Breakfast Epiphanies: Finding Wonder in the Everyday - Hardcover

Anderson, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807028185 ISBN 13: 9780807028186

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2002

Synopsis

David Anderson has been a popular columnist in his parish for many years. Writing about everyday experiences-like cleaning up the yard after a rainstorm, waiting in the doctor's office, even helping his teenage daughters pick out fall dresses-he explores how the divine can surprise us in ordinary events.

Breakfast Epiphanies is a collection of his wonderfully written, true-life tales. In these inspiring stories, Anderson writes with disarming honesty and a great deal of humor about relationships-both within his family and within the community he serves. He writes about a family argument that turns ugly, an awkward but triumphant date to his first father-daughter dance, and the night his church burned down. He also writes about personal spirituality, but always from the ground up. A story begins in some ordinary event-listening to a baby cry in a crowded airplane-and opens out to a new, sometimes offbeat awareness of the divine.

Whether Baptist or Buddhist, Catholic or Congregationalist, we all yearn to find splendor in the ordinary. Breakfast Epiphanies speaks to the hearts and minds in all of us, no matter what faith we practice.

About this title

About the Author

David Anderson is rector of Trinity Church in Solebury, Pennsylvania, and a columnist for The Pennsylvania Episcopalian. He has received various awards for his writing, including a Lilly Endowment grant. He lives with his wife, Pam Anderson, a cookbook author, and his two daughters in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Family Affairs

Breakfast Epiphanies

This morning our family of four had cereal and bile for breakfast.
Here, in the typically random order of family feuds, was the menu:

· Who had not changed the kitty litter
· Who had not cleaned her room
· Who had not practiced the piano
· Who had not participated—happily—in the family yard-work project
· And, of course, whose attitude stunk
Actually that is only what my wife and I were serving up from our
side of the table. On the other side, our thirteen- and fifteen-year-old
daughters were slinging a mean hash of their own.

· Who could not stop harassing innocent children
· Who had always favored the other child
· Who needed serious therapy for dirty-laundry fixation
Things got louder and a cereal box was slammed on the table.
One daughter retreated into an eye-rolling "I give up on this family." The other
ejected herself from the room. Mercifully, our weekday breakfast is only an
eight-minute affair and no one was injured because the bus came, as usual,
at 7:10.
We did not stand at the door and kiss them good-bye as we
always do. We sat at the table and they left in contempt without closing the
door behind them.
I took a bitter sip of coffee and felt like a toad. (I was the cereal
slammer.) I could not even commiserate with my wife. The night before I had
insisted it was time for one of our famous family conferences where the law
would be laid down. Pam had agreed things were out of control, but, she
suggested, that likely was because we were not in control. I had been
preoccupied with church work, she reminded me, and out of town a lot; she
had been preoccupied with her business and gone more than usual. If we
wanted the kids to get back on track, she said, we"d better get our priorities
back in line. We were the parents. We had to restore some calm to the
family system and not make the kids the "problem."
I sighed heavily. "I love how you've analyzed the situation," I
said, "to the point where these kids aren't accountable and it's really our
fault." I got up and left with a hugely passive-aggressive shrug. "Fine," I
said, "then we'll do nothing. Have it your way."
But there I sat, having provoked my family conference anyway. I
heard an echo of my own words a moment earlier. In the middle of that
pitched argument, our older daughter had come to tears and I had said, "Oh,
that's great—just burst into tears when you don't have anything else to say
for yourself. I wish I could just cry like that!" Maybe I spoke truer than I knew.
I hate it when I have to admit that, despite my righteous
indignation, I am part of the problem. I like my anger clean and simple. If my
kids are out of line, I want them to shape up. I don't want to fool with the
bigger picture because, of course, that is the picture I show up in. I am part
of a whole generation of largely boomer parents who want the privileges and
joys of parenthood—namely, children who grow beautifully into adolescence
and beyond—without taking the difficult responsibilities of being an adult.
We all want our children to shape up without first looking at the
shape of our own lives. We want them to pitch in and take their part in the life
of the family, even though we're almost never home. We want them to stay
free of drugs and alcohol, when they can see what dominates our adult
parties. We stand back, bewildered by the young adults our children are
becoming, when we have not taken the time to know them and to guide
them, when we have not had the courage to set the boundaries and make the
demands that authenticate love. In our frustration we careen wildly between
rash punishment and abdication.
Something better requires self-examination and, more, an actual
willingness to change. If we love our kids enough to say, "No, you're not
going there tonight," it means that we must be prepared to stay home and
help make something better happen. It's just easier to complain in
hackneyed terms about "kids these days," as we head out the door for the
evening we had planned.
It takes inner, adult-style maturity to look within ourselves and
ask, "How am I contributing to this problem"—in our families and in our
communities. We live more and more in a culture of spiritual immaturity that
teaches us to say, "We have a problem and you must change!"
I left breakfast and went to work, where I promptly rearranged my
day's calendar. "3:30—Be home when kids arrive," I wrote. If I needed to
make some changes and give these kids my time, I'd better start today.
I met them at the door, reclaimed the morning's lost kiss, and
said, "Sorry about breakfast." My fifteen-year-old tucked the apology in her
pocket and said with an impish smile, "Don't worry about it, Dad. You're so
obnoxious we don't even listen anymore."
My heart leapt up. Everything was back to normal.

