So, I told you about Bern losing last Wednesday. On the other hand there is my trip to Stop and Shop this afternoon.
I found a really close space, though the store was full of folks, and entered the left hand entrance. I got my food--though they were apparently out of Carmel Sea Salt Gelato, which is my all time favorite. And the Gelato was on sale two for one. So I got Pistachio and Coffee chocolate chip. Which are wondrous while falling short of Carmel Sea Salt.
I checked out and paid with Bern's Discover card, which we use to buy most everything since she pays it in full each month and gets money back a few times a year.
Then I went to the Customer Service counter to get a pack of cigarettes. Smoking I know is bad/bad/bad. But I like it and like the way my mouth tastes after a Marlboro Medium. So it goes.
I turned to leave the store and remembered, just before going out the door, that I should go out the door in the other direction and when almost there I realized I didn't have my glasses on. I thought I might have taken them off looking for Carmel Sea Salt Gelato, which took a while, so I parked my cart and went back to the frozen food place. Not there.
So I go to the aisle I checked out in. Not there.
Finally, I thought of the Customer Service counter and there they were.
So, I went to the car--out the right door this time.
(The problem with my glasses is that I see perfectly fine inside without them. I need them to drive, mostly. I lose them a couple of dozen times each day in our house, taking them off to read and cook and wash clothes and other inside stuff like that. I used to ALWAYS need my glasses but I had two cataract operations 2 months apart about 12 years ago and they corrected my vision so I don't need glasses to, for example, be typing this. I tried graduated invisible bi-focals but they were more trouble than they were worth, so my glasses correct my distant vision and I mostly don't wear them inside.)
Problem was, I got to my car, put my groceries (including two delicious but NOT Carmel-Sea Salt Gelato) and searched my pockets in vain for my car keys. Back I go to the aisle I checked out from and no keys. "Ah-ha!" I think, laid them down to put my card through the gizmo where I paid for my Marlboro Mediums (calling cigarettes "Light" or "Medium" is just a way smokers have of justifying their addiction....) But there was a line of 7 people. I waited while people bought Lotto tickets and returned out of date stuff and finally walked to the front and said to the woman behind the counter--'car keys?' Without missing a beat she reached down and handed them to me.
Maybe I should drive myself to THE HOME, but I wouldn't know where my glasses or car keys were....
It is a privilege to grow old...but I'm reminded of an encounter with an old mountain woman in Fairmont, West Virginia when I was a social worker. "It's not a sin to be poor," she told me, "but it's a damned inconvenience..."
It is a privilege to age, but it is a damned inconvenience to always be looking for stuff....
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
If you're going to lose a day, pick Wednesday....
Late Thursday afternoon Bern asked me to go get her some cigarettes, which was only fair since I smoked some of them. But I really needed to go to Higganum for the book group so I said, innocently enough, "could you get some when you go out?"
Thursday is the night her women's group, called 'Group', meets.
"Where would I be going?" she asked, thinking I was just weaseling out of doing her a favor.
"Group," I said, pure as the driven slush (as Mae West used to say) since I was, in fact, involved in weaseling.
"It's Wednesday," she said.
"No, it's Thursday," I replied, instantly trying to figure out if I knew that for a fact since Bern is so often right about most anything that I tend to doubt myself instead of her when she says something like "it's Wednesday" when I was mostly sure it was Thursday.
Then I remembered talking to Bea on the phone and her saying, "see you tonight" and if Bea expected to see me that night I must almost certainly be Thursday.
When I said, "No, it's Thursday", Bern gave me the look that says, "Oh Lordy, Lordy, is it time already for THE HOME?" I think she has a list of things somewhere that indicate it might just be time to put me in THE HOME. I've occasionally eyed the drawer of her little desk and thought I should look for the list in there, but have, unfortunately too much respect for her privacy to look in her drawer.
"It's Wednesday," she said again, with the kind of certainty that demolishes my certainty. Instead of arguing the point I went up to my computer which has a calendar on it with the day it is in orange. Low and behold, it was Thursday May 9 after all.
