Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Dec 10, 2009

We may be surprised at the people
we find in heaven. God has a soft spot
for sinners. His standards are quite low.

You don't choose your family. They are
God's gift to you, as you are to them.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Nobel Peace prize laureate, on this

day, 1984


Well, if anything would “prove” that “God” is a projection of human need, Desmond Tutu’s words would be good evidence! And personally, I am delighted – and not surprised – with the idea of a God who has low standards about sinners and the qualifications for “Heaven”.

Jesus is a perfect representative of the God of Low Standards! Look at the people he hung out with, chose as followers, and chose to spend most of His time with. Whomever the posh people of His society held dear, Jesus confronted and criticized. This is a characteristic of compassionate, loving, forgiving people – who recognize themselves in all these folk, who recognize their own need for grace and a “break”.

As to Tutu’s words about family. I spent most of my life “alone”, not sharing my Life intimately with anyone. Then Dennis came along. Indeed a “God’s Gift”. In the context of commitment and attraction, I have learned (and perhaps we learn together) that he is “family” at it’s best, and learned what critical lessons one learns about the life-giving paths of Life. Gayfolk have learned this abundantly in our struggle – because not only have we been graced with partners that many would deny us, but with Family that in fact we did choose, only to discover that God had already chosen for us. Lots of people other than Gayfolk have discovered this Grace.

I think it would be a real blessing for the World and for persons to heed Bp. Tutu’s wisdom: We are all “inadequate”. God has a soft spot for the Inadequate. We imagine such a God because we know deep down our deep need to be embraced and accepted in our inadequacy.

The more we can, as a human community, affirm and embrace one another rather than reject those upon whom we project our own sense of inadequacy and its attendant fear and anger, the more Life will blossom.

I’m looking forward to entering the Pearly Gates - to the huge belly-laugh all of us will enjoy when we see who is there waiting for us!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Dec 8th, 2009

It is better to have loafed and lost,
than never to have loafed at all.

All [persons] should strive to learn before they die,
what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber, author, satirist, born on this date, 1894


Now that I have “retired”, I can say this: I absolutely agree with Thurber’s thought about loafing. [ I am trying to learn not to overdo exclamation points; it is ….. hard! ] I have never wanted to “work” – that is, do stuff that didn’t make me happy. Even through the many years when I had to do things I didn’t enjoy, I structured in a lot of time to loaf. Admittedly that was one – and few - of the benefits of being “in charge” of a congregation: structuring one’s own time. It is a great gift in our age. It kept me sane and balanced.

As to what we need to learn before we die, again I agree. Thurber says: “to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why”. This could very sensibly be one’s Life motto – and it certainly wouldn’t be, I think, inconsistent with living the Gospel Life, or the Buddha’s teachings, etc. The only thing I would add is, “to know how we can lay aside the mistakes and start afresh”.

It is Socrates’ “Know Thyself”. It is what Jesus always challenged folk to in the parables: knowing the “truth” that will set you free.

Distress is usually “blamed” on someone or something exterior. But most distress is “interior”. If we are responsible about examining our life-distress, we see that we can’t usually change others, we have to change ourselves. People like me get worked up about this because we lapse into thinking that this means we have to compromise our principles. It doesn’t. What it does mean is that we have to accept the consequences of our decisions and choices. As long as we are willing to do that, we are “off to the races”.

We will have to let go of lots of personal idiosyncrasies. Learn to be flexible on all levels of Life. Be willing to change our minds and our point of view – though we should not do so without consulting our brain, hearts, and conscience.

“Religion” offers – if it has integrity – lots of helpful guidelines for doing this or, more, for being a certain kind of person. It would be a worthy meditation exercise during the day, once or twice, to ask the question and take five minutes to ponder; or better, to listen to what the Universe has to say:

What am I running from, and to, and why?

If we can be open and honest to the “answers”, it will help a lot!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 7, 2009

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments,
we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them.
When it has left a place where we have always found it,
it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something
malevolent and bottomless.

Willa Cather, author, born on this date, 1873,
in Back Creek Valley, Virginia


Were some children ever terrified by Grimm’s “fairy tales”? I suppose there were some; but I would be interested to know what percentage. I always understood that they were stories, so they didn’t disturb me. It never occurred to me that one of those monsters would catch me in the “real” world, my world. Similarly, I can watch “Star Wars”, which has some pretty nasty characters, doing some pretty horrible things, and I’m not afraid or repulsed. I understand they are “tales”, meant to teach me something.

