a beautiful thing

I know what it is now. I stood outside in the rain tonight long enough to know it wasn't a miracle or a wonder or something beyond explanation. I can explain it.

And, it was a beautiful thing.

End of the evening stuff. I was out on the porch noticing that it was raining and our dog hates rain and I knew a walk down the street to the parking lot of the Congregational Church wouldn't be a good idea. And then I saw it.

At first I didn't believe what I was seeing. It couldn't be there, not there, and not the way it was. But it didn't go away and I watched it long enough to get myself rather wet.

I went inside to get the dog and make him go out back. We've kept digging away at the snow to make him a labyrinth of a run in the back yard--not near enough to any of the fences, almost topped by snow, that he might decide to jump the fence and make a run for it.

I wrote a poem once about him maybe running away. If I can find it, I'll put it at the end of this thing about the beautiful thing.

I watched the beautiful thing while he went out to do the business he needed to do. We went in and I gave him a treat and started up the back steps. But I passed Luke's litter box and turned on a light to check. Yep, it needed some cleaning. So I scooped and poured into a Stop and Shop plastic bag and took Luke's 'business' out to put in the trash can on the back porch. And the beautiful thing was still there.

Here's what it looked like: a sliver of golden light hanging in the air between two big evergreens, about 3 feet off the ground. And it was beautiful, reflecting off the snow--a golden sliver in a darkened, white world.

I know it was just an icicle hanging off a limb of a sapling, reflecting light from one of those golden street lights over a hundred yards away, down on Route 10. And I stared it some more, simply appreciating how mysterious (though explainable) that little sliver of light was to me.

Beautiful. A beautiful thing. Between dog's waste and cat's waste, in the rain on a cold winter's night---something to stand in the rain and ponder and marvel about....

(I couldn't find the poem I was looking for just now, but here's another winter poem about our dog)

The Difference Between a Puli and a Man

It is just about 3 degrees Fahrenheit
according to the thermometer on my back porch.
And the wind is blowing, O, I'd say,
about 15 miles an hour.
The ice has iced over a couple of times
and everything wood and metal creaks
from the cold.

Puli dogs were built for weather like this.
When Attila left the steppes of Mongolia
to cross the known world,
conquering everything in his path
(raping and pillaging along the way)
he already had dogs
that had survived cold that killed horses,
camels, oxen and men.

Hungary, in the deepest winter of those years
we think of as long, long, long ago,
was like moving from Connecticut to Florida
for the Hun's dogs.
Their tangled, cording hair--black as midnight,
or 2 a.m.--kept them warm,
made them think Budapest was tropical
compared to the gales in winter
off the steppes.

That is the difference between a Puli dog,
like mine,
and an aging white man like me.
In the back yard, he runs in circles,
pausing only to eat ice and snow,
guarding sheep that are not there
from wolves that don't exist.
He finds a mound of ice
and splays himself on it,
feeling the genetic connection,
the DNA link, the marrow deep instinct of his breeding.
Then he grabs a stick and runs to the edge of the yard,
stopping to bark at me to come chase him.

And I, wrapped in clothes that will take five minutes
to rid myself of back inside,
call to him to return
to what aging, white men love:
central heat, fireplaces, hot coffee.

Eventually, he will return--even if that means
I have to go and get him,
playing 'catch me if you can'
all the way back to the porch.
But he could fall asleep, nestled in ice and snow,
while I would simply die of hypothermia.

That, if nothing else (and there is much else indeed!)
distinguishes me from my Puli...
Or, more accurately,
distinguishes the Puli
from his man.

jgb 2/5/07

Still trying and about to give up

My shoulders are very sore from throwing snow and ice up over 8 or 9 foot barriers--all of which is the snow I've shoveled before--just to clear the driveway.

The snow plow has deposited about a foot and a half of solid ice between my walkway to the road and the road. I'm still trying but about to give up on that.

