A warm Spring day

One of the few this Spring.

But lovely.

This morning I saw a dozen birds in our yard and the surrounding trees and three squirrels, doing whatever squirrels do.

You could almost imagine that everything was okay in our world.

Sun and warmth, blue skies, birds and squirrels.

Lovely!

I took it all in all day and thanked whatever Powers that Be for such a day.

(You'd think an Episcopal priest would thank his Episcopal God for such a day. But I'm convinced my view of deity is much too small and much to limited to take in the Powers that Be in the universe. Don't tell my bishop, just know that's what I believe....)

Later, watching the news on CNN and MSNBC, I knew all was not well.

But it was a respite to imagine it was for a few hours.

We all need a respite these strange and dangerous days.

We just do.

Find a respite for yourself in the days to come.

You need it.

You deserve it.

Just a few hours of  'everything is alright' can help you meet the days ahead with courage and hopefulness.

And those we need: courage and hopefulness.

We really need them.

Really.

Blasphemy!!!

Blasphemy is not a word I use easily or lightly.od

But I use it without a doubt about its truth about the statements of Ohio State Representative Nino Vitalez. He's a Republican (in case you were wondering) in the Ohio House of Representatives.

He said he would not wear a face mask during the pandemic because (and I quote): "Masks dishonor God."

His argument goes something like this: we are told we are created in the image and likeness of God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The 'likeness of God', he contends, isn't in our elbows or knees or shoulders, but in our faces.

So, to cover the face with a mask to try to save lives, 'dishonors God's image in us'.

As a Christian and a priest I have heard a lot of nonsense disguised as 'religious truth'.

Bit nothing like this!

Merriam Webster's dictionary defines 'blasphemy' like this:

1. The act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.

2. The act of claiming the attributes of a Deity.

Rep. Vitalez does both.

By insinuating that God would be against something that would save the people God created from death is contempt for God's love.

By insinuating that his 'face' shows 'the image and likeness of God' implies he is claiming the attributes of a Deity, when in fact God's image and likeness is more likely reflected in our love and our kindness and our compassion, not our faces.

And the love and kindness and compassion of our medical professionals is in clear view in this crisis and shines brightly as the image and likeness of God, though their faces, and hopefully their whole bodies are covered with protective equipment and masks.

Get behind me, blasphemer!

God wants those made in God's 'image' and 'likeness' to be SAFE not SEEN.

And the Beat goes on

One day the Corona Task Force is going to end.

The next day the Corona Task Force is going on indefinitely.

How many times will the President contradict himself?

Opening the Country in the face of rising cases of the virus.

No state that has begun to reopen has missed the guidelines the President himself set for reopening (like 14 days of declining infections). Then he praises them for re-opening!

The beat goes on.

Over and over we have gotten mixed messages from this President.

"We've never lived through days like this," has been said so often about the pandemic.

You could say the same thing twice about living though the days of this Presidency.

"We've never lived through days like this."

"We've never lived through days like this."

And the beat goes on....

Being magic

I'm reading a novel about a Private Investigator trying to solve a murder in a school for Mages where everyone--male and female--is called a 'mage'. It is not unlike Hogwarts and Harry Potter, except in this time and in California.

Sounds very strange, I know, but it isn't. The PI isn't a magic person and most ordinary people don't believe is wizardry. She, the PI, is the twin sister of one of the teachers at the school.

It's called Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey. I recommend it.

But because I'm reading about magic, I looked at a long time at a complex line drawing with words that was made for me by S.A. an old friend, years ago.

I was Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven and S.A. was one of the seminarians working with me. Like me, he was from West Virginia and was being given grief by the Standing Committee for not being able to adequately express why he wanted to be a priest.

"Tell them you want to be Magic," I told him, only half-kidding. "You know, turn wine and bread into Blood and Body...make babies holy with a little water...forgive sins...'magic' stuff like that."

Apparently he did it and they approved him for ordination!

S. was an artist and made me an incredible piece of art surrounded on four sides by the words, time after time, MAGIC*MAGIC*MAGIC*MAGIC....

