Reading as an avocation...

I am sitting in the slant rays of the evening sun -- it won't go down yet for about another two hours, at this season, so it's both very pleasant and very inconvenient for reading or--indeed--looking at screens, computer or television.

So I have given up on reading for the moment, tired of squinting but unwilling to draw the curtains against this lovely light after a cold, wet, windy, miserable day -- and am glaring instead at a solid double armload of library books.  I've just confirmed that four of my "HOLDS" are ready for pick up at the local branch; and I've put a hold on yet another volume.

It was an epoch-marking day when I learned how to manage my library book account on line.  The collaboration between GREED and TECHNOLOGY produces awesome results.  So far, alas, it hasn't produced PHYSICAL FITNESS, although the closest branch library is a feasible, if long, walk.  But there has been such a disproportionate amount of foul miserable weather that even since the snow and ice disappeared there have been few days when hiking out with a book bag has appealed.

Before I gave up, temporarily, just now, I was reading P. D. James's diary/memoir, Time to Be in Earnest, written over the year that she was 77.  It's a  bookshelf companion to May Sarton, Turning Seventy.  I'm trying not to consider either of them an instruction manual, but...  The quality of these women's prose is an antidote to Twitter -- and even to Facebook; I don't think I need any more practice in 140-character snark, as a genre, if that's what it is.  Although there was an interesting Tweeting exchange earlier with Alan Jacobs over the status of YA fiction vis-a-vis "literary fiction."
Still mulling over that question, muttering under my breath just a bit.

I know that in my lifetime the reading of "literary fiction," if that label has any meaning at all, has had a lot to do with my formation.  (I was going to say "maturation," but let us not kid each other, here.)  And in P. D. James this afternoon, I found this from Henry James--no relation, of course!--writing about Anthony Trollope: "We trust to novels to maintain us in the practice of great indignations and great generosities."  And that catches it, just about exactly, I think -- by contrast with social media, which maintain us in the practice of our Daily Snits and Hourly LOLs. I can't remember who said that we check FB in the morning to verify who it is we're supposed to despise, today.  Not enough, to keep the mind, or the heart, or the soul, alive.  Not alone, anyhow.

All you hungry campers...

"Today is Wednesday, Today is Wednesday, Wednesday SOU-OUP..."  according to the old campfire song, anyway.  No actual soup on the menu at Tether's End today.

An undecided sort of day -- brilliant sunshine very early, then heavy, racing, threatening clouds, now some of both.  Do I go out for a walk!??  Do I seize shovel and get all seriously gardinacious before my poor bedding plants die of sheer boredom??? Do I go out to the kitchen and cook and eat accordingly?  Do I burrow into this impressive heap of library books?  Do I go back to my desk and attend to the now-definitely-due thank-you letters I need to be writing?

Retirement is challenging (Platitude of the Day). On Sunday at noon I wrapped up the most recent interim appointment after three months of half-time duty in a small parish in a small town ninety kilometers from home (exactly ninety kilometers, and exactly fifty-seven minutes, every single trip).  At this point, beyond a single Sunday-supply appointment on Pentecost in another small parish, in a small town, rather more than ninety kilometers from home, there is no word of a further interim assignment.

So the cassock has gone to the dry cleaner, and the surplice is in the laundry "whites" pile downstairs, and the stoles are up on a hanger in the spare-room closet, and the prayer books and the communion kit are tucked away on a shelf, not too high. 

And I contemplate the possibility that I may now, in the fifth year after retirement from full-time parish ministry, really be, really and truly, RETIRED.  Which gives a bit of perspective on the exercise of ministry, perhaps even some of that 20/20 hindsight stuff.

I was a curate, part-time, for about four years; ten years in full-time ministry as Rector, Head of Staff, Senior Pastor~~whatever your nomenclature~~and I've been an interim parson since February 2010.  Since then I've served six parishes, part-time: three in the city, three in the hinterland.  And the difference from full-time ministry has been staggering.  I've been relaxed; I've been comfortable and unanxious; I've been -- happy! (I KNEW there had to be a word for it).

And there has also been a difference in the climate, the ethos, of the parishes I've served.  The folks have been warm, and friendly, and appreciative.  Now have I been happy because the people have been different?  Or, as I very much suspect, have the people been different because I've been giving off a very different vibe?  And if that's the case, where the heck was that vibe during the previous ten years!?!?

