It's December 16 and I just grilled fish

So, I just wrote a long blog about the weather and how I grilled outside on December 16 with recipes and all.

And something happened on this f***ing new computer and it went away.

I spent half an hour trying to restore it and couldn't. And I don't feel, after that half-an-hour, like trying to reconstruct it.

I hate this computer that cost me a hand and a foot.

If I gave you all the reasons why, it would be the longest blog of almost 1600.

I really liked what I wrote and lost. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like trying to reconstruct it. But not tonight. Tonight I'm just P***ed at this computer.

Be well and stay well.

Two trees

So, we have, as we've hd for quite a few years now, two Christmas Trees. Usually we have a spruce and a white pine (I love long needle trees) but when Bern went to get them (she always picks them out) the white pines were pitiful so she got a spruce and a balsam fir. The spruce is too sticky and we'll never get one again.

Plus, she forgot somehow to have the holes bored in them--we have tree stands that need a whole bored--and we spent hours with a drill to get them in a shape to go in the stands.

One of the trees is the 'bird tree' because we have lots and lots of bird ornaments. But it's also the tree for things with wings so lots of angels too. The other tree has everything else.

When you've had 45 Christmas's together, you have more ornaments that one tree can hold, which is why we started having two trees.

The bird tree (or winged tree--several butterflies as well as angels) has multicolored lights. Like my parents' tree did. The other tree has only white lights--like most people today like.

They are both beautiful and if you stand in the doorway between our large dining room and our small living room (since we don't live there much--more in the extended kitchen or the upstairs TV room) you can see them both at the same time.

Pretty cool. But it's hard to think of a New England Christmas when, 10 days before, it was 60 degrees.

The Voice vs. the voices

Tonight is the endless final of the Voice, one of my favorite--if not my favorite--TV shows.

Tonight is also the time of the 9 top GOP candidates debating.

Decision to be made? No, easy.

Singing is better than posturing and lying and trying to be more ridiculous than is possible.

I'll be watching the Voice.

Let the 'voices' of anger and discontent go unheard.

That's where I'll be tonight--listening to lovely singing rather than rangor and defeatism.

(Oh, did you hear, the Dictionary word of the year isn't a word at all--it's a suffix: '-ism'. How great is that?)

Traveling even lighter

So, what if this whole Christian enterprise isn't about 'belief' at all?

What if being a Christian is exactly that--who we 'be' in the world, how we live, not what we 'believe'--whatever that means in the end?

I've come to the conclusion that 'believing stuff' is part of the problem. Isis really, really, really "believes" stuff and what they 'believe' leads them to kill people, most of whom are Muslims like them. If that's what 'believing stuff' leads to, I want no part of it.

Instead of 'being Christian' because of what we 'believe', why don't we 'be Christians' by how we 'BE' in the world?

Compassion, welcome, love, hope, generosity, openness, engagement, trust, healing, feeding, comforting--those are the way to 'be' in the world that would qualify as 'being a Christian'.

So, let's 'be' those things and forget about the 'belief' part.

I'm not at all sure what Jesus 'believed'--but I know how he 'be' in the world. Don't make me type those words again up two paragraphs. Why don't we agree to not worry about 'believing', since that just divides and separates people anyway, and just 'be' Christians.

I will type them again, just to make them real: Compassion, welcome, love, hope, generosity, openness, engagement, trust, healing, feeding, comforting.

I'd be glad to accept additions to that list of how to 'be' in the world--I'm sure there are more--but those are a good start to define 'being a Christian' in this darkling world.

Try it out.

Traveling light...

I just came across this. I wrote it in 2012 for some reason--probably had it emailed to the Folks of the Cluster during Lent. I know it's Advent...believe me, "I Know"...but I liked the pondering in this piece, so I thought I'd share it.

              THE DESERT OF LENT

          There is good news and bad news. And both are the same—we are living in the “post-Christian era”.  American culture used to be synonymous with a culturally agreed upon “Christian culture.” That is no longer true. In fact, the Christian church is marginalized in 2012. We live in a “multi-cultural” society. Christianity is no longer the norm. In fact, the Church is now and will be for some extended time, perhaps forever, a remnant in our society. Once again, as in the first and second centuries of the first millennium, we are a “pilgrim people”, the Church lives in the desert—on the edges of society, as a counter-culture.

          That is the bad news and the good news.

          It is “bad news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture. It is “good news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture.

          The GOOD NEWS and BAD NEWS are exactly the same.

                                                *

          The “desert church” motif is one I appreciate and embrace. The first rule of living in the desert is this: never carry anything you don’t need to survive.  So, here in the desert, the Church has the opportunity to lay down and cast aside much of the flotsam and jetsam that holds us back and pins us down. We have to be a “pilgrim people” who travel light.

          At a clergy conference years ago, one of the speakers talked about “the desert church”—the church of the new millennium and this post-Christian era. It is almost like being back in the days before the Council of Nicaea in 325 C. E. (If you had any doubt that we’re in the “post Christian era” notice how the politically correct—like me!—use “C. E.”, meaning “the Common Era”, for dates rather than the good-old “A. D.”,  anno Domini, meaning, “the year of our Lord.”) After 17 centuries of dominating and forming western culture, the church is back in the market place, competing with other faiths, other philosophies, other spiritual systems. It is an exciting and challenging time for the church. I honestly can’t think of a better time to be a Christian. We must live with urgency and passion. We must “travel light”.

We have a job to do.

Shalom, jim    

weather

Last night I grilled Sockeye Salmon and yellow squash and sweet peppers to add to the salad I made.

It was December 11 and I was out on the deck grilling!

The low temperature for the last few and next few days is what the high temperature usually is in December here in southern New England.

Amazing!

And don't tell me this isn't part of 'climate change'. Last year 2014-15 was one of the snowiest winters for CT ever. This year we could grill for Christmas.

Minor seasonal changes are one thing--this kind of divergence is significant and worth noticing.

Come on Republicans--go outside once in a while and tell me things aren't changing.

Just go outside and see.

Aunt Elsie III

Aunt Elsie had a dog once she had to hand feed. I'm not kidding, this dog would only eat things from Aunt Elsie's hand. It would take her half an hour or so to feed him his breakfast and then his dinner.

Lots to ponder about that. First of all, which creature was this about--Aunt Elsie or the dog? I pretty much believe a dog would eventually eat all on his own if Aunt Elsie hadn't hand fed him. Let him starve for a while (I don't remember his name but can see him in my mind eating piece after piece of dry dog food Aunt Elsie hand fed him) and he'd gladly eat on his own. But she worried because he wasn't eating when they first got him and figured out he would eat if she fed him by hand.

Isn't that called something like a symbiotic relationship--where one organism and another are in a mutually dependent relationship? Like us and our gut bacteria--all in it together and dependent on each other.

On the one hand, I thought Aunt Elsie liked having the dog dependent on her. On the other hand, I thought she believed she was keeping him alive by hand feeding him. The former is a bit distressing. The latter is noble.

It was the only thing about my mother's much younger sister that ever gave me pause--besides the hyper-religiosity, of course.

Elsie was dear. She was rigid but able to learn to be less rigid. She was more loving than judgmental, more compassionate than strict. I always admired her inner compass--how she looked at people and saw their faults, but also and more so, saw their value as more important than their faults.

But hand feeding a dog for over a decade. I never quite figured that out....

And I loved her for doing it.

I miss her. Even though I hardly thought of her for years at a time, I miss her now that she is dead.