April 17, 1947

Seventy-two years ago, Virgil Hoyt Bradley and Marion Cleo Jones Bradley had their first and only child. Virgil was 41 and Cleo was 38--not unusual ages today, but unheard of back then.

The child was born in Welch Memorial Hospital, in Welch, West Virginia, 18 miles from where they lived in Anawalt.

And, surprise, surprise, that baby was me.

My father was working in his brother, Russel's, grocery store-the H and S market in Anawalt and my mother was a school teacher.

At the time of my birth, Virgil was a Hard Shell Baptist and my mother was a Pilgrim Holiness. Later, we would all become Methodists.

My mother died when I was 25 but my father lived to see his grandchildren and to know I had been ordained as an Episcopal priest--something no one on either side of the family would have thought possible. Plus, I was the second in my family on either side to marry a Roman Catholic! Who to my surprise, was received into the Episcopal Church after 7 years of marriage.

My mother was a Democrat and my father a Republican (though he wouldn't recognize his party today!!!) Both were 'conservative' in many ways. And I'm a Democratic Socialist. Go figure.

I slept until 9:30 a.m., ate a Belgian waffle and bacon for breakfast, had Manhattan clam chowder for lunch, a piece of my birthday cheese cake and we went to dinner and I had more spare ribs that anyone could eat--and will be eating them for two more days.

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, my favorite Holy Day and then Good Friday and our children and grand-daughters arrive on Holy Saturday.

"All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well."  --Julian of Norwich

I went for the first time in years

I went today to the Cathedral in Hartford for the Holy Tuesday renewal of ordination vows.

I road up and back with three friends and the trip was good.

The Bishop of Maine led a conversation around tables in the morning on a passage from Luke about Jesus telling the man who wanted to bury his father before following him, "let the dead bury the dead".

It also talks about foxes having holes and the Son of Man not having a place to lay his head.

But the conversation was good and the Bishop did a nice job.

The service was very good too.

Lunch was OK, but not great and because I have trouble registering for stuff on line, I had to pay $15 for lunch.

Not a bad day, but I do have to recall, every time I go to a clergy gathering, what Will Rodgers said about Methodist clergy. "Methodist ministers," he opined, "are like manure. Spread out, they do a lot of good, but all in one place they tend to stink."

I forgot

(Usually, I try each year to reprint the first post of now over 2300 over the years on the anniversary of that first post.. This year I'm over a month late of the birth of this blog. But here it is, late as it is.)

Sunday, March 8, 2009

My first post

Sitting under the Castor Oil Tree (March 7, 2009)

The character in the Bible I have always been drawn to in Jonah. I identify with his story. Like Jonah, I have experienced being taken where I didn't want to go by God and I've been disgruntled with the way things went. The belly of a big old fish isn't a pleasant means of travel either!

The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineva, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"

God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a castor oil tree--the impications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challanges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."

God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Ninivah...along with their cattle and beasts.

And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.

What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineva (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a Ph.D. in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.

God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcly understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me axious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.

I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.

Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.

My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).

Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.

When I was in high school, I wrote a regular colemn for the school newspaper call "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.

So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the castor oil tree and ponder somemore. And, if you wish, share my ponderings with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.

Two caveates: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.

I suppose I'll just ask your tolerance.

daffodils

There are hundred of daffodils in our back yard. Today's been the warmest day this spring and I am filled with joy looking at the daffodils.

About half have bloomed and the other half will be there soon.

Bern has got it so something is blooming all spring and summer somewhere in our yards.

Out front there is a plethora of tiny, delicate blue flowers she doesn't remember the the name of. An abundance of them.

And we have ground cover in both yards that have wondrous white flowers in both yards. They'll be showing their heads soon.

And did I mention the snow bells that came first of all?

Spring is springing to life all around us.

Thank the Almighty!!!

heritic

I was a Deputy to General Convention three times--Columbus, Anaheim and Minneapolis. I would have to google it to tell you in what order. It was I think: 2003, 2006 and 2009.

I was in the hallway at Minneapolis when I saw one of my bishops, Jim Curry, coming out of the display room--where you could buy anything you'd probably never want about the Episcopal Church.

Jim saw me and came running over. "I've got you something--just for you!" He handed me a small red button you can attach with a wire to your coat.

On it was one word: HERETIC.

I still have it and wear it from time to time. Bless Bishop Curry!

I probably am a heretic since I either don't believe or could care less about a lot of Christian Doctrine and Dogma.

I'm just not interested in 'believing'. I'm interesting in having "faith"--pistos in Greek--which could just as easily be translated as "trust".

I 'trust' in the Almighty Power. I don't 'believe' much of anything.

So people figure that out and give me stuff to read.

I guess they're trying to 'save' me. I'm not sure.

The latest is a book called Proof  of Heaven by Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was in a coma and journeyed into the 'afterlife'.

I'll dutifully read it and thank the woman who loaned it to me.

But if someone jumped out from behind a tree on a dark street and yelled, "do you believe in heaven?" I'd answer, "I don't know."

