Cheshire is loud

People tend to think of Cheshire, where we live, as a peaceful, little, suburban town.

But Cheshire is loud, at least around here.

We live three lots from Rt. 10, the main road through Cheshire, between New Haven and I 691 which will take you to I 91 N and Hartford. So we get lots of sirens on Rt. 10. One was going by as I was typing the second sentence above.

But that's not the worse thing. The worse thing is lawns and drive ways.

Lawns and driveways are important on Cornwall Ave. So we have leaf blowers in the fall and spring, snow blowers in the winter and grass cutting blowers and lawn mowers in the late spring and summer.

All of which are loud.

I was out on the deck in April's 60 degree weather today and a neighbor across the street was having their lawn mowed and the grass cuttings blown away by a lawn care company. We don't have a 'lawn care company' except for Bern and her push mower.

It was so loud my tinnitus went silent and then I noticed the two young men doing it weren't wearing ear protectors. Later on they'll be lucky to hear tinnitus, must less anything else!

I like quiet, so all this motorized noise bothers me.

I'd rather hear the crickets of my tinnitus.

That's how loud it gets around here.

memories are made of this

Since I have a degree from Harvard (M.T.S. 1971) I receive the University's magazine every two months.

The March/April magazine had a cover story about 1969 (my first semester there) and the student strikes over the Vietnam war.

In my two years in Cambridge, we completed only one of four semesters because of strikes that shut down the university. Those were, in my memory, a boy from the mountains of West Virginia, amazing!

Police in riot gear. Students in tee shirts with a red hand on the back, curled into a fist, and the black letters "STRIKE".

Harvard Square was like a variety show. Hippies, Hari Kristna  folks,  people in red and black robes acting out roles of the GOOD and the EVIL, teens looking for pot, homeless folks, students from the college, sight-seers and tourists, and the little dog belonging to the newspaper guy with paralyzed back legs tied on a skateboard.

Weird times, indeed.

I was at the Divinity School as my way of getting out of the draft. I won a Rockefeller "Trial year in Seminary" scholarship which, since I was in Divinity School and the Bishop of West Virginia made me a 'candidate for holy orders', gave me the last remaining draft deferment in 1969. They were drafting Law students, medical students and PH.D. students.

I've been reading the stuff undergrads at the time have written.

It was weird. Very weird.

Fond memories.

I like weird.

didn't write it down

(I didn't write down my Easter sermon this year. Talked mostly about Mary Magdalena but have waiting too long to try to remember what I said. So, here's an Easter sermon from 2007. OK?)

EASTER 2007

          We all know the story, right? We all came here today to hear it again.

          It’s not complicated, as stories go, There’s not a lot of sub-plot or irony or hidden meaning.

          Some women come to a graveyard and discover an empty tomb and a Being of Light tells them the One they came seeking, to anoint, as was the practice in their culture, is not dead but alive. And the women go, astonished and fearful, to tell the others in their community.

          “Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!”

          The end. That’s about it.

          So we can all go home and eat ham and deviled eggs and hot cross buns and lots of chocolate and be satisfied that Easter has come and gone one more time.

          The “story” is about Jesus—isn’t it? He died and God made him alive again. The preacher can stop there. Case closed. Time for summer and getting ready for Christmas….

          Unless, of course, the story is about US as well as Jesus—that would be another matter and require a little more talking.

          What if…just, ‘what if’, for the sake of argument, the story is about US as well as Jesus?

          What if…just to make my sermon a little longer, we all have a role—several roles—to play in the whole Drama?

          It starts with that rag-tag army that followed Jesus during his life—those folks ‘hoping for something better’, ‘imagining that life really meant something’, putting their bet on a dark horse itinerant preacher from Nazareth, leaning into his love?

          I don’t know about you, but I’ve often had that feeling welling up inside my heart—that feeling that there must be ‘something’…something bigger and more lovely and greater than the day-to-day grind of life. I’ve often longed for something grand and precious and holy. So I could have been one of those who followed him around, hanging on his words, marveling at his power and miracles, thinking this might just be the one to put my money on…Love.

          And in the last week of his life, they all left him, disappointed and estranged, feeling like they’d been conned, misguided, wrong.

          And I’ve felt that—I don’t know about you—but I’ve felt like I put my money on the wrong horse, that I’d been misguided and deceived, and all my hope has been dashed on the cruel realities of life, that Love conquers nothing.

          Then there is Peter, who denied him after promising to leave him never. When my hopes have been thwarted, I’ve denied having them at all—my momma didn’t raise any fools.

