DACA

Bern's father was brought to the US by his father from Italy when he was young. Then his mother and brother came and Bern's brother, sister and she were born here. Her mother having come to America as a fetus from Hungary.

Don't tell me about the President who will not be named's right to suspend and end DACA.

We all--unless you're 100% Native American--came from somewhere else and even they came, before the US was a country, from somewhere else.

The President's family came mostly from Germany. His current wife was an immigrant.

We have to find a path to citizenship for all the DACA folks and for everyone here illegally.

It's the "American thing to do".

My maternal great grandfather came from Ireland. The Bradley side of me came from Great Britain about five generations ago.

This DACA nonsense is solely because most of them are brown, not white.

Give me a break or take down the Statue of Liberty

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. 

Don't, for God's sake and all that is holy close that 'Golden Door'!!!

Leaving Saturday

We're leaving Saturday for our--what would it be--maybe 25th visit to Oak Island, North Carolina.

We're going with Tim, Mimi, Eleanor and our friends from New Haven, John, Jack and Sherry.

Bern's watching the weather channel most of the day to see if Irma or Inez, which ever it is, is going to keep going vaguely west or turn up and go north east toward North Carolina.

In all our years of going we had to leave one day early once because of a Hurricane. I'd tell you what year and the name of the storm except I of course don't remember. Lost in linear time am I and names are hard to hang onto.

I only have a desk top so I was thinking I couldn't write on Under the Castor Oil Tree for a week. But then, looking up at the top of the page here, I see the code to log on from somewhere else and there will be lots of laptops at the beach.

Also, on Friday, I'm teaching the first session of a course at UConn in Waterbury for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (we call it 'OLLI') on a subject I've taught before. I changed the name this time though from "Reading the Gospels side-by-side" to "Walking with Four Jesus'".

It fascinates me how remarkably different the Jesus of each gospel is from the other three--but the way the church teaches Christianity you'd never figure that out. I found a post from over 5 years ago where I published the ending of the course.

Thought I'd share it here again.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Knowing four Jesus'

OK, I just completed a class at UConn called "Reading the Gospels side-by-side" and wrote something to read at the end of the last session. Someone suggested I publish it on my blog.

So here it is.

LOOKING FOR JESUS

Most of us are looking for Jesus.

One place we could expect to find Jesus is in the Four Gospels. So we turn to them. If we read them critically and carefully, what we discover is not Jesus but Four distinct Jesus'.

When confronted with that reality, there are two obvious reactions. Either I (I'll speak only for myself here and invite you to ponder your reaction)...either I despair and give up my search OR I walk the road with each of the Gospel writer's Jesus' and glean what I can from the four of them.

When I am doubtful, it is Mark's Jesus I want to walk beside because he too struggled with doubt. He spends time with the wild beasts. He can't seem to understand what is being asked of him by God. He agonizes in the Garden. He feels abandoned on the cross. Mark's Jesus is a good companion in times of doubt.

When I am confused, it is Matthew's Jesus I turn to. Matthew's Jesus is jerked away from his home to a foreign land. His earthly father relies on dreams and visions of angels in his confusion. The Magi visit him and give him great gifts. Matthew's Jesus knows that traditions and boundaries and scripture can help in times of confusion. Matthew's Jesus knows right from wrong, truth from Falsehood, the sheep from the goats. Matthew's Jesus stands on the mountain top and speaks wisdom to those who are in darkness and confusion. The Jesus of Matthew has correctives to my confusion.

John's Jesus is my traveling companion when things are going well and I am feeling confident. John's Jesus is certain and resolute and convinced of his purpose and his way. John's Jesus has an ego to match my own. Nothing much bothers him. His eyes are on the prize. His feet are firmly on the ground even as his soul soars to heavenly places. In 'good times' John's Jesus is the ideal companion. He can validate my confidence, inspire me to even greater things, teach me that I am loved and meant to love others. He breathes on me and wishes me “Shalom”, which means fullness and health and hopefulness. There is nothing like the Jesus of John when God's in his heaven and all is right with the world. Walking the road with him just reaffirms my optimism and hopefulness and sense of well-being.

