correction!!

As Chorus pointed out in her comment on my last posting, we have indeed had very good poets on the strength here at MH & U -- good by any measure including the awarding of Major National Kudos (think: National Book Award equivalents). And we have had others -- writers of hymns, notably -- whose work is part of our treasure.

But what this group has in common is what distinguishes them from the baneful tribe -- they don't foist their efforts upon the Rector, but instead are markedly diffident about what they've composed.

the ultimate bane

I am distressed by the number of blogging friends who seem in the last recent while to have come to the parting of the ways with their parishes -- and not on friendly or peaceful terms, either. It is most sad. Also irritating--and stimulates my desire to "get mediaeval" on the parishes in question (I stumble about the office muttering, "burn that sucker DOWN... and sow it with SALT... and commit a NUISANCE in the ashes..." -- not really the Great Tradition in pastoral spirituality; but so it is).

In the last twenty-four hours, however, I have come on the total, ultimate, retaliatory curse upon recalcitrant, stiff-necked, hard-hearted, ungrateful, acting-out, terminally stupid parishes.

and it is this--this, friends, will make them rue the day they were born.

THE SELF-STYLED PARISH POET.

Now we've had a couple of innocuous specimens at MH & U over the years -- many of them very elderly, so that one can apply the Nonagenarian Factor to evaluations of their efforts; "Well, Gladys is SUCH a sweetheart, and SO brave, what with the arthritis and the yaws and all...it really is lovely of her to write us yet another poem about the dear Queen, isn't it?"

But I've run head-on into a far more virulent embodiment (rather like running into the edge of an open closet-door in the dark)...

The only comparable work I can refer you to would be the poetry of Emmeline Grangerford in Huckleberry Finn. Or, if you must have your "Canadian content" -- the oeuvre of the immortal Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan.

Examples will follow. From the Binksiana. Stay tuned.

And may your parishes, if they love you, be safe from poets.

November...

Monday morning at the old pop-stand.
The cleaning crew making at least token motions with vacuum cleaners and so forth. Our cleaning crew is a family business and I think it's the third generation at work this morning. If anything -- I fear -- they have even less ability to see that vacuuming must include the corners of the room than their "ancestors" possess.
However as regards decibel-output -- they're highly productive.

Which is somewhat rough on our daily piano-practising guest, working away at her recital pieces on the grand piano in the nave.

So far I have not found the rhetoric which will convey to the wielders of vacuum cleaners that they cannot actually vacuum around the feet of the person practising the piano. ("But all she's doing, is playing the piano for heaven's sake")

We "remembered" yesterday morning in good order with our usual guest trumpeter -- and the lists of names -- and a suitable display of poppies...

Wonder Curate preached and did very well.

We have had our first 'flu' fatality in the parish -- a young man who died very suddenly of complications, while travelling out of province.

I think we've moved into the saying-goodbyes phase of the retirement process here and in the Deanery. Clericus met here last Wednesday and my colleagues have given me a most sumptuous book -- Sibley's guide to bird life and behaviour -- not a field guide but a wonderful armchair supplement to the field guides.

we have a new phone system and a new photocopier and I don't know how to operate all of them...although I think they told me that if I were to phone the church and push the right buttons the phone and photocopier between them would sort my laundry, plan my menus, and presumably write my sermons also...it's all a matter of the right buttons.

The weather continues mild enough. I bought four new snow tires, on their own rims, at the end of October during a brief spell of snowy days. The snow all melted and now that I have the appropriate tires, it probably won't snow again until February. NOT THAT I MIND.

My work/sleep patterns are all to heck, so today for an experiment I got out of bed immediately upon awaking (5 a.m. approximately)and dealt with the mess in the kitchen and cleared a lot of stationery and correspondence of the dining-room table, removed the extra 'leaves'-- ran the dishwasher and a couple of loads of laundry, amalgamated and eliminated some clutter. (I'll probably topple over in a coma about 2 p.m.)

Tonight is the annual Bishop's Dinner so I need to schedule scooting home and donning festive raiment in the late afternoon.

I am thinking about our day-to-day practical ecclesiology...and may have something to blog later on this week.

We had a Marriage Preparation session this weekend -- I harangued the clientele on Friday evening on the parameters of their roles as worship leaders at their weddings -- and led a "workshop" Saturday afternoon on "spiritual issues" which is a very miscellaneous category. But energy was up and it went well; I can tell, when the participants lean over and pat me gently as they take their leave. It's most endearing. I'll miss it very much...

Am thinking that it may be time to foment a diocese-wide gathering of the parish knitters' groups... :-D.

whew

Back in the office... after about 10 days out.

I headed out to the immunization clinic on the 20th...got a "seasonal flu" shot in one arm and a life-time's worth of pneumonia immunization in the other, and figured I might defy augury...

That was Tuesday. Wednesday I drove to Outlying Community where I'll take up honorary post-retirement duties in January -- about 50 km. one way (30 miles). Had a good chat with the Incumbent there, including fine fish-n-chip lunch, and a drop-in at the Yarn Shop (woot!)--but oh, on the drive home I could NOT get warm again.

