Briget is sick

 Our dog, Brigit, is sick.

She hadn't eaten much for two days and threw up, outside and in the house, several times. And drank lots and lots of water--unlike her normally.

We left her at the vet this morning and she did several tests and an X-ray and gave Brigit a anti-nausia and antibiotic shot. Plus sent her home with pills for both.

She hasn't been much better--not eating and looking for water--but she hasn't thrown up and Bern gave her the pill for tonight with peanut butter.

It's so hard to have a sick dog.

You want to comfort and assure them, but how?

Brigit's name was Annie when we got her. I know I've written that before.

But every time we said 'Annie', she would flinch.

So we changed it.

She knows her new name perfectly well now.

We went to a rescue show and looked at several dogs. When we got in the car to leave, I said to Bern, "we have to take Annie because no one else will."

So we did.

She was a rescue from Georgia. We're not sure how old she is, but she is the sweetest dog we've ever owned. Doesn't bark. Loves affection. So dear....

I just hope she gets better soon.

I pray so--though I'm not sure you're supposed to pray for dogs.

But she deserves prayer.

Half-way Between

 I just realized today that my age is half-way in between my mother's age when she died (she was 63 and never recovered from a stroke she had a week before) and my father's age when he died--83.

Two very different deaths.

When I was in college I noticed my mother taking tiny little pills.

I checked the bottle and it was nitroglycerin.

She had had a heart problem for years and hadn't told me.

I visited her in hospital the last few days. It was a 5 1/2 drive from Morgantown, where I was in college, to Bluefield, where she was in the hospital. I wasn't sure I could do it so I went to see the Episcopal chaplain. He put on full eucharistic vestments to give me communion and anoint me with holy oil. I made the drive fine.

I fed her vanilla ice cream but I wasn't sure if she knew me.

Lots of relatives around and the day before she died, my Aunt Elsie Ours said to me, "Happy Birthday". Only she remembered. I hadn't even remembered myself.

My dad and I were with her when she died. The doctors had warned us she might try to set up, even though she was unconscious, before she died.

She did and my father started shouting her name, but she laid back down and died.

My father's death was different. He had gone senile without me knowing it and called me in the middle of the night to tell me 'my friends' were going through his stuff. I flew out the next morning to Charleston and rented a car to make the 100 mile drive to Princeton, across a snow closed West Virginia Turnpike. Mine was the only car I saw on that long, slick drive.

I made arrangements the next few days and he flew back to Hartford with me. He lived with us for 5 months or so until he started wandering away. I put him in a nursing home five miles away and he kept trying to escape in his wheel chair. He wasn't sure who I was and often talked with me 'about me', thinking I was his cousin, Ralph LaFon.

The last talk I had with him was in St. Rapheal's hospital in New Haven where he was being treated for a bowel blockage.

He was as 'with it' as he had been in two years. He knew who I was and asked about Bern and Josh and Mimi. It reminded me of talks before all that happened.

I said, "Dad, I'm going home."

And he replied, "I'm going home too."

If he had been a member of my parish, I would have sat down and stayed with him. But he was my father and I didn't.

When I got home, ten minutes later, the hospital called. I just missed being with him when he died.

I went back to the hospital and sat with him for an hour or so.

The Black nurse who had been shaving him in his last moments, told me his last words.

"He sat up and said, 'I gotta get out of here!'"

Not bad last words.

He was a 'hard-shell Baptist', though I never knew what the adjective was about, and a mild racist. He died in a Catholic Hospital being shaved by a black woman. Irony is not dead.

I even let a Catholic priest bless his body. He might have scolded me for that, but he surely didn't care at that point. 

Bern and the kids and I flew back to WV on the same plane with his body to be buried beside my mother, whose death he had been mourning for almost 20 years.

When your parents die, being an only child aches as in no other moment.

Autographs

I saw the President on line in Louisiana viewing the hurricane damage--as he should have been.

But he was writing his autograph on blank pieces of paper and giving them out to people at a meeting, telling them, "you can get $10,000 for this on E-Bay."

I went on E-Bay for the first time in my life and saw that autographed copies of The Art of the Deal were selling for $500 "or best offer".

