Recovering from an Open House

I've had a busy couple of weeks (well, maybe more than a couple of weeks), and felt tremendous anxiety as yesterday approached. In order to force the issue of making progress on my kitchen renovations, I scheduled an Open House and invited the church. This means that the work that didn't get finished over Thanksgiving weekend really needed to be finished, and the house organized and cleaned up. With help from Will and Sheila, members of the church, my assistant Cheryl and Sheila's sister Connie, the work got finished . . . with minutes to spare!

I was pleased that I got the piano tuned. I don't play more than a few minutes a day, but having it available means a lot to me. And I was so happy after Thursday's staff meeting--at the house--that Amy sat down and played from memory a few pieces (while her daughter Alexandra slept and smiled).

I am terrifically excited that Jim Deitering was able to get over and move the gas line into the kitchen. This let me switch the refrigerator and the stove, and makes the cabinets formerly around the refrigerator finally accessible. The layout is still not entirely "mine," but the space is far more workable, and without the cost of totally redoing the kitchen. (I'll save that for a couple of years from now!)

I also was pleased to have laid out at least the tiles that will soon cover the three countertops. My next aim is to get them glued and grouted before Epiphany . . .

The Open House was affected by the snowstorm we had Saturday night and Sunday morning, but there was a fun and respectable showing. most of the food was purchased, rather than prepared from scratch, but it was just fine. And I cut down the oddly growing top of the damaged tree outside my kitchen window, and got from it an large "piano top" Christmas tree, which, when wired together, found good form and graces the living room.

After everyone left, I turned the lights down and sighed a bit. (I recall the moments in "Fanny and Alexander" when Grandmother on Christmas Eve seeks to weep . . . and it takes a few tries.) What finally brought the heaving tears was listening to Holly Near's "Somebody's Jail." Here are the lyrics. They speak to me.

Somebody's Jail
Words and music by Holly Near
© Hereford Music (ASCAP)

Just walking along, shopping for food
Stepping out of the line of fire when people are rude
Cheap stuff made in China, someone calls it a sale
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

Beat down in the market, stoned to death in the plaza
Raped on the hillside under the gun from LA to Gaza
A house made of cardboard, living close to the rail
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

(chorus)
And I feel the witch in my veins, I feel the mother in my shoe
I feel the scream in my soul, The blood as I sing the ancient blue.
They burned in the millions, I still smell the fire in my grandma's hair
The war against women rages on, beware of the fairytale
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

The noise of elections, the promise of change 

The grabbing of power at the top, a day at the rifle range
Somebody's in danger, somebody's for sale
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

(chorus)
And I feel the witch in my veins, I feel the mother in my shoe
I feel the scream in my soul, The blood as I sing the ancient blue.
They burned in the millions, I still smell the fire in my grandma's hair
The war against women rages on, beware of the fairytale
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

(spoken)
It isn't a country, it's not on a map
The weight of the world on somebody's back
It's the clothes that I wear, it's the food that I eat
It's the women and the children living out on the street

It's the war at the border, the refugee camp
It's the child bride doomed to walk the ramp
It's the boot in the stomach, the slap in the face
It's the death that is handed out simply by race

Rape by the soldiers, abduction of sons
It's nuclear threat, the fascination with guns
Looks at the office, the danger at night
The one you call darling coming home for a fight

It's the AIDS with no borders, it's the African teen
It's the women all over simply going unseen
It's the arrogant posture, the man on the moon
It's the dying of need before the promise of soon

It's the millions who go without food and water
It's somebody's mother, somebody's daughter

(chorus)
And I feel the witch in my veins, I feel the mother in my shoe
I feel the scream in my soul, The blood as I sing the ancient blue.
They burned in the millions, I still smell the fire in my grandma's hair
The war against women rages on, beware of the fairytale
Somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, somebody's jail

Recorded on "Show Up," sung by Holly Near, Keyboards – John Bucchino, Bass – Jan Martinelli, Guitar – Nina Gerber, Drums – Paul van Wageningen

Well, I'm crying again, already. What a weepy, sissy boy!

Crisp and clear outside. Good morning! (And now I'm back to bed!)

A World AIDS Day Weekend . . . and a Date

I wonder why it is I seem to be able to be up on Mondays to blog?

The past weekend was a challenging one. I learned on Saturday morning that, rather than just serve as Co-emcee to the World AIDS Day commemoration at U of M/Flint, I was giving the Keynote Address. This made Saturday a little fuller than I had anticipated, and I was already running behind due to the move-in of the Valley School to our classroom building at UU Flint. (Lost my day off then and there.) I completed the Keynote, differentiating it from my sermon on Sunday, and then went downtown with St. Sebastian (a treasured painting by Michael McConnell) in tow.

The Commemoration was quite different from any I've attended. It was held in the Happenings Room, a pretty nice, if cement block institutional, half-round room with a crackly sound system. Seats were set around tables, and the buffet was a real "groaning board" of sandwiches and crisp breads and hummus and sweets . . . Ken from Good Beans catered the affair, which was funded by the LGBT center at U of M.

The people who came arrived as families. I was happy to sit with Pedro, a leader of a support group at the Wellness Center, and his sister and a bunch of young men who had just come from a Central Michigan University football game. At other tables, mothers and their kids were present, and the mix of skin colors was far more representative of the disease and its impact.

This was not your crowd of single white gay men in Boston!

My speech was directed more toward those gay men who were not present. As I spoke, I wondered if I was entirely off-base. Yet I saw that the program included a great variety of folk with different ways of sharing, and as long as I kept my speech short, I thought it would be fine. (And I think it was.)

The candlelight vigil outside was appropriately brief. It was cold and windy, snow-on-the-way, and Rev. Allen Biles' prayer combined Protestant orthodoxy and a little New Age thought in an inclusive way.

I went on a date, my first date in nine months or so, after the Commemoration. I was a little surprised that my date didn't come to World AIDS Day, but I guess I shouldn't have. Very few gay men came. But I was pleased to have my date show up in his truck and wiling to bring St. Sebastian back to the church for Sunday morning.

We went to the Mongolian Barbeque on Miller Road, a couple of miles from my house, and had a pretty pleasant time. I'm not going to share the contents of the date (I really do hold some things to myself!), but will say that we kept it brief with promises of something in the future.

I wondered Sunday whether there would be many people in church. Mid-Michigan was under Winter Storm Warning, and there were predictions of treacherous driving and encouragement for people to stay at home. As it were, the roads had some slush on them, but the major arteries were salted, sanded and plowed, and while we had a small crowd at church, it was no where near the emptiness I anticipated.

The service itself was a little cluttered. Through a series of missteps and miscommunications, the contribution banks that were to have been handed out on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and then again on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, were still waiting to be distributed. And so the Children's moment became not about children and HIV but about Guest at Your Table boxes. Because the Valley School news was so impossibly fresh, I invited the Chair of their Board to speak for a moment and be welcomed and hailed by the congregation. And because our Music Director is crazily finishing her first semester of graduate school AND singing in the Nutcracker, our musical connections have been unharmonious, let me say.

But the center of the service was a presentation on HIV/AIDS. I was surprised at how emotional a subject it was to become, especially when talking about some of the spiritual questions around HIV, I was overwhelmed with feelings when I spoke about the condemnation some religious leaders gave to those with HIV; about how perverts deserve their fate, and how AIDS is God's judgment on our immoral society.

I was trying to celebrate the work of Rev. Rick and Kay Warren and their HIV AIDS Conferences at Saddleback Church, and how they are coming under fire from some Christian evangelicals for the invitation to allow a variety of voices to speak about the struggle against HIV and AIDS. That Warren is willing to say that he believes that any sexuality expressed outside of marriage is wrong, yet still he wants to be effective in the real world, and that Jesus himself is his example, causes him to consult with gay organizations about effective community building strategies in the fight for popular HIV education. I wanted to celebrate this . . .

But the thought of my own Leonel once praying, "Almighty God, Heavenly Father, I repent entirely of all of my life," filled me with grief. This sweet, spirit-filled, Jesus-loving man, feeling so condemned that he must repent of everything . . . this was overwhelming to me, and I needed to stay in the pulpit, silent, tears streaming down cheeks. I fought through the words of Paul: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I selected that text for Leonel's funeral in April 1996. What was amazing at his funeral was to hear from Padre Julio, the Jesuit from Spain who became Leonel's confessor in his final months, that in Leonel's last conversation he said, "I may be dying, but I am conquering." And I would say, "more than conquering." Somehow, in his final weeks, he moved from self-condemnation to self-acceptance, and when I think of that, I am enraged at the religious condemners who, it seems to me, know nothing of the spirit of creation, and saddened by loss.

Yesterday afternoon's meditative Peace Prayer service, hosted at our church and "arranged" by me although made real by the people who showed up, gave me time to decompress a bit. The evening Yoga class by Sue Kirby made me unkink some of the knots in my body and person.

I am thinking that I need some "away" time today, away from people and away from immediate responsibilities. I will teach a Bible Study tonight (and the next two Mondays) and am pleased that Rev. Beth Rakestraw will be my partner in this. More tomorrow . . .

Cold this morning, but the sky is becoming a shining blue. Some fluffy clouds. And the dogs next door are barking. A good sign.

