OK, I've been neglecting my blog

I don't usually go three days without a post, unless I'm away (I only do this from my desk-top computer).

This impeachment stuff has me riveted all day and on line for more info (and late night shows' reaction on you tube.

Sorry, my bad.

I'm not sure the impeachment testimony has changed any one's mind--certainly not the GOP members of the committee--but it has reinforced every one's already/always listening about the President.

("Already/always listening" is a distinction from the Making a Difference workshop I help lead. What we say in the workshop is that 'listening' is not something we 'do', it is something we 'are'. We are 'listenings' that are already there and always there.

I am a 'listening' that the President (who will not be named in this blog) is a liar, a con-man and an embarrassment to our nation. So all that has happened in the hearings has reinforced that 'listening'. Some are a listening that he's what's best for our country and is making it great again and nothing can dislodge that listening.

So, here we are, ultimately divided and getting more so.

We need to notice the 'listenings' we are are so we can hear around them. Hear the truths. Hear what is real.

But that's not going to happen, I don't think.

We're in a mess.

Dr. Hill said today she told the EU ambassador that all this stuff in Ukraine was going to 'blow up'.
Then she said, "and here we are".

So true.

It has blown up in our collective faces, no matter what side we're on, and nobody knows what happens after the explosion.

We have to sift through the pieces and figure out--together or separately--what happens next.

I pray it will be 'together'.

But I highly doubt that it will be.

Prayer may be the best we can do--and trying to 'hear' around our 'listenings'.

Don't give me s*** about gun control

There was a parishioner years ago who asked me "would you take my guns away if you could?"

I answered honestly, "I trust you would never shoot someone, but 'yes', I would."

He stopped coming to church but I see him from time to time.

And I would take his guns. I would take everyone's guns.

Just this week we've had three mass shootings--in a school, at a Walmart's and at a football party,

People died and were wounded.

Tensions in this country are so high that no one should have a gun.

I truly believe that.

I would sleep more soundly knowing no one in a school or a Walmart or a football party would be shot tonight.

There were over 300 shootings last year where more than one person died. Never mind the shootings of one person or the massive gun suicides.

Don't give me s*** about gun control.

Let's get rid of them all and send people to prison for life who use a gun in a crime.

I'm not kidding. I'm being reasonable.

Hunting guns, maybe, but only when all guns you don't use to hunt are gone.

I'm that serious about it.

It has to stop somehow.

Taking guns away may be the only way to stop it.

One of my former bishops, Jim Curry, breaks down guns and makes garden tools from them. God bless him--instruments of violence made into instruments of creation.

Amen and Amen.

Something I wrote

I wrote this for the staff at St. John's, Waterbury when I was getting ready to retire from full-time ministry. I happened across it. It is meaningful for me.

                                      MAKING THINGS

Most of the best things require

       only a few ingredients.

Flour, water, yeast, a pinch of salt

      (a pinch of sugar too, I’d say) and time:

       kneading , rising, kneading, rising, kneading,

       baking—you’ve got bread.

Grape juice, sugar, yeast (again) and more time…

        there’s the wine.

A simple reed, plucked from the marsh,

        a sharp knife and breath makes music.

Paper, thin wood, some string, a tail and patience

        makes a kite and flight….

Then there is this—what you have made,

        perhaps not knowing….

                   The Patience you needed to deal with me!

                    The Commitment and Skill you brought to the mix.

                     The Hope and Trust to make it

                               Rise

                              Ferment

                              Sing

                               Fly.

                     And dollop after dollop of Great Good Humor—

                             that most of all.

few ingredients, but enough and more,

to make my life here joyous, wondrous, profound, incredible, magic

                      and so much fun….so much fun….

And I thank you for the feast of life, the song and the flight.

jgb/April 29, 2010

Went to West Park

It's 89.6 miles from where I live to where I went in West Park, NY.

I drove both ways in about an hour and 38 minutes.

I drive too fast.

Went to meet with folks who have done the Making a Difference workshop for a 'graduate day'.

It was great, but I'm tired from driving over 3 hours and talking for over 5 hours.

I'm going to bed though it's not yet 10 p.m.

But I have to be in Higganum by 9 a.m. to do a baptism. That's 34 miles each way.

My knees do not take well to driving.

I walk like I'm drunk when I get out of the car after more than ten miles.

Alas, I need some sleep.

Wish I could sleep until we have a new president--but I have to vote.

Be well and stay well.

Are you paying attention?

Only two days of public testimony and three incredibly and astonishingly credible witnesses.

Anyone with any gumption (a West Virginia word) can see this President is in serious trouble.

Go for it Shifty Shiff, you got the ball and first down.

What noble and honest public servants we are hearing from.

I'd want to be related to any of the three.

Things are getting deeper and wider even if the White House is withholding everything and telling people who 'know stuff' they can't testify.

It's going to get so murky that more folks are going to 'disobey orders' to protect their own futures.

We'll see.

Pay attention. Really.

Really.

Shut up Hillary and go away Michael

Hillary Clinton (one Democrat Trump could beat) told folks in the U.K. that "many, many people were urging her to run for President" in 2020.

Shut up, Hillary.

Michael Bloomberg is moving closer to entering the race.

Go away, Michael.

Some of the people who I deeply respect in my Tuesday morning group think Elizabeth Warren can't win. That confounds me.

What I think we need is a shift to the left.

Warren would destroy Trump in the debates before the election.

If he shadowed her like he did Hillary, she would turn on him and say, "get the hell away from me."

If he called her 'Pocahontas', she would call him 'Donald J. Putin'.

She would give no space to him and would make him look as incompetent and stupid as he really is.

I'm shifting gears: I'll vote for any Democrat nominated, but I'm leaning toward a Warren/Mayor Pete ticket now. A woman and a gay man--what could be better to show what we need in America today, right now!!!

Best thing I could imagine.

full moon

The moon has been full the last few days. Here's something I shared about that before.

Monday, October 22, 2018

Lunatics

All day today I felt a little crazy.

I had weird thoughts and odd fantasies.

Then tonight I went out on the deck and realized why. The moon is nearly full or full--I could find out online but it doesn't matter.

Lunatic is not an accidental word.

The full 'luna'--the full moon--has some kind of effect on us all.

Having been the Rector of urban churches, I know this is true--especially at St. John's, Waterbury.

We had a soup kitchen where lots of homeless folks, some of whom should have been in mental hospitals if we were not a society that rejected mental hospitals years ago. Barbara Dublin, who ran the kitchen and her workers and the folks on the staff of St. John's always knew when the moon was turning full.

Things would get a little dicey as the moon moved toward full.

I am convinced all of us are affected by a full moon--but 300 people, many of whom had mental issues....well, things would get weird.

On the day before, the day of and the day after a full moon, Barbara would have to throw out more folks than on the 28 days before and after.

Some got more aggressive. Some got more subdued--almost to catatonic. And everyone, even Barbra and her staff and I, felt a bit off line.

I truly believe the full moon brings out more than werewolves. It brings out the off kilter and strange and a tad crazy stuff in all of us.

Notice it for yourself.

How have you been doing the last few days?

It will be a while now, but notice how you feel the next time a full moon shows up.

Just notice if you feel more lunatic than normal.

Just notice.

I really believe it.