“Grandiose people cannot create peace.”
~~~ Richard Rohr
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Category: religious/spiritual
living in Zootopia?
Given that the movie Zootopia came out in the spring when we were busy dealing with Grandma’s death, I saw it for the first time recently in our local late-run movie theater. I found a number of uncomfortable parallels about racism, sexism, prejudice, jumping to often unwarranted conclusions, and fear and fear-mongering.
I feel like I am living in the midst of those things.
After the shootings in Baton Rouge yesterday, the public officials in Louisiana tried to quell rumors and pleaded for calm. President Obama then reiterated his calls for civility and for toning down divisive rhetoric, especially important as we enter two weeks of political conventions.
We need to pull together as community, as a nation, and as citizens of the world.
I am adding my voice to this effort, as I tried to do in this recent post.
I admit to being disheartened by those who are publicly blaming President Obama for the deaths of the police officers, following years of hateful rhetoric that has so many not only questioning our civic institutions’ legitimacy but also falling into violent extremism, hate speech, fear, mistrust, and/or hyper-individualism.
We are better than this.
We have brains that can gather facts and reach reasonable conclusions from them.
We have hearts to love others and to move us to care for them.
We have bodies that enable us to interact with our loved ones and for the common good.
We must not allow ourselves to be bullied, misled, or blinded by hatred or fear.
We need each other.
We are connected to each other.
We must respect each other’s human dignity.
Never forget.
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waking up to more violence
The level of violence in the United States and in the world was already much too high.
And then, there was this week.
It’s too much to bear.
Yet, we must go on.
But not with violence.
Not with vengeance.
We need to stop to reflect, to examine our problems as a society, to consider how to act with greater justice, mercy, peace, and love, to put the best solutions into practice, to uphold the dignity of each person and protect their safety.
We are all wounded, which makes us vulnerable.
Many want to repay violence with violence, but that is what has gotten us into our current untenable position.
The way of non-violence is not easy, but what has the way of violence gotten us?
I wish there was a way to magically draw us into harmonious communities, but there isn’t.
All I can do is look to my own thoughts and heart and keep them focused on positive change, not violence and vengeance.
And I can beg you to do the same.
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Words of love from the Binghamton vigil
I am honored to share the blog post of my friend, Rev. Pat Raube, which includes her remarks at last night’s vigil in Binghamton for the victims of Orlando’s Pulse.
A taste of what Pat said: “At the same time, for you, for me, for each of us: I offer you what my faith tells me to be true: that Love, a love greater than any of us is capable of on our own, created us, each of us, and made us mysterious, and beautiful and perfect, just as we are.”
Please visit her blog here: https://swimmerinthefount.blogspot.com/2016/06/binghamton-responds-to-orlando-fl-mass.html to read the rest of the post and see some photos from the vigil.
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more death
People who have been reading my blog this spring know that we have been dealing with a number of deaths. My mother-in-law. A long-time retired pastor. My father’s last sibling. My friend K.
And now, the whole United States is mourning the deaths of dozens of people and sending thoughts and prayers to dozens more who were injured after being shot in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida in the early morning hours.
It isn’t known if the club was targeted because it serves the gay community or if it was just a random choice by the attacker, who was killed when police broke in about three hours after the shooting started in order to free hostages.
Given that the attack has instilled terror, I will call it terrorism.
Although this will be the worst mass shooting in United States history, in terms of the highest number of victims, I am sad to say that I doubt it will bring about any changes in law or public policy.
An assault rifle was used by the murderer. It’s why he was able to kill and injure so many people so quickly. Still, I don’t think Congress will pass an assault weapons ban. They will just trot out their old platitudes – “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” – overlooking the fact that a person with an assault rifle can kill and wound many people very quickly. “More people should be armed to deter or stop attackers.” – ignoring that a trained, armed off-duty police officer was on the scene, providing security for the club, but he could not stop the attack. “Any restriction on guns is unacceptable.” – which is probably believed in Florida because it doesn’t even require licenses or registration to buy firearms. “We shouldn’t deal with legislation when people are mourning.” – which is the excuse to not deal with it ever.
Orlando joins the long list of mass shootings in the United States. It will probably even join the short list of the shootings that get pulled out for comparison’s sake every time another egregious act occurs.
Living near Binghamton, New York, I have mixed feelings about how mass shootings get listed and compared. I have written about the ACA shooting here; an article from vocativ calls it “the deadliest mass shooting everyone forgot.”
