First post

Thought I'd share the first post I ever wrote since I've done 1700 since.

Sitting under the Castor Oil Tree (March 7, 2009)

The character in the Bible I have always been drawn to in Jonah. I identify with his story. Like Jonah, I have experienced being taken where I didn't want to go by God and I've been disgruntled with the way things went. The belly of a big old fish isn't a pleasant means of travel either!

The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineveh, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"

God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a Castor oil tree--the implications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challenges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."

God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Nineveh...along with their cattle and beasts.

And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.

What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineveh (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a PhD in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.

God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcely understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me anxious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.

I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.

Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.

My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).

Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.

When I was in high school, I wrote a regular column for the school newspaper call "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.

So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the Castor oil tree and ponder some more. And, if you wish, share my pondering with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.

Two caveats: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.

I suppose I'll just ask your tolerance.

first time in all these years....

My post a few days ago "Rules vs. Healing" was a big part of my sermon Sunday.

Afterwards, a man who's there most weeks and doesn't receive communion said to me, matter of fact like, "if that sermon was for me, it didn't work."

These are small churches, so I notice if someone doesn't receive communion. And my sermon was about the rules about baptism and communion. But I've told him several times he was welcome and he's thanked me and told me he wouldn't.

I've never asked him 'why?' because I think receiving communion is a very public and very private thing, both at the same time. I just want him to know he's welcome.

But what showed up for me in the first time in 41 years of doing this preaching stuff, that he--and how many others?--have thought I was 'preaching to them'?

I'm never 'preaching to them'. What my preaching is about is 'preaching to me'--saying stuff outloud and in public that I think I need to hear. It has never occurred to me that I was 'preaching AT' anyone but myself.

Lots of people over the years have told me, "I really needed to hear that" and things like that, but I always assumed they just needed to hear what I needed to hear, along with me.

Now I have to ponder--what if people think I'm 'preaching at them'?

I don't like the thought--but I need to ponder it.

I do.

Going to see Ellie

We haven't seen Ellie, our new granddaughter, since the day she was born. She's been through a lot but is doing great right now. We'll be going on Thursday--Bern, early by train, me, later by car.

Bern wants to be there longer and I need to look after the dog.

But I'll go down about 10 and then back to be at a wedding rehearsal (and look after the dog!)

Ellie did 'face time' with her three first cousins yesterday. I'm sure they can't wait to get their hands on the baby!

Tim's parents are coming up from Florida on Friday--it's their first grand-child and I'm surprised they've waited this long. But Mimi and Tim really wanted to get to know Ellie without a lot of people around.

Good for them!

But I'm already smiling that we'll see her on Thursday.....

Something Bela won't eat...and First Cousins....

Our dog, Bela, loves most everything you can eat. We fix him people food--ground beef and turkey with sweet potatoes and greens and rice to mix with his dog food. He loves bananas and apples and bread (with probably isn't good for him) and peanut butter and garlic and green beans. Most everything.

But tonight I discovered something he won't eat--mussels. Bern and I were 'on our own' for dinner and I had mussels and pasta and french bread. We do this every other week or so because we do have different tastes. And when Bern isn't here for dinner, I often have lamb chops. She can't even be in the room when I eat lamb chops or veal. But when she's gone, I do.

I offered him 4 shell pastas and some mussel juice tonight. He took a lick then ran into our bedroom to drink from his water bowl there. When he came back he looked at me like I'd tried to poison him!

Mussels then, is something Bela won't eat. He loves all kinds of pasta, no matter what the sauce, but not pasta with Mussels.


FIRST COUSINS

(rather than another post, I thought I'd just put this here)

Josh and Mimi don't have any first cousins. I'm an only child and neither of Bern's siblings had children so our children had no first cousins.

I had 22--15 on my mother's side and 7 on my father's side--only one of them, Denise, who my Uncle Harvey and Aunt Elise adopted when I was 14 and she was 7--younger than me. So, 21 older first cousins.

I'd have to think more than I'm willing to at this hour to remember how many first cousins Bern has. Less than a dozen I think and many of them near her age.

Josh has made a hobby of collecting 2nd and 3rd cousins--mostly from Bern's family since they are nearer him in age. Mimi hasn't seemed to miss cousins.

I just realized tonight that my 4 granddaughters now have first cousins! Ellie is Morgan, Emma and Tegan's first cousin and they are hers....and Josh's 3 have first cousins from Cathy's brothers' kids.

I was delighted to realize that.

My first cousins meant the world to me growing up. I hope Morgan, Emma and Tegan mean the world to Ellie....And she to them.

First Cousins are something marvelous.....

The best thing about them is, unlike siblings, you don't have to live with them!!!

I don't tweet

I don't 'tweet', never will. First of all I just don't 'get it'--what it's about, how you see them, basic stuff like that.

