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So, there was a blog on June 29, 2010 about the end of last year's robin saga.

Just thought I'd let you know.

I'll be keeping you updated on this year's brood....

Everyone needs a robin nest on their front porch....It seems, I think, to make me a better person....

They're baaaccckkk....

I went back and checked the archives of my blog--last May 1...2010...I wrote a blog about the robins who built a nest on the old alarm system alarm on our front porch, just to the right of the front door when you walk out of our house.

There are lots more blogs after that--my thinking they abandoned the nest, cow bird problems, lots of thing, finally baby robins and all the joy that entails.

Well, they're back. The same robin couple, I believe, the look the same but how am I to be able to tell one robin from another? Daddy is 'huge', really big. Today, when I was on the back deck, where I can't even see the nest, he sat on a tree near me and yelled at me for a long time. We see him all over, in trees where he can see the nest, guarding.

Mama is sitting on what I can only assume are more eggs. She's always there. On the Monday of Easter week, when Josh and Cathy and the girls were leaving, I showed Josh and Tegan the nest and Mama flew out, almost bumping Tegan's face. Tegan is 18 months old and the look she gave me when the bird flew so close to her would define 'amazement' and 'astonishment'.

She is used to us now, the bird, I mean, and when I go out or come in, I say, "Hey, mama..."

Last year, if you go back and read my blogs, I was anxious to the extreme about her and the nest and her eggs and then babies, who finally flew away.

This year, I'm mellow about the whole thing.

It's just like your second child. We were frantic and crazy and anxious about everything about Josh. When Mimi came along we were like "well, whatever" and so calm and nonplussed about the whole baby thing.

I love the robins on our front porch. This year, I love them without anxiety.

By the way, a storm blew the nest down in construction and I thought they'd leave, but they build it again and Mama is sitting on it non-stop and Dad is guarding it and bringing Mama food.

I can't wait for the second generation of Robin babies....

What joy.....

the world I live in

I live in a world where there are lots of locally owned, small jewelry stores.

I needed a new watch band, mine about to break completely off on one side, so I went to my local jewelry store to get one.

Problem is, there is not a single jewelry store in Cheshire. I went to the one I remembered, in the same building with a pizza shop and, much to my chagrin, I found a cupcake store where the watchbands should be.

So I got in my car and drove down RT 10 to Hamden. Hamden is, I believe, the largest town in square miles in the state...may be wrong but I think so. I think I drove most of Hamden--down Dixwell and cutting across and coming back on Whitney. Miles and miles I drove. But no jewelry store. None. Not one. I found one place that was a clock and watch store, but it only sold clocks and watches, no replacement watch bands.

Finally, after vowing to the Baby Jesus I'd never do it, I went to Walmart in Hamden Plaza and found a watch band. It is, I believe, only the third time in my life I've been in a Walmart. Once in West Virginia on a whim. And once in CT because I needed something they would surely have. I hate Walmart--aisles too narrow, stuff piled too high, too much stuff. But I broke my solemn vow and went there, there being no little neighborhood jewelry stores in the two towns of Cheshire and Hamden. (Oh, I know I could have found a jewelry store in a mall in Meriden or Waterbury, but I resent malls only a little less than I resent Walmart.)


I was walking the dog this afternoon and realized that all my neighbors had dug up the dandelions in their yards and thrown them out onto Cornwall Ave. I was horrified! Where I grew up dandelions were a food group, just like gravy. You mostly ate them wilted in bacon renderings, but they were also good unwilted. For Easter dinner, we had dandelion risotto Jack made from dandelions he picked on the grounds of Bethesda Lutheran Church in New Haven. It was heavenly. (I even, years ago, had some dandelion wine...it's not Pino Grigio, but it is pretty good.)

No local jewelry stores, people wasting dandelions--what else is an illusion in the world I live in.

I live in a world where people drink water from a faucet instead of a plastic bottle.

I live in a world where phones have rotary dials.

I live in a world where most everyone smokes.

I live in a world where people 'drop in' rather than email.

I live in a world where you call your doctors by their first name (since they do that to you....)

I live in a world where people give great respect to the President whether they agree with him or not.

I live in a world where 'please' and 'thank you' are the two things you say most often.

I live in a world where athletes are heroes, not criminals.

