Growing up

My post about filling my Dad's car with gas at Uncle Del's Esso station pulled my back to my childhood and where I grew up.

Anawalt, WV, was one square block--or oblong block as it were. Front Street and Back Street (what we called them) were much longer than the two sides that completed the block. Side Street was the shorter of the two with only Flake Martin's Gulf station, a bridge over the Tug Fork River and an empty lot. The fourth street was usually referred to an Jenkinjones Road, since that where it eventually led.

There were some 400 citizens of Anawalt--about 55/45 white to black. And half a mile in most any direction--there were only 3 ways to go--brought you to mostly nothing, though if you kept going you'd come to some other places.

Anawalt was a flat space--maybe the size of two football fields--with the Tug Fork running through it and steep mountains on all sides. The sun rose late and sat early and we heard airplanes every week or two, but seldom saw one.

The first time I drove to the Mid-west, I got really anxious about all the open space. Growing up in Southern West Virginia was an experience of mountains and a small sky.

I've talked to lots of folks who grew up in small towns and some of the experiences are shared. But they tend to get a blank look on their faces when I bring in the mountains. You had to grow up in the mountains to understand what it was like living in hollows and narrow valleys all the time.

Bern grew up 12 miles or so from me. Where she lived was like this:

A mountain--a house--a barely two lane road--a house--a stream and a mountain. Maybe a hundred feet wide for miles and miles around there.

Closed in is one way to think about it. Held in the hollow of a hand is another.

The first is annoying. The second comforting.

I think I felt comfort most of the time down there in Appalachia.

Not since I was 20

This morning I filled my car up with gas for 99 cents a gallon (when did they take the 'cents' symbol off the keyboard? I looked and looked.)

I'm not sure when the last time I did that was. A long time ago. I remember when gas was 37 cents (need that symbol!) at my Uncle Del's Esso station when Exxon was still Esso.

So, I used my Stop and Shop card and got 90@ (pretend that's the 'cents' symbol) a gallon off. But still, just seeing the pump read less than a dollar was like being in a time warp.

I don't understand economics at all. I don't get what makes gas so cheap these days when it was over $3 (still a dollar symbol, thank the Lord!) just a summer or so ago. And I don't understand the remarkable damage low gas prices are doing to the fuel industry--though I hear it's significant.

All I know is filling up my tank today made me feel like a teenager, standing at Uncle Del's Esso station, filling up my father's Ford.

What a trip that was!

Tuesday mornings

Most Tuesday mornings I go over to St. Peter's Episcopal Church, a couple of blocks away to meet with 'the boys (and sometimes, Sandy)'.

There are never more than 7 of us. We have Eucharist and then coffee and talk.

We talk about politics and church (those two mostly), sometimes sports or movies or books, tell lame jokes and rehash stuff over and over.

I give Andy grief about the Creed and tedious liturgical practice and some times we wax almost eloquent about this or that.

We just show up and see what happens.

Everyone needs, it seems to me, a group like Tuesday morning group for me.

Just a place to say whatever you want and listen if you want to and settle the problems of the world and drink a little coffee.

A place with no real expectations or assumptions or requirements.

It can either be mostly meaningless with a magic moment in there or rather gripping with some blank spaces.

Just showing up is enough.

You might find a group like that--a place to just 'be' and be together and see what happens. It works for me. I keep going.....

Let's give Trump a break (did I write that???)

So, Donald Trump was speaking today at Liberty University, deep in Falwell country, and was quoting a passage from Second Corinthians.

II Corinthians  has a passage about the love of Christ giving 'liberty' and Trump was using it to sing the praises of the uber-Christian university named 'Liberty'.

Well, the Donald said, "Two Corinthians says...."

National news that he didn't say "Second Corinthians".

Give me a break. I've said "Two Corinthians" before.

It's incorrect, of course, but is it national news?

I think not, beloved.

In a perfect media world, the press would be following the debates on policy in the primaries. Instead, we get to hear over and over whatever the hell Trump is saying that day.

"Two Corinthians walk into a bar...."

Making Things

I just came across this poem I wrote for the staff of St. John's when I retired. They were so much more talented and wise than me (though not as funny!) I did not deserve them. Mostly I tried to stay out of their way! Like the general riding through town shouting, "Get out of the way! That is my army up there ahead! I am their leader, I must catch up!!!"

