Okay, so I read one of my daily blogs last night. Guy was talkin’ about a meme that he’d gotten involved in. Basically it works like this… you make a comment on the guy’s blog, and he then assigns you a letter. You’re supposed to come up with 10 words that begin with that letter, along with an explanation of what the word means to you and why. Then you pass along letters to those who want to play along. So, I responded. It sounded FUN!

You see, while the person whose blog I got this from is a REAL writer, I do enjoy writing, feel myself no stranger to it. Realize I’m nowhere good enough to ever dream of publishing. But 10 words? Should be easy, right? He assigns me the letter L.

L words
10 of them
together with their meanings to me and why they came to mind.
Ugh.

I’ve been thinking about this all day long, and I’ll be dang-nabbed if all of a sudden there is a dirth of L words. Not one comes to mind for a long time… okay, 1 does, but I think, NOOOOO… that’s too obvious. Can’t go with that word… Lesbian… I mean why? Okay, so, I finally decide to go with it, just to get the ball rolling, ya know? This ain’t easy, man!

1. Lesbian: Uh, what does it mean to me? Why? Uh, that should be obvious… Lesbian. a woman who is attracted to other women, and not, generally, to men. I mean, I’m queer, folks! I see references to GLBT every damn day, so what is going to be the first… okay 2nd word that comes to mind? Lesbian. Like, DUH! (BTW, the 1st word is a name, and I’ll protect that person from this!)

So I think to myself, okay that worked well, I’ve identified the 2nd word that comes to mind, now what…. Hmmm. Let’s see. I woke at 5… as I go through my day, what L words come unbidden to me, BEFORE I got this assignment?

2. Leak. Yup, actually the 1st L word today. Actually, it was the 4th word to come to my mind today. It was preceded by “Gotta tak a”. I find I usually only need to take one leak a day, so that’s a good word for this list. the rest of the day, I’m consumed with “Going to the potty.” “Needing to Pee.” and “Takin’ a piss”. But first thing in the morning, I take the one and only leak I’m going to take all day.

3. Lecherous. okay, I’m using it as a euphemism or rather a synonym for “horny”. This is an L list, after all, not an H list. Lecherous… my partner comes out of the bedroom about 20 minutes after I awake… once the coffee’s made. I see his hot bod, and I’m immediately feeling h…. uh, I mean lecherous.

4. Limber. As in Not. As in it’s time to jump on the treadmill while aforementioned partner showers… my legs are stiff. I’m so friggin sore. My knee locks up almost immediately… fuckin’ arthritis. I need to str… no, I need to LIMBER UP! — or– conversely, perhaps that’s not the reason this word makes the list… Limber… as in dang, if I were just a little more limber, partner and I could do it THIS way… that would be a blast! I mean….

5. Luscious: I’d love to be limber enough to bend like this so that I could take partner’s luscious…. ahem, uh, you get the idea.

6. Lousy: I’ve had my shower, but I’m still feeling lousy… I’d have much rather not had to use my hands this morning…. just thinking of that luscious….

7. Late: Yeah, Late makes the list… I spent so much time in the shower this morning thinking those lecherous thoughts, letting the hot water try to sooth out some of the kinks in my neck, and pleasuring that now I’m friggin’ late!

8. Lazy: I’ve sat at this desk now for a couple of hours, and frankly, I’m feeling lazy. I think it’s time to nap… nope, can’t do that. Closing my eyes makes me think lecherous thoughts about my limber, luscious partner, and frankly, that makes me feel lousy… ’cause ain’t nothin’ I can do about it! (I’m at work, remember?)

Okay, this is getting hard now. The contest fool, pay attention! The contest… or meme, rather, is getting very difficult… I need 2 more L words. And preferably words that will not require I take a protracted break in the men’s room…. Having a dictonary would certainly help right about now!

Did you know a web search for “L” will pull up 1,010,000,000 links? I don’t think I’ll visit them all. Might take a little longer than I have today. 2 more Ls… think eric, THINK!

Okay… just got back from the restroom… gotta come up with 2 more words.

9. Loser. There’s a good word… now, I’ll admit, it’s not the first word that came to mind, but it’s the second… asshole doesn’t begin with an L… and those are the two words that automatically ALWAYS pop into mind when I see any headline with the word BUSH in it. Oh, wait. This headline has to do with something found in a bush at a park… well, whoever put that there was a loser, so it fits!

Uh, get your mind out of the gutter folks! I went to the restroom to take a piss, not… anything else.

And you can’t prove otherwise.

10. Living. Ah, now that’s a great L word! Living… as in “It’s great to be…” Ain’t life grand? There’s so much to see, so much to do… and as a friend points out, it’s better than the alternative!

May 11, 2006
Weather: Mostly sunny, 50 degrees.

Dear Diary:

Okay. I was SUPPOSED to start a diary, and be more dedicated to it. So, bad, BAD Eric.

