Nearly Stranded In The Moors

On Saturday, I left early for a train ride to Thornaby where I was to meet MadPriest and Mrs MadPriest for a drive through the North Yorkshire Moors and a visit to Rievaulx Abbey. I was on time and on the right train, and all seemed to be well. The countryside begins to run together in my mind, and I have no vivid memory of what I passed through on this train trip.

We reached Thornaby, and a man and I got up to get off the train. As we arrived at the station, the doors did not open. The two of us frantically pushed the button to open the door, but it did not open, and the train began moving again. I saw a conductor in the next car and called him to us and told him what happened. He said, "Oh, don't worry about it. In five minutes, we'll be in Scarborough, and you can get on a train and be back here in ten minutes." I said, "What about my friends who are meeting me in Thornaby?" I gave him MadPriest's name, and he called the station in Thornaby for someone to try to find him and tell him what had happened. A woman who worked in the station in Thornaby ran out to find MP, and they were just backing out of their parking place when she caught them and told them that an American lady was on her way back from Scarborough to meet them.

We almost missed each other. Had we done so, I would have got back on the train and returned to Leeds. I finally met up with MadPriest and Mrs MadPriest, who is a lovely and gracious lady. Spouses of bloggers have a right to privacy and beyond saying that both MP and Mrs MP were unfailingly kind and hospitable, I won't say more about Mrs MP. I met the border collies, Callum, Glenna, and Delphi. Delphi Glenna is MP's dog, and she seemed not to like me. Glenna Delphi is a silky beauty and was quite friendly. Poor Callum is old and stiff, like me, and he let me pet him, but he seemed to want to be left in peace.

I asked my friends to stop at a village for me to change money, because all my English money was in the wallet that was lost the previous day, and I needed operating money. We did, and MP and I got out and walked around searching for the Post Office. I believe we went twice around the square without finding it. MP planted me in a spot and said, "Don't move," and went to look again. Was he afraid that I would get lost? Me? In the meantime, an elderly lady walked by, and moving only my lips, not my feet, I asked her where the post office was. She kindly told me that it was in the Co-op. MP returned from another fruitless search for the PO, and I asked the lady to tell him what she had told me. We went to the Co-op, and I changed my money, and off we went. Later, I asked MP how long he would have searched before he asked someone, and he said that eventually he would have asked. My thought is sooner, rather than later.

The Yorkshire Moors are, to me, fascinating landscapes. I know that many find them bleak and dreary, especially in early spring before the greening begins, but I like them. They have a character about them appeals to me. I did not take pictures, because most of the time we were in a moving car. The picture above is from a different season of the year. I could not find a picture that I could upload for the early spring season, but here's a link to a photo of what the Moors looked like during my visit.

Another near miss of a misadventure happened in the car. MP asked me to roll down the car window in the back a little for the collies to get air. I looked for the button to press, but MP told me that I had to wind the window down. Ooooh. By accident I grasped the door handle, and Mrs MP abruptly stopped the car and quietly said, "Close the car door, please." All we needed was for me to fall out of the car in the middle of the moors. If I could read thoughts, what would I see? "When can we unload this old bird?"


We arrived at Rievaulx Abbey. Oh my! What a beautiful place. Mrs MP and I toured the Abbey while MP exercised the collies. What a holy place. I could sense the presence of many saints from the past who prayed there, and the prayers seemed to linger in the abbey. I thought of our blog friend Prior Aelred of St. Gregory's Abbey, because his namesake was abbot of Rievaulx Abbey.

We stopped for lunch at The Blacksmiths Arms in Lastingham, and I made the grand gesture of treating MP and Mrs MP to a quite inexpensive, but tasty lunch. Across from from the pub was the Church of St. Mary, which MP and I visited, while Mrs MP loaded the dogs into the car. Below is my view of the interior of the beautiful old church.


Then it was time for my train back to Leeds. I had an invitation to Doorman-Priest's Philharmonic Choral Society's concert that evening.

