Ring around the roses, pocket full of posies...

(I've kept reading the old 'View from above the Close' collection I found. This one is from March of 1993--over 20 years ago when we knew much less about HIV-AIDS than we know now. It is about two men who died from AIDS who would probably live today. I share it with you in their memories.)

...Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

This is a love letter. It is to Bill and to Ray.

"Ring around the Roses, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

That carefree children's nursery rhyme that we all remember singing came into being during one of the plagues that ravaged Europe, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. One of the plagues manifestations was dark red rings on the body. "Ring around the roses." Posies were the most common flowers at funerals and their scent could lesson the smell of death's decomposition.. "Pocket full of posies." In the end, there was death...and more death.

"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

Bill and Ray have each enriched our lives as a parish and as individuals. Both of them, in their own way, have been 'holy examples' to us. They have lived out their deaths in our midst. They have taught us how to die. And in that, they have taught us how to live.

AIDS is a new plague. It robs us of some of the brightest and best in our midst. It takes away life too soon, too brutally.

Ray has been with us for a decade. He was sexton of St. John's and signed the service for the deaf for years. Ray--like all of us--had rough edges. His capacity for anger always showed me how angry I could be. His outrageousness often offended me and always reminded me how outrageous I could be and how I could offend.

But Ray was full of mischief and joy and wonder about life. He knows how to party. And he has, beneath his rough edges, a capacity for gentleness and insight and acceptance that is a model for us all.

Ray reveled in telling off-color jokes to people who would be shocked. He wore tee-shirts to work that always offended me with their slogans and invariably made me laugh. I often didn't like Ray--and I always loved him.

Ray gifted us by re-involving himself in the life of St. John's when he knew his life was slipping away. I will never forget how thankful I was to Ray that he gave me 'another chance' to know and love him in his vulnerability.

***

Bill just showed up here. For the life of me, I don't remember when it happened. And, for the life of me, I can't remember St. John's without him.

He became a regular at the Wednesday healing service. On good days and bad, he was there, reminding us all how fragile and how precious, life is.

His gift was even more than himself. He brought Jim and Lou with him. Jim is the Hospice volunteer who would drive Bill to church and eventually joined him in the pew. And Lou is Jim's life-partner--they've shared a life since they were both 18 and now share a hospitable home. Because Bill was accepted and loves here at St. John's, Jim and Lou felt it was safe to join us as well.

What a gift. Praise God.

I will never forget watching people hug Bill as they passed the peace to him. Lives were transformed--minds changed--hearts turned around. People who might have feared or hated Bill's sexual orientation--or certainly his disease--embraced him without fear and in a great love because he had insinuated himself into their lives.

Ray and Bill both became active in the Wednesday night Meditation Group and through their presence there gave gifts beyond imagining.

***

This is a love letter to Bill and Ray.

It is probable that before Easter both Bill and Ray will be dead. Ray is in Massachusetts, in a hospital waiting for a bed in a Hospice. Bill in in the Hospice in Branford. I see him weekly.

I don't mention their impending deaths to be sentimental. I mention it only because I love both Ray and Bill and it is important for me to mark the remaining days of their lives with thanks to God for each of them.

They have taught me how to die. And, in that, they have given me invaluable lessons in how to live. Lessons like dignity and integrity and honesty and good humor and fear and anger and confusion.

And though neither of them will ever again be physically present at the Table with us, their spirit and gifts will honor us. Their spirit and gifts will honor us each time we break the bread and share the wine.

We are better, more whole, deeper, more open, enriched, inspired, more complete for having Bill and Ray among us.

Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Praise God for the lives and ministries of Ray Nole and Bill Heller.
Praise God.
Praise God, indeed.

OK, I'm a liberal but....

I am, in principle opposed to the death penalty. First of all, I don't think it is a deterrent to violent crime and secondly, I don't want the government which represents me to kill people.

But I realize that 'in principle' doesn't cover all cases. Eric Holder's decision to seek the death penalty for the surviving Boston Marathon bomber troubles me, but given the amount of suffering and trauma caused by that action, I can intellectually understand the Attorney General's decision. Emotionally, in this case, I can regret the decision but I won't be standing in front of the prison protesting if a jury determines the death penalty should be enforced.

There are those for whom I would both intellectually and emotionally be ok with them dying--Hitler, for example, or the Newtown shooter for killing innocent children. Luckily, most of the people in that category kill themselves before some authority can kill them....

And there are those who emotionally I would like to see strapped to a gurney and injected, or shot or hung or eaten by wild beasts.

