I was a bit harsh in my last post. I was simply disappointed that Maria and the Choristers don't get more folks for their Evensongs. People at St. John's certainly support them financially and love them on Sunday mornings when they sing. But it is the Evensongs where you really get to hear them shine.
Maria has done a great great job over the last 5-6 years (whichever) and it truly shows in the kids who take full advantage of the program. She works with a fragile group who have issues that keep them away from time to time. But the Value Added Training ('vat', get it?) is remarkable. with a few exceptions, the choristers are kids who don't have a lot of sports or after school oppotunities and don't have parents who are able to get them to rehersals regularily. And they certainly don't have music training in the public schools. So, what they get with the Choristers in invaluable training in music, commitment and discipline.
Continue to support them...please....
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
something to ponder for St. John's....
I have no idea how many members of St. John's read this--but I have something to say to them and the Search Committee....
Every Episcopal Church, in their top 5 commitments, puts Youth and Adult Education along with whatever the other 3 are.
Tonight I heard a marvelous evensong by our Choristers and there were 10 people there to hear it with me.
And we have had, for 20 years, adult education opportunities that have been attended by 10 or less for 90% of the programs.
So, don't put those two things among your commitments. Just don't....
And shame on us for not supporting the Choristers by 'showing up' and not coming to Adult Education.
I don't often 'shame' folks.
This time I will.
Every Episcopal Church, in their top 5 commitments, puts Youth and Adult Education along with whatever the other 3 are.
Tonight I heard a marvelous evensong by our Choristers and there were 10 people there to hear it with me.
And we have had, for 20 years, adult education opportunities that have been attended by 10 or less for 90% of the programs.
So, don't put those two things among your commitments. Just don't....
And shame on us for not supporting the Choristers by 'showing up' and not coming to Adult Education.
I don't often 'shame' folks.
This time I will.
so, it was church....
I just noticed I haven't written for this since March 31--I blame it on the Church! That was Holy Wednesday and between then and now came Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, all Easter for two days and a period of rest and recovery.
I am getting old. It is right that I retire. I used to end Easter more energized than when it was Palm Sunday. I got tired this year. Too much church--there is such a thing as 'too much church'....
I have had friends who got so deeply into meditation that they seemed a bit distracted all the time. They were offended greatly when I suggested they were meditating 'too much'.
There is 'too much' of everything. Really....
It was special and sweet and wondrous and a bit of a miracle...the whole Holy Week Easter trip. I am not at all 'formal' in worship, but I love liturgy and I think we made it work in weird and quirky ways....
So, recovered from the drama, I'm back writing. See you soon.....shalom, JIM
I am getting old. It is right that I retire. I used to end Easter more energized than when it was Palm Sunday. I got tired this year. Too much church--there is such a thing as 'too much church'....
I have had friends who got so deeply into meditation that they seemed a bit distracted all the time. They were offended greatly when I suggested they were meditating 'too much'.
There is 'too much' of everything. Really....
It was special and sweet and wondrous and a bit of a miracle...the whole Holy Week Easter trip. I am not at all 'formal' in worship, but I love liturgy and I think we made it work in weird and quirky ways....
So, recovered from the drama, I'm back writing. See you soon.....shalom, JIM
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
you think you should be a priest...think again!
I would have been a writer and a professor of American Literature today if I hadn't let God get all enmeshed in my life. I was following a 'call' I tried valiantly to resist. I wanted to write, if not the 'great american novel', at least some stuff that would make lots of money!
If you think you should be a priest, run and hide from God.
You know why? It is the enmeshing part.
We had a staff member or two who thought 'becoming enmeshed' with the parish was a not too good a thing. Yet, I never figured out how to do what I do or be who I be without that. In fact, it seems to me that 'what I do and be' is precisely that--becoming entangled in the community, caught in the net we are all caught in, wrapped up in the complex of feelings, connections, wonderments, pains, sufferings, etc. of those who I work with and serve and minister with.