Altogether a lovely day for which I'm quite grateful to MP and Mrs MP.

The Tale Of The Lost Wallet/Purse

In England, the word for a woman's wallet is purse. The English word for a purse is handbag. MadPriest and Mrs MadPriest explained this all to me. To aid understanding of the story for my international audience, I shall refer to the wallet as wallet/purse, with the US term first and the English word following. When I mean purse, I will use purse/handbag, again with the US usage coming first. Are you bored yet?

What I believe happened with my missing wallet/purse during my visit to England is that after I paid the taxi driver, I tried to put the wallet/purse back into my purse/handbag, and it must not have gone in completely, or it fell out, and I did not know it. My driver was a Muslim with a long, pointed, gray beard. He wore a hat similar to what I would have called a lady's pillbox hat back in the day. He looked dour and did not speak during the ride. Perhaps he did not speak English well.

Anyway, I was scheduled to go out to eat with Doorman-Priest and one of his delightful daughters that evening. I misread the time and was still in the shower when they arrived, and did not answer the door for a while, but I did eventually. What were they thinking? I started off with them in a state of embarrassment and confusion. We went to an Italian restaurant with very good food, and I was going to treat, but when the bill came, my wallet/purse was not in my purse/handbag. Of course, that meant no English money and no credit cards. DP paid the bill. Second misadventure.

We returned to the hotel and called the credit card companies to cancel the cards and then the police, to be on their records with my address in Leeds in the event that the wallet/purse was turned in. They asked how much money was in the wallet/purse, and I said between 120 and 170 pounds. The staff at the hotel were wonderful, very patient and helpful. Finally, at about 11:00 PM, I told DP and his daughter to go home. They had done all they could and beyond. Lovely beginning to our real life relationship, no?

I went to my room and went to bed, but I only got about two hours sleep all night, because I was wired over the loss, and I could not fall asleep. The next day, I had to catch a train fairly early in the morning, and that was on my mind, too. All of this happened on Friday, March 20, the day after my arrival. What were DP and Mrs DP thinking? Of course, they're too kind to ever say if they were having misgivings. I know what I would have been thinking. What's next with this woman!

I made up my mind then and there that I would not let the loss of the wallet/purse spoil my trip. I still had my traveler's checks with the bulk of my money left, and I thought perhaps I could get my American Express card replaced. I played Pollyanna's "Glad Game", which is a version of "counting your blessings" and focused on how much worse it could have been and carried on with my activities. I'm not sure how I would have paid my hotel bill, because the number I had given them was no longer good, but they said not to worry about it, so I didn't.

On Monday, I took a train to Manchester, the nearest place with an American Express office, and I was given a new card. On the way back, I took the wrong train, a train to Sheffield, instead of Leeds, and the trip back to Leeds took nearly twice as long because the train to Sheffield stopped at every village along the way, but the views of the Pennines were gorgeous, much more picturesque than the views on the way to Leeds. See. I'm still playing the "Glad Game", because Monday was pretty much a lost day for doing anything else. But I digress.

On Tuesday, I took a wonderful coach trip to Whitby, which I wrote about on the alternative blog, Wounded Bird Takes Flight. Back in Leeds, the coach dropped me off near a taxi queue, and the first taxi in the line was the car and driver in whose taxi I had left my wallet/purse. I didn't think or move quickly enough to ask him if he had found it, and he took off with the passenger ahead of me, but not before I got the number of his taxi.

I climbed into the taxi behind him and noticed that there was a police station right across the street, so I asked the driver to let me out. I mainly wanted to check to see if they had any news on the wallet/purse, not to turn the driver in, because I realized that a passenger in the taxi could have found it and made off with it. The taxi driver looked confused and asked why I wanted to get out, but I told him, "Just let me out, please."

I walked over to the police station to inquire. They had heard nothing, and I mentioned that I had the taxi number, but the officer was not interested, because she said that it could have been a passenger who took the wallet/purse, which I had already thought of. Bored yet? Just stop reading. I won't be offended.

