The Fourteenth Sunday of Pentecost
I was a little late for Mass yesterday morning and it opened the door to the usual guilt-tripping, at least in my own head. Father Manning had already ascended the pulpit, and was assigning plaudits to "Mother Flexner" for her homily on the Gospel of St. John the previous Sunday. This week's Gospel was from Luke 14:1, 7-14, and involved the Wedding Guest; you know, the admonishment to all invited guests to a wedding banquet: to wear your best garments but to not take the seat next to the groom?
Only moments before that, I had scanned the sanctuary and spotted Scott, an old parishioner, a former Mandarin, since moved out west somewhere, planted in my usual pew. I couldn't tell if it was deliberate or whether he simply wanted to be closer to Lawrence and Russell. I did feel an almost immediate impulse to one-up him by sitting as close to the front as possible and next to Richard, whose own Mandarin credentials are impeccable [no pun intended.]
Well, Fr. Manning proceeded to address the bulk of his homily almost entirely in my direction, talking about how seats at the wedding banquet were like pews and about how so many people have their favorite seats, etc, etc.. I was suitably abashed.
Still, Scott and I managed to exchange The Peace. And, I did take Communion. It wasn't until much later, after Coffee Hour, that the entire story came out: that Scott had actually spent the entire weekend partying with Richard and Old Peter on Fire Island and other venues around the City. I'm sorry, but, butter isn't exactly melting in my mouth, even as I post this.
Scott disappeared while I spent most of Coffee Hour waiting for Richard to clean up afterward and he, Old Peter and I rode the subway until Times Square. Richard and OP were still feeling frisky from their previous night on the town and there's probably enough juicy detail to fill several train trips together. But, it would have to wait. I was off to New Mommyland.
But, before I could leave church I chose to perform a rather grim task, the likes of which I hope no one else has to. I'd promised Sis that I would investigate the possibilities surrounding pre-paid burial services for Mom. It's all part of the Medicaid death-grip every blue-collar or even middle-class family will eventually go through if a loved one is lucky enough to make it past retirement age before falling victim to a debilitating disease.
Burial expenses are one of the few government-approved ways of saving some portion of your assets. Everything else, your house, your life savings, gets swept into the general treasury of the United States government unless you're willing to hire a lawyer -- which we are.
But, before I could resign myself to making the rounds of local mortuaries for a list of their services, I decided I should call Larry Gooden, one of our childhood friends from North Carolina.
Larry inherited his parents' mortuary business several decades ago, and still operated it from the family garage, just as they did when we were kids. Everyone knows the Goodens; several family members have been buried by them. They live at the end of a dusty road in the middle of tobacco country. The whole operation looks like something out of a Civil War photograph: a tin shack with a "changing table" and just enough room for one or two caskets. Larry still brags that the reason his prices are so low is because "I have no overhead". Indeed, he does not.
Still, I'd been putting off the phone call all week, until I came up with the perfect venue. Why not make it from inside the St. Michael's columbarium?
So, there, thanks to the miracle of cell phones, I stood, in front of the last resting places for The Choir Mistress, Janusz the Sextant and many others, talking to Larry Gooden. It seemed fitting somehow that all those departed saints, "the great cloud of witnesses" who form a part of our prayers every Sunday, should be my support during this phone call. Luke 9:60
Only moments before that, I had scanned the sanctuary and spotted Scott, an old parishioner, a former Mandarin, since moved out west somewhere, planted in my usual pew. I couldn't tell if it was deliberate or whether he simply wanted to be closer to Lawrence and Russell. I did feel an almost immediate impulse to one-up him by sitting as close to the front as possible and next to Richard, whose own Mandarin credentials are impeccable [no pun intended.]
Well, Fr. Manning proceeded to address the bulk of his homily almost entirely in my direction, talking about how seats at the wedding banquet were like pews and about how so many people have their favorite seats, etc, etc.. I was suitably abashed.
Still, Scott and I managed to exchange The Peace. And, I did take Communion. It wasn't until much later, after Coffee Hour, that the entire story came out: that Scott had actually spent the entire weekend partying with Richard and Old Peter on Fire Island and other venues around the City. I'm sorry, but, butter isn't exactly melting in my mouth, even as I post this.
Scott disappeared while I spent most of Coffee Hour waiting for Richard to clean up afterward and he, Old Peter and I rode the subway until Times Square. Richard and OP were still feeling frisky from their previous night on the town and there's probably enough juicy detail to fill several train trips together. But, it would have to wait. I was off to New Mommyland.
But, before I could leave church I chose to perform a rather grim task, the likes of which I hope no one else has to. I'd promised Sis that I would investigate the possibilities surrounding pre-paid burial services for Mom. It's all part of the Medicaid death-grip every blue-collar or even middle-class family will eventually go through if a loved one is lucky enough to make it past retirement age before falling victim to a debilitating disease.
Burial expenses are one of the few government-approved ways of saving some portion of your assets. Everything else, your house, your life savings, gets swept into the general treasury of the United States government unless you're willing to hire a lawyer -- which we are.
But, before I could resign myself to making the rounds of local mortuaries for a list of their services, I decided I should call Larry Gooden, one of our childhood friends from North Carolina.
Larry inherited his parents' mortuary business several decades ago, and still operated it from the family garage, just as they did when we were kids. Everyone knows the Goodens; several family members have been buried by them. They live at the end of a dusty road in the middle of tobacco country. The whole operation looks like something out of a Civil War photograph: a tin shack with a "changing table" and just enough room for one or two caskets. Larry still brags that the reason his prices are so low is because "I have no overhead". Indeed, he does not.
Still, I'd been putting off the phone call all week, until I came up with the perfect venue. Why not make it from inside the St. Michael's columbarium?
So, there, thanks to the miracle of cell phones, I stood, in front of the last resting places for The Choir Mistress, Janusz the Sextant and many others, talking to Larry Gooden. It seemed fitting somehow that all those departed saints, "the great cloud of witnesses" who form a part of our prayers every Sunday, should be my support during this phone call. Luke 9:60