Tell them right now.

A few weeks ago, I was informed that a friend from my past had died, and a memorial service was to be held at one of my former parishes. For several years we had been good friends.  She came over for holiday dinners, went to baseball games with the hubby and kids; took care of the dog when we went on vacation, and drew up our will...she was a lawyer.
As things sometimes happen, we wound up on opposite sides of a rather sticky situation.  We met to talk it out. She presented me with a ultimatum, a caveat, a requirement that she decided  I had to meet in order for our friendship to continue. This caveat was dependent on my relationship with a third party, one she felt she had to protect. I said I would not, and could not do what she insisted I had to do in order to remain in any kind of fellowship. She informed me that our friendship was over and walked out. She chose to sacrifice our friendship for the support of others she felt beholden to.  We never spoke again.
At her funeral, I felt some pangs of guilt, but realized that we all make our choices in life, and sometimes we are not the focal point in the lives of others. People come into and out of our lives.  They do things we like; they do things we hate.  Sometimes we understand why they do what they do, and other times we just don't get it.

This afternoon I attended a memorial service for the son of a parishioner who had committed suicide. This was a man in the prime of his life...44 years old who was trying to reconnect with his son and his son's mother.  His family, especially his father and brother, finally recognized that he was suffering from depression and had attempted to get him some real assistance in dealing with his personal demons.

I had met this man when his Mom died and he arranged her funeral. He was charming and confident.  He handled every detail and was a remarkable presence at her funeral service. He was the rock for the rest of the family.  What happened?

Because of things beyond his control he later felt that he was not living up to his potential; that he could have done things better. His depression made it impossible for him to see that he was loved, honored and respected by many folk who knew him.  The darkness had consumed him so very much that he could not see the brightness he had bought to the lives of family and friends who truly loved and cared for him. Depression is a terrible thing.  I have seen its effects on many friends, acquaintances and family members. The heartache it brings is all consuming.So many people at the memorial service spoke about how his mere presence in their lives made them better people. He should have heard that; I think it would have made a difference in his life.

Wonder what the lesson is here? Don't cut off your nose despite your face.  Don't put restrictions and caveats on friendship.  You will lose in the end.  And, just as important, let those you love and respect know how much you value their presence in your life.

Musing while waiting

Sitting in an airport lounge with a long wait between flights gives one the chance to sit back, nap(if you can), take a mental break from the daily routine, and do so much needed reflection.
The past few weeks have brought changes to the lives of several family members,as well as for me personally. After fifteen years of working in the certification unit of the Department of education after school and during the summer, I have fully retired. A meniscus issue has made trudging up and down subway steps uncomfortable at the very least and unfailingly painful at its most difficult. It was not a difficult decision in the long run because for the past two years the earnings from this part-time job put me in a higher tax bracket and my tax guy, Dave, made me solemnly promise that I would leave the job once my contractual obligation was up. It was a good ride and I met great people who worked for one of the largest bureaucracies on earth. And you know what? They were caring professionals who became concerned about the employees they worked with and for. I will miss them.

Additionally, I am cycling off a national board that I served for six years. With the work of a co-chair and design team, we put together an international meeting of religious leaders in Minnesota, no mean feat when you realize I live in New York and my partner in this endeavor lives in Baltimore. We did it mostly by phone,email and limited face-to-face encounters.

Unfortunately, another change was the result of a family tragedy. A young adult member of our family tragically suffered an accidental death. Although this was a devastating event, the consolation was a drawing close of family members from near and far encircling his parents an billings with affection and a quiet strength that I hope will sustain time through the difficult days they will face in the months to come. We know that the grif and loss will not disappear over time. They will scab and callous over, only to be reopened at unexpected moments. The world has changed for them and for us, but time still moves on....Weddings will happen; babies will be born, and new people will come into our lives who will not remember him, but still we will. And we will wish he could be with us to share these new moments.

