St. Patrick’s Day at the Eagles in Morris, Minnesota
Joshua 5:9-12
2 Corinthians 5: 16-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
It’s loud and smoky. Earlier, there was a beef stew dinner, but being a vegetarian, I skipped that part and came out later, at 10:30, for the green beer. Pitchers are $3.50. There’s a group a 20-somethings at the pool table who work at the local grocery. Some tried to go to college here but didn’t finish; others went away and came back home but couldn’t find another job. I am not sure how I know these things about them exactly, but I do, or at least I think I do. Who knows what people know or think they know about me. One of the women is wearing green makeup and green ribbons in her hair. Another has on a giant green wig and a shirt that says, “I was trained by lesbians.” (I’m not even commenting on that one).
There are some college students who have come back early from spring break at the other end of the bar, dressed up as if going they were going out dancing. They lean in to talk to each other, seemingly unaware of what is happening around them. There’s an elderly couple at the bar, and a couple of old men. A young woman and her boyfriend, out with her parents. The university’s football coaches and their wives. One of the local doctors and his wife. The entire staff of one of the daycares in town, all women in their 30s. And me and my friends.
And there’s karaoke, of course. Next to the karaoke machine is a group of people who actually know how to sing. In between sets, they sing their hearts out, not looking at the words. They’re just as drunk as everybody else, but they know better than to scream into the microphone. They make the music bearable.
By 11:30 only one of my friends and I are still at our table. I go over to the football table and congratulate the assistant coach, who I barely know, on his promotion. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him and his wife out without their kids—they have at least five, including one daughter in a wheelchair, and they are the most affectionate parents I’ve ever seen. The coach’s wife smiles at me and nods, then points to a friend of hers at the microphone and throws her head back, laughing. My doctor waves at me, a little embarrassed because he’s just finished singing “Come on Eileen,” shouting the words into the microphone and signaling to his wife each time he sang the chorus. His wife, whom I’ve never met, leans toward me and says, “Well, now you’ve seen another side of him, I guess,” and I say, “It’s good to know everybody’s human.” One of the child care workers, a single mom with four kids, gets up and begins to dance, awkwardly at first, but eventually she gets the rhythm and is almost beautiful because she looks so free.
The bartender signals the last call for alcohol, and my friend and I decide to get one last pitcher. We drink it quickly while the football coaches sing a few songs I’ve now forgotten (not surprisingly). My friend puts her name in to sing “American Pie.” The woman taking tickets, who has the most beautiful voice in the whole place, says, “Honey, that’s a terrible song, but if you really want to sing it, go right ahead.”
My friend’s the last one up. She starts to sing, and it’s terrible. She’s laughing too hard to get the words right. Two of the football coaches jump up, grab microphones, and put their arms around her. The mother shouts out, “Now that’s more like it,” and her daughter cracks up and says loudly to her boyfriend, “I can’t believe we got my mother wasted.” Then my doctor gets up and grabs the fourth microphone, and he begins to dance. “Come on everybody,” my friend shouts, “get on your feet,” and for some reason, we all do it. We start to sing together, crazy awful, mostly shouting the words. But when we get to the sad part near the end, everyone gets kind of quiet. One of the football coaches who isn’t singing pulls his wife toward him. The doctor gets a serious look on his face and stops dancing. The parents and their daughter look down at their feet. The elderly couple--the only people in the place who aren't standing up--stop clapping the rhythm and fold their hands into their laps.
But then, of course, we all get up again and sing the chorus, including that couple, laughing at each other, laughing at ourselves. It’s 1:05 by now, and the bartender starts to stack chairs on the table. We make a haphazard attempt to help, but eventually we realize we’re useless in this state and file out. I hear someone shout, “See you at church tomorrow.” I live a block away from the Eagle’s, so I walk home, laughing the entire way. I think about my friend and hope her husband will get the three kids up and feed them breakfast even though he had them all night.
I probably won’t talk to any of the people I sang with if I see them at the grocery. That is, I’ll say hello and smile, but that will be all. But for that hour from 12 to 1 we were all friends, all singing together, regardless of what we know of each other or think we know of each other. Maybe some of the people at the Eagle’s last night are there every night; this was my first visit to the bar in the seven years I’ve lived here. Maybe some of them are struggling with actual addictions, nursing a worse headache than mine this morning. Some people from the church I used to attend were there; they said hello and sang with me but didn’t acknowledge that I’d left.
Somebody stumbling into the Eagle’s last night could have said, this isn’t real. This has nothing to do with real, day-to-day connections among people. And they would be right, in a way.
But in another way, there’s something really beautiful about those celebratory hours when everything else falls away except the music, dancing, and drinking. If we can sing together at 1 a.m. in the Eagles, why can’t we talk across our differences? If we can toast each other’s successes, why can’t we also feel each other’s losses? In a way, these moments remind us of our common humanity—both what we’re capable of and how much further we need to go to really connect outside the moments of singing and dancing.
The prodigal son came home expecting to become his father’s servant at best and to be turned away at worst. Instead, he came home to a feast. His brother wasn’t too happy about this, but his father reminded him that he had always been there and was equally loved. The story ends here, and we don’t know what happens later, how the brothers manage to survive the years that will follow, how the father will feel when the party is over about his long-lost son. St. Paul writes about the “ministry of reconciliation,” saying that Jesus came to reconcile us all to God and to each other. It may be a stretch to say we continued that ministry at the Eagle’s last night when we joined tables and sang together—and then again, maybe it’s not.
