Dream time to awakening.....

It's  been a long time since my last post.  Often, I do not feel I have anything to post. Or
I have become undisciplined or lazy. Writing involves a need to express something one can
no longer not share or put into words. So I come to this wrinkle in time. Perhaps I just need
to record an experience. Here we go.

Recently, I became aware, perhaps at a time somewhere between dreaming and consciously becoming awake. This is a grey time - when reality and dream time often intersect and we recall
fragments of streams that alert us to some things not fully integrated and we are left with an
urgency to integrate the experience into a greater whole.

Enough...on to the experience. Asleep and journeying toward an awakening time, I saw a reality
picturing granite warehouses graced in shadows with dawn-like shadings of light. Such buildings
dot the north end of Boston. The place was non specific. I was with three other companions. None
were recognizable as people I knew. We were just walking. Time was unspecific.

Suddenly we warped or gated into a different reality or time - still together. Light and shade
were indistinctive. As we continued to move another gate opened to two of us. The others
simply vanished in time. Just an occurrence, and unexplained in this dream time. Onward
through the space and a new time.

Suddenly a new waver of time came upon us. A new gate. We were somehow not quite centered
to transit it. We were almost stuck. I was passing through but not quite. And my companion was edging out of the change. I tried to recenter the two of us and could not make the proper adjustment.

I looked into the person's face and saw an aging process come and go from current age to older
age and back and forth. But a glow of love, contentment and deep understanding surrounded
the entire experience and I came out of sleep to wakefulness audibly speaking an expression of gratitude - "Thank You" and then hearing it repeated many times. Then I was fully awake.

In the dim light of the overnight, I tried to review and understand what I had truly just
experienced. My breathing throughout was regulated and comfortable. Nothing unusual.
Had I actually had a near death experience? Had I seen a revelation of what resurrection
might be? I have not been able to shake the experience or know what new thing God might
have been bringing to me.

So a part of me remains in this gray time or space seeking clarity. And yet the experience
itself felt so complete, I don't think I need to dig deeper. Whatever I felt, it was the web of
complete love, contentment and understanding that sustains me and tells me to just drink
this wonder into myself and just breathe, breathe and bask in a love I had never felt so
completely before..... Amen.

Dj'ever?

Sometimes things happen and sink into one's subconscious. We had a
tragic murder here on the North Shore in the town my Mom lives. My God
Daughter attends high school with the sister of the women who was murdered.
They attend the same faith community. She was a math teacher, twenty four years of
age and loved by her students and by all reports a dedicated and talented teacher. Her
life was cut short by an alleged student of just fourteen years.

Yes - sad, yes - inexplicable, and yes - well it leaves me empty and questioning.

Tonight, as I left my Mom's after an afternoon visit, I came to what can be an impossible
intersection with an often dangerous intersection. As I placed my left turn signal on
to indicate my anticipated turn, a sea of blue flashing lights on police motorcycles
caught my eye to my left. Easily there were over twenty cycles followed by several
police cruisers. I thought perhaps an escort to the airport for some visiting dignitary.
But then I saw a long line of yellow school buses followed by more police vehicles
and several more private cars with their emergency flashers on.

My heart sank. For the first time since the reports of this crime flooded our
airwaves, the human dimension thrust its way into a newer reality. These
buses were filled with students heading to Andover to attend the wake of a
teacher who had mentored them and touched their hearts as well as challenged
their minds.

A deep sadness overwhelmed me. I thought of how long this ride must feel
to those on these buses.  I reached into my deepest place and asked for the
protection and comfort of these people as this heart breaking journey overtook
their young lives.

I do not seek meaning or understanding, I just reach out in silence and hope
to the afflicted. I hope I do not have to feel this again for a similar event, but
I am not that much of a Pollyanna.

Godspeed for the mourners...

Faith.....?

What is faith?
Is it the first or last stop on our
road to understanding......
Or is it a continuum that we
live with and with hope
live with or into?

Sometimes the gray
overwhelms the with or the into.

Sometimes - I just do not know.

Sometimes - I don't want to think about knowing.

And yet.....

There is a hunger deep inside me
that says...

It is not a choice.

It is a thing of knowing.

No explanation will serve it.

It just is.....

And in that is the wonder.

Hard facts are not present and
do not need to be.

Feed that hunger,
Open your inner self
to new possibilities.

