What good luck

I emailed my friend, Jay Anthony, who was Senior Warden of St. John's for some years when I was there, asking him to listen to the download of my son-in-law, Tim Mccarthy's songs (that 'son-in-law' part is still new, Mimi and Tim have only been married a month). Jay, always the 'deal maker' emailed back that he would if I would come to a fund-raiser he was involved with. The information he sent me was that it was a wind tasting and would be held at a Greek Orthodox Church in Waterbury today.

So, I agreed, not having any idea what the fund-raiser was for, assuming it was for the Orthodox Church.

So, I went.

At the door I met Monica and Karyn and Stacy, three members of St. John's in Waterbury.

From then all, it was all a haze of old friends. Jay hadn't told me the fund raiser was for Church Street Ministries--all associated with St. John's...a community children's choir, a Saturday tutoring program, a computer club, an after-school program.

I saw people I hadn't seen since April of 2010, when I retired.

In the Episcopal Church there is an annoying expectation that retired priests 'stay away' from the parish they served (in my case for 21 years!) after they leave. This expectation is only one more way that the church underestimates lay folks. The 'church' assumes lay folks can't distinguish between their 'priest' and their 'friend'. That is frankly, bull-poop!

None of the folks I saw today thought I was their 'priest' anymore. They know better. But they greeted me with hugs and kisses as their 'friend' of a couple of decades.

I did better than most people thought I would about 'being absent' from St. John's after I retired.

I went back to do a couple of funerals, (one for a dog!) invited by the interim rectors. But, for the most part, I stayed away and didn't even go to any of the Waterbury haunts that had been a part of my life for 21 years.

I regret how good I was at obeying expectations after today. All those dozens of people I haven't seen for years could have been friends of mine for those years and never mistaken me as their 'priest'.

Then, there is the conversation in the Episcopal Church about whether a priest should even be 'friends' with the members of the parish he/she serves....Don't get me started on how stupid that all is, okay?

What a joy Jay gave me. All those hugs and kisses and conversations kept me from tasting any wine at all! But that's alright. I drank deep from the glass of friendship. That was more than enough.

Blessed

So, I've been looking at some of the photos I ordered from Mimi and Tim's photographer and they are even better than I thought when I bought them.

It may be unlucky to say this out loud (or write it in a blog) but I am one of the most blessed men alive.

I look at these pictures of my family (Bern, Mimi, Josh, Cathy, Tim, the grand-girls Emma, Morgan and Tegan) and I realize I've done nothing whatsoever in my life to deserve this family. I've not been smart enough or clever enough or inventive enough...and certainly, not ever 'good' enough...to deserve two kids who turned out better than I could have ever hoped and married two people I love and gave me three of the smartest, most beautiful, funniest grand-daughters in the world. And to have spent now over 44 years with my high school sweetheart Bern.

Nothing in my life would deserve any of that.

I'm really not as sweet and wonderful and compassionate as I appear to be. Not by a long shot....

And I've been in a job as an Episcopal priest that has brought me into contact with families gone amok more than I like to remember.

(I only wish Virgil and Cleo, my parents, were here to see how blessed I am, how well it all turned out. I wish that fervently. Looking at the pictures of my joy, I wish I could share that joy with them. Some folks I love and respect would tell me that Virgil and Cleo 'know' in some supernatural way. And I appreciate that sentiment and am thankful for it. But I'm not sure it's true. I guess I should hope.)

But what I am as sure of as any human could be 'sure of' is this: I am blessed beyond reason.

And I want everyone and the cosmos and God (whoever He/She/It/ really is) to know this: I am more thankful and full of gratitude and appreciative and wonder-struck at my blessedness that anyone (except perhaps God) could ever imagine.

I'm a guy who didn't even get lemons to make lemonade with. I got 'glory' to rejoice in.

And I do rejoice as I look at those photos. Rejoice, more than I can tell you. A man of many words, I have no words to tell you my thankfulness and joy.

The only thing that holds me back is the sure knowledge of those who are not blessed--so many who I will never know, who will never know how I feel.

I lament that. Greatly. Profoundly.

what I'm doing here....

OK, I've been writing this blog for several years now. I have well over 1000 posts. And yesterday, for reasons I don't understand, 145 people viewed it. I've never had a day like that. I am mystified as to why. And yet it happened.

I've admitted here, over and again, that I write for myself. It's like 'talking to yourself'. It's a form of internal therapy. It makes me happy. I'd do it if nobody read it. It's what I've been doing for several years and I like it.

But to know that in one day 145 people dropped in on my internal conversation is humbling and wondrous.

