Bishop David Roller's Blog

(Posted as we fly from London)

I almost had us go to Cirque de Soleil last night in London. We would have missed an incredible experience. We had only 24 hours scheduled in London and I’d seen that Cirque de Soleil was going to be at Royal Albert Hall. But tickets were going to be $90 each and the seats, even at that price were behind pillars or in the 14th balcony. So I convinced myself that it would be just as good to go to Westminster Abbey and look at monuments to the dead. Admitedly it had something to do with the fact that the Abbey only cost about $18.
So it’s a drizzly gray January evening, perfect London weather. We came up out of the underground right in the shadow of Big Ben. Or, we would have been in its shadow had there been any shadows. We ducked through traffic, in the rain, past some protestors huddled in pup tents, and into the magnificence of the Abbey. From Elizabeth I to Handel, they’re buried or commemorated here. From Shakespeare to Mary, Queen of Scots. Wesley didn’t get in because he was too problematic, but Darwin did, go figure.
At any rate we gawked and gaped and gasped at all the dead whose names we recognized, and pretended to know those whom we didn’t.
So its 4:30, closing time, and Yvonne notices a poster that the choir is singing at 5:00. So we take a seat and they ask us if we’re there for Evensong and we say, “but of course, my good man.” So they take us through the blue gate to the Quire, which turns out to be their way of spelling “choir.” And they seat us, about 50 of us, in the Quire and pass out psalters and the liturgy.

An hour before, I’d been admiring the carved wooden stalls of the Quire and now I’m sitting in one. I would have been only slightly more surprised had they asked me to preach.

It’s all very solemn and still, dark now, with the rain against the slate roof arched high over us. Right over there is where Elizabeth II was coronated in ’53. And right over there are King James’ bones, turns out his last name isn’t “Version” after all.

The quiet of the Quire is now penetrated by the vicars singing as they march through the Nave, brushing past us in fluttering robes, and sit 12 feet away, their voices filling the cavernous space of the Abbey.
And then the reading from Isaiah, and I John and the Our Father and the Collect. I worshipped the King in the company of kings and queens, or at least their bones. I know I’ll never have such an opportunity again. What a privilege to enjoy the sounds and visuals of Evensong in the Abbey. I was moved beyond description.
But it wasn’t because of the Abbey, it was because of the King. I would have praised Him at Cirque de Soleil, too. I would have marveled there at His wonders and creativity.

I don’t care if it’s a cottage or a seashore, a high-school gym or a streamed service on the internet, the place is sanctified by the King, not by the arches, statues, transepts or altars.

He is the King, worthy of our bended knees, shouts of gladness, and quiet submission.

Circus? Abbey? Wherever we are, we’re in the Quire.
David Roller

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(Posted from British Airways #154)

Just a few comments on traveling…
The stress points are often at airline check-in, hotel check-out, and haggling with taxi drivers. Stressful because you can get bad surprises. There’s nothing quite like showing up at the airport and, “sorry sir, but we can’t find you in our system.” (We’ve had no problems on this trip, thankfully). To deal with the stress moments it’s easy to build a wall of sophistication, to provide distance between reality and how we deal with it.

The “delight” moments are gazing down on a thunderstorm; or seeing from your plane’s window a hurricane 100 miles away slowly churning its way across the sea; or landing in San Diego and Mexico City- in both places you skim almost between buildings; or approaching Cairo at night with the thin green minarets lit up across the city. Delightful experiences because they’re not ordinary, not easily described, and from an incredible perspective. We try to take snapshots but know no one will understand.

The “overwhelming” moments are when your plane’s on final approach to any city and you realize, again, how big it is and how insignificant you are. When you realize how many sincere spiritual people in the world ignore, or are ignorant of, the Jesus event, which has meant everything to you.

Basically, traveling diminishes your sense of self-importance and heightens your sense of wonder.

Today we have the delight of landing in London, perhaps the poster child of a cynical and witty people; where everyone leaves me feeling inferior (I think it’s the accent). It’s as though they’ve run so fast to the end of the pier that they missed everything along the way (the man weaving palm fronds, the cheerful lad begging “a dollar,” the lobster hiding under a rock, the clouds threatening on the horizon). They were so clever they missed them all.

Perhaps a bit slower walk and a few less witticism would help us all on this journey. Whether its a trudge through snow to the mailbox or a walk down the pier, just the air we breath should intoxicate us. Sincerity requires more effort than sarcasm, because sincerity means you’ve run to the end of the witty pier and slowly retraced your steps, to do it again, and right this time.

The “delight” moments surround us, surround you. Every day. Traveling can teach us to see them, frame them, and treasure them.
David Roller

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(Posted from Cairo)

I can’t pretend to get into the minds of the pharaohs. I really have no idea what drove them to build these pyramids. Maybe their friends taunted them, maybe it was just trying to keep up with the Ramses.

But you can see what was on their minds. The afterlife mainly. These guys were crazy about the afterlife. And it’s not that life wasn’t good for them, but they were really, really concerned about the afterlife.

Cheops spent 20 years building his tomb. If that’s not a neurosis I’ve never seen one. I will admit that it’s a jim-dandy of a tomb, (people are still paying $20 a pop to see it 4,600 years later) but it IS a tomb.

For them, it was all about the afterlife. Seems like most people don’t spend much time thinking about the afterlife anymore, other than kind of a skeptical hopefulness. Sure, we Christians do, unless we’re afraid of being accused of escapism. But even Christians seem, at best, to muster up a vague enthusiasm for something that really merits more adrenaline. Let’s have a little more excitement people! We’re gonna die! And then, cool news, we’re going to the afterlife!!

