As human beings have evolved, we have ceased to need some of our body parts or they have changed to meet our needs. Our appendix, for example: it probably used to function in some useful way, but has long since become unnecessary and serves no purpose today except to get sick or rupture and make money for the surgeons who remove it, leaving on our bodies (as on mine) a three or four inch scar that reminds us that a useless part of us was removed under general anesthesia. (I was recovering from having my appendix removed on the Millennial celebration. I had a clicker to release morphine into my blood stream on command--though certainly it was gauged to not let me over-medicate--when I looked over to the chair beside my bed and recognized the Bishop of Connecticut sitting there. "Hey, Drew," I said, holding the morphine release clicker toward him, "you want to try some of this....?")
On the other hand, our brains have become bigger and bigger over the past 40,000 years or so as we needed them more and more. (However, given the kind of stupidity I discover daily--Taliban killing health workers trying to give the polio vaccine to young children; Anthony Wiener...well, just Anthony Wiener; the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia believing Yoga leads to Satanism; those who don't believe in climate change; anyone who would vote for Anthony Wiener....stuff like that...we might be better off with smaller brains....)
My prediction of the body's next adjustment is this: one of the hands of human beings will wither away and the fingers will bend inward so a smart phone may be permanently attached to the human body.
I was walking our dog on the canal yesterday and realized that most everyone I passed in either direction was either talking on a smart phone or carrying a smart phone in one of their hands. People who were running didn't have a bottle of water in their hand, they had a smart phone. I even saw one guy riding a bike, holding one of the handle bars with a phone in his hand. Granted, most people my age or older had better things to have in their hands: a bottle of water, a dog leash, a cane....like that....
But well over half the people I passed had a smart phone--not in a pocket or a case attached to their belt--but in their hand.
There could be some positive outcomes. The hand that transformed over generations to hold a smart phone couldn't possibly hold a pistol. Those hands wouldn't be able to make an obscene gesture since the middle finger couldn't straighten up. And a fist to strike a child or woman wouldn't be possible--though I wouldn't want to be hit with a hand holding a smart phone. Plus, it would mean the end to golf...not a bad thing in my mind....
I must admit, I just don't get it. I see people filling their cars with gas holding a smart phone in their hand, people shopping with one hand--reaching for Cheerios while the other hand holds a smart phone, lots of people driving with a smart phone in their hand, people at the YMCA doing a set on a machine and then going to pick up their smart phone to stare at it for several minutes, people in restaurants eating with one hand and having to put down the phone to use their knife....on and on it goes. I saw several people buying movie tickets the other day holding their phone (which was supposed to be turned off but was probably on mute so they could get the email that would forever alter their lives....I even saw some people at a cematery recently while I was interring someone they loved, holding their phones as I talked about ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust.
I just don't get. Maybe it's because I have a Dumb Phone that only makes and receives actual phone calls and which I can be 'texted' upon though I never read them and wouldn't know how to reply.
Maybe I'll go out and get Samsung/Android deal just to see if one of my hands starts to cramp up so I can hold it....
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
The sign of the Beast
I just noticed that my last post on this blog was the 666th.
Well, it just seems reasonable to do # 667 as soon as this to get by all the nonsense....
Now I'm okay....
Well, it just seems reasonable to do # 667 as soon as this to get by all the nonsense....
Now I'm okay....
And so, we love....
Today, for some reason I don't understand, I've been pondering my parents.
All day they have been traveling with me and I've been trying, as best I can, to pay attention and notice them..
My mother was born on July 11, 1910 and my father on April Fool's Day 1909 (wouldn't you know it!) If they were still alive, my mother would have just turned 103 and my father would be 104. But, of course, they aren't still alive. My mother died when I was 25, the week of my birthday, and my father died years later at 83. Mom was 63 when she died so she was 38 when I was born and my father was 39. They waited quite a while and were surprised, at those ages, to have a baby. People these days wait almost that long to start a family--but in my day, my friends had grandparents almost the age of my parents.
