In Normal Times 2

In post pandemic times I would be in West Park, NY, at Holy Cross Monastery getting ready for bed having finished the day's session of the Making a Difference workshop.

What 'making a difference' is about is going outside the lines of what is easy and hard, what is important and unimportant, possible and impossible to a place where we 'make a difference' beyond those realms.

Our lives are run on a scale of important and unimportant.

If you are a minister, writing your sermon isn't 'important' on Monday. It becomes very 'important' by Friday night. But if you hear a parishioner is in the hospital on Saturday morning, the sermon becomes less 'important' and the visit to the hospital becomes 'important'.

"Making a Difference" isn't on that scale.

Making a Difference, as we draw it on a board, after drawing the important/unimportant line, is a dot up in the corner that is labeled MAD.

Making a difference is something that comes out of our declaration of 'who we are in the matter'.

It's not important or unimportant--it's WHO WE BE.

It's a powerful and profoundly transforming workshop.

I wish I were there helping lead it--leading people to Declare Who They Be in the matter.

And standing on the huge porch of the monastery watching the mighty Hudson River flow.

I miss that in this strange and utterly different times.

In normal times

In normal times, I would be packing tonight to go to Holy Cross Monastery (Episcopal monks live there, in case you didn't know Episcopalians had 'monks') in West Park, New York, on the upper Hudson River, to help lead a Making A Difference Workshop.

I've been leading it for over 25 years and have outlived all the other leaders except A.O. who is the head of the Mastery Foundation, which sponsors the workshops and J.. who is 90 and quit leading years ago.

Making a Difference changed and saved my life!

I was out of parish ministry when I took the workshop, burned out to a crisp and considering renouncing my priestly vows.

But, at the workshop I came up with the Declaration (which is how all workshops end--with the participants 'declaring' who they are.


My declaration after 4 days, was this, 'I AM PRIEST'.

Not "I am A priest". No, it was that who I am in this world is 'Priest'. That's who I be. That's what I live into and out of. My identity. "Who I Am"!!!

I was called to be the Rector of St. John's in Waterbury for the next 21 years and then partially retire and be the Missioner of the Middlesex Area Cluster since shortly after that.

Mine is not the only life I've seen saved and altered by the workshop. Almost everyone who does it gets their Identity made 'all new' and with power to speak that into the world.

I love leading, though I probably won't after a few more years.

But I owe the workshop my life as I have lived it for the last 30 years--the life I was meant to have.

It makes me sad that I won't be heading to West Park tomorrow. We've moved it to next year.

I hope that works out. I need to 'give back' some of what 'I've gotten' from Making a Difference.

Giving back is how I pay forward for this life I love so much.

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.