My friend Mike Miano sent me a photo today of 10 people around a table at what he tells me was a Newman Club meeting at Gary's Country Club.
Well, so he says.
I have no memory whatsoever of this event or where it was! Neither does Bern.
But the faces I know.
They are faces from my childhood, my adolescence, my young adulthood, and two of them are with me still--much older than then, but with me still.
At the far right of the frame is Bern in half profile, only her face and just a hint of her hair. She is in that photo, as now, beautiful.
Then there is me, black framed glasses, actually wearing a tie with dark, dark brown hair. I wish I were savvy enough to put the photo on this post, but I'm not. If for no other reason so you who know me could see me with dark hair and a hint of a moustache and young, so young.
Then there is Jane Jaspers, a lovely, wonderful young woman that I often thought about asking for date, but never did.
With her is Kyle Parks, who I knew from the time I was in first grade until we were out of college. Kyle was my best friend for years and years. Then he went to Viet Nam as a Navy pilot and I avoided the war by going to Harvard Divinity School. I haven't seen him since. That particular war divided people in ways like that. I miss him from time to time. For 16 years we were best friends.
The next person, right in the middle of the photo, is, I believe Christine Rogg, younger than me but another dear person. Then there is Leo Kroll, Bern's age, who we knew into college years until he killed himself. I never knew why and regret not knowing or not knowing how to stop that.
Above Leo in this long ago photo is Tottie Cardwell, a good time girl and dear friend of Bern's. Tootie was from one of the richer families and a toot.
Beneath her is the only person I don't recognize. A lovely young woman who doesn't fit into the cracks in my brain enough to recognize.
Then there is, in barely profile, Anthony Pisano, Bern's first cousin who lives in Providence, RI with Uncle Frankie, who is 90. 'Tony' is still in our lives and a dear man--growing old as we are.
Then, inexplicably, at the bottom left of the photo, leaning in to get in the photo, is Jim Hines, who was from Welch, not Gary, and who was a good friend of my brother-in-law Dan in later life. Jim was a victim of AIDS and before he died was an activist and actually worked for the city of Philadelphia as an coordinator of AIDS services.
I loved Jim but have no idea what he's doing in this photograph.
None of this much makes good sense, like most memories of long ago. But those are people I'd be proud to spend an evening with--especially if I get to be 20 again....
(I probably got one or two of the faces wrong--but I'm getting old and feeble. But I did have several endorphin rushes looking at that photo--though I don't remember the occasion at all--and am so happy Mike sent it to me. I really was THAT young once! Now I have proof.....)
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
winter wonderland
The snow on the sidewalks in our neighborhood is higher than our Puli, Bela. He's freaked out about it since he doesn't like to 'do his business' on walkways. But there is no way for him to leave them.
(Why on earth do we talk about a dog's eliminations as 'doing his business'? Makes Bela's pee and poop seem like he works at a store or is a CPA or a lawyer, for goodness sake. What he does when I take him for a walk is pee and poop. That's not 'business'. Bela doesn't have a 'business', he just pees and poops and I praise him for it every time.
I pee and poop quite a bit. And never once, not since I was two, has anyone praised me for it...or considered either a business transaction.)
The bed of Bern's Nissan truck is totally full of snow, up to the very edges. Which is good since it is a front wheel drive truck and the weight of the snow should be an advantage on mushy and slick streets.
Bela's dilemma is mine as well. Often I feel locked in by life the way he finds himself locked in by snow above his head. This morning he went down the back steps of our deck and was so immersed in snow I had to go dig him out. But I give him this: he ran down into snow over his head. He took the risk. He made the leap.
I don't do that enough. I don't break the boundaries or jump into deep water (or snow) enough.
I've learned a lot from the dogs I have shared life with.
Maybe my 'business' is to venture out beyond what is safe and known.
Maybe I am being called to plunge in to what is not safe more than I do.
I'll ponder that....and invite you to ponder it as well.
