One joy of summer

A big bowl of fresh summer fruit...

strawberries from Canada
fresh-picked raspberries and blueberries
a peach from Pennsylvania
banana from God knows where
nothing that tastes like cardboard

How can you go wrong with a breakfast like this?

Life is good!

Watching and Waiting

Grand-mère Mimi speculates whether Alberto Gonzalez will be history soon. To quote her: As I said before, Gonzales is the boy with his finger in the dike. If he goes, the entire edifice could begin to erode.

Rather than try to describe it, here's the Jeff Danziger cartoon from 28 July.

Poor Oscar.

The battle of the lawn

The church property takes up an entire block, the equivalent of three or four quarter-acre lots. Most lawn mowing happens on a volunteer basis, which means when people can do it. It takes a good three hours plus to do all of the property, from one street to the other, in between the church, parish house and rectory, and behind the rectory. (The back edge of the property is anything but a straight line; it tacks its way down from one street to the other.) Volunteers start with the easy, flat part, the front half of the side yard to the rectory, then work their way across the front of the parish house and church (less easy because it is on a hillside), then go behind the rectory to the nursery school play yard and by then have pooped out.

That means that the back half of the rectory yard turns into a meadow. And that means that at least once or twice a summer I get out there in knee-high grass with a simple lawn mower and try to tame it. 'Mowing the lawn' this way is anything but easy. It's a lot of yanking the mower front and backwards. Doing the front and back yards of the rectory took me four hours total, yesterday and today. But at least once again, there is the semblance of a lawn and not a meadow.

I took this shot today after I finished. The overgrown area is the garden. That's the next task. The nursery school play yard is to the right; the shed behind it belongs to the neighbours. The big maple tree is on our property; the scraggly tree on theirs. You can make out the church tower between the rectory and the maple.

Having worked on the church lawns today, tomorrow I go to our house and do the same thing all over again — deal with knee-high grass and, worse, on an uneven lawn (full of frost-heave rocks and tree stumps). Thank God for my iPod — at least I have good tunes.

Here's an assortment of some of the tunes I heard today while mowing (in a play list called Beat Music):

Laurie Anderson • Strange Angels (Strange Angels)
Michael McDonald • Sweet Freedom (Michael McDonald)
James Taylor • Only a Dream in Rio (James Taylor Best)
The Strawbs • Simple Visions (Deep Cut)
Steve Winwood • When You See a Change (Arc of a Diver)
Alain Souchon • Manivelle (Collection)
Exchange • Compass Rose (In a Changing World)
Supertramp • It's Raining Again (Classics)
Yazoo • Bring Your Love Down (Upstairs at Eric's)
Tracy Chapman • I Used To Be a Sailor (Matters of the Heart)

Proper 12C

This past year, at the end of youth group meetings, we have stood in a circle, held hands, gone around offering up intercessory prayers and thanksgivings either silently or aloud and then said the Lord’s Prayer. One of the youth comes from a background where this prayer has not been a staple of his life and, so, in order to include him, we’ve prayed the prayer line-by-line (the way Episcopal congregations used to in the 1850s at the end of the service). The adults have encouraged the youth to lead this line-by-line recitation, figuring that the prayer indwells them.

Somehow, when we say it either alone or all together, it hangs together but a funny thing happens when having to break it down line by line. Even though this prayer is deeply internalised, the rhythm of its cadences falls apart. Some leaders can get up to the ‘trespasses’ part; others make it a bit further. We look at one another and, as the designated pray-er, I pick up the pieces by prompting and off we go again. Despite the burp, all is well. We have prayed the prayer that unites us all and then we say goodnight.

+

What is it about the Lord’s Prayer? Of all the things Jesus is reported to have said in the gospels, why has this prayer emerged as probably the first prayer any of us memorised, and remains as the prayer that will remain in our minds even as our memories fail? Why is it that the prayer retains its compelling rhythm whether in its original Aramaic, ‘Abun, d’b’ shemaya,’ or Spanish, ‘Padre Nuestro que estás en el cielo,’ or English, ‘Our Father in heaven’? How is it that even as two or three people pray the prayer in different languages, they end up together at the ‘Amen’? The Lord’s Prayer is powerful, indeed. Powerful because it establishes a close relationship between God and us, and reminds us of our interconnectedness and interdependency.

Jesus’ instruction that contains the words of the Lord’s Prayer comes at the end of a series of instructions that deal with discipleship. The story of the Good Samaritan, which we heard two weeks ago, reminds us of the Great Commandment — love of God and love of neighbour. Last week’s story of Martha and Mary, encourages us to find a balance in our lives between service and prayer, doing and being. Now, at disciples’ request, Jesus instructs them how to pray. Of the two versions we have of the Lord’s Prayer — one in Matthew, and one in Luke — the Lukan version is the less familiar. Yet all the essential ingredients to this well-known prayer are here.

By giving this prayer to the disciples, Jesus endorses the communal and liturgical function of the prayer. It is important to have a prayer that everyone can say together, at the same time. Less important are the exact words of the prayer — what matter are its themes. Most important is the emphasis of the prayer on the community’s relationship with God and how the community comes to God.

