It's 9 p.m. in Cheshire and still no downpour.
The tropical storm raging up the coast hasn't hit yet here.
Took Brigit out a few minutes ago to a sprinkle.
I hope it comes and leaves before I do a graveside in Middletown tomorrow morning.
Waiting for a storm is worse than the storm itself, so it seems to me.
Waiting is always hard.
No one likes to wait.
We want to be in the middle of things.
But 'waiting' has become the standard these days.
Waiting for the election.
Waiting for the pandemic to be controlled.
Waiting for reforms to our system that will make black and brown people equal to white people.
Waiting for the storm.
Yet that is what we have to do right now--wait.
Friday, July 10, 2020
Thursday, July 9, 2020
MyEyeDoc
I went to see Dr. Ryan, the eye doctor we have used for years. He used to be 12 minutes away in New Haven, but several years ago, he transferred to the office in Ansonia, which is over half-an-hour away. I started going to Cheshire's branch but Bern wouldn't give him up. And four years ago, I agreed and started going to Ansonia.
I have the beginnings of Macular Degeneration. I notice no loss of sight yet, but he sees me every six months now to keep on top of it.
I asked him today how long it would be before my sight began to fail.
"What if I told you 30 years?" he asked.
I'm 73. "That would be great!" I told him.
Then he said, "what if I said 16 weeks?"
"That would be awful!" I replied.
Apparently there is no way to know how fast MD increases.
He's brutally honest--which is one reason we trust him so.
Bern went with me and sat in the car because the stuff they do to me makes me unsafe to drive.
It makes me remember Bill Penny. He was a priest from New York who retired to CT and would come to our Tuesday morning clericus meetings at St. John's in Waterbury. We always began with Eucharist and Bill would take his turn celebrating. Though he couldn't read the pages of the altar book because of his macular degeneration, he had the text memorized and usually got through it with no prompting.
I've made a point over the years not to memorize the service. I'm always a little surprised by the words since I don't know them by heart.
Maybe, because of my eyes, I should start to memorize them.
Here's my sermon at Bill Penny's funeral.
I have the beginnings of Macular Degeneration. I notice no loss of sight yet, but he sees me every six months now to keep on top of it.
I asked him today how long it would be before my sight began to fail.
"What if I told you 30 years?" he asked.
I'm 73. "That would be great!" I told him.
Then he said, "what if I said 16 weeks?"
"That would be awful!" I replied.
Apparently there is no way to know how fast MD increases.
He's brutally honest--which is one reason we trust him so.
Bern went with me and sat in the car because the stuff they do to me makes me unsafe to drive.
It makes me remember Bill Penny. He was a priest from New York who retired to CT and would come to our Tuesday morning clericus meetings at St. John's in Waterbury. We always began with Eucharist and Bill would take his turn celebrating. Though he couldn't read the pages of the altar book because of his macular degeneration, he had the text memorized and usually got through it with no prompting.
I've made a point over the years not to memorize the service. I'm always a little surprised by the words since I don't know them by heart.
Maybe, because of my eyes, I should start to memorize them.
Here's my sermon at Bill Penny's funeral.
SERMON FOR THE FUNERAL OF THE REV. BILL PENNY
9/18/2007
The best job
I ever had—best by far—was being Bill Penny’s chauffeur from time to time.
I am only one
of a multitude of folks who were Bill’s chauffeurs—and though I always thought
I was his favorite driver, I am as sure as sure can be that
everyone who gave Bill a ride felt like “his favorite driver”. Bill simply had
the God-given capacity to make whoever
he was with feel like the best and brightest and most beloved. That gift of his
is beyond compare, fondly to be wished, a holy gift.
And there is
this: I was Bill’s driver to the General Convention in 1997.
We’d drive
into Philadelphia each morning from Bill’s sister in law’s house and go to the
convention center. I would feel like the one person entourage of an
ecclesiastical “rock star”. We couldn’t walk ten steps without someone coming
over to hug and kiss and love on Bill. And he would hug and kiss and love on
them.