Be courageous
and explore that hunger.

The reward will be unexpected
and most probably be
not seen...................................


R

Morning Turle Reflections

Well,  the drama of yesterday is where it belongs.....to yesterday.  The gigantic
turtle has returned to where gigantic turtles go and after much reflection and
googling, I  have come to the following conclusions. The BIG turtle was most likely
a mother readying an appropriate space in my yard to deposit her eggs and then
abandon them to their gestation time and their run for the nearest water and life
when the necessary time comes. The BIG turtle's ritualistic behaviors speak to
this conclusion. Now I must wait, keep the depositing place safe and unspoiled
for the next couple of months and hopefully see the birth and run for the marsh
waters.

I feel a new responsibility as witness to the first planting and then to the cyclic
birthing and departure for new life. I am living in my own laboratory for new
life, my own little wild kingdom.

This is cool.

I'll keep you posted.......




R

Back yard drama/Rodin/WTF...

My back yard abuts a freshwater marsh. It is undermined by the former presence of woodchucks, also an abandoned septic system and the decaying under root systems of former weeping willows. To walk about my yard is to sometimes sink, falter and turn ones ankle or try to sidestep divots larger than a golfer's swing could envisage.

Imagine my surprise to look out onto my yard from my rear deck and see some "pre-historic"  creature trying to ascertain its whereabouts! Two divots of prior years had merged into a semi-mini-sinkhole like distribution of dirt with a turtle like creature saying WTF - where am I and how did I get here? This non petite creature appeared to have a shell of at least 18 inches by 12 inches and that is a conservative estimate from this left wing politico!

It seemed very disorientated. From the hole to a circular rendezvous and back again it was in an attempted safe behavior mode - at least that what I assumed. Water was a little far from its position and what the hell was it doing below the surface of my yard anyway? It all seemed so Japanese horror film-ish....you know like Rodin emerging from the mountain.....

I observed this for about an hour before heading into the city for a dental appointment. Arriving home at dusk - the soil disturbance was evident - but the perpetrator had disappeared  for the present. What will the morrow bring? Will my yard be the safe place it has always been? Are turtles - even large ones - herbivores and thus a danger to my new vegetable garden?

I just don't know. I sense an invasion, possible danger - as I said this is one big turtle. And its time to mow the lawn! Trying to pin this into my spiritual life, I ask what is the Spirit asking of me and what response is in order? How does one rescue a creature and lead it to water? What if I just do nothing?

Approaching midnight - so I guess I will wait for the dawn and do due diligence after sunrise,
after all - I do not have a working flashlight!




R

Egrets and Episcopalians.........really?

A shadow? Yes,
A glimpse of Easter White? I think.
Ah......The wings fully opened, spread upward
a frame in time fully frozen as the angelic, winged
beauty hovers in time and
lowers itself into the murky waters and marsh mud
that is just at the edge of my yard.

Breathing silently I observe. Then a second one
repeats this process.
The pair gazes both about them and at one another.
In an innate harmony, they communicate.
Their quest for food  is fully present.
But, too, they preen - making sure their plumage
is just so, as the breezes bluster about them.

I see their necks bending to and fro as if chatting
about the events of the day,
A motion that is perfect in its synergy.
A dance.
A liturgy of being.
Both compassionate and caring and entirely present.

The next quest is of hunting for food.
Their movements  so stoic, yet amorously awkward.
Feet prying up from the mud,
these spindle-like legs keeping balance and forward progression.

Angular agressions to pick the lucious morsels they seek.
Beauty in motion, purpose personified.

A pause.
They pose.
They seem to be speaking in the great quiet of this space.
Perhaps an exchange of gossip?

More grooming and more connection to their
ubiquitous envirenment.

A sudden rustle, a small panic ridden moment.
Wings spread and flap.
The slow rise from the marsh,
And they are gone -
for now,
Hopefully to return when ready to begin
all this again.

Am I speaking of Egrets
or Episcopalians?

Hmmmm,
I do wonder..........

Roots - Where are my faith roots and who are the people who populate my journey?

 A very lengthly title, but perhaps descriptive in its own way. It is useful to look
back at one's life to see how one becomes a self, to contemplate on those whose
tug has journeyed you forward into something outside of the self you perceive and
often do not fully know. It is this question that brings about this post. I want to
acknowledge some of those people that have helped or quietly assisted my journey.
Of course there are many - so I will concentrate on only a few, apologies to those
not named in advance.