But when I think of Matthew Sheppard’s killers, trapping him and leaving him to die bound to a fence in the Wyoming cold, or of the Nazis calculated extermination of Jews, Gays, and others in the camps, with meticulous “cold” records of their gold teeth, my skin crawls. I sense the “something malevolent and bottomless”. I’ve had to leave certain movies when cruelty appeared. I just can’t bear it. More than anything else, “when kindness has left people”, I have to flee.

I feel it in my gut in the way some slave owners treated their slaves. In ethnic cleansing. In genocide. In religious fanatics blowing apart their victims. In men brutalizing their wives or girlfriends. In tortured animals. In waterboarding by our own government. Alas, there are countless examples of the absence of Kindness in our World today. In my view, it can never be justified nor must ever be condoned. Cruelty always reveals a collapse of human decency.

Willa Cather’s words remind me to pay attention to my behaviour. It is so easy to be unkind. It doesn’t take much to wound another – and we can be so cavalier and unaware of the power of our unkindness.

May we remember the Buddha’s words today: “Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion”. And the reminder of 1 Corinthians 13 about the greatest of the three things that last: “Love is kind”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 4, 2009

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that
people will agree with you only if they already
agree with you. You do not change people's minds.

- Frank Zappa, musician; he died on this day, 1993, age 52


Well, I would say for myself that this is true ….. politically, and theologically (with 90% of American religion). With a deep sense of mixed emotions, and a desire to be honest, I will admit that I (a) know of no Republican who could convince me that (s)he was speaking the truth or had anything to say that would enhance my understanding (or desired to), and (b) trying to change peoples’ minds never succeeds. This is America and much of the World today, alas.

But: let’s get to the “spiritual” dynamic. I agree: You can’t usually “change peoples’ mind” by intellectual argument or by persuasion. In America, the Mind has taken bottom rung to Emotion. Experience proves this, except perhaps for a “few” who are secure enough in their being to “hang loose”.

You can only help others – and yourself - towards transformation by your action. By loving people. By listening to their hopes and fears, even if you make it clear that you don’t agree with them. We all want to be understood, to be taken seriously. Then we can let go of some adversarial defensiveness.

These days, perhaps we should give up trying to change peoples’ minds. It is counter-productive.

Let’s just focus on the Wounded Soul of all human beings. Our own included. Let’s try to reach out and place a soothing hand on each others’ deep wounds, in hopes that such caring will break down the Berlin Walls that fence us off from each other.

What “changes people’s minds” fundamentally is Understanding and Acceptance. Once we learn to do this for each other while accepting our disagreements, we can move forward. The “grace” is in the cessation of assumed hostilities.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Dec 3, 2009

Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?

- Anna Freud, born on this date, 1895


Nope; or, Yep. People who promise “rose gardens” should be steamrollered into the tarmac without a second thought (metaphorically speaking) – which you get to by diligent practice of your “spiritual” path.

Life is Joy and Sorrow. Life is always a balance between the lovely and the painful, on various levels.

If you “believe in” a God who will promise you only Joy, you are (a) delusionary (b) have no real concept of what “God” is for.

No legit “God” offers Perpetual Joy. It just doesn’t jive with Reality and Experience. As a matter if fact, the Deity I know requires us to live with Reality and Experience. And, by the way, most of the Episcopal clergy I know are basically a happy lot. They know that in the throws of suffering, the God of compassion and healing will walk with them, be there for them.

I think that God actually has promised us all that “only for Joy” were we brought to this Earth. It will never come from amassing enough “stuff”. Or whatever the “World” gives, etc. It comes from living simply; from listening to the voice of Holy Silence; from emptying oneself in Love; from understanding Compassion and calling oneself to it minute by minute. This requires a daily “path” that we take up every day.

No one – not even God – can promise Joy. That is up to you and to me. We must choose, moment by moment, to live "Christ’s" life.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Ah, the Seine! I’ve walked it several times, both in the outskirts and in the City of Lights! One morning I set out about 8am. Walking, sitting, watching people. At about 9am, having sauntered by St. Chapelle, I found a superb Café where sitting at a table on the sidewalk I had a large bowl of coffee and hot milk, with a fresh baked mini-baguette which I dipped into the large “breakfast cup”, as gazed out over the river and the Isle St. Louis. There are few things – at least to me – more conducive to soothing the human spirit than such a morning.