In the culture of the 50's and 60's, I was raised by 'old people'. By contrast, I was 28 and Bern was 25 when our son was born and 31 and 28 when our daughter was born.
What I don't understand is why they are so much with me today. It's no special day--July 20--and no special year that I can think of, and the fact that it is Saturday doesn't cause any memories in me.
It might be that I was at a gathering this morning of 8 folks at what is called The Transfiguration Community. The Transfiguration Community weeks on every third Saturday at Emmanuel Church in Killingworth, one of the three congregations I serve these day, and gladly. The community is recognized by the diocese as an 'intentional community' which means it's not a church but it is Eucharistic and Spiritual and Intentional. Everyone there goes to some Episcopal parish and in active wherever that is, but they are looking for more and Transfiguration gives them more.
They sing a hymn and then have what they call 'intercessions', which in Episcopal-speak would mean "prayers" but what 'intercessions' are instead is just sharing about your life, where you are, what's up for you...stuff you wouldn't tell someone in a bar or on an airplane...important stuff.
I was talking about my two families--the Bradley's and the Jones'. My father's family and my mother's and how different they were. The Bradley family was, for all intents and purposes, 'secular'. None of my uncles or aunts or cousins went to church except for funerals and marriages. My father went to church since my mother came from a family that were Pilgrim Holiness and Nazarene and Church of Christ (not 'Congregational'--much stricter and more fundamentalist) but, to my mind, he never 'bought it' though he did have a story about being 'saved' on top of Peel Chestnut Mountain at dawn when he pulled his dry cleaning truck over to the side of the road and met Jesus.
I never bought it. I thought it was just maternal family pressure. But who knows? Mountaintops, after all figure greatly in the lore of Jews and Christians and Muslims.
My favorite cousin, Mejol, became an Episcopalian in college and profoundly influenced me, so when the chance to try Anglicanism out in college got flopped in front of my by God (Somehow) I leaped at it, never imagining back then at 20 that I'd spend my life as a priest in the church. When I was going off to Harvard Divinity School after college (with no intention of being ordained) my Uncle Harvey, a Nazarene minister, gave me some advice. "Being an Episcopalian is far enough," he told me, "don't let those folks at Harvard turn you into a Unitarian...."
There was always a tension in my little family, though we became Methodists when my mother gave up on the judgementalism of her church toward my father. "Methodism", my father said, "won't hurt anyone very much...." Not a bad recommendation.
The Bradley side of my family drank and smokes and flaunted the narrow ways of the Jones side of my family. That might have been the best way to grow up, seeing both sides and never having to choose between them because they were all--secular liberal and fundamentalist conservative--"family". God love 'em, you can't leave 'em.
So, I ended up in the Middle Way--the Anglican way--secular and liberal enough for the Bradley family and spiritual (in an odd way) enough for the Jones family. But there you go. Push and Pull. Ying and Yang. Right and Left. Not a bad way to end up the way I did....
I'm really glad Virgil and Cleo have seemed so present and alive to me today. It's...it feels good and reminds me of where I came from and how much I loved them (in my own way) and how much they loved me (in their own way)....
Hey, Mom and Dad, been nice being with you so vividly today....Let's do it again soon....okay? (I ask because I suspect you two have something to do with the whole thing....at least that's what I believe....)
All day they have been traveling with me and I've been trying, as best I can, to pay attention and notice them..
My mother was born on July 11, 1910 and my father on April Fool's Day 1909 (wouldn't you know it!) If they were still alive, my mother would have just turned 103 and my father would be 104. But, of course, they aren't still alive. My mother died when I was 25, the week of my birthday, and my father died years later at 83. Mom was 63 when she died so she was 38 when I was born and my father was 39. They waited quite a while and were surprised, at those ages, to have a baby. People these days wait almost that long to start a family--but in my day, my friends had grandparents almost the age of my parents.
