school starts next Monday...for me...

Kids in Connecticut are back in school. Since there are 7 kids living as our next door or next-next door neighbors, the school bus picks them up and drops them off in front of our driveway. That gives Bela an excuse to bark for 5 minutes or so, just as he does for the mail carrier. I wish he had a switch that would turn off his bark, but he doesn't. I'm sure he thinks he's doing his job--alerting us to activity near the house.

My school starts next Monday. I teach at the Osher Life-long Learning Institute (OLLI) at the UConn branch in Waterbury. This term I'm doing a 5 week session on "Reading the Gospels Side-by-Side". One of the things we do that annoys me no end is 'conflate' the 4 very different stories of Jesus into one narrative. So, I teach this course, making sure people realize Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are distinct and different.

I'll jump to the end and share with you what I share to end the class.

LOOKING FOR JESUS

          Most of us are looking for Jesus.

          One place we could expect to find Jesus is in the Four Gospels. So we turn to them. If we read them critically and carefully, what we discover is not Jesus but Four distinct Jesus'.

          When confronted with that reality, there are two obvious reactions. Either I (I'll speak only for myself here and invite you to ponder your reaction)...either I despair and give up my search OR I walk the road with each of the Gospel writer's Jesus' and glean what I can from the four of them.

          When I am doubtful, it is Mark's Jesus I want to walk beside because he too struggled with doubt. He spends time with the wild beasts. He can't seem to understand what is being asked of him by God. He agonizes in the Garden. He feels abandoned on the cross. Mark's Jesus is a good companion in times of doubt.

          When I am confused, it is Matthew's Jesus I turn to. Matthew's Jesus is jerked away from his home to a foreign land. His earthly father relies on dreams and visions of angels in his confusion. The Magi visit him and give him great gifts. Matthew's Jesus knows that traditions and boundaries and scripture can help in times of confusion. Matthew's Jesus knows right from wrong, truth from Falsehood, the sheep from the goats. Matthew's Jesus stands on the mountain top and speaks wisdom to those who are in darkness and confusion. The Jesus of Matthew has correctives to my confusion.

          John's Jesus is my traveling companion when things are going well and I am feeling confident. John's Jesus is certain and resolute and convinced of his purpose and his way. John's Jesus has an ego to match my own. Nothing much bothers him. His eyes are on the prize. His feet are firmly on the ground even as his soul soars to heavenly places. In 'good times' John's Jesus is the ideal companion. He can validate my confidence, inspire me to even greater things, teach me that I am loved and meant to love others. He breathes on me and wishes me “Shalom”, which means fullness and health and hopefulness. There is nothing like the Jesus of John when God's in his heaven and all is right with the world. Walking the road with him just reaffirms my optimism and hopefulness and sense of well-being.

          But when I suffer, when  I am in pain, only Luke's Jesus will do. He will walk with me to Emmaus and calm my fears and set my heart of fire. The breathless, timeless songs and poetry of Luke soothe me, heal me. Luke's Jesus is the healer, the non-anxious presence, the font of all Compassion. Luke's Jesus walks with those in distress, in pain, in need. Luke's Jesus is constantly standing with the marginalized and outcasts. Luke's Jesus teaches us on the same level where we stand. He is always on my level, near me, suffering with me, forgiving me, holding me near. Luke's Jesus walks the road of our world's suffering. He knows me through and through. He bears my burden. He lightens my load. He touches me and makes me whole.

          Seeking Jesus and finding four is 'good news'. Four companions on the Way to the Lover of souls, four brothers with various gifts for various needs, four faces of God, four revelations of the Almighty.

          A hymn from my childhood says, “What a friend we have in Jesus....” It is wondrous and precious to have a friend. But to have four, all of whom love me and care for me and walk my road with me. What could be better than that???

46 (actually 52) and counting

I was 17 and Bern was 14 when we met in Latin class. I was thinking of going to Shimer College in Chicago and they wanted a year of language. Latin was the only language taught in my high school, so I signed up. I didn't go to Shimer, but I met Bern, a Freshman while I was a Senior.

A month or two later, we kissed under the bleachers at a Gary High School football game. I was hooked, really. Six years later we were married.

