1/11/2010

Monday. I like Mondays at St. John's. Not a lot is scheduled to happen. Lots of priests take Mondays off, but not me--I love coming in and being around when nothing much is scheduled to happen. A priest who once worked for me told me "you do nothing better than anyone I've ever known." We're no longer close (more the pity) but things happen. And we must have been pretty close when she told me that because she saw through my facade and discovered a deep truth about me. I actually enjoy 'doing' nothing, just 'being' around. Sometimes people call me and begin by saying, "I know you're busy..." and I interrupt to say, "no I'm not, I've just been hanging around waiting for your call...." It puts them off stride so I wave it away and ask how they are and why they're calling such a busy man....

Priests are past masters of seeming 'busy'. I think it is because 'being a priest' goes against all the stuff we were told at our parents' knees and by the educational system and the whole ambiance of our culture. "Busy" passes in our culture for 'important'. And if you're not busy doing something, well, what do you hope to accomplish? I think we as priests are a bit embarrassed by how little we have to 'do', like work. So we fill our schedules with meetings and gatherings and busy work and not-so-busy-work to justify being paid. I have a classmate who left Virginia Seminary in 1975, along with me, and went to a church in Florida--just across some body of water from Cape Kennedy where he can sit in his back yard and watch the shuttles and other rocket things launch. He stayed there until a few years ago when he retired (he was only in our seminary for one year because he was a RC priest for years then left and married a woman with five children). He was in one place his entire ministry as an Episcopal priest. I talked to him several years ago when I visited about 30 of my classmates on a sabbatical to catch up with what had happened since we all left Virginia Seminary.

He told me this: "priests are the only people in the culture who are paid to 'do' nothing. We just wait around waiting for someone to need us....and if we aren't there when the call comes, we aren't doing our job...."

Anyway, I did go to a nursing home today to have a Eucharist. There has, over the 20 years, always been someone in the parish who could play piano who went with me to the three nursing homes each month so we could sing. I go to two now since one closed (more the pity) and though I used to dread going to the nursing homes (it is a momento mori to visit such places)I always enjoyed it once I got there. Its only been a few years since I finally understood why I liked going to nursing homes. It's because it puts me among people who 'really' do nothing. I understand that about them and I realize that just being around waiting is a ministry and a life in and of itself. And to them, when the pianist and I arrive, it is like the call on Monday morning that I've been waiting for. And I love them--these old people who used to be older than I am by quite a bit than they are now. They are mostly sweet and gentle and so pleased that we are there even if they have no idea what we're doing. I like that. It is a real triumph of human life to be pleased with what's happening when you have no idea what it is....Ponder that under your castor oil tree...

One lady at this nursing home waves at me all during the service. she waves when I'm praying or reading the gospel or celebrating communion or singing. She just waves and crosses herself whenever I cross myself. One of the Recreational directors once asked me if it distracted me. "No," I told her, 'it keeps me focused..." I mostly wave back all during all the things I'm doing.

When I give communion at the nursing home I intinct the wafer and put it on people's tongues--or tiny pieces of wafer if they have trouble swallowing. I say "the Body and Blood of Christ" and, instead of "Amen" they almost always say--even the ones who seem out of it altogether, not even able to wave--"thank you...."

I don't know, if there is ever a new prayerbook we should have people respond to the sacrament by saying 'thank you'. It's a polite thing and makes a lot of sense. I've decided when I'm retired and go to eucharist I'll say 'thank you' to the Body and to the Blood and to the ones who bring it to me. It just seems right.

When I'm retired I could write a chapter in a book about going to nursing homes. I think I will. I'll give you a preview....

Once when I was giving communion at a nursing home there was a woman with wild hair and no teeth and a lot of energy--she was tied in her wheel chair else she would have escaped to God knows where. I came to her and dipped the wafer and held it out and said, "The Body and Blood of Christ."

She stared at me like she was crazy (which she was) or like I was crazy (which isn't far from true) and said: "YOU'RE CHRIST?" real loud, like I wrote it.

