Since I have alternatively bemoaned and celebrated being an only child, I thought maybe I should tell you a little about my cousins (closest to siblings I had and much like grandchildren, great to be around but you don't have to live with them!)
I just wrote a Christmas card (I know, I know--I haven't been busy, I'm just lazy) to my cousin Gayle and her husband Peter Keller. Gayle was a Pugh, the only girl of 4 children to my mom's sister, Juanette (my grandmother came up with some names--Elsie, Juanette, Cleo, Georgie and Graham...plus Leon and Ernest who died as children). Gayle's brothers were Marlin, Joel and Duane--all of whom indulged me and tormented me, their much younger first cousin, to a remarkable degree. Joel once had a bottle of ether, God knows where he got it, and invited me to take a big smell of it. I passed out, dead to the world and Joel had to go get my Aunt to bring me around. Marlin once fed me 5 packs of Dentine gum and nearly burned the enamel off my teeth. Marlin was once driving me to my grandmother's house--across the road from his house--when we encountered one of the less than half-a-dozen traffic jams ever in Conklintown, WV. This one, like the others, involved a deer hit by a car. Marlin stopped, scoped out the situation, grabbed his hunting knife from the glove compartment, told me to stay in the car and ran down the road toward the still thrashing deer. Of course I followed right behind--so close behind that I got sprayed by arterial deer blood as Marlin expertly cut the deer's throat and put it out of its misery. Hard to explain to my grandmother why I arrived soaked in deer blood.
Gayle was always elegant and poised to me. She was years older and seemed like a woman when, as I look back, she was only a teenager. One of the stories of my mother's family is that my Grandmother, who lived well into her 80's, in her early 70's became obsessed with her death. Gayle moved in with her in Grandmaw's trailer (yes, beloved, I come from trailer trash!) and every time my grandmother complained about a random pain or funny feeling, Gayle would tell her, "that's the way you get just before you die, Mamaw".
It was a form of reality therapy that snapped my grandmother out of her depression in a matter of days and she sent Gayle packing.
Besides Mejol, who was my favorite cousin, Gayle took care of me more than any of the others.
And now we're both old. I'm in my 60's and Gayle in her 70's. I haven't seen her for years. Funny how someone you love so much can drop out of your life so easily.
But we exchange Christmas cards--her's on time and mine weeks late.
She meant a great deal to me in my childhood and adolescence. We went vastly different directions religiously. She is extremely devout and strict and I'm an agnostic-leaning Episcopalian. We'd drive each other crazy, I'm sure, about politics and social issues and religion. And, in spite of all that, I'd like to see her again.
Gayle, I love you profoundly and I'm sorry you don't know that for sure....
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
A pihoto in my desk of a porch I don't know....
So, there's this front porch in a photo I have in my desk. There are 8 steps up to the porch. There is nothing on the porch I can see from the photo. I do not know this house or these steps or this porch.
My father is in the photo with four young to adolescent boys. They are all sitting on the steps.
On the back someone has written this: "Virgil Bradley, Mack Hall, Pat Lafon, Billy Joe Lafon, Greg Bradley.
I know three of those names: my father Virgil's, of course, Pat Lafon (who lived with my parents until I was born, my father's nephew and I grew up in "Pat's room", he became a Nazarene preacher, go figure. And Greg Bradley is my Uncle Sid and Aunt Callie's oldest child. Mack Hall and Billy Joe Lafon, I do not know. Lafon is one of my paternal family names--but I know no one named Billy Joe....Wait, I do, I remember now. He lived in Point Pleasant and his name was Billy and he adopted a son and never told the boy he was adopted and when the son found out he left and never contacted Billy or Lorraine, his mother again. I'd almost forgotten that story of my family and my life because I was so much younger that Billy or Greg or Pat.
Greg Bradley is still alive and is in his late 70's in Ashland, Virginia. His children are all older than my children so they are in their 40's. I was the ring bearer at Greg's marriage to Libby. I was 5 or 6.
(I went out to smoke a cigarette while pondering the people and the porch in that black and white photo that was in my desk. The boards of the porch moaned as I stepped on them because it is nearly 0 degrees Fahrenheit. That cold. Almost too cold to smoke. If I lived in International Falls, Minnesota, I'd probably stop smoking.)
Billy and his wife Lorraine loved in Point Pleasant and their adopted son was older than me by quite a bit. In the photo Billy is an adolescent and my father looks very young. Maybe this photo was taken before WW II or shortly after.
On a porch so high and steep I don't remember it, and I would if I'd ever seen it. But this photo is years before I was born. Greg is maybe 5 or 6 in it.