How did I become  a person on a journey of faith?  I must look at early influences
and also those that pushed me aside. A faith journey must include both or there
can be no steps forward or backward.

I remember sitting next to my Mom. While others were mumbling their prayer
responses, Mom had  clarion, well enunciated responses. It made me both proud
and also attentive to the words. Earlier she had been a Sunday school teacher and
assistant in the formation process of young people's learning experience about their
faith. Dad was quiet, present and that is all I remember. He had come from a family
with various folks who had position in the church. His great uncle was an educator
and was headmaster for a boys' prep school before and during the Civil War near
Hagerstown Maryland, then on to Trinity College in Hartford as president and then
after only a year was called to be the first Bishop of the newly formed Diocese of
Western Pennsylvania, Dad's great grandfather has been an Episcopal priest in Ohio.
And the were a few others called to be clergy.

Mom's family had a few circuit preachers, also in Pennsylvania, in the Methodist tradition.
So church was important in my predessors' lives. Mom's Dad was a reader and studier
of faith, always trying to find the faith tradition that spoke to him. He died a Unitarian.
His wife remained unchurched at her death. My Dad's family was relentlessly Episcopalian.
So here I am - a cradle Episcopalian. I had a long desert time from college years until
I came to Gloucester in 1980. Friends and needs drew me back to try to find a place in
some faith tradition. The Episcopal church had changed a great deal and I felt at home
in a good way when I first traversed the great red doors and here I am today. I am and will
always be working on the whys, hows, and impossibilities of our faith. And I know that that
is OK and just part of the journey.

These are but words that lead me to try to state what I do believe at this moment in
time. A few years back I wrote a Credo as an exercise for a seminar group I was involved
with and I feel it is still valid as to what I believe just now:

A Credo

 

I believe in God, creator of all that is, seen and unseen,

known and not yet known, perceived and not yet

perceived.

 

I believe that a man named Jesus lived in this good

creation. He was a revolutionary in his time and called

all into an accounting. Because of his truth and action,

he was perceived as a revelation of God in human

life. His life presence was so strong that death could

not separate him from the remembrance of his

followers.

 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the unseen working of God

in creation. Like God, the Spirit is always creating and present in human time, engaging and acting in,

with and through us.

 

I believe that God revealed to us through Jesus, the

Christ, our human potential to fully love, forgive and

redeem humanity through relationship and community.

 

Thus in death, we see life; in birth, we see hope and possibility; in relationship, we see love as transformer

and creator.

 

Amen.

                                                                                              R O Britton

 

 

12-14-12

My stomach is disfunctional, My tear ducts are in overdrive, My mind can't
dispel images it thinks it can see. I am profoundly saddened and yet...somewhere
in my inner core there is a dim light of hope in the midst of this overwhelming
darkness. Its light dims and still there is an effort - immense in its being - compelling
itself forward. Then it fades, only to reimerge and try again.

Deep within my being is a wish for healing - not so much for myself, but for those
at the center of the Newtown experience. I am only an observer from afar. I am
someone who has travelled through that landscape on the way to somewhere
else. The geography is in my soul. I once lived near when I was very young. So it
feels close in an unexpected way. Is it the horror or something more immediate?

Whatever occurred there, it is here with me where I live and experience my
being. I, with an unexpected reluctance, attended a holiday concert in which
my god daughter and her siblings participated. I was full of apprehension to
enter an auditorium for this performance. The image of horror from so many
mass shootings was too near. I feared for the children and those of us attending.
I had "nighmares" last night and almost did not attend.

Then I said to myself  - NO - I will not let our terrorists at home keep
me disengaged from being with those I love, trying to create a celebration
for the holidays that bring some much love and happyness to everyone.

Music could be my healer, well, one of them - it usually is. So I dared
myself forward into the night. Beauty gave its gift to me. A small step taken.

But I can not let go of my mind's images and the sadness I feel for all
those so traumaticly affected.

So I ponder, I am forced into prayer - hoping to give all I feel to God
and feel some comfort and a desire to move on with hope surrounded
by people whom I love and who love me.

Life is......oh well - perhaps I just need more time to sit in the muddle.



