I’ve received a number of comments about the post “Evangelism” both privately and on the blogsite, where even Octo Bish weighed in with some good stuff, rather like Jesus hangin’ with the sinners, telling me he’s very interested in what people are sayin’ about it; so you can still add a thought there.  Incidentally, a comment from some training I took a while back bonks around in my head:  ‘The primary task of the intentional interim minister is to maintain the viability of the faith community.’  ‘Tis also, methinks, true of the bishop’s job.  The Body of Christ has its own legitimacy, so it’s probably appropriate that he/she/it ‘exhort’ (holy whining and/or cheerleading) the church to evangelism, though I still say the term sucks.

Here in Houston spring has sprung like a 12-year-old boy opening a Playboy, bringing with it the attendant dose of pollen and shit floating around in the air, the blessed time change creating light in the evening, Lent, and the work of home ownership, each in its own way participating in the disruption of my writing groove–Lent with an extra day ‘n drive to B’mont; shit in the air attackin’ The Queen’s sinuses et al creating gobs o’ snot and fever and hideous, eye-waterin’ diapers and more days with grampa than usual; and the stewardship of Ye Olde Homestead requirin’ focus and (eek) physical effort.  And, natch, substantial bucks.

I decided I had to do something about the neighborhood retention pond the backyard becomes when it rains, thus consulted with Cesar whose crew tends to my lawn about bringing in a bunch of dirt and sod to build it up, essentially making a new yard, earning, ‘I can do it but it’ll cost a fortune and just result in flooding your neighbors’ yards.  Better and cheaper just to put in drain pipes to the street.’  So, fine, have at it.

While that was taking place the dishwasher decided to go on strike, so we called Julio who repairs small appliances who said ‘I can fix it, but a new one is cheaper’, so we arranged for him to do the installation and the darling and I trundled off to Lowe’s to select one with minimal argument over the choice of the model.  ‘Course any homeowner knows that appliances, like famous people, die in threes.  The excitement is in the anticipated surprise.

Cesar and I were strolling the front yard checking out the completion of the drainage project when I noticed that of the two big water oaks out there the one closer to the house had developed telephone-pole thick roots that had brazenly surfaced and were now marching across the lawn with no pretense of subtlety.  Interestingly, none were headed toward the street, where the bigger of the two trees dwells; they were all headed toward the house, where the foundation dwells.  It just so happens that Cesar’s crew takes down trees, too.  The darling was miffed that I didn’t check with her (i.e., get permission) first; but some things are so obvious as to require no consultation, the assassination of a rogue ent being one of them.  When she stands for judgment before the great god of trees, she’ll have plausible deniability.

And then I became aware of the fact that I could take only a short shower without even turning on the cold before the hot water ran out and I knew what that meant.  It was another trip to Lowe’s where I bought and scheduled the installation of a new hot water heater.  The installers were a plumbing company that sub-contracts with Lowe’s–one of those ’small businesses’ that are spoken of as the backbone of America–two guys covered with tattoos looking like (hopefully) ex-gang members, though pleasant and professional.  After engaging them about their tattoos I resisted the temptation to ask apropos of nothing but social profiling I guess, ‘So what was it like in prison?  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)’  Instead we did business over the normal installation glitch requiring additional cost where I managed a 20% discount for cash.  One wonders what chunk Lowe’s is taking for their work, even while glad with the assumption that they do some check on the installers they’re sending out.

And while I don’t know how to figure the drainage and the tree into the equation, the water heater makes two appliances down, and I was getting nervous so I asked a pal who does such work to check out my furnace and air-conditioning which hasn’t been tended to since its installation about a decade back, with the old ’stitch in time’ mentality.  That proving healthy we’re down to non-financial crisis items, my bet being on the garbage disposal, which the darling runs as long as a transcontinental flight while she travels through the house collecting shit to throw in it.  It’s about the cheapest and easiest to replace:  I’ve done a bunch of ‘em.  In fact, I’ve also installed dishwashers and water heaters.  So having both proven my home repair machismo and learned what a bitch it is to do, I’d rather pay somebody else to deal with it.  Someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

Besides, I enjoy the people of the trades and admire the work they do.  What they know as everyday stuff is to my mind mystical.  From the ancient deuterocanonical book of Sirach comes this lovely quote:

The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; and he who has little business may become wise.

How can he become wise who handles the plow, and who glories in the shaft of a goad, who drives oxen and is occupied with their work, and whose talk is about bulls?  He sets his heart on plowing furrows, and he is careful about fodder for the heifers.
So too is every craftsman and master workman who labors by night as well as by day; those who cut the signets of seals, each is diligent in making a great variety; he sets his heart on painting a lifelike image, and he is careful to finish his work.

