Looking at photos

My hair is completely brown, as completely gray and white as it is now.

Lots of people in the photos are dead now, and I buried most of them.

I found a bunch of pictures of my installation as Rector of St. John's in Waterbury in 1989.

26 years ago now and a lifetime ago.

So many people in these pictures are dead now.

I suppose I'll be in pictures people look at after I'm dead, as well.

How odd. Caught in the moment, alive. Viewed decades later and dead.

And I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now (in spite of my gray/white hair).

If I could go back to that moment, knowing what I know now, being who I am now as opposed to then--Lordy, Lordy, what a difference I could make.

Time travel hasn't yet been invented. But if it were, I'd go back there and be a better priest and a better husband and better father and better man.

Too bad, it seems, that finding your 'better self' comes after the fact.

I am so much more "who I am" now than I was then.

Thus it is, I suppose.

And I admire my 26 years ago brown hair a bit too much.

That way is vanity, I suspect.

Humility may just be knowing you're smarter now than you were in the past and can't do a damn thing to convey that wisdom backwards to when you needed it.

Something like that, if that makes any sense at all.

temporary hysteria

So, I coughed up some pheylm and spit it in the sink and it was red.

Oh, God! I thought. I'm coughing up blood.

I already was thinking about which emergency room to go to, whether Bern should drive me or stay here to call Josh and Mimi and tell them their father was on the brink of death.

I took a deep breath, preparing for the worst, and realized I'd just eaten two roasted beets....

I brushed my teeth and spit out red.

I'm not on death's door after all. It's just beets.

Hope I can remember tomorrow when I have a bowel movement that is sure to be red.....

I love fresh beets but there are drawbacks....

Chickens and widgets...

There is a huge problem in the Northwest and Midwest with avian flu. Millions of chickens and turkeys are being 'depopulated' because migrating wild water fowl are leaving droppings with the virus in them and they are being tracked into chicken and turkey farms by human beings.

I listened to an hour of reporting on the situation on 'On Point' on NPR. Lots of Ph.D.'s and Veterinarians and professors who are experts on domesticated birds. The thing that struck me most was how they all spoke of chickens and turkeys the way people with talk of widgets and paperclips--mere products.

There is federal money to compensate 'farmers' for chickens they euthanize, but not for fowls that simply die. So when the flu is discovered, it is financially advantageous to simply kill all the birds rather than see how many of them avoid the virus.

The language used by all the experts and most of the 'farmers' did not in any way indicate that chickens and turkeys are living beings. They are only products!

Wild birds don't die from the virus the way domesticated birds do because of genetics. They just sneeze and ache a bit and poop out the virus as they fly to their summer homes.

I've been putting '...' around 'farmers' because if someone has 5,000,000 chickens raised inside, they aren't farmers...they are 'factories'. So no wonder these birds become 'products' rather than living things.

We already only buy eggs that are 'cage free'. Now I think I'll only buy 'free range' chicken--trusting that the government truly certifies that they are 'free range', even though it's a lot more expensive.

I have no 'touchy feel-y' connection to chickens and turkeys. I grew up around my grandmother's chickens and ducks, but had no emotional bond with them. But I've always acknowledged that they are living, breathing, feeling creatures.

I watched my Grandmaw kill chickens quite a few times. She would pick them up and cluck to them and rub them, and then, quick as you could imagine, she twisted their heads off and threw them ten feet away to pout blood from the neck and then die. Then I'd see her pull off the feathers and burn off the pin feathers at her wood stove, the smell made me queasy.

I didn't eat chicken until I was an adult.

If I had to kill my own meat protein, I'd be a vegatarian.

I should ponder that, I suspect....

crickets

The crickets are out big time tonight. Oh, not outside, but in my head.

I have a serious case of tinnitus that, lucky for me, sounds like crickets. Lucky for me since who doesn't love the sound of crickets?

And tonight they are really singing.

I know what stops it--certain notes from a pipe organ will. When I was at St. John's in Waterbury and the magnificent McManis organ was being tuned, I'd go into the sanctuary and sit until the crickets went away for a while.

And riding in an airplane takes them away for as long as the trip lasts.

And I know it has something to do with atmospheric pressure since some days leave me cricket-less and others don't, but I haven't figured out whether it is low or high pressure that does that.

