Joy needs a new word to make it mean what I feel

Tonight Tim and Mimi called.

Tim has been a part of our family for years and years--holidays and vacations together more than I can recall....but my memory isn't that good these days.

Tim and Mimi went to Bennington College at the same time. They were friends. Then when both of them were living in NYC they became more than friends. What do you call it these days--I've lost the lingo--lovers? partners? companions?

They've lived together for (well if I had any concept of linear time I could tell you) long enough, I believe, to be 'common law' married.

But tonight they called and Mimi has a ring (beautiful black diamond--we got a picture on email) and Tim apologized for not asking my permission to ask my daughter to marry him.

Ever since Tim has been with Mimi, from the first time we met him, he's been 'family'. God, we love him. A Techie and a Musician--what could be better in this brave new world?

And it has always been obvious that he loves, loves, loves our daughter. We've spent three or four vacations (my linear time thing again) with Tim and Mimi on Long Beach, North Carolina and dozens of visits to Cheshire and our visits to Brooklyn. And he loves her. And anyone who loves Mimi is, in my book, one of the best people in the world because Mimi is so terribly lovable.

I asked him months ago if he minded if I referred to him as my 'son-in-law' and he told me he has long referred to Bern and me as his 'in laws'. New rules for a new world.

And now they are going, at some point, to get married.

There is no 'down side' to this night. Tim and Mimi are going to get married. God is in his heaven and all's right with the world....

Joy. Joy and tears of joy are with me this night..."Joy" doesn't quiet do it. I need a different word to express what I feel...."enchantment"...that just might do.

I love both of them so, so much. And I am enchanted by their news....

The Wedding Album

Our wedding album--Bern's and mine--was out on the counter where I keep red wine. I normally only drink white wine, but I like to feel sophisticated from time to time and was getting a glass of red when I noticed the wedding album.

It's out, I know, because the granddaughters were here at Easter and love to see Bern and I as younger visages of ourselves. And, Jesus Christ, we were young! I was 23 and Bern (then 'Bernadine') was 20. God help us, what were we thinking?

September 5 we'll have been married 43 years. Lots of poets and rock stars never lived 43 years and we've shared a life that long. There have been very high 'ups' in all those years and several very low 'downs'. I sometimes tell people I've been married five or six times but always to the same woman.

How those children that we were managed to stay together this long, I'll never know. Dumb luck would be my first guess. Or maybe 'love' though that got severely tested quite a few times.

I really wish I had a smart phone and could download some of the pictures from that wedding album for you to see how young and fresh and eager for lust we were in those pictures. And see family and friends that were there with us.

Bern had cousins and friends and her sister as bridesmaids. I had only friends, though my second cousin--now nearing 50--was the ring bearer. My dad was my 'best man'. I think it was the best gift I ever gave him.

Bern's parents and mine are in lots of the photos--all dead now and for years, decades.

We have Bern's wedding photo over our kitchen fire place. It's a bit of a joke. We refer to it as the "Wedding Princess" and she is stunning, beautiful, a bit mysterious, lovely. We tell the granddaughters that Bern is a Queen in the photo. Sitting in front of the fireplace is a 3 foot by 2 foot photo of me with my lion hat on taken by Fred Jenks in St. John's library over four years ago. We tell the girls that's a picture of a fool

The Queen and the fool. That's us.

I didn't have a beard when we got married, only a long moustache and a Beatles hair cut. My  hair and moustache were dark brown, nearing black. That's how young I was. Today every hair on my face and head is gray or silver or yellow/white.

I initially ask myself, "who were those people?" so young and fresh and eager for life to come. Then I ponder it all and see Bern and myself in those photos at the beginning of what has been--for all the ups and downs--a remarkable 43 years. And I remind myself that I still love and live with that incredibly young, wondrously fresh woman.

We had been a couple, on and off, since she was 14 and I was 17--now we're talking a year short of half-a-century we've been together. High school sweethearts, we were. And there we are in that album, feeding each other wedding cake, kissing, my gazing at her while she looks out into the horizon, probably wondering what she's gotten into.

I remember those incredibly young people. They did ok for a marriage. OK indeed.

Way past 'average', I'd say.

