From some time ago

This is when I first wrote about deciding to retire from St. John's in Waterbury. It was just over 9 years ago. Thought I'd share it again.

It is pertinent since I spoke today at St. James' Annual Meeting, about the Church as 'community' and 'institution'.

After I left St. John's, someone asked me, "what do you miss most?"

"The people--the community...." I replied.

"And what do you miss least?"

I didn't even have to think. "Annual Meetings!"

And now, for my sins, I will attend three this month.....

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Day One

Today, January 10, is the first day that my plan to retire from my position at St. John's has been general knowledge. A letter went out last week that most people already received and I talked about it at all three services--just an initial and general comment, really. My last day will be April 30, so there is time to have longer, more serious conversations. After over 20 years there will be a lot of good-byes to say. And since someone leaving is like a death, I imagine we will all go through some of Elizabeth Kubla Ross' 'stages of death': denial, bargaining, anger, depression and hopefully, acceptance.

I've already experienced in others most of those stages. Some people who knew, before the letter went out, had the first reaction: "you don't mean it...." Others asked if there was anything they, or the church, could do to change my mind. Some spoke a bit harshly with me--words like 'abandoning us' and 'betraying us' were actually spoken. And many are simply sad--already in depression. A few have wished me well and told me they are happy for me. Thing is, people jump back and forth during a long illness--which, in a way--is what now until the end of April will be! My hope is to help the parish--and myself--come to acceptance in the end so my parting can be as wondrous and important as my time with St. John's has been. That's part of what I'll be trying to develop a discipline about by writing down the days.

I also want to reflect on my time here--I have grieving to do and things to let go of before I can leave cleanly. I usually work through things better in writing than in other ways, so this journal of the last few months of my ministry and presence here will help me do that.

I might start looking at 'the church' with a critical eye. One of the things I want to do when I have more time that will begin in May, is to write about 'the church' as an institution and a community. It is meant to be the latter but spends more time and energy of being the former, in my opinion at any rate. So I might drift into that once and a while.

And, really, is will be a time for me to say good-bye to some of the best years of my life. I was 42 when I arrived and didn't have a gray hair on my head though my beard had turned gray years before. Now I'm going to be a white haired guy of 63 when I leave. That's a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of wafers across the rail. It's also a lot of dying and being born and getting married and being sick and moving away and struggling and rejoicing. It is quite remarkable how little a priest 'does' like work. Most of my ministry is 'being there'. Woody Allen once said, "just showing up is 90% of life." In ministry 'just showing up' may be even more than that!

I've had discussions with other priests--and a couple of bishops--about my belief that ordination is ontological, not functional. There are 'functions' I can perform under the particular and peculiar polity of the Episcopal Church. But they aren't hard and soon become like 'muscle memory'. But I truly believe (as truly as I believe anything...we'll run into my odd theories about 'belief' at some point) that 'being a priest' is simply that--'being...."

I have a seminary classmate--probably many of them--who wear clerical collars. I don't and haven't for years--but that's just me. If I did wear a collar the last place I'd wear one is on an airplane--it attracts crazy people like a magnet and even the sanest of us is a little crazy at 38,000 feet trapped in a large, efficient sardine can. Once my friend talked to a man all the way from LA to Chicago. As they were circling O'Hare, the seatmate said to my friend, "what do you do for a living?" My friend looked down at his black shirt and Anglican collar and said, somewhat confused, "Why...I'm a priest...." And the man replied, "I know who you are, I want to know what you do...."

My friend asked me what I would have said. Truth is, what I would have said is something like, "who I AM is what I do...." Let him chew on that while he waits for his baggage.

I'm sure that will come up again in these musings under a Castor oil tree that will no longer be with us on May 1--my life and time at St. John's.

Hope you'll come along for the journey....

Three of the most beautiful words....

NO SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS.

Pretty normal words, but music to my ears!

Back on December 18, I wrote about going to my urologist because the PSA in my annual physical was at 4 or so, twelve years after my prostrate and the cancer in it was removed.

So, Dr. Wong (unfortunate name for a urologist, I know) ordered more blood tests and then a CAT scan and bone scan I had yesterday.

I was driving on I 91 on my way to Higganum, when my phone started it's "Hello, Moto" routine. I can barely take a call sitting still with both hands, much less at 70+ mph, so I didn't answer. When I got to St. James, I found a voice mail from a technician in Dr. Wong's office. From then until about 1:45 pm, I called her back 4 times and missed a call from her. My anxiety was rising by the  minute. though Bea told me that if it were 'bad' news, the doctor would have called herself.

My phone started to ring right at Stop and Shop and I careened into the parking lot and nearest space to answer.

Shanique told me these three words: "no significant findings" in either scan.

I told her those were beautiful words.

She laughed and said, "Well, I guess that's true."

Then I drove home to tell Bern my new favorite words.

I know some of you have been thinking about me and even "praying", for goodness sake--in this day!