So too is the smith sitting by the anvil, intent upon his handiwork in iron; the breath of the fire melts his flesh, and he wastes away in the heat of the furnace; he inclines his ear to the sound of the hammer, and his eyes are on the pattern of the object. He sets his heart on finishing his handiwork, and he is careful to complete its decoration.

So too is the potter sitting at his work and turning the wheel with his feet; he is always deeply concerned over his work, and all his output is by number.  He moulds the clay with his arm and makes it pliable with his feet; he sets his heart to finish the glazing, and he is careful to clean the furnace.

All these rely upon their hands, and each is skilful in his own work.  Without them a city cannot be established, and men can neither sojourn nor live there. Yet they are not sought out for the council of the people, nor do they attain eminence in the public assembly. They do not sit in the judge’s seat, nor do they understand the sentence of judgment; they cannot expound discipline or judgment, and they are not found using proverbs.

But they keep stable the fabric of the world, and their prayer is in the practice of their trade.

It’s interesting to think of Julio and Cesar and his crew and the (hopefully) ex-gang member plumbers praying for me through the work they do; blue-collar intercessors, as it were.  The stewardship of my home ownership is a community effort, though I call the shots.  And, of course, foot the bills, the darling and I spending a portion of our life’s efforts to ’till and keep’ this little Eden in which we’ve been placed just like it says in Genesis.  ‘Tis truly a good and gracious thing to be given and allowed to care for this little chunk of God’s creation; to be given the title steward.

Even if it is in Houston suburbia.  In a state where the legislature is currently wrangling over the introduction of a law to permit college students to carry handguns on campus.  It is, however, illegal to smoke in classrooms.

Matchmaker Don–who turned me on to the Sirach quote and should now be addressed I guess as His Semi-Holiness, having ascended full time plus to Octo Bish’s right hand man–fell out to laughter when we were having lunch one day and I mentioned I was planting a garden in a boat–’You?’ with iced tea coming out his nose, as if the darling and I didn’t have a fine garden out in west Texas.  I tried a couple of gardens when we first moved here, but the nut grass and insects demanded more attention than I was willing to give–the termites loved the wooden barrels I used trying to defeat the nut grass.  But this time I have a boat–the wooden dinghy I almost finished building before ’stowing’ it out of sight behind the garage, oh, whatever, four years ago.  And it sits on the flagstone ‘courtyard’ between the garage, patio, and deck.  I love to watch things grow, with the operative word being ‘watch’:  I’ll plant and water ya, but after that you’re mostly on your own, ’cause I’ve learned that I pretty much have the touch of death when it comes to doing all that shit real gardeners tell you you’re supposed to be doing like having your soil tested.  I bought about fifteen 2-cubic-ft bags of virgin garden dirt–’Miracle Gro Soil’–tossed it in there, stirred in the plants and seeds, and now am sitting back waiting for the miracle to grow.

‘Course, the launching of Galadriel’s Garden was postponed considerably by the completion of a project I’d not completed last year, that being the cleaning and resealing of the deck, calling for the pressure washer my beloved gave me as a Christmas or something gift–another one of those tools she likes to surprise me with to create work I hadn’t planned on doing.  I’d pressure-washed the deck last fall (and the flagstone, which we tag-teamed, and nearly everything else that didn’t move, with the ecstasy of a new toy), but was halted in sealing it by, first, rain, then because somebody put all the furniture back on the deck too early, and then by winter, the 5 gallon can of sealer taking up space in the garage.  That meant of course starting the whole project over again.

Cleaning a 16′ x 32′ deck is a spectacularly slow and boring process allowing the mind to travel into strange places.  About a third of the way through I got weirded out by the realization that the wood sealer was latex-based.  How can something that cleans up with water also be a sealer against water?  This led to an internet search about cleaning decks, where I learned from a professional deck cleaner that one should never use a pressure washer because it breaks down wood fibers and fuzzes things up.  I had to fight off the guilt of perfectionism:  ‘I bought it.  Soccer Saul and I built it.  I’ll damn well care for it the way I want.  I ain’t goin’ for a spread in Better Homes and Gardens’ and continued to blast away.  I used a cheap garden sprayer to apply the sealant; it didn’t apply it very evenly but it was fast, and easy to clean.  I’m content with the outcome; but as typical I’d only finished half the deck when the storms moved in and delayed the whole thing for about 10 days.  That’s the thing about home projects:  if they don’t require 27 trips to the hardware store, God steps in with shitty weather or other disruptive karma.

After years of serving my neighbors (to my mind) by providing the only gas yard lamp on the sac–hence the only light on the street when the electricity goes out–I’ve shut it down as environmentally wasteful.  It burns 24/7, of course, and apparently puts out some monstrous carbon footprint.  Shuttin’ it down now seems like the more neighborly thing to do.  Besides, it’ll save the aggravation of having continually to replace those delicate ashen mantles that provide the light (behold the suburban bush that burns but is not consumed!), but fall apart at the slightest bump by a ball or a newspaper or a Halloween scare.  The darling was consulted on this one, including the current pondering of what to do in its stead.

