Mike and Kerri

I don't officiate at many weddings in the Middlesex Cluster. At St. John's in Waterbury I would do 12-18 a year. But the Cluster churches are small churches with not a lot of 'marrying age' folks. But I've officiated at two in the past month--one at St. James and today at Emmanuel, Killingworth. Both weddings were lovely and moving.

Today it was Mike and Kerri who married each other. They had two Yale Music Students play cello and violin for the music. Mike's two best men surprised Kerri with a rendition of "Grow old with you" that got a standing ovation at the offertory. The bridesmaids dresses were of the same fabric but in unique designs. Cool.

Mike is the great-grandson of the Rev. Gilbert, who founded Emmanuel in the early 1900's.  His grandparents and parents and now he and Kerri were all married in Emmanuel Church. Remarkable!

I have a different attitude toward marriage and baptism than may Episcopal priests. My commitment is to people who want God involved in their children's lives or God involved in their marriage. Wanting to get married in a church is enough for me. Mike and Kerri aren't members of Emmanuel, though Mike's heritage is intimately tied to the congregation. But they wanted to be married there and I was delighted.

In this super secular age, I am always delighted when anyone wants the church and God tied up with their lives. Some priests I know lay down a lot of hoops to jump through for people who want children baptized or to get married. Not me. All I ask is a chance to get to know them. And that I do. The thing that is not even in my mind is to question their desires or set up boundaries. The sacraments belong to God, not to the church, and certainly not to priests!

I officiated at many weddings at St. John's when the reason the couple gave for wanting to be married there was, "it's the prettiest church in town." Good enough for me.

You see, I really take the sacraments seriously. I think they mean something 'deep down' and folks who experience them are touched by God in ways they...and even I...don't and can't realize.

Why would anyone deny the blessings of God to anyone else? That's my question.

My theory is this: give the blessing of God to anyone, any where, who wants it, for whatever reason. The rest I leave to God.

Mary's Christmas

I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet. But I want to share with you a story I wrote for Bern for Christmas 2012. I always write her something for her gift and she makes me something--usually art, but once a table shaped like West Virginia--go figure.

But I love this story and hope you do too.

Mary's Christmas--2012

Here's what Mary knew: hunger, real hunger for the first time in her life; cold, more cold than she could remember; fear, again, a first time feeling, if you didn't count thunder storms; pain, in her feet, all four of them.

And it was dark. She was wandering in an unknown place, trying to remember home and the Man and the Woman and the Girl and the Boy. But her memory was not all it could be. Being in Mary's brain would be like being in a place like a desert, or an empty field, or snow-covered ground with just occasional object to break up the monotony. Mary's brain was like the brain of any Lab/Cocker Spaniel mix, or any Lab's, or any Cocker Spaniel, any dog at all....

Brendan, who was 'the Man' in Mary's mostly empty mind—which registered only basic things: hunger, cold, fear, pain, heat, safety, someone's touch, joy, love--often thought to himself that he would prefer to be in Mary's head than being in Joe's head, the Maine Coon Cat who lived with them. Being in Mary's head, Brendan thought, would be simple, easy, in the moment, verging on Zen. He was not anxious to know what a cat thought. Cats, he thought, always being a 'dog person', though he loved Joe greatly, would have a mind that was Byzantine in complexity, full of traffic circles and cul-de-sac's and dead ends. A dog's mind, Brendan believed, would be basic and uncomplicated and verging on sublime. That, Brendan imagined, would be a comforting place to be for a while, away from the complexities of his own mind, simple and safe. The mind of Joe, a cat's mind, on the other hand, would be risky business, something better avoided, something to stay clear of. Cats, thought Brendan, were inscrutable, foreign, removed. Extricating yourself from the mind of a cat might be something like trying to escape quicksand—the more you struggled the deeper in you would sink.

But on this day, this Christmas Eve, Brendan wasn't thinking such philosophical thoughts. His thoughts were clear and full of terror. Mary was missing and he was beside himself and in mourning. So were the other people in his house—Lydia his wife and Alan and Ellen, their children, 10 and 7 they were. For three days, none of them were functioning at a very high level, not since that night three nights ago (the first day of winter) when Brendan took Mary with him to go pick up some gifts at Macy's in the mall in Waterbury. It had been warm for December and Mary loved to ride in the car. The packages were waiting for him at the service desk—a few things for good friends that Lydia had ordered on line to pick up at the store, already wrapped.

Brendan had left the window down a bit, so Mary could stick her nose out if she wanted, but usually she was fine in a parked car, either curling up in the front passenger seat or stretching out in the back seat of Brendan's Kia to wait patiently. Mary was nothing if not patient. She always snoozed a bit when left in the car. And it only took Brendan 10 minutes to collect the packages and get back to his car in the crowded parking lot.

But the packages were left, still in their bags, on the pavement when Brendan saw the overhead light on in his car and the back door open and no Mary. He ran toward his car calling, “Mary, Mary, Mary come....” But Mary didn't come.

An elderly couple was standing near his car—a Black man and woman in their 70's—the woman was crying into her husband's chest. The man held her gently and looked up as Brendan came running up.

“My dog?” he asked, frantic.

The man shook his head. “We were getting out of our car and saw some boys taunting her through the window.” The man's hair was white and tight to his head, his skin was ebony. “Louise, my wife, yelled at them and then one of them opened the door. Your dog leaped out and ran from them. They were still yelling and chasing the dog, but he outran them.”

“She,” Brendan said, realizing as he said it that the gender of the dog didn't really matter. “Mary's a girl....”

“I'm sorry,” the man said, “we tried to stop them....I'm sorry about Mary.”

“Which way,” Brendan asked, “which way did she go?”

The man pointed toward the far end of the mall, toward Sears.

“That was awful,” the woman said, between sobs, “those awful boys...that poor frightened dog....”

“You go look for her, son,” the man told him. “I'll get your bags and put them in your car. Go on, now. Mary needs you.”