"No", I told her, "this is the Body and Blood of Christ..."

She said, even louder 'YOU'RE CHRIST....' like she meant it, like it might be true.

I tried two more times and she said the same thing louder and louder until I noticed an orderly about to come over. So I said, under my breath, "I'm Christ" and she opened her mouth and took the sacrament and said, softly, "Thank you...."

So you read this whole thing--the second day of my writing knowing in April I'm retiring.

I could say, 'YOU'RE CHRIST', which wouldn't be as far off as you might think.

But, instead, I'll just say, "Thank you..." Not a bad thing to say in any circumstance....

Day One

Today, January 10, is the first day that my plan to retire from my position at St. John's has been general knowledge. A letter went out last week that most people already received and I talked about it at all three services--just an initial and general comment, really. My last day will be April 30, so there is time to have longer, more serious conversations. After over 20 years there will be a lot of good-byes to say. And since someone leaving is like a death, I imagine we will all go through some of Elizabeth Kubla Ross' 'stages of death': denial, bargaining, anger, depression and hopefully, acceptance.

I've already experienced in others most of those stages. Some people who knew, before the letter went out, had the first reaction: "you don't mean it...." Others asked if there was anything they, or the church, could do to change my mind. Some spoke a bit harshly with me--words like 'abandoning us' and 'betraying us' were actually spoken. And many are simply sad--already in depression. A few have wished me well and told me they are happy for me. Thing is, people jump back and forth during a long illness--which, in a way--is what now until the end of April will be! My hope is to help the parish--and myself--come to acceptance in the end so my parting can be as wondrous and important as my time with St. John's has been. That's part of what I'll be trying to develop a discipline about by writing down the days.

I also want to reflect on my time here--I have grieving to do and things to let go of before I can leave cleanly. I usually work through things better in writing than in other ways, so this journal of the last few months of my ministry and presence here will help me do that.

I might start looking at 'the church' with a critical eye. One of the things I want to do when I have more time that will begin in May, is to write about 'the church' as an institution and a community. It is meant to be the latter but spends more time and energy of being the former, in my opinion at any rate. So I might drift into that once and a while.

And, really, is will be a time for me to say good-bye to some of the best years of my life. I was 42 when I arrived and didn't have a gray hair on my head though my beard had turned gray years before. Now I'm going to be a white haired guy of 63 when I leave. That's a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of wafers across the rail. It's also a lot of dying and being born and getting married and being sick and moving away and struggling and rejoicing. It is quite remarkable how little a priest 'does' like work. Most of my ministry is 'being there'. Woody Allen once said, "just showing up is 90% of life." In ministry 'just showing up' may be even more than that!

I've had discussions with other priests--and a couple of bishops--about my belief that ordination is ontological, not functional. There are 'functions' I can perform under the particular and peculiar polity of the Episcopal Church. But they aren't hard and soon become like 'muscle memory'. But I truly believe (as truly as I believe anything...we'll run into my odd theories about 'belief' at some point) that 'being a priest' is simply that--'being...."

I have a seminary classmate--probably many of them--who wear clerical collars. I don't and haven't for years--but that's just me. If I did wear a collar the last place I'd wear one is on an airplane--it attracts crazy people like a magnet and even the sanest of us is a little crazy at 38,000 feet trapped in a large, efficient sardine can. Once my friend talked to a man all the way from LA to Chicago. As they were circling O'Hare, the seatmate said to my friend, "what do you do for a living?" My friend looked down at his black shirt and Anglican collar and said, somewhat confused, "Why...I'm a priest...." And the man replied, "I know who you are, I want to know what you do...."

My friend asked me what I would have said. Truth is, what I would have said is something like, "who I AM is what I do...." Let him chew on that while he waits for his baggage.

I'm sure that will come up again in these musings under a Castor oil tree that will no longer be with us on May 1--my life and time at St. John's.