In the culture of the 50's and 60's, I was raised by 'old people'. By contrast, I was 28 and Bern was 25 when our son was born and 31 and 28 when our daughter was born.
What I don't understand is why they are so much with me today. It's no special day--July 20--and no special year that I can think of, and the fact that it is Saturday doesn't cause any memories in me.
It might be that I was at a gathering this morning of 8 folks at what is called The Transfiguration Community. The Transfiguration Community weeks on every third Saturday at Emmanuel Church in Killingworth, one of the three congregations I serve these day, and gladly. The community is recognized by the diocese as an 'intentional community' which means it's not a church but it is Eucharistic and Spiritual and Intentional. Everyone there goes to some Episcopal parish and in active wherever that is, but they are looking for more and Transfiguration gives them more.
They sing a hymn and then have what they call 'intercessions', which in Episcopal-speak would mean "prayers" but what 'intercessions' are instead is just sharing about your life, where you are, what's up for you...stuff you wouldn't tell someone in a bar or on an airplane...important stuff.
I was talking about my two families--the Bradley's and the Jones'. My father's family and my mother's and how different they were. The Bradley family was, for all intents and purposes, 'secular'. None of my uncles or aunts or cousins went to church except for funerals and marriages. My father went to church since my mother came from a family that were Pilgrim Holiness and Nazarene and Church of Christ (not 'Congregational'--much stricter and more fundamentalist) but, to my mind, he never 'bought it' though he did have a story about being 'saved' on top of Peel Chestnut Mountain at dawn when he pulled his dry cleaning truck over to the side of the road and met Jesus.
I never bought it. I thought it was just maternal family pressure. But who knows? Mountaintops, after all figure greatly in the lore of Jews and Christians and Muslims.
My favorite cousin, Mejol, became an Episcopalian in college and profoundly influenced me, so when the chance to try Anglicanism out in college got flopped in front of my by God (Somehow) I leaped at it, never imagining back then at 20 that I'd spend my life as a priest in the church. When I was going off to Harvard Divinity School after college (with no intention of being ordained) my Uncle Harvey, a Nazarene minister, gave me some advice. "Being an Episcopalian is far enough," he told me, "don't let those folks at Harvard turn you into a Unitarian...."
There was always a tension in my little family, though we became Methodists when my mother gave up on the judgementalism of her church toward my father. "Methodism", my father said, "won't hurt anyone very much...." Not a bad recommendation.
The Bradley side of my family drank and smokes and flaunted the narrow ways of the Jones side of my family. That might have been the best way to grow up, seeing both sides and never having to choose between them because they were all--secular liberal and fundamentalist conservative--"family". God love 'em, you can't leave 'em.
So, I ended up in the Middle Way--the Anglican way--secular and liberal enough for the Bradley family and spiritual (in an odd way) enough for the Jones family. But there you go. Push and Pull. Ying and Yang. Right and Left. Not a bad way to end up the way I did....
I'm really glad Virgil and Cleo have seemed so present and alive to me today. It's...it feels good and reminds me of where I came from and how much I loved them (in my own way) and how much they loved me (in their own way)....
Hey, Mom and Dad, been nice being with you so vividly today....Let's do it again soon....okay? (I ask because I suspect you two have something to do with the whole thing....at least that's what I believe....)
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Next there'll be the cat saunter....
On the train back from NYC today, a woman behind me was on her cell phone. She was talking to a friend much louder than necessary and letting her know this: "oh, the dog parade is called off for today."
A pause as she listened. Then she said, "I guess it's too hot for the dogs...."
I turned to Bern who was reading and said, 'did you hear the dog parade was called off?"
She nodded, "how could I not?" she said.
Then I started thinking about 'the dog parade'.
"Do you think they play instruments?" I asked.
"Or march in little uniforms?" she replied.
"Or strut or dance?" At that Bern started making arm movements like someone in a New Orleans brass band or a majorette.
