I have been asked to explain what I mean when I say I am seeking the face of God. I use this phrase frequently and it's only fair that I should be asked about it and that I should explain myself.
But before you read on, you must read Psalm 27, preferably in the Episcopal Church's 1977 Book of Common Prayer, for it is this version which captured me oh so many years ago now. However, holding this against the NRSV translation will be intriguing as well.
In the first verse, we read (in the BCP version) "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?"
It has to be over twenty years ago now when I first started to unpack certain parts of my early life. In others like me, similar events had driven them to give up God completely: for them, there is no God, for it is not possible that there should be such a God as would allow the unwarranted horrors that life and humans can visit on a person.
But me, I knew that God was real. Why, I don't know, but that knowledge drove me to wrestle with God. I could do that because I believed and believe verse 1 of Psalm 27: Adonai is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? Adonai is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
Whom shall I fear? No one, not even the most high God Almighty. And so, I took my anger and my complaint and the abandonment felt by my brothers and sisters to the source.
Verses 5-6 of Psalm 27 read: One thing have I asked of the LORD; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life; To behold the fair beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
I wanted the struggle. I also wanted the reward: Peace. The Peace which passes understanding. I want, at the end of it all, to dwell in the heart of God all the days of my life. I want to be able to gaze on the very face of God even though the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that to do so is certain death. (However, for a refutation of this threat, find for yourself and read the story of St. Seraphim and his disciple, who together saw the face of God in one another through the power of the Holy Spirit. For she who wonders if my search for Jesus in the faces of those I meet every day is different from seeking the face of God, the answer is, No, it is all part and parcel.)
So, I wanted, and want, a real life relationship with the otherwise cardboard God I encounter in religion. Not the pat phrases, like "God has a purpose for everything," or, "God has a plan". None of that, please. But real life: God, you are responsible for the evil on earth for you permit it. Now what are you going to do about it and how shall you and I relate, given that assumption? I want the struggle and the joy, the peace and the restlessness.
And, God help me, I have gotten what I desired, or at least I have begun to see that I am at the beginning of what I desired so many years ago. But I digress. ( ! )
My complaint against God is this: Verse 7-8 of Psalm 27 read, "For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock. Even now he lifts up my head above my enemies round about me."
I said, God, you lie. You did not keep me and my brothers and sisters safe. To this day you do not. Instead, you appear to leave it up to us humans to do the right thing by each other, but you know we don't. So you leave Jesus, who hangs on the cross in our terrors and pain as well as being raised to our joy and delight, screaming on the cross into eternity, "Why have you forsaken me?" even though he has been raised from the dead. I do not understand this. And I will not buy the, "It is too hard for me. I leave it to you" bit. You didn't create me that way.
And so, I began my quest, which I describe this way: I am tracking down God, tracking God to his lair, and when I find him I will drag him out by the collar and shake him and say to him, face to face, "What the hell do you think you're doing here? Don't you know these are people's lives you're ****ing aroung with?"
"Hearken to my voice, O LORD, when I call" (Psalm 27:10a) And God did. With my whole being I felt, heard, sensed, that this is my charge; that it is this for which I was made. "You speak in my heart and say, 'Seek my face.' Your face, LORD, will I seek." But not a gentle seeking; rather, one that honors the totality of God, the whole God, the triune God.
I am not looking for proof of the existence of God. I already know, with a depth that is almost terrible, that God is. I am seeking a whole, and holy, real relationship. One in which I stand, not grovel; one from which I fear no retribution for my effrontery; a face to face, honest relationship.
"What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!" (verse 17) Ah yes, that is the question. I have no answer for you yet. I see occasions of God's goodness, but it resolves nothing; it just makes the "Why?" even greater, although it gives me occasions of rest from my quest.
"O tarry and await the LORD's pleasure; be strong and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the LORD." (verse 18) Well, I am not waiting patiently, but I am waiting, faithfully. I believe the promise, that my heart shall find comfort. But it will not be comfort as we have understood it. Rather, it shall be the true meaning of the word "comfort": a strengthening, a fortifying, for the continued wrestling, and the quest for the face of God. Adonai is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
"Your face, Adonai, will I seek"
My first post on this blog was about the sighting of a hawk in my back yard, an immature red shouldered hawk from about 30 feet away, consuming a sparrow it had just killed. The hawk returned a few days later, but was frightened away by the arrival of Newlin, my life partner.
