My terrible, awful, no-good, unbearable day + Bern

OK, so Friday night I hardly slept at all. I was wheezy and congested and felt worse than I've felt since I started getting two injections of Xolair every other week. Xolair is something you have to qualify for--you have to have allergies that are off the scale and can be determined by a blood test. (Don't ask me how allergies can be determined by a blood test, my Doctorate is in Theology, not medicine)

{Which reminds me of a question my granddaughter Morgan asked me a couple of years ago while I was watching her draw a picture for me. "Granpa," she said, "are you a doctor too?" Not a bad question since her other grandfather is a medical doctor and her two uncles on her mother's side are either M.D.'s or Ph.D.'--or, in least one case, both.

"I am a doctor," I told her, "but I'm not a medical doctor."

She drew for a while and then said, "Oh, you're a pretend doctor...."

"Actually, Morgan," I told her, "I am...."}

Anyway, after a bad night, I woke up as 7 a.m., tried to eat and couldn't, went back to bed and slept until 2:30 in the afternoon. I ate a little and took some of these blue pills for chest congestion and some Benadryl and laid in bed with my dog for a few more hours. Then I took more blue pills and red pills and went to bed at 9:30 and didn't wake up until 7:45 a.m. when my alarm clock told me I needed to go be a priest.

I ate a little breakfast and drove to Emmanuel Church, Killingworth. By the time I left, I felt absolutely wonderful and have since. So credit blue pills and red pills and Emmanuel's congregation and Xolair, in the long run.

And credit Bern.

When I don't feel well, she is wonderful to me. I was chilling most of Saturday and she kept piling covers on my side of the bed and tucking me in and being kinder than my whining ways deserved.

She took the dog out Saturday night--which is my job--and kept checking on me and asking if I needed anything.

The irony is, when Bern feels bad (which is much rarer than my whiny days) she wants to be left alone. So, I leave her alone. When I feel bad, I want lots of attention. So, she gives me that.

Not a bad recipe for a 44 year marriage, I'd say. Being what your spouse needs you to be makes the years flow along quite well, even if what your spouse needs is exactly what you wouldn't want if the tables were turned.

Marriage 101. We could teach that course.

OK, I'm man enough to admit it....

I just spent 45 minutes of my ever dwindling time on this mortal coil watching the end of the last "Colbert Report" twice and a video of Stephen Colbert breaking character at his own jokes. You could find them easily enough by goggling "The Colbert report". And however fast your time on earth is diminishing, you won't regret it.

What I am ashamed of is that I almost clicked on a video of one of the HOUSEWIVES of somewhere weeping as she told how she had 'accidentally' posted nude photos on the Internet.

Really?

Here's my advice, in order of importance:

1) Unless you are George Clooney or Sandra Bullock or Adam Levine or Jeniffer Lawrence, DON'T, do not, never take nude photos of yourself. Not only is nobody interested, it's a crazy thing to do.

2) If you are none of those people and you do (beyond all the realms of logic and possibility) do take nude photos of yourself, take them with a throw away camera, not with a cell phone or a tablet--that way they can't 'accidentally' end up on line.

3) Examine in your heart of hearts and, if you have one, your 'brain' not only why you would take nude photos of yourself, but how on earth they could be uploaded to the Internet by 'accident'.

4) "Accidentally uploading"  ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to the Internet is very close to the distinction I have that is impossible. So, don't tell me that crappy lie.

5) Rather than somehow taking a picture of yourself nude and 'accidentally' uploading it to the Internet, take a nude photo of yourself and send it to who you want to have it (since there is no other reason I can imagine for taking a nude photo of yourself) and put it in an envelope and put an address on it for the one you want to see it and mail it. Unless their is a voyeur in the postal service (which I'm sure they are) who psychically knows your nude photo is in that particular envelope, it will only go to who you want to see it.

6) Finally...Why on earth would you take a nude photo of yourself????

7) Rather than take a nude photo of yourself, go watch the end of the last episode of 'The Colbert Report' a couple of times. 

Doesn't that make more sense?

And you won't have to go on TV to tearfully reveal how you 'accidentally' did that....

Oh, wait a minute...you got to go on TV to reveal your almost unfathomable stupidity...

Well, that's reason enough. I get it now. Continue as you were....



 

One more thing I don't 'get'

What's up with these inflated, lit-up plastic Christmas lawn decorations?

One of our neighbor has the Grinch and his dog on their front yard. It's kind of cute and interesting at night, but at some point they turn the compressor off and the Grinch and his dog collapse into plastic trash on  the yard and ignominiously clutter there until night fall. Why not leave the compressor on all the time--is it that expensive to run?

