Sunday morning giggle

From I Can Has Cheezburger (of course).

My prophet's better than your prophet

There's another interesting discussion going on over at HOB/D - the House of Bishops/Deputies Listserv. One writer laments that it is time for the church to be more prophetic. Another argues that the church, as an institution, cannot be prophetic. It’s an interesting discussion.

I have often joked that the book I will write about this time in our common lives of faith will be titled, “On being a prophet in a not-for-prophet church.”

Which begs the question: What does it mean to be a prophet? More specifically, what does it mean, today, to be ‘prophetic’?

I suppose it should come as no surprise that, in this time of schism, we use the term a lot these days. Everyone who says or does an unpopular or counter-cultural thing which is seen to be bold or courageous, or makes a sincere attempt to discover or interpret the will of God is said to be ‘prophetic’.

The term is so subjective that it can describe someone who is simultaneously a ‘true’ and a ‘false’ prophet, depending on one’s particular perspective. What is ‘prophetic’ to one is ‘rebellion’ to another.

Postmoderns often use the term ‘prophet’ when we mean social commentators who are particularly successful in an analysis of culture and economics, such as “prophets of doom” and “prophets of greed.” Thirty years ago, Simon and Garfunkle sang, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.”

I’m not in my office, so I don’t have access to my OED to look up the word. However, I do happen to have here Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book “The Prophets,” given to me years ago as an ordination present, now all dog-eared and marked, which I still treasure.

According to Heschel the Hebrew prophets are characterized by their experience of what he calls theotropism — God turning towards humanity. Heschel argues for the view of Hebrew prophets as receivers of the "Divine Pathos," of the wrath and sorrow of God over his nation that has forsaken him.

He writes: “Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profane riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet's words.”

That is, unarguably, a standard which delivers a cold slap in the face to those who bandy the term about in much the same way that we often use the word ‘truth’.

I’m reminded of Jack Nicholson’s gripping performance on the witness stand in the film, “A Few Good Men”: “The truth?” he thunders. “You can’t handle the truth.”

And, in the situation he was describing, he was absolutely right. His words didn’t dignify what was right, but it was the truth – and it was, simultaneously, blasphemy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t handle the truth of what is happening, right now, in ‘Gitmo’.

Were those who died defending this nation, whom we honor this weekend, recipients of a ‘Divine Pathos’? Were they doing God’s will? Did they lay down their lives at the crossing point of God and humanity? Is war – any war, not just the one now raging in Iraq and Afghanistan – a ‘manifest destiny’ or participation in an act of supreme hubris?

Are the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) as adopted by this church prophetic, or would we give a more urgent, clearer voice to ‘the silent agony” of “the plundered poor” if we follow more nearly Christ’s imperative to the rich young man to “sell everything you have and give it to the poor”?

Is my prophet better than your prophet?

As much as I know ‘my side’ is being prophetic, I have no doubt that ‘their side’ holds out the same conviction. The truth? Can we handle the truth?

I think the truth is that we need, first, to agree on what we mean when we say we want the church and/or her people to be prophetic. If we use Heschel’s standard, do we not, to a person and position, all fall woefully short?

I grew up in Massachusetts listening to the likes of Tip O’Neil and the Kennedy boys who would always begin a discussion or debate with the request to ‘define your terms.’

So, I’ll ask the questions again: What are we talking about when we call someone a ‘prophet’? What do we mean when we call the church to be ‘prophetic’?

The Art of Childhood

Proud Grandmother Alert

WARNING: The following may contain more sweetness and light than some may be able to tolerate. Diabetics and those with dental or periodontal disease may be at special risk.

Cynics and those with an addiction to following the daily drama of "As The Anglican World Turns" may be prone to an outbreak of something near the experience of joy, which they may not immediately recognize and may come as something of a shock. Those with high blood pressure may be at risk.

Proceed with caution. You have been duly warned.


Last night I had supper with my grandkiddo's (oh, yes, and their parents, of course) and then went to the Art Show at Mackie's Elementary School.

This is Mackie's self-portrait.