Above all, the Lord’s Prayer is a ‘we’ prayer, a community prayer. No matter how dear this prayer is to you personally it is primarily the prayer of the community of God’s Reign. “Our” father, we pray. Give “us” the bread we need. Forgive “us” our sins, as “we” forgive others…. Save “us” in the time of trial.

As a community, as the people of God, we pray for the coming of God’s reign of peace and of justice, we pray for the daily needs of everyone, we pray for forgiveness for us as a community, with the call to be an example of a reconciling people, and we pray that as God’s people we will not crumble in the face of trials too harsh to name.

That’s the Lord’s Prayer in overview, but looked at more closely, these themes play themselves out over and over again.

The prayer begins with an address to God — in Aramaic, ‘Abun’, ‘Father.’ The community recognises from the beginning of the prayer its intimacy with God. Underlying our calling God, ‘Father,’ is the trust that there is a shared and deep relationship, a relationship in which we may be free to ask of God God’s care.

The first line, after the opening address, is a simple statement: Holy be your name. This line picks up on the emphasis of the Great Commandment about honouring and loving God with our all heart, mind, soul and strength. Even though we call God by a loving, intimate term, we also respect God as the one who created us, sanctifies us and redeems us.
The next line also states clearly our hopes: Your kingdom come. Luke’s gospel talks a lot about the coming of God’s realm; in this statement, we pray that God will, indeed, come into our midst, bringing justice, love and righteousness. It is our prayer of hope, a hope which is based on trust.

Having called God by one of the many names we use for God, the prayer moves onto its first request. The request is simple: Give us our daily bread. Whether the bread asked for in this request is the real loaf of bread that one eats every day, or the bread of the heavenly banquet that will be provided when God’s realm comes, matters little — the fundamental idea is clear: we recognise with gratitude that God provides for us.

The second request of the prayer is equally clear: Forgive us our debts. Forgive our sins. And know that as we ask to be forgiven, that we stand ready to extend forgiveness. As we ask for and offer forgiveness, we show ourselves to be a community of compassion. As a community of compassion, touched by God’s forgiveness, we are better able to love our neighbour.

The final petition of the prayer asks for spiritual protection. Though we may consciously live out our lives in Christian community, there may well be times that we fall. The petition does not presume that God will prevent us from falling into sin — we get ourselves into our own messes — but it does ask that we not be overwhelmed by whatever wrongdoing we have done. A community praying this petition acknowledges its interconnectedness and dependence upon God.

And then, we say, Amen. Writes Leonardo Boff, ‘Being able to say amen implies being able to trust and be confident and certain that everything is in the hands of God: God has already conquered mistrust and fear, despite everything. The Lord’s Prayer has encompassed the whole path of humanity in its drive toward heaven and its rootage in the earth.… And to all of it, we say, “Yes, so be it!”’

So be it. So be it that we pray this prayer every time we gather as a worshipping community — whether it be for a baptism or a burial; a marriage or confession; the daily office or the eucharist. So be it that we pray this prayer together and individually, young and old, rich and poor. No matter how we pray it, no matter where or when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are together, as a community of faith, praying the same words that were given us so long ago, words that unite us on our common journey to God’s realm of justice and peace.

[photo: The Lord's Prayer in Arabic on a plate, made in Palestine]

Not really a surprise

You scored as Albus Dumbledore, Strong and powerful you admirably defend your world and your charges against those who would seek to harm them. However sometimes you can fail to do what you must because you care too much to cause suffering. Albus Dumbledore 80% Hermione Granger 75% Harry Potter 70% Sirius Black 65% Remus Lupin 60% Draco Malfoy 55% Ron Weasley 45% Severus Snape 35% Ginny Weasley 30% Lord Voldemort 15% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...? created with QuizFarm.com

[For some reason the text doesn't show up completely so here it is again:
You scored as Albus Dumbledore, Strong and powerful you admirably defend your world and your charges against those who would seek to harm them. However sometimes you can fail to do what you must because you care too much to cause suffering.]

I mean, really, who is going to admit to being Snape? I've got to figure out where the 15% of Voldemort comes from :)

All my life's a circle

This afternoon I went to a celebration of a new season of ministry (at Rev Dr Mom's home church), which meant a 50-mile drive up north on a rather unpredictable day weather-wise (like torrential rain outside of Montpelier for five minutes and dry all the rest of the way). To go anywhere in Vermont, it is at least a 50-mile round-trip. But, as my friend (who was the preacher) said: You live in such a beautiful state.

I don't know why, but I have always been amused by playing number games on the odometer. So today, I had to record when it hit 87878. I can't even remember how many cars I have had that have gone over 100K. Only my first car was new; the rest have been used. [You can't really see the numerals; trust me.]

Heading west and south on I-89, past the Richmond exit, one sees Camel's Hump. It was pretty hazy today.

In case you are worried about the safety of these photos, I point and shoot without even looking and don't even check until I have gotten home. And in the first, one hand is squarely on the wheel; in the second, both hands are on the wheel with the camera in between them.

