Halloween

I am not a fan of Halloween.

I trace my dislike of the holiday back to childhood when I was, year after year--from ages 6 to 9--put in a hard plastic mask too small to wear my glasses under it and led out into the dark practically blind! My vision, before cataract surgery a dozen years ago, was 300/20--the kind of vision that meant I had to 'feel' for my glasses each morning! Southern West Virginia was a dark place to be nearly blind--and all the running of people around me and the shouts of  "Trick or Treat!" made me a tad manic. Well, a lot manic....

But I don't begrudge other folks their excitement and joy on this day. We live in a quiet neighborhood and mostly only get neighbor kids trick or treating. But I like to see their pre-sugar excitement and am glad I don't have to experience their post-sugar moods....

Besides, it is "All Hallows Eve"--the night before my favorite Holy Day. And the thoughts of the dead entering this 'thin time' when the barriers between this world and the next is loosed, is a joy to me.

So, dress up and go scare some folks!

Just don't eat all the candy at one sitting....

Next Tuesday

Next Tuesday is the Feast of All Saints. It is my very favorite holy day. At St. John's in Waterbury, during my 21 years serving as Rector, we developed some remarkable All Saints worship.

Here's a sermon from 2007 that might give you a flavor of all that.

ALL SAINTS 2007

          This is a joyous, wondrous, exciting, solemn and holy day.

          This is OUR Feast Day—the Feast of All Saints.

          And what we celebrate this day is like circles within circles within circles—circles never ending, swirling through eternity and into the very heart of God.

          Someone very wise once said, “Christ does not draw lines to keep people out—Christ draws circles to welcome people in….”

          The first circle, the most obvious one—the one that will take most of the time today—is baptism. Today we will welcome into the Body of Christ a   new member. Grant will be washed in the waters of God and sealed with oil as “marked as Christ’s own forever”.

          This astonishing circle encloses Grant and his family into the heart of God. God loves Grant no less right now than God will love him after the water is poured and the oil is smeared. God’s love is not bound by a little water and less oil and the words we will say. But today he will be welcomed “publicly” into the Church and proclaimed out loud as an esssential part of the Body of Christ.

          That matters. That truly matters.

          A second circle we will draw today—a second way God welcomes people “in”—is that you will be invited to receive the laying-on-of-hands and prayers for healing. God’s children are invited to seek ‘wholeness’ in the midst of the ‘brokenness’ of our world and lives. God doesn’t call us to be “good”—we are called to be “whole” and “well”—and the prayers for healing are instruments of that completeness.

          That matters. That truly matters.

          A third circle drawn on this, our Feast Day, our celebration that we are the ‘saints of God’, is that we will read the names of the members of this parish who have died since the last All Saints day, a year ago.

          You see, in the wondrous love of God, those who have died are still part of the Communion of Saints. Those we love but see no more are separate from us now but united with us in our celebration and our feast. This day holds up to God those who have died, those who journey on in this life and those yet unborn. This is a ‘thin time’ and we can draw very near to our loved ones separated by death and celebrate our connection with them.

          That’s another circle. You all have been given a candle and you are invited to light it on your way to communion and place it in some containers that aren’t out here yet. That candle is meant to be a way for you to remember those you love who have died. They are with us in the flames as we approach the altar. They are part of our celebration. This is the Feast of ALL Saints, even those who have died.

          And there, on the table in front of the bowl where we will baptize today, are the cremains—the ashes—of some of the children of God. They died and their remains were signed over to a hospital and they were cremated by a funeral home and on this day—this wondrous and solemn day—we will bury those ashes out in the Close and give our brothers and sisters a resting place for their ashes though they already rest in the heart of God.

          Some people find it a bit troubling and ironic that we baptize the living next to the remains of the dead on this day. But it is just another of the circles God draws to include us all—to remind us that in the heart of God the living and the dead are all joined together. These are thin and wondrous times. No one is left out.

          Two final circles include us and welcome us home. First, there is the bread and the wine we share—which is, I promise you, the very Body and Blood of Christ. God needs a Body in this world. God needs hands and feet and lips to speak and ears to hear—and we are it! Listen to me—WE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST IN THIS WORLD. If we don’t do that—if we don’t carry forth when we are dismissed into the world the hospitality and compassion and love and grace and forgiveness and wonder of God—who will?

          It’s part of the deal. You are marked as Christ’s own forever and you are expected to be Christ to this suffering world we live in. You are the Light of the darkling world. You are the salt of the earth. And if you don’t do it, who will?

