Getting closer to 2007, at least on Eastern Standard Time

Three more hours to go.

I am listening to Mad Priest's great mix of New Year's Eve songs (http://revjph.blogspot.com/), having finished my sermon and bulletins for tomorrow morning.

It is a quiet night, spent by myself and the cats.

I wish for this weary world peace. It is the heartfelt cry of every generation, it seems. Yet God's shalom, God's wholeness, desired for all, seems all the more elusive than ever.

Pax, paix, shalom, salaam. O, we cry out.

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In the minor grievance category that has no importance other than it makes me nuts, the chain drugstore in town was putting up candies, decorations and cards for Valentine's Day. Gag me with a spoon. I really feel like boycotting them. They advance the commercial/capitalistic holidays earlier and earlier. We haven't even begun the new year and they are already into mid-February. Fie on them.

Christmas I • 31 December 2006


If you attend the late service on Christmas Eve, the morning eucharist on Christmas day and this morning’s service, you will have heard the prologue to the Gospel of John three times by now. It is an awesome piece of writing — not just for the language with its gentle repetition but mostly because the thoughts contained therein are too marvelous for us to grasp.

Isn’t it amazing that in beginning, God created humankind and then breathed the breath of life, God’s presence, God’s shekina, into our souls and bodies? You and I share that essence of life, that which the Hebrew scriptures call nephesh, a word that cannot really be translated other than essence of life. You and I share God’s presence in our very being, and you and I also share that animating breath of life that God has given us. You and I share that spark of life, the soul, which is the light that keeps us alive. It is amazing, isn’t it, that God, too, in Christ, shared the same?

Then there’s the wonderful language in the passage where it talks about the Word becoming flesh and ‘liv[ing] among us.’ The word translated as ‘lived’ means ‘tented,’ and it is the same word used in the Hebrew scriptures to describe God’s presence among the people: God is in the tent of the tabernacle; by the same token, Wisdom sets up her tent in our midst.

Eugene Peterson in his translation of the prologue to John puts this same phrase into a wonderful image: ‘The Word (otherwise called in his translation, ‘Word, the Incarnate One, as the Life-Light’) became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.’ What a fabulous way of expressing God’s proximity to us — God has moved into the neighbourhood — God is around every corner I turn, in every home I see and in every person. When I think of God dwelling with us in this way, I can’t help but remember the narrow alleys of the neighbourhood around Sma Trinidad near San Salvador, with the 5000 people that lived crammed into that small neighbourhood. They are my brothers and sisters. They are your brothers and sisters. God is here in the neighbourhod, now, with us, in Jesus, in the Incarnation.

Why does God move into our neighbourhood and midst? Patricia Wilson-Kastner captures not only the sense of divine Love that lies in the Incarnation but also some of the themes of the gospel of John when she writes:

‘Jesus became flesh so as to show forth the love of God among us, a love which is not merely an expression of good will, but the power of an energy which is the heart, core, and cohesive force of the universe…. Christ is the human expression of God to us, and thus we must try to understand what God meant in Christ…. Christ is… the one who shows all persons how to live. As a human he shows us what human self-possession and self-giving are. Thereby Christ shows us the link between divine and human, the cosmos and its conscious inhabitants.’

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One of my favourite sights on Christmas Eve comes as the congregation lights its candles. This year, since a deacon was reading the last gospel, that is, the reading we have just heard from John, I was able to look out and consider the scene in a way I never have been able to do so before.

There was something incredibly poignant and moving to see your faces illuminated by a sole flickering flame. The congregation, as a whole, was still, listening to the proclamation of Christ coming into the world as the Light that enlightens the world. For the first time in all these years, I really saw you waiting for the light and, in your hands, as you held the light and with that little candle and its silly paper bobêche, that doesn’t do any good, you were holding hope.

As I looked at your illumined faces, I thought of the countless other people throughout the world and throughout time who have held a candle in their hands, hoping….

I saw faces lit by candles in the days after 9-11-2001 as impromptu shrines sprang up, particularly around New York City. I saw faces lit by candles on a very cold March night in 2003 as 1000 of us stood on the steps to the capitol building three days before the assault on Baghdad began. I saw faces lit by candles in the days following the tsunami two years ago, people in Banda Aceh. I have seen photos of people holding candles, as a sign of silent protest outside of prisons when they know someone will be executed. And on and on it goes, the universal human expression of sadness, community, seeking and mostly hope.

Why else would there be a website where you can 'light' a virtual candle that will ‘burn’ for 48 hours?

When I checked their homepage in the writing of this sermon, it read: 16,395 candles from 131 countries are shining.
The page then goes on to say:

In many different traditions lighting candles is a sacred action. It expresses more than words can express. It has to do with gratefulness. From time immemorial, people have lit candles in sacred places. Why should cyberspace not be sacred?

You may want to begin or end your day by the sacred ritual of lighting a candle on this website. Or you may want to light a birthday candle for a friend. One single guideline is all you need: Slow down and do it with full attention. From here on, you will be guided step by step. [www.gratefulness.org]

Yes, lighting a candle is a universal expression of seeking light and hope.

For us, the symbol of light goes beyond simply hope or remembrance. It represents for us, in the eloquent words of John’s gospel, the Light that has come into the world, the Word, in other words, Jesus, God incarnate. God, Light, Jesus, with us. That is what we remember today.

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God is with us, Emmanuel, and God will always be with us. We know where the story of the incarnation leads—it leads from the crib to the cross to the tomb and to the resurrection. While the resurrection may seem a long way off from Christmas, it is so deeply intertwined with Christmas as to be very close and present. It is the very hope upon which our faith stands.

Whether it is God pitching God’s tent amongst us, or dwelling in the neighbourhood, God in Christ is with us, loving us and showing us how to love one another. And God in Christ knows our struggles inside out from birth to death. How comforting!

God continues to dwell among us in our neighbours, our companions on the way. Realise we are all different, but we are all of God and we are all icons of God’s light. Christ our brother dwells in us. Indeed, we have seen God’s glory, full of grace and truth. For that, let us give thanks.

[two candles at Our Lady Chapel in the cathedral of Bayonne, France]

Of bourdons

On Weekend Morning Edition today, Linda Wertheimer, in her editorial/reflection piece, spoke about the great bourdon bell of the National Cathedral, Washington DC. She lives in the neighbourhood of the cathedral, which dominates everything. She talked about how the cathedral serves as a weather gauge — sometimes you can't even see it. And she talked about how her day is punctuated by the ringing of the cathedral bells.

On Tuesday, when the late President Ford's casket arrives at the cathedral, the great bourdon bell of the cathedral will toll 38 times, to mark Ford's being the 38th president. Wertheimer said that whenever the bourdon rings, she goes out on her back porch and listens, counting.

Compa and I found ourselves doing likewise this past April when we popped over to the cathedral from VA. We happened upon the funeral of one of the oldest priests of the Diocese of Washington, also one of the oldest African American priests in the diocese. In this case, the bell tolled for each year of his ordination, at least that is what we figured, as we stood on Woodley Avenue, counting up to 52 or 53 rings. The deep, solemn tone of the bell didn't exactly soar over the neighbourhood, it cloaked the surroundings. It was hard not to weep, knowing why it was sounding. And you can't help yourself but stop to count. It's instinctive.

So, even as the neighbourhood and cathedral are closed to the public on Tuesday, everyone in the area will know when the motorcade arrives. It will be pretty hard to ignore and that is a good thing.

The photo above is of the bourdon bell of the carillon at the Iowa Jima Memorial, adjacent to Arlington. At a friend's wedding this early fall, we got to climb up into the carillon. Since I used to play the carillon back in college, I was particularly eager to get up in the tower, see the bells and talk with the carilloneur. I didn't dare try to play it, though my hands were itching to hit the batons but it was good to revisit an old friend, as it were.

More vacation follies


When was the last time you were able to kick back and do nothing? It has been such a rare (and enforced) treat this week to do mindless (and not quite so) things as play scrabble and backgammon. We had to reteach ourselves the rules to backgammon; I don't think I have played it in 23 years — surely back to my grad school days in the early 1980s. I was amazed at how quickly it all came back.