There were
coveys of nuns who descended on him like teenagers around the Beatles—Bill was
Paul and John and George and Ringo all rolled into one. There were bishops who
would walk away from important conversations just to come over and bask in
Bill’s presence. Just walking through the convention center, priests by the
dozens and as many lay-people, would be
drawn from whatever else they were doing to come and hold Bill near and feel
his oh-so-fierce hug in return. (Sometimes, when he hugged me, I felt he was
about to dislocate my shoulder or break some bone….Bill was a world class
hugger…..)
I had known
before that trip that Bill was a “special person”—what I hadn’t realized is how
wide spread that realization was! Everyone he ever met, it seems, was made to
feel so wonderful by just being with him that they never forgot it….And could never forget it.
And now Bill
is dead. I hate this part. I want to rant and rage against God and the cosmos
and the powers that be and say, “No, give him back to us…we still have great
need of him….”
And we do.
His family needs him and we as individuals and we as a church have “great need”
of him—of his never-ending compassion, his great, good humor, his gracefulness
and generosity of spirit, his wisdom about what was old and his openness to what is
new, his love and his guidance and his eternal optimism in the face of
life’s cynicism and his undefeatable hope in the face of fracture and fear.
We have need
of knowing that whatever the evidence to the contrary, life is
TERRIFIC….Really, life is Terrific….That’s what Bill believed, believed
always, believed absolutely, without a shred of doubt….
“Enough about
me,” Bill would be saying about now, “Proclaim the Gospel, Jim. Proclaim it….”
And this is the gospel I
proclaim—the gospel Bill gave his life to; God is Love.
Not
complicated at all. Not subtle in any way. A simple three word sentence that
gathers up and contains all we know and all we need to know.
GOD IS LOVE.
In one of
Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction novels, there is a robot named Salo that had
been programmed to travel the galaxies endlessly, searching for the answer to
one simple question: “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?”
Salo finally
finds his answer from a lonely, forgotten woman who was marooned on one of the
moons of Jupiter. “THE MEANING OF LIFE,” Beatrice tells him, “IS TO LOVE WHOEVER IS AROUND TO BE LOVED.”
I believe
that would have been Jesus’ answer as well.
And I know it was Bill’s answer.
From Bishops
to power-brokers to the people who run the fish store to clerks at Starbuck’s
to folks down on their luck—Bill simply loved whoever was around to be loved.
Whether he was pleading for compassion from the powerful or sitting on a bench
on the Waterbury Green with the homeless—he loved whoever was around to be
loved. And in that he proclaimed the
gospel more eloquently and profoundly than any preacher can convey.
God is
love—and love is stronger than death could ever be.
The Buddhists tell us that the illusion
of separateness is the cause of human suffering. The illusion of separateness is the cause of
human suffering. If that is true, then the acceptance of unity is the pathway to
joy.
That, I believe, is the gospel
truth that Bill embraced, leaned into and lived from. He didn’t seem to notice
the separateness of the powerful and powerless, of brokenness and wholeness, of
hope and hopelessness, of death and life. Bill seemed to accept, in ways both
obvious and profound, the “unity” of God’s creation. He loved whoever was
around to be loved.
And that is the good news I
proclaim for him and from him.
He taught us to love by loving—by
his eternal love of his precious Natalie, his blinding love of Priscilla and
all her family, his loyal love to those he ministered to and with, his
unflinching love of “the least of these” in our midst, and—most, most of
all—his quiet and grateful love of the one who is Resurrection and Life.
My invitation to you is to carry
from this holy space, this gracious time, a little of Bill’s Spirit—a sampling
of his love, a touch of his humor, a dollop of his compassion. And my
invitation to you is to carry from this service, this memorial, the unity of
God, who is resurrection and life.
