La Bougie du Sapeur

Unfortunately this little ditty costs 4 euros (about $6.50 these days) so all you are going to get is a tiny jpg of it. This French newspaper comes out each leap year day since 1980 so there aren't all that many editions of it as you can see. As a website related to it says:

Le quotidien qui parait tous les 29 février (en hommage au célèbre Sapeur Camember, de Christophe).
Un journal exceptionnel, le seul auquel sa périodicité donne le recul indispensable pour traiter avec humour et lucidité l'actualité la plus brûlante !!!

And good old Wikkis says:
La Bougie du Sapeur, first published in 1980, is a humorous French newspaper published every February 29 - i.e., once every four years. Its next edition will be on February 29, 2012. There have been eight editions of this newspaper to date.

In 2004, the seventh edition came with the first edition of La Bougie du Sapeur - Dimanche, a Sunday special designed to be published on every Sunday, February 29 - i.e., once every twenty-eight years. The next edition of the Sunday special is scheduled to be published on Sunday, February 29, 2032.

The newspaper is named after a comics character, the sapper Camember, created by Georges Colomb in the 1890s.

It was founded by Jacques Debuisson and Christian Bailly. Its editor in chief is Jean d'Indy. Each edition is printed in 200,000 copies. The newspaper's ISSN is 0761-6147.

Profits of the 2008 edition will go to a charity devoted to autism.

Or according to l'Humanité:

« La Bougie du sapeur », le journal qui tombe avant l’heure

« LA BOUGIE DU SAPEUR » est le seul « quotidien » à ne paraître qu’une fois tous les quatre ans : le 29 février. Son nom lui vient du célèbre sapeur Camember, personnage imaginé par Christophe, pseudonyme du mathématicien et naturaliste Georges Colomb. Camember, né le 29 février 1844, fut, nous dit Christophe, incorporé dans l’armée alors qu’il n’avait fêté que quatre fois son anniversaire.

Une anecdote voudrait qu’en 1992 le journal soit tombé en retard. Motif : certains rédacteurs auraient remis au lendemain la rédaction de l’article qu’ils auraient dû écrire la veille…

Notre confrère Jean d’Indy, rédacteur en chef du « Sapeur », dément formellement cette « calomnie », car « la Bougie du sapeur » est sans reproche : « Non seulement cette histoire est sans fondement, mais je peux même vous dire que, depuis 1992, nous tombons avec 24 heures d’avance. Pour être en vente dans les kiosques dès le 28 février. Pari tenu en 1996, pour notre numéro 5, malgré l’ambition qui a été la nôtre pour son contenu. »

A savoir ?.

Les lecteurs découvriront. Mais je peux vous annoncer notre grand « scoop ». Nous expliquons en détail notre proposition d’un nouveau mode de scrutin pour l’élection présidentielle : la proportionnelle. Chacun des candidats occuperait la fonction et l’Elysée pendant une fraction du septennat proportionnelle au nombre de voix qu’il aurait obtenu. Cela présenterait en outre l’avantage d’économiser les énormes frais d’un second tour…

Original. Mais aucun des présidents n’aurait plus le temps de laisser du temps au temps… Autre « scoop » ?

Oui, et celui-ci devrait plaire à vos lecteurs… La présentation de Robert Hue comme « nain de jardin » nous a donné l’idée de reconstituer l’équipe des Sept Nains avec des hommes politiques. Mais Robert Hue restera « Joyeux ».

Et encore ?

Epilogue, dans notre numéro 5 du feuilleton commencé voilà seize ans : « Le crime du 29 de la rue Villain ». Et une proposition spéciale d’abonnement pour le XXIe siècle. Transmissible par héritage.

Mais avez-vous prévu que 2100 ne serait pas bissextile ?

Oui, bien sûr. Et même qu’exceptionnellement, en 2004, il n’y aurait pas l’habituelle « Bougie du sapeur », mais « la Bougie Dimanche… »

Propos recueillis par R. F.

Nothing like French satirical newspapers (Le Canard Enchaîné being the most famous).

Why all this? Because I was trying to remember what day of the week 29 February 1984 was (Wednesday). Why? Because my nephew was born that day. So happy sixth birthday!

Friday cat blogging

It's minus 26 out this morning and 56 in the kitchen (even with the thermostat calling for 65 from 6-8 AM)!!!!!! And we're supposed to get another 4-8 inches of snow tonight. WHERE are we going to put it???

I am not so aware of the cold when I have three furries on top of me. This photo is from earlier this week around 4.00 in the morning when I got up to get some cough syrup. I didn't turn on the light which is why everyone's eyes are closed — they didn't like the flash. Imagine my legs fitting there somewhere (left leg between everyone).

More photos later when I get back from eucharist with the elders at the assisted living place (I haven't been over there in three weeks).


Here's Miss Agatha Birch Funky Paws giving me the look (that means she wants attention). Soon she'll stretch out a paw in my direction.

A despicable and embarrassing distinction

[The Simpsons go to Springfield, VT... site of one of Vermont's prisons.]

Ann sent me this link and here is the article:

Vermont tops list of states spending more on prison than college

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Vermont tops the list of states that spend more money on prisons than on higher education, according to a report released Thursday.

The state spends $1.37 on corrections for every $1 spent on public universities and community colleges, according to the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project.

Gov. Jim Douglas called it "a dubious distinction. I'm proud of being number one in things like cleanest and safest state in America and the healthiest and smartest, but not in areas like that."

State Sen. Richard Sears, chairman of the Legislature's Corrections Oversight Commission, said Thursday he was unaware of the statistic, but he didn't quibble with the idea that Vermont spends more on Corrections than would be ideal.

