Decorating

I decorate for Christmas. Anyone who has seen my house around the third week of Advent knows that this is like saying, 'It gets warm in Death Valley.' My collection of angels has transcended the heady number of 500. That's when I stopped counting. I have no idea how many Santas I have. A couple hundred wouldn't be unrealistic. The manger scene is an amalgum of a few different collections. Olive wood from Jerusalem, plaster from my wife's set, antiques from my mother, and others that have become players in the story. It moves. The holy family and donkey are journying at the moment, surrounded by angelic escourts. The shepherds are out in the fields, somewhere toward the edge of the baby grand piano that provides the stage. The six wise guys and camels are over to the east, on the coffee table. They get to the piano on Epiphany. The baby is no where to be found, empty manger. It appears on Christmas morn. Cool huh?

I let it be known that I like angels and since then have been receiving all flavors and sizes of the heavenly messengers. The people of the church know that I have this affinity and gift me with great regularity. One of the best parts of this is that almost all of them disappear in January until Advent next year. My sister asked me why I don't edit them, the angels I mean. You don't get to choose people's generosity. Gifts are gifts.

That has taught me a lot about giving and receiving. I try to give things that match people. Sometimes this takes some research and I don't always assume I'm going to get it right. But it's more likely they'll know what to do with the gift. The other part of it is the receiving. I've tried to become a better receiver. I try to not only say thank you, but to see and notice and appreciate the gift that's given.

The gift of the angels was wild and crazy. It wasn't on the shepherds' list. But they received it with 'great joy.' So when someone gives me a chubby cuty-cute cherub, I swallow and look at it, the gift and the giver. And I mobilize the spiritual discipline of generosity. There is a message to be heard, even from cherubs.

Any way, come by sometime. But please, no snow men.

Fee Fi Fo Fum....

Let's talk about football.

Now I know most of you have just stopped reading. Some of you are reading junkies so your eyes just kept moving in spite of your opinion of gladiatorial idiocy. To tell you the truth, the whole thing kind of astonishes me. I've read articles about concussions, I've seen people get into fights about teams, I realize this whole thing is a repressed primitive symptom of testosterone poisoning. I really do understand all of that and I don't minimalize it. But the long and the short of it is, I'm a Giants fan.

Go ahead, screw up your face and shake your head. I do it myself. It's a conundrum.

But truth be told, I love the whole cheering thing. I love the strategy. I love yelling at the TV. I love getting together with other football idiots and yelling at the TV. I love hearing "Fee Fi Fo Fum... The Giants are coming to spoil the fun." I even like cheer leaders, but paradoxically I'm proud the Giants don't have any. I love bad mouthing Eagle and Cowboy fans. And I love it when they do it back. It's what we do. See? It's a very paradoxical situation.

Studies on brain function have found that when people talk about politics they use the mid brain, not the cerebral cortex, the fore brain. In other words we’re just as primitive in our discussions about Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal as we are about why Eli Manning is a great quarterback and why the Cowboys need to lose more often to keep civilization on its feet. It’s very paradoxical.

But then so is most of life. We live in the midst of nothingness and appreciate the view. We are vicious vermin who can be self sacrificing. We adore our off spring in spite of their propensity to make us nuts. See? I also know that most of our options in life are to appreciate or to scorn. We can function just fine. The larger question has to do with something more than function. Enthusiasm, hope, sharing, appreciation, fun, all of these are choices that we make, choices to claim a moment and cheer, or to be reasonable and get on with business. I find such opportunities with football.

So, when I put on my shirt and sit down to watch Big Blue struggle to live up to their traditions of greatness, please forgive me. Call me names if you want. That’s your choice. I’ve made mine.

Go Giants!

Where's the Advil?

Romans 3: 19-28

It’s been one of those weeks. Challenges, threats, and grumby weather. I’m not sure if I have a sinus head ache or just a pain in the neck. What did I do wrong? I must have violated some basic tenant of ministry to get slammed with all this stuff at the same time. Long suffering Job I’m not. No running sores, and my wife is very supportive, but it feels like I must have said something, forgot something, didn’t deal with something that got me into this swamp.
My mother told me more than once not to worry about the reviews. Good or bad they have little value except as someone else’s opinion. Interesting in the short run, to be laid down next to all other opinions beyond that.
But it’s hard to wade into issues shrouded by entangling emotions. Exhausting at best, intimidating at worst. Dreams sprout from them. I wake with vague feelings of unease. Solutions and resolutions are shrouded as well. They depend so much on the opinions and reactions and attitudes of others that there are few reasonable agendas to follow.
Oh, to be a legalist. Wouldn’t it be great to have a list? Then I could wack myself or rear in self-righteousness with a clear conscience. This letting God be God is a pain in the neck. His is the only review I need to pay attention to. And this grace thing keeps bringing me back to being loved rather than condemned. Come on God, a nice neat condemnation and a good swift smack would be so much more convenient. Then I could rebel or at least be angry.
And I can’t even condemn the ones that are angry with me. They may be legalists, but even they belong to God, not to mention carrying around the burden of their anger. My job is reconciliation.
Ya know, I’m beginning to think God isn’t done with me. Where’s that Advil?

