Christ Church and Cracker Barrel

I went to Christ Church, New Haven this morning with my friend John for the solemn high mass of Pentecost. If you've never been to Christ Church you probably should go some day. It is simply the most elegant, lovely expression of High Church Episcopal worship around. You'd have to go to New York or Boston to come close to matching it. Lots of smoke and chanting and beautiful music (the best choir money can buy--mostly grad students in music from Yale). And not a sound system to be had. That and the haunting acoustics add to the mystery of it all.

I once took a friend of mine, years ago, to Christ Church for a special mass. At the door she said to the Rector, who celbrates 60 or 70 feet from the nearest chair with his back to the congregation, "I couldn't hear a word you sang." He replied, with a gentle smile, "I wasn't singing to you...."

I counted 7 folks in collars in the congregation, plus one other priest, who like me, didn't wear one. Plus the five priests in the service. I don't understand the collar fetish--of course since I haven't worn one for 6 years or so, I wouldn't. Like St. John's, Waterbury--but for vastly different reasons--Christ Church is a priest magnet. And being in New Haven there are a lot more priests around who aren't busy on Sunday morning and come for the show. However, "show" is the wrong word for it--it truly is beautiful and holy. It would drive me crazy on a regular basis--the Mass lasted an hour and a half and there were 7 hymns along with 4 pieces for the choir. But once in a while, it is a real richness that I profoundly enjoy.

Then, after talking to some of the people, John and I went to Cracker Barrel in Milford for breakfast--at about 12:30 pm!

Cracker Barrel is a cultural link to the past for people who grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line (John grew up in Grantstown, WV and we both went to WVU). And breakfast--which is why we go--is just the way it should be. You could get better biscuits and gravy at almost any restaurant in North Carolina but there is almost no where in New England besides Cracker Barrel that you can get it at all. (I did find a place in rural New Hampshire once that had great biscuits and gravy...so it might be you have to get into the 'country' in New England to find a country breakfast.)

John had pancakes, sausage, eggs and the home fry casserole. I had biscuits and gravy, grits (the best salt and butter delivery device I know of), eggs and sausage and the h'f casserole. We both ate so much we felt a tad ill and a lot full. We sort of rolled out of the place and were so disoriented by carbohydrates and fat that we had trouble finding John's car.

During the meal, John said, "You know we both know people who would make us feel uncomfortable eating this much of this stuff...."

"They're just in denial of their Inner Grease-Eater," I opined.

Christ Church and Cracker Barrel are a bit alike in that they are almost too much of a good thing. The Anglo-Catholic liturgy is bordering on 'precious'--just the way the celebrant, deacon and sub-deacon move around in such precise choreography and how they hold back his cope as he prepares the altar, like pages holding the robes of the King. And Cracker Barrel is ruled over by highly trained acolytes as waiters and waitresses. Everything precise and too much food no matter what you order.

I said to John as we sat in the dimly lit sanctuary (even the lighting is dramatic) "I don't suppose there's any chance they'll hand out red balloons during the service." He replied, "there is even less than 'no chance' of that...." I am a devotee of balloon liturgies and I normally eat cereal and fruit for breakfast. But once in a while, Christ Church and Cracker Barrel simply hit the spot that is longing to be hit....Really.

Retirement thoughts

It will be three weeks tomorrow since I stopped going to St. John's every day. I've only gone to Waterbury a couple of times--found a new movie theatre in Wallingford that's only five miles away.

A friend asked me what it was like. I told him so far it was like being on vacation. It feels that way. I take long walks. I cook more than I did. I read a book a day on average. So, so far, it's fine.

I do miss the people I worked with profoundly. Being with people most days followed by not being with them at all is strange.

And it is strange not to talk much. I once told someone my job was 'to walk around and talk a lot'. There was something to that. Now, except for Bern, I don't talk to many people where before I would talk to dozens and dozens of people a day. It's not bad. I'm discovering my introverted side. And since I enjoy my own company greatly and honor silence as 'the heart of God', it's going well.

But the people....Lordy, lordy, I do miss the people....

Packaging (cont....)

And have you tried to open a kid's toy yesterday? When we were young parents you had to stay up late to assemble things. Now you'd have to stay up into the wee hours taking things out of their boxes--otherwise the kids will have a fit waiting to hold their doll.

I can't even open the Greek yogurt my wife buys. The pull tab is useless and I end up using a steak knife to cut the top.

