A Bog Intersection
window in St. John the EvangelistNewport, RI
Last Friday I drove up to Newport with Bill and Kathy for a weekend of group reunion at Janet's new manse. Barbara was unable to make this, our next to last official group reunion after 11 years of semi-regular meetings after our Cursillo weekend together at the same table in May 1996. It was a bittersweet weekend of reminiscences and planning of next steps for each of us. Janet has now made Newport her home and Kathy will soon be moving to Saskatoon after her wedding in early October. Bill and I will continue to meet with Barbara, but it will never be the same. No more sharing of our spiritual journeys and our moments closest and farthest from Christ, over long evening meals and many glasses of wine, although we have promised to get together at least once a year if at all possible and also hope to meet by teleconference once in awhile.
In many ways the weekend was a bog intersection for our lives. We laughed until we almost couldn't see as we were driving toward Newport and Bill was reading me the directions that Janet had sent. He came to the part where she had advised that we would come to "a bog intersection" and need to make a turn, and I said "what's a bog intersection?" Bill said it must be a place where we would see a couple of bogs coming together, but then we cracked up when we realized she must have meant to type "a big intersection". It wasn't until late Sunday when we were driving back that I suddenly came to see that in many ways the weekend actually was a bog intersection for us. I was certainly bogged down with a miserable cold made worse with the heavy marine air to the point that my asthma came out of remission. Kathy was in her own bog of premarital planning and stress which precipitated a terrible migraine on Saturday night that sent her to bed without supper. The poor girl was almost driven mad, she said later, by the noise we were making downstairs carrying on at dinner while she lay dying. I myself went to bed rather early with a wheezing cough and sinus headache and that Springsteen tune playing over and over in my head about "this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing as the calliope crashed to the ground." Bill's bog was much more pleasant I think as he rather continuously and good humoredly juggled text and voice messages from a variety of admirers who mourned his absence.
But we had a wonderful day on Saturday touring Newport. After a morning of silent retreat followed by a long group reunion, we went to Flo's Clamshack for lunch, then drove all around and saw the wonderful homes and mansions, then ended up on the lawn at Castle Hill for cocktails before going back to cook dinner outside on the grill. We went by St. John the Evangelist (also known as the Zabriskie Memorial Church--another branch of the family) where I took the picture above, which somewhat resembles an apostolic bog intersection. I had heard a lot about St. John's and wanted to go to High Mass there on Sunday. By some miracle the church was open late on Saturday afternoon so I was able to at least see it. The liturgy looks somewhat like ours and they still use the old Prayer Book and Hymnal, but when I read the literature in the narthex and realized they are part of the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith, we all lost interest.
Sunday morning Kathy was still in recovery so Bill and I went with Janet to her church, Emmanuel, and had a low but meaningful worship experience. The sermon by Fr. Cole was quite good and had us imagine how popular Our Lord must have been when he was doing miracles and healing the sick, but then how the crowd grew smaller and smaller when he explained all that would be required of true discipleship.
So it ended with a bowl of chowda at the Black Pearl before we headed back to a final view of that bog intersection on our way home. Janet is now beyond the bog, lucky her, but we are still immured each in our own ways. I look forward to October 21, the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Ignatius, when the bog that has been this interim period at church shall at last turn into a new era of growth and renewal with our new rector, the Rev. Dr. Andrew C. Blume. Let us pray that our parish shall grow together again in spirit and service to Our Lord.
In many ways the weekend was a bog intersection for our lives. We laughed until we almost couldn't see as we were driving toward Newport and Bill was reading me the directions that Janet had sent. He came to the part where she had advised that we would come to "a bog intersection" and need to make a turn, and I said "what's a bog intersection?" Bill said it must be a place where we would see a couple of bogs coming together, but then we cracked up when we realized she must have meant to type "a big intersection". It wasn't until late Sunday when we were driving back that I suddenly came to see that in many ways the weekend actually was a bog intersection for us. I was certainly bogged down with a miserable cold made worse with the heavy marine air to the point that my asthma came out of remission. Kathy was in her own bog of premarital planning and stress which precipitated a terrible migraine on Saturday night that sent her to bed without supper. The poor girl was almost driven mad, she said later, by the noise we were making downstairs carrying on at dinner while she lay dying. I myself went to bed rather early with a wheezing cough and sinus headache and that Springsteen tune playing over and over in my head about "this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing as the calliope crashed to the ground." Bill's bog was much more pleasant I think as he rather continuously and good humoredly juggled text and voice messages from a variety of admirers who mourned his absence.
But we had a wonderful day on Saturday touring Newport. After a morning of silent retreat followed by a long group reunion, we went to Flo's Clamshack for lunch, then drove all around and saw the wonderful homes and mansions, then ended up on the lawn at Castle Hill for cocktails before going back to cook dinner outside on the grill. We went by St. John the Evangelist (also known as the Zabriskie Memorial Church--another branch of the family) where I took the picture above, which somewhat resembles an apostolic bog intersection. I had heard a lot about St. John's and wanted to go to High Mass there on Sunday. By some miracle the church was open late on Saturday afternoon so I was able to at least see it. The liturgy looks somewhat like ours and they still use the old Prayer Book and Hymnal, but when I read the literature in the narthex and realized they are part of the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith, we all lost interest.
Sunday morning Kathy was still in recovery so Bill and I went with Janet to her church, Emmanuel, and had a low but meaningful worship experience. The sermon by Fr. Cole was quite good and had us imagine how popular Our Lord must have been when he was doing miracles and healing the sick, but then how the crowd grew smaller and smaller when he explained all that would be required of true discipleship.
So it ended with a bowl of chowda at the Black Pearl before we headed back to a final view of that bog intersection on our way home. Janet is now beyond the bog, lucky her, but we are still immured each in our own ways. I look forward to October 21, the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Ignatius, when the bog that has been this interim period at church shall at last turn into a new era of growth and renewal with our new rector, the Rev. Dr. Andrew C. Blume. Let us pray that our parish shall grow together again in spirit and service to Our Lord.
posted by Piscina at 7:52 PM
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