story we told ourselves to keep the monsters away. The truth is that life is a fragile thing, much like our happiness, our peace, and our plans for the future. Any one of them can be threatened at any time by any number of things. We’re nowhere near as big and strong as we think. A lot of us are figuring that out right now, myself included.

Like most of you, I’ve spent the last few weeks at home. My wife the elementary school teacher is still teaching, though only to those students blessed with internet access and only from our sofa. Our children are here. I am fortunate enough to continue my day job here here in my upstairs office. We take the dog on long walks and play basketball in the driveway, spend our evenings on the front porch listening to the wind and the birds and our nights watching movies. We’ve fared better than most. The sickness has stayed away from our little town. Though its shadow creeps in everywhere, I’m even more glad than usual to call this sleepy valley my home.

Social distancing, that’s the key.

Keep others safe by keeping yourself safe. Don’t go out unless you have to. That’s life for all of us right now, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way for a while. One day at a time, wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, wear a mask, call and text the ones you love.

Get by. I keep hearing that from people — we all just need to hang in there right now and get by.

I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that, and for many of us that has to be enough. Let’s face it, hanging in there and getting by is exhausting. Most days feel like we’re all having to swim against a constant current. Victory doesn’t mean progress, it just means holding in place.

That was my thinking up until about two days ago. I figured the best way through this was to keep apart and keep busy, so that’s what I’d been doing. Lots of work. Lots of walks. Lots of writing and reading. Getting by. I thought I was doing everything right.

Then I had to go to the Food Lion in town.

It can be a harrowing experience to go to the store now, and next time I’ll tell you how that trip to get some groceries made me feel a lot better about things. But right now I’ll leave you with what the little old Amish lady in line told the cashier. I couldn’t hear the beginning of their conversation (the rest of us in line were standing six feet apart and looking at each other like we were all infected), but I did catch the end, that warm smile and a gentle voice that said:

“The worst things in the world can never touch the best things in us.

We just have to try and get our eyes off the one and put them on the other.”

Not the first time an Amish lady told me exactly what I needed to hear.

The truth is that I’ve been practicing as much distraction these last few weeks as distance, keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t have to stop for a minute and really think about what all of this is and what it means. I’m not going to beat myself up over that. Sometimes the things that come into our lives feel too big to handle. Too scary to look at. For a lot of us, this time is one of those things. There’s nothing ever wrong in getting by.

But that little Amish lady at the Food Lion stirred something in me that had gone asleep.

I’m tired and stressed and worried and can’t stop washing my hands. But for as much as I just want all of this to be over, I also don’t want it leave me the same as I was a month ago. If we believe that nothing in life is random and everything means something — and I do — then there must be a purpose to all things, even the bad ones. For me, that means wondering what my purpose is in this, and what purpose this has in my own life.

Somewhere along the line, I lost myself. I bet I’m not the only one who can say that.

If that’s you, then maybe we can find ourselves together. Because in the end, that’s how we’ll all get through this.

 Together.

Keep warm

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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

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image courtesy of photo bucket.com
image courtesy of photo bucket.com

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

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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.

I know it true.

The grace cup

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image courtesy of google images
image courtesy of google images
Before I tell you what is sitting at the corner of the big wooden desk in Room 304 of the local elementary school, I want to talk about rules.

Yes, I know: rules stink. Ask anybody. Ask me. Much of what drives us—the little devil at our shoulder that most times shouts a little louder than the angel sitting at the other—has rule breaking at its core. Rules are made to be broken. Color outside the lines. Right?

I don’t know anyone who likes rules. Then again, I don’t know anyone who thinks the world would be a better place without them.

In Room 304, this rule reigns supreme: you must have a pencil. No excuses. The pencil is mandatory. In an age when computers and tablets and smartphones rule, the world inside Room 304 is much more tangible. More basic. Work is done with paper and pencil. Every subject, every day. And as these bits of wood and graphite are both plentiful and exceedingly cheap, this seems like a rule easily enough followed.

You would be wrong.

These young elementary school kids, they don’t care about pencils.

Pencils don’t even enter into their minds. And so class must be interrupted each day as thirty children scramble to beg and borrow and steal something to write with in order that they may learn all about nouns and fractions and Chief Powhatan. And the teacher must punish the most egregious of offenders by sending them to a lonely back table for a punishment known as Think Time, which includes the filling out their name, crime, and reason for committing said crime on a single sheet of paper.

They never forget their Nike shoes. Or their Pokemons. And don’t even think they’d come to school without their iPhones. But a pencil? Please.

Kids these days, right? Sometimes all you can do is pray.

The worst of these offenders is a little girl who sits in the back of the second row. Quiet kid. Average student, though barely. She struggles. Doesn’t seem to study for her tests, and you can forget about any homework assignments. Jesus will come back before she remembers to bring a pencil to class.

It all got to be too much three days ago. Math class, and would you know it—no pencil again. To the back table she goes to fill out her Think Time report (she’s an expert at this, trust me).

She fills in her name, first and last.

Under “Reason”: I forgot my pensil.

Under “Why”: I got up lat. I had to get my bruther up. I had to get my sistr up. Mommie at wurk. Daddie don’t life with us. I had to get the dog up. The dog puked. My bruther cryed. My sistr spiled her milk. I cleened it up. I cleened my sistr. My dog puked agin. We went on the bus layte. I forgot my pensil.

Kids these days, right? Sometimes all you can do is pray.

I don’t think I need to tell you what went through the teacher’s mind when that confession was turned in. Teachers know. They hear the stories of students too poor to eat and with mommas hooked on meth and daddies gone to jail, fist-sized bruises blamed on rickety steps and half-shut doors. Teachers know, friend. They know and it breaks their hearts. I know this as fact, because I’m married to one.

That is why you will now find at the corner of the big wooden desk in Room 304 a ceramic container daily stocked with dozens of freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils, and a note taped to the front that reads “Grace Cup.” Because we all need rules, but sometimes those rules must be forgiven.

Today you will walk out your door into a world teeming with people carrying worries and wounds you will never see. A great many of those people will be so kind of heart that they set aside their troubles long enough to nod or smile or say hello. A few will even help you in some way large or small.

But there will be some as well who won’t follow the rules of Please and Thank you and Have a good day. They will be grumpy and mean. They will do horrible things. They will make you mourn the state of things.

That’s why my advice to you is carry a Grace Cup of your own. Dip into it frequently and as needed. For others, and for yourself, too. Because it is a hard business, this thing called living. Sometimes the dog pukes.

And that is a thing worth remembering.

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