Sermon today

Today/s gospel was a parable from Luke I always found annoying.

Jesus is telling his disciples they should always pray and tells a parable about a judge who cares not for God or human beings who is confronted by a widow who calls for justice over and again. And the judge gives the woman what justice she needs just because she keeps coming back and he doesn't want to deal with her.

For me, that's a terrible image for God who gives his people what they want when they pray.

God doesn't always give us what we want--his will, not ours--but God, I think, doesn't live by the Gallup poll. Being persistent in prayer doesn't mean we'll have the answer we want. That, in fact, is a terrible analogy for prayer. Prayer for me is simply 'listening' to God, not making demands on God.

But there was also the lesson about Jacob, after he'd robbed his brother, Esau, of his inheritance, fleeing with his wives and servants and cattle and wrestling with God on the banks of the river.

Now that's something I can lean into and understand--wrestling with God.

Seems to me my whole life has been engaging God in a wrestling match, trying to do what I want and finally not being able to overpower God.

What Jacob gets is a new name--"Israel"--and a limp from his displaced hip.

Not a bad deal when struggling with God--a new name and a limp.

That, it seems to me, is well worth the struggle.

Lazy Day

OK, so I had all these plans for today. I was going to the hospital to see someone (but realized it would be better to do it tomorrow) and I was going to a movie (but our Puli dog, Bela, was having some diarrhea last night, waking Bern up twice and she took him out while I slept through it all and Bern had stuff to do so I didn't want to leave him) and I was going to the YMCA to walk on the treadmill (but Bern was out and I had a book I was reading and though I could have read it while I was walking on the treadmill, well, it just made more sense to read it at home).

So, I had what had seemed like a busy day but turned out to be a lazy day.

Not unlike many days I have as a retired person. I end up reading at least 5 novels a week these days (some of them walking the treadmill, some standing on the back porch or at a table in the kitchen or sitting in the dining room--I try to stand up rather than sit--or laying down on my bed). I love being retired and having more lazy days than not.

Sunday is never a lazy day since I have church to do. And Tuesday I go to my clergy group in the morning. And most Wednesdays I go to Higganum to talk to Bea about the Cluster I serve (very part time) and meet with some folks or visit someone. And these days I go on Thursday night to the book group at St. James where we're reading some of the chapters of something I've been writing. And on Fridays, at least for the next month, I'm teaching a class at UConn in Waterbury on the 'so called' Gnostic Christians. But every Monday is a lazy day and most Saturdays and none of the stuff above takes more than an hour or two.

I told someone the other day that if I knew how good I'd be at being retired I'd have done it decades ago.

Of course, decades ago I wouldn't have the Church Pension Fund sending me only a bit less than I earned working full time each month, or have Social Security or Medicare and the additional insurance coverage I have from, again, the Church Pension Fund. (No one, I suppose, becomes an Episcopal priest because of the Church Pension Fund--but it wouldn't be a bad strategy....)

Retired priests used to tell me they were better off than when they were working and I didn't believe them. But, the truth is, I made more money last year than I ever did working full time and I only do things I want to do (the Cluster ministry, teaching at Olli at UConn, doing Making a Difference workshops several times a year and having lots of Lazy days when I read almost all day and eat food I love and drink a little wine).

How good is that?

Sometimes I am startled that I'm 66 years old, have been married 43 years, have two children in their late 30's and three granddaughters. How could that be? I'm only just starting out. I feel 35 (except for the joint pain!) so how am I suddenly old?

Well, age has it's advantages--like lots of lazy days and doing only what you 'want' to do and not worrying about 'not being busy'--what a blessing that is!!!!

In five more years, I'll feel free to say whatever I'm thinking no matter what the occasion. I'm not quite there yet, but I look forward to being constantly inappropriate and when someone questions me about it I'll just say, "I'm old. Get used to it."

Merry-go-rounds and the eclipse of the moon

Tonight is an eclipse of the moon. That happens when the earth moves and spins in front of the sun and blocks out the light that the moon reflects from the sun.

At fairs and such, when I was a child, my parents always wanted me to ride the Merry-go-round sitting on a horse, spinning around. I always felt a bit nauseous on the ride, but I did it because it made my parents happy. (For many children, the pressure that you are the cause of your parents' happiness is a great burden. It was for me, an only child of parents in their 40's when I was born....)

The earth spins (I looked it up) at 1038 miles per hour at the equator, where it spins fastest. Here in Connecticut it spins about 750-800 miles an hour so it can spin between the sun and the moon and make a lunar eclipse.