I asked her, "How did you do that? Did you look in a mirror or do it from memory?"

"Oh, I was just thinking of myself in a happy place and remembered what I felt like."

"Was that difficult?"

"YES!"

"Really? Why?"

"Well, because other people see you in a different way than you see yourself."

"Ah!"

Here, she was going for an expression of emotion.

"So, what were you feeling when you painted this?"

"What do you think, Nana?"

"Hmmm . . . looks very light and airy to me."

"Good job, Nana! I was thinking about floating in the pool, looking up at the sky and thinking that Daddy needs to cut the lawn."

"Yes, I see."

This is her attempt at sculpting

"Well, Mackie, this is pretty green."

"Right. It's beautiful, don't you think?"

"Oh yes, absolutely. What were you thinking when you put it together?"

"I was thinking of what would happen if a grape evolved into an animal."

"Really?! What a funny thought!"

"No, Nana. It was very serious. Don't you see what it is?"

"Oh, dear. I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I don't."

"It's a grapeasaurus. You might not have recognized it."

"I didn't, actually."

"It's okay, Nana. It's extinct."

Her baby sister Abby was her biggest fan. It was an hour after her normal bedtime, but she was a real champ.

"What color is this?" asked Mackie.

"BRUE!" exclaimed Abby

"Right! And, what color is THIS?"

"Pup-UL"

"Good job, Abby! That's right! It's PURPLE!"

(Did I mention that Abby is going to be two in August?)

This one is entitled: 'MacKenna likes to look at dinosaurs'

And, indeed, she does.

There was a full house at the Art Show - proud parents and grandparents were standing in long lines to 'oooh and aaah' at the work our children had done. It was really quite impressive.

I also found myself delighted that, in these uncertain economic times, her school has not cut the arts from their budget.

A concert is planned in the middle of June featuring children playing their instruments, singing and dancing.

The art of childhood is dependent upon the stimulation of an active imagination.

Compromise that, especially in the midst of war, and you compromise the art of being human.

Indeed, it may well be that, in these days of gas prices hovering around $4.00 a gallon and in the midst of war, the best antidote to the toxicity of our times is a child's whimsy and fantasy.

Mutterings over the graves of soldiers

Mutterings over the graves of soldiers

On Memorial Day we'll hear about men who gave their lives for their country, but many lives were not given, they were taken, and taken stupidly and carelessly.

By Garrison Keillor

May. 21, 2008 | The Current Occupant tossed Nazis into a speech last week, something he rarely does since it only reminds people of Dick Cheney. He likened those who would negotiate with terrorists to those who tried to appease the Nazis, an awkward comparison, since Nazis were self-defined and wore the swastika proudly, and terrorists are anybody we nominate to be terrorists, who may include terrorists, people who know terrorists, people named Terry, or people with wrists. One reason Guantánamo is kept top-secret is so you and I won't know how many innocent people have been locked up there and how little the bureaucracy cares about innocence, which might remind people of the Nazis.

The Nazis have served us well as an embodiment of evil even after they're all dead and buried, thanks to wonderful movies with cruel men with bad skin and guttural voices -- and the word itself, which has an ominous buzz to it, unlike the gentle "communist," a cousin to "communion" and "community," though when it comes to outright hardcore evil, communism outdid the Third Reich hands down. Stalin was the most murderous man in the history of the world, having had a larger victim pool to work with, and yet "Stalinist" is not the epithet it should be.

That's because communism was exploited for short-term political advantage after World War II by Richard Nixon and other weasels of the right, much the way "terrorist" is today, to scare people into acceding to unprecedented secrecy and concentration of power and freedom of bureaucrats from any accountability whatsoever. Spooky old hammerhead politicians found anti-communism to be wonderfully profitable and they rode that horse for years and cheapened the language.

The war on terror, to most people, is a lame joke, and Republicans who've been embedded in Washington too long are now finding that the word "terrorism" has lost its tread. This multitrillion-dollar war is going to wind down, one way or another. The Occupant will hand it off to the next president, who can then negotiate with people who know people who know terrorists and work out a way to extricate our people from the desert.

