Oh Lord, thank God for Molly James!

I've been locked off my blog page for almost a week.

Something weird happened. I was asked for a password and since my blog was set us by Sandy Carlson years ago, I didn't remember if I remembered it. I didn't and I was locked off my blog for three days.

After three days I was allowed to change my password and then was told I was still prohibited from seeing my blog page.

I had all this stuff I wanted to blog about, all of which I forgot because I was prohibited to view my page.

I asked Molly James, one of the priests who works with me in the Cluster, because she is a Tech Wonder, to help me. After several emails she got a email to me from Blogger to come and it failed to help me the first and second time. The third time, in ways I do not understand, I got here and am writing here.

I love to blog. I hate the technology that allows me to do that.

Odd, I know. I just hope that tomorrow, when I do what I do--go to 'most visited' on my icon list and click on Castor Oil Tree that I'll be able to write. We'll see, I imagine.

Oh, some of those things I wanted to blog about:

*A guy in Australia got killed by his pet. His pet was a python. 'nough said about choosing your pets wisely.

*Couldn't people leave Jennifer Lawrence alone? In Winter's Bone, The Hunger Games and Silver Lining Playbook she was amazing as three totally different characters. She might be an actress for our life-time, but not is she is hounded always by every one. Leave her alone. The next two books of the "Hunger Games" trilogy are in production. Leave her be. Let her act and make us joyous.

*Since 1776 has there been anything stupider, less needed and more destructive than the 'sequester' that starts in 19 minutes, since I'm writing at 11:41 pm? We need some kindergarten teachers to handle congress....

I just pray that tomorrow when I try to get on my blog, I can.

Molly is a wonder at this point. But tomorrow comes....

odd beyond passing

Blogspace, or whatever the carrier of my blog is called, has started giving me statistics about the views of my blog.

So, I now know that in the past months this has been the audience for Under the Castor Oil Tree:

United States--649 views
Russia--77 views
Ukraine--65 views
Poland--25 views
Sweden--15 views
UK--13 views
Romania--8 views
Belarus--6 views
South Korea--6 views

So, who the hell in Russia or Belarus or South Korea, for God's sake, is looking at my blog?

Anyone who looks at it is welcome to email me at Padrejgb@aol.com--but I'd really like to hear from Romania or Sweden....

This strikes me as odd beyond passing....

A biscuit in my shoe

So, I got to church today (St. Andrew's, Northford this week) and realized there was something in my shoe. I pulled it off in the middle of the center aisle while talking with Frank and discovered one of my dog's biscuits. Now how, I asked myself, did that happen? I know Bela didn't drop it in for safe keeping because he will eat whatever you give him immediately. My shoe was downstairs--actually it is a ankle high boot that I bought when I wore out Harriet's father's boots that she gave me when he died.

Marvin was his name and he was a wonderful man. And I got some of this clothes along with his boots (which were practically brand new). Some sweaters I still have. There was something almost holy about wearing Marvin's boots and sweaters--something sweet and touching. But I wore them out and had to buy new boots and today, when I got to church, found a dog biscuit in the left one.

Why didn't I notice it when I walked Bela and the had breakfast and then drove to Northford? How can you have a dog biscuit in your shoe for a couple of hours and not notice? But, be that as it may, that was what happened.

There is a great song from the musical "Godspell" about 'putting a pebble in your shoe' and calling the pebble 'Dare' and walking with the pebble in your shoe to remind you of how wondrous and holy it is just to be able to walk the road of life.

Having a dog biscuit in your shoe is not the thing of song, I don't think. It's just weird and strange. Frank told me when he had a greyhound the dog would sometimes hide biscuits in his shoes. It was a rather wondrous thing to find a dog treat in my shoe while talking to one of the few people (I imagine) in the Universe who has experienced the same thing. Ponder that.

Frank is a wonderful man cut from the same cloth as Marvin. I'd gladly wear Frank's shoes and sweaters. Frank works to curtail human trafficing. He spends time on the streets of cities with prostitutes, offering them a path to living a more normal life. How good a thing to do is that?

And just imagine, he used to find dog biscuits in his shoes the way I did this morning.

All this is beyond me. Just too amazing, life is. Just walking through it should keep us astonished. We should put a pebble in our shoe and call it Dare and walk on into the mystery and magic of life.

Really.

Dirty Snow

OK, the snow has stayed around so long that it's kinda nasty by now. It has shrunk, so three feet has become a foot and a half, but it is all dirty and frozen multiple times and...well, nasty.

Once I did love to watch the snow
So lovely, white and pure you know,

But now it is no fun to see,
So dirty, frozen and nasty.

The snow is old, it's been two weeks
Since it fell, deep drifts, deeper peaks.
Lovely then and so ugly now,
Moved by shovel, blower and plow.

My dog's confused and troubled too
'Bout where to pee and where to poo,
Since snow obscures the normal land
Where smells are obviously at hand.

The snow has stayed beyond its time
And I am running out of rhyme,
But warmer weather I do seek,
Yes, warmer weather I do seek.

Robins in the horse chestnut tree

We have a huge Horse Chestnut tree in our front yard. It's probably 100 feet high and we've had branches cut of it after storms of the past. I keep thinking it will be uprooted in the next high winds and rip down the electrical lines for the block--better, perhaps, than falling on our house or our neighbor's house.

The other day I saw nine robins in the tree. It was sunny and cold and there are still almost two feet of snow on the ground after a week of 45 degree weather. Nine robins. I counted them over and again and wondered if they were year-round robins or robins that just got home. They were all fat, if confused, so I imagined they had come back a bit too soon. They were all males and I wondered where their mates were since robins are pretty monogamous.

It's very cold tonight and I wonder where they are and how they're doing.