Isn't it wonderful that we can't feel the earth spinning a couple of hundred miles an hour faster than an 727 flies? Otherwise everyone on earth would feel a bit sick at their stomach all the time: the stock market couldn't function, Congress couldn't...well, Congress obviously doesn't function anyway, spinning or not, life as we know it would come to a stop while we all thought about throwing up.

Merry-go-rounds probably spin at, at best 15 miles an hour. Imagine spinning in Costa Rica at 1000 miles an hour or in Cheshire at 775 miles an hour. Well, you can't imagine that.

I'm just pondering an eclipse of the moon, that probably won't happen before I go to bed though I can see the full moon through the hemlock trees to the east of our back porch. Actually, I can see the moon perfectly well from the window above my computer where I sit typing since that window faces east. If the moon starts to eclipse (though I think it will be most dramatic in Europe where the world--as it is here--is spinning at a breath-taking speed) I'll come back and tell you about it since I can see the moon through the upper right pane of my window.

I'm just glad I don't feel sick at my stomach from spinning so fast....

Ireland 4 and last....

Ok, so I've heard from one of the participants who read an earlier blog and recognized himself. We've exchanged several emails and all it well, but I'm going to bring this conversation about the Making a Difference workshop in Ireland to an end with this post.

And this post is about Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is the heart of the workshop and what most people take away that lasts. The Language-ing of the workshop fades fast if you don't use it. It's simply too disruptive to remember if you don't have someone to remember it with. The Language is wondrous and vital but it is contained and lived into in Centering Prayer.

The language is about 'being' and Centering Prayer is a prayer of 'being'. So the prayer keeps the language alive in a subliminal way.

Here's the way we see Centering Prayer in the workshop. It is bare bones and blue collar.

"Put your butt on the chair and intend to be with God for 20 minutes."

That is the whole thing in less than 20 words.

"Intention" is the key. "Intend" to pay attention to the God who dwells within you in the silence of your life and you will get what you get.

There is no 'right way' or 'wrong way' to do centering prayer, which drives people crazy since they want to 'do it right' and 'be good at it'. Vain hopes.

Sit down. Intend to be with God in the silence of your soul.

Take a prayer word (can be anything, best something that doesn't give you emotional content--mine is 'abba', Jesus' name for his father...more like, 'Daddy', but it is a foreign word...Aramaic, and with no emotion in me attached to it.)

Be still and silent and intend to be with God. And whenever anything impinges on your silence and intent, simply and gently use your prayer word to return to the Center and your intention and God.

That's all there is. There ain't much more.

Try it. It's easy. And you get what you get. No one is 'grading' you on how well you center. If you 'intend' to be with God, you will be. And it might not be what you wanted or needed. 'Want' and 'Need' have nothing to do with it.

Put your butt in the chair, shut up, listen for God. That and that only.

And what you get is what you get AND what you GET is your prayer, whatever that is. You're not being graded.

God is simply waiting for you to put your butt in the chair and shut up and listen for 20 minutes or so.

That's all. No strings attached. Nothing that comes up in the silence of the 20 minutes matters....let it be and it will let you be....return to the center.

Just like that. Really.

So, I'm through with Ireland for now. Thanks for enduring my reflections about those days in the Old Sod.

I know you didn't ask me, but...

It was so good to be in Ireland during a big piece of the government shut-down and the run up to the debt ceiling. It was so good not to have my intelligence and patriotism challenged by the likes of Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Senate and Louie Gomes (R-Texas) in the House. In fact, I would urge Texas to secede from the Union as their governor, Rick Perry (R) has somewhat recklessly mentioned from time to time. But only if Austin could be a part of Oklahoma or Louisiana. But when I think about it, those two states could secede to and become the country of "Ok-Lou-ass" with all their combined problems about poverty, lack of education and asshole politicians. God love them--and it wasn't so far out of the triangle, my home state of West Virginia could make them "West OkLouass".

The Wall Street Journal poll (that's the friggin' Wall Street Journal, not the New York Times or the Washington Post or MSNBC) this week said that only 24% of Americans polled had a positive opinion of the Republican Party! Let's have the 2014 election next week, for God and Country's sake....

This has been, without a doubt in my mind, one of the most foolish events in all of American history (and we've had a few....) It started about the Affordable Care Act--we'll shut down the government of the greatest nation on earth and default on our debts if Obamacare is not defunded" and ended up being something about 'being fair to all Americans", whatever that meant and which certainly didn't include the 800,000 federal employees out of work for two weeks.