          And there is Pilate—who knew what was right but didn’t do ‘the right thing’ because of pressures from others. How often have I kept silent when my voice was called for? How often have I ‘held back’ when courage was needed? How often have I accepted a lie because I wasn’t brave enough to stand for the truth?

          Judas too—what if the story isn’t about Judas at all, but about ME, perhaps even YOU? I know I have ‘betrayed’ others for much less than 30 pieces of silver—and I have ‘betrayed’ myself over and again through my disappointments and fears and self-serving motives.

          But I am like the women—like Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James—as well. I have found it within myself to be ‘faithful’, to be ‘loyal’, to be ‘true’. I have gone to the graveyard out of love, in spite of my fears, because it was the right thing to do. I have carried the spices with me to anoint the deaths of my life—and you have too.

          And we have been surprised by Wonder in our lives—we have found Love and Life in Dead Places, we have met Being of Light, we have encountered Angels.

          Likewise, I have been like the Apostles, hiding behind locked doors, fearful and mournful, even as the power of Love came to me. And I have had to struggle with whether or not to ‘give up my life’ in order to ‘find Life in Abundance….’  I know that feeling and I bet you do to.

          I bet you know—if you are centered enough and open enough—I bet you know that part of you that is like the crowds—engaged and then disappointed—like Peter…denying…like Judas…betraying…like Pilate, not speaking out for truth…like the women, confounded by Joy…like the disciples, hidden but called out by Love to dance and sing and rejoice.

          So, Jesus is Risen and that can be enough for us this day.

          Or, we can find in this celebration, in this liturgy, in this story…the possibility of our own WHOLENESS, our own TRANSFORMATION, our own RESURRECTION to a life that welcomes all the ‘parts’ of each one of us—that welcomes each of us, just as we are, to something new and beautiful and unexpected and loving. Easter calls us from our tombs of longing and doubt and anxiety and cowardice and betrayal and denial into a ‘new life’ of WHOLENESS AND HOPE AND LOVE.

          My prayer for me and for you is this: that today we may make our song this and only this—ALLELUIA, WE ARE RISEN! WE ARE RISEN, INDEED! ALLELUIA!

          God’s Love can be the music of our song….

           

Pondering

While I'm pondering the two days with our children, Josh and Mimi, their spouses, Tim and Cathy, and our four granddaughters, I wanted to share some of the quotes from my Mastery Foundation quotes box.

Some of them make my smile. Some make me ponder. They are all pretty short and deserve being thought about and being with them.

"Everyone wants to be on a championship team and nobody wants to practice.
                                                                   --Bobby Knight

"Nobody can make you feel inadequate without your permission."
                                                                    --Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
                                                                   --Mark Twain

"Not everything that can be counted counts--and not everything that counts can be counted."
                                                                     --William Bruce Cameron

"When you make the finding yourself--even if you are the last person on earth to see the light--you'll never forget it."
                                                                    --Carl Sagon

"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut."
                                                                   --Sam Rayburn

"We can do no great things--only small things with great love."
                                                                    --Mother Teresa

"I'm sure my memory only works one way," Alice remarked. "I can't remember things before they happen." "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.
                                                                    --Lewis Carroll

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eye off the goal."
                                                                    --Hannah Moore

"Not a shread of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."
                                                                    --Brandon Gill

"Where there is great love there are always miracles."
                                                                    --Willa Cather

"Enjoy pondering these thoughts."
                                                                    --Jim Bradley

holy saturday

And holy it is.

Both our children and their mates and all our grandchildren are here!

And tomorrow we'll add John Anderson and Jack and Sherry and Robbie Ellis to the mix.

We'll be having dinner at 3 since Tim needs to go back to NYC tomorrow so he can show up at his office in, get this, the Empire State Building on Monday. But Mimi and Eleanor will stay over along with Josh, Cathy and their three girls,

Resurrection it will be. Our family and friends all together.

Who knows how long this will happen with all of us together?

Joyous and Wondrous and Mysterious Easter to you all, my beloved.

And you are 'my beloved' if you read this.

Shalom.

Good Friday

I often tell the same story on Good Friday after reading the Passion story from John.

In the early years I was at St. John's in Waterbury, we were a member of the Council of Churches. And every Good Friday there was a service from noon until three which paired the Prayer Book Service with "The Seven Last Words of Christ". So, I would invite 7 Protestant ministers to preach the seven sermons on the last words. It was an awkward service and I was delighted when the Council of Churches became an Inter-Faith group and we could drop the 7 last words part.

