It’s 63 degrees in New York and the breeze has that slight edge of chill that says enjoy the warmth of the last days of summer. I am sitting in a little park I was introduced to on my last trip here. It is beautiful and it sits in the shadow of the United Nations. I brought my coffee here this morning to sit for a few minutes so I could be reminded of the stillness all our souls need. Dear God, the wretchedness of the world on this day makes me shudder. The temptation to give into powerlessness is so enormous. My question today is simple: “how am I called, in this new place in my life, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God”? I am impatient to know the answer

I had done my weekly grocery shopping in Prattville and was driving home to Lowndesboro listening to public radio. I was more than a little amused because I was listening to really great classical music—something I never got to do in SoFla that had public radio that only broadcast talk shows. Here I was, driving alongside cotton fields listening to very sophisticated music. The show I was listening to was Performance Today that included a feature about a classical pianist who had performed at a trendy new club in New York called SubCulture. I tucked that name away and kept heading home at my slow, country pace.

I’m in New York for 3 days of pretty intense work and there’s something different about me. I sleep so well and am so much more rested than I’ve been since I began working for ECF that I got here with a bunch of energy.  AT the end of my work day, after having left my house at 4:20 AM to catch my flight into JFK, I was ready to party a bit. So in the Rosa version of it, I went clubbing in New York.

I jumped on the subway at Grand Central Station and went downtown to the Bleeker Street station; one of the station’s exits is literally at the doorstep of SubCulture.

Tonight, an indie group from Brooklyn,The Scarlet K was debuting so I sat in this incredibly intimate performance space, sipping on a cocktail that included proseco, homemade cucumber water and mint, and heard a marvelous, talented group get out there and just do it. Sarah Knight, the lead, was winsome, deep and joyful. She has southern roots and at one point, had the audience join her to sing Blessed Be The Ties That Bind in 4 parts a capella. Made the hair on your arms stand up kind beautiful.  The subway was packed, packed even at 10:00 PM, Grand Central Station teeming with people.  The contrast is stunning.  I love both parts of my life.

Off to bed with an intense 2 more days of work ahead.

At One of Our Storefront Services

I am sure there will be dozens, probably hundreds, of similar blog posts this night, mourning the death of Robin Williams. The news came at the end of a particularly sad day. This morning, Diana, who was one of the original founders of the Latino ministry in Fort Lauderdale I was so privileged to serve with, resigned from her position. The loss of her leadership is another hard blow to the most marginalized members of what was once a regional ministry that tried to embrace all kinds of diversity, including social class and power diversity. Like me, Diana has her rough edges and like me, she was always on a steep learning curve in the work of ministry.

As I was preparing to leave in the late Spring, we got word that the two teachers who had anchored the  literacy program that made such an enormous difference to a community on the edges, were unexpectedly not able to participate this summer. At that point, I thought it was the end of the ministry. Diana refused to believe that was so. With help, and with single-minded purpose, she put together a plan for the summer program. What happened was not a watered down version of the past. Perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of the summer was her ability to engage mothers of our community, many of whom have minimal schooling and who are used to seeing themselves as totally inadequate to helping their children succeed in school, so they very actively participated in their children’s summer learning activities.

I only got bits and pieces, small glimpses of what was happening, but it looked really amazing. The reading test scores for the 50 children who participated this summer were every bit as strong as previous years’ scores, maybe even stronger. The program was extended an additional 2 weeks. That additional time was resourced completely by the moms and was a learning celebration of the children’s country of origin cultures. Again, I have only seen bits and pieces. You just have to look at the children’s faces, and the see the pride in the postings that appeared on Facebook about all the ways in which 50 children’s lives were enriched by women who are taught they have no value, to see that something good had happened. Something very good.

I am enormously proud of the young woman I was fortunate to work with for 8 years. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, we had us some knock down-drag out fights along the way and we let each other down more than once. But we were working for a much larger purpose than our individual styles, preferences and needs and we always found our way back to what was most important: creating a space where children could learn and their moms could see, even if for only a moment, that not only did they have value, they were beloved children of God. Together we learned to be less judgmental of women in domestic violence situations and to try to find more creative ways of supporting them on a path to something better. Together we sobbed the day we found out that one had finally been killed by her partner. And with the rest of the El Centro, we ate lentejitas con arroz y maduro (lentils and rice with plantains) laughed so hard sometimes that our sides ached and the tears ran down our faces, and marveled at just how good life can be, even out there on the edges, where we did our work.

