One way we're different, Bern and I

(I'm pretty sure it's 'Bern and I' since you would say: 'Bern and I are different in one way.' But 'Bern and me' sounds fine when it's 'one way we're different, Bern and me.' Jeez, I'm the English major and I'm not quite sure!!!)

Anyway, here it is: I play Hearts on the computer and she plays Solitaire. I win 50% of the time in Hearts and she wins 16 or 17 % of the time in Solitaire. So we're different because she likes a challenge and I like to win....

We're actually remarkably different:


1) I'm an extrovert and she's an introvert.

2) I'm messy and she's neat.

3) I follow recipes and she makes food up.

4) I stay up late and she gets up early.

5) She organizes things and I like chaos.

6) She loves to work in the yard and love to sit on the deck.

7) I have a car and she has a truck.

8) I wash small loads of clothes, she washes lots when she washes.

9) She holds grudges and I forget why I should be mad about things.

10) I don't mind washing a half-full dishwasher--she wants it packed.

But in some ways we are alike.

*we are both intuitive types and need lists to get things done.

*we both read a great deal and tend to like most of the same books.

*we both love our children and grandchildren  without boundaries.

*we both enjoy solitude.

*we have similar senses of humor. (only she never got Monty Python....)

September 5, when we're on Oak Island, North Carolina with Mimi and Tim and John and Sherry, we'll celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. That's 1 year short of 2/3 of my life and  2 years more than 2/3 of her life. Two out of ever three breathes I've taken, two out of three of ever time our hearts have beaten, we've been married.

We're different in lots more ways than I listed--and alike in lots more ways as well.

I'm just pondering  how remarkable that seems to me. To be so different and so alike and to have spent so much time together. There were hard times, for sure, but for the most part...well, for the most part...it's been glorious.

Almost a thousand

I just noticed, as I was writing about Mimi's birthday, that I'm only 11 posts--after this one, 10--from a thousand posts.

I tend to like milestones, anniversaries, birthdays, moments to pause and reflect on and ponder.

It's kind of like being amazed at how may hands of hearts I've played on my computer--several thousand and I'm 22 games above winning half the time. Almost a thousand posts. My Lord, why don't I have a life?

And here's what's interesting: I've enjoyed writing everyone of them. I've said before, I'd probably do this if no body every looked at it. It's a form of therapy for me and much cheaper than a psychologist would be!

And that you guys read it just makes it all the more better and special and wondrous.

Thanks for tagging along in the journey. We're coming up on 1000. Pretty good. Ten more. I'll have to come up with something special 10 blogs from now.

Hang in there and see what I can do....

Mimi's coming

Mimi's coming for her birthday next Sunday. Her given name is Jeremy Johanna Bradley, given the names of her two godmothers (who never come through in good ways, by the way) Sister Jeremy Daigler, a Sister of Mercy I worked with one summer and Victoria Johanna Handwerk, the wife of an Episcopal priest we knew well for years.

But, for all that, even though my plan was to call her J.J., she became Mimi because she was a horrible baby who cried for six months and then became the best baby and best kid and best teen and best young woman daughter ever. When she cried and cried and cried and arched and struggled against being held for those first six months, her 3 year old brother, Josh, would sing to her like this: "Jer-e-mimi, mimi, mimi". And it stuck.

Her birthday is Monday, July 21. We'll celebrate on the evening of the 20th, when she comes to us from the Berkshires. My baby girl will be 36 in a week. Imagine that! I can't, I'll tell you that....

She and Tim, who will become her husband on October 12 in Brooklyn, with me presiding, go on vacation with us every September for at least five years now. We love him only slightly less than we love Mimi. Really.

I talked with her on the phone tonight. She wants a grilled meal for her birthday dinner. She--for 35 years and 6 months--has been an 'easy' child. Something on the grill will do--not going out somewhere in New Haven.

Those first six months though, that was madness. I still think I'm catching up on sleep I missed almost 36 years ago!

We've talked about it, Bern and I, what happened to that baby from Hell, who bore no relationship to
'easy-baby-Josh'. Bern says, simply, at the age of six months, "her brain flipped", and we were lucky to get rid of all the badness in one six month period so early on. All the badness.

Since then she, besides the normal stuff you could expect from any 'good child', has been golden.

Sunday and Monday will be so wondrous, so special, so like Mimi....

