The Lockdown Chronicles #3 Communion-in-Place

    For the fourth time since Easter, I prepare to take Communion in place with my fellow communicants and the Celebrant of Trinity Church.  I've got a wine glass and a plain white saucer trimmed in gold. I have a bottle of port wine that I use, a leftover from a Christmas recipe.  I have saltines.  After pouring about a fourth of a cup of port into the wine glass, I set it on the table alongside the saltine on the saucer.  My kitchen table has become an altar. As video appears on the laptop screen, the altar is inscribed "This do in remembrance of me," and "QWERTY."

    Today I have invited three people to join me.  The first politely declines, citing yardwork to do and impending rain this afternoon.  A tropical storm  named Cristobal (the Christ-bearer) is to blame.

    The second person I invite also declines, but first, he's incredulous that we are still sheltering in place rather than meeting inside our building.  I note that our Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Kee Sloan, has given us a schedule he thinks will guard our safety as we ease back into meeting together.  My invitee shakes his head, pronounces us "ridiculous," and leaves to drive 20 miles to the church of his choice.

    The third invitee turns me down too, after explaining that he had wished to attend church today, but had to clean his back porch instead.  He notes that he has asked many people about the communion-in-place practice, and all have roundly condemned it.  "You can't just have communion wherever. You're supposed to do that in church."  I point out that we are the Church, and besides, our homebound bread and wine have been consecrated.  The Bishop has okayed this.  My fellow Christian says an Episcopal bishop bashed the president.

    The front door opens.  Two dogs come in, a yellow Lab and a chocolate Lab/catahoula mix.  They stop near the table and lie down on the cool tile floor, panting a little, and quietly alert.  The yellow one stretches out, relaxed, with his long hind legs extended.  The beautiful mix tucks his front paws and gazes serenely at the wall.

    In spite of audio problems, the sermon comes through loud and clear.  I recite my part of the Prayers of the People, the responses to Eucharistic Prayer A, and the Lord's Prayer.  I know them all by heart.  When it is time to take Communion, I break off a piece of my saltine (the Bread of Heaven)  and sip the wine (the Cup of Salvation.)  The service ends with "Thanks be to God.  Alleluia, alleluia," and I clear away the saucer.  I remember not to throw the leftover wine down the sink and drink what is left.

    The Old Testament text and the context for the sermon today rings in my head, and not because of the extra wine.  God made them, according to their kind.

The Lockdown Chronicles #2

Officially, we are no longer locked down.  Our Governor advised us we'd still be safer at home.  We replied, "Yes, Ma'am," and went shopping.  Unofficially, the pattern I refer to as Perpetual Saturday Syndrome persists.  Friday, May 8, 2020 was the last day of school in my home county, and the last day of Kindergarten ever for my granddaughter.  We observed this milestone without the oversized white academic garb complete with mortarboard that indicates the kids may progress to First Grade.  We did without a class party, a warm-weather field trip to the zoo, and the limo ride that was to be part of the prizes promised for selling lots of fund-raiser junk.  We also moved forward without hugs for the teacher or exchange of phone numbers in anticipation of summer playdates.  There was not even a "Have a great summer," or "See you in August."

We had two remaining worksheets which Maddie sailed through without hesitation.  I completed the online checklist and hit send, assuring the teacher for the fifth time that we read 2 books every night, that we went over the sight words daily, and that she could definitely count and write to 100.  Maddie said, "So Kindergarten is over?"  Yes, Maddie, you're done.  Not with a bang, and do not whimper.  She didn't.  She gave me a perplexed frown and asked if she could color. Her workbooks for summer enrichment, her pencil box, her scissors, glue stick, and crayons are all still on the kitchen table.  This space has been her classroom since the day we picked up our first packet of assignments from the front of the school she wouldn't be allowed to enter again this school year.  She sat on adult-sized dining chairs and looked at a wall with sconces and an old print we brought with us from Montgomery 18 years ago.  If she missed funny bulletin boards or her own cubbie near the reading corner, she never complained.

I enjoyed a Kindergarten graduation, or at least my family did.  I remember not liking the white gown and mortarboard I was mortified to wear, as I tripped along the hallway of Rooks School.  My diploma was signed by Principal Viola Rooks, and probably by Mrs. Morris, my teacher, as well.  Mrs. Morris was mean and would gladly smack the palm of your hand or your rear end with a ruler, depending on how talkative you were.  I was on the receiving end of quite a few well-placed swats that year, and Mrs. Morris never worried that she would lose her job for spanking children.  Children who got spanked at school got spanked at home, too.

 I excelled at Kindergarten, even though I only got 2 report cards.  I left mine at home after the second reporting period, and I never got another one.  I guess the budget at little, private Rooks School was even more limited than the public school's where Maddie attends today. I was not conscious at all of whether or not schools had money to pay for things.  I took lunch to school every day and also brought a nickel with me so I could buy a Coke, orangeade, milk or chocolate milk. (All of those came in glass bottles!)  We sat in rows in little desks and never left our classroom other than for restroom break and recess.  Our coloring pages were simple affairs--usually one common object like a flower or a house.  I once got into trouble for coloring a teapot purple and red in spite of the fact that Mrs. Morris had colored hers green and red and put it on the board in front of the room.

