sometimes the dog eats the couch....

I just read on line that the Jonas brothers visited the White House to sing.

My problem is, I have no idea who the Jonas brothers are. Life is passing me by and leaving me behind in the dust....

Years and years ago, before some of you were born, Bern and I lived in Morgantown WV on the 3rd floor of this great house on a brick street. We were on the 3rd floor and had the attic at our disposal. That's where St. Gabrial's Mission--a house church--met. About 30 people, all under 30 except for Snork, the priest and Mariah who was 82 and just liked young people better than the 3 piece suits and ladies in hats at Trinity Parish.

We met on Wed. nights, up in the attic. If your birthday fell in that week, Snork let you celebrate communion--no kidding. He did what he called the "manual acts" and told us it was fine. We had no idea how against the rules it was. Five of the undergraduates at St. Gabe's went on to be priests, if you can believe it. Snork letting us celebrate is what hooked us.

(I have the sneaking suspicion that I've written about that before--if so, chalk it up to my slipping mind.)

At any rate, the people on the bottom floor had a big black lab names Bysshe, after Percy B. Shelly. Everyone we knew were students and had secondhand furniture. One day Bysshe's owners came home and the dog had eaten the couch. They were just about to kill him when they noticed that underneath the upholstry was a piece of furniture that looked older than they thought. It was an antique and worth $4000. They kept bringing home secondhand furniture hoping Bysshe would do it again, but he never did.

What I was pondering is what if the way God works sometimes is like the dog eating the couch--like something that is initially a problem verging on a disaster 'unconceals' God in the moment.

Or when something that is so outside the lines, at first glance--like Snork letting people celebrate communion--turns out to give the church 5 very good, out-side-the-line coloring priests.

Stuff like that. I guess we can't replicate such events--Bysshe never ate another piece of furniture after all--and if I invited people up to try out celebrating I'd be defrocked by days end because someone would turn me in. (I bet only Mariah knew Snork was breaking about 14 hundred canons, but she wasn't squealing.)

They can't be replicated, but maybe we should keep our eyes wide open all the time in case some metaphorical dog starts eating the couch. Take a deep breath and look for God....

dumb crooks

I've reached the point that most of the news I hear comes for "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me'.

A woman had an job interview at a store and on her way out she shoplifted some items. When they caught her, the store manager who had just talked with her realized the dress she was wearing was one she shoplifted the day before.

When asked, she said, "I needed something nice for my interview."

She didn't get the job.

I just counted 9 butterflies on the butterfly bush in our back yard. It is truly remarkable, our back yard.

I'm going to St. John's, Bristol tomorrow and next Sunday. Their former rector was one of the priests who left the church a few years ago. Maybe this is my supply priest niche--going to churches who used to have ultra-conservative Rectors. Go figure.

I've been writing daily on the ms. called "Farther along" about my experiences as a parish priest. I'd love to share some of it on the blog but I don't know how. Anyone out there know how to do that? (I just the other day realized I could print out stuff from castor oil tree.)Email and tell me if it is possible to put a word document on a blog. Otherwise, send a stamped, self-addressed manila envelope with a note on a $50 bill and I'll send you a hard copy of some of it....

stuff I'm doing

I noted I haven't written here for a week. I've been writing other things. I've spent 4-5 hours each day writing about my years as a parish priest. It is part of a manuscript called 'Farther Along'. I also sent a synopsis of my novel to an agent--fascinatingly enough, she is the person who read the very first draft of 'the Igloo Factory' over 30 years ago. I was researching agents and there she was, with her own agency now. I remembered her name but not the agency she worked for back then. So I sent it to her, hoping she'll be willing to read the whole manuscript.

Our back yard is a remarkable menagerie this time of years. I encountered an opossum on the deck a couple of days ago. There are chipmunks and several kinds of squirrels and dozens of kinds of birds...plus, I killed a Brown Recluse spider today. I saw it and googled it and found out, by the picture, that it was one of the poison kinds of spiders and I killed it with a paper towel. I hate to kill spiders since they do good and wonderful things. But one that could harm me...I didn't feel quite as bad.

Writing has taken over my retirement--but I do try to get out each day and do something. I cook a lot more now than I did. And I'm obviously trying to find something to write about. What I really want to do is go watch the rest of the Yankee game or work on something I've been writing about.