It's just above my head as I write this. I love it.

(I really miss the Harry Potter books and movies. Maybe we'll be sequestered long enough to re-read and re-watch them....That would be a gift from the virus.)

Easter 4

Here is a sermon I preached on this day, years ago. It was nothing like my sermon today that really was about sheep and shepherds. But I share it with you this Easter 4 Sunday.

EASTER 4, 2006 (The Good Shepherd….)

          The 4^th Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”. The Gospel is always from the 10^th Chapter of John, the OT reading—as in Ezekiel today—always refers to sheep and shepherds and the Psalm…O’ the Psalm…is usually the 23^rd Psalm (“The Lord is my Shepherd”) and when not it is Psalm 100 (“we are his people and the sheep of his pasture”).

          I was ordained in 1975 and in the years since then I have preached on “Good Shepherd Sunday” nearly two dozen times. And I’m here to tell you today that the well is dry, I’ve told you everything I know about sheep and shepherds, I’ve emptied the tank and exhausted my reservoir of Biblical, historical and personal information about herding sheep and tending sheep and sheep in general, never mind the shepherd who herds and tends them. I’m finished. I have nothing to say about “the Good Shepherd”. I hereby swear off sheep and shepherds for the rest of my preaching life! I am dry and finished with that metaphor.

          So, enjoy the music and come to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, but don’t expect me to talk about sheep and shepherds today….I’m taking the day off….

          However, I’m an old English major, so I’m never through with metaphors.

          A metaphor, according to my dictionary, is: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

          The English word, “metaphor” comes from the Greek “meta-pherein”, which means, literally, “to bear”. A metaphor “bears” a second meaning.

          “You are my sunshine,” is a metaphor. Even though a person CAN’T BE “sunshine”, we all know what the metaphor means. It means that the person referred to “lights up my life”, “gives me warmth”, provides joy and comfort and meaning to life.

          (OK, if you aren’t an old English major, I’m making your eyes glaze over. But this kind of conversation “is food and drink to an old English major.” That, by the way, is a “metaphor”. Obviously a conversation about figures of speech isn’t really “food and drink”, but we all know what that means.)

          One thing about metaphors—they all eventually fall apart. A person, no matter how much you love them, ISN’T “sunshine” and a conversation about metaphors ISN’T “food and drink”. Metaphors all fail eventually.

          Jesus’ metaphor: “I am the good shepherd” falls apart on a couple of levels. First of all, and most obviously, Jesus wasn’t a shepherd and we aren’t sheep. Secondly, unlike metaphors about “sunshine” and “food and drink”, both of which we all have intimate knowledge about, you and I don’t know much about sheep and shepherds. We just don’t.

          So, what is the reference Jesus is making? What is the likeness and similarity of “who he is” that is comparable, in the metaphor, to being “the Good Shepherd”? What is he trying to tell us?

          There was probably something obvious to those who heard Jesus’ metaphor first hand, or those who read the metaphor in Ezekiel when it was first written, and to David as he wrote the psalms about sheep and shepherds that is not obvious to me and most likely, not obvious to you. And here’s what I think that obvious thing is: the shepherd, in their culture and experience, wasn’t just a “caretaker” of the sheep…the shepherd and the sheep were interdependent…the shepherd’s well being depended upon the sheep’s well being.

          So, what Jesus is trying to tell us in this metaphor, it seems to me, is that his relationship to us is like that as well. Jesus feels interdependent with those whom he loves. His well being depends on our well being. And for love, he was willing to lay down his life for us.

          Remember Jesus’ parable about the shepherd who would leave the ninety and nine sheep and go seek the one that was lost? That too is a metaphor for the love God feels for each one of us. No matter what happens, no matter how far away we roam, no matter how lost we get—God will come looking for us, seek us out, risk all for each of us.

          In most every funeral homily I give, at some point I will say that the person who died is “in the nearer presence of the one who loves them best of all.” I don’t have any idea what that means, realistically, but I “trust” with all my heart that it is so.

