This post is X rated (read at you're own risk!!!!)

I was talking to someone the other day about being 70 (which unfortunately, I am).

Well, not 'unfortunately' as I ponder it. Better being 70 than dying before then....

Anyway, he said there are three unbreakable rules about being this age for a male.

1) Never waste an erection.

2) Never get in a car without peeing first.

3) Never imagine it's just a fart you feel.

Stuff below the waist takes on new meaning for a man of a certain age.

The brain functioning may still be fine at 70, but stuff "down there" is getting iffy....

How true. How true.

some people read this

I get stats on what people are reading on my blog and inexplicably four people looked at this yesterday from four years ago.

Thought I'd share it again.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Jimmy Bradley--FBI agent

OK, so I found my ID card from first grade from the Anawalt City Schools. About 480 people lived in Anawalt, so it was hardly a 'city'. But students were drawn from other areas so there were about 20 kids in each of the classes.

I have a crew cut in the picture (imagine me with a crew cut!) and a tee shirt that is so busy and silly my parents should have been ashamed to dress me in it for a school picture. And my eyes look weirdly out of focus because, the truth be known, I couldn't see worth a damn. I had 250/20 vision in one eye and 270/20 vision in the other. I don't remember which was which, but it didn't matter, in some way I was almost legally blind and no one knew until I went to school and couldn't see the black board (and they were 'black' back then) and I thought I wasn't cut out for school and my parents took me to an optometrist who was amazed I hadn't walked in front of a car or something--though there weren't that many cars in Anawalt back then. (The same thing happened to our son, Josh, though Bern {who was blind as me as a child} and I figured out he couldn't see shit and had him tested by the time he was five.)

It's from 1953-54, those wondrous Eisenhower years when not much happened to threaten us and the Interstates were beginning to be built. God bless Ike, wherever he is. He's part of that small cadre of Republicans, mostly from his era, that I have warm feelings about. Everitt Dirkson, Margaret Chase Smith, Ed Brooke, folks like that. Good folks. God bless them all.

I wrote my name on the name line in first grade cursive as 'Jimmy Bradley' though the 'l-e-y' ran over onto my picture. On the 'Issued by" line (about as mysterious a term as calling Anawalt a 'city') I wrote in capital letters ".F.B.I." with that odd period before the F.

I stare at that picture and that torturous cursive writing (though it is at least as good as my handwriting today thought I never write in cursive--Zaner/Blosser you were never kind to me!) and wonder how I was ever that young. And how I got so old.

I'm 66 years old. I've outlived my mother by 3 years though I still have 17 to go to catch my father. I have a son who is 38 and a daughter who is 35. I have three granddaughters 7, 7 and 4: what the hell happened between that budding FBI agent and me today.

Maybe I should get a crew cut--which would be solid white--and some gel and try to get in touch with my FBI inner child.

Who knew I'd live this long. Oh, I'm glad I have and look forward to catching and passing my father. Seeing those girls graduate from college or get married or even have me a great-grand-child. I feel about 37, I think. But when I look in the mirror I simply am astonished.

"Who is this old guy in my body?" I wonder.

Yet I love who I am right now. I wouldn't trade it for any of the years before.

But I sit and ponder all the 'me's' I've been and know I love the 'me' I am right now better than any of the previous 'me's'.

That's good, right?

I think so. And I rejoice every day I wake up into the 'me' I am right now.....

Hope you do as well.....

Sleeping in

I slept in this morning, Wednesday, until 11 a.m. I often sleep until 9 or 9:30 since I retired. I heard a discussion of sleep on NPR the other day and I am a champ--9 hours or more.

But last night our Puli, Bela, was having problems. He hadn't had an afternoon poop, for one thing. because he hates the rain. Another thing is Bern found some shredded aluminum wraps from chocolates on the floor of the kitchen. We have no idea how he got to them unless some fell off the table.

He was endlessly restless and anxious all night. Bern even went about midnight to sleep in another room. I stayed up until 3 am or so because he wouldn't go to sleep. Then at 6:30 Bern fed him and took him out and he came back to bed until 11.

God, we love this awful dog! He is awful. He only trusts about 20 people on the face of the earth. He would bite you if you came to our front door. Our hospitality had been limited for 12 years by his protectiveness.

And we love him so, so, so much.

Bern, I think, loves him because he's bad. I love him because I know few people could. That may be, under scrutiny, the same love.

He's been fine today, so no Vet intervention. He's 12, upper edge of life span for a Puli. But deeply, deeply loved ( I think I told you that already).

The day seemed sort of short. Bela's afternoon walk came quickly after lunch with a dear friend. And his evening pee just happened and it's bed time and I've only been awake 11 and a half hours!