Good morning.

Stress Tests

I am on my way to my second day of a cardiac stress test my physician requested. Yesterday was the day that the tech injected so e radioactive material into a vein, gave me a tall cup of water to drink and sat me in yet another waiting area, and then strapped me onto a very narrow bed around which a mechanized camera rotated to get good shots of my heart (while I was at rest) from many angles.

Today is the treadmill test. I used to walk a treadmill an hour a night three or four times a week when I lived next to the Boston Sports Club in Copley Square. But that was a long time (and many pounds) ago.

Right now, I just want to eat! I ate sensibly yesterday, and avoided caffeine all day. I developed a bit of a headache as the day went by (could be a virus that's going around, could be caffeine withdrawal) that persists now. I can't eat until after the test, and I've been asked to delay by blood pressure medication until after the test.

Before the test, I have one additional stressor. The Valley School is moving into our classroom wing at UU Flint today and tomorrow, and I am telling the 12-step groups that the room they've been using (and overwhelming) is now going to be an art class and cafeteria from 8 to 5 each weekday. This will mean that our lunchtime AA group and a Tuesday-Friday morning group will need to move to our larger Fellowship Hall for the next six months, and that other groups will need to pack up all their materials after each meeting. (These are not, in my mind, unreasonable requests!) But it does mean change, and people have a hard time with change.

Well, I'm off to the morning AA group, and then to the cardiac center. And then breakfast!

Cold out this morning, and a dark dark. Sunrise will happen at 7:44, says my almanac. I'll miss it today, just as I keep missing that last raking of leaves . . .

Good morning.

Screenplay and Children's Book

There's a screenplay inside of me waiting to get out.

I could say the same about any number of writing projects. The lecture series I'm preparing that I wish could be a book. The play for children that I wrote twenty years ago that my brother Paul and I need to make into a picture book. (Could it be finished for 2012, the centenary of the "Bread and Roses" strike?) The memoirs of living in a bicultural, bilingual couple, and being immersed in a "foreign" family. The performance art piece on breaking up and losing a great mother-in-law.

I love going to the movies, and it was while watching "Dan in Real Life" that I thought about this idea for a screenplay based on my grieving group experience a decade ago. The screenplay, if merely recapitulating that experience, would, I think, be bound by its time, nostalgic, quaint and untrue.

The experience of the grieving group was nothing if not deeply true. All the men in it were men who had lost their partners to AIDS. All had tested negative for HIV. Each, upon entering the group, was a mess. Most, but not all, left healing.

My screenplay would conflate the year of telling my own story--and the story of losing Leonel--again and again with the story of my year of discernment about going to seminary. That year of discernment was one of overcoming my breakup from Dan, that is, Dan completely surprising me by leaving me to pursue, and later marry, Doris. I visited several ministers that I respect and decided that the only way I could discover whether seminary would work for me (or not!) was to step into the water and wade right in. I decided that six weeks was the amount I needed to tolerate to intuit with any degree of certainty whether my fascination with seminary indicated a "Call" from God (or the Universe), or whether it was just some pathology of mine that sought attention.

I have imagined conflating that story of recover and discernment with my year of being in a purposeful group of men. The group was a place to tell my story--our story, Leonel's and mine--over and over until it lost its power to entirely derail me. The group was simple, with just a couple of rules. Every time a new person joined, he told his story. Every time you heard someone's story, you'd tell your story. We expected to be in the group for about a year, being with one another during all the anniversaries (first Christmas alone, your own first birthday since his death, and his birthday without him around, the anniversary of his final decline and death . . .). We'd listen and jostle and challenge and laugh. And we'd give at least two weeks notice before leaving, so we could say "thank you:" to the group, and each other, and then goodbye.

Jane was the facilitator of our group. She was a social worker who didn't know some of the psycho jargon of the seminary ("CPE," for example--Clinical Pastoral Education), but who really knew people. She speculated that she must have been a gay man in a previous life, she was so in sympathy and synch with our group. She seldom spoke, and whenever she did, it was exactly the right thing.

Jane was confrontive with me in a very helpful way. She'd hear some comment, usually something self-disparaging, and ask a question about something I had said three weeks earlier that she thought might have some relevance to my own words or mood. And she was always right.

There is a screenplay inside of me, and it wants to be let out. I wonder what it will take for me to get to a place in my ministry where I can sense that doing that writing is, indeed, ministry. That it could be helpful for other people and for me. I wonder what it might look like (feel like, sound like) to set aside serious time to do my writing as I let the church and its people run its own affairs?

I think I've been working under the understanding (misunderstanding?) that this won't happen until I am in a larger church, and I am trying to grow that larger church now. Clearly this morning scribbling feels like part of my process of testing myself about my abilities as a writer and, especially, my ability to set aside time to work on the craft.

Time is rushing by, it seems, both this morning (I need to be on the road in 15 minutes, and I haven't showered!) and in my ministry and life. Could I get that children's book done (and marketed) by 2012? Will my lecture/sermon for Des Moines be as polished as I'd like it to be by W. E. B. DuBois's birthday? Might I get that performance piece finished--and performed by someone else, I think--in even a semi-public reading?

Or should I just go back to school with its structure?

Blue sky this morning, beautiful, clear. Haven't looked at the weather reports. The radio went on (went off?) in the other room and I am ignoring it rather well. The shower calls.

Good morning.

After Thanksgiving and Beowulf

I didn't get home (Rhode Island, that is) for Thanksgiving. On Monday last, I began to come down with a terrific cold, but couldn't pay much attention to it. I pushed through completing tasks and preparing for Tuesday evening's Board meeting at church, and decided not to set out toward New England on Tuesday night (thinking that I'd probably get only as far as London or Hamilton, Ontario that first night), but rather would just sleep in on Wednesday, If I left by noon, I could join the driving masses on the New York State Thruway and Mass Pike on Wednesday and expect to get to my sister Donna's house by midnight (depending especially on the two international border crossings, but also the traffic).

Instead, I woke up on Wednesday to find that I was really quite ill. I prepared to go to the drug store to get some medicine (and again to consider and reject homeopathy), and noticed that again an enormous amount of radiator fluid was on the floor of the car (in front of the driver's seat), and knew that I would not be driving that car 1,300 miles without seeing a mechanic.

So I stayed in bed on Wednesday, and slept in on Thursday until after noon. On my couple of trips to the toilet, I saw the snow falling (masking my unraked leaves!), and turned up the thermostat a couple of degrees. Took my medicine. Drank some fluids. Stayed in bed.

Late Thursday afternoon, I was feeling quite a bit better, and I stopped in on my neighbors Linda and Lucy and their boys. They had guests--Sheila and Jennifer and Linda and Dorothy--and I arrived at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. I ate more than I had hunger for, and enjoyed a couple of glasses of Beaujolais. (Feed cold, starve fever??) Anyway, I lasted far longer than I thought I would, and even enjoyed one of Sheila's famous games.

Even on Friday, I considered setting off for New England--but I gave that up when I realized how tired I was (and how crazy an idea that was!). So I had a good conversation with my mother instead, and told myself I'd call my brothers John and Paul (which I have yet to do).

On Sunday, I went to see the new Beowulf film with Lucy and her older son and his neighbor friend. We went to the 3-D version (I mean, wasn't that the point?) and enjoyed ourselves. The eerie animation melding real faces onto perfected bodies and action sequences ranged from stunning (I loved all the gilt effects around Grendel's mother and her realm) to sickening (the oozing slime off of Grendel's skin) to amusing (all the machinations to hide Beowulf's genitals). Some of the cinematography was confusing (why may Beowulf have quite nice nipples, and Grendel's mother none?), some forced repetitive and distracting effects that were far from thrilling (the swords and severed limbs thrust at the audience); but all in all, it was a satisfying movie that made me want to pull out my Beowulf and read it again.

I loved that some moments linger in my memory. Why was the heart of the enormous dragon so small--just the size of the human heart? I thought of my own dragon-ness, the things that set me off and make me a fire breather. The wastelands that I have created in my emotional and relational history. What dragons have I sought to slay, and who has seen me as a dragon needing to be dispatched with?

The fantail of the dragon under water spread into the exact shape of the fantail of the seductive mermaid that distracted one of Beowulf's earlier accomplishments heralded by others but remembered by some as failures. I wonder about my own failures, in history and every day, and about how I so crave flattery, recognition and attention. I hope to place my public and private failures into perspective, and hope, even, to become detached from the high and low emotions that accompany my failures--and my successes.

The glitter of the realm of Grendel's mother still haunts me. How it grew and grew, how gold inhabited one son but not the former, how it all ended in the sea, in the fire, in the earth. I worry, daily, about my own financial status, about bills owed and the long time it is taking to get caught up, about the folly of investment in real estate and my inability to invest my time in finding relationships that will sustain my private side, in Michigan. Recognition and flattery, glitter and facade . . . where does this all lead?

Bright gray sky today. Chill in the air, but the snow is melting (and the leaves are back!)

Good morning!

Qigong and Worry

Sunrise today at 7:22 a.m. Overcast, but a bright, rather than dull, gray. Fresh after a good sleep.

