November in Connecticut

It's November in Connecticut and the sound of leaf blowers is throughout the land!

Today, I'm serious, the sound of leaf blowers and leaf suckers and whatever else there is was constant on Cornwall Avenue.

And I hate it.

Rake your leaves like a decent person (like Bern) does.

Or let them alone and let them make you ground more productive by rotting and renewing the soil over the winter.

Good Lord, let me have some peace and silence on an Autumn day.

Please.

TRUTH and FACT

The TRUTH and FACT are delicately different.

The 'facts' are that the President asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.

The 'truth' is that violated the Constitution.

So, 'what happened' and the 'truth' about what happened are radically different.

The 'fact' was a quid pro quo, the 'truth' is an impeachable moment.

Republicans are, by in large, admitting to the 'fact'.

They are denying the 'truth'.

A desperate and dangerous distinction.

Truth must win out.

It's the only way in a democracy.

It's all that matters.

Really.

Really, I swear to you.

Truth must win out.

We're no longer saving daylight...

Eastern Standard Time came back last night--or very early this morning--and we got the hour back that was ripped from us when Daylight Savings Time began.

I was thankful for the extra hour of sleep since today I went to St. James, Higganum, which is the furthermost of the three churches from my home and has their service at 9 while the other two begin at 10.

It's 5:22 as I write, my computer tells me down in the right-hand corner, and I usually take Brigit for her 'little walk' down Cornwall around 6. It's totally dark now and wasn't yesterday.

I don't really know what I think about DST. Does it really need to be still light in August at 10 p.m.?

I don't mind the dark at all. In fact, I like the night, whenever it comes.

Connecticut is leaning away from the sun now--but it's not like being in Greenland or Alaska. The day is pretty normal though it ends earlier.

All I've heard about when DST begins is bad. More car accidents. More heart attacks. More people seeming to be confused.

So, welcome back, EST. I've missed you.

OK, the World Series

I've been a baseball fan for almost all my life. I played Little League (first base--good glove, poor bat) for years.

And I've always been a Yankee fan.

So I wanted the stinking Astro's, who eliminated the Yankees, to lose.

Which looked possible after the first two games (Astro's swept in Houston by the Nat's). And then impossible after the next 3 games (Nat's swept in three in DC).

But then, Washington won both game 6 and 7 in Houston.

Realize what that means?

Neither team won a home game.

During the regular season the National's were 50 and 31 at home--63%. And they lost all three games at home. Statistics said they should have won 2 of them.

The Astro's had the best home field and total win total in the major league. They won 107 games and were 60 and 21 at home (74%). With that record they should have won 3 of their 4 home games in the WS. But they lost them all!

In my 60+ years of loving baseball, I've never seen anything like it.

The visiting team won every game.

Amazing. Confounding.

A great World Series!!!

doubting is good

In Frederick Buechner's Wishful Thinking--a Theological ABC, he writes this about doubt.

DOUBT
Whether your faith is there is a God or that there is ot a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.
Doubts are the ants in our pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

So, whenever you have doubts, don't 'doubt' your faith--your faith is awake and moving and alive.

I am a world class doubter. I doubt almost every part of my faith. But it is still 'my faith'.

Faith is not 'certainty'--it is believing in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Hard to believe, in this world of woe, that God loves everyone.

Hard to believe in this world of gross and horrible inequality, that God loves us all equally.

Hard to believe in this world of war and conflict, that God intends 'peace' for all.

Lots of stuff is hard to believe. Doubt is real and realistic.

But doubt does keep your faith on it's toes--not kidding yourself or asleep.

Embrace your doubts and hold them close. They will keep you wide awake and honest with yourself.

Another lovely Autumn day in CT

I've heard rumors about a golden orb that graces the sky in daylight. I even have some vague memories of it.

But you wouldn't know it for the past week or so in Connecticut.

The sun has peaked out a couple of times in the past week, but only for a few minutes.

Rain, drizzle, wind and thick clouds--that has been 'weather' here for some time.

Yesterday was misty and moisty all day. Driving to Waterbury and back I had the windshield wipers on intermittent speed and the front and rear defroster because the windows kept clouding up.

Really weird.

Rain is not something to complain about considering how they would love to have it is California to help with the wildfires.

But then, the weather reflects the cloudiness of our country over what's gone on in the White House.

Symbolic, I'd say.

somethng very old

here are two of my earliest posts--I started March 3, 2009. Not many people read them since not many people were reading my blog then. I like them.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My three rules of priesthood

One of the joys of my life as a priest has been to work with seminarians from Yale/Berkeley Divinity School over the years. I try, from time to time to make a list of them, but I always blank on a name or two--even if I remember the face--but I know that Fred and Kerith, the two seminarians working here with me now push me way past 25, probably to 30 in the number of seminarians I've supervised (though what I call 'supervision' is more like 'fishing for crabs'...something for another post.)

We share a lot and I always learn more from them than they do from me, yet there are three rules of priesthood...I should type that as THREE RULES OF PRIESTHOOD...I seek to pass along in one way or another. They are the three rules I've come up with in 30+ years of doing this and I stand by them.

