We have now entered the twilight zone of days. For today and the next three days, nothing will make sense, feel right, add up, comfort or encourage. It is worse than the fiercest February, the hottest August, the rainiest May, the snowiest January. No four days on the calendar are more dreadful than these. And they come every year!
They suck away excitement and joy and wonder and hopefulness and even diminish pain and anxiety--though that is not a good thing in this case.
It is as if a total eclipse of the sun lasted 4 days. Four days of darkness, despair, loneliness, disconnection, ennui , depression, pointlessness, bitter emptiness--like staring into the abyss.
It is the Baseball All Star break. There is no baseball played, right in the midst of July, for four days. Oh, there is a game--but not a real game. Watching the All Star Game is like watching the Rose Parade on New Year's day. Vaguely interesting but what does it have to do with much of anything vital, alive, real, compelling.
I would like to be put into a 96 hour induced coma and wake up when baseball, for real, resumes.
After week after week of 6 games each week for every team. After that since early April--the All Star break is like going cold turkey off the Drug that is major league baseball. A withdrawal just after half the season. What to do for those four evenings. Does the radio and TV still work when there are no games???
So here I am, longing for the resumption of the season....the renewal of the joy...the rejuvenation of the time of hope, longing, imagination, beauty....
O, where are you, Yankees that I love?
Lots of you are in Anaheim, I know.
But where is the green, green grass of the Bronx?
Where is the crack of the bat that matters?
The inside pitch that makes me draw back along with A-Rod?
O, boys of summer, how can you desert me
for four whole days?
What will I do with myself?
How am I to behave with no yesterday's game
to relive
no today's game to anticipate,
no changes in the standings
or the statistics?
May God isn't dead....
but there is no baseball for four days....Alas....
Monday, July 12, 2010
The first day
Funny, this is the first day I've gotten up in over two months and wished I had somewhere to go and something to do--like work! I don't think it will last long, it's just that I've finished with the several writing projects I took on after leaving St. John's and feel a bit out of sorts.
I've done the last draft of "The Igloo Factory", the novel I've been working on off and on for years. I haven't had the time to go through the whole thing one last time and 'polish the polish', so to speak. But not working gave me the time. I've also up dated two novellas that are quite new, unlike the IF. Plus I've gotten together all the bits and pieces of a manuscript about parish ministry called "Farther Along" and am not quite ready yet, having spent all this time in fiction, to start working on that. Soon though.
In going through several filing cabinets looking at that stuff and sermons and poems and such, I ran across an email I wrote to Malinda Johnson at 8:24 pm on August 24, 2004! I sent myself a copy, I told her in the first line, "to remember and grow from". A lot of the email is about a dream I had--one of the few 'church' dreams that was good and joyful. (Most 'church' dreams begin with the congregation packed into a huge space and then I do something like open my Prayer Book and realize it is full of pictures, not words!!! Unable to remember how to start the service, the people gradually drift away and I'm left in an empty church...or with one acolyte who is looking at me as if I am the biggest fool in the world....)
The dream is weird and strange about an outdoor baptism that is wonderful and crowded and full of lots of excitement. Malinda and Michael Spencer are in the dream helping with the crowds of people.
Then I wrote this--almost 6 years ago:
"Then there was this day--actually as I look back, there were many things that could have been thought of as 'negative'--people lying to me, Pauline falling and going to the hospital, painful stories I heard--but for some reason, it all felt like what I'm supposed to be doing with my days and, as I've said before, if anyone found out I got paid to spend days like this: simply being present to people in a multitude of ways (having a discussion with a soup kitchen volunteer about the relative merits of outdoor vs. indoor cats, for example)--well, they'd pass a law against having this much to be thankful for while getting paid!"
The truth is that for most of the years I was Rector of St. John's I did fear that if anyone figured out what percentage of my time was spent 'being' instead of 'doing' something, they would be astonished. So, since the 'work' (if you can call it that) was so much of my 'being', there is little wonder that I might wake up from time to time and feel a hollow place when all that used to be.
Like I wrote above, it won't last long, but the feeling did remind me of how extraordinarily blessed I was all those years at St. John's. And how thankful I am for them....
I've done the last draft of "The Igloo Factory", the novel I've been working on off and on for years. I haven't had the time to go through the whole thing one last time and 'polish the polish', so to speak. But not working gave me the time. I've also up dated two novellas that are quite new, unlike the IF. Plus I've gotten together all the bits and pieces of a manuscript about parish ministry called "Farther Along" and am not quite ready yet, having spent all this time in fiction, to start working on that. Soon though.
