new normal

I o out at all today, except to the back deck and the back yard to speak with our neighbor, Mark, who was painting his upstairs windows because he has a lot of free time.

Don't we all?

I don't know the last time I didn't go to church on Palm Sunday. Maybe my first year of college when I was shedding my Pilgrim Holiness/Methodist life. But it was very weird.

We are European in grocery shopping. We usually shop for the day each day--Bern and I--since we take turns doing dinner.

But Bern went out today, with a mask, and brought back lots of stuff.

I won't have to shop tomorrow.

Most days since this began, I would at least drive around a bit. But not today.

I think I'm more anxious than Bern.Well, I know I am.

I had an eye doctor appointment tomorrow that is cancelled.

Don't get an eye disease.

Bern is fashioning masks from dinner napkins, which is ok since no one is coming for Easter dinner. And no one came for her birthday Thursday though the kids and their kids and three close friends would have come before this new normal.

Wash your hands. Watch youtube and netflixs and take deep breaths.

It will someday--not soon--be over.

But the new normal may be truly, "the new normal".

holy Monday

Welcome, on Monday morning, to the strangest Holy Week in any of our memories.

Please read the Gospel of John 12,.1-11.

This passage drops back a day from Palm Sunday to Jesus' visit to Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who he raised from the dead. They are eating together, but Mary takes the opportunity to wash Jesus' feet in fragrant oil and dry them with her hair.

It was the custom in that day to wash you're visitors' feet--but in water, not perfume.

Judas objects, saying the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. In John's gospel, Jesus already knows Judas will betray him and replies, "leave her alone, she bought it so she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

The feet of Jesus being washed by a woman is one of the few moments John shares with other gospels, but in the others, the woman is not named and it happens in different settings.

And Jesus was right: the poor are always with us. And in this pandemic crisis we should worry about the poor in many ways. The recession this will cause affects the poor more than it affects me or you. And they are more vulnerable to the virus than I am.

We must pray for them. But we must do more. I plan to give half of my check from the government, whenever it comes, to soup kitchens and IRIS, a group in New Haven that works with the poor and especially poor immigrants.

Consider what you can do for the poor that are always with us.

Consider Mary's devotion to Jesus.

Consider how bravely he faced death for the love of us all.

Consider and reflect on this Holy Monday.

On the Meyers-Briggs scale

Whenever I've taken Meyers Briggs Personality Inventory I come out ENFP,. Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving.

N, F and P are off the charts in those directions.

But I am nearly 50/50 between Extroverted and Introverted.

I like to say that I use up all my Extroversion as a priest dealing with people and after that, I am privately quite the Introvert.

And that is true. My E is for my job. My I is for my personal time.

Well, this virus has taken away my time with people. So, I'm missing it.

Bern is an Introvert and I can't do too much Extroversion with her.

So here I am, wishing I could be in a crowd and be hugging and talking and laughing and joking and listening to whatever people want to tell me. All of that.

And I'm not able to do that because of the virus.

So my extroversion self is really annoying my introversion self.

I'm usually able to sit and read a book for a couple of hours. Now it is 20 minutes then I wander around the house, wanting to talk....

because it is Holy week...

...I won't do any political diatribes. So, let me get it out of my system.

The president Who Will Never Be Named here has messed this pandemic up ever worse than he has messed up everything else.

We needed and FDR in this moment and we got a Johnny two left hands.

Earlier in his presidency, he disbanded the pandemic committee.

For weeks and weeks and weeks, he understated what he was being told about how serious the virus was. ("It will go away when it gets warm....it's no worse than flu....it will stop soon...we have done great things...let's start the economy on Easter....on and on and on....")

Then, his son in law said the federal stockpile of medical equipment 'is for us, not the states'. Who is US in the U.S., if not the states?

We are so much worse off than we should have been had not He Who Will Not Be Named had not been in charge.

Fact check his press conferences during all this.

Lie after lie after horrible, damaging lie.


Deep breath.

OK, I can ignore all this during Holy Week now.

Palm Sunday Sermon

(My Bishops, Ian and Laura, wrote to clergy and wardens that it was a 'civic and moral imperative' to slow the spread of the virus and urged us not to gather in any way. So, the Facebook live services I've been doing have been, sadly, cancelled. I'll be emailing sermons and reflections during Holy Week to the Members of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry. Here is my humble offering for Palm Sunday.)

PALM SUNDAY 2020

          It probably wasn’t as big a deal as we make it out to be.

          We call it THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

          It was probably more like sneaking in the back door.

          Who was it, after all? A country bumpkin of a rabbi (what good can come from Nazareth?) along with his equally provincial followers—ragged and dusty from three years of traveling—and the riff-raff hanging around the gates of the Holy City, looking for some entertainment.

          Oh, it caused a stir—Jesus arriving and going immediately to the Temple. The Pharisees were nervous because the rabble seemed to love him and the rabble could never be trusted to toe the line. The ones who welcomed the strange prophet from the sticks were uncontrollable by the authorities of the Temple. So the Sanhedrin—the equivalent of the Bishops in our church—watched and waited and bided their time. This troublesome Teacher was a problem that could be dealt with successfully.