As for scrabble, in the sample photo, the hand in the foreground has a 'Q'; the one in the background was all vowels. tonight I managed to land 'QUIETS' on a triple word score with double letter on a 'T', tacked onto another word, to give me a total of 55 points. That was sheer luck.

We also spent time messing around with wood this afternoon. The more time that passes from the chainsaw accident, the more apprehensive I get about being near that vicious machine but I know it is necessary for our heat so I simply tell myself not to worry. There are new rules, however: we are not going to cut off little twigs with the chainsaw when they can be lopped off by hand. (Doing exactly that is how we ran afoul of the saw that infamous time.) And I won't let the saw get close to my hand that is holding the wood. I trust and hope that in time I will surmount my fears because they annoy me more than anything else.

Friday cat blogging

I am not with the three (as my cat sitter calls them, 'the unholy three,' since they are rectory cats), so an old photo will have to suffice.

I still have the aluminum food can (sealed with bungie cords so they can't get in it) but I no longer do the food mixture as I used to. When I took this photo, I was mixing Science Diet regular, hairball and dental diets together. It was a fiesta for the three and Young Guy was in the can from the get-go. La Doyenne and Orange Guy decided, belatedly, that perhaps joining in might be a good idea but Young Guy was so far into the can, upside-down practically, that they had a hard time getting at the food.

The same combination of food resides in the can but remain in their bags. The world's best cat sitter brought over some lamb and pea food that La Doyenne goes absolutely nuts over. She chewed open the bag even before I could get it into the can so having it closed with a clip doesn't help because there is a fist-sized hole in the side of the bag.

For good measure (and a dose of perspective) here are my sister's four cats. The resolution is a bit low but there are two orange tabbies in the two baskets behind the grey tabby and the orange flame in the foreground. They were lounging in the downstairs work area and, with the exception of my sister putting the lunk (the one in the foreground) up on the counter because he can't jump up there any more, the other three were already in place. This photo is one of my all-time faves.

The Woodpile

When I am not in super slug mode as I am right now, I am always game to go outside and play in the woodpile. It's not a luxury; we heat our small, shoebox-sized house (not the rectory) with wood, so we need a good woodpile to get through the winter. This year we fell way behind in getting wood split and stacked. It has only been through the mercy of two parishioners, who either got rid of their wood stove or converted to a pellet stove, that we have enough wood, as they have donated their left-over wood to the cause.

Usually the summertime (once the godawful black flies have died down enough to be able to function outside) is spent felling dead trees, sectioning their trunks, dragging the sections uphill (yes, it is uphill from anywhere to the woodpile), and then splitting the wood.

I love cherry wood, and I love to see it, but it can be a bear to split because it is so sinewy. However, it burns hot, as opposed to junk wood, like popple trees. Birch can also be tough to split, although if you score the bark beforehand, it will come apart a bit more easily.

There's a whole rhythm and meditative act to woodsplitting: looking at the wood to see where there might be some cracks, admiring the rings and the colour (especially the salmon colour of cherry) and then the act and force of bringing the maul down on the wood. Sometimes it takes a wedge and sledge hammmer to finish the job and sometimes, I put aside a piece of wood that is particularly recalcitrant, telling it to 'think' (!) some. There's a collection of weird-shaped pieces that I have given up on because they seem unsplittable and they sometimes end up being done in by the chain saw.

As hinted at, I have had my accidents at the woodpile, a smashed finger (my bringing down the sledgehammer on it instead of the piece of cherry that started to roll off the chopping block and I tried to push it back but....) and getting nicked on the opposite index finger with a chain saw (mercifully that finger is fully intact), but despite those set-backs, I still find splitting wood a restful activity.

Today, however, I am still in full veg-out mode and despite the sunny and warm winter afternoon, have no inclination to go out and mess in the woodpile.

(I think our state motto should be: 'We are Sisyphus,' because we do the same thing over and over again year-in, year-out.)

Tadah! I feel mostly back in business.

OK, I finally feel as though my laptop is mine again. I have reinstalled most of the applications I was missing, thereby losing quickly 6-7G of hard disk space, but once again I have Photoshop, InDesign, Stuffit etc. back on the computer.

And last night, I took the turntable for a test drive with a little bit of Pat Metheny, American Garage, here, recording '(Close to the) Heartland.' There was a little bit of a false start, however: for some reason when I turned on the turntable, it was spinning at 45rpm instead of 33rpm. I tried recording The Strawbs, 'I only want my love to grow in you' (1976) and David Cousins really ended up sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks. It took turning the whole thing off and restarting to get it to go at the proper speed. For converting the Audacity files into MP3s also involved fishing down on the web the LAME library, which does, indeed, convert them. I have yet to take the last step of adding them to my iTunes library to see if they work. That may be later tonight.

It has been a perfectly lazy, do-nothing day. I enjoy it because I know how short vacation is this year and how much work awaits me on the 2nd. It will be non-stop running until mid-February. (I so wish annual meeting were not canonically mandated for the third week in January; it means I spend the first ten days of the year chasing people down for reports for the annual report.)

Reclaiming my laptop

For the time being, until I get Photoshop on my computer, I can't put up any photographs (which I don't like, because I think a photo can greatly cut down on the verbage). That may happen tonight. [Actually, I added this photo on the 27th, but it was taken on the 26th.]

Reclaiming this laptop from néant (nothing) is a long, arduous task. I have gotten the camera application reinstalled (updated which means I don't know how to use it properly), am upgrading iTunes from 4.7 to 7.0.2 or whatever it is, and a few other things, and am gradually retrieving from memory (mine) and elsewhere my bookmarks in Safari (though I need to go download Firefox and change everything over to that).

Later, tomorrow, I will play with my new toy, an ION ITTUSB turn-table. Compa got it on eBay for way below the retail price; apparently a week after she got it, the auctions were ending at twice what she paid for it. I brought down a few 33 LPs to see how it works.

But today we have our annual open house. While I veg, Compa is cleaning (I am more in the way than not).

It's so cruddy out with rain on top of snow and then the whole mess is going to freeze over. Ay. We're both putting off shoveling the front deck because the snow is going to be concrete. We have had a series of roof dumps, the first of the winter and that just adds to the mess.

Mostly, I am in the post-Christmas clerical stupor that comes from running flat out for the past couple of weeks. So if this is boring, I apologise; I am thunk out.

Christmas Day 2006


What can one ever really say after hearing the words of the Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel? What else do we need to say when those magnificent words sum up everything that this day is about?

As I thought about this morning, my soul kept returning to Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows his handiwork.
One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts its knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
Their sound has gone out into all lands,
and their message to the ends of the world.

This is a morning when the heavens and our souls declare God’s glory at the same time that we are brought to that small, still place at the centre of our lives, that place where God dwells.

The paradox of Christmas, shouting from the rooftops Gloria in excelsis, God is with us!, while reaching deep down within our souls to touch the Holy because coming close as we do to the Holy at Christmas silences our words, always confronts us on this day. It is a good contrast because it underlines the incredible paradox of what we hear and know in our hearts: in the words of hymns and poems, God came down from heaven to dwell amongst us in the form of a little child, an infant, who would grow up, share all the aches and pains that we human beings know, and who, one day, would also die as we do.

A colleague, the Rev’d Jennifer Phillips of Rhode Island, wrote a Christmas version of the Eucharistic prayer. I chose not to use it this morning, but her words offer another image of the Christmas, Easter and Eucharistic mysteries that all come together on this morning. (I will skip the words of institution.) You’ll see that her words echo mine, even though I hadn’t really looked at them closely until last week:

Holy God, our Source and Ending, Alpha and Omega,
we give thanks to you!
You have called all creation into being,
setting the earth on its foundations.
You have spread out the heavens like a tent,
and set a boundary to the seas,
you have filled the world with your creatures
and called all things good.