I went to bed last night full of worry. Yesterday my wallet was stolen early in the morning, and I didn't discover it until after church. Last night, as I was calling credit card companies, I learned that gas had been purchased, that a purchase of over $500 was several times denied at Target, that a couple of $100 purchases had been made at Meijer . . . happily I was able to cancel all my cards, although now I need to replace my drivers license, get a new health insurance card, and wait for my new debit card. And get those charges reversed.

And I only had $40 in my wallet.

Rats.

I rose this morning to do twenty minutes of qigong at sunrise, facing east. When I am regular about this practice, which I rarely have been since I moved to Flint, I love the heart balancing poses that conclude the routine. Leaves a smile on my face, and gets me ready to DO things (even the laundry I'm finally going to throw in the washer downstairs).

The past few days have been very productive (that is, energetically focused on producing). Weekends are like that with the public focus on Sunday morning each week, and trainings and actions on Saturdays and Sundays when many people are available for our public work. Add to that a very emotionally draining (and reinvigorating) Memorial Service for Jon Owen last Friday, and an overnight trip to Indianapolis for the Heartland UU District Board of Trustees, I've been very "productive." And pretty satisfied.

The Veterans Day service was quite special. I felt a little more in control of the unity of the service knowing that it would be very diverse due to the number of people speaking. Four veterans spoke during the service, Dr. Van who served in the Army in Korea, Linda Kilbourn who was in the Navy during the Mercury space flights and the early 1960s unrest in the Dominican Republic, Linda Campbell who was in the Navy throughout the 1970s, and Steve Urdy who was an Army paratrooper in Grenada and the first Gulf War.

I had asked that people address why they joined the military, and it was interesting to learn that while one person was fulfilling a family obligation (men in Steve's family had served in the Army since the Spanish-American War), others saw the military as a way out. Linda K got out of Flint and finishing high school; Dr. Van got out of going to jail for drunk driving; Linda C. got out of Oklahoma. All felt that there were positive things they learned in the military, and positive characters that were shaped there, learning leadership and accountability and service. Some said that they had been brainwashed in the process, but never lost their ability to see beyond the rhetoric; and all resisted the conforming culture. "Serving my country" had great meaning, and a copupole of people lamented that today, with the elimination of the draft, we don't make social demands on young people, and we wage war without their being an evident social cost of rationing, for example, or even paying for the wat, which is now entirely being paid for "on credit."

The congregation responded deeply to each testimony and to the service as a whole. In a training on building one to one relationships within our congregation, I asked people to share what was great about the service, and people talked about seeing that issues are not "black and white," that people are multi-dimensional and deeper than we would easily know, and that there is great value in being a community where a diversity of experience is welcome. I was so happy to help us see that our narratives are richer than our issues.

I'm optimistic about the possibilities at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint and the creation of a local organizing ministry for our neighborhood, our people and our city.

Time to pray, to shower and to do some wash. Good morning.

Tough Few Days . . . Ahead

Up early this morning to check something out in my car. Hope the fix I made is sufficient for a few days.

This afternoon: Jon Owen's memorial service this afternoon. Sad, but many people are ready to share a few thoughts, and we'll have some eclectic music.

Then: drive to Indianapolis for a Heartland District Board of Trustees meeting.

Tomorrow: I'll miss the Michigan UU Social Justice Network Summit, being held at UU Flint.

Then: I'll miss the emma's revolution concert we're co-sponsoring with Woodside Church and Redeemer MCC. But I'll get to drive back from Indianapolis . . .

Sunday: Morning service thanking veterans.

Sunday afternoon: 1:1 training to create a Local Organizing Ministry (go FACT!)

Later: Genesee County PFLAG panel on bullying

Then, on Monday: Membership Committee meeting and then lead a training with the Flint Human Rights Commission on Hate Crimes against LBGT people . . .

Whew. I am so overbooked. There are other important things that are being overlooked.

Blue sky just beginning to appear,

Good morning.

Further Shock

I was sitting in Palm Beach International airport on Tuesday when I received the call from Scott Stensaas, member of UU Flint and former congregational Moderator. Auldin Nelson, long term member and leader and the architect of our 1961 classroom building and 1986 Sanctuary and Bell Tower, had been discovered dead that morning by his sister, who worried that he hadn't called her as he did each morning. Auldin had died of a heart attack the night before. What a shock.

Auldin had not been feeling well for a few days. He felt he had a virus and ought to take it easy, but his sister noticed that he was using his walker to get around Ikea on Saturday--something quite unusual. He didn't go to church on Sunday, wanting to rest up. And on Monday, he said that he was feeling under the weather but was not ready to see a doctor.

In talking with Auldin's wife Jean on Wednesday, I learned that their son is traveling in China with a production that he would have a hard time walking away from. So the family has decided to postpone a Memorial Service until the spring when everyone can be in Flint. In the meanwhile, there will be no viewing on the body or funeral service; friends are asked to make contributions to the Memorial Garden Fund at the church, a project conceived and designed by Auldin, and one very dear to his heart.

I'm thankful that we concluded our church's 75th anniversary year by paying tribute to Auldin on the 45th and 20th anniversaries of the construction of our buildings. In the spring of 2006, we thanked Auldin with a banquet with tributes. I was pleased then to speak with former ministers of UU Flint, to hear their accolades and to deliver them to the body gathered.

Last year, Auldin "retired" as the "supervisor of aesthetics" of our buildings and grounds. He shared with me his thoughts about our narthex; he showed drawings for a new wheechair accessible unisex and family bathroom; he encouraged me to think about how useful a pavilion could be for outdoor activities. He was clearly turning things over, even as he wanted to be kept "in a consultiung role."

Auldin's appearances at our candlestand to share "joys and concerns" was always amusing, always thought provoking, and usually surprising. I loved just stepping back and letting his bright wit speak. The way he spoke illuminated a dozeb other conversations with congregation members.

It is silly to say that I will miss him; it would be foolish not to think that the worlds of the UU church and Flint are changed and that the future includes a great unknown. What a presence! What a loss! What a shock!

With the end of Daylight Saving Time, the sun today will shine 4 hours and 43 minutes before noon, and 5 hours and 19 minutes after. That puts "high noon" at 12:18 or so--almost natural! The sky is gray, the morning chilly. I'm going to do some Qigong before showering . . .

Good morning.

Words for Jon

We set the clocks back this morning, and I was pleased to rise early and take a walk around the Indiantown development where I am staying with Ferry Beacher Ann Nozawa. Walking the circumferential road around the development, listening to neighbors discuss how cold it had become last night (57 degrees Fahrenheit!), feeling the warm sun on my face and enjoying the leisurely pace of bicycles and golf carts, I felt a few words organize themselves in my heart which I typed up to send to June Urdy at UU Church of Flint, who will be serving as Worship Associate this morning while I am away in Florida.

Words for Pastoral Prayer:

Oh Thou, Whom no person at any time hath seen,
And yet Who, through all the ages and places of the human story hath revealed Yourself
in the love of each mother for her babies,
in the growing creativity of each child,
in the communities of affection that be build to accept, nurture and inspire our children;
Be with us now as we share with each other the grief
of the shocking death of Jon Owen,
a member of our church, a leader of our young adults,
a worship leader of our celebrations and our sorrows,
a brother of us all in the human family.
Make us now a community of solace, each for the other,
and all of us for Susan, his mother, and for his grandmother.
Be present to us in our shock and in our grieving,
in our happy remembering, in our recovery,
in our creation of caring community among and within.

Shock

It is hard to face the morning this morning. Yesterday morning brought a tremendous and saddening shock--a young adult member of our church, Jon Owen, had had a heart attack and died. At the home of his mom for a few days, because he was feeling poorly and needed her help, he had had a very difficult night, and in the morning collapsed of a heart attack, and could not be revived.

I met his mother Susan at McLaren Hospital, where Jon's body was lying in the Trauma Room of the Emergency Department. I spent a couple of hours with Jon's step-father Martin, himself a person who has been in the last seven months through the death of his father, then his own hospitalization including a three week coma, and then the death of his mother. Susan went to be with her mom, Jon's grandmother, who had helped raise Jon and with whom Jon had been living, to share her grief and give her some support.

Jon was a member of our Worship Committee, and this past Sunday was my Worship Associate. He also was a member of our Campus/Young Adult Ministry "534uum (5:34 Forum)" and was putting his heart and soul into three performances of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that were being presented in our Fellowship Hall for Hallowe'en. He was a special person, one of the most regular attenders of our church, a person af varied interest and deep commitment.

I am filled with sadness about his death, and deep concern about his family, and shock for our young adults.

The "Rocky Horror" cast chose to do the final perfomance last night, indicating that Jon would certainly affirm "the show must go on." Brent Smalley wrote an introductory piece that dedicated the performance to Jon's memory.

But I didn't hear Brent's words. On the way to the midnight show, I found out that the father of our Worship Committee chairperson Judy Tipton had died a few hours earlier. And so I drove out to Burton to contact that family.

Is this really a time when the veil between worlds is the thinnest? Is this the time when I might be touched by some force or presence that will let me be satisfied with the present, to accept endings and be set free for new things? Is this All Saints/All Souls time really a time for the New Year?