(Why on earth do we talk about a dog's eliminations as 'doing his business'? Makes Bela's pee and poop seem like he works at a store or is a CPA or a lawyer, for goodness sake. What he does when I take him for a walk is pee and poop. That's not 'business'. Bela doesn't have a 'business', he just pees and poops and I praise him for it every time.
I pee and poop quite a bit. And never once, not since I was two, has anyone praised me for it...or considered either a business transaction.)
The bed of Bern's Nissan truck is totally full of snow, up to the very edges. Which is good since it is a front wheel drive truck and the weight of the snow should be an advantage on mushy and slick streets.
Bela's dilemma is mine as well. Often I feel locked in by life the way he finds himself locked in by snow above his head. This morning he went down the back steps of our deck and was so immersed in snow I had to go dig him out. But I give him this: he ran down into snow over his head. He took the risk. He made the leap.
I don't do that enough. I don't break the boundaries or jump into deep water (or snow) enough.
I've learned a lot from the dogs I have shared life with.
Maybe my 'business' is to venture out beyond what is safe and known.
Maybe I am being called to plunge in to what is not safe more than I do.
I'll ponder that....and invite you to ponder it as well.
Snow on the trees ii
Robert Frost thought 'good fences make good neighbors'.
My take is different: 'snow storms made good neighbors'.
Bern was shoveling out our sidewalks when the neighbor to the left of us asked if she needed help. She told him, "No, it's not pride, I just enjoy doing it...."
First of all, how nice of that of him since his sidewalks were under a foot of snow as well? Second of all, how smart was I to marry a woman who 'enjoys' shoveling snow?
Then our neighbor across the street brought over her snow blower to work on our driveway. She's about 22 or so and, as Bern told her, 'has a future in snow removal!'
Then the mom and teenage daughter from the house to our right--who share our huge driveway--brought brooms and shovels to clean off cars.
When I took the dog on a walk this afternoon, I spoke with 4 different folks in the neighborhood who were out blowing or shoveling snow. We seldom see each other since most of the people on our block leave in the a.m. to jobs all over--New Haven, Hartford, Meriden and Waterbury that I'm sure of. But a snow that shuts everything down the way this one did gets us all outside and talking to each other.
Besides all that--was my Dad ever right about snow staying on trees means more is coming!!!!
My take is different: 'snow storms made good neighbors'.
Bern was shoveling out our sidewalks when the neighbor to the left of us asked if she needed help. She told him, "No, it's not pride, I just enjoy doing it...."
First of all, how nice of that of him since his sidewalks were under a foot of snow as well? Second of all, how smart was I to marry a woman who 'enjoys' shoveling snow?
Then our neighbor across the street brought over her snow blower to work on our driveway. She's about 22 or so and, as Bern told her, 'has a future in snow removal!'
Then the mom and teenage daughter from the house to our right--who share our huge driveway--brought brooms and shovels to clean off cars.
When I took the dog on a walk this afternoon, I spoke with 4 different folks in the neighborhood who were out blowing or shoveling snow. We seldom see each other since most of the people on our block leave in the a.m. to jobs all over--New Haven, Hartford, Meriden and Waterbury that I'm sure of. But a snow that shuts everything down the way this one did gets us all outside and talking to each other.
Besides all that--was my Dad ever right about snow staying on trees means more is coming!!!!
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Today's the day
the music died....
Yes, beloved, it has been 55 years--February 3, 1959--since a one engine plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Vallens crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa, killing three of the most popular musicians of the time.
I was 11 (unwittingly revealing my age!) and remember hearing about it the next day in school. 4th grade girls were weeping and all the boys (except Charlie Harmon who knew nothing about popular music) were stunned. Things got so out of hand that Miss Hawkins, our teacher, threatened to start spanking people if order was not restored.
Teachers could make such threats in those days. And they were obeyed.