Thank God for Plumbers

We got the call on the last day of vacation. "The plumber just told us he found the leak in your bathroom. It's everywhere." This rather penultimate statement led our trustworthy pipe manager to condemn the entire pile of plumbing and tile and recommend a redo. Demolition and reconstruction time. It didn't owe us anything. We figured the last time it was torn out and redone was sometime just after outhouses. It's about a two week job. It's the only full bathroom in the house. We've been going to the gym at odd hours. They have such nice shower facilities.

Transitions are weird. What will be isn't here yet. What was is gone. It is a time of grieving and letting go and expectation and anxiety and new opportunities. The trouble is that all of that lands at the same moment. It's nice when the transitions are scheduled and prepared for, and we are able to batten down the hatches emotionally and logistically. But transitions rarely come on our schedules and even when they do the new intrudes in ways we just didn't expect. (I had a dream the other night about soap dishes in the shower. Might be a little late to deal with that.)

To me this is very instructive about my sanity. If I'm sane, which I like to consider myself, I'll be able to roll with the hassles and anxieties and disappointments and upsets involved in ushering in a new era,
and a new color scheme. When I get nuts, angry, or just plain anxious it usually means I'm not processing well. A new bathroom is a minor speed bump on the road to tomorrow. However, there are, some transitions that are terrifying and horribly disruptive. But I consider the dust and discomfort and
inconvenience of this change to be training for the monsters. I'm trying to pay attention to my limitations and my sillyness. They indicate the when and where I need to breathe and pay more attention to the grace and the glory that surrounds me, in spite of the plaster dust. At such moments I make lists of gratitude.

I am very grateful for the competent people who work so hard for the church
I am very grateful for the lovely and graceful home in which we live.
I am very grateful for the artisans who know how to do this stuff.
I am very grateful for the patience and good humor of my family, particularly my wife.
I am grateful for the half bath we have down stairs.
I am grateful this will be over soon.

I think it's time to go to the gym for a shower. Whew!

September

We just got home from the beach. In Jersey we call it the shore. This shore from which we've come is in North Carolina. Emerald Isle to be exact. Two years ago we honeymooned there and have gone back to the same place since. There's nothing to do except be. Admittedly, being at the shore is considerably easier than being other places. There's waking up and watching the sunrise with your first cup of coffee. There's reading on the deck. Did I mention the deck hangs over the beach? Then there's saying good morning to a sleepy eyed bare-footed young lady. She sleeps in 'till 7:00 or so. Then there's the morning walk on the beach. Two grocery bags go along, one to pick up garbage and one to bring back treasures. There’s very little of the former, but there are always heavy twisting conch and freckled scallop shells in various stages of wear, jingle shells shimmering in the palm like doubloons in a stream, and oysters, lumpy digits worn, all worn and smoothed and crenulated and carved by the sea, the ceaseless sea.
You get the rhythm. It doesn’t belong to our agendas. It coincides with the sun and the wind and the tides. Its sound track is laced with the speech of laughing gulls and the dry crackle of sea grass. And under it all is the karumph of the waves finding the shore.
We just got home from the beach, but no matter what the calendar says, September hasn’t claimed me, yet. I still have sand in my shoes. I have been washed up here, worn, washed, smoothed and carved by the sea, the ceaseless sea.

Building a Bench

I do Bonsai. I need a place to do it outside, dirt, clippings tend to mess up the kitchen. So, I built one, a bench that is. We already have a kitchen. Scrap lumber from the basement and one eight foot two by four. I got it all screwed together. Not pretty, but functional. But it wasn't right. It sloped toward one corner. I sat and looked at it, bothered.

Just then six, yep six titmice, that's a bird, came into the back yard and proceeded to comment on everything while they ate and trounced each other and generally acted like a bunch of teen aged boys in a gym class. As I sat wondering and smiling at this display of general disorder and fun I looked up. A humingbird had lighted on a branch above me. It was a dark form, cut out of the bright sky above.

I fixed the bench. No big deal. But the afternoon was transformed. I ought to make mistakes more often.

Out of Darkness

Ephesians 2

I spent some time in Africa. I was young. The kind of young that is still impressed in the open mouthed, eyes wide, stand still and stare way. I lived in a monastery out beyond the end of the bus lines in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We got to know a lot of people where they lived, by name, who they were. It was there I first ran into paganism. It stopped me as cold as seeing my first pack of hyenas roaming around outside the walls of the compound. The thing that blew my mind about the worship of small gods was the terror of the worshipper. These folks lived defensively. The gods were their enemies, very, very powerful enemies, bullies that rolled over them like a motorcycle gang over children in a playground. If these powerful beings noticed you it was not a good thing. The only reason you worshipped was to get on their good side. It was no guarantee they’d be nice to you. Gods have bad hair days. But when and if you came to their attention, maybe, if you shed some blood and offered some sacrifice, maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t swat you like the bug you were to them.
These folk saw these young Americans as allies of another god. The guys in the black dresses, the Christian Monks were magicians. They had given their lives to be servants of this Christian god. He wasn’t very nice. No god was. But he seemed to be very powerful. And we young Americans were allies of these men in black. We were living proof of the power of this not very nice god. Look how big we were, six feet tall, though we were considered barbarians, uncouth at best.
I wondered about this one day to a woman we knew who knew enough English and some Italian words to communicate when assisted by the high art of charades. I wondered why she didn’t consider worshiping the Christian god if He was so powerful. Her eyes got big and she shook her head very slowly, hunching and looking over her shoulder. She leaned forward and whispered to me, “They listen. They will take my children.” She cried and then told me she would live. “Each day without death is life.”
I still have dreams about her, hunched and whispering, “…alienated…, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
We have a gift. Too often we forget. We forget about the covenants of promise, sealed in God’s blood, not curses sealed in ours. Thanks be to God. Amen

