Holy Oil Laundry

So, Easter was great, surrounded (literally!) by granddaughters and Josh and Mimi and Cathy and Tim and our friends who go on vacation with us (John and Jack and Sherrie) it was great.

By this morning everyone was gone and I decided to do laundry.

I washed my alb with a bunch of other stuff, neglecting to check the pocket and the vial of healing oil came undone at some point so one whole load was washed in holy oil.

Now, what to do?

Should I take the shirts and pair of khakis and other things I washed with my alb to some hospital, hoping the patients could wear them and get some benefit?

Should I wear them myself and hope I would get the benefit?

Should I frame them as relic-like things and hang them around my home?

Should I just quit worrying about the theological significance of holy oil blessed clothing?

I'm not sure which would be best. But I know this, when I wear those pieces of clothing (as surely I will) I'll feel differently about them.

That I know.

The girls arrive

Later than we hoped, Morgan and Emma and Tegan arrived. Tegan asleep in Josh's arms and taken straight to bed. Morgan and Emma, obviously tired but endearing.

Tomorrow, Mimi comes. And Tim on Saturday morning from Brooklyn.

Then, for a couple of days, the whole clan will be assembled.

Heaven.

Eggs to color, walks to take, reading to hear from Emma and Morgan, Tegan like a spring breeze. Our two, Josh and Mimi, under the same roof with us again. Cathy and Tim, much loved partners, here with us.

And a resurrection to boot.

What could be better, I ask myself?

And the answer: not much....

Such a wondrous ministry

Tonight was the monthly meeting of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry's Council. We had a presentation Marc-Yves Regis 1 about his remarkable ministry of holding a camp for 150 kids in Haiti and the Dominican Republic each summer for five summers. He is mostly funded by Episcopal churches but would accept money from anyone! Check out www.camphispaniola.org and marc@camphispaniola.org.  Marc was born and raised in Haiti but came to the US as an adolescent and is a professional photographer.

But what I really want to ponder is these three little rural churches--Emmanuel, St. James and St. Andrew's.

I'm trying to remember how long I've been their interim missioner, but, if you've read much of this blog you know I am awash in linear time. Maybe three years? Let's let it be that.

And I am an interim, which means there are time limits on my time with them. And I am, after all, 67 on Maundy Thursday and though I think I have all my faculties, that's just what I think....

So, in June we're going to begin the process that leads to 'what comes next'...like when there is a part-time missioner and not an 'interim'.

These three churches are so different, but one way they're not different is that they are all wondrous and remarkable centers of spirituality and faith. Each of them in a different way.

Emmanuel is, perhaps, the most 'traditional' Episcopal Church of the three. Highly educated, mostly affluent, lawyers and doctors and IT folks and  judges and such. But with a boat load of children...a youngish group on the whole. And profoundly committed to their community.

St. James is a middle class, hard working bundle of contradictions. Everyone has an opinion about everything and the interchanges are heart-felt, perilous and full of life. They do stuff you can't imagine they could do.

St. Andrew's is like a 'family' in the best sense. And they are, many of them, tied by blood in complicated ways. They don't recognize or imagine how wondrous they are. They feel like they are shrinking and fading away. Yet this year they have a 250th anniversary celebration that churches 10 times their size couldn't have pulled off.

It is so amazing to me to be with these astonishing people and serve them and love them.

It is time to look to the future. It is time to dream dreams and ponder possibilities. I look forward to that journey with them.

And I am so thankful to God that I was led to this place in this time to be with these astonishing people.

I only wish that they could see themselves as I see them--starlight and ashes, powerful. and limited, full of Promise, full of Wonder, full of Possibility....

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is my favorite holy day. Mostly because it's about eating and eating with those I love is about my most favorite thing ever. Also, my birthday will be on Maundy Thursday this year, that  makes it even sweeter. I almost never wrote down my Maundy Thursday sermons and I always talked about eating with those I loved. But I did write one down and I found it on my computer and want to share it with you. So here it is.

Maundy Thursday 2008

Maundy Thursday is always my favorite holy day

And I always talk about eating.

And often I get too long winded and go on and on and people wonder when I’ll ever finish.

Something about ‘meals’ keeps me talking beyond what is necessary.

So, this year I wrote it down so it would be controlled and less than 10 minutes and you wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d wandered off into some crack in my brain and wouldn’t be back for a while!

Easter dinner is special in our home. We aren’t surrounded by ‘family’ so we have invented a ‘family’ for holidays. We have friends who come to share our table on Thanksgiving and Christmas and, most of all, for me, on Easter.

John will be there—a friend of mine since college who lives in New Haven and is a Warden at Christ Church. West Virginians through and through—John and I. We have a patois that is Mountain Talk that few can follow if they didn’t grow up in that lush and deserted place.

He’ll call me and say, “Hey, Jem….”

And I’ll answer, “Hey, Jonn…” and we’re off and running about the dogs that won’t hunt and the crazy aunts and stuff no one else understands.

