my first post

(I do this ever so often to remind you why my blog is called "Under the Castor Oil Tree.)

My first post

Sitting under the Castor Oil Tree (March 7, 2009)

The character in the Bible I have always been drawn to is Jonah. I identify with his story. Like Jonah, I have experienced being taken where I didn't want to go by God and I've been disgruntled with the way things went. The belly of a big old fish isn't a pleasant means of travel either!

The story ends (in case you don't know it) with Jonah upset and complaining on a hillside over the city of Nineveh, which God has saved through Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go there to start with--hence the ride in the fish stomach--and predicted that God would save the city though it should have been destroyed for its wickedness. "You dragged me half way around the world," he tells God, "and didn't destroy the city....I knew it would turn out this way. I'm angry, so angry I could die!"

God causes a tree to grow to shade Jonah from the sun (scholars think it might have been a castor oil tree--the implications are astonishing!). Then God sends a worm to kill the tree. Well, that sets Jonah off! "How dare you kill my tree?" he challenges the creator. "I'm so angry I could die...."

God simply reminds him that he is upset at the death of a tree he didn't plant or nurture and yet he doesn't see the value of saving all the people of the great city Nineveh...along with their cattle and beasts.

And the story ends. No resolution. Jonah simply left to ponder all that. There's no sequel either--no "Jonah II" or "Jonah: the next chapter", nothing like that. It's just Jonah, sitting under the bare branches of the dead tree, pondering.

What I want to do is use this blog to do simply that, ponder about things. I've been an Episcopal priest for over 30 years. I'm approaching a time to retire and I've got a lot of pondering left to do--about God, about the church, about religion, about life and death and everything involved in that. Before the big fish swallowed me up and carried me to my own Nineva (ordination in the Episcopal Church) I had intended a vastly different life. I was going to write "The Great American Novel" for starters and get a Ph.D. in American Literature and disappear into some small liberal arts college, most likely in the Mid-Atlantic states and teach people like me--rural people, Appalachians and southerners, simple people, deep thinkers though slow talkers...lovely for all that--to love words and write words themselves.

God (I suppose, though I even ponder that...) had other ideas and I ended up spending the lion's share of my priesthood in the wilds of two cities in Connecticut (of all places) among tribes so foreign to me I scarcely understood their language and whose customs confounded me. And I found myself often among people (The Episcopal Cult) who made me anxious by their very being. Which is why I stuck to urban churches, I suppose--being a priest in Greenwich would have sent me into some form of shock...as I would have driven them to hypertension at the least.

I am one who 'ponders' quite a bit and hoped this might be a way to 'ponder in print' for anyone else who might be leaning in that direction to read.

Ever so often, someone calls my bluff when I go into my "I'm just a boy from the mountains of West Virginia" persona. And I know they're right. I've lived too long among the heathens of New England to be able to avoid absorbing some of their alien customs and ways of thinking. Plus, I've been involved in too much education to pretend to be a rube from the hills. But I do, from time to time, miss that boy who grew up in a part of the world as foreign as Albania to most people, where the lush and endless mountains pressed down so majestically that there were few places, where I lived, that were flat in an area wider than a football field. That boy knew secrets I am only beginning, having entered my sixth decade of the journey toward the Lover of Souls, to remember and cherish.

My maternal grandmother, who had as much influence on me as anyone I know, used to say--"Jimmy, don't get above your raisin'". I probably have done that, in more ways that I'm able to recognize, but I ponder that part of me--buried deeply below layer after layer of living (as the mountains were layer after layer of long-ago life).

Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of him, running madly into the woods that surrounded him on all sides, spending hours seeking paths through the deep tangles of forest, climbing upward, ever upward until he found a place to sit and look down on the little town where he lived--spread out like a toy village to him--so he could ponder, alone and undisturbed, for a while.

When I was in high school, I wrote a regular column for the school newspaper called "The Outsider". As I ponder my life, I realize that has been a constant: I've always felt just beyond the fringe wherever I was. I've watched much more than I've participated. And I've pondered many things.

So, what I've decided to do is sit here on the hillside for a while, beneath the ruins of the castor oil tree and ponder some more. And, if you wish, share my ponderings with you--whoever you are out there in cyber-Land.

Two caveates: I'm pretty much a Luddite when it comes to technology--probably smart enough to learn about it but never very interested, so this blog is an adventure for me. My friend Sandy is helping me so it shouldn't be too much of a mess. Secondly, I've realized writing this that there is no 'spell check' on the blog. Either I can get a dictionary or ask your forgiveness for my spelling. I'm a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa ENGLISH major (WVU '69) who never could conquer spelling all the words I longed to write.

I suppose I'll just ask your tolerance.

 

 

 

 

The most unusual funeral ever

 I did a funeral for G. yesterday. He had been a member of St. John's on the Green in Waterbury where I was Rector for 21 years.

He was a great guy and I welcomed the chance to bid him farewell.

All the music was recorded and made up his favorite songs--mostly secular.

All I did was the Gospel, the Homily, Communion and the blessing.

All the rest were poems and the songs.

Three members of his family told remarkably funny stories about G.

I've never been at a funeral with so much laughter--but he would have approved and enjoyed that.

I told a story in my homily about when he was at a retreat at Holy Cross Monastery with other members of the church. Holy Cross is an Episcopal monastery where silence is observed from after Evensong--about 7 p.m. until after the Eucharist at 10 a.m. the next day. Even breakfast is eaten in silence.

