Exchanges

"What will you give in exchange for your soul?"

Three times a week I walk past the evangelist's table in the student union, with its banner announcing this question in bold lettering. Sometimes I come very close to approaching the display and talking to the man. I want to attempt a conversation.

Other times I just want to reserve a table right beside his, posing a different question: "What will you give in exchange for a cookie?"

I'll never actually pursue such a bake sale. His question—originally asked by Jesus—isn't nearly as amusing as it is terrifying, and it's followed up by a second question posted on his banner: "Are you going to heaven?" It is that dilemma that kept me awake at night when I was nine and ten and eleven. Am I going to heaven? Now and then the query still keeps me up.

One late-fall afternoon when I reluctantly pass the table the man's young daughter is helping him pack up the familiar banner and books. She smiles shyly at bundled-up skeptic me. She whispers something to her dad. Then comes his gentle reply, in reference to what I deduce to be my snowflaked winter hat: “Yes, hers is just like yours.” Chastened, I feel my face return her joy, and for a moment these eternal worries fade to grace.

"Compassion and gratitude come down from God," Simone Weil writes, "and when they are exchanged in a glance, God is present at the point where the eyes of those who give and those who receive meet."

This is just outside Laramie, Wyoming, where I wrote the above. Circa 2010.

Anecdotes of note

Some of the best emails in my inbox these days come from my nonagenarian grandmother, containing sweet notes, punny sayings, and then gems like this that are deserving of a wider audience.

In the excerpts below, Grandma remembers the three times when my late grandfather got hurt as an adult, or almost hurt in one case:

"He had few physical injuries even though he led a very active life. The one time I remember was when he sprained his ankle when the paint crew was working on a church in Rochester. As I recall they wanted a metal star removed from the steeple and your Dad climbed the ladders, removed it and proceeded to carry it down. All went well until he tripped on the bottom step, fell and ended up with a severely sprained ankle!"

"Anyway it never deterred him climbing ladders. [One summer] he was painting on a house at the corner of 7th Ave. & 36th St and in putting up the metal ladder it hit an electric line. Fortunately he was standing on the ground and although it burnt a rung on the ladder he felt only a strong shock. It did put out the lights on part of College Hill for awhile."

"I'm sure you've heard his story of riding an English bike, falling and breaking a wrist just a few days before the D-Day invasion, and when it came time for his company to take part in the invasion he pulled his sleeve over the cast and told the commander the doctor had OK'd his going in with the troops."

Considering his service in World War II, his years working in a Pennsylvania steel mill, and then decades of activity as a shop teacher and painter, plus just the kind of person he was, the fact that these were apparently the only three scrapes he got himself into is quite remarkable to me.

Grandma's ability to recall these and so many other stories is equally remarkable.

Original valentines

Garren McKelvy was his name. He happened to be absent on fourth-grade picture day, and I remember very little about his appearance, except that he evoked everything that is tall, dark and handsome.

I'd been patient all year, and my concealed feelings longed for an outlet. As Valentine's Day neared, I had a brilliant idea. This year, I'd create my own valentine cards, paying particular attention to the design and message of Garren's.

Most of the bright, construction-papered creations were warm but light-hearted and utterly cliché, informing my classmates that they were the cream of the crop or number one or a great pal. I saved Garren’s valentine for last. It consisted of two dark-blue hearts lovingly pasted together. I thought about using pink and red, but that seemed a little girly for him and too lovey-dovey. I needn't have worried about the color, though, considering the valentine’s not-so-subtle message, which I will never live down yet somehow don’t regret. "Dear Garren," it began, "One heart isn't big enough to hold the love I have for you. Happy Valentine's Day. From Evie."

Mercifully, the holiday fell on a Friday that year, so I didn't have to face Garren or the other boys in the class for a few days after the party that afternoon turned sour. Garren's reaction wasn’t what I’d hoped for, quite. I'd imagined him quietly pocketing the valentine greeting and finding me on the playground later, where he would reveal his own, corresponding affections, perhaps with a peck on the cheek or a confiding note. Instead, while my fellow students and I each sorted through our individual, decorated bags of obligatory valentines, a crowd of pint-sized gentlemen formed around Garren's desk. And before I could even guess at the topic of interest, one of the meanest ones suddenly cried, "Hey Evie, there's your lover boy!" Then they all laughed and I stared at my shoelaces, waiting for the bell to ring so I could sprint home and weep away the weekend.

I say I don't regret what I wrote to Garren, and I mean that. "Better is open rebuke than hidden love," a certain proverb insists, and I would have to agree. So would Saint Valentine. According to legend, this imprisoned Roman priest fell in love with his jailer’s blind daughter and miraculously restored sight to her eyes. When the romance was discovered, Valentine was sentenced to death. He sent the girl a farewell note on February 14, the morning of his beheading, signed, "From your Valentine." When I fear rejection, I can recall this original Valentine and find comfort in the notion that at least rejection is better than beheading.

