The cold

The cold now is brutal. You have to develop a very fine-tuned Stoicism to endure.

It'll be zero tonight (F not C, unfortunately) and won't be above 32 degrees again until a week from Sunday. That's what the Weather Channel predicts.

When I told Bern that she did some quick finger counting. "Today is Thursday," she said, "so you mean it'll be below freezing for 10 more days?"

My instinct is always to look on the bright side, but there isn't much of a bright side when nothing outside will thaw at all, not even a little, for 10 whole days.

I may have to start wearing socks.

When I ruptured my quad muscle and had surgery a year ago last September, my right leg was immobilized for 2 months. I couldn't put on socks on that foot and am stubborn enough not to ask Bern to do it for me.

Last winter was milder than usual and I got through it without socks and I've never worn socks from April through September and I just never got around to putting them on.

I've done ok, so far, but this cold snap may break me.

I've forgotten what socks feel like.

But I may learn again in the next 10 days.

I'll let you know.

Being a Christian

I  heard a radio program today with a acclaimed secularist who says he is a 'follower of Jesus' though he doesn't buy any of the 'God-stuff'. I found myself agreeing with him much more than I would with most evangelical or right-wing Christians.

Being a Christian in the Age of Trump is much more difficult for me than it was in the past.

What is being touted and claimed as 'Christian' these days makes me more than a little nervous.

And I'm an Episcopal priest, for goodness sake. Obviously I am--really AM--a Christian.

But when confronted with the limits of the Christian faith that those on the Right have, I find myself thinking I might be a secularist who follows Jesus.

It is, pure and simple, the teachings of Jesus that I believe in. Love, compassion, caring for the least of these in our midst, forgiving the sinners that we all are, proclaiming hope in a hopeless time and Light in the Darkness. That's how I'm a Christian.

Christians who oppose a woman's right to her own body, that believe GLBTQ folks are sinners, that believe those of other faiths are 'wrong', that do not recognize the holy in every person...well, I have no common ground with them.

Do I believe Jesus died for me? Of course I do.

But I also believe he died for all of us human beings whether we believe in him or not.

If I were not an Episcopalian I would be either a Quaker or a Unitarian-Universalist.

That's the kind of Christian I am.

Don't ask me about Armageddon on the Second Coming or Heaven/Hell, I don't have much of an opinion about any of that.

But ask me if I think living as Jesus taught us to live is the answer and I'll tell you a resounding "Yes!"

And, in addition, I'll tell you a lot of people 'live that way' who would never call themselves 'Christian'.

I meet a lot of 'Christians' who aren't. At least as many as I meet 'Christians' who claim they are.

Christmas in Cheshire

First of all, it snowed in the morning. Less than an inch but still counts as a 'white Christmas'.

Josh and Cathy and the Bradley girls stayed in Baltimore since Cathy's two brothers were on the East Coast from California for Christmas.

Tim and Mimi came on Christmas Eve, early. We hung out and snacked and marveled at Eleanor for most of the day. I did church at 4 pm and met them and Bern at John Anderson's Christmas party. Good friends and food and opening stockings when we got home.

Christmas was different this year--just Mimi, Tim, Eleanor and John and since M/T/E had a 4:30 flight from Bradley Airport to go see his parents and brother--who haven't seen Ellie for 6 months:
we had Christmas 'brunch".

Bern out did herself and overdid the food--a salad of watercress, beets and grapefruit; quiche Lorraine, ham, grits and corn and hot pepper souffle, blackberry bread pudding. Entirely too much food! But great.

M/T/E left at 2:30 and the house and many, many pots were clean and straightened by the time they took off for Florida.

Eleanor is a marvel. She can count to 12 at 16 months. And she counts as she drops things into something else--plastic spoons into a pot, like that. And if she says 'one' and you say 'two', she says 'three' and will alternate but not repeat. And she laughs and laughs and laughs and says "Hi-E" every time she sees you even if you just walked out and back into the room--or she did. So amazing and loving and Tim and Mimi are #1 parents.

The rest of the day scarcely felt like Christmas or Monday. Eating left-overs and staying warm and missing them all--the ones that were here and the ones that weren't.

I wrote Bern some poems and a story about Bela's Christmas Dreams for her real present.