A ministerial colleague cited a passage from Paul Tillich's "The Shaking of the Foundations" which I found healing today. I discovered that I really want to be able to accept the things that are happening and I really want to accept myself, my finitude, the limited scope of my life and the invitation that this life makes to find eternal meanings--even as people are dying now, as I will one day.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.
It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life.
It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual,
because we have violated another life, a life which we loved,
or from which we are estranged.
It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference,
our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure
have become intolerable to us.
It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear,
when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades,
when despair destroys all joy and courage.
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness,
and it is as though a voice were saying:
“You, are accepted. You are accepted,
accepted by that which is greater than you,
and the name of which you do not know.
Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.
Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.
Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything;
simply accept the fact that you are accepted.”

The morning seemed dark, the sky seems sad. I sit and wonder what is next. And I breathe.

Good morning (quite a little late).

Samhain and Hopelessness

It's hard to believe that it is already Hallowe'en, that All Saints/All Souls Day is upon us, that the Day of the Dead is here . . .

This is a time, the pagans tell us, when the barriers between the world of the living and the dead ae their thinnest. This liminal time, these few days, now is a time when it is especially apt to ponder mortality and eternity.

I've been thinking of Leonel for the past week. In preparing for last week's sermon (on Universal and All-Conquering Love), I was brought back to the last months of his life, the time when he was in such despair about his life and our life together. His miraculous recovery from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis, the extensive killing of his skin due to severe allergy to peniciliin. And his dying in my arms.

I wonder where I'd be in my life if Leonel had not died when he did. He died just as "the cocktail" was beginning to transform AIDS from a death sentence to a manageable chronic illness. I resolved, in my first yar of grieving, that even if he had been put on the cocktail, it would have killed him (all those drugs are poisons, and every new drug brought him to the brink of death before there was any positive result), but I still miss him so.

And in missing him, I wonder if I am totally "stuck."

I look around my house. He would be so proud to be in this place . . . but he would also have insisted that we keep things ordered and uncluttered. Not that his homes didn't have an abundance of "stuff," but his furniture and plants and prints and statues and stained glass were cared for, polished, ready for company.

And then I look at my place, and my life. Large and sprawling, cluttered, weary and weary-making. Hmm.

At this liminal time, can I ask Leonel to be with me for a couple of days, to consider what it is I am up to, and to recommit myself to a simpler and more manageable life, to a focus on the really important and a detachment from that which is less significant?

May I ask Leonel to help me find patience for myself? And may I ask him to help me remember my vocation, both my general vocation to live a considered life, and my special vocation to ordained ministry, and my temporal vocation to this challenging community. And to be open to learn what I need to learn at this time in my development, to allow me to life in ways that are more nurturing and generative . . .

Hallowe'en. Need to clear the front steps and organize the front hall. Get the right bulbs into the sconces on the porch. And figure out my own costume?!?!?

Blue patches emerging among clouds outside. Heart lifted. (Cindy Kallet singing now, "Come on, get your oars and row, darling.") Breathing deeply.

Good morning.

Songs in my Head

It is not uncommon for me to awaken with a song in my head. This morning, it was a song that I love when Music Week conferees at Ferry Beach sing it at least once during nightly sing alongs. My friend Dean Stevens sings it on his album, "Love Comes to the Simple Heart."

Passing Through
by Dick Blakeslee, as sung by Dean Stevens

I saw Adam leave the Garden with an apple in his hand,
I said "Now you're out, what are you going to do?"
"Plant some crops and pray for rain, maybe raise a little cane.
I'm an orphan now, and I'm only passing through."

"Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through."

I saw Jesus on the cross on a hill called Calvary
"Do you hate mankind for what they done to you?"
He said, "Talk of love not hate, things to do, it's getting late.
I've so little time and I'm only passing through."

"Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through."

And I shivered next to Washington down there at Valley Forge.
"Why do the soldiers freeze here, like they do?"
He said, "Men will suffer, fight, even die for what is right
Even though they know they're only passing through"

"Passing through, passing through . . ."

'Twas at Franklin Roosevelt's side just a while before he died.
He said, "One world must come out of World War Two,
"Yankee, Russian, white or tan, Lord, a man is just a man.
We're all brothers, sisters, only passing through."

"Passing through, passing through . . ."

Gandhi spoke of freedom one night, I said, "Man, we gotta fight!"
He said, "Yes, but love's the weapon we should use,
For with killing, no one wins, its with love that peace begins,
It takes courage when you're only passing through,

"Passing through, passing through
Just a stranger passing through, glad that I made friends with you
Tell the people that you saw me passing through,
Tell the people that you saw me passing through."

I'm not entirely sure why this is the song I'm reaching for this morning. We has a day of drama on Sunday at church, and I completely lost my "non-anxious presence" and slammed a door in high dudgeon. It has been deeply unsettling and I'm trying to chart a way forward.

And so it appears my heart has gone to (another kind of) church!

A favorite quotation about Dean and his music is on his website from a review in 2004, when I was still in Boston. "Seeing and hearing Dean Stevens live on stage is proof that sanity, literacy, love, hope, and the forces of good are still alive and well and at work in the universe.

"Losing your faith? Go to a Dean Stevens concert!"

(Geoff Bartley, February 12, 2004--the night before my 50th birthday!)

One of the things I've missed most in Flint is the folk music scene, which happens in Flint, of course, but not much at our church. (Back home, there's a coffeehouse in every town, often centered at, although autonomous from, the Unitarian Universalist church.) "Back in the day," I could count on going to a folk music concert on Saturday night, sit in the corner alone or among friends, and allow myself to be moved by the message. This has sustained me in ministry, this public sharing of sentiment among people, mostly folk who are out trying to make the world a better place. This has given me hope, and moved my soul.

I'm thinking of concerts by Dean, of course, but also Magpie and Cindy Kallet and emma's revolution. I'm thinking of Jon Fromer, and being "on the line" at Fort Benning. I'm thinking of my dear friend Suzy Giroux, and many memorial services. This tradition of social/political acoustic music, this makes me want to live in spite of challenge.

Gray outside . . . but it is still a little early.

Good morning.

Herman Miller GreenHouse

With a big memorial service (for Flint community leader Hugo Pinti), and a wedding for a couple where the bride was facing significant health issues, and the extended period of working with my new Music Director Pia Broden-Williams (yes!), I didn't get
a day off last week, so moderator Lucy Mercier "suggested" that I needed to take a day off. So I decided to take a day away on the "West Coast" of Michigan, and got a motel room in Holland (Michigan, that is) and planned to see the Herman Miller factory there, The GreenHouse.

. . . and the "Dayne"

On Tuesday morning, I met Dayne Walling, candidate for Mayor of Flint. The contrast with the previous morning with mayor Don Williamson was like night and day. Which, of couse, is expected.

Incumbents have something on which to run--their records. And so for Mayor Williamson to cite statistics about streets paved and city trucks standardized is normal, expected. Opponents need to craft a visionof change--and Dayne Walling certainly did. He projected an openness to collaboration with people, and expressed a confidence that people can tell what they want and need, and that there need to be more, not fewer, voices incolved in decision making.

I was pleased that when I asked him my question about the schools, he was willing to engage the question with some knowledge of not far distant history. Flint was once a model for community education. School buildings, run by the School Board independent of city government, also functioned as community schools, and were often built with City Parks attached. The C.S. Mott Foundation funded the community schools, education taxes funded the public schools, and the city maintained facilities that enhanced public life. The partnership created a system which was admired and emulated.

This partnership is long since ended, but the fact that the city expects to be investing resources in specific communities, as it is able, is impetus to see that the city and the schools are on the same page. Because the capacity of schools far exceeds enrollment, and because of the deterioration of many public facilities, some schools probably need to be closed; but it would be disastrous to have a community targetted for development by the city lose its school. It was refreshing to listen to someone spin a vision of cooperation.

I also was struck with Mr. Walling's confidence that not everything in Flint's governmental history is bad. Where the Mayor tended to express that everyone who comes to City Hall with an idea is looking for a handout at the expense of the taxpayers, and especially the police union, Walling shared a confidence of prior cooperative efforts, such as community policing. He eschewed a "one size fits all" approach and, in the area of policing, called for a mixture of car patrols, bike patrols and walked "beats."

Clearly he is a candidate, and clearly he needs to paint the "big picture" of what might be possible under his leadership. I relate to this, because I'm a "big picture" kind of guy. I also shoot myself in the foot if I don't have the right people around me to make sure the details get managed, bacause when I try to manage details, I sometimes get alternatively distracted and bored or side-tracked and overwhelmed. It will be intersting to see what kind of team he assembles, should Dayne Walling win.

I also have to say that I was annoyed that he was late for our meeting. We were only a half dozen pastors and a couple of staffmembers, but we were kept waiting first as he arrived late and then as he sat in his car and finished some telephione business. My acute annoyance is probably related to my own sense of guilt when I schedule 75 minutes of activity in every hour , , , can I grow in empathy? Even as I express a little annoyance?

I made a decision that as a public figure whose church includes both supporters of the Mayor and those who are working for Walling (and more than a few who are just disgusted that both candidates are White men!), I won't publicly endorse a candidate. Still, I have my opinions which I will share with individuals, and I certainly expect to vote, and will work for change in Flint, either under the present administration or with someone new.

