Road Trip

This weekend I'm going on a road trip with my cousin Mejol.

For years, I was the youngest of 15 first cousins on my mother's side of the family. There were my 8 Jones cousins (children of my mother's brother, Granger and his wife, Elsie), 4 Pugh cousins (children of my mother's sister, Juanette and her husband Lee Pugh), 2 Perkins cousins (children of my mother's sister Georgie and her husband Jim Perkins). And then there was me.

I was in my teens when my mother's sister, Elise (another Elsie) and her husband, Rev, Harvey Ours, adopted my cousin Denise who was 5 or so years younger than me. So, I became the second youngest of 16 first cousins.

Being an only child, my cousins were my older siblings in a real way--just I didn't have to live in the same house as them.

Mejol and Gail Pugh were baby-sitters for me. The others were role-models. Six of the 16 are dead now. But Jan/Ann are turning 80 on Saturday.

Jan and Ann Jones were twins and I couldn't tell them apart as a child so I called which ever one was around "Jan/Ann".

The last road trip Mejol and I took was to my last aunt or uncle--Elsie's, Denise's mother--funeral in Charleston. Mejol lives in Baltimore so I went there, spent the night and then we drove to Charleston and spent a night there before driving back to Baltimore.

Jan/Ann's birthday party is in Elliston, Virginia--a dozen miles east of Roanoke.

I hope all my living cousins are there. Some of them I haven't seen in decades.

Mejol lives farther north than any of them. I have lived in Connecticut for 38 years. There is a Jones family reunion every year or so, but always far away and on Saturday and I work on Sundays, so I've never made it to one.

I'm really looking forward to it--especially 4 hours down from Baltimore and 4 hours back with Mejol. She's the one cousin who's always been in my life.

It will be a trip full of nostalgia and memory.

I can hardly wait.

my fault, my own fault, my most grievious fault

From the beginning, I've had a hard time understanding how thinking people could support our President, He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named. It just made no sense to me how anyone could vote for a p***y grabbing, habitual liar who called everyone names and seemed to not know the meaning of 'decorum'.

But after the last week--the trashing of our NATO allies, the nightmare in Helsinki, the walk backs that are impossible to believe, Michael Cohen's recorded conversation that 'never happened' and now Rudy says obviously did, and the disregard of the intelligence apparatus that keeps us safe and the inexplicable 'bro-mance' with the leader of the country that has been our greatest enemy since WW II, plus tariffs that could cause a global economic melt-down--how can anyone believe this guy is in any way qualified or competent to be the leader of the free world.

I've been trying for weeks to read A Hillbilly Elegy and I just can't. I am one of the people that book describes but I'm so far removed from it I simply can't read about who I used to be--most of whom voted against Hillary. I can't empathize. My fault.

I need to take a deep breath (or 400) and try to empathize with people who still support the President.

It's just that I can't quite get there.

I can't put myself in their place.

It's beyond my ken and ability to feel empathy.

I feel crazy until I realize that it's not me that 'is crazy', it's what's going on with our President.

I pride myself on being able to empathize with people I don't understand or agree with.

But I just can't in this case.

It is my fault.

It is my own fault.

It is my most grievous fault.

And I just can't imagine how it would be to stand behind him, after all this, or ever.

Sorry.

A joke Jack would have loved

I heard a joke today that would have pleased my friend and mentor, Jack Parker, a great deal. He would have never have been able to tell it because he would have started laughing half-way through and would have sputtered out the punch line.

I preached at Jack's funeral, as I have at too many funerals of dear friends and mentors.

I'll share that sermon, then tell you the joke Jack would have loved.

JACK PARKER’S MEMORIAL SERVICE

OCTOBER 17, 2009

          Years ago, I went on a day trip with three men who I love like uncles and mentors and dear, dear friends. Jack Parker and Bill Penny and David Pritchard and I drove up into the heart of New England. I remember that we went to a place called ‘The Cathedral of the Pines’ and we also went to see Jack’s mountain—the one he loved and had climbed time and time again and where some of his ashes will be scattered by his remarkable family—we had a great lunch at some place one of them knew and somehow got back before it was too late for such a motley crew to be out without getting into mischief!

          A friend of mine told me that there are only two plots in all of literature. One is, “A stranger arrives in town”. The other is, “Someone sets out on a journey”.

          I have memories of sharing part of the journey that is life with Jack Parker.

          Memories like that are precious, rare, wondrous and, finally, Holy.

          Holy.

