Oh that 21st century church...

Lest I be criticized for beating a dead horse...this is not the same thing. Okay, kind of the same with a few differences. First... I am reacting to something recent that has happened that has nothing to do with me. Second... I have decided that part of my call, a big part is speak up when things strike me as odd, insincere, or just plain wrong.

Which is where I find this recent issue..in the just plain wrong category.

I believe it is wrong on a couple levels...wrong as it is not right and wrong it is not in keeping with what the Diocese of Central New York claims to be about.

The Messenger( Diocesan newsletter) came out recently and it had something in it that struck me as so completely incongruous with the "mission" of the Diocese that I couldn't actually believe it was there.

" All Deacon Ordinations will be held at the Cathedral" Say what??

I get the whys. They are hoping to showcase the Cathedral... and want people throughout the diocese to go there.

I would feel that for some ordinations it may be perfectly appropriate. However, in keeping with the mission of the Diocese and stated desire to live out a vision of 21st century thinking I believe they have seriously missed the boat.

If I had been ordained as a Deacon I would not want my ordination to be there. I would want to be where I serve. I had every intention of getting ordained right at The House of Concern in Seneca Falls. The place that raised me up, the place I serve. The people that I would want at my ordination would not have a way to make it to The Cathedral and even if someone arranged transportation few of them would go. The ones with no proper clothes to wear, the ones who feel uncomfortable in any kind of formal setting let alone a church, the least, the last and the lost. Those folks won't go to the Cathedral.

Those folks can't be made to go... so once again they are left out.

The church is being elitist again.

The celebration of a new minister in the church is not supposed to be a party for the other members of the club.

A Deacon is called to serve. To serve...not to preen and immediately turn their backs on the people they are serving.

The cathedral is beautiful. I am sure any ceremonies would be quite lovely. It may be a perfectly appropriate place for some to be ordained...it may be the very last place that others should be.

The Episcopal Church keeps wondering and wringing their hands " oh what can we do to get people to come to us?" I think the first thing, at least for this diocese, is to decide what they really want. This whole 21st century thing...what do they really mean by it.

Are we willing to accept the very fact that a church is not just a building, that church is not even the important thing? The Gospel is the important part. When trying to spread the Gospel sometimes you need to move. You go to the people where they are, you do not expect them to come to you. Most aren't going to come. We welcome them to Jesus, we open our heart to them and if they want to come though our doors we welcome them and if they do not...if they do not... WE STILL WELCOME THEM.

Jesus came to us. His disciples came to us. They did not build a freaking cathedral and expect the beggars and the thieves , the sick, the unwashed to find them.

It was not the way then and it is not the way now.

Watching Amanda Grow...

There was a song back in the early 70's called 'Watching Scotty Grow' by Bobby Goldsboro and it was kind of awful. Well, i thought it was awful. It was a huge hit and so I am guessing somebody liked it a lot and probably made the guy a bunch of money.

Which is not the point of my story at all except that every time I look at my beautiful daughter and her growing belly the refrain of that song keeps playing in my head " I'm just sitting here watching Scotty Grow". Except that by now i have changed it in my head to "Amanda grow."

Being the mother of a pregnant daughter is quite an experience. I have been completely fascinated by every moment of her pregnancy. I have worried when she has worried and worried when she has not worried, I have been delighted watching her growing belly. I have day dreamed about the baby and what she will look like ( yes I said she but give me a moment and I will say he) and what she will be accomplished at. I daydream about first steps, first words, first day of school. I also get to daydream about my role... I will be the cheerleader, the defender, the one who will always be in this child's corner. Some people call it spoiling...

Nonsense.

I just tell them it is in the grandma handbook. Trevor has heard about the grandma handbook... his soon to be bride, Laura, knows it exists and they also know I make it up as I go.

Amanda and Brian will know it soon enough.

I have had a fascination with being a grandma that I honestly did not have for being a mom. I have decided that it has to do with the fact that i never had one. My parents parents were dead long before I was born. I was always quite envious of those who did have them.

My cousins had their grandma Laura who always smelled of lilacs and carried a handkechief that had embroidery on it. She baked cookies, she sat in rocker and she was big and comforting looking. Her house looked and smelled unlike any other house. It looked like a gingerbread house and there were all sorts of interesting things in the house. She made beautiful blankets for babies. She was also an artist that was not as typical for the time but she did it.