Friday cat blogging

La Doyenne is sleeping where I usually sit and read after dinner.

While the new refrigerator was being delivered, I shut the cats upstairs. I don't think I have seen Orange Boy in the basket before. Everybody is sleeping in odd places.

Young Guy decides the new air conditioner is OK.

Orange Boy decided to drape himself across the fleece pad and donut.

My parents' cat, more like my father's cat, whom I am calling Miss Mattie because of her matted fur. Her mother was a Maine Coon cat, and her father an orange tabby. She is now 17 1/2.

Miss Mattie on my mother's bed.

The beach fix

My parents joined a modest beach club in 1957 and have been members ever since. Every time I visit, I want my beach fix because I know my days at this beach are numbered. My parents are now of the senior generation, occupying a place that some younger families covet. So I like to go to the beach, as bittersweet as these visits now are.

There are canopies which one can reserve. As kids, we used to shimmy up them and also swing from the horizontal bars in the fall when the canvas tops had been removed.

The view is of the Long Island Sound, looking across to Port Jefferson. One can barely make out the lighthouse (just above the orange and yellow sail). Off to the right is a huge barge that sits out in the Sound all summer.


This is the main house with a big central room and porch. I don't know what the rules are now, but when I was growing up, kids under 12 (?) were not allowed on the porch and you couldn't walk barefoot through the main room.


There are two jetties that are at the far end of the half mile beach. This is the first of the two. Beyond them, there's the reef (the reason for which there is a lighthouse).


This view almost looks as though it could be taken on the Côte d'Azur, the French Mediterranean. But, no, it's just the Long Island Sound.

For Pseudopiskie

Pseudopiskie writes about the deer and raccoons and other critters that disturb the lilies and bird feeders.

While at my parents' house in suburban Connecticut, I was treated to the daily procession of deer that raid the apple trees. Actually, the deer are in cohoots with the squirrels. The squirrels climb up the apple tree branches and knock the apples off. The deer come along and chomp up all the apples. My mother is having fits because she doesn't think there aren't going to be any apples left for the fall.

Later, I will scan a photo she took in the backyard of a male turkey in full display.

When life gets to be too much...

... just hiss.

Compa just clued me into what our idiot neighbour is up to — he has decided that his home, which is a mere 50 yards away from our house, is going to become a B&B for people who want to do paintball in the woods (WHOSE? not just his, he only has ten acres as do we), and he is going to train people how to do search and rescue and law enforcement tracking and other such quiet neighbourly things (parties, barbecues)... so we will have Blackhawk North in Miniature next to us. As far as I know, the last thing this guy was doing was building houses.

I pray to God that zoning will shut this misguided venture down. Otherwise... the thought of living next to all that potential noise and confusion breaks my soul. It is NOT the Vermont way.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSPIT.

Santiago

Happy and blessed feast of Santiago. It has got to be a zoo today in Santiago de Compostela, what with all the pilgrims arriving today. It's not a jubilee year (when the feast day of Saint James lands on a Sunday, as in 2004) but I am sure the city is crazy. So, in spirit with all the pilgrims, a blessed feast day.

On this feast day, they will swing the botifumeiro, a humungous incense pot, that goes in a 180 degree-arc way over people's heads. It swings in the north-south transept of the church. It's an impressive thing, taking eight men to yank the thick rope on which the incense thurible hangs. I was utterly mesmerised when I saw it three years ago.

There, where I belong...

Where I am free,
by the sea... (Renaissance, a 1970s English band that based their work on classical music)

Off tomorrow to my parents' downstream in Connecticut. I hope I will get to the beach.

I grew up with this lighthouse off the shore. My brother and I used to sail our sailfish out to it, and if you started walking as the tide went out, you could get out to the lighthouse via a half-mile reef (that was also covered with barnacles).

When I was growing up (40 years ago!), the lighthouse still had someone out there who kept things going but in the 1980s, they changed it to an automatic, solar-powered horn. It still operates -- it has to.

Well, even if it rains, maybe I will get down to the beach for old times' sake.

Wonderful endowment

Grand-mère, of Wounded Bird fame, is off meeting the first recipients of the Dillenkoffer Endowment, an endowment started in memory of her sister, Gayle Dillenkoffer, who died last year from pancreatic cancer.

The endowment's web site tells us:

The Dillenkoffer Endowment was formed to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teens with college tuition grants in Kansas and Missouri.

Gay teens across the country continue to face personal and academic challenges unlike those faced by their straight classmates. In addition to challenges at school, many face rejection by their families and the community at large as well as religious persecution. Even violence is not uncommon. Statistics show gay teens are more likely to abuse substances, drop out of school, run away from home, be involved in prostitution and attempt suicide.

The Dillenkoffer Endowment's mission is to:

* recognize and reward gay teens who are able to succeed in the face of personal and academic challenges;

* help them achieve even greater success through higher education; and

* provide them with the tools to be role models to others as they become young adults.

You can go here to donate.

Make a difference in a GLBT youth's life.