A photo my Aunt Ursa undoubtedly sent me some time, though she is my second cousin and not my 'aunt'. I think I've addressed the loose and chaotic naming of relatives on my father's side of the family earlier.
Everyone in this photo is dead, except Greg. Yet there they are on a porch I don't know, smiling at the camera. Pat is on my father's knees. Mack Hall, the youngest in the photo sits on the steps to his left. Billy is above him on a step and Greg is below where my father sits.
People I know, so, so long ago. With stories I don't know.
My father, long from being my father, surrounded by boys.
On steps to a porch I can't recognize.
What an odd thing to find in my desk drawer. I don't remember putting it there. But I will ponder it well. I truly will. Trust me on this....
My father is in the photo with four young to adolescent boys. They are all sitting on the steps.
On the back someone has written this: "Virgil Bradley, Mack Hall, Pat Lafon, Billy Joe Lafon, Greg Bradley.
I know three of those names: my father Virgil's, of course, Pat Lafon (who lived with my parents until I was born, my father's nephew and I grew up in "Pat's room", he became a Nazarene preacher, go figure. And Greg Bradley is my Uncle Sid and Aunt Callie's oldest child. Mack Hall and Billy Joe Lafon, I do not know. Lafon is one of my paternal family names--but I know no one named Billy Joe....Wait, I do, I remember now. He lived in Point Pleasant and his name was Billy and he adopted a son and never told the boy he was adopted and when the son found out he left and never contacted Billy or Lorraine, his mother again. I'd almost forgotten that story of my family and my life because I was so much younger that Billy or Greg or Pat.
Greg Bradley is still alive and is in his late 70's in Ashland, Virginia. His children are all older than my children so they are in their 40's. I was the ring bearer at Greg's marriage to Libby. I was 5 or 6.
(I went out to smoke a cigarette while pondering the people and the porch in that black and white photo that was in my desk. The boards of the porch moaned as I stepped on them because it is nearly 0 degrees Fahrenheit. That cold. Almost too cold to smoke. If I lived in International Falls, Minnesota, I'd probably stop smoking.)
Billy and his wife Lorraine loved in Point Pleasant and their adopted son was older than me by quite a bit. In the photo Billy is an adolescent and my father looks very young. Maybe this photo was taken before WW II or shortly after.
On a porch so high and steep I don't remember it, and I would if I'd ever seen it. But this photo is years before I was born. Greg is maybe 5 or 6 in it.
A photo my Aunt Ursa undoubtedly sent me some time, though she is my second cousin and not my 'aunt'. I think I've addressed the loose and chaotic naming of relatives on my father's side of the family earlier.
Everyone in this photo is dead, except Greg. Yet there they are on a porch I don't know, smiling at the camera. Pat is on my father's knees. Mack Hall, the youngest in the photo sits on the steps to his left. Billy is above him on a step and Greg is below where my father sits.
People I know, so, so long ago. With stories I don't know.
My father, long from being my father, surrounded by boys.
On steps to a porch I can't recognize.
What an odd thing to find in my desk drawer. I don't remember putting it there. But I will ponder it well. I truly will. Trust me on this....
"Anglican Communion Sunday"
This coming Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, is also called, on my churchy calendar, "Anglican Communion Sunday". Which is sort of like saying we should celebrate the unity of the House of Representatives.
There is no 'Anglican Communion' so far as I can see. The vast majority of Anglicans, in the Southern Hemisphere, don't recognize 'women priests' much less GLBT priests, or even people.
We Anglicans in the northern hemisphere have little in common with our southern church. They're growing by leaps and bounds and we're holding our own at best. They're just to the Right of Rush Limbaugh and we're to the left of the President.
We have all the money and they have all the people. We have a life-giving theology and they have a judgemental theology. We welcome women and gay folks into leadership--they reject them.
But they are growing like Topsy and we're struggling along.
Most of the southern hemisphere bishops won't even have communion with our Presiding Bishop because she's a woman.
Anglicanism is not a boat we all sail in.
Anglicanism is what it is, where it is.
There is no 'communion' in the Anglican communion.
Let's move on, ok? There are two different churches that call themselves 'Anglican'.
Go figure.
There is no 'Anglican Communion' so far as I can see. The vast majority of Anglicans, in the Southern Hemisphere, don't recognize 'women priests' much less GLBT priests, or even people.
We Anglicans in the northern hemisphere have little in common with our southern church. They're growing by leaps and bounds and we're holding our own at best. They're just to the Right of Rush Limbaugh and we're to the left of the President.
