Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Thursday, June 30, 2005
She's Home!
Some of you already know the good news.
Now all of you can know it together.
My hospitalized bit o' honey, whose travails showed up so many times in my recent messages, is home! SHE! IS!! HOME!!!
A week ago already, Joanne was discharged from Kaiser Hospital in Oakland -- where she'd been confined for 6 weeks and 2 days with pneumonia, diabetes, anemia, and a hole in her lung where they'd dug out a biopsy sample. Ouch!
It was the latter that kept her under house arrest for so long.
I won't bore you with all the details. But, in short, the steroids that attacked the pneumonia also inhibited the healing of that #*@%! wound. So she lived with a chest tube in place for a month, waiting out the days (and long nights) until her lung could do its thing unaided.
Once the tube was gone, whammo -- she bounced out of there a week ago today!
Every day back on her own turf she gets a little stronger, looks more like her real self. More color, brighter eyes, bigger smile. Yesterday she got her hair done. Last night we went out for dinner. Two good signs we're really on the way to recovery.
She'll continue the steroids and other meds a few more weeks, then consult again with the pulmonary doctor who admitted her in the first place. We're hoping for the best.
I'm drawing a blank on a zippy closing line.
Let's try "Thank you!" To each of you who watched and prayed and encouraged us in a million ways. And to God who does all things well.
Amen and hallelujah.
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:58 AM
Monday, June 27, 2005
One For the Books
I made church history the other day.
In our historic Sanctuary building, a grand example of Victorian architecture in the Greek Revival mode. It's 101 years old now. It's been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980.
The local rabbi helped me write a new page for the historical record.
Last Friday he and I co-officiated at a love-fest of a wedding, under a canopy lovingly oveshadowed by the chancel cross. It was the first time ever, folks, for a Jewish wedding in our Presbyterian church. (Well, truth be told, it was a religious blessing on their month-old civil marriage.)
You'll be glad to know the ceiling didn't collapse before, during, or after the ceremony. No, no. Instead the stained glass windows filled the room with an amber glow as the evening sun worked its magic. You'd think God was smiling down a blessing on us all.
Kathy and Bruce did a fair bit of glowing themselves, standing before Rabbi Bennett and me, and 300 or so of their closest friends. Alameda's own version of Who's Who was on hand. And they lingered into the wee hours of Saturday, both to enjoy the fellowship hall reception and to clean up all evidence it had ever happened.
The rabbi was a tad nonplussed when the whole idea of this wedding came up. Heh heh. Good, says I. In a purely fraternal way, of course.
When Bruce and Kathy asked him to join me for the wedding, he said sure. After all, he and I are friends and colleagues in Alameda spiritual stuff. Besides, I'm an ideal straight man for his greased-lightning improvisational humor.
"So," he asks, "Which one of you is Jewish?"
"Both," they say. (Each, it turns out, with a random Christian squatting here or there in the family tree.)
"Then, just curious," he says, "Why have the wedding over there?"
"Because we love that building... And we love Jack!"
Excuse me while I blush. But that is just so cool.
The fact is they do love me, and I love them right back. They've been faithful, generous friends -- think, for example, of gourmet-quality homemade meals for me during Joanne's hospitalization. They're boosters par excellence -- for our church as much as for all things Alameda. And they give great hugs!
This Sunday they showed up for morning worship. Just like they belonged here. And, you know, they do. Everybody does, who wants to.
The door is open, the table's spread.
In our own way, we're following the oldest churches' example. Whenever they celebrated Holy Communion with token bits of bread and sips of wine, they followed it with a full meal. Which they called the Love Feast. Nobody left hungry, nor overstuffed. Everyone at the table was a VIP.
That spirit was the pulse of Friday's wedding. And it's the heartbeat of our church's intention every single day.
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:25 PM
Monday, June 20, 2005
The Band Plays On
Life is a song. Love is the music.
Those words beneath Bonnie Horlbeck's picture in the memorial service program got it just right about her long, good life.
Bonnie was our choir director during my first nine years as pastor here. Before that she'd served similarly with other Alameda churches, and she founded and directed numerous community musical programs as well.