The cost of holding one female inmate at the Dale Correctional facility in Waterbury is almost more than tuition for six resident students at the University of Vermont, Sears said.

"We've got to change those numbers around," Sears said. "If you ask most Vermonters if higher education was a bigger priority than corrections, they would probably say higher education."

The cost of housing an inmate at Dale Correctional was about $67,000 in fiscal year 2007, according to Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann.

Sears and other lawmakers are talking about realigning Vermont's prisons, looking for efficiencies, finding ways to better monitor some inmates outside of jail and offering improved treatment for drug and alcohol offenders.

Sears questioned if the Pew statistics took into account that Vermont doesn't have any county or local jails that would hold people without their being accounted for in statewide corrections statistics.

The report didn't take that into account, said Adam Gelb, the director of the Public Safety Performance Project. For comparison's sake, state spending data was used but not county and local data, according to Pew officials.

Vermont is one of seven states with combined corrections systems and the Northeast is more expensive than other regions of the country, Gelb said. Of the others, Connecticut and Delaware are fourth and fifth in the ratio of prison-to-higher education spending. Rhode Island is seventh.

But the same Pew report said Vermont ranked third in percentage of total general fund dollars spent on corrections, at 9.3 percent, following Oregon, which was first, and then Florida.

Sears said Vermont's prison spending has been building for decades due to tougher drunk driving laws, longer prison sentences and the few alternatives to incarceration.

Sears' committee is working on bills that would reduce that by finding alternatives to prison for nonviolent felons.

Rounding out the top five were Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware. The state that had the lower ratio of corrections to higher education spending was Minnesota, which spent 17 cents on corrections for each dollar spent on higher education.

The Pew report said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years ago. The rate of increases in prison costs was six times that of higher education spending in the same period, the report said.

The report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 _ one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

____

On the Web:

Pew Center: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Plus ça change...?

Last night I started reading Deborah and Nicholas Clifford's book, "The Troubled Roar of the Waters": Vermont in Flood and Recovery, 1927 (Durham, NH: UNH Press, 2007). They published it on the 80th anniversary of the huge flood that caused chaos in Vermont 2-5 November 1927. While all of New England and parts of Canada were affected by torrential rains, Vermont was 'covered by a "cube of water more than a mile high, a mile long, and a mile broad," according to meterologists at the time' [back book jacket]


Whole villages disappeared in the floodwaters and the book details the tragic fate of people trapped in their gaslit houses as they were swept away in the torrents.


No matter where one turned, towns were immersed under floodwaters.


Vermont had an extensive railroad network that took people to and from Boston, New York and Montréal. The dairy industry depended on the railways to carry their milk down to the lucrative markets of Boston and New York. The north-south routes were heavily damaged and really didn't get back up to steam until 1928.

What attracts my attention beyond the gripping story of the flood and its aftermath is the sociological study of Vermont in the 1920s and the importance of the state to the US at large. (I also read this with the personal knowledge that my mother was a month and four days old when this all happened.) So much of what the authors describe happening in the 1920s seems still visible even today. Looking back at the state's pride in being 'exceptional' and 'different', one sees the same desire to maintain that somewhat carmudgeonly air.

As for the title of this entry, the following quotation (51) seems particularly timely. Ignore the somewhat disparaging language of 'Papist' (it is xenophobic) — of the time and from the Rutland Herald, not reflecting the authors' opinions — as you read this description. The context is describing people's angst about losing the 'old' way of life and distrust of the following social forces: modernity, urbanism, immigration and 'radical' politics, pitted against an idealisation of folk-life and a belief in rural life and its rhythms.

Views such as these... reflect a general sense of crisis among old-stock Americans, who saw what they imagined as an earlier and homogeneous and harmonious society — native, Protestant, and middle-class — challenged by a modern culture increasingly influenced by immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. Even those lovely white churches adorning the village greens were no longer much a part of the lives of Vermonters as they once had been. "Papists Have Increased 20% in Ten Years," read a headline in the Rutland Herald, and though in the United States as a whole, Protestant church membership was rising at roughly the same rate, that was not true of Vermont. A study of President Coolidge's home county of Windsor revealed a severe drop in Protestant church-going, and in 1931 a committee chaired by [Governor] John Weeks — himself a man of profound Protestant convictions — discovered that while 51.9 percent of adult Vermonters were church members, without the Papists, the figure would have been far worse, for only 36 percent of the state's non-Catholic population over the age of thirteen belonged to any congregation (the national average was 46.5 percent).

Evidently church going 80 years ago wasn't a high priority either — perhaps for very different reasons but nonetheless, it's a pretty low percentage of folks who attended church. Given how strong the Congregational church is historically in Vermont, it's amazing that we've had an incorporated Episcopal diocese for 175 years with 48 congregations. This little historical foray offers some perspective as I worry about our shrinking numbers. Maybe what is happening in 2008 isn't that much different from what was going on in 1927... before all the suffering of the Great Depression... where it seems we might be headed as well.

How much more?

[Ah I see the last post was number 666... and that I had better get this up soon before blogger goes off the air.]

Call this the winter follies — Burlington now has had its snowiest winter on record. I don't think that is the case here but I would be interested in what our total accumulation has been so far. Again, this is peanuts compared to the Rockies; my sister said Steamboat has gotten over 300 inches this winter.


Young Guy looked out the study window this morning with horror. MORE of this white stuff?


This is the view out the south side of the house. If the cars start coming down the side street sideways then I cancel meetings. I know things are bad when I see headlights in my study window (southwest sides of the house)


This view, taken from the east end of the house, looks up to the mountain ridge behind the town (part of our valley) and immediately to the back part of the house where Miss Agatha Birch Funky Paws has her suite.