We live in a house built in 1850 so no two windows are the same size and the kitchen door doesn't quite fit and cold air comes through the storm door around the edges. Since we're going to Baltimore for a few days, I came down and found that Bern had put a flannel sheet over the door with safety pins and other things. It worked wondrously, much better than the stole of mine that we had wedged into the openings in the door.

All this for Maggie, the bird. She was an awful bird when her companion Rainy was alive--constantly annoying Rainy and being just too bossy. But after Rainy died during one of our trips to Baltimore, Maggie has become a delight. Just as Luke, the cat, bloomed as an 'only cat' after the other three died, Maggie has become a joy. Bern has a huge humidifier by her cage and she likes to sit near it and fluff her feathers in the mist. And she listens to classical music all day on WSHU and sings along and dances from time to time. She throws herself against the side of the cage when her food or water is low so we will change them.

And the flannel sheet will keep her warm while we're away. We take the dog in and go to Baltimore in the morning and will come home Wednesday after both Josh and Cathy are home from work since I have a class on Thursday night and we can get the dog in the a.m. rather than after 3.

So, I won't write for a day or two. Will be knee deep in granddaughters for a few days.

As much joy and that is, I have become more and more adverse to travel. I am a 'home-body' now and don't like to sleep anywhere but my own bed.

So we won't be going on any cruises anytime soon although, if I were a betting man I would bet that there are going to be some real deals on Caribbean cruises in the next 6 months...just guessing....

Putting up with me a while longer....

So, I went for my physical Friday. My doctor is kind and good and hates yelling at me about smoking and drinking too much wine and not eating right and not exercising enough. He really doesn't yell--which would be bearable, actually--he cajoles and kids and implores, none of which works nearly as well as yelling could.

I hate yelling and will do most anything if you yell at me....

But here's the amazing stuff. My blood pressure was 119/60, my bad cholesterol was half what it was and my good cholesterol was double what it was and I'd lost weight and my liver functions were better than normal.

He told me to keep doing what I've been doing--which is just exactly what I've always done: eaten what I liked, smoked, drank wine and exercised a bit more than most people but nothing extreme. And I sleep 8 or 9 hours a night and just love being alive. Which is what I might be--not being hit by a bus or a meteorite--for a bit longer.

If you don't mind putting up with me a bit longer, I'm glad to hang around....

Is there life after funerals?

OK, over my 38 years as an Episcopal priest, I've officiated at between 800 and 900 funerals. I averaged between 35 and 45 for my 20+ years at St. John's in Waterbury (St. John's was 'the parish' of lots of folks I never encountered while they were living but who I walked to their graves). The one thing I know is that I've done more baptisms than funerals, so, in a way, I'm still ahead of the game.

Funerals are one of the most important things a priest does. It is a time of raw and exposed emotions and making sure it is a decent and orderly transition from this life to what comes next is vitally important. So I take my participation in funerals very seriously.

Funerals are times that can heal and restore long suffering relationships among family...and, funerals can rip apart the very fabric of a family's life going forward.

Today I did a funeral unlike any of the others I've ever done. It was as strange and eerie and weird and painful as anything I've ever experienced as a priest. I must write about it, if for no other reason but to lift the cloud from my heart and mind.

A week or 10 days ago, I got a call from John (not his real name) who told me his wife Mary was in hospice care and wanted me to be a part of her funeral when the time came. I remembered them, out of all the weddings I've done because I liked them so and John was the most nervous groom I've ever known. When I said to him, "repeat after me, 'I John take you Mary....'" He said, "I Mary take you John...." We tried again and he did the same thing. By that time the wedding party and the congregation were in hysterics and he said, loudly, "What? What?"

She had grown up at St. John's and I knew lots of her family. John remembered the classes they attended and told me I'd told them "you guys are going to make it". I don't remember that, but they did, for 17 years, the last 4 of which Mary battled cancer. When they were married their year old daughter was dressed as a flower girl and almost made it down the aisle before rushing into a pew with her grandmother....Of course I remembered them, I told John.

Mary had come back to CT from a hospital in Boston and then had to go to a local hospital in the middle of the snow storm. John was out plowing out their street and house so he could bring her home when she was released. As he battled the snow, Mary  died. For some reason, he wasn't called to the hospital from his pickup and when he arrived she had been pronounced. Her parents were there when she died, but John wasn't.

There was some rather extreme scene in Mary's room and the upshot of that, whatever it was, was that John and Mary's daughter and Mary's parents chose not to attend the funeral. So there was John, without his daughter and his in laws, to grieve alone.,

I don't judge anyone in all this--as I said, funerals can tear a family apart. But it has caused me to ponder what, if anything, could keep me from my child's funeral or what, if anything, could keep me from my mother's funeral.

Some of Mary's brothers were there so this unthinkable rift isn't along any clear lines. And, it was as troubling a funeral as I've ever experienced. What can ever span the divide such actions have created? How can any of them 'move on' with such a conflict raw in their throats? What healing can there be to soothe such pain?

On the way back from the cemetery, the funeral director (a great guy I've worked with many times) and I talked about how we would never forget this funeral, how it would haunt us for years, how we just couldn't get our heads or hearts around it.

My daughter laid to rest without me there. My parent buried without me present....I just have no categories to fit that into. And what does it say about the legacy and memory of Mary--who was a lovely, wondrous woman who battled bravely and whose death left those she loved so bitter and hurt and angry that they could not be together to grieve and say 'good-bye'.

A chapter in the stuff I've written since I retired is called "Is there Life after Funerals?" I may need to revise it to include this funeral, though I'm not sure I understand it enough to say anything of insight or value about it.

Ponder this: What pain/anger/bitterness could keep you from your child's funeral....or your mother's....?

I'm out of categories and compartments to fit all that into....