The heavenly beings are your messengers night and day,
and with them we sing and give glory to you:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might.…

In these latter days, God leaned toward the earth
and spoke to us by a Son, Jesus the Beloved.
Born of our sister Mary and the Holy Spirit,
guarded by our brother Joseph with fatherly care,
Jesus came among us as a baby, humbly born,
cradled beside the beasts and warmed by their breath,
human as we are, in need of human love.
Yet kings bowed down before him, bringing gifts
and emperors were troubled by his reign –
this Child in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
This Word of God made flesh and full of grace
was sent to deliver us from our sin,
from the power of evil and the fear of death.

As a servant, Jesus emptied himself of might upon the cross,
and as the risen Anointed One is enthroned at God’s right hand to bring mercy and justice
to all the earth at the end of days.
Holy God, as you visited us in the birth of Jesus,
visit us now by the power of your Spirit…
Blessed God, shed your grace brighter than starlight on us
that we may bear your good tidings to all
and renew the weary world in your name:
the name of Emmanuel – God-With-Us,
to whom we give honor and glory in joy, now and for ever.

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When we leave this morning, fed not only with Christ’s body and blood, but also with Christ’s spirit, may we be able to pray, using again Jennifer’s words:

Mysterious God, we thank you
for feeding us with yourself;
and for making yourself known to us
in the holy child Jesus, the Christ.
Let us carry within our hearts your Holy Spirit,
that same Spirit which was in Jesus,
so that that we may help bring your peace to all the earth
in Jesus’ Name.

May we carry the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the same Spirit which was in Jesus, so we may bring peace to the earth. And may we find that peace within ourselves this Christmas and Christmastide.

[Christmas morning 2006]

Christmas Eve 2006

Every year, I try to come up with a storybook that I can show the children at the early service. The books I have used have varied enormously, hewing closely and not closely at all (such as Wombat the Divine) to the birth story of Christ. Some are serious; some are gently humourous. Some have worked, others haven’t and some I haven’t used.

What an odd-lot selection! There’s The Cat in the Manger, which depicts the nativity scene from the vantage-point of a feline.

Or there’s The Last Straw, narrated by a cranky old camel with gout and sciatica that is asked to take gifts to the newborn king. His burden becomes mountainous and when a child asks him to take a piece of straw for the king’s bed, he is about to give up right then and there. But he manages to plod forward, despite his gout, sciatica and whatever else, under the light of the star, to get to the manger where he collapses on his knees. When everyone else kneels, he thinks they are mocking him, until he realises that he is the one who set the example. When the new Christ child touches him on the nose, he decides there will be no burden he will shun again.

Another animal-narrated book, The Donkey’s Dream, tells the story of a donkey who dreams all manner of things, including how he carries a lady full of heaven. (Her robes even have stars in them.) Eventually he realises that the woman, and the subsequent birth he witnesses is not a dream, it is for real.

Perhaps it is easier for children’s authors to interpret this incredible story through a familiar (and not-so) animal’s viewpoint (as if we were to know). There seem to be lots of animal-narrated stories out there.

Then there’s the absolutely gorgeous (to this medievalist) book, The Little Boy’s Christmas Gift, painted in the style of 16th-century Flemish art of the Brueghels and Hans Memling, complete with gold-guilded drawings.

I am always in search of Christmas books that will depict Joseph, Mary and Jesus in races other than Caucasian (as the tendency still remains to paint them in our culture’s predominant race). There is a picture book, The Story of Christmas (based word-for-word on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke) where this trio looks distinctly Latino or Palestinian. I love it.

This year’s quest for a Christmas book to use at the early service, culminated in The Huron Carol. I have to say that there were a few sceptical faces this afternoon as I read it to the children because they couldn't quite picture Joseph, Mary and Jesus as North American First People but I assured them it was OK.

The Huron Carol is an actual song, written by a Jesuit priest, Jean de Brébeuf, who came to Canada in the early 1600s. He settled among the Huron, or Ouendat, people in what is now Midland, Ontario. Even though he was a missionary, he learned the people’s language and wrote, in Huron, this famous carol. He and his fellow priests, known as the Black Robes, and many of their Huron parishioners, were killed in a raid by the Iroquois in 1649. But generations of the Huron continued to sing this carol, and in 1926, Jesse Edgar Middleton, wrote his own version of the carol in English.

What is striking about this picture book is that all of the imagery is Native American. Mary clearly is Native American as are Joseph and Jesus. The angels as well have Native American features. Jesus is not born into a Middle Eastern house, but into a long house. The animals are those of the north: bears, foxes, moose, deer, eagles, raccoons, beavers, porcupine, elk, and wolves. Jesus is wrapped in rabbit skin and he receives gifts of fox and beaver pelt.

The last verse of the hymn says,
O children of the forest free,
O sons [and daughters] of Manitou,
the holy child of earth and heaven,
is born today for you.
Come, kneel before the radiant boy
who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
‘Jesus, your king, is born.
Jesus is born.
In excelsis Gloria!’

Maybe some will find this version of the nativity story heretical, but to me it is a lovely rendition of a universal story that needs to be translated across time and cultures.

While Christ the Child is universal for all, the incarnation of Jesus in each one of us has to be particular. Each one of us, made in God’s image, is but one tiny, tiny fragment of the wholeness of God’s body across time and space. I marvel at all the variations of the human face and find each exceedingly wonderful.

So if Jesus is depicted as Japanese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Sudanese, Brazilian, Canadian First Person, or any of the hundreds of ethnicities, races and nationalities that enrichen our world, all the better.

I am fascinated by authors and artists’ attempts to render this ineffable into story and image. How does one take all the hopes and fears of all the years and compress them into a picture book? How does one take all the human yearning and reduce it to four verses of a hymn?

As for you and me, gathered here tonight, past some folk’s bedtimes and in the prime of the night for others, what brings us here? How do we see Jesus in our eyes, imaginations and hearts? How do we translate into our terms the awesome mystery of the incarnation, God-with-us, Emmanuel?

And why do we look again and again for the Christ child?

For what do we seek? To have our burdens lessened? To come close to the Holy not because we understand why but because we are drawn in year after year because our souls instinctively yearn for mystery?

Do we come here because the pains of the world are too much to bear and we need to find some place to drop them, or some place, a larger reality to make sense out of them?

Do we come because we know that this yearly journey on this holy night is essential to our well-being?

For these reasons, for any other reason, for however you see Jesus, whether in picture and story-book form or hymnody, know that you are God’s dearly beloved, too. Know that God holds you and cherishes you. God incarnate has many faces and yours is one of them.

On this night when the star shines over the Bethlehems of our lives, both those of the nativity story and the one in the Middle East, know that it shines over us, too. For God has blessed us richly this night… and always.

[Photo is of the church Christmas Eve afternoon before the 4.00 PM service.]

Advent 4C • 24 December 2006

On the Feast of the Ascension this year, while walking the French pilgrimage route of Saint James of Compostella in southwestern France, we stopped in a small chapel. Getting there involved a two-mile detour, which was an act of dedication because the day was about 90º out, hot enough to melt the pavement underfoot.

This chapel was the highlight of the day for me. I wrote that night in my journal:

The Chapel of Caubin, heavily restored in 1966, is beautiful nonetheless. Its foundation goes back to 1154. It was a hospital in the Maltese order. It had a prior and seven monks in 1569 when [General] Montgomery killed them. The order regained Caubin in 1592 but lost it again in the French revolution.

The chapel is a simple Romanesque church with white stucco inside. Oddly, it has a flamboyant Gothic tomb (gîsant) on the right side of the nave, a recumbent knight, sword at his side. The knight’s name is Arnau Guillaume d’Andoins, died in 1301. Next to the tomb appears a Madonna looking more as though the statue came from la Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). I especially enjoyed the chapel because it wasn’t all gunked up with a lot of 19th-20th century schlock but was instead empty. We stayed half an hour there.

That Madonna in her simplicity made me think of Saint Mary’s back at home. The statue seemed almost an echo of the one that stands in the right corner of our church, overseeing the altar, columbarium, and votive candles. I always like to think that the church furnishings lie under Mary’s protecting gaze.