Bonsai
Thoughts

There are few things I do that can be said to be classical disciplines. I sing. But I don’t have the time to pursue the discipline of classical voice, or the time to hook up with a choir to do music that constantly raises my game. My writing is a lot like my reading, not very classical or consistently disciplined.
But Bonsai is classical in its very nature. “Trees in saucers” have been around for a couple thousand years, and the maintenance of them demands discipline if I’m going to keep them alive. I’ve lost a few because of lapses. Years of work down the tubes because I wasn’t disciplined. Not to mention the loss of a life.
Anyway, loses aside, this is a rather unique presence in my existence. It is a sanctuary from the frenetic norm of my day to day and it demands a focus and an awareness of the needs of another. In short it gets me out of myself and forces me to slow down.
Every once in a while I bump into another bonsai’er. They consistently light up to know that there is another weirdo in the world that sinks into this small world of trees and moss and rocks and crockery. We talk about what a pain cedars are and have we had any luck with flowering trees and what kind of fertilizer we use and stones. Stones are very important. It’s one of those moments that you tend to remember, relationships built on common interest.
But the relationship that matters, the real center of the whole thing is the tree. You get to know something when you spend time with it and watch it and partner with it. But this can’t be compared with a human relationship. I really think when we do the first sit down with alien species, the ones from out there some were, there should be a bonsai’er in our delegation. They’ve spent a lot of time in communion with another species, like years.
It’s a lot different than having a dog or a cat. But that’s a different story. Just ask Sam.

Demons

Putting together the sermon for Sunday, I stumbled on a presupposition that sticks between my teeth. This whole thing of Evil is dismissed in one way or another by the mythology of our culture. So I was forced to give a preamble to my sermon that was probably the most Philosophically Metaphysical that I've gotten in the pulpit for a while.
I'm writing a book right now, a novel that deals with Evil. It's a bear, or should I say a beast to finish it. I'm somewhere near the fourty-fifth chapter and as I come closer to wrapping it up, the laws of relaltivity have begun to take effect. I get shorter and shorter and infinitely heavy, or something like that. When I get the thing done and move into the editing phase, it will be a grand relief. Then I might get into this evil thing from a more philosophic perspective. Nobody else seems to be doing it. They're too busy twittering.
In some ways I think we don't have much of a perspective on evil because we don't have much of a perspective on anything that we can't touch, measure, or quanitfy. So, in some ways the labor to get a grip on this beasty would be an effort to lift our sights out of the technological and into a grander vista.
I know, I know, if you don't talk about it, it becomes less real. Tell that to the predator that follows you in the night. Said in less creepy terms, most things we ignore end up having power over us. We've all had a few of those.
Don't worry, I won't attempt any of this in this light hearted arena. But I might offer bits for reaction. Such a down to earth dialogue might be fun. Or in philosophically metaphysical language, "A diologic approach has often proved fruitful when the participants' presumptive limits can be put aside for the sake of approaching a new synthesis."
Okey dokey?

Presbytery

My family’s been Presbyterian since it became impractical to be Druids. I grew up with it around me like air. But in the wisdom of my youth I decided that if I was going to do this theology thing, I ought to shop. I don’t know if I was looking for low bids or what. I attended a seminary/graduate school hooked up with the University of California at Berkeley. As the Presbyterian San Francisco Theological Seminary it was one of twelve such schools in the Graduate Theological Union. I took classes in them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, Baptist, etc. It was interesting. Lots of different spins going on all at the same time. Interestingly, the more I wandered, the more I gravitated back to good old Calvinism.
So, thirty odd years later, I’m looking back on a career. Pretty wild, huh? I’ve worked all this time in a handful of churches, using a theological perspective that my ancestors helped build. Nothing like coming full circle.
The night before last we had a Presbytery meeting. All the ministers from about fifty churches and lay representatives to balance them meet periodically to do the business of this governing body. Conflict simmered beneath a crust of parliamentary function. It was more fun than chicken pox, but not much. Differences in perspectives and attitudes coupled with a power vacuum have yielded a lack of trust and loss of common vision. It’s a microcosm of our culture. The gorilla in the room refused us to let us get much done unless we operated at a level so shallow as to make the meeting nearly meaningless. At one especially difficult juncture, after a hasty conference with my wife, I got up and commented on the presence of the gorilla, and in an effort to deal with our commonality invited the whole presbytery to our house for a party in October. They laughed. But I waded in and finally convinced them Chris and I meant business. Hospitality created the church. Maybe Hospitality can help it now.
I love the church. I love its scholarship and insistence on self criticism. I love its inclusiveness that demands an openness uncomfortable in a polarized society. I love its unflinching approach to suffering and its willingness to stand in the face of injustice. I love the way it supports art and music and drama and in a cynical and lonely world insists on celebrating and pot luck suppers. I love the way it shelters the victim, prods the arrogant, invites the greedy, embraces the isolated, touches the outcast, and tells jokes to the self important. I love the way it points beyond itself toward something we may not be able to see but that something opens the mind and the universe to relationships more powerful than death. I can’t stand its marginalization because of narcissism and traveling soccer.
I think the world should take lessons from my wife. I do. She knows how to be good. It’s called loving. She wants to make sure we don’t overcrowd the house. People won’t have the opportunity to really get to know each other. Maybe there should be two parties. She understands.
The Hispanic church is making tostadas. Here goes nothin’. Or maybe here goes something.

