Year's End

Tomorrow night will, of course, be New Year's Eve, and I will, for once, be celebrating with some very dear friends. (La C and I tend to avoid the craziness on the roads and the general lunacy.) So this is, quite likely to be my last post for the year 2013.

Last year, I ended the year with a tour d'horizon of the blog's themes for 2012.

This year, though, has had a stochastic feeling about it. It started with our retiring bishop unfolding a fable, and with a tribute to England as my land of lost content.

And then, a truly productive exchange with a reader on the other side of the Anglican divide provided an opportunity to get past party feeling, and remember that those with whom we strongly disagree are often, just like us, striving to do their best. I think these two posts--not because of my writing, but because of the open dialogue my reader's patience and willingness to engage allowed--may have been the high points of the year, at least in the Anglican blogging.

But then, the first of a series of shocks--personal and community--descended. The murder of my classmate, Theresa Gorski, followed swiftly by the beautiful example of restorative justice set by the Grosmaire and McBride families, among others, taught me that the diaconate involves engagement with people at their very worst and very best--and that the emotional toll of trying to achieve forgiveness is incalculable, while necessary to allow for growth and redemption. It's a big ministry, and not to be undertaken lightly. That's been a theme this whole year, and continues to be.

As has our rampant and continuing lunacy on guns. We love 'em. Really.

I kept up on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal--which even included some good news for a change, and on our increasingly lawless Supreme Court, which capped its year by eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, and, in so doing, arrogated to itself power as the only branch of government entitled to deference. And sometimes even did a little justice.

We had sad catblogging and happy catblogging.

We looked at the othering of the poor and the imp of the perverse; the increasing lunacy of our politics, leading me to take a step back, and look to deeper, more important themes of life.

And Who-age; lots of Who-age; did you know there was an anniversary for Who, and that I quite liked it?

Perhaps the biggest news on a personal front was my foray into creative writing, which has been moving swiftly ahead, and enjoyably ahead. And that I think it may be ready to go in the New Year.

And theater reviews. That one got me retweeted by Julius Caesar herself:

Check out last para : MT @JohnJwirenius @francesbarber13 Today's performance of Julius Caesar truly outstanding http://t.co/7Myzrzw5o7”

— francesbarber (@francesbarber13) October 13, 2013

(And how cool is that, I ask you?)

And we had book chats and book gloats, and--well, the usual. Including for once the unusual--thanks for all the Thousdandth men and women in my life. You honor me with your friendship.

Thanks all who have read and commented this year. I hope you stick around, as 2014 promises to be another year of, well, the stuff you've been kind enough to put up with this far. As the old review says, if you like this kind of stuff, you will like this stuff…I hope...

Happy New Year, one and all.

Amen, I say. Amen

As regular readers may have noticed, I have used, throughout the year, different recordings of the Leonard Cohen song Amen to counterpoint various posts, from my post on the Boston Marathon Massacre, to, most recently my write up of Evangelii Gaudium. For this year, the song has haunted me.

And there's a reason. So let me share it with you.

2013 has been a year of joy, in many ways, and in which I have received many gifts--gifts of friendship, of the continued formation process toward the diaconate, and, least expected of all, a blossoming in creative expression I had though lost forever. Whatever the worth of that last when it is published in 2014, the mere fact of having been able to do the very thing I have most wanted to do since childhood, after having thought that dream lost forever, has been and will remain a joy nothing can efface.

And yet it has been a year in which one long-held passion curdled on me, and I have been forced to take a step back. I allude, of course, to politics. My whole life, I have been a political junkie, advocating often for losing candidates, and opposed to the spirit of the age in which I lived at times, but still---fascinated, engaged with the day-to-day story of American politics.

Not this year. Maybe never again.

When an old classmate of mine was murdered last year, it stripped many of my illusions away. I saw that the news remains news only when it happens to strangers. As old friends struggled with challenges exacerbated by our increasingly nihilistic political culture--I'll say no more; their stories are for them to tell, if they so choose--another Cohen line ran through my head incessantly: "I can run no more with that lawless crowd/while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud."



