Proper 27C

When I used to teach, I came to sniff out the questions that really demanded an answer and those questions asked to waste time, to get the class off the subject or trip me up. There was something unmistakable about the genuine, sincere question and the sneaky, tricky question. Maybe you know what sort of question I am talking about.

The Sudducees, the elite thinkers of Jesus’ time, the power brokers, come to him with one of those sneaky, trap questions — asked not because of genuine curiosity or a desire to learn but asked out of spite. Their question is no burning question, it’s a hot potato.

They engage Jesus in dialogue because, by now, his reputation as teacher has long preceded him. Maybe, too, they are onto him because they have heard how he kicked all the money-changers out of the temple upon his arrival in Jerusalem… an arrival that comes after a very long circuitous journey through the surrounding lands.

By the time the Sadducees arrive, Jesus has already met many challenges to his authority. People have been asking him questions like, ‘By what authority are you doing these things?’ ‘Who gave you this authority—it is divine or human?’ ‘Who said you could make the lame walk, the blind see and the deaf hear?’ ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or to God?’

And so they pop their question about the woman having seven brothers as her husband. Ostensibly, they are asking about what is written in the law and, therefore, true. However, since there is nothing in the law and the prophets about the resurrection, they figure they have laid out a good trap into which this itinerant carpenter preacher can fall face down.

Mosaic law says that a man must provide an heir to his brother’s widow if she is childless. In the Sadducees’ logic, this is written in the law and true. If this happens six times — or even twice — in a family of seven brothers, then resurrection cannot be true. If they are all resurrected, the woman would have seven husbands. This kind of bigamy is a violation of God’s law; therefore, resurrection cannot be possible.

Now I have never been a great logician — my GRE scores proved that really well back in 1980 (I had a professor in college ask me if I had ever taken a course in logic and I said no and she said it's evident) — but even I can make out the logic of their thinking. But Jesus’ logic and God’s ways far exceed human reasoning and Jesus beats the Sadducees at their game.

First, since there is nothing in the law and the prophets about the resurrection, how can they know what it is? Jesus tells them their ideas about it are all wrong. Resurrected life is a new way of life: it’s life without death, life without marriage because you no longer need marriage. Children of God in the resurrected age all live with God and they are equal.

Jesus ups the ante. He reminds them of God’s words to Moses at the burning bush: I am the God of Abraham [and Sarah], Isaac [and Rebekkah], Jacob [and Leah]. Aha — these words are written in the Torah, they are true. Using the Sadducees’ own rules for reading Scripture, Jesus reminds them that God is the God of the living — I AM WHO I AM, the God of Being. Since God is the God of the living, and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then they must still be alive. Since the books of the Law tell us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died, and they also tell us they are now alive in God, then resurrection must be true. (1)

Jesus, who could answer so deeply the burning questions in people’s hearts, who could bring healing to their broken lives and bodies, becomes a logician to the point that all the Sadducees can do is pack up their bags and leave because they have been defeated at their own game.

+

But what about us and our questions about the resurrection? What does it mean to be connected to the God of the living? What happens to those we love but see no more? And, underneath it all, what about our trust in all this talk?
It comes to me as no surprise that this lesson follows the Sunday after All Saints’ Day. We are still in that place of remembering our saints, those ordinary people who have graced our lives. Just look above you at all the memory banners that people made last week, names of people that are dear to us, who left us a legacy of their personality, their gifts, their struggles and their presence. They are those people who have seen Christ’s face in other people’s faces, who are Christ-bearers or, what Frederick Buechner calls, Life-givers… those people who help us feel alive, help incarnate us as the people we were created to be, and remind us that being fully human means that the Holy Spirit resides in each one of us, that God is in the midst of our imperfect lives.

Through the saints that have passed through our lives, we gain a glimpse of divine reality. Through the saints, ordinary and extraordinary, we connect to God. Simeon the New Theologian defines this body of saints, the communion of saints, as, ‘The saints in each generation are joined to those who have gone before, and are filled like them with light to become a golden chain in which each saint is a separate link, united to the next by faith, works and love. So in the one God, they form a single chain which cannot quickly be broken.’

We remember them, we feel connected to them and, I suspect, deep down inside wonder what has become of them. That question — a genuine, heartfelt one — is hard to answer but I believe firmly it is not for us to judge (like the Sadducees) what has become of them, but to trust that at the time of their death, whatever passes is solely between them and God and that somehow all is well for them. Yet you and I will not really know until our time has comes and we stand face-to-face with God. Until then, we see through a mirror darkly.

