Not with a bang, but with a whisper.....

So it's over.

Eight years of my life watching "Game of Thrones" and it ended tonight.

And not with a bang but with a whisper.

The TV series is over two years beyond the books I read years ago, so I had no idea how it would end.

And could have never guessed.

Never.

But it was all good--my favorite 5 characters lived on--as they should have. And all ended up as they should have.

But I never saw it coming.

Remarkable. Eight years well spent.

And sorrow that it's over even though the whisper it ended with was good and right and satisfying.

What now to do on Sunday night???

one brief day

Yesterday, because they beat them 4-3 with three runs in the bottom of the 9th, the Yankees moved ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays into first place in the American League East by 0.5 games.

Today, the Rays won in the 11th inning and are now in first by 0.5 games.

But that sweet day belonged to the Yankees.

I'm a life long Yankees fan, one of few from southern West Virginia, I'm sure.

But my dad was and so I was.

I know I've written it here, but I'll tell it again briefly: Dad was in NYC about to ship out to Europe for WW II and got a ticket from a patriot to a Dodgers/Yankees World Series game. He decided whichever team won would be 'his team' and he Yankees won.

My childhood was taken up with Mantle and Maris and Yogi and Richardson and Kubek  and Elston Howard and Whitey Ford...on and on.

Being a Yankees fan has, for most of my life, has been a good deal.

During my childhood, the sports cast from Channel 6 in Bluefield at 11 p.m. began--in the summer--with "Let's see who the Yankees clobbered!"

The Yankees are so close to the lead and they have, count them--5 starters and their biggest stars out with injuries.

When they all get back, let's see who the Yankees clobber.....

Stuff grows out of S***

There's this little space of yard beside our deck where Bern has been dumping dead leaves and I've been throwing corn husks for the nearly 30 years we've lived here.

And stuff is growing there--flowers, ferns, plants. Lots and lots of stuff growing out of rotten leaves and corn husks.

The rest of our yards are full of life--but so is that rotten, dead, sh***y place.

Life is stronger than death. Life grows from death.

Which means (if I'm allowed to Hope in this dark time of our President Who-Will-Not-Be-Named) we may bloom again after so many attacks on immigration, equality of race and gender, climate change, green energy, the power of Congress, Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Stuff grows out of S***.

Maybe there is reason to hope, to dream, to imagine a future where my grand-daughters will flourish.

I pray it might be so.

I pray with all my heart and soul and mind.

Then I go over to the edge of the deck and watch life emerging so vibrantly from death.

Hope, Beloved, Hope!

OMG, Jerry Falwell and I agree!!!

Well, we agree but for different reasons.

I am horrified by the Alabama anti-abortion law because it limits the choice of women about who controls their bodies--them or the government.

Jerry opposes it because he thinks it is so 'extreme' that the Supreme Court won't overturn Roe v. Wade because they won't find the Alabama law constitutional.

But it is truly amazing for Jerry Falwell and I to be on the same side of anything!

Are you getting the picture now?

Several states passing anti-abortion laws (including, amazing to me, Ohio).

The rise in hate crimes against Jews and Muslims and Blacks and Latinos.

The total lack of empathy for those wanting to come to this country for a better life and to escape danger in their home countries. (Take down the Statue of Liberty, she must be ashamed....)

The President and his people refusing to accept the Constitutionally given power of 'oversight' of the Congress.

I feel like the 1950's are coming back--minus the good TV shows.

And what does all this have to do with?

The person in the Oval Office, that's what.l

The demonizing of the press. The normalizing of lies. The monarchical attitude of the President. The embracing of authoritarian leaders around the world (North Korea, Russia, Egypt, the Philippines, Hungary). The challenges of our own intelligence agencies. The trade wars and rumors of wars our allies don't think should happen. The ending of treaties and agreement. The denials of Climate Change.

I could go on, but why bother.

We are in grave times, beloved.

We need to get our backbones back and act.

All this must stop or our democracy is in danger.

Really.

Really!

Come on, Mike!

The Vice President, Mike Pence, gave the commencement at Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) and told the graduates to 'prepare to be shunned' for being Christians.

Mike, like most of the graduates, is an Evangelical Christian. Most Evangelicals (though not all, I hasten to add) think that they are 'right' and anyone who disagrees with them is 'wrong'.

They won't be 'shunned'--they will be disagreed with.

Even the Episcopal Church has evangelicals (I don't capitalize it to make a distinction--they are evangelicals who are Episcopalians, not Evangelicals).

One of them came up to me at the all day meeting on Safe Church I mentioned (disparagingly) in my last post. He said, "I want to tell you something I should have told you long ago. Once you and I were in a long discussion in which we disagreed. But you told me, 'I want to understand where you're coming from even though I'm not going to agree with you." He went on to say, "that meant so very much to me: that you wanted to 'understand' me. That meant more to me than your 'agreeing' with me."

I honestly don't remember any details of that years ago conversation, but that sounds like what I would have said.

I am a Christian, for goodness sake. I am a priest in a Christian church. And I am about the polar opposite of an evangelical. I wear a button I've mentioned before that says 'Heretic'. And I am. I saw Bishop Curry, who gave me the button with great glee in Columbus. Ohio, and showed it to him. He said, "I hope you still are."

"No worry there, Bishop," I said.

I wish I could address the graduates at Liberty.

I'd say, in part, "We're all Christians here--me and you. But my view is not your view and your beliefs are not my beliefs. But we should understand each other and know where each of us is coming from and agree to disagree in peace."

I heard a clip on the radio from "The Good Place"--a TV comedy about the afterlife--today in an interview with the great theologian Elaine Pagels.

In the clip, a character who lived a really dissolute life, can't figure out why she's in the Good Place. She has a conversation with a heavenly being named Michael (the archangel???) and asks him, "so, who got it right?"

"The Hindus and Muslims," Michael replies, "got some of it right. As did the Christians and Jews and Buddhists and all other religions. They all got some of it right."

Well, that's where I am. All of us get 'some of it right', but none of us get all of it right.

So, if others don't admit you got it 'all right' is being 'shunned', then the Vice President was right down at Liberty University.

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.