Words from The Crone

Peace is a big topic when a nation is at war as we are. I remember a house in Florida that got all decked out at Christmas one year and wrapped itself in Mylar. People came from miles around to tour the grounds and look in wonder at all the decorations. As you passed through the gate you were given a CD and asked to write a prayer on it and hang it on one of the trees. The single most requested prayer was for world peace. We yearn so much for peace and yet…….sigh.

The other day someone asked me to pray for peace in his family. I had never before been asked to pray for that and I have been asked to pray for a variety of other hopes, dreams, wishes, pleas, and petitions. And, so I prayed with him for peace in his family. But, for me that prayer didn’t end there.

It occurred to me that perhaps this was the beginning of world peace. If we as singular human beings, living within the fold of a small group called “family,” can’t be at peace with each other, what is the hope for world peace among millions of people? We toss off our prayer for world peace in a sentence or two, a written prayer or two, without I think much thought of how we are going to accomplish that.

It starts, I believe, with your mother, your father, your sister, your brother. Be at peace with them. It continues with peace with your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and all of your step or half relations. When you can be at peace with all of them, then be at peace with your neighbors. Love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus said.

Well. now, loving my family is one thing, but loving that smelly old man next door, or that creepy woman in the house across the street? I don’t know. And that family down the lane with those bratty kids and the whacko grandfather. This is not going to be easy. It may be impossible. You must, however, try if you are sincerely praying for world peace. And you are, aren’t you?

And, then from family peace to neighborhood peace, we need to find peace in our village, town, or city. We need to make peace in our county, state, or country. Peace then can spread from country to country around the world, and who knows, in a millennium or two we might just have world peace. Maybe then we will find the wherewithal to end poverty and hunger and discrimination and corruption and murder and well, it might just be a fabulous world in which to live. At least it’s worth a try, don’t you think? So go, make peace with your family. It may be that small start that we need to achieve world peace.

As an Episcopal priest some are questioning my sanity by choosing to call myself a “Crone.” The funny thing is that I have called myself an old crone for some time in the same loving way that one would call an old man a curmudgeon. I never really gave it a thought in terms of entomology or any deeper darker meaning of the word. In fact, the revered Roget’s thesaurus calls a crone, (among other things such as witch and hag,), a beldam (old woman), frump, old wife, and grandmother.

I choose to ignore the definitions of a witch or a hag, because I see that as just the way we humans are selective. But, I am all the others, including a frump – ask my husband what I look like in the morning! Trust me, it isn’t pretty! I might even be considered a hag, but no one likes to think of themselves as either ugly or malicious as the dictionary defines it.

The word itself seems to come from the Northern French – Carogne, or Charoine, and Latin – Caro, and English – Carrion, all of which mean “flesh,” or “dead flesh.” Not a very attractive derivation for the word Crone. In retrospect, however, as we age our flesh is indeed dying, aging, sagging, wrinkling, withering, liver spotting, and well, I guess one could say moving on to become “dead flesh.” And, menopause doesn’t help. It dries us up, stops our youth-giving hormones, and even makes us cranky and cantankerous at times. A crone, in my book.

Some places say that the word is an ancient meaning for wise old woman, but my research hasn’t turned up such a definition although the site www.yoni.com/crone takes a stab at it. True, as we age we do gain wisdom. It is wisdom draped like a mantle over our shoulders, earned out of the experience of the years as our flesh has traversed life toward that day when it will truly live no more. It will indeed be dead flesh. Carogne, charoine, caro, carrion. But, ah, then we will be resurrected in a new body that will never die! Never be a crone. Thanks be to God.

In the meantime, as the skin withers, the wrinkles deepen, the sags sag, and the frump frumps, I like thinking of myself as a wise, old crone. I’m 70, I’m living it! I’ve earned it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Witch no! Crone yes!