I know lying is part of his deal, but why would he tell people who could really use $10,000 that, when it wasn't true.

Lordy, Lordy.

I just don't get this guy....

 

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs link to my You Tube blog. (All opinions in my blog are mine and mine alone.) 

2800

This is my 2803rd post!

I never knew I thought that much!

I prefer to drift through life--reading books, cooking, walking the dog, talking with friends. (That last one is off the list for now.)

But obviously I am an opinionated man!

So here's an opinion: the DNC was about possibility and hope while the RNC was about gloom and doom.

Last night the president seemed to blame Joe Biden and the Democrats for all the bad things that have happened since he's been president....Pause and ponder that.

At the RNC it was like Covid-19 didn't really exist, that the economy isn't in tatters and that all the violence (very little when you consider the entire BLM movement) is Joe's fault.

Elect Joe, the message was, and the country is going to hell in a hand basket.

As if we aren't in hell already during the president's term.

Things are so strange--and what was really strange was over a thousand people at the president's speech with no social distance and few and far between masks.

What does that say to you?

"Every thing is fine...."

Everything is definitely NOT fine. We are in the midst of a group of crises brought on by this administration.

Already 4 Covid cases from the RNC. What will we know in a week or two about last night?

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs   link for my youtube blog. All opinions here are mine and mine alone.

 

The Storm

 I went to Stop and Shop for a few things this afternoon.

As soon as I got in the car it started to rain really, really hard.

I could hardly see on the mile drive back home.

I sat in the car listening to NPR for almost 20 minutes, waiting for it to slacken up.

It didn't.

So, I got soaked during the 15 foot walk from my car to my house.

My cell phone was getting notifications every three minutes or so about a tornado warning.

This is Connecticut, not Oklahoma! Why are we getting tornadoes? 

Global Warming is screwing everything up. And who is going to address that?

Our current President?

I think not. He thinks it's all a hoax!!!

The notifications told us to go to the basement or an 'interior room'--a room without windows.

The only rooms in our house without windows are our downstairs half-bath and our second bathroom upstairs.

I told Bern I'd take the downstairs one and she and Brigit could take the larger upstairs one.

But we didn't have to.

The worst is over in this storm.

But we HAVE to address Global Warning.

Which only Biden/Harris will do.

Mark the date and vote!

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs (link to my youtube blog. All opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

 

Anti-abortionist Abby Johnson

She spoke at the RNC.

She used to work for Planned Parenthood but is now a rabid anti-abortionist.

She also has said several times that she supports 'head of household' voting.

That means only one vote for each married couple.

Effectively she wants to take the vote from women almost exactly a hundred years after the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.

She said, when confronted, 'imagine that, a wife and husband agreeing or a wife who honors her husband as the head of their home. Gasp! What a biblical concept."

That's who votes for the president (who will not be named here).

Disenfranchising women.

You want to vote with her?

Ponder that.

Then vote.

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs link to my youtube blob. All opinions here are mine and mine alone.

 

A joke by Mike Miano I just read on comments to my blog

A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a bar.

The rabbit says, "This must be a typo."

 https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs (link to my you tube blog)

The RNC

OK, here's the truth--I can only watch it for a few minutes at a time.

I hate to be lied to, misled and given false information. It insults my intelligence and makes me angry.

The fact checker for CNN was asked by Chris Cuomo, after a report of dozens of misleading statements and outright lies (Rep. Ganz said that Democrats would ask terrorists to move in next door to you!), "why didn't you fact check the Democratic Convention?"

The checker replied, "I did, right here, but it wasn't news because there were hardly any misinformation--maybe a few 'reaching too far', but no lies. The 4 days of the DNC didn't come anywhere near this first night of the RNC."

He does this for a living--but I know when I'm being misled, lied to and being intimidated with falsehoods.

And that's what it is.

And the president on every night? That's never happened at a Convention. He simply can't hear himself talk enough....

And Mike Pompeo speaking from a foreign country (Israel no less!) about domestic politics--which is not only against the Hatch Act but against his own State Department's clear rules. Give me a break!

And Don Jr.'s girlfriend screeching out untruths?

Alas and alack.

Dozens of former Republican office holders have endorsed Biden.

At least 4 Republican groups are making campaign ads against the President.

