It's just not fair...

Whenever one of my granddaughters says of something: "That's not fair!" I unerringly, reply, as gently as I can, "life isn't Fair...."

Better that they hear it from someone who loves them more than air than from the mean, bad, unfair world out there.

But somethings aren't 'fair'--like how well Alice Hoffman can write.

I thought I had read all her 20+ novels but she was the featured writer at Cheshire's library last week, with a dozen or so titles displayed and I casually picked up one called The River King and discovered when I started it that I hadn't read it before.

I don't think I could read two of Alice Hoffman's books in a row--they are just too lyrical and rich and buoyantly beautiful to long endure. But I have decided now to read one a week until I've devoured them all again. (I read 4 or 5 novels a week--hey, I'm retired!)

I had taken The River King to lunch before going to a movie. My lunch was gone and I kept reading, putting off "August, Osage County" to another day. I finished reading it sitting in my car in Stop and Shops parking lot before going in to get something for our dinner.

There are 5 amazing characters in the book: Able, a drop-dead handsome small town police officer with life-long commitment issues; Mrs. Davis, an elderly, bitter History teacher who finds forgiveness as sweet as Spring in the end; Betsy, a photographer who is engaged to a boring man; and Gus and Calin, two star-crossed 14 year olds. Each of them are so full-blown and complete that they constantly surprise the reader,  just as real people are surprising.

I won't tell you any more about The River King in case you want to read it. But be ready for intense sadness and heart-wringing grief and surprise and breath-stopping joy and not a little inexplicable magic.

She's just too good. And her books endure beyond those of the person I think of as my favorite writer, Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe Kurt will have to be #2 after I re-read the Hoffman treasures. I'll let you know.

I'm Biebered out...

OK, to my knowledge, I've never heard a Justin Bieber song (is that  even how you spell his last name?) I never listen to Top 40 radio and am confident I've never seen him in a video or on TV.

So, why in God's name do I have to know so much about the little Canuk?

I know he has legions of Tweeny Girl fans and was born in Canada. I know he had a girlfriend who is some kind of celebrity (singer/model, I don't know) who he doesn't have any more. I know, at 19, he runs up $50K tabs at bars, buying for his bros. I know he infamously had a monkey that he didn't keep up with or treat well. I know he peed in a bucket in some public place. I know he egged his neighbor's house and when the police came there was a rapper in Bieber's home who was arrested for possession of drugs. I know he changed his signature hair style recently. And most recently, I know he was arrested for DUI/resisting arrest without violence/driving on a suspended Driver's license, hired the most famous lawyer in Florida to represent him and is smiling in his mug shot like it's all a big joke.

I know all that about him and have no opinion on his musical talent, having never, to my knowledge, heard him sing. My question is, why, in God's name, do I have to know any of this?

He sounds like a rich brat and I have no patience with rich brats or 'bad boy' Rappers or spoiled children. He should go to college and leave people like me alone. Or, maybe we could deport him back to Canada and make Florida a better place to live (though we'd have to deport Rick Scott and Marco Rubio as well to truly make Florida better).

Enough already!

Justin, sober up, shut up, grow up...quit throwing eggs, quick making 12 year old girls pass out with lust, enroll in college, study history and stop making a laughing stock of yourself. You're only 19 for Christ's sake...join a monastery, devote yourself to eliminating poverty, give your money to someone with some sense and, please, please, leave me out of your teenage melodrama, ok?

Muskrat love, alas

I just found out that The Captain and Tennille are getting divorced.

Muskrats everywhere will be in mourning, wearing sack cloth and ashes. How can this be.

If you don't know who The Captain and Tennille are, you must be under 50 and diminished because they were one of the great soft rock duos of all time--along with Simon and Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers and people like that.

Toni Tennille and The Captain (whose real name I've never known) were married for 39 years and had half a dozen #1 hits, the greatest of which was 'Muskrat Love'. If you've never heard it, Google it or UTube it and you'll find a dozen or so versions, I'd say.

The Captain has Parkinson's Disease, the article I read told me, and the divorce papers are very specific about Health Insurance issues. Maybe Tennille is divorcing him so he can have better care though I have no idea what that would look like.

The Captain and Tennille have been married 4 years less than Bern and me. And I shake a bit. I hope that's not a precursor of  things to come for us. But my health coverage wouldn't change in any way. But if I start shaking so bad I spill coffee and wine everywhere and knock food off my plate, Bern will be stern with me, but I can't see her filing for divorce.

I probably haven't thought of The Captain and Tennille for a decade or more, but hearing of their pain brought them back fully. Thanks, guys, for music from 30 years, or 40 years, ago. And I'm sorry to hear you are parting.

Be well, Captain and Tennille, and stay well.....

Cold...and Colder

It's 4:36 p.m. and the temperature never got above 8 F today, according to the thermometer on our back porch. My computer tells me it's 13 F but my computer isn't on my back porch.

