I can see my house from here...

While I was out walking the dog tonight, I ascertained what I already kinda knew--we are on the landing pattern from the Hartford Springfield Airport.

Several planes passed over from the south-west heading north east and coming down while Bela sniffed month old snow and considered passing water or other bodily waste.

So, when you flying into Bradley from most anywhere south of here, you could look down and see our house. Right now it's the one with 9 foot piles of snow near the driveway. In the spring it would be the one with a multitude of brightly colored flowers. In the summer, the flowers and shrubs will be in full bloom. In the fall, there is a red maple in the back yard and a barking Puli on the deck.

So, if you fly into Bradley International Airport from the south, look down and see our house.

The one time my father visited before I went to West Virginia and collected him to come live with us for a few weeks until he started wandering away and then he lived in a nursing home in Hamden: that one time he was a free man and visiting his only child and his daughter in law and his two grand children, the stewardess noticed his last name was "Bradley".

"You're going to 'your' airport," she told him. And she brought him a free bourbon on the rocks because his name was the name of the airport whose landing path is over our house in Cheshire.

He enjoyed that wondrously and talked about it until he began to only talk about things that happened before I was born, and probably you too.

Here's what to ponder under your Castor Oil Tree today: what could you say to a stranger that would mean so much to them they'd talk about it years later?

Welcoming strangers, the Christian (and Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist) sacred writings all tell us, is like welcoming Angels unaware.

Perhaps we should all speak to a stranger every day and try to say something that makes them remember it.

How would that alter the occurring of the universe for both the stranger and us?

Something to ponder, sitting there under your Castor Oil Tree. Like Jonah...like me...like you....

The End of Life as we know it

So it won't be the rebellion in the Muslim world--Egypt, Tunisia, Libya , Iran, Birayn, and all that.

It won't be the deeply divided Federal Government or the Tea Party that does it.

It won't be global warming or climate change.

It won't be the Stock Market or Health Care or the Entitlements in the budget.

No, no, no, and once more no.

The End of Life as we know it has happened on the Farmington Canal.

The old Canal path is paved for six miles or more through Cheshire and Hamden. It begins just down the hill from where we live. We take our dog there every day to walk for about two miles--the length from Cornwall Avenue to the nest road that interrupts the Canal.

Hundreds of dogs are walked on the Canal. And people are scrupulous about picking up their dogs'...how should I put it...? bodily waste.

But since the snows began, no one carries a plastic bag with them. There is even a little container for dog poop bags at the beginning of the Canal. But for a month now, no one seems to be picking up the poop--and you can't get to the container because of the snow.

It is the snow and ice that has done it--destroyed the social contract that holds the fabric of civil life together. People always picked up their dogs' bowel movements and deposited it in the huge trash can the town provides for just such waste. But no more.

Dogs seem to love to climb up on the snow banks and do their business. Ours does, I assure you, slip-sliding away, he does his toilet. And I don't pick it up and put it where it belongs in the big huge trash can. No one does.

Worn out by winter and ice and snow the people of Cheshire leave their dogs' poop where it falls. When the melt came, it became apparent that we have all abandoned the rules of the tribe that kept us all civilized. No poop picked up. Chaos and anarchy--this is CHESHIRE for God's sake--we are citizens beyond compare, we obey the rules, we keep the trust, we bear each others' burdens and make life safe, livable, and poop free....But no more....

It has been the winter that has broken the bonds on humanity. And dog poop is the evidence that the social contract, the general agreement, the tender tendrils that bind us together into a culture and a society have been violated.

What's next we might ponder if we dare?

The end of Unions in, of all places, Wisconsin?

The Roman Catholics accepting confessions on I-phone aps?

Clarence Thomas not recluseing himself on any Supreme Court ruling involving the Health Care Bill since his wife works for a company that makes lots of money lobbying against the Health Care Bill?

The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series?

How can we survive such thoughts and events?

People of Cheshire, pick up your dogs' poop. Only then can we live in peace and know contentment....The Social Contract is a fragile thing. Only we can maintain it.

"Do-less..."

For over a week I've been what my grandmother would call "do-less". I've written almost nothing, besides the out line of the first meeting of my Mary of Magdala class that begins in March--that was good--but no prose or poetry. "Do-less" is when you can't 'do' anything. It was a common ailment among the way-faring youth of southern West Virginia.

I've tried to blame it on the milder weather. Something like a preemptive Spring Fever. But that isn't true. I know myself from years of Jungian analysis and what myself is trying to do is avoid 'what is'. I play Hearts on my computer for a couple of hours a day. I spent an hour in Stop and Shop today when what I needed would have taken 15 minutes tops. I found myself, a day or so ago, driving about a dozen miles to get home from a 5 minute trip. I go look at things that don't interest me in the least. I spent an hour in Bob's Store and didn't buy anything.

I know the symptoms of 'do-less-ness'. I'm frightened, fearful, a tad depressed.

The only way I know to deal with that is to talk about it. Since my blog is easier and cheaper than therapy, I'm going to try this first.

About 6 months ago, my urologist in Greenwich suggested I might need another therapy for the cancer that started 6 years ago and for which I had surgery and radiation and then lived 6 years thinking I was a 'survivor'.

