A Sermon To Myself

It's Sunday morning. Sunday morning. Elvis looks like he may be trying to organize the hens into prayer but they are more interested in the scratch I threw out for them than they are in folding their feet although they are bowing their heads to eat.

There is a very small church next door to me. It is a Methodist church and I have never set foot in it and the membership has never been large, to say the least. If there are six cars in the parking lot on a Sunday morning it's a big deal. I heard last night that the church is folding, or whatever it is that churches do when they can no longer support themselves. There will be a service tonight and then that will be that.
I wonder what will happen to the church.

Of course I look at it and think, "Mmmm. What a great restaurant and bar that would make," and wouldn't it? I think I would call it "Oak Church Restaurant And Bar Of Lloyd."


The tree that stands behind it on my property shades and protects it magnificently and I often worship it on a Sunday morning and in fact, almost every evening as the sun goes down behind it. There is a a little place set up beside the church built for dinners on the ground but I have only seen it used once. For a wedding, I think.

Outdoor dining, anyone?
Perhaps the name of the restaurant could be "Dinner On The Grounds."

People would drive from Tallahassee to come our restaurant, I am thinking. We would serve them food from our garden which is a few feet behind the building, eggs from our chickens which scratch on the fence line, closer still.
The food would be so good and so fresh that folks would moan and sway, close their eyes and pray, oh yes. I think so.

Well. A Sunday morning thought about a different sort of life, one spent working my fingers to the bone in a restaurant with my children working beside me. May would be in charge, of course, because she knows restaurants inside and out and Hank could do the bar because he knows that business too. We could have live music. People could dance. Maybe outside under the oak trees. I could walk home after work.

I'm fifty-five years old. Almost fifty-six and I wonder, "Is this it?" Have I indeed fulfilled my genetic destiny and should now just roll over and die? Seriously? I feel so stuck. I don't have skills or aptitude for anything practical on this earth but for caring for my family, being a half-assed housewife, a fairly decent plain cook, an observer of that which is immediately around me, a digger in the dirt. That's it. And those of you who have aptitude for things- for great things, for grand things (SJ!), you fucking cherish that about yourself! Okay? I mean it!

I feel a bit like that church, perhaps, in that my use in this particular form is done. All right. Not really. I am still needed and I know that and I am grateful for that. Lily keeps worrying that I'm going to get tired of taking care of Owen. She has no idea how much this taking-care of that boy whom I love with all of my being has given my life new meaning, new purpose. But maybe, like a dream of refitting the church for another purpose, I need a dream of refitting this body, this soul, into something else for another purpose.

But I feel so stuck. So stuck.
Some days it is all enough to tend the chickens, to tend the man, to tend the garden, to tend the boy, to tend this little corner of the blog world. To go off down the road to the Opera House where I park behind the old print shop and walk down the block to the door which they open for me because they know me. Oh yes. Enough.
Usually it's enough.
But I still wake up some days and beat myself up because I haven't found a cure for cancer or made it possible for anyone to live better. I don't serve meals on wheels. I don't hold women's hands in labor or receive new life from between their thighs or make the world better with music or teach children how to read or collect money to provide safe drinking water for people in third world countries or, well...you get the picture.

I just sit and moan about it all which makes me beat myself up even more.
Whiner, I call myself. Bullshitter, I anoint myself. Lazy, I describe myself.
Crazy, I define myself.

So yes, a restaurant in the church. How about Church of the Batshit Crazy Bar and Grill?
How about I go out there and deal with some chicken shit? How about I mop a floor? How about I quit getting in the way of myself the way I have always done and bow my head and accept my blessings as they are right now, this minute? Perhaps even accept MYSELF as I am this minute.

How about THAT?

Okay. I'll try.

And you? What hymn is going through your head on this Sunday? A hymn of praise or a hymn of asking for forgiveness? What prayer? A prayer of acceptance or a prayer asking for direction? And to what god or goddess or tree or mountain or sea do you sing and pray?

The Church of the Batshit Crazy Bar And Grill is now open for business. In my head.
Sing, y'all. Pray, y'all. Sit down and have a drink. It'll have to be iced tea today. Jefferson County is dry on Sundays. All ecstasy must come from the Lord and not from the bottle.
Fine. Whatever.
Here. Sit down. Tell me what you want to eat. Tell me what miracles you observed on your drive out here.
Tell me it's okay. I'll tell you the same.

Elvis will lead us in prayer. Unless you'd rather just eat. Don't worry about the blessing. It's been given.

I promise. I heard the cardinals singing it when I got up. I heard the trees whispering it when I collected the eggs. I felt the dirt giving it when I pulled these onions.

Amen and pass the cornbread. Amen and pass the greens.