I am very good at New Year's Resolutions. I only resolve things that I am absolutely sure I will or will not do in the next year.
Here are 2016's resolutions.
*I will not vote for Donald Trump or any Republican running for President.
*I will not buy a hover board or a new car.
*I will vote for Bernie Sanders in the CT primary and for whoever is the Democratic nominee in November.
*I will not join the NRA.
*Also, I will not buy a gun in 2016.
*I will not lose 25 pounds or shave my beard.
*I will eat an egg every other day.
*I will not drink Scotch.
*I will walk the dog every morning and night.
*I will drink Pinto Grigio a lot.
*I will not travel to Syria or join Isis.
*I will smoke as many cigarettes as I will.
*I will not swim the English Channel.
*I will sleep as late as I want every day but Sunday and Tuesday.
*I will shower when I think I should.
*I will love Bern absolutely--and my children and granddaughters as well.
*I will write on my blog a lot.
*I will not eat raw liver.
*I will not eat cooked liver either. Or quail eggs. Or calf brains. Or the intestines of pigs. Or duck (I just can't eat a duck.)
*I will grill on the deck as much as is possible.
*I will not ever drive 100 miles an hour.
*I will not apply to graduate school in psychology.
So why is it so hard to keep New Year's resolutions....?
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
The sixth day of Christmas (really, this time)
Yesterday's post was a day off--me and linear time again. So, this is the sixth day of Christmas.
My daughter, Mimi, is pregnant--two months so, she already heard a heart beat at a doctor in Chinatown whose English wasn't good. She has an appointment for Jan 4 with the gynecologist that will be with her all the way.
What a shock! I'd already decided Tim and Mimi wouldn't have children. But now they just might.
What a wonder and a joy.
It's early yet, so I'm not making plans for a 4th grandchild--but I would be joyful if it happens.
Tim and Mimi would be great parents.
Keep them in your hearts and pray (if you do that) for them.
Any child from that union would be wondrous.
My daughter, Mimi, is pregnant--two months so, she already heard a heart beat at a doctor in Chinatown whose English wasn't good. She has an appointment for Jan 4 with the gynecologist that will be with her all the way.
What a shock! I'd already decided Tim and Mimi wouldn't have children. But now they just might.
What a wonder and a joy.
It's early yet, so I'm not making plans for a 4th grandchild--but I would be joyful if it happens.
Tim and Mimi would be great parents.
Keep them in your hearts and pray (if you do that) for them.
Any child from that union would be wondrous.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The 6th day of Christmas
Black lives matter.
I was following a 'string' (I think that's what they call them) of comments on an article from the Huffington Post about the unseemly events of police violence toward Black folks.
I grew up in the southernmost county of West Virginia that was, at that time 50% Black. Many of the older Black people called me "Mr. Jimmy"--something I didn't realize was wrong until I was in my late teens. It's just the way it was. And that's the problem--'just the way it was' is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I only went to school with 5 Black students. In 1964-65 Gary District High School (the Black School) sent over three male athletes and two brilliant girl students because the next year (65-66) would be the year all the schools in the county would be merged. They wanted to break down the walls. The two basketball players were the two top scorers on the Gary Team. The football player would have made All-State as a Tackle if he hadn't used his helmet to hit an referee after a bad call and gotten thrown off the team. The two girls finished 4 and 5 in our class, I think. (I was # 1 of course!!!)
I had a friend in college who was Black and went to Gary District while I want to Gary High. His name was Ron Wilkerson. He used to tell his friends, when he introduced me, "Jim and I went to different high schools together."
So, my formative years were in as segregated a world as the deep South.
Then the first parish I served--St. James in Charleston, WV--was a Black congregation. Upper middle class folks, for the most part--highly educated and many of them associated with the historically Black college, West Virginia State. St. Paul's in New Haven was fully integrated with both upper middle class and not so upper middle class Blacks. St. John's in Waterbury had many Blacks and a lot of West Indian folks--Blacks with an accent. Plus a huge Hispanic congregation.
When I first started working in the Cluster, very part time, my bishop asked me what was different for me. And I said, truthfully, "Ian, I'm not used to being around so many white people."
I'm certainly around a lot of white people in Cheshire, CT. And one thing I know is this: when I see someone pulled over by the police on the road in Cheshire, they are more often than not, Black or Brown.