And can we get something straight: The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, passed by Congress, signed by the President, approved by the Supreme Court. What in the hell would move you to shut down the government and defy the Constitution's guarantee of the 'good faith and credit' of the United States because you don't like a law that is a friggin' LAW and are angry you lost the 2012 election which was, in essence, a ratification of that law? For God sake, get some common sense!!!

I am so sick of these people--and I know you didn't ask me, but I needed you to know that I have been paying attention to the idiocy that's been going on and, hopefully, is over for a few months after tonight. I am a priest of the church and have vowed over and again to be compassionate to all people.

Well, that vow doesn't extend to Ted Cruz or any of the Tea Party.

You didn't ask me, but that's the truth....

Ireland 3

I've realized that in writing about the 2013 workshop in Ireland I cannot write about the participants since we request of them a confidentiality about what happened in the workshop. So, I won't use names or even change names, I'll just say "a participant...."

"A participant" got the workshop on the morning of the second day. You see, this is a workshop that doesn't require 'understanding' anything. In fact, one of the things I've said over and over over the years is "understanding is the booby prize". What you need from the workshop is to 'get' the workshop.

There's a sense in which the workshop is like a joke--you either 'get' it or you don't. And we all have the experience of having tried to explain a joke to someone who didn't 'get' it. There's just no way to explain a joke and have someone 'understand' it. You get a joke, or you don't. You 'understand' biology or physics or algebra. You GET a joke...and the workshop.

(Another thing you either 'get' or don't are the parables of Jesus. There's no 'understanding' involved. I often think of Jesus as a stand up comic: "A shepherd lost a sheep...get it? Or how about this, a woman lost a coin...get it? Or this, a man lost his son....get it about 'lost things'?")

In one of the rare times I was in the front of the room (this workshop being about the Irish leading it, more than anything) a question by one of the participants revealed to me, without a doubt, that he 'got' the workshop two days too soon. That often happens in workshops. Just as some people 'get' the joke first, some 'get' the workshop early. And there are two possible outcomes: either the early 'getter' is impatient and frustrated that he or she is first in on the joke, or they just lean back and let the workshop work for everyone else. Happily, this 'getter' was in the latter group and simply smiled and beamed the whole rest of the way.

"A participant" was, from the beginning, so involved, so connected to the others and the leaders that I began to realize she was 'in love' with the process and the distinctions and centering prayer and the whole thing. And when it came time, after all the moving backwards creating a free space from which to declare who you 'be'. She was one of the first to stand up and declare, "I am Love!" And I knew it all along and it rang so true, so true....

"A participant" was both the humorist and philosopher of the group. God love him. To be both humorist and philosopher is a rare and lovely thing. And he would forward the movement of the workshop from time to time with humor and from time to time with philosophy and always with integrity and "being". Would that we could plant one of those in every workshop. It would just make the leaders' job easier and more enjoyable. What a gift he was.

"A participant" was in the midst of some agenda of his own that had nothing to do with the workshop. The reason that person had come had made sense in his/her mind. But he/she was working on stuff much different from the stuff we were presenting. The way I speak of such people, who show up all the time in workshops, is like this "He/she is here for his/her workshop, not for ours...."

The leaders didn't 'get' that and he/she took us on a rabbit trail for quite a while. But when we met as leaders, the leaders 'got it' and just let him be. (Another mantra of the workshop is this--mostly about the distractions of centering prayer but also about the distractions in the workshop--"if you 'let it be', it will 'let you be'."

I can't tell you how amazing this workshop is. It's called Making a Difference. And if you Google "The Mastery Foundation" you will find lots of stuff about it.

It is one of the primary sources of both my Pride and my Humility that I have been a part of it for over 25 years. I wish I could be a part of it for another 25 years--but then I'd be 91 and in my dotage. But I have a few years left and I want to train people, like the three leaders in Ireland, to keep this work alive.

Really. It's that important.

The musical preferences of birds

Our Bose radio is right beside Maggie's cage. It is always tuned to the Classical Public Radio Station because Maggie seems to like music better than the talk radio Public Radio Station.

She sings along with Mozart, Bach and Beetoven, and other classical stuff. On Sunday nights there is a show that is rare and alternative music. Maggie is still and silent during all that.

I wonder if she likes it or not.

That's the kind of thing I wonder about and ponder.

Whether our parakeet is enjoying the music or not.

Go figure.

Lots of stuff to ponder and I ponder that. Like I ponder why my spell check didn't catch 'Beetoven', which I'm sure I misspelled. Twice now.

Lots of stuff to ponder.

I just want our bird to be happy....

Who knew that was what life was about?