What friends are for...

One of my college roommates sent me an email on April 1st. The message line was "Brad tries out for the WVU bowl team". When I opened it the email said: "Go Brad..." and then "April Fool".

There was a picture attached. I opened it and it was a picture of me as a college sophomore, sitting on the toilet in the apartment three of us shared....

People who knew me in that era of my life call me "Brad". Once, as an affectation in high school, I wanted to be called "J. Gordon" like "F. Scott". Anyone in my family calls me "Jimmie", except for one branch that called me "Jimmie Gordon". Most of my grown up life I've been "Jim". No one has ever called me "James" except the people who call me on the phone trying to sell me something or have me give money to some cause.

My freshman roommate in Arthur I. Boreman Hall was Mike Lawless, who graduated high school with me. Sophomore year we moved to an apartment with the greatly to be desired address of "69 Richwood Avenue". Mike was a student in mining engineering as was Mike Miano (who sent me the picture). Both Mikes' were in school a semester and working somewhere in mining the other semester. It was just lucky that they alternated semesters, so one was there when the other wasn't. Our third room mate was a kid named Doc Likens (I think his name was Henry). I have no memory of how we found him to share the three bedroom apartment over a laundromat, but, like me, he was there both semesters. We didn't call Doc "Doc" for his brilliance. I'm not sure why we did. He brought the name with him. He was the messiest person I've ever lived with. Mike Miano was the neatest.

My junior year I lived in an apartment further up Richwood Avenue with a kid two years younger than me named Jo-Jo Tagnesi. Jo-Jo and I grew up together in Anawalt. The woman who owned the apartment lived downstairs and we lived upstairs. I can't remember her name but I do remember we had to pass through part of her living space to get upstairs. So, besides Doc, I only roomed with people I already knew.

My senior year, I was a Resident Assistant in a freshman dorm that was the living place of young men and women who had received 'late admission'. That meant they applied after the deadline or were admitted after people with better grades had been. You can imagine the general atmosphere of that dorm, I suspect.  Being an RA, I didn't have a roommate.

Sitting on the toilet, I had on a yellow button-down collar shirt. I think I had five of them, all alike. Yellow was my favorite color back then. Now, most of the things I own are some shade (mostly dark) of blue.

I have big horned rimmed glasses on. The most startling thing about the picture (besides how young I was!) is that I didn't have a beard. I had a modest moustache , but no beard. I didn't grow a beard until after Bern and I got married in 1970. I've had it ever since except for two times. The first time I cut it off was during a vacation when Josh and Mimi were quite small. Funny thing was, I cut off the beard part when we stopped to stay in a motel on the way to Long Beach, NC. The kids didn't seem to notice, but the second day we were at the beach I went into the bathroom and shaved off the beard. When I came out Josh and Mimi reacted with panic and confusion, running to Bern crying. They didn't appear to recognize me! It took me several days to get back enough beard for them accept me as their father.

The second time was once when I was on Block Island. The kids were mostly grown. I was subbing at St. Ann's Church on a Sabbatical for three weeks and then Bern and some friends were coming up for another couple weeks. I just got it in my head to cut off my beard. I did and looked in a mirror and thought I looked like a slightly smaller John Goodman. I had it mostly grown back by the time Bern arrived.

I searched my memory after Mike's email and picture of me trying out for the 'bowl' team to see if there could be any more damaging photos to worry about....I'm just glad I grew up before smart phones and tablets and the Internet and U-Tube. God knows what nonsense Miano could have gotten into these days....

Monday in Easter Week

So, I didn't post on Holy Saturday or Easter...I was busy. "The girls" were here--our three most beautiful, cutest, Supreme Court Justice/Nobel Prize Winner/ Oscar winner granddaughters. Finding a spare moment, much less 20 minutes to write something on my blog is an impossibility!

Plus their parents and Mimi and Tim, and our friends John, Jack and Sherry, never mind Sumi, Josh and Cathy's 14 something pit bull (sweetest dog ever) who has trouble going down steps and needs to go out more than your average dog....Just no time to sit and type....

One way I differ from most Episcopal priests is that I am not exhausted after Holy Week and Easter. Almost all Episcopal priests take Easter Week off...just like they take the week after Christmas off...because the drama and liturgies and spectacle has worn them out. This goes to my theory that more Episcopal priests than you would have guessed are introverts. Introverts, since they feed off 'what's inside them' get drained by the Big Honkin' Holy Days. I'm always amazed at how many Episcopal priests are introverts and therefore folded and mutilated after Holy Week and Easter. I'm doubly amazed at how many introverts choose parish ministry as a career tract. What's up with that? An introvert needs a nap after the service and coffee hour on the 13th Sunday after Pentecost--never mind the Super Bowl of Easter....