We have all the money and they have all the people. We have a life-giving theology and they have a judgemental theology. We welcome women and gay folks into leadership--they reject them.
But they are growing like Topsy and we're struggling along.
Most of the southern hemisphere bishops won't even have communion with our Presiding Bishop because she's a woman.
Anglicanism is not a boat we all sail in.
Anglicanism is what it is, where it is.
There is no 'communion' in the Anglican communion.
Let's move on, ok? There are two different churches that call themselves 'Anglican'.
Go figure.
Monday, January 6, 2014
The Feast of the Epiphany
Today is Epiphany--the Magi and the gifts.
Thought I'd share my sermon from yesterday at St. James, Higganum.
Gospel Matthew 2/1-12
"This great day, I met them on their way, Three Kings of East upon their fine horses riding.
This great day, I met them on their way. Three Kings of East with all their fine array."
Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. We celebrate it today by greeting the Three Kings of East.
A dream told them not to go back to Herod after they found The Child. And if we read further in Matthew we would see that a dream told Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt. The Magi 'went home by another road' and Joseph went to Egypt. There are dreams aplenty these holy days.
The Magi were most probably astrologers and philosophers in Persia. When they saw the Star they had been waiting for, they had to travel all of what we call the Middle East to reach Israel. So Jesus was a totter, at least by the time they got there.
If we read even further in Matthew, we would discover that Herod ordered the slaughter of all the male children under two after the wise men did not come back to him to tell them they'd found the Child. That is the Holy Day we call the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a horrible day of mourning and unimaginable suffering.
I used to have a big, tan Webster's unabridged dictionary. It was about the size of a pickup truck. And once I looked up the definition of 'epiphany'. I've never forgotten it. An Epiphany, according to that dictionary, was "a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of things, usually caused by what is common, ordinary and day-to-day".
That definition is remarkable to me. But, oh, so true....
The Magi were wondrous and mysterious. The names we've given them: Gaspar, Melichior, Baltazar--only add to their strangeness.
They were men of authority and power. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they asked to see the King and Herod granted them an audience.The Magi were regal--they could talk to Kings.
Imagine how it must have been when they arrived in Bethlehem. Bethlehem, even today, is a 'half-horse town'. In the first century it was even humbler. The people must have come out to see these strange and exotic strangers from half-a-world away.
And they had come to find a King, a Child living in splendor surrounded by servants in a palace. Instead, beneath the Star, they found a simple home, probably only one room, and a teen-age mother with her small Child. They might have turned back, thinking they had come in vain. But they had an Epiphany--a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of things--and they knelt down before that humble Child and gave their rich gifts.
We need to have our eyes wide open all the time. We need open ears and open hearts to see the un-concealing of the Holy in the ordinary and commonplace and day-to-day.
We spent the first part of this week in Baltimore with our three grandchildren. Tegan is four years old. I tell people there are hurricanes and tornadoes and Tegan. She if a force of Nature. She was tearing around the house, running and yelling and she stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at me. "I love you, grandpa," she said and then she was off again, running as hard as she could.
A child, simply being a child, something ordinary and as it should be, and in that moment I had a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of life. The common and day-to-day love of a child. An Epiphany for me.
So, my prayer for you and me is that we keep our eyes and ears and hearts wide open in the days to come so that we might find the miracle and wonder of the deep-down meaning of things, the unconcealing of the Holy, in what is ordinary and commonplace and day-to-day.
Just that. May you have Epiphanies of what is Holy every day, every moment, on and on....
Amen
Thought I'd share my sermon from yesterday at St. James, Higganum.
Gospel Matthew 2/1-12
"This great day, I met them on their way, Three Kings of East upon their fine horses riding.
This great day, I met them on their way. Three Kings of East with all their fine array."
Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. We celebrate it today by greeting the Three Kings of East.
A dream told them not to go back to Herod after they found The Child. And if we read further in Matthew we would see that a dream told Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt. The Magi 'went home by another road' and Joseph went to Egypt. There are dreams aplenty these holy days.
The Magi were most probably astrologers and philosophers in Persia. When they saw the Star they had been waiting for, they had to travel all of what we call the Middle East to reach Israel. So Jesus was a totter, at least by the time they got there.
If we read even further in Matthew, we would discover that Herod ordered the slaughter of all the male children under two after the wise men did not come back to him to tell them they'd found the Child. That is the Holy Day we call the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a horrible day of mourning and unimaginable suffering.
