(Today's gospel was the passage from Mark 4.35-41 where Jesus is asleep in the boat in a fierce storm. The disciples wake him and he says, "Peace! Be still!" and the wind and waves obey him. I preached without text or notes and can't reproduce it but will write some of what I said.)
Storms do come up suddenly on the Sea of Galilee. The moist wind coming off the Mediterranean collide with the Golan Heights and make for very unpredictable weather. And Jesus was sleeping through it! The disciples woke him up in a panic and he says to the Forces of Nature--'Peace! Be still!' and Nature obeys him.
I wish he would come today and say, 'Peace! Be still!' to this stormy, dark time in human history.
Last week, a young white man walked into an African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was welcomed warmly and embraced by the people at a Bible study. An hour later, to return their hospitality, he shot nine of them dead.
"Welcoming the Stranger" is one of the basic tenants of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Over and again in scripture we are implored to be hospitable to 'the Other' in our midst. And those good Christians in Charleston did just that...only to be ultimately betrayed by 'the Other'. And you know what the survivors and relatives of the dead did when the young man appeared in court?
They forgave him....
The 12 most frightening words of the New Testament are these: "forgive us our sins AS we forgive those who sin against us."
I'm an old English major and I know what 'as' means in that context--it means 'in the same way that'. Our forgiveness depends on our forgiving. That is a thought to chill the blood of the most noble of people. And in Charleston last week, we saw Christians living that out in an almost unthinkable way--forgiving the one who killed their mother, their son, their father, their daughter, their grandparents....It is something we must pause and ponder.
The word translated 'trespasses' in the traditional wording of the Lord's Prayer literally means 'sin'. That translation was made by the folks who put together the King James Bible. At that time, one of the worst offenses was for common folk to go only Royal Lands. Growing up in southern West Virginia, we knew not to 'trespass' on Coal Company property. But today, it is a rather awkward word. Then when the Puritans translated the word that means, literally, 'sins', they came up with 'debt'. Remember, the folks who founded New England thought your condition in life reflected the condition of your soul. So, to be in 'debt' was a very negative condition.
But the word means 'sin'. And if what happened in Charleston wasn't a sin, I don't know what could be called a sin.
And yet those good people forgave the one who took the lives of those they loved. It is humbling and remarkably ennobling to stand in the presence of such Christians.
I heard an AME pastor from another church in Charleston being interviewed on Public Radio. The interviewer asked if this horrible tragedy will make churches more aware of security. And he responded "I pray God not!"
Even when the stranger kills, they must be welcomed.
The older I get, the fewer things I need to believe. God loves us. We are all created in God's image. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Lay down your life for your friends. Share with those in need. Welcome the stranger. That's about all the 'belief' I need these days. And I hope I'll never stop believing in 'welcoming the stranger' in spite of the horrible events of last week.
The Bishop of South Carolina requested that every Episcopal congregation pray the Prayer of St. Francis today to honor the good people of Charleston.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive': it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
We need to ponder that prayer long and hard and seek to lean into it. And we need to pray God to come and say to our dark and stormy world: "Peace! Be Still!"
Amen. So be it.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Fingernails
"Hanging on by...." and all that.
I used to bite my fingernails down to the quick and beyond. I'm not sure when or why I stopped--but I stopped at some point, which is all that matters.
This week, when I was at Holy Cross Monastery, I noticed how long they were. When I got home and tried to type--they were troublesome. So, tonight I cut them.
I couldn't find my clippers and couldn't manage Bern's (which I think are left handed, though Bern, right-handed as she is can manage them), but I can't.
So, I cut my fingernails with a huge set of toe nail clippers I have. It wasn't precise, by any means, but I pared them down and can type much better.
Finger and toe nails, I'm told, continue to grow after you die.
Which is one reason I'm glad I'll be cremated, among others.
Being in a coffin with no way to either bite or cut nails...well, that would bother me for eternity.
(I can no longer remember 'why' I bit my fingernails. But I'm glad I stopped, for whatever reason.)
I used to bite my fingernails down to the quick and beyond. I'm not sure when or why I stopped--but I stopped at some point, which is all that matters.
This week, when I was at Holy Cross Monastery, I noticed how long they were. When I got home and tried to type--they were troublesome. So, tonight I cut them.
I couldn't find my clippers and couldn't manage Bern's (which I think are left handed, though Bern, right-handed as she is can manage them), but I can't.
So, I cut my fingernails with a huge set of toe nail clippers I have. It wasn't precise, by any means, but I pared them down and can type much better.
Finger and toe nails, I'm told, continue to grow after you die.
Which is one reason I'm glad I'll be cremated, among others.
Being in a coffin with no way to either bite or cut nails...well, that would bother me for eternity.
(I can no longer remember 'why' I bit my fingernails. But I'm glad I stopped, for whatever reason.)
Tend the fire....
(OK, so I'm starting tonight posting, chapter by chapter, my memories of priesthood. I'll do other posts as well. Stay tuned.)
Tend
the fire,
Tell
the story,
Pass
the wine
(Memories
of Priesthood)
by
Jim Bradley
“Farther
along we'll know all about it,
Farther
along, we'll understand why;
Cheer
up, don't worry, live in the sunshine,
We'll
understand it all by and by.”
--W.B.Stevens
(refrain
to a mountain hymn)
“...nothing
could more surely convince me
of
God's unending mercy than the
continued
existence on earth of the
church.”
