No Hope No Harm, Just Another False Alarm

Last night I dreamt that Dick Cheney and I were on Ministry and Counsel together. We had reviewed our membership lists and decided to visit those whom had not been a part of our congregation for some time and tell them they wouldn't be members.

Our first visit was to an elderly couple in Pasadena. Dick was very close to them and was clearly upset. He always seems angry so I couldn't tell if there was something about the visit that was particularly upsetting to him, or he was just being Dick Cheney.

There was plenty to be upset about. We were driving an old Plymouth Valiant with heavily Armor Alled vinyl seats so it took a great deal of effort to keep from sliding around at every turn. It was hot and though the A/C was working, it would blow intensely cold air on just one spot of your body- my feet were freezing while the rest of me was roasting. Dick was experiencing the same thing- and worse. He was wearing a heavy morning coat that was crumpling with all the sliding around and it was soaking with his sweat at the collar. He doesn't normally seem that awkward, but with his coat, sweat, and the sliding around causing him to huff and grumble, he had all the grace of a cockroach, being swept across a kitchen floor... swearing the whole time.

It also could have been he was angry about having to tell his friends they were no longer members. He might have resented me coming along, but we were supposed to do these meetings in pairs and he wanted me to drive.

Even though it was the hottest part of midday for our drive, when we arrived it was dark. We parked on the street and walked up a long curving driveway lined with tall junipers on one side and a series of empty flagpoles on the other. He asked me what we were going to say and I pulled out some notes from our Ministry and Counsel meeting to refresh his memory. He slapped them out of my hand and told me I had better know what we were going to say by now or I could just stay in the car. I told him if he had a problem he'd better get it off his chest now and not take it into our meeting.

He said the whole thing was a problem, he said if anyone should be kicked out of the church it was me, and people like me who didn't deserve to be in the same church as these folks. He said the meeting itself was a problem and said it was a shame, but a typical shame of my generation, that I would go around telling people who does and doesn't get to be a Christian.

I asked him if he really thought that's what we were doing. I explained to him what I thought membership was and though this couple would no longer be members, they were welcome and encouraged to come worship with us or find a place where they could pursue active and vital membership. He wanted to know why I thought that was something we could ask of people. He asked who I thought I was that I got to tell people better and older than me what it means to be a part of a church. I tried to answer him but the words started condensing and falling out of my mouth like heavy objects. They slowly fell to the ground like a dying helium filled balloon but they were dense. They hit the ground, leaving a crater but were carried off by the wind, chipping the stairs and driveway, and knocking over potted plants until they were out of sight.

An old man answered the door. He was thin and gray. His eyes were cloudy but he could speak and move faster than his appearance suggested. He invited us in. The house had not been redecorated since the early 1970s. It still gave the impression of wealth. But it was a wealth that had stagnated or happily settled on recreating a villain's lair from Thunderball or Live and Let Die.

We went into a living room and the old man's wife quickly entered with milk and Ritz crackers. Dick and I sat on a love seat and our hosts sat across from us in a couple of square, low-backed, yellow velour armchairs. We were separated by a smoked glass coffee table. They were all speaking with each other but I couldn't hear what they said. None of their sounds, gestures, or looks were clear to me. I couldn't tell if they were talking about me, why we were there, the weather, the crackers, or what. Then Dick spilled his milk and he told me to clean it up. When I stood up I saw sugar had been falling out of my pockets and left two piles on the love seat. I asked Dick if he would clean that up while I looked for some towels. "Oh, it's going to be like that?" he said.

I found the kitchen. They had white metal cabinets and bright red countertops. There were towels on the counter by the sink, but all the counters were shoulder height and I couldn't reach anything. I pushed a chair to the counter and its feet dragged on the kitchen floor- screeching and echoing. I grabbed a towel and turned on the kitchen faucet. The pipes started rattling and squealing. Dick came in and tried to tell me something. He was frantically slapping his thighs and his mouth was moving like a cow's chewing cud. His lower jaw just rotated up and down while choked gurgling sounds stuck in his throat. I started to disappear behind a curtain of suffocating steam and then I woke up. How lame is that?

I was woken up by the screaming of a neighbor's cat gettin' it on.

So I took the puppies out to go pee.

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