What's wrong is my PSA. Most men over 45 know what that means. I have no idea what PSA stands for, what the real words are. But PSA shows up in blood tests for it. The gland that produces the PSA is the Prostate. Mine started producing too much 6 years ago and I had a biopsy and had Prostate Cancer. (I capitalize Cancer because where I come from, when I was a kid, before treatments became more sophisticated, people I knew called cancer, 'the Big C'. Like a capital letter and because they thought it would be a hex or something to say the word outloud....)

The prostate gland produces PSA. So when it is gone, there should be no PSA. Right? I had none right after the surgery. And for a couple of years I had PSA readings like 0.003 and 0.01. But in the past year (nine months actually) my PSA has doubled to something like 1.4 from 0.7. Minuscule if you're a healthy male under 50. (My PSA was 14.0 when I had the biopsy.) But when you don't have a prostate gland, 1.4 means there are prostate cancer cells living inside you and floating around.

Six months ago Dr. Stombakis, who did my surgery, suggested I might begin some what is called "hormone therapy". It is, in fact, "Anti-hormore therapy". You are given a drug that prevents the production of testosterone. I'd had bone scans and cat scans that showed nothing. He even said, 'the problem is, you have no cancer." I said, "whose problem is that?" His of course, since he didn't know what to do except start hormone treatment, which is what they do for the 1/3 of prostate cancer survivors whose PSA continues to rise when it shouldn't. I talked him into putting it off until my next blood test. Then Dr. Stombakis wasn't included in my insurance (though, God Bless them, the Episcopal Health people made my company pay him for almost a year. Being an Episcopalian has some perks!)

Plus I had a terrible urinary tract infection about 4 months ago and went to a hospital near me and was treated by a urologist who fixed the problem and looked like Kurt Vonnegut and WAS covered by my insurance. Well, after he got my many records and gave me a blood test, he said I needed to start the therapy.

Two doctors I trust profoundly said the same thing. Dr. Kurz said he'd not suggest it if I were 75. But I'm not 75 and would like to be some day 12 years from now. Prostate Cancer goes to the bone, not a cancer anyone wants.

So, a week from today, I'm starting the therapy and I am freaked out and 'do-less' because of it.

I just want to ask for your good thoughts and prayers, however you pray, that I'll be fine and the side-effects won't be too extreme and that I'll move through d0-less-ness and my fear and my depression and be ok until 75 and beyond.

Thank you in advance for that.

The 10 top reasons I'm joyful today

10. Linsey Lohan will not be on Letterman tonight.

9. I will not watch Letterman tonight, or ever.

8. It was warmer today and will, I'm told, be even warmer tomorrow.

7. I actually already planned the first session of my Mary of Magdala class at U Conn, Waterbury for March

6. I haven't had asthma all winter (knock on wood)

5. I'm married to Bern.

4. I have a bad Puli dog, the best cat in the Universe and two wonderful birds.

3. NPR is on all the time.

2. I'm not Lindsy Lohan OR David Letterman.

1. My President is smarter than I am (as it should be) plus my governor is too.

2.

My wife the Vet

OK, we've got this Puli. Pulik is really the singular but hey, it's Hungarian, so who knows.

Puli owners like to say, I don't have a dog, I have a Puli.

Being around one for any period of time will prove to you what that means. Bela is our second Puli. (Bela is a Hungarian man's name, whatever it means in other languages--Bartok, Lagose, Karola are three of the best known Bela's.) Our first Puli was Finney (the name of an actor named Albert--not Hungarian at all). They are independent to a fault. Extremely loyal to the Flock, but on their terms. Bela is a bit aggressive. He bit Hank Fotter once. One of the Mail Carriers on our route told Bern that Bela was the scariest dog she knew. Pat of that is that he looks so cuddly and, when the mail person comes, he throws himself against the door with abandon, snarling like crazy.

Well, this is about how Bern knows better than all the vets we've seen.

Bela had chronic ear infections. We're talking about 48 weeks a year when he would have black gook in his ear or ears, depending on whether one or both was infected at the moment. Our vets--we changed since we got him--kept giving us ear washes and drops that didn't seem to work at all unless you count making it worse as 'working'. He was also on dog Prozac because he could be aggressive. That, by the way, didn't work either.

Bern, in frustration started going on line and looking up Vet websites. She chatted with one vet who told her the ear deal was probably an allergy. I told our Vet that and she said the Doggie-Prozac was also an antihistamine so that should handle allergies.

Back to web Bern went: not only was the drug not an antihistamine, she discovered Bela should have been having twice a year blood tests since the drug could damage his liver.