--Annie
Dillard, Holy
the Firm
“...Then
the well spoke to me.
It said: Abundance is scooped from abundance,
yet abundance remains.”
--Anne
Sexton
- The Archangel Mariah
The
one question that drives people in seminary crazy is this: “Why do
you want to be a priest?”
There are several
reasons that question so bedevils those studying for Holy Orders.
First of all, everyone and their cousin has asked you that since the
first moment you imagined it might be a possibility—your being a
priest and all. There is no end to the people wanting to know why you
want to be a priest—those already parish priests, discernment
groups, bishops, commissions on ministry, standing committees,
admission committees, seminary professors, strangers you meet at
cocktail parties, on and on....there is no end to the people wanting
to know why you want to be a priest.
A second reason is
that a call to a priest is, primarily that: an invitation from God to
you. It's a deeply personal and profoundly important event or series
of events. There is, even in this era of “tell all”, some needs
for privacy. If what God has to suggest in your heart of hearts isn't
one of those things you have a right to keep to yourself, then what
is?
But
finally, the most prominent reason nobody in seminary wants to answer
that question is that, on the deepest level, you don't have a
clue!
For most of the priests I know—not all, certainly, but most—the
'call to priesthood was as complex as a jet engine. There are lots of
parts to it, most of which can't be extricated or distinguished from
the parts right next to them or at either end of the whole
contraption. I doubt that there are many people who can explain all
the intricacies of a jet engine. The same is true, it seems to me,
about a call to ordination.
I once witnessed one of my seminary classmates lose it when asked
the question. We were at some reception or another at Virginia
Seminary and a well-meaning, sincere woman was talking with him and
asked, “Why do you want to be a priest?”
He took a gulp of sherry and said, “One night I was sleeping naked
with my window open during a thunderstorm” (being southern, he said
'necked' instead of 'naked') “and lightening came in my window,
struck me on the genitals and didn't kill me....It was either become
a priest or go live in Tibet.”
I swear this really happened.
Once the woman recovered from apoplexy, she said, in a gentle
Tidewater Virginia accent, “I imagine tat doesn't happen often.”
“Only once to me,” my friend said, looking around for more
sherry.
My friend, Scott, when he was a seminarian at Yale and working with
me at St. Paul's, New Haven, told me he was about to lose his mind
with the Standing Committee in the Diocese of West Virginia.
“No matter how many times I tell the,” he said, “or how many
different ways, they ask me again.”
“Why
don't you tell them you want
to be Magic?”
I asked.
Scott laughed. “Are you crazy?” he said.
“Who knows,” I told him, “it might shut them up.”
After I preached at his ordination, Scott gave me a wondrous pen and
ink sketch based on 'being magic'. It's here in my little office with
me. I still love it, two decades later.
I don't have to resort to tales of lightening storms or the longing
to be magic. I know why I decided to be a priest. The sky didn't open
up. I didn't hear God speak to me out loud and in English. It was
simpler and yet more marvelous than any of that.
I was visited by the Archangel Mariah.
Mariah was the only member of St. Gabrial's mission, the campus
ministry at West Virginia University, back in the late 60's and early
70's who was older than 35 besides Snork, the priest. Mariah was in
her late-70's back then. St. Gabrial's had a ministry of hosting
international students in the basement of Trinity Church on Friday
nights for games and food and companionship. Mariah was the source of
that ministry. That's one reason she came to St. Gabe's. The other
reason was that she wanted to be around young people. She couldn't
stand stuffiness in any guise. The three-piece suits and women in
hats at Trinity's services were too much for her. She preferred the
company of college students and week-end hippies.
I strain to remember her over 40 years of memories. She was a tiny
woman—no more than 5'2” and most likely about 90 pounds fully
clothed and soaking wet. She had wild gray hair that she wore tied
back as best she could. And there was her face: her eyes were an
indescribable color—blue, green, hazel in different light—and
lost in the most remarkable set of smile wrinkles I've ever seen.
Mariah smiled and laughed so much that she tended to look a tad
Asian—there were small spaces for her eyes to shine through. She
had all her own teeth and showed them off smiling and laughing. Her
face, in spite of her age, was actually 'girlish', elfin, like the
face of a loris or a lemure—some exotic animal whose name begins
with an L.
Mariah's passion (what Joseph Campbell would have called her
'bliss') was the international students at WVU. Every Friday night
you could find her in Trinity's undercroft playing card games and
listening, playing backgammon and listening, playing some American
board game and listening. She was always listening to the young
people from far away places with strange sounding names. WVU had a
remarkable Engineering program so there were hundreds of students,
mostly young men, from Third World Countries studying in the part of
the middle of Nowhere called Morgantown, West Virginia. One of the
informal courses they were forced to study on their own was Culture
Shock 101. In the '70's there were no ethnic enclaves in Morgantown,
unless you consider Rednecks and Sorority Girls ethnic groups. Those
students from Africa, Asia, central Europe and the Middle East had no
contact with their homelands besides each other. There was no
Internet back then and international phone calls were still
ridiculously expensive. It wasn't like living in New York or DC.
Morgantown was referred to by many of the students at WVU—many of
whom, like me, were from the sticks to begin with—as “Morgan-Hole”.
At that time there wasn't much in Morgantown for anyone, much less
people thousands of miles from home. And nobody much was interested
in the well-being of those foreign students except Mariah. Mariah was
interested in them with a vengence.
