The end

I am ending this blog today. I am doing so because Google or Blogspot or whatever nameless faceless unwilling-to-respond-to-problems people are making it difficult to use this space.

About every third time I try to get on my dashboard and to use g mail, I am asked to start a new one. There is supposed to be a sign in place on the upper right hand of the screen but it is not there.

So good bye.

The Election of March 4, 2008

I served as a Clerk Judge in Batavia Twp precinct G for the March 4, 2008 election.

I was greatly dismayed by the lack of ballots for the Democratic primary.

Our Presiding Judge, a Republican, Pamela Henegar, told us at the beginning of the day that she thought we had too few ballots for the Democratic Party.

We were down to less than ten ballots after 4pm when an official brought us 27 more Democratic Ballots. We had called the phone number at the Board of Elections had given us to report issues. In four calls I made on my cell phone to the Board I never got to speak to anyone. I had to leave messages. We had questions about what to tell voters what to do when we ran out.

Shortly after 6 pm we ran out of Democratic ballots and were unable to contact the board of elections. I know we turned away several voters although we told them all they could wait for ballots to arrive or go directly to the board of elections to vote.

Eventually, my Presiding Judge urged me to drive into Batavia to see if we could get more ballots. I left our polling place about 7:05. I was given ballots for all four of the precincts in the elementary school were we were located, Holly Hill, and arrived back there at 7:35. We had twelve people in line who voted in the democratic primary at that point and several in two of the other precincts.

It appears to me that the Clermont County Board of Elections was unprepared for the high voter turnout, unprepared to respond to the need for more ballots and unprepared to answer phone calls which, during training, they urged us to make.

Finally, I wish to complain about the behavior of the judges in Precinct F of Batavia Twp. When voters entered the gymnasium at Holly Hill Elementary asking where they should vote, those judges refused to look up their addresses and point them to the correct precinct. We had numerous voters wandering from table to table until arriving at Precinct G; we took the time to help them.

The people at Precinct F angered several people by their attitude and refusal to do the simple work of looking up polling places. They need to be better trained or reprimanded.

Sewanee

After probably fifteen years I have returned to Sewanee. This holy place on the Cumberland Plateau is the location of the University of the South and its School of Theology were I earned an M.Div. twenty two years ago. I am here for two weeks as a Fellow in Residence to read, study, walk, talk and pray.

I attend the Daily Offices and daily Eucharist in the seminary chapel, which was not there when I was here. I am spending time translating Greek; trying to "unrust" it.

The low clouds hanging on to the mountain make Sewanee grey and brown during this time of the year.

Peaceful. I need that right now as I make a transition to the last third of my life or at least to my third career.

Sex, Sin, Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve naked and innocent in the Garden of Eden are tempted by a snake to eat an apple, first Eve tempted by the snake and then Adam tempted by Eve. Thus they learned not only that they were “neked” but they learned about sin by having sex.

Wrong. The only part of that description of the beginning of Genesis Chapter three that is accurate is that they began naked.

Eve is not given her name until the next chapter. The man, adam, which means undifferentiated human, is not called Adam until the next chapter. Here they are still ish and isha. It was not a snake but a servant; it was not an apple but a fruit. While the woman took and ate the fruit first, the man was with her all the time, Genesis 3:6. They had already had sex with each other, Genesis 2: 24.

Note that they were tempted as we all are to something good, Genesis 3:6.

Genesis chapter three is not about the origin of sin. If there was no sin before the serpent- woman conversation, how could either the man or the woman have been tempted and succumbed to disobedience? No. This is a story that says human beings have always been tempted from the very beginning and have always given in to temptation.

There was no “Fall” in the sense that there was a time in human existence when people were “perfect” and one human being started the sinning for all the rest of us. The fall is not a past tense verb; it is a continuing event in the relationship between humans and God.