         

          Today’s liturgy is like a kaleidoscope of circles within circles within circles. And we are enclosed by those many circles. And we are the Saints of God—we are the Body of Christ—we are God bearers into the world.

          This is our day. Let us rejoice and be glad.  

The passage of time

Friday will be a month since Dr. Shai reattached my quad muscle to my knee. I still have over two weeks to continue wearing my ankle to thigh leg immobilizing brace. All told, over 6 weeks on crutches and being pretty helpless to do many things for myself. (I thank God every moment for Bern's help....)

But we all know (I think) that time and space are relative. A minute at one time seems shorter or longer than a minute at another time. (I'm not sure that's what Albert E. meant, but it seems accurate!)

Sometimes, as I'm sure you'll agree, 'time flies...' and at other times it drags along like a wounded animal.

This morning I watched a movie on HBO called Me and Earl and a Dying Girl. I'm sure it was 90+ minutes long, but it was over in a nonce! Getting from our TV room to the bathroom (some 20 feet or less) on the other hand, takes me what seems like a quarter of an hour.

Same with this whole recovery: that it's been a month seems impossible. It couldn't be that long! But some of the days have seemed interminable.

What I've been consciously working on is being appreciative of each moment--the 'moving though amber' ones as well as those that flit away.

Each moment holds something precious (or challenging) it seems to me. The precious and the challenging each deserve to be acknowledged, experienced fully, savored.

At least it seems that way to me in my immobile, philosophical mood....

Something to ponder about the passage of time....

Two weeks to go

Two weeks from tomorrow night and it will mercifully be over!

Since I've been laid up I've watched much to much TV--mostly CNN and MSNBC. I love politics but several hours a day of it is driving me up the wall.

I can't wait for it to be over.

The other thing about day-time TV is that the commercials on all stations seem synchronized to be at the same time! Trump should talk about 'rigged commercial breaks" instead of 'rigged elections'....

I have found a station with lots of Burn Notice each day--I love Michael and Same and Fiona!

Seinfeld has aged a lot better than Friends. I guess a show about 'nothing' endures since 'nothing' stays about the same over decades.

Too much TV makes you a little loopy, it seems to me....

out to church again

I won't be able to drive for another 3 or more weeks, but I'm getting a ride tomorrow to Emmanuel in Killingworth to preach and celebrate!

It will be so great to be in church again....

I haven't been to Eucharist since Sept.28---perhaps the longest time since the 1970's that I haven't been a part of a worshiping community.

I am, for  the most part, very left-wing and  unconventional about churchy things. But the sacrament is dear and real to me.

I really long for tomorrow and the Body and Blood of Christ....

Being an adult

I'm still braced from ankle to thigh on my right leg, yet I'm going to Greenwich tomorrow with my friend to an all day Clergy 'safe-church' event.

I was going to Washington, CT on Oct. 1, but my surgery was Sept 28, so that wasn't possible. Greenwich is the last of a series of required 'safe church' sessions for clergy in CT. Failure to attend is considered reason to be suspended from active ministry.

I realize I've spent much of my life behaving as if 'the rules' didn't really apply to me. And though I'm sure my surgeon wouldn't want me out from 7 am to 7 pm, sitting up all day, I didn't ask him for a 'note to the teacher'. I'm going, like an adult, in spite of how tiring and uncomfortable it might be.

I realize this is nothing more than most people would do, but I've not always done what 'most people would do'. It's disingenuous, I know, to be sort of 'tooting my own horn' for doing the adult thing.

But I've not always done that, by a long shot.

So let me pat myself on the back this one time....

When Ellie smiles...

Mimi and Tim (my daughter and son-in-law) visited this weekend with baby Ellie (my fourth granddaughter) who is just over two months old.

I'm still hobbling around on crutches and wasn't a very good host, but Bern was a fabulous host--and an even more fabulous grandmother!

Ellie is (and I know I'm prejudiced!) a remarkable little baby. Tim is 41 and Mimi is 38, so they are much more mature than Bern and I were at 25 and 28 when Josh was born and three years after that when Mimi came along. They are so calm and loving that Ellie is calm and engaging herself.

She sat in a little holder that rocked much of the time they were here. She looks around and seems to be thinking thoughts beyond her 9 week old brain and smiles a lot. And when she smiles--when Ellie smiles--we all melt....

We hadn't seen her for a month and she has gained lots of weight and even more 'adorableness' in that time.

It was a wonderful two days. I love them so. And I love everything about Ellie, but when she smiles I just dissolve into wonder....