That very small, in some respects, insignificant chapter that we helped God write in those years is now over. Diana, like I, did ministry in a place where strong forces were at play that had a whole lot more say about the future than we did. I don’t whitewash the truth that my own limitations, my own failures as the priest of El Centro, also played into the reality that a day came when Diana found she could simply not continue to work in the situation that had evolved after my departure. I have come to the conviction that an essential part of my priesthood is carrying the weight of my own failures and I do so each and every day now, trying to learn from my mistakes.

I am also old enough to know there are no angels, no demons, in this story. It is just the way of life and I am far more comfortable than ever recognizing that some efforts will not get enough lift, will not find the legs necessary for long-term sustainability, no matter how noble their intent and effort. It once would have been tempting to parse out all the failure points, all the ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’s’.   Even a few months ago, the blame game would have beckoned seductively.

Not tonight. Robin Williams is dead of suicide, a brilliant, gentle, generous and fragile presence who was lent to the world for too short a time.   El Centro, as Diana, and Angel, and Pilar, and Daniel, Maria and Alex and Jaime and I thought it might be when we had soccer field, and storefront, and garden, and occasionally, “real” church Eucharists and sang “A La Huella” along with Mercedes Sosa at Advent, has almost completely spun out of existence. A young immigrant woman who worked hard to land a job with benefits has to start over professionally. I am sad and I am also fiercely glad that Diana and I were lent to a community and a community was lent to us for that brief and beautiful time. We were offered the gift of what felt like a day that flew by in the blink of an eye, and we somehow managed to “Carpe Diem”. What is there to regret about that?

Cards For Maria

I am back in Alabama with my two cats, my two dogs and a summer thunderstorm enlivening things outside my window. These are intense days.

Along with traveling to Tallahassee to be with Maria through her surgery, on Thursday and yesterday, I got several glimpses of a ministry that continues to spin into something very new and very different in Southeast Florida. That happens. A new priest gets to come into a parish and help a community discern the shape and direction of the work they will do together, unencumbered by the agenda of the previous priest. It is also way too early to know what that might look like and what shape that will take in the part of the ministries in Fort Lauderdale I was most directly involved in these past years. It’s just that the end of one chapter and the beginning of another brings pain that is carried not just by the priest who left, but by others as well. Until Sherod is completely out, retired from All Saints and gone from Ft Lauderdale, no matter how carefully I try to keep my boundaries up, no matter how much distance I’ve put between myself and that particular corner of life, I still catch enough glimpses to have to acknowledge that grief will continue to come knocking for a while longer.

I am also aware that this visit with Maria amplified the sense not of powerlessness, but of limits I wish I didn’t have to accept. Yesterday afternoon, I had a pretty tough go-round with the nursing staff at her residential program. When she was released from the hospital around noon, I was given a prescription for a narcotic painkiller and told explicitly that she could and should take it every 4-6 hours to stay ahead of the pain. Now, this has been the year of living medically and I know some things about pain management and the ins and outs of getting narcotic prescriptions filled. It’s complicated.

I also knew, as soon as I got that script, that I needed to bring pressure to bear on the system so the script would be filled promptly. Sure enough—at 2:45, it was still sitting around in the nursing station. The pharmacy that TDC uses for meds for its residents is in Panama City and getting it filled was going nowhere fast. I knew that by 3:30, Maria would more than likely be in considerable pain. So I jumped into the fray, asked for the prescription and went to the nearest Walgreens to get it filled.  When I got back, the nurses were in no hurry to make sure she took a pill, though you could see her pain and discomfort clearly. And in a condescending voice informed me that this was medicine to be used sparingly to avoid constipation.