While I walked the dog (begging him to poop!) Bern cleaned off the cars and cleared our walkways. The cotton candy snow was easy to move but when she came in she felt faint for 5 minutes or so and kept her head down. Since you don't breathe as deeply when it's this cold, I think she got a little oxygen depleted from working outside.

It's really cold, but not nearly so Cold as Joshua Black, a man running for the Florida State Senate who, in a Tweet, said that President Obama should be 'tried for treason and hanged....' Black is a Republican (bet you guessed!) and a black man (did you see that coming?)

The Secret Service has had words with Black and though they didn't believe he posed a physical threat to the President, they probably came away wondering how anyone that crazy could be running for political office. (Just check out the Congress to see that brilliance isn't a requirement for being elected....)

Obviously, given my Luddite nature, I don't tweet or read them. But it seems to me that Twitter encourages rash, can't-take-it-back stupidity even more than e-mail. Type it on your phone and hit SEND and it is out there for all the world to see. I've never typed on a phone (bet that's not surprising to you) but I imagine it is a one or two finger exercise that doesn't require sitting down or taking out a laptop or even thinking. 140 characters and the Secret Service is on your doorstep.

There are understandable calls from even Florida Republicans for Black to withdraw from the election but he's standing firm. He is in a crowded primary field and most likely will lose but the comedic element he would bring to office ('comedic' but a tad terrifying too) might make it worthwhile to elect him.

I probably have wished some people dead. But I don't think I've ever said it out loud and certainly not on social media of any sort. And to anyone who is on Twitter (Lord help you) always make Sweet Tweets...OK?

Snow Angels

Cathy Chen, our daughter-in-law, emailed a picture of 'the girls' (Morgan and Emma 7 and Tegan 4) standing in the middle of a normally busy street in the snow that blanketed Baltimore this morning and afternoon. They are my snow angels.

It started here just before noon and has been falling for over 6 hours.

It is a strange snow--like spun sugar and full of ice sparkles. Certainly not snowball or snowman snow but beautiful and ethereal. Our Puli, Bela, loves the snow--frolics through it and eats copious amounts of it. When he comes in, his mouth coated in white, his black hair (Puli's actually have 'hair' rather than 'fur' and continually grows like our hair) sparkles with the ice crystals.

The Estimates of the final amount keep fluctuating on the radio and TV--anywhere from 6 inches to over a foot. And the temperature plummets.

The next week promises to stay below freezing for most of the time.

There is a sense in me of being 'snowed-in'. I have books to read and Hearts to play on my computer and food enough and more and a good supply of wine.

So, let it snow...

I wish 'the girls' were here to frolic in the back yard with Bela and come in exhausted and chilled to the bone for hot chocolate and hugs....

Gotta go fix dinner....later....

Stuff that weirds me out and then enlivens me....

I noticed that several times this weekend in conversations with folks I remarked on 'things that weirds me me out' often come back to enrich or enliven me.

Like saints, for example.

With Mastery Foundation workshops and stuff we often find ourselves in Roman Catholic retreat centers with lots of Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and stuff almost everywhere. Having grown up Pilgrim Holiness in the mountains of West Virgina and then becoming a Methodist after that and then an Episcopalian in college, Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and Saints and all that tend to weird me out.

Episcopalians have a Saints-Lite view of it all. Our "Book of Saints" is called "Holy Men/Holy Women". I mean their are hundreds of them, including writers and poets and musicians and folks like that who aren't necessarily 'religious folk' in the traditional sense. From Bach to Mary Magdalene to Space Explorers to Francis of Assissi to James Weldon Johnson to St. Peter to Martin Luther King, we Episcopalians love to celebrate Holy Men and Holy Women. We just don't have a process to go through or require verifiable miracles. We even have a Feast Day for the Book of Common Prayer, the only Holy Day I know of that celebrates a book!

But Roman Catholic saints are writ large. There was a half-life-size statue of St. Roco (or Rock or Rocco) in the place we were this weekend.

He's the patron saint of dogs, not because he healed them but because he had a wound on his leg healed by a dog licking it. More than a tad 'weird', but astonishingly compelling. He, along with St. Amand, the patron of beer and wine makers (Bern gave me a statue of him for Christmas holding a bunch of grapes and hops and looking about the third-quarter into the Super Bowl) God love him. Bless me St. Rocco and St. Amand and thank you for the endlessly wondrous gift of dogs and wine and beer.

That's all pretty weird in some way--but it enlivens me in many ways.

(When I used to do pre-baptism classes for 6 to 12 families at a time, I would give them each one of the symbols of baptism--water, oil, bread, a scallop shell, wine--and ask them to talk about the symbol and tell me why it is vital to baptism. Not once did the group with wine come back and say, "it makes you feel really good". Our culture, even among Episcopalians, is so Puritan about wine.

