sometimes meetings are good

The Cluster Council officers--President, Vice-President, Treasurer and me (and Nathan) haven't met for a long time to plan the agenda for the Cluster Council meeting since the Cluster Council hasn't met since sometime last fall.

Things are simply perking along--which is what I like! I am a fan of positive ruts--so there wasn't really anything to meet about.

But the Executive Committee met tonight and the Council will meet next Tuesday.

(For those who find all I've written to be in Sanskrit: I'm the Interim Missioner of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry--three churches who share clergy and practice 'total common ministry', which means clergy are a necessary evil but not necessary for much of the life of the churches in the cluster!)

Meeting tonight was great. We all love each other and sharing a meal is a good thing to do any time and maybe we should meet from time to time (though I really don't like most meetings).

We meet at the Cozy Corner in Durham. The waitress there (only one for 12 tables!) is young and lovely with the slightest of Italian accents who is the greatest waitress I know).

I tell Bern about her. Bern has been a great waitress herself and actually waited tables while she was in New York acting when we were newly married and waited tables and acted while I was in Seminary in Virginia.

The young woman at Cozy Corner is amazing. I walk in after three months or so and she smiles, says hello and says, "ice-water and a Pinot Grigio?"

Amazing! And with people at all 12 tables she takes orders, serves and buses the tables all by herself while noticing (who knows how?) whether anyone needs coffee or wine refills.

A Pearl beyond price she is.

I tip her 35% and include something in cash.

That's how good she is.

Such competence and attention is seldom demonstrated and ever less appreciated.

I think the 5 of us should meet more often just to be served by her.

And, finally, to learn from her what 'service' and 'ministry' is all about and how to recognize it and appreciate it and emulate it.

Waiting tables is a lot like 'ministering'.

Knowing that should humble us 'ministers' enough to do the job and enlighten us enough to know what we do isn't 'special' unless we do it with the same competence and grace as that young waitress.

What a gift her service is to me.

Dear DCCC

I am a yellow-dog Democrat (in case you don't know, that means if the Virgin Mary was running for office as a Republican vs. a Democrat Yellow Dog, I'd vote for the latter....

But the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) is testing my yellow-dog-ness.

I've gotten emails today, ostensibly from the President, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi asking for money for the DCCC since Paul Ryan and the Republicans are raking it in hand over fist and Democrats are sitting on their hands (and wallets) and being shown up like the fools we are.

Finally as email titled, "we're desperate", reminding me I'd heard today from the President, Vice-President and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and if that wasn't enough, they were going to break into my house, eat my homework, kill my dog and disconnect my internet if I didn't sent them at least $5 to show those blow-hard Republicans (though donations in triple digits were preferred!) that we weren't taking their beyond-all-imagining fund-raising for granted.

I sent no money to the three ranking members of my party or to the sniveling little snot who told me the DCCC was 'desperate' and dying without me.

Just a few moments ago I got my 5th (count them, 5) email of the day from the DCCC to tell me they'd just had their BIGGEST FUNDRAISING DAY of the entire election cycle.

Imagine that!

And I hadn't sent a dime.

Good for us.

But there was still 90 minutes left for me to 'chip in' some money.

Hell, I'd donated nothing and it was the BIGGEST FUNDRAISING DAY ever. They should send me $35 and we Democrats would take control of the congress in November.....

Insane but not stupid

Wayne told me a story about a friend of his who went to pick up his mother who was a cook at what we used to call "insane asylums" before we were politically correct.

Wayne's friend was waiting for the shift to be over when he noticed that one of the front wheels of his truck had lost all but one lug nut. If that one came off on the way home his wheel would fall off and he'd wreck with his mother on board.

He was puzzling over his predicament when one of the inmates wandered by.

"Take one nut off each of the other three tires and you'll be fine until you can get somewhere to get new ones," the woman said to Wayne's friend.

Of course it was the perfect solution--each wheel would have three nuts holding them on.

Wayne's friend thanked the woman and started to ask her how she figured that out, but since she was in a mental institution he didn't quite know what to say. Finally, he sputtered out, "how did you think of that?"

The woman rolled her eyes, "I may be insane," she told him, "but I'm not stupid!"

A helpful distinction. Insane but not stupid.

And quite helpful in looking at most of the candidates left in the Republican field for President.

Rubio is obviously smart, if he could just keep spouting the same things over and again.

Cruz is scary smart. Smart and Scary.

And Trump--well, obviously the guy is brilliant to have convinced so many people to vote for him.

So, they prove the point: you can be insane but not stupid.

When people die

One of the most humbling and vital things a priest does happens when people die.

