Not the usual Easter!

Easter began this morning at 6:45am, with a Easter sunrise service by Zoom. A lot of people were involved, maybe more than usual. Pastor Lise was on a hillside in Westminster, and a number of other people were also outside but quite a few of us were inside. One of the participants was on a hillside in Germany! Under normal circumstances, there would have been a pancake breakfast at the church after the service. So we had a pancake breakfast here at the house. After our breakfast, we listened to a tape of an Easter service at Guilford from 1993, led by Shirley. That was an inspired choice because it was a wonderful service, incredibly full of life.  Then at 10 AM, there was the regular Easter service at Guilford, thanks to BCTV.. Someone put  a lot of thought and work into that. Part of it was live, part had been recorded yesterday, part was archival from previous Easter services. It all fit together seamlessly and was very moving. That was followed immediately by a zoom coffee hour. So we really had a full morning of the celebration of Easter.

After that,  I got the deck furniture out from the shed, and set It up on the deck because John and Cynthia were coming over a little bit later in the afternoon. But before that we were supposed to meet Eliza in the Dummerston cemetery to sing Easter hymns at the graves of Shirley, Betsy and Eliza‘s parents. But when we went down the driveway, we found that Zach was taking out an old culvert and putting in a new one, and the driveway was blocked. We couldn’t reach Eliza, and thought we were stuck, but eventually Zach found a way around through our neighbor’s yard, and we got there - late, but ok. We had a nice sing. We got back just in time to greet John and Cynthia. We sat on the deck, appropriately distanced. It was John’s birthday - one of the rare occasions when April 12th fell on Easter. Ellen made a cake, we had snacks and a good visit -all with proper precautions. No blowing out the candles!

A full, wonderful Easter!

Birthday celebration on the deck

An Easter surprise - crocuses outside our back door!

At the cemetery

Getting ready for Easter

I just spent some time at the Dummerston cemetery sprucing up Shirley's and Betsey's graves for Easter. I had gotten some pansies at Walker's yesterday and put them in pots. Today I cleaned old, brown leaves off the graves and raked the area. There are daffodils about to bloom on Shirley's grave. Tomorrow, we will meet Eliza and her family there to sing hymns (her parents' graves are just a couple down from our lot). It's pretty early spring, but it looks nice for Easter.  I didn't have the iPhone with me, but I did have the computer and PhotoBooth -  so here is a glimpse of how it looks:

We love you Shirley and Betsey and we miss you among us so much!

Sacred Time at home

This is a holy week for Christians and Jews. We participated in the Feinland family Seder meal via Zoom on Wednesday eve, the Guilford Church's Maundy Thursday service via BCTV Live Stream on Thursday eve and the Brattleboro Ecumenical Good Friday service today, noon to three.  In the service today, seven different pastors, all speaking from their homes, gave meditations on the Seven Last Words of Jesus from the cross, and musicians played and sang from their homes.  All these services were particularly moving. I am deeply impressed by how faith communities, especially, are adapting to this health crisis. Some amazing skill in technology and creativity is going on and keeping us involved.  Sunday morning there will be a Sunrise Service at 6:30a.m. and a regular Easter Service at 10a.m. I'll be a reader at 6:30a.m., via Zoom. The "attendance" at these services has been high - everyone at home, yet feeling connected. You can watch some of them if you wish by going to the "Guilford Community Church" website and clicking on the links for those services. (I don't think the Feinland Seder is publicly available).

Our pastor at Guilford Community Church, Dr. Lise Sparrow, from her home earlier today as part of the Good Friday service

The Guilford Church from the air - part of the BCTV intro to all of our services, Probably taken from a drone.