I used to have a big, tan Webster's unabridged dictionary. It was about the size of a pickup truck. And once I looked up the definition of 'epiphany'. I've never forgotten it. An Epiphany, according to that dictionary, was "a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of things, usually caused by what is common, ordinary and day-to-day".
That definition is remarkable to me. But, oh, so true....
The Magi were wondrous and mysterious. The names we've given them: Gaspar, Melichior, Baltazar--only add to their strangeness.
They were men of authority and power. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they asked to see the King and Herod granted them an audience.The Magi were regal--they could talk to Kings.
Imagine how it must have been when they arrived in Bethlehem. Bethlehem, even today, is a 'half-horse town'. In the first century it was even humbler. The people must have come out to see these strange and exotic strangers from half-a-world away.
And they had come to find a King, a Child living in splendor surrounded by servants in a palace. Instead, beneath the Star, they found a simple home, probably only one room, and a teen-age mother with her small Child. They might have turned back, thinking they had come in vain. But they had an Epiphany--a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of things--and they knelt down before that humble Child and gave their rich gifts.
We need to have our eyes wide open all the time. We need open ears and open hearts to see the un-concealing of the Holy in the ordinary and commonplace and day-to-day.
We spent the first part of this week in Baltimore with our three grandchildren. Tegan is four years old. I tell people there are hurricanes and tornadoes and Tegan. She if a force of Nature. She was tearing around the house, running and yelling and she stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at me. "I love you, grandpa," she said and then she was off again, running as hard as she could.
A child, simply being a child, something ordinary and as it should be, and in that moment I had a sudden, intuitive understanding of the deep-down meaning of life. The common and day-to-day love of a child. An Epiphany for me.
So, my prayer for you and me is that we keep our eyes and ears and hearts wide open in the days to come so that we might find the miracle and wonder of the deep-down meaning of things, the unconcealing of the Holy, in what is ordinary and commonplace and day-to-day.
Just that. May you have Epiphanies of what is Holy every day, every moment, on and on....
Amen
Whiteout
Given the extreme weather gripping the middle of the country and other places, I thought I'd share a poem I wrote for Bern as her Christmas present in 2011.
WHITEOUT
(A
poem in five parts for Bern—Christmas 2011—with much, much
love....Jim)
(WHITEOUT
is a weather condition in which visability and contrast are severely
reduced by snow.)
i.
A
solitary figure trudges
across
of faceless landscape.
It
is bitterly cold and bleak beyond believing.
Nothing
makes sense.
Exhaustion
is near.
It
is dawn, or dusk.
Faint
light.
(The
horizon disappears completely and there are no reference points at
all, leaving the individual in a distorted orientation.)
ii.
Down
is up.
Left
is right.
Forward
is back.
East
is South and North is West.
The
figure pauses. Sits.
Dreams
of sleep or sleeps and dreams.
Either
the other, or the one.
(Whiteout
has been defined as: A
condition of diffuse light when no shadows are cast, due to a
continuous white cloud layer appearing to merge with the white snow
surface.)
iii.
Without
a shadow, who are we?
A
shadow is proof positive that we are there:
We
take up space,
block
light,
displace
air,
have
substance,
exist.
To
cast a shadow is to be Real.
Without
a shadow, where are we?
Do
we exist? Have being?
Shadowless,
are we real?
(People
can be lost in their own front yards during a true whiteout, when the
door is only 10 feet [3.04 meters] away, and they would have to feel
their way back.)
iv.
I
often experience whiteouts—mostly in winter, which is appropriate.
I
feel lost, disorientated,
confused
by pain, physical failures,
the
frailties of my body,
my
memory,
who
I am,
not
knowing if I BE,
or
not.
Some
whiteouts are emotional:
fear
of fading away into unbroken white,
wondering
if I have been
good
enough,
loving
enough,
caring
enough,
enough.
Disappearing
in whiteness,
dreaming
of sleep,
sleeping
dreamlessly.
Longing,
longing greatly,
longing
always
to
feel my way back to the front door.
(In
whiteouts no surface irregularities are visible, but a dark object
may be clearly seen. There is no visible horizon.)
v.
You
are the front door of my life.
You
are the 'clearly seen' object when my horizon is not visible.
You
have always oriented me in the whiteouts of my life.
Whether
I have been good enough,
loving
enough, caring enough,
enough...or
not,
I
could find my way,
reach
the front door,
orient
myself,
see
the horizon,
survive
the whiteouts,
weather
the storm,
move
through the bleakness and the chill,
the
dreams of sleeping
and
the sleeping dreams
and
find my way home.
You
give me back my shadow
and
make me exist,
make
me real,
make
me
be.