I am currently reading a book called "The Lost" . It is a memoir written by the grandson of Holocaust survivors who searched to piece together the lives of six relatives who perished in the war in Eastern Europe. In one part his brother who is traveling with him on this quest to speak to those who knew his uncle, aunt and four cousins, says that the Their deaths are never final because there is always a void, a hole or bear spot on the family tree left there by their untimely exit from this life. And I think that is what happens to families who lose members unexpectedly. What family hasn't?

What is constant in this transitory life is that change is inevitable; sometimes we control it,but any times we do not. Change can be painful, but having an anchored spiritual base can help us endure those changes that causes pain, and accept those that bring new opportunities.


I wrote this two weeks ago before my recent trip to the Fjords of Norway.  More on that later.



Sent from my iPad

Connecting and re-connecting in the Electronic age.

In my very early childhood, my family was one of the first in our Bronx apartment building to have a black and white television set. It stood about three and a half feet tall, or at least it seemed to.  the screen was 15 inches wide and ten inches high.  It was a real novelty and I can remember many neighbors stopping by to watch shows on it.  One evening in particular stood out in a striking way.  It was a live feed from the California coast and it showed the Pacific Ocean crashing against a rocky outcropping. My Grandmother who lived with us who was born in 1886 kept repeating over and over again, " I can't believe I am finally seeing the other ocean." ( We lived in New York City, so going to the beach on the Atlantic Ocean was always a summertime event.)    

Years later when we moved into our house in Brooklyn, that same Grandmother was dumbstruck as she watched a man walk on the moon in real time. "I never thought I would see that", she said over and over again. She had lived through a lot in her years: World War I, Spanish Influenza Epidemic, Great Depression, World War II, election and later assassination of John Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president,  Vietnam War, Watergate, Nixon's resignation...lots of stuff, yet these two events truly struck her with awe and wonder.
So, I wondered, what events in my lifetime have caused me to stop and wondered about the awesomeness of it all. There certainly are many things to choose from that have come along from the mid twentieth century into the early twenty-first. Pac-Man, desk top computers, tape decks, VCR's, and palm pilots, these all seemed to be long lived necessary inventions, but alas, they were all replaced by more and more efficient and , in most cases, smaller silenter and sleeker replacements, many of which were themselves were replaced in their turn.


So, I have wracked my brain for sometime now and have decided on two that have had an enduring effect on my life: the internet and unlocking the genetic code of DNA for a very related reason: connections and reconnections.

Through the internet, I have been able to reconnect with old friends and family embers not only across the country, but across continents. Friends who are living in England, South Africa and other far-flung countries are easily within reach on any kinds of social media.  We see photos of children and grandchildren, we get to share vacations, holidays and special family events that we are unable to attend in person. Friends and relatives on the west coast respond to notes from other friends across the Atlantic in Europe and beyond. We can follow the politician machinations of nations around the world with a simple click of the cursor.  This can be, as many will attest, both fascinating and frustrating...think about the current situation here in the US surrounding the presidential races.
The internet has made it possible for me to connect with paternal cousins in places as far as Ireland and as close as the Bronx.                                                                

The other development has to be breaking the DNA code.  This has lead to many marvelous medical miracles.  In my own family it made it possible to decode the gene known as Brac-1 which is a marker for cancer. Now, my paternal familial line provides a very cancer-ridden gene pool in which we swim. My paternal grandmother, tow paternal aunts, and one paternal cousin succumbed to breast cancer or its complications. Two of my sisters are breast cancer survivors, sue to the miracle of genetic testing.

Now, I challenge you to think about what are the two or three inventions/movements/research that have changed your life as well.  Just email me, I am interested in seeing what others think.

Strange bedfellows...well, just strange everything.