If we can carry that good news with
us into the world, Bill will be pleased. If he were here, he would say that was
“Terrific”, absolutely “Terrific”.
Supreme Court and the President
(connects to my you tube blog)
(The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)
Today the Supreme Court ruled that the district attorney of New York City 'could' get the president's tax information by subpoena. It was a 7-2 vote with both the president's appointments voting against him.
The decision about the House of Representatives getting the information was a little different but did allow it to go forward in the courts.
We won't have them by election day, but the president was furious on twitter.
"No one is above the law", Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his opinion. "Not even the President."
I say, 'good going, Supreme Court'--I'm not relieved yet but having the court be that definite is a start back toward the rule of law. Which in my opinion, this president has been degrading in dangerous ways.
Also, the Court ruled that about half of Oklahoma is legally Native American land.
That's going to be a big challenge to the state.
We shall see what we shall see.
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Good for Scandinavia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadM_USLBkw
(my youtube blog)
(Opinions here are mine and mine alone.)
THIS MAY NOT BE PROPER FOR ALL TO VIEW!!
Some Scandinavian country has made it a law that men must urinate sitting down in public bathrooms.
A very good idea.
If you are a man and use public bathrooms--even ones with urinals--you know what I mean.
It should probably apply to home bathrooms as well.
I don't know about you, but I sometimes have to use a paper towel on the floor or the toilet to clean up a mis-aim.
Maybe it's just getting older, but for sure, my aim isn't what it once was.
Sitting down to pee might be a good idea for men.
Just me talkin'....
(my youtube blog)
(Opinions here are mine and mine alone.)
THIS MAY NOT BE PROPER FOR ALL TO VIEW!!
Some Scandinavian country has made it a law that men must urinate sitting down in public bathrooms.
A very good idea.
If you are a man and use public bathrooms--even ones with urinals--you know what I mean.
It should probably apply to home bathrooms as well.
I don't know about you, but I sometimes have to use a paper towel on the floor or the toilet to clean up a mis-aim.
Maybe it's just getting older, but for sure, my aim isn't what it once was.
Sitting down to pee might be a good idea for men.
Just me talkin'....
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
"We're in a good place...."
(my youtube link)
(All I write here is my opinion and mine only)
That's what the President said today: "we're in a good place" with Covid-19.
That just isn't true. 41 states have rising infection rates. 7 are holding steady and only 4--CT, MA, VT and NH--have infection rates falling. Yea for New England!
Fauci and other medical experts say cases are rising at an enormous rate and we could have over 200,000 Americans dead by election day.
Plus, the President and Betsy De Vose, Sec. of Education, and mandating that schools reopen at full capacity the end of August. Many won't, I'm sure, caring more about student and teacher safety than full enrollment. They will try to open with masks, hand sanatizers and social distancing.
The President called such precautions "politically motivated", though, in truth they are 'public health concern' motivated!
He still insists that we 'test' more than anywhere and the tests are the reason for the rising cases.
We don't test more per capita than anywhere else and the virus is the reason for the rising cases.
Plus, TV networks and newspapers have copies of his niece's book. She's a psychologist and her observations about the President are devastating.
Finally, his recent remarks that sound so racially insensitive about the protestors and NASCAR and the Confederate flag, fly in the face of a clear majority of American opinions.
Not a "good place" for the President to be right now.
Monday, July 6, 2020
Here's another blast from the past
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Toradh caithimh tobac--ba`s
That I still have a pack plus some others after two weeks tells me I don't smoke nearly as much as I feared. Most smokers, when they count, are horrified that they smoke more than they thought. So, give me a break on that, OK?
Yes, I KNOW I shouldn't smoke. And I do. OK? Leave me alone. I'm a priest, I stand with the oppressed and the most oppressed people in the Western world are smokers. I'm just standing with my people....