Hundreds of local children learned to love music under Bonnie's direction, and to labor long and hard to perform it properly. At least one of them went on to study at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Two of her prize students sang special tributes in her memorial service -- one of them her grandson Sam, whose buddies in the Pacific Boychoir joined him for the occasion.
She continued giving private lessons until within a year of her death to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. That disease's slow destruction of her lungs silenced Bonnie's own singing, adding emotional insult to her physical injury. And yet she would glow with admiring support whenever one of her voice students sang in some gathering. Like a proud mother. The gift she gave would keep right on giving, she knew, through countless musical generations.
The memorial's music menu smacked of smorgasbord. Angelic boys' choir fare side by side with motivational pop ballads, classical selections, an augmented choir's gorgeous anthem, and a stirring Easter hymn. Given Bonnie's undying devotion to Alameda's community-wide Sing-It-Yourself Messiah, it seemed somehow perfect that the "Hallelujah Chorus" was conducted by a member of Temple Israel(!).
Then, good friends, came the capper. As Handel's last chord slowly faded into silence, from the back of the room came a soft skirling sound. It gradually built to a slow marching cadence as the piper made his way, kilts and all, to the front where he moved seamlessly into "Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound." I joined the family and we proceeded to lead the assembled multitude in following the good Scot out the main entrance into midafternoon sunshine.
Smiles and tears and lots of fervent hugs. Bonnie would be pleased. In fact, I'm sure she was.
Bagpipes... I have a theory: In heaven it won't be golden harps riffing on arpeggios and glissandos or whatever it is they're called; no, no, at the pearly gates we'll be issued bagpipes and banjos and, every here and there, an accordion.
If spiritual flailers like me can make the roster for heaven (and only because of amazing grace, I know I can), then this world's instrumental stepchildren will surely also be redeemed to praise our God with the best of 'em.
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:35 PM
Monday, June 13, 2005
Watch (Out) and Pray
Be careful what you pray for.
One time, Jesus stopped right in the middle of some miracles and took a good long look at the crowd. Then he almost lost it.
He turned to his disciples and said, "These people are in a bad way. They're harassed and helpless, like a bunch of sheep who've lost their shepherd." And his heart broke.
Then he said, "So you guys pray for them. Ask God to send people to help them. Ask God for a whole lot of people to sign on as God's helpers in helping them."
The story is in Matthew 9:35-38. Check it out. But keep reading into chapter 10. Something really interesting happens there.
First, Matthew names the twelve disciples. (There will not be a quiz.) Then he says that Jesus sent them out to do the same kind of miracles he'd been doing. And to preach the same message he'd been preaching.
In other words, he was making them the answer to their own prayers!
For some reason I'm reminded of how I began praying for this really nice girl when I was a college sophomore. Why not? I wanted God to bless her, to take good care of her, and -- just maybe -- to make her want to pray for me too.
Well, that sweet young thing and I will celebrate our 43rd(!) wedding anniversary next month. With all we've been through, I'm not sure either one of us would have kept praying for the other way back then. But I am sure we each more or less answered our own prayers when caring turned to loving, and loving led to marriage.
What have you been praying for lately? Who have you been praying for?
Be careful! Disciple, sophomore, or somewhere in between, it's pretty well guaranteed -- when you get up off your knees you'll soon be on the road with God.
You'd better pray with your shoes on.
posted by Jack Buckley at
9:45 AM
Monday, June 06, 2005
In the Key of Wow
The image on the screen looked like ET making funny faces. When the sound came on I thought of the Loch Ness Monster.
I was seated by my wife's bed while a technician operated an ultrasound device, checking her leg for a possible blood clot. The good news was that there was no news.
Joanne has been hospitalized for almost four weeks. Her particular pneumonia has been diagnosed, treatment is working, she's on the mend. (A clear crisp knock on wood is heard.) All along the way family, friends, and churchly folks have showered us with love and prayers and practical help. Yea!!