Institutional and Societal Racism is real and here and among us.
To be white in this society is a foot up. To be white and male is to be able to be 'on the top'.
It has to stop.
I wrote a long response to the responses on the article about 'Black Lives Matter' and then realized I had to be on Facebook (God forbid!) to post it.
So, I've written it here.
Until America has an honest and meaningful and transformative conversation that makes a difference about race, we will be hobbling along, not aware of what is wrong with our culture.
The conversation in the political space is horrifying. Nevermind that Black and White isn't center stage, the hostility to immigrants is astonishing.
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave??? I think not.
"Send me your huddled masses hoping to be free???" I think not.
We have lots of work to do to even begin to live up to who we think we are as Americans.
The Season of Light is the time to do that work. The light is coming--little by little--let us make the most of it.
I was following a 'string' (I think that's what they call them) of comments on an article from the Huffington Post about the unseemly events of police violence toward Black folks.
I grew up in the southernmost county of West Virginia that was, at that time 50% Black. Many of the older Black people called me "Mr. Jimmy"--something I didn't realize was wrong until I was in my late teens. It's just the way it was. And that's the problem--'just the way it was' is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I only went to school with 5 Black students. In 1964-65 Gary District High School (the Black School) sent over three male athletes and two brilliant girl students because the next year (65-66) would be the year all the schools in the county would be merged. They wanted to break down the walls. The two basketball players were the two top scorers on the Gary Team. The football player would have made All-State as a Tackle if he hadn't used his helmet to hit an referee after a bad call and gotten thrown off the team. The two girls finished 4 and 5 in our class, I think. (I was # 1 of course!!!)
I had a friend in college who was Black and went to Gary District while I want to Gary High. His name was Ron Wilkerson. He used to tell his friends, when he introduced me, "Jim and I went to different high schools together."
So, my formative years were in as segregated a world as the deep South.
Then the first parish I served--St. James in Charleston, WV--was a Black congregation. Upper middle class folks, for the most part--highly educated and many of them associated with the historically Black college, West Virginia State. St. Paul's in New Haven was fully integrated with both upper middle class and not so upper middle class Blacks. St. John's in Waterbury had many Blacks and a lot of West Indian folks--Blacks with an accent. Plus a huge Hispanic congregation.
When I first started working in the Cluster, very part time, my bishop asked me what was different for me. And I said, truthfully, "Ian, I'm not used to being around so many white people."
I'm certainly around a lot of white people in Cheshire, CT. And one thing I know is this: when I see someone pulled over by the police on the road in Cheshire, they are more often than not, Black or Brown.
Institutional and Societal Racism is real and here and among us.
To be white in this society is a foot up. To be white and male is to be able to be 'on the top'.
It has to stop.
I wrote a long response to the responses on the article about 'Black Lives Matter' and then realized I had to be on Facebook (God forbid!) to post it.
So, I've written it here.
Until America has an honest and meaningful and transformative conversation that makes a difference about race, we will be hobbling along, not aware of what is wrong with our culture.
The conversation in the political space is horrifying. Nevermind that Black and White isn't center stage, the hostility to immigrants is astonishing.
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave??? I think not.
"Send me your huddled masses hoping to be free???" I think not.
We have lots of work to do to even begin to live up to who we think we are as Americans.
The Season of Light is the time to do that work. The light is coming--little by little--let us make the most of it.
Monday, December 28, 2015
The 4th day of Christmas
So, I decided to send Christmas cards to some of my first cousins. I wrote them a letter and copied it and stuffed the envelopes yesterday.
Today I went to the Cheshire post office and the line is out the door with only two Postal Workers dealing with it. So I went to Stop and Shop because I know they have stamps at checkout.
After buying $32 worth of stuff and taking it to my car, I start the engine and realize why I went to Stop and Shop was for stamps.
I have to go back and get them.
What a dope. And not, as you know, for the first time.
(It just occurred to me that I may be publishing my growing dementia...not a good thing in any sense....)
Today I went to the Cheshire post office and the line is out the door with only two Postal Workers dealing with it. So I went to Stop and Shop because I know they have stamps at checkout.
After buying $32 worth of stuff and taking it to my car, I start the engine and realize why I went to Stop and Shop was for stamps.
I have to go back and get them.
What a dope. And not, as you know, for the first time.
