That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Tag: Spirituality (Page 7 of 13)

Lenten Journal 2019 (16 April)

April 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 41

“Day 41” seems odd to write in a Lenten journal, but I’ve not separated out Sundays in my count of the days. We say “40 days of Lent” because Sundays are excluded; there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. I started this journal on the Thursday after Ash Wednesday and called that entry “Day 1” … so, weird or not, I’m calling this “Day 41” of Lent.

It’s also “Chrism Tuesday” (not an official name), the day on which clergy gather with their bishop to renew their ordination vows. The actual traditional day for this is Maundy Thursday but somewhere along the line American dioceses moved this service to Tuesday in Holy Week. Today marks the first time in my ordained life that I have not attended the Chrism Mass. Instead, I went to the orthopaedic clinic and endured a session of biometric measurement gauging the progress of my knee replacement recovery.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (15 April)

April 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 40

A picture of Fionna popped up on my Facebook “wall” this week. It has done so before. Whenever it does, it brings tears to my eyes. I am reminded how important having a dog is in my life. I remember my former companions: my first dog, Baron; the dog who kept me sane throughout college, Shadrak; the stray Cocker Spaniel we came to call “the best dog ever,” Josephine; and all the others.

It is said that Martin Luther was a dog-lover. He had a little dog named Tölpel (which is German for “fool”). He once said of dogs, “The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.”

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Lenten Journal 2019 (14 April)

April 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 39, Palm Sunday

Yesterday and the day before I wrote in this journal but did not post what I had written to Facebook as I have throughout the rest of Lent. Friday was our 39th wedding anniversary and Saturday, being the day before Palm Sunday, is when Evelyn and I remember the day our daughter disappeared (she was later found and all is well). What I wrote yesterday and Friday was simply too personal to put out on public social media.

Today we have stayed home from church because Evelyn has a rip-roaring upper respiratory infection. You should hear her cough! As we have done so, I have been thinking about the way we have commemorated Palm Sunday as married persons for the last 39 years. Except that year when Caitlin went missing, they have been invariably the same (as least for me): Saturday spent decorating the church with palms; Sunday the simple 8 a.m. distribution of palms within the context of Holy Communion; the later service a big production number beginning with a procession around the church and through the cemetery (if there was one nearby, as there has been here in Medina and was in San Diego), a choral Eucharist, the dramatic reading of the Passion Narrative.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (11 April)

April 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 36

Labhraím Gaeilge!

I really wish that were true (it means “I speak Irish”). I don’t. I study Irish. I forget Irish. I study it again.

That is how I spent today; using Duolingo and a free online course from Dublin City University, I have spent the day refreshing my memory of the Irish language, recalling things I learned a decade ago at a school in the Connemara Gaeltacht north and west of Galway City.

Irish is just one of the languages I have studied. I took Spanish in grades 5 through 8 in the Los Angeles city schools. I studied Latin throughout high school. I took Italian in an immersion course in Florence in 1969 and then French in a longer immersion course in Paris in 1973. I cannot speak, read, or write in any of these languages, although I could back in the day.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (10 April)

April 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 35

Last night I looked up into the black sky
where a silver crescent moon gave way to stars
and found the Big Dipper, that major bear,
pointing to Polaris and I felt
like a kid again

In the hours before dawn this morning
walking the dog as I usually do
I looked up again and found Orion, the hunter,
with his three-star studded belt and sword,
striding across the sky

Staying up late, arising early to see the sky
I was the science kid
who knew the stars and the planets
Walking now beneath them
I recall the joy of discovery
I greet old friends

Timeless and changeless the same stars
marched the sky in ancient Palestine
but timeless and changeless
only because of distance
their now a million years gone
locked with Jesus’ now millennia gone
locked with my now still unfolding
a kairos combination of
then and now and long ago and yet to be
as it was in the beginning
is now
and will be forever

–– C. Eric Funston, “Stars,” 10 April 2019

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Note: The illustration is from NASA: The Big Dipper Enhanced; Image Credit & Copyright: VegaStar Carpentier)

Lenten Journal 2019 (9 April)

April 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 34

My intention when I started this exercise in Lenten discipline was to write for an hour each morning with no preconceptions about what I would be writing. Just sit down, put a figurative piece of paper in my imaginary typewriter, and start pounding the keys. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but I have made the attempt (most days) to at least write something sometime during each 24 hour period.

Similarly, it was my intention to return to the gym (the Medina Recreation Center) this morning and do another half-hour of aerobic exercise on the recumbent crosstrainer and the indoor track. And similarly it’s not going to work out that way.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (8 April)

April 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 33

I did it! I went to the gym this morning. How weird is that?

I went to the local Recreation Center, rode something called a “seated elliptical” or “recumbent crosstrainer” for 15 minutes (the Rec Center has the Nu-Step brand of these machines; I then walked the indoor walking track until I decided I didn’t want to overdo it and discourage myself with an injury. I needed and continue to need to do this for the on-going recovery of my prosthetic knee.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (7 April)

April 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

St Paul Window, St Paul's Church, Medina, OhioLenten Journal, Day 32 – 5th Sunday in Lent

We went to a particular parish for church today because we had read that following the late service there would be a docent-led tour of their historic building. It is one we particularly like and in which we are especially interested, so we were really looking forward to it. But we were very disappointed. As we were driving home, I snarkily suggested to Evelyn that I had found my retirement volunteer gig – joining that congregation and becoming the docent to lead those tours.

More power to the person who was the docent! He was clearly uncomfortable doing what he was doing, but he had stepped up to the plate and taken his swing and done the best he could do. Perhaps it just wasn’t his fault that he hit a blooper. It certainly wasn’t his fault that his tour group included (a) an architect with more than a little knowledge of the style of the building, (b) an historic preservation scholar actually working on a master’s thesis about the building, and (c) a priest (me) with an interest in stained glass. The three of us “supplemented” his tour spiel and probably threw him off stride.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (6 April)

April 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 31

A day or two ago, a Facebook friend posted a picture of a garment tag written in brutalized English, one of those things which may be entirely made up but which may also be an actual badly done translation from some Asian language. There is a website dedicated to such things, many are hysterically funny, most are just mind-bogglingly bizarre.

My friend’s tag included this oh-so-tantalizing term: “the peculiar smell of the inevitable.” I commented that it would make a wonderful book title. I used to have a list of potential titles for the tome that will never be written. I wonder what became of it. I can only remember the two that began it.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (5 April)

April 5, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 30

Physical therapy. A synonymous term is “torture.” Today’s session proved that.

I am unhappy I made the decision to replace my left knee with titanium and plastic. The result is far from what I had hoped.

I don’t blame the surgeon. His work is fine. X-rays show everything is right as it should be. The scar from the incision is great, better than the one on my right leg, and there is no deficit of feeling nor any oddball itching, again better than the right leg.

No. The problem is my chronic Achilles’ tendon pain. I feared going in that my Haglund’s deformity and related bursitis would complicate recovery, but I also hoped that replacing the knee and going through the therapy afterward would benefit the ankle and foot. The fear was realized, not the hope.

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