Intellectually, I know it would be rather inconsistent to be against executing someone for a crime of passion and yet wanting people who abuse animals to die a horrible death. But that's what I feel about people who mistreat animals on purpose. It's the only case in which I would probably be willing to drop the floor, insert the needle or flip the switch.

I worked as a Social Worker in West Virginia for a few years and was a Child Protection Specialist. I saw abuse of children that made me physically ill, but I also could understand the extremes of life that could end in a person abusing a child they love. (I did believe, in almost every case, that the parent abusing the child did, in fact, love them.) I would punish those people severely, but I wouldn't kill them. (Anyone who has had children can remember a few times when if it hadn't been for economic stability, trust in love and hope, that little shake you gave them could have gotten out of control....)

But those folks who abuse, starve, mistreat, purposefully hurt innocent animals...in my heart, they don't deserve to live. I can't even watch the ASPCA TV commercials. I just switch channels and write a check....

Domesticated creatures like dogs and cats  give us unconditional positive regard in a way that rivals my theological understanding of the Love of God for us. Purposefully abusing an animal is much like purposefully doing harm to God (if you could!).

When animals get involved, my well meaning Liberal principles and my Left-Wing Belief System goes out the window.

Hurt a dog or a cat and I'm suddenly turned into a judge from Texas, where they kill people, as Lear observed, seemingly, 'for their sport'.

Memo from CT to Atlanta

Snow happens.

It happens here a lot more than there.

Cold weather happens--again, more here than there.

But, from a place that knows more about snow and freezing temperature than you do, and a place that has hundreds of plows and snow moving stuff where you have almost none: a tad of advice.

If you can't remove snow, don't let anyone go out in it. Cancel school and send workers home and close major highways.

Don't dare give me the sh*t I heard from your mayor and governor about 'can't fight Mother Nature'--you can't, that's true, but even in a place that has lots of snow and temperatures in the teens, we know that since you 'can't', you have to have good sense.

You knew on Sunday that this Tuesday storm was coming. Cancel school and tell workers not to show up on Tuesday. Don't have everyone go to work and school and then send them all home at the same time and create absolute logjams on major highways where people spend the night in their cars trying to get to the school to pick up their kids and their kids spend the night in the school because their parents are in a frozen road with frozen traffic overnight.

For God's sake, Atlanta, you don't know nuttin' about snow. Listen to the Weather Channel and shut the whole thing down when you're getting 4 inches.

Four inches in Connecticut is a 'dusting', but you have snow in Atlanta, what, every 20 years or so? So don't pretend you know what you're doing.

1200 traffic accidents reported within 8 hours. People in Georgia should lock themselves in their rooms when every 240 months, it snows.

What a nightmare you guys created.

Someone please say, "I'm sorry" to those tens of thousands of people who would have been fine watching TV and eating popcorn if you'd only shut down the state on Monday like you should have since you know diddly squat about snow and cold weather.

Give us a call next time and we'll tell you how to handle snow and ice.

Have a great day....you deserve one.

Church Time re-visited

I read that unread post myself and I realize that 'church time' no longer is a part of my life now that I'm retired.

I now read 4 or 6 books a week. Given that I've been retired since April of 2010, I've read over 165 books since I've been retired. I've always read a lot, but when I was a full-time priest I usually read 1 or 2 books a week. But now, I live in fiction rather than 'church time'.

I also appreciate how devoted and committed lay folks are than I did when I was on Church Time. My God, lay folks ARE The Church--not the clergy! That's just the truth and working with three churches 10-12 hours a week who practice 'Total Common Ministry' it becomes more obvious that the 99.9% of the church that are lay folks truly are the church.

And another thing--I love the church more now than I did back then. And I'm much more optimistic about the future than I ever was when I was a full time priest.

"Church time" is way out of touch with "Real Time". Real time is about church, surely, for many people, but Real Time is about family and work and friends and figuring out life.

I'm happy not to live in "Church Time" any more.

Real Time is much more fun.....

One that noone read...

The  5th anniversary of this blog is coming up in March and I've been going back, looking for the most read blogs to repost in March and I found one NO ONE read. It was only a few days after I started pondering, but the one above it was read 33 times, so I'm wondering why this was never read.

I'm going to try to copy it here so at last, nearly 5 years later, someone might read it....

