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| Out of Nowhere, by Lane Denson, Southern Sage and Jazz Musician |
Speed
The truckers and their "pedal to the metal" means intentional surge, not accidental. The recent demise and recall of a million or so of our friendly competitor's cars from across the Pacific for just such a problem brings to mind a friend of mine who called one day to tell me she'd recently gone to market in her car right through their show window. Somehow her foot hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
She'd now retired from a long career as a VA psychiatric nurse, often told some marvelous stories about that, was a superb churcher who got me out of trouble more than once. She called not so much to lament her false entry as to tell me a picture of it had shown up on the front page of her neighborhood weekly. She quit driving on the spot, she said, and probably before the geriatric squad demanded it. Embarrassment didn't come easy for her, but the strength of her character knew exactly what to do with it.
She'd taught me such things before, not that my learning curve was all that great, but with this she taught me once again. She's now gone on to where I presume accelerators and brakes aren't so common, and character's a matter of course. She may be on the staff there teaching driving skill, a bit of psychiatric nursing when needed, and maybe sending a Valentine to Toyota.
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| Buddy Stallings. Vicar of St. Bartholonew's Church, NYC |
The Quiet Truth
Elliott has less than a month of chemo remaining. And he is going to be fine. I just read the news on Facebook, beyond a doubt one of the most annoying creations of the techno era. And, yet, there it is: some wonderful, substantive news. My son and daughter-in-law, who are responsible for my being on Facebook, accuse me of complaining about it but checking it often. They are so critical.
Elliott, the child of my distant friends whom I never see, is a little kid who shouldn't have been sick in the first place. I don't do sick children very well; it always seems like such a colossal screw up. During my round through chaplaincy training years ago, I would do anything short of hiding in the stairwell to avoid the pediatric ward and may have actually resorted to that on an occasion or two. When I would "man up" and go as I did every time for there was no real choice, I went with misty eyes, a breaking heart, and a war chest of words that was largely empty.
Good thing. I always thought that if I were dealing with my own sick child or now grandchild (it turns out that the opportunities for anxiety are multi-generational), the last thing I would want would be some chaplain saying a bunch of words that I didn't believe or find helpful.
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Isn't it true that the older we get, the less we expect or even want someone to put too fine a point on any subject, particularly when the subject is someone we love? As much as I value words and seem to believe that some smart combination of them can address almost anything, I am amused to find that the most important tool in my aging pastoral care kit is a mute button! For my money, when circumstances are too deep for words, standing there with a closed mouth and open heart is the best choice.
If forced, I can make a stab at where God is when little kids get really sick, when falling buildings kill them or their parents, or when some other absurd calamity befalls us. God is there, not so much in charge as we would like to think but there. When the IV was jabbed into Elliott's body, God was there; when the ground shook and everything fell, God was there. When things end well and when they don't, God is there. That is not enough for some; honestly it is not always enough for me. But it is all I have got; and though the temptation is great to add a tidy closing sentence about how that knowledge always makes everything okay, the best I can say is all I know: God is there and always will be.
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| Brian's Reflection, by Brian Orrock McHugh |
Don't Just Pick up the Book; Read It!
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God - Simone Weil, philosopher, writer, “mystic”, born in Paris on February 3, 1909
What a gracious comment! It tells me a lot about Simone Weil and draws me to her. Actually, there were so many wonderful quotes from her that I may just have to go on a Weil Binge!
I’m not quite sure what she might have meant by “impersonal”. I get the impression that she thinks of “impersonal” as inferior to “personal”. I have long thought of the “personal” portrayal of God as but the very beginning of understanding. So did many of the mystical theologians. Important, yes, but the beginning of understanding. We human beings must “see” God, speak of God in human personal terms for God to “feel real”. And yes, I have my own very personal image of what God “looks like” to me, what Jesus looks like to me. I can connect on a very human, visceral, feeling level.
But I know that such an image barely scratches the surface. Even to those who knew Jesus of Nazareth and “saw” in him the imago dei, Jesus kept reminding them that “no one has seen God”. God himself told Moses that “no one can see God and live”. And Jesus kept telling them to go deeper. No wonder the image of the Transfiguration is one of the most powerful in the Orthodox tradition of Christianity. We can catch momentary glimpses as on
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the Holy Mount – but we live mostly on the plain.