Charlie Harmon not only knew nothing about music, Charlie knew almost next to nothing about much of anything. Charlie was 15 and in the 4th grade only out of mercy from Mrs. Bingham, Mrs. Santie and Mrs. Short--the first, second and third grade teachers. Charlie had taken 8 years to get to the 4th grade and shouldn't have been then. Charlie, God bless him, should have been in an institution (which there were in those days) for severely damaged children. His parents weren't much smarter than Charlie but they had beat any possibility of intellect out of him. He was huge to us at 11 and, blessedly for him and the 5th grade teacher whose name I can't for the life of me remember, able to quit school after 4th grade. We all knew that Charlie had been beaten silly. Such things in rural America in 1959 were commonplace. The little community of Anawalt (population 455) and the several surrounding coal camps whose children came to Anawalt Elementary and Junior High (all in the same building) did not ship away their problematic and defective. However, nothing was ever done to Charlie's parents, who continued to beat him silly until he, at 17, was big enough to beat them back. And no one reported that to the authorities either since it seemed to be poetic justice.
Anyway, Charlie chewed tobacco. He wasn't the only one in 4th grade that did, but the only one not clever enough not to get caught. Miss Hawkins (the old maid daughter of the town Druggist--we didn't call them 'pharmacists' then or there) caught him chewing tobacco in class the day the music died. She drug him by his ear to the boys bathroom, took his pack of Red Man and made him eat and swallow the whole thing. After which he threw up enough that the school nurse would have been called if we had a school nurse.
Here we all were, now grieving for Charlie as much as for Buddy, Richie and the Big Bopper as Charlie raced from the room several times to vomit up Red Man tobacco.
Miss Hawkins, the meanest woman I ever knew, I think, was epileptic. David Jordan, by far the most trustworthy and best kid in our class, had, at the beginning of the school year, be entrusted to be the one to run to the office and tell Mr. Ramsey, the principal, that Miss Harmon was having an epileptic seizure.
The day after the music died and those three cult heroes were being pulled from the wreckage of a plane built in 1947--the year of the birth of almost everyone in the class but Charlie and Miss Harmon--the seizure finally came.
I don't think it was the death of Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper that brought it on. I don't even think it was the exertion of energy in making Charlie Harmon eat a whole package of Chewing Tobacco. What I think brought on the episode is threatening 11 year old children who were, perhaps for the first time, grieving for something of their youth, with a spanking with a paddle that made God make Doris Harmon fall down gasping, twitching and flailing on the floor of Anawalt's 4th grade classroom.
When David Jordan jumped up to run to the office, Donny Davis and Arnold Butler, the closest we had to thugs in the class, blocked his way.
"Just a minute," Donnie told him.
So, for a while, on the day after the music died, 23 eleven year old children, watched a tall, skinny woman that heated writhe on the floor for several minutes. Then Charlie threw up at his desk and David ran to the office and Jess Ramsey, the principal, took over our class after the ambulance finally came and she was gone. Jess had no idea what to do in a class room and wondered why the big boy in the back kept gagging and why the rest of the students suddenly seemed so confident and self-assured.
Poetic justice seemed to be done that day as well and the day Charlie finally beat the shit out of his father who had beat him for years.
It's hard to imagine I could forget about today's anniversary, given all that.
Google Don McClain (sp?) or "American Pie" and listen to the song (hopefully with the original '72 or so music video) about the day before Charlie vomited and Miss Hawkins had a fit.....
(If you pray, say a little prayer for Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper this day...they deserve it....)
Yes, beloved, it has been 55 years--February 3, 1959--since a one engine plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Vallens crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa, killing three of the most popular musicians of the time.
I was 11 (unwittingly revealing my age!) and remember hearing about it the next day in school. 4th grade girls were weeping and all the boys (except Charlie Harmon who knew nothing about popular music) were stunned. Things got so out of hand that Miss Hawkins, our teacher, threatened to start spanking people if order was not restored.
Teachers could make such threats in those days. And they were obeyed.