I thought, because that many people came by to read something yesterday (the stats don't tell me if they read more than one post, only that they signed in) I thought it might be helpful to say something about what I'm trying to do in this space, what I'm up to, what it means to me.

There's a Sufi saying that guides me in my life. It goes like this: "when you hear hoof beats...look for Zebras...."

Who, in their right mind, would imagine approaching hoof beats were Zebras?

You see, I'm not aiming for 'profundity' here. What is 'profound' doesn't much interest me. It's over my head and my pay grade. Let the philosophers worry about what is profound.

What I'm interested in is 'epiphanies'.

It's a Christian Holy Day in January that celebrates the arrival of the Magi to visit the Christ Child. But more important to me is the secular definition of 'epiphany'.

Here's a definition I memorized decades ago from an old breadbox sized, tan Merriam Webster Dictionary I used to have. An epiphany is the sudden, intuitive knowledge of the deep down meaning of things, usually manifested in what is ordinary, everyday and common place.

Like looking for zebras when cattle or horses would make much more logical sense.

All I'm trying to write about here is the ordinary, everyday and common place, longing for a Zebra to show up in all that.

'Epiphanies', not profundity or deep wisdom, is what drives me.

So, if you'd like to be on that journey and involved in the pondering of  the ordinary, the everyday and the common place, hoping for a zebra, well, welcome to the game.

And I'd do this over and over and over again even if no one was reading it.

But since I hit a record 145 views yesterday, I would invite you, if you like looking for epiphanies and pondering the 'ordinary' with me, to tell your friends about this blog.

I suddenly like knowing that many people in one day want to check in about what I'm pondering, even if it is ordinary.

Just sayin', I liked knowing that many people cared in one day. I've suddenly decided that it would be nice to share these ponderings with more and more.

Help me out with that, if you choose to.

(I'll let you know when that record is broken.)

Good luck with your persona zebras....

My blue 'red' Wednesday

I didn't watch any election returns last night. Deep in my heart, I knew better. If I wanted to sleep well, I shouldn't go to bed 'knowing' what was going on in Iowa, Maryland, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina...even Connecticut.

The only one that turned out ok in the end was Connecticut, though it was too close by far.

My logical mind has come to grips with the huge Republican gains from yesterday's mid-term elections. My heart and soul never will.

I am a Democrat--and have always been from when I was in high school and Barry Goldwater (who I liked for his brashness and honesty) said he would privatize the Tennessee Valley Association that provided some of the hydro-electric power for southern West Virginia. Odd, now that I think of it, that privatizing something rather than letting the government run it was what convinced me that I was a Democrat! I'm a tax and spend Democrat. I believe in government programs and government run stuff. I believe in regulations and agencies and Big Government. I do, I really do. Whenever I hear someone say they want to 'shrink government' I almost pull my hair out and scream. If anything, I want more government in my life. I really do, in case you think I'm being ironic. I've read the Constitution and believe in it and part of that belief is in a 'government of and by and for' the people.

I'm not just a Democrat. I'm a Yellow-Dog Democrat. If you're not familiar with that tern, let me explain.

If Mother Teresa were a Republican running for something and her Democratic opponent was a yellow dog...I'd vote for the yellow dog....

The only time I ever voted for someone who wasn't a Democrat was when I voted for John Anderson, the quirky third party candidate for President. And I now lament that.

(A funny story: Bern and the kids and I had just arrived in New Haven in our VW bus with an Anderson for President bumper sticker. And one of the members of St. Paul's in New Haven in 1980 was Mary Bush House--the Aunt of the first President Bush. She was generous and good and arrived with some wonderfully eclectic groceries to welcome us to New Haven. I was taking something out of the bus when she showed up. She looked at the Anderson sticker and said, very politely, "well, we just won't talk politics." And I agreed and accepted her welcoming gifts.

Interestingly enough, one of the three churches I now serve is attended by Jonathon Bush, another nephew of Mary Bush House and the brother of G.H.W. Bush. As we were leaving church one day, my car was parked next to his. My big old Obama '12 sticker was very prominent. "Jon," I said to him, "I should have backed in so you didn't have to see that." He laughed, patted me on the back and said, "Jim, I'd be disappointed if you weren't a Democrat."

I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat, but I have a soft spot for the Bush family....)

The only thing I have to cling to as the country turns Red is this: I live in perhaps the only state that is totally Blue. Both our Senators and all Five of our members of the House and all the elected leaders of Connecticut are Democrats. And both the houses of the Connecticut legislature have sizable Democratic majorities.

For Goodness sake, even our neighbor to the the north, Massachusetts, elected a Republican Governor yesterday!!! Horrors! The state with the iconic bumper sticker after the Regan/McGovern election that said: DON'T BLAME ME. I'M FROM MASSACHUSETTS, has turned a tad Red.

