After the wedding, we visited the Dublin Zoo.
It was cold.
It was cloudy.
We did not stay all day.
But we had a good time.
And there were purple flowers,
including these with their
little yellow helmets.
29 April 2012
Dublin Zoo
Ireland
Lent is coming.
Lent, the season of the Christian year that leads to Easter, is a time of preparation. It is a time of simple living, prayer, and fasting – a time to practice spiritual disciplines.
Some people add prayer, scripture reading, and meditation to their lives. Some choose to give up something. In different ways, people make the journey to the week when Christians remember the arrest, torture, execution and resurrection of Jesus.
This year, I plan to join in the Lenten photo-a-day challenge posed by Rethink Church and by Rethink PC(USA). Here are the details:
Whatever your practices this season, will you join this photo-a-day challenge and share with the community how you perceive each word or phrase for the day? No explanation needed, unless you want to. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Tag your photos on instagram with @rethinkchurch or on twitter with #rethinkchurch and #40days.
You don’t have to be a great photographer. This project is hopefully more about the practice of paying attention and being intentional, than it is being the best photographer [though we encourage you to get creative!]. If you don’t have instagram or twitter, we’d still love for you to share your photos. Just share them on your facebook page and tag us, or post them on our facebook wall.
Rethink Church provides a list of words related to the Lenten journey.
I will post here and will tweet the posts at @wmkoenig using the hashtags #rethinkpcusa and #40days.
This amount of discipline will present a challenge to me. I guess that explains its name.
See how I do – along the Trail.
Photo by Ad Meskens
What do you do when your cab driver makes the sign of the cross while the cab is moving?
I confess it befuddles me. When I notice a cabbie make that simple, profound, ancient gesture in that context, I wonder what to think and feel.
Should I feel safer because the driver has reached out to the Divine for guidance and protection?
Should I worry because clearly the driver no longer has confidence in his or her abilities to navigate the situation and has to turn to another source for assistance?
Should I rejoice in the drivers affirmation that we all live and move and have or being in God?
Should I scan the area for danger?
Fall to the cab floor?
Prepare to fling open the door and jump, tuck and roll toward safety?
Join the driver in the action?
Use the situation for an opportunity to write something boring?
The possibilities seem endless.
To help explore them, I ask: “What would you do?”
See you along the Trail.
I sit in warm comfort in Memphis, Tennessee, preparing for speaking gigs over the next two days. But my thoughts turns to New York City and the people of the Northeast.
Snowmageddon, in some form, has struck. Many people are or will be inconvenienced by the storm; some will be threatened: people who have no shelter, people still recovering from Sandy, and people who must, for whatever reason be outside. My heart aches with worry for my sisters and brother.
The invitation to visit Memphis came last fall. I purchased the ticket in December, scheduling the flight for Thursday.
Early last week, I pondered changing the ticket to leave New York today – Friday. The change fee proved more than I was willing to pay.
Only after I had decided not to change my ticket did I start paying attention to the weather. And I realized that I would still be in New York if I had made the change. Airlines had begun cancelling Friday flights by the time I arrived at LaGuardia on Thursday afternoon.
Part of me gives thanks that I made it to Memphis. I am with good people, eating too much good food, and having great opportunities to share about the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations.
Part of me wishes I were in New York – as the city and the region deal with Nemo.
All of me wishes for safety for all people who are in the path of the storm.
All of me gives thanks for all people who care for sisters and brothers – going in harm’s way or providing shelter from the storm.
See you along the Trail.
We arrived at the
Garden of Remembrance in Dublin
almost a year
after Queen Elizabeth II,
our visit a bit less historic.
No wreath we brought,
still flowers greeted us
as we remembered
past people and events,
as we reflected on
courage and freedom,
and the costs of violence,
and the possibilities of nonviolence.
28 April 2012
Garden of Remembrance, Dublin
Ireland
When the guy beside me in the long slow-moving security line, that followed the long slow-moving check-in line, loudly proclaimed the situation as “ungodly,” all my anger, frustration, and resentment melted in an instant.
