ok, F--- Facebook!

I used to be on Facebook when I was Rector of St. John's in Waterbury. I looked at about a dozen times in a dozen years and got bored. Then, when I retired, I got off Facebook after about a half-an-hour of clicks.

Then, a couple of months ago, I went on to see if I could see a video of a sermon of mine that was supposedly there. It wasn't.

Everyday I get 7 or 8 emails about people who have said something on my...what's it called? My 'frame'? My, uh, 'pallet'? My, is it, "wall"? Well that makes less than no sense. I don't have a wall except in my house and there's nothing there.

I always look if my son put something on whatever it is I have on Facebook. But tonight I decided to explore a bit and it was horrible. People put up nonsense and there are ads and people I never heard of are there saying things I think are deplorable (Yes, Hillary, I think that word applies from time to time!!!)

So, 'begone, Facebook'! I'm not going to try to get 'off' since I know what a pain that is. I'm just not looking anymore. I'll let Josh know in case I'm supposed to reply to anything he puts there--though I don't think I'd know how!!!

Since I'll be wrapping up this blog after 116 more posts, maybe I'll just sign off social media altogether. No email. No texts. Call me or send me a letter, that kind of thing.

I'll have to ponder it, but it seems like something to lean into.....

Faith as a possibility....

We had a long discussion about faith/believing/knowing at the little group I go to on Tuesday mornings today. For some reason I just couldn't get into it too deeply and didn't know why. On the way home, I remembered why...I wasn't 'letting the workshop be the workshop!'

I help lead this "Making a Difference Workshop" where we spend 4/5 of the time either doing centering prayer or dealing in two domains--the domain of experience and the domain of concept.

So, we spend most of the workshop exposing how wed and trapped we are in the domains of concept and experience, where our concepts, which come from our experiences, begin to color and determine future experiences. We 'work backwards' until we can reach the point where we can un-conceal (different from 'reveal' which is why my spell check doesn't like it) a third domain. Experience and concepts are all about 'getting somewhere'. The third domain--the Domain of Possibility--is a place 'to come from...."

Our conversation today was bogged down (as we almost always are) in the two domains of experience and concept, which actually collapse on each other into a vicious circle. What I needed to say, if I'd only remembered to let the workshop work, was to create the possibility of 'faith' or 'believing' AS A POSSIBILITY.

Everything exists in all three domains. God, for example, exists as an 'experience' of God/Spirit/the Holy and a 'concept' of God. But both the experience and concept are dwarfed and transformed by God 'as a possibility', as a creation, as a limitless declaration. God then become a place to 'come from' and BE, not a place of presence or representation. (That's 'doing and having', or 'experience and concept'.)

Am I going too fast? We use three days to do this workshop and I'm trying to re-create it in a blog post!!!

Faith as a possibility helps us to create a future that wouldn't happen anyway.

That's one of the mantras of the workshop--'there are two futures: the one that will come if you just wait and the one you can create that wouldn't happen anyway.'

Faith as a possibility means we bring the limitless possibility of 'faith' into the moment. We 'be' faith, rather than experiencing faith or having a concept of faith. That's why the second rail of the workshop is centering prayer. Centering prayer is a prayer of 'being' rather than 'doing' or 'having'.

I'm not sure any of this is making sense--but I know our conversation today needed a high octane injection of 'being'. We were talking about 'experiencing God' and having 'concepts/traditions/theologies about God. What we needed was God as a limitless possibility to 'come from' into the next moment.

(Coming from 'being' devolves into experience and concept--we call that, my favorite bit of workshop language: 'the ontological cascade' (cool, huh?)--but we can also return to 'being' again and again and 'come from' being by, guess what?, merely 'SAYING SO....'

Should be familiar as a way of creating: "God SAID 'let there be light....."

You know the rest of that.

Maybe next Tuesday I can come from 'Being' into the conversation....Devoutly to be hoped.

me too...

Bern and I were talking earlier about getting older. She told me that turning 30, for her, was an opportunity to leave behind some things she no longer had to think about. "I knew I'd never be a model for 17 magazine," she said. "Took pressure off. One less thing to worry about. That's the way we should be now."

How right she is.

I wrote about Bela, our 12 year old Puli getting older. Well, so are we.

Our daughter, Mimi, told Bern a while back, knowing we have always had a dog--"when Bela dies, you and Dad should get an older dog...."

We probably will--though I dread the day Bela dies. I've thought, more than once, that it might be better for Bern if I died before Bela. Our house is paid off. She'll get part of my pension and SS. She'll be fine. And Bela could comfort her more about 'the man' (which is what I am to Bela) than I'll be able to when he dies.

I've backed off that. I want to outlive Bela and get a 7 year old rescue dog after an appropriate mourning.

But I am getting older.