In going through several filing cabinets looking at that stuff and sermons and poems and such, I ran across an email I wrote to Malinda Johnson at 8:24 pm on August 24, 2004! I sent myself a copy, I told her in the first line, "to remember and grow from". A lot of the email is about a dream I had--one of the few 'church' dreams that was good and joyful. (Most 'church' dreams begin with the congregation packed into a huge space and then I do something like open my Prayer Book and realize it is full of pictures, not words!!! Unable to remember how to start the service, the people gradually drift away and I'm left in an empty church...or with one acolyte who is looking at me as if I am the biggest fool in the world....)
The dream is weird and strange about an outdoor baptism that is wonderful and crowded and full of lots of excitement. Malinda and Michael Spencer are in the dream helping with the crowds of people.
Then I wrote this--almost 6 years ago:
"Then there was this day--actually as I look back, there were many things that could have been thought of as 'negative'--people lying to me, Pauline falling and going to the hospital, painful stories I heard--but for some reason, it all felt like what I'm supposed to be doing with my days and, as I've said before, if anyone found out I got paid to spend days like this: simply being present to people in a multitude of ways (having a discussion with a soup kitchen volunteer about the relative merits of outdoor vs. indoor cats, for example)--well, they'd pass a law against having this much to be thankful for while getting paid!"
The truth is that for most of the years I was Rector of St. John's I did fear that if anyone figured out what percentage of my time was spent 'being' instead of 'doing' something, they would be astonished. So, since the 'work' (if you can call it that) was so much of my 'being', there is little wonder that I might wake up from time to time and feel a hollow place when all that used to be.
Like I wrote above, it won't last long, but the feeling did remind me of how extraordinarily blessed I was all those years at St. John's. And how thankful I am for them....
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
something to ponder
Bern and our friend, John, and I were having a conversation yesterday.
John was telling about how his sister and her Jewish husband and two Jewish kids and two Israeli friends went to visit some cousins of John and his sister, Pam, in Tennessee (of all places).
Even though there were 2 Tennessee cousins who Pam and Shuli and daughters really liked, the "liked" cousins invited some of the Fundamentalist Christian cousins to come and be with the Jews and the Israelis.
John and Bern started laughing about the whole set up. They both said they knew already what a disaster it would be and how crazy it would turn out. (I was actually thinking it might be an weird and wondrous transformational moment--and very interesting to be around.)
Well, from John's telling of Pam's story, it couldn't have been more of a oil spill/Three Mile Island/Hurricane Katrina afternoon. It was funny how John told it but the whole thing seemed a tad tragic and sad.
Then Bern said, "Pam should have taken Jim along!"
She laughed at the brilliance of her suggestion.
John joined in laughing. "That would have been perfect. If only Pam and Shuli had had Jim...."
"Jim knows how to be in the midst of those kind of situations," Bern said.
John was delighted. "I'll tell Pam never to go to Tennessee without Jim again."
I supposed they were talking about me--Me, Jim--though it was a conversation that was two way and though I was right there it never got directed at me. But it was interesting....
That Robert Burns thing about 'seeing yourself as others see you" I guess.
At the Making a Difference Workshop I led in Washington a week or so ago, one of the participants asked if we could eat lunch together. He told me that he admired the calm and peace that seemed to surround me and wanted to know how I achieved it. I don't particularly think of myself as calm and peaceful, though I am relaxed and laid back much of the time. I didn't know what to tell him. Then he asked, "I sense you have not always been this way...."
I realized I hadn't. I've, in my past, been anxious, aggressive, wound up and anything but calm and peaceful. I used to walk in a room looking for a fight. So he was right. What did I attribute my 'calm, peaceful, relaxed' persona to?
I told a member of St. John's that I was 'relaxed' when he asked me how I was doing in retirement. "Relaxed?" he said. "You've always been relaxed...."
Now that I think of it, as many people comment on my calmness, etc. these days as used to worry to me that I was too hyped up, too manic, too assertive. So what did happen?
I've grown older, obviously. But I really think the demeanor has been a 'choice' and a 'stand'. I simply realized my up-tempo, confrontational way didn't work and chose to simply be calm. Peaceful even. Works for me. I actually like being the non-anxious one in the room much better than I liked being the center of potential conflict. Who knew?