I. RULE ONE--There is nothing to 'fix'
A lot of people go into ministry because they want to 'fix' things. That's probably one of the reasons I became ordained though it is so long ago I have forgotten it or come to understand how vain and silly it is. THERE IS NOTHING TO FIX. The people I have found most difficulty in supervising are people who come to ministry out of either a social work or psychological background. Every fiber of their being tells them they must 'fix' this or that and that in 'fixing it' they will be justified in what they're doing. Let me say it again: THERE IS NOTHING TO FIX. Don't waste your time and God's trying to fix God's people or God's church. God's people are who they are and if they have a problem that requires 'fixing' there are professionals to do that. Mostly, they're doing just fine, thank you, and leave them alone. Don't invent problems for you to 'fix'. They don't want 'fixing' and the 'problems' will be your invention. Leave them alone. God is watching out for them--your job, as a priest, is to be their leader, their magic person, their friend, if you are privileged enough to be invited that far into their lives.

II. RULE TWO NEVER ACT ON SECOND-HAND INFORMATION, NEVER, EVER...
Scarcely a day goes by when someone doesn't say to me something like: X is so mad about thus and so....you hurt Y's feeling when you....Z needs some help. This is a sub-text of Rule One. It's not just priests who think 'something needs fixed'. Everyone lives out of a context that 'fixing' things is needed. So they will advise you about what needs fixed and who is involved. Don't ignore the message, ponder it in your heart, but whatever you do, don't 'act' on it. You will be a part of a massacre if you do! Let it be. Only deal with problems that are the problems of the person talking with you. Otherwise all you will do is act on second-hand information and be punished for it. Just try it a couple of times and see. X is upset about the sermon but when you ask them 'why are you upset about my sermon?' they'll say, "what, me...? I liked your sermon? Why would you think that?" Try to preach sermons so offensive that those who dislike them will come to you themselves. Don't ever, ever, not ever act on second hand information....

III. RULE THREE: TREAT THE PARISHIONERS AS SMARTER THAN YOU (THEY PROBABLY ARE...)
Don't preach third grade sermons--preach graduate level sermons and expect that you are still not being challenging enough. Lay folks have a great deal more sense than any clergy person imagines or can imagine. They are not sheep who need you to shepherd them--they are shining children of God who need you to treat them as if they were. Never imagine your education puts you 'ahead' of them in any way. These are people who not only come to church without being paid to (as clergy are!) they are people who pay for the privilege of coming to hear your nonsense. They aren't children and you aren't grown up. Treat them as peers and you'll be surprised to discover that they are you peers--and ahead of you in lots of ways. I hate it when a clergy person refers to the congregation s/he serves as "my people". They aren't "your people", Bozo, they are God's people and you are their hired hand. Don't dare 'lord it over them' in any way. It is the 'self fulfilling prophecy' acted out in parish life. They will be (those people who 'aren't' yours) exactly who you expect them to be. Expect them to be smarter than you. Never mind that it is true...really true...it will give you some work to do to keep up with them....

Saturday, March 14, 2009

falling on your face

I have a dear, dear friend who tells me she doesn't trust anyone who hasn't had 'their face on the pavement'. I know what that means and suspect you do too. If you haven't been to that place that makes you sing (like the 60's song) "I've been down so G** D*** long, it looks like Up to me, then you probably have issues with the usual inconsistencies and problems of life as it is.

Then there is the conceit in the Old Testament that whenever an Angel or "the Holy" shows up, people "fall on their faces". That doesn't mean taking an attitude of worship, by the way. The Hebrew word is more like "get knocked down". Being in the presence of the Holy simply sweeps your feet from beneath you and you sprawl out on the ground.

Last night, walking my dog, we went down a little paved area that leads to the Congregational Church parking lot. It was stone cold dark, but I walk that road a lot so I wasn't worried. Besides, when they repaved the area last fall, they took out the speed bumps that used to trip me from time to time. On the way back through darkness as dark as the black almost to blue color of my my Puli dog, I discovered much to my surprise, that there was an un-removed piece of speed bump and I tripped over it in my sandals (the weather up to 20 F at night now), let go of the leash, dodged the dog and fell on my face. I hurt each wrist a little breaking my fall, but my forehead and nose hit a rock that the folks who live beside this access road have put up to keep people from driving on their yard. I didn't break my glasses, but I busted my nose and smashed my forehead into the moss covered rock. (I know it's moss covered since I visited it this morning looking for 'trace evidence' of my fall!)

It would be a much more interesting story if I had been visited by an angel or gotten beaten up in a bar fight ("you should have seen the other guy!")

As it was, I just fell on my face and since face and head wounds bleed like crazy, I was like a character out of Friday the Thirteenth, which, oddly enough, it was....I was all ready to warn Bern that it looked worse than it was when she saw me and then took tender, wondrous care of me.

There are three times in the 14 stations of the cross when Jesus falls. My fall was nothing so dramatic or important as that. But I fell and was bleeding like a stuck pig (I've never understood that figure of speech) when I got home. Bern nursed me and cared for me and we still go to watch the West Virginia University/Syracuse University semi-final in the Big East tournament.

Several people asked me today, "which emergency room did you go to?" and I responded, "there was a WVU basketball game on TV--you have to have some priorities...."

I will be fine--a little more humility (I need all that I can get) and another (as if I needed one) insight into my mortality. My wrists ache as I type this, but if they hadn't broken my fall a bit, I might not be typing this at all.

Human heads and big honking moss covered rocks about 90 pounds do not meet without violence.

Bela, my dog, sat and waited for me to find my sandals, somehow get up, find his leash and lead him home. I wonder what he was thinking--but wondering what animals are thinking will send you over the edge....

Face on a rock is surely in the same category as 'face on the pavement'. Humility and pain aren't a bad couple for Friday 13th or for Lent, when you think of it.

I just wish there was a better story to tell about my wounded and swollen visage.