Here's the other thing (listen up all you Facebook Fanatics) Debbie, who I've known since she was 18 and that was a lot of years and kids ago, found me on facebook and asked to be my 'friend'. Well, since she is over 25 years or so, I let her do that and then was confronted with a bunch of people wanting to put me on their calendar for my birthday. So I clicked the first one and discovered I couldn't tell her my birthday, I had to sign up for some Calendar deal, which I rejected, and rejected, and rejected, and rejected, and rejected, and rejected and rejected. Yes, beloved, I said no seven times before it let me alone and it took me seven more various clicks to get off of Facebook.

My birthday is April 17, okay.

I don't want to sign up for anything else so don't go on Facebook and ask to know my birthday because I can't tell you unless I sign up for something I don't want and even then I have to reject seven times before Calendar believes me.

I think Facebook is the 'un-social' network because it won't take 'no' for an answer.

Is there a guide book to face book, not on line, please!!!, but on paper somewhere so some luddite like me could have a f**king clue about what in the hell it is for.

Sorry, Marian and all other FB lovers. It is a nightmare. Email me, call me, lets have coffee.

No Mas Face Book.....

Found Money

I realized a day or two ago that, if I were smart, I would start a company right now to repair gutters and down spouts. Come Spring (or maybe June) when all the ice is finally gone, everyone in my neighborhood (and probably yours too) is going to need their gutters worked on. The impressive stalactites of icicles are ripping gutters away from the roofs all over New England. A growth industry is what that would be. Get in on the ground floor. I know there are people who already do that, but there will be work enough to go around.

I was looking for fingernail clippers today and since we are not the kind of people who 'have a place for everything and have everything in its place' I started searching for clippers in the baskets and bowls that we use to disorganize our lives. I don't know how other people do it--where they put stuff they might need someday but don't have a real 'place' for--we use baskets and bowls. I noticed right away that there was loose change in most every basket and bowl. So I started putting it in my pockets.

I sat down to see what I had and here's the list:

*22 dimes--$2.20
*9 nickles--$0.45
*16 quarters--$4.00
*62 pennies--$0.62
That's 7 dollars and 27 cents that I didn't realize I had.

I also found
*a 2 Euro coin
*a 2 pence piece
*50 cent piece from the Republic of Liberia
*a 100 Lina coin (Italy?)
*a 5 ptas coin (country of unknown origin)
*a token for a car wash (car wash location of unknown origin)
*a token for Courtyard Playard (whatever that is)
*some kind of commemorative coin that says "Connecticut" on it but gives no clue to the purpose of the commemoration

Pretty amazing what you can find in bowls and baskets. Where did the stuff in the second list come from? I've been places in recent years where Euros and 2 pence pieces might be used to buy something, but I've never been to Italy or Liberia or anywhere you could spend a 'ptas'.

It might be worth pondering that if we went through the baskets and bowls of our lives--places we store memories, reflections, dreams--we might find some pretty interesting and rather confounding things.

I'm promising to try to do that more often--though I'm not sure how to begin. "Found" stuff can be valuable in ways we don't ever realize.

And it will be over when?

Remember the TV commercial for Dunkin' Donuts with the little round baker knowing 'it's time to make the donuts'? The whole thing was about how fresh DD kept their stock. He starts out baking early in the 8 am with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. Weighed down by the every four hour task, by the end of the commercial and the last "time to make the donuts" he's dragging and almost weeping.

What I keep hearing in the back of my head, like a voice over, is "time to shovel the snow"....I know it's only been a month or so, but my neighbor Mark and I are having trouble remembering those halcyon days before the snows came. I know we're all dealing with this stuff, but I have as much right to whine as anyone.

Yesterday, I came home and their was a four foot long, 18 inch tall clump of snow in the middle of the entrance to the driveway. I thought it was snow and was about to drive through it when I had a moment of uncharacteristic thoughtfulness. I got out to check and sure enough, it was solid ice. It took my neighbor across the street and I about 10 minutes to chop it up enough to make two pieces we could lift. I just got my front bumper replaced and, had I driven into that clump I would have been hard pressed to explain to my insurance company why I was so stupid.

