My aunt Georgia (we called her 'Georgie') was my mother's younger sister. Her husband, Jim, got 'shell shocked' in the Pacific during WWII. Today we would call it Traumatic Stress Syndrome and would, hopefully, have helped him reintegrate into civilian life. But Jim didn't. He had spells of amnesia and once was missing for a long time, turning up in San Diego, if I remember correctly. He had been in the Navy so that would make sense, that in his not-knowing-who-he was he would have found himself in a place where the Navy congregates.
Anyway, he spent most of the rest of his life in various veterans hospitals in WV and Virginia. I saw him occasionally when he was out of the V.A. system and remember visiting him in Radford once. He always called me 'Skeezics' for reasons I never understood nor questioned. Maybe he just couldn't remember my name, for all I know. But I liked him a lot. He was my favorite uncle on my mother's side, probably because he wasn't so terribly ordinary as the others. There was an edge to Uncle Jim that I enjoyed as a child. He taught me to shoot a rifle once up in an old corn field in late Autumn. Perhaps my parents should have been outraged that I was shooting a gun with a man who had spent time in mental hospitals. But we just shot at cans and bottles and since there were always gun shots around where I grew up, nobody thought anything about it. He was my uncle, after all.
Georgie was named, the family lore goes, after the doctor who delivered her, whose name was George. But my grandparents turned it into 'Georgia' from George. I guess it's lucky the doctor's name wasn't Stanislav or something like that. My maternal grandparents had some issues, it seems to me, coming up with names for their children. There was Juanette, Elsie, Cleo, Craham, Leon and Ernest (both died in adolescence) and, of course, "Georgia". You got to admit there aren't many Marys or Sues or Bobs or Richards in there.
Georgie and Jim were the parents of my two favorite first cousins: Mejol and Bradley Perkins. Mejol, again lore and legend, was named after a Native American character in a book my Aunt Georgie was reading while pregnant. I don't know about that, but I've never met another Mejol. Bradley, so the story goes, was supposedly named after my father, his uncle but my father's given name was 'Virgil Hoyt' so the last name had to do. (My youngest granddaughter is Tegan 'Hoyt', which gives me great joy....)
Any way, Mejol was always around, went on vacations with my parents and me to the Great Smokey Mountains. She once locked me in her bedroom with a copy of Catcher in the Rye with an album by Bob Dylan ("Highway 61 Revisited", I think) on her record player. When I came out of that room, I was a different person and my life has never been the same since--only better than I imagined it could be.
But enough of all that. This is about Petie, Aunt Georgie's parakeet who could talk like a three year old child. "Pete's a pretty bird" was just the beginning. In his life with Aunt Georgie, he picked up lots of words and phrases, my favorite being "Aw Shit!" which he would say at the least suggestion that he should.
Petie lived in Aunt Georgie's trailer and was sometimes in a cage. He would sit on you finger, your shoulder, your head and talk you to death. Of course, I always encouraged "Aw Shit!" and Pete was happy to oblige.
I've been thinking about people in my family a lot lately. I have only my nuclear family in my life (though do, from time to time, see Mejol and her two children and her grandchildren in Baltimore when we are there visiting Josh and Cathy and the girls)--my two kids and three granddaughters. When I grew up I was awash in family--almost a dozen aunts and uncles and the youngest of 15 first cousins until my cousin Denise was adopted by my Uncle Harvey and Aunt Elsie Ours when I was a teen.
Maybe it's the antibiotics I'm on (which are powerful, I can tell you from how they make me feel) but I've been lonely for family the last few days. Georgie was a wondrous aunt, a bit out-of-sync with the evangelical Christian ethos of our family. She smoked and had a drink from time to time, for goodness sake! That was my mother's family. My father's family were defined by tobacco, much of it chewed and alcohol, but, mostly, in moderation. I've been dwelling in those days when 'family' was a tsunami that ran over me again and again.
I think I'll call my kids tonight and just check in. And, if they're interested, tell them about Pete the Parakeet who could say "Aw, Shit!" on cue....
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
it's not over, not by half....
When I was a child in McDowell County, West Virginia, half a century ago, all the black adults in Anawalt (and it was about 50/50 Black/White) called me "Mr. Jimmy". I swear to God that was true. People older than my parents called me "Mr. Jimmy" and I called them by their first names: "Gene and Lauretha and Marcus and Richard and Flo." As a kid, I called a 60 year old woman who worked for my Uncle Russell and Aunt Gladys, "Flo". And she called me, 13 or so at the time, "Mr. Jimmy."
