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born habit of waiting at least 48 hours after we should get to the hospital would have been a good idea so it wasn t overly surprising when we heard that he d been admitted to the hospital in urbana on friday september 2nd he always pulled through before but by saturday we knew ernie was in trouble heart problems kidney failure infection you name it a line from wayne watson s song home free rang in my head as we waited for news 400 miles from our ailing friend out in the corridor we pray for life a mother for her baby a husband for his wife sometimes the good die young it s sad but true but while we pray for one more heartbeat our real comfort is with you by tuesday the red cross had been notified to bring ernie s son duane back from afghanistan and hope had dwindled to simply please god just let him hold on until his son makes it home duane hit the ground in champaign on friday september 9th about 11 am and shortly after 2 pm the cpap keeping ernie s lungs going was shut off and our friend died peacefully in the presence of his family and friends ernie m was 65 years old 36 years married and 19 years sober i heard that the monday night men s meeting after ernie s death went well beyond their typical 6 30 closing time his 19 year coin sat on an empty chair as the stories abounded about ernie especially his humor his encounters with newly sober folks and his work with recovering veterans he was a very proud vietnam vet if i could hope for a way to be remembered by my various home groups that surely would be my first choice to be absent in body present in spirit and remembered for caring for others i d gently mention at this point that ernie was no saint as loving as he could be he also had a strong streak of bull in the china shop too he had character features that sometimes went far beyond charming eccentricity as we all do that s why i would veto any petition for sainthood for ernie me or anyone else i know in our little club ernie was perhaps what writer ray bradbury called a porcelain genius that is to say cracked but brilliant but his presence changed people i know he changed me a couple days after ernie died i went into a funk thinking not only about ernie but to a whole host of people who have changed my life in powerful ways across the last 20 years people who my new friends in springfield would never get to know except for whatever could be seen of those distant folks in me people like my first sponsor bob s whose mind is still pretty sharp even as he struggles with alzheimer s bob s inimitable ex wife brooke k one of the first real definitions of tough love i met in our fellowship jon p who invited me to frisch s big boy after my first meeting and showed me the meaning of giving it away brian d the executive turned artist who helped show me how to corral anger rather than letting it run free a whole bunch of crazy irishmen and polacks from the toledo monday night men s group who showed god s love in the most irreverent ways and then the kansas folks my first kansas sponsor bruce f who told me you ll have to deal with these issues of sexuality sometime thirteen years before i was willing to look at them crusty old frank k who continued to ask are you running for mayor again goddammit every time i went around shaking hands at the lenexa basement boys meeting nick t and barry h who walked me through some very tough times in later sobriety barry g lee z and so many others who went on in death way too soon the chicago folks tom s and michael d who gently herded me out of the closet like a pair of border collies never pushing but gently nipping at the heels fred k the first person in the chicago fellowship to welcome me the crazy group at the fireside men s group artists musicians comics executives and good ol boys and champaign urbana the whole monday night men s crowd but especially my sponsor terry s scott s ernie john c bill b jim e robin h rockin rodney mike h and karen c doug b gil t andy c jason e and so many others it s a fool s errand trying to list them all i could be here all day and night thinking of the men and women who have blessed me by their friendship both in and out of our fellowship and here in the blogosphere as i have left them they have left pieces of their heart with me right now i am just feeling the absence rather strongly i will never be able to sit down with each one of them and let them all know how much they have changed my life but i know they have i was sitting here late one night thinking about this band of brothers and sisters when i was reminded of a beautiful song that said what i could never say to each of them in person the song needs a little background though wicked is a musical based on the novel wicked the life and times of the wicked witch of the west the musical is told from the perspective of the witches of the land of oz elphaba the misunderstood girl with emerald green skin and galinda later glinda the beautiful ambitious and popular blonde wicked tells the story in which these two unlikely friends grow to become the wicked witch of the west and the good witch of the north while struggling through opposing personalities and viewpoints rivalry over the same love interest and ultimately elphaba s public fall from grace near the end of the show the two women confront each other and forgive each other for all grievances acknowledging they have both made mistakes elphaba makes glinda promise to take charge in oz allowing elphaba to disappear the two friends embrace for the last time before saying goodbye forever this song for good describes how each one has been changed by the other in the broadway performance it is a duet with kristen chenoweth and idina menzel here is the song with the lyrics included in the video listen along and know that i owe a debt i can never repay to a whole host of men and women who have woven pieces of their lives into my own story i will always be thankful for all those past and present who have changed me for good posted by steve f at 9 15 2011 11 35 00 am 11 comments labels aa faith journey mentoring sunday june 19 2011 branching out i am not done posting here but i am finding the need to post things that don t need to remain anonymous i d like to be able to talk on some topics that don t require anonymity and i d like to share some of the things i ve written here with a wider audience so i ve started a new blog over at a bubble off square the first post can be found over here the title comes from a term i often heard from older men when i was growing up that guy is just a bubble off square it s a carpentry term and refers to using a level to indicate whether an item was built square if the angles were precisely level or vertical a bubble would appear centered between two vertical lines if the item were not level or not vertical the bubble would show as crossing those two vertical guide lines if the item were really off kilter the whole level bubble would be outside the guide lines hence a bubble off square was the equivalent of saying that s really not right or that guy is way off my mom would say it differently that boy is not wrapped right or tight one thing to confess up front i haven t really received the gift of brevity yet the second post proves that i am still capable of an epistle or two in fairness the ideas behind post 2 have been churning for a while now it all just kind of came out at once i will still be posting here and i will likely steal some