My Taurus love

Today is Gayland's birthday. Somewhere there's a party going on in heaven with lots of great food and drink and EVERYBODY'S invited! And I mean everybody. 

Gayland loves a party. One of his greatest joys is gathering up all the people he can and loving on them by playing host. I can't tell you how many times I got home from Channel 13 only to be informed that 10 people were coming over for dinner, and should we eat inside or outside?

He would cook for everyone while I hurriedly set the table and tidied up. Gayland always reassured me that the house looked fine, but of course Mr. Untidy himself wouldn't know a tidy house if he lived in one.

I finally made peace with it, figuring that anyone who was coming to judge my housekeeping skills was missing the point of the gathering. 

Gayland was a Taurus (April 20-May 20), described this way: "No one will expose you to the finer things in life quite like a Taurus. This fixed earth sign has impeccable taste and loves to indulge."

No matter what you think of astrological signs, this one is spot on. 

With Gayland, the finer things in life didn't mean just food and art and music, although those were definitely part of it all. For him, though, the finer things in life mean sitting on the floor with a child, having a serious talk about bunnies. Or walking in the park with an unhoused person, learning their story. Or helping a man dying much too young from AIDS realize he was beloved of God, and certainly loved by Gayland. 

Or, in Israel, spending one day with an Israeli friend and another with a Palestinian friend. Or listening for the 1000th time to a person grieving for a lost child, and being fully present and caring. Or marveling at his two grandsons, who were the most amazing boys ever born. (He was absolutely correct.)

Or driving people to the polls to vote. Or writing his stream-of-consciousness newsletter to his various congregations, who got used to his idiosyncratic punctuation. Or quietly helping someone pay their rent, or make a car payment.

Gayland also was a champion appreciator. He appreciated beautiful gardens, although he never worked one day to grow one. He appreciated people who tried hard to make things around them beautiful, no matter how big or small the effort. He appreciated good cooking, and loved me even though cooking is NOT one of my skills.

Most of all, he appreciated LIFE and all it threw at him. He weathered is all because his faith in a loving God never wavered. 

Not that there weren't things he thought God could do better -- and I am sure he has informed God of his entire list. 

And I am sure God is at Gayland's party, lifting Their glasses in a toast to the Birthday Boy.

Happy birthday my love. I miss you every day.

The highways and byways of sorrow

One of the realities of living into your 70s is that you begin to lose people -- beloved family members, friends, and acquaintances that you cherished.

On an intellectual level I knew this, but I was unprepared for the emotional impact. Because each of these lost beloveds have a geography attached to them, places that we shared, places we had fun, places we faced adversity together, places we worshiped together, places we ate regularly, places where we helped one another and others.

The landscape of your life becomes marked by invisible signs that say, "[Your beloved] isn't here any more," bringing with it a fresh rush of grief, however brief, that takes your breath away for a moment. 

For instance, heading east on I-30 off to my right over the hill is Bruce's house, where if I took the Beach exit instead of my Oakland exit I could swing by and see if he's out in the yard and we'd chat.

Or driving north on Eight Street, stopping at the light at Elizabeth Blvd. If I turned right, as I did for many decades, I'd go right by Joan's house, where I often went for strategy meetings or just to pick her up to go to lunch with our other co-conspirators.

Or driving on Camp Bowie, where, if I turn on Virginia Place I could stop by Bill's house, and visit with him and his fabulous wife. She grieves for him in that house, just as I still grieve for Gayland in mine.

Heading north on Montgomery, if I turn on Crestline, which I do a lot when I go to the bank, I drive past Richard's house, again, where his also fabulous wife still grieves his loss. 

Or in my own East Side, driving on Randol Mill, I glance up the hill and think of Deb now freshly grieving the loss of Sharon, and I grieve with her. 

And of course, there are the countless places that were meaningful for me and Gayland that still cause stabs of loss and grief every time I go past them.

Sometimes the weight of grief and loss seems too much to bear. But then I am reminded of a passage from Louise Erdrich’s 2005 novel The Painted Drum that I wrote down years ago:

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could."

So I go walk in the garden with the dogs where we rejoice that Mom's irises are beginning to bloom again and the wild buttercups are taking over their favorite flowerbed.

Life is bursting forth all around us with a force that pushes aside
grief, waving banners of hope and gratitude.

And I am reminded again that love abides. Always.

Can the Fourth of July be an occasion to celebrate, not dread?

In recent years, for way too many people, the Fourth of July has become an occasion of dread, not celebration.  That's a shame for the holiday that is meant to celebrate the best of this country's aspirations. The cause? Out-of-control fireworks and guns going off in residential neighborhoods and the seeming inability of the City to do anything about it.

The reigniting of the municipal fireworks in much of Texas and the nation was a result of celebrating the Bicentennial in 1976.  That national celebration reintroduced large scale fireworks to a nation who largely thought of them as fire crackers and bottle rockets.

Texas went big for the Bicentennial but with many local projects instead of one big state celebration. According to D Magazine, "In all there were 810 projects throughout the state. Among them were 102 new museums, 146 oral history projects, 387 tree-planting projects, 105 new parks, 14 medical facilities, 85 preservations, 227 restorations, 302 historical publications, 66 cookbooks, 195 flagpoles, 41 gazebos, and 90 time capsules."

The Bicentennial culminated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, with the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

AN EXCITING TIME  

It was an exciting time in the United States. Women and African Americans were making visible strides toward full equality under the law.

Barbara Jordon became the first African American to keynote a national political convention at the Democratic National Convention and Clifford Alexander Jr. became the first African American to be Secretary of the U. S. Army. On July 6, the first class of women at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis is inducted. Barbara Walters hosted the final presidential debate.