Bern was very distressed that somehow she had lost a day. There was no Group that night so maybe knowing that made her think it was Wednesday. That doesn't make sense, but losing a day doesn't make sense either.
It was all I could do to keep from going up to my desk upstairs and starting a READY FOR THE HOME list for Bern. The only entry would be "Lost a Day altogether" since she seems never to do things that indicate she might sometime require confinement, supervision and drugs.
But I didn't. I'll give her that one slip, though if you think about it, losing a day is a rather odd thing to do.
I did my best to make it alright and went to get her cigarettes before I left. This is what I told her, 'if you're going to lose a day, Wednesday would be the one to lose.'
Of all the days, it seems to me, Wednesday is the least vital and necessary. Not only is it the one that looks most likely misspelled (I mean, a 'silent D', what's up with that?) but coming where it does, right in the middle of the week, if you lose it you still have two days to get things sorted out before Saturday. If you know what I mean.
So, my advise (and my advise and $2.15 will get you a coffee at Starbucks) is this: if you're into misplacing days of the week, Wednesday would be the easiest to let go.....
Thursday is the night her women's group, called 'Group', meets.
"Where would I be going?" she asked, thinking I was just weaseling out of doing her a favor.
"Group," I said, pure as the driven slush (as Mae West used to say) since I was, in fact, involved in weaseling.
"It's Wednesday," she said.
"No, it's Thursday," I replied, instantly trying to figure out if I knew that for a fact since Bern is so often right about most anything that I tend to doubt myself instead of her when she says something like "it's Wednesday" when I was mostly sure it was Thursday.
Then I remembered talking to Bea on the phone and her saying, "see you tonight" and if Bea expected to see me that night I must almost certainly be Thursday.
When I said, "No, it's Thursday", Bern gave me the look that says, "Oh Lordy, Lordy, is it time already for THE HOME?" I think she has a list of things somewhere that indicate it might just be time to put me in THE HOME. I've occasionally eyed the drawer of her little desk and thought I should look for the list in there, but have, unfortunately too much respect for her privacy to look in her drawer.
"It's Wednesday," she said again, with the kind of certainty that demolishes my certainty. Instead of arguing the point I went up to my computer which has a calendar on it with the day it is in orange. Low and behold, it was Thursday May 9 after all.
Bern was very distressed that somehow she had lost a day. There was no Group that night so maybe knowing that made her think it was Wednesday. That doesn't make sense, but losing a day doesn't make sense either.
It was all I could do to keep from going up to my desk upstairs and starting a READY FOR THE HOME list for Bern. The only entry would be "Lost a Day altogether" since she seems never to do things that indicate she might sometime require confinement, supervision and drugs.
But I didn't. I'll give her that one slip, though if you think about it, losing a day is a rather odd thing to do.
I did my best to make it alright and went to get her cigarettes before I left. This is what I told her, 'if you're going to lose a day, Wednesday would be the one to lose.'
Of all the days, it seems to me, Wednesday is the least vital and necessary. Not only is it the one that looks most likely misspelled (I mean, a 'silent D', what's up with that?) but coming where it does, right in the middle of the week, if you lose it you still have two days to get things sorted out before Saturday. If you know what I mean.
So, my advise (and my advise and $2.15 will get you a coffee at Starbucks) is this: if you're into misplacing days of the week, Wednesday would be the easiest to let go.....
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Talent Shows
I am a big fan of talent shows, going way back to my childhood. I was a big fan of American Idol until 'The Voice' came along. I love 'The Voice' a lot and seldom watch 'Idol' any more.
The Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry is having a talent show on May 18th at St. James, Higganum and I'm going to read some of my poetry.
I've been going through poems to decide what to read. I lost a lot when I retired from St. John's in Waterbury. There was a folder there that had poems in it that I no longer have access to. Oh my, so it goes. They just aren't stored anywhere on my computer. Alas and alack.
