Mother's Day

Mother's Day was founded by Anna Marie Jarvis from Grafton, West Virginia, one of the few things West Virginia accomplished in the world.

Her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis was a teacher and Sunday School teach in Grafton. She had a prayer she ended a Sunday School lesson with. It went like this:

I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.

— Ann Reeves Jarvis

Anna did that in 1918.

Both our children called Bern (Mimi on Face Time) and wished her a joyous day.

In a different time they would have been here with us. Alas.

Joyous Mother's Day to mothers everywhere--even those who are mourning and frightened.

Freezing in May

It's 6 p.m. and the temperature on our back porch is 34 degrees.

Bern has covered all our plants on the deck and the tomato plants she put in the ground a few days ago on a warm, spring day.l

It's snowing in upstate New York where Mimi, Tim and Eleanor are. She sent us a picture of the snow.

It's May 9th!

It is suppose to be warm.

Maybe mother nature is playing a game with our President (WhoWillNotBeNamedHere) since he said, weeks ago, the virus would just go away when the warmth of April came.

But just yesterday he said the virus would 'go away' without a vaccine and testing is over-rated. States, mostly those with Republican governors, are opening up without meeting the White House's own guidelines, and will, beyond doubt, spike virus infections.

Without a doubt, he WWNBNH has mishandled this pandemic so badly that the U.S. has more cases and more deaths than anywhere in the world. Go on Youtube and watch Trevor Noah's video on the President's time-line in this pandemic. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous.

Also, watch Bill Maher's thoughts about the accusation against Biden. He says, rightly, that there is nothing that doesn't make this a he said/she said case and that compared to the President, Biden is the Archangel Gabriel. Nothing is more important than the pandemic that not re-electing the President.

All true.

Like this true: TRUE.

Be well and stay well, dear friends.

Brigit in the rain

We've been Brigit's man and woman for well over a year now, but the abuse she received before we found her (whatever that was) rears it's head from time to time.

Sometimes she jumps when we touch her. Noises outside scare her. Our ice maker's noises scare her and it's just above her bowls in the kitchen so we can't make ice when she is eating--if we do, she won't eat.

Tonight we had to go out in the rain. When I tried to take her lead off, my umbrella came close to her and she darted off the deck with the lead still on.

She peed fine, but having the lead on confused (and probably scared her for some reason) so she stopped walking and didn't move until I went down and took the lead off.

She let me dry her with a towel for a long time on the back porch--she doesn't like being wet--then took her treat upstairs rather than eating it in the little sitting room off the kitchen like she usually does.

She is the gentlest of dogs. She never barks. She walks on her lead really well. She is the sweetest of all the dogs we've ever had. A real joy for us--and for her, I hope.

But it's those moments when whatever happened to her comes back.

I'm not sure that will ever stop. I wish it would, but I'm not sure it will.

She deserves to forget all that.

But I'm not sure she ever will.

As gentle and affectionate as she is, sometimes her memory haunts her.

Just like us, I guess.

Memory can be haunting.

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.)