R

Frustration

We have survived a critical election. Why are we spawning attacks on people who have
 contirbuted so much to our well being as a nation?  Are we saying that pants before
country are more important? What of the years of commitment and loyalty? What are we
so willing to throw away and why? I am not too French, but I am willing to question the
why of it all.

What is co-opting our reality? What sense of morality interupts our ability to see beyond
the trees and experience the forest? And why do we feel it so easy to dispose of those
whose majority contributions have been significant to our movement as a nation to a
better and safer place.

I just don't get  it. What do we achieve in the in the swamps of self indulgent non critical
thinking?

I am awash.....

I look for the hope without feeling its possibilities.

I am in the mire.

Where are you?

R

"dying""

I've been thinking a lot about it lately. This morning as I lie awake
in the pre-dawn moments before the light begins to shed its glow into
my room, I had a newer realisation about dying.

My Mom is rapidly approaching her 98th birthday and I have become
aware of a change in her being. She is physically well and in a religious
way - spiritually all right, but her spirit of continuing is flagging. Something
is becoming different. And like most offspring, I am probably late in
noticing this apparent change. We see what we want to see only too often.
There is an ebbing of life and involvement in the present and certainly
the future that is quite different.

This is most likely very normal, but it is disarming to this care-giver and
son. The question arises - how do I work with this? And in recognizing this,
how do I find a newer way of being supporting that is different from that
which I am already doing? Letting go and letting just be is very difficult.
We seek to seem always in control, but we are never in control. It is an illusion
that makes it all seem somehow easier,

How much do we look way ahead to our own latter days and moments? And
how will we - if aware - contend with it all? And who will be at hand to
help and guide us through that uncontrollable time?

It is a paradox.....And one I am just beginning to acknowledge and seek
meaning and response.


R

Olympics Opening Ceremony

What is it about this gathering of nations every four years that captivates
us so?  Is it our inner hope that we can come together and celebrate a
oneness amidst our differences in the pureness of competition? So much
is put forward in the name of nationalism, but it seems to me that this is put
aside by the individual participants who see something greater in this
competition, Is there a message we choose not to see?

I am in awe of the parade of participants marching in such joy behind their
flag of nation. It is not about the hope of winning but only the chance of
participation and representing the homeland. So often we miss this in
the miasma of the expectation of national accomplishment. In this we
miss the reason for such games.

If we lose the promise and reason for gathering for this event, then we lose
the hope and wonder of this kind of gathering. Perhaps we need to  put aside
the winning and re-look at why we come together to do this in the first
place.

I will hold this in the center of my thoughts as I tune into the competitions.


R.

Der Ring - Some Thoughts

What is it about this 19 hour epic opera over four evenings that
holds us in such wonder and questioning? I find that hearing some tidbit
opens new thoughts, continues to challenge me and renews something
deep within my soul. Every new production finds something new to explore
and say - even when we disagree with the director's concept, It is indeed
very rich and like most great classic stage works, continually opens new
possibilities and new interpretations and ways to open new meaning.

My quick reference is to the yearly cycle of the church looking at
Holy Week and its events. We re-live them each year and often find
new and deeper meaning and also often just re-hear the story and find
unfulfilled wonder. So it is with the Ring.

It is because myth is so human and invites us to participate in the saga. Story
can be very powerful and redemption lies in our ability to be open and yet
again truly open. Story can transcend time and music more than assist us
in this endeavor.

And so I live into the characters' story. Their feelings are our feelings and the
true response in ourselves is what makes the universality of it allow our response
to be one  based in our own reality. I could discuss the things individually in the
saga that make me feel this way, but the road is one of personal discovery and all
I can ask is that you enter these possibilities for yourself and your own journey. It
is a road worth taking. Time is relative, so the choice is to begin now or perhaps
a little later. With great art, it is being present in the moment that that creates
the possibility.

Begin.

Experience.

And be open to new realizations and possibilities.

It is a lifelong journey without regret.


R

My Marsh Egrets

Funny how that which is beautiful and that we observe becomes a possession.
I live in an auspicious place. I am nestled on two sides by the salt water marsh
and the fresh water marsh. Wildlife abounds, especially the birds. I awake
to a symphony of sound filled with bird calls and chatter. My home affords
the view of the rising sun from my bedside. I take full advantage of this gift.