There's a house between Killingworth and Durham that I drive past on the way to Emmanuel Church, that has no less than a dozen of the inflatable characters--just about ever Christmas figure you can name is there...but unless I go to Emmanuel for a night meeting I will never see them lifted from the puddles of bright colors they are without the compressor. They are Christmas carnage.

It's no more than litter most of the time on that lawn. Not attractive in any way. It's just one of a multitude of Christmas marginalia that I don't get....'Tis the season to be jolly...not silly....

Adios and farewell, my friend

For several hours I've been watching back to back editions of The Cobert Report on Comedy Central. At 11:30 p.m., if I can make it until then, will be the last ever live Report from Steven Colbert.

He has been a constant friend and source of satire (so rare these days) for years now. And now he'll take over for David Letterman on late night TV.

I don't watch an inordinate amount of TV, but whenever I can, I've caught Colbert's show, usually the next day, earlier.

I will miss you, my TV friend. Especially since I don't normally watch 'The Tonight Show'. Will you stay 'in character' for that? How could you?

So, I'll miss that 'character' immensely. I really will.

You taught me how truly 'liberal' I am, using that "L-word" with pride.

Thanks for that and all the laughs. Now I go back to muscle up on your old shows since there won't be any more.

Alas.

It comes too near...what to do?

Two people were killed on our street today at 4:30 pm or so. I wouldn't have known but a friend in Waterbury heard the news: "two people dead on Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire" and called to see if we were alright. I had no idea. I'd been out to buy Christmas gifts and had just gotten home. Cornwall Avenue is a long street down a steep hill from Route 10 to Mountain Road. We're 95 Cornwall Avenue and the killings were in the seven hundred block, at the bottom of the hill something like 3/4 a mile away, past the canal and the grade school.

After she called I went on line to find out more and most of what I found was just what she told me. Two people died down the hill from me and Bern and our lives. Police have said the incident is over and everyone is safe and two people are killed in a house on our street and there is something about children in the house so I imagine a man and woman--a murder/suicide leaving children behind. Alas.

I noticed my friend had sent me an email before I talked with her on the phone, asking if we were all right.

I emailed back something like this: "there goes the neighborhood. At least it wasn't in the Historic district".

I've regretted many, many emails, but none more than that one. It was flip and obscene. People had died and I was joking about it.

I think it was because my whole life-view of "that doesn't happen HERE" had been shaken to the foundations.

Cheshire, Connecticut is a town of 30,000 or so where nothing bad happens. Mostly white and mostly upper middle class, Cheshire is a place where nothing bad happens. Several years ago there was a home invasion that resulted in the death of a mother and two daughters and everyone in Cheshire was suddenly astonished. Things like that don't happen. Even now, back in September or October some time, there is an effort to have people light candles inside white bags--which someone sells you--to remember that event.

We've never done it because my life for 21 years was in the city of Waterbury where people of color were murdered on a regular basis and no one lit candles in white bags that someone sold them to honor those deaths.

Death happens. It does everyday. Sometimes peaceful, surrounded by family and sometimes violently, leaving children behind for whom life is altered forever.

I'll send this post to my friend in an email to apologize for how flip and frivolous I was in my email to her.

Two people died on my street today. I have no details, but it was violent death. More will be known tomorrow. Pain will be great.

And I should never ever, not ever be flip about it.

Violent death came to my street today. I take a deep breath and ponder the vicissitudes of  life. And how precious life is.

Unfortunately, we sometimes need a violent death to remind us of the preciousness of life.

Even in a town where nothing bad ever happens.

Until it does.....

Help with New Year's Resolutions

It's about that time again...resolving promises for the next year, which, normally are in the tank within two weeks or so.

So, since I've kept every New Year's Resolution I've made sine 1999, I thought I'd share my resolutions for 2015 so you might, you know, see the successful pattern of my promises to myself.

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2015

*I will not, under any circumstance, drink Yak milk in 2015.

*I resolve not to travel to Tibet, Bali or Madagascar during the coming year.

*Once again, I will not climb Mount Everest in 2015.

*I resolve not to give money to either Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.

*I will never, in 2015 or ever, buy ivory.

*I resolve not to watch any TV show that begins with the words "The real housewives...."

*I vow not to stand in front of Cheshire Town Hall with the Tea Party people holding a sign that says "OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST" or a flag with a coiled snake on it that says "DON'T TREAD ON ME"

*I resolve not to be intimate with either Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Lawrence in 2015.

*I will not smoke crack cocaine next year.

*I will not put a nude selfie of myself on the internet this year. That I resolve.

*I promise, in the coming year, to take all the IRS deductions I have coming.

*I resolve that I will not shop-lift in the coming year.

*I will not convert to the Mormon faith in 2015.

*I resolve not to wear a clerical collar next year.

*I vow not to win the Nobel Prize in anything.

What's so hard about keeping New Year's Resolutions anyway?

