Images of grace and a fifth grader...

Holy Cross Church adjoins the Valle Crucis Conference Center and on this particular day a huge group of chaotic, carefree, just-on-the-cusp-of-self-realization fifth graders arrived at the conference center for their end-of-the-year school trip. They banged off the bus and immediately started running in every direction imaginable, like a fist full of marbles that have been dropped on the pavement. You can't quite follow all of them with your eyes, but you have a sense of where each and every one of them have gone. And boy were they everywhere. And the noise! Sheesh. You can tell you are getting older when the noise of young people doesn't interest you anymore, it just generally irritates you. And you wish they would be quite...these young, already slightly-aware-that-something-is-wrong-with-them fifth graders. They were banging on the piano, running up and down the stairs, yelling at each other. And I just stood in the doorway, looking at the chaos. And this is what I saw.

What I saw were clumps of young people sitting together. And the adults were sitting together too, desperately trying to talk to each other over the noise. And also trying not to look uncomfortable themselves. And in the middle of all this racket there was one table with just one occupant. He was sitting by himself at the very edge of the table. And his chair was pushed under the table so as to position himself exactly in front of his plate. He was slouched down slightly, but not so much that he looked like he wanted to disappear, just that he might if urged to do so. His hair came down to right above his eyes in soft but stranded locks and he looked slightly smaller than the other kids, although it did not seem like he had a growth stint or anything. As a matter of fact he looked pretty ordinary to me, which is why I was puzzled.

Why wasn't he sitting with any of the other kids? And more importantly, why weren't they sitting with him? He didn't look to have any defining characteristics that made him subject to Darwin's theory. So why was he alone? I took a closer look and figured it out. I saw in his eyes sadness and oldness; you know, that wizened look that people get when they know things other people mostly don't know. The type of look that tells you that he sees things that other people don't see. He can read between the bull___ lines that adults feed him, and most of his peers have not caught up with him yet, and probably never will. He is content to be alone, although it makes him sad that he is. He wonders why he knows, feels, and sees things the other kids don't. And he also wonders why he can't just be like them. But he isn't. And he knows he isn't. So there he sat, wizened with this knowing that he won't be able to put into words for years yet.

And do you know what happened next? The best thing that could happen for this wizened, sad, but content-to-be-alone kid. A sad, wizened, but content-to-be-alone adult came to sit with him. I knew when I saw the adult sit down, that this would be small compensation for what this child really wants, which was to connect with his peers. But I also knew, that for now, it would be enough. The man that sat down with this fifth grader saw what I saw. As soon as the guy sat down I saw the younger man relax. He shoulders unslummped and his eyes grew interested. Here was someone he could talk to. Maybe not on the adult level that he already has a glimmer of, but at least a couple levels above where his peers were.

And maybe, just maybe, this adult would help him make some sense out of his differences. For you see, what I saw, was an adult who looked at this fifth grader and was right back there, being the sad, wizened kid who was to old to connect with his peers, and to young to connect with adults. So he is alone. And it is okay that he is alone, but sometimes it helps if a friend will just come and sit there with him.

Images of grace in a drink...

I had planned to move to New York City in August. So during the summer I moved in with my grandmother, and her husband Fred, in order to save money for the move. Now at 26 I consider myself to be fairly social. I have friends who call me regularly. I go out to dinner and movies, and generally flit about like the social butterfly that I am. But my social life pales in comparison to the social agenda Fred keeps up. The first morning I spent in their house I woke up to the phone ringing. I looked at the clock and it was 7:15am. It has not stopped ringing since. Because next to Fred, I am a social caterpillar. Okay, maybe a moth. But my point is, Fred is the true social butterfly.

At 90 years old, having had both legs removed, heart surgery, lung cancer, and a myriad of other health issues, Fred still keeps up a staggering social agenda. He has a network of about 40 friends that he calls or who call him at least once a day. They all look out for each other, inform each other of current events, such as when the local fish fry is taking place, who has married who, and when such and such's birthday is. They talk about this or that, or nothing at all. And they keep on living.

Indeed, I have come to believe that it is this widespread network of friends that has kept Fred anchored to life for so long. Because who could possibly imagine a day without getting a phone call from Fred? And who could imagine a day without being able to call and have him be on the other end of the line? So Fred calls his friends, and they call him, and he keeps on living and so do they.

And the social agenda does not end there. Not only does Fred get tons of phone calls a day, but sometimes there will be so many visitors it is like grand central station. In the spring and summer especially, his buddies and sometimes their wives, will drop by with peaches, strawberries, freshly caught catfish, onions, tomatoes, and any number of other various sundries that we feast on for days. He rarely pays for them. They are an offering to the past he shares with these people, and it is testament to who he has been in their lives. And at the age of 90 they still come to pay him homage in the only way true Appalachian folks know how to...with produce and love, straight from the garden or the crick.

On this particular day one of his old buddies had dropped by. He was an old and long standing friend of both Gram and Fred's and he would often come by and sit for hours with Fred outside in the garage watching the world go by. He would come in sheepishly with this somewhat guilty air hanging around him like the barely perceptible hint of aftershave. For you see...he would be coming by to drink. Now I am not sure what his home life is like, but I had gotten hints here and there that his drinking was an issue. Of course I also got hints that his marriage was an issue...a broken vessel which someone had tried to glue back together, but the glue didn't take. And he would come by to drink away the pain and the loneliness and the sadness. Fred knew this...and without a word he would roll himself into the kitchen in his electric wheelchair, and make up a cup of ice from the freezer, which was situated close to the floor so that he could reach it. Then he would fill the cup with whatever he had on hand and roll back into the living room to deposit it into the hand of his buddy who needed it.

