The Widow Walks

The hallway retained the scent of lilies and hyacinth, mixed with the faint edge of mothballs. The funeral had been a few days earlier; I was calling on the widow to see how she was doing. It was the neighborly thing, and we had been neighbors, her husband and I colleagues of a sort, he the minister of the Reformed church, I the rector of the Episcopal. In our small town all of the major, and a few of the minor denominations had church buildings neatly arranged around the town square, along with the courthouse and the post office. It was a testimony to fellowship and distinction all at once.

The widow and I were alone in the large Victorian manse, and had been chatting for a while, when one of those silences that punctuate such conversations settled in. Suddenly the widow started, as if she had just remembered an unfinished errand. “Thank you so much for calling, Mr. Halliwell, but I must be going. It was so kind of you.”

We rose together and went into the hall, where I helped her with the bright red woolen coat she selected from the hall closet. I was surprised at the color, but she seemed not to be concerned. The aroma of mothballs clung about it; the season had just recently turned, and a chill was in the air. “Thanks so much,” she said. She took up her purse from the hall table and slipped the strap over her arm, and we went out onto the wide porch. There was no need to lock the door; such were the times. We paused for a moment looking out over the square, standing at the edge of the porch-steps down to the walkway; the sky was overcast and grey, and seemed to drain much of the color from the scene. “May I walk with you?” I asked.

The widow looked at me with a sly smile and said, “Oh, I don’t walk.” With that, she rose a few inches into the air and floated off down the walk, slowly rising as she went. By the time she reached the center of the square it was clear she would pass several feet above the steeple of the Methodist church directly opposite. I watched as she continued, further and further away, until she became little more than a tiny red dot no larger than a pinpricked finger’s mark upon a neatly folded white linen handkerchief.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Author’s note: This story came to me in a dream this morning. After I wrote it, I remembered I had take (and then manipulated in the darkroom) the street photo to the left, sometime in the early 70s. So here they are together.

Rachel Weeps

From my 1980 Requiem for Children.


MP3 File

A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and wailing.
Rachel cries for her children and will not be consoled,
because they are not.
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and wailing.
Rachel cries for her children and will not be consoled,
because they are not.

Thought of Train

The terrible train accident yesterday took place only about ten minutes by bus away from my church. It is a train line I take quite often when heading north. Waking to the news, I was struck at how much the Gospel of the day echoed the suddenness and peril of life: "Two are in the field, one is taken and another left... two are at the mill, one is taken and the other left..." Two are in a railway carriage, one is taken and another left.

I was relieved to hear later in the afternoon that my brother in Christ William Francis wasn't on the train, having made the uncharacteristic choice to miss the solemn liturgy at SMV. Again, as the Bard observed, there's a destiny shapes our ends... Or, as it is written in the annals of Dune, When it is time for one to die, there arises in that one a longing to go to the place of its death. It was not WF's time, and for that I give thanks, even while mourning the deaths and injuries of those whose time had come.

I was surprised, even later yesterday, to see on the news the more detailed reports that the train was being pushed, with the locomotive at the north end. That seems to be a recipe for disaster, as any problem with the southernmost carriage will cause a pile up -- which appears to be exactly what happened at that curve in the track. I've been around trains all my life, and I know this pushing mode is used from time to time, sometimes as an assist. But to run an entire trip from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan in this mode seems to me not to be a good practice.

Let us hope that the evidence shows the cause of the tragic accident, and provides recommendations to avoid any more on this heavily traveled corridor.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Requiem for Children (1-3)

first part of
Requiem for children: victims of war, famine, and the folly of their elders
for strings, percussion and celesta
based on a 1980 work for unaccompanied chorus and semichorus (in Latin)

MP3 File
I. Introit and Kyrie
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
Out of the depths I call to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my prayer.
To you, our God, shall hymns be sung in Zion and vows fulfilled in Jerusalem.
To you all flesh shall come.
Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.