But my point here is that her body is musical. Its pulse moves at a certain frequency all its own. So does mine, and yours. We find ourselves speaking of good vibrations, of being in sync. I wonder if part of what makes people fall in love is that two scores of internal music come together in glorious harmony?
In any case, we human types resonate each with our own unique tone. The same goes for beasts of the field, flying and swimming creatures. Every rock, tree, and -- well, you get the point.
Those who've heard me try will vouch that I'm not much of a singer. (As a kid I was told, "You may well be able to carry a tune in a bucket. You just have a hard time pouring it out!") But my heart and soul are blessed when my ears hear good music. And, wow, how many wildly different kinds of music are truly, truly good!
I'm so glad one of my favorite Bible verses (Psalm 100:1) says, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord!" That I can do.
And I'm almost speechless with thanks that one of the last visions in the book of Revelation (19:6-8) features a heavenly choir singing with the tones of a rushing river and huge thunder clouds. What they're excited about is that God is getting set to throw the world's greatest wedding banquet for Jesus and his Bride. And, folks, she is us!
Excuse me while I stop to sing and shout.
posted by Jack Buckley at
12:11 PM
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Rise and Shine
It was worth the wait.
Twenty years ago I slept through the good part. I could have bought or borrowed the script, but I chose to wait for a rerun. Which never happened.
It was a PBS production of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon For the Misbegotten." Jason Robards, Jr. played Jim Tyrone, Colleen Dewhurst played Josie Hogan, and Ed Flanders was her father Phil.
Tyrone, a so-so actor who can't live up to his famous father's reputation, has inherited the family property which includes the Hogan pig farm. Josie's totally crushed out on him. Her ne'er-do-well dad has a scheme for Josie's desires to be fulfilled and the farm remain unsold to a greedy rich neighbor.
On this full moon night, he'll get Jim roaring drunk (easy to do since he's a lush) and let Josie bed him down. In the hangover light of dawn, Jim will feel so guilty he'll do anything to placate the irate old man.
So, the good part...
Halfway through the play, Jim and Josie tease each other on the front porch of Hogan's hovel. They joke and threaten with push-me-pull-you tension, dancing a tentative pas de deux. Will they or won't they?
For twenty years I had no idea. Cuz that's when I went to sleep.
I came to for the last five minutes or so. Bright dawn. On the porch again. Waking up cradled in Josie's muscular arms, Jim boozily asks if he did her wrong last night. She says no, but you gotta think yes. He finally exits left, and in from the right comes Phil. He and Josie set things right between them and you just know the farm's going to remain in their hands and somehow everything will turn out right.
Well.
This Sunday afternoon I sat in the second balcony and saw the whole thing in living color. ACT's last performance featured Marco Baricelli as Jim, Robin Wiegert as Josie, and Raye Birk as Phil. It was Marco's ACT swan song before he moves to Manhattan's bright lights. Robin plays Calamity Jane on HBO's "Deadwood." And Raye's a utility player at ACT. Their performance was well worthy of our standing ovation.
So, you wonder, what was the missing good part?
For one, besotten Jim confesses to earth mother Josie that he created a family catastrophe years before by getting drunk when he most desperately needed to stay sober. Forgiveness and reconciliation were mere dream wishes. For another, he wants so badly to have sex with Josie, and she with him, but that dreadful pas de deux goes on and on and on.
I'd better leave it there.
Except... When Jim walks off, Josie waits enough beats for him to be out of earshot, and says after him, "May you have your wish and die in your sleep soon, Jim darling. May you rest forever in forgiveness and peace."
She blesses him! Even if he can't see or hear it, she can and so can we.
They tell us O'Neill wrote this play as his own reconciliation with Jamie O'Neill, his so-so actor of an older brother, who had drunk himself to death years after his alienated mother died. This is Eugene's posthumous olive branch to his brother, and a potent salve for his own family wounds as well.
God give us the grace to forgive and be forgiven face to face. Give us the chance to gaze at love's glowing face, and to hear its lilting voice, long before we nod off one last time. Save us from sleeping through the best part of them all.
posted by Jack Buckley at
2:57 PM
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