Grace on the Rack

I have been asked as a father to do many things with my two
daughters. So when my wife asked me to take the girls dress shopping for
new fall dresses, I innocently agreed. How bad could it be?
Actually, my girls weren't girls anymore—Maggie was thirteen and
Sharon was eleven—and my failure to comprehend this was the root of all
suffering. As we riffled through the first rack of fall offerings, Sharon paused to
observe, "Dad, you've never taken us dress shopping, Mom always does. It
feels . . . funny." I arched my eyebrows and she quickly added, "—But nice. I
like it." I mistakenly took this as a compliment.
My second mistake was to make a suggestion. I held up a pretty
print dress for Maggie's opinion. Her eyes raked the dress disdainfully, as if I
had held up a dead animal, and she moved toward the dresses laden with
zippers and chains. Meanwhile, a young salesclerk whisked Sharon off to
look for the perfect dress with a glance that said, "Let's get away from your
silly old father. I know the perfect look for you!" I held up my hand and tried to
call out, "Wait—I know she looks older, but she's only eleven." They were
gone.
My third mistake was like unto the second. (It was late; I'm a slow
learner.) Maggie held up for my approval a sea foam green, double-knit thing
that I mistook for a women's league bowling shirt. She was hurt, convinced I
delighted in cruelty, when in fact I just didn't get it.
By the third store my legs had given out and I found myself sitting
sheepishly in a chair by the dressing rooms. (Why aren't women this
uncomfortable in men's stores?) I watched my daughters in a revolving
procession that careened from gaudy to glory (whatever I thought was
glorious, of course, was not). Whenever judgment was called for, all the
saleswomen agreed with my daughters and smiled at me with either pitied
amusement or condescension.
At the end of the day, however, we had two dresses in the bag.
Dresses they liked and I had learned to like. I don't know how it happened
exactly. I did most everything wrong and everybody came home happy.
Which, as I think of it, isn't a bad example of grace. I now know that, at least
when it comes to daughters and dresses, grace happens when you hit the
stores. Just being there counts for everything. How well you do hardly
matters.

