doing the circuit...

Today all three of the churches in the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry, which I serve as interim Missioner, had an event.

Emmanuel, Killingworth had a tag sale as part of a larger Killingworth tag sale day (maps provided by the Killingworth Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary. It was 9-1 and I got there as it was winding down.

St. Andrew's, Northford had its annual Rhubarb Festival from 2-4. They have 'everything rhubarb' you can imagine: cookies, pies, bread, cheese cake, all things with rhubarb in it.

Then, from 5-7, St. James, Higganum had the pulled pork dinner they hold each year with all proceeds going to the Relay for Life--a walk for Cancer research. Folks stay up all night smoking the meat on an outdoor 10 foot by 4 foot grill they built.

Lots of driving in a drizzle. But I listened to the Yankee game and took a book to read when I was early for something.

These three little churches--and they are little--Sunday attendance at Northford around 20 some, Killingworth 30 some and Higganum 35-40 most weeks...do more than churches 5 times their size!

I've never been around such profoundly dedicated people.

The churches are remarkably different though all are rural Connecticut--and they are exactly alike in one way: the devotion of their members.

God bless them. They give me hope for the church of the future--a pre-Nicene model of small, dedicated, closely knit communities.

I'm humbled to be able to be a part of their lives and ministries.

Truly....

Lonely...I get it finally

Here's who I am.

I am a beloved creature of God.

I am a human Being.

I am a man.

I am a husband, father, grandfather, friend and priest.

I am an only child.

I read five books a week and delight in the stories they tell.

I grew up alone and not only liked it, I thrived in it. I'm never bored. I don't even know what people--even people I love--mean when they speak of their boredom.I'm my own best company. I like to be alone. And I'm never bored.

Another thing I've not understood is 'being lonely'.

I've been a priest and comfort to hundreds and hundreds of people. Mostly I'm pretty good at it. Sometimes I'm brilliant at it. I have often made a difference for people who have talked with me.

Except when their problem was 'being lonely'. I feel I've failed them though I've listened and listened. I just haven't known what they were talking about.

I've considered it over the years. If my family and friends were all gone and I had no folks to serve in a church as a priest and a friend, would I be lonely?

I've never thought so. I'm an only child and never bored. If I were alone, I've always thought, I'd read and write more and not be lonely.

Then that blessed/damned Puli died.

Every time I come inside, I expect Bela to be there to greet me. I expect to turn around as I'm writing this and see him asleep behind me. I expect to feed and walk him each day. I expect to pick some of his hair off whatever I put on. I expect to hug him in the night.

And I am lonely for the first time ever.

That dog gave me many gifts--patience, great and enormous love, comfort and affirmation.

And now the 'gift' of lonliness.

And it is a 'gift'. Being given something you never had is a remarkable gift.

One more reason to miss him. And feel lonely without him.




Now I know what it means.

Making a Difference

Going on Tuesday to Holy Cross Monastery to be part of a three person leader team. We have over 20 signed up for the workshop. Exciting.

Holy Cross was a special place for me for almost 30 years before we started having workshops there. I took members of St. John's there for a retreat for over a decade and took some folks from the Cluster Churches a few years ago. Sometimes I've gone by myself or for one of their programs.

The ministry of the Benedictine Episcopal monks there is 'hospitality'--and they're darn good at it.

One of the first times I was  there with St. John's folks, at the end of Compline, the last of the 7 services of the day, three of the monks went over to a picture of the Virgin Mary and started chanting "Hail Mary, full of grace...."

The parishioner beside me said, under his breath, "Oh, My God!" He was a Congregationalist who married into the Episcopal church.

I patted his arm and whispered, "No, Don, God's mother...."

I also had Spiritual Direction at Holy Cross for two whole sessions.

It was the only time I ever tried spiritual direction (though I was in Jungian analysis for a dozen years). I only did it because I was tired of having younger priests look at me in horror when they'd ask me who my Spiritual Director was and I told them I didn't do it. I thought I'd give it a spin.

I met twice with one of the brothers and it wasn't bad at all. But then he up and ran off with one of the postulants and I decided I wouldn't endanger any other vocations.

(My favorite professor in college was Mr. Stasny who taught Honors English and the Great Books. I had 7 classes from him in 8 semesters which means I could have had a "minor" in Stasny-ology.  He was, by the way, one of the two professors--the other was religion teacher Manfred Otto Mitzen--who nominated me for a trial year in seminary, which I received and got sidetracked on my dreams to teach American Literature in some small liberal arts college.

I knew Stasny so well that I once asked him why he didn't have a Ph.D. He looked at me askance 
and answered, "my dear Bradley, who would test me?"

So when people these days ask me about my spiritual director, I look at them obliquely and ask, "my dear friend, who could direct me?)

Favorite pictures

I have a screen saver on my computer of photos from the past. Some of them are from before Josh and Cathy were married. Some are from slightly after their twins were born--but all over a decade old.

Two of my favorite photos of Josh and Mimi are of a visit they made to us along with Cathy (Tim wasn't in our lives yet.

Mimi is prone on a bed upstairs using our dog Bela as a pillow. She was the only person Bela would have let do that. Bela loved Mimi with a love beyond bounds. Mimi is smiling broadly in the picture. Bela is full of joy to be her pillow.

Josh is in our dining room looking down at the chair beside him. I know from another photo just before that one that our cat, Luke, was on that chair rolling over to show Josh his stomach. Josh's look is of love and bemusement.

Animals do that for us--they bring out the best of the best in us.