But since absolutely everything in Ireland has both Irish and English on signs, notices, directions, etc., 'whatever', each pack of cigarettes has the warning "Toradh caithimh tobac--ba`s" on it. The English translation is below: "Smoking kills". You have to admire a language that requires 22 letters to say what 12 say in English. And such wondrous words! When I try to pronounce them (which I can't for the life of me) they sound like Klingon. But if an Irish speaker said them they would sound like a bird song, really. I've listened to Irish a lot and it is a language to be sung, not spoken. English is so mundane in comparison.
No wonder the Irish love song and poetry and story so much--it sounds like birds.
I'm listening as I write this to Maggie, our parakeet sing along with the classical music station we always have on beside her cage.
With a little practice, I believe, Maggie could speak Irish. All birds, it seems to me, are Gaelic in their bird souls.....
Something from the past
I didn't feel like writing a new post yesterday or today, so I thought I'd share something from the past. A post which, for reasons beyond my comprehension, was one of the top ten viewed posts of all time.
Here it is.
I just realized this is my 400th post on Under the Castor Oil Tree. I'm
too intimidated to go back and read the first one. Jeter got hit 3000
and Mo got save 600 a few days ago. Now I've got blog 400. Who knew?
Since I waxed semi-eloquent on the weather in West Virginia, I decided I'd do the 400th blog with my favorite West Virginia joke.
A Washington lobbyist grew tired of the fast lane and retired to a cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. He couldn't see another house from where he lived and he was delighted with his new life. He read and wrote and ate simply. He couldn't have been happier.
But on the very day he began to feel lonely for the first time, about three months into his wilderness retreat, there was a knock at his door.
When he opened the door he was confronted by a huge, hairy mountain man.
"Hey there," the man said, "I'm your nearest neighbor. I live over the ridge of that second mountain out there to the west and I've come to invite you to a party."
The city man thought that might just be the best thing to cure his newly arrived loneliness--a party in the mountains.
"I'd love to come," he said to the Mountaineer.
"I hav' to warn you," the native said, "there'll be some drinkin'."
"I like a drink from time to time," the city guy replied.
"And there'll prob'ly be some fightin'," his guest told him.
"Well alcohol will do that," said the man from Washington.
"And, last but not least," the West Virginian told him, "there will most likely be some sex."
The city guy wasn't ready for that but he knew he was a stranger in a strange land, so he agreed and said, "well, I understand that might happen."
The mountain man gave him directions to his house, just a mountain or two over.
"Well," the DC guy said, trying to fit in to the culture, "what should I wear?"
"Dudn't matter much," the huge Hill-Billie told him, "it'll jist be you and me...."
Here it is.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
400th Post
Since I waxed semi-eloquent on the weather in West Virginia, I decided I'd do the 400th blog with my favorite West Virginia joke.
A Washington lobbyist grew tired of the fast lane and retired to a cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. He couldn't see another house from where he lived and he was delighted with his new life. He read and wrote and ate simply. He couldn't have been happier.
But on the very day he began to feel lonely for the first time, about three months into his wilderness retreat, there was a knock at his door.
When he opened the door he was confronted by a huge, hairy mountain man.
"Hey there," the man said, "I'm your nearest neighbor. I live over the ridge of that second mountain out there to the west and I've come to invite you to a party."
The city man thought that might just be the best thing to cure his newly arrived loneliness--a party in the mountains.
"I'd love to come," he said to the Mountaineer.
"I hav' to warn you," the native said, "there'll be some drinkin'."
"I like a drink from time to time," the city guy replied.
"And there'll prob'ly be some fightin'," his guest told him.
"Well alcohol will do that," said the man from Washington.
"And, last but not least," the West Virginian told him, "there will most likely be some sex."
The city guy wasn't ready for that but he knew he was a stranger in a strange land, so he agreed and said, "well, I understand that might happen."
The mountain man gave him directions to his house, just a mountain or two over.
"Well," the DC guy said, trying to fit in to the culture, "what should I wear?"
"Dudn't matter much," the huge Hill-Billie told him, "it'll jist be you and me...."
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