In other news, Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford, and two new companies, Apple Computer and Microsoft, incorporated. In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment. A tiny 14-year-old Romanian named Nadia Comaneci scored a historic perfect 10 on the uneven bars at the Montreal Olympics and snagged three gold medals.

The Viking 1 landed successfully on Mars and began sending back color photos of the planet's surface, including the famous Face on Mars photo. 

                                                       THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1976

On the Fourth itself, the arrival of the Tall Ships in New York Harbor was all over television.

Fort Worth put on a parade in which the local chapter of the National Organization for Women had a float featuring women in American history. It was decorated with a huge head of Liberty carved by our own Nancy Lamb. I was State Representative Chris Miller on the float.

And that night, there was a huge fireworks show down by the Trinity River. Prior to this, big municipal fireworks shows weren't really a thing in Texas. People might set off a few fire crackers, but mostly the Fourth was family cookouts, trips to the lake, and swim parties.

But since 1976, municipal firework shows have become an annual event in Fort Worth and most other Texas cities.

AN UGLY COROLLARY  

However, a sad and ugly corollary has been the steady increase in individuals setting off fireworks in residential neighborhoods, which is illegal in Fort Worth and other cities. Last year, my East Side neighborhood sounded like a war zone for five nights in a row, with commercial grade fireworks being set off in the cul de sac behind my house. These explosions went on well into the early morning hours. The police were largely ineffective.

Aside from the danger of setting houses on fire, the impact of all these explosions on veterans and pets is horrific. My dogs and cat hate it, and shutting us all the bedroom with music, the tv, and a white noise machine does little to mask to the noise. Add to the cacophony the idiots who shoot off guns all night and it's a wonder people aren't killed. I have a neighbor who is a veteran and he leaves the city every year to go to a friend's hunting cabin because all the explosions trigger his PTSD so badly that he can't function.

One result of the city allowing this to get so out of control has been the number of people who have begun to really really dislike fireworks. I know of so many who have moved from loving the excitement and the beauty of that show in 1976 to a deep dread of and dislike for the Fourth and all the accompanying uproar.

So this year, the City of Fort Worth raised the fine for illegal fireworks to $2000.00 and posted this information on signs throughout the city. It seems to have had a impact. While the police still didn't show up when we called them, and it still sounded like a war zone on the Fourth, the nights leading up to and after the Fourth were much quieter.

HOPE FOR QUIET BEAUTY

But there is hope that virtual light shows and drones might overtake fireworks in popularity.

In Seattle the New Year of 2021 was run in at the Space Needle with a stunning visual display developed by a Seattle entrepreneur.

And drone shows are amazingly lovely.

This new development of having shows put on using drones or virtual light shows offers hope for a new way to celebrate without the noise and the danger. Of course, for way too many people, the noise and the danger is part of the appeal of fireworks.

But one can still hope that the quiet beauty of the drones may win out over the bombastic fireworks. My hope is that the City of Fort Worth will adopt the drones or a virtual light show for the annual Fourth of July show and let the fireworks die in the dust.

Rural Texans, it's time to push back

Rural Texans, you have faithfully voted Republican for decades, buying into the Republicans' portrayal of Democrats as unChristian baby killers who want to turn your children gay, make them hate America by teaching them the true racist history of our country, give all your stuff to Black and brown people, inject you with micro chips via vaccine, and other fear mongering tactics that distract you from the fact that they don't give a flying flip about you.

Note how Gov. Greg Abbott's refusal to expand Medicaid has devastated rural hospitals. Does your small community even have a hospital any more? Most likely not, as rural hospitals in Texas have closed in droves.
Now comes the move on school vouchers - to take money away from your local schools so parents can send their kids to private schools at taxpayers expense.
Let's talk about schools in small towns in Texas.

They, along with your churches, are the heartbeat of your town, aren't they? I know, because I grew up in Iraan in Pecos County and went to high school at Odessa Permian. Go Mojo!

The principal and teachers are your neighbors and friends. The coaches are local heroes. The whole town turns out for Friday night football, for all the home basketball and baseball games and then everyone caravans to the away games, often trailing the school buses carrying the team. Certainly you are there at 1 am - and sometimes later in the vast expanses of West Texas -- when the buses return home with either very tired kids who are congratulated on their victory or very tired kids who need to be reminded that they played a great game, even if they didn't win.

(I remember once when the bus of one of Permian's fierce rivals broke down about ten miles outside town. Within an hour, Permian parents had organized to pick up all the kids and coaches, drive them all the 80 plus miles home, and then return to Odessa.)

Everyone in town supports the PTA bake sales, buying each other's cakes and competing good naturedly on the cake of the town's acknowledged Best Baker. Everyone supports the car washes, scrap metal drives, Christmas wrap sales, and candy sales of the various youth groups. Everyone supports the band and the choir and the pep squad. And of course the football teams. This IS Texas, after all.

You know your schools aren't failing. You know CRT is not being taught there. You know your teachers are trustworthy enough to pick out books for your kids.
And here's the thing - all this is true of the schools in Fort Worth and other Texas cities. Because I'm not the only small town product who has moved to a Texas city.
Texas. The word Tejas means "friends or allies," which is why "friendship" is our state motto.

What the Republicans are trying to do to your schools is not the act of a friend or ally.

So do what you've always done Stand up for your schools and your teachers and the kids. All the kids.

Don't let them take money from your schools and give it to parents wanting their kids in a private school. Push back.

You're Texans. I know the kindness, the heart for community, the generosity of which you are capable. It's time to remind Republicans that we don't scare easily, we don't appreciate being lied to, we love our kids, and we value fairness, friendship, and fidelity.

It's time to push back.