On my part, I can look into that dim mirror because of the belief I hold in the communion of saints and the resurrection. I put my trust in God and that trust helps me believe that all will be well, and that the golden chain will never be broken.

Perhaps knowing that maintaining such trust would be difficult for us, God has given you and me visible reminders of the golden chain: each other. To sustain us on our way, we share the body broken and the blood outpoured. So come and be fed, and then gaze upon one another, links in the chain, knowing that we are all in life together… as the communion of saints, here and now.

ENDO NOTE
(1) The logic lesson comes from a sermon preached by the Rev’d Michael A. Smith, in Preaching Through the Year of Luke (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000), 81-83.

What gives?

I've been trying to add a photo to the sidebar of the main page and every time I try to upload it, I get an error message saying I need to correct the 'errors' on the form. The only error AFAICT is blogger saving the image before I am ready to send it. The file is 150k so maybe it's too big. Any ideas?

Or is because blogger doesn't like the photo?

Also, how would I add an audacity short file to the sidebar?

Creator of the stars at night

It's a little late in the season but tonight I was able to see one of my favourite sights: the Big Dipper low on the horizon. There's one spot on I-89, going north just after crossing the White River (for the third time from White River Junction VT not NH!) in Bethel, where the road goes up and and up and up to the point that you think you could just keep on going and fly into the dipper. A little earlier in the fall, when it is lower you really think it's possible to overshoot it and land in it.

Last vestiges

Once we reach this point in late fall, the colours become more subtle, a combination of grey, green, and even light pink. But before we get totally subdued, there's the last gasp of fall brightness that comes with the Eastern Larch, otherwise known as the tamarack. It's a curious tree because it looks like a conifer, has little cones, but its needles change to yellow and then fall off. At this time of year, the stands of tamaracks brighten up the hillsides and are lovely to see.

[From the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees, Eastern Region, 281:

Deciduous tree with straight, tapering trunk and thin, open, conical crown of horizontal branches; a shrub at timberline. Height: 40-80 feet. Needles; deciduous, soft, very slender, 3-angled, crowded in cluster on supr twigs. Light blue-green, turning yellow in autumn before shedding. One of the northernmost trees, the hardy Tamarack is useful as an ornamental in very cold climates.]

So here is our lone eastern larch, down by the pond, unchomped by the beaver, doing its thing. As I towed cut pieces of wood to the woodpile, I could look down from the house to the pond and see it. Nice.

This afternoon is more leaf-raking, and possibly getting into chain sawing (remember, I don't wield the thing; I am the one who bucks the wood and feeds it). Not my favourite activity any more but if Compa is to have heat, very necessary.

Friday Cat Blogging

Lots of photos as in two or three weeks' worth.


I made the mistake of putting my Hmong jacket on the back of the couch last weekend (coming back from convention) and Young Guy decided it matched his fur.


Here's a series of playing inside and outside of the box. I had bought a coat that arrived in this box which Young Guy quickly discovered was perfect for ambushing any feline who came by. So he and La Doyenne had a jousting match one night.


La Doyenne sniffs to see who is inside the box. So far no paws come out.


She goes to the other end of the box. Soon a paw will emerge.


The attack is on. Note the tail.


Orange Guy particularly loves bear grass. My supply thereof has diminished with the closing of the local flower shop I used to frequent. I found this piece of grass in a junk drawer. Urk, time to get his teeth cleaned.


If you look carefully in some of these photos you can see the piece of grass I am waving but Orange Guy kept chomping off the end.


Young Guy gets in on the action. The glint in his eyes looks fairly diabolical.


The two are after the grass. Young Guy enjoys it too but not quite as much as Orange Guy.


Then they have to check the drawer. The chalk is left-over from my teaching days.


The toy that is between Young Guy's feet disappeared five minutes after I took this photo. I have no idea where it went but trust it will emerge at some point.


There are five cats in this photo.

Late night shuffle

Why not? It's almost Friday. Besides, Padre Mickey isn't around so someone's got to push the button and 'take yer chances.'

Vezandlebe • Johnny Cleg • Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World
Asimbonga • Johnny Cleg • Third World Child
Maddening Shroud • Frou Frou • Details
Almost Paradise • Ann Wilson • Footloose
Skating • George Winston • Linus & Lucy: The Music Of Vince Guaraldi
Metamorphosis • Uakti • Aguas da Amazonia
Equinoxe Part 4 • Jean-Michel Jauré • The Essential
In the Cage • Genesis • The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem • Robert Shaw
La Source • Ira Stein • 20 Years of Narado Piano

I first heard Johnny Cleg in France in 1980 visiting my French correspondant (whom I had started writing in 1971). It wasn't until years later that I managed to track down his music in CD format.