It makes me want to puke. It was just the way it was but I should have realized a lot sooner than I did that it was wrong. Dead wrong. Damn wrong.
So, fast forward to today. Our President is Black. Most of the most wealthy entertainers and professional athletes are Black. Black is beautiful, right? "I want to be like Mike," (meaning Jordan) is the rule, not the exception.
Integration has worked, right?
When I was in college at WVU, I became friends with the first black friend I ever had. Truth was, Ron grew up 8 miles from me and we went to high school about 1/4 mile apart. But we never met. When Ron would introduce me to other black folks, he would say, "Jim and I went to separate high schools together." I thought we were on the cusp of something wondrous and magic. The culture was going to be ONE, finally.
And then I was the priest of an almost all-black church in Charleston, West Virginia. Ron's sister and brother and law and niece were members there. We were all middle-class and college educated. This was the wave we'd be waiting to break over us all. Right?
Today I talked to a young white man who has begun his practice teaching in an urban middle school in a major metropolitan area. The school is almost 100% Black and any relationship to Dodd Middle School in Cheshire is purely coincidental. Dodd is a great school, 99% white and Asian. My friend's school, he told me, in a nightmare. He said he'd been called "white boy" by dozens of students when, in his mind, being 'white', wasn't anything of interest.
Discipline and learning in his school is all but non-existent. Hope isn't even in the equation. Most of the teachers have given up and are just going through the motions. He was very depressed, though he had decided to resist depression and give it his all.
Republican state legislatures around the country are being creative in how to deny the vote to Black and Hispanic folks. Nobody--not our Black President or anyone else--talks about the poverty gap or the racial inequality these days.
I notice that most of the drivers pulled over in Cheshire, where I live, by the police, are people of color.
Where is Lyndon Johnson when we need him?
Why is no one talking about the racial divide that colors our culture? What happened to Martin Luther King's dream?
Does anyone care? That's the question that haunts me--does anyone care?
It makes me want to puke. It was just the way it was but I should have realized a lot sooner than I did that it was wrong. Dead wrong. Damn wrong.
So, fast forward to today. Our President is Black. Most of the most wealthy entertainers and professional athletes are Black. Black is beautiful, right? "I want to be like Mike," (meaning Jordan) is the rule, not the exception.
Integration has worked, right?
When I was in college at WVU, I became friends with the first black friend I ever had. Truth was, Ron grew up 8 miles from me and we went to high school about 1/4 mile apart. But we never met. When Ron would introduce me to other black folks, he would say, "Jim and I went to separate high schools together." I thought we were on the cusp of something wondrous and magic. The culture was going to be ONE, finally.
And then I was the priest of an almost all-black church in Charleston, West Virginia. Ron's sister and brother and law and niece were members there. We were all middle-class and college educated. This was the wave we'd be waiting to break over us all. Right?
Today I talked to a young white man who has begun his practice teaching in an urban middle school in a major metropolitan area. The school is almost 100% Black and any relationship to Dodd Middle School in Cheshire is purely coincidental. Dodd is a great school, 99% white and Asian. My friend's school, he told me, in a nightmare. He said he'd been called "white boy" by dozens of students when, in his mind, being 'white', wasn't anything of interest.
Discipline and learning in his school is all but non-existent. Hope isn't even in the equation. Most of the teachers have given up and are just going through the motions. He was very depressed, though he had decided to resist depression and give it his all.
Republican state legislatures around the country are being creative in how to deny the vote to Black and Hispanic folks. Nobody--not our Black President or anyone else--talks about the poverty gap or the racial inequality these days.
I notice that most of the drivers pulled over in Cheshire, where I live, by the police, are people of color.
Where is Lyndon Johnson when we need him?
Why is no one talking about the racial divide that colors our culture? What happened to Martin Luther King's dream?
Does anyone care? That's the question that haunts me--does anyone care?
Pneumonia Winter...
My grandmother, bless her heart, used to tell me about the 'old days' when things were harder than I knew, harder than I could imagine.