She welcomed them into Trinity's basement, into her home and into
her vast, expansive heart. She got them to write home for recipes and
tried to reproduce them as best she could from the local Kroger's
selection of foods and spices. She tried to learn enough of their
languages so she could greet each of them as they would be greeted at
home. She matched them up with people and the University and in
town—all of whom she seemed to know—who might have some faint
connection to or interest in Afghanistan or Bulgaria or Korea or
wherever they were from. She was a one woman network of 'connections'
for those folks so far from home, those strangers in a oh so strange
land.
There was something biblical in her commitment to the strangers in
her midst. She would welcome them all and do any and everything
possible to make them a little less anxious about finding themselves
plunked down in such a place as Morgantown. Mariah was sometimes the
victim of those she befriended. Being from a different culture and
far from home doesn't make someone trustworthy. If there is a lesson
to be learned from working with any minority group—racial, cultural
or economic—it is this: People, so far as I've been able to
discern, are, in the end, 'just People', heir to the same foibles and
frailties, world-wide. We all share the same deep-down 'being of
human beings'. The international students Mariah dedicated her energy
to were so different than the outsiders and oddballs Snork, our
Chaplain, loved and cared for—that is, some of them will rip you
off big time!
The Lord only knows how much money Mariah parceled out to foreign
students. And surely only the Lord knows how much of that money could
have just as well been tossed of the bridge over Cheat Lake. But she
never fretted about it. That's what she told me when I spoke to her
after seeing $100 or so pass from her hand to the hand of a Nigerian
I knew loved to gamble.
“Never mind,” Mariah told me, “I'll just let God sort it all
out.”
On one level, that is ultimate foolishness. On another, deeper
level, it may just be one of the best ways possible to live a life.
And that, above all, was what Mariah was good at—living wondrously
and well. I've never had the courage to live letting God 'sort it all
out', but it certainly worked for Mariah.
While I was working as a social worker, Bern and I lived in the
third floor apartment of a three story house down a charming brick
street in Morgantown. During our time there, the home base for St.
Gabrial's Wednesday evening Eucharists was the attic of that house,
accessible only through our apartment. We would gather up there—20
or 30 of us—and celebrate the holy mysteries seated on the
unpainted floor. When we passed the peace there was always the danger
of getting a concussion from smacking your noggin on the exposed
beams. It was a dimly lit, uncomfortable space, but it served quite
nicely as the upper room of St. Gabe's.
It was after one of those outrageously informal communions that
Mariah, who I had already determined was a saint (St. Mariah of the
Nations) revealed herself as an Archangel. After Mass—if I can
dream of calling our attic worship that!--we would all retreat down
the stairs to our apartment. There was always food. People brought
cooking and brownies (often with a special ingredient) cheese and
home-baked bread, fruit both dried and fresh, nuts and seeds and we'd
have some feasting. Plus, there was always a lot of wine. Some of St.
Gabe's regulars would go down on the front porch to smoke a joint—not
normal, I suppose, for most Episcopal coffee hours.
I was in the kitchen with Mariah. She'd managed to get me there
alone by some miracle since people tended to clump around her
wherever she was. There was something about how intently she listened
to whatever nonsense you had to say that made her a people magnet.
But we were alone in the kitchen when she said to me, balancing her
plastic wine glass and a handful of cheese with remarkable grace.
Then she said, “When are you going back to seminary and get
ordained?”
I was three glasses of wine and a trip to the porch past whatever
state of sober grace the Body and Blood of Christ had given me up in
the attic. I was then, as I am to some extent today, a 'smart ass'.
Ironic and Sardonic were my middle names in those days. I can still
be depended upon to lower or deflate whatever serious conversation I
come upon. “Nothing is serious or sacred” has been my motto most
of my life. I never realized how annoying that can be until my son
demonstrated, in his teen years, a genetic predisposition to that
same world view.
So, in my cups, you might say, I replied in a typically smart ass
way.
“My dear Mariah,” I said, “I'll go back to seminary and get
ordained when I get a personal message from God Almighty.”
She smiled that smile that made her eyes almost disappear and, after
a healthy drink of what I assure you was not good wine (we drank only
that vintage in those days) said words that changed my life forever.
“Jim,” she said, “who in the hell do you think sent me and
told me what to say?”
Never, before or after, did such a word as 'hell' pass through
Mariah's sainted lips. She was never even mildly profane. I stared at
her, suddenly as sober as a Mormon or a Muslim or both at the same
time.
She finished her cheese, put her wine glass in the sink and embraced
me. I held her like a fragile bird. She kissed my cheek and whispered
in my ear, “You've got your message....”
She left me in my kitchen with dry ice in my veins and some large
mammal's paw clutching my heart. I found it hard to breathe. Two
trips to the porch and a full juice glass of the Wild Turkey I kept
hidden under the sink on Wednesday nights changed nothing.
I called the bishop the next morning. Only after I had an
appointment with him could I tell Bern what insanity I was up to and
breathe properly again.
Mariah died a few months later. I was one of her pallbearers. She
was as light as air for us to carry—three international students
and three members of St. Gabrial's carried her. Archangels don't
weight much. They are mostly feathers and Spirit. She was buried from
Trinity Church. Snork did the service and did her proud in his homily
of thanksgiving for so rare a soul. I had just been accepted to
Virginia Seminary. Bern was in New York acting in an off-Broadway
show. We would meet up in Alexandria in September.