Presbytery

My family has been Presbyterian just after it became impractical to be Druids. So you could say it's been in the family a while. When I decided to do the ministry thing, I went to a seminary with twelve, yup, twelve different schools included in the amalgum. I took classes at them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Baptist, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, etc. Learned a lot about a lot. And in the process I migrated to this interesting place called home. Boiling it all down Presbyterianism made the most sense to me. It had just as many warts as most of them, but there was a grace in it, a freedom with a down to earth sense of realism and honesty that drew me.

Fast forward thirty odd years and I still feel that way. It's not the easiest way to go. It bonds us with people that alternately infuriate and frustrate what I sense is best. But that very bonding is perhaps the best part. All the abrasion and struggle demands tolerance and patience and putting the Law of Love into action.

Last night we had a regular meeting of the Presbytery. This is a gathering of all the ministers from about 50 churches and an equal number of elder delegates. We do the business of this governing body. These meetings will fry your brain if you let them. Kick in the tolerance and patience and add stamina. But we worship and we laugh and we get to see people that we've been too busy to see since last meeting.

There was conflict simmering just beneath the business. Factions doing their thing. Financial issues coupled with dissatisfaction with staff. Sound familiar? So I got up and invited everybody to a party at our house in October(Chris and I planned it in about 30 seconds during debate over an amendment to the original motion). They all laughed and I had to give a speech about the church needing more hospitality and less business. We'll see what happens. My wife is a saint. They should all take lessons from her. I do.

I love the church. I love how it has lifted up scholarship and learning and wisdom and caring and the arts and music and fellowship in a cynical and lonely world. I love the way it points beyond itself to something we can't even see, but we affirm as being as or more real than anything the culture sells. I love the way it won't settle for easy answers. I love the way it transcends boundaries and pulls at polarities and pokes at self importance and arrogance. I love the way it couragously embraces suffering and humbly confronts evil. I hate seeing it die because people are too busy and too narcissistic(however you spell that). But if we've got to die we'll go out the way we've always been. Obstinate and unwilling to settle for anything less than the kingdom of God.

What do you think? Should we play twister at the party?

Buying a House and Dying

We bought a house! That may seem a prosaic observation. Not real philosophic, but this is like my first girl friend. No it's not, it's better. My first girl friend was more a product of my own imagination than real flesh and blood. This place has a front yard and a kitchen and a mortgage.
The process is amazing, offers and counter offers flying through agents. They should be called seconds. They carry our blades and make sure we get to the dueling field on time. (See? I'm out there in my imagination already.) Getting married is easy compared to all the hoops of buy a house.
In some ways that's appropriate. Claiming one another needs no signature, it needs a commitment of spirit. Claiming a property as your own requires a putting down of foundations and roots that have a profound effect on a whole community of people. Maybe we should sign more papers to get married. We'd probably take it more seriously. Who would do the inspections? Anyway, the process of choosing, bidding, signing reorients world order and perspective. That specific part of the map begins to grow in importance.
Here's where death comes in.
In the movie Signs, the main character's wife is pinned agains a tree by a truck. She's basically cut in half, killed, but kept alive by the pressure of the truck, momentarily. Her husband comes to see her and hold her hand as she dies. The movie made me think about the process of dying. Do we desperately try to hold on to the life we've known, the life of wonder and glory that has meant so much to us? Or do we turn in expectation to the unknown that is a whisper away?
One could say it's only fear that keeps us from turning to the new and leaving this, all of this behind. But I think that's cheap. The bonds of affection and appreciation run deep. And we not only grieve for the loss of our own life here, we grieve for the others who are not going with us on the great adventure of life beyond life. No wonder there are tears. They are a mixture of joy and pain, of anxiety and anticipation.
So now here I am, feet on two sides of moments of my life. It will be a while before we leave, years. But the tide is changing. No one else can see it. It runs within me, a tide of the heart. But it is coming.