There is something lovely about being a member of a church called Saint Mary’s for she is a universal icon that one finds everywhere. But more than the comfort that the person of Mary brings to me, is the power of her words that always shake me to my roots and make me question how well I am doing as a follower of Jesus. If I pray the Magnificat, verse by verse, and imagine myself in Mary’s place, how do these verse resonate within my heart?

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; *
for you have looked with favor on your lowly servant.

How well do I proclaim God’s greatness? Even in those moments of uncertainty, when it seems that God is asking me to do something impossible, when life seems to be asking too much of me, is my spirit able to rejoice honestly, openly, truly, thankfully in God my saviour?

From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is your Name.

How well am I able to acknowledge the great things that God has done for me, and praise God’s holy name? When things seem to be too much, am I still able to praise God? (I always think of the story of a homeless woman in Boston, who still prays every morning: Thank you, God, because I woke up this morning.)

You have mercy on those who fear you *
in every generation.

Do I recognise the mercy God has had upon me? How God has forgiven me the wrongs I have done, the wrongs I still do, and the pardon extended to me that will always be there even before I ask? Can I recognise that that same mercy is extended to others, even those with whom I am still not in right relationship? Can I give thanks that God’s mercy is there for all?

You have shown the strength of your arm, *
you have scattered the proud in their conceit.

How honest am I in acknowledging that I, too, am one of the proud? When do I need to be taken down a peg or two? When do I need to be knocked off my high horse of self-righteousness? When do I acknowledge that, in the words of James Wendon Johnson, my arm is too short to box with God?

You have cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and have lifted up the lowly.

When have I been one of the mighty cast down from my throne and when have I been one of the lowly that God has lifted up out of graciousness and compassion? Am I able to see that I can be both on a throne and lowly? Regardless my status, can I trust in God’s mercy and guidance and grow from the place in which I am and the place where I might end up?

You have filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich you have sent away empty.

How have I, as a Christian, helped fill the hungry with God things? How have I helped bring about the great reversal of which Mary spoke, the turning-upside-down of the status quo so that reconciliation and restoration might come about? How have I, in Jesus’ name, worked toward the elimination of suffering, and the advancement of peace, toward the creation of a world where the lamb shall lie down with the lion?

You have come to the help of your servant Israel, *
for you have remembered your promise of mercy,
The promise you made to our forebears, *
to Abraham and his children for ever.

Will I, with every breath I have, as long as I shall live, remember God’s promises and do my best to convey to others the good news of salvation?

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While we have all of a few hours to linger in the fourth week of Advent, and therefore little time to rest with Mary’s song of praise, I encourage you to pray the Magnificat (canticle 3 and 15, found in Morning Prayer) throughout the course of the year, examining your own heart in light of these prescient words.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my saviour….

T'was the night before the night before

Just back from the church and here is how it looks tonight, ready for our all-too brief observance of Advent IV. The candle posts will have candles with real greens and red bows attached to them and the windows will all have candles with greens. It's a pyromaniac's delight, a firefighter's nightmare.

A lone votive off to the right speaks of the prayer uttered and left in front of Mary.

A little Philip Aarberg, High Plains (a great piano album circa 1985) to wind down the day and now it's time for bed.

The calm before the storm

I opted to take it easy today, knowing that tomorrow is going to be utterly exhausting.

My three sermons are all ready, Advent IV, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They wrote themselves two nights ago.

I hit 202K on the Concept 2 Challenge, so that's done. Of course, I will keep rowing but I do like having a concrete challenge put in front of me. I think last year I got up to 221 or 230K, but I lost some precious days this go-round due to that early month head cold.

After going up and over the mountain ridge (in MUD, ooooh, that road is slithery and now my car is coated in mud again), going to Staples and getting new cartridges, I have gotten the ebay printer to work with my laptop and it seems to print fine. Now I have to figure out why it won't communicate with my regular computer.

Maybe later tonight I will wander over to the church and take a photo of it the night before. (In the first eight years of my life here, I always had to go over and turn the furnace on Saturday night. The church has no running water in it; there's water in the separate parish hall next door, so we would shut the furnace down on Sunday and crank it up again on Saturday night. We have now been leaving it at 50 during the week and it doesn't seem to have made all that much difference in the oil bill and it sure is a lot nicer to go inside when it's minus 25 out, as it can get in January.) We greened it last night and twice I had to take down the candles from the torches that are attached to the ends of the pews saying, no, we're not there yet. It's crazy enough having all the greens up for Advent. I am not ready for the red bows.

We all have our manies: I like to hold off Christmas until the bitter end. I can't bear to listen to all the Christmas music because I am such overload from all the store muzak. Even public radio begins to play too much for my tastes. (I am a bit of a Scrooge in this regard.) Tomorrow, finally, I will put on Bach's Christmas Oratorio and listen to as much of it as I can in a day that is pretty chopped up.

We reduced the 8.00 and 10.00 Holy Eucharists into one at 9.00. The choir, of which I am a member, is gathering to rehearse the Christmas Eve piece, O Lux Nata by Thomas Tallis. We're doing J. S. Bach chorale for tomorrow morning. (We always sing a capella.)

After the 9.00, we'll finish decorating the church, change from blue to white, and move from Advent to Christmas.

The world's best cat-sitter is coming by about noon.

Then there's the family eucharist at 4.00, followed by a potluck supper. We started having the supper a few years ago when we realised there were enough people who would be alone. Christmas Eve spent by oneself is the pits. I know.

Finally, there's the 10.00 Christ Mass. I would rather have it at 11.00, but I am a night owl. I have been outvoted. This year we are not doing the Lessons and Carols beforehand either. I am under pressure to fold both services into a 7.00 or 8.00 but in that one regard, I am going to put my foot down and not yield.

So, I thought that it would be OK to take it easy. (I am listening to Putayamo's Asian Lounge, which is great 'chilling' music.)

[The photo is a sunset over Lake Champlain, taken from northern Vermont, in August 2004. I was with a bunch of high school kids and three other adults, doing a 400-mile bicycle trip around the lake (Vermont and New York state sides). Since we adults took turns driving the support van, I probably only rode about 290 miles of it, but it was on an ancient (but beloved) ten-speed Motobécane Grand Jubilé bicycle, vintage 1975. It was a crème de la crème bicycle at the time, but just not of the same league as the bicycles the kids had. The following year I bought a Bianchi 30-speed... but the bicycle trip was cancelled and hasn't happened since.]

L'enfant prodïgue est de retour

The prodigal has returned to the fold, $369 later. The iBook is now my grand-daddy's axe: the outside case is the same (I know it's mine because I had worn off the letters, 'A,' 'S,' and 'E') but all the innards are new: RAM, hard drive, logic board, airport, combo optical drive, and a few other things for good measure. The system has been bumped up from Panther to Tiger. Mostly, though, it is tabula rasa, so I am beginning the tedious process of moving things I want from my old Mac, the stay-at-home G4 tower, to the iBook (which is, after all this, quite a bit faster) and begin to add in the applications I want since I can't get my Panther to talk to my Tiger (bad firewire???). Unfortunately, there are a bunch. Oddly, Apple only loads iTunes 4.2, and on my homebody computer, I am up to 7.2 so I will have to upgrade that at some point. There's a lot of work yet to do to reclaim my iBook, but at least the desktop looks normal again (24-hour clock, my photos, here, of Mount Mansfield from the Green Mountain Club).

Meanwhile, I bought on eBay an indentical printer to replace my other one which has gone funky. There, all is not well. I can't get the 'new' printer to talk with the tower G4. It will talk with the iBook but the colour still prints oddly. I think the blue nozzle is clogged. So it has not yet been a resounding success.

The worst thing for me to do when I am stressed is fuss with computers but, sigh, it's like having a Christmas present and having to play with it.

Friday cat blogging

Here's the photo I wanted to upload last week and Blogger wouldn't let me. Here are all three before I said, 'Kitties,' and they began to stir.

I am always fascinated how Orange Boy shoves his nose deep down in the fleece nest. I have no idea how he can breathe. Meanwhile, Young Guy crunches himself into a little ball or meatloaf. La Doyenne elegantly stretches out a black paw with its black claws and then curls back up again.

