The Sacrament of the Donuts

I don’t know what this says about the women of St. Dunstan’s, but this morning three separate people brought what totaled 13 dozen boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. And a fourth person was highly suspected of contributing.

Mimi and Tutu were scheduled to provide hospitality at coffee hour, but when Patricia checked messages at church on Saturday there was one from them saying they would be out of town. So Patricia picked up five dozen fresh donuts at the shop in Roswell last night. Meanwhile, Claudia, VOD for today (the vestry person responsible for unlocking and locking the church) had called Titu and Mimi earlier in the week to remind them of their duties. When she didn’t reach anyone, she stopped by the grocery store and picked up a few more dozen Krispy Kremes.

Separately, Friday afternoon Ellen left a phone message asking if I could do our coffee time by myself since she would also be out of town. If I’d bothered to look at a schedule, I would have known that today was not my day (it’s next week, Fourth of July). But I didn’t look and so brought another five dozen donuts, fresh out of the grease pits of the Krispy Kremes down on Ponce.

As the donuts continued to mount on the big silver table in the kitchen, I heard someone ask if Lucy Kaltenbach hadn’t been responsible for some of it.

Anyway, because there were so many calorie-laden boxes awaiting consumption, Patricia made an announcement during the service about our embarrassment of donut riches. Please come to coffee and have a hot donut, and then help yourself to a second, she said (I’m paraphrasing).

Not surprisingly, I think everyone who attended the late service showed up for coffee time. I heard the rumbling of conversation in the Parish Hall, as all of five dozen donuts were handily put in the stomachs of parishioners. I was listening from the kitchen, where I committed to washing dishes, though my many visitors did most of the cleanup, Penny, Claudia, Lucy all pitching in to help.

Wayne Hood dropped in a moment to wax poetically about some other dish he’d tried that was actually worse for your health than Krispy Kremes. He then described a dish that was fatted and fried and sliced and buttered and probably fried again.

Joe dropped off his cup at the sink, smiling, “It’s okay to eat these in church.”

Before we knew it, the rumble of voices had died down. The Parish Hall was cleared of every last straggler. We lingered, chatting about this and that—insidery altar guild stuff, and about crone-ings, which take place on a woman’s 50th birthday. (Claudia said Gilda knows how to do the ceremony. Apparently it’s a very important rite of passage in womanhood.)

As we headed for the front door, the lights went out in the parish hall, the kitchen. The halls now dark. We met Patricia locking up the office and walked out with her. There is something about St. Dunstan’s during that quiet right after everyone has left, like you can still hear a wisp of laughter. The lingering good-byes in the parking lot, surrounded by forest.

The answer to the question: What does this all say about the women of St. Dunstan’s? I have no idea. But I will tell you that we froze five dozen donuts and that’s what we’re having for coffee time next week.

In Silence

There’s a meditation exercise that goes something like this: you close your eyes, and let your thoughts flow by like a river, placing no value or attachment to anything that pops into your mind one way or another. The idea is to simply notice.

I often forget this technique, just as I forget that good saying “work without purpose," meaning to stay in the moment, which is not easy to do. Thoughts get in your way, they come flooding in without the slightest provocation—how good is the work I am doing? Will I have enough work? Is it meaningful work? Respected work? Do I like this work? Do I have too much work? When will this work be done? And the list goes on.

Probably what made me think of these mental exercises was Patricia’s sermon this morning. It was about finding God in silence. The scriptural reference was about Elijah, who was to stand before a mountain while the Lord passed by. “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake and fire, but the Lord was not in the earthquake or fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

So that’s where Elijah finds or hears the voice of God, standing at the mouth of a cave. Nothing going on but God.

I think there’s a lot to be said for stilling your mind -- getting rid of all of the mental earthquakes and floods, who knows what’s left? God may well be there when our minds are cluttered, this soft yellow glow, what appears when all the garbage is cleared away. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

In vestry meeting last week, Patricia asked us to do an exercise -- quite optional -- to take three minutes and describe a personal spiritual experience. Patricia wouldn’t use the word “spiritual” so lightly -- that’s my language. There’s a growing irritation among liberal Christians that it is a word that people use to describe themselves who don’t go to church. They take their views of Christianity from TV evangelists and have no real knowledge of what it means to live in a functioning, spiritual (sorry Patricia) community.