Charlie Harmon not only knew nothing about music, Charlie knew almost next to nothing about much of anything. Charlie was 15 and in the 4th grade only out of mercy from Mrs. Bingham, Mrs. Santie and Mrs. Short--the first, second and third grade teachers. Charlie had taken 8 years to get to the 4th grade and shouldn't have been then. Charlie, God bless him, should have been in an institution (which there were in those days) for severely damaged children. His parents weren't much smarter than Charlie but they had beat any possibility of intellect out of him. He was huge to us at 11 and, blessedly for him and the 5th grade teacher whose name I can't for the life of me remember, able to quit school after 4th grade. We all knew that Charlie had been beaten silly. Such things in rural America in 1959 were commonplace. The little community of Anawalt (population 455) and the several surrounding coal camps whose children came to Anawalt Elementary and Junior High (all in the same building) did not ship away their problematic and defective. However, nothing was ever done to Charlie's parents, who continued to beat him silly until he, at 17, was big enough to beat them back. And no one reported that to the authorities either since it seemed to be poetic justice.
Anyway, Charlie chewed tobacco. He wasn't the only one in 4th grade that did, but the only one not clever enough not to get caught. Miss Hawkins (the old maid daughter of the town Druggist--we didn't call them 'pharmacists' then or there) caught him chewing tobacco in class the day the music died. She drug him by his ear to the boys bathroom, took his pack of Red Man and made him eat and swallow the whole thing. After which he threw up enough that the school nurse would have been called if we had a school nurse.
Here we all were, now grieving for Charlie as much as for Buddy, Richie and the Big Bopper as Charlie raced from the room several times to vomit up Red Man tobacco.
Miss Hawkins, the meanest woman I ever knew, I think, was epileptic. David Jordan, by far the most trustworthy and best kid in our class, had, at the beginning of the school year, be entrusted to be the one to run to the office and tell Mr. Ramsey, the principal, that Miss Harmon was having an epileptic seizure.
The day after the music died and those three cult heroes were being pulled from the wreckage of a plane built in 1947--the year of the birth of almost everyone in the class but Charlie and Miss Harmon--the seizure finally came.
I don't think it was the death of Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper that brought it on. I don't even think it was the exertion of energy in making Charlie Harmon eat a whole package of Chewing Tobacco. What I think brought on the episode is threatening 11 year old children who were, perhaps for the first time, grieving for something of their youth, with a spanking with a paddle that made God make Doris Harmon fall down gasping, twitching and flailing on the floor of Anawalt's 4th grade classroom.
When David Jordan jumped up to run to the office, Donny Davis and Arnold Butler, the closest we had to thugs in the class, blocked his way.
"Just a minute," Donnie told him.
So, for a while, on the day after the music died, 23 eleven year old children, watched a tall, skinny woman that heated writhe on the floor for several minutes. Then Charlie threw up at his desk and David ran to the office and Jess Ramsey, the principal, took over our class after the ambulance finally came and she was gone. Jess had no idea what to do in a class room and wondered why the big boy in the back kept gagging and why the rest of the students suddenly seemed so confident and self-assured.
Poetic justice seemed to be done that day as well and the day Charlie finally beat the shit out of his father who had beat him for years.
It's hard to imagine I could forget about today's anniversary, given all that.
Google Don McClain (sp?) or "American Pie" and listen to the song (hopefully with the original '72 or so music video) about the day before Charlie vomited and Miss Hawkins had a fit.....
(If you pray, say a little prayer for Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper this day...they deserve it....)
Snow on the trees
There are superstitions everywhere. There are regional superstitions, superstitions farmers have, cultural superstitions and some that might belong exclusively to a family.
("Superstition" is a section of the Making a Difference workshop I help lead. We ask the participants, "When is a superstition not a superstition?" And then we have a conversation about the superstitions the participants know about--the Irish workshops always bring up some I've never heard before....The answer to the question we ask is, "when it isn't".... That is, things are 'superstitions' only we we don't believe them. "The world is flat," is a superstitions to us, but look at very early maps and there will be warnings like "There be dragons!" only a few miles off the coast. Europe, until the 15th century, operated out of "the world IS flat" and to suggest otherwise was madness....)
One of the things my father always said, that I just considered a superstition, is 'if the snow stays on the trees through the day after the storm, more snow is on the way'.