2013 was the year when politics ceased to be a combination of idealism and the Great Game, and became the expression how we treat each other wholesale. The game was over for me, and I lost my tolerance. I remain on sabbatical from political commentary, always a large part of my blogging, and will continue so until I have rediscovered that tolerance.

I am convinced that our answers lie elsewhere--in the selfless acts of service, kindness and nurture that people offer each other, politics be damned. In the stories we tell, and which form our selves, and the selves of our children. As I have been formed by the writers, the visionaries, the poets and novelists, storytellers and singers who have shaped my moral landscape. And not just the high art--"Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in" is every bit as much a part of my moral landscape as Shakespeare or Herbert. And music--the sheer beauty that we can make when we aren't too busy killing each other. And so that's what I am shifting to in this phase of the dance to the music of time--serving where I am called, and making what I can. Let others judge the merit of the work. The trick is, I believe, to just keep doing.

And, of course, all of these answers point higher still, to the ultimate answer. I am presently reading Nadia Bolz-Weber's Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and & Saint, and I identify so much with this woman whose journey from such different beginnings as mine, and whose life is in so many external ways radically different from my own. I identify with her, despite my three piece suit, watch chain and affinity for Victorian high church theologians.

Because, under it all, we are looking for wholeness--both sinners and saints, and both at the same time, recipients of the Grace that calls us to try to pass it on by living into our truest selves. And the cracks in our imperfect offerings do let the light come in.

Being and becoming. Not an easy task, in a world as beautiful and cruel as that which we inhabit. But, really, the only option on the table worth picking up, as far as I can judge. And so, one last Cohen song for the night:

"Raggedy Man…Good Night"…The Fall of the Eleventh

And so it all came back, Trenzalore, the cracks in the Universe, even, through the heart of the TARDIS, Amy Pond.

For those who thought that The Name of the Doctor did not live up to the prophecies of Dorium Maldovar, well…they were right. The Siege of Trenzalore was yet to come, though in the far past.

We saw the Doctor forced to stand his ground, for centuries--trapped in a stalemate between re-igniting the Time War, and abandoning his own people.

We saw the rule of twelve regenerations respected, accounted for, and re-set, by an act of grace.

I'll leave the reviewing and recapping to old friend and Who guru Vinnie Bartilucci

For me, the final sequence says it all--beginning with the now-aged (Hartnell-esque) Doctor, going to the tower to die, and, in so doing claim one last victory over the Daleks,by giving Clara the chance to scarper in the TARDIS--each life saved, he has learned, is a little victory.

And after the weaponization of artron energy (not sure how I feel about that, but in-story, it worked for me), the Doctor got to break our hearts one last time, especially--though not exclusively, in his parting speech:

CLARA: You, you are the Doctor.
ELEVEN: Yep. And I always will be. But times change and so must I…We all change when you think about it, we’re all different people, all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.

And so will we all.

And now to Capaldi!

“Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.”

Tonight, as the Eleventh Doctor leaves us, I am reminded of a conversationI had with my mother, who was poking fun of my continuing affection for the show. I found myself comparing Doctor Who to the cesspool of reality TV, and quoting the above "Doctor's Promise," which actually originated as a guide to writing the character, I believe in the Virgin New Adventures era, if I'm not mistaken.

Craig Ferguson captures the goofiness, inspired lunacy, and the ethos that is the bedrock of the show in his tribute when Matt Smith visited his program



I've enjoyed Matt Smith, as I did David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, and William Hartnell.

And as, I am sure, I will enjoy Peter Capaldi.

A Christmas (Eve) Story

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, la Caterina and I had a jam-packed day. We woke in the morning, and dressed swiftly, ran to local fave Ms. Dahlia's Cafe, and grabbed eggs, turkey bacon and cheese on fresh-baked biscuits. Then in the car to Kings Supreme Court, Clerk's office.

Yeah, you heard that part right.

We go to Supreme Court on Christmas Eve. Well, she had papers to file in foreclosure cases, papers that would stave off homelessness for several families, and that could even lead to settlements that allow them to stay in their homes permanently. As she filed the papers, she smiled at me, and said "Every time a foreclosure answer is filed, an angel gets her wings."