That whole conversation about turning 30 was spurred by my telling Bern I can't jump anymore. With my repaired knee and the other knee that pops audibly whenever I stand up, I just don't think I can--or should--jump.

She told me then about her turning 30 and also told me 'jumping is over-rated'.

Granted, it is. But I used to be a pretty good basketball player and loved to shoot jump shots.

Playing basketball, she told me, is also over-rated.

I'm going to ponder 'the opportunity to leave things behind' as opposed to regretting I can't do things I used to do.

That may be the thing to do as I move toward 80 in a decade.

Yea, I think that's a plan....

He's getting old

Our dog, Bela, is 12 now--what's that, 84 in dog years?

He's on some new pain meds that have helped a lot, but his joints are, like my knees, problematic.

He hesitates to go up steps without help. Jumping on the bed is an issue.

I tend to stay downstairs or upstairs longer than I would normally just so he doesn't have to navigate the steep steps in our 1850 house.

Jumping in the car or Bern's truck is tricky--as is jumping out. He slips on our hardwood floors downstairs.

He eats like a champ and sleeps well, but his body just isn't what it used to be and he is coward-ed by things like he's never been.

He's so much a part of our lives--bad, bad dog that he is--that watching him breaks my heart.

Getting old isn't a bed of roses, that's for sure.

Lordy, lordy, Bela, it's so hard to see you like this....

Dear Lord, help me be calm....

Well, today James Comey, fired FBI director, testified before a Senate Committee.

Lordy, Lordy, our President lied about the FBI Director. Lordy, Lordy, Trump asked Comey for 'loyality' when Comey's job was to be objective about the President. Lordy, Lordy did he really ask Comey to step back from an active investigation?

Take a big breath, Jim. Calm down. Go to your silent space. Relax.

All this is as bad as it gets.

The only thing worse is to imagine Mike Pence being President!!! He's a 'true believer' in Right Wing stuff. At least Trump (the only good thing I can say about him) really isn't a 'true believer' about anything, anywhere, anytime....

Dear Lord, help me be calm.....

Deep breaths, Jim. Deep breaths....

How Great Is This?

I went to the Cluster Council Meeting tonight--representatives from all 3 of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry where I've served for 5 years or so (me and linear time again, who knows how long it's been???)

Two of the 9 were absent but with the Cluster Administrator and me there were still 9 folks.

The meeting was full of joy and wonder and sharing and seriousness and commitment and good humor and stories and hard work and fun.

How great is that?

I don't know when meetings, in my life, were so life-giving.

Remarkable people, ideas and groundedness and a real commitment to who we are and how we serve.

"Better than that," as Yoda would say, "it does not get."

How blessed and privileged I am, here, later in life, to be able to serve and be served by the folks at Emmanuel, Killingworth, St. James, Higganum and St. Andrew's, Northford.

Thank you POWERS THAT BE (and Episcopal priest should probably say 'Thank you God', but I'm not a traditional priest anymore than the Cluster is a 'traditional Episcopal Church'. 'Powers that Be' works for me and I think for that group of people around the table with me eating remarkable desserts and finger food St. Andrew's provided. (By the way, St. Andrew's does food way beyond the other two. They just do.)

I never eat breakfast when I go to celebrate at St. Andrew's--coffee hour will be 'brunch', I know.

I simply can't imagine what I'd rather be doing as a priest at 70 that would be better than this.

Lucky me. Blessed. Full of joy. Wonder. Love.

2017--that's it....

When I decided I needed to decide when to retire as Rector of St. John's in Waterbury, CT, I finally came up with the idea of retiring the month I had 30 years in the Church Pension Fund.

I could have stayed on--I was only 63, after all--but., because I was going to be 63, I could get early Social Security. I know, I know, people tell you to wait to take SS benefits. I think the Social Security Administration is who does that. I did the math and taking SS at 63 vs 70 means that until I'm 82 I'll get more money taking it at 63. Go figure that.

So, anyway, that  story is about my wondering when I'll stop writing my blog.

I've written 1904 posts. I don't post every day, but most days, except when I'm away and since I can only post from my desk top computer--having no other web devices--I don't post when traveling.

I decided I'll stop at 2017 posts. That's 113 more posts and since it's only June 5, I'll get it done before the end of 2017.

I could hang on, just like I could still be at St. John's since I'm two years from mandatory retirement in the Diocese of CT. But I needed a stopping place so I would stop and it would be over.

So, 2017 posts will be the end--the stopping place--for "Under the Castor Oil Tree". I'm sure I'll miss these musings and ponderings, just as I missed being Rector of St. John's. But I got over that and I'll get over this.

I like 'clean breaks', so I'm delighted I've made the decision of what the 'end' of this is.

113 to go. Lots of pondering and musing left. But at least I know now when I can stop.

That feels good for me. It really does.

Stay with me until the end, OK?