of my stuff from here and cross posting it over there forgive me even though i think i know what i m doing sometimes stay tuned posted by steve f at 6 19 2011 11 43 00 pm 1 comment labels blogging friday april 01 2011 and so it begins actually it s been underway for about a month preparations to relocate to a new address have been going for a while now chris s job has been what one generous soul would call a hot mess for more than a year it has been degenerating for at least a year and he s been developing a case of homesick that s been getting more and more obvious over that same year we had been looking at relocating someplace further south charlotte nc was a prime candidate but the homesick part started to grow fueled in part by something not far from a miracle chris and his parents have not had the best of relationships a combination of old hurts and their resistance to his orientation when he left his hometown to come to toledo to be with me the phone lines were silent from new years to mothers day and even after that there wasn t a lot of phone traffic between mothers day and christmas but things started to change last july when we went down to visit for his birthday and the turnaround since then has been really miraculous and when it was time to decide our new destination chris finally admitted that where he would like to go was back to his hometown of springfield mo so after spending a bunch of time on craigslist and surfing the property management sites in springfield we went down and found a great two bedroom duplex with a two car garage and a little deck on the south side of the city a quiet neighborhood but one pretty accessible to almost anything about 25 bigger than the place we re in now and about 50 a month cheaper we got the approval on monday and the process has begun the word has been out before this i let people in the recovery community know a month or so ago and chris had his notice given for him about the same time he made the mistake of telling one of his supposedly trustworthy co workers on that person s last day at work that he planned to be leaving also which meant that in a flash his whole department including his manager had the word also chris s co workers are bumming big time he s been a key player there for more than a little while but he s put the going to be with my parents spin on it so they can hardly fault him i would guess that if anyone else could come up with a half way decent job they d be out de door too it s harder for me i ve lived in toledo for 17 years and in chicago for three so the lack of scenery is hardly a new or difficult thing for me as it is for chris where i ve been has largely been a function of the people especially in the recovery community so this is a kind of tearing apart for me that chris isn t experiencing so much i ve just been here long enough to put down the kind of roots that hurt when they re pulled up so this is a different experience for me and yet it s not so very different i left a loving church and recovery community in kc when i went to seminary and had some pretty solid roots in the chicago recovery community when i left for toledo looking from that standpoint i was in kc for 12 years chicago for 3 toledo for 2 and champaign urbana for 2 almost to the day it feels like i ve been saying goodbye and hello for quite a while not to mention that with chris s move to toledo my move in with chris our joint move to c u and now the move to springfield we will have made four moves in 3 1 2 years so i m ready to be shut of moving boxes bubble wrap and penske trucks for a while the plan is to be 95 98 packed by easter sunday april 24th and to wrap up on thursday 4 28 have folks from two men and a truck load the truck on friday drive down there by friday night have the two men folks unload us saturday afternoon and be residents of springfield on may 1st we ll see how it all works out but for now back to packing posted by steve f at 4 01 2011 12 07 00 pm 3 comments labels catching up champaign urbana chris family moving tuesday march 22 2011 faith belief and finding community yes i have been gone too long yes i have some catching up to do sorry it s going to have to wait a friend of mine recently decloaked as a fellow blogger ravenmoon at becoming a perfect mom her post not beliving a lonely business brought me a flashback from my church history experience with dr kurt hendel at lstc here s my flashback word with its wikipedia reference adiaphoron plural adiaphora from the greek ἀδιάφορα indifferent things was a concept used in stoic philosophy to indicate things which were outside of moral law that is actions which are neither morally mandated nor morally forbidden emphasis added adiaphora in christianity refer to matters not regarded as essential to faith but nevertheless as permissible for christians or allowed in church what is specifically considered adiaphora depends on the specific theology in view and yes i know some of my seminary friends could do a whole sermon series on what s wrong with that definition but it s close enough for the purpose at hand i love this concept one of the best ideas i got from seminary it s the stuff we agree not to argue about it doesn t mean we agree on how we do it only that this thing whatever it is will not separate us in faith friendship or fellowship the opposite i guess of adiaphora is anathema the stuff that is utterly rejected or beyond the pale as they used to say it put names to things that i d felt all my life being a closeted gay man in the church meant that i was always the other in the group i often found myself reading the bible and looking for the scripture passage that would somehow vote me off the island of salvation it s not a good way to read it by the way i knew from the way i heard god s supposed words preached that god liked us and didn t like them and while i knew that i loved god and i wanted to be like us i also knew that at rock bottom i was them trust me i have since learned much differently and found great acceptance for the thems among us first i was a former catholic in a lutheran church this was definitely an us vs them thing however i received a pure inspiration one day when someone said but you weren t born lutheran how can you preach effectively to life long lutherans the gift i believe god gave me was simply this correct me if i m wrong but i thought martin luther was a former catholic and somehow he turned out ok i was also a childless profane and divorced man and a recovering alcoholic in a church full of happy and polite families or so they would have had us believe but as i threw myself into service they came to love me despite my rough edges and unfortunate earlier life the gay thing though was one from which i could never get free looking back over the wreckage i m not entirely sure that the only reasons for me to go to seminary was so a i could find a group of accepting and loving people in some of my professors and theologians and b that the god of my misunderstanding could drop me 750 miles away from my guilt community into a world in hyde park that was richly populated with faithful celibate deeply devout and thoroughly gay priests as well as faithful gay ministers and lay people note to reader insert your own favorite gay lay people pun joke here they taught me the difference between who i am and who or what i sleep with they taught me alternate ways of understanding the holy words that i felt condemned me for years and they showed me a wa...