What is the Point?

This morning I took a walk with a beloved friend to Lake Michigan. In the neighborhood where I live for now, there is an artificially created point into the Lake, known as “the point” locally. She and I have walked dozens of times to the point and back home again.

This was to be our final time.

We talked the whole way about Life and the questions and challenges it brings. It was a good conversation.

And then I stood at the edge of the breakwater for a while, alone. I watched a seagull gracefully floating along the water. I saw two little birds playing tag. I heard the waves crash against some rocks, and I looked at the water intake station, a mile out. And I began to cry.

In a class I took in seminary, I was introduced to the idea of God as the God of a certain place. That a place itself is sacred, because God was there. I believe that God is everywhere, but that doesn’t make this place, this City any less sacred to me because it shares God.

This is the place I came, or more accurately, ran away from home to, when I was 28. I have been here a long time. Here is where I became me. And I am tied to this place. To the Lake, to the neighborhood of Hyde Park.

I tried to soak up as much of the Lake as I could this morning. Deep breaths through my mouth to taste the moist air. Eyes, made blurry by tears, trying to memorize the glorious wonder and size of Lake Michigan.

It’s rare that we know we’re doing something for the last time. I tried to take advantage of it. As I was standing there at the edge of the water a single word entered my consciousness: exile.

Self-imposed and temporary, only 12 months, but exile none the less. Forced out of my home for academic training.

Every step on the way evoked memories. Here’s where Greg and I, young and in love, had a picnic. This is where I first met Wallace, and here’s where he died at age 94, almost 95, 8 years later. Here’s where I lived with Karen and Stephanie. Karen died 8 years go at age 33. Here is the church where I found my spiritual home and path. The very path that is leading me away, walking slowly in grief.

Before my friend and I left the Point, we met an African-American woman, no odd occurrence in Hyde Park, who was also leaving the Park. She commented on my friend’s sweatshirt and we got to talking. She’s not from here, but from Ohio. She’s here with her daughter, who is dealing with 4th stage breast cancer at the University Hospital.

Ministry calls.

We spoke for a while. Her daughter’s name is Carole. I said a silent prayer for Carole and her Mom, who never gave us her name.

As I had experienced during my chaplaincy, a person needing an ear to hear them is a gift to me. The Universe is saying “You can help this person, remember your purpose.”

And so, in a morning of grieving and thinking about all I am losing, it's a little reminder that I have a place in the world.

Even if that place isn’t the neighborhood I’ve come to love.

God is everywhere, and God is Love.

What's in a Name?

I thought I was just being clever in naming my blog "Humble Pie a la Mode." I really didn't know that origin of "humble pie." So I did what all good people of an academic bent do, I went to the Oxford English Dictionary. But by the time I'd found out the beginnings of humble pie, I'd already found this cool photograph through flickr* and I couldn't give it up. So, the name stayed. And with apologies to the vegetarians and the squeamish of stomach in my life, I'll share with you what I found out.

Humble Pie, according to the OED.

1. = UMBLE PIE, a pie made of the ‘umbles’ or inwards of a deer (or other animal). Obs.

a1648 DIGBY Closet Open. (1677) 203 To season Humble-Pyes. [1822 T. L. PEACOCK Maid Marian 241 Robin helped him largely to numble-pie..and the other dainties of his table.]

2. to eat humble pie: to be very submissive; to apologize humbly; to submit to humiliation.
[From HUMBLE a., perh. with jocular reference to sense 1 here. Cf. to eat rue-pie (Lincolnsh.) to rue, repent.]

1830 Forby's Voc. E. Anglia App. 432 ‘To make one eat humble pie’ i.e. To make him lower his tone, and be submissive. It may possibly be derived from the umbles of the deer, which were the perquisite of the huntsman; and if so, it should be written umble-pie, the food of inferiors. 1847-78 HALLIWELL s.v., To eat humble pie, to be very submissive, var. dial. 1855 THACKERAY Newcomes I. xiv. 136 You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my boy. 1863 READE Hard Cash xlii, ‘The scornful Dog’, had to eat wormwood pudding and humble pie. 1871 J. C. JEAFFRESON Ann. Oxford I. xiv. 224 The town had..to eat a considerable amount of humble pie. 1883 HOWELLS Register ii, Trying to think what was the very humblest pie I could eat.

b. In other analogous expressions.

1862 SALA Seven Sons II. ix. 217 The staple in the bill of fare was Humble Pie. 1895 Times 9 Jan. 4/1 To sue for peace when further resistance becomes hopeless is a kind of ‘humble pie’ that fate has condemned all vanquished nations to swallow from time immemorial.

I promise you I was completely unaware of the first definition.

My intention was more the latter definitions, but not entirely. I also meant to reference humility and taking what you've got and doing the best with it that you can. Humility with ice cream.

I guess the joke's on me with that innards bit, huh?

In a funny way though, the definition demonstrates my point beautifully. I was being cheeky, and I got served my very own plate of humble, from the first entry.


*photo credit to cobalt123