In our prayers on Ash Wednesday we are called to prayer, reflection, repentance, fasting, and self-denial. Prayer and reflection are an everyday activity for me. Repentance is not easy, but necessary. I’m not very good at fasting although I have done it. Theologically, I don’t agree that we should set aside a time to fast anyway. I think we should be fasting daily. Fasting from all of the excess and over-doing that goes on day in and day out. I think they are catagorized as the seven deadly sins: Sloth, envy, greed, gluttony, pride, wrath, and lust. I know that I probably commit some form of them on a regular basis. So, I am going to try to avoid them on a daily basis and hope that bit by bit I will become a better person and a better Christian.

During Lent many people “Give up” something as a fasting discipline. Chocolate or sweets is a favorite. A favorite activity is another. Others give up a favorite food like red meat. Sometimes people give up caffeine and others give up sugar. Our family was discussing a lenten fast, more as an item of interest than of doing anything serious about it. But during our conversation we got hooked on sugar. Not just any ordinary sugar, but high fructose corn syrup sweetener. I actually think it is the addition of this, and other sugars, that is part of our national problem of obesity.

At any rate, our conversation got around to giving up high fructose corn syrup for lent. My daughter and I agreed, my spouse waffled. We’ll see. And so, as a consequence of this “fast” I started going through the cupboard reading labels. Do you know we have sugar in our salt and salt in our corn syrup? How crazy is that? The list of chemicals in anything in a box or a can is as long as my arm and unless you have a degree in chemistry, one can’t even pronounce most of them! It was a frustrating excercise and in my main pantry I found few items that were pure of any type of sugar. They were raisins, vinegar, olive oil, olives, and peanut butter. The only reason peanut butter made the list is because we stopped buying the kind that included sugar and chemicals about a year ago. I didn’t count herbs and spices.

Most everything else in my pantry has some form of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, or corn syrup, or dextrose, or maltose, or any “ose” which indicates a sugar. I can see that the real redemption in our lenten fast will be that we will surely lose weight just by cutting out some sugar. Did you know there is sugar in a can of kidney beans, sugar in ketchup, high fructose corn syrup in a can of stewed tomatoes, and sugar in dry roasted peanuts? Go check your cupboard – you’ll be amazed! I can feel myself getting thinner already.

I find myself wondering all the time. Sometimes my wonders are rather deep wonders such as what is God or who am I? Other times my wonders don’t even make sense to me like I wonder whether or not we have gentlemen ladybugs or why do the male birds get all the colorful plumage? What I like about wondering is that you can wonder all day and all night and you never have to have an answer. You just wonder and wonder.

Wondering always leads me into more wondering on a particular topic. The other day I wondered whether or not men go to heaven. Then I wondered why would men go to heaven anyway. This led me to wondering what heaven would be like without men, which led me to wonder where men might go if they didn’t go to heaven. You can see how all of this can be rather circular and even nonsensical. Oh my, how this wondering takes one on such a fun journey.

Another thing about wondering is that you can make comments between wonders and no one cares. Do men go to heaven? Well, why would they when 99 44/100 percent of them cheat on their wives and girlfriends. Just look at the headlines today. And, if there were no men in heaven Saturday and Sunday would not be filled with sports on T.V. and women could do all the shopping they wanted! Where do men go if not to heaven? Only heaven knows!

Other wonders are neither deep nor lighthearted. As we drive along our interstate highways I always wonder what the landscape looked like when native Americans were the only inhabitants. When I am driven to distraction by one thing or another I often wonder what life might be like without those nasty distractions. Or, I wonder what my dog really thinks about me. I know that he tries to speak English without much success. I wonder if he is as frustrated that he can’t speak as I am that he can’t speak.

Finally, there are those things we call wonder of wonders. But those are things like the great pyramid or the hanging gardens of Babylon. I never wonder about them. As I reflect on my wonders I realize that none of my wonders will ever have answers. They are only wonders and will remain wonders so long as I wonder. I wonder why?

We are in the middle of our third snowstorm in eleven days. Right now the snow is blowing sideways and the temperature is dropping. I am sitting at my dining room table watching our two bird feeders and the mounds of seed we have spread on the deck. Well, actually it is on the 15 inches of snow on the deck.