Labor Day (September 5th) is our 46th anniversary. I don't usually share things I write for Bern, but thought I would share the poem I wrote her for this anniversary.

The Poem I Can’t Write

For days now I’ve been trying

to write a poem that just won’t come.

It’s for our anniversary and about my love,

so it should flow out without any effort,

since I love you so very much.

But the poem is hiding from me,

peeking at me from around the corner,

avoiding me at all cost, it seems.

Page after page I throw away

(or, more accurately, erase from my computer).

Forty-six years of marriage (and years before that)

of loving you—the words should pour out,

full of passion and wonder and amazement.

This time I realized something,

my love for you isn’t something ‘out there’,

that I can examine, reflect on, put into words.

That love is in those letters in the attic.

That love has altered, changed, become incarnate.

The love I feel for you is, quite simply, me.

I am my love for you. It is my very ‘being’

That cannot be captured and enclosed in words.

That is ‘who I am’. So, I am your poem.

This poem is ‘me’, my very being, the “I” I call myself.

I am yours. Your anniversary poem….

September 5, 2016

stereotype

I was having lunch today with Bryan and Nathan, the two priests who work with me in the Middlesex Cluster ministry, and telling them a story about how Armando Gonzalez, who was the priest for the Hispanic congregation at St. John's in Waterbury, had told me how wrong the 'stereotypes' of Hispanics were. Except I couldn't remember the word "stereotype" and it drove me crazy, thinking my mind was slipping away from me....

(Gracefully, no matter how I explained it: "what people say about a racial group that is generally accepted but vague and untrue", stuff like that, neither Bryan, a few years my junior, or Nathan, a couple of decades younger, couldn't come up with 'stereotype' either. Made me feel a tad better that they didn't have the word on the tip of their tongue either.)

My father had a form of dementia in his later life and I am constantly worried about it coming to me though I am 12 years younger than when his appeared.

I constantly remind myself that not knowing where my car keys are isn't a problem (though I always know exactly where they are) it's when you don't know what a car key if 'for' that the problems begin.

Names are a nightmare for me. But, when I'm calm and collected, I realize they were a nightmare for me when I was 25!

I asked my friend, Brendan, who is my age, "do you have trouble remembering names?"

He responded, "not me, George...."

What prompted my memory at 6:30 p.m. to remember "stereotype" was while I was reading a novel on the deck, I came across the term "deja vu". How odd that would be the trigger to remember "stereotype". So, when I can't remember a word from now on, I'm going to say, in my head, over and over, "deja vu". Maybe it's magic....We'll see.

Plus, the end of the story of Armando and Hispanic stereotypes. After he'd told me a dozen stereotypes about Latinos that had no basis (and I'm convinced he was correct) I said, "what about the thing about time--like showing up at the appointed hour?"

He smiled. "Oh, that's true", he said, "but only gringos worry about that in all the world.

That too, I know, is true....

Lee's sermon

I mentioned Lee's death a couple of posts ago. His funeral was Saturday. It took an hour and 45 minutes! Baptists have funerals that long, not Episcopalians!

It was the music. Lee, the musician and all his family musicians and musicians he knew...The music was glorious and plenteous.

I thought, so you could know Lee better, I'd share my homily from his funeral.

Lee’s Sermon (September 3, 2016) St. Paul’s/St. James, New Haven

          I chose the gospel today—the discussion between Thomas and Jesus about where Jesus is going and how the disciples know where he is going—because of all the Biblical characters, Lee reminded me most of Thomas. Lee, like Thomas, would be the one raising his hand and saying, “Hold on, Jesus! We don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

          Lee was a Thomas kind of guy….

          A sense of urgency.

          That’s what I remember from my first ever encounter with Lee Howard—a sense of urgency.

          Since he was a Southerner, I had expected him to be slow moving, slow talking, laid back. But not Lee….

          Whenever I was in his presence, I felt a ‘buzz’, a kinetic energy. Eating lunch with him in his apartment, which I often did, I would feel like I was in a bubble while Lee was in motion, talking non-stop, having more to say than time to say it, bringing out plates and glasses, food and drink from the jumble of his living space. Urgency.

          Until the last years of his life, when thoughts and speech and movement slowed down on him—until then there was this…”urgency” about him.