One of the things she told me--my mother's mother, Lina Manona Sadler Jones--was about what she called "Pneumonia Winter". What she meant was the few warm days, late in winter, that were promises of days to come but were ephemeral, passing, and the cold would return. In February or March there would be almost a week of spring like weather and the old folks would think it was real and stop dressing warmly and generally act foolish and spring-like. And a few of them would catch pneumonia and die, back there in her childhood when antibiotics were not yet a reality.
Pneumonia, she would tell me, was God's way of culling the herd, of taking away the weakest and least fit and sending them home so when Spring really came, only those truly able to embrace it would be around to lean into the warmth.
One might think that a Grandmother shouldn't put such thoughts in a young boy's mind. Young boys, people might think, should be sheltered from the world and reality and have everything given to them sanitized and soft. But that wasn't Grammaw's way. "Reality", to 'Nonie', which is what people who weren't related called her, was simply that: reality and a young boy should learn about the world he lived in with open eyes.
I'm in my 60's. My grandmother was probably nearly that when she told me about 'pneumonia winter'. So, that's going back a century or so, to her girlhood in a time harsher than I have known or could imagine. To her--a Christian woman of the first order--Nature had it's ways to clear away the excess and make way for the New. People simply got sick and died from Pneumonia in those long ago days. It was natural and, in Nature's way, simply right.
Earlier this month there was almost a week of warm weather in March. I was delighted! The winter had grown old on me and I longed to lean into Spring. So, I didn't dress warmly those few days and generally acted foolish about the false Spring.
So, yesterday, I learned I have pneumonia. What used to be called 'walking pneumonia' since I don't need to take to my bed but walking up a flight of stairs reminds me to breathe. Unlike the old folks of my grandmother's childhood, their are antibiotics aplenty (perhaps too many) in my day, so I won't be culled from the herd. I'll be better each day until I'm well again.
But it reminded me of her. It really did. She is so long ago in my life that I don't do her the honor of memory enough. But 'pneumonia winter' brought her back near to me. I can almost hear her laugh and feel her arms around me, telling me 'it will be alright....'
So, for me, in pneumonia winter I will get the stuff together for our taxes and take it to the woman who puts it all together and sends it in.
One other thing my Mammaw used to say is this, "God will slow you down when you need to be slowed down."
Not bad wisdom. So, I'll rest up, take the antibiotic and get my taxes together....
Thanks, Mammaw. In spite of the impetus, being with you in my memory the last few days has meant the world to me. You were the best. I couldn't have asked for more....
One of the things she told me--my mother's mother, Lina Manona Sadler Jones--was about what she called "Pneumonia Winter". What she meant was the few warm days, late in winter, that were promises of days to come but were ephemeral, passing, and the cold would return. In February or March there would be almost a week of spring like weather and the old folks would think it was real and stop dressing warmly and generally act foolish and spring-like. And a few of them would catch pneumonia and die, back there in her childhood when antibiotics were not yet a reality.
Pneumonia, she would tell me, was God's way of culling the herd, of taking away the weakest and least fit and sending them home so when Spring really came, only those truly able to embrace it would be around to lean into the warmth.
One might think that a Grandmother shouldn't put such thoughts in a young boy's mind. Young boys, people might think, should be sheltered from the world and reality and have everything given to them sanitized and soft. But that wasn't Grammaw's way. "Reality", to 'Nonie', which is what people who weren't related called her, was simply that: reality and a young boy should learn about the world he lived in with open eyes.
I'm in my 60's. My grandmother was probably nearly that when she told me about 'pneumonia winter'. So, that's going back a century or so, to her girlhood in a time harsher than I have known or could imagine. To her--a Christian woman of the first order--Nature had it's ways to clear away the excess and make way for the New. People simply got sick and died from Pneumonia in those long ago days. It was natural and, in Nature's way, simply right.
Earlier this month there was almost a week of warm weather in March. I was delighted! The winter had grown old on me and I longed to lean into Spring. So, I didn't dress warmly those few days and generally acted foolish about the false Spring.
So, yesterday, I learned I have pneumonia. What used to be called 'walking pneumonia' since I don't need to take to my bed but walking up a flight of stairs reminds me to breathe. Unlike the old folks of my grandmother's childhood, their are antibiotics aplenty (perhaps too many) in my day, so I won't be culled from the herd. I'll be better each day until I'm well again.
But it reminded me of her. It really did. She is so long ago in my life that I don't do her the honor of memory enough. But 'pneumonia winter' brought her back near to me. I can almost hear her laugh and feel her arms around me, telling me 'it will be alright....'