Every mass shooting has its own hurts, sorrows, and repercussions which affect people for years.
So does any shooting.
But mass shootings affect not only people who are close to the victims or locality where they occur but also those of us who are far away.
This morning at church with T beside me, I couldn’t help but cry over so much death and injury.
So much to bear…
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adding up
This has been a spring of losses and endings and changes.
It’s getting to be a lot to handle at once.
The most difficult was Grandma’s death on March 22nd, just as spring began. We have been grateful for the support of family and friends and are especially grateful for the committal service that we were able to celebrate last week. There will continue to be a lot of work in the coming months – emotional work, certainly, but also physical work as we deal with the rest of the things she left behind and with decisions and paperwork that come with settling her financial affairs.
The week before Grandma’s committal, T and I were singing at the funeral of Father James, a loss that brings echoes of the loss of our parish years ago.
And just after we returned from the committal, we received news of the death of Paco’s only remaining sibling after years of decline with Alzheimer’s disease. He was the third of Paco’s siblings to die from Alzheimer’s as their father had; three other siblings died too young to have developed it. At 91, with no symptoms, Paco is well beyond the age when any of his affected family members developed them. Still, it is bittersweet to have lost all of his brothers and sisters.
There are other changes happening, too, with T moving home to job search after finishing her master’s degree and with continuing family medical issues.
Although it is difficult and stressful, I am okay.
Most of the time.
I do rely on family and friends for support. Recently, when I was feeling overwhelmed, I called my college roommate, just to talk things through. It helps so much. Another thing for which to be grateful.
Eleven years ago, I experienced another spring of loss – the death of my friend Angie, the loss of our long-time parish, and the final months of my father-in-law’s battle with cancer. The aftermath of these losses has continued through the following years and this spring’s losses echo and intensify them in complex ways.
I know that, despite the pain and difficulties, there is the opportunity to grow in wisdom, compassion, and strength in response.
I hope to do that.
Meanwhile, I am trying to be supportive of others and gentle with myself. I am trying not to feel guilty about all the things I am not doing as I would like, including blogging and poetry.
Personal growth can only help my poetry.
It’s possible that my blogging practice may evolve, too. I am spending nearly all my blogging time for now on writing. It feels strange not to be spending hours reading and commenting, but limits of time and brainpower make that the way things have to be. I had thought this would be a short-term mode of operation, but am discovering that this constellation of losses and new responsibilities is likely to cause some lasting re-organization of time, effort, and priorities.
I don’t know where the path will lead or how many other detours or derailments are in store. I remain profoundly grateful to all who are accompanying me along the way, whether personally or digitally.
I would be adrift without you.
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final gathering
Yesterday, we reached another milestone in our process of saying good-bye to Grandma, gathering together with extended family for a graveside committal service back in Grandma’s hometown in Massachusetts, where her ashes would be laid to rest beside Grandpa’s in a plot that had been a wedding gift to them in 1953.
Grandma had been a member of the First Congregational Church since she was a girl and had retained her membership from afar over the last 6+ years she lived in a senior community near us. She had not wanted to have a wake and funeral, preferring instead the simplicity of a graveside service of her cremains. This gave us the ability to set a date well in advance, allowing travel plans to be made for the more far-flung relatives, including a cousin from Washington State.
This also afforded the opportunity to gather all four grandchildren, working around college and graduate school commencements. It was especially important to arrange flights for our elder daughter E and her spouse L, who were able to stop on the East Coast while flying home to Honolulu from visiting L’s family in London. It also gave E the opportunity to introduce L to our Massachusetts/Vermont extended family and B and I to show him where we had grown up, met in high school, and fallen in love.
As the family member with the most liturgical planning experience, I took on the duties of making arrangements for the service and for getting the information out to the relatives. We were blessed to have Rev. Carolyn of First Congregational preside for the service. Though she had never met Grandma, having come to pastor the church after Grandma had already moved out near us, she thoughtfully wove together some favorite Scripture passages, including psalm 121 and 1Corinthians 13, with references to Grandma’s life as a mother and grandmother, aunt, cousin, teacher, friend, and community member.