If a Democrat does it, it will be appeasement, and if a Republican does it, it will go down as a courageous act of statesmanship, but one way or another, it will be done.

I got a letter from a U.S. Marine in Fallujah ("trapped in this heat and smoke ... running in circles that won't change anything") who, though a "right-wing social conservative," asks, "Where are the protests from my contemporaries in America's colleges? Why do I not detect an appropriate sense of urgency from our citizens and elected officials?"

It's only May. You will see more urgency from elected officials as November nears. Sen. McCain is now talking about withdrawal except of course he wants to call it "victory," and Republicans up for reelection are learning to sound a little more thoughtful and even skeptical about the war. In Minnesota, a man is up for reelection who sat on a Senate committee with oversight responsibility for the rebuilding effort in Iraq and who showed no keen interest in the billions of dollars disappearing down rat holes. He is now starting to recover some memory.

Meanwhile it's almost Memorial Day and here is a vet on television talking hopefully about his dream of making a good life who has been horribly burned and grafted back together, his head looks like a candle stub with a mouth and blinking eyes. Your heart goes out to the brave young man. And what choice does he have other than to be brave? It's either that or the life of a potato. But who did this to him?

On Memorial Day we'll hear about men who gave their lives for their country, but many lives were not given, they were taken, and taken stupidly and carelessly. And there has been great public piety about those men and their "sacrifice" on the part of politicians who blithely sacrificed them.

Back in 2001, McCain said that a person couldn't talk policy to the Current Occupant for more than 10 minutes and then his mind wandered and he was anxious to talk about baseball. His impatience with detail was apparently a factor in the disastrous move to disband the Iraqi army. I hope he gets to spend some time in his presidential library in Dallas and catch up on what he missed out on.

© 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/05/21/memorial_day/print.html

Memorial Day

The media and the marketplace are already celebrating this weekend as "the Official Start of Summer" with sales on cars, household items and summer clothes.

Summer doesn't begin 'officially' on the calendar until mid-June.

Never mind. While families around my town are creating vacation checklists and otherwise getting ready to open that summer home on the Jersey Shore or put the boat in the water, a decided minority of others are preparing to observe the real reason for this weekend's observance: honoring those who have made "the ultimate sacrifice" for our country.

Our culture - as it often does - sets its focus on the wrong thing.

Does the church? Should the church?

For some reason I haven't quite figured out, I always get a little squirrely in my soul about singing patriotic hymns in church. I don't think it's the separation of church-state thing. And even though the words sound like a prayer, it just sounds . . . well . . . foreign to my ears to sing, "God bless our native land . . ." in church.

I go through this conflict during the July 4th Celebration as well. Perhaps it's due, at least in part, to the fact that I grew up in an strongly immigrant-identified Roman Catholic community. Any patriotic songs - American or Portuguese - were the staple of the music (complete with marching musical band) of church picnics on the Parish Grounds and celebrations in the Parish Hall. Never in church. Ever.

At St. Paul's, Chatham, after the Collect of the Day, we will pray that perfectly wonderful Prayer for Heroic Service (BCP, p. 839)

"O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

And, just after the Post Communion Prayer and before the Blessing, we will also recite the words of the "Thanksgiving for National Life" (page 838), before we launch into what I suspect will be a rousing recessional of "My Country 'tis of thee" (#717).

However, as I'm walking down the aisle, watching some of the folk dab a tissue to an eye or two, I'll notice the slight lump in my throat and it won't be a swell of patriotic pride. Rather, it will be that place where my internal conflict will register itself.

In the midst of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the church undoubtedly has a special responsibility to honor our men and women who have died in battle.

Perhaps my uneasiness is that the church is quick to honor our dead but not as diligent to work for peace. Perhaps my uneasiness is more about my own failure not to have done more to raise my voice in protest as well as prayer and patriotic song.

I don't know. What do you think?

Should patriotic hymns be sung in church?

A less than subtle fashion hint for Ms. Conroy

It's really all my fault. I bought my first pair of Crocs in Hawai'i five years ago. I thought they were pretty cool. I also brought a pair home for Ms. Conroy.