I know the Almighty Power I trust in would never have a hell. That Power is Love, pure and simple and punishing people for eternity would never occur to him/her/it.

So: "heaven"?

Who knows? Not me.

But I trust and will go into that good night with faith.

Enough for me.

Palm Sunday sermon

(I haven't preached it yet, but it's ready to go. Here it is.)

PALM SUNDAY 2019—St. Andrew’s, Northford

          It probably wasn’t as big a deal as we make it out to be.

          We call it THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

          It was probably more like sneaking in the back door.

          Who was it, after all? A country bumpkin of a rabbi (what good can come from Nazareth?) along with his equally provincial followers—ragged and dusty from three years of traveling—and the riff-raff hanging around the gates of the Holy City, looking for some entertainment.

          Oh, it caused a stir—Jesus arriving and going immediately to the Temple. The Pharisees were nervous because the rabble seemed to love him and the rabble could never be trusted to toe the line. The ones who welcomed the strange prophet from the sticks were uncontrollable by the authorities of the Temple. So the Sanhedrin—the equivalent of the Bishops in our church—watched and waited and bided their time. This troublesome Teacher was a problem that could be dealt with successfully.

          Oh, it caused a stir….The Zealots, those “freedom fighters” of the Jews—the ones the Romans saw as “terrorists”—had a breath of hope. Perhaps Jesus was the figure around which a popular rebellion could be mounted. Perhaps he could be the one to restore the Throne of David and return the land of Israel to the Israelites.

          Oh, it caused a stir….Pilate was troubled because his wife was having nightmares about this Prophet Jesus and when Pilate was troubled the Roman Legion was troubled. It was almost Passover and the city was full of pilgrims who were full of religious fervor. And religious fervor is always a threat to the “status quo” and the rule of the occupying army.

          Oh, it caused a stir….The common folk were mesmerized by the wisdom and the miracles of Jesus. He brought them something that touched them deep in their souls, something so long missing from their lives, dashed by oppression and almost extinguished: he brought the faint, almost bitter sweet hope that God still loved them.

          But it was probably still much less spectacular than we make it out to be. A little band of people—dispossessed, powerless, mostly poor…outsiders of all the political and religious intrigue of the day—laying palm branches and, yes, their own cloaks, on the path up to the city for this strange, eccentric, inscrutable rabbi who had “rocked” their marginal lives with the possibility of love.

          In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul wrote—as you heard today—that Jesus “emptied himself out”. The Greek word is lovely. Kenosis: “to empty out”.

          It seems to me that Jesus was practicing “kenosis” all the way up to Jerusalem.

          He was emptying himself of pride and ego and whatever ambitions he might have had.

          He was emptying himself of anger and resentment and petty disagreements.

          He was emptying himself of power and influence and the ability to “change the world” in some profound way.

          He was emptying himself of the hope that clings to life against all odds, of the longing to “make a difference”, of the glitter and attraction of worldly things.

          He was making himself completely empty—cleaned out, purged—creating a vacuum within his heart that could hold LOVE for the whole world, for all of it, every single bit of it.

          It was LOVE that entered Jerusalem by some side gate, riding on a colt, listening to sounds of “Hosanna!”, being fanned by fronds of palm.

          It was LOVE—love for the Pharisees, for his close friends and companions, for Pilate and the Romans, for the Zealots who would make him King, for the common folk who ran beside him, guiding him toward the Temple Mount. Love for you. Love for me.

          It was LOVE…love and love only, always love, already love, total love, all-embracing love, love to fill his heart and break it too, love beyond imagining, love beyond pain or suffering or life or death, love “once and for all”. Simply LOVE and nothing else at all….

          Just that.

          Love on the back of a colt entering the Holy City.  

          So, I guess it was a “big deal” after all….

coins in the mail

I should go downstairs and get them all and be accurate. I think I will. Back in a moment.


OK, sorry for the delay.

Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary sent me a nickle and two pennies,

The SPCA sent me four nickles.

PETA sent me four nickles.

The Humane Society sent me three nickles,

And the SPCA sent me four more nickles.

That's 82 cents.

And, to my knowledge I've never given any of those groups money.

I do support local rescue groups.

Perhaps they share their donors with national groups.

I understand, Animals suffer greatly at the hands of humans.

The only cases I would support the death penalty for would be people hurting animals. I really would. I'd pull the trigger myself if invited.

Nothing worse that people hurting animals they aren't going to eat.

(I'm a carnivore, but I don't want to look at that too closely....I do love meat and fish.....)

But why send me 82 cents?

To make me feel guilty about taking their money and not giving them mine?

I guess that's it--along with pictures of horses being dragged by trucks and abused cats and dogs.

It won't work. I'll put that 82 cents in the jar where I put pocket change and support local rescue places--like "Almost Home" in North Haven where we found Bridget.

Though I try to not give advise on this blog, you should support local rescue facilities. They do the work of God and Angels.

Really!

But don't mail me coins.