When I took leave of St. Thaddeus, on Sunday, we had a potluck lunch of ESCHATOLOGICAL splendour--you know, where everyone finds what s/he most enjoys--and there were PRESENTS -- a photograph of the church, and a bushel of flowers, and a beautiful hand-crafted pen -- it looks like byzantine jewelry, but it's decorated with tiny little electronic components I couldn't even name -- and a little trousseau of hand-knitted things, hot pads and dishcloths and a SCRUBBY which I can use on my saucepans or my heels, whichever needs it more. 

There were also speeches, on the general theme of "We've tried to figure out how we could JUST KEEP YOU ALWAYS" and there were very elderly retired farmers saying very quietly, "You know -- we JUST LOVE you" and the wives of elderly retired farmers telling me how much they and their husbands have enjoyed and been moved by the sermons ("You reduce him to tears, every time, Crimson").  And finally one Mother-in-Zion who leaned in close and said, "I probably shouldn't even say this, BUT -- your HAIR looks WONDERFUL."

Somehow I could not dredge up any impulse to re-assert my Personal Boundaries under those conditions.  I just sat down and mentally rolled around in the ambient goodwill and affection and praise.  Perhaps that means I really am somehow "too far gone" to exercise ordained ministry with appropriate professionalism.

But I don't really think so.  Now I will go and write some more thank-yous.

Back to the Beginning

I've been thinking for some time that I should revisit the amount of time and energy that I spend online, the groups to which I've linked, and so forth.  Dropped some groups -- and I think for the time being I'll focus on blogging rather than Facebook chat -- and try to find a register other than X-Snark, which was beginning to prevail.

I found a thing in a long-since-purchased, not-read, book -- or rather "yet another book of which I read the first nineteen pages" -- so maybe I'll start (over) with this.  Because it seems apt and helpful -- it's from Jane Redmont's When in  Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life, and it's by Dorothee Soelle, whose writing I've enjoyed.  I don't go her whole journey with her, but this piece resonated. It's about the difficulty of faith and the unpalatability of unfaith, I guess.

I don't as they put it believe in god
but to him I cannot say no hard as I try
take a look at him in the garden
when his friends ran out on him
his face wet with fear
and with the spit of his enemies
him I have to believe

Him I can't bear to abandon
to the great disregard for life
to the monotonous passing of millions of years
to the moronic rhythm of work leisure and work
to the boredom we fail to dispel
in cars in beds in stores

That's how it is they say what do you want
uncertain and not uncritically
I subscribe to the other hypothesis
which is his story
that's not how it is he said for god is
and he staked his life on this claim

Thinking about it I find
one can't let him pay alone
for his hypothesis
so I believe him about
god
The way one believes another's laughter
his tears
or marriage or no for an answer
that's how you'll learn
to believe him about life
promised to all.                                   --Dorothee Soelle

So there you have it.  That's enough for today, or any today when you wake up wondering whether there is any remaining shred of plausibility in what we think we were called, trained, commissioned -- and paid -- to proclaim.



 

Thursday. Spring. One thing and/or another...

When I finished up my last parish interim assignment at the end of January -- it was actually February 2nd, and included an Annual General Meeting and a potluck lunch as well as the regular Sunday Eucharist -- I came home and resorted to the Couch of Sunday Nappage, as is my wont and certainly seemed to be my due, at that point.

"Aha, " I said, "I will catch a couple of hours here under my fleecy throw (and a strategically placed cat), and then I will Rise Up and see about supper and the week to come."

I got right up off that couch -- eighteen hours later.....

"Hark!" I said, "I must have been more tired than I realized... and perhaps probably I could be Coming Down With Something, judging by this here sore throat..."

And I was.  Not to dwell on misery, but sore throat, congested head, nose running like Alph the Sacred River, and presently a rattling heavy "productive" (as they say) cough.

"Yes!" I said, "the well-remembered end-of-assignment, adrenalin-shut-down, immune-system-vanished, COLD.  Well, we'll just ride this out, and not be pestering the medical profession for a trifle."

That was about February 3rd.  Yesterday, having grown very very tired of the infinite loop, see paragraph #5 above, that I have been apparently stuck in, I went to my doctor.  "Six WEEKS?" I said.  "I don't think so..."

Diagnosis: bronchitis, probably pneumonia, possibly reactive asthma.

A FISTFUL of requisitions and prescriptions and a half day of running about in response -- I have an antibiotic (2 big pills daily WITH FOOD) -- I have Puffer #1 (red) (once daily and be sure to rinse mouth afterward) -- I have Puffer #2 (blue) (four times a day if necessary on a "rescue" basis) -- I also have the continuing threesome of pills combatting the usual blood pressure and cholesterol -- and I have a new bone-density medication (one pill weekly with plenty of water on an empty stomach, NO FOOD for an hour, and remember to stay upright after taking lest it LODGE somewhere).