         I’ve ONLY known Jack Parker for 20 years or so. I say ‘only’ because I know some of you have known him much longer than that—his children, his family that he loved so fiercely…and others. But knowing him for two decades was a bountiful gift to me from God. And, if I had to choose a word to describe that gift it would be this—‘holy’.

          Holy.

          I’ve never known anyone who loved a bad, corny joke as much as Jack.

          Most of the jokes Jack loved began something like this: “A rabbi and a priest and a Baptist minister went into a bar….” Or, like this: ‘Three elderly men were sitting on the front porch of the nursing home….’ Or, like this, “A man was trying to sell a talking dog….”

          I think you get the point. Jack would start laughing half-way through telling the joke and anyone who was listening would start laughing with him, entranced by Jack’s laugh, caught up in his story, not caring at all how the joke turned out—it would turn out ‘bad’ and ‘corny’—but thankful and joyous to be sharing a laugh with Jack….

          There is a word for sharing a laugh with Jack. The word is ‘holy’.

          Holy.

          There is a word that occurs to me for anything, anytime ‘shared with Jack’. The word is ‘holy’.

          OK, he was not St. Francis of Assisi. Not quite. But he was, for me, a ‘holy’ man. Truly, really, without fear of contradiction…Jack was ‘holy’. No kidding. I’m not exaggerating. Not at all.

          He taught me….so many things…. Knowing Jack was like post-Doctoral work in kindness and love and long-suffering and generosity of Spirit and joy. Knowing Jack was like a seminar in prayerfulness. He was a priest to be admired, a man to be emulated, a quick study in sweetness. It seems an odd word, perhaps, but Jack was a sweet, sweet man. I know you all know what I mean.

          And learning these things from Jack was—have I mentioned this?—Holy.

          The words from Jesus in today’s gospel are among the most beautiful and comforting in all of Scripture.

          “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me…In my father’s house are many rooms…If it were not so, would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you?”

          The Greek word translated ‘rooms’ is ‘mona’. That word has many possible translations—rooms, resting places, mansions (as we used to say) and abodes. That’s the one I like “abodes”…places to be, space to ‘abide’ in the nearer presence of the God who loves us best of all.

          The last time I saw Jack, I made him promise that he wouldn’t die until I got home from a trip to the beach. He said he’d try, but he wasn’t sure he could. It was the only promise he didn’t keep to me. He had other plans, another place to abide.

          That last time I saw Jack, I offered him communion. The sacrament was Jack’s favorite food and drink, but that last time, he said ‘no’.

          “You’ve been a priest to me long enough,” he told me, with that crooked smile and twinkling eye he always had, “we’re just two old friends saying goodbye….”

          Jack taught us all so very much about ‘living’. And he taught us how to die.

          And it is time now—he would have wanted it this way—it’s time for us to smile and remember and thank God for the journey and say ‘good bye’ to our old, dear friend….

          “I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;

          Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

          Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

          I triumph still, if thou abide with me.” Amen.

(Has it been that long--nearly 9 years since dear Jack died? Something I didn't mention in the sermon was that Jack supported me in the most dire moment of my career. I was a supporter of GLBT rights and invited "Integrity"--a group of GLBT folk and their friends to use St. John's as their worship home. Jack became their chaplain and I attended most of their meetings. Four (surprise) older white men were enraged and tried to get me fired. Jack was with me as we met with them and then with the parish who rallied around Integrity and supported me profoundly. He was my rock in those few months of turmoil.)

So, here's the joke he would have loved because it is so bad, and would have started laughing before he got to the end.

"Why did the cowboy buy a dachshund?  Because he wanted 'to get a-long little doggie."

I can hear Jack laughing in my heart....

 

murmurs of the heart

So, I have this heart murmur. I'd like to blame it on Donalinski Trumpavitch, our Russian President, but Dr. O. found it a few years ago. He didn't like it from the first time he heard it but it was this year that he sent me to a cardiologist after a very unpleasant hour long exam  by a very nice woman where she pressed something against my chest and back very violently and took pictures. I don't remember what the exam is called but it took two days to get all the gook off my body that she put there to press her little evil device against me.

I would have thought a cardiologist would be brusk and all business and short with me. Nothing further from the truth. Dr. F., about 6'4" and thin, with short grey hair and glasses, couldn't have been friendlier and more forth-coming or spent more time talking with me and explaining what he was seeing.

My aortic valve, the one that the heart pumps blood out of to go and make my whole body work, is getting a little stiff. (I think they call it a murmur since they hear it through their stethoscopes as a faint little sound.)

