Found again...

...after it had been tucked away in an old journal for about fifteen years...I first read it when I was just getting started in ministry. It holds up well!

Stepping Westward

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

Denise Levertov

a propos of this week's events in Prairie Metropolis, and elsewhere...

Oh, the glamor, and the clamor that attends the affairs of state
tend to fascinate the rabble and impress some folks as great.
But the truth about the matter in terms of loss and gain,
there ain't one inauguration worth a good, slow, two inch rain.
-Carlos Ashley
1904 - 1993

"Inaugurations" being in the same list with the pompes funebres of over-publicized popular entertainers...and the liturgical faux pas of elected officials...and you can fill in your own list, I think.

A tip of the Rambler-Hat to the Fraternal Unit for the quotation!

one very small comment...

ENOUGH, ALREADY!

in which the Rambler rejoices some more....

IT'S RAINING, FOLKS!!!


Nice steady pounding.

Thanks be to God.

Signs of the Apocalypse...

So you know the feeling that NOW you've at last seen everything? And what a fleeting state that is.

Departing from the premises of Most Holy & Undivided on a recent late Saturday afternoon...I observed a wedding party, bride, groom, parents, attendants, the entire catastrophe, cheerfully having their wedding photos taken.

ON the premises of MH & U. Where they had NOT been married, and to which they were Complete and Total Strangers...

Could not figure out how to smite them hip and/or thigh with mildew and blasting as per the prophet -- without Spoiling the Poor Girl's Wedding, which one would rather not do... so drove away. Did not even drive over the bride's father's foot, which was in the driveway and therefore Fair Game.

but did you EVER?

in which the Rambler experiences disproportionate elation...

Things that produce euphoria (this week, anyhow):

1. Cathedral staff who address the parochial clergy (on first acquaintance), as
"Hon" -- "Hi, Hon, are you here to do the noon Eucharist?"
2. Bright sun after hard rain...
3. Parish knitters chowing down on year-end lunch -- roast beef, baked ham, and all the farm style go-withs -- prepared by "Fabric Committee" aka Old Guys That Fix Stuff...
4. Long walks with fellow clergy and amiable canines.
5. Beautiful new T-shirt logo'ed "MH & U Knit Wits"...
6. Second-hand compliments
7. Second-hand compliments to other family members: "Hey, I didn't know he was your brother!!! What an awesome teacher!!!"
8. Breakfast with old friends.
9. Flags and fireworks...
10. Beethoven piano sonatas as drive-to-work music -- just me and Alfred Brendel, woot woot.

in which the Rambler opens the carton of blue bags...

I figure if I fill one of those big blue recycle bags with paper and so forth every day of the week from now on... I should be about able to walk out of the door on R-Day and hand back the keys without, as they say, a backward glance...