Heaven

"Oh, thinking about all our younger years,

There was only you and me,

We were young and wild and free."

Today, precisely at nineteen minutes into the treadmill at Jefferson Fitness Center, I was slapped by a loving revelation.  Godsmacked.

I've been finding solace there recently, following my recent dismissal  transition.

I was a member of Jefferson Fitness Center a long time ago.  I would go there after work.  Escape from the stress of my "job".  And "life".  It is now owned by a wonderful woman who bought the place 12 years ago and has made it, once again, the go-to gym/fitness/rehab place in downtown.  No memberships, no commitments, they say.  And they mean it. 

But, there is one commitment I have made to this place:  Sanctuary.

Every single person there is in transition.  Every. Single. Person.

I swim alongside women who could be my Mom, if she were not confined to a nursing home in Richmond. Precious Mermaids, these Golden Girls, in baggy ill-formed swimwear.

I see Dad in every 50-ish man who is working on his weight and on meds that if Dad had access to (and a Holy place like this)  may have lived another decade or so.

And then, there's me.

Awaiting final paperwork for retirement, at age 49.  Blessed beyond belief.  Wondering what's next for me once the cloudy haze of what has happened brings a sunrise that not even Mom and Dad could imagine. 

Transition.  Sanctuary.

So, back to the treadmill revelation:

Pandora iPhone earbugs in.  DJ Sammy.  Closed my eyes and dragged the HELL out of:

"And love is all that I need

And I found it there in your heart.

It isn't too hard to see

We're in Heaven."

Revelation

"Sir, you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

My ex-employer the late Mr. Ashok's ex-wife, Pinky Madam, taught me one of these things;  and at 11:32am. today, which was about ten minutes ago, when the lady on All India Radio announced, "Premier Jiambo is coming to Bangalore next week," I said that thing at once.

In fact, each time when great men like you visit our country, I say it."

-The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, Winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize

This, then, is an update from recent blogposts about events of the past two weeks, for all of you who have cared, asked, wondered, and prayed.  I will, if you will forgive, remain true to the "bullet points" used in the PowerPoint World of the American Education System. 

I have learned:

• Treat people well, every person. In the work place, on the street, and in your own family, find a wayplace to reward:  a hug, a tear, a card, a prayer. Take a chance and hug someone who may not know how to immediately deal with it.
• No matter what happens to YOU. Never compromise your beliefs. E.V.E.R.  Never, ever.
•  Love the people that led you to the place where you are and rely on them to support you in the darkness and brightness of Change. 
• Surprise yourself with dignity. 
• When someone says, "What can I do to help?"  Take it.  It will be the best "Thank you." you've ever said.

So many people from work have contacted us.  Longtime heroes.  Worried for me and my Tom.  All of you. People we've met only in the past year or so.  Friends from the recent past, with whom Tom and I have shared disimilar grief.  Old school roomies from college.  My brother and sister who know everything will work out okay, because that is what we Miller's do best: Overcome.

Tom and I are doing okay.  Treating each other well and working through this.  Thank you for your ongoing thoughts and prayers.

"Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a geniune, self-authenticating religious experience would be.  Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt?  If there were no room for doubt,

there would be no room for me." 

-Frederick Buechner



Too Much Power, Too Little Knowledge

-2011-

"Effective close of business April 15, 2011, your services as a KBE/KDE Division Director are no longer needed by the Kentucky Department of Education."

-Education Letterhead

Steven L. Beshear, Governor

Terry Holiday, Ph. D., Commissioner of Education

-1987-

"To my grandson, Michael J. Miller, who is a good teacher, an outstanding actor, and an excellent dancer.  He can go to the top if given the chance.  My hope and prayer for Michael is that the Movie industry or television systems or both will find him and give him a chance to show his talents to the world."

-Autographed Copy

Douglas F. Miller, Rain in the Lyle Hollow, his first published work

Superintendent of Estill County Schools for eighteen years

Community Leader of America Award, 1968

Integrity Award from Eastern Kentucky University

Special Recognition from the Crippled Children's Association for fifteen years of continuous service

As I transition from my now former position as a leader in public education at the state level for decades, I think I'll choose my late Grandfather's wisdom and choose to carry with me in a very weather-tight tote. And the overwhelming support of parents, students, family members and colleagues I have had the priviledge to serve with and alongside along the way.

Kentucky was, and will again be, a great place to teach and learn alongside our most precious resource:  the children.... of coal miners, immigrant workers, suburban soccer dads, NextGen families, homeless cramped victims of the American dream who want nothing less but the same opportunities that should be the birthright of every human being in a free society:  the will and support to question, learn, and explore the secrets of the future we adults preparing for their future cannot yet know.

"The trouble was the familiar one: too much power, too little knowledge.  The fault was mine."

