A quiet Christmas

For the first time in 43 Christmases, Bern and I were on our own.

Josh and Cathy and the Bradley girls called this morning--9 p.m. Christmas Day in Taiwan--to say Merry Christmas.

Mimi and Tim are in Brooklyn, where we'll go tomorrow along with John Anderson, who, by the way, was our only guest at Christmas dinner. We also went to a Christmas Eve party at John's apartment with 8 close friends. My Christmas Eve service was at 4 so Bern and I could arrive together.

Pretty odd to open presents alone after 4+ decades of having someone around.

I write something for Bern for Christmas and she makes me a piece of art. Her art this year was about our 13 year, empty nest dog, Bela and had three pictures of him along with decoration and words. One was him in the snow--which he loved until his last winter--one on his back on our back deck and one on a couch, looking right into the camera. We both loved him so, so much--as bad as he was, and he WAS bad! We mourned him for six months before getting Bridget from the rescue place called Half-way Home in North Haven.

For Bern I wrote "Bridget's Diary" from the day we got her until December 18 when she finally knew 'there was no "next place",' and she was HOME!

As odd as it was to be alone on Christmas, it was fine.

We are very at home just being here alone.

Bern and I have been 'a couple' since I was 17 and she was 14--54 years! So we know how to be alone together.

I hope your Christmas was as peaceful and quiet and lovely as ours was.

Be well and stay well in the New Year.

I need to write about it

I am not a private person much of the time. My Meyers/Briggs always puts me in the middle between extrovert and introvert. I love my time alone but my professional life as an Episcopal priest has made vast demands on extroversion.

So, here's the thing. I had my prostrate removed 12 years ago and had a month of radiation after the surgery.

So, for all that time, my PSA in blood tests has been, understandably, 0.01 or so.

But this winter my PSA was 4.5.

So I went to my urologist, Dr. Wong (who looks a lot like my daughter in law, Cathy Chen, which makes her examining my private parts and putting her finger up my butt rather disconcerting).

Anyway. I gave blood for a more detailed test before I left the hospital where Dr. Wong practices and I will have several scans in the new year and she will look in my bladder--if you've never had that done, I won't explain it because it would freak you out--on January 18.

She can't explain the PSA, she tells me, until she has the tests.

But she did ask if I had any kidney problems or bone pain (no and no) and told me that one possibility is after all this time the prostrate cancer spread, and where it usually goes is to the bones or the kidneys.

I had a parishioner in Charleston, West Virginia who died from bone cancer and I can tell you that is a horrible way to go.

But Dr. Wong told me not to worry until all the tests are back and that there could be a much more mundane reason my PSA was high--like the blood test wasn't accurate. So the blood today will answer that.

I must say, I'm not ready to worry about the bad possibilities because I'm dreading her looking into my bladder on the 18th of January.

If you're a man and never had that done, I'm not going to tell you about it. It involves a light and a camera that has to go into your bladder via.....Oh, I'll spare you that.

You don't want to know....

Sermon last

I can't believe I haven't shared this, but I searched the over 2200 posts as best I could and couldn't find it. It is my last sermon after 21 years at St. John's in Waterbury, CT. I love it.

THE LAST DANCE/DEEP IN THE OLD MAN’S PUZZLE

          In one of Robertson Davies’ novels, someone asks an aging priest how, professing to be a holy man, he could devour a whole chicken and a bottle of wine at dinner. The priest answers:

          “I am quite a wise old bird, but I am no desert hermit who can only prophesy when his guts are knotted in hunger. I am deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle, trying to link the wisdom of the body with the wisdom of the spirit until the two are one.

          In my two decades in your midst, I have feasted on Joy and Sorrow, on the Wondrous and the Mundane, trying always to link the wisdom of the body to the wisdom of the Spirit…Deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle….

                                      ****

          A few years ago, for our anniversary I gave Bern a drawing by an artist named Heather Handler. It has a weird looking tree on it and these words:

                   “Sit with me on hilltops, under trees and beneath the skies.

                   Then speak softly and tell me the story, once again,

                   About why we met, and how someday we’ll fly….”

