What is Holy?

 (19 years ago, I was asked to speak at St. Paul's/St. James in New Haven about "What is Holy?" I served St. Paul's for 5 years back in the 80's, before it merged with St. James. My talk was almost an hour long, so I'll just post the first part and will post other parts as time passes.)

March 7, 2002--WHAT IS HOLY?

1. How dare you ask...?

    Just several nights ago, when I was beginning to think about putting some words on paper that I would then read to you in a week or so about "What is Holy?", I noticed a severely distressed lemon in the basket where we tend to keep fruit and car keys and my cell phone and unopened mail. That lemon was growing brown and had wilted  greatly, to less than half it's size when it was new and fresh. I smelled it a long time. It smelled powerfully of lemon. And then I ran my front teeth across it to scrape away a little of the peel--and it had that unmistakable 'lemon' taste--only more so--more intense and engaging and challenging.

    Had you asked me where I found 'lemon' in my life, I would have had an immediate answer. That lemon. The one that was wilted and turning brown. The one we had forgotten to use when it was fresh and ready for use. That lemon was the very essence and identity and example of 'what is lemon' in my life--right then, right now, always and forever, eternally, "lemon-ness" in the moment. The moment of my life. Simply that.

    But you didn't ask me to speak about what is 'ultimate lemon'. You asked me about 'What is Holy?' and how the Holy shows up to me and occurs to me and interacts with me and is One with me...you have asked me to talk about all that.

    How dare you?

    The Holy, it seems to me, has this capacity and way of being--it shows up to each of us in remarkably personal and private ways. It is--on one level--an 'invasion of my privacy' to be asked to speak about the Holy in my life. It is--in that one way, on that one level--like asking me to share with you the stuff I floss from between my teeth or the stuff from beneath my fingernails that I wash away by clawing the bar of Ivory soap when I shower. The Holy--to me, on one level--is like the lint I find in the pockets after I wash my pants--lint entwined with toothpicks and forgotten coins and 'washed and dried' phone notes and kleenex and useless matchbooks.

    (When I was a boy in the lush, overpowering beautiful mountains of southern West Virginia, there was an impaired man named Davis Spinnet--a giant, hulking, totally harmless 300 pound man--who would walk the roadways and the paths of that place where I grew up and pick up dead creatures and put them in his pockets. His sister, Gladys Spinnet--many years his senior--would empty Davis' pockets each night and bury the tiny frog and mouse and lizard and mole and bat corpses he would collect during the day. But before that--before he went home to have his collection buried by his sister--Davis would pull the dead things from his pocket to show children. This was all before people decided that folks like Davis should be locked away to protect us from his wisdom. We kids would scram and run in fear from the dead things Davis showed us. But now, I decided much later--I look back and realize he held them out to us to show us 'holy things'.)

    One of the things I consider and hold as 'holy' are the dead things in our pockets.

 

    How dare you ask me about what is 'holy'? How dare you to invite me to empty my pockets and show you the dark secrets there?

    And how dare you give me an hour to talk about anything???

    I'll tell you more than you want to know in so long a time.

 

    But there is this: I see around me the faces of people I love--old friends, new friends, friends yet to be. So I forgive you your impertinence--the gall you have to ask me such a personal, private question.

    I am glad to be here. It is a privilege to 'empty my pockets' in your presence--to hold out long hidden and dead things, to invite you into the darkness of my private self, into the the astonishing shadows of my life, into 'what is holy' to me.

 

Well, that didn't go over well

 When I told Bern I was going to give up my cell phone, she yelled at me for 10 minutes or so.

Well, 'yelling' isn't exactly right. She talked harshly at me to tell me all the reasons I shouldn't do that.

When I told her I didn't get many calls, she responded (rightly) that I don't give anyone my number. I don't.

She told me a man my age needs a phone with him in his car.

Which is probably right.

She accused me of wanting to live in 1985--which I admitted was true--I was 38 and it was a great year.

So, I won't be giving up my cell phone.

And I will give more people my cell number.

And I'll try, as best I can, to live in 2021....

