I won't even write about the State of the Union speech

No, I won't.

But I will tell you this: I've not been so afraid since the Cuban Missile crisis.

So, I found this old post about that day and Woodrow Wilson and Diane Sluss and Gwen Roberts.

It's a lovey post. Hope you enjoy it.

Monday, August 17, 2015

I kissed Diane Sluss

In this very vivid dream I had last night, I kissed Diane Sluss.

As soon as the kiss happened, I drew back and said, 'that wasn't a good thing....'

First of all, who is Diane Sluss (and, yes, that was her name). I went to Junior High and High School with her. She was from the very top of Jenkinjones Mountain. Another few feet and she would have gone to school in Virginia instead of West Virginia. She was very smart, so I was in class with her a lot. She was extremely outgoing and funny, so I liked to be around her. But she lived a long school bus ride from me in Junior High and I wasn't 'into girls' in Junior High--in fact, they scared me silly...except for Diane, who was my friend. And there was this: she was the greatest 'listener' I knew in that 6 years of my life. The workshop I help lead is mostly about 'listening'--and Diane, more than most everyone I've ever known--could get her 'listenings' our of the way and simply be 'present' to whatever I was saying. Rare, indeed.

When we went to high school in Gary, she was the first person to get on the school bus that came from Jenkinjones through Conklintown and O'Toole (yes, where I grew up places were named stuff like that!) and then to Anawalt, where I got on, then on to Spencer's Curve and Pageton, which was, as I remember, the last place Woodrow stopped. (Oh, by the way, the bus driver's name was, God help me, Woodrow Wilson, brother of a Methodist minister in Pageton and an all around good-guy. A couple of his nephews got on the bus in Pageton and he treated them just like the rest of us--fair and consistently. (I can't imagine driving High School Students was the best job in the world, but he did it with grace and even flair.)

{Here's an example of Woodrow's flair. He had to pull over the bus near a monument to 6 white men killed by Indians in Black Wolf--there was no drama to the place he pulled over, it's just that in southern West Virginia, there aren't a lot a places along the roads to pull over a school bus. He pulled over to read us the 'emergency school bus schedule'. It was the day that the Navy was stopping Russian ships taking missiles to Cuba and McDowell County had plans to evacuate us from school sine the largest coal processing plant in the world was 4 miles from Gary High School and thought to be on the Russian ICBM list of targets. He was half-way through reading the paper he'd been given to read when Gwen Roberts freaked out.

She ran down the aisle and tried to get off the bus. She was screaming stuff like: "We're going to die!" and "Let me off this bus!!" and "Oh Lordy, Lordy!"...people in southern West Virginia said that last one a lot.

Woodrow dropped the sheet of paper and wrapped Gwen in his arms. He spoke softly to her and rubbed her back until she calmed down. Masterful, he was, dealing with her.}

I know how masterful he was because I was sitting in the seat right behind his driver's seat with Diane Sluss. For three years Diane and I sat in the front seat behind Woodrow as he drove down to Gary in the morning and back in the afternoon. Everyday for three years. People on the bus knew better than to try to take that seat. The way down was no problem, Diane was first on the bus every morning. On the way back people just knew--that's Diane's and Jimmy's seat (Lord yes, I was Jimmy in high school until I decided to be 'J. Gordon' my senior year.)

I'd have to think long and hard about how many hours Diane and I spent sitting next to each other, talking over those years. She was a large girl, but not fat, and had a beautiful face and wondrous hair. It's not that I wasn't, at some point, attracted to her--she was shapely and attractive--it was that she was my first long time 'friend' who was a girl. We talked about everything--our heartbreaks, our loves, current affairs, movies and tv, political stuff (during our three year conversation I moved from being a Goldwater Republican, like my father, to being a left-wing Democrat and she talked me through that transition).

Truth be known, when we graduated and she disappeared from my life, I missed her not enough.

Diane gave me one of the greatest gifts anyone ever could--the sure and certain knowledge that I could have intimate friends who were female with none of the complications that men and women have between intimate friends and intimacy.

What a gift! And it has served me well over the decades since. Many of the closest friends I've had in my life have been women. And I value them mightily.

So, in my dream, kissing Diane on the bus...It was not a good thing, it was a mistake, it would have robbed both of us of one of the abiding relationships that got us through those awful years from 15 to 18.

Ride on Diane. I won't ruin the gift we gave each other.

Easy choice....

So, the next to last day in January.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018.

That's what today is.

Except it's also the day President He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named's first State of the Union Address.

I have a choice. I can go to bed early and read or I can watch the address.

In other words, I can  have a good night's sleep or toss and turn angry and frustrated.

Easy choice....

(By the way, Kate Middleton, Prince William's wife, donated 8 inches of her hair to a non-profit that makes wigs for kids undergoing chemo therapy. Hey, Melania and Ivanka--since you're our 'royal family' want to follow suit?

I won't hold my breath but I do want to move to England.)

"deep breath, deep breath" revisited

I told the congregation at St. Andrew's. Northford today about the argument I had on Tuesday I wrote about in 'deep breath, deep breath'.

It's astonishing to me that such an upsetting event as fighting over supernatural events vs. ordinary moments as the prompters of faith could give me a whole sermon.

What I notice every time I preach about "being a Christian" having more to do with how we 'be' in the world and the way we live as opposed to 'what we believe' (and I talk about that quite a bit!) I always get several people telling me 'thank you' afterward and some of them getting a bit emotional and unable to say much more. They are just moved that someone gave them permission to be Christians in their living instead of their 'believing'.

I think 'believing' is something many folks have trouble with.

I remember in seminary, at my field work church--Christ Church, Capitol Hill in DC--leading a discussion on the Nicene Creed. This was before the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, so the Creed began with "I believe" rather than "We believe".

