to speak with my Bishop Mark yesterday night along with other clergy from our deanery (a deanery is a small grouping within a diocese). I was impressed.
If there was a person would had every right to be bitter and jaded about everything that has happened it would Bishop Mark but there was nothing of the sort as he spoke with us. He spoke from his heart and his heart was not dark or angry. He spoke of how all of this has drawn him closer to Christ. We had questions and he had answers but no recriminations, no hostility, and no resentments. For about two hours we got to see what a Bishop truly is and I am better for it.
Many years!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
The day the music died...
It's an obscure place. North on 8th Street, right on 315th, left on Gull, Clear Lake Iowa. Look for the pair of glasses and then walk 1/2 mile west along the fence.
I was pondering whether to go at all. I had no desire to feed the macabre side of human nature and my imagination went to what it must have been like in those last few moments. Did they know? Did they have time to prepare? What thoughts raced through their heads in the cold winter night as gravity overcame technology and pulled them to earth?
The wind came from the west, cold, and shedding mist as clouds passed before the sun. The sky was wide as it is in these places where trees are scarce. We walked, hand in hand, on a dirt path keeping an eye on the fence. Somewhere along the wire there would be a break and we would know.
Towards the end of the field was a small metal sign. Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens. Big Bopper. 50 years ago a small plane with three rising stars fresh from the applause was suddenly brought down to earth just minutes after it took off for North Dakota and the hope of a warm bed. For the next hours the bodies would lay in the snow waiting for others to discover that the bus with the band had arrived but they were not to be found. Valens was still in his teens and the Big Bopper had not yet reached 30.
We paused for a minute as the breeze circled around us and the air got colder. Rain from a cloud far away fell in a short burst as we walked away. It was almost 7 at night and the fields were quiet except for the sound of the wind. Everything else was silent and at rest as Iowa prepared to sleep.
I was pondering whether to go at all. I had no desire to feed the macabre side of human nature and my imagination went to what it must have been like in those last few moments. Did they know? Did they have time to prepare? What thoughts raced through their heads in the cold winter night as gravity overcame technology and pulled them to earth?
The wind came from the west, cold, and shedding mist as clouds passed before the sun. The sky was wide as it is in these places where trees are scarce. We walked, hand in hand, on a dirt path keeping an eye on the fence. Somewhere along the wire there would be a break and we would know.
Towards the end of the field was a small metal sign. Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens. Big Bopper. 50 years ago a small plane with three rising stars fresh from the applause was suddenly brought down to earth just minutes after it took off for North Dakota and the hope of a warm bed. For the next hours the bodies would lay in the snow waiting for others to discover that the bus with the band had arrived but they were not to be found. Valens was still in his teens and the Big Bopper had not yet reached 30.
We paused for a minute as the breeze circled around us and the air got colder. Rain from a cloud far away fell in a short burst as we walked away. It was almost 7 at night and the fields were quiet except for the sound of the wind. Everything else was silent and at rest as Iowa prepared to sleep.
Holy Trinity Church, Overland Park, Kansas...
It's not been the best of years to be Orthodox in the Antiochian Archdiocese. Byzantine finances, felons in official structures, a sex offender restored to ministry involving parishes. And the beat goes on...
I wish it would all go away, but it will not. I wish it would change, but it won't, at least not for the near future. I'd like to wake up one morning and not say to myself "My goodness, what are they thinking...?" It's push through time, slog on step by step, take care of the parish, play the game and wait for some breakthrough. Months? Years? Who knows?
I was hoping for something better. Actually, truth be told, I was expecting better. This is the Church, after all, and I know its made up of strugglers just like me but I was hoping that somehow there was a sum better than the parts. Perhaps there is in the whole of history but not in this moment.
So yesterday morning I stood in the back of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church and let the music and the liturgy wash over me. Now the rest of the story is supposed to go something like, "..and then my heart melted and great joy and peace flooded through my soul." Well it wasn't quite like that. I'm still tired. I'm still troubled. I'm still disappointed. Yet standing there I remembered why I came to this Faith and why I'll stay.
