ODDS & ENDS IV—DON’T TELL THE OTHERS [W, 8-11-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

In his book about driving a school bus for 15 years in retirement, old college friend Bob Parsons quotes Garrison Keillor when he was asked if Lake Wobegon actually exists: “Yes, it does. It’s Minnesota that doesn’t actually exist.”

Daughter Katie Kennedy is upset by the deplorable parenting today. “They aren’t teaching their children how to make a prank call right. We had one today at the library. They said there was a dead rabbit in the restroom. I knew it was a prank because our cleaning lady hardly ever leaves dead rabbits in the restroom.”

My niece, Kira Vermond, the great Canadian writer, has been staying on vacation in the Monsieur Jean Hotel in Quebec. She says there is a machine in the lobby where, when you press a button, a short story pops out!

[From my poetry journal for 8-4-21]

They say to trust the moment

Which is, I think,

The same as trusting God

For if God is here at all

It is not in the minutes

Ticking time away

Or the movements

God’s unknown actions passing

But in the moments

When time stands down

When God is

The still point

In the turning world

 

Helen looked up from her crossword puzzle at the TV screen and was not surprised to see a baseball game featuring the Cincinnati Reds. “The Pirates… isn’t that the team we saw the Reds play on our honeymoon?” [I was always a romantic.] “Yes, dear,” I said. “Just think," she said, "the players on the screen now, they weren’t even born at the time of our honeymoon game… wait, their fathers weren’t even born then…” That kind of puts age into perspective. [BTW, in that honeymoon game, we saw the Reds hand Pirates’ pitcher, Elroy Face, his only loss that year, when he went 19-1.]

Author and former CIA operative, Cindy Otis, wonders how some people are able to believe that the pandemic is a hoax and also a sign of the second coming of Jesus.

We have a friend who has twice cancelled social events because some of the guests refused to get vaccinated. That is necessary for all of us to do, I think, both as a safety precaution and as a witness.

I cringe a bit when someone follows the Bible reading in worship with “This is the word of God.” Unless it’s the Gospel reading; that IS the Word of God, because for Christians, Christ is the Word, God speaking to us. But what about some Hebrew Bible pericope where the Israelites are told by God to go into some non-Hebrew village and kill everybody there, including the children. Is THAT the Word of God? Just because it’s in the Bible? That’s how right-wing so-called “evangelicals” justify all sorts of evil—It’s in the Bible! I’ve always used, after reading scripture in worship, “May God bless to our understanding this reading from the scripture.” I like that better than calling it “the word of God.”

I look at the obits each day in three different newspapers online. I like to see the photos of people who have “gone to their reward,” and read about their lives. So often, I feel sorrow at their passing, even though I did not know them, because they look happy, or thoughtful, or, ironically, full of life. I think “the communion of saints” includes far more folks than I know.

When she was a nun, scholar Karen Armstrong went to her mother superior and said, “I’m sorry, but so much of what we say we believe is just wrong.” Mother Superior replied, “I know, but don’t tell the others.”

John Robert McFarland