My oh, so odd night

I watched night two of the Democratic Convention. It was all about Joe Biden being The Right One--a healer, open to everybody--a lovely tribute to Joe's friendship with John McCain, being nominated, not by a politician, but by a Black, female elevator operator in the Capital who Joe befriended years ago, Jill's loving speech about her husband...on and on and on.

But when I went to bed I got a searing pain across the middle of my back--excruciating. Nothing worked, so I woke Bern at 2 a.m. to take me to Mid-State Hospital in Meriden.

I could hardly walk when we got to the emergency room. Even at that hour, things moved slowly. Finally a nurse took me into a room and put me on a bed with the head elevated.

While she asked me endless questions, I began to relax some.

By the time she left and told me a doctor would be in 'soon', my pain was gone.

It was like a miracle! 

After waiting 15 minutes, I called her back and told her I wanted to go home.

I asked her how long for the doctor and she said 15 to 20 minutes. That sealed it.

She made me walk up and down several hallways before agreeing to let me leave. I even drove home and got into bed at 4:15!

Slept well. Have had no pain at all today.

Bern's theory was a kidney stone (she's had them) that passed while we were waiting.

I remember her kidney stone like it was yesterday.

It was a Sunday morning and she felt poorly so she and Mimi didn't go up to St. John's. I was in the middle of my sermon when someone, luckily, heard the phone in the vesting room.

They pulled me out of the pulpit to tell me she was on her way to Waterbury hospital. Josh had been an acolyte that day, sitting behind the altar rail. He leaped the altar rail in his robe to come to me.

We beat her to the hospital. Her pain was so bad she called 911 and forgot Mimi was in her room!

A couple from the church went to Cheshire to be with Mimi.

Bern is a tough cookie, but I've never seen her in such pain. They somehow dissolved the stones and we were home by dark.

I hope that wasn't what I had. And I don't want that pain again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 

(link to my you tube blog)

(these are my opinions and mine only)

 

 

The Democratic Convention--Night One

 It was odd, a Convention without crowds. But as it should be in the days of this virus.

It was quite a lot in a little over two hours: Republican John Kasic in a field where a road had two forks, people from every state and territory singing the national anthem, a lovely hostess asking questions to many ordinary people, Bernie Sanders in front of a year full of wood for the stove, lots of entertainment, and, most, most of all Michelle Obama's moving speech and firm denunciation of the president.

I thought it was done flawlessly in the technology.

How hard that must have been to pull off.

Very up beat--"we the people" was the theme.

Watch it on youtube if you didn't see it.

Lordy, Lordy, upbeat and uniting, just what we need in these strange and dangerous times.

(The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

(link to my You Tube Blog)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94

I can't find anything

 Cheshire has two supermarkets. Big Y (which used to be Everybody's) and Stop and Shop.

After Everybody's became a Big Y, they expanded into an empty restaurant next door and became much larger.

In response, Stop and Shop has changed everything around, taking out the health food section and expanding their produce to match Big Y.

And both stores have moved most things around.

It's become so I can't find anything I'm looking for in either one and am walking around, searching for pickles much more than I want to be.

I guess it's a sign of age.

I don't want things to change.

I want everything to stay the same, so I won't be confused and can find what I want where it used to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 (link to my youtube blog)

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In a box

Bern does face time on her phone with Eleanor every weekday. Today, Eleanor put her dad's tablet in and box and shut the top. Bern was in the dark.

These days it feels like that to me--I'm in a box.

Part of it is good--I'm safe from the virus out there in the world.

The other part isn't good. The president creates an alternative reality and I have no access to the truth except around the edges where the light edges through.

Schools should open--it's safe.

The economy should open--it's safe.

The Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal saves the middle east--believer Jarred.

The post office changes are for the best--all is well.

Kamela Harris is 'nasty'--all the time.

But the light that seeps in tells me all that is a lie.

Things are not well.

Our democracy is in peril.

Joe Biden must--MUST--be elected.

It's the only hope, the only way to open the box.

(all opinions here are mine and mine only)

 

 

 

An Email

(I took this from an email I wrote.It explains my commitment to Black Lives Matter.)

I grew up in the only county in the US, outside the deep south, that was almost 50/50 Black and White. I knew only a few adult blacks and none of their children. The adults called me "Mister Jimmy". I only realized years later that it was probably meant derogatorily. I just grew up thinking it was the way things were. My father--not my mother---was a quiet racist. In his many jobs he served lots of Black customers, but when he came to my first Church, St. James in Charleston, WV, as I was showing him around he said, "It doesn't smell like I expected." I never went to school with Black students until my Senior Year of high School. The Black High School had sent over 3 male athletes and 3 smart girls to pave the way since the next year, the schools would merge. (Which meant that all over the county the Black Schools would close in disrepair and the Blacks would come to the better kept white schools). I became close friends with a student from the Black School when we were in college. He would introduce me to his friends by saying, "we went to different high schools together."