Wolves, serpents, and doves

Please bear with me. This is a bit of inside baseball for Episcopalians, but given what happened with the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1990, and what's happened in the Methodist Church recently, it's actually about how conservative evangelicals who are convinced they know the mind of God will be -- and are - willing to use any tactic to achieve their goal of patriarchal power over women, people of color, and any man who doesn't fit their masculinity test.

I want to try to explain why the story of famed Baptist leader Beth Moore's move to a Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) church is NOT a lesson in evangelism, and NOT a teachable moment for ushers and greeters at Episcopal Churches, contrary to what some leaders in The Episcopal Church seem to think. Ushers and greeters everywhere, I suspect, would greet a famous person with welcoming courtesy. What the Beth Moore story is, is a lesson in how well meaning and loving people can err for far too long on the side of making allowances, and can mistake a common background for common ground, thus leaving themselves and their churches vulnerable to a takeover by ACNA.

Because ACNA is playing a long game.

For example, see the very recent attempt to take a Diocese of Texas parish church into ACNA, the planting of "mission" ACNA churches in Dioceses of Dallas and Albany, and the as-yet-unexplained behind the scenes effort to resurrect the infamous Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as "the mind of the Church" at the recent Lambeth Conference.

ACNA has been counting on this willingness to give the benefit of the doubt, on the preference to appease rather than confront, and on the tendency of straight privileged white male bishops to think their world view is shared by everyone who matters. They have been doing so since the infamous Chapman Memo was issued on 2003, in which they clearly laid out their goal:" 1) Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values, and driven by Gospel mission. We believe in the end this should be a “replacement” jurisdiction . . ."

How did the schismatics predict the leadership of The Episcopal Church would react? They also laid it out in the Memo: "But we think that the political realities are such that American revisionist bishops will be reticent to play 'hardball' for a while." The memo continues, "ECUSA [Episcopal Church in the USA] leaders know well how conservatives could quickly become the 'victims' in the public mind."

They read the room right -- Episcopal leaders have been willing for far too long to throw LBGTQI Episcopalians/Anglicans and women under the bus to appease conservative evangelical bishops -- and we all know how well appeasing bullies works. Any mom can tell you that. They simply decide you are weak and go for more. We saw it in the years leading up to the 2008 Fort Worth schism, and we've seen it since, as recently as Lambeth 2022.

The refusal to play hardball with people who do nothing else is a recipe for failure, and, I believe, a betrayal of what we assert we believe.

And now comes the recent story of Beth Moore. Moore, perhaps the most famous Southern Baptist who is a woman, left the Southern Baptist Convention when the disconnect between her call and the edicts of the SBC against "women teaching men" became simply too much for her to bear. She is now identifying as an "American Anglican evangelist, author, and Bible teacher."

She "found a home" in a church affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). She is positively giddy about her new church home, and why wouldn't she be? She has stepped about one inch outside her comfort zone, essentially moving the tiniest step possible away from the SBC that she could without staying in it.

Because ACNA is just the SBC with liturgy, and Moore is a conservative lay straight woman with no aspirations to ordination.

About half of ACNA dioceses refuse to ordain women as priests, and all of them refuse to ordain women as bishops. None of them welcome LGBTQI people. They have their own prayer book, one that tellingly has omitted the Baptismal Covenant with its pesky vows to "respect the dignity of every human being" and to "seek and serve Christ in all people." And yes, Jack Iker is STILL working to get rid of women priests in ACNA, stating that he's in "impaired communion" with the ACNA bishops who do ordain and tolerate women priests. Ironically enough, it was to appease Iker that ACNA decided women might be priests, but certainly not bishops.

But wait! There's more. . . to the Moore story. The "Anglicans" she is affiliated with are not Anglican at all, in the sense that the definition of Anglican is "being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York." ACNA is not. Nor are they part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

You see the list of member churches at https://www.anglicancommunion.org/.../member-churches.aspx.

ACNA's openly stated and oft-repeated goal is to replace The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada as the Anglican presence in North America.

They scored a huge victory in Texas in 2021 when the Texas Supreme Court awarded $500 million in Episcopal Church property and the name Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth to the group who left The Episcopal Church in 2008 and eventually joined with ACNA. When the US Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal, the Texas Supreme Court opinion stood, and it was all given to ACNA.

This resulted in the former Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth becoming The Episcopal Church in North Texas and then reuniting with the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. We lost beloved church buildings, altar goods, icons, trust funds -- everything, essentially.

But the loss of those things wasn't as hard as having to come to term with the hardness of heart of the ACNA folk. Even as they refused to follow donor wishes that items stay with the Episcopal congregations, even as they refused to sell us items they had no need for and didn't even want, even as they harassed women priests and trolled them on Facebook, we tried to find good in them.

After all, before they left The Episcopal Church, many of them had worshiped with us. Many were family, and friends. But the split that began when The Episcopal Church voted to ordain women to the priesthood and episcopate in 1976, continued to be widened by conservative clergy who saw their hold on power in the church being challenged by those who historically had been on the margins -- Black, Indigenous, people of color; women, and LGBTQIA people.

When the diocese of Fort Worth was formed out of the Diocese of Dallas in 1983, much of the impetus for that was reaction against this opening of the life and worship of the church to all people. When The Episcopal Church began seriously exploring what it really meant to seal someone in Baptism as "Christ's own forever," they saw a threat, not a promise.

Fear, outraged patriarchy, and schism were in the very DNA of our founding. All three bishops of the diocese -- Donald Davies, Clarence Pope, and Jack Iker -- left The Episcopal Church, Davies to found the Missionary Episcopal Church, Pope to go to the Roman Catholic Church (and then back to us, and then back to Rome, and, well, one loses count), and Iker eventually to ACNA. Iker claimed all Episcopal Church property of the diocese -- and the Texas Supreme Court gave it to him.

