Friday, April 19, 2013

Hail Metro

I found this in some old email in a box I'm cleaning out.

“Hail Metro, full of passengers,


peak-of-peak is with thee.

Blessed art thou who stand to the right,

and blessed is the A/C of thy cars, seriously.

Holy Metro, cause of my delays, I pray for the escalators, now and until I move within biking distance of my office.

Amen”



Monday, April 15, 2013

Being ourselves

I think that the greatest glue in our marriage is the power of our savior and Lord Jesus. Another pretty good binder is the fact we can be ourselves with each other.
Too much time in one's youth is wasted trying to be someone else.
This weekend the Help once again won the 'only white guy in the room' award at my aunts' alumni fundraiser dance. He is the whitest white guy who was ever white and was so for the whole evening. He did not cease to be him while dancing with one of my aunts, chatting with table mates (though limited by the fact the DJ was trying to make us go deaf), and attempting to do the dance of my people, the Electric Slide. He decided to sit out the "booty call" and other line dances. He did not try to discover some blackness in him or blend in.
When he attends mass with me, he is comfortable being Mr. Presbyterian in the pews. He's decided his job is to hold the missle so he sits and stands and does the low impact excerises short of receiving the host, kneeling, and genuflecting. He sits. He stands. He holds a book and turns the pages. I love him for that.
And I can be me. I can do interpretive dance in his presence. Seriously, serious, non-parody dancing. I do parodies too. I can also sing freely. Private comedy shows with a lot of inside jokes. I can choose to give up on make up and other beauty "musts" the modern world insists on, and he can make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
He can be weird. The kind of of weird that I know he is, because I'm somewhat used to it after a decade of friendship. I also tell him that he's weird and he says, "I know."
In all this we are being ourselves and I love it.
I can only hope others can find the same love being simiply who they are.

Monday, April 08, 2013

Wealth of the birds of the air and the lillies of the field

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]? -Matthew 6:25-27



I've been pondering the city government, services to the poor and urban wildlife. I look at the birds, pidgeons, orioles, blackbirds and those horrid looking vultures that hang out on Pam & Courtney's roof deck. It seems that the birds of the air are richer than the poor of the city. Of course, we don't know how many pidgeons are malnourished or homeless and I could be making great assumptions. Most pidgeons seem to be doing well, well besides being rats with wings. The birds seem to make their homes in the trees and in crevaces of homes, under eaves, in tree cavities, squatting in abandoned homes with open windows, and on the ledges of federal windows. Is that a dignified life for a bird? The Creator has granted the birds with just enough brains to see opportunies in the trees and eaves. Just enough brains to figure the dew and morning wetness is a good time for hunting morning grub and other times urban waste. The city at times seems to be following one aspect of Matthew 6, one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing, but there is great waste. Wasted on poverty pimps and ineffective programs. Wasted in ways that in the long term make the poor worse off and more dependent on the state. Why is it that it appears that the birds of the air and the weeds of the lots live better than the poor of the city? I know G-d loves the people more.

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Events at the Help's Church

I'd been meaning to write about a function at the Help's church. It was fun and interesting, the most interesting part was the belly dancing.
It wasn't a worship event. Apparently as part of an auction one of the church musicians was to host an event of the auction winner's choosing. I guess. I'm not sure all I know, jazz at the big white church with the big flexible space. We went despite having to fly out in a few days, as I don't like cramming too many things in.
The sanctuary is a flexible space. There are no fixed pews. For the event there were tables for sitting and tables for food and drink. There was a live jazz quartet? I don't remember how many musicians and anyway, we were expected to dance. We and several other people danced. When the musicians went on break, as live musicians are want to do, CDs were played, however they weren't exactly jazz. At one point what I believe was middle eastern pop was played. There was a table of South Asians, ranging from hijabed young women to gals in party-hardy western dress who got up and danced. At one point I was standing with the Help and one of the Elders of the church watching the circle of women dancing for their own delight. The Help mentioned to the Elder that I took belly dancing classes and I showed a simple move. The Elder responded by trying the move the best way an older white gentleman can.
At another time, as the Help relayed this story to me, he and a bunch of other fellows from the church were standing around talking about what they were giving up for Lent. A few things. There are several people in the church who left the Church (Holy Roman) and the Help is usually concerned about not acting Catholic, due to my influences. Anyway, in this crowd are the pastor, asst. pastor, and probably an elder. I think the pastor gave up chocolate and someone else gave up chocolate. The asst pastor, spat, "What are you a bunch of closet Catholics?" Then he swore to drink as much alcohol and eat as much chocolate as he could during Lent. If memory serves me right, the asst pastor did attend Catholic U. for some classes.
Anyway a good time was had by all, well except maybe the folks who had to get the church ready for service the next day.