II. Gradual
Out of the mouths of infants and nursing children, your praise is perfected against your enemies.
O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is your name in all the world.
When I regard your heavens, the work of your fingers
the moon and the stars you established,
what is man that you think of him,
or the son of man that you visit him?
Out of the mouths of infants and nursing children, your praise is perfected against your enemies.

III. Sequence (Dies Irae)
Whoever should place an obstacle before one of these little ones,
it would be more expedient for him to have a millstone hung about his neck
and to be cast into the depths of the sea.
(Full text of Dies Irae. here in a translation courtesy of Fr John-Julian, OJN)

Ah, that Day, that Day of Passion,

Earth exploding, heavens ashen,

Just as prophets’ warnings fashioned.

Ah, the trembling and the shaking

With the Final Judgment breaking;

All the world is crushed and quaking.
  

Gabriel’s trumpet cries: its singing,

Through the graves of earth is ringing,

All before the throne is bringing.

Death and nature are confounded,

By the rising dead surrounded,

As the call to Judgment sounded.

From the book with all recorded,

Sin is judged and good rewarded;

Thence each verdict is awarded.

When to shame we are committed,

All our secret faults admitted,

Nothing then will be omitted.

How shall fools like us be pleading?

Who will hear our poor entreating

When the best are mercy needing?

Lord of kingly exaltation

Who has offered us salvation,

Pity us in tribulation

Mindful, Lord, that our salvation

Caused Your wondrous Incarnation,

Leave us not to condemnation.

With the labors You have given,

On the tree of suff’ring riven,

Shall we still be unforgiven?

Righteous Judge, for sin’s pollution,

Grant the gift of absolution

Ere the day of retribution.

Through our weeping we implore You;

Shamed and anguished we adore You;

Spare us humbled here before You.

Sinful Magdalen You greeted,

And the dying thief You heeded,

Giving us the hope we needed.

Pray’rs of ours, though undeserving,

You redeem with love unswerving,

From the endless flames preserving.

With Your lambs a place provide us,

From the goats rejected hide us,

To Your right hand may You guide us.

When the wicked are refuted

And to bitter flames deputed,

Let our sentence be commuted.

Low we kneel with hearts entreating,

Worn to ruin by death’s beating,

Save us at our lives’ completing.

On that day of agonizing

From the dust of the earth arising,

Though our sins to guilt subject us,

Of Your mercy, Lord, protect us.

Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest,

Grant us Your eternal rest. Amen.

Latin, 13th century; tr. John-Julian, OJN, 1992

©Copyright, 1992 by The Order of Julian of Norwich

All rights reserved. Used by permission

Randall Horton, Solitary — R.I.P.

Sorry to report the death of a true eccentric: known to most as Brother Randy. He was found dead in his bathroom this afternoon — details as to cause of death and funeral plans will be forthcoming. Knowing Randy, the funeral will likely be a mix of monastic austerity and pure panache.

Randy was a fine musician, and served as organist in my parish for a few years before incipient MS began to take its toll on his abilities; and he chose to retire gracefully while still capable of performing. One of his last recitals included a performance of Franck's Grande Pièce Symphonique. And grand it was indeed.

Rest well, dear Brother Randy — your solitary days are over as you join the choir celestial.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Uriah Welcomes His Step-Son Into Sheol

2 Samuel 11:2-12:18

Your father stole your mother from my breast —
he spied her while out strolling on his roof
and saw her in her nakedness, undressed
while bathing, reckless of his lust.

My loyalty was soon put to the proof,
a soldier under orders, as I must
obey my Lord. Abandoned in my trust,
an arrow pierced my breast, a lance my side,
and so it was I came to rest in dust.
In fighting for your father — so I died.

A prophet gave your father a reproof,
a promise you too soon would find your rest;
you died a few days after your first breath.

Come, greet your foster father here in death.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
January 22, 2011

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Jairus’ Daughter

from yesterday's sermon...