Maybe the a-theist has the gift of “seeing deeper”. She can go beyond the material, the “seen”, to the “unseen”. A-theists have been thought of in such negative, hostile ways. As inhuman. I think we should value them and their “impersonal” vision. A-theists are people of “faith and love” – and Weil sees that from a heart filled with Divine Compassion.
They point us to the God who is “Beyond”. To the God who weaves each of us into the Mystery of Being.
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| Poet and writing teacher Elizabeth Ayres (CreativeWritingCenter.com) hosts the radio program, Soundings, Monday evenings at 8:30 p.m. eastern time at www.wryr.org |
Shadows
Don’t read this. You’ll end up like me, falling Alice-fashion through a rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy world. You’ll never be the same again, if you manage to escape, which you may not manage at all.
Still here? Well, I warned you, so, okay, I was driving south through California on Route 235. All that flat, black, boring macadam. Those tedious, humdrum stores. I was minding my own business, you understand, neither wishing for this nor hoping for that, not expecting anything except more of what I already had when I saw a scroll-work, a filigree, a lacy marvel of delicate shapes splashed and spangled across the road. Shadows. Cast by the 3 o’clock sun beaming behind a strip of skinny, skimpy, barren trees growing forlornly along the curb.
That was the hole, and I fell hard. Flagpoles, traffic lights, cars, garbage cans … stripped of their detail and pared down to pure outline, they all possessed an exotic and intoxicating beauty. Mesmerized, I could hardly drive myself home, but even there I was no longer safe. My same-old same-old Venetian blinds turned a blank wall into a spectacular gridwork of slanting lines. An unremarkable collection of objects atop my coffee table changed a bland carpet into a fantasy garden.
What did I tell you? See? Now you’re stuck, same as me, scoping out the nooks and crannies of your formerly ho-hum existence. Have you noticed? Depending on the angle of the light source,
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shadows faithfully mimic but hopelessly distort their originals. Thicker, thinner, longer, shorter, awry, askew, tilted. Objects get duplicated every which-a-way on any which-a-thing: a mailbox on a barn roof, a person climbing a chimney, why, just this morning a tree grew itself right through my window and onto my dining table, bringing a soft breeze with it on trembling leaves.
Shadows are the funhouse surprise hidden in life’s serious underbelly, but they can have important consequences. Peter Pan risked everything to get his back, and its recovery inaugurated the journey to NeverNever Land. Where would we be without Tinker Bell and Captain Hook? Then there’s that pesky groundhog, whose amblings make no sense at all, I mean, if the creature sees his shadow, the sun’s out and spring should be closer, not further away, but the folks up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania have invented some flabberdiflap about a Candelemas Day legend, which you can check out for yourself, I don’t give it much credence.
A rain shadow is a dry area behind a mountain range. Sound vanishes into an acoustic shadow. The psychologist Carl Jung called the negative parts of ourselves we don’t want to admit we have our shadow. He said real maturity only comes when we take responsibility for those ugly, unwelcome newsflashes from the soul’s frontier. It’s only late January, but when I walked through the woods last week all the multiflora vines already sported
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bright new leaves. Is that a shadow? I don’t know, Alice, it’s just you and me together in this topsy-turvy world.
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| Clergy Family Confidential by Tim Schenck |
You Got the Look
“New Year, New You.” That’s the usual post-New Year’s health club enticement. The staff at Clergy Family Confidential has been working out (minimal steroid use was involved) and we now have a new look for our blog.
I’ve been hearing grumblings that the previous format was a bit hard on the eyes. Or perhaps I have a middle-aged readership that’s transitioning to bifocals. In any case the new “theme” should help with that. The font size is larger and the contrast is better. Unfortunately the content itself will remain about the same.
I nearly went with a hip black background. Bryna vetoed it and anyway I think it said you had to have a goatee and/or tattoo to select it. The next one I almost used was black and orange. I thought what better way to honor my last place Orioles than through blog colors? Ben nixed that one.
The theme I chose is called Quentin. It’s pretty simple and it reminds me of “Pulp Fiction” for some reason. I’m all for feedback on this. If you like it or hate it let me know. I try to always be responsive to my readers. Like Dear Abby but in a cyber-don’t-tell-ME-your-problems kind of way.
Thank you for your continued patronage. I’m making a lot of money off this site (you can tell by all the ads that clutter it up). Excuse me while I go give out large staff bonuses.
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