Brendan ran through the gathering darkness, calling for Mary as he ran. Several people moved away as he passed, thinking him deranged, which he was. He couldn't think, couldn't reason. All he could do was run through the huge parking lot, calling Mary's name as he ran.

A security guard going off duty saw him and said, “is Mary your daughter?”

“No,” Brendan said, “she's my dog.” He realized he was gasping and that his face was covered with tears. The back of his throat ached as it had when he was a child and was frightened or greatly saddened. He felt as lost as a child, terrified, torn apart, his heart breaking.

“Just a dog?” the security guard asked. “You're this upset about a dog?”

Brendan ran on, he was coming near the end of the mall now, his heart pounding, sobbing as he ran. “She not just a dog,” he was thinking as he called for her, “she's Mary. She's Lydia's dog.”

With that thought, he stopped running. Mostly because he was out of breath, but also because of that thought. Mary was Lydia's dog. Lydia picked her out at the animal shelter. Lydia loved Mary almost as much as she loved her children and, sometimes Brendan thought, a little more than she loved him. Lydia would go to sleep rubbing Mary as the dog slept between them on their bed. Lydia made Mary's food because the dog was allergic to processed dog food. Lydia cut Mary's nails and cleaned her ears and, much to Mary's displeasure, brushed the dog's teeth with a beef flavored toothpaste to get rid of tartar. Brendan walked the dog in the morning and the evening, but it was Lydia who took Mary to her Mazda and drove her to the old Farmington Canal at the bottom of the hill from their house in Cheshire and walked her all the way to Jennifer's bench. There were benches on the canal path, dedicated to people who had died. Jennifer's was the last bench. Jennifer had been a child who died and had loved the canal.

“We have to say hello to Jennifer,” Lydia told Brendan more than once, “then Mary and I come home.”

Suddenly, Brendan couldn't think. It was akin to being inside Joe's mind. Nothing was logical, nothing made sense, there was no way out of what had happened. Mary was gone and Brendan was lost in a confusion of thoughts and emotions. What would he tell Lydia? Then he realized he had to call Lydia and tell her why he wouldn't be home anytime soon—that he'd be searching for Mary in the dark as the air grew more chill, as hope slipped away.

The first call from his cell phone to home had been difficult. His daughter, Ellen, had answered the phone and wanted to chat about her school concert and the special doll—something Brendan had no clue about—that she wanted, really wanted, for Christmas. By the time he got Lydia on the phone he had a modicum of composure back, but she still knew from the tone of his voice and ragged breath, that something had gone off the tracks, something was radically wrong.

“What is it, Brendan?” some anxiety rising in her voice.

“It's Mary...,” he began.

“What about Mary?” she interrupted.

“She's gone....”

After a long silence, Lydia said, “you mean she's dead?”

“No, no,” Brendan told her, that ache back in his throat, “she's missing. Ran away. I can't find her.....”

The whole story took a while to tell, especially since Lydia kept interrupting to ask questions that didn't quite register in his head.

“I'm going to look for her for a while....quite a while. I won't be back for dinner,” he told his wife. “Don't tell the kids yet. Hopefully I'll find her. I don't want them to worry.”

But he didn't find her although he searched every foot of the enormous, very full parking lot. Although he asked dozens of people if they had seen a lab/cocker spaniel anywhere...”looks like a lab only smaller, very friendly, named Mary....” Although he walked several miles of Union Street and Hamilton Avenue in the dark, fearing every moment that he'd find her body on the road—nothing worked, nothing helped. Three calls from Lydia, when he could tell beneath her stoic facade that she was nearing panic, were fruitless. Finally she said, “Come home, we'll try tomorrow.”

He'd called the Waterbury Police and the Humane Society, getting an sardonic reaction from the duty Sargent about “just a dog” and a recording from the Humane Society to call back during business hours. It was nearly midnight when he got back to his car and found, as promised, his Macy's bags in the back seat. He drove home in a stupor that reminded him of college beer nights. It was like he was watching himself drive. Like any active and practicing Episcopalian, he seldom prayed, but on that drive he did, with the kind of fervor worthy of Gethsemane. He prayed for Mary, her safety, her homecoming. He prayed for his family and what this would do to them. He prayed for himself, for his great guilt and regret and pain at senselessly leaving the car unlocked. And, not surprisingly he received little comfort from his prayers. Guilt and Regret are ultimately feelings that require one to forgive themselves. The Almighty has better things to do.

***

Mary had been on Union Street along with Brendan, but in the other direction. She was not used to cars—except the ones she rode in—and their lights and exhaust frightened her greatly. That's not completely true. Fear isn't an intellectual evaluation for a dog—it is a viseral and physical reaction. The hairs on Mary's neck bristled. She became wary and anxious. She wanted to bark but something in her throat, not un-akin to Brendan's own aching throat, held her back.

Lights flashed—from cars, from Christmas decorations, from small buildings—she stayed close to buildings and finally, totally unable to understand what had happened to her (what took her from dozing peacefully in the back seat of The Man's car to this inhospitable and completely unfamiliar 'place') didn't register at all. What did begin to surface were long unknown and forgotten instincts—DNA deep behaviors to keep her from ultimate harm.

Exhausted, hungry, chilled, she fell asleep in the partially sheltered entrance to a Tattoo Parlor for the night. Her dreams, sparse but active, were troubling, even to her mind that was so nearly vacant most of the time. She dreamed of The Man's car and of the boys who chased her away, of her fear and her misery. Just that.

***

Thirteen or so miles away, Brendan and Lydia clung to each other. Brendan couldn't eat, could barely think and, like Mary, fell into disturbing dreams. In the morning the children would miss Mary. Already, Joe prowled around as if confused and not-quite-whole. His friend—if cats can be said to have 'friends—was somehow, inexplicably, missing. Incomplete, he scoured the house while Brendan fitfully slept and Lydia held him, slipping in and out of sleep, softly moaning and weeping.

“She's just a dog,” Lydia told herself several times during that long, troubled night. But she knew that wasn't true. She was Mary, she was 'their dog', a part of their family. Mary. And life would not be the same without her.

