R.I.P. The Rev. Dr. Bill Pregnell

Bill Pregnell was a professor of mine at Virginia Theological Seminary.

I loved him as a teacher and admired him as a man.

That affection went so deep that I asked him to preach at my ordination to the priesthood at St. James in Charleston, West Virginia.

And he agreed!

I have a picture of all the clergy from my ordination and Bill is in it.

What a joy he was--humorous and yet very intellectual.

I lost touch with him (as I often do with people from my past) and now he is dead at 88.

Deep breath. Grief. Sorrow.

I will miss you. Bill, though I haven't see you for decades.

Thanks for all the wisdom and humor and wonder we shared.

Whatever waits for us after death, I pray for you it is joyous.

M.I.L.E.

Today I gave a two hour presentation the Mary Magdalene at Middlesex Community College for M.I.L.E.--which I just googled to get what the acronym stands for: Middlesex Institute for Lifelong Education.

My spell check doesn't like Middlesex no matter how may times I tell it to ignore it. It wants me to type Middle sex. Come to Middletown and tell them that! Well, on top of that it wants me to type 'Middletown' as 'Middle town' or 'Middleton'. I dare my spell check to come to Middletown in Middlesex county and explain how they are misspelling their names....

Any way, over 70 people came to the presentation and were great. I may have worn them out since I have in the past done Mary Magdalene in 6 or 7 90 minute sessions so I probably talked too much and too fast.

But they were great.

If you live in the misspelled town or county check out M.I.L.E. on line. You have to type it with the periods or you'll never find it.

Great day but I'm hoarse and tired of being on my feet walking around the room that long.

Lost things

Today's gospel left out a bunch of verses. It said (from Luke) Jesus told them this parable and then jumped ahead to the parable of the Prodigal Son--or as I like to say it: The Lost Son.

What was missing was two more parables about lost things--the lost sheep, which the shepherd sought while leaving behind the 99 that weren't lost and the lost coin--where a widow swept her floor looking for her lost coin.

When the sheep and the coin were found, there was rejoicing and celebration, just as there was when the lost son returned home.

Lost things take on a great meaning.

Lost keys cause you to tear the house apart looking.

A lost pet causes you to make posters and call the pound and walk the streets calling.

A lost child is a time of terror and profound worry.

Lost things mean a lot.

And when they are found, safe and sound, we rejoice and celebrate and give thanks to whatever we think of when we think of God.

To me, the shepherd and the widow and the father are stand ins for that God.

It is the 'lost' that God values most of all. It is the 'lost' that God wants devoutly to find. It is the lost coming home that is the root of God's joy.

Think about that.

God worries about the outcasts, the off the grid, the 'lost ones'.

And so, perhaps, should we.

Something to ponder at any rate.

Springtime in New England

It's spring in New England and the sound of chain saws is in the land.

If you don't live up here, you might not know that winter brings down lots of tree limbs and trees.

And Spring is when they're cleared away. Two of our neighbors had tree removal folks for most of yesterday and today someone behind us has had chain saws going for hours.

Spring and Fall are my seasons, but with the chainsaws this season and the leaf blowers in Autumn they are two loud times.

If you don't live in Connecticut, you probably don't know it is referred to as 'the land of pleasant living'. But not with leaf blowers and chain saws it isn't.

And sirens. Cheshire is a town of 30,000 but there are always sirens going off and passing by.

I finally realized a few days ago that since we live half a block from Route 10--the only clear north/south road in the village--police and ambulances have to go that way. If we lived at the bottom of Cornwall Ave. we'd probably seldom hear a siren.

As you age do you get more sensitive to sound?

I have, I know.

It must have been the same when we moved here 30 years ago--but it didn't bother me then.

Live and learn and grow old.

Giving with the wind

(I happened across a poem I wrote  May 9, 2010. The message is suitable for the unstable and wind-blown times we're living in.)

                               Giving with the Wind

Standing on the deck of my good friend's home,
loaned to us for the week,
I watch the so tall trees give with the wind.

Tall, tall, a hundred feet or more,
and sparsely branched and swaying so.

It is Vermont in May. Today it snowed.
The wind swept up the mountain from below
and those ancient pines, moving several feet,
give with the wind.

I drink white wine
and watch them bend and bow and almost dance.

Ageless wisdom, planted in dark soil:
"Resist not. Cling not. Do not rigid be."

Give with the wind. Sway deeply. Bend and dance.
The winds of life, blow as they might, pass on.

jgb

It felt like Spring

Today was the first day here in Connecticut that felt like Spring.

I even had gnats--forgot about them over the winter.

Bern worked outside in the yard for hours and gathered more leaves than you can imagine off the places where flowers will soon be in bloom.

And we got to see what Bridget  will be like outside when the weather finally turns.

All good.

Winter wasn't horrible as it can be in New England, but Spring is welcomed.

With open arms and open hearts.

Come Spring, we love you.

much to ponder

Usually I read a couple of dozen of my Mastery Foundation quotes from the quote box to find 6 or7 I want to share.

Today I took out 10 and am going to share them all. They are so pithy, it's worth reading them twice.

Ponder the wisdom and wit and insights of these.

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What  are you doing for others?
                                                                      --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
                                                                     --Bertrand Russell

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
                                                                     --Niels Bohr

"The reason you don't understand me, Edith, is because I'm talking to you in English and you are listening in dingbat."
                                                                    --Archie Bunker

"It doesn't have to always be like this--as long as we keep talking."
                                                                    --Stephen Hawking

"It takes a very long time to become young."
                                                                    --Pablo Picasso

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for Humanity."
                                                                   --Horace Mann

"Not to dream boldly may tun out to be simply irresponsible." 
                                                                   --George Leonard

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
                                                                   --Beverly Sills

"Every man" (and woman) "takes the limits of his" (their) 'own field of vision for the limits of the world."
                                                                  --Arthur Schopenhauer

Those should fill your pondering appetite for a spell....