I've often thought I was privileged to be present to the 'moving on' of so many over the years. I long ago lost count at around 500 funerals I've presided over. And the time before with the one moving on and the time after with those left behind. It has been a privilege I do not deserve to be present and hopefully 'available' to people in those times.

And one of the things I give myself credit for is having no 'comforting words' at the time of moving on from this life to whatever comes next. I have no comforting words since I have absolutely no idea at all about 'whatever comes next'. I just don't know. It's that simple.

On an upside I would tell you "there are just some things I leave to God": and one of them is death.

On a more honest moment I would tell you, "I just don't know what happens next. It's that simple."

Kurt Vonnegut--perhaps my favorite writer ever--told a story about an Episcopal priest on Martha's Vineyard, where Vonnegut had a home, who would fall apart when one of the parishioners died. Vonnegut liked that about the priest and said, "there's something comforting about putting a man of God back together".

I don't 'fall apart' when people die. I am, I pray, what is called 'a non-anxious presence'. I am simply there--no answers and all.

This all comes up because Burt died and I'm presiding at his funeral tomorrow. I've known him for somewhere around 5 years (my confusion with linear time and all...) which means I've only known him in his 90's because he was 95 when he died this week.

Burt was in WW II--not many of those left--and, in the time I knew him was a dear, dear man.

I think of myself as 'getting old' and Burt was nearly 30 years older than me. Life, like Time, is relative.

If you asked me on a good day about my own death I'd tell you I'm at least as curious as troubled.

On a bad day, I'd lie and say I'm not afraid of 'that good night'....

Being at Burt's wake this afternoon, I was reminded of the poem below. I wrote it over eight years ago when I was a full-time priest. In those days I was often with 'holy ones'. Burt is the most recent of them all.

God love you, Burt. (And, though I don't 'know' much...I know God loves you.)

I DRIVE HOME

I drive home through pain, through suffering,

through death itself.

I drive home through Cat-scans and blood tests

and X-rays and Pet-scans (whatever they are)

and through consultations of surgeons and oncologists

and even more exotic flora with medical degrees.

I drive home through hospitals and houses

and the wondrous work of hospice nurses

and the confusion of dozens more educated than me.

Dressed in green scrubs and Transfiguration white coats,

they discuss the life or death of people I love.

And they hate, more than anything, to lose the hand

to the greatest Poker Player ever, the one with all the chips.

And, here’s the joke, they always lose in the end—

the River Card turns it all bad and Death wins.

So, while they consult and add artificial poison

to the Poison of Death—shots and pills and IV’s

of poison—I drive home and stop in vacant rooms

and wondrous houses full of memories

and dispense my meager, medieval medicine

of bread and wine and oil.

Sometimes I think…sometimes I think…

I should not drive home at all

since I stop in hospitals and houses to bring my pitiful offering

to those one step, one banana peel beneath their foot,

from meeting the Lover of Souls.

I do not hate Death. I hate dying, but not Death.

But it is often too much for me, stopping on the way home

to press the wafer into their quaking hands;

to lift the tiny, pewter cup of bad port wine to their trembling lips;

and to smear their foreheads with fragrant oil

while mumbling much rehearsed words and wishing them

whole and well and eternal.

I believe in God only around the edges.

But when I drive home, visiting the dying,

I’m the best they’ll get of all that.

And when they hold my hand with tears in their eyes

and thank me so profoundly, so solemnly, with such sweet terror

in their voices, then I know.

Driving home and stopping there is what I’m meant to do.

A little bread, a little wine and some sweet smelling oil

may be—if not enough—just what was missing.

I’m driving home, driving home, stopping to touch the hand of Death.

Perhaps that is all I can do.

I tell myself that, driving home, blinded by pain and tears,

having been with Holy Ones.

8/2007 jgb

Third grade recess

I haven't seen such behavior since third grade as was on display at the Republican Debate last night.

I think Trump, Rubio and Cruz should just mud wrestle for the nomination. They came close last night--taunting and insulting each other like 9 year old brat boys.

John Casic could just shake his head on one end of the five and Ben Carson even once said, "would someone insult ME!" because the three whiny, potty mouthed guys in the middle got to respond to an insult.

Not much of any substance, besides challenges of each others' integrity, got discussed.

He who is loudest, it seems, wins.

For a long while I was amused by all the GOP fussing. Now it has gone beyond the pale. Could Cruz, Rubio and Trump sit down and have a drink together without throwing vodka and tonic in each others' faces? I'm not sure any more.

There is nothing wrong with a spirited debate on issues. Issues, after all, can be looked at from different points of view.