Extroverts, like me, on the other hand, 'draw' energy from what's going on 'out there'--from what surrounds them. So Christmas and Easter 'energize' people like me. I could do a dozen Easter services and then drive to New York for dinner and a show. You'd be surprised at how few extroverts are Episcopal priests. Extroverts don't collapse after the Holy Days, they go to the gym or a party. Extroverts like me feed on High Holy Days and need to work off the emotional calories we consume.

My wife is an introvert. So when I come home on a normal Sunday ready to have a chat and dance the tango, she doesn't know what to do with me. But Christmas and Easter rev me up so much that it is a blessing that there will be lots of people around eating more food than they should and consuming inordinate amounts of wine so Bern doesn't have to talk me down from my Liturgy/Sugar 'high'.

Introvert priests should be sent to Sensory Deprivation Therapy after Easter. Extroverted priests should be sent to do a Triathlon. Problem solved.

My granddaughters and their parents were at the Easter Service at St. Andrew's, Northford, which was glorious. Emma, who is six, sat on the aisle and waved at me throughout the liturgy. And when I was preaching from the aisle, she laughed at the funny stories I told in the beginning. The thing was, when I got to serious stuff (I'll send my sermon at the end of this if I can remember how to copy and paste) she kept laughing. It would have distracted an introvert, but for someone like me, it just kept me going.

If you're not familiar with Carl Jung's psychology, here's a short course: INTROVERTS come from the inside out, using internal energy to be present to the external world. EXTROVERTS  come from the outside in, using the energy in the external world to fuel what is internal.

I preached at the funeral of a lovely man who sat behind my family for years at St. John's. Andrew looked like Cab Calloway and was a dear and always talked to my children as they grew. I was retired when he died and his family (all of whom were Baptists) had his funeral at Grace Baptist Church (an African American Congregation). When I started talking I thought I had five minutes worth of things to say, but I kept getting "Amen's" and "Speak it, Preacher's" and I went on for I don't know how long. Afterwards, Larry Green, the Pastor of Grace Baptist, told me I not only sounded Baptist, I sounded Black!

If Emma came to all my sermons I'd preach until she stopped laughing. (Another Jungian insight, Extroverts know when they've 'lost the audience', introverts don't have a clue because what they're saying comes from their heart, not from the reaction of the listeners....Neither is good or bad--thank God for Jung--they are just what they are.

My Easter sermon, I hope...

Easter 2013

People sometimes assume that preachers enjoy preaching on Easter. Like the Super Bowl or the World Series.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Preaching on Easter is a nightmare.

First of all, anything that could be said about Easter has already been said hundreds of times, thousands of times, tens of thousands of times.

Secondly, what has to be proclaimed on Easter is something so foreign to our human experience that it defies expression. We human beings know that 'dead things stay dead.' Dead is dead. It is an absolute, something we all agree on. Dead as a doornail. Dead and gone. Dead things stay dead....

So, over the years of being expected to say something on Easter, I have resorted, more often than not, to tricks and jokes and slight of hand.

One Easter, long ago, before I began my sermon, I broke off one of the lillies and ate it. My point was that when people told their neighbor that their priest ate an Easter Lily, their neighbor would say, “I don't believe it!” Which is exactly what the disciples said when Mary Magdelean ran to tell them Jesus had risen from the dead.

When I ate the lily, there were a few audible gasps from the congregation. “Great,” I told myself, “I've got them now!” The truth was they knew (as I obviously didn't) that a lily could be a little toxic so they weren't hanging on my every word...they were waiting to see if I keeled over....

I never ate another Lily, but I did, on Easter, get phone calls from God, Jesus, even the Easter Bunny.

One Easter I'll never forget, I had our verger dress as the Easter Bunny, a full body suit and bring in a basket full of the symbols of Easter. Then I had the children join me on the altar steps—50 or more children—and began to ask them questions about the symbols the 6 foot 4 inch Bunny had brought.

When I got to an Easter Egg, I held it up and said, “can anyone tell me something about this?”

Courtney White, who is now a Medical student at George Washington University, piped up and said, “after a while, they smell like poop.”

Which was true, as days old, boiled eggs go, but hardly the “stuff” of a Resurrection sermon.

