Getting Loose

Listlessness

My gosh, I can’t believe it has been five years (to the day, no less).  No one wants tomes; they want sound bites, hence the popularity of Twitter, which is being eclipsed by Snapchat (and now that I sent my youngest son one, he has sworn off that.)

 

Besides having cancer [though I am in an a clinical trial that has a 98% response rate [and yes, the one tumor I could palpate, is smaller than it was two years ago, (which is another way of saying if I were to feel my body for tumors in an average layman kind of a way, I would never notice the one that has gone down so much)], I am presently suffering with acute bronchitis.  It was fairly easy to self-diagnose, but after having gone on for a week, I stopped in to see my physician, and he confirmed what I suspected—shallow breathing, fever, deep hacking cough like you were going to throw up, phlegm that comes from your chest and not your head, fatigue, find it excruciatingly difficult to sleep for any amount of time.  Taking a chest X-RAY, there may be a little pneumonia in one of my lung lobes, but that is not conclusive.

 

I got to thinking, I am glad I am retired so that I have time to be sick.  Now, I am not trying to be Poor, Pitiful Pearl.  I am exceedingly blessed.  I’m in a better place than I would have ever dreamed possible.  But the life of the clergy is exceedingly hard.  No one gets that, till you are in their shoes.

 

A colleague of mine recounted how his nephew fresh out of college has landed a job in which he will make more money than this man made at his last church before retirement.  I grimaced when he said that.  I knew it was true.  And I totally grasp that none of us entered the ministry to make money.  But clergy have incredibly difficult jobs.  Everyone in your congregation, especially on the Monday after Sunday, can tell you how you could have done it better.  Or how you failed to see Aunt Minnie in the hospital and people are all upset.  Or there’s never enough money, and you constantly have your hand out to remind people about giving to the Lord.  Grace is free, but A/C, and lights, and gas all have a price tag, as does building upkeep, as does quality staff.  Or there is a rumor spreading, which is a half-truth (worse than a lie) and you’ve got to try to counter it.  Or you have an off month attendance wise and you begin to feast on your anxieties.  What am I doing wrong?  Why don’t people like me? 

 

I’ve been retired for over 2½ years, and just reading through that list, is like a heart stab.  I’ve not forgotten.  It is a trait, that by and large, clergy are looking for love and affirmation, and all too often, the churches they serve are toxic for them. 

 

What I’m saying to you is this: whether you go to church, or whether you do not, pray for some minister, somewhere.  It will do you good.  When you pass a church, think about the poor pastor trying to keep it all together.  It’s tough.

 

But coaching is tough, and so is being the superintendent of a school system.  It is exceedingly hard to remain self-defined in such highly anxious systems.

 

I think in some ways our society is being envenomed by the political atmosphere through which we are going.  The acrimony, the finger-pointing, the ad hominem arguments, are poisoning.  People that I know personally, take on a nearly scathing, vicious persona on line.  One of my colleagues while being very personally affirmative looks for every single negative article he can post about the current administration.  People are seemingly unable to get loose from their anxieties surrounding the political sphere.  I have cut way back on watching the cable news shows because the constant bombardment of conflict, intrigue, looking for a deep, dark ulterior motive rather than take the Occams Razor solution with any credibility are enervating. 

 

Just recently, I had a 1st cousin, twice removed, post one of the most outrageous, unsubstantiated bits of libel I had ever seen about the death of David Rockefeller.  I took him to task, albeit in a playful way.  I helped him to understand that Rockefeller had given away ½ of his fortune to help others.  I wondered if in any given year, he had given away even $5,000 to help the common good.  Silence.

 

In my current malaise I have been enjoying more simple conversations, just reading and “liking”, (although in a closed clergy group, liturgical concerns still get my dander up),  letting go, and letting the world spin around some.

 

Shaking the Hand of the Man

I had begged Charles many times to go.

He would usally just look away and wave his hand as if to say, "Scram, Son, you are bothering me."