And I still gaze at her when she doesn't know I'm looking, and I see that fresh young girl and the woman she's become.

We grow old together. But deep down I'm that dark brown haired boy and she's that ethereal young Queen. They're here with us as we roll into the 60's at too fast a speed. She actually looks more like  her 43 year ago self than I do.

I don't hold that against her...I rejoice in it.

Bern is not 'the love of my life'. She is, in a real way, 'my life'. It's just 'who I AM'. I am married to Bern. Like that. And joyfully.

I'm so joyful I spent that 20 minutes with the Wedding Album. It made me realize more clearly who I am...and why....

Observing the passage of time....

I'm coming up on the anniversary of my retirement from full-time ministry three years ago. My. how time does fly when you're  having fun!

I love being retired. I have my time with the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry and my teaching at Olli at UConn's Waterbury branch and my participation in leading Making a Difference Workshops for the Mastery Foundation a few times a year. Other than that, my time is my own. What a joy. I read five books a week. I dabble in writing. I do this blog. I sleep until I wake up. I eat when I'm hungry. I hang around and bother Bern. I go to movies. I am very fortunate that the Church Pension Fund and Social Security and MACM pay me more money than I deserve. In 2012, for example, my income was greater than I ever made working full time as a priest....Imagine that and ponder how wondrous my retirement is.

But as I approach the anniversary of my retirement, I feel a twinge of nostalgia for the 20+ years I spent as Rector of St. John's, Waterbury. Until the last 3 years, those were the best years of my life.

In celebration, I want to share with you my Sermon Last. The final sermon out of well over a thousand sermons and homilies and reflections at St. John's. I'd estimate somewhere around 2500 on Sundays and Wednesdays and Holy Days. And this is the one I feel best about, feel most completed with, honor most.

Sometimes 'the last' is the best.

So I share it with you, two weeks or so before the third anniversary of its preaching.

THE LAST DANCE/DEEP IN THE OLD MAN’S PUZZLE

In one of Robertson Davies’ novels, someone asks an aging priest how, professing to be a holy man, he could devour a whole chicken and a bottle of wine at dinner. The priest answers:

“I am quite a wise old bird, but I am no desert hermit who can only prophesy when his guts are knotted in hunger. I am deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle, trying to link the wisdom of the body with the wisdom of the spirit until the two are one.

In my two decades in your midst, I have feasted on Joy and Sorrow, on the Wondrous and the Mundane, trying always to link the wisdom of the body to the wisdom of the Spirit…Deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle….

****

A few years ago, for our anniversary I gave Bern a drawing by an artist named Heather Handler. It has a weird looking tree on it and these words:

“Sit with me on hilltops, under trees and beneath the skies.

Then speak softly and tell me the story, once again,

About why we met, and how someday we’ll fly….”

That sentiment was about our relationship—Bern’s and mine—and it also speaks to me and you and our shared ministry and our relationship in this place for over twenty years.

Today—this day—is our ‘last dance’. Friday we will part. I will go my way and you will go your way. And both ways are full of hope and joy and not a little anxiety and unknown wonders. Both ways lead to this: they lead us deeper into the Old Man’s Puzzle and they lead us to flying….

There is no doubt in my mind that “why we met” was because of the will and the heart of God. But when I came here, I could not have ever imagined staying so long. And now that I am leaving, I cannot imagine leaving so soon.

Yet I know this—we, you and I, will soon learn how to fly.

Today we sit on the hilltop, beneath the sky and speak softly.

And then we part, you and I. The last dance always ends. And the future lies ahead, beckoning, inviting, always to be created….

I cannot thank you enough. I cannot thank you completely. There are not enough words—though I am a man of many words—to give that thanks in a way that matters.

Instead, I will bless you.

And these are my words of blessing: VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS, DEUS ADERIT….That means this: “Bidden or unbidden, God is present….”

Whether we call upon God or not—God is always there…profoundly there…totally there…here…and now….

I leave you, as I found you, with God in your midst and deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle.

You have let me be a part of that for these years. God was here when I arrived and God guided us—you and me—on our journey together…and God waits, ready and glorious, to lead you on as I leave and to lead me on as you stay here.

