CELEBRATION IN THE GRAVEYARD

     turkey buzzards at joines cemetery whitehead



The visit to Jr's grave was a spirited moment of good feeling, good communion between three of Jr's friends who dropped by on his 2nd death date and did the same thing we did last year. We each had a sip from some liquor Jr had given me several years ago that I've saved toward the end of the jug because I don't want it all to go away. It's the well I draw from for moments such as this. I went by and found Jr's cousin Claude's widow, Edith, and Claude's daughter, Melia, people who have known Jr all their lives, cousins. We went to the Joines cemetery in Whitehead. His grave was just inside the gate. We saw these buzzards and they didn't fly away when we walked through the gate. Edith said, "I've never seen that before." When we each had our sip I poured the rest on the grave. It felt right for all of us. It even felt like he was with us in spirit. Not in a woo-woo way, but simply a spirit way like he was there with us without the body. I thought of something Jesus had said, where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, I'll be in the midst thereof. It felt like that's how it was with Jr. We were gathered in his name and he was among us.



It made me wonder if this is a natural law of the spirit Jesus was showing us and telling us how it works, like he taught other natural laws such as what we put out comes back to us. The church education I had didn't look at these natural laws Jesus was telling us about, preferring the "commandments." If Jesus said it, it's a commandment. That drove me crazy. What was I to do, but believe it and feel like I have a mind that just doesn't get it. It seemed to me that he presented his so-called commandments as something to think about. You want a good life, here's how you get it. You don't want a good life, then it doesn't matter to you. Go ahead and have a lousy life. It seemed to me he was saying, if you want inner peace, this is the way. He pointed the way, led the way, explained the way. He said, I am the Way. He was so perfectly attuned to the Way that he could say he is the Way and not be stretching anything. The way to inner peace.



I can't help but find it interesting for myself that as I've been on my path slightly more than half my life, I note much of what Jesus and other scriptures emphasize is get along with the people around you. It's like that's the secret. Forgive. Love your neighbor. Generally he talks about treating other people right, giving the benefit of the doubt, turning the other cheek. We find inner peace by being at peace with the people around us. There's no way around it, we're of herd mind. We're social. We're not like cats that are solitary by nature. We want other people around us. We want relationships. We need other people. Treat them right, they treat you right, and it becomes a happy association. When you don't have somebody stalking you after threatening to kill you and you're looking over both shoulders all day every day, you have a degree of inner peace.



I think of Doc Watson on stage playing his guitar with his mastery, singing the old songs like only Doc Watson can sing them. He radiates love to his audience, and they return his love as many fold as there are people in the audience. As the love flows in a circle between him and the audience, the flow of love increases as Doc continues singing and keeping the flow in motion. After seeing La Vie En Rose, I have a feeling Edith Piaf kept the same kind of love flowing between her audiences and herself on stage. Ralph Stanley gets that love flowing in a concert. Larry Sigmon and Barbara Poole did too. I've never been in an Elvis Presley audience, but have an idea he kept that love circle going. Frank Sinatra had it too. He spoke to the audience like everybody in the place was his friend. What those singers have in that way cannot be copied.



I can't help but suspect that there is something to the saying, where two or three are gathered in my name. Last year when we did the same thing, we all felt presence then, too. About the only way I can think of to describe how it felt was a certain clarity in the air with us. He certainly was in each of our hearts at the time. We have a good time honoring Jr in this way. All of us are people who have never done anything like this. And we go at it like it's as perfectly natural a thing to do as getting out of bed in the morning. It makes sense to us, and we're the only ones it matters to. I like my bonds with Jr's relatives and friends since he left the body. They were his gift to me.



Now that I'm looking at hearing God speak in my heart, becoming aware that might be a way of looking at intuition. Now that my life has slowed enough that I'm able to practice the patience needed to stay with the flow of what is going on in and around me. My flow not a race track. I have to be willing to allow the flow and not be afraid to follow it and see where it goes. Being a lover of God and having the Master for my guide, I don't need to worry about anything. No harm will come to me when I'm in my flow. Something like this might have been Jesus' meaning when he was taking Peter for a walk on the water. When he's in his flow he can walk on the water. Though a thought about it, self consciousness, pops the balloon and he sinks. I'm thinking it's the same with my flow. Riding it without thinking about it, all flows smoothly. To start analyzing the flow, thinking about it, talking about it, makes it go away. It's like it can only be allowed. Allow it and let it flow. I'm becoming a little bit practiced at staying with my flow, even in places like airport lobbies.



My flow is awfully slow. I've found when I stay in the slow zone I am able to ride my flow and feel in tune with self and all around me. When I try to go faster than my flow, then my mind goes haywire and confusion sets in. The patience to allow the flow and not try to hurry it is crucial. I had to get out of the job routine to find my flow. I've an idea it began when I came home from looking after Jr so closely for a year, my pillow was molded, the bed musty smelling, and my life was at a standstill. I had no momentum going of my own. I was writing these entries, the one thing that carried over. Instead of deciding by mind how to get my life going again, I let go and went through the days letting what holds my interest be my guide. By now, after a couple years, I have a good flow going that's not pushing me. It's a let-go-let-God flow. Don't worry about it; let it happen. We hadn't made arrangements for a time to meet to go tot he cemetery. I wasn't able by one thing after another to get to their place until around 4, concerned all day about getting in touch with them. They'd gone to Galax, were gone all day concerned about how we're going to arrange to have a drink with Jr. When I drove up, the time was just right. We got in the car and went.



