One Wild and Precious Life

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Today I am lucky enough to be working from home (doing a little work-related stuff, but also procrastinating with Facebook and email and Spider Solitaire - is this what everyone who works from home does?).  I'm listening to a beautiful recording of Advent Lessons & Carols by the choirs of St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Washington.  As I'm working, procrastinating, messing around, my mind wanders where it will.  Suddenly, on Track 31, I hear, really hear the reading from Luke 1:26-38, the Annunciation.  I hear the angel Gabriel say to Mary, "Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you."  And I hear Mary's perplexity, read by a really good lector.  What kind of greeting might this be?  Uh-oh, what does he want?  "Don't be afraid, for you have found favor with God."

Bam!  Suddenly it's 1993, and I'm standing in the office of the Forensic Mental Health Unit in Buffalo, NY, realizing that I will be a priest, and it's not a matter of "...if I'm ordained" (as we aspirants to Holy Orders were all taught to phrase it), but it really is "...when I'm ordained."  I knew it then with such clarity and certainty, and I wasn't afraid (as I probably should have been -- if I knew then what I know now!), and a great sense of joy and peace, the peace that passes all understanding,  settled over me.

You know, I've come a long way in my relationship with Mary.  As a staunch feminist, I had no desire to identify with "Gentle Mary, meek and mild," the one who bowed her head and said, "Let it be with me according to your will."  I've always been, as I've heard it described "strong-willed" (nice description of "stubborn").   Maybe I could identify with Mary Magdalen, even Mary of Bethany ("Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.").  Then I learned I could identify with the black madonna, that walker of the dark paths of life, paths of grief and loss, of illness and birth and death, of the unknown.

But nope, no gentle submission for me.  At some point, though, I realized what courage submission took - maybe it was when I came to terms with (submitted to)  my own addiction to food; maybe it was when I realized what Mary actually said yes to -- an untimely, premarital pregnancy with a child obviously not her fiancee's.  This was an offense punishable by stoning, and she would almost certainly forfeit her approaching marriage.  But she said yes anyway.  And I bet she felt that same peace and joy that I felt that day in 1993 when I knew I had already said yes.  All would be well, and all would be well.

Now I know what untimely, pre-marital pregnancy feels like, and in 1968, when I experienced it,  it wasn't even punishable by death!  I know how hard it is to say yes to that sticky situation.  But now I also have a shiveringly gut-level realization of what it means, for better and for worse, to say yes to a call from God, even though I couldn't possibly know what that would mean for the rest of my life.  There's a fearful stepping off a cliff and then discovering that you've been given wings.  There's the opportunity to develop the kind of trust in the unseen Holy One that was only theoretical before.  But I couldn't always feel the wings.  There were long periods of time when I just felt the stepping off, and the falling.  There were lots and lots of times when I thought I must have been a fool to even try stepping off that particular cliff of saying yes to the priesthood.  But all was well, and all is well.  I bet there were times that Mary wished the whole thing hadn't even got started, too.

My lesson for today:  Listen!  Listen for the angels!  To what are they calling me now?  What sort of courageous "Yes" am I being called to say?  What dream is God trying to implant in my heart?  What of God's dreams for the world will I carry to fruition in the coming months?  Oh, my.  Right now I feel so grateful.

Christmas Sermon

St. Raphael's Episcopal Church, Christmas Eve 2012

Psalm 96; Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20

This hasn’t been a normal Advent-preparing-for-Christmas season for lots of us.  I think it’s Newtown:  Newtown cracked open our hearts and for many of us, myself included, it was like opening something that’s a combination of a great treasure chest and also Pandora’s box.  Wonderful things came up – childhood memories I’d forgotten for years, fierce love for the people in my life, huge, aching compassion, and a vulnerability and imperfection that doesn’t always feel very good, but which seems to have allowed people to love me more, even as they roll their eyes in frustration with me.  But of course, Pandora’s Box didn’t contain much good stuff.  Remember when she opened it, all the demons and ills and evils of the world came flying and slithering out.  And that’s what happened when some of us had our hearts cracked open.  Bad stuff slithered out, too, our depressions and pains, our tempers, all the emotions we try so hard to keep hidden from others, to keep under wraps and maybe, just maybe, we let them loose on the pages of our journals or cried into the coats of our dogs.  Our demons were harder to contain this year, with our hearts cracked open.  Just when we thought we were safe, something else would come slithering out, and surprise us – and the ones who love us.

When Newtown cracked open our emotional “Pandora’s box,” lots of things went unattended:  I forgot to light the Advent wreath for Lessons & Carols.  My tree, though lighted, still isn’t decorated, and I’m okay with that.  I have gifts that are still unwrapped under that simply-lighted tree.  My packages didn’t get mailed out in time for Christmas Day.  But other things did get attended to: my painful heart cried out with other hearts in pain, and I was more aware than ever of how it can sometimes be a “Blue Christmas” for lots of us, me included.  Yep, life cracked itself right open and came to lay right in front of us, in this manger.

 There’s a poem I found this year among my books and papers; I’m sure I read it years ago, when I bought Denise Levertov’s book, The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes.  But I don’t recall it from years past – it shone like brand new when I found it last week.  It seemed just right for this particular year:  some light, some shadow.  I put it on my Christmas card this year, and now I share it with you, my Christmas card to all of you:

It’s when we face for a moment

the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know

the taint in our own selves, that awe

cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,

to no innocent form,

but to this creature vainly sure

it and no other is god-like, God

(out of compassion for our ugly

failure to evolve) entrusts,

as guest, as brother,

the Word.