It's not an accident they call alcohol "spirits"--the Spirit can be called forth with wine.

I believe you can tell the ultimate Value of something by how badly it can be abused. By that distinction 'religion' and 'alcohol' are of profound and Holy Value since they can be so horribly and murderously abused.)

Bless us St. Amand to know the wonders of 'spirits' and avoid the dangers....

Home from 'home'

I spent the last three days in California at the Mastery Foundation Board Meeting.

Going to Mastery Board Meetings reminds me of how I used to feel about going 3 times a month to do Eucharists in three different nursing homes--I really don't want to go, but once I'm there it's full of joy and wonder!

The meeting was in Menlo Park, 15 or so miles south of the San Francisco Airport, at a Retreat Center called Vallombrosa Center, ran by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. I've been to lots of retreat centers and Vallombrosa is in the upper half (the top 5 are all in Ireland!) It was a good place made special by the fact that they have tame bunnies on the grounds that you can walk right up to and pet. A drawback for me (though not for most people) is the smoking area is in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. A hike from either my room or where we met.

(Imagine this: what if a retreat center made any other group: women, blacks, gays, Hispanics, Asians--take their breaks only in a small area in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. There would be insurrection and federal discrimination suits against the place!)

People, as you might think--and 'as you might...', give me great grief about smoking at all. But it doesn't faze me. I have developed high-minded 'moral' reasons and human rights and egalitarian reasons for smoking even if I hated it (which I don't). First of all, I am a priest of the Church, called to stand with the 'oppressed' of the planet and few groups are as 'oppressed' as smokers. Secondly, by smoking, I call into question the whole liberal/progressive commitment to 'equality'. There's nothing remotely 'equal' about being shamed to the parking lot near the trash dumpsters (even if their are two chairs and a shaded table beside the Grecian Urn sized ash tray). Finally, smoking keeps me in touch with 'the real people' instead of hiding out in the midst of the privileged and well-off. In the three days I was there the only person I ever smoked with that wasn't one of the mostly Hispanic and Black kitchen and cleaning staff was Alan, who joined me twice to have one of his little Cubans. If Jesus came again and, as he did the first time round, mixed with the marginalized and the outcasts, one of the places he would be in Menlo Park was in the parking lot of the Vallombrosa Center with the cooks and waiters and cleaners and me and Alan.

So, don't go trying to make me feel bad about smoking! (Plus, I really enjoy it....)

There are two things about Mastery Board Meetings that make them joyful and wondrous. First and foremost are the people on the Board: the Board is made up of a dozen or so extremely gifted, humorous and smart people and me. (That's my only use in this post of the "Appalachian Pity Party" stance....) They are an incredible group and I've known and loved many of them for years. I met two I'd never met before and after three days I felt like I'd known and loved them for years!

Secondly, it is an opportunity to be immersed for a few days in a life-giving and transforming conversation. The vehicle of the Foundations work is 'conversation' that empowers and transforms. Hanging around that--as odd as the 'language-ing' of the conversation is (and it IS odd by most any standard)--is exhilarating.

I've written before and doubtless will again about 'the work of Being' that Mastery is (to throw out a little piece of odd language-ing). I just wanted to ponder for a few moments how few things in my life form who I 'be' more than that conversation.

We went to dinner together in a private dining room of a local restaurant on Saturday night. Ann, the executive director of the Foundation had invited us to bring a poem to share at dinner (that, in and of itself, is a rather odd thing to do at dinner!) I planned to read a poem by Billy Collins but forgot to take the book and don't own (or want to) a smart phone, which was the page from which most people read.

So, Saturday morning, I wrote a poem before breakfast to share with those dear friends of mine. I'll share it with you as well.

EPIPHANIES

    {Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive insight into the deep down meaning of things, usually caused by what is ordinary, common place and day-to-day)

Once, years ago,
I was wandering around
the grounds
of a huge convent
in Holyoke, Massachuttes.

(As professions came fewer
and farther between,
the convent became
a conference center and
a home for aging nuns.)

Wandering, 
I happened on the Convent's
graveyard.

Simple to the extreme,
the grave stones
said only three things:
the nun's chosen name,
the date of her final vows
and the date of  her death.

Yet, I couldn't help notice
how many years
those nuns had been
in religious life.
I lost count at around 2064.

Two millennia of service
to their God
buried on a 
New England hillside.

For days, I pondered
the wonder of those centuries.
I stared, open-eyed,
into the deep-down meaning
of loving your God.

Last night, sitting at those tables,
listening to the dozen or so of you
talk,
that sudden, intuitive insight
came flooding back.

All the decades of commitment
in that room
opened my eyes
to this:
  how many years altogether,
  we, seated there--
  just ordinary people--
  had spent longing 
  to create a future
  where everyone
  (not just us but 'everyone')
  can BE....

I thank you so much for that.
So
very
much....