Remember how cereal boxes used to come open neatly and the tab slipped into the slot to keep the box closed? Remember? Now I put the cereal into big baggies with the little ridges that supposedly seal when you press them together. I say 'supposedly' since they seldom work for me--so not only are things impossible to open, there is an issue for me in closing some things these days.

But then, perhaps all this is just me....

(ROBIN UPDATE)

We were worried today because we hadn't seen the male, who usually doesn't stray far, and the female wasn't on the nest. Maybe it's warm enough to go get a decent meal. But late this afternoon I saw Papa Robin flying the perimeter of our front porch, yelling like crazy. Then I noticed he was keeping himself between the nest and another circling bird. And Mama was back on the nest.

I still think this will probably end badly, but I truly am catching hold of their outrageous hope that a nest on a former siren on our front porch will turn out well...I'm really entralled with this close encounter of a Robin kind....

Packaging

I have discovered as I grow older that there are more and more things I can't seem to open properly or easily. Am I simply getting feeble or is packaging getting more 'person proof'?

I take a allergy pill once in a while. They come on a sheet in little bubbles. You tear one of the pills away from the sheet and it helpfully says on the back--"bend here and open". I dutifully bend down that corner and the corner breaks off, leaving me with no way to seperate the rest of the backing from the pill. I try to push the pill through the back and invariably break the pill without pushing it free. Recently I've been taking a pair of fingernail clippers and with three clips cut into the bubble where the broken pill is still encased. Then I use my teeth to bite the bubble and finally get the pill--in two or three pieces, free.

Lots of stuff comes with a foil covered piece of cardboard and a handy-dandy pull tag. I'm thinking of plastic quarts of milk and salad dressings in particular. After having cramped my hand to break the seal of the top of the salad dressing or using my teeth again to bite away the red top of the milk since the little 'pull' strip breaks off before freeing it, I clinch the pull tag between my thumb and index finger and it tears clear off the cover. I try to edge the cardboard off and break a nail and finally am reduced to taking a steak knife to cut through it and peal it away in tiny pieces.

Never mind anything that comes packaged inside a large plastic bubble. I go straight to a knife with that and usually slice a finger trying to cut through it so I can get to the shoe strings. Why on earth would shoestrings have to come in tamper proof packaging?

Recently someone gave me a CD of some gospel music. It took me a broken nail, an almost chipped tooth, a steak knife and my wife just to get the plastic wrap off the CD holder. Then I broke the hinges off that trying to open it and flipped the CD out onto the floor trying to prise it out of its holder. The music ewas good though....

Is this all because of that nut job who put poison in Advil years ago?

I appreciate being made safer--but what is a nut job going to put into a CD? Anthrax? Why--to wipe out fans of Lady Ga-Ga...? Well, that might not be a bad idea....

And cheese slices that come in zip lock bags. First I have to chew off the plastic down to the zip lock and then often I can't get that open without my faithful steak knife. I'm considering getting a little holder I can attach to my belt to carry a steak knife with me in case I have to open stuff.

If we can make packaging this effective, why can't we make batteries that never loose their charge (try to get AA's out of their package lately?) and cars that run on water? To much Research and Design genius has gone into perfecting packaging and not enough into how to cure cancer or repair the ozone layer, so far as I can tell.

Or maybe it's that the technology of secure packaging has been improved but the technology of "tear here" has been sorely neglected.

I'm just not sure anymore...But then, maybe it's just me....

Preaching--if anyone cares....

I went to church Sunday. It was because of my theory that church is habitual and that the habit takes 6 months to form and 3 weeks to break. This would have been my third week....so I went to church.

It isn't a busman's holiday for me, going to church. I like to 'do' church rather than 'go' to church. So, I tried to clear my mind and not be so hyper-critical.

It was actually fine--except that it was an early service that they somehow managed to drag into over an hour. I alway shot for between 40-45 minutes. 90% of the time we met that goal, so maybe I caught them on one of their 10% sundays.

The sermon was pretty good. In fact, there were probably 2 'pretty good' sermons in there--humor, personal reflection, story telling, connection to the gospel--but it did go on and on.

The preacher, I know, doesn't preach much...he's not the Rector. So he fell foul of that--"I'd better tell them good!" syndrome. Seminarians I have known have tried to review their whole theological education in a single sermon. And then there are simply long-winded people and people fascinated by the sound of their own voice. (I might fall into that last category from time to time...)