Who gets first dibs?

Young Guy?


La Doyenne?

Orange Guy?

No. I DO!!!

But, then, after I've finished the book, who should get it next?

[Update]

While I took my Sunday afternoon nap (after reading 80 pages), La Doyenne snuck in, took the book and managed to power read through to chapter 22 (out of 36, plus an epilogue), page 474. Smart cat!

Proper 11C

Proper 11C • 22 July 2007

Almost four years ago I attended a conference for clergy called CREDO. Along with the word being the first person singular in Latin for ‘I believe,’ CREDO also stands for Clergy Renewal, Education and Discernment Opportunity put on by the Church Pension Fund. The CPF has come to realise that by having healthy clergy the church itself will be healthier (novel idea!). Their mission statement reads: ‘To provide opportunities for clergy to examine significant areas of their lives and to discern prayerfully the future direction of their vocation as they respond to God’s call in a lifelong process of practice and transformation.’ As of 2007, over 3000 clergy and 85 bishops have attended a CREDO conference. In the course of the eight-day conference, participants re-examine questions such as: Who am I? What is it God is calling me to be/do? In a totally pampering environment, the participants look at their health — both physical and spiritual — their finances, their vocation and then are invited to put together a CREDO plan that can help the participant remember the learnings of the week. The ultimate goal is to help clergy return to their work re-energised and refocused. And in some cases, as I recall the heart-breaking honesty of one of my colleagues on the first night, who spoke about having to learn to love his congregation again. My sense is that wherever there is a CREDO conference, there are a lot of people who have been running flat out, perhaps some Marthas, and who have forgotten what it is like to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening.

One of the workshop leaders (and individual counselors) at my CREDO conference was Martha B. Anderson, a priest and a nurse. She died quite suddenly early this year. She wrote a sermon about today’s gospel lesson that appeared in a 2000 anthology. Somehow, seeing her words, knowing that she lived with the name ‘Martha,’ and died while still very active while advising others on how to slow down more, become very poignant.

Anderson creates a dialogue between Jesus and Martha. It begins with the words from the gospel:

‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.

‘Jesus answers: Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.

Anderson continues,

‘And I said, ‘Yes, sir! I am worried and distracted by many things. I am worried and distracted by environmental destruction, by war and drought and poverty and disease and racism. I am worried about an eighty-eight year-old woman from my last parish whose heart is failing. I am worried about my daughter who works too hard and is always tired. I am worried about all the folks who are listening to me today, coping with all they have been through in the last year and a half. I am worried about finding enough money to pay the mortgage each month, about whether the car is parked legally [not only a concern in Brooklyn but also here!], about to how find time to get my hair cut.’

Does any of this sound familiar? What worries and burdens do you bring with you today? What are all those mental worry gerbils running around in your heads today as you sit trying to listen to what I have to say, while battling to ignore the side streets your mind desperately wants to take you down (which if that happens, is quite alright because you need to go there; that is why I print out the sermon)? How do you deal with all those worries? Do you try to fill the holes by scurrying around, being busy, or do you stop in a form of quasi-paralysis? How do you manage to let go of all those worries so you can be still before God and listen to God’s small, still voice?

Certainly the person running around frazzled is the most common caricature of Martha. That certainly is the one that tradition has taught us and left with us. It’s unfair.

Anderson takes this misconception head-on in her conversation with Jesus:

‘I am especially worried and distracted by this story of you and me and my sister in Bethany. It worries me, because I know what you are going on to say: that Mary, sitting at your feet and listening while I slave away in the kitchen, has the “better part.”

‘And this story will be used over centuries, even millennia, as a way of typing and stereotyping women.… Because of this story, I, Martha, will take second place to my sister, Mary. I will be relegated to cooking and housekeeping. I will become the patron saint of housewives and cooks. It will be written in Who’s Who in the Bible that my name still (at the beginning of the twenty-first century!) “epitomizes the practical and efficient but over-busy and intolerant housekeeper.” […]

‘However you look at the two of us, [Mary and Martha], it seems, one always will have to be superior, the other inferior. When one looks good, the other looks bad. And we will become representatives of whole groups of women, Christians and other. There will be a “Martha type,” practical, competent, down-to-earth, and a “Mary type,” quiet restrained, a good listener, always receptive to others.…

‘So you see,’ I said to Jesus, ‘this story, and how it will be used over the years worries and distracts me greatly.’
Anderson’s Jesus hears her. ‘He said it had never been his intention to divide us. He said he thought others had done that. Beginning with Luke, the Gospel writer, then the early Church Fathers, then priests and all kinds of lay and ordained ministers and Bible commentators over the years.

He said, “You know I love you both, and I value your connection with each other, your unity and your diversity, your hospitality that both feeds and attends to my words.”’ (1)

Put simply: We can’t survive without Martha among us, nor can we grow without Mary. And put even more simply: Both dwell within us, whether we are women or men and we need both in order to be balanced. There’s a time and place for the work as there is for the prayer. For all of us, work and prayer must go together because they become each other. So it’s not a question of pitting the Martha against the Mary. It’s learning to find and then embrace both and let both flourish within ourselves.