Frou Frou is the earlier manifestation of Imagen Heap, a kind of spacy, techy sound.

Almost Paradise takes me back to the dingy, overcrowded student center (Chanceller Green) at Princeton University in the mid 1980s. It's also something I would hear on the radio when I first started working out on a Concept 2 erg, model A, that is, a bicycle wheel attached to a five-speed hub with a spedometer. And that was high tech in 1984!

I've always loved the Linus and Lucy Snoopy Peanuts music and George Winston brings his own spin to it.

Jean Michel Jauré was big stuff when I lives in Paris 1977-78 and his Oxygène, followed by Equinoxe, was cool stuff. I got a CD of his best while in Toulouse in 2006, at the end of our walking the Chemin de Saint-Jacques.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was Genesis' equivalent of the Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia. I remember the hype preceding its issue in December 1974 and how WNEW FM, 102.7 New York, the true progressive rock station (that went down hill in the 1990s), was the first to play it in its entirety.

Brahms is Brahms. And the German Requieum is amazing to listen to and sing (I have in English and auf Deutsch).

Finally, some New Age piano music to round out things.

I won't make it to the end of this list, obviously with the 1h15min long Requiem.

Welcome to my igloo

It always takes my body some time to adapt to the winter temperatures within the house. Outside it isn't too bad but readapting to a house that settles down to 59 degrees during the day (thermostat is kept at 60) requires some effort. Today I feel as though I am in an igloo. Eventually I will not notice it as much (as I get more and more turtlenecks and heavier sweaters out) but right now I am wrapped up in a puff (as I called feather quilts as a child) that keeps my legs and torso warm. If only I could get one of the cats to settle down on my lap, then I'd be really warm.

Even harder is the thought of shedding these warm layers to get into a short-sleeved tshirt and shorts to row, though I know that the house temperature actually is perfect for exercising.

Later: As I said, the cool house is perfect for exercising. Though I tend to row more slowly in the afternoon, it is nice to have the low sun coming in through the window and warm me just a little. So I rowed 1/2 hour and am in the 30th +/- percentile for my time/distance. I wasn't really pushing (a bit of fiddling with my iPod at the beginning) so I probably can move up.

The Pinochet Files

Thank you, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democratic leader, who accused Mr. Mukasey of a “legal dodge” in refusing to repudiate “a cruel, abusive technique that has been regarded as torture in the civilized world for over 500 years.”

“When the history of this time is written, the issue of torture will define America’s values in the age of terrorism,” he continued. “Judge Mukasey’s responses to our questions on the issue of torture make it clear that he does not understand the challenge of this moment in history.”

+

One person actually tried the waterboarding technique out:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — The debate over torture here can get heated, as it did this month when a dispute over the legal status of waterboarding threatened to sink the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general. Still, it usually remains a matter of strictly abstract legal analysis.

But three years ago, Daniel Levin, then the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, decided to bring reality to bear on his deliberations on the torture question. He went to a military base and asked to undergo waterboarding.

Mr. Levin, 51, a graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago Law School, had served in several senior posts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department since the administration of the first President Bush. But he had never served in the military, where American pilots, special operations troops and others for decades have undergone waterboarding to prepare them for possible treatment if captured by an enemy.

Waterboarding has been used in interrogations at least since the Spanish Inquisition and was used by the Central Intelligence Agency on three high-level terrorism suspects in 2002 and 2003, according to officials familiar with the agency’s secret detention program. It involves strapping a suspect to a board with feet elevated, covering his face with a cloth and pouring water on it to produce a feeling of suffocation.

After his waterboarding, Mr. Levin went on to sign a new legal opinion on the limits of interrogation, released on Dec. 30, 2004, that made news with its ringing opening sentence: “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.” That memorandum replaced a much-criticized opinion written in August 2002, which had defined torture as treatment producing pain equivalent to organ failure or death and had suggested that a president might be able to authorize torture under his constitutional war powers.

A footnote to the 2004 interrogation opinion signed by Mr. Levin, insisted on by the White House and the C.I.A., said that despite the shift in legal reasoning, interrogation techniques authorized under previous Justice Department opinions remained legal. Those techniques included waterboarding.