And there is this: God will teach us how to fly….And puzzle us more and more.

I love you. I adore you. I will miss you more than you imagine…more than you CAN imagine. And I bless you and thank you.

Keep trying, in every way possible, to link the wisdom of the body—WHAT YOU DO—to the wisdom of the Spirit—WHO YOU ARE.

And start trying out your wings……

April 25, 2010

The sermon I never preached...

I was checking out the documents in my computer and came across the sermon I never preached. I don't know what year it's from, though it must be recent since it mentions this blog. And I don't remember writing this and I thought I'd share it with you because it is so odd. I like odd, in case you haven't noticed...

Sermon not preached on July 8

I used a quote in my sermon last week from Saul Alinski. It is a quote that turns upside down and inside out our normal assumptions. What we say is: “seeing is believing”. What Saul Alinski said was, “When we believe it, we will see it....”

I write this blog where I ponder things that confound me. Last week I pondered things like this:

*how does the cat know I just cleaned his litter box?

*why do people wear headphones when walking on the canal that shut out the sounds of birds and bullfrogs and the wind in the trees and the sweet whisper of the water?

*how many words does my dog know?

*if Jesus were here, would he go to church?

That's the one that's really got me wondering. If Jesus were here, would he go to church?

So a call comes to the Pope's office. Some Cardinal answers it and says, “you're kidding! Oh goodness! Amazing!

The Pope asks who's calling and the Cardinal says, “your Holiness, there is good news and bad news.”

“Tell me the 'good news' first,” the Pope says.

“Jesus has come back!” the Cardinal tells him.

The Pope crosses himself and gives a prayer of great thanks. “So what could be the 'bad news'?” he asked.

The Cardinal held his hand over the phone: “He's calling collect from Salt Lake City....”

It would be weird to have Jesus in Church: If he were a reader he'd say, “The Word of Me” at the end of the lesson.

If he were receiving communion—we'd have to say, “Ah, your Body...This is, Ah, your blood.”

If Jesus came back, He wouldn't come to church to worship himself—that would give new meaning to “Narcissism”!

But if Jesus came back, I think he would come to church. Not for the worship, not for the Sacraments, not for the scriptures....but for two things....THE HYMNS and The COMMUNITY.

Today we heard about Paul's Beatific Vision. He claims it is a man he knew, but it is surely him. He was lifted (in his body or not; God knows) to the realm of heaven. And in that vision of paradise, he realizes “Power is made perfect in Weakness”. And he decides to 'boast' of his 'weakness' so God's Power can be made perfect.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus can't find community in his home town. They 'don't see it, because they don't believe it'. He is too familiar to them. They know his family. How dare he claim to be something they know he isn't.

Community doesn't “happen”. We create it. And we create it out of our weakness...out of our failure to be a community. We will only 'see' it when 'we believe it'.

There is a story of a people who lived on the edge of the sea but never sailed it. But it came to them that there was 'A Beautiful Land' just across the sea, so they build an enormous ship and set sail from all they knew to find that “Beautiful Land”.

The problem was, they were a landed people and were terrible sailors. People kept falling overboard so the wondrous ship had to endlessly circle to pick up those who had fallen in the sea. Over and over they circled, over and over, to save those who had fallen into the sea.

And the miraculous thing was, that by circling endlessly to rescue their friends, they suddenly arrived at the 'Beautiful Land'.

That is what 'community' is all about. Endlessly circling to bring those who had fallen into the sea on board. Our weakness and our compassion are what bring us, unexpectedly, to the place we sat out to find.

That is why Jesus would come to church (besides the hymns!). To be a part of both our weakness and our compassion. To set sail with us. To share our journey. To come, at last, with us at the destination by merely circling and circling and circling to make sure we all get there together.....

Something to ponder, I think....

School is starting for me

Friday is the first class of my course on The Gospel of Mary Magdalen at UConn in Waterbury.

I teach in the Osher Life-long Learning Institute. Which is for people over 50, people who want to be there studying what they want to know. Amazing....

All I wanted to be in life was a college professor then this God stuff got in the way. Instead of going to the University of Virginia to get a Ph.D. in American Liturgy when I graduated from college, I went to Harvard Divinity School on a Rockefeller Fellow grant and got hooked on Theology. Now, in my retirement, I'm getting to teach.