(It just occurred to me that I may be publishing my growing dementia...not a good thing in any sense....)
Sunday, December 27, 2015
The third day of Christmas
What is it three French hens?
One of the things that makes me glad I am an Episcopalian (as hum-drum as being that is) is that we really realize Christmas is a 'season' and not a day.
There are twelve days to the Christmas season and then comes Epiphany.
One of the things I talk about in my class "Reading the Gospels side by side" is how there are two Christmas stories we conflate into one. Luke is Mary's story: Gabriel and Elizabeth and the shepherds and angels and stable and all.
Matthew's story is Joseph's story: dream to marry Mary even though she's pregnant, the Magi, dream to go to Egypt, dream to come back.
Epiphany is the coming of the Magi. And if we can be certain about the timing, they saw the star on Christmas night and it took them two years to find the baby. So, the wise men aren't at the creche as we always show them.
When I was Rector of St. John's, we'd put the Magi in the window farthest from the creche on Christmas Eve and move them from window to window until the feast of the Epiphany on January 6.
That still didn't make sense, since they didn't come to the creche but to the home of Mary and Joseph--but, heck, it's the season of Christmas, why be pedantic?
But I have the addresses of some of my first cousins and I'm sending them Christmas cards in the next day or so (since it's still Christmas) with letters. Seeing 6 of them at my Aunt Elsie's funeral--and my son, Josh's, retort that I should 'keep up with family'--made me do it.
Mejol and I are fine. I'd like to reach out to some of the others as well.
Since it's still Christmas and will be for 9 more days.
God, being an Anglican is the best!!!
One of the things that makes me glad I am an Episcopalian (as hum-drum as being that is) is that we really realize Christmas is a 'season' and not a day.
There are twelve days to the Christmas season and then comes Epiphany.
One of the things I talk about in my class "Reading the Gospels side by side" is how there are two Christmas stories we conflate into one. Luke is Mary's story: Gabriel and Elizabeth and the shepherds and angels and stable and all.
Matthew's story is Joseph's story: dream to marry Mary even though she's pregnant, the Magi, dream to go to Egypt, dream to come back.
Epiphany is the coming of the Magi. And if we can be certain about the timing, they saw the star on Christmas night and it took them two years to find the baby. So, the wise men aren't at the creche as we always show them.
When I was Rector of St. John's, we'd put the Magi in the window farthest from the creche on Christmas Eve and move them from window to window until the feast of the Epiphany on January 6.
That still didn't make sense, since they didn't come to the creche but to the home of Mary and Joseph--but, heck, it's the season of Christmas, why be pedantic?
But I have the addresses of some of my first cousins and I'm sending them Christmas cards in the next day or so (since it's still Christmas) with letters. Seeing 6 of them at my Aunt Elsie's funeral--and my son, Josh's, retort that I should 'keep up with family'--made me do it.
Mejol and I are fine. I'd like to reach out to some of the others as well.
Since it's still Christmas and will be for 9 more days.
God, being an Anglican is the best!!!
Saturday, December 26, 2015
One good thing
One good thing about this computer I have so many complaints about--I somehow told it to use my photos for screen savers until it goes completely to sleep.
The first one is always of Mimi in Sidney, Australia, gesturing with you to the bridge and opera house from a field across the water. Then they are random. I must say, I probably stopped taking pictures 8 or 9 years ago--so the ones I can sit mesmerized and watch are from back then.
The twins as babies.
Our dog, Sadie, with Josh and Cathy's dog, Sumi--both dogs RIP.
Baby Bela in the back yard.
Shots of Block Island...Bern and Sadie and me and the water and the land.
Pictures of plants.
Mimi, Josh, Cathy and Bern (a little before Tim was a staple....)
Animals--pets--galore.
Memories.
Sometimes the fact that my computer turns off much sooner than it should is mitigated by 10 minutes or so of watching pictures of the past.
That's one good thing. Memories....
The first one is always of Mimi in Sidney, Australia, gesturing with you to the bridge and opera house from a field across the water. Then they are random. I must say, I probably stopped taking pictures 8 or 9 years ago--so the ones I can sit mesmerized and watch are from back then.
The twins as babies.
Our dog, Sadie, with Josh and Cathy's dog, Sumi--both dogs RIP.
Baby Bela in the back yard.
Shots of Block Island...Bern and Sadie and me and the water and the land.
Pictures of plants.