I thought they would make great beach shoes. You know. Instead of flip flops.

Now, she wears them all the time. In all colors. Everywhere.

I wouldn't say they look 'stupid'.

Just tacky.

See?

Help me out here . . .Anybody else think this Croc fad is, well, a crock?

The American Liberal Lion

I was born in Massachusetts where the Kennedy family reigned in state politics and in the government as well as in our hearts.

I have a very clear memory of the the wall in my grandmother's kitchen, right over the table, where pictures of her "Holy Trinity" were hung: Jesus in the middle, Jack
Kennedy on the left and Bobby Kennedy on the right.

On the Anniversary of their birthdays and deaths, the same white votive candle was lit for them as the one for Jesus on Christmas and Easter.

They were "our" family. Our "Massachusetts Royalty."

But, they also had a daughter who was, as they said at the time, "mentally retarded," and another who was "mentally ill," but that only endeared them even more to our hearts.

Yes, they sometimes behaved like scoundrels - marital affairs, running with the fast West Coast Hollywood crowd, alcohol abuse, that car accident in Chappaquidic, and (oh, say it ain't so) divorce.

Even so, their lives embodied the Great American Dream which so many immigrant families hoped to attain. That they were not immune to human foibles only made our success seem possible.

As you no doubt know by now, Ted Kennedy has been diagnosed with a glioma - a particularly pernicious form of brain tumor. I can't tell you how desperately sad I felt at the news.

I don't know if you have seen the news clip of the moment the announcement was made on the floor of the Senate. Senator Byrd of Virgina broke down and wept. "Ted! Oh, Teddy!"

I confess, I did the same. And, she'll hate it that I'm saying this, but so did Ms. Conroy.

Maybe you'd have to be from Massachusetts to understand.

Please join your prayers with ours for Ted, The American Liberal Lion, and for his family. May God grant him strength and courage in the days and months ahead, and heal him, body, mind and spirit.

Mr. Giraffman preaches for the Anglican Province of Nigeria

Mr. Giraffman spredz da wud.

Misogyny: Hard to spell, easy to practice

Misogyny I Won't Miss
By Marie Cocco
Thursday, May 15, 2008; A15

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.

I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.

I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

Marie Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com.
http://tinyurl.com/4mqc53

" . . . but some doubted."

A Sermon on Matthew 28: 16-20
Trinity Sunday – May 18, 2008
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham
(the Rev’d Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton, rector and pastor

Today’s scripture carries, for me, some of the most comforting words of Holy Scripture. St Matthew’s gospel reports these words about the disciples, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (Mt 28:17)

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day I want to rename as ‘Mystery Sunday’. The whole concept of The Trinity is, perhaps, of all the mysteries of our faith, the most mysterious – and one of the most essential.

The Virgin Birth? The Atonement? Well, after all these years I’m still working that out in my journey of faith.

The Incarnation? The Resurrection? Like the Trinity, I’m standing on a cloud of unknowing and mysteriously not falling through. As John McNeil once said, "I'm standing with both feet firmly planted in midair."

However, with the Incarnation and the Resurrection, I’m able to explain some things to my brain that may not necessarily embrace logic, it most certainly is something I can get into some focus in the eyes of heart.

The Trinity? How to understand The Trinity, much less explain it? It is a mystery wrapped inside of puzzle, buried beneath a conundrum.

It’s interesting that if you do a word search in the bible, looking for the word ‘trinity’, you won’t find it. The disciples and the epistles talked about the incarnation and the resurrection, but they never talk about the God of our creation, the God of our redemption and the God of our inspiration as “The Trinity,’ per se.

Of course, scripture talks about all three, and even describes the nature of all three, but it never labels them “The Trinity.”

And yet, I believe, even as convinced a doubter that I am, that, like the Incarnation and Resurrection, the Trinity is one of the top three essentials of our faith. I’m not as concerned about your Marion Theology – whether or not Mary was a virgin when she conceived, or whether or not she was ‘assumed into heaven when she died’- or what you believe about why Jesus was crucified.