She painted me a picture called, of all things, 'Under the Castor Oil Tree' with me sitting under the tree in my blue "We're Still Here" baseball hat (the Liberal answer to Trump's red "Make America Great Again" hats) reading a book. Which is what I do these days. Two books in three days is my average, but sometimes a book a day.

And at Christmas, I always remember those I'll not see again: my parents and Bern's and her sister, Angie and many, many friends.

It is a day of joy and a day of remembrance and a day of longing and sadness.

All rolled into one.

Joyous Noel to to you all.....

Dreary day before the day before....

Freezing rain all day in Cheshire. Every thing icy and slick.

Bern put rugs and towels down the back steps of the deck so the Puli could go down at all. He falls more and more and fell on the deck before getting to the steps. Bern mopped the dining room floor and he fell there.

I'm made anxious by his decline--so steep now.

We didn't even clear the ice from my car and Bern's truck.

I went to the car to get something and walked so carefully it could hardly be called 'walking' at all.

More like creeping very slowly.

Tim and Mimi and Eleanor come tomorrow. I hope the ice goes away.

It will be odd not to go for a morning service tomorrow. The three churches I serve--little rural places--decided to forgo Advent IV and only celebrate Christmas Eve. Good call, I'd say. Especially if it's still icy in the morning. Snow is manageable, ice is not.

Stay warm. Don't fall down. If you live where the world is not iced over--good for you!

Merry Day Before the Day Before....

Christmas Eve sermon

Christmas Eve 2017—St. Andrew’s, Northford

          Sing, Choirs of Angels, sing in exultation….

          Hark! the Herald angels sing, glory to the new-born King….

          It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old,

          From angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold….

          Angels from the realm of glory, wing your flight o’er all the earth.

          Ye who sang creations story, now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

          The shepherds feared and trembled when lo! Above the earth,

          Rang out the angel chorus that hailed our Savior’s birth.

          It’s all about the angel-song. A dark, chill, starlit night, shattered by the rustle of wings and a sound not heard by human ears before.

          There were shepherds, of course, there to listen. And the mother and babe and dear, good Joseph…and the animals in the barn…. All of it is necessary to bring the Night alive…. But it begins with the angels, with their voices raised in song….

          The first Nowell, the angel did say, was to certain low shepherds in

                   Fields where they lay….

          The angels hovered ‘round and sang this song,

          “Venite adoremous dominum…”

          Angels we have heard on high, singing sweetly through the night

          And the mountains in reply, echoing their brave delight.

          Oh those angels….those angels….and their song….

                                                ***

          Over a dozen years ago I discovered that I had developed tinnitus—commonly known as “ringing in the ears”.

          It began one chilly night when I was on the back porch, letting our then dog, Sadie, out and listening to the crickets. When I came back inside to the warmth, I realized I could still hear the crickets. Then, almost at the same time, I realized what I heard wasn’t crickets—it was below freezing and there were no crickets singing….

          So I went to the doctor and was first examined by his 3^rd year Med Student intern. I told the Med Student about the crickets.

          He looked dutifully in my ears and asked: “are they crickets or cicadas?”

          I told him, “Well, I thought of them as crickets, but I guess they could be cicadas.”         

         “It’s tinnitus,” he told me. Then he said, “tinnitus can be quite severe…some people are so troubled by it that they commit suicide.”

          “You can’t tell people things like that!” I said, “What Med School do you go to?”

          (It was Yale, by the way….)

          Looking back, I realized the first symptom was hearing music after the music was over. At night, just before I go to bed, I switch off the radio in the kitchen that is usually tuned to classical music. I’d get half way up the back steps and realize the music was still playing. So I’d go back and check the radio. I must have done that a dozen times before I realized the music was in my head—echoing on long after it ended.

          Which causes me to think about the angel song—how it must have stayed with the Shepherds all the way to Bethlehem and back, how the echoes of that celestial music must have still been in their heads when they laid down to try to sleep…how it must have greeting them the next morning when they awoke at dawn and how it must have lingered through the day.

          How long must that angel song have stayed in their ears? Did the shepherds just get used to it and go on with their lives—or did it sing within them always? How could you ever let go of music like that? Why would you ever want it to end…?