Tony

I saw Tony yesterday in the parking lot of the package store we must both use. I hadn't seen him for 5 years or so. Our daughters went to school together--Beth and Mimi--from first grade to graduation. They were sometimes close and sometimes not. Tony ran a print shop/trophy shop/where you could get keys made and ship stuff by UPS and FedEx that was just a block or so from St. John's in Waterbury.

I used to see him a lot since he did major printing and shipping and plaques for the church and I always wanted to get out and walk rather than send someone else.

I guess I haven't seen him in a while since he mentioned "my new wife" and I didn't ask for details.

I always liked him because he was very efficient and was one of the few men shorter than me. Short people, I like.

And we always had our daughters to talk about.

He asked me how I liked retirement and I told him (as I tell everyone) "if I'd known how good I'd be at being retired I'd done it years before." He's given up the shop but works 4 days a week in his son's independent pharmacy in New Haven. For both of us, the grandchildren come from the sons. Three each, we learned.

Talking with Tony for ten minutes in the parking lot got me to pondering. He and I could have been friends, I think, under different circumstances--like, if I had a different personality.

I started pondering 'me and friends'. I think my closest friends are John and Jack and Sherry in New Haven. John and I go back to WVU and met in church in Morgantown. Jack and Sherry I met because Sherry came to church at St. Paul's in New Haven and she's married to Jack and she and Bern are in a women's group together for 30 years or so. John and Sherry come on vacation with the two of us and Mimi and Tim each September. Jack runs a Day Care and can't come but may retire in 2015 and then they'll both come.

I consider the people I meet with on Tuesday morning to be friends, but they're all friends because of church. Besides John, the only friend from the past I have any contact with is Mike, who I roomed with in college.

Harriet and Malinda and Bob and Fred are my friends, but we worked together at St. John's in Waterbury.

Most of my friends these days are people who go to the three churches I serve.

Of all my friends, only Mike (who I've only seen once in 20 years) and Jack aren't somehow related to 'church' in some way--though Jack is related by marriage.

I have lots of acquaintances and neighbors who I'm 'friendly' with. But we fall short of being friends.

I have to ponder this some more. I'm an extrovert and quite gregarious, though shy at first meetings, but most everyone I consider a friend has a 'church angle'.

Shouldn't I have some friends who have nothing to do with church in any way? How odd I've never noticed this before.

Talking to Tony got me to thinking....

Queen Anne's Lace

By our front walk to the driveway there is a chest high, many flowers of Queen Anne's Lace.

Where I come from it is a weed. QAL is the Kudzu of Appalachia. It grow anywhere and everywhere and people try to beat it back like Dandelions--more so, actually, since where I come from people eat Dandelions and make wine from it. Dandelions are encouraged but Queen Anne's Lace is hated.

I knew Bern didn't plant it so I asked her about it tonight. She said it came up voluntarily and she let it grow. It's actually a very delicate and beautiful plant. I'm not sure why people hated it so much back in West Virginia. It has an unusual odor, granted, but up here in the heathen North East, I've seen it in bouquets of flowers as accoutrement. I approve of that.

Here's how hated Queen Anne's Lace was where I come from: in 4th grade, Charlie Harmon, who was (as we said back there in those non-politically correct times) "a tad techted" picked QAL for our teacher, Miss Harmon, no relation to Charlie in any way (who was tall and thin and a bitch of the first order) as he walked to school down the railroad tracks. Charlie was 2 grades behind already and just putting in his time until 16 and permission to quit school but he was a gentle, sweet 'techted' boy, not an angry, aggressive 'techted' boy--we had some of those.

Miss Taylor took those flowers when Charlie offered them and backhanded him with them in her fist though he weighted 80 pound more that her and could have squished her like a bug if he'd been 'angry techted' rather than 'sweet techted'.

"Don't give me weeds!" she yelled at him. (These were also the days teachers could backhand you and yell at you--I'm not sure they, in any way, were 'the good ol' days' people long for.)

I've decided to think of our substantial patch of Queen Anne's Lace as flowers, rather than weeds. I do like to look at them and they don't seem to have the same smell as they had back home. I've become a fan of Queen Anne's Lace.

What I ought to tell you about from the front yard is the Australian Poppy's--so small and delicate and with feathery leaves and yellow flowers. Nobody would backhand anyone with a fist full of those....

