From the train station

Since I'm waiting in the train station for my return trip back to Buffalo, I figured I'd kill some time with a blog entry.

I was in Albany this week for work, and am pretty tired from the pace of my week; it was endless meetings yesterday, and rush rush rush the rest of the week.  And it even snowed!  The end of March and it's snowing.  Depressing.

But, it's always nice to be in Albany, anyway.  It's a nice city, and I got to go to a favorite Japanese restaurant twice this week.  I lost one of my receipts, though, so I have to search for it so I can turn it in to get reimbursed.  The food is good, but it loses some of its appeal when 

I actually have to pay for it.

I'm hoping that this snow will be the last of the year, as well. I was thinking of SAD (seasonal affective disorder), and the impact it can make on people's lives.  I never really thought it bothered me too much, but when I woke up this morning and saw two inches of snow, I realized that it does affect me.  Damned snow!  I'm ready to break through my winter 

ennui and get to doing some things.  I signed up for a German class and a fencing class starting in the next few weeks, so I'll have some regular things to be doing each week.  Fencing, in particular, should be fun.  After I've taken a few classes, I'll have to record some video of me fencing, and post it.

Witches and Hose

So, I sent my DNA into a genealogy database, in order to have it included in the gene mapping work being done to assess the ethnic haplotyping of the border Scots people.  Lots of invasions there!

So, I scraped the inside of my cheek, paid $100, and the results will be added the the several hundred Eliots, Elliots, Eliotts, Elliotts, Armstrongs, Scotts, etc. who have already done likewise.

In my particular case, there's even some mystery: two men who claim to be descended from the same Daniel Eliot (this project is only for men, as it tracks the Y chromosome, which is passed unaltered from father to son) who settled in Salem and gave testimony at the famous witch trials are, in fact, in possession of different Y chromosomes.  That would mean that they are not descended from a common male ancestor.  Yikes!

I'm also descended from Daniel, so my DNA will prove one (or both!) of them wrong.  Based on the results, the three of us will caucus, determine how we're related, and try to discover another descendant who can give corroborating DNA, if needed.

My direct male descent line is trackable only as far as Daniel's father, born in 1640,

allegedly in Scotland.  The Eliot clan, of course, is along the border, but there are Eliots who were forcibly settled in Northern Ireland by William, and became Orangemen, Eliots who were sent to penal colonies, Eliots, who were adopted, etc.  Though we are all eligible to be members of Clan Eliot, having proof of genetic linkage is always great.  It may also provide more information if I can find others with my Y chromosome and pool our genealogical info.

What becomes difficult, of course, is tracking my female ancestors: those are more interesting.  But mRNA tracks matrilineal descent only, so I would have to discover a female-only-descendant line, and that's next to impossible.  But some of my female lines are historically important, so well-documented public records are available particularly for the Washington family into which our first president was born.

So, I'll keep the blog updated as info comes in about my witch ancestors and Scottish ancestors!

Holy Saturday: Sometimes it causes me to tremble

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work -- you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female servant, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

The fourth commandment is an injunction to do no work on the last day of the week, remembering the sacredness of the Creator who fashioned the daylight.  On this day, rest and worship are to be the natural extensions of remembering God's sacredness.  On this day, Christ descended to the dead, to open eternal life to those who had died before his coming.  However one interprets this, the main point is to illustrate that all salvation, whether it be for Christians, for those outside of the Church, for those who lived and died before Christ birth, is through the grace which floes form Christ's sacrifice on Calvary.  So, the world was quiet that Sabbath after the LORD was crucified.  It was the first tie in thirty three years that the fleshy God was not walking about.  Creation rested that Sabbath, as it no longer tentatively bore the enfleshed Christ on the earth.  Creation had stood as a witness to the Incarnation, and now was alone again, as the God-Man was no longer resident.

But to those He left behind that day, there was a different sensation: Peter was no where to be found, Judas was dead, and the remaining Twelve were scattered and hiding, even from one another.  They were holed up in their homes, packed into a Jerusalem overflowing for the Passover, and afraid for their lives.  They hid as brigands, lost, defeated, alone, and with the Mn in whom they had hoped so much newly dead and laid out to decompose.  They despaired.

