Hugh Hollowell

Yesterday was Renee’s birthday and, honestly, it was not going so well. You see, she was in the hospital after a weekend of scary heart issues and she was a bit depressed at the prospect of spending her birthday in the hospital.

Around noon, some friends of our stopped by and that cheered her up. Then the doctor came by and told her she could go home, and that really cheered her up.

As we were packing up to leave, some friends called and said they were coming by the hospital, but I told them we were leaving, so they planned to come by my house instead. We are not home long, when they show up, complete with birthday cake and ice cream and presents and birthday cards. Renee was glowing at this point…

And then, some more friends dropped in to see her (and eat birthday cake and ice cream) and then more friends stopped by and brought more cake and hugs and well wishes. And while all this was happening a friend who had been out of town called to say she was dropping by the hospital on her way home, and we gave her the good news.

After everyone left, we went out to eat at one of Renee’s favorite restaurants and then stopped at a coffee shop and reflected over a latte at how awesome our friends are. As we pulled up in my driveway, the friend who had been out of town pulled up behind us and came up and we all sat, and laughed and reflected and laughed some more and played with kittens. When she left, Renee turned to me and gave me a big hug and told me that this had ended up being her best birthday ever.

The remarkable thing about all of this is that none of it was planned or coordinated. It all just happened out of genuine love and affection for us. That is the value of community.

To all our friends who emailed, prayed, visited, brought cake, ate cake, called and visited… thank you for making my girl’s birthday special and thank you very much for loving us.

Right now Renee and I are sitting in the Emergency Room at Wake Med. Her heart started doing weird things early this morning and when they did not stop, we came on in to the hospital. Something similar happened back in January, resulting in surgery and a weeklong stay in the hospital, so we were a bit reluctant to come in.

It looks like we are here for at least a few days. They are admitting her this afternoon as soon as a bed opens up.  Right now they are adjusting dosages, consulting people on the telephone and, for all I know, checking the magic 8 ball. Hopefully, they will get this resolved quickly.

And, to add insult to injury, tomorrow is her birthday and it looks like we will be spending it here, eating cafeteria food and wishing we were wherever you are.

I don’t know any more than that right now, and my cellphone will not work here in the hospital, so don’t call me. If you have not already gotten an email from me about this and you want to know the room number when we get it, shoot me an email and I will add you to the list.

Thank you in advance for your love and your prayers and I will let you know something real soon.

I have adjusted well to living here in Raleigh. The weather is nice, the people are friendly and while they don’t eat real bar-b-que, overall the food is good. However, last week I had a huge, overwhelming feeling of homesickness.

I smelled honeysuckle.

I had commented several times on how I had not seen any honeysuckle here. Back home, it is everywhere. Last week, however, I almost fell off my bike when I saw (and smelled) a whole fence row full of it.

My favorite honeysuckle memory: I am about 12 years old. My friend (and virtual sister) Jo and I are out exploring and we decide to walk up Gatewood road to see the pond on the Thompson’s place. Mind you, we had no fishing equipment, but just seeing a pond had to count for something. Anyway…

There was a stretch of maybe 200 yards where both sides of the road were lined with honeysuckle. The smell was a lot like heaven, and Jo and I were sucking the honey out of the flowers. We never did make it to the pond that day; we were captivated by the honeysuckle.

Last night, I joined Reunion.com. They had a simple form where they offered to scan my address book and tell me if any of my contacts were also members of the site. No big deal, all the social sites do this…

However, what I did not know, because of a poorly worded website, was that if you were in my inbox and not a member of reunion.com, you were going to get an email, from me, asking you to join.

Not Cool.

So, last night, over 1000 people got a spam email from me, asking them to join this site. I had no idea it was going to happen, and I am sorry it did. I am posting it here, because I don’t want to send another mass email, apologizing for the previous mass email.

Sorry. I will try to be more careful in the future.

The last few days have been hard. Without going into too much detail, I found out Monday morning, via email, that someone who was once very important to me had died over the weekend.

I did not even know she had been sick.

Life can be a cruel bastard, sneaking up on you like that. The doubts, the what ifs, the should haves and the could haves will drive you nuts. Knowing that someone you once cared about suffered can be heartbreaking.

Luckily, I have some awesome friends who keep me sane.  For those of you who know all the details, thanks for being there. For those who do not, trust me when I tell you I just do not really want to talk about it right now, maybe later.

Thanks for understanding, and if I am a bit uncommunicative the next few days, I am just working things out, in addition to all the craziness that is normally my life.

I have the coolest friends.

I tend to be very NOT political. Politicians do what they do, and being mad about that is sorta like being mad the grass is green.

When I was a small lad, (I think it was the 1980 presidential election) I remember asking my mom who she had just cast her vote for, and she told me that was private and that you never had to explain to anyone who you had voted for. That always made an impression on me, and to this day, I am very closed mouthed about who I will (or have) voted for.