I live in a world where everyone agrees that everyone should have healthcare.

I live in a world where FACEBOOK isn't the 'social network', the 'social network' is you friends and family.

I live in a world where strangers are simply friends you haven't met.

I live in a world where God is Love rather than Judge.

I live in a world that includes drug stores that have a soda fountain.

I live in a world where there was a mechanic where you get your gas rather than a convenience store.

I know, I know, I really know--I live in an illusion.

But, it is my world and I prefer it.

Welcome to my world.

Want to join me...?

The root cause of all bad things

Remember how every once in a while Pat Robertson assigns blame for natural disasters on some sin or another? Like Haiti's earthquake was God's judgment for the island's history of voo-doo....

And what about those idiots from Kansas that show up at military funerals to celebrate God's judgment on American for not condemning (and stoning, I suspect) homosexuals....

Clearly such thinking is terrible theology and downright hateful. But I have a suggestion that might just get to the bottom of all the terrible things Mother Nature is doing around the globe....

It's because of Donald Trump's hair.

Truly, the powers that be just can't take Donald's hair anymore. And, since we have to see it so much these days what with his idiotic ravings, I can understand Nature's anger.

What's worse than his hair is that it covers a head without a brain in it.

He wanted evidence that Obama was born in the US. Well, I want evidence that the Donald has any grey matter....He needs to post clear evidence that brain cells exist in his cranium, beneath that hair....That's what I'm demanding to see.

Join me at Donaldshowusyourbrain.com....

long time no blog

I notice I haven't written here for over a week....well, it was holy week, after all, and Easter and all that....

So, I'll catch up....

MY ALMOST NEW JOB

Nothing is signed yet, but I am scheduled to begin a call as the Interim Missioner in Charge for the Middlesex Cluster (4 churches in Higganum, Killingworth, Northford and Westbrook) on May 1. It's really part time--12-13 hours a week--and the Missioner who retired at 72 was full-time, so I insisted it be called 'interim' because if, over time, we discover the Cluster needs more than the 12-13 hours I'm willing to give, that I would fold my tent and move on with no problems. It's a fascinating ministry--four churches that have very different cultures and ethos'--who have been bound together to seek to perfect 'total common ministry' for now 30 years. There was a fifth church in Durham, but a few years ago they opted to hire a part time priest to serve only them and leave the Cluster. Too bad. I really buy the concept because it empowers lay folk to 'be the People of God' and consigns the ordained to liturgical, functionary and supportive role.

I spent Lent and Easter at St. James in Higganum. It is a remarkable community that really buys into Total Common Ministry. They need a priest like a fish needs a bicycle. But they tolerate us (there are 3 other presbyters who rotate, along with me, among the churches).

I even did my first ever 'Sunrise service' at 6:30 a.m. in the labyrinth the community built in memory of Jean Minkler, the mother of my dear friend Steve. There were 25 people there and we left the better part of a loaf of bread for the birds. Then we ate pancakes.

There were some gnats in the woods in the early morning. One of the guys who stayed back to cook the breakfast asked me, "Jim, what was all that arm movement all about?" He'd looked out to see if we were almost through and saw folks shooing gnats.

"We were in the spirit, Wayne," I told him.

(more tomorrow....)

being happy

My friend John, who is a very unconventional therapist, told me the other day what he sometimes tells his patients.

LISTEN: You can either 'be happy' or have all the reasons you can't be happy.

Did you really read, mark, learn and inwardly digest that?

Here's the question--how can you 'be happy'?

John says, and I absolutely, positively agree: you simply choose to 'be happy'. You either choose that or you choose to 'have' all your considerations, excuses, reasons and stories about why you can't be happy.

I'd prefer to be 'joyful' rather than happy, but I think the same criteria applies: You can either be joyful or have all the reasons you can't be joyful.

So, the search for happiness is solved. It is a choice you make that has nothing to do with the circumstances of your life. The 'circumstances of your life' contribute to the 'reasons' you can't be joyful. You can have them, whatever they all (and I realize we all love our misery) or you can simply choose to be joyful, whatever the circumstances of your life.

That simple.

When I was a young, baby priest in my first parish, whenever I got discouraged, depressed, unhappy, I'd go see Arlene.