But last night was so full of drama, I'm ready for bed. And he is too, I'm sure.

Lordy, Lordy, we love this dog....

Gray daze

I know there's been some sun in there recently, but the last couple of weeks in Connecticut have been a haze of gray and mist and fog and drizzle and rain (and if the weather reports are right, maybe even thunder storms tonight.....)

The average annual rainfall in cities around Connecticut is between 47 and 54 inches, less inland and more on the coast. I just looked up the average rainfall in Seattle, Washington--known far and wide for rain--and it is 37.9 inches. It just rains on more days out there than back here. And this year they are already above the average annual amount.

But the truth is this: on average more rain falls on me than on the home of Coffee.

I don't resent the rain. Bern's yard is beyond belief with more flowers than I ever remember in 28 years here! But I do long for the sun. I long for it greatly.

Easter II

The second Sunday of Easter sometimes (every 3 years) brings the reading of Thomas both doubting and believing. I love that lesson from John.

Today I preached about Thomas, how he is so much like us--doubting and believing at the same time--and how he, of all the people Jesus encountered, acknowledged who he was when he said, "My Lord and my GOD!"

I was going to try to recreate that sermon here but instead found one I did 8 years ago to share instead. Today I did talk about how intimate and lovely it was that 'Jesus breathed on them'.

Here it is.

EASTER II, 2009

          OK, let’s get this straight—the doors were locked and Jesus just showed up. That’s weird enough, nevermind that he had been dead and wasn’t dead anymore. Already we have two confounding facts that have to make us re-think what we are convinced ‘reality’ is about.

          That’s what the season of Easter is for, afterall—to make us reconsider the nature of ‘reality’.

          But let’s leave the ‘reality’ bending and altering events for another time. Let’s concentrate on what Jesus ‘did’ in that far-away, long-ago upper room.

          He breathed on them.

          That’s what John tells us and what we are left to wrestle with—after showing up unexpectedly in a locked room, this man who everyone knew was dead, “breathed on them”.

          Let’s do an experiment. Let’s notice, for a few moments, that we are breathing……

          Try counting your breaths—up to four and then count up to four again….

          Astonishing, isn’t it? We just breathe—or, perhaps more accurately, breath breathes us….We don’t have to think about it most of the time, it just happens—when you’re not paying attention, when you sleep, always—your breath breathes you.

          And Jesus ‘breathed’ on them….Just like that….He must have leaned in close and let them feel his breath. What an intimate moment.  How often do we get to ‘feel’ the breath of another on our skin? We feel it with babies and small children, certainly, holding them near; with lovers and partners from time to time; with people in hospital beds, straining for breath when we lean in close to kiss them and say good-bye, that we’re going home for the night or that we know their last breath is near.

          My God…I mean that literally, “My God, what a gift to have that polite distance between us at all times violated so we might feel the breath, the very ‘life’ of another on our faces.

          I toyed with the idea of having you ‘breathe on’ the person beside you or near you…but that would be so uncomfortable, so awkward, so embarrassing to us because we value the space between us and other people. That’s really ok. I pull back when people get in my personal space.

And, there is this: there is no “personal” space with God. God is right against us, all around us, ever close to us. Breathing on us….Breathing on us….Breathing on us….

There is a hymn that invites that holy and astonishing intimacy with God.

      Hymn 508….”Breathe on me breath of God,/fill me with Life anew/

          That I might love what thou dost love,/and do what thou wouldst do.

          Breathe on me breath of God/until my heart is pure,

          Until with thee I will one will, to do or to endure.

          Breathe on my breath of God/until I am wholly thine/

          Until this earthly part of me/breathes with thy fire divine.

          Breathe on me breath of God,/so shall I never die,’

          But live with thee the perfect life/of thy eternity.”        

That is our legacy, our inheritance, our indescribable intimacy with God. That is what we give to these children today. Marked as Christ’s own forever.

When you breathe, remember this, God is breathing on you as well…..  

Finitude, again

I was sitting on our back porch pondering how I'm 70 years old and have no idea how this happened. Then I remembered a post about Finitude that nobody much read. Thought I'd share it again.And, about granddaughters, I have another one, only 8 months old. If I live to be 80, she'll still be a pre-teen....just an addendum to this more than 8 year ago blog post.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Finitude

For some reason I have been talking with people lately about 'what happens when you die."

Actually, I have no idea--not any, not one--about what happens when we die.

Since I'm a priest, I'm around death a lot and I'm not much help. People seem to assume I know what this whole 'hereafter' thing is all about. Imagine their surprise!