There's also a picture of Bern asleep in our bed with our previous dog, Sadie, up against her back and Luke sleeping between her feet.

Animals, you got to love them....

Appa-latch-an

I am an Appa-latch-an.

When John F. Kennedy came to Welch, WV,  before his election (he called it 'Welsh') he said 'Appalachia' as "Appal-a-chia" and it has been so for most people ever since. But it has 'latch' in it for me.

I grew up in those mountains for 18 years, until I went to Morgantown for college. Morgantown was much more like Pennsylvania than West Virginia. Then I left for two years at Harvard (not Appalachia no matter how you pronounce it) and then back to Morgantown for a few years before Alexandria, VA and then back to Charleston, WV for 5 years. By that time I was married to Bern with two children and I was 30 years old and we moved to Connecticut--first to New Haven and then to Cheshire, were we've been ever since.

So, by all accounts, given Harvard and the rest, I've lived in New England more of my life than in West Virginia.

And yet, in spite of that, I am an Appalachian. With a 'latch' in the pronunciation.

I have coal dust in my veins. And after nearly 40 years in New England I still have an accent no one can place.

Today we had more Cox employees in our house than you even want. They were here to make our phones and TV ready for the future. And they did, I think, though the phones won't work until tomorrow.

Two of them--a black guy and a white guy with paper booties on their feet (the other guy didn't wear booties and the two TV guys were horrified) asked me about my ethnicity. What an odd question. I told them every drop of my blood was from the British Isles via 40% from Scandinavia 500 years ago. They both agreed I had a British Isles accent.

What I have is a Scots/Irish accent from the mountains of West Virginia.

Amazing that they caught it after more than my life in New England.

A mountain boy is a mountain boy no matter what, I suppose.

A black guy and a, probably, Eastern European guy, heard Irish in my accent.

God love those mountains where accents got frozen.

All bull-s***, I know, but worth pondering, at any rate.

Lost in translation

In the Gospel lesson for today (John 15.9-17) Jesus says "love" 9 or 10 times.

But that's the thing: John is written in Greek, not English, so Jesus didn't say "love".

There are three words in Greek that are all translated as 'love' in English.

There is 'eros'....'nough said, you know about 'erotic love'.

There is 'philios'--like Philadelphia, the city of 'Brotherly (Sisterly) Love".

And there is "agape", which is the love that literally gives itself away. As in that passage, Jesus says, "if you AGAPE each other you will lay down your life for your friend". Agape is that kind of love.

And 'agape' is the word Jesus uses in that passage. "I agape you as the Father agapes me." "This is my command, that you agape one another. (The tenses and declensions make 'agape' more complicated but you get the gist.)

"Love" is really a throwaway word in English in many ways. I say, "I love my grandchildren" but I also say, "I love the New York Yankees" and "I love blueberry pie". English has no clear distinctions regarding the levels of 'love'.

Obviously, I agape my grandchildren since I would willingly die for them to live. Baseball and pie aren't in that category.

So, we are called by Jesus to 'agape' each other.

That's a hard call to answer.

Remember at the end of John's gospel (21.15-17) when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and Peter always answers "yes, Lord, you know I love you." Remember that?

So lost in translation. The first two times Jesus asks Peter "do you agape me" and Peter replies, "you know I philios you". The third time, giving Peter the benefit of the doubt, Jesus asks, "do  you philios me?" and Peter replies, "you know all things, you know I philios you."

Some theologians don't think we're up to agape. They think only God can agape. But Jesus, in today's gospel tells us he commands us to 'agape' one another.

Imagine if we were willing to lay down our lives for everyone. Imagine how that might transform the world.

(One aside: "love your neighbor as you love yourself". We don't love ourselves enough. We're taught not to. But we need to truly love ourselves if our love for our neighbor is to be agape.)

"There is enough light to see," a wise rabbi told his followers as the sun was rising, "when you can look into the face on any human being and see the face of God."

That would truly be agape love.

Pray, my brothers and sisters, for 'enough light to see...."

The book I'll read next

I'm half-way through Michael Connelly's Two Kinds of Truth which is a Bosch book, but next I'll read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, one of the few non-fiction books I'll read this year. I read 5 or 6 books a week but almost all are fiction. I'll make the exception for Vance's book.

He grew up, like me, a hillbilly--in Middletown, Ohio and in Kentucky. If you don't know Appalachia by heart, Middletown fits. It's a few miles north of Cincinnati, which was where folks from West Virginia and Kentucky went when the mines were shut down. My father in law spent a year or two working in Cincinnati over his time as a coal miner. When he would visit us in New Haven he'd walk over to an Italian market to talk in Italian to the owners. They told me they couldn't understand his Italian because of his Appalachian accent!

I am a hillbilly. I am White Trash. I am an Appalachian==a boy from the mountains.

So I look forward to Vance's book. I'm sure we share much in common--though from the reviews I've read we come from different versions of White Trash. His was much more mired in poverty and alcohol and violence than mine.

My mother's family were tee-totaler, Fundamentalist Christians. My father's family were farmers who left the farm and had what were then lower middle class jobs.

But the mountains and the culture were the same.

I often have difficulty telling folks from Connecticut what my childhood was like. It's hard for them to imagine the place I come from--the wondrous mountains, the isolation, the rural poverty.

I sometimes have difficulty remembering what it was like back there in the hollows. One of my bucket list things is to go spend a few days in McDowell County. Bern grew up there too--ethnic hillbillies--she has no interest in going with me.

I'll let you know what I think of the book and write more of what it was like to grow up in Appalachia.

Later....