A Party to Dinner

I married my wife for her pluck. Pam tells it straight. She is full of
grace—and truth. And woe to he (meaning mostly: me) who is lulled by that
grace and forgets the truth. It will hit him like a haymaker.
It smacked me, for example, one Saturday when we were giving a
dinner party. I spent the morning at church preparing a gaggle of crying
babies, parents, and godparents for baptism. I also stopped by my office—
just to check my messages. (I don't know why, but this can take hours.)
About one-ish I walked in the front door. When Pam looked up at
me from the beans she was snapping, I could tell I had stayed too long at the
office. Nevertheless, I smiled as if to say, Well, isn't this all lovely? The
crooked smile that slewed my way said, Don't push it, buddy.
Nothing if not perceptive, I ditched my briefcase, changed clothes,
and presented myself for duty. I put a few things in the dishwasher, and then
stood there. It was plenty awkward. Finally I heard myself say: "Well, what
do you want me to do?" As soon as it escaped my lips I could not believe my
own innocent stupidity. I might as well have said, "It would be hard, darling,
to care any less about this party, but there you are."
Wiping her hands on a towel, she said in quiet anger, "I don't want
to tell you what to do. You're smart enough to figure out what needs to be
done and do it! This isn't my party—you're not 'helping' me. This is our party—
we're doing this together, and I simply want you to act like you have a stake
here."
I knew what to do. The house must be picked up, the front step
swept, the table set, the red sauce simmered. Someone must go for
candles, for wine, for two tomatoes and chicken stock. So why do I want to
be told what to do?
Beyond simple perversity and selfishness (I want the fun of the
party, but I don't want to be put out), it all comes down to the work of a
relationship. Relationships are hard, and especially hard for men. We know
this. Even the beer commercials now ironically poke fun at this male
difficulty.
Entering into a mature relationship—and marriage is the greatest,
most common—entails daunting risks. I will be invited into the darkness and
light of the other's body and soul, and as W. H. Auden put it, I "will see rare
beasts and have unique adventures." But I will also be asked to change and
endure the pain of growth. My sin will be made manifest, as will the sin of my
spouse, and we will both have to accept and forgive and go on. I need not be
terribly successful at all of this. I am only required every day to be faithful, to
come to the table.
The opposite of this, if you must be reminded, is to come home
late in the middle of preparations for a shared dinner party and ask for your
marching orders like a hired hand who just punched the clock.
Just tell me what to do. I am always mystified, when men talk
among themselves, how proud they are to be lackeys at home. How openly
they discuss the servile ways in which they report to "the boss." Often these
are men who manage people by the score and budgets by the million.
As a parish pastor I see men who "rule the world" come into
church and sit down. Some of them, their whole bodies change. Shoulders
slacken and their genuine authority seems to puddle in their socks. They're
not in their element. Something inner, spiritual, emotional is being
demanded, and they don't know what to do. When they come up against the
demands of a love relationship with God, they often stammer, "Just tell me
what to do, Reverend." I want to say, "If you were about to dance with a
woman, would you walk onto the floor and say, 'Just tell me what to do'?"
One can hardly speak about the progress of a marriage without
segueing into the progress of the soul. No other experience lies closer to the
heart of our spiritual lives than marriage—or any lifelong union. In trying to
image the union of God and humanity, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New
Testament both repeatedly reach for the metaphor of marriage. If we want to
practice the disciplines and habits that make for union with God, we are told
to start with our spouse. What we learn in one relationship informs the other;
the traffic goes both ways, from earth to heaven.
And so it is not a long ways from our dinner party to the divine.
God will not tell us what to do any more than my wife would. (There are many
sects and churches that are only too happy to oblige anyone who wants to
be told what to do. They will even threaten you with damnation for failure if it
makes you feel any better. But if this is beneath even my wife, surely it is
unworthy of God.) We already know what to do if we are to live as one. Come
to the table. Open ourselves both to bliss and risk. Commit ourselves to this
thing as if we have a stake.
On this point, count yourself lucky (I do) if you live with someone
who "won't take any merde," as the French would say it. Someone who can
smell the stuff a mile away and call it cold. Someone who will press you and
push you, who will not do your work for you. A person who can get angry
about one thing at a time and not use the moment of anger to also name
your other faults but, rather, simply stand there and insist that you live as
one, now, in the midst of preparing for this simple dinner party, and in every
other moment of your shared life together, world without end.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0807028185
• ISBN 13: 9780807028186
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168