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ONE YEAR AFTER

the master resting



At 10 o'clock this morning I met with 3 members of Jr's family (second cousin, her husband and her mother, Jr's cousin in-law), at his grave to celebrate him with a drink of some liquor he gave me about a year before he went on. I took his drinking glass, an orange juice glass, and we each had a sip from it, passing the glass around, like communion. In fact, when I handed the glass to the first one, I said, "This is communion." We didn't do prayer, ritual or anything like that. We stood at the grave, talked about him, each of us had a sip of his liquor. All said, "This is smooth," wide-eyed. They didn't know Jr only drank the best liquor in the land. I knew who made it, that the "recipe" goes back 4 generations, that this is liquor good as liquor has ever been made. I kept that part to myself, not because it was a secret, it just didn't feel like the place or time to be bragging about the liquor Jr shared with me for 5 years. We each took a sip, then poured a sip on the grave. We all laughed saying if he could see us from up there he would be having a good time
laughing over our way of remembering him.

One of the many benefits of being a friend to Jr Maxwell was that he told me his life in 2 hours a day chapters while we each sipped two drams of liquor so good tasting it was candy. When he told me he wished he could pay me for what I've done for him, I said he'd paid in advance with 5 years of sharing the best liquor ever made in this world with me. I started the sentence meaning it in light hearted humor, but as I heard it said, I realized his gift was tremendous indeed. Where pay-backs are concerned, I was in debt to him. I helped him out in his year of helplessness because I knew the story of his life , I knew who he was, I knew he couldn't eat cornbread anymore because crumbs stuck in his throat and "strangled" him. I knew the depths of the great sorrows of his life. He loved his place and his people: Whitehead.

I had never thought of helping as an exchange. I refused any offer of money from anyone all along the way. I didn't want one dollar to taint what I was doing. This was my "service to humanity" after I'd realized one person is the same "humanity" as all 9 billion or however many they are of us. By then, I knew God had sent me to Jr. All the way along before his decline, I was the one benefitted, learning, really, at the feet of the Master. I saw Jr someone way beyond me on his spiritual path. I was sent to him by God with the instruction to pay attention to this man.

I've likened our relationship a few times already as the abbot monk and the novice monk, the novice monk helping the abbot monk in his time of helplessness.

I think of Joshua, one of Ezekiel's novice monks who insisted he be with Ezekiel when his spirit ascended. As Ezekiel departed he passed his "mantle," perhaps a length of cloth worn over the shoulders to keep them warm, to Joshua. (I may have these names and the story all wrong; going by memory from a long time ago) It was symbolic of his power, his spiritual power. It was then that Joshua received the grace of his enlightenment. Jr passed his chariot to me, also an insulated long-sleeve plaid winter shirt someone had given him that was way too big and fit me just right. I knew him well enough to know it was all important to him that he die at home in his own bed. Jr Maxwell lived too honorable a life (I'm not talking about church going and running references in the Bible--not at all) to be shelved in the lumberyard of the dying. Nobody else could come forward for him, so I had to. It turned out I was the only one who could not allow Jr Maxwell to die of despair. I was also the only one who saw it that way.

That's why I believe God sent me to him. God paid really close attention to Jr Maxwell as one of his own. He knew what was ahead for Jr and sent someone who would benefit as much from knowing Jr as Joshua would from knowing Ezekiel to the last moment. It was God looking after both of us, individually. Where Joshua's enlightenment is concerned, I certainly had at least a mild form of enlightenment. I'm different now. I tend to feel the "spirit" of a place, a gathering of people, people, animals. Taking Tapo to the vet, one of the symptoms I gave was her spirit is weak. It's not like there is something new I've never seen before. It's a subtle sense of awareness of the feeling in a place or an event, or just my surroundings wherever I am. I feel an understanding of others like never before. I don't mean like reading minds or intents, not like that, or even being able to tell if somebody is lying. It's an understanding that we are all individuals unique as our fingerprints and all are important, no matter how low down or how high up.

I'm comfortable with the people of my world without respect to their assets anyway, and get along easily with nearly everyone, because I like peace in my world, in my mind. The "enlightenment" I came away with, from the experience of helping out somebody I respected a great deal, is a subtle awareness of peace within, an ongoing calm that I deeply appreciate. It's put me in a place where reading the words while singing the songs in the Primitive Baptist hymnal sends tears flowing down my face. I feel their meanings like never before. It's like it's right there in plain english just like it really is, where before, that "plain english" was sometimes impenetrable, just couldn't grasp it. Perhaps it's what is meant saying a veil has lifted. Whatever it is, I'm happy to accept. I like everything in my world a whole lot better. My part in our celebration this morning was done from a heart overflowing with gratitude.

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