***

Mary wandered. She passed many people and many buildings. Down Union Street she went until it became East Main. She stayed closed to the buildings to avoid the traffic. Some people stopped to pet her and she licked their hands. Others—mostly young boys—chased her and yelled at her and one even threw a bottle at her that broke on the sidewalk and she stepped on it with her back left paw and cut herself and began to limp.

Had she been able to know, she was going in the exactly wrong way. Rather than moving toward her home, she moved toward the center of Waterbury, toward the Green. And, by afternoon of that next day, after the night the boys chased her from the car and from The Man, she found the park in the middle of the city. There was dying grass to lay on, and she did, licking her cut paw, resting for a while. Many elderly people were there and many young people. Some stopped to talk to her though Mary only understood a few words. One Hispanic woman noticed the blood on Mary's paw and used a handkerchief she had brought from Guatemala of fine linen and a lace her grandmother had crocheted to clean Mary's foot and pull out a sliver of glass.

Mary licked her face as she worked. And the woman spoke to Mary in Spanish, soothing words, words from another place about the dogs in the stable that first Christmas night.

“I cannot take you home,” the woman told Mary in Spanish, “my apartment has no pets.” Mary did not understand anything the woman told her, but licked her none-the-less.

Several hours later, a bus driver who had stepped outside for a cigarette before he had to move on from the Green, saw the dog and took his bottle of water and poured it into his McDonald's coffee cup and offered it to Mary. She was parched from her journey and drank it down. The bus driver rubbed her head and said a prayer in his native language, Hungarian, for her. Mary understood none of the words, but licked his hand.

An old Italian man came by and shared his sandwich with Mary. She had never tasted the meats and cheeses before, but she ate with gratitude and licked his hand as well.

She had moved from the place beneath one of the trees on the Green and already someone had cared for her wound and someone had given her water and someone had fed her with Provolone and salami and bread. Though she longed for her home and her Man and Woman and Girl and Boy, she had been cared for.

She wandered around the safety of the Green until darkness was falling again and her fear came back. The day was turning cold and she was hungry after half the Italian sandwich and thirst was coming back.

Then a black boy appeared. He looked like one of the boys that had let her out of the Man's car and chased her away into this chaos, so Mary was hesitant when he approached. But the boy was gentle and talked to her in soft words. The boy took off his belt and put it around Mary's neck like the leash she was so familiar with and led her to his home.

It was an apartment on the second floor of a three-family house several blocks from the Green and the trees. There were loud voices from the bottom floor and the sounds of breaking things that frightened Mary. But in the boy's apartment, there was heat and water in a bowl and a hot dog wiener that the boy put on a plate for Mary to eat and eat it she did.

It was strange to Mary that there were no Big People—no Man and Woman—where she was, but water and food was enough. And she slept with the boy in his bed, the second night of her exile from her home.

Deep in the night, Mary was woken by noise in the room next door. A Big Person who was yelling and knocking things over.

“Don't worry,” the boy said to Mary, “that's just my mom coming home. She's a bit drunk, I think. But she won't look in on me. We can go back to sleep.”

And they did.

That day Mary spent on the Green and that night she spent on Thomas' bed, even after his mother came in and made so much noise, Brendan and Lydia were busy. Brendan had a picture of Mary on his I-phone with the two kids hugging her. He quickly sent it to his computer and printed out 100 copies with the following words: “Mary is lost, please help us find her. Ellen and Alan want her back to love.” He added his cell phone and Lydia's to the poster as he printed them out.

Then he and Lydia spend most of the next day putting the posters up on every telephone pole and building and walls around the Mall in in both directions. Ellen went with Brendan and Alan went with Lydia. Each had tape and a stapler and they worked for two hours before they met, as agreed, outside of Sears at noon. No one wanted to eat, so they didn't, separating again—Ellen and Brendan toward the center of town and Lydia and Alan moving away from the city—calling Mary's name, looking for her, longing to have her back.

That same morning Thomas took Mary back to the green, leading her on his belt. In front of the large Roman Catholic church, he let her go, telling her words she didn't understand—“I'll be back after school and if you're still here I take you home again, OK? Mama would be mad to find you in the apartment. So wait for me, OK?”

Mary licked his face and then he was gone. It was the day before Christmas Eve, though Mary could not have known that. All day she wandered around the Green, growing hungry until a kind woman gave her an apple and some bologna. The day was chill but not cold enough to harm her, so she dozed on the grass and waited—for what she did not know. Again boys ran at her and threw plastic water bottles at her, but they did not hurt and her foot was much better, though she limped a bit.

All that day, Brendan and Lydia drove around Waterbury, looking for Mary. Each of them passed the Green several times, but by then Mary was laying beside a homeless man, who smelled strange but not troubling to her. He had given her food he'd gotten from the Soup Kitchen and water in a Styrofoam bowl from the same kitchen at St. John's Church. The man had been sleeping on a bench when Mary found him, smelling of alcohol and human body odor—neither of which is troubling to a dog.

She licked his hand that was hanging off the bench and he woke up.

“Hi, Dog,” he said. “What's your name?”

Mary, of course said nothing. She licked his face.

“What a friendly dog,” he said to her, “and since it's almost Christmas, I think I'll call you Mary.”

At her name, Mary barked.

“So, I've named you well,” the man said. “Let me go to the soup kitchen and get us some food....”

Then he took the twine that held up his pants and made a leash for Mary and tied her to the bench while he went to get them food.

The man talked to her through the day, telling her the story of his life: how he had been much loved as a child in Tennessee and gone to a school called Vanderbilt but had something bad in his brain that caused him to become a wanderer on the earth and someone who never could hold a job or be relied on. But there was something else in his brain—a way of knowing that he neither asked for or understood. “The way I knew your name and the way I know I'll make sure you get home safe.”

