So, Kim Davis, the Kentucky official who refused to issue marriage licenses to anyone since she, because of her Christian faith, could not issue a license to a same sex couple, is in jail
Good enough.
And those like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz who are defending and making her to be a saint have got to get a grip.
I would have admired her in a weird way if she had resigned her job as country clerk and made a statement about her faith. Well enough, she couldn't do her job and keep her faith. I can respect that. But her job was to issue marriage licenses for the state of Kentucky and same-sex couples can now marry in the US, anywhere, including Kentucky, which, last I heard was still a state.
Imagine a General in the US Army/Navy/Air Force/ Marines refusing to obey an order because of 'their faith! Imagine a 7th Day Adventist or Jew or Muslim who was a mail carrier refusing to deliver mail on their holy day.
If your job challenges your faith, quit your job. It's that simple. But if you are someone who is supposed to carry out the law of the land in a county in Kentucky, either do it or quit.
Good for her she's in jail.
This has nothing to do with religious liberty. It has to do with what the Supreme Court says the Constitution says. And those 'constitution spouting Republicans' who are defending Kim Davis might want to ponder if they really believe in the Constitution at all....
Friday, September 4, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
A day and then paradise
Tomorrow we'll get ready to go to Oak Island.,
We'll take the dog to Holiday Pet Lodge in Wallingford (if you live anywhere near Wallingford you should kennel your pets there--wonderful, even for bad dog Bela). Then we'll come home and pack (packing in front of Bela is anxiety producing for us all). Zoe from next door will look after the cat and bird and hopefully bring over her little sister who is the age of our twin granddaughters to love on the cat. Eva is her name.
We have to be in New Haven, at our friend, John's house at 7 for the limousine to Leguardia for the less than two hour flight to Myrtle Beach, SC. Me and Bern and John and Sherrie, another friend will be on that flight.
To be a second driver on the car John rented--huge and cumbersome I think--I had to join Costco. Is this any way to run an airline?
We always drove, but it put two days on the trip and wore us out both ways. And last year John's car broke down on the Jersey Turnpike and I rode with the tow truck driver to New Haven to get my car and go to get the dog. (Getting the dog is always an issue. Bern loves the beast....) Meanwhile, a friend of John came to get them.
Mimi and Tim will fly to Raleigh and get to Oak Island around 4--later than us.
This is what we do every year on the week of Labor Day. John and Sherry and Bern and I get to Oak Island and Mimi and Tim arrive too and we spend a week reading and eating and loving each other and drinking a lot of wine and beer (Tim and Mimi and I mostly).
The first time we went to Oak Island, with friends of ours from Virginia Seminary, Bern was pregnant with Josh. He's now 40, just to put Oak Island in perspective. We went with the kids and sometimes a baby sitter and sometimes a friend for each of them, for maybe 18 years. We even bought a house there, on the inlet rather than the beach and rented it instead of staying in it so we could stay on the beach.
Even after the kids wouldn't go, Bern and I went for a year or two. Then didn't any more and went to Block Island instead. Josh and Cathy, pre children, joined us there, as did Mimi and Tim.
Then, 7 or so years ago, Mimi called and asked where we used to go on long vacations. (We went for three weeks or even a month when they were small.) And we told her.
She and Tim went and when they were back in NYC called and said we'd be going every year together.
And we have.
Our house this year is the most spacious and amazing of all the houses we've stayed in. I can't wait.
Saturday we go, flying on Spirit, which has been a bone of contention for Bern and John and Sherry--but not for me. I stay out of all the money stuff and just go to Oak Island to sit facing the ocean for a week.
I really can't wait--though Bern has been over loving Bela all day, feeling guilty for leaving him.
The last Puli we shared, Finney, went to the Beach with us once, rushed into the waves, was bounced around and never again went near the water. Pulis aren't ocean dogs. He would hate it.
But Bern hates to leave him ever.
That says something wondrous about her as a companion of animals.
We'll take the dog to Holiday Pet Lodge in Wallingford (if you live anywhere near Wallingford you should kennel your pets there--wonderful, even for bad dog Bela). Then we'll come home and pack (packing in front of Bela is anxiety producing for us all). Zoe from next door will look after the cat and bird and hopefully bring over her little sister who is the age of our twin granddaughters to love on the cat. Eva is her name.
We have to be in New Haven, at our friend, John's house at 7 for the limousine to Leguardia for the less than two hour flight to Myrtle Beach, SC. Me and Bern and John and Sherrie, another friend will be on that flight.