Mariah's granddaughter, Clara, who was a member of St. Gabe's as
well, embraced me at the reception following the funeral. It was in
the basement of Trinity Church where Mariah had spent so many Friday
nights. Many of the foreign students brought ethic food. Clara told
me Mariah had asked about me on the day she died. I'd left my
acceptance letter in Snork's office and he'd shown it to Clara. I
hadn't tried to call when it came since Mariah was in the Intensive
Care Unit. Her so full and generous heart had simply worn out from so
much loving.
So it was Clara that told Mariah I was accepted at VTS. Clara said
her grandmother smiled that eye disappearing smile when she heard.
She smiled through her great weakness.
“You tell Jim,” she whispered to Clara, “that I told him
so....”
Her last words for me: “I told you so.”
That works for me. That will do nicely.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Home again....
Just got back from helping lead a Making a Difference Workshop at Holy Cross Monastery up by the Hudson in West Park, New York.
I forgot my laptop and couldn't blog--and wouldn't have had time anyway. The workshop is hilarious and fun, but intense and hard work--just the way the best parts of life are.
I'll surely write about it later--but right now it's too close. It was in the top 10 of all the workshops I've helped lead in terms of level of outcome for the participants--which is all that matters, after all.
While there I got to spend time with my friend and mentor, Ann, who has read much of the manuscript I've been working on since I retired about my memories of priesthood. She is an editor and has given me good guidance. (Notice how 'dance' is in 'guidance'? That's what encouragement and critique should be...a dance.)
On the way taking her to the train station in Pougkippsee (which is surely misspelled but spell-check is no help--pickups, eggcups, packages and Peckinpah's were the suggestions I got! ) we talked a little about the manuscript. She suggested I publish in my blog first to see what shows up, for me and you guys, the readers, before getting too frantic about finishing it.
It's hard to finish since my 'memories of priesthood' are legion and continue to accumulate, so I'm going to take her advice. Taking Ann's advice has a higher rate of success than most anyone I would deign to 'take advice' from.
So, I'll start tomorrow...and maybe be ready to talk about the workshop a bit....
It was great.
I forgot my laptop and couldn't blog--and wouldn't have had time anyway. The workshop is hilarious and fun, but intense and hard work--just the way the best parts of life are.
I'll surely write about it later--but right now it's too close. It was in the top 10 of all the workshops I've helped lead in terms of level of outcome for the participants--which is all that matters, after all.
While there I got to spend time with my friend and mentor, Ann, who has read much of the manuscript I've been working on since I retired about my memories of priesthood. She is an editor and has given me good guidance. (Notice how 'dance' is in 'guidance'? That's what encouragement and critique should be...a dance.)
On the way taking her to the train station in Pougkippsee (which is surely misspelled but spell-check is no help--pickups, eggcups, packages and Peckinpah's were the suggestions I got! ) we talked a little about the manuscript. She suggested I publish in my blog first to see what shows up, for me and you guys, the readers, before getting too frantic about finishing it.
It's hard to finish since my 'memories of priesthood' are legion and continue to accumulate, so I'm going to take her advice. Taking Ann's advice has a higher rate of success than most anyone I would deign to 'take advice' from.
So, I'll start tomorrow...and maybe be ready to talk about the workshop a bit....
It was great.
Monday, June 15, 2015
ok, here's a couple more
I've given up on the posts with two zeros in them. But here's a couple more from the past...just imagine they are #800 and #900.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Is nostalgia addictive?
I don't think of myself as a nostalgic person. I usually like Today
better than Yesterday and I certainly don't think "The good old days"
ever existed except in hind sight. Who was it that wrote the song, "I'm
going to stay right here for these are the 'good old days'...."? That
sort of sums up one of philosophies of life--I've got dozens of them.
I remember going to my 10th high school reunion and Roger Rose said to me, "high school was the best years of my life." I wanted to say either: "adolescence is a nightmare" or "then I hope you don't live too long, I don't want you miserable." Instead, I inwardly wept for him. Imagine the best years of your life over at 18!
However, these old sermons and other writings I happened upon the other day have an allure to me I never imagined. For the most part, I don't have any memory of writing them so it's like reading something new. But, on the other hand, they put me back in touch in some way with the person I was then and with the circumstances I was experiencing.
I promise not to keep transcribing this stuff and to get back to pondering current things, but I do want to share one I wrote with you today.
I started my time at St. John's in Waterbury on July 1, 1989. I was 42 years old. Nine days later on July 10, some misplaced tornadoes tore across Connecticut from south to north (looking I imagine for Kansas or Oklahoma). Every tree on the campus of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven was uprooted and later in the day a stand of ancient trees in Litchfield County was leveled. In between, the storm hit two of the small spires around the central spire of St. John's. One fell onto the sidewalk and created an impressive crater. The other fell through the roof and smashed the impressive McManis organ to smithereens. (I have one of the small pipes mounted in our living room.) So a 12 foot by 12 foot hole in the roof let in a small lake of rain that ruined what the granite didn't. I drove home to New Haven (we hadn't yet moved to Cheshire) wondering why there were limbs all over the road.