I've taught The Gospel of MM, twice before and a course on the so-called Christian Gnostic writing and a course, twice, on reading the Gospels side by side. And I love it! I was born to teach. My mother was a teacher. Two of her sisters were teachers. I have about half-a-dozen first cousins who were teachers. It's in the DNA, in the blood.

I'm so happy to be in a classroom. It just feels right somehow. I can't wait.....

The puppy cut

Bern has been cutting on Bela, our Puli, for three days. She cut enough hair off him to create a couple of small dogs. He looks so little now, which is a problem since he's a terrible, bad, awful dog.If we haven't invited you over in the past six years it's because Bela would most likely bite you. He goes crazy when the postal worker comes, jumping against the front door, snarling and foaming at the mouth. With his puppy cut he looks even cuter than he does normally, and harmless.

Not true. He bit our friend, Hank, who, thank the baby Jesus, didn't turn him in or he wouldn't be here now. We know how aggressive he can be so when we walk him we warn people off who want to come and touch him.

He's an awful dog. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, which, since he weighs 50 pounds, wouldn't be far.

But we love him to death--probably because we realize no one else would and it's our job to love him. He's great with us, though he tries to stop us from leaving the house--he's a Hungarian Sheep dog so our leaving is letting the flock get away. But he adores our granddaughter and guards them so well when they are here. He loves our daughter, tolerates our son, loves our-daughter-in-law and Mimi's partner Tim. And he loves John, Sherry and Jack and will tolerate Hanne who always comes for Thanksgiving. Beyond that group, he'd probably bite you. Alas.

But he does look so cute in his puppy cut for warm weather. You might think, if you saw him, that he'd be fun to pet.

Looks are deceiving.....

The best thing I ever tasted....

I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I take sugar in my coffee but mostly I prefer the sweet taste of fruit. I'm a sucker for any kind of fruit pie--strawberry, blueberry, cherry, blackberry, peach, apple Once and only once, I had grape pie. I don't remember where, but I remember that pie as if it were this afternoon! I don't like cake at all--dry sweet doesn't appeal to me the way the wet sweet of fruit does. Ditto for cookies and brownies and all that stuff--though I will vote for a chocolate quassant once in a while.

I prefer vegetables and greens and meat to sweet most of the time. And I've never met a kind of sea food I didn't love. My idea of a 'treat' would be nuts and raisins and seeds instead of a candy bar.

But, a few months ago I went to a Cold Stone Creamery (is that the right name? Is it Stone Cold or something else?) near my son's house in Baltimore to get ice cream for the granddaughters. Morgan likes gummy fish in chocolate ice cream (yuck!) Emma wants lots of sprinkles in vanilla and Tegan will eat anything cold and sweet. And I noticed they had salty caramel frozen yogurt. Two things I love salt an caramel. So I got a small cup for myself. I wish I had gotten a gallon! I loved it. And ate it before starting my car's motor because I made the mistake of taking a bite.

Sweet and salt is something I love. I put salt on watermelon and cantaloupe and any other melon. I also salt apples (learned from my grandmother's knee) and even pears. Sweet and salt is much better to me than sweet alone.

Today in Stop and Shop I saw a salt/caramel pie (450 calories a 1/8 slice) so I didn't get it. But then I found Talenti Gelato in the flavor of Sea Salt Caramel. So I bought it. I didn't open it in the parking lot since I didn't have a spoon. But when I got home I did and it is the best thing I've ever tasted....

The first four ingredients  are caramel, milk, eggs and sugar (they're only a couple more) and blended in are pieces of chocolate covered caramel truffles. Holy Cow, is that sweet AND salty. The best thing I've ever tasted.

Bern is out with her women's group for her birthday dinner--I'm thinking I'll so down and finish off the pint of gelato.

(My spell check rejects 'gelato', which I know is how it's spelled, and the options it gives go from gelatin to cleat to glad--go figure. What self respecting spell check wouldn't have 'gelato' in it's computer brain? Gelato is better than Ice Cream, I think--not quite as sweet....)