But the dangers are everywhere. We take turn walking our dog on the canal path every day. We walk about .8 miles and then back. All through the storms the park department has kept the canal reasonably plowed--you could distinguish between ice and asphalt when you walked. But yesterday they plowed and then it kept snowing for two hours, so all the ice was covered by a dusting of snow. I gave up after about 300 yards and after the dog fell twice. I thought, if he can't stand up with four legs, what chance do I have.

Just as we turned back, a runner came running by with his Lab running off leash (a no-no on the canal) through the snow banks. The dog had good enough since to not run on the path, unlike his human. I asked as the runner flashed past, "Aren't you afraid you'll fall?"

"It happens," he said, "but what's the option???"

I wanted to tell him, a tread mill at a gym, but he was already gone.

As F.Scott Fitzgerald said of the wealthy, "runners are not like you and me...."

And our effort to compete with Japan and Germany and China in education is being thwarted since our school children are seldom in school

And it will all be over When?

S*** my Mam-maw said...

The success of the book and TV series "S*** my dad said" (the book is hysterical, I haven't seen the William Shatner TV show--he's still Captain Kirk to me....) inspired me to try to write down some of the pithy wisdom of my maternal Grandmother, Lina Manona Sadler Jones. There were 16 of us first cousins--I was next to the youngest. My Uncle Harvey and Aunt Elsie adopted Denise when I was a teenager and she was 6 or 7. So, until she entered the family I'd had a long run and the youngest of 15 first cousins. And people wonder why I'm spoiled....

Mam-maw, which is what we called her, was a saintly woman, a real church goer and played piano for the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Conklintown, WV. She was also very funny and not a little wise.

I'll just give you three of her sayings.

Mam-maw divided the world into "Church People" and "non Church People". She was pretty inclusive since "Church People" contained more than just Pilgrim Holiness folks. But not Roman Catholics, which isn't as bad as it sounds since I doubt if she knew more than a handful of RC's in her life. There certainly weren't any in Conklintown or O'Toole and probably not in Jenkinjones. There were two Catholic families in Anawalt and Mam-maw once said of Mrs. Sante, who taught second grade at Anawalt Junior High School, "Mrs. Sante is like church people...." She'd say, "Those Thompkins girls used to be church people" or, 'does that boy you play with come from Church People?" I'm kinda the same way--but for me the world is divided into "Pet people" and people who don't have pets. I don't get people who aren't "Pet people", they aren't like me....

The two sayings I've been thinking about recently are these:

"You have to be bigger than the weather...." When any of us would complain that it's too hot, too cold, to rainy, too dry, she would shake her head and say "You've got to be bigger than the weather...go out and play (or) go read a book (or) write someone a letter..." which ever was the medicine for how the weather ailed us.

The other one was "You're old enough that your wants won't hurt you...." That came whenever one of us complained that there was something we didn't have that we really 'wanted'....I still whisper than one to myself from time to time, mostly when I see a Lexus or a Jaguar .

Lord help me, if Mam-maw could hear me say, "It's too cold and snowy, I want spring to come...."

I can hear her delight in stringing together two aphorisms: "Jimmy Gordon, you're old enough that your wants won't hurt you and you need to be bigger than the weather."

I'm not sure if Episcopalians qualified as 'church people' but since my cousin Mejol and I both ended up Anglican and since Mam-maw's grandchildren, willful, want-ful and whiny as they were, ultimately could do no wrong in her eyes, we probably would make the "church people" cut....

trying to be flexible

I wrote what I readily admit was a rant about Face book. My apologies to many--especially M.C.--for that. the comments told me I was being unreasonable and inflexible. So today I offered friend-ness (not friendship, that isn't mutually exclusive--but it isn't the same thing) to a whole bunch of people. I got lots of emails saying so-and-so accepted my invitation to friend-ness. I also got messages from people. And someone wrote on my 'wall'. So I spent well over an hour trying to figure out what 'my wall' was and to negotiate the Face book universe. They kept asking me for my password--which I know...it is ******. But every time I changed screens, they asked me for ****** again and promised me that Face Book--like an entity, would not remember my password.

Why? I wondered since everyone else gives me that choice like Blogger.Com and everyone else.

So I spent over an hour I could have spent writing or shoveling snow, reading or shoveling snow, going to the library or shoveling snow, pondering deep thoughts or shoveling snow...you get the idea.

