In the Garden at St. Dunstan's

We were talking in vestry about repairing and expanding our irrigation system. I have not been around long enough to know the real history, all of the emotions involved, but I think the prevailing question was: Is it good stewardship of the earth and money to water trees and plants that are non-native and therefore not self-sustainable? And certainly in a black and white scenario, the answer would be unequivocally “no.”

Of course, in a purely aesthetic sense, the thought of denying one plant or one tree the care it needs in such a beautiful and lovingly tended garden seems sacrilegious. Anybody who ever visited Emmaus House before Father Austin Ford retired knows what a spiritual experience a carefully tended garden can be. I still have a picture from my eldest son’s baptism, sitting on a hand-carved marble bench from India. I can still feel the coolness of the stone, the pungent odor of turned earth, wet from a good watering (not the way children do just spraying the surface). Almost 25 years later I asked a friend over there if the gardens were still as beautiful as I’d remembered them. No, he shook his head sadly, they haven’t been tended as they used to be. All this time later, it is not the tearful baptism with the bottle throwing, it’s the magical garden, like a work of art, that is the treasured memory of that day.

Anyway, the other evening around dusk, I happened to be in the neighborhood of St. Dunstan’s so I stopped by for a quick visit to the memorial garden. Just sit on the slate wall beneath the trees for a moment and unwind from the day. Take in the natural silence, bugs at work around the full fig tree, heavy with plump green fruit. Let my eyes wander and fall on a pale pink lily-looking thing trumpeting its rare blossom in the warm evening air. There are black-eyed susans, a butterfly bush.

I sit contemplating the work that so many have done. There are the new beech trees down the slope and some roses leading up to the memorial garden. Soon, I’m watching the ghosts of parishioners and clergy, in a procession with a cross and white robes and candles and bells, the Easter vigil. There are children laughing in the woods, and Joe is dressed as Moses, in full costume for a lesson on the Ten Commandments.

And I suppose all of those ghosts would parade around the grounds of St. Dunstan’s even if we didn’t have Peachy and Helen and Dorothy and so many others putting their heart and soul into the earth there. But how much richer we are and how fortunate it is for us that that isn’t so.

Chanting, Bells and Slices of Cake

A long-time, dyed-in-the-wool early service person I suddenly find myself part of the regular service folk. One reason is probably because my stepfather, Ron, started singing with the choir the last couple of Sundays. (He and my mother have been staying with me and Wolf, taking care of us after the turmoil that was last year.) “If we’re really going to stay the summer,” he said one day about a week ago, “I might as well just join the choir.”

Ron is a “choir junkie” of sorts. He’s sung in the National Cathedral and then various and assorted Presbyterian churches, which I’ll let him tell about if you run into him. Given that we live in Avondale, about 30 minutes away, we’re carpooling, which puts me at the late service.

The difference between the early service and the late service is that the late service has music and a lot of people. Early service has few people, few noises and is very contemplative.

Late service has bells and chanting and visitors and people you don’t always see when you’re an early service person. Late service the altar fills up several times at communion while hymns play, which is a completely different experience from the early morning.

I’m not sure if the sermon changes or not. Today, Patricia talked about the Good Samaritan—love God and your neighbor. She said the lawyer’s question to Jesus was not really “Who is my neighbor, but who is not my neighbor?” That’s condensed. She’s much more eloquent. You could feel the whole congregation digesting the message. If it were our custom, we would have applauded loudly when she finished.

Anyway, afterward I walked with a visiting family --Julie and John and their kids Alex and Olivia -- to the parish hall for coffee. They just moved here from Indiana, I learned, as we were quickly swept back into the parish hall scene that is slices of cake, squealing little boys underfoot, and busy women rushing round with pitchers and trays of cookies. We are a small congregation, but in terms of closeness and friendship, we are bursting at the seams.

I spotted Ron, out of his red choir robe. “How’d you like the sermon?” I asked, smiling, about to eat a coconut macaroon the size of a golf ball.

“I recorded it for your mother,” he said, patting a pocket.

Later, as we drove away from the church toward the interstate, Ron said, “She is doing God’s work. She knows Jesus was a liberal and he cared about people in need.”

I think that’s the feeling you get at St. Dunstan’s -- early service or late -- we are small but we care -- about each other and our various and assorted neighbors, from People’s Town to Haiti. Being reminded that in Christian terms, we should work to have no boundaries is what Jesus meant when he said love your neighbor.

A Little Humor at Hospice

(Note: This blog post is by Michele St. Peter, whose husband, Don Ogle, was admitted to hospice care this week after 18 months of fighting lung cancer. Michele and Don are regulars of the early service.)

Yesterday, Tricia came to Tranquility to give us communion. Don drank his communion wine through a straw--in fact, he slurped up all the wine in the little chalice, and Tricia had to pour more for herself and for me.(I resolved to bring a bottle of non-communion wine back to Tranquility that afternoon.)

Tricia left shortly after that, but returned almost immediately to tell me there was a big dog in the hallway, "a St. Bernard or something." I said, "I'll bet it's our friend Cash." It was. Bernese Mountain dogs are similar to St. Bernards, and come from the same part of the world. Bernese are slightly smaller, according to our neighbor Carolyn Crockett, although Cash looks plenty big to me.(In case any of you are wondering, Cash is named after Johnny Cash.)

Cash and Carolyn were at Tranquility for their weekly visit. They were standing near the nurses' station, talking with a lady with a baby--the baby was waving his arms around and laughing at Cash. And Cash, who apparently has not seen a lot of babies, liked the kid, too.

The lady, in what I thought was a brave move, set the baby on the floor. I would say he is about six months old or so, crawling, but not walking. He started crawling and Cash immediately walked over to him and flattened him--in the nicest possible way--with one big paw. The baby took off again, laughing all the way, and Cash started to follow. Carolyn reeled him back in, telling him that the baby was not a new squeaky toy to play with.

So Cash was sitting next to Carolyn, watching the baby, who sat back on his little diapered behind and watched Cash. Cash woofed--he has a lovely, basso woof. And the baby barked back! They carried on a dialogue, while everyone in the vicinity roared with laughter. When I say everyone, I'm talking about a lot of people: nurses at the nurses' station, families hanging out in the visitors' room, doctor and nurses who were trying to have a staff meeting in a room adjacent to where we were standing.

The doctor came out, and Carolyn immediately started to apologize for the uproar. The doctor stopped her, and asked her to bring Cash into the staff meeting, to show a new staff member some of Cash's tricks. The favorite trick is apparently the Cheerios trick. Carolyn tells Cash to "down" with his front paws out. She places one Cheerio on each paw--through some direction of Carolyn's, Cash knows he is not to eat the Cheerios. So he sits and looks around, looking very cool and calm. Then Carolyn directs him to lick his lips, and he does it! Then she gives him permission to eat the Cheerios, and he scarfs them up.

Cash is a huge hit at the hospice. And it's nice to know that, in a place like Tranquility, where people are preparing to die, we can still have a really good communal belly laugh.

Thank you, Carolyn, and thank you, Cash.