But maybe not. Maybe Courtney had some insight into the whole thing about the Body and the Soul, the Physical and the Spiritual.

Who knows? Really, Who knows?

So I have fudged and cheated and used smoke and mirrors for Easter sermons for most of my Easter sermon life.

And when all else failed, there were always bunny ears....

But just this week—this Holy Week—my best friend John, who is psychotherpist in New Haven, called me and told me what he's started telling some of his patients.

Here's what John tells them: “You can either 'be happy' or have all the Reasons you can't be happy.”

I found that remarkable and helpful and, most likely, True.

You can either 'be happy' or HAVE all the Reasons you can't 'be happy'.

I'd prefer the word “joyful” in place of “happy”. Happiness is fleeting, Joyful is down to the bone.

So, the way I'd say it: YOU CAN BE JOYFUL OR HAVE ALL THE REASONS YOU CAN'T BE JOYFUL.

Now we're getting close to what Easter is really about.

Jesus died. Died on the cross. Died a horrible death you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

And he was dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead dead. Dead and gone.

And God simply loved Jesus back to life. Loved him that much, that powerfully, that profuoundly. God simply went into that tomb and loved Jesus back to life.

And, I believe, God is willing to do that for us—for you and me—as well.

God wants to love us—you and me—back to life.

That's God's intention on this Easter day.

The rest is up to us.

You can either 'be alive', truly alive, having abundant life, right now, and always, OR, you can have all the reasons you can't be truly and abundantly alive.

God loves you 'best of all'. No kidding, honestly, believe me, God loves you more than you imagine, more that you can imagine. God loves you enough to bring you 'back to life', back to something truly alive and abudant, now and always.

That's what the empty tomb means. That is what Mary Magdelene's message is about.

Choose Life.

Because of Easter, it truly is your choice.

You can either “have life” or have all the reasons you can't 'have life'.

The tomb is empty. God loves you 'best of all'.

It's your choice.

Choose LIFE.

Alleulia, he is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

And so are we....

Good Friday

I sandwiched in the Good Friday Liturgy at St. Andrew's in Northford between picking up my two children at Union Station in New Haven.

Mimi came at 2 p.m., Good Friday was at 7 and I picked up Josh at 9:40 p.m. Cathy and the three extremely beautiful, astonishingly smart granddaughters and Sumi, the dog, came while I was away reading the Passion from John in Northford. Tim comes on the train tomorrow, then all will be well.

On the way from St. Andrew's to Union Station to get Josh, two frightening things happened.

First, four cars careening through traffic passed me on I 91 about 20 miles faster than my 75. I actually thought they were racing each other. I told Josh about it and he said he'd heard of such races. Frightening.

More frightening though, was the guy parked in front of me near Union Station who put money in the meter using his smart phone. People racing on a public road, I can understand. Using a Smart Phone instead of coins, I can't. I also noticed, as I inserted quarters, that the meters down there would accept a credit card.

Maybe I've lived too long, too many Good Fridays. Put credit cards and smart phones in parking meters just aren't in my reality.

The trips back to Cheshire with Mimi and then Josh reminded me how wondrous it is to have actual. grown up adults as children.

And when Josh and I got home at 10 something, the girls were still up and still beautiful, smart and charming beyond belief....

Tomorrow a full day of children and grandchildren and significant others.

New life is what this time of year is about, right?

I'm doing good, riding high, loving it all, right now....a very GOOD Friday over all....

Maundy Thursday...ok, I'm excited now....

We did the Maundy Thursday service in the parish hall of St. Andrew's, Northford. The Cluster Churches celebrate Maundy Thursday with an Agape meal. There is a program that consists of the gospel lessons for the day and food. There is no place in the service for a sermon. After the meal, the table is cleared and we do Eucharist around the table and then process to the church to strip the altar.

It's just as well that there's no place for a sermon since my Maundy Thursday sermons have traditionally be rambling remembrances of the wondrous meals of my life: driving to 'the country' before dawn for breakfast at my step-grandmother's house in Waiteville, WV; dinner on my maternal grandmother's birthday in Conklintown, up on the mountain with dozens of cousins and home-made ice-cream that gave you killer head-aches; feeding my mother after her stroke in her hospital room; the first Thanksgiving of our marriage in Cambridge, Mass, when the turkey was raw but the wine was plentiful; the awkward meals I'd bring my father to from the Nursing Home when we lived in New Haven....On and on I would go, describing dishes in great detail, talking about the people around the table, convinced that 'eating' is what tells us the most about the 'being' of human beings.