Taken with my back to the garage, this shot due west (with a milky late February sunset) doesn't really convey what sort of a tunnel-like experience it is backing out of the driveway. First of all, it's not a straight shoot, you have to wiggle around the corner of the house; second, at this point, there's a ridge of ice that is level with the back step which causes the car to slosh sideways into the right snowbank; third, there's no more place to put this all. You can't really see the tree that is growing out of the foundation — figure it has managed to push apart two huge granite sill plates. You can get a gander of how much is out there from the roof dumps in front of the house across the street.

I keep telling myself that this is just water and air. Right? It will melt, of course, and that will be interesting, too.

Holding up the world

While it's snowing out (again), here's a photo from a warmer clime — taken at the first site of la Mitad del Mundo, 22kms north of Quito, which held forth until ten years ago when GPS determined that the equator was about 200m to the east. (I wrote about that a week ago.)

Still, it's fun to go to the site with its big monument and straddle the equator as I am doing in this photo — a true via media moment. It was a bit breezy that day but I was still happy to have sandals on, knowing that I wouldn't be able to again for several more months.

Meanwhile, I look out the window at the snow and think that I will have to deal with it in the morning, though if it's enough, the snow plow guy surely will at least do the church driveway and ramps if not mine, too. But that's tomorrow's woe, not tonight's.

Indestructable

My father sent this along.

The back story is that over the years he has waged a battle with people bludgeoning the mailbox into submission. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, mailbox baseball was a frequently practised sport and my parents were going through several mailboxes a year. (Maybe it's because their box is at a bend in the road so it's especially easy to whack.)

The best story is from the mid 1970s when the then-local pharmacy called up and asked if my parents were missing their mailbox? Indeed, it was gone. The owner of the pharmacy had arrived in the morning to find mailbox, pole and concrete base parked on the front steps. Since the owner knew two people who had the same street number, he called my parents first, figuring if it wasn't them, it was the other household.

After that, my father took the cross-bar from an old swing set, dug a six-foot deep hole, sank the bar into sackcrete, covered it up with dirt and then piled up rocks on either side of the pole. He then took two pieces of metal, cut them and wrapped the metal fore and aft on the box. (Next time I go down, I will photograph the box and link back to this post.)

But he thinks that using a Tidy Cat pail is pretty good: 'It's airtight!,' he said to me last night.

+

Meanwhile, here's the new set-up in his office, with his old Mac G3 (under the desk) and his brand-new iMac.


What you can't see is his other Mac, the iMac that looks like a spaceship. That one is on a large table behind his back as he took this photo. (I like his set-up because he can swivel around from one table to the other.) He has them all linked together by ethernet and uses each one in turn. I think it's pretty cool, given that he is 83. His tinkering with the computers may drive my mother nuts but it keeps him busy.

Now, if there were a way to corral all those wires under the desk — Pixel the cat, though, isn't interested in them so I guess it's not an issue.

I realise that my G4 is SEVEN years old. That's frightening. When I do have to get a new computer, I probably will get what he got but I am not ready to make that leap — first, I don't have the money; second, I don't want the hassle. Besides, where would I put all my beanie babies (that currently live on top of the monitor supposedly to keep the cats off it)? And, how would I be able to have both computers accessible since there are still things on the G4 I would want to use?

Dear Paul

So Honor Moore has written about her father, the Rt Rev'd Paul Moore, in her new book, The Bishop's Daughter. Elizabeth and Mark have written about it (their blogs already show up in google!) but I am chiming in without having read them (though I will).

After listening to the online interview at the New Yorker website, in which Honor reveals that her father's orientation, all I can say is: God bless you, Paul, may you find that peace that passes understanding… you drew from a well that few of us knew about yet which came out in your compassion.

As Honor says in the interview: 'It informed his compassion, and when he talked about looking into the eyes of a poor person, an outsider, while he was not an outsider, he felt like an outsider. It [his orientation] came out in the family in 1990 through a series of accidents. He was a man of his generation and he was ashamed and embarrassed and it was disappointing' for Honor because she was having gay relationships and she thought they could talk and he wouldn’t and 'now I realise he couldn’t. He was trying to protect his wife whom he loved and himself. It became an open secret. It broke my heart that he was ashamed and I wanted to heal that. His shame and pain was festering within me. I wanted to say Pop, it is alright; you lived a triumphant life and your legacy is a great legacy for your children. This element of this life doesn’t contradict; it made him seem more human. We all have these struggles. There was a passion to his preaching, almost painful which was mysterious to me and this kind of explains it. He was trying to transform his own suffering into an instrument of consolation and solace for others. One of the things that I admired about him was he was absolutely consistent. The fact that he had this suffering he was always struggling with made me appreciate him even more.'

There are many who have their Paul Moore stories… mine is taking a quarter-credit course my middler year in seminary with him. The subject was ministry in the urban setting but mostly it was listening to this retired bishop prophet muse about his lifetime of ministry. The papers he had us write were thought-provoking and posed questions I still use in ministry.

At the end of the semester, rather than a final exam, he gathered us all into the oratory to pray. We reflected on the course, what we learned and where it might lead us. And then, one by one, he laid his hands on our heads, praying over us and commending our future life as priests to God. (I am teary as I write this.) As far as I am concerned, I was ordained at that moment though there were no other ordained people present other than him. What happened a year and a half later was the icing on the cake.

He was also my spiritual director/confessor that year and hearing now what he was bearing then (because it was in and around the same time all this was going on according to his daughter), I realise now even more from where he was drawing his compassion.

