by Blake Kilgore
I was agitated again. The recycling bin was filled with crafts from our boys’ most recent summer camp. All that work – not just the kids, but the leaders who gathered the materials and walked our children through the steps. Little moments, tenderhearted, creative, perhaps of awakening or illumination, and the carnal evidence would soon go to the street to be picked up and mixed with detritus from all over the county.
During the school year is even worse. It started with a trickle eight years ago when my eldest son began preschool. Now we have three in school and there is a rising flood of drawings and essays and art and tests. A great many of those assignments were likely happy candidates for the heap, but it still feels sad, seeing the spent labor of my children and their teachers forsaken so.
Once in a while I fail as husband (ha-once in a while, yeah, right!) and question the pieces elected for recycling, essentially casting shade on the motherhood of my wife, Jess:
“Honey, look at this little drawing – the lines are perfect, the colors strange, perhaps demonstrating originality, and the forms are so innovative. Don’t you care about his work?”
Her flat retort is always the same – “You’re welcome to decide what goes and what we keep.”
To be fair, Jess arranged several boards for showcasing work and the walls are perpetually illumined with color and beauty. I often pause and savor the icons of my children’s effort. During one of those moments I perceived the mournful burden Jess shoulders without complaint.
She has to decide.
Sadly, most of the stuff hanging on the Wall of Achievement eventually follows the rejected work. But for a while, at least, it shines, and is remembered. Sometimes Jess takes a photo before saying goodbye. She cares, but we can’t just have a growing mountain of memories too massive to recall. We are not digital storage discs. We breathe in each moment, or we do not truly live.
Noah, our oldest, is going into middle school in a couple of weeks. It goes so fast. We want to hang on – to youth, money, our children, health, and most of all, life. But, we can’t. All things pass away. And we aren’t the only ones living here, not even right now, much less in the broad swath of history. We have to give back; we have to let things go. We have to recycle.
Sadly we have whole industries devoted to hanging on. If you have tons of junk you’ll never look at again, you can rent a storage unit. If your body is sagging a little, get a lift or a tuck. If you can’t perform, take a pill. Going grey or white, here’s a dye. Losing it all, we can re-seed. But skin creams and Viagra only slow the tide, and some people aren’t even allowed that illusion.
My father died suddenly and tragically of a massive heart attack nearly a decade ago. I still have the clothes and shoes mom passed on, even though Pops’ gear barely fit me then and doesn’t fit me now. I hang on to him where I can, because, in the flesh – he is gone. He was a good man, and everyone who knew him understood this, and when I return home to Oklahoma or interact with someone online who knew him, his deep humanity is recalled. But these people will all die, as will I. Pops was not famous, and so he will be forgotten to this world. This is perplexing, and since his death, I wrestle with despair. If everything returns to dust, then why eat healthy or plant a tree? Why write a song or book? We will all be recycled into the earth, no matter how expensive the coffin. And all our precious junk will rot.
These days I often reflect on the words of Christ, at the Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
-Matthew 6:19-20
Some people know what it feels like to be the victim of theft. I once had the frightful experience of waking to find my alarm had been turned off (right beside my sleeping head) by a crook who stole a bike and CDs. Luckily I was so broke the fool didn’t get away with much, but it still felt pretty crappy. Some people know what it feels like to have precious, soulish things stolen by hustlers and users. Tragically, many know the grief of losing a parent or sibling, a husband or wife, a child. To gangbangers. To police. To the cruelest and most unyielding of enemies – sickness.
Perhaps it seems a little Pollyanna to believe the words of Jesus about the other side and how things will turn out right. Yep, it does. But faith requires us to believe the joyous, the impossible, the glorious. I can’t believe it, but I must, and I do. For me, it is better than natural instinct – revolution, where I get to inflict pain on others to protect myself for a moment, until, of course, I die eventually anyway.
Malcolm X once said “I don’t want the pie in the sky, I want it here!”
I often pray for the soul of Malcolm. He had courage, fought for justice, and spent his life trying to protect the oppressed. In those things, he is one of my heroes. And I want my pie here, too.
Oh well, so does everyone else – what about the people trapped today in Syria? The orphans and raped widows of Somalia and Rwanda certainly did. So did the Muslim Bosnians in Yugoslavia, the Jews at Auschwitz, the victims in Orlando, Paris, Nashville and El Paso, innocents from Columbine to Parkland, those falling in the collapsing Twin Towers, the tortured slaves on the antebellum plantations of the Deep South, or the Cherokee braves and squaws harried by government-encouraged racists on the Trail of Tears.
Surely the Son of God at least could get his pie here, right, his Kingdom of Heaven on earth? He walked on water, healed the sick, and fed five thousand. He raised Lazarus from the dead! Nope, Jesus did not get his pie, here. Listen to his plea-
“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup from me.”
-Mark 14:36
Later, after he had been beaten beyond recognition and crucified, dying, hear his heartbreak-
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
-Matthew 27:46
When I enter the Liturgy, I see holy paint on walls and ceilings. Saints – martyrs, ancestors in the faith, elders, the wise, Saint Mary, the mother of my Lord, and Christ Pantocrator, the “Almighty”. Their time on earth has concluded, yet they remain. I smell incense, the presence of the Holy Spirit. Candles flicker, offered prayers. I reach out and touch the hem of His garment. Love takes on bread and wine, and I unite myself to the Divine.
These are the bright pieces of art hanging on the wall, the icons of hope, incarnate anchor to the other side, where moth and rust and thief have no power. Where the good remains, and darkness is expelled.
One of the supreme joys of my life is reading. Many years ago, it dawned upon me suddenly and with much gloom – I would fail to read all that might enlighten or give me joy. I would die too soon. May God have mercy on those who don’t find reading they love until it’s late!
I have a vision of Heaven which might be completely inaccurate, but I believe it anyway. God has a museum of sorts – it’s a library, an art gallery, a theatre and a concert hall. In this holy place, in God’s book of life, for an eternity not bound be time, we will read about, listen to, and observe: every fervent prayer offered by the suffering soul, every morsel sacrificed by the starving caretaker, every beautiful jot and tittle of the scribbling child, every righteous hope spoiled by poverty or class or greed, every forgiveness granted to the remorseless, every unseen generosity, unrequited love or lonely and humble tear. All of the recycled things, the things that were given back, will be there. And we will celebrate one another, together with the great throng of heaven, and with the Author of all that is good.
Blake Kilgore grew up in Tornado Alley, spending most of his first three decades in Texas and Oklahoma. Now, he lives in New Jersey with his wife and four sons, where he’s just completed his twentieth year teaching history to junior high students. That’s how his love for story began – recounting the (mostly) true stories from olden times. Eventually, he wanted to tell stories of his own, and you can find some of these in Lunch Ticket, Rathalla Review, Midway Journal, Forge, Crack the Spine, and other fine journals. To learn more, go to blakekilgore.com