But I have some poems available. Quite a few, in fact. I wanted to share two with you that I won't be reading at the talent show because I decided to read others. So here they are:
Walking out of Shadows
This poem is about three things
(four really....)
a back porch, badly lit;
a deck in shadows;
and a Puli dog.
(The fourth thing comes at the end.)
My back porch is small,
4 feet by 6 feet or so,
and the light bulb,
surrounded by opaque plates,
is 40 watts at best.
The deck is larger--12 by 20, maybe,
and gets little illumination from the porch lifht.
The Puli dog is black as black can be.
So black that there are highlights
of navy blue and even brown in his coat
in direct sunlight.
But at night, when the dog walks on the deck,
I cannot see him for the shadows
and he emerges suddenly
from darkness into light.
Now, the fourth things--the crux of the matter--
how much is that like you and me, all of us,
in the most profound and deepest wasy,
wandering mostly in places we cannot be seen,
emerging, surprisingly,
into some dim light?
Only some of our hearts and souls
even viable at all?
jgb
Winter dreams of mine
I dream more than most people I talk with about dreams.
My Dream-Maker seems to go full tilt all night,
especially in winter when the wind wails
and whispers of sleet slide against the windows.
My dreams are not earth shattering, not prophecies
from a poet-god, nor are they full of advice.
Mostly, they are mundane--ordinary thing:
often I am building something, a gizmo I understand not,
other times I am walking through strange lands,
seeing things I do not comprehend...but never afraid.
I have no nightmares these days.
Sometimes I dream of sleeping in the bed with you.
I dream of waking and watching you sleep
and then dozing off again to dream of sleeping.
I dream of extremely hairy black dogs sitting on my head
and golden cats--like tiny lions--opening the door
to the room and falling asleep on my feet.
Just the other night, I dreamed I woke to your saying
"can I have a drink of water?" and getting up to run
the water cold before filling the glass. Then I dreamed--
amazing as it is, that you brought me water and said,
'you won't remember this when you wake up....'
But I did remember and when I woke, I wore a Puli like a hat
and the cat by my feet stirred and leaped from the bed.
I heard you downstairs making coffee.
"Let the day begin!" I said, anxious to see you,
just as I slipped back under the winter covers
and slept, hoping to dream of getting up and joining you.
jgb
The Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry is having a talent show on May 18th at St. James, Higganum and I'm going to read some of my poetry.
I've been going through poems to decide what to read. I lost a lot when I retired from St. John's in Waterbury. There was a folder there that had poems in it that I no longer have access to. Oh my, so it goes. They just aren't stored anywhere on my computer. Alas and alack.
But I have some poems available. Quite a few, in fact. I wanted to share two with you that I won't be reading at the talent show because I decided to read others. So here they are:
Walking out of Shadows
This poem is about three things
(four really....)
a back porch, badly lit;
a deck in shadows;
and a Puli dog.
(The fourth thing comes at the end.)
My back porch is small,
4 feet by 6 feet or so,
and the light bulb,
surrounded by opaque plates,
is 40 watts at best.
The deck is larger--12 by 20, maybe,
and gets little illumination from the porch lifht.
The Puli dog is black as black can be.
So black that there are highlights
of navy blue and even brown in his coat
in direct sunlight.
But at night, when the dog walks on the deck,
I cannot see him for the shadows
and he emerges suddenly
from darkness into light.
Now, the fourth things--the crux of the matter--
how much is that like you and me, all of us,
in the most profound and deepest wasy,
wandering mostly in places we cannot be seen,
emerging, surprisingly,
into some dim light?
Only some of our hearts and souls
even viable at all?
jgb
Winter dreams of mine
I dream more than most people I talk with about dreams.
My Dream-Maker seems to go full tilt all night,
especially in winter when the wind wails
and whispers of sleet slide against the windows.
My dreams are not earth shattering, not prophecies
from a poet-god, nor are they full of advice.