Mary understood none of what he said but knew he was a kind and good man and spent the night with him at a place where he led her on the twine that once held up his pants. They slept beneath a bridge with several other people and there was food, generously shared, though not as good as she was used to, and a small fire in a drum that gave some warmth. People there called the man who brought her Joshua. And though the name meant nothing to her, she savored it in her mind and heart.

Back at Mary's home, things were not well. Presents were not wrapped, the tree was only half decorated, No one had been to Stop and Shop to buy food for Christmas dinner. Invitations had been refused. Brendan and Lydia were growing near despair. The children weren't interested in Santa or gifts. Everyone—even Joe—was aching for the want of Mary.

How many miles had they walked and driven? How many thousand of times had they called her name? How terrible was the pain in their hearts?

Christmas Eve for Mary began beneath the bridge. All the people, who smelled so odd to her, were very kind and petted her and rubbed her and called her sweet names.

She and Joshua went to the Soup Kitchen for lunch, just as the day before. And Mary ate well.

In the late afternoon, Thomas, her friend, who had given her a sleep in a bed, found Mary and Joshua on the Green.

He rushed up to her and knelt down and she licked his face.

Thomas looked at Joshua. “This is my dog, I found her,” he said.

Joshua looked at him for a long time.

“No,” he said quietly and kindly, “this dog has a family and tonight we will find them. You were kind and wondrous to Mary and she will never forget that, but she needs to go home.”

The boy stared at Joshua for a long time, first in anger, then in confusion, then in wonder.

“Who are you?” he finally said.

“One who knows things without knowing how,” Joshua told him, “one who will tonight lead Mary home.”

“Why?” the boy asked him.

“Because,” Joshua said. “Stay with us tonight,” he said to Thomas, “stay with your friend and me.”

“Why?” Thomas asked.

“Do you really want to know?” Joshua asked him.

“Yes,” Thomas said.

“All will be well, if you stay with us. Mary will go home and you will be safe.” That is all Joshua would tell him.

Brendan and Lydia had decided they must go to church on Christmas Eve. They needed to recapture their hearts and have Christmas...but most of all, each of them knew, they needed Mary. The decided on the late service at St. John's, the Episcopal Parish on Waterbury's, Green. Mostly they went to the Episcopal Church in Cheshire, but tonight they wanted to be anonymous, they didn't want to have to see their friends and either pretend to be cheerful or have to tell them the story of Mary's loss. They just wanted to be together and sing the familiar carols and listen to the organ and the strings and lose themselves in the ancient liturgy and familiar stories.

Most of the day they had taken turns driving around Waterbury some more, but somehow they knew it would be in vain. They didn't believe they would ever see Mary again when they were honest with themselves. Mostly they sat around until it was time for church. They forgot to turn on the Tree's lights and the kids mostly watched TV with blank eyes, not using their I-pad or going on line at all.

They left for church around 9 p.m. As they traveled, Alan said, “aren't we going to St. Peter's?”

“No,” Lydia told him, “we're going to the big church in Waterbury.”

Ellen clapped her hands, the most energy she'd shown in days, “that's where Mary is,” she said, “maybe we'll find her!”

Brendan sighed. “Don't get your hopes up,” Lydia told her. “You don't want to be disappointed again.”

There was silence from the back seat for several miles. After they turned onto I-84, Ellen said softly, “It could be the 'Christmas Miracle'....”

Brendan and Lydia looked at each other in the dim dashboard light and smiled sadly. Truth was, they didn't believe in the 'Christmas Miracle', but they were somehow heartened that Ellen did.

Most of the rest of the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Joshua and Thomas and Mary walked around Waterbury, far and wide. The boy and the man talked a lot. Joshua asked Thomas many things: about school (Thomas loved school and did well); about his parents (Thomas' father was absent and his mother, he told Joshua, “was sad and drank too much”.)

“I know all about that,” Joshua told Thomas.

About six o'clock, Thomas said, “I should go home. My mom will be worried.”

Joshua was silent for a long while. “No, son,” he said, resting his hand on Thomas' shoulder, “she has other things to worry about. You stay with me. I'll take you home when our friend, Mary is safe and going home.”

Thomas started to insist that he should go home. But instead he asked, “how are you so sure Mary's going home?”

Joshua didn't answer for a while. Thomas was used to his silences by now and simply waited.

“I don't know, Thomas, how I know,” he finally said, “just know things. Something's funny about my brain.”

As they got to the Mall parking lot, Mary seemed anxious and skittish, she began to whine.

“Let's turn around now,” Joshua said, petting Mary's head. “Something bad here for Mary.”

The walked back down Union Street.

“My friend Armando got shot in his brain,” Thomas said, reverently, “some gangs were shooting at each other and he was in the way....He died.”

Joshua said nothing. After a while, Thomas continued, “it was a block from my house. I'm afraid a lot.”

A block or so later, Joshua stopped and looked at Thomas. “Something tells me, that's going to change soon. You won't need to be so afraid.”

“What makes you say that?” Thomas asked, further confused by Joshua. Then he realized he'd never told anyone, not even his grandparents or his mother about his fear. He'd never talked to a white person, who wasn't one of his teachers, as much as he'd talked to Joshua that long afternoon.

Joshua shook his head and laughed for the first time since Thomas had known him. “That thing in my head....I can't explain it.”

They were near a McDonald's and Thomas said, “I'm hungry. I bet you and Mary are too. My Grandmother gave me $20 last week. She and Grandpa live in Cheshire. They both used to be school teachers. I could buy us some food.”

Nodding, Joshua said, “get yourself and Mary something and me a small coffee with milk and three sugars. That'll keep me going.”

So Thomas had a Big Mac and Mary had a cheese burger and avoided the pickles and Joshua drank his coffee.

“Your grandparents,” he said Thomas, “they seem like upstanding folks.”

Thomas' face lit up with a smile. “I love them so. They're so smart and so good. My uncle and aunt too—they both live in West Hartford and are teachers too. Something, I don't know, something between my mom and dad made things go wrong for her. She was the youngest in the family, in college, studying to be a teacher like the rest of them and met my dad and then there was me. I just don't know....” The smile had gone. Thomas was sad suddenly.