But brevity is best. And that requires that the preacher 'trusts' the people to 'get it'. You don't have to tell them everything....Most of the people in church on Sunday have heard more sermons than any of us have preached--though after35 years of preaching most Sundays and perhaps one other time a week, I probably don't find many people listening who've heard more than I've preached. But I do trust them. They aren't neophytes to the church or theology or the Bible. Lay people are a lot smarter and more savvy than most priests give them credit for.

I, unlike most regular church goers, don't hear many sermons since I'm usually preaching. But lots of them that I hear really underestimate the theological IQ of the laity. I've been privileged to serve three churches where that IQ was quite high--which is what told me that it is better to say too little than too much. A preacher shouldn't 'explain' very much. If it has to be minutely 'explained' leave it out, I would say. That kind of thing is the thing of education, not preaching.

The pretty good sermon I heard on Sunday could have been quite good, maybe even 'very good', if the preacher had ended it sooner. I counted 4 places where I thought he had concluded and yet he went on, trying, each time, to 'explain' what would have been a fine place to end.

I think most everyone would have 'gotten it' had he ended at that first point. Or, if they didn't, they might have engaged him in conversation later. Or, they might have left a bit perplexed and mystified--not a bad place to leave people, by the way. Mike Nichols, the writer/actor/director, once said he wanted people to leave the theatre thinking about something besides where they'd parked their car.

That wouldn't be a bad way to leave church. That, in fact, would be better, for sure, than leaving looking at your watch....

Winged Hope Revisited

It's been nearly two weeks since I wrote about the pair of robins who built a nest on our front porch. When we were away last week, I worried about them because of the cowbirds.

The day before we left for Vermont I noticed a pair of cowbirds in the trees near our front porch. My wife was impressed that I knew what they were and I looked them up on the Internet to make sure I was right. I knew from experience that cowbirds will lay their eggs in another bird's nest and I was afraid these two were up to no good.

What I learned from Google is that that practice--laying eggs in another's nest--is called being a 'brood parasite'. What an apt but strange description. It seems the cowbird got its name because they tend to eat the insects that gather on cattle. And since cattle used to be driven to market, the birds learned to follow them. Cowbirds don't stay put and rely on other birds to hatch and raise their young. A really strange practice. And they stick around only long enough to see if the mother bird throws the strange eggs out of the nest. If they do, the cowbirds destroy the nest and the real nesting bird's eggs. Like I said, weird.

But when we got back, the nest was still there and the mama Robin was sitting tight. Before we left she would fly over to the nearest tree when we came out or went in the door. Now she sits stoically and unmoving. And the male, who is a really large bird, sits on a nearby tree and keeps watch. When we're out on the back deck, he fly into the low branches of the trees back there and watch us for a while. Sometimes he sings and sometimes not. It's like he's evaluating if we are in any way a danger.

There must be eggs because she is so committed to the nest. She turns her head and watches us as we come and go, but never flies now.

Now that the cowbird crisis has passed--the pair of them are probably somewhere with some cows--I'm worried about the babies. I may put cushions under the nest in case they fall out. And if they do, can we put them back? Is it the truth or an old wive's tale (why are there no old husband's tales?) that human touch will taint the baby birds and the mother won't feed them anymore? Should I get some falconer gloves or something?

Having robins to worry about is almost a full time job....

paternal feelings

The older I get, the more I think about my father. It's odd to me because when my mother died, just after my 25th birthday, I had wished she had lived instead of him.

And now, in the year of my life she was in when she died--63--I can barely remember her face and certainly not her voice. But I remember almost everything about my father.

Because the place in Vermont where we spent a week was so much like West Virginia--Bern said it was like being in WV in a 'nice house'--I thought a lot about my father.

His name was Virgil Hoyt. He lived to see my children, unlike my mother, who missed all that. And my third granddaughter's name is Tegan HOYT Bradley. What a hoot.

One of the poems I wrote in Vermont was about him. Here it is:

LEGACY

I wish I could remember
the things my father knew.
(How could I? And I wish it devoutly.)

He could go walking in the woods
and meadows and come home with wild greens
that my mother would wilt
with rendered pork fat
and we would eat gladly.

Here for a week in Vermont,
there are dandelions everywhere.
Those were the major greens
my father harvested from Nature.
The others I forget--
though I knew them once--
and wish I could remember.

I do know a lot about birds
that he taught me.
My wife is amazed at how many I know
by song and sight.
I pointed out a pair of cowbirds
last week.
She was astonished.

The Legacy of my father
is the songs of birds,
the knowing of trees,
and the incomplete list
of wild things you can
pour pork fat over and eat.

jgb/5-11-2010