Saturday Baptism revisited

Once, years ago--a decade if not more--I was at St. John's on a Saturday by myself doing something or another (or perhaps my unruly God wanted me there!) when someone rang the doorbell. I went to see who it was and encountered 20 or so Hispanic folks. One of them who spoke English told me they just wanted a place to pray for a while. So I let them in.

The same person, who was to be the god-father of the baby who was with the crowd...most of whom were weeping quietly...told me they had been across the Green at Immaculate Conception RC church to have the baby baptized. The priest asked who the god parents were and asked them if they were Roman Catholic. The man talking to me said he was an Evangelical and when the priest found that out he refused to baptize little Louisa. So they came to St. John's to mourn and pray for a while.

I let them be for 10 minutes or so and then went back and found my confidant and asked him if the parents would let me baptize Louisa. They readily agreed and I got the oil and water (some water, if I remember correctly, that I'd brought back from the Jordon River on a trip to Israel).

So, I did the baptism, though about half of the group didn't understand exactly what I was saying and offered the group Communion. They all received! Amazing.

I never saw them again, to my knowledge, but I was sure I had done the least that God expected of me. I couldn't take away the pain of their church rejecting them, but I could offer and bring the sacraments into that day of anguish.

Some, I know, would say I didn't 'do my duty' since I hadn't prepared them with pre-baptismal instruction and required them to come to St. John's in the future. But that's just pious bullsh*t as far as I can tell.

The sacraments belong to God--not the church and certainly not the priest.

Little Louisa was 'marked as Christ's own forever'. And she is. She'd be approaching her teen years now--if ever there is a period to be marked as Christ's own!!!

Saturday Baptism

I'm officiating at a baptism tomorrow. It's against my better judgment to do 'private' baptisms. Baptism should be in the full view of the people of God gathered  on the Lord's day. I believe that--I do--but I also know this: any time anyone wants a touch of God in their lives, I'll do whatever I can to let God touch them.

Ceremonially, I'm pretty 'low church'. However, I have a 'high church' view of the sacraments. I truly believe and live as if they are 'real'--just what they claim to be: opportunities for the holy and wild God to dip into our lives for a moment.

So, if another Episcopal priest has some reason not to officiate at your wedding--give me a call!

If you have a god-father who has to fly back to Puerto Rico on Sunday morning, I'll do a Saturday baptism.

I'll bury anyone who wants to be buried. Christian burial should always be available. The morticians in Waterbury still call me from time to time for murdered folks and suicides and people with no discernible religion because they know I'll never deny the sacrament of burial (OK, I 'know' it's not one of the 7 sacraments, but it seems sacramental to me to ask God to take into God's heart this person who is dead....)

Fewer and fewer people these days seem to want to invite God into their lives. One one level, I understand that--given my wild and uncontrollable God who will just stir things up and turn you inside out. However, anyone who is willing to make that risky invitation to a God beyond our understanding...well, I'm willing to assist in the invitation.

I've known lots of Episcopal priests who  have turned away couples, either denied baptism or made it too arduous, who turn away the unbaptized from the Lord's Table.

For goodness (and His!) sake--it's the LORD'S TABLE, not the church's or the priest's....

I once gave communion at St. James in Charleston, West Virginia to a man who wandered in wearing a turban and with a dot on his dark forehead. He left immediately after the bread and wine.

The communion minister with the cup asked me afterwards, "how did you know he was a Christian?"

"I didn't," I explained, "but God could have struck him dead or me dead if what I did was wrong....And God didn't...."

That's my theology and I'm sticking with it. The sacraments belong to God, not to the church or to me. So, my job is to hand them out as often and as generously as I can.

That's what I believe, at any rate.

knees

Human knees are remarkable architecture. They were designed to help us stand upright and walk without dragging our hands on the ground. All that happened over 200,000 years ago and knees have been working ever since.

Mine aren't. I had surgery in September of last year to reattach my quad muscle to my knee and let the ligaments and all grow back. I walk OK--except for steps--but there are still some issues with my right knee,

And my left knee 'pops', audibly when I stand up from sitting down.

I went to my orthopedic surgeon this week. He told me to give the reconstructed right knee another three months and that my left knee was full of arthritis. All the cartilage that lubricates my knee has been dried up by the arthritis and the 'pop' I hear is just bone against bone. (Pleasant though, huh?)

He told me that the X ray of that knee would usually mean I had a lot of pain. Which I don't. Just popping.