Jack and Sherry will be there—our friends who we met when we lived in New Haven. They are southerners—Virginia and South Carolina. They usually bring a country ham and dandelion risotto for Easter dinner. But they’ll be getting back from a trip to Italy and Greece and won’t have time to cook this year.

I know John and Jack and Sherry as well as I know myself. We rub against each other in ways that make life make sense.

And Mimi will be there. My ‘princess’, my love, my precious girl. She is nearing 30 but she is still my baby girl. An hour with Mimi is like an eternity in heaven for me. I love her so. She is so wondrous—did you know she has become a girl scout leader in Brooklyn for young girls from the projects? She raises money for the American Ballet Theater for a living, but she embraces young girls who need a mentor to make her life meaningful. She is so precious to me I can hardly speak of her without weeping. And she will be at the table.

This year, we will have ‘family’. Uncle Frankie and his son, Anthony—Bern’s favorite cousin, and his daughter Francis and her life-partner Lisa will be at the table. They hale from West Virginia but all live in Rhode Island now. They will be there, bringing memories and stories that would otherwise not be there.

And that is what the meal is about, after all, the telling of stories to help us ‘remember’ and to give us hope to go on. And we will eat the ham and the onion pie and the deviled eggs and the salad and the scalloped potatoes and tell the stories and be present—so remarkably present—to what is alive and real and wondrous, even in the sad stories of Aunt Annie’s death and the fact that Josh and Cathy and our granddaughters, Morgan and Emma are in Taiwan this Easter and not with us. They will gather around other tables—not to celebrate the resurrection because they are either Buddhists or nothing at all—but they will gather around a table to eat and tell stories and love each other and be present—so present—to the heart of God.

That’s what this night is about. How being around a table, sharing food, telling stories, loving each other, hoping for the future, wondering what happens next….

That’s what this night’s about. A table set and full of food. Family and friends gathered. Passing the bread, sharing the wine….wondering what will happen next.

Because Jesus sat around that table so long ago and shared his body and his blood with those he loved and those he would never know.

Just sitting at a table, eating with those you love, is a holy thing. A holy thing. A holy thing. Remember that always. Remember that. Remember…

Palm Sunday

I don't preach on Palm Sunday since the Passion is read and what is there to say about the Passion.

But if I did, this year, this might be what I would have said.

PALM SUNDAY 2013

We make it to be much more of a spectacle than it most likely was.

For us, nearly 2000 years later, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a time of triumph and celebration. Yet, at the time, it was a parade most likely hardly noticed.

It certainly wasn’t like the kind of parades we know—nothing like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or local 4^th of July parades, or the parades last month for St. Patrick, never mind the Rose Bowl Parade. It was most likely a tiny band of marchers—made up of those disciples who had been following him for months or years and the people who lived outside the city walls who had heard of this strange, charismatic teacher from Galilee.

Most of the people weren’t expecting him and most of the populace of Jerusalem never saw the procession of palms and cloaks and the country rabbi on a colt or a donkey—we’re not even sure which. No dignitaries came to greet him—none of the Pharisees or Sadducee's or occupying Romans. In fact, the whole thing was probably over so quickly that even if people inside the city walls heard of the rag-tag parade, they wouldn’t have had time to rush to the Gate of the City he entered to see him.

We don’t even know which of the Gates of the walled city he entered. The Jerusalem that Jesus knew is buried under a half-dozen destructions and rebuildings now. Jerusalem’s gates in the 1^st century are not the ones in today’s city walls.

Most likely, since he was coming from Bethany, he came up from the Kiddron Valley to whatever gate was on the south side of the city. But we don’t know.

All we know about the event is what we have in the gospel stories—and even they are not consistent.

So, why is Palm Sunday such an important day in our lives as Christians?

Maybe it is important, not because what happened as Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem—which direction he came from, which gate he entered, how many people greeted him as the Messiah with Palms and Alleluias. Maybe Palm Sunday is important because of what happened after he got there.

The rest of the week is not so full of bravado and joy and excitement as the story of the procession. Things go sour right away—and five short days from now, seemingly all of Jerusalem is calling for Jesus’ death. Even his closest friends deny him and go into hiding.

It is not what happens “outside” the gate of the Holy City that we need to begin to consider, but what happens “inside” the city walls.

The Palm Sunday account actually leaves us still outside Jerusalem.

Perhaps the question we need to ask is not “will we welcome Jesus to the City?" Perhaps the question we need to ask is this: ‘WILL WE GO WITH HIM INTO JERUSALEM AND STAY WITH HIM OVER THE NEXT WEEK?’

For me, I guarantee you, the answer to that is not the answer I wish, in my weakness and fear and brokenness, that I could give. My answer falls far short of the one I long to give….

“YES, LORD,” I long to proclaim, “I’M WITH YOU TO THE END!”