To be a second driver on the car John rented--huge and cumbersome I think--I had to join Costco. Is this any way to run an airline?
We always drove, but it put two days on the trip and wore us out both ways. And last year John's car broke down on the Jersey Turnpike and I rode with the tow truck driver to New Haven to get my car and go to get the dog. (Getting the dog is always an issue. Bern loves the beast....) Meanwhile, a friend of John came to get them.
Mimi and Tim will fly to Raleigh and get to Oak Island around 4--later than us.
This is what we do every year on the week of Labor Day. John and Sherry and Bern and I get to Oak Island and Mimi and Tim arrive too and we spend a week reading and eating and loving each other and drinking a lot of wine and beer (Tim and Mimi and I mostly).
The first time we went to Oak Island, with friends of ours from Virginia Seminary, Bern was pregnant with Josh. He's now 40, just to put Oak Island in perspective. We went with the kids and sometimes a baby sitter and sometimes a friend for each of them, for maybe 18 years. We even bought a house there, on the inlet rather than the beach and rented it instead of staying in it so we could stay on the beach.
Even after the kids wouldn't go, Bern and I went for a year or two. Then didn't any more and went to Block Island instead. Josh and Cathy, pre children, joined us there, as did Mimi and Tim.
Then, 7 or so years ago, Mimi called and asked where we used to go on long vacations. (We went for three weeks or even a month when they were small.) And we told her.
She and Tim went and when they were back in NYC called and said we'd be going every year together.
And we have.
Our house this year is the most spacious and amazing of all the houses we've stayed in. I can't wait.
Saturday we go, flying on Spirit, which has been a bone of contention for Bern and John and Sherry--but not for me. I stay out of all the money stuff and just go to Oak Island to sit facing the ocean for a week.
I really can't wait--though Bern has been over loving Bela all day, feeling guilty for leaving him.
The last Puli we shared, Finney, went to the Beach with us once, rushed into the waves, was bounced around and never again went near the water. Pulis aren't ocean dogs. He would hate it.
But Bern hates to leave him ever.
That says something wondrous about her as a companion of animals.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
My huge bag
I have one of those Stop and Shop bags--the really big ones you buy to be self-righteous and not use plastic or paper--absolutely full of typed (or printed out pages) of stuff I've written.
I can't even approach it. It is terrifying to me. What might I find in it? Where did it come from? Why do I have it?
I pull out a page at a time and remember it not.
This is stuff I poured over, cared about, stuff that mattered to me. And I have no idea what it is and am too intimidated to pour it all out and sort it out and ponder who I was when I wrote all that. There must be 500 pages of writing in that bag.
And I can't bring myself to dump it our and sort through it.
I don't know why.
I'll ponder that and let you know what's there.
I promise, just because that will make me do it.
But not until we come back from Oak Island a week from Saturday...and not that day surely.
I can't even approach it. It is terrifying to me. What might I find in it? Where did it come from? Why do I have it?
I pull out a page at a time and remember it not.
This is stuff I poured over, cared about, stuff that mattered to me. And I have no idea what it is and am too intimidated to pour it all out and sort it out and ponder who I was when I wrote all that. There must be 500 pages of writing in that bag.
And I can't bring myself to dump it our and sort through it.
I don't know why.
I'll ponder that and let you know what's there.
I promise, just because that will make me do it.
But not until we come back from Oak Island a week from Saturday...and not that day surely.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Gnostics
I think I know why I'm so "on it" about belief. Two weeks from Friday I'll start teaching a 10 week session at UConn in Waterbury for the Osher Life-time Learning Institute. The class is about the so called 'Gnostic' Christians that we only know about because of a discovery in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1947 of a treasure trove of early Christian writings.
"Gnosticism" is the word people use about those Christians. Interestingly enough that word, as a description was coined in the 16th century and sent back in time to 'label' these Christians.
Church fathers', like Tertullian, used the Greek word 'gnosis'--meaning 'knowledge' to say things about the heretics he saw around him, heretic magnate that he was, but the term didn't exist as a word until 1598 or so.
The so called Gnostic Christians were 'Christians' first and foremost, who simply didn't believe what other Christians did. When the church went from the catacombs to the cathedrals--when Christianity ceased to be against the law of the Roman Empire and became the only accepted religion of the 'Holy' Roman Empire, Christians who had been Christians for generations were driven out and suppressed because they didn't meet the norm of the Nicene Creed.
That creed was written, by the way, to tell people what they couldn't believe rather than telling us what we should believe.
