I've over reached

So, I'm in the midst of a ten session class about the so-called Gnostic Christians and the literature from Nag Hammadi in Egypt discovered in 1945.

I've done 5 session classes about it before, but, looking forward to 7 more Fridays, I realize I'm over my head.

I know more about the so-called Gnostic Christian writings than 98% of the people in the world. But to do 10 hour and a half classes I need to know more than 99.5% of the people in the world. I'll spend about four hours tomorrow getting ready for the Gospel of Philip.

Over my head is not something I like. I like to be 'way  ahead of the norm'. That's the way I operate best, being at the top of my game.

When I'm not, I'm a wreck.

Which what I am, not being totally on top of the Gospel of Philip like I'd like to be.

Oh, I could fake it. I'm good at 'faking it' and have a lot of times. But this isn't one of those times.

I'll put in the hours tomorrow and be passing for brilliant, since no one else in the room knows more that 15% of the people in the world know about the so-called Gnostic Christians.

But I don't want to 'fake it', though I could.

I'll put in the time tomorrow and give them my best on Friday.

All I want to do, all of the time, give folks 'my best'.

That's what they deserve.

Next time I teach it will be a five week course about something I know enough about to do 10 weeks. That's what folks deserve. What we all deserve.

More than enough.

Created in the image and likeness of God, we deserve, always and forever, more than enough.

Just like that.

on roller skates, no less

My friend, Charles, who is a retired Geology professor and one of the most brilliant people I know, sent me a U-tube link to two German? Dutch? girls, very lovely, roller skating around a huge room with most people at picnic tables but others in rows above, playing accordions, of all things, and singing in some language that sounds vaguely German but could be anything Scandinavian.

First of all: accordions. I had several members of my mother's family who played them--badly or well, I couldn't tell you since the whole instrument is only slightly lower on the "annoying scale" than bag-pipes. Plus they played them in evangelical churches to accompany hymns above bagpipes on the 'annoying scale'.

Second, roller-skates. I've never done them and never will. Weak ankles and all that, but it always seemed to me to be a rather nonsensical way to get around. Like what to do with stairs? I see many roller skaters on the Canal and most of them are middle aged me with too many cushions and huge helmets who go so far from left to right and right to left that you have to get off the path to pass them, especially with a dog. They should have considered treadmills or bridge.

Finally, who goes somewhere to watch this and pays (I'm sure) money for the privilege?  And there were hundreds of people there.

The, after 'finally', I noticed U-Tube had lots of other video of the same two young women, lovely and kind and wonderful I'm sure, singing and playing accordions and roller skating.

Maybe it's a 'thing' somewhere. But not here, where I'm sitting.

And my biggest question is why is this brilliant, scholarly man who knows about 12 times more stuff than I even begin to know, watching U-Tube at all? And if he is watching it, why girls on roller skates playing accordions and singing?

Charles, ever heard of Huffington Post????

John Boehner and the future of politics

So, during the Pope's address, John Boehner, who invited Francis to speak, cried more than even usual.

And the next day he got up and, after his prayers (and I believe that!) decided, "why am I doing this?" and quit as Speaker of the House and a member of Congress.

I went to Stop-and-Shop in Cheshire today and outside the door where people try to raise money, there was a table of used books and cupcakes and four young men and a banner that said, "Young Republicans of Cheshire High School".

I ignored them on the way in and would have on the way out except one of them, an Asian kid, said, "want to look at the books". And I said, hard-hearted as it was, "my heart is broken that their are 'young' Republicans...." And I meant it, even though at their age I was a fan of Barry Goldwater until he suggested selling the Tennessee Valley Authority that made our electricity in southern West Virginia and over several states, remarkably cheaper for a whole lot of Appalachians who didn't have much money.

Hopefully, in my way of looking at it, they'll grow out of it too. Just listen to the debates, young Republicans.....

Boehner, as much as I didn't like him, made a lot more sense that the Tea Party nuts in Congress. Boehner actually still believed in compromise and making deals. He, more or less, held the Republicans in line. Without him, who knows, total chaos in the House? Not beyond reason.

This ''my way or the highway" attitude of the most Conservative Republicans can make the already unacceptable grid-lock in the government even worse.

But then, if that happened, by the time those young men at Stop and Shop could vote, maybe Americans will come to their senses and put the Democrats back in charge.

I know I've written this before--that I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat. If Pope Francis, as much as I admire him, was running as a Republican against a Democrat who was a Yellow Dog, the Lab would get my vote.

Maybe I was unkind to those 'young Republicans'. But maybe they, like those finally fed up the Speaker of the House, don't care a fig about a Democrat's broken heart. Who knows?

I actually admire Boehner's faith and his values. After the Pope told the Congress that we must find ways to talk and solve problems in spite of disagreement, several bills came up in the house that threatened to shut down the federal government again.

I think John Boehner just said, "enough already". I can bless him for that. I just don't know what the fallout of his absence will be.....

Yogi, who else?

Yogi Berra died at 90. A good chunk of years to live and live well.