As I look back, I realize it wasn't a bad way to start a ministry. Everyone's attention was instantly focused on the damage and we were, all of us, on the same page and with the same purpose. How can you get picky with your new Rector when a thousand slates blew off the roof, all the mortar fell out of the Rose Window, the organ is gone, there's a hole in the roof and three ton of granite in the balcony! (I also have one of those slates--some were found two blocks away--with a design created by Judith McManis, hanging on the wall. We made a killing selling artistic slates and organ pipes....)
Maybe I stayed so long because I didn't think I could go somewhere else and rely on a storm to pull the congregation together....
So, here's what I wrote in the newsletter on August 23, 1989--6 weeks after the tornado.
********
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind."
--Ecclesiastes 4.6
A friend of ours gave our children little clear glass globes to sit in the sunlight. Inside the globe are four squares of metal, black on one side, white on the other. They are attached to a central spoke in the globe. When the globe is in sunlight, the little squares react in such a way that they begin to spin. I have no idea how the thing works, it is a mystery of no small order to me. The brighter the sun, the faster the spinning. Set the globe in the shade and the spinning stops.
I have been sitting in the widow seat in my office watching the squares spin in the globe while the workers crawl around on the roof to my left, replacing slates. Work is underway to repain the damage caused by the July 10 storm. It is good to watch it. As the sun drives the squares in my son's globe, the desire for wholeness, for restoration, for healing drives our human efforts. We long to build up that which is thrown down, to make whole that which is broken, to replace slates, repair the tower, rebuild the organ...get on with life.
When the globe is sitting in bright sunlight, the squares spin so fast that they make an annoying little tinkling noise that drives me to distraction in about two minutes. So, I move the globe to the shade and enjoy the quiet.
There must be rhythm for life to be whole--movement and rest, work and play, singing and quiet, together and alone. I watch the workers sit perched like huge birds halfway up the slope of the church roof to rest and talk softly with each other. In a while they will be scampering again, defying gravity, shouting instructions to each other in gruff voices.
There is a point to this musing. It is the rhythm, the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of sunlight and shade, activity and rest, toil and quiet.
I am committed to a church that works with nobody left out. And that can only happen when we find the right pace, the right rhythm, the right way to hold our mouths....
(I love to play basketball. I would be heresy from someone who grew up in West Virginia not to love basketball! Basketball is art in West Virginia. Fred Schaus, Mark Workman, Hot Rod Hundley, Hal Greer, Jerry West, Rod Thorn, Gail Catlett, Ron Fritz...those are the names that moved me as I grew up. The names may mean nothing to you, but for me they were like gods. They were the basketball stars that lit the night sky of my childhood.)
Every day, I would shoot foul shots for an hour. And I came to believe to this day...that the secret of shooting foul shots is holding your mouth right. You dribble the same number of times for each shot. You spin the ball the same way each time. Rock three times, hold your mouth right and then shoot. And the ball goes in if you hold your mouth right.
What we need to do as a church, as a parish, is discover how it is we should hold our mouths. We need to discover the rhythm that is right for us. We need to find the balance between sunlight and shade, action and reflection, motion and quietness, dancing and standing still. We need to experiment with how we can be a church that works and...at the same time...a church that leaves nobody out.
And the way you do it is to "do it ". The only way to be a good foul shooter is to shoot foul shots. The only way to find out how to be a church that works and leaves nobody out is to practice doing and being that kind of church. How much sunshine is enough and not too much. How much shade is enough and not to much...that just depends on 'practice'.
I invite you to stand in the sun and the rain and the snow with me. I invite you to 'practice', in the months and years to come, being "a church that works and leaves nobody out". We'll be moving back and forth from sunshine to shade. We'll be scurrying around on the rooftops of our common life, patching the holes and then resting on the slope, speaking softly...or not at all.
And it will take time. Lots and lots of time. And patience too. And we'll sometimes make a dozen shots in a row and then miss five straight. It's like that. That's the way it will be. Quietness and toil will ebb and flow until it is natural and right. And still, even then, we'll occasionally miss five in a row.
That which is most NATURAL is well PRACTICED. A great dancer fools us into believing that her movement is natural, spontaneous, accomplished effortlessly. The truth is, a great dancer has practiced and practiced and practiced and, even more, practiced, and still sometimes falls, but the performance looks 'natural'.
I invite you to dance...to find the rhythm...to journey toward Go...to risk and to dream...in good weather and foul...in sunlight and shade...toil and quietness and striving after wind.
I invite you to be the Church of God, to be the Body of Christ...to see what it might mean to hold your mouth right.
I remember going to my 10th high school reunion and Roger Rose said to me, "high school was the best years of my life." I wanted to say either: "adolescence is a nightmare" or "then I hope you don't live too long, I don't want you miserable." Instead, I inwardly wept for him. Imagine the best years of your life over at 18!
However, these old sermons and other writings I happened upon the other day have an allure to me I never imagined. For the most part, I don't have any memory of writing them so it's like reading something new. But, on the other hand, they put me back in touch in some way with the person I was then and with the circumstances I was experiencing.
I promise not to keep transcribing this stuff and to get back to pondering current things, but I do want to share one I wrote with you today.