“When we face for a moment the worst our kind can do…”  That’s part of what Newtown did to us, did for us.  Because we all need to face the shadow side of ourselves, the darker side of our nature.  If we don't face it, the shadow will sneak up behind us and make a mess.  And now we have shadows again this week, in Webster, New York, a small town right outside Rochester.  Four firemen were shot, two killed, when responding to a terrible fire.  What is it about us humans that can do these terrible, ugly things to one other?  We’d like to think it’s monsters that do these things, people who are incredibly different from us, broken beyond redemption – not anyone even vaguely resembling us.  And that’s true, to some extent; these killers are incredibly broken.  But deep in our hearts, we know there are broken parts of us, too – and who’s to say those broken parts of us might not do something terrible and crazy one of these days, if we’re pushed far enough?  We might just “shudder to know the taint in our own selves.”  It’s times like that when some of us pause to wonder why God even bothers with us, when God might just get sick of us, sick enough to leave us to our own devices, our own messes, our own crazy terrors and outrages.

And then comes Christmas.  Then comes awe and wonder.  Then comes the reminder that, despite it all (and God had millennia to think about it all), despite all that is horrible and depraved about us humans; perhaps, as Levertov says in her poem, out of compassion for us, God entrusts the Word into the form of a tiny, vulnerable human being.  Into one of us.  Jesus came, as our Eucharistic prayer says, “To live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to [God]….”  Imagine that.  No wonder we feel wonder at Christmas.  All of this for us.  As the hymn says, “Love came down at Christmas…”

 I’m going to read you one more thing, something written this week by my ex-husband in his blog (that’s a web-log, a kind of public journal), and published on the internet today.  Now, he calls himself an avowed atheist, but he’s talking about the wonder of Christmas; his piece is entitled, “Waiting for Wonder.”  Here’s just a little bit of what he says:

 “With or without God, Christmas is the hope that each new morning heralds the dawn of a new age of peace and goodwill for all.  Christmas is the dream that we can yet be the people we yearn to be, and that we can somehow remake this world according to the whispered counsel of the better angels of our nature.  For me, Christmas combines childlike wonder at the very fact of existence with childlike trust that, against all the evidence of history and our own lives, all will somehow be well.  Christmas is the flickering hope, like a candle in the window or a distant star that we follow, that we can all of us yet be saved from ourselves—even if, from an atheist’s perspective, we can only be saved by ourselvbe he is an atheist; I guess we’ve got to believe what he says about himself.  But this, somehow, smacks of Christianity to me, of our faith that nothing is beyond redemption, that God does look on us with compassion, not as the impossible, headstrong (“stiff-necked,” the Bible often says), destructive creatures, but rather as dear, beloved souls to save, sheep to shepherd, as children in need of more and more love and teaching and living example.  Maybe, like many of you have done with me, God sees us at our worst, rolls his eyes, takes a deep breath, and loves us anyway.  Maybe even loves us because of our imperfections.  Maybe God knows that our imperfections are what keep us working, keep us praying, keep us hoping and trusting in God for the healing and wholeness we know we need, and that we long for.  Maybe it’s our imperfections that make us the creatures that are, in the end, worthy of bearing God’s dreams.

So yes, this Christmas of 2012 is different from some of the “only-merry-bright-and-cheery” ones we’ve all had from time to time (maybe those all-merry ones are rare, and that’s why we cherish them so).  It’s a time of light and shadow, of joy and hope and grief and tangled, confused emotions.  This year Christmas is a hoping for heaven while living squarely on earth, looking toward the light, while still standing partway in the shadow.  This Christmas contains the fullness of what it means to be human: sadness and all, hope and all.  My Christmas prayer for you is that you experience it all as richness and joy, even amidst the mixture, chaos, and confusion of it, and that you can feel gratitude for this mixed-up, Pandora’s box life that sometimes happens to us, even as we continue to dwell in the palm of God’s hand, in the corner of God’s heart, being brothers and sisters, as Levertov has said to us, to the Word incarnate, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Holiday Despair - or Something

Well, just in case you've never known anybody who suffers at the holidays, here I am!  Now, this hasn't happened in a long time, so it's kind of new -- or very old, but not recent -- for me.  The first few Christmases after my daughter died really sucked; but for a lot of years now, I've been pretty fine, whether I spent holidays alone (I work on religious holidays, so I don't get away much for Christmas), or whether I've had friends or family close by -- I tend to be of pretty good cheer, and make my own party or join others for theirs on the holidays.

But this year has been a little different.  Coming back from sabbatical has been hard, I think.  Initially, it felt great to be back: I loved being back at church, loved being with the folks at church, loved preaching and celebrating the Eucharist.  I loved the sermons I preached, and all was well.  Then Advent came, and Christmas, Lessons & Carols, and reading for my book group.  It all kind of snuck up on me and whacked me from behind.  Suddenly I felt like I was dancing as fast as I could, and still not getting nearly enough done.  People were mad at me from every direction because I hadn't attended to their particular project or problem as soon as I got home.  My computer went on the blink, so I didn't do as much work at home, either.  I'm using my little notebook now, but it's not nearly as easy as the big desktop with a fine, flat-screen monitor.  I've also got a lot of documents and pictures on the big computer that I can't access just now.  I think I need a new video card in the desktop computer, but I just don't have the time and/or energy to get someone to check it out.  Tonight I've locked my keys in the church (left them and other people left), so I can't do some of the evening things I thought I might do over there.  I can get them tomorrow morning, but still -- and I'm left feeling really stupid and forgetful, on top of everything else.

Then, with sabbatical letdown and holiday planning and lots of other stuff, right in the middle of it all, Newtown came.  I was feeling rotten already, and then there was that great grief, that great yawning darkness coming at me from the eastern edge of the country (Connecticut, where I went to seminary).  There are the faces of those little angel children -- too young to hate (or, as someone else said, also too young to hate adults!).  Sometime Friday as I lay crying on my sofa, I was hit with the realization that I know that feeling those parents had -- the phone call, the rush to wherever (I went to the Hospital ER), the interminable, helpless wait for news, and the learning that your child wasn't coming home from school that night, or ever.  Oh, it has been nearly 30 years since my daughter died, and it feels like last week just now.  And twenty of those babies -- I can't imagine how that town must feel, not to mention those 20 families.  It breaks my heart.  It breaks everyone's heart, I know -- and it should.