Arlene was not much older than me. She had three kids--one in elementary school, one in junior high, one in high school. Shortly after her youngest had been born, Arlene was diagnosed as having muscular dystrophy, which moved aggressively and put her in bed for the rest of her life. Her husband couldn't take it, caring for her and all, and , God bless him, left.

So Arlene was a single mom with a limited income with three kids and she couldn't leave her bed.

They brought her hospital type bed, on wheels, downstairs and she slept in the living room and when it was time to make dinner, one of her kids rolled her into the kitchen to oversee things.

Her children were all honor students though their mom would never be able to go and see their work or talk to their teachers or see them graduate.

And, when I was depressed, discouraged, out-of-sorts, it was Arlene I went to see to get me back on track, cheer me up, convince me of joy.

The circumstances of her life were, at best, horrendous. She had every consideration you could imagine for being 'unhappy' and without joy. And she was the one I'd go to see when I was out of touch with the joy in my life.

Arlene simply chose to be happy, joyful, profoundly alive. She preferred that to 'the reasons she wasn't happy, joyful, alive.

And when I left her, so restricted and in pain and knowing she wouldn't quite live to she her youngest be on her own, I was in touch with the joy and happiness that comes, always and eternally, from within, in spite of circumstances.

Under your castor oil tree, I invite you to ponder this: You can either be happy/joyful or have all the reasons that isn't possible.

It is a choice, as weird and strange as that might seem.

I'd advise that you choose happiness, choose joy and let the 'reasons' and 'circumstances' go the way of all flesh.

Just a thought.

One more reason to send me to the Home

So today I come home for lunch and Bern is out (she left me a note to tell me she was out, which I would have figured out eventually and that the dog had been to the Canal for his daily long walk on the old B and O canal cum horizontal park.)

I ate my lunch--a ham and cheese sandwich (Boar's Head rosemary ham with double Gloucester cheese, mayo, tomato, Boston lettuce and white onion with a little 1000 Island dressing on Everybody's walnut and cranberry seven grain bread...I recommend it). The bread is the best bread I've ever eaten, a meal it itself.

While I was eating and reading the novel about an Alaskan private investigator named Kate Suhgnan (a series I love) I felt a tad chilly. But I had on a very light sweater because I'd come back from doing the funeral of a wonderful woman, Ginny Tillson, in the unheated chapel at Evergreen Cemetery (I wrote Seminary rather than 'Cemetery' until I backspaced it out...something Freudian in that, I suspect.) I loved Ginny and knew I'd need a light sweater under my alb. But I decided to go upstairs and put on a heavy sweater since I felt a tad chilly.)

On the way past the thermostat, I notice the temperature was 60. No wonder I was chilly. We keep our house at 66 or 67, always wearing sweaters. So I went down in the basement to check the oil--still over 1/4 full, the breaker (on) and push the reset button. Nothing happened. So I went upstairs and called Standard Oil--which is a great company from my experience. After a few questions and my checking in the emergency switch at the top of the basement stairs was 'on' rather than 'off' (it was) they agreed to send someone within two hours--and they always do what they say, which is why they're a great company in my mind.

Bern came home and I told her the heat was off.

"Why do you think so?" she asked.

"Because the temperature is 60," I said, "and the funny thing is it hasn't gone down in the last two hours though it's colder than that outside."

"It hasn't gone below 60," she told me sternly, "because I turned it down to 60 since it was such a nice day."

She looked at me for a long time. "Did you check what the thermostat was set at?" she asked, in a way that I knew was something I couldn't fake.

"I don't know how to do that," I said, since our thermostat is controlled by buttons that I never touch, not knowing what they do.

She rolled her eyes, turned on her heel and somehow pushing buttons I don't understand, turned the heat up to 61 and our faithful furnace immediately turned on and pushed warm air through the vents.

"I'd better go cancel the service call," I said.

"I guess you should," she said.

So I did, explaining when the operator asked that it was all my fault, I didn't know how to work the thermostat, the temperature had simply been turned down, all my fault, my own fault, my most grievous fault and there is no health in me and my wife would probably send me to the home. I didn't hear any sympathy in the woman's acknowledgement that she would cancel the service call.

"How was I to know?" I asked Bern.

I think I saw her writing in a little book where she keeps evidence that I need to go to the Home. Alas.