I look out my window in the gathering dusk and the huge fir and hemlock trees that are my only view, are weighed down with snow from yesterday. And, it ain't my father but the National Weather Service who is telling me, "it ain't over yet, Jimmy boy!"
So, Virgil Hoyt Bradley, Dad 'o mine, wherever you are, I owe you an apology. The snow stayed on the trees even though it was above freezing and sunny all the live long day. You weren't just making stuff up.
Here's the problem, Dad, now I've got to reexamine all the other things you told me so long ago that I assumed were utter nonsense.
That's going to be a pain....
("Superstition" is a section of the Making a Difference workshop I help lead. We ask the participants, "When is a superstition not a superstition?" And then we have a conversation about the superstitions the participants know about--the Irish workshops always bring up some I've never heard before....The answer to the question we ask is, "when it isn't".... That is, things are 'superstitions' only we we don't believe them. "The world is flat," is a superstitions to us, but look at very early maps and there will be warnings like "There be dragons!" only a few miles off the coast. Europe, until the 15th century, operated out of "the world IS flat" and to suggest otherwise was madness....)
One of the things my father always said, that I just considered a superstition, is 'if the snow stays on the trees through the day after the storm, more snow is on the way'.
I look out my window in the gathering dusk and the huge fir and hemlock trees that are my only view, are weighed down with snow from yesterday. And, it ain't my father but the National Weather Service who is telling me, "it ain't over yet, Jimmy boy!"
So, Virgil Hoyt Bradley, Dad 'o mine, wherever you are, I owe you an apology. The snow stayed on the trees even though it was above freezing and sunny all the live long day. You weren't just making stuff up.
Here's the problem, Dad, now I've got to reexamine all the other things you told me so long ago that I assumed were utter nonsense.
That's going to be a pain....
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Blooper Bowl
I really didn't care who won though I admire Payton Manning greatly and am always attacted to great defenses, which Seattle has. All I wanted was a great game, a memorable football experience.
The team I've always rooted for is the Chicago Bears, since a child, because I loved their home uniforms--black helmets, black jerseys with red and orange numbers and white pants with red and orange stripes. In the last year I have been a Jets fan as well since Geno Smith from West Virginia University was their quarterback as a rookie.
But with half the third quarter over and neither the Bears or Jets in the game, 36-0 Seattle is too much to take. I'd rather write a blog post about the Blooper Bowl.
Three turnovers that led to scores and a beginning the second half TD on the kickoff, well, Payton, you've had a great year but a terrible day.
But Bern bet on the Seahawks at the consignment shop and will get an extra 15% off her next purchase. We live off the consignment shop. I'm wearing a shirt and sweater she got for me there. Most of our gifts to children and grandchildren come from there. People come from miles around to the Cheshire Consignment Shop cause it's so good. Just beside the YMCA on South Main Street if your interested.
Maybe I'll go with her when she goes.....
The team I've always rooted for is the Chicago Bears, since a child, because I loved their home uniforms--black helmets, black jerseys with red and orange numbers and white pants with red and orange stripes. In the last year I have been a Jets fan as well since Geno Smith from West Virginia University was their quarterback as a rookie.
But with half the third quarter over and neither the Bears or Jets in the game, 36-0 Seattle is too much to take. I'd rather write a blog post about the Blooper Bowl.
Three turnovers that led to scores and a beginning the second half TD on the kickoff, well, Payton, you've had a great year but a terrible day.
But Bern bet on the Seahawks at the consignment shop and will get an extra 15% off her next purchase. We live off the consignment shop. I'm wearing a shirt and sweater she got for me there. Most of our gifts to children and grandchildren come from there. People come from miles around to the Cheshire Consignment Shop cause it's so good. Just beside the YMCA on South Main Street if your interested.
Maybe I'll go with her when she goes.....
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Is nostalgia addictive?
I don't think of myself as a nostalgic person. I usually like Today better than Yesterday and I certainly don't think "The good old days" ever existed except in hind sight. Who was it that wrote the song, "I'm going to stay right here for these are the 'good old days'...."? That sort of sums up one of philosophies of life--I've got dozens of them.