          That sentiment was about our relationship—Bern’s and mine—and it also speaks to me and you and our shared ministry and our relationship in this place for over twenty years.

          Today—this day—is our ‘last dance’. Friday we will part. I will go my way and you will go your way. And both ways are full of hope and joy and not a little anxiety and unknown wonders. Both ways lead to this: they lead us deeper into the Old Man’s Puzzle and they lead us to flying….

          There is no doubt in my mind that “why we met” was because of the will and the heart of God. But when I came here, I could not have ever imagined staying so long. And now that I am leaving, I cannot imagine leaving so soon.

          Yet I know this—we, you and I, will soon learn how to fly.

          Today we sit on the hilltop, beneath the sky and speak softly.

          And then we part, you and I. The last dance always ends. And the future lies ahead, beckoning, inviting, always to be created….

          I cannot thank you enough. I cannot thank you completely. There are not enough words—though I am a man of many words—to give that thanks in a way that matters.

          Instead, I will bless you.

          And these are my words of blessing: VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS, DEUS ADERIT….That means this: “Bidden or unbidden, God is present….”

          Whether we call upon God or not—God is always there…profoundly there…totally there…here…and now….

          I leave you, as I found you, with God in your midst and deep in the Old Man’s Puzzle.

          You have let me be a part of that for these years. God was here when I arrived and God guided us—you and me—on our journey together…and God waits, ready and glorious, to lead you on as I leave and to lead me on as you stay here.

          And there is this: God will teach us how to fly….And puzzle us more and more.

          I love you. I adore you. I will miss you more than you imagine…more than you CAN imagine. And I bless you and thank you.

          Keep trying, in every way possible, to link the wisdom of the body—WHAT YOU DO—to the wisdom of the Spirit—WHO YOU ARE.

And start trying out your wings……

 

I warned you....

I told you I would break my silence about President He Who Not Be Named and it wouldn't be pretty.

My friend, Charles, handed me this post when he told me someone had told him there is a Psalm for every moment and he had found the Psalm for our President.

It's Psalm 52 and it goes like this, in part....

You tyrant, why do you boast of wickedness*
 against the godly all day long?

You plot ruin; your tongue is like a sharpened razor*
 O worker of decedption.

You love evil more than good*
 and lying more than speaking the truth.

You love all words that hurt,*
 O you deceitful tongue.

Oh, that God would demolish you utterly,*
 topple you and snatch you from your dwelling,
 and root you out of the land of the living!

The righteous shall see and tremble,*
 and they shall laugh at him, saying,

"This is the one who did not take God for a refuge,*
 but trusted in great wealth
 and relied upon wickedness."

Good job, Charles, you and the Psalmist nailed it.

Every word rings true about this President....



  

not a bad law

One of the Scandinavian countries (where most of the wisdom in the world--it seems to me--resides) has passed a law requiring me to 'sit' to pee in public toilets.

As one who uses public restrooms (which is what we mild-mannered Americans call a place to leave bodily waste) I applaud Norway (I think it was) for this law.

How they will enforce it is a reasonable question, but I just think people up there in those cold, dark countries (these days by any rate) understand that 'obeying the law' is what good people do. So, I bet there is next to no pee on the floor of those bathrooms.

I may even start doing it at home. My aim isn't what it used to be and it might be better to never have to wipe stray urine up....

(I've given you about two weeks of Trump-free posts. So. I'm working up to coming back about the President by talking about "obeying the law" and human waste.

The President will be back under the castor oil tree next post. Get ready for it! There will be stuff to wipe  up when I'm through....)

Funny thing about the cold

I took Brigit out the other night after 3 or 4 glasses of wine. It was 18 degrees and by the time we walked and she did her business and we came back, I felt pretty drunk.

It reminded me of our time in college at the Red Cellar, drinking beer in the winter and then walking home to Boreman Hall or 69 Richwood Avenue (what an address). It would be one of the Mike;s--Lawless or Miano--and Malcolm Alt and sometimes someone else.

We'd feel fine until we stepped out in the freezing temperature.

How we made it home at all is a wonder to me!

A little drunk became staggering, almost falling over drunk.

When I graduated from High School I'd never tasted alcohol. Hard to believe, I know, but I was a 'good boy' and my mother's family were tee-totalers and so, I never drank.

