Worshippers Beware!

 An illustrated guide to getting Swine Flu in church:

"Receive the Holy Spirit and the Swine Flu"

"Remember that you are pig and to pig you shall return"

"The peace of the swine be always with you."

"Avoid demon-possessed pigs."

"Wash hands thoroughly before receiving the stigmata."

"Welcome to the parish nursery."

"The body of Christ, the bread of Purell."

"Have fun at Sunday School."

"Good luck."

"Holy shot glasses? Never!"

Touchless Eucharist

Like holy water? Don’t like swine flu? Some churches in Italy have a solution: the automatic holy water dispenser. It acts like those new-fangled soap dispensers – in this case you simply place your hand under the unit and it deposits several drops of holy water into your palm. Which means the entrance to the worship space can now feel like a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. If you think I’m kidding here’s the article to prove it.

With all the precautions being taken in liturgical churches (I recently wrote a “Swine Flu Policy” for my own church), I’m envisioning a “Touchless Eucharist” — it would be similar to a touchless car wash. Here are the rules:

No ushers. They might inadvertently breathe on worshippers as they hand out bulletins. Rather, the bulletins should be pre-placed on each pew after having been sprayed with Lysol by the sexton while wearing a space suit.

No fonts full of holy water. Instead, they should be filled with a few gallons of Purell. Parishioners may dip their fingers into the holy hand sanitizer to cross themselves. I don’t recommend the Orthodox tradition of then kissing your fingers.

Only one worshipper per pew.

At The Peace, no more hand shakes or hugging (let alone the Biblical “Kiss of Peace”). Not even the Obama fist bump. Everyone just nods to one another creating a congregation full of people looking like those nodding bird toys.

Communion will be replaced by the Benediction of the Holy Sacrament. This medieval practice involves placing a large consecrated wafer into a bejewelled monstrance. Everyone then gazes upon it and spiritually rests in its presence. In other words, look but don’t touch. Nonetheless the priest will drink a chalice full of cheap vodka that has been set aside to purify said chalice.

The priest will not greet parishioners with the traditional handshake following the service. Worshippers will leave one-by-one at intervals of 15 minutes. The priest will leave first and have lunch in order to prepare to watch football and take a nap.

There will obviously be no coffee hour because there is that woman no one knows who sometimes drinks out of other people’s coffee cups when they put them down for a brief moment to chase their three-year-old around the parish hall.

These are just a few tips to keep everyone safe this flu season. If all else fails just stay home and tune into Joel Osteen.

Bean Counters

L.L. Bean is going hip. This sounds oxymoronic or perhaps simply moronic but “The Bean” is trying to change its image. And according to a recent article, they’ve even hired a new designer to create their cutting edge Signature Collection.  So I guess Freeport, Maine, is the new Paris. I’m picturing Gisele strutting down the catwalk in the classic Bean boots sporting the iconic navy and white Norwegian sweater. Off the shoulder of course.

The company is evidently trying to reach a younger crowd in order to take some market share away from J. Crew and Ralph Lauren. So now they’re offering “body-conscious and fitted” men’s shirts. Because we all know how much metrosexuals like to go duck hunting. One of the charms of L.L. Bean is that it’s open 24 hours. If you went to college in New England chances are you made an overnight road trip at some point during your university years. I just can’t see the allure if you can get the same stuff at the local Gap.

I still have one of those famous Bean sweaters. I’ve probably had it for 25 years and it still fits perfectly. I’ll pull it out on exceptionally cold days and nothing beats it. It’s like comfort food for the body. Granted I don’t hunt moose in it so maybe I shouldn’t complain about Bean’s new look. But at least I live in New England now. Shouldn’t that count for something?

A place for hipsters?

Holy (Dumping) Ground

Here’s my latest article in The Hingham Journal. It’s all about the new love of my life: the town dump.