Joshua sipped his coffee. “I think you're going to be fine, Thomas,” he said. “I think you'll be a teacher...a college professor maybe....”

“That's all I want!” Thomas said. Then he was suddenly embarrassed because he had never, not ever, said that to anyone before, much less a homeless, white man. But it was hard to be embarrassed for long with Joshua. Thomas had never imagined meeting someone like him—white, wise and homeless all at once. He suddenly wondered why he was still here. Surely his mom would be worried. Surely he should go home. But he knew he wouldn't. He wanted to be with Joshua. He wanted to know that Mary was going home for sure.

Joshua finished his coffee and rubbed his face hard with both hands, something Thomas had seen him do before. He was a good looking man, Thomas thought, for a white man. His eyes were very light, gray. He was tall, over 6 feet. And thin, which, Thomas imagined, wasn't odd for someone who ate at soup kitchens. His face was what some people would call handsome, though his hair and beard could use a trim. But what was most amazing about him to Thomas was that he moved slowly but with great grace. And whatever was wrong with his brain was fascinating to Thomas, who, in the secret part of his heart, wanted to be a Psychology Professor.

“Now it begins,” Joshua said, rubbing Thomas' head with his right hand and Mary's with his left. “Let Christmas Eve get serious....” Then he laughed again and they set off, this odd trio, toward the Green.

“We're going to visit the churches of Waterbury,” Joshua told them as they walked.

“Why?” Thomas asked him.

A block later, Joshua answered. “You know what journalists ask?” he said, “the four big questions?”

“'When?' 'Where?' 'Why?' And 'How?' is that right?” Thomas said, remembering how in 6^th grade he'd wanted to teach journalism in college.

“Exactly right,” Joshua said some twenty steps on. “You are a smart boy. Here's the thing, I can tell you 'when'--when they are having Christmas Eve services; 'where'--at the four big churches down town; “how”--by walking from one to another. What I can't tell you is 'why?' The 'why?' question is always the hardest.”

“Why?” Thomas asked.

“Exactly,” Joshua replied.

The visited the Lutheran Church first. Joshua knew the times of the services, though he didn't tell how. They stood at the door and listened to hymns. It was 7 pm. Then they walked slowly through the parking lot and on-street parking near the church. Nothing happened. Thomas didn't ask any questions and Joshua was obviously giving no answers since he knew none.

At 8 pm it was the Congregational Church. Same routine. Nothing happened.

At 9 they went to Immaculate Conception, the really big Roman Catholic church on the Green. There was only a small parking lot so they wandered the down-town streets. Again, nothing happened, though Thomas was growing impatient.

“What are we doing?” he asked, with a testy sound to his voice.

“I don't know,” Joshua answered immediately, “and please be patient.”

It was a little after 10 pm and they were headed toward St. John's.

“I eat here every day,” Joshua told Thomas. “I like this place.”

Thomas was about to be fed up and leave, going home to what he imagined, on Christmas Eve, would be a very drunk mother who might need his help. But when they walked into the church's parking lot, something happened.

Mary, who Thomas was leading with the twine from Joshua's pants, suddenly bolted. Thomas almost lost hold of the twine.

“Let her go!” Joshua called out. “Let her go!”

So Thomas did.

They found her at a Black KIA in the middle of the lot. She was scratching at the door. Other scratches were there. Those scratches looked a lot like the new ones Mary was leaving in her excitement.

Joshua took the twine from her neck and tried the door. It opened.

“Always lock your door in an parking lot,” he told Thomas, who already knew that.

Mary jumped in. Both Joshua and Thomas rubbed her and got licks beyond counting on their faces. The they stepped back and Joshua shut the door. They waited until the light went out and Mary was stretched out on the back seat before they left.

“So show me where you used to live,” Joshua said.

Thomas shook his head. “I still live there. You are one weird dude.”

Joshua smiled. “That I am,” he said.

“I'm going to miss Mary,” Thomas said, and it was true.

“Where do your grandparents live?” Joshua asked him.

“Cheshire, why?” Thomas replied.

“No reason,” said Joshua, “just wondering....”

It was a 10 minute walk, but Joshua kept his hand on Thomas' shoulder all the way and talked softly to him about things Thomas didn't really understand.

Turning the corner onto Thomas' street was jarring by the three police cars with lights pulsing and a number of well dressed Black people standing on the sidewalk in front of Thomas' building. He recognized them immediately. His Grandparents and Uncle and Aunt.

“What's happened?” he asked Joshua, full of fear.

“We will see,” Joshua answered, “in time we will see.”

As soon as the people saw Thomas they all rushed to him.

His aunt and uncle held him until his grandmother and grandfather replaced them.

Great emotion, hasty explanations, tears of joy and sadness.

It seemed that Thomas' mother had come home greatly drunk and torn up the apartment. Her neighbors had called Louise and Mark, Thomas' grandparents and then they had called his aunt and uncle. All had been at the apartment since then, wondering and worried about Thomas.

What would happen was that his mother was already on the way to an alcohol and drug treatment center. He would go to live with his grandparents in Cheshire until his mom was better and then both of them would live there as long as needed.

It was confusing and horrifying and painful and disconcerting to Thomas, but he knew life would be better for his mom and for him. So he started babbling about Joshua and Mary and the KIA in the church parking lot.

All the four adults who loved him listened with great interest but there was no man named Joshua there. They were confused.

“He kept me safe,” Thomas told them, “and Mary went home.”

His grandmother, Louise, was suddenly interested. “A dog in a KIA? A yellow dog?”

Thomas nodded his head vigorously.

Louise looked at her husband. Their looks matched. “Could it be?” was what the looks said.

Joshua was heading toward the bridge. His friends would be waiting. He would have liked to meet Thomas' family, but in the way his brain let him know what he couldn't explain...well, it was just as well. And it was Christmas Eve, there might be some fruit cake someone had stolen or gotten from the soup kitchen or some do-gooder. Who knew? Actually, Joshua did know, but it annoyed him and he tried to push it out of his mind.