ICONS

I was talking with a class the other day about what moved an individual from important or powerful or famous into the place of an icon.  We nosed around it for a while, looking at people that had iconic place in our culture.  FDR, Kennedy, Regan, Martin Luther King, Mohamed Ali, Janis Joplin, Sinatra, people that stood out.  It had nothing to do with our approval or sense of resonance with their thoughts and attitudes.  It had to do with how they siezed their moment in history, how they lived in such a way as to help define that moment.

It made me consider individuals that have done that for me.  How my history has been defined, for better or worse by individuals I have known.  Some of it has to do with them and some of it has to do with me.  It would be nice if such dominant personalities in my life had been all positive, lovely people.  But such is not the case for any of us.  Our struggles are just as formative as our blessed days.  A considerable amount of my life has been spent in defending myself from the incursions of people who weren't very nice to me.  It took me a long time to find a style of balance that kept me away from fear of losing myself. 

I said to the class that one of the best definitions of a healthy person is one who doesn't feel the need to defend or justify themselves, but is willing to accept people for who and what they are and allow them the space to be that way.   It's not easy to be graceful, partly because we do react in fear and we do spend a lot of our lives defining ourselves according to ego boundaries that are rarely more sophisticated than our two year old protestations of "No" and "Mine."  Our vocabulary is larger and we have all kinds of justifications but it's hard to grow into a secure person.  Another reason it's hard to be graceful is that sometimes it's painful.  We get punished for not seeking to win or convert or have our own way. 

Anyway, I  think if I want to put a few icons on my psychic refrigerator, it might do me good to consider what I've learned from them.  How have they facilitated my growth toward demonstrating grace and peace in my life?  How do they, in their own way teach me about living?  Abraham Lincoln does that for me.  As does Michaelangelo.  So does my wife.  There are a few others that shall not be named.  I tend to get hives when I consider them.  Boy, are they instructive.

Dogs

I heard on NPR today that dogs' genome is unlocking all kinds of insight into the causes and the very nature of cancer. Evidentally these hairy companions are not only faithful with their tongues and their wagging tails but they are faithful in carrying all kinds of possible solutions to one of the worst horrors that stalk us.

Finals

This is the time of year when I finish my classes at Monmouth University. I don't give a final exam. I grade according to projects that the students work on all semester. So the final class is always kind of bitter sweet. The students are leaving and the students are leaving. I miss them. I've gotten to know them over the semester and they've come to me with issues and bits and pieces of their lives. I help them through. It creates a bond that is important to me and is one of the main reasons I teach.

In that last class I bring junk food, lots of junk food. Popcorn, peanuts, cookies, chips, salsa, crackers, pretzels, all the stuff that they eat. The cheeze doodles leave us with orange hands, but they're popular. It's a party. We do the Kiersey Bates temperment sorter. It gives them a chance to talk about themselves and where to from here. And I give them a speech.

I tell them that school is an amazing place. It's a powerful place that offers them opportunities that they will never have again in their lives. I also apologize for teachers who don't appreciate them. I ask them to never forget that even when they think we teachers are fools, they can learn from fools, if they hang in there. And then I tell them to always remember that if they feel judged or put down by a teacher, that they should never forget that learning doesn't depend on teachers. Learning depends on a willing and an open student. Teachers in all their vaunted authority are very vulnerable. Teachers need students to be teachers. I tell them they should never forget that they carry within them a seed of star dust. In my language, they are children of God. I tell them that it has been a great privilage to be their teacher. I thank them and bless them on their way.

It seems to touch them. It doesn't seem they are used to being affirmed.

Robert Frost said that the first green is gold. They are so beautiful and unaware of it. They are young and full of the potential that rests in each and all of us. Stardust, golden....

I get to bring home what's left from the feeding frenzy. Cheeze doodles!!!!!!!

May 2009

I was always taught that places are not holy. Only God is holy. But there are places that are sacred for me. Places that are the environments of moments in my life. Places where the spirits of people who are dear to me seem close. And some places where I feel a resonance that transcends scenery and memory. Places that seem to vibrate with power beyond my understanding or control. Some are places of peace. Some are places of harmony. And some are not. 

I have visited the battlefield at Gettysburg many times, as a child and an adult. The hills and fields are full of striving and pain. Sometimes when I've walked near the light house on Long Beach Island, especially at night, I can feel the fear and sorrow of all those lost on the shoals. Call me weird. I have found a new place. It is a place of calm and peace. 

I've talked before about walking my dog, Sam, early in the morning, through the cemetery to our sanctuary. Sometimes Chris comes with me, but most of the time, Sam and I make the trip on our own. It is quiet. For part of the year it is dark, another part it is dim, and now it is dawn. Away from the road, against the trees, there is a cross, Celtic, in the ground, with a stone standing at its center. It is new. Its shape came to the designer in a dream. It grew from the commitment and work of many. It is not temporary. It feels ancient, though the plantings aren't even in the ground. 

Its purpose is to be a memorial garden. But it is already more than that. It is a place of peace for any and all who come to it, and pause there. It inspires me. It humbles me. Give it a try. It's really good around dawn. 