So, for me, in pneumonia winter I will get the stuff together for our taxes and take it to the woman who puts it all together and sends it in.
One other thing my Mammaw used to say is this, "God will slow you down when you need to be slowed down."
Not bad wisdom. So, I'll rest up, take the antibiotic and get my taxes together....
Thanks, Mammaw. In spite of the impetus, being with you in my memory the last few days has meant the world to me. You were the best. I couldn't have asked for more....
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
I'm glad I remembered, even though late....
Something in the back of my brain had been muddling around, bumping into other things in the back of my brain. (I must confess that I probably have more stuff rattling around in the back of my brain than are accessible to me on a moment to moment basis. I would blame age, but it's always been that way, it seems to me. I have a very active storage room of a brain and not much up front neatly lined up on shelves.)
Anyway, I kept half-thinking (which isn't as good as thinking but a bit better than not thinking--I had a poster once with a picture of a chair and the words "Sometimes, I sits and thinks. And sometimes, I just sits."--though 'not thinking may be close to meditation and Zen and stuff....) I kept half-thinking I should go into my blog and notice when I wrote the first one. Since I'm lost in linear time, I did not think "It might have been March, 2009". I could not, for the life of me, have given a month or even a year to that first blog. But I checked and I'm only a couple of weeks late.
I'm glad I did that because today, checking the statistics of my blog space (I may be an anti-nerd but I've figured out how to do a few things by luck) I realized that for the first time ever, over 100 people viewed my blog yesterday. I'm kinda amazed since I'm not sure who would want to read the stuff I write here, but I'm also humbled that over a hundred people read something I wrote yesterday.
If you were one of them and had any positive feelings about what you read--if it made you ponder or laugh or think--I'd be very appreciative if you'd email or text or tell friends of you to check it out. I love doing it and I don't think it's bad, I think it's pretty good and since I'm writing it anyway, no matter if anyone reads it, I'd like to have it shared.
I think ("think" only being an anti-nerd) that someone could access it by googling it at castoroiltree.blogspot.com. Or just googling "under the castor oil tree" and some link might come up. This is tearing me apart, asking for you to risk recommending people check out my blog. But once I saw over a hundred people viewed it yesterday, I got greedy!
I guess it's like the book, The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes, Jr. He tells the story of the Japanese monkeys, Macacuca fuscata, that were on an island called Koshima in 1952. Scientists had been providing the monkeys with sweet potatoes since Koshima was still devastated by WW II and natural plants were not available to them. The monkeys liked the taste but the dirt where they were dropped was unpleasant.
An 18 month old female the scientists called Imo, discovered she could wash the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught her mother and friends to do this. The scientists watched between 1952 and 1958 as all the young monkeys learned to wash the sweet potatoes. "Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes."
In the fall of 1958, "a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes--the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning, there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let us further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes. THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!"
Keyes' book is a great book. It is not copyrighted on purpose so my sharing it with you is what Ken Keyes wanted.
There is, I believe, 'a critical mass' that shifts the paradigm of our lives. It happened painfully and over a long time and not completely in the Civil Rights movement. It happened, again painfully and over a long time and not completely in the Women's movement. But the hundredth monkey of the movement for GLBT rights has moved, as painfully, but a little faster and is not completed.
It's just that I saw my hundredth viewer in one day for the first time and began to imagine the whole tribe might begin to shift.
I apologize for asking. But, if you would, let people know about Under the Castor Oil Tree. Just invite them to wash their sweet potatoe.
I'll be watching the statistics to see if this works.....
And I thank you for considering the possibility of sharing this blog with others--with humility and gratefulness.
Shalom.
Anyway, I kept half-thinking (which isn't as good as thinking but a bit better than not thinking--I had a poster once with a picture of a chair and the words "Sometimes, I sits and thinks. And sometimes, I just sits."--though 'not thinking may be close to meditation and Zen and stuff....) I kept half-thinking I should go into my blog and notice when I wrote the first one. Since I'm lost in linear time, I did not think "It might have been March, 2009". I could not, for the life of me, have given a month or even a year to that first blog. But I checked and I'm only a couple of weeks late.
I'm glad I did that because today, checking the statistics of my blog space (I may be an anti-nerd but I've figured out how to do a few things by luck) I realized that for the first time ever, over 100 people viewed my blog yesterday. I'm kinda amazed since I'm not sure who would want to read the stuff I write here, but I'm also humbled that over a hundred people read something I wrote yesterday.