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There’s another Mary we need, and that is Mary Magdalene, the disciple, the apostle to the apostles, whose feast day is officially today. Mary Magdalene is the first woman minister, who risks her status in both synagogue and society for the sake of her faith in Jesus. She is the witness who recognizes Jesus in his earliest moments and stays with him to the end. (2) Mary is the woman who is sent by the risen Jesus to tell the disciples that she has seen the Lord. She is the apostle to the apostles, the first to proclaim the resurrection (in the gospel of John).

+

At the end of every CREDO conference at the final liturgy, participants are given a little stone with the word CREDO etched into it. They’re encouraged to put it somewhere they’ll see it or can touch it daily, as a reminder of the deep work they have done. I keep mine on my desk. It helps me think about equilibrium in my life.

+

But you don’t need to be clergy to think about balance in your life. We all need Martha, Mary and Mary Magdalene and all three dwell within us, though with different intensities at different times in our lives.

Which person speaks to you the most these days? Which one do you need to nurture? How can you find the balance in your life between work, prayer and proclamation? Remember that no matter who you are at this point in life, Martha, Mary or Mary Magdalene, Jesus is telling you:

‘You know I love you, and I value your connection with [one] other, your unity and your diversity, your hospitality that both feeds and attends to my words and then proclaims them.’

END NOTES
(1) Preaching Through the Year of Luke: Sermons That Work, IX, eds. Roger Alling and David Schlafer (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000), 62-64.

(2) Joan Chittister, A Passion for Life: Fragments in the Face of God (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 44.

Can we say Manuel Noriega or Augusto Pinochet...

... to name a few? Not to pick on Latin American dictators... they just come to mind at 7.20 on a Sunday morning.

Check out this morning's editorial from the New York Times, Power Without Limits.

The Bush administration, which has been pushing presidential power to new extremes, is reportedly developing an even more dangerous new theory of executive privilege. It says that if Congress holds White House officials in contempt for withholding important evidence in the United States attorney scandal, the Justice Department simply will not pursue the charges. This stance tears at the fabric of the Constitution and upends the rule of law.

Congress has a constitutional right to investigate the purge of nine United States attorneys last year. And there is no doubt that the investigation has unearthed improprieties: several administration officials have already admitted illegal or improper actions involving the politicization of the country’s chief law enforcement agency.

But the administration has been extraordinarily defiant toward Congress’s legitimate requests for information. The low point came recently when Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, refused even to show up in response to a Congressional subpoena. Some of the questions she would have been asked might have been protected by executive privilege, but others no doubt would not have been. Ms. Miers had no right to ignore the entire proceeding.

The next question is how Congress will enforce its right to obtain information, and it is on that point that the administration is said to have made its latest disturbing claim. If Congress holds White House officials in contempt, the next step should be that the United States attorney for the District of Columbia brings the matter to a grand jury. But according to a Washington Post report, the administration is saying that its claim of executive privilege means that the United States attorney would be ordered not to go forward with the case.

There is no legal basis for this obstructionism. The Supreme Court has made clear that executive privilege is not simply what the president claims it to be. It must be evaluated case by case by a court, balancing the need for the information against the president’s interest in keeping his decision-making process private. Mark Rozell, an expert on executive privilege at George Mason University, calls the administration’s stance “almost Nixonian in breadth,” because of its assertion that “the mere utterance of the phrase executive privilege” means that “no other branch has recourse.”

The White House’s extreme position could lead to a constitutional crisis. If the executive branch refused to follow the law, Congress could use its own inherent contempt powers, in which it would level the charges itself and hold a trial. The much more reasonable route for everyone would be to proceed through the courts.

This showdown between a Democratic Congress and a Republican president may look partisan, but it should not. In a year and a half, there could be a Democratic president, and such extreme claims of executive power would be just as disturbing if that chief executive made them.

Congress should use all of the tools at its disposal to pursue its investigations. It is not only a matter of getting to the bottom of some possibly serious government misconduct. It is about preserving the checks and balances that are a vital part of American democracy.

Picture-perfect day and then some

Today members of the Diocesan Study Program (DSP), a two-year, once-a-month, all-day Saturday event, met for potluck lunch and discussion about the Anglican Communion, the proposed draft covenant and the Dar es Salaam communiqué (a hefty fare!). We decided to do it at a member's house, up in Calais, near Maple Corner.

So off to Calais (pronounced 'callus'), 10 miles north of Montpelier, in rolling hills that aren't pronounced like the mountains, but still beautiful in their own way. The Worcester Range, where Mount Hunger is situated, is to the west and below Calais.

We met at a participant's house just up the road from the Kent Corner tavern. This building is gradually being restored into a museum. It used to be a stop on the New York to Montréal route. I am sorry I didn't bring my camera today.

This is all a sleepy little Vermont village (population about 1500), perhaps best known because of the 1998 (?) senatorial radio debate between the late Fred Tuttle (of 'A Man with a Plan' film fame) and I can't even remember whom, except he was considered to be a carpet-bagger, in which Tuttle asked his opponent how many teats there are on a cow, and how do you pronounce 'C-A-L-A-I-S'?