Gray and rainy, and I still have to get a tree into the ground.

My back is very much better, thank you.

Good morning.

Meeting "The Don"

After a very long Sunday (morning service, pot luck luncheon, check in with the leaders of our campus ministry, PFLAG forum, campus ministry forum--WHEW!), you may imagine that I might be looking forward to my Monday morning "sleep in" until 9 a.m. or so. But opportunity knocked in another direction, and I rose early to take part in a conversation between the steering committee of Flint Area Congregations Together (FACT) and Flint Mayor Don Williamson.

I was happy to walk through the door to the Mayor's Office and see June Urdy's smiling face. June is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint, a leader of our Worship Committee and a Board member. June and her husband Steven live downtown in the Cul-de-Sac neighborhood just west of the Cultural Center. June has been working in the Mayor's Office in an appointed position for as long as I can remember, and it was June who asked Patsy Lou Williamson to lend my parents a car for a week when they came to Flint to witness my Installation as Minister of the Flint UU congregation. (My parents and aunts Peachy and Betty loved the SUV.)

The meeting itself was relatively low-key. We wanted to introduce our fledgling organization to the Mayor) and tomorrow to his opponent in the upcoming election) and ask him where he felt he was leading the city. (A speculative question was "What would you like your legacy to be?" but I'm not sure that we asked the question that clearly.)

It was interesting to listen to this man. He wanted to make a connection with us, I think, as he began his remarks by talking about himself as a person who grew up in the church. He didn't describe his faith, but his experience and formation. I liked that. It was clear in his presentation that he knows "how to go to church." Indeed, just about every Sunday he goes to church, and often not his own congregation but one of the larger Black churches in the city. He arrives a half hour early, he told us, and he stays through the whole service. This was one of the few instances I remember in our meeting where he seemed to be a "politician."

The rest of his self-presentation was as a manager. He can tell you how many miles of streets have been paved, and how long our sidewalks are, He could talk in general but specific terms about the deficit he inherited and the balanced budget we now have. He could spew out the numbers of contracts he cancelled to be able to give more work to city agencies and city workers. And he talked about the higher morale among city employees,

He was quickly brought outside his comfort zone when we asked about a couple of issues. Rev. Sims of Quinn Capel AME asked a question about health care, the Mayor paused for a moment and then seaid that he had something to unveil, very soon, but that he hoped we would understand that he wanted to reveal his plan in his own time. A little mysterious, I guess. but not outside my exoerience with other mayors.

I aksed hime to speak about the Flint Public Schools, and it was here that it felt to me that "the manager" was most activatyed. While I know from colleagues that the Mayor is very frustrated by the state of the schools, because we have an independently elected School Board wiht its own funding, the Mayor has no formal role, even as the state of the schools is a crucial element in the revitalization of our city. But the Mayor, as manager, was able to set the questions aside because it isn't in a "department" that is under his supervision.

That was telling to me. It is not that the Mayor has no vision for the city; rather, I think, his area of strength is to manage problems, maybe even to micro-manage problems, and to come up with practical solutions that get the streets paved, limit the number of garages needed to maintain a fleet of city cars and trucks, standardize some procedures so that there is greater efficiency, etc. And he can complain that there simply isn't the revenue through taxation to get all the work done that needs to be accomplished.

It was a great change for me not to have a Mayor breaking out into a tirade at me (loke the Mayor of Boston used to do during the Janitors strike in 2005). The grandfatherly figure trying to do his best . . . left me feeling "warm and fuzzy."

My hope, of course, is that this experience of being in the public with one another will allow FACT as an organization to mature in our relationships and to focus in our work together. Mayors come and go, but the organization we hope to build ought to remain.

Cool this morning, and grey. My back is killing me, but I am awake!

Good morning,

Long Night, Early Morning

Yesterday morning, I was rather relaxed as I prepared to go to work. I had written in the blog, had processed some of the previous week, had sat still and breathed a while. After a shower, but not a shave, I put on pretty casual clothes to get to church for a 10 o'clock Membership Committee meeting . . . and noticed that there was a message waiting on my cell phone. (Must have caught me during the shower.) I returned our Sexton's call, and learned, as I turned the corner onto Ballenger Highway, that the church had been burglarized.

A police car from Flint Township was out front, and a group of members were congregatiing around Cheryl, our office assistant, and looking at the mess. All the computers--including my one month old Duo Core iMac--had been stolen, the doors into the office and the communicating door to my study had been kicked in, a mirror on my door was broken, the Brown University chair my parents bought for me was upturned . . . and even my 250 GB external hard drive--with all my backups--was gone. Whew! I was stunned. (But growing angry.)

It's hard to reason this through. The value of the old computers was minimal. What someone might get from a pawn shop (or fence?) would be so little compared to the inconvenience of replacing doors, changing locks, closing bank accounts, cancelling credit cards . . . to say nothing of the dozens of forms on the office computer, the sermons and newsletter articles and the lecture series I worked on for seven months (oh, God!). What a pain this will be to recover where possible, to recreate where necessary, to give up where lost.

The day then was topsy-turvied with visits to the bank, calls to the insurance company, alternative arrangements to get out the church's weekly e-mail update, and preparation for Monday School. Monday School itself was touching, emotional and satisfying for me, and I hope it was for the students, too. We shared more of our spritual journeys, and considered the ways we humans develop our spirituality and for our ideas about God and humanity and religious community and ethics.

Late at night, as the door to the office could not be reliably secured, two members of the Church Board and I spent the night in the church. I slept (peacefully!) on the sofa bed in my study (a gift of Val Neumann, second from the right) and her husband Tom Weslowki; Jennifer Howard (on the left) and Linda Campbell (on the right) slept on cots in the office. They spent time puttering around the church while I was at home trying to pull up my electronic calendar and restore my e-mail accounts on the old iMac at home. when I got there, we watched a couple of episodes of Season 1 of "Absolutely Fabulous," and I laughed away a bit of my anger and anxiety.

Early this morning, Jennifer got up to bring a new key to the sunrise AA group (they start to show up at 6:30), and Linda went home to begin her motherly schedule of getting the boys off to school before her own work day. I didn't hear them leave, but got up, I'm sure, just minutes after they left. I watched the sun rise, spoke to a few guys from the Early Birds, and then tried to arrange these few thoughts.

I slept well last night. Slept with my CPAP machine rather soundly. Woke with the sheets in a ball--as usual. Was a little sad and, well, weary, I guess. Then checked to see if the schedule is clear this morning to get off to the computer store to figure out what's next.

Through the sadness, still the morning is clear. A little too warm. Wondering if it will be muggy.

Step by step.

Good morning.

Where Did the Week Go?

I wish I could figure out how to download a photograph from my cellular telephone. Last Tuesday morning, I got a phone call from Amy Derrick, Director of Lifespan Learning at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint, Michigan. She sounded radiant, and announced the birth of Alexandra Elizabeth Derrick that morning, a little before 3 a.m., a few ounces short of 8 pounds. Within a few minutes of our phone call, she had taken a photo of a little agnel sleeping peacefully, and sent it to my cellphone where it sits in my "saved messages" folder . . . but where I can't figure out how to e-mail it to myself or otherwise download it.

That morning, I was in Loveland, Ohio at Grailville, an intentional community that was hosting a three day meeting of the Heartland Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. The Heartand includes most of the UU congregations in Michigan, a few congregations in western Ohio, most of the congregations in Indiana and all of those in Kentucky. Parish ministers, ministers of religious education and community ministers, as well as retirees and ministerial interns and students, are members of the Heartland Chapter, and we are all part of a continental Association of UU ministers.

Each year, we meet three times. In the fall, we convene for three days near where the states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky meet. In the winter, we spend five days together where the states of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan meet. In the spring, me meet for one day before the Annual Meeting of the Heartland District of the Unitarian Universalist Assocation, which meeting moves around the district. (in my first spring, it was in Indianapolis; last spring it took place in Grand Rapids, next year it will meet in Louisville.)

The Grailville meeting begins on Monday evening. Because I am teaching a course in our Monday School, and because Amy is on maternity leave (!), I felt I needed to miss the first evening of the Grailville meeting, and drove with my colleague Rev. Jane Thickstun, minister of the Midland, Michigan UU Fellowship after class, leaving Flint a few minutes before nine and arriving in Grailville a just before two a.m. And a few mimutes later, Alexandra was born, and a few hours later I got thr call!

Throughout the day on Tuesday, my ministerial colleagues and I shared hours of sitting and sharing around the Four Divine Abodes of Buddhism, metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (appreciative joy) and upekkha (equanimity). We shared in a style like the Covenant Circle small group ministry of my congregation, sharing readings and stories of our own lives, attentively listening to each other and sitting in silence, noting questions raised by our being with one another, and then leaving. The format of the day reflected an aspiration of our chapter: that we not only meet and learn together, but that we practice our spirituality with one another in a sustained way.

