memories

Memories are odd things--wispy, wraith-like, shadowy creatures of the cracks and convolutions of the mind.

I sometimes tell people that if Bern wasn't around I wouldn't remember anything.

Other times I say, "If it weren't for faulty memory, I'd have no memory at all...."

Yet other times some ghostly image or sound comes into consciousness for no discernible reason at all. Like this morning. Walking downstairs to have breakfast, suddenly, out of nowhere, came this song:
"Would you like to swing on a star,
Carry moonbeams home in a jar,
And be better off than you are,
Or would you rather be a pig?
A pig is an animal with dirt on its face
Ta-da--da--da--da-da-da ta"

That's where memory fails. So all morning I've been trying to remember the rest of the song, who performed it, when it came from....Don't bother telling me I could Google it. I know, I know.

One of the things that is good about the internet is being able to find the poem that one remembered couplet came from...the capitol of some obscure country...the Latin name for Primrose--stuff like that. But sometimes, it seems to me at any rate, it is instructive to merely ponder lost memories, see if you can tease or entice them out of their hiding place in the unconscious mind, be bothered by not being able to remember....

(Isn't it amazing how "Google"--the name of a company--a noun--has become a verb. "Google it", we say all the time.

Several years ago WVU had a basketball player named Potsnagle--something like that, I don't remember exactly. He was a 6'11" center. But he was also a wonderful three point shooter. He would slip out of the post to above the foul line, take a pass and drop in a long jump shot. The announcer on TV would say, "Villanova's been Potsnagled..."


That and 'googled' are my two favorite nouns misused.)

Seminary final paper

Ok, another gem from the treasure trove of old writings Bern found.

This one is a 'gem' because it shows what a arrogant, self-serving, know-it-all jerk I was in seminary. It is, fortunately, the only seminary paper in the archive because if I was thinking and writing like this back then, I simply want no evidence available.

The Title of this final paper is "STANDING UNDER/TWICE BEYOND (an experiencing of Daly and Skinner)".

What a pretentious title!

I wrote it for David Scott, an Ethics professor and one of the most conservative members of the faculty. (Back when I was at Virginia Seminary, the student body was much more liberal than the faculty and we weren't all that liberal. So to say Dr. Scott was 'one of the most conservative' makes him quite conservative. The last time I was down at VTS, six or seven years ago, the Dean told me the Faculty--people my age--were more liberal than the student body. Go figure.)

Anyway, what I want to share about this paper, which was a discussion of Mary Daly, the feminist theologian and B.F. Skinner, the behaviorist psychologist (I have no idea any more what I was thinking when I wrote this. We must have read Skinner and Daly in the class, I guess.)

What I want to share with you was a footnote I wrote about the sentence: "But this is an attempt to understand.*" Seems harmless enough, right? But this is the footnote I wrote.

"The roots of my thinking about what is involved in 'understanding' and much of what I say about 'the Other' from a Christian perspective come from the memory of a class called "A Christian looks at other men's (sic) religiosity" at Harvard in the fall of 1970 by the Rev. Dr. R. Panikkar, a Hindu and a Christian.
The following discussion of 'understanding'--to laborious to put in the body of this paper--depends to a great extent of my memory of how Dr. Panikkar analysed the word."

OK, I've already demonstrated my acute 'political correctness by putting the (sic) after 'men's' in this footnote. I've also alluded to my powers of intellect by warning Dr. Scott that this 'discussion' is 'laborious'--i.e. very scholarly and too complicated to comprehend by people not as brilliant as Dr. Scott and ME. And, honestly, to refer to "the roots of my thinking" is beyond forgiving and unintelligible to boot. But, back to the footnote. I shall return.