I thought I'd share it with you.

MAKING THINGS

Most of the best things require

       only a few ingredients.

Flour, water, yeast, a pinch of salt

      (a pinch of sugar too, I’d say) and time:

       kneading , rising, kneading, rising, kneading,

       baking—you’ve got bread.

Grape juice, sugar, yeast (again) and more time…

        there’s the wine.

A simple reed, plucked from the marsh,

        a sharp knife and breath makes music.

Paper, thin wood, some string, a tail and patience

        makes a kite and flight….

Then there is this—what you have made,

        perhaps not knowing….

                   The Patience you needed to deal with me!

                    The Commitment and Skill you brought to the mix.

                     The Hope and Trust to make it

                               Rise

                              Ferment

                              Sing

                               Fly.

                     And dollop after dollop of Great Good Humor—

                             that most of all.

few ingredients, but enough and more,

to make my life here joyous, wondrous, profound, incredible, magic

                      and so much fun….so much fun….

And I thank you for the feast of life, the song and the flight.

jgb/April 29, 2010

I'd rather be just than popular...

The meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion in Canterbury has 'suspended' the Episcopal Church for 3 years. What that means is vague and not yet nailed down--but it is a result of the Primates bending to the will of the Anglicans in the southern hemisphere who are (for many reasons) opposed to same sex marriage and gay clergy.

The Episcopal Church is the sacrificial lamb to keep the Communion together. The Anglicans of Africa and other parts of the southern hemisphere had threatened to leave the world-wide communion over the actions of the Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada because those two of the Provinces of the Anglican Church are far ahead of the rest of Communion on issues of sexuality.

No need to wring your hands and say 'Lordy, Lordy, what are we to do?"

We will keep on 'doing' what we do in spite of this 'suspension'. We are still part of the Anglican Communion--we'll have voice but no 'vote'. We have been disenfranchised. Second class citizens in the rarefied air of the Anglican Communion.

A majority of Anglicans in the world are in Africa. Majority rules. I get it. I was never enthralled by the Anglican Communion to begin with--and I'd rather be 'just' than popular.

You notice I said 'just' and not 'right'. Let the rest of the world-wide church worry about what's 'right'. A majority of Anglicans believe deeply that they are 'right' and the Episcopal Church is 'wrong' about homo-sexuality. So be it. I'd rather be 'just' than 'right' as well.

The Episcopal Church has extended the sacraments of marriage and ordination to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. That is 'just' and as it should be. No 'second class' Episcopalians.

So, since we refuse to assign 'second class' status to any Episcopalian, I'm more than willing to be 'second class' Anglicans!

The actions of the Primates is understandable given the social mores of the African Anglicans. We may have to lead from the outside for now--fully including all Christians while some of the rest of the Communion still dwells in a place where homosexuality is not only rejected but is illegal.

Pray for the GLBTQ folks in those countries where they are not just excluded, but sometimes persecuted. Pray for the Anglican Communion. Pray for the Episcopal Church and give thanks that we have found the love and courage to be inclusive in the face of the world-wide Church's resistance to justice.

4 Sentences to Wisdom

I'm a big fan of Louise Penny, a Canadian writer, and the protagonist of her 10 or so novels, Chief Inspector Gamache of the Quebec Provincial Police. Penny is no normal mystery writer--her books are full of lyricism, poetry and quirky humor. Her characters, honed over several books, are complex, deep and real.

And Gamache is not your normal cop--he is introspective, deeply philosophical, remarkably well read, fully fluent in English and French, gentle, kind and powerful in all that.

In her first novel of the series, Gamache tells a trainee the four sentences he had been told as a young man by his mentor that led, Gamache believes, to Wisdom.

Here they are:

"I'm sorry."

"I don't know."

"I need help."

"I was wrong."

Eleven words for a path to Wisdom.

What the four sentences share is humility, relationship and openness to the unexpected.

I can't for the life of me conjure  up 11 words--or 111, if it comes to that--that could be more valuable in the pursuit of Wisdom or the path to being profoundly and authentically human.

I offer them to you as a gift, with my love.

And as the African saying goes, "if the gift is not welcome, send it back to me with your love."