serious thoughts

I've been thinking about things lately--things I've never had to think about before--things about packing up and leaving...painful thoughts and very serious.

Yesterday was my last Ash Wednesday at St. John's....at some point I decided Ash Wed was so important that we should make it easier and easier to take part. So, we started out by having 3 full services: 8am, noon and 7:30 pm. Then, every half hour we'd have someone in the chapel to 'impose' ashes and give communion from the reserve sacrament. That sort of broke down until now we simply have someone in the chapel in a cassock all day long. It's 'all ashes all day' at St. John's.

Over the years that has worked and worked and continues to work. Though we had a normal noon crowd and a far above normal 7:30 crowd, there were more people who just drifted in and through than the total of the 3 services. Whole families come. The youth group came. People from the Soup Kitchen--volunteers and guests--came. People I never dreamed would come, came. People who saw the sign outside the front door dropped in. It is truly exciting, the way we do Ash Wednesday. I have dozens of stories. Maybe I'll tell them in another form when I get around to writing stuff down about my experience as a priest. I'll try to remember to do that. But for now, there is this: it is wonderful and exciting and the height and depth of 'inclusion', the way we do Ash Wednesday.

I'm really going to miss that.

Then I was thinking about dis-embedding the vestments that belong to me from the vestments that belong to the parish. That might take a whole day, someday soon. And packing up the pictures I have at the parish and my other stuff and 'moving out'. What a nightmare. Why did I decide to do this anyway...?

But dis-embedding my stuff from that place will be nothing compared to un-enmeshing myself, my heart and mind and soul, from that place and from, most of all, those people.

We had a staff member once who talked about how 'enmeshed' the parish was. I don't think that person meant it as a compliment. It was a criticism of how people become so involved in each other's lives that they begin to define themselves as a 'group' and not as strictly 'individuals'.

I could write a great deal about this theory--and will someday--but the truth is, I never saw that as a negative thing. We are, after all, 'the Body' of Christ....and though the eye has its job and the hand its job, they work as one, enmeshed, as it were.

So, that is my job these days--to appreciate the connections that hold me at St. John's and begin the painful process of cutting them away so I can walk away. A friend who reads my blog told me I was much more emotional here, in writing, than I seemed as I went through my life and connections and work day by day. And that is so. This is the work I need to do--I don't need to impose it on everyone...it is my work. And it is painful and fraught with loss. Yet, I shall do it...and in my day to day work I will seek to free people from the mesh that holds us now, so they can walk on when I walk away.

It is difficult and trying. And it must be done. And I will do it.

Above all things but one, I want to walk away free to face the possibilities of the future. The only thing I want more is to allow St. John's to be free of me as well.....That will be a 'completion' and we can all move on with a light step to what God has in mind for us next....

no hash tonight--trying again...

I hit the wrong key and published a blog that I hadn't yet written. I probably shouldn't be allowed to be near a computer....

So, I remember how it started. Jack Parker, one of the great people in history--I'd put him up there with Moses, Abe Lincoln, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr., Kurt Vonnegut and Elvis--didn't come to the Shove Tuesday Pancake Supper at St. John's. When I asked him why, he said because Christ Church in the East End had corned beef hash on Shrove Tuesday. So I made him promise to come next year and I made a small bit of corned beef hash...one brisket and a few onions and potatoes and (my secret) evaporated milk and parsley. But people liked it so each year over the years I've had to increase my production of hash.

This year I had over 12 pounds of briskets, 15 pounds of potatoes and five pounds of onions (though I cheated and bought onions already diced in plastic containers). I cooked the briskets yesterday when no was around since the church was officially closed for Presidents' Day. I peeled the potatoes and was ready to go today as soon as the Soup Kitchen closed and I could have the stove to myself. Alas, the snow came and we actually cancelled the Shove Tuesday pancake supper. Alas, again. People were coming to cook the cakes and sausages and the hash would have been ready by 5.

But it was a good call. I slid all the way home and the snow was a slushy as it is in Vancouver at the Winter Olympics...another, alas....

Jack, I believe, would forgive me--I hope he had some hash with his pancakes in the Kingdom.

I miss him.

no hash tonight....

Here's a poem

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training this week. The snow will eventually melt and the most perfect of games--baseball--will be back....Believing in Baseball is akin to believing in God, only moreso..


HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

I love eating breakfast
in local restau;rants
in tiny North Carolina towns
with odd names that have 'boro'
at their ends:
because I know the sausage gravy
is real the biscuits made from scratch
and the grits won't be runny
except with butter--real butter.
And I love you more than that.

I love reading three books at a time:
a mystery, a fantasy, a straight novel--
all on my bedside table,
sometimes in my book bag,
letting each capture me,
mixing up the characters and plots,
racing with each of them to the end.
And I love you more than that.

I love a beach and the stuff
washed up on it--odd and weird--
and a dog...snuffling and running along...
beside me, behind me, ahead of me,
and the smell of the ocean
and the heat of the sun,
buring my bare shoulders and face.
And I love you more than that.

I love the taste of Pinot noir--
the husks of nuts,
the almost too ripe grapes,
the way it slows me down
and slurs my speech
and opens my heart to truth.
And I love you more than that.