But the ownership of which I speak is of certain bird life which adorns my
marsh. My spiritual harbinger of spring lies in the arrival of ducks and most
especially of the white egrets. In another post I have spoken of the ducks and
their raising of their young - swimming lessons and survival awareness.

But the egrets hold a very special place in my heart and soul. I feel Godde is
present and beckoning to me when they are present. I love to watch them as
they feed, as they fly in and out, as they pose watchfully and observe all there
is to see. In this we share an unspoken affinity.

Today was somewhat different. Through the growing and ever masking
marsh grass, I spied a white presence. I rushed to my upper floor porch with
binoculars in hand and found one of "my" egrets on a feeding mission in
the still waters. Then my eye spotted something white in a tree several yards
from my feeding friend. To date I had never seen one of "my" egrets perched
in  tree, but today, one was perched on high preening itself in all its beautiful
glory. I could only sigh and watch.

My feeding egret was soon spooked and drawn to flight. Later I spotted it too,
in the same tree as the other egret. On the wall of my family room hangs
a wonderful watercolor painting by my dear sister-in-law of several
marsh egrets, some in the water, some on the sidelines and other in the
trees. So today's life imitated this artist's inspiration.

I felt a spirtual moment in which all came together in a newer way. It was
fleeting as most spiritual moments are, but deeply realized and in some
way present in a sustaining way.

As the seasons come and go - so do my egrets. It is as wonder filled as the
color changes of autumn, ever changing, ever new and ever cloaked in a
glory of wonder.

Ah...................


R

Spiritual Ruminations

Two of my dearest friends are on pilgrimage in Israel. My hope is that the depth
of experience I felt when I was there on pilgrimage in 1994 will be theirs as well.
It may well be more, but it is of an interior realization. The images and landscapes
are still a deeply felt part of my being - life long present and ever re-newing in
their personal journeying and awakening.

Funny that this would be part of a different journey here. I was invited to be a
part of another dear friend's granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah recently. The grounds
were similar. The roots of spiritual experience had common experience. I had
a personal draw of mutually experienced spiritual self knowledge.

Perhaps it was the beloved psalms all our traditions share and the beauty of hearing
them chanted along with prayer. I felt I was in a continuum of shared worship and
liturgical wonder, I belonged in both. The mutuality of it all was both a comfort
and also something new - something trying to define itself in the core of my very
being. It was the oneness I felt, both home and not at home.

Then the reason we were there to be witnesses, a young person was declaring their
citizenship in the temple, the taking on of the adult responsibilities to the community
of faith and the expression that their study and proclamation of faith demanded that
their presence and willingness to enter a higher responsibility be noticed and accepted.

Christian confirmation should do the same thing, but it does not. The community
of faith and tradition in the temple and the support it gives from both family and wider
community is, in a trite way of expression, almost overwhelming to the witness
of yours truly. The assumption and taking on of responsibility in the place of faith
realized is what this ceremony is about. And it is bigger than the casual observer
generally notices or comprehends.

So, true this is to the pilgrim, walking the ancient steps and digging deep to realize
their own place in the bigger picture.

My wonder blooms. My appreciation for rites and their possibilities grows. And
my faith journey tugs my soul into the realm of re-discovery.

R

The Quartet

I recently attending a very good friend's granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah in North
Carolina. It was a truly spiritual experience for me in many ways. But ultimately
it was the people who dominated the blessing I felt.

My dear friend and I could be a duet - endlessly and continually creating new
tunes, reprising old ones and always developing new themes and creating new
textures and melodies. Into this duet a trio reconstituted itself returning to beloved
music and favorite songs. But the trio was emboldened into a quartet with the presence
of the trio's third person's marriage partner who brought new depth and melody
to the music we created in our intertwined relationships. With four songs inter playing,
the possibilities seemed endless until the final denouement.

Others joined this basic quartet as the events unfolded in ceremony and celebration. And
a new symphony of delight and mutuality of expression made its presence known. Life
can be music when ears are opened and hearts freely express their true feelings.

And this is a mitzvah - a blessing - so deeply experienced that the core of one's
being is forever altered.


R

Marsh Sounds at Dawn

Those of us who live near the marshes are blessed by the delightful cacophony of sounds
in the early morning hours emanating from our natural surroundings. Often I have been on
the telly and my callers have asked - just where are you? I think of it as the Serengeti
experience. It is a symphony of sound that never becomes ordinary. It is a  multifaceted
and evolving series and clusters of beautiful sound.