And my apologies for the digression, but I think that it must be connected. At vestry, most of us came up with something to share. Now I’ve never actually seen God as a soft yellow mental pulse, but I keep returning to the exercise. Sometimes when I’m sitting on the porch in the evening, just staring up at the canopy of leaves that covers the back yard, sometimes if I sit still enough and quiet enough, I can begin to imagine.

With Those Who Mourn

I didn’t sleep well Friday night. Three weeks ago, my second husband died, just 50 years old, quite unexpectedly. His funeral was planned for Saturday at St. Dunstan’s, 11 a.m. sharp. So all that night I tossed in bed as warm tears seeped from my already puffy eyes. Even when I didn’t think I was crying, I was.

Since the death, my mother and stepfather Ron have been staying with me and Wolfie, taking care of the mundane daily tasks that keep a person going—warm home-cooked meals--eaten as a family on the back porch. No mandatory trips to Wendy’s or cans of ravioli just yet. These recent days have been filled with the smell of clean laundry turning in the dryer in the afternoons, the fragrance of hot buttered biscuits every morning, delivered to my desk slathered with grape jelly.

I’ve plopped down on Mom’s bed so many times for impromptu naps that she’s taken to tucking me in at night—never mind that I’m 45 years old. She makes me laugh and calls me “GW,” short for “grieving widow.”

As much as I’ve needed the diversion, as much as I’ve savored any distraction, Friday night it became apparent that the following morning I would have to say a final good-bye, that I would have to turn my husband Ron over to God, this science person, this self-proclaimed atheist. I would have to trust that even though he thought religion was all one big hyped up device to control the great unwashed masses, he was wrong. And I believe despite what came out of his mouth that God was always with him and now he will truly be with God.

The morning of the funeral my big brother Bird picked me up—and the ashes—to go to church. The first sight that greeted me was Jeanne Taylor peeking out of the sanctuary, her beautiful white hair and big green eyes framed by the red doors. Then Claudia. I melted into their familiar arms, my family at St. Dunstan’s, they were rallying around me to face my husband’s family, who I have unfortunately not known beyond weddings and funerals, and even those few and far between.

Jeanne and Claudia quietly, imperceptibly took the cookie jar of Ron’s ashes from my brother’s arms and spirited them away to the sacristy behind the altar to prepare for the funeral. It reminded me of what Patricia always says about the altar and flower guilds — they are the women who are always there, they were the women who wept at the feet of Jesus at his crucifixion, who went to his tomb.

This morning I did not go to church. I told Patricia I was going to take the time to process not just my grief, but also the overwhelming feeling of being supported and loved and protected by my friends at St. Dunstan’s.

So today, I’ve spent a good deal of time sitting on the back porch, drinking coffee and diet cokes, staring at the trees. I went through a stack of mail and swept and mopped the living room. More time on the back porch scanning the canopy of giant oaks and dogwoods for bird and squirrels. All day Wolfie has been covered in grease working on an old jeep in the driveway. My brother gave it to him and minus a new windshield and an air-conditioner, it’s about ready for the road.

Not 20 minutes ago, I went upstairs to visit my mother. She asked how I was doing. It must be hard for her to see me as I have been for the past couple of days. “Actually, I’ve got a lot to be grateful for,” I told her, as much to remind myself as to let her know I’m going to be okay.

“I don’t know how you can be grateful for anything when your heart is breaking,” she said.

I thought about it. “Well, I do have a lot to be thankful about, which reminds me I need to write ‘thank you’ notes.” I rifled through the drawers of the old writing desk in her room, somewhere in there was a box of note cards. They were tucked away in the back, behind odds and ends that have no home, like undeveloped film that can’t be thrown away but never quite makes it to the pharmacy any of the five times I go there every week.