I started my time at St. John's in Waterbury on July 1, 1989. I was 42 years old. Nine days later on July 10, some misplaced tornadoes tore across Connecticut from south to north (looking I imagine for Kansas or Oklahoma). Every tree on the campus of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven was uprooted and later in the day a stand of ancient trees in Litchfield County was leveled. In between, the storm hit two of the small spires around the central spire of St. John's. One fell onto the sidewalk and created an impressive crater. The other fell through the roof and smashed the impressive McManis organ to smithereens. (I have one of the small pipes mounted in our living room.) So a 12 foot by 12 foot hole in the roof let in a small lake of rain that ruined what the granite didn't. I drove home to New Haven (we hadn't yet moved to Cheshire) wondering why there were limbs all over the road.
As I look back, I realize it wasn't a bad way to start a ministry. Everyone's attention was instantly focused on the damage and we were, all of us, on the same page and with the same purpose. How can you get picky with your new Rector when a thousand slates blew off the roof, all the mortar fell out of the Rose Window, the organ is gone, there's a hole in the roof and three ton of granite in the balcony! (I also have one of those slates--some were found two blocks away--with a design created by Judith McManis, hanging on the wall. We made a killing selling artistic slates and organ pipes....)
Maybe I stayed so long because I didn't think I could go somewhere else and rely on a storm to pull the congregation together....
So, here's what I wrote in the newsletter on August 23, 1989--6 weeks after the tornado.
********
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind."
--Ecclesiastes 4.6
A friend of ours gave our children little clear glass globes to sit in the sunlight. Inside the globe are four squares of metal, black on one side, white on the other. They are attached to a central spoke in the globe. When the globe is in sunlight, the little squares react in such a way that they begin to spin. I have no idea how the thing works, it is a mystery of no small order to me. The brighter the sun, the faster the spinning. Set the globe in the shade and the spinning stops.
I have been sitting in the widow seat in my office watching the squares spin in the globe while the workers crawl around on the roof to my left, replacing slates. Work is underway to repain the damage caused by the July 10 storm. It is good to watch it. As the sun drives the squares in my son's globe, the desire for wholeness, for restoration, for healing drives our human efforts. We long to build up that which is thrown down, to make whole that which is broken, to replace slates, repair the tower, rebuild the organ...get on with life.
When the globe is sitting in bright sunlight, the squares spin so fast that they make an annoying little tinkling noise that drives me to distraction in about two minutes. So, I move the globe to the shade and enjoy the quiet.
There must be rhythm for life to be whole--movement and rest, work and play, singing and quiet, together and alone. I watch the workers sit perched like huge birds halfway up the slope of the church roof to rest and talk softly with each other. In a while they will be scampering again, defying gravity, shouting instructions to each other in gruff voices.
There is a point to this musing. It is the rhythm, the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of sunlight and shade, activity and rest, toil and quiet.
I am committed to a church that works with nobody left out. And that can only happen when we find the right pace, the right rhythm, the right way to hold our mouths....
(I love to play basketball. I would be heresy from someone who grew up in West Virginia not to love basketball! Basketball is art in West Virginia. Fred Schaus, Mark Workman, Hot Rod Hundley, Hal Greer, Jerry West, Rod Thorn, Gail Catlett, Ron Fritz...those are the names that moved me as I grew up. The names may mean nothing to you, but for me they were like gods. They were the basketball stars that lit the night sky of my childhood.)
Every day, I would shoot foul shots for an hour. And I came to believe to this day...that the secret of shooting foul shots is holding your mouth right. You dribble the same number of times for each shot. You spin the ball the same way each time. Rock three times, hold your mouth right and then shoot. And the ball goes in if you hold your mouth right.
What we need to do as a church, as a parish, is discover how it is we should hold our mouths. We need to discover the rhythm that is right for us. We need to find the balance between sunlight and shade, action and reflection, motion and quietness, dancing and standing still. We need to experiment with how we can be a church that works and...at the same time...a church that leaves nobody out.
And the way you do it is to "do it ". The only way to be a good foul shooter is to shoot foul shots. The only way to find out how to be a church that works and leaves nobody out is to practice doing and being that kind of church. How much sunshine is enough and not too much. How much shade is enough and not to much...that just depends on 'practice'.
I invite you to stand in the sun and the rain and the snow with me. I invite you to 'practice', in the months and years to come, being "a church that works and leaves nobody out". We'll be moving back and forth from sunshine to shade. We'll be scurrying around on the rooftops of our common life, patching the holes and then resting on the slope, speaking softly...or not at all.
And it will take time. Lots and lots of time. And patience too. And we'll sometimes make a dozen shots in a row and then miss five straight. It's like that. That's the way it will be. Quietness and toil will ebb and flow until it is natural and right. And still, even then, we'll occasionally miss five in a row.
That which is most NATURAL is well PRACTICED. A great dancer fools us into believing that her movement is natural, spontaneous, accomplished effortlessly. The truth is, a great dancer has practiced and practiced and practiced and, even more, practiced, and still sometimes falls, but the performance looks 'natural'.
I invite you to dance...to find the rhythm...to journey toward Go...to risk and to dream...in good weather and foul...in sunlight and shade...toil and quietness and striving after wind.
I invite you to be the Church of God, to be the Body of Christ...to see what it might mean to hold your mouth right.
Friday, June 13, 2014
An Eschatological Laundry List
Sheldon B. Kopp wrote a book that has influenced me more than anything
besides the Mastery Foundation's work, my theological studies and, most
of all, my family.
The book is called If You Meet The Buddha On the Road, Kill Him! It is subtitled, "The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients" and is called, below Dr. Kopp's name, "A fresh, realistic approach to altering one's destiny and accepting the responsibility that grows with freedom".