Now hawk sightings in the sky over our house are not uncommon. Usually they are red tailed hawks, which are adapting nicely, thank you very much, to urban life, and sharpies (sharp shinned hawks). The over abundance of sparrows in our yard makes for good feeding.
However, it is not so common to see a northern goshawk. In fact, I've only seen goshawks once in my life, on a birding trip, in Millington, Michigan on May 25th, 1990. There was a nest in Arthur Latham Memorial Park there and our guide knew where to find it. We observed two baby goshawks, and, briefly, the parents. Not a good idea to hang around a long time, the guide said. To be attacked from behind by an angry goshawk parent is like being hit in the back of the head with a bowling ball.
Well, since the sightings of the red shouldered hawk I have seen a northern goshawk twice. The first time it was flying over the house liesurely enough for me to be certain it was not a really large cooper's hawk (like a sharp shinned but larger). But five days ago, it perched in the tall tree in a neighbor's back yard, overlooking mine. I saw it fly in. I saw it perch. And it sat there for several minutes.
Newlin and I were in the car. We watched for some time. Then I slowly got out of the car to be able to see it without the windshield in the way. I thought, maybe it will stay there long enough for me to get the field glasses and really look at it, gaze on it, close up. But no. It let me stand there for a few moments, then, taking its own good time, it lifted off and I was able to watch it fly - beat, beat, glide - over and behind the houses, and down Ohio toward Main St.
I used the first sighting of the red shouldered hawk as the framework for a sermon. The sermon wasn't about hawks. In fact it was about wishing I could gaze on Jesus in the same way I gazed on that hawk, and on my failure to follow my own preaching by seeing Jesus in the faces of the people around me. But that was a challenging sermon, so the people heard, instead, that the sermon was about the hawk.
And that was not a bad thing. It gave the people an opportunity to share their own joyous and wondrous experiences of birds. In fact, they were commenting even weeks later. One such person told me about an article in the local newspaper about a goshawk hanging around the Route 7 connector. That was when I knew for certain that really large accipiter I'd seen in the air (accipiters are the hawk family in which the sharpies, coopers and goshawks belong) was a goshawk. The tree sighting last week clinched it. (These things are important in the birding world, a world in which originally the only trustworthy identifications were from those birds one harvested by killing and collecting.)
For a very long time now I have been on a quest; I am seeking the face of God. I desire to see God face to face. I have a few bones to pick with God, about which I'll write later. I go through earnest times of prayer, hoping to conjur up the diety and have it give an account of its failures with humankind. I also go through times when I don't feel like praying, or even just plain refuse to pray, but I still desire, in those times, for God to come out of hiding and give an account.
But as I write this, and recall that earlier sermon "about the hawk", I am reminded that I see God when I see hawks. God's presence is recalled to me in every hawk sighting. There is no accounting, except the life and power and freedom of those great birds, and their cousins the eagles. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's all the glimpse of God I'm ever going to get. I may fail miserably in my desire to be able to see Jesus in the faces of the people I serve, and in the grocery store check out when I am frustrated by delays, and in the car when I am consumed by road rage.
But in this one thing I do not fail: I see the face of God in hawks, and the more hawks I see, the more I see of, and know, God.
Now hawk sightings in the sky over our house are not uncommon. Usually they are red tailed hawks, which are adapting nicely, thank you very much, to urban life, and sharpies (sharp shinned hawks). The over abundance of sparrows in our yard makes for good feeding.
However, it is not so common to see a northern goshawk. In fact, I've only seen goshawks once in my life, on a birding trip, in Millington, Michigan on May 25th, 1990. There was a nest in Arthur Latham Memorial Park there and our guide knew where to find it. We observed two baby goshawks, and, briefly, the parents. Not a good idea to hang around a long time, the guide said. To be attacked from behind by an angry goshawk parent is like being hit in the back of the head with a bowling ball.
Well, since the sightings of the red shouldered hawk I have seen a northern goshawk twice. The first time it was flying over the house liesurely enough for me to be certain it was not a really large cooper's hawk (like a sharp shinned but larger). But five days ago, it perched in the tall tree in a neighbor's back yard, overlooking mine. I saw it fly in. I saw it perch. And it sat there for several minutes.