Mr. Levin became the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel in June 2004, after the departure of Jack Goldsmith, who had withdrawn the 2002 memorandum on torture and provoked a separate crisis by finding flaws in the legal justification for the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program. After writing the opinion denouncing torture, Mr. Levin, who had supported Mr. Goldsmith’s actions, was told by Alberto R. Gonzales, the incoming attorney general, that he would not be nominated to lead the Office of Legal Counsel.

+

Meanwhile, the attempt to silence protests continues....

CHICAGO, Nov. 6 — A school superintendent’s decision to suspend, and perhaps expel, about two dozen students who took part in a protest against the Iraq war at a suburban high school drew criticism Tuesday from the students and their parents, who demanded that their children be allowed to return to classes.

+

And in the IT realm we have this.

Ex-Worker at AT&T Fights Immunity Bill
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — When Mark Klein, then an AT&T technician in San Francisco, stumbled on a secret room apparently reserved for the National Security Agency inside an AT&T switching center, he hardly expected to be caught up in a national debate over the proper balance between American civil liberties and national security.

But four years later, Mr. Klein’s discovery has led to a spate of class-action lawsuits against the nation’s largest telephone companies. The threat posed to the telecommunications industry by those suits has prompted the Bush administration to push Congress to grant companies legal immunity for their secret cooperation in the N.S.A.’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. With many Democrats in Congress seemingly willing to grant the legal protection, Mr. Klein has come to Washington to fight back.

Mr. Klein, 62 and now retired, will begin meeting Wednesday with staff members on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to try to persuade them to put a brake on the immunity legislation. He says the phone companies do not deserve the legal protection.

“I think they committed a massive violation not only of the law but of the Constitution,” he said. “That’s not the way the Fourth Amendment is supposed to work.”

The administration and other supporters of immunity say the companies should get it because they were acting under what they believed to be lawful orders from the government. The administration also argues that if the lawsuits, coordinated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group know as EEF, are allowed to proceed, they could reveal national security secrets, and so the Justice Department has sought to block them by using the “state secrets privilege.”

A spokesman for Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, declined to comment on Tuesday.

In 2002, Mr. Klein was working as a technician in AT&T’s Geary Street facility in San Francisco when he was told that an N.S.A. agent would be visiting the office to interview another AT&T employee for a special job. He later learned that the job was at an AT&T facility on Folsom Street.

In early 2003, Mr. Klein took a tour of the Folsom Street office, where he saw a secret room under construction. By October 2003, he was transferred to that office, and he said he learned that only employees cleared by the security agency were allowed to enter the room.

Mr. Klein was responsible for maintaining Internet switching equipment near the secret room, and said he was stunned to discover that special “splitter” equipment had been installed in his area to route copies of all Internet traffic diverted through his lines into the secret room.

“What I saw is that everything’s flowing across the Internet to this government-controlled room,” he said.

Later, Mr. Klein obtained three AT&T documents that he said revealed the computer and equipment design for the room — documents that the company maintains he kept improperly after leaving AT&T in 2004. Those designs, according to Mr. Klein and other telecommunications specialists who have reviewed them, would give the security agency. the ability to sift and reroute international and domestic communications and data from the AT&T lines to another site.

“The physical apparatus gives them everything,” Mr. Klein said, adding, “A lot of this was domestic.”

Ever since the N.S.A. eavesdropping program was publicly disclosed in December 2005, the administration has said that it was limited to intercepting, without seeking court orders, the international calls and e-mail messages of people inside the United States suspected of terrorist ties.

EFF, which brought Mr. Klein to Washington to plead his case, is fearful that Congress will pass an immunity bill just as its class-action lawsuit has made some progress in a federal court in California. A judge there has refused to throw out the lawsuits, and an appellate court is now weighing a government appeal. In a ruling released Tuesday, the district judge hearing the case, Vaughn Walker, ordered that no documents or evidence in it be altered or destroyed. The government had opposed that motion.

Administration officials have insisted that the lawsuits, if allowed to proceed, threatens to bankrupt the phone carriers. But Cindy Cohn, staff lawyer for EFF, said its main objective was to get the courts to rule on the legality of the eavesdropping program, which the group maintains violates the Constitution.

“I don’t want to bankrupt the phone companies,” Ms. Cohn said. “That’s not what this is about.”

+

If these entries weren't called the Pinochet files, then they would be 'The Handmaid's Tale' (Margaret Atwood).