You
are the 'home' of my life
and
the clearing that leads to light
and
wholeness, and wonder,
and
magic, and love.
And
simply,
mostly,
always,
forever,
just
this:
Home.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
"Naming Storms" update
I should have known not to admit I couldn't think of a name beginning with F, K or X in the Bible or X or Z from Shakespeare.
I go to this clericus group every Tuesday that has three regular members: Charles, Bill and Fred--who I believe in my heart of hearts between them know "everything" or can at least find 'everything' out.
So I got two emails from Charles that answered my dilemma and proved my point that these three guys absolutely KNOW EVERYTHING. I'll copy them here if I know how.
I go to this clericus group every Tuesday that has three regular members: Charles, Bill and Fred--who I believe in my heart of hearts between them know "everything" or can at least find 'everything' out.
So I got two emails from Charles that answered my dilemma and proved my point that these three guys absolutely KNOW EVERYTHING. I'll copy them here if I know how.
You write:
"Can you think of a name beginning with F or K or X in the Bible? I'm at a loss."
In the bok of Esther, some translations give Xerxes instead of
Ahaseurus. The Contemporary English Version has:
1 1-2 King Xerxesa]" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"[a] of Persia lived in his capital city of Susab]" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"[b]and ruled one hundred twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopia.c]" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"[c] 3 During
the third year of his rule, Xerxes gave a big dinner for all his
officials and officers. The governors and leaders of the provinces were
also invited, and even the commanders of the Persian and Median armies
came. 4 For
one hundred eighty days he showed off his wealth and spent a lot of
money to impress his guests with the greatness of his kingdom.
For F, consider Felix [Acts 24]
For K, what about Kadmiel? [Ezra 3:9}
Charles
(aside from 'bok' and whatever the hell that stuff is after Xerxesa, pretty good. but he's not finished....)
You have spurred me on to further research on names. If you are allowing
Yorick in your list of Shakespearian names because his name is mentioned,
then you can also use Xanthippe, as her name appears in Taming of the Shrew,
Act 1, scene 2:
Signior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice. And therefore, if thou know
One
rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,
As old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes at
least
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
Not only that, but the Folio edition of Shakespeare spells it Zentippe.
I am also told that the name Zenelophon shows up in Love's Labors Lost and two other Shakespeare plays:
I'm sure Bill and Fred will tell me day after tomorrow they came up with answers too.....
Just for your edification....
What I don't notice until it's not there....
I have tinnitus--ringing in the ears. I've had it for years now. It's not a problem because it sounds like crickets...a pleasant sound to hear, very soothing and calming.
I only notice it (having grown used to background noise of crickets on a soft, summer afternoon) until it isn't there.
I don't know why my head is silent from time to time--atmospheric pressure, lack of congestion, time of day--I just don't know. But from time to time the crickets fall silent and I notice they aren't there.
I don't notice their singing. It's simply the soundtrack of the movie of my life. But when they fall silent, as they have right now, the silence gets my attention.
Something to ponder: what in your life do you notice only in its absence?
Love, perhaps, or affection or compassion? I'm not sure. I have to ponder that as well.
And I've typed long enough that the crickets are back. In a few moments, I won't notice that they're back. It's only when they're not there that I notice their absence.
Strange, I'd say. Some people I'd imagine are so angry or depressed or self loathing that they only notice when those feelings aren't present.
But I can't be sure since I don't have those feelings, or hardly ever. I only notice anger and depression and self-loathing when they show up, from time to time.
The crickets, though, I've come to a peace with them, except when, from time to time, they aren't singing. Then I notice....
I only notice it (having grown used to background noise of crickets on a soft, summer afternoon) until it isn't there.
I don't know why my head is silent from time to time--atmospheric pressure, lack of congestion, time of day--I just don't know. But from time to time the crickets fall silent and I notice they aren't there.
I don't notice their singing. It's simply the soundtrack of the movie of my life. But when they fall silent, as they have right now, the silence gets my attention.
Something to ponder: what in your life do you notice only in its absence?
Love, perhaps, or affection or compassion? I'm not sure. I have to ponder that as well.
And I've typed long enough that the crickets are back. In a few moments, I won't notice that they're back. It's only when they're not there that I notice their absence.
Strange, I'd say. Some people I'd imagine are so angry or depressed or self loathing that they only notice when those feelings aren't present.
But I can't be sure since I don't have those feelings, or hardly ever. I only notice anger and depression and self-loathing when they show up, from time to time.
The crickets, though, I've come to a peace with them, except when, from time to time, they aren't singing. Then I notice....
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