On Pilgrimage w Fr. Will

St. Paul's Episcopal Church,
"Serving Souls on Main Street, Lock Haven, PA"

On Pilgrimage with Father Will

3,000 miles later, a pilgrimage to the South and Midwest winds down. This was a brief but long vacation for your Rector, starting with a two-day trek to Florence, Mississippi to visit my cousin who has just a few months to live with leukemia. Matt was Best Man at my wedding, and I was Best Man at his, both in Missouri, many years ago. I arrived about 6 p.m., and in less than an hour we were discussing death and eternity. I was truly inspired by his attitude of Hope that soon he would be with Jesus and wife Trudy in everlasting happiness. Next day I accompanied him to his daily chemo treatment at the (Senator) Thad Cochran Cancer Treatment Center in Jackson. After four hours Matt passed out during transfusion of his second unit of blood, breaking out in a cold sweat. I signaled to Nurse Hillary who immediately sent in two doctors who ordered blood tests. His regular doctor came in, shaking her head as well, but Nurse Hillary pulls out a glucose meter and discovers his blood sugar had dropped to 65. She ran to her locker and grabbed half her lunch for Matt, a bag of Cheetos. When he recovered, we walked down to my fave cafeteria, Picadilly, and had liver n’ onions, black eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread, and he had whole strawberries en glaze’ and pecan pie, plus 48 ounces of lemonade. His blood sugar came right up, and I took him home for his 12-hour nap. My intention was to cut his grass, clean his house or paint a room or two, but his daughter Lisa and son-in-law Mike, a deputy marshal, had taken care of all that, so I went out to give blood in his name. The blood donation center, however, needed plasma, so I gave that, too. Three and a half hours later I shopped at Kroger’s for Cheetos for Nurse Hillary and peanut butter cheese crackers for Matt.
The next morning I was off to find Joe Looney, a classmate, but first I stopped by a church in Florence to introduce myself to the local pastor. It turned out he is a regular plasma donor and promised to donate in my cousin’s name from now on. What luck! So, off to Pine Bluff, Arkansas where Joe Looney’s mother ran the local A & W Root Beer stand 50 years ago. I called every Looney in the phonebook, but none ever heard of Joe. I found out at the Subiaco Reunion that Joe changed his last name so he could run for public office, but no one knew what name our old yearbook editor chose. Joe Looney could be in the U.S. Senate today, for all we know. About 16 of us from the Class of ’60 showed up from a class of 52 boys. The retreat house had filled up with alums, so they put me and my pal ?Ears? in the cloister. My private room was right next to the Abbot’s so I couldn’t host any wild parties. Besides, I was weak from the blood and plasma donation, too weak to visit what I called the ?Spiritual Center,? an old barn where Brother Joseph (from my class year) keeps pet blacksnakes and where Abbot Jerome makes caskets for his monks. Last time I was down, one of Bro. Joe’s snakes swallowed an alabaster egg so he had to perform surgery to remove it, using string to sew his belly back. This time one of the snakes had swallowed a golf ball, also thinking it was a chicken egg. I was too weak to watch that surgery and suturing at the Spiritual Center, but I did eat enough ?dog? (same recipe pork sausage from 50 years ago) and steak to restore my blood count.
Ears and I went north to Fayetteville to a rib joint that boasts of barbeque better than any in his hometown of Kansas City. He had a lady friend near Razorback Stadium so I called my brother and his wife to go out to dinner that night. He is state commander of the Purple Heart, and when I told him about one of my classmates whose disability pay was cut off by the Army as soon as he recovered from wounds suffered when his tank in Viet Nam blew up, my brother pledged to call the Purple Heart Commander in Texas to investigate. I spent the night there, talking until late, catching up. The next morning I was off to St. Louis to have an early dinner with an old college roommate and his wife. My wife and I were Best Man and Maid of Honor at their wedding in Kansas City maybe 40 years ago. I had hoped to make it to Pittsburgh that night late but flagged out in Illinois, finding a motel with an indoor pool and hot tub.
After two good workouts and a soak, I was refreshed enough to drive all the way to Lock Haven, just in time for our Diocesan Convention the next day. That Saturday, Bishop Baxter ordained my friend, Janis Yskamp, to the priesthood. I was her clergy sponsor when she was ordained a Deacon, and our Vestry sent her money to help her through her last year at Virginia Theological Seminary, my alma mater. She will be Rector of the late Rev. Leslie Doyle’s parishes in Coudersport and Brookland. God is good.
Yours in Christ,