For Naomi

Naomi wrote last night:

Well, I have another treatment tomorrow. I have labs at 9am, doctors meeting at 10am, and start of Chemo at 11am. I will have an infussion for only about 3-4 hours instead of the full 48 hours. I’m a little nervous to see how everything will go. While I drip i’ll be setting up my internet and writing my first journal on my new laptop. It’ll be an interesting journal to say the least. I packed an over night bag just in case but i’m praying and hoping.

I had a blessing today at St. Mary’s. It was great and the church looked awsome decorated for all saints and the day of the dead. It was great to see all the memory flags. Hopefully i’ll get to church on a sunday and be able to see everyone. I’ll probably have to wear a mask to lower the risk of catching anything but it’ll be worth it. We’ll see what the doctors say after this treatment. My socail outings are in their hands.

Thank you for the support and here’s praying for the next treatment to go well.

Naomi

So here's the candle collection on the homefront.

[update at 19.30] Naomi did well today with the drip. She still feels OK; they gave her some steroids to keep her numbers up, and another drug to offset any negative reaction to the chemo. Keep the prayers going. She really appreciates them.

Inflation hurts

From Tim's El Salvador blog:

The economic news from El Salvador is all about inflation.

The price of a pound of beans has risen from 50 cents to $1.25 yesterday according to La Prensa Grafica, and the price of corn has gone from 50 cents a pound to one dollar.

The price of gasoline has gone up 27% according to El Mundo. Increased fuel costs have lead the operators of bus companies throughout El Salvador to threaten a national strike unless the government increases the subsidy paid to them.

The price of a box of tomatoes which had been 20-23 dollars, now commands between 32-34 dollars according to Diario CoLatino.

The causes are varied: the demand for corn created by US ethanol policy, a bad harvest for beans and other vegetables, record world oil prices. The solutions are scarce.

Yet another

MONTPELIER - A 21-year-old Vermont GI was killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle, his family said Tuesday.

U.S. Army Pvt. Adam Muller, of Richmond, a gunner for the 10th Mountain Division who arrived in Iraq just after Labor Day, was killed Monday, according to Susan Wells, a family friend who spoke for Muller's mother, Kathy.

"He was loved by everyone," said Wells, whose son was best friends with Muller. "He was a very sweet young man. We're all devastated and angry at the same time. I think we're all angry about this war, that so many young men are dying needlessly."

When Muller signed up in 2006 — to make money to pay off college loans — he was told he'd be providing security for top officials, but he was told two weeks before he shipped out that he'd be a gunner, Wells said.

"We were all very angry about that. He isn't anyone who could ever hurt a flea," Wells said Tuesday. "To put him behind a gun was the last thing he needed."

By midday Tuesday, Muller's death had not yet been announced by the Department of Defense.

But a portion of the 10th Mountain Division was serving in northern Iraq, near the city of Kirkuk, said Benjamin Abel, a civilian spokesman for the division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y.

The military said four soldiers died Monday after an explosion near their vehicle in Kirkuk province. Another American serviceman died Monday in Anbar Province.

Abel wouldn't comment about the concerns of Muller's family. "It would be inappropriate for anyone here in the states to comment on the judgment of a commander in the field," said Abel.

In a statement, Gov. Jim Douglas said the thoughts and prayers of all Vermonters were with the Muller family. "Our state has paid a heavy toll in this war and we all pray it will soon end," Douglas said.

Muller was the 25th service member with Vermont ties to die in Iraq. One Vermonter was killed in Afghanistan; another died in natural causes in Kuwait while waiting to go to Iraq.

Muller graduated from Mount Mansfield Union High School in 2004. He studied at Vermont Technical College to become a mechanic and dreamed of becoming a police officer.

"He went into the Army to pay off his college loans," Wells said. "It's really a crying shame that in the wealthiest country in the world, people have to go into the army to pay for college."

Muller had been married for almost a year. Until he left for Iraq, he and his wife were living at Fort Drum. Since then, she has been living with her parents in Richmond, Wells said.

+

My comments are those quotes that are in bold above.

Vermont has had the highest per capita loss of people in Iraq/Kuwait/Afghanistan. A parishioner's daughter when to high school with him.

May Adam and everyone else rest in peace
and rise in glory.

Of hibernation 2

Another sign of impending hibernation is the return of the turtleneck which means a shifting of summer to winter clothes in the very limited closet space this 1856 house has.

Today I put on a turtleneck for the first time this season. The white turtleneck becomes my winter uniform, replacing the plastic clerical collar that retains cold well after I have come inside. From now until April, barring a couple of times, I will be in a turtleneck (though actually not all are white; I have other colours).

