Open letter to my granddaughters--#1

Dear Morgan, Emma, Tegan and Baby Ellie,

Back in October of 1962, when I was fifteen--older than any of you are now or will be for a few years (quite a few in Ellie's case!)--I was riding a school bus to Gary High School when Woodrow Wilson (honest, that was his name!) pulled off the road and got up to read the bus 'evacuation schedule'. A girl named Gwen, two years older than me, went a bit crazy and ran to the front of the bus and tried to push Mr. Wilson out of the way so she could get off. Two Senior boys got her back to her seat and I sat with her the rest of the way to school, patting her arm and telling her it was all okay.

That was called the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the closest our country has come, to my knowledge, to a nuclear war. That day, the Russian ships stopped and turned around and everything was okay.

That morning came back to me this morning--November 9, 2016--54 years later as I tried to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump is the President elect.

I wish I could run to the bus and try to get by Mr. Wilson and run away. I wish I could scream and cry like Gwen did, so long ago. I wish someone would pat my arm and tell me it was all okay.

This morning, when I woke up, it was into a country I don't quite recognize. I've said for over a year that Donald Trump lived in an 'alternate universe'. This morning I woke up into that 'alternate universe'.

I'm writing to you girls so thinking of you can convince me there IS a future worth hoping for while I try to comprehend how I so radically misunderstood the present I was living in until last night. I think best by writing, so I'll be continuing to reach out of my love for you are I figure out how to love a country I no longer quite recognize.

More later, I promise....I promise you and myself....

a little hope in a dark time

Yesterday I had a conversation with a man I deeply respect and admire who is voting for Donald Trump.

I asked him to 'make me a better person' by telling me why he supports Trump. I simply don't talk with Trump supporters much. It is a sign of the division in our country that we are, most of us, so isolated from those who disagree with us. I had a stereotype for Trump voters that this friend in no way fit. He is intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, highly educated and a voice for those in need. How could he vote for Trump, I wondered? So, holding back my opinions, I asked him to tell me.

I was surprised to find that his support for Trump was solely on economic issues. My friend is a fiscal conservative and a social issue moderate. He feels that Trump is a horrible person but trusts he will back fiscally conservative stances. My friend is as disgusted as I am with the tenor of the campaign and even agrees that many of Trump's statements would--if he weren't running against Hillary--prevent him from voting for him.

In the end, my friend said, his vote is as much against Clinton as for Trump.

My hope is that there are many Trump voters that fit my friend's profile rather than the profile of Nationalistic, racist, anti-women, anti-immigration stances I assume people have who will vote for Trump. My friend is not angry or belligerent in any way. In fact, he is a tad embarrassed  it has come down to this choice. He will not 'take up his musket' (as one Trump supporter suggested they do if Hillary wins). He will live with the decision of the people and continue to be the admirable man he has always been.

My fears for November 9th outweigh my fears about November 8th.

My greatest fear is that after the election, the United States will be ungovernable.

Talking with my Trump supporting friend gave me hope that my fears will not be realized--that the US will (though deeply divided) BE the country I hope and pray and believe it truly is, in spite of our deep and painful divisions.

I feel better and more hopeful after my conversation with a friend I deeply disagree with.

Maybe such conversations are what we need now, more than ever.

The walls between us as Americans are of our own making. Only we can take them down.

What is needed is for Americans to draw circles to include others rather than build walls to divide us.

Go vote!

And cast your vote with hope....

asparagus

Most folks in southern West Virginia of my age did not grow up eating asparagus. People like Bern did since her family was Italian and Hungarian.

It's probable that I tasted asparagus for the first time at Bern's house.

I love it now. Grilled is how I like it best. Or roasted. Boiling is low on my list of how to cook asparagus--too limp. Searing it in a frying pan works. But even canned asparagus is remarkable when Bern breads and fries it....

Cold grilled or roasted asparagus is great in salads too.

But what I've never been able to figure out is how quickly it changes the smell of your urine.

Almost instantly, as far as I can tell.

Pretty amazing vegetable.

It's over!!!

No, not the election (God help us, 5 days...) but the drought of World Series wins for the lovable, but over a century hapless Chicago Cubs.

Chicago or Cleveland: a hard choice for someone outside those two cities. I liked the Indians a tad better, but with two such hard-lucked franchises, how could you lose?

Cleveland, at least, had won in my lifetime--though I was only 7 months old. Chicago's woes went back another 40 years.

I left the game in the 8th last night--too sleepy to watch anymore. And lucky for me--if I'd seen the Indians tie what seemed like an impossible game, I would (just to show my baseball love) had stayed up into the wee hours...through the rain delay, to the end.

Bern watched much of the Series with me.

When we were first married, I took her to a Yankee/Red Sox game at Fenway  Park and she gave up on watching ("nothing happens," she said) with the score 0-0 in the bottom of the 9th. We were barely outside when Frank Malzone (yes, that long ago!!!) hit a home run to win the game.

This year, at some point in one of the low scoring games, Bern said, "baseball is a beautiful game".

Baseball--anyone can come to love it!

Good try, Tribe.

Go Cubbies....!

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....