Human sinfulness is not, despite St. Augustine, tied to sex. There is no inherent connection between sexual intercourse and disobedience to God. Indeed, the act of love between two people is a sacrament which embodies the love of God for creation. Like all good things we can and do pervert it. Augustine and much of the church have perverted sex by linking it with sin.

Finally, the story of “Adam and Eve, the snake and the apple in the Garden of Eden” is a story. It is a made up, true, fictional, myth which tells us much of great value about ourselves and our continuing relationship to the loving creator.

The story ends with a very domestic YHWH designing and making clothing for the couple. Genesis 3:21.

The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Some call it Ground Hog Day. For Christians, at least those of us in the catholic tradition, this is a feast day marking the day Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, was taken to the temple in Jerusalem and dedicated. See Exodus chapter 13.

We don't celebrate this much in the Episcopal church, I suspect because "baby dedication" sounds like something Baptists do. We baptize infants and they dedicate them until they are old enough to say they are born again. When Episcopal kids reach that age we have the Bishop "confirm" them. Same thing, well almost.


This feast is also known the the Purification of Mary. It follows the tradition that somehow women are impure after childbirth and during their monthly bleeding period. Such a feast is born of the fear men have of women's power to give birth.

Unclean does not mean dirty. Could we revive some sense of being in need of a spiritual wash? Men and women alike are estranged from God, from the good spirit of creation in ways that are sinful. When we sin we separate ourselves from God. But there are times, things we do that are not necessarily wrong but move us, not exactly away from God, but perhaps raise some kind of barrier. It is that sort of idea, I think that illuminates what the Hebrew scriptures mean by "unclean."

The only thing I have experienced that might be comparable is periods of depression and panic. I cannot see how such a time equates to the period after childbirth, but I have felt that separation and a need to be cleaned following panic attacks.

Career change

Finding a job is a full time job. My last job, Vicar of the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan ended when the new Bishop chose to stop funding that mission church. He provided two months severance pay, membership in a career coaching company and just recently several months of health insurance.

I have been talking about retiring, but wanted to do it on my own time. I had talked about getting out of parish ministry, but again wanted to do it my own way. So.

January and February looked to be a mini sabbatical. I would spend the time working on Greek and re writing my Chicago Junction stories for publication. Neither has happened. I have spent most of the time working on how to "package my skill set" so that I might appeal to employers outside the church.

The process of learning how to "network" [Verbing weirds language - Pogo], is challenges me. I don't like making telephone calls to people I don't know. But I have been doing it.

On the Great Wall of China May 2007

Here is the picture of the event described in the journal of our trip to China and Russia in which I meet a young Chinese woman who attempt to sell me her "magic rings." I showed her the old trick of pulling off your finger!

Humming birds

Last summer we had the most successful humming bird feeder ever. Towards the end of the summer there was a veritable flock of the little helcopters buzzing around like flys. See for yourself.

Tom at a stop on the Trans Siberian Railway May 2007

What has been happening

Since I last wrote in the blog my Bishop told me I would have to go to half time in the church I was service. Six weeks later the church was told there would be no money at all for me beginning January 1, 2008. They did provide two months, only two months, severance pay. After 21 and half years in the parish ministry I was dismissed without even an apology.

Be careful what you wish for. I have been wanting to leave parish ministry for some other form of priestly service. But I would rather do it on my time. Do I attribute this change in my fortunes to the God who listens and grants me what I ask for or to the vagaries of the worldly church?

If I were not angry with the way I have been treated, I would be happy about the change. But on March 1 I will have not income, no job, no health care. Bishop Breidenthal provided me with a three months contract with a job coach. It is very good work, but it is not going to provide me with an immediate income.

What I am exploring: CPE residency. Chaplaincy at Bethany School. Non religious jobs. That is a biggie. I have applied for a chaplaincy with the Seaman’s Institute and a half time church in southern Kentucky.

In the mean time Nancye has acquired a second job. In addition to framing pictures for Michaels she is a part time secretary at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Terrace Park.