          But now that I think about it, maybe the right word is “passion”. That’s more accurate I think. My experience of Lee was on his ‘passion’—for music, for people, for ideas, for life.

          That sounds right. The Lee Howard I knew was a person of ‘passion’.

          I would watch him work with the choir. It was like he was juggling one more ball than he should have been but he kept them all going through his strength of will.

          I know he was passionate about music…no question there.

          And he was also passionate about people—about his family, his children, his friends, his fellow musicians, his ex-wife.

          In my 41 years of ordained ministry I’ve seen lots of divorces. And in my experience, one of the things involved in the divorce agreement—besides money and property—was ‘the church’.

          In every divorce I’ve known about, one of the couple got “the church”.

          Not so for Lee and Hanne.

          I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. How both of them held on to St. Paul’s. I don’t imagine I’ll ever figure it out, but it gives me hope.

          Lee was passionate about his children. Helen, Lee Jay and John came up in most every conversation we ever had—even if we were supposedly talking about the music for Lent!

          It has been a couple of decades or more since I had a close relationship with Lee. We were on different journeys. But we did share the road for over 5 years. And when I look back on that time, what I remember about Lee was his ‘passion’.

          Lee’s journey is over now. But I know his passion lives on in those he loved. And his passion lives on in the music we hear this day, played in his honor.

          The words of the Burial Office and the Eucharist are full of hope and life and possibility. I give thanks for that. And the priest, at a funeral, wears white—the color of Easter, not the color of mourning. We Christians are called to believe that Death is not ‘the last word’. Death is the ‘penultimate’ word (I believe Lee would appreciate having “penultimate” being part of his funeral sermon! He had a passion for words). The LAST WORD we say today in prayer and music and liturgy is HOPE and PROMISE and LIFE.

          St. Francis of Assisi once wrote, “Death is not a door that closes, but a door that opens and we walk in all new”.

          That is our hope and prayer for Lee this day. Even though Death seems to be a closed door that keeps us from those we love—our prayer and hope for Lee is that the door of Death opened and he walked in ‘all new’ into the presence of the One who loved him best of all. All new. All new. All new and full of passion. (I'm sure he and God will have some words about the heavenly choir....)

Amen.

         

Things on the refrigerator

Time was, growing up in southern West Virginia, I would have titled this post "Things on the Frigidaire". That's what I called a 'refrigerator' until I went to college and learned there were other brands of refrigerators. Amazing, stuff like that.

I went downstairs a few minutes to put a photo I printed out on my computer of Tim McCarthy and his daughter Ellie, asleep on his chest. You can see leaves outside the window and lots of shadows since I don't have a color printer. And the look on Tim's face, my son-in-law's face, the father of my fourth granddaughter's face, is one of pure joy an wonder.

(I like black and white photo's better than color ones. I should call the refrigerator a Frigidaire! I have become one of those people I used to hate who liked 'the old way' better. Just not Trump. Please. Just not Trump!)

And Bern, watching me do that--put Tim and Ellie on the fridge with a magnet, said, "you know I'm going to move all those soon. I hate things on the refrigerator."

Those things, are other pictures: one of Ellie in her car seat to finally leave NYU hospital and one with her on Mimi's shoulder, soon after birth with a look on Mimi's face that could be called 'beatific' without doing damage to that word.

That moment was as close as Bern and I come to a fight these days.

I was about to defend pictures of our daughter and son-in-law and granddaughter. But I realized it wasn't about that at all.

I simply 'don't mind' stuff on the refrigerator and Bern doesn't like--hates--stuff on the refrigerator. Which is why our refrigerator hasn't had stuff on it with magnets until I put up those three pictures. It's not about Mimi, Tim and Ellie's pictures--Bern loves that as much as I do, if not more. It's about 'hating' stuff on the refrigerator for her versus my 'not minding' stuff on the refrigerator.

Here's a guide to relationships. If it is a question of what one person doesn't mind versus what the other person hates--"hates" outweighs "doesn't mind" every time.

The two photos have been on the refrigerator for almost a month before the one I just put there. "Nothing" has been on the refrigerator that long before. Bern likes the photos as much as I do. She just likes a clean refrigerator front.