********

The music had been magical. The ancient liturgy and the Christmas story wondrous. The sermon had been inspiring. And they tasted the Body and Blood of Christ on the very night of his birth.

Yet Brendan, Lydia, Ellen and Alan were still in pain, not feeling the joy and gaiety of Christmas.

Until, they opened their car's doors.....

An intolerable vulnerability

Since I was looking on my computer at All Saints sermons, I wasn't too far from 'An' and read a sermon I preached less than two years after 9/ll.

I was wrestling with the coming Iraq war in that sermon. Today, 12 years later, things are even more dire in the Middle East what with Isis and Syria and the refugee crisis. Thought I'd share this sermon with you as well, just to let you know where I was in my heart and mind in 2003...which isn't too far from where I am now, over a decade later.

FEBRUARY 9, 2003

AN INTOLERABLE VUNERABILITY

Today’s Gospel finds Jesus in Capernaum—going to the synagogue for prayers, visiting the home of Simon and Andrew, healing Simon’s mother-in-law and the townsfolk.

Capernaum was a village on the Sea of Galilee—a village of those who fished for a living. First century Capernaum has been largely excavated by archeologists. When I was in Capernaum several years ago, I sat amid the ruins of the synagogue St. Mark talks about and visited the site of what may have been Peter’s house. The synagogue was smaller than the chancel area of this church—nearly as long but only half as wide. And the foundation of what could have been Peter’s house was even smaller. The houses were built almost wall to wall and the streets of Capernaum were only about four feet wide. What struck me about the town was how small and close it must have felt—how tight and confining.

The house was only one room. Peter’s mother-in-law must have been on a mattress of straw in one corner of the room. It would have only taken Jesus a step or two to cross to her and lift her up, healed of her fever. Jesus and the four disciples with him would have taken up much of the house while Peter’s mother-in-law prepared a meal for them. Living in that house would have been much like sleeping and eating and washing and talking in a space about the size of a modern-day kitchen—that tight, that crowded, that close.

When we’re told that the whole city “was gathered around the door”, we need to picture people crowded into a space about the width of a narrow hallway, stretching away in both directions. If Jesus sat in the doorway of Peter’s house only a couple of people at a time could have stood in front of him. A crowded, tight space—but not too crowded for the broken to find wholeness, for the suffering to find relief, for those in pain to find relief. So Jesus touched and healed until darkness fell and all who sought him had found him.

Its little wonder then that Jesus rose before dawn to go outside to a deserted place to get away from the confinement and narrowness of the day. He needed some space, some escape from how crowded and pressed upon he must have felt in Capernaum.

*

I was having a conversation with a friend and parishioner this week and the conversation turned, as most conversations these days do, to what may or may not happen in Iraq. I was saying that I was surprised and confused by how the coming war seemed so inevitable and that most people seemed almost to take it for granted.

My friend told she’d heard someone say that since September 11, 2001, Americans had been living with “an intolerable vulnerability.” The American people, after that terrorist attack, had—for the first time in recent history—felt so “vulnerable”, so unsafe, so exposed, so frightened that it has seemed unbearable—“intolerable” to us. An intolerable vulnerability….

Since September 11, the US government has been granted wide latitude by the public for anything that claims it will reduce this “intolerable vulnerability” and make us feel somehow safer. With almost no opposition either within or outside the government, there has been serious, perhaps irreparable, erosion of civil liberties and constitutional guarantees. All the government has needed to convince us to give away precious rights is to appeal to our fears, our vulnerability. We are promised that arrests without sufficient evidence, illegal searches and imprisonment without the due process are justified because we will be safe from terrorists. We are being “closed in” by our fears and vulnerability.

*

Jesus escaped to the open places outside Capernaum while it was still dark. He went away from the crowds and the tightness and the confinement and close quarters so he could pray. But when his disciples came searching for him and found him, he returned to the people, to the crowds to proclaim his message—the message he was sent to bring.

The Collect for today reminds us of Christ’s message. Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life you have made known to us in…Jesus Christ….

Jesus’ message is the same today as it was in Capernaum. We are FREE from Sin and given the LIBERTY of Abundant Life.

Freedom and Liberty are the enemies of fear and anxiety and that intolerable vulnerability. Abundant Life is life lived fully in spite of fear. Abundant Life is life lived with the courage and safety only God can give.

*

Personally, I question the morality of the coming war. I oppose it strongly. It is, in my mind at least, a war that will be waged, not out of a longing for justice and righteousness, but out of our intolerable vulnerability.

However, I also believe most of those who support military action in Iraq are convinced of the rightness of their point of view. Saddam Hussein IS a tyrant and a monster to his own people. But there is much that can be done to oppose and weaken him short of unleashing our nation’s military might. I believe we need to act out of courage rather than fear.

We will be no safer after much blood has been spilled and Iraq is defeated. The damage that this coming war will wreck will inflame and embolden those who wish us harm.

As a Christian, I feel I need to cling to “the liberty of that abundant life” Christ makes known.

Abundant Life is life lived fully in spite of fear and danger. We cannot ever be safe. But all that is most precious and most real cannot be taken from us by violence and terror.

In fact, I think there is freedom and liberty found in facing our feelings of vulnerability. Vulnerability teaches us humility. Vulnerability opens us to possibilities beyond returning violence for violence. Vulnerability can give us access to transformation, to newness, to hope. Living an abundant life takes much more courage than dealing death.

Perhaps the most troubling part of our current quandary is how inevitable the coming war seems. Even people who oppose military action in Iraq seem defeated. “It’s too late to do anything,” a friend told me about the coming war. “Too much is in motion,” he continued, “it’s simply too late….”

The vulnerable people of Capernaum—those sick and weak and possessed of Fear—sought out Jesus. Their brokenness was intolerable to them, so they sought out Jesus. And Jesus offered them freedom from sin and fear—he offered them abundant life.

He offers us no less.