The Queen and I have spent much of the last week together due to a death in her father’s family in San Antonio and the fact that she herself has a big case of snotitis and fever from the shit of the spring air.  I took  her to the doc last Friday so her folks wouldn’t have to take another day off work, who confirmed the snotitis diagnosis and wrote the requisite prescription.  Ya hate seein’ ‘er like that–limp and lethargic and feverish and snortin’ snot (outta the nose, into the mouth).  All she wants to do is to be held, and I’m sure an easy touch for that.  I’ll sit and hold her for hours, wondering how the darling did it when one of our three was sick and I was busy saving the world (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either).

At my offer she spent Sunday night with us while her folks were required in San Antonio.  It was my offer, so my responsibility, as the darling has to get up at 5:30 for work.  The Queen managed to sleep for four hours or so despite the coughing and snot snorting, but about 2:00 am she was wide awake and needing attention and I was up rustling around for diapers, bottles, and medicine while hauling the snorter around in one arm.  The darling’s ancient mother instincts kicked in and she showed up as The Queen polished off her bottle, I guess just to check things out.  I stretched across our–incidentally, new last year–’magic fabric’ couch while The Queen wiggled across my chest and burrowed into my shoulder.  The darling completely weirded me out by throwing a load of clothes in the washer (‘well, as long as I’m up’; like ‘well, as long as I’m up I might as well paint the den’).  Then she turned off all the lights and went to bed, leaving grandpa and huddled infant there in the peaceful silent darkness of night, listening to the rumbling of that fucking washing machine.

Though not for long, as she was seized by a violent spasm of coughing. . .and retching, both the milk she’d recently had and an equal amount of the snot she’d swallowed.  I yelled for the darling while trying to trap the snot vomit from hittin’ the not quite so new anymore magic fabric.  We all had a miserable time cleaning it up, with the ridiculous suggestion by the darling that I shower because of the smell.  I instead threw on a clean t-shirt, and we tried it again there on the couch, this time successfully because there was nothing left to throw up.  We spent much of the next day lying or sitting huddled together, enveloped by a noxious vapor of stale vomit while she panted and coughed and puked anything she tried to drink and cooked with fever and I thought towards the end of the day this was something a bit more than snotitis, ’cause she didn’t perk up even after Mom and Dad arrived home.

This is not the first time I’ve been vomited on while loving a child and tried to catch it.  There was the famous family trip with them as preschoolers in our first ever brand new car, a delightful 5-speed Nissan Stanza when heading back from Los Angeles we decided to drive through the night and got everybody settled in to a lovely, peaceful sleep.  I cruised along, happy as a pig in shit until about again 2:00 am when Doc Boner awoke, announced that he had to throw up and proceeded to do so while I instinctively tried to catch it with oops my gear-changin’ hand while doing about 75.  It don’t take long to realize you can’t save the newness of your car by catching vomit and trying to downshift simultaneously.  By the time we’d pulled into the rest stop there in the desert outside of El Paso his vomit had also covered his brother and sister creating a wild commotion in the back seat while the darling desperately tried to contain the damage (‘here!  throw up here!’).  We bailed out of the car while Doc Boner finished his vomiting, Her Princessness (now New Momma Deb) howled in protest over the puking goo covering her, the darling began mopping up, and Soccer Saul jumped in to be helpful, running trash to the litter barrel, but unfortunately tripping on his run back, splitting his knee wide open on a rock, and now we’ve got a whole cacophony of barfing, bleeding, and howling going on like a symphony of hell.

That’s when the hitchhiker on speed approached wanting, first, money and then a philosophical conversation.  He was oblivious, even when I said ‘Dude–can you see what’s going on here?’ so I finally just told him to go away.  We got things settled with the darling taking over the driving and Doc Boner sprawled across my chest in the reclined passenger seat.  We all slept–including a little while later the darling, her little snooze at the wheel treating us to her own version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.  Our new car smell was over forever, defeated first by vomit, then by the odor of sheer terror.

Yeah, love often smells like sour vomit.  Or terror.

New Momma Deb called from the doc’s office about an hour ago sobbing to inform that The Queen apparently has pneumonia and the ambulance will be taking her to the downtown medical center.  Shit.  So we’ve mobilizing for the emergency to save The Queen’s life.  The phone calls have been made to our families all over; I’ve cancelled going to B’mont tomorrow, the darling is heading to the hospital to be with her daughter and granddaughter (she’s real experienced in hospital waiting).  Prayers are being said for her.  This community draws around her.  Because, you know, it takes a village to raise a child.

And this, above all, is our stewardship.

Larry