'by date' horror

So, I had some store-made crab cakes and a can of crab meat and I thought I'd add some more crab meat to the filling of the store-made cakes. I opened the can and gave Luke, the cat, the water out of the can. He began to drink it like it were the water of life...and I checked the used by date of the crab.

It was 6/13/09--which, having 4 degrees like I do, I knew meant June 13, 2009--which is 4 years and two months ago.

First you might wonder how anyone could have something that old in their can goods cabinet. And I couldn't tell you. Maybe because we use crab meat, when we use it, from the chilled section. And we probably could have used that crab meat a dozen times, but we got fresh instead.

So, why did we buy it in the first place? I have no idea. I would say Bern bought it and she would probably say that I bought it and we'd be back to the conversation about who needs to go to 'the home' first and I don't want to go there.

I tasted it after Bern smelled it and ruled it 'probably ok' and I thought the texture was wrong and I'm the one who won't eat chicken three days after it was cooked anyway. Bern believes in a much longer 'shelf life' than I do. I'm constantly asking Bern if she thinks this or that in the refrigerator is still good. She always says yes and half the time I throw it out anyway.

And I certainly wasn't going to eat crab, of all things, four years out of date.

If Luke dies tonight, I'll know I was right. But I don't want him to die, so I hope I'm wrong and my crab cakes would have more tasty than they were and I would have been happier about dinner than I was.

But who knows....4 years and 2 months is too long a stretch for me and I don't think I'm being unreasonable about that....

Our yards

I know I've mentioned it before, but the truth is this: one of the reasons I believe in God is Bern's yards.

We've lived here since 1989, so she's had a quarter of a century to get them right--and they are so right!

From April on, something is always happening in the front yard and back yard. Just this afternoon I noticed yellow, purple, blue, white and orange in the back yard that weren't there a couple of weeks ago. I don't know any of the names of the flowers, but they keep coming all Spring and Summer and into the Fall.

In the front yard, she really specializes in exotic grasses that grow to washer/drier size and are in many hues of green. Nevermind the several species of ferns and ground cover.

I've loved her since 1964 and been married to her since 1970, but I'm still amazed and honored for what she brings into my life--among which is what she has transformed our back and front yards into.

Amazing. What a blessing....

How stupid can white people be?

A guy named Bo Brooks, which I wish I could like because there were lots of Brooks' where I grew up and not a few 'Bo's', is a Republican Congressperson from Alabama and he told Laura Ingreham on Fox News ('Lord help us') that the only people it is safe to discriminate against are "white people".

He blamed the Democrats for fomenting 'race warfare' and 'hating white people'.

To her credit, even Laura Ingreham called Bo's remarks "a little over the top".

Lord Jesus, how stupid can White People be?

Being white in this country IS a problem--a problem for everyone who isn't.

White People run everything. Or, let me correct that, White Men run everything. Oh, women have made some progress but they still make 68 cents for every dollar a man makes in most states, doing the same jobs. But people of color--give me a break Bo...Black and Brown people in this country clean our toilets, cut our lawns, fill our pools, pick up our trash, don't get to go to college and over-populate our prisons. Raising the 'race question' is something that needs to be done.

(I have this unsubstantiated theory that the reason we have bent over backwards to send out electric bills and lots of other stuff in Spanish--unlike our refusal to make allowances for European immigrants--is that we want to keep the Brown underclass as an underclass to do our dirty work. And by 'our', I mean White People.

If there needs to be a war on anyone in this country, it needs to be on White People (Men). I just pray enough of the women (a majority, by the way) get together with the Hispanic, African American and Asian folks to turn our government around and truly, just like Bo fears, throw the White Men out and take over.

That's what I hope. They'd do a much better job of running things than White Men are doing...hell, my two 7 year old and 4 1/2 year old Asian/American granddaughters could do a better job of running things than Bo Brooks and his white male peers in the House of Representatives.

I assure you they would because they are loving and inclusive and really worry about (sometimes to my distress) about 'being FAIR'. That's more than Bo and his Bros do, believe me.

Disappointment in my alma mater...

My alma mater, West Virginia University, did no better than 4th on this year's list of 'best party schools'.

And that after several years of being in the top 2! WVU is where people burn couches on the street when the football team wins...I'm talkin' about serious 'party-time'!

And who squeezed them out of NUMBER ONE, you might ask...that's where the embarrassment and disappointment comes in.

In third place was UCal Santa Barbara. Ok, lots of sun and surf and no sports teams to speak of...why not party? I can get that.

In second place, though, the University of Iowa! Iowa, Jesus/Mary/and Joseph--a place that flat and dull, in the part of America most of us only fly over? Help me with this...maybe it's the flatness and dullness that drive them to drink and party, who knows?

And the 1st ranked Party School in America...give me a break...Syracuse University...one of WVU's top rivals until college sports went crazy and WV is playing in the Southwest as part of the Big Twelve and Sryacuse--hundreds of miles from the Atlantic--is playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Syracuse? Give me a break? How can the Orange party? Well, it is cold as hell up there and those long winter nights drag on and on...OK, I get it.

At least we're still number 4. When Providence or Southern Methodist get ahead of WVU, I'll seriously start worrying about the party vibes in Morgantown.....

