There's a Light

Today is Easter Sunday. If you are observing the holiday either in one of its festive mutant variants or in a more religious vein, best wishes to you and yours. Me and mine, or just me really as my better half tends to live in the moment, celebrate today differently than most (if you place an "i" before the "st" in "most" it looks really goofy. Trust me on this one.) but celebrate a little bit we always do.

Thirty-six years ago today (okay, not today today, but today, Easter Sunday) I asked a young German woman I was awfully sweet on, Sigrid Schubert, to marry me. For historians everywhere, the sole point of note is that she said "yes.". Back when I asked her in 1977, Easter was the third of April (and even though I was in US Air Force, I had far more hair on my head than I do now, so not everything gets better with age).

Sigrid told me later she had at first feared I was breaking up with her-perhaps I should enter one of those poker tourneys if I can bluff like that, except in reality, I have the emotional range of Rainman in a coma, so I should be grateful she held on and waited for the ride to get to....

...Here. Where she and I are now is, in some respects, not all that far from where we started.
Material conditions have changed-we had a two room cold-water walk-up off a bus line in Offenbach am Main a 'small' German city with more people in it than who lived in ALL of New London County, Connecticut when we arrived here in the fall of 1991.

Our home today is across the street from a landmark green space in the city of Norwich, Connecticut, an industrial-revolution-meets-the-American-Revolution type of town found so often in New England. That we are here, and will be very likely for the rest of our lives, isn't/wasn't part of either of our visions of our future,  proving again life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

Our wedding rings have both the date of our engagement (technically, that anniversary is Wednesday coming) as well as that of our wedding. I've stopped taking my ring off aside from that 'testing to see if I can still do it' drill I go through at random moments-and I mention that because I don't like jewelry and aside from my medical alert USB drive shaped like a bracelet, I don't wear any. My wedding ring is an unwavering constant, not that I need the reminder.

We were, with apologies to Erich Fromm, a coalition of two against the world from the beginning. I'm not comfortable with new people, taking forever to warm up to them-with the exception of the two who joined our lives, our children. We were three and then became four and then three again and eventually we'll be back to just two, which is where we started and I am with the person with whom I am most comfortable in the entire world of seven billion plus people.

For me, Sigrid is like breathing out and breathing in, though I have given her many moments where the thought of applying a pillow to my sleeping face must have crossed her mind (so much for breathing). Actually, that's fair-more than fair if I were to be honest and this is as good a day as any to do that.

I usually spend this day examining where we've been and where I hope we're going but this day, and this time, I'm enjoying more of the where we are and what we have, which as it has been for all these years, is one another. She brightens any room and always brightens my world.
-bill kenny

End of Daze?

These are some thoughts, or what passes for thought, I had last Easter weekend. I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding now than I was then and I may even understand less. To my memory they had nothing to do with egg hunts or chocolate or bunnies. However your mileage may vary. I'd say 'consider yourself warned' but far too many of us always consider only ourselves.

I have never been to the Vatican, nor have I stayed at a well-known motel chain, but I know my way around the Stations of the Cross and the Lives of the Saints. I'm always amazed at the number of people who think Christmas is the origin of Christianity-others consider the beginnings to be Easter Sunday.

If the former is The Promise and the latter The Promise Fulfilled-today, Holy Saturday, is the act of faith and hope that defines you as a Christian. The belief in the Resurrection which the New Testament portrays as  the reward for the faithful is never so near and yet so far as it is today.

The earliest disciples had nothing to go on, unlike we of the Brave New World Order. They had witnessed a crucifixion-one of the most egregiously horrific forms of death sentence at its time. Cowering in an upstairs room, huddled together while fearing any sound and every footfall was possibly a signal someone was coming for them, they had no way to see the glory of Easter Sunday. All they could do was believe.

For them to believe as devoutly as they did between the worst day in the history of the world and its greatest day, remains, for me-loyal son of Holy Mother Church, but a FARC  for more years than I care to recall-the day which created the Christian religion, today.

From childhood on, I struggled against the suffocation that surrender to the traditions and the rites seemed to signify. I took no solace in unquestioning and unswerving belief-preferring what I understood the path of Thomas to be and, finding no one who could answer my questions, absenting myself from the body of believers. How odd that this declaration of freedom has never created a sense of being free.

Not that I don't envy those of faith and think about the comfort that comes from that, especially anytime I read another account of another servicemember lost in the flood that has been our facsimile of a Middle Eastern foreign policy for over a decade. We've lost two sons of Norwich in those years, but at the risk of being thought cynical, it's always the same movie, with a different cast. And if the cost of what we are doing, or failing to do, hasn't come to your corner and village or city yet, give it time.

A year ago I was reading  the accounts of the death of Captain Nicholas Rozanski. He came all the way from Dublin, Ohio, to be lost in the fog of war, along with SFC Jeffrey Rieck and SFC Shawn Hannon, on the streets of Maimanah, an otherwise unremarkable spot on a map of a nation we have carried with us as a coward does an abscess for over a decade, unable or unwilling (I can never tell which) to do that which we know we must to conclude that which  we can no longer control.