But if you can’t believe in the mysterious divinity and humanity of Jesus, and that through his life and death we are made heirs of the gift of life eternal, and that the greatest mystery of God is that God is one in three persons, well, I think we would have some long conversations about these three essential building blocks of the Christian faith and life.

As one person said to me just before the service began, "I don't believe this stuff in the first reading. How can you read this in church? It's flat out wrong. This is insulting to our intelligence. Worse than that, it perpetuates the ignorance of fundamentalism which believes this stuff is true. That is was actually written by Moses. It ignores CENTURIES of scientific fact!"

Yes, yes, I know.

Understand, please, that I would never pull your credentials as a Christian if you were to say, “You know, I don’t believe any of those things, I just come to church because of the community.”

I say, “Hurray! Good for you. If you believe in the community of faith, you already believe in more than those who are able to recite the Creeds without crossing their fingers behind their backs."

Belief in the Community of the Resurrection of our Lord is a good place to start your journey in faith. I have learned, from over 20 years of experience, that we all end up where we begin: in community - with community - as the strongest statement of our faith in Christ Jesus.

I say that because believing in the community of faith is really what Jesus was all about. His relationship with the God who created him is important to him, yes of course, but only because it models for him the relationship he wants us to have with God.

And, the Holy Spirit is clearly one that he delights to tell us about – “the Advocate, who will lead us to all truth and believing” – which he leaves to us as the gift of his Resurrection.

But, it is his place among the other two and our relationship with him, and God and each other that is the sacred heart and soul of who Jesus is and why he came among us. South African theologians give us one of the most helpful notions about this.

It is called ubuntu, a word from the Nguni language in Africa which Desmond Tutu (in “No Future Without Forgiveness”) describes as meaning that "my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound, in yours ... a person is a person through other persons."

"A person with ubuntu," Tutu says, "is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole."

Ubuntu is not just an abstraction -- it's an idea that has been and can be incredibly powerful in helping communities heal and reconcile. In South Africa in the aftermath of apartheid, ubuntu inspired the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, put an end to the spiral of violence that had enveloped so much of the nation.

The tortured could look in the eye the very people who had tortured them and say, "What you did to me was a crime because I am a human being and not an animal. And you are responsible for it because you are a human being and not an animal. My humanity is tied up in yours. My humanity is affirmed by my choice today to treat you as a human being, who even now can make the choice not to behave hurtfully. Wounding you and punishing you will not heal me. I forgive you."

The mystery of that kind of deep forgiveness is what lies at the heart of the Trinity. Deep within the mystery forgiveness lies the gift of the unconditional love of God who created everything and proclaimed it ‘good’.

Oh, but wait. There’s more. Here’s the really important mystery of the Trinity: We need the Trinity to mirror our role in the communion of saints – those here present, those yet to come and those who have gone before, but God needs us, too.

Martin Buber (in I and Thou) puts it this way:

“You know always in your heart that you need God more than everything; but do you not know that God needs you -- in the fullness of His eternity needs you? How would humanity be, how would you be, if God did not need humanity, did not need you? You need God, in order to be -- and God needs you, for the very meaning of your life. ... There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of human persons, of you and me.”

God needs us – needs our humanity – as much as we need God’s divinity. Think about that for just a moment. How would the creatures and creation of Mother Earth be tended to if God did not, from before the beginning of time, entrust this sacred task to us? How would we care for each other, if God did not give us the gift of free will – to mess things up and set them right again. Of all the mysteries of our faith, this is the one that most boggles my mind: That God loves us so much that God has given us ultimate freedom. We are free to make mistakes in order to learn the things we need to learn. We are free to make mistakes in order to choose our freedom to help correct the mistakes of others.

One of our little ones ran smack dab into this just the other night. While watching one of her favorite televisions programs, there was a fundraiser to help little children in Africa who have lost both parents to the AIDS epidemic. Upset by what she saw, she asked her mother, “Why would God do that? Why would God allow little children to grow up without their mommies and daddies?” Her mother, ever the wise woman, took this small child into her arms and said, “Honey, let’s ask Reverend Elizabeth.”