Father Will

On Pigrimage with Father Will for the Week of August 15, 2010
A dear friend of mine, whom I greatly respect, questioned whether I really give adequate time and attention to St. Paul's Episcopal Church, so I am going to do a second time-and-motion study. The first one, a year and a half ago, indicated I put in 50-60 hours a week for St. Paul's. You can count the hours, day by day:
Sunday August 15: In his email with the Vestry meeting agenda, our dear Senior Warden indicated that I would be bringing food for the meeting. I suggested Smokin' Ribs and Cole Slaw, but when I checked the price of a rack of smoked ribs, I hightailed it to Weis' and bought a raw rack and some shredded cabbage, placing the former in a crockpot and creating a great dressing for the latter. So, early Sunday morning (6 a.m.) I got the food ready and fine-tuned my sermon, getting to St. Paul's before 8 a.m. to cool down the nave with fresh air. After Holy Eucharist a kind parishioner brought in deviled eggs and loads of pastry, so we had a feast in the Upper Room. After the Vestry meeting I started making phone calls, after I dropped off some deviled eggs to an ailing parishioner. Off to visit our shut-ins, first to Kephart Plaza, then to Woolrich, then to White Tail Terrace and Pine Haven, and finally to Walnut Street where I took Holy Communion to one dear parishioner and visited Deacon Phil Gibson. I had some sparerib bones for his dog. I got home about 6 p.m. after emptying the new dehumidifier in The Cave at church. I fixed dinner (ribs and cole slaw, of course), took a plate to the ailing parishioner and ran some magazines and Ensure over to Fulmer's Nursing Home (they have three people on Ensure, donated by a parisioner of ours). Vestry agreed that it is best to turn over our outreach to Fulmer's to some other church, but that hasn't happened yet. Prayed Night Prayer (Compline) at 10 p.m., after reading some good sermon material from "Fingerprints of God: What Science is Learning about the Brain and Spiritual Experience" by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR's really good religion correspondent.
Monday August 16: Up at 5:30 for Morning Prayer, a light breakfast (I am still losing one pound a week) and a vigorous workout at the YMCA. I'm at work by 8 a.m. after picking up the mail and emptying the dehumidifier at church. Non-stop, I work on my sermon for Sunday until 3 p.m., stumbling over the Greek in Luke 13. After a light lunch I am catching up on church paperwork, mainly correspondence, and did a schedule to the end of the year for the Finding Faith column for the SCCACC Ministerium until 6 p.m. when I go back to the church to clean out the crockpot, bowls and serving dishes from Sunday. That took two hours, making sure the kitchen is spotless. I hate mice and roaches, even ants. Two more hours of spiritual reading and Compline at 10 p.m.
Tuesday August 17: Same workout routine and home by 8 a.m. to update our website www.saintpaulslh.org but spent four hours fighting with Danika Patrick and GoDaddy.com, only to discover that someone (I think I know whom, Chuck) changed the password. I made dozens of phone calls and emails until I go in to work on the website, but had to rush off to a noon meeting of Advocates for a Drug-Free Tomorrow at First Church of Christ. We discussed the methamphetamine lab that was raided right across the street from St. Paul's and planned a family event for October 9. Advocates saw to that our AA, NA and Al-Anon meeting times and places were updated (see the listing each weekend in The Express) and Advocates just produced a guide to detecting meth labs in our neighborhoods. I spent all afternoon updating the website, ate more leftovers and got to church in time for our own Al-Anon meeting. After emptying the dehumidifier, I brought a pile of church papers home to read, sort and eventually file. Add another hour or two per day: Checking my email sounds like a routine task, but I still average 27 messages a day, far less than LHUP folks, but plenty for me. Some are from parishioners, some of whom communicate by FaceBook. Not for me. Compline at 10 p.m.
