So I don't often do this...

I read a lot. 5 or 6 books a week, from Cheshire's library. I am a library rat.

I read dozens of books without recommending one.

But I want to.

Carolyn Barkhurst's novel The Nobodies Album is definitely worth a read.

It is a remarkable story and the stuff that will annoy you at first turns out to be the best stuff of all.

I recommend it highly.

On the other hand...

OK, I'm hard on Israel, I admit it. And there is another side of the story that needs telling.

Hamas is perfectly aware of Israel's tendency to strike back to attacks with gusto. That's what Israel does, always has. Israel is surrounded by people who hate them. And Israel has the firepower to respond brutally. And they will.

So, Hamas lobs rockets into Israel that, to this point,  have done next to no damage, knowing full well that Israel will respond with a heavy hand. There is a sense in which Hamas is playing a cruel and cynical hand, provoking Israel to strike back, knowing many innocent people will die, hoping to garner world opinion against Israel's over-whelming response to the provocation.

I know that is true. The people of Gaza 'should' rise up against Hamas and trust in people who would carefully and painfully negotiate a  "separate state" solution to the madness in Israel. But, again, they probably won't turn against Hamas because people they love are being killed by the Israelis.

It is a cruel and cynical gambit by Hamas. But, ironically, cruelty and cynicism often prove successful.

I think it is next to impossible for any American to 'understand' the Middle East since we are so prone to apply Western psychology to any far-flung conflict. That's why I call it Western psychology--the only people who attempt to explain human behavior by psychology are the folks from Western Europe and North America. Psychological 'thinking' doesn't dominate in the rest of the world. No wonder we are so inept at figuring out what to do about issues in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe. the Arab world and South America.

Most of the world, beloved, doesn't 'think psychologically'. (Unfortunately for them, many Israelis DO! So they don't understand their enemies at all.) Our categories and evaluations are based on our assumption (false!) that everyone thinks like we in western Europe and North America do....And they don't.

The way the rest of the world thinks isn't less subtle or less sophisticated than we think--it simply doesn't have its foundation in Freud and Jung and Adler. ("Psychological thinking" is just over a century old...it is amazing how totally we in the West have bought into it!)

God help us if we ever meet intelligent creatures from another Universe--we'll start wondering about 'depression' and 'anxiety' and 'bi-polar disorder' and they won't have a clue what we're wondering about.

I think as psychologically as the next person--but I do recognize that as a defect when trying to understand people who don't.....

So when is 'enough' enough....

Sanity and reasonableness if unraveling each day. Ukraine, thousands of children at our southern boarder, mass kidnappings in Africa, and the chaos in Israel.

This will not make me friends--but I'm old enough that I have enough friends already--when will the world tell Israel 'enough is enough'.

Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel is like Mississippi throwing rocks into Georgia and all the power of the US armed forces being aimed at Mississippi.

Israel has an armed force just inferior to ours. Israel could wipe out the Middle East in a week or so--Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia--all of it. Their restraint in not doing that is admirable. But the carnage they're unleashing on Gaza is beyond all belief. A thousand Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed and 4 times that many wounded while a handful of Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians have died--that is far beyond an 'eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' that the Hebrew Bible allows.

Gaza is, I believe, about the size of New Haven County. Imagine the Marines by land, the Air Force by air and the Navy by sea attacking New Haven County!

It is incredible to me that Israel has a 'get out of jail free' card to play in this latest deadly game of War Monopoly.

How many Palestinians equal one dead Jew? Eight hundred, a thousand, ten thousand? Hamas can't damage Israel in any significant way--it's like Mississippi vs. the US government. No contest.

When will someone say to Israel, "this isn't right...you can't extract this punishment for what are, in essence, 4th of July fireworks fired from Gaza toward you."

How much is 'enough'? And when will some one tell them to stop this madness?

The attacks on Gaza smell of Holocaust. I'm sorry to say that and regret that I wrote it. But at some point Israel has to be brought to task for the literal 'overkill' they always inflict for lamentable offenses against them.

Of course, if Mississippi were launching rockets and lobbing mortars into Georgia, reprisal would be expected...but there is a limit to the size of reprisals that would be tolerated.

There's no such limit on what Israel does when attacked.

There should be. Enough is enough....

Finishing my creed

GW Frazier, who used to be a member of St. James in Higganum, but now lives in Costa Rica, used to talk to me a lot about his 'creed', as opposed to the Nicene Creed.

GW pointed out correctly, that the problem with the Nicene Creed is that there is nothing in it about Jesus' life and teaching. This is how it goes: "...he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."

Nothing whatsoever about his life and teachings. GW used to say Jesus' life was consigned to the semi-colan after "Pontius Pilate"!

So, referring back to my last post, I want to give you my Creed. It was modified today by the reading from Romans. I don't often praise Paul, but in the 8th chapter of Romans, he absolutely 'nailed it'!

Here's what he said:

Romans 8:38-39: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, no height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That was the only thing missing from the things I believe.

CREDO

I believe we must strive to love one another as God loves us.

I believe we much welcome the stranger in our midst.

I believe we must treat everyone else as we want to be treated.

I believe nothing--not anything--can separate us from the love of God.

OK, that's it. I'm through now. That's what I believe and all I believe. Everything else--even stuff about the Sacraments, which I have a very high view of--is secondary to that.