It begins, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Many Christians in the fourth century didn't believe Jesus' "father' was the God of the Old Testament, the creator of heaven and earth. They had no patience with such a fickle, vengeful god and believed the God of Jesus was behind that God.
So they were out and their literature and ways were cast out.
The church is very good at obliterating those who don't toe the line.
And it all had to do with 'belief'. Not with how people lived their lives or what they did in the day to day. "Christians" who couldn't say the Creed simply weren't Christians anymore.
I have many difficulties with 'creeds', but I AM a Christian. Just like the so called Gnostic Christians.
If you met one, they wouldn't have said, "Hi, I'm a Gnostic" since the word wouldn't be in usage for 1200 years or so. They would have said, "Hi, I'm a Christian", and I believe they were, though the Church drove them out and suppressed their thoughts.
That's why I'm 'on it' about belief....
I'm a "Christian", though, for some, I'm no better than a Gnostic because I have trouble with Creeds.
"Gnosticism" is the word people use about those Christians. Interestingly enough that word, as a description was coined in the 16th century and sent back in time to 'label' these Christians.
Church fathers', like Tertullian, used the Greek word 'gnosis'--meaning 'knowledge' to say things about the heretics he saw around him, heretic magnate that he was, but the term didn't exist as a word until 1598 or so.
The so called Gnostic Christians were 'Christians' first and foremost, who simply didn't believe what other Christians did. When the church went from the catacombs to the cathedrals--when Christianity ceased to be against the law of the Roman Empire and became the only accepted religion of the 'Holy' Roman Empire, Christians who had been Christians for generations were driven out and suppressed because they didn't meet the norm of the Nicene Creed.
That creed was written, by the way, to tell people what they couldn't believe rather than telling us what we should believe.
It begins, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Many Christians in the fourth century didn't believe Jesus' "father' was the God of the Old Testament, the creator of heaven and earth. They had no patience with such a fickle, vengeful god and believed the God of Jesus was behind that God.
So they were out and their literature and ways were cast out.
The church is very good at obliterating those who don't toe the line.
And it all had to do with 'belief'. Not with how people lived their lives or what they did in the day to day. "Christians" who couldn't say the Creed simply weren't Christians anymore.
I have many difficulties with 'creeds', but I AM a Christian. Just like the so called Gnostic Christians.
If you met one, they wouldn't have said, "Hi, I'm a Gnostic" since the word wouldn't be in usage for 1200 years or so. They would have said, "Hi, I'm a Christian", and I believe they were, though the Church drove them out and suppressed their thoughts.
That's why I'm 'on it' about belief....
I'm a "Christian", though, for some, I'm no better than a Gnostic because I have trouble with Creeds.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Depression
So many people suffer from depression. A few weeks ago, I said to someone, "I've never been depressed."
Then tonight I realized that isn't true.
When I was at Harvard Divinity School for my second year and in the first year of my marriage (soon, very soon--September 5--to be 44 years ago!) I thought I was dying. I was sure I had a chronic and fatal heart disease.
None of the tests at Harvard's remarkable health center agreed with my self-diagnosis. So they referred me to a psychiatrist. She was a Swedish woman of middle age. We had several sessions at which I told her of my impending death.
My depression showed up as fear. I was afraid of dying, afraid of not knowing how to be a husband, afraid of whatever was coming next in my life.
Finally, on a monsoon day in Cambridge, I walked through torrential rains to see my shrink.
When I arrived, I took off my shoes and socks--soaked--my coat, soaked as well and she gave me paper towels to dry my hair in a fashion. I was soaked to the skin. It's the worst rain I ever walked 6 blocks in.
She looked at me and said: "If you're so afraid of death, why on earth did you walk through this weather to tell me you're afraid of death?"
She paused in that Scandinavian way of pausing, to let me think that through.
"You have the heart of a young horse," she said, "according to all the tests you didn't need....Get out of here and get over it."
I wish I could write that in a Swedish accent, but I can't. But imagine it.
I put on my wet socks, shoes and coat and went home.
She was right.
I can tell you I've had moments since then, but for the most part, I've never been depressed again.
And I thank whatever gods may be for that.....
And I hold in my heart all those I know and don't know for whom depression is a constant companion.
Then tonight I realized that isn't true.
When I was at Harvard Divinity School for my second year and in the first year of my marriage (soon, very soon--September 5--to be 44 years ago!) I thought I was dying. I was sure I had a chronic and fatal heart disease.
