walking on the edge

This is something I wrote in 2001--18 years ago in the newsletter for St. John's, Waterbury. But in these times, it rings true still. We need to be edgy. We really do.

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE THE CLOSE

                               Walking to the edge, then walking off…

          In my sermon on September 9, I used a quote Jennifer Hornbeck, St. John’s seminarian in 2000-2001 wrote to me.  Jen neglected to tell me who said or wrote the quote—though I intend to ask her the next time she calls—but so many people asked me about it I felt I should include it in this month’s VIEW.

                             “When we walk on the edge

                                 of all the light we have

                              and step off into the unknown,

                               we must believe that one

                                 of two things will happen:

                             There will be something solid

                                  for us to stand on

                                        or

                               we will be taught to fly.”

          Walking on the edge is an apt metaphor for the life of faith.  We are called by God out to the margins both to touch and be touched by those ‘on the margins’  of life and to risk walking off into what is unknown.

           I used to have a poster on the wall of my office in my first parish. The poster was a beautiful picture of sailboats at anchor in a harbor surrounded by beautiful hillsides. The water was glassy still. The sailboats were new, well built, shining in the sun.  The words on the poster said: SHIPS IN A HARBOR ARE SAFE, BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT SHIPS ARE FOR….

          The Life of Faith calls us to the open seas, to unknown waters, to encounter storms and risk the wrath of the winds.  But what we want—deep down—is to rest at anchor. What we want is to “be safe….”  Stepping off the edge requires courage and trust and faith.

          I have come more and more lately to believe that God is calling each of us as Christians to "walk on the edge…then walking off” in our lives. To be Jesus People we must live with risk and commitment and adventure. The tricky part of it all is that we aren’t all called to the same edge.  You may be called to a vastly different “edge” of your life than the person sitting beside you on Sunday morning. You may be called to take your moral stand into the political realm—fighting for some noble cause.  Or you may be called to endure with patience and courage some illness in your life or the life of someone you love.  Or you may be called to stand up against racism or discrimination in your workplace. Or you may be called to sacrifice higher pay and a more prestigious job in order to spend enough time with your children. Or you may be called to befriend someone who needs your support even though it is costly to you in terms of time and energy. Or you may be called to make a change in your personal habits in order to enhance the lives of those who love you.  Or you may be called to resist gain that you could achieve by “bending the rules”.  Or you may be called to give more generously—even sacrificially—to help those in need.

          I could go on and on. Each of us must discover the edge God is calling us as a person to walk off of into the unknown. But I know this in a powerful and profound way—each of us is being called, in some important way, to ‘take a risk’ for God.  It is simply the nature of the Christian life.

          Every Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. and Wednesday at noon, the Eucharist is celebrated in the Chapel of St. James next to the north wall of the church.  The readings we use come from a remarkable little book called Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Week after week, year after year, we recall those who are on the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church.  All those folks walked to the edge and then off into the unknown. Many of them gave up their freedom, their security, even their lives for their faith.  Not all of us are called to be martyrs—in fact, only a scant few of all Christians are called to that ultimate risk.  But we are all called to the ‘edge’.  And we must all believe that when we finally accept that call, one of two things will happen. Either there will be “something solid” to stand on or “we will be taught to fly….”

          Listen for God’s call. Seek out the ‘edge’ of life God is calling you to. And have faith—your foot will hit something solid or God will teach you to fly….

                                                          Shalom,

                                                                             Jim

Zoom

 I have been on two Zoom calls in the last two days.

I wasn't even sure I could do it, but I did. A bit proud of myself, by the way.

It's much better than phone calls because you can see all the people and watch their faces. There were 18 or so of us, filling my computer screen and two folks who called in who were called by name on two black screens.

It was not the way I would choose to spend an afternoon from 3 until 5:30, but (and this is a compliment--not awful.)

I really care for all the people on zoom--some I have known for years and so just since the Forgiveness workshop in NY I wrote about earlier.

I'm not given much to do--either in the workshop or on the call today--since I haven't really been involved in designing the workshop. And that's fine. I enjoy watching the other leaders do their thing and learning from them.

And learning most of all from the participants.

The best way to be, I have learned over my life and almost 40 years of priesthood, is what I know from all my reading of mystery novels--the best way to learn what you need to know is to listen.

And I mean 'listening' like a commitment, not just like most 'listening' which is a time of silence composing what you intend to say next.

"Listening" is the key to life, if we do it correctly.

Clear your mind of proposed comments on what is being said and don't imagining what you would say in response. Just 'be in the moment' and 'listen'.

I promise you, it's worth it.

Some stuff....

All praise to the American women's soccer team!!! My son, Josh, taught me to like soccer after he spent a year in England working at a pub near Chelsea's field.

And good for them for suing for equal pay with American men and for not wanting to go to the White House. (The women's team, by the way, has brought in more money to the American Soccer Association than the men's team in each of the last three years!)

The President gave a speech today about his environmental achievements. Give me a break! He has set us back a decade in leaving the Paris agreement and rescinding almost every regulation on the books.

He also (once again) pounded on one of our closest allies (Great Britain) because of leaked memos from the English ambassador calling him inept, unreliable and not up to the job. All of which are true.