But at least one of Christ's band experienced that day so differently.  Surely a devout Jew, Mary of Nazareth spent the Sabbath as she always had, in restful calm, and certainly pondering many things in her pierced heart, as Luke relates in his infancy narrative.  In the heart of Mary, what joy and sorrow, what hope and pain there must have been!  So much had been promised, and had it all been lost in that blood and water?  She knew God to be faithful to His covenant, and knew her Son to have been that covenant, but one which could be touched, loved, consoled, killed, and eaten.  Mary certainly hurt that Saturday, and certainly felt alone.  But instead of ear, she had a raging hope.  Surely it was silent, but ready to burst forth from her when the news trickled in the next day that the LORD had been seen.  She rushed out of her home, rushed out into a new day.

Maundy Thursday: Where charity and love are found, there God is

I give you a new commandment: that you shall love one another as I have loved you.

There are numerous, at times seemingly infinite, numbers of people at work who annoy me.  I'm usually in the office 45 hours a week, and am awake a total of 100 hours each week.  So, that's about 45% of my waking time spent at work.  Plenty if time to get annoyed.

I learned to a mental trick when people would annoy me: I would thin of each annoying person as Christ, just returning from teaching the multitudes, or being abandoned after disclosing his intent to remain among them as Eucharist, or healing a paralytic.  I'd try to see in that annoying person the image of a weary, emptied, and loving Christ.  I stopped doing that, because I began to get annoyed at Christ, too.

But it brings up the importance of seeing beyond the obvious, or beyond the immediately apparent.  If the devil's in the details, then the LORD is certainly equally overlooked in the big picture.  By pulling myself out of the situation and seeing my need for love and Christ's perfecting touch, it moves the picture: no longer s that person annoying me, but I'm really annoying myself.  And who really wants to annoy himself.  So I stop.

It actually works, I've found.  of course, that's assuming I actually disciplined myself to practice it.  Ah, the devil's in the details with that one, too!

Christ loved us enough to die for us, and a death that was most shameful and embarrassing to his followers.  The LORD was nailed to the tree as destroyed like a criminal, alongside criminals and notorious sinners.  What love have we to do so for our fellow man, as Christ enjoined us wit his new commandment?

It struck me particularly this last Sunday during the Passion when the crowd calls out for Jesus who is called the Messiah to suffer crucifixion, and for Judas Barabbas to be freed.  The Hebrew play on words is subtle and beautiful.  Jesus who is called Messiah means: The One Who Saves who is called Anointed.  Jesus Barabbas means: The One Who Saves, the Son of the Father (literally, bar abbas).  How uncanny is it that two criminals with such eerily contextually similar names would be juxtaposed?  One to death, the other to freedom.

This is how much Christ loved us, and how much we should love one another.  To give ourselves up in place of a known and hated murderer whose very name mocks God.  

We are not given many opportunities to take the place of death-row criminals.  But we are given the opportunity to walk with them.  We are given the opportunity to die to self and to help those on greater need.  We are given the opportunity to educate others about God's beauty.  We are given the opportunity to preach the love of the name of Jesus.  This is how we can show love to others such as the love shown to us by God in Christ: to give of ourselves freely and to pour ourselves out as a libation so that the wounds which Christ suffers in His people might be mended.

Spy Wednesday: 30 pieces of silver

Today we remember in our liturgy that Satan entered Judas and caused him to sentence his friend to death for a pittance.

I think of the need to commiserate with Judas, to feel his desperation and confusion about what the Christ had promised.  John's 6th chapter talks about how many found Christ's words concerning his sacrifice in blood and flesh to be too difficult, and that many left because of the obstacle this teaching posed.  But Judas stayed. He heard Christ promise that He would give his flesh for others to eat, and certainly Judas was horrified and dumbfounded by what He could have meant.  But Judas stayed.

It doesn't seem that Judas had a lack of love for Christ, but a lack of hope.  Thomas was certainly fatalistic, as well.  He commented that the Apostles should follow Christ up to Jerusalem in order to die with him.  But what about Judas?  Thomas was uncertain about the Resurrection, but Thomas' hope made possible his statement of faith, calling Christ his LORD and his God.  Judas' lack of hope led to his self-destruction, and the betrayal of his LORD and his God.

When hope is lost, the ability to accept difficulties from God makes us stiff, recalcitrant to grace.  When hope is lost, a dying Christ cannot be raised.  When hope is lost, it becomes impossible to accept that Christ could give His flesh for h life of the world.

