Warm Beer
or, scenes from a summer picnic
You know how it goes: Summer picnic, blistering sun. Your skin, like milk in the oven, curdling. Salvation lies in a red Igloo, and you take the plunge, an ice bath for that one fortunate hand. Click, swish, ah! But the beer can only stay so cold for so long and now your kid fell off the swing and she’s bleeding and crying and screaming and people are starting to stare—does this kid even have a parent, does anyone love her at all—and the Band-Aids are in the house and you’ll need a washcloth, too, because the cut is covered in those tiny woodchips and that’s sure to get infected. And in the house, on your way to med school and your pop-up clinic, you realize the meatballs are out and, well, it’s just one, maybe two, why not a full plate? Now you’re juggling a plate of meatballs and a medical degree and the dark, bitter stares of the adults who got to your kid first, the ones who really cared and, well, you’ve got meatballs at least; she’s probably hungry. You’re a hero, for a brisk moment, until you remember she hates meatballs—well, you didn’t remember, that was the issue, but you’ve been summarily reminded at a dramatic decibel level—and so back inside you go. And while you’re spooning out Mac N’ Cheese, you casually ask your neighbor how summer is going—just small talk, silence at the buffet table seems unnatural, someone needs to break it—and that’s when you learn her father has taken ill, months left to live, the mind slowly unraveling, and there you stand like a buffoon with Mac N’ Cheese in one hand and a still-wet, still-bloody wash cloth in the other. Of course, you set them down, step around the BBQ bin and offer a consoling hand, a shoulder, whatever bit of the body best expresses your sympathy because, man, life can be so hard sometimes and we just need someone to lean on, someone to listen, and so that’s what you do. And suddenly the gates have opened and memories are dashing out, running every which way like scared, skittish horses, and you get this image of a man who was once strong, who stood tall and proud and served his country and loved his family and bought lettuce at a discount every Friday afternoon but now he’s bound to his tiny room and, really, is there anything you can do? Do you need me to make a meal? I’ll bet there will be leftover Mac N’ Cheese after all this, why not take a plate home?
And all this to say, by the time you’ve sorted through the muddle of humanity the beer is warm—all but undrinkable—but you’re not thinking about it anymore anyway. Life is too hard to let the beer go to waste.
And another thing:
This past week we celebrated the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola! You can read my reflection—“5 Life Lessons from St. Ignatius”—in this week’s “Now Discern This.” Click here.
I joined Jessica McNair on the “Tales of the Force” podcast to talk about Ignatian spirituality, Star Wars fandom and, of course, “My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars.” You can listen to that episode here, or watch it here!
And finally, this week I submitted a completed manuscript (well, first round of edits…so completed manuscript level 2) of my forthcoming book with Brazos Press, “Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness.” That should be out some time next year, so get excited about that!