My sermon today

(Here's the sermon I gave today at St. James in Higganum. I really didn't prepare it very much--since I've been doing this forever and think I know what I'm doing....The thing was, the way it turned out sort of astonished me. I never meant to go where I went. Maybe the Spirit led me and maybe I'm getting 'a tad off' as we would have said where I came from if someone was slipping into dementia. I even sent it in an email to Bea at the Cluster office to forward to Cluster members with the notice that it was preached at Emmanuel instead of St. James! Don't tell Bern, we have a running total of reasons the other should be 'in the home'!)

Matthew 14.13-21

The gospel today about the feeding of the multitude is interesting in several ways.

First of all, it is one of only three stories told in all four gospels. In fact, Mark likes it so much he tells it twice! Chapters 6 and 8--look it up.

The other two stories in all the gospels are the cleansing of the Temple and the Anointing. John puts the cleansing story near the beginning of his gospel and the other three have it near the end. And all four versions of the woman anointing Jesus with expensive oil is very different in each of it's telling--no one agrees who the woman is  and what the moral of the story is.

But the five telling's of the Feeding are remarkably alike--differing only in minor detail. When we get the same story told five times it, we should ponder it's meaning carefully.

It takes place in what Matthew calls "a deserted place"--though anywhere where there are five thousand 'man', plus ever how many 'women and children' there were is difficult to think of as 'deserted'! It's time to eat supper and the disciples urge Jesus to send the crowds to villages to buy food, but he tells them 'feed them yourselves'. Feed this mob, he says, with five loaves and two fish. Right, Jesus!

People are always trying to explain this miracle. I had an assistant once who preached on one of the Feeding stories and said the people were so moved by Jesus' faith that they pulled out the food they had brought and shared and that's where the leftovers came from. She and I had quite a conversation after her sermon. I couldn't see why she just couldn't be satisfied with it being a miracle--five loaves, two fish...everybody eats and twelve baskets left over....

One of the reasons this story is so provocative is that eating is one of the most basic of human needs. Stop eating and you'll die. We all know that.

Besides, how do we celebrate as human beings? Holidays and special occasions a observed by sharing a meal with loved ones and friends. Not only is eating vitally important, it is our way of acknowledging and celebrating important events.

Plus, this story points to what we do at that Table up there when we gather. We eat and drink. Not filet mignon and fine wine--rather bad Port and bread more akin to fish food. But that wine and that bread is the very blood and body of Christ. It fills our hungers, our needs, our longing.

We 'hunger' after much more than food. We hunger after hope. We hunger after joy. We hunger after peace. We hunger after safety. And most, most of all. We hunger to be 'whole'.

Was it Pascal who said 'there is a God-shaped hole in each of our hearts'? We can never be 'whole' until that hole is filled in. Jesus never said we should be 'good'. But he said over and again we should be 'whole'--complete, full, finished....

Let me tell you something that might give you pause about coming to this railing in a little while: when you leave here you will be carrying Jesus within you--literally! You will have taken his Body and Blood into yourself and will carry him out the door.

Can you imagine what truly understanding that would mean? It would transform our lives! What if we were totally aware that when we leave this place we are carrying Jesus into the world. What a difference that would make in how we meet people and 'be' in the world. Our 'God shaped hole' would be filled in. We would be 'whole' and would carry that 'wholeness' into our daily lives.

What a difference that would make! It would transform our lives and the lives we lead.

Ponder that. Ponder 'carrying Jesus' into the world.

Try to imagine....

amen.

This is August in Connecticut?

We have windows open at 10:13 p.m. and air conditioning off!

I'm astonished by the summer in New England this year. We usually get 90's and 95% humidity in July and August. So far there's only been one day that I would consider Summer In New England. We sit outside and read most every day, Bern and I. I haven't cursed the gods of summer once yet.

So what's this about?

It tried to rain all afternoon but couldn't, yet there was a cool breeze and it wasn't humid.

I'm beginning to feel like I live on a mountain though Cheshire is probably about 300 feet above sea level--if that.

I'm not complaining...far from it...if this is August in New England I'm glad I live here!

I just don't get it.

But I'm not complaining...not a bit...keep August coming like this....

David is dead....

David Bolton, a priest of the church, died on July 19. He was 85. He lived on an island off Maine but I knew him in New Haven.

David was Rector of Christ Church, the great Anglo-Catholic parish in New Haven. I was Rector of St. Paul's, the left wing broad church in New Haven.

When he retired, sometimes between 1980 and 1985, I took him to lunch to say good-bye.

He told me, during lunch that he had prayed for decades for God to speak out loud and in English to him and 'tell him what to do'.

It was an interesting and odd story until he told me that God had answered that prayer.

I dropped my fork full of seafood salad and gaped at him.

"What was that like?" I asked, full of confusion and wonder.

"Well," David told me, "he had a Mid-Atlantic accent...."

"No!" I said, not caring what God's accent was (though I should have cared, I believe), "what did God say????"

David took a bite of good French bread and chewed it and swallowed it. Then he said, "He told me, 'David, do whatever comes next,' in a slightly exasperated tone.

Jesus, the only time I get to hear what God says out loud and in a Maryland accent, it is that banal--"David, do whatever comes next."

Maybe David exasperated God with his decades of prayers. And maybe God answered his question the only way that made sense.

Maybe that's what happened.

But a Maryland accent? I'm not even sure what that means besides saying 'Bal-ti-mor'.

I send a prayer to God for David's soul...he was a good, a very good man. But God probably already knows that since God spoke out loud to David, in English, with a Maryland accent and told him the most reasonable thing: 'David, do whatever comes next.'

May David's soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.