Then out to Long Island for a family Christmas Eve luncheon, a long-standing family tradition. Now, I was serving in the 7:00 and 11:00pm services at St. Barts, so we had to leave at 4:30 in case of traffic. By the time we made our farewells, it was 4:45. As we approached the car, a young, cheerful,but also slightly disheveled, young man carrying a big knapsack approached me and asked for directions to Tulip Avenue--he had travelled, he explained, from New Mexico, and was hoping to see friends of his who owned a pizzeria in Floral Park.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I, the deacon-in-formation, just provide what was asked--directions to Tulip Avenue. I honestly didn't take in that he was as tired as he was, and assumed he had just wandered from the nearby train station, only a few blocks away.

Ah, but la Caterina! She took in the situation at a glance, and perceived what I merely saw. She suggested, "Why don't we drive you there?" Well, why not indeed? We all piled into the car, and took the young man to Tulip Avenue, and the pizzeria. As he got out, he said, "Until we meet again, may you walk in harmony and balance. I love you." And he exited our lives, at least for this stage of the dance.

We hauled off to Manhattan and St. Barts. We got there in plenty of time, and had a wonderful two services (the second lovingly drenched in incense, courtesy of our dynamic head verger, who loves the stuff almost as much as I do).

The trick, it seems, is to marry someone far better than yourself. Then, as Mark Twain might say, she can drag you up to her level….

Merry Christmas, all!

A Stray in a Manger

(Photo by Anglocat; click to embiggen)

OK, two strays in a manger. On our way home from shopping tonight, La Caterina and I drove by the Red Hook nativity scene that has been taken over by feral cats. As you can see, the ox and lamb may keep time, but the kitties in fact are keeping the crib warm for the Christ child.

Of course, if last year is any precedent, they will unceremoniously turf him out, as straw is pretty ideal bedding:

The Amendolas have been building this festive tableau for the community every Christmas for last ten years. But, in the past few years, a pack of mewling, begrimed feral cats have disturbed the peace, claiming the manger as their own, ousting the baby Jesus from his bed, turning Mary into a scratching post, and gobbling up all the free food the kindly sisters set out.

Annette tells DNAinfo the felines leave no room for the scene's guest of honor: "When the figurine of baby Jesus does finally appear on the hay bale, the cats usually push him right off to take their rightful spot, on the warm bale." The kittehs then proceed to turn the idyllic setting into a house of sin, where they drink and gamble until the dark night turns into a pale early morning blue with Old Sal over on the old honky-tonk piano never letting up once, not even for a minute.

I can only say they were very well-behaved during our visit; the particularly handsome Siamese even coming out and allowing La Caterina to pet him.

The Christmas Season has officially begun….

"The Mariner hath his will…"

Tonight at BAM I saw Fiona Shaw perform The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with dancer Daniel Hay Gordon supporting her.

It's an extraordinary interpretation of an extraordinary poem, from the first moments, with Shaw roaming around the audience, to the last, which fully conveys the phantasmagorical nature of Coleridge's poem. Shaw's own performance is kinetic, lively, stark and dramatic at moments, and with little grace notes of comic relief where they would not do violence to the text.

Here's a taste of Ms. Shaw's interpretation, after the shooting of the albatross:



The lost ship, crew baking in the heat briefly thinking rescue has come in the form of another ship, only to find:

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
`The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

To be diced for between the Nightmare Life-in-Death and Death himself?

And the Mariner alone survives, his ship piloted by the dead, "a ghastly crew" at times, but the Mariner saved by the beauty of living creatures which frees him to pray, leading him to sleep, and then to wake up to life-saving rain. Only for the ship to be stopped, and jerked back and forth while two voices debate:

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

`Is it he?' quoth one, `Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, `The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

As indeed he does, before the tale is complete. So strange a poem ends with a moral lesson, interestingly enough:

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

Really, just go see it. It's that simple.

(Photo by Karen Clark)