He told me I was lucky.

I'm glad I don't have pain in that knee, but I don't feel lucky. Not by a long shot.

"Pop", "pop", "pop" doesn't feel lucky....

Happy Father's Day (to me)

(I wrote this on Sunday and neglected to hit 'post'. Two days late....)

There are almost no other days that make me as humble and proud and blessed as Father's Day.

There are very few parents I feel comfortable talking about kids with because ours turned out so remarkable...and not everyone's did.

Mimi (38) is the Director of Operations and Special Projects at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, a nationwide non-profit organization housed in New York City. Josh (41) is a lawyer at Rosenberg, Martin and Greenberg in Baltimore and three times voted 'rising star' by the Baltimore Legal Association.

He's married to a prosecutor, Cathy Chen, for the Baltimore City Prosecutor's office. They have given us three wondrous grand-daughters.

Mimi is married to Tim McCarthy, who works for Linked-In (his office is in the Empire State Building!) and they gave us baby Eleanor.

I wish I deserved them, I really do.

But, instead, they have blessed me so.

Happy Father's Day to me....

So I play on-line games

Lordy, Lordy, I have to admit it--I play Hearts and Solitaire on line.

Here's the thing, I win about 90% of the time in hearts and only 15% of the time in Solitaire.

One reason is the hearts game is badly formed. Throw the Ace of Hearts and you'll get the King and Queen. Real people, as opposed to a computer, would hold on to the King and Queen in case they needed them to stop a run.

But in Solitaire I'm playing against the cards, not three computer driven opponents.

Thing is, which gives me something to ponder, I love both games equally.

I love trying to get above 90% in Hearts (I never have!) or 15% in Solitaire (I never have!) though that's a 75% difference in winning or losing.

Maybe those games, like life, aren't about the winning or losing percentage but about simply 'getting better' at what your doing.

I invite you to sit with that possibility for a bit.

What if--just, what if--the whole game we're playing that we call life, isn't about winning or losing but about simply 'getting better'. What if that's the Truth?

How would that alter the occurring of 'how life shows up' for you?

It's not about 'winning' at all, but simply 'getting better'.

I'm going to have to dwell on that for a good spell.

I hope you will too.

Maybe there's just some wisdom and possibility and creation in there somewhere if we ponder it long enough.

Greatly to be wished for and wondrously to be received.....

Brooklyn and back

8:20 a.m. train down and 3:02 train home. In between, 6 stops on the 4/5 train to within 2 blocks of Mimi and Tim's apartment.

An hour or so adoring Eleanor and then a walk through a worsening rain to have lunch. Ellie fell asleep on Mimi's shoulder about half-way through and then we sat in a little area at the front of the restaurant for an hour or so with some friendly people until the rain slacked. Ellie woke up halfway through that and totally charmed the strangers around her.

A just right visit--a hit of Mimi, Tim and Ellie. And riding Metro North instead of driving made all the difference in the world! I read half a very good book and dozed a little. The train takes 90 minutes. No way to do that in a car because from our house to theirs is exactly 90 miles and driving 60 once you hit the city is something you could (maybe) do at 3 a.m.

On the subway there was a family from Brazil speaking Portuguese on one side of us and a family from Germany speaking German on the other side of us. Ah, New York! And in Brooklyn I saw a lot fewer couples who were both straight and both white than otherwise. Ah, Brooklyn!

I could never live in Manhattan--still too much a country boy. I might survive in Fort Green, the part of Brooklyn Mimi and Tim live in--though Brooklyn has nearly 3 million souls in 71 square miles. But I'd have to have a garage and a deck and a yard--which probably would put me in the $3million range, which I'm not in!

A wild trip, but manageable. Much better than driving.

And Eleanor IS the best baby....

Mimi and Tim are two of my top people as well.

going to Brooklyn

We're taking the train tomorrow to Brooklyn to see Mimi and Tim and, of course, baby Ellie.

Ellie is pulling up and crawling like crazy. Mimi said they thought they'd get her a cage--she said 'pen' but I thought 'cage' after seeing them chase her around their apartment on Bern's phone.

I swore I wasn't driving to NYC again after our last trip. It took us 4 hours and 15 minutes from Brooklyn to Cheshire. We've actually driven to Baltimore in that time!

So, a quick trip. Down to visit and have lunch and then come home. Got to get back to the old dog at a decent hour.

But even a few minutes with those 3 is worth the hassle of riding the train and subway and driving to New Haven. Lovely.