Later, I strolled the banks of the Seine, taking a long time to peruse the bookstalls that line the river. There it was that I found an unopened slip-boxed edition of the works of Allan Seeger (yes, related to Pete). For $4. Delight.

And that is what, essentially, Life should be about. Delight. It deeply disturbs me that so many of us in the human community have no delight, that Life is so full of pain. Why is it that we can’t empathize? That we can’t rise to changing this? I have both been offered and myself created the opportunities to enjoy the delights of this World – often to the jealous harping of my acquaintances. My giftedness for delighting in the World has overridden the harping of others. Well I remember the tribute offered to me by Helen Greven, Junior Warden at St. Anne’s in the Fields, Lincoln MA, when I left them after eighteen months as their Interim Rector. At the luncheon following my last Sunday there, she thanked me for showing her how to delight in receiving, in how to enjoy Life. I felt that I had fulfilled my calling – for our God is always inviting us to fullness of Life. And might I add: this more than any other thing has taught me to work to extend this to others. It opened my heart, not closed it. Feeling blessed fires a desire that others may share in it.

Tomorrow, I hope to find an opportunity to extend Delight to another. Perhaps the World would change a little for the better if we all did?

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 1, 2009

World AIDS Day

I have learned more about love, selflessness
and human understanding in this great adventure
in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cut-throat,
competitive world in which I spent my life.

Anthony Perkins, actor


So did I. People often ask me what stands out in all the decades I was privileged to minister as a servant of God’s love. It was the years I was a chaplain to those with AIDS, especially in my years in the diocese of Rhode Island. There was a lot of horror, and some pretty nasty people, as in every situation. But towering above all the political neglect and parental rejection and suffering was the courage and selflessness and human understanding of both those with HIV/AIDS and those reaching out. I’m sure that without the latter, my life would have been consumed with bitterness.

I’m not going to pontificate about AIDS, which still afflicts tens of millions of us around the World, or about the continuing neglect. We know the horrible extent of it, and the continuing ignorance. I just want to remember and honour those who were friends, colleagues, and those I had the privilege to assist pastorally. [ Those with just initials are for pastoral reasons of mine, but they and all live in my heart, and I cherish them all. ]

* Tony Felix * Bruce Natke * Art Lamoureux * Fr. Mike Koonsman * Fr. G. W. * Fr. A. B. * Fr. P. P. * Fr. Geoffrey Skriner * Fr. Mills Omaly * Fr. C. H. * Sasha Andreevitch * James Arcaro * George Barros * Roger Boyd * Chris Burke * John DeCosta * Brian Del Pape * Chris Johnson * Jimmy Lipscomb * Richard Metivier * Sara Paneto * Marcie McClane * Ron Reniere * Courtland Roach * Gerald Taupier * David Arruda * Harold Mikelson * Lee Bruner * Gene Tyrus * Fr. Bernie Healey * Paul de Tora * Roger Tetreault * Anthony deRosa
* Richard Dobbing * Jimmy Black * Vern Seidler * John Tobin * Fr. Karl Laubenstein * Normand Olivier * Gordon Stoddard * Jon Jones * Paul Monnette * Richard Vasseur * Terry Robinson * Jim Hayes * Gerry Toupin * Chris Burke * The Rev. Chris Lee * Bill Collagan * Richard Rachiele * Fr. John Emerson * Joe Borges * Gary Hogan * Teddy Remiere * Richard Corrente * Fr. Sanford Smith * Earl Becker * Stephen Carter * Dr. Dennis Tishlias * Fr. Bob Kettlehack * Keith Dailidenas * Tom Bradley * Nure Risho * Bobby St. Jean * Brian Bigney * Bill de Fusco * George Harrington * Tony Prezioso * Paul Curtis * Chris White * Br. Adam Fifer * Michael Callen * Bruce Haller * Fr. Jim LeSage * Brian Orme * David Farland * Julie Renegaldo * Br. Bernie Fessenden, BSG * Eric Lotring * Jim Kie

I am in awe of all the “Buddies”, caregivers, and friends, then and now.

AIDS taught me about the wonder of Love.

Brian+