Pentecost Sunday

for a more authentic life

To survive, I’ve had to learn to live more authentically. It’s only taken me sixty-mumble-mumble years to figure this out. I’ve had significant help along the way. I’ve been a member of Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church my entire life, but it’s only been about three years that I’ve been able to attend and show my face before the Lord, saying, “This is me.”

When I talk about the Poor Knight and the Great Beast, these are an effort to shield, hide, and protect a poet’s heart. Whenever I publish a poem, I preface it by saying, “I hate my poetry.” And I do. I hate when these things come upon me. It’s not that I want to write them—I HAVE to write them, they are only in part OF me, the rest falls on me like rain. I am not the author of my own poetry. When I write, when I paint, I feel God’s pleasure. It took me forever to understand that, and what part it plays in my identity.

Pentēkostē, a Greek word that translates to fiftieth in English. Among Jews, it celebrates Shavuot (the “Feast of Weeks”) fifty days after passover. In Christianity, it marks 50 days since the resurrection and 10 days after the ascension of the saints, including Jesus, to heaven. We call it “the birthday of the church” because the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles. Today, my pastor baked a cake, a gigantic red velvet cake. Red is the color of Pentecost.

Not long before Little Bird was born, Daddy called me into his office after work. “You’re dying, aren’t you, Buddy?”

The demands of Mississippi had taken my father from me for most of my childhood, but when I worked for him as a young adult, we not only reconciled our familial relationship but also became good friends.

It’s hard to be my friend. My conversations can be pretty boring and focused on things most people don’t care about, like words and how they’re used. I don’t like to open up and be vunerable. Ever. Don’t bother asking. My ADHD makes it look like I’m not paying attention when I am, I’m impatient, and ugly. Just ugly, but despite it all, I have a pure heart.

By the time Little Bird was born, I’d spent twenty years sailing over the breakers at low tide because that’s when people became stranded and needed my help. By the time she drew breath, there were deep gouges in the hull. If I didn’t stop, I’d spring a leak, but I wouldn’t stop. By the time she was thirteen, I was looking very closely at finding a cave to live in. I was married but unhappy. They gave me drugs to make me less unhappy. They didn’t do much but make sex pointless, which it already was. By the time she was twenty-five, I’d been living in the cave for a year. I had plans to die there.

Little Bird was in the first round of babies born to my generation. I saw a picture of her as a beautiful, but somewhat bewildered-looking baby. Life’s pretty confusing when you wear Pampers. I’d always been close to her family, but she was so beautiful and so perfect, I figured it was time to let go for real. If she ever knew who I was, my hope was that somebody would say, “He was one of Mimi’s students. I don’t know what happened to him.”

It’s only now that she’s my protegee and one of my best friends that I realize the cherished moments I missed not knowing her as a child.

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, and a beautiful summer day. Reagan, my pastor, made a ginormous birthday cake for the church with the Methodist flaming cross on top. Considering the bad reputation that burning crosses have developed in the South, there have been several conversations about changing the Methodist Church’s symbol, but I think most people have come to grips with the idea that a symbol can mean very different, even opposing, things.

In church, I watch all the little girls with their young mothers as they find their seats. There may not be anything more beautiful than a young mother, in their calf-length summer frocks, sleek black hair, and pointy shoes with just one-inch heels. “Go kiss Nana. When they have children’s church, don’t run up front.”

Children’s church is part of every service now. One of our youth ministers discusses Jesus with our itty-bitties and rewards them with something to color and sometimes a piece of candy. The child who promised she wouldn’t run to the rail for Children’s Church, absolutely ran to the rail for Children’s church. I guess she forgot.

I like our new pastor, Raigan, a lot. I’m pretty terrible at allowing pastoral care. I let David Elliot and Minka Sprague ease me into accepting the Lord’s Table. Realizing that the last thing I wanted was to be a hypocritical Christian, I decided to find ways to let it all be very real to me. This included admitting that I don’t know what I don’t know, so I suppose I’m technically an agnostic who is also a member of the United Methodist Church.

I don’t allow people to pray for me. God knows what I need. If it suits his purpose, he’ll help me. I do pray, though. I pray for pretty specific things, things that don’t have that much to do with me. I’ve asked Raigan to help me pray for these things, and I’ve asked my childhood friend, Reverend Todd, to help me pray for them. I figure that’s pretty good. I won’t accept pastoral care for me unless it can be hidden in an intellectual argument like Minka and I discussing the eucharist and the Greek words that describe it, but I will accept pastoral care for the things I love. I need all the help I can get there.

Raigan delivers very emotional sermons. I’m a very emotional person. For some reason, I couldn’t look at her yesterday. I listened intently, but I couldn’t look at her. These sorts of random, illogical, emotional outbursts are another reason why it’s so difficult to be my friend. I do that with music sometimes. I bow my head and let it flow over me. I’m sure it looks like I’m either asleep or just a jerk.

As long as it’s truly felt, a church family can mean the world to a child. Monkey, Joe, and I are the third generation of Campbells to join Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church. Of my class in Sunday School, only Jim Wilkerson, Catherine Lewis, and I are still members. The rest all moved away. From what I can tell, Randy Yates plans to either move to or buy up Mexico for himself and his dog.

Before church, we talked about how Margaret Key and her group of little ladies sewed the original banners for the Galloway sanctuary. They’ve been replaced with new ones. Jim Wilkerson had some of the older ones mounted in a frame, so they don’t get any more threadbare. Jim and I are both about the same age as the banners Mrs. Keys made, but nobody has asked to put us behind glass yet. Maybe it’s time.