Iker layered on outrage over the inclusion of LGBTQI in his fuming against The Episcopal Church, but for him it was always -- and remains -- the ordination of women that is at the heart of split here. Notice that he didn't leave when Gene Robinson was elected the first (openly) gay bishop in The Episcopal Church in 2003. After all, even though he was gay, Robinson was at least male.

No, Iker left only when Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop. For a man who said that women were no more proper matter for ordination than is a dog, a woman presiding bishop was a bridge too far.

She was elected in June 2006. Iker held the first of two (illegal) votes to leave The Episcopal Church in November 2007, and the second in November 2008.

But while ordained women are the line in the sand for Iker and others, all of ACNA is united in fighting against the full inclusion of LGBTQIA folk in the life and worship of the church. And they are willing to do just about anything to achieve their goals.

So when we see Episcopal Church leaders promoting a Beth Moore book in which she sings the praises of ACNA, it is hard to swallow. When we see priests who have actively worked to undermine The Episcopal Church readmitted into full leadership positions in TEC, it's worrying. When we hear bishops lightly dismiss ACNA as "a few lightweights that they can easily handle," it is alarming.

We are told we are overreacting. We are dismissed because, "Oh, they are just speaking out of their woundedness." We are admonished that we are called to love one another. We are told that ACNA is a "gateway" to the Episcopal Church, so play nice with them.

This is exactly the kind of gaslighting victims of abuse get when they try to warn others of the dangers of powerful white church men.

My point? We are living amid wolves, just as were the disciples when Jesus sent them out in Matthew 10:16: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

Jesus warned them they were being sent out among wolves. And so are we. The fact that wolves are purposefully hostile and intentional about the harm they inflict EVEN AS they abide among other "believers" does not mean we ignore the threat they pose.

Jesus told them to be alert, to be careful, to advance the kindom of God but without using the tactics of the wolves -- be wise as a serpent, but gentle as a dove.

Because here's the thing -- one can be loving without being complicit in one's own abuse, one can be hospitable without handing a thief the key to one's house, one can be welcoming while maintaining boundaries.

Stir it up

I admit, there have been times when I have wailed, WHY did you have to die in December?!? But then, what other time would have been acceptable? There is no season when the loss of you would have been any easier. What I am really crying is WHY did you have to die and leave me alone!

There is nothing rational about this cri du cœur. No rational discussion of the cause of death matters in this case. This is a cry of pure loss, rage, and grief, aimed right at the heart of God in hopes of. . . what? I don't know.  I just know it rings out from the throats of bereaved lovers everywhere, in all languages, in all times, as the reality of our enormous loss begins to settle in. 

My reality was altered by your death in ways I am still discovering five years on.

FIVE YEARS!? How can it be five years, when the loss of you still feels so recent? 

And yet I have managed to cobble together a new reality that living without you made necessary. And most days, it works pretty well. 

This year the fifth anniversary of your death also is the third Sunday of Advent -- Stir Up Sunday, so called because the service always begins with the prayer, "Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us. . ." It made me smile, because you loved to stir things up, didn't you? And you loved Advent.

I love Advent in a new way now, because it gives me space to move into Christmas slowly, making it over the ordeal of my birthday without you, and then moving through the pain of this horrible anniversary.

This afternoon I hauled out all the boxes of the Nativities we collected throughout our marriage, many brought back from some wonderful trip together - or occasionally trips we each took on our own. Opening each box releases a legion of memories.

The Nativities come from trips to Israel, Italy, Sicily, England, France, Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, as well as some from local artists here at home. 

Some of the Nativities were brought by each of us into the marriage (along with books and pieces of art. Lots of books, lots and lots of books). 

And some were gifts from beloved friends and family.  Wherever they come from, they are imbued with love and care and memories of blessed Christmases with you.

Moving into Christmas involves many conversations with you still. Anyone watching me would think, ok, here's a crazy person, but they would be wrong. I am not crazy, I am continuing a conversation that simply won't just end.

And day after day, I am comforted by the knowledge that your sweet sweet spirit isn't gone, that it shows up in funny, mysterious, weird, and loving ways, much as you did when you were here.

Because here's the most important thing I've learned in the last five years -- love doesn't end just because your physical presence did. 

Thirty-one years, my love

 Happy anniversary, my love. Thirty-one years to celebrate, the last nearly five of which I've marked alone. 

We thought getting married on All Souls' Day was a great idea, because the space between the living and the dead is thin on this day. We figured all the beloved folks who had gone on ahead would be among our clouds of witnesses. 

Ironic indeed that the person I want most today is among those witnesses, probably working the room to make sure everyone gets greeted and loved on, just as you did at our wedding -- and everywhere else we went.

You have been much on my mind today, of course. I woke up thinking of you. The animals and I had to move out of the residence and into the farmhouse for three days while we awaited the pest control guy to come kill the thousands of yellow jackets who took up homesteading in the attic crawl space. After being stung twice I wasn't risking trying to sleep in the same building as those little devils.

The dogs were okay with the temporary move, because they are happy anywhere I am, but the cats were decidedly not. Sable refused to move off mother's couch and Danny pouted until he discovered the stairs and decided the entire farmhouse was a giant cat toy. At that point, he became a one-cat demolition derby, bouncing off walls and knocking stuff over right and left. 

We all slept upstairs in the space that used to be my office. I turned it into a bedroom when I moved all my office stuff over to the residence. It's good to know first hand that it's a comfortable space for any guests who arrive.

Still, I kept thinking how much fun it would have been with you there, because you could turn an event like being run out of our house by stinging insects into an adventure.  You would have cooked some great meal, we would have pretended we were on vacation, had too much wine to drink, made love, laughed, and read to each other in bed. 