"I understand. I understand myself. I have self-understanding. The self I understand is the I.
When I say what I mean...what I mean to say is.... Meaning and saying are different. There is a meaning/saying dichotomy implicit in the sentence above. And, on consideration, it is obvious that I cannot say what I mean because meaning is not saying. But through my saying you can 'understand' what I mean--the meaning of my saying--if my saying reveals to you the presupposition in which my meaning is contained.
We under-stand by pre-sup(b)-posing--by being under the position of the Other's position. In a real way, to under-stand the Other we must share the Other's position.
But if the Other is 'totally Other'--that is, does not share the presuppositions which allow understanding to occur, in the saying of the meaning--we must seek another method of encounter. Such is always the case when a Christian seeks to under-stand a non-Christian. The two do not 'stand' in the same place so that 'under' where the Christian 'stands' is not the same place as 'under' where the non-Christian 'stands'. In order to under-stand, then, we must get under-understanding and seek to transend the saying and the meaning to find 'the un-understandable place...the ground where we meet. Under-standing necessitates making an existential encounter possible by risking our own 'standing-place' to meet the Other under where he stands. That is, to meet the Other as he meets himself. That is, to BE the Other as we are ourselves. Only then, by a merging of beings, do we know the Other."

WHAT THE S*** DID ALL THAT MEAN?

I must have gotten a lot less brilliant in the 40 years since I wrote that. Or maybe Bob Dylan was right: "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now...."

David Scott, when I went to him with an independent study project--another way of saying, "I don't want to go to class"--about "The Theology of Kurt Vonnegut" agreed to let me do it and even read five of Vonnegut's books (who David had never heard of before) and took my forty page paper on that and gave me credits to graduate. I never told him five other professors had turned down the proposal, not because they'd never heard of Kurt Vonnegut, but because they thought it was a stupid idea.

That self-same Dr. David Scott gave me an A on the Skinner/Daly paper, which was, I must implore you to realize, was all as bad as that unforgivable footnote. I had a sense of something that might be interesting but I was too self-aggrandizing, too know it all to write it in some way that might make a difference to someone reading it. What a jerk I was.

Perhaps growing older is a process of 'unknowing', of leaving behind our so misplaced ideas that we are somehow smarter, more insightful, more complex, more ironic than the rest of the Human population. Perhaps growing older is coming to grips in a way that matters with the reality that 'folks are folks' and being a tree in the forest is truly good enough, good enough, better than good enough, about the best it can be.

Ponder that. I wish you would find a paper you wrote in college or grad school so you could realize what a prig you were then and then embrace what a joy you are now....

That's what I wish.

Walking Melvin home

I found another poem in the archival stash Bern found in a drawer. This one I wrote when I was in college. One night, after a movie, a friend and I discovered a little boy who had was at the movie alone. We bought him ice cream and walked him home.

WALKING MELVIN HOME

The line at the ice-cream stand
was long and very adult
and Melvin showed off.
But when my friend asked him
what was the most important
thing in the world,
he only answered--
Jesus.

The chocolate stuck to his mouth
and he was our leader:
"a little child shall lead".
And then he said you should
always be nice and sweet
to girls for if you weren't
sure to be they might
hit you.

His mother probably couldn't
make it to the theater
at ten o'clock, he said.
Or maybe she forgot the time.
So she didn't meet her little boy
who was seven years old
and walking home alone
except for
us.

But when she met us on the street
near their apartment
going the other way
and when she only stopped long enough
to kiss him right on
his chocolate mouth
and didn't ask who we were,
we knew.

And bad words and drinking
according to Melvin
will make the Devil
get you
even though his parents
did it a lot
before daddy left
and took Melvin's
brother and left behind
Melvin.

And he said good-by three times
and even kissed my friend
and left us alone
on the sidewalk.
And I can't help thinking about Melvin
and Jesus and girls
and chocolate ice cream
and a mother who passed
her son at night
with two strangers and only
Jesus.

World AIDS Day

I remember Bill. He was not the first person I knew who died from AIDS, but it is him I remember.

Bill grew up just outside of Prospect, CT and when he could he fled, going to the west coast and getting involved in movie work.

He was as gay as the day is long in mid-summer. And, he got AIDS.

His sister got it all wrong (she was a nurse I came to love as I loved Bill, but she got it wrong).

She thought he had died of AIDS, but when he showed up, fully alive and in Connecticut, she had to take back what she told people.

He started coming to St. John's. He had helpers since his disease was taking a toll on him. Jim and Lou were his helpers. They're both dead now, but not from AIDS. They were lovers from high school on, back when it was the 'love that dare not speak its name". They never had sex with anyone but each other. No AIDS for them.

