Report on Mid-Week Service

Went to a comtemplative service this past Wed.

It was held at St. John's Episcopal the church I was confirmed in (May, 1968). St. John's is very close to my current house. It might be a little over a mile away. I have no doubt I could walk there in less than an hour.

The service was held in the "Lady Chapel", which is separated from the main chapel by a wall which does not quite go to the roof. The wall contains a columbarium. The space is very nice - just right for a sparsly attended mid-week service. Has 2-3 icons. There's something resembling a place mat on the altar - has picture of Christ & disciples at sea. Afraid I didn't get a good look at it.

I didn't know ahead of time that the service was "contemplative". I'd run into a member of the church last Sun who simply told me there was this mid-week service. Life had been somewhat stressfull through Wed, so a service seemed like a good idea.

The service was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. There were three other people in the chapel with me. Shortly before 5:30, a member of the altar guild came out and placed the chalice and host on a side table, then she lit the candles on the altar. A few minutes later, a bell rang. The congregation stood.

The bell was no doubt in the grand tradition of the sanctus bell - the origin of which was to let the congregation know that something important was about to happen. As you may know, the Catholic service was originally in Latin - which was by no means the "language of the people" in the Middle Ages. Most people were illiterate in Latin. The whole service was a great mystery.

So, when it was time for the congregation to do something - stand, kneel, etc - the priest would ring a bell. It was, in a sense, a way of saying "wake up".

Anyway, the priest read the service very slowly. He allowed long stretches of silence. He read the Epistle and Gospel slowly and deliberately.

A sermon normally follows the Gospel. The priest sat down. I wasn't sure what would happen - maybe a dialogue sermon. But he re-read a few lines from the Gospel, closed the book, set it to one side, and sat in silence.

This was the time for contemplation. Ironically, the Gospel appointed for Wednesday was the pericope which includes John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world". This is probably my least favorite verse in the New Testament, because of the way I believe it has been abused. But this was the verse used to lead us into contemplation.

I let go of my judgment concerning the verse and the ways I think it has been abused. I let go of the situation that had made the week unhappy and somewhat stressful. I released what resentments I was aware of.

I closed my eyes. I breathed. I focused on my "third eye". I aimed the arrows of my heart toward the divine, as the anonymous author of Cloud of Unknowing puts it.

I found I had dived in, like some deep sea diver.

There were some typical physical manifestations. They may be sign posts that one is on the right path, but they are not to be sought.

I suppose the only sign that really matters is how one lives his/her life after this time in contemplation.

My stress had been connected with a person at work. The problem was either in how she was communictaing with me, or with how I was hearing her. It was certainly clear that all I could do to ease the situation was maintain a level of emotional distance and to wear the perceived conflict as a loose garment.

Thursday morning, my co-worker greeted me with a neutral tone of voice, and asked how I was doing. I said I was better, and that was that. We had limited interaction after that, and it was not 100% what it would have been a month ago (we've historically been very friendly), but I didn't take it personally.

My goal is not to give my co-worker the cold shoulder. I suspect she is going through something in her personal life which is unconnected with me. If I am a part of any work-related problem, I don't think it likely it is but a very small part. My goal, then, is to give her some space.

Part of this started Wednesday afternoon, before I went to service. But the full fruits were realized Thursday. After I had dived into contemplation, and drank the living waters.

Friday's Cat

Friday's Cat

DJ takes a well-deserved break from bird watching.

This chair is in my bedroom, and is one of the Lady's favorite places to camp out. The afgan was a present from the mother of my first girlfriend - so it has followed me since high school.

Miami Mice

Hello, I'm here to tell you about an exciting new program coming to The CW. The name of the program is Miami Mice. That's Miam-ah Mice. My partner and I investigate cases of extreme rodent infestation in the bustling burg of Miam-ah, Oklahoma. That's "Miami Mice," Fridays at 8 p.m. Oklahoma time on The CW.

Idée d’jour

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces.
— Judity Viorst

She Inspects My Moonsmile

She’s observing the perspective of the sidewalk
to my sideways moonsmile. She’s got
alien pigtails and honorable horn rims.
She’s wearing drug counter perfume
and lavender jellies.
She’s drinking plum green tea.
She’s plumbed the depths of her heart.
She’s found the inner fountain.

She’s observing sidereal time.
She’s counting on the losses.
She’s wearing a fedora.
She’s not from Kansas.

This machine is not a war machine.
She is not a machine.
She is wonderfully and marvelously made.
This human is not programmed to self-destruct.
This human will not drown.
This human is not alone.
This human loves smiling.
This human loves walking with other humans.

These humans.
Oh, these humans, and their fountains.
Oh, these humans, and their infinite hearts.
Oh, these marvelous humans
who shine light in the darkness.

These humans will surround fascism
and convince it to surrender.
These humans will tempt hatred
to love itself to understanding.

She knows her wounds.
She can count her wounds.
She can love her wounds.
Her wounds teach her, night by night.

She climbs my moonsmile.
She paints my eyes.
She smoothes my forehead.
She parts my tender hair.
She practices patience at my earlobes.
She opens the secret spring
which feeds the fountain of my heart.

Idée d'jour

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
— Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Must Hear

Dear Mr. President, in which Pink asks a certain commander-in-chief to take a walk with her. Whether it is work-safe depends on whether your co-workers are among the ~38% who still think B*sh is doing a "heck of a job".

Idée d’jour

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.
— Sandra Carey

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle.