If you were one of them and had any positive feelings about what you read--if it made you ponder or laugh or think--I'd be very appreciative if you'd email or text or tell friends of you to check it out. I love doing it and I don't think it's bad, I think it's pretty good and since I'm writing it anyway, no matter if anyone reads it, I'd like to have it shared.
I think ("think" only being an anti-nerd) that someone could access it by googling it at castoroiltree.blogspot.com. Or just googling "under the castor oil tree" and some link might come up. This is tearing me apart, asking for you to risk recommending people check out my blog. But once I saw over a hundred people viewed it yesterday, I got greedy!
I guess it's like the book, The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes, Jr. He tells the story of the Japanese monkeys, Macacuca fuscata, that were on an island called Koshima in 1952. Scientists had been providing the monkeys with sweet potatoes since Koshima was still devastated by WW II and natural plants were not available to them. The monkeys liked the taste but the dirt where they were dropped was unpleasant.
An 18 month old female the scientists called Imo, discovered she could wash the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught her mother and friends to do this. The scientists watched between 1952 and 1958 as all the young monkeys learned to wash the sweet potatoes. "Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes."
In the fall of 1958, "a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes--the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning, there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let us further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes. THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!"
Keyes' book is a great book. It is not copyrighted on purpose so my sharing it with you is what Ken Keyes wanted.
There is, I believe, 'a critical mass' that shifts the paradigm of our lives. It happened painfully and over a long time and not completely in the Civil Rights movement. It happened, again painfully and over a long time and not completely in the Women's movement. But the hundredth monkey of the movement for GLBT rights has moved, as painfully, but a little faster and is not completed.
It's just that I saw my hundredth viewer in one day for the first time and began to imagine the whole tribe might begin to shift.
I apologize for asking. But, if you would, let people know about Under the Castor Oil Tree. Just invite them to wash their sweet potatoe.
I'll be watching the statistics to see if this works.....
And I thank you for considering the possibility of sharing this blog with others--with humility and gratefulness.
Shalom.
anniversary
I missed the anniversary of my first blog. March 8, 2009
Here it is.
Here it is.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sitting under the Castor Oil Tree
The character in the Bible I have
always been drawn to in Jonah. I identify with his story. Like Jonah, I
have experienced being taken where I didn't want to go by God and I've
been disgruntled with the way things went. The belly of a big old fish
isn't a pleasant means of travel either!
The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineva, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"
God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a castor oil tree--the impications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challanges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."
God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Ninivah...along with their cattle and beasts.
And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.
What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineva (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a Ph.D. in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.
God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcly understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me axious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.
I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.
Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.
My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).
Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.
When I was in high school, I wrote a regular colemn for the school newspaper call "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.
So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the castor oil tree and ponder somemore. And, if you wish, share my ponderings with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.
Two caveates: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.
I supose I'll just ask your tolerance.
No comme
The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineva, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"
God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a castor oil tree--the impications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challanges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."
God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Ninivah...along with their cattle and beasts.
And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.
What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineva (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a Ph.D. in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.
God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcly understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me axious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.
I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.
Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.
My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).
Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.
When I was in high school, I wrote a regular colemn for the school newspaper call "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.
So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the castor oil tree and ponder somemore. And, if you wish, share my ponderings with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.
Two caveates: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.
I supose I'll just ask your tolerance.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Rape is a bad thing...period. Full Stop.
So, what's up in Ohio? Sunday the 2 young men in Stubenville convicted of rape were sentenced and today the crazy kid who killed and wounded 6 people in his high school was given three consecutive life sentences. He showed up for his sentencing in a tee-shirt that he'd written "Killer" on in magic marker and when given a chance to speak (with his lawyer begging him not to) he stuck up his middle finger to his family and the families of the victims and said "F*ck You!"
This is Ohio, for goodness sake, the Heartland of America, the symbol of what the Tea Party want's to bring back--the Real America.
Ohio bordered West Virginia, where I grew up (West Virginia, by the way, owns the Ohio River where it flows along the state line). We always thought of Ohio the way I think about Canada now. What bad could come from Ohio?
One of the jokes of my childhood was this: "how do you get 14 West Virginians in a VW bug? Tell them it's going to Cincinnati...."