She started making all his food. No corn--most dog foods have lots of corn--no chicken, she discovered some dogs are allergic to chicken, no dairy except yogurt, which he would rip out your throat for. (Dairy--lots of whey in dog food--should have occurred to us since both our kids had horrible ear infections in Charleston WV. We took them off dairy and it got better but not completely since Charleston WV is surrounded by chemical factories and has the highest ratio of ENT doctors in the world! In fact, when we left Charleston, dairy wasn't a problem anymore.) So she cooks this stuff up, mostly lamb and turkey. She puts in celery, garlic, sometimes lentils, lots of stone cut oats, sometimes rice, carrots, parsley, sometimes peas. The lamb stuff I will probably try when no one is looking....He eats it like crazy. And in the 6 weeks she's been doing it, no black gook whatsoever and he is much calmer off the drug. Plus, he's lost weight and has more energy. Oh, what I forgot, she found out that Benadryl is recommended for dogs with allergies--one tablet like you would take twice a day just in the food.

I'm going to go interview a new vet and see if she knows this stuff about allergies and Prozac and blood tests and such. If she doesn't then we'll either keep looking or figure out how to get his rabies and kennel cough and Lyme disease vaccines on some New Haven street corner from a suspicious looking guy.

The difference in his ears and general well being is remarkable. My wife, the Vet.

Still one Christmas Tree to go....

We still have one Christmas Tree in the house. The long needle pine is gone, long ago, shortly before Epiphany, though I like them up until Epiphany. Long needle pines start to decompose rapidly after a week or two. So Bern drug it out the back door and cut off most of the branches and stood what was left up next to the recycle container. Here's how long ago that was--I put out the blue box for recycle stuff out the next Tuesday. It's now under three feet of ice. We'll see it in May or so.

The fir--we always have two Christmas Trees since 40 years of relationship accumulates more ornaments than one tree can bear--is still in the dining room. Still doing well, though I doubt it's been watered for a month almost. Tomorrow is February 13--a month and a week past Epiphany and another 12 days besides that past Christmas. And still that little fir sits in our dining room, not having shed a needle yet, still green and proud. I've gotten so used to it since it went up a couple of weeks before Christmas--two months ago now (we always put them up then and decorate them during Christmas week...we used to wait until our kids came home but have long ago admitted that the trees are 'our trees', Bern's and mine and the kids no longer want any part in them). Josh and Cathy had their own tree this year. Tim and Mimi haven't yet, I don't think. I still remember when Bern and I had our first tree--but being a priest and working on Christmas meant we didn't 'go home' to what was no longer 'home' for Christmas.

Christmas trees are magical things, mystical and marvelous. I spend hours each Christmas season looking at the ornaments, remembering where they came from if I can, when they joined our lives. Christmas trees are green memory devices.

I'm trying to imagine how long the fir will be there. Looks to me it could last until June or later. Firs are sturdy little trees. I'm thinking if we leave it until June it will have lived with us for half a year. Not a bad thing, I don't think. Maybe we should all have Christmas Trees up much of the year--not with ornaments or lights, but just there, a reminder of life beyond human life, something to share your home, a member of the family in a special way.

We have lots of plants. Bern cares for them, I hardly notice. Just like she is the yard and garden person and I enjoy the colors and the variety but seldom ponder how wondrous it is.

In the midst of this frozen, white winter, that little fir has reminded me there is a Spring to come and green things and new life.

I should spend some time with that tree--it was our 'flying thing tree' this year. Each Christmas one tree has only 'flying things' on it--angels, birds, some ornaments that are flying elephants or fairies or things with balloons or wings.

Perhaps I should ponder, in the midst of the dead time of winter, how things, how life, how imagination can fly, can soar....

Not a bad meditation. I'll do that tomorrow.

Something to ponder--flight and life and greenness in the midst of ice and chill.

Future Church III

Finally finishing Wesley Frendorff's vision for the Church

Let us dream of a a church...

In which discipline is a means, not to self-justification, but to discipleship, and law is know to be a good servant but a very poor master.

A church....

In which every congregation is in a process of becoming free--autonomous--self-reliant--interdependent.

None has special status: the distinction between parish and mission gone.

But each congregation is in mission and each Christian, gifted for ministry; a crew on a freighter, no passengers on a luxury liner.

Peacemakers and healers abhorring violence in all forms (maybe even football)
{JIM HERE IN AN ASIDE--THIS ABHORRING FOOTBALL DOESN'T WORK FOR ME....} as concerned with societal healing as with individual healing; with justice as with freedom, prophetically confronting the root causes of social, political and economic ills.


A community: an open, caring, sharing household of faith where all find embrace, acceptance and affirmation.

A community: under judgment, seeking to live with its own proclamation, there fore truly love what the lord commands and desiring His promises.

And finally, let of dream of a people called....

to recognize all the absurdities in ourselves and in one another, including the absurdity that is LOVE,

serious about the call and the mission, but not, very much, about ourselves,

who, in the company of our Clown Redeemer can dance and sing and laugh and cry in worship, in ministry and even in conflict.



That's the whole thing. Remarkable. Painfully obvious and even more painfully distant from us.
I fear and mourn for the church in these days. We need a new paradigm, a new vision, a way to be transformed and be made new.

Bp. Frensdorff's words are a beginning, a challenge, something to lean into, to seek, to long for, to desire, to work toward.

It all seems so distant--his vision--and so different from the Church as it is....

But it is to be ponderer under your Castor Oil Tree...something to fuss with God about...something to dwell on.

More about the church later....

Love you all....