I may get a bumper sticker made that says: DON'T BLAME ME, I'M FROM CONNECTICUT. 

I personally think that there are two possibilities of what will get done in the next two years on all the issues--the environment, immigration, tax reform, infrastructure repair, education reform, making college more affordable, raising the minimum wage : are 'very little' and 'nothing'. If you're a fan of gridlock, welcome to the next Congress....

Maybe by 2016 people will begin to realize the problem is that Republicans have no agenda except to oppose everything the President supports. No plan, no strategy,  no over-arching dream.

I've got two years to hope for that.

Today I'm blue (literally and emotionally) because yesterday was so 'red'.

Alas....

What you don't know

I was at the monthly meeting of the Middlesex Area Cluster Council Officers tonight. We always meet and eat and ostensibly plan for the Cluster Council meeting the next week.

We do that--but it doesn't take much time--mostly what we do is eat and talk.

We either meet at Perk on Main or Cozy Corner, next to each other in Durham, CT, the site of the biggest fair in the state.

Tonight it was Cozy Corner, an kinda Italian place. We hadn't been there for several months--going to Perk on Main instead, a trendy, kinda 'with-it' place with up-scale food and a great breakfast. And the waitress...the only one we've ever had at Cozy Corner, remembered I liked Pinot Grigio and we always order an antipasto. Amazing, she is.

But that's not the thing you need to know. What you need to know is that the Episcopal Church is healthy and glowing in those three churches. Really!

Each has their own sets of problems. But each has their own particular strengths. And each is a joy and wonder to me as a priest.

When 'main-line' religion seems in a precipitous  decline, St. James and Emmanuel and St. Andrew's virtually glow. (Not 'grow', 'glow'--different but equally important, I think.

I give thanks for the grace and opportunity to be in this ministry. The officers are just the beginning. These churches 'glow' all the way down. Really.

Puli's and time changes

I knew the time turned back to EST from DST in the early hours of Sunday morning, so I stayed up a little later knowing that the hour gain would be canceled out in a day or so.

But Puli dogs don't understand time changes. Bela is still on Daylight Savings Time. He was ready to go out an hour sooner than normal--because his biological clock is truly 'biological' and can't be fooled by the whims of government decisions. He also rushed to his dinner Sunday afternoon though usually he lays around until Bern and I tell him to 'look in his bowl'. But he was hungry, we were feeding him an hour later than usual!

Even today, he made the complaining noises to be taken for the 'little walk' at 3:30, though we always go at 4:30...but the time changed and not for him!

The Feast of All Souls

November 2 is All Souls Day, following on the heels of All Saints' Day.

Among Celtic Christians in the centuries that had one number, much was done to 'baptize' the pagan religion that came before the Christian era. One of those things was to claim the last days of October and the first days of November as Christian Holy Days.

Other things happened--churches built on pagan holy places, painting pagan feasts with a Christian brush, putting monuments to Christian Saints on top of holy streams--stuff like that.

You see, to the Celts of the first centuries A.D. (or, as is more politically correct, 'the Common Era') these rare autumn days were some of the 'thin times' to the tribes of the British Isle.

A 'thin time' was when the veil between the living and the dead became sheer indeed and people from one side or the other might pass through. Trick or Treat came from this Celtic belief that the dead could walk among the living in this 'thin time' asking to be fed in exchange for messages from the other side.

So, it made perfect sense to put All Saints and All Souls right here.

I have a lot of Celtic blood (not nearly enough as I imagined since my DNA test told me I had 75% Scandinavian blood--but that was where my DNA was in the 5th Century and lots of those Norse guys came south to inhabit and impregnate the Celts!) So I'm aware, in odd ways, of 'thin times' and 'thin places'.

I often almost see my father moving out of sight in this house he never knew. I sometimes think if I turned real fast and looked in the back seat my uncle Russel or Aunt Georgie would be there. I'm quite sure that the dead sometimes walk among us, just out of our periphery vision. And that's comforting instead of eerie to me. I like thin places and thin times.

If, in this very thin time, I could have my druthers, I'd want to talk to my father about his father, who I never met. And I'd just like to hear my mother's voice, because I've forgotten it's tone and sound since she died 42 years ago when I was 25.

And I'd like to just sit in a room with  my mother's mom, my Granma Jones--who made me laugh and ponder and weep with the wonder of her presence.

Wouldn't it be nice, around this time of year each year, just to check in with those on the other side?

I think that would be a profoundly wondrous thing.

Thin Times are some of the best....

Happy All Souls Day, hang out with someone you love but see no more for a while.