The week after

This week is always like limbo land. Easter Day is nuts. It's exciting and nerve wracking and wild and over the top. The lead up to it is exhausting in other ways, but the final result of the whole kit and kaboodle is a pretty verticle trajectory. Which leaves me screaching into the heavens and slowly slowing down as the gravity of physical limits and emotional burn out assert their inexorable pull. Now I'm beginning to pick up speed again, down toward the thicker regions of the atmosphere of my life.

This year it seems I'm rather healthy, knock on wood. I usually am able to run myself into the ground and pick up some disease. This year I'm back at work and I just wobble now and then.

I wonder what the aftermath of the whole thing must have done to the bunch back then. Miracles are one thing, stress induced pooped-ness is another. And they had plenty of stress. Maybe I'm getting older and wiser. The older part is obvious. The wiser part is dubious. But I do feel more grateful for the entire experience. Gratitude does not preclude fatigue, but it does allow us to appreciate the moment. As a result that moment is a gift, a pleasure.

This is a week to feel a bit of low pressure between the ears, not quite a vacuum, but low pressure. And it's tinged with a glow. That's not limbo, that's a place of life, and life abundant.
I think I'll take a nap.

Broken Cross

It's Maunday Thursday. It's time to bring the big cross, the one made from 4 X 4's, up out of the boiler room and lug it over to the Sanctuary. Tonight it's inside. Tomorrow it goes out in front of the church. It's part of my discipline for these days.

I went to check on it, the cross I mean. It was broken. Sometime during the year it had fallen over and the top broke off. I said a prayer of thanksgiving that some one hadn't pitched it. Broken stuff is trash after all. Then I went to get the wood glue. Someone who knew better reminded me that I needed marine wood glue. Water disolves the other stuff. There are no guarantees about weather.

In some ways it makes sense to have a busted and repaired cross. The original wasn't pretty. Just another blood stained torture devise. And besides, we're busted, broken by the ups and downs, the ins and outs and 'round about's. We all carry scars. But that doesn't make us any less important. The nasty thing stands there are a brutal reminder of our broken-ness and the power of love to heal.

I like the cross. It matches me.

Broken Fence

Out my study window I can see the white board fence around my back yard. For years the bottom board has been broken. Right in the middle there's a gap of about eighteen inches. On my list of things to get done this summer is replacing that board and painting the fence. I guess the whole happily married thing is inspiring me.

But sitting here looking out my window, at my broken fence with daffodils and hyacinths blooming at its feet, I'm nostalgic and kind of attached to the whole scene. I'll fix it and get it painted. But I kind of like it the way it is now. Does that make it official? Am I certifiable? Or am I turning into someone for whom change is to be feared and avoided?

I choose to call myself a romantic. The scene is kind of pastoral, lovely and interesting in its own way. I don't like to change beauty. And neat has never been one of my favorite criteria for good looking. So I'll appreciate the spring flowers blooming around the broken fence and the rustic feel of the whole scene. And when it's fixed, I'll appreciate the face lift. By then the lillies will cover it anyway.

So much for bunnies

Easter has always been a problem for me. It doesn't lie in the emotional roller coaster of the passion and death, let alone the reality bending ressurection. That I go with. It's not only my job but it's where my gravity takes me. I guess this is the 'ground of being' that Tillich talked about. These rocks are the home soil of my home. I know them. Painful and paradoxically joyful all together they take me back to center.

Nope, that's not the problem. It's the cute factor. The kiddie fun and frolic thing. The family get together and sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner with a different menu moment. Now don't get me wrong, I think Easter egg hunts are great. And I really like fresh pork and lamb. The two poles, ressurection and family fun don't create a tension, they create a dissenence. They jangle my soul. It's like we're trying to go in two directions at the same time. Disconcerting at the least.

Analogy time. An earthquake just happened. Everything is shaken and some of the stuff we depended upon is broken. And we are joyous that we are alive and grieving at the suffering around us. Mint jelly and giggles just don't fit.

Now, admittedly, exhaustion may have something to do with the whole thing. But I'm exhausted at Christmas and I don't suffer the disconnect. So, call me a curmuddgeon, however you spell that. I've tried for years to participate and fit in and even organize these events. But I've always felt like I needed to leave after I hid the eggs and set the table. I guess that's not all bad and maybe I need to stop feeling guilty about not being more enthusiastic about this stuff. This is Easter. Easter. Whew.

So, a blessed Easter to you all. Have a nice dinner. I'll be out in the grave yard. He is risen.

The Pond

Black Holes

The grand starry sky is lovely to behold from this warm corner of the universe. It twinkles and touches us with a tender awe. But when I consider the vast reaches of empty space and blazing extremes, the lovely vistas brought down from Huble's scope seem trifles compared to the fierce silence and gargantuan forces that push galaxies out, out, ever out.

I admire astronomers. Astro-physicists stare at the impersonal beasts that roam the sky, crunching and crashing, blowing up and radiating, and with the patience of love pick through signals that started on their way billions of years ago, all to find a single blip that yields a clearer understanding of this monster that cares about them not at all.

