“…you gotta take the crookeds with the straights,” says Troy Maxson, the name of the beleaguered character in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, Fences.
In my home of origin a sanitized and child-like Christian view of the world not only obscured the “crookeds,” but didn’t prepare me for dealing with troubling life events when they occurred. Disagreements, betrayals, and other expressions of human frailty were acknowledged in the context of failing to follow God’s Word rather than teaching skills to iron out differences, accept diversity in all shapes, and seek resolution or reconciliation through thoughtful communication and respect for the other.
During the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas I began anticipating the coming of the Christ-child at the Incarnation. The season of Advent has had greater significance for me as an adult than it did when I was a child, a naïve time when I was focused on the new born baby asleep in a hay-strewn manger with his mother and father close by. In the narrative I grew up with, three majestic kings arrived on camels bearing exotic gifts from faraway places hoping for an audience with the newborn King of the Jews. Several shepherds watched over their flock of baa-ing sheep in adjacent fields, while waiting their turn to see the much heralded child.
A beautiful, but sanitized account, about which I have many doubts and questions, skipped over the “crookeds” in the story.
However, if the story is taken at face value, then the child’s father, Joseph, might be embarrassed when informed that his fiancé—a virgin—had conceived without him, how the young, naïve Mary might have responded to her first sexual experience occurring with the Holy Spirit as her “partner,” that the birthplace was to be a filthy manger with no midwife present, and that hissing and baa-ing animals would disrupt her moment of wonderment. We know mother, father, and baby Jesus fled to Egypt when an angel warned them that “Herod the Great” (as he liked to be called)—the initiator of “The Massacre of the Innocents”—wanted their first-born dead. What happened when they arrived in Egypt, undocumented, speaking a foreign tongue, and how did they support themselves—with carpentry and housecleaning?—and where did they live?
A miraculous but messy story. I craved to know the “nuts ‘n bolts” of the messiness as well as the miraculous. After all, my evolving life involved both. I think Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, kings, and even the baby Jesus struggled to find their way. I wanted to know that part of their story.
I love the Biblical narrative, even though I am a reluctant disciple of its message. What is not written down can be imagined. Just as the character in Fences, Troy Maxson, though bruised and bent by life, remained unbroken, so too did the trio in Egypt.
Life is difficult, often involving worrisome choices and risky decisions. As even Mary, Joseph and Jesus discovered, we live most fully when the words “you gotta’ take the crookeds with the straights” are embraced.
by 
I resonate with thinking about what is not written. Despite the difficult conditions someone (s) must have extended some type of hospitality at the birthplace and in Egypt.
Hospitality is a gift we can give in a variety of ways to all types of people. Perhaps that is what can help all of us with the crookeds which are always with us. May 2017 be an hospitable year.
Alan,
Thank you for the wish for a hospitable year. I agree that hospitality was offered in the manger and Egypt, and that in both places as a gift. I wish the Biblical narrative told us more about those people because to offer that gift was risky. Giving often involves risk, and too often my “crookeds” beckon me to avoid that by choosing the safer path.
Roger
My life is filled with “crookeds,” some due to circumstance and some my own doing. My Father used to say “two steps forward and one step backward.” Glen Campbell sings in the “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “There’s been a load of compromisin’ on the road to my horizon.” George Regas told me in response to my question about why so many clergy got caught in scandalous situations, “Because we all have a dark side.” All of this speaks of the “crookeds” in life. So we must live with the realities even though the stories that inspire us are idealistic renditions that glamorize our everyday existence. Jesus of the Gospels seems to rise above the temptations and the moral detours that confront us, yet some of the stories about Jesus give us glimpses of his humanness. I personally am more drawn to the Christ who shows his anger, his disappointment, his frustration, than I am to the victorious and transcendent Christ. Jesus identifies with the “crookedness” in my life.
Bill,
Thank you for your comments. Twenty years ago I wrote a column for a local magazine in the San Gabriel Valley. When the editor questioned why I thought we learned about ourselves during adversity and challenge brought on by circumstance and our own doing I answered that we all have a dark side that demands our attention. Your comment regarding the conversation with George Regas brought the editor’s comment to mind. As you mention “stories that inspire us are idealistic renditions that glamorize our everyday existence,” but as you suggest the Jesus narrative offers us ways to transcend the darkness even as we acknowledge our humanness. Like you I am drawn to the Jesus who “shows his anger, his disappointment, his frustration,” and in so doing gives me hope. If the “crookeds” in my life were “straightened-out” I wouldn’t recognize myself–that doesn’t absolve me of the responsibility to acknowledge them and gently work to render their curves less sharp.
Roger
Your reflections on the the straights and crookeds of all life, from the biblical renditions to our more current experiences reminds me of the simple truths of the yin and yang of everything. We receive both blessings and challenges that are indeed both miraculous and messy, and we must live fully and authentically into this gift of life, accepting what is and what is not. The God I can imagine expects no less of us. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and giving us food for thought as we begin another new year with hope and love. Write on, mon ami.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Colette. Living authentic and full lives is so much easier, for most of us, when the miraculous is with us and the messy has taken up residence elsewhere. I like your statement about accepting “what is and what is not” because that suggests blessings and challenges come in both the miraculous and the messy.
Roger
Thank you for this post, Roger. Your words, “I think Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, kings, and even the baby Jesus struggled to find their way.” It’s an important thought and it spoke to me on this day as I struggle to find my way.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Jo Anne. I’m in good company if you too struggle. That said I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. I once asked if Jesus wore diapers, where the camels pooped, what if the hay hurt Jesus’ head, and the clincher–what was sex with the Holy Spirit like? My third grade Sunday School teacher said “Next question” and I’ve been a curious follower of Jesus’ wonderful narrative of “crooked and straights” ever since. Oh the things we learn or don’t in church, the ones that shape us in unintended ways.
Roger