But when I suffer, when I am in pain, only Luke's Jesus will do. He will walk with me to Emmaus and calm my fears and set my heart of fire. The breathless, timeless songs and poetry of Luke soothe me, heal me. Luke's Jesus is the healer, the non-anxious presence, the font of all Compassion. Luke's Jesus walks with those in distress, in pain, in need. Luke's Jesus is constantly standing with the marginalized and outcasts. Luke's Jesus teaches us on the same level where we stand. He is always on my level, near me, suffering with me, forgiving me, holding me near. Luke's Jesus walks the road of our world's suffering. He knows me through and through. He bears my burden. He lightens my load. He touches me and makes me whole.

Seeking Jesus and finding four is 'good news'. Four companions on the Way to the Lover of souls, four brothers with various gifts for various needs, four faces of God, four revelations of the Almighty.

A hymn from my childhood says, “What a friend we have in Jesus....” It is wondrous and precious to have a friend. But to have four, all of whom love me and care for me and walk my road with me. What could be better than that???

Whatever happened to "Labor Day"?

I was in a package store today and noticed they would be open 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Labor Day.

I called back to the clerk, "you're open on Labor Day!!!"

Sadly she shook her head, "every day except Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas and New Year's Day."

I knew the grocery stores and most all stores would be open, but wine/beer/liquor stores as well....

Whatever happened to 'LABOR Day'?

Labor Day is the national holiday for those who 'labor'. But they'll all be working. It's such nonsense to even have a day for them if they'll all be working!

I'd like to go back to 'Blue Laws', myself. Absolutely everything closed on Sunday...and Labor Day as well.

Buy enough wine for Labor Day on Saturday. Let the shops be closed Sunday and Monday. And get your groceries on Saturday too. Let the workers 'rest' on Sunday.

"A day of rest" should apply to everyone. And Labor Day, for God's sake, should be a day when there is no 'labor'.

The world is too much with us, as the poet knew. I long for 'the OLD DAYS' when no one worked on Sunday except police and emergency workers. And I long for slower times, more laid back times, times of rest, which seem to me to be gone now and forever.

And we are, I believe diminished by that. Greatly....

Lordy, Lordy--Mimi and Eleanor...

One year old Eleanor's baby day-care shut down for a week so Bern went down on Tuesday to watch her and then Mimi and Eleanor came to CT on Wednesday and left this morning.

Bern and I ran ourselves ragged keeping up with Ellie while Mimi worked from her laptop and phone.

OK, I won't bore you with how Eleanor is the smartest, cutest, happiest, more inquisitive, most affectionate one year old ever---BUT SHE IS--and so much fun to chase around and help up our stairs. She loved the stairs! Almost to her own peril.

Meanwhile, Mimi is a great, wondrous mother. Bern and I must have done something right! She has Eleanor on a strict nap schedule and it works. Ellie also loves to eat lots of different things and is fun to feed.

An amazing visit--and Eleanor got face-time with daddy Tim each day on Mimi's phone, though I'm not sure what Eleanor thinks of media.

Oh, and did I tell you Mimi and Tim and Ellie will be with us at the beach on Oak Island, NC starting next Saturday for a week with John and Jack and Sherrie, our friends.

What a joy that will be to be on the same beach with Ellie that we were on so many times with her Uncle Josh and Mommy....

Pinch myself. How blessed. How remarkably blessed....

Mary Jennings called me

A voice from the past. Mary is the wife of Robin Jennings, one of my seminary classmates from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. She and Robin had been in New Haven last weekend for a wedding and found my number in the white pages--lordy, there are still 'white pages' and called me when they were back in Lexington (I think) Kentucky.

They had a rushed visit and didn't have time to call me last weekend and come the 10 miles to Cheshire.

I last saw them when I did a sabbatical where I visited classmates on our 25th anniversary of graduation--that would have been 2000.

I remember sending classmates things I'd written about them after that visit and Robin, I recall, didn't like what I'd said about him.

But Mary (not Robin) called me and we spoke for 20 minutes or so and it was rather wonderful and rather strange.

I didn't speak with Robin (perhaps he wasn't there just as Bern was in NYC with Mimi and Ellie) but Mary and I had been friendly all those years ago, so it was fine,

I was struck by how so many  years can dissolve in so few minutes. It was great to speak with her.

Voices from the Past are welcomed here.

Two more 1999 poems from Israel

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Yae Bashem

I had coffee this morning with Cherry, who is newly back from time in Israel. I asked her, as I ask everyone newly back from Israel, if she had been to Yae Bashem?

Yae Bashem is the Holocaust memorial up on a hill in Jerusalem.