I need a guide and mentor to negotiate Face Book. I have no idea how to send a message and , beyond that, no idea where my message would go--all my 'friends'? nowhere? everywhere?

Look, it took me several weeks to learn how to send an e-mail and longer than that to learn how to blog successfully. If Face Book takes as much time as I spent today--to no value so far as I can tell--why would I ever look at it? Plus I had all these messages from people I know--my friend-ness peeps--that I don't know how to respond to or if I should.

I feel like a stranger in the strange land of Face Book. If today is any example, I don't have time to do it. Plus, how do I get rid of the dozens of messages? Plus/plus, what do I do about all the people who want friend-ness extended, about 200 until I quit counting, most of whom I don't know but who share a friend-ness person or two with me, so they say?

To me, at this point, Face Book is neither "social" or a "network" in any way I consider those two terms.

What do I do? Don't "Face Book me"--what a weird verb, by the way--email me or call me with advice. Or, best of all, write me a letter and send it through the mail. I really pay attention to letters since I get so few in this age of electronic communication. Like, for example, this blog.....

it isn't finished....

Yesterday I shoveled slush and ice for 90 minutes with my neighbor. It didn't take as long as the big snow did, but it was harder, heavier, messier. The big snow shoveling was like a great workout--yesterday was like torture! Besides, I leaned out all out upstairs window with a putter and knocked down all the icicles I could reach. Some were taller than me....then I heard on the radio that it isn't finished...more snow, maybe another foot, on Friday. It isn't finished.

I'm supply priest at Emmanuel, Killingworth this month. It's a great little church full of interesting people. This coming Sunday is the Annual Meeting and a lunch so the Sr. Warden politely suggested it might be best to cut my sermon a little short....though I don't think of them as very long. I of course agreed and was reminded of my making that request to someone years ago. I thought I'd share that story here.

Back, 20+ years ago, when I arrived at St. John's Waterbury, the parish was a member of the WACC (Waterbury Area Council of Churches). The tradition, on Good Friday, was to meet at one church or another for 'the seven last words of Christ', during which seven preachers preached seven short sermons....Since WACC had member churches from Episcopal to Church of God, that was quite a collection of preachers. Sometimes it was really good and sometimes it was dreadful.

I missed the Episcopal Good Friday service--three hours of readings, music and silence (mostly silence). I convinced the WACC worship committee that we could have the best of both worlds, that I could fit the 7 sermons into the Good Friday liturgy. So that's what we did for years until the WACC became interfaith. At that point it became clear to me that WACC could no longer sponsor a 'Good Friday' service. There was some resistance. One member even said, "Why can't we made Good Friday and inter-faith service?" At first I just stared and then tried to explain that Good Friday is distinctly Christian. It would be like trying to have an Inter-Faith Passover or an Inter-Faith Ramadan . The questioner wasn't convinced but the rest of the worship committee was.

The last Good Friday Liturgy/communion from the reserved sacrament/ 7 last words of Christ service (which never 'really' fit together all that well) was the most exciting. The first five words went over well. I told preachers they had to say within 7 minutes and the first 5 did. But the sixth word sermon was by the local AME pastor and I knew he was going to exceed the time limit because of the look he gave me when I'd told him, the week before, to hold it to 7 minutes. He didn't disappoint. He passed 10 minutes, then 12 and at that point he said, "let us return now to Bethlehem...." I wanted to shout, "You're headed in the wrong direction...."

He stopped after 22 minutes in which he covered all the major points of Jesus' life and a good chunk of AME theology.

In the silence that followed, I went to Maner Tyson, the Southern Baptist and my good friend. "There are Southern Baptists and then there's Maner," I always say.

"Maner", I whispered, "you have to cut the 7th word down to a minute...."

"It won't take even that long," he said.

The Last of the Last Words is: "It is finished."

The passage was read and Maner got up to preach.

"When he died," Maner told us, "Jesus said 'it is finished'...." He paused a moment, looking at the congregation, "But we know it wasn't....Amen."

One of the best sermons I ever heard....