G. was not a great one with silence!

After communion the second day, he danced down the hallway singing--"The Silence is over, The Silence is over, the Silence is over!!!"

Several people sang it for me as I greeted them at the door after the funeral.

It was a great service. A wondrous way to be remembered and sent on his way to the Lover of Souls.... 

This week's sermon

 

Advent 1, 2023

        Though Advent is a time of deep darkness, Jesus tells us to stay awake and ‘watch’ for the man returning from his journey.

        And in this dark time, the Collect tells us to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

        Waiting is hard for most of us.

        Waiting rooms are nightmares.

        We don’t want to wait—we want to move on.

        But Advent is a month of ‘waiting’ for the Christ-child to come, for Christmas to occur.

        So today we begin to wait and watch.

        It will not be easy.

        We need to rely on each other to wait and watch with us.

        The lesson from Isaiah is truly frightening. God has apparently forsaken his people because of their wrong doing.

        Listen: “But you were angry, and we sinned:

        Because you hid yourself, we transgressed.

        We have become like one who is unclean,

        And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.

        We all fade like a leaf,

        And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

        Pretty bleak, isn’t it.

        But as the collect tells us: ‘now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.”

        To be born in a strange town, in a stable and to be laid in a manger—doesn’t get much more ‘humble’ than that.

        So, we wait and we watch.

        We must stay awake and be aware.

        We are waiting and watching for Jesus.

        I don’t know about you, but I see the works of Jesus all around me.

        That stuff in the back of the church—the food and clothing—that is the work of Jesus.

        People being kind and loving and generous is the work of Jesus.

        Looking out for our neighbors and for strangers is the work of Jesus.

        Loving others is the work of Jesus.

        So we shall be aware and awake and watching—but we will also do the work of Jesus.

        We shall. We shall. We shall. Amen and Amen.

 

I hate the cold

This morning I went out and started the car 15 minutes before heading up to Trinity, Milton.

I wanted to be able to be warm for my 33 mile trip.

The front and back windows were covered with ice.

I washed it off the front with the wipers and put on the back heater to melt that away.

I hate when it's cold.

I know it's only beginning.

Oh, I know that!

But my hatred will grow hotter as the weather grows colder.

I promise you that!

 

A great time

 They didn't stay long--Mimi and Josh and their families came on Wednesday afternoon. Josh, Cathy, Emma, Chris and Tegan left Thursday in the early evening. Mimi, Tim and Eleanor left around 11 this morning. Their cats, Francis, came with them.

We were worried about Brigit might think of Francis. But they formed a friendship. We've had several cats--four at one time for a few years. So it was nice to have a cat in the house.

Everyone had a great time and we shared a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with them and our old friend, John. We've known John since college--that makes him an OLD FRIEND, indeed!

Brigit loved having the house full of people and cat--more  people meant more bites of turkey!

Truly, 'a great time'.

And they didn't over-stay their welcome....

 

This week's sermon

 

Christ the King 2023

This is the last Sunday of Pentecost, also known as the Feast of Christ the King.

It gets darker earlier every day for the next month and dawn comes later. We spend Advent in deepening darkness waiting for the Light of Christmas. Advent is a time of waiting…

And just before the waiting begins we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.

 

For those who have lived their whole life in the United States, the idea of a King is hard to put our heads around.

Didn’t we fight a war over 240 years ago to rid ourselves of kings and queens?

Don’t we take pride in being a democracy instead of a monarchy?

So, how do we find ourselves bowing down to a King?

 

But Christ was not an earthly king—he is the King of Heaven, the King of the times to come.

In the first century A.D., Kings were the norm for rulers. So that image made perfect since to the earliest Christians as for the Jews before them.

 

All the readings today speak of royalty.

 

Reading from Ezekiel.

Reading from Psalms.

Reading from Ephesians.

 

And then there is the wondrous reading from Matthew, when the King of Heaven comes to separate the sheep from the goats just as God separated the lean sheep from the fat sheep.

Once the sheep are on the King’s right hand and the goats are on his left, he judges them.

Remember the words he tells the sheep before welcoming them to Paradise.

 

 

But they objected. When, Lord, did we do this?

And he tells them that when they ‘did it unto one of the least of these’ they did it unto him.

 

Things don’t go as well for those on his left hand—he sends them into eternal punishment.

 

In a wondrous book called The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut tells the story of Salo, a robot sent throughout the universe to find What IS The Meaning Of Life.

Salo finally encounters Beatrice Rummford who has been marooned on Titan, one of moons of Jupiter.

Salo asks her, “what is the meaning of life?”

Beatrice replies, “the meaning of life is to love whoever is around to be loved”.

 

That’s what Matthew is telling us—to love whoever is around to be loved.

To think of others rather than ourselves.

To pray God to remember you.

To be still—find time to be still—and in that you will know God.

 

Those things are what Advent is about:

Love those around you.

Pray God to look with compassion on all God’s children.

Wait and wait and wait some more, calming ourselves in spite of all the hub-bub around us, until we can be still and know God.

Not bad advice. Not at all.

Amen.

I didn't get the memo

 I put our garbage and recycling out today as always.

I'm usually the first on our block to do so.

But I went to shut and lock the front door just now and noticed, though it's dark, that nobody else has.

Maybe it has to do with Thanksgiving.

But I didn't get the memo changing pick up day.

But then, I seldom know what's going on!