What I do (redux)....

Since I wrote a post about 'walking you to your grave' as 'what I do' and then wrote a post about Arlene's funeral, I've been pondering how vital death and funerals are to a priest. I often downplay the importance of priesthood and I truly believe that priests are more accurately defined by 'who they BE' than 'what they DO'. However, being present and fully engaged at the time of death is a humbling and noble thing to do.

I've been looking at the dozens of dozens of sermons I have saved on my computer. And a number of them are funeral sermons. Funeral sermons are, it seems to me, perhaps the most important thing I've ever done. Walking someone to their grave is profound, talking about them right before that is profoundly humbling and an honor no one deserves. Funeral sermons are a gift to the preacher--a 'gift' that brings the preacher to his/her knees if they are paying attention.

So, I'm going to occasionally share a funeral sermon with you, if you don't mind. These sermons are 'the ones that mattered' in 38 years of preaching. Really.

The one I share today is for Jack Parker--one of the sweetest, kindest, most lovable man I ever knew. He was also a priest and a librarian. He served a parish a stones throw from St. John's in Waterbury, literally across the Green, for years. He was an Anglo-Catholic well acquainted with 'smells and bells', the stuff of High Church worship. He was also the first priest in Waterbury, perhaps in Connecticut., to truly reach out to the gay community and welcome them to worship.

He retired and became a member of St. John's and aided me in ways I cannot ever enumerate. He helped me through a really rough patch when some few folks were upset with my welcoming Integrity (GLBT Episcopalians and their friends) to St. John's for their home). He was willing to be the 'fly on the wall' for all my meetings with those who were angry about 'perverts' being part of the ministry of St. John's (so I'd have a 'witness' in what they said). He gave me a tee-shirt that said: I'M THE RECTOR, THAT'S WHY! during that period, to remind me I had 'authority' to let Integrity use the building as well as being correct morally about welcoming and showing hospitality to that community.

He was a mentor and teacher in a gentle way in many other aspects of my priesthood. I became the priest I am because of Jack in many ways.

And I was honored and humbled to preach at his funeral. Below is that sermon.

JACK PARKER’S MEMORIAL SERVICE

OCTOBER 17, 2009

Years ago, I went on a day trip with three men who I love like uncles and mentors and dear, dear friends. Jack Parker and Bill Penny and David Pritchard and I drove up into the heart of New England. I remember that we went to a place called ‘The Cathedral of the Pines’ and we also went to see Jack’s mountain—the one he loved and had climbed time and time again and where some of his ashes will be scattered by his remarkable family—we had a great lunch at some place one of them knew and somehow got back before it was too late for such a motley crew to be out without getting into mischief!

A friend of mine told me that there are only two plots in all of literature. One is, “A stranger arrives in town”. The other is, “Someone sets out on a journey”.

I have memories of sharing part of the journey that is life with Jack Parker.

Memories like that are precious, rare, wondrous and, finally, Holy.

Holy.

I’ve ONLY known Jack Parker for 20 years or so. I say ‘only’ because I know some of you have known him much longer than that—his children, his family that he loved so fiercely…and others. But knowing him for two decades was a bountiful gift to me from God. And, if I had to choose a word to describe that gift it would be this—‘holy’.

Holy.

I’ve never known anyone who loved a bad, corny joke as much as Jack.

Most of the jokes Jack loved began something like this: “A rabbi and a priest and a Baptist minister went into a bar….” Or, like this: ‘Three elderly men were sitting on the front porch of the nursing home….’ Or, like this, “A man was trying to sell a talking dog….”

I think you get the point. Jack would start laughing half-way through telling the joke and anyone who was listening would start laughing with him, entranced by Jack’s laugh, caught up in his story, not caring at all how the joke turned out—it would turn out ‘bad’ and ‘corny’—but thankful and joyous to be sharing a laugh with Jack….

There is a word for sharing a laugh with Jack. The word is ‘holy’.

Holy.

There is a word that occurs to me for anything, anytime ‘shared with Jack’. The word is ‘holy’.

OK, he was not St. Francis of Assisi. Not quite. But he was, for me, a ‘holy’ man. Truly, really, without fear of contradiction…Jack was ‘holy’. No kidding. I’m not exaggerating. Not at all.

He taught me….so many things…. Knowing Jack was like post-Doctoral work in kindness and love and long-suffering and generosity of Spirit and joy. Knowing Jack was like a seminar in prayerfulness. He was a priest to be admired, a man to be emulated, a quick study in sweetness. It seems an odd word, perhaps, but Jack was a sweet, sweet man. I know you all know what I mean.

And learning these things from Jack was—have I mentioned this?—Holy.

The words from Jesus in today’s gospel are among the most beautiful and comforting in all of Scripture.

“Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me…In my father’s house are many rooms…If it were not so, would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you?”

The Greek word translated ‘rooms’ is ‘mona’. That word has many possible translations—rooms, resting places, mansions (as we used to say) and abodes. That’s the one I like “abodes”…places to be, space to ‘abide’ in the nearer presence of the God who loves us best of all.

The last time I saw Jack, I made him promise that he wouldn’t die until I got home from a trip to the beach. He said he’d try, but he wasn’t sure he could. It was the only promise he didn’t keep to me. He had other plans, another place to abide.

That last time I saw Jack, I offered him communion. The sacrament was Jack’s favorite food and drink, but that last time, he said ‘no’.

“You’ve been a priest to me long enough,” he told me, with that crooked smile and twinkling eye he always had, “we’re just two old friends saying goodbye….”

Jack taught us all so very much about ‘living’. And he taught us how to die.

And it is time now—he would have wanted it this way—it’s time for us to smile and remember and thank God for the journey and say ‘good bye’ to our old, dear friend….

“I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;

Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

I triumph still, if thou abide with me.”

What I'd like to say....

OK, this is not for general consumption. This is not safe for under-aged kids. This is not your kind and gentle 'post', like most of my posts are.

I'm just pissed off and I don't want to take it anymore!

*Anthony Wiener, besides going to the court house and changing his name, has just got to GO AWAY! Like for always, and give us a break from his X rated life. Really.

*All those states--North Dakota, Texas, Virginia, who knows who else--who have declared war on women and their rights to their bodies have just got to GO AWAY! Like secede from the Union or whatever, but go away, like for always, and give us some money to invite all the women in those states to come to Connecticut.

*All those Republicans in Congress who want to do nothing else than block anything the President wants to do without offering any alternative on Health Care,Infrastructure, Immigration, National Security, the Economy, need the just GO AWAY and let the rest of us do what has to be done to make American work in some more reasonable and fair way.

*ARod, Alex Rodriquez, has to just GO AWAY and let the Yankees be the mid-level team they are.

*So called 'conservative talk show hosts', you know who they are--Rush and Glen and all those folks on Fox and a dozen or so more--just have to GO AWAY and let some semblance of sanity, as lame as it would be, return to the airways.

*Muslims (the non-terrorist types) need to get over the Sunni/Shiite thing and be good Muslims like Christians are good Catholics and good Protestants and almost never blow each other up about the differences they have--which aren't 'that different' to someone looking in from the outside.

Oh, there's lots more I'm pissed off about, but that's a start. More to come, since I don't think I'm going to be less pissed off anytime soon.....

The next appendix

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....

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....

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....)

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....

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.....