Tonight there were 10 of us and a meal of potato soup, spinach quiche, fruit and bread and cheese. Nobody washed anybody's feet. I've decided I really don't like the foot washing thing, but on the way home I remembered a Maundy Thursday past when Pauline, the shopping cart lady who came to St. John's, was at the Maundy Thursday service. She practically ran up to a chair to have her feet washed. I was there in my cassock and washed them in the warm water the altar guild had provided. It was terribly and profoundly humbling to do that for her. But what was truly transformational was when she jumped up and told me to sit down and gently, kindly, washed my feet. Maybe I just think it will never get better than that which makes me not like foot washing. Next year I will, just to give it another chance to humble and transform me.

I checked my file of sermons and found a Maundy Thursday sermon for 2008. I was shocked since I never thought I wrote any of them down. The reason I did was that some of the people who worked with me told me the Maundy Thursday ramblings were, well, too rambling. This is, to my knowledge the only Maundy Thursday sermon I ever wrote down. So, since I'm not getting excited about Holy Week because Mimi will come tomorrow and Cathy and the girls will arrive and Tim and Josh will come Saturday morning and I've been reminded of how much I love Holy Week and Easter.

Maundy Thursday 2008

Maundy Thursday is always my favorite holy day

And I always talk about eating.

And often I get too long winded and go on and on and people wonder when I’ll ever finish.

Something about ‘meals’ keeps me talking beyond what is necessary.

So, this year I wrote it down so it would be controlled and less than 10 minutes and you wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d wandered off into some crack in my brain and wouldn’t be back for a while!

Easter dinner is special in our home. We aren’t surrounded by ‘family’ so we have invented a ‘family’ for holidays. We have friends who come to share our table on Thanksgiving and Christmas and, most of all, for me, on Easter.

John will be there—a friend of mine since college who lives in New Haven and is a Warden at Christ Church. West Virginians through and through—John and I. We have a patois that is Mountain Talk that few can follow if they didn’t grow up in that lush and deserted place.

He’ll call me and say, “Hey, Jim….”

And I’ll answer, “Hey, John…” and we’re off and running about the dogs that won’t hunt and the crazy aunts and stuff no one else understands.

Jack and Sherry will be there—our friends who we met when we lived in New Haven. They are southerners—Virginia and South Carolina. They usually bring a country ham and dandelion risotto and a Green Salad (which is shredded vegetables and pecans in lime Jello for those not familiar with southern cuisine) for Easter dinner.

I know John and Jack and Sherry as well as I know myself. We rub against each other in ways that make life make sense.

And Mimi will be there. My ‘princess’, my love, my precious girl. She is nearing 30 but she is still my baby girl. An hour with Mimi is like an eternity in heaven for me. I love her so. She is so wondrous—did you know she has become a girl scout leader in Brooklyn for young girls from the projects? She raises money for the American Ballet Theater for a living, but she embraces young girls who need a mentor to make her life meaningful. She is so precious to me I can hardly speak of her without weeping. And she will be at the table.

This year, we will have ‘family’. Uncle Frankie and his son, Anthony—bern’s favorite cousin, and his daughter Francis and her life-partner Lisa will be at the table. They hale from West Virginia but all live in Rhode Island now. They will be there, bringing memories and stories that would otherwise not be there.

And that is what the meal is about, after all, the telling of stories to help us ‘remember’ and to give us hope to go on. And we will eat the ham and the onion pie and the deviled eggs and the salad and the scalloped potatoes and tell the stories and be present—so remarkably present—to what is alive and real and wondrous, even in the sad stories of Aunt Annie’s death and the fact that Josh and Cathy and our granddaughters, Morgan and Emma are in Taiwan this Easter and not with us. They will gather around other tables—not to celebrate the resurrection because they are either Buddhists or nothing at all—but they will gather around a table to eat and tell stories and love each other and be present—so present—to the heart of God.

That’s what this night is about. How being around a table, sharing food, telling stories, loving each other, hoping for the future, wondering what happens next….

That’s what this night’s about. A table set and full of food. Family and friends gathered. Passing the bread, sharing the wine….wondering what will happen next.

Because Jesus sat around that table so long ago and shared his body and his blood with those he loved and those he would never know.

Just sitting at a table, eating with those you love, is a holy thing. A holy thing. A holy thing. Remember that always. Remember that. Remember…

It's holy week, I should be excited...