At first they dropped Bill off in the parking lot and went for breakfast. Later they walked him inside and waited in the hallway for the Eucharist to end. Finally, when he needed more help, they started coming to church with him and became members until they died--Jim first, then Lou.

Evangelism, St. John's way....

Bill was so sophisticated and kind and sweet that all the older women of the parish adopted him as their son. And he was glad to be so adopted. He worried and fretted about them, called them constantly, gave back the affection they gave to him two fold.

I once asked him to speak on AIDS Sunday. I kept waiting for him to give me what he was going to say and he never did. When he got in the pulpit he said something like this: "I have AIDS and am dying slowly. But I want to clear some things up. You can't catch my disease by sharing the communion cup. You can't catch it by hugging me. You can't catch it by kissing me. We could have sex in the right way and you wouldn't catch it...."

At that point I nearly fainted.

He went on, "But I don't want to have sex with you or anybody. I just want you to know I'm safe and won't kill you and that I love you. Abide with me and I will abide with you."

I wept, so did most of the people there. What a gift he gave us. What wisdom, what Gospel he taught us.

When he finally died, it was difficult and drawn out. I'd go see him at the Hospice in Branford and beg him to die. I think he wanted to but just couldn't, not without a knock down, dragged out fight with Death.

At his funeral some friend of his were upstairs fulfilling his wishes. He wanted a little of his ashes put inside each of the white helium balloons that we would release at the end of the Eucharist.

I think he probably knew how difficult it would be to put ashes in balloons. When I went up to check, Bill was scattered all over the room and his friends were both exasperated and laughing like idiots.

"This is his last joke," one of them said, dropping Bill all over the table, the rug, into the ether.

When we released the balloons, the ashes held them down. They floated against the parish house and then rested on the roof for a long time.

We all laughed. He had taught us irony. He had taught us humor. He had taught us to laugh at the ridiculous and painful realities of life.

I love him still.

going with the dogs

Bern and I went to Ikea and bought a new bed for one of our guest rooms. Bern, as always, is rearranging our house, our space, our lives.

In that room there was a large, two-drawer chest that came with us from Charleston to New Haven to Cheshire. Bern found all this stuff I wrote some 40 years ago in it. I'm still sifting through the stuff and realize a lot of it is melodramatic and lame. But I've come across some gems.

This poem I wrote, probably as a Sophomore in college after a visit home at Easter and a conversation with a high school friend who went into the coal mines after high school. He told me about his beagle's litter of pups and how he loved them so. They kept three of the six, selling the others to people they knew. My friend, unlike me, was an avid hunter. But his story about the puppies moved me to write this poem. It had no title then but I now call it "Going with the dogs"

I must now go down and see the swollen stream
and watch the waters rush down and down again.
And I'll loose my dogs--the three of them
and watch them run free as I sit on
the hilly knoll and look down to the thicket
and then to the swollen stream.

Perhaps there will be ants in the grass
and I will watch them too,
and dread the day that comes so surely
when the dogs will be hunters and their eyes will change.

For now they are like the swollen stream,
like Spring rain, like the grass--
free and wild and in their eyes I see no fear.

But the day comes surely when the older dogs
will teach them to be hunters
and their eyes will change.

That is the worst thing about the world--
the eyes. The eyes must change--
they must see life and hold tears
and be full of fear.

But today, the day that comes surely is not yet.
So I shall look at the swollen stream
and hide my eyes from the dogs as they play
for my eyes have changed already
and have had tears
and are afraid.

ADVENT--the last time I promise

OK, here's the deal. What I typed was in the shape of an X.

The upper left arm said, reading downward, STOP
The upper right arm said, reading downward toward the middle, LOOK
The bottom left arm said, reading downward and outward AND
The bottom right arm said, reading downward and to the right LISTEN

The post was a miscarriage of all that. I don't know why. I can't fix it.

It is a sign of my commitment to sharing my ponderings to whoever the hell reads them that I do this at all, given the aggravation and annoyance it gives me!!!!

I hate the internet and all it contains. But since it exists in spite of my hatred, I'll keep writing. OK?

Advent (one more time...)