Mostly, they are mundane--ordinary thing:
often I am building something, a gizmo I understand not,
other times I am walking through strange lands,
seeing things I do not comprehend...but never afraid.
I have no nightmares these days.
Sometimes I dream of sleeping in the bed with you.
I dream of waking and watching you sleep
and then dozing off again to dream of sleeping.
I dream of extremely hairy black dogs sitting on my head
and golden cats--like tiny lions--opening the door
to the room and falling asleep on my feet.
Just the other night, I dreamed I woke to your saying
"can I have a drink of water?" and getting up to run
the water cold before filling the glass. Then I dreamed--
amazing as it is, that you brought me water and said,
'you won't remember this when you wake up....'
But I did remember and when I woke, I wore a Puli like a hat
and the cat by my feet stirred and leaped from the bed.
I heard you downstairs making coffee.
"Let the day begin!" I said, anxious to see you,
just as I slipped back under the winter covers
and slept, hoping to dream of getting up and joining you.
jgb
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Spring is not the time to die
I was watching the bird bath in our back yard today. A Cowbird was taking a long bath while a Cardinal waited patiently. But after it became obvious the Cowbird was not going to surrender the bird bath, the Cardinal flew off. The Cowbird finally seemed to finish, but when a Sparrow flew down to take him place he jumped back in and drove away the Sparrow. The he bathed some more. When he finally got out he was so wet it seemed difficult for him to fly.
Little dramas like that happen every day in our back yard in Spring.
Spring, when Life is surging back in profusion and abundance, is not the time to die.
But my friend Alice is dying, perhaps even dead now since I saw her early this afternoon and the hospice nurse told me she was only breathing every thirty seconds or so. St. John's Priest-in-charge, Amy was there with the family. They were in good hands. I just wanted to sit with Alice for a spell and tell her good-bye and how much I appreciated how gracious and generous and hospitable and kind and supportive she'd been to me in the 21 years I was her priest.
Her family called me this morning to tell me the end was near and they wanted me to see her. I am so aware of trying to be an ex-Rector that I called Amy to ask if I could go see Alice. She told me it was fine and she was on her way there as we spoke. (I didn't even tell Amy she shouldn't be driving and talking on a cell phone because I was so glad I'd get to see Alice before she died.)
So I sat with her and told her what I needed to thank her for and told her I'd miss her and kissed her forehead (normally I would have made the sign of the cross there, but I'm not her priest any more, Amy is, so I kissed her as my friend.)
Driving home I marveled at the number of deathbeds I've sat by. The first was my mother a few days after I turned 25. My father and I were with her when she died. But, besides hospice nurses, priests probably sit by more deathbeds than anyone. How many, I wondered, knowing fair well I could never remember them all.
This blog is called "Under the Castor Oil Tree" because most biblical scholars think the tree God causes to grow for Jonah at the end of that book was a Castor Oil tree. Then God sends a worm to kill the tree and Jonah sits under the dead tree pondering the meaning of it all.
Sitting by deathbeds is a good place to ponder the meaning of it all.
I certainly have no answers to all the questions the deathbed Castor Oil Tree raises. No answers at all. In fact, I think the reason I am good to have around at the time of death is that I don't have anything to tell you about that awful and holy mystery. I certainly won't say anything stupid or silly or falsely pious. In fact, I normally say nothing at all. I'm just there as what psychologists call a "non-anxious presence", just part of the decor of whatever room the deathbed is in. I'm sad and pained and not a little angry, but I'm just there like a blank piece of paper for people to write on.
I don't fear Death, but I hate the thought of people dying...especially in Spring when Cowbirds and Cardinals and Robins galore and Swifts and Sparrows are entertaining me in the back yard. And especially Alice--such a dear, wondrous, loving woman--on this oh-so-perfect Spring day.
Lots to ponder there....
Little dramas like that happen every day in our back yard in Spring.
Spring, when Life is surging back in profusion and abundance, is not the time to die.