Until this came along.

The Men of Maple Corner calendar sold in 2002 was a smash hit, selling over 39.000 calendars, and raising over half a million dollars for the Maple Corner Community Center. So in 2003, the community decided to raise more money. Why and for whom? Their web site says:

'The answer is give it to groups that need it. After numerous community meetings to determine the needs within the town of Calais, all of this year's calendar earnings will go to local area non-profits determined by the Community Center Board. Money will be earmarked to fix the Curtis Pond Dam, help the 3 local volunteer fire departments covering Calais, and many other community groups, from the emergency food shelf, to the Historical Society. A new group of brave men offered to put their butts on the line, and our loyal fans encouraged us to do it again.'

I can't find on their web site how many calendars they finally sold but surely they did well.

Just a little bit of Vermont trivia for a gorgeous Saturday evening in July.

It ain't quite NYC

Compa and I had dinner out in Montpelier tonight ( a very rare occasion) at our favourite restaurant, New England Culinary Institute's Main Street Bar and Grill. We finished up (including profiteroles for dessert!) about 10.15 or so.

Across the street at one of the two indie bookstores in town (both are now owned by the same people), there was a small — really small — crowd of youngsters, a few in costumes, waiting for the 11.00 PM opening of the bookstore. At the other bookstore, the door was wide open to reveal the unopened boxes of the latest Harry Potter, with the printing on the box, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT JULY 21, 2007.

Of course, we have already heard about how Scholastic blew it and sent out 1200 copies ahead of time and how one of the people who preordered it immediately put it up on eBay for $250.

Still, I hope this night is special for those kids who are standing in line, even if there are only 50 of them in Montpelier, as opposed to a cast of thousands in NYC or the Washington DC VA burbs.

Friday cat blogging

This is actually quite rare. Orange Guy was on the fleece pad (which is slowly disintegrating) first and Young Guy decided to join him. Orange Boy didn't get up and go away and Young Guy didn't so annoy him or chase him off.

La Doyenne is in the canasta under the chair by the window. Another quiet day at home...

...whereas my day was out and about with the morning communion service at the assisted living place, a visit to Grey Cat's household, and trip down to the local hospital to visit a 17 year-old with viral spinal meningitis, who was holding court even though she still is pretty weak. Now it's time to do Sunday's bulletins.

A light shines in the darkness

A light shines in the darkness

One luxury I have that others may not, is that I can go into the church whenever I want. So, if I need quiet time I can go over there, all twenty steps or so from the house, light a candle, spend however long I want, perhaps do some prayerful puttering, be still and then wander back to the rectory.

I am just back, knowing that there is a light, a candle, burning in the darkness for the people on my heart.

Dear Archbishop Michael Ramsey in his classic, The Christian Priest Today, talks about the priest being a person of God with the people on his [or her] heart. (I can't reference the exact quotation because my book is out on loan.)

Indeed, that is part of who the priest in community (to quote Urban Holmes and Jim Fenhagen) is. A person of prayer with the people of God on one's heart.

Of course I can pray anywhere but sometimes it is so good to go into the church, where so many other prayers have been uttered, over 150+ years, so that mine can mingle with all those other petitions.

So my small candle with big prayers burns tonight. Thanks be to God.

Highway follies

On those mornings when I don't get up in time to hear the full Morning Edition, I have taken to listening to KQED, out in San Francisco. It's kind of fun to hear about the weather out there, the local news and the traffic reports.

This morning, they reported a tie up on some highway because of a Coke vending machine in the middle of the road. Apparently the machine had been stolen and had fallen out of the get-away vehicle. The traffic reporter sounded amused by it so I pass it on for your enjoyment.

Somehow, life seems awfully quiet here in Vermont.

Grey Cat

Grey Cat, a friend's cat, died last night. She was 14 or so — her people aren't sure how old she was. She'd been going downhill for a while but yesterday I got a call that she really wasn't doing well and could I ask my friends who love cats to pray for her. I have long been a member of Ecunet's 'The Cats Pajamas' so I wrote them and sent this photo I took of Grey Cat last summer.

Apparently she died around 1.30 this morning. Her human 'father' was in the room with her: she'd gone into a small bathroom where there is a slate floor, nice and cool to lie on. He monitored her, getting up whenever she made a noise and then, she was no longer.

He'll dig a grave for her by the stone wall where she used to to sit. That may not be easy since there is a lot of ledge there.

Prayers for her human 'mother' and 'father,' and their son and daughter-in-law... and for the four other cats of the household who are confused by Grey Cat's death.

Call things for what they are

Not that this is news, not that it's going to change anything but the New York Times today in their lead editorial nails things. The 'news' about terrorism is so predictable as to be risible.

Editorial
The Politics of Fear
Published: July 18, 2007

It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.

Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism.

Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president.

Certainly, the report’s conclusions are disturbing. Nearly six years after 9/11, terrorism remains a huge threat. Al Qaeda has replaced leaders killed or captured by the United States, regrouped in its former home base in the tribal lands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and is trying to use affiliated terrorists in Iraq “to raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives.”