I remember going to my 10th high school reunion and Roger Rose said to me, "high school was the best years of my life." I wanted to say either: "adolescence is a nightmare" or "then I hope you don't live too long, I don't want you miserable." Instead, I inwardly wept for him. Imagine the best years of your life over at 18!
However, these old sermons and other writings I happened upon the other day have an allure to me I never imagined. For the most part, I don't have any memory of writing them so it's like reading something new. But, on the other hand, they put me back in touch in some way with the person I was then and with the circumstances I was experiencing.
I promise not to keep transcribing this stuff and to get back to pondering current things, but I do want to share one I wrote with you today.
I started my time at St. John's in Waterbury on July 1, 1989. I was 42 years old. Nine days later on July 10, some misplaced tornadoes tore across Connecticut from south to north (looking I imagine for Kansas or Oklahoma). Every tree on the campus of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven was uprooted and later in the day a stand of ancient trees in Litchfield County was leveled. In between, the storm hit two of the small spires around the central spire of St. John's. One fell onto the sidewalk and created an impressive crater. The other fell through the roof and smashed the impressive McManis organ to smithereens. (I have one of the small pipes mounted in our living room.) So a 12 foot by 12 foot hole in the roof let in a small lake of rain that ruined what the granite didn't. I drove home to New Haven (we hadn't yet moved to Cheshire) wondering why there were limbs all over the road.
As I look back, I realize it wasn't a bad way to start a ministry. Everyone's attention was instantly focused on the damage and we were, all of us, on the same page and with the same purpose. How can you get picky with your new Rector when a thousand slates blew off the roof, all the mortar fell out of the Rose Window, the organ is gone, there's a hole in the roof and three ton of granite in the balcony! (I also have one of those slates--some were found two blocks away--with a design created by Judith McManis, hanging on the wall. We made a killing selling artistic slates and organ pipes....)
Maybe I stayed so long because I didn't think I could go somewhere else and rely on a storm to pull the congregation together....
So, here's what I wrote in the newsletter on August 23, 1989--6 weeks after the tornado.
********
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind."
--Ecclesiastes 4.6
A friend of ours gave our children little clear glass globes to sit in the sunlight. Inside the globe are four squares of metal, black on one side, white on the other. They are attached to a central spoke in the globe. When the globe is in sunlight, the little squares react in such a way that they begin to spin. I have no idea how the thing works, it is a mystery of no small order to me. The brighter the sun, the faster the spinning. Set the globe in the shade and the spinning stops.
I have been sitting in the widow seat in my office watching the squares spin in the globe while the workers crawl around on the roof to my left, replacing slates. Work is underway to repain the damage caused by the July 10 storm. It is good to watch it. As the sun drives the squares in my son's globe, the desire for wholeness, for restoration, for healing drives our human efforts. We long to build up that which is thrown down, to make whole that which is broken, to replace slates, repair the tower, rebuild the organ...get on with life.
When the globe is sitting in bright sunlight, the squares spin so fast that they make an annoying little tinkling noise that drives me to distraction in about two minutes. So, I move the globe to the shade and enjoy the quiet.
There must be rhythm for life to be whole--movement and rest, work and play, singing and quiet, together and alone. I watch the workers sit perched like huge birds halfway up the slope of the church roof to rest and talk softly with each other. In a while they will be scampering again, defying gravity, shouting instructions to each other in gruff voices.
There is a point to this musing. It is the rhythm, the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of sunlight and shade, activity and rest, toil and quiet.
I am committed to a church that works with nobody left out. And that can only happen when we find the right pace, the right rhythm, the right way to hold our mouths....
(I love to play basketball. I would be heresy from someone who grew up in West Virginia not to love basketball! Basketball is art in West Virginia. Fred Schaus, Mark Workman, Hot Rod Hundley, Hal Greer, Jerry West, Rod Thorn, Gail Catlett, Ron Fritz...those are the names that moved me as I grew up. The names may mean nothing to you, but for me they were like gods. They were the basketball stars that lit the night sky of my childhood.)