I crossed the street and got into the next taxi in line, not the same one that I'd been in before. After we started, the driver asked me why I left the taxi in front of him and went into the police station. I asked him, "And why should I tell you that?" But I thought about it, and I decided that perhaps it would be a good thing for the taxi grapevine to have the information that I was in touch with the police, and I told him the whole story. The driver, who was also a Muslim, with a short, well-trimmed beard and a pillbox hat, said over and over, as I told the story, "Honesty is the best policy. Honesty is the best policy." I said, "Indeed! I hope that somehow an honest person gets hold of my wallet/purse and returns it. It was not only the money and credit cards, but all the other cards that would need replacing, such as my Social Security card and my health care cards." He asked me when I was returning to the US, and I told him on March 30.

Somehow, through all of this, I had a strong sense that the wallet/purse would be returned, although, on the face of it, it seemed less and less likely that I would get it back as each day passed. At the end of the day, when I returned to the hotel, I hoped, no, I expected to hear that it had been found.

On my very last evening, I heard a knock on my door, and there was a Muslim man standing in the hallway outside my door. I was startled and a little frightened, because I didn't think that hotels gave out room numbers. He asked me if I had lost a purse, and I answered that I had. I thought I recognized him as the second taxi driver to whom I told my story, but he was not wearing his hat, and I was not sure. He told me that as the taxi I lost the wallet/purse in was being cleaned out, the wallet/purse was found under the seat. He said, "You are leaving on the the 30th, aren't you?" Then I knew that he was the second driver. He pulled the wallet/purse out of his pocket and said, "See if it's all there." It seemed to be all there. There were 200 pounds in the billfold. I didn't think that I had that much. Then he said, "Honesty is the best policy."

Alhamdulillah! I wish that I had asked a few questions, but the man creeped me out a little. He knew well that I had lost a wallet/purse, so why did he make a big point of asking me? He seemed too knowing, nodding his head and smiling in a strange manner. I had my wallet/purse, and I wanted to close the door. I gave him 20 pounds for his honesty in returning the wallet/purse, and that was that. Honestly, I'm still am not sure I believe his story, but it could well be true. Why didn't the other taxi driver return it? I left it in his taxi. No reason for me to think that the man at the door was anything other than a good guy, surely.

What do you think?

"Marginalisation And Young People"

Please take the time to read TheMe's excellent sermon at his blog Conscientisation. He preached at MadPriest's church yesterday in their Lenten series on "Marginalisation". Too often, young people have been marginalized by negative stereotyping, and it is to this subject that TheMe directs his sermon. Here's a snippet to entice you to read the entire sermon.

When Jesus states the single grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die in order to produce many more seeds, he is metaphorically speaking of his own forthcoming crucifixion. But I think that he is also speaking about the grain of wheat, as the precious ideas we hold of what is and what is not. Individually, to what extent are we prepared to enter the desert as Jesus did in the gospel reading at the beginning of Lent? To step outside of our comfort and be prepared to confront information that challenges and denies our view of the world. I am not gong to suggest as David Cameron did that you all need to go out and ‘Hug a Hoody’, it is not the calling and gift of everyone to exercise ministry directly with young people or with any specified marginal grouping. But collectively, as a church, what do we do to challenge the negative stereotyping? What as a church may we need to change about ourselves in order not to marginalise and distance people from the grace which is freely offered by God? As the voice from heaven proclaims it is only in this sacrificial attitude that we can give glory to God.

It was a joy to meet TheMe and his Beloved at our gathering on Saturday, and I would have loved to hear him preach the sermon. I tried, but the trains on Sunday are infrequent, and there was no way.

To Keep You Entertained - From Doug

Doug says: "If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the famous erudite scientist who once said: 'I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates..' His mind sees things differently than most of us do, to our amazement and amusement. Here are some of his gems:"

1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

3 - Half the people you know are below average.

4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ...... but she left me before we met.