There are photos of Emma and Morgan with baby Tegan on the side of the refrigerator that faces the counter. They've been there for years. And a picture of Luke, our late Cat, in my suitcase wanting to go with me. Those photos are ok for Bern, they aren't on the front of the refrigerator.

There was a time in our marriage we might have gotten into an argument about all this. But no more.

Why argue about the front of a refrigerator? What sense would that make? The photos will be somewhere we see them and the refrigerator front will be clear and our marriage of 46 years come Monday will go on and everything is fine.

Sometimes people think they're fighting about something that isn't what they're fighting about at all.

And most of the time, the fight never needed to happen.

Something to ponder about the fights you have....

Rest in Peace, Lee

Lee Howard was the organist and choir director at St. Paul's in New Haven when I arrived there in 1980 (Lordy, Lordy, how long ago!)

Lee died several months ago and in this day of people being scattered and delayed funerals, he's being memorialized tomorrow. I'll be the celebrant and preacher, at St. Paul's/St. James as it now is, having merged since I was there. I've been back a few times for funerals, but it will feel a little odd, I think, to celebrate there after all these years (31, since I left there in 1985).

Lee was a guy from North Carolina who never lost his accent in 50 years in New England.

Since I don't know zilch about music, I'm not sure how good a musician he was--but he was passionate and unlike most people from the south, fast moving and fast talking--kinetic, you might say.

There have been a host of priests at St. Paul's since I was there, so I'm not sure why the family asked me to do the service. Perhaps it's because we've stayed in touch with Hanna Howard (a German who never lost her accent) who was divorced from Lee before I met them. But unlike a lot of divorces I've known over the years, neither of them 'got the church' in the settlement. Hanna even sang in the choir under Lee's direction. Sort of Amazing to me.

Hanna comes to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner. She is a wonderful musician herself--a pianist who developed macular degeneration a decade ago (she's 90 now) and can no longer read music. But she plays wonderfully and has little concerts for people in her apartment from time to time.

I've done the funerals of colleagues before--six priests so far. And it's a little spooky. Granted Lee was 22 years older than me, but the space is narrowing....

We'll see him off tomorrow.

OK, here's where I am today about 'belief'

I chose to say "where I am today" since I'm always in flux. Nothing much seems certain to me any more about 'believing'.

Maybe it was different before--earlier, when I was younger. Maybe I had some 'certainty' back then, but I don't think so.

I think I've always been vague about 'belief'. But this I know and know fare well, the older I get the vaguer I get about what is certain and 'true'.

I don't 'believe' much at all--and here I am, a 69 year old white man who is an Episcopal priest.

People generally expect me to 'believe' stuff and be 'certain' about things.

In my experience, they are relieved when I don't and am not.

It validates where they are, day  to day that their priest isn't 'certain' about what he 'believes'.

BLACK and WHITE stuff is pretty much lost on me. The world I live in and experience and ponder about has almost infinite shades of gray.

Theology, back in the Middle Ages, was considered "the Queen of the Sciences". You can look it up or Google it if you wish. Theology was up there with mathematics in those years because Theology was about 'certainty'--the literal interpretation of Scripture, the "Truth" of  'belief'.

What a joke.

Theology, to me, is interesting because there IS NO CERTAINTY. Theology, to me, is engaging and worthy of pondering precisely because it is so 'mysterious'.

Mathematics deals with Truth. Theology deals with uncertainty and confusion and wonder and mystery.

That's what I like--uncertainty, confusion, wonder and mystery.

I don't have to give a fig about TRUTH. I accept the facts of life. Facts are what they are and are helpful in negotiating the intricacies of life.

Theology is about what's left after we know the facts.

Theology is about what is unknown, beyond 'knowing', mysterious, dangerous, lost in shadows, daring us to follow.

"Belief" is about all that--not "TRUTH" or "certainty" or anything hard and real.

So, I wander out in the arena of uncertainty and mystery and wonder. That's where 'belief' and 'faith'
live for me.

So, when you ask me: "what do you believe?" don't expect Truth or Certainty or Facts. What I believe is swirling in the unknown, the dangerous, the mysterious, the never-to-be-understood.

Which is where I feel most comfortable, most free, most 'at home' and grounded. Really.