Anyway, I've moved on to greener pastures, as you can see from this picture.

Gloria

I'm grateful for kind neighbors, St. Louis Metro, and working utilities this week--and for all those who work outdoors and in tricky situations, trying to deal with the extremely extreme weather to keep folks safe and the city running. Gloria, one of my bus drivers along the 73, is one of those everyday troopers, and I had the pleasure of riding along with her one morning a while back. I wanted to give just a peek at her typical morning:
 
"The steps are slippery," Gloria cautions as the bus empties out. "I hope everybody wore their coats—the temperature’s dropping."

After a night of heavy rain and thunder and the previous day’s balmy high near 70 degrees, it’s as though the St. Louis skies are suddenly alert to their seasonal blunder and abruptly switching back to temps more appropriate for the winter morning. By the time we reach the South County Mall on the second loop (Gloria’s third) at 10:23 a.m., it’s definitely winter again. Gloria absorbs the brunt of it, seated directly across from the front door that must open frequently, both to let people on and off and to make it easier to see all necessary angles at certain intersections.

During the South County Mall layover—all of seven minutes—she invites eight people waiting on the Lindbergh bus to come aboard to get warm, and they pile in. While awaiting our 10:30 departure, Gloria adds a layer to her uniform, right there in the aisle, wrangling her trousered legs into what look something like ski pants.

Gloria has been driving Metro buses for almost 21 years. She’s 47 years old, but I would have guessed she was in her thirties. Everyone here seems to know her. When we pass a trash collector, his face brightens and he waves excitedly from across the street. At one of what must be hundreds of stop signs along the route, a passing pedestrian in a yellow sweatshirt and pink pants glances up from the crosswalk, recognizes the bus driver, and blows her a kiss.

Chris tells me the bus is like a club and that Gloria really listens. When his mother died last September, "people on the bus knew," and he was glad to be able to talk about it. At his stop, Gloria tells him to have a good day and try not to work too hard.

"I really do care about what I do," she says. "It is a trying profession, because you're dealing with people, and people have problems. They train us to already know that--that people have issues. I don't take it personally. My mom used to say, 'You never know what's going on in a person's life.' Your job is to say, 'Good morning!'"

Off track

"The truth is, Evie, you are in a dangerous place. You are playing with fire. You are lying on the railroad tracks, by your own choice, and you may like it there and you may feel like that is the place for you, but you are not aware that you are on railroad tracks. You are not aware of the coming train. You don't feel the tracks vibrating. You don't hear the distant whistle of the train. You cannot see the cloud from the coal in the engine off in the distance.

"I am trying to get your attention and help save you. Only a miracle can get you off the tracks. Only God can reach down and pull you from their grip."

It's this memorable metaphor that closes an associate's earnest seven-page plea to me in the fall of 2010, followed by the friendly, handwritten postscript, "Please don't ever hesitate to call me any time [number]. I'd love to hear from you, and please feel free to write back." The young pastor's typed epistle has been sitting in a file folder with other kindly-meant attempts at salvaging this prodigal soul--other items I couldn't quite bring myself to toss.

The sermon-like qualities are striking to me, along with evidence that the correspondent invested much time and energy in crafting the letter and felt deep concern upon learning of my departure from the conservative faith in which we were both raised. "My faith has only grown in my correspondence with you," he writes in an earlier passage. "I've seen more clearly the utter hopelessness, sinfulness, and foolishness of unbelief ... I have spent hours thinking about how I might help you see our good God, hours writing and hours praying for you. But these hours cannot be compared to eternity."

I still feel a kind of guilt for becoming a burden to certain dear people along these lines and imagine ways I could have handled my loss of faith with greater care for others. There are some.

But this train is bound for doubting, this train.

"You said that you are more and more convinced that personal uncertainty about the biggest questions in life is a good trait. So you are becoming certain that it is good not to be certain?

"You would not think it good to be uncertain of whether you had enough credits to graduate, or whether your book was to be published, or whether you had cancer or not, or whether it was raining outside or not ... these are minor things in comparison to the major life and death questions of God and faith and so forth--very important questions that one must have certainty about. They are essential. Where did life come from? Where are we going? What is wrong with the world? What is the solution? Is there a God? What happens after death? It is essential that we understand and know these answers so that we can live."

I, for one, am still relatively stumped on a lot of those questions--even though I'm almost done plowing through Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?(!). (It's a good book, by the way!)

Happy new year, all. I really like trains, by the way.

Cheri & Taylor [sneak peek]

I had the pleasure of capturing the lovely wedding of a friend's daughter in southern Illinois this past weekend. Congratulations to Cheri & Taylor, and merry Christmas! ~

Go, Cheetahs!

I enjoyed photographing my friend Jennifer's little soccer team last Saturday. Despite thunderstorms earlier that morning, the Cheetahs all showed up and appeared to have a blast. Here are just a few highlights from the shoot. Kids are funny.