None of the tests at Harvard's remarkable health center agreed with my self-diagnosis. So they referred me to a psychiatrist. She was a Swedish woman of middle age. We had several sessions at which I told her of my impending death.
My depression showed up as fear. I was afraid of dying, afraid of not knowing how to be a husband, afraid of whatever was coming next in my life.
Finally, on a monsoon day in Cambridge, I walked through torrential rains to see my shrink.
When I arrived, I took off my shoes and socks--soaked--my coat, soaked as well and she gave me paper towels to dry my hair in a fashion. I was soaked to the skin. It's the worst rain I ever walked 6 blocks in.
She looked at me and said: "If you're so afraid of death, why on earth did you walk through this weather to tell me you're afraid of death?"
She paused in that Scandinavian way of pausing, to let me think that through.
"You have the heart of a young horse," she said, "according to all the tests you didn't need....Get out of here and get over it."
I wish I could write that in a Swedish accent, but I can't. But imagine it.
I put on my wet socks, shoes and coat and went home.
She was right.
I can tell you I've had moments since then, but for the most part, I've never been depressed again.
And I thank whatever gods may be for that.....
And I hold in my heart all those I know and don't know for whom depression is a constant companion.
Belief
I'm just on it these days about 'belief'...and how unimportant I think 'belief' is.
My last 4 sermons in three different churches have been about how 'belief' isn't the issue--the issue is how we live our lives. Isis has lots of 'belief', they're full of 'belief' and look at them beheading innocent people, enslaving women, destroying ancient places...all because of what they 'believe'. Give me a break--you can 'believe' a lie and be damned.
I'm going to give my friend Andy hell on Tuesday morning because of the sermon he preached at his installation as Rector of St. George's in Middlebury. The whole thing was about how important the creeds are...believing the 'right things'. Give me a kind, compassionate, generous atheist any day to someone who thinks the Nicene Creed is the way to God.
The way to God is in how we live our lives--how we 'be' in this world.
I even admitted today in my sermon that I am a heretic. (We all are, trust me! I teach about the Gnostic Christians at UConn in Waterbury and I start each semester by asking how many people 'believe' in the immortality of the soul. Almost everyone's hand goes up and I say, "You're all heretics. The Christian Church doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul, it believes in 'the resurrection of the dead'. Check the Nicene Creed....So, now that we know we're heretics, let's talk about the Gnostic Christians who the church declared heretical and drove out."
My particular heresy is Pelagianism--named after a Celtic Christian named Pelagios (354-420) who believed that 'original sin did not taint human nature and the mortal will is capable of chooding good or evil without divine aid.'
God bless the Celts!
I actually 'trust' (the word I use for 'belief'--actually the Greek word could be translated that way) that human beings are not inherently evil and tainted. I believe there is a goodness to human beings...a leaning toward the light, if you will.
We were, scripture tells us in Genesis, 'created in the image and likeness of God'. And God, as far as I'm concerned, is good. So we must be chips off that eternal block of Goodness. What mostly makes people crazy and evil is the things they come to believe.
Nazi's 'believed' they were the super-race and all less perfect people should be exterminated. Many Republicans 'believe' illegal immigrants are, by their nature, flawed. Racism rages around the globe. Jews hate Muslims and Muslims return the favor. Many Europeans are horrified about the influx of people fleeing war and craziness and oppression in places like Syria and Africa--the war and craziness and oppression in almost every case being 'belief' based.
I told people recently that the older I get the less I need to believe.
I've got it down to this:
1. God loves you.
2. You're created in God's image.
3. Welcome the stranger.
4. Forgive always.
5. Do unto others as you want to be done to.
6. Include everyone.
I can live with those 6 'beliefs'. If I live out of them, I'll make the world a better place in some small way. And I'll be fine. Just fine. Really. Ponder believing my list and see how it would change your life....
My last 4 sermons in three different churches have been about how 'belief' isn't the issue--the issue is how we live our lives. Isis has lots of 'belief', they're full of 'belief' and look at them beheading innocent people, enslaving women, destroying ancient places...all because of what they 'believe'. Give me a break--you can 'believe' a lie and be damned.
I'm going to give my friend Andy hell on Tuesday morning because of the sermon he preached at his installation as Rector of St. George's in Middlebury. The whole thing was about how important the creeds are...believing the 'right things'. Give me a kind, compassionate, generous atheist any day to someone who thinks the Nicene Creed is the way to God.
The way to God is in how we live our lives--how we 'be' in this world.