Well, the point is, CNN started a fire-storm on the internet with their coverage of the rape trial of the two young men. You can look it up, but, in short, the CNN coverage was very biased toward the two young men--high school students with good grades and athletic abilities. One of the commentators, a woman, by the way, said something like: "I can barely stand to hear this verdict. The lives of two young men have been ruined...."
Something like that. The point is, whatever good those two high school students had going for them (one black one white) Rape is a really bad thing, no kidding, honestly. It is a crime of domination and power, having little to do with sex, mostly having to do with brutality and a caveman view of who is stronger and more powerful.
When are people going to get the truth: Rape is simply wrong, horrible, despicable and can, in no way, be explained away. It is evil.
There were at least 3 candidates in safe House and Senate seats who lost last November because they got odd and squishy about rape.
I just don't get it. If Francis of Assisi had raped St. Clare it would have been indefensible and evil, no matter how much good Francis had done before or after.
Look, I'm a left-wing nut. I am ambiguous about most everything. But this I know: Rape is purely wrong.
How difficult is that to understand?
This is Ohio, for goodness sake, the Heartland of America, the symbol of what the Tea Party want's to bring back--the Real America.
Ohio bordered West Virginia, where I grew up (West Virginia, by the way, owns the Ohio River where it flows along the state line). We always thought of Ohio the way I think about Canada now. What bad could come from Ohio?
One of the jokes of my childhood was this: "how do you get 14 West Virginians in a VW bug? Tell them it's going to Cincinnati...."
Well, the point is, CNN started a fire-storm on the internet with their coverage of the rape trial of the two young men. You can look it up, but, in short, the CNN coverage was very biased toward the two young men--high school students with good grades and athletic abilities. One of the commentators, a woman, by the way, said something like: "I can barely stand to hear this verdict. The lives of two young men have been ruined...."
Something like that. The point is, whatever good those two high school students had going for them (one black one white) Rape is a really bad thing, no kidding, honestly. It is a crime of domination and power, having little to do with sex, mostly having to do with brutality and a caveman view of who is stronger and more powerful.
When are people going to get the truth: Rape is simply wrong, horrible, despicable and can, in no way, be explained away. It is evil.
There were at least 3 candidates in safe House and Senate seats who lost last November because they got odd and squishy about rape.
I just don't get it. If Francis of Assisi had raped St. Clare it would have been indefensible and evil, no matter how much good Francis had done before or after.
Look, I'm a left-wing nut. I am ambiguous about most everything. But this I know: Rape is purely wrong.
How difficult is that to understand?
Monday, March 18, 2013
Holy Week Meditations 2
(Read the passage slowly, twice, waiting to see something you haven't seen before in these familiar texts. Ponder them for 5-10 minutes in silence, read the meditation and conclude with the Collect for the Day. Listen in the silence....)
MAUNDY THURSDAY John 12.1-35
The thing I've noticed over 30+ years of Maunday Thursdays is how awkward it is for us 21st century westerners to wash each others' feet.
Feet, in our culture, are very private things. I am, like most people, embarrassed by my feet--my little toe toenails are stunted and odd looking while my big toe toenails are gnarly and thick. I love to get a pedicure but seldom do because I'm humiliated by having Asian women massage my feet--though it feels so good!
I've tried, over the years, to institute foot washing as part of the Maundy Thursday liturgy and it has never been comfortable and moving. Socks and pantyhose don't help--but one thing I believe is this: it is easier to wash someone's feet than to have someone wash yours.
Which brings us to Simon Peter and his protestations that Jesus shouldn't wash his feet, even though washing of feet in those days was as much of common hospitality as hanging up a coat and offering a drink to guests is our day. However, in spite of Peter's objections, Jesus wins him over.
Why is it so hard for us to be 'served'? Is it out culture's 'self-reliant' obsession? Is it the embarrassment of being made to feel 'special'? Why is it so difficult for us to let someone wash our feet?
Maundy Thursday is a day to ponder our inflated pride and privacy. It is a time to ponder the relationship of our fierce 'individualism' to the invitations of 'community'. It is a time to wonder how vulnerable we are willing to be in order to receive service and love.
COLLECT: Almighty Father, whose dear son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
GOOD FRIDAY John 18.1-40--19.1-37
A long reading today. Today is a long day, unrelenting in its sadness. Haven't you ever wondered why we don't call it Bad Friday instead?
