Rent-a-Crowd & Rent-a-Pallbearer

Yesterday a Roman Catholic priest and friend of the store visited us. He mentioned in passing his Rent-a-Crowd and Rent-a-Pallbearer, for funerals. And we said, “What! Okay, we need to hear this story. You have special mourners and pallbearers for funerals?!”

First, you need to know that this priest is the only priest at a very large local Catholic church. He also answered my query yesterday about how many kids will be receiving their First Communion this Sunday, with “about 64.” It is a big church with a large number of members, big enough to have 64 pre-teen kids all about the same age who, after completing the classes for training in the Church will take Communion, for the first time.

The good Father told us yesterday that when a 99-year old woman dies she deserves a good funeral just as much as anyone else. A not uncommon problem for the very old is that all of their friends and family have died before them and there are none, or very few, who would attend their funeral. Likewise, for the very old, there are often too few friends or family members who have the health to be able to lift the casket with the dead person’s remains inside. Pallbearers are the ones who escort and carry the casket.

Father has a group of healthy individuals who will attend a funeral as the pallbearers when needed. He can contact his mourners and/or pallbearers and they will attend the funeral of someone they don’t know but who needs a good, decent, and dignified funeral. He said that he has over one hundred mourners who will attend a funeral when needed.

We were impressed with the thoughtfulness, as well as practicality of having pallbearers and mourners on hand and available for whomever needs them. Yes, each person, no matter who, deserves the dignity of a decent funeral. It is very practical, and very thoughtful and caring to have members of the congregation who will attend a funeral, not for their own grieving, but out of respect for the deceased person’s life.

Why don't we follow the Acts of the Apostles?

Today’s New Testament Lesson:
Acts 4:32-35

4:32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

4:33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

4:34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

4:35 They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

For all of the fuss that the Biblical literalists give to keeping Scripture accurately no one seems to expect, let alone demand, that we follow this description of the very early Christian community.

Yea, verily, no acts of same gender sexuality, nor marriage of same gendered couples, and women must obey the head of the household, the man, or so sayeth many fundamentalist Christians, but none of them say that we should all pool our ownership of everything, sell everything and give it to the community, and distribute it to each as any has need.

I do not remember every hearing an Episcopal sermon on this topic either.

Could it be that when scriptural faithfulness meets political socialism that politics always wins?

What do we do with our Lenten practices during Easter, and Pentecost?

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! Our Lenten Practices are over, or are they?

Now (that we are singing alleluias again) is an interesting time to evaluate our Lenten practices.

Part of my practices included reading Lent With Bishop Morneau during breakfast. Reading a book during lunch (I made it through two books during lunches in Lent.), keeping the radio turned off while driving and working in the kitchen and basement projects, deep cleaning rooms in the house, and rehearsing to refer to a transgendered friend by his male pronoun.

A few of the practices were easy. Others were more difficult. I managed to only deep clean three rooms in the house. I am relieved to find that I refer to my friend in the male gender unconsciously now.

How do we treat our Lenten practices now that Lent is over? Do we immediately grab for the chocolate that we had given up, perhaps even more so than before Lent specifically because we have shunned it for these several weeks?

I don’t think that I will continue with the deep cleaning of the house. I find that turning off the radio when there isn’t really something that I’m interested in is quite easy this week thanks to the practice of silence during Lent. I miss not having a book to read at lunch. My friend remains male in my subconscious.

What about you and your Lenten practices? Which ones remain with you and which ones were easily discarded?

Two books, two ways to read and write

Do you ever enjoy and care about characters in a book of fiction that when the book ends you want to follow them further, to know what happens in the rest of their life? I do too.

Ken Follett has a solution, at least for me. In his recent fictional history World Without End he did it again. He made the personalities and the lives of the characters in the book so memorable that I wanted to follow their lives further. This historical fiction takes place in the middle 1300s in the English town of Kingsbridge. The monks and nuns own the cathedral. The earls own their serfs. Power and hierarchy seem to invade everyone’s lives. Freedom as we know it does not yet exist.

In World Without End the question, “What happens after they barely survived through that situation?” is answered again and again. Instead of one book, this volume is more like seven books in one. We follow the lives of some of the characters from children through to old age. The story and history keeps evolving.

The only negative for me about Follett’s World Without End is that is more than 1000 pages in length and even in paperback it is a heavy book. I found that resting the book on my lap on top of a throw pillow from the couch helped keep the book high enough to read without having to hold it up on my own.

The other way to read a good book of course is to read it a second time. That is what I plan to do with Barbara Brown Taylor’s most recent book, An Altar in the World. It is my Lenten luncheon reading discipline. As a Lenten “discipline” I get off easy with this one because Taylor writes so well. I keep finding pages or paragraphs that I want to share with specific other people. I know that when I finish this book that I will want to read it again so that I can enjoy and be stimulated by her thoughts and descriptions of how we live our lives and where God is as we live in our pain, suffering, beautiful landscapes and seascapes, and in our friends, relatives, and strangers. I don’t expect to wait until next Lent to pick up this book again and read it.

My book for lunch during Lent

I'm reading An Altar in the World at lunch time during Lent. I used to enjoy being stretched by the author of this volume Barbara Brown Taylor's books of sermons. I have even read good sermons during Sunday Eucharist when the preacher has been less than interesting. With An Altar in the World I have the delight of reading Taylor's thoughts about finding God in everyday places and events. Oh, yes. There is so many encounters of God each day that I can recognize when I am renewed in my perceptions as this author probes me to see.

Here is a little kernel from page 91 that she elaborates with meaningfulness, "The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed."

Nearly Spring outside, nearly Winter in the economy

Spring will come. The economy will recover.
One or both of those is correct.
I'm hoping for both. It's like we are just entering the winter time of the financial crisis. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Some old financial trees and bushes are not going to survive, others will be harmed and will need pruning, but we hope that the "winter," though record breaking, won't be too severe.

Meditating while exercising?

Active meditation is a new term to me. I viewed a report on it last night on one of our few favorite, regular TV shows, “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly” on PBS. (The half-hour show airs at a strange time so we record it for convenient viewing later.) I have always known about the practice of meditation, attempting to sit quietly and emptying my mind in order to reach inside and to God for centering my soul. But I have not known about active meditation. The news report that I viewed described active meditation to be present in even, or especially in, very vigorous physical activities such as kung fu. The report described, as I understand it, active meditation as a method of emptying one’s mind, to live in the moment without thoughts about anytime or anyplace other than where one is at that very moment.

Previously, when I have been jogging or other moving exercise in the mornings or at the gym I have been disappointed that I have been unable to meditate at the same time. Now I see that focusing on the immediate action that I am doing is a form of meditation that empties my mind of all of the extraneous diversions that my mind is encumbered with during its normal multi-tasking activity, including the mundane task of keeping track of time. This “meditating during vigorous physical exercise” is a form of centering. I’m not quite ready to see it as “centering prayer” because there is not yet the perceived connection to the Other in my activity. However, this gives me a new way to contemplate what meditation is and what I am doing when I am engrossed in a specific exercise. Perhaps I gain some “credit” for meditating when I am actively involved in vigorous physical exercise.