Sacred Places Series: The Bar Stool

Where do you spend your time? What is the physical landscape in which your story is unfolding? What places are for you, holy ground?

We've started a series this Fall at Urban Grace in Tacoma called Inside and Out: The Sacredness of this Place. In this series we've been looking at the activities taking place in our space and how those things are sacred. We have also talked about how we are to live our lives outside of this place and create space for those same sacred activities in the "spaces" and "places" of our lives.

Some of the sacred activity we are and we will talk about include the sacredness of play and rest, of listening and learning, of eating, of creating, of healing, of worship and prayer, of taking rest, and much more.

This series has got me thinking about the spaces and in particular the concrete landscapes of my life this fall. Over the next several weeks as we do this series I am going to write about the sacred places of my life, the landscapes that my story plays out in.

The Bar Stool

The Parkway Tavern is my "home bar". I like many bars in Tacoma and many are worthy of our patronage for both the tap selection, quality food, and the hospitality they embody. But for me, the Parkway is my go to. It just suits me, fits me. I like the age diversity, the mix of blue collar and white collar, the laid back non-meat market feel of it, the fact that there is rarely a fight or any drama, and of course the best beer selection in town.

Let me say this. When I go to the bar I am rarely if ever drinking to get drunk. I also realize that for even some who may be reading this, the bar stool is not a healthy place because of alcoholism. I hope you will see that my comments about the sacredness of the bar stool go far beyond the consumption of alcohol and that you will be able to draw parallels to other "places" where you've experienced similar things.

This fall has been a time of transition for me. It has been a season of re-orientation and becoming alive to new things within me and around me but it has also been a time of disorientation, particularly as it relates to some of my old structures of community and the physical spaces I inhabit. In those times of disorientation, when I haven't been sure where to go, when I want to be alone, but not alone, the place that I go is the bar stool at the Parkway.

When I go to the bar with someone or to meet a group of people rarely do we actually sit "at the bar", we usually grab a booth or a table unless all the other seats are taken. But, when I got to the bar by myself I always belly up to the "actual bar". The bar is an interesting place. It is where you sit alone but are not really alone. As you look down the line of faces you can see the stories unfold.

Who lines the bar?

A bartender who knows my name that has finished her shift and is taking the time to enjoy a beer and perhaps some food before going home. You can tell she wants to be some place else but that she isn't quite sure if there is some place else. There is a man who just had a new baby and who's wife has given him this time to "get out" for a little while. He has the newspaper, is eating some comfort food, and drinking a beer and relishing in the "stillness of the bar" as opposed to the pressures and intensities of adjusting to crying babies and fatherhood for the first time. There are two friends who are serving as confessors to one another; lamenting unemployment, talking about the hurt and pain of their relationships and child rearing, and trying to laugh so that they won't cry. A lonely foreign woman sits to my right, having just arrived in the United States, still trying to find her way in a new and strange world. There is the lonely old man, desperate for someone to talk to, making small talk with me about my I-pad and hating it because it reminds him of the world that is changing and that he feels has passed him by. There are the college age man and woman laughing and relishing in one another. They are good friends and the one has just returned from abroad. This is their reunion and it is a sweet one of celebration. I can tell that he is in love with her but I'm not sure she knows it. Of course there are also the regulars (even more regular then me), who sit at the bar and pound beer after beer. They are alcoholics no doubt. There is a deep sadness in them, a rage just under the surface of everything, this is self medication. It is survival, for a while, but of course won't address the root issues.

I sit at the bar and I feel little that compels me to judge. I wonder if they notice me, if they are piecing together any sort of story, if they know I am aware of them, if they can see my simple acknowledgment. Yes, I see you. Here we are together, for different reasons, and for the same. The bar is often common ground. When there is a recession the business at the bar doesn't go down it goes up. With less expendable income the thing that goes is not the bar. And it isn't that most people are coming and drinking themselves into oblivion. No, people come to the bar because it is common ground. They come to the bar because you can laugh or cry, drink a lot or just a little, you can complain and lament or you can relish and celebrate. The bar is warm. The lights are on but not too brightly. Bright enough to see and be seen but also dim enough to go unnoticed if you need to.

I guess the bar stool just feels like a very human place to be. We don't have to explain why we are there. We don't have to have a particular reason, a particular kind of faith, or a particular kind of politic. We can be running to something or away from something, but here we all sit.

I always pray for everyone at the bar on those nights and I hope that maybe once and a while one of them prays for me. My prayers are simple prayers for I don't presume to know much about their lives or circumstances. They are generally prayers that God would hold them, that they would be loved by someone, that they would have hope, that there would be grace upon the journey between now and the next time I see them at the bar.