I think Lukie is dying

Our cat, Luke, (Bern calls him 'our last cat' because we used to have four and are down to Luke, who was always my favorite.

He's one of those big yellow cats with an M on his forehead. Some measure of Maine Coon Cat, though not full bred.

He is, who knows how old. When we got him from Meow, a cat rescue group, he was almost a year old. And Mimi was 20 or so. Mimi's now 35, so Luke is at least 15 or more.

He's always been an indoor cat. Yellow cats, in my experience, are magnates for cars, so it is best to keep them inside.

Zoe, our next door neighbor teen, came over and fed him when we were away in North Carolina. When we got back, he seemed strange, but I credited it to him being angry that we left him for so long.

(He's laying on the table beside my desk where I am writing. He often does that, but much more since we came back from North Carolina, I rub him often.)


He hasn't eaten anything much since we got home--not tuna, not turkey from the Deli, certainly not stuff in cans or bags. He also drinks a lot of water and seems, from time to time, a tad confused. He still moves rapidly and can jump up on anything. But I'm worried.

It's been a week--that's long enough to be angry, even for a cat. He's really beautiful, laying on the desk beside me. And from time to time he seems fine.

But he won't eat and drinks water constantly.

I don't want to lose him. I will be a nail in my coffin as well since he is, according to Bern, "our last cat".

He's really very dear, comes when you call him like a dog, is affectionate to a fault.

Oh, Lukie, don't die. Please don't. I will mourn you and miss you so.

I'm going to pet him on my table now and try not to be sad.

OK, is this what will rid us of Trump...and do I want to be 'rid' of him

In Donald Trump's question and answer period of a speech in New Hampshire, some questioner said that the problem we have is 'Muslims' and our President is one and not a citizen and there are camps in America training terrorists and what was Trump going to do about that.

The Donald never corrected the man about Obama's citizenship or religion (American and Christian, by the way) because he was the 'birther' of all birthers' a few years ago.

Most Republican candidates and all the Democrats were outraged (not Sen. Cruz, by the way, who is riding Donald's coat tails, it seems).

So maybe this is the moment so many have been waiting for--the demise of Donald!

I'm not sure.

In a recent poll, 46% of Republicans had some lingering doubt about Obama's religion and birth place. 46 friggin %!!!!!

So, why would Trump alienate almost half of the Republican Party?

The reason I'm not sure I want to be 'rid' of him is this: If he, beyond all rationality, actually got the nomination, it would mean 4 more years of some Democrat in the White House. In a general election campaign he would implode in so many ways, not matter if Bernie or Hillary or Joe was his opponent.

So, why would I want this to take him down? My dream is Trump vs. Bernie Sanders. A socialist in the White House is what I long for. That pairing would make it so.

Lordy, Lordy, this election cycle is going to be so much fun.....Really.....

First Class

The first class of "Exploring the So-Called Gnostic Christian Literature" met today from 12:30-2 p.m. at UConn's Waterbury Campus. I teach as part of the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute (OLLI) there.

Amazing thing is, in my senior year of college, my plan was to become a college professor--teaching "American Literature" in some small liberal arts school and writing the Great American Novel in my spare time. Then two of my professors, Mr. Stasny and Dr. Meitzen--from the Classics and Theology Departments, came to me to tell me they'd nominated me for a Rockefeller 'Trial Year in Seminary' Grant.

"I don't want to go to seminary," I told Stasny, who I'd had 7 classes with in 8 semesters, and Meitzen, who I'd had three classes with.

"That's perfect," they said, "just keep saying that."

The Rockefeller Grant was for people who didn't want to go to seminary but some teacher of theirs thought maybe they should.

So I got the Fellowship and spent two years at Harvard Divinity School and earned a Master of Theological Studies degree. And got hooked on God.

But now, over 50 years later, I get to teach people in a college. Amazing!

You have to be at least 50 to be a part of OLLI. So these people want to be in class and pay to be there and care about learning.

I had a lecture to take up about 45 minutes of the class--something called 'From the Apostles to the Council of Nicea', but people kept interrupting with questions and that's the way it went--me responding to questions, which is good and the way I like to lead a class anyway. Several folks stayed after to ask more questions and make insightful comments so it was 2:30 before I got to my car.

Teaching and learning--and I do both in the classes I lead every other semester or so--it seems to me that is what a lot of life is about. Teaching and learning. What a joy. What a wonder. How so right that is in the scheme of things. Just as it should be.

Here I am, after all these years derailed by the God stuff, doing what I always wanted to do in the first place.

How lucky and blessed am I?

What matters

My friend Andy and I are having an email face off. Andy loves the creeds of the church, I don't care a whit for them.

Andy wants to convince me the creeds are 'liberating' when we meet on Tuesday. I really don't care if they are 'liberating' or 'constrictive'--I simply don't buy into 'belief' as having any importance at all.

Remember the song from "My Fair Lady" that says "show me". That's what matters to me. Show me compassion, mercy, forgiveness, love, inclusion, acceptance--show me that and I don't care at all what you "believe" about anything. Live into your faith, that's all that matters. The details of your 'belief' matters not.