He has not only dismantled the country, he's dismantled the Republican Party, which I used to respect, if not vote for.

And oh, one other thing, one of the president's most vocal Evangelical supports--Liberty University's President, Jerry Falwell, Jr.--has resigned because it has come to light that he and his wife have had a long term sexual relationship with another man.

Alas and alack, I used to respect, if not agree with, Evangelicals--but no more, not given their blind devotion to the current President.

Hard times for me and our beloved country.

This has got to end.

 

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs Link to my video blog.

(all opinions in my blog are mine and mine alone. Jim)  

Another strange day

And not just because of the Republican Convention (I'll have much more about this week, beloved) but because I had another back ache night.

You might remember I wrote before about a backache a week ago now, that sent me to the emergency room and weirdly disappeared so they let me leave w/o seeing a doctor at 4:30 a.m.

Well, last night I woke up at 3:30 a.m. with the same pain--mid-back, excruciating. Nothing helped but sitting in an adirondack chair on our deck with my feet up. And even that only made it possible to wait until urgent care opened at 8 a.m.

(An aside about 'weirdly': that violates the old trope we all learned in grade school--'i before e except when following c or as sounded as a as in neighbor or weigh'. It took an English major 73 years to notice that!)

Anyway, Bern took me to urgent care and, true to fashion, the pain went away as I talked with the nurse. This time I wisely waited until an x-ray. The doctor said she couldn't see anything, but since they used a portable x-ray machine, which wasn't as clear as real ones, she told me to call my oncologist and tell her all about (almost all doctors I go to are women--even my urologist!) what urgent care found and have more tests.

Dr. Alsamari (I knew spell check wouldn't like that!) is on vacation until Monday but her assistants are getting the info from urgent care and will either call me or Dr. Alsamari and give me an appointment.

I can only pray (and ask you to) that I don't have another episode between now and then. Other than apendictis years ago, I've never had such bad pain any other time in my life.

After my appendix was removed, Bishop Smith visited me in the hospital. I woke up and saw him and holding out the little switch for my morphine drip and said, "hey, Bishop, want to try this?"

He never let me forget that.

More on the RNC later today. 

https://youtu.be/j-xNDlTxExs  link to my video blog. All opinions in this blog are mine and mine alone.

 

 

THIS SUNDAY'S SERMON

 Gospel: Mt. 16. 13-20

Who do you say that I am?

 

        Today we find ourselves in the city of Caesarea Philippi.

          Just a short aside about Caesarea Philippi because it is a fascinating place—it is north of the Sea of Galilee, near what is now the border between Israel and Lebanon. Prior to being named “Caesarea Philippi” by the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Philip (to honor Caesar Augustus and…oh, himself…) the city was known as Banias in Hebrew and “Paneas” in Greek. It was the site of a shrine to Pan, the god of mirth and drink and debauchery (God bless him!). But it didn’t stop there: there were shrines to Persian gods and Roman gods and to Caesar, who was worshipped as a god, and even shrines to the Pre-Greek gods of that region. Caesarea Philippi was a veritable panoply of worship and sacrifice. And besides all that, the water that flows through Banius from Mount Hermon is the headwaters of the River Jordan. So it was a terribly holy place for Jews as well.

          So, in this remarkably holy, sacred place, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

          I want to go on record as saying that is one of the most audacious, outrageous, daring and vulnerable questions anyone can ask. Who in their right mind would ask it? What rational person would want to know the answer when it came?

 

          Think about it for a moment—WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Is that something you really, truly, honestly want to know? From an acquaintance? From a close friend? Even from someone who loves you? Do you really, truly, honestly want to know “who they say you are?”

          Let me talk about me for a moment….I’m not sure I want to risk the pain and disappointment and confusion that hearing “who someone else says I am” would cause me.

          Two examples, if I might.

          First of all, I’ve had any number of people who have come to know me and love me tell me that when they first met me they thought I was “arrogant”. That’s the word they’ve all used—arrogant.

          WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? I could have asked them when they didn’t know me well.

          YOU ARE VERY ARROGANT, they would have answered.