But my friend Alice is dying, perhaps even dead now since I saw her early this afternoon and the hospice nurse told me she was only breathing every thirty seconds or so. St. John's Priest-in-charge, Amy was there with the family. They were in good hands. I just wanted to sit with Alice for a spell and tell her good-bye and how much I appreciated how gracious and generous and hospitable and kind and supportive she'd been to me in the 21 years I was her priest.
Her family called me this morning to tell me the end was near and they wanted me to see her. I am so aware of trying to be an ex-Rector that I called Amy to ask if I could go see Alice. She told me it was fine and she was on her way there as we spoke. (I didn't even tell Amy she shouldn't be driving and talking on a cell phone because I was so glad I'd get to see Alice before she died.)
So I sat with her and told her what I needed to thank her for and told her I'd miss her and kissed her forehead (normally I would have made the sign of the cross there, but I'm not her priest any more, Amy is, so I kissed her as my friend.)
Driving home I marveled at the number of deathbeds I've sat by. The first was my mother a few days after I turned 25. My father and I were with her when she died. But, besides hospice nurses, priests probably sit by more deathbeds than anyone. How many, I wondered, knowing fair well I could never remember them all.
This blog is called "Under the Castor Oil Tree" because most biblical scholars think the tree God causes to grow for Jonah at the end of that book was a Castor Oil tree. Then God sends a worm to kill the tree and Jonah sits under the dead tree pondering the meaning of it all.
Sitting by deathbeds is a good place to ponder the meaning of it all.
I certainly have no answers to all the questions the deathbed Castor Oil Tree raises. No answers at all. In fact, I think the reason I am good to have around at the time of death is that I don't have anything to tell you about that awful and holy mystery. I certainly won't say anything stupid or silly or falsely pious. In fact, I normally say nothing at all. I'm just there as what psychologists call a "non-anxious presence", just part of the decor of whatever room the deathbed is in. I'm sad and pained and not a little angry, but I'm just there like a blank piece of paper for people to write on.
I don't fear Death, but I hate the thought of people dying...especially in Spring when Cowbirds and Cardinals and Robins galore and Swifts and Sparrows are entertaining me in the back yard. And especially Alice--such a dear, wondrous, loving woman--on this oh-so-perfect Spring day.
Lots to ponder there....
Monday, May 6, 2013
Steamboat, rest in peace...
My friend, Mike Miano, sent me Stanley's obit. He died in Princeton, West Virginia, where my parents moved after I went to college. When I came home, I came home to a place I'd never been before. Princeton is a small city (25,000 when my parents lived there, probably much less than that now) near the boarder to southwestern Virginia. It was a pleasant place, but not a place I'd choose to die.
Stanley Evans went to Junior High and High School with me. He was the smartest kid in our graduating class of 99. But he wasn't the Valedictorian or even the Salutatorian of our class because he honestly didn't give a shit about grades. He cared about learning stuff, which is quite different. He was in the Honor Society since he couldn't help but do well on tests and stuff. But none of that mattered to him. He was like the mad scientist of our class. He wasn't voted 'most likely to succeed', that was me, I think. But he was simply smarter than us all.
He had three younger brothers, one of whom died before he did according to his obituary. Who knows what that was about? But one thing I do remember is that one of his younger brothers got picked up hitch-hiking by someone who then had a wreck and Stanley's father sued the driver. Well, that just didn't happen where I came from. You don't sue people who were doing your kid a favor. So Stanley's family were ostracized and no body within 25 miles would let an Evans ride in their car ever again.
I kinda remember what he looked like, gawky and lean with sharp features. I really liked him because smart kids tend to like smart kids, especially in a place like Gary, West Virginia. We had lots of fun in chemistry class and are fortunate we didn't blow up that part of Gary High School.
The only other person in our class of 99 who died already (to my knowledge) was Bobby Joe Ratliff. Bobby Joe was a star fullback/linebacker on our state champion football team. He dropped out of Notre Dame, which gave him a full scholarship to play football and got killed on what was supposed to be his last day in Viet Nam when he stepped on a land mine outside a bar in Saigon. He survived his service and died during his celebration of heading home. At least that's the legend of Bobby Joe. He's the material for a country song.