Signs of spring

Ellen and I have been taking little walks and have seen signs of spring even though it feels and looks like late winter up here on the mountain. Here are a couple of evidences:

Early spring flowers

Huck Finn and race

One jarring aspect of listening to a reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the frequent use by Twain of the "n-word." Jim, Huck's companion on the raft, is a runaway slave. Huck is clearly deeply fond of Jim and admires him, but he regularly refers to him using the "n-word." This fact has led to this American classic being dropped from most high school reading lists, and it is rarely taught. This is a shame, in my view. Thus I was pleased to find through JSTOR (an on-line archive of academic articles) an article by Hugh H. Davis, a high-school English teacher, titled "On Teaching Huckleberry Finn," in the periodical Mark Twain Journal (Fall, 2016). He fully discusses all the issues raised by this work, especially the use of the "n-word," and how to effectively make use of these controversial issues in the classroom to inspire student engagement with the work. He makes use of a recent edition which has replaced the "n-word" with the word "slave." This raises issues of its own, of course, but these can also be raised in classroom discussion. Davis is probably in a minority - it's easier to just sidestep all these issues and not use Huck Finn. But he is gradually convincing colleagues to restore this classic to the classroom. Another article I found, The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn, by Jonathan Bennett (in Philosophy, 1974)  is also very interesting. It's pretty complicated to summarize here, but basically he agrees with me that this work explores in depth issues of morality and ethics. Huck himself, Bennett argues, believed that morality demanded that he respect the rights of Jim's owner,  and that therefore it was wrong for him to try to free Jim. But he intentionally decides to let his compassion for Jim to overrule his morality. He is resigned to see himself as a bad person who will probably go to hell because he tries to free Jim from slavery. We, of course, have the opposite view! In this way Twain raises very sophisticated ethical (and religious) issues. That is one feature of the work that makes it a classic.

Sterling Unabridged Classics Series

Huck Finn

I've been having a great time listening to a reading of Mark Twain's  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on Librivox. I can listen on the iPhone.  In case you don't know about it, Librivox is an online site for free audiobooks in the public domain, using volunteer readers. The reader of Huck Finn is Annie Coleman Rothenberg, and she is good. She's got the dialects down well. She is from St.Louis, MO so that probably helps. I had forgotten what a great book Huck Finn is. It is practically a textbook in morality and ethics. Huck is a real philosopher, and he spends a lot of time struggling with ethical dilemmas. But it is also a ripping good yarn with great characters. I've just been listening to the chapters  dealing with the two con-men - the "King" and the "Duke,"who invite themselves on to Jim and Huck's raft and get them involved in all kinds of scrapes.  Go to LibriVox and listen for yourself.

Mark Twain

Old CTS friends

Today, the Chicago Theological Seminary hosted a half-hour ZOOM session featuring Prof.  Ken Stone, Prof. of Old Testament. He talked about a neglected feature of the OT - the Psalms of Lament. Here is an example from Psalm 22:

12   Many bulls encircle me,
    strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
¹³ they open wide their mouths at me,
    like a ravening and roaring lion.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint;
    my heart is like wax;
    it is melted within my breast;
¹⁵ my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶ For dogs are all around me;
    a company of evildoers encircles me.
    My hands and feet have shriveled;^[b]
17 I can count all my bones.
    They stare and gloat over me;
¹⁸ they divide my clothes among themselves,
    and for my clothing they cast lots.

These psalms feel very "right" for the present situation. Some end on a note of praise to God, but many end in despair. There is an authenticity in allowing that. There are a  lot of people today who have little or no reason to hope, and we need to respect that, listen, be available.

Scores of people participated in this session and I recognized about 6 or so from my years as Pastor-in-Residence back in 1999-2001. I had to adjust to their appearance -  it's been 20 years! - but I recognized them and it was great to see them.  There will be a session every Wednesday noon. Next week will be led by Joanne Terrell, who taught a course I took back in 1999. So I hope to plug in next week too.

We got our TV reception back today. Yay! New Hampshire PBS has finished work on their transmitter and it is back on. It was a sunny day, and I re-scanned for stations and Voila! five came up.  Ellen can watch cooking shows again!

Hope all my readers are staying Safe and Well!