Kurt Vonnegut--my favorite novelist, the one I would have striven to be like had I not become a priest--once told the story of the only ordained person he ever admired. It was, bless him, an Episcopal priest on Martha's Vineyard who, Vonnegut said, would 'fall apart' every time someone in the parish died and the congregation would have to heal him and nurse him back to wholeness. "There is something creative," Vonnegut said, "in having to put a man of God back together...."
I know 'all will be well', but tomorrow is the first day of the last month I will be Rector of St. John's in Waterbury. The webs and nets and strings of entanglements and enmeshing are wearing my soul raw right now.
And, I think that is as it should be. Perhaps that is even what God had in mind when the Holy One somehow tugged me toward the priesthood. And, it is the only way I would know to do it...this thing I do...this way 'I be'.
I'd run from it if I were you--but let me tell you this, there is no sweeter pain, no more redemptive suffering, no more joy of connection available than doing what I do and being who I am....Just don't do it lightly....
If you think you should be a priest, run and hide from God.
You know why? It is the enmeshing part.
We had a staff member or two who thought 'becoming enmeshed' with the parish was a not too good a thing. Yet, I never figured out how to do what I do or be who I be without that. In fact, it seems to me that 'what I do and be' is precisely that--becoming entangled in the community, caught in the net we are all caught in, wrapped up in the complex of feelings, connections, wonderments, pains, sufferings, etc. of those who I work with and serve and minister with.
Kurt Vonnegut--my favorite novelist, the one I would have striven to be like had I not become a priest--once told the story of the only ordained person he ever admired. It was, bless him, an Episcopal priest on Martha's Vineyard who, Vonnegut said, would 'fall apart' every time someone in the parish died and the congregation would have to heal him and nurse him back to wholeness. "There is something creative," Vonnegut said, "in having to put a man of God back together...."
I know 'all will be well', but tomorrow is the first day of the last month I will be Rector of St. John's in Waterbury. The webs and nets and strings of entanglements and enmeshing are wearing my soul raw right now.
And, I think that is as it should be. Perhaps that is even what God had in mind when the Holy One somehow tugged me toward the priesthood. And, it is the only way I would know to do it...this thing I do...this way 'I be'.
I'd run from it if I were you--but let me tell you this, there is no sweeter pain, no more redemptive suffering, no more joy of connection available than doing what I do and being who I am....Just don't do it lightly....
spring
I know others who look to the crocus or daffodils, but not me.
I never been accused of being terribly attentive, yet I notice it. But there is this--it seems to me that one day it isn't there and the next day it is.
I saw it today in the Close and on the way home and in Cheshire--which might be the New England capitol of it. Banks of it, fields of it, walls of it--exploding and wondrous.
Forsythia.
Suddenly it spilled out, when I wasn't paying attention--waves of it, oceans of it....
It is when the Forsythia comes that I begin to believe there might be a spring this year after all. When the Forsythia appears I know for certain that Life itself is overcoming the darkness and the death.
It is back....Alleluia....
I never been accused of being terribly attentive, yet I notice it. But there is this--it seems to me that one day it isn't there and the next day it is.
I saw it today in the Close and on the way home and in Cheshire--which might be the New England capitol of it. Banks of it, fields of it, walls of it--exploding and wondrous.
Forsythia.
Suddenly it spilled out, when I wasn't paying attention--waves of it, oceans of it....
It is when the Forsythia comes that I begin to believe there might be a spring this year after all. When the Forsythia appears I know for certain that Life itself is overcoming the darkness and the death.
It is back....Alleluia....
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Laughter
Laughter....
That's what is overwhelming around St. John's--we laugh about almost everything...well, 'everything' and stuff we shouldn't laugh about.
Nothing is sacred there. We laugh and laugh.
And that doesn't mean we aren't committed and competent and 'doing our jobs'.
It's just that in a place like St. John's, if you can't laugh and laugh a lot, you'd shrivel up, wither and blow away in the next breeze.
Things are different in a place like St. John's. We see more pain and suffering and irrational stuff than you'd see most places. And we 'deal' with it.
Then we laugh.
Not to laugh would be to die.
Plus, laughing is found fair and wondrous in the heart of God. Believe me....
That's what is overwhelming around St. John's--we laugh about almost everything...well, 'everything' and stuff we shouldn't laugh about.