"Maybe they carry flags," I said, and she pretended to carry a flag with a look on her face that looked ever so much dog-like.
"Do you think the dogs refused to march because of the heat?" I inquired.
Then we sat and rode the train and pondered such a think as a 'dog parade' to begin with.
"That's just crazy," I said, "dogs would never decide to have a parade. They'd just all be smelling each others' butts....and besides, they don't have thumbs so they can't carry flags or tubas or anything....."
After Bern did an imitation of how our dog, Bad Dog Bela, would march and bark at everything and everyone, I said, "only people in Greenwich or Southport would even think of such a thing as a dog parade...or maybe New Canaan...."
The train didn't stop in Greenwich, but the woman who was distressed about the cancellation of the dog parade got off at Southport. She was still talking too loudly on her Smart Phone, probably still wondering when the dogs would reschedule....
A pause as she listened. Then she said, "I guess it's too hot for the dogs...."
I turned to Bern who was reading and said, 'did you hear the dog parade was called off?"
She nodded, "how could I not?" she said.
Then I started thinking about 'the dog parade'.
"Do you think they play instruments?" I asked.
"Or march in little uniforms?" she replied.
"Or strut or dance?" At that Bern started making arm movements like someone in a New Orleans brass band or a majorette.
"Maybe they carry flags," I said, and she pretended to carry a flag with a look on her face that looked ever so much dog-like.
"Do you think the dogs refused to march because of the heat?" I inquired.
Then we sat and rode the train and pondered such a think as a 'dog parade' to begin with.
"That's just crazy," I said, "dogs would never decide to have a parade. They'd just all be smelling each others' butts....and besides, they don't have thumbs so they can't carry flags or tubas or anything....."
After Bern did an imitation of how our dog, Bad Dog Bela, would march and bark at everything and everyone, I said, "only people in Greenwich or Southport would even think of such a thing as a dog parade...or maybe New Canaan...."
The train didn't stop in Greenwich, but the woman who was distressed about the cancellation of the dog parade got off at Southport. She was still talking too loudly on her Smart Phone, probably still wondering when the dogs would reschedule....
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
going to see Mimi
Tomorrow, Bern and I are riding the train to see Mimi and Tim in Grand Central Station and then we'll ride the train back to New Haven and drive home. About 40 minutes of driving, 4 hours of riding the train and an hour with Tim and a couple of hours with Mimi all in a train station in New York City.
But we'll be cool....Which is the thing to be tomorrow since it will be the hottest day so far and the days leading up to it have been hot enough.
Mimi and Tim are now engaged. They're talking about a Fall 2014 wedding, which is hard to put on your calendar....
We've seen Mimi since the engagement, but not Tim.
We love them both so much and will be spending the last week of August and beginning of September with them on Oak Island, NC, along with our two friends, John Anderson and Sherry Ellis. It is always up there as the best week of the year.
My prayer for you is that you have family like Mimi and Tim and friends like John and Sherry in your lives.
The older I get (and I'm getting older every day!) the more I ponder 'what's important'. And I'm coming down on the side of family and friends....
Episcopalians, odd to me, often don't have 'thanksgivings' when the prayers of the people come to that. I always whisper, "Bern, Josh, Cathy, Morgan, Emma, Tegan, Mimi and Tim and my friends" under my breath. I think I'll start saying it loud each week. Maybe it will encourage others to ponder what family and friends mean to them....That's what I would hope.
"Pondering" is about the best thing you can do. Just sitting with your thoughts and wondering what it's all about.
I recommend it highly--right up there with giving thanks for family and friends.....
Be well and stay well.....
But we'll be cool....Which is the thing to be tomorrow since it will be the hottest day so far and the days leading up to it have been hot enough.
Mimi and Tim are now engaged. They're talking about a Fall 2014 wedding, which is hard to put on your calendar....
We've seen Mimi since the engagement, but not Tim.