And I don’t have much else to write today, either. Last night went to hear a speaker here in Omaha. We have a couple that underwrite a speaker series, bringing people from around the world to speak about ethics, morality, etc. It’s called the Holland Lecture Series.

Anyhow, last night’s speaker was Rev. Haffner, who spoke on the topic of “sexual morality, justice, and healing”. It was an excellent talk, and was amazingly in line with my own thoughts on the connection between sexuality and spirituality.

We (a group from my congregation) and I went with a purpose, hoping to hear something about a topic she wrote about, but she didn’t touch that topic… so from that perspective, it was a bust. But what she DID speak about, had two effects on me. First, I really felt an immediate connection with what she was saying and an agreement with her observations. The second one was a bit slower in coming, as she caused me to really stretch my current positions on some issues of sexual morality… helping me to look at some issues in a bit of a different light.

Anyhow, all’s good here.

Ciao!

Rather than edit my previous post to add this, I’ll just create this as an addendum.

Ahem. Now, let’s see how we do this:

May 8, 2006
Weather: Mostly sunny, 76 degrees.

Dear Diary:

This morning I had to get up and FOREGO my morning coffee. No, that’s wrong… I had to forego my morning Coffee. That’s Coffee with a Capital C. I also had to forego my cereal, my milk, and any water.

But, oh the joy! In their place I got to feast on Milk of Barium! BLLeeaaaaacccckkkkkkkkkk!

So, the doctor thinks this pain (which I had assumed was an injury from lifting some marble) may be Diverticulitis. Now, I have to confess I never knew I HAD a divertick but, hey, he says I do… or at least he implied I had one by saying it was infected.

Anyhow, now we’ll see how that goes.

On another front, I’m wondering what’s up… I’ve been a total BITCH lately! I mean, I think I’ve related in the past that I have an issue with rage. Rage and I are on a first name basis. But this isn’t rage, it isn’t anger, it’s just… bitchiness.

I’ve snapped at folks at work. Oh, and here I need to interject that I was wrong, it IS related to rage, because my bitchiness starts out as simple bitchiness, but graduates into full blown rage once I get behind the wheel.

But more importantly than the people at work I’ve been bitchy too (because after all, who gives a rat’s @ss about them????) is I’ve been bitchy to the man I love. And that just plain sucks. As in totally, unequivocally, unabashedly SUCKS with a major ! at the end.

So, diary, tell me, you greatest of confidants… what the f@ is up?

Well, that’s it, oh dear one… ‘Til the morning.

E

Okay, people liked my sermon yesterday! I was really quite pleased with it myself… except for the ending. The second I was done and walking away, I knew it was wrong… that it needed more.

In fact, I think that, in retrospect, when I ended the sermon was just starting! Ending with that quip about praying to God being like the Amazon flowing UP to water a little daisy… I knew what I meant. A few others did too… but they told me they were left wanting more.

So, it’s a challenge. I need to hash this out. Because, and this is funny to me… I KNOW what I meant… but I don’t know how to say it.

Today, I’m preaching again. When I first said “Yes, sure, I’d be happy to preach” I was feeling very confident. Today, not so much.

I’m not sure why I get this way… I literally go through cycles where I can get up in front of church and do anything… and then become totally afraid to even get near the front. I’m obviously heading into the “bad times” again. It’s one of the reasons I left the seminary… imagine a priest who was terrified of saying mass! LOL.

So, here’s the sermon, just in case you’re interested.

Did you know that the Amazon River is the world’s SECOND longest river, but at any one point in time it has the highest amount of water flowing down it. In fact, no other river in the world even comes close. Remember that.

I love spring-time. I like watching the trees, and seeing the bud’s sprout on the branches. You know how it is? You look over at some trees and you wonder “Are those BUDS I see?” About the time that those tree buds become obvious, I start watching the poor little rose bushes that grow in my front yard… did they survive the winder? Did the poor little one on the end survive being run over by Gary the first time he mowed the lawn this spring? It’s the prettiest, if the smallest of all our roses. It’s dusty purple of a shade that I just really love. From the look of it this morning, if I had 2 more weeks before this sermon, I could have brought in one of it’s flowers to show you.

About the same time that the trees are beginning to bud, and the roses are stirring into life, some tulips that we’ve never remembered to take up under our front windows pop out through the sod, and in just a few days they bloom… a beautiful blood red with yellow stamens. Once those are in flower, it’s time for the funny blue flowers by the front stoop to show up. Bottle nose something or others!

For the most part, the phlox didn’t make it through winter this year… though a few still valiantly bloom. Next to them, are some wild violets that we didn’t plant… they just found their way to our yard.

All the annuals in the flower beds in the front are gone, naturally… just ugly shoots that need to be taken out.

About this time every year we look at our garden, and Scott says “It’s time to plant.”