Today, I got an email from a high school friend who I reconnected with last year. Now, I am on her email list, where she forwards me dire warnings of computer viruses,  various urban legends and poems about Jesus superimposed over huge memory hogging pictures that end with the admonition that if I too love Jesus, I will forward the email to every person I know, post haste. Normally, I just hit the delete button. I am sure you do too.

Today I was informed by an email she forwarded to me that Barak Obama is the anti-christ.  Who knew? Maybe he is, I do not know. Heck, for all I know, you are the anti-christ. However, there were a lot of allegations in the email that I have heard again and again and are just plain untrue.

For instance, Barak Obama  is NOT a Muslim, radical or any other sort. He is an active, baptized member of the United Church of Christ, a rather liberal mainstrean Christian Church, and has been for over 20 years.

Barak Obama was NOT sworn in to office on a koran.  That was Keith Ellison, from Minnesota.

Yes, his middle name is Hussein. So What! One of my best friend’s middle name is Sherman, but that does not mean he burnt Atlanta.

He has NEVER refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. He has NEVER refused to put his hand over his heart when saying the Pledge. The infamous picture you have no doubt seen was during the singing of the National Anthem. The last football game I went to, well over half the people did not cover their heart with their hand during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner.  Many of them went to get beer and peanuts. Give the guy a break, for crying out loud.

His father is NOT from the Middle East. He is from Kenya, which is to the Middle East what Mississippi is to Wisconsin. This I found curious, but if you cannot be bothered to do research, I guess geography is beyond your reach as well.

Look, next time you want to forward me a dire warning about people stealing kidneys, Obama being the Anti-Christ or some dying kid who will get free chemo if I save my coke can tabs, check it out first on Snopes.com. You will save yourself much embarrassment.

For example: http://snopes.com/politics/obama/

I have known her for years. The day I first met her, we went to eat supper at Dino’s, my favorite Italian dive in the whole world and drank wine (which we brought with us) from water glasses (which Dino’s provided). The thing I remember most about that meal was laughing.

She is one of those people who always makes you laugh, who is creative in ways I cannot begin to be, who has an outlook on life that astounds me with its optimism. She has not had a lot of success in her life, primarily due to poor choices she has made, most of which have involved the consequences of alcohol or marijuana. Those of us who love her have wrung our hands, shook our head and decided to love her anyway.

As of last night, she has been clean and sober for 40 days and 40 nights.

K____, I am so proud of you.

I signed up almost a year ago, when all the other cool kids did, and then promptly forgot all about it.  Recently several friends signed up and found me there, so I have looked into it more.  I think I will play. (If you do not know what Twitter is, that no doubt means you have plenty of time on your hands and are doing productive things, like earning a living. )

If you want in on this, my twitter account is http://twitter.com/hughlh

Also, I mentioned last time that Renee was in the hospital; she has survived the surgery, beeen released and has the good drugs. Thank you for all the emails, the hugs and the prayers. I have the coolest friends.

What a gang, huh?

I was talking to a friend while in Memphis and I would mention this person or that person and, ineveitably, it would be in context of some cool thing they do. Finally she gave a sound of frustration and demanded to know how I know so many cool people.

Like, for example, my friend Pete who is going to the Sudan over Christmas to work with kids, and has every Christmas for the last five years. Or my new friend Becky, who will be in Darfur about the same time. I have a friend named William who is going to be in Kenya for about 2 weeks in December and my friend Kristen will be in South Africa for 2 years, doing photojournalism!

Now, I know all those people through one group, so it makes sense that they are all concerned about Africa. But then, here in Raleigh I know Leah, who is down in Guatemala working in a school there (on her own dime, by the way) for three months (I miss her already and she has not been gone a week). Then there is Jacquelin who is going to South America for a whole year.

All of these people are just ordinary folks who happen to think globally. None of them are saints or super folks; in fact, some of them you have to drag out the details.

Overseas work is always cool-sounding, but America is where I feel called to give back. I know folks who have gone to jail for protesting the death penalty, folks who have slept on the streets with the homeless to show empathy, folks who run a fair trade only coffee shop and a lady that has been feeding the homeless on the same street corner for free for 14 years (!). Every week I help feed the homeless with about 20 very cool people who would rather be there than anywhere else.

My friend Ashlyn went to New Orleans last summer to help with the rebuild efforts; she is 15 and decided that would be a good thing to do over summer break (when I was 15, I spent most of summer break swimming at the lake…).

I am lucky to have a great faith community to keep me grounded and centered. When I see the example of Bill who gave up a cushy, respected job as a suburban pastor in Pennsylvania to come here and set up a church that would make a difference, I stand in awe of what it has cost him. When I look at his wife Cherie who has stayed along for the ride (and sometimes leads the way), I see what a blessing a devoted wife can be.  We have attracted folks who want to change the world (Don’t bother telling us we cannot do it; we won’t listen anyway).

There are so many more folks who inspire me, who drive me forward, who make me want to be more, to do more, to love more…

I know the coolest people.