Wild birds and squatters

4/4

Day begins  with coffee and John H  and a new project he’s working on, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) on the Lower East Side seeking to do documentation, archiving and preservation of the Squatter movement as well as reviving the community gardens, outreach to public housing residents and organizing the still existent squats.

Stephen and Cara come in. It’s been a busy morning. To SPSA to sign up for services at WSCAH, full bags of food, then breakfast at the old school diner on Columbus the  a visit to the Wild Bird Center further up. There’s an interesting collection of places on the same block of Columbus: Animal General, the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine and the Wild Bird Fund Center. On either side of the street between 87th and 88th. (West-Park had been a pigeon squat for three years...)

I learned about the Wild Bird Center from Rachel’s daughter Nadia. Not only birds, but all kinds of animals who need a little rehab and TLC. Nadia volunteers there and frequently foster parents birds and others until they’re ready to be on their own again. Sounded like just the right thing for Cara, with all her feathers. She loved it. They have a great community of volunteers....artists musicians, others...who connect with each other as well as the birds. Hopefully a good volunteer opportunity will emerge from this. (Stephen’s focused help much appreciated here...)

Stephen  also fills me in on the successful performance Martin put on for the Public. And the party that followed. While I was packing. Sigh. A lot of projects bubbling up right now.

I go out for awhile and when I return RL and Poet Tim have come in and RL is for some unaccountable reason talking as if he had a puppet on his hand. 

I’m on conference calls with my Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA) board friends and people keep wanting to come in and talk. Not now, Rudolfo. Not now. 

Catch Martin in the fly as I’m off to the village and a Presbytery Social Witness Council (CWSW) meeting. 

No such thing as coincidence

4/3

Teddy and Joe, the mover at the Beacon

Move out day. A family’s life packed into boxes. headed to a storage facility. One intriguing random reality. Te head of the moving company comes in. Recognizes me as Pastor Bob from West-Park. Tells me he was a good friend of Teddy’s. For years. Used to call him in to help out on moves. Came to the memorial service. Tells me about his last interactions with Teddy. How important Teddy’s life at West-Park was.  And that he reads this blog. And appreciates it’s encouragement to people to live in the now, take responsibility for their  own lives in the present moment. makes me happy that he sees that. I can almost see Teddy as part of the crew. He shares a picture of the two of them outside the Beacon during one of the Allmans annual visits.

I’m pondering the odds. The thousands of moving companies in  the area. That nancy chose this one, connected to Teddy... Jamie says there’s no such thing as coincidence.  

Not easy

4/2

Take a break from the deconstruction of our family home to come to the church for the Center board meeting.

Much to talk about. Status of negotiations. A plan to fully differentiate the Center from the church as well as the interrelationship. The need to develop a year’s worth of program events. There’s a sense that we might actually be nearing a base of stability from which we can build a future. For the first time in a long time, there’s a sense of energy, excitement.

During the meeting, martin comes in. Tells me he’s spent the day with people from the Public. Tonight he’s showcasing his work in progress, a flamenco version of Antigone. He showed them the balcony theatre. They were surprised to learn that it was created by their founder Joe Papp. He show the them the history online. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shakespeare_Center) They ask who’s using the theatre now.   

After the meeting, we talk about my moving. Even though it’s part of a strategic plan, even though there’s no other way, even though.....still.....this for my kids, for me, has been home and will be no more. Not easy.

Easter Monday: There is no proof but us

4/1

Opening day begins with sunny hope. Mild temperatures. Yankees, Red Sox. Yankee Stadium. My friend John, die hard Red Sox Nation, up from Atlantic City. The friendly taunting banter of Yankee fans on the subway. The long afternoon ends with swirling winds and cold rain, trash dancing on the field among the players as last year’s Pirate closer Hanrahan mops up the badly battered Yankees and their spring training lineup in a nearly empty stadium. I try not to see this as an ominous metaphor.