Hope you'll come along for the journey....

nose hair

OK, what is the hair in your nose about?

I just spent about ten minutes with this little nose hair clipper buzzing away a lawn of nose hair in my right nostril. The left nostril wasn't as bad, but I had a couple of hairs in there that I could have made into a french braid. Who told hair it was alright to grow in my nose?

Once in a while I have this hair that comes out ON my nose. Somehow--it either grows very fast or I'm an idiot (take your pick)--it is about half an inch long before I notice it. And there is one hair up under my left eye that can become a relic in a few days if I don't pluck it or buzz it or shave it. What's up with hairs springing up where they don't belong? I'd like to give my nose hairs to some of my friends who are losing the hair on their head. My nose hairs seem sturdy and long and wanting to get longer.

One thing I've noticed recently is that even my nose hairs are white these days--at least the hair that sprouts from my nose and the one that flourishes beneath my eye are dark brown. I must still have some dark brown hair DNA--but it doesn't show up in my hair or beard. Go figure....

I don't yet have ear hair. I've known people who could style the hair in their ears it was so thick and luxurious. I'd hate that, plus buzzing that hair might change the tone of the ringing in my ears. It's not there right now, as I type--the ringing I mean--but I'm sure putting the little battery powered gizmo in my ear would cause a cantata in my head.

I discovered I had tinnitus one February night 5 or so years ago. I was out on the back porch smoking a cigarette and listening to the crickets. They were so loud that night I could still hear them when I went to bed. I woke up about 2 a.m. to the sound of the crickets and suddenly realized it was about 4 degrees outside and the only crickets there were were in my head.

Doctors don't know squat about tinnitus. They don't even have experimental treatments for it since it is such a friggin' mystery. I don't mind crickets in my head--most of the time I have to pause to see if they are singing--but I wouldn't want angry wasps or jack hammers. So, if I start getting ear hair I'll pluck it out rather than put the buzzing thing in my ear. (I wear my hair quiet long and one time I did find a two inch hair growing out of my left ear lobe that I hadn't noticed because I thought it was coming from my head. Pulling that out hurt like the dickins and was humiliating though I never told anyone about it...well, I guess I just did, so I am humiliated...Mr 2 inch hair on his ear lobe...what a loser....

If I won powerball I'd give a million or three to the church (I hope people from St. John's read this and know how powerball philanthropic I would be) I'd make my children rich beyond their dreams, endow someone to pick up road kill and properly bury the creatures we slaughter with our cars and set up a scientific investigation of nose hair. It's gone for now but it will be back and I'd bankroll a cure. (I'd also probably buy a low mileage Lexus and take a month long trip to Ireland--but that's just my stuff....)

Maybe we need a nose hair support group so we can talk with each other about how humiliating it is to have nose hair we haven't noticed--much like spinach in our teeth when we're trying to talk to someone we want to impress, seduce, or borrow money from. NHA--Nose Hair Anonymous we'd call it.

"Hi, I'm Jim and I have disgusting nose hair...."

By the way, in my book, all nose hair is disgusting.

Life is hard....

Someone in my family, I don't remember who, used to say, when I was whining about this or that, "I cried because I had no shoes, then I saw a man who had no feet...."

This morning, trying to call the church, I kept forgetting to add the area code, which is new for us--all calls, local or long distance, require the area code now.

I was whining to myself and the Universe and wondering why my life was so miserable..

Then I got a call from a guy who I used to know. He worked at St. John's for a while as the Sexton and then moved to North Carolina. The day he buried his wife, he sat down awkwardly in a chair and somehow broke his neck. After 6 months in the hospital he was finally out and stopped at a stop light when a kid who had stolen a car back-ended him at 70 mph, breaking my friend's back. He's back in Waterbury, living with family, getting around in a power chair, unable to walk--he's 20 years younger than me, by the way. And a few nights ago his nephew's fish tank caught on fire (I'm not even going to speculate about how a fish tank full of water could catch on fire...) and if the dog hadn't barked and waked them up, they all would have died.