You gotta be kidding me???!!!!   This mama about went down the nurses’ throats at that point. We worked it through and I was as diplomatic as possible since I understand only too well that in an institution, after a skirmish like this, the vulnerable are the ones who pay. I also understand that this precious child of mine is one of dozens the staff at TDC is responsible for, and the calculus of care, compassion and practicality is different of necessity. This morning Maria was well enough so I was able to drive her to our favorite breakfast spot, Bada Breakfast, so she could eat a whole bowl of oatmeal and bananas. But when we got back to TDC, she desperately wanted to climb back into the recliner she’s discovered. I tucked her new throw blanket around her, gave her one last blessing and kiss and forced myself out the door. It was brutal, driving away. It was brutal to say out loud that as good and privileged as my life is, it is also diminished in some very painful ways by the distance that now separates me from Maria, that I miss the “cotidianidad”—the daily-ness of having her in the same city—quite desperately.

So loss intertwined with loss—how do we ever get through it in these middle years? The four hour drive back home gave me time to reflect on that question. Right now, the answer is pretty straightforward. Yesterday made it manifest and clear to me. Maria’s doctor and his surgical nurse invited me into a small sitting room after the surgery to tell me how it had gone. They asked a bit about Maria and I was able to tell them, in broad brushstrokes, the story of our brave and wonderful girl. Literally, both of them teared up. Not only had they brought good news that the growth was not malignant–they gave me some of their precious time and in doing that allowed Maria and me to be something more than a medical record.

In the afternoon, when I went to Walgreens to get the pain medicine, the pharmacist asked for insurance information. I explained very briefly what the situation was and said I would pay for the medicine myself. She said it would take about 15 minutes to fill the script but she actually only took 5 minutes. And told me that given the circumstances, the best she could do was give me a 50% discount. I hadn’t expected any discount at all, and again, it was the sheer kindness of a stranger that meant so much.

Later in the afternoon, two of Maria’s housemates, gentle, quite profoundly disabled, came into the small room where Maria and I were hanging out. Sarah and Shawn had made my girl get well cards. They were bashful, obviously delighted with themselves and so sweet as they gave her their gifts, reached down and carefully tried to hug or pat her and then left quietly.

I suspect it will take years and years for me to look back on my time with NRRM without the sense of loss and sorrow that still sometimes overwhelms me. I don’t think I will and don’t even aspire to ever ‘get over’ the losses that have come from loving my daughter. What get’s me through, what really works is quite simply this: practicing gratitude. For now, I try to practice gratitude daily for what is directly in front of me, for the breath-taking mercies of the moment.   I believe if I can allow that gratitude to become the prism through which I look back at everything that has happened, I will be even more free than I am.  The source of my gratitude today came from two places.  First, my friend James posted a fabulous cover of Thunderstruck on Facebook last night–I played it LOUD in my car riding home.  Then, just past Ozark, and before Brundidge, on Highway 231, I saw the most magnificent sign I hadn’t notice before.  It was for a barbecue joint.  Called Hawg’n’dawgs.   How can you not love living in Alabama and being grateful…

We are beginning a renovation project and yesterday I went to meet with the folks who are helping us with the kitchen part of the project.  Sherod and I are committed to do as much business as possible in Selma and I am still finding my way around.  That means I leave a little early each time I have an appointment in town to give myself time to get lost and found.  I had 10 minutes to kill when I got to my meeting place so I drove a little further down the road to keep getting a lay of the land.  It wasn’t exactly that what I saw was really beautiful as much as it was colorful and interesting to look at and I wondered about the stories each of these places might have told.

Can’t see how scared I am

Can’t see how my foot is shaking because I am making myself keep going.  I decided I really do much prefer a little hand mower myself.  I’ll leave this lummox for the big guy…

The Sanctuary of Lowndesboro Methodist Church

None of the churches here in Lowndesboro is big enough to support a full-time clergy person so on this, the first Sunday of the month, the community gathered to worship together at the Methodist Church.  Necessity sometimes opens spaces for grace and goodness that would otherwise not be available to us.  There is much that is broken and ugly in so many places I look these days that I find myself often looking for a place under the shadow of God’s wings–not to hide but to be strengthened.  Plus, it is simply the neighborly thing to do to share Sunday worship with my community.  I intend to go to all 5 of the local churches in the next few weeks.

I had never been to a Methodist worship service before.  The simplicity of our time together was just what I needed.  And one of the hymns we sang, spoke straight to my spirit, so I sat there almost in tears, allowing the music, like the livings waters, to refresh me and wash me clean.

There is a place of quiet rest,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest,
Near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
Sent from the heart of God,
Hold us who wait before Thee
Near to the heart of God.