They have come upon the boogie man in my closet. They gleefully study it, a phenomenon that scares the socks off me. Out there, occasionally, a star crunches down, burned out. But it's mass is so great it cannot rest and finally it becomes a well of gravity that pulls everything, even light into its maw, insatiable. They call it a singularity. They call it a black hole.

I believe in light. It is not a phenomenon for me. It is a philosophy. It is my ground of being. Darkness will one day learn light, as hate will one day learn love. Ah, but there's the rub. What of apathy? What of that maw that swallows feeling, all feeling, that doesn't even waste the time of day or night with concern, because after all, what does it matter?

When I face the idea of these grand vacuum cleaners of space, I shiver. And I wonder, is there something beyond them, down inside or through them? Or do they just suck everything down, down, down?

Daffodils are my cure, this week, daffodils and my love's smile. Einstein said that it was not fair. Astronomers and physicists labor mightly to climb the icy crags of theory to carry human understanding up the pinnacles of knowledge. Blasted and exhausted they triumphantly plant their banner of discovery, and looking up find a group of theologians having tea. They'd been there for a while.

I'm a theologian. I have to chew on this one. Perhaps it's my job to look into the darkness and consider, what's in there, and what's beyond. Looking at it that way it's not so creepy. But I still like the daffodils and Chris.

April 2009

I looked through one window to another

The sky shone clear there, deep blue graced

With clouds come down to float across the pane

All because of dark and light, within and beyond.

I am full of darkness, fear and prejudice shadow

Day's brightness, dim mornings and afternoons

Of life. We all are. Well defended, isolated, documented,

Over-extended. The day of life is lost in our shadows.

But now and then we gaze out and see. Now and then

Day's light touches us, reminds us, opens us to a world

Of light and life. Windows' gifts, these moments blessed

Show us brilliance, and possibility, and freedom wide.

And on this day the sky, high above brought down,

Reflected on the pane, showing me the source of

Light's wide grace. Perhaps our dimness can be more

Than curse and blight. Perhaps a blessing of the light.

The tomb is so, source of fear and darkness.

Brutal loss that dims the day and leaves us lost.

But look again. See there reflected by the light of love

God's brightness in the life of one. He is risen!

A blessed Easter. Hallelujah.

David

Letting Go

I don't know about you, but change ain't easy for this humble servant. I have spent my life doing the church thing. This isn't a hobby or a membership in a pool club. This has been the focus of the most important events and moments in my life. My parents, music, art, love, coming of age, marriage, death, the presence of the almighty, friendship, learning, literature, fighting injustice, family, loss, sacrifice, capability, mysticism, and the list goes on. All of these have come into focus and been part of the solar system that has been defined by this locus of community and devinity. I got into this business partly because it's a congenital disorder. It runs in my blood. Then there's the very real sense that this focus of power and love put me up to this. I have a call. All of that I'm sure will be the focus of future installments. But resting there, right there with these others is the most human and simple reason: I love the joint.

In spite and because of its warts and idiocies, it is my home. And I think it's a grand place. I like its style and grace. I like its geekiness and innocense. I like its grandure and power. I like what it stands for and how it goes about grappeling with the beasts that beset us. And now I'm watching it struggle to survive. It's far from dead, but it's having a hard time holding together.

I get defensive when charges of irrelevance, hypocracy, judgemental, and all the other stones that have hit it come lobbing in from 'out there.' I get angry when some from 'in here' say and do things that make me want to weep. And I fume at the apathy of most about the life or demise of this glorious entity that means so much to me. After all, soccer practice is so important.

Last night we had a meeting. It was a good meeting. It dealt with the issues of hunger and justice and the blessed earth and the safety of our children. We talked about how to more effectively work through conflict. I'd say that is a pretty relevant and honest agenda. And I realized that we are swimming upstream and we are exhausted.

God doesn't depend on the church. It's a gift to us. God will be fine. And who knows what the shape and style of the next incarnation of the Body of Christ will take? It has morphed and will continue to do so. But it's really hard to let go of something that has nurtured and prodded me toward the grand horizons of life.

I think I'm going to have a hard time giving up my driver's liscense.

cold snap

Spring's here. I know it is. The light comes earlier and stays later. Proof positive that the sacrifices offered on the Equinox were not in vain. But why then is it cold? Isn't spring supposed to be warm? Now that we've been given the gift, why aren't warm fuzzies there to embrace us on a consistant basis?

But then again, life doesn't allow a presumptive comfort. Bases are rare. Sanctuary is an unusual comfort and perhaps not even a real one. Such an assumption that we don't have to deal with that which comes to us, on its own, without filter or padding is rather arrogant. The world is given to us, a gift as it is. People come to us as they are. The best of them are honest polite enough not to abuse us. Their honesty helps create the edges and bumps in the topography of our living.

I like bumps. They've been tough enough to live through the erosions of peer pressure and exhaustion. They stick out and say, "Hey, wait a minute." And when they come from people I love they are interesting enough to appreciate. Sometimes moss grows on them and they become outcropings of new ways of looking and considering. Or they become reminders of my own limitation. Or they become foundations for new structures. I guess that's called learning, perhaps that's called living.