But, instead, I just feel kinda blah. Half-way through the 10 day regimen of anti-biotics for my pneumonia, I still feel a bit punk.

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, my favorite holy day of the year. Maybe I'll click into 'holy week fever' tomorrow.

I talked to Bea today about hawks. If you drive down Rt. 9 toward the shoreline, you'll see dozens of hawks soaring above the highway. They seem to never flap their wings, just moving up and down on the air currents. Bea has a hawk on her property and she used to worry that one of them would snatch her little dog, Bela.

Once I was walking the labyrinth at St. James in Higganum and a hawk, who must consider the labyrinth part of his territory, sat in a low branch of a tree and watched me do the whole walk. It is hard to be focused on walking a labyrinth when a hawk is watching you. I know I'm lots bigger than a hawk, but they are intimidating birds.

A few days ago I watched a golden hawk, who considers our property as part of his territory, soar and dip for 20 minuets without once flapping his wings.

Imagine how amazing that kind of flight must be! Humans always long to fly, but I think flying like a hawk would be the ultimate experience of flight.

That's just what I imagine. I could be wrong since I feel so blah and punk and not quite right....

creature sleep

So, Luke, our cat, isn't allowed in our bedroom at night. He sleeps on our bed a lot of the day but if he's in there at night he'll walk on our faces and want out to get to his litter box and generally make the night unpleasant.

Bela, the dog, does sleep with us. He starts out between up with his head up by ours and at some point he moves down in the bed and then comes back. Somewhere in the night, he wraps himself around my head on my pillow and often I wake up with a Puli hat.

But when Bern gets up, almost always before me, she lets Luke in the bedroom. He makes a wondrous little sound as he runs in, something like 'berrrrraaa' and jumps on the bed. We three--the dog and cat and I sleep for a while, but Luke then wants water and goes into the bathroom and makes an awful noise until I get up and fill a glass with water and put it on the floor for him. He drinks for a while--we worry, since he is 11 or 12 and drinks a lot of water, that he's failing, but there is no evidence of that.

Then he goes down and Bern feeds him breakfast and then he comes back up and Bela and I are asleep and when we wake up, Luke is with us.

I can't express how much I enjoy sleeping the creature sleep with Bela and Luke. It's something that I just don't understand. Sometimes the two of them are laying on the bed, touching and I reach out to touch them both and then doze off again.

I wouldn't recommend finding a Puli and a Maine Coon Cat to see if you like this morning ritual. Once you have them, they are part of your life and you may not long for such a commitment and connection.

But this I know and know fair well, waking up with a Puli and a Coon Cat as the world turns toward Spring and morning comes earlier....well, for me, that's about as good as it gets....Really....

I'm almost ready to take my taxes to the tax lady

Taxes, for 'ministers of the gospel' are a little odd, so I'm glad Jane is there since she's seen me through them for a bunch of years now.

Here's the oddest part of taxes for 'ministers of the gospel'. We are, by law, allowed to not declare any income that we can demonstrate went to the cost of housing. The history of this IRS allowance goes back to the point where it applied to ministers, school teachers and members of the armed forces. Over the decades the other two groups lost the exemption, but the Church, for all its flaws and warts, still is a mighty lobby in Congress. So it is still true.

So, if I can verify it, I don't have to declare any income for utilities, mortgage, repairs, improvements even toilet paper, if I have the receipts. AND, get this, I can still deduct my mortgage interest! Talk about 'double dipping'. Amazing. And, as Conkrite used to say, 'that's the way it is...."

Every penny I get paid by the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry is, on my W-2 form "housing". Not declared as income. And whatever beyond that is housing expenses I can deduct from my Church Pension Fund payments and not declare.

SS, of course, which both Bern and I get, is not taxed since the money I make working is 'housing' and not income though I make enough that if it were income I'd have to give $ back to SS. Go figure....

Here's the problem. We did some major stuff last year:
        new roof--$11,500
        paint house--$5,900
        new kitchen--$16,000

Add that $33,400 to the normal $24,000 in housing expenses and chances are, we'll pay no taxes this year and get a load of money back from both the Feds and the State.

My question for Jane is going to be this: can we spread this out a bit AND will this tax filing flag us for an audit?

I can pass the audit, it's just that I've been told it's a pain.

So, here's the thing: The Church Pension fund is a good reason to feel a call to priesthood in the Episcopal Church. We had more income this year than we ever had when I was working full time. Is that crazy?

And now my biggest worry is that I might be audited by the IRS. Is this life 'through the looking-glass or what?'