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Church Time

I want to write about my concept of 'church time'. This concept and belief comes from over 30 years of being a parish priest. This is what I notice when I seek to explain 'church time' to people: most clergy acknowledge it as vaguely interesting but bogus. Most people just don't get it because in our culture 'time' is an absolute: an hour is like every other hour, a day just one more day, and months--except for February of course--are equal opportunity time measurements. However, some lay people--most of whom are very involved and committed to the parish--really get it and it gives them comfort as well as understanding.

Here's Church Time in introductory fashion: Most church going folks, even if they are very committed might spend two hours a week in church--one for a Eucharist and one for a coffee hour, an adult ed class, a committee meeting. So, at two hours a week, people spend 104 hours a year in church. That is the equivalant of 13 8-hour work days spread over a year. Imagine having an 8 hr a day job which you only went to one a month or so. I would content that you wouldn't accomplish much because the memory and learning curve would be so compromised and when you showed up for your day of work you would have missed almost a month of what your company was doing. No way to catch up or stay even.

Church Time is like that. I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, but because I was back at church today, it began to come back and I could move on and make progress. A week has 148 hours (those reliable measures of time). If two or even three of them are spent 'thinking about or participating' in church, that's barely 2% of the weeks hours. Next to nothing. You might expect to spend that much time stuck in traffic in a week--and how much of the stuck in traffic time do you retain to build upon so you might progress and grow and expand????

However, 'church professionals', like me--I sometimes tell people who ask me what I do for a living is that I am paid to be religious--spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about church stuff--worship, music, education, outreach, program, evangelism...on and on. We have, at the least 50 hours a week to obsess on church stuff. Most clergy spend more time than that, let me tell you, because we clergy are so anxious to justify our very existence and being paid to be religious...which we--and most people--would think a silly thing to make a living doing. That's another post right there...But consider this: the 'professionals' spend at least 1/3 of every week thinking about church while even active members spend 2% or so. So, should we be surprised that most church folks don't seem to understand, appreciate, respond to 'church stuff' the way the clergy and staff do? If you spent 1/3 of your time obsessing on cacti and succulents and I spent, at best--who could imagine it--2% of my time in the same study, would you expect me to appreciate the subtleties and wonder of those plants?

"Church Time" requires those of us who get paid to do it to realize that those we work with, serve and minister to simply don't have the 'connection' to the issues we worry and fret and plan and scheme about. Their learning curve is very slow rising--it looks mostly like a straight line! And that is as it should be. So when they forget a meeting or say, "I meant to come to that class but just forgot" we should realize why. Lay folks are wonderful and profound and loving and truly committed to the parish. They simply have other lives, as they should, and don't live, breath, sweat and digest church stuff.

I'll leave it at that until later. But 'church time' helps explain why clergy misinterpret lay folks so profoundly and don't recognize the beauty and grace of their contributions. It also explains why clergy are almost continually frustrated because the enormous amount of time they spend wishing, hoping and dreaming about all the church could do is totally lost on lay folks because they really don't spend much time at all worrying about that stuff.

More later about church time, okay?

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From long ago...

I was looking through a file of old "Views from Above the Close" that I wrote back when I was Rector of St. John's in Waterbury. My office on the second floor looked out on the Close of the church--the 'backyard' in non-Episcopalian-speak..like 'real language'--so I called the essay I wrote each month "The View from Above the Close".

I found this from November of 1993, which I liked a lot, so I share it with you to ponder. As the Africans say, "If my words give you a blessing, let it stay with you; but if they bless you not, send my words back to me with you blessing.".

THE VIEW FROM THE STORM DOOR

You're probably tired of hearing what happens on our back porch. Our back porch, after all, is only 3 feet by 10 feet. it leads to a deck that is much larger, bu the back porch itself is what's been consuming me of late.

You're probably tired of hearing what happens on our back porch, such a small, insignificant space. And yet, as I understand God, encounters with the Holy can happen almost anywhere. In fact, if I were to give you advice (and I don't 'give advice' as a rule, and you should beware of anyone who does), my advice would be: pay attention to the back porches of your life--the little, insignificant places, the spots where you'd least expect God to be. God, so far as I can tell, often shows up in places like that. (But that's not 'advice'...I don't give 'advice'.)

Having said all that, the other night, when I was talking on the kitchen phone, I noticed a large moth between the door and the storm door to our back porch. The porch light was on the the moth was straining to get to it.

So, still talking on the phone, I opened the door and then the storm door to let the moth out. I went back to my phone call. Our back porch storm door has one of those closing devices on it, and that particular closing device is quite slow. I could fix that with a screwdriver and often think I should. But I haven't yet.