And I know better. I too will betray and abandon and hide in fear. My answer falls far short.

But at least I’m asking the right question….

bulk trash week

I was out on the back porch, smoking a cigarette (actually, I smoked two, we smokers need to be honest about our addiction and such a marvelous spring afternoon demanded a two cigarette break) and saw four pick up trucks with stuff in the back, cruising down Cornwall Avenue real slow.

It's bulk trash season in Cheshire, which brings out the bulk trash collectors in droves. Cheshire is, I suppose, a tad more upscale than I think of it, and some people's bulk trash is another person's treasure.

I'm going to clean out our basement tomorrow. There are at least half-a-dozen bikes from our children's history down there and two push mowers (Bern used her brother's Amazon gift card to get a new push mower--I'm so dim that I didn't know you could get anything but books from Amazon....) And lawn furniture to die for and at least three Webber grills and lots of other stuff that is 'trash' to us and my make another person's day.

I missed this morning's breakfast with the Cluster's officers to plan the Cluster Council meeting on Tuesday. I got up, walked the dog, had breakfast and then Jean called me on our land line (I had no idea where my cell phone was) to make sure I was ok. I felt like an idiot. It was on my calendar on my computer but I seldom turn my computer on before early afternoon and I plum forgot about the breakfast. What an idiot.

I could blame it on the Saturday being the wrong one since we put off the Cluster Council meeting a week to let people see the UConn women win it all. But that won't fly. The truth is, I am so good at being retired that I seldom know what day it is prior to lunch since most all days are mine to spend as I wish. I set my alarm on Monday night and Saturday night so I can go to my clericus meeting on Tuesday and make it to church on Sunday. Other than that, I sleep until I wake up and don't worry about what day it is at all.

If I had set my clock, I would have gone to Durham and been there, but, in the midst of a book I really loved, I forgot when I got into bed.

What an idiot of the first degree.

It's the second time I've forgotten about a 'officers' breakfast'. I have no excuse whatsoever. And, for today, I feel like a total and irredeemable idiot. The problem is, for me, that my ego is about the size of Montana and the two Dakotas combined and by tomorrow, I won't feel guilty anymore.

One of my mantras is this: "guilt goes away...."

I'm not sure that's true for many people, but it is for me. That capacity to simply let go of guilt may be a good thing for me in lots of ways. But I'm not sure it ultimately is good. Seems to me Jews and Roman Catholics are lots better than me at sustaining guilt....

I need to ponder guilt and why it is so easy for me to let it go. I apologize profusely and simply assume forgiveness. Maybe I should try to make myself get more deeply into the occasional guilt I feel (I really don't do much of anything I should feel guilty about--besides forgetting meetings) or perhaps I could do a cottage industry in teaching people how to let guilt go.

Give me some time to ponder all this.

And if you want some bikes that are basically sound but need new tires, or a push mower or two...cruise down Cornwall Avenue on Monday.....

"wilting greens"

Tonight I was sauteing baby spinach to eat with chicken cordon blu and roasted baby potatoes and I remembered how my mother, all through the spring and summer and well into the fall, would "wilt" the greens my father picked.

He would pick them in our yard and my Uncle Russel's yard and the lot where we played baseball and football and in the mountains all around us. And my mother would "wilt" them, what I use a fancy french term to describe. She would 'saute' them in a frying pan with a little butter and oil and salt and pepper (I add garlic, which wouldn't have been on her 'food radar') and we would eat them as a side to whatever else we were eating. Certainly not chicken cordon blu in the home of my childhood. We spoke and ate nothing French.

But what I thought about was those 'greens' that my father found in the wild. In my memory there was a trace of arugula in it all--that peppery taste--but 'arugula' would not have been spoken in my childhood.

My father, only one generation removed from me, was a 'hunter-gatherer'. We had rabbit and squirrel as well as wild greens. And I am incapable of any of that. The 'hunter-gatherer' has disappeared from our line. The only 'green' I remember a name for was what my father called "English Plankton". There were at least a half-dozen other wild plants that went into our 'wilted greens' but I have no memory of their names. Even then, when I'd accompany  him in his gathering, all they looked like were weeds to me. Dandelion too, how could I have forgotten that? The greens from those little yellow flowers that turned to wisps of seeds borne by fluffy white that we blew away each summer. Dandelions and English Plankton. What else, I wonder, went into the 'wilted greens' that were a staple of our diet?

At least I remember the gathering my father would do. My children have no memory of eating out of the yard and my granddaughters, I think, believe greens of any kind were grown in a supermarket.

Does anyone out there still gather greens from the wild? What are some of the names? Email me at Padrejgb@aol.com if you have names. I only look at blog comments every few months.

They were good--those 'wilted greens', as I remember. I love 'greens' (sauteed or 'wilted') from collards to beet greens to arugula to spinach. I've become especially fond of root vegetables (parsnips, beets, turnips, like that) and greens as I age.

I wish I could go gather them in the wild.