The forecast calls for snbow showers in the Adirondacks and higher elevations. Killington now has snow on the higher trails. Yes, hibernation season is right around the corner.

(Not that today was a hibernation day... lots of people instead.)

Of hibernation

[hibernating bear in a den]

• The coldest hibernator is the Arctic ground squirrel. Parts of their body can get down to a temperature of 26F. Somehow they're able to do this without incurring any kind cell damage.

• The longest hibernating mammal is the Columbian ground squirrel, which goes into hibernation in late July and wakes up in late April. That's nine months— 75% of the year. The Richardson's ground squirrel, a close second, goes into hibernation around the first of July and comes out in the middle of March, about 8½ months. These species can be found in the Plains states and provinces.

• Polar bears don't actually hibernate, except for pregnant females. For polar bears, the time of greatest food abundance is opposite that of the other bears: during the winter, when everything is frozen, so they have access to seals. But in some places like southern Hudson Bay in Manitoba, ice melts during the late spring/early summer and the bears are forced on shore, where they have basically nothing to eat for a few months. Some of the bears will eat dandelions and a few berries, but others apparently eat nothing at all. They are very lethargic and their blood chemistry becomes similar to hibernating bears, so the condition has been referred to as 'walking hibernation.' Pregnant females go from a state of walking hibernation to actual hibernation in a den. So they are fasting from late July till March — eight months. During this period, they give birth to cubs, nurse their cubs and eventually have to walk back to the ice to find their first seal meal. The duration of this incredible fasting period has been increasing, with global warming causing less Arctic ice.

• The most perfect hibernator would have to go to the bear. They go the longest without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating. Other species will either have a cache of food, or, like bats, will wake up and drink a little bit of water, or they'll urinate and defecate sometime during the winter period. Bears don't do any of those things.

• People often say, 'I wish I was a bear so I could sleep for six months.' But recent interesting findings indicate that the hibernators are actually sleep deprived. Their brain does not get the same benefits from hibernation as from sleep. All hibernators have to wake up periodically during the hibernation period. Sometimes it's three or four times a day — where they wake up and shiver — and their brain waves suddenly change. It's not clear exactly why they have to do this, but one of the things that's been noticed is that when they 'wake up', they actually catch a quick nap because they're so sleep deprived.
[from Biohabitats Leaflitter]

• Caminante when we go from daylight savings to standard time. All I want to do is sleep.

Goodbye to another

Goodbye to A, who died this morning in his house. He leaves behind his wife, L. They were married 51 years. And he has four children and 9 grandchildren. It took some doing to get through to me (hospice called the church office and not here) but I got there within an hour of his death and was able to commend him in those words that are so powerful and lovely:

Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world;
In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you;
In the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you;
In the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.
May your rest be this day in peace,
and your dwelling lace in the Paradise of God.

A made the beautiful cherry table that stands in the back of the church. He had made a similar cherry table for Compa and me when we had our Holy/Civil Union. It is so beautiful that I asked if he could make another one for the church. He did and wouldn't let me pay for it.

We use the table for baptisms, placing palms and all the things we need for the Great Vigil of Easter (nails for the Paschal Candle, matches, follower, etc.), and, yes, when we have a requiem where there are ashes. I don't know if we will be using his table when the time comes for his service but if we do, it will be most fitting and poignant.

[photo: Good Friday 2006]

Sunday after All Saints' Day

Last year on this Sunday, Executive Council worshipped at All Saints', Chicago. They were running a capital campaign called, 'Wake the Dead,' and had decorated the church with Día de los Muertos banners. I was so captivated by the overall effect that I decided to do likewise here. Many thanks to the rector and people of All Saints' for this fabulous idea.


During both services, people here saw the papel picando banners I had purchased online. We had three strands (it was all I could afford at the time since it was $11/15 feet and I bought six strands which we tied together to make three long strands) at different heights across the nave. At coffee hour, people wrote up the names of their dearly loved dead and a couple spent an hour after coffee hour stapling the papers to the string we used to hang up the two long strands.


What else does a rector do after diocesan convention and two glorious services but climb up a ladder and push stick pins into the window frames to hang up these banners?


The afternoon light was coming in the 'Road to Emmaus' window just so. It took two or three tries to get the right height for the banners.


Here's the end product. We'll add onto it as the month progresses and keep it up through the season of All Saints', that is, until Advent. Now that this went over so well, I can think about people making up altars for next year.