I particularly liked this picture, which I also posted to my facebook page:

I don't know who made this amazing drawing -- so simple, so evocative -- I didn't.  Facebook might have that info.  All I know is that perhaps the red figure was supposed to be a Sandy Hook parent -- but it feels like me.  And I have this communion of saints, living and not living, that I can feel with their hands on my shoulders, and other hands on their shoulders, and on back, and back, and back, clear to God or infinity, or whatever.

This is more black madonna work, in case you were wondering.  Being in this darkness when the rest of the world is in light, or just going on with its own business -- that's dark work, shadow work, black madonna work.  It's not a scary place for me, and it's pretty familiar, but I can't say I like it much.  I've been standing in the light for a long time -- sabbatical, work going well, my big weight loss, everything pretty bright and sunny.  Being back in the shadows isn't much fun at all.

Here's a little madonna that consoles me, though.  I took her picture at the Louvre in September:

She's a lovely little nursing madonna -- I took lots of pictures of sculptures and paintings like this.  They're so human, so homely -- not in the sense of ugly -- but domestic, comforting, cozy, even.  This one will lose a child -- but not yet.  Still, she knows the dark: that unplanned pregnancy, that long trip to Bethlehem, that cold birthing-place, the mystery of the signs and strangers visiting.  She lives with mystery very well -- with great grace.

Several really good things have happened in the last couple of days, however.  My good friend and ex-husband Jack has sent me several wonderful links -- one a beautiful panorama of time-lapse photography on a mountain, another a very thoughtful piece about "the end of the world" and some thoughts by Dietrich Bonhoffer.  Maybe he'll have the links on his blog, which I've linked here.  The pieces themselves, as well as his thoughtfulness, have helped my mood.

I also got an email from a friend who scheduled an Advent Quiet Day about the black madonna in Knoxville for me, and she says people are asking if I have notes or written materials from that presentation, nearly 2 weeks ago.  No, I don't.  I had jotted a few words down on some index cards, which I forgot to take with me.  I did have my figures, photographs which I laminated, and this trusty little notebook computer on which I had selected some photos to show on a bigger screen.  I mostly stood around and talked to them about the black madonna and told stories and made associations to real life -- about darkness and waiting and carrying God's dreams for the world, and being pregnant with something that was about to be born, and living in mystery or darkness or grief or illness.  It was a wonderful day for me, and hearing that others want to see and read and hear more has inspired me again.  The last time I scheduled a time to talk to my parish about the black madonna, after my trip to Italy in 2009, not a single person showed up.  At this big church in Knoxville, over 40 women showed up (including a handful from my parish -- I'm very grateful to them).  It was so wonderful to know that others are interested in this odd thing that has become a passion for me.  I feel inspired to maybe put together a little self-published book or something.  That sounds like a fun winter project, once the holidays are past.

Today at the healing service I had a wonderful experience.  After I anoint and pray for everyone who comes forward, then my usual practice is kneel at the altar rail myself, and they all lay hands on me and say prayers for my requests.  Today I wept -- for Newtown, for myself, for all those that I know are hurting during this happy, shiny season.  And I felt the love and compassion that flowed from and through those people -- it lifted me up and made the load feel lighter.  I came home and had the energy to finish the service leaflet for Lessons & Carols on Sunday, and even design the cover, which has this woodblock on it:

If you're close to Crossville this Sunday at 4, be sure and come.  The choir has been working hard, and it's a beautiful program of Christmas Lessons and Music -- my musician's handbook said Christmas music was OK for 4th Advent, so we're going for it.

So feeling down as I do, I'm a little disappointed to realize that most folks don't really think the world is going to end in 2 days.  I guess I'll have to get those service leaflets and sermons done, gifts wrapped and mailed, bills paid after all, and continue to pay my student loans and taxes, too.  Oh, well.  I was kind of excited about the adventure of it all.

Watch this space.  I've got lots more to say.

Belgium, So Far

Using my tablet, which is imperfect, so I'll be brief & experiment further tomorrow (pictures, etc.).

Great adventure today in Bruges (Brussels is home base for 3 nights, then on to Paris on Sat.).

First, a brief story:  My maternal grandfather, my mother's daddy, fought in World War I, and eventually died from complications from mustard gas injury there.  But when my mother was small, he came home with a piece of lace from Belgium for her, and she eventually wore that lace as a wedding cap when she was married in the 1930s.  I still havethat Belgian lace wedding cap, and I took it out of its wrapping in my bottom dresser drawer at home before I left Tennessee in July.

I've always known this trip is my mother's gift to me; when I discovered that the flight I booked to Paris would actually land in Brussels, I knew it was mother's doing.  So today I had a great day trip to Bruges.  I bought handmade lace - 2 pieces in 2 different lace shops.  And each time I was so close to tears, and each time, I told Mama's story of her daddy, and WWI, and the Belgian lace wedding cap.

At the first shop the woman, maybe my age, said, "Isn't it wonderful how, in our lives, we get to live things twice?  And when we're young, we don't know this."  At the second shop the owner was older, and she pointed out that my lace was nearly 100 years old now, maybe more, and that I must frame and preserve it.  She was also touched, and regretted that I didn't have it with me, so she could see it and show me how to mount it.

As I pondered it all (didn't Mary treasure many things in her heart?) over my spectacular lunch of MANY mussels and Brugge-brewed beer, I grew teary, and also now as I write this.  I thought I was traveling to gather stories and pictures to bring home - who knew that I would also be bringing my stories to a bigger world?