A little child

(I was looking for a particular document in my "document library"--that's what Windows calls it--and happened upon a sermon from 8 years ago, just after my granddaughter twins, Emma and Morgan, were born. Thought I'd share it with you.

I don't listen to Imus anymore, by the way, not since the girls were born--too cynical for a man with granddaughters....)

A LITTLE CHILD (9/24/06)

In the midst of his travels through Galilee, teaching and healing, Jesus encounters a dispute between his disciples. They have been arguing and debating who among them was “the greatest”.

That’s not surprising to me. I suspect it’s not surprising to you.

There’s the story about two old friends who meet after many years and the first friend talks about his success in business and how much money he makes, how big his house is, how many SUV’s he has and how important he is in the community. Finally, he says to the other friend, “Enough about me….How do you think I’m doing?”

I’m a great fan of Imus in the Morning on 660 A.M. radio. Imus is disrespectful, politically incorrect and often obscene. His friend, Charles McCord, does the news. Charles can report the death of thousands from a Typhoon in Asia, a bombing in Beirut and a drive-by shooting in Queens and Imus will say something like, “I didn’t sleep well and have a terrible headache….”

God bless him, Imus is honest and predictable. It’s ALL ABOUT HIM.

The truth is, I’m like that too. It is all about me—whatever comes up, no matter how distant or how horrible—I’ll find a way to have it be about ME.

It’s all “ego” all the time.

Of course the disciples would be arguing and fussing about which of them was “greatest”—more important, most valuable, indispensable.

Harriet Fotter and I were talking this week about what I want to happen in October since I’ll be away on the first leg of a split up sabbatical.

“I want Sunday attendance to double,” I told her.

She looked at me a long time. “Do you really mean that?” she said. “Do you really want attendance to double without you here?”

And I have to admit I had to think about it….

It’s all ego all the time…..

So Jesus gave the disciples a “talkin’ to” and then a living example.
He told them that the one who would be greatest must be servant to all.

Give up your desires, your ambitions, your need to be “the greatest”, he told them. The only way to be “great” is to clean up the messes, follow along behind, take care of everybody else.

Not what they wanted to hear, I’m sure. Not what I want to hear, by the way….

Then he took a little child and put the child in their midst. Jesus picked up the child and held it close to him.

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me,” he said, kissing the child’s head, holding the small body against himself, “and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

I spent a lot of time Friday holding Morgan Rhys and Emma Case in my arms, kissing their heads, feeding them bottles of my daughter-in-law Cathy’s breast milk, having them fall asleep on my shoulder, feeling their little, so new, so wondrous bodies against me.

I must admit I’d always doubted all the hoopla about grandchildren. Well, I said to myself when grandparents were going on and on about the miracle of it all, “well, it can’t be that astonishing….”

I was wrong. It is “that” astonishing to welcome a little child into Life and into my life. It is “that astonishing”. That wondrous. That holy.

More than one person has said to me since those two girls—Morgan and Emma were born—“I guess we’re going to have to hear a lot about your granddaughters from now on….”

How right they were.

Your ego goes away when you hold a baby to your chest. Who I am and what I accomplish and whether I’m “the greatest” ceases to matter, absolutely and finally, when I hold those two girls in my arms. It’s not “about me”, any more. It’s about them—welcoming them into the world, into my life, into a lifetime of hope and magic and amazement—that’s all that matters.

Already, in my imagination, Emma is a scientist who will find the cure some horrific disease and Morgan will be an artist, a pianist perhaps, who will bring joy to the world through her talents and gifts. And both of them will know love and heart-break and love again. And they will make the world a better place because they have lived in it.

Jesus was so right….(Well, we expect him to be, don’t we?) It is in welcoming the child that we find meaning and joy and purpose. Ever so often, I see a baby picture of me. We have one on the mantle of our kitchen fireplace. And I also see pictures of me as a child—a skinny little boy with a bad haircut (who am I to talk?) and a crooked little smile.

We are all children, somewhere deep inside. And what Jesus knew and what he told us is true, true, true…all that matters is how we welcome God’s children, how we hold them near, how we make them a part of our community, how we open them to the possibilities of life.

Whatever else the church is “for”; whatever else our purpose as the Body of Christ might be—there is this, this and this most importantly—we must provide “hospitality” and welcome to the little ones who God loves most of all.

And we are all, all of us, “little ones” down deep. We are all the child Jesus embraced in the circle of his disciples. We are all the pictures on the mantles. We are all the Morgans and the Emmas of God.

And how shall we find “greatness”? By welcoming everyone who walks through these doors. By embracing them and holding them near. By acknowledging the possibilities of their lives. By knowing that in welcoming them—the little ones, the strangers—we are welcoming God into our midst.

It is all pretty simple.

And so challenging…so hard….