Newlin and I were in the car. We watched for some time. Then I slowly got out of the car to be able to see it without the windshield in the way. I thought, maybe it will stay there long enough for me to get the field glasses and really look at it, gaze on it, close up. But no. It let me stand there for a few moments, then, taking its own good time, it lifted off and I was able to watch it fly - beat, beat, glide - over and behind the houses, and down Ohio toward Main St.
I used the first sighting of the red shouldered hawk as the framework for a sermon. The sermon wasn't about hawks. In fact it was about wishing I could gaze on Jesus in the same way I gazed on that hawk, and on my failure to follow my own preaching by seeing Jesus in the faces of the people around me. But that was a challenging sermon, so the people heard, instead, that the sermon was about the hawk.
And that was not a bad thing. It gave the people an opportunity to share their own joyous and wondrous experiences of birds. In fact, they were commenting even weeks later. One such person told me about an article in the local newspaper about a goshawk hanging around the Route 7 connector. That was when I knew for certain that really large accipiter I'd seen in the air (accipiters are the hawk family in which the sharpies, coopers and goshawks belong) was a goshawk. The tree sighting last week clinched it. (These things are important in the birding world, a world in which originally the only trustworthy identifications were from those birds one harvested by killing and collecting.)
For a very long time now I have been on a quest; I am seeking the face of God. I desire to see God face to face. I have a few bones to pick with God, about which I'll write later. I go through earnest times of prayer, hoping to conjur up the diety and have it give an account of its failures with humankind. I also go through times when I don't feel like praying, or even just plain refuse to pray, but I still desire, in those times, for God to come out of hiding and give an account.
But as I write this, and recall that earlier sermon "about the hawk", I am reminded that I see God when I see hawks. God's presence is recalled to me in every hawk sighting. There is no accounting, except the life and power and freedom of those great birds, and their cousins the eagles. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's all the glimpse of God I'm ever going to get. I may fail miserably in my desire to be able to see Jesus in the faces of the people I serve, and in the grocery store check out when I am frustrated by delays, and in the car when I am consumed by road rage.
But in this one thing I do not fail: I see the face of God in hawks, and the more hawks I see, the more I see of, and know, God.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Fallow Land
It is March 31st. By this time last year I had had two surgeries related to the breast cancer with which I had been diagnosed on Wednesday, February 14th, one week before Ash Wednesday of 2007.
The first surgery was a lumpectomy, with removal of some lymph nodes from my underarm. The second surgery was to implant a port-a-cath to permit chemo therapy. During that surgery my surgeon re-entered the site of the lumpectomy to take an extra excision, for a wider margin of safety. The surgeries were a success. On April 30th I began chemo treatments. They lasted through August. Radiation therapy lasted into November.
In January I had decided to have Newlin cut me some garden plots in the until-then virgin yard of our rental house. The surgeries left me restricted in movement and strength. But I was determined to have a zinnia garden, and to grow tomatoes, beans, eggplant and peppers. So in March I started seeds.
After the ground had warmed up, and Newlin had cut the garden plots, I planted out the seedlings. By then I was well into chemo treatments. I was sick much of the time. I kept working, although not as much as usual. I presided at Sunday worship, missing two Sundays over the nine months of treatment. But, as weak, and as nauseated as I was, I got those seedlings into the ground, and into the nine containers I prepared for smaller plants.
And last of all, I sowed a ton of zinnia seeds, mixed with cosmo and poppy seeds, on a triangular plot, with nasturtium and cardinal flower seeds against the fence. On one corner near the fence I planted out asclepias seedlings – related to milkweed but with yellow flowers. The zinnias took over. But that was fine with me. The riot of color made the whole thing worthwhile – the surgeries, the sickness, the pain, the stiffness and loss of motion.
Today is March 31st. I have started no seeds this year. I’m thinking I will buy plants for my tomatoes and peppers, and forget the eggplant, which proved way too prolific. The zinnias will be sowed directly into the garden. No need to start them.
