Helper

What do I have? a wandering mind that can't remember whether I put in my ears, or why I opened the refrigerator, or what I came into the pantry to get, but remembers things said to me seventy years ago, and smells and touches and tastes, and looking at. A mind that reads The Talmud because I can still learn and retain knowledge, but that has on the computer desktop a page listing words I need often but cannot remember.

Words that include oracle, pagan, etiology, allegory, and several others. At this age I'm experiencing that some words slip through the crack and won't come to mind, and it's the same words repeatedly, so the list is to cut down on the frustration. And some poems. Not Robert Frost poems so far, but especially Thomas Hardy poems about God. Some of Hardy's poems are what someone has called "spot on." 

Eighty-eight and counting, and the least sudden pain in the head or chest reminds me, "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "and have grown most uncommonly fat." Anything can happen to anyone at any moment throughout life, but probabilities rise with aging. A friend just dropped dead while taking a shower to go out for the evening. One morning another friend just didn't wake up. It's not morbid, it's just life. Am I ready? Well, I'd like to have many more platters of a dozen cold salty oysters set down in front of me, but whatever. 

Sunday morning: we're leaving for church in a few minutes, to attend the first of a series of gatherings regarding our parish search for a new rector. Then at the second service the rector has a dash-commitment that's to take him away after his sermon, leaving me as celebrant and officiant for the rest of the liturgy - - creed, prayers, confession & absolution, peace, offertory, Holy Communion. My job at HNEC is Helper. I've been rector in three parishes and priest associate three different terms at Holy Nativity, and at 88&c I like best what I've been doing at HNEC since spring 2009. Best of all, or, second only to being chaplain and religion teacher at Holy Nativity Episcopal School those years. 

For an Episcopal priest, the ideal retirement: Helper. Not "assistant," I ain't nobody's assistant, I've been an assistant, and assistants are under orders and I don't take orders from nobody; but I do enjoy helping out as needed; being available as Helper. It's a happiness, feeling useful, helpful.

++++++++

Need a picture. 

The Israelis have, I think, learned their lesson about thinking things are improving around them, hoping that their neighbors' attitudes are tempering, moderating. It will never happen, and I doubt Israel will ever again be surprised like they were on Oct 7, a Sabbath. Everyone hopes to live into a Time of peace, I know, I did. 

T88&c

.