Rufous

Mocking birds are one of the easiest birds for me to recognize.  They’re in your face, not afraid of much of anything, sing all the time every other birds’ repertoire, tail in the air, grey with white.  How can you miss them?  The other day I saw an iridescent brown mocking bird…  Ok, mutant in my yard.  Tail in the air, perched on top of the bird feeder, a singing filial. 

Chris called from the window, “Look, in the bird bath.  What is that?”  It was the mutant, dunking and fuzzing itself out.  With great authority I pronounced, “It’s that mutant mocking bird.” 

She went on, unfazed, valiantly trying to ignore her weird husband.  “It’s so pretty, look at its chest.”

That was her diplomatic method for trying to tell me I was nuts.  She should work for the state department.  And looking at it, it was pretty, and different.  It was speckled.  There was something too consistently different.  So go to the bird book.  There it was, plain as day.  A Brown Thrasher.  Not as common as the Mocking Bird, a bit more shy, but it sang with the same imitative call and it liked to perch on peaks, like the top of the bird feeder, a speckled chest, and a rufous back.

‘Rufous?’ 

Webster’s was the next stop.  “Reddish brown.  Can be iridescent in certain light.”

New word.  New bird.  New fascination for my lovely.  I’d say that was a good day.

Rufous to you too.

 

Should's

The scripture today is from the suffering servant songs of the second section of Isaiah.  The Prophet was speaking to the people of Israel while they were living in exile in Babylon.  He reminds them of their purpose and identity. 

Listen to the Word of God.

Isaiah 42:1-7

Should’s

Yesterday was Palm Sunday.  We remembered the celebration of the people of Jerusalem proclaiming Jesus as king.  People cheered, ‘Hosanna’ loosely translated is ‘Yippee!’  They waved palms, because foam fingers weren’t available.  Some people call Palm Sunday, Little Easter.  Lots of pageantry and the parking’s better. 

But why was our Lord, at the center of the hoopla so quiet?  And why did he weep over Jerusalem?

It’s easy.  People got it wrong.  People always have.  They got it wrong in Israel when things were fine.  The got it wrong in Babylon when they were captives.  They got it wrong in Jesus time.  They liked comfort.  They liked the status quo, don’t rock the boat.  They had a system, a law, a list of goods and bads, of shoulds and should not’s.  They could keep score.  They knew who was a winner and a loser, acceptable and unacceptable.  All those other people.  Sound familiar?

Isaiah told them no.  He reminded them they weren’t chosen to keep score.  They weren’t chosen to be winners with God on their side.  Everybody else did that.  If they were to be special, to be God’s people, the ‘should’ needed to be this:  “I have given you as a covenant, a promise to all the people, to be a light to the nations.”  The should was to live the promise of God, not by keeping score or by winning but by living in mercy and in hope.

We, this nation, were given a gift by the people of France.  She stands overlooking the towers of Manhattan, Lady Liberty.  She towers above the harbor.  After 9-11, when I worked at Ground Zero, I was angry and afraid.  We all were.  Most of us had lost someone.  Every morning before we took the ferry from Jersey to Lower Manhattan, I would stand and look at her lifting her torch.  I considered the message on her foundation.  “Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shores.  Send them the tempest-tossed to me.  I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.”

I realized that she stands, she is founded on mercy and hope.  That is her identity.  And I lost my anger and my fear.  I remembered who I was.  I was and am a child of her light. 

Jesus came to Jerusalem and witnessed to mercy and hope.  He invited all to share in that vision, the vision of Isaiah.  He invited them to be a fulfillment of God’s promise, of God’s covenant.  But they wanted a winner.  So they lifted him on a cross.

We have Lady Liberty.  We have the cross.  They both invite us to be people of mercy and hope.  We claim the symbols.  But are we witnessing to God’s Good News of mercy and hope or will we stick to business as usual and back the winner?  The choice goes on forever.  It is ours.  It is mine.  It is yours. 

It is Holy Week.  Look to the cross.  Dare to be a light to the nations.  Dare to be God’s Good News as you follow our Lord.  That the people of the world might say of all of us, “Thanks be to God.”

Amen.

 

 

Grieving

I had surgery just two weeks ago.  According to my clock it was six months going on five years.  I was feeling better last week and persuaded my lovely to go to the Azalea festival.  Wilmington is known for it.  It's a big deal and we'd never been.  So we went.  Had a great time.  That night I started to bleed again and had to take a pain pill.  It set me back a mile. 
Now, I'm raging against the limitations and the realities of a six to eight week recuperation.  What do you mean I can't mow the lawn.  The visiting nurse smiles like the Mona Lisa and rolls her eyes at my wife.
But it occurred to me that there's more going on here than pain and weakness.  It's Holy Week and I'm not in the center of a community's remembrance of Jesus' passion.  It has been my normality for forty-one years and suddenly I'm an innocent bystander.  I'm grieving.
Retirement has bumps, and no matter how you plan and carefully consider the edges that will be difficult.  No matter how you empathize with the others you've helped through their change of life times, you get ambushed. 
It's not a plan, it's life.  Tis what it Tis.  The gift is given and whether it is what you wanted or not, it's the one you've got. 
I've had trouble with my body before but I was bluntly reminded by one of the wise visiting nurses that I'd never had gut surgery.  So there noobie, sit down and shut up and give your body a chance to heal.  It won't be pretty and it won't be fun, but you can either help or hurt yourself.  Choose.
I never knew they were trained in the martial arts.
And here I am in Holy Week, closely resembling a slug.  But.....  But......
None of us can really understand someone else's pain or anguish.  And that includes our own when we haven't been there yet. 
My protestations to no avail, I will endeavor to learn, even at my advanced age and wonder in my learning if Jesus expected the extent of the pain he endured. 
But then, he didn't have a visiting nurse and .....
And he went ahead and gave himself to the pain. 