We love them both so much and will be spending the last week of August and beginning of September with them on Oak Island, NC, along with our two friends, John Anderson and Sherry Ellis. It is always up there as the best week of the year.
My prayer for you is that you have family like Mimi and Tim and friends like John and Sherry in your lives.
The older I get (and I'm getting older every day!) the more I ponder 'what's important'. And I'm coming down on the side of family and friends....
Episcopalians, odd to me, often don't have 'thanksgivings' when the prayers of the people come to that. I always whisper, "Bern, Josh, Cathy, Morgan, Emma, Tegan, Mimi and Tim and my friends" under my breath. I think I'll start saying it loud each week. Maybe it will encourage others to ponder what family and friends mean to them....That's what I would hope.
"Pondering" is about the best thing you can do. Just sitting with your thoughts and wondering what it's all about.
I recommend it highly--right up there with giving thanks for family and friends.....
Be well and stay well.....
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Arlene
Today I was part of the funeral and burial of Arlene--someone I never met and yet know very well and who was a gift to me in a profound way.
It started like this: my friend, Maggie, who I know because we both do work for the Mastery Foundation, called me, oh, I think it was six months ago though linear time is not my strong suite. She called with what at the time seemed like a strange request though it turned out to be a gift I never deserved (though who among us deserves the gifts life sends us?)
Maggie's cousin, Arlene, was terminally ill. And I think what Maggie wanted was for someone who was 'spiritual' (though that hardly applies to me) to be in Arlene's life as she moved toward 'that good night'. There were a couple of calls from Maggie and I emailed her something about a story of a young monk who was telling his superior that he was having difficulty meditating because people kept showing up in his life that took his attention. And the Prior told the young monk, "whenever people show up when I'm trying to be contemplative, I always say, 'Jesus Christ, are you here again?'"
Something like that. But any way, since I couldn't say 'no' to Maggie ever, I called Arlene.
The first call was really strange, "Hi,", I said, "you don't know me but Maggie sent me to be your....I don't know what...."
Arlene laughed. And her laugh hooked me.
I talked to her on the phone a more than a dozen times over those months, for hours and hours, and it was always her laughter that hooked me. Arlene, this woman who had battled cancer for 12 years, found something worth laughing about most of the time we were talking. And though I knew from Maggie that Arlene was in pain and losing weight and in hospice care in her home, she was gracious and lovely and positive and oh, so humorous all the time.
We never got around to 'serious spiritual stuff' (what I call 'sss'). And every conversation was full of life and wonder and hope--and if that isn't 'spiritual' I don't know what is.
I never got up to where she lived--somewhere in a part of upstate New York that was as familiar to me as Bulgaria. It would have been a nearly 4 hour drive and she always talked me out it coming to see her--mostly because, I think, she never wanted people to make a fuss about her. But I'm almost glad that we only knew each other on the phone. There was an open casket at the funeral and I realized Arlene didn't look anything like I had imagined her. She was gaunt to a fault--most likely because of the struggle with her disease--and had reddish hair. I had imagined her as a bit over-weight and perky and twinkle eyed and having gray hair. I'm sort of glad that the healthy and vital person of our phone conversations remained the image of her that I had. There were pictures of her around the funeral home and she had been beautiful in her youth, but I'm somehow glad I 'knew' her as the way she sounded--full of life and joy and irony and humor--instead of seeing her in the last stages of her disease.
For me, Arlene was always vital and optimistic and so fully alive. The shell that was her body in that casket wasn't the woman I knew and learned to love. I'll keep my image of her as 'being Arlene' rather than the image of her corpse.
(That's probably why I don't like open coffins at wakes and funerals. I think people should remember people who have died as 'alive'. That's why I've arranged for a funeral director friend to use a flame thrower to cremate me where I fall....Don't look at my dead body, remember me as alive and ironic and a bit crazy....OK?)