Advent at My House

I'm having the loveliest Advent -- very peaceful and serene and low-key.  So far my decorations consist of a wreath on the front door, my (artificial) tree with lights and no ornaments, my Advent wreath, and the very beginnings of my creche.

 

 

Here is the Advent wreath as I originally set it up this year -- you can see, very spare and simple, not low-energy, just calm.  I've got plenty of purple and pink candles (some left over from last year), so I can burn it in the evening while I'm watching TV or writing in my journal.  I haven't put a Christ candle in the center, but will do that, to burn from Christmas Eve until Epiphany.

 

Here it is with a little bit of dressing-up:

 

Just some green (artificial) apples, some shiny golden apple ornaments, and a single gold "icicle" that I found on my living room rug (no doubt carried down from my studio amidst packing materials used to prepare one special parcel.  I don't know -- I kind of like it plain, now that I see the two pictures juxtaposed here.  I may put those things in the middle away again.

I mailed Cheryl's package on Monday and scheduled to arrive at its northerly destination next Monday!  I never get my packages mailed to arrive on time -- what is happening to me?  I may be possessed by some angelic spirit!

 

Here's my simple little tree:

Perhaps it looks a little forlorn in this shot -- but when it's a little dark in the room and the lights are twinkling, it's a pretty sight, all on its own -- and I doubt I'll add any ornaments, unless I'm seized with a fever of Christmas spirit in the next few days.  I've had lots of years without a tree at all -- maybe a poinsettia, or even a Norfolk Island Pine in a pot.  And this tree has little red berries attached, and just a dusting of artificial snow.  Next year when I get them out again,  I'll appreciate my beloved tree ornaments all the more. 

 

 

 I honestly thought it would be just the traditional manger scene:  family, shepherds, kings, a few animals.  But I couldn't resist adding a few of the figures I have around the house, including St. Francis, Buddha, Guadalupe, and the plane that seems to have landed on the stable roof.  My funny figures, all gathered around and waiting for the baby Jesus, always make me smile.  I probably won't unwrap Santa, Elvis, the snack wagon, the park bench, or the street lamps this year...

but every day a few more figures find their way to Bethlehem:

 

 

Here you see a few more animals and figures  -- the Infant of Prague, St. Patrick, the Virgin of Loreto (oh, wait, she was in the first picture), some cats, and a few more.  If you click on the picture, it will open to a larger version.  The Holy Family, of course, won't arrive until Christmas Eve (they're in the dining room right now), and the kings won't get there till Epiphany.  The animals are already there, because that's where they live.  This year's addition (I usually buy a new figure each year) was a dinosaur, there just left of the donkey.  All of creation awaits the Christ child, after all.

 

So that's basically it.  I'm not really energized to do elaborate decorating this year.  I'm not depressed, but rather seem to be investing my energy in things like arranging to see my family sometime during the week after Christmas.  I haven't been to Indiana during the Christmas season for years -- maybe decades!  And getting packages into the mail on time, and tending my flock here.  Last night we had a parish Christmas party, and it was lovely to see folks in their party duds coming together just to have fun, and because we like each other.

I also have time to do a little reading and meditating on what Christmas is really all about.  It's a great way to be living in this frantic season -- by not being frantic.  I don't have special foods to cook, or lots of gifts to buy (that's already done), or parties to attend.  I do have some more wrapping to do, but it will get done all in good time.  I've got a few cards to send, some of which will be electronic ones.

I hope each of you can find some quiet space in the season to just put your feet up and enjoy it all, rather than being too busy to notice that a miracle is happening.

Goats

Okay, my friend Fran posted this You-Tube of goats on her blog.  It was so darned cute that I couldn't resist sharing it with you.  I also put it on ny facebook, but I can't get a picture to share with you.  It's very cute, though -- go watch it.  I have parishioners who raise goats, and she describes one stage of "kid-hood" as deet-dee-deet-dee-deedley-deet."  That's what these babies are doing.  If you watch this video, you'll also see links to lots and lots more of them.  What fun!

My friend Fran also is immersed in lots of art-making.  She is a trained facilitator for Soul Collage, and makes really fine pieces herself.  I miss doing that, and may drag out my own collage book and work on a page.  This is, of course, a way to avoid what I really need to be doing, which is gathering, wrapping, and mailing Christmas gifts, finding who's left gift-less on my list, and making plans to purchase and send those gifts, post-haste.  I'm terrible about gifts, and mostly get them out before Epiphany.  Some years, if things are busy at church, I admit I don't get them out at all.  That's especially egregious as my friends and family are so very good about making sure that I have gifts to open on Christmas morning, since my holidays are spent mostly alone.  There's nothing nicer than coming in after Midnight Mass and opening a gift or two before bed.  Then I rewrite my sermon for the morning as I listen to carols, and fall into bed, only to get up Christmas morning for another service.

My Buddhist book group was cancelled today because an ice storm is expected.  We're studying Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are, one chapter per month -- and the chapters are really short!  But I'm finding that the month really gives me time to make the material part of who I am, part of my own thought process.

I find much of what Chodron says to be helpful in my dealings with other people, and in my parish work.  For a long time I've felt as though there's great overlap between Christian spiritual or wisdom teaching and Buddhist teaching.  This was first brought home to me when reading Thich Nhat Hanh.  Marcus Borg also refers to it in Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.  There are lots of conservative Episcopalians who would find my saying this horrifying, but it's true -- anyone can see it, if they take the time to do a little reading and study.

It has been so cold here that I've been drinking lots of hot tea -- decaf chai, whole milk, no sugar.  I make it in my coffee maker -- just run hot water through into the pot where the tea bags await.  A pot can last me a day or even two sometimes.  I use 8 bags for 10 cups of hot water, and just leave the bags in till the tea is all gone.  It doesn't get bitter or too strong.  Or maybe my taste buds are just failing me!