I'll try again tomorrow.

the fourth person of the Trinity

I have never been good with details. Ask anyone you want who knows me a whit and they will say something like "well, Jim triiies to be responsible, but you know how he is."

How I am is that I'm no good with details and the stuff that makes the world go 'round and keeps the wolves from the door. For example: I write about 3 checks a year. Most of the money that goes into the checking account comes from me...but I don't write checks. I don't 'do' money. Bern does that all for me and I do other significant and important things for her, like...oh, for example, ponder the meaning of life....

Bern would be in the poor house and I would be in prison if I tried to 'do money'. Well, you know how Jim is....he means well, but Christ Almighty he's pretty useless in practical ways.

Bern asked me to open a new roll of Saran Wrap and cover something with it this afternoon. I was so excited since I can't be relied upon to achieve practical tasks: I don't do any yard work because I can't mow right and I don't help clean the house because I'm inept at it.

So, I start to open the new box of plastic wrap and really have trouble and cut my thumb on the little teeth that cut the wrap and bleed all over our downstairs bathroom and have to ask Bern to put the band-aid on because I ruined two trying to do it myself...On and on it goes like that. I am not to be trusted to do normal tasks. But if you want someone to ponder something for you, I'm your guy....Really. Call me up about that....

I'm not much trusted with credit cards and I shouldn't be trusted with insurance cards either.

The Diocese changed insurance coverage beginning in Jan of '10. People under the coverage (like 'under the covers'...ponder that...) were supposed to sign up on line. There was a choice between an HMO type coverage and a POS (Point of Service) coverage. I meant to sign up for POS since my urologist (how important a role is that?) who did my cancer surgery and has been following me the five years since, didn't seem to be in the HMO network. But remember, I had to do this 'online' and another thing I am not to be trusted to do is accomplish what is needed to seal the deal of anything on a computer.

So, I get my new Cigna card. Do I examine it and see if there are any problems like the letter that accompanies the card says to do? Well, I meant to, but I just put the card in my wallet and started pulling it out whenever medical issues came up.

About a month ago, I get a bill from Dr. Olsen, my GP. Cigna has denied two visits to his pleasant little offices in Cheshire because he is not my "Primary Care Physician". Yikes! Did I need one of those? So I pull out my card and discover my PCP is a Dr. William Schreiber, who I've never heard of though I'm sure he's a fine doctor and my Cigna card says, clearly...so clearly only a chipmunk would have missed it: "Network"....Oh my Lord, I'm HMO in spite of my best intentions and Dr. S., my urologist who has had me have exotic blood tests and a bone scan and a cat scan isn't in the 'network'. I'm trying to imagine how much money that would be to pay those bills without insurance....Well, the next day I get a bill from a blood lab for almost $3000, so the adventure is about to begin.

I call the Diocese, frantic and hyperventilating, and Louise gives me the phone # of a certain Ms. L.S. at the Episcopal Medical Trust. I call her and give her a confusing story about how I meant to be POS but I'm HMO and my PCP is wrong and I'm a wreck and hopeless. She says she'll fix the PCP problem and Dr. Olsen will get paid, not to worry.

The next day I get a bill from Dr. Miller, who did a colonostomy for me and had me do blood tests and a cat scan and Cigna had turned him down because he didn't have a proper 'referral'. Well, I know Dr. Olsen sent a referral to Dr. Miller but since Cigna thought William Schreiber should have sent that referral, I am up the creek without a paddle...and the creek's name is S***. (A tad ironic for a colon0stomy Dr...S*** Creek, I mean....)

Now I am thinking in terms of 80 or 100 thousand dollars....how much do scans and colonostomy and all that stuff--plus lots of pre-butt search blood work....Oh Lordy, I just retired and I'm going to prison and Bern will be in the Poor House....

I kept hovering around the front door for a week or more, waiting to intercept any more medical cost bad news before Bern got it in the mail. I was frantic....I'm almost never 'frantic' or even mildly concerned about money. I don't DO money, so 'what, me worry?'

I couldn't sleep for a week or so and was a crazy person in ways far beyond the ways I'm usually crazy. I finally told Bern about my worries and she started to worry but I told her I would handle it. She looked at me like I had said, "I'm going to levitate for a couple of house and lay some eggs while I'm doing that."