Rachelle is here. Asking me to get a van so she can move her things. Surely I must have a car, find a car....she’s off to one last seder in Borough Park. She introduces me to a new woman. Sheila. An Orthodox Jew. And born again Christian.

Monday night Bible Study. Mark’s account of the resurrection.(16:1-8) The end of his Gospel and our many months long line by line journey begun in the wake of Sekou and West. 

What do we find?

• Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ mother Mary go to do what Joseph of Arimathea did not. Give Jesus a proper burial. 
• Excursis: Jesus’ sister named Salome? Like the daughter of Herod’s wife who danced for him? Got the head of John the Baptist? What’s up? Well, no issue, they’d be contemporaries. Still....
• Cara wants to know more. And so I remember Lauren singing the role with the San Francisco Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas. Chills running down my spine. The bartender in New Orleans with the full Aubrey Beardsley illustration, John’s head on a platter and all, running down her arm. Impressed that I could recognize it. Cara asks Seven veils? And I say, no that’s Oscar Wilde, not the Bible. And Richard Strauss. And Aubrey Beardsley...Different Salome.
• They’re expecting to find the stone still there. It’s gone.
• Inside, they find a young man, sitting on the right, where the disciples wanted to be, in  a white robe. 
• Is this the one who ran naked from the garden? Leaving a linen cloth. The one that was wrapped around Jesus? Now in a dazzling white robe, like Jesus at the transfiguration. The clothes of a martyr. Transformed from exposure, shame, humiliation to glory.
• He has a message: you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth (seeking....like disciples sought Jesus, like those who were needy sought Jesus, like the authorities were seeking Jesus...the ones who don’t understand who he is, always seeking...)
• He has been raised. Same word as in Jesus’ healing stories. He didn’t do it himself. Raised by an external force. Like God?
• Tell my disciples...and Peter..In his betrayal, Peter not only betrayed Jesus but the disciples as well. He had separated himself from them....
• He is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will meet him, just as he told you....
• Galilee, where it all began
• But they fled, filled with terror and amazement...
• They said nothing to anyone....why? They were never silent before...
• For they were afraid....And that’s the end of Mark...what? Well, someone must have said something to someone or we wouldn’t be here now. They were afraid....and that’s it...even an ellipsis....they were afraid...what a way to end...no halos, no radiant appearance, 

What do we take from this?

• Going back to Galilee says it starts all over again. Go back to the beginning. Begin again. The discipleship project continues. We start over again.
• The  women, the  last to leave, the last to stay faithful, dead or alive, didn’t matter, are the first witnesses. A radical change, witnesses from the margins...yes, women.
• Those other passages, the other endings, were written by a community that needed a happy  ending. The restoration of a male  dominated order. Peter’s rehab.     
• Once in San Jose, Costa Rica, theologian Pablo Richard said to us, My problem with North American Christians is that you want to get too quickly to the happy ending. We must fully experience life in all it’s paradox, it's  perplexity but most  of all, it's  profound beauty.                                                                                                                                                     
• In Mark, the resurrection is not an answer but a question. Will you go to Galilee? Will you enter the story?
• Marsha sees it.Then Hope. Then all of us....in this Gospel, no risen Christ walking around. No pronouncements. No visual images. The only proof is us. If we are willing to step on the road. Live out the arc of our lives, not fearing death, following to where it will lead...There is no proof but us....

Easter at West-Park

3/31

Early Easter

Easter Sunday. It’s sunny and mild.  Anna’s in front of the church with puppy. On her way to the corner bodega. I ask her to get me a cup pf coffee and a roll for communion while I go in to pick up the grape juice and a cup and programs. 

I come back out and we walk the two long blocks to Central Park West. Going at a pace appropriate to puppy’s explorations. As we get to CPW, I look across the street and see Cara waiting. We sit on the benches on the northeast entrance to catch our breath. 

Just as we’re about to walk up the hill and into the park, Rachel arrives. I’m overjoyed to see her. She’s been so frustrated stuck at home.  I always associate her with this service.  She’s accompanied by Joe, her handyman, who fixes her crib, as he puts it. We walk up the hill together and into the stone outlined entrance to the vanished All Angels Church. 