On another tack, the local pastor asked me to preach twice this week at two noon services.  I got it done.  The homilies are included, for better or worse.

Scotch and Bourbon

At dinner tonight Chris and I were talking about the difference between Scotch and Bourbon.  She does not 'like' Whiskey in any of its incarnations.  We discussed how Whiskey is made, distilled and aged.  We talked about the differences between the distilling art of Kentucky and the Highlands.  Peat and oak fires, corn and barley, years and the right amount of years.  Yup, there's a lot to talk about.  She was actually interested.  And she wanted to know,  "What is the difference in the taste of the two?"
So, I pulled out my Macallan's 12 and my Maker's Mark.  A bit in two shot glasses.  She smelled them.  She tried a finger dipped and licked.  Not enough to get a good taste.  So, the tastes were made. 
She likes bourbon better. 
And if anybody wants to know why I love my wife, read this blog and consider all of the edges tested, the envelopes pushed, prejudices ignored, the willingness  allowing experience and analysis to create possibilities where before there was only judgment. 
That there is one enlightened human being. 
She's definitely a nasty woman. 
RESPECT, just a little bit, RESPECT.

Going to Church

I've been going to church for sixty eight years.  In other words, there wasn't a time I didn't.  For the last forty-one of those years I've been running the show.  So it's Transfiguration.  And I'm in the choir.  I like our church.  I like our pastor. 
It's still weird. 
But last Sunday I listened to the Pastoral Prayer, and I heard it. 
Weird it may be, but I'm very grateful for the discipline and the presence and the community.  Who knows?  I might get used to sitting in the choir loft.
Fat Chance.

Getting Involved

There are few things I love more about my retirement than setting my own schedule.  I get up just after sunrise and roam.  I accomplish all kinds of things during the day, most of the time more than I planned to.  But each and all are from an agenda defined by my own choice, at my own pace.  This is new. 
But now, I realize there are some things I want to do that do not operate in this manner.  Choir, social gatherings, working for a political candidate.  All of them are important, each in its own way.  All of them have to do with getting involved with people outside the borders of my property.  All of them demand that I take others into account, limiting and expanding my categories of acceptance and tolerance.  And all of them point beyond myself, my own agenda.
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."  Not.
Most of what I have been, most of what I have done, most of the places I've gone, and the things I've accomplished have been about other people, organizations, and agendas set to a large degree by others.  I realize that it is not wrong to spend time changing that kind of life style.  I need to be my own person.  I need to claim my own agenda.  I need to claim time and use it to be creative in ways I've never had the opportunity or energy. 
But my need is not the only priority for me or certainly for the world in which I live.  Our planet, our nation, and the state of our habitation cannot be guided or lifted by one person.  Even the Lord recruited a bunch of people to move in new directions.
This nation is having a season of self involvement, claiming me, myself, and I and the comfort thereof as the only priorities that matter.  That is small minded and tragically destructive.  I cannot hide from the political ugliness that runs like a sewer through our present tense.  I cannot pretend that my bonsai, my carpentry, my home development, my reading, my writing, my learning, or even working on a loving home is all I can do to help. 
I am in a different era of my life.  So what?  I have been given gifts that can help, and I need to utilize them.  I don't know how.  I don't know where.  But that can be addressed.  I need to be careful not to slug others with my new found freedom.  Social skills need to be belted on just like pants that don't have paint on them. 
I won't give up my fun and games.  This place is my palace.  It won't stay that way if I go traipsing around being important.  I need to be a good steward.  And I need to help bring us back out of the middle ages.  I don't think they're mutually exclusive. 
Besides, who says I can't have fun being a pain in the ass out there?

Getting Sick

A friend of mine, who was one of the most intelligent and classy women I ever knew had a needle point cushion on her couch.  "Screw the Golden Years" 
A lot of our time in these years is occupied by coping with the wondrous machines we've been given, breaking down.  Our joints, our teeth, our eyes, our innards all seem to fall apart.  The doctor that trimmed up my knee last month told me that I had very little wear and tear considering the good times I'd had.  Great doc.  So much comfort that was.  He did good work.  If you need a referral, be in touch.
I do not begrudge my body having limitations. I have used it unmercifully and at this juncture, I appreciate every mile, every double diamond, every broad reach, every tackle, every scrum, every lay up, every lunge, parry, stop thrust and point.  I've also loved every paragraph read and written, every meal savored, every hand held, and nail pounded.  I give thanks that I've been so healthy for so long.
But this state of affairs didn't come gradually.  I retired in July and I'm scheduling my second surgery in February.  Did Social Security send out a memo to my body, "Break down now?" 
I'm very glad these doctors can do so much with so much less side effect, but it still is a bit strange to be discussing things like getting used to side effects. 
So my gratitude is all mixed up with anxiety and grumpiness.  And I assume it is just the beginning of  this time of life. 
I'm very grateful I've had a few challenges along the way.  Once you've been told some of these dire 'could be's' you kind of get used to down shifting and leave the trembling for later.  And I've had a few of these.  I'm also grateful for all the wise and witty folk who taught me so much as they faced their own challenges and allowed me to share the journeys with them. As we journeyed they opened a whole country of realities and honesty and faith to me that I will never forget. 
I am also very grateful for the faith that I offered to so many along the way.  The deep dark valleys that I shared and the light of faith I carried for them is for me now.  Makes it a little less dark and puts the whole thing in a better perspective when you've got a light shining.
Yup.  I'm grateful.
But don't get me wrong, it's still a pain in the ass and assorted other zones.
So here we go again.