And I thought, "Well, drat; this is undoubtedly flu of some sort." Coffee with Youthful Colleague turned into supper with YC, of which I think I ate six bites before giving up and going home.

I was still amid what I was counting as a week's holiday time...but by Thursday I decided that I was going to extend that period. Wonder Curate dealt mightily with the events of the weekend and early week, including absence of Wonder Secketry, also with flu...

He is having some down time now...and although still coughing annoyingly, I am back, as is Wonder Secketry.

The rummage crew seem to have organized themselves all week without benefit of Rectorial Soop for once. The Visiting Archbishop came, preached, was lunched, and flew away again. This is all most consoling.

Time for me to creep back to Tether's End and more nugatory television...

catchings up

We have celebrated Thanksgiving in fine style here at MH & U, winding up on Monday night with another -- probably the last -- of the Rambler's holiday dinners. Each has begun with an announcement in church a few weeks beforehand: "Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter is coming, and ... I HAVE A TURKEY" (OK, it doesn't resonate like "I have a dream," but I work with what I have, okay?)

Started this several years back when I DID have a big old turkey in the bottom of the freezer, going wobble wobble to and fro the way they do...and I thought perhaps I might draw, oh, a half-dozen waifs'n'strays to help eat it if I fetched it to the church on the holiday Monday and cooked it. The first thing that happened was that a senior member caught me at the door and whispered, "buy another one, you're going to have 45 people, trust me"...and every time we have had in fact about 40 guests. So it is two turkeys and a ham; the turkeys in the ovens downstairs (big old Garland gas range with 10 burners atop, JOY UNCONFINED); the ham in the oven of the house-sized electric range in the upstairs kitchen. And the Rambler trots to and fro, basting, until parishioners and friends and, indeed, waifs'n'strays, totter in, late afternoon, and bring potatoes and turnips and yams and salad and cornbread and PIE, Lord have mercy!

In the midst of the preparation on Monday evening, I took time to "just set" with the chief of the parish's Old Guys That Fix Stuff. The piano tuner had been in the week before, exclaiming again over the "niceness" of the Big Black Yamaha grand in the nave...the gift of Chief Fiser and his wife. So I thought perhaps I should pass along this good word, as Chief Fixer was looking rather worn. He has asbestosis, and it doesn't improve, and of late he's been on his portable oxygen continuously.

So I reported the piano tuner's compliment.
"Well, I think it's where it IS that makes it so nice."
And I couldn't resist...because this man is one of those who isn't just wild
enthusiastic about the sanctuary lamp...so I said, "Do you mean, the lovely rosy glow cast over it by the sanctuary lamp?" to which HE says, "OH Don't you start up with me, about the sanctuary lamp!!!"

and then, after a pause -- "Mind you... it looks just fine. We were at the cathedral the other night for the ordination, eh, and I looked at theirs. And I though 'HUH -- ours is lots nicer!'"

And then we laughed. Some moments are just heaven.

And the turkeys were good and Knitting Lady's retired surgeon husband carved them to a fare-thee-well, and the ham was a thing of beauty too.

prayers, please, dear friends

for the Wonder Curate, newly priested, celebrating his first Masses this morning!

episkope and other matters

Reflecting on the picture of His Grace in my last post (dear me, that sounds quite military and sad, doesn't it)...I remember my very first encounter with things Anglican, indeed with the episcopate in any form.

It was sixty years ago this past summer (merciful Heaven...the Rambler goes into Ancient Mariner mode here for a bit) "in a galaxy far, far away" -- well, no, but it was in the Yukon Territory, at a place called Carmacks, on the Yukon River. There was a coal mine at Carmacks, and my father managed it.

Along about midsummer, visitors arrived, by boat -- an "outboard" -- and stayed for lunch and for an afternoon's visit: the Anglican Bishop of the Yukon and his curate, the Rev. Randall Stringer (son of the Rt. Rev. Isaac O Stringer, "the Bishop who ate his boots." You could look it up). My Dad and Randall had known each other growing up in Dawson City, and they and my mother had a lively conversation around the table after lunch. But Bishop Adams sat down on the floor with me. We didn't play tea-party; but I had some plasticine, and he made me an entirely charming pig complete with curly tail.

I checked the Diocese of Yukon website just now -- he was a man of 70 when I met him. Visiting his diocese, in an open boat on a not-altogether-tame river through the wilderness...stopping wherever he encountered a human being...and taking the time to play with a little girl.

Yes, I think that's leadership.

(And as my friends say at this point: "And then, you became ordained.")

Busy times at MH & U -- baptisms and confirmations scheduled for October 18th beting St. Luke, and parish anniversary, and the Rambler's 13th anniversary of ordination; we have young adult, middle-aged, and senior candidates for both sacraments as well as adolescents and infants.

And I have three major pieces of writing on my plate today along with Clericus, hospital communion service, wedding interview, and spiritual journalling meeting. Whee! More coffee is called for!