But, here's the thing: Don't mess with the Episcopal Medical Trust! The Episcopal Church may be an irrelevant as shoe horns and rotary phones, but the Church Pension Fund is not to be trafficked with and the Medical Trust is part of that and LS, my contact, is the fourth person of the Trinity.

(The Church Pension Fund claims--and who am I to doubt it--that they have the assets to pay the earned pensions of every Episcopal priest, bishops and lay folks in the Fund if they all stopped working tomorrow! Go figure--the economy is going to hell in a dozen ways and the CPF is beyond reproach. The CPF keeps trying to find ways to give $ away. Like I'm getting a $20,000 'relocation allowance' with my first pension payment on August 1. And I'm not relocating!!! Go figure...After all, J. P. Morgan started the damn thing....)

So, in ways I cannot imagine LS is going to 'tell' Cigna to pay all my bills. Dr. Miller IS in the HMO so that's not the problem...but every test, scan, etc., Dr. S. ordered will be paid because LS and the Medical Trust and the CPF tells them too....Astonishing.

I'm sure I screwed this up, ultimately. I don't even know how, but ignorance is no excuse. And LS, the 4th person of the Trinity, and the vast resources of that irrelevant institution known as the Episcopal Church is going to make it right. I can even see Dr. S for the rest of the year and the Medical Trust will tell Cigna to pay him. "Tell them", mind you...astonishing.

I am such an idiot.

A friend once told me, "it's a good thing you're 'charming' and seemingly clueless or someone would have killed you long before now."

That's true.

Even I don't think I deserve the 'grace'--and I mean that in its full theological meaning--of this experience.

But that's the joke, isn't it? None of us DESERVE the "Grace". We just get it....Astonishing. Amazing.....

for all the pain there is....

Before I left St. John's I let some of the funeral directors know I'd be available for what are called 'trade funerals'. Those are funeral home services for people who have no affiliation with a church. I've done them in the past because it seems right to be present with people in their pain and confusion even if I have no other connection with them.

So, this week I got a call to do a funeral. The funeral director said he 'thought of me immediately' when the need for a clergy presence at this particular funeral came up with the family. I was proud about it and agreed before I realized what it was all about.

The deceased is a 16 year old girl who was raped and murdered by a friend of hers last Friday night. That horrible crime is made even worse because it occurred at the foot of the huge cross above the city of Waterbury in what used to be called Holy Land. It used to be a strange little recreation of the Holy Land, from all I can tell. I did visit it once and it is falling into ruin and is so overgrown it is hard to discern what the original must have looked like. Apparently, except for the illuminated cross, the whole thing is abandoned--though owned by a religious order--and has signs around it telling people not to trespass. Which makes it a magnet for young people to gather....

And there, a 19 year old boy ended the life of this young girl, brutally and, from all I've read in the newspapers at the library, without remorse. It is a chilling story of almost sociopathic violence. The statement of the boy read like something out of a second rate crime book. Even the judge was shocked by the young man's disregard for his victim...who he knew and who had gone to Holy Land willingly. After the rape, the man said he knew he'd have to go to prison so he might as well kill her. Then he defaced her corpse.

And I'm supposed to say something to those who will gather for her wake on Saturday night that will....what? Give them comfort? Provide hope? Ease their pain? Calm their anger? I just don't think that is possible. This is so horrendous a crime that all the pain there is in the universe can't absorb the pain of the girl's friends and family.

It seems to me the four kinds of death that are hardest to comprehend, much less deal with are the death of a child, a suicide, a murder and some sort of violent, painful death. This is two out of three. "Victim Fought Back" the headline in the newspaper screamed one of the days. Oh God, I can't imagine reading that about one of my children. And if I could 'imagine' it, I wouldn't....

I am a man of many words. I've yet to think of a single one for Saturday.

It is so painful to think about--even from an anonymous distance--that words fail. There is simply nothing to say. Words are like fireflies in a tornado....