“Yup”, I say. And then Scott goes off, buys some flats of annuals, brings them home, and we prep the front beds, and Scott plants.

Scott can verify that I am NOT a gardener. If we’re going to have a garden, it’s Scott that’s going to have to put it in… then, once it’s in, I’ll water the flowers, and I’ll admire their beauty once they’re in bloom. But the credit for our gardens, such as they are, falls to Scott.

Today is known to many as “Good Shepherd Sunday”. The Psalm and the Gospel are shepherd stories. And the NT Reading fits in with them fairly well. “I am the good Shepherd” is one of the better known sayings of Jesus. He used that symbolism, because the people of his time… even the city folk of Jerusalem… would have understood that symbolism. Israel, in Jesus time, was still very much an agrarian, shepherding society.

I suspect that the larger majority of us in this room only know about shepherding by reading about them or hearing about them in church from people like me, who went out and read about them from someone else who wrote stories about shepherding in order to clarify the “Shepherd” stories of the bible. And those writers… well, most of them have very little first-hand knowledge of sheep or shepherding!

What would Jesus use today for his metaphors? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that, even if many of us will never see a sheep except at the petting zoo at Henry Doorly, or encounter shepherds, except perhaps while watching Brokeback Mountain, most of will see flowers this spring. Most of us will admire their beauty. Most of us know that flowers need watering.

Some of us will even know that the prettiest gardens are maintained by gardeners who plant new flowers when old ones die, pull the weeds out to keep the flowers from being strangled. We’ll know that these gardeners will make sure the plants have food, either by mixing fertilizers in with the soils before planting the flowers, or by mixing them in the water they use to nourish the plants.

A few of us may know that some really, really pretty flowers like roses get that way because the gardener carefully prunes the flowers, directing the growth and the resources of the plant in specific ways to ensure that a few promising buds get the most nutrition and grow strong, rather than numerous buds getting little nutrition and thus being weak.

All of this is foreign to me. I just know that no matter how much work Scott puts in to our garden, those plants will die and produce NOTHING, unless one of us waters those plants.

I know this about how gardens and today’s message interrelate. I know there are flowers in the world. Those flowers are you and you and me. I know there is a Gardener; I know that Gardener is our Parent, God. And, I know that just as human gardeners pour water on their flowers, so God pours his love on each of us.

I know this too. If a human gardener decides to water his daisies, then gets called away, leaving the water to run and run and run, the daisies will get too much water, and they’ll drown!

But when God waters us with his love, it’s like the whole of the Amazon River flowing down to water one little daisy.

Can you imagine that kind of love? Have you ever encountered it before? A love so overwhelming, so intense, that when you’re caught up in it you feel like you’re going to drown, to suffocate… and it’s a GOOD feeling?

There have been a few times in my life when I have experienced that kind of love. And when I do, it’s always because God is there. It feels just like that image of the daisy and the Amazon…

I think all of us can feel that love if we open ourselves up to the awesome splendor and wonder of God’s love for us.

God loved us so much that God became ONE of us. And, as the second reading this morning stated, that love was so intense that GOD DIED FOR US. FOR ME. FOR YOU. AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM.

Is that a secret to anyone in here? If it is, I am proud to spill the beans! GOD LOVES US, each and every one of us with a love as immense as all the waters of the Amazon flowing down to water one little daisy.

I don’t know how to say it any better than that.

But I do know what to add TO that.

You see, someone shared a message with me on Friday, about an old man who came into church, dressed in grungy clothes. The man came in every day and prayed a simple prayer that went something like this:

“I JUST CAME AGAIN TO TELL YOU, JESUS, HOW HAPPY I’VE BEEN, SINCE WE FOUND EACH OTHER’S FRIENDSHIP AND YOU TOOK AWAY MY SIN… DON’T KNOW MUCH OF HOW TO PRAY, BUT I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERYDAY. SO, JESUS, THIS IS JIM CHECKING IN, TODAY.”

Then, one day, the old man came to church no more. The pastor went looking for him, and eventually found him in the hospital. He learned that the old man was alone, with no visitors. But, when he spoke of that to the old man, the old man told him he had it wrong. the old man had a visitor every day. That visitor would come in and sit at the foot of the old man’s bed… and he’d say:

“I JUST CAME AGAIN TO TELL YOU, JIM, HOW HAPPY I’VE BEEN, SINCE WE FOUND THIS FRIENDSHIP AND I TOOK AWAY YOUR SIN… I ALWAYS LOVE TO HEAR YOU PRAY, I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERYDAY. AND SO, JIM, THIS IS JESUS CHECKING IN, TODAY.”

I read that message on Friday, and I realized something, and if you all remember nothing else from this poor sermon today, remember this:

When we pray… to God, it’s like all the water of the Amazon flowing up to water one little daisy.