Meanwhile, two of the three plots lie fallow. In the third, in the front yard, the lavender has survived the winter. The big sage plant, which we have dug up and transplanted I don’t remember how many times as we moved from one place to another, has survived the winter. The rosemary did not. I’m waiting to see if any of the other plants have wintered over. I try not to check every day ( ! ) but after the winter, by the time we have had our first warm up I’m ready for signs of new life.
I’ve also decided to make one of the beds, the largest one, an herb garden. I’ll buy plants to put in there, and at the back of the bed, against the fence, or along the north edge, is where I’ll put in my vegetables, just a couple of plants. This year I’m more into herbs and flowers.
The surgeries are over. The chemo and radiation are over. The needle biopsy, the MRI’s, the CAT scans, the horrible, medieval prep for the first surgery with a needle of radioactive material placed directly through the tip of my left nipple and marker needles placed either side of the offending tumor while under mammogram compression are all over. The mammogram at the beginning of this month was “normal”. “See you next year!” they said.
But, you know, writing about last year, going over the calendar, seeing the appointments there, has made me a little sick. I wonder how many gardens it will take before this past year is just a distant memory.
Meanwhile, I wait for the nurseries to put out their seedlings, and their zinnia seed packets. I wait for planting time, and this year’s garden. And at the same time, I enjoy the cleanness of those fallow garden plots, stripped and raked over, waiting, waiting, waiting.
The first surgery was a lumpectomy, with removal of some lymph nodes from my underarm. The second surgery was to implant a port-a-cath to permit chemo therapy. During that surgery my surgeon re-entered the site of the lumpectomy to take an extra excision, for a wider margin of safety. The surgeries were a success. On April 30th I began chemo treatments. They lasted through August. Radiation therapy lasted into November.
In January I had decided to have Newlin cut me some garden plots in the until-then virgin yard of our rental house. The surgeries left me restricted in movement and strength. But I was determined to have a zinnia garden, and to grow tomatoes, beans, eggplant and peppers. So in March I started seeds.
After the ground had warmed up, and Newlin had cut the garden plots, I planted out the seedlings. By then I was well into chemo treatments. I was sick much of the time. I kept working, although not as much as usual. I presided at Sunday worship, missing two Sundays over the nine months of treatment. But, as weak, and as nauseated as I was, I got those seedlings into the ground, and into the nine containers I prepared for smaller plants.
And last of all, I sowed a ton of zinnia seeds, mixed with cosmo and poppy seeds, on a triangular plot, with nasturtium and cardinal flower seeds against the fence. On one corner near the fence I planted out asclepias seedlings – related to milkweed but with yellow flowers. The zinnias took over. But that was fine with me. The riot of color made the whole thing worthwhile – the surgeries, the sickness, the pain, the stiffness and loss of motion.
Today is March 31st. I have started no seeds this year. I’m thinking I will buy plants for my tomatoes and peppers, and forget the eggplant, which proved way too prolific. The zinnias will be sowed directly into the garden. No need to start them.
Meanwhile, two of the three plots lie fallow. In the third, in the front yard, the lavender has survived the winter. The big sage plant, which we have dug up and transplanted I don’t remember how many times as we moved from one place to another, has survived the winter. The rosemary did not. I’m waiting to see if any of the other plants have wintered over. I try not to check every day ( ! ) but after the winter, by the time we have had our first warm up I’m ready for signs of new life.
I’ve also decided to make one of the beds, the largest one, an herb garden. I’ll buy plants to put in there, and at the back of the bed, against the fence, or along the north edge, is where I’ll put in my vegetables, just a couple of plants. This year I’m more into herbs and flowers.
The surgeries are over. The chemo and radiation are over. The needle biopsy, the MRI’s, the CAT scans, the horrible, medieval prep for the first surgery with a needle of radioactive material placed directly through the tip of my left nipple and marker needles placed either side of the offending tumor while under mammogram compression are all over. The mammogram at the beginning of this month was “normal”. “See you next year!” they said.
But, you know, writing about last year, going over the calendar, seeing the appointments there, has made me a little sick. I wonder how many gardens it will take before this past year is just a distant memory.
Meanwhile, I wait for the nurseries to put out their seedlings, and their zinnia seed packets. I wait for planting time, and this year’s garden. And at the same time, I enjoy the cleanness of those fallow garden plots, stripped and raked over, waiting, waiting, waiting.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Rambler Rose
When I named this blog "Ramblings with Lois", I had two images in my mind. One was a place to share the wayward and spiritual wanderings of my mind, and the physical meanderings of my life.