 

 

Holy (Dumping) Ground

Hingham is charming. If you weren’t aware of this, you’ve either never been to Hingham or you suffer from charm deficiency disorder. Enough people have shared with me the famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote about Hingham’s having “the most beautiful Main Street in America,” that I’m beginning to wonder if longtime residents have this tattooed somewhere on their bodies. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

I’ve certainly succumbed to the wiles of Hingham since moving here in August. What’s not to love about the quaint historic houses on Main Street, the stunning vistas of downtown Boston from World’s End, and Nona’s homemade ice cream? You needn’t have attended charm school to realize that Hingham has, if not a monopoly on, at least an abundance of charm. So why is my favorite place in all of Hingham the town dump?

I first started hauling things over there when we were breaking down boxes from the move. It was fantastic to move boxes out as quickly as we could open them. At least from Thursday through Sunday. I’ve lived in a lot of places but never in a town with a dump. I understand that it used to literally be a giant hole in the ground. You’d go up to the edge and toss your bags into the pit – and hope you didn’t lose a child in the process.

But I admit I was shocked when I first heard there was no regular garbage pickup in town. A week or so after the move, the garbage started piling up in the garage. No sign of the garbage men. Not even a hint of the more politically correct term “sanitation engineers.” Definitely no “garbologists” in sight. I casually, with only a slight degree of desperation, asked a neighbor about the next trash pickup day. And he laughed in my face.

And thus began my love affair with the Hingham town dump. Now, I realize it’s technically called the “Transfer Station.” But I prefer “dump.” It’s much more emotionally appealing; to dump something feels cleansing. To transfer something feels like online banking. Plus, I love telling Bryna I’m going to the town dump – much more manly than saying, “Honey, I’m off to transfer the trash.”

It would be great if there were an emotional dump adjacent to the town dump. A place where we could toss our emotional baggage; a place to dump that which separates us from the love of God in our lives. Perhaps it could be placed between the paper and plastic recycling areas. For Christians, this is what confession is all about – a safe place to dump our sins. In the Episcopal Church, a general confession spoken together by everyone is part of the Sunday morning liturgy. Individual confession is also available with the basic rule of thumb that “none must, all may, some should.” Whether that confession is made one-on-one with a member of the clergy or as part of a church service, the point is the same: dump your sins and receive absolution in the name of Jesus. Not a bad deal.

One more thing about the Hingham town dump. My boys have discovered the swap area. If this isn’t the epitome of New England thrifty I’m not sure what is. The good news is that Ben and Zack like to come help me out at the dump. The bad news is that we sometimes leave with more than we dumped. It’s actually been fruitful – two skateboards and a basketball hoop. But I’ve had to institute the you-can-only-take-something-if-you-dump-something rule. It hasn’t been particularly effective or well-enforced but it’s a start.

Now that I have my permanent dump sticker, I guess I’m an official Hinghamite. See you there.

Lap of Luxury

Panoramic views, granite sinks, walk-in closets, media rooms, and plush furnishings. A penthouse suite at Trump Tower? A luxury condo in the Caymans? Nope. It’s a dorm room at Boston University. According to an article in the Boston Globe students arriving in September encountered name tags with ”Skyview from the Center of the BUniverse” taped to their doors. Is it too late to become redshirt freshman for a year?

Maybe I’m just a bitter and jealous old man but that stings. I entered Tufts University in the midst of a housing crunch in the late 1980’s. The upshot was three freshmen crammed into a small room for two. My roommates and I made the best of it. Actually we had a great year. Sure, we had a few bumps along the way (smelly laundry, girlfriends who wouldn’t leave, etc). But that’s what freshman year was all about. Living into a newfound sense of freedom, making some mistakes, drinking too much, and learning to get along with others at close quarters. While sharing a bathroom with 15 other guys, having no control over the thermostat, and living in a veritable prison cell.

The reality is that colleges now have to compete for the best students by one-upping one another on student amenities. So they have on-campus coffee bars, gourmet dining halls, and state of the art workout facilities. We had tater tots and frisbee.