Paul, you're still a saint to me. And you're still an inspiration.

[photo: © Episcopal Diocese of NY, March 2003 peace demonstration, Saint John's the Divine, NYC — Moore died in May of that year]

All broke down

The brain is broke down today... and the body is still recovering from the cold that is in my chest. No, it's nothing serious — it's not pneumonia or bronchitis, just tired lungs and chest. However, for having loafed around the past four days (i.e., having slept about three or four hours mid-day, except yesterday), I was tired doing the little pre-emptive snow-shovelling I did this afternoon.

The old-timers call a day like today — sunny and in the 30s — a 'weather-breeder' day. They couldn't believe that the weather would hold so whenever it was nice, they would assume bad weather was on the way... as it is for tomorrow: another snowstorm that can leave us with 6-12 inches.* This winter is turning out to be like the one of 2000-2001 when on 1 April, there were four feet of snow outside. I realise the snow on the porch roof is almost up to the study windows. Anyway, I tried to hack at the snow walls in the driveway with no success. I suspect the snow-plow guy will do nothing tomorrow.

Meanwhile, what's broke-down? For starters, health care and health insurance (the biggest rip-off that exists). Only this week did I get a coverage statement from Blue Cross Blue Shield for last year's colonoscopy. Uhuh, I had that sucker on 11 September and they didn't process it until 12 February. SIX months later! So, of course I can't claim it in 2007 (which would have helped taxes), I have to this year. And worse, so much for the passing thought that oh, my finances are OK, I actually can pay everything... because now here is a $677 I wasn't expecting having to shell out. I desperately need to take Orange Guy to the vet because he has a lump on his neck and I also need to take Young Guy there too because his eye looks odd. That's bound to be $250. Then I start praying the car doesn't break down. I had entertained the idea of going to El Salvador but I just can't do that. Nor are Compa and I going walking this year because we can't afford it. Back to the original thought, our health care system is so broke down, it should be dismantled and rebuilt entirely.

And then, given that Vermont has a primary next week, I got the first canned robo call from the Clinton campaign. They've latched onto Vermont's retired governor, Madeleine Kunin. Frank Rich in his column yesterday actually refers to Vermont (mirabile): 'The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago.' I suppose I should be glad the campaigns are giving Vermont attention; usually no one bothers with us. I still yearn for a political season that is two months long. Keep on dreaming.

So the sunset is a gentle orange pink.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morn, sailors take warn.

Vamos a ver.

* from the National Weather Service:
SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING ARE EXPECTED TO BE 6 TO 10 INCHES ACROSS THE SAINT LAWRENCE RIVER VALLEY 8 TO 14 INCHES ACROSS THE ADIRONDACKS OF NORTHERN NEW YORK 10 TO 15 INCHES ACROSS MUCH OF VERMONT AND THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY OF NEW YORK WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE IN FAVORED HIGHER TERRAIN.

Lent 3A

With all the snow that has fallen outside, it is hard to imagine a desert area that struggles to have water.

But, for a second, picture yourself in a desert land or some place really hot. Picture yourself, say, in Malawi, a place where the days are—for us—unbearably hot and dry. Picture yourself one evening just as the sun is setting, with crimson and violet deepening the sky. There is perhaps the faintest of breezes. Picture yourself by the town’s one water spigot—a vital place because the town does not have running water. As you stand there, women come from all corners, walking down the dusty streets, some with babies tied on their backs with wide strips of colourful cloth, all with huge water jars perched on their heads. You marvel how they are able to balance those jars empty—imagine how precarious they are full (for even five gallons of precious water weighs forty pounds). The women are all headed for the source of water, the one spigot. As they gather, it becomes a social time. As they wait for the jars to fill, they chat about the day’s happenings. It is a chance for them to visit, to check up on one another, to care for one another and to gather strength. You learn that they come to the spigot in the early mornings and the late afternoon, knowing better than to haul heavy water during the most intense heat of the day. You also notice that this is purely a women’s gathering place; there are no men around. Gathering water is not part of the men’s job.

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Now imagine the scene almost two millennia ago. At a well. Jacob’s well. In the middle of the day, blazing hot—not in the cool of evening. A tired man, sitting by the well. A lone woman who arrives to gather water. The man asking the woman for water, a gesture of elementary human solidarity which transcends gender and ethnic boundaries. The woman wondering why he is talking to her. The man telling the woman about living water—whatever that is. The woman asking the man for living water. An extraordinary encounter for what is said and what is not said, for the social norms broken and new norms established.

Some will discount the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman because so many things are odd (a woman addressing a man, a Jew talking to a Samaritan and then the woman telling other men about Jesus) but fact is, it is the longest theological discussion in the entire New Testament. The woman and Jesus speak seven times in a carefully orchestrated dialogue that culminates in her understanding who he is. The progression of this rich conversation moves from earthly thirst to heavenly thirst for God; from nationalistic understandings to universal human relationships; from discussion of the woman’s marital problems to those of her people’s and four other nations’ relationship with God; and from the right place of worship to the proper spirit of worship. Most astoundingly, in one of the 24 ‘I am’ statements of John’s gospel in which Jesus gives us a clue as to who he is, Jesus answers the woman, ‘I am the one [the Messiah] speaking to you,’—revealing his true nature first to an unnamed woman rather than to his disciples. The disciples are not even around—they have gone back to the marketplace to buy groceries. Their absence is notable because during it, Jesus initiates a new system of opportunities for sharing amongst all people.

Something more important than breaking cultural rules is taking place. Jesus teaches us a whole new understanding of coming to the well and seeking water. In this conversation about the water of life comes the proclamation that access to this living water is open to all—men and women, Judean and Samaritan, young and old, whatever pair of opposites we can think of.