Everyone stay safe and warm, and pray that no harm or damage come to us up here on the Plateau, if the ice storm really hits.

'Tis Advent

Comin' on Christmas now.  This is the eve of the First Sunday of Advent, and in the Church, as is our Jewish heritage, we may begin to celebrate the day on the eve of the prior day.

This is my Advent wreath this year.  I have a simple brass ring that I generally place in a tray or bowl and decorate to suit.  This year I have the ring set on a platter with a raised lip, and filled with a base layer of privet, then holly from my holly tree on top.  The purple berries around the edges are also privet.  I may have to change everything out in a week or two, depending on how everything holds up in the house-- but I sure like the look of it now.

This year I'm using liturgical purple, rather than blue.  Blue is the Sarum (English) use, which has come into favor in the Episcopal Church in recent years, because it emphasizes our particularly English heritage.  Some years I like blue, but this year it's purple.  I've got to learn to stage my pictures better, removing binoculars and birdwatching books!

Here's my Christmas wreath, decorated simply for Advent for the next 4 weeks.  In this picture, that ribbon looks as blue as anything -- but it's not!  That ribbon is a deep purple.  It must be the light, just before twilight.  On our Advent wreath at church, which is a big, beautiful, horizontal brass one, we have some interesting elements added: cinnamon, straw, boxwood, orange peel, holly, and maybe a couple of other things.  They all have symbolic significance, and we have a parishioner who puts them on every year, along with pretty purple bows.  I really appreciate Dorothy doing that so beautifully each year; it adds depth and meaning to our Advent season.  This year I may make my own little bundles and add them to my door wreath; if I do, I promise to take pictures and explain all the symbols.

As for the wreath, come Christmas I'll decorate it more festively -- with a bright ribbon, or holly, or perhaps with the sweet little garland I bought last year with tiny mittens hanging from it.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration.  I ordered a wonderful organic, free-range turkey (yes, expensive, but truly worth it).  I was alone for the day, and so decided to make only the foods I like:  turkey, cranberry-orange-walnut relish, rolls, cream cheese dip for veggie sticks, stuffing (truly stuffed inside the turkey, to absorb all the lovely juices), gravy and this year, a pumpkin pie.  It was all perfectly delicious, but for the first time I realized how perfectly excessive it was.  Keep in mind this is a girl who survived (and thrived!) most of the summer on cereal for breakfast and a big late-afternoon salad.  Yes, I've been feasting for 3 days now, and will continue to do so when I make the soup from the carcass.  But no one individual really needs (or wants, truth be told) that much food.  It's almost sickening, even as I continue to stuff myself.  A friend, also alone, bought herself two turkey thighs, one potato, and some veggies.  I'll do that at Christmas, probably -- substituting stuffing for potato.  I froze nearly half of what I made (turkey, relish, and stuffing) this month -- maybe I'll just thaw and heat next month.

In a weird way, it feels good to notice and be disgusted by the excessiveness.  I think it's the first time I've been aware of it.

For a Sunday Advent class, we're reading and discussing Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.  It's available used for as low as $1.51 in paperback.  Amazing.  I like this book so far.  Maybe I didn't tell you the story of my new philosophy of adult Christian education in this parish.  It's a little long, but kind of funny.  One of my strengths as a priest is as a passionate teacher of things spiritual and theological.  When I came to this parish, my understanding was that they longed for someone who would educate them.  I was thrilled.  Except for the Wednesday bible study, which is growng steadily, I get a very low turnout (3-6) for my adult ed offerings.  I've been steadily frustrated and crushed by this, having spent long hours designing and preparing courses and materials.  One day I realized that I was led by the search committee, and especially by those individuals who visited me in Buffalo, to believe this parish was longing for education.  And two of the three who visited me (and with whom I had hours of extended conversations at the time) were in fact people who were avid for education -- but they did not reflect the overall demographic of the parish!  And they are both gone now, having moved away to be closer to their adult children.

Initially I was angry at the lack of response to my hard work.  Then (also in anger, I think) I just stopped offering anything but the bible study, which I love, and the participants also love.  Recently I realized that I love to teach, and also to learn in a community of learners.  I love book groups.  So I decided to offer exactly the sorts of things I enjoy doing, and then to enjoy whatever the turnout, because I'm doing something I love.  Last "term" I did a course called "Bible 101," poorly attended, but I had fun.  This "term," for Advent (that's where I began this post), we're doing the book discussion, over a casserole lunch.  Last week was our first week, and 3 people attended -- but we ate together and discussed together, and what fun we had!  So we'll spend 3 more weeks on this (including next week), be free for Advent 4, when we'll decorate the church for Christmas, and have fun along the way.  I haven't read this book, but like Marcus Borg, and so far am enjoying it immensely, even when I disagree with him (which isn't often).

So okay, there it is.  This is the first time I've transferred an image from the web to my blog, so it's a new learning for me.

That's about it this week.  I'm waiting for the coming of Christ.  I'm waiting for the final coming, as well.  I'm trying to figure out why those of us who believe it, are so nervous about it.  Maybe it's our guilty conscience.

My friend Fran, who inspires me regularly, has suggested that I publish a link to my sermons, and I think I will do that.  I did it one time, I think, but why not every week -- that way I'll be sure to get at least one post each week, won't I?  My sermon for tomorrow is finished, but I always do one last once-over on Sunday morning, so I'll post it tomorrow.  I have a list of folks who receive it each week by email, but if you're reading this blog, my guess is that you'd prefer a link from here.

Be well, my blog friends.  I've got lots of reading to do for tomorrow, so I'll be about that now.  I hope you all can set yourselves apart from the pre-Christmas season of frantic-ness, and just take time to reflect on "the reason for the season," whether that is a Christian reason, or simply the joy of giving, of family and loving relationships, of gratitude spilling over into generosity, or whatever it may be for you.  Don't let the culture drive you, but rather take the time to let the season feed your soul.