Anyway, the funeral was in a place called Haverstraw, up Route 9 across the Tappen Zee bridge, far enough north to have 'real' mountains and the Hudson River being the Hudson River. And one of Arlene's step-sons (I think, I never got the relations down very well) and a friend who had known her since they were in grade school and two of her granddaughters--one very beautiful and the other beautifully boyish--spoke along with Michael, Maggie's husband, reading an email from Maggie, who was in Europe with their daughter. And nothing any of them said did anything but reinforce the Arlene I knew but had never met. Wondrous, full of humor, never complaining, ALIVE, just like that, ALIVE....
Maggie had called me wondering if she should leave the country with Arlene so near to death. I told her what her cousin told her the last time Maggie saw Arlene, "go have some fun" and then she hit her on the shoulder with her frail fist.
Michael seemed to be sending Maggie the service. His smart phone was on a chair in the front row of the funeral home chapel and leaned against the tombstone next to Arlene's grave. I never understand social media stuff, but I did talk to Maggie as the hearse driver was about to take me back to the funeral home from the steep slope where Arlene will spend time (overlooking the Hudson, quite a view). She was still beating herself up a bit for not being there, but that's just crazy. She should have been with her daughter, absolutely, even Arlene told her so, with a punch to her arm.
Here's the thing, you just never know what life will hand you and there is never enough thanksgiving to give for the gifts. Arlene became a part of my life. I've told lots of people about her and half a dozen or more of the folks at the funeral told me she had told them about me.
Someone you never met, face to face, can bring wonder and grace and beauty and great good humor into your life, over a cell phone over six months or so.
What a gift that seemingly crazy invitation Maggie gave me to call her dying cousin turned out to be. I love Arlene. It was a joy and privilege and humbling experience it was to count her as a friend, never met, and to be a part of her 'leaving'.
I once counted up the funerals I had been a part of. It was close to a thousand. Imagine that, being a part of the 'leaving' and walking them to their graves....almost a thousand people. What a humbling honor and privilege.
And this one really mattered in a way I still do not understand.
Often in life, when I'm trying to do something else that I think is important, I find myself saying, "Jesus Christ, is it you again?"
Thank you Maggie. Thank you Arlene. Thank you God. Thank you Life....really....
It started like this: my friend, Maggie, who I know because we both do work for the Mastery Foundation, called me, oh, I think it was six months ago though linear time is not my strong suite. She called with what at the time seemed like a strange request though it turned out to be a gift I never deserved (though who among us deserves the gifts life sends us?)
Maggie's cousin, Arlene, was terminally ill. And I think what Maggie wanted was for someone who was 'spiritual' (though that hardly applies to me) to be in Arlene's life as she moved toward 'that good night'. There were a couple of calls from Maggie and I emailed her something about a story of a young monk who was telling his superior that he was having difficulty meditating because people kept showing up in his life that took his attention. And the Prior told the young monk, "whenever people show up when I'm trying to be contemplative, I always say, 'Jesus Christ, are you here again?'"
Something like that. But any way, since I couldn't say 'no' to Maggie ever, I called Arlene.
The first call was really strange, "Hi,", I said, "you don't know me but Maggie sent me to be your....I don't know what...."
Arlene laughed. And her laugh hooked me.
I talked to her on the phone a more than a dozen times over those months, for hours and hours, and it was always her laughter that hooked me. Arlene, this woman who had battled cancer for 12 years, found something worth laughing about most of the time we were talking. And though I knew from Maggie that Arlene was in pain and losing weight and in hospice care in her home, she was gracious and lovely and positive and oh, so humorous all the time.
We never got around to 'serious spiritual stuff' (what I call 'sss'). And every conversation was full of life and wonder and hope--and if that isn't 'spiritual' I don't know what is.