          Oh, it caused a stir….The Zealots, those “freedom fighters” of the Jews—the ones the Romans saw as “terrorists”—had a breath of hope. Perhaps Jesus was the figure around which a popular rebellion could be mounted. Perhaps he could be the one to restore the Throne of David and return the land of Israel to the Israelites.

          Oh, it caused a stir….Pilate was troubled because his wife was having nightmares about this Prophet Jesus and when Pilate was troubled the Roman Legion was troubled. It was almost Passover and the city was full of pilgrims who were full of religious fervor. And religious fervor is always a threat to the “status quo” and the rule of the occupying army.

          Oh, it caused a stir….The common folk were mesmerized by the wisdom and the miracles of Jesus. He brought them something that touched them deep in their souls, something so long missing from their lives, dashed by oppression and almost extinguished: he brought the faint, almost bitter sweet hope that God still loved them.

          But it was probably still much less spectacular than we make it out to be. A little band of people—dispossessed, powerless, mostly poor…outsiders of all the political and religious intrigue of the day—laying palm branches and, yes, their own cloaks, on the path up to the city for this strange, eccentric, inscrutable rabbi who had “rocked” their marginal lives with the possibility of love.

          In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul wrote that Jesus “emptied himself out”. The Greek word is lovely. Kenosis: “to empty out”.

          It seems to me that Jesus was practicing “kenosis” all the way up to Jerusalem.

          He was emptying himself of pride and ego and whatever ambitions he might have had.

          He was emptying himself of anger and resentment and petty disagreements.

          He was emptying himself of power and influence and the ability to “change the world” in some profound way.

          He was emptying himself of the hope that clings to life against all odds, of the longing to “make a difference”, of the glitter and attraction of worldly things.

          He was making himself completely empty—cleaned out, purged—creating a vacuum within his heart that could hold LOVE for the whole world, for all of it, every single bit of it.

          It was LOVE that entered Jerusalem by some side gate, riding on a colt, listening to sounds of “Hosanna!”, being fanned by fronds of palm.

          It was LOVE—love for the Pharisees, for his close friends and companions, for Pilate and the Romans, for the Zealots who would make him King, for the common folk who ran beside him, guiding him toward the Temple Mount. Love for you. Love for me.

          It was LOVE…love and love only, always love, already love, total love, all-embracing love, love to fill his heart and break it too, love beyond imagining, love beyond pain or suffering or life or death, love “once and for all”. Simply LOVE and nothing else at all….

          Just that.

          Love on the back of a colt entering the Holy City.  

          So, I guess it was a “big deal” after all….

An odd email

Today I got an email sent to all retired Episcopal alumni of Virginia Theological Seminary. Here it is.

Dear Retired Alumni,

These are indeed unprecedented times and we need your help.

The anticipated number of people who will die from this pandemic will be too large for our hospitals medically, and has already exceeded what the Church can respond to pastorally. Too many people are dying at the same time.

I am writing to invite you to join a new effort we are launching. We're creating a national phone hotline that will connect hospitals with the next available priest to offer the “Ministration at the Time of Death” over the phone.

We are hoping to find 100 retired clergy who can offer at least 2 hours a day. Approved volunteers will access the system from their computers or an app on their phones. These on-call priests will then log in for a scheduled period of service and log off when they are done. If you are logged in, the system will route calls to you (assuming you are not already on one).

If you are interested in serving in this capacity, please fill out THIS FORM and we will contact you for confirmation and orientation.

And of course, we ask for your continued prayers for the Church’s faithful response and leadership throughout this terrible pandemic.

This is odd to me for several reasons.

First, I believe 'last rites' are more to comfort the family gathered by the bed than they are for the dying person.

People dying from this virus DON'T have family by the bed. They are in isolation.

 Second, I believe there needs to be a personal connection by the priest to the dying person--some knowledge of the life and history of the dying person.

Doing it by phone to a total stranger seem odd to me, if not false.

Third, I don't think God cares if a dying person gets 'last rites' or not. God isn't concerned with our rites and traditions. God loves the dying person.

So, if there's no personal connection and no family present and God isn't concerned, why take a health care worker from their job to hold a phone?

I've done lots of 'last rites' (or, as the email calls it, "Ministrations at the Time of Death") and it is a moment of comfort for gathered family and a chance to say 'good-bye' to a loved one.

 But this seems really odd to me.

Bern thinks I should respond to VTS and say all these things. But she is a bit agnostic and more likely to 'strike back' than me.

 Yet, this is one of the oddest emails I've ever gotten--besides the one saying I have to pay $10,000 or they'll release a video on YouTube of me masturbating to Porn.

That was really odder that "last rites" by phone to a stranger.

Eleanor time

Every day, Bern does face time with our almost 4 year old granddaughter, Eleanor.

Tim and Mimi are working from home in their house near the Poconos--well outside Manhattan, where they normally live and work.

I go in and talk with Eleanor a little, but Bern plays dolls with her and reads her stories and they make up songs. Mimi says that Tim, who is a musician of some merit, is teaching Eleanor to make up songs. She is really good at it.

Eleanor time gives Tim and Mimi a brief break.

Eleanor gives Bern a tour of the house every other day or so.

Today, Bern showed her the flowers I gave her for her birthday tomorrow.

Bern always has to end the call. Eleanor would face time for hours and hours.

It's really incredible sweet, their time together.