But today he actually called me to go. I was glad to have him.

Man, the place was crowded. Cars everywhere.

Even the meeting was crowded with guests and members.

The speaker spoke on autism, and that was clearly a topic that moved Charles’s heart as his beloved child is autistic.

After the meeting was over, since we have both parked our cars out back, I knew a short cut and asked Charles if he wanted to follow me to get to where he needed to go.

He consented, and after walking through a rat maze, we were getting close to the last door to push open, when out of the corner of my eye, I happened to notice a man sitting at a table who looked familiar. I thought to myself, "Naw . . . it couldn’t be him. Just a look-alike."

But Charles looked up and exclaimed, "Mr. President!" And walked over to him and greeted him profusely.

He recounted to him a story the details of which were familiar to the President.

And when the President asked him what he was doing now, instead if pulling out his prestigious work at a national level, Charles replied that he was the emeritus pastor of my church. And then he said, "I’d like for you to meet our senior pastor."

The President stuck out his hand.

I was flabbergasted. I shook it and said, "Mr. President, it is so very good to meet you."

Later, I thought, "Wow! How many people ever get to shake the hand of the President of the United States of America?"

I know I am the first one in my family ever to have done so.

Big Brother Alive and Well in the Bluegrass State

This is a very thorny issue. There is no black and white. Only shades of gray.

Apparently, the Board of Ordained Ministry (BOM) of the Louisville Area of the United Methodist Church is asking candidates for ministry to "friend" Kelly McDonald, not even on the BOM, in order to engage in "Big Brother" monitoring.

Now, to be fair to the Kentucky Annual Conference’s BOM, apparently a prospective "employer" can indeed ask for a FaceBook password (and other social media of its ilk)—just like they can ask for a psychological exam, testamentary evidence from former employers, a physical exam, etc. Of course, a "prospective employee" is not obligated to provide that password, but then neither is the prospective employer obligated to "hire" said prospective employee.

Of course, though, the BOM of the KY conference could do all sorts of workarounds without blatantly asking for "friending." And there is nothing to stop a person who is a friend, and also not under an obligation of any kind of confidentiality, from printing off what he or she reads in the content of a candidate who posted straying words or anathematized behavior.

Yet, for a prospective "employer" to demand such a thing invites all sorts of negative publicity, such as the attention of the ACLU. My experience is that bishops have an instinctual loathing of lawsuits and most will accommodate to a large degree to avoid one without violating conscience or integrity.

If there are "prospective employees" looking at the Kentucky Annual Conference and do not like what they are being asked to do, there are plenty of other conferences who have no such standard for employment.

It’s as simple as that, and as thorny as that.

Shantini

She pronounces it SHAWN-t^e-knee’, and I went to take communion to her 90-year-old mother.  Florence was deeply appreciative.  Shantini had been in church last Sunday, but did not want to “bother” me with a request to bring the sacrament to her mom, because I was leaving in just a few days.

 

And so she was very surprised when I unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep.

 

She was very gracious, accommodating, and in a few minutes was able to help her mother down the steps for communion.  We all used the Methodist Worship Book for I had brought three copies with me, and we went through the service for Holy Communion in a home.

 

Afterwards Shantini and I got into a very interesting discussion about Sri Lanka, as that is the family home grounds.  Well, while it may be called Sri Lanka (a Sinhalese name), for hundreds of years, it was called Ceylon.  The island (off the SE coast of India), is beautiful, but after having gained independence from England, the two predominant ethnic groups began to undergo civil turmoil.  The Tamils who tended to be the more educated, and who coalesced in the north and east, had been the ruling class for hundreds of years.  But at independence, the Sinhalese became rulers by sheer force of numbers of ballots at the ballot box, and things began to change precipitously.  Ceylon was thrown out, and Sri Lanka (a Sinhalese name) took its place.  One day, a decree was suddenly made that the Tamil language could no longer be spoken, and overnight most, if not all, Tamil students were kicked out of universities.  The world’s first suicide bombers made their appearance in Sri Lanka. 