The overall effect is to turn the feast of All Saints' into an even more joyous expression of the communion of saints than it already is (a feast I dearly love).

Vermont Diocesan Convention

The Diocese of Vermont had its 175th diocesan convention in its 216th year of existence (the Episcopal Church in Vermont was part of the Eastern Diocese before it split off to become a separate diocese). Among other things, the diocese raised on one Sunday, 28 October, close to $35000 for Episcopal Relief and Development's MDG Inspiration Fund. We challenge other dioceses to do likewise. At the convention eucharist, we raised over $2200 for ERD relief work with those affected by the fires in California. And, on Friday at a forum on the MDGs that the presiding bishop led, we also donated money to the New Sudan Education Initiative.

The presiding bishop celebrated and preached out our diocesan Eucharist yesterday morning (in the photo, singing the opening hymn). The deacons are wearing vestments made by a member of our cathedral, who also made the wonderful quilt that is hanging behind the altar party.

Among other things, the diocese passed the following resolution:

A Resolution Commending the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church

RESOLVED, That the 175th Convention of the Diocese of Vermont commend the Executive Council of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church for its resolution NAC 026, which reads as follows:

Resolved, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Dearborn, Michigan, expresses its appreciation to the House of Bishops for undertaking the monumental task of trying to clarify the conflict between the canons of the Episcopal Church and the demands raised by the Dar Es Salaam communiqué, and be it further

Resolved, the Executive Council affirms with the House of Bishops the essential and renewed study of human sexuality as noted in the “listening process” of the Lambeth Conference of 1998, and be it further

Resolved, that the House of Bishops’ statement exacerbated feelings of exclusion felt by many of the lesbian and gay members of our church by defining Resolution B033 from the 75th General Convention to include lesbian and gay people, and be it further

Resolved, that by calling particular attention to the application of B033 to lesbian and gay persons, it may inappropriately suggest that an additional qualification for the episcopacy has been imposed beyond those contained in the constitution and canons of the church, and be it further

Resolved, that while B033 focuses on the consent process for bishops, the broader impact is to discourage the full participation by lesbians and gay persons in the life of the church and enshrine discrimination in the policies of the Episcopal Church, and be it further

Resolved, that the Executive Council acknowledge with regret the additional pain and estrangement inflicted on lesbian and gay members of the church, and we pledge to work toward a time when our church will fully respect the dignity of every human being in all aspects of the life of our church. and, be it further

RESOLVED, That this resolution be forwarded by the Secretary of this Convention to the Secretary of General Convention.

Backlog

I have a ton of photos and such to put up and will get at it bit by bit. I am recovering from diocesan convention. Stay tuned.

As goes Pakistan so goes the US?

What's to stop Chimpy and Darth Vader from blacking out television stations (including the BBC), arresting 80 lawyers, kicking out the Supreme Court, suspending the constitution, declaring a state of emergency (martial law) and staging a coup all in the name of 'limiting terrorist attacks' the way Pervez Musharraf has done this weekend?

They're already halfway there, aren't they?

C.f., the story about the Japanese tourist on Amtrack in Connecticut who got hauled off the train for taking photographs of the Long Island Sound.

If I never hear the word, 'terrorist' again, it won't be soon enough.

All Saints' Day

It is said that a preacher has one or two sermons. After 13 plus years of hearing mine, I am sure you can cite what my few sermons are. (Sometime we’ll have to talk about that.) But can you cite my sources? I think so.

My theology revolves around Easter, the feast of Mary and All Saints. Easter because the resurrection is what forms our entire faith: if it weren’t for Easter, we wouldn’t have Christmas; Mary because of the Lukan rendition of the Magnificat and All Saints because of the end-of-the-year reminder of the resurrection as it applies to us and also for its yearly recitation of the Beatitudes. You can find all the threads that make up my theology in these three feasts.

Tonight I wear my lively painted Salvadoran stole and chasuble that convey a people’s triumph over death. But it’s not just the Salvadoran people who are intimately connected to violent death. I am currently reading Francisco Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? This book has just come out about the murder of the Guatemalan bishop who headed up a truth-telling commission. Its report came out in 1998 and two days later, Bishop Juan Gerardi [photo above] was found dead in his garage. This commission uncovered, explored and documented all the violent deaths of Guatemalans, some 200.000 during the 1980s. In the fourth book of the report, it lists a quarter of the dead, some 50 thousand names.

