She was lying there in the coffin. Her hair was coiffed like I'd never seen it before and they had pasted long fingernails on her. I never ever remember her wearing fingernails, not long like that. Her face was puffy.

For some reason, I walked up and talked to her for a moment and then I made the sign of the cross on her forhead. I had done it before but she was warmer in those times. I remember the Sunday when she knelt at the communion rail on a regular Sunday. Before I could administer the host, she said, my cancer's back; it's gone to the brain. I wanted to say Shit! But instead I scurried to the Ambry and grabbed the anointing oil. I didn't care that others were waiting for their little round piece of Christ. Only this was what was important I prayed and crossed the oil on her face. Maybe my gesture tonight was a remembrance of that Sunday.

Her face was so puffed up. Can't they drain that out while they're shooting the embalming fluid in? I don't want to be embalmed and I certainly don't want to be dead and looked at. Dying is private, personal. People don't realize the sacredness of a person's death. All those people and sprays of flowers and nobody was really even paying attention to her there in the coffin.

I laughed hard when I read the e-mail that said that she would be "laid out" at Muir's. Laid out. That's precisely what she was was laid out...like a slab of extruded clay. It didn't change anyone's behavior...she was laid out and quiet and cold and decorated and everyone stood around or sat and talked, mostly about things other than the one that was laid out.

I saw a picture or maybe it was a movie where people sat around on their knees while at a table low to the ground. In the center of the table, there lay a sexy naked woman with fruit and sweets on top of her and around her. She was "laid out" but not dead. However, if I'd had to do that for any reason, I would have to pretend I was dead to endure the time while people were eating the sweets off of me. Carnavors, we are all carnavors--we eat it or we stare at it or we wish that it was ours...their body, their sacredness, their private parts, their beauty within. How can we consume like barbarians?

God, help us realize the sacred life of the body and spirit of the ones that die or sleep or pretend.

less is more

Where has all the money gone....long time passing; where have all the Christians gone, so far away. Where have all the churches gone....long time passing; they've gone to worldly gain, they've gone to worldly gain.

I wish Peter, Paul, and Mary were still singing. Where have all the flowers gone seems so pitiful right now compared to the lack of everything right now. And yet my body and mind have so much more. Why in the world would my call lead me finally to a place where there is nothing of my call to do but be? Without a church, without a cure, without a liturgy to make, where have I gone? I have gone within...so far away, so far away.

For four years I have suffered physically and psychologically because of personal tragedy accompanied by the caustic tongues and cruel actions of two dysfunctional parishes. I know it's not their faults; they can't help it. They are doing what they were taught to do, what was modeled to them. But decay is what happens when this happens to someone in my vocation, that is when the creative beauty that was first called is ignored or snubbed.

Is it a hate crime? It's alienating, that's for sure. But what happens while waiting, finally what happens is that God wins. God restores, rebuilds, refreshes and finally births a better me. I am still alienated but not alone; I am a recluse, but not cut-off; I am tranquil, and there is no reason I should be this way. God, during my time of no work, no congregation, no singing, I am emerging with a new physicality, a new psychological strength, and a new more solid foundation of being in my soul----and all from less.

Just the size of a mustard seed and yet an enormous bush grows. That seed within was never obliterated, only left fallow for awhile. Where have all the faithful gone, long time passing; they're here in hearts of silence, waiting for the cue to begin anew.