Our faith and our happiness in Christ depends on our hope, always holding on to the promises of Christ, knowing that this God who loved us and redeemed us is infinitely worthy of our trust.

Holy Monday: Mary did you know? This Child who you deliver will soon deliver you

Today the venerable passion shines forth upon the world as the light of salvation; for Christ, out of goodness, hastens to His sufferings. He who holds all things in the hollow of His hand, consents to be hung upon the tree in order to save mankind.

 This is the First Kathisma from the Service of the Bridegroom, a liturgy of the East which spans from Holy Monday to Holy Wednesday.  As we begin Holy Week as a fractured church, rent apart by schisms two millennia long, the Church Universal, that ineffable mystery hidden from our sight, spans time and space as the towering witness to Christ's libation on Calvary.  The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church exists in the mind of God, as the men and women who constitute it have failed to hold t together.  But, this Church stands vigil with John and the Marys at the foot of the tree, gazing on the body rent in iron and blood under the Judean sun.  This Church holds her children round her skirts, bringing them as she stands fast as the Christ suffers through all time.  The crucifixion, though fixed locotemporally, is perpetuated throughout all time as the sacrifice of the sacred for the mundane.  The Church stands as mourner for that pain and suffering given for her by her Bridegroom, stretched on the tree.

On the day after the crowds cheered and welcomed him into Jerusalem, the Christ knew of his impending doom.  But what of His mother?  What of His friends and followers?  Could they sense the destruction of the Creator looming close?  Along with Mary of Nazareth, along with Mary of Magdala, and John the Beloved, along with Judas the Traitor, and Peter the Betrayer, this Monday let us hold our collective breath as we begin to sense that not everything is right.  As that unsettling feeling of the impending maelstrom sets upon us and the chill wisp of the sublime causes us to shiver, let us cling more closely to the skirts of the Church our mother, and watch as the divine drama unfolds across the universe.  Let's walk the path of Holy Week together, divided as Christians, but united together in the Bridegroom.

Legion Part 1: My brother's suggestion

I'm the baby in the family.

Usually, that means that I'm the favorite nephew, the favorite Elliott sibling o the French teacher we all shared, the one who never had a curfew, etc.

However, I'm also the only boy.  So, being the baby brother to two older sisters means that I never had that expectation that each of them had when my mother told them that they would have a younger brother or sister.  My mother never came to all three of us with that 'big news'.  So, my sisters were able to wonder if the new arrival would be a boy or girl, if it would look like them, etc.

Of course, I don't look like them: even though I'm only 5'11"m which is taller than the average white American man, I tower over my sisters, who range between 5'1" and 5'4".  I have green eyes, and dark hair that was curly and auburn when I was young.  Nothing like their blue eyes and blond hair!

So, I had always wanted a brother; I would have gladly turned in one o my older sisters for an older brother, but that wasn't possible.  I never had a snowball's chance in hell for a younger brother, so I latched on to friends and treated them as brothers.  Some of those friends I still count as friends, I moved on from some of them a decade ago, some of them

 I contact only rarely.

And then, there are the other brothers: my religious brothers.  These are the men with whom I lived, with whom I promised m poverty, my chastity, and my obedience.  Next to whom I ran and id push-ups in the snow during PE.  These are the men with whom I processed during the Stations around the seminary, fearing we'd pass out dressed in black wool cassocks as the scalding New England July sun seared us along our shuffle on the asphalt.

I left the seminary after a year and a half, and came back home and continued formation toward the Roman priesthood.  But those brothers were what I most missed from the novitiate: I had experienced male comraderie and friendship as I had always wanted to.

Many of my brothers stayed, of course.  And I was unable to say goodbye to any of them.  They woke up, and I simply wasn't there.  I know what that was like: a few brothers had left and we discovered it a day or so later, and never spoke of his absence.

Of course, I wasn't going without a fight.  When the class with whom I entered the candidacy took their vows at the end of their novitiate, I traveled back to Connecticut to watch them do that thing which we had always assured each other would fulfill us as Christians and as persons.  I hope it was so for them.

But some of my brothers did leave.  I'm still in contact with a few of them, and regularly check a website for members who have left, to see if any of them are now on the outside.

I sent an e-mail to a group of friends  and family when  began this blog, and one of the respondents was my favorite brother (I'm sure he'll blush when he reads that!).  My affection for him was always fraternal, though it probably worries him that a gay man has affection for him and calls him a favorite.  But we both know it's mutual.