       

I have been trying, really trying, to stay above the political fray, that "sturm und drang"  which has become the stage setting for the primary races in this country.  Up until very recently, I have been able to avoid any involvement in the political process as it has been evolving around these parts.  I embraced my inner creative spirit and began watching a host of crafting and cooking shows on the local Public Television outlet.  I watched as Jacques whipped egg whites into soufflés, Rich gave professional plumbing advice to homeowners, and Rick guided us all over Europe telling us the best things to pack and how to buy a good loaf of bread in Paris, but politics finally caught up with me once the New York Primary came into view.
Feeling a bit guilty that I had not gotten at all involved with the political process, I made a modest donation to a favored candidate (Note: I am not saying which one. Nor will I tell you if you ask me.)
I then volunteered to do some phone calling, mostly because it gave me something to do; I got to see a few friends, and I knew the person running the phone bank needed some help during the day hours. I should have thought again about doing both.  I then began to appear on the political radar.
Suddenly I was on every A-list for fundraising and political action.  I began getting conflicting robo-calls from both major parties and for more candidates than I ever wanted to consider for dog catcher, let alone President of the United States. My name suddenly appeared on the mailing lists of everyone; the vitriol with which this literature is filled is an embarrassment the candidates and their handlers and insult to the intelligence of the American public.

In an attempt to understand what is really gong on in this whole process, I decided to collect my own "data" to help me make meaning out of all the gobbledygook that we have been asked to wade through. So over the past two days I watched six hours of "news" using ten stations: 3 major networks, 6 cable channels and the Public Broadcasting System.  I just "sampled" each watching the station for five to ten minutes noting the gender of the broadcasters, and how many times they mentioned each of the four major candidates. ( Sorry John Kasich, you did not make the cut.) My completely unscientific observations on the numbers are very telling:
Over the six hours I watched the news fifty men and thirty-seven women presented some form of what the networks consider to be "news". During that time Donald Trump was mentioned twenty-three times; Raphael Edward "Ted" Cruz was  mentioned seventeen times, and Sanders and Clinton tied at eight times each.

I also made some observations of my own: 
          1. Donald Trump uses his hands to distraction when he speaks; he also needs help with staying on point.  Perhaps we could find a high school debate coach to work with him...and a foreign policy specialist.
          2. Several powerful Republicans do not really like Ted Cruz, but his law professor liked him because he raised his hand quite a bit and had lots to say. It also seems his fellow law students did not like him either.  Teacher's Pet Syndrome?
          3. Bernie Sanders wife is one of his most trusted advisors who actually seems like a nice person.  Bernie still sounds like he left Brooklyn yesterday, and that's okay by me.  I lived there for seventeen years.
  4. Clinton will have to re-live some very unpleasant memories from her husband's presidency. Should she be held responsible for his bad choices? 

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Beginning last week, our Sunday Bible Study Group started their study of the Book of Acts, my favorite book in the Second Testament.  It was the first Biblical book I ever studied, and, as a history teacher, I really appreciated its flow as the writer described the history of how the Early Church grew and spread to include all kinds of people across the ancient world. Its sequencing was something I immediately understood, since that is the way I understood history as occurring, but Acts is more than the simple listing of events in the early church, it tells the stories of how different people came to know and understand the work of the risen Christ, our Lord and Savior.

The Book of Acts is an interesting piece of biblical writing.  It is the second half of the Gospel of Luke. It describes the spreading of the Church throughout the ancient world, beyond Israel encompassing many different peoples. It was intended to be read to a Greek speaking audience, a sort of sophisticated, well-educated group, telling the story of the establishment of the Church and its growth across the Mediterranean world. Acts has two major forces: the geographic shift from Jerusalem to Rome and the somewhat contentious juxtaposition of Peter and Paul.  Peter representing the traditional view of the Messiah, and Paul’s more global view of Christ’s message to the wider world.

In today’s reading from Acts, we know that Peter is in Joppa, a port city on the Mediterranean.  Joppa was the place where the cedars of Lebanon were delivered to King Solomon and important in the story of Jonah. It is the port from which he departs on his ill-fated journey that ends up with an encounter with a rather large sea creature…you may recall how that ends for him. Joppa is now part of the old quarter of Tel Aviv, a major city in Israel, more worldly and secular that Jerusalem…a bit more hip and modern.