Not so Steamboat. He was the odd, weird kid in the bunch. Everyone back then knew about the 'Stanley Steamer', so his nickname came out of that. Stanley "Steamboat" Evans. A hale fellow well met.
And dead.
My son Josh, still in his 30's, has had, by my count, 5 close friends die already. How must that be on your psyche?
I heard an actress, who's name I can't come up with right now ('names' are the first to go from an aging brain) on radio today who talked about friend's dying too soon and said one of the most remarkable things I've ever heard said.
She said, "It is a real privilege to age."
And so it is. Bobby Joe never got to. Lots of us Baby Boomer's died in rice patties half a world away. 80,000 or so have died in Syria in the last few years and I'm betting most of them were younger than me. Never mind Iraq and Afghanistan and the numberless who died in Africa from malaria and wars and those who died in events of Nature and Cancer and car and other accidents.
Lots of people die before they should
So, really, it is a privilege to age. No Kidding.
Ponder that for a while. Who that you knew or knew about died much too soon and you're still mud that got to sit up and look around.
What a privilege it is to grow older.
That is an astonishing revelation.
I'm 66 and still alive. I promise you to honor every minute I will live until I die because it is a privilege to age.....no kidding. Getting older is not pleasant in many ways, but it is a lot better than the alternative.
Age well, ok?
Stanley Evans went to Junior High and High School with me. He was the smartest kid in our graduating class of 99. But he wasn't the Valedictorian or even the Salutatorian of our class because he honestly didn't give a shit about grades. He cared about learning stuff, which is quite different. He was in the Honor Society since he couldn't help but do well on tests and stuff. But none of that mattered to him. He was like the mad scientist of our class. He wasn't voted 'most likely to succeed', that was me, I think. But he was simply smarter than us all.
He had three younger brothers, one of whom died before he did according to his obituary. Who knows what that was about? But one thing I do remember is that one of his younger brothers got picked up hitch-hiking by someone who then had a wreck and Stanley's father sued the driver. Well, that just didn't happen where I came from. You don't sue people who were doing your kid a favor. So Stanley's family were ostracized and no body within 25 miles would let an Evans ride in their car ever again.
I kinda remember what he looked like, gawky and lean with sharp features. I really liked him because smart kids tend to like smart kids, especially in a place like Gary, West Virginia. We had lots of fun in chemistry class and are fortunate we didn't blow up that part of Gary High School.
The only other person in our class of 99 who died already (to my knowledge) was Bobby Joe Ratliff. Bobby Joe was a star fullback/linebacker on our state champion football team. He dropped out of Notre Dame, which gave him a full scholarship to play football and got killed on what was supposed to be his last day in Viet Nam when he stepped on a land mine outside a bar in Saigon. He survived his service and died during his celebration of heading home. At least that's the legend of Bobby Joe. He's the material for a country song.
Not so Steamboat. He was the odd, weird kid in the bunch. Everyone back then knew about the 'Stanley Steamer', so his nickname came out of that. Stanley "Steamboat" Evans. A hale fellow well met.
And dead.
My son Josh, still in his 30's, has had, by my count, 5 close friends die already. How must that be on your psyche?
I heard an actress, who's name I can't come up with right now ('names' are the first to go from an aging brain) on radio today who talked about friend's dying too soon and said one of the most remarkable things I've ever heard said.
She said, "It is a real privilege to age."
And so it is. Bobby Joe never got to. Lots of us Baby Boomer's died in rice patties half a world away. 80,000 or so have died in Syria in the last few years and I'm betting most of them were younger than me. Never mind Iraq and Afghanistan and the numberless who died in Africa from malaria and wars and those who died in events of Nature and Cancer and car and other accidents.
Lots of people die before they should
So, really, it is a privilege to age. No Kidding.