 

I had no idea about the turmoil, and wished I had made Shantini’s acquaintance much earlier in my stay to glean more of her perspective.  Shantini’s mother kept interrupting her narrative telling her in Tamil that I was a busy man and had other things to do besides learning this piece of obscure history.  But I loved it, and I thirsted for more of the Shantini's story.  Who knows?  Maybe she might have taught me a little of their alphabet--a very distinctive lettering that I've not seen elsewhere.

 

On another day, Shantini took my partner and me through the Southall section of Ealing—it is like the “Little India” section of London.  There one can find a Punjab flavour of India, that very multi-cultural country, and the Southall section conveys a representative flavour of that part.  As an example, here is the largest Sikh temple outside of India in Southall.   While in Southall, we got some mango,tea, and spices.   

 

Shantini was most gracious, accommodating, and had a very infectious smile and a winsome personality.

RI

I’ve been a Rotarian for years. 

And I had the most gosh-awful, difficult time trying to figure out where the Rotary Club of Hanwell & Northfields  met in order to attend a make-up meeing.  As it turned out, Google was spot on.  But looking at the addresses of the houses on the street, the address was way off.  On top of that the door was locked and you had to swipe some card to get in.  I couldn’t believe it.

After that after having travelled all that way by the E2 bus and having had to walk an entire block! 

I had to wait for a chap in an electric wheel chair to get into the parking lot and ask him if he knew where the Rotary Club met. 

He pointed right to the building beside which I was standing!

I said, “How on earth do you get in if you are not a member?”

“You see that fence over there?  Go around that fence and there is another door and it is open.”

I could not believe it.  I thought these Rotarians really do not want any visitors.  Where are the signs?  How are you supposed to know this?  Do you have to be an “insider” to know your way around?

Believe me, the parallel was not lost on me as to what visitors face at so many churches!

Once I could run through the hoops, the Rotarians were a congenial lot.  The food appeared home cooked.  There was lots of it for 11£.

I remarked how it was strange to me that they met at night, for in the USA they predominantly meet at noon or some at breakfast, but that I could not think of one who met at night!

They told me they were primarily a social club; they were not trying to make business connections per se.  There were lots of inside jokes. 

I find I have to listen harder with some people to wade my way through their accent.  I find it too easy to tune it out as if I were in a foreign country where unless you are the person being addressed, you tend to let the chatter pass you by.

I had a banner to trade with them from my own club.

“Oh, yes.  Right.  Well you see, we don’t do the banner bit anymore.  But we will make a 5£ donation to the Rotary Foundation in your honour.”

I thought, “Hmmm.  Not bad.”

The speaker spoke of Dechenne's muscular dystrophy.  I had never heard of it.  1 in 3500 boys is born with it, and even fewer girls.  It was a sobering speech.

The meeting lasted almost 2 hours!  But it was very interesting.

Choices

I’m fairly sensitive.  I distinctly remember the first day we were out on the Broadway and New Broadway, wending our way through the teeming people; I could feel the heavy vibrations of some of the people passing us in the street.  The look of anxiousness on their faces, the costs of associated goods and services, the choices having to be made between eating lunch or buying a necessity for the child.  It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be initially.  I’ve not been able to get that heaviness out of my system.

Seeing a Bit of History

We spent a major portion of yesterday touring the Museum of London. 

It is a fascinating place.  I especially liked the part of the exhibit that was pre 1600’s.  They go way back in history to the ice ages and how England was attached to the continent and show you what geographically transpired over hundreds of thousands of years and how civilisation developed and the many archaeological sites in and around London.

And for those of you who can't be bothered with too much history, there is plenty of post 1600's exhibits as well.

The Golden Triangle

A friend of mine, Ted Campbell, a Beaumont boy, asked me what was distinctive about Southeast Texas.  This is some of how I responded:

    Houston claims to represent SE Texas, but as anyone from the Golden Triangle knows, it just ain't so.  The ethos of Southeast Texas truly is much more likely to be found within the confluence of the Trinity, Neches, and Sabine rivers that wind and twist through its very soul.

