The hardest thing

Tomorrow I'm doing the funeral for a good friend.

 That is one of the hardest things I do as a priest.

I've performed over 500 funerals in my time. Many of them were people I either didn't know or knew only briefly.

Good friends is a different deal all together.

T. was one of my favorite people at St. John's in Waterbury. Full of life and humor and wonder at being alive.

And now he's dead--just about the age I am.

And I'm doing his funeral tomorrow.

Deep breath....exhale....try to relax.

His wife, who I love dearly, will be there in the front row.

That makes it even harder.

I haven't seen them for 8 years since priests are supposed to cut ties with people in a parish they leave. (Another rule Dangerous Mystics and Spiritual Rebels should stand up against.)

But the absence has made the heart grow fonder.

It will be a hard day for me tomorrow.

Pray for me.

And for T. as he goes gently into that good night.

 

trying to move on

 I'm going to wear a mask for a long time. Mostly because I've come to be so used to it.

I have fully vaccinated friends I'm comfortable around.

We even did a mask free Eucharist last week at Trinity, Milton.

But I'm still cautious and nervous.

Some people don't wear masks in supermarkets and other stores. They make me anxious.

It's going to take a while for me to move on.

It's gotten into my head--this pandemic--and I don't know how to get it out of my head.

It's going to take time.

Time and trust.

We'll see.

short sleeve shirts

 I was arranging my short sleeve shirts in my closet today after months of three layer long sleeves and came across some I had forgotten about.

One was a tee-shirt I bought during the previous Presidential administration with a flying saucer above the White House and the words: "just as reported, no sign of intelligent life." I can't wear that now and hope I never have to again.

Another was a yellow tee-shirt with the St. John's Church logo (an eagle with wings spread). On the back it says: "Dangerous Mystics and Spiritual Rebels".

Once in an adult confirmation class someone asked me, "what will we be when this class is over?"

And I answered off the top of my head, "dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels". Within a week these tee-shirts showed up, over a hundred of them.

That was well over a decade ago, but I stand by it even now. What we need to be as Christians are dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels.

Any 'organized' church--even one as liberal and forward looking as the Episcopal Church--draws lines that shouldn't be drawn. We need people to push back against the lines and limits and rules and canon law.

As Christians, we need to be free of all that.

We need to be open to the mystical communications of God and to rebel against limits to the power of the Spirit.

During Covid, when Bryan and I were doing zoom church, we invited people to have bread and wine and enjoy communion as we consecrated it virtually.

Word came down from on high not to do that.

How can the Church--an earthly organization--dare to limit the power of the Holy Spirit to consecrate elements on Zoom?

How do we know in-person consecration really turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? Only by believing it.

So what's different about virtual consecration? If you believe in it, it can be real.

Dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels are needed to be on alert to when the Church gets in the way of our knowing God.

We dutifully told people what had been passed down to us, but we kept doing it.

Where would we be without dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels?

Wedded to the 'past' and not looking toward God, that's where.

how can they?

How can Republicans oppose a 9/11 type of bi-partisan commission to look into the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6?

An attack was made on our country's lawmakers and the Republican Vice-President, our democracy and most of all, our Constitution. How can anyone not want to get the the bottom of that?

35 brave and patriotic Republicans voted in the House to look into what happened in the way we looked into 9/ll. But the Senate may not be so easy. In a filibuster vote, 10 Republican Senators would have to vote yes.

There may be a way around avoiding a filibuster, but why should we even have to consider that?

This is about our Constitutional Democracy and every Republican in the Congress took an oat to uphold that.

How can they oppose this in any way, shape or form?

Here's why.

They fear the power of the MAGA cult around the former President and his power to endorse opposition to them for their re-election.

Being re-elected is more important to them than their sacred oath, their country and the Constitution that upholds it.

Pray for them, beloved.

Lordy, Lordy, do they need prayer and Divine intervention rather than political notions.

 

Tuesday

I had my zoom meeting this morning with a group of clergy and laymen (no women sadly) that I've been a part of for almost 30 years. I love them dearly but sometimes they get to deep into Biblical history and esoteric theology for my taste. Which is interesting since I've had more theological education than any of them--7 years. But I tune out when it gets too deep. Besides I only read mysteries! 

Then I went to get the two Zolair injections I get every two weeks that have changed my life. I was asthmatic from childhood and Zolair has made it all go away. The nurse today told me my lungs were clearer than she'd ever heard them--though my eyes are killing me from pollen.

That's twice in two days I've been told my lungs were clear--in the midst of allergy season! Yesterday I went to the oncologist to get my every three month shot to lower my PSA. It is below normal--but it should be zero since I had my prostate removed years and years ago. She doesn't know why, but has (thankfully) detected no cancer to this point.

After my shots, I had lunch with Brian V. who was my lay-assistant at St. John's in Waterbury for a bunch of years. My favorite story about Brian is that he was telling some older men at coffee hour about the Buddhist retreat he'd been on. (He served a Buddhist temple for a decade or more as well as being my lay-assistant and a chaplain at Waterbury Hospital.) One of the men said, "Brian, are you a Christian?" and Brian gave the best reply to that question I've ever heard: "At least," he told them.

Then I talked on the phone to Bea, who is the office manager of the Cluster Ministry I served for 7 years. She told me she reads my blog and thinks I sometimes sound 'melancholy' from time to time. Which, I must admit, is probably true.

Then I heard that Tom N., a parishioner at St. John's, has died. I've tried to call his daughter a dozen times but there's no answer and her messages are full.

My favorite story about Tom is, since he was from Jamaica, and there were dozens and dozens of people in the parish from Barbuda, "Jim, do you know why other West Indies people think Jamaicans think they are superior to them?"

"No, I don't." I said.

"Because we are!" he said, and laughed uproariously. 

Rest in Peace, Dear Tom.

That was my day.

 

Spring would be...

 ...a terrible time to be color blind.

    Cheshire abounds in color.

    The daffodils and most of the tulips are already gone, but still flowers abound.

    And how many shades of green can their be.

    Go outside and just take in the colors of Spring.

    And thank God you can see them....

Everyone fits

(I got this song by the Altar Boyz in a letter, a very kind letter, from Susan Cromwell, who was the secretary at St. John's in my last years there, thanking me for letting her and her family 'fit' into the life of the church. It expresses all I believe about 'the Family of God'.)

EVERYONE FITS

Somedays you just can't begin

You feel outside looking in

it's like, you're the odd man out,

let me help you end your doubt

it doesn't matter

if you're different or out of place

it doesn't matter if there's ache on your face

it doesn't matter

Take my hand and then

you will see

Everybody fits in God's great family

Strangers seem to stop and stare

Wonderin' why you're even there

Feeling so left out and wrong

I'll show 

You that

You belong

it doesn't matter

if you have a gigantic nose

if you've been born with eleven toes

You can trust and 

Believe in me

Everyone fits in God's great family

In the family of God you'll learn

That there's no such thing as others

All the women and men on earth

Can be your sisters and your brothers

it doesn't matter

if you're wrinkled an old an grey

it doesn't matter 

if you face mecca when you pray

it doesn't matter

Won't you listen

and hear my plea, everyone fits

it doen't matter

if you're yellow or black or white or red

it doesn't matter

if you're pregnant an unwed

it doesn't matter

'Cause the truth it can

set you free, everybody fits

Everybody fits!

it doesn't matter

Every murderer on death row

it doesn't matter

Every prostitute that you know

it doesn't matter

Welcome to the 

Fraternity, everybody fits in God's great family

we fit into the family