Sometimes he would drink with him, sometimes he wouldn't. But I always got the sense that Fred understood on a very deep and unquestioning level why it was that this man needed to drink. And he never asked him any questions or expected anything from him. He just invited him in and tended to him the only way that he knew how. And they would sit for while and drink a little and then his old friend would get up and quietly take his leave just as he had come. Quietly, sadly, and comforted.

You might be wondering how I can extract grace out of the above story. Let me explain. I think people reach an age where they have worked and loved and hated and raised kids and needed things and provided things, and they have "done good." These are people who have provided for their families and stayed out of jail, and have done their best to worship God and to live a good life. They have done what they needed to do. And now they are tired. And they want comfort. And they look for that comfort in the little things in life. Like a drink of liquor. Or a cigarette. A friend who is not their wife or their husband. In short they have lost the energy to make these things "bad." Now they are just comfortable. And what I saw was a man who needed comfort in the form of a drink and another man who gave it to him because he completely understood. The grace is found in the understandin', not the form it comes in.

Images of grace in a hair salon...

I believe that Christians have a very refined image of what grace looks like. And since I got my call I have been hypersensitive to what forms it has taken in my life. For me, grace is an expression of Christian charities and virtues that are, in that very moment, being lived. And such images ever recall my understanding of the radical love Jesus expressed to women, tax collectors, the poor, lepers, and "the least of these."

Grace is Kathy who cuts hair. I have occasionally been to the "posh" hair salon in town, but the cold hard edges of the place, and the overwhelmingly cold personalities of the women and men who work there make me feel ugly. I feel my hair shrink back onto my head like it is not worthy to be touched by their hands, brushed by their combs, or cut by their scissors. You know these types of places, the ones where the hairdresser assigned to you makes small talk and really does try to connect, but somehow just falls short of making you feel like you are really important.

I know that there are many people who go to this salon and feel taken care of and pampered. I also know that these are the people who can afford an expensive haircut and can still manage to leave a very substantial tip. These people get the warm smiles and the lavish reassurance that they are someone special. They are the ones that get water that is just the right temperature and who don't get the collars of their shirts wet while they are having their hair shampooed and conditioned with products that are the most expensive on the market. These shampoos and conditioners smell like they have come from exotic places that stress the value of plants and herbs. They have been refined into these products for this particular day, for this particular moment, for this particular person. Needless to say I am not one of the important ones who gets the water just the right temperature and who always manages to get the collar of her shirt wet just when she thinks she is free and clear. I am also the one that is only shampooed. I am not sure why I never get conditioner. But I don't.

So I started looking for another salon. Looking in the yellow pages I find Kathy. I walk into her place and see a 30ish woman with long stringy dirty yellow hair. She wears jeans and a t-shirt and has a huge mole on the side of her mouth. Her voice was loud and vulgar and friendly. She does not seem to notice the cuss words that occasionally slip out of her mouth while she is cutting someone's hair. And at her pitiful attempt to curb her rough manner in order not to offend a customer who carried pure judgment and righteousness in her purse along with her cell phone and wallet, I was caught. Here she was...my hairdresser. As I looked around I noticed that she did not keep the usual disinfecting liquids around that you normally see in hair salons. You know, the ones that they dip the combs and scissors into before moving on to the next person. And she did not keep her floor meticulously swept like other salons either. There were bits and pieces of hair here and there and there was a fish bowl with a dead fish in it and a water fountain that looked like it was all it could do to keep the water pushing up so it could spill out again.

But luckily for Kathy, my estimation of a hair dresser has nothing to do with how well her establishment is kept. It is instead based on her ability to cut hair WELL while running her mouth. And Kathy was a master at this. She would talk as if the last thing in the world she was thinking about was hair. And yet, when all was said and done, she would have cut my hair, yet again, the way that no one else could. And I would love it...and I would love her that she could do it while talking about anything and everything under the sun.

On this particular day, my birthday, I decided that I needed a hair cut desperately. I was attempting to let my hair grow out. I had done pretty well so far until I looked in the mirror one day and realized that my hair looked awful. I am not skinny you know. And long hair, even semi-long hair does not compliment the round moon of my face. So I decided that the good thing I would do for myself on my birthday would be to get a haircut. So I called Kathy and she told me to high tail it over. As I sat down in the chair I noticed a man sitting in the only other chair in the place. He had on yellow and orange checkered pants, a t-shirt, and was balding. He looked to be about 55 and kept his eyes closed when he talked so you got the impression that he was watching a TV show behind his eye lids. As he talked I got that he was gentle and kind hearted and tired. Very, very tired. He talked with some sort of speech impediment and sometimes his words were clear as bells and sometimes they were so garbled you had to pull them apart to figure out what he was saying. He was also, Kathy informed me when he got up to go to the bathroom, on a huge amount of medications. They had been friends for some time and when he got off work at the local Walgreen's he would walk up to her place and sit, talking to her with his eyes closed.

Apparently he would fall asleep there often on the couch that was in the salon and Kathy would call his wife to come and pick him up. And they would repeat the whole process again the next day. And this is what I got: that he needed to be there with Kathy. Just because. Because he was tired and lonely even though he had a wife. And this was the thing that really got me. She did not think twice about it. She did not have any conversation about running a business and what it might look like to have an older, slightly cracked, checkered pants wearing, Walgreen's employee sitting there talking to her and the customers with his eyes closed. She told him to go over and lay down on the couch and get some sleep. And he did. He curled up on the couch with his back turned to us and promptly fell asleep. And Kathy quietly finished cutting my hair, unwilling to talk in her loud and vulgar and friendly way for fear of waking him up...and I thought to myself, "now that is grace."