If you pray, pray for that family, for the soul of that young girl and, if you can find it in your heart, for the one who brutalized and murdered her. But for me--even at a distance--that last prayer seems a lot to ask of myself....

old time's sake

I went to a reunion Saturday evening. It wasn't high school or college or even seminary (though this year is my 35th Seminary reunion). It was a reunion of some of the people who worked together 20 years or more ago at the Regional Council on Education for Employment (acronym RCEE).
I worked there as an English Teacher and then Center Manager from late 1985 until I went to St. John's, Waterbury in June 1989.
RCEE was jointly sponsored by Yale, IBM, Aetna and a couple of other corporations. IBM was the prime player--imagine me, an IBMer! We recuited and enrolled people with high school diplomas and some office skills and in 16 weeks they were ready for entry level word processing jobs in major corporations. Our placement rate was higher than anyone. It was a great program, but it only lasted 10 years because the laws about such training changed.
There seven of us there--one I didn't know because she came after I left--plus Bern and one of the employees teenage foster daughter (who must have thought we were all ancient and senile and silly. The oldest was 83 and Suzette, who organized it, was the youngest, in her 50's. It was an odd crew--4 Black, 3 white.
The great thing was how comfortable and fun it was to be with them though I haven't seen most of them since 1989. Something in the vision and mission we shared, something in the difference we made in people's lives, something about how we always liked each other greatly. How wondrous to find you can slip back into the same kind of relationship with people after so many years if only for 3 hours in a steak house in West Haven.
I've never been great at "keeping up" with people. I don't have a single friend from high school--except Bern and her cousin Tony--and only one from college (and we haven't seen each other for 5 years or so). I know where several of my seminary classmates ARE and what they're doing...but 'keeping in touch'...nah....
Sat. night convinced me I need to hone my 'keeping up' skills since it was a shame to lose these dear people for two decades. (One of them does live in Cheshire and I see her in Stop and Shop or Everybodies from time to time.)
Besides, it shouldn't be hard since there is, after all, a finite time I will have to 'keep up' with people now....Memento mori. One of the ones who should have been there was Willie Bradley, but he died back in the 90's. His funeral was one of the last times this group of people were in the same place at the same time....until Saturday.
Ponder getting in touch with someone from 20 years ago you really liked and enjoyed--if only for a meal together....it was a good thing....

cat s***

I had a friend in West Virginia while I was a priest there who looked, for all the world, like my imagination of Icabod Crane from The Headless Horseman and once said 'cat s***' in a sermon.

It was like this: he was preaching about the raising of Lazarus and he was trying to think of a way to describe how L. might have smelled after being dead for three days in the heat of Palestine. Unfortunately, he'd not prepared his sermon faithfully, having been visiting the sick, comforting the dying and doing the kind of pastoral work that is the bedrock of being a priest. So, on the spur of the moment the best he could do is "Cat S***".

Well, you might imagine that someone called the Bishop and the Bishop called Lowell (not my friend's real name since we must change the name to protect the Cat S*** sermon people) and warned him magisterially never, ever, not ever, never again to say Cat S*** in a sermon.

Can you imagine the pressure that put on Lowell? He was not the brightest globe in the chandelier and really wasn't a great preacher--though he was a marvelous priest. Once the Bishop put in his head that he couldn't say "Cat S***" ever again, every word that was about to come out of his mouth of a Sunday sermon began with Cat and ended with Shit.

We used to have four cats. Catherine, Millie, Chuck (or 'Fatty' as we called him in our good moments...in our bad moments it was "Fat F***") and Luke. They all died in the last year and a half or so except Luke. They actually died--the three that did--in adverse order of our love for them: Katherine (Millie's mother), then Millie (pitiful she was) and then Chuck (who in anyone's estimate, even devoted cat lovers, was mean, disgusting and awful.) But he died hard and suffered more than we should have let him.

So, we're left with Luke, who we call Puppy Cat because he comes when you call him and is a dog in cat's fur. He was our favorite always (BY THE WAY, HAVE I BLOGGED THIS BEFORE? I'M HAVING DEJA VU AND AM GROWING OLD AND FORGETFUL....)

But, going from 4 cats to 1 we've gotten lax about the litter box--we used to have two and cleaned them daily. Luke is fastidious and likes a clean box. When he sees me change it he goes right in and forces himself to expel waste, whether he needs to or not.

So, Luke has, several times now, left the waste product poor, benighted Lowell used in his sermon in places it doesn't belong. I believe he's become more fastidious without those other cats around and can't abide a moderately used litter box. So, since I'm retired and looking for stuff to do, I'm going to clean it everyday and pray he doesn't s*** on the couch again.

But Lowell, God love him, was right, something that's been dead for three days probably does smell as bad as Cat S***.