This final thing
The older I get, the fewer things I find I have
to believe. I think I've got it down
to
the basics of my 'creed'.
These are the things I still need to
believe:
*God loves me (us) unconditionally.
Everyone, no matter how twisted or even 'evil' is a child of God.
*Treat others as you want to be treated.
*Welcome the stranger always, even if
the stranger means you harm.
*Give to those in need.
*Be thankful always, for everything.
That may be enough for me. I'll ponder
it, but right now I can't think of anything else I need. That will be quite
enough I think, to carry around. “Travel lightly” has become my motto as I've
moved into Medicare years.
There's lots more I could write
about—events and people...oh, so many people that made my life as an Episcopal
priest, though I never wanted to do it, the best life ever. Really. I can't
imagine, looking back, being more joyful
or more fulfilled or more complete in any other calling. (I actually teach at
the University of Connecticut in Waterbury every other semester or so in a
program for those over 50. So, I've gotten to be a 'professor', though when I
think it through, that's what I've been all along—a professor—one who
professes, just about God rather than Hemingway and Fitzgerald.)
I do miss having not written the Great
American Novel—though I've written a couple of novels...three in fact: one
straight fiction, one mystery and one fantasy...just the kind of books I love
to read. The novel is titled The Igloo Factory, with the sub-title “a
romance of the 60's”; the mystery is Murder on the Block, about a crime
on Block Island, RI; the fantasy is called The Princess and the Sailor.
If you want to read any of them, get in touch and I'll send them to you. My
son, the lawyer, is frustrated that I've never got them published. He doesn't
understand that the 'writing' is the gift to me. The business of trying to get
them published is just too complicated for my aging mind. Maybe he'll get them
published after I die. Good for him! That's the only way I could pay for his 3
daughters' college education....