I know lots of folks who claim no religious belief who live lives that demonstrate they understand Jesus' teachings more than  people who proclaim they are 'Christians' and hate people different from them.

Give me a break, the Nicene Creed was created to 'cleanse' the church of 'heretics', not create a purified church.

Many Christians in the 4th century, CE, couldn't get by the first sentence of the creed without being read out of the church.

"I believe in the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth."

I've read into early Christian texts, like those discovered in the 1940's in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, that tell us lots of early Christians didn't believe the God of the Hebrew Scripture was Jesus' 'Father'.

So, the first sentence of the creed made them heretical and driven out of the church.

I, myself, have difficulty equating Jesus' "Father" with the vengeful, wrathful God of Hebrew Scripture. Jesus' 'Father was full of grace, mercy, love and forgiveness. That doesn't match up to the Yahweh of the Old Testament in my mind.

So, I whisper the Creed, if I say it at all.

Not important to my faith and trust in God.

I'll let you know about Tuesday's conversation with Andy. I really love him, I just can't agree with him.

Populism

I believe both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are 'populists' rather than politicians.

Both men appeal to something below the surface of ordinary people, but in different ways.

So, I googled 'populism' and found something interesting. The Random House Dictionary had three definitions of 'populism': they were;

1. any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional or partisan ideologies.

(Both Trump and Sanders would fit into that, I think.)

2. grass-roots democracy; working class activism; egalitarianism

3. representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.

(I think those two fit Sanders more than Trump. Trump's 'populist' appeal is spelled out in the Collins Dictionary's only definition of the word.)

1. A political strategy based on a calculated appeal to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people.

The Collins Dictionary obviously isn't very 'populist'. But it nailed what kind of 'populism' Trump is appealing to--the interests and prejudices or ordinary people.

Bernie is calling folks to something 'beyond themselves' while Donald is appealing to our baser natures, our fears and prejudices. Both are 'populists' in their own way.

And that's why they're doing so well in this very early stage of what will be a drawn-out and painful and full of clowns political cycle.

How to have a great vacation

1. Only go on Vacation with people you know really well. Bern and I've known John Anderson since 1973 or so, at WVU, when Bern was completing her degree and John was in his Ph.D. program in psychology. We've known Sherrie Ellis since 1980. And both Sherrie and John have known Mimi from when she was three and Tim for 14 years.

2. Only go on vacation with people who read. I read 9 books on Oak Island and part of another. I'm not sure I was the biggest reader since we didn't share how many books we'd read. But when you see a person on vacation reading, you leave them be. And when you're reading, they leave you be. Reading is what it's about, vacation, I mean. Someone who didn't read would make vacation crazy.

3. Only go on vacation with people who love to eat. Besides reading, eating is the main thing about vacation. We had a country dinner Sherrie cooked--tomatoes, corn, beans, cucumbers--one night and Bern cooked two roast chickens with the trimmings one night, and I cooked shrimp, scallops, cod one night, and Sherry did a Greek shrimp salad and tuna one night, and Tim and Mimi cooked burgers and salad one night, and John, who doesn't cook--at least nothing you'd want to eat--bought take out pork barbecue and all the accoutrement's one night, and Bern made fish cakes and crab cakes one night. You have to love to eat and sit at the dinner table for over an hour and do you're own breakfast and lunch to be on vacation with us.

4. Everyone has to let everyone else do what they do. Bern goes for a walk on the beach every morning. Sherrie and Tim and Mimi sometimes go in the water. I walk on the beach from time to time. John never walks the beach or goes in the water. Somebody goes for food for dinner every day. People use their devises except for me, who doesn't have one. John takes a daily nap. No one cares what anyone else does. They just do it. No one wants or pursues any 'group' activity. Everyone is on their own, except for dinner.

From time to time all six of us would be reading--on screens or with books--and time would pass without words.

That's what a vacation should be.

The Kite

THE KITE

When we arrived at our house
on the beach
on Oak Island
in the state of North Carolina,
the first thing I noticed
wasn't the ocean,
vast and calm,
or the sky, wide and blue,
or the sand, expansive at low tide,
or the breeze from the south.
It was a kite held captive
on the house beside of ours.

Where we were, the beach faced south,
so the sun rose each day to the left, brilliantly,
and set, glowing and painting the sky,
to the right.

And it was to the right,
west of us,
where the kite was captive
on the roof of the house.

A small kite--smaller than most beach kites--
with the colors of the rainbow.
It's edge was caught under the cap
of the roof. String went in both directions.
It was there as long as we were--
blowing in the southern wind,
flapping enough, I thought,
to break free.

But it never did.
Caught and held, it flapped
the whole time we were there.

I longed for it to break free and soar,
one last time,
to the inlet to the north.

A kite deserves to fly.
Just as we deserve to live.

And how many of us are wedged in somewhere,
unable to escape,
flapping helplessly in the winds of life,
unable to soar?

Had I had a ladder long enough
and courage great enough,
I would have climbed up and
freed that kite.

But I didn't.

And how often, for lack of a ladder and courage,
do we not rescue others of our kind,
not kites but humans,
from the stuck-ness of their lives?

It flutters still, I suppose,
that kite on the beach,
stuck and unable to soar.

And what of us?
What of us?