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Whizzing By
 Did you see it whiz by?
84 years?
Nonstop moving on and kicking buckets and taking God’s hand to be sure I understood what He was encouraging me to do no matter where I had to lay out my mat and not forget my robes and stole.
I really didn’t evaluate (think about?) my years, my faults, my failures, my accomplishments, my errors, my friends, and lovers who came and went until I hit 83 and suddenly, I saw in the mirror a glimpse of old age, that despite my energy, I wasn’t getting everything correct. I asked a lot of questions in repeat. And I didn’t want to listen to the violent and political news much anymore but felt comfortable with CBS Sunday Morning and its daily morning news, (which kept me in stitches) and Jeopardy and basketball and football games. On Sunday, always on Sunday, if I was in my hometown, I was blessed to have a role at the altar of a church that had always welcomed me in my deacon or priest roll. In fact, my oldest daughter was baptized and married there.
Then I began to consider my conditions, if I had any. Suddenly I was curious about old age and keeping fit. I had been addicted to gyro tonics and aerial yoga for years but had sort of petered off while living in Uruguay because I didn’t have the equipment. So, I needed to recycle. My daily walks increased - and I try to get in two miles at the condominium where I live most of the time, and 3 miles where I live in Uruguay. I gave up gyms. They are too punchy and ra-ra-ra for me. So, taking what I had learned in Pilates and aerial yoga and gyro tonics, I set up my own gym with training stuff, including a twisting machine and weights, and just hung all my beautiful priests stoles through the years on the wall, just to remember I can’t give up because there is so much to do out there in this declining and disastrous world where few people have respect for his/her neighbor. Who knows who has a pistol in his or her pocket and you might walk in front of it and be done with.
My heart sinks too many times a day as I see the disaster, the filth, the hopelessness of kids trying to be stars and even heroes, but of another kind. They don’t have too much to look up to, as it is. Sure, Jesus - in the gospel we carry with us in heart, mind, and soul - was scandalous because He was different, and He came to do what God sent him to do. Then superstars like Thomas Jefferson, as Garry Wills wrote, was so offended by the miracles and the curses, by the devils assailing and defeated, that he created his own more acceptable Jesus - a tossed away those parts of the gospels he thought unworthy of a wise man’s story. How can any man or woman do that? One can add to but not take away. But then I’m still confused about how the nation’s founders declared all men were created equal but that meant only white men, and he left out any reference to the power and valor of women. The pure truth is we are not in the picture. He was moved by the comment that Jesus came not to impose peace, but to wield that sword and conflict with the addition that any man who protects his life will lose it, but the one casting life away because of Jesus would preserve it (A quote from Matthew).
There are so many out there who WANT to dominate, to call out the troops, to screw up the minds of who is whom and who has the powers, and didn’t you know that Obama was a Muslim just because he was black, and his father was from Africa? What lies people toss out there to get power. The Republicans tried to scare people with “could have beens” or rumors and could be scattered through right wing press to stir up political powers. Is anyone aware that, for example, there are more black Anglican priests and Bishops around the continents of Africa, in Great Britain, and somewhat in the US - yet, for some reason, in the United States, there has rarely been a come together between the white Episcopalian and Baptists and beautiful black efforts - they don’t seem to share the joy and song and dance the one church allows, while the other is more subdued and formal and repeats things Sunday after Sunday, outside of the three readings for that day. I wonder, oh how I wonder, what Jesus above us thinks about our failure to get together in so many of the churches in the Americas. Racism sneaks in with its horrible insistent on who can get in and who must be left out. It rips my heart out, and I’m sure many others. There are many who feed the hungry and help the mentally ill who wander on the downtown streets, yet they don’t welcome them into the hard seats of the church on Sundays. I remember in Uruguay when I first stepped into the Anglican Cathedral, when I finally found it, I was terrified at the many homeless who sat where they wanted to sit, and came and went as they wanted to, and sometimes the men would make actions that were not appropriate, but they considered the pews their pews as well as yours and mine.
How far do we go as servants of God? Why are we all divided up? So many crashed any hope of allowing women priests in their churches. Why? because they were women. Period. I was part of a two-week seminar in Jerusalem made up of mostly priests and deacons. There were a couple of new women priests and one female deacon, that was me. The Eucharist was shared at many places on our tours. One time a woman priest was given the honor of celebrating the Eucharist. outdoors, where the sheep had lived back in the day. A group of clergies from Texas refused to take the Eucharist from a woman priest. It was quite shocking to me, in this hometown of Jesus, who opened the doors and spread love all over the place. But things have changed since about 1998. IT had to crawl through the tough times to get to the beautiful times of women at the altar.
Revenge is mine says the Lord. Yet how can military abuse trained men and, horrors, women, be given the task of taking apart possible suspects who were, of course, without a doubt, Muslims because they prayed five times a day, - and that surely shook up the guards who probably dared to step into a holy place, knowing what they were doing to torture people subject, though not sure, but torturing them just because they were Muslims so they were guilty. It was like Hitler’s core killing and torching innocent people just because they were Jews, or part Jews, or had no proof of who they were.
It’s hard to believe how horrible man has become - from slavery of a vicious sort, to eliminating the very owners of the American soils - the Native Americans - as if the newcomers having the right to take away the beauty of the earth the Indians worshiped and cared for. Can you hold all of this in your mind? There was no Jesus to point to the torturers, those carrying the concept of Jesus Christ around their necks while they slaughtered good people and stole good land. Now, today, the modern days, when we should have joyful times with every race and color, who can laugh and dance and run marathons and be great chefs and teachers, hate is tying a string around everything as kids have the freedom to wield guns, and steal cars and products in groceries and shoot someone who passed too fast on the freeway, and others speak with a gun - bang bang you are dead. Where has life gone? Where has freedom gone? Where has God gone?
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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