I have been without a laptop since I used my Powerbook as a toboggan in mid-August and broke its hinge. (I continued to use it as a desktop computer through the end of the month when the display began to flicker. Then I bought a shiny new iMac for my desk at church, along with this old iMac at home.) Had I had a lapotp in Grailville, I might have used it to blog. Instead, I took a few notes on paper (which are now in my study at church). But it is probably more important to me that I actually stopped for a day, sat still, let my emotions (fears and anxieties, you know) be present and then followed the breath to another, deeper place. That place, so distant in my everyday life. With even the feeblest intention, and a few very deep breaths, that place becomes imaginable.

I love maps. On the way down to Loveland and back, I wanted to be sure about where we were on the map, to be sure that I knew where Jeffersonville and Indianapolis are, places where I have colleagues whom I'd love to visit. I used to have an atlas by my bed. At night, as I prepared to dream, I loved to look at that atlas, to see the latitude of Mosow and l"Anse aux Meadows, of Reykjavik and Santo Domingo. I loved to see where I'd been in the world, places to which I longed to return, places I wanted to visit for the first time. I love maps.

Sitting with my colleagues, I longed for a fuller map of the soul, of my soul. For a richer, more descriptive pattern and plan for achieving some kind of illumination. Not that there haven't been moments on my life of deep "knowing," but how often they have come to me in dramatic, unexpected ways. I speak of the majesty of the world often, of the large bodies of water that put me in touch with everything, of the train-trek to Pilatus to enjoy a snowball fight in July, of the Grand Cayon where I sat and stared and wondered.

But I haven't shared with anyone, that I can remember, my story of being overwhelmed "by everything" when I visited the basilica of Sacre Coeur on Montmartre in Paris, or my varied experiences with pentecostal worship, or even the step by step climbing to the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal. How do these experiences fit into the map of me? How does my desire to study maps of the St. James pilgrimages in France and Spain mirror and more fully explain my desire to delve mor deeply into my spiritual path? And what does it mean that I "know" that my "knowing" has much to do with walking side by side with janitors and nursing hme workers and undocumented immigrants in their quest for full humanity and justice.

Wednesday brought the long ride home, and on Thursday lots of catching up. The study, e-mail and phone messages. The calendar. A delicious dinner with Marion Van Winkle and Dr. Van. A distinguished lecture at Mott Community College by Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Friday morning (on my day off) I met with Dr. Rayna Bick to cover last minute arrangements for Sunday's service, a special report by our congregational volunteers who went to New Orleans to do post-Katrina rebuilding. More tasks! Then on Saturday, the March for Peace in honor of Gandhi's birthday; and a wedding; and technical preparation for Sunday morning; and too short a night of sleep; and then a full Sunday.

And then some exhaustion.

What stops on the map of the week? Picking tomatoes. Watering newly planted birches. Harvesting a dozen gladioli, and sharing them with a neighbor. Walking to work this morning. (I'm just about to do this!)

And watching the sun rise. So late! Nearly eight o'clock before the sun is really up. (Almanac says sunrise was at 7:40.) Muggy morning, with the sound of buzz saw in the neighborhood. The "white noise" of the expressway in the distance.

And me breathing. Hmm.

Good morning.

Slept through the Alarm Clock

"Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on sleeping in." It was hard, after a very full weekend, to get up this morning. Rising on Mondays is always a little difficult for me. On Sunday, I usually rise quite early; I almost always take a nap at 3 on Sunday afternoon. If that nap goes longer than 45 minutes or so, I might have trouble getting to sleep . . . and then rising Monday becomes a chore.

Yesterday I learned in church that the Sk8boarding Exhibition at the church on Saturday had been the success we hoped it would be. Our Youth Group (and their advisors!) proposed last spring an exhibition by the Flint Skateboarding Team with ramps and an emcee from Captive Sports, the local skate shop. Kim, their manager, has been a great person iwth whom to work, and the excitement of our Youth Group grew as we finally chose a date and began to solicit volunteers in the congregation, and to promote the event at schools.

The volunteers certanly showed up, and from everyone I've only heard positive reports. I think the general feeling of excitement and good will is growing in our church around events like these, and I can only hope that we will continue to become involved with each other's lives in reaching out to the community. I think in my sermon yesterday I said something about learning, as a youth, that being part of our church actually meant something; that it provided a place of formation for me and my colleagues to know that our church ws about speaking publicly the truth that we are each other's keepers, that when a farmworker family hurts (as we learned when I was a kid), my family was hurting; when a farmworker was celebrating, I could be celebrating.

I'm told that families who came with their kids delighted in the playground behind our church; enjoyed strolling through our Memorial Garden; walked with their children our Labyrinth. This is only a start to introducing our congregation to the community, and it is only the most recent of many such starts; but it helped to embody our aspirations of being a welcoming community for children and families, a core statement of our vision for our church.

There was plenty of good energy at church on Sunday, and I'm discovering that we can create a rich and beautiful time together that welcomes the community in and sends the congregation out. I'm loving more and more our music. A participant in a "Theology Talks" discussion spoke of the magival moment when the children were ringing the welcome bell and an "Alleluia" sung by our Music Director Pia Broden-Williams joined the bells. That moment, its precious beauty, the wonder of happenstance, the sounds outside pouring in and inside singing out, all that symbolizes my hopes for our church, and for the ministry that I help co-create and lead.

Late yesterday afternoon, I arose from my slightly too-long nap soon enough to get up and get out of the house. I went to see "Ratatouille" (along with two other people in the theater, by my count) at the urging of a dear friend back East, Fran Early. The movie was wonderful, of course, and I loved the Parisian jazz throughout (reminded me of the appearance by Paris Combo, the first concert I heard when I come to Flint). But the "Oh-my-God" surprising moment for me was at the bite of the sour restaurant critic into the dish prepared specially for him. How a cartoon could telescpe back to the time of innocence and bring me with it to my own childhood, I can't understand or believe. And yet it happened, and I burst into tears. For a moment, I was with my Ma, and everything was going to be all right. (How Disney!) Wow.

Not a bad place to be.

Pale, gray skies. Crisp air. Some luminescence above the garage . . . perhaps the sun will indeed appear?

Good morning.

After an evening on the Bay

In the Lansing Airport, Overnight

I'm on my way to Boston to conduct a Memorial Service for Laura Ross, an old-time radical comrade and long-time friend who supported me in my career as a cultural worker and in my decision to go to seminary and become a minister. The service is sponsored by the Communist Party and the Center for Marxist Education, two institutions which were built and supported by Laura over many years, and will be held at the Community Church of Boston where I was the minister from 1998 to 2005. I am looking forward to being with old political friends even as I am beginning to feel my sadness at Laura's death more acutely.

I need to get back to Flint to be able to conduct our Sunday service, and the onlyway I can do that (and conduct the Memorial Service) is to fly into Detroit Metro Airport on Saturday night at 11:30, and then drive home. But the only way I can afford the trip without a Saturday night stay over is to fly this crazy route I was able to book: to fly from Lansing to O'Hare and to Providence, and then to fly back from Providence to Washington, DC and then to Detroit Metro. So the trick is to get between Lansing and Detroit . . .

I discovered there is a shuttle between Metro and East Lansing, and so I drove to Detroit and caught the shuttle. I was pleased to park on the "Blue Ramp" which is connected to the Smith Terminal by a crossover bridge. But the work in the Blue Ramp is not quite finished, and there are no directions for getting to the Terminal, so I found myself on the telephone with the Michigan Flyer people trying to get help finding the shuttle bus. The walk from where I parked to the terminal was far longer than I ever imagined, and even when I saw the bus from the crossover bridge, I had a hard time figuring out how to get downstairs to the street.

Thankfully, the driver called me to walk me through those last few minutes, and the bus ride was very pleasant. As there were only four of us on the bus, and as we were all going to East Lansing, we didn't stop in Jackson or Ann Arbor and arrived early.

In East Lansing, I took a minute to get dinner (at Big Ten Burrito) and then took a cab to the airport. The cab driver was a young Cuban man named Pedro, and we had a fun time talking about Cuba and the punitive travel restrictions on Cuban families. He also shared some thoughts about his church, and tithing, and his desire to prosper in this country. It was a pleasant ride that I thoroughly enjoyed.

At the airport, I found a corner in which to sit, and slouch, and eventually fall asleep for a few hours. I was the first person in line at 5:00 a.m. when the ticket window opened, and had a quick bite to eat when the little cafe upstairs opened a few minutes after 5. Boarded the short trip to Chicago at 5:40, and caught naps throughout the rest of the morning.

My mom picked me up in at the Providence Airport (in Warwick) and took me home to Riverside. Now I'm going to catch a nap.

About the sunrise . . . I flew out of Lansing in the dark, and then saw the sun rise in Chicago at about 6:40 a.m., a time that would be "normal" in my East Coast experience. (Sunrise in Flint was at 7:20-something.) It felt great! Except that I was so shot from sleeping in the airport.

Great day.

FACT Federated Training

Finally, after many months of planning, we've held a first "federated" training session for Flint Area Congregations Together.

Other Michigan Institutions

Last Saturday, I was honored to celebrate the wedding of April Smith and John Rummel in Detroit. They chose the Swords into Plowshares Gallery and Peace Center (at Central United Methodist Church) on Adams Street, facing Grand Circus Park, as the site of the wedding. It was a simple and beautiful setting, especially given the gorgeous day--sunny, bright, with a gentle breeze.