The classroom itself must have been some one's bedroom at one time.  We exited our classroom by a separate door onto the wrap-around porch and into the yard for play.  Rooks School was housed in a a wonderful Victorian home with a round tower and octagon-shaped pavers from the sidewalk to the front steps.  It was less than a block away from Oak Park in Montgomery and within 2 blocks of the hospital than has swallowed up the whole neighborhood since then.  But what a building this was!  The principal's office was the entrance hall, with its desk parallel to an imposing stairway.  There were French doors to the right leading into what had probably been the drawing room.  That room was my classroom when I finally made it to 2nd grade.  I never got to go upstairs, but my dream was to be in 6th grade in the round tower classroom.

In some ways it is surprising that I'd remember so much about Kindergarten.  I have friends that don't even know who they had for English their senior year in high school!  But the strict, unique character of the school I attended is captured for all time in a series of mental snapshots. They tell me my first experience of school was rich and useful, because I am a student to this day.

Will Maddie remember Kindergarten?  She really liked her pre-K class, but already some of the names and faces from that year have begun to blur.  She was thrilled with her new school in August, 2019, which feels far removed  from the kitchen table and  the stack of "take-home centers" she carefully colored and cut out.  Maddie, your teacher was glad to meet you and gave you a choice of a hug, a handshake, or a dance as a greeting.  You chose a dance! You  had a cubbie all your own. You went to the computer lab, and that was your favorite thing.  You bought Italian ice on Fridays.  Remember.

Peter, Paul and Mary I Shall Be Released

The Lockdown Chronicles #1

We've been in lockdown mode in my home state of Alabama since April 4, but schools and most jobs switched  to WFH even before that.  This being my fourth or fifth Sunday of virtual church and hanging around the kitchen for the extra cup of coffee I usually don't have time for, I became aware of

Bird Wars

You read that right.  In the midst of coronavirus, which is worse than avian flu, the winged citizens of my backyard had declared war on each other.  It was all my fault.

I have a bit of extra income at the moment.  As a counselor, I have been in part-time practice for awhile with sporadic access to a friend's office.  More recently, though, I have taken to an online platform.  Since the pandemic, the client load has doubled.  The extra income won't get me a plane ticket to Europe when travel is ok again, but it allows me some unusual splurges: a movie rental from Amazon twice in one week, Tide for the laundry, extra coffee pods, and fruit & nut blend for the bird feeder.

The fruit & nut blend turned out to be ambrosia for the birds. 

At first glance, my backyard looked like it always does--2 acres of gently rolling green grass, a clump of trees here and there (mostly popcorn trees and other volunteers) a tall poplar with the yellow flowers that have made their debut this year.  Several yards away from the full-length back windows in my kitchen is a cedar bird feeder at the top of a post about 6 feet high.  I can see it perfectly from the brim of my coffee mug.

Today I saw a battlefield.

A woodpecker has been hanging around the yard for the last couple of weeks.  I don't know how it knew that I was going to buy fruit & nut mix, but it must have known, because it doesn't really like the bird feeder all that much.  Today it was clinging to the edges that supported its considerable weight, munching without pause.  I noted that a grosbeak with splashy red markings had joined it.  The woodpecker paid the grosbeak no mind, and both gobbled as if they hadn't both been eating bugs all along.  Then it happened-- A crow the size of a C-130 came screaming out of the wooded area way in back, approached the feeder at full speed, and gave chase to the grosbeak, which high-tailed it into a bottle-brush tree.  Panicky fluttering ensued among the bottle brushes, and the crow wheeled around to approach the feeder, which it now owned, having scared the living daylights out of the woodpecker.  But before the crow could fix its unwieldy body on the edge of the feeder, out of nowhere came an enraged mockingbird.

I should add at this point, that it takes very little to enrage a mockingbird.  If she has a nest nearby, just the appearance of a happy Labrador retriever will set off her aerial acrobatics, and she will squawk until the hapless dog curls up on the porch.  I once saw an annoyed mama mocker harass a chicken snake until it slithered into a blackberry thicket.  We never saw that snake again, even though it had hung around for 2 summers, working cheap by keeping mice away.

At any rate, today's annoyed mockingbird was no different.  It flew over, under, and around the crow, making the crow's flight unbalanced and stupid-looking.  I don't know if mockingbirds are the natural advocates for grosbeaks, but they don't compete for birdseed, because they generally don't feed at bird feeders. Maybe they just don't like crows.

The crow, humiliated, retreated to the back of the yard, from whence it had come. It did not stay back there long.  In less than a minute it returned accompanied by not one, but 2 of its closest friends and allies.  They fluttered and flapped all around the bird feeder in a kind of drunken victory dance.  The mockingbird thought that was funny.  It flew out of the woodpecker's home tree, and weaved in and out of the crows' carousing.  The English ships must have appeared equally as nimble to sailors aboard the Spanish Armada.  And like the Armada, the three crows retreated, in no formation whatsoever, to the unprestigious thicket down by the pond.  After about an hour, I noted that the grosbeak and the woodpecker had returned to the buffet for lunch.

The mockingbird was nowhere to be seen.

Such is the routine around here during lockdown. I am extremely grateful not to be sick today, and I'll be profoundly happy to return to work some hot July day when the grocery stores are deemed safe and nothing at the gas station needs to be wiped down.  For now, I will keep TV off and social media at a distance while I keep tabs on the mini-drama happening in the world where coronavirus is not a problem.  My money is on the mockingbirds.