I never got up to where she lived--somewhere in a part of upstate New York that was as familiar to me as Bulgaria. It would have been a nearly 4 hour drive and she always talked me out it coming to see her--mostly because, I think, she never wanted people to make a fuss about her. But I'm almost glad that we only knew each other on the phone. There was an open casket at the funeral and I realized Arlene didn't look anything like I had imagined her. She was gaunt to a fault--most likely because of the struggle with her disease--and had reddish hair. I had imagined her as a bit over-weight and perky and twinkle eyed and having gray hair. I'm sort of glad that the healthy and vital person of our phone conversations remained the image of her that I had. There were pictures of her around the funeral home and she had been beautiful in her youth, but I'm somehow glad I 'knew' her as the way she sounded--full of life and joy and irony and humor--instead of seeing her in the last stages of her disease.
For me, Arlene was always vital and optimistic and so fully alive. The shell that was her body in that casket wasn't the woman I knew and learned to love. I'll keep my image of her as 'being Arlene' rather than the image of her corpse.
(That's probably why I don't like open coffins at wakes and funerals. I think people should remember people who have died as 'alive'. That's why I've arranged for a funeral director friend to use a flame thrower to cremate me where I fall....Don't look at my dead body, remember me as alive and ironic and a bit crazy....OK?)
Anyway, the funeral was in a place called Haverstraw, up Route 9 across the Tappen Zee bridge, far enough north to have 'real' mountains and the Hudson River being the Hudson River. And one of Arlene's step-sons (I think, I never got the relations down very well) and a friend who had known her since they were in grade school and two of her granddaughters--one very beautiful and the other beautifully boyish--spoke along with Michael, Maggie's husband, reading an email from Maggie, who was in Europe with their daughter. And nothing any of them said did anything but reinforce the Arlene I knew but had never met. Wondrous, full of humor, never complaining, ALIVE, just like that, ALIVE....
Maggie had called me wondering if she should leave the country with Arlene so near to death. I told her what her cousin told her the last time Maggie saw Arlene, "go have some fun" and then she hit her on the shoulder with her frail fist.
Michael seemed to be sending Maggie the service. His smart phone was on a chair in the front row of the funeral home chapel and leaned against the tombstone next to Arlene's grave. I never understand social media stuff, but I did talk to Maggie as the hearse driver was about to take me back to the funeral home from the steep slope where Arlene will spend time (overlooking the Hudson, quite a view). She was still beating herself up a bit for not being there, but that's just crazy. She should have been with her daughter, absolutely, even Arlene told her so, with a punch to her arm.
Here's the thing, you just never know what life will hand you and there is never enough thanksgiving to give for the gifts. Arlene became a part of my life. I've told lots of people about her and half a dozen or more of the folks at the funeral told me she had told them about me.
Someone you never met, face to face, can bring wonder and grace and beauty and great good humor into your life, over a cell phone over six months or so.
What a gift that seemingly crazy invitation Maggie gave me to call her dying cousin turned out to be. I love Arlene. It was a joy and privilege and humbling experience it was to count her as a friend, never met, and to be a part of her 'leaving'.
I once counted up the funerals I had been a part of. It was close to a thousand. Imagine that, being a part of the 'leaving' and walking them to their graves....almost a thousand people. What a humbling honor and privilege.
And this one really mattered in a way I still do not understand.
Often in life, when I'm trying to do something else that I think is important, I find myself saying, "Jesus Christ, is it you again?"
Thank you Maggie. Thank you Arlene. Thank you God. Thank you Life....really....
Monday, July 15, 2013
flies and my finger tip....
Do you remember Nancy and Sluggo?
If you don't then you're too young to understand 'Truth, Justice and the American Way...."
Nancy and Sluggo were the characters in a comic strip. One I remember after all these years has Sluggo telling Nancy why he loves winter: "No hot days, no sweating, no mosquitoes or gnats or flies..."
Then snow falls out of a tree and covers Sluggo and Nancy says, ...."no Sluggo...."
I do hate flies.
I kill six or seven a day and Bern does as well....