One of the things there is a children's memorial to the one and a half million children who died in the Holocaust. In that hall there are a small number of candles lit behind a glass wall and a complicated series of mirrors that reflect those real candles a million and a half times. I took that for granted because Israeli's wouldn't say it about dead children if it wasn't true. The rest of the memorial, broken pillars in front, shoes of victims in one hall, walking above a map of the camps...is all life-altering.

I wrote two poems about that experience in 1999 and shared them with Cherry. I share them with you as well.

Visiting the Children's Memorial at Yae Bashem
(12/10/99)

In an ancient land of broken pillars,
snapped by wars, long smothered by
      Time's debris,
these were splintered most cleanly,
      cruelly.
And their brokenness breaks my
      heart in three.....

Break my heart, for this shimmering landscape
of eternal pain--loss of childhood's dream.
Break, my  heart--the many mirrors' reflection
reveal our Souls more twisted than they
      seem
in sunlight--outside--beyond
      candle glow.

Break a third time--only
       broken hearts redeem.

I scarcely breathe--my
    breath may blow the candles out
or else fan them into revenging
     flames
nothing could ever quell: All God's
      Justice
nor our pity can pay
      these infant's claims.

In thick and gathered darkness
    I straddle
their Universe to the limits
    of sight.

Wholly Innocent--holy suffering:
dying to prove that Evil's
grasping Might
cannot reach them, cannot
put out this Light.


Coming down from
Yae Bashem
(12/10/99)

Soul gutted as wadis gut the desert,
I ride in silence, deep within
the rocky, arid heart.

Yae Bashen--the syllables hang
in the air
like incense buring
in the Third Temple that is not.

Like the smell of flesh singed
and the odor
of rotting intentions--
the incense curls up
to the God who
seemed not to care
when her children died
in piles of flesh
and
mountains of bones.
Rachel wails again,
keening her lament
for no one to hear.
Yae Bashem--the words
fall somewhere between
a lament and heaven's resignation.

Some tears cannot be seen
nor crying heard
in the dark shadow
of the forgetting.

Coming down from Yae Bashem
I see these things:
    and old woman wrapped
     in her shawl,
     beating her rug as if
     getting it clean would
     bring Messiah. I love her.

Two old men--doubtless
veterans of some war...
comrades, dear friendsk--
lunching on a balcony
taking turns drinking
from a tall brown bottle
of beer. I love them.

A child of eight or nine,
unselfconsciously flipping
back her raven hair
(so dark it drinks in
the sun and shines it back again).
The breeze up from the valley
catches her hair
and she looks as if
she could fly. I love her.

A young man,
pale as the desert rushing
through traffic --
black coat trailing like
a tail, curling locks
bouncing by his chin--
no doubt hurrying
breathlessly to study Torah.
And I love him.

These things I saw, coming down
from Yae Bashem.

Perhaps when I've seen more
life (and loved some more)
I can
believe
in
God
again.

memories

I just found my notebook from my trip to Israel again. Thought I'd share this previous post.

 

 

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The only time I was ever in Germany

It was on the way to Israel in December of 1999. We landed in Frankfort in the wee hours of the morning. I had forgotten all about it (but at my age 'forgetting' is normal....) But I was reading from the notebook I took on that trip and found this poem.

Watching dawn come at Frankfort Airport

Staring out on a school of
     planes
(neatly arranged like huge
  patients in a ward
  attached with feeding tubes
  of walkways to the
  terminal)
dawn creeps in.

It comes as a lightening
    of the sky
      from black
      to indigo
      to navy blue
      to steely gray.

Somewhere on the flight
somewhere over the north Atlantic
somewhere at 37,000 feet
I lost six hours.
Dawn comes late in Frankfort
   in December
but my watch is still at
   10 'til 2 in the tiny
   hours of Eastern Standard Time.

Who owes me these six hours?
How do I get them back?
All around me members of
my group are sprawled
  on black, comfortable
   seats,
dreaming that in sleeping they
  can steal back the time.
But those six hours are
   simply gone, I tell you!
Poof! Disappeared! Lost....

Now a monorail passes outside the window,
   people lit up inside, heading for airplanes.

I can see planes dropping to earth
and leaping away on faraway
runways.

People are trapped inside
each of them, headed toward
Budapest, Singapore,
New York, Moscow,
New Dehlia. Losing
or finding hours as they
go.

I hope someone nice finds
 the six hours I lost
 and uses them well.