Ponder that: maybe we can decide our persona instead of letting our persona decide us.....Imagine.....
John was telling about how his sister and her Jewish husband and two Jewish kids and two Israeli friends went to visit some cousins of John and his sister, Pam, in Tennessee (of all places).
Even though there were 2 Tennessee cousins who Pam and Shuli and daughters really liked, the "liked" cousins invited some of the Fundamentalist Christian cousins to come and be with the Jews and the Israelis.
John and Bern started laughing about the whole set up. They both said they knew already what a disaster it would be and how crazy it would turn out. (I was actually thinking it might be an weird and wondrous transformational moment--and very interesting to be around.)
Well, from John's telling of Pam's story, it couldn't have been more of a oil spill/Three Mile Island/Hurricane Katrina afternoon. It was funny how John told it but the whole thing seemed a tad tragic and sad.
Then Bern said, "Pam should have taken Jim along!"
She laughed at the brilliance of her suggestion.
John joined in laughing. "That would have been perfect. If only Pam and Shuli had had Jim...."
"Jim knows how to be in the midst of those kind of situations," Bern said.
John was delighted. "I'll tell Pam never to go to Tennessee without Jim again."
I supposed they were talking about me--Me, Jim--though it was a conversation that was two way and though I was right there it never got directed at me. But it was interesting....
That Robert Burns thing about 'seeing yourself as others see you" I guess.
At the Making a Difference Workshop I led in Washington a week or so ago, one of the participants asked if we could eat lunch together. He told me that he admired the calm and peace that seemed to surround me and wanted to know how I achieved it. I don't particularly think of myself as calm and peaceful, though I am relaxed and laid back much of the time. I didn't know what to tell him. Then he asked, "I sense you have not always been this way...."
I realized I hadn't. I've, in my past, been anxious, aggressive, wound up and anything but calm and peaceful. I used to walk in a room looking for a fight. So he was right. What did I attribute my 'calm, peaceful, relaxed' persona to?
I told a member of St. John's that I was 'relaxed' when he asked me how I was doing in retirement. "Relaxed?" he said. "You've always been relaxed...."
Now that I think of it, as many people comment on my calmness, etc. these days as used to worry to me that I was too hyped up, too manic, too assertive. So what did happen?
I've grown older, obviously. But I really think the demeanor has been a 'choice' and a 'stand'. I simply realized my up-tempo, confrontational way didn't work and chose to simply be calm. Peaceful even. Works for me. I actually like being the non-anxious one in the room much better than I liked being the center of potential conflict. Who knew?
Ponder that: maybe we can decide our persona instead of letting our persona decide us.....Imagine.....
How I'm doing
Gosh, it has been 2 months and 5 days since I retired.
People ask me how it is going. So far so good.
Ten reasons I'm glad to be retired:
1. I'm saving money on Hall's throat lozenges since I don't talk very much.
2. I actually don't mind not talking as much.
3. I eat more sensibly.
4. I don't have to put gas in my car nearly as much.
5. I don't have to plunge out toilets nearly every day.
6. People don't ask me questions all day that they should ask Harriet.
7. I read a great, great deal.
8. Bern and I haven't killed each other, yet.
9. I have read reams of stuff I have written and want to put in some good shape and actually send it to somebody. I have a novel, a murder mystery, a fantasy, another far from completed novel, a half-dozen short stories, 50 or so poems and page after page of what I've been writing about the church and my ministry tentatively titled "Farther Along"--from the gospel hymn that goes, "Farther along we'll know all about it/ farther along we'll understand why/ cheer up my good friend/ we'll understand it all by and by." Actually the 'it' in two places much be pronounced "hit" to be authentic.
10. I've actually started writing after going over a lot of that.
Ten Reasons I've sad I've retired:
1) I miss celebrating and preaching (though July 4 I had a supply job and have all but one sunday of July and August set up for Supply.
2) I miss the excitement and constant possibility of hilarity, drama, mystery of every moment at St. John's.
3) I don't feel nearly as 'needed' or 'relied on' as I did. And I thrived on that.
4) I miss seeing and being with the remarkable staff of St. John's.
5) I miss that remarkable building and the time I spent alone, just sitting in the sanctuary.
6-10) I miss those remarkable, wondrous, life-giving people of the Parish....