Nothing is sacred there. We laugh and laugh.
And that doesn't mean we aren't committed and competent and 'doing our jobs'.
It's just that in a place like St. John's, if you can't laugh and laugh a lot, you'd shrivel up, wither and blow away in the next breeze.
Things are different in a place like St. John's. We see more pain and suffering and irrational stuff than you'd see most places. And we 'deal' with it.
Then we laugh.
Not to laugh would be to die.
Plus, laughing is found fair and wondrous in the heart of God. Believe me....
Grief
My dear friend Malinda is coming to my last service at St. John's on April 25. I told her to vest, because she is much loved, having been a priest at St. John's for 5 years or so, but when I told her I told her I'd be doing the whole service, all by myself, my last dance....
Now I suddenly realize I asked her to come because I might not be able to make it through the prayer of consecration. I may have to be taken away by EMTs after that service.
People ask me, "how are you doing about retiring?" and being an Appalachian in my core, after nearly 30 years in New England, I say, "I'm doing 'fine'....or 'fair to middlin'' or 'passing fair'--all the things people from where I come would say. Truth is, I am already in deep and profound and almost paralysing grief.
Every day I have tears in my eyes. Today after the staff meeting--all of which are raucous, hysterical and full of laughter--I thought, "how can I leave this? what could replace it?"
I work with people who are so wondrous and funny and competent that 'being their leader' is a misnomer. I just stay out of their way and let them do their magic....
The one thing I promise them and don't believe I've ever, ever failed them about is this: "I'll take the blame for anything that goes wrong or gets criticism". When things 'work', as they almost always do, I give the staff the credit. And, I do believe I have kept my promise. Anything that goes wrong is always and ever "my fault". (There aren't many of those I assure you, I picked them well....)
After tomorrow I have a months to go being Rector of St. John's, being with this remarkable group of people who I work with and for. We have an understanding--the only one that would make sense to me when surrounded by such a Cloud of Witnesses.
Four more staff meetings. Four more Sundays. One more Vestry meeting. Four more Wedsday Eucharists....Jesus, I used to be writing about 13 more weeks....the days dwindle down to a precious few.....
I am almost choked with grief.
A friend of mine told me I needed to "disengage". OK. Right. Roger and out.
Easier said that done.....
Maybe I asked Malinda to vest so she could push my sobbing body aside and finish the Eucharist for me.....Oh, I'm sure she'd do that gladly.....God bless her....
Now I suddenly realize I asked her to come because I might not be able to make it through the prayer of consecration. I may have to be taken away by EMTs after that service.
People ask me, "how are you doing about retiring?" and being an Appalachian in my core, after nearly 30 years in New England, I say, "I'm doing 'fine'....or 'fair to middlin'' or 'passing fair'--all the things people from where I come would say. Truth is, I am already in deep and profound and almost paralysing grief.
Every day I have tears in my eyes. Today after the staff meeting--all of which are raucous, hysterical and full of laughter--I thought, "how can I leave this? what could replace it?"
I work with people who are so wondrous and funny and competent that 'being their leader' is a misnomer. I just stay out of their way and let them do their magic....
The one thing I promise them and don't believe I've ever, ever failed them about is this: "I'll take the blame for anything that goes wrong or gets criticism". When things 'work', as they almost always do, I give the staff the credit. And, I do believe I have kept my promise. Anything that goes wrong is always and ever "my fault". (There aren't many of those I assure you, I picked them well....)
After tomorrow I have a months to go being Rector of St. John's, being with this remarkable group of people who I work with and for. We have an understanding--the only one that would make sense to me when surrounded by such a Cloud of Witnesses.
Four more staff meetings. Four more Sundays. One more Vestry meeting. Four more Wedsday Eucharists....Jesus, I used to be writing about 13 more weeks....the days dwindle down to a precious few.....
I am almost choked with grief.
A friend of mine told me I needed to "disengage". OK. Right. Roger and out.
Easier said that done.....
Maybe I asked Malinda to vest so she could push my sobbing body aside and finish the Eucharist for me.....Oh, I'm sure she'd do that gladly.....God bless her....
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