If the report is given an honest reading, it is a powerful rebuke to Mr. Bush’s approach to the war on terror. It vindicates those who say that the Iraq war is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism — a fight that is not going at all well.

The administration, however, seized on the report and, through bald political timing, tried to use it to dampen calls for an end to Mr. Bush’s catastrophic war. That required some particularly twisted logic. Ms. Townsend, for example, dismissed a reporter who asked whether the fact that Al Qaeda has regrouped in the area from which it planned the 9/11 attacks suggested that it was a mistake to divert American forces to Iraq. She said Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq that use the name Al Qaeda are the same.

In fact, we’ve seen no evidence of that, and none was in the intelligence report, at least the page and a half of conclusions released to the public.

Was there a link before the war between Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader in Iraq? Ms. Townsend refused to answer. “This is ground long covered,” she snapped.

Indeed it is. The answer is, “No.” In fact, Mr. Bush’s bungled invasion spawned a new terrorist army and gave it a home base. Now, the report said, those terrorists are the only ones affiliated with Al Qaeda that are “known to have expressed a desire to attack the” United States.

The White House denied that the report was timed to the Senate debate. But the administration controls the timing of such releases and the truth is that fear of terrorism is the only shard remaining of Mr. Bush’s justification for invading Iraq.

This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain, starting with the first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, and his Popsicle-coded threat charts. It is a breathtakingly cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line.

That must not happen this time. By now, Congress surely can see through the president’s fear-mongering and show Mr. Bush the exit from Iraq that he refuses to find for himself.

+++

Living in a state of constant fear is to me so unchristian.

Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness (New York: Continuum, 1996, 2002) over and over address the power fear has over us. Her interpretations of the psalms constantly pray to God for release from fear... just opening the book to Psalm 109, one lands on these verses:

Many are the fears that envelop me,
causing me to act without integrity.
I become boastful that others may not see me tremble,
and I speak ill even of my friends.
In return, I become alienated from
those who love me, and
from You to whom I pray.
Hear my plea, O Compassionate One,
in your mercy, come to my aid.

++

O God, save us from the fear mongerers, from the Henny Pennys of the world.

Temporary defeat for the feet

Well, my years and years of walking barefoot, or formerly in Birkenstocks or now in Chacos, are about to end. I've got plantar fibromatosis, a fancy-Greek sounding name for a tear in the plantar fascia of my left foot. What that means is I have a marble-sized lump in the middle of my arch, the scar tissue from the tear. The podiatrist can't figure out why I don't also have the plantar fibromatosis in my right foot (I do have plantar fascia there) because I pronate so much when I walk. [He has a treadmill that goes in both directions so he can watch someone walk from behind and face-ward and my legs and feet are marked up with his annotations (15º on both sides)!]

Though diagnosed in April, it wasn't until this morning that the podiatrist told me for sure what I have been avoiding: I have to wear shoes all the time. I have always delighted in not wearing shoes when I can or, when that is not feasible, wearing sandals. The thought of having to wear shoes all the time makes me feel trapped, almost claustrophobic. I always thought that my high arches would spare me trouble but obviously not.

However, with custom-made orthotics (the doctor made plaster casts of my feet this morning — they looked like slippers!), and proper shoes, I can avoid surgery (to remove the lump or disconnect the plantar fascia from the heel). So I will behave.... After all, we are now looking into walking the Camino del Norte!

The doctor is a sport-medicine doctor who had to give up running because he blew out his knees, wears orthotics all the time so is sympathetic to dealing with people who want to stay active.

Most of the time my left foot doesn't bother me but after having him poke at it this morning, it is sore.

Nothing serious... just a nuisance. I'll get over it.

Parsley = catnip

Young Guy goes crazy when I come in from the garden. Oregano affects him like catnip; he loves the smell of the bean plants and even the tomatoes. Tonight, I discover that fresh parsley also sets him off. He has just finished rubbing his face against the hand with which I picked parsley. He even drooled on my hand. Next he jumped up on the bookcase near the erg and, more important, the bunk bed where La Doyenne is resting. She flapped her tail at him and made it clear that a fight would not be wise. And now he has zoomed off elsewhere.

So, do I grow the parsley for my salsa or for him?

Back to the mountains!

While the world seems to be suffering from heat exhaustion, I decided on my day off today to go hiking in the mountains. I haven't been out since late September. Once again I went up Hunger Mountain (or Mount Hunger). Here's a shot I took of it this spring. It's the bump to the left. This time, however, I went up the Waterbury trail rather than the Middlesex trail.

According to the Green Mountain Club's 2002 edition, Day Hiker's Guide to Vermont (259), the Waterbury trail is 2.2 miles long, rising over 2290 feet to gain the bald south summit at 3539 feet. This summit is famous for its views of the central Vermont Greens.