Instead, I took an allergy pill and read until I got sleepy. Then woke up with no voice. Appropriate I guess, because since you died, I am unable to sing. I try, but songs just stick in my throat. So today, as I miss you madly, it seems right that I have no voice at all. Because there are no words I need to say. I said them all to you when you were still here -- told you of my deep abiding love for you, listed all the things about you that tickled me and drove me crazy, all the things you taught me and all the things we learned together, all the things I admired about you and all the ways you made the world so much better because you were in it. 

I didn't know then how huge a presence an absence can be.  

I miss you so much.

Remembering the Paris Coffee Shop

 On Friday, July 25, 1984, I wrote a column entitled "One of Fort Worth's small treasures reopens."

It came to mind as I read stories of the reopening a newly re-done Paris Coffee Shop, the owners of which hope to carry on the legacy of this home town treasure. I have not visited the new Paris yet. But I do remember the old one.

--------

Friday, July 25, 1984

Well, all is right in at least one little part of the world.

The Paris Coffee Shop on Magnolia is open for business this morning, after being closed all week to repair the damage caused by a fire Saturday night.

"The firemen did a great job," said owner Mike smith, adding that there was almost no water damage. 

Even through Smith has business interruption insurance, he had been working at top speed to repair the damages so the coffee shop could reopen.

Why the rush? After all, his insurance would make up the money he would lose while the business was closed for repairs. He could have proceeded at a more leisurely pace. 

Smith hurried because he has a good understanding of what his customers expect of him. They expect him, and his place, to be there.

After all, the Paris Coffee Shop has been there for many of those customers since Smith's father, Gregory, opened it in 1930. Mike Smith has been running it for 21 years.

When it's closed, its absence makes a major hole in customers' lives. The Paris is part of the daily or weekly routine for hundreds of people. The inexpensive but good food, the friendly service and relaxed ambience have all helped make the Paris a Fort Worth fixture. 

But the biggest reason is the customers themselves. They are a motley crew, ranging from construction workers to hospital district employees to businesswomen and men to parents with little babies to retired couples to an occasional street person. 

They come there for more than food. They come to make deals, to explore ideas with friends, to have meetings, to relax on coffee breaks, to meet people, to make decisions, to write letters, to read newspapers, to work puzzles, to plan little personal revolutions, and to warm their hands and hearts overs a cup of coffee.

They come in groups and they come alone. Some come assuming they'll see someone they know, while others come in hopes that they'll feel slightly less lonely.

They come in business suits, in jeans and T-shirts, in jogging shorts and in formal dresses. They even come in costume -- and not always just at Halloween. 

This diversity makes for a colorful crowd and interesting mixes of people. It creates an air of friendly equality and unquestioning acceptance. At the Paris, people are assumed to be good unless they prove otherwise. 

In short, the Paris is very much like the city it serves. This coffee shop could, on any average day, serve as a metaphor for Fort Worth. That's why it's a place city leaders should visit often, especially when they start getting ideas about Fort Worth needing an "urban, sophisticated image" in its leaders. 

The Paris isn't the only place like this, of course. There are other such places in Fort Worth, and certainly in Arlington and the Mid-Cities. 

Such places are local treasures. Some are coffee shops and restaurants. Others are small stores or shops. Still others are public places, such as libraries or post offices or parks. 

They can be anywhere, in any structure, in any space. What sets them apart is that they have been made special by the people who congregate there. 

Such places cannot be built. They just sort of grow, getting rubbed into being by the people who use them, who have nudged and prodded and poked at them over the years until they fit, like a comfortable old shoe.

Sometimes the process is aided by a proprietor who is smart enough to nurture the process, and sometimes it happens in spite of the owner. 

it is important that city officials, business owners, and other community leaders be sensitive to the existence of such places. They should be vigilant about changes that might destroy them and be willing to think creatively about ways to preserve them. 

A case in point is the old Burnett Park. The refurbished park is lovely, but certainly it is not the treasure the old park was, and, I suspect, it never will be. I choose to believe that city officials simply did not understand how special the old park was in the hearts of the people. If they had, they could never have treated its refurbishing as they did, as simply another routine agenda item. They never would have turned it refurbishing over to some out-of-town design group who had no hope of understanding how the people felt about that park. 

The Tandy Foundation got what its generous gift paid for -- an elegant entrance plaza into its office building. But the city lost one of its people-created treasures. 

A city can't afford to lose too many of those. They are what make a city a home, instead of a place to just live in for a while.

Happy 85th, my love

 Saturday, April 23, was Gayland's birthday. He would have been 85. 

He's been gone nearly five years. How can that be? How have I managed to navigate these long months alone? 

I still miss him every minute of every day.

I still have conversations with him. many beginning, "What were you thinking. . .?" because, well, Gayland.

Many of those conversations happened when I managed to clean out a storage unit filled with boxes from his move back to Fort Worth from Mexico. I longed for his presence so he could tell me the story of some of what I found. 

LOTS of books, framed art work, office files, kitchen supplies, letters and cards, ash trays -- anyone have ash trays any more? He had stopped smoking by the time we met for the second time -- the first was when I interviewed him when he was the "controversial" Canterbury chaplain at TCU.

Reading the letters and cards were like peeking over his shoulder into his ministry.  Here's a tiny sampling:

"Thank you, Fr. Pool, for you kindness to our family when Nana died."

"Fr. Pool, I would never have survived the loss of my son without your help and counsel."

"I'm writing to tell you I got into college. Thank you for helping me make it through high school. I think I'd be dead by now if you hadn't been around to listen and offer advice."

"Fr. Pool,  I am getting MARRIED!!!!!!! And I want you to do the wedding. You baptized me, got me confirmed, and I can't imagine being married by anyone else."