The Gallery is a smallish room with great high ceilings in the front with am open set of stairs in the back leading to a mezzanine above with a library below, April made her entrance down the flights of stairs to meet John who was standing among a series of statuary stands with bouquets of pink to purple to off-white flowers. Family members played the piano and read poetry, and the morning bore well the personalities and public interests of these two radicals, a morning of class solidarity and desire for individual fulfillment and collective aspirations for peace . . .

Serendipitously, a piece of public art for peace was opening on Grand Circus Park just after the wedding. The Arlington Midwest installation is a series of over four thousand tombstones representing the United States service personnel killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Hmm. Somehow this blog has been corrupted. I'll try to restore the rest of it soon)John and April's wedding, at Swords into Plowshares Gallery.

Arlington Midwest installation.

Michigan Renaissance Festival.

Somehow this post (and others) got corrupted. Hmm. I'll re-load when I'm back in Flint.

Coming Up for Air

It has been a challenging week, with a full time of interaction with the "Truth in Translation" production from South Africa and then some turmoil at the church. It is also just a busy time of year, this "start up" season, and I have had a wedding or a funeral a week every week this month, which, added to everything else, has been exhausting.

I have incomplete posts waiting to be published. I've gained five pounds since August 4. And I haven't found the time to go through my library to find the books I want to donate to the book sale . . .

Still . . .

Mornings have been beautiful these past few days, and sunrise is getting later and later in the day. 7:19 this morning! When middle school kids are starting at 7:20 or so!

Autumn will soon be here. I harvested my dill weed crop the other evening for a salmon and rice dinner. Barely a teaspoon of dill--what happened? The area at the edge of the driveway that I set aside for herbs was not aparticularly fertile, but I added topsoil and compost )and some manure, as I recall). The herbs I planted that I has started early in doors virtually disappeared in the spring rains (fennel in starter pots, and clumps of thyme). I put in a butterfly bush at the back of the herb "patch," and it grew a few inches all around, and seems to have "set in." (I hope it will flower next year.) The dill I planted directly into the newly enriched bed sprouted quickly but never really "took root."

My hope is that, by planting seed only directly into the herb garden next year, and after adding some composty nutrients, that next year might offer some great weed. (Note twinkle in eye.)

The whole Idea behind planting twenty square feet of dill was to have a pile of it ready for a crayfish eating party in August. Somehow that didn't materialize this year. (Hell, I didn't use my Mojito mix until a few days ago. Where did the summer go?) Next summer I'll reconnect with "being Swedish" with my summer foods and fetes.

The trees are beginning to turn. I need to cut the grass before the sycamore starts to do her wild work of covering the back yard with enormous leaves and fragments of bark. I want to neaten things up, put on a winter fertilizer, and fill in some empty patches as the warmest days end.

I'm making some choices regarding evergreens that are coming out around the lilacs that I planted last fall; clearing a way for a clump of river birch in another corner; preparing to add a couple of inches of humus and topsoil to the shade garden, after the killing frost; and trying to cut back on some of the plants that are taking over the edges of the yard (between my house and the empty houses which abut my yard).

The sun just peeked above the garage, yellow and cool. A long yellow strand appears in the shadows the othe yard next door, brightening the needles of the sad evergreen that stands between me and the kennel next door. The sound of highways in the distance is steady, enveloping this end of Flint. My stomach growls.

A car drives by.

Good morning.

Smiling and Satisfied

Okay, I promise that this is not a smarmy post-sex post. But I am sitting here smiling and deeply satisfied about weekend activities that left me totally exhausted.

On Saturday, I had an all-day-and-into-the-night work "day." A training session for volunteers who make our Sunday morning possible (greeters, ushers, worship associates, office and kitchen volunteers and sound technicians) brought 37 people out. That's over a third of our active members. What a joy! We shared thoughts about what we have been able to accomplish with one another; we found places where we weren't sufficiently communicating with one another; we tried to imagine being more consistenly a welcoming place for newcomers. I think we shared some positive ideas and hope that we are finding a way to work together better.

Then I worked on preparation for the Sunday service. We had our Ingathering to mark the start of the program year. I arranged the Sanctuary chairs into as big a circle as the room could hold, and tried to make it so that no one would attempt to sit in a second row. (Failed at that one, by the way.) Got a large plastic washtub, perched on top of a box, in the center of the room, ready to take water brought by attendees from the many places our families have visitied this summer. Then went to Bordine's Nursery in Grand Blanc township to find some plants on-sale to surround the tub. I was expecting mums, of course, and got them. But also found a nice looking flowering plum (bushy, not in flower, but with pretty purple leaves) and a green and yellow Jacob's Ladder. Brought those back to the church in time to greet the leaders of our Youth Group who were setting up for an overnight lock-in of teenagers. Then met with Pia Broden-Williams, our Music Director, to cement the music for Sunday's service. Then made corrections to the Sunday bulletin . . .

You can imagine that I was pretty wiped by midnight, when I got to bed.

At 5:30, I decided to sleep in a little (choosing not to write) and re-set the clock for 7:00 a.m., when I'd see the glow of sunrise, and be thoughtful for a few minutes before showering and dressing and getting to church to have breakfast with the teens and to cut a CD of special music for the Sunday service.

Our Ingathering was as rich as it ever is. I was touched to hear the simple stories some of us shared; to note the connections people made to each other; to laugh when one member sought the aid of another in pouring a half dozen containers of water from many places; to see the "more than water" sharing of a seashell, or a photograph; to encourage the children to note well what was poured into the common receptacle, and to marvel when little candles were floated on the surface of the water to symbolize our prayers.

Amy Derrick, our Director of Lifespan Learning, carried the theological weight of the morning in reading the story, "Water Dance," and then talking about how water is such a potent symbol for many religious traditions. While her story was directed to our children, it was the message for us all, and I delighted to see this very-pregnant and very-vibrant young woman showing intellectual leadership of the community.

Pia Broden-Williams, our Music Director, sang "Come Down, Angels" and led us in our opening song "Come, Come Whoever You Are," during which I led the spiral dance, and the closing "Bashanah haba'a," which we sing as "Soon the Day Will Arrive." Pia was raised in an African Hebraic home, and marks the Jewish Days of Awe, and added a soaring descant in the last chorus, when she and I switched over to Hebrew for a few lines, and sped the tempo up just a bit. (Thank you Jennifer Howard at the piano!)

A group of our children took the water tub out to our Memorial Garden and poured a libation at its portal and then poured the remaining water on many of the trees and plants in thememorial garden. We started with the double white birch which is planted by the ashes of John Straw's parents (his grandsome Chris and Leonard helped) and then it was up to the children's inspired play that the rest of the water was poured. And then, of course, the tub was abandoned, as was I . . .

Our monthly "pot luck" luncheon was full of tomatoes, and good spirits; plenty of interaction among people about activities in the church and in our lives. I shared coffee and a little fruit, and stopped for a moment to discover that a 5:30 meeting I was expecting to attend had been moved to another time. I checked things in the Sanctuary, made sure my study was locked up, and left to go home to fall asleep on the day bed upstairs.

I did stop to check in on Lucy Mercier and her boys (Linda Campbell, who had been up all night with the teenagers had gone to bed), and was pleased to be offered a little oven roasted chicken and some potato salad as the boys ate McDonald's. Jennifer Howard stopped by, too, and Lucy and I made arrangements for our weekly Minister and Moderator meeting . . . and then, finally, I went home.

I woke up at 5 or so, considered, for a minute or two, getting up and cutting the grass. But I let that pass, and allowed myself as much sleep as my body would take. Watched a DVD in the early evening (Arlington Road, what an amazing pre-9/11 anti-terrorism movie), and then finally hit the sack at 11.

And rose this morning smiling and satisfied. Watered the transplants and the new plants waiting to be put into the garden. Moved some variegated ivy out of the window boxes and porch urns and into a space at the edge of a maple tree where not much seems to grow. Watered my herbs, again, and the very late gladioli. Tossed old watermelon rind into the cuttings and leaf pile (not managed anough to be a real compost pile!). Then came to work to start the day a litttle early.

Overcast, cool, invigorating.

Good morning.

Back to Work

A week (almost) of vacation is a bit extreme for me. Ive only had such a vacation about four times before--at least since I was aBoy Scout. My family used to go to Lubec, Maine, for vacation when I was a young teenager. I went once with the family, but after I turned 16 I had a summer job that prevented me from going along. After Jeanne Black graduated from Brown in 1975, we drove her to Atlanta to start graduate school, and took about a week between driving down the coast and then spending a few days in Atlanta before I left to go to my summer job. When I became Dan Kim's partner, we spent vacations on Newfoundland and Labrador and later in southern California. And Leonel and I spent a week in the Dominican Republic in his last August, just as he was beginning to share with people that he was HIV positive.

All my other "vacations," that I can recall, were either shorter than a week or were working vacations where I was driving a bus or truck to Mexico on the way to Cuba, for example, or being a road manager for a film that was being made with artists and volunteers, for example. Lots of traveling in my life, but much of it while working.

I go back to work today, with so many projects running late. If I am ever going to learn to take a vacation, I think I need not to be so overwhelmed and ashamed that so much yet needs to be done. I bet that that is just the way the world is, and being able to detach from the hubbub and personal responsibilitiy needs to be part of coping and caring. So this queasy feeling is good for me, yes?