The Mystified Gardener: Memorial Day Confession

Okay.  I've hidden my secret from you long enough.  My gardens are driving me wild (and they have gone almost perfectly wild, themselves).  My predecessor at this church was a passionate gardener, and something of a garden snob.  He was also an anglophile, and so planted lovely little English cottage garden beds all over about a half-acre of yard here.  He also planted some beautiful and unusual specimen plants, as well as a cartload of roses.  When I arrived, the gardens had only been neglected for about a year and a half, and my first summer, I actually managed, by dint of very hard labor, to whip them all into nearly-perfect shape.  They were a delight.  I performed a wedding that summer, and proudly invited the bridal party into my gardens for photographs.

Then I became enamored with my veggie garden, and the flower beds became seriously neglected.  I labored long and hard on that little plot, enlarging, tilling, fertilizing, planting, harvesting.  I installed a sunken fence, to guard against tunneling pests.  I lined it with chicken wire to keep out bunnies.  I installed raised beds for quicker warming and earlier planting.  I mulched paths with everything from landscape fabric to newspaper to wood chips.  It was a labor of love and great satisfaction.

Last spring and summer were very busy for me, finally culminating in that long bout with allergies, bronchitis that was very near to pneumonia, and nearly 2 months on the sofa prior to my trip to Italy in September.  It was all I could do to get to church and my office hours; there was nothing, nothing left for the gardens.

As you may know, this spring I fought the beginnings of the same battle with my allergies, but I was determined to learn to manage them, not be sick for months like last year.  I weathered the worst of pollen season fairly well, certainly better than last summer, but the gardens have gone begging.  And today I feel the urge to get to them.  I've decided that my gardening really requires two characters:  "Farmer Ann" and "The Genteel Lady Gardener" -- unfortunately, rather more of the former, and less of the latter, at least right now.

I will get to the flower gardens shortly, but if I want any crop at all (I'm already nearly a month late getting any garden veggies in, and have to forego cool-weather stuff like peas, onions, potatoes, lettuce, & spinach completely), I have to act quickly.  I have one surviving tomato plant (from a batch I bought several weeks ago), and can still buy more, I suppose.  It's really tomatoes that I love, anyway.

But here is what I have to contend with:

Yes, this is one part of my shameful secret (the other part is my flower beds, and you'll see those, in time).

The weather is mostly cloudy, with rain always threatening.  Even if it does rain, I want to get some work done out there.  I'm about to "suit up:"  getting ready to garden in Tennessee is never an easy process.  There's old, "mudproof" clothing and shoes to don, then insect repellent and a cap to soak up sweat.  Without bug repellent I'll be annoyed by many flying insects and eaten alive by chiggers.  Then gloves and my tool basket to dig out tough stuff.  My list of chores includes:

1. Pulling as many weeds as I can, loading them into my wheelbarrow, and hauling them off to the end of the yard where I dump green stuff as "landfill."
2. Dismantling the raised beds I spent weeks installing a couple of years ago.
3. Tilling up all the soil, if I can get my tiller to start (haven't used it in years).
4. Replacing the fence, including digging a small trench to bury the bottom 6-8" down.  I pulled it up to reduce the size of the garden (should probably have just left it in place and dismantled whatever beds I didn't want to cultivate any longer, but it's too late for that -- no sense crying over spilt milk).
5. Mounding up beds to plant, re-mulching paths with wood chips.

So I've got my work cut out for me as "Farmer Ann."  It's probably more than I can do in a week, much less a day, or a few hours (my energy won't hold up for more than a couple of hours at a time).  Look for pictures later today or tomorrow of whatever I manage to accomplish.  You're my means of accountability.  The "mystified" part today is:  How did I ever let it all get this bad (answer:  benign neglect)?  And how will I ever get it cleaned up (answer: one weed, one board, one trench at a time, over hours and days).  I can know those two answers in my head, but I still feel mystified by it all!  Wish me luck!

Holiday Weekend

Wow!  I checked a lot of categories; I guess I have a lot to say tonight.  It's the eve of a holiday for me -- not exactly a "holiday weekend," as my title implies, but a day off my normal routine, at least.  Ordinarily, it would have been Friday, Saturday, and Monday off, with only the morning service at church.  But this week I had a wedding rehearsal on Friday (with rehearsal dinner afterward), the wedding itself Saturday morning (with reception luncheon afterward), and two sermons to write, one for the wedding, one for Trinity Sunday at church.  So all I get is a day, but ah, what a lovely day I've got planned!  But sigh -- I don't think the weather is going to cooperate -- 60% chance of rain tomorrow. 

When I was a little girl, my mother and I would go camping on Memorial Day Weekend; it was the opening of the summer camping and recreation season.  Our habitual haunt was Raccoon Lake State Recreation Area, about 1/2 hour from our home.  We would set up our tent in a campsite just inside the edge of the woods, so there was plenty of shade, and plenty of trees from which my mother would string rope to hang large sheets of plastic.  The plastic sheltered our campsite from rain, but also from any debris that might fall from the trees.  It made a cozy, covered "living space" under which we'd place our picnic tables, our food and supplies, and our Coleman camp stove.  The campfire would be outside the plastic "roof," of course.  My camping memories are lovely ones, but it nearly always rained on Memorial Day weekend.  There was usually enough sunshine and warmth to make the adventure worthwhile, but yes, we got rain, too.  Memorial Day Weekend was always punctuated with the plip, plip, plip of raindrops on the plastic overhead, with a wet sleeping bag where our canvas tent got wet, and the need to wear warm jeans, socks, and a sweatshirt, rather than the brand new swimsuit and flip flops I had for the summer. So tomorrow will remind me of my childhood camping days, I fear.