I told the dozen or so people that I was going to read the Creed and when they heard something they weren't sure about to raise their hand.

"I believe in God,," I said and half the people raised their hands!

Now these were card-carrying, every Sunday Episcopalians--faithful and devoted to the church. These weren't agnostics or atheists. But no one had ever asked them what they 'believed'.

Now, most of the people in that room worked in someway in the federal government. They believed in trying to make America the best it could be. They cared about folks who had less power and less prosperity than they did. They were some of the best people I've known.

But this 'belief' thing was a problem for them.

I truly am committed to a church that tells people 'being a Christian' has much more to do about how we behave in the world than the stuff we 'believe'. Some of the people I know who live faithful, 'Christian' lives wouldn't call themselves Christians. But I'm convinced God would.

"Belief" as a measure of who is Christian and who isn't is highly overrated. Let me see if you live a life the way Jesus taught us to and I'll tell you--whether you know it or not--whether you're a Christian.

THAT I believe and believe fair well....

(Billy Graham's granddaughter came out to condemn all the Evangelical 'Christians' who support Donald Trump in spite of how he violates most of their 'family values'. Bless her. She 'gets it'.)

So, I really am going to thank they guy I yelled at for showing me that I can find God even in a stupid argument....

my capa negra

I have a funeral and burial tomorrow of a man 7 years younger than me who I thought a lot of. He was a large scale farmer, kind to immigrant workers, gave lots of food away and had a life of sorrow--losing his son to a motorcycle accident and having to raise his grandson his daughter didn't care for.

I'm going to wear my capa negra to the graveside. A capa negra is a 'black cape', much like a vampire or Zorro would wear, but with a hood. It is wool and weighs 10 pounds and is very warm.

I did a funeral for a Waterbury Police Officer slain in the line of duty years ago. It was February, I think, and brutally cold. Well over a thousand police from around the New England area and beyond showed up. We set up tv screens and loud speakers on the Green for the overflow. He had three small children and it was a painful service. Thankfully, a former Rector who had known him as a boy was the preacher.

It took so long to get all the police folks situated at the graveside that I was frozen and caught pneumonia. Out for two weeks. Could hardly move, much less do anything. Truly 'laid up'.

The women's group at the church were so sorry for me they bought me a capa negra so that wouldn't happen again.

My name is embroidered inside in red script.

I seldom wear it because it is so ostentatious. But tomorrow will be cold and I wear so many layers in the cold weather that my winter coat has trouble covering them all.

It will be very dramatic.

A vampire, Zorro, a priest by a grave.



 

In Momento Mori

Ursula Le Guin died today. She was my favorite writer, along with Kurt Vonnegut. Her 'Earthsea' trilogy are 3 of my favorite 10 books of all time and she probably has another two or three on that short list. "Left Hand of Darkness" for one.

And I usually don't much like science fiction, though I am a sucker for fantasy (Tolkien, the "Thrones" books, stuff like that). She did both.

Her novel about a planet where there is no 'gender'--or where 'gender' is fluid through your life-time--able to be father and mother both--really revolutionized the way I look at gender. Astonishing.

She hasn't written for a good time, she was 88 after all.

I'll go to the library soon and get some of her books. I need to pay homage to her in some way.

Rest in peace, sweet writer, love of mine.

deep breath, deep breath....

I had a conversation today with someone who believes The Virgin Mary shows up on blank walls, statues cry, Jesus can be seen in the clouds and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Well, calling it a 'conversation' isn't accurate. I yelled and then he yelled and we both yelled some more. Hardly a constructive conversation.

That he's an Episcopal priest made me a little crazy. As wrong as I may be, I expect Episcopal priests to be more grounded than he appears to me.

It all started when I said that the Cluster Lenten book study was on a book called, "How Little Can I Believe and Still Be a Christian".

He called that something I'd never heard. It was something like Protestant 'reductionism', though that's probably not right. What he meant was, I think (since I was so crazed and confused it's hard to know) that Protestants tend to shrink the things people need to believe since Luther's theses were about what the Vatican asked people to believe that wasn't necessary. Something like that.

Another person in the room, who I refer to 'the most maddeningly reasonable person I know', since he can always see both sides of an argument, tried to mediate but I didn't want 'reasonableness' about views I find crazy and totally unreasonable.

See, I believe we find God all around us all the time. But not in magical appearances but in the ordinary, common, everyday moments of life. I don't need blood dropping from the hands of a Jesus statue to 'believe'--I need to see someone caring in compassion for a bleeding human being. There's God in our midst.

I see God in a smile from a stranger, in a kind word to someone bagging your groceries, in a sudden silence, in two people just being 'present' to each other, in the softness of the rain and the beauty of a robin.

I don't need other-worldly realities to believe.

I believe in God when I see someone hope against hopelessness, long for justice, work for equality, speak out against cruelty, stand up to a someone bullying another, offering a hand up to someone who has fallen.

That's the stuff I believe in, not miracles. I believe in the ordinariness of God.

The conversation disturbed me--but at least it made me write this down so I remember what I believe and where God 'shows up' moment to moment....

So, I guess I should thank him for what outraged me.

(Maybe something 'holy' in thanking him for that....)

Give me the gun

I do not believe in capital punishment. Not at all.

But in the case of David and Louise Turpin and their 13 half-starved, shackled children, give me the gun and I'll do the deed.

How could anyone ever, ever, ever, do that to children--much less their own children?

I can hardly stand to hear about the results and probable life-long outcomes for those 13 (who has 13 children, for goodness sake?) children.

Such madness is incomprehensible.

And, guess what, they are originally from West Virginia. Just like Charlie Manson. Just like me.