My loving spouse is in the feeding business. I think it is because he grew up during the depression and food was scarce in his household. At any rate, he is not happy unless everyone is fed. And I mean everyone! Friends, neighbors, strangers, dogs, cats, and our feathered friends the birds outside. After trying all manner of seeds he has discovered that sunflower seed is their meal of preference.

During the last two snowstorms the only birds we have been feeding were the finches, the juncos, our pair of cardinals, and four mourning doves. Yesterday, as we awaited today’s storm those little guys must have chug-a-lugged forty pounds of seed each and they ate all day long. We were sure they were bulking up for the storm just as we were stocking up our shelves with all manner of hot and cold food, just in case.

But this morning a strange phenomena is occurring right before my eyes. We have a flock of huge black grackles that never, and I mean never, come to our feeders. I think they are worm or bug eaters. Today however, over two dozen of them are struggling to get the seeds out of our small feeder and gobbling up the seed on the deck. I worried about our smaller friends the finches and the juncos because these big black guys were scaring them away. The doves could care less as they could hold their own. About once an hour I’ve gone out and shooed the big ones away hoping to give our little guys a break. I really didn’t need to worry so much as we also have one of those round caged feeders that only the little ones can enter.

When the little feeder was empty I braved the storm to bring it in to refill. My main-man bird-feeder was off to the store for more seed! I also took the rest of the bag of seed and spread it all over the deck so everyone had a chance to eat. After I replaced the feeder I watched an ecumenical miracle. As I sit here all manner of them, ALL of them, are eating together from the small feeder, the caged feeder, and the deck. No one is fighting, the small birds are eating right next to the big black birds. Even our pair of cardinals, a pair of red-winged blackbirds, and a pair of killdeer are partaking of the sunflower feast.

It is a sight to behold. I counted almost forty birds big and small. Like us mere humans, even the birds get along when disaster strikes or when our very existence is threatened. Now if we could only learn to do that all of the time what a peaceful world we might have.

I guess a storm is how you happen to define it. Most people define it as an act of God in the form of say, a hurricane, a tornado, a rain storm, a blizzard. Me too, but I also define a storm as when your adult child empties her entire room out into your living room so that new flooring can be installed – and, one week later, half of that room is still in your living room. It is one of those “I want to tear my hair out” moments for me. Um, well, maybe it is more like a “I’m going to murder you if you don’t clean up this mess” moment. Take your pick. Oh, and if you don’t already know it – I don’t do storms all that well.

Well, in the middle of the “room mess” storm, our little corner of the universe gets hit with not one, but two and maybe three major snowstorms. Major snowstorms! On January 20th we had 10 inches dumped on us. On February 6th we had 24 inches dumped on us. They are predicting another 4 to 8 inches on February 10th! White is my world. So, God, are you mad at me?

During the 24-inch storm, over one-half of our condo complex was without electricity – but not our little circle around the north pond. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I got a call asking if I could find a place to put up two women who were freezing in their power-less homes. Sure, I said confidently. Well, I called my absent neighbor, got his permission to use his unit and “Search and Rescue” was underway. Many of us called, knocked on doors, called some more, and we tried to be sure all of those without power were somewhere safe.

I hit upon the idea of using our community email list to let people know what was happening and others began to offer their empty units. It was really heartwarming. In a short order we had warm housing for anyone who wanted it, including a curmudgeonly man who would have rather been anywhere but where he was – but then he really wanted to be in his own home!

My two storms collided however, when a couple came to stay at our place. I am a very clean, neat person, with a neat, clean home. And here I was with a neighboring couple overnight on my living room sofa-bed right in the middle of the mess of stuff from my daughter’s room. Of course, we made our excuses, but I was so embarrassed I want to toss it all out into the other storm and be done with it.

For two days it snowed and snowed as we had guests of one kind or another, was busy feeding them and the others in the refuge homes, and trekking up and down opening homes, closing homes, and checking on people who decided to remain in their power-less homes. And, then the final storm – on the third day at 8:30 p.m. our electricity went out! Oh $%^&*! I said. Now everyone was power-less. And that is exactly how I felt. Powerless in the middle of three storms.

