Meandering
Charles has a dog, the Rev. Canon Charles LaFond has Kai, the black lab who is his constant and worshipful companion in life and on his farm in New Mexico. Charles is exceptionally multi-talented, a chief among which is that he is a potter, throws pottery, lovely things. And "throws" is the term, I'm not sure why, I think I have a sense of why, but am not sure.
Charles, also a lecturer, consultant, writer, blogger, has been a parish priest, on a diocesan staff, chaplain to a state legislature, a monk at SSJE Boston. I was there once, thirty-some years ago, I think it was 1985, at SSJE on the Charles River, in fact the cubby they assigned me for those several days looked out across a busy thoroughfare onto the river, for a combination silent retreat and conference, it's adjacent to the Harvard campus, at the Time an interesting area with fascinating bookstores and all the eccentric student apparitions that I, a Southerner, would expect to see there, I think only Yale could be more peculiar at least in that day and age of American youth. When I was 25 the Navy gave me my choice for graduate school of Harvard, Stanford or Michigan, and I chose Michigan; though from time to time in the years since I've thought I should have taken Harvard, but that was still another of Frost's Roads Not Taken, wasn't it, and, who knows, I might have been an admiral instead of a priest, but I wouldn't be retired to 7H among other very different things in life, including that Malinda and Joe were with us in Ann Arbor but I'd never choose a life that didn't include Tass, my Buckeye, our San Diego and Columbus delight; so Michigan was my lucky choice.
But Charles LaFond. Since 2013 he's been writing a couple of blogs, one, that I've been reading intermittently, called "The Daily Sip," meditations that are worthwhile and quite good, the headline picture that he uses is copied above. Something has been and is happening that has put Charles at at least emotional odds with the church and his diocese and his years experience as a parish priest. I don't know what it was, is, or might be, though he has intimated unhappiness at least a couple of posts, but it seems to have brought him to disappointment hurt; bitterness might not be too strong, IDK, but last week he wrote in closing down "The Daily Sip" that "I am taking a break" and his reasons are that ecclesiastical unhappiness. Which saddens me, one because I don't know what has caused this, two because I have been there once or twice both in the Navy and in the Church, maybe I'll blog about one or another of them sometime; but mainly three because his writing takes the reader physically and especially mentally where I'd never go and into things that, not being of a spiritual nature, would never occur to me. Refreshing and enlivening, like that cup of water that Jesus mentions in last Sunday's reading from Mark chapter 9.
Gift of a friend, I'm reading Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and finding it fascinating, both the story, the characters, and the extreme eccentricity, not to say borderline insanity, well maybe to say that, of the writing style.
Happy Wednesday to all, and to all a good morning.
T
Charles, also a lecturer, consultant, writer, blogger, has been a parish priest, on a diocesan staff, chaplain to a state legislature, a monk at SSJE Boston. I was there once, thirty-some years ago, I think it was 1985, at SSJE on the Charles River, in fact the cubby they assigned me for those several days looked out across a busy thoroughfare onto the river, for a combination silent retreat and conference, it's adjacent to the Harvard campus, at the Time an interesting area with fascinating bookstores and all the eccentric student apparitions that I, a Southerner, would expect to see there, I think only Yale could be more peculiar at least in that day and age of American youth. When I was 25 the Navy gave me my choice for graduate school of Harvard, Stanford or Michigan, and I chose Michigan; though from time to time in the years since I've thought I should have taken Harvard, but that was still another of Frost's Roads Not Taken, wasn't it, and, who knows, I might have been an admiral instead of a priest, but I wouldn't be retired to 7H among other very different things in life, including that Malinda and Joe were with us in Ann Arbor but I'd never choose a life that didn't include Tass, my Buckeye, our San Diego and Columbus delight; so Michigan was my lucky choice.
But Charles LaFond. Since 2013 he's been writing a couple of blogs, one, that I've been reading intermittently, called "The Daily Sip," meditations that are worthwhile and quite good, the headline picture that he uses is copied above. Something has been and is happening that has put Charles at at least emotional odds with the church and his diocese and his years experience as a parish priest. I don't know what it was, is, or might be, though he has intimated unhappiness at least a couple of posts, but it seems to have brought him to disappointment hurt; bitterness might not be too strong, IDK, but last week he wrote in closing down "The Daily Sip" that "I am taking a break" and his reasons are that ecclesiastical unhappiness. Which saddens me, one because I don't know what has caused this, two because I have been there once or twice both in the Navy and in the Church, maybe I'll blog about one or another of them sometime; but mainly three because his writing takes the reader physically and especially mentally where I'd never go and into things that, not being of a spiritual nature, would never occur to me. Refreshing and enlivening, like that cup of water that Jesus mentions in last Sunday's reading from Mark chapter 9.
Gift of a friend, I'm reading Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and finding it fascinating, both the story, the characters, and the extreme eccentricity, not to say borderline insanity, well maybe to say that, of the writing style.
Happy Wednesday to all, and to all a good morning.
T