-Wendell Berry, Damages

Born Again This Way

"Contemporary Christians tend to avoid complexity as being hazardous to their faith, and are thus unprepared to cope with complexity when it confronts them."

-Peter J. Gomes, Preacher to Harvard University

The recent passing of Peter Gomes left me empty. He was my never-met-in-person Brother-in-Arms.  During this season of Lent, I especially will miss his freshly-written "living" words, but need to share them with you, readers, as you see fit to find his compassionate, intellectual, freedom-speaking challenge.

"Treasure is knowing that you belong to God; treasure is knowing that therefore you are not alone.  You are not isolated, and you are not alone.  Treasure is in knowing that you are loved and that you love because you are loved, and that knowledge of self and relationship and purpose is what treasure is all about.  So that when you leave "everything," as we all most certainly will leave everything, you can take "it" with you, for it is the only thing you ever truly had, and that is the love of God."

As I write this, thousands of hungry parishioners have entered the Yum! Center in Louisville, bowing before the egg of Lady GaGa. Awaiting redemption and joyously dancing in the aisles to the latest anthem, Born This Way. 

Behind my house on Merino Street, a similarly numbered multitude stand on their broken, whitebread feet and raise hands in praise to the strains of Jesus Freak Rock. Even the most acidically broken among us cannot deny its power to bring joy.

I saw Les Miserables in Louisville today, reminded that a soaring production of a Broadway musical can often be more church than church itself.

Hear this:  Jesus Freaks, LittleGaGa Monsters, LesMiserites:  Rejoice!

"Treasure is in knowing that you are not alone."

To Do: Justice

Not much is known about the prophet Micah. 

To my knowledge, my Church of the Nazarene mother nor Southern Baptist father named me in his honor.  That missing "h" after the "c".  The "e" after the "a".  The "l" before the "h".  

Reborn into the spirit of understanding truth and welcomed questions of adulthood Micah has become my namesake.  I am not St. Michael.  I want to be Micah. I want to live Micah.

"Micah understood his task to be a preacher of truth- to expose injustice and inequity, to offer a word of hope and salvation, and to make known a vision of a new and transformed way of life for his community and his world."  - Harper's Study Bible

It would probably be easier to be Michael.  You know, Archangel and all. Superhero. Movie Deals!

I choose Micah.  He was the first to let me in.  As a freshly abused gay Southern Baptist, I discovered:

"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

I love the "with" part by the way.  Hand in hand. 

Blessed Lenten journey travels, readers.

Don't require of yourselves any more than Micah's Lord.  That will be.  Enough. 

A Prayer

The following is a prayer I offer often.  One I find brings me back, when I lose my way, and in a lonely, quiet place, even when I have lost my faith.  I offer it to you, today, on this day of Thanksgiving, as an option at your table.  Or your couch.  Or your tailgait.  Even at my quiet table with my life partner Tom, I never get through it without tears.... But salty tears makes for incredibly lovely turkey.  Blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

A Prayer attributed to St. Francis, Book of Common Prayer, page 833.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.  Amen.

I Can Do That

I didn't see the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line.   I was, however, Hello Thirteen enough in 1976 when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and nine Tony Awards. From a distance.

Lonely me-boys bought Original Broadway Cast Albums, back then. Broadway Baby theatre junkies. Misunderstood by others around us who were into 8-tracks of Eagles Greatest Hits.  No tribe, just Cassie, and the dream of a chance to dance.  For you.  When she belted "give me a chance", I sang along, in any narrow mirrow reflection I could find.

I saw this magic for the first time when the first national tour of A Chorus Line came to the Lexington Opera House during the Dick Pardy era. 

Spellbound. 

A few years later, I auditioned and became "Mike" in Lexington Musical Theatre's first regional production on the same stage.  He's the goy who taps his way into a place on the Line, and captures the heart of the audience with his sung-story of his sister's shoes.  Watching sis go pitter pat.  Me.  Are you kidding?  Me.

As the show comes back to the Opera House this week, in a tour based on the recent 2006 revival, there will be many in the audience who will experience it for the first time.  And, you know what, I will be in the audience, too, experiencing it for the first time.  Again.

I've stood on the Line.  I've been part of the 19 main characters who made "the cut". 

I can tell you this:  Being in the cast of A Chorus Line is grueling, satisfying work.  I might even go so far as to use the biblical sense of the word work:  worship.

You know that moment when the Line makes that perfect triangle of brilliance during the singular sensation during "One"?   Have you ever wondered if the cast on stage feels the self-same energy?  I have an answer for you, yes.  And yes, and yes.

The cheers from the audience, who I have now become a member again, come from within.  Yes.  And yes.  Cheers for the performers, but more-so for the heart of A Chorus Line that lives in all of us.

It is challenging, freeing, and celebratory.

God I hope they get it.