Then I almost cut the tip of my ring finger off on the lid of a pull off can of artichoke hearts. I hate pull off tops and am always afraid I'm going to cut myself. I was holding the can in my left hand and pulling the little pull tab with my right hand and suddenly the can was open and I was bleeding all over the counter top and in the sink and on the floor.
I could tell from the copious blood that it was a bad cut but I couldn't stop the bleeding to see how bad it was. So Bern gave me a bag of ice and I pressed it against the cut and wrapped it in a kitchen towel and she drove me to urgent care about five minutes away.
I know all about finger cuts since two thanksgivings ago I started to open a drawer to get a spoon and the antique glass knob shattered and cut my right index finger so badly I need stitches and only now can bend it fully. That day my friend John and my daughter Mimi took me to the Mid-state emergency room and it took an hour and a half and Mimi kept taking pictures of the stitching on her phone and sending them to Tim to show Bern and Hanne, who were at home waiting for dinner.
This time Bern took me and couldn't stay in the room because she has this thing with blood, but I got four stitches and we were home in 40 minutes.
(Bern's blood thing looks like this: once Mimi who was 2 1/2 cut her head in our house in New Haven and it bled like all forehead wounds do, so Josh, 5 1/2, called me at the church and said, "Mimi is dying!"
The church was next door and when I got there in a few minutes, Josh was still screaming about his sister's demise, Bern had a dish towel over the cut and told me to press hard, then she fainted dead away, luckily she was sitting on the floor and hadn't far to fall. Then Josh started screaming, "Mommy is dying!".... Bern's 'blood thing' is like that....)
The ring finger types the letters: swq2 and x and any time I've had to type 'w' it's come out w3e or something like that so to write this I've done lots of deleting and backspacing....Just want you to realize how hard I've had to work--with a bum finger and all.....
If you don't then you're too young to understand 'Truth, Justice and the American Way...."
Nancy and Sluggo were the characters in a comic strip. One I remember after all these years has Sluggo telling Nancy why he loves winter: "No hot days, no sweating, no mosquitoes or gnats or flies..."
Then snow falls out of a tree and covers Sluggo and Nancy says, ...."no Sluggo...."
I do hate flies.
I kill six or seven a day and Bern does as well....
Then I almost cut the tip of my ring finger off on the lid of a pull off can of artichoke hearts. I hate pull off tops and am always afraid I'm going to cut myself. I was holding the can in my left hand and pulling the little pull tab with my right hand and suddenly the can was open and I was bleeding all over the counter top and in the sink and on the floor.
I could tell from the copious blood that it was a bad cut but I couldn't stop the bleeding to see how bad it was. So Bern gave me a bag of ice and I pressed it against the cut and wrapped it in a kitchen towel and she drove me to urgent care about five minutes away.
I know all about finger cuts since two thanksgivings ago I started to open a drawer to get a spoon and the antique glass knob shattered and cut my right index finger so badly I need stitches and only now can bend it fully. That day my friend John and my daughter Mimi took me to the Mid-state emergency room and it took an hour and a half and Mimi kept taking pictures of the stitching on her phone and sending them to Tim to show Bern and Hanne, who were at home waiting for dinner.
This time Bern took me and couldn't stay in the room because she has this thing with blood, but I got four stitches and we were home in 40 minutes.
(Bern's blood thing looks like this: once Mimi who was 2 1/2 cut her head in our house in New Haven and it bled like all forehead wounds do, so Josh, 5 1/2, called me at the church and said, "Mimi is dying!"
The church was next door and when I got there in a few minutes, Josh was still screaming about his sister's demise, Bern had a dish towel over the cut and told me to press hard, then she fainted dead away, luckily she was sitting on the floor and hadn't far to fall. Then Josh started screaming, "Mommy is dying!".... Bern's 'blood thing' is like that....)
The ring finger types the letters: swq2 and x and any time I've had to type 'w' it's come out w3e or something like that so to write this I've done lots of deleting and backspacing....Just want you to realize how hard I've had to work--with a bum finger and all.....
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