I’m beginning to tell the history when Don arrives. With a friend. And I tell the story of Seneca Village. Buried, along with its history, in the making of Central Park. What was called a place inhabited by  squatters and ne’er do wells was in fact a vital village of 300 homes, 3 schools and 3 churches. The first place in the city where African-Americans owned property and voted.  Later joined by German and Irish immigrants. And this church was the first to be truly multicultural. History doesn’t remain buried...stories eventually emerge...like these stones...the very stones will cry out....

The first time I did this with Katherine, she asked, and what will be the altar? And I said, the people will be our altar. I tell this story and Rachel offers me the seat of her walker to use as an altar. We pray the inclusive Lord’s prayer from the New Zealand prayer book. And share our communion.

I share stories of the year I was alone and tweeting the service when I was joined by an artist I had married in the Park. Of circles of people joined by the ubiquitous dog walkers and occasional park rangers. Rachel remembers the year the area was fenced off and we used her nail clippers to cut through the orange plastic fence until the police came and pushed us back to the sidewalk. Lots of memories....

Don is on his way to China again, his friend to Paris. 

This is the day that the lord has made,let us rejoice and be glad in it...

Joe walks Rachel home. Cara and I on our way to set up the church for Easter. 

                                         * * * * 

The black removed. The white comes out. More candles.

the table

And the Cristo Rey from Cali, Colombia, a gift from the Sanchez family,  is back on the table. 

I’m in my office working on my sermon. Cara outside sweeping. I hear a commotion, look outside, and it’s Edward Green, I catch my breath, ready to engage, but Anna has handled it.  I’m anxious about who will come. But in the sanctuary, I hear Andre giving Stephen a music lesson on the hymns of the day, and I smile, this is a good sign. 

There are visitors. African-American families and children. Latinos. I’m happy to see Steven, his wife and son Xavier. (one of my baptisms...)And Isis from Dzieci gives me a hug...relaxing. OK, it will be OK...and my son Dan...

Stephen,s family

After reading the Gospel, John 20: 1-18, with a Mary who weeps, I have Andre sing a little O Mary, don’t you weep don’t you moan...

Glen, Tony and Andre

And when I didn’t know what to preach, this is what I said...

No you tube. No I phone videos. No newspaper, aol,Huffington post, cell phone shots......so how do we know? How do we know the Resurrection is real?

Each biblical witness is their own unique narrative...this is one is John's....

We start with Mary....it was still dark..she couldn't wait..sees the stone rolled away...goes to tell Simon Peter and the one Jesus loved...linen wrappings lying there...cloth "rolled up in a place by itself"...not what a grave robber would do...something else has happened.....he saw...and "believed"...just from the cloth...

and then they went home...and then what? apparently told no one...said nothing to anyone.....what?  

So, now Mary back again...when did she come back?  and she is weeping....why? because she had no chance to say a farewell?Did she need closure? Was she feeling  empty as a tomb?  Already we have  signs of two special intimacies...the one Jesus loved and Mary Magdalene

There's something  here in these intimacies, especially Mary’s... that goes beyond messianic expectations.....this Jesus was someone who was loved ....as a human ....as a man....

She sees two angels...and is not surprised..was she used to seeing angels? She speaks to them like  orderlies who have stripped a hospital bed ( Barbara Lundblad said that)  and then...there is Jesus....Mary  is the  first person he appears to...and she doesn't recognize him...why? Has be been changed?

but check this out....she thinks he's the gardner...Jesus is resurrected, but....no halo, no glow, he looks like the simplest of people....a gardner...

She still wants to claim the body...which only a next of kin could do...

And his answer is one word...Mary...her name....and then she knows...he says it like no one else says it....can you hear your name...like your mother, your father, your teacher,your friend, your lover...says it? Can you hear that?