But all I could hear was personal attacks and character assassination. I was actually shocked that no one mentioned the size of one of the other debater's genitals.

Well, in fact, they did--in political code.

What a mess.

How do we raise the level of debate to middle school, at least?

3 hours in hell (well, not really....)

I got to the Department of Motor Vehicles' office in Hamden a few minutes before noon.

I was in Bern's truck, calling her, ready to leave, at a few minutes after 3.

It wasn't 'fun' by any means, but the longer I thought about that 3 hours, the less it seemed like hell.

I started out standing outside in a line that was a couple of hundred people long. A sign when I finally got inside said "THIS BUILDING CANNOT HAVE MORE THAN 200 PEOPLE". Since there were about 125 people sitting in chairs (and the line never got shorter) I'm not sure there was any time when there were 'only 200 people' in the building!

It took about 2 hours and 20 minutes to get my ticket to actually be waited on. That transaction took about a minute. I waited about 40 more minutes until my number came up on the screen. Getting a new registration and new license plates took maybe 3 minutes. So, of the 180+ minutes, only 4 minutes were consumed with my actual business for being there. That's 2.2% if you do the math!

Hurry up and wait!

Sounds like a nightmare, right?

But there were things in that 3 hours that give me faith in human beings. First of all, I didn't see any visible anger, though I was angry and I assume everyone else was two. There wasn't a riot--which, given the 97.8% of the time that was essentially wasted would have been almost righteous--and people were friendly and kind (letting people get out of line to go the the bathroom and come back without complaint).

I should have known this was a marathon when the first thing I saw once I got actually inside the main room was a snack bar. "Who would eat here?" I initially asked myself. Then, two hours in, I realized most of us were missing lunch! And all the kids were getting hungry.

And there were lots of kids--dozens of them, all pre-school--and, wonder of wonders, all but one little girl named Queen, were incredibly well behaved. Astonishing, really. And I saw or heard not one parent yell at or hit a child. That's better than at Stop and Shop.

And who were all these people? Not lawyers, I don't think, though 1/4 were, like me, middle class of the white, black and Hispanic variety. But many were not affluent. I talked to 6 people who work at night and were passing up sleep to come to the DMV.

I never thought I'd say this--but Smart Phones were helpful in keeping the social contract of kindness and patience. About 80% of the folks were looking at their phones while they waited. I had a book and read, standing in line, moving more slowly than a snail.

There were only 2 DMV workers giving out tickets to actually do your business and 15 or so doing that business. So the sitting was shorter than the standing. Not a bad strategy, if you think about it.

There was a level of politeness, patience, 'we're all in this together' that I seldom experience except at church.

I came to deeply respect all those people swimming upstream with me. I felt a connection...even a 'community' with them.

What could have simply been 3 hours of hell, taught me a respect and appreciation of my fellow humans.

What a gift in a time that could have been pure stress. I'm thankful to all those folks and to the DMV workers who were patient and kind as well.

The basement door

I just brought my newly washed clothes up from the basement. I left the door from the living room standing open as I went down and up.

I couldn't (or wouldn't) have done that a few weeks ago. I would have shut the door when I went down and secured it with the little latch on the inside.

Every time, for 16 years, that someone opened the basement door, Luke, our cat would come running. Luke tried every way in the world to get in the basement whenever he could.

Our house was built in 1850, so none of the doors shut flush (and no two windows are exactly the same size--but that's another issue). Over time we installed little latches on a couple of bedroom doors and the basement door to keep Luke on the outside of those doors. He would reach into the opening under the basement door, even if it was, for all intent and purpose, closed, and pull it open and run down.

Because our house is 165 years old, some of the floors in the full basement are still dirt floors--only the front of the basement has concrete floors. Luke loved it down there because it was damp and dank and inviting to moles. Over the years, he brought half a dozen or so moles up to us as gifts. For an indoor cat, he was lethal to small critters.

He'd stay in the basement for over an hour sometimes and come up filthy when we finally called him. No matter where he was, if you called "Lukie! Lukie!" he'd come running. Very dog like, I thought. Bern thought he believed we had a pork chop for him.

I carried down a waist high container of clothes whenever I washed. Holding that with my knees, I used both hands to latch the basement door. I often wondered if someday I'd lose my balance on the narrow stairs and fall.

I don't have to worry about that, now that Luke is dead. The dog has never once came into the basement. I just leave the door standing open.

That's the only good thing about Luke's moving on. I can leave the basement door open when carrying clothes.

Every time I do, though, I sigh when I don't shut the door.