Wednesday August 18: Same morning routine of Morning Prayer, planning the day in detail, working out at the YMCA at dawn, picking up the mail, emptying the dehumidifier in The Cave, and rushing home to plow through two big boxes of "stuff" from St. Paul's. Some of it is Vestry notes I have to folo up on, a lot of it is stuff to file, some of it is correspondence, and the rest of it I triage: pitch, handle or postpone, especially postpone. I spent all morning on clerical work, dropped everything at noon, rushed to a Campus Ministry Association mtg at the new PCM House (to plan the big Brett Rush concert for Sept. 16, and got drafted as the new VP and Secretary), dropped some spent printer cartridges off at the Americorps office for recycling, got my LHUP parking sticker for 2010-11, dropped off a prescription form for my Primary Care physician to FAX to my insurance plan, blazed through the big book sale at Ross Library and found a bunch of dandy books for our Parish Library cheap (including a hardback copy of "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving), stopped by the church to pick up more papers to process, picked up some print-outs and rushed home to tackle those two boxes of stuff again until 9 p.m. Then I picked up Jody Picoult's "House Rules," a fine read about Asperger's syndrome.
Thursday August 19: Up a bit earlier and a shortened workout in order to meet a parishioner at The Texas for a fine breakfast and good discussion. Then off to church to tidy up from the Tuesday night Al-Anon meeting. They actually clean up after themselves, but I had made some iced tea and coffee and the doors to the sink were locked. Besides, I wanted to freeze some grape juice for the next prison Divine Liturgy. CCCF does not allow wine. Back to my two boxes of "stuff" until 11 when I dash off two letters (one to a 90-year-old who has a grandson in prison, one to a lady in Florida who asked us to pray for two dear friends) and zoom up to Franco's in Williamsport to meet with our venerable Archdeacon. I greatly value his wisdom, insight and counsel. Then a leisurely drive home to make phone calls and a pastoral visit. The two boxes of stuff didn't go anywhere, so I worked on them until dinnertime (a mere salad) and website work until 10 p.m.
Friday, August 20: After my morning routine, the two boxes of stuff were still there, so I worked on them until 12:30n when I attended my first Protestant Campus Ministry Board meeting as a mere member, not as Chair or PCM Interim Campus Minister. We went over the rent-with-an-option-to-buy contract, made some changes, approved the minutes from last time and took off after two hours. The new officers, Pastor Patty Dodds of St. Luke's and Rev. Jon West of Covenant, are great. My last PCM meeting as Chair lasted two hours and twenty minutes. Taking off for me meant hitting the road in my trusty Prius to visit parishioner Alice Herr, bedridden at Nottingham Village above Northumberland. She is always glad to see me, gives me a great big smile, and always asks about Eileen Dooley who visited her when she was at Fulmer's Home in Lock Haven. Too tired to do anything else for St. Paul's, so I had dinner and a swell movie with a friend, "Eat Pray Love." Maybe two hours working on my sermon, but that's about it for the evening.
Saturday, August 21: This is my day off, if I ever have one, but it is also my grandson's birthday in Maryland, an event I rarely miss. Jack has cerebral palsy but a wonderful attitude and always cheerful. I make it back to home in time for Holy Hour, actually two hours of listening to "Prairie Home Companion" which I have enjoyed for about 30 years now. Garrison Keillor and I were born same month same year, and I've met him three times, twice at Gettysburg College and once in D.C. at a Metro stop, when he was trying to figure the Farecard machine. He's tall, but he wears red socks, and he is an Episcopalian, not Lutheran. Saturday is also a day when I work on my sermon for one last time, and do my laundry, so add two hours of sermon editing to the two hours of devotion and call it a week. On Saturday night I look back on the week and thank God for all the blessings in my life. I am the happiest person I know. -30-