All in all though, it is going well. Plus Norman, the interim, is a great guy and a good friend of mine....So I know the parish is in good hands....
People ask me how it is going. So far so good.
Ten reasons I'm glad to be retired:
1. I'm saving money on Hall's throat lozenges since I don't talk very much.
2. I actually don't mind not talking as much.
3. I eat more sensibly.
4. I don't have to put gas in my car nearly as much.
5. I don't have to plunge out toilets nearly every day.
6. People don't ask me questions all day that they should ask Harriet.
7. I read a great, great deal.
8. Bern and I haven't killed each other, yet.
9. I have read reams of stuff I have written and want to put in some good shape and actually send it to somebody. I have a novel, a murder mystery, a fantasy, another far from completed novel, a half-dozen short stories, 50 or so poems and page after page of what I've been writing about the church and my ministry tentatively titled "Farther Along"--from the gospel hymn that goes, "Farther along we'll know all about it/ farther along we'll understand why/ cheer up my good friend/ we'll understand it all by and by." Actually the 'it' in two places much be pronounced "hit" to be authentic.
10. I've actually started writing after going over a lot of that.
Ten Reasons I've sad I've retired:
1) I miss celebrating and preaching (though July 4 I had a supply job and have all but one sunday of July and August set up for Supply.
2) I miss the excitement and constant possibility of hilarity, drama, mystery of every moment at St. John's.
3) I don't feel nearly as 'needed' or 'relied on' as I did. And I thrived on that.
4) I miss seeing and being with the remarkable staff of St. John's.
5) I miss that remarkable building and the time I spent alone, just sitting in the sanctuary.
6-10) I miss those remarkable, wondrous, life-giving people of the Parish....
All in all though, it is going well. Plus Norman, the interim, is a great guy and a good friend of mine....So I know the parish is in good hands....
The Devil in the details....
I was reading a library book--I almost never buy books since I am a firm believer in libraries (even though they've taken out the card catalogs and replaced them with computers in Cheshire--I'm a sucker for a card catalog. If you know any libraries that still have them let me know and I'll go visit them). Anyway, as I was writing before I so rudely interrupted myself with that pointless aside about how much I love flipping through card catalogs--the feel of the stiff cards, the smell of the wood, the sight of so much writing I didn't know I didn't know about. I used to spend an hour or so at card catalogs, just browsing SUBJECT--Maori culture (just an example) or Titles beginning with Z or what people named Smyth had written...well, you get the idea...
But as I was trying to say about this library book: "Noah's Compass" by Anne Tyler (a typical Anne Tyler book...in Baltimore, quirky characters, musings on the meaning of it all, etc.). On page 219 right in the middle of a conversation between Ian and Jonah about the Noah's Ark story, it said "......," NOAH ASKED.
Well, of course "Noah" didn't ask anything. Noah was who Ian and Jonah were discussing. Such a weird typographical error to sneak by how many editors. But some one who read the book before I did obviously couldn't stand it and drew a dark J through the N of "Noah". Some people don't have my patience with typos.
Whoever it was must have felt a) elated to have found a typo in such a well know writer's novel; b) astonished that the editors had missed it; c) delighted to correct it and, most probably, d) not a little smug and self-righteous about the whole thing.
Lots of people love, absolutely L O V E to find typos. Over a career of church bulletins and church newsletter I really know about the zeal of the TYPO POLICE.
But here's my question: why didn't the oh-so- elated-astonished-delighted-smug Typo detector finish his/her job?
The correction read: "........" JOAH asked.
If you're going to get so hot and bothered about the N, why not move it over a letter or so and correct the whole thing: making Noah into JoNah, for goodness sake.
Well, I guess you've figured out by now that this is all the revenge of the King of typos and misspelling , a veritable nightmare for those who read bulletins and newsletters with a red pen out. This is my revenge against the Typo Police.
And boy, do I feel elated, astonished, delighted, smug and self-righteous about the whole thing.
Upon pondering, I guess it's that rush of emotions that makes otherwise kind and polite people into the Typo Police in the first place.....
But as I was trying to say about this library book: "Noah's Compass" by Anne Tyler (a typical Anne Tyler book...in Baltimore, quirky characters, musings on the meaning of it all, etc.). On page 219 right in the middle of a conversation between Ian and Jonah about the Noah's Ark story, it said "......," NOAH ASKED.