It is greying up; the blizzard of Colorado is going to be crud of freezing rain and plain old rain, so I can't even get excited by the milky skies that are settling in.

And it's too wild and busy to contemplate a nap. My life is not my own right now.

Mono or Stereo Listening?

You see, I have a problem when I row and listen to my iPod. I am totally deaf in my left ear and have been for practically all of my life. So, the really old tunes, the ones that were originally recorded mono or in the early, early days of stereo, where they are truly alternating sides, don't work at all for me. This morning as I rowed, iTunes shuffle gave me a Buffalo Springfield song. It's a good thing I know the song so well that I don't need to hear what is going on in the left channel — my brain can supply the missing melody. The early Beatles don't work too well either. Eleanor Rigby is nothing but the sawing of the violin in my right ear. Again, I know the tune so well that I can provide the missing line but it's kind of a nuisance when combined with the noise the rowing machine makes.

Since my left ear is useless, I decided it should at least be decorated. Furthermore, for those who don't remember which side doesn't work, I just tell them to go for the gold. (The earrings are all from El Salvador.)

This silly photo was taken the day we crossed the Pyrenees from France into Spain. It was so foggy (see the pea soup in the background?) that my hair was covered with little droplets of fog. Compa thought it was pretty funny looking so, while we stopped and chatted with two Canadians and a Swede, she took the photo.

The Tree of Life

I'm weary of this life of toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile.
I'm weary of this life of toil,
here I will sit and rest awhile.
Under the shadow I will be,
of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Actually, this tree, Le Palmier, is in the chapel of Les Jacobins in Toulouse, France. It is the most amazing Gothic chapel (with a neat cloisters attached to it). It only has about eight bays, but the ceiling consists of intricate vaults, as exemplified here. This pillar, le Palmier, one finds at the end of the chapel (the other end is flat). I took this photo sitting on the floor at its base, looking up. It is almost dizzying.

I had long wanted to go to this place — I missed it my one and only time before in Toulouse back in 1977 — so I was delighted when there was enough time at the end of the walk on the Chemin to spend a night in Toulouse before flying out.

Where I would love to be right now

This gem of a Romanesque 10-12th-century abbatial church resides in Conques, France. It is dedicated to Saint Fides (Foy in French, Faith in English). It is one of the major pilgrimage stops on the Chemin de Saint Jacques, the Via Podensis, that begins in Le Puy and ends at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the last French town before crossing the Pyrenees into Spain to Roncesvaux (French), Roncesvalles (Spanish).

The late Hannah Green published a wonderful book, Little Saint (NY: Random House, Modern Library, 2001), about the life of Saint Fides and the town of Conques, which is rapidly becoming gentrified. When she discovered Conques in the 1970s, it was pretty shabby, but in the 1980s, people realised its historical importance and began to fix it back up again.

Green's book is a love-song to Saint Fides. It begins:

She is the sacred center. Around her the wheel of the story with its thousand starry spokes spins. It might begin in any time, from the hour when she was born at Agen in December of the year 290 to the hour of her martyr-death less than thirteen years later, and at as many shining points as there are gemstones on her statue or silver nails in arabesques on the coffer that holds her body's bones; but the story opens now in the mountains of the Rouergue, here at Conques, where, since 866, her bones have been enshrined and guarded.... I was given through Sainte Foy the gift of seeing into that zone which has been held sacred since the beginning of human consciousness.

I loved Conques. We walked down into the town (this view is before we got into town), going down into this shell-shaped basin between the mountain ridges (yes, every town on the chemin is at river level, so it means going downhill at night and uphill in the morning). One comes in above roof-level, and so one first sees the slate tiles of the abbey church. I understand pilgrimage — I spent years studying la Chanson de Sainte Foy for my doctoral dissertation, and with all that was wrapped up in the writing of that dissertation, I found my heart beating hard as we descended into the valley because I was finally arriving at a place I knew well but only through books.

The abbey church still has a very live community of monks that worships there. That sense of prayer imbues the interior of the church. I found myself wordless as I wandered around inside, a lit votive in my hand, wanting to find the perfect place to set it down. That place was a side niche in the wall, probably left behind from the construction of the edifice. Later at night, as we came back, I could see the light (in its little red plastic container), flickering over on the side wall.

I left behind in Conques some spiritual garbage and truly, as I walked out the next day (a very hot and humid day to boot), I did feel some release.

For that reason, I would love to return to Conques and spend more time there, a few days, just sitting in the church and being still.

And I would dearly love to return to the B&B where we stayed: our room looked out over the abbey; we were so close we could see and hear the bats and swallows flying around, and we could hear the great bourdon bell ring out the hours. Our time there was too short, too precious.

One light recollection: after wandering around in the abbey church, while waiting for dinner, we stopped for a beer at a restaurant on the plaza facing the cathedral. There was something rather incongruous about sipping a beer while looking at one of the most reknown tympanae of the Last Judgement (circa 1130-1165).

As I row, as I run around, my heart and mind return to Conques, a spiritually restful and soothing place. May I someday physically be able to return there as well. Meanwhile, I have a medallion I bought from there, that I wear with other medallions from the pilgrimage walks, that help keep me connected.

[I rowed my annual half-marathon, 21097m, today, finishing in 1h42'25"2. It puts me at a fairly low ranking, 15/42, 47% (one year I was 30%), but I am at the oldest level in my age bracket (40-49).]

On a merry-go-round

I sort of made a promise with myself that I would post something every day, for fun, but also for the few people who actually check this blog to see what I am thinking/doing.

This said, I find myself at the end of day that would be worthy of a cathedral dean or corporate-size parish priest (IMNSHO) and not the 2/3 time (that is paid) position in which I really am, that is, one meeting after another. First, clergy day, then Standing Committee, and back home for vestry to deal with next year's budget (only a $3900 projected deficit, but that's on an $82K budget overall).

So I find myself close to midnight mentally gonzo and not able to write about what this merry-go-round image is all about, as useful as it is. Mañana, mañana, quizas.

I am beginning to get frantic as I realise I haven't had a real day off in several weeks, and this week I don't get any and am seriously wondering when am I going to crank out three sermons and all those bulletins, plus be available to people as they get the pre-Christmas crazies?

On that thought, to bed. It's safe and sane there (though the cats failed me this morning and didn't wake me up so I overslept, ay).

And it was evening and morning, another day

It was a good weekend but I am beat tonight. I used to be able to stay up all hours of the night, get by on only four or five hours of sleep and keep on going. Now, I still stay up until midnight, but then have to sleep eight hours to make up for it. Yesterday I was ready to hang it up after dinner.

I had my thirteenth annual open house for the congregation yesterday. I have always done it on the Third Sunday of Advent, which makes me pick the house up (not literally), and get out the Christmas decorations. Moreso, it is a chance for the congregation to have free range in the rectory. It is their house, after all. I do so love this house; it is an 1856 structure, built in the Vermont continuous architecture style with an addition on the back (the kitchen etc.), and then a shed/garage that is perpendicular to the house (the driveway makes a little jog that makes getting into the one-car garage fun).

I splurged and got flower arrangements, which now are all in the dining room so the cats can't eat the baby's breath and whatever else they fancy. My mother made the Black Watch tablecloth that is way too big for the dining room table, but no matter. (To be fair, she made it for another table with an extra leaf at which a dozen people could easily sit.)

Someone (my father?) this weekend said my house looks like a museum. Well, given that it is a 19th-century house, and I have filled it with my grandparents' Victorian furniture, I think that comment is well taken. A six year-old girl lounged on the Empire sofa and I had memories of sitting on it at my grandparents' house, my feet not able to touch the floor, and itching from the horsehair innards that somehow poked their way through the wool cover (no longer, because I had the sofa redone ten years ago). My grandmother, who had polio, and left her with severe scoliosis, loved to sit in the rocking chair because its back fit her back just so. At the far end of the room, under the two windows, is one of the pews we removed from the church last year.