In our reading Peter prays for Tabitha, a believer who has recently died.  It is reminiscent of Jesus’s encounter with Lazarus and Jarius’ daughter. In both of those instances, at Jesus’ command the dead rose again.  But what can this brief description and description of Tabitha/Dorcas tell us about her importance to the early church?

We know that she was a charitable woman; the widows were mourning her passing. Since she was able to help those in need, we can assume she was rather well off. She must have had some sort of prominence in the community since Peter came from another town, Lydda, at the behest of the community of believers at Joppa. We can assume she offered hospitality to the women to whom she ministered, for they made it clear to Peter that he needed to come…right away.

Hospitality was very much a signpost of the early Church.  There were no Hiltons, Marriots or Ramadas…heck, there were no Motel Six’s.  Travelers really did depend …” on the kindness of strangers”, as Tennessee Williams would have put it. People depended on likeminded people to help them find food and shelter.

And the early Christian communities were pretty tight.  Most groups met in private homes to talk about experiences, reflect on their lives and eat together remembering the meal the disciples and Jesus shared the night before he died.

Last Sunday you might have noticed that I was not here. I attended a unique Sunday service at a unique Church in Brooklyn…a block away from the Gowanas Canal. St Lydia’s is a mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with support form the NY Lutheran Synod and the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.  Sunday and Monday they have a Supper Church service very much like what Tabitha/Dorcas would have known and been comfortable in attending.  The gathered group brings ingredients and flowers for the meal, prepares and cooks dinner, sets the table and shares prayers, a homily and a Eucharist…then dinner is eaten and all hands clean up and go into the world in peace. 

But on the second Sunday, different things happen.  That is Waffle Church - a time for families with children to come together in the mid-morning to do some art that includes glue and glitter, guitar strings and singing, floor rugs and fooling around, and more fun than you can imagine. Grown-ups make waffles, peel fruit, pour juice, sing silly songs, and enjoy time with the kinder as they learn about faith and community. Kid friendly homilies intertwined with easily remembered songs are intertwined together to create a worship space that is comfortable and welcoming.

So, what can we learn from the experiences of Tabitha, the folks at Waffle Church and our gathered community at Christ Church? Well, I am not sure.  Perhaps we need to be open to the work of the Spirit among us, to be open to new ideas, to new ways of “doing church”, to preserve and honor those things that work for us, that help us in our spiritual journey, and to incorporate both and to keep what is central and holy in what we do.

...For all the saints

As we are fast approaching the most sacred time on the Christian calendar, I am trying to carve out some time to ponder over the past year and the changes it has brought to my life thinking in particular about those companions in mission that I have lost  along the way. It has been a year of loss both personal and congregationally for me and the folks at the parish to which I am assigned here on Staten Island. Friends, fellow clergy members, parishoners, and local folk active in our extended faith community,  have crossed over into the veil.  

Some families have lost a parent at too young an age; another lost both a sibling and a parent in the same year.  Another family lost an adult son in a freak car accident in which he was killed while sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. A patriarch for an extended family lost a heroic battle with debilitating illness and organ transplant. Our parish choir has lost four members in the last year alone. 

Two of my closest spiritual guides have died this year.  One, at a much too young age, the other after an illness left untreated for too long that resulted in a prolonged and difficult death.

And yet, life does move on in the continuum of time and space.  We grieve, and the grief does not leave us.  It scabs over and then falls off leaving a mark that we will carry with us for the rest of our natural life.  Memories become less painful, and we can often laugh at past events shared with our dearly departed ones, that seemed impossible to do in the immediate time surrounding their deaths.

And the year moves on and new  life enters into it. 

Even though the past year brought with it times of deep sorrow and despair, New light and life has seeped into it as well.  Several cousins welcomed new babies into their lives adding another grandchild, or experiencing one for the very first time. A niece gave birth to my brother's first grandchild, a daughter...sort of following a pattern for him: four sisters, two daughters and now a beauty of a grandchild. My daughter-in-law gave us a new grandchild, nephew and cousin that has given my "baby" one of his own. 