+

Megan McKenna collects stories from all around the world and gently applies them to the lectionary readings of the day. For today’s reading, she tells the story of a small boy, Nobiah, in Africa. His mother, siblings and he live in a village where there is no water so every day his mother goes to the far-off well to get water for cooking, drinking, cleaning and watering the small garden that feeds them.

One day, Nobiah’s mother is sick so she entrusts her precious jug to him and sends him off to the well. He is proud for his new responsibility and appreciative of his mother who does this task every day. He fills the jug and sets on his way back home.

En route, several animals beg and plead him for water — the hedgehog, the hyena and her cubs, and the ant bear. In each case, he digs a little hole or cups his hands with water from his jug. The ant bear tells him, ‘Thank you my friend. Your heart is a big and deep as the well that gives this water.’

As you have figured out, by the time Nobiah gets home, he has just enough water to give his baby sister and mother. Only a few drops come out from the jug to water the plants. His mother, frantic, smashes the jug in frustration and tells him what a fool he was for sharing their precious water.

They all go to bed and Nobiah can hear his sister and mother crying. He falls asleep until he is woken up by scratching from outside. It is the animals who have returned for more water. He tells them he has none; there is no well. The animals reply they will help him scratch the hard dirt with their claws and make one. So they set about digging a well but Nobiah asks: How far do we have to go? The ant bear answers: As deep as your heart and as wide as your thirst.

Nobiah falls asleep but in the morning finds a completed and full well burbling with water and a clay pot with strange markings on it. His mother is thrilled that she no longer will have to walk so far. Nobiah reminds her to share the water with the animals who dug the well. They not only share the water with the animals but with their village and keep the strange clay pot by the well as a reminder that, when digging a well, one must go as deep as one’s heart and as wide as one’s thirst. (1)

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McKenna then asks us to consider this Lent how deep and wide must our hearts and thirst go? Lent invites us to dig deeply and access the well that already resides in us.

Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish writer who died during WWII at Auschwitz, simply said:

There really is a deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then God must be dug out again. (2)

Her words ask us then what stones and grit do we need to clear away? What do we need to move to unbury God? (For God is already inside us.) What does it take to dig God back out again?

Lent is a time during which we can consciously try to refill or regain our spiritual wells through prayer and meditation, through quiet and letting go of things rather than taking on the world. It takes a lot of work sometimes to be still and know God, to reconnect with Jesus, to know of the presence of the Holy Spirit working in our daily life. We are the woman at the well with our questions; this is the time of year when we can wrestle with them more closely.

When sorrow, worry, anxiety threaten to overwhelm us, somehow we must remember that we have already been connected to the living water of life through our baptism. Connie said in her sermon two weeks ago that, as a reminder how each of us moves from the waters of baptism into the wilderness, she placed a bowl of sand and stones next to the baptismal font. The water is a reminder of baptism, and helps us remember to whom we belong. The sand is a Lenten reminder of our wilderness experiences. She then invited us to touch the water and remember our baptism, feel the sand that reminds us of our journey and light one of the candles to remember at the end of each wilderness journey there is the light of the resurrection.

We are able to reconnect with those living waters through the sacrament of communion. As you receive communion this morning, think of the elements filling your heart and soul, raising the level of spiritual water in your well, carrying off the stones and debris. And then, come back again and again to draw upon this living water. For it is life indeed.

END NOTES
(1) Megan McKenna, Lent: The Sunday Readings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 30-33.

(2) Cited in a Lent Sourcebook, Vol. 1, ed. J. Robert Baker et. al. (Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1990), 204. Original appears in An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-43, trans. Arno Pomerans (NY: Pantheon, 1983).

Another quiet day

Well, if I have to hang around the house and try to be still (with the vain hope that I will have enough of a voice to get through not only the morning liturgies but officiating at evensong at the cathedral), at least I have been able to lie under this nice soft purple-dyed alpaca blanket that I bought two Saturdays ago in the market in the Ejido park outside the hotel. I am chagrined to say that I only paid $20 for it... but perhaps that is because I bought a second one to have down at our house. Compa warned me not to let the cats near it but is kind of hard to do that when asleep.


Two weeks ago, after our shopping spree at two markets in Quito, we laid out on the bed the following prizes. There are the two blankets, little bags and ocarinas to give away, a sweater for me (the bright one) and one for my mother (alpaca again, both for $30), and small goodies. That was Saturday's damage; Sunday we hit the market again and what the heck, got a Panamá hat each for $12 (the really good ones are $45). I was sorely tempted by a charango (a small ten-string, five pairs of strings, guitar-like instrument) but I couldn't justify the $85 even though the person selling them was also the person who made them. Instead, I listen to one of my favourite albums, RonRoco by Gustavo Santaolalla.

The cats are destroying the house and plants so I guess I had better go feed them.

Friday night shuffle

As says more or less (malmenos) Padre Mickey, you pushes the button and take yer chances....

Tu Sin Mi Y Yo Sin Ti • Monchy & Alejandra
Over the Hills and Far Away • Led Zepplin
The Fire of the Spirit (O ignis Spiritus Paracliti) • Richard Southern
With or Without You • U2
Bright Angel • Paul Winter
The Hardest Part • Cold Play
When David Heard • MacMillan, Bone Jesu (An Eternal Harmony)
Fragile (Reprise) • Sting
Prelude à la suite pour violoncelle n°1 • Carlos Nuñez (Cinema do mar)
Concerto For Oboe D'Amore In D, BWV 1053 - 10. Allegro • Bach (JS)

If that's not eclectic, then I don't know what is. A little bit of M&A, almost bachata, to start you off, then a scratchy Led Zep 33 my brother recorded into MP3, and then leaning more on the classical than modern. Carlos Nuñez is a Galician bagpiper so lands more in the celtic range of music. And nothing like Hildegard à la modern (Richard Southern). Fact is, however, that a more subtle version of this song was sung by a baritone at my ordination to the priesthood.