My 'Christmas tree' is a big old ficus I have had for 13 years and haven't managed to kill off. Every year, I hang ornaments off its branches. There are a few that stay on it year round.

Even though it's not Friday, Orange Guy and La Doyenne looked so sweet, curled up together in their fleece donut that I couldn't resist taking their photo. It's rare that I will see either one curled up next to the Young Guy, though it does happen. I didn't turn on the room light, which is why I was able to get them with their eyes still shut.

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This is just ambiance posting, light blather, because I don't have the heart to cope with either what is happening in Virginia or even to try to analyse the meeting at which I was tonight. The meeting tonight overall was fine, and the people worked well together, but there was one very snarky comment made by someone not at the meeting, that was annoying and emblematic of a much, much longer struggle. (Ah, parish ministry.) As for Truro and Falls Church's actions, part of me says that what happens there really has no bearing on what our congregation is up to; and the other part says, no, the body is incomplete without them, even though I disagree greatly with what they have done, what they espouse and whom they follow.

I keep reminding myself that I am part-time, and it's OK to take time off. This week, however, probably isn't the best time to go into that mantra. I still have Advent IV, Christmas Eve and Day sermons to write, bulletins for all three services to finish and copy, plus the usual parish pastoral obligations that crop up at this time of the year.

Plus, I am feebly and ever so slowly still trying to make the Concept 2 Challenge. I have got 55K to go. I am rowing so, so slowly. I would think that my times would be getting better and my stamina stronger, but it's going in the opposite direction; I am getting slower and more and more tired. Tomorrow, if I am lucky (what with clergy day, Standing Committee and vestry), I can row 10K instead of 15K. Will I make it? It's down to the wire this year. A ver (to be seen).....

Advent 3C • 17 December 2006

Every time I go to El Salvador, the earth speaks. Salvadorans like for the earth to talk; the more it does, the less they have to worry about some huge earthquake destroying their country. The capitol city, San Salvador, is called the valley of hammocks because there are so many earthquakes that the valley sways back and forth, gently and not gently, like a hammock.
Though I have felt little ones off and on, the one that sticks with me the most is one that woke me up in October 2005. I was on the fifth floor of a hotel in downtown San Salvador. It’s a concrete building, nothing elegant, but a homey place I like because I have stayed there over the years. I went to bed that night, and fell asleep quickly. But then, in the middle of the night, I heard creaking, lots of creaking. It took this New Englander a bit of time to realise that the creaking, coming from a concrete building, was the building swaying in an earthquake. Adrenaline shot up my spine, just as much as other earthquakes that have woken as though someone is viciously shaking my bed. I thought this time, ‘Well, if the hotel collapses, at least I am on the top floor.’

The earthquake subsided. Later on, when I checked with my Salvadoran friends if this was something about which I should have been concerned (I always want to make sure I am not being hyper sensitive about earthquakess), I learned that it had been a quake of 5+ degrees on the Richter scale and, yes, they felt it, too. It was a surprise gesture to wake me up. And it did!

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This earthquake was so like John the Baptiser. He came shaking up things, shouting insulting words at the people, shattering the ways they normally thought about their world.

John’s ministry was meant to wake folks up. ‘You brood of vipers, sons and daughters of venomous snakes… who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ Off he goes on a verbal tear, excoriating those listening to him. The gospel reading then ends with one of the most humorous (or ironic) lines to be found: ‘With other such exhortations,’ it says, ‘John preached Good News to the people.’ The same verb Luke uses to characterise the Baptist’s preaching is used later of the angel’s proclamation to the shepherds as well as at the end of Luke’s story when the risen Jesus tells the gathered disciples that ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Christ’s name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’ John is the precursor of much good news that will follow.

Today I want to preach some good news, hopefully less vitriolic, but good news, which begins with hard news. The hard news is that to become open to the good news of God's love, to be prepared to welcome anew the Christ-child into our hearts, into our world, we have to deal with the reality that our hearts and world are unprepared for this gift.

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Part of the preparation begins with repentance, that need to turn ourselves around so that we begin a different journey, a journey that finds energy and hope through forgiveness and rebirth, spiritually. We live in a time in which people are doggedly, earnestly plowing along on their ways, but without much hope, without much joy. Our journeys leave us empty of meaning and of happiness. We fill our days with busyness and with things we accumulate, to keep us from facing the hard truth, the truth that spiritually we are dry. We are wanderers, not pilgrims. And that realisation is difficult to acknowledge. How else do we understand the orgy this season of buying things, often beyond our means, if not that it is an expression of the passionate desire to love and be loved, and to try to fill empty spaces in our lives?

Often it takes some earthquakes to wake us up, to remind us that there is something more to life, something more for which to journey.

How, then, is a call to repentance good news? How can a call to right living be heard as the gospel? For Luke, repentance and reformation are nothing less than what God has always wanted for human life. Right living is the only evidence of one’s trust in God.

So our question is, ‘Well, then, what should we do?

We can look at our lives and figure out how we can turn them around. Those places in our lives, those crooked, wandering paths that lead us up and down, in our relationships with one another, with the world about us, with God, those are sites we must examine to see where we have gone astray. When we find the place that troubles us, we need to ask God’s forgiveness, the forgiveness of any of the parties involved, and of ourselves. Though we may fail again, we must try anew to follow the Great Commandment of loving God and neighbour alike.

How do we reform our lives? Of all times of the year, when the outside world is inviting us to spend beyond our means, when our schedules are leading us at a frenzied pace, it is so easy to lose sight of what this season is all about. It is about preparing our hearts expectantly, joyously for the coming of Christ, God’s ultimate spend-thrift gift of love. We are invited during this season of preparation to look at our lives and see where our priorities might be out of whack with how we want to live our lives. Finding that, then we can try anew to have God at the centre of our lives with everything we do and are flowing from that centre.

What is right living for each one of us? Right living — something very difficult to do sometimes — is finding God in every one we meet, every one with whom we have a relationship. It is mending those places in our relationships that may have gotten a little frayed, a little torn. It is tending to those persons and places in our lives that need nurturing. It is respecting others and our selves. With God at the centre of our lives, we are given the strength and the wisdom to know how to do this — we need not be afraid, for God will show us how. We just need to trust.

A prayer from New Guinea says: Oil the hinges of my heart’s door that it may swing gently and easily to welcome your coming.

Yes, may those rusty hinges of your and my hearts’ doors, shaken up by the earthquake of the good news of reconciliation, burst wide open to greet the Christ child who is coming soon. Let us be ready and let us rejoice.

[View of the church late afternoon, set up for Advent Lessons and Carols in the context of Evensong, with organ variations on the hymns sung]

A Day for Laying Wreaths at Arlington Cemetery

Despite typing in the title of this photograph in the New York Times search engine and trying a multitude of other combinations, I couldn't come up with the photo, even though it ran yesterday. Hence, the poor scan.

There other blogs, notably miaculpa.blogspot.com, that regularly puts up photos of flag-draped coffins with the simple title, 'The Toll.'

I put this photo in partly because of the poignancy of volunteers putting down more than 5000 Christmas wreaths on graves at Arlington, wondering if Compa's step-father's grave or her grandparents' grave got one. How do they decide which grave gets a wreath or not?

I also inlcude it for the image of the cortege.

Eight years ago, I had the priviledge of officiating at Compa's step-father's burial at Arlington. I had always intended to write about it but four days after the funeral, I smashed my index finger with a sledge hammer as I was splitting wood and consequently never got around to it.

All these years later, I still remember it as a liturgical caress. The grace with which the guard handled the casket, the split second when no one is holding onto it as they switch from facing each other to lining up to walk out of the chapel, the delicacy with which they placed the flag on it... all of it was incredibly moving. There is a timelessness, sadly, of seeing the caisson, preceded by a riderless horse with the boots facing backwards (?) that connects the present with the past and, alas, the future.

I have tried to get my WWII father to consider having his burial at Arlington because it would give him the honour that a church service might not (since he doesn't go to church). He is eligible with his purple heart, two bronze stars, oak leaf cluster and so forth. But he hasn't bitten.