But I won’t rail against coddled kids and Little Lord Fauntleroys.  I would have loved the same treatment. But I also wouldn’t trade my Tufts experience for anything. We made the best of it, had no idea what future luxury we’d be missing, and developed a lot of character through the process.

Thanks to my roommates Steve Bleckner from Summit, New Jersey and Michael Jackson from Belmont, Massachusetts for making it a great first year at Tufts. We’ve gone our separate ways over the years but recently reconnected through Facebook. Perhaps for our 25th reunion we’ll jam ourselves into a 12×14 room with a case of cheap beer and do some serious reminiscing.

Wren Hall at Tufts University

Throwback Ugly

NFL throwback jerseys have officially become a pet peeve of mine. I’m watching the Jets today. Go Green? Um, not with those old New York Titans uniforms. They look more like the Steelers (minus the Super Bowl rings). Does anyone even remember the Titans? And I’m not referring to the movie of the same name.

Each week some team trots out some dated unis in an attempt, one can only imagine, at selling more merchandise. The worst were the socks recently worn by the Denver Broncos. They looked like something worn by psychedelic clowns. Even the refs have gotten into the coyote ugly act.

But the throwback trend did get me thinking about what this might look in other professions. For Episcopal clergy, of course, every Sunday is throwback day. Clerical vestments haven’t changed much over the past couple of millenia. Sure there’s the fiddleback chasuble which you don’t see much anymore. And the maniple which you generally only see on a Christus Rex. Since we all know Jesus wore fancy vestments made exclusively in England.

But what about the military? Do you think soldiers wear suits of armor on throwback day in Afghanistan while tracking down the Taliban? Or do cab drivers pull out the old horse and buggy once a year? Of course not. Because that would be absurd. Not as ugly as NFL throwback jerseys, but absurd.

Accident Prone

I got rear-ended last week. I’m fine, the car is fine, the other driver is fine, the other driver’s car is not fine. The hood and front grille of her dark blue mini-van got mashed in. My Honda CR-V has an exterior spare tire which acted like a giant bumper (whatever happened to rubber bumpers on cars anyway?).

Not that I’m laying blame but the accident was completely her fault. She admitted she wasn’t paying attention. Okay, I’m laying blame. I was leaving a popular shopping area – the Derby Street Shoppes in Hingham – where I had just left a Panera restaurant. I had brought communion to a woman in a nearby nursing home and stopped into Panera to work on my sermon and grab a bowl of soup.

I was stopped at a stop sign waiting to merge into traffic to head back to church when…Bam! The woman jumped out of her car apologizing for her negligence. I have no idea whether she was on her phone or texting but one can make a reasonablypositive assumption. I also don’t know what she thought when she encountered a priest wearing his clericals but if it made her feel a tad guiltier, fine.

I’m sharing this because it’s a good reminder that things in life don’t always go as planned. You can do everything right and still get blindsided. Just as you can be completely reckless and glide right through certain situations unscathed. The reality is that I could have just as easily been on the other end of this accident. I’ve answered tmy cell phone in the car even though I know I shouldn’t. Why? Ego, I guess. Or at least a feeling of self-importance and over-confidence.

And so it’s helpful to remember that we’re not in complete control of our lives. Not because of fate or chance but because God’s realm operates on a plane beyond human comprehension. That doesn’t mean God toys with us like a toddler playing with matchbox cars: “I think I’ll have this blue one smash into this red one. That seems like fun.” But it means we can make all the detailed plans we want – I’ll go to law school and get married and have three children and die in my sleep at the age of 102 – they just may not work out that way. The bar exam gets flunked, our spouse gets cancer, our sperm count is too low to have kids, and we’re dead of a heart attack at 52. Hopefully it’s not that extreme but the more we tell God our plans, rather than the other way around, the more we set ourselves up for disappointment.

All of which is to say that a minor traffic accident can point out some larger life lessons. And anyway, as the saying goes: “Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug.”

Men Behaving Badly

Everybody loves a scandal. Especially a sex scandal. And there’ve been a couple of high-profile cases recently, one involving late night host David Letterman and the other ESPN baseball guru Steve Phillips.