Ungodly?
You want ungodly?
Ungodly is:
Bombs falling on the Nuba mountains
A wall surrounding Bethlehem
Gaza besieged
Medical personnel killed in Pakistan
Presents under Christmas trees never to be opened because the children for whom they were intended died in a hail of bullets
Uncivil war ripping Pakistan
Rape in North Kivu and India and New York
Abuse in homes, mental institutions, prisons
Bodies and spirits tortured
Young people committing suicide because of what others think about theirs sexual orientation
Women and men and children trafficked for sex or labor or other reason
Economic systems that make a few wealthy beyond imagination and impoverish others
Hunger – real hunger
These are some ungodly things.
Ungodly abounds on this small blue, green planet.
But having to stand in a line – a confusing, inconvenient line – a line that leads to planes that take us where we want, where we have – to be – having to stand in line is:
a pain in our privileged asses and far from ungodly.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Current Events, Travel
My friend Irene will run her first half-marathon on April 7: the Santa Cruz half-marathon.
She will run in memory of our mutual friend Cindy Bolbach.
In Cindy’s memory, Irene will raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
I have contributed to the cause. You can too.
After she learned of my contribution, Irene sent me a message of thanks.
“What more can I do to support you,” I asked.
Irene was online at the time as well. She replied, “As part of my training, I will not eat sweets or dessert until I run. You could do that, too.”
I stared at the screen a long, long time before responding. The folly of asking questions when he answers might be acceptable occurred to me.
But I have a deep admiration for Cindy. And cancer has claimed too many friends and people I do not know through the years.
After what must have seemed like an eternity to Irene, I responded. It took about three or four days of sporadic electronic conversation before I agreed.
On January 1, I started. No sweets. No desserts. And I have done it. I wish I could say I cut out those categories all together. But I have not. I simply have replaced them with nuts and crackers and chips.
A chocolate Guinness Jameson shake identified by my friends Bruce and Nancy has tempted. Sorely tempted me. But I have resisted.
Several late nights I have wanted to head to the local convenience store and exchange a fistful of dollars for a sackful of chocolate. But I have prevailed. Sometimes I go and get more nuts. But I have prevailed.
For almost a month I have resisted and prevailed. It has been a challenge. But not as difficult a challenge as I thought at the beginning.
I do really miss Ben and Jerry’s though.
However, the point of this is not about me, remember. I told you at the beginning:
My friend Irene will run her first half-marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in memory Cindy Bolbach.
I have contributed to the cause. You can too.
See you along the Trail.
Filed under Friends
You smiled.
Across the room,
across the miles,
across the years,
across the veil
between the worlds,
you smiled.
At me
you smiled.
You smiled.
It was, it is,
enough.
Shire on the Hudson
29 January 2013
He drank Scotch.
He worked as the assistant superintendent for the Grove City Public School system. But he was a musician. He played string bass in the pit orchestra for the high school musicals. He directed the Scots Fusilers – a town band. He was a tennis player. He was a photographer. He was a private pilot.
On January 28, 1974, he climbed into a small plane with another educator from Grove City. Their destination was Harrisburg where they would advocate for funds for the school system. They had tickets on a commercial airline, but decided that he would fly.
They did not arrive.
The plane went down near Emlenton. The crash site was not located until the next day.
When he died, I was in Europe with the Westminster College Choir. I could no more sing then than I can now. But my family appreciated the value of travel and found the funds for me to go.
I arrived at JFK on Wednesday of that week where family members met me and broke the news and broke my heart.
Tonight, 39 years later, I raise a glass to his memory … to the time, the far too short time, we shared. To all I learned. To laughter and to tears. To music made well and badly. To tennis matches. To a trip to Philmont.
I raise a glass … to my father.
Goodnight and joy be with you, dad. Goodnight and joy be with us all.
Mine is Jameson.
See you along the Trail.