My heart has to work harder to get the blood through the valve since the valve is stiffening up. Happens with age.

My murmur is on the cusp between normal and compromised. It's no where near the third stage of severe.

He told me over and over than there is nothing to worry about and nothing to do for 4-6 years. I'll get tested every year and at some point he might want to replace the valve.

They don't do that in open-heart surgery any more but go through the artery and push the new valve into the old until the old collapses and the new takes over.

One night in the hospital. No recovery time.

The problem, he told me in great detail, is that there is no pain as a symptom. The symptoms are things people expect as they age: not as much energy, listlessness, exhausting easily. So people don't know the problem isn't age, it's the aortic valve hardening up.

The replacement method is new (5 years) in the US and very successful. They've been dong it in Europe for a dozen years. But even a dozen years isn't long enough for research to tell them how long the new valves last. But by the time I need one (if I don't get hit by lightening or have a stroke about the President) the research will be much more advanced, as will the method.

I never thought talking to a cardiologist would be a reassuring and joyful thing. But it was.

Just goes to show you....well, I don't know exactly what it goes to show you, but something....

World Emoji Day

Lordy, Lordy, I'm not ready yet to write about the meeting between the Presidents of Russia and the USA. I fear my blood pressure would rise too high!

Besides, it's World Emoji Day, I just learned.

Who knew?

Who would want to know?

I read an article about Apple's new emojies  for World Emoji Day. (My spell check doesn't like "emojies". Maybe 'Emoji' is one of those words like Halibut, Knickers, Wood, Flour, Deer, Dice, Swine, Concrete, Grapefruit, Jeans, Tweezers and Squid that are both singular and plural. Most nouns have a plural form, but some don't,  like those above along with Sugar that have the same spelling and pronunciation whether there is one grain of Sugar or five pounds of Sugar. But all this is aging English Major pondering....Let it go, Jim....)

World F-ing Emoji Day--who in God's good Earth decided that?

I could not define 'emoji' for you beyond saying "some annoying cartoon thing that I have no Idea what it means and no idea at all how to create...."

And today the world celebrates emoji?

Trump is an emoji to me--something I have no idea what it means.

World Emoji Day reminds me of an Ogden Nash poem.

"I've never seen a purple cow,
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you here and now,
I'd rather see than be one."

Change 'Purple cow" to 'Emoji" and you catch my drift.

While Rome is burning we are celebrating World Emoji Day!!!!!!!!!

(Imagine the !!!!'s stretching out to eternity.....)

"This is not normal...."

John Oliver, the British/American comedian recommends that we all get lots of post-it notes and write on them "This is not normal." and put them everywhere we look each day.

The problem is that our current President is imposing what could become 'a new normal' on us with his dangerous and unpredictable behavior.

Just take the last few days.

1) He insults and berates our NATO allies, then says he didn't.

2) He said awful things about Teresa May and then says he didn't.

3) He has 10 fact-check errors in his press conference but claims they're all true (China trade deficit over 30 billion high, American contribution to NATO 90%, on and on.)

4) He's started a trade war with China (and our best friends!!!) that will hurt people in states that supported him.

5) Even though 12 more Russians were indicted by a grand jury in DC today, he's still going to meet with Putin and has said more than once, he believes Putin that Russia did not interfere in our election.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

Get some post-it notes today and start writing.

We can't be lulled into Trump's 'new normal'.

It's not normal.

Not normal at all.....

Maybe the most (or second most) dispicable thing

Nothing is worse than the Trump administrations separating kids from their parents into WWII American citizen Japanese style 'jails'--but something that happened the last few days is close.

The World Health Organization is sponsoring a "Nurse Now" campaign to encourage mothers, especially in 3rd world countries, to breast feed their babies.

Beast milk, it is know, gives babies the pro-biotics they need and prevents later allergies.

Breast feeding is simply--by all medical standards--the best thing for a baby.

(Bern breast fed our two kids until they could ask to nurse in complete sentences! And they've been remarkably healthy.)

The US tried to intimidate the country putting forth the proposal by threatening to deny them foreign aid. Probably because the companies who make infant formula--that does none of the positive things breast milk does for infants--gave them lots of campaign funds.

But then, get this, Russia made the proposal and the US backed off it's objections.

No collusion. No Russian connections. Nothing like that.

Oh, Mueller, finish your work soon.

Put post-it notes up all over your house that say "this is not normal' so we don't begin to think what this President is doing is in any way 'normal'.

Not normal at all. None of it.

Lord help us.