The summer between high school and college I visited my favorite cousin, Mejol, in New Orleans, of all places and she took me to Al Hirt's club and got me throwing up drunk.

I thank her for that. I needed to learn.

I drink only white wine now and sometimes red wine if there is no white.

I drink beer only when either Tim or Josh, beer drinkers both. But I'm a wineo, not a beer drinker or anything 'hard'.

But beware of drinking much of anything and going out into the cold.

Take it from me.

I know a thing or two about that.

An 'old' Advent II sermon

I preached this, as you can see, 17 years ago. The Gospel was Matthew 3.1-12. I preached Sunday without notes and forgot to try to capture it that evening and it is now in the ether....

Advent II—December 9, 2001

          Suddenly, without warning, the Baptist appears from the wilderness.

          BAM! HERE COMES JOHN!

          Out of the desert, out of the smoldering embers of the Hope of the people of Israel, out of the fading memory of prophets long dead…suddenly, without warning—there is John….

          There was nothing new or unusual about baptism in Jewish practice. In fact, “ritual washing” was a part of every Jew’s daily life. Each time a devout Jew came in contact with any unclean thing, ritual washing was necessary. And since first century Israel was occupied by the foreign, Gentile Roman army the Jews could not avoid “unclean things”.  “Baptism” was necessary to wash away that uncleanness—that  external and ritual stain of the Gentile world.

          BAM! John turned the washing inside out. His washing—his baptism—was for the forgiveness of sin. His water wasn’t to wash away the outer contamination—John came to wash away  the inner darkness and death from the mind and heart and soul.

          And he came just as people were losing hope. It had been 400 years since a prophet had been heard in Israel. For four centuries there had been no VOICE heard in the land and none to answer the Prophet’s call.

          BAM!  After generations of emptiness, a Prophet came to Israel. After centuries of silence, a Prophet’s Voice was heard in the Land. He was Isaiah. He was Ezekiel. He was Elijah.

          Suddenly, without warning, John Baptist appears.

                                                *

          The common people streamed out to meet him. All those in Jerusalem and Judea who had longed for the Voice of a Prophet rushed to him to be baptized in the River Jordan. He was irresistible to them. He spoke powerfully into their listening. He called them to bare their souls and unburden their hearts. He called them to Forgiveness, to Grace, to the Love and Healing of God. The holy river’s waters flowed over them—restoring them, renewing them, giving them vitality and Life.

          So far, so good. But then some Pharisees and Sadducees showed up and things got ugly.

          “You brood of Vipers!” John raged at the Pharisees and Sadducees. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

          This is what we must remember about the Pharisees and Sadducees—they weren’t bad people. In fact, the conventional wisdom of the Jewish world in the first century considered the Pharisees and Sadducees to be “good people.” The Pharisees and Sadducees devoutly studied the Torah, scrupulously obeyed the Laws of Moses and faithfully performed the rituals of their faith. The Pharisees and Sadducees talked the talk and walked the walk of Judaism. In ways too uncomfortable to reflect on deeply, the Pharisees and Sadducees were “the good Episcopalians”  of their day and time.

          They said their prayers, kept their pledge up to date, helped with parish functions and came regularly to services. Good “church folks”, as my Grandmother would have said—that’s what the Pharisees and Sadducees were. So what was it about them that so profoundly angered John the Baptist?

          This is what he said to them: Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 

          Here’s what I think John’s anger is all about….The Pharisees and Sadducees had decided that the “outward” and “visible” aspects of being faithful and following God were enough.  So, they said their prayers, kept their pledge up to date, helped with parish functions and came regularly to services—and they believed that was ENOUGH.

          John Baptist had other ideas.

          John came out of the wilderness to talk about the hearts and souls and minds of God’s people. John appeared, suddenly and without warning, to call us to more than “outward show”.  John came to suggest something audacious and astonishing.  John came to tell us WE NEED TO FALL IN LOVE WITH GOD.

                                                *

          Advent, it seems to me, is the season of romance between our souls and the Heart of God.  In the Christian year, it is Advent and not Spring that is the season of “falling in love”.