    At first I wanted to say that what is distinctive is its geography.  But that is not  accurate.  Even though a geologist could map out the convergence of the piney woods with the coastal plain, what is distinctive is much deeper than what can be seen or touched or heard.

    I think that at root and core, what is distinctive is an intangible nexus of the raw bounty this land had to offer in making a fortune—or at least a way of life—from fishing in the waters of the bay or gulf, to the timbers of its mighty forests, to the fertile land yielding a rich bounty of rice, or the drilling for black gold and its many spin-off industries.  Long before derivatives were some arcane financial component to a corporate back page, it was alive and well in Southeast Texas with its magnetic siren call beckoning to those looking for a higher wage, a better standard of living, than could be found from its contiguous geographic cousins.  It was a call that few could resist.

    The promised yield was nearly mesmerizing.  The opportunity for a better life was appealing.  The conjoining of the rich and poor, the black and white, the educated and the uncultivated, provided a rich brew that bequeathed to the residents of Southeast Texas, a malt in which friendships could be forged, in which ideas could be distilled, and in which memories could be sifted endlessly—whether through the turbulence of parsing junior high alliances or the sophisticated pastiche of people bent on improving not just their economic lot, but the very heart of their social fabric as well.

    The environment, the context that engenders southeast Texas is unique to itself, and yet like so many other areas, is a rich loam from which could be fashioned and formed lives that made a difference—contemporaneously, as well as historically.

Wisconsin Death Trip

My wife and I saw Wisconsin Death Trip tonight. I did not know what to expect.

It pulls you in, is shot in somewhat of a documentary style, is based on true stories, and teaches you that some things never change—unrequited love, depression, despair, tragedy, the older generation trying to transmit values to the younger generation, and the lengths to which people will go to cope with the vagaries of life.  

I discovered that the context in which we live in the 21st century is not all that different than it was in a remote backwater area of Wisconsin some 110 years ago.

It was haunting, but nor horrific. Sad, but not pitiful. Contemplative, but not overbearing.

1st Class Church Fund Raiser

Last night we went to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral Greek Festival.  Man, you talk about knowing how to do a fund raiser, it was phenomenal.  Here were just a few of the things that impressed me:

• It is held on 4 successive nights
• Lights were strung up outside attracting people like moths
• A pared down menu that included quality items with lots of meat cooking and the wonderful smells drifting through the air
• Big open-air white tents set up
• Big, portable see-through fencing set up close to the street so that you could see through and get activities closer to the traffic to attract people
• Select beers and wines (I've seen Methodist Churches in Iowa with beer at their church--but it was like one of those under the counter operations)
• Dancing
• Live shows with lots of people
• $5 entrance fee (they could have doubled that and I still would have gone)
• Quality, select, vendors
• They had to have made easily hundreds of thousands of dollars

I'll bet we spent over 2 hours there, and they got at least $70 out of us.  On top of that it was absolutely an impulse decision for us to go.  We were going to stay home and eat, but I had had my car in the J & T Automotive, and I gather that the people who run this place are Greek (the front desk woman's name means "wisdom" in Greek, the General Manager's last name means "God is with us" in the Greek form of the Hebrew, etc.)   Anyway, as I was peeling off the bills to pay for my car repairs, the young man said he couldn't wait to go to the Greek celebration.

I said, "What celebration?"

"It's like a festival."

"Where?"

"On Yoakum Street."

"Where is that?"

"It's a little difficult to explain."

"Yeah?  Well try."

Blank look.

"Is it connected with a church?

"Yes!"

"Which one?"

His mind was whirring, and then he blurted out, "Annunciation!"

"They're having it tonight?"

"Yes!"

I thought, Well that sounds like fun . . . but . . . I'll need to check in with the War Dept. first though to see if that is a possibility.