That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Family (Page 2 of 15)

The Second Commandment on Sunday Morning

April 28, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I retired from active parish ministry as a priest in the Episcopal Church in December 2018 after nearly 29 years in holy orders, more than half that time as rector of one parish. Since then, my wife and I have visited several Episcopal congregations in this and other dioceses on Sunday mornings, not as supply clergy and spouse but simply as visiting worshipers.

In nearly every case, we have been greeted by friendly people, found worship that is lively and engaging, enjoyed sermons that are masterfully crafted and well preached by erudite clergy, and left feeling that we have encountered a loving God in a vibrant community. Oh to be sure, we have been able to find minor aspects to criticize, but these are merely the quibblings of professional church geeks; sharing them is how we amuse ourselves on the drive home. In the main, though, we have been very impressed at how well the Episcopal Church follows the first great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”[1]

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After Hearing of Saudi Executions

April 26, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I don’t think that a single day has passed since my adolescence that I haven’t thought about death, my own death. Mortality has been a reality of life for me since my father killed himself in a drunken automobile crash when I was five years old. In my pre-adolescent years, I was convinced I would die before I turned 22; I’m forty-five years beyond that limit and death is a closer probability now than it has ever been.

Sometimes when I think about my death, I consider what it would be to die by accidental means. This is why I service my vehicle before long road trips, making sure the tires get rotated and properly inflated, having my service garage do its “88 point safety check” and change the oil, and making sure the safety box of road flares, bottled water, and space blankets is filled. This is why I stay behind guard rails at the Grand Canyon and Cliffs of Moher, and why at Dún Aonghasa on Inismór where there are no guards I stayed well back from the edge.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (9 April)

April 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 34

My intention when I started this exercise in Lenten discipline was to write for an hour each morning with no preconceptions about what I would be writing. Just sit down, put a figurative piece of paper in my imaginary typewriter, and start pounding the keys. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but I have made the attempt (most days) to at least write something sometime during each 24 hour period.

Similarly, it was my intention to return to the gym (the Medina Recreation Center) this morning and do another half-hour of aerobic exercise on the recumbent crosstrainer and the indoor track. And similarly it’s not going to work out that way.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (6 April)

April 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 31

A day or two ago, a Facebook friend posted a picture of a garment tag written in brutalized English, one of those things which may be entirely made up but which may also be an actual badly done translation from some Asian language. There is a website dedicated to such things, many are hysterically funny, most are just mind-bogglingly bizarre.

My friend’s tag included this oh-so-tantalizing term: “the peculiar smell of the inevitable.” I commented that it would make a wonderful book title. I used to have a list of potential titles for the tome that will never be written. I wonder what became of it. I can only remember the two that began it.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (4 April)

April 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 29

So, typical of me, I let the Lenten discipline slide and didn’t write anything in this journal yesterday or the day before. In my defense, the first day was dominated by the “prep” for a colonoscopy and yesterday the procedure was done early in the morning; I spent the rest of the day sleeping off the Propofol used as anesthesia during the procedure.

That’s one of the drugs used in the capital punishment “cocktail,” by the way. One minute I was watching the nurse inject the stuff into my IV line; the next, I was in a different room, my wife at my bedside conversing with the gastroenterologist about radiation damage to my colon (that damage being a sequela of my treatment for prostate cancer). The rest of the day was spent mostly in a fog of unthinking, which is not the same thing as the cloud of unknowing by a long shot!

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Lenten Journal 2019 (30 March)

March 30, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 24

Before I met my wife, I played racquetball a couple of times a week. I backpacked and went wilderness camping in the desert with friends. I rode a 15-speed bike to work. I was a downhill skier.

Before she met me, my wife played tennis. She went camping in the mountains of northern Nevada with her family. She rode her 12-speed bike across the continental US. She was a Nordic cross-country skier.

When we dated, we talked about these activities, imagining that we would share them with one another. We never did them as a couple . . . but we talked about them.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (23 March)

March 23, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Lenten Journal, Day 17

Somewhere in memory is a room
Its walls are Navajo White, or possibly pale yellow
It is furnished with twin beds with quilted, green spreads
There is a dresser on the wall opposite the beds
Between the beds, a table with a lamp and a radio
The wall next to one bed holds the door to a closet
And on that wall, next to the corner of that wall and the dresser wall,
Is the door into the room
The middle of the wall next to the other bed is pierced by a window
It is the front wall of the house
And the window looks out onto the street

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Lenten Journal 2019 (11 March)

March 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 5

“Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’”[1] This is a verse from today’s Daily Office Old Testament reading; it’s supposed to be Moses’ words spoken to the Hebrews about to enter the Promised Land as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, a reminder of the debt of gratitude everyone owes to God, but today it reminds me of a political episode of a few years ago.

President Barack Obama, in a 2012 campaign speech, said, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.” The “that” in that sentence was meant to refer to “roads and bridges” he had just referenced in the previous sentence, to the infrastructure which he had just described as the “unbelievable American system” that allows businesses to thrive.[2] That was clear to anyone who heard the speech.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (8 March)

March 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lent Journal, Day 2

Yesterday afternoon the dog and I went for a walk in the snow. I should clarify: we went for a walk while the snow was falling and we walked on the sidewalk. The snow was that sort of big, fluffy-flake variety that my wife calls “snow globe snow.” As it coated the sidewalk, the path had the appearance of the first layer of blown-in insulation in an attic, a cottony, almost-fibrous, semi-transparent white coating laid over the concrete.

I was wearing a pair of slip-on canvas shoes with a textured sole, the sort that leaves very distinct patterned footprints in such snow or on the damp sand of undisturbed beaches. We’ve had several such snow falls this year and I’ve noticed that when the snow continues to fall and covers up those footprints, they harden. Later, when my neighbor or I get out our snow blowers and snow shovels and clear the sidewalk, those footprints left in the first snow fall remain, like the white-on-white pattern of an expensive dress shirt, evidence that someone has walked this way before.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (7 March)

March 7, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Where to begin?

I’ve decided to spend at least one hour each morning on the task of writing. That’s the advice given all aspiring writers, “Just do it. Set aside time and discipline yourself to do it. Write whatever comes to mind.” So here I am, coffee cup at my side, fingers on the keyboard of my laptop, sitting at the kitchen table. I would prefer to use a paper and pen, but the arthritis in my hands simply does not allow me to actually write much anymore. I can “type” so much faster and more accurately than I can scrawl now (and auto-correct, as much as I hate it on my phone, is a great aide in my word processing application).

The furnace is on. It’s snowing outside and the Weather.com app on my phone said it was 21ºF when last I looked. There was a weather notice of a burst of snowfall moving through the area limiting visibility and making roads dangerously slick.

Anyway, the furnace is on and I can hear the rush of air through the registers. Normally, I never pay attention to this; I don’t even notice it. It is simply background white noise. This morning, however, it seems to be abnormally loud, very noticeable. If I were still in the preaching business, I might make myself a note about the furnace background noise, a reminder that it could be used a sermon illustration. I don’t know what biblical text or theological idea it might illustrate, but that’s the nature of sermon illustrations, isn’t it? You don’t know how you will use them until you do. File this one under “background noise” for now and move on.

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