Second, I don't know the last time I limited what I had to say about something to 144 characters--is that even the number? 12 x 12? How'd they come up with that?

But say I did tweet and I was running for President of the United States--arguably the most powerful and important job in the world--I wouldn't be tweeting at just after 7 a.m. on a Monday about how I couldn't watch Morning Joe and how Joe and Minka are stupid and how I would tell their whole story one day.

Morning Joe, MSNBC's  morning show with former Republican Congressman, Joe Scarborough and Minka (can't spell her last name--her dad was secretary of state once and I couldn't spell his name) as the co-hosts. And they have gotten pretty nasty about Trump lately--Joe called for the Republican Party to 'remove him' (without details on 'how'--which seemed appropriate since he was talking about a man who doesn't have 'any' details about HOW anything).

Donald used to call in most days during the primaries. He 'used' Morning Joe shamelessly for free media coverage and now he's turned on them, viciously. On Twitter....

The Middle East, North Korea, Climate Change, Racial Relations, Infrastructure, Taxes, Health Care, Terrorism, Immigration Reform, NATO, Zika, wage inequality, Opeoid abuse, Crime, Police violence, Social Security, Education....those and about a hundred other things I would gladly hear about and evaluate from a candidate for President of my country.

Even in 144 characters!!!

Nastiness about a talk show duo on a minor network (my favorite, by the way, no surprise there!) is not something I think someone asking to be elected President should be lowering themselves to in any, any circumstance.

Jesus, November 8 can't come soon enough to rid us of all this!!!!

("I'M WITH HER>", if you hadn't figured that out....)

6 years later

I wrote this somewhat corny poem for Bern on our 40h anniversary. We're 16 days from our 46th. I've got to come up with something soon....

A POEM FOR ALL THE YEARS

For most of my memory (albeit random now): you were there.

Over rocky times and wondrous times and times in between,

Riding the roller coaster of my life,

Touching miracles and lost in pain, there is this:

You were there, riding with me.

Years following years, decades piling up like train cars,

Even in the darkness,

Always there was a familiar light.

Rounding every turn, in every nook and cranny, every cul de sac,

Some times even when the wheels left the road or jumped the track,

Whenever, wherever in this journey of so long,

I was never alone.

Through thick and thin, the saying goes, in ebb and flow,

High tides and low tides, ups/downs/inside outs....

Year after year, deserve it or not, fair or foul, brilliant or bitter,

Over 73% of all the days I've lived (I did the math!) whatever else

Under heaven occurred, there is this: the one I love best of all was there.

You were there....

                                     

Rules vs. Healing

Tomorrow's gospel is about Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath and being called on the carpet by the Jewish authorities.

Well, to me, that's just silly.

Of course, if you ask people who know me they'll tell you I have little patience for rules to begin with.

But a rule that would stop a healing, well, that's just crazy in my mind.

Rules ARE rules. But Healings ARE healings. Which would you opt for? If you don't choose a 'healing' over a rule, I'd ask you to ponder it a bit longer....

Here's a story about 'rules' and 'healing' that I'll probably use in my sermon tomorrow: Holly and Dot were a couple in Waterbury I knew. Holly is white and Dot is black so add that to the whole same-sex thing. They would show up at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve along with Dot's mom, who lived with them, every year. Then, one year, after Midnight Mass, they were waiting for me in the church library. They told me they were going to become involved in the church and thanked me for the Eucharist that led them to want to be a part of the parish.

Well, people say things like that all the time. But Holly and Dot really meant it. They became super-involved--Dot's mom too. Both Holly and Dot served on the vestry eventually and did lots of other things for St. John's.

Thing is, Dot and her mother had never been baptized.

The 'rule' in the Episcopal church is 'no baptism'/'no communion'. That's the rule. But Dot and her mother didn't know the rule and I never mentioned it when inviting people to communion. When they found out, somehow, they'd been breaking the 'rule', they came and asked me to baptize them. I was delighted to do so. Dot stopped receiving until their joint baptisms on All Saint's Day. Dot's mom told me she was old enough to want all the communion she could get, so she didn't stop receiving!!!

So, I baptized Dot and her mother and they continued, after that, to receive the communion that brought them to the baptismal font.

I am very 'low church' in liturgy--the only 'manual acts' I do in consecrating the bread and wine is to make the sign of the cross over them. But I am beyond 'high church' in my appreciation of the sacraments. The sacraments, for me, are REAL. Once at a Good Friday service, I was sharing the bread and an American Baptist pastor was sharing the wine. I heard him say to someone, "this represents the Blood of Christ. I stopped and pulled him to the side. "In this place," I told him, "you say this IS the blood of Christ. And he did.

If the font leads to the Table, why can't the Table lead to the Font?

I think I  have my sermon for tomorrow in there somewhere. Rules vs. Healing. Not a choice in my mind--obvious as hell.....