We got smaller crowds, but the music was great and there was lots of silence.

The worst service (and they were all bad since controlling preachers is like herding cats only worse)
was when an AME-Zion preacher took much more time than was allotted for the sixth word sermon.

When his 12 minutes was up, he said, "Let us now go back to Bethlehem" and I thought, "that's the wrong direction preacher."

I think he preached for 35 minutes, which meant there was simply no time for the seventh word sermon.

While the preacher droned on, I went over the Manor Tyson, a Southern Baptist Minister, and whispered, "Manor, you have NO time."

He whispered back, "I've got it."

When it was his turn, he read the last word from the Gospel of John, when Jesus says, "it is finished", and died.

Then Manor said, "Jesus said, 'it is finished'. But we know it's not!" and sat down.

The best Good Friday sermon I've ever heard.

I told that story at St. Andrew's tonight.

And I ask you to remember, beloved, Jesus said "it is finished", but we know it isn't.

Maundy Thursday

(An old Maundy Thursday for you. My spell check doesn't know 'Maundy'--not a Christian spell check. Frankie, mentioned in the sermon, is no longer with us, spending Easter, I pray, at an even more glorious feast!)

Maundy Thursday 2008

          Maundy Thursday is always my favorite holy day

          And I always talk about eating.

          And often I get too long winded and go on and on and people wonder when I’ll ever finish.

          Something about ‘meals’ keeps me talking beyond what is necessary.

          So, this year I wrote it down so it would be controlled and less than 10 minutes and you wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d wandered off into some crack in my brain and wouldn’t be back for a while!

          Easter dinner is special in our home. We aren’t surrounded by ‘family’ so we have invented a ‘family’ for holidays. We have friends who come to share our table on Thanksgiving and Christmas and, most of all, for me, on Easter.

         

          John will be there—a friend of mine since college who lives in New Haven and is a Warden at Christ Church. West Virginians through and through—John and I. We have a patois that is Mountain Talk that few can follow if they didn’t grow up in that lush and deserted place.

          He’ll call me and say, “Hey, Jem….”

          And I’ll answer, “Hey, Jonn…” and we’re off and running about the dogs that won’t hunt and the crazy aunts and stuff no one else understands.

          Jack and Sherry will be there—our friends who we met when we lived in New Haven. They are southerners—Virginia and South Carolina. They usually bring a country ham and dandelion risotto for Easter dinner. But they’ll be getting back from a trip to Italy and Greece and won’t have time to cook this year.

          I know John and Jack and Sherry as well as I know myself. We rub against each other in ways that make life make sense.

          And Mimi will be there. My ‘princess’, my love, my precious girl. She is nearing 30 but she is still my baby girl. An hour with Mimi is like an eternity in heaven for me. I love her so. She is so wondrous—did you know she has become a girl scout leader in Brooklyn for young girls from the projects? She raises money for the American Ballet Theater for a living, but she embraces young girls who need a mentor to make her life meaningful. She is so precious to me I can hardly speak of her without weeping. And she will be at the table.

          This year, we will have ‘family’. Uncle Frankie and his son, Anthony—Bern’s favorite cousin, and his daughter Francis and her life-partner Lisa will be at the table. They hale from West Virginia but all live in Rhode Island now. They will be there, bringing memories and stories that would otherwise not be there.

          And that is what the meal is about, after all, the telling of stories to help us ‘remember’ and to give us hope to go on. And we will eat the ham (both 'country' and fresh) and the onion pie and the deviled eggs and the salad and the scalloped potatoes and tell the stories and be present—so remarkably present—to what is alive and real and wondrous, even in the sad stories of Aunt Annie’s death and the fact that Josh and Cathy and our granddaughters, Morgan and Emma are in Taiwan this Easter and not with us. They will gather around other tables—not to celebrate the resurrection because they are either Buddhists or nothing at all—but they will gather around a table to eat and tell stories and love each other and be present—so present—to the heart of God.

          That’s what this night is about. How being around a table, sharing food, telling stories, loving each other, hoping for the future, wondering what happens next….

          That’s what this night’s about. A table set and full of food. Family and friends gathered. Passing the bread, sharing the wine….wondering what will happen next.

          Because Jesus sat around that table so long ago and shared his body and his blood with those he loved and those he would never know.

          Just sitting at a table, eating with those you love, is a holy thing. A holy thing. A holy thing.  Remember that always. Remember that. Remember…