Near six this morning, something quite different occurred. Of late I have had a pair of
ducks quacking and splashing in the tepid waters defining my fresh water marsh. And
their little ducklings have been seen taking their early morning swimming lessons. When
one sees these things, there is an ownership and unexpressed responsibility for their mere
presence.

However, this morning's breaking light was disturbed by the frantic quacking of the
mallard. When ducks fly in there is a certain sound to the splash. Today there was not
only wild splashing but terrified quacking. I arose from my slumber and looked out
from the security of my upper story porch to see what was the matter. Both the male and
the female were swimming erratically in circles, quacking in a disturbing manner
and the little ducklings were trying to stay near the mother. What was going on?

Then from the reeds emerged in a great series of splashes, a coyote on the hunt. I
felt I lived in a quiet, unassuming place where the struggle for existence of the
"lower" predators did not interface. Not so. I wanted to scream to save my newest
friends - the ducks - but could not raise a voice. And would that have been enough to
deter the coyote anyway? So, I took my binos to see what might be happening at
a closer range, only to discover that indeed it was a coyote and that the mallard male
was doing everything to lead the coyote away from his family, quacking to distract
the maneuver and flying off only to return to begin the distraction again and again.

The coyote arched his back to pounce and attain his prey, but seemingly failed.
The other birds chirped and flew in panic about the scene, commenting on the
danger to their fellow mates.  Then all seemed to quiet. Were my ducks safe and the
predator quelled? I know not. My deeper hope is that the morrow will come and I
will hear the playful splashes of my little duck family and that the coyote will
have moved on to more tempting and less allusive prey.

The possibility of this violence in my backyard was alarming, and my inability to
intervene left me feeling helpless. Yes, it is just nature doing its natural thing, but
the question comes to mind - if I were in a similar situation with my fellow humans -
would I have the courage to intervene? Would I be frozen in inaction? And if so......
what would that say about me? What about you?



R

Chasing Goblins

Families are tough. We think all is copacetic, but there are always
unexpressed undercurrents. What do we do about them and more
to the point, what can we do about them? The dysfunctionalality of
family relationships is ever present. And more often than not - totally
undealt with. No one is brave enough or hopeful enough to feel
that they might be effective  in bringing about restoration and
reconciliation. So we quietly, with great trepidation, move
delicately forward and in so doing - do not really move any where
at all. We are stuck.

This is not abnormal, and so - we tip toe onward, unable or more often
than not unwilling - fearfully - to attempt to face the hard work
of mutual understanding. And in so doing we become frozen in our
unwillingness to face the very things that bring us to dysfunction.

I don't know why this is on my mind just now - well actually I do,
but movement is not mine to make and so I feel  a deep degree
of frustration and disconnect.

When family parties can not face the deeply embedded issues
that haunt and cause separation because they can not acknowledge
or "remember" what the root causes are, where is one to begin to
offer a means of healing?

So we remain frozen in the inability to choose healing and change.
We are stuck with the choice of doing nothing and therefore denying
the possibility of new life.

The pointlessness of this choice leaves me in a place of maddening
frustration. It is cruel and not in any way what I believe is what we
are called to be. When we can not choose to effect change, we end up
choosing the status quo and that disallows any potential for reconciliation
or/and forgiveness.


R

What?

I come into some kind of consciousness. I find that I am not alone.
There is a beautiful body next to me. I do not know who it is. I am
unaware of where I am. I can not speak words. The world is not
in control.

I think I am in Boston - near the Common. I rise and enter the world with this
this person at my side. We wander out into a world that is totally empty.
Suddenly, a wind stirs and grows and out of nowhere people enter the
reality. I lose the person I am with.. I wander on.

I am alone and in an unknown world, but yet - in an odd way - still familiar.
Where do I go. Where is refuge? I seem to feel an old hotel is near. Do I have
the resources to stay there? Then, I can not find it. I am in an arcade of shops,
glassed in and very unfamiliar. I flee outside as it appears that it is closing
time and the electrics tell me it is time to move on.

Where do I go? Outside the warm clear day dissolves into bizarre clouds. And
dark clouds emerge from nowhere. Rain begins to sprinkle and I pull this strange
overcoat up over my head. Rain darkens and spreads over me with huge intensity.
I walk on and walk and walk and walk.