There is a place of comfort sweet,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where we our Savior meet,
Near to the heart of God.

Refrain

There is a place of full release,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where all is joy and peace,
Near to the heart of God.

At The Beginning of the Day

Sherod left this morning. I had a harder time saying goodbye this time around. A few minutes before he left, I was able to recognize the slightly panicky, rather desperate sense of loss that was coming over me. I think somewhere else on this blog I’ve described how my mom had to leave me every night at Boston Children’s Hospital when I was a toddler/preschooler and how hard that was. I can remember doing everything in my power, lying alone in the dark, in a full length cast, to try to get my mom back. All I could do was scream for her and it never, ever worked. Agency—derived from the Latin word agens that means effective, powerful—is a really important word in my life because those early experiences of an incredible absence of agency shaped who I am.

My daughter, not unlike me, for all that we are only distantly united by biology, knows something of the opposite of power and effectiveness. The past couple of weeks have been horrible for her behavior-wise. Yesterday afternoon, her support team and we had to make some very hard decisions because of her current levels of aggression and her risk of elopement. She has lost the privilege of participating in a simply spectacular fine and performing-arts program in Tallahassee for people with developmental barriers like hers. Instead, she will go into the more restrictive and less enriching environment of a local school for the cognitively disabled.

It is such a painful contradiction with our girl. She had no real voice or vote when it came to this move, including her transfer from BARC. I imagine at least some of the acting out is a reaction to the pain of this transition. But it’s a vicious cycle with her: the absence of impulse control, the behaviors that put her and others at risk undermine the very thing I believe she is most desirous of–true agency. It breaks our heart.

So yeah, by the time Sherod headed out this morning, I was wobbly. The fact that Direct TV was coming to install a satellite dish was no consolation either. One of the things that is really different this time around is my experience of a new kind of agency. I went out to start working on the overgrown, long neglected raised plant bed that will be the starting point of my new rose bed. It’s been hot today, and humid. I have alternated between working outside and working on my ECF project. I remembered that when I got my first antique roses in Memphis, I got Sherod to help dig the holes where I planted them. Pruning, fertilizing and caring for them was easy. This was nothing like that. My arms are aching and I am so scratched up that I look like I’ve been through a bougainvillea war.

I learned some things along the way today. That it really is good to use gardening gloves. I made myself do that in case of snakes but they help for lots of other reasons including stumbling on poison ivy unexpectedly. That you have to be careful or you might pull up, not a weed, but a treasure. I inadvertently pulled out a rosemary bush, much to my dismay. The metaphor of weeding is anything but subtle, and today it came with an extension. As easy as it was to inadvertently pull out the rosemary, I tried every which way I knew how to get rid of one particular weed that obviously has a root structure that must stretch into the confines of hell. I dug. I pulled. I brought out all kinds of garden tools of Sherod’s and the sucker is still out there tonight standing tall.   Even so, I was thrilled by the agency that is ours through the gift of our incarnation. I was mindful of birds, and butterflies, bees, dragonflies,d grasshoppers, squirrels: all went about their business while I went about mine. Even the new cat that has adopted us showed up to watch.

Finally, a little after 5, I stood back, swore I’d best that danged weed tomorrow, and admired what I had accomplished. I welcomed the aches. I was surprised by all the scratches, nicks and cuts because I was so busy I never noticed when they happened. Especially, it was wonderful to see brown earth and the first contours of what the bed might look like. I began to make plans for my weekly trip into town tomorrow; it will include a Home Depot stop.

I was looking, considering, planning all those things when the new cat walked up on the most cleared off part of the bed.  I snapped this picture with my iPhone because I thought it was so cute to have an inspector.  Then she squatted down and took care of business. Right there.  In front of me! I wanted to be offended but I really couldn’t, This too is a part of the metaphor. We exercise agency, we accomplish some things, usually not as much as we planned, but at least for me today, enough. I am always doing my work along with the work of all creation and our intersection points are not necessarily as neat and tidy as we would hope. Sometimes, they can get downright cr&%$y—and that’s OK too.

Shabbat shalom.