My answer to this child’s ancient question about the presence of evil in the world and the absolute divine power of God can be found in the mystery of The Trinity. It’s because God needs us as much as we need God. It’s about relationships – about the mystery of forgiveness and unconditional love. It’s about how the entire human enterprise is dignified and God glorified in acts of justice and mercy.

There is divine meaning in the life of the world which surpasses all human understanding, all human logic, even all human belief. Our faith is built on a mystery, which is wrapped up in the puzzle of our lives, which is buried deep in the conundrum of relationships. I believe that Church, the community of faith, the Body of Christ, is at its best when it allows us to come to the well of this mystery and drink deeply of the Holy Water of our Baptism in Christ.

Logical answers will never satisfy our yearning, our thirst for God. Pure reason will not save the world or us from ourselves. Only the mystery of God’s love can do that. In the mystery of God’s love, we belong to a greater whole.

In the mystery of God’s love, I am a person because you are a person and forgiveness is promised because we are in relationship through our baptism in Christ Jesus. In the mystery of God’s love, death has lost its sting and even in the face of death, there is hope for new life – life eternal – life beyond the here and the now, because of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

So let us, this day, rejoice in one of the great mysteries of our faith – the Trinity as made manifest in the church, where doubters and believers alike are welcome, for we are all pilgrims traveling deep within a mystery, come to drink deep at the Well of Unknowing.

Amen

Before He Speaks

Careful what you preach!

These three women - Vickie McDonald, (wife of pastor Andy), Tami Cinquemani (wife of associate pastor Jeff) and Amy Achata (wife of youth pastor Jeff), have found a marvelous, creative avenue of revenge.

This is a parody of Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats".

I'm just glad my Ms. Conroy is not technologically savvy.

It's fun to watch from a safe distance ;~)

Graduation Day

For reasons I won't go into until AFTER that diploma is framed and on my wall, I did not attend either the Hooding Banquet or Graduation. Not to worry. When the time is right, you'll hear the whole sad story.

Instead, I chose to go into The City (there's only ONE - New York City, of course).

There were major performances at the Ballet and the Opera, so we were absolutely unable to get a reservation at any of our favorite restaurants on the UWS, where my daughter works, so Friday night we had a FABULOUS dinner at Portofino on the UES.

It was pouring down rain, but we might have been in a little bistro in Roma. The food was fabulous! And the bread, oh, the bread was surely made in heaven by the angels.

The wait staff were well trained, very efficient, and, to a person, Italian studs with flirty dark eyes, faces like chiseled statues, sexy, dangerously intriguing Italian accents and perfect, gorgeous bodies. Not a bad bun in the house.

This morning, Saturday, we slept in, and then went to the Ritz Diner for a great breakfast (I had the Mozzarella and Basil Omelet and great hot NYC coffee), and then a three hour walk around the City.

First stop - Strawberry Fields and the tribute to John Lennon, who was tragically shot and killed not far from this spot, at the entrance to his apartment at The Dakota, which can be seen from this memorial. It still makes me sad, all these years later.

We also stopped at the "Angel of the Waters," the Bethesda Monument - one of my very favorite places in the entire Park. Somebody's saying "Hey, isn't that . . .?" Yup. If you saw "Angels in America" you will recognize this place.

We walked across and through the park from the UES to the UWS - and yes, this is Trump Tower. Actually, one of five Trump Properties in Manhattan. Like him or not, Mr. Comb-Over is a pretty amazing mogul.

And here, at Merchant's Gate, we were treated to an amazing dance troupe. These boys were fabulous. You can just catch the spirit of the moment, but being there was really pretty exciting.


The boys sometimes performed alone, or did intricate dance routines with each other. Either way, their moves really excited the crowd who applauded wildly and, true New Yorkers, left generous tips.


All in all, NYC is still my favorite place in the whole world to be. Lucky me - it's just 55 minutes by NJ Transit Train.

It was a perfectly wonderful way to mark a 'commencement' - an ending (thanks be to God) and a new beginning.