Like I said, I'm lucky the sound between my ears sounds like crickets. It could, I suspect, be very annoying to have some other sound in your head.

I just know this: tonight the crickets are singing loud and long.

Sometimes I can hold my nose and blow and be cricket free for a while. But not tonight.

But it's crickets, for goodness sake. Who wouldn't be glad to have that sound follow them around in life inside their head?

Spring has sprung???

So, yesterday was beautiful and I even grilled on the new grill Bern gave me for my birthday. Lovely, short-sleeved weather. What could be better?

Today, it was 40 and I had on a tee shirt, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater plus a coat if I went outside.

What happened?

Who's in charge here?

What happened to Spring?

And it rained all day, which makes our psychotic Puli dog even more psychotic since he hates rain.

Lucky for him he's not out in a field watching the sheep in the rain.

Ireland itself

Well, Ireland is almost painfully green. So green you almost ache with joy.

It was cloudy and drizzly most of time I was there this time. Which isn't much different from most of the other times I've been there. On Thursday, when one of the leaders was driving me and a participant from England back to Dublin, it was sunny and remarkable. A bit ahead of Connecticut in the coming of Spring though, I believe, a tad further north...and green, I kid you not, like this kind of green--GREEN!!!

And the Irish folks are like Canadians, calm and quiet and sweet.

And there are more accents on that small island than in the immensity that is the United States. At our completion with the leaders and assistants, I discovered that all the participants--except the one from England--knew that all three of the leaders had 'southern' accents--from Ireland. Most all the participants were from Northern Ireland, except for one from Dublin who grew up in America and was born in New Haven, CT, for goodness sake. Lord knows what the Irish make of her 20 years in Ireland accent.

I can't distinguish between the many accents, though I know they are different.

In our completion exercise, the Irish told me how 'American' the language of the workshop is and how some of it is off-putting for Irish folks.

Like this: the Promise of the Workshop is--"You can have anything you want out of the workshop that you are willing to stand for haven gotten at the end of the workshop."

Apparently, the word 'gotten' or even 'got' (as in: "I got it") is considered terrible grammar in Ireland. And one of the leaders told me how a relative made fun of her for saying "got".

Who knew? English is more than one language.

There are only 4 million or so folks on that Island and one and a quarter million of them live in Dublin. I tried to think of how many American cities have more people that all of Ireland. Half-a-dozen, I think.

And there are sheep and horses everywhere.

One of the participants told me that after the bust of the Celtic Boom, many horses were euthanized because people couldn't afford to keep them. What a painful reality. They really do kill horses, don't they.

I still wince when I think of that.

Such a glorious Island--greener than green can be--that had to do away with horses when the Boom went bust.

Ponder that, if you dare....

The Workshop in Ireland

It was great!

I had a couple of huge breakthroughs: first, I discovered I can 'coach' others to lead the workshop. I've been to Ireland 6 or 7 times, maybe more, and always, before this time, I led parts of the workshop. This time, I was 'the coach' for three Irish workshop leaders and wasn't 'in front of the room' at all, except for one session of centering prayer. And my 'coaching' worked and the workshop worked, as it always does.

My second breakthrough (huge) was that the workshop works when leaders don't lead like I would lead!

I think I am a superb leader of the Making a Difference Workshop. I am able to invite participation and adroit in responding to the participants. I know the distinctions well and have homey stories for each of them. I'm good on my feet and, in the way that I am, charming. I'm probably not as urgent and 'sharp' as I could be, but I'm very good at what I do.

None of the three workshop leaders I coached last week lead the workshop anyway near the way I do. But the workshop worked (that's one of the mantras of the leaders: 'the workshop works!') without anyone leading it the way I do. Good to know that there are leaders ready to carry on without 'being me'....

I've spent over a quarter of a century of my life being involved with the Making a Difference workshop because it meant so much to me when I was a participant. I regret not one moment of all that time and travel (even a homebody like me...) and this time in Ireland, I realized the workshop will 'keep on keeping on' even when I'm not leading it.

That's good stuff.

(Every single time, the participants 'look different' at the end than at the beginning. Empowered and transformed. Just getting to see that 'glow' at the end makes it all worth the effort.)