                                                          *

Once, again years ago, In Saturday’s Waterbury Republican American there was a large block ad on page 3 that said: DEAR FRANK, GIVE US ANOTHER CHANCE. I LOVE YOU, BONNIE.

          The pathos and pain of that ad touched me deeply. I could hardly breathe thinking about Bonnie and Frank—their broken relationship, the anguish of it all.  No angel song echoes in Bonnie and Frank’s ears—all they hear is suffering and loss.                      

          It is not a good time to hear the Angel Song. Things collapse around us. The sounds of fear drown out the Angel Song.   

          At this holy time—the birthday of the Prince of Peace—the Middle East is in chaos, hundreds of thousands of refugees have no home, terrorism escalates around the world, climate change threatens us more each day.  The sounds of war and weather drown out the Angel Song.

          Surrounded by the affluence of the richest state in the richest country in the world, we cannot help but see the sharp contrast of the bitter poverty on the edges of our wealth. The cries of need and want drown out the Angel Song.

          And all of us—like Frank and Bonnie—have heartache and pain in our personal lives that tend to distract us—like ringing in the ears—from the Angel Song.

          The writer, Madeleine L’Engle captures all this well. Listen:

                        “This is no time for a child to be born,

                        with the earth betrayed by war and hate

                        And a nova lighting the sky to warn

                        That time runs out and sun burns late.

                        That was no time for a child to be born,

                        In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

                        Honor and truth were trampled by scorn—

                        Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

                        When is the time for love to be born?

                        The inn is full on the planet earth.

                        And by greed and pride the sky is torn—

                        Yet love still takes the risk of birth.

          The clanging of greed, the tumult of war, the sharp cries of injustice, the shrillness of fear—a cacophony of noises drown out the Angel song.

          Yet love still takes the risk of birth.

          Again, the Child is born. Again, the Gift is given. Hope, like a fledgling, spreads her wings within our hardened hearts.

          When is the time for love to be born?

          There is no time but this. And even in this dark time—on one of the longest nights of the year—a Light will shine if we can be the people who take the risk of love.

          A Light will shine if we can let Hope find a home in our hearts and Justice spring new born in our lives.

          A Light will shine if we only still the clamoring of fear and greed and hatefulness long enough to once more hear the Angel song.

                                                  *

          “Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;

           beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong;

           and warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring;

           O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing.”

          Once more, once more as always, Love takes the risk of Birth.

          O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing….

Christmas Trees Past

CHRISTMAS TREES PAST

Sometime after Epiphany,
Bern takes the Christmas trees outside
and cuts off the branches
until only the trunk remains.

And the trunks stick around,
sometimes for years.

I was just out on the back porch,
smoking a cigarette,
(I know, I know, but I do!)
and there was a trunk from last year.

At first I thought of it as forlorn,
stripped, abandoned.
But then I looked through the window
and saw the tree for this year
in all it's glory.
Sparking with lights--
mostly white but colored in the middle--
which Bern did, of course
(I have no gift for lights...)
and spangled with ornaments
from years gone by.

Mimi's first Christmas ornament is there
(Josh's is long destroyed
but we keep it's wounded self'
on the mantle where the stockings hang).
The balloon lady who reminds
me of e.e. cumming's
"little lame balloon man",
who "whistled far and wee".

So many winged things--
angels and birds and a flying elephant
and soaring winged Hindu gods,
and angels of all kinds,
all kinds. Angels, always.

And the strawberry orniment
Josh got in pre-school,
when all the other kids
got toys of some kind.
It has ruptured much
and Bern has done surgery on it
from time to time.

Each ornament tells a story
of some Christmas past.

And I love them,
love them all.

Even the trunks that lean
against our deck.

Christmas present is infused
with Christmas' past.
Until all are one.

One. Christmas. Always.

Better now

Little Eleanor, 16 months old, is out of the hospital after an overnight stay.

All the blood tests and EEG came back with no definitive answer to why she had a seizure at daycare and another in the ambulance yesterday. She had one several months ago. Mimi and Tim haven't seen any of them. When they got to the hospital she seemed mostly normal.

She was released today.

Sometimes 'not knowing' is harder than 'knowing'. If they knew the 'why' to the seizures there would be things to be doing.

Keep the three of them in your hearts as we move toward the Light of Christmas.