Friday Cat Blogging

is back again!


Cats into Everything (also the title of a fabulous book). They had to make sure those evil bags won't take me away.


On cold days, the igloo is very popular. Orange Guy was there first, of course.


Miss Funky Paws looks out from her ball. Next to her is a catnip toy that has only generated so-so interest.


Meanwhile, Young Guy prowls around the top of the bookcases in the study. His red-white fuzzy toy is what drew him up there.


There's a stalement or lull in the action. Not much I can do about the stains from a roof leak several years ago. Eventually the whole ceiling will come down (it almost did last summer) and we can replace it all.

From Quito

Still dragged down by this head/throat/chest cold, so here's a nice photo from my 16th (.e., 17th) floor hotel window in Quito, looking south at the basilica off to the right and el Panecillo straight ahead (in front of the volcanic range in the far off background and sort of to the left of the tall orange building) — the breadloaf bump in the middle of the photo on top of which is a statue of the Virgin you can climb. There are several spots in Quito where you can get up high and look down on the city. Being so high up, 9300 feet, the climate is 'eternal spring' — 60-70 or so highs with 45 lows at night. The green roofs in the foreground are artisinal vendors' booths in the Parque El Ejido. They set up for Saturday-Sunday. I did a fair amount of damage to my wallet there but ended up with some very nice things.

Little did I know that that Saturday morning would be the clearest the sky would be all week. We held off going up the TeleferiQo that takes you up to 13200 feet because we wanted to acclimate but when we did go last Friday, it was pretty foggy.

Three beers

I have a blasted head cold, thanks to flying in three tin cans at 34-38000 feet last Saturday coming back from Quito (by way of Miami/Raleigh Durham) so don't have it in me to put up anything beyond this cute and clean joke.

The Man Who Orders Three Beers

An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walked into the pub and ordered three beers. The bartender raised his eyebrows a wee bit, but (with reservation) served the man the three beers, which he took to a nearby table and quietly drank them all by himself.

The next evening the man came to the pub and again ordered three beers and carried them to table by himself and proceeded to drink the three beers all by himself. For weeks, this man came into the pub regularly and when he did, he ordered 3 beers and took them to a table and drank the 3 beers all by himself.

Soon the entire little hamlet of County Kerry was whispering about the "man who orders three beers."

Finally, after many weeks, the bartender broached the subject on behalf of the village.

"I don't mean to be prying but folks around here are wonderin why your always order three beers and drink them alone?"

"Tis a wee bit odd I would be supposin" the man replied. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America and the other went to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order two extra beers, whenever we would partake, as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the entire hamlet of County Kerry were pleased with his answer and with the reverence for family and soon the "man who orders three beers" became somewhat of a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet.

Then one evening the man came in and ordered only two beers. The bartender served them with a heavy heart. The Irishman took them to the table and drank the 2 beers all by himself. On the next visits to the pub, the "man who orders three beers," would only order two beers. And drink them all by himself. Word spread around the hamlet quickly. Prayers were offered for the soul of one of the brothers. The next day, the bartender said to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer our condolences to you for the death of your brother, you know - only two beers."

The man pondered for a moment then replied, " You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up beer for Lent."

Martes pasado

Last Tuesday Executive Council members divided up into groups to visit various parishes in the Diocese of Ecuador Central. I had opted to go to the indigenous congregation close to Ambato (87 kms south of Quito) but volcanic explosions from nearby Volcán Tungurahua nixxed that trip — too much volcanic ash brings on pneumonia and the diocese did not want to do us in. Instead, I ended up going to Ibarra, about 115 kms north of Quito, and 126 (?) kms south of the Colombian border. The congregation there, San Felipe, has worked with Colombian refugees in the past and currently is working with a barrio that is discerning whether or not to join The Episcopal Church. When the day comes, they will all be received or baptised or confirmed. Somehow I think EC's visit solidified that desire. We were their first gringo group ever to visit. They outdid themselves. As always, the extravagant hospitality of the poor moves me to tears.


When we arrived, on the community basketball court, we found chairs (from people's homes) and benches on the perimeter. They had put up this sign behind a table with all the local grains that they use. The mayor of the town had a five-point program for us — the national anthem, explanation of the grains and foods plus instruments, two dances, a speech by another local official, It was so touching.


While we watched the demonstrations, they cooked corn in this wok-looking pan and gave it out as a snack along with soda and crackers. It was tender and delicious but not like popcorn.


Here are some of the dancers. As with many Latin dances, the feet move in small quick steps, an action that we gringos don't quite have.


This woman typifies the contrasts between tradition and modern-day life. She wears the traditional blouse, necklaces, bracelets and skirts but has a cell phone clipped to her blouse.


Twice the locals invited EC members to get up and dance and we did. Compa took this of all of us trying to dance as our hosts do. It was rather comical.

The priest who walks with this community wanted our address so that the community could thank us for coming. Really, we should be thanking them for taking an hour off from work to put on such a wonderful gathering. It is so humbling.

I doubt either party will forget the day. And, as certain parts of the Anglican Communion continue to roil in things of adiaphora, bonds were made a week ago between the people of Caranqui and a bunch of northerners... as it should be and ever shall be, God willing.