"Fr. Pool, I wanted to let you know we got moved into the new house and are settled. Thank you again for your help with that terrible landlord. What a nightmare!"

"Dear Fr. Pool, Please let us know if you are moving back to Fort Worth any time soon.  You are missed."

Dear Gayland, Thanks for your hospitality in Mexico. It was a great visit and I believe I made real progress with my Spanish. Your encouragement gave me the confidence to make the trip -- my first out of the United States."

Dear Rev. Pool, You don't know me, but you know my son, ______. You helped him more than once when he got into trouble. Well, he got his act together. He's now attending medical school -- can you believe it? As one very relieved mother, I wanted to let you know and to thank you. You helped make this possible."

Every one of this could be the jumping off point for a novel. All reveal his very real love of people and his willingness to walk with them through good times and bad.

I longed for his comfort and counsel when my brother Dan died. Gayland understood grief and loss better than most, having lost his brother and young nephew in a car accident, and then months later, his mother to cancer, all while he was at Canterbury.

So I hope you had a big party up there, with all the people you loved who preceded you there. 

You are much missed here, my love. Very much missed.

“All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.”

A eulogy for my brother Dan

Dan Sherrod is the oldest of four children, a fact the rest of us children never let him forget. 

Dan was the “good” child among us. Peter and I did our best to live up to the reputation of middle children, and Mike was, of course, the baby - with all that entails for good or ill. 

As the only girl, I was an anomaly in the house, and did my tom boy best to grab as much of the male privilege of the household as I could. But my mom was determined to turn me into a girl. I’m thinking particularly of the Christmas Dan and Pete got Roy Rogers holster sets and I got a Madam Alexander doll. Now, I ask you. . . 

But as I got older, I realized that it wasn’t easy being a son of Alan Sherrod, physician, racing car driver, story-teller -- a man who was quite happily idolized by an entire community, indeed, a man who was a legend in his own mind.

Still, Dan managed to take the best parts of Alan’s legacy and make them even better -- he centered his life on love of his cherished wife and his family. He loved laughter. He loved his Church. He loved racing -- but more, he loved the racing community -- and it loved him back. 

I asked Peter and Mike to share their favorite stories of Dan. Here are two from Peter: 

One evening several of us were gathered in Dan's dorm room at St. Edward's [High School in Austin]. We were lustily singing a bawdy song when suddenly, Brother Aloysius burst through the door in a state of high dudgeon. Good Catholic boys apparently don't sing bawdy songs at Catholic boarding school. He ordered all of us down to the headmaster's office for summary judgment. As we all left, heads hanging, he slammed the door behind us and marched us ahead. But he had failed to notice young Dan who happened to be standing behind the door when the good brother entered. Dan escaped without consequence. 

So. Dan was lucky. 

Here's Pete's second story:  Dan and I were hanging out with our Illinois cousins during a break from St. Louis U. We were discussing the movie The Exorcist and marveling at the ability of the possessed girl to expectorate large volumes of green ejecta that seemed to fly around the room until landing on one or another of the exorcists in attendance. What nicknames, we wondered, would we apply to a person of such oral abundance and accuracy? Of the several candidates brought up by the cousins, Dan's suggestions put us all on the floor: Y. A. Spittle, or maybe Rasputum. You had to be there. 

Dan was funny. 

Mike’s story comes from the sports car part of Dan’s world: 

When I was about 13 there was a big rally planned for the Sports Car Club of America from Odessa, Texas to Ruidoso, New Mexico – a long and complicated rally that required a driver and a navigator. Rallies are timed events where you have a list of instructions you have to follow and with each instruction you are to drive at a certain speed for a specified period of time. The team that finishes with the time closest to the official timekeeper wins the rally. 

I was on the periphery of the drivers and navigators watching who was teaming up with whom. I was 13, overweight, wore big black frame glasses, had a space between my two front teeth and a fantastically unmanageable cowlick on the back of my head. Yes, all of that. My self-esteem was not at its apogee. 

It was then my big brother Dan, 9 years older than me, picked me to be his navigator. I was terrified, overjoyed, immediately had to pee, couldn’t wait to get in the car, and didn’t want to do it. What if I failed? How could my big brother put any confidence in ME? 

My anxiety level was at about 50 on a scale of 10. Dan leaned over and he said, “You know how to do this. You’ve seen me, mom, Pete or Katie, do this a thousand times for Dad. Don’t worry about it, have fun and do the best you can. We’re going to go fast, see some beautiful countryside, and have a party with our friends at the end.” Then he started the car and we got in line to be flagged on our way by the official timer. 

We did stop for lunch – that was one of the instructions – but it was timed as well. Dan ordered a hamburger and I ordered 3 BLT’s with chips – the meal I had always wanted to order but knew I would never get. He didn’t say no, he only raised that one eyebrow and said, “Hungry, are we?” 

It was a long day. When we drove up to the final check-in with the official timer, I was exhausted. The party was already started, as everyone waited for the last of the cars to arrive. 

Finally all the cars were checked-in and the results tabulated. My dread returned. What if we were last place, so last place they wouldn’t even mention our names? They started with honorable mentions – and didn’t mention our names. Then they did the joke awards – and didn’t mention our names. Then they said we’re going to announce the winners. Well, that was it, we certainly weren’t winners, but we hadn’t even made the joke awards. I was devastated and shamed and ready to run away. 

Then I heard, “And in 3rd Place, Dan Sherrod, Driver and Mike Sherrod, Navigator.”

Everyone cheered. I think. I don’t really remember anything except Dan grabbing my hand and pushing it up into the air with his own in astounded joy. He let me go up to the Rally Officials Awards Table and get the trophy. 