I love sleeping in hotels
that have too many pillows on the bed
and HBO on the TV,
so I can pile the comforter
from the other double bed
onto mine and snuggle down in the pillows
and go to sleep with the TV on
knowing I'll wake up in time
for the conference I'm attending.
And I love you more than that.

I love the smell of vanilla (love that a lot)
and the first taste of every morning's coffee
and the feel of cashmere sweaters
(my own or some lovely woman's)
and the look of the night sky in deep winter
and the first few notes of anything
Motzart wrote (God bless him)...
I love my senses:
and I love you more than that.

And I love when the pitchers and catchers
arrive for Spring Training,
just imagining it--the leather of the gloves,
the shining white of the baseball,
the weight room designed to overcome
the indiscretions of the off-season,
the green of the grass,
blue of the sky,
warmth of the air,
the soothing symmetry of the game
and the promise of spring around the corner.
I love you profoundly, eternally, always and forever:
and I'm not sure I love you more than that...

jgb 2006

"Play ball...."

my next calling....

I've decided today what I'm going to be when I grow up and retire--I'm going to be 'a pain in the ass' to everyone who needs one...starting with doctors.

I had an eye appointment today at 2:30. At 3 I walked over to the desk and was called. I was taken to a room and I started complaining to the technician. "I had two appointments today--I was to celebrate the Eucharist at a nursing home at 11 and meet with a couple who is getting married at 1. I was there, on time, for both. If I had kept either the folks in wheelchairs or the young couple waiting a half an hour I would have expected them to leave....Why do I wait a half an hour just to be called in? My appointment was at 2:30, why didn't I get in this room when I was told I would be?"

Well, you can imagine that conversation..."the Dr was in surgery" and I said, "did he get to the office late?" "No, but things got backed up..." And I said, "Why, what backed them up?" And she said, well, Mrs. Jones needed an injection we hadn't planned on?" And I said, "so why didn't you come and tell me I was waiting because Mrs. Jones needed an injection? I would have appreciated that...." And she said, "we can't give out that information because of the HIPA laws." and I said, "Well, I know from experience that Hipa laws suck--I can hardly find people from the parish in hospitals...but someone could come out and tell me, 'gosh, jim, the Doctor had to do a proceedure I can't name on a patient I can't tell you about and that's why we're late taking you in...."

Then she sent for the Office Manager. We had a good conversation, actually, she really listened and has had to go to doctors herself so she knew what I was talking about. I compared it to two things: one, if a service is supposed to start at 8 a.m. or noon and I delay it without explanation for half an hour or more, I wouldn't expect people to stay. After all, church is only about your Spiritual health and most people don't get that in the same way they 'get' physical health. Besides, if I'm a few minutes late for the Wed. noon service, everyone knows each other and I have to interupt their conversation to start the mass! You know people you are waiting with in church...you don't in a doctor's office.

The second thing I compared it with was the Department of Motor Vehicles. At least I know and know fair well that going to DMV is a crap shoot. I have to stand in line to get a number and then wait for my number to be called--like at Deli--but I can be counting down all the time and always take a book to DMV. Sometimes you're lucky--I had to change my registration, since the DMV put the wrong description of my car on it and I'd been told that by a Cheshire policewoman who checked my VIN # and let me go...AND I had to get a new driver's licence because my wallet got stolen. I was in and out in 15 minutes! But I've waited an hour or more before. But I could see the #'s on the screen and knew where I stood.

I told her--the very patient Office Manager--that I love my eye doctor and he did surgery on both my eyes and I knew things 'happened'. I just wanted to be kept informed about 'why' my 2:30 appointment didn't really mean 2:30. I trust she took in my complaint and I truly believe the desk folks and nurses will make sure people 'know' they have to wait for a good reason. We'll see. But being a pain in the ass, especially a somewhat charming and very polite one, suits me well. I am somewhat charming and terribly polite--I still call people "Mam" and "Sir" for goodness sake.

Then there was the exam. It always takes forever for me. Oddly enough I didn't need to change my glasses. The Dr. suggested I get one of those little clip on lights to put on the altar book so I can see it better....Well, he's Jewish and doesn't realize what a liturgical faux pas (did I actually spell that right? my spell check allowed it) that would be.

Because of my age they dilate my eyes until my pupil is about the size of a gerbil and then make me click a thing every time I see a light and stare as deeply into my eyes as Spencer Tracy used to stare into Katherine Hepburn's eyes. Then he brings out the torture device--a little piece of glass that he puts between my eye and the light that makes me reveal all the security secrets I know and tell him about how much I used to masturbate as a 15 year old. I'd rather be water-boarded than have that light shined in my eyes....It's like staring into the sun on the equator at noon.

"Doesn't that hurt my eyes in some ways," I asked him.

"Probably," he said, 'but only short term...it will wear off in a few hours...."

I left with two pairs of the plastic sunglasses over my eyes and drove home. There are still auroras around everything and my computer screen is blindingly bright. But I am committed to being a pain in the ass to the medical profession from this day forward.