The administration lied horribly over the weekend about how good the detention centers on the southern boarder were.

I told Bern tonight that 'nothing is REAL any more'.

She replied that she wanted to live to be a hundred to see if we ever got things 'back to normal'.

I think we will, though the President is doing better in head to head polls with Democrats that before now. But I'm an optimist. "Half Full" should be my middle name.

Good dog, Bridget

Bridget is the best dog ever. So sweet and so good.

But she doesn't know the command 'come'.

She knows 'sit' and 'stay' but not 'come'.

We're going to try and teach her because the way we air condition our house requires it.

We have a huge air conditioner in my office by the back steps and a fan on a book shelf half way down the steps that keeps the downstairs cool beyond belief.

But the door to the hallway upstairs on my office has to stay shut.

When we try to get her to 'come' downstairs that way, she hesitates so long we shut the door.

There is an air conditioner in our TV room and there is a curtain over the door way--no door on the room. Bridget won't push through the curtain like previous dogs do. She thinks it's a door. And is often laying outside it. The air conditioner in our bed room has another door. So she can't always go lay on the bed--her favorite place. She will go with Bern who goes to be before I do.

The three barriers and her not knowing 'come' causes problems several times a day.

So, we'll try to teach her in spite of the 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' adage.

We'll see.

But we have several leads and she always dutifully comes when on lead.

She is such a good, sweet, wondrous dog that it almost seems frivolous to worry about 'come'.

But if we can teach her to 'come' she will be a perfect dog.

No kidding.

What's it all about

Every once in a while I feel the need to tell people what 'Under the Castor Oil Tree' means.

For some reason, unknown to me, tonight is one of those times. So, here it is, from 6 years ago.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Under the Castor Oil Tree explained

I've been reading a lot of Ian Rankin's novels about a Scottish detective named John Rebus. One of the things I've noticed in all Rankin's novels is that Rebus' partner, whose name is Siobhan Clarke, always finds a way to tell someone how to pronounce her name. It is pronounced Shivon, but how would anyone know if she didn't find a way to tell them.

I recommend the series (and there are lots of them) because Rebus is tough and terribly ironic (and I love irony).

All that reminded me to tell people (maybe even some new readers) what "Under the Castor Oil Tree" means...how it's pronounced, so to speak.

My favorite book of the Bible is the book of Jonah. Jonah, you might remember, is called by God to go to Nineveh and convert the people there. He agrees to go but then takes a ship in the other direction. When the ship is about to sink, he tells the crew he has disobeyed his God, Yahweh, and the crew throws him overboard and he is swallowed by a big fish--or a whale, if you prefer, though whales are fishes--who vomits him up on the shore of Nineveh.

He argues with God throughout the book and tells him he knows God will save the people of Nineveh, so why did he drag him half-way around the known world to do it? Sure enough, God saves Nineveh and Jonah finds himself on a hill overlooking that great city 'so angry he could die'. Plus, it's getting hot.

So got causes a plant to grow to give Jonah shade. Then, that night, God sends a worm to kill the plant.

Which just gives Jonah one more thing to whine about. "Why did you kill my plant?" he cries out to God, once again 'so angry he could die'.

So God tells him something like this: "Jonah, why are you so worried about your shade tree--that you didn't plant--when you weren't worried about all those people in Nineveh who I saved through your calling them to repent?" And something about all the animals in the city too.

And that's where the story ends. With Jonah on the hillside, sweating, pondering God's words....

Well, it so happens, some Biblical scholars think that plant, which God caused to grow to shade Jonah and then sent a worm to kill was a castor oil tree. Who knows why they think that? But nevertheless they do.

In a sense, I identify with Jonah. I never, ever intended to be an Episcopal priest. The fish (or whale) that swallowed me was the Viet Nam war. If I had gone to the University of Virginia to get a PhD in American Literature and taught that for all the years of my life like I wanted to...I would have been drafted and perhaps died in some rice patty half a world away. But I was given a 'Trial Year in Seminary' from the Rockefeller Foundation, was exempt from the draft and got hooked on Theology.

So, like Jonah, I sit under my dead Castor Oil Tree and ponder the mystery and mischievousness of God's ways.

That's why this blog is called that. In case  you wondered.

fireflies

I've passed this along several times. Fireflies (lightening bugs) are in our yard each night. I regret how I caught them in our yard as a child and put them in a mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the top. They mostly died in there.

My fault, my own fault, my most grievous fault.

So here's a blog from long ago I've posted several times.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Yes, Virginia, there are lightening bugs in Connecticut

I've just been watching Lightening Bugs--fire flies--in our neighbor's yard. So I decided to reprise the fourth most viewed post of mine ever.

They are blinking, blinking, blinking.





They're out there tonight--the fireflies--in the mulberry tree just beyond our fence where the groundhogs come in the late summer to eat mulberries that have fermented and make them drunk. A drunk groundhog is a wonder to behold!

And the lightening bugs are in our yard as well. I sat and watched them blink for 20 minutes tonight.