2-0-3...that doesn't seem such a burden to punch in when making a call any more.

Ponder that....

What will you miss?

I once had a long talk with a friend who was going to die soon. We both knew it so there was no sense in pretending otherwise. We were standing outside in the early afternoon. It wasn't yet time for my friend to take to bed, though that was coming.

My friend and I were smoking cigarettes--don't get all moral about that, okay? it wasn't what killed my friend and we both loved to smoke.

The sky was that blue that took your breath away. The air was perfect--not too hot, not too cool. The grass was a painful green. Something magic about the afternoon, something so lovely it could make you laugh or bring tears to your eyes.

"Are you going to miss this?" I asked.

"Smoking?" my friend replied, then chuckled. We both laughed. We both knew I meant the wonder of the afternoon, but missing smoking was in there too.

After a long, companionable silence, my friend said, "I think I'll miss most all of it...."

Ever since then, from time to time, I try to notice things I will miss when it comes my time to die. Not in a sentimental or maudlin way--just clearly, so I can imprint the moments deep in my soul. Little things mostly--watching the squirrels chase each other, the sound of birds, the eternal roll of the ocean, the faces of those I love, waking up knowing my dog is beside me in bed, his back against my back, the smell of vanilla, the color of the leaves in early autumn, the taste of fresh coffee flavored with milk and sugar, the laughter of children, the tears I sometimes see sliding down the cheeks of people as they receiving communion, the scent of my wife's hair, something about the moment just before I fall to sleep and the dreams my sleep gifts me with, the day when pitchers and catchers report to spring training, the tone of a piano...a flute...a cello...the weight of my body when I sway to music, sand beneath bare feet....on and on...'most all of it....'

We could do worse, it seems to me, than notice, from time to time, what it is we will miss when it comes time to take to our bed and die.

Just notice and ponder and remember as long as we can.

People ask me often what happens when we die. I really have no clue, but after that perfect afternoon with my friend who has now passed through the magic door, I think this: the best thing would be able to remember all that I miss about being alive....

too hard on Rome? too hard on technology?

I grew up in the Pilgrim Holiness Church and as a teen, my family joined the Methodist Church and then I became an Episcopalian in college and have been ever since. (I would contend I was an Episcopalian from birth in some odd way, but how could I justify that???)

So maybe I AM too hard on Rome. I'd only known it from a distance until I married someone who was an Italian/Hungarian Roman Catholic. So, for most of my life now, I have been in contact, by marriage, to lots and lots of ethnic Roman Catholics.

Nothing in that exposure has led me to believe the RC church is the 'one true church'. (Let me add that 'the one true church' is like saying 'the perfect apple'. I've had some good apples in my time, but never one I would call 'perfect'. I've been around churches all my life and I wouldn't claim that any of them was 'one' or 'true'. ) So maybe I am too hard on Rome.

And the internet and all its manifestations as well. Maybe I'm too hard on them. I only know what I know about churches and technology and most of what I know sins and falls short of the glory of God.

But then I don't get the current rage about Vampires either, but I know I've seen young girls I'd never seen with a book coming to church and choristers with their nose stuck in one of the 'twilight' books. I believe in reading and even though I've never read one of those, I'd rather young girls be reading them than reading nothing. Reading, for its own sake is worth doing. So is religion and so is communication. So maybe I'm too hard on everything.

I don't think of myself who is too hard on things--I think of myself as laid back and non-judgemental. And, I mostly am.

But I heard on the radio a few days ago that the pork farmers are suffering because people believe, for reasons beyond all my comprehension, that 'swine flu' comes from pigs. The name 'swine flu', as I understand it, was because the virus was isolated in a pig who caught that strain of flu from human beings! So, though I'm not usually hard on things, that just seems astonishingly crazy to me--that people gave up sausage and bacon to avoid the flu....As far as I can tell, there is no ill that can't be lessened, if not cured, by a good dose of pork.