I stand by that. That is my Creed. It's all I need and more than enough.

Sometime I'll rave on about the Nicene Creed. But not tonight. Tonight I have said enough. I know, without a doubt, that's what I believe....

1001--being honest

Somewhere in northern West Virginia or western Maryland, I told my cousin, Mejol, something I've known for quite a while but had never said out loud to another human being.

"The longer I live," I told her, going 80 in her wondrous Honda hatchback, "the less I believe."

It is the truth--I'm being honest here. I believe less and less as I age.

Christianity has been horribly complicated by doctrine and dogma. Here is the essence of Christianity, so far as I can tell: love one another as God loves you; welcome the stranger into your midst; do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's about it, so far as I can see. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Everything else is window dressing and bull-shit.

Love one another, welcome the stranger, do to others as you would be done to.

'Nough said. No more necessary. Everything else about the church is expendable, clutter, nonsense.

I'm being honest here. There is nothing beyond those three injunctions (love each other, welcome strangers, treat others as you hope to be treated) that matters in the least. Everything Jesus left us is included in those three injunctions. The rest is 'stuff the church made up'.

I truly believe that though I didn't know how profoundly I believed it until I said it out loud to Mejol going about 80 on some interstate highway or another.

It's good to have it out in the open.

Imagine the world we might have if only we loved each other the way God loves us and welcomed strangers as friends and treated everyone the way we want them to treat us.

Imagine and ponder that for a while and tell me I'm wrong about how simple Christianity truly is....

Number 1000

first post

This is the 1000th post I've done. It's only right and proper and good that the 1000th be the first ever, back four years and several months ago. If for no other reason to let you an I know what the title means. Shalom, jim

Sitting under the Castor Oil Tree (March 7, 2009)

The character in the Bible I have always been drawn to in Jonah. I identify with his story. Like Jonah, I have experienced being taken where I didn't want to go by God and I've been disgruntled with the way things went. The belly of a big old fish isn't a pleasant means of travel either!

The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineva, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"

God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a castor oil tree--the impications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challanges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."

God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Ninivah...along with their cattle and beasts.

And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.

What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineva (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a Ph.D. in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.

God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcly understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me axious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.

I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.

Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.

My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).

Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.

When I was in high school, I wrote a regular colemn for the school newspaper call "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.

So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the castor oil tree and ponder somemore. And, if you wish, share my ponderings with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.

Two caveates: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.

I supose I'll just ask your tolerance.

Memory Lane....

This is my 999th post on The Castor Oil Tree. It is only fitting that it be about 'memory'.

My trip to West Virginia with Mejol (my spell-check always underlines her name, not surprisingly, since she is the only 'Mejol' in the USA) brought me deeply involved with memories of my childhood.  I tend to live 'in the moment' and memory isn't usually a part of 'where I live'. But this trip disrupted the way I live normally and threw me into the past--a place I seldom visit.

It's not a choice I make to live in the now--it's just the way I'm made up psychologically. I live, normally, as if 'this moment' is the only moment that matters. Being with Mejol and Aunt Elsie reminded me that it is 'the past' that has made me a person who lives in the 'now'.

I've mentioned before in these musings and ponderings that, for no reason I can comprehend, my childhood and most of my life has been contented and without drama. My life has fit me like a glove fits a hand. I have no 'great tramas' that I've had to deal with. I've been happy and safe and satisfied most moments in my life. I have to dig deep to find moments that were deeply disturbing or left a scar. I've been profoundly blessed in that. So, perhaps it is that my life has been so comforting for most of it that I am comfortable just living in what is 'right now' and not dealing with 'the past' or worrying about 'the future'. I don't know. But if that is true, I give thanks for it with all my heart.

But Monday through Thursday of this week, that way of being was interrupted by astonishing memories of my childhood.

I don't sleep well when Bern isn't in the bed with me (and our Puli dog, Bela, for that matter) and I didn't sleep well at all on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday night this week. But when I slept, I had dreams of the past, of times long ago, of people long dead, of being young.

Mejol is part of my earliest memories. She was five when I was born, but in my memory she seemed much older than that to me. I think she is an 'old soul'. Her life--unlike mine--has been full of pain and fear and drama. She's navigated all that, I think, because of her 'old soul'.

The 'old soul' part of her wasn't a part of my memory of her in my life. That only came later as I looked back and pondered it all. She was simply there, a seamless stitch in the fabric of my being.

Riding with her in her car I discovered that I hear much better out of my right ear than my left. When I was driving, I heard every word of her soft voice. When she was driving I had to ask her time and again to repeat what she had just said. Valuable information, I'd say.

Though normally, I seldom dwell on the past, this trip gave me that opportunity and blessing.

Who I am today, who I've always been, was shaped and molded by Mejol and Aunt Elsie and countless others--mostly family. This trip made that crystal clear.

I've sometimes thought 'who I am' leaped full-grown into existence all by itself.

Oh, no, I've learned these last days, traveling to West Virgina and back in time. I was formed, shaped, molded, created by my past.

This, I tell you, is a gift to know and a reminder to remember.

You can live in 'the now' if your past gave you that permission and formed you that way.

After this journey with Mejol into our past, I will never be the same. I will ponder 'who I am' differently.

That is a blessing I do not deserve. And I welcome it....