I believe it. And I’m sorry it took a neurotic Pharaoh to remind me of the reality of it. Obviously, the pharoahs didn’t have a lot of revelation about God but they did an awful lot with the little bit they had. We do an awful little with the lot we have.

I’m getting so excited I just downloaded blueprints for a pyramid to build in our backyard in Baltimore which is, unfortunately, only 20 feet wide, so, yes, it will be a small pyramid. Don’t taunt me, man.
—————— David Roller

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Just left Detroit. Michigan is going through another economic downturn. Reminded me of what happened during the last one.

A family, I think from Kalamazoo, decided that things were so bad they needed to leave the state. They had heard that all the jobs were going to Mexico so they took their two teen-age sons and moved there, in spite of all the anti-NAFTA rage (remember that?)

The dad got work in Mexico and, as you could have guessed, the two sons fell in love with pretty Mexican señoritas. I don’t remember any of the names except one of these girlfriends was called Tita, the nickname for Rutita.

Well, both of the sons got married but the dad got denque fever and died. Not long after that the two sons got mixed up with the Sinaloan mafia and tried to make too much money too quickly. They found their bodies on a beach in Mazatlán.

So here’s the widow with the two daughter-in-laws. She says, “what am I doing here in Mexico?” So she packs up her stuff in their Chevy Astro van to come back to Michigan. Tita won’t let her go alone and insists on coming too, the other daughter-in-law decides to stay in Mexico. They made a good team, this American/Mexican, but Tita was still a foreigner, she didn’t fit in.

So the mom and Tita finally get to Michigan but mom’s too old and depressed to work and Tita doesn’t have a green card.

To put food on the table the mom sends Tita out to an apartment building that’s under construction and tells her to collect all the copper she can…scraps of wire and plumbing pipe to sell for recycling. It’s not a “real” job but it’s better than starving.

So Tita shows up at the construction site and all the men are looking at her. Its awkward. The developer was a guy they called Mr. “B” and he noticed her, too. He noticed she was different.

Turns out that he’s some kind of relative to the dad, who died of dengue fever. So he’s really nice to Tita, who’s young and pretty and in a vulnerable situation. Mr. “B” tells his subcontractors to throw out a bunch of extra copper so he can help out this Mexican immigrant lady.

By the end of the day Tita drags home this huge bundle of scraps, like 60 pounds of the stuff. She’s excited and her mother-in-law is puzzled. She figures out that there’s a benefactor out there helping them.

Well, this continued on for a while until the building that Mr. “B” was working on finally got done and he threw a big end-of-job party. Everybody was in high spirits, you know, what with construction workers and all.

Now here’s where it gets intriguing. When the music finally died down Tita went over to where Mr. “B” had fallen asleep under a comforter on one of the couches in a corner and she laid down on the carpet right beside the couch. Sometime in the night Mr. “B” realized she was there and beyond that, he realized there was a warm spot in his heart for this foreign woman. To protect her from any of the construction guys who might wake up, he threw his comforter over her, so that it covered them both. I guess, symbolically, he was accepting her, a foreigner, and redeeming her, making her a Michigander.

The next day they made wedding plans and soon that little mexican widow, Tita, who thought that a foreigner like her could never be accepted by an American, was pregnant. They had a baby and named him O-cama. Weird name, wasn’t it? I guess it made more sense when translated.

And that’s what leaving Detroit reminded me of; of foreigners in Michigan, being accepted as Michiganders. How hard it is and how important it is..for us to accept them.

David Roller

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Quick, what’s the circumference of the world at the equator? Right, 24,901.55 miles. I didn’t actually measure it, but I did Google it. Of course, if you measure it North/South, through the poles, it’s a bit less. So the world is a little bit rounder than it is tall. Kind of like me after all this holiday eating I’ve been doing. How was I to know cinnamon rolls were fattening? The TV said cinnamon was good for you so I just kept eating them. 
 
So, it’s about 25,000 miles around the world. This vacation-on-HGH that Yvonne and I are taking is 51,643 air miles. That’s equivalent to flying twice around world at the equator. It’s a bit of misnomer then to call it a Round-the World trip, more like Twice-Around-the-World.
 
We’ve just completed the first leg, last night from the U.S. to Chile. Tomorrow we fly back to the U.S.. Sound like poor planning? You’ve got it! Actually, you’ve got to know the history of this for this to make any sense at all. I hate to sound pedantic, but life is like that…you’ve got to know the history for stuff to make sense out of it. When I bought these tickets (with airline miles) back in February we were living in Chile and assumed we’d be living in Chile right now. So the tickets began in Chile. It made sense at the time.
 
Now, however, I’m living in Baltimore. That’s in Maryland. The “round-the-world” tickets couldn’t be changed so I had to add on some extra flights just to begin and end the trip.
 
“Who cares?” you say. Well, sadly, this points out the problems with Blogs, doesn’t it? A guy can just ramble on endlessly about nothing of consequence and still put it on the Internet. I have to suppose though, that most sentient beings will have stopped reading by now, and probably only my Mom and Dad are still reading. Although Dad might have quit too.
 
“Hi, Mom!”
 
So tomorrow it’s on to central Chile, then back here to Santiago and on to Dallas and then Detroit. If you were planning a Twice-Around-the-World trip wouldn’t you visit Detroit? Maybe if your kids lived near there you would. Then on Saturday on to Madrid, then Cairo, London, Delhi, Hong Kong, Beijing, Sydney, Auckland, Queenstown, Easter Island, back to Chile and then home to Baltimore. That’s in Maryland.
 
I’ll write again if anything happens of interest. If not, my next post will probably be a lot like this one. END David Roller

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