Both cases were reminiscent of a certain ex-President and an infamous blue dress. Older, famous, entitled, married male in a position of power. It’s an ancient, if distasteful, story.

Not to delve too deeply into pop psychology, but Letterman and Phillips must have profoundly deep-rooted insecurities. I mean how much affirmation and validation could one man possibly demand? Both are beamed into the homes of millions of viewers each day. Letterman has a studio audience that goes wild every time he walks onstage or even just smirks. ESPN has created a culture of celebrity around the ex-jock whose need for 50,000 cheering fans never fades even as his physical skills decline.

The sad part is I love Letterman’s humor (not that I can stay up that late anymore). And I always appreciated ex-Mets General Manager Phillips’ keen baseball sense and insights. But I’ll no longer be able to see them in the same light. Which in Phillips’ case won’t matter much since he was just sacked by ESPN. After several days of vacillating the network determined the scandal undermined Philips’ credibility. Ya think?

It’s easy to vilify these two. And they surely deserve whatever gets doled out. But I’ll also keep them both in my prayers because they clearly have very empty interior lives. From a perspective of faith, God’s love is all the validation anyone ever really needs. Sure the adulation of fans and camera lights feels good. But when it takes over completely, when the outside affirmation replaces God, the soul quickly dries up. And that’s a pathetic thing to watch play out in public.

Feeling Jumpy

Two boys with expendable energy plus Bryna trolling Craig’s List equals a new trampoline at the rectory. You also have to throw in borrowing the neighbor’s pick up truck to complete the cycle. Oh, and my mad put-it-together skills (worst grade I ever got at any level of school? C-minus in my 6th grade shop class).

All of this has combined to create the perfect trampoline storm. Which means Ben and Zack are free to go out and knock heads together at will. Actually trampolines are safer than ever. Well, besides the brain banging around the skull ad nauseum. Because when we were kids there were no safety net enclosures. If you jumped too hard on your friend’s trampoline you flew head first into a nearby tree. Or broke your arm. It was as simple as that. But today, while you might accidently get kicked in the head by your brother, you’re not going to fly off into the driveway.

Our new trampoline is only a year old. We bought it from a family whose mother was too nervous that one of her kids would get maimed. It was a gift from her in-laws, she told us. I quickly tossed the parts into the pick up truck to avoid getting sucked into a family counseling session.

Somehow I ended up putting the thing together without any spare pieces left over (as far as Bryna knows). It seems relatively sturdy but I’m still going to have a lawyer draft a waiver for the boys to sign. I don’t want them to sue me when they lose a limb.

Christians Burning Bibles?

 

It seems I spoke too soon about Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina. I lampooned them yesterday for releasing their “list of athletes going to hell.” But it’s worse than I thought: on Halloween night they’re holding a good old-fashioned book burning. Of Bibles.

Yes, they believe that the King James Version of the Bible is infallible and all other translations are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word. Duh. Everybody knows that Jesus spoke in Elizabethan English. And that every utterance that came from his lips was written in red ink.

But don’t worry. Pastor Marc Grizzard and his merry men (one can only assume) won’t stop at burning Holy Scripture. They plan to burn books written by Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and Mother Thersa, among others, since they had the audacity to occasionally quote from versions other than the KJV. I’m considering sending a courtesy copy of my book, What Size Are God’s Shoes, down to Western North Carolina to add to the pile — after all, I quote the New Revised Standard Version on several occasions.

And of course they’ll also be burning “Satan’s music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies.” This all comes from the church’s website which has now either crashed or been taken down. Unless they torched their own server in a preemptive strike.

The church, and I use that term loosely, claims to be inspired by this passage from the Acts of the Apostles:

“And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.” (Acts 19:18 to 20 — KJV, of course).

I, however, think the inspiration comes less from the Bible and more from the infamous Disco Demolition Night held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1979.

All I can say to any “witches” living down in Canton, North Carolina: watch your back.