Well, of course "Noah" didn't ask anything. Noah was who Ian and Jonah were discussing. Such a weird typographical error to sneak by how many editors. But some one who read the book before I did obviously couldn't stand it and drew a dark J through the N of "Noah". Some people don't have my patience with typos.
Whoever it was must have felt a) elated to have found a typo in such a well know writer's novel; b) astonished that the editors had missed it; c) delighted to correct it and, most probably, d) not a little smug and self-righteous about the whole thing.
Lots of people love, absolutely L O V E to find typos. Over a career of church bulletins and church newsletter I really know about the zeal of the TYPO POLICE.
But here's my question: why didn't the oh-so- elated-astonished-delighted-smug Typo detector finish his/her job?
The correction read: "........" JOAH asked.
If you're going to get so hot and bothered about the N, why not move it over a letter or so and correct the whole thing: making Noah into JoNah, for goodness sake.
Well, I guess you've figured out by now that this is all the revenge of the King of typos and misspelling , a veritable nightmare for those who read bulletins and newsletters with a red pen out. This is my revenge against the Typo Police.
And boy, do I feel elated, astonished, delighted, smug and self-righteous about the whole thing.
Upon pondering, I guess it's that rush of emotions that makes otherwise kind and polite people into the Typo Police in the first place.....
Monday, July 5, 2010
failing the 'clicker' test....
This morning, when I tried to use the remote control for the air conditioner in my little office, I couldn't get it to work. I'd failed the 'clicker' test again. And I had a memory....
(This isn't the memory, this is why I have an air conditioner in my little office: the one I have now was in the TV room but it made so much noise you couldn't hear the TV without having the volume so loud you couldn't have a conversation without yelling. So Bern decided to take it out and replace it with a quieter one she had. She, by the way, does all the stuff like that since I've proved myself so incompetent in such undertakings that I'm no longer asked to participate. Poor me! And since the weather has turned horribly hot she decided to put the noisy air-conditioner in my little office, believing it would take the hot air coming up the back stairs from the kitchen and make the downstairs a little cooler as well. So far, it has worked quite well. I called her a 'heat manipulator' since, through a complicated ritual of opening and closing windows are certain times and putting fans on and off at other certain times, she has managed to keep our un-air-conditioned areas 74 or below in the hottest weather.)
What I remembered when I flunked the clicker test was the electronic voting at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I've been a Deputy during the last two conventions--Minneapolis in 2006 and Anaheim in 2009. Luckily the EC only meets every three years. Annual meetings would open untold possibilities for theological and programmatic mischief. Plus there are 4 lay folks and 4 clergy in each dioceses' deputation and the expense of gathering 800+ Deputies, never mind the cost of the House of Bishops, makes annual meetings untenable.
Since the House of Deputies has so many deputies, voting practice is an issue. At the last two GC's we've used electronic voting which requires using a little hand held clicker about the size of a cell phone. Needless to say--even though there are 800+ people of above average intellect involved--it has been a minor disaster, taking up more time than you can adequately imagine during the 9 days of meetings.
The only thing that has made it bearable, if not a tad pleasant, is that the Chief Teller, who gives the instruction each time is a gorgeous priest from New York or Mass or somewhere. She is also very patient and extremely humorous. Gorgeous, patient and funny--how much better could it be? She also has an accent I really can't place (she may be at least part Hispanic) that makes it a treat to listen to her explain in words of one or two syllables, how easy this process that confounds 800+ people really is....
(About accents, by the way: I love them and practice placing them. I can even tell the difference between a Peurto Rican accent and the a accent of someone from Cuba or Mexico. Anyhow, once I met a new member of the church I served in New Haven and after talking with her for a few minutes, I asked her, "Where's your accent from?"
She replied, cooly, "Actually, it's a speech defect. People seldom mention it."
She stayed at the church anyway...)
So what is it about the voting clickers that confound even those who have conquered remote controls of all kinds? The voting clicker has numbers 0 to 9 and three buttons, not really a complicated thing. (My friend John and my son Josh have multiple remote control clickers for their assortment of electronic mysteries. I can't figure out the one for the TV, much less cope with the others. Even when alone in places like John's and Josh's, I tend to watch whatever was on when I arrived though I know that have in excess of 600 channels cleverly concealed from my meager skills at clicking.)
I actually think the General Convention's voting clickers are a metaphor for how the EC and probably most mainline churches (though I'm sure Unitarians are more adept than most) are rendered incapable and laughingly distracted by anything that is new, different, out of the ordinary, edgy, etc.
