being a democrat, cont.

So, today, just back from Baltimore and seeing the grand children, I took our dog, Bela, for a walk in the cemetery where we often walk. The Tea Party folks were up on Main Street, if front of the town hall where they are often on evening drive time. I saw a placard that said "Obama is a socialist". So, on the way back, I stopped and went up to talk to the man with that placard.

I had my dog with me so I thought I would seem benign. I really wanted to know what definition he had of 'socialist'. I am very left wing--but, at this time, short of being a 'socialist', though it is appealing to me philosophically. I approached him and asked if he could tell me what he thought a socialist was. He said, "if you don't know, don't ask".

I said that I did know and that the President is, much to my chagrin, a 'moderate democrat', not even 'liberal' or 'left wing', though I wish he were, but far short of a socialist.

He said he didn't want to talk with me.

I noticed that he, like most of the 30+ people there, had a glazed look in their eyes, much like my 4 year old grand daughter had when we watched a street magician on Saturday at a festival in Baltimore.

I said, "I just want a conversation..." and he replied, "we just had one."

So I sought out a guy about my age with a sign condemning the healthcare bill as "Obamacare" and recommending its repeal.

I asked him to talk to me about health care. He stared at me and dismissed me by saying, "the health care bill is all wrong."

I asked why and added, "I don't think it went far enough. We need a 'single payer' plan, what do you think of that?"

He called me a socialist. I thanked him and asked if we could have a conversation and he said, "we just had one."

I told him we hadn't and I'd like to know what he objected to in the bill--allowing children to stay on until 26? stopping insurance companies from canceling coverage when people got drastically ill or refusing coverage for prior conditions?

He too, called me a socialist, which I'm warming to after this event.

So I cried out to the group, "will anyone have a conversation with me about the issues on your signs?"

They gazed at me like kids at Disneyland and many of them laughed.

As I walked away, back to my car, some of them hooted at me and said I had bells on my shoes, which I don't understand, but one man called me a 'faggot'.

So, tell me how to engage these people in a conversation....

And I beg you, send this to all the people on your email list. I actually have believed that I could talk to Tea Party people. I'd like to. I need advice.

So, why am I a Democrat? I'm beginning to wonder why I'm not a Socialist....

Bob

Bob was the head of the search committee who brought me to CT in 1980. He was a dear, kind man who was committed to the church and social justice in profound ways. His funeral was today at St. Paul's and St. James. The beautiful sanctuary was pretty much packed. The music was incredible (a jazz quartet led "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and ended the celebration with "When the Saints...") They were fantastic. So was the organ--which was put in while I was Rector...I seem to have fallen into being around for new organs....

There were all these familiar faces--familiar except that they had all grown old! It was a joy to see people I hadn't seen for years--Bob still has the knack of bringing people together....

There were a gaggle of clergy--five us, including a former bishop--all of whom served at St. Paul's plus several others who knew Bob through his kindness and his works.

I had forgotten, over the years, what a beautiful sanctuary St. Paul's has (I still can't think of it as St. Paul's and St. James, much less--horrors!--what they call it: St. PJ's.) There is a carved wooden reredos with Jesus and St. Paul in the middle and little wooden statues of church luminaries around and beside them. The altar is an exact replica of the altar at St. John's in Waterbury!! Here's why: when I arrived, the altar was a piece of wood on top of two saw horses covered by frontals and such. Some memorial money was available and I started looking at altars. I saw the one in St. John's at a diocesan convention held there and we hired a craftsman to reproduce it. Little did I know I would spend 5 years in New Haven and 21 years in Waterbury standing behind twin altars....

The windows are not nearly so impressive as St. John's Tiffany's, but they are striking in a certain starkness. The lighting is wondrous and the sound system--though the Priest in Charge has the same difficult I have about utilizing it though he is 30+ years younger--is very good.

I really loved being at St. Paul's back when we had babies. People thought of it in those days as 'the liberal parish'. It wasn't--St. John's social outreach is remarkably more widespread than anything St. Paul's has ever done...and no one in their right mind would call St. John's "the Liberal parish". But it was "a parish of liberals"--people who spent their lives trying to accommodate a world 'dying to get better' and simply needed to be nourished and cared for and sent out full of the sacraments into the work they did. The head usher at Bob's memorial service was a guy who taught Labor History at Yale back when I knew him., We started having the laying on of hands and prayers for healing once a month on Sunday and he always came up--most everyone did, but what made him coming forward special was that he hardly had a religious bone in his body. I once asked him why he came for prayers for healing since I knew he didn't think 'healing' or 'prayer' were efficacious . He came to church for 'community', not for the religious mumbo jumbo.