I took out the note cards and counted. Five envelopes and three cards. “Nowhere near enough,” I said. It was a small disappointment. But one that would require going out to buy more. “On the other hand, that might be good sign that I don’t have enough note cards because there have been so many people doing nice things for me.”

Three note cards would only begin the job. I might start with Patricia and Joe and Joseph Henry. Patricia for all of the counseling and planning and love, for reminding me and those who gathered for the funeral of a key point: we are all made in the image of God, we all return to God. Joe for reading scripture and going to church on Friday evening to dig the hole for Ron’s ashes. JH for being the best-natured acolyte anyone could ask of a nine-year-old on a sunny Saturday morning.

I could use another card as a preliminary thank you for the members of the altar guild. For the lovely flowers, for placing the ashes in the wooden box, which sat on a table in front of the altar draped with a starched white linen cloth. The third card could be used also as a preliminary thank you for the women of the church who prepared the beautiful reception with coffee, a large bowl of delicious punch chilled with a floating ice ring. Chicken, tuna, and egg salad sandwiches. Fresh-baked brownies, cookies and mounds of fresh cut ripe fruit draped with bunches of purple grapes. This committee is part of the church, part of who we are and what we do when we have a funeral. But Betty, Lucy, Priscilla, Penny, and Claudia outdid themselves.

After that though, I’d be out of cards. How would I thank Nancy for reading scripture, for her presence beside me after we had all gone outside to the memorial garden, JH with the cross, followed by Tim with the ashes and Patricia who fell back to put her arm around me. As we stood around the fresh turned earth where the remnants of my husband were to be placed, my face was so covered in tears that the trees around me, the white robes, the red prayer book in Patricia’s hands, and the other mourners were something of a blur.

And I’m not sure exactly what I would write to tell Tim how grateful I was that at that moment he said “if you feel like you’re going to faint, hold on to me.” Or how to thank Christie or Steve or Dick or Tom who were simply there, who took time to speak to my family and the other guests, many of whom were at St. Dunstan’s for the first time.

I’ll end with this, the notes in the bulletin say the liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy that finds its meaning in the resurrection. There is a joy about it, the knowing that nothing “can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The note ends saying, “So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.”

And I am blessed to have so many around me who take those words to heart.

It's a Mystery

by Tricia Templeton

For my reading list in the Bellows I wrote about some of the best fiction and nonfiction books I have read in the past year. But I didn't include any mysteries or thrillers. I confess that they make up a large part of my reading. I know many of you like them, too. So here are some of my favorite authors. What mysteries and thrillers do you recommend?

Right now I am reading the second of Swedish writer Stieg Larrson's trilogy of mysteries. The first, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I devoured last week. I'm about 100 pages into the next one, and it is a page-turner. I predict some sleepless nights before I finish, and then a trip to the store for the third of the series, recently released in hardback.

Faye Kellerman writes a wonderful series of mysteries with a religious flavor. Rina and her husband, police detective Peter Decker, are Orthodox Jews, and their religious life is a big part of the background of the mysteries they become involved in solving. It helps to read these books in order to follow the unfolding relationship between Rina and Peter, who first meet when Rina is a victim of a crime.

Nevada Barr's series of mysteries featuring park ranger Anna Pigeon are all set in national parks. The environment of each park becomes an integral part of the story.

John Sanford's "Prey" series featuring Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport are another favorite, as are anything written by Michael Connelly, many of which feature Los Angeles-based detective Harry Bosch.

For thrillers I have two favorites who both have new novels coming out later this summer -- Nelson DeMille, who writes with a wide variety of characters and settings. And Daniel Silva, whose main character is Gabriel Allon, who longs for a life as an art restorer, but who continually gets called back into service as a member of the Israeli intelligence community, which sometimes means being an assassin for his country.

So that's a few of my favorites. What are yours?

Tricia

Happy Reading

by Tricia Templeton

Summer is upon us, and with the season comes the annual reading list. Here are some of the treasures I have enjoyed in the past year. I hope you may enjoy some of them, too. If you’d like to add your comments, please do so. I am also a big fan of mysteries and thrillers, although I have not included those on this list. Who are your favorite mystery writers? Let us know on the blog. And happy reading.