Thank you for that. I'll learn next Friday what Dr. Wong has to say about the PSA. But today--as Fate would have it--I took communion to a family who knew two men who, just like me, had prostate surgery and radiation and then years later their PSA came back and for both it was nothing.

"No significant findings", just stuff medicine doesn't yet understand.

There are 2 crisis's--just not yours

I watched, as you may have, the President's address tonight and the Democrats' response.

None of the three could win a high school debate contest, but two of them spoke Truth while He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named did not.

The President did admit there is a 'humanitarian crisis' at the southern boarder--one he created--where the legal right to apply for admission to the US because of dangerous conditions in their homeland is being delayed and delayed and delayed. And children, separated from their parents by this draconian administration have not been re-united but put in prison like situations with inadequate health care.

Plus, the other crisis is the partial shut down of the US government which has 800,000 federal workers either working without pay or furloughed without pay. Basic needs--food stamps, promised aid to native American's, safety in airports, care of national parks, availability of federal museums and much more--has been limited or ended.

Open the government and THEN talk about boarder security, which is much more complex than the President even understands.

Open the Government.

Open it now.

Congress is wanting to if only the President will agree.

And to this point, he hasn't.

nieces and nephews

It just occurred to me tonight--Bern and I have no nieces and nephews.

I'd never thought of it before for some reason.

I'm an only child and neither of Bern's older brother or sister ever had children.

Mimi and Tim have three nieces--Josh and Cathy's three girls.

Josh and Cathy have Eleanor and Cathy's two brothers' children.

Bern and I have none.

I had eight sets of uncles and aunts and 2, 4, 8, 1, 2, 2 first cousins--and nieces and nephews to my parents.

And Bern and I have none. No nieces and nephews.

It's always been so--but I never realized it in such a way as tonight.

I miss those nieces and nephews I never had.

I do.

And I hope Josh and Mimi realize the gifts that they might be.

I would have been a good uncle. That I know and know fair well....

Broken hearted

A New Year's Resolution I always make that is always broken is this: 'this year I won't care so much about sports'.

Today the Chicago Bears, my favorite NFL team, kicked a field goal to defeat the Eagles on the last play of the game. But the Eagle's coach called a time out before the ball was snapped and when the kicker tried again he hit the upright and missed the field goal.

Alas and alack.

Here are the teams I give my heart to:

college, any sport: West Virginia University, where I did my B.A. But the only team from WVU that is almost always in the running for National Championships is the rifle team--which often wins. Irony of ironies--I hate guns!

NBA: the LA Lakers, because Jerry West of WVU was a Hall of Fame player for them. Even with Labron James, they are barely above (by two games) having a losing record this year.

MLB--the Yankees, because my father, ready to set off to WW II and Omaha Beach was given tickets to a Yankees/Dodgers World Series game before he went to Europe and decided the team that won would be 'his team'. The Yankees won and I grew up in southern-most West Virginia as a Yankee's fan. My blood is pin stripped.

And the Bears. The reason I love them is that when I was young they had a running back named Gayle Sayers who I adored and their home uniforms were black helmets and black jerseys and white pants, which I found remarkably attractive.

And no matter how much I try to avoid feeling too much about sports, I do.

I was a junior high basketball and football player. Good in basketball, so/so in football. But I reached my full growth in 9th grade, so when I went to high school everyone else had out grown me and I had no sports future.

(The Eagles have a running back and defensive back who are both WVU graduates. So, as odd as it might seem, they'll be my team this year, even though they beat my beloved Bears. I still need someone to root for. I am one who cares too much about sports....

Except for Nascar--I don't care about that at all. And don't even consider racing cars a 'sport'.)

Epiphany sermon

Epiphany

           

           

            Listen to the words of Isaiah:“… A multitude of camels

                shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah…”

          Epiphany gets me thinking about Camels.

Camels are remarkable creatures—a miracle of design.  Without Camels the history of northern Africa and what we call the Middle East would have been very different.

          And the Magi wouldn’t have made it to Bethlehem.

          Camels have two humps and are larger than their one-humped cousins, the dromedaries.

Those two humps are made of fat for the camels to live on when there’s nothing to eat. And when they do eat, they eat the sparse, thorny plants that survive in the desert.

          Camels have thick fibrous pads on their feet to keep the heat of the sand from burning them and to maintain better balance. They can travel 70 miles a day and can store 30 quarts of water in their stomachs. In extreme heat they can go without water for nearly a week.

          Camels have flaps on their nostrils that close during sandstorms.

They are a miracle of design. You couldn’t make up an animal more suited for that part of the world than a camel. And since they can carry 600 pounds on their backs, they made trade and exploration possible in the harsh, barren regions of the middle East.

          Because of Camels, great and sophisticated civilizations flourished in one of the most inhospitable areas of the world.

          Camels almost certainly carried Balthazar, Melichior and Caspar on their long journey to from Babylon to Judea.

          So, Epiphany makes me think about camels and about those exotic astrologers they carried to Jesus.

