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18
Sep
2021
Thursday September 9, 2021
At some point in the years before his death, Peter Gzowski interviewed a musician who played temple bells in southeast Asia. Was it in Thailand? Cambodia? I can’t remember. Nor can I remember the musician’s name.
I can remember the conversation.
The musician talked about the resonance of the temple bells. The resonance could still be heard for a minute or more, after a bell was struck. As long as the bell was inside the temple. Taken out into the open air and struck, it made a dull chunk.
“You’re not really playing the bells,” Gzowski exclaimed. “You’re playing the temple!”
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: churches, Temples, bells, Peter Gzowski, echo chambers
Sunday September 5, 2021
I had my 85th birthday this last week. It’s a new experience for me. I’ve never had an 85th birthday before; I’ll know I’ll never have one again. Obviously.
My 85th birthday made me feel I have crossed some kind of threshold, some invisible Rubicon. I have entered a new phase of my life.
My almost-brother Ralph Milton defines it as the division between the young-old and the old-old.
The young-old are the newly retired. Without employment to tie them down, they’re free to do all those things they always wanted to do.
Almost all books and magazines about aging deal with the young-old, assuring people they can still enjoy life to the fullest.
But that doesn’t apply to the old-old. Their backs hurt too much to play golf. Their fishing buddies have died. They can’t drive. Their children want them to live where someone will look after them.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: birthdays, aging, young-old, old-old
Thursday Sept. 2, 2021
My minister starts her morning with yoga. “Then I do the dishes. Something about putting one’s hands in hot soapy water is a reset for me -- a mindless task that produces something valuable. I dry the dishes and put them away, so I can begin again.”
Her confession elicited mild snickers from the congregation. All of them had had, at one time or other, the experience of washing dishes in a sink. Most of them had automatic dishwasher snow, so that they could avoid the chore.,
But why not let dishwashing be a significant time?
After all, the Bible often uses the metaphor of washing.
Tags: Dishwashing, togetherness, Psalms
Sunday August 29, 2021
Three days left until the last western troops leave Afghanistan – unless President Joe Biden changes his mind at the last minute.
Afghanistan has been the U.S.’s longest war. Twenty years, give or take a couple of months. Longer even than Viet Nam – and with a strikingly similar ending.
Who will forget the pictures of America leaving Saigon. Helicopters lifting Americans to safety. Desperate people clinging to wheels and handles..
It was an ignominious and humiliating ending.
Likewise, who will forget footage of desperate people running along a runway beside a troop carrier the size of a freight train, hoping to hitch-hike a lift out of their country? Who will forget people clinging to the plane’s undercarriage, its doors, its fuselage, as the plane lifts off into the skies?
Tags: Afghanistan, Vietnam, humiliation
Thursday August 26, 2021
I no longer believe in conversions. I mention this, because conversion therapy has become an election issue.
I had a classic conversion experience, once -- down on my knees, acknowledging my sinful nature, turning my life over to Jesus, emerging wrung out and tearful.
In truth, I’ve probably had a dozen conversion experiences. They might better be called Epiphanies -- moments when the pieces I had been shuffling suddenly snapped into place, a “Aha!” moment.
A couple of friends have been trying to change my mind -- and I theirs -- on several topics for about 20 years. I see no sign that I have influenced them.
And all they have done for me is push me farther along the direction I was already going.
Tags: bullying, Conversion