The other was more concrete. I was remembering the rambler rose, and not just any rambler rose, a specific one.
When I was a middle schooler in Basking Ridge New Jersey, we lived in an old farmhouse outside the town, with a big backyard that blended into the fields and woods behind us and the apple orchard on one side of us. Toward the end of our property line to the back, there was a stone wall that marked my father's garden. Behind that, there was another fence of rails, and against that fence grew a huge rambler rose - a fence in itself.
Inside the rose fence was an open space, large enough for me to crawl into. When we were children we were constantly making or declaring certain areas to be our private forts. I made this space inside the rambler rose my fort. Here I kept my treasures.
My brother and I grew zinnias in one part of our father's garden, to attract butterflies. In the rose fort I kept my collection of pinned butterflies. I also kept my experiments here.
I don't know when or how I learned to do this, but I discovered that if you put a cotton ball saturated with ammonia in a jar, and dropped a flower in the jar, the flower would change color. But not all flowers.
Pansies and violets would change color. Zinnias would not. Butterfly wings didn't change, either. For reasons passing understanding, I remember that fort and my flower experiments often. I don't pretent to understand why this memory persists, or why it came back to me at the very moment I was asked by my church's webmaster to start a blog, but the blog is called Ramblings with Lois, in part, because my mind went back to my past and picked a rambler rose and brought it forward into the present, hopefully new and fresh.
The other was more concrete. I was remembering the rambler rose, and not just any rambler rose, a specific one.
When I was a middle schooler in Basking Ridge New Jersey, we lived in an old farmhouse outside the town, with a big backyard that blended into the fields and woods behind us and the apple orchard on one side of us. Toward the end of our property line to the back, there was a stone wall that marked my father's garden. Behind that, there was another fence of rails, and against that fence grew a huge rambler rose - a fence in itself.
Inside the rose fence was an open space, large enough for me to crawl into. When we were children we were constantly making or declaring certain areas to be our private forts. I made this space inside the rambler rose my fort. Here I kept my treasures.
My brother and I grew zinnias in one part of our father's garden, to attract butterflies. In the rose fort I kept my collection of pinned butterflies. I also kept my experiments here.
I don't know when or how I learned to do this, but I discovered that if you put a cotton ball saturated with ammonia in a jar, and dropped a flower in the jar, the flower would change color. But not all flowers.
Pansies and violets would change color. Zinnias would not. Butterfly wings didn't change, either. For reasons passing understanding, I remember that fort and my flower experiments often. I don't pretent to understand why this memory persists, or why it came back to me at the very moment I was asked by my church's webmaster to start a blog, but the blog is called Ramblings with Lois, in part, because my mind went back to my past and picked a rambler rose and brought it forward into the present, hopefully new and fresh.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Holy Tuesday Confession
I’ve been in Hartford all day, at the Cathedral, for the annual renewal of ordination vows and a nice little Quiet Day, with Bp. Laura Ahrens giving the meditations.
I came home and, after checking voicemails and emails, I went to check the blogs I follow in Anglicanland. The Mad Priest (OC, ICBW…) has a post with a news video of recently deposed bishop John David Schofield on Palm Sunday, defending his position.
His position is this: for years he has led the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of San Joaquin in California. He has led it in a very conservative direction. He and his followers do not support women’s ordinations nor do they have the time of day for gay or lesbian people. The Episcopal Church, on the other hand, has slowly been opening itself up to lesbian and gay persons. We are therefore apostate, no longer Christians in his eyes.
We have refused to repent of our liberal stance toward full inclusion of lgbt people who live on the margins in most cultures, including our own. Anglican and Episcopal churches in other countries around the world are divided on the issue. A few people, bishops and congregations in The Episcopal Church, formerly in the United States but now including several other countries, also disagree strongly with the positions The Episcopal Church has taken and is certain to take in the future towards full recognition of gay and lesbian persons as wholesome before God. (We ain’t there yet, but we are not going to stop until we are.)