Some of the things I've planned I can still do inside, rather than outside on my porch:

A little creative work can certainly be done inside, though I confess that it really feels more like carefree play when I'm on the sunny back porch.

But there are also lots of things that can't happen inside, and almost certainly won't happen.  I can't really burn my brush pile at all, because we got a couple of downpours today.  It really takes 2-3 days of dry weather to dry out my brush well enough to burn, especially since some of it is still fairly green and recent trimming, and some fair-size logs that I pulled out of the wood chips that were given to me.

I'm not going to want to wrestle wood-chip mulch for my labyrinth in the rain.

I'm not sure even one whole day could make much progress in my veggie garden.  I was actually going to pay someone to come and help me clear out the jungle that it has become, but he called a couple of days ago and said he's been in an auto accident, and now he really can't help me.  If I still want help, I'm going to have to find someone else.  Of course, the pouring rain is a pretty good time to pull weeds -- lots of nice, soft earth, if I don't mind getting filthy and soaked (but that's the gardener's lot, anyway!).

So this probably isn't going to happen for me tomorrow, but I may get something done:

Oh, my, but it looks so lovely and orderly!

But perhaps I'll get a run with the dogs in between rain showers.  My weight loss is continuing; I'm still keeping my rules about increasing activity and eating salads and not drinking alcohol (though I had 2 glasses of wine at the wedding rehearsal dinner).  I'm a little frustrated because I seem to have hit a plateau last week, despite good behavior (I do expect it after 14 pounds, and am surprised it didn't come sooner!), and now over the weekend, I ate and drank more than I should have, even though I came home and was a perfect little paragon of dietary virtue.  So that scale isn't really budging just now -- but it will again, O it will!  A new indulgence I've discovered is Crystal Light Sunrise Tangerine Strawberry.  Oh, yum, yum.  I've known about Crystal Light since the first time I went to Weight Watchers in 1989, but I never tried it until just a couple of weeks ago.  Oh, my.  Oh, yum.  It kind of reminds me of having a pitcher of Kool-Aid around when I was a young married girl.  My only caution is that I can just about overdose on Aspartame, if I'm not careful.  And despite what I heard at Weight Watchers oh, these many years ago, it really doesn't substitute for good, clear, filtered water.

Today, of course, I preached on the doctrine of the Trinity, since it's Trinity Sunday.  If you're even slightly interested, I highly recommend Karen Armstrong's latest, The Case for God.  She does a really, really great job of describing the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, which was originally intended as a spiritual exercise that, rather than being fully understood, was meant to show us how utterly incomprehensible God actually is.  We were never meant to understand the Trinity.  And furthermore, faith originally had little to do with intellectual comprehension and agreement, but rather with loyalty and commitment.  Whether I understand the Trinity, whether I agree with the Church's doctrine of the Trinity, I stand behind and within it, and I commit my whole being to the Triune God and the teachings of Christ.  That's all that really matters!

While we're talking about books, I'm also listening to a really great one.  Most of my fiction "reading" is done in the car as I drive on my daily errands, visits, and meetings.  I'm currently listening to The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  It's one I can barely "put down" -- I want to just keep driving and driving so I can hear more and more of this story.

So tomorrow I plan to sleep in (which seems to mean about 7:30 these days, since I go to bed so early), get some exercise, and do some creative work.  I plan to play a lot and work just a little.  I might get some yard work done.  I feel very grateful for this good little life of mine.  I hope you all have something delicious planned for your day off!

Well, Okay, It's Pentecost...

...and I'm finally back!  Don't even ask me where I've been, what's taken so long.  I've been mostly around, but distracted by ever so very many things.  I did attend a short conference in Newark last month, quite inspiring and informative.  My role there was as Board Chair for our church's Jubilee Ministry, the Cumberland Adult Reading Council.

Otherwise, I've been struck down with allergies for about 6 weeks.  Now, I'm not someone who has had allergies, but as I get older (and yes, fatter), these things bother me more and more.  I got to feeling absolutely sick with them -- in fact, I thought I was sick, at first.  Of course, I was ignoring the yellow film of pollen that coated every inch of my house, inside and out.  It was my favorite season to have the windows open, the air and heat both turned off, and fresh air blowing through.  When I finally realized that allergies were the problem, not illness, I decided that my focus needed to be on learning to manage them, since it seemed that I would have to live with them.  Everyone I spoke to said that the level of allergens in the air has been extraordinary this year, probably due to a long winter, a cool, delayed spring -- and everything deciding to bloom all at once!

So I read up on allergy management on the web, and I asked everyone I know.  I closed up my house and turned the fan permanently on (to filter and re-filter the air), I dusted my house thoroughly (well, I got my cleaning lady to dust and vacuum carefully while I was at the conference), I bought a neti pot, and I went in search of an antihistamine that didn't immobilize me.  Claritin-D is my magic pill.  I do know that different brands work for different people, but this one works for me.  Once I could put aside my resentment at even having allergies at all, and having to close up my house during the beautiful springtime, then I could accept the fact that lots and lots of people have to live with allergies and learn to manage them.  I was determined not to be incapacitated as I was for 2 months last summer.  And I did it!  I got through the very worst of the worst of allergy season.

Presently, though, I've been off my antihistamines for 4 days, and I can even lie down to sleep again (previously I had to be propped up to a nearly sitting position to sleep, to avoid that postnasal cough that laid me so low last year).  I've been sleeping like a rock, 8 hours straight and waking up groggy like I could sleep 8 more.  It feels so good to get good rest!

