Luke's new home

Our cat, Luke, has decided his new home is on top of our baby grand piano (which hasn't been played for 20+ years and is so out of tune no one who could play would play it). The piano is a piece of furniture with lots of pictures and stuffed animals on top of it.

That's where Luke has spent a whole bunch of hours a day for about three days. His previous place was on the couch (actually, the bottom of a bunk bed) where Bern sits in our TV room.

One thing you never want to happen is to suddenly be thrust into the brain of a cat.

You'd never get out.

Dogs, even dogs like our bad dog Bela, have some sort of semi-logical, linear thinking. You can usually approximate what they're thinking.

Not cats. Cats are an eternal mystery that ends up spending hours among framed photos on the top of a piano.

And after he uses the litter box, he runs like mad (and he's pretty fast for a 14 year old cat!) all the way upstairs.

Do you ever run out of the bathroom?  Me neither, but Lukie does.

Go figure.

You can't even 'ponder' a cat's mind. It's imponderable.

Dogs, someone told me, have packs. Cats have a staff.

birthdays

I'll be flying home from Ireland next week on my birthday.

I'm not sure I've ever been on an airplane on my birthday.

I expect special treatment from the flight attendants and two people in the cockpit at all times....

Two things that convince me I'm really as old as I truly am are how tentatively I walk in ice and snow and how freaked out I become about traveling.

I got pounds and euros, made sure my passport was where I thought it was, booked a hotel in Dublin for the night before I fly back, spent hours looking for a 'continuous voltage converter' (still no luck) and worried about parking at JFK and all sorts of travel related anxiety.

I don't think I used to be like this--worried so about details. But I am now and will probably get worse.

This is Thursday night and I'll probably be worrying about details I've forgotten until I take off Sunday. Not like me.

This 'traveling anxiety' is the only thing that contradicts, in me, my theory about aging: "as we get older, we get more like we've always been."

I get more left-wing every year while people who had some conservative stuff in them already get more conservative. I get less interested in doctrine (which never interested me anyway!) each year while doctrinal folks get more doctrinal. I care less about details as I age (which I never cared about much at all) and more interested in the 'big picture'. People who were 'tree' people instead of 'forest' people, as they age, become even more tree obcessed.

That's my theory and I'm sticking with it: as we age we get more like we've always been.

Ponder that and see what you think since we're all (with any luck at all) always getting older....

Things you don't know

So, until yesterday I thought that the difference in electricity in Europe and the Americas was that Europe had 'direct current' and we have 'alternating current'--AC/DC stuff.

Then Bill and Charles told me it's really about the voltage 200 and some in Europe and 100 and some here, whatever voltage means.

All I know is whenever I've gone to Ireland I've either burned up a converter or not taken my CPAP machine. I have sleep apnea and really love my machine.

How can you be in your 60's and not know the difference between 'current' and 'voltage'?

Well, start out by being me.

Bill and Charles are two of the members of our Tuesday morning group. Mike, Andy and David (who had surgery and hasn't been there for a couple of months) are the reliable members. Think about this: this group that meets every week is named, for the most part, James, Michael, Andrew, Charles, William and David. Our one female member is Sandra. Fifty years ago, such a gathering would not have been unusual--today, that many ordinary names is almost unheard of. Which says something, I suspect, about the age of the group! When 'Armando' comes we creep a short step into the modern USA! 

A member who used to come and doesn't anymore and I still can't quite fathom why was 'Fred'. How white-bread and white skinned can you have a group be!

When Fred came I used to tell people 'on Tuesday morning I'm with three people who between them know everything!'

Truth be known (and why not?) just Bill and Charles seem to know everything between them--like the AC/DC vs. voltage thing and the names of obscure royalty and the bishops of the church and about fiords and rock formations and rare creatures...I could go on and on but I'll spare you.

Just know this: if you're in a room with Charles and Bill and Fred (alas, I miss him so) you're in a room where all that can be known is somehow known.

It used to piss me off, how they knew absolutely everything, but now I revel in it because I know it is the weekly 'humbling' I need to be a better person.

My grandmother used to say to me and my cousins: "don't get above your raisin'!"

Without my Tuesday morning humbling, I soon would--thinking I'm pretty damn smart (magna cum lauda, Phi Beta Kappa that I am)--but being around Fred and Charles and Bill (and now Charles and Bill) I know how very little I really know.

A good place to begin each day is by knowing there are lots of things you don't know.

In that direction lies wisdom. That I truly believe.

Tuesday mornings make me wise by showing me how little I know....

Something to ponder long and hard....

Easter and Spring

I haven't posted for a couple of days.

Well, we had our children and their spouses and three granddaughters (8,8,5) since Friday, plus three old friends who came for Easter dinner and stayed for hours.

Not much time with all that human interaction.

And it was wonderful! Amazing! Indescribable to have so many people I love around for all that time.

But after Mimi left at 7 this morning and Josh and Cathy and the girls left at 9 or so--about half-an-hour after that, with classical music on the radio and our parakeet singing along, and Luke, the cat, our of our room where he'd been locked in (with food and litter box) since Josh and Cathy and the girls arrived with Laura, a rescue pit bull who tried to kill Luke at Thanksgiving and Bela finally able to relax about his job (DNA driven) to keep all those people 'inside the flock', Bern said, "I like it like this...."

Not that we don't like having them with us--oh, we love that--but they stay 3 days (just perfect) and then go back to the lives they live and leave us to live ours....

A perfect time together and a perfect time alone. Just perfect.

And lots of little flowers are poking their heads above the dirt in our yards.