To close the service, I had asked our daughters E and T and son-in-law L to sing the traditional round, “Dona Nobis Pacem”(grant us peace). E and L have degrees in music and T is a long-time choral singer, including collegiate level. Everyone so appreciated the lovely sound of their voices, singing Grandma off to rest. I had forgotten that their relatives had not heard E and T sing since Grandpa’s memorial service almost eleven years ago; they were struck by how beautifully our family trio sings.
We were also blessed with a gloriously sunny, warm-but-not-hot morning for the service. Given the time of year and outdoor location, we had decided to forgo men in suitcoats and women in dark dresses for more spring-time clothes. I’m sure Grandma would have appreciated the floral prints and lace-accented tops we wore, which complemented the multicolor carnations we had ordered from her favorite florist shop.
After the service, we gathered for lunch at a favorite local restaurant. We had reserved a private room and had three tables of six, which made conversation easy. Although the reason we were together was sad, we appreciated the opportunity to catch up with family that we had not seen often in recent years. I was especially grateful for our daughters to spend time with their first cousins; given that their geographic distribution is about to be New York, West Virginia, Arizona, and Hawai’i ,they may not see each other together for years.
I’m sure Grandma would have been pleased and proud to see them all sitting together, chatting about their now-adult lives, even though she would still think of them as the children they once were.
Rest in peace, Grandma.
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the legacy of Father James
In my last post, I wrote about a long-time, retired pastor who was near death. Father James died Friday night and these past few days have been about preparing and celebrating the funeral rites.
Leading those efforts has been Father James’s nephew, Father Tim, and Father James’s long-time music director Nancy. Father James served at Blessed Sacrament church from 1978 through his retirement in 2003. He hired Nancy early on, shortly after she graduated from university with her music degree, and they developed a true partnership and deep friendship that lasted through his retirement years.
They both loved liturgy and taught me that thoughtful, prayerful planning was the key to vibrant worship. I served on liturgy committee and in music ministry for many years and learned so much from them both. My role in the funeral planning was to write the universal prayer, which is a set of petitions which closes the liturgy of the word, for both the vigil service and the funeral mass.
Along with my daughter T, I joined the 40-voice choir, which was assembled from the choirs of Father Tim’s church, Nancy’s current church, Father James’s boyhood church where the funeral was being held, and some other former Blessed Sacrament music ministry alumni. (A number of the other choir members had also sung at Blessed Sacrament when Father James was there.) We rehearsed for two and a half hours Sunday night to be ready for the two services.
When a priest dies, he lies in state in the church, clothed in his priestly vestments. Father James had chosen white vestments with a multi-colored trim which, if I recall correctly, had been a gift from the parish for his 40th ordination anniversary. For three hours before the vigil service, Father Tim along with Father James’s nieces and other nephews received condolences from hundreds of friends and former parishioners.
We then held a vigil service with Scripture readings and prayers which focused on service. There were three homilists, one a priest-friend, who offered stories of Father James as a friend and traveling companion; one a niece, who told of growing up with with three priest-uncles, Father James and his two older brothers; and a Blessed Sacrament parishioner-friend, who told of the strong bonds of love and friendship that Father James built among us. His words reflected beautifully my own experience at Blessed Sacrament, what that parish family meant and continues to mean to me. (Unfortunately, for reasons too complex to relate here, the Blessed Sacrament community that we knew no longer exists as a parish.)
The next morning was the funeral liturgy. Nancy played prelude music on the organ, followed by two choral pieces. During the opening hymn, the many priests and deacons in attendance, all dressed in white, processed to their places, followed by the concelebrating priests, including Father Tim, and finally the bishop, who was the presider for the funeral mass.
The readings centered around Eucharist and included a gospel passage that was close to Father James’s heart and ministry, the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35). Father Tim gave an inspiring homily, which was both intimate and encompassing. Not only had Father Tim had the example of his uncle Father James before him all his life but he had also been in residence with him at Blessed Sacrament for nine years when he was serving as chaplain at a nearby hospital, during which he assisted with weekend and special liturgies and shared homilist duties.
I was especially moved when Father Tim spoke about how special the Blessed Sacrament community was in the twenty-eight years of Father James’s pastorate, how Father James drew people together and encouraged them to develop and share their talents, how important liturgy was to him as the work of the people, and how extraordinary the partnership was between Father James and Nancy, resulting in eight choirs and a congregation that actively and joyfully participated in both spoken and sung prayer, empowering them to go out and serve others. He reminded us that it is up to those of us who were part of that community to continue to carry on the good works, friendship, love, and caring to others.