Since college I have done all I could for the Civil Rights Movement. During seminary I walked in marches. Since then I've given money to Civil rights groups. My childhood taught me how terrible and limiting segregation had been.

As a young priest, I went to St. James in Charleston, a black parish. With so few black Episcopal priests, St. James couldn't afford them. For five years they educated me in what it was like to be Black in America. The Senior Warden, a man who served in the army and went to the level of Colonel, showed me the turban he wore traveling through the South. He was light skinned and wearing the turban meant he could get a room in a hotel. Disgraceful that he had to do that. Most of the members of St. James worked or taught at a local previously all--Black college. It was the most educated congregation I ever served, yet they faced discrimination daily. It outraged me.

The other two churches I served--St. Paul's in New Haven and St. John's in Waterbury--both had large minority groups. An important member of the Cluster was baptized at St. Paul's (not by me) but members of his extended family were there when I was. St. John's had a huge extended family of Island Blacks. I would always wait for the moment when a seminarian would ask me why so many of the Black people sat together. I would say, "what if they all had red hair and freckles?" Then they'd get it. That family, all dressed almost formally for church. The little girls wore gloves and hats. The little boys, suits and ties. That family, almost 50 people, took me in and made me an Island White with food and drinks and jokes about the Islands.

So, as you can see, my entire full time ministry was surrounded by people of color--including a Hispanic congregation in Waterbury of over 100 which required a Spanish speaking assistant.

Given my segregationist upbringing, my commitment to civil rights is bone deep.

I hope you can understand why I come from where I do about Black Lives Matter.

 

 (The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine the outrage if Obama had referred to a white woman as 'nasty'?

And yet our current president referred to Kamala Harris that way several times after she was announced as Biden's VP. And other derogatory terms I won't repeat here.

This is about race, but it also about gender.

It's also about decency and common courtesy.

I remember former Presidents who always referred to their opponents as "my honorable opponent", not 'sleepy Joe'.

 John McCain several times shut down people at his rallies that said Obama 'was not an American'. "He's as American as you," McCain told one of his supporters.

The current president is a threat to the peaceful transfer of power: constantly implying (falsely) that mail in voting will create fraud, saying "I'll have to wait and see" when asked if he would accept the results of the election, questioning if illegal voters will be counted.

Democracy is based on mutual respect and the rule of law. And the federal government taking charge in emergencies. To say little has been done by the White House during the pandemic would give them too much credit. And a second, much needed Covid relief bill is being held up because the Democrats want more money for the Postal Service (that the President wants to destroy!) to insure the safety of mail-in ballots.

The current president puts all that at risk.

I don't think our democracy could survive 4 more years of his lies and dismantling of our institutions and values.

BIDEN/HARRIS 2020!!!!!!!!!!

Our country is in the balance.

(All opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

 

I couldn't be happier!

It's not just the visit to Mimi, Tim and Eleanor that makes me happy tonight--though that was priceless for Eleanor's 4th birthday. She had a unicorn cake that cost $70, which shocked me greatly, until Mimi told me it would have cost $150 in NYC.

North Branch is so peaceful and calm. Tim loves it. Mimi misses the city and goes into her office every week and a half or so. She went this morning before we came home.

What also makes me happy is Kamala  Harris as Biden's VP pick.

She was my favorite all along.

Here tearing into Biden at the Democratic debates means he's a man who can take criticism and live with it. Hooray for him! Unlike our current president who only accepts agreement and compliance or fires you.

I've watched Harris in the debates and questioning Republicans in the Senate. She will shred Pence in a debate, if one happens in this strange time.

Half of her DNA from Jamaica and half is from India. Black and Asian. What better?

Her parents met at a civil rights protest in California. What better place for her parents to have met?

She is just what we need today, a woman from two parts of the world who was a District Attorney, an Attorney General of our largest state and an U.S. Senator.

Just what we need today.

Joy! Joy!

Tucker Carlson was mispronouncing her first name in an interview today--he was saying "Ka-Mel-La" and the person he was talking to corrected him. "It's 'comma', like the punctuation mark", he told Tucker, and , "and 'la' at the end."

Tucker was not happy at being corrected.

He's not happy, at all, at Biden's pick.

Kamala changes the whole dynamic of the election.

(Opinions here are mine and mine alone.)