"Here's what I realize," he told me, all those years ago, "there is almost nowhere in my life that I can be touched intimately without complications. I come up to be touched...."

How much truer that is today. Episcopal churches should probably have anointing and laying on of hands at every event. Being touched is so vital and so rare in our day, alas....

So, it was like a homecoming for me. I was so humbled by the people I met and so honored to be among them.

Bob did all that, from beyond the door to whatever come after death.

Marge and her daughter Liz--Marge the most left-wing person I've ever known personally and her daughter who used to babysit our children in St. Paul's Rectory--were discussing the possibility of "Everlasting life" after the liturgy. Marge said to Liz, and then to me, "do you believe in this everlasting life stuff?"

I told her I didn't critique funerals.

She persisted and Liz (bless her) said, "You're a 'man of the cloth', you must believe this stuff...."

I had to admit I have no freaking idea what is on the other side of that door. I actually don't wonder much about it. It is a mystery to me, not having passed through the door yet. And I have found, over all these years, that my admitting that I don't have the foggiest idea about 'what comes next' is, ironically, comforting to people rather than off putting.

But I do tell a story in many funeral homilies (one odd thing was 'being at a funeral' rather than 'doing the funeral'--odd to me to be in a pew....) that goes like this: St. Francis of Assisi, everyone's favorite saint, once said--"Death is not a door that closes, but a door that opens...and we enter in all new."

Bob, my friend, has gone through the door. He now knows if Francis was right or not. Or not.

Death seems like a closed door to me, at any rate. But, then, I don't know, do I?

Something to ponder and then, one day a long, long, long time from now, I pray, find out....

democrats

I am a yellow dog democrat. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, I would vote for someone's Labrador Retriever (a 'yellow dog') against the Virgin Mary if she were running for crossing guard as a Republican.

I tried being an independent but it didn't work out.

Back in 1980 (remember that long ago?) I pulled my VW Bus (what else?) into the parking lot at St. Paul's in New Haven. There was a little lady with a driver holding a box waiting on me and there was a John Anderson for President bumper sticker on my car. The little lady said, "we just won't talk about politics, will we?" and had her driver carry in a box of welcome food for us. It was a wonderful . Heart of palm, capers, some tenderloin steak so fresh and sweet you could have held it raw in you mouth and your saliva would have melted it, smoked oysters, handmade pasta, imported candies for our children, English tea biscuits, two nice bottles of wine, fresh asparagus--lots of stuff we weren't used to in Charleston, West Virginia.

She told Bern and I she just wanted to welcome us to our new home. Her name, she said, was Mary House. I later found out she was Mary "Bush" House--sister of Prescott and aunt of George. No wonder my Anderson sticker was a problem!

But being an independent didn't work out. So, after that (having been a Goldwater Republican as a teenager) I became a yellow dog democrat.

More later....

My Autumnal Equinox

My Autumnal Equinox

I stood an egg up on its end.

I listened to the crickets from the porch.

I grew like a pumpkin in its patch.

I flew to the dark side of the full moon.

I visited my left ventricle and my medulla obbligato
in a minuscule vehicle fashioned from filaments
of gold and mesh of mystery
by the Green Man in our hemlocks.

I pitched (and won!) the 7th game
of the World Series.

I became Henry Kissenger
for Halloween tricks and treats.

I talked to all the Saints
and all the Souls
and was charming and disarming to them all.

I was the first frost on the grass in the back yard.

I was Scooby Doo's balloon in the parade
and the yams at Thanksgiving dinner.

I thought of you
and knew
what
love
truly
is.


jgb 9/21/10

Sudden Autumn

I had to get up Monday night and put on sweat pants and shirt because I was cold. Autumn suddenly showed up.

This morning was so glorious I almost broke into "Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord God of Power and Might, heaven and earth are full of your Glory...."

Then I remembered something Karen Armstrong wrote about the Sanctus in her book, A History of God. The Hebrew word that translates into Latin as 'sanctus' and English as "Holy" is kaddosh.