I realise my past few posts have had to do with death but it is all part of the rhythm of being a parish priest and so often, one never really gets a chance to process it all. It's probably why when I sat under all those banners at the 'Wake the Dead' commemoration at All Saints', Chicago, I wept for those whom I have buried but never really got to mourn.

Besides, our culture is permeated with death and if I can't pause for a moment to pray for those who are being buried in Arlington (there are as many WWII vets as Iraq vets), then.....


Here are two more photos of the same scene, pulled from the Arlington National Cemetery web site.

It looked pretty foggy down there yesterday.

One other piece of trivia. The 'Protestant' services get half an hour, start to finish, including getting the coffin and people into and out of the chapel; the Roman Catholic services get an hour. (If we had had communion, I would have argued, qua Episcoplian, for an hour.) As you leave, the next family is entering. It is amazing.

The Ides of December

It was 50+ degrees today. And it's supposed to be warm tomorrow. We are going through spring in Vermont in December. The poppies have decided they are going to start sending out new leaves and, if you can believe it, I picked parsley from my garden this afternoon. Despite the blurry photo (which cannot be retaken since the parsley now is in the house), you get the idea. There is something really, really wrong with this picture.

The dirt road I took back to the house, a short cut that I usually avoid during mudseason, has so deteriorated between yesterday morning when I took it and today that my car is now covered with mud. That's March stuff usually. Snow tires do nothing in the type mud I encountered this afternoon — ooblick stuff that makes you slide around sideways. The road has a very steep curving descent, which under the best of conditions, consists of washboards; add in mud and potholes like today and it's nearly impassable.

Normally farmers can't spread manure over their fields after the 1st of December because the ground usually is frozen by then but it hasn't frozen so tons of farmers are calling the state offices to find out if they can keep spreading the stuff. (Remember, A Man With a Plan about Fred Tuttle's run for the House and the sticker, 'Spread Fred,' which someone puts on the manure spreader? There's actually one of those stickers still up on a speed limit sign on a back road I travel often.) Anyway, the farmers call and the person with whom I spoke today who told me this said they just take it on a case-by-case situation but the phones have been ringing off the hooks today.

Our cemeteries normally close 1 November-1 May for the same reason, frozen ground, but I wonder if there has been some relaxation of that rule, too?

Meanwhile, the sun sets just a second later in the afternoon and rises many seconds later in the morning and our days are shorter and shorter and I find myself in quasi-hibernation from activities.

I am in quasi-hibernation from all the church politics stuff, too. The letters out of Tanzania and Uganda are so dispiriting and upsetting that I don't even have words for them. There are others in the blogosphere who are commenting on the letters, the responses of the ABC, the dioceses and churches splitting off, but all I can say is they may want to kick me out of the Anglican Communion for who I am, but they can never ever ever take away my baptism. And 'if you don't want 'em, don't baptise 'em.'

Manure or not? Mud or not?

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And then there's the sobering and small action of putting one of our belle's funeral plans into the file cabinet in the office. We spent time together this morning in her room at the local assisted living place, going over what she would like for her family and friends to have as a liturgy — after all, she'll be watching us from a different place. She's 88, has no plans of checking out but, as she said, 'You just never know.' I love this person for her dry humour, her wit, and her just being a part of this congregation for so long. She picked psalm 121 because she said, 'I've been looking at these hills for 55 years now.'

Having gotten all the important information down on paper, we then had communion. That preparation was our liturgy of the word; it seemed right, then, to move into being fed.

It's always an honour to be a part of someone's journey like this, but it also breaks my heart.

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Meanwhile, Caminante was a total slug today, not rowing (and time is going to run out on me; I still have 85K to do in 9 days and I know Tuesday there's no way I will get to row because it is a go-go-go day from one meeting to the next), and worse, thinking I'd take a half hour nap which ended up being two and a half hours. ¡Ay!

Now back to housecleaning because the parental unit arrives tomorrow.

Friday cat blogging

I don't understand why I can't upload the photo I took before this one of the three, where they are all looking at me. Blogger kept telling me there was an error during the upload. So, I will go into Photoshop and tinker with it.

Meanwhile, after I took said photo (which really is good of everyone), I made the mistake of saying, 'Kitties,' which usually is the prelude to my then saying, 'Are you hungry?' or 'Do you want crunchies?' So that is why you see Orange Guy taking off (to the point that you can't even see his head and BTW his front paws have yet to hit the floor), La Doyenne is about to leap and Young Guy is considering his options.

The house looks like a dump because of all the towels and bedspreads I have to protect the furniture from busy cat claws. There are the cat nests, little hooked rug samples on which they like to sleep. When I have company (as I will this weekend), I remove all the mess and pray that the cats don't utterly shred everything.

PS. Yesterday was post number 100. Gee, that went by quickly.

Traveller, there is no way; the way is made by walking

As the pace of life picks up the closer we get to Christmas, I find myself seeking out in my heart those places that have calmed me and provided rest for the soul (not necessarily the body).

This photo is of one such place, the Chemin de Saint Jacques, as it makes its way toward the Aubrac plateau in southern France. Compa and I walked this in April 2005, so the flowers were just out — tons of jonquins and johnny jump ups and tiny white and purple pansies everywhere. I know, however, that the Aubrac plateau can be severe, harsh blowing winter winds with lots of snow.

Up top on the plateau one finds oneself on a vast dome, from which one has the impression of being able to see for ever. It's the summer pasture for the many herds of prized cattle and in the winter a small ski area runs a rope tow or t-bar (it was hard to tell because we were too far away). The chemin winds through stiles and actually puts walker face-to-face with the local bovine population.

I loved being up on the Aubrac plateau. It was truly peaceful. I may never get there again for real but I return there again and again in spirit.

I think of walking as I crank out my metres on my erg — rowing on an indoor machine, listening to my iPod, watching the street traffic outside, is a far cry from carrying my 'house on my back' (as the French say of the pilgrim) and walking often for miles in meditative quiet, moving to an inner mantra. Sure, rowing is meditative (or monotonous, depending on my mood) and it burns up the calories at a faster pace than walking but it just isn't the same.

I could walk and walk and walk and walk... if my body would let me, if time would let me, if finances would let me.

Instead, I am jerked into the present by the ever-growing, not diminishing list of things to do for Advent 3, Advent 4, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Feast of the Holy Name (the Spanish, quehaceres says it too), waiting for someone who may or may not show up this afternoon — it wasn't clear from the email so I will hang around for two hours and then go do errands.

All the while, le Chemin m'appelle. El Camino me llama. The Way calls me.

A beatuiful December day in the north

Just five minutes ago I took this photo out the window of my study, which faces due west. If you can see beyond the wild cat mobile (from my sister, por supuesto, of course), you can see just how gorgeous it is outside. This notion of Vermont being buried in snow in December is questionable.

Of my 13 Advents and Christmases here, I think all of three or four have actually had snow on the ground. Maybe once, just once, it snowed. That was the Christmas Eve day when a parishioner died about 7.15 in the morning. There were gentle snowflakes coming down as I drove over to the house. Her family wanted her body to go out into the snow, not all zipped up in the black bag but with the bag open, her face up to the sky. I remember walking out to the van with the funeral home guy, alongside D, with the snowflakes gently falling on her face. Yes, it snowed that year.

Most of the time we have had freezing rain or plain old rain. My second year here, the church school put out lucenaria (votives on sand inside little brown paper sandwich bags) and half an hour before the service, the heavens opened. What a soggy mess! It naturally got thrown into the tower room, an unheated stairwell that leads to the upstairs closed-off balcony, a place where junk gets tossed, along with the snow shovel, light bulbs, toilet paper and portable sign we put out to announce things. It was months before I got up the gumption to clean out the rotted paper bags, put the sand back into the bucket of sand (essential for the steps), and pitch the candles.

It is way too early to predict what it will do next week. I am figuring we'll have freezing rain just to drive attendance even further down. (I always want to put in the parochial report that it sleeted on Christmas or snowed on Easter).