Easter's message of Love being more powerful than Death is perfect in those places where, not so long ago, there were several feet of long frozen snow, now being places where flowers are being resurrected.

I'm not sure I could be a Christian in the Southern Hemisphere where things are dying just as the season of Easter occurs. I need Nature to reenforce the symbolism....

Joyous Eastertide to you all....

Satan is vanquished! Easter has come!!!

Tonight the forces of Light and Life overwhelmed the forces of Darkness and Death.

Wisconsin (a team of 4 year starters) beat Kentucky (a team built around 'one and done' pro players) and welcomed in Easter Sunday.

Rejoice and be glad.

If you know nothing about college basketball, ignor this post....

wind chimes

We have two on our back porch. One just chimes and stuff on the bottom to be moved by the wind--only one of which is solid, the other two added by Bern and not air tight.

The other is a wolf howling at the moon. It is somehow mis-made and seldom chimes, unless I push the chimes, which I do.

We should all live with wine chimes, I think.

Their sounds are soothing, random and transforming if you only stand still long enough and listen.

So subtle and so lovely.

I wish I could have a wind chime in my head.

I stood on the back porch a lot longer than I would because the wind was blowing and the wind chimes were doing this subtle, soft, gentle sound that made me feel whole.

Ponder the wind--which is awesome enough--and then ponder wind chimes.....

That's a good thing to ponder as Good Friday and Easter close in.

Think about the wind chimes Good Friday and Easter would be....

Easter

Thought I'd send an Easter message and found a sermon from 2007 that is just what I want to say.

EASTER 2007

We all know the story, right? We all came here today to hear it again.

It’s not complicated, as stories go, There’s not a lot of sub-plot or irony or hidden meaning.

Some women come to a graveyard and discover an empty tomb and a Being of Light tells them the One they came seeking, to anoint, as was the practice in their culture, is not dead but alive. And the women go, astonished and fearful, to tell the others in their community.

“Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!”

The end. That’s about it.

So we can all go home and eat ham and deviled eggs and hot cross buns and lots of chocolate and be satisfied that Easter has come and gone one more time.

The “story” is about Jesus—isn’t it? He died and God made him alive again. The preacher can stop there. Case closed. Time for summer and getting ready for Christmas….

Unless, of course, the story is about US as well as Jesus—that would be another matter and require a little more talking.

What if…just, ‘what if’, for the sake of argument, the story is about US as well as Jesus?

What if…just to make my sermon a little longer, we all have a role—several roles—to play in the whole Drama?

It starts with that rag-tag army that followed Jesus during his life—those folks ‘hoping for something better’, ‘imagining that life really meant something’, putting their bet on a dark horse itinerant preacher from Nazareth, leaning into his love?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve often had that feeling welling up inside my heart—that feeling that there must be ‘something’…something bigger and more lovely and greater than the day-to-day grind of life. I’ve often longed for something grand and precious and holy. So I could have been one of those who followed him around, hanging on his words, marveling at his power and miracles, thinking this might just be the one to put my money on…Love.

And in the last week of his life, they all left him, disappointed and estranged, feeling like they’d been conned, misguided, wrong.

And I’ve felt that—I don’t know about you—but I’ve felt like I put my money on the wrong horse, that I’d been misguided and deceived, and all my hope has been dashed on the cruel realities of life, that Love conquers nothing.

Then there is Peter, who denied him after promising to leave him never. When my hopes have been thwarted, I’ve denied having them at all—my momma didn’t raise any fools.

And there is Pilate—who knew what was right but didn’t do ‘the right thing’ because of pressures from others. How often have I kept silent when my voice was called for? How often have I ‘held back’ when courage was needed? How often have I accepted a lie because I wasn’t brave enough to stand for the truth?

Judas too—what if the story isn’t about Judas at all, but about ME, perhaps even YOU? I know I have ‘betrayed’ others for much less than 30 pieces of silver—and I have ‘betrayed’ myself over and again through my disappointments and fears and self-serving motives.

But I am like the women—like Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James—as well. I have found it within myself to be ‘faithful’, to be ‘loyal’, to be ‘true’. I have gone to the graveyard out of love, in spite of my fears, because it was the right thing to do. I have carried the spices with me to anoint the deaths of my life—and you have too.

And we have been surprised by Wonder in our lives—we have found Love and Life in Dead Places, we have met Being of Light, we have encountered Angels.

Likewise, I have been like the Apostles, hiding behind locked doors, fearful and mournful, even as the power of Love came to me. And I have had to struggle with whether or not to ‘give up my life’ in order to ‘find Life in Abundance….’ I know that feeling and I bet you do to.

I bet you know—if you are centered enough and open enough—I bet you know that part of you that is like the crowds—engaged and then disappointed—like Peter…denying…like Judas…betraying…like Pilate, not speaking out for truth…like the women, confounded by Joy…like the disciples, hidden but called out by Love to dance and sing and rejoice.

So, Jesus is Risen and that can be enough for us this day.

Or, we can find in this celebration, in this liturgy, in this story…the possibility of our own WHOLENESS, our own TRANSFORMATION, our own RESURRECTION to a life that welcomes all the ‘parts’ of each one of us—that welcomes each of us, just as we are, to something new and beautiful and unexpected and loving. Easter calls us from our tombs of longing and doubt and anxiety and cowardice and betrayal and denial into a ‘new life’ of WHOLENESS AND HOPE AND LOVE.

My prayer for me and for you is this: that today we may make our song this and only this—ALLELUIA, WE ARE RISEN! WE ARE RISEN, INDEED! ALLELUIA!

God’s Love can be the music of our song….