          Of all the things I think about myself—about WHO I AM—about the last thing would be “arrogant”. I’m always using so much energy trying to please people and make them like me and show them how honorable I am, that I would never imagine they’d think I was arrogant. I’ve spent hours and hours trying to understand why people would think that’s “who I am….”

          And I would have been bereft, deeply pained, stung to the core.

          It is a very risky question to ask: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Who would want to know? Who would be confident enough to hear the response?

          Secondly, I know myself better than anyone knows me. I know all my dark and secret places, all my aching places, all my shame and fear and brokenness. Why would I ask someone WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? For fear of hearing the “truth” about what I know about me…..

          My greatest fear is that someone will “figure me out” and know what a phony, what a fake, what a hypocrite, what a sham I am.

          So why would I ever ask someone: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

 

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian murdered by the Nazi’s at the end of WW II. One of his books was Letters and Papers from Prison and contained this poem. Listen. Listen carefully…. 

            

WHO AM I?

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a Squire from his country home.

 

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my wardens

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though they were mine to command.

 

Who am I? they also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

 

Am I really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

Compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

 

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others

And before myself a contemptable, woebegone weaking?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in distain from victory already achieved?

 

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.

 

 

 

 

I had a friend who was a priest in West Virginia with me for five years. He was a great guy, very funny. But he always ran himself down—about his problems and short-comings. We went our different ways—I went to CT and he went west. Then, a dozen or so years later, he was elected Bishop. I went to his consecration. Hearing what people said about him in the reception, when I talked with him I said, “don’t ever run yourself down again—I heard what those people said about Who You Are.

So, maybe who people say we are can challenge us to live into their words.

There were many opinions about ‘who Jesus was’, but Peter nailed it--“you are the Messiah!” Jesus told him, “You are the Rock (petros in Greek) on which I’ll build my church”. Then he told them to tell no one who he was.

There are many voices, both inside our heads and from those around us that have an opinion about who you and I are.

But Bonhoeffer nailed it—whoever we are, we belong to God.

We are God’s beloved children. And what we need to do with that is to live in the world as the hands and hearts and voices and actions of Jesus. We are to be Christ’s Body to this darkling world.

We have to. We just have to.

We must…. We must….We must.  

 

Memory

I'm reading a great book by John Sanford called Masked Prey.

Bern told me I read it already, just a few months ago. I believe her, but I'm 2/3 through and don't remember reading it.

Maybe my memory is slipping away.

That would mean I could get my 7 favorite books and read them over and over again for the first time!

I'd like that, as weird as it sounds. Not having to read books I don't like.

Maybe my memory is improving at this moment.

I think I wrote about this before....

But, of course, I don't remember when....

 

Cancer

 I've had prostate cancer. It was about 12 years ago. I found a woman oncologist in NYC and made an appointment to talk with her. I wanted a woman since she didn't have a prostate and would have a non-biased opinion.

I told her about my problem. She looked at all my medical records. I asked her, "If I were your brother, what would you tell me to do?"

She thought for a minute and said, "yank it out."

She recommended a surgeon in Greenwich who 'yanked my prostate out' at Greenwich hospital (more like a hotel than a hospital!).

Cancer is when ordinary cells began to mutate into something dangerous.

The current president has mutated much of our democracy into something dangerous.

Like my prostate gland, he needs to be 'yanked out' of office.

We can do that on November 3rd if enough of us vote.

He's trying, as best he can, to prevent all of us from voting by trying to destroy the Postal Service.

Congress is trying, oh so hard, in both parties to prevent that.

Not much to do with cancer but 'yank it out'.

Let's do that.

OK?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94  link to my youtube blog

(These opinions are mine and mine only.)

August in Connecticut???

The last few days have been cool and dry. Not what I've come to expect from my nearly 30 years in CT.

No AC in our room at night and we slept the sleep of the dead.

It's been more humid tonight, but still comfortable.

Tonight, though, AC to sleep with.

But wondrous while it lasted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 link to my youtube blog 

Days three and four

I was up so late Wednesday and last night, watching the DNC, I haven't found time to write about days 3 and 4.

They were both so great!

Day 3 was Kamala's night. Her acceptance speech told us much about her upbringing and the glass ceilings she has already broken. She has a great and oft-used smile. It lights up the room--even the huge, empty room she spoke from. She is fierce and compassionate and committed.