That leads me to my next point. More times than not, it will snow on Easter than on Christmas. There was one Easter Vigil at which we were outside on the church porch with the wind whipping around us, threatening to blow my cope into the first fire of Easter, which took a fair amount of time to get lit. The congregation simply held its breath, waiting for a larger conflagration than usual.

The weather, it's New England, what do you expect?

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The white house across the street once belonged to Miss C, a stately and impressive (i.e., somewhat scary) woman who was once upon a time the local university's president's administrator. She and her sister lived there until first, her sister died, and then she died. I bought the clawfoot bathtub from Miss C after her sister died and she was redoing the apartment, got four people to carry it across the street (wish someone had had a camera), which is a story unto itself because they took off before I was ready and rammed the drainpipe into the back of my leg, nearly severing my achilles tendon. When Miss C died, I think the house went to her great-niece. The great-niece rents the house out to students from the local university and, as you can imagine, it has become an exercise in patience. The students like to park so that they block my driveway or, better, overnight in the church driveway, blocking the nursery school parents or Sunday morning church goers. Since there is no overnight parking in the streets from 15 November — 15 April, I have been waiting for the overflow to take over. The kids have eight SUVs and cars that they are trying to stuff into the dooryard, an impossibility. One of the SUVs bit the dust in a bad car accident this fall, but they still have a ton of cars. Maybe my grumpy letter in October (when they blocked my driveway) is working.

Clergy wellness

I am halfway there in the Concept 2 Thanksgiving-Christmas rowing challenge — today I hit 100K. So I was able to download the iron-on graphic to decorate one of my rowing tshirts. If I get to 200K, which I fully intend to do by next week, then I will actually be able to order a more permanent rendition, commercially made. Heavens knows, the last thing I need is more tshirts but these serve as my trophies for doing something that stretches me some. There are people out there who will crank out 500-700K during this period but they row much faster and for longer periods of time. (I don't know if big bro is doing this challenge. He is number 1 and 2 in his various rankings. Little sis, me, is barely alive this fall but next spring I will enter a new age group (alas) and therefore have a chance of being a little higher in the rankings.)

While I row, I feel guilty that I am spending an hour plus rowing but then I think, 'Wait, clergy tend not to be healthy. If I can knock off 15K a day, that is going to make me healthier and everyone will benefit.' So I try to put the guilt aside. Besides, it's amazing what surfaces while I am rowing. I immediately jump off the machine, having thought of all the emails I have missed (like forgetting to send the Christmas service schedule to the local newspaper) and I fire them off. Sermons coalesce during the rowing time. And sometimes, I just day dream. (I just wish my times were getting faster. I don't quite understand why I am still so tired and logy. And the busted toe/foot, whatever I did to myself because I never got it xrayed, from May bugs me as I row.)

Today's rowing session produced the annual 'Dear Friends' Christmas letter, something that always is difficult to create. I hope the rowing does its trick next week because I have no time between Advent IV and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, i.e., those sermons need to be in hand by next Saturday. It's a bit scary, what with my parents coming this weekend, my annual open house for the congregation, an afternoon Advent Lessons and Carols/organ recital, and pastoral visits.

So I will keep rowing and try not to feel guilty about spending that time on myself. It is, I tell myself, for the common good.

Une journée bien grisâtre
A very grey day out

Days like today, grey skies with little attempt on the part of the sun to come out, and raw, always make me think of winter in Paris. The days there are just as short, the darkness descends on the city early and the air is humid, making the cold air raw. One bundles up to get from the house to the Métro and then, once in the fetid corridors of the underground, begins to roast.

The year I lived in Paris, eons ago, 1977-78, it snowed three times and the city was thrilled. I remember walking across the Jardins de Luxembourg in the 6th Arrondisement and needed to dodge volleys of snowballs. The snow lasted for one day but people made that snowday into a holiday.

I took this shot of the Tour Montparnasse (a composite of two photos) from my garret window from my fifth-floor maid's quarters room in a ramshackle pension de famille. It was a true Père Goriot situation: wtih each flight, the stairs got less elegant, the carpet more ragged and the overall effect of increasing shabbiness. By the time one arrived at the pension where I lived, the stairs were no longer marble but wood; the upstairs WC was shared by 16 people and the ONE bathtub for the entire flat by 20+. In any event, the 1974 Tour Montparnasse (56 stories, considered scandalous by many) served as my weather measure. It was pretty simple: if I couldn't see it because of fog, I knew the weather was lousy :)

Augusto Pinochet, 1915-2006

This entry is not an ode to Pinochet. Rather, it is a reflection on one of those moments of prise de conscience, dating back to 1982, well before I had ever been cracked open by a 1984 trip to Nicaragua. And it is a ever-so brief selection of Chilean voices on the coup years later.

I had gone to visit a friend in Brittany, France. One night, she, a bunch of her friends and I went to see the 1982, newly produced Costa-Grava film, Missing, based on Thomas Hauser's book, Missing: The Execution of Charles Horman.

A plot description on the web describes the film thusly:

Costa-Gavras's tense political drama is set in an unspecified South American country, in the throes of a military coup. American activist Charles Horman (John Shea), who has been a thorn in the side of the country's military ever since his arrival, suddenly disappears. In trying to find out what has happened, his wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) is stonewalled, not only by the ruling junta but by the American consulate. His father, staunchly patriotic Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon), joins Beth in her search. Ed and his daughter-in-law have never seen eye to eye politically, and he refuses to entertain the notion that his son's disappearance might be part of a larger conspiracy or cover-up. But as the days grow into weeks, Ed comes to the shattering conclusion that he and his family have been betrayed by the American government, on behalf of the "friendly" South American dictator who holds his people in a grip of iron. Adapted by Costa-Gavras and Donald E. Stewart from a book by Thomas Hauser, Missing was inspired by the true story of the late Charles Horman. In spite of (or perhaps because of) condemnation from certain high-ranking officials in the Reagan administration, the film went on to win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.

The music by Vangelis is haunting. One of the themes is a simple lullaby, descriptive of the couple's house before it was ransacked by the army. And in the scene where Lemmon and Spacek go to all the morgues, the music is brutal, like biting down on aluminum foil.

The film was banned in the United States for several years; it wasn't until 1987 that I saw it in the US (just before going to Panamá and Guatemala, not exactly quiet places at the time either).

At the end of the film, my French friends all jumped on me. 'What is it with you Americans????' I couldn't say much. I was devastated with the realisation that my US passport didn't mean diddly-squat if a country all of a sudden was thrown into martial law and undergoing a coup. It was further education (in those Reagan years) that if you were against the administration's policies, you were toast.

So while my French friends wanted to debate the film, I found myself speechless. I wish I had known more of what was going on back then so I could have responded to them. Even now, what can one say?

Chilean Nobel laureate (Literature) Pablo Neruda's heart was broken by the 11 September 1973 coup. He was already dying of cancer, isolated on Isla Negra. The news basically did him in — twelve days after the coup, he died.

Ariel Dorfman, an exiled Chilean writer now living in Durham, NC, author of multitudinous books writes of the coup:

During the last 28 years, Tuesday, September 11 has been a date of mourning, for me and millions of others, ever since that day in 1973 when Chile lost its democracy in a military coup, that day when death irrevocably entered our lives and changed us forever. ('The Last September 11th,' Chile: The Other September 11).

In another essay, he adds:

It can't happen here.
Thirty years ago that is what we chanted, that is what we sang, on the streets of Santiago de Chile.
It can't happen here. There can never be a dictatorship in this country, we proclaimed to the winds of history that were about to furiously descend upon us; our democracy is too solid, our armed forces too committed to popular sovereignty, our people too much in love with freedom.
But it did happen. ('Lessons of a Catastrophe,' Other Septembers)

For those of you who want to read more about the coup from a non-US point of view, I recommend

Ariel Dorfman, Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, Joan Jara, Beatriz Allende, Chile: the Other September 11 (Melbourne, NY: Ocean Books, 2003).

Ariel Dorfman, Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004 (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2004).

Lastly, there's Thomas Hauser's book, Missing -- New York, Simon Schuster, 1978.