Ponder that for a while. Who that you knew or knew about died much too soon and you're still mud that got to sit up and look around.
What a privilege it is to grow older.
That is an astonishing revelation.
I'm 66 and still alive. I promise you to honor every minute I will live until I die because it is a privilege to age.....no kidding. Getting older is not pleasant in many ways, but it is a lot better than the alternative.
Age well, ok?
Sunday, May 5, 2013
What I realize
What I realize from time to time (not nearly as often as I should) is that I am joyful, happy, satisfied, content, fulfilled.
The reason I avoid realizing how complete I am with my life is that my life brings me into daily contact with people who are not. And I feel the brush of guilt whenever I recognize how different it is from most people to be truly at home with your life.
I know I 'shouldn't' feel guilty about being joyful most all the time, but brought face to face with the suffering and oppression and dissatisfaction of so many, I tend to think, "well, why am I one of the few lucky ones? Why should I be satisfied when many aren't? What gives me this right?"
And, never the less, I am extremely happy with life.
The least little thing brings me joy. My friend, John, fixed my computer and put a new rotating page saver on it. I've spent time just watching the views change every three minutes. There's pictures of wondrous libraries, full of light and decorations and world globes and books--so many books. And a couple of the half-dozen or so pictures are simply pictures of books. The ornate leaves of books the spines of books. Books and always books....Libraries from dreams with decorative tile floors and dark wood and paintings on the ceiling. High windows and several stories of shelves, all full of books.
Those pictures give me great joy and make me glad I am alive.
Another joy of my life is Public Radio. How mundane that looks, but it it true. At home, our radio is always on to WSHU from Sacred Heart University. It is a classical music station. Our bird, Maggie, loves WSHU so we leave it on all day, watching her dance and hearing her sing to the classics. On our car and truck radio, it's always WNPR, the talk radio station. I love WNPR and all the shows when I'm driving. But I've noticed that since we have music instead of news all day in our house, I'm calmer than I was when it was news all day. Maggie deserves credit for that. When I called in our yearly pledge to WSHU I told them in was in honor of our bird, Maggie. They said they'd say that on the air, but I must have been out of the room or in my car and didn't hear it. I hope someone did and it made them smile.
I'm going to quit apologizing for loving my life and simply love it, love it to death. Which, I hope, is what I'll do. Love my life all the way to death....
The reason I avoid realizing how complete I am with my life is that my life brings me into daily contact with people who are not. And I feel the brush of guilt whenever I recognize how different it is from most people to be truly at home with your life.
I know I 'shouldn't' feel guilty about being joyful most all the time, but brought face to face with the suffering and oppression and dissatisfaction of so many, I tend to think, "well, why am I one of the few lucky ones? Why should I be satisfied when many aren't? What gives me this right?"
And, never the less, I am extremely happy with life.
The least little thing brings me joy. My friend, John, fixed my computer and put a new rotating page saver on it. I've spent time just watching the views change every three minutes. There's pictures of wondrous libraries, full of light and decorations and world globes and books--so many books. And a couple of the half-dozen or so pictures are simply pictures of books. The ornate leaves of books the spines of books. Books and always books....Libraries from dreams with decorative tile floors and dark wood and paintings on the ceiling. High windows and several stories of shelves, all full of books.
Those pictures give me great joy and make me glad I am alive.
Another joy of my life is Public Radio. How mundane that looks, but it it true. At home, our radio is always on to WSHU from Sacred Heart University. It is a classical music station. Our bird, Maggie, loves WSHU so we leave it on all day, watching her dance and hearing her sing to the classics. On our car and truck radio, it's always WNPR, the talk radio station. I love WNPR and all the shows when I'm driving. But I've noticed that since we have music instead of news all day in our house, I'm calmer than I was when it was news all day. Maggie deserves credit for that. When I called in our yearly pledge to WSHU I told them in was in honor of our bird, Maggie. They said they'd say that on the air, but I must have been out of the room or in my car and didn't hear it. I hope someone did and it made them smile.