I remember when I chided him for never drinking beer, and so he chugged a few just to prove me wrong.  I'm sure he was irritated.  I'm sure I irritated him frequently.

I wasn't exactly too comfortable at the seminary, since I was an arch-liberal among so many seemingly fascist Catholics.  At times, I felt like I was in a Spanish seminary during Franco's regime.

So, this brother made me feel more comfortable by simply being a friend to an immature

re  freaked out 18-year old kid who loved Christ, but didn't frequently have the patience to deal with Christians.

And so, this one's for you, Br Timothy of the Precious Infant Blood:

POPE NAMES

The good:

Pius, I-XII

Innocent, I-XIII

Benedict, I-XVI

Clement, I-XIII

It's obvious why those are 'good' pope names

The bad:

Lando

Sisinnius

Simplicius

Soter

Not good names for popes...Lando betrayed Han Solo, Sisinnius sounds like a coward, Simplicius sounds like an idiot, and who would want to be named Soter?

The Ugly

Sixtus I-III

Hilarius

Sylvester I-III

Sixtus I-III??? Strange name to have for the first five, and they never even got to the sixth one.  Hilarius is hilarious, and Sylvester makes me think of a cartoon cat with a lisp.

And for Br Tim?  I always imagined he'd become supreme pontiff.  I would guess that upon succeeding to the Throne of St Peter, he'd assume the name of Pope Judas.  His message to the world would be to assure that Christ was sent even to redeem names.

Recent news of bishops

The body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found in a shallow grave after his kidnappers informed authorities of where his remains could be located.  The head of the Chaldean Christian minority in northern Iraq, the Archbishop was outspoken in the pleas to end violence and religious persecution in what the US military has described as a region of Al Qaeda influence.  Benedict XVI extended his condolences to the Iraqi Cardinal, and prayed that the death of the Archbishop of Mosul, though tragic, could sow seeds of healing, peace, and reconciliation.  In my opinion, he Archbishop' continuing presence and leadership of a minority population shows the courage and conviction needed in one who leads a local church.  The payment of his life for that leadership is to be deplored, and prayers for the forgiveness of the perpetrators of this crime must be offered as part of that process of reconciliation.  Truly a martyr and truly a hero, the Archbishop of Mosul shows us, along with the murdered bishops of the Spanish Civil War, and Archbishop Romero, that even in our modern times, the price of our convictions is sometimes our lives.

So, if the price of heroism isn't always your life, in what other forms might it be found?  Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire, responding to the American House of Bishops gathered currently in Texas about the news that Lambeth Palace would not be extending an invitation to him, encouraged his brother and sister bishops to attend and participate in the gathering, and not to boycott in order to support him.  It seems to me that the graciousness and humility of this leader of the church in New Hampshire shows forth a model of one configuring himself to Christ: not looking for the promotion of his cause, but willing to sacrifice his dignity for the greater good.

And what of his aforementioned brother and sister bishops, who voted to depose two of their own number yesterday?  As ordained bishops, those two (Schofield, formerly Bishop of San Joaquin and Cox, formerly Suffragan Bishop of Maryland), they posses the fullness of the priesthood and are ontologically changed by their ordination: they are bishops forever, no matter what the House of Bishops does, they can never be unbishoped.  But they can be deposed, as the House moved to do.

These two men are still our brothers and merit our respect for their conviction and willingness, like Robinson, to sacrifice their dignity for their greater good.  Many of us disagree if the greater good of Robinson is the true good or if the greater good os Schofield and Cox is the true good.  But truly, both sides are lost when we stop coming together to pray, to talk, to argue, to meet Christ together in the Eucharist.  When our factions divide us, we are already lost and in breach of Christ's prayer to his Father that we all may be one.  The deposing of those who wish to stop the coming together might be for the greater good, though it is painful to all involved.  I have so much to learn from those with whom I do not agree, and I lament that I may never grow because they now are to disenfranchised, angry, and scared to remain.  As a Christian called to the diaconate, it is my duty to go to those at the periphery our our society and of our Church.  These persons, Schofield and Cox and their followers, are as integral to the life of the Church as any seated bishop.

To paraphrase John Donne, the death of the Archbishop of Mosul has already made us the lesser.  I pray that the deposition of Cox and Schofield will not cause them and their followers to leave and therefore lessen the Church even further.  It is a tragedy when death separates us, but a crime when schism does.

stolen sermon

I admit up front: I stole this entry from Fr David Selzer's sermon today at the noon Eucharist.