Every day, I would shoot foul shots for an hour. And I came to believe to this day...that the secret of shooting foul shots is holding your mouth right. You dribble the same number of times for each shot. You spin the ball the same way each time. Rock three times, hold your mouth right and then shoot. And the ball goes in if you hold your mouth right.
What we need to do as a church, as a parish, is discover how it is we should hold our mouths. We need to discover the rhythm that is right for us. We need to find the balance between sunlight and shade, action and reflection, motion and quietness, dancing and standing still. We need to experiment with how we can be a church that works and...at the same time...a church that leaves nobody out.
And the way you do it is to "do it ". The only way to be a good foul shooter is to shoot foul shots. The only way to find out how to be a church that works and leaves nobody out is to practice doing and being that kind of church. How much sunshine is enough and not too much. How much shade is enough and not to much...that just depends on 'practice'.
I invite you to stand in the sun and the rain and the snow with me. I invite you to 'practice', in the months and years to come, being "a church that works and leaves nobody out". We'll be moving back and forth from sunshine to shade. We'll be scurrying around on the rooftops of our common life, patching the holes and then resting on the slope, speaking softly...or not at all.
And it will take time. Lots and lots of time. And patience too. And we'll sometimes make a dozen shots in a row and then miss five straight. It's like that. That's the way it will be. Quietness and toil will ebb and flow until it is natural and right. And still, even then, we'll occasionally miss five in a row.
That which is most NATURAL is well PRACTICED. A great dancer fools us into believing that her movement is natural, spontaneous, accomplished effortlessly. The truth is, a great dancer has practiced and practiced and practiced and, even more, practiced, and still sometimes falls, but the performance looks 'natural'.
I invite you to dance...to find the rhythm...to journey toward Go...to risk and to dream...in good weather and foul...in sunlight and shade...toil and quietness and striving after wind.
I invite you to be the Church of God, to be the Body of Christ...to see what it might mean to hold your mouth right.
I remember going to my 10th high school reunion and Roger Rose said to me, "high school was the best years of my life." I wanted to say either: "adolescence is a nightmare" or "then I hope you don't live too long, I don't want you miserable." Instead, I inwardly wept for him. Imagine the best years of your life over at 18!
However, these old sermons and other writings I happened upon the other day have an allure to me I never imagined. For the most part, I don't have any memory of writing them so it's like reading something new. But, on the other hand, they put me back in touch in some way with the person I was then and with the circumstances I was experiencing.
I promise not to keep transcribing this stuff and to get back to pondering current things, but I do want to share one I wrote with you today.
I started my time at St. John's in Waterbury on July 1, 1989. I was 42 years old. Nine days later on July 10, some misplaced tornadoes tore across Connecticut from south to north (looking I imagine for Kansas or Oklahoma). Every tree on the campus of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven was uprooted and later in the day a stand of ancient trees in Litchfield County was leveled. In between, the storm hit two of the small spires around the central spire of St. John's. One fell onto the sidewalk and created an impressive crater. The other fell through the roof and smashed the impressive McManis organ to smithereens. (I have one of the small pipes mounted in our living room.) So a 12 foot by 12 foot hole in the roof let in a small lake of rain that ruined what the granite didn't. I drove home to New Haven (we hadn't yet moved to Cheshire) wondering why there were limbs all over the road.
As I look back, I realize it wasn't a bad way to start a ministry. Everyone's attention was instantly focused on the damage and we were, all of us, on the same page and with the same purpose. How can you get picky with your new Rector when a thousand slates blew off the roof, all the mortar fell out of the Rose Window, the organ is gone, there's a hole in the roof and three ton of granite in the balcony! (I also have one of those slates--some were found two blocks away--with a design created by Judith McManis, hanging on the wall. We made a killing selling artistic slates and organ pipes....)
Maybe I stayed so long because I didn't think I could go somewhere else and rely on a storm to pull the congregation together....