 

Will it never end?

I just watched a news video from the Colorado House where a speaker referred to a black member as 'Buckwheat' and then had the gall to call it 'a term of endearment'. The Speaker called a recess, Lord love her.

My three Baltimore grand-daughters are mixed race. Their mother (a Judge in Maryland, by the way) is a second generation Taiwanese American. I fear for her and her daughters during this time of Asian hate crimes.

I served churches for 30 years that were either African-American or had a large Black and West Indian membership. At St. John's in Waterbury we also had a Hispanic congregation and a Hispanic priest.

I have been part of a couple of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Cheshire (which is, unfortunately 90% or more white) but most of the participants were white.

Not everyone white is involved in hate and racism, but too many are.

What did the last President call African nations? "Sh*t hole countries!"

Hopefully the Biden administration will make some progress.

But 'some' progress is not what's needed.

'Total elimination' of racial hate is what's needed.

Will it never end???

 

My cell phone

 I'm thinking about giving up my cell phone.

Almost nobody calls me on it, except my cousin Mejol, and she can use the land-line #.

Perhaps 2/3 of the calls I get show up as "Scam Likely".

I don't have email on it, on purpose, so that's no problem.

And it would save money for my old age home!

People do text me from time to time, but I never respond.

Plus, I seldom have it with me.

I take it on Sundays when I'm doing services, just in case something goes wrong with the car--but never carry it on short journeys, like to the stores.

Sometimes I forget where I put it for a few days and have to call it to find it.

Only thing I like about it is the alarm that I use when I need to get up for something earlier than I would naturally.

But I could get an alarm clock for much less than the phone costs.

Maybe I'll give it up.

I think I'd be happier without it.

It's mostly a pain to own....

Bern moved the plants

Bern moved the plants she keeps inside for the winter out on the deck a few days ago.

Our deck looks like a garden.

Vines, ferns, plants and flowers all against the side of the deck that looks East.

I have nothing to do with plants--all Bern's deal.

I remember when we lived in Morgantown and Bern went to New York to be in several off Broadway plays, I let all the house plants die.

She was pissed when she came back and saw the carnage.

Alas.

I also got offered a job as Priest in Charge today.

I accepted.

It's only year by year, which is good for me because I may be loosing my marbles before long!

I am old.

My knees make me walk like I'm drunk and I bump into things.

I should go have them looked at, but they don't hurt--just throw off my gait.

I sleep a lot--from 11p.m. to 9 or so a.m. each day.

And I often open a cabinet and wonder why I did--or open the wrong cabinet when I knew what I was looking for.

Age is not a gift in many ways.

But I think I know what I think and believe more clearly than I did as a younger man.

Some good stuff and some not so good.

But Bern's plants give me joy.

 

my name

 It's James Gordon Bradley.

I thought I'd look up what my names mean.

James, the name of one of Jesus' disciples, means in Greek, "replacer". But in Latin "Jacomus" means 'may God protect.

Gordon means "a round hill".

Bradley means "a broad meadow" or a "broad lee".

So my name means "May God protect a round hill in a broad meadow", or something like that.

Not bad, I think.

Not bad at all.

Some things to ponder

Ever so often, I like to share some of the quotes given me by the Mastery Foundation--for whom I lead "Making a Difference Workshops" for years, and soon again, I hope.

These are what I've chosen for this blog.

Don't just 'read' them.

Ponder them.

Spend some time with them.

Let them move and challenge and shape you.

Happy Pondering!!!

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."--Jean-Paul Sartre

"Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.--Rumi

"If one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.--May Sarton

"The first duty of love is to listen."--Paul Tillich

"Our Druidic ancestors welcomed every child with the words: Here come God again.--Fr. John Cullen

"Imagination is more important that knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world...."--Albert Einstein

"When starting out to build a world, One starts first with oneself."--Langston Hughes

"Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Religion isn't where your mind is. Religion is where your ass is."--Phillip Berrigan, SJ

"Make yourself a light."--Buddha's last words to his followers.

Ponder on....