There was my friend Lynn who had Grandma Deacy and Grandma O'Hearn. Two grandmas and one of them even lived with her for awhile! One of my favorite sayings came from Grandma Deacy " Poor excuse is better than none" Even at a young age I knew that she did not really mean that a poor excuse was a good thing..and that it would be a saying I would want to remember and use some day...and I have.

So I had some Grandma envy.

Which makes the whole thing so fun for me now.

Because this is the thing about the grandmother hand book you write it a little different for each child and their parent.

Blaze was my first grandchild. It was hard for me to know my place. That boy has had grandmas everywhere. Both his mom...Sheena ...my stepdaughter... and his dad had parents who had been divorced and remarried and they also had their parents parents around. Grandmas everywhere. So I waited to see how much help was needed...what my role was... I worried for awhile that he would feel that every woman who was older than his mom was his grandma. He seems to have been able to figure it out nicely. So I have watched him grow...delighted in him and in his wonderful mother. I have watched them both grow.

Then there was my Maggie...

whose very existence I am pretty sure I felt before either of her parents.

Again... I waited, where is my place... this is not my daughter, what does she want, what will her mom want, and what does my son i want.

It was a dicey situation that has turned out the very way I had prayed for it to over and over for the four of them.

My role,

I worry, i spoil ,I love, and I watch them grow.

So now we have Amanda in the countdown. She and Brian have decided not to find out the sex of the baby. Everyone says boy and I am fine with that but... I have had girl on the brain along with a birth date of July 15th.

I am not the grandma that I fantasied being.

I do not wear house dresses, although I do fancy dresses these days. My perfume is Euphoria... I don't knit..hell I don't even sew buttons and have been know to scotch tape my hems...I used to bake but not so much anymore...I am separated and gone back into the dating world.

In my daydreams I would not have been a match.com grandma.

But like the handbook itself ...Grandmas change.

What does not change is how much I look forward to this and all grandchildren.

I love this baby completely already.

My arms are ready to hold and rock. I can almost feel the child there already and smell that new baby smell.

I watch my beautiful girl grow, I rub her belly,and I talk to my newest grandchild and I say see you soon little one, Mema is waiting...waiting to watch you grow.

Angels without hands

I collect angels...not perhaps the best thing for a woman who is disastrously clumsy but I love them and I do it anyway.

Two things occurred to me the other day.The first is that the majority of my angels have one thing in common even though they are different types, shapes, sizes and prices.

Most.. maybe all of them... have been broken and put back together with varying degrees of success.

The wings have broken off several and been glued back on. Some with more painstaking care than others... Some more time consuming... Some more detail but all in place more or less.

All except one and that one, no matter what i do, the wing refuses to go back in place. Now it sits next to her.

My favorite is the one with no hand. She stands in my kitchen next to my sink arms out stretched minus one hand. I do not know where her hand went. It has not been found. I don't even know what incident befell her. I know it was not of my doing and nobody has ever fessed up to it.

The second thing that occurred to me is that I love her because she so embodies to me what an angel is and what a friend is.

They both watch over you always...

An angel, like my friends, stand by regardless of there own needs.

No hand...no problem..., arms still reach out to comfort, to enfold.

I have my angels all over my house which is why they get broke so much. I do not put them in a case or on a shelf. They sit at my sink , in my bedroom, next to my desk, next to the television they sit where ever I am.

They sit where I am.

Angels and friends, they can be broken and battered and still they watch over you. Sometimes they come without wings, without hands, without money, without cars, without a church home,without husbands.

They are there where you are in your brokenness.... and in theirs.

This past year I have found that it is the friends in my life who have become my living angels.

They have lost loved ones and been there for me. They have had their own broken hearts and still they are there for me. They have busy lives, children, aging parents, relationships that need tending,ailing spouses and still they are there for me.

I have also discovered that at a point in your life your children can and do become some of your best and most trusted friends. There is a relationship shift which allows this if you are fortunate, I have been more fortunate than anyone has a right to be.

I have a friends that I have known my whole life and ones that are fairly new and they have all pulled my head above the water several times over the past 12 months.

Sickness, betrayal, heartache, violence, disappointment, and anger I have felt them all and each time one of these things comes up one of them reaches in and grabs me. I am sure some have felt their arms tire with the weight of me at times but not once have any of my true friends let me go. Not once.

This year my friends will be receiving angels at various times. A reminder of my gratitude and a reminder that I am always there to return the favor.