Great speech.

Day 4 was Joe's night. so many great things happened. Just a few: Tammy Duckworth's speech, which began showing her two artificial legs from having  her helicopter she was piloting in the war shot down. A zoom meeting of most of the people Joe defeated in the primaries. One great moment was when Sen. Booker asked Sen. Sanders, "tell my Bernie, why does my girlfriend like you better than me?" Sanders replied, "because she's smarter than you are."

Then there was Brayden Harrison, a 13 year old who met Joe at one of those hand-shake lines. Joe discovered Brayden stuttered and met with him for an hour to share how he too had a stutter as a child. Brayden talked about how kind and compassionate Joe was to him. Moved me to tears.

(An aside: Joe's stuttering came up in a video about his childhood. A nun in Joe's elementary school mocked his stutter. He went home in tears and his mother took him back to school and told the nun, "if you mistreat my son again, I'll come down here and jerk that bonnet off you head!" Steven Colbert, late last night, live after the convention, (I watched it on you tube this morning), said Joe should work that into his campaign: My Mom Threatened a Nun For Me!)

The women who hosted each session were all lovely and well-spoken. Julia Louis-Dryfus was also hilarious. One of her lines was when she was giving a number to text for information on voting safely. It ended with a number, something like 303033, and Julia commented that would be Trump's golf score if he didn't cheat. Then she added, "I know I shouldn't have said that, but we know he is a cheater, and I'm a nasty, nasty woman." Pretty good, Julia.

What the Democrats did the last 4 nights is something the Republicans can't do. They showed us the faces of America. Every color, ethnic group, religion and background--both in the speakers and in the ordinary people the hosts talked with. Democrats and Joe and Kamala represent the 'whole' of American, not a slice of it.

Come on people--Get out and Vote.

We are "we the people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94   (link to my you tube blog)

(All opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

 

 

My oh, so odd night

I watched night two of the Democratic Convention. It was all about Joe Biden being The Right One--a healer, open to everybody--a lovely tribute to Joe's friendship with John McCain, being nominated, not by a politician, but by a Black, female elevator operator in the Capital who Joe befriended years ago, Jill's loving speech about her husband...on and on and on.

But when I went to bed I got a searing pain across the middle of my back--excruciating. Nothing worked, so I woke Bern at 2 a.m. to take me to Mid-State Hospital in Meriden.

I could hardly walk when we got to the emergency room. Even at that hour, things moved slowly. Finally a nurse took me into a room and put me on a bed with the head elevated.

While she asked me endless questions, I began to relax some.

By the time she left and told me a doctor would be in 'soon', my pain was gone.

It was like a miracle! 

After waiting 15 minutes, I called her back and told her I wanted to go home.

I asked her how long for the doctor and she said 15 to 20 minutes. That sealed it.

She made me walk up and down several hallways before agreeing to let me leave. I even drove home and got into bed at 4:15!

Slept well. Have had no pain at all today.

Bern's theory was a kidney stone (she's had them) that passed while we were waiting.

I remember her kidney stone like it was yesterday.

It was a Sunday morning and she felt poorly so she and Mimi didn't go up to St. John's. I was in the middle of my sermon when someone, luckily, heard the phone in the vesting room.

They pulled me out of the pulpit to tell me she was on her way to Waterbury hospital. Josh had been an acolyte that day, sitting behind the altar rail. He leaped the altar rail in his robe to come to me.

We beat her to the hospital. Her pain was so bad she called 911 and forgot Mimi was in her room!

A couple from the church went to Cheshire to be with Mimi.

Bern is a tough cookie, but I've never seen her in such pain. They somehow dissolved the stones and we were home by dark.

I hope that wasn't what I had. And I don't want that pain again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 

(link to my you tube blog)

(these are my opinions and mine only)

 

 

The Democratic Convention--Night One

 It was odd, a Convention without crowds. But as it should be in the days of this virus.

It was quite a lot in a little over two hours: Republican John Kasic in a field where a road had two forks, people from every state and territory singing the national anthem, a lovely hostess asking questions to many ordinary people, Bernie Sanders in front of a year full of wood for the stove, lots of entertainment, and, most, most of all Michelle Obama's moving speech and firm denunciation of the president.