Catherine Freis, one of my masters, joined my Sunday School class. Today I asked if it was Dianna who turned a hunter into a stag so his own hounds would kill him, then I laughed because she was the one who taught me the myth in the first place. I studied myth on my own before college, but pretty much ignored the myths with girls in them. I loved Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts, but once I learned what happened to Madea, I realized Jason was pretty much a terrible guy.

Rod Clement told a story that Bill Goodman originally told him. There are four points of view to consider in the story of the Prodigal Son. There’s the dutiful son, the wayward son, the father, and then there’s the fatted calf. Rod’s a brilliant guy. So was Bill Goodman. His wife, Edwina, took up painting when she could no longer sing. She joined the ranks of Jackson’s Painting Housewives. Like other members in that fraternity, her work soon became important and expensive. As an artist, she learned to express her authenticity. Her grandson does the same.

I don’t think I’ll ever be an important writer or artist. I look at my work sometimes, and think “that’s not terrible.” But that’s as far as I’ll go. Part of the problem is that, at Galloway, I was exposed to actually important artists, like Edwina Goodman and Eric McDonald. Eudora Welty used to sit in front of my grandparents at church. Sitting in the balcony, I’d look down and see this little white-headed lady sitting in front of my Bubba, who was also a white-headed lady. When church was over, I’d rush down that ancient central stairwell, just in time for Grandaddy to say, “Help your Grandmamma down the steps.” Galoway is built on a hill. To fit another floor under the sanctuary and behind it, you have to walk up these fairly steep steps to the main entrance, an entrance that saw some painful drama in the year before I was born.

Downtown Jackson has two beautiful Gothic Churches, St. Peter’s and St. Andrew’s. Galloway’s massive neoclassical columns and portico could be in one of Ray Harryhausen’s Greek Mythology movies. Inside is not a temple to Athena, as it might seem, but to a humble man who died, nailed to a humble tree.

I always try to acknowledge the companions who kept me alive before I could be alive. Waiting for church, I text Little Sister, Monkey. “I’m in the sunshine at the lake.” She says. We all have our ways to remember the lord, even though it’s no longer the days of our youth. Monkey was always a better member of Galloway than I was. She was in choir and UMYF and all the other stuff I was entirely too antisocial to do. Boys who stutter are antisocial by nature. Boys who know they’re ugly don’t like spending a lot of time with other teenagers. I did have Margaret Key, though. She somehow saw something in me. There have always been women who could look at me and say, “I know what you are, child. Come sit with me.”

Every morning, I text my niece Collins and her mom, and Little Bird and her mom. “Good morning, Ladies. Feist-dog says I gotta go to work.” Feist dog is imaginary, but he wakes me at five AM every morning. You’d be surprised how generous these women are about getting a text before six a.m. every morning.

Now that Catherine is in our class, I’m trying to get Brent to join. He’s mad about gas prices, so I told him he could join by Zoom. “What’s that? Do I have that?”

“Everybody has Zoom, Buddy.”

Even before Lance died, I recognized that Brent was my true master. He’s also one of my best friends. Brent never spent a moment acknowledging what I pretended to be, only what I really was, although there were times when he’d get really frustrated about things and say, “You’re a Campbell, can’t you DO SOMETHING?” Because of the things Daddy actually could do, the Campbell name has grown to hold some level of magic to it in people’s minds. All I know to do is keep hammering at a problem until an opportunity shows itself. I suppose that’s what Daddy did too; he just did it better.

When I was in high school and brought up the idea of writing, Daddy said, “Writers are alcoholics and homosexuals.” In my experience, he wasn’t entirely wrong. As much as he spent years trying to get me to see sense and lead a practical life, he was the one who helped plan an escape where Boyd could move to California and be a writer. He died before we could pull the trigger and launch the rocket.

That was a beautiful year. That was a terrible year. Monkey and some goomer from the North Mississippi School for Goldfish got married at Galloway before six thousand people. The number increases every time I tell the story. The last time I had supper with her and Kathleen, I asked her, for real, what the number was. When she said it, I said she was lying. She did manage to invite a good two-thirds of all the women I’d ever seen naked. I’m not sure that was part of the plan.

It was also the year Daddy died, writing a letter to Deaton, Taylor, and Wingate. Daddy had a computer, but he only knew how to check the daily collections report five or six times a day. All of his correspondence was done through his secretary, Phyllis. Taking a pause in dictating a letter to his best friends, Phyllis said, “Oh, do we need to finish this later?” and then she realized he wasn’t breathing anymore.

Pentecost is called the “Birthday of the Church.” We had cake, but no ice cream. Raigan delivered a powerful sermon. People actually clapped in the middle of it in several spots. When Jackson Methodists start saying “Amen!” you know something is up. Little children ran down the aisles for children’s church, then ran back to sit by momma, who straightened their hair. All I could see was Little Bird and Collins, even though I wasn’t there when they were little girls. I was, however, very much there when their mommas were little. Not the same thing, I suppose, but it is. Daughters are shadows of their mommas who become their own people by living.

I never use the word “me” when I pray. “Hi, is there anything you can do about Little Bird’s Cat? He ran away.” Her little Blue Cat came back, looking at her like she was the one who did something wrong, and eating like a little pig. Maybe prayer does work.

Feist-dog says it’s raining. It’s still dark, but I can barely see the sky and hear the drops on my window. “Rain is cheaper than watering,” the Monkey says. She’s pretty smart.

Trying to live more authentically for the Church, I’m trying to find ways to conceptualize faith so that it’s more authentic for me. I won’t pray for myself, but I’ll pray for you. There’s a decent chance that I already have.