Captain Rozanski's death should be another reminder to those of us who are alive to redouble our efforts to be the best people we can be in The Now because The Next, as the New Testament illustrates, can be so lonely and uncertain without a reason to believe. Either you have a reason, or you become one for someone else. When you do, every day is Easter.

I Really Didn't Come Here of My Own Accord

As a child at Saint Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, it was forcibly impressed upon us by the Sisters of Charity whose charges we were (and for whom many of us became crosses, and yeah, Kelly, I'm talking about you) that there was nothing good about Good Friday.

When we were old enough to mentally and emotionally comprehend the New Testament accounts of the Passion of Christ I couldn't imagine a more horrible way to die. As I grew older if not up and learned more of our species' history and track record in dealing with one another, I realized we could, and often did, behave like a life form beyond any Redemption.

Christmas gets all the ink and Easter all the lilies and chocolate, but Holy Thursday through the sunrise services of Easter Sunday morning are 'go' time for Christian believers. The events and circumstances of Good Friday, the sundering of the curtain in the Temple in Jerusalem (what a great word 'sundering ' is when you're in fourth grade; actually, it's still pretty cool), the forgiveness of The Good Thief, the testimony of the Centurion Longinus at the foot of the cross and a hundred and more sidebars, nuances, and obscured by time and telling points on the biblical accounts always seemed to make Good Friday the most important of the days leading to Easter.

Around the world today, processions and reenactments of the Stations of the Cross at or near three o'clock in the afternoon will cap observances for the faithful and faithless alike leaving them Saturday to recoup and regroup before the Promise is redeemed for saints and sinners all with the light of Sunday morning.
-bill kenny

Waiting for My Sun

It was an early day yesterday for my wife, Sigrid. I was able to rise and shine,or as close as I ever get to the latter, in the oh-dark-thirty part of the morning and get that elliptical trainer gizmo subdued (well, somebody has to do it and I didn't see you offering) and then instead of off to work, heading for the William W. Backus Hospital (or "Willie" as I like to call it when I don't think it can hear me) and same day surgery to repair a torn tendon in her left elbow.

We were at the hospital by a 0600 (6 AM for my fellow Americans) showtime and by 0728 (do the math yourself, My American Cousin (sorry Abe)), Sigrid was being wheeled into the operating room. Thanks to the two Jens, Lisa, Stephanie, Christina, Bob and Dr. S, in a little more than an hour she was in recovery with Crystal and by shortly after ten I had her here, home, again.

After a nap to help make up the sleep deficit for the early start to her day, and a result of some of the pain-killing medication she was given before surgery, Sigrid was nearly her old self by three in the afternoon, telling me what to do like she hadn't had surgery at all. Of course, as I've told her a hundred million kajillion times this is what she gets for poking me in the ribs with her elbow for the last 35 years. I'm hoping for the next three and half decades she remembers to use the other elbow. Know what I mean?
-bill kenny
 

End of the Innocence

I haven't offered my unsolicited two cents on the Saint Vincent de Paul Place Soup Kitchen temporary relocation into Saint Joseph's School because I can't quite develop the necessary neutral third party perspective for an issue that speaks to us, transcending religion and municipal boundaries at so many levels that much of what is being said now is drowned out by other passionate points of view.

I've read on-line comments about news articles that 'the neighborhood' didn't support Saint Joseph's which closed in June 2010 and there's an element of truth to that assertion, I'm sure. But words and numbers are funny creatures and often behave in ways other than you or I might imagine and what is fact one day is sometimes very different on another.

At the time of its closure Saint Joseph's School was nearly half a million dollars in debt and after parents of the 100 or so children enrolled there had organized fundraisers and crafted a marketing plan to revitalize the finances and rescue their school, the Diocese of Norwich announced its decision to close explaining its belief  that there weren't enough young families in Norwich to continue to support the school.

And for about two years, until last summer, the school sat empty in the middle of the neighborhood it had been an integral part of for over a century. Generations of families had attended Saint Joseph's as had their parents and their parents before them. They were shocked and not a little disheartened when they realized their children would not complete their elementary years there as well.

I have a personal appreciation of the value and virtue of Catholic elementary school. I and my younger sister and brother attended Saint Peter School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and our three youngest sisters and brother attended Saint Paul School in Princeton. It was not an easy financial decision for our parents but they had a strong sense of value for money and, more importantly, of values beyond money.

Norwich parents devised solutions of their own for their children's education and their lives went on even as the rooms in Saint Joseph sat unused through two falls, two winters and two springs. The Diocese of Norwich itself with a wide range of missions and a broad spectrum of services redoubled its efforts especially as hard times became harder for those with close to nothing and those with less than nothing.

When required repairs at the Soup Kitchen location threatened to halt those services, the Diocese sought and received permission to temporarily relocate to their unused property, Saint Joseph School. Many in the neighborhood and across the city understood the nature and definition of temporary but sometimes words have two meanings and how the situation has developed to where it is we all now know too well.

What is less well-known, at least to me, is where do we go from two intractable and unalterably opposed viewpoints when both sides in a matter that should have NO sides have resorted to name calling and the impugning of one another's character and integrity. Meanwhile those who need help and those who work to offer it must fend for themselves, isolated and alone.