I have a graveside committal in a few hours, so I'll stop writing now. Only ready to say that "I'm back," and, despite 2,700 unread e-mail messages (and more every minute!) I'm ready to go.

Sun rising later and later. Passed to 7:00 a.m. yesterday (Labor Day), and 7:01 a.m. today (EDT). By the end of the month, it will be 7:30! Yikes! (Just getting acclimated to THIS place and ITS sunrises.)

Crisp air, feeling a bit like fall. Steady drone of traffic. Noticing a little acoustic trick, where the sounds coming from one side of the room find an echo is what comes from the other window. Sounds rich, full.

Good morning.

Dreams and Nightmares

One of the side effects of using a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine while sleeping is (for me) vivid dreaming. I see lush colors and get involved in deeply convoluted dreams about which I care very deeply.

I'm not going to share much about last night's dreams, but if there was theme among them, it was something about having lots of acquaintances around me, being barely understood, and wanting to rescue relationships that seemed to be fading away . . .

Last night Quincy Dobbs and I went out for a beer at Club MI (once the Mary Inn?) and had one of the funnest times we've ever had shooting the (excrement). We shared some deep stories, joked about being church staff, and talked about complicated families. And the gay families we've built.

I put a fiver in the juke box and played schmaltzy ballads by Myriam Hernandez and some old Milton Nascimento and some in-your-face Marc Anthony. I was pleased to hear that Mark, an owner of the MI, used to play in a salsa/merengue band. We plotted about establishing a Latin dance night at the club . . .

My last stab at summer vacation begins this afternoon. I'm planning on taking a couple of days driving north, and hope to find my way to Chicago for Labor Day. Possibly connect again with another friend . . .

Tired this morning. The sounds of the day seem fuller, closer (road sounds, train whistle, an airplane). Air clear, Rats! Other people have their trash out, and I don't. Gotta go.

Good morning.

Reconnecting

Earlier in August, I had a week of electronics failures. It happened as I was beginning a week as Minister of the Week to the Family and Friends Conference (week two) at Ferry Beach Camp and Conference Center in Saco, Maine. My iBook began to freeze after a few minutes of work. Fortunately for me, my Musicians of the Week during the conference were Carol Thompson and Chuck Scheffreen--Church aka "The Mac Doctor." So Chuck spent a couple of days saving what he could off my increasingly frigid laptop, and then transferred everything onto a used PowerBook that is now mine. (Hurrah! Thank you!)

As the computer mess began to be resolved, my cell phone decided to die. Neither of the two rechargers that I have would fit into the phone (!?!) and so it gradually went to sleep. When I went to the Cingular Store (oops--AT&T Wireless Store; why did they trade a perfectly modern and fresh and even clever name for a corporate stamp?), they told me there was nothing that could be done . . .

So I bought a new phone, got a new contract, and began rebuilding my phonebook . . . that I had never committed to paper anywhere. (I am pulling my frequesntly called numbers from an old bill.)

One "contact" that I lost for a couple of weeks was my friend Elissa Leone. Now this was particularly unfortunate because Elissa is someone that I would regularly call when I was driving any distance. Having the new phone, with a bluetooth earset and all, was a perfect opportunity to call Elissa on the 750 mile drive back to Flint (which needed to be acomplished in one drive through if I were going to be able to get to church on Sunday morning in time to preach!). But I didn't have Elissa's number, I didn't have time to find it in my being reconstructed laptop contact file (eventually I located that and found her numbers) and I was n the road earlier than I had originally planned (Whoopee!) but without having stopped to get that number . . . So I missed a golden opportunity to connect with her and hear about her life.

Elissa is a chaplain of the hospice/nursing home/residential facility type. She does her ministry in the spaces where free-market health care, human aging and illness and corporate culture collide. This is not a ministry that is not defined by the space she works in (not a sanctuary) nor by the people she serves (patients, their families, staff, volunteers, etc.) nor even by a routine (study time, prayer and devotions, preaching preparation, office hours, calling hours NOT). No, this is a ministry that is discovered in the doing: providing some direct pastoral care, coaching social workers on her team, training volunteers to do pastoral work, documenting for other professionals the work she is doing and encouraging people to look at their clients as multidimensional persons, not as "living gangli[a] of irreconcilable antagonisms" (Ralph Rackstraw, from HMS Pinafore, of course).

Anyway, one of the parties in Elissa's life is her Committee on Church and Ministry, the instrument of the United Church of Christ that holds her In-Care as she prepares for ordination as a Minister of the United Church of Christ. (I was ordained a minister of the UCC in Rhode Island before seeking dual standing/plural fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association.) The Church and Ministry folk meet with a potential candidate, place them "In-Care" and assign them an adviser, and then follow a person's progress through seminary and whatever professional development must happen. The candidate prepares a fifteen page (or so) paper that shares their esential understanding of Christian theology and the polity and history of the United Church of Christ, and their own life story as it evidences their perceived call to ministry. The Church and Ministry Committee, when satisfied, will name a person "ordainable, pending call," and when the candidate is called to a ministry of Word and Sacrament, the committee will convene an ecclesiastical council, at which point a vote is taken by ministers and lay people to ordain the candidate.

The process is not a brief one, but its intentions are clear: to assure a learned clergy that can speak for the United Church of Christ in general and for a particular community; that is connected and accountable to the whole church and the ministerial tradition; and to test that the person's sense of vocation is shared by the church (and not--my great fear during the process--an expressionof some deep pathology of mine!).

Elissa has been about this work and this proces for quite some time. She was well into the second year of her classes at Andover Newton, where we were students together--when she realized that finishing her Master of Divinity at ANTS would be difficult due to the scheduling of classes; so she transferred to Meadville Lombard in Chicago (I helped her move) and to do her last year. It was, ironically, in the move from a United Church of Christ seminary to a Unitarian Universalist seminary that she began to decide to change her ordination plans from the UUA to the UCC. (I like that. I think this UUA/UCC dance is part of what connects me to Elissa.) Anyway, after finishing in Chicago, she came back to Comnnecticut (I think I helped her move then, too) to find work and to be with her mother. Since her mom died early in the summer a year ago, Elissa might be free to move again--once she is ordained.

What a joy it was that Elissa called me on Friday evening, and we were able to reconnect this weekend. She sounds so much happier than she has in a while. (New job, new challenges, but far less bureaucratic/corporate culture interfering with her ministry--so far!) It was wonderful for me to hear her voice, to try to encourage her and to listen to how she is doing.

I know that she has some anxiety about her upcoming meeting with the Church and Minsitry Committee of her UCC association. This is normal, in my experience. I remember that I showed up twice expecting that all my "ducks" were "in a row" when I saw my committee, only to discover that a letter from a church had not arrived, or that the composition of the committe had changed since the last annual meeting, and so there were people who needed to get to know me a little better brfore they could approve my ordination--which was, characteristically, to a non-traditional ministry. (I had a vital public ministry to a non-UCC congregation that, in the eyes of the UCC, did not require ordination; and linked that with a part-time sacramental ministry to an Alzheimer's center in the name of a small UCC congregation with a part-time minister and a Board that had a hard time getting a letter written, it seems.)

The process toward ordination took a couple of years longer than I thought it should; but when it finally was approved, when my ecclesiastical council was finally convened and when the date of my ordination was set--December 1, World AIDS Day, and the first Sunday of Advent that year!--it felt as if the stars were finally in alignment.

People considering ministry are often frustrated after talking to me. I encourage people to do something else, if they can. I ask that they not confuse going to seminary for their own spiritual fulfillment with using gradute school to prepare to minister to a world that desperately needs people willing to act in the name of God and the Universe and the Other. I ask them if they are prepared for the inevitable politics of human institutions, like the church. And I wonder whether they might be willing to see that seminary and ordination might simply be a wrong choice for them, and if they have an "exit strategy" for getting out of the process if they discover that it is the wrong choice or the wrong time. ("Can you hold your head high in church and say, 'I learned something about myself . . .'")

For Elissa, of course, I don't think it is the wrong choice. It may be that her Committee will put her through another hoop or two--ask for a re-write of parts of her paper, for example--but I think that she should persevere. "Back in the day" we might have mock interviews with a few trusted colleagues reading her paper and her resume and asking questions of her. I've encouraged her to be in touch with her adviser for some real time before her next Committee visit; to speak to members of the Committee with whom wshe has relationships to get their best wisdom about what the Committee needs to come out with the desired outcome, a date for an ecclesiastical council, and a process for drawing up a covenant with her agency that will keep her in a relationship of accountability back to the UCC.

The fullest outcome I seek, of course, is Elissa's happiness. She is a good chaplain, centered, interested, compassionate; she knows her work (Is it Charlie King who asserts "our life is more than our work, and our work is more than our job"?) and has the capacity to do it; she exhibits deep faith. And, in my opinion, she should be "set aside" through ordination to the vocation of pastoral ministry. I want to be there when she celebrates communion in the name of the church universal and in the company of many witnesses.

Sun is bright, the air is clear. Oops, the grass needs mowing.

Good morning.