Christ offers us that abundant life which empowers us to live courageously in spite of fear and danger, to live with hope and restraint and faith in a time of intolerable vulnerability. Christ offers us freedom and liberty, and it is never too late to seek him.

It is never too late to seek peace—though our country’s leaders seem committed to a fight to give us the illusion of safety at the expense of our national honor and integrity. It is never too late to bring the Light of Christ to this fearful, darkling world.

It is never too late to seek Christ and to seek peace….It is never too late….

The Rev. Dr. Jim Bradley

St. John’s on the Green

Waterbury, CT 06702

All Saints Sermon--2007

Since I like All Saints so much I was looking at past All Saints sermons and thought I'd share this one.

ALL SAINTS 2007

This is a joyous, wondrous, exciting, solemn and holy day.

This is OUR Feast Day—the Feast of All Saints.

And what we celebrate this day is like circles within circles within circles—circles never ending, swirling through eternity and into the very heart of God.

Someone very wise once said, “Christ does not draw lines to keep people out—Christ draws circles to welcome people in….”

The first circle, the most obvious one—the one that will take most of the time today—is baptism. Today we will welcome into the Body of Christ a new member. Grant will be washed in the waters of God and sealed with oil as “marked as Christ’s own forever”.

This astonishing circle encloses Grant and his family into the heart of God. God loves Grant no less right now than God will love him after the water is poured and the oil is smeared. God’s love is not bound by a little water and less oil and the words we will say. But today he will be welcomed “publicly” into the Church and proclaimed out loud as an esssential part of the Body of Christ.

That matters. That truly matters.

A second circle we will draw today—a second way God welcomes people “in”—is that you will be invited to receive the laying-on-of-hands and prayers for healing. God’s children are invited to seek ‘wholeness’ in the midst of the ‘brokenness’ of our world and lives. God doesn’t call us to be “good”—we are called to be “whole” and “well”—and the prayers for healing are instruments of that completeness.

That matters. That truly matters.

A third circle drawn on this, our Feast Day, our celebration that we are the ‘saints of God’, is that we will read the names of the members of this parish who have died since the last All Saints day, a year ago.

You see, in the wondrous love of God, those who have died are still part of the Communion of Saints. Those we love but see no more are separate from us now but united with us in our celebration and our feast. This day holds up to God those who have died, those who journey on in this life and those yet unborn. This is a ‘thin time’ and we can draw very near to our loved ones separated by death and celebrate our connection with them.

That’s another circle. You all have been given a candle and you are invited to light it on your way to communion and place it in some containers that aren’t out here yet. That candle is meant to be a way for you to remember those you love who have died. They are with us in the flames as we approach the altar. They are part of our celebration. This is the Feast of ALL Saints, even those who have died.

And there, on the table in front of the bowl where we will baptize today, are the cremains—the ashes—of some of the children of God. They died and their remains were signed over to a hospital and they were cremated by a funeral home and on this day—this wondrous and solemn day—we will bury those ashes out in the Close and give our brothers and sisters a resting place for their ashes though they already rest in the heart of God.

Some people find it a bit troubling and ironic that we baptize the living next to the remains of the dead on this day. But it is just another of the circles God draws to include us all—to remind us that in the heart of God the living and the dead are all joined together. These are thin and wondrous times. No one is left out.

Two final circles include us and welcome us home. First, there is the bread and the wine we share—which is, I promise you, the very Body and Blood of Christ. God needs a Body in this world. God needs hands and feet and lips to speak and ears to hear—and we are it! Listen to me—WE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST IN THIS WORLD. If we don’t do that—if we don’t carry forth when we are dismissed into the world the hospitality and compassion and love and grace and forgiveness and wonder of God—who will?

It’s part of the deal. You are marked as Christ’s own forever and you are expected to be Christ to this suffering world we live in. You are the Light of the darkling world. You are the salt of the earth. And if you don’t do it, who will?

Today’s liturgy is like a kaleidoscope of circles within circles within circles. And we are enclosed by those many circles. And we are the Saints of God—we are the Body of Christ—we are God bearers into the world.

This is our day. Let us rejoice and be glad.

"Thin Times"....

One thing I forgot to mention about All Saints' Day is the Celtic concept of 'thin times'.

The ancient Celtic people believed there were times in the year when the barrier between the living and the dead became 'thin' and spirits could pass back and forth. One of the 'thin-est' times of the year is this time--late October and early November. During this time, Spirits from the other side would come calling on the living and the living had to be careful not to slip through the 'thin-ness'.

When Christianity came to Europe, it only made sense to use this time of year to celebrate All Saints' Day (yesterday) and All Souls' Day (today). And on 'All Hallows Eve' (from 'hallowed'--holy...a reference to the saints) Saints might come calling. Treat them well.

Obviously, that's where Halloween came from--'hallows eve'.

Lots of stuff to unpack in all that which I'm not going to unpack right now.

I just notice that this time of year--days still a tad warm, nights plunging into chill, the shrinking of daylight...it is a 'thin time'.

Ponder how living in 'thin times' gives us access to the spiritual life in a powerful way.

The Feast of All Saints

Today is All Saints Day. It may be my favorite Holy Day--even ahead of Christmas and Easter--but Ash Wednesday is a close second to All Saints.

What I love most about it is the poetic imagery about death in the readings. The lesson from Isaiah 25.6-9 offers a feast on a holy mountain of fine foods and well aged wine when God will dry all tears and remove the shroud over all peoples by 'swallowing up death forever'. Something about God 'swallowing death' is so wondrous and poetic and final that I just have to love it.

Revelation 21.1-6a is the same theme: "See, the home of God is among mortals...he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away...See, I am making all things new."  No more death and all things new, who wouldn't devoutly and joyfully wish for that?

In the Gospel on this day from John, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, but speaking it into being (just as God 'spoke' the whole Creation into being) by saying, "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11.43) And, against all human wisdom to the contrary, Lazarus does.

I said some of this stuff in my sermon today at St. James in Higganum. I waited too long to write the sermon down--it's 6:33 p.m. now, I could have done it at 3 or so. I can't now.

