Sunday seems long

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8

 (The opinions here are mine and mine only.)

We had zoom church.

I recorded last week's blogs for you tube (above is the link).

I talked to my cousin, Mejol, in Baltimore.

I read some and was on line a lot.

Dog walks and feedings.

Read some more.

Made a toasted cheese sandwich.

Ordered out for fish for dinner.

Watched new on TV (MSNBC and CNN only)

Called a couple of people.

Sat on the deck a long (low humidity today).

Still it seemed really long, this day.

Don't know why.

Beats me.

It's the same length of any other day--but seemed longer.

Waiting for the storm

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.

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.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadM_USLBkw

 (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.

 

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'....

"We're in a good place...."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadM_USLBkw

  (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.

Here's another blast from the past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadM_USLBkw

 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Toradh caithimh tobac--ba`s

That's what it says on the Malboro Gold Originals I've been smoking for two weeks. I bought a carton at the Duty Free Shop at the Dublin Airport. If I'm doing the Euro-Dollar exchange anywhere near right, the ten packs of cigarettes cost about $4 a pack, less than half what they cost in Cheshire.

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.....