From 0º0'0" to 44º08'59"

What a change from being at the equator on Thursday afternoon where it is an 'eternal spring' to Vermont where we are buried in snow.


So here is what the front yard looked like on Sunday morning when I finally got back from Quito. Apparently, the town got three feet of snow while I was gone. We are on track to have one of the snowiest winters in the past 100 years and are already 30" ahead of where we should be right now.


The driveway was totally impassable because the snow plow guy said he no longer had anywhere to push the snow.

So here's where we enter into the Sisyphus files.



This morning I knew that I had to tackle the driveway before the temperature dropped (it got up to 50 this afternoon).

As I was shovelling out the two-thirds of the driveway that lead to the back, I went to the office to discover that the ceiling was leaking again. So off to rake the snow off the roof which meant pruning the white lilac by the office. The snow in the corner is so high that I could climb up it and bang on the ice with a sledge hammer. I was able to get the ice and snow off the parish house without having to go up top. Then, the shed roof dumped this afternoon so it was back out. I am pooped. But, hey, I am doing this activity at 800 feet, not 9200 feet, above sea level!


The Junior Warden is standing where I had been previously. Note our implements for getting rid of ice dams and snow from the roof: hammer, sledge hammer, roof rake (if you look really hard you can see it in the air), pruning cutters, snow shovels, crampons. It was so warm that both of us were in t-shirts.

The smartest idea I had all day was to go to the hardware store to buy a long-handled gravel shovel. It works really well for getting the heavy snow (such as the roof dump) out of the way — I can hack into the snow and then once it's on the blade fling it off to the sides.

Lent 2A

Lent 2A • 17 February 2008

Of the 41 173 verses of the Bible (at least in the KJV), a few stand out. Perhaps you have your favourite bible verses—verses that have struck you over the years, verses that have stuck with you, or verses that simply are so well known that you have absorbed them through osmosis. Some logical candidates that come right to the top of my mind are:

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
Or: In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth….
Or, the shortest verse of the Bible: Jesus wept.
Or the opening line of the most well-known psalm: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Or another psalm: My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?
Or the Shema: Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

I will not ask you which verses I have just cited, but you can try to guess them. (1)

Finally, there is the bible verse that you sometimes see a bunch of people, usually in a football stadium, holding up written on a piece of cardboard—John 3.16. That’s all they have written, ‘John 3.16.’ They assume you know what John 3.16 is. Any regular attendee at the 8.00 service can tell you what the verse is because we hear it every Sunday in what are called the Comfortable Words: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’

Why this verse of all the verses in the Bible? And why at football games? In order to unpack the popularity of this verse, we have to back up all the way to what is going on around this verse.

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We are still in the very beginning of the gospel of John, a gospel that in its beginning is most concerned with signs and, throughout, with life. This gospel is written in a very thick style. There is a lot of double-talk going on in it We, the listeners, know from the beginning what is going on and who Jesus is. We are privy to conversations with people who just don’t get it. Nicodemus is just one such person.

What has gone before the conversation with Nicodemus? The opening chapter, from which we heard at Christmas, sets the stage for the entire gospel: into the world comes the Word, which is pre-existent and part of the act of creation itself. The Word focuses itself into the person of Jesus. And from there, the gospel shifts to John the Baptiser, who is the sole witness to Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit. From there, Jesus begins to issue his invitations—first, ‘Come and see,’ then, ‘Follow me.’

After the initial invitations, Jesus moves into action. And how. At Cana, he provides the new disciples with the first of six signs—the changing of water into wine. Immediately thereafter, he moves to Jerusalem. Unlike the other gospels, the gospel of John narrates four trips to Jerusalem. Unafraid of official wrath and in control of his destiny at all times, Jesus is not afraid to go to the symbolic centre of Israel. And so he travels freely back and forth from the country to the city. His ministry oscillates between the call to gather community and heal persons (usually outside of Judea) and the call to speak and perform prophetic deeds. The transformation of water into wine, a constructive act that takes place in the capitol, provides an image of life. But immediately afterwards, Jesus goes to the temple and publicly dismantles the systems of power that subvert God’s creative powers.

The miracle at Cana and the destruction at the temple are two actions that precede two long conversations—the first with Nicodemus and the second with the Samaritan woman. Nicodemus comes from Jerusalem and is some sort of teacher or ruler. Perhaps because of that, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, hiding up in a tree.

Their conversation points us to Jesus as the source of life. But the challenge, as expressed in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, lies in the notion of being born anew in the spirit. Nicodemus clearly is not sure. Coming to Jesus at night, hiding up in a tree so he will not be seen as he speaks with Jesus, Nicodemus shows how much he stands to lose if he allows himself to be open to the effects of the Holy Spirit. He will lose his authority and status by following Jesus. He will lose his current understanding of God’s way of working in the world as defined by his tradition. Without transformation of heart and social situation that are by-products of baptism of the Holy Spirit, Nicodemus cannot even begin to see God’s realm. And since he is still firmly attached to his current status and understanding of God, he asks Jesus, ‘How is this possible?’

Jesus’ answer refers back to the story of Moses holding the snake up on a pole so that the Israelites could be healed by looking at it. But he goes further, stating that the Son of God will be lifted up (on the cross, though the gospel does not say this explicitly), thereby demonstrating God’s incredible love for humanity, which results in eternal life and salvation for all. Nicodemus has disappeared from the scene at this point, but were he still there, he might well ask again, ‘How is this possible?’

That is where the football verse comes into the story. If we crystallise John 3.16 into a simple thought, it is: God loves us—all of us—the world of us.

Some will say Jesus loves us and that is correct, too.

But the essence of the verse is:: God loves us through Jesus and the result of this love is eternal life.