12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?

13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

19 - I intend to live forever.... so far, so good.

20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread

29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

"And an all time favorite- "

34 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

And speaking of minds seeing things differently, when we were driving home from the airport in New Orleans, I became quite disoriented. I'd become accustomed to riding on the left side of the road, and not only did it seem very wrong to be on the right side of the road, but I could not recognize familiar places! I had to concentrate quite hard to orient myself to where I was. Thank goodness I didn't have to drive!

I'm Baaack!

Today will be a slow day for blog posting, because I have much to do in my off-blog life. Erika has already sent pictures of our bloggers' gathering, and I will try to get those up soon. I had a glorious time. Any of you thinking of going to England, do include the North if you can. Why did I wait 74 years to go there?

"Wounded Bird Takes Flight"

My good virtual friend Ann has a plan. She set up an interim blog called Wounded Bird Takes Flight , where she and a few friends will post news that I, or others whom I meet "over there", send in while I'm in England, along with whatever else those very kind friends take a notion to post. I'll have posting privileges, too, but I'm not taking my computer along, so it will be catch as catch can for me for computer access.

Thank you, Ann, and also Scott, Fran, and IT who have signed on to participate. I've turned off the comment function for Wounded Bird.

Be kind to one other, even as I won't be around to check up on you. I love you all, and I shall miss you.

Till we meet again.

Au revoir.

Hasta la vista.

Arrivederci.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Adjö så länge. (For Göran. I hope I have that right.)

St. Pat's Day Greetings From Maxine

Thanks to Ann.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Postcard from 1912.


God our Father
You sent Saint Patrick
to preach your glory to the people of Ireland.
By the help of his prayers,
may all Christians proclaim your love to all men.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.

(Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours)

Let us pray that all celebrations and parades remain peaceful on this the feast day of the saint.

Image from Wiki.

Thought For The Day

"It seems to me that when something really ought to be true then it has a very powerful truth...."

The Reverend John Ames in Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

I found more good theology in Robinson's novel than in many a theology book that I've read.

Bishop Charles Jenkins - "Those People"

Monday, March 16, 2009
CONSORTIUM OF ENDOWED EPISCOPAL PARISHES EVENSONG SERMON
A SERMON FOR THE CONSORTIUM OF ENDOWED EPISCOPAL PARISHES EVENSONG- THURSDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENTCHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, NEW ORLEANS
MARCH 5, 2009

Speaking from Washington, D.C., the then President of the United States, George W. Bush, once demonstrated a bit of compassion fatigue with us. I think he was frustrated with us (and may I say we were too were frustrated – to put it mildly) anyway, his frustration came out when he said, and “those people down there need to understand . . .” and on he went. The next day an African American friend of mine, Bishop J. Douglas Wiley, asked, “Bishop Jenkins, have you ever been called one of those people before?” I replied that I had not. “Welcome to the club,” said Bishop Wiley. So welcome to the world of “those people.” If I may adapt the words of a beloved hymn, “I hope you mean to be one too.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a letter of encouragement to Louisiana in November of last year. Rowan Williams’ description of what God has done with “those people down there” is worth sharing. The Archbishop wrote; the whole story is really one of how the Church itself gets converted to being itself by the pressure of these moments when you have to decide for or against the most needy. Now, I want to put that into an image you can understand – this conversion is the movement from fear to hope. Let me say it again, the conversion to being ourselves is the movement from fear to hope.

This conversion is not an easy movement. As I watched, heard and listened to my city being evacuated to 18,000 Zip Codes across this land, I stood on the edge; I looked into the abyss of despair. I thought I had lost all my worldly possessions but that was not the issue. I watched people, my brothers and sisters in Christ, calling out from the roofs of their homes, I saw the horror in the Superdome, I knew what was happening at the Morial Center, I saw the bodies coming to the morgue at the Hansen’s Disease Center in Carville. I watched as we were flown out, bussed out and floated out from home. Friends, in that moment it was for me either a life of hope or death.