I gave away most of my books a few years ago. Many went to the library at St. James, Higganum. Others went to friends. What I kept was some volumes of The New Interpreter's Bible, all my books of poetry, including How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi, which I've had since my Junior year of college, A Canticle for Leibowitz. a novel by Walter Miller, a handful of Biblical commentaries and The Elements of Style (third edition) by Strunk and White, which I've had since 1980. A few other random things, but not much else. I use the Cheshire Library these days, almost never buying books (except for the 'Hunger Games' trilogy and how many ever volumes there are in the 'Game of Thrones' series.)
And I kept "If you meet.....", well worn and brown on all the edges.
I don't read the whole thing anymore, but every few weeks I read what comes at the very end, which Kopp calls: 'An Eschatological Laundry List: A partial register of the 927 (or is it 928?) Eternal Truths'.
I'd like to share that list with you now.
1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are already dying, and we will be dead a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. Your only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no
compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his/her own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great persons.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solutions.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no one else
to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each person must do for themselves.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are wages within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
42. What do you know...for sure...anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again....
If that's not enough to ponder under your own Castor Oil Tree for like forever, what is?
Wisdom from 1972 to ponder.
The book is called If You Meet The Buddha On the Road, Kill Him! It is subtitled, "The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients" and is called, below Dr. Kopp's name, "A fresh, realistic approach to altering one's destiny and accepting the responsibility that grows with freedom".
I gave away most of my books a few years ago. Many went to the library at St. James, Higganum. Others went to friends. What I kept was some volumes of The New Interpreter's Bible, all my books of poetry, including How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi, which I've had since my Junior year of college, A Canticle for Leibowitz. a novel by Walter Miller, a handful of Biblical commentaries and The Elements of Style (third edition) by Strunk and White, which I've had since 1980. A few other random things, but not much else. I use the Cheshire Library these days, almost never buying books (except for the 'Hunger Games' trilogy and how many ever volumes there are in the 'Game of Thrones' series.)
And I kept "If you meet.....", well worn and brown on all the edges.
I don't read the whole thing anymore, but every few weeks I read what comes at the very end, which Kopp calls: 'An Eschatological Laundry List: A partial register of the 927 (or is it 928?) Eternal Truths'.
I'd like to share that list with you now.
1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are already dying, and we will be dead a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. Your only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no
compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his/her own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great persons.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solutions.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no one else
to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each person must do for themselves.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are wages within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
42. What do you know...for sure...anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again....
If that's not enough to ponder under your own Castor Oil Tree for like forever, what is?
Wisdom from 1972 to ponder.
(I'm going to be away until Friday, leading a workshop at a Monastery. Great stuff....I'll have my laptop but it is an intense workshop and I might not write much. See you on Friday.)
OK, I give up
I can't even explain to you why it is hard to find the double noughts of posts. And it is hard for me being intuitive rather than rational. So, for now, I'm stopping doing that and instead am sending you posts I want to to celebrate 1300 of them.
This one is weird. It is a nothing, a mistake. Yet it would be in the top 50 of most viewed posts. Go figure.
This post is not only untitled, it doesn't exist, until now of course.
I hit a wrong button and posted a blank but when I saw the title 'untitled post' I saw a chance to edit it and make it a post...if an unintended one...
and, still untitled....
_____________________________________________________________________________________
(And here's what's stranger still, When I posted the next post, I realized this post was still in DRAFT FORM. The damn thing doesn't want to be published and yet people read it.....go figure again. And ponder that.)
This one is weird. It is a nothing, a mistake. Yet it would be in the top 50 of most viewed posts. Go figure.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
untitled post
I hit a wrong button and posted a blank but when I saw the title 'untitled post' I saw a chance to edit it and make it a post...if an unintended one...
and, still untitled....
_____________________________________________________________________________________
(And here's what's stranger still, When I posted the next post, I realized this post was still in DRAFT FORM. The damn thing doesn't want to be published and yet people read it.....go figure again. And ponder that.)
43 and counting
One of the most viewed of all my 1300 posts. see if you can figure out why....
Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. We were married in 1970 at Our Lady
of Victory Roman Catholic Church in Gary, West Virginia. We were
babies--23 and 20--and didn't know any better.
It was the first time ever that an Episcopal priest was on the altar at Our Lady of Victory. "Pop" Bailey was there, along with Fr. Cook. And we got married--Bern and me.
The reception was at the Gary Country Club, that I had boycotted as a Senior in High School because the Senior Prom was not open to the five black members of our class. There was no dinner, only hoers devours and wedding cake and alcohol in the basement for selected members of my family and all of Bern's family, leaving weak punch for most of my tee-totaling family. It all lasted about an hour and then we were off in my father's Ford since I had wrecked my car on the way for a second blood test a week before, running into a lake in Princeton when I misunderstood a truck's signaling--which I thought meant "Pass Me" (a message truckers often send in West Virgina since mountains loom and there is difficulty getting around them) and which really meant, "I'm turning left". There was a second blood test needed because they tested me for diabetes the first time rather than whatever it was the test was supposed to be about.
Forty-three years. Amazing.
I sometimes tell people I've been married five times but always to the same woman.
And that's true, accurate, real.
The first marriage was two children in love. That lasted a year or more.
The second marriage was Bern going to New York to act and me staying in Morgantown to be a social worker. Two years of that.