          Bethlehem was a tiny village in the first century when the Magi arrived. A back-water town. A “one horse” town—or, more accurately, a “one camel” town.

          The Magi were wealthy men from a high priestly caste. They were sophisticated—and important enough to demand an audience with King Herod and to cause a stir in Jerusalem.

          Bethlehem must have seemed strange and primitive to them.

          I have a mental picture of the Magi as they approached Joseph’s simple working-class house. They must have wondered if their calculations were somehow off, it they had read the heavens incorrectly. How could the Golden Child the stars had foretold be here in this ordinary place?

          The word of their arrival would have spread like wild-fire through Bethlehem. The whole village must have come out to gawk and wonder at these astonishing foreigners. Their caravan would have drawn a crowd of on-lookers, pondering what would bring men of unimaginable wealth to such an unimportant place.

          Balthazar, Melichior and Caspar were used to marble palaces and royalty. Yet there they were, ducking their heads to enter the low doorway of a carpenter’s house, dropping to their knees on the straw-covered, dirt floor, opening gifts of astonishing value before a simple, teenaged girl and her toddler son.

         

          Epiphanies seldom come on camel back.

          Epiphanies are seldom wrapped in silk and gold.

          Epiphany is the un-concealing of God in the midst of life. And epiphanies seldom come on camel back. God is seldom revealed, seldom unconcealed in the spectacular and remarkable events of life.

          In fact, there is a dictionary definition of an “epiphany” that I memorized many years ago because I knew I needed to remember it. It goes like this: “an epiphany is the sudden, intuitive knowledge of the deep-down meaning of things, usually manifested in what is ordinary, everyday and commonplace.”

          God is manifested to us like that: suddenly and intuitively. An epiphany points us past the surface meaning to the deep-down meaning, the essence, the very core and marrow of understanding.

            But seldom is “god-ness” manifested in the unusual, spectacular and extraordinary. When God comes to us, it is in what is ordinary, everyday and commonplace.

          Epiphanies do not have as much to do with “what we’re looking at” as they do with “the way we see.”

          Let’s give the Magi credit—they knew how to see. For two years and thousands of desert miles, they had expected to find a Prince, a King, a Golden Child in a Royal Palace. Yet, when they entered that humble home and saw that commonplace family in the midst of their everyday life with their ordinary little boy, they knew how to see. They brought out their gifts and they “fell down and worshiped him.”

         

          If only we knew how to see so well.

          When I lived in Divinity Hall at Harvard Divinity School, my best friend was Dan Kiger, who’s became a Methodist minister in Ohio. Dan and I played Gin Rummy every day for an hour before dinner in his room for a penny a point. All these year’s later, he still owes me money.

          On the wall of Dan’s room was a poster consisting of thousands of black dots on a white background. I stared at it for countless hours while Dan decided what to discard. I thought of it as an interesting “impressionistic” picture.

          Then one day, while we were playing Gin Rummy, a friend from down the hall came in to borrow an envelope from Dan. While Dan was looking for an envelope in his desk, Hank said, “that’s a great picture of Jesus” and pointed to the poster of a thousand dots.

          After Hank left, I sat staring at the poster for a long time. “How’s that a picture of Jesus?” I finally asked Dan.

          He got up and pointed to one of the thousands of dots. “That’s his left eye,” was all Dan had to say. Suddenly, I saw it—it was Jesus! And I could never again see it as merely thousands of dots.

          Epiphanies are like that. If we only know how to see, God is everywhere in our world, in our lives.

           

          We need eyes to see.

          We need to see that God is manifested to us in what is common and ordinary.

          We need to see the one dot in the millions of dots that is the left eye of God.

          The Sufi’s have a saying. Whenever you hear hoof beats, look for a Zebra.

          Those are the eyes we need. Eyes to see Zebras and Camels in the midst of what is ordinary…eyes to see God in the commonplace…eyes to see Star Light in the dust motes of our everyday lives…eyes to see the Christ Child in every child’s face….eyes to see what is “most holy” in what is “most mundane”….

hoppin' john

I mentioned to a nurse who gives me my bi-weekly shots that we had "Hoppin' John" for New Year's Day--as we have for years.

She had no idea what I meant, so I told her.

Bern and I aren't true Southerners, we're from Appalachia and neither of us ever had Hoppin' John in our childhood. But I found out about it at some point and we started a New Year's tradition.

Here's a little verse many of you will know:

"Beans, beans, a wonderful fruit,
the more you eat the more you poop.
The more you poop, the better you feel,
so eat your beans at every meal."

The main ingredient of Hoppin' John is black-eyed peas, which are, of course, beans not peas. And they work like the verse says, believe you me.

Then their is rice to mix with the black-eyed peas and some kind of pork (we had ham) and cooked kale.

That's Hoppin' John. And it is gooood!!!

There's a story to it--the kale stands for green money, the rice is for happiness, the black eyed peas are for health and the pork is for luck in the coming year.

Or something like that--I may have everything but the kale.

I really love it, but be prepared to always be near a toilet for a couple of days....