John David Schofield led most of the people and congregations of the Diocese of San Joaquin to break their tie with the Episcopal Church and affiliate, instead, with the Diocese of the Southern Cone, located in six countries in South America. Southern Cone sees things with reference to gay and lesbian persons the same way as John David Schofield sees them. It is for this abandonment of the Episcopal Church for which he has been inhibited, which means he is not allowed to perform any sacraments in the Diocese of San Joaquin, and now he is also deposed, which means he is no longer a bishop in the Episcopal Church headquartered in the United States.
Sadly, JDS has revealed in the past that he is a (now celibate) gay man, or as he self identifies today, a former gay man. So, there he was on a news video from Palm Sunday, defending what he has done and celebrating Mass in the Diocese of San Joaquin as though somehow that diocese has been beamed up to the Southern Cone and the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church and the inhibition and the deposition have no authority over him.
Unfortunately, JDS is a bit overweight. His cope, a huge sort of cape, which fastens in the front at the chest, has slipped off his right shoulder and shifted from his left shoulder to hang over his left chest. The clasp is practically choking him. And right there, in front of God and everyone, I wrote a hurtful comment about him being closeted so long that he forgot how to wear a cope. I really felt sorry for him, but I wanted more to make fun of him.
Dear Bp. John David Schofield, I apologize for being a cretin. I do not like you. I do not like what you stand for and I do not like what you have done in San Joaquin. You and those who think like you have decided that I and the whole rest of The Episcopal Church are no longer Christians, but you are wrong. You claim we have rewritten the Bible and believe only what we want to. That is also wrong. It is false witness. It is a lie.
But you do not deserve fat jokes or closet jokes. I am suddenly filled with pity for you. So, I am sorry for what I wrote.
But, John David, not so sorry as I feel for the damage you have left behind in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. May God have pity on you. May God have pity on me. And may the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin heal and prosper in the blessed absence of your influence.
I came home and, after checking voicemails and emails, I went to check the blogs I follow in Anglicanland. The Mad Priest (OC, ICBW…) has a post with a news video of recently deposed bishop John David Schofield on Palm Sunday, defending his position.
His position is this: for years he has led the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of San Joaquin in California. He has led it in a very conservative direction. He and his followers do not support women’s ordinations nor do they have the time of day for gay or lesbian people. The Episcopal Church, on the other hand, has slowly been opening itself up to lesbian and gay persons. We are therefore apostate, no longer Christians in his eyes.
We have refused to repent of our liberal stance toward full inclusion of lgbt people who live on the margins in most cultures, including our own. Anglican and Episcopal churches in other countries around the world are divided on the issue. A few people, bishops and congregations in The Episcopal Church, formerly in the United States but now including several other countries, also disagree strongly with the positions The Episcopal Church has taken and is certain to take in the future towards full recognition of gay and lesbian persons as wholesome before God. (We ain’t there yet, but we are not going to stop until we are.)
John David Schofield led most of the people and congregations of the Diocese of San Joaquin to break their tie with the Episcopal Church and affiliate, instead, with the Diocese of the Southern Cone, located in six countries in South America. Southern Cone sees things with reference to gay and lesbian persons the same way as John David Schofield sees them. It is for this abandonment of the Episcopal Church for which he has been inhibited, which means he is not allowed to perform any sacraments in the Diocese of San Joaquin, and now he is also deposed, which means he is no longer a bishop in the Episcopal Church headquartered in the United States.
Sadly, JDS has revealed in the past that he is a (now celibate) gay man, or as he self identifies today, a former gay man. So, there he was on a news video from Palm Sunday, defending what he has done and celebrating Mass in the Diocese of San Joaquin as though somehow that diocese has been beamed up to the Southern Cone and the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church and the inhibition and the deposition have no authority over him.
Unfortunately, JDS is a bit overweight. His cope, a huge sort of cape, which fastens in the front at the chest, has slipped off his right shoulder and shifted from his left shoulder to hang over his left chest. The clasp is practically choking him. And right there, in front of God and everyone, I wrote a hurtful comment about him being closeted so long that he forgot how to wear a cope. I really felt sorry for him, but I wanted more to make fun of him.
Dear Bp. John David Schofield, I apologize for being a cretin. I do not like you. I do not like what you stand for and I do not like what you have done in San Joaquin. You and those who think like you have decided that I and the whole rest of The Episcopal Church are no longer Christians, but you are wrong. You claim we have rewritten the Bible and believe only what we want to. That is also wrong. It is false witness. It is a lie.