David mentioned that the Rule of St Benedict repeatedly enjoins its followers not to grumble.

I'm a grumbler; sometimes, I 'm a professional grumbler.

So, I grumble about work being annoying, or James not putting his shoes away, or Smith the weimaraner refusing to go down the last two stairs (no clue why suddenly it freaks him out).  How can I best stop my grumbling?  Why do I actually seem to enjoy finding reasons to grumble?

Maybe the grumbling sets a good soundtrack to my daily life; maybe it's a nice way to move the day along.  And as for enjoying it?  Well, I like attention!  Who doesn't?  Sometimes I need attention even from myself!

I think that a way I can get over the grumbling might be to degrumble: find ways to pull out the positive from a grumble opportunity-at least James left just his shoes, not his shoes, coat, and bag. At least Smith isn't stopping four stairs up and jumping.  It might make me a bit Pollyannish, and I'll probably make myself puke from it, but at least I can hold my own hair when I puke (See!  I'm already turning those grumbles upside-down).

In like a lion, out like a butter lamb

So, March is pretty crappy so far: a few feet of snow, one 65 degree day to melt it, then freezing temperatures to freeze it all over again!

James and I just got back from watching the Sabres lose to the Rangers: we went with our friends Jeff and Kathy, and all returned home morose and then walked the frozen tundra between the subway station and our destinations.  Not so great end to a not so great game.

In one of those rare occurrences, the Feast of the Annunciation is after Easter this year.  Usually Lent is interrupted by this great feast, and the purple is traded in for white for a day; this year, in one of those once-in-a-decade things, Annunciation will follow the celebration of Christ's resurrection: the LORD dies and rises before he's conceived.

But, March 25's celebration of Gabriel's Annunciation falls so nicely, at least in the northern hemisphere, and winter closes, and spring begins to wake.  The promise encapsulated in the Annunciation mirrors the promise of the returning spring and warmth, much like Christmas falls near the winter solstice and feast of the unconquered sun.

So, while we curse (either silently or aloud) the slush on our boots, the ice on our windshields, and the dripping icicles which plop, plop, plop on our heads when we leave the house in the morning, let's also (either silently or aloud) praise the Christ whose presence in the world in the harbinger for life springing eternal: ever new and ever different.

My down jacket makes me look fat

Our good friends invited me and my partner to go tubing today, now that the horribleness of the recent snowstorm and blizzard has passed.  I was so excited that When we returned home from church, I immediately began preparing my tubing outfit and accroutements.  So, I'm typing this entry in two pair of pants, thermal underwear and my hoodie and my massive down coat.  Now, I know that it's not a good idea to play in the snow in a down jacket because of the moisture factor, but it's the warmest thing I've got!

I'm also wearing my wool kilt hose (minus the flashes); they're definitely working to keep my feet warm.  On top of them I'm wearing the biggest controversy in my romantic relationship: the foot mittens.

The foot mittens were a purchase I made about five years ago from some hunting magazine or such: hey are super thick weird little footies which are worn over socks and are the warmest invention since forced-air heating.  I love them.

My partner, Jim, hates them and imagines that they look like the cut outs of kid's pajamas.  He makes me hide them when we're sitting on the couch together; the few times I've accidentally grazed his foot with my foot-mitten-clad leg, he visibly shuddered.

So, time for a brunch of waffles, then off to go tubing!

First blog entry

My friends assured me that blogging would not make me a tool; or rather, they assured me that it would not make me a bigger tool than I already am.

I've found myself reading the blogs and forums of others recently with a surprising amount of regularity and interest.   I certainly have a perspective on many of the topics and issues which they discuss, and thought that a blog of my own might be an effective medium in which to communicate that perspective.

Plus, I love my new MacBook Pro, and look for any excuse to use it...when I think of all those years I wasted with a PC...all those years I'll never get back (sigh).

So, I came home from work, picked up the dog, shoveled the porch (daily chore this time of year), opened a Blue Moon, and decided to get a-blogging.  More to come soon about why ultra-liberal Episcopalianism is the true orthodox position, the joys of a weimaraner, intriguing questions like 'Why Does My Foot Always Hurt?', and the general joys, pains, and embarrassments of my quotidian life.