I remember visiting St. Mark's in Raleigh, NC over twenty years ago. The parish was considering me to be their next Rector. In fact, they called me to that job and I turned it down after a weekend of anguished struggle for what would be best for me and Bern and the kids. A month later I was invited to interview for the position of Rector of St. John's. Things do happen for a reason.
At any rate, St. Mark's was growing so rapidly they were in their 3rd new building in the 25 years of the parish's existent. It was an ultra modern building with nothing nailed down--everything could be moved around within an area the size of a basketball court. The building was three years old and I asked them to tell me about the different configurations they'd used for worship. I was thinking about designing the space for different seasons, high holy days, all sorts of ways to place the furniture in that vast space.
They looked at me sheepishly. They had set up the space like a traditional church--font in the back, altar in the front, chairs in rigid lines--and never changed it in three years. The stuff might as well have been nailed down!
And there are always the complaints on Christmas and Easter and when we have multiple baptisms that "someone was in my pew". Lordy, lordy, a full church and everyone is a bit miffed! But then one day, a visiting Bishop sat in my chair and I almost made him move.....
Little stuff like that--like voting devices--throws the church off kilter. We really don't want to 'change' or 'transform' either. One thing CHURCH inspires in people is a longing for 'the way things have always been'.
It goes all the way to the top, in fact, as I think about it, the whole ''changelessness" probably starts at the top....
(This isn't the memory, this is why I have an air conditioner in my little office: the one I have now was in the TV room but it made so much noise you couldn't hear the TV without having the volume so loud you couldn't have a conversation without yelling. So Bern decided to take it out and replace it with a quieter one she had. She, by the way, does all the stuff like that since I've proved myself so incompetent in such undertakings that I'm no longer asked to participate. Poor me! And since the weather has turned horribly hot she decided to put the noisy air-conditioner in my little office, believing it would take the hot air coming up the back stairs from the kitchen and make the downstairs a little cooler as well. So far, it has worked quite well. I called her a 'heat manipulator' since, through a complicated ritual of opening and closing windows are certain times and putting fans on and off at other certain times, she has managed to keep our un-air-conditioned areas 74 or below in the hottest weather.)
What I remembered when I flunked the clicker test was the electronic voting at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I've been a Deputy during the last two conventions--Minneapolis in 2006 and Anaheim in 2009. Luckily the EC only meets every three years. Annual meetings would open untold possibilities for theological and programmatic mischief. Plus there are 4 lay folks and 4 clergy in each dioceses' deputation and the expense of gathering 800+ Deputies, never mind the cost of the House of Bishops, makes annual meetings untenable.
Since the House of Deputies has so many deputies, voting practice is an issue. At the last two GC's we've used electronic voting which requires using a little hand held clicker about the size of a cell phone. Needless to say--even though there are 800+ people of above average intellect involved--it has been a minor disaster, taking up more time than you can adequately imagine during the 9 days of meetings.
The only thing that has made it bearable, if not a tad pleasant, is that the Chief Teller, who gives the instruction each time is a gorgeous priest from New York or Mass or somewhere. She is also very patient and extremely humorous. Gorgeous, patient and funny--how much better could it be? She also has an accent I really can't place (she may be at least part Hispanic) that makes it a treat to listen to her explain in words of one or two syllables, how easy this process that confounds 800+ people really is....
(About accents, by the way: I love them and practice placing them. I can even tell the difference between a Peurto Rican accent and the a accent of someone from Cuba or Mexico. Anyhow, once I met a new member of the church I served in New Haven and after talking with her for a few minutes, I asked her, "Where's your accent from?"
She replied, cooly, "Actually, it's a speech defect. People seldom mention it."
She stayed at the church anyway...)
So what is it about the voting clickers that confound even those who have conquered remote controls of all kinds? The voting clicker has numbers 0 to 9 and three buttons, not really a complicated thing. (My friend John and my son Josh have multiple remote control clickers for their assortment of electronic mysteries. I can't figure out the one for the TV, much less cope with the others. Even when alone in places like John's and Josh's, I tend to watch whatever was on when I arrived though I know that have in excess of 600 channels cleverly concealed from my meager skills at clicking.)