2 Corinthians 5: 16-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
It’s loud and smoky. Earlier, there was a beef stew dinner, but being a vegetarian, I skipped that part and came out later, at 10:30, for the green beer. Pitchers are $3.50. There’s a group a 20-somethings at the pool table who work at the local grocery. Some tried to go to college here but didn’t finish; others went away and came back home but couldn’t find another job. I am not sure how I know these things about them exactly, but I do, or at least I think I do. Who knows what people know or think they know about me. One of the women is wearing green makeup and green ribbons in her hair. Another has on a giant green wig and a shirt that says, “I was trained by lesbians.” (I’m not even commenting on that one).
There are some college students who have come back early from spring break at the other end of the bar, dressed up as if going they were going out dancing. They lean in to talk to each other, seemingly unaware of what is happening around them. There’s an elderly couple at the bar, and a couple of old men. A young woman and her boyfriend, out with her parents. The university’s football coaches and their wives. One of the local doctors and his wife. The entire staff of one of the daycares in town, all women in their 30s. And me and my friends.
And there’s karaoke, of course. Next to the karaoke machine is a group of people who actually know how to sing. In between sets, they sing their hearts out, not looking at the words. They’re just as drunk as everybody else, but they know better than to scream into the microphone. They make the music bearable.
By 11:30 only one of my friends and I are still at our table. I go over to the football table and congratulate the assistant coach, who I barely know, on his promotion. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him and his wife out without their kids—they have at least five, including one daughter in a wheelchair, and they are the most affectionate parents I’ve ever seen. The coach’s wife smiles at me and nods, then points to a friend of hers at the microphone and throws her head back, laughing. My doctor waves at me, a little embarrassed because he’s just finished singing “Come on Eileen,” shouting the words into the microphone and signaling to his wife each time he sang the chorus. His wife, whom I’ve never met, leans toward me and says, “Well, now you’ve seen another side of him, I guess,” and I say, “It’s good to know everybody’s human.” One of the child care workers, a single mom with four kids, gets up and begins to dance, awkwardly at first, but eventually she gets the rhythm and is almost beautiful because she looks so free.
The bartender signals the last call for alcohol, and my friend and I decide to get one last pitcher. We drink it quickly while the football coaches sing a few songs I’ve now forgotten (not surprisingly). My friend puts her name in to sing “American Pie.” The woman taking tickets, who has the most beautiful voice in the whole place, says, “Honey, that’s a terrible song, but if you really want to sing it, go right ahead.”
My friend’s the last one up. She starts to sing, and it’s terrible. She’s laughing too hard to get the words right. Two of the football coaches jump up, grab microphones, and put their arms around her. The mother shouts out, “Now that’s more like it,” and her daughter cracks up and says loudly to her boyfriend, “I can’t believe we got my mother wasted.” Then my doctor gets up and grabs the fourth microphone, and he begins to dance. “Come on everybody,” my friend shouts, “get on your feet,” and for some reason, we all do it. We start to sing together, crazy awful, mostly shouting the words. But when we get to the sad part near the end, everyone gets kind of quiet. One of the football coaches who isn’t singing pulls his wife toward him. The doctor gets a serious look on his face and stops dancing. The parents and their daughter look down at their feet. The elderly couple--the only people in the place who aren't standing up--stop clapping the rhythm and fold their hands into their laps.
But then, of course, we all get up again and sing the chorus, including that couple, laughing at each other, laughing at ourselves. It’s 1:05 by now, and the bartender starts to stack chairs on the table. We make a haphazard attempt to help, but eventually we realize we’re useless in this state and file out. I hear someone shout, “See you at church tomorrow.” I live a block away from the Eagle’s, so I walk home, laughing the entire way. I think about my friend and hope her husband will get the three kids up and feed them breakfast even though he had them all night.
I probably won’t talk to any of the people I sang with if I see them at the grocery. That is, I’ll say hello and smile, but that will be all. But for that hour from 12 to 1 we were all friends, all singing together, regardless of what we know of each other or think we know of each other. Maybe some of the people at the Eagle’s last night are there every night; this was my first visit to the bar in the seven years I’ve lived here. Maybe some of them are struggling with actual addictions, nursing a worse headache than mine this morning. Some people from the church I used to attend were there; they said hello and sang with me but didn’t acknowledge that I’d left.
Somebody stumbling into the Eagle’s last night could have said, this isn’t real. This has nothing to do with real, day-to-day connections among people. And they would be right, in a way.
But in another way, there’s something really beautiful about those celebratory hours when everything else falls away except the music, dancing, and drinking. If we can sing together at 1 a.m. in the Eagles, why can’t we talk across our differences? If we can toast each other’s successes, why can’t we also feel each other’s losses? In a way, these moments remind us of our common humanity—both what we’re capable of and how much further we need to go to really connect outside the moments of singing and dancing.
The prodigal son came home expecting to become his father’s servant at best and to be turned away at worst. Instead, he came home to a feast. His brother wasn’t too happy about this, but his father reminded him that he had always been there and was equally loved. The story ends here, and we don’t know what happens later, how the brothers manage to survive the years that will follow, how the father will feel when the party is over about his long-lost son. St. Paul writes about the “ministry of reconciliation,” saying that Jesus came to reconcile us all to God and to each other. It may be a stretch to say we continued that ministry at the Eagle’s last night when we joined tables and sang together—and then again, maybe it’s not.
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