(A joke from years ago: A boy says to his date, "do you believe in the 'hereafter'?
Being a Christian girl she says, "of course I do." Then he says, "well, let's have sex." She is horrified. "Why would you ask that?" she says. He replies, "that's what I'm 'here after'.")

"Is Daddy/Mommy/Brother/Sister/Child/Husband/Wife...on and on...in a better place?" I've been asked more than once by the death bed after giving last rites and watching the person slip away through that unmarked door.

First I smile sadly. Usually that is enough. The one left behind bursts into tears and I hold them. But some are tougher--"Well?" they say. And I say, "I have no idea."

Once someone said to me, "Why are you a priest if you don't have some belief about the after-life?"

I resisted my first impulse to say, "I'm not a priest for the 'after-life', I'm a priest for the living and the dying." Instead I said, meaning it with all my being, "I simply leave 'what happens next' to God."

That's what I do. Oh, I do believe there is something after death--so long as you are willing to acknowledge that the 'something' might be 'nothing'. I would think no less of God if when life ends, it simply ends. Dead as a doornail--whatever a door-nail is.

As I grow older--I'm over 60 now (I never imagined being this old!)--I do ponder death more than when I was 22 or 37 or even 53. Even if I live to be 80 some, that's only 20 or so more Springs, more Christmases, more baseball seasons. My granddaughters will be in their 20's-when I shuffle off this mortal coil, if I'm lucky enough to be 80-something, and my children will be 50 or so, but there will be, as the song says, "a lotta things happening" after I'm dead and gone.

One thing I know, I hope there is an option to the streets of gold and angel wings for me. In fact, since I know (because I'm theologically educated) that noone ever suggested the dead become angels--angels are a whole other species of beings--I'm just worried about those streets of gold. Doesn't sound like good urban planning to me.

I wrote a poem about finitude a few years ago. I thought I'd share it here.

The Difficulty with Finitude

I try, from time to time,
usually late at night or after one too many glasses of wine,
to consider my mortality.

(I've been led to believe
that such consideration is valuable
in a spiritual way.
God knows where I got that....
Well, of course God knows,
I'm just not sure.)

But try as I might, I'm not adroit at such thoughts.
It seems to me that I have always been alive.
I don't remember not being alive.
I have no personal recollections
of when most of North America was covered with ice
or of the Bronze Age
or the French Revolution
or the Black Sox scandal.
But I do know about all that through things I've read
and musicals I've seen
and the History Channel.

I know intellectually that I've not always been alive,
but I don't know it, as they say, 'in my gut'.
(What a strange phrase that is
since I am sure my 'gut'
is a totally dark part of my body
awash with digestive fluids
and whatever remains of the chicken and peas
I had for dinner and strange compounds
moving inexorably--I hope--through my large
and small intestines.)

My problem is I have no emotional connection to finitude.
All I know and feel is tangled up with being alive.
Dwelling on the certainty of my own death
is beyond my ken, outside my imagination,
much like trying to imagine
the vast expanse of space
when I live in Connecticut.

So, whenever someone suggests that
I consider my mortality,
I screw up my face and breathe deeply
pretending I am imagining the world
without me alive in it.

What I'm actually doing is remembering
things I seldom remember--
my father's smell, an old lover's face,
the feel of sand beneath my feet,
the taste of watermelon,
the sound of thunder rolling toward me
from miles away.

Perhaps when I come to die
(perish the thought!)
there will be a moment, an instant,
some flash of knowledge
or a stunning realization:
"Ah", I will say to myself,
just before oblivian sets in,
"this is finitude...."

Bern's vines

I am know far and wide for 'not paying attention'. My daughter even thinks I have ADD, though I don't think that goes that far. I just don't notice stuff. I live in my mind much of the time and the physical world is 'just there', just beyond my ken.

Bern moves furniture around, something I'd never do. And sometimes I think she does it just to see how long it takes me to notice the chair/couch/table is in a different place.

Out on the porch today, in the mist that has lasted most of the day, I realized, for the first really 'realizing' time, that Bern has four vines on the deck. Until a couple of weeks ago--or a week--linear time is another of my ADD things (though I'm not ADD!!!!) they were all inside, climbing around, twirling and vine-ing like vines do, until Bern took them out of the deck.

I'd just never counted them before (much less noticed them much!) But there are four. One is a real clinger that I've watched for years. When she took it out she had to cut it off the dining room curtain! And when she brings it in in the Autumn, she'll have to cut it off the rhododrodendrum and the evergreen branches near our deck--as well as the deck itself.

What I know for sure is I have no idea on earth what any of them are called and have only today realized their number.

Bern worries about and cares for the 'stuff' in our lives. Good for her. She's the only one who can do it....

Four vines I've lived with for years--indoors and outdoors--and only today counted!