Then there was the 'children marriage', interrupted 11 years in by a separation that lasted several months.
Then, the second 'children marriage', lasting until Josh and Mimi were well away and on their own.
The fifth marriage was what we have now. The Empty Nest, it's just you and me again marriage, which has become the longest and best of them all.
God, I love my life and my wife and 'our life' for the last dozen plus years.
I was of the generation who thought we should "live fast, love hard, die young and leave a beautiful memory". But let me tell you, the last 18 years or so have been the best of my life. Bern and I have settled into what many would consider a boring and very routine life. And it is. And I love the rut we've been in. It is simply the life I've always wanted to live. Especially since I retired. We live to the songs of Maggie, our parakeet, the needs of Luke, our cat, and the wonderment of having a Puli dog named Bela. We read constantly, watch TV from time to time, always eat dinner together, seldom need to discuss anything since we know each other so well, and love each other in a way that is deeper and more profound than all the passion and lust that came before.
Forty three years with Bern (plus the years before--I was 17 and she was 14 when we met in Latin class) so that makes our time together 49 years...is exactly how I would have wanted to spend almost a half-century. Exactly the way--though it didn't always seem that way--but just right, just wondrous, just perfect.
43 years ago tomorrow, two children who didn't know any better, got married. And through all the marriages we have had, we have arrived at the best one, the one we meant to have when we said 'I do' four decades and a bit ago.
I realized a few years ago that Bern is not 'the Love of my Life'....In a real way, she 'IS my life', for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health...for 43 years and whatever years the gods of marriage indulge us with in the future.
(I remember the child of 14 I met when I was 17. We first kissed under the bleachers at a high school football game. She was ethereal, mystical, foreign, unknown to me. A Hungarian/Italian child kissing a WASP of forever generations. I remember that first kiss--the kiss when I knew, against all odds and all reason, that somehow she and I would share our lives in ways we could never imagine but that would endure. I can't tell you how humbled and delighted and wonder-struck I am that I was right. A life with Bern is worth two or three or more in some other circumstance.)
Forty-three years and counting tomorrow....
Imagine my wonder, my gratitude, my joy......
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
43 and counting....
It was the first time ever that an Episcopal priest was on the altar at Our Lady of Victory. "Pop" Bailey was there, along with Fr. Cook. And we got married--Bern and me.
The reception was at the Gary Country Club, that I had boycotted as a Senior in High School because the Senior Prom was not open to the five black members of our class. There was no dinner, only hoers devours and wedding cake and alcohol in the basement for selected members of my family and all of Bern's family, leaving weak punch for most of my tee-totaling family. It all lasted about an hour and then we were off in my father's Ford since I had wrecked my car on the way for a second blood test a week before, running into a lake in Princeton when I misunderstood a truck's signaling--which I thought meant "Pass Me" (a message truckers often send in West Virgina since mountains loom and there is difficulty getting around them) and which really meant, "I'm turning left". There was a second blood test needed because they tested me for diabetes the first time rather than whatever it was the test was supposed to be about.
Forty-three years. Amazing.
I sometimes tell people I've been married five times but always to the same woman.
And that's true, accurate, real.
The first marriage was two children in love. That lasted a year or more.
The second marriage was Bern going to New York to act and me staying in Morgantown to be a social worker. Two years of that.
Then there was the 'children marriage', interrupted 11 years in by a separation that lasted several months.
Then, the second 'children marriage', lasting until Josh and Mimi were well away and on their own.
The fifth marriage was what we have now. The Empty Nest, it's just you and me again marriage, which has become the longest and best of them all.
God, I love my life and my wife and 'our life' for the last dozen plus years.
I was of the generation who thought we should "live fast, love hard, die young and leave a beautiful memory". But let me tell you, the last 18 years or so have been the best of my life. Bern and I have settled into what many would consider a boring and very routine life. And it is. And I love the rut we've been in. It is simply the life I've always wanted to live. Especially since I retired. We live to the songs of Maggie, our parakeet, the needs of Luke, our cat, and the wonderment of having a Puli dog named Bela. We read constantly, watch TV from time to time, always eat dinner together, seldom need to discuss anything since we know each other so well, and love each other in a way that is deeper and more profound than all the passion and lust that came before.
Forty three years with Bern (plus the years before--I was 17 and she was 14 when we met in Latin class) so that makes our time together 49 years...is exactly how I would have wanted to spend almost a half-century. Exactly the way--though it didn't always seem that way--but just right, just wondrous, just perfect.
43 years ago tomorrow, two children who didn't know any better, got married. And through all the marriages we have had, we have arrived at the best one, the one we meant to have when we said 'I do' four decades and a bit ago.
I realized a few years ago that Bern is not 'the Love of my Life'....In a real way, she 'IS my life', for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health...for 43 years and whatever years the gods of marriage indulge us with in the future.
(I remember the child of 14 I met when I was 17. We first kissed under the bleachers at a high school football game. She was ethereal, mystical, foreign, unknown to me. A Hungarian/Italian child kissing a WASP of forever generations. I remember that first kiss--the kiss when I knew, against all odds and all reason, that somehow she and I would share our lives in ways we could never imagine but that would endure. I can't tell you how humbled and delighted and wonder-struck I am that I was right. A life with Bern is worth two or three or more in some other circumstance.)
Forty-three years and counting tomorrow....
Imagine my wonder, my gratitude, my joy......
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