The rain turns into snow and I trudge onward. It is the only choice. Somehow,
I find a store front that is open and I enter. There are people there who are
welcoming folks from the reality outside. It is very unfamiliar. But I stay.

Who are these people and why am I here and what is to be? Names are
taken and an unexpressed invitation is present to stay the night for a very small fee.
Few words are spoken, but it seems safe. I stay under my first name only.

I am at risk, but options are few.

Then.......I wake. Was this only a dream? If so or if not I am shaken..............




R

Ministry in the Choir

Approximately 55 years ago I had my debut in the children's choir of
St. Paul's Episcopal Church in the very small town of Sidney, New York.
It was a short lived experience which began in Advent. Being liturgically
unschooled, I do not remember how long it lasted and whether confirmation
occurred before or after my voice changed, I only remember being totally
terrified of the minister. To this day I do not remember the reason for the
terror, but it was real to this shy child of so long ago.

After my voice changed my older and only brother said to me that
my voice was of a low grade "Broadway" style. After that I only
sang in the shower or when I was by myself! In high school I was
only once cast in a musical - and that was in a speaking role. I tended
to be cast in more dramatic roles with the "drama" club.  College brought
me opportunities in the chorus - summer stock also chorus plus some
bad boy roles in children's theatre. But I am digressing.

Fifty years later, I am now singing in the adult choir at St. John's
Episcopal Church in Gloucester, Mass. My boy soprano has become
a bass. My nickname to some is Basil. I am retired and work no
longer holds me back from singing in the choir. It has been a
journey in itself.

Here  are a few things I have noticed. When I sang as a member
of the congregation, I was loud on my good notes and down the
octave when it got "too high."  In the choir I have rediscovered
my falsetto and love to display my deep voice notes. But singing
in a choir means one must try to sing with others and be of one
voice. It is hard work and demands much concentration. The rewards
are the few times when you know that all has come together and the
many sing as one.

But the best of it all is the community one feels and the acceptance of
giving what one has to the whole. We are all imperfect and we all have
some gifts, but ego is set aside and the whole is always more important
than the part. It is a unique expression of the Christian community and
as Paul so aptly put it - we are all individually parts necessary for the
whole body to find its expression. Slight paraphrase.

There is a deep joy in the pursuit of music making. It takes faith and
the willingness to humbly offer what one has to the whole. And in that,
it is a microcosm and model of the true Christian community.

I remember a time in summer stock when the company was offering
"The King and I" when after "We Kiss in a Shadow"  the actors
portraying Tuptim and Lun Tha came off the stage and knew that
their singing was only a millimeter short of perfect. And that is what
our choir and anyone who sings dares to attain. It is the most rewarding
possibility to blend text and music so completely that the voice transcends
its limitations and soars joining spirit and expression to new heights.

It is  task that is both bewildering in its responsibility and a source of
wonderment when is coalesces into a wholeness that not only lifts
the singers to a new level - but arouses or awakens the spiritual in the
ears and hearts of the listeners.

And that is why it is ministry.




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Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday

I am trying to be honest with my quest this particular Holy Week.
The double edged sword of today's liturgy always catches me up
a little short. The joy of the remembrance of Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem
verses the sudden turn acknowledging what comes after - death and
the hope of the resurrection. Disturbing, yet hope-filled, we look into
the dark parts of our journey and so - into our own lives.

Today, the weather being with us, we began our journey into this week
in the dazzling brightness of morning on Cape Ann before the great
red doors of our parish home. We were temporarily blinded by the light
as we entered into our worship space and too soon, looked deeply
inward at the week ahead. I read the Gospel story from Mark and as
so often before, was spent by the drama and the words that speak it.

From great joy to cavernous darkness in so short a space of time -
how do we try to comprehend all of this. How do we lift ourselves
up into the days ahead. Palm Sunday has always been a challenge
to me. This liturgy just bakes my senses and leaves me wanting
Easter's hope and light to rescue me. But also I realize that I need
the time of the entire week to watch, wait and ingest the story. No
matter how many times I experience it, I find I hunger to do it all
again, hoping to find something new, something to hang onto that
will enlighten me.

It is really tough stuff. And as of this night, I am still wondering how
this year's journey will pan out. So I helplessly wait for the clock to
tick and time slowly pass as I try to yet again to understand the power
of this story and where I stand in it.


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