o bla di o bla da whatever...a morning ramble

     Given that I don't have to be anywhere until 7 this evening, I receive a day around the home office doing paperwork, working through all the callbacks on my sheet, filing the backlog of forms online that are a daily hassle in my job, straightening the files, tidying up a bit. Oh, don't forget a blessed hour at the place of tea and reading, drinking, well, tea and, you know, reading...
     Of course, not far from my mind is the sheer vertiginous plunge we've all taken in the last two weeks.  The Dow is below 9300, Asian and European markets are in free fall [yes, the Heng Seng rose 511.51, but don't forget that it was above 20000 in September and is now below 17500].  I read that pension funds and 401k's have lost $2 trillion in the past fifteen months.  Think of that number for a moment - $2 trillion.   How can that possibly be real?  It can't, and that's the point.  There is no money out there, not really.  No what we have are numbers on a screen.  When you deposit a payroll check, dear reader, you do not deposit money.  No, you add the number on the check to the number in your account, and hope that when all the adding and subtracting is done, your number will not be negative.  As for where the money went, there is no ‘where'.  It never existed in the first place.
     I sure am glad I never planned for the future... 
     Well, it's a lovely day, we remain in being, Christ is King, and so all is, not well in this world, no never would I say that, but, how to say it, all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well, so we can endure whatever stupid, blind fatalities careen into our little worlds.
     Of course, if you're smart, you can even make a little money off 'em.  I'm not that smart, so I will in any case return to work this afternoon, ready to, you know, work. 
     So I just watched a car come up my street and slam into the back of another car.  Right there, I tells ya, I can see the intersection out my office window.  Why the driver was just sitting there is one of those inscrutable mysteries.  The crash itself made sort of a popping sound it did, which is no surprise - we no longer make cars of any kind of metal, but instead spin 'em up as figments of polymers and air.  What a world.
     Oh, the police have arrived.  This will surely make their day.  Fighting crime are they?  No, they don't have the time - they need to deal with these idiots who drive into each other all day long. 
     I'm ranting.  I'll stop.
     I'll stop because, let's face it, we're quite blessed to live in such a neighborhood where, apart from the occasional smash and grab assault on the cars parked along the road, we mostly just deal with stupid drivers.  Outside my window it's tranquil, quiet, only the hum of tires on the highway over yonder as a kind of basso continuo, the occasional bird song I can't identify [I'm no John Clare, you know].  Morning sun warms the room even as the chill air gives me a shiver.  Right now, as I sit here, all really is well. 
     Oh, that's right - look over to my right, and you see all the papers piled, awaiting my attention.  Now, I've made time for lazing about - though, come to think of it, is it really 'lazing about' if you've made time for it, figured out when it should end, and accounted for it with your sales manager?  That's a poser.  I also have about fifteen leads to call - they're damn good too, Glengarry leads if ever I saw 'em.  Existing customers, asking for someone to come out an help 'em, ready to sign.  Life is good, though it's still work.  Heavy sigh. 
     You know, one must be so disciplined to be a Capitalist, as disciplined as a Cistercian of the Strict Observance, though without the leisure.  I have to build down time into my schedule.  When I go to dinner with my wife, I tell clients that I have 'an appointment'.  Same goes for writing, reading, goofing off - I have to set that time aside, and tell others that I just can't make it because I'm 'booked up'.  Funny, eh?  For years, ER was mostly about how directionless I was - an Ecclesial Wanderer, I seemed aimless as I took up this grad school application and let it drop, tried that job and paid it no never mind, all through a seemingly endless bout of bronchitis.  Endlessly Coughing, that should have been the title. 
    And the hand-wringing about getting ordained or not getting ordained - how did you stand it?  I need, you know, to actually belong to a particular parish, and demonstrate some kind of care for the daily life of the place, before anyone can and should even begin to imagine me a pastor once again, and yet around and around I went, whining about how I would never get ordained, or defiantly whining that I didn't care. 
     Who knows?  Maybe that is my real vocation, wandering about.  As for the ordained ministry, lots of folks think I should go for it again, and my day job really is about getting out of debt, reordering our lives so there is less chaos, less worry, and all with the thought that in a year or so, I'll be in a position to inquire again of The Powers, with greater seriousness yet without desperation, Might I get ordained at some point?
     I don't know what the answer will be.  I do know one thing - couldn't care less about all the salaries and housing allowances and pensions and benefit packages and negotiations with call committees over who gets the best parking space...please, please will you all just go the fuck away with your endless, mind-numbing triviality?  Please?  Pretty please?    
     Yes, that's right, I don't care.  Keep your professionalism and your damned inferiority complex while in the company of lawyers and accountants and bankers and doctors.  What do they have to be so smug about anyway?  Are they variously called to be heralds of the King and Creator of all?  Perhaps, but, come now, don't we doubt it?  Besides, being a pastor is about visiting your people, taking a whack at proclaiming the Gospel, offering the sacraments, bestowing absolution on any and all who come along, praying all the time, and, and, knowing that, in the end, whenever and wherever that may be, the job will break you.  You will lose.  If you don't lose, you're not doing it right. 
     As for what I do for a living, I like it.  It's hard, a pain in fact, but I'm pretty good at it, it's mostly honorable, and it pays the bills.  I know ER is pretty coy - just what is it that I do, beyond generalities?  I sell...no, that's not how I put it.  I help people plan for their financial futures, protect their assets - in short, I help 'em do all the things I've never done.  Now that's irony, though come to think of it, such irony's not that interesting, so we'll move on. 
     'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bossom-friend to the maturing sun', so much Keats on Autumn.  All is not mellow out there my friends, nor does it seem fruitful.  Yet steadily the Kingdom grows, steadily he builds it through his word preached here and there with confidence, declaring forgiveness of sins for the sake of Jesus crucified and risen.  Where for the healing of soul and body the bread is declared his body, the wine declared his blood, not though our power by by his and in his mercy, there the Kingdom grows.  Where baptism remains the laver of regeneration, the bath that leads to salvation, the death and burial of the newborn Christian with Christ so that he might be raised in Christ on the last day - where you find that, you find the Kingdom growing, hidden and humble.  As I've said perhaps too many times, all we have in the face of a chaotic, hapless, careeningly stupid world, all we have are a few words, some bread and wine, and a basin of water.  With such basic, simple elements, he conquers all and brings all into the orbit of absolute, unyielding, joyful, elective, jealous...love. 
    Don't seem likely, does it?  Nor possible, right?  Pay that no never mind.  He loves you, loves me, loves this crazy and stupid world - he created you and me and and this world knowing all along how crazy and stupid and sinful you and I and all would make it.  He made it, dear reader, in order to save it.  Let that be the measure of truth, beauty, goodness, and reality itself. 
     With that, I close, for work beckons.  The Dow is up already about 96 points.  Now, if only Paulson can keep is yap shut...
     What was I saying?
     Peace out.