Yogi was so much a part of my childhood--along with Whitey and Mickey and Bobby and Elston and Rodger and Moose and Andy and all the other Yankees of the 50's and 60's.

My father was a Yankee fan because before shipping off to Europe for WW II someone gave him a ticket to a Dodger/Yankee World Series game and he decided whichever team won the first and only major league game he ever saw in person would be his 'team'. And the Yankees won.

So, I grew up in the mountains of West Virginia, unaccountably rooting for the New York Yankees. Always. And still do.

Yogi was the best of them all. Always good for a quote: "It's not over 'til it's over"; "Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical"; "It's hard to get a conversation started since everyone's talkin'".

On and one he went, saying one ridiculously true thing after another. And being one of the best guys who ever knelt down behind home plate, called pitches and caught them.

I  have two favorite memories of Yogi. One was from 1955 (or was it 1956? I'm awash in linear time) when he ran out and jumped into Don Larson's arms after the only perfect game in a World Series. The other was (I'll leave you to supply the year....1960, maybe) when Bill Mazeroski hit a home run over the left field fence and Yogi, playing left field, trotted back and back and looked up as the World Series was won by Pittsburgh.

And he always showed up for 'old-timers' games and said something in his interview that was priceless--ridiculous and true, always.

I hope Heaven has a baseball diamond. That's what I hope.

Farewell, Yogi, you filled my life up to overflowing.....

The Muslim question

When I was Rector of St. John's Waterbury, from 2000 on, we rented our parish house to a mosque.

They were wonderful people--mostly not Arabs--but people who followed their faith and were a part of our community...owning stores, selling real estate, working as medical folks, lawyers and more.

When 9/11 happened, after we had heard from Mimi and Josh (both our kids lived in NYC on that day) and knowing Cathy was alright, walking from the subway stop after the World Trade Center back to Brooklyn, I drove to Waterbury to be with my Muslim friends, knowing it would be a day they would be blamed for.

99.99% of American Muslims are just like you and me. Hard working, tax paying, Constitution respecting members of our so, so diverse society.

And yet they are, too often than not, painted with the same brush as Isis and Alkadia and all the radical, war raging Muslims of the Middle East.

I remember walking with them from the old Parish House of St. John's, which we tore down for parking after they left, to the building they bought a few blocks away. My friends of a different faith.

The Republican primary contestants are appealing to the worst of our society--though too many for me to imagine--by being Islamic-phobic. And it needs to be named and exposed.

It is bigotry of the worst kind. Labeling all members of a Faith as like the worst of their Faith.

It's like seeing me as 'like' the most right wing Christians.

It's wrong and needs to be exposed as wrong.

Republicans like Trump and Dr. Carson and Fiorina are playing to the worst in us--our fears and ignorance.

It has to stop. Muslim Americans must be seen as Americans first and foremost and Muslims as an after thought--just like I am an American who happens to be Anglo-Saxon and Christian.

Just like that.

Else there will be hell to pay, in a big way.

big, big bed

So, what I sometimes say to our dog is this: "want to go to the big bed?" and he runs upstairs before me to jump on our futon.

Well, in a process that took months, we are now the owners of a King sized bed. We've had the frame for months and months, through Amazon, which Bern loves and I hate. Amazon sent, get this, three bed frames and had to come pick up two. God love their little computer minds....

Today we went to Costco--which gives me angina from the moment I go inside--too much of too much of too much 'stuff'. Makes me crazy. But we bought a King sized mattress which took all the energy we had to get upstairs and on the frame. The box it came in had wheels, just to give you some insight into how hard this thing was to move. It was folded into three and took an hour or so to unfold completely on our frame.

But now, our aging dog can't jump up on it. So Bern took the yard long table that was beside my side of the futon and put a rug on it and believes Bela will learn to jump on that and then on the bed. I'm not betting on it.

Getting the mattress home and upstairs made me feel like I've been in a fist fight. The dog isn't he only one getting old!

We spent a good part of yesterday looking for a sectional couch for our TV  room, which is upstairs. When Mimi and Tim and Josh and Cathy and the girls are all here for holidays, there's not enough places to sit in the TV room.

I was awful to shop with. I AM awful to shop with. I hate to shop. Bern knows that but drags me along. And I didn't think anything we looked at would fit in the TV room, but she did. And then I said, "let's make sure whoever delivers it will deliver it to upstairs, cause we'll never get it up there."

She turned and said, "let's go home."

In the car I asked, "are you upset with me." She said 'yes' and after that we just drove to Costco and found the mattress we bought today and muscled upstairs, finally.

I hope the mattress makes her know we could in know way move a sectional sofa upstairs to the TV room. No way.

Our dog isn't the only one of the three of us who are getting older....

my man Scott

Governor Scott Walker has apparently exited the Presidential race. He was one of the two Republicans I feared most. The other is the current Governor of Ohio. He actually seems to make sense from time to time.

Walker didn't, but he hates Unions, which I love, and I thought that might be a real selling point. It wasn't.

So we've got The Donald, Carlie and Ben out in front of all the sensible people.

Lord, this is so much fun. The clown car is full to overflowing. What a joy.

Maybe they'll kill each other off, who knows?