In the spirit of the esteemed Dr. Omed, here is some honeysuckle. It is growing on the north edge of my property.

Idée d’jour

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence.
— Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Take that, Georgie Porgie

Lost at Woods' Edge

Through these woods I once ran naked.
Under unfettered skies I spun beneath tree shadow.
My pale flesh was dappled
by early autumn sun.
Lost savage in public glade.
Pink ghost near the culvert seen.

I can see the ghost now,
running just past memory's limits.
My 9 year-old shade darting between trees,
between park and suburban homes,
between distant street & concrete culvert.

And I wonder if the ghost is true,
or a memory fragment,
or a dream.

The afternoons were Lone Ranger & Superman.
In the summer Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore
were my surrogate parents.

And breeze against bare skin was real.
Grass between bare toes was real.
Movement between dappled shadows was real.
More real than naps on thin plastic maps
or playground jeers or letters or
even thoughts.

I asked the trees what this poem wanted to be.
Alive, in the forest.
I asked the creek, thin shadow of the Canadian River,
what this poem wanted to be.
Laughing toward the ocean.
I asked the grass what this poem wants to be.
Growing to the sun.
I asked my ghostly dappled flesh
what this poem wants to be.
Alive, alive, alive.
Ignorant of history, forgetful of self,
lost, lost, lost.

Lost at woods' edge.
The poem as it appears in my Moleskine Notebook. Two bits unrelated to the poem have been whited out: my last name, and a friend's contact information.
This poem is a companion to other "memory" poems such as "The 34th Street Flood"

Magnetic Fib

Be
a
birthday
masterpiece:
always bloom, woman,
flower like love's summer season
[Photo taken Friday morning, April 14, the second day of Passover]

(Belated) Friday Five: Faves

[From RevGalBlogPals' esteemed Songbird.

1. fruit
   Strawberry
2. song
   Holly Cole's recording of "I Can See Clearly Now"
3. beverage
   Green Tea
4. shoes
   my faux Birkenstocks
5. flower
   Compass Rose

Jonah's "Fib"

I
was
swallowed
by a fish
this big — then I was
spit out three days later. Honest!

"Fib" is the name for a poetic form based on the Fibonacci sequence.

Quote d'jour

We must refuse to let [the OKC bombing] make sense – here, or anywhere else. We must steel ourselves against rationalizations and learned political analysis. We must hang on, as long as possible, to our sense of astonishment. Be astonished that ideology can make murder understandable. Be astonished that hatred can go unchecked until bodies burn. Let us not be misled by labels, as if calling someone a terrorist gives sense to madness.
— excerpt from a sermon by Rabbi Dan Shevitz of Emanuel Synagogue in Oklahoma City on the final day of Passover, three days after the bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995 [from the A Little Joy, A Little Oy calendar, © 2005 Andrews McMeel]

Recommended Reading

Dr. Omed's Flower War, a poem on the Aztec concept & practice. Not for the faint of heart.

Spidey Girl's Peter, Part Three. I'd like to see more of Peter's story. I've always wondered about transition from the impetuous "block head" protrayed in the Gospels to the more reasonable person portrayed in the Book of Acts. Just a thought.

Late Add:
The Anagrammed Bible

---

Clearly, this "Recommended Reading" list is becoming a semi-regular feature. Not filler, just things I sincerely believe will be of interest for folk who regularly visit this space.

Idée d’jour

The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does.
— Maurice Barres, novelist and politician (1862-1923)

Something About Two O'Clock

There's something about two o'clock.
Not sure what it is.
Somewhere, I have a quote from Scott Fitzgerald
to the effect that 4 a.m. is the dark night of the soul.
But this is 2.
Is this the hour God spoke to Samuel?
Should I rise from my bed
and say, "Speak Lord your servant is listening"?
I tried that.
Tried that at two a.m. Good Friday morning.
It was a chant: "I am listening, I am listening, I am listening."
Then, off course, I considered the fact
that I couldn't really be listening
while I was chanting.
The squirrel was lose in its cage.
What would God have with me?
No Samuel here.
I'm opinionated as hell, but surely no prophet.
So, hey God, what's up?

Maybe it's not God.
Maybe it's this intemperate April.
High hit 94° yesterday.
Record high, for the date.
But I've got the AC on (reluctantly).
I sleep atop the covers.

Maybe it's all my little ego dreams of fame & romance.
Like, I don't know, some editor will discover my blog
and ask me to write a book.
Maybe someone will hear me sing,
and offer me a recording contract.
Maybe the new girl at church
is the companion I seek.
Stuff like that.
I'm used to these ego dreams.
Sometimes I amuse myself by letting them play out,
like little movies projected on the inside of my forehead.
Other times, I look elsewhere.
Seek the Inner Light.
The thin place where my spirit meets the divine spirit.

Don't know what it is.
Try wearing myself out.
Try pushing myself right to ten.
Try not to —
Try to —
Doesn't matter.
I'm awake sometime between two and three.

So, God, if it is you, I'm ready for the message.
Heck, I'll probably do whatever it is you're asking of me.
Odds are pretty good.
I'm just tired of waking up at this hour.
I'm ready to sleep now.
Just tell me, in small words,
get it over with,
and let me sleep through through the night.

Idée d’jour

The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection... But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?
— Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

Idée d’jour

What do you mean, you "don't believe in homosexuality"? It's not like the Easter Bunny; your belief isn't necessary.
— Lea Delaria