the moon, the moon....

The moon is full tonight, through scattered, ghostly clouds. How differently does the full moon strike me now than 3 or 4 years ago.

I spent my full time ministry in urban churches, as odd and different as they were. And those 30 years of working in cities (Charleston,WV and New Haven and Waterbury) taught me well that the word "lunatic" really does refer to the moon.

In my 21+ years at St. John's, Waterbury, the staff of the church and the soup kitchen always knew when the moon was waxing. Things got stranger. Odd people became odder. Apparently 'normal' people became a tad 'abnormal'. The whole spectrum of life got pushed to the edges. I kid you not.

Full moon days meant lots of disruption in the Soup Kitchen and a vast increase of people wanting to talk to me about stuff that was often troubling.

Folks in urban settings are much more in sync with stages of the moon's cycle than folks in the suburbs and country. Or, at least that is my experience. Maybe if I had been in suburban or country churches long enough I might have noticed the lunar effect there too.

Full moons, at St. John's, were a mixture of dread and delight. Some of the lunar changes were amusing and moving--lots more street people wanting to confess to me, for example. The confessions, which I dutifully heard, were always less serious than the one confessing thought, it seemed to me. But of all the confessions I heard in my years as a full-time priest, I assure you that 95% of them were during the full moon!

But some of the effects of the full moon were dangerous and daunting. Almost all the potential violence in the Soup Kitchen and in people who passed through the church was confined to the five days or so around the full moon. I kid you not.

A guy we'll call Harold was drunk most every day, but as the full moon approached, he was not only drunk but mean. He went for me a couple of times but was too drunk to hurt me. And then some young men who were dangerous in the waning of the moon, did horrible things to Harold in the full of the moon and he eventually died from all that.

Don't tell me the full moon is a benign moment in the ways of human beings.

Don't even begin to tell me the full moon doesn't give meaning to the world 'lunacy'. It just does, I'm serious.

But in Cheshire it is just a lovely sight through the ghostly clouds, that full moon....