Mimi, Josh, Cathy and Bern (a little before Tim was a staple....)
Animals--pets--galore.
Memories.
Sometimes the fact that my computer turns off much sooner than it should is mitigated by 10 minutes or so of watching pictures of the past.
That's one good thing. Memories....
Well worth the search...
I'd been wanting to see "Spotlight" since it came out--then "Star Wars" came out (which I saw--wonderful and more like the first movie than any others) and the big cinemas suddenly devoted a dozen screens to it and it disappeared to the smaller theaters.
I finally caught up with it today after being too late for a show in Middletown and not being able to find a theater I thought I knew in Plainville. I saw it at the Cinema 1/4 on Rt 17 in New Haven. Cinema 1/4 is really low budget--nothing like the Cinema Infinities round and about. Only 4 screens playing movies (except for 'Joy') that slipped down to the second tier of cinemas. I went to the early show and they don't start popping the pop corn until people start coming in. They actually 'pop the popcorn' instead of bringing it in in huge plastic bags! The seats don't rock or recline and feel like my desk chair. The previews are for the other three films they are showing. You can hear the muffled sounds of the theater next door through the wall. The bathrooms are a horror! But they had "Spotlight" and I was there for the 11:50 a.m. show. There were 30 people or so for the four films and I may have been the youngest person there! Several walkers and lots of canes....
"Spotlight", if you don't know, is a movie about the Boston Globe's expose' about the abuse of children in the archdiocese of Boston by well over 100 Roman Priests that had intentionally and systematically covered up by the hierarchy of the church, including Cardinal Law. All this happened in the first couple of years of this century and the work was interrupted for months to let the 'spotlight' team of four reports and an editor work on 9/11 stories.
But it all came out. The Globe eventually did 600 articles about the abuse. Cardinal Law resigned. The heavily Roman Catholic population of the Boston area were stunned and horrified. It had been a cover-up of Watergate proportions--but it wasn't burglary but the sexual abuse of over 1000 children that had been hidden.
I love a good newspaper movie and this one goes beyond 'good' to 'great'.
The show, it's director, the screen writers and at least three of the actors--Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keyton and Rachael McAdams should get Oscar attention. It's that good. Really.
Find a way to see it when you can.
It is profoundly troubling but shows the positive side of the media we all seem to criticize--what journalism can do for 'the good'--in a remarkable way. It makes you proud to live in a nation where freedom of the press is part of 'who we are'....
I finally caught up with it today after being too late for a show in Middletown and not being able to find a theater I thought I knew in Plainville. I saw it at the Cinema 1/4 on Rt 17 in New Haven. Cinema 1/4 is really low budget--nothing like the Cinema Infinities round and about. Only 4 screens playing movies (except for 'Joy') that slipped down to the second tier of cinemas. I went to the early show and they don't start popping the pop corn until people start coming in. They actually 'pop the popcorn' instead of bringing it in in huge plastic bags! The seats don't rock or recline and feel like my desk chair. The previews are for the other three films they are showing. You can hear the muffled sounds of the theater next door through the wall. The bathrooms are a horror! But they had "Spotlight" and I was there for the 11:50 a.m. show. There were 30 people or so for the four films and I may have been the youngest person there! Several walkers and lots of canes....
"Spotlight", if you don't know, is a movie about the Boston Globe's expose' about the abuse of children in the archdiocese of Boston by well over 100 Roman Priests that had intentionally and systematically covered up by the hierarchy of the church, including Cardinal Law. All this happened in the first couple of years of this century and the work was interrupted for months to let the 'spotlight' team of four reports and an editor work on 9/11 stories.
But it all came out. The Globe eventually did 600 articles about the abuse. Cardinal Law resigned. The heavily Roman Catholic population of the Boston area were stunned and horrified. It had been a cover-up of Watergate proportions--but it wasn't burglary but the sexual abuse of over 1000 children that had been hidden.
I love a good newspaper movie and this one goes beyond 'good' to 'great'.
The show, it's director, the screen writers and at least three of the actors--Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keyton and Rachael McAdams should get Oscar attention. It's that good. Really.
Find a way to see it when you can.
It is profoundly troubling but shows the positive side of the media we all seem to criticize--what journalism can do for 'the good'--in a remarkable way. It makes you proud to live in a nation where freedom of the press is part of 'who we are'....
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