Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

Today was the final service at the church where I grew up, the Cathedral Church of Saint John, in Wilmington, Delaware. As of July 31, the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware will no longer have a cathedral. I know this has happened for lack of funds; in my current diocese, quite a few churches have merged or closed in the last decade or more, and out cathedral is always in need of money.  At the altar to the left, I was baptized, confirmed, and married.  On July 8, I attended the 10:30 service and said goodbye. What will happen to the cathedral building is anyone's guess. The pipe organ has already been sold. I guess that's a good thing. At least something has been saved. Change happens. However, it often takes a good bit of us with it when it does.

Recently I attended my friend Anne's funeral. It was a moving and uplifting service, as the funerals for long lives well lived should always be. Anne was 102 1/2 at the time of her death, and had had no serious health troubles until last fall. This is certainly what we each hope for at the end of our earthly lives. In my former parish, Anne was our "choir mother" for many, many years. She maintained the choral library, mended our robes, kept attendance records (noting, on the appropriate dates, "Judy's little boy born" and, later on, "Judy's little girl born"). She taught me to sing alto, patiently correcting me and setting an example with her lovely voice. She was the choir's rock of ages and our resting place. She saw us through at least 4 choir directors (that I know of!), and multiple priests. Anne was widowed in 1969, after 34 years of marriage and two daughters. She never remarried, claiming that she'd had one good husband but...

We've recently had, at our house, a rerun of that old series I like to call Family Drama.  It's not my favorite.  The characters are all grown up now, not that you'd always know it.  The "situations" are no longer cute, nor are they easily resolved.  They can be frustrating, anger-evoking, and heartbreaking. Whenever we have an episode of Family Drama, I have two strong impulses. One is retail therapy, at which I have become very skilled! With a potential job change in the household, however, retail therapy would be unwise. The other impulse is withdrawal, or as my mom used to call it, "going to ground"  -- perfect for me as an Enneagram type 9. If I can't make peace, solve the conflict, find the solution, or even get anyone to listen, I want to get the hell out of the way. Dive deep and let the wave break way, way over my head, so to speak. This is the cowardly way, and sometimes, I think, also the only sane response. With the Serenity Praye...

Let's see. In the last week, the U.S. has experienced: an early-season tropical storm with severe flooding; raging wildfires; a crippling heat wave; and a lethal wave of thunderstorms accompanied by highly destructive winds. "Well, it's summer," you say. OK. But we had basically a non-winter last year on the east coast, and now we have the summer from hell. Hmmm ... My husband recently attended his college reunion, in Middlebury, Vermont. While he was there , he passed up a talk by Bill McKibben, Middlebury College's writer in residence, who has done more than any other single individual (I think) to get out the word about global warming. J. doesn't often do things that make me squawk, but this did. "You can't be serious!" I squawked. "You passed up Bill McKibben to play tennis ?" I was flabbergasted. " Who does that ?" Let me explain. I used to write a book review for the newsletter in a former parish. In this capa...

Earlier in the month I attended the Order of Julian's Affiliates' Retreat and JulianFest, held this year at the Redemptorist Retreat Center on Lake Oconomoc in Wisconsin. We had nearly three retreat days of silence, followed by two days of festivity. I love the silence: I read, meditated, sat in the sun, took a few photos, perched on my favorite swing by the lake (at left), and played peekaboo with a woodchuck, who popped his head out of his hole and regarded me solemnly, trying to determine if I represented a threat or an opportunity. Best of all, in shared silence all social pressure is off, and I find that a great relief. Retreat addresses received in silence, meals taken together in comfortable silence, always provide me a womblike security and peace. Community develops in silence -- I used to find this counterintuitive. Now it seems natural and organic to be in shared silence, sensing the loving presence of friends. I'm part of several communities: among them a p...

I finally made it into a book! the whole book, in fact, is about me. I am the star of every page! I'm reading Quiet: the power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking , by Susan Cain. If you're an introvert, know an introvert, live with an introvert, can't figure out introverts, or are driven crazy by introverts, read this book! If you're part of the working world that promotes extroversion as the ideal, read this book! I already knew I'm an INFP and an Enneagram type 9 (peacemaker; conflict avoidant). But Cain's book highlights many everyday ways in which I express my basic introversion.  I can read forever, losing all track of time; I feel I best express myself when I write; I like to work alone, and I hate having to supervise anyone else; and I don't do my best work on teams. And there's the vacation thing, a constant source of stress in my house. I could write a whole book about this myself. Vacation for my husband means sightsee...