I actually think the General Convention's voting clickers are a metaphor for how the EC and probably most mainline churches (though I'm sure Unitarians are more adept than most) are rendered incapable and laughingly distracted by anything that is new, different, out of the ordinary, edgy, etc.
I remember visiting St. Mark's in Raleigh, NC over twenty years ago. The parish was considering me to be their next Rector. In fact, they called me to that job and I turned it down after a weekend of anguished struggle for what would be best for me and Bern and the kids. A month later I was invited to interview for the position of Rector of St. John's. Things do happen for a reason.
At any rate, St. Mark's was growing so rapidly they were in their 3rd new building in the 25 years of the parish's existent. It was an ultra modern building with nothing nailed down--everything could be moved around within an area the size of a basketball court. The building was three years old and I asked them to tell me about the different configurations they'd used for worship. I was thinking about designing the space for different seasons, high holy days, all sorts of ways to place the furniture in that vast space.
They looked at me sheepishly. They had set up the space like a traditional church--font in the back, altar in the front, chairs in rigid lines--and never changed it in three years. The stuff might as well have been nailed down!
And there are always the complaints on Christmas and Easter and when we have multiple baptisms that "someone was in my pew". Lordy, lordy, a full church and everyone is a bit miffed! But then one day, a visiting Bishop sat in my chair and I almost made him move.....
Little stuff like that--like voting devices--throws the church off kilter. We really don't want to 'change' or 'transform' either. One thing CHURCH inspires in people is a longing for 'the way things have always been'.
It goes all the way to the top, in fact, as I think about it, the whole ''changelessness" probably starts at the top....
feeling my pain...
I realized this morning when I got up, that no one (in spite of Bill Clinton's testimony to the contrary) can "feel my pain". My pains--the nagging twinges from my left wrist where the tendon never healed properly from breaking my arm a few years ago, the ache in the top of my foot from where I wore sandals to walk the dog and bruised my foot, the occasional weakness in my lower back, the burning from where the poison ivy on my forearm is almost gone--nobody can feel that but me. We can sympathize when someone has a pain or hurt that we imagine is like one we had at some point, but we really can't feel another's pain. Pain can only be felt from the inside out.
Which got me to pondering the fact that the physical metaphor applies to ideas, thoughts, convictions, opinions, beliefs and confusions as well. Just as we can't get inside another person's body, we can't be inside their brains or hearts either.
All of which has caused me to wonder if I don't need to transform the way I listen to and am present with people I disagree with. After all, it seems clear to me right now, I can't adequately imagine what is going on in their minds. So, Tea Party members and Right Wing Republicans and atheists and radical Muslims and fundamentalist Christians have stuff sloshing around in their gray cells and their emotions that I cannot ever understand fully. Perhaps I have to lighten up with them and practice listening for clues about how their minds work differently from mine.
To batter the metaphor into unconsciousness: I seldom have headaches. So when someone tells me they have one, the best I can usually do is remember eating homemade ice cream at my Grandmother's house on hot summer days until my head hurt. As debilitating as the is to my memory of it, there is no way that memory even begins to touch the reality of another's headache.
In the same way, I've been pondering this hot morning that virtually cries out for homemade ice cream (peach was my favorite) that the mind and feelings of the priest who left St. James' in New Haven--and the Episcopal Church while he was leaving things--is far beyond my ken. I can't even imagine, not for the briefest moment, the thought process and obvious pain that led him to that decision and action.
So (just to let you know this is going 'somewhere'...anywhere!) it might just be I have no right to judge him in any way. All I can do is be present to the fall-out of his actions for the two Sundays I will celebrate and be with that broken and wounded congregation. Besides, most of my reactions and thoughts about him are without any standing in fact since I can't 'feel his pain' or 'think his thoughts'.
Gosh, I hate giving up judging other people with whom I disagree!
I've started calling the TEA PARTY the ME PARTY since it seems, in my mind, all they supposedly advocate and stand for comes back to a remarkably self-centered view of the world. I saw a picture of one of the TP folks who had a homemade sign on his trifold hat--one of those hats like they wore in the Revolutionary War...the kind we all imagine Paul Revere wearing. The sign said: LISTEN TO ME! My initial reaction was to think, "why in the hell should we?" Democracy, after all, can't function is everyone is ego-centered. Democracy, when it works well, 'listens to All of us' but no one more carefully than anyone else.