Then there is the movie that hasn't been in all theaters yet about how the world will end in 2012. I was driving through rural Maryland and heard a preacher on the radio who had already bought into the Mayan legend that the end will be on December 2o, 2012--get the numerology? 12/20 2012? He hadn't even seen the movie but was saying how gracious God was to give us all this time to repent. Good God, is that nuts or what?

Maybe what I need to ponder is how 'hard' I am on stuff. I'll think about that now....

I gave you fair warning....

I got an email from a friend about going to a Roman Catholic mass and hearing the priest declare what a great job Pope Benedict is doing in 'ecumenical relations' by welcoming Anglicans 'home' to Rome.

It was no surprise to me since I went to a funeral recently at a RC church and heard the priest speak longer about 'blessed Benedict reaching out to the Anglicans' than he did about the dead person.

By now everyone has surely hear that the Pope, waking up and having a 'Pope thought'--which is, you realize, theologically unquestionable since all Pope thoughts are--that he, in his blessedness should invite Anglicans 'home to Rome'. It plays well since it is like ET saying "ET phone home". ANGLICANS HOME TO ROME...it would fit on a bumper sticker nicely.

Just to be clear: 'ecumenical' is a term that refers to dialog and co-operation between different Christian denominations. My suggesting, for example, that all gay Roman Catholic priests would be welcome to come to the Episcopal church is not 'ecumenical' a whit...and would greatly reduce the already shrinking number of RC priests. (OK, that was bad. I apologize. But me writing that to an audience of half-a-dozen or so is like a candle against the sun of the Pope trying to raid the Anglican church because we are a church that encourages disagreement and--surprise, surprise--gets it!)

I've been criticized by members of the parish I serve for being less than polite to the 'Big Firm' of the Roman Catholic Church. I've taken that criticism seriously whenever it came. No more, beloved!

The Pope went to far this time--a law until himself that he is.

I have willingly and joyfully presided at weddings of divorced Roman Catholics who told me up front that once I--through my role as a priest--blessed their marriage and gave them a second sacrament of the Eucharist, they would trudge back to Rome and become members of the parish that wouldn't bless their love. ANYONE who wants God mixed up in their relationship seems to me to deserve to have God involved. I'm more than happy to do that. But what I don't get is why they'd go back to the abusive relationship after the Episcopal Church had welcomed and affirmed them.

It is my opinion--and I'm ready for any grief this brings me--that many Roman Catholics' relationship with their church is like the battered spouse syndrome that counselors and psychologists simply can't understand. It's like the foster children I worked with as a Social Worker who wanted to 'go home' to the place where they beat them, burned them, abused them and almost killed them. I don't get it, but it is a reality.

I call Roman Catholics who become Episcopalians "recovering Romans" until I see that they have found a way to 'be' Episcopalians without looking over their shoulders in both fear and the pointless hope that things will be better 'back there'.

I often get asked by RCs, "Is this church 'catholic' or 'Christian'?" If they asked Catholic or Protestant, the answer would be the same, but what fascinates me is how many RC folks don't realize their church is, finally, 'Christian'. Anyway, whichever way the question is asked, whether it be 'catholic or Christian' or 'catholic or protestant', the answer is the same. That answer is YES.

The theological tightrope we Episcopalians walk is difficult. We are 'catholic' and, of course, Christian. We are both Catholic and Protestant. That takes some thought and pondering to get your head and heart around. Being a Roman Catholic isn't nearly that confounding, takes next to no thought and is pretty simple since blessed Benedict can wake up any morning and tell you what to do and think.

We Episcopalians ask you to think for yourself and do what God--not the church or the Pope--leads you to do. That's the difference.

Ok, I've written it down. It is eternal in the webosphere. I can't take it back. Yell at me if you wish.

Oh, just one question regarding the Pope's 'ecumenical' action--when you hear the name 'Benedict', who is the other one you immediately think of......?