....John 10:3-4   the shepherd calls his own sheep by name...

and then she knows...and says rabbouni...teacher...so he had taught her...bible, theology, she like a seminary student....

and she must have grabbed hold of him because he says  do not hold on to me...

how do we try and hold on...creeds? confessions? denominations? doctrine? buildings?

and then she goes to tell others..she is the first witness...

So what do we do with this?.

Barbara Lundblad (whose teaching has informed much of this reflection..says there are three witnesses....one sees grave clothes and believes

another sees the same thing and there is no indication he believes anything...

another assumes he's been taken away and is surprised into resurrection at the sound of her name...This could have been a more  simple story....John leaves room for us...

one who sees and believes

one who sees and leaves uncertain

 one who needs to hear her own name

which are we? which one are you?

Our greatest evidence is this ...we are here....we have come in affirmation....with our own questions...let the stones rollaway from our own minds...let us hear our own name...not holding on...where we are....but willing to go where he will lead us...

And we do not go alone but together with brothers and sisters who will go with us...

We are the evidence....

We finish by singing Jesus Christ is risen today...then form our circle....a big circle today...and the service is over...

Conversations. Hugs. Greetings....

Outside there’s a man in a wheelchair. It’s me, Sean, he says...I had to come by here today. This is where Teddy saved my life. If he hadn’t gotten me to the hospital, the gangrene would have kept going. I’d be dead. Teddy saved my life. I had to come. 

We talk. He’s had to choose between prosthetics and an electric wheel chair. He’s chosen the chair. 

I put my hand on his shoulder. Say, thanks...

On my way. With Dan. To meet Andrea and Nate for a family Easter meal together. 

Alleluai, Christ is risen.

Christ. is risen indeed. 

Los Santiago y los  Meneses y Brenes

Stephen, Glen, Leila, Berik, Andre

Good Friday: Women looking on from a distance

3/29

Good Friday.  At high noon. An amazing beautiful sunny day. In stark contrast to the  darkness that fell at noon on this day. Covering the word in darkness for three hours as Jesus hung on the cross. 

My family is taking clothes and other items to the thrift store at Holy Name Church as I come to West-Park. Cara is stretching, doing yoga in the darkened sanctuary as I arrive. She helps me remove the table from last night’s Holy Thursday simple meal. Remove all the purple from the communion table. All the candles except for one lone one.  We lay a black cloth across the table. Open the front doors.

In years past, we have had a children’s service of the seven last words. I was questioning about this at first, but it worked.  This year is different. We have decided to open the doors between noon and three.  Have readings and prayers at every hour. 

I take out a simple white alb. Put it on. Walk to the front. Light the candle. Open the Bible to Mark and read 15: 16-41. Pause for silence. Then pray.

In between each reading I will come back to the office, remove the alb and work on issues that must be dealt with before Easter. Then on the hour, vest again and return to the sanctuary. Cara asks what you call the alb. Vestments, I say. And I look it up to trace its meaning back to the Latin having to do with dressing which them becomes in Middle English something having to do with ceremonial dress. 

At 1 PM, I turn to Matthew 27: 27-55. Marsha has come to join us. To keep watch. Vigil. As her hour ends, I read Luke 23: 26-57. This is the passage with the good thief, the one who says Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. Which my friend George Todd and Jacques Berthier turned into the Taize chant. And I ask that like the thief, Jesus may remember us as well. And as I read Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing, I hear Cara sigh. It’s true. So often we don’t.

We take care of business. Do a quick tour of banks and make it back for 3 PM. It may seem sacrilegious to be doing so much in between reflection but there is no choice. The sanctuary remains a place of quiet and refuge. Anna and puppy and Stephen has joined us as I turn to 19: 16-42. The invitation to the one who Jesus loved to care for his mother. John’s own mysterious voice. 