In a little longer summary, one can say:

God loves the world.
God desires that none perish.
God gives the Son that all may live.
God has acted in Christ not to condemn but to save.

And you could say that is what the gospel of John is about, too.

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Just as Nicodemus does not get it because he wants to come at it from an intellectual level, parsing out such a deep mystery, so do we sometimes respond that way. Or we respond in a superficial manner. Like Nicodemus, it is so hard sometimes to believe with our heart and soul (much more difficult than with our intellect) that God loves us. For so many of us, we are on a life-long journey to own that good news.

It is easier to write John 3:16 on a piece of cardboard and wave it around at a football game to distant television spectators than to internalise it and live it out in close community.

How many of us are Nicodemus, hiding up in the tree, trying out this gospel business for size, thinking that perhaps if it demands too much, we can quietly slink back into the night, and keep our mouths shut? How many of us are afraid of embracing what baptism is all about, witnessing to God’s love in the world and instead weigh the social costs as they go?

Maybe it is time to make all of us a small banner or card which reads, ‘God loves absolutely everyone’ (2) so we can hang it on our walls, stick it in our wallets, on our computers, in our cars where we could see them to be reminded that God loves US, and mostly so we can share this good news to a world that has a lot of internalized self-hatred. Here one just for you!

What if, during Lent, we were to try out proclaiming—each in our own way to one another and to our other communities—that ‘God loves you’? What if we were to say that to ourselves when we look at ourselves? Maybe, just maybe, if we tried it during Lent, it might stick year round. And who knows what gifts of the Holy Spirit could be unleashed.

For starters right now, when we receive communion this morning, let us translate the words, ‘The Bread of Life, The Cup of Salvation,’ into ‘God loves you’ and see where that leads us.

END NOTE
(1) John 1.1; Genesis 1.1; John 11.35; Psalm 23.1; Psalm 22.1; Deuteronomy 6.4-5.
(2) per Louie Crew.

One last post from Quito

We elected to spend an extra day in Quito post Executive Council meeting (on our dime for those who wonder) to do some last-minute exploring. So this morning we took the popular TeleferiQo, Quito's 2005 telepherique (actually a ski gondola identical to the Killington VT Skyship), that takes you to 4050 m (13,300 ft). Up top on a clear day (which we didn't have) one can see the summit of Pinchincha, the volcano that overlooks Quito (it last spewed ash about ten years ago). Today we had passing clouds and fog but for a while we could look down on the city. In this photo by Compa, Pinchincha is behind me. On our next trip here (we can dream, no?), we'll bring hiking clothes because there are trails to the top where one can look into the crater.

After that, we went to a church, la Compañia, a Baroque church that is over the top. Even all the retables we saw on the Camino de Santiago can't equal this gilded, super-decorated church. It seems more to be a museum than place of worship now (also like the churches in Spain). The tour guide was fabulous, perhaps egged on by having a group of people who seemed to know about a lot of church history (we were with four others from council or the church center but we never let on what our background was).

Then this afternoon, just wandering up several blocks and over more to a funky store for fair trade coffee and chocolate and then one last gasp/fling at the artisinal market near the hotel.

Now as I write from the 16th floor overlooking the city, I say goodnight to la Virgen del Panecillo and the basilica which I have seen for the past week. (I never did see the southern cross, alas — too much night fog.)

It's up at 4.30 to get a 5.00 bus for a 7.20 flight and I won't be back in my house until midnight tomorrow, ready to get up for a 8.00 HE. Señor, ten piedad.

De Quito

Two quick photos from Quito, Ecuador.

Compa took this photo last Sunday at the Misión Emaús in Quito Sur where I concelebrated and preached with la Rvda Lourdes. What an amazing woman, such incredible energy. In the photo, she is blessing the offering.

That Sunday seems so very long ago after a very full week of Executive Council. (Mark Harris has already started posting about our work. Where he found the time to do so, I don't know.)

This other photo (again by Compa) is at the museum that is situated on the ecuator according to GPS (0º0'0"). There are a bunch of experiments to show the powers of the equator, such as water draining straight down rather than clockwise or counter-clockwise, or losing your strength when you stand on it, or here, standing on the equator and balancing an egg on the head of a nail. You can't see the nail between my hands but you can make out the egg. Evidently not everyone manages to do it though the three of us did. If you do succeed, you get a little certificate. I am still not 100% convinced but it was pretty cool to stand with one foot in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern.

More later — tomorrow is the last day to go out and about.

Wild card day 2

So instead of going to the usual wonderful local photocopying joint in Montpelier, I went to the big box one up by the hospital. Every time I do, I rue it. This time the person who did the communion leaflets we'll use for Lent, inverted the middle page so I had to take all 40 apart (i.e., unstaple), reassemble and restitch. That was a lost hour.

It is still snowing too. We probably got 15 inches. As I didn't get to shovel the walk in time, the postal carrier didn't deliver the mail. Too late now to care.


Here's the snow scene this morning, looking over the ever-present ramps.


The crab apple tree is wonderfully gunked up with snow.


Looking up through the crab apple branches, I can barely make out the church tower.


I don't really get it because this weekend I was thinking we didn't really have all that snow and now we're wondering where we can put it all. The driveways are becoming tunnel-like.


There are always a few berries left on the mountain ash by the house. This poor tree gets royally beaten up every time there is an ice dump.

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All the church stuff is in place. Now it is time to pack. La Doyenne has been reading up on Ecuador. Too bad for her; she's not coming along. I am outta here. This said, blogging and comment moderation will be spotty at best. (Do these short sentences convey my haste? Are they Hemmingway-esque?)