          That, in my mind and heart, is a Truth we shouldn’t have to wait to “trust” in. God loves each of us—each of us—“best of all”. We are never alone, no never, not ever alone. And God’s love is so eternal, so wondrous, so unfathomable that God really can love each of us “best of all….”

          I’m going to date myself now. How many of you know what a “Slam Book” is?

          When I was in grade school and even junior high school, people would circulate spiral notebooks for everyone to fill in. The book would ask all sorts of silly questions like: “What’s your favorite food?” and “What TV show do you like best?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

          And always, always there would be a question like this: “Who do you like best of all?” That was the question about pre-adolescent and adolescent unrequited love.

          When I was in 5^th grade, Donna Comber gave me her Slam Book to fill out. The great thing about Slam Books was to read what other people wrote. And as I read it I saw that Anna Maria Osborn wrote “Jimmy Bradley” under the question “Who do you like best of all?”

          Anna Maria was the prettiest and nicest girl in our school and I was this dorky kid with a crew cut, Coke bottle thick glasses and goofy clothes. My heart leapt up! I was as close to heaven as I’d ever been! Anna Maria liked me best of all….There was nothing life could throw at me that I couldn’t handle!

          We were 10 years old and I was dorky and Anna Maria’s parents moved away that summer. But it was so incredible and astonishing to know she liked me “best of all”.

          God’s Slam Book is coming around. And when it comes to you under God’s line at the question “Who do you love best of all?” you will find, wonder of wonders—YOUR NAME. Your name and no other.

          Each of us is the one God loves best of all.

          That is what Jesus’ metaphor is trying to tell us. And we should listen. We should listen and trust that it is so….

         

         

 

At last, a Spring day

After the coldest, wettest April I can remember, May 2 was Spring--finally.

I talked to our three next door neighbor families today. We have 3 'next door neighbors' since Mark and Naomi live beside us, but at the end of our shared driveway and their are two neighbor houses on either side of us.

Everyone was outside doing yard work they would have done weeks ago except for the chill and rain. Plus, Mark is stripping and repainting the trim on their house. He spent much of today on a ladder, on top of a twenty foot high scaffolding at the apex of the front of their house. I get dizzy just watching him up there.

David and Sharon, to the west of us, had a drive-by birthday party yesterday, handing out cupcakes to those who came to tell her 'happy birthday' with an long wooden thing like the things used to take pizza out of the commercial ovens. I watched from our front porch as people with signs and balloons and honking horns.

The virus makes us more creative, it seems to me.

M and N have a daughter, J, who is a nurse. She volunteered to leave oncology and work with Covid-19 patients. A brave and valiant young woman. Our health care providers are the bravest and most dedicated people on the planet.

I saw on-line a group of fire-fighters (brave and committed as well) outside a hospital applauding the health care workers. And behind the firefighters, up in the sky, we two rainbows.

Even nature is applauding the folks who are taking such risks!

The sun was worth the wait.

Ah, Spring (I pray) has sprung!!!

Things get easier as we go along

Home bound is not so bad.

Our bishops told us today that we are shut down for church until after May 20, if not longer.

Zoom and Facebook is working for church nicely.

I haven't put gas in my car fr over two weeks! How weird is that?

But every day gets easier to be confined.

I go for groceries once or twice a week. And wine, of course.

I went to have blood drawn for a 'virtual' visit with a doctor next week. Very odd. One person in front of me signing in. I signed in, with a glove and went to sit in one of the 5 chairs in Quest Diagnostics. Usually there are a dozen people waiting. The woman I came in behind was called, by the one technician who seemed to be in the place. And I was called before the man who came in behind me had signed in.

Bern and I watched two episodes of "Afterlife" tonight. Really funny. I recommend it .

Three books came from Amazon, so I have something to read. I reread books from long ago and realize I don't remember much from books I read from long ago.

I talked to Mejol on the phone for 40 minutes.

Bern made a great fried meal--cod, squash and onion rings and slaw. Delicious. I kept eating after I was full.

I miss seeing and interacting with people--especially our kids and grand-daughters.

But other than that, it's not so bad.

It seems to get easier as we go along.

Strange, isn't it?

Wash your hands. Stay well.