In Normal times 3

In normal times, since it is 9:19 p.m., we would have wrapped up the last evening session of Making a Difference and be going to bed ready for the transformation of tomorrow.

MAD is 'transformational technology' (even though my spell check doesn't know that t-word) and the last morning is when we actually see people's faces and body language change for the better.

It is a remarkable experience to see that. And even more remarkable to experience that.

We end the workshop with centering prayer--which has been a part of each day several times--and then go eat lunch before leaving, all new.

For my part, I can't over-state what the workshop has meant to me and many others over the years. A new start, a 'beginning' with no end, something beyond words but felt deeply.

I miss not being there at Holy Cross for tomorrow!

I will hold that longing in my heart.

But I am more moved by how safe we are, here in Cheshire, and how no one in the three little rural churches has the virus. And how our children and grand-daughters are safe.

These are trying times.

Meditation helps.

I do centering prayer--just sitting for 20 minutes longing to be present to the God within me.

I also do the Jesus prayer. Inhale and say, to yourself, "Lord Jesus Christ", the exhale and say in your mind, "have mercy on me".

Do either and you will be calmed.

And there are lots of videos on line that are soothing. My friend Charles sent it to me. Try it out.

https://youtu.be/qsDU_tTgsFw

try that one and be rewarded.

Bird songs and too, too soon

There are so many birds in our yard.

I took the dog out at 9 p.m. and they were still singing. Lots of song birds and a few too many crows.

Crows are the smartest birds, by the way. They figure out things you wouldn't think a bird brain could figure out. Like stealing shiny objects. One sat on a tree this morning and stared at me for five minutes. I was feeling a little unsafe when he finally cawed and flew away. And a group of crows are called a 'murder of crows'. Not a comforting title.

But even crows would be smart enough to know it is too, too soon to be opening the country in the face of this pandemic.

Staying home and staying safe is working--but not enough yet.

The problem is the President is ignoring the pleas of public health experts and scientists because he feel a robust economy is his only chance for re-election.

Another problem is that the virus takes a couple of weeks to show up, even if there was enough testing--which, in spite of the President's statements, there isn't enough.

So states like Georgia and Texas and many others re-opening won't know for 14 days or so how much the virus has spread. Then it will be too late to avoid needless deaths.

Joe Biden said, the other day, if he were President he would tell people to listen to Dr. Fauci and other scientists and not to politicians.

Would that he were!

Many Americans who will die in the too soon re-opening wouldn't if we extended the shut down.

Bird songs are soothing. The deeply partisan politics in our nation during a national emergency is anything but soothing.

Anxiety and Fear fit better for that.

Listen to the birds to soothe your heart and soul.

Vote in November to end the anxiety and fear you feel.

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.