Anyway, the cold makes my face hurt. But the daffodils are still blooming. Appreciate the gift, even when you're shivering.

Daffodils

I cut three daffodils for Chris today. I always feel a little guilty cutting flowers. But I reconcile it by considering the joy they bring when I give them to her. These were some of the first to open. They trumpeted the Vernal Equinox better than any headline. And when she saw them I knew they felt appreciated. They are.

St Patrick's Day
I never really paid any attention to the day of the saint. Protestants are so boring sometimes. I guess with a name that comes out of the mists of the Hebrides my family had better things to do that to drink green beer. We’re snobs. Besides, this guy was responsible for kicking the Celtic kings out of the western annex of Scotland that is Ireland. The kings carried dragons, tattooed up their arms and legs. Patrick was a tough guy and he knew that unless he could get rid of these pesky Celts, Christianity would be wrestling with the Druids. Time for a coup. It got translated into pushing the snakes out of Ireland. That’s the legendary version.

Anyway, my first church was in Irvington, that bastion of Irish tradition. Well, in 1975 the Irish mob still ran a lot of the area. There was a parade to celebrate the wearing of the green. It went by my house. Late on the 16th, some of the faithful would follow the parade route and put a stripe down the middle of the street, a bright green stripe. I guess it helped the paradees not make any wrong turns.

After watching this whole production an adolescent dragon, a wee beastie whispered in my ear “Mee boy, therr be a way to scatter dismay and consternation among these upstarts. This Patrrick be celebrated by all an’ none stand for the serpents. Justice! (that’s the way Celtic dragons talk). “

So late on the next March 16th, after the semi drunk crew had left green proof behind them down the middle of my street, I ventured forth in the wee hours of the morning, armed with two cans of orange spray paint. I confess I was not wearing a kilt. But my spirit was. The orange stripe began a block beyond Donovan’s Pub, the place where the parade began and where the faithful got tanked up before staggering forth. It ran parallel to the green, coexisting for fifty yards, and then with glee, as much glee as an orange stripe can exhibit, tangled and superimposed itself upon the green. The paint ran out a bit beyond my house. No sense leaving too much proof from whom the blessing of the orange had come.

The next day I sat on my stoop, early. I heard the first whoops of consternation an hour before the parade. Ahh, it was better than the pipes upon the moors. Being the day to party, they were not ready to repel such an assault. Besides, the time for the parade’s beginning came upon them, leaving them no choice but to go on with the show.

On that day the sons of Erin followed and orange stripe for half their jaunt. They scowled. It was beautiful. I could hear the beastie chuckling at them.

They posted guards the next year. Dragons must be reckoned with.

New Endeavors

This is a brand new topography for me. The worn paths and road signs that seem so mundane and familiar to so many are exotic and largely meaningless to me. I have guides. They are patient. They have to be. I'm dumb. But I think they get a kick seeing me going "Wow!" over simple and basic operations. "Look at the bunny!"

This is somewhere I will return and go beyond, soon. Then I will be less amazed. But it will be no less a miracle and the guides will be no less reasons for thanksgiving.

Here we go.

March 2009

There's an angel in the cemetery that I hang around with on a regular basis. She's delicate, graceful, though worn from spending so much time out in the weather. Sometime before I got to know her, she had a mishap, so one of her wings is stubby. You'd think it would mar the angelic effect, but somehow it fits. She doesn't move when I'm around, so to face her I have to look east. As a result. I've seen the glory of her halo. It shines around her at sunrise. The circle above the head thing doesn't express the halo of dawn.

Sometimes when I look at her, I realize that all our concepts and ideas of that which is above and beyond are almost useless. It is enough to say that there, as I face east, the eternal shines in her so clearly, stubby wing and all.

The other day we woke up to a white world. The snow had fallen soft on every branch, with no breeze to dislodge it. So the bare trees were bare no more. In the moment before dawn the coming sun whispered around the corner of the horizon in hints of lavender and rose. The master of our sky often does this, teasing us with hints of the glory to come. Glory's great, but whispers draw us in, like children awed by candles' glow. And on this dressed up morning, the sky king's colors reflected from each and every surface. Shadows became color pots. There was no black and white.

She stood there, as she always does when I come to call. A bit of ice had coated her hair before the snow offered her ermine for evening-wear. And now her gown graced the morning. A bit gaudy for walking the dog, but that kind of beauty cannot be limited by the small categories of appropriate or fashionable. It sets its own style, claiming the moment as its own.

I wish there were more to see her, just then in her radiance. I wish that vision could grace the eyes of every person who stands in awe of the coming sun, and all who don't notice it at all. We all need it, that momentary reminder that the order of our living can wait for such a sight. And she deserves oooh's and ahhh's from more than just one.

But that's the way eternity is. It sneaks up on us without an appointment or a warning. If only we could plan for it. We could fit it into our busy lives. But that's the rub. We can't fit something that amazing "in." We accept it on its own terms and share the magic when it comes, or miss it in our rush to somewhere else.

I don't spend much time with her, but I treasure our moments together. And I think I'll shave before I walk the dog. A lovely lady deserves a bit of respect.

David