That rally came up in our last conversation and I told him how scared I had been, but I also told him how much that long ago rally and his gesture of brotherly generosity meant to me.

Dan was generous 

My Dan story is one I don’t actually remember. I was told about it by our mother. When I was about two, Dan and Pete put me in a box in the middle of the street in front of our house. They wanted to see if cars would stop. Lucky for me, they did. 

Dan was curious. 

I do remember that Dan was the handsome big brother that all my friends had crushes on. He was made even more attractive by being away at school so much of the time. The infrequent sightings coupled with his cool car made him almost irresistible to teenaged girls. They thought he was mysterious. I, on the other hand, found all this adulation of my annoying brother nauseating. 

And annoying he could be. I remember spending hours getting ready for a date, only to walk out to the family room in all my 17-year-old splendor to have Dan say, “Aren’t you going to get ready?” 

But then he would relent and tell me I looked nice. 

So let’s sum up. Luck, humor, generosity, curiosity, and kindness -- that was Dan. 

As I was wondering how to wrap all this up, I picked up Gayland’s well-used Book of Common Prayer. Those of you who knew Gayland will not be surprised to hear that it is jammed with notes scribbled on little pieces of paper -- notes on people in the hospital, or people needing prayers, or a special wedding blessing. 

This time, a piece of paper slipped out as I picked it up. And there, in Gayland’s handwriting, is the line from a hymn that pretty much sums all this up. Because this is Dan too: 

 “All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.” 

 We do, Dan. We do.

Losing my big brother

 Daniel Alan Sherrod was born June 24, 1943, to Judy and Alan Sherrod in Robinson, Il.

He died before dawn on Saturday, March 19, 2022, at his home in Richardson, TX. He was 78 years old. He is mourned by his wife Patricia, and his children. Christopher, Julianne, Gina, and Margaret, and by his grandchildren, Virginia, Sam, Natalie, and Calliope Rose, by nieces and nephews and their children, and by countless friends in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Sports Car Club of America.

And he is mourned by his siblings. He was the oldest of four children: Dan, Peter, Kate, and Mike. 

Here are Pete, me, and Dan -- Mike wouldn't be born for three more years. This is how I looked when Dan and Pete put me in a box in the middle of the street to see if cars would stop. Both of them were lucky to be alive when our mother found out about that stunt. I mean -- look at those grins. Can't you just SEE the mischief?

But my mom was enchanted with her first born, and no wonder. He was a chubby cheeked cutie pie. 

Peter was born 18 months later and I came along two years after that. Our parents had moved to Texas, to the tiny town of Iraan, where our father was the only physician for three counties, and our mom the only nurse. 

We lived in this minuscule house in Iraan, although we didn't know it was so tiny until we went back for a visit many years later. How six people fit into that house remains an unanswered question. 

My parents created a full rich life in that little town, with my father racing a Jaguar in Sports Car Club of America road races, and my mom starting a town library and leading Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops in addition to managing our father's medical practice. They loved having friends over to eat and drink and talk -- and they passed this love along to their children. 

So no wonder Dan's favorite thing was to gather the people he loved around a table laden with food and drink, and talk. Sherrods love to talk.

He loved to read, and when we lived in Iraan, he would beat us all to the Post Office so he  could get Life and Look Magazines and the Saturday Evening Post. Then he would sit on two of them while he read the third. Only when he was finished with one could the rest of us kids get a chance at it. 

He and Pete got Roy Rogers double holster sets for Christmas one year, and I got a Madam Alexander doll. Boy, was I mad!

And then one Christmas the boys got English racing bikes -- beyond cool because they had gears (!) and skinny narrow tires. I was so jealous. My girl bike simply couldn't keep up.

Dan loved a party.

Dan and Gayland shared that hospitality gene, so they got along really well, doing their best to do justice to all of Patty's amazing cooking.

He also loved puns, a vice my entire family shares, and his could be truly awful, causing much loud groaning -- while we all thought furiously of ways we might top him.

He also loved to play Charades when we all got together, but we never let him and Patty be on the same team. There was just too much fire power in that duo.

Like our Dad, Dan raced fast cars. He and my then-husband-and-still-friend Glenn Brown, formed Brown Sherrod Racing, which we -- of course --shortened to BS Racing. Peter was named the Coarse Physician. We thought we were hysterically funny. We all worked as part of the Pit Crew. Number 23 had been our dad's racing number, so we kept that. This was the Lotus Formula Ford we raced, often at Green Valley Raceway.

Glenn was the Chief Mechanic. Our little girl, Daniella, was the team mascot. Before every race, she would toddle up to car and proclaim, "Race, Dan! Race!"

Dan kept his love of fast beautiful cars his entire life. He served in many national leadership roles in the Sports Car Clubs of America, traveling to races all over the country. We all knew that Patty seriously loved him when, after three days of honeymoon at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado, they joined up with the rest of us at Fort Sumner, New Mexico for a race. 

All of us were thrilled when our dad bought his long-dreamed-of Ferrari, but none as much as Dan.  And yes, driving it was like no other driving experience, but Dan and Daddy were truly smitten.

Dan helped organize the first Dallas Grand Prix in the mid-1980s, a huge task and a labor of love.

As you can see from the photos, Dan loved to laugh. Well, so do all of us, but Dan's eyes would twinkle and that hearty laugh would erupt and no matter how grumpy you might be, you had to smile. 

He and Peter were incorrigible together, and were ridiculously proud of themselves when they made us all laugh. 

Do you know what a Shaggy Dog story is? 

"In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded story characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax.

"A lengthy shaggy dog story derives its humor from the fact that the joke-teller held the attention of the listeners for a long time (such jokes can take five minutes or more to tell) for no reason at all, as the end resolution is essentially meaningless."