Fiction

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister. This charming novel explores the theme of food and community by following the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant once a week for a cooking class. Brought together by food and companionship, the lives of the characters intertwine, united by what can be created in the kitchen.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. This engrossing novel by Pulitzer Prizing winning author Geraldine Brooks tells the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a centuries-old manuscript that disappeared in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo. When it is found, rare book conservator Hannah Heath is called to establish its provenance. Heath’s work takes her back through history, from Sarajevo in 1940 to Seville in 1480. Each chapter in the Haggadah’s history gives a glimpse of both anti-Semitism and the endurance of the Jewish people.

Handling Sin by Michael Malone. This book made me laugh out loud. It tells the story of a two-week odyssey of Raleigh Whittier Hayes, an upstanding citizen of Thermopylae, NC, and his friend, Mingo Sheffield, as they seek Hayes’ ailing father, who has escaped from the hospital, and left Raleigh a strange set of tasks to perform. While tantalized by the promise of a secret treasure at the end of the journey, Hayes uncovers family secrets and is granted a large measure of self-enlightenment.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver is one of my favorite writers, so I was thrilled when The Lacuna, her first novel in nine years, came out last fall. It took me a while to get into this story, but once I did it was riveting. The novel is the story of Harrison William Shepherd, who spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930s in the home of artist Diego Rivera and Rivera’s houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., where he becomes an author and is investigated as a possible subversive, ultimately defending himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A fascinating look at a dark period of American history.

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. In Paris in July 1942, 10-year-old Sarah is taken with her parents by the French police as they go from home to home arresting Jews in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard and promises to come back for him. Sixty years later, Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist writing about the roundup, who discovers that her life is linked with Sarah’s.

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. No one writes more beautifully about the details of the everyday life of ordinary people than Quindlen. And when everyday life turns suddenly tragic, Quindlen captures that beautifully, too. Every Last One focuses on the life of Mary Beth Latham, a happily married woman devoted to her three teen-aged children. When an act of violence devastates the family, Mary Beth struggles to cope with loss and guilt, protect what she has left, and regain a sense of meaning in life. This book haunted me for days after I had finished it.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Major Ernest Pettigrew is the epitome of the Englishman with the “stiff upper lip,” who clings to traditional values even as the world around him changes. Much to his surprise he finds himself falling in love with a Pakistani shopkeeper, Jasmina Ali, a relationship that stuns and scandalizes his village. Will the Major be true to his heart, or to his old way of life?

Nonfiction

The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. In the early 1980s I worked in a refugee camp in Thailand with Hmong refugees who had been forced to flee from Laos because they aided America in our war in Southeast Asia. I’ve often wondered how my former students adjusted to life in this country so very different from their own. Yang answers that question in this beautifully written story of her family’s struggles in Laos, their escape to Thailand and eventual resettlement to Minnesota.

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs. Jacobs describes himself as being Jewish “in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian.” But he decides to follow all the rules of the Bible as literally as possible for one year. Jacobs’ book is frequently hilarious and insightful, but ultimately makes us realize that being faithful means more than following the letter of the law.

Jesus Freak by Sara Miles. Miles wrote about her dramatic conversion to Christianity in Take This Bread, one of the most powerful books I have ever read. In Jesus Freak, Miles offers reflections on what it means for ordinary Christians to follow Christ’s instructions to feed, heal, and raise the dead. Drawing examples from her own life and that of her Episcopal parish, St. Gregory’s of Nyssa in San Francisco, Miles challenges us to be transformed by Christ.

Christianity For the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass. Bass challenges the conventional wisdom that the only churches that are flourishing in America now are conservative, evangelical ones. Bass identifies liberal mainline churches across the country that are thriving, and studies why that is so. This book has much to say to St. Dunstan’s – so much so that the vestry is reading it this summer, and it will be the topic of adult Sunday School in the fall. Read it now and be ready.

Tricia