I even admitted today in my sermon that I am a heretic. (We all are, trust me! I teach about the Gnostic Christians at UConn in Waterbury and I start each semester by asking how many people 'believe' in the immortality of the soul. Almost everyone's hand goes up and I say, "You're all heretics. The Christian Church doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul, it believes in 'the resurrection of the dead'. Check the Nicene Creed....So, now that we know we're heretics, let's talk about the Gnostic Christians who the church declared heretical and drove out."
My particular heresy is Pelagianism--named after a Celtic Christian named Pelagios (354-420) who believed that 'original sin did not taint human nature and the mortal will is capable of chooding good or evil without divine aid.'
God bless the Celts!
I actually 'trust' (the word I use for 'belief'--actually the Greek word could be translated that way) that human beings are not inherently evil and tainted. I believe there is a goodness to human beings...a leaning toward the light, if you will.
We were, scripture tells us in Genesis, 'created in the image and likeness of God'. And God, as far as I'm concerned, is good. So we must be chips off that eternal block of Goodness. What mostly makes people crazy and evil is the things they come to believe.
Nazi's 'believed' they were the super-race and all less perfect people should be exterminated. Many Republicans 'believe' illegal immigrants are, by their nature, flawed. Racism rages around the globe. Jews hate Muslims and Muslims return the favor. Many Europeans are horrified about the influx of people fleeing war and craziness and oppression in places like Syria and Africa--the war and craziness and oppression in almost every case being 'belief' based.
I told people recently that the older I get the less I need to believe.
I've got it down to this:
1. God loves you.
2. You're created in God's image.
3. Welcome the stranger.
4. Forgive always.
5. Do unto others as you want to be done to.
6. Include everyone.
I can live with those 6 'beliefs'. If I live out of them, I'll make the world a better place in some small way. And I'll be fine. Just fine. Really. Ponder believing my list and see how it would change your life....
Saturday, August 29, 2015
What pain
Our neighbors' daughter Johanna went to college today.
Bern talked with Naomi about it.
What pain, when your kid goes away and you know they're gone forever.
She's a Freshman at Sacred Heart University. A wonderful school. And she'll be fine.
But dropping off flesh of your flesh at college is a really life altering event.
We did it twice. Hard, hard, harder than hard to do that.
The world shifts on its axis. Never to rotate the same again.
Zoe, Johanna's much younger sister took it very hard, Naomi told Bern.
I've watched them together for a decade--Zoe is a little off-kilter, brilliant but awkward--and Johanna always made her laugh, made her 'at ease', made her 'at home' in herself. Of course she took it hard.
Passages are hard, hard, harder than hard. And passages are what make life Life.
It's what we do on this odd journey from birth to death. Things change and shift and alter. Just like that.
I got an email from the daughter of a woman who worked with me at St. John's in Waterbury 25 years ago. The email began, "you may not remember my mother..."
Of course I did. I remember most everybody, just not the years I knew them--lost in linear time am I.
My friend's husband died and her children wanted a 'religious person' at the graveside. Death is the biggest passage of them all. And children not raised in a church wanted a 'religious person' at their dad's grave. We had a great conversation, considering the circumstances, and, of course I'll be at that graveside with them.
Passages make us look to our souls.
And the pain is real, each time....Realer than real.
And make life "Life".
Bern talked with Naomi about it.
What pain, when your kid goes away and you know they're gone forever.
She's a Freshman at Sacred Heart University. A wonderful school. And she'll be fine.
But dropping off flesh of your flesh at college is a really life altering event.
We did it twice. Hard, hard, harder than hard to do that.
The world shifts on its axis. Never to rotate the same again.
Zoe, Johanna's much younger sister took it very hard, Naomi told Bern.
I've watched them together for a decade--Zoe is a little off-kilter, brilliant but awkward--and Johanna always made her laugh, made her 'at ease', made her 'at home' in herself. Of course she took it hard.
Passages are hard, hard, harder than hard. And passages are what make life Life.
It's what we do on this odd journey from birth to death. Things change and shift and alter. Just like that.
I got an email from the daughter of a woman who worked with me at St. John's in Waterbury 25 years ago. The email began, "you may not remember my mother..."
Of course I did. I remember most everybody, just not the years I knew them--lost in linear time am I.
My friend's husband died and her children wanted a 'religious person' at the graveside. Death is the biggest passage of them all. And children not raised in a church wanted a 'religious person' at their dad's grave. We had a great conversation, considering the circumstances, and, of course I'll be at that graveside with them.
Passages make us look to our souls.
And the pain is real, each time....Realer than real.
And make life "Life".
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