That's a start.
I wish it would all go away, but it will not. I wish it would change, but it won't, at least not for the near future. I'd like to wake up one morning and not say to myself "My goodness, what are they thinking...?" It's push through time, slog on step by step, take care of the parish, play the game and wait for some breakthrough. Months? Years? Who knows?
I was hoping for something better. Actually, truth be told, I was expecting better. This is the Church, after all, and I know its made up of strugglers just like me but I was hoping that somehow there was a sum better than the parts. Perhaps there is in the whole of history but not in this moment.
So yesterday morning I stood in the back of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church and let the music and the liturgy wash over me. Now the rest of the story is supposed to go something like, "..and then my heart melted and great joy and peace flooded through my soul." Well it wasn't quite like that. I'm still tired. I'm still troubled. I'm still disappointed. Yet standing there I remembered why I came to this Faith and why I'll stay.
That's a start.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
I'll be on vacation...
through Monday and offline. Folks are staying over to watch the house and the fortune cookie I had at supper told me to relax and so I'm leaving the computer at home. We'll talk when I get back.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tomorrow night...
I'll be back in Woodville, WI, this time as part of a trio "Ross, Martin, and John" (the bassist always seems to get last billing) because we don't have another name yet. We have a five song set and the crowd, if there is one, will probably determine how many of them we play.
There's something about night in a small town. Mostly dark, with streaks of light wherever people gather, the shadows are cool and inviting and so are the sounds that greet you when you step indoors. Playing at these small places is like beautiful noise in the middle of quiet and when its done everything returns to silence again. The first step out the door is always the best.
I may forget to take the interstate on the way back and take my chances with the small highways and the villages strung along them like irregular pearls. Its the smell of the outdoors as it speeds past your window and the sense of home as you pass through into the night. There is a romance in the dusk that day dwellers never seem to understand.
I have many lives all wrapped up in one body and this life, the life where music flows from my fingers for two or two hundred as night settles into the countryside is one of my favorites. I never tire of it and tomorrow as the sun sets I'll be heading east into Wisconsin to sample the menu.
There's something about night in a small town. Mostly dark, with streaks of light wherever people gather, the shadows are cool and inviting and so are the sounds that greet you when you step indoors. Playing at these small places is like beautiful noise in the middle of quiet and when its done everything returns to silence again. The first step out the door is always the best.
I may forget to take the interstate on the way back and take my chances with the small highways and the villages strung along them like irregular pearls. Its the smell of the outdoors as it speeds past your window and the sense of home as you pass through into the night. There is a romance in the dusk that day dwellers never seem to understand.
I have many lives all wrapped up in one body and this life, the life where music flows from my fingers for two or two hundred as night settles into the countryside is one of my favorites. I never tire of it and tomorrow as the sun sets I'll be heading east into Wisconsin to sample the menu.
I was hoping...
that in a crazy world the Church would be an anchor, an alternative, something better and higher. February 24th of this year changed all that. It turns out that Orthodoxy, like everything else, like me, has its moments of weakness.
So what to do?
I could descend into bitterness or cynicism and dwell on the betrayal of it all. Believe me the thought has occurred. I could pretend, from the safety of my parish kingdom, that things aren't as they seem and just bide the time until folks go away or pass away. I could get up and leave for greener grass on the other side of some fence.
Only one thing seems certain now. I have to do my best to stay faithful. The rest is in God's hands.
So what to do?
I could descend into bitterness or cynicism and dwell on the betrayal of it all. Believe me the thought has occurred. I could pretend, from the safety of my parish kingdom, that things aren't as they seem and just bide the time until folks go away or pass away. I could get up and leave for greener grass on the other side of some fence.
Only one thing seems certain now. I have to do my best to stay faithful. The rest is in God's hands.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
My thanks to...
the man in the cowboy hat and his wife who stopped by and dropped a $5 bill in the guitar case where we were playing. I'm now a professional musician!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
I'm holding out hope...
that everyone makes it to heaven in the life to come.