Imagine how quiet it must have gotten. The laughter has died down; perhaps a few whispers are going through the crowd outside; perhaps one of the flute players is keeping up a somber tune. But in the house, there is an intense silence. The parents have their eyes fixed on Jesus; the disciples wonder what is going to happen next — they have seen so much these last few weeks.

Into that silence a voice speaks. It is a voice filled with power, a voice filled with command. It is the voice that called all of creation into being, the Word through whom all things were made, “God’s all-animating voice” who calls from above, as our hymn put it. But that voice, a voice from beyond all time and space, here is a voice speaking gently to a little girl. “’Talitha cum... Little girl, get up.’ And immediately the little girl got up and began to walk... and he told them to give her something to eat.”

+ + +

That voice still speaks to us today. We have all fallen asleep in the death of sin, and that same voice calls out to us to awaken, to get up. We are not dead... we are only sleeping, lulled by the siren song of the world, the flesh and the devil. And Jesus says to each of us, Wake up, Get up!

This startling command stills the weeping and wailing of merely conventional repentance, the excessive display of grief and breast-beating.

This startling command silences the cruel laughter of those who would rather keep us dead, just so they could be proved right, those of the sour looks, and the judgment of others.

This startling command shakes people out of that deep despair at the sense of their own sin, lost in the false belief they are beyond forgiveness.

This startling command brings us back from the edge of death, from the shadow of death and the valley of tears: Jesus assures us we are not dead but asleep.

And he tells us to get up. Just as he called that little girl from the sleep of death, he calls us from the death of sin. “Get up, little girl; young man, arise; woman, I say to you rise up; come, Mother, take my hand; stand up, Grandfather.”

He quiets the mourners with a blessed assurance. He touches us with forgiveness, and fills the depth of our empty grief out of the abundance of his love. He lifts us from the sleep of death, stands us on our feet that we may walk and follow him, and feeds us with the spiritual food of his own body and blood.

Touched by this love, awakened by this voice, healed by this forgiveness, fed with this food, we can face anything — even bodily death itself — in the sure and certain knowledge that nothing in the universe can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.+

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Read or listen to it all, if you like, at Ekklesiastes

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Farewell, Sister

Sister Elizabeth Mary Burke, SSG, died in her sleep yesterday after a long struggle with a number of health difficulties. She was an early member of the Sisters of Saint Gregory, when it was still being brought to term within the context of the Brotherhood, and hence one of our firstborn. The photograph shows her making her life vows to Bishop Catherine S Roskam, who was visitor to the Sisters at the time of their establishment as an independent community.

Elizabeth Mary — usually known as "EM" — was a woman of great joy. She loved to sing; she loved to laugh — oh, did she love to laugh! I will miss that most of all.

Goodbye, EM. We will one day laugh together once more.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Sister Elizabeth Mary at her first profession.
Just a sample of that laughter,
as Brother Richard Thomas girds her with the cincture,
and Brothers James and Ciarán Anthony and I look on.
Joy never dies.

A teacher's death

I just learned from Deirdre Good's website, On Not Being a Sausage that one of my professors at GTS in the early 90s, the Rev. Dr. Joanne McWilliam, died last week. She was a wonderful teacher, and a sharp intellect, and I am sorry to hear of her death. She taught systematic theology at GTS (the first woman to hold that chair), and also dove into the work of a faculty member on various committees. I recall an example of her wit, which was dry as a good martini. She was on the committee charged with establishing priorities for the many, many building needs and deferred maintenance at GTS. When asked how the priorities were being ranked, she said, calmly, "We're working on the lethal ones first."

God bless her and rest her, who now beholds unmitigated the glory she studied here below...

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 07.02.08

Isn’t it strange that we take more care over a funeral than over a dying person? We treat the comatose dying person as ‘a vegetable’ (what an assault on human dignity!) but treat the dead body with incredible ritual respect. Haven’t we got it backwards or at least unbalanced?

With special thanks and prayers for all who serve in hospice work and hospital chaplaincy, and those beginning their CPE this summer.

Tobias Haller BSG