Abraham Darby

Louis Philippe

The days keep gathering and then slipping away. It has been wonderful having Sherod here and already, he’s doing his laundry to pack, since tomorrow he heads back to Fort Lauderdale.   Then, there will only be 32 more days before he’s back, this time to stay. It will be a busy season between now and then. Yesterday we met with a general contractor because we are going to do a major renovation of the kitchen and our bedroom/bathroom. The work should begin almost immediately and I will be on a steep learning curve as the point person with a general contractor.   God willing, it will all be finished by Thanksgiving, but if not, it will be ready when it is ready. Some deadlines mean a lot less to me these days.

I have also ordered 5 roses from Antique Rose Emporium. Some are the same as I grew Memphis. Others are new to me but more suited to this climate zone. All of them have such marvelous, poetic names and spectacular blossoms: Souvenir de la Malmaison,  Cecile Brunner, Perle d’Or, Iceberg, Louis Philppe. All of them are wonderfully fragrant as well.

I will begin to prepare the rose beds where they will be planted—the clay here needs to be worked on to sustain the rose shrubs. Over the course of several weeks, I will slowly mix in pine bark mulch and the compost that is already in process in our compost bin. Even that is a small story both of patience and transfiguration—all those things which get discarded in my kitchen, the fallen leaves I gather before I start mowing each week, all of that put together to be transformed by the alchemy of life and death into something rich and life-giving. Every little bit will make a difference next spring, when hopefully, those roses will begin to bloom. This week, I have been reminded of that wonderful prayer by Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something 
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Canning Projects for the Week

I have started a post four or five times in the past few days and not gotten very far. With long stretches by myself, doing work that gives me plenty of time for reflection, I am still figuring out, still striving to understand, still making my peace with lots of different things. Remarkably, I’ve had several unsolicited offers for employment, part-time, all of them. I see two things about that. One is the new economic reality of employment in this country, where more and more employers sidestep financial obligations related to benefits by making so many jobs part-time. The other is the reality that in rural parts of the country, more people with specialized skills like the ones I bring with me tend to leave the area, not come to it. So I bring value with me.

I don’t expect to pursue any of these opportunities. My ECF contract runs at least through the end of the year. I am making good progress with my work with them and a 16-hour a week commitment will allow me to continue to live in quite a bit of uncomfortable and graceful ambiguity. I will make good use of this ‘in-between’ time. Already, I have more clarity and freedom about my vocation. Last week, I got a very nice call from the Bishop of Alabama. He was about to go on vacation and we agreed that I will meet with him in late August.

I have thought a lot about what I can and can’t see myself doing in the Episcopal Church as a priest. If there is a chance for me to do ministries with the Latino community again, I will do things very differently than I did before. This time, I will not be doing this work ‘sent out’ by an established Anglo congregation. I will not mortgage the spiritual freedom of a marginalized community by launching ministries that depend on big financial investments from a more privileged congregation. I also learned by the hardest that bringing a young new expression of the church into a very vulnerable, established congregation is, at best, highly risky for everyone. And I have learned that the terms of commitment between a diocesan structure and a ministry like I dreamed of growing in South Florida must develop out of a clear, explicit mutual commitment to new ways of being church and considerable trust and ongoing engagement and conversation.

It is is too easy, when times get tough, for the more marginalized part of a faith community to become a pet toy that the stronger parts tug and pull at, saying “mine, mine, mine,” all the while having convinced themselves that they are being faithful to the Gospel when the real agenda is self interest. Church at its worst is simply shameful.

I am aware that the spiritual freedom I enjoy now allows me to be clear with myself, and with the church, about what I am and am not able to do. I have a proposal I want to bring to the bishop of Alabama to build Latino ministries in the area around Montgomery. I don’t know if what I want to offer will be what the diocese wants or needs. Because it is a freely offered gift, I will neither be better or worse off if the fit is not there. I see enormous needs all around me and I am so grateful that my livelihood is now far more loosely tied to my vocation. I trust that I will find the way to serve the kingdom, in or outside of the church, and for right now, my work is to continue to gain more strength, more clarity, more joy moving into whatever lies ahead.

I was at the curb market again this weekend, and this week, I will do my ECF work, I’ll continue to can and put up food for the months ahead, I will mow and garden and do the other projects that keep me grounded and healthy. Sherod will arrive tomorrow for a few days and I am happy. Words fail me when I try to express the gratitude that fills my days.