But you do not deserve fat jokes or closet jokes. I am suddenly filled with pity for you. So, I am sorry for what I wrote.
But, John David, not so sorry as I feel for the damage you have left behind in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. May God have pity on you. May God have pity on me. And may the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin heal and prosper in the blessed absence of your influence.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Water, Water Everywhere
Yesterday I flushed down the toilet several bottles of unfinished drugs from last year’s treatments for breast cancer – steroids, pain killers, and an unused supply of an anti-dizziness drug I found in an old pocket book.
This morning I read the article on Yahoo! News reporting from the AP about the pervasiveness of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water – and not only there, but in the source water as well, the aquifers, lakes, streams and God only knows where else.
The traces of drugs in the water supply come, it is reported, from the unmetabolized portion of drugs we take. But the whole time I’m thinking, “What about all those pills I just flushed down the toilet? They’re not metabolized at all!” And, of course, the article finally got to that bit. Yes, maybe, it says, a lot of people are doing just what I did.
Now, I’m thinking, when I was being given chemo therapy, I was told to drink lots of water to flush the excess drugs out of my system. Where did those flushed out caustic chemicals go? Down the toilet of course!
I was also told to drink lost of water while having radiation therapy. Did I flush excess radioactivity down the toilet as well?
It’s all I can do to remember to turn off the tap while I’m brushing my teeth, instead of leaving it running. Same with washing my face. Now there’s my responsibility in adding to the pollution of our water, because of course I’m still on meds – to control high blood pressure, to control cholesterol, to support my underactive thyroid gland, and, yes, a continuing anti-cancer, estrogen suppressing drug for five years.
Maybe the estrogen suppressing drug traces I flush will counteract the hormone levels found in water and help those poor male fish who are beginning to produce egg proteins. Maybe that much good can come out of all this!
Anything, so I don’t obsess about my part in contaminating our precious water.
This morning I read the article on Yahoo! News reporting from the AP about the pervasiveness of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water – and not only there, but in the source water as well, the aquifers, lakes, streams and God only knows where else.
The traces of drugs in the water supply come, it is reported, from the unmetabolized portion of drugs we take. But the whole time I’m thinking, “What about all those pills I just flushed down the toilet? They’re not metabolized at all!” And, of course, the article finally got to that bit. Yes, maybe, it says, a lot of people are doing just what I did.
Now, I’m thinking, when I was being given chemo therapy, I was told to drink lots of water to flush the excess drugs out of my system. Where did those flushed out caustic chemicals go? Down the toilet of course!
I was also told to drink lost of water while having radiation therapy. Did I flush excess radioactivity down the toilet as well?
It’s all I can do to remember to turn off the tap while I’m brushing my teeth, instead of leaving it running. Same with washing my face. Now there’s my responsibility in adding to the pollution of our water, because of course I’m still on meds – to control high blood pressure, to control cholesterol, to support my underactive thyroid gland, and, yes, a continuing anti-cancer, estrogen suppressing drug for five years.
Maybe the estrogen suppressing drug traces I flush will counteract the hormone levels found in water and help those poor male fish who are beginning to produce egg proteins. Maybe that much good can come out of all this!
Anything, so I don’t obsess about my part in contaminating our precious water.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Good News
I had a mammogram this morning. The first post-cancer treatment mammo has to be looked at by a radiologist before they’ll let you leave the center. Mine was looked at. When the tech came back with the news, it was "Everything's fine. See you in a year."
That's it? No bells, whistles, streamers, dancing bears, what? So you'll have to make up your own.
Meanwhile, will you forgive me if I don't go into the office today? I'm just too jazzed by the good news to settle down to something productive. I want to read, I want to write, draw, paint. So please forgive me. And I'll be back on track tomorrow.
Peace, and please remember to party, because sometimes the news is just that good!
That's it? No bells, whistles, streamers, dancing bears, what? So you'll have to make up your own.
Meanwhile, will you forgive me if I don't go into the office today? I'm just too jazzed by the good news to settle down to something productive. I want to read, I want to write, draw, paint. So please forgive me. And I'll be back on track tomorrow.
Peace, and please remember to party, because sometimes the news is just that good!
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