Well, Alan Sherrod had mastered this art, and his sons did their best to match him, with little success. They never gave up though.

Patty was Dan's match, however, and robust discussions were part of what they enjoyed about each other.

They were both teachers before Dan went into the insurance business, and they both knew how to debate. 

Dan was a devout Roman Catholic, and so it was especially meaningful for him and Patty to visit the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Iraan.  My parents had given the climic they built in Iraan to the Catholic Church and we all made a pilgrimage to see it.

We were all amazed at how well the clinic worked as a church, with the big waiting room as the worship space, examining rooms becoming offices and classrooms, and the lab becoming a small kitchen.

I am sure by now you have noticed a theme running through this -- family. 

Dan's family meant everything to him. 

At their 50th Wedding Anniversary!

Here they all are, trying to get organized to take a photo in 2018. And below is a photo from that same day, with Dan telling some story to his daughter Julianne and Patty preparing mimosas for us all. 

And here we all are at Julianne and Steve's wedding, which was held in our Chapel Garden, Gayland officiating, with a lovely reception afterward. Dan was so happy that day. 

That's how I will always see Dan, all laughter and love. How we will miss him.

It's hard to believe all that vitality isn't still with us, so I won't be surprised if evidence of Dan's presence shows up every now and then. A spirit that bright won't just disappear.

Love you, Dan. Miss you.

Happy birthday, my beloved

 So it's your birthday again, sweetheart. You've been gone for more than three years, and yet the loss is as fresh as yesterday. 

You would be 84 here in this world. I suspect where you are now you are a gloriously handsome young thing -- as you always are in my heart. And I know somewhere you are having a party, you and Sam Hulsey and Richard Chowning and so many others we've lost. Heck, all heaven is there, because you would have invited everyone.

It's been a rough few months, my love. In addition to the always present sense of your absence, our diocese lost in the litigation about property (filed in 2009 after Bishop Jack Iker and other diocesan leaders left The Episcopal Church but claimed our property).

Well, the Texas Supreme Court gave it to them.

So now we have moved out and turned over to them the keys to St. Luke's in the Meadow, St. Christopher, All Saints, St. Elisabeth/Christ the King, and St. Stephen's, Wichita Falls. 

It was terribly painful to leave St. Luke's for the last time, as so much of YOU is wrapped up in my love for that place. So I tried to wrap them up in my heart and walk out with them all, because that's one piece of personal property they can't grab -- although if they could think of a way, they would surely try.

Their obsessive hatred of The Episcopal Church and all we stand for is astonishing and terribly sad to see, and hard to experience. But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. You were the target of it for a long long time, so much so that I am convinced the stress caused your heart attacks.

But we will shake the dust of them off our feet and move on,  creating new spaces in which to share the all-inclusive love of the God in whose arms you are surely held. 

You would have been all OVER the hunt for new worship spaces, because you loved few things more than playing with space, creating rooms in which beauty and love and welcome can flourish. You did it at Christ the King, and at St. Luke's and in all your homes over the years, including ours.

I suspect that's one reason you so loved Karen Calafat, because she shares that gift, and creates much the same kind of holy spaces you did, whether in a church, in a home, or across a dinner table.

Tonight I will eat alone, celebrating you, missing you, loving you. And I know when tomorrow comes and the work of once again rebuilding resumes, you will be at my back, just as you always have been.

I miss you, my love.

Empty

 I am finally in synch with Holy Week.

I have been at least a week ahead of everyone else, because we are not worshipping in person due to the Covid 19 pandemic. So we recorded the online worship services for Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter in advance to give us time to edit them, lay down the music and singers, create worship bulletins and get it all uploaded and scheduled to premier at exactly the right time -- God willing and Facebook andYouTube working correctly.

This meant I left after recording the Easter service to come home to finish editing Good Friday and make sure Maundy Thursday had finally uploaded. This really messes with your head.

But now it's all done, the last service uploaded late last night, the last bulletins ready for folks to download, the finally checks made.

How appropriate that it happens to be Holy Saturday -- that sacred time suspended between the bleak grief of Good Friday and the alleluias of Easter Sunday. Quiet reigns. Even the birds seem subdued.

I feel as if I have been living in a state of suspension for weeks now, caught in the time of the Hosannas [Save us!] of Palm Sunday and unable to reach the Alleluias [Praise the Lord!] of Easter. 

Here in our diocese formerly known as the Episcopal Diocese of Fort  Worth, we are dealing with the loss of six beloved church buildings and our name, all awarded by the Texas Supreme Court to people who left The Episcopal Church in 2008 but claimed Episcopal Church property. We have to be out of these buildings by April 19, which means this is our last Palm Sunday, the last Maundy Thursday, the last Good Friday, the last Easter Vigil, the last Easter in these buildings.

Three of these buildings hold a special place in my heart because two are parishes Gayland served and loved (one of which is where I worship regularly) and a third is the church where he and I were married. 

And yes, I know the Church is not the building, the Church is the people, but that's a lot easier to say when it's not your church building that is being handed over to people who refuse to ordain women or openly LGBTQ people as bishops and priests and who call our leadership "unbiblical."

So it's no wonder I wept through the editing of the Good Friday service, no wonder that the stripping of the altar for Maundy Thursday was like tearing strips off my heart, no wonder that Easter seems unattainable.

There have been many times in the last 25 years when I questioned whether all the heartbreaking backbreaking work of staying in The Episcopal Church in the face of often daunting odds was worth it. But I've always managed to hang on by my fingernails until either I got stronger or others stepped in to help. And I always had Gayland by my side.

But he's not here now. The exhaustion of the years of work seems overwhelming. 

I am so tired. And so sad.

Hosanna indeed.