I look through the quiet of sanctuary to the light of the street shining through. The sound of buses. People in motion. I like reading each of the stories on their own. Pondering each one as its own narrative. As opposed to the traditional mash up we have come to know as the seven last words. Over the years that our neighbor Rutgers used to host this service, with participants from all the churches, I had finished the cycle by the  time they stopped doing it. I both hated and loved that service. When I was a kid, by the time I had spent so much time in one week in  church, Easter never came across with quite enough joy. There was of course the candy....

But here, the point is we have to know this moment, the moment of My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Before we can experience resurrection. 

There’s still two services to get done. RL ducks in and out. I’ve got more packing at home ahead of me.There is a voice behind me. Asking for money. Sounds familiar. I turn around. Say aren't you the pastor who was here 10 years ago? and he tells me his story of redemption gained and redemption lost, a whole story lived through. Later I call P______. her anger continues, her apocalyptic vision of the world, the forces aligned against  her now including her own children.  But it's true. What the legal system did to her was unconscionable. The landlord's behavior obscene. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean their out to get you.  

Part of me is wondering how you can preach the  resurrection when the dying part isn’t over with yet.

But I’m thinking of this...There were also women looking on from a distance; among then were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses and Salome....and to these names I would add Cara, Marsha, Anna...they too sat their vigil, looked on from a distance, kept watch....Cara from beginning to end....women looking on from a distance....

Maundy Thursday, Holy Thursday

3/26

Need a break. UP to RL’s studio for a quiet sit. He’s playing classical music for a change. We share complaints and stories of woe. If it were music, it would be the blues. There’s a group called Mudfoot coming in to shoot a music video on Saturday. We want to check them out, but the Internet is disappearing again. Stephen comes down to give it a look. I’ve got t be on y way to my colleague Alistair’s for a screening  of Of Gods and Men....a film about the seven Trappist monks kidnapped from the monastery of Tibherine during the Algerian civil war of 1996. Perfect film for Holy Week.

3/28

It’s Maundy Thursday. Holy Thursday. The night we remember Jesus gathering with his friends to celebrate the Passover. The last supper. Danielle meets me in the sanctuary. RL passes through and allows as to how he’s bemused encountering us in the sanctuary trying to figure out what we’re doing in the sanctuary. Stephen and Danielle have prepared the table. It’s already set with fresh grapes, mozzarella, basil and tomatoes. Welch’s grape juice. 

I go out for two cheeses. Matzoh. Wine.  I’m in a state of rising anxiety trying to finish packing up my manse for its renovation. And ultimate sale. Feeling fragile. While I’m racing round trying to get ready, I encounter Rachelle on the steps. Tonight it’s almost too much. She’s heading to Borough Park for a seder. Telling me about all that they’ll have left over.  She can’t carry it. All we need is someone with a car. Am I sure that I don’t know anyone with a car? Why not? Punctuated by horror stories from capital hall where she lives. I’ve been trying to figure out what ‘s wrong with my debit card until I discover I put the deposit in the wrong account. Just enough to run out and run back again. But she’s relentless. I pull away.

When I come back, she’s gushing over a nice young couple, an intelligent young couple,won’t they come in? They’re just in town and just married. Won’t they come in, pastor invite them in...They are glowing, I try to be nice. Realize I’m being unpleasant. Not good. I try to reverse course, probably too late. Maybe they’ll come back tomorrow. Rachelle’s about to chide me. Looks at me. Thinks better of it. I wish her again a happy pesach. 

My phone  rings. It’s P_____. I know what she’s up to. About to accuse me of betraying her again. She's still angry we wouldn't let her move in. Madness is beginning to get to me. Stephen sees and decides to stick around. We are very small. So I ask everyone to sit down. Speak quietly and calmly. And so the conversation  goes. Anna and puppy have arrived as well. 

I remember last year. Teddy leaning across to wipe Bobby’s mouth. The warmth of the circle around the table. Each year is different. But I do begin  calm down. Relax.

Stephen promises me he’ll be sure everythings ‘s cleaned up right. My keys see to be missing. Son Dan and Andrea waiting at the Indian restaurant beside the B.