For T and me to be singing in the choir for the services was a special blessing. While Blessed Sacrament had been a modern renovated building with the music ministry in the front of the church, the church where we were gathered is one of the oldest in our area with a choir loft and a pipe organ. Being in the loft gave us a good view of the church and a bit of space from the emotions of the family. It also gave us the best advantage of the acoustics.
Some people who were unfamiliar with Nancy’s skills had expressed reservations about the choir not being amplified, but, under Nancy’s guidance, we did not need microphones to be heard and understood. They were also afraid that the congregation wouldn’t sing, but we were confident that they would – and they did. Many people were former Blessed Sacrament parishioners who were used to singing hymns and responses. Moreover, what many Catholics don’t realize is that it is not a choir or cantor that leads the singing, it is the organ. Nancy is a wonderful organist, who knows how to register the organ effectively and to pace and phrase in such a way as to lead the congregation to confidently sing the hymns and prayers.
Nancy also is the best liturgist of any Catholic church musician that I know. The hymns beautifully reflected the Scripture readings that had been chosen for the services. People commented afterward about how thoughtfully the music enhanced the service.
I know that Father James would be pleased with the vigil and funeral mass that we celebrated before laying him to rest.
With a wink, he would say it was because he had taught us how…which he did, by word and example.
As Father Tim reminded us, it is up to us to carry on, loving and serving one another, as Father James did.
May he rest in peace and may perpetual light shine upon him.
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SoCS: heartbreaking news
I am writing this on Friday as we await news on a former pastor, Father James.
He is in a coma in ICU and expected to die soon.
The news is heartbreaking.
I am not heartbroken for him, as he will be released from suffering and dwelling in God who is Eternal Love.
I am heartbroken for his family and friends and all his former parishioners who will miss his care, concern, sense of humor, and gentleness. Although he was retired, he said Mass at local parishes. Just in the last few weeks, I attended a couple of Masses at which he presided.
He was the pastor of a church I attended for over twenty years. He was the pastor for both of my daughters’ baptisms and first communions, as well as my elder daughter’s confirmation. I served on liturgy committee for him for many years, as well as participating in music ministry with my daughters.
After he retired, our parish, which I had known as a welcoming home, ran into major difficulties and eventually disintegrated. That is still heartbreaking.
It is also heartbreaking that the church building that we had renovated under his leadership is no longer a Catholic church. After being damaged in a second major flood, it was closed and, years later, sold to a nearby Christian college. They have recently re-opened it as their chapel, but it is no longer the place we built together. Even the stained glass windows had been removed.
We will lay him to rest from his boyhood church, though, which is fitting. That church is also the mother church in our area, meaning it is the oldest congregation.
One of his favorite Bible verses was from Micah 6:8: “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
And he showed us how to do that.
Another passage is also coming to mind for me, from Matthew 25:21: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
I am also thinking of a setting of the final commendation, which is a prayer at the end of Catholic funerals, that we used to sing in Resurrection Choir when Father James would be presiding at parish funerals. The setting was done by Ernest Sands and used this refrain: “May the choirs of angels come to greet you. May they speed you to paradise. May the Lord enfold you in His mercy. May you find eternal life.”
Amen.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “break/brake.” Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/05/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-2116/ .
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April 19
As everyone from Massachusetts knows, April 19th is the traditional date of Patriots’ Day. The date should also be familiar to everyone who had to memorize the opening of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” as the date of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolutionary War.
April 19th is also the date of my parents’ wedding anniversary.
This year was their 62nd!
Patriots’ Day was part of the reason they married on April 19th. They thought that my father would always get their anniversary off from work. They had not anticipated the Monday Holiday Bill, which moved many of the holidays from their traditional dates to the closest Monday, giving a long weekend from work, but obscuring the original meaning of the date.
The other reason they married on April 19 was that it was Easter Monday that year. In the Catholic tradition, weddings are not usually celebrated during Lent, so Easter Monday/Patriots’ Day seemed the perfect date to begin their life together.
Of course, given the complexities of life, no marriage could be perfect, but theirs has been a wonderful witness to what a marriage can be when each partner loves and looks out for the other.
Next month, B and I will celebrate our 34th anniversary. I hope and pray that we will be granted the longevity and love that has blessed my parents.
Maybe it will help that I take (mental) notes…
Joanne Corey 