And I've been working outside.  The electric company gave me 2 truckloads of wood chips from their trimming up and down our highway, so I've got lots of mulch for paths and my labyrinth.  I've also started work to reduce the size of one of my front beds -- to much garden for me to maintain.  I have thriving black walnut trees that I have to uproot with a pitchfork and mattock -- the squirrels harvest the black walnuts that grow profusely around my house and the church, and they like to bury them in my flower beds!  Everything has been so unkempt, but this has been a glorious year for flowers!  Here are a few that I just shot today:

I think you can click on any of these to get bigger pictures.  This is just one tiny bit of what's blooming in my gardens -- you can see that the flowers are flourishing.  My veggie garden is another story, however.  Yes, I have rhubarb, raspberries, herbs, grapes, and one tiny, neglected asparagus that has gone to fern.  But I'm completely overgrown with ragweed, thistle, and other nasties.  I've got no annual garden veggies in, not even my beloved tomatoes.  Between allergies, busy-ness at church, the half-moved fence that I haven't finished, I just have not had the energy to tackle it.  In fact, I'm going to pay someone to renovate it for me!  I may get a few late crops in this year.  I'm so ashamed of it that I won't even take pictures of it.  But, as Anne Sexton really did say, "There is hope.  There is hope everywhere.  Today God gives milk, and I have the pail."  Things may yet happen.

And here are a few signs of hope:

Lots of promise here.  It looks like it'll be a good year for the sweet-tart English apples in the back, for grapes, for the golden delicious apples in the driveway, and yes, for wild blackberries in the part of the yard that never gets cleaned out, the part that faces the highway.  So yep, lots of promise, indeed.  Hope, indeed.

Oh, yeah, at church we also doubled the size of our gravel parking lot in two long, hot days:

 

The men's group also threw in some weeding and mowing with the job they did on the parking lot, amazing guys that they are.  I spent the first day fetching lunch orders, making fresh-brewed sweet and unsweet tea, serving donuts as a mid-morning snack, and making sure the water was iced and ready for thirsty, sweaty workers.  You'll have to enlarge these pictures to really see what's going on, but in the third picture, down by the dump truck, there's a tulip-poplar tree they left standing -- just for me!  They removed 3 other trees from that little cluster -- all growing too close together.  I hate removing healthy trees, but decided to bite my tongue, as the men were doing such a great ministry to the church.  What I discovered was that by being very meek, I won one healthy tree!  It was worth it.  Big-mouth little sister that I am, it has taken me nearly 58 years to learn the art of keeping my mouth shut once in a while!

We also had one heck of a great strawberry festival, the 3rd Saturday in May!

A really good time was had by all, we fed a record number of people, and also raised a record number of dollars for the church from this event.  It was a ton of work, but we all work together, and it really does bring us closer together as a parish.  I remind them each year of how it's such a clear sign of the Spirit working within and among us.

And finally, I want to tell you about my big project for the year, which actually subsumes a number of projects within its scope:  I intend to lose weight.  A lot of weight.  I reached a spectacular, horrifying, all-time high weight on March 5, 2010.  I got on the scale for what must have been the first time in months, and I almost passed out from horror at the number I saw.  No, I'm not going to even tell you what it was, but it was way too high.  Mind-numbingly, health-threateningly high.  And it took me a few weeks to figure out what I was going to do, but it was like waking up from a long, bad dream.  I realized, really realized for the first time that my mother's sister had Type I diabetes, and I see relatives all around me developing Type II.  I'm just pushing my luck and asking for trouble here.  I also realized that in 2 years I'll be 60.  Why would I head into a new decade, and into at least the threshold of old age, without giving myself every health advantage that I possibly can?  Why am I doing this to myself?

So I'll share my simple strategy.  It's not brain surgery -- we all know what to do.

• I've given up alcohol altogether for now.  I had a bad habit of drinking daily, or nearly so -- and I think it was playing hell with my metabolism and the way my body was processing carbohydrates.
• I've taken up activity again: walking and running with my dogs, yard work, yoga classes.  Since the time I was so sick last summer, my vigorous activity was sporadic to nonexistent.  No more.  The older I get, the more crucial activity is for my weight loss.
• I eat at least one salad every single day (with a very few exceptions).  I need the veggies.
• I'm drinking lots and lots of water and other non-carbonated liquids.
• I'm really working at getting plenty of rest.
• I'm thinking about trying Overeaters Anonymous in one or more of its several incarnations.
  

How's that for a start?  I have to say, I'm down 14 pounds from where I was on March 5.  I'm down a full size in clothes.  Now that I've really started the journey, about the first of this month, I'm losing at the rate of 3 pounds a week.  The more I lose, the more I'm motivated to lose.  The more I move, the more I'm motivated to move.  I hope I can lose at this rate for a while longer, though I know it will slow down as I lose more.  I hope to reach my goal weight by the end of the year.  What a gift I'm giving myself!

And my owls?  Three of the four are flying now.  Max, Pattison, and Austin are all flying as soon as the sun sets.  I enjoy the chat room community there, as well.  And little Wesley should fly within the next day or two.  Certainly by the end of June, they'll all be fully fledged and gone from the owl box.  I feel a little sad to think about the end of my journey with these owls.  I've been watching them since the day after the oldest one hatched.  I've seen them go from blind, pink, naked little hatchlings to darling, fuzzy little chicks, to nearly fully feathered adolescent owlets.  I've seen them take their first steps outside the box, seen them fly for the first time.  Now they'll learn to hunt, and then they'll be off on their own.

So yes, it's Pentecost.  It's the end of the Great Fifty Days of Easter.  Things quiet down around the church this time of year, and I begin to think about vacations and fresh tomatoes and cold glasses of unsweet iced tea.  I told my congregation this morning that Pentecost is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit: the time when the Church received the last tool it needed to get on with living a Resurrection life.  And I feel that I'm living an abundant, fulfilling, Resurrection life myself.  I hope I'll post here more often this summer.

Most of all, I hope that all who are reading this are having happy, abundant lives, too.