So, here's what I wrote in the newsletter on August 23, 1989--6 weeks after the tornado.
********
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind."
--Ecclesiastes 4.6
A friend of ours gave our children little clear glass globes to sit in the sunlight. Inside the globe are four squares of metal, black on one side, white on the other. They are attached to a central spoke in the globe. When the globe is in sunlight, the little squares react in such a way that they begin to spin. I have no idea how the thing works, it is a mystery of no small order to me. The brighter the sun, the faster the spinning. Set the globe in the shade and the spinning stops.
I have been sitting in the widow seat in my office watching the squares spin in the globe while the workers crawl around on the roof to my left, replacing slates. Work is underway to repain the damage caused by the July 10 storm. It is good to watch it. As the sun drives the squares in my son's globe, the desire for wholeness, for restoration, for healing drives our human efforts. We long to build up that which is thrown down, to make whole that which is broken, to replace slates, repair the tower, rebuild the organ...get on with life.
When the globe is sitting in bright sunlight, the squares spin so fast that they make an annoying little tinkling noise that drives me to distraction in about two minutes. So, I move the globe to the shade and enjoy the quiet.
There must be rhythm for life to be whole--movement and rest, work and play, singing and quiet, together and alone. I watch the workers sit perched like huge birds halfway up the slope of the church roof to rest and talk softly with each other. In a while they will be scampering again, defying gravity, shouting instructions to each other in gruff voices.
There is a point to this musing. It is the rhythm, the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of sunlight and shade, activity and rest, toil and quiet.
I am committed to a church that works with nobody left out. And that can only happen when we find the right pace, the right rhythm, the right way to hold our mouths....
(I love to play basketball. I would be heresy from someone who grew up in West Virginia not to love basketball! Basketball is art in West Virginia. Fred Schaus, Mark Workman, Hot Rod Hundley, Hal Greer, Jerry West, Rod Thorn, Gail Catlett, Ron Fritz...those are the names that moved me as I grew up. The names may mean nothing to you, but for me they were like gods. They were the basketball stars that lit the night sky of my childhood.)
Every day, I would shoot foul shots for an hour. And I came to believe to this day...that the secret of shooting foul shots is holding your mouth right. You dribble the same number of times for each shot. You spin the ball the same way each time. Rock three times, hold your mouth right and then shoot. And the ball goes in if you hold your mouth right.
What we need to do as a church, as a parish, is discover how it is we should hold our mouths. We need to discover the rhythm that is right for us. We need to find the balance between sunlight and shade, action and reflection, motion and quietness, dancing and standing still. We need to experiment with how we can be a church that works and...at the same time...a church that leaves nobody out.
And the way you do it is to "do it ". The only way to be a good foul shooter is to shoot foul shots. The only way to find out how to be a church that works and leaves nobody out is to practice doing and being that kind of church. How much sunshine is enough and not too much. How much shade is enough and not to much...that just depends on 'practice'.
I invite you to stand in the sun and the rain and the snow with me. I invite you to 'practice', in the months and years to come, being "a church that works and leaves nobody out". We'll be moving back and forth from sunshine to shade. We'll be scurrying around on the rooftops of our common life, patching the holes and then resting on the slope, speaking softly...or not at all.
And it will take time. Lots and lots of time. And patience too. And we'll sometimes make a dozen shots in a row and then miss five straight. It's like that. That's the way it will be. Quietness and toil will ebb and flow until it is natural and right. And still, even then, we'll occasionally miss five in a row.
That which is most NATURAL is well PRACTICED. A great dancer fools us into believing that her movement is natural, spontaneous, accomplished effortlessly. The truth is, a great dancer has practiced and practiced and practiced and, even more, practiced, and still sometimes falls, but the performance looks 'natural'.
I invite you to dance...to find the rhythm...to journey toward Go...to risk and to dream...in good weather and foul...in sunlight and shade...toil and quietness and striving after wind.
I invite you to be the Church of God, to be the Body of Christ...to see what it might mean to hold your mouth right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)