When I turned around, the moth was back between the doors, beating on the storm door again.  The door closed so slowly the the moth had returned to captivity. So, I opened the door again and let the moth out.

By the time I'd finished my phone call, because the storm door closes so slowly, the moth was once more trapped. The moth had twice chosen slavery and confinement over chill freedom.

I understood the moth's dilemma. It is my dilemma as well. The choice is difficult, perplexing. Freedom with great risk versus safe, warmer captivity. 

Isn't it alway so?

Freedom, creativity, vision, hope--they all have a cost. To step out into that Place requires leaving the safety and warmth of the storm door--the Known, the Familiar, the Comfortable.

More often than not, I choose as the moth chose. I opt for the familiar and the safe and the warmer against danger and chill and the unknown.

God calls us to leave our home and go to a new land--like Abraham. God calls us to leave Egypt and journey into the wilderness--like Moses. God calls us to step out of the boat and walk on water, like Peter. God calls us always to "take the risk" and "leave the familiar" and "step out".

More often than not, we choose to stay home, to remain in the familiar, to keep to the boat.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's only human. God understands.

But it is not what we were 'made for'.

"Ships in a harbor are safe", a poster I once had said. It went on to say: "But that's not what ships are made for."

I stood a long time by the storm door, watching the moth beat against it. I was conflicted, undecided.

If the creature preferred warmth and safety, who was I to decide otherwise? I know that decision well. Yet the moth longed for freedom, in spite of freedom's danger. So, I opened the storm door for a third time.

The hardest thing for me was shutting that storm door quickly, so the moth would have no choice. I could pull it shut and the moth would have no choice. I could pull it shut and let that moth go free. It may have died in the cold, but it would have died free.

I resisted and let the door shut on its own. The moth hovered around the light and then flitted back inside the door.

"Just like me," I thought sadly.

But that door closes really slowly, and at the last moment, the moth chose the chill freedom.

I feared from my friend, the moth, as the door shut. But as it shut, I was joyous. It is finally correct and holy to leave behind the comfortable to encounter the Wilderness, to step out of the boat onto the waves.

I only pray I have the courage of that small moth. And I pray for you as well.

God calls us from the warmth on the inside of the storm door. God calls us to step out into the new, the unexpected, the unknown.

God will not judge us for choosing safety. But the Adventure and the Journey is 'out there'.

Listen....God is calling us beyond the storm doors of our lives.....

 

Just when I thought I was over it...

I've been reading online stuff--Rand Paul dragging up Monica Lewenski one more time, Nadal losing but being 'stand up' by playing hurt, Usher going to Panama (Panama!!) to have an intervention of sorts for my man, Justin Bieber, an adorable video of an owl trying to make friends with a shaggy dog, Mitch McConnell saying something intolerably stupid, more super-cold weather for the Midwest, a story about a galaxy that is on course to collide with ours (4 billion years from now so I'm not really worried), Rush Limbaugh saying horribly sexist and nasty things about Wendy Davis (the woman running for Governor in Texas), Ellen Degeneris' best dance moves in 60 seconds (she turns 56 this week--sounds young to me these days....), stuff about security at the Winter Olympics (about 60 Russian Security guys for each athlete who will be there) and then, a story about the Governor of West Virginia.

The governor of West Virginia's name is, by the way, Earl Ray Tomblin. People in West Virginia almost invariably have two names--Bobby Joe, Lou Ann, Alice Mae, Howard Ray (all people I knew)--I was even called 'Jimmy Gordon' by lots of people for more years than I care to remember. I can guarantee you, being an expert on West Virginia accents, that the governor's name to 90% of the people in the state is "rlrA" with the accent on the last syllable as most sentences in the mountain state have. Every declarative sentence in West Virginia sounds like a question.

Rl-rA has decided to make the company that poisoned the water in 14 counties, take down the storage tanks that contained the poison.

This is, in my mind, a great leap forward--a Governor of West Virginia actually acknowledging and doing something about the vast amount of poison companies in the state have setting close to rivers, streams and wetlands. In my mind, the state government from top to bottom has been complicit in the poisoning of the water, the air, the very 'being' of the state.

So, thank god for Rl-rA for saying the stuff that poisoned the water for 300,000 people shouldn't be there at all.

There's lots of other poison in the coal mines and strip mines and chemical companies that, in essence, run the state and always have.

I'll be waiting for Gov. Tomblin to start doing something about all that.

I am, by the way, not holding my breath....