John's gospel is the best for the detail and the gore, the agony and the suffering and the touching moments (giving his mother to John to be his mother; naming the slave whose ear was lost to Peter's sword--Malcus; the care of the soldiers for Jesus' cloak, things like that.)
So, the Passion, in all it's glory and all it's misery is lived out today. Over the years, I have presided many times over the traditions 3 hour liturgy of Good Friday, beginning at noon and ending at 3 p.m. It is wrenching and cleansing. When we most nearly got it right, nearly 2 hours of the the 3 were in silence with on occasional readings and prayers and the receiving of the reserved sacrament in silence as well.
My predisposition toward silence become highlighted and enhanced this week of the year. There is an old saying: "Do not speak unless your speaking can improve on the silence."
Good advice this day or any day. We fill our lives with so much noise that it is often difficult to hear the still, small voice of God over the chaos.
Keep silence this day: honor it, adore it, listen to it, ponder it.
COLLECT: Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
HOLY SATURDAY (EASTER EVE) Matthew 27.57-66
Sealing the tomb was a big deal. Jewish funeral practice involved going to anoint the body for two days before the tomb was sealed away. Part of that was honoring the dead but a big part was because medical science was practically non-existent and there were occasions when coma had been mistaken for death and there was a chance someone might 'wake up' who was thought to be dead. But in that climate of Palestine, by the third day, death was made obvious by the smell of decomposition and the tomb was sealed for good. (Remember the complaints of those Jesus asked to roll the stone from Lazareus' grave: in the wondrous King James Version it was, "Lord, he stinketh!"
The guards feared someone would steal his body and claim he was alive. So they sealed the tomb.
I sometimes ponder the things I haven't 'sealed the tomb' on in my life. There are resentments and anger and guilt and regrets that I have kept artifically alive long past their endings. I should have 'sealed the tomb' on those things and moved on with forgiveness and gratitude in my heart. But I haven't. I've kept the stink of those unreleased, unfinished emotions around for sometimes years, decades.
Ponder what emotions, thoughts, feelings, regrets and resentments you need to 'seal the tomb' on and move on, forgiven and refreshed and renewed. Ponder that on this day when we remember Jesus was dead and the tomb was sealed. Who knows how those painful things we seal in their tombs might be transformed on the Third Day....
COLLECT: O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
THE FEAST OF THE RESURRECTION (EASTER SUNDAY) Luke 24.13-49
The Emmaus Story is my favorite passage of all scripture! I love it not just as gospel truth but as a paradigm for life.
Often we flee from the pains of life and try to go to another place. Often, if we are open to possibility, it is a 'stranger' we meet on the road that will teach us and reveal truth to us. Often, hospitality to the stranger results in remarkable and wondrous insight into the burning in our hearts. Often, most often, we find that if we return to the place of suffering and pain, it is there we will be healed and made new.
On this day, I urge you to simply rejoice and be glad and party! And, as the darkness of Easter night closes in, ponder in your heart how insights come in strange ways, how returning to the place of pain brings healing, how hospitality and welcome is the gift most needed for us to give and receive.
And then say the collect and close by proclaiming once more: "Alleluia! Alleluia!! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! Alleluia!"
Collect: O God, who for our redemption gave your only begotten Son to death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the powers of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
(Dear Friends, have a profound and wondrous Holy Week and Easter. Let this week be for cleansing and healing and new life. Feel free to share these reflections with friends and family and acquaintances. Share the journey of this week with others and 'let them see Jesus' in you love and compassion and gentleness and silence and hospitality. Shalom, jim)
Jim BradleyMAUNDY THURSDAY John 12.1-35
The thing I've noticed over 30+ years of Maunday Thursdays is how awkward it is for us 21st century westerners to wash each others' feet.
Feet, in our culture, are very private things. I am, like most people, embarrassed by my feet--my little toe toenails are stunted and odd looking while my big toe toenails are gnarly and thick. I love to get a pedicure but seldom do because I'm humiliated by having Asian women massage my feet--though it feels so good!
I've tried, over the years, to institute foot washing as part of the Maundy Thursday liturgy and it has never been comfortable and moving. Socks and pantyhose don't help--but one thing I believe is this: it is easier to wash someone's feet than to have someone wash yours.