{OK, I'm going to try to recreate my earlier blog that I destroyed somehow. You'd think I'd know how to do this, given I've been doing it for several years. But I hit the wrong key sometimes and send stuff into 'the cloud', never to be heard from again. I also hit 'return' instead of 'tab' from time to time which posts blogs with only the title. Forgive....And, by the way, the time of posting on my blog has me in some time zone off the coast of California. I'm beginning this at 9:39 p.m. EST, so ignore what it says about when I wrote it.
Also, I decided to try to do this tonight instead of tomorrow since my short term memory has an expiration of about 15 hours. Ask me what I preached about on Sunday evening and I can reproduce it almost verbatim. But ask me on Monday and I'll say, "Uh, what were the lessons?"}

One thing I love about Advent is that it is about seeking the light in the gathering and deepening darkness. Days are getting shorter and shorter when Advent begins and we are called by the Prophets and the liturgy to 'look for the light'. That seems to me to be a lot like life--always looking for light in the darkness. Advent is quintessentially optimistic, just as I am. So, in loving it, I am affirming my own world view and philosophy.

I don't know how it works in the Southern Hemisphere since all the Church Year seasons would be reversed. Imagine Easter, not in Spring when all is coming to life, but in Autumn as things die. And Advent and Christmas would be in Spring moving toward summer in the Global South. The metaphors don't work south of the equator. Maybe that's one reason that Global South Anglicans and Anglicans in the Northern Hemisphere are always at odds. That's just a thought to ponder. Metaphor is important. Symbols matter. I can't conceive of Advent when it is getting lighter and lighter and warmer and warmer.

Christmas falls, in the Gregorian calendar, three of four days after the Winter Solstice. So, in fact, days are getting shorter and nights longer right up to the week of Christmas. But here's something to ponder: in the Julian Calendar--the one Julius Caesar commanded be observed--the solstice fell always on December 25. So the night of Christmas Eve was the longest night of the year and Christmas began the coming of the light.

It wasn't until Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar of the western world in 1582 that the Solstice was backed up 3 or 4 days to correspond to the actual tilt of the earth. So, for 1581 of the 2010 years of the Common Era, Christians celebrated the birth of the baby Jesus on the solstice. Talk about metaphor and symbol and the lengthening of the Light!

Back where I come from, in a place more rural and mountainous than most people can imagine, railroad tracks were like kudzu, they were omnipresent, every where. Wherever there was a coal mine, their were railroad tracks for the coal trains to take it to Pittsburgh for steel or to Roanoke and Cincinnati for Electricity. And it is hard for even me to remember how narrow and twisted the valleys were between the mountains.

Where Bern, my wife, grew up, for example, this is what it looked like:
MOUNTAIN, ALLEY, HOUSE (built wide, not deep) TWO LANE HIGHWAY (barely) HOUSE, ALLEY, STREAM, ELEVATED TRAIN TRACKS, MOUNTAIN.

Try to picture that--two rows of houses, a pitifully narrow two lane road, two alleys and a stream pinched between two mountains. From one mountain to the other in Gary #9 (Filbert was the post office) was about 50 yards. Imagine living in a valley that narrow and deep.

So, because the valleys also curved around to accommodate the mountains, the railroad tracks crossed the road over and over. At every railroad crossing there was a sign in the shape of an X. On the four arms was written

               ST0P
      LOOK      AND
           LISTEN


That was because the trains were going rather fast (to get the coal somewhere else asap) and the roads were so twisty and the mountains so intrusive that you really needed to stop, look as far as you could, and listen to hear the train whistle that was blown each time the tracks crossed a road.

You'd be amazed, I think, at how many cars got hit by trains, even with those warning signs.

Advent is like that X shaped sign for us.

STOP in the busiest time of the year to seek the Light.

LOOK for God in the hustle and bustle of the holiday time around you.

LISTEN for the Angel wings and Angel songs over the chaos and chatter and babble of the malls and the TV and the radio.

Advent is meant to 'slow us down' just when the culture is hurrying us up.

Advent is meant to have us more attentive just when the culture is most distracting.

Advent is meant to attune our senses to the presence of God in places unexpected, surprising, thought impossible.

That's what I like about Advent--it is so terribly counter-cultural. It's like standing on tip-toe, anticipating light in the deepest darkness of all.