Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm going to spend from 9 to 4 in Thomaston at 'Safe Church Training'.

Priests in this Diocese have to do it every 3 years or get defrocked. I'm not kidding! And if you are 'defrocked', you are (excuse the dark humor) 'frocked up'!. You can't serve as a priest.

That is, by the way, the only reason I'm going.

My friend, who is taking me, called and said, "Jim, are you going to this totally useless day in Thomaston? If so, I'll pick you up at 8."

I didn't name my friend in case anyone in the Diocesan hierarchy reads this, which I doubt. I don't care if they know what I think and say and write.

Here's the deal, as I see it: 'Safe Church Training' is more about safety for the insurance company than for the members of the churches.

If the Diocese can point to triennial proof that they told you not to do this and that which is wrong, the insurance company doesn't have to pay damages when some priest does 'this or that which is wrong'.

The training is boring and rote and never interesting or new.

Maybe tomorrow will be exciting and novel and new.

Probably not.

I'm a cynic about it all.

Most priests are not going to do something they shouldn't do. And day every three years is not going to prevent someone who is a sexual abuser from abusing.

But it will save the church from having to pay the victim.

I'd rather we did something that helped the victims of clergy abuse.

That's what I wish.

But I want to stay 'frocked'. so I'll be there.

Going to be hard to sleep tonight

If you don't watch Game of Thrones you could do well to stop reading now.

If you do watch it, I'm sure you'll agree that it's going to be hard to sleep tonight after the penultimate episode.

I didn't think they could outdo last week--a battle at night--but then did. The King's Landing troops surrendered but Danny and her dragon destroyed the city any way.

It was amazing.

Danarius can't be Queen now. All her allies will be against her for the senseless deaths and destruction.

What will happen is beyond my imagination. Really.

One more week.

Lordy, lordy, I never thought I'd be glad it ended. But now I will be.

The carnage of the last two weeks is all I can bear.

what do pro-life ("Anti-Abortion") folks think?

With the anti-abortion legislation in Georgia and Alabama and other states moving forward, it makes me wonder what Anti-Abortion folks think of me.

I think abortion is hideous and horrible.

But I also think that I have no right to tell a woman what to do with her body--no right at all.

I am against abortion but in favor of a woman's choice to make her own decisions and live with them.

I wonder if pro-life folks think I was fetuses to be removed from women's bodies.

I don't--but I strongly believe women have the right to decide for themselves what they want to do with their bodies.

The Georgia legislation, which is now signed by the governor and will become law in January of 2020--though lots of court cases remain to be heard--assigns 'person-hood' to fetuses. Which raises lots of questions, like can a pregnant woman be put in jail since her fetus has done no wrong and can a woman who uses alcohol or tobacco or drugs be stopped because her fetus didn't make that decision (but that would mean putting her in jail, which goes back to the first question).

I wish men had babies, just to see whether people would be as anxious to take away the right of the bodies of men as they are to take away the rights of the bodies of women.

I would bet not.

All this anti-abortion stuff is just another symptom of the anti-freedom tone of the presidency of He Who Will Not Be Named.

We're in real trouble in this land of the brave and home of the free. Real trouble. I hope Congress can hold the dam against the rising anti-democracy waves.

clergy

I had lunch today with 6 clergy from the Higganum area.

I like several of them very much--but I have trouble with them gathered around a table in a not-too-good restaurant.

Will Rogers said of Methodist clergy (I think it was) that they "were like manure. Spread out they did a lot of good, but all in one place, they tend to stink."

I just don't like being around a lot of ordained people. The one exception is my Tuesday morning group--but I know all those folks well and there are usually lay folks there as well. That makes it palatable.

Next Tuesday I have to go to an all-day "Safe Church Training" with other Episcopal priests. The training is required every 3 years. It is about making the Diocese 'safe' from law suits rather than making congregations 'safe'.

Having given your clergy 'training', if they do something wrong of a sexual nature, the diocese can say, "Hey, we told them not to!" and the victim can't sue the larger church.

If you don't go you can be 'defrocked'--your priestly standing taken away.

When means if you do go you are still "frocked"--which is a good way to describe being ordained.

I'm already dreading it.

For one thing most of the people there will wear clerical collars--even though everyone knows if you're there you must be clergy.

I haven't worn a collar for like 12 or more years. I know I'm a priest, why do I have to wear a collar and blare it out to the world?

For another thing, we'll spend the day trying to impress each other. Tiresome.


Manure is a good metaphor for clergy.

"Poliqticcal correctness" unveiled

I'm a left-wing, progressive nut,. right?

So, I'm really 'into' political correctness.

No racist, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist remarks--right?

But political correctness has been embraced by the right now--it's all about Israel.

Say something about Israel (the country) and you are an anti-Semite (the Jewish people).

The Muslim woman in the House got caught in it.

Criticizing a country who keeps millions of Palestinians in what could be considered servitude and second-class citizen status, a country that won't agree to a two state solution, a country whose head of state is even deeper in controversy than our own--criticize that country and people call you a hater of Jews.

I criticize any number of countries--Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela==and I'm not a hater or Russians or Asians or Muslims or Hispanics--I just don't agree with what the leaders of those countries are up to.

But there are those who have co-opted 'political correctness' for their ends that make any criticism of Israel (the country) as being anti-Semitic.

No wonder some white folks don't like 'political correctness'--it stings when it gets applied to you for opposing the policies of a country and not a criticism of a religion.

Odd how that works on the 'other side'.

There may have been

There may have been a rainier spring in Connecticut, but after living here for 33 years, I don't remember one.

It has rained almost every day of April and now May here. It has rained all day today--all day!

Really.

It's raining hard now at almost 11 p.m.

Very wet.

Very wet.

Has been all Spring.

April showers and all that....

Rain.

Better than the option of drought.

you, too, Dorothy, RIP

Two funerals in two days--unusual since I left St. John's (I once remember counting and finding I had done over 600 funerals there!).

Ann I knew well. Dorothy, I had never met.

Ann was 65 and Dorothy 89.

And after I heard one of Dorothy's daughters and three grown grand-children speak, I wished I had known her.

She and some relatives had been country and gospel singers back in the day and had a radio show on a local station. And she was a farmer--and a good one. And a lovely, gentle, humorous woman from all I heard of her today. And someone who, with help, had stayed in her home until the end.

Her granddaughter played the guitar for the hymns, which had been reproduced in Dorothy's handwritten words!

Lovely and loving people.

Sometimes, one of the things we can take from a funeral is that life is still and over for one we love. No more pain.

That's obviously not enough to make up for their loss in your life--but it is something.