I always know what I'm going to say in a sermon, I'm just not sure how I'm going to say it. And if I come straight home and write it out I usually get it 90% accurate, but my short term memory has a shelf life of 5 hours or so.

The other thing I love about All Saints is that 'we' are the 'Saints of God'. Really. No kidding. Trust me on this.

Garrison Keilor, that unlikely theologian, once, on his Prairie Home Companion, talked about the Feast of All Saints by suggesting when we come to communion we look to our left and imagine the communion rail stretches back into history and all those 'saints of God' who came before us are there with us, receiving the Body and Blood. Then, he suggested, we look to the right and imagine the rail stretching out into the eternity of the future and seeing all those 'saints' yet unborn that will follow us, joining us in the Sacrament.

I don't believe I've ever heard a more wondrous description of the 'communion of saints' than that.

I told that story in my sermon too. Wish I could reconstruct it in totality instead of piece-meal.

I also, in my sermon, right at the beginning, talked about the distinction in the first 4 or 5 centuries of the life of the church between the so called 'Gnostic Christians' and the Christians who became 'the church' as it was known for centuries. Gnostic Christians and Orthodox Christians disagreed on any number of things--but one was the nature of Death.

I teach about the Gnostic Christian writings at UConn in Waterbury from time to time. I always begin the class by doing a 'heresy test'. I ask the class to raise their hands if they believe in 'the immortality of the soul'. Most of the time a vast majority raise their hands and I tell them that they are 'heretics' because the Nicene Creed (which made the Gnostic Christians 'heretics') says we believe in 'the resurrection of the dead', not the 'immortality of the Soul'.

I don't give a fig about that distinction which forced lots of good Christians out of "The Church" in the 4th Century--what I give a fig about is God 'swallowing up death forever' and all of us being a part of the 'communion of saints'...dead and living and yet unborn.

I'm not help if you want to ask me "what happens after we die?"

I have not a clue. None whatsoever. Nada.

Somethings I simply leave up to God. All that about 'what happens' is part of those 'somethings'.

But this I know: on All Saints Day, we are all of us--dead, alive, yet to be--held together in the Heart of God.

That's enough for me.

Really.

Being one of the communion of saints is all I need. Truly.

I'm not kidding.

Come on, be a 'saint' with me....

Home

We made it home from Baltimore in under 5 hours with three stops. And I'm driving 80 on the New Jersey Turnpike and people are passing me!

We had a great short visit. Two nights. We always buy the granddaughter's Halloween costumes--Emma was a evil princess in black with hoop skirts, Morgan was a wood's man (woman), looking for all the world like one of Robin Hood's compatriots, and Tegan was a girl from Bali, looking for all the world like a girl from Bali in wondrous colors.

We went down on Thursday and went to Red Robin for dinner. The girls love Red Robin but it is really an awful chain. I'd recommend the onion rings and little else. But you go where the granddaughters want to go! Just the way it is.

They wore their costumes to The Calvert School on Friday (the tip off on this school is the insistence on being The Calvert School (as if there are others' claiming to be Calvert Schools...) But it is a great school if you like private and expensive and privileged, which it is. Sorry, I'm a public school snob. I did get a Master's Degree from Harvard but on someone else's dime, thank you. Friday was a half-day, so we had lots of time with the girls while their lawyer parents worked pretty late and go to spoil and cook for them.

When Josh came home, we hadn't been able to turn on the TV all day. Josh thinks Bern and I are 'cursed' about major machinery (and it is true that most times we go, something breaks) but this TV, expensive on the front end, was 10 years old and on it's way out--dim for sometime now. Josh tried to replace the bulb, which impressed me since I am the most 'un-handy' person ever. He got Bern's 'handy' DNA, obviously. (Secretly, I think, he was pleased since he'd wanted a new TV for his 40th birthday in August but didn't get one because they're considering moving and why replace a TV before you move, or something like that.) The other thing was about not being able to watch TV is that Morgan and Emma and Tegan didn't mind at all. They read and played until dinner. Just since Easter they've gotten so much more able to not be entertained. Tegan is 6 and can read about anything. She found Cathy's parenting guide and read a lot of it! Bern and I and our two kids are devoted readers. So proud to see it passed on to another generation. Reading makes life so rich.

 So, on Saturday morning, Josh and Cathy went to Costco and bought a 60 inch TV that weighed about a quarter of what the 10 year old 56 inch one did--technology marches on. Josh and I (mostly Josh, I just cleaned up packing material and such while he set it up and lifted when he told me too) installed the TV while Bern and Cathy and the girls went to a Halloween Party at the home of another Calvert kid. It was a great party with a kid costumed as Harry Potter, who was Harry's spitting image. 20 kids or so. What blew me away was that when Josh and I got their, the girls came and embraced me and insisted that I meet every kid! Joy beyond measure! Josh and I were there for the kids to play a game or two, then Cathy and Josh and I went to see a house they might be interested in out near the Episcopal Cathedral, Johns Hopkins and THE Calvert School.

It was an incredible house. 5000 square feet. finished basement and attic on 2 acres. Stone outside, hardwood inside, subtle paint, a kitchen to die for (with a prep sink across the room from the sink sink!) Amazing. It would sell for $1.3 million or so in Cheshire and $2.5 million or more in Greenwich , but in Baltimore is listed for $599,000 and will probably go for less.

Then we went to an Italian deli that is better than any I've ever been in and I've been in a few in Boston and New Haven and NYC. We brought lots of stuff home.

Bern suddenly felt sick (from not sleeping and not eating much and the speed of the drive--my thoughts only) just before the CT state line. So she went to bed with dry toast and I fed the bird, cleaned the litter boxes (3 when we're away) and drank some wine.

I have an extra hour of sleep tonight, thank goodness, but driving gives me a rush so I'm still here typing at 11:15 (actually, 10:15 thanks to Standard Time), but I'm going soon.

Glad to be home. Missing them already.