Today seems strange since I didn't go to church to celebrate and preach.
I only do 3 Sundays a month--but when I'm off--it feels very, very strange.
Once someone asked me why I became a priest and in a moment of complete honesty, I said, "So I would go to church."
And it's true.
I never think of 'going to church' when I have a free Sunday.
But it feels odd not to be in church since I've been ordained for 40+ years.
I don't mind strange feelings--they're just 'strange'.
As I age, I tend to forget books I've read. Which means I can read them again and think they're new!
David Rosenfelt benefits most from this.
I'm almost sure I've read all his Andy Carpenter Mysteries.
But I keep checking them out of the library after reading the summery and they seem new to me.
Luckily, he's written lots of them, so I can read through them over and over.
I recommend David Rosenfelt with joy. And most of his novels have to do with court and dogs.
What could be better than that?
Michael on our face-time Tuesday with 5 others, reminded me of something I'd forgotten about.
Michael had been a Roman Catholic deacon who remarried after his wife died and the church did not approve.
He became an Episcopalian and then a deacon and then a priest.
He followed me as Rector of St. John's after I retired.
I mentioned fruit flies in our house and he told the story of my doing a Eucharist and waving above the chalice from time to time.
He asked me what my motions meant, thinking they were Episcopal ritual.
And I said, "fruit flies around the chalice."
I'm so glad for that memory.
Fruit flies are everywhere--one just flew past the screen and I was typing this....
There are several folks at Trinity that was to be confirmed or renew their baptismal vows down the road at the church in Litchfield.
So, on Wednesdays we're doing confirmation class.
I'm pretty laid back about it all but there are some things I want folks to know.
We walked through the Prayer Book for a couple of weeks--most people never look at anything but Morning Prayer and Holy Eucharist. That was enlightening to people.
We got half-way through the Catachism today--it is boring but people should read through it and know what's there.
We'll spend September doing other things since the service is October 8.
It amazed me that so many folks there are in advanced age and haven't been confirmed!
Who knew?
On Sunday night I had a dream (don't remember the details) in which my right thigh got hurt somehow.
Monday morning I woke up and my right thigh hurt like something crazy.
Can a dream injury come into real life?
I would never had believed that.
But even with pain killers and 'Icy Hot' ointment, my thigh still hurts.
Weird, huh?
Go figure.
This is the sermon I preached at the funeral of Lee Howard at St. Paul's in New Haven, long after I left there.
On September 2, I will do the funeral of Hanna, Lee's divorced wife, but though divorced, she was in his choir.
Amazing.
Lee’s Sermon (September 3, 2016) St. Paul’s/St. James, New Haven
I chose the gospel today—the discussion between Thomas and Jesus about where Jesus is going and how the disciples know where he is going—because of all the Biblical characters, Lee reminded me most of Thomas. Lee, like Thomas, would be the one raising his hand and saying, “Hold on, Jesus! We don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Lee was a Thomas kind of guy….
A sense of urgency.
That’s what I remember from my first ever encounter with Lee Howard—a sense of urgency.
Since he was a Southerner, I had expected him to be slow moving, slow talking, laid back. But not Lee….
Whenever I was in his presence, I felt a ‘buzz’, a kinetic energy. Eating lunch with him in his apartment, which I often did, I would feel like I was in a bubble while Lee was in motion, talking non-stop, having more to say than time to say it, bringing out plates and glasses, food and drink from the jumble of his living space. Urgency.
Until the last years of his life, when thoughts and speech and movement slowed down on him—until then there was this…”urgency” about him.
But now that I think about it, maybe the right word is “passion”. That’s more accurate I think. My experience of Lee was on his ‘passion’—for music, for people, for ideas, for life.
That sounds right. The Lee Howard I knew was a person of ‘passion’.
I would watch him work with the choir. It was like he was juggling one more ball than he should have been but he kept them all going through his strength of will.
I know he was passionate about music…no question there.
And he was also passionate about people—about his family, his children, his friends, his fellow musicians, his ex-wife.
In my 41 years of ordained ministry I’ve seen lots of divorces. And in my experience, one of the things involved in the divorce agreement—besides money and property—was ‘the church’.
In every divorce I’ve known about, one of the couple got “the church”.
Not so for Lee and Hanne.
I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. How both of them held on to St. Paul’s. I don’t imagine I’ll ever figure it out, but it gives me hope.
Lee was passionate about his children. Helen, Lee Jay and John came up in most every conversation we ever had—even if we were supposedly talking about the music for Lent!
It has been a couple of decades or more since I had a close relationship with Lee. We were on different journeys. But we did share the road for over 5 years. And when I look back on that time, what I remember about Lee was his ‘passion’.
Lee’s journey is over now. But I know his passion lives on in those he loved. And his passion lives on in the music we hear this day, played in his honor.
The words of the Burial Office and the Eucharist are full of hope and life and possibility. I give thanks for that. And the priest, at a funeral, wears white—the color of Easter, not the color of mourning. We Christians are called to believe that Death is not ‘the last word’. Death is the ‘penultimate’ word (I believe Lee would appreciate having “penultimate” being part of his funeral sermon! He had a passion for words). The LAST WORD we say today in prayer and music and liturgy is HOPE and PROMISE and LIFE.
St. Francis of Assisi once wrote, “Death is not a door that closes, but a door that opens and we walk in all new”.
That is our hope and prayer for Lee this day. Even though Death seems to be a closed door that keeps us from those we love—our prayer and hope for Lee is that the door of Death opened and he walked in ‘all new’ into the presence of the One who loved him best of all. All new. All new. All new and full of passion.
Amen.
We finished our examination of the Book of Common Prayer.
Lots of stuff people weren't familiar with.
But a big crowd since it is part of the confirmation class.
Lots of people at Trinity haven't been confirmed.
That's probably since they have not had a priest for a while.
But they are interested and ready.
I feel humbled and proud to take them through it.
Humbled and proud.