The guidebook says:

From the summit, nearly every peak in the main range of the Green Mountains is visible, from Whiteface Mountain in the north to Killington Peak in the south. A number of Adirondak peaks are visible to the west beyond Lake Champlain. To the east, Mount Washington and the Presidential Range, Moosilauke, and the Franconia Range can be seen in the distance...

But first, one has to get up there. Walking this trail is the equivalent of walking on an unrelenting stairmaster for somewhere between 90-120 minutes. It decidely gets one's heartbeat up. Donating blood just last Friday really affected my stamina, that is, I had none so it took me 20 minutes longer than usual to get up to the summit.

About a third of the way up, one arrives at the first of two waterfalls. This has had a birch tree land in the middle of it so it's harder to see but there is running water, making for a mountain oasis.

About 3/5s of the way up, one encounters the first of the vertical drops one has to scrabble up. Today I witnessed — finally after all this time — how dogs make it up. The first of two dogs, a young retriever, had already gotten up but its comarade, a Siberian husky, was pacing back and forth at the bottom, whimpering. The dog's owner went back down (to where I stood when I took this shot) to help the dog up.

Finally, after going up a few more vertical walls like the above, one runs into this sign post which informs the hiker that the summit is only 0.2 miles up. It's actually OK at that point because it's more climbing than walking, an activity that seems less tiring.

Up top, I look south to Ascutney, Killington, and Pico (left to right). Today was a 70-mile view day.

Then I look southwest to Camels Hump, the mountain that graces the Vermont quarter. When flying into Burlington, I always know I am home when I see Camels Hump's distinctive profile. It is a good hike, too. Later this summer.

Finally, I look west-northwest to Stowe: Mount Mansfield, Stowe and Smuggler's Notch. I've been up Mount Mansfield from Smuggler's Notch and that is an interesting hike because there is one spot where, if one tipped over backwards, that would be it.

I spent half an hour up top enjoying the view before slogging back down into the world.

Quite astounding actually

This commentary comes from the Wall Street Journal. That Peggy Noonan is its author is nothing short of astounding to me. The only reason I know about it is because my father and sister have been emailing back and forthabout it.

American Grit
We can't fire the president right now, so we're waiting it out.

Friday, July 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

It's been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush's news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.

I'm not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who'd previously supported him. She said she'd had it. "I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth." I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: "I took the W off my car today," it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.

As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.

Is it defiance? Denial? Is it that he's right and you're wrong, which is your problem? Is he faking a certain steely good cheer to show his foes from Washington to Baghdad that the American president is neither beaten nor bowed? Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.

His stock answer is that of course he feels the sadness of the families who've lost someone in Iraq. And of course he must. Beyond that his good humor seems to me disorienting, and strange.

In arguing for the right path as he sees it, the president more and more claims for himself virtues that the other side, by inference, lacks. He is "idealistic"; those who oppose him are, apparently, lacking in ideals. He makes his decisions "based on principle," unlike his critics, who are ever watchful of the polls. He is steadfast, brave, he believes "freedom isn't just for Americans" but has "universal . . . applications," unlike those selfish, isolationist types who oppose him.

This is ungracious as a rhetorical approach, but not unprecedented. There's something in the White House water system. Presidents all wind up being gallant in their own eyes. Thursday I was reminded of President Nixon, who often noted he was resisting those who were always advising him to "take the easy way." Bill Safire used to joke that when he was a Nixon speechwriter, part of his job was to walk by the Oval Office and yell in, "Mr. President, take the easy way!"

I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.

Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.

With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.

Americans hire presidents and fire them. They're not as sweet about it as they used to be. This is not because they have grown cynical, but because they are disappointed, by both teams and both sides. Some part of them thinks no matter who is president he will not protect them from forces at work in the world. Some part of them fears that when history looks back on this moment, on the past few presidents and the next few, it will say: Those men were not big enough for the era.

But this is a democracy. You vote, you do the best you can with the choices presented, and you show the appropriate opposition to the guy who seems most likely to bring trouble. (I think that is one reason for the polarity and division of politics now. No one knows in his gut that the guy he supports will do any good. But at least you can oppose with enthusiasm and passion the guy you feel in your gut will cause more trouble than is needed! This is what happens when the pickings are slim: The greatest passion gets funneled into opposition.)

We hire them and fire them. President Bush was hired to know more than the people, to be told all the deep inside intelligence, all the facts Americans are not told, and do the right and smart thing in response.

That's the deal. It's the real "grand bargain." If you are a midlevel Verizon executive who lives in New Jersey, this is what you do: You hire a president and tell him to take care of everything you can't take care of--the security of the nation, its well-being, its long-term interests. And you in turn do your part. You meet your part of the bargain. You work, pay your taxes, which are your financial contribution to making it all work, you become involved in local things--the boy's ball team, the library, the homeless shelter. You handle what you can handle within your ken, and give the big things to the president.

And if he can't do it, or if he can't do it as well as you pay the mortgage and help the kid next door, you get mad. And you fire him.

Americans can't fire the president right now, so they're waiting it out. They can tell a pollster how they feel, and they do, and they can tell friends, and they do that too. They also watch the news conference, and grit their teeth a bit.