I thought it was done flawlessly in the technology.

How hard that must have been to pull off.

Very up beat--"we the people" was the theme.

Watch it on youtube if you didn't see it.

Lordy, Lordy, upbeat and uniting, just what we need in these strange and dangerous times.

(The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

(link to my You Tube Blog)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94

I can't find anything

 Cheshire has two supermarkets. Big Y (which used to be Everybody's) and Stop and Shop.

After Everybody's became a Big Y, they expanded into an empty restaurant next door and became much larger.

In response, Stop and Shop has changed everything around, taking out the health food section and expanding their produce to match Big Y.

And both stores have moved most things around.

It's become so I can't find anything I'm looking for in either one and am walking around, searching for pickles much more than I want to be.

I guess it's a sign of age.

I don't want things to change.

I want everything to stay the same, so I won't be confused and can find what I want where it used to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 (link to my youtube blog)

.

In a box

Bern does face time on her phone with Eleanor every weekday. Today, Eleanor put her dad's tablet in and box and shut the top. Bern was in the dark.

These days it feels like that to me--I'm in a box.

Part of it is good--I'm safe from the virus out there in the world.

The other part isn't good. The president creates an alternative reality and I have no access to the truth except around the edges where the light edges through.

Schools should open--it's safe.

The economy should open--it's safe.

The Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal saves the middle east--believer Jarred.

The post office changes are for the best--all is well.

Kamela Harris is 'nasty'--all the time.

But the light that seeps in tells me all that is a lie.

Things are not well.

Our democracy is in peril.

Joe Biden must--MUST--be elected.

It's the only hope, the only way to open the box.

(all opinions here are mine and mine only)

 

 

 

An Email

(I took this from an email I wrote.It explains my commitment to Black Lives Matter.)

I grew up in the only county in the US, outside the deep south, that was almost 50/50 Black and White. I knew only a few adult blacks and none of their children. The adults called me "Mister Jimmy". I only realized years later that it was probably meant derogatorily. I just grew up thinking it was the way things were. My father--not my mother---was a quiet racist. In his many jobs he served lots of Black customers, but when he came to my first Church, St. James in Charleston, WV, as I was showing him around he said, "It doesn't smell like I expected." I never went to school with Black students until my Senior Year of high School. The Black High School had sent over 3 male athletes and 3 smart girls to pave the way since the next year, the schools would merge. (Which meant that all over the county the Black Schools would close in disrepair and the Blacks would come to the better kept white schools). I became close friends with a student from the Black School when we were in college. He would introduce me to his friends by saying, "we went to different high schools together."

Since college I have done all I could for the Civil Rights Movement. During seminary I walked in marches. Since then I've given money to Civil rights groups. My childhood taught me how terrible and limiting segregation had been.

As a young priest, I went to St. James in Charleston, a black parish. With so few black Episcopal priests, St. James couldn't afford them. For five years they educated me in what it was like to be Black in America. The Senior Warden, a man who served in the army and went to the level of Colonel, showed me the turban he wore traveling through the South. He was light skinned and wearing the turban meant he could get a room in a hotel. Disgraceful that he had to do that. Most of the members of St. James worked or taught at a local previously all--Black college. It was the most educated congregation I ever served, yet they faced discrimination daily. It outraged me.

The other two churches I served--St. Paul's in New Haven and St. John's in Waterbury--both had large minority groups. An important member of the Cluster was baptized at St. Paul's (not by me) but members of his extended family were there when I was. St. John's had a huge extended family of Island Blacks. I would always wait for the moment when a seminarian would ask me why so many of the Black people sat together. I would say, "what if they all had red hair and freckles?" Then they'd get it. That family, all dressed almost formally for church. The little girls wore gloves and hats. The little boys, suits and ties. That family, almost 50 people, took me in and made me an Island White with food and drinks and jokes about the Islands.

So, as you can see, my entire full time ministry was surrounded by people of color--including a Hispanic congregation in Waterbury of over 100 which required a Spanish speaking assistant.

Given my segregationist upbringing, my commitment to civil rights is bone deep.

I hope you can understand why I come from where I do about Black Lives Matter.

 

 (The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)