And the circle of life continues to roll and roll and roll. We ride it for a time here, and later in eternity.  It is a mysterious, event-filled and scary ride...but not one any of us would change.

This Sunday, those of us who worship in the Western Christian tradition will affirm our belief in the eternity of our lives as we celebrate again the ancient Easter liturgy and greet each other with the words: "Alleluia, Christ is Risen!", holding fast to the belief that those words so true to the apostles and disciples of old, are just as true for us today.

"The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!"

Cuba and spirituality

For many Cubans born after The Revolution, religious spirituality and Cuban culture are emphatically oxymoronic. Christianity in general, and Roman Catholicism in particular were parts of the social and national life that were supposedly erased away by Fidel and his followers.  And on the surface and in conversation with those born post 1960, this is true.  On a recent trip to Cuba I met two young tour guides who informed me that Christmas celebration were again allowed after the visit of Pope John Paul, but only old people actually celebrated it.  The young much preferred celebrating the New Year. We were permitted to visit the Cathedral in Havana, but when I asked who was it dedicated to, neither of my guides could answer me repeating over and over again that it was just "The Cathedral".

We were informed that if religion among the Cuban population could be broken down into groups, the largest number would be Christian, the second group would be followers of Santeria, and the lowest percentage would be Jews.

Walking around in various towns and neighborhoods in Cuba reveals a religious heritage that has not been eradicated by 60 years of Socialist presence.  From the names of the streets and plazas to the not so secret street shrines and lovingly maintained personal religious items of the people, spirituality has been alive, perhaps sub-rosa, but still there in Cuba all these years.

It is easy to identify followers of Santeria on the streets of Havana, Santa Clara, Trinidad or Cienfuegos, the towns we visited.  Many of them are attired completely in white, a sign of their initiation into this religious melding of Catholicism and traditional African worship.

Grand Synagogue

Most of the Jews who live in Cuba reside in the metropolitan area of Havana and attend one of two synagogues: one is the conservative and the other is an orthodox Sephardic congregation. The conservative congregation worships in a mid-century modern building near the Malecon, the wide shore-hugging promenade that holds Havana away from the wild Caribbean Sea. The Sephardic Hebrew Center of Cuba building is in downtown Havana.

La Virgen de Caritas

The squares of Old Havana include San Francisco and Cathedral squares. There is a newly renamed street in honor of Mother Teresa, and a new Greek Orthodox Church has just opened near the Malecon. We passed Baptist, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches that are open and functioning.

La Virgen

Several of these hidden in plain sight symbols are the various street shrines, private statues and altar pieces dedicated to La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.  You can see her in churches, on windowsills, in posters, on tiled walls in private homes, in organic street motifs. She is the patroness of Cuba with a long history and many devoted followers both Christian and Santerian. Her presence has been important to them, and her image is important even to many who profess that they have no religious faith.  And she has an interesting and decidedly Cuban story.

Tradition holds that in 1612 two Native American brothers and an African slave set out to collect ocean water to make salt. They are called "the three Juans". They made the salt for preserving meat at  El Cobre. While at sea, a storm arose, rocking their  boat. One of them was wearing a medal with the image of the Virgin Mary, and they began to pray for her protection. Suddenly, the storm was gone. In the distance was an  object floating in the water.  It was a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus and a cross. The statue was fastened to a board with an inscription saying "Yo Soy la Virgen de la Caridad" or "I am the Virgin of Charity." Dispite being in the salt water, the statue remained completely dry. This image was enshrined in several places, until it finally rested at El Cobre, a copper mining town, and the place where the first groups of enslaved people were freed in 1801.

So, in reality, the Virgin of Charity of Cobra has been around far longer than Fidel and his crew.  Her image can be seen in the streets of Havana, in the gardens of Santa Clara, in the small apartments of retirees, and in the studio of one of Cuban's most celebrated artists. She has been a symbol of hope for the faithful of Cuba for over 400 years; that is a heck of a lot longer than Fidel's measly 60.