Ms. Armstrong writes: (I looked it up) "When we use the word 'holy' today, we usually refer to a state of moral excellence. The Hebrew 'kaddosh', however, has nothing to do with morality as such but means 'otherness', a radical separation. The apparition of Yahweh on Mount Sinai had emphasized the immense gulp that had suddenly yawned between man and the divine world. Now the seraphs were crying: 'Yahweh is other! other! other!'"


I second that emotion....For me God's 'otherness' is constantly looming out far ahead of me. There is a mystery inexpressible in what I experience as 'God'. God is, to me, both 'the Holy Other' and 'the wholly Other'. What does the pot know of the Potter or the painting of its Artist?

Which is why the sort of informal, friendly, collegial way some Christians talk about God makes me uneasy. A parody of a hymn goes, "What a friend we have in Jesus, Christ Almighty, what a pal....'

A rather fundamentalist Episcopalian once asked me if I had "accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior". I told him I was still working on accepting Jesus as my 'formal' Lord and Savior. Jesus as the Savior next-door, the friendly God from down the street, 'my buddy, Jesus', just isn't part of my Theology.

I upset quite a few people back when the WWJD stuff was going on. People looking at the next moment of their lives wondering What Would Jesus Do? seemed rather vain and self-centered. I told some of them I was like Lloyd Benson to their Dan Quail: "I know Jesus, and you're not Jesus...."

Besides, the answer to the inquiry of "What Would Jesus Do?" is pretty easy to answer: Die so that we might have life...it seems to me....

A better question for me is "What the hell am I going to do?" when faced with life. I am convinced that God is always present to me, but it is usually as a silent partner. When push comes to shove, I have to make decisions that may be blessed or may be disasters....

I knew a woman in Charleston West Virginia who told me she let the Crucified One pick out her clothes each morning. "OK, Lord," she would say, staring into her closet, "what should I wear to give you glory today...?"

I swear she told me that. I simply thought the Logus, the Creator of All, might have something more pressing than being her fashion consultant. But then, she did have a lot of very nice clothes and most likely needed such guidance.

So, for this breathlessly lovely early Autumn day, just let me say thanks to the mysterium terribile et fascinans that is God. (Thanks also to Rudolf Otto for the words to 'name' the Otherness....

vacation

We spent 10 days with John and Sherrie and Mimi and Tim. I've known John since WVU days and Sherrie has been our friend since we moved to CT in 1980. Jack, Sherrie's husband couldn't go but she came anyway.

What I noticed about such old friends is that we share 'stories' from over the years. We needn't even tell them--there are key words and hints that make us think of them. Stories are the glue that holds community together, stories are the context for the content of life, stories are the web of relationships.

Of course our daughter knows most of the stories, even the ones she wasn't around for and Tim, her boyfriend, is a quick study and picks up on the narratives, becomes a part of the web easily.

Tim and Mimi have been together long enough that I should call him her 'partner', I suppose. Tim and Mimi stories are part of the context of our shared lives.

It is such a joyful thing to be around people who 'know your stories' so well they become their stories as well.

And we laughed about 90 % of the time we were awake and probably in our sleep as well. Laughter can be fraught with remembered pain or with the memory of great joy. Laughter is a web of relationship as well. Sometimes, with some people, most every thing makes you laugh....

Heinrich Ibsen said once, "there is no pain that cannot be borne if you put it in a story and tell a story about it.' That's one of the wisest and most profound things I know.

Somewhere in here about stories is a paradigm for the community of the church. Maybe someday I'll get around to making the analogy.....

big ol' tree

There is a huge horse chestnut tree in our front yard. Actually, it's on the property line between us and Bernie, who spends most of the year in Boca Raton. When it falls, as it surely will someday, it will most likely hit Bernie's house rather than ours. Most likely it should be cut down before it falls down in a storm, for everyone's sake. But it would cost a mint--Bernie could do it out of pocket change but we'd have to mortgage the dog.

Besides, it is a noble old tree and still gets leaves and still drops chestnuts--which, if you could eat them would be neat....but you can't. I've tried and rue the day....

There is something haunted house about it when it finishes dropping nuts and loses its leaves. It is about 100 feet high, I estimate, and, like chestnut trees are want, very spread out.

The nuts make Bern's hand push mower crazy and drop on cars going down Cornwall. But there you are. I really like it....besides, if my estimates are right, it is tilted toward Bernie's house and he's gone a lot and has insurance....That's not a nice attitude, I think, but so it goes....