You will be able to hear me coming because with all these meds in me I shall rattle like the bones in Ezekiel.

But the SCHEDULING involved in all this medication !!!!!!!!  What happened to the Merry Spntaneity that was supposed to characterize my Golden Years????? Eh?????

Maybe this IS my Lenten practice.

Meantime it is officially SPRING, saluted in these parts by a fresh fall of snow, plunging temperatures, and high winds.  

In other news, I have a new parish assignment 90 km away, half-time...again, interim.  

In other news, I have a vegan cookbook (no, but I have dear vegan friends)...my last purchase before Lent. 

Well, the last purchase until I found R. N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study on the sale table in the theological library.  It was only 50 cents -- and signed by the author -- and dedicated to his son and his two stepdaughters -- and the stepdaughters are second cousins to the Rambler.  So how could one resist?  (Yes, it's a VERY long story -- some other time).

Time to pay some bills.  "Today we have Paying of Bills"... and some overdue correspondence... also LAUNDRY... and cookery toward the end of the week...
 

 

Baptism of Jesus

All right, here we go.  

Nothing so stimulating as getting up to write the sermon at seven in the morning -- that would be, SUNDAY morning.  Just a little more of the Evel Knievel atmosphere about this than I quite like, but it's done, it'll preach...

And I've responded to that by concocting the ham/onion/jalapeno two-egg omelette, with home-made tomato ketchup on the side, and 1.5 home-made lattes, and a palmful of rattly pills -- time to find a clean black shirt and be gone.

No printer in this house -- at least, no printer that is on speaking terms with the laptop -- so the sermon is in longhand scribbles for a change.

Away we go.  Weather not too fierce for once.  Church, and a brief meeting, and then home and another clutter-clearing task for the afternoon, I think.

Green lights, everybody.

Friday again.

Not going  to look at the Friday Five -- or at least, not just now.

After a week enjoying ill health -- ill health at the beginning of the week, enjoying towards the end -- it is a day for putting the next few days in some kind of order.

Three calendars are involved: the briefcase day-timer; the fridge-door "Things This Week"; and the on-edge-behind-the-piano four-month monster.  And there's a small fistful of scribbles to organize onto these three ... the trick is to ensure that they all say the same thing about the same activities on the same day.

I spent time -- probably more than was wise -- sorting received Christmas cards into Meaningful Categories...hand-crafted ones, works-of-art ones, cute-animals ones (to share with the granddaughters on Important Projects with scissors and glue sticks), religious ones (for the friend who paints Christmas scenes on windows) and the eternal MISCELLANEOUS --raw material for the Great Recycled Christmas Card Little Tiny Boxes project.

In the course of this Great Sorting I filled the shredder and a waste-basket...and found (inevitably, comically), the sensible boxful of unused cards, labels, stickers, address book and other Yuletide Papergoods from last year.  These, with the sensible boxful of etc. etc. from THIS year, are all now arranged in a Rational Drawer, with a label on it... so I have some hope that come November 2014 I may, just may, be able to find them again.

All this working, and being retired, and working, and getting old, and living alone, and stuff, is a constant juggling of logistics and ergonomics, What?  Where? When?

And perhaps if we focus on those, we can defer dealing with Why??

 

Reflection in the middle of the night...

I had a long conversation with myself, interrupted, the other night. 
For professional reasons, I was a guest at a local Conference/Retreat Centre (formerly, a very very large convent). 
For epidemiological reasons, I found myself on my knees shortly after midnight.  Not, alas, in any of the beautiful, tranquil, inspiring chapel spaces on the premises.  But in the little ensuite bathroom assigned to me.
I had extended opportunity to examine the furniture of that bathroom, closely.
And midway through the seance, it occurred to me: that the misery of gastro-intestinal upset is very materially lessened when all the porcelain ware within reach is as clean and shiny as your grandmother's bone china... as when you just have to rest your forehead on that rim...and you do so in the perfect tranquil confidence that you're not going to catch anything.  Else.
"Self," I said, reflecting..."how about we keep this moment in mind, the next time we decide we'd just rather  defer scrubbing the bathrooms at home, yet again?  How about we re-visit the Nasty Jobs, now and then, as welcome and easy opportunities to look after us, better?  H'm?  Instead of just Sordid Ordeals?"
And Self couldn't think of a single smart-aleck thing to say.
Believe me...if you get to pick the venue in which you're going to "hug the bowl," all night--hard to beat a NUN-CLEAN convent bathroom.  Just sayin'.