Now I'm not a universalist. I know people choose to be away from God and in the life to come God grants them their request. That's hell, it's real, and the thought of it is harsh, worse than the whole red devils and pitchfork thing of medieval paintings. Yet I still hope.
The Church keeps a list of the Saints, those we know by virtue of their faith, holiness, and intercessions are in the presence of God. The Church, however, does not keep a list of the damned, those we know are outside of God's presence and until it does neither will I.
Now I'm not a universalist. I know people choose to be away from God and in the life to come God grants them their request. That's hell, it's real, and the thought of it is harsh, worse than the whole red devils and pitchfork thing of medieval paintings. Yet I still hope.
The Church keeps a list of the Saints, those we know by virtue of their faith, holiness, and intercessions are in the presence of God. The Church, however, does not keep a list of the damned, those we know are outside of God's presence and until it does neither will I.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
In a few days...
we'll go quiet in my family as we think about my brother Paul and life that passed too soon.
I can remember it quite vividly, September 11, 2006, the call to my work. Something was wrong at Paul's hotel room, paramedics, 44, gone. Mouth open, no words. Mind in full acquisition mode, no reasons. Drive to his wife's, or is it his widow's home. What can we do? Here's money to help out. God, he has kids, why? And the sky is silent.
Tonight I'll go to his grave and light a candle. This Sunday, as I always do, I'll pray for him and his family. Yet the words still do not come to me and the sky, at least in this matter, refuses to answer.
I can remember it quite vividly, September 11, 2006, the call to my work. Something was wrong at Paul's hotel room, paramedics, 44, gone. Mouth open, no words. Mind in full acquisition mode, no reasons. Drive to his wife's, or is it his widow's home. What can we do? Here's money to help out. God, he has kids, why? And the sky is silent.
Tonight I'll go to his grave and light a candle. This Sunday, as I always do, I'll pray for him and his family. Yet the words still do not come to me and the sky, at least in this matter, refuses to answer.
7 PM, Woodville, Wisconsin...
and the main street is quiet. A cluster of cars, like horses in time past, are angled nose first around the Wildwood Bar and Grill. There are a thousand Wildwoods in Wisconsin, shelters of a sort, where beer is served by the the better looking women in town, or some guy named Frank, and you can laugh until the evening forces you out into the cold.
Passing through the bar the door opens to the stage at the front of a building, attached but separate, with a Budweiser poster as the backdrop. The seats themselves are empty but on the stage a local is already singing. The local has the long gray hair of a man who star has already passed, but so have we all, the people who wander in to sing on open mic night in Woodville.
There's the former boat mechanic who lost some of his hearing plying his trade in the bottom of tourist paddlewheels but still finger picks with passion and sings old country songs to a nearly empty room. A lady with a willowy sweet voice who somehow found her way to the rump of Wisconsin from New Zealand fills the air with minor chords and songs of lost love. A few people drift in and out while the local plays master of ceremonies as a ceiling fan with fluorescent bulbs wobbles in the rafters.
We were the first to get up, my partner and I, three songs prepared and a towel for sweat. Fifty years ago and a thousand miles south our music would have been in the thick of things in a room full of men with red arms in overalls dancing with ladies holding their hair up with bobby pins. That's who we are, a band out of time that's grabbed onto music from people long gone and plays it for others who talk while we sing. Yet that's how it goes and three songs became seven and then a call back that made it around ten doing whatever we could, on the fly, unrehearsed but alive.
When it was done they clapped for us and we for them when they played and all of us vicariously for the people who should have been there, who would have heard us had not our star passed in the night. Somewhere out there a caravan of semis and buses full of performers and roadies and "people" will drive through to the next place down the road and thousands will pay for three hours of being in the presence of the famous. That's okay, we'd like to be there too.
But tonight we're in Woodville where we pack our own gear and no one asks for an autograph. There is a kind of music here as well, the freedom to play with our hearts, the freedom to be two guys combing music's cemeteries in hopes of a Lazarus worth bringing back and playing even if the audience is talking and the beer drinkers next door have their gaze fixed on the lovely behind the bar.