It’s over now. Well, almost. Only my God knows what that next storm will bring in two days. But, for now we are all warm and safe with well-lit homes. The room mess is still there…and although God gives us a break from natural storms, my daughter seems unfazed by the fact that she still hasn’t got her room re-assembled. God save my sanity – I’ll need it to get through the next storm, natural or otherwise!

Last night our electricity went out eight times for brief periods. This morning it hasn’t so much as flickered – yet! Why? White weather. We live in the southeast corner of Sussex County Delaware and up until last week we called it the “Magic Circle” because storms white or wet rarely bothered to stop in our circle for a visit.

Our magic circle of mild weather has moved on to someplace else and we are expecting upwards of two feet of snow. Now I like snow. Rather I like to watch snow fall and turn the winter brown into winter white. The problem is that like most everything in life, it is temporary. In two days my fairy dust white world will become a dusty, dirty troll brown. And worse yet unless we have a heat wave, it will stay around for days, maybe even weeks. Yuck!

They say you must take the good with the bad, but don’t you think it should at least be equal good/bad. Sometimes I think the good comes and goes far too quickly while the bad hangs around to nag at you far too long. Or maybe it just feels like that in my head and my heart. Good seems be an evaporating sense of joy and bad seems to be a sticking sense of gloom.

Well, at any rate, today the wonderful white weather is beautiful and I plan to stay inside my warm home with my family and enjoy every fairy white dust moment of it. Like Scarlett O’Hara, I’ll think about the troll stuff another day. Makes me feel so much better. Now for my hot cup of tea and a yummy pecan roll!

The headlines jumped out at me yesterday morning as I munched my oatmeal with blueberries. I’m not particularly fond of blueberries, but they pack a mighty anti-oxidant punch that researchers say is really good for you. Maybe, maybe not. I eat them anyway because at the very least they don’t hurt me.

The headline read COURT UPHOLDS STATE’S DEATH PENALTY and the article said that a Delaware judge has ruled the death penalty constitutional. Oh yeah. Well, that judge knows better than I about constitutional matters, but I know about matters of the human condition. And, I don’t support the death penalty for several reasons.

Victims or their families always want revenge and particularly in the case of murder. It is the “I lost my loved one, you should lose your life,” argument and it is a powerful one. It motivates juries, judges, and public opinion. But, consider this. If a person has committed this crime and has to live with it day after day after day after day…..surely those who have even an ounce of guilt or remorse will suffer each and every one of those days. Yes, some won’t, but that is just the nature of not killing people for a crime. Sometimes the bad guy does win, sort of, as much as that distresses us.

Another reason I oppose capital punishment is that there have been documented cases that innocent people have been executed. That is not justice. That is an abomination. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are not perfect and mistakes in judgment and decisions are made all the time. It is bad enough that an innocent person may serve years in prison before being found “Not Guilty,” but if you execute them there is no pathway to redemption. Furthermore, the guilty person is still roaming around free.

I also oppose the death penalty for economic reasons. Year after year we read statistics that tell us it cost more to execute a person than not. For example, it costs 38 – 48 percent more to hold a death penalty trial than a non-death penalty trial. It costs less to keep a prisoner serving life without parole than to keep an inmate on death row. For Example, in California it costs $137 million dollars to keep a death row inmate as compared to $11.5 million for a life term inmate. For more details go to www.deathpenaltyinfo.org . Those precious resources would be better used to keep peace in a community and crime rates down.

Finally, as a Christian I oppose the death penalty in the same way that I oppose anyone killing another person. My faith leads me to the understanding that whether we live or whether we die is best left up to God. As humans we are simply too prone to reacting out of our emotions or simply making bad decisions based on available information. God gives us life. God should take our life. For me it is a moral principle of protecting the innocent not executing the maybe guilty. And, like blueberries, at the very least we shouldn’t hurt the innocent. Think about it.