I'm going to quit apologizing for loving my life and simply love it, love it to death. Which, I hope, is what I'll do. Love my life all the way to death....
Friday, May 3, 2013
What I'm pondering this week
1. How many words does my dog recognize? Or, more precisely, 'how many commands does he obey?' I don't have to ponder long...almost none....
2. Why (according to a recent poll) do 44% of Republicans surveyed believe a time may come when Americans may have to have an armed rebellion against the government of the US?
3. How could any of those people think they would win an armed rebellion against the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force? Don't they know, ever how many guns they have, the military has about a billion more?
4. What do people who believe 'climate change' is a myth think about the remarkable floods in the Midwest and brush fires 5 months early in southern California?
5. Have there always been dried cranberries and I just wasn't paying attention?
6. Why is the psychic and palm reader down Rt 10, almost across from Stop and Shop running specials? Today there was a sign in front of her house that said, "Special Readings today $10". Are things had for psychic's these days or what?
7. What would it be like to have siblings? I'm an only child who never 'got' the interactions between our 2 children and certainly don't get the interactions between my three granddaughter or any of the interactions between people who actually have siblings. Every time I think I wish I had siblings all I have to do it to talk to someone who does!
8. How does Twitter work? (Actually, I don't ponder that too much since I have no earthly desire to do it. But I do, occasionally wonder how it works, just out of normal curiosity.)
9. Why on earth would people 'tweet'?
10. Will hard copy newspapers and books really disappear some day?
11. Can I die before that day?
12. What in the hell was "Bird Notes" on NPR thinking when they had a Bird Note today about sea lions who eat fish tainted by DDT off the coast of southern California who die migrating north to Canada and wash up on Washing State beaches where scavenger birds eat them?
13. Whatever happened to the Old Testament God that would 'smite' and destroy Westbrook Baptist Church in Kansas?
14. What is my cat thinking about when he jumps up on the table beside my desk and stares at me while I'm typing this?
15. And since I don't want you to think all I ponder about are my animals, psychics, politics and social media, there is this: 'what did I do to deserve such a perfectly wondrous May day as today was? Or any of us, for that matter?
2. Why (according to a recent poll) do 44% of Republicans surveyed believe a time may come when Americans may have to have an armed rebellion against the government of the US?
3. How could any of those people think they would win an armed rebellion against the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force? Don't they know, ever how many guns they have, the military has about a billion more?
4. What do people who believe 'climate change' is a myth think about the remarkable floods in the Midwest and brush fires 5 months early in southern California?
5. Have there always been dried cranberries and I just wasn't paying attention?
6. Why is the psychic and palm reader down Rt 10, almost across from Stop and Shop running specials? Today there was a sign in front of her house that said, "Special Readings today $10". Are things had for psychic's these days or what?
7. What would it be like to have siblings? I'm an only child who never 'got' the interactions between our 2 children and certainly don't get the interactions between my three granddaughter or any of the interactions between people who actually have siblings. Every time I think I wish I had siblings all I have to do it to talk to someone who does!
8. How does Twitter work? (Actually, I don't ponder that too much since I have no earthly desire to do it. But I do, occasionally wonder how it works, just out of normal curiosity.)
9. Why on earth would people 'tweet'?
10. Will hard copy newspapers and books really disappear some day?
11. Can I die before that day?
12. What in the hell was "Bird Notes" on NPR thinking when they had a Bird Note today about sea lions who eat fish tainted by DDT off the coast of southern California who die migrating north to Canada and wash up on Washing State beaches where scavenger birds eat them?
13. Whatever happened to the Old Testament God that would 'smite' and destroy Westbrook Baptist Church in Kansas?
14. What is my cat thinking about when he jumps up on the table beside my desk and stares at me while I'm typing this?
15. And since I don't want you to think all I ponder about are my animals, psychics, politics and social media, there is this: 'what did I do to deserve such a perfectly wondrous May day as today was? Or any of us, for that matter?
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