I'd recommend that to you as well. They call it an "appointment" for a reason. Don't wait--get aggressive (though be charming and polite) and point out that you matter and your time matters and you need to at least have the courtesy of being apologized to for being made to wait and given some HIPA approved explanation for the delay.

Aging folks of the world unite! Let's get this handled, beloved....

Lightening up a bit....

Ok, after my diatribe about guns--and notice this about me, I get concerned with 'educated' people start shooting people. What an a**h**l Classiest I am! Ponder that...I will, I promise....

So, I thought I'd share some of my poetry with you. I'm facing a wierd and unknown future in about 2 and 1/2 months when I retire from St. John's. Here's a poem I wrote in 2005 about the future....


THE FUTURE
"There is this about magic doors
you pass through them unawares."
--Celtic saying

The future is out there, obscured from sight
by the mist that flows up from the sea at dawn,
impenetrable--a fog wall closing in, narrowing
the moment down to its nub, its essence,
a particle of time.

Straining to see doesn't help.
Squinting is useless.
Standing on tip-toe in the cold damp grass,
vainly trying to peer above the close, clinging clouds.
The future undoes your hope,
unties your pleasures and aches alike,
stripping away this moment, now.

"The present", someone told me once,
"is just what you miss while awaitng the future."
Something like that is what they said.
But I missed it then,
wondering what they would say next,
not wanting to miss that....

On this side of the future, fog is all we have
or can have. A road beneath two trees,
sweet wet grass for walking barefoot
and maybe
some magic door we entered already.
jgb/2005

Guns DO kill people

Before I get to that, there is this--it took me about 10 minutes to get to this point when it usually takes me 15 seconds. I don't know what I did wrong but GOOGLE, hereafter known and the Spawn of Satan, keep rejecting my password which had always and ever been waterbury, or, as GOOGLE (SOFS) shows it *********. Actually, it is little dots instead of little stars, but I can't make it on my keyboard.

I HATE and DESPISE beyond all knowing the Internet and everything about it. I wish it did not exist. I do like email and being able to look things up, but it is both a pain in the ass and a Right Wing Conspiracy to suck our souls away so we can't be liberals and human beings any more.

But since it is here and I have finally found my Blog, I'll just write a bit......

Unless you've been on one of the moons of Jupiter, by now you've heard of Dr. Amy Bishop, a Harvard Ph.D. who pulled out a handgun and killed three of her colleagues and wounded three other people in, for God's sake, a faculty meeting of the Biology Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

OK, I was hysterical enough when the Army psychiatrist killed all those people at Fort Hood. My Lord, a psychiatrist killing people with a gun....But he was in the army and did have access to weapons. But a Harvard educated Ph.D. shooting down other Ph.D.'s--we've got to draw the line somewhere....Why in the hell do we live in a country that would let a highly educated person own a gun?

I do not own a gun. I grew up around guns. I grew up in a place where people hunted and did target shooting. I've shot a lot of guns in my life. I respect people who hunt and do target practice. But when I moved my father out of his house and brought him to CT, I took his pistol--which I shot a lot as an adolescent--and turned it into the police in Princeton, WV. I didn't want it. I didn't want to own a gun.

You want to know why I don't want to own a gun? I don't want to own a gun because I know I would use it. I would shoot someone who was breaking into my house threatening my wife, my dog, my cat, my two birds. I'd shoot them as soon as look at them. I simply would. I am an 'almost' pacifist--but pacifists are dangerous people. I wouldn't carry a gun in a war because I know I'd use it to kill people and I won't own a gun because I know...given the situation...use it to kill people. And one of my rules is this: DON'T KILL PEOPLE.

So where did Dr. Bishop get a handgun--not for hunting or target practice, but to kill biologists?

The two most ignorant bumper stickers I've ever seen--and I 'like' bumper stickers by in large--are these: GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE and THEY CAN TAKE MY GUN WHEN THEY PRY MY COLD, DEAD HAND FROM IT.

Jesus Christ, what idiocy. GUNS KILL PEOPLE. Ask the families of the soldiers that Army shrink killed. Ask the families of the biologists Dr. Bishop killed. If they hadn't had a gun they might have tried a knife but people can fight off a knife attack much more effectively than they can dodge a bullet. They might have punched and scratched and kicked at people, but I doubt they would have killed them.

All you idiots out there, listen up: GUNS KILL PEOPLE.

Already they are talking on Public Radio and everywhere else about how Dr. Bishop killed her brother WITH A GUN when she was an adolescent. They are trying to explain "why" she killed her Ph.D. colleagues.

I'll tell you WHY. She had a f***ing GUN, that's why....

No one would have written or spoken a word about an Army psychiatrist or a University of Alabama professor who scratched, kicked and punched people until restrained.

Here's the other bumper sticker, third on my list for idiocy: WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS.

No, you morons, the Police will have guns too and if guns were illegal we might put some people out of the society for simply having one without waiting until they killed someone with them.

I won't go so far as to say that 'only outlaws have guns' now--keep your hunting guns and your target practice guns--but, for God's sake and all our sakes, stop letting people...people like Dr. Bishop and Dr. Bradley...have guns. We'll use them, beloved, and none of us need folks like us with our fingers on the trigger....