Too Ra Loo Ra

 

Too Ra Loo Ra

 

I don’t remember much about her. She was quite old, and I was young. She lived alone. Her husband died before I was born. She was my father’s mother, my grandmother. Irish to the core. If my memory serves me right, she had a hint of a brogue and liked to sip a few.

 

Why am I sharing this? Well, to be truthful I have been watching way too many Hallmark Christmas movies. Somehow Judy talked me into changing my TV viewing from non-romantic to romantic thinking I needed some cheering up. That included some oldie but goodie black and white movies from the 30’s and 40’s.

 

In the middle of Going My Way with Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, Bing croons out a tune I haven’t heard in many a year. Sitting at the piano in the rectory where he served as an assistant priest, he sang an old Irish lullaby, Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra. The tears started flowing and I couldn’t stop. This was the tune my grandmother Tooie (that was what he called her), would sing to me as I sat on her lap. Memories started flowing back: her perfume and her old fashioned hearing aid cord that I kept getting caught in as she hugged me to her bosom.

 

Now that the holiday season is almost over, I am emotionally drained from the romantic tension of Christmas TV. I can get back to real life action movies with a little cable news added in. My advice is be careful about what you watch. It may take you down memory lane with lots of Kleenex.

 

Thanks, Bing, for the memories!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closed

 

Closed

 

I don’t like it! The fact that our church building stands empty on Sunday morning is almost to much to bear. This year we have been out of it more than in it. Our beautiful log cabin church, the spiritual home for many people remains quiet. I stop by every Saturday to make sure the heat is on and the water pipes haven’t frozen. I’m about to cry as I remember all the celebrations of life held within those four walls.

 

COVID has kept us away. This past summer we were able to gather because the case numbers were down.  Excited to be back we hugged, shook hands and worshipped together. Then realizing that with our aging congregation it was no longer safe to meet, we shut down again. The saints were not happy!

 

Zoom is a wonderful tool but certainly no substitute for in person gathering. Seeing each other on the screen, catching up on each other’s lives helps. Sadly, some of our church family are not tech savvy so even this tool isn’t available to them. So pastoral care is conducted through texts or phone calls.

 

I have pastored for a long time. I never did like cancelling Sunday morning service for any reason. Even when there was a blizzard, I was hesitant to cancel. It must be my seminary training that every obstacle was to be overcome and no excuse to not have church. I realize that we live in unprecedented times. I sense that we cannot go back to the way things were. The new normal may look quite different from the old.

 

I encourage myself with these words from the Bible: “Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. Jesus always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.”

First Flight

 

First Flight

 

I miss flying. Since COVID I haven’t flown. In fact, I haven’t gone anywhere. Two vacation trips cancelled.They were the drive to kind so no cancelled flights. The days of hopping on a jet and off to some exotic place are a thing of the past. Who wants to get on a large cigar tube filled with coughing people exchanging carbon dioxide for a couple of hours?

 

Not long ago, I read that an Australian airline was offering a four hour flight to nowhere. You could buy a ticket at full price, grab a seat, enjoy all the amenities of first class and be back home that afternoon. No really, this is true and there were immediate sold out flights. The advertisement was for those who longed to fly again even if you weren’t going anywhere.

 

That brought to mind my first plane ride. I was a Boy Scout, and our scoutmaster organized a plane ride from Minneapolis Wold-Chamberlin Field to Rochester, Minnesota, a distance of 89 mile. It was a one way trip on a noisy prop Northwest Airlines plane. What a treat that was. I still remember the roaring of the engines, the shaking of the whole plane and the thrust of takeoff. I had never seen earth from ten thousand feet. It was an adventure of a lifetime. Not so much on the Greyhound bus ride back home.

 

Since then, I’ve been on many aircraft but none as memorable as that first one. I have flown to the UK, Kenya, South Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia, Holland, Israel, Jamaica and all over the USA. Big jets and small ones. I even sat in the co-pilot’s seat on a short flight from Seattle to Victoria, B.C. It was a sea plane piloted by a young lady wearing a flight jacket, wrap around aviator sunglasses and a white silk scarf. I think she took a shinning to me.

 

Not sure when I will get back up in the wild blue yonder. No matter, I still have that memory as a young boy, scared to death, on his first airplane. By the way, I sat in coach. That’s where I usually end up!

 

 

Inconvenience

 

Inconvenience

 

I have come to a startling revelation. This COVID is a great big inconvenience in my life. It’s taken eleven months for the lightbulb to come on. My life has changed and so has my attitude. The old normal doesn’t look so bad in comparison to the new normal whatever that is. Every time I want to go out and do something, the inconvenience of COVID says no you can’t!

 

How about putting on that face mask every time I walk out of the house. I’m not saying that it isn’t important for my safety and that of others. It’s just the inconvenience of remembering to do it. If I forgot, people look at me with a stare of shame. Then when I take the darn thing off it always gets tangled with my hearing aids. Is this what life has come to?

 

Wearing a mask for hours on end is beginning to affect my facial expressions and  breathing. It’s getting harder to recognize people. I can’t tell by their eyes whether they are as miserable as me or not. And the six feet distancing is a bridge too far. How can you communicate to people at that distance without shouting. Besides I can hardly hear someone three feet away.

 

Inconvenience is my new mantra. This new way of doing life is becoming more annoying. I try to keep a happy heart but there are days when I long for freedom from COVID. Now that winter is settling in and the holidays are here, there is little chance of celebrating with extended family. That is a major inconvenience.

 

I‘m afraid my selfishness is getting the better of me. In the midst of a pandemic there is need to look beyond myself. All those who are directly affected: family members dying, health care workers way over worked, people afraid and stressed with daily living need my prayers and support not my pity party. What a wake up call for the American way of life.

 

I think I have some more growing up to do.