My dear friend, Harriet, wrote me an email about lightening bugs after my blog about them. If I'm more adroit at technology than I think I am, I'm going to put that email here.

Jim, I just read your blog and have my own firefly story. Before we   went to Maine,
before 6/20, one of those nights of powerful   thunderstorms, I was awakened at 10PM
and then again at 2AM by flashes   of lightning followed by cracks of thunder - the
 kind that make me   shoot out of bed - and pounding rain. And then at 4:30AM there
was   just lightning, silent. The silence and light was profound. I kept   waiting
for sound. I couldn't quite believe in heat lightning in June,   so I got out of bed
and looked out the window. There I could see the   sky, filled with silent lightning
 bursts. And under it, our meadow,   filled with lightning bugs (as we call them) or
 fireflies, flashing in   response. I've never seen anything like it. I can't remember
 the last   time I saw a lightning bug. And then your blog. Is this, too, part of
 global warming? Are you and   I being transported back to the warmer climes of
 our youth, West   Virginia and Texas? Well, if it means lightning bugs, the future
 won't   be all bad.
I did do it, by gum....

So the lightening bugs are blinking, as we are, you and I.

Blinking and flashing and living. You and I.

Here's the thing, I've been thinking about a poem I wrote 4 years
ago or so. I used to leave St. John's and go visit folks in the hospital or nursing home or their own home
on my way to my home. Somehow the blinking of the fireflies has reminded me of that. So, I'll try, once more
to be more media savvy than I think I am and share it with you.
 

I DRIVE HOME

I drive home through pain, through suffering,

through death itself.

I drive home through Cat-scans and blood tests

and X-rays and Pet-scans (whatever they are)

and through consultations of surgeons and oncologists

and even more exotic flora with medical degrees.

I drive home through hospitals and houses

and the wondrous work of hospice nurses

and the confusion of dozens more educated than me.

Dressed in green scrubs and Transfiguration white coats,

they discuss the life or death of people I love.

And they hate, more than anything, to lose the hand

to the greatest Poker Player ever, the one with all the chips.

And, here’s the joke, they always lose in the end—

the River Card turns it all bad and Death wins.

So, while they consult and add artificial poison

to the Poison of Death—shots and pills and IV’s

of poison—I drive home and stop in vacant rooms

and wondrous houses full of memories

and dispense my meager, medieval medicine

of bread and wine and oil.

Sometimes I think…sometimes I think…

I should not drive home at all

since I stop in hospitals and houses to bring my pitiful offering

to those one step, one banana peel beneath their foot,

from meeting the Lover of Souls.

I do not hate Death. I hate dying, but not Death.

But it is often too much for me, stopping on the way home

to press the wafer into their quaking hands;

to lift the tiny, pewter cup of bad port wine to their trembling lips;

and to smear their foreheads with fragrant oil

while mumbling much rehearsed words and wishing them

whole and well and eternal.

I believe in God only around the edges.

But when I drive home, visiting the dying,

I’m the best they’ll get of all that.

And when they hold my hand with tears in their eyes

and thank me so profoundly, so solemnly, with such sweet terror

in their voices, then I know.

Driving home and stopping there is what I’m meant to do.

A little bread, a little wine and some sweet smelling oil

may be—if not enough—just what was missing.

I’m driving home, driving home, stopping to touch the hand of Death.

Perhaps that is all I can do.

I tell myself that, driving home, blinded by pain and tears,

having been with Holy Ones.

8/2007 jgb

Someone once told me, "We're all dying, you know. It's just a matter of timing...."

Fireflies, more the pity, live only a fraction of a second to the time that we humans live. They will be gone from the mulberry tree and my back yard in a few weeks, never to be seen again. But the years and years we live are, in a profound way, only a few blinks, a few flares, a few flashes in the economy of the universe. We should live them well and appreciate each moment. Really.

One of the unexpected blessings of having been a priest for so long is the moments, the flashes, I've gotten to spend with 'the holy ones', those about to pass on from this life.

Hey, if you woke up this morning you're ahead of a lot of folks. Don't waste the moment.

(I told Harriet and she agreed, that we would have been blessed beyond measure to have walked down in that meadow while the silent lightening lit the sky to be with the fire-flies, to have them hover around us, light on our arms, in our hair, on our clothes, be one with them....flashing, blinking, sharing their flares of light. Magic.)

The Revolutionary soldiers had airports!

I've learned that our president (who will not be named here) stated in his rain splattered address yesterday, that the revolutionary troops 'took over the airports'.

That was in 1776 and the Wright brothers were in 1913. Odd, don't you think.

He, of course, blamed the rain and the teleprompter that went off for that egregious remark.

Airports in the 18th century.

Most normal people wouldn't assume their were airports in the 18th century whether or not they had a teleprompter.

But he isn't a 'normal person'.

Has there ever been a president who you couldn't believe anything out of their mouth before?

I think not.

This is a totally new experience for those of us who celebrated the birth of our nation yesterday.

Uncharted and dangerous waters.

By the way, are you a citizen (Yes/No)?

Seems to really matter to him. Not so much to me. Do you live in this country? is my question.

Best wishes. Sleep well if you can....