Yet the people of Latin America, despite all the death that has surrounded them over the centuries, approach it with a festive attitude. People go to the graveyard to spend time at the graves of their family members (the French also do this). In Mexico, All Souls’ Day, el Día de los Muertos, is celebrated with special cakes, chocolates, altars and banners. You’ll see some of this on Sunday.

But even here in the United States, there are people who name death for what it is and make others take note. An Episcopal priest in New Orleans, tired of all the senseless gun shootings that have left a younger generation dead, has placed a huge bulletin board outside of the church. He keeps a running tally of the dead so that their lives won’t be forgotten.

While All Saints’ Day was once solely a feast wherein the church remembered its martyrs and saints, we now have conflated it with All Souls’ Day, 2 November, the day when the church typically pays tribute to the ‘ordinary’ saints of our lives. Tomorrow there will be time to remember the dead. God already remembers them and us, re-members, pulls together again the disparate elements of our scattered lives, and makes us whole. The saints in heaven already know that.

+

Thanks to the church’s yearly remembrance of the dead, we can get beyond our US cultural aversion of speaking about death, a natural event that will take place in each of our lives, at some point or another. As we contemplate our own mortality, we must place it in context of three things: the Beatitudes, the Magnificat and the resurrection.

The Beatitudes, whether from Matthew or Luke, spell out how we should live our lives:

Happy are those who live with the spirit of the poor; for to them belongs the Reign of God;

Happy are those weep and grieve, for they shall find care and will not be left alone;

Happy are those who live with trusting patience, for they will receive more than they can ask or imagine;

Happy are those who are hungry and thirsty to see justice realized in their time, for they shall see and touch times of peace and justice;

Happy are those whose hearts and lives are full of self-giving compassion, for in their own lives they will know the gift of mercy;

Happy are those who live with clean, innocent hearts, for they will recognize that God is always at their side;

Happy are those who take risks for peace, for they shall be known as children of God.

How in your life have you internalised these words? How do they guide you in your ethical and moral decision-making? How do they help you be more of a saint, a witness to God? These are good questions to ask not just today but throughout the year.

Likewise, the Magnificat instructs us how to live as people of hope, looking for the time when God’s reign will turn the injustices of the world upside-down. (Even though we don’t hear it tonight, I think of it as a subtext to the night’s readings.) Throughout our lives, we must work toward restoring the world to God in Christ, proclaim God’s greatness and rejoice in God our Saviour.

And it is in that rejoicing that we approach the mystery of the Easter resurrection, the central theological tenet of our faith on which our entire Christian journey is based. The Christian hope, as our catechism instructs us, is in the resurrection of the dead and the assurance of eternal life.

It is that hope that I affirm when I watch a person die. It is that hope that keeps me going and, I hope, you, too. It is what takes away the fear of death. It’s what enables us to celebrate the lives of those who died, knowing that they are still close to us.

+

All Saints’ Night always contains an element of the Celtic in it because it leaves us in that very thin space between earth and heaven. On this night, just as on the night of the Easter Vigil, we inhabit that liminal in-between place. And so I leave us with a Celtic blessing that might tie together the threads of this night: the church’s celebration of its saints and souls, our commitment to live as people of the Beatitudes and Magnificat, and our faith in the resurrection.

The holy Apostles’ guarding,
The gentle martyrs’ guarding,
The nine angels’ guarding,
Be cherishing me, be aiding me.

The quiet Brigit’s guarding,
The gentle Mary’s guarding,
The warrior Michael’s guarding,
Be shielding me, be aiding me.

The God the elements’ guarding,
The loving Christ’s guarding,
The Holy Spirit’s guarding,
Be cherishing me, be aiding me.

[The Carmina Gadelica]

Halloween shuffle

because I won't be near internet on Friday.


No resemblance of course

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree • Cambridge Singers with John Rutter
Cantate Domino • Voices of Ascension
Poetry Man • Phoebe Snow
Glass: String Quartet No. 3 • Kronos
The Raven in the Oak Tree • Jon Mark
Spiral • Richard Stoltzman
Seek in Your Heart (the Essential Rumi) • Esther Dobong' na Essience, Graeme Revell, Lori Carson, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Roger Mason
Rebel Yell • Billy Idol
The Valley Road • Bruce Hornsby

Awfully classical set with the exception of Billy Idol. The Phoebe Snow version of Poetry man was one of my faves in college. And the Glass is typical Glass, minimalist circling around tune. The Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is composed by a woman whose name escapes me at the moment. Our choir does it and I get to lead off the first verse :)