Passing through the bar the door opens to the stage at the front of a building, attached but separate, with a Budweiser poster as the backdrop. The seats themselves are empty but on the stage a local is already singing. The local has the long gray hair of a man who star has already passed, but so have we all, the people who wander in to sing on open mic night in Woodville.
There's the former boat mechanic who lost some of his hearing plying his trade in the bottom of tourist paddlewheels but still finger picks with passion and sings old country songs to a nearly empty room. A lady with a willowy sweet voice who somehow found her way to the rump of Wisconsin from New Zealand fills the air with minor chords and songs of lost love. A few people drift in and out while the local plays master of ceremonies as a ceiling fan with fluorescent bulbs wobbles in the rafters.
We were the first to get up, my partner and I, three songs prepared and a towel for sweat. Fifty years ago and a thousand miles south our music would have been in the thick of things in a room full of men with red arms in overalls dancing with ladies holding their hair up with bobby pins. That's who we are, a band out of time that's grabbed onto music from people long gone and plays it for others who talk while we sing. Yet that's how it goes and three songs became seven and then a call back that made it around ten doing whatever we could, on the fly, unrehearsed but alive.
When it was done they clapped for us and we for them when they played and all of us vicariously for the people who should have been there, who would have heard us had not our star passed in the night. Somewhere out there a caravan of semis and buses full of performers and roadies and "people" will drive through to the next place down the road and thousands will pay for three hours of being in the presence of the famous. That's okay, we'd like to be there too.
But tonight we're in Woodville where we pack our own gear and no one asks for an autograph. There is a kind of music here as well, the freedom to play with our hearts, the freedom to be two guys combing music's cemeteries in hopes of a Lazarus worth bringing back and playing even if the audience is talking and the beer drinkers next door have their gaze fixed on the lovely behind the bar.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Someone at work...
lost their job yesterday one of those things where they pack you out that day with your stuff in a box and no explanations left behind.
I knew who it was, a competent employee but an unhappy soul with personal skills like gravel in the gears. I know what its like, too, to have that conversation where a boss somewhere tells you that you don't fit into the plan, or the future, or whatever is next and today is the end. Whether you think it's coming or not there's still no good way to walk out of a building with your personal life in a cardboard box.
And in these times there may be no going back. It's not like the days when you could get dropped from one place and scooped up by another and sometimes even do better then before. Now you wait with a hundred others, people younger, people cheaper, people better prepared, and hope you can elbow someone out of the way and avoid getting the skinny envelope from HR.
Two things cross my mind at this moment. I feel sad for yesterday's unemployed. This morning when he wakes up and the day is just filled with hours he either starts to see the horizon or starts to see the living room walls. From what I know of him it may be the walls. Selfishly, of course, I think of myself, simultaneously glad that it wasn't me and dreading the day it could be. What would I do? Where would I go? How would I feel? Having made it through before could I do it again?
If not for faith, who knows?
I knew who it was, a competent employee but an unhappy soul with personal skills like gravel in the gears. I know what its like, too, to have that conversation where a boss somewhere tells you that you don't fit into the plan, or the future, or whatever is next and today is the end. Whether you think it's coming or not there's still no good way to walk out of a building with your personal life in a cardboard box.
And in these times there may be no going back. It's not like the days when you could get dropped from one place and scooped up by another and sometimes even do better then before. Now you wait with a hundred others, people younger, people cheaper, people better prepared, and hope you can elbow someone out of the way and avoid getting the skinny envelope from HR.
Two things cross my mind at this moment. I feel sad for yesterday's unemployed. This morning when he wakes up and the day is just filled with hours he either starts to see the horizon or starts to see the living room walls. From what I know of him it may be the walls. Selfishly, of course, I think of myself, simultaneously glad that it wasn't me and dreading the day it could be. What would I do? Where would I go? How would I feel? Having made it through before could I do it again?
If not for faith, who knows?
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
You never know...
how strong spider webs are until you try to hose them off your house. Tis the end of summer and the clean up begins.
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