Which brings us to Simon Peter and his protestations that Jesus shouldn't wash his feet, even though washing of feet in those days was as much of common hospitality as hanging up a coat and offering a drink to guests is our day. However, in spite of Peter's objections, Jesus wins him over.
Why is it so hard for us to be 'served'? Is it out culture's 'self-reliant' obsession? Is it the embarrassment of being made to feel 'special'? Why is it so difficult for us to let someone wash our feet?
Maundy Thursday is a day to ponder our inflated pride and privacy. It is a time to ponder the relationship of our fierce 'individualism' to the invitations of 'community'. It is a time to wonder how vulnerable we are willing to be in order to receive service and love.
COLLECT: Almighty Father, whose dear son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
GOOD FRIDAY John 18.1-40--19.1-37
A long reading today. Today is a long day, unrelenting in its sadness. Haven't you ever wondered why we don't call it Bad Friday instead?
John's gospel is the best for the detail and the gore, the agony and the suffering and the touching moments (giving his mother to John to be his mother; naming the slave whose ear was lost to Peter's sword--Malcus; the care of the soldiers for Jesus' cloak, things like that.)
So, the Passion, in all it's glory and all it's misery is lived out today. Over the years, I have presided many times over the traditions 3 hour liturgy of Good Friday, beginning at noon and ending at 3 p.m. It is wrenching and cleansing. When we most nearly got it right, nearly 2 hours of the the 3 were in silence with on occasional readings and prayers and the receiving of the reserved sacrament in silence as well.
My predisposition toward silence become highlighted and enhanced this week of the year. There is an old saying: "Do not speak unless your speaking can improve on the silence."
Good advice this day or any day. We fill our lives with so much noise that it is often difficult to hear the still, small voice of God over the chaos.
Keep silence this day: honor it, adore it, listen to it, ponder it.
COLLECT: Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
HOLY SATURDAY (EASTER EVE) Matthew 27.57-66
Sealing the tomb was a big deal. Jewish funeral practice involved going to anoint the body for two days before the tomb was sealed away. Part of that was honoring the dead but a big part was because medical science was practically non-existent and there were occasions when coma had been mistaken for death and there was a chance someone might 'wake up' who was thought to be dead. But in that climate of Palestine, by the third day, death was made obvious by the smell of decomposition and the tomb was sealed for good. (Remember the complaints of those Jesus asked to roll the stone from Lazareus' grave: in the wondrous King James Version it was, "Lord, he stinketh!"
The guards feared someone would steal his body and claim he was alive. So they sealed the tomb.
I sometimes ponder the things I haven't 'sealed the tomb' on in my life. There are resentments and anger and guilt and regrets that I have kept artifically alive long past their endings. I should have 'sealed the tomb' on those things and moved on with forgiveness and gratitude in my heart. But I haven't. I've kept the stink of those unreleased, unfinished emotions around for sometimes years, decades.
Ponder what emotions, thoughts, feelings, regrets and resentments you need to 'seal the tomb' on and move on, forgiven and refreshed and renewed. Ponder that on this day when we remember Jesus was dead and the tomb was sealed. Who knows how those painful things we seal in their tombs might be transformed on the Third Day....
COLLECT: O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
THE FEAST OF THE RESURRECTION (EASTER SUNDAY) Luke 24.13-49
The Emmaus Story is my favorite passage of all scripture! I love it not just as gospel truth but as a paradigm for life.
Often we flee from the pains of life and try to go to another place. Often, if we are open to possibility, it is a 'stranger' we meet on the road that will teach us and reveal truth to us. Often, hospitality to the stranger results in remarkable and wondrous insight into the burning in our hearts. Often, most often, we find that if we return to the place of suffering and pain, it is there we will be healed and made new.
On this day, I urge you to simply rejoice and be glad and party! And, as the darkness of Easter night closes in, ponder in your heart how insights come in strange ways, how returning to the place of pain brings healing, how hospitality and welcome is the gift most needed for us to give and receive.
And then say the collect and close by proclaiming once more: "Alleluia! Alleluia!! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! Alleluia!"
Collect: O God, who for our redemption gave your only begotten Son to death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the powers of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
(Dear Friends, have a profound and wondrous Holy Week and Easter. Let this week be for cleansing and healing and new life. Feel free to share these reflections with friends and family and acquaintances. Share the journey of this week with others and 'let them see Jesus' in you love and compassion and gentleness and silence and hospitality. Shalom, jim)
padrejgb@aol.com
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