Helping has created injuries, emotional and financial, and casualties among those neighbors who've worked hard for their homes near Saint Joseph School and has in all likelihood rended the garment of community and torn the trust that took generations to develop. Lawyers will clear up all details and court decisions in all likelihood  will settle once and for all what is and what is not legal.

But when all the anger has turned to sorrow, I'm not sure any of us will know or even care who was right and who was left behind.
-bill kenny

Putting the Fun in Fundamental

Perhaps because it's Easter Week or, as of sundown tonight, Passover, I've noticed a lot of Facebook Postings either to or about God. Admittedly there are still far fewer pictures of Jesus than of Grumpy Cat, and I certainly don't wish to suggest they are interchangeable images or that anyone is keeping count (but they are, I'm sure). Did you know there is a website (and that should probably be plural not singular) that tells you when Easter Week is in Somalia...in 2028? Oh. Last to know, again.

Anyway, back to the Lord. An important part of may people's faith or the practice of it, better said  I think, is the public testimony and in that sense all the social media platforms offer an opportunity to do that (except maybe myspace; a decade-too-late snarky remark at their expense, sorry).

Expressions of faith always discomfit me. I think that's due to a number of factors like being a Roman Catholic. No matter how good the Good News is, we were programmed as kids in parochial school to wait for the other shoe to drop. And eventually it did. I'm thinking maybe Catholics in general have a less intimate relationship with the Deity than other religions. 

For my part, I was raised in the faith of my fathers and I didn't leave it so much as it left me so there's that sin of pride thing going on, adding to my problems on the Last Day and the Big Pop Quiz or however the final selections are made. (Add to that now the whole 'you compared Jesus to the Grumpy Cat!?!' I'll never explain that away). With my luck, they'll be a sing-off and won't that be just ducky?

I suppose if you believe in an All-Seeing and All-Knowing God, S/He would monitor Facebook. Kind of wonder if S/He would have an account. I know S/He has a fan page though a quick run through gets me to Darryl Davis' rather interesting philosophic and anatomic question (under the picture of the nearly snow-covered car with a testimony on it) that I notice no one rushed to answer or rebut. I did notice no one 'liked' his observation.  

I'm thinking for some of The Flock, the Lord may be a kind of McAfee or Norton virus protection and every once in awhile we like to wander off the beaten path just to watch the pop-up window signal us, and Will Robinson, of impending danger. I wonder how many 'likes' all of the loosely affiliated with Divine Providence pages manage to generate on Facebook in a day or a week and how that number compares to how many people play Farmville? There are Farmville Dollars you know-if you were looking for motivation and salvation in the next life wasn't doing it for you. Just saying. 

I mean, how many times can anyone thumbs up the Mckayla Maroney meme? Jesus is easy.
-bill kenny

A Ray of Light and Grace

This is a sad day for a long-time ally and acquaintance and her family. Her dad, Ray, passed away early yesterday morning, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly but I think more rapidly than anyone else in his family thought would happen.

I met him for the first time about four years ago in the lower level of a pizza restaurant that disappeared some time afterwards and then repeatedly at numerous neighborhood and community functions all across the town where we live, Norwich, Connecticut, in the years since.

He lived in Norwich a very long time with his wife whom he loved very much and their daughter whom, he (correctly) regarded as a force of nature, because she is. I first spoke with him when he stopped in to show support for an insurgent mayoral bid by a candidate whose ideas many people agreed with but whose 'not-from-here' pedigree and unsettling habit of speaking truth to power practically guaranteed no one would elect him. I always enjoyed his stories of what Norwich once was and his keen insights into what it would take to reinvent the city he had chosen to spend his life in.

I sat alongside of him at a presentation one Saturday morning in the conference room of our municipally owned public utility and throughout the entire presentation by the utilities' leadership he kept scribbling notes and questions to himself, barely pausing throughout the entire program.

When it ended, he folded the foolscap up neatly and placed it in his pocket. I asked him what he was intending to do with it and he told me, he'd throw it away when he got home. When I argued that by so doing he had wasted his time, he tilted his head slightly to his right and with a slight smile asked me if I'd read over his shoulder. After I admitted that I had, he assured me, "then it wasn't a waste of my time."

For me he was a bridge between then and what could be. I don't think I ever heard him not applaud an idea he'd hear at any of the meetings he attended-even ideas with which he did not agree. He was insistent that getting people engaged meant encouraging them to think and to speak out whatever their idea might ultimately look like. He sincerely believed you did indeed have to be present for the drawing to win.

He knew all the local movers and shakers, not in a braggy 'these peeps be my posse' kind of swagger way, though typing that and imagining him saying it makes me smile, but, rather, he was a one-man network. If anyone needed assistance on a project or an idea that was just too big for your own two hands, he was the man who knew someone who could help. And because he would ask, help was always forthcoming.

As I said, I didn't know him long, but I made up for it by also not knowing him well. I do know he loved his family and they loved him and that the next few days for them will be a little like dying themselves and that the hole in their hearts will never heal-but their memories of his smile and his willingness to help will always shine brightly even on the darkest of days.
-bill kenny