What it would be like for the Church to make the shift from fear to hope? What it would it be like for this Church, and especially those who are gifted with an extra capacity for generosity, to move from fear to hope? A first sign of this shift would be to boldly move beyond the technical to the adaptive changes. As did Dr. Martin Luther King in his speech at Riverside Church, that famous speech “Beyond Vietnam,” when he boldly challenged our thinking about the Vietnam War, the Church must boldly challenge the nation to realize the value, the dignity of each human being.

You know, we are building houses here through the Jericho Road; in a separate and distinct ministry the Diocese is rebuilding the houses your parishioners as volunteers gutted. We yesterday celebrated the fiftieth rebuild of the 920 houses we gutted. We could be rebuilding the ghetto. Let me say that again, if we were just about building structures, we could rebuild the ghetto. Instead, the Diocese through our office of Disaster Response and Jericho Road is about building homes, transforming lives, and changing neighborhoods. We are not building another ghetto that can be measured by the number of structures completed; for us to move from fear to hope is to move beyond the measuring stick. You cannot measure adaptive change; you cannot measure human dignity, you cannot measure compassion, you cannot measure mercy. Our ministry here, and it is our ministry, it is not mine, it belongs to the whole Church, is not about rebuilding what was. You can be darned proud to be an Episcopalian in south Louisiana. You know, the waters and winds of Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav, washed away the thin façade of American respectability. Yes, post-Katrina New Orleans is America’s failure, but that failure began long before we were baptized the second time in muddy water. When that façade was washed away we saw the horror of centuries of racism, we saw the results of inadequate heath care and education, we saw the wound of a multi-generational trauma that goes back to the middle passage. And let me just say it whilst I am on a roll: I see the evil of an attempt to socially reengineer this city. I look that evil in the eye, and say, you will not succeed here. Instead, the Church stands for the life of grace and possibility in the beloved community of Dr. King, in that community in which our values are made manifest.

Some are thinking, “ it is a good thing he is retiring. “ The stress is too much for Jenkins. Perhaps so. I have been threatened physically, my reputation, which was never much, is hurting badly, but friends, I have learned to live in hope and not fear. I am told that we are trying to do too much; I must be realistic in these hard times. The Episcopal Church shall not abandon the field lest we give into fear. This is a Church of hope and that hope shall give life to the continuing conversion and sanctification of the faithful. To live in hope is to live a generous life even when the temptation is great to live otherwise. I can do nothing more than hope, I can do nothing less than to make that hope manifest.

Fifty-one percent of the children from pre-Katrina New Orleans are gone from here. In many cases, these youngsters realize they are not cared for, good riddance some would say. These youngsters have turned against themselves. It is ok to shoot a black person in New Orleans. It is so common that little notice is taken. Yet, your Church, through St. Anna’s parish, the Diocese of Louisiana and her Deacons will not let the city forget. Not only do we keep a murder board giving the name, age, and circumstance of all who are murdered in this city, we take to the mayor, the DA, and the chief of police a rose each week for every person slain. There is not a program out there that is going to change a population that hates itself. There is not measuring stick here. I am talking about theology, the spiritual change of heart and the intellectual change of mind that enables one to see dignity in oneself.

On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers—a 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schermer, 24—were murdered near Philadelphia, in Nashoba County, Mississippi. They had been working to register black voters in Mississippi during Freedom Summer and had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on trumped-up charges, imprisoned for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who beat and murdered them. It was later proven in court that a conspiracy existed between members of Neshoba County's law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan to kill them. I have talked to the man who gave those three youngsters the car they were driving that day. They were afraid to go into the evil but they went, hoping they could make a difference. And so they did.

Brothers and sisters, my gift for you this night is a challenge, in these hard times, let us manifest the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.

From The Bishop's Blog.

I am honored to have Charles Jenkins as my bishop here in the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. May God bless him as he continues to inspire us and lead us on to be about the business doing the work of the Lord.