What ticks me off about the Lectionary

In the Revised Common Lectionary, when verses are left out, I get curious. Usually I have to look them up in the Bible to know what was left out and then wonder why. But this week I didn't have to look them up because I knew what was left out. Here's the gospel reading for this week in the Lectionary:

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
13:1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.

13:2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.

13:3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow.

13:4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.

13:5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.

13:6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.

13:7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

13:8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

13:9 Let anyone with ears listen!"

13:18 "Hear then the parable of the sower.

13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path.

13:20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;

13:21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.

13:22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.

13:23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."


You'll notice that 9 verses are left out. This is one of the passages that occurs in the three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is obvious that both Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark's gospel in front of them as they wrote, a decade or more later. "Synoptic" is a word you can figure out from the Greek pretty easily. "Syn" as in 'synonyms", means "the same" and 'optic' means 'to see'. So those three gospels 'see' the 'same' because Mark makes up 50% of Luke and Matthew.

Here's the gospel without the left out verses:

Matt.13

[1] That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.

[2] And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat there; and the whole crowd stood on the beach.
[3] And he told them many things in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow.
[4] And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
[5] Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil,
[6] but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away.
[7] Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
[8] Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
[9] He who has ears, let him hear."
[10] Then the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"

[11] And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
[12] For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
[13] This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
[14] With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: `You shall indeed hear but never understand,
and you shall indeed see but never perceive.
[15] For this people's heart has grown dull,
and their ears are heavy of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should perceive with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and turn for me to heal them.'
[16] But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
[17] Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
[18] "Hear then the parable of the sower.

[19] When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path.
[20] As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;
[21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
[22] As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
[23] As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."


I underlined and made bold what was left out.


The Lectionary people took out the whole meaning of this passage in all three synoptic gospels. It makes it seem, in what I will read on Sunday, that Jesus explains 'the parable' to the crowds. But he doesn't if you put in the missing verses. He only explains it to the disciples and tells them he speaks in parables so they will not understand!!!

This is the 'secrecy motif' of the synoptic gospels. This motif does not exist in John, not at all. But it is part and parcel of Mark, Matthew and Luke. Jesus is always telling people not to tell others about what he does. Scholars have fretted over this for centuries. Why would Jesus want to be 'secret'?


That's a different conversation. What I want to know is why don't those folks who put together the Revised Common Lectionary not want us to hear those missing 9 verses.


Is it because they make the whole passage more problematic--why would Jesus tell the disciples the 'meaning' of the parable but not the crowds that followed him


Is it because this whole passage in all three Synoptic Gospels completely misunderstands the nature of a 'parable'? A parable is a story with one meaning. Parables are more like jokes than any thing. You 'get' them or you don't. Jesus turns the 'parable' into an 'allegory', the only time that happens in the gospels. Parable come's from the Greek word para-ballien, which means 'to throw out together'. There is a story and a meaning, thrown out together, and you either get the meaning of the story or not. In this case, Jesus explains the 'parable' to the disciples as an 'allegory' where every thing in the story stands for something else.

Maybe the Lectionary folks didn't want that to come up any more than they wanted the 'secrecy motif' to impinge on people's understanding. Maybe they just wanted it all to be simple and clear.

But Truth isn't 'simple' or 'clear'. Truth is complex, convoluted and obscure.

Maybe the Lectionary folks (and this is my best guess) don't trust lay folks to deal with complexity, convolutedness, obscurity and paradox. That's what I think.

I think lay folks can easily handle all that. So this Sunday at St. Andrew's in Northford, I'm going to tell them all this and let them sort it out--the whole 'secrecy motif' and the whole parable/allegory thing.

I think they can deal with it. I really do. I trust lay folks a lot more that I trust the people who put together the Revised Common Lectionary.

Was I ever right this time!!!

Remember how I told Mejol to stop looking for other Mejols? My friend Charles, who not only reads this blog but acts on it, sent me this after reading about Mejol.

MEJOL

Pronunciation unavailable

2,263,075th in the U.S.

Quick facts

Very few

people in the U.S have this name

1

to be exact

Maryland

has the most people named Mejol per capita

So, according to "White Pages Names", my cousin is the only Mejol in the country!

I told her and sent it to her and she feels special!

Imagine being the only person named James on the block, much less the town or the county...

I've been afraid to go to the website to check on James or even Gordon, fearing I'll be in the top 10 names for James and the top 40 or so for Gordon.

I've always known Mejol was one of a kind. I've been right all along....