And the man I saw during rush hour last week, standing in front of the Cheshire Town Hall with a sign that said, "FACE IT, OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST!!!" I wanted to pull my car over and yell at him, "No he's not, you idiot! He is at best a moderate Democrat...."
But I realize I have no idea what that man feels or thinks and why he's come down in a place I find so far-fetched it would be laughable if it wasn't terrifying. Perhaps I need to listen to him for a while and "willingly suspend my beliefs" (sorry for mangling your words S. T. Coleridge...) long enough to simply be present to his thoughts rather than rejecting them and considering him a lunatic.
That won't be nearly as much fun, but maybe...just maybe...the beginning step of finding ways to live together in the world without insulting, rejecting or killing each other is to be willing to 'be present' in as full a way as possible, to 'the Other', whatever that means in the moment.
I have to ponder so more, but I know the Mastery Foundation I work with has this as an almost creedal statement, "Connection before Content". That has something to do with being able to 'bracket' our opinions, feelings, etc. long enough to find a relationship with the Other in the room.
This is going to take a lot of time in the sun beside my withered up Castor Oil Tree--but it might be time well spent.
We'll see....
Which got me to pondering the fact that the physical metaphor applies to ideas, thoughts, convictions, opinions, beliefs and confusions as well. Just as we can't get inside another person's body, we can't be inside their brains or hearts either.
All of which has caused me to wonder if I don't need to transform the way I listen to and am present with people I disagree with. After all, it seems clear to me right now, I can't adequately imagine what is going on in their minds. So, Tea Party members and Right Wing Republicans and atheists and radical Muslims and fundamentalist Christians have stuff sloshing around in their gray cells and their emotions that I cannot ever understand fully. Perhaps I have to lighten up with them and practice listening for clues about how their minds work differently from mine.
To batter the metaphor into unconsciousness: I seldom have headaches. So when someone tells me they have one, the best I can usually do is remember eating homemade ice cream at my Grandmother's house on hot summer days until my head hurt. As debilitating as the is to my memory of it, there is no way that memory even begins to touch the reality of another's headache.
In the same way, I've been pondering this hot morning that virtually cries out for homemade ice cream (peach was my favorite) that the mind and feelings of the priest who left St. James' in New Haven--and the Episcopal Church while he was leaving things--is far beyond my ken. I can't even imagine, not for the briefest moment, the thought process and obvious pain that led him to that decision and action.
So (just to let you know this is going 'somewhere'...anywhere!) it might just be I have no right to judge him in any way. All I can do is be present to the fall-out of his actions for the two Sundays I will celebrate and be with that broken and wounded congregation. Besides, most of my reactions and thoughts about him are without any standing in fact since I can't 'feel his pain' or 'think his thoughts'.
Gosh, I hate giving up judging other people with whom I disagree!
I've started calling the TEA PARTY the ME PARTY since it seems, in my mind, all they supposedly advocate and stand for comes back to a remarkably self-centered view of the world. I saw a picture of one of the TP folks who had a homemade sign on his trifold hat--one of those hats like they wore in the Revolutionary War...the kind we all imagine Paul Revere wearing. The sign said: LISTEN TO ME! My initial reaction was to think, "why in the hell should we?" Democracy, after all, can't function is everyone is ego-centered. Democracy, when it works well, 'listens to All of us' but no one more carefully than anyone else.
And the man I saw during rush hour last week, standing in front of the Cheshire Town Hall with a sign that said, "FACE IT, OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST!!!" I wanted to pull my car over and yell at him, "No he's not, you idiot! He is at best a moderate Democrat...."
But I realize I have no idea what that man feels or thinks and why he's come down in a place I find so far-fetched it would be laughable if it wasn't terrifying. Perhaps I need to listen to him for a while and "willingly suspend my beliefs" (sorry for mangling your words S. T. Coleridge...) long enough to simply be present to his thoughts rather than rejecting them and considering him a lunatic.
That won't be nearly as much fun, but maybe...just maybe...the beginning step of finding ways to live together in the world without insulting, rejecting or killing each other is to be willing to 'be present' in as full a way as possible, to 'the Other', whatever that means in the moment.
I have to ponder so more, but I know the Mastery Foundation I work with has this as an almost creedal statement, "Connection before Content". That has something to do with being able to 'bracket' our opinions, feelings, etc. long enough to find a relationship with the Other in the room.
This is going to take a lot of time in the sun beside my withered up Castor Oil Tree--but it might be time well spent.
We'll see....
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