June 3, 2007
Romans 5: 1-15
Well, for the second year in a row, Easter came a bit late in it’s window of possible days, which means that all the feasts that follow Easter get pushed out a little farther in the calendar. The reason I noticed that bit of trivia this morning is that this is the second year in a row that I have found myself preaching on Trinity Sunday, a preaching day that I usually manage to foist off on a seminarian. Trouble is, if Easter comes after about the first of April they’ve all graduated and gone off someplace. But don’t worry, Elizabeth hasn’t flown the coop. She’s just away preaching at the parish that sent her to seminary one last time before her ordination. So she too this morning is pulling at strings in the theological knot that is our doctrine of the Trinity. Good luck Elizabeth.
The Trinity, this God who is three in one and one in three is one of those concepts that we talk about all the time in the Church. Father, Son and Holy Spirit---Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. We have lots of words to describe the Trinity and we use them often. And, we also say of the Trinity that it is a mystery, unexplainable, a way of speaking of a complex and larger reality that we can not fully take in. It is when religious symbols lead us out to the the great plain of questions--when the concepts expand into wonder that we return to simple language and ideas closer to home in our efforts to grasp what we are being offered. So this multi-faceted God, this divine “ground of our being” that presents different faces at different times becomes a sort of family of God. We all know something about family. Elizabeth said she thought she would talk about dancing today. Dance speaks of a relationship that binds distinct persons into one purpose. Saint Patrick picked up a shamrock to explain the three in one. My close-to-home access to the mystery of the Trinity this morning is an old friend with whom I shared a drink in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel a few weeks ago.
I was in Memphis for a retreat, and I had an extra night after the event so I called Bill to see if he wanted to get some dinner. Some of you have heard me mention my old junior high art teacher. We have kept up all these years, and he is one of the people I call when I am in Memphis. He said he had someone staying at his house, but he could break away for a while, so he met me downtown and we had a drink and then grabbed some dinner.
I spotted him in the hotel lobby dressed in the kakhi pants and white shirt I think he has worn most of his life. His hair is grey and he has his share of wrinkles, but I when I see him I still see the teacher I met when I walked into his art class back in 1965. We walked across to the Peabody, sat at the bar, and he started talking. He talked about students, his school--he’s still teaching--his parents, art, his plans for travel. I knew I wouldn’t get a word in for some time, so I listened and just kind of enjoyed the fact that here I was, spending a little time with such a long-time friend. In fact, somewhere during his opening flood of information about his life I realized that I really did love this guy. At that moment I knew him to be complicated, complex. I knew he was there on that bar stool with me because he wanted, needed maybe to tell his stories.
He was in that moment just a plain old fragile unfathomable human being, and at the same time he was so much more. He talked passionately as he always does about art and teaching art and about his students. I thought of what a gift it had been to be a part of that passion, to have learned from him, to have been included in his artist’s world. I thought also of the many people he had been in my life over the years, and of the different ways he had helped shape my life.
He was just Mr. Hicks to a bunch of seventh graders who landed in his art class all those years ago. All we knew was that he was a teacher, one of the people whose job it is to make students behave. It was his first year teaching and boy was he green. We gave him a hard time as only seventh graders can. He used to tell us to put out our gum. Not spit it out, but put it out. We loved that. We didn’t know whether to stomp on it or take it to the door and invite it to go outside. Somehow he managed to keep us in line, and even to see beyond our mischief and find something in us to encourage and nurture. Soon he became teacher in a better sense--one who has something of value to share. I stayed in his class for three years, and was treated as a friend. When I hear him talk today in excited tones about his students and what they are doing, I know something of what that kind of caring can mean.
Some of his students remained his friends. When I was in high school, sometimes I’d go by the junior high and drop in on Bill’s class. I was always welcome. We’d sit at his desk and talk between his touring the class to check on his kids work. For much of my life, I knew Bill as teacher and friend.
Sometime in the late eighties I ran into Bill and we got to talking about painting. He was teaching in a high school then, and he asked if I wanted to come to the school in the evening to paint. So I started painting again with my old friend. He also taught at the Art college one night a week, and I was able to drop in on that class whenever I wanted. I began to hear more about his life, about relationships and fears and successes. I heard about his parents and about his growing up. In those days he became very human, very real. He was everything I had ever thought he was when I saw him as teacher and friend, and he was more. His life was no easier than anyone’s, certainly no easier than mine. He was a person whose life was as complicated as anyone else’s.
In those days I saw the inside of his house for the first time. It was like a gallery. Books, art, sculpture, studio, not much more. I began to realize how much his art and his passion for art defined him. I came to understand as I got to know him better that he was an artist, that there was no separating him from his art. I understood that his life and sensibilities are tuned to the art he loves and creates and admires. When I think about the great artists I believe I have a glimpse into their lives and souls for having known Bill.
Teacher, friend, fellow human, artist. I keep discovering other faces to this old friend. The latest just this week.
I was working on a guitar piece the other day when I realized that I had tried to play the piece many years ago, had in fact been able to play the thing in my younger days. I went looking for an old LP album in the basement. I came up with an old John Fehey album whose cover is just black printing on a white cover. I bought it in 1966 on Beale Street when Bill sent me down there to check out this great guitar player because he knew I was interested in the guitar. I have several of this guys albums now, but I went looking for that one because of Bill. It occurred to me that this was just one more way he had influenced my life over the years. When I pick up my guitar or when I put a sketch book in my pocket as I head out the door, Bill is a part of that. When I take classes at the art league he’s there with me. I sat there in the living room the other day playing a little blues, being thankful for having such a person in my life. I will continue to find ways is which he has shaped my life.
What does all this have to do with the Trinity and our multi-faceted God. Maybe something about one who meets us as different persons at different times of our lives. Maybe it has something to do with the way we learn over time that the one we know is many, and that maybe new ways of understanding the one are yet ahead of us.
Amen.
JMB